Weak Clans and How We Can Help Them

Inspired by the !Brujah card ideas, I'm interested in seeing what ideas others have for helping some of the weaker clans in the game. I understand that you can win a tournament with almost any deck, but if there is ever a new expansion I would like to see some clans get a boost that are generally considered weak and not tournament caliber.

Admittedly, I don't generally play competitively. Rather, I like to try a variety of deck types and clans, and would ideally like to see all clans have a fighting chance.

So what clans need help? What are they lacking? What could help them?

Nosferatu/!Nos - Okay, they have stealth, but not much to help bleed. Doing better with some Animalism tech, but maybe they could use a little something else? Clan specific votes? Clan cards to increase hand size or decrease predator and preys?

!Brujah - This is covered in the other thread, but I do feel like they're a fun clan that could use a little help.

Assamite - Do they need help? They seem to do alright, but are quite fragile. Better combat tech? Easier contracts?

Nagaraja - They're not supposed to stand on their own, but why not give them more clan abilities to make up for the scarce penalty? I enjoy the concept, but I don't seem them played often enough. Ghoul allies, perhaps?

Samedi - They're my hobby horse, so I'm interested in helping them out. Right now the best way to play them seems to be bloat with reanimated corpses. From what I understand of their back story in the RPG, they work as assassins primarily, so I feel like they're missing on combat tech. A good start would simply be giving them a path! They have decent combat cards, but are often too expensive to use effectively. Maybe more ways of mixing their wide spread of disciplines together?

!Gangrel - I've tried playing them, but never successfully. What would really help them at least keep up with their Gangrel brethren? Better combat? Does Protean need a boost as a discipline?

Harbingers of Skulls - Another clan I'm constantly tinkering with. I've had some luck with them, but other than walling up, how can you play them well? Is Necromancy just a weak discipline? Why is "Path of Bone" a Giovanni clan card and shut off to the other necromancers?

I'm interested in hearing ideas. Are there other clans that need help? What would you like to see in a new set for these clans?

[minor edits]

Yea, there are some clans that either weak or boring to play.

I would suggest the following for an upcoming set:

- Some cards to balance the sabbat and the camarilla. Parity Shift is a terrible overpowered card, and I don´t really know how to fix this. The new cards should strengthen concepts such as bruise/vote and bruise/bleed which really fit the sabbat.

- A card or two for the Osebo, the laibon in general or the aye/orun-concept.

- A slight improvment for the trophies. Either a rule change or some vampires with trophy-text. Libraycard are probably balanced, but a new card to make poeple red list wouldn´t hurt either.

- Fill out G5 and make a few more vamps anarchs out of the box (or with a card text that lets them switch to anarch) and open up the Black Hand to a few more sabbat clans.

- A few discipline cards.

ravnos could use some help as well, especially GR4.

Nosferatu have been weaker than the other original clans since 1994. really terrible for new players if they happen to choose that particular clan to start out.

@ orlok: reducing of other methuselah's handsize (coupled with a slight bleed bonus) could be neat IMO. or a reaction-card that sort of 'traps' an incoming bleeding vampire so that it cannot act the next turn (might for example require a nosferatu-only ready region). the nosferatu still lack anything resembling 'palla grande', week of nightmares, death seeker or even the mediocre leathery hide.
just a simple 7-cap-prince with the three basic disciplines at superior would be nice too (à la gilbert duane, sir walter or...). long overdue.

assamite-black hand-tech-deck is definitely playable. otherwise they have kind of the same problems as the nos/!nos, being that a deadly vampire doesn't ordinarily need a lot of stealth (if any), they have no multi-act ability, no bleeding skills, no bounce. this kind of weaknesses should indeed be addressed, somehow.

nagaraja: le dinh tho or anu hardly need any more power. i believe they were intended as a backup clan and serve that function very well as they are. even asguresh is very playable.

definitely agree with agzocgud's remarks.

ravnos need some help too. mainly with their crippled crypts. mata is the best ravnos by a long shot and nobody ever plays her as a ravnos... 5+cap-animalism vampires could use a boost overall (nosferatu, gangrel, ravnos).
laibon GR3 still lacks 2 or 3 minions, i feel.

porphyrion wrote:

ravnos could use some help as well, especially GR4.

Nosferatu have been weaker than the other original clans since 1994. really terrible for new players if they happen to choose that particular clan to start out.

@ orlok: reducing of other methuselah's handsize (coupled with a slight bleed bonus) could be neat IMO. or a reaction-card that sort of 'traps' an incoming bleeding vampire so that it cannot act the next turn (might for example require a nosferatu-only ready region). the nosferatu still lack anything resembling 'palla grande', week of nightmares, death seeker or even the mediocre leathery hide.
just a simple 7-cap-prince with the three basic disciplines at superior would be nice too (à la gilbert duane, sir walter or...). long overdue.

assamite-black hand-tech-deck is definitely playable. otherwise they have kind of the same problems as the nos/!nos, being that a deadly vampire doesn't ordinarily need a lot of stealth (if any), they have no multi-act ability, no bleeding skills, no bounce. this kind of weaknesses should indeed be addressed, somehow.

nagaraja: le dinh tho or anu hardly need any more power. i believe they were intended as a backup clan and serve that function very well as they are. even asguresh is very playable.

definitely agree with agzocgud's remarks.

ravnos need some help too. mainly with their crippled crypts. mata is the best ravnos by a long shot and nobody ever plays her as a ravnos... 5+cap-animalism vampires could use a boost overall (nosferatu, gangrel, ravnos).
laibon GR3 still lacks 2 or 3 minions, i feel.

Mata Hari is not the best ravnos... she is 7 cap who is missing one clan discpline totally and has only inferior in another. She might be an ok vampire but she is terrible ravnos. Gabrin is the best Ravnos by far. I don't think Ravnos need much help though, they are very strong clan, its just the group 4 crypt that is bit meh because their discplines are all over the place, but group 2 is very solid.

Nosferatu just got a huge boost in KoT with Warsaw Station, Alonso Petrodon and Gustaphe Brunelle. Two guys with superior dominate and a location that lets you untap for free after superior govern, shouldn't need to elaborate on why this rocks. I am pretty sure there have also been very succesful Nosferatu prince decks all the way from group 1-2 times that have made many twd entries also. Nosferatu Antitribu in turn have fairly solid crypts, group 2-3 for combat, and group 3-4 for voting, they also got some solid clan cards like nosferatu kingdom and information network, they also have non-unique ally that is very cheap and has 1 bleed so swarm strategy is possible as well.

Nagaraja I wouldn't mind to get some useful clan cards since currently they could pretty much be clanless for how little toys they have, solely carried by the strong specials of many of them.

As far as vampires goes, the only clan the lacks strong vampires imo is the Osebo. Massassi, Homa and Cesewayo are ok, but the rest of them aren´t really that hot. The other Magaji, Kisha and Mamadou are horrible. The guy with +str has inferior celerity and many lack superior disciplines and instead has crappy specials.

With every other non-scarce clan you can build an ok crypt using their clan-disciplines.

The non-scarce bloodline clans could use one more vampire in later groups.

agzocgud wrote:

As far as vampires goes, the only clan the lacks strong vampires imo is the Osebo. Massassi, Homa and Cesewayo are ok, but the rest of them aren´t really that hot. The other Magaji, Kisha and Mamadou are horrible. The guy with +str has inferior celerity and many lack superior disciplines and instead has crappy specials.

With every other non-scarce clan you can build an ok crypt using their clan-disciplines.

The non-scarce bloodline clans could use one more vampire in later groups.

You can build a decent crypt from Osebo as long as you focus mainly on AUS POT and leave celerity as back up discpline. Uzoma, Abiku, Homa, Khalu, Tatu give you fairly nice set of vampires for that. Works best as wallish long range combat deck, increased strengths, lids and gates with extra manuevers from celerity as back up, telepathic trackings for anti s:ce if you feel the need to. Use lots of Ancestor's Insights that doubles as offense and defense, smiling jack and army of rats as the main oust module.