OFFICIAL VEKN MALKAVIAN ANTITRIBU NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2004 VOLUME IV, Issue II 1. INTRODUCTION In the previous newsletter, I claimed that Malkavians antitribu have only one tournament-viable strategy (Stealth-Bleed), and the fact is pretty bad for the game. Surely, each clan has its strengths and weaknesses, but if the weaknesses are so huge that only one deck strategy is playable, this situation must be fixed. Would the game be interesting enough if Brujah could play only rush decks, Ventrue could play only voting decks and so on? I really hope that LSJ is reading this... since I'm going to explain the reasons of this situation now, and I've got a few ideas about fixing it. This newsletter is all about COMBAT. To my mind, the primary reason of non-stealth-bleed decks' weakness is the complete inability to survive combat with the other vampires. Since combat is the important and very appealing part of the game, and it increases interaction between players, the rules make avoiding it difficult enough, which is right. Any deck wants to do something, and when your minion gets intercepted, combat ensues. Likewise, any deck wants to blocks something, entering combat as well. And there are rush decks that attack opponent's minions directly. Now, for God's sake, tell me, why Malkavians antitribu cannot do ANYTHING in combat? Surely, our clan wasn't designed to be combat-oriented, but why we cannot even run away from combat? Is it a vicious curse that weakens our legs? I'm aware only of our dementia, and if the designers really tried to simulate the World of Darkness in the card game, the madmen should be quite dangerous combatants (at least some of them). This should be simulated via creating some really dangerous combat cards based on Dementation, or some really dangerous anti-Malkavian vampires, or both. And it would be great to have a "combat ends" card to run away from combat, even if it wouldn't be as effective as Majesty or Earth Meld. 2. HERE WE ARE Let's assume that a combat deck usually tries to send opposing vampire into torpor or at least leave him or her without blood. From the defender's perspective, combat strategies can be roughly divided into three categories: A). Single-strike combat. This strategy tries to torporize opponent's vampire with just a single strike, usually accompanied with the other combat cards. The most powerful example is Immortal Grapple/Disarm strategy, but there are also Protean-based Claws, Vicissitude-based aggravated strikes and so on. To avoid the carnage, we can use dodges (except for the Immortal Grapple) or maneuvers. Escaping through these cards won't be easy, however, since the combat-oriented decks should be prepared for them. Theoretically, we can use 10 Dodges and 10 Fakes Out (or more), but in practice this would make our deck pointless. This might be reasonable if your metagame is filled with "aggravated" decks, but in the other case you'd be forced to discard these combat cards to find something useful. Keep in mind that these cards won't save you from all kinds of combat strategies anyway. B). Multiple-strike combat. The most effective multi-strike strategy uses Blurs and Pursuits, usually with a good ranged weapon like .44 Magnum. Most such strategies use Celerity, though you may eventually encounter Black Metamorphosis, Imposing Phantasm or even Octopod. What can we do against this strategy? Maneuvers are generally useless, since our opponent can strike at any distance, and we can dodge only the first strike. If we could stay at close range we could play Personal Scourge, but this is unreliable as most popular weapons have inbuilt maneuver. If only we had a "combat ends" card, it would be a saviour...unfortunately, we don't have it. The only hope is Ivory Bow; if you manage to get it, it would be quite effective unless the opposing minion can prevent 1 damage. If you don't have the Bow...welcome into torpor, fellow! C). Multiple-round combat. The most "weird" strategy is usually based on "not usable on the first round of combat" cards or constant damage-dealing cards like Carrion Crows or Weather Control. To be effective, such decks generally have to stay at long range and use "healing" cards like Theft of Vitae or Taste of Vitae. They also need presses or Traps to continue combat for several rounds. The best defense against such decks is a press to end combat, though it wouldn't be too effective against other combat strategies. Nevertheless, we have Deny, which is a versatile card that can be used to increase stealth, especially with a "classic" crypt based on superior Dementation. Unfortunately, this card is Rare, and in most cases it isn't as useful as Swallowed by the Night (Common), which provides stealth for all our vampires or maneuver for the most important ones. Now, let's browse our "combat arsenal". 3. CARDS OF THE MONTH (poverty isn't a vice, you know...) The following cards can be used by vampires of our clan, and, to be quite frank, I don't like the cards at all. Maybe, similar cards would shine for another clans, but Malkavians antitribu cannot use them effectively enough. I'm wasting time describing these cards just to describe the reasons of their relatively low popularity in Malkavian antitribu decks. Name: Disguised Weapon [Jyhad:C, VTES:C, Sabbat:C, SW:C, CE:C/PM2] Cardtype: Combat Discipline: Obfuscate Only usable before range is chosen if you have a weapon card in your hand. [obf] Equip this vampire with that weapon (and pay cost to equip as normal). [OBF] As above, but usable when choosing a strike. This is probably the best combat strategy available for our clan. Get Ivory Bow, or Flamethrower, or .44 Magnum and shoot! If you manage to play this when the opponent already declared his strike, he will be unable to dodge, even if he has the card. Unfortunately, this strategy requires too many slots in your deck, and the deck still would not be as effective in combat as Celerity-based Concealed Magnum decks, since we have no additional strikes. There are other problems as well. How many Disguised Weapons and how many weapons would you like to use? I tried four D.W. and six weapons in a stealth-bleed deck, but didn't got a chance to disguise anything in several games. By the way, any "stealth & something" deck has very little free space, since it has to contain stealth cards and primary strategy cards (i.e. bleed cards in a stealth-bleed deck). Does anybody want to dump stealth and play bruise and bleed with Disguised weapons? You can try if you wish... but IMHO this strategy is still much weaker than the other combat strategies, and it's also very fragile. Ivory Bow is unique, so you cannot use many copies of it, and it's very likely to be contested; moreover, if somebody torporize a vamp with the Bow, it would attract diablerie. Flamethrower is very expensive, and Magnums aren't too dangerous without additional strikes. This card is excellent when Cailean disguises Mark V rifle, but our clan lacks support needed to use it effectively. Name: Coma [Sabbat:U, SW:U, CE:U, BH:PM3] Cardtype: Combat Cost: 3 blood Discipline: Dementation [dem] Strike: opposing vampire goes into torpor. [DEM] As above, and that vampire does not untap as normal during his or her controller's next untap phase. What a mad card! You pay three blood AND take all damage inflicted by the opposing vampire just to send him or her into torpor. Guess what are your chances to avoid being torporized yourself? Even if you were hit for a mere two damage, you've lost five blood total. Your opponent lost two blood needed to rescue his vampire from torpor and an action (or two actions, if you played Coma at superior). Is there anything to celebrate? Things are better if you can do something with the torporized vampire. If you have votes or allies with votes, you can just diablerize the vampire - preferably with the vampire that played Coma to restore blood on the vamp. If you don't have enough votes, you can sacrifice Yorik or even Claven to get rid of the torporized vampire - this is usually worthy if the vampire is really dangerous (Theo Bell or Beast are the worst - die, stupid bullies!) Yet another way is Sacrificial Lamb, but you are unlikely to play it with the same vampire, since it also costs three blood... Obviously, Coma is most effective when you are blocking your predator - the torporized vampire is less likely to be resqued by his owner or the owner's ally. Coma is a pure defensive card just because it's a very expensive strike that can be dodged. Your enemies have many different ways to avoid it - playing Immortal Grapple, maneuvering to long range or simply draining blood from your vampire (for instance, a Tremere can maneuver and play Theft of Vitae on the first round, and you won't be able to play Coma on the second). Coma itself is very ineffective, though it becomes better if you have votes and can diablerize the victim. Note that Obtenebration-based Entombment is similar to Coma, but Entombment has a wonderful support, since you can play it after Arms of the Abyss or gain a second strike for it from Black Metamorphosis. Alas, Coma hasn't any support at all. Most of the time Coma is used as a "fear card" - you play Coma once, and this should make other players fear it for the remaining rounds of the tournament :) Unfortunately, the card will hardly scare the professional players... Name: Voice of Madness [SW:U, CE:U] Cardtype: Reaction Cost: 1 blood Discipline: Dementation Only usable when this vampire successfully blocks an ally or younger vampire. [dem] Tap this reacting vampire. Combat does not occur. [DEM] As above, and the acting minion burns 1 blood or life. This card has too many requirements to be really playable. Your vampire must be older than the opponent's, and (s)he must block the enemy. The most dangerous rush vampires are Theo Bell, Beast, Jeremy MacNeil (adv) etc. that can rush even without spending any cards. These vampires' capacity is 7 or 8, so you need at least 9-capacity vampire to play Voice of Madness against them. Now recall that our clan tries to avoid using huge vampires. We prefer having two small vampires (Claven and Uncle George, for instance) to one Vasantasena, since it's much easier to torporize one vampire than two, and it's much easier to bounce his bleed. But you're planning to use Voice of Madness, which should protect your vampire, right? Well, even if you get a huge vampire, you will still be unable to use many Voices, since this would require a host of Wakes or Forced Awakenings. Large vampires usually do something, so your vampire is likely to be tapped during opponent's turn. If the Beast would rush you, you would have to play Wake card and Voice of Madness. Look, you have to spend two cards just to counter an action that doesn't require cards at all! Obviously, this cannot last forever, and very soon you'll lack Wake or Voice, and your "giant" will be torporized. And I even didn't mentioned that you might need intercept to block +1 stealth rush action provided by Haven Uncovered, Alastor, Nose of the Hound and many other cards! An additional problem hides in the cost of this card. One blood isn't very much, but if you plan to use many Voices, this becomes a problem. If you plan to use extra Telepathic Misdirections for +1 intercept, this only increases the problem, since the card also costs 1 blood. All in all, Voice of Madness sometimes can save your vampire, but it's very unreliable. After all, just try to compare this card to Obedience! Your untapped vampire can play Obedience for free and stay untapped to play further Obediences or Deflections. If your vampire is a target of the rush, (s)he doesn't have to block the action, so you aren't forced to include intercept cards. And if you can play Second Tradition, you may untap a vampire, block, play Obedience, and the vampire will remain untapped. Pitiful enough, Voice of Madness is just a pale shadow of Obedience. Name: Escaped Mental Patient [Sabbat:U, SW:U, BH:PM2] Cardtype: Ally Clan: Malkavian antitribu Cost: 2 pool Mortal with 1 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed. Escaped Mental Patient can enter combat with any minion controlled by another Methuselah as a (D) action. The Patient can make a hand strike at +1 damage, aggravated. Burn him at the end of combat if he does so. Yet another "fear card". Patient is played to prevent your vampires from rushes, because the Patient can block the attack and send the attacker into torpor. Most of the time this won't prevent +1 stealth attacks (unless The Unmasking is in play), but it really can prevent an Immortal Grapple deck from attacking you if the player currently has no maneuvers. The Patient's aggravated strike is still a hand strike, so Immortal Grapple doesn't prohibit it. Unfortunately, Escaped Mental Patient is almost guaranteed to die in combat unless your opponent will refuse to kill him. And your opponent can avoid his aggravated strike quite easily, especially when you are rushing with the Patient. When you rush, you declare strike first, and if you declare aggravated strike, a simple Dodge would be enough to prevent the strike and destroy your Patient. Things would be radically different if you play Rotshreck, though, since the card will send opposing vampire into torpor, and your Patient will SURVIVE, because his strike never resolves. Likewise, a vampire with Fortitude can prevent Patient's damage unless you play Rotshreck. Looks like the Rotshreck is essential for any deck using Patients, and it works nicely with Ivory Bow as well. Clearly, any ranged strike would kill the Patient, though you could use Fakes Out to maneuver back to close range. The Patient cannot do almost anything against a Magnum/Blur strategy, since the Magnum provides a free maneuver each combat. In most cases, Escaped Mental Patient isn't worth paying 2 pool. A Master card that could send any vampire into torpor would probably worth 2 pool and even more, but the Patient is too fragile and unreliable. To my mind, Muddled Vampire Hunter is much better, since it has a decent chance to torporize a vampire with low blood and survive, and even if the opposing vampire has a lot of blood, losing four blood would be quite painful to him. Muddled Vampire Hunter works without any support (Rotshrecks etc). Nevertheless, Escaped Mental Patient has some advantages, and with a proper support it may prove itself even more dangerous than Hunter. Unlike the Hunter, Patient is not unique, so you can recruit an army of them and use the army to torporize unwanted vampires. The price is steep, but it can be reduced with Charisma and Sunset Strip, Hollywood, and if you manage to get both cards, you will be able to summon Patients for free! This idea is used in my Deck of the Month, which is very funny, but definitely not tournament-viable. 4. VAMPIRES OF THE MONTH Name: Muriel Foucade [Sabbat:V, SW:U] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Malkavian antitribu Group: 2 Capacity: 5 Discipline: aus DEM Sabbat: +1 strength. Superior Dementation on a 5-capacity vampire is very good, but lack of Obfuscate really hurts. She certainly can play Confusion, Mind Tricks or Deny to get stealth without Obfuscate, and if Dementation-only-based weenie deck did exist, Muriel would become its primary vampire. Unfortunately, there are just a few weenies with Dementation, and the cheapest vampire with superior Dementation costs five (except for Midget, which ends up being even more expensive). Obfuscate-based stealth cards are the most powerful, and most vampires with Dementation have Obfuscate. Thus, if you're going to use Muriel in a stealth-based deck, you should pack some Obfuscate skill cards. They never hurt, since the majority of cheap bleeders (Persia, Uncle George, Yourik, Claven) have only inferior Obfuscate. Muriel's +1 strength (on a five-capacity vampire!) would be highly appreciated if only she had at least one combat Discipline. It's possible to create a "weenie rush" deck based on cheap vampires with +1 strength (Hadrian Garrick, Parmenides etc), a lot of Potence skill cards, Immortal Grapples and Disarms, and Muriel Foucade would shine in that deck too. If you are familiar with vampire "points" you should notice that Muriel is underpowered. A vampire of her capacity should have five points, and Muriel worth only three points for Disciplines plus 1.5 points for +1 strength equals 4.5 points. To my mind, +1 strength should cost 1.5 points only for the vampires able to benefit from this ability - e.g. vampires with combat Disciplines like Potence or Celerity. Muriel's ability should be priced at 1 point, so she has only 4 points instead of five. As you can see, Muriel has potential to be used in different decks, but she needs some support to be effective. Wise Methuselah usually prefer ready-to-use vamps. Name: Ruth McGinley [CE:V, Anarchs:PAG] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Malkavian Group: 3 Capacity: 6 Discipline: aus cel obf DEM Camarilla primogen: Ruth gets first strike when striking with a gun. Ruth is a Camarilla Malk, but she's quite useful in most anti-Malkavian stealth-bleed decks, since she has a "classic" stealth-bleed combination of Disciplines (obf and DEM). Unfortunately, her capacity is six, and that means she has to compete with stars like Dolphin Black and Artemis. Ruth can offer a vote and an interesting ability, but in a stealth-bleed deck all these tricks aren't as valuable as superior Obfuscate. To abuse Ruth's ability, you should give her a good gun - preferably a "peacemaker" able to kill the opposing vampires, leaving them without a chance to strike back. You should use a gun with inbuilt maneuver to have greater chances against Immortal Grapples. Surely, you can use maneuver cards, but they aren't as reliable as inbuilt maneuvers. Unfortunately, the gun selection is limited, and in most cases you'll have to choose between cheap and effective .44 Magnum and expensive but powerful Assault Rifle. If you prefer aggravated strikes, you can use Dragon's Breath Rounds + Saturday-Night Specials instead, and if your Ruth is going to intercept most of the time, Sniper Rifle may be the best. Ruth would be great in a Malkavian Disguised Weapon/Celerity based deck. Camarilla Malkavians have many good vampires with Celerity except for the Ruth (Zoe, Victoria, Quentin King III (adv) and even Leandro himself), while our clan can offer only The Colonel and Artemis. Camarilla Malks can use their stunning Justicar, Maris Streck, to make Ruth an Alastor with an Assault Rifle just for 2 pool! And Ruth would be able to attack any vampire as +1 stealth action! Unfortunately, poor Malkavians antitribu can use only her Disciplines... 5. DECK OF THE MONTH (JUST FOR FUN!) In the previous newsletter I offered an exercise to my readers just to prove that the only viable anti-Malkavian deck is stealth-bleed. I even claimed that creating anti-Malkavian rush deck requires superior Dementation. Here's my own attempt to make the exercise... not exactly a rush deck, but it can rush, not exactly an intercept deck, but it can block, and not exactly a bleed deck, but it still can bleed. This deck is absolutely insane, and it should prove my level of Dementation :) "Freedom to the Mental Patients!", by Ilya Ginsburg Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 9 average: 6.67 ------------------------------------------------------------ 4x Maris Streck 9 AUS OBF ani dem dom justicar Malkavian:3 2x Korah 7 AUS DEM OBF ani priscus !Malkavian:2 2x Marie Faucigny 7 AUS OBF dem tha archbishop !Malkavian:3 2x General Perfidio Dios 5 AUS dem obf bishop !Malkavian:3 2x Yorik 3 dem obf !Malkavian:2 Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Master [16] 1x Barrens, The 5x Blood Doll 1x Charisma 1x Hungry Coyote, The 1x Information Highway 6x Rotschreck 1x Sunset Strip, Hollywood Action [12] 3x Call, The 2x Pulse of the Canaille 1x Revelations 6x Sibyl's Tongue Action Modifier [17] 3x Cloak the Gathering 3x Elder Impersonation 3x Faceless Night 3x Lost in Crowds 5x Spying Mission Political Action [6] 2x Banishment 4x Parity Shift Reaction [13] 7x Telepathic Misdirection 6x Wake with Evening's Freshness Ally [8] 8x Escaped Mental Patient Combat [8] 8x Fake Out Equipment [3] 2x Ivory Bow 1x Laptop Computer Event [2] 1x Blood Weakens 1x Unmasking, The Combo [5] 5x Swallowed by the Night ------------------------------------------------------------ Obviously, the focus card of this deck is Escaped Mental Patient. If you control at least one of them, your enemies would better think twice prior to playing hostile actions against you. If you have Maris Streck, she can burn a blood to give +1 intercept to your Patient, and he can block most actions. When you get The Unmasking, your Patients will always have +1 intercept (+2 with the Maris' ability when needed), and you will get some time to prepare your insane plans. Paying 2 pool for each Patient is too much, but you have Sunset Strip, Hollywood and Charisma to reduce the cost. Play Sibyl's Tongues to get one of these cards or both. One pool for a Patient is affordable, and free Patients are amazing! When you have several Patients, you can send some of them to finish most unwanted vampires. Rotschrecks make a good combo with the Patients - they send an opposing vampire to torpor and your Patient survives. You can also play Rotschrecks when your vampire shoots with Ivory Bow, with the same results. If you manage to send a vampire into torpor, you should benefit from this somehow, and this deck simply diablerizes its victims. To enable diableries, one should have plenty of votes, and the crypt tries to get as many votes as possible. If you manage to get Maris Streck, Korah, Marie Faucigny and General Perfidio Dios, you will have nine votes which is brilliant even for the best voting decks! With a little help (or even without it) you will be able to diablerie each torporized vamp... and get some blood for your vampires since this deck usually torporizes without dealing damage. Pool gaining and blood management are the primary troubles of this deck, since its vampires are large enough, and it also needs pool for Patients, Bows, master cards etc. Parity Shifts are invaluable, and you should always hunt for Maris Streck since she is the only vamp able to play the card. The Calls offer some acceleration or generate some pool (unfortunately, only Korah is able to play the superior version). You should use your Blood Dolls wisely, and The Hungry Coyote allows decent bloating sometimes - just remember that you can use Sunset Strip to increase stealth of the hunts! Sibyl's Tongue is an amazing card that enables bizarre "combo-decks". I'm going to cover it in detail in the future. This deck can use it early to influence Yorik and fetch Information Highway, but the most common sequence is searching for Sunset Strip first and for The Unmasking second. Charisma is an obvious third choice, but sometimes you will need Parity Shift, Ivory Bow or The Hungry Coyote first. You can use Maris Streck's second ability to look at the top five cards of your library and play Sibyl's Tongue to shuffle the library if the cards were unwanted. Seems like Maris Streck was designed especially for this deck, eh? The rest of the deck is pretty straightforward. Use Fake Outs to return to close range when your Patient is in combat or to stay at long range with Ivory Bow. Bleed with Pulses of the Canaille and Laptop Computer (use Marie to get the Laptop for free, if possible). Use stealth cards to avoid being blocked. I guess I should say a few words about Blood Weakens. This event is harmful to the "true" combat decks that rely on playing several cards in a single combat (maneuver, modifier, strike, press etc.), and it's truly devastating for an intercept-combat deck that needs some cards to intercept and some other cards to fight. Obviously, Blood Weakens can harm you, if you're trying to play several stealth cards in a single action, but the blocker is going to play several intercept cards as well (beware the intercept locations!) The profit from Blood Weakens would be minimal in a stealth-bleed deck, but this deck really wants to fight, and Blood Weakens actually harms only opponent in combat. Only one combat card of this deck (Swallowed by the Night) is affected by the Blood Weakens, and if your vampire commit diablerie, which happens quite often, (s)he will be immune to this effect. This deck is nothing but a joke, though you definitely can enjoy playing it and even win. It's too unstable to be a serious tournament-caliber deck. But if you're looking only for a fun, try it! By the way, after playing this deck for a while you would feel that Sunset Strip, Hollywood is virtually crowded with escaped mental patients :) Does anybody have the same feeling related to the real Hollywood? :) 6. SWEET DREAMS Now imagine you're LSJ himself, and you can create any cards you like. Wow! You look captivated for a moment, you recall the powers you ever wanted... and then you realize that you have to maintain balance between clans, balance between disciplines, and balance between strategies. Soon enough you'd have to abandon your dreams, as I did while writing this newsletter. But there's still a work to be done, since Malkavians antitribu still have only one playable strategy. To my mind, just a few cards would enable many different strategies for our clan. I did my best to design these cards according to the nature of Malkavians and balance them, and I really hope that the "true" LSJ is reading this... Name: Run Away Like a Mad Cardtype: Combat Cost: 1 blood Discipline: Dementation Only usable before range is determined. [dem] Set the range for this round of combat to long. Skip the Determine Range step on this round. This minion gets an optional maneuver to long range on the next round of combat and can perform only dodge strikes during this combat. [DEM] As above, with an optional press, only usable to end combat. This is an alternative "combat ends" card based on Dementation. The picture is clear - a Malkavian is trying to run away, so s(he) can only dodge, but the distance is long. This card is good against Immortal Grapples, and its superior version can help against multiple-round combat decks. This card, however, is much weaker that S:CE cards, since the opposing minion still can perform long-range strikes. The running Malkavian can only dodge these strikes, if s(he) has needed cards or abilities. This card is expected to become a remedy against primary rushers (Beast, Theo Bell etc) that usually prefer to fight at close range, as well as against Grapples. It can be combined with Dodges to get relatively good combat defense, and Marie Faucigny can use her ability to dodge enemy strike. The card definitely isn't too powerful (just compare it to Majesty or Earth Meld!), but it really enables decks with intercept component, voting decks, decks based on Sibyl's Tongue and many others. Name: Freddy Krueger Clan: Malkavian antitribu (group 3) Capacity: 5 Disciplines: AUS dem obf Card Text: Freddy cannot perform (D) actions. Once each combat, before strikes are chosen, you may discard a card that requires Dementation from your hand to get him +1 strength and make his hand damage aggravated for the current round of combat. Freddy is very funny, and his abilities mostly correspond to the cinema character. Obviously, Freddy is mad and sneaky (he has Dementation and Obfuscate), it's really hard to escape him (as he has superior Auspex), and he prefers acting at his own hunting grounds. He also has an enormous arm that can deal aggravated damage sometimes. This vampire is going to serve as a blocker, and he also can bounce or reduce bleeds. Freddy is a constant threat to any attacker, especially with Sport Bike and IR Goggles. This vampire isn't very good in stealth-bleed decks, since he cannot bleed, but he enables other strategies like intercept decks (he would be great in Escaped Mental Patients deck!), voting decks (he would protect vampires with votes) and so on. Our clan really needs such vampire to play something different from stealth-bleed. I tried to make Freddy useful but not overpowered. He has four points of Disciplines, and he also has a great ability and a serious disadvantage that would combine into another +1 point. Freddy's ability requires a decent number of Dementation cards in your deck, which prevents from destabilizing the game too much. Name: Madman's Fury Cardtype: Combat Cost: 2 blood Discipline: Dementation [dem] Strike: strength+1 aggravated damage. If this strike successfully resolves, send this minion into torpor after the resolution. [DEM] As above, with an optional maneuver to close range. The philosophy of this card is very simple: if our allies can do this, why this should be denied to our vampires? Each Escaped Mental Patient can strike for +1 strength aggravated damage, and he is not unique - just a common mortal madman. It would be only logical if our vampires could do the same, going into torpor after the strike resolves. This card should replace Coma as the best defensive "fear card" available to our clan. Firstly, Madman's Fury cost only two blood which is crucial when all your vampires have low blood. Secondly, it deals aggravated damage which enables Rotschreck to torporize an opposing vampire and save yours. Thirdly, this card can be played afted Immortal Grapple, since it's a hand strike. At last, this card potentially can even burn an opposing vampire with low blood, especially when played by a vampire with +1 strength like Muriel Foucade or Freddy Krueger. If you consider this card overpowered, just look at the combat cards available for the other Disciplines. Burning Wrath can deal strength+2 aggravated damage for three blood, Wolf Claws and Chiropteran Marauder allow strength aggravated damage for one blood, and none of these cards torporizes the vampire played it. Burst of Sunlight has similar effect, but it can be used at long range, a minion playing it can prevent its damage, and it costs no blood at all! Oh, this newsletter is way too long, I know. I really did my best to entertain you and fully describe the poor state of anti-Malkavian combat abilities at the same time. The next one will be much shorter, I promise. Any feedback is appreciated! Yours, Ilya Ginsburg (Ector@mail.ru)