Monodiscipline Deckbuilding Challenge #3: Obtenebration

This latest entry in the NWWYP series is a bit more adventurous than previous efforts. Obtenebration is a support discipline rather than a meat-and-potatoes affair, providing stealth and a pretty wide range of effects which are reasonably good but which aren't particularly useful for any one function. Light intercept, combat defense, one of the few combat payload cards in the game, some mostly crappy offensive combat and a few weird outlier effects are all available to vampires who sport the tentacley shadows, but most of that stuff never sees the light of day (marvel at that thematically deployed cliche!).

That's because Obtenebration is one of the better stealth disciplines in the game, and it usually comes packaged with Dominate, and in Ye Olden Dayes, was most often spotted on a hefty selection of titled vampires who often sported Presence for additional vote-related antics. Obtenebration's heavy blood cost keeps it from being a Tier One stealth discipline - accept nothing less than Obfuscate if you want to go for the top-shelf stuff, because no other discipline in the game can compete with it - but it's certainly a solid contender for second-best. Being so good at stealth, and being so closely tied to bleeding and voting, means that there haven't been many occasions for people to bother dusting off their copies of Darksight or Summon the Abyss.

Today, that changes! We're going to put an end to the tyrannical stranglehold stealth has had on the history of Obtenebration, you and I. Together, like we used to. Like a family. So step into the shadows with me, etc.

Deck Name : Shadows Fall
Author : John Eno
Description : Obtenebration intercept/combat. Test version to mine for workable ideas.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 8 average: 4.83333
------------------------------------------------------------
1x Conrad Adoula 8 DOM OBT POT ani cel Lasombra:4
1x Henri Lavenant 7 DOM OBT pot qui Lasombra:3
1x Onaedo 6 DOM OBT aus pot Lasombra:4
1x Otieno 6 OBT POT ani dom Lasombra:4
2x Andrew Emory 5 OBT aus dom pot bishop Lasombra:4
2x Ermenegildo, The R 5 DOM OBT pot Lasombra:4
1x Leila Monroe 4 dom obt pre Lasombra:4
1x Hester Reed 3 obt pot Lasombra:3
1x Lucy Markowitz 3 dom obt Lasombra:4
1x Margarite 1 obt Pander:4

I thought about including a copy or two of Dame Hollerton in here, as she's as cheap as superior Obtenebration gets. But thinking it over a bit more, I decided that it was better to make sure that my non-nerd vampires were Lasombra, so that they could reap the benefits of Drink the Blood of Ahriman (see below). Dodge/additional strike/hands for two is a lot more menacing than "well, I could dodge or strike hands for two," after all. Theoretically, keeping the focus mostly on one clan despite there being one and a half clans available with Obtenebration as a primary discipline also means that I can utilize more clan-specific cards in the library, but it turned out that there really weren't many that I wanted to use.

Library [80 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Master [16]
1x Barrens, The
4x Blood Doll
1x Channel 10
1x Elysian Fields
1x Giant's Blood
3x Jake Washington (Hunter)
1x KRCG News Radio
1x London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper
1x Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The
1x WMRH Talk Radio
1x Wall Street Night, Financial Newspaper

Obtenebration really isn't meant to be a frontline intercept discipline, so I the methuselah am going to have to do some helping out on that score. I had wanted to run some Therbold Realty in here to offset the cost of the locations, but even including Club Zombie (which got dropped for its massive expense), there would have only been eight other cards for the Realty agent to encheapen, and the likelihood of drawing it late in the game and it not having any effect loomed large in my mind. Noting that the only source of bloat in the deck is by pulling blood from my vampires, and also that rather a lot of the minion cards cost blood, I decided to drop the Realties and instead put in a bunch of Jake Washingtons. He's solid bloodgain in any deck, of course, but I hope that the Drinking the Bloods will synergize well with his sometimes difficult timing window.

Action [11]
3x Abbot
1x Aranthebes, The Immortal
2x Black Metamorphosis
5x Drink the Blood of Ahriman

Having standing intercept that you don't need to tap to use is critical to decks that want to block but don't have good access to transient intercept, just like this deck. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of options for that if your vampires don't have Animalism, but Abbot should help to fill that gap a little bit.

The Drinks are both combat offense and better than Paths of Night, hopefully. I'd been collecting Drinks for a while without any real idea of what use they'd have, and it seems to me that using them in a reactive deck is probably the way to go, as that should hopefully allow me to get some use out of them before I even need to pay for them (ie, by blocking people and fighting them on their turns). I also think that they'll be hot with the Nocturns, since that combo allows me to get a free Nocturn and untap to do something else.

I'm not sure about the Black Metamorphoses, not because they lack a strong effect, but because I'm doubtful that I'll be able to successfully complete the action to get them. They're a zero-stealth action, for some reason, and I don't expect that my combat will be scary enough to deter blockers early in the game, which is when I'd like to get the Black Mets. On the other hand, these provide some much-needed combat offense for the guys with inferior Obtenebration, who can't make use of the dodge/additional/hands for two combat package that's the focus of the deck. These cards might be better as Shades, which are much less likely to get blocked since they're at stealth to acquire and because they're not so threatening as to automatically make people want to block, and which are also half as expensive.

Action Modifier [2]
2x Leverage

My sole ousting tech. Also playable by Nocturns.

Ally [9]
9x Nocturn

As mentioned above, these guys should be really good with the Drink the Blood of Ahrimans. They're also handy for getting in cheap bleeds of one while I've still got vampires with Dominate untapped, at least until people twig to the fact that I'm not using Dominate in this deck. But that's really unlikely to happen in a blind environment, given peoples' expectations of what Lasombra decks do.

Combat [20]
10x Arms of the Abyss
4x Darkness Within
2x Entombment
2x Target Vitals
2x Weighted Walking Stick

Arms of the Abyss/hands for two sounds like a pretty good combat package, so that's what I'm focusing on here. Entombment and Darkness Within are good cards that I don't think are normally worth their cost, but they should shine when played by a vampire who's Drunk. The Target Vitals are for the Nocturns, and the Sticks should work well with the rest of the combat options.

Equipment [3]
2x .44 Magnum
1x Sport Bike

I dream of having a vampire with a Black Metamorphosis and .44, though it's unlikely to happen. I may need more intercept equipment here, like more copies of Sport Bike and possibly some Phased Motion Detectors.

Reaction [18]
5x Darksight
5x Eyes of the Night
4x Forced Awakening
4x On the Qui Vive

I know that this is awfully wimpy for a deck whose supposed main function is to block stuff, but you go to war with the army you've got. Darksight is another card that I'd normally pass over due to its cost, so this is partly an experiment to see if Drink makes it worthwhile. I may want more wake tech, particularly On the Qui Vive if I find that Nocturns are surviving past the end of my minion phase and could also wake and block something. Most of the intercept locations are usable by allies as well as vampires, so getting double duty out of free Nocturns would be great.

Retainer [1]
1x Mr. Winthrop

Well, duh.

I can already see the blueprint for a Kiasyd deck along these lines beginning to unfold in my head, one which is better thanks to more reliable intercept and combat, as well as some Dominate for bloat, bleed and bounce. But for now I'll try out this little weirdo and see what works.

It lacks any real ousting power, so I'll have to try to be Johnny-on-the-spot with regard to blocking the bloat actions of my prey. Stealth-vote will likely murder me. Real combat decks will probably have all kinds of trumps that I'll have no recourse against, except to attempt puppy dog eyes. Stealth/bleed decks will probably sneak by me, though I may be able to run them out of stealth if I get lucky, except that they'll likely turn me into their bitch if they're my initial predator. Other than that, I'm not sure what could go wrong with this masterpiece.