Friends with Dirty Vermin

Lemminkäinen wrote:

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@Suoli & Lemminkainen:
I enjoy working the psychological angle of milling on players. It has an effect. Just because you can't quantify it in pool does not mean it does not exist. At one point I was also thinking of loading in Couriers as well. I might take out the Old Friends for Couriers.

If you get a psychological effect, it's one of "rush/oust backwards!" which I don't think is ever a useful effect.

Agreed. Outside of tournament situations, where you have to a be little more rational, as soon as someone starts milling me I turn around and do everything I can to ruin their game. Have to do my part to improve the meta, right?

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

2) Sure, Old Friends comes with a painful DNR clause. Please point to the combat and reactions section of this deck where I care about having a low number of cards in someone else's turn...

Though given your lack of pretty much any reactions or table control at all[0] outside of using Inside Dirt to burn blood (which would seem not to be the intended use here), I question the value of Using the Advantage. Certainly, I'd want to keep a very close eye on it in deck testing. You have to be able to use it twice to get pool, but other people on the table bleed anyway, and it gives your predator the incentive to come bleed you anyway, when they might otherwise decide to sit on their hands - if you still have the edge, a successful bleed for 1 is sort-of a bleed for 2, since you don't gain the pool. (e.g. you go from 9 pool to 8 pool, rather than starting next turn on 10 pool)

Now, if your deck is some sort of table control awesomeness - some sort of weenie Auspex, Folderol, Howler deck or something like that - that's probably not a bad thing. Free pool, and an incentive for people to come into your traps so you can punch them in the face. All they really need is a meagre +1 stealth or you to be tapped out. (They don't know if you have any Wakes, but if they've seen none in the first 20 cards of a small deck, they'll take the chance.)


So if you keep the deck roughly as-is otherwise, and the UtA turn out to be less valuable than you'd like, I'd consider ditching them and adding either or both of Hungry Coyote and Shanty Town Hunting Ground, or some other blood gain more to your taste if not those. Old Friend, Robert Carter and Vermin Channel will add up quite quickly, even with 4 Capitalists.



[0] This is not a complaint. Decks don't have to have those!

in my opinion, Courier is the best milling card, because it allows you to be selective. you only need one in play, and you can always keep track of your prey's top card. let them keep the crap, only discard the most problematic cards. this is much better than any supposed psychological effect. you can even use Night Moves to do the same to your predator!

(tip: if you actually bleed with an army of couriers, you're doing it wrong. they have equal cost as Embrace but are much weaker)

if you want to mill away an entire deck, it better be fast and consistent. mass slaughterhouses or go home.