These articles will be the final articles of the “Do You Wanna Build a T2?” series, but don’t worry—more exciting things will be coming! I truly hope you’ve enjoyed these articles and that they have given you new ideas or insights into building your decks. Even if you’re still a T1 player for the most part, I do hope you’ll give T2 a try at some point.

I used the Frozen song “In Summer” for this article because summer is the time for the big tournaments. With the 2016 T2 Only tournament now complete we are officially in big tournament season for Redemption! State tournaments will be right around the corner and Regionals not long after that. Before going further into that, however, I am going to give some highlights and analysis from the T2 Only tournament.

This year we had a really great turnout. Although numbers-wise it was not as big as past years, I believe this year we set a new record for people coming from out of state which was super great to see. Players traveled from Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Canada, Tennessee, Georgia, and for the first time ever California! Only at Nationals will you ever see players from so many areas coming together for the same tournament.

Friday night was T2 MP and we had 14 participants. In my first round I was at a table of 3 with Noah W and Martin M. The way the game started I thought there was no chance we would finish in time. In the first round both Nazareth and Rain Becomes Dust were played. However, although those cards slowed down the pace, we all seemed to draw more offense than defense and I was fortunate to get my SoG/NJ early without needing to search. Had the game gone longer we all had lots of defense left in our decks so it could have easily timed out had I not gotten a fast win.

In round two, I was at the winners table with my brother Jordan, JD, and the other Noah. This game was super close. Jordan had 6 to my 5 going into the final round and I had no good rescue options on my last turn. At the end of my turn I played a territory class draw 1 and to my shock I drew Son of God. I had hope for at least a tie. Noah took his last turn before passing to Jordan who would have the final turn. He thought through his options before making a rescue against me as I was the only one with Lost Souls. I gladly blocked and played good old False Peace to search my deck for New Jerusalem and steal a victory.

In round three, I was matched against Sam, my brother Jayden, and David. Sam got off to a really fast start with Angelic Guidance and Gabriel. After that the game moved pretty evenly with no one getting too far ahead. At the end, Sam, David, and I were all at 6 while Jayden had 5. Once again I had no good options for a final rescue and not wanting someone to burn a block that could stop someone else I decided to just pass and play for a tie since I was the only one with two full wins. Sam was unable to break through for #7. Jayden went for #6 but I used Destruction of Nehushtan on his Blue Tassels so that Sam could capture with Magic Charms. I then had Burial for David’s last rescue to keep the game 6-6-6-5 giving me the 1 ¼ points I needed to beat Jordan by ¼ point for first place.

After MP Jayden, David, Jonathan, and myself played a game of TEAMS “Dual Boost.” Each of us took 7 packs (4 foil packs and 3 box packs) and opened them as two teams. Each team then combined all the cards and built two decks for a TEAMS game. Jayden ended up with nearly a mono-Clay offense and a Babylonian defense. I had a mostly Silver offense with a splash of Red and a Gray/Brown split defense. There were tons of fun blocks and great plays.

David had a Garden Tomb with the Red Peter which looked like it might win the game right there but Jayden managed to draw into his Wages of Sin that searched out Christian Martyr to stop Peter. (In addition to the drafted cards, each team could use Son of God, Angel of the Lord, Christian Martyr, and Strife—each deck got one of the good dominants and one of the evil dominants). Later, Jayden pulled off Desecrate the Temple to discard the Son of God in Jonathan’s deck…after we had already defeated Jonathan’s Angel at the Tomb! Jayden’s deck included Ethan and Praise from Prison for an infinite battle winner recursion and my deck included a Kings Captain of the Host with Captain’s Sword though I did not draw him until the very end.

Jayden and I definitely got the stronger packs so there’s certainly luck involved, but David and Jonathan definitely had some nice cards as well and they made several great blocks. The best block might have been mine, however, as I used Poisoned Minds to negate a convert battle winner that David tried to play on my Gray Evil Character. Overall it proved very fun and I would recommend others to try it out. Here’s the basics:

Each player chooses packs from the following groups:
Unlimited/Prophets—choose 1
Apostles/Patriarchs/Kings/Priests—choose 3
TexP/Disciples/Early Church/Persecuted Church—choose 3

Each team will then have 166 cards to make two decks. Each team gets the four dominants mentioned earlier and each teammate must get one good and one evil dominant. Any dominants that are drafted can also be added. We used experience credit and rescuer’s choice optional rules since it was the T2 Only but that’s certainly not a requirement. Obviously other packs can be added as well, but I thought the number of packs was just about perfect as the amount of cards gave us several viable deck options.

I think I’ll pause there. In Part 2 of “In Summer” I’ll finish up my 2P summary from the T2 Only, give some concluding thoughts on T2 deck building, and then give a teaser for the next series…be sure to check back soon for that!

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

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."