The Blackest Hand

Hi all, new to the boards here but with lots of random deck ideas I'd like to run by the community. Expect lots of random insanity and I'm certain your comments, critiques and suggestions will encourage my madness! So, without further ado, here's my first entry:

Deck Name : Blackest Hand
Author :
Description :



Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 5 average: 4.08333

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2x Wah Chun-Yuen 5 POT cel dom pre !Brujah:3
1x Banjoko 5 DOM obt pot Lasombra:3
1x Ermenegildo, The R 5 DOM OBT pot Lasombra:4
1x Skryta Zyleta 5 CEL obf pot pro !Gangrel:3
1x Katherine Stoddard 4 dom for !Ventrue:3
1x Mariano Pomposo 4 aus cel pot !Brujah:3
1x Mosfair 4 cel dom tha !Tremere:4
1x Roger Farnsworth 4 OBF aus !Malkavian:3
1x Caroline Bishops 3 cel for pot Pander:4
1x Gengis 3 aus cel pot Brujah:3
1x Piotr Andreikov 2 aus Tzimisce:3


Library [77 cards]

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Action [11]
11x Reunion Kamut

Combat [26]
2x Backstep
2x Blur
2x Disarm
2x Dodge
2x Flash
2x Pulled Fangs
5x Target Vitals
3x Taste of Vitae
2x Thrown Sewer Lid
4x Weighted Walking Stick

Equipment [9]
2x Camera Phone
2x Guarded Rubrics
5x Leather Jacket

Event [3]
1x Blood Trade
1x Blood Weakens
1x Slow Withering, The

Master [15]
1x Admonitions, The
2x Blood Doll
3x Corporal Reservoir
3x Effective Management
1x Fortschritt Library
1x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1x Hungry Coyote, The
1x Information Highway
1x Tribute to the Master
1x WMRH Talk Radio

Reaction [13]
3x Deflection
1x Follow the Blood
4x Ministry
2x On the Qui Vive
3x Truth in Ink


1. How do you intend to oust?
Swarm bleed with the occasional equipment (i.e Guarded Rubrics) shared via Heidelberg Castle, Germany.

2. How do you intend to keep from being ousted?
Reunion Kamut helps me influence early but once I have 4-5 minions out, the rest go towards bloating. BH toys such as Ministry, Truth in Ink and a sprinkle of Deflections round out the defensive package while the combat module is diverse enough to keep people guessing.

3. What do you want your ready region to look like (ie, how many guys are you planning on getting out)?
I plan on having between 4-6/7 minions out in a given game hence the limited number of doubling up in the crypt. Only exception is Wah Chun-Yuen mostly because he possesses pot/cel/dom.

4. What do you want your average turn to look like?
With four vamps, I plan on Kamut/Equip/bleed/bleed. Should I have some kind of reaction card in hand, I plan on having enough minions out to be able to leave a guy untapped for blocking/bouncing. With 4+ minions in the late game, I can start swarm bleeding/lunge.

5. What's your metagame like? How do your opponents play?
Mostly on JOL nowadays and I've noticed almost all decks pack a decent combat module hence the beef in mine.

6. What problems have you observed with the deck in play?
Played only once before and was not packing deflections and only two copies of Ministry. Therefore, was unable to block stealth actions/bleeds and bloat was no longer sufficient. Event module was also not present which in my opinion should help the deck tremendously since it's inclusion.

Why Gengis and Caroline? They aren't black hand, I would replace them with Nails and Gabriel de Cambrai

Because they are smaller vamps costing 3 pool and not 5 therefore helping me avoid an all mid-cap opening crypt. They also sport cel/pot which gives them access to the few discipline cards in the deck. Essentially, they bring the average capacity down.

The fact they aren't black hand and thus you can't play RK on them, pretty much negates the benefit of that 2 pool cost difference. Besides Nails has POT which is quite nice to your deck. Also change the backsteps to fake outs, the deck looks like it wants to manuever both ways.

Agreed about the backsteps being switched. It's been on the back of my mind. Also, I am till not convinced by the crypt changes. I have to play an early kamut on a 5 cap such as Nails and Cambari in order to get them out for th same cost as bishops and gengis therefore the kamut argument is moot (except, perhaps, in late game where I could be using kamut to bloat but then again gengis/bishops would have already been influence out already). The thing is, if I'm going to play 5 pool I want to it to be for the Black Hand trait AND at least two out the three disciplines the deck uses. The lasombra have dom/pot, Skryta has cel/pot and Wah Chun-Yuen has all three.

I do understand your point about Kamut though so I will try and see if there are times I would really REALLY anted gengis/bishops to be Black Hand instead. Perhaps if I just kept one of the two and added Nails instead. Or I even considered two copies of Anarch Converts for the early swarm. Should I be the third to influence, Piotr and Convert could potentially net me three pool (kamut + free bleed/edge)

You might also consider adding a bit more potence since over half your crypt has it, like couple slams or something