MALKAVIAN CLAN NEWSLETTER: June, 2001 Greetings, and welcome to the Malkavian newsletter. Our friends the Malks are well known (and much reviled) for that thing they do best: Sneak and Bleed. In fact, their reputation as such sneaky little bleeders had tended to overshadow all the other fun things Malkavians can do. So, in this newsletter, our opening salvo, we* will explore all things sneak and bleed. With that right out of the way, we can focus on other aspects of our kooky friends in coming months. * I'm using the royal "we" here, as favored by Princes, those with multiple-personality disorder, and people with tapeworms. Two out of three ain't bad. Table of Contents: I. Invitation to Dance - Fiction II. Sneaking and Bleeding 101 III. Beating the Sneak and Bleed IV. Malkavian's Revenge - Bleeding in the 21st Century V. Deck - Old Dog, New Tricks I. Invitation to Dance "May I have this dance?" The old Methuselah extended a hand, so thin and white it was almost translucent. But when Dana took it, she could feel the power radiating from the old Malkavian. Leandro stared into her as he drew her in and admired that fact that she was even more radiant than she had been a century ago, when she was such a sensation on the London stage. The two dancers stood close in the middle of the ballroom illuminated by room's many flickering candles. The string orchestra began to play, a sensuous tango, and a multitude of eyes followed the pair as they moved about the room. They moved with a beautiful, effortless grace, each perfectly tuned to the movements of the other. As the dancers moved, the orchestra began to quicken the pace of the tune, faster and faster they danced, and still faster the musicians played, until bows moved in a blur and against the strings. To normal ears the sound in the hall would have been but a painful screech. But the guests watched with wrapped attention as their host and his partner kept time and coasted about the hall at inhuman speeds, matching one another, move for move, and step for step. Suddenly, the music stopped. The ballroom erupted in applause. The dancers took their bows before the admiring crowd. Then Leandro strode to the center of the room. He looked about him at the motley crowd, surrounding him in the shadows, their eyes illuminated by the flickering flames. Normally, this group would be dressed in all manner old t-shirts, rags, or straightjackets. But tonight, all were dressed in gleaming white tuxedos and flowing gowns, as provided by their host, and as he felt was fitting for this special occasion. "My children", Leandro began, his soft voice echoing in the silence the grand ballroom. "Tonight is our coming out party. For too long we have lived among the shadows. We have been denied access to the corridors of power; spurned by the Toreador and Ventrue; bullied by the Bruja and Gangrel; dismissed as lunatics and madmen by all. But no longer." "We will take the night as our own. None can hide from our sight. All shall bend to our will. We will act as one, because our time has come. The circumstances require it. The Final Nights are here." "Many challenges face us my children. Do not underestimate them. But none should underestimate our power, for victory will be ours. Oh yes my children. The night is yours." With that, Leandro faded into the shadows. The band began to play, and slowly the children of Malkav began to take to the floor. Some paired up and danced with surprising grace. Some jerked arhythmically, following their own internal tunes. Some stayed on the edges, concealed in the shadow. Some stood and stared in wide wonder at all that that transpired. Leandro looked out across his children, and smiled. II. Sneaking and Bleeding In this section we will explore the finer points of sneaking and bleeding. Ok, its dead simple. Govern the Unaligned. Lost In Crowds. Add more stealth as needed. Conditioning. Splat. Bleed for 6. Do it two or three more times. You get a VP and your prey is looking for a pick-up-game. III. Beating the Sneak and Bleed Sneak and bleed tactics are as old as the great Jyhad itself. So, wise kindred scholars have had plenty of time to study these tactics and prepare to counter them. Here are a few tips for beating the sneak and bleed: A. Intercept It This is an obvious possibility but not always the best. A dedicated intercept deck also faces to twin problems of what to do with you predator once you catch him, and how to pick up some VPs of your own. Often dedicated sneak can still generate more stealth than an interceptor can generate transient intercept. But a little permanent intercept can work wonders here. With a Sports Bike, Raven Spy or other source of +1 intercept, even if you fail to block you forced your opponent to burn some stealth, and you bounce back ready to try again on the next action. The key is to never miss an opportunity to force a stealth deck to burn that stealth. Combine with a little transient intercept and blocks should be easy to come by. If you have some permanent intercept on a minion, watch for attempts to tap your interceptor with 0 stealth feint actions that are meant to be blocked. It helps to have a second blocker, even if it has no intercept. The other blocker can make the first try at a block. When the +1 stealth shows up Mr. Sports Bike can take over, but at least the stealth is played and not available for minion #2. B. Rush It One way to beat a stealth bleed deck is to literally beat it into the ground. Malk sneak decks are typically quite fragile if you can pick a fight with them. So, if you're playing a dedicated combat deck, make sure you've packed enough rushes (Bums Rush, Ambush, Haven Uncovered) to take out a sneak deck fast. Knock the first minion your predator brings out into torpor. Then, during your turn, you can offer to pick on someone else if your predator promises not to bleed you during his turn. If you don't like the answer then take out the deck. A bloodied predator will complain that you're ignoring your prey, making his life easy, and handing a VP to your grand predator. He is right. Only employ this technique if you're sure you can't stand the onslaught from sneaky and bleedy predator #1 and think you'll be able to get forward motion going again once your predator is gone and your grand predator has taken his place. C. Bounce It Bounce cards (Deflection, Telepathic Misdirections, Redirection, My Enemy's Enemy...) are the true trump cards against sneak and bleed. Take all the hurting the sneak deck deals out and pass it on to your prey (or some other deserving soul). The opportunity to not only avoid the bleed but also pass it on, is simply too good to ignore, and these cards are now ubiquitous in tournament and casual games. But, many players are not getting all the mileage they could out of their bounce. Often I see the Naive Deflection: A. "Ozmo bleeds for 2." B. "Ohh... I'll just pass that on to my prey." Deflection. Big smile. Missed opportunity. Remember that bounce reaction cards can be played any time before the action resolves. So, take it slow. The first question you should ask yourself is: Should I attempt to block? The downside of trying to block is that you might succeed. This is not always a bad thing, but not always what you want either. The advantage of the blocking attempt is that you invite the bleeder to play stealth. If he does, then it is both out of his hand, and the extra stealth will make life that much harder for your prey when you bounce the bleed into his lap. Regardless of whether you've been out-stealthed or decided not to try to block, at this point you should say "Ok, I'm not blocking..." and offer a poker face, bring-it-on-grin, or frantic pulling of hair, depending on the image you wish to convey. But, and this is important, wait for the action modifier. Let the bleeder make it clear that he has no more cards to play for this action. Now bounce. Lets revisit our friends A and B: A. "Ozmo bleeds for 2." B. "Attempt to block with Sarah Cobbler." A. "Cloak of the Gathering. + 1 Steath." B. "Ok... I'm not blocking..." Pulls his hair. Sucks on teeth. A. "And here's the Conditioning. Make that a 4 bleed." Burns a blood off Ozmo. B. "Yup. That everything?" *sigh* A. "Yes." B. "Ok. Deflection. One bleed for 4 at +1 stealth on to my prey." Smile. One more thing. If your predator is playing sneak and bleed and he indicates that the bleed will resolve at 1 (or 2). Take it. He's keeping his Conditioning for the next guy. Keep your Deflection. D. Ignore It and Hope It Goes Away Ok, but what happens when Mr. Sneak and Bleed sits down to your right, and you look at your hand, and you think about your deck, and you realize you just haven't got the intercept, rush, or bounce to deal with this guy. You?re dead right? Well... yeah. Probably. But all is not lost. The funny thing about stealth is that you only get to play it when someone tries to block you. If no one ever does, and you've got bunches of it in your deck, then pretty soon it'll crowd your hand, doing you no good, and keep you from getting to cards you actually need. So, ignore the stealth bleed deck and let him jam up on all that stealth. Tap out. Act with every minion. Every turn. You weren't going to block him anyhow. Focus on your prey. Do whatever you came to do. Take the bleeds as they come. Pretty soon Mr. Sneaky is going to jam up on that stealth. He'll be bleeding your for 1 and have no way to contend with his predator. Who knows, you might outlast him... IV. Malkavian's Revenge - Bleeding in the 21st Century Alright, if you've gotten this far your probably thinking, "Hey isn't this the Malkavian newsletter? So far it's all about how to cream the Malkavians." Fear not. Now you know what the enemy knows, and we're not done yet. Here are some more tips on how to get those bleeds through. A. Fundamentals If you?re pretty sure your prey's got not nothing, then lead with the big guns. Play all the stealth and bleed modifiers you can and try to draw into more for your next bleeder. But, if your at all concerned about what your prey's got up his sleeve, then lead with you little guys. Try to tap his blockers, and draw out the wakes and deflections while you bleed for 1 and 2. Even if he is clever enough to hold onto his defense, you should be able to judge whether he has bounce in hand. Then, only if you think the punch will land, should you cut loose with the big bleed. B. Include Combat Defense that Won't Clutter You Hand If you're playing dedicated sneak & bleed, then you don't want to get into a fight at all. Avoid blocking decks that can fight. You don't want to water down your deck with combat defense, but it still helps to have a little something for when the nice man from Detroit come knocking. Two nice combat defense cards: Swallowed By Night and Zip Gun. Range combat is still the exception rather than the rule, so a quick jump to long will often save your butt in a pinch. Swallowed By Night provides +1 stealth at inferior, so you'll be able to use it even if you don't see the combat. Zip Gun is free, requires no action to get, and gives you a maneuver from then on. 1 or 2 in a deck can really complicate things for many combat decks. C. Cards that Beat the Bounce Bounce is your enemy. There's nothing a bounce deck likes to see more than a big fat bleed deck as its predator, and they'll mop up the table with you if your not careful. But there are some cards that can help: 1. Spying Mission Your bleed for 4 gets dropped on your grand prey. You don't want to oust him. Play the Spying Mission at superior, and reduce your own bleed to 0. No harm done. At inferior it's a +1 stealth card. So, there's no good reason not to have a bunch of these in your deck. 2. Revelations Play at inferior. An action and a blood to look at your prey's hand might not seem like a great deal. But that discard can do a lot of damage. See if he's got what it takes to thwart you. If he does, have him get rid of it. Then hit him with everything you've got with no unpleasant surprises. 3. Change of Target This doesn't work as well if your prey is forcing you to play stealth before he bounces you. But its a great weapon against the Naive Deflector, and probably a useful arrow to have in you quiver. When you get deflected just tell your grand prey "Just block. Everything will be O.K." Change of Target. You untap. He untaps. All is well. It?s not just for Toreador any more. It?s also a nice card for getting your prey to burn wakes and transient intercept. V. Deck: Old Dog, New Tricks Here's a version of the classic sneak and bleed, tuned to deal with today?s environment. It?s still not the most interesting deck to play, but if you've always wanted to play in the finals, this deck is a cheap date. Crypt: 12 Gilbert Duane (Malk 7 cap, DOM, OBF, AUS, Prince) Ozmo x2 (Malk 6 cap, dom, obf, AUS, +1 bleed) Zebulon x2 (Malk 5 cap, dom, OBF, aus, cel) Didi Myers x2 (Malk 6 cap, DOM, obf, aus, cel) Roland Bishop x2 (Malk 4 cap, dom, obf, aus) Zoe (Malk 3 cap, obf, AUS, cel) Watenda (Malk 3 cap, obf, cool special) Laurent de Valois (Nos 4 cap, dom, obf, ani) Masters: 15 Obfuscate x2 Dominate x2 Auspex Elysium: The Arboretum The Barrens Fragment of the Book of Nod Anarch Troublemaker Blood Doll x4 Sudden Reversal Dreams of the Sphinx Obfuscate: 23 Spying Mission x6 Swallowed by the Night x6 Lost In Crowds x5 Cloak of the Gathering x4 Faceless Night x4 Dominate: 28 Govern the Unaligned x8 Bonding x4 Threats x2 Conditioning x6 Foreshadowing Destruction x1 Command the Beast x3 Deflection x4 Auspex: 8 Telepathic Misdirection x3 My Enemy's Enemy x1 Revelations x4 Combat: 2 Zip Gun x2 Action Modifier: 2 Change of Target x2 Reaction: 2 Wake With Evening's Freshness x2 Well, that's probably more than enough for this month. Thanks for reading. Tune in next month for: We're Mad as Hatters and We're Not Going To Take it Anymore - The Malkavians Enter Combat -Ben Swainbank