Vampire: The Eternal Struggle

6 pt Strategy

Nosferatu Antitribu Politics
The basic idea behind this deck is that it deploys resources faster, and then takes measues to ensure that it gains more resources faster than the opponents, hopefully while draining the enemy as well.

Nosferatu Kingdom
Type: Master. Unique Location
Text:
"During your influence phase, tap to move 1 blood from the blood bank to one of your uncontrolled Nosferatu antitribu.

Information Highway
Type: Master. Unique Location.
Text:
"Gain two additional transfers during your influence phase."

[[Writer's Comments]]: So if, by chance, you had both of these out early in the game, you'd effectively be able to move 7 blood to vampires in your uncontrolled region each turn. Six of them would still have to come from your pool, so you'd be depleting your own resources very quickly. However, I find that little problem, since one of those points is FREE, and will continue to be free for the rest of the game. To be blunt-- The Information Highway makes you ready to do a FAST game, able to pump out high powered minions from the word GO. At the same time, the Nosferatu Kingdom makes it so that every turn that passes gives you a free blood on a minion, so the LONGER the game goes, the more that card works to your advantage. You've got the speed and the stamina.

Honor the Elders
Type: Political Action
Text:
Political Card - Worth 1 Vote
Called by any vampire at +1 stealth
Successful referendum means that each ready vampire with a capacity above 7 gains 1 blood from the blood bank, and each vampire with a capacity above 7 in any uncontrolled region gains 1 blood from the blood bank.

[[Writer's Comment]]: Ok, This card means two things, one of which is obvious. The first thing it means is that the player who is using the most Elders gets a huge, enormous bonus of free blood for the elder vampires, both controlled and uncontrolled. The second thing to notice comes in the magic number there, SEVEN. That's right, it's exactly the number of transfers you'll be getting if you get both of the Master cards listed above into play. So theoretically, we're seriously looking at a deck that is just BEGGING you to fill your entire crypt with 7-cap vampires, with maybe a few higher than that.

Political Stranglehold
Type: Political Action
Text:
"Political Card - Worth 1 Vote.Called by any vampire at +1 stealth.
Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 3 pool for each vampire he or she controls with a capacity above 7. Only one Political Stranglehold can be played during a game."

[[Writer's Comment]]: This particular card actually requires that you have vampires above 7-capacity. So if you really go with this, you'll need a few biggies. But chances are... if you can actually pull one of these off, you're GOLDEN.

Cheval de Bataille
Type: Action Modifier
Text:
"Requires a ready titled Sabbat vampire. Only usable during a referendum.
Any vampire voting against this referendum burns 1 blood when the results are tallied. "

[Writer's Comment]: The beauty of this card comes from playing it while you play either Honor the Elders or Political Stranglehold. If they vote against it, every single vampire voting against it loses blood. If they vote for it, you gain more pool than they do, or your vampires gain more pool than theirs.

Cryptic Rider
Type: Action Modifier
Text:
"Requires a ready vampire. Only usable on a successful referendum.
The next referendum a vampire you control calls this turn passes automatically."

[[Writer's Comment]]: While this is mostly self-explanatory, the point here is that earlier this same turn you got them to vote in your Honor the Elders by dropping the Cheval de Bataille, right? I mean, they couldn't afford to lose that many blood, so they let it pass. Boom. Now because they let the one go through, they are forced to have either ANOTHER Honor the Elders succeed or the Political Stranglehold. Fun Times.

So Why is this a Nosferatu Antitribu combo?
Why not ditch the Nosferatu Kingdom and make it a deck based on one of the Clans that actually has the Political disciplines? We certainly could do that.
The reason I'm putting this with the Nosferatu is specifically because of Cheval de Baitalle. The Nosferatu deck is going to have plenty of Obfuscate based cards to give it stealth, which is what is needed to get the Referendum on the table to begin with. So you can be mostly assured that you'll succeed in getting your Political cards to the Voting booths. And there will be enough Potence based combat cards to make your opponent consider seriously before trying to actually stop you and have to fight...
See... this deck doesn't actually NEED very many Titled vampires. It doesn't actually NEED to be able to vote in its own political referendums. Once you've got the item on the voting table, you can just load the table full of Cheval's and then it will not matter whether or not it passes. If they vote it in, you win. If they vote it down, you win. Granted, having some titles helps, and makes it easier to ensure that everyone plays along, but that's entirely optional.

The Rest of the Deck:
I'll just include a few minions and a few more political cards that go on the same theme. The Minions aren't required for this set up to work, but they do amplify it. Likewise, the political cards listed are "more of the same." I'm NOT including a big list of Potence and Obfuscate cards, because... I mean seriously, that would be a waste of combo space and a waste of your time. It would be like including "Mountain" in a 6 pt Strategy for Magic: The Gathering...
Bribes:
Type: Action Modifier
Text:
"Only usable during a referendum before votes are cast.
Gain 1 pool. Any other Methuselah who votes in your favor and does not vote against you gains 1 pool when the results of the referendum are tallied."
[[Writer's Comment]]: This is the other side of the Cheval. Can be used together if you want to make SURE something goes through, or on separate items. A good idea would be to combine this one with the cheval on one vote, so it passes with certainty, and then drop a Cryptic Rider on the following referendum to gaurantee it as well.
Consanguineous Boon:
Type: Political Action
Text:
"Political card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any vampire at +1 stealth.
Choose a clan. Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool for each member of that clan he or she controls."
[[Writer's Comment]]: While you would usually want to choose your own clan so you can gain all the cash, you may find it necessary to choose the clan of one of your opponents, to gaurantee that they vote for it. Again, the purpose in doing this is to gaurantee that your next referendum passes...
Rabble Razing:
Type: Political Action
Text:
"Worth 1 Vote. Called by any vampire at +1 stealth.
Successful referendum means all vampires with capacity less than 4 burn one blood."
[[Writer's Comment]]: The reason this card rocks in this deck is because you won't have very many of these small vampires, preferably NONE of them. Really imagine calling one of these, and having the Cheval added to it... If you vote for it, all your weenies disintegrate. If you vote against it, all your biggies get weaker. Perfect.
Sabbat Priest:
Type: Political Action
Text:
"Worth 1 Vote. Called by any Sabbat vampire at +1 stealth.
Choose a ready Sabbat vampire. Successful referendum means that for the remainder of the game, any vampire attempting to block the chosen vampire burns 1 blood."
[[Writer's Comment]]: If you get this on one of your 7-Cap vampires in the first two or three turns, the board is yours.

Tarbaby Jack: is a 8-cap Nosferatu Antitribu with [dom, ser, ANI, OBF, POT] and the ability "Black Hand. If Tarbaby is ready, you get one extra transfer during your influence phase."
[[Writer's Comment]]: With this dude in play, you're now dropping 8 transfers a turn.
Smallpox Griet: is a 9-cap Nosferatu Antitribu with [than, ANI, CEL, OBF, POT] and the ability "If Smallpox successfully inflicts hand damage in consecutive rounds of a combat, the opponent gets a pox counter. A minion with any pox counters takes 1 damage during his or her untap phase. Burn all pox counters when Smallpox leaves the ready region."
[[Writer's Comment]]: The most important thing to remember is that vampires in torpor with a pox counter on them still take the damage, so they'll continue losing all their blood even while in Torpor, until they have none. Once they burn their last, and then have to burn another, they'll get burned and move the ash-heap, gone forever. Granted, she'll probably just kill them, which means they'll disappear right away.
Joseph Cambridge: is a 6-cap Nosferatu Antitribu with [ani, dom, obf, POT] and the ability "Joseph gets an additional +1 stealth on political actions."
[[Writer's Comment]]: Use this dude to get your referendums on the table early. There are two bummers here. 1-- He's only a 6-cap, and won't benefit from your 7-cap referendums. 2-- he only possesses basic level Obfuscate, so he's going to NEED the +1 stealth...

And if you want even MORE free transfers, try this third location.
Powerbase: Montreal
Type: Master. Unique Location.
Text:
"During your influence phase, you may move one blood from the blood bank to a vampire in your uncontrolled region. Any vampire may steal this location for his or her controller as a (D) action."
[[Writer's Comment]]: This will get you one more free transfer. The weakness is that you'll have to defend it, which means you'll need to include plenty of Animalism cards for their Intercept value. This will, of course, make the Obfuscate, Political Action, Potence, and Master cards less common, but... well, it'll make you more balanced anyway, so take your pick.

This Deck has the Biggest Weakness of All Time:
That's right, there's a significant problem here. A lot of the coolness of this combo revolves around getting your 7-cap vampires out very quickly, and then continuing to profit from that for the rest of the game. Well, that can only happen if you get out the Information Highway and the Nosferatu Kingdom, or at the very least ONE of them... Oh, fine, so just put a bunch of them in the deck, right? Well, that's a problem. See, they're both Unique locations, which means that if one is out, another can't come out. So... if you've got one out, and you draw the other one, it sits there in your hand... and doesn't move. It takes up a slot permanently, effectively reducing your hand size by one. So you play the other 6 cards that are left, and eventually draw another one, and now you're down to 5 cards. This continues until you are powerless. NOW-- As it turns out, we can work around this difficulty rather easily.

Solution 1:
You can discard and replace one card at the end of every turn. So as long as you dedicate your discards to getting rid of the extras of these cards, you shouldn't have a problem. This does limit your ability to discard anything else though.

Solution 2:
You can go ahead and play the new repeat cards. What happens is that the old one gets destroyed and the new one comes into play normally. So you basically are just discarding the cad and drawing another one... The problem with this is that they are both Master cards, and you can only play one Master card per turn. So if you use that option, you're effectively using up your ability to play master level cards that turn. To make it worse, you can only do that DURING your Master phase, which means that when you play a non-Master card and draw one of these Master Locations... you have to wait an entire turn to use up your Master phase to "discard" it.

Solution 3:
BE PROACTIVE!! Get more Discard ability!
Cicatriz is a 5-cap Nosferatu Antitribu with [ani, obf, pot] and the ability " If Cicatriz is ready during your discard phase, you may discard one additional card."
[[Writer's Comment]]: So now you should be ok, as long as you don't completely overdo it with the Master Locations. You'll potentially be able to get rid of Master cards in one turn, if you dedicate your Master Phase, and your Two Discards to it, so at that point you should likely be fine, I think. And besides, if you have extras of the locations, it allows you to replace them if your opponent starts going around and burning them down.

Vampire: the Eternal Struggle-- 6 pt Strategy

Hopefully, for the next few months I’ll be able to do one of these every month. This months 6 pt Strategy will focus on an all-Tzimisce strategy. Future months will hopefully also display a strategy for a single clan, 6 cards that work together to form a masterpiece.

GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE:
This deck was originally constructed by Joe Churchhill on "March 2001." After trying it out I added the modifacations to it that I have written about in this article. To check out the original deck or comment to the original creator, go here: http://www.warghoul.com/storage/decks/bloodcontrol.shtml

Weather Control
Type: Combat
Discipline: Thaumaturgy
Text:
“Only usable before range is determined on the first round.
Basic Level: Both combatants and each of their retainers take 1 damage before range is determined each round. This damage cannot be prevented. A vampire can play only 1 Weather Control each combat.
Superior Level: As above, but the amount of damage inflicted increases by 1 each round.”

Blood Form
Type: Combat
Discipline: Vicissitude
Text:
“Basic Level: Strike: combat ends, only usable when in combat with an ally.
Superior Level: Play before range is chosen. This vampire is immune to non-aggravated damage for the current round. This vampire cannot strike this round. This vampire gets an optional press, usable only to end combat.”

[[Writer’s Comment]]: Ok, so at this point, as long as you’ve got a minion with but Superior Vicissitude and Superior Thaumaturgy, you can basically win any combat with that minion, PERIOD. There are two weaknesses so far. First, if your opponent has a card that will END the combat, or if some how they can do aggravated damage at rates faster than your cumulative Weather damage, then this combo will not win the combat for you. Additionally, you’ll need a LOT of Bloodforms in your deck, since you’ll need a different one each round of combat. I’m thinking like 25-50% of the Library should be Bloodform. Keep in mind, the Weather Control text only limits the number of them you can play per combat in the BASIC level. At superior level, you can drop as many of those as you like, and the damage is cumulative. To make it even better, the damage you deal with this is unpreventable, so Fortitude based cards will not save your opponent's minions-- in fact, your own minion IS taking the damage from Weather Control, but is then immune to the damage...

Drawing Out the Beast:
Type: Combat
Discipline: Animalism
Text:
”Only usable before range is determined on the first round. Basic Level: During this combat, opposing vampire gets +1 strength, but he or she cannot use maneuvers to maneuver to long range, cannot use presses to end combat, and cannot use equipment. A vampire may play only one Drawing Out the Beast each combat. Superior Level: As above, and the opposing vampire takes 1 damage during the press step each round. This damage cannot be prevented.”

[[Writer’s Comment]]: Now our combat portion of the combo is complete, as this card can be played at the very beginning to force the enemy minion to stay in combat for the duration, which means until they die.

Bums Rush
Type: Action
Text:
“Do not replace until the end of this action.
(D) Enter combat with a minion controlled by another Methuselah. Acting minion gets an optional maneuver only usable during this combat.”

[[Writer’s Comment]]: Now it’s all crystallized. This card actually is necessary, as without it your opponent can simply keep choosing not to intercept your minions, making the combat combo useless. Now that you’ve added this to the mix, you can just pick one minion of theirs per turn to selectively kill. Worst case scenario, they get another of their minions to intercept this directed action… Which just means that you’re killing a different minion, but that minion is still dying, so who cares?

Recruitment:
Type: Master
Pool Cost: 2
Text:
“Search your crypt for a vampire. Show it to all players and place it face down in your uncontrolled region. Reshuffle your crypt afterwards.”

[[Writer’s Comment]]: This card is there only so that you can ensure that you get the right Minion, the one that has both Vicissitude and Thaumaturgy at superior levels. Which brings us to…

Sascha Vykos, The Angel of Caine:
Type: Minion
Clan: Tzimisce
Capacity: 8
Title: Priscus
Disciplines: ani, dom, AUS, THA, VIC
[[for those not familiar with this format, lowercase means basic level, and capitalized means superior levels]].
Ability:“When a vampire opposing Sascha in combat goes to torpor, you may choose to increase your hand size by 2 for the remainder of the turn. This ability can be used only once per turn.”

[[Writers’ Comment]]: Boom! This is the card that brings it all together. It’s a powerful minion with both Vicissitude and Thaumaturgy at Superior levels, able to drop the combo at any time, as well as Basic Dominate (which I'll discuss further down.)


ONE ALTERNATIVE CARD:
Sorry, I know this is supposed to be 6 cards, but there’s one more card that either needs to be included as a 7th card, or which can Replace either the Bum’s Rush or Recruitment or Drawing Out the Beast. I would personally recommend using it as a 7th card… Of course, it’s perfectly fine to just leave it out entirely. The above 6 cards will do fine on their own, but this one is nice to have around too.

Theft of Vitae:
Type: Combat
Discipline: Thaumaturgy
Text:
“Basic Level: Strike: Ranged: steal 1 blood.
Superior Level: Strike: Ranged: steal 2 blood.

[[Writer’s Comment]]: Add this to the mix, and not only does Sascha kill any vampire in existence, but also gains blood for it. Nice… You could also use this next one, though I recommend the Theft for the sake of dependability.

Taste of Vitae:
Type: Combat
Text:“Only usable at the end of a round of combat. Not usable by a vampire going into torpor. This vampire gains an amount of blood equal to the amount lost by the opposing vampire to damage during this round of combat. A vampire can play only 1 Taste of Vitae each round.”

[[Writer’s Comment]]: This is basically the same thing, but doesn’t require Thaumaturgy. Unfortunately, it doesn’t steal the blood like Theft does. And it requires that you do some damage, so it is only usable when you’ve got the Weather Control booming out, otherwise you’ll only gain 1 blood per round, and will likely be taking much more than that, since their deck will probably have actual damage booster cards like the Potence cards.

THE REST OF THE DECK:
This deck has one very SERIOUS flaw… It relies entirely on Sascha Vykos. Seriously, if you don’t get that one out… you’re TOAST. It really doesn’t matter what minions you get out, if they’re not THAT one, it’s all for nothing. The Recruitment helps with that. However, it is still a good idea to have between 2 and 4 of this minion in your Crypt. So what about the rest of the Crypt? I have some suggestions, but they aren’t that stellar.
Violet Tremain is a 6-cap Tzimisce with basic Vicissitude, Thaumaturgy, and Dominate. Her special ability can lower the capacity of minions she fights, but only if she does hand damage (so not usable with the combo until after the second combat round…)
Virstania, The Great Mother is a 7-cap Tremere Antitribu with basic Vicissitude and superior Thaumaturgy, and basic dominate.
Lolita Houston is a 4-cap Tzimisce with superior Vicissitude but no Thaumaturgy. [[so this minion could block and then take no damage as a way of stalling until you get Vykos out]].
Ana Rita Montana is a 5-cap Tzimisce with superior Vicissitude and basic dominate.

In other words, you need enough Recruitments in your Library to be able to make SURE that you get Sascha out soon.

Now, additionally, two other Master cards can help this situation out, but it requires significant investment.
Vicissitude is a Master phase action which increases the capacity of a vampire by 1 and gives them a level of Vicissitude (so it turns 0 to basic, and basic to superior). Having some of these in your deck would allow you to turn your basic vic minions into greater powerhouses. OR if you had some Tremere Antitribu in there and started giving them vicissitude, then…
Thaumaturgy works the same as Vicissitude, but for the discipline Thaumaturgy, allowing you to turn your Tzimisce minions into whompers or to make your Tremere Antitribu small-minions into whomper-minions.

However, it is important to note that the more of these cards you have in the deck, the less often you’ll be drawing the Weather Control + Bloodform combo…

The other MAJOR FLAW in this deck is that it can block NOTHING unless you start putting in lots and lots of Auspex and Animalism intercept cards. But if you do that you’ll draw the needed combat combo even LESS often. So it needs a better way to stop your opponent, one that can be done with much fewer cards from your library.
Deflection is a reaction card that requires the discipline Dominate at basic level or superior. That’s why I mentioned the dominates up there, and why Sascha is so darn perfect! Deflection is played by one of your minions when you are being bled, and changes the target of the Bleed action. So put 8 of these in a deck and you’ll never actually have to block, you’ll just ensure that your Predator always hits your Prey for you. This DOES require an untapped vampire, with basic dominate… So that makes it all the more important that you’ve got some smaller minions around with that ability.

Along with that weakness, this deck can do nothing against political decks. It has very few titles, no political cards, and no intercept cards you can use to block their political attempts. BUT—remember that Bums Rush allows you to target which minions you take out… So all you have to do is be selective and kill all their titled vampires first if they’re going political.

The final comment I’d like to leave for doing this is that it costs a lot of Pool to get things going. Sascha is an 8-cap vampire. Vicissitude and Thaumaturgy both cost you 1 Pool every time you play them… Therefore, it may be good to put in some cards like—
Blood Doll is a Master Phase card, which lets you steal one blood from the minion you put it on per turn. Put this on Sascha, and you’ll be able to take blood, and then have Sascha steal MORE blood from your opponent’s minions when it drops the Theft of Vitae.

Essentially then, this deck will simply Diablerize your opponent’s entire deck VERY quickly, but only after it’s got its set-up established. I love the fact that this deck will basically make it so that every time your opponent spends any resources, they’ll lose them the next turn and give them to you. Beware of Political decks, however.

NEXT TIME::
Nosferatu Antitribu POLITICAL deck…