Official VEKN Malkavian Antitribu NEWSLETTER, December 2004 VOLUME IV, Issue III 0. ERRATA My previous newsletter was dedicated to anti-Malkavian combat abilities (err... combat disabilities, for sure). Somehow I managed to miss the best defensive card available for our clan disciplines, Gemini's Mirror: Name: Gemini's Mirror [BH:C] Cardtype: Combat Cost: 1 blood Discipline: Obfuscate [obf] Strike: dodge with an optional maneuver. [OBF]Only usable before range is determined. When resolving each strike against this vampire, flip a coin. If it's tails, the strike has no effect on this vampire. This lasts until heads is flipped or combat ends. A vampire can play only one Gemini's Mirror at superior each combat. If you look at the superior abilities first (as I always do), you're going to repeat my mistake and overlook this card. Superior ability isn't very good - just look at the expected results, assuming you aren't cheating with the coin: 50% of the time it will do nothing (heads is flipped); 25% of the time it will prevent only one strike (tails and heads flipped); 12.5% of the time it will prevent two strikes, and so on. Average number of prevented strikes is close to 1, if number of strikes is high enough, but who needs such "improved dodge" for 1 blood? Surely, this ability is better than Dodge, since it's not a strike, you can strike with something else, and it's unaffected by Immortal Grapple and Thoughts Betrayed. But if your opponent can strike only once in a given combat (no additional strikes and no presses), this card works only 50% of the time, which isn't good enough for 1 blood. Obviously, this ability becomes much better if YOU are planning to continue combat, and I guess that Gemini's Mirror would shine in Nosferatu Trap/Carrion Crows decks (Gemini is Nosferatu, you know). Malkavians antitribu can use this ability against multiple-strike and multiple-round combat decks, when a single maneuver+dodge won't be enough. Nevertheless, the best part of this card is its inferior ability. You get both maneuver and dodge in a single card, and this is generally enough to save your vampire. Immortal Grapple deck will be forced to play BOTH maneuver and IG to deal any damage in the first round. Single-strike combat without IG, Thoughts Betrayed or presses is completely hosed by this card. Moreover, if you know that your opponent has no Grapples/Thoughts Betrayed, and he chooses his strike first, you may dump maneuver to get sudden dodge... this sometimes foils an expensive strike like Burning Wrath or Coma :) Obviuosly, Gemini's Mirror isn't as good against multiple-strike and multiple-round combat. When maneuver is useless, Dodge is better for a non-combat deck, since it is free, but in this situation you can use superior ability of Gemini's Mirror. If you were lucky with the first strike, your opponents will think twice before playing their Blur or press to continue combat, as your luck may stay with you until combat ends. Note that this card is very good even with INFERIOR Obfuscate, and virtually all !Malkavian vampires (except for Boy Toy, Idalia and Muriel Foucade) can play it. Unsurprisingly, all !Malkavian deck use Obfuscate (a Malk who cannot hide is a dead Malk), so the mentioned vampires aren't popular anyway. This card would shine in any Obfuscate-based deck, including weenie Obfuscate. Even 1-capacity Basil can play Gemini's Mirror... heck, even Marijava Thuggee can do it! If you still remember Run Away Like a Mad (a card that I invented in the previous newsletter), I've got a good news for you: Gemini's Mirror allows you to defend without Run Away, so the latter card was my mistake. This card is truly outstanding. 1. INTRODUCTION This newsletter is about voting decks. Most successful voting decks are based on Presence, since this Discipline provides the best supporting cards. Voter Captivation is the most important as it provides a lot of blood and even 2 pool at superior. Bewitching Oration and Awe provide a lot of additional votes and make a good combo with Voter Captivation. As voting decks usually run huge vampires to get a lot of votes, Voter Captivations allow them to recover after Minion Tap. Malkavians antitribu have no Presence, but they do have stealth, which is extremely helpful for playing political actions. Each political action has inbuilt +1 stealth, but there are decks capable of blocking such actions, and having one intercepting neighbour is generally enough to make your game extremely difficult... UNLESS you have additional stealth. Surely, Malkavians antitribu aren't the only vampires with votes and Obfuscate. Setites have both Obfuscate and Presence, and Nosferatu voting decks are well-known and strong enough, but !Malks also have their advantages that can be wisely exploited. 2. HERE WE ARE Building a voting deck without Presence is rather difficult. Though we have some good cards to push our votes, there are no other Voter Captivations. To push our votes we can use Private Audience, which prevents Camarilla and Independent vampires from voting or Telepathic Vote Counting that forces one vampire to abstain. Or just Bribe other players to vote for us. Personally I prefer permanent sources of votes like Powerbase: Madrid or Legendary Vampire. The latter card was suggested by James Coupe, who has my gratitude: there are no cards better suited for !Malkavian voting/bleeding deck, as you gain both bleed modifier and votes. The key for success in voting is having good vampires with votes and be able to survive long enough. Voting decks aren't especially quick, thus you have to pack serious amount of defense and bloat cards. Speaking about stealth-voting deck, Nosferatu can pack some agressive combat cards instead of defense, and they even have access to Animal Magnetism , while we have absolutely no support from our primary Discipline (Dementation), and surviving combat will always be difficult for our clan. Fortunately, we have some very efficient voting vampires, and we can play The Call to bloat/influence vampires faster or Sibyl's Tongue to find needed cards. We can also bounce bleeds (a serious advantage compared to Nosferatu), and, of course, we can bleed ourselves! 3. CARDS OF THE MONTH Name: Powerbase: Madrid [SW:R, BH:PM] Cardtype: Master Cost: 1 pool Master: unique location. During your untap phase, add one counter to this card from the blood bank if it has less than 4 counters. Tap to give a titled Sabbat vampire X additional votes during a referendum, where X is the number of counters on this card. Any vampire controlled by another Methuselah can take a (D) action to burn all the counters on this card. This is the best permanent source of votes for titled Sabbat vampires, except for Regent or Power Structure, which aren't suitable to our clan. This card doesn't require a Sabbat vampire, so you can play it on the first turn and accumulate a few counters while influencing your first vampire. If nobody would burn counters from Powerbase, you will gain 4 extra votes for one referendum per turn, which is even better than having a free Bewitching Oration in your sleeve. You may tap Powerbase during opponent's referendum to make the referendum fail; you may use it during a Blood Hunt referendum (this can enable diablerie); finally, you may give votes to a vampire controlled by another player. Thus, even if you'll have no titled vampires, you'll be able to "sell" Powerbase votes to other Sabbat players. Certainly, your opponents can burn Powerbase counters, but, fortunately, not the Powerbase itself. The difference is huge, since players are unlikely to waste precious actions to deny you the votes for a couple of turns. After all, you'll gain the first counter on your next untap phase anyway. If somebody sends a little vampire (say, Embrace) to burn counters, you may easily block the action, as it doesn't have inherent stealth. Most players will leave the Powerbase to you, especially if they won't be playing voting decks themselves. Since Powerbase: Madrid is a rare card from Sabbat War, if would be difficult enough to find it, but, fortunately, it's also included into anti-Malkavian starter. Just purchase the starter, and you'll get your Powerbase with a bunch of Kindred Spirits and other useful cards. Get it! Name: Private Audience [SW:C/PV] Cardtype: Action Modifier Cost: 1 blood Requires a ready archbishop, priscus or cardinal. Only usable during a referendum, before any votes are cast. Non-Sabbat vampires cannot vote on the current referendum. This card is worse than its Camarilla analogue (Closed Session), since it isn't free, but metagame oddities actually make it a better card. As Camarilla clans are generally better in politics than Sabbat clans (for a multitude of reasons: access to Presence, Inner Circle vampires, clan-specific cards etc), it's much more likely to encounter a Camarilla voting deck than a Sabbat voting deck. Thus, Private Audience is much more powerful, as it hoses more powerful Camarilla voting decks. Usefulness of this card, obviously, depends on your deck and the metagame. If you have a lot of Sabbat votes, you may be able to push your referendums even without this card. But if you have just a few votes, other Sabbat players may have more votes than you. I believe that Private Audience is most useful in decks with medium number of votes (5-6 votes, for instance). Speaking about Malkavians antitribu, you would like to use Private Audience in a deck with Korah, Marie Faucigny and General Perfidio Dios, but a deck with Hannibals and Maris Streck, like my "Deck of the Month" can probably work without it (don't forget that Maris Streck is a Camarilla vampire!) Name: Telepathic Vote Counting [Jyhad:R, VTES:R, SW:PV, CE:R2/PTo, Anarchs:PAB, BH:PM] Cardtype: Action Modifier Discipline: Auspex Only usable during a referendum. [aus] Cancel the referendum. If you played a political card to call this referendum, take the card back into your hand (and discard back down to your hand size). Any votes cast are lost. [AUS] Force a vampire to abstain from voting. This can cancel that vampire's votes. This card isn't as powerful as Private Audience, but at least it's free and universal - you may use its superior effect against any vampire on the table. Forcing a vampire to abstain is very good, especially against Inner Circles, and you can do it when all vampires already cast their votes. Inferior ability is going to be played rarely enough (unless you want to cycle your cards), but it may be very useful sometimes. Imagine you are trying to play a political card, but your opponents have Powerbase:Madrid, Ventrue Headquarters or another vote-providing location. He taps his location, somebody burns the Edge, and your referendum is going to fail, but you play Telepathic Vote Counting, return the political action into your hand and play it with a different vampire! Nothing prevents you from doing this, as this card isn't Delaying Tactics. 4. VAMPIRE OF THE MONTH Name: Hannibal (advanced) [Promo-20040409] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Malkavian antitribu Group: 2 Capacity: 10 Discipline: cel dom AUS DEM OBF Advanced, Sabbat cardinal: Once during each Methuselah's minion phase, Hannibal may burn 2 blood to untap. Hannibal is the elder of our clan, a single cardinal we have. Ten capacity is a lot, but there are no cardinals cheaper than nine. Such vampires usually possess superior level of all clan Disciplines and provide powerful abilities besides that - just look at Lambach or Ambrosio Luis Moncada! Fortunately, advanced Hannibal also has some tricks in his sleeve: * Inferior Celerity. Not very useful at inferior, but can be upgraded to superior level, which grants Blurs for your weapons and many other things. * Inferior Dominate. Hannibal can play Obedience, and that's wonderful for such combat-lacking clan as !Malks. He can also play Deflection, Redirection and other useful Dominate cards. Really helpful. * Ability to untap during each minion phase for 2 blood. Wow, isn't it wonderful? This ability allows Hannibal to perform two actions per turn. The most devastating usage of this tactics involves bleeding, untapping and playing a political action. If you manage to play Legendary Vampire on Hannibal (the brilliant advice of James Coupe), you will be able to finish opponent in two turns without any other vampires: bleed for 3 (or more), then untap and Kine Resources Contested, having 5 votes from the lone Hannibal! Obviously, paying 2 blood for untapping looks like a huge price, so you can pretend that you aren't going to play two actions per turn until your prey crosses the "red line". Meanwhile you can untap Hannibal to block especially dangerous actions of your predator (and play Obedience) or to bounce heavy bleeds. This should convince the table that you're just another slow and peaceful voting deck... which is certainly just a bluff, as there are no such thing as "peaceful anti-Malks" :) Did you notice the words "looks like a huge price" in the previous paragraph? Just another false impression, I assure you. When a vampire untaps with Freak Drive for 1 blood AND A CARD, this is considered very good, though Freak Drive allows untapping only on your turn. When you spend an action and 4 blood to get Rutor's Hand, this is also considered good enough, though you get a benefit compared to Hannibal's ability only on the fourth turn! Note that you still have to find the Rutor's Hand, while Hannibal's ability is always with him. Advanced Hannibal is really powerful, though making use of his power is far more difficult than just block with Lazverinus... 5. DECK OF THE MONTH Deck Name : Hannibal the Restless Author : Ilya Ginsburg Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 7 max: 10 average: 8.5 ------------------------------------------------------------ 4x Hannibal Adv 10 AUS DEM OBF cel dom cardinal !Malkavian:2 3x Maris Streck 9 AUS OBF ani dem dom justicar Malkavian:3 3x Korah 7 AUS DEM OBF ani priscus !Malkavian:2 2x Marie Faucigny 7 AUS OBF dem tha archbishop !Malkavian:3 Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Action [11] 6x Call, The 1x Pulse of the Canaille 4x Sibyl's Tongue Action Modifier [19] 4x Elder Impersonation 3x Faceless Night 3x Forgotten Labyrinth 4x Lost in Crowds 5x Spying Mission Action Modifier/Combat [5] 5x Swallowed by the Night Combat [2] 2x Coma Equipment [2] 1x Aaron's Feeding Razor 1x Ivory Bow Master [17] 1x Elysium: The Arboretum 1x Hungry Coyote, The 2x Information Highway 1x Institution Hunting Ground 1x Legendary Vampire 6x Minion Tap 1x Perfectionist 1x Powerbase: Madrid 1x Purchase Pact 2x Sudden Reversal Political Action [17] 1x Ancient Influence 5x Banishment 1x Disputed Territory 1x Dramatic Upheaval 6x Kine Resources Contested 3x Parity Shift Reaction [17] 6x Obedience 6x Telepathic Misdirection 5x Wake with Evening's Freshness This deck is my humble attempt to build a voting deck with !Malks and, specifically, to get the most of advanced Hannibal. The crypt is very heavy, as I tried to get rid of the "vote-pushing" cards and to replace them with "permanent votes" of my vampires. If you manage to influence Hannibal, Maris Streck and Korah, you will have 9 permanent votes for 26 pool, which is pretty realistic with a help from Minion Taps, The Calls, Ancient Influence and Parity Shifts. If eight or nine votes isn't enough, Powerbase: Madrid can provide even more votes! This deck even doesn't need Cardinal Benediction, as the most you can gain from this card is +1 vote for Marie Faucigny. As you can see, bloating and acceleration occupy a solid number of card slots, as the decks really wants to compensate for the size of its vampires. Information Highway and The Call really speed things up, and these two cards make a good combo when you just want to gain 3 pool, thus Information Highway never becomes useless for this deck. The primary sources of pool gaining are Minion Taps, but you should play them carefully, as Hannibal or Maris without blood cannot use their abilities. Unsuprisingly, blood management is one the most important parts of this deck, as you need to refill your vampires prior to playing Minion Tap or using expensive abilities. The Hungry Coyote is the best card for all your vampires, except for Maris Streck, and there are Aaron's Feeding Razor and Perfectionist. If you have The Hungry Coyote, and your Hannibal has Perfectionist and AFR, he can potentially get +4 blood with a single hunt action! Combine double hunt per turn with Minion Taps, and you will get really good bloating; alternatively, you can hunt, untap and do something else until your Hannibal regains his blood back. Feel free to play your Sibyl's Tongues for these cards, as they are really important. If you get your Hunting Ground or steal opponent's HG with Disputed Territory, this will definitely help. Combat protection was my headache while building this deck. Finally, I decided to lower the number of protection cards, but to keep the most powerful of them. Obedience is really good, and it can be played by Hannibal and Maris Streck (more than a half of the crypt). Even if both Hannibal and Maris are tapped when opponent rushes at +1 stealth, you still can untap Hannibal, let Maris give him +1 intercept, block and play Obedience. As you have both Sabbat and Camarilla vamps, you can use both Elysium: the Arboretum and Purchase Pact, and it's very unlikely that someone manages to burn these card with a referendum. Thus, you may just choose a blocker of the attacker's sect and tap the corresponding card. Again, both cards, when needed, are perfect targets for Sibyl's Tongue. You have also "aggressive combat cards" that are used as a threats: Ivory Bow and two Coma. While the Bow goes without any doubts, Coma needs serious considerations, and I must admit that this deck is a much better place for Coma than a stealth-bleed deck. This deck has really large vampires that can play Coma and still survive opponent's strike without going into torpor, and it has a lot of votes to diablerize all victims of Coma. In this deck Coma is really fearful. As this deck has only 17 Political actions, you may consider this number too low to call it a voting deck, but all these cards, except for Ancient Influence, are very aggressive, so your opponents are going to count them twice :) Core political actions are Banishment and Kine Resources Contested that finely accompany bleeding at stealth which, I guess, is a hallmark of all anti-Malk decks. Primary combo of this deck is Hannibal + Legendary Vampire or Pulse of the Canaille. If you see Legendary Vampire in your starting hand, influence Hannibal first. If you have Sibyl's Tongue, you may prefer Korah or Marie Faucigny first to play Sibyl's Tongue for the Legendary Vampire, but it's realy isn't that crucial. You can spend your Sibyl's Tongue for an urgently needed card (Elysium, Secure Haven etc) and still have a decent chance of getting another Sibyl's Tongue or the needed bleed modifier later in the game. If you fail to make Hannibal legendary, you can play Legendary Vampire later on someone else, as ALL your vampires have capacity 7 or more, and you will eventually find your Pulse of the Canaille that will make Hannibal a terrifying destruction engine. It's hard to predict whether the deck is tournament-viable or not, but IMHO it's at least worth trying. I will appreciate any comments and improvements. 6. THE NIGHTMARES BECOMING REAL (previous "SWEET DREAMS") I will review the ten new cards that are going to be printed in 10th Anniversary Set. Each tin will contain these cards, so everyone will be able to find them. Unsurprisingly, the cards are quite strong, at least some of them, and they will radically change the metagame. Rastacourere +1 stealth Action 1 pool (D) Put this card on a titled vampire. The vampire's title is worth 1 less vote during referendums, and he or she gets -1 stealth when attempting political actions. This vampire's capacity is reduced by 1 (not going below 1). A vampire may have only 1 Rastacourere. Very strong card against voting decks, especially against Prisci, as Priscus with 1 less vote has no votes at all. This card was designed primarily for combat-heavy decks without access to intercept (Brujah, Assamites etc.) or not willing to pack intercept cards. All political actions have +1 stealth by default, but Rastacouriere cancels this bonus, allowing any vampire to block political actions performed by vampire with this card. Obviously, this card would be useless for intercept decks that can easily block any political action. Overall: Combat-oriented decks are stronger, voting decks are weaker. Powerbase: Los Angeles Master: unique location Tap during your discard phase to gain a discard phase action. If you use that discard phase action to discard a card that requires an anarch or a card that makes a vampire an anarch you may untap a ready anarch. Any anarch controlled by another Methuselah may steal this location for his Methuselah as a (D) action. Very good card. Not as good as The Barrens if you have no anarch cards, but really amazing in Anarch decks, especially intercept-oriented ones. Intercept is needed to protect the Powerbase. Looks like intercept decks would prefer this card to The Barrens, as it's much less likely to become contested or stolen. Expect the new generation of Anarch intercept decks with this card. The Mole is a good card, and there is Ian Forestal that can play all anarch cards... Overall: Intercept and aharch decks are stronger. Polaris Coach Vehicle. Haven. 1 blood During your untap phase, move 1 blood from this vampire to the Polaris Coach or burn the Polaris Coach. While this vampire is acting, he or she may burn one counter from the Polaris Coach to get +1 stealth for the current action. During undirected actions and actions that are not directed at this vampire, he or she cannot block or play reaction cards. A minion may have only one haven and only one vehicle. This is a long-awaited "stealth for all" card. The price is so harsh that I doubt it would see play. For the same price you can get Robert Carter that provides +2 bleed! Please don't tell me that you're going to play Repo Men to fetch your Polaris Coaches :) Some weird deck will possibly use it, though... Overall: Won't affect the metagame. Orc of Ulain Unique equipment The ALLY with this equipment cannot be targeted by (D) actions that require AUS, CHI, DOM, PRE, SER. Reactions that require any of those disciplines cost an additional blood while this ally is acting. To play such cards one should have a lot of allies, or at least some precious allies like War Ghouls. Orc of Ulain protects your ally from the most popular anti-ally cards like Entrancement or Far Mastery. It also makes blocking your allies and bouncing their bleed much more expensive, as most of needed cards are AUS and DOM-based reactions. The most tricky usage of this card involves The Grandest Trick itself :) Overall: Offers minor improvement for ally-based decks. Liquidation Master. Do not replace until your next discard phase. Burn seven cards from the top of your library to gain 3 pool. Brilliant card! Who cares about cards in your library if you are going to die? Name another Master card that immediately provides 3 pool without draining blood of your vampires. This card will be most effective combined with a lot of blood-requiring cards, when you cannot drain blood of your minions. Tzimisce, Assamites and Ravnos will appreciate this card. I guess it would be amazing in Smiling Jack decks, Anarch Revolt decks and weenie decks, as such decks don't expect a long game anyway, so they can dump extra cards. Liquidation makes a good combo with Anatole, Prophet of Gehenna. You can look at the top five cards of your library and dump them if you need someting else. Liquidation is also good when you can fetch cards from your ash heap (i.e. Giovanni). Overall: Decks with a lot of blood-expensive cards are stronger. This mostly applies to combat-oriented decks based on Vicissitude, Quietus, Chimerstry etc. New combo decks are possible. Insurance Scam Master Put this card in play. During your turn, you may tap this card and burn X locations you control to gain X pool. The only use of this card I see now is stealing locations that can be stolen with (D) action and burn them, or sacrificing the locations that are going to be stolen by your opponents. But the decks that use such locations usually can defend them, so the card is nearly unplayable. Overall: Slightly improves decks with a lot of locations. Channel 10 Master: unique location 2 pool Tap to give a minion you control +2 intercept for the current action. Not usable on the first action in a minion phase. This card is just another intercept-providing location, but it's the first location that provide whopping +2 intercept. Since the card has NO requirements, it's available to any deck, and it really hoses any decks based on stealth. It's still balanced and "fair" card (especially compared to Bowl of Convergence), since you cannot "sell" your intercept to other players, and you cannot use it on the first action, but the card is very strong. Stealth-based deck needs +3 stealth or "cannot block" effect each turn (Elder Impersonation or Seduction) each turn to compensate for this one card - otherwise you will be limited to one action per turn. Again, this card is best suited for combat-oriented decks that cannot spend a lot of place on intercept cards or have no intercept disciplines, like Brujah. Obviously, Brujah deck with Second Traditions and Channels 10 is likely to block at least some actions and pound the caught vampire hardly. Overall: Combat-oriented decks are much stronger. Intercept decks are stronger, too, as they can pack less intercept cards with Channel 10. Stealth-based decks are seriously hosed. Charlton Van Wyk (Hunter) Unique mortal ally with 2 life 0 strength, 0 bleed. 2 pool Carlton can strike for 1R. He may dodge as a strike once each combat, Charlton has +1 intercept when blocking vampires. During your discard phase you may burn Carlton to burn a vampire who has committed diablerie since your last turn. Yet another "intercept for all" card, as Charlton requires at least +2 stealth for any action. A deck with decent combat abilities will probably kill him, but such decks usually don't pack a lot of stealth. Charlton provides a cheap protection against voting decks and even against stealth decks. It makes Fast Reaction much better, as you can block with expendable Charlton, dodge and make the strong vampire "rush" with Fast Reaction. As the primary benefit of Fast Reaction is the lack of response, this tactics is best suitable for aggressive but fragile strategies like Quietus or Vicissitude. Charlton's second ability seriously hoses all diablerie-based decks, even with Archons like Muaziz. You can suddenly summon him and sacrifice him on the same turn, so any diablerie becomes much more dangerous now. Overall: Diablerie-based decks are seriously hosed. Voting decks without stealth and offensive combat (additional strikes, presses etc.) are hosed as well. Intercept decks are stronger. Combat decks with Auspex and very aggressive strikes but low protection are much stronger due to the Fast Reaction. Caiaphas Smith 1 pool Unique mortal with 2 life 1 strength 0 bleed Caiaphas may strike for 1R damage. Caiaphas get an optional maneuver each combat. Any vampire blocking Caiaphas is burned after the combat (if any). Caiaphas cannot bleed. If he is untapped at the start of your turn, your predator takes control of him. This card is too hard to use. You cannot force opponent to block Caiaphas (at least for now), and he can't perform really dangerous actions to make opponents block it. I guess he can be used to equip something, when you finally get him :) Overall: Won't affect the metagame. Bowl of Convergence Unique equipment. If the bearer is a vampire who has aus, the bearer gets +1 intercept. If the bearer has AUS, he or she can burn 1 blood once during each action to get an additional +1 intercept for the current action. WHAT??? Take a vampire with AUS, play Bowl of Convergence, and the vampire will get permanent +1 intercept with a possibility to get another +1 for a blood? I simply can't believe my eyes. This card doesn't simply "hose" stealth decks, it destroys them! One vampire with inbuilt +1 intercept and AUS + the Bowl is enough to completely eradicate all stealth decks. Carna + Bowl has +2 permanent intercept and she can get +1 more, so only Elder Impersonation and Seduction can push your actions. And she WILL burn blood for +1 intercept, as she would return the blood in combat :( Moreover, she can easily fetch the Bowl with Magic of the Smith. Do you need other examples to call this card broken? Here you are. Take Ladislas Toth, or Sascha Vykos, or Meshenka, or Lazverinus, play Eternal Vigilance and the Bowl. Untap, block, then untap and block again... Steal blood in combat with Theft of Vitae or Kraken's Kiss. Just another Wall deck? No, since there would be enough space for some "primary" cards like bleed modifiers, as the deck would need much less intercept cards. Now, imagine the dreaded Bowl on the Anneke that just played Alastor for Assault Rifle. She would quickly intercept and dispatch all prey's vampires... again, the key of improvement is increased space for combat and bleed cards that would replace intercept cards. One Second Tradition + the permanent Bowl can easily replace 3-4 "lesser" cards like Forced Awakening, Spirit's Touch, Precognition or Enhanced Senses. Add Channel 10 to the mix, and it would become the last nail for the coffin of stealth decks. Overall: Intercept decks are versatile and impenetratable. Stealth decks are doomed. All decks should contain at least one combat strategy to be effective. Malkavians antitribu are DEAD. ************************ RIP ****************************