Ravnos Preconstructed Starter Doubled

Challenge:
Combine and reduce 2 Lords of the Night Ravnos starter decks into the best single deck available.

See also: www.thelasombra.com/dbc/dbc.htm
Please explain why/how you make your decisions....

ARDB starter file attached.




Deck Name : Ravnos Preconstructed Starter Doubled
Author : L. Scott Johnson
Description :

Crypt [24 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 10 average: 6.66667

4x	Lizette	(10)			Ravnos	(group 4)
4x	Durga Syn	(9)			Ravnos	(group 4)
4x	Kiradin	(8)			Ravnos	(group 4)
4x	Vassily Taltos	(6)			Ravnos	(group 4)
4x	Brian Thompson	(4)			Ravnos	(group 4)
4x	Neel Ramanathan	(3)			Ravnos	(group 4)

Library [154 cards]

Action [10]
4x Edged Illusion
4x Fatuus Mastery
2x Nightmare Curse

Action Modifier [22]
8x Fata Morgana
2x Forced March
2x Freak Drive
2x Heart's Desire
4x Leverage
4x Zapaderin

Action Modifier/Combat [12]
4x Mirror Image
8x Occlusion

Combat [44]
4x Amria
8x Apparition
4x Armor of Vitality
6x Carrion Crows
8x Indomitability
4x Mayaparisatya
4x Skin of Night
6x Soak

Combat/Reaction [2]
2x Fata Amria

Equipment [4]
2x Talith
2x Treasured Samadji

Master [24]
4x Chimerstry
2x Fortune Teller Shop
2x Park Hunting Ground
4x Path of Paradox, The
2x Ravnos Carnival
4x Svadharma
4x Vessel
2x Week of Nightmares

Reaction [28]
2x Army of Apparitions
4x Fillip
4x Forced Vigilance
8x Ignis Fatuus
6x Instinctive Reaction
4x Pseudo-Blindness

Retainer [8]
2x Owl Companion
6x Raven Spy

Challenge:
Combine and reduce 2 Lords of the Night Giovanni starter decks into the best single deck available.

Step 1 ) Fix the Crypt.
Remove duplicates of vampires that take 2 turns to influence into play and don't have all 3 clan disciplines at superior (ANI CHI FOR). Then ensure that remaining vampires have the best disciplines possible. Ideally supplement from Lords of the Night, Kindred Most Wanted, and Gehenna vampires as soon as possible.

Step 2 ) Examine the Happy Families recommedations based on the vampires remaining:

Happy Families !
Suggested card amounts :
18x Master
22x Fortitude
20x Chimerstry
16x Animalism
14x disciplineless

"Happy Families" formula courtesy of James McClellan (aka Legbiter)
legbiter.tripod.com/hf/theory.htm

Step 3 ) Cut masters down to 18 by:
Removing 2 copies of Chimerstry, as you will plan to have superior Chimerstry in play whenever possible.
Removing 2 copies of Svadharma, while two blood is good, not jamming on master cards is better.
Removing 1 copy of each unique location, Fortune Teller Shop & Park Hunting Ground.

Step 4 ) Decide on Retainers.
Remove 1 Owl Companion and 2 Raven Spies. With 4 Raven Spies left in the deck, you should draw one early enough for it to make some difference. If playing against the Followers of Set and Assamite dual-starters, consider adding the other 2 Raven Spies back in to ensure that you get 2 in play early enough to help you survive.

Step 5 ) Decide on Reactions.
When playing against the other starters from Lords of the Night, votes are not a significant concern. With that in mind, we will drop both copies of Army of Apparitions. If playing against other decks with more political actions, consider returning them. Pseudo-Blindness is too narrowly focused against general opponents, but great against Assamites and Followers of Set that are bleeding at stealth. We will keep all 4 for now. Ignis Fatuus is only mediocre, so we will only keep 2 and 2 copies of Instinctive Reaction to supplement the permanent intercept we plan to have in play via the Raven Spies. We will keep all of the untap, as our minions are too large to act and defend our pool without the untaps.

Step 6 ) Decide on Equipment.
Treasured Samadji is great, we'll keep both copies to help ensure that we will see it earlier in the game when it can have the greatest effect. The action take to acquire Talith would be better as anything else, so we will skip both copies.

Step 7 ) Decide on Actions.
Nightmare Curse is very expensive for the Chimerstry effect, but combined with the Path of Paradox, it is manageable. This can help us lunge against a prey that thought to keep a vampire untapped to bounce bleeds, so we'll keep both copies. We won't expect to play it at the aus/chi or AUS/CHI levels at all. Fatuus Mastery is a poor substitute for a Path of Paradox, and the Path benefits all of our vampires that are in play, so we will drop all four copies. Edged Illusion is great for both offense and defense when your opponents are low on blood, so we will keep all four copies.

Step 8 ) Decide on Action Modifiers.
Heart's Desire is too specific to too small a segment of our crypt, so it will be dropped. Vassily Taltos and Lizette make up 5 of 12 in our crypt, so the Forced March's will be kept. If the crypt changed much by the introduction of vampires from the boosters, they would likely both be dropped. Leverage requires 2 successful bleeds on the same turn (more often than not), so we'll remove it from this deck for simplicities sake. Zapaderin takes blood from what is likely to be our oldest vampire in play, and it will be best explored in another deck. Fata Morgana enables other actions as well as increases our bleeds, so we will keep 6, 4 Mirror Image, and 4 Occlusion.

Step 9 ) Decide on Combat.
We already have 4 strike dodge and 4 strike combat ends from our action modifiers, so we can trim our combat section significantly. We have 44 cards and only 23 slots available. The Carrion Crows / Apparition combo is great, so we'll keep all copies of both. Amria's maneuver/dodge slot is better spent on damage or prevention, so we'll skip all but 2 to explore how it effects our opponents in practice. Mayaparisatya is too expensive and too situational, so we'll remove them as well. Fata Amria has a wall of text that is also too situational, so both copies are removed. It will be very infrequent that we need Armor of Vitality to destroy a melee weapon, so the prevention from Apparation will be a better choie. Remove all but 1. Skin of Night and Soak are both good, but overshadowed by ability of Apparition to be cycled before strikes, so we'll drop down to 2 of each. We'll have very little superior fortitude, so the press from Indomitability will be hard to use. We'll drop that down to 4 copies.

Step 10 ) Play the deck.
While playing the deck, put the Vessels on the youngest/first vampires you bring into play, and hunt whenever appropriate to keep up your blood for the final lunge. Hold onto the Week of Nightmares until you think you can get 3-4 bleeds off in the first turn that you have it, as you may only get to use it for two fo your turns if you play it too early. You really need it as a finishing card to get your first victory point, so don't worry too much about jumping out to an early VP lead, you need to have it around to effect 1-2 success preys, and waiting until the 8-9-10th turn is likely to be better for you than having it early.

Step 11 ) Venture beyond the starters.
As mentioned in the crypt section, LSJ handicapped the starters in this set (and in the Keepers of Tradition set) by making the vampires too large. Look for smaller minions that can help you out, particularly Paul Forrest, False Prophet from Kindred Mosst Wanted. Look for copies of Draba to replace Ignis Fatuus. Look for other untap cards like Sense the Savage Way and On the Qui Vive to improve the reaction section.


Deck Name : Ravnos Preconstructed Starter Doubled & Trimmed
Author : Adonai
Description : A Deck that takes up the challenge.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 10 average: 6.75

3x	Lizette	(10)			Ravnos	(g4)
2x	Kiradin	(8)			Ravnos	(g4)
2x	Vassily Taltos	(6)			Ravnos	(g4)
2x	Brian Thompson	(4)			Ravnos	(g4)
2x	Neel Ramanathan	(3)			Ravnos	(g4)
1x	Durga Syn	(9)			Ravnos	(g4)

Library [90 cards]

Action [6]
4x Edged Illusion
2x Nightmare Curse

Action Modifier [10]
6x Fata Morgana
2x Forced March
2x Freak Drive

Action Modifier/Combat [8]
4x Mirror Image
4x Occlusion

Combat [25]
2x Amria
8x Apparition
1x Armor of Vitality
6x Carrion Crows
4x Indomitability
2x Skin of Night
2x Soak

Equipment [2]
2x Treasured Samadji

Master [18]
2x Chimerstry
1x Fortune Teller Shop
1x Park Hunting Ground
4x Path of Paradox, The
2x Ravnos Carnival
2x Svadharma
4x Vessel
2x Week of Nightmares

Reaction [16]
4x Fillip
4x Forced Vigilance
2x Ignis Fatuus
2x Instinctive Reaction
4x Pseudo-Blindness

Retainer [5]
1x Owl Companion
4x Raven Spy

Thanx for all your help adonai! Looks like someone in my area found my post and hopefully we will get something going in south florida!!