I brought this deck to the SF Qualifiers a few months back; fared decently as I eschewed OBF and embraced FOR. Tied for 5th place (and hence chance for final table), but lost the coin flip. Potence/Assault Rifles are my stealth. This deck was an evolution of the earlier Brujah Princes deck that I built when I was starting out.
Suggestions needed to overhaul this deck.
Setup: Alastor/Assault Rifle or Alastor/Sengir Dagger/Preternatural Strength to rush and torpor vampires. Parity Shift, Voter Cap and Dmitra's bloodgain special/Vessel as poolgain. KRC and bleeds via New Carthage/Iron Glare as oust. 2nd Traditions to block.
Cons: Ousting power not too high. Weak to strike: combat ends, Animalism or Fortitude combat. No bounce disciplines (Auspex / Dominate). Weak stealth and meager multi-act capabilities.
Masters: Grooming the Protege as accelerant; avoiding Info Highway (too easily contested) and Zillah's Valley (useable only on Dmitra). Villein and Vessel to take advantage of Dmitra's ability. New Carthage and Temptation of Greater Power pretty self-explanatory. Fortitude skill cards to allow the rest to use Forced March.
Actions: Preternatural Strength and Heroic Might are early game build-up to deter blockers; transient POT combat cards like Torn Signpost and Immortal Grapple were taken out to ensure better card economy. Entrancement to steal the occasional ally like Renegade Garou.
Political Actions: Alastor and Anathema combo for rush and burns. Parity Shift and KRC as standard. Banishments to remove threats.
Action Modifiers: Voter Captivation for blood/poolgain. Iron Glare for vote push and bleed modifier. Perfect Paragon for vote push and stealth. Forced March for multi-act and stealth. Resist Earth's Grasp for maneuver, press or stealth. Notice the theme of versatile cards?
Combat: Sidestrike for dodging aggravated, high strength or torporizing strikes; with a possible additional strike alternative. Sideslips for dodge or avoid 1 point aggravated damage. Taste of Vitae to recover blood.
Equipment: 2 assault rifles to be picked up by Alastor; preferably on vampires without Preternatural Strength/Heroic Might. Sengir dagger for the those who do have +strength, and Heart of Nizchetus for cardflow advantage.
Reaction: 10 2nd Traditions to wake and block.
Crypt: (12)
4x Dmitra Ilyanova(G5)
3x Karen Suadela(G5)
2x Tara(G5)
2x Tomaine(G4)
1x Jann Berger(G4)
Library: (90)
Master: (16)
4x Grooming the Protégé
2x Villein
4x Vessel
2x Fortitude
2x New Carthage
1x Temptation of Greater Power
Action: (7)
3x Heroic Might
3x Preternatural Strength
1x Entrancement
Action Modifier: (18)
7x Voter Captivation
5x Forced March
3x Iron Glare
3x Perfect Paragon
Action Modifier/Combat: (6)
6x Resist Earth's Grasp
Combat: (14)
6x Sideslip
5x Side Strike
3x Taste of Vitae
Equipment: (4)
2x Assault Rifle
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Sengir Dagger
Political Action: (15)
4x Alastor
5x Kine Resources Contested
3x Parity Shift
2x Anathema
1x Banishment
Reaction: (10)
10x Second Tradition: Domain
I see that you are aiming for redundancy in your card pool, I just think you can probably cut down on the total number of cards.
ReplyDeleteCrypt:
Good, except Carlak is better than Jan because he can be groomed/enchanted down from Dmitra. He also has a press and a vote special.
Master:
-2 grooming(more situational than info highway, requires older vamp in the first place) +1 golconda +1 giant's blood. -4 Vessel(slow, expensive) +3 Villein +1 Dreams of the Sphinx. It would be good to fit in 2-3x Wider View to get the right crypt cards in play and get the extra Dmitras out of your uncontrolled region. Info Highway + Wider View = strong.
Actions:
I might go with just 2x Pret Strength and 1x Heroic Might. Too much tooling up is a bad thing when you want to bleed forward. How about a couple Fleetness and Enchant Kindred in their place?
Action Mods:
Too many voter caps! What if your votes get DI'd or DT'd or Confusion of the Eyed or just plain out voted? Go down to 4 max, even if Dmitra has a built-in vote. The blood you need comes from her vote, the pool from your prey in the form of Parity Shift and the 6 pool they will give you. Maybe a couple Aire of Elation here? Less versatile than Iron Glare, but more playable for +bleed.
That's a lot of Resist the Earth's Grasp. Maybe -1 to -2.
Combat:
Acrobatics is strong, maybe better than the other dodge cards. 1-2x more Taste I should think, 2nd trads mean a lot of combat, also a lot of blood spent.
Equipment:
Sengir Dagger isn't that great. Helicopter should go here instead.
Votes:
Good, although I might cut down on votes in number. -1 KRC, -1 Anathema, -1 Alastor. Dmitra's Built-in vote will take a lot of your time.
other stuff:
Maybe Scourge of the Enochians and Archon Investigation to hedge your bets.
With all that, I think you can get down to 80 cards or less. The smaller deck size could help you get the cards you need to flow better.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI've got a very similar deck that won me 2 finals already. Check this:
http://hunfragment.blogspot.com/2010/09/reporting-back-from-nac-6-fcq.html
by: Mephistopheles
I definitely agree with Brandon that this library is too big. Are you actually running out of cards when you play? With those permanents, it doesn't seem like you would.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why you're using Vessels here, since you've got a much beefier way to remove peoples' ability to bloat via blood on their vampires (rushing them into the ground) and the pool cost of Vessel is prohibitive.
Carlak is an amazing vampire. You should definitely have him in here. That he doesn't have Potence really shouldn't be an issue; you'd be better off running more Alastor Rifles instead anyway.
No Psyches?
Excellent posts everyone!
ReplyDeleteCrypt
Carlak is a good idea (-1 Jan, -1 Tomaine, +2 Carlak).
Masters
I favor grooming over info highway due to a) contesting (our playgroup abuses it) b) may work as a mini minion tap, c) saves blood, d) can bring Karen out in 1 turn. Having said that, I will remove the Vessels (-4) in favor of 1 Info Highway, 1 Golconda and 2 Wider Views. +2 Dreams, -1 Fortitude.
Action
-2 Heroic Might
Action Mod
-3 Voter Cap, +3 Aire of Elation
Resist Earth's Grasp is incredibly versatile; +stealth for the clutch votes, manu + press for another round of Assault Rifles or to escape.
Combat
Acrobatics costs blood; I used to run with them, but they aren't cheap. +2 Tastes
@Brandon
I'll think about squeezing in Scourge and Archon; they are pretty useful
@Meph
I saw your decklist; its pretty lean and mean! How do you generate oust pressure though? I've seen plenty of Parity Shifts, 1 Fame and 1 Dragonbound. Unless you bring yourself down to Shift as part of your strat...
@Eno
Vessel was supposed to be used with Dmitra's special for poolgain; I agree that past experience deemed it too action-intensive. Carlak would be useful but that he can't be Groomed in 1 turn, and i almost always prefer Karen over him. You have no idea how much intercept is in our meta.
It's pretty easy. You normally have 3 titled Brujah vampires in play. This means you have a permanent bleed for six, since the New Carthage gives them +1 bleed. Due to the Heart of Niztchetus you will find either Fame or Dragonbound in time. A perm bleed for 6 + Fame/Dragonbound is enough to oust somebody from ~10 pool in two turns (you have to calculate with some blocks and pool regain).
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I look at this and wonder why you are running basically 3 deck tactics: Bleed'n'Smash, Vote'n'Smash & Rush'n'Smash... I just don't know if it will get it's game on. The problem is that each of those tactics requires a moderate setup time... you could still be setting-up sometime during turn 5 or 6, instead of dropping into 4th gear and going in for the kill.
ReplyDeleteRush'n'Smash: Anathema + Alastor + Assault Rifle w/ Acrobatics would be a very vicious and nasty option. Especially with New & Old Carthage and Legal/Social Charm (or Public Trust if you want it to hit your uncontrolled directly instead of pool directly). Of course it requires Fame, Dragonbound, et al and possibly Carver's Meat Packing if your Meta is weenie-heavy because it will allow you some more significant bloat from Villeins.
Bleed'n'Smash: Pool gaining bleed actions + New & Old Carthage + BIG Guns & Celerity would give you a bit more go forward and a little more pool safety. I'd look at Anathema + Alastor as a method for clearing away the most troublesome blockers. Of course you'd have Psyche to nerf any S:CE nutters.
Vote'n'Smash: Everyone grabs 44s or Deagles and you vote-vote-vote with Iron Glare there for bleeds if people start janking around your vote actions. People who block should be shot-up badly and I'd prefer to have Archon's in here for their "burn blood to block" text, plus the ability to eat any really irritating people who go for a sleep.
Masters: Vessel is okay, but is slower and honestly I'm surprised you haven't got more Villeins in there. Golconda is good, Pentex for saving your own butt and nerfing a nasty blocker (so you can Anathema them and obliterate them in a more combat oriented version), I'd be tempted to have an Old Carthage (aka Carthage Remembered) with New Carthage and include Giant's Blood.