Gangrel Newsletter - 2006 February I. Introduction II. Deck - The Green Machine III. Minions of the Newsletter IV. Cards of the Newsletter V. Not a V:TES deck I. Introduction I followed the discussion regarding Tom Duncan's previous Assamite newsletters, and it got me a little fired up. I have to thank Tom, and again suggest that all of you read his essays on combat in his December and January newsletters, in the hopes that our community will start to see the viability of our "red headed step-child," the combat deck. Legacies seems to me to have pushed the overall metagame towards combat, which pleases me. I've never really played in the mythical "low combat environment" so more combat in general means a more homey environment when I am out of town. Speaking of out of town, if any of you are traveling, email the local players at your destination to see if you can scare up a game. The nice folks in Atlanta welcomed me for their New Years' Eve day game, and I had a great time. With more combat around from the new set, your minions may need to fight anytime they take actions, so combat cards will need to be included more often in decks using non-combat strategies. I don't think that this is a bad thing. Combat decks seem like they have long been marginalized as either rush or the dreaded intercept combat wall, but there are other options. Toolboxing a combat deck is one way to avoid dependency on rush for all of your defense. Combat is itself a kind of metagame toolbox, since rushing and destroying opponents' minions is a potential counter for many, many deck types, most importantly trick decks. The deck for this newsletter is the result of my efforts to speed up the Gangrel. The master package may seem questionable, and you can certainly thin it out, but the Lives in the City (grammar police alert - is this correct? Can I avoid saying 'multiple copies of?' ) help out a bunch. I am willing to discard a few Masters if the are cluttering me, especially fortitude masters if I pass Gangrel Justicar. They can be fetched through diablerie, and burned minions do not vote. II. Deck Name : The Green Machine Author : quickbeam Description : Gangrel Rush. Bring out your cheap minions and start bleeding, until you can Haven Uncovered your prey's Famous vampire. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 7 average: 3.84 2x Camille Devereux, 5 FOR PRO ani Gangrel:1 1x Gitane St. Claire 7 ANI FOR PRO primogen Gangrel:1 1x Badger 6 FOR PRO ani pot Gangrel:1 1x Ramona 4 for pro Gangrel:2 1x Ramona Adv 4 for pro Gangrel:2 1x Roman Alexander 4 ani for pro Gangrel:1 1x Chandler Hungerfor 3 PRO Gangrel:2 1x Ricki Van Demsi 3 for pro Gangrel:1 1x Giuliano Vincenzi 2 for Gangrel:1 1x Rufina Soledad 2 for Ventrue:1 1x March Halcyon 1 for Pander:2 Library [90 cards] Action [11] 1x Army of Rats 1x Arson 3x Harass 3x Restoration 2x Ritual Challenge 1x Shadow of the Beast Action Modifier [1] 1x Freak Drive Combat [48] 1x Amaranth 2x Body Flare 4x Bone Spur 4x Earth Meld 1x Flesh of Marble 2x Form of Mist 1x Gleam of Red Eyes 6x Hidden Strength 7x Indomitability 1x Pulled Fangs 1x Quick Meld 4x Rolling with the Punches 1x Skin of Rock 1x Skin of Steel 4x Trap 4x Undead Persistence 4x Unflinching Persistence Equipment [3] 1x Laptop Computer 2x Sport Bike Master [17] 3x Blood Doll 1x Ecoterrorists 2x Fame 3x Fortitude 1x Gangrel Revel 3x Haven Uncovered 3x Life in the City 1x Perfectionist Political Action [1] 1x Gangrel Justicar Reaction [9] 1x Cats' Guidance 1x Forced Awakening 1x Instinctive Reaction 1x Pack Tactics 1x Rat's Warning 1x Sonar 3x Wake with Evening's Freshness I've played this deck a lot in various incarnations. Like all combat decks, it excels at smaller tables. At a four player table you can lower the boom, since offense often equals defense. By brutalizing your prey, you leave your grandprey free to ravage your predator. At a five player table, more finesse is required. I try to bring out three or four minions and leave my pool well above ten, because this deck is the drain for all bounced bleeds and KRC damage. Leaving a large pool buffer is most important; if you find yourself facing down weenie dominate, two minions will do. The Harasses are there for your predator, the Havens Uncovered for your prey. The Sport Bikes are there more to drain down your predator's stealth than to actually block. The idea is that they will run out of stealth before you run out of pool, and they've been working out well for me. The reaction cards are a little light. An argument could be made that they should not be in there at all. (See one of David Cherryholmes' Fatima multi-rush decks for an example of this sort of madness). In practice, I tend to try to save them along with a few Earth Melds, and ideally Camille, Gitane, or Badger on a Sport Bike, and play most of them in a single turn in the second half of the game to facilitate a swing at the table. The Forms of Mist are explicitly for Shadow of the Beast. I won't attempt Shadow without a Form of Mist in hand. The restorations are there to avoid hunting. I try not to hunt at all, or at least not until Perfectionist is in play. I spend a lot of time in game lining up a hand and watching the table. The deck is built to get to an endgame and win there through use of permanents. Because of this, I do not attempt to cycle my whole hand every turn. I will often take damage that I could prevent, so long as it doesn't send me to torpor. If I have removed more counters from my opponent than they have from me, while playing fewer cards, I will let the combat end and move on to the next action. The deck is designed to win through attrition, until the prey is at less than ten pool with a Famous minion and a Haven Uncovered is in hand. The Earth Melds are for a combat capable predator, and especially for anyone using Carrion Crows. The 6 S:CE in the deck make sure my 42 real combat cards get spent more productively. Resist the temptation to play all of your combat cards just because you can. Certain combat capable deck types will give you a run for your money. Damage that bypasses fortitude, notably from thaumaturgy and quietus, can be vexing. Obviously, Earth Meld is the cleanest solution for that. Massive amounts of potence, seen from the Brujah, !Brujah, Gargoyles, and Blood Brothers can also wear through the fortitude shield and deny access to Earth Meld through use of Immortal Grapple. In a situation where someone is really fighting back, you have to read the table. In individual combats you may want to throw the fight, and let someone like Ricki Van Demsi go to torpor. The tactic is to take a loss, the strategy that you can spare 2 blood and an action for the rescue in the long run, and save your combat cards. Watch them for when they run dry, and then pound them. If they lack intercept, build up your permanents. If someone is doing more damage than you can prevent, do not play Indomitability and pray that you will draw another, unless going to torpor means the game (i.e. Ricki is Famous). Accept that you got beat, and go to torpor. When two decks with similar strategies square off, you have to outplay your oppenent. I've seen a lot of players in such a situation just floor it and then blame their eventual loss on table position. This is disingenuous. Outplaying opponents is the beating heart of this game; the game is not won or lost in the deck construction phase. III. Minions of the Newsletter Ricki Van Demsi Clan: Gangrel (group 1) Capacity: 3 Disciplines: for pro Camarilla. Rarity: Jyhad:V VTES:V Tenth:B Gitane St. Claire Clan: Gangrel (group 1) Capacity: 7 Disciplines: ANI FOR PRO Camarilla primogen. Rarity: Jyhad:V VTES:V Tenth:A Ricki is right up there with Bothwell for utility: cheap, resilient, and expendable when things go wrong. I am not a fan of overloading Gangrel decks with Bone Spurs, since they cost blood. Actually, I am not a fan of any cards that cost blood, but combat cards that cost blood are the worst, since they might as well say "your opponent does extra damage." The massive fear that aggravated damage instills in many players cannot be ignored, though, so Ricki's protean can often mean an unobstructed bleed for one and access to the edge. Other fun things to do with Ricki and his (her? its?) cousins are harassing your foe's minion and Trapping on turn two, and rushing Arika with Bone Spur and Amaranth anytime. Ricki is three pool well spent if you can eliminate a key minion. The blood hunt vote is not a concern. Gitane is excellent for this deck as a kind of anchor. Her one vote is excellent in swing vote situations, and is extremely helpful in bigger games. Since it is so easy to get the edge with this deck, owing to its prevalent combat and bleeds for one, her primogen vote plus the edge is often enough of a starter to push through Gangrel Justicar, since you will often have three extra votes from Gangrel minions. IV. Cards of the Newsletter Haven Uncovered Type: Master Master. Put this card on a ready vampire. Any minion not controlled by that vampire's controller may enter combat with that vampire as a +1 stealth (D) action. That vampire can burn this card as a +1 stealth (D) action. Harass Type: Action (D)Enter combat with a vampire who has less than 4 blood or with any tapped minion. This acting minion gets an optional press, only usable to continue, in that combat. Haven Uncovered is the answer to Strike: Combat Ends for the Gangrel. Most rush decks spend every turn rushing, but this one doesn't. Most turns are spent bleeding for one to three, just to keep the pressure on your prey so they don't get out of hand. It is almost required that you let your prey stretch their legs a bit, because there isn't space to put enough ousting power in the deck for three preys. Often, your prey will overextend, and when your grandprey starts playing back at them, it is time to lay down the Haven Uncovered. Haven is the most reliable rush in the game. The +1 stealth is absolute gold for bypassing dingus blockers who stand between you and the Famous minion you must torporize. Haven also lets you flush out Strike: Combat Ends, since Immortal Grapple isn't really appropriate for this deck and the Dog Pack is too fragile. Two pool is a lot to ask for a 1 life retainer that might be stolen or killed, never mind that the action to employ the Dog Pack will likely be blocked. I can see using Dog Packs in a deck with Pack Alpha, but even then they are kind of sketchy. There is a temptation to think that Haven Uncovered is going to help you by allowing the entire table to rush the offending minion. This strategy can work if you place the Haven Uncovered on one of your predator's minions, since every player will have a crack at them before they can burn the card at + 1 stealth, but I view it as a long shot. Do not put a Haven Uncovered down unless you are prepared to collect on it. Have some self-respect. "Prepared to collect" in this deck can mean three actions, depending on the level of combat defense you are seeing. If you are lucky, it sets up a good Fame dunk loop if you have a Bone Spur in hand, and can send the homeless vamp to torpor with some blood, but that is another long shot. Using Haven Uncovered to good effect requires commitment, but it guarantees kills. Harass is my favorite transient rush. The immediate replacement is excellent because drawing more combat cards is a strong possibility. The press, if the action is successful, directly supports the strategy of using fortitude based press combat to win through attrition, and it can often be directed at any minion because later in the game it is rare to see a minion with more than 3 blood who is untapped. The cases where you would rather use Bum's Rush and be a card short in combat to target someone outside the requirements of Harass are rare, and you can use Haven Uncovered for the times when you must get a particular vampire. Sometimes celerity gun decks will make getting to the second round of combat alive pretty difficult, and Harass is less attractive for them, but if you have some kind of plan, (a Flesh of Marble or Skin of Steel in hand, Body Flare with a PRO minion Harassing) it is viable. V. Not a V:TES Deck Since I am a supporter of the right of gay couples to marry (and of civil rights in general) I figured I would take the opportunity to build a themed deck, expressing discontent for those who think a civil union should be good enough. Deck Name : uncivil union Author : quickbeam Description : See if you can identify all the couples in the deck and their genders. Bonus points for identifying the design constraint. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 8 average: 4.59 2x Badger 6 FOR PRO ani pot Gangrel:1 2x Ricki Van Demsi 3 for pro Gangrel:1 1x Quinton McDonnell 8 FOR ani cel pro primogen Gangrel:1 1x Gitane St. Claire 7 ANI FOR PRO primogen Gangrel:1 1x Zack North 6 ani for pot pro Gangrel:1 1x Camille Devereux, 5 FOR PRO ani Gangrel:1 1x Roman Alexander 4 ani for pro Gangrel:1 1x Roland Loussarian 3 for pre Ventrue:1 1x Giuliano Vincenzi 2 for Gangrel:1 1x Rufina Soledad 2 for Ventrue:1 Library [77 cards] Action [10] 1x Army of Rats 1x Arson 3x Bum's Rush 3x Restoration 2x Ritual Challenge Action Modifier [2] 1x Dawn Operation 1x Freak Drive Combat [43] 1x Amaranth 4x Claws of the Dead 2x Earth Meld 1x Flesh of Marble 1x Form of Mist 1x Gleam of Red Eyes 1x Growing Fury 15x Indomitability 1x Pulled Fangs 2x Skin of Steel 2x Thrown Sewer Lid 3x Trap 5x Undead Persistence 4x Unflinching Persistence Equipment [3] 1x Laptop Computer 2x Sport Bike Master [13] 3x Blood Doll 1x Ecoterrorists 2x Fame 3x Fortitude 3x Haven Uncovered 1x Rack, The Political Action [1] 1x Gangrel Justicar Reaction [5] 1x Cats' Guidance 1x Rat's Warning 3x Wake with Evening's Freshness Thanks for reading. I look forward to any comments. Thanks also to the editorial staff, who spend their off hours playing decks with loads of potence and damage not preventable by fortitude. -Dave Clooney