OFFICIAL VEKN KIASYD NEWSLETTER VOL II ISSUE V DECEMBER 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. EDITORIAL Well the holidays came and time is quickly disappearing; this newsletter is a month behind schedule as well. Pardon the delay, but well it's the holidays. The new Anniversary sets will bring back many of our favorite older vampires and unreprinted cards. All of these were from the days before Bloodlines, so the impact on Kiasyd strategies will be smaller than other clans. Shadow Step is now available and this card will surely help us out. There are many other treasures there and the new cards should come in very handy. Next time after toying with some of these new items, I hope to have a deck that will include some of them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. VAMPIRE OF THE MONTH Gerard [Sabbat:V, SW:PV] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Ventrue antitribu Group: 2 Capacity: 5 Discipline: aus dom for obt Sabbat Gerard is great for a five capacity vampire. He has four inferior disciplines and no special. You are going to overlook this guy for almost every Ventrue antitribu crypt. He can play most of the Mytherceria outferiors and has both of the other clan discplines. Considering the fact that Kiasyd crypts tend to have higher average capacities, I am more than willing to spend for Gerard, just to help reduce my average crypt size and diverisify my crypt. Where Gerard is really going to excel for our clan is when he is teamed up with Kassiym Malikhair. As you may recall, Kassiym is the only Kiasyd with Fortitude, giving him and Gerard three matching disciplines. Gerard is going to be a great second vampire in a Kassiym multi-action deck and good supporting vampire for Kiasyd. Next month: Elena Mendoza Vasquez -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. CARD OF THE MONTH Steal the Mind [BL:R2] Cardtype: Action Cost: 1 blood Discipline: Mytherceria/Dominate [dom] (D) Tap any minion. [myt] (D) Put this card on a ready minion. The acting vampire gets +2 intercept when attempting to block that minion. Any minion can burn this card as an action. [MYT] As [myt] above, and the minion with this card gets -1 bleed when bleeding this acting vampire's controller. Versatility and effeciency are always key factors when choosing to use a card in your library. With only 90 cards, you need to address many possible scenarios. Versatile cards, those which may be played offensively or defensively, are a great addition to any deck. Many defensive cards become nullified by certain predator types. Having bounce when your preadtor is a vote deck is not going to aid you is stopping the votes. Having stealth when your prey is not blocking you is going to jam your hand. Cards that are playable in a variety of ways reduce the amount of time they will sit in you hand and increase the likelyhood that when you play it, the effect will be truly useful. Steal the Mind is one such versatile card. Let us begin our review by looking at the Dominate outferior. The ability to tap any minion is quite useful. Offensively, you can tap your prey's blocker/bouncer to increase the chances that they will take your bleed. This is very important for our clan, which can bleed for a lot at stealth, but has no in-action responsibility, such as the superior version of Spying Mission. Kiasyd need to be responsible about bleeding before the action begins. Tapping a bouncer now forces your prey to have two cards to bounce you: one being a Wake (of some type) and the second being the bounce. The cost of playing Steal the Mind in this way is that Kiasyd crypts typically have a high average capacity. A couple of Dominate weenies can really help out here. You can also use the Dominate outferior of Steal the Mind defensively. Tapping a key blocker/bouncer of your predator will keep your grand-predator from bleeding you with bounced bleeds. This type of action will also cause your predator to be more reticent of leaving only one defender, taking some pressure off of you in the process. The Mytherceria inferior is useful for putting the stop to one of your predator's minion's actions. The +2 intercept will require at least two cards to beat and gives you an excellent chance of stopping whatever actions that minion is taking. There are a couple of problems when playing this card at this level. First, you need to defend the card, but since the card is played on the minion, you no longer control it. This makes removal attempts (D) actions at the Methuselah who controls the minion. In other words, if your predator can convince someone cross-table to remove the card, you will have no way of stopping them, short of superior Eagle's Sight or Falcon's Eye. For the Kiasyd, only Bartholonew has superior Auspex, making the chances of stopping a cross-table removal slim at best. Your best defense against cross-table assistance is better table-talking and deal-making skills. Hey, this is a social game, so get to it! The second problem with Steal the Mind at inferior Mytherceria is that you are tapped after playing it, meaning that you will need a Wake to gain its effect on you predator's first turn or you will not see a benefit for two turns. If you're trying to stop or slow a stealth predator, this card may be helpful, but having the Wake will be a must before playing this card. The superior Mytherceria effect is a nice addition to the inferior. The -1 bleed can save you a lot of pool over time; however, the vampires you will most likely want to target with Mytherceria effects will be stealth-bleeders, who should have plenty of +bleed, or stealth-voters, who won't be bleeding you anyway. Steal the Mind is definitely worth using in a lot of Kiasyd decks. Between its offensive and defensive power, you should have ample opportunities to make good use of the card. Next month: A discussion of stealth-bleed, Kiasyd, and responsibility. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. DECK OF THE MONTH This deck is designed to show off Kassiym and Gerard combination and utilize Steal the Mind as both an offensive and defensive weapon. While Kassiym and Gerard are the stars, the Dominate weenies will be doing a lot of the work ousting and bouncing. Deck Name : Kiasyd-!Ventrue Toolbox Author : Karl George Schaefer Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 6 average: 4.59 ------------------------------------------------------------ 3x Kassiym Malikhair 6 MYT OBT dom for Kiasyd:2 3x Gerard 5 aus dom for obt !Ventrue:2 2x Batrice L'Angou 5 MYT aus dom nec Kiasyd:2 1x Ingrid Russo 4 DOM for !Ventrue:2 1x Ember Wright 3 aus dom !Tremere:3 1x Sister Evelyn 3 aus dom !Ventrue:3 1x Samson 2 dom !Ventrue:2 Library [80 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Action [16] 2x Art's Traumatic Essence 4x Revelations 6x Scouting Mission 4x Steal the Mind Action Modifier [14] 3x Conditioning 3x Foreshadowing Destruction 4x Freak Drive 2x Shroud of Absence 2x Stone Travel Combat [16] 6x Absorb the Mind 2x Pulled Fangs 2x Resilience 2x Skin of Rock 2x Skin of Steel 2x Superior Mettle Master [14] 2x Anarch Troublemaker 3x Blood Doll 2x Chanjelin Ward 1x Corporate Hunting Ground 3x Dominate 2x Perfectionist 1x Ventrue Investment Reaction [14] 4x Deflection 2x Enhanced Senses 6x Forced Awakening 2x Precognition Reaction/Action Modifier [6] 6x Aura Absorption -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. SIGN OFF Thanks for reading. The next newsletter will be in February. Karl Schaefer kschaefe@alumni.nd.edu