Welcome to the 2016 competitive Redemption season! The meta is on fire with new combos and a resurgence of cards which may have been in your binder for some time coming to the front of rescuing souls with the newly released set, Cloud of Witnesses!

Never before in the Redemption meta have I witnessed such a diverse collection of competitive decks, all with their own forms of versatility and viability. Cloud of Witnesses has brought us to the very forefront of Redemption action in battle as well as in strategy!

Tennessee State T1-2P was no exception. With some very fierce competition from Daniel Huisinga (winner of Nationals Booster Draft 2015 and the card creator of Coliseum) who won 2nd Place in Teams with myself, Brian Jones who won Booster Draft, Jay Chambers (Local, District, State, and Regional champion) who pulled 2nd in T1-2P, Jeremy Chambers who won the T1-Multi category, Wyatt Marcum and Logan Lowry who placed 1st in Teams, there was absolutely no knowing who was going to come out on top.

With the Booster Draft category being the night before, the trading was on and Coliseum was the chase card. Many people were looking for Coliseum, and open to trade their newly acquired cloud cards to bolster their decks for the next day to come. The Cloud of Witnesses Booster Draft is definitely the most defined Booster Draft I have ever participated in. There are many directions to take your deck and it becomes quite beautiful seeing it all come together. Brian was lucky enough to pull a Hypocrisy and a Mayhem, which proved devastating all the way to his victory!!

Most of the competitive players stayed up all night after draft to modify their decks and see what kinds of intensity their strategies may rise. It was quite exciting and completely unexpected to see the variety of decks in T1-2P, and it also made me personally feel I needed to go with what I was most comfortable with. Up until now. I believe that clay has been a relatively flimsy to moderate offense with Persecuted Church. It is a relatively new brigade to Redemption, and the Armor of God/Fruits of the Spirit took a big hit with the release of Coliseum and the new Moses. Knowing other players were running Judges/Prophets/New Moses with Moses’ Parents/Disciples/Daniel/OT Royalty/Centurions/Magicians/Assyrians/Babylonians/Gates of Samaria all of which are phenomenal combinations for rescuing and blocking – I was sure I would stand out if I was the only person running a nearly pure clay offense.

What I love about Cloud of Witnesses is that it gives tremendous boost to nearly every already viable offense and defense. However, clay can take advantage of many of the best of these additions – Faith Enhancements. On top of the wonderful addition of Faith Enhancements, we also have a new kind of Enhancement which can rescue a Lost Soul under certain conditions, Eternal Inheritance. I honestly feel I saw this card and immediately underestimated it. The night before T1-2P I had dreams of rescuing with Jude, choosing the blocker with a good Covenant up, and playing Eternal Inheritance. It made me so excited I woke up the next morning and modified my deck to work around it. It certainly proved to be a dream come true!!

The Cloud of Witnesses set is proving to be very powerful, I wouldn’t be surprised if my first impressions of many of the new cards will have me second guessing (one of the big ones being Faith of Noah), not to mention in combination with older cards. Living and playing with Cloud of Witnesses continuously brings new realizations and understandings. But enough Considering the Lillies! Let’s have a look at the deck which lead me to a 5-0 undefeated state victory!

T1-2P Deck: Eternal Inheritance

51 Cards

Artifacts/Covenants: 4

Miraculous Handkerchiefs (TEC) this card is incredible, and will get you out of a bind
Holy Grail (PC) shiny borders are awesome, and so is converting two of your opponents evil characters!
You Will Remain this good Covenant is brilliant. It will allow you to make multiple rescues, prevent your opponent from Dominant blocking, and can even be searched out with Music Leader!
Eternal Covenant this good Covenant is also a wonderful addition from Cloud of Witnesses.

Dominants: 7

Son of God (I) pretty
Angel of the Lord (J)
Christian Martyr (J)
Destruction of Nehushtan (Patriarchs)
New Jerusalem (signed Promo)
Mayhem(TxP)
Falling Away (Women)

Evil Enhancements: 6

Christian Suing Another
Scattered
Disagreement over Mark
Dissension in Antioch
Nebuchadnezzar’s Pride
Hypocrisy (EC)

Evil Characters: 8

The Egyptian Rebel (PC)
Deluders (PC)
The Serpent (Promo)
Simon the Magician (EC)
Philetus (PC)
Judas Iscariot (Pi)
Sapphira (Women)
Hymenaeus (PC)

Good Enhancements: 8

Elymas Struck Blind (TEC)
Faith of Moses (Cloud of Witnesses)
Faith of Moses’ Parents (Cloud of Witnesses)
Praise from Prison (TEC)
Mercy of James (PC)
Eternal Inheritance (Cloud of Witnesses)
Peter’s Sermon (TEC)
Word of Christ (PC)

Heroes: 10

Peter (TEC)
Jude (PC)
Onesimus (PC)
The Angel of the Winds (Cloud of Witnesses)
Epaphras (PC)
Music Leader (PC)
Claudia (PC)
The Watchful Leaders (Cloud of Witnesses)
Philemon (PC)
Timothy (TEC)

Lost Souls: 8

Revealer (AW)
Dull (Cloud of Witnesses)
Lawless (Cloud of Witnesses)
Pigs (Di)
Retribution (TEC)
Hopper (Kings)
Awake (PC)
Thorns (Pi)

I’m just going to be honest. This deck is a work horse. It builds momentum and becomes very tough to deal with. It’s loaded with options and can get through the majority of what there is. My only real alternating consideration was Timothy or Barnabas. Barnabas is awesome for soul gen. Timothy is just great for initiative. In the end Barnabas would have made the most of a difference because I was droughted numerous times and the speed of this deck. I have won multiple games without playing Son of God or New Jerusalem, so The Second Coming is definitely a consideration.

Note worthy plays:

Claudia banded to Epaphras banded to The Watchful Leaders banded to and protecting Philemon banded to Peter!! Awesome band!! With lost souls protected by Onesimus! Very strong band!

Hypocrisy/Mayhem to prevent Moses from walking again with Moses’ Parents.

Jude choose the blocker battle challenge turned to a rescue with Eternal Inheritance while I didn’t have Site access.

Eternal Inheritance 3/5 games played to successful rescuing!!

In nearly every game I used Jude for a choose the blocker scenario, choosing one of my own heretics to block. In most situations there was little to nothing my opponent could do. Choose the blocker is a very powerful aspect of rescuing in Redemption. Especially in Booster draft if you can pick up Ehud!! My dreams came true with this deck being able to choose the blocker with Jude and make rescues consistently with Eternal Inheritance!

Praise the Lord Jesus Christ for your Eternal Inheritance as you have been called to receive the promise of His love! His judgment is our gain, and as a believer you are truly saved!! By His grace and mercy we have inherited eternity with our King, Jesus Christ!

I believe this card will become very valuable and a strong addition to your clay offense! Also, in life, there is no better truth to use against the enemy who will try to deceive you to believe otherwise!

Blessings and best wishes always. In Christ,

-John David Cunningham (KariusVega)

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

By JD

JD loves playing Redemption! On any given day chances are you will find him playing on Lackey. He has played thousands of games with The Guardian, Gabe, ProfessorAlstad, Red, Minister Polarius, MitchRobStew, Jerome, Jbeers, JMHartz, Red Dragon Thorn, Xonathan, and many more fine Redemption players. He started playing Redemption in the year 2000 right around the release of Warriors and had a ton of fun playing with Daniel Huisinga. He got back into the game around the end of 2014 and has been playing competitively ever since. He's placed 1st at Local, District, State, Regional, and National Tournaments in various T1 categories. Catch him on Lackey or join our monthly ROOT tournament today!