Hektor Returns to San Jose

I'm pretty sure I wasn't in your first table, I would have remembered a Temptation of Greater Power...

Deck Name: Hektor Multirush
Author: Brandon Haas
Description: Kill your predators and any significant source of votes at the table.


Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=1 max=9 avg=5.17)
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1x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:ANY
5x Hektor 9 for CEL POT PRE QUI !Brujah:4
1x Jesús Alcalá 2 cel !Gangrel:3
1x Kai Simmons 1 cel Pander:4
1x Leo Washington 2 cel pro !Gangrel:4
1x Mariano Pomposo 4 aus cel pot !Brujah:3
1x Patrick 4 pre POT !Brujah:4
1x Smash 3 pot pre !Brujah:4

Library (90 cards)
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Master (14)
1x Black Forest Base
2x Blood Doll
1x Dark Influences (no cancelling my freaks/forced marches!)
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
2x Fortitude (Hidden Strength, Forced March, and Freak Drive get better)
1x Giant's Blood
2x Monster
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Powerbase: Madrid
2x Sudden Reversal

Event (1)
1x Urban Jungle (pure gold for this deck)

Action (14)
1x Big Game
4x Bum's Rush
1x Eternal Vigilance
3x Fleetness (I would change one or two to other rushes. Restriction too annoying)
1x Harass
4x Rumble

Political Action (4)
1x Ancient Influence
3x Dogs of War

Equipment (3)
1x Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Kevlar Vest

Ally (2)
2x Mylan Horseed (Goblin) (his untap and bleed power are great)

Action Modifier (18)
8x Forced March
6x Freak Drive
4x Perfect Paragon (can play even if not being blocked)

Combat (28)
5x Amaranth
4x Hidden Strength
8x Psyche!
6x Pursuit
1x Shattering Blow (for breaking soul gem, potentially for other stuff)
4x Torn Signpost

Combo (6)
6x Resist Earth's Grasp

Created with Secret Library v0.9.4b. (Jan 9, 2014 08:06:11)

5 Amaranth, 3 Dogs of War with a deck with 3 votes and PB:Madrid. Until you secure votelock, you have no chance to save your blood. 2 Blood Dolls are nowhere close to enough to counter that. And your choice of cards: Fleetness costs blood, freak drive costs blood, resist earth's grasp costs blood and you prevent only 1 blood from being lost with your 4 prevent cards...

It was either a matter of meta, or great skill. IMHO this deck should not even survive until tooling up phase. If you table talk well and survive, then with all the toys it should do quite well. What I like is the quantity of rushes, which makes backrushing pesky bleeders rather easy, however dependence on other vote/combat decks.

Anyhow, gratz, it is really impressive win with this deck!

I didn't win, Eric did. It is much easier at 4 player tables for this deck than 5 because of the number of incidental votes. I have had to rush cross table, but prefer not to. The best thing to do is crush your predator early and eat his guys. Clip the wings of your prey if needed, or even someone else. Depending on how the table decides to handle the threat of Hektor the plan may have to adjust.

In the game with Eric I rushed him after his Govern down action and ate The Arcadian. There were no other votes at the table at the time. Before too long I rushed cross table to get rid of Ian's Magaji. Eric and Andy tried to bring out a bunch of guys so that they could bleed me with KS and dominate bleeds. Andy influenced Santaleous and Arthur Denholm, Eric did two smaller guys. The malks maneuvered away, pressed to end, and dodged, but Hektor caught them. The blood from eating them refilled him from combat/stealth cards.

When Hektor can't diablerize, it gets much more difficult. I can send in weenies, but they may burn. I can try to convince someone else to diablerize, but they often won't. This is the problem I ran into in the finals where my prey had a TON of votes. I had to threaten to self-oust if my cross-table ally burned my diablerist weenie (I was at four pool with Kiasyd bleed behind me). If I had survived to kill Eric, then I would have been low on pool. I had about 5 minions to kill before Hektor could safely eat dudes. Unlikely, but possible. Had I not taken 10+ pool damage from Eric already, I would have been in better shape. Oh well, live to snack another day.

I don't think I've played against this deck. Would you be so kind as to elaborate why you chose to go with Psyche!/Pursuit rather than Slam/Immortal Grapple?

Although there are quite many things I had done with my Hactor deck, there are a couple cards which would certainly help with your voting problems.

Yawp Court

Master


Master: unique location. Requires a ready Sabbat vampire.
When a political action is successful, before the referendum, tap this card and a ready untapped Sabbat vampire you control to have that vampire enter combat with the acting vampire. If the acting vampire is still ready at the end of combat, the Sabbat vampire takes 2 damage, and the referendum is conducted as normal.

With the Eternal Vigilance this card would essentially give you vote-lock against other voters. You just have to deal and wheel for them to support your votes, or their vampires don't get to vote AND get burned most of the time.

Legendary Vampire

Master

[2 Pool]


Unique master.
Put this card on a vampire with a capacity above 6 who was moved into your ready region during your last influence phase. This vampire gets +2 bleed and an additional 2 votes. Any vampire may call a referendum to burn this card as a +1 stealth political action.

This one has high opportunity cost, but you seem to be aware, what difference 2 votes can make. In addition to that, you get a plan B to bleed for 3 just as it is (combines well with high amount of untapping you use).