Outside of Rotation, I believe this year marks the biggest change in card pool size between one National tournament and another, and yet it seems that now that the “Throne” era has come and gone, a new era of “GoC Goodstuff” has begun.

Even with all the new cards available to use, it seems that the most powerful decks from last year are still sitting comfortably at the top as we get closer to the National tournament, now two short weeks away. Of course no one expected that the best decks from last year would immediately become obsolete when new cards were introduced, but I think it’s fair to say that seeing at least a few fresh decks at the top would have been nice.

And we have seen a few different builds do well this year, with decks like Jared’s purple control, Justin’s GoldenEye, and the various Nativity lists that players like Tim and Jake have refined substantially. But will decks like those have the resilience and consistency of the GoC Goodstuff decks of yesteryear? Let’s talk about it while we revisit a game from last year’s top players. 

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By Jayden

Jayden started playing Redemption around 2004 when his brothers taught him to play and he attended his first National Tournament in 2005. Since then, he has become a competitive (mostly Type 2) player with a few National titles and, more importantly, has acquired many great friends and mentors through the game. However, in the years leading up to 2020, there has been a downward trend in attendance at some of the big tournaments, Nationals included. As a result, Jayden wanted to start doing something that would help pique and maintain interest in Redemption and he decided to do so in the form of a YouTube channel called Redemption with Jayden, which he started in June 2020 shortly after graduating college. He loves being able to share decks, games, and strategies, and hopes that the channel can be a useful resource for players at every level of the game.