Two weeks ago was Nationals 2025, the event I've spent a lot of time preparing for these last 8 months. I felt pressure to repeat the challenge of winning the Type 1 category again. Much (if not all) of this pressure was self-imposed. I also felt pressure to prove a new strategy I've been working is a successful and competitive strategy, and the best way to do that in my mind was to win the biggest tournament I could with it. I have been experiencing great success with Big Clay for most of the year, making it to the finals of the online Lackey Grand Prix tournaments 3 times leading up to Nationals and winning multiple Regionals with it.
To put it simply, this deck has felt like the most powerful and strongest Redemption deck I had ever played, and each loss I encountered felt like I could have won only if I played better. I have a Youtube Channel where I regularly post content about online tournament matches I've played. If you want to see more of the deck in action, and get some additional commentary into how the deck works, my videos are a treasure trove.
But being a content creator and being competitive is a difficult tension to navigate at times. The tension comes from wanting to share what you are working on, and also wanting to hide what you are working on in order to gain a competitive advantage. When it comes to competing at Nationals, given how small the tournament community is, tech'ing your deck for a specific top player you know with absolute certainty you'll encounter in 10 rounds of Swiss can really swing a particular matchup in your favor. See Tyler's article and video to see how powerful this strategy can be.
It's an honor to have a target on the top of your head walking into a tournament like this. I saw it as another layer of challenge that would make the journey even more rewarding if I prevailed. I believed Big Clay had what it took to beat even the decks that tried to tech against it, but I was scared of two players in particular: Chad Frantz and Tyler Stevens. In the weeks leading up to Nationals, Brian Jones and I incorporated some secret sauce into our Big Clay lists that we believed would help us prevail against anything they might have cooked up.
The Secret Sauce
I watch all of Tyler's videos and like to swim in his thoughts, even though he and I have very different approaches to building decks and also have very different opinions about what is viable. I knew he was brewing up a deck to beat Big Clay, and I could only guess as to what that deck might be. I used some of what he showcased on his channel and in the Discord to come up with a list I thought he would most likely play at the tournament, and started playing some practice games against it.
To my surprise, this list was actually very good against Big Clay, and out of the 5 practice solitaire games I played against it, I lost handily. I learned that doing what I normally do (putting a bunch of heroes into battle with a big band on Turn 1 or Turn 2) was a very dangerous proposition against a deck running Messenger of Satan, The Highwayman, and Prince of the Air. This deck had the best chance of blocking the Resurrection turn 1 and also killing all the heroes that got brought into battle. Based upon a quote Tyler said in one of his videos going into Nationals, I felt pretty sure that a defense like this would be the one he was planning to use to break Big Clay.
It was at this point I reached out to Brian Jones, my T1 deckbuilding partner this year and fellow pioneer and pilot of the Big Clay strategy. I told him what was happening, and asked if he had any ideas about how we could proactively adapt.
"Hey Brian, I've been playing games against Tyler's Green/Thieves deck and have been getting pretty bodied by his list actually. I don't know what deck he's bringing to Nationals but I'm pretty sure it would be a green thief deck teched out for the big clay matchup. Any ideas about what we could do to improve this matchup? There are just a lot of little things that add up that really hurt my resurrection bands are actually bad b/c he can block with Messenger/Highwayman (draw 4-5 cards) (or even worse Prince + Mediums) then actually fight me in battle. Grapes blows away my bands, Murderous Command stops my Glory and Angel rescues Prince -> Coliseum is really rough to deal with. I don't have a lot of options to play with if he has Forsaken Lost Soul + Coliseum. On the turns I go I AM He, Wicked lost soul can help his defense still attack me Early Confusion of Mind is also hard to get around And as far as his offense goes, he's found the Cherubim tech to punish decks really relying of evil dominants to block. Jonah punishes my search, and his prophets are a really low brigade count and make my prince not do a lot. Maybe I just try in this matchup to go for the Harvest Time -> Burial wombo combo and drought him out of the game and only take battles I know I can win? (Via simon the zealous + choose the blocker). I just have to not let him swing the game by attacking and letting him draw and underdeck a bunch of cards with Prince and keep my brigade count low if possible. And to top it all off, he can band to my Mediums & Prince even if I get rid of his."
He floated the idea of using Impartial Judgement in the reserve and it started getting my gears turning.
For those unfamiliar, here's how the combo works. Step 1: get at least 4 meek clay heroes into play (Not terribly hard to do with this deck). Step 2: activate Concealed Riches and place David, Jotham, and Impartial Judgement into your hand. Attack with David, getting Ride On and banding to meek Jotham. Use Ride On to play Impartial Judgement on your meek Jotham and make the opponent discard 6+ evil cards from their hand.
If you've already drawn your Ride On, you can alternatively just go Angel of the Winds -> Ashael -> Jotham from reserve, convert him to meek, grabbing Impartial Judgement from reserve and banding to a meek clay hero then playing Ride On + Impartial Judgement to wipe the opponent's hand.
If the opponent was running hand protection, you simply had to use Lost Child Found to bounce it and any of their remaining evil characters before going in for the rescue.
After doing a lot of testing, both of us went with using a version of this strategy in our Nationals decks. The idea is to play like a normal Big Clay deck and put a bunch of meek heroes into your territory, and turn 2, 3, or 4 get to Ride On and go for the big wombo combo to obliterate any defense the opponent might have compiled to finish out the game. It felt a lot better than what I was trying to do with David + Ride On + Child is Born or Simon + Choose the Blocker + Eternal Inheritance, especially since most of the top players would rarely play down Evil Characters from their hand in the late game due to the threat of Simon the Zealous.
I loved how compact and powerful this combo was, and how it played so well with what the rest of the deck was already doing. I decided to not post any gameplay on my Youtube channel with the Impartial Judgement tech and wanted to have at least one element of surprise going into the big tournament, hoping it would be enough to upset decks that felt like they had an ok Big Clay Matchup. I also was excited for Brian's Big Clay deck and how the combo would add to his potency at the tournament.
Here's the final list I settled on for the tournament:
I'll probably make a deck tech video on my YouTube channel about the list I ended up taking to Nationals in particular, but I'll make a few comments here for posterity's sake.
The idea is to try and get to an early Matthew. If Matthew isn't an option, trying to get Herod's Temple + The First into play on turn one is also a decent plan B (Herod's Temple + The First let's you draw 4 cards each time you attack or block). If I'm not able to get a draw engine online, I also settle for getting a big Resurrection attack in, usually banding to a converted Mary, the Restored in. Mary is incredibly hard to block and is one of the best attacks in the game right now. I was so impressed by her in fact, that I added 2 Books of the Law into the list to threaten to turn all of my meek hero rescues into Marys.
Once you establish a comfortable advantage in cards, the idea is to use your superior card quality and power to overwhelm their defense and stall their offense. A lot of the blocks in this deck are very resource light, usually only requiring 1 or 2 cards to get solid blocks. This deck especially leans on the power of Burial and Led Astray to be blocks entirely by themselves. I ended up playing Herods instead of a more black based defense is I felt like the black defense folded to soul protection, which I knew players would be adding to their decks in order to beat Big Clay specifically. But I have mad respect for Brian for managing to place 3rd in a field littered by opponents jamming main deck Guardian of Your Soul and Harvest Time.
The Tournament
The Type 1 Tournament was 10 rounds in total. I'll give the highlights here:
Round 1
I don't remember much about this game. Just using the time to get used to playing in the building and rattling the dust off my brain. My opponent missed some Lost Souls triggers that helped me get a good soul differential and I was onto the next round.
Score: 1 win - 0 losses
Round 2 vs SonicKing
A memorable note about Round 2 is that I didn't draw any Heroes in my opening hand nor in my 3 cards that I drew for turn. It was a very awkward 1st turn where I sheepishly passed. According to my Hypergeometric calculator, the chances of whiffing on Heroes in the top 11 cards of my Big Clay deck is 0.754% (less than 1 percent). Luckily I was able to draw a single Joseph of Arimethea and play him as meek and use Spirit As A Dove to go get Simon Peter and activate a 4-Drachma Coin on him to jumpstart my turn. I ended up being able to fire off an impartial Judgement for 5 that turn which helped me make up for lost time. Opponent wasn't even mad about getting Impartial Judgement'ed out of the game and kept shaking my hand through the match. Was a fun experience!
Score: 2 wins - 0 losses
Round 3 vs Sean
I was able to win my first two games and I found myself facing down Sean and his Joshua/Black deck.
This was a great game. I was able to attack with Matthew into a CBN Prince & Mediums and draw a bunch of cards, but Sean's early Complacent foiled my attempts to salvage the rescue with a Ride On to add a meek hero into battle. Sean got off to a fast Joshua start, and I was put on the backpedal early. A Teaching in Parables star ability crucially reserved my Herod's Temple early on. My eyebrows raised when he played an early High Places in a non-meek soul deck. But hey, each lost soul I drew became an extra card for him. He was able to rescue early and often by using Teaching in Parables and Promised land to take crucial blocks away from me. The turns I felt like I did have good blocks, he put a Lord's Army into battle which quickly shrunk the options I had available to me. I almost was able to stabilize the game, but I ended up losing the game for two reasons.
- I blocked with Herod Agrippa I too early. I ran him out into a Joshua band without Herod's Temple backup and he just got negated by Amazing Faith which I knew he had. If I just gave up that block, I could have actually got a block later in the game with him b/c I drew my Glory of the Lord. I ended up losing the game holding Christian Martyr, Falling Away, and Glory of the Lord in my hand.
- I didn't play Son of God on Lost Souls early enough and that allowed Sean to get out of a soul drought he needed to win. The game came down to a crucial set of turns where we were both racing to 5 souls. He hadn't played the big two yet, so I began to sweat when he rescued his 3rd lost soul. At the end of his turn, he whiffed a Fruit of the Land. So in order to win from this point, I needed a few things to happen. I needed to soul drought him a turn and also resolve a large banding enhancement. I drew my 3 cards and drew 2 souls. I crossed my fingers, hoping he didn't have Son of God AND Second Coming. I thought Son of God might still be in his deck due to the body language he was conveying when he whiffed the Fruit of the Land. He had both in his hand and I lost on the spot. He told me he was looking for Harvest Time with his Fruit of the Land which would have guaranteed his victory. If I had Son of God'd his Lost Souls earlier, I would have prevented him from getting to 5 and might have actually ended up winning that game if I get another turn.
- I allowed him to block with Prince of the Air. I was doing a great job playing around Prince until I allowed him to play Tenants Kill the Son and band Judean Mediums + Prince of the Air into battle which swung the game back into his favor. He under decked my Resurrection Revealers which were helping me lock down his neutrals. If I kept those Resurrection Revealers around, they negate Lost Souls and I might be able to win...
Mentally, it was tough for me to lose this early. I felt discouraged b/c in my mind I thought that in order to win the tournament, you had to have a perfect score. Felt a little deflated.
Score: 2 wins - 1 loss
Round 4
I remember popping off with a nut draw involving Herod's Temple + The First. I drew 20 cards in my first couple turns and I got a massive Ride On + Impartial Judgement wombo combo turn that allowed me to finish the match in a cool 20 minutes and grab some early lunch.
Score: 3 wins - 1 loss
Round 5 vs Josh Potratz
Tyler gave me a little pep talk about how "the real tournament" starts after lunch. That helped me mentally reset and realize I still had a chance of taking the whole tournament down. I just needed to focus on one game at a time and win out.
My match against Josh was featured on my livestream here.
On Thursday Josh came up to me and said this "Tim, you were right. I played a couple of games with my deck vs your deck, and if you play perfectly, you win 99% of the time." This conversation stemmed from an earlier Discord discussion where we were talking about how his Clay deck fared against my Big Clay deck. I was trying to change his mind about there is a way to win the Matthew mirrors and the answer was Big Clay. The amount of battle Dominants Big Clay has access to + the Soul Hide Element that Big Clay uses makes the Matthew mirror heavily favored for Big Clay. I had faced Josh's deck earlier that month in a Lackey Grand Prix Semi Final match, and I knew to play around Tubal Cain + Three Nails (his ace in the hole). You can learn more about his deck here:
I got to go first and used an early 4-drachma coin + Peter + Resurrection + The First to catapult off to a comfortable card advantage lead. (22 cards out of my deck on turn 1). Josh took his first turn and used a Possessing Spirit on my Herod's Temple, which I decided to burn my Crowd's Choice to grab a Three Woes to negate right away. Having him choose the blocker of a Possessing Spirit was too threatening and plus I could take advantage of the fact that he now had a lone possessing Spirit in his territory that I could choose to block with later. Plus I really wanted to keep my Herod's Temple online.
On Josh's attack, he ended up playing Three Woes (on my Wall of Protection) + Ride On + The Ascension to Band to my entire offense that I had to put down at the end of my turn. In the Clay mirrors, sometimes going first has its drawbacks in these big banding swings caused by The Ascension and Resurrection. He was able to get himself 4 heroes out of his deck and shuffle 4 of my angels back into my deck. That's good value. Luckily, I was able to block with Herod's Guard -> Herod Agrippa I + Herod's Temple to awkwardly (but successfully) stare down his band of 7 heroes.
On my second turn, I got to take a look at his hand and learned I just had to play around a Fire Foxes and a Foreign Wives. I attacked with Simon the Zealous and chose Possessing Spirit as a blocker for an easy 2nd soul.
Josh attacked with a Simon the Zealous and chose Herod Agrippa I as a blocker. He messed up a Resurrection play and wasn't able to toss down Herod Agrippa I or negate him in battle. Herod Agrippa I is such a great card haha.
On my third turn, I played a Possessing Spirit down and chose it as a blocker with Simon (which I didn't convert to meek to play around a Glory of the Lord I knew he had in hand). Possessing Spirit ate a Grapes of Wrath and I was unable to attack again that turn. Grapes was out of the picture so things should be smooth sailing from now I reckoned.
On Josh's turn I was able to play Burial to underdeck all the meek souls I had fished out of my deck with Harvest Time and the game felt pretty locked in from that point on.
I was able to use hand information and Zaccheus to choose a Fire Foxes to block for the last soul.
Score: 4 wins - 1 loss
Round 6 vs Joe Andreghetti
I found myself sitting across from Joe Andreghetti's Nativity / Gray list. He won the die roll and chose to go first. You can watch this match here.
He played a Guardian of Your Souls on Turn 1, which is a problem for my deck. Namely it makes converting my disciples to meek a lot harder to do. In order to get Guardian off the table, I chose to burn a Crowd's Choice to chump block with a Prince of the Air to topdeck his Guardian so I could have a big 1st turn as possible without having to worry about his Guardians.
On my turn I got to get a Matthew who got to draw 3 cards and then play a big Resurrection to walk in for the first soul.
During Joe's draw step, I asked if I could play a dominant. Joe said I could even though he could have played Guardian of Your Souls down. I was then able to use Vain Philosophy to snipe the Guardian from his hands to the bottom of his deck. This is the big misplay that Joe made which allowed me to continue to run away with the game. I was able to chump block his big band with a Woman of Thebez. I feel bad for Joe since he could have stopped Woman of Thebez if he banded in his Guardians from Glory first.
Joe wasn't drawing any souls, but luckily I had a way to Bartimaeus to fish one out of his deck. Herod the Great tried to block, but I Woe's his Temple and got to play a massive Entertaining Angels to band in 8 protected angels. It is truly crazy how swingy games can feel just by resolving one banding enhancement.
I was able to site lock Josh during his next attack thanks to 2 Damascuses but even still a CBN Prince of the Air was able to underdeck 5 of his cards for a big resource swing. During my turn, I used Concealed Riches to setup a big Ride On combo turn, making him discard 5 evil cards from hand. Then I used Harvest Time + the big two to close out the game 5-1.
Score: 5 wins - 1 loss
Round 7 vs Tyler Stevens
Round 7 I found myself at the top table of Jayden's Stream up against Tyler Stevens and his Joshua / Demons deck.
I had no idea what Tyler was running, but I knew he had been brewing something that was worthy of taking down big clay. The word I would use to describe my feelings going into this match: dread. I knew deep down I could beat him head to head, but it wasn't going to be easy. I was dealing with nerves at being at the top table and also playing against such a skilled opponent. Both of our strategies were now about to be put to the test for the world to see. Would Tyler be able to take down Big Clay, or would his unconventional strategy prove to keep me off my tempo?
Tyler won the die roll and chose to go first. He fished a couple of souls out of my deck with some star abilities. I had The Ascension in my opening hand, and I was faced with the decision to either fish a lost soul out of his deck or put "The First" lost soul into play and draw 2 extra cards (1 for the 1st trigger, the other for getting another 1st trigger when I drew my 3 cards for turn). Although having 2 extra cards sounded appealing, what was even more enticing for me was to get a peek at his deck and see what offense/defense he was running. I wanted to know if I should be trying to play around Thieves and Prince of the Air, notably. I also got to take a look at his dominants and saw I needed to worry about a Guardians of Your Souls later on in the game. He also didn't draw any souls, so being able to rescue on my first turn was another happy consequence of my decision.
The first thing Tyler did was activate Confusion of Mind. This would have completely shut down any of my normal fast starts if I did not deal with it right away. Luckily I had 2 good enhancements I could burn (Delivered and New Covenant) so I got Confusion of Mind off the table but effectively started my turn with 2 less cards in hand than usual.
Tyler didn't have a blazingly fast start. Just a Joshua + Stone Carriers band. I just had a Herod the Great as a blocker, so I decided to burn an early Led Astray to push his heroes out of battle. Blocking was not an option I wanted to pursue since his Stone Carriers could just exchange to Captain of the Hosts and get his offense and defense juiced with cards.
On my turn, I drew an Authority of Christ which would give me a great resource advantage if I was able to keep The Expatriator I set aside with it alive until my next turn. I used a Temple Veil to look at Tyler's hand which only contained 4 cards (Lost Child Found, Amazing Faith, Hate the Light, and Judas Iscariot). I definitely had to read Hate the Light to understand what that card did.
It's a great card against banding and I was surprised to see it! Thanks to the information I had about his hand, I was able to walk in for the rescue with John the Fisherman tossing the next and drawing 2 cards. Not the best start in the world, but I knew I had a big resource advantage coming if I could keep him off Captain.
I had a Judean Mediums, Herod the Great, Ascension, and a Crowd's Choice in my hand. Crowd's Choice could be used on offense or defense, depending on what the situation called for.
Tyler drew a Guardian of Your Souls on his turn and activated a Book of the Covenant to put a You Will Remain into play, then attacked with Joshua + Stone Carriers again. I decided to not burn a Crowd's Choice to try and get the block but instead just handed a soul over to him to continue denying Stone Carriers -> Captain. At the end of his turn, he played down Hate the Light which was something I would have to play carefully around if I wanted my banding to work.
On my turn, I drew a Futile Inquisition to discard a good card from his Reserve, sniping a Nazareth I knew could wreck me if given the chance. Bullet dodged.
To get around Hate the Light, I used Bethlehem Stable to grab a Child is Born out of my reserve so I could have the option to bounce hate the light if I needed to. 3 extra cards came off of AOC and a 1st Lost soul came down, threatening to snowball the game out of his control. Another Temple Veil activation showed me he didn't have a block. He had no souls out, but I was able to get to a Harvest Time to play all the lost souls out of our decks, (with his being negated). I made a tiny misplay by not drawing 2 extra cards off the first during my attack, but things were looking really good now thanks to the sheer amount of cards I was able to draw that turn. In hindsight, I think I could have had an even bigger turn if I went Res Revealer -> Resurrection -> band to a bunch of characters -> Woman with Child -> Harvest Time. Also, I think Expatriator could have underdecked Hate the Light instead of me having to burn a Lost Child Found on it.
I now had 2 lost souls to Tyler's 1.
Tyler was able to draw a Joshua's Sword and destroy my Herod's Temple which I was hoping I could use to draw even more cards on my block in conjunction with The First. I couldn't afford to keep giving souls, so I blocked with Herod the Great hoping that a Futile Inquisition would be enough to win the battle.
Captain came in, drew 3 cards, and banded to The Lord's Army (which would be a problem future me would have to worry about). Luckily for me, he didn't have the Glory of the Lord (and he wasn't running Angel of the Lord) so Herod + Futile got the block. By the end of his third turn, I had 2 souls, Tyler had 1, and neither of us had played the big two yet.
On my third turn, I got tunnel vision and was trying to set up a Ride On + Impartial Judgement play in the face of an active Guardians of Your Souls. In hindsight, if I wanted to go for this play, I should have used Crowd's Choice to get Ride On, attacked with meek Jotham, and then played Ride On + Impartial Judgement to wipe his hand of evil cards.
I attacked with David, Heart After God converting him to meek in the face of an active Guardian of Your Souls. Both of us didn't catch this in the moment, and by the time I realized what I had done, it was too late to go back. I'd like to apologize to Tyler for missing this. David still could have banded to a meek hero and I had the ascension in hand, so I doubt he could have gotten the block if I didn't Impartial Judgement him, so in the end I don't think it changed all that much.
Tyler didn't draw much defense in our game, and my impartial judgement only discarded 3 evil cards out of his hand. The rest of his hand was good enhancements and some dominants. I think he could have used his Second Coming to go get Three Woes out of his deck to negate Impartial Judgement, and he would have been able to win the battle if he had gotten to block with Judas and play Hate the Light (I had no negates for David + Jotham).
I also made another misplay by attempting to play the Resurrection on my Old Testament heroes, so overall a very sloppy turn on my part. I ended my turn with 3 souls and not having played son of god or second coming. I just needed to get to son of god or second coming to win the game now.
Tyler walked in for his 4th attack and played Son of God & The Second Coming to get to 4 lost souls.
On my turn, I attacked with Expatriator (under decking a Fallen Star in his territory that would have messed with my searches) banding to Res Revealer to find a Son of God to close out the game 5-4! Phew, I think things could have ended differently if we caught that Guardians prevented David converting to meek earlier. But I was grateful to squeak out the win against Tyler. After the tournament, Tyler shared that he had played around 20 practice games/hands against big clay, and in 18 out of 20 of them, his deck came out on top. So I probably got a bit lucky here! I also imagine my Impartial Judgement tech could swing that ratio to become a lot more 50/50ish, but let's move on to the next round.
Score: 6-1
Round 8 vs Jayden
Round 8 was played on Jayden's channel, but unfortunately due to user error, only the audio of that game remains. Which is sad because our game was a really great one too.
The large brushstrokes of the game were like this: I soul droughted Jayden really hard and he wasn't able to rescue any souls early on. I got off to a fast start thanks to a Matthew drawing around 8 cards (and no souls for Jayden either). I got off to an early 3-0 soul lead, and just needed to get to Son of God & Second Coming to win (which is easier said than done in a 100 card deck). Jayden was able get his offense online and turbo draw through his entire deck and destroy all my fortresses. He used his three woes wisely to negate Woman with Child to prevent me from being able to get Son of God easily.
I got to Son of God but chose to hold it in my hand because I was afraid he would be able to somehow banish it. I forgot about his Betrayal that let him underdeck Son of God and it felt like a punch in the gut when he revealed my hand and underdecked the Son of God which I had worked so hard at getting. That was a critical misplay.
During a key turn in the match, I chose to go for the full victory instead of the partial victory, and after I made that decision time was called in the round. I know the timing of calling time in Redemption matches is hard, but had I known that time was going to be called in the round, I would have attacked differently and gotten the confirmed partial victory or tie. But instead I walked into a Christian Martyr and Jayden finished out the game 3-4.
My takeaway from this game was that I misplayed my Possessing Spirits by placing them in his territory at the end of my turns. I should have saved them for when I was ready to do a choose the blocker turn instead of putting them in his territory willy nilly. I figured it would shut off his Teaching in Parables and all of his good fortresses, but his Joshua was able to underdeck them each turn and I was unable to then choose them as a blocker on key turns. That is the main reason I lost this match. Misplaying the Son of God turn also felt really bad and I ended up losing a game I had every opportunity to win. Well played Jayden! He deserves credit for not tilting when I didn't draw any souls early and then also not giving up and finding the right angles to get a partial win.
I felt pretty rattled after this game. In any competition, it's mentally hard to recover from losing a game you felt for certain you were going to win. But I didn't have any time to reset. My next opponent was waiting and it was also going to be another tough match.
Score: 6 wins - 2 losses
Round 9 vs Brian Jones
In Round 9 I got paired against my fellow Big Clay pilot Brian Jones. He was piloting a different flavor of Big Clay that relied more on Soul Hide than the version I ended up choosing, so I was interested to see which strategy would come out on top in the mirror match. In theory, I reasoned I had the upper hand, because on the turns we each played I Am He I could try to block with Herods and I wasn't sure how Brian would be able to block I am He since all of his blocks rely on Soul Hide and harming my heroes.
This game wasn't on camera (although I wish it was), so I won't be able to give the play by play of this match either.
This game was a back and forth slugfest. Prince of the Air caused massive swings in board state. Resurrection Revealers were toggled off and on and it was quite the puzzle to work through. Possessing Spirits were placed down in territories and caused havoc. Dominants were traded blow for blow. Both of our defenses stonewalled each other and by turn 4 the score was still 0-0. His deck was doing a pretty good job of preventing me from rescuing and my Herods + battle dominants where doing a decent job of blocking him. Things started to open up when he played Burial and then I played Harvest Time to get all of our souls out. No more soul hiding!!! Time was called, and I was able to win 4-3. I think I Am He helped me rescue 2 souls that game, and Brian had a couple of misplays that cost him dearly (letting me block with a big CBN prince and trying to play a possessing spirit without unity).
Getting the victory here felt really great since Brian had bested me the previous day in Type 2 (I'll share more about how Type 2 went in later content). Only one match was left in the day, and I was determined to finish strong to try and place in the top three.
Score: 7 wins - 2 losses
Round 10 vs CtheTree
To my surprise, I got seated at the top table again. Going into round 10, I had 21 match points with a +15 soul differential, Tyler had 21 match points and a +14ish soul differential, and Sean had 21 match points with a +5ish soul differential. I think Jayden had 22 match points with +11 soul differential. I don't know the exact breakdown, but basically if Jayden lost against Brian, there was the possibility of a 3 way tie for 1st place if Tyler, Sean, and I all won and all had the same differential.
It was all very confusing what was going on with the numbers and math about winning. In hindsight, I think Jayden should have been at the top table but since he was playing against Brian Jones who didn't want to be on camera, they moved them down to a table that wasn't on camera, meaning that I got pushed up from 2nd table to 1st table and giving me a renewed sense of hope. All this to say that I believed if I was able to win this match, I would be able to win the tournament.
It was with a certain sense of poetic justice I (the 100 card deck) sat down against from Chad Frantz (a turbo nazareth deck) during the last round. It was time for Big Clay's reckoning. Of all the matchups in the tournament I feared, turbo Nazareth was the most dreaded. But I have beat Chad's turbo Nazareth deck before, and I knew I could do it again if chance fell my way. You can watch our game here.
Unfortunately for me, chance did NOT fall my way. Using 2 dice, I rolled an 11. The chances of me being able to choose to go first from this spot are 97.06%. Chad would have to roll an 11 or higher and then beat me in a tie off roll. Chad then rolled an 11 and we then rolled again. Chad won the die roll. Oohf.
In my opening hand I drew my copy of The Resurrection but I also drew my copy of Bethlehem Stable. Because I drew my Bethlehem Stable out of my deck, I wouldn't be able to use the Resurrection on Chad's turn to try and put hand/deck protection into play before he got a Nazareth into play.
Chad used star/soul abilities to put a Crowd's Choice into his hand, guaranteeing him access to Nazareth on turn 1. I should have bluffed during his draw phase, asking for Dominant priority in the hopes he would be forced to place his Crowd's Choice and get Resurrection and then play Nazareth, forcing him to burn the Resurrection outside of battle and slowing down any searching he would have to do on his turn.
He had Matthew in his opening hand, and was able to reveal Golgotha + Damascus in my hand for a +5 card draw (which I could have put down if I went first). This made going second even more painful for me. If I would have been able to deny him this card draw, this game would have gone a lot more smoothly for me.
The only thing going fortunately for me was that I drew no souls and even though Chad drew a bunch of cards, he wasn't able to draw into his soul gen. He passed the turn to me with a bunch of heroes out including a Mary (the one that negates territory class characters), a Nazareth, a Wall of Protection, and 8 cards in hand. He also managed to draw into a Guardians, slowing down my velocity in the process. Things were not looking good.
On my turn I drew a Prince of the Air, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately for me, most of the cards in my hand were dead (Angel from the Sun, Damascus, Golgotha, Mary the Restored). Even The Resurrection was a dead card b/c I had no heroes to band to thanks to his Wall of Protection.
I played a meek Mary down and used Temple Veil to look at his hand. I saw a Red Dragon and a Fallen Star in his hand. I should have played out my Expatriator (or not played a Bethlehem Stable before battle) and then attacked, because he just blocked with Fallen Star and prevented me from presenting a new hero because I had hand protection.
During Chad's turn, he used a Three Woes to negate my hand protection then come in with Matthew to draw another boat load of cards (I decided to not play my Damascus and Golgotha down hoping to be able to use them next turn, but in hindsight this was foolish because I knew he could attack with Matthew again). Chad drew even more cards, which was a terrible feeling because I knew I could have made different choices to prevent it. He still didn't draw any soul gen, thankfully.
I blocked his battle challenge with a prince of the air, underdecking Nazareth and Prince of the Air. With Nazareth out of the picture, I would be able to have a great turn.
I was able to use my sites to grab some evil characters, one of which being a Possessing Spirit which I promptly put on his Wall of Protection.
I used Temple veil and saw Blindness, Foreign Wives, and Red Dragon I knew I had to play around. I lost the game when I decided to go straight for an Angel -> Simon the Zealous instead of going Angel -> Disciple then playing The Resurrection to band in his Simon the Zealous, his Matthew, and his Judas to draw an insane amount of cards and also choose the blocker. Being able to draw a bunch of cards to get me back in the game would have been a big momentum shift, and I missed my opportunity. I was still able to get the soul, but I didn't end up getting many resources out of it.
On Chad's turn he finally drew some soul generation in the form of Lost Souls. I decided to burn a 2nd coming to get my Son of God to negate and rescue his Lost Souls, hoping he wouldn't be able to generate any more lost souls this turn and that I could win via a soul drought.
He then activated a Magic Charms, capturing my Simon the Zealous to me (which was a lost soul that I now had to defend). This was devastating. Not only did he get a lost soul into play that he wanted to rescue, he also effectively killed my best hero and I had burned my Second Coming for no reason.
I think I could have also blocked that turn if I blocked with Prince and chose to topdeck his Guardians of Your Souls with prince, because I then could have played the Burial that was in my hand.
I started to loose control of the game after that, whiffing on good enhancements I needed to win battles and being unable to generate resources with the few heroes I did have. I actually had to pass turn to Chad during the my 3rd turn because I did a search ability and I knew he had a Judean Mediums + Prince in his hand that I couldn't get around. I think I could have played this game better, but I was in panic mode at this point and not thinking clearly. The game was feeling really far out of reach.
I tried site locking Chad but a sneaky Thaddeus shuffled Damascus away. I tried making a large ascension attack to generate more blocking resources but just got blocked by a wives I had no real way of dealing with.
On Chad's last turn, I tried to desperation block with a CBN Mediums banded to his Red Dragon, but he had a regardless of protection enhancement to close out the game 5-2. Well played Chad! And great game. I reasoned if I had won the die roll that game would have played out very differently but knew I could have also played better in my game. I was happy to lose to Chad who is gracious in both defeat and victory, and I was excited to see if he would place in the top 3.
I ended up ranking 6th place. Chad got 4th place.
Final Score: 7 wins - 3 losses
Bittersweet Defeat
I've been listening to the Relient K song "Forward Motion" a lot lately, and I've been relating to the lyrics of it.
To experience the bittersweet
To taste defeat then brush my teeth
This tournament had its triumphant moments and its gut wrenching ones. I set out to win and I came up one match short. I came within reach of a prize I really wanted to win and felt it slip through my hands. The days after the tournament I kept battling intrusive thoughts that kept replaying key moments of the matches I lost. I kept thinking about how I could have played better and what I should have done differently. I kept thinking about how if I won that die roll, I would have won the tournament. I sat in church the next Sunday, fighting to stay present and listen to the sermon instead of figuratively gargling the thoughts and feelings of coming up short.
I want to learn how to experience defeat and then "brush my teeth" and move on. I got a little stuck on feeling disappointed with myself and my performance and I had to ask Jesus to help me surrender the intruding thoughts that crept into my mind in down moments.
My girlfriend helped me process what I was feeling and why I felt stuck. She reminded me that I was striving for a wooden plaque that would fade, and helped me regain perspective. I confessed to her I felt like I needed to prove myself again, and how much I wanted to be the back-to-back champion of Type 1. I told her how I wanted to prove without a doubt the power of the Big Clay deck I had been working on.
I also confessed to her that pride may have been influencing some of my motives and had been affecting what I had been feeling. I realized that losing exposed those feelings and motives for what they were. With a subtle degree of pride, I wanted to prove I had come up with the best deck strategy. In order to build a bigger name for myself, I wanted to go back-to-back in Type 1. Winning feels great. Being talked about also feels great. They stoke an identity in me that embeds its worth and value in winning. When I stop winning, I'm left feeling empty and frustrated.
We are so much more than our win/loss record. And there is so much more to the game of Redemption than winning the National championship.
I'm glad I didn't win Type 1 this year. I'm a better person for it and learned that defeat helps build character more than success ever will. I got reminded this game is bigger than me, and that my purpose in this community is one to serve others, not to try and build my legacy up in a self-inflating way. People are attracted to the attitude of simple joy and passion I have for this game, not the trophies on my wall.
A highlight of the weekend when was a few of my friends dressed up in Monkey onesies and surprised me at the tournament with a bunch of bananas. That was surprising and hilarious!
A lot of you came up to me at the tournaments and thanked me for my videos and the tokens I gave out this year at Nationals. I'm glad you all have seemed to be enjoying them so far!
I'm really proud of how I've been able to challenge deck builders this year and help them innovate. Having all 3 players who played 100 card decks in Type 1 place in the top 8 really speaks something about the strength of the archetype and the pilots, and I'm excited to see where 100 card decks go from here with Times to Come. I'll keep cooking up new decks with the intent to help players level up their deck building game. I'll keep uploading gameplay videos with commentary to help players learn the game and level up their in-game skills. I'll keep striving to serve the community through running Land of Redemption. And I'll keep surprising and delighting people with the new Tournament Tracker software.
Thank you Redemption community for all the hours you have spent watching a digital cartoon monkey version of me ramble about a trading card game based upon the Bible. And thank you also for making it this far into my article. I appreciate and honor your attention.
I'm grateful for Jesus, who helped inspire me to create the 100 card deck and who enjoys to see me do something I was designed for. I'm also thankful for my girlfriend Rosie who is so supportive of me and helps me course correct when my priorities and motives get bent out of shape.
Thanks Brian Jones for helping me with getting Big Clay to where it is today. And thanks to all the countless people who I've had the honor of talking to this last year about anything related to Redemption.
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