2015 Tournaments won:
- MN State T2 MP
- Iowa State T2 MP
- North Central Regionals T2 MP
- Nationals T2 MP
100 cards
Good: 38
Dominants
Son of God
New Jerusalem
Angel of the Lord
Guardian of Your Souls
Grapes of Wrath
The Holy Spirit
Forts
Wall of Protection
Herod’s Temple
Heroes
Simon the Zealot
Matthew (Di) x2
James son of Alphaeus (Di) x2
Thaddeus (Di) x2
John (I)
Thomas (Di)
Philip (Di)
Bartholomew (Di)
Peter (TEC)
Matthias (TEC) x2
Reassuring Angels (TEC) x2
Good Enhancements/Covenants
Passover Hymn x2
Preaching at Pentecost x2
Peace (TEC) x2
Self-Control
Faithfulness (TEC)
Reach of Desperation (Wo) x2
My Lord and My God x3
The New Covenant
Evil: 38
Dominants
Burial
Christian Martyr
Falling Away
Vain Philosophy
Destruction of Nehushtan
Evil Characters
Simon the Magician (TEC)
King Manasseh (Di)
Damsel with Spirit of Divination (TexP)
Egyptian Magicians
Astrologers (TexP)
Elymas the Sorcerer (TEC)
User of Curious Arts (TexP)
Balaam (Di)
The Rabshakeh
Assyrian Siege Army
Women as Snares
Messenger of Satan (TEC) x3
King of Tyrus (Pr)
Evil Enhancements
Lurking
King’s Pomp
Scattered
Invoking Terror x2
Divination (TexP) x4
Forgotten History x4
Two Thousand Horses x2
Death of Unrighteous x2
Neutral: 24
Artifacts
Golden Cherubim
Lampstand of the Sanctuary
Holy Grail
Blue Tassels
Altar of Ahaz
Sites
Dragon Raid
Caesarea Philippi
Fortress of Antonia
DAE
Gamaliel’s Speech x2
Lost Souls
Female LS x2
Hand d/c LS x2
Shut Door LS x2
Wanderer LS x2
Revealer LS x2
Retribution LS x2
Site Remove LS x2
Deck Summary
This deck was incredibly fun to play this past season. I ran it in a few locals and district tournaments early in the season and really had it fine-tuned by the time the big tournaments came around. There’s nothing wrong with building a deck the week (or sometimes night) before a big tournament, but for me I like to have a feel for how the deck generally draws and that was definitely the case with this one.
I’ll start with the offense. I believe what makes the offense so successful was its versatility. Compared to a standard disciples offense, this one was not fast. There was no Four Drachma Coin, Pentecost or Fishing Boat and I only included two Reach of Desperation. Instead of speed, I wanted versatility.
The Hero selection was fairly standard for disciples but the Enhancements allowed me to attack in a variety of ways. By using Peace, all my other good Enhancements (particularly Preaching at Pentecost and Passover Hymn) could be used in multiple ways. Throughout the tournaments I played in, every Enhancement in the deck was used both for its original ability and as a tossed Enhancement at some point or another.
I decided against using Authority of Christ Promo because I felt that many times my Hero with Peace would go unblocked so there was no need to wipe out defenses. One change I think I might make is to swap out a Matthias for another Reassuring Angels to increase my chances of drawing one in my opening hand. Otherwise the offense proved to be extremely effective and I never felt like any card was useless.
Self-Control and Simon the Zealot gave me two hand protection options and those worked extremely well for protecting against Mayhem, Vain Philosophy and Sorrow of Mary.
The New Covenant was added for Nationals after seeing Roman decks (with Romans Destroy Jerusalem) at Regionals. It probably should have been in there before, but since I had Peter for healing and Blue Tassels for capture protection, I thought I could get by. Ironically, at Nationals I didn’t see a single Romans defense.
The defense was centered around Divinations and the Fortress of Antonia/Messenger of Satan combo. These combos essentially allowed me to pick and choose what I would draw so that I could get to the cards I needed for each situation. Ironically during the National tournament, I never effectively used the FoA/MoS combo, but the Divinations were absolutely vital to my success by setting up my next turn draw or getting through my deck to reach Son of God in the final game.
King’s Pomp was an addition for Nationals as I wanted as much hand protection as I could get. It also had the added benefit of stopping The Garden Tomb and Reuben’s Torn Clothes, both of which made appearances. Since I only had two kings, I didn’t often have all the pieces, but it was really the third option after Self-Control and Simon the Zealot so I wasn’t too worried about drawing it or not. With the new set now legal, I am going to be very tempted to cut the Assyrians and Women as Snares to add the new Magicians—The Judean Mediums and Wizard.
Lastly the neutral cards—I’ve already mentioned Blue Tassels, which proved to be a strong play all year with so many Writs and Magic Charms being used. Between that and Herod’s Temple, my Heroes with Peace felt pretty invincible in battle.
Golden Cherubim was vital as no one was running Nazareth’s or Hezekiah’s Signet Rings, and I won my second round game because of having Golden Cherubim active when another player decided his only chance to win was to draw as much as he could. Lampstand of the Sanctuary is pretty standard for any deck with a Temple and Holy Grail is always good.
Altar of Ahaz was a last minute add for Nationals (replacing The Bronze Laver). One of the problems with my defense is that once it’s set up, no one would attack me so I theorized that I could take advantage of that with Altar of Ahaz in late game situations. As it turns out, it didn’t really work as I often did not draw my own Son of God/New Jerusalem until late in the game, and the only time I activated it, it got hit by an Assyrian Siege Army almost immediately. It’s likely going to be cut to add in a Four Drachma Coin.
I decided to use Dragon Raid instead of Hoppers, which is probably a bit debatable. I hate running into FBTN Lost Souls and having my Hoppers be dead cards so I gambled a bit with Lost Soul gen.
Overall I was very pleased with the deck’s performance all year. I had one bad round at Nationals where nothing came together and I only ended up with one Lost Soul in a time out loss, but two full wins and another time out loss gave me enough points to finish first at Nationals.
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