Official V:EKN Clan Salubri Newsletter Vol.2 No.2 (January 2003) Of interest to Scholars and Slanderers Editor: Ben Peal In this issue: 1. Introduction 2. Miscellanea et Demonica - collecting Salubri cards 3. The Dwinding Few - Miriam Benyona 4. The Powers of the Righteous - Martyr's Resilience 5. The Hosts of Heaven - tournament winners 6. Conclusion --------------------------------------- 1. INTRODUCTION --------------------------------------- The second newsletter of this month! In the strategy section, we'll take a look at building a collection of Salubri cards for your decks, particularly for those on a tight budget. This month's featured decks are tournament winners featuring Salubri by Josh Duffin and Mike Ooi. --------------------------------------- 2. MISCELLANEA ET DEMONICA --------------------------------------- As it is, collectible card games are an expensive hobby. Bloodlines can be a particularly expensive expansion, given that it spans a large number of clans and disciplines, making it more difficult for someone who only wants cards from specific clans. Here I hope to highlight the core cards for building Salubri decks, what the estimated cost of these cards will be, and how much it might cost to expand on this collection. As a reference to what you might expect to pay for a given card, or what its trade value might be, I recommend the V:TES Singles Pricing Database on the V:TES In LA website: http://vtesinla.org/prices_main.htm Be careful, as these prices do not reflect any official value, and they are only based on sales on eBay. Some cards may have a very limited number of data points upon which one could make cost comparisons, and in some cases (particularly Disarm) the costs listed do not reflect the card's actual value. For the vampires, you really only need to get Matthias and Blanche Hill. Miriam Benyona only has inferior Obeah, and most of what you want to be doing with Obeah cards will be at the superior level. Since you're likely to want to ensure that you get a Salubri in your opening draw, you'll want 4-6 Salubri vampires. I recommend getting 2-3 copies of Matthias and 2-3 copies of Blanche Hill. Trading-wise, you're in luck, as while these cards are Rares, one needs few of them to make a deck, keeping their cost relatively low. Matthias is the more expensive one, with an cost of about US$4.00-$5.00. Blanche is much cheaper, with an average cost of around US$1.50. So, on the low end, you're looking at about $12.00 for 2 copies each of Matthias and Blanche. On the high end, you're looking at about $16.50 for 3 of each. If you're trading for these cards, expect to trade a decent rare a Matthias, in the range of, say, a Palla Grande, Ivory Bow, or Siren's Lure. Blanche Hill should be available for lesser cards. You can probably get them to throw in a copy of Miriam Benyona for free, if you really want one. For master cards, there's only one card - Sight Beyond Sight. It's quite a good card, but it's a unique master, so you'll really only need one. Like the vampires, because you need few of them (in this case, one), the cost of the card is kept down. It tends to sell for US$3.50-$4.00, and trades for a decent rare. The library cards you'll want in larger quantity. Fortunately, the core cards you'll need are common, save for Vitae Block. Commons are typically trivial to trade for, and generally sell for about US$0.10 each, maybe $0.25 for the C1 cards. So, for about US$3.00, you should be able to get 8 x Spirit Marionnette, 8 x Renewed Vigor, 8 x Anesthetic Touch, and 6 x Repulsion. Vitae Blocks should sell for about US$0.50 each, and you'll want about 8 of them if you're interested in trying out Salubri in combat, costing you US$4.00, or a decent uncommon for each. So, for the core cards, the total cost looks like: Vampires $12.00-$16.50 Sight Beyond Sight $3.50 Commons $3.00 8 x Vitae Block $4.00 TOTAL $22.50-$27.00 In terms of trades, you're looking at trading away 5-7 rares and 8 uncommons. The other Obeah cards - Neutral Guard, Resurrection, Unburdening the Bestial Soul, and Panacea - are more geared towards specialized decks, rather than as general purpose cards you'd want for a core collection. However, you'll hopefully find yourself looking to further explore the mysteries of the Salubri. Neutral Guard is an oddity, in that it's a decent rare of which you'd like to have a bunch in your deck, perhaps about 6. However, its cost is rather low, averaging around US$1.50 each. You could trade away 3-4 decent rares and get enough Neutral Guards for a deck. Unburdening the Bestial Soul is pricier at about US$3.00 each, trading roughly one for one with a decent rare. It's unlikely that you'll want Resurrection and Panacea at all, given that Necromancy is generally superior for building ally-based decks. Resurrection is also odd in that its average price is nearly US$4.00. However, looking at the data, its high price is US$8.49, and its low is US$0.99, with 7 sales. I think the high price is skewing the average data, and the actual average price is probably closer to US$2.00. Panacea, being a C2 common, should sell for about US$0.10 each. Not to be forgotte is Martyr's Resilience, a card requiring both Auspex and Fortitude, two of the in-clan disciplines for the Salubri. It tends to sell for about US$3.00 each, trading for a decent rare, and could be a fun option for a Salubri-based combat deck, and perhaps one involving allies. --------------------------------------- 3. THE DWINDLING FEW --------------------------------------- Miriam Benyona Salubri Group 2 Capacity: 5 Discipline: for obe AUS Independent: Rescuing a vampire from torpor costs Miriam 1 less blood. During your untap phase, you may move 1 blood from Miriam to any ready vampire. Scarce. For the most part, you're really not going to consider using Miriam Benyona in a Salubri deck, as the Obeah cards are much, much better at the superior level. However, she can get decent use out of Vitae Block and Anesthetic Touch, and her superior Auspex lets her defend well. She might be a good addition to a Ventrue-antitribu deck in a defensive role. --------------------------------------- 4. THE POWERS OF THE RIGHTEOUS --------------------------------------- Martyr's Resilience Combat Auspex & Fortitude Only usable by an untapped vampire not involved in the current combat. [aus][for] Prevent 1 damage to a minion or retainer in combat. [AUS][FOR] Burn X blood to prevent X+1 damage to a minion or retainer in combat. I was amiss in not including this card in the previous newsletter, which dealt with Salubri and combat, as it's an interesting option for the Salubri. It looks to be particularly useful for protecting allies, who generally don't have damage prevention available to them. It can also provide a damage prevention option for clans such as the Tzimisce, who pair well with the Salubri in a combat deck, but who have few damage prevention options. --------------------------------------- 5. THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN --------------------------------------- In 2002, there were two tournament winning decks that used Salubri. The first, "Playing With Dolls" by Josh Duffin, won the 2002 Southeast Regional Qualifier. The second, "Menthol" by Mike Ooi, won Free States Texas: The Call. Rather than describe the decks myself, I feel that they're best explained by their creators. First up is Josh Duffin's deck: Southeast Regional Qualifier Tournament Winning Deck May 25, 2002 16 players "Playing With Dolls" by Josh Duffin crypt: 4 Blanche Hill (6 OBE FOR aus) 3 Matthias (7 OBE FOR AUS) 1 Ingrid Russo (4 DOM for) 1 Peter Blaine (4 dom for aus) 1 Billy (5 dom for AUS) 1 Vanessa (6 DOM FOR aus) 1 Marlene, the Infernalist (6 DOM for AUS) library: 5 Fortitude 3 Heidelberg Castle, Germany 3 Fame 3 Blood Doll 9 Spirit Marionette 4 Govern the Unaligned 2 Precognizant Mobility 3 Conditioning 5 Freak Drive 7 Daring the Dawn 4 Repulsion 5 Wake with Evening's Freshness 4 Telepathic Misdirection 1 My Enemy's Enemy 5 Anesthetic Touch 3 Hidden Strength 4 Rolling with the Punches --- 70 cards, 14 masters. (Josh's comments) The deck is based on a trick, which is obvious, but the trick has implications which may be less obvious. The idea for the trick is: put a Fortitude master on one of your predator or prey's untapped vampires in your master phase (unless they already have Fortitude, in which case you can skip that step); in your minion phase, use Blanche or Matthias to steal that vampire with Spirit Marionette; use Heidelberg Castle to move all but one of the stolen vamp's blood to one of your own vamps; bleed with the stolen vamp, ideally with Daring the Dawn at inferior (to send them to torpor empty, or burn them if they happen to also have Dominate and you're able to play a Conditioning or Govern as well). If you're lucky, you can get extra bonus mileage out of having put a Fame on a vamp stolen from your prey and giving it back to them on the way to torpor from Daring the Dawn for an extra 4-pool hit (since you're the acting Methuselah on a stolen- vamp Daring bleed, you can order the end-of-action effects as you choose - in this case, to return control of the vamp from Spirit Marionette before dealing with the go-to- torpor effect of Daring the Dawn and then the lose-pool effect of Fame). In practice, it is not unusual to be able to pull this off at least once per game, usually on the first few turns of the game (ie you bring out Blanche or Matthias first, and it's still early enough that people are bringing out vamps, so they can't help but be untapped if they just came out). Since both Dominate and Fortitude are popular skills in tournaments, the use-Dom/For-with-stolen-vamps idea works out pretty well. Later on, your predator and prey will usually tap out if they're smart, so that you won't be able to steal and torporize/burn their vamps with the Marionettes. But that's still good for you: unless they're playing a *lot* of Wakes, it means that you'll be able to bleed for a fair amount with your own vamps, since Spirit Marionette can be used for +bleed at both [obe] and [dom], and your "auxiliary" !Ventrue have Dom/For as well. Occasionally you can also Precognizant Mobility to untap someone else's vampire and then do the steal/torporize or burn thing; occasionally it'll also be worthwhile to steal a cross-table vamp and send it on a suicide mission. Like if you're going to oust your prey with the bleed, for example. :-) The defense of the deck is also surprisingly effective, given that it's only 5 Wakes, 5 bleed-bounce, 5 Anesthetic Touch, and 7 damage-prevention. Partly this is because the deck is only 70 cards; partly it's because Matthias's +1 intercept is super-handy with the Wakes (and the Freak Drives if you have reason to stay untapped with one instead of doing something else). That's about all I have to say about it off the top of my head; it's a fairly simple deck in terms of the cards in it and the theory of how they fit together, but pretty interestingly complicated in play. At least for you, that is; your friends may not enjoy it as much. ;-) (end Josh's comments) Next up is Mike Ooi's deck: Deck Name: Menthol Created By: Mike Ooi Description: Tournament winning deck for Free States - Texas : The Call Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 31, Avg: 5.50) ---------------------------------------------- 1 Javier Montoya ani AUS cel pre THA 9, Tremere, Prince 1 Rebekka AUS pot PRE THA 8, Tremere 1 Muaziz aus dom for THA 7, Tremere 1 Matthias AUS FOR nec OBE 7, Salubri 1 Blanche Hill aus FOR OBE 6, Salubri 1 Alfred Benezri aus dom PRE THA 6, Pander, Bishop 1 Cohn Rose aus dom pre THA 5, Tremere 1 Aisling Sturbridge AUS dom THA 5, Tremere 1 Pieter van Dorn dom pre tha 4, Tremere 1 Masika St. John THA 3, Tremere 1 Ehrich Weiss dom tha 3, Tremere 1 Blythe Candeleria aus THA 3, Tremere Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (18 cards) 1 Academic Hunting Ground 1 Arcane Library 4 Blood Doll 1 Chantry 2 Dominate 2 Effective Management 2 Heidelberg Castle, Germany 2 Minion Tap 1 Thaumaturgy 2 Wasserschloss Anif, Austria Action (19 cards) 1 Far Mastery 4 Govern the Unaligned 3 Magic of the Smith 1 Resurrection 1 Rutor's Hand 9 Spirit Marionette Action Modifier (6 cards) 3 Conditioning 3 Repulsion Reaction (12 cards) 2 Deflection 1 Enhanced Senses 5 Forced Awakening 2 Precognition 2 Telepathic Misdirection Combat (27 cards) 3 Anesthetic Touch 6 Aura Reading 6 Fake Out 3 High Ground 9 Theft of Vitae Retainer (4 cards) 1 Charnas the Imp 2 Infernal Familiar 1 Mr. Winthrop Equipment (4 cards) 1 Ankara Citadel, Turkey, The 2 Leather Jacket 1 Veneficorum Artum Sanguis (Mike's comments) The deck is designed to cycle the Obeah cards until a Salubri comes out. And in a tournament scene with Dominate everywhere, stealing your prey's last untapped minion and bleeding for 6 with him was always a nice way to end a round. Heidelburg allows you to fill up on their blood and/or burn a weenie by placing a multi-countered Infernal Familiar on it. The deck started out as another way to burn other people's minions - building up counters on the Infernal Familiar, transferring it over to a small to mid cap vampire that was giving me grief, letting them burn, laughing at them, and then recycling the Familiar back out. Obeah gave me a way to take control of other minions, abuse them with Heidelburg, and Resurrect the Infernal Familiar. Thaumaturgy gave me the Familiar, and knowing there would be a lot of Dominate at a tourney, the Tremere were a given. The new Tremere also gave me a Presence cycle in case my Salubri couldn't. Not having enough Infernal Familiars and Resurrections made me build a deck that actually won rounds rather than let me carry out my elaborate combo. I hate it when I'm forced into playing VTES rather than my own bizarre mini-game. (end Mike's comments) Mike's deck can be built using the core Salubri collection described earlier in this newsletter, plus one more Spirit Marionette and one Resurrection. --------------------------------------- 6. CONCLUSION --------------------------------------- Hopefully more of you can come up with ways to win tournaments using the Salubri, as well! If you do, I'd be honored to feature your deck in this newsletter. Other deck submissions are, of course, always welcome. Send to: fudjo@mindstorm.com Again, I'm archiving the newsletters here: www.mindstorm.com/~fudjo/newsletters Keep on bleeding! - Ben Peal