The Gospel of Christ is the largest Redemption set released in the game’s 25+ years. It should be no surprise that such a large set required more people involved than ever before! What you’re about to experience is a glimpse at some really special cards that stand out to the people who spent the most time working on GoC. [WARNING – SPOILERS!!!]
The first card we will look at was submitted by Seth. He played a significant role in GoC by helping us test online and doing quite a bit of in person testing as well. Seth has a keen eye for card interactions and seems to catch a few things every play test session. His impact on GoC expands far greater than the card he has selected as his most significant.
Seth chose Jairus because he feels it’s a good example of outside the box thinking. It would have been easy to have him both negate and toss, making him an extremely powerful card. But instead you have to combine him with his daughter to get the toss ability. She also has CBP so that her father doesn’t negate her ability.
Chad was another of our play test helpers. He was faithful and diligent during both phase 1 and phase 2. Not only did Chad almost always hit his weekly goal for play test games, he often did that while also coming up with a deck approach that used “outside the box” thinking to test cards in ways that others had not.
Voice from Heaven is the card that Chad chose as most significant to him. It showed him the value of testing abilities in game play instead of just speculating about how it will work. When he first saw the card he felt it was broken (it was)! After the elder team made adjustments he still felt the card was broken. But testing showed that the cost that was added put the card in a much better place than it was before due to the sacrifice a player makes to complete the banish ability.
During testing Chad also discovered a cool combo between Voice from Heaven and Eleazar the Potentate. “This experience showed to me the helpfulness of the play testing process and the great wisdom in not judging the ability on a card until you have tried it out in actual game play oneself.”
When Marcus joined the elder team a few years ago he was adamant that he “is not a card designer”. He plays a very crucial role on the team. Nobody has as a greater depth of understanding of the game’s rules. He does an amazing job of keeping us consistent with the way that we apply language to the game. Quite often he takes some of the “wacky” designs that we bring to a set and helps us to make them function within the framework of the game’s rules. But while Marcus may not have been a “card designer” when he started with us, he certainly has become one!
One of Marcus’ earlier designs came about when we were expanding the card type “fool” for LoC. Not only was he instrumental in helping us design the fools in LoC, but he created one of the first cards in the GoC set too! Foolish Builder didn’t change much (if at all) from Marcus’ original design. It also happens to pair really well with the thieves we’re getting in GoC phase 2.
Tyler is the newest member to the elder team, but that didn’t stop him from making one of the largest impacts on the set. He brought a lot of fresh ideas and impacted a LOT of cards, which makes it quite difficult to narrow it down to only one significant card (he narrowed it down to 11). But in the end he was able to choose just 1 for us.
One of the themes that Tyler (and Chris) strongly influenced is orange. We were trying to do something completely new with orange this time around. It was tricky to make it work and to find balance for what we were doing. One of Tyler’s designs helped solve a dilemma and became the lynchpin of the orange Gospel defense. The Sordid Spirit can help your orange “place” theme by increasing your place count by 1. He can negate a card that is hindering the development of your theme. And he helps you get the blocker you really need in any given situation. The only thing he’s missing is a draw 2!
Let’s wrap up part 1 with a brief article from Chris about the card he chose:
“What do you do when you are posed with a tough decision that you ultimately don’t have a good answer for? Well, you figure out the stance you truly have on the matter and then you write a long and hopefully not too convoluted message about it. So what was this tough decision I’m writing about? Well, what one, and ONLY one card from the Gospel of Christ is the most meaningful to me? While I’m going to pretend this was extremely difficult to look over almost 300 cards and try to do some type of March Madness match up, it honestly didn’t take anything like that. The problem is, what if I have two cards that literally are built together and are almost inseparable? Tough decision!
Then of course the question didn’t simply stop at what one card was the most meaningful, it HAD to continue. The follow up question or clarification was why was it significant for you? Of course, if a card is significant for you it has to hit something personally, but maybe even something more than that. For me none of these cards are just simply things I like, they are SO much more. So enough rambling, for now. Well, I guess the answer is when I really had to sit down and think of it, the choice was clear.
That card that was MOST significant for me would have to be The Woman at the Well. So, for those of you guessing at home, Samaritan Water Jar is obviously the other. So now why is this card significant for me? Well for one it was part of the first opportunity I had as an official card creator. I was tasked with building the Good Gold theme for GoC. If you have kept up with any information being spread lately, that also meant that I was worried about my capability of doing such a task, so I had Tyler Stevens jump in and help me complete this. When Tyler and I work together we do a great job of bouncing ideas off of each other. We also have a habit of starting an idea, and the other person “polishing it up.” That is exactly what happened with this theme. We both loved the milling concept, but yet didn’t feel like “semi-permanently” removing resources was a thing “good” characters should do, so what did we come up with? Well, that would be to start reserving cards.
Without going into all the details, that led very quickly to jumping right in and creating characters. One of the first ones created, and the true lynchpin of the theme was created. . . The Woman at the Well. The very first work up had her make good gold territory class cards and gospel artifacts regardless of protection because we wanted Samaritan Water Jar to always work. Well, needless to say, playtesting proved that to be too strong, yet she still has very appropriate and similar abilities. Not only that, I have the privilege to say that she was mostly my brain child, so that is the beginning of why she was significant to me.
Another reason why she was significant was because she again was the lynchpin of not only a theme I helped create, but one I feel is one of the most fun this game has seen yet. I know most people have not played me in games, but one thing I tend to do is play decks that I either enjoy or simply feel are fun to play. While winning is always fun, I have never been an overly competitive person and honestly my favorite Redemption experiences are sitting at a table with several people and simply goofing off and laughing while playing the game, obviously not well. I cherish the relationships I have developed and the laughs over the two times I have placed at Nationals and have gladly and willingly given up some chances to “do well in tournaments.” Because of that, I have the luxury of simply playing things that are fun for me, and this theme is it! So long white, for now.
But to say those two reasons are it, really stops the story WAY short of the main reason for my love for not only this game, but what we represent within this game! For those who don’t know me, one thing you should know is that I LOVE the Bible, the Gospel of Jesus Christ and everything it represents. This game and its representation of the Scriptures is honestly why I know most of the things I do about the Bible. As a very visual learner, it is difficult for me to forget things I have seen, and if a story is told about a character or thing I have seen I tend to remember it, for a while at least. There have been so many stories, sermons, and lessons I have heard about obscure characters, but I remember them because of the image I hold in my head of the particular card, and then when I see that card I can generally recall the story it was from.
All of that brings me to the main reason The Woman at the Well has significance for me and that is simply this: Jesus’ love for everyone. This woman was a Samaritan. Samaritans were considered less than human in the society that they lived in. Then add to that fact she was a woman who was also considered less than a man. So we have someone who is barely a half citizen of a half citizen, so pretty low by everyone’s standards. But that is the catch, there was one man who she was not too low for. There was one man that she was not too sinful for. It didn’t matter how many husbands, or even relationships she had. It didn’t matter what people thought of her. Nothing mattered except the fact that she was someone that Jesus Christ loved, cared about, and He showed her she mattered!
So that is why this card is significant for me. The reason is because this woman was significant to the God who created the universe. If someone could love someone unconditionally despite who she was, where she was from and what she had done, it tells us of this love that God has available for us. We are all dirty, full of shame, and feel like less than human at times, but Jesus doesn’t care about any of that. All He cares about is His love for you that He is willing to give. So why is this card significant for me? Well, I love playing her within the game of Redemption. But more importantly her story tells us that nothing is above Jesus’ redemption and hey, that is the name of this game after all!”
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