If you missed part 1 of the report, be sure to check that out for a full recap of which Pokemon we caught, who won the gym battles, and how John Earley’s strongest Pokemon is a 32 CP Rattata… Oh, wait, this is a Redemption tournament report.

I was able to bring my two oldest kids and “Ironisaac” with me. All of them played three events and had a great time. There was lots of trading among players. An old timer returning to the game opened The Second Coming after buying 4 CoW packs! Several people asked me if I had an extra You Will Remain. Apparently that might be a good card.

As promised in part 1, let’s recap T1-2P and Teams!

T1-2P

I had three T1-2P decks to choose from for Regionals, including my own take on the Colossae/Heretics weapon that’s done well for JD. “Because of Moses” (BoM) did well for me at the Iowa State tournament. I didn’t play T1-2P at Minnesota States but an updated version of BoM also did well for John there. I decided to go with what’s working in our area and used the BoM offense with a brown/orange defense.

Round 1

I was paired with Noah, one of the “tripleplay” members on the message boards. All three of the Wagenknechts are excellent players and tough opponents. Noah was using a I Samuel offense with a couple tricks of his own added in for fun. But it was his Philistine defense that was able to beat down my offense and keep me at bay.

I don’t recall a lot of the details from that first game, but the difference maker proved to be my Confusion for The Second Coming after Noah had played SoG. I won 5-4 as the time limit expired.

The first round of the tournament proved to be my toughest round of the day! Noah went on to take 2nd place!

Round 2

I faced a very nice young man from the area whose name escapes me. He had a deck that would have been top tier a couple months ago. But it did not appear updated to accommodate for the release of CoW.

My first turn Coliseum made his opening hand Samuel’s Edict and Ehud’s Dagger (and later Scattered) virtually useless. Fortunately, his Roman defense was doing a good job holding me off. One great block he made was when he dropped Emperor Claudius from hand to stop my Strong Angel. I had numbers and AotL, both of which were useless.

That didn’t last forever though. I was able to whittle his defense down so that I could finally rescue some souls. The game ended 5-0 because he never got his offense going.

Round 3

Things were bound to be more difficult because I was facing Britta Maly (formerly Alstad). If you’ve been around Redemption very long you know that both of those surnames are attributed with greatness!

Britta was using a large Genesis/Egyptian deck. One of the drawbacks to a large deck is that they will sometimes flood with Lost Souls. The opposite is also true, sometimes the Lost Souls remain buried for a very long time. But the former was true of this game.

She opened with Asher and some enhancement backup, but nothing that could stand against King of Tyrus. That alone was enough to keep her out of battle for several turns afterwards.

Her defense did a good job of getting what she needed the turn before I had an answer. When I went into battle and drew You Will Remain she got a block (and capture) with Potiphar’s Wife and Wonders Forgotten. When I went into battle with a band, drawing Coliseum she had No Straw!

I held Confusion from early in the game but since she hadn’t been attacking I didn’t get a chance to play it. When the opportunity did arise I chose Son of God only to find that she had SoG/NJ in hand! She was waiting to play them to avoid facing 3-Liner abuse.

Despite her well timed plays on defense I was eventually able to win enough souls to end the game 5-0.

Round 4

At this point Josh Knitt and I were the only undefeated players left. Josh was using a I Samuel offense that he’s posted on the message boards.

Despite all of the Heroes in his deck, Josh only drew one non-essential Hero to open the game. By the third turn of the game he had recovered but I already had a commanding lead. He used SoG to rescue the 2nd half of the 3-Liner and immediately played TSC to get SoG back.

I drew into my SoG giving me a chance to put the game away 5-3. I considered waiting a couple turns in an attempt to get Falling Away to pad my differential but decided it was better not to take a chance so I played it for the win.

Round 5

I’m paired against another of the Wagenknechts, I think Nathan this time. If I’ve figured things correctly, I don’t actually need to win to take 1st place, provided I rescue at least 2 Lost Souls to boost my differential.

I went first and opened with AUtO to Joshua banded to Captain. He didn’t have a block for that.

One his turn he rescued with The Angel of the Winds and attempted to get AUtO. I pointed out that AUtO isn’t human. He confirmed that condition on TAotW and looked for a different Hero. He chose Asahel this time.

I asked if that was his rescue attempt and he confirmed it was. I blocked with King of Tyrus to which he responded that he wanted to band to my Joshua and Captain. Unfortunately, it was too late at that point to change his mind. He discarded Asahel and attempted to use You Will Remain to add Samuel to battle from his hand. But there are two problems with this play – 1) You Will Remain cannot be used when a battle ends with a defeat by the numbers and 2) you cannot use an add to battle ability to add a character that isn’t in play.

Wow! What a mess of a first turn. Clearly this “tripleplay” was on tilt! I stopped our game, asked him to take a few deep breaths, and reminded him that he’s far too good of a player to fall apart like this. Our game could determine 1st place in the tournament. I could have attempted to take advantage of his “tilt” but I have far too much respect for the Wagenknechts to watch him fall apart like this when the tournament is on the line.

In hindsight, I think his plan was to TAotW for AUtO to exchange with Samuel in his hand, to get the I Samuel offense he was running off the ground. His first misplay threw him off and despite my efforts I don’t know if he ever recovered.

The rest of the game is mostly a blur except for the final play. The score was 2-0. I believe I had Confusioned his SoG and allowed him a huge draw off Throne of David the turn before to ensure he had the Lost Souls I needed to rescue. I played my SoG and TSC to make it 4-0.

I was holding AotL and rescued with AUtO to Gideon, searching for Faith of Gideon. Knowing that I had FoG, he blocked with Achish, played Lurking, and banded in Philistine Garrison. Nice play!

I could have played Faith of Gideon to withdraw Achish, then play AotL on the Garrison, but I have this addiction you see… I had multiple decks checked in with Haman’s Plot but hadn’t needed to rip one all day. I created a side battle between his Achish and my Gomer with FoG. Then I ripped Haman’s Plot to take out Achish, Garrison, and someone who doesn’t matter in order to rescue a Lost Soul and seal the game 5-0.

Summary

The top three decks in T1-2P were:

1. BoM with a brown/orange defense (my version)
2. I Samuel with Philistines (Noah Wagenknecht)
3. BoM with a brown/orange defense (John Earley’s variant of my deck)

Teams

John and I paired up for Teams and planned our decks out quite a while ago. We abandoned the Creation of the World decks we used at Iowa States and went with a BoM variant that would interact with one another more than the two player version.

With three popular events all being run together (Teams, Booster Draft, and T1-MP) we only had two Teams enter – The Alstad Brothers (Justin and Jayden) and us.

Round 1 – the only round

Beforehand we discussed if we should play one game – winner take all – or a best of 3. John and I were both mentally exhausted and knew that if we couldn’t do it in one game we certainly weren’t going to do it in 3.

We had a great opening! My Joshua banded to John’s Captain to take the first Lost Soul of the game. When Jayden went after me I played Death of Unrighteous on Silly Women to shuffle our Lost Souls and create another Lost Soul for us to rescue.

John was able to pull Moses in for a rescue. When Jayden blocked with Sisera, John dropped AotL! 2-0 already! We had no souls for Justin to rescue. I went with Joshua and Captain again. Justin dropped his Sisera, but John responded with TSC for AotL again! The score is now 3-0 and we’re both holding SoG!

The turns pass around the table with John’s next rescue being stopped by Falling Away and us not having any Lost Souls for them to rescue. However, both Justin and Jayden have been drawing like crazy with their I Samuel offenses so our territories look very one sided in their favor.

I drew into Hypocrisy and Mayhem which is a game changing combo. We debated playing Hypocrisy before my rescue attempt and mistakenly decided to wait. I borrowed the I Samuel banding chain from Justin and drew some cards. He blocked and used Grapes to shuffle everyone. Jayden followed up with Mayhem to shrink my rather large hand.

John and I never recovered. We rescued one Lost Soul after that but neither of us drew our SoG again. We went from being clearly in the driver’s seat to losing based on one bad choice. Hopefully we’ve learned our lesson.

Confusion Conclusion

North Central Regionals was a great time. I went into it hoping that I could place in a category: certainly not expecting to win, much less get two 1st place and a 2nd. There are so many great players in the area.

While there are no deck lists in my report there are several tidbits of useful information. You should be able to glean some good ideas of what’s working and what isn’t in the current format, then use your creativity to apply that to your own deck building.

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.