Unnamed Barrenness by Lev Jasper

@Fred: I was playing bruise and bleed, but even I had to be careful against the Unnamed because of his 2r agg damage and the fact that unless I kept a guy untapped to be the last successful bleeder before his turn, he'd gain an additional pool from the edge. My case might have been a bit better if my predator would have bounced/bled me more. Jeff's seating originally made me happy because he was playing the only deck without a bounce discipline vs my 10 wakes and 11 bounce cards. Maybe a 4th minion would have made the difference, but Leandro kinda fucked me there.

Brandon,

When you say you had to be "careful against his 2r agg damage", did you have Immortal Grapples or any kind of answer to agg damage strikes? I would say a Bruise and Bleed deck needs such things in good quantity or it's not going to discouarge people from blocking it.

Might be just a bad metagame matchup, too. I'm not saying it's a bad deck. I'm just saying the hype for it at the top sounds a little overstated - at least until I get a chance to see it in action myself.

Fred

fredsct wrote:

I'm just saying the hype for it at the top sounds a little overstated - at least until I get a chance to see it in action myself.
Fred

This is exactly why I wasn't surprised to see you chime in, Fred.

It really is a freakishly strong deck. I am fairly confident that I could have at least gotten one VP if I had superior Maleficia at any point during the game. Evil Eyes would have shut down Mike's Inner Circle power bleed (and his Matthias [anti-Baali!] Minion Tap [no Villeins in the final!] Renewed Vigor bloat. It would have been tough, but I think it would be possible. That's why one Archon Investigation needs to be in the deck.

Once Cog'd up, gaining 4 pool and (usually) inflicting 4 pool loss per turn around the table is very strong. Potence Rush might be difficult to deal with, but Hordes are chump blockers and Secure Haven shows up pretty regularly with 20 burn option cards. The biggest problem this deck will have is drawing too much table hate.

Jeff wrote:

Evil Eyes would have shut down Mike's Inner Circle power bleed (and his Matthias [anti-Baali!] Minion Tap [no Villeins in the final!] Renewed Vigor bloat.

With four Evil Eyes, even recursed, I don't think you could have shutdown the bloat completely. And I don't think you could have done that much against his bleeds. Cancel the Mind Rapes and the Hearts, I suppose but I'm guessing his deck still bleeds pretty strong without those. If I'd been him, I might have been tempted to just forego using them unless and until you'd been ousted.

Jeff wrote:

Once Cog'd up, gaining 4 pool and (usually) inflicting 4 pool loss per turn around the table is very strong.

Minor nit: your bleed attempts each cost you a pool - or at least a blood in the case of Homuculus untap. Strong - but quite as strong as your summary. Somebody packing Telepathic Counters could get a tad annoying.

fredsct wrote:

With four Evil Eyes, even recursed, I don't think you could have shutdown the bloat completely. And I don't think you could have done that much against his bleeds. Cancel the Mind Rapes and the Hearts, I suppose but I'm guessing his deck still bleeds pretty strong without those. If I'd been him, I might have been tempted to just forego using them unless and until you'd been ousted.

Well, I did shut it down in the first game of the tournament, by burning two Inner Circle members and Eurayle. I was fortunate in that game to have an Ahrimanes predator who couldn't bounce into me, though they worked together feverishly against me. If you forego using them, you don't cycle and end up less effective. Two Cogs gets set up pretty quickly with 20 burn options as well.

Minor nit: your bleed attempts each cost you a pool - or at least a blood in the case of Homuculus untap. Strong - but quite as strong as your summary. Somebody packing Telepathic Counters could get a tad annoying.

There are very few cards which cost a lot of blood in the deck. Evil Eye and some stealth/block fails. Since you never take blood off of the Unnamed (he just spends it all), it is pretty efficient. Eventually you'll get Perfectionist going. I also used Homunculus during my own untap phase three times (twice in one game) in order to get Jake Washington blood into the Unnamed.

I know I am posting very glowingly about this deck, but it has a solution for many problems, and the cycling aspect makes it much more likely to address those that arise.

fredsct wrote:

Brandon,

When you say you had to be "careful against his 2r agg damage", did you have Immortal Grapples or any kind of answer to agg damage strikes? I would say a Bruise and Bleed deck needs such things in good quantity or it's not going to discouarge people from blocking it.

Might be just a bad metagame matchup, too. I'm not saying it's a bad deck. I'm just saying the hype for it at the top sounds a little overstated - at least until I get a chance to see it in action myself.

Fred

I had 4-5 Rego Motuses in my deck, but that wasn't enough to deal with consistent ranged agg. Most of the combat is Apportation and Theft, which grinds down decks pretty quick, with a couple Walk of Flame for shock and awe/random burnings. It used to have 1x Blood to Water, but that's just a dead card most of the time.

Once a perfectionist gets on The Unnamed, you can pretty much forget about him running out of blood short of strange shennanigans (Horseshoes, Cryptic Mission, Vampiric Disease, etc). Until then, 10 blood is plenty. Jeff was getting through his deck faster than I could get my 2-3 suddens to stop him setting up. The deck proved pretty strong, IMO.