Official VEKN Malkavian Antitribu NEWSLETTER, April 2006 VOLUME V, Issue IV 1. INTRODUCTION This time we are going to explore the new goodies we've got in the Nights of Reckoning set. Surely, I know that our clan didn't get any new cards or vampires, but the game was enriched with the new possibilities, and we !Malks are definitely brave enough (and mad enough) to use them. The most strange thing I've encountered is the fact that many players seem to be confused with the new set and the new rules, and they tend to avoid NoR as a result. This is the most stupid behaviour, IMHO: they should live with it as long as it exists. Moreover, Imbued are good enough to be used in many different decks. I'd like to write a full review of NoR, but I don't think that I have the required experience, so I'll just demonstrate the best cards and some ideas of their usage. 2. IMBUED: GOOD, BAD OR UGLY? Imbued aren't vampires, but they were designed to be "similar" to vampires. You still influence them with your pool and your transfers. They still can bleed your prey and block dangerous actions. They still can equip things. Moreover, they even have their own "torpor" (incapacitated region)! The differences are huge, nevertheless. They AREN'T vampires, and even the most usual cards won't work for them. You cannot drain their blood with Blood Doll, Minion Tap or Tribute to the Master. You cannot play Govern on them. They cannot resque from torpor, diablerize or perform ANY political actions. Their options is greatly limited, and, moreover, there are cards that will burn them or steal them regardless of their capacity! All these facts are terribly bad, but there are positive factors, too. Being allies (not vampires) also makes imbued immune to all negative cards that affect only vampires - for instance, Vampiric Disease or Society of Leopold. There are many Gehenna events that harm vampires, but not Imbued, and you may build a deck of such cards, like my Deck of the Month. But you don't have to build such decks, since many Imbued are good enough even as a support for your vampires. Imbued are immune to Kiss of Ra, Rotshreck and to all cards of "vampires cannot block this action" kind. Even if you aren't going to build an Imbued-based deck, having some Imbued may be very advantageous. One Imbued with Second Sight may block crucial +1 stealth actions of your predator or prey even if the acting vampire can play Daring the Dawn, Beast Meld or similar cards. Playing Dawn Operation against Imbied would be just silly, since allies treat aggravated damage as normal. Similarly, your Imbued may have .44 Magnum (or even Assault Rifle) and act without fear of Rotschrecks and Drawing Out the Beasts. Unlike vampires that use their blood as a single resource (as their 'hit points' and 'power for paying for cards'), Imbued have two different resources. Their life is used only as 'hit points': an Imbued with 1 life has the same performance as if he had 5 life, like characters in poor RPGs. Too bad we cannot reclaim their life back to our pool, but they are balanced right to offset this, and if we could, the Imbued would be broken. They use "convictions", cards of a new type, to pay for card effects. Each Imbued gains one Conviction when he comes into play and one during each untap phase from your ash heap, and the Convictions itself grant him different abilities. Burning Second Sight, for instance, provides +1 intercept or +1 stealth against monsters to your Imbued, and you may recycle it each turn. This alone may justify paying 3-4 pool for an Imbued that can serve as an emergency blocker and additional bleeder. Now consider the fact that "virtues" (the Disciplines for Imbued) have only one level, so the "Discipline Level" for each Imbued should be somewhere between "inferior" and "superior". While having a 3-capacity vampire with two Disciplines at inferior is normal, the same vampire with two superior Disciplines would be definitely broken - but we have two 3-cap Imbued with two virtues, and one 4-cap with three. Pricing a virtue at "1.5 vampire points", we will easily get overwhelming results for all Imbued, and that would be right - they are really very, very good. 3. CARDS OF THE MONTH * Blood Cult Awareness Network, Event, R Inquisition. Requires a ready imbued in play. Whenever there are any ready imbued in play, any action to put vampire or ghoul in play or to add counters to an uncontrolled vampire gets -1 stealth and costs an additional blood or life. Don't you think that Govern the Unaligned is too powerful? Do you wish to get rid of all these Third Traditions, Tumnimos, Embraces and other hordes? This card is great for this. Playing Govern for 1 blood at +1 stealth is very good, but playing it for 2 blood at zero stealth isn't. This card is great for a deck that tries to control the table, since hordes of weenies are difficult to control, and this is a great weapon against them. Most of the time, Blood Cult Awareness Network will allow your allies block such action themselves, and you may save your Eagle's Sights for mor important cases. * Church of Vindicated Faith, The, Master, 1 pool, R Master: unique location. Requires a ready Imbued. When an imbued successfully performs an action, tap this card to move 1 blood from the blood bank to an imbued in your uncontrolled region. This is Mbare Market for Imbued, a bit weaker, but it costs only 1 pool instead of 3! As long as this card is one of the few ways of regaining pool in the Imbued decks, it's going to be popular. Unfortunately, this card won't be good in the vampire decks with a few support Imbued, since you may lack an Imbued in your uncontrolled region, but in the all-Imbued decks it's almost an auto-include. * Second Sight, Conviction, C An imbued may burn only one Second Sight for the following effects each action. Burn when a monster is acting to give this imbued +1 intercept for that action. Burn when this imbued declares an action to give monsters -1 intercept for this action. This card + an Imbued = possibility to block one +1 stealth action per turn or PERFORM one +1 stealth action per turn if your opponents have only "monsters" (vampires and non-mortal, non-animal allies). For a 3/4-cap, such possibilities are really amazing. * Champion, Power, Defense, R [Reaction] [2 Convictions] Only usable when a monster controlled by another Methuselah is taking a (D) action against you or against an imbued controlled by any player. The action fails and the acting monster enters combat with this imbued instead. This card is unparalleled in power. It doesn't matter how much stealth the acting monster has - the action will fail anyway. This is extremely good against stealth-bleed decks and other decks with a lot of stealth: such decks rarely have a lot of combat cards, and even Imbued can torporize their vampires in a well-designed deck. Dementation-based decks cannot even play Coma against Imbued! * Project, Power, Martyrdom, R [Action Modifier] [1 Conviction] Only usable as the action is accounced. Vampires with capacity less than 7 and monster allies who costs less than 4 pool cannot block this action. This card makes wonders in a Wormwood decks, as long as capacity of ALL vampires falls to 6 - it makes the Imbued virtually unblockable. Or you may equip Signet of King Saul, which prevents blocks from vampires with capacity ABOVE 7... only 7-caps will be able to block! Combine this with Edge Explosion, Strike with Conviction and an Imbued with +1 bleed, and you will get an unblockable bleed for 3 each turn. This is extremely good for decks that need some ways of ousting, but don't kill all minions of their prey (i.e. Tzimisce wall deck). * Surge, Power, Vengeance, R [Combat/Reaction] [1 Conviction] Put 3 surge counters on this imbued. This imbued may burn any number of surge counters to prevent that amount of non-aggravated damage. Burn all surge counters on this imbued at the end of the action. Imbued are generally bad in combat, though they can rely on weapons, especially ranged, and they don't fear Drawing out the Beast. Surge makes them really tough and enables even Rush decks based on Imbued. Combined with Second Sight, this card provides a wonderful defender for your fragile vampires, and in case of Beatrice "Oracle171" Tremblay, you also get a wonderful bleeder when you need it - all for 3 pool. * Determine, Reaction, 1 conviction, Vision, C Play when a monster controlled by your predator is bleeding you. Tap this reactiong imbued. The monster is now bleeding your predator`s predator. Or play when a monster controlled by your predator or prey plays an action card. Tap this reactiong imbued and cancel that action card as it is played (no cost is paid, and the moster doesn`t tap). That monster cannot play the same action card against this turn. Now, please, don't get me wrong. This card has the effect of superior My Enemy's Enemy or greatly empowered Louhi's ability and requires only an Imbued with Vision and one Conviction. Killing your grandpredator isn't very nice, but the very fact that you CAN bounce bleeds should force your S&B predator to think twice before bleeding you for 6, even if you don't have any vampires with Auspex or Dominate. This alone makes Determine a wonderful card. What can be said about the second ability, then? Doesn't it resemble Direct Intervention? Surely, DI is more powerful, but it's a master out-of-turn, and it costs 1 pool. Nobody has too many master slots or too much pool, and nobody cannot play two OOT masters in a line anyway - while Determine costs only 1 Conviction (which you will get back anyway) and tapping a cheap minion, and you CAN play several Determines in a row with different Imbued. Louhi can do almost the same for just 1 blood, but she cannot cancel cards of your prey. And neither DI nor Louhi prevents the vampire from playing the same action again. Yes, I know, the ability to cancel cards may seem not too important at first, but actually it's uber-powerful. At the NoR pre-release my Leaf 'Potter116' Pankowski canceled Alastor of my prey which would definitely mean a loss for me should it pass. There are a lot of decks that rely on key cards and good card flow - Determine will hurt them a lot. And don't forget the unique line "cannot play the same action again this turn", which can make the effect more devastating than effect of DI. Your predator may have three PTO in his hand, but cancel one with Determine, and he'd be unable to play PTO at all this turn (if he had only one Inner Circle member). The same could be said about Govern the Unaligned (he may have other vampires and more Governs in his hand, but nobody would be able to play them this turn), and many other cards. In short, Determine is pure gold, and I'm already going to use it en masse. 4. VAMPIRES... erhm, IMBUED OF THE MONTH * Travis "Traveler72" Miller, 5, DEF MAR, Martyr, 4 Imbued: Travis may move 2 blood from the blood bank to an imbued in your uncontrolled region as a +1 stealth action that costs 1 conviction. Yes, there are vampires with similar abilities, but they are far more expensive than 5 pool, and they generally move their own blood, not blood from the blood bank. Travis is the wonderful pool-gaining machine in a deck that really needs it (after all, there are not so many ways of getting pool from Imbued), and he is nearly broken at the beginning of the game: if nobody can block him, as he will provide 2 pool AND 2 more transfers. Combine him with Information Highway (+2 transfers), Church of Vidicated Faith (+1 pool and +1 transfer) and Paul "Sixofswords29" Moreton (+1 transfer), and you will get +3 pool and +6 transfers per turn! There are no vampire-based decks with such immense acceleration. Use it well, and you will simply outrace the competitors. * Leaf "Potter116" Pankowski, 4, INN RED VIN, Redeemer, 4, [NoR] Imbued: During your discard phase, Leaf may tap to gain a conviction from your library (shuffle afterward), hand or ash heap. Your Imbued can get one Conviction when they come into play, but they may require more. Leaf will quickly fetch all Convictions from your deck, and you will never draw them, but your Imbued will use all cards they wish. This is a huge advantage! Unfortunately, Leaf's virtues aren't the strongest, but she has three of them, which is good for a 4-cap. After you get your Convictions, she may just play Determine each turn. Note that Leaf's ability works even in the "incapacitated region", so she is "immortal", since burning three Convictions will bring her back into action. Sounds good enough for me. * Maman Boumba, 4, INN MAR, Martyr, 4 Imbued: During a referendum, Maman may burn a conviction to get 3 votes against the referendum. You may tap Maman before range is determined in a combat between two monsters to end that combat. The best support Imbued for the decks without combat defense, i.e. Malkavian stealth-bleed decks. If somebody would rush my vampire, I just tap Maman to end combat. If somebody will rush Maman, she could just use Hide to make the action fail. If nobody would rush my minions, she can help against voting decks or serve as an additional blocker/bleeder. I am just happy to get so wonderful supporting ally. * Paul "Sixofswords29" Moreton, 4, DEF VIN, Visionary, 4 Imbued: During your influence phase, you may move a counter from your pool to an imbued in your uncontrolled region. This guy has a "mini-Info Highway" which works only one way. Nevertheless, in an Imbued deck this ability is wonderful, since it cannot be contested or stolen, and it will work even if Paul get incapacitated. Get your Imbued faster and gain some Powers when nobody can block you - isn't that great? Besides that, Paul has good virtues (Defense is going to be the most popular, as far as I can see), and he is clearly the best Visionary, so you are likely to use him if you wish to use Unity in your deck. 5. DECK OF THE MONTH Deck Name: Imbued + Roger = Wormwood Created By: Ilya Ginsburg Description: Roger and his mortal friends bring the Gehenna Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 15, Max: 19, Avg: 4,16) ---------------------------------------------- 4 Roger Farnsworth aus OBF 4 Malkavian Antitribu 3 Travis "Traveler72" Miller DEF MAR 5 Martyr 2 Lupe "Cabbie22" Droin DEF VEN 4 Defender 2 Paul "Sixofswords29" Moreton DEF VIN 4 Visionary 1 Francois "Warder" Loehr DEF JUD 3 Judge Library: (87 cards) ------------------- Master (22 cards) 1 Servitor of Irad 2 Fortschritt Library 4 Visit from the Capuchin 1 Rose Foundation, The 1 Church of Vindicated Faith, The 3 Vampiric Disease 1 Strained Vitae Supply 2 Society of Leopold 2 Parthenon, The 1 Millicent Smith, Puritan Vampire Hunter 1 Powerbase: Los Angeles 1 Blood Doll 1 Admonitions, The 1 Slave Auction Action (14 cards) 8 Lock 5 Sibyl`s Tongue 1 Black Hand Ritual Action Modifier (8 cards) 8 Cloak the Gathering Ally (2 cards) 1 Moise Kasavubu 1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter) Equipment (4 cards) 1 Tapestry of Blood 1 Crusader Sword, The 1 Sport Bike 1 Sniper Rifle Event (15 cards) 1 Unmasking, The 1 Thirst 1 Slow Withering, The 1 Restricted Vitae 1 Recalled to the Founder 1 Nightmares upon Nightmares 1 Anthelios, the Red Star 1 Wormwood 1 Edge Explosion 1 Fall of the Camarilla 1 Blood Weakens 1 Torpid Blood 1 Fueled by Heart`s Blood 1 Veil of Darkness 1 Dr. Marisa Fletcher, CDC Conviction (15 cards) 8 Second Sight 4 Strike with Conviction 3 React with Conviction Power (10 cards) 2 Champion 2 Surge 3 Project 3 Rejuvenate This is a variation of the "Road Movie to Berlin" deck posted by Witness1 in his Hunter newsletter. Since it's the Malkavian antitribu newsletter, this deck should have some !Malks, and it really does. Roger Farnsworth serves as a support for Imbued here, fetching needed cards with Sibyl's Tongues, Cloaking their Gathering and working as a host for Servitor of Irad and Admonitions. Having a 4-cap vampire that can perform such important tasks really enhances deck a lot. This is almost pure combo deck. You should play Wormwood as soon as possible, preferable at turn 2, and Sibyl's Tongues are invaluable for fetching the needed cards. Your ultimate goal is having The Unmasking, Wormwood, Edge Explosion and three more Gehenna events to ensure that there would be no vampires with capacity 7 or more, and nobody would be able to block your Imbued with Projects. It would be absolutely evil to play Recalled to the Founder and ensure that there would be no vampires with capacity above 5, too. Thirst and Nightmares upon Nightmares will be the top-priority cards against weenies, and Fall of the Camarilla will defeat a lot of Camarilla decks. Obviously, most of your cards will hurt Roger, too, but he is needed mostly at the beginning of the game. He can play Cloak the Gathering even empty or tapped, and if he get Tapestry of Blood, he's going to get 1 blood almost each turn. The deck even includes Blood Doll to regain a few pool from him - after all, some Imbued can Rejuvenate him even without the Tapestry. You should try to have at least one ally with this deck, since it definitely won't stay against the whole table. And you really have something to offer: you can block some actions that may hurt your ally and "feed" his vampires with Rejuvenate. You can also remove one of your own Gehenna events (or Break the Code played by somebody else) with Black Hand Ritual, and this can be used to gain an ally - for instance, if you burn Fall of the Camarilla. The key of victory is acting quickly. In theory, by turn 6 you can have Roger, Travis Miller with Project and two other Imbued, all six key Gehenna cards in play, Parthenon, Church of Vindicated Faith and Champion with The Crusader Sword. This would be an ideal. Some slower decks need 3-4 turns to setup, and they can be overwhelmed by your cards - for instance, if you play Wormwood on turn 2 and another Gehenna event on turn three, third-turn Arika will be unable to Govern Queen Anne or Suhailah. This deck has quite a lot of hand cycling, and it really needs it, considering its primary goal and the fact that playing Gehenna event eats your discard phase. Powerbase: Los Angeles is priceless here, since it allows you do discard something (usually Convictions). Admonitions is also extremely good. Visit from the Capuchin is needed to negate the "don't replace" lines on your Gehenna cards, but it helps to find the needed cards, too. And don't forget Servitor from Irad! Actually, Servitor is going to be the second target after Wormwood, since it REALLY helps. You'd like to see your Convictions in your ash heap, not in your hand. Obviously, when you will influence out your Imbued, you should give them Convictions from your hand first, then from your library, and only then from your ash heap. That's all for April, As always, any comments or ideas are appreciated. Yours, Ector