Tactical Nuke decks

Hi folks!

I want to make a list of decks that can hang around patiently for quite a long time and than suddenly launch a tactical nuke for a one turn oust. I believe the Death Star deck would be a classic example for this. Also Toreador Grand Ball decks can play very defensively and than play 2 unblockable actions in one turn like a Parity Shift followed by Anarchist Uprising. So any decks you want to add to the list?

• Death Star Assamite
• Toreador Grand Ball Vote

I always think of Palla Grande/embrace decks as being really powerful. Ravnos Clown Car does much the same thing.

As mentioned, any deck involving Palla Grande or Week of Nightmares can do this, although the threat is pretty obvious for a while.

!Ventrue grinders tend to launch tactical nukes too; the will just sit there Governing at superior and blocking for a while and when they see an opening they produce 15 bleed. Vignes also tends to do this, although that gets usually accompanied with a Misdirection and a turn 2 Anarch Troublemaker that everyone forgot about. Kiasyd bleed is another such deck thanks to Song of Pan, but that's also one of those decks where you see the trick coming from miles away. The best non-dominate example I can come up with is a DoC embrace/vote deck that can out of nowhere play and pass 5-6 KRCs in a single turn thanks to Echo of Harmonies. Something similar can be done with Nos breed, but that requires saving up KRC's for a *long* time and Nosferatu are less likely to have votelock, while for the daughters, between Conductor and Bastille Opera House, this is pretty trivial.

That said, in all fairness what you are asking is "what kind of decks can lunge". Both the decks you describe are decks with a strong ability to produce a LOT of pool damage with relatively few cards. Any deck can do this by just saving up, say, 4 Conditionings. The trick is, as you actually describe, to play defensively and safe up offense to use when you have a shot. This isn't really about deck types, but more about playstyle and playing the deck well.

I always try to remind people that nuking your prey when you can't oust him is an excercise in futility. Unless your deck is built for constant pressure (KS, Lawfirm) there is really no point in blowing all your +bleed on one prey, leave him at 5 pool in a superdefensive stance while your grandprey cleans up the table.

The tactical nuke you speak of is, IMO, not really a deck-unique thing. It's just a very efficient way to oust people.

Some Ventrue law firm (although it's pretty hard to keep a low profile and a straight face with ), Carna or Blackhorse Tanner grinders, Malkav royalty with Madness network.

And pretty much any Justicar deck: Temptation of Greater Power IS a tactical nuke.

I used to play a Serenna/Matthew deck that survived on permanent bleed reduction, Renewed Vigor and cheapened Villeins and some amount of bounce. It would bloat and play Revelations for a while and then bleed like crazy with the combined powers of Spirit Marionette, Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers, Heidelberg and Andre Leroux. It did pretty well against everything but a rushy predator. Adding combat defense would probably hamper the flow of the deck too much.