Official VEKN Malkavian Antitribu NEWSLETTER, December 2005 VOLUME IV, Issue XV 1. INTRODUCTION This time we are going to overview the Laibon politics. Yes, you are still reading the Malkavian antitribu newsletter, our clan is not Laibon, and it isn't very good at politics, having no Presence. Why am I speaking about Laibon politics at all? Surely, Laibon cards are new, and writing about new cards is always more pleasant than repeating things about old cards that you should already know. But the most important reason is the fact that !Malks can really provide a huge boost to Laibon politics. Unlike Camarilla, large part of Laibon voting power isn't inbuilt into the vampires, it must be gained instead, and you will need some cards to gain it. And when you need to get some cards from your library fast, you play !Malks with their Sibyl's Tongues. 2. CARDS OF THE MONTH Name: Ancestor Spirit [LoB] Cardtype: Master Unique Master. Put on a Laibon with capacity above 4. This vampire gets +1 bleed and gets one additional vote in referendums he or she calls. Mini-version of Legendary Vampire is still a very good card. The bonus is much weaker, but it's very good, considering the price - the card is free except for the master phase action. Unlike Legendary Vampire, Ancestor Spirit isn't going to make your vampire a target for the whole table. The card also has very modest requirements: you don't have to play large vampires (7+ capacity), and you can play it any time, not just the next turn you influence a vampire. This card also can't be burned, even if the whole table turns against you. And you are immune to the Justicar Retribution! Minimum capacity of 5+ restricts only weenies - all other decks will have a target for Ancestor Spirit. It works only for Laibon, but this actually is good for the unique card: if nobody plays Laibon in your playgroup, it will never be contested. Usually, +1 bleed means much more than "permanent action modifier" for +1 vote, but there are decks able to exploit both. For instance, Shasa Abu Badr with Ancestor Spirit is going to be very good in a bleed/vote deck based on Presence: she will bleed for 4 with Social Charm or Enchant Kindred! Name: Overseer [LoB] Cardtype: Political Action Political card - Worth 1 vote. Called by any Laibon with a capacity above 4 as a +1 stealth action. Title. In this referendum, each Guruhi gets one additional vote. Any votes any magaji cast in favor of this referendum are ignored. If this referendum passes, put this card on the acting Laibon to represent the Laibon title of magaji (worth 2 votes). This is a Praxis Seisure for Laibon. Overseer has restrictions to prevent using it in large quantities, a-la weenie voting decks. Firstly, your Magaji don't vote, so you cannot just get more and more Magaji, using the existing votes to push the rest - you'll have to play vote-pushing cards or ask somebody with a lot of votes to help you. Secondly, weenies can't play Overseer at all. Fortunately, there are some tricks to push Overseer. If you play Ayo Igoli and she isn't a magaji, she will provide 1 vote for each titled vampire (and each Overseer you've successfully played). She can also play Igoly's Loyalty, a very effective "Bribes-like" card. Name: Ishtarri Kholo [LoB:PI] Cardtype: Action Modifier/Reaction Clan: Ishtarri Only usable during a political action. Usable by a tapped vampire. Title. Put this card on this Ishtarri to represent the unique Laibon title of Ishtarri Kholo (worth 2 votes). Not usable if there are any older ready untitled Ishtarri. Whenever this vampire is not ready Ishtarri or there is an older ready untitled Ishtarri, move this card to (one of) the oldest ready untitled Ishtarri (if any). All Kholo cards are extremely effective if you play at least mid-cap Laibon vampires. Most of the time you will be able to play them and keep them, and this means 2 permanent votes for free! Kholo cards cannot be blocked - only Direct Intervention can cancel them, and they appear suddenly, which sometimes can foil opponent's referendum. The only problem is the uniqueness - you can't play a lot of copies since you need only one. But you can (and should) fetch your Kholo card with Sibyl's Tongue! Name: Eldest Command Undeath, The [LoB] Cardtype: Political Action Cost: X blood Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any Laibon as a +1 stealth action. Choose a vampire controlled by your prey with capacity less than X. Succesful referendum means that vampire is burned. This acting vampire cannot gain blood this action. Any blood he or she gains goes to the blood bank instead. This is a Laibon version of PTO. The differences are: high price (and high risk, since the price will still be paid if the referendum fails); it works only against your prey and the vampire cannot just play Voter Captivation to refill the lost blood. On the other hand, The Eldest Command Undeath (TECU) doesn't require any title - it can be played by any Laibon vampire on any other vampire without any further requirements, as long as the acting vampire has enough blood. TECU cannot be thwarted by Confusion of the Eye, which makes the latter card almost useless. And, most importantly, it can burn Camarilla vamps! Obviously, PTO is much stronger than TECU, but The Eldest Command Undeath is much more balanced. If the game really needs such uber-powerful action as burning a vampire, the action should cost much more than 1 blood, and it SHOULD be risky. The action also shouldn't allow burning crosstable vampires, which devastates intercept decks without Eagle's Sights (i.e. Animalism-based intercept decks). And burning large vampires should cost more than burning weenies. It would be really good to see the PTO errataed to be similar to TECU. While PTO works best against giant non-Camarilla vampires, The Eldest Command Undeath will affect mostly mid-caps. Even if your vampire is older, it won't always have enough blood to burn slightly younger vamps, and leaving it empty is extremely risky. But, as always, you can use various neat tricks to support your strategy. TECU doesn't require a vampire with larger capacity than the victim, it just needs that much blood, so you can use various cost-reducing cards to burn even a larger vampire. The most popular suggestions are Ankara Citadel, Turkey (requires a long setup to get the Citadel and make the Tremere Laibon afterwards) and Masochism (you need only this card, but accumulating rush counters will take additional time). Eurayle Gelasia Mylonas, the wonderful support vampire, would be great in any deck built around TECU. It's very good in any deck with large vampires, but if you are building a deck around TECU, Eurayle can immediately refill your "boss" vampire after TECU with Renewed Vigor, or just untap him to play Restoration... or even Daemonic Possession! 3. VAMPIRE OF THE MONTH Name: Ayo Igoli [LoB] Clan: Ishtarri Capacity: 10 Group: 4 Discipline: obf tha AUS CEL FOR PRE Laibon. Igoli gains an additional vote for each titled vampire you control. You may use a discard phase action to move 2 blood from Igoli to a Laibon in your uncontrolled region. I've always liked tinkering with "growing" vampires, even if it finally appears to be just "funny" and not very effective, and Ayo Igoli seems outstanding for this. The more titled vampires you have, the more votes she gains. Surely, you won't have a swarm of titled weenies, especially in the current 3-4 group environment, but if you put Ishtarri Kholo on Igoli, she will immediately gain 3 votes (2 votes for the title and +1 for her ability). As long as nobody is going to "steal" the title (there are simply NO older Ishtarri in the whole game - actually, your Igoli is going to "steal" the Kholo from any other Ishtarri), this combination is truly awesome. AFAIK, 10-caps with three votes (Justicars and Cardinals) are quite popular, and Igoli is going to have even more permanent votes! All you need is Sibyl's Tongue to fetch the Kholo quickly enough. Ten-cap vampires usually have many different Disciplines, and Ayo isn't an exception. Besides the clan Disciplines at superior (CEL, FOR and PRE), she also has superior Auspex, which makes her a "true Toreador": all Toreador/!Toreador clan Disciplines are also at superior level. I really doubt that we'll see Ayo Igoli in the traditional Toreador decks (all Ishtarri are extremely proactive with their CEL/FOR), but she can play Telepathic Misdirections, which is very good. The most important Discipline of Igoli is inferior Obfuscate, which allows her to play political actions at stealth. After all, she is best suited for the political decks, having growing number of votes and superior Presence, and even inferior Obfuscate enables Forgotten Labyrinth for +2 stealth. Seasoned !Malk players should notice the inferior Thaumaturgy, too, since Louhi and Marie Faucigny share three Disciplines with Ayo (obf, tha and AUS), and this may be enough to build a deck. And that isn't all! Ayo Igoli has a wonderful ability that provides you pool or accelerates influencing your vampires. It isn't completely free as Menele's ability (you have to sacrifice a discard phase action for it), but do you see a word "younger" here? I don't, and this means that your Igoli can provide you 2 pool per turn even if you only have another copy of her in your uncontrolled region - and you should have at least 4 copies if you are building a deck around her. Here comes the cheat: if you get Powerbase: Los Angeles that provide a second discard phase action, you can move FOUR blood from Igoli each turn! This works without any actions that could be blocked or cards that could be canceled, and the lost blood can be easily restored with Voter Captivations, which is truly amazing. Obviously, you can use this to influence more Magaji, which would provide more votes for Ayo Igoli, and so on. Actually, you don't even need to influence expensive Magaji. Ayo Igoli + Ishtarri Kholo seems to be the best foundation of a deck with a lot of Overseers, as her votes WOULD help to push the referendum (since she would be Kholo, not magaji), she would have additional vote for each passed Overseer, and her ability would allow you to influence quite a lot of Laibon 5-caps able to play Overseer. The initial setup involves influencing Igoli, getting General Perfidio Dios and some lesser Laibon (using Igoli's ability), and fetching Ishtarri Kholo, though you may make a deal to push your first Overseer even without it. After the successful Overseer you Ayo Igoli will have 2 votes even without the Kholo, and you will have 5 votes total. With the Kholo she will have 5 votes, and this number is going to increase. Inner Circles are going to be jealous of this! 4. DECK OF THE MONTH Deck Name: Igoli Vote-Bleed Created By: Ilya Ginsburg Description: Ayo Igoli rises in power! Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 24, Max: 40, Avg: 7,66) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Marie Faucigny dem tha AUS OBF 7 !Malk 2 General Perfidio Dios dem obf AUS 5 !Malk 4 Ayo Igoli obf tha AUS CEL FOR PRE 10 Ishtarri 2 Aren, Priest of Eshu ani obf POT PRE 7 Guruhi 2 Ubende for obf qui CEL PRE 7 Ishtarri Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (17 cards) 3 Minion Tap 1 Powerbase: Los Angeles 1 Barrens, The 1 Legendary Vampire 3 Obfuscate 1 Ancestor Spirit 3 Dreams of the Sphinx 2 Information Highway 2 Blood Doll Action (4 cards) 4 Sibyl`s Tongue Action Modifier (27 cards) 6 Voter Captivation 5 Cloak the Gathering 5 Forgotten Labyrinth 4 Lost in Crowds 5 Forced March 2 Faceless Night Political Action (20 cards) 1 Overseer 2 Eldest Command Undeath, The 1 Ancient Influence 1 Reins of Power 1 Political Stranglehold 8 Kine Resources Contested 1 Disputed Territory 1 Rumors of Gehenna 1 Reinforcements 3 Banishment Reaction (6 cards) 6 Telepathic Misdirection Combat (11 cards) 11 Majesty Combo (5 cards) 1 Ishtarri Kholo 4 Swallowed by the Night You can use this deck to demonstrate a power of the new cards to your friends. It would be especially useful if your friends are mistakingly thinking that Laibon isn't very strong in politics - just show them the power! Usually you should influence Ayo Igoli first, using all possible acceleration (Information Highways and Dreams), as her ability would accelerate getting other Laibon. Be quiet and patient first, as you would have no votes - you may even stand and guard your pool until you get some votes or make a deal with a player with votes. This won't last long, as all !Malks here are titled, as well as Ubende. Your primary goal is getting Ishtarri Kholo, and this may be difficult, as you are going to trade your discards for acceleration. That's why the deck contains The Barrens, Powerbase: Los Angeles and three Dreams - use them to find Kholo or Sibyl's Tongue, that can be used to fetch Kholo. The only vampire without title here is Aren, Priest of Eshu, which can become a Magaji with Overseer. This deck can easily have 10 votes or even more! Since this deck uses a lot of "untap cards" (Majesties and Forced Marches), it is a vote/bleed deck, not a "pure" voting deck. Legendary Vampire and Ancestor Spirit enforce both edges of the aggression: after the full setup, you will be able to eat 10-15 pool per turn with a good hand. There are three Obfuscate skill cards here, that should be played on Laibon vampires to get superior level of this Discipline. You don't want your actions blocked (unless you are going to get their vampire tapped, cycle Majesty and play something else). The increased capacity of Ayo Igoli will make Ancient Influence and Reins of Power stronger, and allow you to burn 10-caps with The Eldest Command Undeath or just Banish them. Teaching Aren or Ubende will provide additional pool for Political Stranglehold, and also increase the Banishment range. Increased capacity will also provide extra space for Voter Captivations and Minion Taps. 5. A CHRISTMAS WISH (A PRISCUS OF MY DREAM!) The only Group 4 prisci are Shawnda Dorritt (Brujah antitribu) and Omme Emberbenight (Kiasyd), but looks like we are going to see a new Priscus for each Sabbat clan. And since it's Christmas today, it's the best time to make a wish! What Malkavian Antitribu Priscus would you like to see? My wish is something like this: Name: "Proteus" Clan: Malkavian antitribu Capacity: 7 Group: 4 Discipline: AUS DEM obf Sabbat priscus. When you move Proteus from your uncontrolled region to your ready region, choose a Discipline. Proteus can play cards requiring basic version of that Discipline. Why Proteus? Because he would "patch all holes" that we have to "patch" now when we are trying to build a 3-4 group !Malkavian deck. You can choose Thaumaturgy to make a deck with Louhi and Marie Faucigny, Protean for a deck with Louhi and Rodolfo, or even Obeah to play Heaven's Gate in a Patients deck! And Proteus isn't overpowered in any way. ---------------------------------- Thanks for reading this, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! Best regards, Ector