I've had a lot of deck building ideas lately. Many of these die in the cradle, we'll see how this latest one does.
Concept: Ariadne Abactor/Singing in the Dirt fusion with bonus cards.
Orian Gissler aka "TCC Master" created the Ariadne Abactor deck with Renegade Garou on his blog as part of explaining how he explores a deck concept. I followed his blog while it was still active because he had a lot of useful advice for other VTES players, plus a winning record so that(hopefully) people listened. He was writing in 2009 before Villein was printed in fixed rarity and he included a lot of Vessel to take the blood back. Even when you have to pay 2 or 3 pool to drain the blood to your pool, I think Villein has some advantages. As we proclaimed in Berkeley, Minion Tap is dead, so that's out.
Randal Rudstam played a deck at the Swedish ECQ this year and it was posted on Extrala called "Singing in the Dirt," where ANI PRO vampires rush(and tap) vampires controlled by your prey, then Earth Meld and bleed. I think that the deck is very creative, so I've been trying to find a way to use that strategy.
Ian Lee plays in our local play group and has talked a little bit about card advantage. He's said that it is a big deal in MtG, but not as much in VTES. One thing that I think he mentioned lately is how Lilith's Blessing gives a big, permanent advantage to the Bahari in the storyline. I was very impressed with how effective the Villein/Lilith's Blessing combo worked, so maybe I can fit it in here, too. Nothing like a challenging deck, right?
4x Ariadne 8 ANI FOR PRO chi not burned by blood hunt, +1 blood when hunting
1x Talbot 7 ANI NEC PRO for built in rush
1x Ryder 7 FOR PRO ani pot peak at opponent's hand, +1 intercept vs D actions
1x Jacob Fermor 5 PRO ani tha your garou get +1 bleed, optional press
1x Gunnar 4 PRO for
1x Lillian 3 ani pro
3x Anarch Convert
Library: 81 cards
Master 18(7 trifles)
7x Villein
Lilith's Blessing
Anarch Free Press
Seattle Committee
Backways
Anarch Railroad
Club Illusion
Perfectionist
Archon Investigation
Direct Intervention
Dreams of the Sphinx
Animalism
Actions: 15
8x Abactor
6x Deep Song
1x Shattering
Allies/Retainers: 4
2x Renegade Garou(All I own, unfortunately. This deck is less about them, but they are useful.)
2x Raven Spy
Equipment: 2
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers
Action Modifiers: 11
6x Earth Control
5x Freak Drive
Combo: 1
Rapid Change
Combat: 16
12x Earth Meld
4x Form of Mist
2x Claws of the Dead
Reactions: 12
2x Delaying Tactics
4x On the Qui Vive
2x Wake with the Evening's Freshness
4x Cat's Guidance
Events: 2
Narrow Minds
Scourge of the Enochians
What's advantageous to this more toolboxy version? Higher defense in the form of permacept, delaying tactics. Bleed power from Deep Song, Codex and, most importantly, Club Illusion. Plop that sucker on the table and watch your prey freak out. Lilith's Blessing gives an interesting angle to the deck, offering you the opportunity to Villein even the small caps to zero, then use an MPA to give them 3 blood. I'll call it maybe Tier 2 for now, we'll see how it actually does.
Kindred Lore: Order of Saint Blaise
3 days ago
I think of it like this.
ReplyDeleteCard advantage in MtG is defined competitively, because:
- number of cards in hand is sharply limited
- it's relatively easy to play cards that trade for your opponent's cards on a 1-for-1 basis
- an unanswered card (a creature or damaging artifact) can win you the game by itself.
VtES is very different. Here, it's not really about whether you have card advantage over a particular opponent, it's more about the overall efficiency of your deck and how well it can take advantage of the opportunities it has.
Permanents are useful because they are reliable when compared to the transient option; sometimes a little so (Computer Hacking versus Camera Phone), sometimes a lot (.44 versus Exuding Blood). This reliability allows you to do extremely efficient things (like Blurring for 6 with a gun.)
Permanents are bad because they jam up your card flow, eat your actions (minion, master, or discard), signal your intentions, and can be destroyed or stolen.
I think Lilith's Blessing is a fantastic permanent because:
- the upside is a large increase in bloat efficiency.
Putting Lilith's Blessing into play effectively makes any future Villeins worth three more pool.
- it doesn't give away much about your intentions; knowing that you might want to play Villein at some point in the future is hardly news to anyone.
- it's hard to destroy (Sudden/Wash being the only options) and impossible to steal.
- In most decks, the primary function of master cards is to gain or regain pool; given that, the cost to play Lilith's Blessing is negligible compared to the gain.
As for your deck, I think it's pretty likely that you're trying to get too much done here.
ReplyDeleteOverall, it seems like there are two directions the deck wants to move in:
1) Villein / Lilith's Blessing
2) Ariadne / Abactor
I think that both of these strategies work better with the correct support:
- The Villein / Lilith's Blessing thing gets a lot of benefit out of a crypt of mid-to-high-cap minions, as well as crypt acceleration cards like Info Highway and Wider View. It doesn't enjoy crypt duplication.
- The Ariadne / Abactor approach gets a benefit out of dropping permanents like Perfectionist and Feeding Razor on Ariadne, as well as in building up copies of Vessel and Blood Doll in play on her. It doesn't enjoy having to pay extra pool for Villein or Minion Tap - though running Minion Taps and Sudden/Wash is a reasonable strategy there.
- Ariadne loves Freak Drive; for folks who are down to 3 blood after Villein / Lilith's Blessing, it's a lot less fun.
_ Lilith's Blessing + Club Illusion is also a bit of a non- combo.
- Ariadne can also get a lot of benefit out of Grooming the Protege, which pushes her more towards a crypt full of smaller friends.
- Both strategies do benefit from having Heidelberg Castle in play, but I think that the crypt machine concept would rather see another Lilith's Blessing. LB actually doesn't help Ariadne herself out that much; you can play Abactor while Ariadne is empty, so even if she's sitting at zero blood you can bring her up to 6+ without help from Lilith.
- The Ariadne concept gets some decent benefit out of Anarch locations, centered as it is around hunting. I think that the Blessing concept would be better served by a few +bleed retainers and a bit of swarm bleed.
Also, consider:
- deep song + earth meld can make it VERY easy to play Pack Alpha.
- Gather is also an interesting combo with Lilith's Blessing, if you can defend it or get a House of Sorrow into play - that's a fun combo!
- More focus on Lilith's Blessing might let you use it to graft a discipline... like, say, Dominate for bounce?
I was a little concerned about adding more masters, but between cheating and dreaming I could probably throw in at least 1x Wider View. It's such a good card for star decks where you really want the star, but you don't want 2-3x the star.
ReplyDeleteOn hunting, Perfectionist and Anarch Free Press both help. Aaron's feeding Razor could be good. Ideally, I should gain 7-9 blood from hunting so that I can drain Ariadne and freak drive, using a blood gained from the action to pay for Freak drive. I don't mind paying even 2 pool for a Villein for 6+. With the other big vampires in the crypt, I have other targets for Villein. They can't Abactor safely, so I have to watch it. If Lilith's Blessing shows up, I can Villein them down to nothing. It's not critical, but it's a good perk. With the free combat cards, having three blood isn't that bad.
If I went to 5 raven spies, I could throw in 2-3x Pack Alpha. At that point, I'm playing a 90 card deck and I might have to adjust some proportions.
My cousin Andy was working on a Gather deck. I'm sure he'll look into doing a combo with Lilith's Blessing. That's a good idea.
Malk 94 got a significant boost with Lilith's Blessing, as did Dem S&B. I have some nefarious plans that I'll put in motion once I get enough copies.
This version emphasizes quick payoff through Villein rather than accumulating Vessels(at the cost of a pool each, it should be noted) and Blood Dolls. Villein has a big advantage in that I can take blood from other targets if I wish. We'll see how it works. Thanks for the interest!