Introduction:
With Bloodlines hot on the shelves we're looking at the last
weeks of a wellknown environment for our tournaments. At the
time being we're buying new cards, groaning and celebrating
over what we see and try guessing what's hidden behind the
names of the cards we still haven't seen.
The clan of roses has received an ally in the Daughters of
Cacophony, a blessing we share with the Ventrue and both our
Sabbat counterparts.
I've received a deck by mail which I'm featuring at the end
of this newsletter. Receiving material makes this newsletters
editor a happier editor as he (that's me) not only gets more
to write about but also sees that what's written is read :)
General Bloodlines observation:
We're looking at a future with a lot of combat, which is good,
but in order to add my point of whining I have a very bad
feeling about AUS/FOR, or SPI/FOR for that matter as well.
Both combinations allow for blocking anything anywhere on
the table, and with all the new cards an AUS-deck will have
a LOT of different intercept-cards. We've all read about
intercept-walls - I feel that we're soon going to read
complaints about intercept-fortresses. Why Strike Combat End
when I can prevent the damage instead. No more fear of
Kiss of Ra. I do foresee the "I'll stay last at the table
no matter who wins" -decks, which in my opinion is bad.
Apart from that we've been gifted with what just might be
the bloating monsters from hell - the Blood Brothers. A
deck with an undecent amount of Blood Dolls sprinkled with
Effective Management and Information Highway will generate
more pool than what's good for you, just stick to one circle
and you'll transfer back three pool a turn, after having made
good use of your Blood Dolls. Key-card is Unwholesome Bond.
We've already seen the discussion about library-desctruction.
Yes, we'll see idiotic decks eradicating it's prey on it's
own way to oblivion, but i the long run I believe that
library-destruction will really become effective in the hands
of those who use it together with the ability to look at
the top of a given library - before deciding to discard
those cards.
Hand in hand with that discussion is the one about how many
cards you should have in your library. I've always used 90
out of sheer laziness - I'll continue using 90 just in case...
What's in it for us?
The Daughters of Cacophony, later referred to as DoC, bring
something the Toreador needs desperately - cheap stealth.
It's not a lot of it, but it's free. Almost equally important
is that they bring intercept with them. No, your editor
has not gone crazy. Even though Auspex is one of the inclan
disciplines it's one out of three, and Auspex only doesn't win
any games. The winning discipline for most decks based around
Toreador is Presence. At least that's the simple way to gain
bleed and votes. You can double up on Auspex and Celerity,
running your bleeds with Pulse of the Canaille and try to
gun down anything in your way with multiple strikes gained
from Celerity, but the easy way out is still Presence. Not
only does it help ousting your prey - you'll sneak away from
combat with it as well. DoC has Presence and their own
Melpominee, and with the latter they can give away the
intercept to someone better suited to handle combat.
DoC also comes with decent bloating, but we'd better get
used to Blood Dolls instead of Minion Taps.
Discipline of the month:
Melpominee. A wonderful multipurpose discipline that gives
cheap stealth as well as intercept and votes.
Cards of the month:
The Missing Voice. A common card that is made for mixing
Toreador and DoC. Stealth against weenies for the roses
and stealth for the DoC. You'll want MEL rather than mel
as the DoC are of low capacity.
cel: Requires a vampire with a capacity greater than 4.
Vampires with a capacity less than 5 get -1 intercept when
attempting to block this action.
mel: Allies and younger vampires get -1 intercept when attempting
to block this action.
MEL: +1 stealth
Tourette's Voice. A very powerful intercept card. And it's
common as well. It's as good as Eagles Sight for making deals
if you have MEL.
aus: +1 intercept.
mel: Give any minion you control (including this one) +1 intercept.
MEL: Give any minion +1 intercept.
Madrigal. Another common card. It combines vote defence
as well as votes when you act, and it acts as a combination
of Bribes and Scorn of Adonis if you have MEL - ok blood
instead of pool, but what a votepusher! You don't even
have to win the vote to be satisfied as all your titled
vampires will gain a blood each. In a deck with large,
titled vampires the political card Honor the Elders will
be a perfect vote to call as the other large voters
are suddenly in a situation where the difference in blood
is three - gain two or lose one?
Only usable during a referendum before votes are cast
pre: Only usable by a reacting vampire. Gain 2 votes.
mel: Gain 2 votes.
MEL: As above, and any vampire voting in agreement with
this vampire gains 1 blood from the blood bank. Any vampire
voting in opposition to this vampire burns 1 blood. Blood is
gained or lost when the results are tallied.
I promised bloating with Blood Dolls, so here's the preparation.
Concert Tour. A common, slower, clandependent version of
Fifth Tradition: Hospitality.
DoC: +1 stealth action
Put this card on this acting Daughter of Cacophony. During
your next untap phase, burn this card to restore the vampire to
full capacity with blood from the blood bank.
And lastly
Sanguine Instruction. Even though you cannot run cross
clan with this card and it costs an action it still saves
you a mastercard slot and it's the only way to get access
to the Bloodlines specific disciplines. For the combinated
DoC/Toreador deck I don't advice trying Clan Impersonation
as you'll be quite happy with your DOC all having MEL
rather than mel - and worst case, you can always boost
an inferior discipline for a Toreador. Common to boot.
A detail - if you want to you can play this card on
another metuselahs vampire.
Requires a ready vampire. +1 stealth action
Choose a Discipline this vampire has at superior. Put this
card on a ready vampire of the same clan as this acting
vampire. The vampire with this card has the normal level
of the chosen Discipline. If the vampire already had the
Discipline, he or she now has the superior level of that
Discipline. The vampire's capacity increases by 1; the
vampire is one generation older. Cannot be played on a
vampire with the superior version of the Discipline.
Deck of the month:
The deck is a tournament winning deck from New Orleans Louisiana.
It was sent to me by XZealot, aka Norm Brown.
Basically it's a variant of 'Toreador Grand Ball' made by Lasombra
and featured on www.thelasombra.com/ClanPages/toreador/index.htm.
Where Lasombras deck votes and runs this deck bleeds and fights.
My personal reaction reading this deck is to replace
Alexandra with Francois Villon in order to allow
8 of 12 vampires the use of the tradition cards instead
of 4 of 12. More important, Francois Villon can keep
key-opponents hunting during the endgame, which according
to the description by the deckconstructor ought to be
when Alexandra shows up. The tradeoff is of course the
extra untap and two votes. Apart from that I'd prefer to
sit across the table from this deck unless I can deal out
a lot of damage, take a lot of punishment or leave combat.
Running the deck seems to be a matter of blocking anything
and gunning it into torpor while bloating and waiting for
the right moment to push through that BIG bleed that gets
you an oust.
The one major risk I see is getting caught redhanded as
it doesn't provide any stealth and with 3 Toredor Grand
Ball it may take a while before you see one.
Below deck with comments from its creator.
Deckname: The Three Wise Men
Creator: Norm Brown
Description: Get Masika out first, then get Anneke out. Put a
Toreador Grand Ball into play and use Anneke to bloat enought to
get enough pool to put Alexandra into play. Also Assault Rifle on
Masika is a must and on Anneke if possible. Try to load Masika up
with as much of the permanent intercept as possible. If one
Toreador Grand Ball is in play, then you should tap Masika and make
Anneke unblockable. In a high intercept invironement, have Anneke
equip with the intercept and assault rifles and then try to transfer
it onto Masika.
Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 40, Max: 44, Avg: 10.33]
4 Alexandra ANI AUS CEL dom PRE, Toreador,
11, Inner Circle)
4 Anneke (AUS CEL dom PRE, Toreador, 10, Justicar)
4 Masika (AUS CEL PRE, Toreador, 10, Primogen)
Library: (90 cards)
Master (18 cards)
2 Art Museum
8 Minion Tap
3 Toreador Grand Ball
5 Zillah's Valley
Minion (72 cards)
5 Aire of Elation
1 Anathema
1 Ancient Influence
5 Assault Rifle
6 Eagle's Sight
7 Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, The
4 Flash
6 Forced Awakening
2 Graverobbing
2 Mr. Winthrop
8 Pursuit
3 Revelations
4 Second Tradition: Domain, The
4 Side Strike
2 Sport Bike
3 Taste of Vitae
3 Telepathic Counter
3 Telepathic Misdirection
3 Wake with Evening's Freshness
The environment was a high stealth, low combat, and weenies.
Lot's of stealth bleed, stealth vote, and corruption. I went against
a Tremere bruise, bleed deck once and ended up with all of my
vampires burned. Also, even with all of my titles, I was unable
to gain vote lock.