Thrown Sewer Lid or Slam?

Ankha wrote:

There are three possibilites:
1/ the opponent doesn't play any maneuver
2/ the opponent plays at most 1 maneuver (Aid from bats)
3/ the opponent plays many maneuvers (gun with cel, arhimane with swiftness)

Globally, if you want to add as few cards to handle this as possible, you musn't enter in a contest of maneuvers you'll lose but rather play long rang solutions, even if you won't be able to play Grapple (anyway, it's quite rare to play against a deck that plays both maneuvers and S:CE!)
Slam is not good I think because it's not necessary in case 1, costs too much in case 2 (compared to a free grid/sewer lid/stunt cycle) and is useless in case 3 (and costs blood).

Adding 5 Gates/Lids/Stunt cycles should be enough win some fights (you won't be able to win all of them anyway). Each of them has its own pros/cons.
Think about adding some Anarch Troublemaker if you play in an equipment heavy environment.

Totally agreed. I haven't ever seen a deck that would be better off using Slam than Lid.

To address your initial concern, Joscha, consider that using Slam to maneuver to close against Bats and then playing Grapple costs just as much blood as using Lid (since the Grapple only prevents you from taking one damage, but you lost that blood playing Slam anyway). Lid "wins" the range contest and lets you press to use your Signpost next round.

David Cherryholmes had a formula for figuring out how many long-range strikes to use in an otherwise close-range combat deck, which was to determine how many maneuvers you'd want in the deck if you had room for them, divide that number by two and add that many long-range strikes. It's a good formula, since it prevents you from jamming on long-range strikes but allows you to hit back against a long-range deck about as often as you'd win the maneuver battle.

Hey, that all are very interesting hints indeed. Thanks a lot.

Nevertheless here comes the deck, as most things will be clearer then (although you answered my question in a very satisfying way already).

1. How do you intend to oust?
Hit minions into torpor and graverob them. Bleed with many minions steadily, dunking a famed minion in addition (maybe rescuing him and dunk him again). Tension in the Ranks for add. pool damage. I think about adding two Anarch Revolts for add. damage. Graverobbing is a good answer to those Cybele or other Villein + Golconda-decks.

2. How do you intend to keep from being ousted?
Rushing minions of my predator to stay alive, robbing them to prevent rescue and use them for the offense vs. the prey, when defending minions got rushed.

3. What do you want your ready region to look like (ie, how many guys are you planning on getting out)?
Both Beast and Theo would be cool together with 2 or 3 dom-weenies.


4. What do you want your average turn to look like?
Beast dunks a minion of the pred., a weenie steals him. The second minion rescues the stolen one. After you ruined the game of your pred. you can go after your prey, as long as your pred. is alive. After that you have to care for your new pred. Path of Salmon, baby. The stolen minions generate pool via hunt plus Blood Doll.

5. What's your metagame like? How do your opponents play?
Few combat decks. Mostly bleed decks and some vote & toolboxy decks.

6. What problems have you observed with the deck in play?

The Path of Salmon isn't very promising at Tournaments. My concern is the lack of multirush and the possibility of blocking minions, which jump in the way of Beast, leaving me vulnerable to bleed. It seems to be the perfect choice for big cap-decks, getting enormous problems against low-caps. But I didn't test it yet.


Deck Name: Smash and Grab
Created By: Joscha Düll (after a deck seen from Denis Gerard)
Description: Hit into torpor minions and graverob them.

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 7, Max: 28, Avg: 4,5)
1 Royce dom 1 Pander
1 Mustafa Rahman dom 2 Tremere
1 Ohanna dom 2 Malkavian
1 Samson dom 2 Ventrue Antitribu
1 Christine Boscacci dom vic 2 Pander
1 Cameron dom pot 3 Lasombra
3 Theo Bell (maybe 2) cel dom POT pre 7 Brujah
3 Beast (maybe 4) ani cel OBF POT 7 Nosferatu Antitribu

Library: (71 cards)

Master (13 cards)
1 Wider View
3 Blood Doll
2 Golconda: Inner Peace
1 Pentex Subversion (to contest)
1 Coven, The
2 Fame
1 Tension in the Ranks
1 Jake Washington (Hunter) (to contest)
1 Heidelberg Castle

(Maybe Depravity?)

Action (8 cards)
8 Graverobbing

Action Modifier (8 cards)
4 Cloak the Gathering
4 Conditioning

Reaction (3 cards)
3 Deflection

Combat (39 cards)
12 Immortal Grapple
4 Glancing Blow
4 Torn Signpost
8 Disarm
1 Blur
3 Taste of Vitae
6 Slam (or Thrown Sewer Lids, that was my question).
1 Flash

(plus one Tasha Morgan or sth. to make more use of the Heidelberg Castle?)

Please note it is a 71 card-deck. If you look at the Combatsection, it may seem I can't hit hard enough. In fact I don't want to. I just want to hit harder than the opponent to Disarm him. The more blood stays on the minion the better, because I plan to rob him anyway. Beast has +1 strength anyway. With a Glancing Blow even a Theo without more than an Immortal Grapple will do the trick.

Zip Gun + Target Vitals FTW. If you can get close with it play Grapple to set range to close on the second round. If you can't, shoot for 3. Also protects your dom-weenies.

I would also consider Mighty Grapple. It's free, effectively negates 1 maneuver, prevent or set range effect and leaves more blood than Slam on the Graverob target when used as a strike.

Given your overall plan, might Ignazio Giovanni be a better rusher? The combat package could then focus on Fortitude+Disarm, which keeps more blood on your 'Robbed targets. Ignazio would also provide you with the ability to multirush that you said you'd like to add.