TWD: Defibrillation (Cape Town, 1 February 2014)

Defibrillation
Cape Town, South Africa
1 February 2014
15 players
2R + F

David Sharpe's Tournament Winning Deck with 4 VPs in the final.

VEKN event: www.vekn.net/event-calendar/event/7460
Secret Library deck: www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=15138

Deck Name : Enchanting Truth
Author : David Sharpe
Description :
Al-Muntathir and friends with Obfuscate and Presence enchant the world.


Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 4 max: 8 average: 6.50

4x	Al-Muntathir, God's Witness		(8)			True Brujah	(group 5)
2x	Stavros		(7)		Priscus	Malkavian antitribu	(group 4)
1x	Isouda de Blaise		(7)			Toreador antitribu	(group 4)
1x	Ankh-sen-Sutekh		(6)			Follower of Set	(group 4)
1x	Herbert Westin		(5)			Brujah	(group 4)
1x	Raphael Catarari		(5)			Nosferatu antitribu	(group 4)
1x	Renenet		(5)			Follower of Set	(group 4)
1x	Tyler McGill		(4)			Toreador	(group 5)

Library [90 cards]
Action [19]
8x Enchant Kindred
2x Entrancement
2x Heart of the City
2x Sacrificial Lamb
2x Social Charm
3x Vaticination

Action Modifier [21]
2x Aire of Elation
6x Domain of Evernight
2x Faceless Night
4x Lost in Crowds
4x Mask of a Thousand Faces
3x True Love's Face

Action Modifier/Combat [2]
2x Swallowed by the Night

Action Modifier/Reaction [3]
3x Quicksilver Contemplation

Combat [17]
3x Charismatic Aura
1x Disengage
4x Majesty
7x Outside the Hourglass
2x Unholy Penance

Master [14]
2x Blood Doll
2x Danse Macabre
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Elder Library
2x Storage Annex
1x The Barrens
2x Vessel
2x Wider View

Reaction [14]
2x Enhanced Senses
3x Eyes of Argus
3x On the Qui Vive
6x Telepathic Misdirection

Recorded with : Sutekh 0.9.0a0 [ 2014-02-05 ]

Congrats on the win! Interesting deck.

Ian, I think this is a good example of what you were saying about decks featuring some amount of stealth and bleed being viable. The deck doesn't seem that strong (i.e. stealth bleed or powerbleed are a guaranteed kill vs this, as is swarm bleed, bleed/vote, etc, bleed output is moderate, stealth is some stealth + smash, blood recursion is low for the capacity of the vampires, no Pentex, SUdden or DI). Maybe the apparent kookiness of it makes people underestimate it.

Also, of course, it all about meta meta meta...

brandonsantacruz wrote:

Ian, I think this is a good example of what you were saying about decks featuring some amount of stealth and bleed being viable.

I don't recall saying that. What I know I said not long ago (paraphrasing) is: if you have stealth, you have the potential to win, eventually. For many games, eventually will never occur, but the contrast is with not having stealth and how that limits the potential for victory. This wasn't my idea. This came from a combination of a local player playing weenieish Aus/Obf decks and, I think, from Ben Peal, though I don't recall in what way.

An easy example of the difference in effectiveness is stealth bleed versus bruise bleed, where successful actions is far more useful than unsuccessful actions. Bleed (cards), though, isn't necessary but does need to be substituted for with either more bleed actions from more minions or whatever.

Put another way, between payload and delivery, delivery can give ousting ability that payload can't.

For a counterargument, the success of grinder decks. But, consider that people often are trying to win not just stop someone else from winning. If I just stay up and hunt back from when grinder decks do some bruise, will the grinder deck get through? What if its predator doesn't bleed and makes the bounce in the deck not an offensive component? But, getting far afield from the point.

Maybe the apparent kookiness of it makes people underestimate it.

There are four things I find notable about this deck: Sacrificial Lamb; Mask of a Thousand Faces; Danse Macabre; Elder Library. Danse Macabre seems to me an underplayed card. I'd like to play Mask, but I just don't understand how the card works, anymore, with all of the more modern rulings on what can and can't be Masked, so I don't, as a general rule, play it. Lamb is the sort of amusing thing I like to have in decks, though I'm not keen on 90 card decks. There's little point on expressing my view of Elder Library, anymore.

I don't find these four cards providing kookiness.

But, even if it were kooky, lots and lots of things win. I'm amazed at how much people care about their deck builds not because I keep saying that this game has a low threshold of viability when it comes to decks but because the reason I believe that is the copious amount of evidence that players win, not decks, which is readily consumable evidence available to everyone else.

I really like Sacrificial Lamb in this deck. Sending guys to torpor with the DoE+OtH-combo and then eating them up - brilliant idea. And with Mo1k you never can be sure, if blocking of the non-temporis minions is really safe.

I really like this deck.

Finally a Trujah deck not based on all those Summon History shenanigans (which also means I, as an owner of 0 Summon Histories, might be finally tempted and inspired to make my own version of a Trujah deck).