Highway

[Minister Polarius]

You really have no room to talk about it being one-sided and boring if you don't have a lurking (assuming that's a reflection of a small cardpool overall). If you don't have all of the good cards and someone else does, it's going to be fairly one-sided. Should we ban all good cards?

[robm]

You really have no room to talk about it being one-sided and boring if you don't have a lurking (assuming that's a reflection of a small cardpool overall). If you don't have all of the good cards and someone else does, it's going to be fairly one-sided. Should we ban all good cards?

YOUR NOT BEING NICE AT ALL!!!

[robm]

And if you would just read the posts. This type of combo is illegal so I did not need to have lurking.

To quote myself.

My point is these combos, Highway specifically, are illegal.

[crustpope]

Both rob and I have been the victims of this combo.  I think there is a misnomer out there that this deck can be contered with a few card additions (Kingdoms of this World -Preists version, darkness, Lurking, Love of money, etc.) the problem is, I revamped my deck, adding all of these cards and still got beat...twice.  And one of the times he got the combo he needed in only 4 turns.  If this deck goes to nats, it will win 80-90% of the time.  and it is devastating.

This is a game changing deck and will likely have to be ruled against much like the infinite side battles decks were ruled against earlier in redemption history.  In the end I guess it is not a bad tribute.  This guy has literally broken the game and there are not that many defenses against it so he will go down in redemption history as the guy who can say..They had to make that rule change because of me.

ANd you guys need to stop picking on rob, because it is easy to play monday morning quarterback not having been through the meat grinder that is this deck.  Rob is not "whining" and he is not being "unsportsmanlike."  he is merely questioning a play and making sure whether it is legal or illegal. 

Pol and Hue need to need to think before they speak.  The idea that adding lurking as a one time stop would somehow destroy this combo is laughable and shows how much you do not know about what you are talking about.  both of you should know better than that.

[robm]

ANd you guys need to stop picking on rob, because it is easy to play monday morning quarterback not having been through the meat grinder that is this deck.  Rob is not "whining" and he is not being "unsportsmanlike."  he is merely questioning a play and making sure whether it is legal or illegal. 

Pol and Hue need to need to think before they speak.  The idea that adding lurking as a one time stop would somehow destroy this combo is laughable and shows how much you do not know about what you are talking about.  both of you should know better than that.

Thanks for backing me up Matt. 

[crustpope]

No problem.  These guys just dont understand.  They are really good guys, they just dont understand what is actually going on and they think t hat since you are a jr member that you must not know how to play....

and they'd be wrong because even nats vetrans like me get eaten in this meat grinder.

[robm]

Yeah that deck just tears you right apart. I may not have been playing as long as them or be as well versed in ways to play the game, but I was still a force to be reckoned with at my first tourney last year.

Beside membership status seems to have to do with the number of post you have up.  I use to play redemption when it first came out.

Back to the topic of highway and cards like it. Perhasp it needs to be a new type of card within enhancement card. Like healing and set asides are special enhancements. Highway could be called a Withdrawal enhancement. A ruling could be that one withdrawal enhancement cannot return another withdrawal enhancement to hand. So that combo could be used five time with five highway, even five more times with stillness but that is about it.

[Mageduckey]

So does the Long Day/Stillness/Jubilee/Long Day/Stillness combo still work, even though the Highway/Band/Highway/Band combo doesn't work?

[The Schaef]

Bottom line.  In playing this game and participating on this message board for many years, I have NEVER seen any ruling that Bryon and Schaef agreed on overturned.  Now that this has happened, any further discussion of allowing Highway / Stillness / Momentum Change cards being allowed to stack is guaranteed to be useless and will only lead to greater frustration.

I think this post is premature.  Rob has ruled this deck legal, and it sounds like other "elders" have done the same in the tournament year.  This is also a ruling that affects current decks, and we're into state-level tournament season now.  I am offering my opinion on what I feel the rule SHOULD be, but I am not in a position to just overturn that or make different rules for "my" tournament based on that.

What I expect will happen is that the current ruling will remain intact at least through the current tournament season.  I plan to take it up with "the elders" and IF the consensus is there's an issue and IF we feel the rule can be applied consistently (this may indeed be a loophole as some have said), only then will a full change be made.  Until then, just take this for what it is: my feeling that this isn't following the spirit of the other ruling.

[crustpope]

That is what I was told and what I thoguht might happen.  Then if this deck is legal, I truly hope it makes it to nats and lays waste to the competition.  It will be real fun to see how many "unsprortsmanlike" threads we see pop up on these boards if that happens.

[robm]

I think I will have to opt for t-1 player in the upcoming upper level tournaments over t2-2player then.

Thanks for the clarification schaef.

Or as some might say If you can't be them join them.

[TheKarazyvicePresidentRR]

Shouldn't protect forts stop this combo? or am I missing a cog?

[Mageduckey]

Robm, if you don't mind, what card was used as the one to discard your deck (obviously piece by piece)?  I've searched the cardlist, and can't find ANY GE's that say to discard from opponent's Draw Pile (other than Mary's Prophetic Act).  Just wondering, as I WAS already in the process of trying to make this type of deck (just for fun, not for tourney play), but couldn't find anything that targeted opponent's draw pile.  Thanks!

[Bryon]

Warrior's Spear?

[robm]

It all happpened so fast, over and over again. I don't know what card it was that discared.  Also don't want to ruin his deck secrets since its still legal and all.

[Gabe]

Warriors Spear from RoA.

[Prof Underwood]

It all happpened so fast, over and over again. I don't know what card it was that discared.  Also don't want to ruin his deck secrets since its still legal and all.

I want to commend Rob.  He got killed by a combo.  Asked whether it was legal.  Got criticized for being unsportsmanlike.  And after all that still is mature enough to not spoil the surprise of the player's deck that killed him.  A lesser man would broadcast it for all to see out of revenge for the beating and criticism that followed.  Keep up the good work Rob.

[MichaelHue]

No problem.  These guys just dont understand.  They are really good guys, they just dont understand what is actually going on and they think t hat since you are a jr member that you must not know how to play....

and they'd be wrong because even nats vetrans like me get eaten in this meat grinder.

I don't care how many posts someone has, if you think that affects my reactions to people.  I was pointing out that saying that discarding someone's deck is unsportsmanlike is not a credible statement.  It is frustrating for the other player, but so is losing in every other way.  If a strategy is within the rules of the game, and is not specifically taking advantage of the rules in an unsportsmanlike manner (i.e. stalling), it's legit.

I said nothing about how to stop this combo, nor did I imply that it wasn't powerful.  Especially in Type II, the point of building your deck is to have a powerful strategy or combo that you exploit, and you try to get your deck up and running before your opponent does.  In the case of a combo deck, if you get your combo out, you have a good chance of winning.  Having a deck that can do this, however, does not make you unbeatable, as luck of the draw comes into play.

In my opinion, the fact that Redemption is a Christian card game should have very little effect on the gameplay itself, and even less on how rulings are handled.  A card/combo is either acceptable according to the rules, or it is not.  You CANNOT ban a strategy just because it is not conducive to fellowship and giving both players a happy ending to the match.  In the end, Redemption is a competitive game.  The "wholesome and fun" aspect of it largely comes from player interaction outside the actions of the game.

This discussion reminds me of playing Cutthroat Caverns at last Nationals.  A certain card called Edge Out!, which basically prevents one player from taking any action for a turn, was played on me early in the game, and from then on everyone played nearly every Edge Out! they drew on me.  If you weren't there at the time, you would think that this was very poor sportsmanship and that I would be completely frustrated, as I was able to do very little for much of the game.  As it was, however, it was actually a lot of fun anyway, because we were playing with a fun group of guys, and even now you'll see some people jokingly "Edge me out."

I also want to make it clear that I did not intend to offend Rob with my comments.  I apologize if I posted something that was hurtful to anyone.

[DaClock]

Both rob and I have been the victims of this combo.  I think there is a misnomer out there that this deck can be contered with a few card additions (Kingdoms of this World -Preists version, darkness, Lurking, Love of money, etc.) the problem is, I revamped my deck, adding all of these cards and still got beat...twice.  And one of the times he got the combo he needed in only 4 turns.  If this deck goes to nats, it will win 80-90% of the time.  and it is devastating.

This is a game changing deck and will likely have to be ruled against much like the infinite side battles decks were ruled against earlier in redemption history.  In the end I guess it is not a bad tribute.  This guy has literally broken the game and there are not that many defenses against it so he will go down in redemption history as the guy who can say..They had to make that rule change because of me.

ANd you guys need to stop picking on rob, because it is easy to play monday morning quarterback not having been through the meat grinder that is this deck.  Rob is not "whining" and he is not being "unsportsmanlike."  he is merely questioning a play and making sure whether it is legal or illegal. 

Pol and Hue need to need to think before they speak.  The idea that adding lurking as a one time stop would somehow destroy this combo is laughable and shows how much you do not know about what you are talking about.  both of you should know better than that.

Tim Maly has said many times in the past that the best decks, in the hands of the best players, will win about 80% of the time. He should know..

FWIW, decks like the ones Emjaybee and Captain Kirk used at nationals last year had some combos that did something similar to this one. They did it all legally, but because the combo was so intricate it was difficult to pull off. The bad-draw aspect of the deck kept them from winning the whole tournament. I haven't played against the deck in question so I can't speak for it. However, I don't think that overly-complex intricate-combo decks are going to be the ones competing for the top spots at nationals in the foreseeable future. It's easier to win with "quick" combos like pre-block ignore, CTB, cannot be negated combos, etc.

[Scottie_ffgamer]

First off I wanna say that somewhere in the blury spots in my far memory, I remember there being discussions very close to this that all ended with something like "...well, this combo is so hard to get off, it doesn't win consistently, so we shouldn't worry too much about it..."

Second, I agree.  This combo absolutely stinks to have done on you.  It's really hard to still have a good time when you lose your whole deck in one turn and have absolutely nothing to do about it.  However...(refer to above)

Third, if that many people REALLY DO think that this is a big problem, I would say, to make this combo unplayable and still have consistent rulings, the easiest thing to would be to say that no withdraw/pick up enhan could pick up another withdraw/pick up enhan EVER.  No matter what the brigades, same or diff, or who they were played on.  However, I believe the quote that Gabe gave was something pretty similar to this or at least with the same outcome (but it seemed like everyone besides Bryon realized it).

Lastly, let's all remember why we play this game.  For me, tournaments are the best.  I've lost 4 games in a row in a tournament, all somewhere between 7-0 and 7-3, and still, though being a little disappointed in my deck, had an amazing time.  Just remember that this game, tho being a competitive game, is all about the purpose of fellowship and fun with other Christians.  I normally wouldn't bring this up...but this thread really seemed to have A LOT more bickering than discussion.   Let's just remember why we play and why we love it, ok?

[EmJayBee83]

So if Highway/Band/Highway doesn't work, would Highway/Band/Reach of Desperation/Highway?

Of course by Reach of Desperation I mean any Interrupt and Play Next card.


From the bits above, I can see how this could set up faster than my deck did last year. I'm not sure if it would be much faster than Captain Kirk's deck however.

[crustpope]

This deck sets up MUCH faster than any of the other combos.  There are only a few cards you would need in your hand to get it started.

@ Prof.  I agree.  questioning the legality of the deck is one thing, but Rob has done well to disclose as little as possible about this deck.  Props to him.

@ Hue, If you did not say anything about how to counter the deck then I must have misread your post and I apologize for lumping you in with Pol.  When  Rob claimed that dicarding someones deck in one turn is unsportmanlike you have to put it in persepctive.  is beating an opponent 100-0 in a game of HS basketball unsportmanlike?  yeah probably.  Just because it is legal doesnt make it right.  Now B-Ball is different from redemption, but you have to acknowledge that there is somethign wrong with this type of strategy from a playing persepctive.  This is the ultimate hand control/deck discard deck.  While the guy playing it may be the best person in the world, the intent behind this deck is to totally destroy your hand and deck they way the New England Patriots would devasatate a HS football team.  Yeah it may be legal, but if you were ont he recieving end, wouldnt you begin to think that something was wrong here?

@TKP  Protection forts dont do anything but delay, which works if you can delay him long enough to win.  Forts that protect EC's in territory dont do anything because they arent targeted until the game is already over.  you have no hand, no deck and then its just a Romans destroy Jerusalem away from that deck picking off your EC's at its leisure

[RTSmaniac]

These kind of combo decks are hard to pull off. They are win or lose decks. All or nothing. To be the most consistent with the combo one must push the combo to the edge. Would you play a deck with no dominants?...anyways all or nothing decks are quite vulnerable. Especially to hezzy's ring and by the numbers.
when you build a deck- you have to build against major strategies or least weaknesses to your build. Or you can do like top players and scout all the other top players's decks and deck check in 3 other different decks. Thats why other games have sideboards and best two out of three games.
the combo is not overpowered, it's just not prepared for. Dont get me wrong, i give it props and i saw all the arguments about no matter what you do it's not enough. I got beat by a taking egypts wealth deck for months. And ive had to rebuild a sin in the camp deck for times already from buing stolen twice, sold the cards another and built from friends cards. Needless to say when i go to any tournament and someone knows

[RTSmaniac]

im going to be there, they make sure they turn in a deck that counters combo decks. Idont know what to tell you guys-
longday stillness jubilee has been around forever. Add in foof jacob and oon and its even better. Coat w\ warriors spear for insanity.
how about a place card that says:
place in a players territory. If a card besides a dominent would be placed in that players discardpile from anywhere, instead place card under players deck.
(playtesters)

[RTSmaniac]

it can go in your anti discard deck you turn in.