Tournament deck choice

A big tournament (Ropecon) this weekend. I don't have a good sense of the current tournament meta other than the great amount of bloat. So I have some decks I could play, but I don't have a clue what will work in the current metagame. The decks are as follows :

-Old school Tzimisce Rötschreck wall, a deck I'm very familiar with and for which I have all the best cards. I don't know about this one, bleeds of one from even six minions doesn't sound like it can oust a master bloat deck, and I don't trust Smiling Jack that much. And how can I oust someone who just goes to full defense mode, well, with Smiling Jack... It's very difficult to oust the deck though, basically you have to use massive stealth vote or some multi-minion combat.

-Tzimisce Toolbox, it's basically the same as above but has something like 15 reactions less and has Fiendish Tongues, Changelings and possibly plasmic form/mind of the Wilds or more combat, or some Deep Song/Mind of Wilds craziness. Still a deck that can survive pretty well, and has some more ousting power but still not enough for the massive bloat decks and it's not really an anger-inducing asshole deck that ruins somebody's day unlike the wall deck.

-Dominate/Potence combat deck with Gustaphe Brunelle. This would be a deck with decent bleed defense, lot of options and solid enough ousting module. In my mind it sounds pretty good actually, also it's a fun deck to play.

-Brujah AT combat madness, a deck I posted some time ago. Has good enough ousting power and has worked suprisingly consistently in friendly games, however any aggressive predator can ruin it's day since it's defense is backrush and it doesn't have a reliable rush minion, but a 9-cap that can't even rush large guys. Compared to the Dom/Pot deck, this one is less reliable in all other ways but punching people.

-Lasombra vote with Amaranths, a deck that seems pretty silly next to all the parity shift cheese.

-Vicissitude weenie bleed / Gangrel AT weenie bleed : sort of toolboxy decks that I find work pretty well, what with the free LB/villein minions.

Stealth vote and stealth bleed are archetypes I'm completely bored with, so they're not options.

Demnogonis wrote:

And how can I oust someone who just goes to full defense mode, well, with Smiling Jack?

Most of the "master bloat decks" you're talking about are "pool recursion" decks, not true bloat in the sense of CREATING tons of pool (like a Breed-Boon deck might).

Smiling Jack cuts through the difference between "blood" and "pool" very effectively so it actually works very well against "pool recursion" decks. (e.g., anything that greatly relies on Villein).

The Liquidation/Ashur's module in "Girls Will..." seems to average about 4 pool per turn gain when running normally. Smiling Jack will cut through that easily enough.

On a broader front, a lot of this year's decks rely on largish minons. Rotschrek's effect can be pretty devastating against a carefully selected target. You'll want to pack a few Eagle's Sights though, a lot of the "master bloat decks" don't take that many undirected actions - you'll want to catch a key minion's (Cybele's) bleed at some point.

Demnogonis wrote:

Dominate/Potence combat deck with Gustaphe Brunelle. This would be a deck with decent bleed defense, lot of options and solid enough ousting module. In my mind it sounds pretty good actually, also it's a fun deck to play.

If it is fun to play, then you should play it, despite the wall deck being potentially more consistent.

Most of the "bloaty" deck archetypes you might be worried about don't really bleed that heavily across multiple minions so a moderate bounce package and "some combat" works pretty well these days.

I've been getting some serious mileage from my Disciplineless Brujah Deck on JOL and in RL games. I'd be happy to share its current incarnation but the key elements are:

Small-cap Brujah + Volker + Rake
Some titles (praxis siezures, justicar)
Some votes (all sorts of things would work: perpetual care, KRC, con boon, anathema, archon)
Target: Vitals or Quick Jab
2nd Trads
Veil of Darkness, Blood Weakens, The Slow Withering (all very helpful)
6+ Brujah Debates in a 75-card deck.
(Optional inclusions: Carlton, Ossian, New Carthage, Cathage Remembered, Media Locations, Tribute to the Master, Third Trads/Embrace, Narrow Minds)

In my opinion full out wall decks just don't get enough VPs to make it to the finals. Sure you wont be ousted much, but you can expect to see many timeouts, which not only means you wont get to the finals, but also, which is even worse, you wont have time to get anything to eat between the rounds since your game will always be the last to end. The toolbox, or the dom/pot would likely be the best choices from those, although well weenie bleed can always work too, largely depending on what you will be facing.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

Most of the "master bloat decks" you're talking about are "pool recursion" decks, not true bloat in the sense of CREATING tons of pool (like a Breed-Boon deck might).

Smiling Jack cuts through the difference between "blood" and "pool" very effectively so it actually works very well against "pool recursion" decks. (e.g., anything that greatly relies on Villein).

That's an interesting point. It's a shame I simply don't have much experience battling current popular decks with my Tzimisce, a vote deck I did seemed pretty robust with just sense the savage way, eyes of argus, enhanced senses and both bounce cards in a reasonable quantity, but that's just too different, what with 10x KRC...

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

If it is fun to play, then you should play it, despite the wall deck being potentially more consistent.

Most of the "bloaty" deck archetypes you might be worried about don't really bleed that heavily across multiple minions so a moderate bounce package and "some combat" works pretty well these days.

Yeah I suppose so. Time to spam the decks forum more. Dom Pot seems to deal with a lot of things I'm worried about.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I've been getting some serious mileage from my Disciplineless Brujah Deck on JOL and in RL games. I'd be happy to share its current incarnation but the key elements are:

Small-cap Brujah + Volker + Rake
Some titles (praxis siezures, justicar)
Some votes (all sorts of things would work: perpetual care, KRC, con boon, anathema, archon)
Target: Vitals or Quick Jab
2nd Trads
Veil of Darkness, Blood Weakens, The Slow Withering (all very helpful)
6+ Brujah Debates in a 75-card deck.
(Optional inclusions: Carlton, Ossian, New Carthage, Cathage Remembered, Media Locations, Tribute to the Master, Third Trads/Embrace, Narrow Minds)

Disciplineless Brujah? Madness! Well I don't have a whole lot of those cards, but I'd like to see how that works. Do you think you could do that with !Brujah, with Unexpected Coalition? WWS, T:V, a small number of Dogs of War...

Klaital wrote:

In my opinion full out wall decks just don't get enough VPs to make it to the finals. Sure you wont be ousted much, but you can expect to see many timeouts, which not only means you wont get to the finals, but also, which is even worse, you wont have time to get anything to eat between the rounds since your game will always be the last to end. The toolbox, or the dom/pot would likely be the best choices from those, although well weenie bleed can always work too, largely depending on what you will be facing.

Oh god, the timeout factor. Well I had thought the Rötschreck deck works in such a fashion that my predator and grand-predator should die pretty fast. Then again somebody could be just so impotent that even with free hands they can't oust their prey... And it's not like I can survive the tournament without a few visits to the bar, that's just completely out of the question.

Demnogonis wrote:

Disciplineless Brujah? Madness! Well I don't have a whole lot of those cards, but I'd like to see how that works. Do you think you could do that with !Brujah, with Unexpected Coalition? WWS, T:V, a small number of Dogs of War...

You can try, but it's a different deck: it's the Debate that makes this one work.