HOLDER'S HEROES

We’ve had several months now to explore Faith of Our Fathers (FoOF) and the impact it will have on Redemption. Players have found all kinds of fun ways to use and abuse the cards from this new set. With the big, season end tournaments right around the corner, I’d like to take time to go over the Faith of Our Fathers tins to share some of my favorite uses for FoOF cards. I’ll inevitably miss many great uses, so please feel free to comment and add your own favorites.

Follow up:

Tin II

Satan's Seat – This is one of many powerful tools that Faith of Our Father’s has given to Site lockout. Since it’s easily discarded by Dragon Raid, you’ll want to be sure to protect it by placing it on a Site that says “Evil cards on this site are protected from DragonRaid” or Pergamum.

This Fortress is a great way to neuter your opponent’s banding chain since it will discard all Heroes that rescue a Lost Soul from the host Site. If you have the 2-Line or 3-Line Lost Souls in the host Site you can even give your opponent “half”, effectively costing them their Hero(es) without letting them net a Redeemed Soul.

The fun doesn’t stop there! Those annoying Heroes that are protected from your defense are protected no more! With Satan’s Seat active you can freely capture Lydia, Christian Martyr Elijah and remove Abiathar from the game.

Pergamum – This is possibly the best new tool for Site lockout in Faith of Our Fathers. Keeping a Lost Soul here will shut down Dragon Raid permanently. Purple is a pretty commonly used brigade among top decks so that might be a little harder than it sounds. When it’s not holding a Lost Soul, don’t forget to use it to gain access to your opponent’s Pergamum.

Ever since the “color guard” Lost Soul was introduced in Priests, people have been including a purple Site or two in their deck to protect their defense from Authority of Christ. Now we have a purple Site that can serve multiple purposes!

Abdon – Currently good Judges can be found in blue, gold and red. Abdon helps bring together the Judges theme with his ability to use any good Judges Enhancement regardless of brigade. There are currently Judges Enhancements in blue, gold, green, red and silver. Some of the best off color Enhancements to use with Abdon are Ehud’s Dagger, Jael’s Nail, Sing and Praise, Sword of the Lord and The Stars.

Ibzan – The ability to give your enhancements cannot be negated status has always been good. That’s proven by the popularity of characters like Michael and Joshua, the High Priest. Ibzan is no exception. He can use Deborah’s Directive to band in a large army of Heroes, including a fight by the numbers character such as Moses. Sampson’s Sacrifice is already devastating, but it’s even better when your opponent can’t do anything about it.

Sampson's Sacrifice – This is a potentially devastating card for your opponent’s defense. You can choose to discard your opponents occupied Site or evil O.T. Fortress. If your opponent doesn’t have either of those be sure you have one of your own so you can get the full effect of Sampson’s Sacrifice. Be patient and wait to play it until your opponent has set down a few of the human evil Characters.

One drawback to Sampson’s Sacrifice is that you don’t win a Lost Soul since your Hero sacrificed them self. One convenient way to get around that drawback is to play it during a side battle. Gold already has a great side battle card, Ambush the City. You could also create a side battle on defense with cards like Christian Suing Another, Idle Gossip and Joseph’s Brother’s Scheme to take out one of your opponent’s Heroes along with their Site/Fortress and human evil Characters!

Despite all the amazing things you can do with the special ability, we shouldn’t forget about the numbers on Sampson’s Sacrifice. It can give a huge boost to characters like Moses or Shamhuth, not to mention the name on name bonus it gets on Sampson himself.

Deborah's Directive – Good gold has finally gotten the first Enhancement that allows it to interrupt and potentially win the battle. This works well against any single-character elimination your opponent tries to use against you since it allows you to interrupt and add more characters to battle.

I’m sure many of you have just been looking for a reason to use Deborah, as if Barak wasn’t reason enough. Well, now you have it. Deborah is 12/10 with the name on name bonus she gets from her Directive and that doesn’t even take into consideration the characters that join her!

My favorite use of Deborah’s Directive is to play in a situation where it cannot be negated, then band in a fight by the numbers Hero. You can set this up a number of ways. Set your Hero aside with The Sabbath, play it on Ibzan or use it against an evil fight by the numbers character.

“Shibboleth” – Like any card that discards characters in your opponent’s territory, this gets better as the game goes on and players have had time to draw and play more characters. It obviously hurts a defense that splashes multiple brigades. But it’s useless against a single color defense… or is it?

My favorite use of “Shibboleth” is to choose an evil Character in a brigade my opponent isn’t using and force them to block with it. You can use cards like Obedience of Noah, Provisions and Lamenting for Jepthah’s Daughter to choose the blocker. Make sure that you get initiative and use “Shibboleth” to discard all their evil Characters. Be sure you’ve included two different evil brigades in your deck so that you’re more likely to have a character in a brigade your opponent doesn’t use.

Deceiving Spirit – Although the orange brigade has the tools for a mono color defense some have said that it’s best when used with another brigade. Deceiving Spirit definitely encourages you to add other colors to your orange defense, or add orange to another color defense. He even encourages a multicolor defense since he can use a different brigade color every time he enters battle. Blast of Fire, Flying Flames and Fireball are all fun cards to use with Deceiving Spirit.

Pale green seems to be the easiest fit with orange since you can also use both brigade colors on Crippling Demon. I’ve made an orange defense with a splash of pale green that worked rather well. It had Confusion and Death of Unrighteous without using any pale green evil characters thanks to Deceiving Spirit, Crippling Demon and Self.

Trembling Demon – This little chump is a pretty good one stop block. He’ll force your opponent to discard a good Enhancement immediately if they want to rescue a Lost Soul. Even then you’ll most likely have initiative to do any number of the nasty things that orange can do.

Holy of Holies will prevent the portion of Trembling Demon’s special ability that allows an opponent to negate it. With that Artifact active, your opponent can’t rescue a Lost Soul this turn if you don’t give them initiative. You can even reuse Trembling Demon if you end the battle with Worshipping Demons (and your defense is high enough to survive) or if you heal him with Torment.

Worshipping Demons – Protecting all Lost Souls from rescue is a very useful ability. Even if you lose the battle the Hero will still go home empty handed. The catch is that you must have an Artifact that depicts an evil idol or altar active. Fortunately there are a few that work really well on defense. Ashera Pole is a great addition to any defense that uses enhancements. Golden Calf shuts down many powerful O.T. Heroes. Be careful that these first two don’t hurt your offense too. Household Idols works well with the orange brigade all-star – Prince of this World. Captured Ark has found a home in many top players decks. Altar of Ahaz has seen some play too.

Even if you don’t have an appropriate Artifact active to use the first part of the special ability you’ll still end the battle. As long as you end with a defense higher than the opposing offense, no Lost Soul will be awarded. The special ability also ends with those magic words, “Cannot be negate”, so it even works on the orange powerhouse – King of Tyrus.

That concludes the assessment for Tin II. I hope you’ve found a few nuggets of wisdom that inspire you to try something new. What a great bunch of cards Faith of Our Fathers has added to Redemption!