This time around, as I continue my close look at various Nosferatu vampires, I'm going to focus on one of my favorites...Selma-the Repugnant. Selma-The Repugnant (8) OBF, POT, for, ani. Prince of Cleveland. Selma has +1 intercept against Nosferatu. Selma is, for an 8 point vampire, pretty average. She has 2 in clan superiors, her third in clan discipline at inferior, and a fourth discipline at inferior. She's a Prince, and has a very narrowly useful special ability. However, her disciplines all mesh together pretty well, and she has a really cool picture, so it kind of pushes her over the edge into the realm of good vampires. Her discipline spread is pretty standard for the Nosferatu. Having POT combined with for and ani automatically makes her a good combatant. If you can manage to put together a good Pot/For combat deck (using her pals Chester, Nikolaus, Sheldon, and Marty), she can easily fit in and make a good fight of it. Her OBF can help in combat decks, and certainly makes her useful in any stealth related Nosferatu deck that can afford to have 8 point vampires. Being a Prince (and of Cleveland, I might point out...), Selma also clearly plays the role of backbone in any Nosferatu Political deck. Her POT allows her to be used in some sort of "Vote my way or I'm gonna eat your spleen!" Bruise/Vote deck, and her OBF gives her an edge in a Stealth vote deck. Throw in a good supply of Fortitude cards, and you have a good deck concept that I have an example of a bit further on. Her special ability to get +1 intercept vs other Nosferatu, while certianly can't hurt, ins't actually all that useful. If Selma is in a situation where she wants to be intercepting other Nosferatu, they probably have enough transient stealth that her free +1 won't make much difference (and will just allow them to cycle more cards). If she is in a situation where the Nosferatu she is trying to intercept don't have stealth cards, she probably doesn't want to be intercepting them anyway. Again, it certainly can't hurt, but it probably won't come up all that often. One of Selma's best attributes, however, is her really cool portrait by Richard Kane-Ferguson. Look at her, dressed in her sunday best, pale skin matching her pale dress, all accented perfectly by her blood drenched left hand. So cool. You only *wish* your date to the next saturday night Gothateria was that sinister. She looks like something that might have been stalking those kids in Blair Witch, I tell you. Ehhh. Creepy. Anyway, looking to make a deck that makes full use of Selma, I decided to build a Stealth Vote deck that uses her OBF, for, and obviously, her Princelyness. Many vote decks have trouble in that even light, reliable intercept can shut them down. By making a Stealth Vote deck, it will be much harder to intercept political actions (as well as the inevitable 5th traditions), and by capitalizing on Selma's Fortitude, the deck will have some strong combat defense in case they are intercepted or rushed. "Hey! Selma's not *that* repugnant!" Crypt: 1x Queen Anne (10) FOR, obf. Prince. +1 bleed. Conditional extra +1 bleed. 1x Ingrid Rossler (9) FOR. Prince. Provides 2 extra transfers. 2x Sheldon-Lord of Clog (9) OBF, for. Justicar. 2x Suhailah (9) FOR, OBF. Prince. +1 bleed. Conditional +1 stealth. 2x Selma-The Repugnant (8) OBF, for. Prince 2x Nikolaus Vermeulen (7) obf, for. Prince. Transfer bonus. 2x Chester DuBois (7) obf, for. Primogen Library: 8x Minion Tap 3x Info Highway 4x Fortitude Skill 1x Golconda 1x Tomb of Ramses 1x Giant's Blood 1x Ancient Influence 1x PS: Brussels 2x Banishment 2x Parity Shift 4x Kindred Restructure 4x Ancilla Empowerment 6x Kine Resources Contested 6x Conservative Agitation 8x 5th Tradition: Hospitality 4x 4th Tradition: Accounting 6x Freak Drive 6x Skin of Steel 4x Rolling with the Punches 4x Resilience 6x Cloak the Gathering 4x Swallowed by the Night 4x Lost in Crowds This deck has a lot of strengths (strong political presence, the ability to oust its prety quickly, stealth, combat defense, pool gain), but its biggest weakness is its reliance on huge vampires. To counteract the inherrent cost and slowness of using such large vampires, there are Info Highways, a Tomb of Ramses, Ingrid Rossler, Nikolaus Vermeulen, and 4th Traditions, all of which speed up the transfer process; once the vampires are in play, there is a good supply of both Minion Tap and 5th Tradition, which can result in a rediculous amount of pool gain. The Freak Drives provide extra actions for a deck that will generally have few vampires out, and there are multiple action types that Freak Drive can exploit--stealth bleed to get the edge, call a vote, 5th Tradition, 4th Tradition--so there will rarely be an instance where the Freak Drives won't be useful. The stealth and damage prevention cards are both fairly light, as this deck was designed with no particular meta-game in mind. If you think you might be running into a lot of intercept, but little combat, remove some of the damage prevention and replace with stealth, or vice-versa if in a low intercept, high combat environment. In light of the recent discussion regarding how to combat weenie bleed decks, this deck is a good example of how to be competetive in such an environment without resorting to also being a weenie deck or using untap/blocking as your main defense. The transfer acelerators speed the deck up and the pool gain makes the weenie bleed deck's unlife very difficult. The inclusion of Ancilla Empowerment will severely punish any weenie deck, while not really affecting a deck that has only 2 or 3 minions out (like the one calling the vote), so it is very utilitarian. The Kindred Restructures are really the ultimate in weenie bleed deck defense--as your first action, you reseat the whole table to your advantage. If you need additional vote support from someone else at the table, promise to put them in an advantageous positon as well. As is my usual plan when building decks, this deck will rarely, if ever, leave minions untapped to block. There are so many useful actions to be taken with this deck every turn that leaving a minion untapped is a waste, and as I have no intercept, I probably couldn't block much anyway. Peter D Bakija PDB6@aol.com "Isn't it strange, G'Kar? When we first met, I had no power and all the choices I could ever want. Now I have all the power I could ever want, and no choice at all." -Londo