I’ve been spending a lot of time playing matches in Baboony’s Gauntlet, and by the end of the “tournament”, I have some insights I’d like to share with others. I’ll be summarizing key observations about how the games tended to play out, what did well, what struggled, and what I’d change about each decklist.
First, let’s talk about each deck that competed in the tournament and discuss how they did, starting with those that were eliminated first and ending with the winning decklist
Clay Choose the Blocker
Original Decklist
I was surprised by this deck’s performance. I expected it to do a lot better! I’m confident if this deck is played in the hands of a more skilled pilot, they could see great success. I think the difficult play pattern is thinking about when to go for your Concealed Treasure move and what cards to sacrifice when you decide to pull the trigger.
How Did This Deck Lose?
My first theory:
This deck is vulnerable to disruption of its primary gameplan, and has a hard time of making “fair” rescues. In its game against clay, it wasn’t able to secure attacks when the opponent negated the “choose the blocker” effect on Zaccheus with Three Woes and later in the game disrupted their other “choose the blocker” attack with a key Angel of the Lord on a placed demon, preventing the CTB player from attacking effectively. Glory of the Lord can also mess up their nice choose blocks by restricting Simon from playing enhancements and then stalemating against the Possessing Spirit. Dominants can really mess with this deck (hence why its running The Cross). But The Cross is easily negateable, and while the CTB deck does have ways of playing around dominants with Gabriel and Covenant with Adam, often time not all the pieces come together in time to get consistently good attacks. And if you are racing with your opponent, 1-2 failed attacks will cost you the game. A problem I’ve also noticed is that if you are forced to go with a “fair” gameplan, you feel the squeeze to play perfectly with the resources you have, because you’ll need all of them to break through.
My second theory:
Decks running a small suit of Thieves have a hard time getting blocks against most offenses out there. Moths helps against clay and others you can take by surprise. Husham the Temanite helps too. But overall, after a certain point, I lost faith in this defense’s ability to pull off a great block. Decisions have been made to add Orange place cards into the deck to make attacking a breeze, but that decision comes with the tradeoff of weakening your ability to block.
What I Liked
Getting Simon setup with a placed orange card in territory was surprisingly easy to do on Turn 2. I think this deck is a better version of the “Snatched Spear” deck running around because you get the best of Matthew packaged in with a better Choose the Blocker strategy. Simon is one of the best Heroes in the game, and its cool to play him in a deck that leverages him to his full potential.
What I Would Change
I would add more offensive resources in the reserve and cut the more “Gimmicky” choices like Bethlehem and Nazareth. You Will Remain helps a lot against the dom blocks, and Good Seed would help against decks running Glory. Also, cut delivered. Card is good, but too inconsistent in this deck IMO.
Secondly, I’m not sure how effective the Star of Bethlehem package is. Maybe a Crowd’s choice in here would be better? Trimming star means you should cut Heavenly Host, Chamber, and Resurrection Revealer. I love negate neutrals, so I’ll add Achim in. I was also missing Love one Another. To keep Angelic Guidance as a playable option, I’ll add Angel from the Sun.
Revised List:
Soul Surfer
Original Decklist
How Did This Deck Lose?
My first theory:
Like Clay Choose the Blocker, this deck is also vulnerable to disruption. The lost souls are generally pretty effective at messing up the opponent on turn one or turn two, but you can’t rely on them as robust forms of disruptions. A single Son of God or Resurrection Revealer could ruin this deck’s day. If things don’t go well on turn one for this deck, its going to be playing at a disadvantage, since they will be trying to race and block without battle dominants.
My second theory:
If this deck is not able to draw a lot of cards on turn one, it has a hard time keeping up with other decks that do draw a lot of cards. Sure, Peter’s Curse is great at preventing opponents from using their card advantage and battle dominants, but if you never draw it isn’t going to help you.
Over the course of a long tournament, I think variance is going to hurt this deck’s odds of consistently winning (unless the pilot’s name is Chad Frantz). If Chad is playing this deck, then there is no limit to how well it could do.
What I liked
I love Chad’s brilliance with designing the deck and his math-based approach to trying to maximize the odds of drawing great openers and having the right answers at the right time. This deck just “feels” like it could beat anything with the right opening hand, and I love how many important decisions need to be made starting on Turn 1. This deck always has me asking “what could I have done better?” or “how could I have played differently” and gives me the impression this deck has a very high skill ceiling.
What I Would Change
In the late game, Mayhem can often feel like a dead draw. However, if you add Foreign Wives in the deck, Mayhem can become an autoblock against anyone not running “Regardless of Protection” enhancements.
Aside from that, I don’t think I’d make any changes to the deck. All of the choices made in the deck feel well thought out (even the choice to not include hopper), and there wasn’t anything obvious that I could do to improve the deck aside from adding Wives. But there is some tension there because you have to have The Deceiver in your territory before you play Mayhem, because he’ll just be shuffled away and you might not draw him back in order to get to Wives! Because of this, perhaps it would be best to run Wives in the maindeck so you could play her down in territory if you want to prep for a Mayhem but the reserve is a good starting point…
Revised Decklist:
Joshua/Moabites
Original Decklist
How Did this Deck Lose?
While the defense has a lot going for it, it does have some holes. Namely, its is weak to Herod’s temple toss effects, fight by the numbers effects, and choose the blocker effects. Most offenses are running some if not all of these effects. People are also running more ways to protect lost souls from evil cards, which makes this defense a bit weaker overall (for example, decks switching to Harvest Lost Soul).
The offense felt a bit slow and clunky at times and got wrecked by Husham the Temanite (which was all over the gauntlet). Angel of God sat in my hand most games, unplayed and unplayable. Please play Angel of the Lord in this slot folks…
It also could have made it further in the gauntlet but I misplayed a crucial attack where I could have attacked with a converted Claudius and then Grapes of Wrath’ed the blockers (and since Claudius is protected from Dominants, he would have remained in battle) and got in for the last soul. But alas, I only saw the line in retrospect…
What I Liked
Subdued lost soul is great! Its a compelling reason to run Moabites. I think I’d lean into subdued even more by running Hunter just so I can get Subdued out earlier.
Also love the compact defense that gets out early and is kinda annoying to the opponent (but this can backfire when they get choose the blocker effects).
What I’d change
During the course of the tournament with this deck, I never got to really bounce Promised Land. It is a late game strategy that has potential, but I don’t think you need to go all in with Shrine to Artemis. And Tabernacle is nice to hold Book of the Covenant, but don’t expect it to help you setup awesome Lost Child Found plays consistently.
I think the Cananites in the reserve are weak, and Spy is cute but not the best choice. Also, Caleb should be moved to the maindeck. Accusers Lost Soul is running around everywhere, and not having an easy way to get to Caleb can cripple this deck’s offense.
Also, this deck is playing way too many artifacts for my comfort level. The best decks running around are running “negate neutral” effects, and having that many dead cards in those matchups is crippling. Sure you can slap your New Covenant and Joshua’s Covenant on Book of The Covenant to give them CBN, but I don’t think that’s good enough to detract from my point. I’d cut offering of wrongdoing but probably keep the rest. I do like book of the covenant in Joshua decks, because you play Tabernacle priests that can turn Book of the Covenant into a way to get to early Joshua’s Covenant (which can get Captain).
Lastly, to help address the deck’s weakness to choose the blocker effects, I would add Wall of Protection. Overall however, if I’d recommend a Joshua list to play, it would be the Joshua/Thieves decklist which you’ll see later.
Modified Decklist
Blue/Moabites
Original Decklist
How Did this Deck Lose?
Let’s also say a more experienced pilot of this deck probably would have done better than I did. I walked straight into Outsiders and Husham blocks multiple times when the better pilot would have pushed with Elijah (choosing a blocker) or topping their banding chains with Malach, the Nameless. I think if I play better, this deck makes it to the quarterfinals.
But you can’t always play around Husham and Outsiders. Those cards + a timely Woes will wreck this deck. Going all in on a giant banding chain of value isn’t a compelling idea to me where any deck could be splashing Husham.
The defense has the same problems I mentioned earlier for Moabites.
What I Liked
This has been the best version of any blue deck I’ve played! If you are a fan of blue offenses, take notes about how this deck is built and familiarize yourself with the banding chain lines so they come naturally to you and during tournaments you can make those decisions of auto pilot.
Deck is fun to play and about as fast as some Gospel of Christ offenses (which you can’t say about a lot of Old Testament offenses running around).
I also loved setting up Joseph (CBN genesis enhancements) + Faith of Abraham play the first enhancement. Felt like I couldn’t lose if I got that setup + Elijah. I also love the innovation with Jared allowing you to band to cloud heroes. Jeremiah is a strong banding topper! Something that also might help: playing down Rebekah as meek so I can band to her with Melchizideck.
What I’d change
I don’t think Ride On is Consistent enough to warrant a dom slot. You can only play it on Jared or meek Rebekah, and sometimes you’d rather be pushing Jacob + Malach as your banding topper anyways. Maybe if you played more ways to get to Jared, then this card could be better. But some games it just sat in my hand rotting away. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt by adding Adam as another way to get to Jared and cutting Bless the Nations.
Also, adding Hunter to make Subdued better! I think the reserve could also use some tweaks but I don’t know what those tweaks are.
Modified Decklist
Impartial Judgement
Original Decklist:
How Did this Deck Lose?
This deck draws an absurd amount of cards. Its so easy to start to snowball with this deck. A single draw effect can draw you into more draw effects and it gets out of control really fast. Sometimes, you have to be careful with how many cards you draw. There is a thing as drawing too many cards…
In some of the games I played with this deck, in my zeal to draw cards I ended up discarding 2-3 cards during my discard phase a couple turns in a row. I ended up running out of gas and defensive resources and lost the game.
I also placed too much of an emphasis on getting to play the impartial judgement combo on turn 2. Sometimes you go to all the effort of setting it up and then going for it, just for the opponent to discard a single evil card from their hand. Trading a dominant and a lot of resources for 1-2 evil cards in the opponents hand isn’t worth it. Doing well with this deck will take knowing when to go for it and landing that “k.o.” punch. Do it too early, and your opponent can re-draw into blocks. Do it too late, and the game might already be over.
Maybe in the future with this deck, I’ll try to prioritize trying to discard 3-4 evil cards from the opponents hand and not trying to turbo draw through my entire deck in a turn.
I’m confident Jeremy could have piloted this deck to the finals of the tournament. But alas, I am not Jeremy and I made countless mistakes. The games this deck lost were because of errors I made and not because the opponent’s deck was better. Well, I’ll caveat this by saying this deck’s offense felt in a league of its own. Its defense however, felt lackluster (see What I’d change for more on this)
What I Liked
This is a really creative offense that’s explosive, runs Resurrection Revealer, and has a lot of interesting decisions. It makes every game you play with this deck fun, and almost a mini-game in itself to see if you can pull of the impartial judgement combo successfully.
Getting to draw cards off of Untouchables and Hospitality in Bethany is just the nuts (especially on turn 1 if you have peter!)
What I’d change
First, I’d swap out the defense completely. Truth is, the current one doesn’t have good blocks. Pick and choose your defense that can fit in with 10 slots, but I’m going with Herods. We’ll keep denarius to preserve the speed we will be losing by cutting Highwayman. Add Herodias’s daughter if you are really scared of hand protection fortresses.
One of my favorite things to do in decks running Golgotha and a semi-gospel defense like Herods, Thieves, or Sadducees is running Possessing Spirit in the reserve. When I get to my lost child found, I bounce golgotha (and any other non-gospel evil characters in my territory so I can get gospel unity) and play down golgotha to go get Possessing Spirit from the reserve. Then I can play it down, negate their good cards, and then go in for a nice Simon choose the blocker rescue.
Modified Decklist:
Clay / BlackGray
Original Decklist:
How Did this Deck Lose?
Both of this deck’s losses were to Nativity (and close ones at that, 5-4). I feel like this deck can get there with the right opening draw, but if Nativity is packing defensive dominants and Hezron, I don’t think Clay can have a favorable matchup against Nativity.
Nativity is really good at stripping down your defensive characters and if you aren’t playing enough of them, Nativity will run over you. A deck running 7 evil characters and no defensive doms will have a hard time stopping Nativity.
What I Liked
Achim’s negate neutrals is great in decks that like to draw a lot of cards and get itself on the board. Part of the reason I like Clay & Nativity so much is their ability to support cards like Achim & Resurrection revealer. I feel a lot more comfortable in tournaments where I’m showing up with this kind of effect.
What I’d change
The Not Among You in the reserve is pretty out of place. It needs to be something else (maybe Husham?)
I think in some matchups you really want to have a defensive battle dom, so Falling Away could come in (works well with Simon the Zealous too if you really need the help breaking through).
Not sure I’m sold on Ends of the Earth as a card in clay decks.
The Temple Guard + Tenants Kill the Son is good on paper, but I rarely get to pull it off. It still has a lot of potential, so I’m interested in keeping it around in the reserve.
I’m also a big fan of hand protection, so I’d add Bethlehem stable.
Modified Decklist:
Nativity Herods
Original Decklist:
How Did this Deck Lose?
All the losses of the tournament were to Joshua/Thieves. The Joshua/Thieves deck is really good at wearing down the opponent’s resources, and Nativity will really suffer to break through if denied its fortresses (Storehouse, Stable, and Herod’s Temple).
Nativity also struggles against decks with lots of evil characters. I haven’t lost to Thieves before, usually because I’ve been going up against smaller thief decks not running Stolen treasures. But the sheer amount of evil characters that are in the Joshua/Thieves deck make the Mary & Shekels nickel & dime game plan pretty ineffective. Nativity can play a fair game with enhancements, but prefers to let the dominants and hand control win battles before they are fought. Nativity doesn’t have a way to punish lots of evil characters (like Authority that clay decks have access to).
I wasn’t completely happy with the defense either. Outsiders was pretty mediocre (per usual in my go-wide nativity deck) and Wives main deck felt like a liability. I also missed having Herod Archelaus against decks where I blew up their banding chains with Husham and they were forced to attack with lonely, sad heroes.
What I Liked
Husham is a great card! Any deck running Glory and Deceiver in the maindeck should at least put husham in the reserve. And if you are running overtaken, he should be maindeckable. Card got me so many crucial blocks during the game!
The lost soul package this deck gets to run is really oppressive to other decks out there. Old testament soul hide decks beware!
Hand protection and negate neutrals totally blanks a lot of the opponents cards. This creates an imbalance where they start to have a lot of dead cards while you continue to pull ahead and whittle away the cards the do matter with hand and territory control.
In my mind, this deck is still one of the top decks and is still really fun to play. Defense is strong (made even better with Husham), offense is fast. Would still recommend this deck to anyone.
What I’d change
Some thoughts to address d-heavy decks:
Add John the Forerunner in the reserve to make your 20 shekels plan still effective. If you can make them play all their evil characters out, John can walk in uncontested if you manage your hand size. Also, you can cut Falling Away for Angel of the Lord to be more aggressive and win those battles where you are staring down multiple evil characters. I’m not going to do this however, since d-heavy decks are rarely played. And plus, I also missed having access to possessing spirit and golgotha, so I’ve added both back in. Possessing Spirit + Zaccheus choosing it to block can sidestep most defenses, so I’m using it as a reserve slot to make my late game attacks better.
Messianic Messenger is usually pretty useless outside of turn one. I’m thinking Judas would be a better card for the slot. I like the hand information you get and plus he can make your Resurrection turns even bigger. He can also make your blocks better by taking their enhancements that might be able to toss down your Herods. And with overtaken out, he can snipe the opponent’s best answers (Lost Child Found and Love One Another). In defense, he can band to deciever and then deceiver can go to a Herod or something, which is an interesting niche play. Only downside is the brigade count of judas and him being a liability in the territory against other herod decks. But I think he’s here to stay in my future Nativity iterations.
Modified Decklist:
Joshua/Thieves
How this deck won (and what I loved)
This offense and this defense has high synergy that makes it hard to stop when it gets going. Promised Land taking an Unsuccessful from the opponent’s hand and then blocking with Barabbas (who gets to play the Unsuccessful) is just gross. Satan’s Seat is a great card in Joshua decks looking to get around opponent’s hand protection.
Adding Husham to the defensive suite also is a big boon for the deck. If this deck can get to Captain early, it will never be hurting for cards.
Also love Book of the Covenant in Joshua decks. If you have a Tabernacle priest on turn 1, you can go search your deck for Covenant with Joshua and go get Captain.
What I’d Change
Despite this deck winning the gauntlet, I have a lot of ideas for how it could become even better
While it does a great job of enacting a hand control strategy, I believe it could become even deadlier if it could pair that with territory control.
Here’s the territory control package:
- 20 Shekels, Judges Seat, Jepthah’s Daughter, Jepthah, and Angel of the Lord.
To make room, here’s what I cut:
- Overtaken, Rahab + Scarlit line, and Long Day
Reasons for cuts:
Overtaken never really shined (except for a crucial last turn block against nativity to win the match), so I decided to cut it to play 20 Shekels.
I was also never that impressed by Rahab and Scarlet line. Especially now that we aren’t playing long day anymore, she’s very cuttable.
Reasons for judges package addition:
These cards can put an immense amount of pressure on the opponent’s evil characters. And now the opponent will be forced to decide between keeping them in their hand (where they are vulnerable to Teaching in Parables or Promised land) or putting them down and running the Judges gauntlet. This deck could also really use a choose the blocker effect (since Zaccheus is on defense duty most of the time) and J-daughter fits the bill rather nicely. Remember if you use her, Jepthah’s discard effect will trigger first, then the choose the blocker part will trigger. Incidentally, she’s also a white hero you can play Lost Child Found on to bounce her + bounce your promised land.
If you really want to lean in to this territory control theme, add Ehud’s dagger to your deck that officiators can equip to blow up herod’s in territories before they have a chance to block.
A card I like in Joshua decks is Deborah, the Brave. I have another version of this deck that runs Jepthah, Deborah, and Victorious being in the maindeck and its really cool to weave judges into your Joshua banding chain (Deborah can start the banding chain or become baked into via an exchange via Captain banded to Victorious Being). And don’t even get me started on how good big Joshua banding chain + Captain into Victorious Being into Jepthah feels. If you’ve scoped out their hand ahead of time and they only have 2 evil characters in territory to try and block you with, this feels like dunking on the opponent.
I’m not sure which version of the offense is better. I’m sticking with a light Judges splash for now.
I want another white character to put in this deck for Lost Child Found, but I’m on the fence between Rahab and Medad. The reason I went with Medad is that he protects your joshua banding chain from Husham the Temanite (which is probably this deck’s biggest weakness), but I wouldn’t fault anyone for putting Rahab (the red/white version that gives joshua heroes protection). Satan’s Seat messes with her protection and against herod the great decks she becomes more trouble than she’s worth. Well, I guess Satan’s Seat also messes with Medad’s protect ability too, so I guess the jury is still out on this one.
If you are scared of soul hide or woman of thebez, add builders spear or deborah, the brave to the deck.
Proposed decklist:
Conclusion
I had a lot of fun doing the gauntlet and got a lot of “reps” in for competitive play. Was it the perfect method for determining the “best deck”? No. Was it biased? A bit. Obviously I was going to do well with Nativity and less well with the more complicated decks.
Did you (the community) enjoy it? Is this series something you want me to revisit in the future? That remains to be seen!
P.S. Power rankings?
John Hendrix asked for a ranking of how I’d rank each offense and defense. I started working on a tier list, but it became apparent that it could merit its own article. Stay tuned for that article sometime next week!
To buy singles, sealed product, and other gaming supplies mentioned, please visit our sponsors!
