Official VEKN Malkavian Antitribu NEWSLETTER, November 2005 VOLUME IV, Issue XIV 1. INTRODUCTION Finally, the time has come, and we are allowed to enter the wonderful Ebony Kingdom of Afrika. Legacies of Blood contain a whole new sect of 4 new clans (Laibon), a new Discipline (Abombwe), a long-awaited support for some popular Bloodlines, dozens of new good cards, and more. It's very difficult to avoid writing a complete review of the new set, but I should at least TRY to concentrate on anti-Malks. The task is very hard since there are no !Malks or !Malks cards in the new set, and there aren't even any good cards for our clan Disciplines. Holy cow, why didn't I choose Gargoyles? :) Or, at least, Salubri, Kiasyd or Daughters of Cacophony? I wonder, whether our clan will get some more Group 4 vampires and when? Louhi is very good, and Alicia Barrows is decent, but there aren't any others yet. Most other Sabbat clans suffer from the same shortage: there are two !Brujah, two !Nosferatu, only one !Tremere, and only one !Ventrue. Building a 3-4 group !Malkavian deck isn't too easy, having only 10 vampires in both groups, especially compared to 24 vampires in 2 and 3 groups. Let's hope to see some new !Malks in the next set. But enough of the babble, let's explore the new cards and their influence on the metagame. 2. THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN The most obvious change is the rising value of combat strategies. All four Laibon clans have at least two good combat clan Disciplines, and there are many good new combat cards in LoB. I didn't notice any cards that would make Rush more attractive as a strategy (i.e. new Fames or Tensions in the Ranks), but the sheer number of available good combat vampires should encourage building new combat decks. Next, we've got a new political force - Laibon, which isn't as strong as Camarilla, but still cannot be neglected. At least, there are good 7-cap and 8-cap Magaji (a Laibon title that provides two votes), and, frankly, good Princes with such capacity aren't very common. Laibon even has its own PTO-like card - The Eldest Command Undeath, which isn't so unbalanced, but still burns a vampire of your prey. Here is the brief profile of the new Laibon clans: AKUNANSE have Abombwe, Animalism and Fortitude. Abombwe is a strange Discipline that enables almost absolute protection against Frenzy cards. Looks like Rotshcreck isn't a trump card anymore! Abombwe offers good cards for Gangrelish combat style: one card makes hand damage aggravated for the entire combat, another provides additional hand strike. There is also "block-fail" modifier, "+1 bleed" modifier, untapping reaction and "set combat range to long" card. Obviously, having three combat Disciplines, Akunanse will make good rushers, and each of their vamps can have a Wise Spider that increases your hand size by 1. Uchenna and Nkule Galadima are quite good mid-cap Magaji. GURUHI have Animalism, Potence and Presence - this reminds Brujah and Nosferatu. They are the major political force of Laibon, but they don't have a lot of good titled vamps - instead, we are prompted to use Overseer, which grants a title of Magaji, or Guruhi Kholo (another unique Clan-specific title worth 2 votes). Guruhi have the most effective form of Govern (Founders of the Ebony Kingdom) and the best Hunting Grounds. Their best vampire is 11-cap Eze, The Demon Prince, that has 3 votes and can perform two actions per turn. 5-cap Fish with ANI and POT is a new Nigel! ISHTARRI are very interesting, having Celerity, Fortitude and Presence. This reminds Ventrue and Toreador, but Ishtarri are completely different. Looks like a whole clan was built to fully abuse the single card - Forced March. It provides stealth and untaps - fortunately, only once per turn, but nothing prevents from playing additional Freak Drives. This clan is extremely proactive without any intercept - it can form great Bleed & Vote decks, or a decent multirush with guns & Blurs. Clan cards include +2 stealth modifier for the first action of the turn, a master to untap Ishtarri that can be burned, and Igoli's Loyalty - a very interesting voting modifier that provides you pool or pushes your vote. The best vampires are Ayo Igoli and Ubende that usually have votes and (the most precious!) inferior Obfuscate. OSEBO have Auspex, Celerity and Potence. This looks like a "Brujah dream", since Presence usually isn't very good for combat-oriented Brujah, and Auspex would allow them to block dangerous actions and bounce bleeds, as well as cycling the hand with Aura Reading. Jeremy McNeil finally got a company of guys with the same Disciplines! The best clan cards are Enforcer (+1 permanent strength) and Legend of the Leopard (steal an ally or inflict 1 damage to a vampire). Homa and Khalu, midcaps with all clan Disciplines at superior, are best Osebo vampires, and 2-cap Misrak with Potence also worth a mention. Finally, I must notice a tremendous rise of Gargoyles. Initially Visceratika was almost unplayable: cards were expensive and didn't fit into popular combat strategies. Legacies of Blood completely changed this: now Gargoyles have a wide variety of combat abilities, and ALL those abilities can easily be combined with Potence. Do you like FOR/POT combo that can prevent damage and play Disarm? Use Rockheart or Stonestrength. Do you prefer aggravated claws a-la Gangrel? Play Raking Talons. Obviously, you need maneuvers to stay at close range - now you have Crawling Chamber (works as inferior Flash for Visceratika) and Roll, that can be returned to your hand! Gargoyles became really powerful now. 3. CARDS OF THE MONTH Heaven's Gate C Combat 1 blood OBE NEC Only usable by a ready untapped vampire not involved in combat [nec] prevent 1 damage to an ally in combat [obe] Only usable when an ally is burned in combat. Move that ally to his or her controller's uncontrolled region (controlled, but not ready) instead. Put 1 life on the ally from the blood bank if he or she has no life. [OBE] As [obe] above, but add up to 2 life to the ally, not to exceed his or her starting amount. Do you remember FBI Special Affairs Division? Once again, which ally is going to be burned in almost every combat? Without any doubt, it's our infamous Escaped Mental Patient! We already had a lot of good support cards for our beloved Patients, but if Matthias or Eurayle would revive the dead Patients even WITHOUT AN ACTION, this would really be cute! And since the poor Patients only have 1 life, you don't even need superior Obeah, and Mr.Noir could make the job as well. Overall, this card is one of the most powerful tools for decks based on allies, and you can add Resurrections to revive the hapless allies that still died. Inspire Greatness C Action modifier 1 blood Potence/Presense Only usable by a ready vampire other than the acting minion. [pot][pre] The acting ally or younger vampire gets +1 strenght during this action. [POT][PRE]The acting ally or younger vampire gets +2 strenght during this action. This isn't the first card that allows a larger vampire to help neonates in combat - do you remember Shared Strength? That card seems to be overlooked by the community, though it has some potential - what about Potence weenies with Una that could play Shared Strength for free and breed even more Potence weenies with Creation Rites? Inspire Greatness is much more straightforward, it doesn't need any additional cards to gain the benefit, and POT/PRE is quite easy to find (these are clan Disciplines of Brujah, !Brujah and Guruhi), so this card is going to impress people. Actually, using Inspire Greatness effectively may be even more difficult than using Shared Strength - at least Shared Strength + Unflinching Persistence provide maneuver and enable Disarm. Yes, Inspire Greatness increases strength, but how to use it? If your combatants have Potence, why should you prefer Inspire Greatness to Torn Signpost? Such card may be wonderful in a Celerity weenie deck with guns (to pummel your enemies when you don't have any guns) or in a Protean-based deck with Claws (to BURN VAMPIRES, muahahaha!) For instance, Nu, the Pillar can Inspire Greatness in the lesser Gangrels with the good results. Inspire Greatness is also very good with allies able to deal aggravated hand damage. Alicia Barrows can play it during Escaped Mental Patient's rush action (after the target player declines to block), and your kamikaze Patient will inflict 4 aggravated damage! This isn't just "funny" anymore - the power and surprise factor of this "combo" really justifies paying 2 pool for the Patient. Unfortunately, the chances of getting another !Malk with POT/PRE to build a stable dedicated deck are slim, unless you are going to upgrade Aristotle's Potence to superior level. 4. VAMPIRES OF THE MONTH Name: Eurayle Gelasia Mylonas Clan: Salubri Capacity: 6 Group: 4 Disciplines: for pre AUS OBE Independent. Eurayle may untap any minion as an action. If you control the minion, this is a +2 stealth action. Scarce. Eurayle is the best support for giant vampires, ever. This noble matron can refill her boss with Renewed Vigor, as any other vampire with superior Obeah, but she also can trade her own action to the fattie's action, which is usually much more valuable. Giant vampires may have inbuild +2 bleed, or superior combat abilities to rush, or other special abilities, and getting the second action per turn for such vampire is very, very good. For instance, your Louhi could play The Call and then Banish somebody or get Eternal Vigilance. Superior Auspex makes Eurayle a good support vampire - she can block dangerous actions, reduce and redirect bleeds, and so on. Combination of AUS and OBE allow her to play such powerful cards as Glare of Lies and Peacemaker. The latter is a very interesting card that can protect you against many different dangers, and it even can be used offensively with great results - but, unfortunately, this will be a theme of another newsletter. Unfortunately, Eurayle doesn't feel very good in combat - she has only inferior Fortitude and Presence, and this makes damage prevention weak and strips the Majesty's bonus. Obeah also offers Anesthetic Touch, which is especially interesting to Malks/!Malks since this card is also a dodge for inferior Auspex - it's one of the best defensive cards in our arsenal. Don't forget that Eurayle can untap a vampire of your ally, not only yours. This may be crucial when your ally needs an untapped vampire to block or play reactions, but he doesn't have any Wakes. I'm absolutely sure that we'll see Eurayle in many different decks, since she is almost an ideal of support vampire. After all, there are no younger vamps with superior Obeah, and Eurayle fits much better for support than Blanche Hill. Name: Tsunda Clan: Ravnos Capacity: 6 Group: 4 Disciplines: abo ani dem CHI Laibon Magaji. Six-capacity vampires with two votes are always good. Tsunda adds five points of Disciplines to the title, which makes her very good, even if you aren't going to use them all. She's going to be one of the most popular "Laibon enablers" in non-Laibon decks that will use some cards requiring Laibon (i.e. Kduva's Mask or Powerbase:Tshwane). Besides that, we have another Magaji with superior Chimerstry now (Falhu Shibaba) - add them to Mata Hari having 2 votes, and Ravnos voting decks suddenly became a reality! Well, OK, I'm NOT trying a Ranvos newsletter. No way. Tsunda is interesting for !Malks due to her Dementation and Chimerstry. She can play Sensory Deprivation on a vampire of your prey and then take part in a massive Mind of a Killer assault. Unlike Francois Villon, Tsunda doesn't need any improvements to play Deprivations, and you can do it from the very beginning - sometimes on turn 3. Unfortunately, Tsunda doesn't have Obfuscate, so you should think about getting stealth for the crucial actions. Hidden Pathways, already used for Minds of a Killer, can help here, and your vamps with superior Obfuscate can play Cloak the Gathering. 5. DECK OF THE MONTH Deck Name: Alicia's Patients Created By: Ilya Ginsburg Description: Stealth-bleed demonstrating various combos with Escaped Mental Patients (mostly for fun) Crypt: (11 cards, Min: 21, Max: 36, Avg: 7,27) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Eurayle Gelasia Mylonas for pre AUS OBE 6 Salubri 5 Alicia Barrows AUS DEM OBF POT PRE 9 !Malk 1 General Perfidio Dios dem obf AUS 5 !Malk 1 Uncle George aus dom obf DEM 5 !Malk 1 Colonel cel dem obf AUS 5 !Malk 1 Rodolfo pro AUS DEM OBF 8 !Malk Library: (89 cards) ------------------- Master (17 cards) 1 Sunset Strip, Hollywood 1 Charisma 1 Barrens, The 1 Fortitude 1 Information Highway 1 Giant's Blood 2 Zillah`s Valley 3 Minion Tap 3 Blood Doll 2 Rotschreck 1 Stranger Among Us, The Action (22 cards) 4 Call, The 5 Sibyl`s Tongue 9 Kindred Spirits 2 Renewed Vigor 1 Heart of the City 1 Eternal Vigilance Action Modifier (24 cards) 2 Inspire Greatness 6 Confusion 4 Elder Impersonation 4 Lost in Crowds 4 Cloak the Gathering 4 Spying Mission Reaction (6 cards) 6 Telepathic Misdirection Combat (10 cards) 4 Heaven`s Gate 6 Fake Out Ally (7 cards) 6 Escaped Mental Patient 1 Mylan Horseed (Goblin) Equipment (2 cards) 1 Ivory Bow 1 Bowl of Convergence Event (2 cards) 1 Unmasking, The 1 FBI Special Affairs Division This deck is Alicia's show. Don't hurry with it: this isn't good old S&B, and the best tactics is pretending that you aren't too dangerous. You need Eurayle Gelasia Mylonas to play Obeah cards, so you should fetch her with Stranger Among Us if you won't see her in your starting crypt opening. But this isn't the most urgent task - fetching Sunset Strip, Hollywood is recommended first, as the difference between paying 2 pool for the Patient and paying 1 pool is huge. The Call accelerates or provides pool, even if you have only copies of controlled vampires in your uncontrolled region. Your Alicia should eventually learn Fortitude to be able to Call another copy of herself and prohibit Kiss of Ra. There are three cards to refill blood on Alicia, and these cards will also benefit from the increased capacity. The rest cards are quite obvious. You have five Sibyl's Tongues, so fetch cards that you desperately need at the moment. Primary targets are The Unmasking, Ivory Bow, and Sunset Strip/Charisma. With a bit of luck, your Patients would protect the rest vampires from rushes and occasionally rush themselves. That's all for November. As usual, all ideas and suggestions are welcome! Yours, Ector