If you haven’t yet read Antediluvians: Part 1 you might want to check that out before proceeding. That article focuses on the evil side of the antediluvian theme. Today we’re going to focus on the good side of the antediluvian theme, or more specifically “flood survivors”.

If you’ve been around the game of Redemption very long you might have heard the saying “all beasts are demons but not all demons are beasts.” What that means is that cards classified as a “beast”, namely some of the Evil Characters that both Daniel and John see in the visions God gives them, are also demons. But not every demon in the game is a beast.

Similarly, we can say “all flood survivors are antediluvian but not all antediluvian are flood survivors”. Flood survivors consist of only Noah and his family. Today we’re going to meet some of them and take a first look at a fun new offense for blue Genesis!

As the leader of the family and the man God called upon to build the Ark, Noah can be used to bring out an entire flood survivor offense in a matter of just a couple turns. But he’s not only good in a theme deck. Noah can also get any Hero you need, provided you have a card of matching brigade to exchange. As the leader and father, Noah is also able to band to one of his family.

The word used in the Bible to describe a wife is “helper”. It’s the same word God uses to describe Himself. Just as God empowers us, Noah’s Wife empowers Noah and the rest of the family, making them stronger by her very presence. Whenever a flood survivor comes around she casts off evil. She also gives a wonderful CBP bonus to most flood survivor-themed cards.

As the oldest son, Shem leads Noah’s sons in stats and through banding to his faithful brother. His “Simeon-like” ability only triggers when you have Noah’s Ark. It had to be toned down during testing so that it only causes the discard of evil if the opponent has more evil in play. Without that requirement there were games that he would completely suppress an opponent’s ability to play defense. As part of the change we expanded his ability from only targeting the player being attacked so that in a multi-player game he can potentially hit all your opponents!

Like Shem, Japheth requires you to have Noah’s Ark for half of his ability to work. If you do, you can sift through up to 5 cards per rescue, taking the best of the bunch. He also stops quite a few chump blocks from Death of Unrighteous to Uzzah and several heretics. During testing it was not uncommon to rescue with Noah banded to Shem banded to Japheth!

Did you giggle to yourself when you read “If Ham is harmed…”? Don’t worry, you’re not the first.

As part of our initiative to makes Sites less dominant in the game, Ham gives his family Site access. He’s also the best initiative character for the theme. He doesn’t do a lot else to help the flood survivors though. After the flood, he’s the son who mocked Noah when he passed out drunk and naked. While that isn’t one of Noah’s finer moments, Ham’s handling of it was not honoring to his father.

Ham goes on to become the patriarch of several evil civilizations including Canaanites, Babylonians, Assyrians and Philistines. This translates into Ham helping build up O.T. Evil civilizations whenever he’s harmed. I hope to see players find a number of clever ways to trigger his ability and build up their defense.

Something is Missing Here…

If you’re counting, that’s only 5 flood survivors. However, the Bible mentions 8. The remain 3 are only referred to as Noah’s son’s wives. This year we aren’t printing the son’s wives. We most certainly will in the future, but it could be several years before we revisit the flood theme. In the meantime, we will leave it to all of the creative players to concoct their own creations to share with the community of what Noah’s Son’s wives might look like when they’re printed.

I know what you’re thinking… “so come on and tell us about Noah’s Ark already!” Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to share that information. That should tell you it’s not part of the Cloud of Witnesses set. But I can assure you it will be released this year. Travis will share the details with us in another of his excellent preview articles! Astute readers have probably figured it out already…

Flood Support

Just giving Genesis a flood survivor mini-theme would be cool. I mean, the game has been around for 20 years now and there’s never been a Noah’s Ark! Noah and his sons have never had playable cards outside of booster draft. But why not give the flood survivors a little support to help them along!

Looking at past Genesis 6-10 cards offers us a foundation from which to build the flood survivor theme. Cards like Covenant with Noah and Sign of the Rainbow were at one time solid cards for blue. Obviously the flood survivors were good at negating evil. Scripture even tells us that Noah was the only man on the face of the earth that God found to be faithful among all the corruption!

Here we have a one sided Gamaliel’s Speech that gets an extra bonus when played on a flood survivor. I can assure you that there are very few things a Noah > Shem > Japheth band need to worry about with 2 or 3 negates backing them up. Especially when 2 of them don’t require special initiative!

Another thing we find when looking at Genesis 6-10 cards is the theme of discarding evil on cards like Dove, Deluge, and Death of Unrighteous. We decided to continue that theme with the flood survivors as well. This time in the form of an Enhancement that can be used over and over!

You can play this as territory class to gain a nice effect. But like many Enhancements in Cloud of Witnesses, if you wait to use it in battle the effect becomes much nicer! Like the dove Noah sent out as the flood waters resided, this card can return over and over again.

Using this card repeatedly can be rather devastating! It wasn’t often during play testing that I was able to pull that off, but the few times I did it was game changing.

You can see both of the flood survivor abilities on display on Heroes like Shem and Noah’s Wife. I’m sure we’ll see more in the future at some point, too.

Once Noah’s Ark has been spoiled, I’ll follow up with part 3 where I share with the community one of my favorite play test decks these past few months – Flood Survivors and Antediluvians.

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By Gabe

Gabe has been playing Redemption since early in 2006. While life has changed a lot since that time, his love for Redemption has not. He hosts a playgroup and assists with the design and development of upcoming set releases and even plays competitively on occasion.