Hey guys, took a bit longer than I planned to get this article wrapped up, but such is life sometimes. I realized today that this will be the 7th article in this series, and it seems fitting that a T2 deck-building series should finish at 7.
So going back to the T2 Only, I had two decks built for T2 2P. The deck I planned to start with was a Gene-Egyptian deck that I had been keeping quiet because that is a deck type I have not used before and I did not want to give away what I would be using for the tournament (that might sound a little paranoid but my playgroup includes some of the top T2 players in the game and I knew several more top players would be attending the tournament so I wanted every advantage I could get). You might be wondering what made me want to play a deck type I had never used before for such a major tournament, and that’s a very good question with a very good answer.
Late one night after doing an online booster draft I was chatting with Blake M. He mentioned how he had been experimenting with a Gene-Egyptian T1 deck that utilized a converted Pharaoh’s Cupbearer to self-capture himself and add Levi to the battle—effectively giving Blake a way to trigger Levi’s awesome ability. Unfortunately, it would likely only work once because his opponent would quickly allow Blake to rescue the Cupbearer in order to stop Levi from taking out his defense. I began thinking to myself “Hmm, with the Rescuer’s Choice rule in T2, that wouldn’t be a problem.”
All of a sudden it hit me. While Blake’s combo was strong, it wasn’t being used to its full potential. I realized that instead of adding Levi, I wanted to add Abram’s Army. Every turn I could start with Cupbearer, add Army to release Cupbearer, and discard something from my opponent’s territory. I was shocked that I had not seen anyone use this combo before and I immediately started putting a T2 deck list together. I began testing and quickly realized that because of the speed of Gene-Egyptians there were going to be games I didn’t even need the combo in order to win.
I had included the Egypt Site along with Enslaved by Egypt so this also produced some captured Heroes for me to release with Army. I tested several games against some players I knew weren’t going to be at the tournament and had very good success. I felt confident this deck would do well and that the new combo would catch people off-guard. As I usually do though, I had another deck ready to play as well, which this time ended up being my trusty Judge Widow deck which I’ve written about before so no need to here.
One of the weaknesses of Genesis is its vulnerability against Orange demon defenses with large banding chains. Outside of Reuben’s Torn Clothes (which I don’t find very reliable and didn’t add to my deck), a Genesis offense does not have many ways to defeat large demon banding chains. It’s best battle winner, Joseph Before Pharaoh, can defeat a demon but it simply puts it on the bottom of the deck—a place demons don’t mind being at all. My main option would be Obedience of Noah, but even that would be tricky because of the ability of Gates of Hell to add a demon to battle. So hoping I wouldn’t have to face any demon decks, I listened for my name to be called for Round 1.
Round 1 vs Noah
Noah is from South Dakota, but he started playing as a member of Gabe’s playgroup in Iowa. The night before he had taken third place in T2 MP even though it was his first time playing T2. Despite some minor misplays, he played very well, and I knew that this would by no means be an easy game. I quickly realized how true that would be as much to my chagrin I soon realized that Noah was using the same deck as the night before that included (you guessed it) and Orange defense. Fortunately for me he did not have a terribly great draw and I believe he only drew 1 Gates of Hell. I was able to keep pressing the attack and a couple uses of Besieging the City slowed him down considerably. Had he been a bit more experienced, I think this game would have ended a lot closer but in the end I finished with a comfortable win.
Round 2 vs Sam
This was the most frustrating game for a couple reasons. To start, Sam had an awesome opening draw using an Armor of God deck. That’s no fault of his, he simply played the cards that came out, but it was a bit discouraging at just how fast he got set up. His opening hand included a Soldier of God, Christian Soldier, and one piece of Armor—by turn 3 you can imagine how that was going for me. Meanwhile my offense wasn’t really setting up much, and I quickly found myself down 3-1.
I made an attack only to see him use Burial to stop me. I was holding Christian Martyr in my hand waiting to draw my Captain of the Host so I could make a rescue attempt, negate all the Armor and use Christian Martyr to discard the Christian Soldier that had all the Armor as I was sure that was my only hope of making a comeback. As I was arranging my territory I realized I had missed a huge opportunity. I had Pithom in my territory and could have underdecked his Christian Soldier when he used Burial. I was so frustrated at myself, but I did my best to remain calm so that Sam wouldn’t catch on and I would hopefully get another chance.
He picked up another soul with his banding chain to make the score 4-1. I made a rescue with a converted Dreaming Pharaoh to draw a bunch of cards and to my surprise, Sam didn’t block instead handing over the soul. A moment later I realized why as he played Falling Away (presumably to make use of it before I drew Guardian of your Souls). This time I was ready and triggered Pithom to underdeck the Hero with all the Armor. As you might expect this crippled his offense and allowed me to unleash all the evil cards I had been holding while giving up freebies to his Armored Spiritual Warrior chain.
Things started turning around and I managed to pull off the brutal Besieging the City/Mayhem combo. Unfortunately, he had enough Pharisees in play to band that I wasn’t able to completely catch up and he managed to put together a very formidable Claudia/Cornelius/Peter banding chain that I was having trouble stopping. In the end, I was down 6-4 with Son of God in my hand. On my last attack I was fairly certain he had Christian Martyr in hand. I decided to push with my converted Pharaoh again hoping to draw into New Jerusalem but no such luck. He used Martyr and I played Son of God for the 6-5 timeout loss. Given another turn or two I likely would have pulled out the 7-6 win, but it had been such a back and forth battle after he lost his Armor that we ran out of time.
Round 3 vs Noah W
In the next round I played the other Noah from Wisconsin. His deck was probably the most unorthodox I saw, and unfortunately for me it was a demon-based defense once again. This was a game where both defenses simply dominated—mine with battle winners and battle enders, and his with recurring stall blocks. I played a Besieging the City on one of his turns, and then made a rescue attempt on my turn with the Rachel/Jacob/Captain of the Host banding chain. He blocked with King of Tyrus with a King’s Pomp placed on him and I realized what was about to happen. Fearfulness is a nifty little card that works really effectively against multiple Heroes when there are multiple evil brigades in battle.
Well with King’s Pomp being in battle, he had all the brigades and it was decision time. Do I let him paralyze my banding chain for the rest of the game or do I use Mayhem now and hope he doesn’t redraw Fearfulness? Or do I wait until his turn to play Mayhem when it would empty his hand due to Besieging the City? I decided to gamble a bit and use the Mayhem hoping that I would win this battle and likely the next one or two with my banding chain even though his hand wouldn’t be completely gone. Alas it was all for naught. He redrew a Fearfulness and that pretty much ended my chances of winning. However, my defense stayed strong for the rest of the game as well and we ended in a 3-3 tie.
At this point I was pretty frustrated. I had faced 2 demon decks in 3 rounds and I made a major error in the other round that cost me a shot to win that game. I decided to switch to my Judge Widow deck because I had made a few tweaks on it that I wanted to test, and I more or less assumed I was out of the running for first place.
Round 4 vs Martin
I didn’t have a great start, but I had enough defense early to stall–I just couldn’t draw a Hero. I finally converted one of my Evil Characters to a Hero with Holy Grail so that I could use Wheel within a Wheel, and from there things fell into place. About 5 turn later I was mostly through my deck while Martin had less than 8 cards in his hand and territory combined.
Round 5 vs Nathan
Nathan was borrowing a deck from me so I knew exactly what I was up against. Once again I got rolling pretty quick and even though I had built the other deck with several counters to the speed of Judges, they didn’t come out quickly enough to make a difference and I won a pretty fast game.
After the two big wins I was among the leaders, but as it turned out no one could catch Jordan who had gone undefeated up to that point. I would end up facing him, but even if I beat him I would only have 4 wins, a tie and a timeout loss for a total of 14.5 points to his 15. However, winning would mean I took second so there was definitely something on the line.
Round 6 vs Jordan
Just as I had gone to my most trusted deck , Jordan was also running something he was very familiar with—Judges and Demons. That particular deck had given me fits over the years, and the game started out very much like past games where he had a large demon banding chain almost right away. However, an early Grapes of Wrath helped clear one chain. Jephthah took out a few more demons in his territory, and then in the end it was Women as Snares that cleared the rest of the demons away so I could walk in for a very close 7-6 win to take second place.
In a very strong field I was not disappointed at all to end up second. I was disappointed that my first deck had not worked as well but that’s how it goes sometimes. I still believe that deck is very strong and I suspect I’ll pull it out again sometime. It was also good to discover that the tweaks I added to my Judge Widow deck worked even better than I expected, and improved an already very strong deck.
Well, that’s all I have for the T2 Only T2 2P summary. That went a bit longer than I planned so I’m going to be brief with my concluding thoughts. I truly believe there are enough viable strategies in T2 that there is literally something for everyone regardless of your play style or preferences. Some strategies are clearly stronger than others, but every strategy also has vulnerabilities as well. If you haven’t yet tried your hand at building a T2 deck, take a look back through the articles in this series and I can almost guarantee you’ll see something that intrigues you or gives you an idea for a T2 deck. If you truly cannot find something you like, leave a comment and I’ll personally give you some ideas based on what strategies you like to use in T1.
If you’re interested in learning about the next set coming out this summer at Nationals, be sure to watch for Leaks with Lillian coming soon to Land of Redemption—she’s the cutest little girl and she has the inside scoop on all the new cards!
To buy singles, sealed product, and other gaming supplies, please visit Three Lions Gaming!
ironisaac
How are you able to release cupbearer? doesn’t he become a captured evil character once he captures himself?
Justin A.
Thanks for the question! Once he has been converted to a Hero, he stays a Hero as long as he does not get returned to my hand, deck or discard pile. So even if he is captured, he becomes a captured Hero, not a captured EC. That actually reminds me of another awesome part I forgot to mention… every time I attack with him, I get to search my discard pile for a Genesis human so I can recur all of my Heroes (except Captain of the Host) and most of my ECs without having to use any extra cards! That made the combo even stronger!