Starters - Improving Starters for Newbies guide.

Ill admit, its better for Anatole, Petaniqua, or Unmada to play it, since they can freak drive, rutors hand, or forced march respectively, and are typically used for decks doing some walling or tooling in addition to ks bleeding, but a free govern is handy in a deck that likes having out 4 minions before turn 6. So, having morel take an action to get out lets say jackie or midget or bela while using transfers to pull out a 4 cap or better yet a 5 cap with DEM makes it worth it.

You go third. Turn one, 3 beads to morel, pass turn. Turn two, 3 morel, one persia, pass turn. You can bleex for 2-4 with morel turn 3, or call to midget. So, call to midget, 4 to persia, pass. This turn, you would have just had morel and persia bleeding, but now have 3 superior dem bleeders, so midget makes up for the missed opportunity, and you gain more momentum.

Its not fool proof, and given thier known card pool i see no more than 2 call in the deck due to only one in the precon and im not sure ive ever pullex it from 3rd boosters.

Now, for ks sb, madmans quill, touch of clarity, and hide the mind are all more immidiately practical, but since there are ni bloodlines boosters, now kot boosters, and the hide the minds are probably in the fos decks if auspex is an issue, i left out those.

I also tried to make the deck streamlined, since up to 20 ks is practical for a tbicker deck and i just gaveca foundation.

Im not saying its the best dem aus card ever.... although its only got one card as competition... but the call is useful, and 1/7 times you get a good opening, people think maybe you arent stealthbleed... until you flip midget an d persia/george...

Adonai wrote:

AtomWeaver's Deck Bashing Challenge also has some good examples (and some really crappy examples).
www.thelasombra.com/dbc/dbc.htm

Why not remove the crappy examples? Not everything is worthy of being archived.

kombainas wrote:

As many copies of The Call as available.

Sorry for the offtopic, but I always wondered why is this card is so highly rated?

Because people think that it's a "free Govern (down)". And they're right, but they don't know how to build a Kindred Spirits deck.

For a non-Kindred Spirits AUS DEM deck, however, it's *fantastic*.

Thanks for the information so far folks, it's getting there.

I managed to modify some decks, and merge some others.:

- Baali with FoS
- Baali with !Tremere
- Alastors with Brujah
- Guruhi with Guruhi
- Osebo x2
- Ishtarri x2
- Akunsese x2

And they already feel a lot better and more focused, so thanks for the tricks
I should have thought about the fact that 2 of the same Starter deck will be a good way to cover the "holes" in their setup.


Also, I know this isn't a bashing rant about the awesome home page "theLasombra.com"

But as a newbie I've found that sometimes it's very difficult to figure out which vampires/clans/Disciplines there are on "theLasombra.com"

eg. "Norman S. Brown's Mashed Potatoes" unless one is very nerdy, a newbie won't know that this is a Malkavian and Brujah.

Make no mistake I like the page, it's one of the few out there with updated information, but for a "newcomer" it's just a jungle.

The Format like [Deck Name|Clans|Main Disciplines|Function-Type] or something similar would have helped greatly.. but I guess one can't have everything

//Tallens'out

Also, I know this isn't a bashing rant about the awesome home page "theLasombra.com"

I'd also advice to read through your prefered clan (no Laibons there, sadly) archives to get a feel (although usually out of date) of what can be built around the disciplines/clan you have access to. This might shed some light on pros and cons, plus give some insights.

Furthermore, you could orginize some "events" where you can bring cards printed with a regular printer (sleeved, of course ) to see whether they would be worth to buy later.

Also, from personal experience, it would be helpful to look for people selling off their collections to buy them collectively as a group, as you could buy some harder-to-obtain cards for all of you to use. This might enable you to try/make effective some deck archetypes relying either on abundant cards of a same type (e.g. weenie bleed with Computer Hacking, which you need 10-20 of) or such that would be too expensive to buy separately (e.g. 6 Villeins might cost around 150 $, but they would make playing most high-cap-based decks significantly easier than Minion Taps - still too expensive in my book).

Also, from personal experience, it would be helpful to look for people selling off their collections to buy them collectively as a group, as you could buy some harder-to-obtain cards for all of you to use. This might enable you to try/make effective some deck archetypes relying either on abundant cards of a same type (e.g. weenie bleed with Computer Hacking, which you need 10-20 of) or such that would be too expensive to buy separately (e.g. 6 Villeins might cost around 150 $, but they would make playing most high-cap-based decks significantly easier than Minion Taps - still too expensive in my book).

Yeah I keep looking, I have some of the rare cards, but far from all, and far from enough to utilize them in multiple decks where they might be considered stables.

I'm also finding that when I bid on collections they are usually in the US, and usually not willing to ship to Denmark, which does put a show stopper sometimes, - and even when it's possible to ship it to Denmark, the shipping cost usually matches what the cards cost themselves. - and sometimes, Postale servioce here in DEnmark adds a little bit of Tax on the package (which sometimes adds an additional 70-90$, on top of the shipping and cards themselves)

but I understand what you're saying, and when there is money for it, we are always on the lookout for more / new cards

But yes... no Liabons there it would seem, I did find a page with a lot of Akumnase decks, but not the other clans.. which I found a bit weird. - coupled with very bad indexing it's difficutl to figure out.

But then again, thaat would take away some of the fun of building decks if one only reads from a list others has made, - almost feels like cheating

- which was party why I made this thread, to hear what people had made of experience with modifying the Starters, - as a "newbie" would get the starter, and then start to wonder - where can I go from here, should I take the green pill or red... and see how deep the rabbithole goes..


//Tallens'out