Do you know which Redemption Hero is based on an ‘80s rock song, or which classic Redemption card had a song written about it?
Welcome to the Mirror of Galadriel, a series in which we explore things that were, things that are, and things that yet may be.
Things That Were: Chenaniah
The musicians theme was first introduced with some cards in the Priests set back in 2006. A couple years later, it was decided that the theme needed a signature Hero to make it more powerful and unique. The chosen character to fill this role was Chenaniah.
To some, Chenaniah may have been a surprising choice to serve as the “main character” of the theme. After all, he is an extremely obscure biblical figure, only mentioned in a couple verses among many other names.
However, if like my dad you were a fan of the Christian rock band Petra, Chenaniah was a natural choice and not so unknown. That’s because in their 1987 album This Means War! Petra released a song called “Kenaniah” about the biblical singer.
My dad introduced the song to me when the Chenaniah card was first designed. To this day, I can’t see the card without the song beginning to play in my head.
There are actually several Redemption cards that trigger songs in my head.
For example, some Angel Wars cards (especially the original version of Chamber of Angels) remind me of Switchfoot’s “Dare You to Move” because that song plays during the depicted Angel Wars scene.
Speaking of angels, the various versions of Entertaining Angels remind me of the Newsboys song of the same title.
(Editor's note, also don't forget about "Cornelius"!)
And annoyingly, Susanna sometimes gets “Oh! Susanna” stuck in my head.
But most of all, Harvest Time has always made me think of “Harvest Time” by Endless Worship. You probably aren’t familiar with this song, because it is from a one-off worship album that my dad and uncle made back in 2003. “Harvest Time” is a song my dad wrote for the album, inspired in part by the card.
As far as I know, this is the only song ever written based on a Redemption card.
Are there any cards that trigger songs in your head?
Things That Are: State of the Musicians Theme
Musicians are currently far from being a top-tier theme. This is unsurprising when you consider that they have not been fully featured as a theme in any of the rotation sets. We usually get only one or two musicians in a set, and often these Heroes are designed in other brigades or with other themes in mind.
Chenaniah was finally reprinted in Roots, although compared to the power level of typical modern designs he is now less exciting. He can be included in a casual musicians deck, but he is not strong enough to serve as the foundation of a competitive build. He’s even been slightly nerfed from his original version, because his band ability now specifies O.T. and white.
The O.T. restriction stops him from banding to the best musician in the game, Music Leader. However, this is not a big deal, because Music Leader is best left in your territory anyway. Music Leader is actually the main reason that musician decks have ever seen much play in competitive tournaments.
More significant is the brigade restriction. In rotation, there are only 11 distinct white musicians (including Chenaniah). But there are also 9 distinct green musicians – nearly as many as white, despite white being the theme’s official brigade.
It was my realization of this large number of green musicians that inspired me to post this custom Hero on Discord a few weeks ago:
But in all seriousness, musicians need a boost.
My friend Michael Leung has always liked the musicians theme and recently lamented that Musicians’ Chambers is no longer legal.
Perhaps a more powerful new version of this classic fortress will be designed soon. It might be included in Roots 2, for instance. I could even see it as an option for a promo card someday.
Regardless, it’s inevitable that the musicians theme will eventually receive some new tools.
Things That Yet May Be: Lord of the Rings
Last time, for Hobbit Day, I challenged readers to design cards based on the Lord of the Rings.
Tyler Stevens (Mr.Hiatus) quickly came up with an awesome design:
Rings of Power is the craziest card anyone has designed for one of my article prompts. As Tyler himself said, this card breaks multiple design rules. For instance, the strength and toughness numbers are greater than 7 and 6. The enhancement is multibrigade, which is no longer supposed to be part of the game. And most wild of all, only 20 copies of the card would be printed. If the serialized foil Dominants are selling for $200, imagine what this enhancement would go for if only 20 of the lone printing were made.
This is a very thematic design. The significance of the number 20 (both in the total strength/toughness and in the number of copies printed) is that there are 20 rings of power in Tolkein’s lore. And with so few copies of the card in circulation, they would be precious indeed. Equipping one of these enhancements to your warrior would make it very powerful. I think Benaiah would make a great ringbearer, for instance. And imagine the fun of discarding your characters to transfer the ring to others. You could even switch between your Heroes and Evil Characters, allowing you to use it in every battle. This of course represents the struggles, murders, and wars which were fought over the rings, with humans feeling an especially strong desire to take and claim them.
Thanks Tyler!
Bingaling4243 also sent in a fun concept (I built the cards from his ideas):
The Shire is a Fortress that can generate food tokens to heal your Heroes and draw cards. I assume that this was inspired by the food tokens in MTG, which were the main strategy of the hobbits in that game’s LotR set. If so, I think the concept has been translated very well. Redemption has never had token Artifacts because you can only activate a single Artifact; thus, having a Fortress that can hold multiple Artifact tokens is a perfect way to introduce the concept.
If you get The Shire going early enough in the game, you could generate a staggering number of food tokens. Of course, the full potential of this design would be unlocked if more cards were designed that tied into the food token strategy, such as other cards that create them, hold them, or spend them for various rewards. I think design concepts like this have been underexplored in Redemption.
Thanks for the fun idea!
Card Creation Prompt
If you would like to create one or more cards for the next article, the challenge this time is to design a card with the title of a song.
The songs can be religious or secular, but either way the cards you make from them should be biblical. Here are some examples to help you get started:
Please submit any cards you make to me (Ear-A-Corn on Discord) by the end of Friday, 10/17.
I hope you enjoyed this article. Thanks for reading!
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