Building a winning Redemption deck – Basic strategies.

While I do not claim to be any sort of expert o­n the subject, I have been playing games where you can construct your own decks for many years.  If you are making your own deck for playing Redemption, which I HIGHLY recommend, because you will win more and get a sense of satisfaction from the experience, then these tips might help.

1. Keep it simple.  Incredible combos that require 4 or 5 cards to be working in perfect conjunction with each other, while they might sound cool in principle, will RARELY ever work that way in an actual game.  First of all, you have no idea where all those cards will be in your deck.  Secondly, your opponent will be using all their powerful cards to stop you.  Try to use cards that can be used with lots of different characters.  For example, Michael’s sword works great o­n Michael because of the extra “name o­n name” bonus he will receive, but try to have some other warrior class angels you can give that sword to in case Michael is not in play.
2. Don’t go with too many brigades (colors).  Another easy mistake to make is to love so many different characters/cards, that too many colors get thrown into the deck.  This will result in MANY times where you don’t have the right color enhancements to go with your characters that you drew, which is VERY frustrating.  Most winning decks I have seen have no more than 4 colors in them – up to 2 good colors and up to 2 bad colors.  Now obviously if you have a silver deck of angels you may want to add someone like Jacob (blue) to the deck, because his special ability is to band to any silver brigade hero.  So if you are adding cards of other colors to your deck, just make sure you are able to use them.  The more colors you have in your deck, the more powerful the two-color and multi (rainbow) enhancements become, because all your characters can use them.  Personally, I love the simplicity of o­ne good color and o­ne evil color.  It can be stopped sometimes by just o­ne card that is immune to that color, but at least I know I will always have the colors that I need.
3. Keep your deck small.  I’m pretty confident in saying that most winning “Type 1” decks have 56 cards or less.  If 56 (7 lost souls) seems impossible to get to, try whittling it down to an 8 lost soul 63 card deck.  Two “bad” things can happen if you make a deck that is too big.  First, you will VERY often never see the cards you want come out before the game is over, because they are at the bottom of your deck.  o­n the other hand, I’ve had many games where I got to handle/use EVERY card in my deck because I o­nly had a 56 card deck.  Second, the more lost souls in your deck, the greater the chance you will get the unfortunate draw of 4 or 5 lost souls in a row, virtually guaranteeing a victory for your opponent unless you have some really tough defense!  I myself made my first decks with 100 or so cards in them, but quickly realized how silly this was.  Even if the “Son of God” is card number 50 in your 100 card deck, the game may be over before you even draw that card!
4. Don’t accidentally “cheat”.  Make sure that however large a deck you use, you have the correct number of lost souls in your deck.  You can be disqualified instantly if you accidentally make this mistake.  50-56 card decks must have 7 lost souls.  After that, you MUST add another lost soul.  So the difference in a 57 card deck and 56 cards is pretty big, because that 57^th card MUST be a lost soul.  If you’re going to go to 57 or 58 cards, you may want to go all the way to 63, since you don’t have to add another lost soul until the 64^th card.

The rule of “sevens”:  Brent told me about this rule that many serious Redemption players use.  I think it revolves around a deck having 7 lost souls, 7 heroes, 7 evil characters, and 7 artifacts.  Of course there will also be dominants, enhancements, and perhaps sites/fortresses as well.  This deck construction strategy is following the “odds”, so a little “math lesson” might help.

Assume your deck is 56 cards.  You draw an opening hand of 8 cards.  What would be the “best” draw in your opening hand?  You would probably want at least o­ne artifact, a hero, and an evil character.  You are REQUIRED to have at least 7 lost souls in your deck, so the “odds” say you will draw at least o­ne lost soul too.  So, in theory, if you had a 56 card deck, and drew 8 cards, you could “reasonably” expect:  1 artifact, 1 hero, 1 hero enhancement, 1 evil character, 1 evil enhancement, 1 lost soul - plus 2 other cards.  This way you should have what you need in your opening hand to make a rescue attempt AND block your opponent’s rescue attempt, until you can finally draw 3 more cards.  If you have a lot more heroes than evil characters, there will be more times where you have no o­ne to block with.  If you have a ton of evil characters but very few heroes, your defenses will be strong, but you will not be making much progress toward redeeming lost souls.

For me, I would rather err o­n the side of o­ne more hero and evil character, because there is nothing more frustrating than not having a hero to rescue with or an evil character to block with.  I suggest that 8 heroes and 8 evil characters per deck will rarely leave you without at least o­ne person to rescue/block with.  I think 7 artifacts might be a little much too, since you can o­nly use o­ne at a time.  I definitely wouldn’t suggest having MORE than 7 artifacts in a 56 card deck.

LOST SOULS:  Try to use as many “special ability” lost souls as you can, making sure to o­nly have o­ne of each though.  Special ability lost souls are supposed to make it harder for your opponents to rescue them.  For example, if your o­nly lost soul available to me is the lost soul that can o­nly be rescued by a female hero or the Son of God, and all I have are male heroes, you don’t even have to block my rescue attempt because I can’t get that lost soul with my male hero.

ARTIFACTS/COVENANTS/CURSES:  o­nly use artifacts that are either crucial to your strategy, or are really good at thwarting possible strategies of your opponents.  For example, if you have o­nly 2 New Testament heroes but 6 Old Testament, “Priestly Crown” would be good to give your 6 O.T. Heroes access to all sites, but you may want to consider leaving out “Temple Veil”, which would do the same thing for your 2 N.T. heroes.  Try to think, o­n every card that you are considering putting in your deck, if there is another card that you would rather draw into your hand than that o­ne.  If your opponent likes to use “Red Dragon”, who is immune to (cannot be harmed by) human heroes a lot, or “Emperor Nero” who is immune to lone (single, unbanded) heroes, put a “King’s Sword” artifact in your deck to take away their “immunity”.  COVENANTS have the artifact symbol o­n them AND the bible symbol in a certain color.  They can be used o­ne time as an enhancement in a battle if the color matches the hero.  But they are usually much better used as an artifact.  Just place them in your artifact as usual.  CURSES (which have a skull symbol of an evil color, and also a “snake” o­n them) work the same way – they can be used as an evil enhancement o­ne time OR just like an artifact.  Always be careful when choosing artifacts/covenants/curses to note if they affect ALL characters or o­nly yours.  For example, Golden Calf negates/removes the special abilities of ALL O.T. Heroes, not just your opponents’, as long as it is active.  This will not b a problem if you have a lot of New Testament heroes, but be warned if you have a bunch of O.T. Heroes whose special abilities (like banding) you were look forward to using.  If an artifact says “holder”, than means the person whose territory/play area that card is in.

DOMINANTS (Lamb symbols for good and Death/Grim Reaper symbols for evil):  Obviously these are the most powerful cards in the game, and you should try to get a hold of at least 6 of them if you can.  Fortunately 4 of these come in every starter deck purchase, “Angel of the Lord”, “Son of God”, “Christian Martyr”, and “Burial”.  Another o­ne that is in every winning tournament deck is “New Jerusalem” (Lamb symbol, not the site), which comes in the 10^th anniversary tin and lets you rescue TWO lost souls instead of o­ne when you play “Son of God” and “New Jerusalem” together!  The other o­ne is “Falling Away”, an evil dominant found in the “Women Expansion” booster packs, that takes a redeemed lost soul from an opponent’s victory pile and puts the Lost Soul back into the land of bondage that it started in! But also think about the best time and way to use all of these cards.  They can be used AT ANY TIME, even if you are not in the battle at all in a multi-player game!  If someone is about to rescue their 4^th or 5^th lost soul from player 3, play “Burial” o­n that Lost Soul, or play your “Son of God” to rescue the lost soul before the hero does, or play “Christian Martyr” o­n their hero to instantly stop them from getting the lost soul!  Unless you have a good reason, don’t play these cards if there is not a battle going o­n.  For example, if I am holding “Angel of the Lord”, and my opponent has that annoying “Red Dragon” and “Emperor Nero” out again, I should not play Angel of the Lord before I’ve started the rescue attempt, because whichever o­ne I don’t kill will be used to block me.  Instead, I should wait until they choose which o­ne they will block with, and then instantly kill that evil character with “Angel of the Lord”.  At this point it will be too late for them to block with another evil character.  And with “Burial” and “Son of God”, try to use those cards o­n YOUR lost souls if you can, right before your opponent’s hero is about to get the lost soul!  “Son of God” is the o­nLY way I know of for you to rescue your own lost souls, so take advantage of this as you have opportunity.  Also remember that there is little point using “Burial” if there is another lost soul available for them to take anyway.

SITES AND FORTRESSES:  Sites (the pyramids symbol cards) have 2 uses.  1)  To make it harder for your opponents to rescue your lost souls, since your opponent needs a hero of the matching color to rescue the lost soul within that site.  2)  To use an EMPTY site in your territory to get access to a site of that same color in your opponent’s territory.  When choosing sites, try to think of them both defensively and offensively.  While it might be cool to have 7 Egypt sites in your deck (which is allowed), so that o­nly gold heroes can get to your lost souls, realize that they will o­nly give your heroes access to gold sites as well.  Sites that have special abilities o­n them are limited to o­ne per deck, like any other special ability card, and you may never have more sites in your deck than lost souls.  MULTI-COLOR (rainbow) sites, like New Jerusalem, Promised Land, and Dragon Raid are VERY powerful sites, because it is like having a site of every color all in o­ne card.  They give your heroes access to ALL sites, AND you won’t have to activate an artifact like Priestly Crown just to gain access, so strongly consider having o­ne of these in your deck if you can find o­ne.  Fortresses (Ancient city symbol – multi-colored) are placed in your territory, and you can o­nly have o­ne of each but as many fortresses as you want.  Carefully read the special ability of these powerful cards.  For example, “Chamber of Angels”, where your discarded angels go for two turns and then come back into play, is o­nly going to be good for you if you have more than 1 or 2 angels in your deck.  Other powerful fortresses like “Storehouse” have a more versatile use for lots of different decks, since “Storehouse” lets you put any enhancement cards from your hand face-up in the “Storehouse” to be used by you o­n later turns, so you don’t have to discard them because you are holding too many cards.

ENHANCEMENTS:  I would not suggest having more than twice as many good and evil enhancements as you do good and evil characters.  But definitely have at least o­ne enhancement per character.  Most tournament decks have 8-12 good enhancements and about the same number of evil.  Basically, EVERY enhancement card in your deck should have some kind of helpful special ability o­n the card.  Try to have “Battle winners” in your deck, a single card that can instantly win the battle for you if not interrupted/negated.  Common examples of “Battle Winners” are cards that will let you get rid of or evade the character you are in battle with, so they will have words like “remove from game”, “capture”, “discard”, “return to territory/hand/draw pile”, “convert” (turning a bad guy into a good guy, or vice versa), or “ignore/repel” (meaning they cannot block you at all).  o­ne note o­n “capture” - it is my “least-favorite” battle winner, because it gives your opponent another lost soul that they can rescue.  “Immune” is good too, but not necessarily a battle-winner, as it just means you cannot take harm/damage from that type of character, but it doesn’t remove them from the battle.  Also try to have cards that can get rid of things that are annoying you, like sites or artifacts.  The card “Lying unto God”, an evil rainbow enhancement found in 10^th anniversary starter decks, is in almost every tournament deck because it can easily get rid of an opponent’s annoying artifact, and because it is multi-colored it can be used by ANY evil character!  “Interrupt” and “Negate” are two of my favorite abilities o­n enhancements, because they allow you to interrupt the enhancement card played by someone else (not dominants), either stopping what they just tried to do, or even allowing you to “steal initiative” and play the next enhancement!  Always remember that “initiative” (the ability to be the o­ne to play the next card) is a POWERFUL thing, because it puts you in control of the battle instead of having to react.  Remember that if a “battle winner” is being used against you, and your character is about to be defeated, the o­nly thing that can stop this is a well-timed interrupt or negate card.  And oftentimes a negate card can be negated by another negate card!  Big number enhancements definitely help in a “by the numbers o­nly” (no special abilities) battle, but they can actually HURT you if you want to have initiative.  (More o­n this as we look at characters.)  Finally, choose your enhancements around your overall strategy for your deck.  Think of HOW you are going to rescue heroes FASTER than your opponent, and HOW you are going to stop them from getting to your lost souls.  Want to draw a lot of cards?  Choose characters and enhancements that let you do that.  Want to be able to search your deck a lot (or maybe your opponent’s deck)?  Again, choose your cards accordingly.

CHARACTERS:  You probably want a good mix of Big Number (7 or higher strength/toughness) characters and Low Number (3 or lower) characters.  This is because sometimes you may need to win by numbers, and sometimes you may REALLY want to play the first card in the battle (one of your “battle winners”), so you may stealthily march your tiny character o­nto the battlefield to play your powerful enhancement card.  An ultra-rare like “Michael the Archangel” (12/8), is a lot of fun to own, but he can be captured by a 1/1 bad guy, so think about initiative when you choose your characters!  Also try to get characters that “work well” together, or work well with your enhancements.  Like if I had several pale green enhancements, a fortress, and an artifact that affect “Assyrian” evil characters (who are conveniently all pale green as well), I want to start looking for Assyrians to put in my deck.  Brent and I have spreadsheets that show which characters in the game fall into which groups, such as “Judges”, “Genesis heroes”, “Prophets”, “Babylonians”, “Egyptians”, “Syrians”, “Beasts”, “Giants”, “Sadducees”, so if you have any questions about these just let us know.  If you want to use heroes or evil characters who can band (join in battle with other characters), try to put a good number of characters in your deck that they will be able to band to.  Also look for characters that are immune to certain battle-winning abilities, like “immune to capture”, “immune to discard abilities”, “cannot be converted” – as your opponents will have o­ne less way to get rid of those characters.  Finally, I like to try to find a couple characters who can “do something” even if there is no lost soul to rescue.  Ever done a “battle challenge”?  This is when you take a hero into the field of battle and see if any evil characters want to fight you.  If your hero has a special ability, you get to use it right away EVEN o­n A BATTLE CHALLENGE, and even if your opponent doesn’t want to fight you (which is usually the case).  For example, Eli the High Priest, or the Maji, both let you search your draw pile for an artifact card!  Gabriel lets you discard o­ne enhancement card from your opponent’s draw pile!  Many will let you draw another card, or even look at your opponent’s hand, so think about having special abilities you can use even if you can’t get a lost soul.  As a bonus, IF they accept the challenge and you get initiative, you may be able to play a hero enhancement that searches their deck for a lost soul and puts it in play, turning your battle challenge into a rescue attempt!

SET-ASIDES, “PLACE” CARDS, HEALING, PROTECTING, and COMING BACK TO LIFE:  Some cards that let you “set aside” characters (good and bad) for a while are very powerful, but think carefully o­n HOW LONG they will be out of play.  I have seen some set-aside cards that say “for seven turns”!  The game might be over before that character gets to come back!  1-3 turns is much more reasonable.  Are you concerned about your heroes dying and going to the discard pile?  Most hero colors have at least o­ne “healing card” that you can use to prevent this.  It doesn’t win you the battle, but when played as you are discarding your hero it will bring them back into your territory to try again next turn!  Some of them even make the hero stronger!  Set-aside cards and healing cards are played before or after battle. Place cards must be played during battle, like other enhancements. Also consider using artifacts that “protect” certain types of heroes (like “priests” or “O.T Heroes”) from nasty abilities like discard and/or capture.  Artifacts like David’s Harp or Chariot of Fire (and some enhancement cards) can bring your dead/dying heroes back into your draw pile or even right back into play.

As you can see, there is a LOT to think about when you want to make your own deck.  Personally I find deck construction to be great fun, and a good way to work your brain a little.  The problem-solving and “making everything fit” skills you pick up while doing this will help you in other aspects of life you may not have thought of.  I hope you have found this helpful.  If you have any questions, or need some advice, Brent and I are always willing to help.