Official Kiasyd Newsletter December 2004
Karl Schaefer
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. EDITORIAL
Well the holidays came and time is quickly disappearing; this
newsletter is a month behind schedule as well. Pardon the delay, but
well it's the holidays.
The new Anniversary sets will bring back many of our favorite older
vampires and unreprinted cards. All of these were from the days before
Bloodlines, so the impact on Kiasyd strategies will be smaller than
other clans. Shadow Step is now available and this card will surely
help us out. There are many other treasures there and the new cards
should come in very handy. Next time after toying with some of these
new items, I hope to have a deck that will include some of them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. VAMPIRE OF THE MONTH
Gerard [Sabbat:V, SW:PV]
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Ventrue antitribu
Group: 2
Capacity: 5
Discipline: aus dom for obt
Sabbat
Gerard is great for a five capacity vampire. He has four inferior
disciplines and no special. You are going to overlook this guy for
almost every Ventrue antitribu crypt. He can play most of the
Mytherceria outferiors and has both of the other clan discplines.
Considering the fact that Kiasyd crypts tend to have higher average
capacities, I am more than willing to spend for Gerard, just to help
reduce my average crypt size and diverisify my crypt.
Where Gerard is really going to excel for our clan is when he is teamed
up with Kassiym Malikhair. As you may recall, Kassiym is the only
Kiasyd with Fortitude, giving him and Gerard three matching
disciplines. Gerard is going to be a great second vampire in a Kassiym
multi-action deck and good supporting vampire for Kiasyd.
Next month: Elena Mendoza Vasquez
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. CARD OF THE MONTH
Steal the Mind [BL:R2]
Cardtype: Action
Cost: 1 blood
Discipline: Mytherceria/Dominate
[dom] (D) Tap any minion.
[myt] (D) Put this card on a ready minion. The acting vampire gets +2
intercept when attempting to block that minion. Any minion can burn
this card as an action.
[MYT] As [myt] above, and the minion with this card gets -1 bleed when
bleeding this acting vampire's controller.
Versatility and effeciency are always key factors when choosing to use
a card in your library. With only 90 cards, you need to address many
possible scenarios. Versatile cards, those which may be played
offensively or defensively, are a great addition to any deck. Many
defensive cards become nullified by certain predator types. Having
bounce when your preadtor is a vote deck is not going to aid you is
stopping the votes. Having stealth when your prey is not blocking you
is going to jam your hand. Cards that are playable in a variety of
ways reduce the amount of time they will sit in you hand and increase
the likelyhood that when you play it, the effect will be truly useful.
Steal the Mind is one such versatile card. Let us begin our review by
looking at the Dominate outferior. The ability to tap any minion is
quite useful. Offensively, you can tap your prey's blocker/bouncer to
increase the chances that they will take your bleed. This is very
important for our clan, which can bleed for a lot at stealth, but has
no in-action responsibility, such as the superior version of Spying
Mission. Kiasyd need to be responsible about bleeding before the
action begins. Tapping a bouncer now forces your prey to have two
cards to bounce you: one being a Wake (of some type) and the second
being the bounce. The cost of playing Steal the Mind in this way is
that Kiasyd crypts typically have a high average capacity. A couple of
Dominate weenies can really help out here. You can also use the
Dominate outferior of Steal the Mind defensively. Tapping a key
blocker/bouncer of your predator will keep your grand-predator from
bleeding you with bounced bleeds. This type of action will also cause
your predator to be more reticent of leaving only one defender, taking
some pressure off of you in the process.
The Mytherceria inferior is useful for putting the stop to one of your
predator's minion's actions. The +2 intercept will require at least
two cards to beat and gives you an excellent chance of stopping
whatever actions that minion is taking. There are a couple of problems
when playing this card at this level. First, you need to defend the
card, but since the card is played on the minion, you no longer control
it. This makes removal attempts (D) actions at the Methuselah who
controls the minion. In other words, if your predator can convince
someone cross-table to remove the card, you will have no way of
stopping them, short of superior Eagle's Sight or Falcon's Eye. For
the Kiasyd, only Bartholonew has superior Auspex, making the chances of
stopping a cross-table removal slim at best. Your best defense against
cross-table assistance is better table-talking and deal-making skills.
Hey, this is a social game, so get
to it! The second problem with Steal the Mind at inferior Mytherceria
is that you are tapped after playing it, meaning that you will need a
Wake to gain its effect on you predator's first turn or you will not
see a benefit for two turns. If you're trying to stop or slow a
stealth predator, this card may be helpful, but having the Wake will be
a must before playing this card.
The superior Mytherceria effect is a nice addition to the inferior.
The -1 bleed can save you a lot of pool over time; however, the
vampires you will most likely want to target with Mytherceria effects
will be stealth-bleeders, who should have plenty of +bleed, or
stealth-voters, who won't be bleeding you anyway.
Steal the Mind is definitely worth using in a lot of Kiasyd decks.
Between its offensive and defensive power, you should have ample
opportunities to make good use of the card.
Next month: A discussion of stealth-bleed, Kiasyd, and responsibility.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. DECK OF THE MONTH
This deck is designed to show off Kassiym and Gerard combination and
utilize Steal the Mind as both an offensive and defensive weapon.
While
Kassiym and Gerard are the stars, the Dominate weenies will be doing a
lot
of the work ousting and bouncing.
Deck Name : Kiasyd-!Ventrue Toolbox
Author : Karl George Schaefer
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 6 average: 4.59
------------------------------------------------------------
3x Kassiym Malikhair 6 MYT OBT dom for Kiasyd:2
3x Gerard 5 aus dom for obt !Ventrue:2
2x Batrice L'Angou 5 MYT aus dom nec Kiasyd:2
1x Ingrid Russo 4 DOM for !Ventrue:2
1x Ember Wright 3 aus dom !Tremere:3
1x Sister Evelyn 3 aus dom !Ventrue:3
1x Samson 2 dom !Ventrue:2
Library [80 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Action [16]
2x Art's Traumatic Essence
4x Revelations
6x Scouting Mission
4x Steal the Mind
Action Modifier [14]
3x Conditioning
3x Foreshadowing Destruction
4x Freak Drive
2x Shroud of Absence
2x Stone Travel
Combat [16]
6x Absorb the Mind
2x Pulled Fangs
2x Resilience
2x Skin of Rock
2x Skin of Steel
2x Superior Mettle
Master [14]
2x Anarch Troublemaker
3x Blood Doll
2x Chanjelin Ward
1x Corporate Hunting Ground
3x Dominate
2x Perfectionist
1x Ventrue Investment
Reaction [14]
4x Deflection
2x Enhanced Senses
6x Forced Awakening
2x Precognition
Reaction/Action Modifier [6]
6x Aura Absorption
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. SIGN OFF
Thanks for reading. The next newsletter will be in February.
Karl Schaefer
ksch...@alumni.nd.edu