Ishvalan over at the Ishvalan V:TES blog asked if I had any decks featuring Shattering Crescendo, and it just so happens that I do.
Deck Name : Louder Than a Bomb (Trophy Variant)
Author : John Eno
Description : Hit the high notes and earn some trophies for it.
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 8 average: 6
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3x Scout Youngwood 8 MEL OBF PRE for qui 2 votes Daughter :6
3x Hillanvale 5 FOR MEL obf Daughter :6
2x Benjamin Rose 7 AUS OBF ani pot prince Nosferatu:5
1x Bloody Mary 8 AUS DEM OBF pre primogen Malkavian:5
1x Arthur Denholm 5 AUS DEM obf Malkavian:5
1x Janet Langer 3 MEL pre Daughter :5
1x Veejay Vinod 3 AUS Nagaraja:6
Library [75 cards]
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Master [15]
4x Blood Doll
1x Charisma
1x Command Performance
1x Elder Library
1x Fame
1x Giant's Blood
1x Jake Washington (Hunter)
1x Paris Opera House
1x Trophy: Diablerie
1x Trophy: Hunting Ground
1x Trophy: Library
1x Trophy: Revered
Action [20]
4x Red List
16x Shattering Crescendo
Action Modifier [16]
3x Cloak the Gathering
3x Faceless Night
3x Lost in Crowds
4x Siren's Lure
3x Spying Mission
Action Modifier/Combat [3]
3x Swallowed by the Night
Ally [6]
4x Caiaphas Smith
1x Impundulu
1x Ossian
Event [1]
1x Dragonbound
Reaction [14]
2x Eyes of Argus
3x On the Qui Vive
7x Telepathic Misdirection
2x Wake with Evening's Freshness
There's a lot of theoretical goodness here that didn't actually work out very well the one time that I played the deck. Using Caiaphas Smith seems like a great idea, since he can either block stuff or else travel right, at which point you've got a guaranteed target for a Red List. If Ossian gets stolen, as he inevitably will, that's another guaranteed target for some trophy-hunting.
There were some issues that came up during play that I hadn't foreseen when building it. The Siren's Lures were pretty worthless, because I usually didn't have a second Daughter out, and the non-Daughter actions aren't generally the ones that I care about definitively making happen successfully.
The main problem is that the deck is actually too focused. There were a number of times during play when I had enough stealth and Crescendos in hand to torporize two of my prey's minions, but iddn't want to because it would prevent him from going forward. It was the classic rush deck dilemma, but given how much more card-efficient Crescendos are than rush, I think just dialing back the number of Crescendos will solve that issue. And those card slots can then be used to add more ousting power to the deck, which was its other issue.
I don't plan on playing this again - trophies are still too much work for how much they pay off - but hopefully this might serve as a useful blueprint for a decklist.
Cut Your Wins
2 weeks ago
I would't think about a S.C. trophy deck, and it should have been hard to play it, even trophies alone are hard to be an effective strategy. Have you tried / want to try the deck with just shattering crescendos and presence bleed?
ReplyDeleteAnd to defend the pool, ashur tablets+parthenon+liquidation and such things?
Finally, I've got an idea about the DoC Shattering Crescendo deck, and I'll try to get my own list and test it :)
Thanks for posting the decklist, John :)
Mh, nice idea. I am currently tinkering around with a deck that works with Shattering Crescendo, Horseshoes and Touch of Pain, supported by Obfuscate, ousting via Dragonbound, Tension and Fame. But it is still in the building phase, don't know if it will work at all. Got 2 FoS in there, so Crocodile Temple comes in handy.
ReplyDeleteRegards
Why are you using this grouping? The idea of a shattering Cresendo deck is viable but I feel that you have missed the mark by a lot. It seems like you have too many moving parts and possibly too many diffrent directions taht you could easily simplify this down. the trophies are nice but I think you could loose them. Just an idea.
ReplyDeleteThe grouping is necessary for Obfuscate. Shattering Crescendo without Obf = Epic Fail!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous: Yeah, this deck was more of an experiment than anything else, since I'd never tried to make a trophy deck before and Crescendo seemed like a good way to try that mechanic out. And Caller is correct as to why I picked this group pair - my playgroup likes to block.
ReplyDelete