(DECK) Cybele's Infernal Servitors

[Damnans]

This is one of the Baali decks I have built since Heirs to the Blood was
released. Comments welcome.

Deck Name : Cybele's Infernal Servitors
Author : Damnans
Description :
Bring out Cybele first and then Abdelsobek, who will untap her as a +1
stealth action.

Your ideal turn would be as follows: Cybele recruits an Infernal
Servitor. The Infernal Servitor bleeds your prey for 3 with Greater
Curse at +1 stealth, after which the Servitor burns. Then Abdelsobek
untaps Cybele. Cybele plays The Summoning to recruit another Infernal
Servitor, who bleeds your prey for 3 too. And thereafter, Cybele untaps
via Mylan Horseed or Rutor's Hand or Helicopter and bleeds for 3.

If an Infernal Servitor is blocked, you should play Conflagration in the
resulting combat to make sure the Servitor burns (so that you can bring
out another one on the same turn) and goes to your ash heap (so that you
can retrieve it by means of the Ashur Tablets).

The Ashur Tables will allow you to move any burned Infernal Servitors in
your ash heap to your library and as much stealth as you need to oust
your preys.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 5 max: 10 average: 7.33333
------------------------------------------------------------

5x Cybele 10 ANI DAI OBF PRE SER THA Baali:4
4x Abdelsobek 5 for nec obf pre ser Follower :5
3x Maureen, Dark Prie 6 DAI PRE dom obf 1 vote Baali:4

Library [75 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------

Action [16]
7x Greater Curse
1x Rutor's Hand
7x Summoning, The
1x Unleash Hell's Fury

Action Modifier [12]
2x Cloak the Gathering
2x Domain of Evernight
2x Elder Impersonation
2x Faceless Night
2x Lost in Crowds
2x Spying Mission

Action Modifier / Reaction [2]
2x Gift of Sleep

Action Modifier/Combat [3]
3x Swallowed by the Night

Ally [16]
14x Infernal Servitor
1x Mylan Horseed (Goblin)
1x Veneficti (Mage)

Combat [3]
3x Conflagration

Equipment [1]
1x Helicopter

Event [1]
1x Anthelios, The Red Star

Master [21]
1x Archon Investigation
6x Ashur Tablets
3x Charisma
1x Coven, The
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Failsafe
1x Giant's Blood
1x Ruins of Charizel
4x Villein
2x Wider View

--
Damnans

http://www.almadrava.net/damnans
http://www.vtes.net
http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/vteshispania/
http://iuturna.sorcery.net (IRC channel: #vtes)

[Izaak]

> Your ideal turn would be as follows: Cybele recruits an Infernal Servitor.
> The Infernal Servitor bleeds your prey for 3 with Greater Curse at +1
> stealth, after which the Servitor burns. Then Abdelsobek untaps Cybele.
> Cybele plays The Summoning to recruit another Infernal Servitor, who
> bleeds your prey for 3 too. And thereafter, Cybele untaps via Mylan
> Horseed or Rutor's Hand or Helicopter and bleeds for 3.

I have an Infernal Servitor deck that works reasonably well as well, but I
hadn't thought of Greater Curse to bleed with. That's an excellent idea. I'm
not too fond of the Ashur Tech in the deck as it lacks synergy with the
Servitors, but also because I'm not sure Cybele is the best vampire to do it
with. Maybe it's just me but I have played Cybele/Tend the Flock/Ashur
recursion for quite a while and my playgroup - myself included - is really
tired of that deck.

I personally use Maureen, because she makes the Servitors technically free
and she can play Deflections. She can't multi-act though (although I guess
you can use Abdel) and her inferior obfuscate is a bit of a pain with I am
Legion (which I don't use in the deck for exactly this reason) plus she
can't cloak the Servitors. On the other hand, she's a 6-cap speeding up the
deck quite a bit and with Greater Curse you can recuperate the infernal
penalty.

[Damnans]

Izaak escribió:

The previous version of this deck featured Maureen as its star vampire,
and I also encountered the same problems as you did.

Cybele is better than Maureen in many ways for this deck. Cybele can
bleed for 3, grants you an additional master phase action, has superior
Obfuscate, can play Rutor's Hand, and can be untapped by Mylan Horseed,
even though she is more expensive than Maureen, which can be compensated
by the pool you can gain by playing Villein on her.

The Ashur Tech works fine in this deck. Note that I don't have many
stealth cards, so some of my Servitors may get blocked eventually, which
will put them in my ash heap. That lack of stealth cards can be overcome
with the card recursion provided by the Ashur Tablets. Same with Greater
Curse.

[Izaak]

> Cybele is better than Maureen in many ways for this deck. Cybele can bleed
> for 3, grants you an additional master phase action, has superior
> Obfuscate, can play Rutor's Hand, and can be untapped by Mylan Horseed,
> even though she is more expensive than Maureen, which can be compensated
> by the pool you can gain by playing Villein on her.
>
> The Ashur Tech works fine in this deck. Note that I don't have many
> stealth cards, so some of my Servitors may get blocked eventually, which
> will put them in my ash heap. That lack of stealth cards can be overcome
> with the card recursion provided by the Ashur Tablets. Same with Greater
> Curse.

I disagree you don't have a lot of stealth because there's tons of it (17
out of 75 is over 20% and that's not counting the stealth from Greater
Curse). And then consider the recursion and it's really loads of stealth. In
comparison, I play the deck at 65 cards and run 11 stealth cards without
recursion. Other than that, Cybele is probably the best choice mostly
because she is probably the single best Baali crypt card available by a
large margin, so I guess I don't really disagree.

It's just that I see that 90% of the currently played Baali decks degenerate
into some multimaster/Ashur engine, usually with a bunch of Tend the Flock
on top of it. I personally played one extensively (a variant of it won a
qualifier recently http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010qcflille)
and have gotten quite tired of the concept. It seems that throwing Cybele, a
few Ashurs and a stack of Tend the Flock in a deck will ensure enough
poolgain and recursion that any strategy works. I think Greater Curse /
Infernal Servitor is pretty clever tech and it deserves a to be more than
yet another flavor of a Cybele + Ashur deck.

Just my opinion :)

[Damnans]

Izaak escribió:

>> Cybele is better than Maureen in many ways for this deck. Cybele can bleed
>> for 3, grants you an additional master phase action, has superior
>> Obfuscate, can play Rutor's Hand, and can be untapped by Mylan Horseed,
>> even though she is more expensive than Maureen, which can be compensated
>> by the pool you can gain by playing Villein on her.
>>
>> The Ashur Tech works fine in this deck. Note that I don't have many
>> stealth cards, so some of my Servitors may get blocked eventually, which
>> will put them in my ash heap. That lack of stealth cards can be overcome
>> with the card recursion provided by the Ashur Tablets. Same with Greater
>> Curse.
>
> I disagree you don't have a lot of stealth because there's tons of it (17
> out of 75 is over 20% and that's not counting the stealth from Greater
> Curse).

I do not think 17+7=24 is enough stealth, taking into account that if I
take 3 bleed actions per turn, I will have to play at least 1 stealth
card per bleed action. That means that I will run out of stealth cards
in 8 turns at the most. If my prey has some permanent intercept, then
those numbers would dramatically change. That's why I said I mainly use
the Ashur Tablets to retrieve the stealth cards.

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