MN District Tournament Report with Winning Deck Overview
On Saturday March 14th the Minnesota playgroup gathered together in Joe Andrigetti’s basement to have a district tournament. At 9:30 after an opening prayer Type 1 began with six players and ended after four rounds. In this article each of the top three deck’s pilots will be giving a short overview of their decks and I will be going over how each of my rounds went for me.
Overview of Top 3 Decks
1st Place: Maxwell’s Daniel Green Black
https://redemptionccg.app/decklist/db0f53ec-ce37-4d96-95c3-331bbafa6ea5
Here’s an overview of my deck that won the tournament:
Leading up to this tournament I had no idea what to play, Joshua felt sorta weak and that was what I had played all last season so it was time for me to find a new deck. Daniel seemed promising so I started there, making a Daniel list to go with a black demon defense that I used in the final version of the deck. I chose to use Daniel the Apocalyptist as he counters many meta defensive threats and is also really good at making sure that Mesach goes through. This deck felt good but two of the hero slots seemed lacking due to not really doing very much. Namely Shadrach (PoC) and the bounce servants of the king as they were hard to fit in the band and weren't doing a whole lot for the deck. I saw Tyler’s Daniel list with Joshua in reserve with Captain of the Host and the Lord’s Army in main deck but by the time you got the Joshua stuff out of reserve you had pretty much won the game by that point. Jayden and Tyler had also posted different versions of Green Daniel decks so I thought I’d make my own. Ezekiel and the watchmen fit in great already as the Watchman can get to Daniel and Ezekiel helps put more pressure on the opponent in addition to Meshach and Daniel. The two cherubim fit in very well along with Deborah and Zechariah.
The reserve has Elijah to put on the end of the prophets chain of the Michael double band to choose one of the Canaanites you previously gave to the opponent to black, with Daniel negating it. Abed-nego fit in well to help against soul hide, and due to the little soul gen in the deck Imprisoned Prophet fit in well also and his artifact underdeck is valuable also. The rebuking emissary was there to help against the Babylonian matchup, and to use with Christian martyr as a sneaky offensive dom. (Which doesn’t work the way I thought it would)
The defense is a black goodstuff with some demons like Prince of the Air, Prince of Greece, and King of Tyrus as they are very good. Denarius and Emperor Claudius are in there to help with speed. Originally I had Pontius Pilate in here to hopefully stop Daniel bands but as BaboonyTim pointed out the band will be protected due to Daniel. the Treasured, or Pilate will be negated by Daniel, the Apocalyptist, so that was cut.
Changes I would make to the deck after the tournament would be to cut temple guard from reserve as it was never able to be used (for the Goliath, Tenants combo), and the Rebuking Emissary as this will be a dead card unless I’m playing against babylonians. These will be replaced with Fire Foxes and Foreseen by Samuel, as a RoP enhancement felt very needed as the most common block against this deck was Foreign Wives, and Deborah/Women of Thebez being able to grab another chump block isn’t bad.
Thanks so much to Tyler and Jayden helping to get this deck to the point it is at. I am planning to keep playing this deck and make it better so there may be some updates coming soon.
2nd Place: Joe’s Daniel Persians
https://redemptionccg.app/decklist/e6e97368-956e-44e9-937f-230b8b0d35c6\
Here’s what Joe said about his deck after the tournament: “Pretty standard Daniel deck with the plan being to first turn block with Papa Ahasuerus and play confusion to ideally snipe SoG. In general I feel like I just need more practice with the offense as it wasn't consistent enough for me but I think some of that is probably just me not being experienced with it. Once I play it more I'll have more thoughts on how to fix it.
Obvious inclusions I need but didn't have the cards for are Daniel's prayer, Cast Into Lion's Den, Reap the Whirlwind, "Hunter" Lost Soul, and Daniel's Guardian. I think the offense might need an Angel of the Lord and maybe go away from the dom restrict to include a small book of the covenant package or maybe just You Will remain.
Defense felt decent and got some blocks every game. I only managed to pull off the confusion cheese one game but felt like it was always an option just wouldn't quite work for one reason or another. Good brown stuff felt good though. Not sure it is top tier but still solid.”
3rd Place: Nehem Joshua Thieves-Abom
https://redemptionccg.app/decklist/c2c6b8fe-dae5-4399-8aa9-17716e4e9a0a
Here’s what Nehemiah had to say about his deck: “I personally think that it is a really solid deck but I have a few changes I’d like to do. First, I’d cut The Trumpeting Priests because it did not come in handy. Second I’d cut Crumbled from a Shout for Fire Foxes because Crumbled from a Shout also didn’t come in handy. Emptying the tombs is an attempt to keep my heroes around when they die, as this deck doesn’t have many easy ways to do that. I plan to most likely play this deck at the next tournament hoping for about the same results but hopefully better.”
Overview of my Rounds
Round 1
First round I was paired with Joe Andrigetti who as previously stated played a Daniel Perisans deck. He won the die roll and chose to go second. I had no hero in my hand but I had drawn a Denarius so I could hopefully grab something. After souls and stars I played Denarius, grabbed Claudius and drew three, including a prosperity but no heroes! I discarded for prosperity and finally drew a hero! The game was very back and forth from there on with a critical mistake on my part where I didn’t under deck Joe’s scattered with the First Sacrifice in favor of confusion. I realized as I was making my attack that that was a wrong choice so I was forced to attack with a lone Daniel. He blocked with the Deceiver which went to the reserve to get Outsiders (Brown/Crimson) which activated Abomination of Desolation from reserve to discard my lone Daniel. I almost stabilized by getting a large band with Elijah choosing the blocker but we were already at the last round. It was tied 4-4 going into Joe’s last attack with both of us having played our Dominants and he had the cross active so there was no dom interaction. He banded to my offense in addition to his Daniel band with Zechariah protection, and lost souls protected by Abed-Nego. Notably I had crowds so his Meshach wasn’t working which was very important for the block. I blocked with the Deceiver and exchanged to the Women of Thebes to grab Gibeonite Trickery from reserve. He happened to have foreign wives in territory so I played Gib Trick and ended the battle as a stalemate to end the game 4-4.
Round 2
Next I was paired up with Nathan Voigt who was playing a 100 card red purple kings deck with an evil kings of Judah Defense. He chose to go first with no souls, while I had Humble. On his turn he activated Golden Calf and attacked with Women with Child to take Crowd’s Choice from deck. I blocked with Emperor Claudius and the battle went to stalemate. Nathan then played Crowd’s Choice for Son of God to rescue my Humble before passing the turn. On my turn I has an Angelic Guidance to set up but his Golden Calf was negating it so I wasn’t able to set up as I would have liked. My attack was a small Daniel band attempting to draw my Humble or Hopper, but I whiffed and he chose not to block. On his next turn he attacked and made another soul sometime in the next few turns. During that time I was able to get set up with my full band and some Canaanites in his territory to choose with Elijah. The game ended a 5-3 win.
Round 3
In round 3 I was paired with Bill Voigt who was playing a white clay O.T. draw offense that tried to leverage offensive doms with a brown defense. I went second and he attacked with a lone Aaron from Israel’s Rebellion to grab tablets of the Law. I was able to block with Judean Mediums and Prince of the air to win the battle easily. On my turn I got almost a perfect set up and got a large band and made the soul. Next turn he drew, activated tablets of the law and passed the turn. The game continued in this fashion for a few turns until I won 5-0. After the game Bill said that he didn’t draw a single hero other than Aaron from turn one. This happened with 13 heroes in the deck and in addition to that his hand was clogged with good dominates. This was a very unlucky draw for him and with my defense and all his dominates he would have gotten at least a couple souls if he had drawn a hero.
Round 4
Last round I was in first place with two wins and a tie, Joe was in second with two wins and a tie behind by two or three souls due to differential, and my younger brother Nehemiah was in third with two wins and a loss. I was paired with my younger brother Nehemiah. He was playing a Joshua Thieves deck with the plunderbomb defense. Nehemiah went first and I had a scattered sheep star to underdeck his Joshua. On his turn he attacked with Captain of the Host banded to a Joshua hero, I’m not quite sure which. I was able to block with Judean mediums to King of Tyrus to get the block. Next turn I attacked with some version of my offensive band and made a rescue. While looking at his hand with Ezekiel I saw he had gotten a bad defensive hand which is why I was able to make the first rescue easily. Over the game Nehemiah played very well except for missing a block by using my own Adoni-Bezek against me to grab his foreign wives from reserve. The game ended as a 5-3 win for me therefore winning me the tournament. In the end I got first in the tournament, Joe got second place after he beat Bill in the last round and Nehemiah got third place.
For those wondering why Jayen and Justin are not in the top three is because Jayden was not feeling too great, and Justin did not want to play as his playing would have caused someone to have a bye. Thanks so much for reading! Keep an eye out for more of these tournament reports as I will be doing one for all the tournaments I go to this season leading up to Nationals in Kentucky.
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