Howdy, my name is Jacob Antonetz and I go by AgurTheWise in reference to Proverbs 30. I wanted to share a little about my creation Newspaper. Last year I played a defensive focused deck and Nationals and paid the price earning many time out wins which aren’t weighted as much as normal wins, so I made it a goal for this year of Redemption to play more aggressive decks that were more capable of winning the game within 3 or 4 turns.

I started the year off with a nativity banding deck that was similar, but focused on the perfect band to any number of NT heroes: I wanted to band in John and Zacchaeus at the same time to reserve their last character during toss. That deck had some small success for me in the off season, but after getting crushed by Jay and his Honeypot deck I decided I wanted to take the deck in a new direction.

Newspaper was a modification born out of the concept that I wanted a flexible deck that could play Honeypot’s game but better – Characters with CBP or CBN and characters that do not require bands to be powerful.

Lackey Deck List (50 cards + 10 Reserve)
1 Son of God "Manger" (Promo)
1 Three Woes (RoJ AB)
1 Crowd's Choice [Fundraiser]
1 The Resurrection (GoC)
1 The Second Coming (CoW AB)
1 Angel of the Lord (2017 Promo)
1 Star of Bethlehem [Fundraiser]

1 Lost Soul (Hopper) (FoM)
1 Lost Soul "Humble" [James 4:6 / Proverbs 3:34] (2022 - 3rd Place)
1 Lost Soul (Prosperity)
1 Lost Soul "Distressed" [Zephaniah 1:17 - Fundraiser]
1 Lost Soul "Grumbled" [Exodus 15:24] (1st Print - K)
1 Lost Soul "Lost Souls" [Proverbs 2:16-17] (Roots)
1 Lost Soul "Darkness" (Job 30:26) (Promo)
1 Lost Soul (Lawless) (Promo)

1 Mary, Holy Virgin / Mary, Willing Servant (GoC)
1 Joseph, the Betrothed (GoC)
1 Zechariah, the Silent (GoC)
1 The Magi (GoC)
1 Gabriel, Mouth of God (GoC)
1 Resurrection Revealer (GoC)
1 John, the Fisherman / John, Son of Thunder (GoC)
1 Guardians from Glory (GoC)
1 Simeon, the Devout (GoC)

1 An Angel Appears (GoC)
1 The Annunciation (GoC)
1 Good Seed (GoC)
1 Lost Child Found (GoC)

1 Herod's Temple [2022 - GoC P]
1 Bethlehem Stable (GoC)
1 Virgin Birth
1 Denarius (I/J+)
1 Temple Veil (GoC)
1 The New Covenant (I/J+)
1 Book of the Covenant (PoC)

1 The Deceiver (RoJ AB)
1 Nicodemus, the Seeker / Nicodemus, the Teacher (2022 - National)
1 Saul of Tarsus [2022 - Seasonal]
1 The Priest of Zeus (Promo)
1 The Herdsmen of Gerar (LoC)
1 Philistine Armor Bearer (LoC)
1 Emperor Nero (Promo)
1 The Entrapping Pharisee (GoC)

1 Stricken
1 Tenants Kill the Son (GoC)
1 Philosophy (Roots)
1 Plot to Kill (RoJ AB)
1 Self-Destruction
1 Scattered Sheep
1 Pretension (GoC)

Reserve:

1 Magnificat (GoC)
1 The Child is Born (GoC)
1 Unsuccessful (PoC)
1 Goliath (FoM Promo)
1 Magnifying Multitude (GoC)
1 Duplicity (GoC)
1 You Will Remain (CoW AB)
1 Foreign Spears (LoC)
1 Flight into Egypt (GoC)
1 The Coming Prince

Of the 9 heroes in the deck main 50, 6 are CBN (cannot be negated) or CBP (cannot be prevented), and every Evil Character has a modifier, 2 having CBI (cannot be interrupted). As a result, this deck is extremely resistant to character negates and Newspaper’s characters tend to fight well in one on ones. Mary Holy Virgin has consistently been one of my favorite characters after Nationals, having amazing flexibility with CBN, targeting an evil or neutral card in a territory and grabbing a star card from reserve.

This deck leans heavily into the Nativity theme characters while eschewing one of Nativity’s concepts, hand disadvantage (having fewer cards in hand than opponents). This deck is built to draw and search frequently and as such is not meant to keep a small hand. So you will only occasionally activate hand disadvantage in your cards. None of the cards rely solely on hand disadvantage (the one that uses it the most is An Angel Appears and turn 1 is the easiest turn to get hand disadvantage)

Let me expand on some of the offensive concepts of this deck.

Concept  – Turn 1 Resurrection:

This deck’s default strategy is to use a turn 1 Resurrection to play The Manger and John from deck, and if possible activate The Resurrection Revealer. Now there may be some contexts where you hold off on turn 1 Resurrection, but in most cases if its available you want to use it.

The deck is equipped with 5 strong ways to fetch a turn 1 Resurrection.

1. The Annunciation 
2. The New Covenant fetching The Annunciation
3. Resurrection Revealer
4. An Angel Appears fetching Resurrection Revealer
5. Crowds Choice
6. John Star (be very careful with this, you don’t want Resurrection to get discarded or reserved by their star abilities. Try to pair this start with a hand look star, if you want to risk it you can find Crowds Choice and risk that dominant instead)
   

This deck has many strong characters to band in on a Resurrection. John who is often grabbed with it can produce a draw 2 and usually a toss next. Simeon can sometimes underdeck an evil card in their hand or band in a Gabriel who can’t be targeted by the Resurrection since it doesn’t target angels.

Zechariah is a favorite if you can have his draw ability happen. And Magi can grab Star of Beth if you are at Hand Disadvantage or is another banding option to Gabriel.

Of note – if you attack with Res Revealer you often want to spend the good dominant you searched up immediately, because if they can negate it during the attack you lose a lot of momentum.

You can also make an attack with Gabriel straight away and search up the Annunciation CBN, making their block a lot more awkward.

Concept – Making Defense hard on opponents:

This deck has a broad range of attacks and supporting cards in territory to make the attacks harder to deal with. 

1. Good Seed – Good seed is a powerhouse for this deck with its ability to indirectly bring in a CBN negate of Gabriel if you have Simeon or the Magi to band to him. A manually activated effect like this can really help shut down cards like Moths and Uzzah. Good seed also does a good job of keep your enhancement options stocked and combos with The New Covenant to keep getting recurred
2. Herod’s Temple – If you attack with a lone character like Mary Temple can make their solo block a nightmare. With just The Child is Born and Flight into Egypt pulled from reserve Mary has an insane toss range of 11. 
3. You Will Remain –  The best answer to stalemate cards in the game, and a good battle extender at the same time, this card activated CBN off Book of the Covenant is a strong card to constrict your opponent’s game plan.
4. Star into Flight into Egypt. If you have pulled Flight to Egypt out of your reserve your Star of Bethlehem can activate the protection presenting an extra layer of constriction to your opponents block.
5. Temple Veil – for hand knowledge. Temple veil is a free artifact activation in this deck as long as you have Herod’s temple and the hand knowledge it provides takes away your opponent’s blocks by secrecy.

And all this paired with Bethlehem Stable’s ability to save Nativity heroes from destruction and Gabriel’s ability to reserve evil cards or recycle good cards makes this theme a prickly offense to tackle.

This offense can attack with big bands or solo rescuers and the choice is yours based on the context.

Concept – Offense Can Punish their territory.

While mostly centered around Mary and Res Revealer this offense itself can really punish opponents. Res revealer is great at slowing down opponents with his negate neutrals and Mary can really pick off their best ECs in territories or artifacts.

The Defense  (Black Gray Goodstuff):
The defense likewise is built to take on a wide variety of decks. Playing gray and an Emperor gives access to Denarius; one of the best card draw artifacts in the game. Priest of Zeus (which can be played turn 0 by darkness to get around early prevents) is another great way to slow your opponent down.

This defense is not very thematic and actually doesn’t have a lot of inherent synergy, it instead relies on a lot of pure power with smaller packages to make its mark.

Let’s look at some of the powerful aspects of the defense:

1. The Philistine Package – 4 cards Philly Armor Bearer, The Herdsmen of Gerar, Goliath (Reserve) and Foreign Spear (Reserve) This 4 card package packs a ton of punch,  Philly Armor bearer can find Herdsmen to punish large draws on t1 ; or either Herdsmen or Goliath and the spear past turn 1. The Spear is amazing, if it’s not prevented you can immediately activate it on Philly Armor Bearer to take out a good card in their territory like H Temple or Glory of the Lord. Goliath is amazing in a meta where people are trying to protect their territory and their hand, if all their heroes in territory are protected and their hand is protected, they will not be able to present a new hero.
2. Nicodemus – A meta powerhouse currently, this guy is absolutely brutal. When he blocks solo he draws 2 on top of his making NT gray EEs CBN. Nicodemus does well with Pretension, Plot, Tenants and Philosophy. A favorite of mine to use with him is Self Destruction (which is OT and not CBN), but if you can protect Self destruction with your CBN negates like philosophy you might really ruin your opponent’s day. Imagine discarding Son of God through philosophy and then banishing it with Self Destruction. Opponents often have to answer Nicodemus with Angel of the Lord, or bring in a much smaller character to fight him, thankfully Saul is another great Angel lightning rod.
3. Entrapping – While you are often trying to negate or remove your opponent’s hand protection if they stick it, Entrapping is a fantastic blocker, usually instantly winning a block against a solo target and generating another meek soul for your collection. (The defense prefers you have at least one meek).
4. Stricken – Remaining one of the best stars in the game, this card can be brutal if they do not find deck protection before its delayed activation in battle.
5. Scattered Sheep – Being able to play this in the main 50 is a threat that people can’t ignore, and the star is situationally amazing, just remember you do not always want to use it. Usage of this star has to be very measured or you will do yourself more harm than good.
6. Duplicitous Mary – this is one of my favorite little combos, because Mary can grab duplicity at a time you feel you don’t need another good star enhancement from reserve she can bolster your defense letting you duplicity into an unsuccessful.

Defense weakness

I do believe this defense is at its best against offenses that give you initiative to play enhancements. Because this defense lacks battle extenders, offenses that invest heavily in finishing a fight without giving you a chance to respond can be a real pain.

Soul Base Explained
Hopper – Should always be put in your deck unless you have a specific and compelling reason not to (for example, N.T. soul unity).

Humble – While this deck does not aim to be at hand disadvantage, the game changing nature of this soul when it counts is hard to understate.

Prosperity – While weak to enemies playing it out of deck, the card advantage and selection this soul grants makes it hard to pass up.

Distressed – With lots of powerful TC characters in the meta, distressed can be a headache for many players. Preventing negate neutrals, hitting Judas etc.

Grumbled – Not powerful for card advantage, but very flexible working off a soul fetch, and allowing you to filter away cards you dont need now or want to see again. Example – send stricken back for the potential to get a 2nd star use.

Lost Souls – The most powerful soul gen card in the current game. Do remember that you do not just automatically give your opponent a meek soul. Often if they have souls already you will be giving the first 2-3 souls generated off this soul to yourself. If your opponent has 3-4 strong souls in play already you usually do not want to give them a soul they wouldn’t mind surrendering. Remember this also triggers off your opponent’s OT souls!

Darkness – A strong opening soul whose value drops off as the game goes on, since you will often have an emperor, PoZ or a plopped down EC for hand size in territory. Its ability to get a turn 0 Priest of Zeus is amazing, since the only way to prevent it turn 0 would be them having distressed down already.

Lawless – Similar to prosperity in card advantage power, a nice trick with lawless and John’s Star is picking Crowd’s Choice so you know you will have a saucy evil card target.

Other Souls Considered:

Crowds/Protector – In and out of my 7, a 2nd layer of hand and deck protection can be very valuable.

Shepherd – A near duplicate of Grumbled it would be nice to have a 2nd copy, but I don’t currently think it’s worth the slot.

Which souls to play from deck with stars:With Star of Beth seeing Lost Child Found you can “Harvest Time: for 1 each time you use Star. Remember you can fetch specific answers like Distressed, you can get Grumbled to dig 1 card deeper or Lost Souls to start generating meeks; in a pinch you can also pull souls from their deck.

Other Card Swap Ideas
HoH – I’m currently considering Holy of Holies in the main 50, while it won’t be CBN as with honeypot, it will play on Herod’s Temple, competing with Veil for that slot. It will negate my Rez Revealer in territory/battle (& John, Guardians in battle) but more importantly hits a lot of big threats to the deck like disciples and outsiders, and my Evil Characters are effectively untouched by it.

Stocks – Stocks is one of my favorite card designs. I love its elegance and balance. It would fit well in this deck if I can find the space, removing a problem character in their territory, giving me another meek soul to benefit my defense. It is on my radar for inclusion.

In the end I enjoy Newspaper for what feels to me like a shot to win against any matchup. I feel that this deck supplies the tools I need to win, so if I pilot it well I can take on any other deck in the meta. It may not be the fastest, but I feel it provides a strong mix of power and flexibility that allows a good pilot to adapt to most any situation.

If you like flexibility and power, perhaps a variation of Newspaper will work for you!

Thank you for your time reading this article. 

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By Jacob Antonetz

Jacob played casual Redemption as a kid in the late 90s, and came back to the game in April 2022. He is passionate about Redemption the card game and most importantly Redemption through the gospel of Jesus. Married to his amazing wife Becka, he lives in Texas and his favorite card is Amazing Faith.