Today’s preview is of a small, 3 card theme boost for one of the most popular defensive strategies—Magicians. First let’s look at some of the reasons Magicians are so strong.

1. They have great synergy with multiple other themes. Much like angels for offensive strategies, magicians can often be used as a support theme due to their high number of bi-color characters, their inclusion in various civilizations and character abilities that can utilize other brigades (such King Manasseh, User of Curious Arts, Enchanter).
2. They have a powerful support artifact in Magic Charms and an awesome battle winner that can be recurred if played correctly–Invoking Terror is absolutely one of the best evil Enhancements in the game and it is at its strongest when used by a multi-color magician.
3. Finally, through the use of Divination and several Evil Characters, they can give a player foreknowledge of what he will be drawing or what card is on the bottom of his deck. That knowledge can be very strong. Like many strategies games, Redemption is a game of “missing” information, and the less information that is missing (i.e. unknown) to you, the better position you will be in.

There are certainly other reasons that magicians are so good, but I believe the ones mentioned above are the main ones, and coincidentally the three cards that Magicians will get in this next set each fit into one of those three areas.

The first card that we’ll look at is The Judean Mediums.

This card is actually a reprint of the Prophets card Workers with Familiar Spirits. Originally they were just going to be Mediums, but their ability ended up becoming fairly strong. With Type 2 in mind, we decided to add “The Judean” to make them a unique character.

Now you might question how good can an ability be if it is dependent on my opponent doing something? Well, if The Judean Mediums never triggers due to my opponent never using a search or draw ability, then I consider that a win for me. When my opponent does trigger them, it opens up all kinds of opportunities for me. This card is going to cause people to pull out those old demons with awesome abilities that never get used because they are not “cannot be interrupted/prevented/negated.”

The next card from this mini-theme is another reprint from the Prophets set, Wizard (formerly Wizards).

With Wizard, magicians get another way to recur their powerful Enhancements. Forced to use your Invoking Terror on a non-multi color magician? No worries, Wizard can get that back for you. Facing a huge banding chain and already used your Scattered? Wizard is here to help.

Perhaps the best part about Wizard is that he ensures that none of your evil cards become “dead” cards—cards that will be useless because of something your opponent has already played, such as Falling Away when your opponent has played Guardian of Your Souls. Now, instead of having to sadly discard Falling Away as a wasted Dominant, you can turn it into another use of whatever pale green evil Enhancement you happen to need. Yes please.

The last card to be revealed is Crooked Ways. This is a Territory Class Enhancement with the ability “Place on your Magician: While all of your human Evil Characters are Magicians…” oh rats, I’m almost at my 600 word limit for this preview article. Guess we’ll have to wait a bit on the rest of that ability. Rest assured that if you can fulfill the condition, you will gain incredible knowledge…

Stay tuned all week long on Land of Redemption as we continue to show of mini-themes from The Persecuted Church!

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By Justin

Justin began playing Redemption in 1997 with his brothers and a few other friends from his church though it was not until 2002 that he discovered and became a part of the wider Redemption community. While his involvement in the game includes being a tournament host, a playtester and a national champion player, the aspect he finds most rewarding is the amazing friends he has met through the game. "I am simply amazed at what God has done through the game of Redemption, both in my life and in the lives of others, and I am excited for the ways in which He will continue to use it."