Malkavian Royalty will make you obedient :-)

Did we manage to play a game together on the Croatian qualifier in Osijek couple of weeks ago?

Stealth is adequate, trust me. Any more, and i start jamming. It would take a really dedicated wall to block this deck. And on my last game, i managed to punch through AUS weenies [and then i got my game win]. So i feel stealth is good.

As for combat defense, i have obediences! B) . Unless you are enkidu, you are getting either obedienced or mental mazed, so i do not feel the pressure that way.

Also, i have the following logic about combat ends cards: To be efficient, they have to provide a secondary beneficial effect to ending combat ( like majesty, earth meld, form of mist, catatonic fear...etc). Otherwise, i do not include them in the deck.

Reasoning behind this is : If somebody is playing a good rush deck, and is coming for your ass, he HAS to have a way of going around your no trace ( be it immortal grapple, psyche! or telepathic tracking, death seeker, thoughts betrayed, whatever...) so no trace will not save you.

Combat ends has (at least imho) to have flexibility to be used offensively or defensively as a card ( like catatonic fear + target vitals, or i do stuff with my aching beauty toreador, you block, i majesty, now i do something else, oh- you block again...). Putting SCE in a deck just for having SCE, and hoping that my predator/prey who plays rush plays it badly... well it's not my style

Pendargon wrote:

Reasoning behind this is : If somebody is playing a good rush deck, and is coming for your ass, he HAS to have a way of going around your no trace ( be it immortal grapple, psyche! or telepathic tracking, death seeker, thoughts betrayed, whatever...) so no trace will not save you.

And that's why ally decks work But in this deck, you're right: Obedience and Mental Maze are all you need.

Your master module is weak. No Pentex? No Temptation of Greater Power? No blood gain? Perfectionist is a must have in a deck that acts on opponents' turns.

Lucian has so you can play Magic of the Smith on at least the Bowl of Convergence and Heart of Nizchetus.

I wanted to keep my masters thin as possible, as i am more-less pleased with the card ratios of non-master cards i have in the deck right now.

All my pentexes are in other decks, and i really do not feel like dismantling them . Also, i am bored with Pentex.
Temptation of greater power, on the other hand, IS an EXCELLENT idea. I cannot believe that i overlooked it while building this deck.

Blood can be issue, as Mephistopheles noticed. But, i would really like to keep deck compact, 70-ty-ish card style, and fatting up the master section with perfectionists, giants' bloods, pappilons and whatnot would mean that i need to rebuild this deck from ground up. For now, I'm leaning towards Pappilon and maybe coven.

I dislike including magic of the smith only to be played by one vampire, at inferior.
Also, 'round here, i am well-known for my dislike of hearth of cheating, so that is a no-go.

Bowl is not necessary here, i feel. If a bleeder can get through my 2nd tradition, he will probably get deflected, and against stealth politics i fight with my votes alone (you cannot have everything). And, funny thing, Bowl of convergence actually helped me a lot in a game that i won, AFTER i stole it with Lucian's special off the AUS weenie who blocked him! (i ate target vitals for that one, but it was totally worth it! B) )

Pendargon wrote:

I dislike including magic of the smith only to be played by one vampire, at inferior.

Inferior is not a problem here as you have to compensate.

You don't need the Bowl to defend from bleeds. You need it to defend your Madness Network.

7 masters? You can easily run 14-20 depending on the amount of trifles.

Non-existant user wrote:

Pendargon wrote:

I dislike including magic of the smith only to be played by one vampire, at inferior.

Inferior is not a problem here as you have to compensate.

You don't need the Bowl to defend from bleeds. You need it to defend your Madness Network.

Oh, if i squeeze 1-2 actions out of network, i let it go. And then play another one, or not...
The network is not essential (imho) for the deck to work, but is handy indeed. That is why i have only 3 in the deck. I was thinking to up their count to 5, but there other masters to consider to remedy the blood loss problem, as others have pointed.

People fear network, and usually your prey is the one trying to remove it. So - worst case scenario, it is a free misdirection. Best case scenario - sky is the limit. In the one game that i got GW with the deck, i didn't even once acted under network. My prey kept removing them, and tapping himself, which helped because my !Ventrue grinder predator channeled his aggresion to my prey through my deflections and his tapping .


Maybe i could make it to 4 Madness network. You are right about magic of the smith, but i do not know which equipment should i summon with it? Cooler comes to mind, to remedy my blood problem . Hmmmm maybe Signet of king Saul...

@ Demnogodis : In decks that use stealth to push their actions through, worst case that can happen is handjam (imho). When you start to draw masters during your minion phase, and if people do not try to block your actions so that you cannot play stealth in your hands, all you can do is bleed for one or hunt, and this is the place that you do not want to be. So, in decks that run stealth, i prefer to go max 12 masters, even with trifles, and even then on a 80-90 card decks (unless i have multiple MPA, and even then...)
Just something that experience and my preference thought me. Of course, mileage may vary