Jesus said the meek shall inherit the earth. Well, with this Challenger Deck, the meek shall inherit the Lost Souls! This Challenger Deck features Jerusalem church heroes that have powerful abilities and gain additional, amazing benefits when they’re converted to meek, such as FBTN, CBN enhancements, soul protection, regardless of protection, and more! The defense is comprised of Pharisees that persecuted Jesus and His disciples, as well as the Jerusalem believers after Jesus’ ascension. This defense revolves around meek Lost Soul strategies, strong banding, and Lost Soul manipulation. This deck is very fast as it is chock-full of draw abilities and searching. It is one powerful, fun, fast deck you do NOT want to pass up! Check out the Contender Deck version here!
With several GoC cards in this deck, you'll be able to easily convert it to a GoC-only deck, so you can also play in that category! It's like getting two decks for the price of one! See bottom of page for several recommended GoC cards to boost this deck's theme, and/or to substitute if you'd like to play the GoC Only category.
Dominants
Son of God (I/J)
New Jerusalem (I/J+)
Angel of the Lord (I)
Harvest Time (GoC)
Christian Martyr (I/J)
Lost Souls
Behold (L Deck)
Shepherds (L Deck)
(5) N.T. Meek (no special ability) (I/J)
Artifacts/Covenants/Curses
Book of the Law (LoC)
Temple Veil (GoC)
Unholy Writ (GoC LR)
Send the Helper (GoC)
Fortresses/Sites/Cities
High Priest's Palace (GoC)
Golgotha (GoC)
Jerusalem (GoC)
Dual-Alignment Cards
Naomi's Blessing / Heartbroken (LoC)
Heroes
Matthew the Publican (GoC)
Bartholomew (Nathaniel) (GoC)
Salome, the Sorrowful (GoC)
Joanna, the Generous (GoC)
Mary, the Restored (GoC)
Mary, Mother of James (GoC)
Lazarus, the Called (GoC)
The Watchful Leaders (CoW)
Angel from the Sun (RoJ)
Good Enhancements
Baptism of Jesus (GoC)
Untouchable (GoC)
The Ascension (GoC)
Life in the Son (GoC)
Root of Jesse (LoC)
The Lord's Prayer (GoC)
Spirit as a Dove (GoC)
Evil Characters
Supercilious Scribes (GoC)
Repudiating Rulers (GoC)
Proud Pharisee (GoC)
Disciples of the Pharisees (GoC)
The Sanhedrin (EC)
The Entrapping Pharisees (GoC LR)
The Brood of Vipers (GoC)
The Expert Lawyer (GoC)
Evil Enhancements
Distort the Truth (GoC)
Duplicity (GoC)
Tenants Kill the Son (GoC)
Scattered (RoA)
Famine in the Land (LoC)
Pretension (GoC)
Reserve
Andrew, First Called (GoC)
Simon the Zealous (GoC)
Love One Another (GoC)
Lost Child Found (GoC)
Simon the Host (GoC)
Callous Conspirators (GoC)
Distort the Truth (GoC)
Strict Sabbath (GoC)
Just a Hireling (GoC)
Ridicule (GoC)
Deck strategy and tips:
- The offense has a strategic mix of Gospel heroes from the Jerusalem church that have strong situational abilities and when they convert to meek. The strongest of these is making good Gospel enhancements CBN and also negating characters and enhancements--FBTN (or fight by the numbers). They are backed up by powerful enhancements and protect abilities. Use the right hero (or heroes) to make the best rescue attempt at the right time.
- The defense's primary strategy is to interact with meek Lost Souls. This is accomplished by the evil characters gaining benefits by having these souls out, but the defense can also benefit by protecting and/or hiding meek Lost Souls. The defense is also supported by strong enhancements that stall the opponent's rescue attempts, or out-right win the battle. The evil characters are also hard to stop from activating their respective abilities, due to their abilities having the CBP modifier.
- If you can time your attacks correctly, and have the right resources/heroes, you should be able to win a soul each attack. Ways to help with this are to get Son of God and New Jerusalem early to rescue two souls. Then, use one of your FBTN rescuers (or Lazarus) that negates characters and enhancements (or evil cards if you use Lazarus). If your opponent uses one character to block with, use Angel of the Lord to discard that character. Then, use Root of Jesse to protect your meek heroes from your opponent's cards on your next attack (use Root in your prep phase prior to entering battle). This will add a layer of protection over that hero for that battle. Another strong attack is to use Mary Mother of James and convert her to meek to band to Mary the Restored (make sure your opponent blocks from hand when you do this. Or, use The Ascension to do this). Then, when he blocks from hand, your Gospel enhancements will be CBN, and Mary the Restored will negate characters and enhancements due to her converting to meek, making you able to activate your enhancements but your opponent's will be negated!
- Use Root of Jesse in your prep phase to protect your meek heroes from opponent's cards. This is a good way to help protect your lone attacker from cards like Christian Martyr. Also, use The Watchful Leaders to band to one of your Jerusalem heroes to protect that hero from harm. This is another way to protect against Christian Martyr and the like.
- Use Temple Veil, Book of the Law, and/or Send the Helper to reset your best meek hero in territory so you can use its ability on your next attack. Temple Veil is a great option as you should be able to look at your opponent's hand and plan your attack accordingly.
- Get to your good dominants quickly by using cards like Spirit as a Dove, Mary the Restored, and Book of the Law.
- Use Lost Child Found at the right time to bounce annoying cards in your opponent's territory, or to bounce up to 3 of his evil characters in territory to help set up your Empty Tomb female heroes' "if blocked from hand" abilities, or bounce your own cards (such as your meek heroes to reset them to their special ability side).
- Activate Unholy Writ in High Priest's Palace so you can activate a second artifact on your artifact pile!
- A strong play is to use Supercilious Scribes to exchange a good card in hand for any card in the Reserve (generally, you'll want Strict Sabbath, so long as you control a meek soul and your opponent doesn't). You should have initiative to play it. Then, if you still have inish, or your opponent passes inish, play a battle-winning enhancement, like Pretension to remove the hero from battle. It'll be very difficult for your opponent to stop this as he will be restricted from playing enhancements with Strict Sabbath.
- If you know your opponent has Angel of the Lord in hand, try and use a band to help mitigate the use of AotL on your lone blocker. Use Sanhedrin to band to another low-numbered Pharisee. Hopefully this'll give you initiative to play an enhancement, like Just a Hireling, to effectively win the battle.
- A nice combo is to block with a low-initiative blocker. Then, play heartbroken to prevent the next good enhancement. Then, if you still have inish, play a battle-winning enhancement, such as Pretension, Famine in the Land, etc. It will make negating that evil enhancement harder, since you're preventing his next good enhancement.
- If your opponent is attacking with a lone human hero, and his hand is protected, the best blocking option would be The Entrapping Pharisees as it's an auto-block capture of that hero, since your opponent won't be able to instead the capture by discarding a card from his hand, since his hand is protected from your cards! Just make sure you have a NT gray card in hand to reveal to use TEP's ability.
- Use Famine in the Land to either reset your meek heroes (or give yourself meek heroes) in territory, or play it in battle for a potential successful block. You can even reset your heroes in territory when played in battle and bounce the heroes in battle!
- Extend the battle on the defense by using High Priest's Palace to add your Pharisee to battle.
YTG recommends the below cards as other viable options for this deck’s theme. You can view and purchase them by clicking on each one, or search for them here!
Ride on Victoriously / Awesome Things