Beginner Decks: Recap

I have been re-tuning my beginner decks in response the recent demos that I have held. Gone is the Gangrel deck (god-awful in poolgain, ousting and ho-hum combat). Replacing it are two decks, one an Assamite Mark V/Loss deck, the other a G3/4 multi-act Nos deck (courtesy of G1 who played it back in summer when I was in SG).

The Ventrue Lawfirm deck has been re-tuned to reduce the amount of vote push (really don't need it), more Mary Anne Blaires (4x right now, took out both Gustav Breidensteins), and Kiss of Ra to power through blockers.

The Malk G4/5 deck would welcome some intercept (Spirit's Touches for the maneuver long).

The Toreador deck seem to be performing as expected, I am looking into re-jigging it for lower cap vampires, maybe evening switching groups, G3/4 instead of the current G4/5.

I am starting to feel the insufficiency of Villeins; when that many decks benefit from 5-6 Villeins, and you only have ~18, it is horrid. Should've bought another HttB starter set.

Decklist: Its Sal-sa Time!

Trip back to Sg was a great learning experience; encountered many experienced players that brought out competitive and interesting decks. One of them was GeeHwan's Sal G4 deck featuring Saulot and Eurayle (Eurayle to untap any a vamp of choice which Saulot Spirit Marionettes). Here's my take on it with G56 featuring Matthew and Serenna the White.

Played this deck twice on Sunday with the South Bay gang; Found that it has major problems against intercept (can only generate max +2 stealth w/ a seduction), trying to bleed, and gaining pool. So when did Salubri have problems bloating? That is because my card cycling was atrocious, both games only a third of the deck made its way to the ashheap. On the plus side, the blood gain from Renewed Vigor and my FOR damage prevention made combat a breeze.

This deck definitely needs work to tackle the previously mentioned problems. Also I am currently looking into using Azrael, Tyler and Veejay for their cheap AUS to block and bounce, but any suggestions on OTHER things they can do? I'd add a Bowl of Convergence.


4x Matthew
4x Serenna the White
2x Azrael
1x Tyler McGill
1x  Veejay Vinod

Library (90)
Master (18)
7x Villein
4x Wider View
2x Information Highway
1x Path of Tears
1x Sight Beyond Sight
3x Heidelberg Castle

Action (18)
7x Renewed Vigor
7x Spirit Marionette
2x Lord of Serenity
2x Pulse of the Canaille

Action Modifiers (20)
4x Repulsion
4x Gift of Sleep
4x Penitent Resilience
8x Freak Drive

Combat (10)
6x Rolling with the Punches
4x Skin of Rock

Ally/Equipment (3)
1x J. S. Simmons
1x Tasha Morgan
1x Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers

Reaction (21)
4x Glare of Lies
5x Eyes of Argus
3x On the Qui Vive
3x Precognition
6x Telepathic Misdirection

Decklist: Rebellious Daughters

Here is my new and updated Daughters of Cacophony deck, using anarch tech to power the votes. A fabulous post by SingingVTES helped narrow down the card options, along with discussions with G1 and Stephen. This deck is still very raw, and having NEVER played anarchs before, I could certainly need a lot of fine-tuning.

Hopefully I would be able to scavenge from fellow players all the necessary cards to get a workable deck by Saturday's game.

The basic gist of the deck:
Bring out either Angela, Yseult or Gael who can be made baron; followed by calling votes. Madrigal and Rant! form a fearsome combination, allowing each DoC to gain 2 votes (on top of the 2 from Madrigal). Voter Captivation to replenish blood loss from Virtuosa. Secondary ousting would be with Camera Phone/Codex and Virtuosa. Shattering Crescendo to hunt down annoying stealth bleeders or rushers.

Delivery method would be Missing Voice and Virtuosa. Combat would involve Target Vitals + Catatonic Fear ( trick learnt from Salubri's Anesthetic Touch) with Diversion for damage prevention and Groundfighting for maneuver short and getting out of IG.  

Possible changes
Do I need to double up on Fee Stakes? 5 Freak Drives are the smallest number I've ever used. Small Master list seems underpowered. Virtuosa is powerful, but need Voter Cap to recharge (however there's a severe lack of card space). Are there enough ousting cards?








Crypt: (12)
3x Anarch Convert(G*)
2x Angela Preston(G2)
2x Gaël Pilet(G2)
2x Yseult(G3)
1x Céleste, The Voice of a Secret(G2)
1x Delilah Monroe(G2)
1x Muse(G2)

Library: (90)
Master: (14)
3x Conductor
2x Bastille Opera House
1x Anarch Railroad
1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
1x Hospital Food
1x Libertas
1x Poacher's Hunting Ground
1x Powerbase: Los Angeles
1x Seattle Committee
1x Smear Campaign
1x Twilight Camp

Action: (9)
6x Shattering Crescendo
1x Fee Stake: Corte
1x Fee Stake: Los Angeles
1x Fee Stake: Perth

Action Modifier: (25)
6x Rant!
6x The Missing Voice
5x Freak Drive
4x Virtuosa
4x Voter Captivation

Action Modifier/Reaction: (6)
6x Madrigal

Combat: (18)
6x Catatonic Fear
6x Diversion
3x Groundfighting
3x Target Vitals

Equipment: (3)
2x Camera Phone
1x Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers

Political Action: (15)
5x Lily Prelude
2x Benefit Performance
2x Firebrand
2x Patsy
2x Reckless Agitation
2x Revolutionary Council

New Deck: Music for Royalty (Improvements needed!)

This is pretty much built from scratch, figured I should elicit some comments before trying it out at my next game. General idea is to get out Daughters to provide blood gain and pool damage, and some Ventrue for votes and bleed bounce. Overcome blocking with Siren's Lure, Freak Drive, Scout and Anarch Troublemaker. Plenty of blood gain to fuel Freak Drives and other stuff.

Possible weaknesses include mixed crypt, dedicated combat deck, and not getting vote lock. Suggestions on deck improvement sorely needed.

Sources of inspiration: Saw Ian Lee's G2/3 Samedi deck with a million Freak Drives, bleed enhancers (moved around with Heidelberg Castle) and Off-Kilter. Wanted to do something similar but with a different clan. Plenty of TWDA decks with breed/boon Daughters but that's not my thing. Ben Peal's TWDA Daughters deck with Siren's Lure as "stealth".



Crypt
2x Scout Youngwood 8 MEL OBF PRE for qui Daughters:6
2x Hillanvale 5 FOR MEL obf Daughters:6
2x Harlan Graves 4 FOR mel pre Daughters:6
1x Janet Langer 3 MEL pre Daughters:5

2x Graham Gottesman 7 DOM FOR obf pre tha Ven:5
1x Victor Donaldson 6 DOM for pre Ven:5
2x Emily Carson 5 DOM for pre Ven:5

Library
Master (17)
3x Blood Doll
6x Life in the City
1x Jake Washington
2x Conductor
1x Bastile Opera House
1x Anarch Troublemaker
1x Heidelberg Castle
2x Agent of Power

Actions (17)
4x Governing the Unaligned
4x Benefit Performance
3x Fanfare for Elysium
3x Lily Prelude
3x KRC

Action Modifiers (29)
5x Madrigal
2x Virtuosa
8x Siren's Lure
14x Freak Drive

Reaction (12)
8x Deflection
4x On the Qui Vive

Equipment/Ally/Retainer (5)
2x Camera Phone
1x J. S. Simmons
1x Tasha Morgan
1x Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers

Combat (10)
8x Soak
2x Skin of Rock

ECQ 2010 in Copenhagen Apr 24th

What: Sect Wars Draft + ECQ 2010
When: April 24th (Sect Wars) + April 25th (ECQ 2010)
Where: IT-University, Rued Langgaards Vej 7, 2300 København S


April 24th, Sect Wars Draft.
* See rules at the bottom of the post
Registration starts at 10.30
The 1 hour deck building period starts at 11.30
This will be a 2 rounds + final (2 hour limit) tournament, and the
first round starts at 12.30

PLEASE LET US KNOW IF YOU PLAN ON ATTENDING THIS EVENT, AS THE NUMBER
OF PLAYERS AFFECT WHAT SHOULD BE PLAYED.


Entry fee: 210 Danish Kroner (around 28 euros)
This gives each player a starter deck from the selected Sect and
access to cards from the18 boosters the team has available.
Prizes will be a display of boosters (not determined yet which one) to
be shared amongst the team.


April 25th, Danish ECQ 2010
Registration starts at 10.30
First round starts at 11.30
This will be a 3 rounds + final (2 hour limit).

Entry fee: 40 Danish kroner (5 euros)

Accomodation:
If you are interested in crash space at local players, please contact
one of the organizers below. First come, first serve. But we can
probably fit 10-15 people.

If you are looking for cheap hotels, here are some of the good
overviews:
http://www.gtahotels.com/cities/copenhagen.htm
http://www.hotelclub.net/hotel.reservations/Copenhagen.htm

Non-hotel options:
http://www.visitdenmark.com/international/en-gb/menu/turist/inspirati...

Card Analysis: Grooming the Protege

Master. Move up to 3 blood from a ready vampire you control to a younger vampire of the same clan in your uncontrolled region.

An excellent card that I've observed speeding up my gameplay and providing options even mid/late game. Primarily thought of as a Master card accelerator similar to Zillah's Valley, Information Highway, Eternals of Sirius, Tend the Flock; the fact that it moves blood from a ready minion to an uncontrolled minion allows it to mimic the ability of Minion Tap.

First up, Grooming's advantages are that it a) effectively reduces the cost of the 2nd minion by up to 3, making your spent pool go a longer way. This also allows cap 7 and lower minions to be influenced in 1 turn. For decks that do not or cannot use Governing the Unaligned/Enchant Kindred this can be a godsend against a weenie or bleed deck. b) by moving blood from a ready minion to your uncontrolled region, this makes Grooming a Minion Tap-lite for 2+1 (bring 2 with 4 transfers, then 1). Sure this takes up transfers, but transfers matter most in the early game, and at that point you'd want to influence out vampires instead. Rarely do I find myself Minion Tapping for more than 4 anyways so 3 is plenty in many cases; plus it is not affected by Villein (which everyone packs due to HttB starters).

Its limitations are 1) older vampire -> younger vampire, and 2) they must be of the same clan. These limitations aren't really that limiting, as often decks themed around specific overall purposes often share a similar disc. spread, and clan-similar vampires usually share that. Mind you, that's alot of qualifications there, so Grooming is not for every deck. Also, you must first have a minion out, and so it speeds up only the 2nd minion onwards.

Tactically you also must decide if losing 3 blood from your (likely to be first) minion poses a hazard, or at least ensure that the 2nd minion influenced out will block any rushers. And obviously it can't be used if there's no uncontrolled minion.

Zillah's Valley and Information Highway suffers from the fact that they do not have the blood/pool management like Grooming. They are, to all intents and purposes, allow you to spend your pool at a near 1:1 ratio (Zillah's Valley has an additional cost of 1 pool). Eternals of Sirius is Followers of Set-specific. And other than Eternals being a decent Ascendance (needing at least 4pool to buy in), they are nigh on useless mid/late game. Benefits wise Eternals is for one turn 9caps, Zillah's Valley is for 8caps while Info Highway allows first turn 6caps or 2nd turn 9-11caps. Importantly, they can help influence the 1st minion.

Tend The Flock is clearly a superior version of Grooming, but has a limitation of only infernals. Infernals have their own pool management problems to address, thus the power boost.

All in all, Grooming the Protege is a versatile card that I find is a welcome draw whether early or late game. I'm willing to sacrifice some advantages of other accelerators and Minion Tap if I can get 90% of either on a single card.

Current Decks

I have 3 full decks at the moment that i use in regular play.

My G4/5 Brujah deck has seen the most play, and most tweaking. No major overhaul really, bruise/vote at its base. Still suffers from stealth/power bleeding and extremely violent combat. It can pump out votes like nothing else; New Carthage assures me vote lock (gotten 12 permanent votes before) . Not to mention Scalpel Tongue, Bewitching Oration, Perfect Paragon etc.

The Rachel Brandywine deck is a pretty well-known deck concept that can oust in a single round. Very few moving parts and decent combat survival. Very little pool gain though, Rachel's a 10Cap and she needs partners.

The G1/2 Toreador Aching Beauty deck is the most recent, and needs the most adjustments. Powerful once it gets its engine running, but slow setup. Not the most efficient in terms of actions per vampire, but the actions hurt. Aims to outlast the opposition.

Got a couple of deck ideas floating around at the moment. Thought of a Gargoyles deck, but the split crypt/library really threatens to kill it. I'm still not really convinced it could work effectively. Gargoyle combat is ridiculously card intensive while the Trem sit around waiting to bleed.

A Daughters deck might work too, what with the new political actions and Virtuosa. I'm split on whether to have a split crypt with !Ven or Ven to help bounce bleeds. !Ven can block while Ven has better perma-votes.  Choir/Harmony seems very dicey while Shattering Crescendo looks workable. Will need powerful blood gain to make this work. They need a Path of Music to juice it up.

Or I could just make that Obf Tor deck I was throwing about a couple of months ago.