Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can't see a thing
Just call my name, `cause I'll hear you scream
Metallica, "Master of Puppets"
DEATH TO THE VENTRUE
The Anarch Free States are the Ventrue's worst nightmare. But with
their princeless cities run (and overrun) by gangs of anarchs who have
little respect for the Traditions, the Anarch States are also a Brujah
paradise. Loosely governed by the Brujah MacNeil, the region is home to
more anarchs than any other, and one of those anarachs is Smiling Jack.
Believed to be a 17th Century Caribbean pirate, Jack is a
10th-Generation Brujah Iconoclast dedicated to overthrowing the Ventrue.
His base is the Anarch Free States, and his allies are the wildest and
most fanatical of the area's anarchs.
Of late, Smiling Jack has dedicated himself to revealing the weakness of
the Ventrue Princes of the Midwest, and his weapons in this war are newly
embraced Caitiff vampires. Jack's modus operandi is as follows: he and
his band of influential anarchs visit a city ruled by a Ventrue Prince,
embrace a handful of strangers (sometimes as many as ten) in one night,
and then skip town -- leaving the Prince to contend with a fresh crop of
pissed off frenzy-prone Masquerade-violating Caitiff who hate absolutely
everyone. If the city's Prince cannot contain these neonates and preserve
the Masquerade, then he is unfit for leadership and should be overthrown,
preferably by the city's Brujah.
Needless to say, this is also great fun.
This month's offering is a story deck based around Smiling Jack's
operations in the weak, decadent Ventrue cities of America's heartland.
Using Smiling Jack as its anchor, this deck combines pool gain, weenie
bleed, voting and rush tactics into a hybrid toolbox of sorts. I say
"story" deck because the idea seed around which it grew was a story
element from the World of Darkness, and because it isn't really a theme
deck. To my mind, a theme deck is one in which all or most of the cards
are included because they fit the deck's underlying premise -- not
necessarily because they are effective individually or in combination with
one another.
By way of contrast, not all of the cards in Smiling Jack Pays A Visit
are there because they fit the deck's theme. Most of them make sense (at
least to me) within the context of the story that the deck would be trying
to tell during play, but ineffective theme-related cards have been left
out. For instance, given that Smiling Jack and his flunkies are embracing
complete strangers, The Embrace would be a more logical card to include
than The 3rd Tradition: Progeny -- but The 3rd Tradition is a better card
(assuming the crypt contains enough Princes to make it useful), so its in
the deck instead. What I'm getting at is that this deck stands somewhere
between a theme deck and a win-at-any-cost tournament deck, but I still
don't think it would fare too well in serious competitive play.
DECK: Smiling Jack Pays A Visit
[ Crypt ]
1x KoKo--2 pot
1x Lupo--2 pot
1x Agatha--4 POT
1x Hector Sosa--4 POT pre
1x Hugo--4 POT pre
2x Volker, The Puppet Prince--5 pot Prince
2x Rake--6 pot pre Prince +1 hand dmg. vs. Ventrue
1x Tatiana Romanov--7 PRE Prince +1 bleed
2x Anson--8 PRE Prince +1 master action
12 vampires (average 5.08, worst 29)
[ Library ]
6x Minion Tap
2x Anarch Revolt
2x Blood Doll
2x Misdirection
2x Potence
2x Presence
2x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Fragment of the Book of Nod
1x Giant's Blood
1x Information Highway
1x The Parthenon
1x The Rack
10x The 5th Tradition: Hospitality
10x The 3rd Tradition: Progeny
6x Bum's Rush
6x Social Charm
4x Legal Manipulations
4x Kine Resources Contested
1x The 1st Tradition: The Masquerade
1x Rumors of Gehenna
6x Immortal Grapple
6x Torn Signpost
6x Undead Strength
6x Wake With Evening's Freshness
90 cards (24 master, 36 action, 6 political action, 18 combat, 6 reaction)
STOP AND SMELL THE CHAOS
For starters, here's the card text for Smiling Jack, The Anarch
(incorporating current DCI errata):
Title: Smiling Jack, The Anarch
Type: Master
Cost: 0
Rarity: Rare
Set: Jyhad/V:TES
Text: Unique Master. During your untap phase, move 1 blood from
your pool to Jack. During each other Methuselah's untap phase,
he or she burns 1 pool or burns 1 blood from a vampire he or she
controls for each blood on Jack. Any vampire may burn this card
as a (D) action.
The significant difference from the physical card text lies in the
reference to "each other Methuselah," which means that while you lose a
fixed 1 pool per turn, everyone else is paying for -every- blood that's on
Jack. This is evil, and will earn you the enmity of every player at the
table...which, from a PO'd Brujah anarch's perspective, just means you'll
have more targets to choose from. ;-)
With this in mind, I would classify this deck as Bruise & Breed, as
the majority of its cards are focused (appropriately enough) on popping
out Progeny and beating up other vampires. Conceptually speaking, the
deck can be broken down as follows:
Bruise: 24
Breed: 22
Bleed: 12
Pool Gain: 8
Vote: 6
Bleeding Everybody: 4
Toolbox: 12
Within these categories there is considerable overlap. For instance, the
principle breeding combo is 3rd Tradition followed by 5th Tradition, but
5th Tradition can also be combined with Minion Tap for pool gain.
Similarly, Blood Doll is great for pool gain (especially with 5th
Traditions in the mix), but also good for breeding, as you can replenish
the base cost of a 3rd Tradition every turn by blowing a point through the
Doll.
I think the basic ideas behind this deck are fairly clear, so I won't go
into them in great detail. Since the deck contains a little bit of
everything, how you go about winning will depend on what you draw the most
of. With a fairly high-cost crypt, you'll probably get off to a slow
start; this in turn means you should start breeding as soon as possible.
The crypt is roughly divided into breeders (everyone with a title) and
fighters (the vamps with potence), and judicious use of your fighters
should give you some breathing room. Once you've got a few Progeny in
play, you can move into Bruise & Bleed mode, try for Tap & Bleed, or kick
back and defend a Smiling Jack or Anarch Revolt while gaining pool from
5th Tradition/Minion Tap.
If you can keep Smiling Jack around for a few turns (until its got
several pool on it), then play an Anarch Revolt and pass a 1st Tradition,
you can sit back and skip three turns -- taking no pool loss from SJ or AR
-- while the rest of the table either wastes actions getting rid of SJ/AR
or dies as slow and painful death. This is very cool, but be sure to have
a host of untapped vampires, a couple of Wakes and a hand full of combat
cards lined up before you try it.
THE REVISED DECK COLUMN
Each month, this column will present the previous month's deck in its
updated form. Revisions will be based upon suggestions made by
members of the Jyhad community (usually drawn from
rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad), and credit will be given for suggestions
received. The result should be a much-improved version of the original
deck.
Based on comments made by Peter Bajika (PDB6@aol.com), I've reworked
last month's deck, The Brujah School of Dentistry. I've added some hand
cycling utilities in the form of The Barrens and the Fragment of the Book
of Nod, taken out the Computer Hackings, and upped the Rampage count by
one. This incarnation should run more smoothly and efficiently than the
last one.
DECK: The Brujah School of Dentistry [revised]
[ Crypt ]
1x Hasina Kesi--1 pot
1x Lupo--2 pot
1x Jacob Bragg--3 pot cel
2x Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn--3 pot cel
1x Hector Sosa--4 POT
1x Agatha--4 POT
2x Jimmy Dunn--4 POT CEL
1x Sela--6 POT cel Bishop +1 bleed
1x Gaspare Giovanni--6 POT cel +1 hand dmg.
1x Anvil--6 POT CEL Primogen
12 vampires (average 3.75, worst 21)
[ Library ]
4x Potence
4x Haven Uncovered
4x Blood Doll
1x Fragment of the Book of Nod
1x The Barrens
12x Bum's Rush
2x Rampage
12x Immortal Grapple
10x Torn Signpost
10x Undead Strength
10x Pulled Fangs
9x Taste of Vitae
7x Flash
4x Blur
90 cards (14 master, 14 action, 62 combat)
See you in July. :-)
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Martin Ralya - Prince of Ann Arbor - skywise@umich.edu
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