Submission: Greater Purpose

Life in the City, Perfectionist, The Coven and all sorts of Hunting Grounds are all actually really good ways of getting more blood.

Blood Doll is fine too. Out of master cards those spring immediately to mind.

Minion cards are trickier. Taste of Vitae isn't exactly reliable, nor is almost any combat method. Hunting is fine with non-blood intensive unlock modifiers.

Abactor, Shaggy Dog, Rave, 5th Trad, Renewed Vigour, and many, many more

Blooded wrote:

Shaggy Dog

You mean sheepdog . Not Shaggydog the vampire. Its what my Unnamed uses (because infernals ignore the drawback), but I also include vessels just in case because infernal.

Thinking about this deck made me think about another drawback I hadn't thought before: sometimes I don't want to waste an action. There were versions of the deck where I didn't run sheepdog at all, only using vessels. This has to do with my Unnamed deck bloating like Donald Trump, so I have usually pool to spare. In this deck blood usually goes in Unnameds direction via vessel (Greater curse bleed costs 1 blood and bloats 3 pool. Do the math).

I've started trying to use restoration in some of my decks, usually to counteract the usage of freak drives. Jury is out still. Its probably ok but makes the deck kinda clunky. Sometimes there is a high-intercept wall and you don't wanna collide your low blood vampire to it. There is also the case where a combat deck torporizes your vampire at 0 blood, he/she is saved and then is forced to hunt empty, In this case you would love to have blood doll/vessel already on/life in the city rather than an action card you cannot use (unless you had both)

Hunting grounds are unique like I mentioned before. Just last tournament my Matasuntha deck would've contested zoo hunting ground with Stanislava, but I obviously chose not to contest cross-table. Still, my hunting ground was useless.

Even in the case of hunting ground, I think that bloating engine of hunting ground+blood doll is perfectly fine to have. I don't think blood dolls/vessels are ever truly superfluous.

Perfectionist is a really good one too, since it turns hunting into a gain of 2 blood. Just have to remember to use it since the rules are kinda unforgiving.. Also sometimes its not an option (my Matasuntha wants to run monster as an archetype for example)

Those blood cards that Blooded Sand mentioned I left out intentionally, because they are more conditional. Blood Dolls and all those other neat tools are usable by everyone. Add a salubri and you're good to go for Renewed vigour, and you won't see Sheepdog played outside of infernals, but those require specific deck building.

Even in the case of hunting ground, I think that bloating engine of hunting ground+blood doll is perfectly fine to have. I don't think blood dolls/vessels are ever truly superfluous.

It is. It's not bad. Blood Doll makes for a versatile tool. But it IS slower than Villein + HG.

Contesting a Hunting Ground is a once in a life time experience, really. Be proud that you lived old enough to witness such a miracle.

Perfectionist is a really good one too, since it turns hunting into a gain of 2 blood. Just have to remember to use it since the rules are kinda unforgiving.. Also sometimes its not an option (my Matasuntha wants to run monster as an archetype for example)

It is always an option, but you said it: wants to run Monster instead. I'm sure you have other ways of getting the blood back. Enter: all the other cards.

Blood Doll is AN option if you want a versatile pool/blood management tool. There are better ways of getting blood though, if you want strictly just blood.

Oh yeah, and one more thing about some older posts: that Nosferatu have animalism does not make midcap or weenie nosferatu great. Animalism is great. Nosferatu aren't. Nossies and Gangrel are both equally good at animalism shenanigans, with few twists here and there to a direction or another. I'd argue Thing makes the Gangrel variant better. But, then again, it's kind of a moot point, since it's animalism that's doing the heavy lifting.

Gangrel have fortitude which actually amounts to something when considering oust potential. Multiact for tool up and Force of Will are a thing. Nossies have nothing. Spying Mission alone isn't great.

I retain my opinion that Greater Purpose isn't going to help combat decks as such, but mid cap tool boxes, and mostly those with greater blood generation, a slower playstyle and plenty of blocking capabilities. And if that's what you'd like to enforce, it's great. It won't fit into a proactive, combat heavy rush deck though, and won't give Nosferatus any sort of a greater purpose.

Krausedit\\ Not related, it is true that the hunting mechanisms could be further explored. I'm still so sad that Loki's Gift doesn't hunt the blood off of a target, but just burns one blood. Hungry Coyote plus Feeding Razor would make for a super interesting multi purpose tool if Loki's Gift took 3 blood from the target instead of 1! ;__;

Bloodartist wrote:

Such as?

I don't need to necessarily reply to this with all the options, but I feel that it worth pointing out always having hunting (as a noncard option) means gaining blood can be inconvenient but usually not difficult option to gain blood.

Blood doll and vessel are very reliable. Nobody's going to sudden intervene a vessel..

Seen it happen, multiple times...

That said, If the goal is to help out midcap rush combat decks, then the bigger issue is that they need more reliable ways to deal with action negative aspect of playing rush cards while devoting a large percentage of their deck to combat cards and still have a effective mechanism to outst their prey (other than a dependency on Fame).

jblacey wrote:

I don't need to necessarily reply to this with all the options, but I feel that it worth pointing out always having hunting (as a noncard option) means gaining blood can be inconvenient but usually not difficult option to gain blood.

Hunting while (near) empty can lead to disaster against intercept.. Again, I'm looking for reliability in blood economy. I don't know how things are over there but here there is a decent amount of intercept floating around.

That said, If the goal is to help out midcap rush combat decks, then the bigger issue is that they need more reliable ways to deal with action negative aspect of playing rush cards while devoting a large percentage of their deck to combat cards and still have a effective mechanism to oust their prey (other than a dependency on Fame).

Not counting dragonbound, I feel that too many wincon cards are masters in combat decks.. Making deck construction challenging. Maybe we should pay attention to non-master victory conditions for midcap combat decks.. Or untapping after rushes if you consider being "action negative" a problem.