OFFICIAL VEKN CLAN VENTRUE NEWSLETTER Vol.II No.8 May.2001 "I've got something to say... It's better to burn out than to fade away" The Kurgen. INTRODUCTION FOCUS OF THE CLAN - The 'yellow' Ventrue. AGITATION NATION - "I'm soooo full of blood I might just pop!" DECK OF THE MONTH - Arika cycling peculiarity. ________________________________________________ INTRODUCTION Apologies for the tardy letter this month, a bit short on time due to pesky work, deckbuilding and other stuff so a pretty brief issue. I'll post a report about the London tournament this Saturday gone in an 'Agitation Nation' feature update. The tournament blew me away, it was certainly different. A 3 ½ hour marathon final !! with a huge amount to comment on. Watch this space. Hmmm, thinking on the above, what does make a really good tourney ? Looking back to the London tourney and previous Gencons I think that a good spread of deck types goes a long way toward making a quality tourney. All Votes and S+B or all combat does not seem to work as well. All the decks are trying to do the same thing, games drag on, players get pissed off (more than usual) and more vamps get contested. Interesting, does anyone have good or bad tourney experiences in terms of numbers, decks etc. not 'I got my ass kicked.. the tourney was shite' :o) ________________________________________________ FOCUS OFF THE CLAN - Ventrue Antitribu clan analysis. Stinking turncoat gutterloving freaks. Got that of my chest now for some hard facts : As a clan - 14 Vampires Dom 7 DOM 6 For 9 FOR 4 Aus 6 AUS 6 Not bad spread, as you can see the bias leans toward Superior Dom and Aus rather than For, all but teeny Samson have at least inferior For which is cool. The clan did rather well out of Sabbat War with Kyle Strathcona, Vinny Day and Peter Blaine. (Stop press - Gustav Mallenhous now as well on the Final Nights previews, nasty special ability !!! Hmmm. No Sup. Fortitude in an 8 cap though). The Antitribu have some excellent special abilities and thanks to Sabbat War can mix it up in the voting arena with the best of them. They specialise in intimidating and cowing opposing voters into submission with their ever-expanding portfolio of vote cancelling cards. Demonstration Kindred Manipulation Powerbase : Madrid ? Private Audience Quentin Telepathic Vote Counting About the best (and only?) deck I can come up with for them is a proactive vote cancelling unblockable bleed affair. A lot of the vamps fit well in other decks in the mould of the Sabbat. So what do they lack ? I'll tell you what they lack - access to Combat ends. For a clan that has little or no access to stealth (Daring the Dawn / Day Op. possibly ??) they only really have damage prevention and master locations as an defensive option and even then a lot have minor For which is dangerous! Whilst dam. prev. is great, I don't think it is a stand alone tactic or defence yet ? In a combat heavy(er) metagame the Ventrue Antitribu IMO just don't have the clout or the defence to cut it on their own. What I am impressed with is the way the Sabbat and SW cards have encouraged multi clan decks and diversified deck building. As far as I understand, the Sabbat are fractious and volatile, tending to bundle together in packs and groups in times of violence. The sets reflect this well, a lot of people complain about not being able to build a 'clan' deck... I don't think that was the idea. Personally, I am against the idea of having every clan following a vanilla line-up ie. stock 7 pointer, standard 4 etc. I really like the diverse vamps in the game, some of the 'yellow' Ventrue have some cool cross-deck possibilities ~ Dylan, Vincent Day, Marlene, Laz etc. Just sitting staring at a little used vamp (with a few exceptions :o) can sometimes lay the seed for a whole new deck idea. As a single Vampire, a special moment has to be reserved for Lazverinus. He is THE man. He has IMO the best discipline spread in the game and +2 Strength.most people have seen him in action so I won't bore you with his potential which is as clear as day. _____________________________________________ AGITATION NATION - Fat deck selection As we all know, different decks suit different stages of the game better than others. A fast setup deck obviously suits the opening game and romps until someone decides to stand on it. A bloat or blood gain deck is usually in for the long haul and suits the endgame where it has a mountain of resources and big vamps with votes and influence. Talking to various players lately about bloaty wall type decks, made me think of their relationship to agitating and table deals. Love it or hate it bloat is a solid strategy available to players. Bloat can be anything from a few Voter Captivations in a high point vote deck to full on 8 Minion Taps, 8 5th Traditions with heavy stealth and protection. The shift away from weenie decks has lead to certain other cards coming into the limelight (ToGP, 5th etc.). Personally I don't think 5th Trad. 2nd Trad. etc. are too powerful / unbalancing, quite the opposite actually. I think they are *necessary for the current game. When you factor in such things as minion advantage and available no. of actions (as you must when looking at the whole picture) they become less and less 'broken' and more and more part of a whole that allows big investment vamps to compete on the same level. If the argument centres around gaining copious amounts of pool then the scatter gun should also be aimed at Tribute to the Master. Playing any kind of weenie deck, tribute can regularly give you pool at the expense of a 'turn' spent hunting. Any horde worth it's salt will get out 5-10 minions and as we all know too well, weenies all hunting is bloody difficult to stop. Hunting is a +1 Stealth action available without cards, the 5th needs a card, a Prince / Justicar and a +1 action of a probably hugely valuable / essential minion. If you ask me, there is a lot of merit in the 'immovable mountain' deck that sits and walls or bloats and sips up the last couple of VP's. This tactic is usually seen as more 'honourable' than most and only draws the antagonism of your grand predator who feels the pinch of you not putting a lot of pressure on your prey. The play and agitation options open to you with (hopefully) a shitload of pool and a wall to protect it are very different to your normal deck. Cards like Life Boon and Succubus Club come into their own allowing you to balance the table and shape the mid - end game to go more your way. If your wall / bloat deck can get you to the final you stand a fair chance of winning (with the last 2 VP's) or coming 2nd using the stalling cards mentioned. Bloat decks lend themselves toward expenditure type cards like Hostile Takeover and ToGP. If the Stone Paper Scissors equation treats you well and your prey is using mid to high point vamps a bit of bloat and you can start laying down Hostile / ToGP. atom bombs. These cards pack so much wallop that 4-5 in a deck can represent your entire offence *and provide hefty threat deterrent to the other players. So there you go, bloat. Possibly vulnerable to weenie decks, but in the current metagame a very real deck choice that can be second to none at holding on and overwhelming the last one / two players with numbers and pool. _____________________________________________ DECK OF THE MONTH Something a wee bit different this month using the queen of sleaze (errr. and ONLY the queen of sleaze). If your playgroup has toned down on Deflections and combat, hit them with this freaky shit. An oddball that runs the same line as the Spiridonas loop deck, but sticks some blood gain and defence in. Get out Arika, whack on a Thaumaturgy card, tool up with the Soul Gem (via Magic of the Smith or normal equipping) Minion Tap and bleed for 5-8 unblockable with Force of Will or Govern the Unaligned and whip out a new full up Arika. Then ummm do the same thing again. Whilst you have one out build up to 7 pool on another to allow you to bring out another if you get a kicking, which is pretty damn likely if you play a deck like this Does not do so well against heavy combat, deflection, weenies ummm ... pretty much everything actually but it's great fun to make the cycle work two or three times (or once if you are lucky) before you explode in a glorious ball of flames. Deck name: Arika cycle mud. Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 44, Max: 44, Avg: 11.00] 12 Arika (Ventrue, 11, au ce DO FO OB PR, Inner Circle) Library: 90 cards (18 masters) 1 Golconda - Inner Peace 6 Conditioning 9 Daring the Dawn 6 Deflection 6 Force of Will 4 Govern the Unaligned 4 Hidden Strength 4 Kiss of Ra, The 4 Lost in Crowds 4 Magic of the Smith 6 Majesty 5 Minion Tap 2 Parthenon, The 2 Redeem the Lost Soul 1 Rumors of Gehenna 4 Skin of Steel 4 Soul Gem of Etrius 4 Superior Mettle 10 Thaumaturgy I suppose you could work in some Protect Thyne Owns, Freak Drives etc. If you've not played a deck like it you'll scare the crap out of your group when they realise the utter cheese capacity. Nice. _____________________________________________ As I said, I'll post a tourney report when I have mulled it over a bit and calmed down, still can't quite believe it!! I'll see if I can come up with another puzzler as well. Until then take it easy and keep playing. Any mail, ideas etc. to Rob.Treasure@btinternet.com