Black Magic Woman - Tremere Black Hand Tap-Bleed

I played this deck in a qualifier tournament last weekend. I did awful! Here are a few thoughts:

• Sudden Reversal was worth at least 1 VP.
• Telepathic Counter is better off as more bounce, probably Deflection. This deck is pretty easy to clock and I simply needed all the extra pressure.
• I had a couple of stalemate situations in which Blood Doll or Tribute to the Master would have given me an edge. Govern the Unaligned at superior wasn't enough.

Hi,

I made a similar deck inspired partly by this deck and comments in this thread. It's sufficiently different that I put it in it's own thread , but sufficiently similar that I thought I'd mention it here.

It is a bit on the large side but (surprisingly?) I didn't experience any major card flow issues with it. Possibly just lucky.

New version based on my experience at the Las Vegas Qualifier. No, it's not that different. What would you include for potential pool gain, if anything?

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 6 average: 4.5

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2x Selena 6 AUS DOM THA !Tremere:3
2x Yasmin the Black 6 AUS THA dom pre !Tremere:3
1x Esoara 5 DOM aus for pot !Tremere:4
1x Frondator 5 AUS dom tha bishop !Tremere:4
1x Janine 4 aus dom tha !Tremere:4
1x Mosfair 4 cel dom tha !Tremere:4
1x Ehrich Weiss 3 dom tha Tremere:3
1x Ember Wright 3 aus dom !Tremere:3
1x Keith Moody 3 DOM !Tremere:4
1x Saiz 3 aus dom !Tremere:3

Library [60 cards]

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Action [16]
10x Govern the Unaligned
3x Recure of the Homeland
3x Rutor's Hand

Action Modifier [13]
4x Change of Target
5x Conditioning
4x Mirror Walk

Combat [6]
2x Burst of Sunlight
2x Theft of Vitae
2x Wind Dance

Equipment [1]
1x Gran Madre di Dio, Italy

Master [12]
2x Anarch Troublemaker
1x Coven, The
3x Effective Management
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
2x Remover
2x Sudden Reversal
1x University Hunting Ground

Reaction [12]
2x Deflection
2x Delaying Tactics
3x My Enemy's Enemy
2x On the Qui Vive
3x Telepathic Misdirection

FYI, I do not own Eyes of Argus. I used My Enemy's Enemy for intercept a couple of times. Would it be better off as Deflection and/or Telepathic Misdirection for forward pressure? I don't think so, but I'd love to entertain further discussion.

Ankha wrote:

No use for Blood of Sandman here? Replacing the Change of Target for instance.

Blood of Sandman is just plain awesome. It is annoying like hell for prey and predator.
I wouldn't replace the Change of Targets when using Blood of Sandman, as they help tapping vampires in the first place.

I don't own any Blood of Sandman. But if I did, I would consider replacing one recure or rutor's hand with it. On the other hand, that is a lot of blood to spend on something that isn't Conditioning...

Dorrinal wrote:

I don't own any Blood of Sandman. But if I did, I would consider replacing one recure or rutor's hand with it. On the other hand, that is a lot of blood to spend on something that isn't Conditioning...

A lot of blood is dependent on the viewpoint.
For 2 blood you can either burn an ally at stealth, or kill the defence-capability of a vampire that get's tapped permanently at 6! stealth. No blocks there.
Vampires with Blood of Sandman do behave strangly. They are unwilling to tap for bleeds, and they are reluctant to block unsuspicious actions which they could block easily...

I'm a huge fan of Blood of Sandman. It's totally worth the action and the 2 blood in the long run.

You could always start doing some protective shennanigans...
Seeds of Corruption on a key big bleeder from your predator might be nice. Or maybe Slaughtering the Herd at Superior.

Take out the Coven. It will nearly always save someone who you don't want to save, when you don't want them to be saved... Replace it with at least 1 Tribute to the Master. You should be using Tribute. 1 MPA = 2+ pool without crippling your minions. I'd even take out the HG and put in another Tribute.

Your combat is kind of all over the place and unreliable. I'd be saying if you can, all Thefts or all Wind Dances or at least replace the Bursts with Thefts or Dances. You're probably not going to be nuking vampires everywhere, so I think the whole "Burst + Recure" tech is too improbable to be reliable.

Your weenies with should be utilising Redirections and ignore Auspex flick. You have dominate flick, so use it.

Possibly as another "surprise" move, put in a copy or two of Misdirection. It is GREAT for a lunge turn because the first thing you do is almost unblockably tap a key blocker of your prey. The number of times I would have been shafted by people using it against me is higher than I would ever admit during the game...

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Seeds of Corruption on a key big bleeder from your predator might be nice.

but illegal by card text....

"Put this card on one of your prey's vampires."

Seeds of Corruption


2
+1 stealth action.
Put this card on one of your prey's vampires. If the vampire is a Follower of Set, he or she burns 2 additional blood when attempting an action; otherwise, he or she burns 1 additional blood when attempting an action. The vampire's special abilities cannot be used. Any vampire(s) may burn this card with two +1 stealth actions.
As above, but the vampire burns 2 additional blood when attempting an action; Followers of Set burn 3 additional blood.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Take out the Coven. It will nearly always save someone who you don't want to save, when you don't want them to be saved... Replace it with at least 1 Tribute to the Master. You should be using Tribute. 1 MPA = 2+ pool without crippling your minions. I'd even take out the HG and put in another Tribute.

Your combat is kind of all over the place and unreliable. I'd be saying if you can, all Thefts or all Wind Dances or at least replace the Bursts with Thefts or Dances. You're probably not going to be nuking vampires everywhere, so I think the whole "Burst + Recure" tech is too improbable to be reliable.

Your weenies with should be utilising Redirections and ignore Auspex flick. You have dominate flick, so use it.

Possibly as another "surprise" move, put in a copy or two of Misdirection. It is GREAT for a lunge turn because the first thing you do is almost unblockably tap a key blocker of your prey. The number of times I would have been shafted by people using it against me is higher than I would ever admit during the game...

The Coven is a great way to slow combat decks and pay for Rutor's Hand and all the expensive bleed cards. If you read up to the first page you'll find it was my favorite suggestion.

Combat is fine. The idea is to play anything besides hands-for-1 a few times. Burst is a good choice because of Recure; Theft is always a good choice. I could see dropping most/all of the combat, but for what? There are plenty of bleed modifiers already and more masters would hurt card flow.

Redirection can only be used when being bled by a younger vampire. It is worthless in this deck. Furthermore, the bounce was deliberately chosen because of its intercept; if this deck has the audacity to do a bunch of 1-stealth actions like Rutor's Hand and Govern the Unaligned, you bet there will be similar actions to block.

Making room for Misdirection is a tough call, and I've considered it several times. I could increase the deck size and go up to 14+ masters accordingly. Dropping an Anarch Troublemaker and maybe the Pentex for Misdirection looks like a wash.