*Nagaraja Newsletter volume 3* ----------------------------------- Hi Everybody. It's been a long time. But are undead ain't we ? Time is not a matter. The topic this month is about the storyline tournament that is currently running. A storyline is always a good event, cause it means the game designers do care about your vision of the game. Let's assume a clan wins the storyline and woohoo a new card dedicated to this clan appears. That rocks ! But hey, do all these nasty clans need more power ? Imagine Ventrue gain a new advantage, won't this enlarge the gap between Ventrue'power and... Nagaraja's for example ? If game designers are willing to pay attention, they will notice that at least 1 Nagaraja deck has been played during this storyline. It may have won if... well it died horribly, but I had fun playing this deck and it worked well. Other decks around were far more competitive (degenerated ?) and avoid me to gain VPs... Why did I play Nagaraja ? first of all, because it was a fun tournament where the only goal was to have one clan win. Nagaraja are weak. The weakest bloodline ever. Their discipline has vanished (replaced by auspex), no specific clan card, only 3 vamps, all scarce. This is a challenge ! Second point, because I love the background of this clan. Don't ask me why, I'm a bit weird. I like them. I just hoped that if Nagaraja won the Paris storyline tournament, the game designers would thank my effort by giving Nagaraja a flavour card in upcoming extensions, only because it seems unlikely that Nagaraja win the stotyline worldwide. If Nagaraja scored one victory, perhaps that would make game designers change their opinion. So. My performance was bad, but I've seen on the newsgroup that someone else had built a Nagaraja storyline deck. Without his permission, I'll copy it and give somewhat my comments, as well as commenting my own deck and telling you how it worked Saturday 6th september in Paris. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Deck Name: Dead Meat Created By: Alex Broadhead Description: Call of the Hungry Phone Sex Operators. Slowish, low-stealth bleed. Storyline legal - and boy should those Clan Loyalties be funny in Storyline... Impersonate your first Nagaraja out to your prey's clan. Next one to your grandprey's, etc. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 19, Max: 28, Avg: 5.83) ---------------------------------------------- 1 Gillespi Giovanni aus DOM NEC 7, Giovanni 1 Gloria Giovanni DOM nec 4, Giovanni 1 Isabel Giovanni DOM NEC 5, Giovanni 3 Kanimana Belghazi AUS DOM NEC 7, Nagaraja 3 Le Dinh Tho aus dom NEC 5, Nagaraja 3 Raful al-Zarqa AUS dom nec 6, Nagaraja Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (15 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker 4 Blood Doll 1 Coven, The 2 Dominate 1 Millicent Smith, Puritan Vampire Hunter 2 Misdirection 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 3 Sudden Reversal Action (21 cards) 5 Clan Impersonation 1 Dominate Kine 1 Far Mastery 5 Govern the Unaligned 3 Revelations 1 Slaughtering the Herd 5 Summon Soul Action Modifier (31 cards) 4 Bonding 5 Call of the Hungry Dead 4 Change of Target 5 Clan Loyalty 4 Foreshadowing Destruction 5 Seduction 4 Sleeping Mind, The Political Action (1 cards) 1 Reversal of Fortunes Reaction (10 cards) 3 Deflection 3 Redirection 4 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (6 cards) 6 Spiritual Intervention Ally (2 cards) 1 Felix `Fix` Hessian (Wraith) 1 Leonardo, Mortician Combo (4 cards) 4 Spectral Divination Play notes(by Alex): Get out Le as soon as possible. Between him and the Revelations, you should hopefully be able to seriously screw your prey's ability to wake, bounce, and/or intercept. Bleed, using the various masters and modifiers to make it impossible for your prey to construct a consistent defense. DO NOT COME BLINDLY STORMING IN WITH MASSIVE, STEALTHED BLEEDS! Yes, you could do it (a few times, at least), but this not only will likely kill your grandprey (or someone other than your prey), it will also make you a big target. You want to be viewed as that 'amusing' Nagaraja deck, not some sort of mutant Malk S&B strain. As the deck comments suggest, you should use Clan Impersonation both to avoid paying scarce costs and to put yet another big hole (Clan Loyalty) in your prey's (and future prey's) defenses. My comments : A fun deck. Would have died horribly here in Paris, where the metagame was Drawing out the immortal grapple, or the grapple/psyche! No sufficient combat defence. But it is possible that it wins if not settled between two rush decks =) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, here is my deck Nagaraja Storyline legal : the scarce army 3 Kanimana Belgazi (7) 3 Raful Al Zarqa (6) 3 Le Dinh Tho (5) 3 Blanche Hill (6) Master : 20 7 blood doll 4 stranger among us 2 heidelburg castle 2 dreams of the sphynx 1 secure haven 1 succubus club 2 necromancy 1 gambit accepted Actions : 16 7 renewed vigor 8 spirit marionette 1 graverobbing Action modifier : 25 7 conditionning 7 spectral divination 7 call of the hungry dead 4 repulsion Reaction : 13 5 Wwef 6 telepathic misdirection 2 delaying tactics Combat : 15 7 fake out 4 anesthetic touch 4 spiritual intervention Equipement : 1 1 sargon fragment Playing scarce is difficult. You have to bloat. The best bloat module I know is with Blanche Hill. So Blanche Hill is 25% of my crypt. In addition to that, spirit marionette in outferior is dominate bleed and anesthetic touch in outferior is a dodge with auspex. First round : I'm sitting between a Tremere intercept and a Gangrel midcap animalism protean rush, very annoying. I die miserably, like all the players at the table (my grand predator who coud have helped me was a total newbee with a sh***y deck, unable to act or react to stop the Gangrel). Second round : My deck worked well. I had a !ventrue anarch Prey that worked very efficiently, and a Malkav M.Prank as a predator, with a grand predator Sethite B&S. I successfully inflicted 32 bleed in my prey, using every mean I had at my disposition (marionneting Leandro...etc), but my pred made my prey win 24 pool with Malkavian Prank (my grand prey won a lot of pool too). The sethite swept the table with anarch revolts, Khobar tower, and huge amounts of bleed. I should have won the Game win ! Third round : I'm sitting between a Karsh rush deck and a Blood Brother Torrance circle bruise & bleed (with a lot of gestalt). My grandprey is a genius !Salubri that bleeds a Tremere Bleed & stealth. I die horribly, permanently rushed by the Blood brother. The !Salubri eventually swept the entire table. Nice work Reyda ! CONCLUSION : If you want, you can. You can play Nagaraja and score some vps. You can come to a storyline and make the difference. There are many other decks storyline legal you can build with Naguies, with Krassimir who jars the soul of your prey's vamps, with Samedi that hidden lurk your prey's vamps (and are brought in play with coroner's contact)... Just try it, and if you win 1 tournament with them, we will have earned the right to beg for a dedicated card ! That's all for this month. Keep courage fellow flesh-eaters ! Nagaraja