AIDS from bats!

Many of the cards you're depending on to hurt blood supply can wind up backfiring and hurting you as badly as your opponents.

I have a Ravnos deck that uses some of the same tactics, but I devote a lot of my Master slots to things that will keep blood on my vampires without them having to hunt (Life In The City, Svardharma, hunting ground etc). Perfectionist gives you some of that, but what if it's on the wrong vampire, or doesn't come up, or your opponent is blocking...

You might also want to think of cards that will cancel (Wash) or destroy (Arson) hunting grounds, as they will help people survive against your strategy.

Being a huge fan of Vampiric Disease, I made a similar deck when Taunt was first printed. It never really worked, as I found that it was difficult to get the VD counters spread around, and the payoff was simply worse than either rushing or blocking, both of which Animalism is already really good at.

Still, that was back before everyone was Villeining all their vampires into very little blood, so it might stand a better chance these days.

Overall, I think you need to do a pass of cleaning up and cutting cards.

15 actions + 4 allies + 3 retainers = a whole lot of tapping minions to do stuff, probably too many for you, even with all of the cards you have. I'd try to trim this down.

You also have no reaction cards at all. This is almost certainly a mistake. With that many actions, you certainly aren't going to be having a lot of vampires untapped to block - your crypt isn't that cheap! It's going to be very effective for you to block hunts by empty vampires, to send them to torpor when the disease has done its work. No reactions = no support for this.

Remember, your deck is going to take some time to work. You need to make sure you live that long. One blood lost a turn isn't going to slow down an aggressive predator that much.

You also have a bunch of cards that might seem synergistic, but actually don't work out that way. Like:

- Restricted Vitae - A Diseased vampire won't gain blood from hunting until the counter goes away. So they won't want to hunt until they're empty anyway. The only thing Restricted Vitae does is prevent vampires from "stocking up" on blood in advance; I don't think it's worth the card slots for you.
- Powerbase: Montreal - should not be played in a deck like this. You don't have the ability to protect it, nor any spare actions to fetch it back, nor enough bleed to actually get past a prey who keeps swiping it from you.
- Neighborhood Watch Commander: You don't block, and you don't have other ways to make actions fail, so this isn't a good choice here.
- Raven Spy: two is not enough to block reliably, and (as previously mentioned) you don't really have the actions to do that anyway.
- JS and Tasha: I think you're far better served by running more Tier of Souls there. Tier actually goes with your strategy, and serves the same purpose with all of your ANI.

I'd tighten the crypt a bit; triple Petra, double Stick, remove Fish and Sophia.

I'd also see if you could emphasize the Cloak / Veil angle a little bit; Gregory and Young Bloods are very effective if you can keep them from being blocked. (Gregory does double duty, because he can burn vampires in torpor too.)

Oh, and, one other option: you could remake this completely as an Ahrimanes deck. You'd lose the allies - without obf to cloak/veil, they aren't as handy - but you can do stealth and intercept extremely well with Spiritus, and Swiftness of the Stag is a great multi-purpose card.

Thanks all!
Tried to take most comments on board.

Here is the new deck:

Deck Name: VD 1.3 - ANI w obf
Author:
Description:


Crypt (Capacity min=1 max=5 avg=3.42; 12 cards)
==================================================
2x Beetleman 4 obf ANI Nosferatu:4
1x Bobby Lemon 4 pro ANI Gangrel:3
1x Clarissa Steinburgen 3 ani obf Nosferatu:3
1x Effie Lowery 5 obf ANI SPI Ahrimane:4
1x Lisa Noble 1 ani Caitiff:3
1x Mouse 2 ani Nosferatu:3
2x Petra 5 aus ANI OBF Nosferatu:4
2x Stick 3 ANI !Nosferatu:4
1x Zip 2 ani Ravnos:3

Library (91 cards)
=====================
Master (16 cards)
1x Carver's Meat Packing and Storage
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
2x Perfectionist
1x Slum Hunting Ground
1x Society of Leopold
1x Strained Vitae Supply
5x Vampiric Disease
3x Vessel
1x Wall Street Night, Financial Newspaper

Event (2 cards)
1x Hunger Moon
1x Restricted Vitae

Action (16 cards)
1x Aranthebes, The Immortal
1x Army of Rats
1x Arson
5x Deep Song
5x Taunt the Caged Beast
3x Tier of Souls

Ally (3 cards)
1x Gregory Winter
1x Neighborhood Watch Commander (Hunter)
1x Young Bloods

Retainer (4 cards)
4x Raven Spy

Action Modifier (15 cards)
3x Cloak the Gathering
1x Elder Impersonation
1x Faceless Night
3x Forgotten Labyrinth
3x Lost in Crowds
1x Spying Mission
3x Veil the Legions

Reaction (8 cards)
3x Cats' Guidance
1x Forced Awakening
3x On the Qui Vive
1x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Combat (25 cards)
9x Aid from Bats
1x Canine Horde
7x Carrion Crows
1x Drawing Out the Beast
5x Taste of Vitae
1x Terror Frenzy
1x Zip Gun

Combo (2 cards)
2x Swallowed by the Night

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Oct 27, 2011 16:22:16)

Quickly:
The Neighbourhood Watch is in there for general attrition - even if i dont block, someone else may, and there is an opportunity to knock off a blood, also i've added some slight block capacity now, so i may be able to block a bit. The NWC also allows a minion to lose a blood even if they have S:CE'd combat or prevented all damage after being blocked

Restricted Vitae also means many oder vamps may hunt of younger vamps - part of the overall blood denial strat.

Crypt altered - dropped the 6-cap, & 5-cap without obf. Added four 2 & 3 caps w ani.
Masters altered slightly - namely added a Hunting Ground, and the intercept for undirected actions (cheaper)
Aranthebes (extra intercept) & Arson added, plus 2 Tiers. Dropped a couple Taunts & Deeps
Dropped Underbridge, JS & Tasha. Added 2 Ravens.
Slimmed down the stealth Action Mods
Added 5 Wakes & 3 Cats Guidances
Added 1 Aids, Dropped a Terror & Zip gun

NOTE: the library is 91 cards!! so i need to drop 1 more card
Any suggestions?

Also, are the changes i made suitable?
I'm not sure if everything is now too dilute & whether there's enough reactions, combat, bleed etc, or if it's just at a better mix for a toolbox-style deck???
There's still 15 actions plus 8 allies/retainers...
Would it be worthwhile considering Narrow Minds, Torpid Blood, NSA Trio?


PS: Arhimanes could be a great idea, i'll look into it...

Interesting deck. Here is a couple of things I noticed.

With the exception of 1 Dreams, you have no way to get out of a hand jam, I'm a big fan of The Barrens, or more Dreams.

Society of can be put back on you and has a greater chance of putting you in a hunt-lock.

With only 9 maneuver to long (Aid from Bats), and taunt I guess you might be at close range more then you think. And Hunger Moon will again hurt you more. Restrictive Vitae is good though. MORE BATS!

If there is even a HINT of Imbued in your metagame, you should play 1-2 Breaking the Code (see above for getting out of hand jam). A lot of your cards just don't work against those Cockroaches.

16 Masters is not that much. Probably better switching vessels to Blood dolls or Tribute. OR add a Haven Uncovered or two.

No Fame? Frontal assault?

Ivory Bow for contesting.

---

BTW, ani combat is typically defeated by majesty. Vampiric disease is a great counter to that. Nice job.