Jack is in the caravan!

This is a remake of an older deck of mine, the original version was very toolboxy bleed deck, now I turned it to more a wall with army of rats and smiling jack as the main oust methods, though bleeds for 1-2 many times a turn help on that too. Ideally you want both Vasiliy and Chavi out, though just one of them works too, and then as many others as you can afford. Combat is fairly basic crows + bats with other cards supporting it.

Crypt: (12)
3x Chavi Oraczko(G5)
3x Vasiliy Vasilevich(G5)
2x Anjalika Underwood(G5)
1x Beetleman(G4)
1x Marion French(G4)
1x Stick(G4)
1x Yuri Kerezenski(G4)

Library: (90)

Master: (14)
4x Vessel
2x Powerbase: Montreal
2x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
1x Kumpania
1x Park Hunting Ground
3x Svadharma
1x WMRH Talk Radio

Action: (6)
4x Deep Song
2x Army of Rats

Action/Reaction: (3)
3x Draba

Ally: (4)
4x Underbridge Stray

Combat: (34)
11x Aid from Bats
9x Carrion Crows
6x Apparition
5x Pack Alpha
3x Amria

Equipment: (4)
2x Kevlar Vest
1x Ivory Bow
1x Treasured Samadji

Reaction: (17)
6x Cats' Guidance
6x Sense the Savage Way
3x Forced Awakening
2x On the Qui Vive

Retainer: (8)
4x Murder of Crows
4x Raven Spy

Hi,

I'm afraid that there really is nothing in this deck archetype that justifies going Ravnos/Chimestry (those cards aren't that many and could easiliy be replaced by good generic similar ones).

I suspect just going for all nice group34 3-5 cap ANI vampires would do this better.

Robert

It very much depends on what type of a deck you want to play and the metagame of where you play it. Sure Winnie ANI is a very effective deck but if there are alot of heavy sneak and bleed CHI can be very effectiv!

Having said that and looking at the deck I think you should try to choose from either the pure animalism combat, removing apparation, amria and the kevlar vests or removing some of the animalism and play more on the trap apparation with help of crows...

Also i dont care what people say I like pack alpha

I think with any deck running a lot of red cards, close attention needs to be paid to not stalling out. For combat decks, I like to think about the "ABCD" model of card flow, which goes like this. Cards in any combat-focused deck can be split into three categories:
A. cards that will be played over time, outside of combat. This includes master cards, retainers, etc, but mostly (A)ctions.
B. cards to help you (B)egin a combat (rush cards, sometimes wake/intercept)
C. cards that can be played in (C)ombat (mostly this means red cards)
D. Dead cards; cards you'll just be discarding.

Your challenge for a combat deck is to not end up in a situation where you have a hand full up with C, D, and/or A you can't play, and nothing from B. This can be devastating; it can cause turns where all you do is bleed for one. If it happens at a critical time - say, when you have an aggressive predator - it can easily cost you your game.

Clearly, the problem is all about ratios and card movement. Increasing the count of B cards can help; so can permanent sources of rush, reducing cards from C in favor of permanents from A, running smaller -> more minions so you can move through A more quickly, etc.

What makes this more complicated again is that the cards that fall into each set change with each match up, or even at various points during the game. For example, Bum's Rush is almost always a B, but Second Tradition is only a B some of the time - your predator might be running heavy stealth, or your prey might be just pointing forwards. Against a medium-stealthy predator, Enhanced Senses may be a B, but against someone who refuses to take stealthy actions against you, it's going to fall into D. Govern might be a B if your prey wants to block you or your predator doesn't have bounce, but most of the time it's going to be an A.

Thinking about Pack Alpha in these terms: Pack Alpha is pretty clearly a C card. What isn't clear is that - unless you're doing the +str thing - each Pack Alpha also turns a retainer into a C. And if you don't have both in hand, those Cs become an A and a D. I think that many people don't notice this, don't figure their ratios correctly, and end up with a red-jammed hand heavily featuring Pack Alpha.

And, looking at your deck from that POV, in an environment where you'll be able to block frequently:

A = 27
B = 24 (4 rush, 20 reaction)
C = 39

... seems like, for 39 combat cards, you are running a lot of A and not enough strong B. More Deep Songs are probably called for!

Vasiliy and Chavi both have very useful specials for the deck also, even if you ignore the cards requiring Ravnos or Chimerstry. People generally stop blocking Vasiliys bleeds after they realize it will generally cost them a minion each time, which means he can untap and do a tool up action or stay untapped to block, depending on my current hand. Chavi's +1 hand size is major help and her +1 stealth has also been helpful quite often. Of course the chimerstry and ravnos clan cards in the deck give lot more reasons to play them as they all support the animalism engine well. I don't think I really need traps though, Underbridge Strays give me plenty enough presses and can also be used as wakes if I don't need the presses.