Ariadne Combat

Deck Name: Ariadne Combat
Author: Dragar
Description:
Toolboxy combat deck using the excellent Group 5 gangrels capitalising on Ariadne\'s specials.

Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=6 max=9 avg=7.17)
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1x Aksinya Daclau 9 cel tha ANI FOR PRE PRO !Gangrel:4
4x Ariadne 8 chi ANI FOR PRO Gangrel:5
1x Janey Pickman 6 for ANI PRO !Gangrel:4
1x Lisé 6 pot pro ANI FOR Gangrel:5
2x Ryder 7 ani pot FOR PRO Gangrel:4
2x Shiloh Marie, Vengeance 6 ANI FOR PRO Gangrel:5
1x Talbot 7 for ANI NEC PRO Gangrel:5

Library (90 cards)
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Master (19)
1x Backways
2x Blood Doll
1x Depravity
1x Ecoterrorists
1x Fame
1x Haven Uncovered
1x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1x Leadership Vacuum
4x Minion Tap
2x Rötschreck
1x Tension in the Ranks
2x Vessel
1x Wider View

Event (2)
1x Dragonbound
1x NSA Trio

Action (13)
4x Abactor
8x Deep Song
1x Ritual Challenge

Equipment (2)
1x Aaron's Feeding Razor
1x Unlicensed Taxicab

Retainer (3)
1x Dog Pack
1x Homunculus
1x Raven Spy

Action Modifier (6)
6x Freak Drive

Reaction (8)
1x Cats' Guidance
2x Rat's Warning
5x Sense the Savage Way

Combat (36)
2x Aid from Bats
1x Amaranth
3x Bone Spur
4x Carrion Crows
1x Claws of the Dead
2x Conquer the Beast
3x Drawing Out the Beast
3x Flesh of Marble
2x Form of Mist
2x Indomitability
4x Rolling with the Punches
3x Scorpion Sting
2x Superior Mettle
2x Terror Frenzy
2x Wolf Claws

Combo (1)
1x Ritual of the Bitter Rose

Created with Secret Library v0.9.4a. (Dec 6, 2012 07:30:53)


How do you intend to oust?
Slowly.. deep song bleeds, dragonboound/fame/TITR.

How do you intend to keep from being ousted?
Ariadne bloat. Rush as required.

What do you want your ready region to look like (ie, how many guys are you planning on getting out)?
Ariadne + 1 or 2 other. Ryder preferred

What do you want your average turn to look like?
Ariadne hunt. 1-2 vamps act, bleed or rush.

What's your metagame like? How do your opponents play?
Varied, lots of intercept, occasional brutal combat.

What problems have you observed with the deck in play?
Played it twice - first game had Ahrimane predator intercepting all my hunts. Held my own and hurt his vamps, but stalled and my prey ran away with it. Second game drew no Ariadne, had a predator intercepting with lots of combat ends.

Critiques and opinions welcomed!

Ive been meaning to build a new Ariadne deck soon. Yours seems pretty well rounded. But no lokis gift or tier of souls? Both seem good for toolboxy decks. Especially since your allstar gains an extra blood from lokis gift.

I had 2 loki's gift in my initial build, seemed useful and thematic. But... when culling they just didn't seem strong enough. I've got a lot of actions in the deck without a lot of minions, and it's hard to see a Loki or Tier being more generally more useful than a Deep Song or Abactor.

If I find those actions are sitting in my hand a lot, I'll look at subbing a couple. Maybe it's because I haven't seen Tier used much or Loki's at all that I am underestimating them.

Lokis is strong because it sits and people forget about is until you fail a vote by burning a few or have that one extra stealth on an abactor hunt. Tier is, admittedly, better for cock robin than many others. But deepsong bleeds of 3 are normally worth blocking. But my old decks around her focused on bloating and eating vamps. I was way more amaranth heavy, and ran roughly 6-8 agg poke cards. It was less than efficient compared to maybe 2 claws, one bone spur, and 1 wolf claws. I wanted blocked, so tier of souls made that happen. You arent doing that. Combat and blocking seem to be part of your key to victory, but im not sure on the package. But i said that about Torvus lists running grapple combat with body flares and earth melds, and those lists are twd lists, so apparently mix works if your a patient gangrel wall.

2 of shiloh seems odd to me. Shes ok, but not late game.

I guess what im getting at is these kinds of decks are kind of non-linear to look at and unlike methodical and balanced decks of similar tempo, like stickmen, its not about pacing and planning as much as drawing and dealingwith the table. So let me know how this does. I have a tournament friday, and due to lack of testing i think its akunanse for this one, but after that i think the deepsongs can go into an ariadne deck again. I think ariadne and abactor is solid, non card intensive bloat advantage the gangrel need, so id like to see decks like this winning.

It seems to lack enough bite. I played it twice in a session last week, got 1 VP total, and that was mainly from deflecting a couple of big bleeds with Askinya. The bloat mechanism works well enough once it’s going – first game I had no Ariadne in starting crypt, second game waited quite a while for masters. However, I didn’t really have enough oomph to go forwards. My first game I had tremere anti as prey, a couple of Nephandus out early and I really didn’t have the capacity to do much damage. Second game was Tremere, I could torpor the odd vamp but chantry pulled them straight out.

Any suggestions?

Ariadne can just diablarise the vamps in torpor?