HOLDER'S HEROES

Basic Principles: Discard as many Evil Characters in play as possible without letting any damage be done to your deck. Then win easy rescues because they have no Evil Characters left.

Stonewall decks are becoming a top strategy for intuitive players. These decks rely on the second most powerful card type in the game, Artifacts, to win. Artifacts like Ark of the Covenant, Holy Grail, Three Nails, Book of the Covenant, and David’s Harp are used to decimate an entire defense.

Follow up:

Stonewall decks normally require few, if any, Enhancements. However, they also require large versatile defenses that won’t fail in almost any situation. Defense in Redemption is also starting to rely heavily on Artifacts. The archetype that’s had people complaining for years, FBTN, can now be fought using three Artifacts: Golden Calf, Ashearah Pole, and Holy of Holies. Household Idols is also commonly included in defenses like this so that banding decks are hindered as well.

Ok, before we get into anything about offense, in a deck like this you’re going to need an amazing, out-of-this-world defense. You're going to need to stop conversion, fight by the numbers, banding, ignores, speed, hand-control, other stonewall decks, etc. Stonewall decks use the defense that other decks dream of having. This defense will require a perfect combination of Artifacts, characters, Enhancements, and in some cases Sites. Most stonewall defenses are multi-colored and use a combination of immunity, banding, FBTN, cannot-be-negated, and battle winners. King Zimri abuse is one commonly used strategy. By abuse I mean using Zimri, discarding an Enhancement, using Torment to heal him. Next turn, use Providing Angel to retrieve Torment from your discard pile and use Zimri to block again.

A stonewall defense wants every single one of its characters to be a target for Angel of the Lord. That way, when they do use AotL, you have a bunch of other options. You want to use Fortresses to your advantage. The Darkness can stop a choose-the-blocker deck dead in it’s tracks, but is also a good way to defend against Authority of Christ promo.

Okay, as long as you create a defense that will beat almost any offense your set. Now to the offense. You're going to need some key Heroes and Covenants to pull this off. First, you need one or two Heroes that can withdraw from battle without having your opponent block. Spy and Ahimiaaz are two great Heroes; Rhoda is a third, but her ability isn’t as good as the other two. Use these Heroes along with I Am Patience to get rid of any non-warrior human Evil Characters. In case your opponent uses Destruction of Nehushtan on I Am Patience you still can use Holy Grail to get rid of two of their best humans.

So, now you have all their non-warrior class guys gone. What about all of their warrior class Evil Characters? That’s another Character + Artifact fix. Use Israelite Archer to discard one of their warrior class guys, and then use David’s Harp to put him on top of your deck, after he dies due to his ability. Next turn, he’ll be one of the three cards you draw and you can use him again to discard any other warrior class Evil Characters they have.

Ok, now you’re rid of all their human Evil Characters. Simply flip up Three Nails and you’ll only have to worry about two Evil Characters, Leviathan and The Serpent. This of course is assuming that your opponent used Destruction of Nehushtan already. However, assumptions can get you in trouble in this game. So, if your opponent does use Destruction on Three Nails then you have a few weapons left. One is Ark of the Covenant. Rescue with Providing Angel, get Brass Serpent from your draw/discard pile, die, play Brass Serpent and you got rid of one of their demons. I Am Healing also works well in place of Brass Serpent if your using somebody other than Providing Angel. You can repeat this process once more with Ark and twice more with I Am Justice. That’s four demons you’ve gotten rid of.

So at this point you’ve gotten rid of a lot of their Evil Characters. But they may have a few demons left. How are you going to get rid of them? Jephthah is one way; using him you could do away with a few of their demons. Widow is another great character to use because most demons have high numbers. A last resort is AotL.

You can get rid of six Evil Characters with Ark + I Am Justice + Jephthah. Using I Am Patience, Israelite Archer, and Three Nails you should be able to tear through their defense. If they have no Evil Characters left then you can rescue with anybody and win Lost Souls. Some people may use AOC promo in a deck like this but I wouldn’t recommend it because you’ll end up blowing up your own defense. The great thing about this offense is that your opponent has almost no chance of defeating an offense like this because you do most of your character killing outside of battle. Your defense is really what wins your games for you in a deck like this.

I personally expect to see many people with fine-tuned versions of these decks at nationals, and wouldn’t be surprised if a deck like this won the whole national tournament for Type 1 2-Player.