[VEKN] Toreador Antitribu Newsletter - Issue 35 As always you can view this newsletter online with linkage and easy on the eyes formatting at http://texas.vekn.org/sections.php?op=listarticles&secid=2 ---- 10/16/2003 Editors Corner - Ethan Burrow - Texas Justicar With Black Hand releasing next month, I awake from Torpor. Wow, has it really been 6 months since my last newsletter? My apologies, but frankly there hasn't been an awful lot going on for the clan that motivated me to write anything on. Fortunately we just had a Texas Weekend, Free States : Texas our own little mini-con event is coming up, as well as the release of the Black Hand expansion. All of this has reinvigorated me enough to once again unload my brain upon you all. To call out certain items of note : - Bow Down Before Matteus did fairly well at GenCon National Championship. 1.5 VP and I was only ousted once, by the treacherous Rob Goudie - the other two games went to time/withdrawl. I have since tweaked the deck a bit, and it swept a table when I visited Montreal last month. I will eventually have a tournament win with Matteus...mark my words. - We get a Starter! For the love of god please have reprints of Matteus and Lachlan in them, I'm sick of getting trade requests. I don't have any spares, so stop asking! And the starter better not suck. There are plenty of my decks online, some of them on the Tournament Deck Winning archive, for you to have loosely based it on... - I hope to go back to monthly newsletters as I analyze and drool over all the new Sabbat cards we're gonna get. Texas players predominately play non-Camarilla, so we are anxiously awaiting Black Hand to give us many new toys. Sealed bait for sure. Expect a Sabbat War/Black Hand sanctioned sealed deck tournament at Free States: Texas in December. - Lastly to specifically call out Free States : Texas, it's our yearly event where we host 2 tournaments over the weekend in addition to much socializing...whether it's pickup games, deck clinics or drinking beer. Our plan is to have it in Houston this year in the first weekend of Decmeber. We're still finalizing location and other details, which will be posted on the newsgroup as well as http://texas.vekn.org/ once we have them. If you are interested in showing up and want to let us know you're coming, contact Howard - The Prince of Houston. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Vampire of the Month - Cristos Mantigo Our token Anarch vampire isn't too shabby, although he's not as amazing as Creamy Jade was IMHO. He has a whopping 5 disciplines, all at inferior. 3 in-clan and 2 out of clan. His discipline spread was likely motivated by the concept of the Anarch expansion, and the 3-way card idea of various discplines still functioning together. With 5 discpilines, Cristos may indeed be a good anarch as he can play all but Smash and Grab, and can play 2 out of 3 abilities from half of the remaining 3-way cards. Of his out of clan disciplines, at least one other !Tor vampire shares it with Cristos, so he should open up a lot of new deck concepts for the clan using off-clan disciplines. Combined with Greta, they can offer the Followers of Set some support in the mid cap range (or vice versa in providing !Tor with Obfuscate vamp filler). Being the fourth !Tor with dominate, I was inspired to revisit this off discipline and I'll showcase my deck later this issue. In addition to his discipline spread, he has a special which upon reflection is quite amazing. He can search your deck for *any* piece of equipment. It can be unique, locquipment, anything. With a default +1 stealth action, this special can be very useful when building trick decks requiring a specific type of equipment. This special coupled with his discipline spread may entice players to play Cristos in non-!Tor decks. So yet another 5 Capacity vampire added to the family. The variety and versatilty of the !Tor midcaps are starting to really increase, and I like it. Now when are we going to get more Vicissitude? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Card of the Month - Regarhagan's Hold Rejoice !Tor lovers, I think we may have found a card that can change Goth Band from near wallpaper to tournament viable. The timing of this card is tricky, but the combo is essentially just 3 cards in this specific order. Goth Band can be played at any time, but Palla Grande and Goth Band need to both be in play before you play Regarhagen during your prey's untap. If you play the hold first, then it likely will go away before you can get the Palla Grande out (since playing the hold takes up your next master phase). When you play Regarhagan's Hold on your prey's untap, choose the one reaction card that is a thorn in your side...whether it be bounce, wakes, reduction, or whatever else is keeping you from ousting them. Either your prey tries to remove the hold by putting pool on it, using up his master phase, and then hopefully you'll be able to take that counter from the hold and put it on your Palla Grande using the Goth Band....or his bleed defense is now weaker and hopefully won't sustain itself long. In practice the presence of the Goth Band will encourage your prey to wait until the Palla Grande is gone to even consider removing the Hold, so I tend to also play with an investment or two so that the Goth Band always has a target in your region to move counters to. I know there are several factors which could break this combo; if your prey has 2 master phases, if you can't protect the Goth Band, if your prey has intercept it makes the Goth Band's job harder, if someone else has the forsight to sudden the hold (as your prey sadly cannot do it since you're playing it on their turn). Like most strategies it isn't fullproof. But hopefully what I am providing is a way to potentially make the Palla Grande Strategy even stronger, because if you're lucky you'll either get a permanent Palla Grande as long as the Goth Band survives or permanently weaken your prey's ability to defend itself. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Into the Fire - You know you want to. Ever since Into the Fire was released, our playgroup has thrown around a few ideas of how to show other vampires how much better it is to be in the Sabbat. Being an avid Sabbat biased player since I playtested Sabbat for WOTC in 1996, one of the cards that always shines as one of the best the Sabbat can offer over any other sect is The Hungry Coyote. Greta swears by it, and many players do indeed swear at Greta for using it. Once I recalled a previous deck that Mike Ooi had built called Farmers, using Hesha and Amadeo with Feeding Razors and what-not, I hit upon merging these two and taking it to the extreme. Thus the tech for Slash and Burn was born (get it, into the fire...farming...). Greta and Hesha, using Into the Fire to turn Hesha into Sabbat, and Unlicensed Taxicabs to give Greta the stealth Hesha has (and give Hesha more stealth in case Carna happens to get a sport bike). With the Hungry Coyote in play, playing 2+ of your blood dolls on Hesha, and using Greta to reduce what she can, you make two hunting monsters that bloat fast enough to thwart most decks. ---- Deck Name: Slash and Burn Module Created By: Ethan Burrow Description: Into the Fire/Hungry Coyote module using Hesha and Greta to gain lotsa pool Crypt: (6 cards, Min: 25, Max: 27, Avg: 6.50) 3 Greta Kircher AUS CEL obf PRE 7, Toreador Antitribu 3 Hesha Ruhadze ani obf pre SER 6, Followers of Set Library: (23 cards) Master (18 cards) 8 Blood Doll 1 Club Zombie 2 Hungry Coyote, The 1 Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt 4 Into the Fire 1 Pentex(TM) Loves You! 1 Secure Haven Equipment (5 cards) 1 Aaron's Feeding Razor 4 Unlicensed Taxicab Since both vampires share pre/obf, it made sense to use stealth/bleed as my oust strategy. My first prototype of the deck included Amadeo with a splash of Animalism before I realized he sucked. I played the prototype at Gencon and also loaned it to Ben Peal for a game to try out. While we both agreed the animalism needed to go, he liked the bloat idea and wanted to try the Anarch blood management route - this yielded his The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Deck deck which I hear has already won 2 tournaments. Sadly, he didn't use Into the Fire.... While my version (now updated without animalism and fine tuned for more ousting power) hasn't won a tournament yet, it has proved pretty resilient. Note that it is storyline legal, and I think the first Serpents of Light deck in existence :-) ---- Deck Name: Slash and Burn Created By: Ethan Burrow Description: S/B Bloat deck where Hesha and Greta bloat the pool while you stealth/bleed. Followers of Set Storyline legal. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 18, Max: 28, Avg: 5.92) 1 Sarrasine aus nec OBF PRE ser 7, Followers of Set 1 Qufur am-Heru cel OBF PRE SER tha 7, Followers of Set 3 Greta Kircher AUS CEL obf PRE 7, Toreador Antitribu 3 Hesha Ruhadze ani obf pre SER 6, Followers of Set 1 Sir Marriot D'Urban aus obf PRE ser 5, Followers of Set 1 Count Ormonde dom OBF pre ser 5, Followers of Set 1 Nepata obf pre ser 4, Followers of Set 1 Hadrian Garrick obf pre 4, Followers of Set Library: (90 cards) Master (22 cards) 1 Archon Investigation 8 Blood Doll 1 Club Zombie 2 Hungry Coyote, The 1 Inbase Discotek, Frankfurt 4 Into the Fire 1 Obfuscate 1 Opium Den 1 Pentex Subversion 1 Secure Haven 1 Temple Hunting Ground Action (20 cards) 9 Enchant Kindred 1 Intimidation 2 Legal Manipulations 2 Social Charm 4 Summon the Serpent 2 Temptation Action Modifier (14 cards) 6 Cloak the Gathering 2 Elder Impersonation 2 Forgotten Labyrinth 2 Lost in Crowds 2 Spying Mission Reaction (7 cards) 4 Delaying Tactics 3 Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (17 cards) 5 Fake Out 7 Majesty 5 Staredown Retainer (1 cards) 1 Priestess of Sekhmet Equipment (5 cards) 1 Aaron`s Feeding Razor 4 Unlicensed Taxicab Combo (4 cards) 4 Swallowed by the Night If you have any other cool uses for Into the Fire, please let me know. I'd very much like to hear who else has seen the light and joined the brotherhood of the Sabbat :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Deck Module - Orgy of Flesh (Palla Grande base module) Those of you who have been exposed to my insatiable obsession with the module concept of deckbuilding probably aren't surprised that I had to build a core module for Palla Grande. I don't own enough to field 3 working decks. Really I don't. ----- Deck Name: Orgy of Flesh - Palla Grande Core Module Created By: Ethan Burrow Description: Originally started as a main deck, I was able to split off a section of it to act as a core module for many other concepts I had. Crypt: (8 cards, Min: 23, Max: 36, Avg: 7.38) 1 Matteus AUS CEL PRE VIC 10, Toreador Antitribu, Priscus 2 Donatien AUS cel pot PRE 9, Toreador Antitribu, Cardinal 2 Lachlan AUS CEL dom PRE 8, Toreador Antitribu, Archbishop 1 Jost Werner ani AUS PRE 6, Toreador Antitribu 1 Mercy AUS cel dom pre 5, Toreador Antitribu 1 Remilliard AUS pre 4, Toreador Antitribu Library: (57 cards) Master (12 cards) 1 Creepshow Casino 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Fetish Club Hunting Ground 2 Hungry Coyote, The 1 Information Highway 3 Palla Grande 1 Powerbase: Montreal 2 Sudden Reversal Action (26 cards) 10 Art Scam 6 Creation Rites 1 Entrancement 2 Legal Manipulations 1 Patronage 1 Propaganda 5 Revelations Action Modifier (1 cards) 1 Change of Target Reaction (18 cards) 6 Telepathic Counter 6 Telepathic Misdirection 6 Wake with Evening's Freshness And before you sigh and chastise me that modules are good theory that don't work in practice, I present to you the Breathe Harder Remix module...which you may recall won Anarchist Uprising: Dallas this summer. ---- Deck Name: Orgy of Flesh - Breathe Harder Remix Module Created By: Ethan Burrow Description: Vicissitude Module for Orgy of Flesh. Enchances bleed, stealth and combat. Crypt: (4 cards, Min: 23, Max: 23, Avg: 5.75) 1 Matteus AUS CEL PRE VIC 10, Toreador Antitribu, Priscus 1 Sheila Mezarin AUS cel for PRE 6, Toreador Antitribu 1 Creamy Jade aus cel PRE vic 5, Toreador antitribu 1 Carter cel 2, Toreador Antitribu Library: (33 cards) Master (9 cards) 3 Rotschreck 6 Vicissitude Action Modifier (6 cards) 6 Changeling Combat (10 cards) 4 Breath of the Dragon 6 Chiropteran Marauder Combo (8 cards) 8 Plasmic Form And to touch on both cards of the month, here are the other modules I currently have running. ---- Deck Name: Orgy of Flesh - Submissive Prey Module Created By: Ethan Burrow Description: Dominate module inspired by the release of Cristos Crypt: (4 cards, Min: 24, Max: 24, Avg: 6.00) 1 Melisande AUS CEL DOM PRE tha 9, Toreador Antitribu 1 Mercy AUS cel dom pre 5, Toreador Antitribu 2 Cristos Mantigo aus cel dom obf pre 5, Toreador Antitribu Library: (33 cards) Master (6 cards) 6 Dominate Action (4 cards) 4 Dominate Kine Action Modifier (12 cards) 6 Bonding 6 Seduction Reaction (3 cards) 3 Deflection Combat (8 cards) 8 Absorb the Mind ---- Deck Name: Orgy of Flesh - Revenge of the Goth Band Module Created By: Ethan Burrow Description: Presence module to utilize the combo of Regarhagen's Hold and Goth Band Crypt: (4 cards, Min: 16, Max: 16, Avg: 4.00) 1 Ian Wallingford aus CEL PRE 6, Toreador Antitribu, Bishop 1 Remilliard AUS pre 4, Toreador Antitribu 2 Lolita for pre 3, Toreador Antitribu Library: (33 cards) Master (9 cards) 5 Presence 3 Regarhagan`s Hold 1 Slave Auction Action (10 cards) 3 Enchant Kindred 4 Mind Numb 1 Propaganda 2 Summoning, The Combat (10 cards) 10 Majesty Ally (2 cards) 2 Goth Band Retainer (2 cards) 2 Marijava Ghoul ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This issue hopefully shows what strategies I've been playing with recently, and gives you a taste for the new toys that Anarchs have provided our Clan. Next issue will likely begin the onslaught of strategy and details regarding the Black Hand, which is our first big push of Sabbat related cards since Sabbat War. Droooooool..... ----------------------------- Ethan Burrow - Texas Justicar http://texas.vekn.org/ http://monger.vekn.org/