After the local CA tournament last weekend, several of us stuck around to play some Paragon multiplayer using the collection of decks I have put together. I ran Deborah, new player Josh tried Phinehas, and BaboonyTim played Joseph, but Scott Kramer piloted this Esther deck to victory.

Esther

Esther's Paragon ability rewards using queen Heroes and Persians. This of course makes the Hadassah Hero particularly useful.

Hadassah (Esther) (Roots)

In our game, Scott went last. Before he even took his first turn, he had already made two successful blocks and drawn extra cards from Lost Soul rewards. Unfortunately for the rest of us, this resulted in him getting to play Hadassah, Darius' Decree, and a Persian king all on his first turn.

Darius' Decree [T2C]

Unsurprisingly, this propelled Scott to an early lead. Everyone else's characters, both good and evil, were negated. Hadassah's territory class ability shut down discard abilities (including everyone's Christian Martyrs), and Esther's Paragon ability protected Lost Souls (which was particularly effective against my Moabites and Josh's Israel's Rebellion).

Israel's Rebellion

After a couple rounds, I was able to deactivate Darius' Decree using my Idol of Chemosh. I sat to Scott's left, so from then on we only had to deal with Darius' Decree on Scott's turns. Idol of Chemosh is extremely helpful when you have three opponents, as that's 3x the Dominants played.

Idol of Chemosh

Eventually, Tim managed to capture Hadasah (with Stocks IIRC). He immediately played Son of God to rescue the captured Hadasah so that Scott could never get her back.

There were actually many capture abilities used throughout the game (most courtesy of Tim's Egyptians). Several times, players chose to rescue captured Heroes instead of regular Lost Souls. This was a smart move, because both Tim's Joseph deck and my Deborah deck included The Rebuking Emissary.

The Rebuking Emissary

The table worked together to remove Hadassah, Darius' Decree, and all the Persian kings, which slowed down Scott enough to give the rest of us a chance to catch up. It looked for a while like Josh would pull off the win, but in the end Scott was victorious anyway. Even with Hadassah gone, Scott had several fall-back Hero options. Dreamers was CBN, so it worked even with Darius' Decree active. Abigail (another queen) could take enhancements from deck, and King Lemuel could take them from discard pile.

Other fun multiplayer moments in the game included:

  • Josh using Korah's Rebellion to band to a table full of Evil Characters

Korah's Rebellion [IR]

  • Scott terrorizing Tim with The Prince of Persia, because Tim had both Storehouse and Joseph's House, protecting all the blue cards in his hand and his territory from the "instead" option

The Prince of Persia [T2C]

  • Me discarding 3 Evil Characters and 3 Artifacts with Furnace of God's Wrath

Furnace of God’s Wrath (Roots)

  • Josh playing a late-game Forty Years to underdeck about twenty characters

Forty Years

Have you tried the Paragon format yet?

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