AssamiteHonorRedux

Alright, this is a very straight forward rush deck. With the number of contracts you can spread the love nicely. The original I had a different crypt and grafted animalism to it. This is much more streamlined as you can see. Be patient and mark the right targets and you are set. Unless of course you see a lot of Fortitude. Then prepare for a long affair unless you can catch them without it.

Crypt: (12)
6x Nizzam al-Latif(G5)
3x Joe "Boot" Hill(G4)
3x Reza Fatir, The Dark Angel(G4)
Library: (90)
Master: (19)
6x Contract
6x Hand Contract
2x Fame
2x The Path of Lilith
1x Market Square
1x Secure Haven
1x Weeping Stone
Action: (4)
2x Arson
1x Condemn the Sins of the Father
1x Poison the Well of Life
Action Modifier: (9)
9x Succulent Vitae
Combat: (40)
12x The Khabar: Honor
10x Pursuit
8x Disease
4x Acrobatics
4x Vampiric Speed
2x Fast Hands
Equipment: (2)
2x Unlicensed Taxicab
Event: (1)
1x Dragonbound
Reaction: (15)
5x Black Sunrise
5x Ministry
5x Open Dossier

There's quite a few new cards that can make this deck more effective:

Vamps:
Karif al Numair (built in mutilact)
Djuhah, The Bronze Bow

They open up the black hand multiact tech (Seraphs' Second + Tattoo signal + Karif). Here's a good example of the black hand tech: www.veknfrance.com/decks/twd.htm#2014satws2pdms — bleeding and rushing in the same turn is productive.

Library:
Priority Contract — another trifle rush with pool gain
Loss — ousting power and far better than Arson. I would run 9 or so of these.
Khabar: Glory — ousting power + pool gain
Dam the Heart's River — far better than Disease
Provision of the Silsila — blood gain, need this or taste of vitae to keep vamps healthy.

Drop the Succulent Vitaes — instead keep vamps full with Provision of the Silsila / Taste of Vitae. Hunting is a wasted action that should be avoided when possible. Pool gain is also an issue, consider including at least 4 villeins + 2 vessels to survive a little longer — they work well with Provision of the Silsila (good if you want to keep the contract angle).

This deck is very slow without any crypt acceleration, so you can expect to be bled for a good chunk before a vamp is even in play, Villeins would at least help mitigate that. Dreams of the Sphinx and Powerbase Timeout would help to get your vamps out in two turns.

The Assamite's received a good boost to their combat in The Unaligned —the most effective combat approach is probably .44 Magnums paired with Dam the Heart's River and Blur (9 + 1 damage, 2 combat cards). Guns are also more effective against potence / agg combat and combat ends with Psyche.

I think the trifle contract cards make contracts much more viable — however they're still not a route to winning games. They just provide a little flavour and interesting rush options, ultimately to win you will still need to bleed out more than one prey...

Karif is a new guy I haven't printed up yet to play with. Same with the other new cards. Though the Bronze bow should be in there, I just didn't have any extra on hand since I have so many Assamite decks built.

Hunting is one of the few actions I can actually occasionally get away with in my meta. As such, I have to take advantage of it. Don't want the Provision combo as I want to keep my contracts for fame dunk rinse repeat. Just wish I had an extra Tension in the Ranks.

Not sure I agree about it being slow, even if I start and bring out Niz first, he's out by third turn. Unless someone is playing weenies I really don't have to worry to much as most midcap decks are tooling up still. And as soon as Agg Hands comes on the scene you turn into the table threat. But, you bring out Joe first second turn you don't seem as threatening and can put contracts on key minions.

Though the Assamites did get a small boost. Love most of the Assamite crypt cards, but only like a couple of the library cards. That's a discussion for a different thread.

As a Path of Blood vet, I can say for a fact that contracts are quite viable before the new ones. And ousting multiple prey via combat is quite possible as I mentioned earlier with the fame dunk routine. Of course it alone won't do it and can backfire if your own pool is too low. You simply have to figure out how to work the table best.