Ricardo Marta, the prince of Lisboa, asked if he could see Robb's decklist from Origins Reportage #3. Robb was kind enough to not only furnish the decklist, but to provide extensive comments as well. Without further ado...
Deck Name : Some Girls: Track 10
Author : Robert Dudock (Robba Yaga)
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 5 average: 3
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1x Celeste Lamontagne 5 ANI PRO for !Gangrel:4
1x Mowgli 5 FOR PRO ani cel !Gangrel:4
1x Alessandro Garcia 4 pot pre pro !Brujah:4
1x Charlie Tyne 4 obf pro ser !Gangrel:4
1x Scarlet Carson O'T 4 CEL pro !Gangrel:3
1x Bill Butler 3 pot pro !Gangrel:4
1x Calvin Cleaver 3 for pro Gangrel:4
1x Lula Burch 3 for pro !Gangrel:4
1x Leo Washington 2 cel pro !Gangrel:4
3x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:0
Library [90 cards]
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Master [15]
1x Anarch Free Press, The
1x Anarch Railroad
1x Campground Hunting Ground
1x Club Illusion
2x Dummy Corporation
1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
1x Hospital Food
6x Path of the Feral Heart, The
1x Twisted Forest
Action [34]
20x Shattering
14x Skullduggery
Action Modifier [13]
10x CrimethInc.
3x Monkey Wrench
Action Modifier/Combat [5]
5x Rapid Change
Combat [7]
3x Form of Mist
4x Leathery Hide
Equipment [8]
6x Anarch Manifesto, An
1x Laptop Computer
1x Palatial Estate
Reaction [6]
6x Friend of Mine
Retainer [2]
1x J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1x Tasha Morgan
Deck Comments: This deck is an attempt to deal with three problems.
The first problem is bounce. Bounce is terribly strong, but usually everyone is packing about the same amount and the person that comes up short becomes the bleed sink.
The second problem is an overly aggressive predator. There is only one thing worse than not even getting a chance to play one's game because one has been mugged from behind almost immediately and that is...
Cross-table interference. This is the third and worst problem. Votes propping up one's prey, Eagle Sight's, etc can make an all but guarenteed VP feel like trying to blow out those "magic candles" on a birthday cake that keep relighting. You just want the damn cake, but everyone is forcing you to keep wasting time blowing out the stupid candles!
So, the idea is simple. Get out small minions and get them to be Anarch quickly. Becoming Anarch used to be an issue, but the Converts generally appear often enough to alleviate that problem. Once the deck has some Anarch minions on the table, some building might occur (getting Manifestos or bleed retainers), some small, stealthed bleeds may occur to move cards (Skullduggery), or some Shatterings may be dropped on important minions that cannot defend themselves.
At Origins, I had the curious situation that almost all my predators (for the entire tournament) were running vote decks. Nevertheless when I played the deck correctly, I got a game win. Shattering bouncers is a must, because with Club Illusion, a retainer and a Monkey Wrench, a 4 cap minion can unload a bleed of 6. Shattering key predator's minions can buy the deck time and Shattering cross-table interference (Maris Streck or Anneke as examples) can simplify life in general.
In this version of the deck, bleed is the oust mechanism and not the Shatterings themselves. I tried a version online with Tension in the Ranks, Dragonbound and Fame with not as much success. Fame tends to backfire and losing a card to Dragonbound is unacceptable. Tension tends to go away when people are sick of it.
Problems/Thoughts: I added some bleed reduction, which seemed good in our local metagame, but almost no one bled me at Origins! These may need to be removed in favor of something else. Stealth was never an issue generally and neither was blood on the vampires, even without the Path. Pool gain is the biggest problem. The only pool gain in this version is an oust and that's obviously not enough. However, taking blood from small minions is not a great choice. I also think there are too many expensive Master cards in this version, draining too much pool. The next version will have some minimal blood gain, less costly Masters and maybe a couple Delaying Tactics.
I welcome any comments, suggestions or feedback. I like this deck a lot and I hope to use it in a revised form in the future.
Robb Dudock
Gulf Coast Roast – Vidor
1 week ago
Bounce is an issue when you are a bleed only deck. As for reduc I see quite a bit in my play group but bounce is jsut stronger and with dominate being a favored discipline its common place as you said.
ReplyDeletePersonally I have started to play the clans that have no bounce discipline to see if I can prevail and so far Nos has shown able to with its answer: Bleed me and loose a vamp XD.
I like the deck may attempt something similar at some point in time.
I would drop the hunting ground and maybe one path in favor of some of the following:
ReplyDeleteDelaying Tactics
Bureaucratic Overload
Life in the City
Giant's Blood
Wall Street Night/Rumor Mill
Two Wrongs
Delaying Tactics is obvious, while Bureaucratic Overload taxes votes to put people in better Shattering range. Life in the City/Giant's Blood serve as free blood gain and, in the case of Giant's Blood, it potentially denies blood to others.
Wall Street Night is cheap and you're not blocking bleeds anyway. Potential pool gain and humor value. Rumor Mill can help you, or tax people who you want to "help."
Two Wrongs is an interesting bleed defense card and, being a trifle, sort of interesting.
I lik Two Wrongs quite a lot, and generally put at least a couple of copies into every deck I run which lacks bounce. I especially dig it in blood-denial decks, since the initial bleed bounce is still paid for and then your predator still has to do something about the bleed, which often means yet more blood loss. It's even tastier if you've also got Narrow Minds in play, which Some Girls should definitely be running.
ReplyDeleteAs an anarch-requiring action which depletes blood on other peoples' vampires, Crypt's Sons also has a place here. Stolen Police Cruiser unfortunately doesn't require an anarch, but I'd might still run it rather than the bleed retainers in order to avoid contestation and maybe sometimes get some extra stealth.
I think Garibaldi Museum is wasted here, since virtually all of your anarch-requiring cards are quite thickly distributed through the deck.
First of all thanks for the all the trouble.
ReplyDeleteNot all playgroups are suitable to play this kind of deck or a similar one, but i would like to give it a try on my playgroup.
Regarding the deck, i liked it's essence and the explanations though my deck archetype is different. On this deck i would probably take the Dummy's out but i do agree with the inclusion of Two Wrongs. I would also try to include a PB:Montreal or even one or two dreams. And yes, the DT's seam a good defense, but i would not include Bureaucratic Overload, it can be easely removed and most political decks use voter and ignore that one extra blood. You might want to consider "Tribute to the master", but that means you will be hunting a few times.
My idea was to use Nostoket as main vampire and Tabitha Fisk and Phillipe Rigaud as top support with a few por/PRO vampires to complete the crypt.
To deal with boring blockers i would use "Blood Trunip" though it could ended up lost 'somewhere' as it moves arround.
To use as punishment, i like the idea of "Friend of Mine", "The Damned" and even "Retribution", 2 or 3 "Detect Authority" if your playgroup likes to play with bruise might also be useful.
"Smear Campaign" to break those nasty havens and even "Enkil Cog" on your predator, is a good defence.
In combat i liked the idea of adding "Hell-for-Leather" for those prey hunting actions i want to block and even "Botched Move" to avoid "Majesty"/"Immortal Grapple"/"Chiropteran Marauder".
I also considered adding a few allies, mainly "Gregory Winter", though we now have "Young Bloods" and "Impundulu".
I don't own as many "Shattering" so i might have more slots available to use those other cards and also to add "Loki's Gift".
Some feedback your be appreciated over these ideas.
Thanks
Ricardo Marta
Prince of Lisboa
Portugal
I've played against the deck several times and I'm convinced that paying blood for bleed reduction is no good.
ReplyDeleteLast night Robb played it in a vote-heavy game and got assassinated by random krc damage, among other things. It doesn't help that he deck's only crosstae bargaining ability is kneecapping minions.
Delaying tactics seems a must
Merlin
-Merlin
Thanks for the comments. First off, this is my only deck with bleed reduction that does not have Two Wrongs. I'm a huge fan of Two Wrongs.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this deck originally had Stolen Police Cruisers, but sometimes they got stolen (irony!), destroyed or I got caught by a titled vampire.
I didn't own many Shatterings when I first made this deck online, but I finally shelled out the cash to buy them, so yeah, this deck was a monetary investment.
This deck started on paper with Nostoket, but I eventually went small to reduce pool cost and for speed. Consequently, I'm very interested in seeing how Ricardo builds his deck using this concept.
For the record, I built a very similar deck using Black Hand/Lasombra and Horseshoes as well, but it needs a lot of work.
Again, this is only the first real version (excluding the online version) and so its going to change. Maybe some blood denial and less Shatterings would work. Maybe some of the other added cards (allies or especially DT as Merlin points out) might make the difference. I'll be excited to see someone take this thing and make it better!
Robb Dudock