Official VEKN Nosferatu Newsletter for June, 2005
Peter D Bakija
So I put together a new Nosferatu themed deck for my next Nosferatu
Newsletter, and was trying it out, finding it to be pretty effective. And
then Jeff "The Lasombra" Thompson posts one that is pretty darned close a
few weeks ago (except for one significant difference, to be discussed
below), leaving me stuck--do I post the deck in my next newsletter and look
like a bit off Jeff's deck, or do I come up with something new? Being a lazy
one, well, I'm posting my deck. So here it is.
The Nosferatu are generally regarded as pretty good at fighting, what with
all the Potence and all. The problem with decks that fight, however, is that
most of their defenses tend to revolve around preemptive killing (i.e. not
much intercept), and it is hard to oust folks just by killing them. Adding
intercept for general defense often is difficult if you are focusing your
crypt on Potence and a back up discipline (like Obfuscate, say), and ousting
folks is difficult all around unless you have a lot of vampires who each
bleed for 1 a lot. How does one get around this? There are a lot of ways,
but one, certainly, is just to use Animalism. By focusing on the single
discipline of Animalism, you have reliable access to intercept, both
permanent and transient (which reduces the problems of defense needing to be
preemptive *and* helps you stay alive longer, reducing the problem of
ousting speed), as well as significant combat abilities. By stacking a few
Animalism cards together, you can do a lot of serious damage against most
opponents while avoiding getting killed by weapons and such.
Keeping all of this in mind, I put together the following deck, which works
pretty well in competitive games, winning about as often as not.
"Bats with Birds in Their Mouths"*
Crypt:
1x Christianus Lionel, Mad Chronicler (6) ANI
1x Nigel, The Shunned (5) ANI
1x Devin Bisley (5) ANI
1x Calebros, The Martyr (5) ANI
1x Bobby Lemon (4) ANI
1x Tommy (3) ani
1x Shannon Price, The Whisperer (3) ani
1x Dani (2) ani
1x Mouse (2) ani
1x Gillian Krader (2) ani
1x Zip (2) ani
1x Lisa Noble (1) ani
Avg of 3.33
Library:
4x Animalism
3x Blood Doll
2x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1x Information Network
1x Fame
1x Metro Underground
3x Bum's Rush
3x Games of Instinct
9x Forced Awakening
3x IR Goggles
21x Aid from Bats
14x Carrion Crows
9x Raven Spy
8x Drawing Out the Beast
2x Cat's Guidance
2x Owl Companion
2x Army of Rats
1x Murder of Crows
1x Canine Horde
*(And when they echo-locate, they shoot birds at you.)
Right. A kind of absurd deck on first look, what with the 21 Aid from Bats
and all, but really, the Aid from Bats is the main fuel rod that makes the
deck engine go.
The crypt starts out with a horde of little weenie vampires with ani, and
then a core of bigger vamps with inherent ANI. The crypt is tweaked up a bit
bigger than it needs to be to facilitate having enough !Nosferatu to justify
using the cheap and handy Information Network (which is cheaper and much
less likely to be contested than KRCG). Christianus is big for the crypt at
6, but there isn't really a better ANI 5 to replace him with (Lord Ashton?),
and the extra pool cost is paying for, essentially, an Elder Library anyway,
so he strikes me as a reasonable choice. Calebros is also an always
controversial choice, but as I look at it, this deck is completely without
votes and vote power otherwise. If he keeps his title due to no one eligible
to take it, being able to defend it, or people just forgetting, that is
fantastic. If he does lose it, no big deal, as someone likely already had
more votes than me anyway. The rest of the crypt is pretty straight
forward--smallish vampires with ANI (hello, Bobby Lemon!) and super small
vampires with ani. Yeah, if I wanted to minimize my ability to use Info
Network, I could replace, like, Tommy with Spleen Three Frooks or someone to
save a pool, but overall, it seems like a good one.
The Master selection is pretty standard. Not a lot of cards to avoid jamming
up in a high cycling deck. Animalism masters to get reliable ANI on the
weenies. Blood Dolls for pool gain. Two Heidelburgs so as to make it likely
to have one--being able to stack 3 or 4 Raven Spies on one minion (along
with some IR Goggles and a Owl) makes blocking incredibly easy. The Info
Network for extra intercept, Fame for a bit of ousting power, and Metro
Underground for some added defense capabilities.
In the main minion cards, the core is the crazy Animalism based combat
engine--Aid from Bats/Carrion Crows/Drawing out the Beast. Aid from Bats is
a very strong card, what with the maneuver and press at superior. Stack on a
Carrion Crows and a DoTB, you are in a situation where your opponent can't
press to end, can't use weapons, and takes 4 damage a round at long range
that is almost completely unaffected by Dodge or Skin of Steel type damage
prevention. With the huge number of Aids, you can regularly press and play
another one, just to stack on huge amounts of damage while humiliatingly
killing your opponent with, ya know, Aid from Bats. True, S:CE will foil
this combat madness, but as the deck is defensively strong otherwise (what
with the intercept and Forced Awakenings and all), killing folks isn't that
vital (i.e. someone playing a S:CE at the wrong time when you can't counter
it is unlikely to get you ousted like it is in a standard kind of Rush
deck), and Owl Companions can help scout out for Majesties and whatever
anyway, allowing you to save cards if necessary. The Rush actions are there
for opportunistic combat and preying on the weak and again, unlike in most
standard Rush type decks, the high opportunity cost of Games of Instinct
isn't really an issue--it will be rare that an inability to play it at any
given moment will cause problems, and if it pays off, it can gain you a lot
of blood. The support cards consist mostly of useful permanents (Ravens,
Owls, Rats, IR Goggles) that can get swapped around through the Heidelberg
to best effect.
The obvious question is (especially in light of the similar deck posted by
The Lasombra last month) "Why no Pack Alpha"? As mentioned in last month's
Newsletter, I think Pack Alpha is a very solid card in some decks, but in a
deck like this with significant combat that doesn't really mind getting
blocked so much, they are probably unnecessary. Assuming I don't get blocked
trying to recruit a Raven Spy, a Forced Awakening is just as good, if not
better, than a Pack Alpha. Assuming I do get blocked trying to recruit, I'm
likely in the same place I would be if I had the Raven Spy--in a fight with
someone. Sure, in some situations, a Pack Alpha might be very handy (like
where my prey is a super intercept/S:CE deck, and my predator is a high
stealth S+B deck), but overall, I think the deck does fine without them, and
adding them would require removal of something (Bats?).
The deck does pretty well overall--as discussed earlier, it can defend
itself pretty well, and with 4 or 5 minions in play and maybe an Army of
Rats, it can bleed folks out with reasonable speed (especially as it can
usually block pool gaining actions by its prey), while due to its defenses,
it is usually in no huge hurry. It'll have trouble against someone who
flings a lot of Sewer Lids or has a lot of maneuver based close combat, or
whatever, but I'll probably take them down with me a lot of time, so it is
kind of a wash. Most other deck strategies aren't likely to 'cause unusual
problems (although, like, a well placed cross table Shepherds Innocence
could be problematic), giving this deck a good fighting chance in most
seats.
That's all for Nosferatu Newsletter #51. Stay tuned for more exciting
Nosferatu action in the future. If you want to look at old Nosferatu
Newsletters, go visit:
http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html
Peter D Bakija
pd...@lightlink.com
http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6
"So in conclusion, our business plan is to sell hot,
easily spilled liquids to naked people."
-Brittni Meil
quetzalcoatl
It fits into the category of "It does this, that's all". I like playing
those kinds of decks when I'm tired, or just brain-dead and don't want
to get involved in deal-making because my deck doesn't have enough
steam to keep pumping out what it does. With this, so what if one of
your vamps is PTO'ed or Banished. The others can go ahead and do
everything that vamp could.
The only thing I would see as a problem is Aranthebes the Immortal.
Only one third of the crypt is capable of getting rid of him. If
someone could target your 5+ cap (you should get at least one every
game) you may have a problem.
David
x5m...@gmx.de
block a bleed.
Frank
NorthSaber
> The only thing I would see as a problem is Aranthebes the Immortal.
Nasty card! This deck should be able to block something like that
pretty easily though, so it should never see the light of day.
FC
Nice deck
Cards that would do well in the deck imo
shepherd's innocence
sniper riffle
Unlicensed Taxicab
Maybe replacing a goggles, the metro and a games of instinct
Frede
pd...@lightlink.com
>It fits into the category of "It does this, that's all".
I'm not quite sure what that means, but ok.
>With this, so what if one of your vamps is PTO'ed or Banished. The others can go >ahead and do everything that vamp could.
Pretty much--like, yeah, it could get cross table PTOed, but it'll
rarely seem like enough of an obvious threat to justify someone wasting
an action to cross table PTO it. If it's predator or prey tries, it can
just block.
>The only thing I would see as a problem is Aranthebes the Immortal.
Likely easy to block--Aranthebes is only a problem if my prey play it,
and even if it gets through, there are four 5+ caps to whack it.
-Peter
pd...@lightlink.com
>Couldn't that deck use Spawning Pool? One of the few decks that could
block a bleed.
In theory, it could, but it only has 2 actual Nosferatu, and you need a
Nosferatu to both play it and put counters on it.
-Peter
pd...@lightlink.com
>Couldn't that deck use Spawning Pool? One of the few decks that could
block a bleed.
In theory, it could, but it only has 2 actual Nosferatu, and you need a
pd...@lightlink.com
>shepherd's innocence
Expensive and usually unecessary. Yeah, like, someone could play one
cross table to hose me (at which point having a counter Shepherd's
would be handy), but I have never actually seen one in play, so I
suspect it is kind of unlikely to come up.
>sniper riffle
Defenitely worth using.
>Unlicensed Taxicab
Meh. It is an action to gain +1 stealth for a few recruit actions. If
someone wants to block a recruit, they can block a recruit, and maybe
they'll get whacked as a result.
-Peter
Deqlor
> Nice deck
>
> Cards that would do well in the deck imo
>
> shepherd's innocence
> sniper riffle
> Unlicensed Taxicab
>
> Maybe replacing a goggles, the metro and a games of instinct
Perhaps some Leather Jackets? My metagame right now has an Assamite
ranged-(taste of) death deck and a Ravnos mass reality zip gun deck, so
a little protection would prolong the weenies a bit, and still let them
block.
Peter D Bakija
> Perhaps some Leather Jackets? My metagame right now has an Assamite
> ranged-(taste of) death deck and a Ravnos mass reality zip gun deck, so
> a little protection would prolong the weenies a bit, and still let them
> block.
Might be a good idea, but I figure that I'm probably using smaller vampres
than most other ranged combat decks, and if we are trading one for one, my 2
or 3 cap for your 4 or 5 cap, I'm still coming out ahead.
Certainly, if I found that I was often getting killed at range, Leather
Jackets might be a reasonable option.