Ravnos Clan Newsletter November 2005 Written by Graham Smith Introduction ============ Well I've just got back from the UK nationals after getting no VPs the whole day!!! I guess it's what I get for playing an out of turn Malk bleed deck rather than the Ravnos Red Herring Tap and Bleed deck I also had with me. During the 2 hour drive back from the Nationals, talk turned to the number of weenie obf or dom decks encountered on the day. So this has inspired me to explore the cards that can be used to help defend against weenie decks in this month's newsletter. Neutralise weenies effectiveness ================================ Weenies are effective because they can swarm their prey with lots of small bleeds. We all know this. Trying to defend against a lot of small bleeds soon uses up most of a decks reaction cards and even a deck packed with 10-12 bounce cards will find itself overrun by the swarm. So, a good way of neutralising a weenie horde is to reduce the effectiveness of their bleeds without expanding too many resources. There seems to be a card made just for this situation, Aranthebes, The Immortal. Aranthebes, The Immortal Type: Action Cost: 1 pool +1 stealth action. Unique. Put this card into play. You may tap Aranthebes to give a minion controlled by your predator -1 stealth for the current action. While Aranthebes is untapped, vampires with a capacity less than 5 get -1 bleed when bleeding you. Any vampire with a capacity above 4 can move Aranthebes to your library as a (D) action. Shuffle afterward. Rarity: Anarchs:R Aranthebses pretty much stops a weenie deck in its tracks, if it relies on inherent bleeds. If the deck is using bleed actions such as Computer Hacking or bleed modifiers, Aranthebes has still probably cut their bleed potential in half. Aranthebes is also dual purpose, you can tap him to reduce one of your predators' minion's stealth by 1, nice if you are being preyed on by a vote deck and also combos well with Draba. So as long as you can defend him, Aranthebes is a good addition to any deck. Another way of stopping weenies is blocking them. Normally minions tap when blocking but this can be solved with Atonement. Atonement Type: Action Requires: capacity below 6 Cost: 2 blood Requires a ready vampire with a capacity below 6. +1 stealth action. Put this card on the acting vampire. This vampire gets +1 intercept when attempting to block. He or she does not tap when blocking a vampire of the same age or younger. Any vampire may burn this card as a (D) action; Followers of Set get -1 stealth when attempting that action. Rarity: AH:C2 FN:PA/PG So if you put this card on one of your 5 cap minions and have them equip with a sniper rifle they can then block and kill weenies all day long! You will probably want to setup 2 minions in this way to stop any attempts to seduce your main blockers. If they recruit a Raven Spy or grab a Sports Bike they should be able to keep most weenies down. Also it's worth noting that if the vampire's capacity is increased after the Atonement, they still do not tap when blocking a younger vampire. Edged Illusion This card was discussed in the September newsletter but I will repeat it here, at superior, Edged Illusion can cause weenie decks a lot of trouble as you start to remove all the blood from their vampires through unpreventable damage. Use Events ========== There a few event cards that seem to have been created to help deal with the weenie problem. Thirst Type: Event Gehenna. After a Methuselah has finished all of his or her minion phase actions, each ready vampire he or she controls with capacity less than the number of Gehenna cards in play who did not hunt in that minion phase burns 1 blood. Rarity: Gehenna:R This can cause weenie decks problems especially if your also hit them with an Edged Illusion. The draw back of the card is that you need to have 3 or 4 other Gehenna cards in play to really get the weenie killing benefit. Two good cards to use with Thirst are Restricted Vitae and the Government Event Dr Marisa Fletcher. Restricted Vitae Type: Event Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire successfully hunts. Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a (D) action instead of performing the usual hunt action. Rarity: Gehenna:R KMW:PAn Dr. Marisa Fletcher, CDC Type: Event Government. During your untap phase, add two counters to this card from the blood bank. When a vampire with capacity less than X is blocked while hunting, where X is the number of counters on this card, burn that vampire and all the counters on this card. Rarity: KMW:R Restricted Vitae stops them hunting until they are on 0 blood so the Thirst will always cause them to burn bleed and then Marisa Fletcher can be used to burn them when they hunt or you can always hit them with an Edged Illusion to torpor them. Make the cost of weenies prohibitive ==================================== As mentioned above events can help deal with weenies, and there is an event card that can increase their cost in an indirect way is: Nightmares upon Nightmares Type: Event Gehenna. Do not replace until your next discard phase. For each minion a Methuselah controls during his or her untap phase, the Methuselah must burn a card from his or her hand or tap that minion. Cards burned in this way are not replaced until the master phase. Vampires with capacity greater than the number of Gehenna cards in play and mortal allies are not affected by this card. Rarity: Gehenna:R Like the other events if 3-4 Gehenna cards are in play, Nightmares upon Nightmares will soon run the weenie deck out of library or stop them acting - either is good. There are a number of votes that can be used to reduce a weenie deck's pool, in a 'if all else fails back oust them' kind of way, but as Ravnos are not currently the greatest politicians in the game I will leave discussing them for a future newsletter. To get the most out of these events you are going to need to put a few more in play. I think Blood Trade and Wormwood are good candidates for most decks - these two events are probably not going to backfire on you as much as Anthelios, The Red Star or Dragonbound can. If you can't beat them join them. ================================= Of course you can always try to out race the weenie deck with your own weenie deck. Ravnos Week of Nightmare breed decks have done very well in tournaments lately and with the introduction of the Tumnimos card everbody can have a go at a Ravnos breed deck without having to own 20 Embraces, just don't expect to make any friends around the table! Summary ======= I'm more in favour of the Aranthebes and Atonement solutions to stopping weenies as they seem not to incur the wrath of the table that Events cards seem to. Also I'm not a great fan of the Ravnos swarm tactic as I think the clan has much more to offer. With this in mind this months deck is a Ravnos toolbox that has weenie defence built around Aranthebes, Atonement and Guns. Deck of the Month ================= Deck Name : Ravnos cut price sale. Author : Graham Smith Description : Tool box deck that provides some bloat via Patshiv and tries to handle weenies using Atonement and guns while still going forward. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 6 average: 4.25 ------------------------------------------------------------ 2x Joaquina Amaya 6 ANI CHI FOR Ravnos:2 2x Khalil Ravana 5 CHI ani for pre Ravnos:2 2x Lázár Dobrescu 3 for Ravnos:2 1x Andrei Puxon 5 ani cel chi for Ravnos:2 1x Ghivran Dalaal, Th 5 FOR ani aus chi Ravnos:2 1x Anka, Priestess of 4 ani chi pro Ravnos:2 1x Salbatore Bokkengr 4 CHI for pro Ravnos:2 1x Vedel Esbreno 3 chi for Ravnos:2 1x Sasha Miklos 2 chi Ravnos:2 Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Action [19] 1x Aranthebes, The Immortal 3x Atonement 4x Computer Hacking 2x Edged Illusion 1x Mass Reality 6x Patshiv 2x Sensory Deprivation Action Modifier [10] 7x Fata Morgana 3x Freak Drive Action Modifier/Combat [6] 3x Mirror Image 3x Occlusion Action/Reaction [6] 6x Draba Combat [7] 4x Skin of Rock 3x Skin of Steel Equipment [11] 3x .44 Magnum 2x Flak Jacket 2x Laptop Computer 2x Sniper Rifle 2x Sport Bike Master [18] 5x Blood Doll 2x Chimerstry 1x Fortitude 1x Metro Underground 1x Park Hunting Ground 2x Path of Paradox, The 3x Ravnos Cache 1x Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 2x Svadharma Reaction [11] 2x Cats' Guidance 3x Guard Dogs 3x Rat's Warning 3x Wake with Evening's Freshness Retainer [2] 2x Raven Spy Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Thu Oct 27 19:00:19 2005] Please send any comments, suggestions and contributions to: graham.r.smith@gmail.com