Strategy Article for Dragonbound, an Enabling Event from Gehenna Let's face it: combat decks are fun. Nothing gets a methuselah's blood going like having his minions rain bloody death and carnage upon the minions of other methuselahs. Nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction you get when you have sent to torpor bloodless all the vampires of your predator and prey, and yours are all that remain ready and standing on the body-strewn battlefield. But now what? Your prey still has 10-15 pool left, and he probably will not bother to influence out another vampire for fear of another blood bath. Sure, you can bleed without fear your prey, but the pool loss will not be as quick and painful if he brought out another minion. He will rely on the safety of the uncontrolled region, waiting for someone else to oust you, hoping the new guy behind him is not as violent as you. Meanwhile, though you no longer have pressure behind you at the moment, you have just handed your grand predator your predator's VP, and it is just a matter of time before he becomes your new problem. You modify your combat deck with Fame and Tension In The Ranks, but then you realize after playing for a while that you just cannot oust fast enough other methuselahs compared to the more direct stealth/bleed, stealth/politics, politics/bleed deck archetypes other people use. Then you realize one hard fact: combat decks may be fun, but it is hard to effectively win with them. But thanks to the new Gehenna expansion, combat decks have new cards that can help them gain VPs by exploiting what combat decks do best: sending vampires to torpor. Particularly, the new event card, Dragonbound, will have you rejoice every time you send a vampire to torpor. Let's take a look at the card and why it is a blessing to combat decks everywhere: Dragonbound Event. Gehenna. Do not replace as long as this card is in play. During each Methuselah's discard phase, he or she burns X pool, where X is the number of vampires in torpor he or she controls. As you can see, Dragonbound is one of the new Event cards introduced in the Gehenna expansion. At the end of your turn during your Discard Phase, you can opt not to discard a card and instead play an Event card. Event cards in general have universal effects that apply to all methuselahs in the game. It is controlled by the methuselah who plays it, and in general can only be removed by ousting the methuselah who controls it or by the text on the event card itself. Some event cards have effects that minions can be immune to once they meet specific requirements stated on the card. Also, some event cards are not replaced until certain requirements are met as stated in the card text, or until the event itself leaves play. People have began to classify Gehenna event cards into 3 main types: Gateway events (no other requirements need to be met, they can be played as is, and they may allow other events to be played later), Disabling events (they adversely affect other players or their strategies) and Enabling events (they can enhance deck types and strategies). Specifically, players have classified Dragonbound as an enabling event, because it enables our combat deck archetype to be more effective in ousting prey just by adding it to our deck. The premise is simple: if combat decks tend to send vampires to torpor, and Dragonbound makes methuselahs burn pool for vampires in torpor, then a combat deck should play Dragonbound during his discard phase and start sending his prey's vampires to torpor. Obviously, this card is useful for any combat deck, but the clans that can exploit it quite well are those specifically suited for combat: Gangrel/!Gangrel, Brujah/!Brujah, Nosferatu/!Nosferatu and Assamites. Other good clans are the Tremere/!Tremere, the Tzimisce, and others with decent sets of combat and intercept disciplines. But for this article, I will focus only on 2 clans, the Gangrel and Assamites, because they demonstrate the principle behind maximizing the event quite well. The card fits perfectly for the Gangrel and Assamites because they can easily and quickly send other vampires to torpor consistently because they can inflict aggravated damage on the first round and their disciplines have a nice combat synergy with each other. With the Gangrel, you have the good old Drawing Out The Beast-Scorpion Sting-Wolf Claws combo to send a vampire reeling. For the Assamites, you have a variety of options. You can go with long-range guns and celerity combat, long-range Blood Sweat celerity combat, or long-range Taste of Death. If you are a patient player, you can go with close-range Scorpion's Touch with Parmenides, Parnassus or Thetmes. Both clans can address one of the 3 main problems that combat decks in combat face: S:CE, strike: dodge, an prevention. The Assamites have the added advantage that some of the Quietus strikes are damage unpreventable at long range, while the Gangrel have the advantage of setting range with DOTB and having Scorpion Sting's that cannot be dodged. S:CE is the last obstacle to sending vampires to torpor, but the Assamites have access to Psyche, and the Gangrel have Dog Pack (though expensive, it is a permanent) to fall back on. Of course, never forget Rotschreck is always a good option for sending vampires to torpor if you are a reactive type, and it still trumps S:CE quite well. With these two clans' effective means of sending other vampires to torpor, you can start giving your prey the double-whammy once you lay down Dragonbound as you not only beat up his vampires, you make him lose pool for his inability to survive a fight. Therefore, you want to get the card out as soon as possible to maximize the pool loss. Since you are a combat deck, you should cycle through your cards fairly easily and get Dragonbound consistently in a game. But if you want to make sure that you will get it, you can put 1 or 2 Fortschritt Library master cards into your deck so you can search for Dragonbound and put in into your hand. Once you put the event down, you will probably be bum's rushing, or taking contracts out on your prey's vampires left and right and watching with glee during his discard phase as he burns pool for each torpored minion he has. Now, before we all go crazy on Dragonbound, there are a few things to consider. First, though it is a good card, it has one major drawback: you are forced to play with a smaller hand size because of the "Do not replace as long as this card is in play" text on Dragonbound. Strategically speaking, combat decks prefer to play with as big a hand as possible because the more cards they have in hand, the greater the likelihood it is a combat card they can use, thus more options in combat. And in general, as most of the articles on V:TES will tell you, the more options you have in hand, the better. Going down from a hand size of 7 cards to 6 cards essentially lessens your options by one. There are several ways to address this problem like Elder Library, Weeping Stone, Dreams of the Sphinx, and other hand-size increasing library cards. There are vampires as well that give you back that extra card slot like Nahir, Christanius Lionel, Shahid, Aristotle de Laurent, etc. The Gangrel have the added advantage of having in their crypt Beckett Advanced, because his ability increases your hand size for every other Gehenna card in play, so if other methuselahs put down Gehenna cards, you benefit as well. Also, he only burns pool for Dragonbound during his discard phase, which means if your prey's vampires can leave/are rescued from torpor before that, no loss of pool. This only becomes a problem if you let it be. You should let your prey get away with one or 2 rescue attempts because it depletes his vampires of blood and you can always send them to torpor again, being a combat deck and all. Eventually he will run out of blood and minions for rescue/leave torpor attempts, and when that happens, Dragonbound has them good. Of course, someone could always diablerize the vampires in torpor, but the loss of a vampire will always hurt. Or if you are truly impatient, you can always block the rescue or leave torpor actions, and the Gangrel and Assamites can be effective blockers. The Gangrel have Animalism retainers to give them permanent intercept, while a healthy number of the Assamite crypt have auspex like Tegyrius and Fatima. Or you can employ Mr. Winthrop or equip a sport-bike for the extra intercept needed. Also, and maybe a lot of you will disagree with me, but Dragonbound should not be the main ousting card of your combat deck. By this I mean, your deck should not just rely solely on this card, but rather Dragonbound should add to the other methods combat decks use to oust like Fame and Tension In The Ranks, or the new personal "Fame-lite" master card for non-Camarilla combat decks they introduced in Gehenna, The Path of Lilith. In fact, it is my opinion that The Path of Lilith is better than TITR because the torture counters are permanent until the Path is burned and you get to choose who gets them. Here, I propose that combat decks incorporate the Holy Trinity of Fame-Tension In The Ranks-Dragonbound or Fame-The Path of Lilith-Dragonbound for maximum effectiveness. With these 3 in play, you can make your prey lose 3 pool when you send to torpor his Famed minion on your turn after rushing him, tap the path to give him a torture counter, then on your prey's untap phase, he loses an additional 2 pool from Fame and the counter(s) from the Path of Lilith, and on his discard phase, he loses 1 more pool from Dragonbound. That is net loss of 6 pool for your prey, not counting the free bleeds you might get since all his vampires are in torpor or busy rescuing other vampires in torpor. One thing I need to stress about the Holy Trinity, you need to be patient and careful with the deck, and pick your combat wisely. Here, though it may not be apparent, timing is everything when it comes to sending your prey's vampires to torpor. You should wait until he has around 2 minions out, so you can send both to torpor and make him burn 2 pool at his discard phase. And be careful of how fast you go through your library, since if you want to oust as many as possible, you should have enough combat cards left to attack and send to torpor the minions of the other methuselahs on the table. Anyway, here is a sample deck that tries to utilize the Holy Trinity, while at the same time has other options of ousting just in case: Deck Name: The Gangrel Have Friends Created By: Paulo Francisco A. Agustin Description: Try and use the Holy Trinity of Combat Decks Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 18, Max: 36, Avg: 6.92) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Zayyat aus qui tha ANI FOR PRO 10, Gangrel, 2 votes 2 Celeste Lamontagne for ANI PRO 5, Gangrel Antitribu 2 Jezebelle ani for pro 4, Gangrel 1 Ryder ani pot FOR PRO 7, Gangrel 1 Nadima ani aus FOR PRO SER 8, Gangrel 1 Danielle Diron chi for ANI PRO 7, Gangrel, 1 vote 1 Brunhilde pre ANI FOR PRO 8, Gangrel 2 Beckett (ADV) cel tha ANI FOR PRO 8, Gangrel Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (14 cards) 1 Archon Investigation/Fortschritt Library (adapt for meta-game) 1 Backways 3 Blood Doll 1 Ecoterrorists 1 Fame 1 Fragment of the Book of Nod/Erciyes Fragment (adapt for meta-game) 1 Gangrel Revel 1 KRCG News Radio 2 Rotschreck 1 Tension in the Ranks/The Path of Lilith 1 Zoo Hunting Ground Action (7 cards) 1 Army of Rats 4 Bum`s Rush 2 Tier of Souls Action Modifier (4 cards) 4 Freak Drive Reaction (11 cards) 5 Cats` Guidance 6 Forced Awakening Combat (44 cards) 1 Body Flare 1 Bone Spur 6 Carrion Crows 3 Claws of the Dead 6 Drawing Out the Beast 4 Form of Mist 1 Mythic Form 2 Rolling with the Punches 6 Scorpion Sting 2 Skin of Rock 3 Skin of Steel 1 Soak 2 Superior Mettle 3 Taste of Vitae 3 Wolf Claws Retainer (9 cards) 1 Dog Pack 1 Homunculus 1 J. S. Simmons, Esq. 1 Murder of Crows 4 Raven Spy 1 Tasha Morgan Event (1 card) Dragonbound This deck was last saved at 12:44:34 PM on 6/3/2004 Obviously, the deck demands that your prey block your actions, and then you start sending his vampires to torpor with DOTB-Scorpion Sting-Aggravated damage card. The raven spies are there to give you enough permanent intercept to allow you to block all the leave torpor and rescue actions once Dragonbound hits the table, and the bleed retainers and Tiers of Soul will make ousting your prey faster, hopefully leaving you with enough combat cards left to oust your next prey. You play this deck methodically, waiting for your prey and grand prey to be low enough on pool that you can conceivably oust them in the next 3-6 turns with your Holy Trinity strategy and the free bleeds you get. In a 5-player table, you should give your prey enough leeway to weaken your grandprey, thus conserving enough combat cards for you to oust your grandpredator and predator once you oust your prey and grandprey. Paulo Francisco A. Agustin addyangelx@yahoo.com (HushXXXTreme)