This week for Brigade Basics the last good brigades are covered: Silver, Teal, and Clay. We are covering three brigades this week instead of two to finish off the remaining good brigades!
Editor’s Note: We encourage you to use the Redemption Card Viewer as you read this article: https://thejambi.github.io/RedemptionCCGViewer/. Enter N: followed by the card name into the search to view the cards Zac is talking about.
Introduction:
These articles are meant for beginner players looking for a good place to start deck building or intermediate players looking to broaden their Redemption knowledge. This series of articles is a jumping off point to give less experienced players a manageable list of cards for each brigade and theme out there so they can have a place to start in their own research and experimentation.
There are many powerful cards in Redemption that are staples in most every deck that you won’t see mentioned here. They weren’t forgotten, but are only mentioned in decks that have specific synergy with them, otherwise every article would need to include most every dominant and useful site, artifact, and fortress in the game.
If I missed something, please let me know in the comments below! This article will be updated with each new set, so your comments could very well make it into the next update.
Silver:
Silver is a brigade you won’t see mono very often, but you will see it often. Most every Silver hero is an angel, which means they can’t easily be converted and can be harder to target. You will see Silver heroes in many other decks, but I will mention them with their respective themes. The main offense you will see with mono-Silver is Revelation Angles. This deck doesn’t have a set theme really, other than just playing kill cards and going in with large numbers and negates. It does have a lot of searching however, with Angels of Wrath getting out all 7 Bowls of Wrath and Grapes of Wrath, Michael, Priests of Christ, and Patmos searching out Revelations angels, Angel from the Altar and Fifth Seal/Justice Seekers getting cards from reserve, Servant Angel drawing or searching for The Heavenly Temple or a Heavenly Temple artifact, One of Seven getting out New Jerusalem, Seven Trumpet Sounders and Seventh Seal getting out Trumpet cards, Angel of Revelation for Lost Soul generation and getting a good card from the top of deck, and Angelic Guidance getting out any Silver card. You can also use Polycarp to search out John, the Apocalyptist, who can play Revelation enhancements. Heavenly Temple can help “instead” away some of your opponent’s defense and hold some helpful artifacts, such as Ark of the Covenant, The Golden Altar, Golden Censer, The Great White Throne, and The Seven Trumpets. The main decision you need to make with this deck is if you will run the RoJ Michael for the search and band, or the Angel Wars Michael with Angel’s Sword for CBN initiative and enhancements, or the Kings The Strong Angel for Fight by the numbers that RoJ Michael can band to or the RoJ The Strong Angel for initiative and tossing “Negated” enhancements. Other cards that work in this deck include Captain of the Host (any version), Three Angels, Gabriel, Chamber of Angels, Spiritual Warfare, Protection of Angels, Striking Herod, War in Heaven, Vengeance of Eternal Fire, Day of Fury, Everlasting Beings, The Second Seal, and Flaming Sword.
Silver has lots of options as you can see, but it’s lack of speed has kept it from being a top tier deck, that is until the Angel Party Deck came out. Angel party uses the powerful banding enhancements that Silver has (e.g. Everlasting Beings, The Second Seal, and if clay is splashed in Entertaining Angels) to band in all your big heroes and either play an enhancement off The Strong Angel or just overwhelm your opponent. By adding in Captain of the Host (Wa) for fight by the numbers banding, Angel under the Oak for his draw 2 and numbers, Wheel Within a Wheel for more searching, and adding Justin Martyr and Angel from the Sun for more drawing and kill cards, this deck can get out surprisingly fast. These decks can run with most any defense, except maybe defenses using Red Dragon, as his ability becomes less useful with Michael out.
Teal:
Teal has only gotten more powerful over the years especially with PoC. This is probably because of the addition of heroes like Captive Priest, Jeremiah, Hope Bringer, Melchizedek (PoC), and Zadok (PoC). Teal is all about OT Priests, and there are 3 Fortresses they center around. First there is The Tabernacle, which has powerful reserve access and recursion. Your main heroes are going to be Dutiful Priest using Gifts and Offerings and Phinehas, son of Eleazar using Zeal for the Lord over and over. Using Ram’s Horn to make Gifts and Offerings cannot be interrupted can make Dutiful Priests very hard to stop, making this by far the most played version of Teal. Other good cards specific to this theme would be Eleazar, Son of Aaron, Joshua, the High Priest, Melchizedek (PoC) (for soul protection as teal can easily get chump blocked), and Aaron’s Staff for some powerful searching. Pentecost, First Fruits, and Feast of Booths (LoC) are great for speed in any of the three main teal builds.
The next fortress is Zerubbabel’s Temple, or Z-temple for short. Z-temple offers protection from capture, banish, and conversation, and with Covenant of Phinehas/Altar of Incense, you can have protection from discard too. You try to run all the priests that are Z-temple and from the house of Eleazar and band them all together using cards like Fellowship Offering and Jehoiada’s Strength to get giant numbers protected from most kill cards. You have Zerubbabel, Haggi, and Filling Zerubbabel’s Temple to get out Z-temple and speed with Joiada, Son of Eliashib, who can recur and play any gift or offering enhancement, including Pentecost and First Fruits. This can go well with any defense, but ones using Coliseum or Babel would help stop chump blocks. This form of Teal is pretty outdated at this point, since there are many more and varied ways to get heroes out of battle than what Z-temple protects from, but still one of my personal favorites.
The final fortress is Solomon’s Temple. This offense offers a good “instead” ability to protect your Priests and Kings of Judah, which is why it’s usually paired with that offense. Actually, this offense is usually mostly Purple, just with Teal enhancements thrown in to make Solomon’s Temple’s ability work. All of these temples can also hold many powerful artifacts, such as Altar of Incense, The Bronze Laver, The Silver Trumpets, Golden Cherubim (Except The Tabernacle), Ark of the Covenant, Book of the Covenant, Lampstand of the Sanctuary, and Tables of the Law, and can be protected by Glory of the Lord (except Z-temple).
Other useful cards across all of Teal include Royal Parade, House of Prayer, Urim and Thummim, The Emmaus Road, Offering Your Son, Bearing Our Sin, Jordan Interrupted (PoC), Delivered, Covenant with Adam (PoC), any of the New Covenants (PoC), Scapegoat, Trumpet Blast, The First Sacrifice, Oath of Purity, Hope, Seventh Seal, Ezekiel (FooF), and Every Tribe.
Clay:
Clay hasn’t gotten much support in recent years, as the last several sets have been Old Testament, but there is still a lot of value here, especially since your opponent won’t see it coming. You won’t see straight Clay run a whole lot, usually it’s mixed with White or Green (especially Musicians/Martyrs), but there are viable themes for straight Clay. Jerusalem has a few powerful heroes, with Rhoda, Stephen, Nicanor, Nicolas of Antioch, and Jude. Many of these are also Deacons and mix well with Widow’s Table as well. Philippians also have a powerful hero in the fight by the numbers category in Clement and the other Philippian cards that help power him up. There are many other Clay themes, but none are used all that much anymore, such as Armor of God/Fruit of the Spirit, Colossae, Thessalonians, and Corinthians. Also don’t forget about Missionaries: a missionary will default to whichever church you have the most heroes in play of and can be a great tool!
Clay is also a strong brigade because of all the cards I haven’t mentioned yet, such as: Peter, Gamaliel’s Speech, Preaching in the Synagogue, Elymas Struck Blind, Snake into the Fire, The Lord Rebuke You!, Faith of Samuel, The Watchful Leaders, New Covenant (Jeremiah), Potter and the Clay, Eternal Inheritance, Eternal Covenant, You Will Remain, Paul, Hope, Overcome!, and Claudia. Also see the White brigade section for all the amazing Clay cards that are part White and more specific to Musicians/Martyrs. Basically, if you are running any NT theme, you can make it better by adding in some Clay.
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