Wow, what a Nationals! If I counted correctly, this was my 18th Nationals and was definitely one to remember!
As has been shared by many, many others, kicking off Nationals on Wednesday night with the worship service was incredible. The worship team did an amazing job and Luke’s message was such a blessing – I know it touched a lot of people in that room including myself. The Elder address and Q&A session was also a great addition and I hope that can continue to be part of the kickoff night going forward. As someone who has served on the Elder team in the past, I know how much work goes into all the different aspects of the game from card design, card testing, graphic design, rule discussions and updates, tournament documents updates and so much more that often goes unnoticed. Huge shoutout to the tournament hosts Jonesy, Hendrix, Stephen and Jayden and a huge shoutout to the Elder team!
The 3rd annual Redemption fantasy draft was also great and I was especially blessed to win the drawing for the box of Times to Come right before the draft started. The draft was entertaining for sure and I’m glad so many people stuck around to support their fellow players and cheer for them when they got drafted to a team. For the third year in a row, I was drafted to Team Hendrix (the two-time reigning champion) so I was definitely excited to try for the three-peat. Kinda crazy to think we squeezed all that in on Wednesday night, but let’s jump into the gameplay!
Type 2
https://redemptionccg.app/decklist/b852b361-e64e-4ea0-bb0b-2c15096c6221
Thursday was Booster and T2 2P – after a 3rd place finish at Nats last year, I was hoping to have a shot at picking up my first T2 2P title since 2016. While I had not been able to play a ton of T2 games this past season, I had been using the same deck so I was very familiar with it and I knew it had the potential to do well. The offense had undergone several iterations throughout the season so I wasn’t quite as confident on that side, but the defense I knew was solid and could take control of a game very quickly if I had the right cards early on.
Round 1 vs Maxwell G.
Maxwell was one of my two losses at the T2 Only tournament so he knew what my deck was trying to do and what he needed to do to try and stop it. I wasn’t sure what deck he would be using, but I knew if he played the same deck from T2 Only it would be a tough match-up for me. As it turns out, he was using a different deck – a T2 version of the T1 deck he had been testing (and doing well with). However, being his first ever game at his first ever Nationals, I think he was a bit nervous and ended up making a misplay or two, and combining that with a good draw on my part, I ended up with a very solid 7-2 victory.
Round 2 vs Jayden A.
As it so happened, my other loss at the T2 Only tournament was to Jayden…somewhat annoying to drive all the way to Nationals only to play two people from my own group in the first two rounds…not to mention probably the two people other than myself who were most familiar with the deck I was using. 🙃 Fortunately, I also knew right away which deck Jayden was using so there were some early decision points for both of us that were not “optimal” plays, but plays we knew we needed to make in order to stop the other person from getting their strategy rolling. Unfortunately for me, Jayden was able to stop me from pulling off my combo and was able to get his strategy rolling a bit quicker and I took a 7-3 defeat.
Round 3 vs Joseph R.
Finally got to play someone who wasn’t in my playgroup…woohoo! However, I had played Joe at last year’s Nationals in T2 and he won that match-up so I knew this still wouldn’t be an easy game. I did have the advantage of knowing (most likely) what deck Joe was playing and I was fairly certain he didn’t know my deck’s strategy. He started off quickly with a strong attack with his purple warriors deck, but I was able to disrupt his plan just enough to keep him from pulling ahead and on a later attack I pretty much wiped out his entire board, which led to a 7-2 victory.
Round 4 vs Tyler S.
I believe this was the 20th anniversary of the first Nats T2 game between Tyler and I (2006 in New York). I’m pretty sure I won that first game, but since then we have had some amazing games at many tournaments and multiple categories over the years. Tyler had an early Meshach that stopped me from getting rolling, but his attacks were not super strong aside from the Meshach. Unfortunately for me, the Meshach was just enough as I could not find a way to protect my deck. I finally drew a Crowds LS but then Tyler had a Wanderer LS to swap for it. Towards the end of the game, I finally got my defense rolling which helped my offense also break through his defense, but it was too little, too late though I managed to keep him from getting the last soul and I managed to get the 6-3 time out loss to still get one point from the matchup.
Round 5 vs Tim E.
I was a bit surprised that I had to play Tim right after losing a match, but it just goes to show how tough the T2 field was this year. This game was probably the craziest of all my T2 matches as Tim activated 3 Nails not once, not twice, but three times to reset the game. However, in all 3 instances, he either redrew into very little offense and/or I drew plenty of defense. He made one misplay after one of the 3 Nails resets that definitely could have impacted the outcome, but in the end I was able to close it out with a 7-4 victory.
Round 6 vs Stephen B.
Sitting at 10 points, I knew I wasn’t in the lead, but I was pretty sure that with a win I would be in a good position to make top 3 and potentially even win if a few other games went the way I needed them to. Unfortunately the game got off to a tough start for me as I drew pretty much zero defense. Stephen also did not have much defense and I was able to use 20 Shekels to play out ECs from his hand before reserving them with Zaccheus. The key moment of the game was a turn where I used 20 Shekels to play Suicidal Swine Stampede from his hand as an EC (with him having no other ECs in hand or in play). I then made the same rescue with Zaccheus to reserve SSS and pick up a free LS. However, what I should have done was choose SSS to block and then used Amazing Faith in order to get Crowd’s Choice from my which could have jumpstarted my defense. Unfortunately I missed that line and Stephen built up enough offense that by the time my defense finally showed up, he had enough good enhancements to deal with it. We had one especially crazy battle where I think four or five enhancements were played on both sides and then later after I finally did have Crowd’s Choice in hand, I misplayed it and got no value from the card I searched for. This led to a 7-5 defeat. To make it sting a little more, if I had gotten the full win, I would have jumped all the way from 6th place into 1st place because of how the rest of the games played out. Even a time out win would have let me sneak into 3rd place, but it wasn’t meant to be and I just had to tell myself that sometimes it goes like that and I just needed to be a little sharper for Type 1 on Friday.
Deck Analysis
My deck was primarily about the defense and having a way to set up a turn 1 play of Pride of Lions to put as many lion ECs into battle as possible (including 3 copies of Negev Lions). This would draw me up to 9 cards and force my opponent to discard 3 good cards from hand on turn 1, and then I could use the hand control elements of both the offense and the defense to keep my opponent from picking up momentum. Because the deck was so reliant on getting an early Pride of Lions play, the opponents who knew what I was trying to do (Maxwell, Jayden and to some extent Tyler), would be able to make things a bit trickier and it definitely affected the games that I lost. I don’t think Stephen knew what I was using on defense (until later in the game), but because I did not have the cards I needed right away, he was able to build up resources and had just enough enhancements to stop me when I finally was able to play Pride of Lions. The offense did not have a specific strategy other than trying to take advantage of the opponent being low on resources for both good and evil. One of the strongest aspects of the Lions defense is their ability to discard ECs in the opponent's territory making it much easier for my offense to break through. In the games I won, my opponents typically had no ECs left to block my final rescue. Overall I was very happy with the deck as it was a ton of fun to play and I’m disappointed that it will take a huge hit in power with the new T2 deck building rules as having all 4 copies of Negev Lions was fairly critical. I may do some tweaking and see if I still think it can be effective, but it’s also very possible I’ll work on something completely new with the updated rules in place.
Type 1
https://redemptionccg.app/decklist/437250ac-0828-476c-bcc3-e0fb01f28069
Friday was the main event, T1 2 player! I knew I needed to be a little sharper than I had been for Type 2 so I was just telling myself to stay focused and trust my instincts with each play. I was using my Brown Tower deck, which had been doing well for me for the past several months in both live games and online games. However, one thing that became clear at a few in person tournaments late in the season (Iowa state and North Central Regionals) was that I needed to be quicker with my decision making in order to give myself as many turns as possible before time was up. The longer games go in terms of number of turns, the greater the advantage for the deck with 14 dominants. Let’s jump into the game recaps!
Round 1 vs Neeka P.
This game got off to a very slow start as neither of us drew any Lost Souls for the first 3 turns or so. Despite having numerous ways to get to my Harvest Time, none of them were showing up. We passed back and forth until finally I drew a Lost Soul. Neeka made a rescue but I was able to block and draw a few extra cards in the process. On her 4th or 5th turn, she started drawing Lost Souls and despite not making my first rescue attempt until there was less than 30 minutes remaining in the game, I had all the offense I needed to make successful rescues on three turns in a row. Neeka play Chariot of Fire to rescue one of her prophets and then a turn later I used Son of God and Second Coming to get the 5-1 win. Neeka then revealed she was playing a “Books of the Bible” deck – where the 56 cards in her deck and 10 cards in her Reserve were each from a different book of the Bible. Definitely the most creative deck I faced all day!
Round 2 vs Jonathan G.
I had played Gomez in a practice game on Thursday night after Type 2 to show him Brown Tower while he used a deck that he wasn’t planning to use for Type 1, but wanted to do some testing. Unfortunately for him, the test game the night before ended up being a lot closer than this game as I was able to thwart his early Daniel Heroes band with a Scattered and then pick apart his hand with Teaching in Parables and Twenty Shekels giving him no good blocking options. At one point he had a Michael/Daniel band which I stopped with Reap the Whirlwind, so he put the Heroes on top of his deck using Michael’s ability. On my turn, I used Begging to Go Back to mill his top two cards so that Michael and Daniel would not come back. As it turns out, this allowed him to draw into Son of God to pick up his only Lost Soul before I finished with another 5-1 win.
Round 3 vs Maxwell G.
Maxwell is one of the people who has played against Brown Tower several times in person with mixed results. He got off to a fairly quick start with his Joshua/Black deck, but I was able to keep him from getting too far ahead. On an early rescue attempt I pushed with a lone Gold Hero. Maxwell thought for a moment and decided to use Prince of the Air to block and draw two, and then underdecked his own Prince so that I would not have initiative. I knew he assumed I had an Amazing Faith in hand, but I actually did not at that point, and his Prince could have underdecked my Hero for a successful block. Instead I basically got a free Lost Soul. Unfortunately for me, my offense after that point was a bit too slow to set up and he drew into enough defensive options later on to stop most of my attacks. The game became a defensive battle and in the end, I had to settle for a 4-3 time out victory with the difference being that “free” rescue against Prince of the Air.
Round 4 vs Marc V.
This would be my first 100 vs 100 matchup. Marc got off to a bit of a quick start with his GoC good stuff/Herods deck, but my defense held strong and I ended up pulling very far ahead in card advantage during the mid-game. He was unable to find anything to get his offense going, and I methodically worked through the limited defense he had drawn and pulled off a 5-3 win.
Round 5 vs Jeremy C.
This would be another 100 vs 100 match-up but I had no idea what Jeremy was running. During the opening draw, he used the star ability on Moses, Friend of God to redraw a few cards, and then had both of the “underdeck 1 to draw 1” Lost Souls so I knew he was digging for something, but still wasn’t sure what. His first turn was a very “GoC good stuff” opening, getting Heroes out, drawing a few extra cards, but I still wasn’t sure exactly what he was up to. I made a rescue and he used Tubal-Cain to activate Tribute in order to give Goliath to my territory. This immediately set off alarm bells in my head. On his next turn, his plan was revealed – he used Angel of the Winds to go to Ruth to choose Goliath and then presented Defender of the Saints which exchanged for Jeremiah and revealed his Reserve which held all the pieces for the Disciples of the Lamb combo. I knew I was in trouble, but I fortunately remembered my triggers for Sheol. Jeremy had Disoriented LS which was negating my Unknown Nation and Complacent LS which was stopping me from interacting with Dominants. However, his two searches allowed me to use Sheol to underdeck those Lost Souls. I then used Unknown Nation to add The Depraved to battle which I decided to use to draw 5 cards (not knowing that I could have used it to Reserve Jeremiah and Jeremy had nothing to stop that). The 5 cards drew me into Second Coming, which I then used to find Crowd’s Choice which I then used to find Christian Martyr and stop Jeremiah. Phew. On my turn, I used 20 Shekels to bounce Goliath and put him back in Jeremy’s hand. I then rescued knowing Jeremy didn’t really have a block but I used an Amazing Faith and triggered his Dull LS. He took Foreign Wives with it, which I really should not have been worried about, but I decided to use Son of God anyway to rescue Dull LS. However, I then realized my error as Jeremy handed over Vindicated LS which meant I would not have the ability to use Dominants during his next attack. Sure enough he found another Tribute to give me Goliath and again used Ruth to choose Goliath, and then presented The Victorious Being to grab Jeremiah out of the discard pile. Not having the ability to use dominants, my only option was to use Sheol to add Haman to battle and negate Jeremiah. If Jeremy had found a way to another Defender of the Saints, he probably ends up winning with the combo (though it’s possible I might have tried adding The Depraved (instead of Haman) and reserving Jeremiah, and thus forcing him to have a way to negate. After stopping the combo twice, I was able to rescue on my next turn without much resistance for a 5-3 victory.
Round 6 vs Tim E.
This would prove to be my third straight 100 vs 100 matchup, and I knew it was going to be tough as Tim is definitely one of the most experienced (if not the most) player using 100 card decks. Although he had played a variety of different versions, I felt pretty comfortable assuming he would be on the Nativity/Herods version as that seemed to be his go to deck. I was indeed correct, but both of us began with very little offense and the game quickly became a defensive slugfest with neither offense really getting much going. I couldn’t get initiative to play my Amazing Faith against the smaller Herod characters and Tim was having trouble dealing with my large Persian banding chain as he was relying mainly on his Nativity banding backed up by the star ability on Flight to Egypt. In the end, he was able to pull off one more successful rescue and I took my first loss with a 3-2 timeout loss.
Round 7 vs Roman S.
Roman won the die roll and decided to go first. Using the star ability on Emmaus Road, I saw his hand and knew that I was going to get hit with a turn 1 Matthew attack. I did have a way to get Crowds LS into play, but he also had 3 Woes in hand, but I decided to still get Crowds LS so that it would force him to use the 3 Woes before attacking. He went to attack, got to Matthew and I revealed my hand allowing him to draw 6. He then started to play another card when I realized that he hadn’t actually used 3 Woes and my hand was protected. Unfortunately for him, he had not recognized the Crowds LS (he was used to seeing the gold border version, not the foil version) and didn’t realize he needed to negate it. Because I had seen his hand and knew the exact 8 cards he started with, we agreed that the draw 6 was a repairable game state and he put them back. I easily blocked Matthew and then on my turn activated Holy of Holies and attacked with Jaddua. Roman had The Deceiver but Jaddua’s protection would stop him from exchanging. He also had Prince of the Air, but knew I had an Amazing Faith and he wouldn’t actually get a block with Prince. His offense never got going after the misplay with Matthew and my Jaddua essentially walked in for three free rescues before I then found Son of God and Second Coming for a 5-0 victory.
Round 8 vs Jayden A.
Of anyone who has played against me using Brown Tower, Jayden has probably had the most success. He was very familiar with the lines of play that were most effective and he knew what the deck was capable of. Before the round started, we seriously discussed taking an intentional draw so that we would both remain near the top of the standings. In the end, we decided to play it out. Jayden went first and had Obed, a meek Hero, and Daniel. He attacked with Daniel and I blocked with Haman, which allowed me to grab Haman’s Plot from my deck. He played Faith Unbowed to withdraw Haman, but I had Mask of Arrogance to interrupt, draw 3 and then play Haman’s Plot to take out his 3 Heroes. With a wry smile, Jayden said “I’ll take the intentional draw now” as he knew that it was going to be very difficult to come back from that first turn blowout. Although I had a clear advantage the rest of the way, Jayden kept finding effective blocks, including a crazy sequence of Woman of Thebez chump blocking, getting 3 Woes played to negate her and then Jayden using Grapes of Wrath to stop me. In the end I was finally able to break through with a 5-2 victory.
Round 9 vs Luke M.
My understanding is that out of the 72 people playing, 6 were playing 100 card decks (including myself). My match-up with Luke would be my fourth 100 vs 100 matchup and because Luke and his brother Nic were playing the same list, I essentially played all the other 100 card decks in the field. Luke got to go first and had a way to turn one Matthew. For a moment I considered using my Second Coming to find 3 Woes and negate his Patmos (which had grabbed Matthew) but I only had 3 total brigades in my hand and I decided that Matthew drawing three would be unlikely to be very devastating. I was able to block Matthew, and then on Luke’s next turn he went with Mary the Restored while holding The Resurrection. Unfortunately for him, he decided to wait on playing The Resurrection and I just used Christian Martyr on Mary to avoid blocking and giving him a free search. I was able to pick apart his Herods defense without a ton of resistance and ended up with a 5-2 victory.
Round 10 vs Jake A.
I knew I was in the top spot going into the final round so a win would give me my first Type 1 2 player title. However, I knew that Jake was a tough player and this would not be an easy matchup. Jake was playing one of the offenses (Joshua) that had given my defense trouble plenty of times because of its ability to take out key cards from the opponent’s hand before attacking. I started off the game pretty well and had quite a bit of offense. On what ended up being the key turn of the game, I had seen Jake’s hand the turn before and hadn’t seen anything too scary, but he had drawn three new cards on his turn that I didn’t know about. Unfortunately for me, two of those three cards were The Deceiver and Prince of the Air. I went with a solo Hero (holding an Amazing Faith in hand) but he proceeded to go with Deceiver to Judean Mediums from Reserve and then banded in Prince of the Air to draw 2 and underdeck 5 of my cards, which sent me back to the stone age as they say. My offense never recovered and Jake methodically picked apart my defense with the Joshua hand control cards. I kept making rescues and blocks to try and salvage a timeout loss, which I thought would still allow me to win the tournament, but Jake’s attacks were ultimately too strong and I lost 5-1. As I stood up wondering if I had just missed my shot at the title, Brian Jones walked over with a grim look on his face… “Did I lose first?” I asked, expecting the worst. He gave a wry smile and said “You got it. Jayden and Tim tied so you held on to first.” I was stunned…it was a truly surreal moment.
I have won quite a few National titles, but this one was definitely one of the most special because of the amount of hard work I put in during the months leading up to Nationals – playing practice games, playing in person, playing online, trying different versions of the offense, making small adjustments after each game or tournament, constantly evaluating which cards were not getting enough value (which is extra difficult in a 100 card deck where you don’t see many of your cards from game to game). And then to grind through 10 rounds against some of the best players in the game, I just couldn’t be more thankful to have pulled it off. Many people were surprised to learn this was my first Type 1 2 player title, but in the early years of my Nationals attendance, I had exclusively played Type 2 2 player which had always been held on the same day as Type 1.
T1 Deck Analysis
I’m going to refrain from doing a detailed analysis of Brown Tower and perhaps save that for another article or maybe a deck review with one of the content creators. Or maybe I’ll just hang onto the secrets a bit longer as the deck might show up at a Type 2 tournament…who knows!?! I will say, it was an incredibly fun deck to play because of all the different options it could give me, particularly on defense. I’m still not sure the offense was perfectly optimized, but it was definitely strong enough to break through opponents’ defenses often enough. If anyone has specific questions though, feel free to hit me up on Discord and I’ll be happy to share my thoughts.
Teams
For the final day of Nationals, I played TEAMS with my brother Jayden (you may have heard of him, he’s done okay at Nationals). The day got off to a bit of a tough start as a celebratory drink of Mountain Dew late on Friday night kept me awake for nearly the entire night and I got a very short two hours of sleep going into Saturday…yikes. When I opened the Bible app on my phone, the verse for the day was Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity” – perfect, I have a brother as a teammate and playing TEAMS on two hours of sleep definitely qualifies as a “time of adversity.”
Round 1 vs Chad F. and Aidan R.
Jayden went first and pretty much drew half his deck on his first turn. We were able to put a lot of pressure on Chad and Aidan’s defense though their soul hide strategy did give us some issues. Jayden was able to pull off a pre-block Impartial Judgement though which cleared their hands of what defense they had, and then a timely Harvest LS created a token LS for us to get the full 5-3 win.
Round 2 vs Mitch S. and Emmanuel E.
Jayden went first again and once again had a crazy fast start with the Disciples offense. Mitch was the second player and had a turn 1 Priest of Zeus which definitely kept me from getting a quick start as well. However, neither Mitch nor Emmanuel had much going with their offense and we were able to keep the pressure on their defense. With some guidance from Jayden, I was able to use a series of dominants to play out a Lost Soul from Mitch’s deck and then rescue it for the 5-2 victory.
Round 3 vs Jake A. and Maxwell G.
This game reminded me of the scene from the movie of The Fast and the Furious where Paul Walker’s character used his turbo a bit too quickly… Maxwell and Jake had a pretty quick start, but they used their Son of God/Second Coming very early and it allowed Jayden and I to take advantage of our Lost Soul abilities at key moments without fear of them being negated. Maxwell and Jake were both using Joshua in hopes of taking advantage of the “double Promised Land” but Jayden and I were able to maintain hand protection throughout the game and eventually got through for the 5-3 victory.
Round 4 vs Marc V. and Antony V.
It was so cool to see a father/son team at Nationals…while still a young player, Antony played very well and this was by no means an easy matchup. I was fortunate to naturally draw a ton of early dominants which allowed us to be aggressive in our attacks despite Marc and Antony having several troublesome Lost Souls. I believe I used Three Woes, Son of God and Second Coming all in the first round in order to give us an early advantage which we were able to maintain and come away with a 5-3 victory.
Round 5 vs Benjamin H. and Luke H.
After playing a father/son team, it was cool to play another brother/brother team. While I don’t think I had pulled either of the Hull brothers before, I had heard their names from putting up some great results from tournaments in the Northeast region. This was a very back and forth game with momentum going back and forth to both sides. In the final round, being down 4-3, the Hulls decided it would better to hold their Grapes of Wrath for a final block instead of trying to get another rescue attempt. While it was the right move (a timeout loss would have bumped them into second place), Jayden had an Awesome Things to play a battle winner on his meek Hero before the Hulls could use their Grapes of Wrath to thwart our final rescue which gave us the 5-3 win and locked up first place.
Round 6 vs Stephen B. and Mark U.
While we knew we had first place locked up for the tournament, we also knew that Stephen and Mark were tied for first in the RNRS rankings, and keeping them out of the top 3 would improve our chances of placing in the final RNRS rankings. This game was all about dominants…and Stephen and Mark had all of them, very quickly. At one point Stephen had a trigger to search for a dominant with Thomas the Twin, but didn’t have any left in deck to find…however, Jayden and I played about as well as we could have given the situation. I made a final block against Mark using every last card in my hand to keep them at 3 redeemed souls, and then Jayden made a crazy great play against Mark’s attempted chump block, once again using Awesome Things to play a good enhancement to interrupt Mark’s Contagious Fear and bring his Evil Character back into battle where Jayden could then defeat it for our third redeemed soul ending the game in a 3-3 tie.
It was fun to do TEAMS again with Jayden after a few years of us taking a break from playing TEAMS at Nationals. It will also be interesting to see how the changes to the TEAMS rules affect the gameplay and hopefully improve some of the challenges with the gameplay.
Final Thoughts
Once again, this was an amazing National tournament and another huge shoutout to the hosts – Brian, Stephen, John H. and Jayden for doing such an amazing job! Special thanks to Tyler, Joe S., Marcus, Gabe, Rob M. and Chris F. for judging, Chris F. and John E. for doing emcee duties, Rob A. and his daughter Bethany for being there to sell the awesome alternate border Times to Come set, Andy F. and Charles L. as the two main retailers, Kurt H. for running the Paragon side event, Roy C for being the ultimate promoter, Mitch and the rest of the band for leading us in worship and Luke M for bringing an awesome message on Wednesday night. This will truly be a Nationals event I will never forget for a variety of reasons. Hope to see you all next year!
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