Best combat combo

Well, if we really want gigantic card combos, how about Immortal Grapple + Death of my COnscience + Burning Wrath ? For when you absolutely need something deader than dead.

IMHO the most effective combat combo is:

Thoughts Betrayed + Shadow Step + Arms of the abyss + Entombment (+ Amaranth or Decapitate to finish the job)

Add a Disengage in case of IG

Obviously, it has weak points, but works based on Entombment + "burn card", the rest are just to improve its effectiveness

Ankha wrote:

KoKo wrote:

Catatonic Fear + TV

I thought it was great, but the more I played it, the more it appeared weak:
- it's ineffective against a long-range deck: gun, animalism

Well, it doesn't "kill" those decks, but the S:CE still actually prevents you from being killed by them.

I'd rather lose 1 blood from Catatonic Fear than the 2+ from a gun deck or the 3 per round from animalism. At least against Animalism, you get a slight card advantage (letting them waste their Crows + Bats, while you lose Catatonic Fear and 1 blood).

- it's ineffective against any deck that can dodge

Hopefully in this case, you end up blocking them so you only use the cards if they dodge. Most likely, dodgy decks are more defensive and are going to just be hitting for hands for 1 anyway, so you don't really need the Catatonic Fears, and can probably just hands + Target Vitals most of the time anyway. You lose a Target Vitals, they lose a dodge, you are even on blood.



The key is the Target Vitals gives you very efficient (if limited) offense. Catatonic Fear gives you strong defense as S:CE. But the two have surprising synergy in hosing S:CE and prevention. Even if you aren't facing S:CE and prevention, you still have the inherent offense of Target Vitals and defense of Catatonic Fear to fall back on, giving you more flexibility than a lot of the other combat combos.

echiang wrote:

Ankha wrote:

KoKo wrote:

Catatonic Fear + TV

I thought it was great, but the more I played it, the more it appeared weak:
- it's ineffective against a long-range deck: gun, animalism

Well, it doesn't "kill" those decks, but the S:CE still actually prevents you from being killed by them.

I'd rather lose 1 blood from Catatonic Fear than the 2+ from a gun deck or the 3 per round from animalism. At least against Animalism, you get a slight card advantage (letting them waste their Crows + Bats, while you lose Catatonic Fear and 1 blood).

- it's ineffective against any deck that can dodge

Hopefully in this case, you end up blocking them so you only use the cards if they dodge. Most likely, dodgy decks are more defensive and are going to just be hitting for hands for 1 anyway, so you don't really need the Catatonic Fears, and can probably just hands + Target Vitals most of the time anyway. You lose a Target Vitals, they lose a dodge, you are even on blood.



The key is the Target Vitals gives you very efficient (if limited) offense. Catatonic Fear gives you strong defense as S:CE. But the two have surprising synergy in hosing S:CE and prevention. Even if you aren't facing S:CE and prevention, you still have the inherent offense of Target Vitals and defense of Catatonic Fear to fall back on, giving you more flexibility than a lot of the other combat combos.

This.

Many of the combos here revolve around several moving parts, many of which are ineffective on their own.

This is not the case with Catatonic Fear + TV. Echiang pretty much summed it up, but the argument that it isn't effective against animalism/guns is moot. It's still a S:CE and last time I checked, that trumps everything except for IG. While not as powerful as say aids/crows in terms of stripping blood off opposing vampires, it can and DOES send folks to torpor mid-to-late game while keeping your vampires nice and safe.

Immortal Grapple does prove to be a problem though but at least you're at least hitting them back for 3. Otherwise, add a couple of maneuvers and/or prevent, and suddenly you become surprisingly resilient to most opposing combat strategies.

The Toreador and Ishtarri say hello.