What makes a clan strong?

echiang wrote:

It would be important to know whether:

A. People are building star vampire decks, because playing that star vampire with that clan just wouldn't work out

OR

B. People are building star vampire decks because it is the strongest option. They could play the star vampire with other members of the clan and it would do well, but they're just optimizing their deck choice.

So in one case, there is minimal synergy between that star vampire and their clan. In the other case, they could work together quite well, it's just that it's a "second best" deck choice. For example, someone just posted a winning deck in Serbia using 3 copies of Aksinya along with other !Gangrel.

Star vampires are star vampires. They are usually strong enough on their own merits. Aksinya is amazingly strong because she uses Master cards for free with a super powerful effect. She's a guaranteed 3rd turn vampire and most people feel comfortable packing 18+ Master cards while 18 Deflections is a bit extreme.

It's almost moot whether A or B is more prevalent. Star vampires get played and people will choose either A or B as they will.

I agree that overall the Sabbat is weaker than the Camarilla. But I'm continually confounded by people who don't appreciate the many strong Sabbat cards out there:

[Strong cards]

Abbot
Black Forest Base
Dia de los Muertos
The Hungry Coyote
Powerbase: Madrid
Yawp Court

The only truly strong card out of this bunch is Abbot. It is not unique and provides a permanent aspect to Restraint. Hunting is not strong as a strategy. DdlM and PB:M help push votes and are good for that reason. BFB just provides a political option, not actually helping votes pass. YC helps counter votes, but only if you have the combat to back it up, and combat sucks.


[Useful cards]
Sorry, but all these cards are barely useful. Cardinal Benediction and Powerbase: Barranquilla are the best and the rest are far behind.

[Black Hand cards]
Black Hand cards are surprisingly good. Not sure how that happened, but it's a good thing.

I think the surge in popularity for the !Ventrue and the !Tremere has been largely influenced by the new Group 4 crypt options that came out with Third Edition. For the !Tremere there was a notable turning point starting in 2007 (Third Edition being released near the end of 2006). For the !Ventrue it took a year longer (big jump starting in 2008).

I think you are right with respect to the Tremere antitribu. I think the Ventrue antitribu gained popularity as a backlash to weenie Auspex plus Target Vitals. The Ventrue antitribu's traditional weakness is Delivery. Their weakness is not a problem in a metagame with heavy intercept so they can focus on surviving combat and turning the tables on small cap vampires. Their own Sticks and Target Vitals plus easy prevent 1 made them much more card efficient. Plus, Owain is a beast. It just took a while for the metagame to adapt in this case.

I think too much emphasis is placed on synergy at the expense of the core of what each discipline does, and how important those things are in the game. If you can't oust, you can't win. It's that simple.

echiang wrote:

Lech wrote:

Nagaraja are good clan, but they are scarce hence they don't play well as a clan. Lack of good clan-related cards don't help them, too. But there are good nagaraja in TWDA, there is Anu, Asguresh, Veejay Vinod, Le Dinh Tho, Prejudice, Sennadurek and even Raful al-Zarqa and Kanimana Belghazi. Show me any other clan that have 80% of it's crypt choices in twda.

I believe every Salubri except Obaluaye is in the TWDA. Also, Abomination has 75% (everyone but Pariah). Scarce clans are odd because they have so few vampires - that makes the sample size unrepresentative.

Yeah, but still they are playable.

echiang wrote:

I play decks, and winning with them is not that hard.

Are they actually "Nagaraja decks"? Or are they decks that happen to have some Nagaraja? Or decks that mainly use Nagaraja vampires as support? Or super-star decks? (I'm just curious).

All of those. Superstar Asurgesh, based around and sennadurek, with bouncer, and i'll soon do that 7 cap with with toys increasing bleeds around the table.

Jeff wrote:

Lech wrote:

Sure, sucks balls and is the worst discipline...

That used to be the case. Quietus is not the worst any more since the additions of Black Sunrise, Loss and Blood Awakening, and to a lesser degree Selective Silence and Deed the Heart's Desire.

I'd give the worst discipline honor to Thanatosis. Of the non-Bloodlines disciplines, I'd say Abombwe is the worst.

Really ? They have ally that is quite cheap and can bleed for two, in combat they have groaning corpses and maneuver with dodge, this alone make it better than , not to mention hag's something that untap you after equipping and grant +1 stealth on it, giving it not bad bleed output.

You have completely forgotten some very strong stealth disclpines from your list... Spiritus should be in tier 1, it has Squirrel Balance, Mole's Tunneling, Swiftness of the Stag, Chameleon's Colors, and permanent New Moon Sigil for delivery, also Visceratika should be tier two with Skin of the Chameleon and Flow Within the Mountain. Sanguinus also should be at least mentioned as it has one of the strongest stealth cards there are, Shell Game.

Updated with klaital's Delivery suggestions: Spiritus T1, Visceratika T2, Sanguinus T3.

BLEED (Tactic #1):
Tier 1: Dementation, Dominate, Presence
Tier 2: Abombwe, Chimerstry, Daimoinon, Serpentis, Vicissitude
Tier 3: Animalism, Auspex, Obfuscate, Quietus

POLITICS (Tactic #2):
Tier 1: Melpominee, Presence
Tier 2: Auspex, Daimoinon, Obfuscate
Tier 3: Chimerstry, Dementation, Dominate, Protean

DELIVERY (Tactic #3):
Tier 1: Chimerstry, Dementation, Mytherceria, Obeah, Obfuscate, Obtenebration, Protean, Spiritus
Tier 2: Daimoinon, Fortitude, Melpominee, Necromancy, Quietus, Vicissitude, Visceratika
Tier 3: Abombwe, Celerity, Dominate, Sanguinus, Serpentis, Thanatosis

RESTRAINT (Tactic #4):
Tier 1: Auspex, Spiritus
Tier 2: Abombwe, Animalism
Tier 3: Chimerstry, Necromancy, Obtenebration, Protean, Quietus, Visceratika

MULTI-ACT/REACT (Tactic #5):
Tier 1: Fortitude, Temporis
Tier 2: Animalism, Auspex, Protean, Serpentis
Tier 3: Abombwe, Celerity, Presence, Quietus, Sanguinus

COMBAT (Tactic #6):
Tier 1: Animalism, Celerity, Daimonion, Fortitude, Necromancy, Obeah, Potence, Presence, Protean, Thaumaturgy, Vicissitude
Tier 2: Abombwe, Chimerstry, Obfuscate, Obtenebration, Quietus, Sanguinus, Thanatosis, Valeren, Visceratika
Tier 3: Auspex, Dementation, Dominate, Melpominee, Mytherceria, Serpentis, Spiritus

As a question, how Auspex enable multi acting apart from Eye of Argus ?

Lech wrote:

Really ? They have ally that is quite cheap and can bleed for two, in combat they have groaning corpses and maneuver with dodge, this alone make it better than , not to mention hag's something that untap you after equipping and grant +1 stealth on it, giving it not bad bleed output.

Reanimated Corpses are actually one of the better allies, but in general allies are weak. Combat is...well...combat. Hag's Wrinkles is decent, but only for tooling up.

None of those cards directly helps you win. They only help indirectly, and that's why Thanatosis is worst IMO.