Official VEKN Malkavian Antitribu NEWSLETTER, April 2005 VOLUME IV, Issue VII 1. INTRODUCTION This newsletter is dedicated to blood-draining... a pleasant words for all vampires, no? Not this time, since we're going to drain blood of opposing vampires, not just feed upon the kine. A theory of blood-draining is simple: each Methuselah has 30 pool, and the combined number of (his pool + blood of his vampires) generally decreases during the game as his vampires spend their blood. Some actions do increase this number, however: the most important ones are hunt and Govern-like actions (Fourth Tradition, The Call and so on). There are "bloating" decks that concentrate on building up their pool and blood stockpiles, but this strategy requires a lot of time, and your prey may get some VPs while you would collect the pool. Thus, bloating usually represents just a survival tech of a deck, not the primary strategy. Now imagine that you're playing a deck that actively drains blood of your prey's vampires. There are numerous ways to implement this theme: Cryptic Mission, Shadow Twin, Slaughtering the Herd, etc. etc. If your deck is powerful enough, you may weaken their Minion Taps and force your prey to use Blood Dolls in the other way to prevent hunting instead of regaining the pool. A very powerful deck would completely stop its prey and force his vampires to hunt each turn. If you manage to build even more powerful blood-drainer, it will torporize vampires of your prey without entering combat! 2. HERE WE ARE In the previous newsletter I promised to call Mind of a Killer my Card of the Month "sometimes". Nobody likes to wait, neither do I, so I decided that "now" is the best time for this. Mind of a Killer really deserves it, and our clan has some dirty tricks to make it work. The most "dirty" trick is, certainly, our trusted Sibyl's Tongue, which can fetch any card we need in time. Without further ado, let's examine our blood-draining arsenal! 3. CARDS OF THE MONTH Mind of a Killer Action (Rare) +1 stealth action. [dem] (D) Put this card on a ready minion. This minion gets +1 strength. Burn this card when a combat involving this minion ends. During this minion's discard phase, burn this card, and this minion's controller must inflict 2 damage on another ready minion he or she controls. [DEM] As above, and tap this minion when this card is burned. To make this card work, you must ensure that the minion with it won't enter combat. The most obvious way to achieve this is using Chimerstry cards that tap one minion forever (Sensory Deprivation or Nightmare Curse). Fortunately, you need to tap only one minion, as the damage is inflicted to ANOTHER ready minion. Thus, your tactics is quite simple: tap the largest vampire of your prey and play as many Minds of a Killer on that vampire as you can. If your prey plays rather popular "one large vamp + many small ones" deck, this tactics sometimes disables your prey in a couple of turns. You tap a 10-cap vampire, and 3-4 Minds of a Killer make the remaining vampires empty. If you want to play without Chimerstry, you have several other options. Yitzak can tap a younger vampire each turn, and you will almost always find a vampire to tap, as Yitzak's capacity is 7. Moreover, you can play Obfuscate skill cards on Yitzak, which will make him older (to tap larger vampires) and allow him to sneak past possible blockers. Unfortunately, a deck based on Yitzak won't be able to tap very large vampires, and Lazverinus or Arika-based decks are going to be tough preys. Pentex Subversion is a good choice for the decks with good intercept. This card is very good even without Mind of a Killer, but the combination is really amazing. Pentex Subversion can handle even Infernal vampires that are unaffected by Sensory Deprivation or Yitzak's ability, and this is invaluable. Your vampire CAN untap, he just cannot perform any actions :) Most of the decks based on Mind of a Killer will need intercept anyway, as this strategy requires more time than just bleeding at stealth or killing all vampires of your prey, so you should be able to protect Pentex Subversion. The last card I'm going to review here is The Louvre, Paris, which can tap any minion if you control Prince of Paris. Again, you need intercept to protect The Louvre, but this card is very powerful, and it also works even against Infernal vampires. What about Prince of Paris? Fortunately, Francois Villon, who is going to be a star of our show, already has the title! Vampiric Disease Master (Rare) Choose a controlled vampire; put a disease counter on him or her if he or she does not have one. Each time a vampire with a disease counter is in combat at close range with another vampire, the second vampire gets a counter as well. An afflicted vampire cannot gain blood by hunting. When an afflicted vampire untaps, he or she burns a blood, or, if unable, loses all disease counters. This card really makes wonders in a blood-draining deck - it drains blood and prevents gaining blood by hunting. But its "spreading" behaviour makes it even better with Mind of a Killer: who would block a vampire with a disease counter? And if nobody would block the vampire, you can safely play multiple Minds of a Killer on him. This tactics definitely won't work against Rush decks that can rush you and give the disease counters to your own vampires, but it's good enough against other decks. If your grandprey would block your prey and get some disease counters, it may be even better for you :) Hidden Pathways Action(Rare) Cost: 1 blood [obf] Put this card in play. Your minions get +1 stealth on non-bleeding (D) actions against your prey. Any minion may burn this card as a (D) action. A Methuselah may have only one Hidden Pathways in play. [OBF] As above, but playing this card is a +1 stealth action. This card is a "must-have" for any deck based on Mind of a Killer. Mind of a Killer has inbuilt +1 stealth, and Hidden Pathways adds +1 more, so even your weenies without Obfuscate will play it at +2 stealth, which isn't very easy to block. Unlike Psychic Veil, this card can work infinitely, until someobody would spend an action to burn it, and you can always try to block this attempt. Even if they manage to burn Hidden Pathways, you can just play another one. 4. VAMPIRES OF THE MONTH Name: Francois Villon [DS:V, CE:PTo] Clan: Toreador Group: 2 Capacity: 10 Discipline: chi obf pot AUS CEL PRE Camarilla Prince of Paris: Francois may steal up to 2 blood from a younger vampire as a +1 stealth (D) action. +1 bleed. Francois is Toreador, and he has all Toreador Disciplines at superior, but we don't need his Celerity, Presence and Potence. Why we are going to play Francois, then? Obviously, we need the rest Disciplines and abilities: * Auspex allows him to block opposing vampires, bounce bleeds or play Nightmare Curse. * Chimerstry is needed for Nightmare Curse, but should be upgraded to superior level with a skill card. * Obfuscate is needed to push Nightmare Curse or blood-stealing. Can be upgraded to superior level, if needed. * Prince title is needed for Second Traditions to block and Fourth Traditions to gain pool and transfers, as this deck has no Dominate for Governs. Besides that, having votes is always good. * Prince of Paris title is needed for The Louvre, which is very good in our deck. * Blood-draining ability is awesome in a blood-draining deck. When you play Chimerstry on Francois, which is your primary goal, he will be able to drain even 10-capacity monsters. * +1 bleed is obviously good :) Obviously, Francois is going to perform multiple tasks, leaving Minds of a Killer to the lesser vamps. Younger !Malks, in turn, can play Sibyl's Tongues to fetch Chimerstry and Nihtmare Curse. This approach is implemented in my first "deck of the month" (see below). Name: Yitzak [BH:U2] Clan: Toreador antitribu Group: 3 Capacity: 7 Discipline: pre AUS CEL THA Sabbat: Yitzak may tap a younger vampire as a (D) action. If successful, that vampire does not untap as normal during his or her next untap phase. Now we have Toreador antitribu without a title, but with a good ability and superior Thaumaturgy. Yitzak really needs only one Obfuscate skill card to become effective enough, but a second one won't hurt, either. Really large vampires (9-11 caps) are immune to his ability even with two skill cards, but most of the time you will find a suitable target. Certainly, Yitzak lacks most of Francous' abilities, but he's much cheaper. And while he lacks inbuilt ability to steal blood, his superior Thaumaturgy enables Theft of Vitae, which is also good enough. 5. DECKS OF THE MONTH Deck Name: Mind of a Killer - Francois Villon version Created By: Ilya Ginsburg Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 10, Max: 40, Avg: 6) ------------------------------------------- 4 Francois Villon chi obf pot AUS CEL PRE 10 Toreador 1 Yorik dem obf 3 !Malkavian 1 Claven aus dem obf 4 !Malkavian 1 Boy Toy dem 2 !Malkavian 1 Dolphin Black AUS DEM OBF 6 !Malkavian 1 Artemis aus cel for DEM OBF 6 !Malkavian 1 Persia aus obf DEM 5 Malkavian 1 Uncle George aus dom obf DEM 5 !Malkavian 1 Eddie Gaines dem pot 1 Caitiff Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (16 cards) 1 Louvre, Paris, The 1 Vampiric Disease 1 Pentex Subversion 1 Chimerstry 2 Obfuscate 5 Blood Doll 2 Vast Wealth 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 1 KRCG News Radio 1 Metro Underground Action (38 cards) 22 Mind of a Killer 4 Fourth Tradition: The Accounting, The 6 Sibyl`s Tongue 3 Nightmare Curse 3 Hidden Pathways Action Modifier (13 cards) 5 Forgotten Labyrinth 4 Lost in Crowds 4 Elder Impersonation Reaction (18 cards) 6 Telepathic Misdirection 6 Second Tradition: Domain, The 6 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Ally (1 cards) 1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter) Equipment (3 cards) 1 Bowl of Convergence 1 Sniper Rifle 1 Learjet Event (1 cards) 1 Restricted Vitae This deck has two "primary targets", which you may achieve in different order: * Get Chimerstry for Francois Villon. This makes him older and allows draining blood of 10-cap vampires. Then you should concentrate on getting Nightmare Curse, The Louvre or Pentex Subversion. * Get Vast Wealth on Francois. Then fetch your equipment and defend against your predator while you are seeking for the parts of your combo. Learjet is especially good for cycling cards. The rest is rather self-explanatory. Defend yourself, play Minds of a Killer, block with Francois, steal blood and regain your pool with Fourth Traditions and Blood Dolls. Obfuscate cards are used to push crucial actions, especially Nightmare Curse. You shouldn't attempt it until you'll have at least +2 stealth for it - the card is too important to let your prey block it. Playing Obfuscate skill card on Francois is a good idea. Any blood-draining deck should prevent hunting, and we have Restricted Vitae and Vampiric Disease against it. Moreover, Carlton Van Wyk can block hunting if needed. Metro Underground is good for untapping Francois, as he's going to steal blood and to block. One Blood Doll is enough to negate the pool loss for this card. Deck Name: Mind of a Killer - Yitzak version Created By: Ilya Ginsburg Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 10, Max: 28, Avg: 5,08) ---------------------------------------------- 1 Yorik dem obf 3 !Malkavian 1 Claven aus dem obf 4 !Malkavian 1 Boy Toy dem 2 !Malkavian 1 Persia aus obf DEM 5 Malkavian 1 Eddie Gaines dem pot 1 Caitiff 3 Yitzak pre AUS CEL THA 7 !Toreador 3 Marie Faucigny dem tha AUS OBF 7 !Malkavian 1 Adelaide Davis aus dem obf 4 Malkavian Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (18 cards) 1 Vampiric Disease 1 Pentex Subversion 3 Obfuscate 5 Blood Doll 2 Vast Wealth 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 1 KRCG News Radio 2 Effective Management 2 Dreams of the Sphinx Action (31 cards) 22 Mind of a Killer 6 Sibyl`s Tongue 3 Hidden Pathways Action Modifier (13 cards) 5 Forgotten Labyrinth 4 Lost in Crowds 4 Elder Impersonation Reaction (12 cards) 6 Telepathic Misdirection 6 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Combat (6 cards) 6 Burst of Sunlight Ally (1 cards) 1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter) Equipment (5 cards) 1 Bowl of Convergence 1 Learjet 1 Ivory Bow 2 Flak Jacket Event (1 cards) 1 Restricted Vitae Combo (3 cards) 3 Swallowed by the Night This deck is essentially the same, but we have to dump all Prince-requiring stuff and The Louvre. Instead of these cards we have a decent combat module (Flak Jacket + Bursts of Sunlight) and a bit more stealth. You may build Thefts of Vitae version if you wish, even with Blur/Pursuit for additional strikes, but Minds of a Killer really need a lot of support cards, so it's hard to find enough free slots for the combat cards, IMHO. Maybe, this deck should contain a Cardinal Benediction for Yitzak. That's all for April. As usual, any comments or ideas are appreciated. Yours, Ector