Official VEKN Ravnos Clan Newsletter - November 2005
Graham Smith
Written by Graham Smith
Introduction
============
Well I've just got back from the UK nationals after getting no VPs
the whole day!!! I guess it's what I get for playing an out of turn
Malk bleed deck rather than the Ravnos Red Herring Tap and Bleed deck I
also had with me. During the 2 hour drive back from the Nationals,
talk turned to the number of weenie obf or dom decks encountered on the
day. So this has inspired me to explore the cards that can be used to
help defend against weenie decks in this month's newsletter.
Neutralise weenies effectiveness
================================
Weenies are effective because they can swarm their prey with lots of
small bleeds. We all know this. Trying to defend against a lot of
small bleeds soon uses up most of a decks reaction cards and even a
deck packed with 10-12 bounce cards will find itself overrun by the
swarm. So, a good way of neutralising a weenie horde is to reduce the
effectiveness of their bleeds without expanding too many resources.
There seems to be a card made just for this situation, Aranthebes, The
Immortal.
Aranthebes, The Immortal
Type: Action
Cost: 1 pool
+1 stealth action. Unique.
Put this card into play. You may tap Aranthebes to give a minion
controlled by your predator -1 stealth for the current action. While
Aranthebes is untapped, vampires with a capacity less than 5 get -1
bleed when bleeding you. Any vampire with a capacity above 4 can move
Aranthebes to your library as a (D) action. Shuffle afterward.
Rarity: Anarchs:R
Aranthebses pretty much stops a weenie deck in its tracks, if it relies
on inherent bleeds. If the deck is using bleed actions such as
Computer Hacking or bleed modifiers, Aranthebes has still probably cut
their bleed potential in half. Aranthebes is also dual purpose, you
can tap him to reduce one of your predators' minion's stealth by 1,
nice if you are being preyed on by a vote deck and also combos well
with Draba. So as long as you can defend him, Aranthebes is a good
addition to any deck.
Another way of stopping weenies is blocking them. Normally minions tap
when blocking but this can be solved with Atonement.
Atonement
Type: Action
Requires: capacity below 6
Cost: 2 blood
Requires a ready vampire with a capacity below 6. +1 stealth action.
Put this card on the acting vampire. This vampire gets +1 intercept
when attempting to block. He or she does not tap when blocking a
vampire of the same age or younger. Any vampire may burn this card as a
(D) action; Followers of Set get -1 stealth when attempting that
action.
Rarity: AH:C2 FN:PA/PG
So if you put this card on one of your 5 cap minions and have them
equip with a sniper rifle they can then block and kill weenies all day
long! You will probably want to setup 2 minions in this way to stop
any attempts to seduce your main blockers. If they recruit a Raven Spy
or grab a Sports Bike they should be able to keep most weenies down.
Also it's worth noting that if the vampire's capacity is increased
after the Atonement, they still do not tap when blocking a younger
vampire.
Edged Illusion
This card was discussed in the September newsletter but I will repeat
it here, at superior, Edged Illusion can cause weenie decks a lot of
trouble as you start to remove all the blood from their vampires
through unpreventable damage.
Use Events
==========
There a few event cards that seem to have been created to help deal
with the weenie problem.
Thirst
Type: Event
Gehenna.
After a Methuselah has finished all of his or her minion phase actions,
each ready vampire he or she controls with capacity less than the
number of Gehenna cards in play who did not hunt in that minion phase
burns 1 blood.
Rarity: Gehenna:R
This can cause weenie decks problems especially if your also hit them
with an Edged Illusion. The draw back of the card is that you need to
have 3 or 4 other Gehenna cards in play to really get the weenie
killing benefit. Two good cards to use with Thirst are Restricted
Vitae and the Government Event Dr Marisa Fletcher.
Restricted Vitae
Type: Event
Gehenna. Do not replace until a vampire successfully 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.
Rarity: Gehenna:R KMW:PAn
Dr. Marisa Fletcher, CDC
Type: Event
Government.
During your untap phase, add two counters to this card from the blood
bank. When a vampire with capacity less than X is blocked while
hunting, where X is the number of counters on this card, burn that
vampire and all the counters on this card.
Rarity: KMW:R
Restricted Vitae stops them hunting until they are on 0 blood so the
Thirst will always cause them to burn bleed and then Marisa Fletcher
can be used to burn them when they hunt or you can always hit them with
an Edged Illusion to torpor them.
Make the cost of weenies prohibitive
====================================
As mentioned above events can help deal with weenies, and there is an
event card that can increase their cost in an indirect way is:
Nightmares upon Nightmares
Type: Event
Gehenna. Do not replace until your next discard phase.
For each minion a Methuselah controls during his or her untap phase,
the Methuselah 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 Gehenna cards
in play and mortal allies are not affected by this card.
Rarity: Gehenna:R
Like the other events if 3-4 Gehenna cards are in play, Nightmares upon
Nightmares will soon run the weenie deck out of library or stop them
acting - either is good.
There are a number of votes that can be used to reduce a weenie
deck's pool, in a 'if all else fails back oust them' kind of way,
but as Ravnos are not currently the greatest politicians in the game I
will leave discussing them for a future newsletter.
To get the most out of these events you are going to need to put a few
more in play. I think Blood Trade and Wormwood are good candidates for
most decks - these two events are probably not going to backfire on you
as much as Anthelios, The Red Star or Dragonbound can.
If you can't beat them join them.
=================================
Of course you can always try to out race the weenie deck with your own
weenie deck. Ravnos Week of Nightmare breed decks have done very well
in tournaments lately and with the introduction of the Tumnimos card
everbody can have a go at a Ravnos breed deck without having to own 20
Embraces, just don't expect to make any friends around the table!
Summary
=======
I'm more in favour of the Aranthebes and Atonement solutions to
stopping weenies as they seem not to incur the wrath of the table that
Events cards seem to. Also I'm not a great fan of the Ravnos swarm
tactic as I think the clan has much more to offer. With this in mind
this months deck is a Ravnos toolbox that has weenie defence built
around Aranthebes, Atonement and Guns.
Deck of the Month
=================
Deck Name : Ravnos cut price sale.
Author : Graham Smith
Description :
Tool box deck that provides some bloat via Patshiv and tries to
handle weenies using Atonement and guns while still going
forward.
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 6 average: 4.25
------------------------------------------------------------
2x Joaquina Amaya 6 ANI CHI FOR Ravnos:2
2x Khalil Ravana 5 CHI ani for pre Ravnos:2
2x Lázár Dobrescu 3 for Ravnos:2
1x Andrei Puxon 5 ani cel chi for Ravnos:2
1x Ghivran Dalaal, Th 5 FOR ani aus chi Ravnos:2
1x Anka, Priestess of 4 ani chi pro Ravnos:2
1x Salbatore Bokkengr 4 CHI for pro Ravnos:2
1x Vedel Esbreno 3 chi for Ravnos:2
1x Sasha Miklos 2 chi Ravnos:2
Library [90 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Action [19]
1x Aranthebes, The Immortal
3x Atonement
4x Computer Hacking
2x Edged Illusion
1x Mass Reality
6x Patshiv
2x Sensory Deprivation
Action Modifier [10]
7x Fata Morgana
3x Freak Drive
Action Modifier/Combat [6]
3x Mirror Image
3x Occlusion
Action/Reaction [6]
6x Draba
Combat [7]
4x Skin of Rock
3x Skin of Steel
Equipment [11]
3x .44 Magnum
2x Flak Jacket
2x Laptop Computer
2x Sniper Rifle
2x Sport Bike
Master [18]
5x Blood Doll
2x Chimerstry
1x Fortitude
1x Metro Underground
1x Park Hunting Ground
2x Path of Paradox, The
3x Ravnos Cache
1x Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The
2x Svadharma
Reaction [11]
2x Cats' Guidance
3x Guard Dogs
3x Rat's Warning
3x Wake with Evening's Freshness
Retainer [2]
2x Raven Spy
Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Thu Oct 27 19:00:19 2005]
Please send any comments, suggestions and contributions to:
graham....@gmail.com
Jazzbeaux
the whole day!!!
mutter...
Well I got the same score, and I had left behind the
Assamite/Atonement?Sniper Rifle deck!
Neutralise weenies effectiveness
================================
<snipped good ideas>
Will have to make up some weenie sleaze for you to practice your ideas
against, Nosferatu bloat/breed is about as close as we get at the moment.
Sam
antero
Powerbase: LA works excellently with Atonement (coupled w/Metro UG) you
can snipe weenies with Reformation (3 copies of Petru, and one Celine
Chevalier and Lalitha have served me well in the past). Also, chi and
dom effects are sweet and thematically right with the thieving Ravnos
:)