Malkavian Antitribu Newsletter, February 2007 Volume VI, Issue II 1. INTRODUCTION This newsletter is going to be the shortest, and the most sad of all. We'll do the garbage collection. Our clan has got one new card in the Third Edition, and I cannot imagine how to use it. Unfortunately, the card is so bad that I won't even dare to build a deck around it. That's why there are no Deck of the Month here - the first time in nearly 30 of my issues. I would be happy if it was a cornercase card that could be used in a "funny" but not competitive deck - but it isn't. We also have got one "strange" vampire that seems to be completely outclassed by the other vamps of our clan - but, luckily, there is only one such vampire. You may forget about both cards after reading this (or even INSTEAD of reading this), and nobody would blame you. Shit happens... 2. CARD OF THE MONTH Name: Cracking the Wall [Third: R2] Type: Master Cost: 1 pool Clan: Malkavian Antitribu Master. Do not replace until your discard phase. Play Rock-Paper- Scissors with any other Methuselah. If you tie, you each discard a card at random. Otherwise, the loser discards his or her hand and draws a new hand. Malkavians should be crazy, right? This card is totally insane. You need to spend a card, MPA and 1 pool, play the whole turn with a reduced hand for... a random effect of discarding your hand, discarding hand of another player and mutual discard of one random card. Even it the card would be free, it would be rather difficult to find a deck for it, but for such immense price it's nearly impossible. I suggest to nickname it "Smoking the Crack" instead of "Cracking the Wall" :) The art really fits for the nickname, IMHO. Let's talk about the offensive use first. Discarding hand of another player is going to hurt him quite a lot, especially if he spent several turns improving the hand. Moreover, if you manage to hit that player several times, you can eventually deplete his library. Nobody can survive for a long time without cards. Looks like that the only deck archetype that could use Cracking the Wall is Brinksmanship. With a bit of luck, you will mill seven cards from your prey's library and slow him. Even if you tie, you will discard one card, which is needed to force the withdraw of your prey, when his library will be empty. Slaughterhouse cannot do that. Actually, if you play with Laibons, you are going to use Powerbase: Tshwane to reduce the cost of your Slaughterhouses, and the same Powerbase can reduce the cost of Cracking the Walls to zero. This is just a theory, though: you can discard a card from the hand of your prey with inferior Revelations, so you don't need CtW. Slaughterhouse is much more stable and performs its job much better, if you consider the chance of milling the prey's hand (33%). CtW can cycle your hand, but you almost never need a separate card for that. Deal with the Devil was never much popular. If you really need such cards, you'd better build a better deck. You could use CtW to fill your ash heap quickly. There are ways to retrieve them back or using them right from there. Kiss of Lachesis will equip something good for half price; Clio's Kiss will allow you to play that Sibyl's Tongue once more, and so on. But I guess that Liquidation is much better for this - you gain 3 pool instead of losing 1. You may lose crucial cards, though, but the difference between +3 and -1 is so high that it easily justifies using special cards for retrieving the lost ones. Besides, you are going to fetch the crucial cards with the Tongues anyway. While there are situations where you could "sell" your Cracking the Wall to cycle hand of another player (and get something in return), I guess that nobody is going to put CtW in his deck just for that purpose. All options are exhausted now, and I have no choice but to admit that CtW is a complete crap. If you happen to open them in a booster, you will feel yourself robbed. Nobody knows the reason of creating such cards... VTES currently has 39 clans, not counting Imbued, and 28 Disciplines, not counting Flight and creeds - wouldn't it better to create a cornercase card for one of these clans or disciplines instead of creating complete crap? "Cornercase" means "usable at least in one playable deck". 3. VAMPIRE OF THE MONTH Name: Marta [Third] Clan: Malkavian Antitribu Group: 4 Capacity : 3 Disciplines: aus dem Sabbat: When Marta diablerizes an older vampire, she gains a blood (after receiving a master: Discipline card, if any). Marta isn't as terrible as Cracking the Wall: a 3-cap weenie with two disciplines at inferior is normal. Unfortunately, these two Disciplines doesn't allow Marta to do much. A !Malk trying to perform actions without Obfuscate is a dead !Malk, unless she has a combat discipline like Fabrizia Contreraz. A low-cap !Malk with superior Auspex can play in Auspex weenie even without Obfuscate, since she isn't going to act much - Idalia, for instance. But Marta doesn't have combat disciplines or superior Auspex. Obviously, Marta has no place in a S&B deck, since she needs TWO skill cards to become a serious bleeder - Obfuscate and Dementation. This is too much: S&B decks need to be fast, and they cannot wait for the skill cards. Moreover, Marta has a serious competition of Jackie, Bloodfeud and Midget - all of them can bleed at stealth. Midget is expensive but extremely effective, Bloodfeud can bleed at least for 1 at stealth, while Jackie can get stealth from Confusion and Deny. Marta can get stealth only from Mind Tricks, but it won't be enough, and it costs 1 blood. Marta's special doesn't mean much. If the diablerized vampire had blood, Marta could get it even without the special. If she had at least +1 stealth on diablerie, this could be used somehow, but without it she's likely to be blocked. Probably the only task Marta is suitable for is Anima Gathering. Let her pass just one action (somebody may Cloak her for this action), and she can stay tapped forever, providing somebody else +2 intercept. Feo Ramos is the absolute champion of Anima Gathering (1-cap that even loses his disadvantage with Anima Gathering!), but he cannot play Sibyl's Tongue to fetch the card. Unfortunately, this is the second action Marta would have to pass without stealth, but it's still a playable idea for a clan that completely lacks free permanent intercept (Brujah, for instance). If you have other !Malks, they can play Sibyl's Tongue instead of Marta. And there are at least three advantages of playing Marta instead of Feo: first, she has Dementation, so you can play The Call on her; second, you can get more pool from Consangineous Boons naming ! Malks; and third, Marta will get +1 bleed from superior Madman's Quill, so you can untap her when needed. Marta is very cornercase, and you aren't likely to see her much at the tournaments. But she isn't a complete crap, since there is at least one role that she could perform well. I'd be happy if I could say the same about Smoking the Crack... oh, yes, Cracking the Wall. The only positive thing in this sad newsletter is its size - it's very small. We didn't get a lot of crappy/bad cards in Third Edition. Actually, most of the new vampires and cards of our clan are playable, and some of them are very good. We'll talk about some of them a few months later... and the next month is going to be devoted to Sword of Caine goodness. That's all for February, As usual, all comments and ideas are appreciated. Ector.