HOLDER'S HEROES

Greetings, fellow Redemption strategists! Today I hope to shed some light on the area of choosing the blocker… well, not choosing the blocker, but rather its evil counterpart… choosing the rescuer.

Unfortunately, there are only three evil cards that allow the blocker to choose the Hero which is used to make a rescue attempt. These three cards are found in three different brigades. Lies is in the gold brigade, Sarah’s Jealousy is in the crimson brigade, and Dissuading Speech is in the pale green brigade.

Follow up:

The simple way to make use of these Enhancements would be to choose a Hero which your opponent does not have Enhancements for, and that has lower abilities than your blocking Evil Character. However, this would pass initiative over to the rescuer and would allow your "choose the rescuer" Enhancement to be interrupted or negated. A more interesting way to use these Enhancements would be to choose a Hero that has greater abilities than your blocking Evil Character so that you, as the blocker, retain initiative. Retaining initiative and choosing a Hero that your opponent cannot play Enhancements on, opens up a plethora of options and devastating combinations to explore. Let’s discuss a few of these possible combinations for each of the three brigades.

I’ll start with Dissuading Speech. Can you think of any destructive cards that pale green has? You should all be yelling, “Confusion!” So now that you’ve got that out of your system I can continue. One set of cards that comes to mind are those similar to Fear of Danger or Palsy. You can really hinder your opponent’s offense by tossing some of these down on their Heroes while they have no chance to interrupt what you play because of your clever use of Dissuading Speech. Another option is the hand or deck discarding cards similar to Demonic Mist or Plunderers. And of course you are free to toss out Stocks and Slave Trade to fill up Raiders’ Camp or the oft-used Demonic Stronghold.

Now to shift gears to Sarah’s Jealousy and the crimson brigade. Don’t you just love all those cards that target Heroes in a territory? I know I do. Go ahead and toss out the classic Great Image. Or maybe you prefer hand discarding? Crimson has plenty of that to be used in conjunction with Sarah’s Jealousy. Add in Arrogance to play Enhancements until your heart’s content.

Last but not least is Lies and the gold brigade. While gold is not as directly destructive as crimson or pale green, gold has plenty to make Lies work well for you. There are several cards that are able to discard from your opponent’s deck. There is also Besieging the City to frustrate your opponent with. And like pale green, you can use the many gold capture Enhancements to fill up your Raiders’ Camp or Demonic Stronghold.

The introduction of Love of Money in the 10^th Anniversary starter decks literally opens up every possible evil Enhancement combination by letting you use any color Enhancement. Mask of Worldliness and Moral Decline were already present but Love of Money makes it that much easier to let your strategic imagination go crazy.

While you may not be able to mold an entire defense around these cards in Type 1, Type 2 holds many interesting possibilities. While you may have overlooked these cards in the past, you may want to consider using them in the future. If you enjoy using side battle tactics, I highly recommend choosing the rescuer.