Menele's Magical Fists

First, if you consider the meta combat-heavy with 4 combat decks in 26, you should reevaluate that.

This deck is atrocious. You won't kill any good decks with this, only the simply combat ends using types, maybe, but the damage output is still damn low. If you face another combat deck, any kind, or a block deck, you'll fail with this deck 10 out of 10 times. Why?
1. only 1 maneouver from the rush. that's basically nothing. an aid fromm bats, some built-in ability, any gun, or any basic intecept card will give the opposing minion the solution to your combat (not to mention others).
2. No prevent. some aggro-poke, and you're dead sir.
3. No stealth basically, just the inherent ones, and your combat is not threatening to most block decks to let you pass them.
4. No ousting power. Only Menele has +1 bleed, no modifiers to enhance it, and you definitely cannot defend jack, even against one player.
By the way, the Montreal and the rack will do a good service to the other players, because you cannot defend those either.

Sorry to say, but this deck, as it is now, is very bad. The others gave you some advice, but you should make wholesale changes, because this one is not up to the standards. Maybe, just put it on the shelf 'till you find it out how to make it work.
If you stick with it, use some slams and rego motus at least, or use celerity as well, and theft of vitae. this way, menele can hit for 3 with slam (or 2 with earthshock), blur and 2 thefts. For 2 blood, you hit 7 damage, 4 which cannot be prevented, and you get it as well (you can merge menele to have theft all the time). Ethan locke, salinger, jack drake, parnassus, terrell harding, yitzak and ian forestal are the big ones to select from; mosfair, kalinda, father juan carlos are the small ones. You can use dominate with this crypt also, conditionings maybe. You can maybe drop the potence angle as well.

Hope you didn't got hurt by the things I wrote at the beginning, but the deck will be just a very depressing experience and a waste of playing time for you, that's why I tried to help at least some.

Less harshly, Biothaumaturgic experiment would be great in this deck, and they are not that expensive to get.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I've been tempted to put in more permanent +strength but I know I don't own the cards to facilitate that and I don't feel like sacrificing any firstborn-children to the God of EBay.

While not permanent Tremere just LOVE Serenading the Kami.

Also Thaumaturgy decks really like Spirit Summoning Chamber if you have !Tre present.

Punching for 2 with 2 cards is a terrible combat plan. Focus the combat and crypt around either POT, THA or CEL/Stick and drop the other angles completely.

Menele can't bounce with Misdirections. Replace with Deflections.

If you must have something to burn allies with, maybe leave 1x Blood of the Sandman (although Entrancement would be preferable) but definitely cut the rest. They are doing absolutely nothing in this deck.

I'm not going to be harsh about blood of sandal, but 1 is enough. menele can use pre and steal allies via entrancement. dom pot tha is strong here. rack and palatial with menele for pool gain, 2 rutors max, some govern, like 3, and deflections for defence.
combat would be helped with any perms-strength: heroic, preternatural if your rich, depravity or biotham if your not. you need damage prevention, rego x3-4 is great even in metas with dedicated combat. @ least 8 grapple, 2-3 slam, afew signpost , resist earth grasp, and the awesome tha punches as well.
maybe disarming and graverobbing is something your into, but I have better luck with that with fortitude.

look at similar decks and get averages for combat, reactions, etc.

it can be solid, it just needs streamlined.

I'd switch from rush tag team to reactive combat. That way you don't have a pressing need for IG. Go lob something really dangerous towards your prey, like a bleed action. I'd go with pot/POT THA aus myself -- with dom as Deflection, of course. But pot/POT THA dom/DOM already has a whole clan for crypt support for over half its mix.

Because I'm insane and I see all that I'd use Fast Reaction, just 'cuz.

If you're going to bother with POT THA fist combat and Tastes, might as well throw in Street Cred for completion. React combat gives more bang for the buck around Street Cred's "once a turn" clause limit, too.

I'm still enjoying POT press combat with Stunt Cycles to the face against long rangers; think of that what you may. Either way you need to tighten up your combat direction, and I just don't see traditional active rush module being as fruitful for this.

What combo must you absolutely see from this deck? What is the inspirational card play that gave rise to this in the first place? If we can isolate that direction we can isolate how best to achieve your goal. Perhaps active pot THA AUS rush combat is your goal and we're all getting in your way...