Hello and welcome to Browa’s Budget Bazaar!

This article series is designed to provide quick and simple deck ideas in general, as well as for specific themes, that won’t be hard on your wallet! There will also be suggestions for those with more available funds on how to spruce up the deck.

NOTE: As a general rule, Dominants are the most powerful cards in the game and some of the best Dominants are available in the Starter Decks. Also, all decks must contain at least 7 Lost Soul cards. It is recommended that the first purchase you make in Redemption be one of the starter decks. The 4th edition I/J decks are recommended (because of the Son of God reprint contained within), but the 10th anniversary G/H decks and the 3rd edition E/F decks are also entirely valid (though the E/F decks are out of print and can be pricier to acquire) and all have plentiful Lost Souls to start your collection. If a specific deck caters well to a deck/theme topic, it’ll be mentioned in the article.

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Today’s Topic: Building a custom deck with just the starter decks.

Today we’ll be using the I/J and G/H starter decks found in the 4th edition and 10th Anniversary boxes respectively.

*If you’re just starting out in the game, or want to start expanding your collection to accommodate multiple concurrent decks, I would highly recommend purchasing the 10th Anniversary Gift Set. You get the G/H starter decks, 3 Unlimited packs, 3 Prophets packs, and the New Jerusalem promo. The 6 packs may yield a few useful cards, but most important is the New Jerusalem card as it’s one of the best Dominants in the game and is found in most decks. Plus, you get a nice tin in which to hold your deck!

These decks give lots of options for offense and defense brigades, but today we’ll focus on the gold/white base from the J deck and the black defense from the I and G decks.

The G deck provides some additional gold Hero/Enhancement support for the Ruth/Judges offense, and the H deck provides some white Enhancement support. Women of Israel and Moses both shine as boosters to the J deck cards and some of the H Enhancements can replace the mediocre J ones (see deck list below for an optional arrangement of Enhancements).

The black defense has some old testament (O.T.) cards and some new testament (N.T.) cards. It provides the utility of the large Philistines and their weapons as well as the low-numbered Sadducees to let you play your battle winners. Pride of Simon lets you reuse one of your other Enhancements (such as the weapons that discard themselves to do something).

The Sites in the G/H decks aren’t incredibly useful on their own so I’ve chosen to leave them out of the sample list below. However if you acquire more Sites you can try building a Site-based defense in the future. The Artifacts in this deck similarly aren’t necessarily designed for this offense or defense so I’ve left them out but Tables of the Law or King’s Sword would be decent to add in if you want to try using Artifacts in the deck.

Sample Deck List

Cards in Deck: 50

Lost Souls: 7

-4 Generic
-3 Lost Souls with special abilities (“Rejoice with Me“, “Resurrection” and “Female Only” – all the ones from the 4 decks except the Site-related one)

Dominants: 7

–Son of God
–Angel of the Lord
–New Jerusalem (if you purchased the Gift Set)
–Christian Martyr
–Burial
–Vain Philosophy
–Strife

Heroes: 10

–Elders of the City
–Boaz
–Naomi
–Ruth
–Samson
–Jephthah
–Gideon
–Shamgar
–Moses
–Women of Israel

Good Enhancements: 10

–Shamgar’s Oxgoad
–The Sword of Gideon
–Trumpets and Torches
–Gideon’s Call
–When Judges Governed
–Devotion of Ruth
–Ruth Meets Boaz
–Gleaning the Fields
–Loyalty of Ruth
–Bravery of Priscilla

Evil Characters: 8

–Delilah
–Lahmi
–Ishbibenob
–Saph
–Locust from the Pit
–Temple Guard
–Strong Demon
–Sadducees

Evil Enhancements: 8

–Ishbibenob’s Spear
–Wickedness of Delilah
–Ishbibenob’s Sword
–Lahmi’s Spear
–Denying Blame
–Pride of Simon
–False Witnesses
–Lying Unto God

Deck Upgrade Suggestions

Rock of Ages tins 18 and 23 both include powerful card support for the Judges theme, as does Faith of our Fathers tin 2. Unfortunately, the Ruth theme primarily exists in just the J deck but there is some white support from various card packs including the Transfiguration card from the Apostles set (which helps the Judges/white synergy). Tins 18 and 23 also contain some black cards you can use to spice up your defense, and Faith of our Fathers tin 6 provides exceptional support for Philistines.

In a later article we’ll come back and discuss upgrading the specific themes in this deck with cards from other sets.

Thanks for reading!

The deck list above is just a general suggestion/guideline for building the deck, and Redemption caters to and encourages creative alternatives and testing with different card combinations or setups. Try throwing a mix you like in there and see how it goes!

Thanks very much for reading! Next time we’ll be using the I/J and G/H decks again to build a different offense and defense, and after that we’ll branch out directly (as opposed to just providing suggestions) into updating the starters with tins, pack cards, and more!

To buy singles, sealed product, and other gaming supplies mentioned, please visit Three Lions Gaming!

By Scott

Scott was a bit of a latecomer to the Redemption scene, starting after the Angel Wars expansion released. Having a passion for games of all kinds, but especially card games, Redemption has been of special interest to him. While Genesis and Prophets are his favorite themes, his most enjoyed aspect of Redemption is theoretical card design. Coming up with new card ideas and mechanics has always been exciting for him (having thought up ideas for other TCGs as well)