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CHARACTER SELECTION
When building a deck, it is
important to include useful characters. Few things are as
frustrating as not being able to use a character you have in your
territory. Let's examine what makes a character useable.
Heroes
There are 3 limiting Lost Souls
in Redemption. In a classic 56-card deck, this often means:
1 female hero only
1 N.T. hero only
1 */4 or greater hero only
4 with no limit
Top players will often bury one no limit LS, and rescue 2 no limit LSs
with Son of God and New Jerusalem.
This only leaves 1 no-limit lost soul. The other 3 lost souls must be
rescued by certain heroes.
There are some heroes who can rescue ANY lost soul. These are N.T. female
heroes with at least a 4 for defense.
Here are some "super" heroes:
Elizabeth
Lydia
Claudia
Mary Magdalene
Martha
Euodia
Mary
Anna
Mary of Bethany
Peter's Mother-In-law
Philip's Daughters
Priscilla
Syntyche
Abraham (though he must start as Abram)
In a Type 1: 2-player game, if
your opponent has only 7 Lost Souls in his or her deck, and buries one,
and rescues two others with Son of God and New Jerusalem, that leaves only
4 left for you to rescue. Assuming you rescue two of your own Lost
Souls with Son of God and New Jerusalem, that means you have to rescue 3
of your opponent's Lost Souls to win. Three of your opponent's 4
remaining lost souls probably have restrictions: rescue by a female hero,
rescue by a N.T. hero, and rescue by a hero with defense */4 or greater. To get the three you need, you could
rescue two of the restricted souls and the one unrestricted lost
soul, but that might require waiting until your opponent has drawn every
lost soul in the deck.
In order to remain fairly
active on the hero side, try to include at least 3 female heroes, at least 3 N.T. heroes,
and at least 3 heroes with toughness of */4 or greater in your deck. N.T. female heroes
with toughness of */4 or greater are especially
useful. There is an evil character that is immune to female heroes,
and one immune to N.T. heroes, but they are rather easily defeated.
It is clearly worth including characters that can rescue any lost soul.
Here are the percentage of lost
souls (not counting the */4 lost soul) that can be rescued by a hero
meeting certain requirements:
Female N.T. heroes: 100%
N.T. male
heroes: 86%
O.T. female
heroes: 86%
O.T. male
heroes: 71%
This is based on 7 available
Lost Souls. Of course, if your opponent is using a deck with more
Lost Souls, these percentages will increase. However, the
percentages decrease with every Burial, Son of God, and New Jerusalem
played on a regular lost soul. Overall, it is a fairly good
estimation of the amount of rescue attempts that can be started with such
a character.
Evil Characters
Note: this section does not
account for King characters
Having a super-powerful evil
character that you can't block with is worse than having a weak evil
character you can use. Here are the evil characters can be prevented
from blocking:
Abilities of */8 or higher -
Widow keeps the 34 evil characters with high defense from
blocking. Many many more can be prevented from blocking in Type 2
because of experience credit. Most of these characters can block if
Crown of Thorns is activated, but that is the only option aside from
loading a deck with mostly small to medium-sized characters. The
main problem with using several small characters, of course, is a
by-the-numbers deck. My favorite strategy: the emperors (except
Claudius). They are good on offense, which will likely produce
mutual destruction against by-the-numbers heroes, but are weak enough on
defense to be able to block Widow. Another reason the emperors are
alright is if your opponent converts one of yours, you have a hero with 10
for offense!
Royal Family - King
David keeps the 25 evil characters who are members of a royal
family from blocking. He does a good job shutting down the Emperors
and many brown brigade evil characters. Don't include more than a
couple such evil characters in your deck.
Demons - Three Nails
keeps the 23 demons from blocking. Many of those characters
are very powerful. Because it is an artifact, Three Nails can be
combined with a hero with "ignore" or "can't be blocked
by" ability to prevent many characters from blocking. Don't
rely on all demons.
Females - Eve prevents
the 20 female evil characters from blocking. It is advisable
to include a couple female evil characters so that Women as Snares doesn't
destroy your deck, but having all female ECs in your deck would be a
disaster against Eve.
Gold Brigade - Miriam
prevents the 20 gold brigade evil characters from blocking.
If you play Gold for evil, it is wise to include another brigade as well,
or at minimum a few artifacts to stop her (Unholy Writ, Priestly Breastplate, and
Thirty Pieces of Silver.)
Pharisees and Sadducees - Nicodemus
prevents 10 characters from entering battle. That is a small
group, but they include some of the main "initiative" characters for
black and gray.
Beasts - Crossbeams of
the Cross prevents the 6 beasts from entering battle. Three
Nails keeps all of them out, too. Don't build a beast-intensive
deck. Don't include more than a couple in a deck.
Giants - Caleb prevents
the 5 giants from blocking. That isn't very many characters,
but they are widely used. Unless Crown of Thorns is activated, Widow
prevents most giants from blocking, too.
Egyptians - Jochebed and
Journey to Egypt both ignore all 5 Egyptians. Add Miriam to
that and you have 3 brigades that have a way to keep all Egyptians from
blocking. Drowning of Pharaoh's Army gives yet another brigade a way
to defeat Egyptians. If you are going to build an Egyptian deck,
include Priestly Breastplate and Thirty Pieces of Silver at minimum.
Consider using another brigade in addition to Gold.
Specific evil characters -
Lot's Wife, Lahmi, Saph, Nabal, and other characters can be discarded in
territory or prevented from entering battle by certain heroes.
Who can I rely on using?
Male non-demon evil characters
whose defense is 7 or less, who are neither giants, Pharisees, Sadducees,
Egyptians, nor part of a royal family.
I hear you thinking. You
are thinking "But the evil characters that are left are weak and don't have
spectacular special abilities!" The answer: That is the
point. With great power comes the chance you won't get to use
it. Less spectacular evil characters are at least more
reliable. There are a few gems to be discovered among those reliable
evil guys: The Serpent, Chief Captain Lysias, Hermogenes, Cain, Korah, Leper,
Abimelech. Notice a trend? Most of these come from the
Patriarchs set. Not super powerful, but super reliable, and worth
including in a deck.
If you have any suggestions for
improving these comments, please let me know.
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