!Gangrel Wall

I've been looking at !Gangrel as one of the big winners in the new set, Danse Macabre, and I want to make a deck featuring them. There are a few obvious choices in my mind.

1) Xendil Charmer star deck. He is titled, so he can play Under Siege, Eternal Vigilance, and other stuff. He has CEL PRO, so he can effectively play Instantaneous Transformation. He partners well with Alex Camille, an interesting new !Gangrel. Like all !Gangrel he can play Abbot and now Marked Territory. Protean has two good intercept cards, Eyes of the Beast and Sonar. There are less good intercept cards (Ears of the Hare, Pack Tactics, etc) that can be called on if needed, plus there are intercept locations. His Serpentis is interesting because there are a number of useful and/or funny things you can play, such as Enticement, Form of Corruption, Eyes of the Serpent, Lure of the Serpent, etc. There are lots of untaps in the deck I am envisioning, so Perfectionist and permanents are good.

2) Omaya and aus pro !Gangrel. I started thinking about this the other day and it has the benefit of bounce. What it lacks is a very coherant crypt and the capacities are higher. If you partner her with Tzimisce, then she can work better. Unfortunately, you would lose out on her protean and much of the new cards by using her.

3) Fat !Gangrel. It could be a wall, but the main thing you gain by playing fat !Gangrel is CEL PRO and titles. You could do a vote/wall type deck, but it would be fairly fragile. !Gangrel already get untaps from Freak Drive and stealth from a variety of plays, so Instantaneous Transformation is not of maximum benefit here. Still it is compelling to think of Hartmut Stover playing Public Villification, untapping, and then bleeding some poor dude out. Can still feature Xendil, which is a plus.

One thing to think about is that if people are using many of the new cards, there is likely going to be a lot of potence. Ian pointed out in his blog that Flesh of Marble is a good combat neutralizer. With that in mind I went with option one from above. Here's what I came up with:

Deck Name: !Gangrel Wall
Author: Brandon Haas
Description:


Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=2 max=7 avg=5.42)
===============================================
1x Alex Camille 5 cel for obf PRO !Gangrel:5
1x Bill Butler 3 pot pro !Gangrel:4
1x Célèste Lamontagne 5 for ANI PRO !Gangrel:4
1x Janey Pickman 6 for ANI PRO !Gangrel:4
1x Leo Washington 2 cel pro !Gangrel:4
1x Lula Burch 3 for pro !Gangrel:4
1x Morrow the Sage 6 cel vic OBF PRO !Gangrel:4
5x Xendil Charmer 7 obf CEL PRO SER !Gangrel:4

Library (90 cards)
==================
Master (17)
1x Archon Investigation
2x Blood Doll
2x Direct Intervention
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
2x Perfectionist
1x Powerbase: Barranquilla
1x Rack, The
2x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
2x Sudden Reversal
1x WMRH Talk Radio

Action (19)
4x Abbot
1x Conceal
1x Dual Form
1x Enticement
2x Eternal Vigilance
1x Form of Corruption
3x Marked Territory
3x Under Siege
3x Zillah's Tears

Equipment (8)
1x .44 Magnum
2x Bomb
1x Camera Phone
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Ivory Bow
1x Leather Jacket
1x Sport Bike

Retainer (1)
1x Mr. Winthrop

Action Modifier (4)
4x Instantaneous Transformation

Reaction (17)
3x Delaying Tactics
3x Eyes of the Beast
4x Forced Awakening
5x On the Qui Vive
2x Sonar

Combat (24)
8x Earth Meld
8x Flesh of Marble
6x Form of Mist
2x Wolf Claws

Created with Secret Library v0.9.4b. (Dec 4, 2013 16:38:07)

Using Ian's theory about cards having similar effects being somewhat interchangeable, there are 23 defensive combat cards, six offensive combat cards, 20 intercept cards, four bleed/vote reduction cards, 22 untaps (more if you count the Abbots and Marked Territories), and a host of other things. If cards can be used for multiple things, it is like expanding the power of your cards beyond the 90 card limit, or however many you choose to put in your deck.

What do you think about the deck and the ideas behind it?

The deck is all over the place.
Not enough pool damage. How do you plan to oust?
Not enough intercept to be called a wall.
Combat's weak. Only 3 weapons, no maneuvers, no dodges, no extra damage, no additional strikes. If you're going to block - either fight or end combat.
Focus on one discipline set and one combat tactic.

*There is no clan I would rather see succeed than the !Gangrel, but city gangrel get screwed in the intercept department. Country gangrel will always be better off with animalism and protean than celerity and obfuscate.

When blocking it is most important to survive combat. To that end, combat is mostly defensive. If I can dunk people from time to time and keep them in torpor, then I would consider that doing well.

Pool damage is to come from bleeds for one, or possibly a flurry of Camera Phone bleeds. Smiling Jack should be easy to defend given all the intercept against D actions. Votes are harder to block, hence the three Delaying Tactics.

I think that given the permanent intercept options available, City !Gangrel do just fine. While they don't have the advantage of having a bounce discipline, they get Abbot and Marked Territory, now Under Siege, plus other permanents (locations, sport bike, Mr Winthrop), plus two free intercept cards. Anyone who has run out of stealth because they were facing down permacept would see this is not nothing, especially vs bleeds.

A deck like this should have the goal to survive and win the end game.