Join Luke Marshall on a stroll down memory lane as he discusses his first experience in The Saga of Redemption.
Introduction:
My favorite strategy to play in Redemption has been The Throne of David, for quite a long time. Please do not ask which ‘Throne’ because if you have played the card you know there can only be one true Throne of David. Because of my long history with the deck I’ve been asked to do a bit of a chronicle of Throne’s life so far. However, before getting to the evolution of the Throne decks the past few years I figured I would go back in time to allow people to see my deck building strategy ever since I was a RLK (random little kid) playing the game and beating adults at a child’s game. This was the first competitive (states winning) strategy I can remember making and I would love to share it with you.
Experience during The First Era of Redemption 2003-2008:
The year was 2004 or 2005. I remember because the new set Angel Wars was released right around this time and I absolutely loved the game of Redemption. We had a small playgroup with my uncle and a couple of his friends. The group included my dad, brother, and a few people from the church. It was a great time to be playing the game. I would love to walk through this old deck with you and explain a bit about the game at the time. This deck was what I used to win my first Ohio State Tournament as a 6th grader. Thinking back I actually do not remember ever being more prepared for a tournament. I remember thinking that this deck had a plan and solution to everything that was currently in the game. I really liked my chances at winning and in fact I went undefeated over 7 rounds of play in a tournament that was over 20 people.
First note is that yes the deck was a 56 card deck and this was primarily to promote soul drought. The deck accomplished this in a few ways. First is that this deck’s main defense was to site lock people. Remember in this period of redemption you were allowed to play SoG and NJ on your own LS to get blocks. Use Burial as well and you would get many unexpected blocks as a result. There was also no downside to playing more Dominants because the had not been restricted yet and you could play as many as you like. The other thing to notice is that many of the Lost Souls all had some kind of protection on them to delay just one more turn making soul drought far more common. The defense I paired with this site lock was primarily stand alone characters. Every way to get a cheap block and delay them until they could find the right character or enhancement to get through. It may not look like a tough defense to get through now but I assure you that during the time it was a very annoying pursuit to try and get LS’s.
The offense was one of the stronger offenses at the time being FBTN. I realized that there were enough FBTN characters to basically make a whole deck with just those characters and using the multi colored armor of God enhancements you could play them on any of the characters. A few highlight attacks that were near unstoppable were Moses with Covenant With Moses played on him counted as a 14/6 enhancement from name on name bonus and that was very difficult to stop. Also difficult to stop was Simeon to Jacob to Captain of the host. Remember this was a time with very few CBP enhancements so you often had to win by the numbers. So if the opponent did not have their Holy of Holies to stop this offense it often won games very quickly. While the main offense was not overly innovative with many people recognizing how good these characters were the true innovation came from the all-in nature of playing all of them in the same deck. I figured that even if they could beat one I would have one for the next turns attack. The other point of true innovation was the search package I included. Book of Jashar, Search (C), Coat of Many Colors, Great Faith (Wo), Reach of Desperation (Wo), Authority of Christ (Promo), The Acts of Solomon. These enhancements may look random and out of place however having Coat of Many Colors late in the game to pull them all together meant that if I was given initiative that I could generally search for everything I needed to win both the battle and the game, and when you were ending all the enhancements with AoC then your comboish finish could not be undone. The last part of the deck I will highlight is two of the MVP’s in the deck which were Holy Grail and Crown of Thorns. Crown of Thorns killed all my opponents little evil characters the turn before I would attack with a small person to have initiative. Holy Grail did lots of work in this deck, first being Saul/Paul was truly amazing at this time in the game with Lot’s Wife often being my best hero late game converting her to whatever color was needed to search for Coat of Many Colors.
The Deck List:
I hope you’ve enjoyed this stroll down redemption memory lane. This was the first competitive deck I ever built. Enjoy looking through this old gem. I will always wish I could have gotten a crack at playing Nationals that year because I think I would have had a good chance but when your a sixth grader playing your favorite game your travel options are limited. Please leave a comment with what the deck should have played instead or if you played during this time please send me a message and let me know what strategy you had that would have destroyed me! Enjoy!
56 Card Deck:
Lost Souls x8-
Lost Soul Jeremiah 7:18 (Female Only) (H)
Lost Soul Matthew 19:26 (First Round Protect)
Lost Soul Acts 11:18 (NT Only)
Lost Soul II Chronicles 28:13 (Hopper)
Lost Soul Ezekiel 31:14 (Shuffler) (Ki)
Lost Souls (Two Liner)
Lost Soul II Chronicles 15:4 (*4 Only)
Lost Soul Psalm 1:4 (Site Doubler)
Dominants x8-
Son of God (Greek)
Angel of the Lord (Greek)
Christian Martyr (A)
Burial (B)
Falling Away
Guardian Of Your Souls
New Jerusalem (Wa)
Destruction of Nehushtan
Sites x4-
Damascus (Ap)
Lycaonia
Herod’s Dungeon (Wo)
Samaria (D)
Artifacts x3-
Holy Grail
Unholy Writ
Crown of Thorns
Covenants x1-
Covenant with Moses
Dual Good/Evil x2-
Philosophy
Saul/Paul
Good Characters x10-
Moses (G)
The Strong Angel (Wa)
Benaiah (Wa)
Spy
Ira (Wa)
Captain of the Host (Wa)
Jacob (D)
Simeon (Wa)
Gabriel (Wa)
Widow
Good Enhancements x11-
Book of Jashar
Search ( C)
Coat of Many Colors
Great Faith (Wo)
Reach of Desperation (Wo)
Authority of Christ (Promo)
The Acts of Solomon
Shoes of Peace (F)
Sword of the Spirit (Ki)
Gathering of Angels (Ki)
Freedom!
Evil Characters x7-
King of Tyrus (Wa)
Red Dragon (Wa)
Prince of this World (Wa)
Emperor Nero
Emperor Claudius
King Zimri
Lot’s Wife
Evil Enhancements x2-
Lurking
Torment
As a bonus here is a game Jayden and I played featuring this deck list!
To buy singles, sealed product, and other gaming supplies mentioned, please visit Three Lions Gaming!
