IT WAITS TO KILL (Imbued newsletter, July 2008) I. IT WAITS TO KILL II. THE HERE AND NOW III. TOOLS OF THE HUNT IV. SURVIVAL GUIDE V. ON WHOSE SIDE DO YOU STAND? VI. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE I. IT WAITS TO KILL IT WAITS TO KILL IT WAITS TO KILL IT WA- II. THE HERE AND NOW It’s been a long time since the last newsletter, and there’s a lot to catch up on: two banned cards, and two new expansions have shifted the game for the imbued, and we’re long overdue for another newsletter. The loss of Edge Explosion has taken with it certain kinds of imbued decks, most notably Thanks for the Donation. It also tunes down Darby- dance style decks quite a bit, but those should remain potent. III. TOOLS OF THE HUNT As I mentioned before, there’s a fair amount of new material to work with. For now, I’m only going to focus on a few: Target: Hand Combat Aim. Play when choosing a strike. The opposing minion may discard two combat cards to cancel this card. If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the opposing minion, he or she gets -1 strength this action, and you may destroy a weapon he or she has. A minion may play only one aim each strike. Quick Jab Combat Do not replace until after combat. Strike: make a hand strike (at strength damage) with first strike. If more than 1 damage is inflicted with this strike, ignore the excess. Shoulder Drop Combat Grapple. Play when you successfully inflict damage from a hand strike. After strike resolution, if this minion is still ready, the opposing minion takes 1 additional damage. The opposing minion cannot press this round. A minion may play only one Shoulder Drop each strike. When combined with a Trap, this combination can beat up a defenseless opponent with no return damage. Shoulder Drop can stop the opponent from using any presses to get out, and any of the cards can be used to reset the trap. Of course, most opponents will have some kind of defense against this, but with the imbued, you can cancel Majesties with RwC, and with the help of Jennie Orne, Rejuvenate, and Vagabond Mystic, you ought to be able to recover from hitback when you need to. Round out the deck with some small vampires in the crypt; they can play the core combat package, commit diablerie, and burn Smiling Jack if necessary. Use Maman Boumba and The Rose Foundation to save them from bloodhunts, along with: Urban Jungle Event Inconnu. Blood hunt referendums get an additional 2 votes against the referendum. IV. SURVIVAL GUIDE Lords of the Night brought a lot of new threats to the table, some more dangerous than others. Defending against many of them, like Autonomic Mastery or Set’s Curse, is as simple as remembering to pack enough React with Conviction. While these cards are still dangerous, particularly if your opponents are stressing your convictions in other ways as well, they don’t need much treatment here: just don’t get caught with your pants down. With that said, here are the cards I consider the real threats from Lords of the Night: Ambulance Type: Equipment Cost: 1 pool Vehicle. After a combat between this acting minion and a blocking minion, you may tap the Ambulance to continue the action as if unblocked. If the action is blocked again, burn this card. This minion may tap the Ambulance to attempt to burn an incapacitated imbued as a +1 stealth (D) action. A minion may have only one vehicle. This card is actually worth including in many imbued decks (particularly for matches against other imbued). Equipping can be done with Angel of Berlin, and the action-continues part can be useful in many situations. I wouldn’t pack more than a couple, as a waking minion is liable to simply re-block you after you use it and waste your investment, but it can be invaluable in a lunge. When used against us, it’s both an action-continuer (bad for us because we don’t have good wake options) and a stealth-pillowfacing that doesn’t allow you to burn convictions to damage the opponent (but also doesn’t allow the opponent to take your gear). The stealth part is only likely to give you trouble if it’s coming from another imbued deck (since The Unmasking, Second Sight, Discern, and even Champion completely fail to work against mortal allies) or a deck that’s packing additional stealth to back it up. Can't Take it with You Type: Political Action Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Each Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location or retainer card he or she controls. Ouch. Gain 1 pool, then pay 1 for Church, Rose Foundation, Ivory Bow, Crusader Sword, Laptop… Yet another good reason to include a handful of Poison Pills. Cave of Apples Type: Master Requires: Follower of Set Cost: 3 pool Master: unique location. Any Follower of Set you control may put a corruption counter on an ally or younger vampire controlled by your prey as a (D) action. If the action is successful and the number of your corruption counters on the minion equals or exceeds his or her capacity or cost, you may burn those counters to gain control of him or her. Some people will probably be surprised that I include this here, but I think this card is a real threat. Sure, a React With Conviction cancels the change of control effect, but if you do, the corruption counters remain on your imbued, and once you’ve reached that point, every setite can just keep stacking more counters on you until you run out of RwC and they steal you. It’s probably worth your while to block those actions when you can (but Champion’s 2 conviction cost vs. burning 1 React to cancel is usually not worth it). Command the Legion Type: Action Requires: Dominate Cost: X blood [dom] Tap X-1 allies or younger vampires. [DOM] As above, but one of the minions may be the same age or older. What’s that I hear you saying? (D) action canceled by React With Conviction? Nay, a canny opponent will pay 1 extra blood to tap a single minion you don’t control (possibly even the acting minion himself at superior Dominate). Now the action is undirected, which means it cannot be canceled by React nor failed with Champion. Best to DI or Determine it. Failing that, you’ll need to have several untaps available to stop the inevitable bleed machine that’s coming along behind you. Into Thin Air Type: Action Modifier Requires: Obfuscate Do not replace until your untap phase. [obf] +1 stealth. Once this action, this vampire may burn 1 blood to give an ally or younger vampire -1 intercept. Into Thin Air and Lost in Crowds cannot both be played on the same action. [OBF] As above, but for +2 stealth. I’m not sure how many people will actually use this card over Lost in Crowds, because of the Do Not Replace clause. Still, imagine that your predator’s called a deadly vote, and when you tried to block, he plays Forgotten Labyrinth. You think you’re safe, holding Channel 10 in reserve as you get to 4 intercept with The Unmasking, Discern, Second Sight, and a Sport Bike. Then your opponent pops Into Thin Air. It’ll be a pain in the butt trying to scrape up a seventh point of intercept against that vote deck. Permanent Vacation Type: Political Action Choose a ready ally. Successful referendum means that ally is removed from the game. Byebye Jennie! Looks like we’ll see you next game. Along with The Secret Must be Kept, this is probably the best reason to include Vox Domini in your deck. If you’re playing hybrid decks, make sure to include some Delaying Tactics. Trochomancy Type: Action Modifier Requires: Auspex & Necromancy [nec] Remove 13 cards in the target Methuselah's ash heap from the game to get +1 bleed. Not usable if there aren't enough cards in that ash heap. You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed. [aus][nec] As [nec] above, but remove only 7 cards. [AUS][NEC] As [aus][nec] above, but for +2 bleed. What can I say? Play carefully against a necromancy predator, and especially carefully against Harbingers or other aus/nec vampires. Keeping convictions out of the ash heap is much harder without Edge Explosion to back you up. Strongly consider packing extra convictions if you think you’re likely have this played against you. Tye Cooper Type: Ally Requires: Giovanni Cost: 3 pool Unique wraith with 1 life. 0 strength, 1 bleed. Tye is immune to non-aggravated damage. He may burn a non-ready minion as a (D) action. If that action is successful, you may move a library card from your ash heap to your hand (discard afterward). Tye has a built-in pillowface without conviction damage (even if you could conviction damage him, he’d be immune). Just be wary of him. Aside from these cards, there are several that work on “allies or younger vampires”. You’re going to be on the bad end of all these cards, but you’re most likely to see them played by larger vampires, so at least you should have some minion advantage. V. ON WHOSE SIDE DO YOU STAND? With the advent of Twilight Rebellion, anarch decks have become far more potent. Expect to see Anarch Revolt played frequently. Normally, this would be a problem for the imbued, but for the Anarch Convert: Anarch Convert Clan: Caitiff (group ANY) Capacity: 1 Powers (Disciplines): Independent. Anarch: When the convert enters play, you may remove him from the game to make a non-titled vampire you control anarch and either gain 1 pool or draw a card from your crypt. Putting a few Anarch Converts into your imbued deck can be a strong move. He makes you immediately immune to Anarch Revolt damage, as well as being able to take actions restricted to vampires only (such as burning Smiling Jack). He enables a lot of other cards such as Delaying Tactics, and it’s no big loss for him to throw Flash Grenades if he gets in a fight. If you can’t actually get through to Smiling Jack, he can at least burn a blood and hunt every turn, potentially buying you an extra turn to oust your prey or draw into your own Jack to contest. The best part is, he does all that for just one pool invested, with no drawbacks. Beware, however, that an anarch predator may choose to contest the Convert with you, especially if he’s using Anarch Revolt as a primary ousting mechanism. Try to avoid bringing yours into play until after he’s used a few for their special ability. Alternatively, you could include another small vampire such as Sandra White, and use the Convert to make her into an anarch instead. VI. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE Deck Name : Urban Jungles Author : Witness1 Description : Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 5 average: 3.66667 ------------------------------------------------------------ 2x Jennie "Cassie247" Orne 5 inn jud vis Imbued:4 1x Travis "Traveler72" Miller 5 mar def Imbued:4 1x Jack "Hannibal137" Harmon 4 def jud Imbued:4 1x John "Cop90" O'Malley 4 jud ven Imbued:4 1x Leaf "Potter116" Pankowski 4 inn red vis Imbued:4 1x Maman Boumba 4 inn mar Imbued:4 1x Marion "Teacher193" Perks 4 red jud Imbued:4 1x Pedro Cortez 4 mar ven Imbued:4 1x Marta 3 aus dem !Malkavian:4 1x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:0 1x Sandra White 1 Caitiff:3 Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Action [8] 3x Ambush 2x Bum's Rush 3x Harass Combat [29] 1x Molotov Cocktail 6x Quick Jab 2x Shoulder Drop 10x Target Hand 10x Trap Conviction [24] 8x React with Conviction 8x Second Sight 8x Strike with Conviction Equipment [3] 1x Crusader Sword, The 1x Heart of Nizchetus 1x Ivory Bow Event [5] 1x Dragonbound 1x Narrow Minds 2x Unmasking, The 1x Urban Jungle Master [15] 4x Angel of Berlin 2x Church of Vindicated Faith, The 1x Direct Intervention 1x Fame 1x Filchware's Pawn Shop 1x Haven Uncovered 1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch 2x Specialization 2x Wash Reaction [6] 3x On the Qui Vive 3x Poison Pill Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Wed Jul 09 11:28:58 2008] Thanks for reading once again. Contributions are always welcome. -witness1