Lost Blood Sisters: Card preview analysis

Hello!

Today we'll take a look at the Blood Brother previews from Lost Kindred.

www.vekn.net/2-uncategorised/401-lost-kindred-blood-brothers

If you ever had an urge to dish out stupid amounts of damage in combat, Blood Brothers and Sisters have always been there for you. Their game style has been semi-swarmy, where you need many vampires to do single, unbelievably big actions. Their blood generation and distribution abilities have been immense, but still their lack of reactivity has made them lackluster in competitive VtES.

Let's see how the new Blood Sisters from Budapest shake things up.

Name: Ági
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Blood Brother
Group: 6
Capacity: 6
Discipline: FOR SAN VIC
Sabbat: Cards requiring Sanguinus [san] cost Ági 1 less blood. Budapest circle. Sterile.
Artist: Noora Hirvonen

Every BB crypt needs the eldest sibling. Ági here is the sister quintet's main player, enabling most Sanguinius cards for her younger sisters. Remember that many Sanguinius combat cards are not played by the vampire in combat, but another vampire. This makes Ági's ability that much more powerful. She can do all the BB tricks there are, so there's not much else to discuss here. If you want to play Budapest circle, you play them all and Ági is your first pick.

Name: Dorka
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Blood Brother
Group: 6
Capacity: 4
Discipline: for san vic
Sabbat: Dorka can enter combat with a minion controlled by your predator or prey as a action. Budapest circle. Sterile.
Artist: Noora Hirvonen

Dorka's ability is excellent in suppressing card slots in a circle that seems even more combat oriented than other BB circles. Even though is hardly the combat powerhouse that is, with Fortitude and Sanguinius alone she should get something done in combat. Make sure to pack a worthwhile combat package, since her capacity of 4 is not much of a buffer against hit-back.

Name: Gabi
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Blood Brother
Group: 6
Capacity: 5
Discipline: for SAN VIC
Sabbat: A minion opposing Gabi cannot strike: dodge during the first round of combat. Budapest circle. Sterile.
Artist: Noora Hirvonen

Another combat ability ensures Gabi will punch right through allies like Mylan and Carlton. Vampire combat packages rarely make extensive use of dodging, but some S:Dodge with additional strike builds will suffer against Gabi. Her is more intersting than her , the latter of which will most likely be more of a preventation buffer than a means for multi act in Budapest.

Name: Viri
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Blood Brother
Group: 6
Capacity: 3
Discipline: san vic
Sabbat: While Zizi is in your ready region, Viri gets +1 strength. Budapest circle. Sterile.
Artist: Noora Hirvonen

Name: Zizi
Cardtype: Vampire
Clan: Blood Brother
Group: 6
Capacity: 3
Discipline: san vic
Sabbat: If Viri is in your ready region, Zizi can lock to unlock another Blood Brother of the same circle. Budapest circle. Sterile.
Artist: Noora Hirvonen

We finally see a resurgence of duo vampires. We have yet to see Helena and Menele or Humo and Greensleeves paired in any competitive games, but the flavour still adds up nicely. At least Viri and Zizi are young enough to be paired, and have no noise in their disciplines. Their lack of Fortitude would suggest that the Budapest circle as a whole will struggle to find extensive use of the discipline, and will concentrate on whatever sheanigans Vicsisitude and Sanguinius have to offer.

Don't let the discipline spread fool you though, their abilities together are finally a force to consider. Viri's +1 Strength adds up well with this circle's combat focus, and Zizi's ability is plain good. Blood Siblings are known for their abilities to multi act for strong power turns, and Zizi further reinforces this theme.

There is little to say about any of the Budapest Sisters individually, which is only fair. Their abilities and disciplines as a whole make them worthwhile, and should be compared to other circles as such.

G2 Torrance Circle boasts Potence as their in-clan, as well as some very useful abilities. Furthermore, their vampires are littered with off-clans as well, but surely their relatively high capacities overall warrant extra power.

G2 Chicago Circle hosts Potence as well, and seem more reactive with some intercept and blood distribution abilities thrown in. Their capacity of 5 across the board is hefty for Blood Siblings as well, but their off-clans are reflected by their capacity. Both Torrence and Chicago circles have access to for bounces.

G2 also has access to Angelo if you have a need for a big brother.

G4's Hermanas are a whole archetype on their own, and not that easily comparable to other Blood Sibling circles.

G5 Kiev circle is closest to their Budapest sisters in every way. They have a mixed bag of trading half of their Potence and half of their Fortitude for Protean, give up any off-clans, influence out for 4 per vampire, and reflect their young age with no abilities to write home about.

G6 Budapest circle has access to , but without a Path to support it, players are hard pressed to decide which cards to use from this relatively expensive discipline. They share this problem with Kiev's Protean, and probably have equally hard time trying to find clear direction. offers some stealth options, much like Protean, to deliver those big Elvis bleeds, but the Budapest sisters would really like to put those combat abilities to good use. Equipments come to mind as a combat option (as offers great ways for distribution), but then their is left unused.

No matter what these sisters mature into, we're sure to see equal amounts of multi act shenanigans and power turns as we have before. Their abilities help with deck building as you don't have to include quite as much combat cards, so that's something. None of these help with their lingering weakness of player-fragility however, as the sisters might more often than not find themselves methuselahless.

Maybe the library cards will help with this though.

Name: Achilles' Heel
Cardtype: Master
Clan: Blood Brother
Unique.
Put this card on a vampire controlled by another Methuselah and choose a circle. While this vampire is in torpor, Blood Brothers of the chosen circle get +1 bleed against this vampire's controller. Any minion can burn this card as a action.
Artist: Mick Bertilorenzi

Achilles' Heel closely resembles Samedi's Blessing of Loa, but it is burnable. As a whole Achilles' Heel is vastly inferior to Loa, but who thought that Blood Siblings lacked pool damage methods? Neither did I. Walk of Elvis-- Caine alone is a finisher after the Prey's vampires are out, and even before that. There is no hurt in playing a single copy of Achilles though, as it does add a bit of punch. This card hurts it's player though, since it draws attention to the Blood Siblings' distruptive and oppressive play style of first killing, then bleeding, robbing a player of their game interaction. This might generate unwanted hate across the board.

Name: Blood Buff
Cardtype: Master
Clan: Blood Brother
Trifle.
Put this card on a ready Blood Brother you control. This Blood Brother gets +1 level of Sanguinus [san].
Artist: Gábor Németh

I am surprised Blood Buff is not a proper discipline card with Trifle slapped onto it, since Blood Siblings would definitely benefit from the diablerie-fetch rule and some extra capacity. This was done with Abombwe already. Well, at least now Blood Siblings don't have to go anarch to teach each other Sanguinius with Field Training - but if you did consider anarchy, it might still be a better route to conserve those master slots. Neverthless, Blood Buff is a welcome addition.

Name: Camaraderie
Cardtype: Reaction
Discipline: Sanguinus
[san] Reduce a bleed against you by 1.
[SAN] Only usable if you control another ready unlocked Blood Brother of the same circle as this Blood Brother. Reduce a bleed against you by 3.
Artist: Ginés Quiñonero

I did mention Blood Siblings being fragile in that their reaction module is sparse. I can take that back now, since Camaraderie is astounding. There is little to say about excellent bleed reduction with an intersting and fair condition attached to it. It will not help you against votes, but will definitely clutter your forward momentum with these sitting in your han-- wait, I mean help you survive those multitudes of bounce and bleeds you had little to react to with before.

In conclusion it would've been surprising to see similar treatment to Blood Brothers (I really want to call them Siblings now that we have another sisterhood alongside Hermanas) that Samedi and especially Harbingers got in this pack, as they have already gotten some extremely powerful and specialized cards to define their play style. They have the ability to go in many directions, but something has kept them on the marginal. Camaraderie might help them survive the early and mid game, but their attracting table hate has seemed like a worse problem to them than any card related problem. It seems it only takes a skilled player willing to embrace the brother- or sisterhood and take the clan to the top tables.

As always, feel free to point out where I went stupidly wrong below and correct my lies!

I disagree with Camaraderie, very expensive for what it does, two brothers unlocked or 1+wake is too expensive to me, IMO is a bad card.

And Achiles in most cases is worst than fame and fame is a generic master so....

Very disappointing cards for the brothers

Matis wrote:

And Achiles in most cases is worst than fame and fame is a generic master so....

I would love to have Achilles' Heel for any rush deck... Heck I'd do something silly and play it together with Fame

Kraus wrote:

G2 Chicago Circle hosts Potence as well, and seem more reactive with some intercept and blood distribution abilities thrown in. Their capacity of 5 across the board is hefty for Blood Siblings as well, but their off-clans are reflected by their capacity.

Their average capacity isn't quite five, since Tom is a three-cap.

Krausedit\\ Yeah okay, it's still BB we're talking about, not !Salubri - I was already thinking about another thing...

Nevermind.

You can choose a vampire that's already in torpor.