Approximately 20 people gathered for the Iowa State Redemption tournament on June 9th and 10th. I’d like to share a little bit about that experience with you and talk about the “BoM” deck that took 1st and 2nd in T1-2P.

The Players

The crowd consisted of mostly local players with a handful of veterans who traveled to join us. Both Pat (h20tor on the forum) and Mitch (MitchRobStew) made the drive from other parts of Iowa. Joining us from the great state of Minnesota were Jayden (KoalaKing), John (Red Dragon Thorn) and Justin (The Guardian).

If you’re familiar with any of those names, you’ll notice multiple National champions and people who’ve placed in several top level tournaments. Despite lack of national recognition, we also have some pretty strong players locally as well.

The Events

Friday night we opened the tournament with Sealed Deck and Teams. Around here Teams is a pretty popular format so that’s where most of the players gravitated. There were only 3 people in Sealed deck, meaning everyone got prizes!

Teams

John and I partnered for Teams again this year. We coordinated our decks the week before but could have done a better job fine tuning them. We attempted to take advantage of Creation of the World in a Genesis offense. Antediluvians pair well with that offense and give us access to Confusion (CoW).

Rather than give all the details I’ll touch on some highlights.

At the end of an intense game against Mitch and Kye, Mitch made a rescue attempt. I blocked with Wicked People, discarding an AoG Enhancement from his territory. When I drew 2 cards one was the new “Open Hand” Lost Soul. I chose to reveal one players hand and John chose the other player. We saw Mitch was holding a negate and Christian Martyr. I used Vain Philosophy to underdeck his negate, then played Wickedness Abounds forcing him to give me his Christian Martyr! While it was an amazing play, it didn’t actually matter because I’d also drawn the missing piece of the SoG/NJ combo.

In the final round John and I lost to the eventual champions Jayden and Justin. They were playing an updated version of last year’s National winning decks built by Justin and piloted by Jordan and Martin.

T2-MP

We had enough people for two tables and ran this event later at night. I piloted a Genesis Egyptian deck that, similar to our Teams decks, focused on abusing Creation of the World.

In the first game I was the 2nd player and pulled off the combo immediately! My entire offense and a lot of my defense was on the table to start things off. John was the third player and was holding a Music Leader the whole time. I think we counted 8 triggers that he missed because he couldn’t play it yet. With the huge early advantage, the other players never caught up.

At the second table Pat and John were going to do their best not to allow me to Creation. When I finally got the combo set up and made a rescue with Joseph, Pat used his Egyptian Magicians to band to my The Murdering Pharaoh instantly decreasing Joseph to 0 toughness.

Abraham banded to Sarah who exchanges for Eve is a pretty strong rescue when you’ve worn down the opponent’s defense. When I was finally attacked for the first time late in the game I was able to pick up huge card advantage via The Dreaming Pharaoh, Pharaoh’s Baker and Swift Horses. Combined with all the drawing I had done with Broken Covenant I was able to secure my Dominants for the win.

Saturday Events

We opened up Saturday morning with T1-MP and Booster Draft. We played three rounds of T1-MP so that the event matched up well with length of the draft. When the dust settled, Zach won with a purple royalty / Pharisee deck.

Booster Draft

We drafted Cloud of Witnesses, Persecuted Church, Early Church, Disciples and Priests in that order.

My first pick was Faith of Moses’ Parents. It’s a solid card but not exactly what I’d like to see as the best choice in a CoW pack. Fortunately, the best was yet to come. In the next pack I was passed a Sword of the Spirit (CoW)! Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better the 3rd pick passed to me was Every Man’s Sword (CoW)! With 3 first pick Enhancements I changed my focus to Heroes.

A number of clay Heroes came my way in the first 3 packs, as well as 3 solid clay battle winners. I had taken Entertaining Angels as well as 2-3 silver Heroes. Liberating Angel got me a rescue the turn after the player on my right played Carried into Exile on Belshazzar to capture 2 Heroes. I won that first table, primarily because of the random seating that fell in my favor.

The second round was going to be much tougher. I was at a table with Pat, John and another local player. John was to my right, meaning that’s who I was most likely to need to rescue against.

After falling a point behind early the souls dried up. I used Sword of the Spirit on Ahimaaz to battle challenge John, discard his Prince of the Air and look at his hand. This helped me ensure a later rescue when his Lost Souls came out.

The final turn of the game a couple players were tied at 4 and there were only two Lost Souls in Sites. I played Benedictus to grant access to my whole team, then rescued with Jason while holding two clay battle winners to seal the game and 1st place!

T1-2P

There’s enough to say here to take up an entire article… so you’ll have to come back for part 2 to get the full story on the “BoM” deck (Because of Moses).

T2-2P

The guys that came from out of town decided they were willing to stay late to play T2-2P at the end of the day. My lovely wife made a delicious meal for everyone, so we went back to my place, ate and then jumped into some more Redemption games.

I loaned my Genesis / Egyptian T2-MP deck to John and got to face him first round. I used a clay offense based on missionaries, Jerusalem Heroes, a toolbox of Faith Enhancements and the ability to convert Bartimaeus to clay so those Faith cards cannot be negated. The defense was Antediluvians because they pair well with Peter’s heal ability, Widows of Joppa and Eternal Covenant.

Confusion was in my opening hand. The “Lawless” Lost Soul I drew got me my 2nd one, so I opened the game with both of my Confusions… against the card’s creator! I chose SoG with the first one and Creation of the World with the 2nd one, crippling his offense.

I was able to use a few Eternal Inheritance to good effect. The ability to pull out multiple Wickedness Abounds each battle also proved to be really strong, especially when Zebulun was ignoring all my guys. I could block from hand and play as many evil Enhancements as I wanted!

At one point I was able to force John to give me his Holy Grail from the artifact pile. That ranks up there pretty close to the Christian Martyr I got in Teams!

I won that game pretty handily which meant that I had to play Justin, the T2-2P National Champion, in round 2.

He made some good early plays with The Throne of Grace and Coliseum while Shipwrecking my Cloud of Witnesses. He worked hard to keep my defense at bay while I whittled away at his to keep it small.

We reached a point where my defense was worn down enough that I needed to rely on Corrupt People and Continuous Evil, so Justin kept rescuing with The Strong Angel because he negates them. I gave away quite a few free souls until I was able to Mayhem into a Wicked People and Wickedness Abounds. Finally, I had an answer to TSA! But Justin drew Angel of the Lord off Mayhem netting him another Lost Soul. At the end of the game I was able to walk in as well but I had already fallen a couple Lost Souls behind in that race.

Justin took 1st with a very well designed deck that made great use of both Coliseum and The Throne of Grace. Beyond that I’ll save it for him to spoil what he was playing.

Anticipation

Check back next time to hear the story of T1-2P and the similar decks that took 1st and 2nd. Maybe Moses (CoW) is for real…

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

By Gabe

Gabe has been playing Redemption since early in 2006. While life has changed a lot since that time, his love for Redemption has not. He hosts a playgroup and assists with the design and development of upcoming set releases and even plays competitively on occasion.