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.