Welcome to the Mirror of Galadriel, a series in which we explore things that were, things that are, and things that yet may be.
In each installment, I share an interesting tidbit from playtesting years ago, connect it to something cool and current in the game, and provide a prompt for creating a custom card as an idea for the future. If you like to create cards, send one in to be featured in the next article.
Today I will share a deck that started as a joke but ended up inspiring a new theme that remains popular to this day.
Things That Were: The Disciples Before the Disciples Set
Long time players of Redemption know that the disciples were first made into a cohesive theme in the set of the same name, which released in 2010. These purple disciples were powerful and immediately popular.
But what you probably don’t know is that my dad only decided to design that theme and that set because I first spent the previous tournament season (2008-2009) trying to make a thematic disciples deck work with the cards we already had.
At that time, Type 2 2-Player was my main category. My Type 2 decks were always optimized to be competitive. Type 1, on the other hand, was much more casual for me. I would often create a deck based on an unusual gimmick or a thematic group of underused characters.
My pre-disciples disciple deck was probably the most extreme example of this. It was basically a meme deck, though I was not familiar with that terminology at the time. Why was the deck such a joke? To answer that, you only have to look at the heroes I had to work with. The 12 disciples were spread across 6 different brigades, and half of them didn’t even have a special ability!
The most useful brigade was purple due to the banding and prevention of the starter deck sons of Zebedee, but there were only 2 of them.
The other brigade with 2 disciples was blue. This included Thomas, the best disciple in the game at the time. But he required a lot of blue enhancements to reach his potential, and that was difficult in a deck divided between so many brigades.
There were 3 disciples in red. The only red disciple that even had a special ability was Peter, and this ability was almost never helpful.
There were also 3 disciples in green. They were worse than red, because first strike is even less useful than potentially being released from capture.
Finally there were Thaddaeus and Matthias alone in white and gold, respectively. Both were useless cards, so I did not include them in any version of the deck. I never included more than 4 good brigades (purple, blue, red, and green).
As discussed at length in my previous article, this was an era in which decks needed to run at least one female hero to avoid being locked out of the female-only Lost Soul. To commit to the theme, I added Martha, yet another hero without a special ability. She was the obvious choice because she allowed me to play the original version of Hospitality of Martha. You wouldn’t believe how many rescue attempts I won using this terrible enhancement.
Hospitality of Martha may have resulted in the most hilarious rescues, but the National promos Authority of Christ and Walking on Water were the best enhancements in the deck. Both of these were powerful and thematically appropriate.
Preaching the Truth was another helpful enhancement because all of my heroes could use it.
The enhancement Ordained as a Disciple was what first inspired me to try making a disciples deck. Ironically, I did not end up including it in the deck. The ability was way too niche to be playable. Against most defenses, the card would do absolutely nothing. I could get away with playing bad heroes, but my enhancements needed to be able to win battles (even if only in specific circumstances, like Martha having to be the one to use Hospitality of Martha).
I eventually decided to remove all the blue cards. It felt bad to cut 2 more disciples, but the deck functioned much better with only purple, red, and green. It was then that I added one hero for power over theme. This was Ethiopian Treasurer (though I suppose as a contemporary of the disciples he wasn’t terribly unthematic). I added him because I needed a third purple hero, and he was too good to pass up in a deck that had AoC. Thus, my final hero lineup was the following:
Because my offense was divided between a few brigades, I had to include more good enhancements than normal, leaving less space for evil. I tried various defenses over the season, but I can’t remember now which one I settled on in the end. I think it was either crimson (so that I could run Judas Iscariot for theme) or pale green (because it was my favorite evil brigade). Regardless, I do know that it was a monobrigade defense, because that was essential with the prevalence of Garden Tomb decks.
As expected, the deck did not do particularly well throughout the season. It won some games, and certainly caused some laughs, but it wasn’t winning tournaments. There were a lot of great players in our California playgroup, and after the first time I used the deck it was no longer a surprise to them.
That’s why I was shocked when the deck fared so well at Nationals. This was Nationals 2009, the only time in Redemption history that it was held here in California. I entered Type 1 with this deck, hoping to get some laughs out of players from around the country. But to my surprise, I went undefeated for my first 3 or 4 games.
Suddenly I was at the top table playing against Gabe Isbell, my deck severely outmatched by his. Gabe won that game and went on to win the entire category. But I will never forget the look of confusion (and maybe a bit of fear) on his face when I played red Philip and green Simon the Zealot. Remember, we were at the top table after several games, so he had to assume these heroes were part of some combo play that he had never seen before.
After Gabe ended my winning streak, I still went on to win most of my remaining games. Why was my meme deck so successful that day? I think it was a combination of four reasons:
- Great enhancements: At the time, there weren’t many excellent enhancements in each brigade. Although my heroes were terrible, including 3 different good brigades allowed me to use the best few enhancements in purple, red, and green.
- Taking advantage of opponent’s Garden Tomb: Garden Tomb decks saw some play in our local playgroup, but they were ridiculously popular at Nationals 2009. If memory serves, at least half of my opponents had Garden Tomb offenses. I did not include The Garden Tomb in my deck, but any time my opponent played the fortress my Peter and John could take advantage of its ability. In some games I got more use out of my opponent’s Garden Tomb than they did.
- Element of surprise: At Nationals, my opponents had no idea what to expect. Looking at my heroes mostly just caused them confusion. They seemed equally surprised when I would play a powerful enhancement like AoC as when I would play Hospitality of Martha.
- Lots of practice: Although the deck was not meant to be competitive, I had played it a lot over the season and knew it well. I had picked up on all its strengths and weaknesses, and knew how best to deal with various situations using the limited tools I had.
This deck is a fun memory for me, but it is also how I convinced my dad to make disciples a real theme. The rest is history. A little over a year later, everyone was trying disciple decks. But of course, these looked very different.
Things That Are: Brigades and their Themes
There were several reasons why disciples were made purple when first introduced as a cohesive theme:
- James and John, the existing purple disciples, were the best ones in terms of abilities, art, and availability.
- Purple did not yet have a N.T. theme.
- Purple represents leadership in Redemption, and the disciples were leaders.
- There was no way Authority of Christ was going to be reprinted in a different brigade.
Thinking back on the introduction of the disciples theme caused me to think about all the themes in Redemption today and about the brigades to which they belong. I think the following theme lists are complete, so let me know if I forgot anything.
| BLUE | GREEN | GOLD | PURPLE | WHITE | CLAY | SILVER |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis | Prophets | Joshua | Royalty | Musicians | Priests | Angels |
| Job | Judges | Mighty Men | Exodus/Wilderness | Church | ||
| Postexilics | Disciples | Ruth | ||||
| Luke | Daniel | |||||
| Nativity | ||||||
| Empty Tomb | ||||||
| Revelation Humans | ||||||
| Miscellaneous |
| BLACK | BROWN | CRIMSON | GREY | ORANGE | PALE GREEN | T.B.D. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canaanites | Job | Animals | Sabbath Breakers | Demons | Antediluvians | Herods |
| Philistines | Wilderness | Edomites | Evil Priests | Egyptians | ||
| Greeks | Israel | Babylonians | False Prophets | Assyrians | ||
| Sadducees | Judah | Thieves | Moabites | Magicians | ||
| Persians | Heretics | Syrians | ||||
| Misc. O.T. | Misc. N.T. | Romans | ||||
| Pharisees |
The first thing that you may notice about these lists is that the themes appear unevenly distributed across the brigades. This is true to some extent, but it is not nearly as severe as it looks. This is because some themes have several subthemes. For example, blue Genesis has antediluvians, flood survivors, patriarchs, and sons of Jacob. Themes drastically vary in size, as well.
If any brigade has too many themes, it is probably white. This is because ever since biblical themes first began to be assigned to brigades, white has been the catch-all for miscellaneous heroes and for themes like Ruth or the Empty Tomb that feature “regular people” (not royals, prophets, priests, warriors, etc.). White is the color of a blank canvas, so it was chosen to represent the heroes of more humble origin that don’t fall into the more flashy categories. But that has resulted in it encompassing many more different themes than any other good brigade.
But what I find most interesting about these lists is that blue and brown are the only brigades that don’t have themes for both testaments. Blue and brown only have O.T. themes. I think it would be nice for each to have a N.T. theme, even if it is a smaller one (like how pale green only has a handful of N.T. magicians).
For brown, one possibility would be to make Herods brown now. Herods are the only theme that has not been assigned a new brigade since red, teal, and evil gold were retired. Herods remain a strong defense, so they do not need to be reprinted soon. But when they eventually are, it could be nice for them to be in brown. This also makes sense because they ruled as royals over the Jews, thematically similar to the kings of Judah that we already have in brown.
Finding a N.T. theme for blue is tricker because all the existing good themes already have a home. A new theme would have to be created. Ideally it would be something that includes characters from both the Gospels and the later books, because otherwise it would just be a subset of an existing theme. The first idea I had was “authors,” as in anyone who wrote a book of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, and Jude). But that’s not a great option, because the theme would be too small, and all of these heroes belong in clay already. Besides, John and Peter have plenty of identifiers as it is.
A better option would be to make good Romans blue. This would include Gospels characters in addition to the church characters, and thus would not be a subset of clay.
Thanks to what Jesus said about the Centurion at Capernaum, there could even be card or two that enable mixing Romans with the blue Genesis theme.
It could be neat to design this theme with new versions of cards like Roman Citizenship, which was previously red and now doesn’t have a good brigade to call home. I think there is great potential for fun, thematic enhancements for good Romans.
Do you think blue Romans would be a good addition to the game? Is there a different N.T. theme you would like to see created instead? Or are blue and brown just fine without any N.T. characters?
Things That Yet May Be: Lost Soul
Last week, I challenged readers to design a new Lost Soul.
BaboonyTim created a Lost Soul called “Hard-Hearted” with a transform ability, like his Jezebel design.
This card definitely captures the idea of people hardening their hearts against God. The use of a transform ability is once again very cool. This mechanic has lots of potential. But my favorite part of the design is the art. The way the people just continue to eat and drink in the face of God’s judgement is quite funny, even though what it represents is tragic in real life. That said, I think the ability is a bit too strong. I’d be afraid to print a Lost Soul that every deck has to negate in order to rescue. Maybe this design would be perfect if it were harder to flip, or if there were some costly way for a rescuing player to flip it back.
This is a fun, clever creation. Thanks for sending it in, Tim!
I decided to create a Lost Soul of the Angel Wars character “Armstrong” as an update to the classic “Anti-Burial” Lost Soul that originally depicted her concept art.
As an homage to the original card, the new ability protects Lost Souls from Burial. But because Burial is now rarely played, it also protects angels from evil dominants. And because the original card only worked after being rescued, I also added an “if rescued” effect to the new design. The effect is to search for an angel warrior –appropriate for a card from Angel Wars. Bascially this custom card would be an N.T. alternative to the “Complacent” soul for angel decks.
Card Creation Prompt
If you would like to create a card for the next article, this week’s challenge is to design a blue card for a potential Roman theme, or even multiple cards if you wish. Your creations do not have to work well with my examples in this article; feel free to take the hypothetical theme in whatever direction you like. Please submit any cards you make to me (Ear-A-Corn on Discord) by the end of Friday, 9/12.
If you have never made a custom card before, I encourage you to check out Daniel the Creator’s Redemption Card Designer. The tool is fun and easy to use.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Next time I will reveal two new good brigades that were once considered to be added to the game.
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