Strategy Event Attrition by Sten During ------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION ------------------------------------------------------------ I'll give it a go, even though this article won't follow the guidelines exactly. There is one archetype of decks that have the most to gain from the events and that is the Attrition deck. A well composed and played attrition deck wins the game by dealing out seemingly uncontrollable damage all around the table. Agreed? Wrong. The difference between a player pumping out random Anarch Revolts onto the table only to succumb to them him/her self later after only having managed to disrupt the entire table in the process, and a player pumping out seemingly random Anarch Revolts onto the table just to be lucky enough to have the card to change seating at the right moment or flip a Life Boon onto the table at exactly the time when a VP will be stolen, is that the latter player is playing an Attrition deck whereas the former is merely incapable of grsping the difference between the ash-heap and the ready region dumping cards that should have gone to the region where it was not placed. -------------------------------------------------------------- THE DECKTYPE -------------------------------------------------------------- An Attrition deck wins by disrupting the game for its prey and predator as well as dealing damage all over the table. An Attrition deck always have the means to handle problems occuring cross-table. An Attrition deck has the most to win from incorporating Events, but it has to be done with care. I'll focus on the Anson/Parthenon/Anarch Revolt Attrition deck. It's well known, well hated and admittedly one of the Anarch Revolt decks that other player agree to being effective for winning games even though they hate the deck. The deck comes in a few variants, but common is to have half the crypt being Anson with the other half vampires that either enable unblockable actions or speed up the pool-engine that this deck is dependent on. The vampires in the crypt are usually capacity eight or larger. This is a must to get the votes needed to defend the Anarch Revolts as well to make it meaningful to play Minion Tap and/or Golconda on them. So: Crypt 6 Anson 6 Other High Cap, preferably titled vampires. Huitzilopochtli with his pay a pool to get an extra master phase action is the obvious exception to the demand for a title. The library is there to be played during your master phase and when you are reacting. The following cards could be considered staples: 5+ Parthenon 4+ Information Highway 8+ Minion Tap 8+ Golconda 8+ Anarch Revolt 5+ Obedience 5+ Deflection Other popular cards are Dreams of the Sphinx, The Barrens, Storage Annex and Sudden Reversal/Direct Intervention. The package for not only damaging the table but actually win the game comes in a few different forms. Toreador Grand Ball, Kindred Restructure and vote-pushers is one way to move yourself behind the weakest player when the table is about to fall over. Life Boon played when a player is ousted in a situation where his/her prey would fall victim to the Anarch Revolts is the other way that I'm familiar with. This is where Events start to help. One problem with the master card based Attrition deck is that it doesn't cycle cards fast enough. Getting one more phase where we can play cards without risking our minions is a definite plus. This type of deck will always benefit from options to play cards without involving it's minions too much. -------------------------------------------------------------------- THE EVENTS -------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, for some reason, Anthelios has been labeled as a Gateway Event, but for this deck it's anything but. Anthelios the red Star. Gehenna Once each mster phase a Metuselah can use a master phase action to exchange a master card in his or her hand for one in his or her ash heap. This card is like a Storage Annex with a cost, but better. Early Anarch Revolts you want to avoid playing before setting your deck can be discarded as a sign of good faith just to be reused later. A large vampire you can't afford having as neighbour? Retrieve that Golconda and play it on the vampire again. All those key master cards we need but don't have the space for can be retrieved and played over and over again, because you will have excess Parthenon and Information Highway on your hand. The Unmasking Gehenna. Do not replace until your next discard phase. Allies get +1 intercept when attempting to block vampires. Marginally useful, but it disrupts the game for players close to an ally based deck. You're not planning to take any blockable actions anyway, so the event doesn't disturb your play. This could definitely be considered a Gateway Event for the master deck. Nightmares upon Nightmares Gehenna. Do not replace until your next discard phase. For each minion a Metuselah controls during his or her untap phase, the Metuselah must burn a card from his or her hand or tap that minion. Cards burned in this way are not replaced until the master phase. Vampires with capacity greater than the number of Ghenna cards in play and mortal allies are not affected by this card. This is another underrated card. The master deck can't handle a weenie horde, and what better way to shut it down than to mill through it's library or force it to slow down? This is also one of the events you can play without the entire table frowning on you. Good value for what is mostly a Gateway Event. Restricted Vitae Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire successsfully hunts. Vampires cannot hunt unless forced to hunt. A vampire who must hunt may hunt by stealing a blood from a younger vampire as a (D) action instead of performing the usual hunt action. A marginally disruptive card, but on average, the less actions you see on the table the better. Besides, you're not likely to be featuring those younger vampires anyway. Later in the game this card can be very disruptive, almost enough to win you the game if you're clashing with a horde of Blood Dolled small vampires. Torpid Blood Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire moves from torpor to the ready region. Actions taken by vampires in torpor cost an additional blood. Resquing an older vampire from torpor costs an additional blood. You have to be careful before playing this card. Never pump it onto the table early in the game unless you feel invinsible enough to play the entire game with only six cards on hand. Later, though, this is another card that disrupts play without concerning you overly. If your vampires visit torpor on a regular basis you've already lost the game anyway. If you play this card you should probably at least consider: Carver's Meat Packing and Storage [Gehenna:R] Cardtype: Master Cost: 1 pool Master. unique location. When a vampire of capacity below 4 goes to torpor, put a hostage counter on him. Hostages cannot be moved to the ready region or be diablerized. During your master phase, you may tap this card to move X blood from the blood bank to a ready vampire you control where X is the number of hostages in torpor. Any ready vampire may burn 2 blood to burn any vampire's hostage counter during any untap phase. Burn all hostage counters if this card leaves play. As you can see these cards go well hand in hand. Blood Weakens Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire commits diablerie. Cards that require any Disciplines to play are not replaced until the end of the currrent action or until any Methuselah's hand is empty (whichever comes first). Any vampire who commits diablerie is immune to this effect until the next Gehenna card is played. Another good card to slow down several types of decks, and slowing down is exactly what you want. Several combat decks rely heavily on cycling into the right combination, and a master deck can seldom afford to get caught in combat without changing the odds a bit first. The slow Withering Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire commits diablerie. Requires at least one other Gehenna card in play. Cards that require any superior Disciplines to play cost an additional blood to play. Any vampire who commits diablerie is immune to this effect until the next Gehenna card is played. This should effectively stop a number of cards being played at the time when the first player is about to be ousted. A fantastic card to be used when there are only two of you left on the table. Good protection against a wide variety of combat decks. Should effectively shut down any cap 3 - 5 mono-clan combat deck. Recalled to the Founder Gehenna. Do not replace as long as this card is in play. Requires at least two other Gehenna cards in play. During each Methuselah's untap phase, if he or she controls more than two vampires of the same clan, he or she burns one such vampire. If that vampire's capacity is above 5, this Methuselah becomes immune to the effects of this card for the remainder of the game. This card was designed for the master deck. Santa Claus brought this to us to the despair of the other players. This event could win the game for you almost all by itself, especially if you're playing the Life Boon version of the deck that doesn't rely on multiple members of the same clan (usually Toreador in order to get the Grand Ball into play). ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONCLUSION ----------------------------------------------------------------------- These are the cards I believe should find their way, and the word is plural here, into a master deck. You need all of them as several will function as Gateway Events apart from giving you a marginal edge. I strongly advice the constructor of a master deck to make room for one or two Emergency Preparations as there are some events that you definitely don't want to see play. All in all, this advice is no stranger than suggesting room for Sudden Reversal or Direct Intervention. You're the one playing attrition. Disrupting the game in order to win is what you do - you should do so well. Noone will like you for bringing an Attrition deck to a tournament, but if you win the others will grudingly respect that. The events I have listed make it more likely that it will be so. Sten During