I like the idea overall, but the implementations feel a bit... clunky.
The longer-life superior is potentially troublesome, because it's unique but temporary. If you draw into a second while the first is still in play, you can't play it. This makes library construction potentially quite frustrating.
I saw that it's quite similar to
Dream World
, except it stays around much longer (the 'cost' of two disciplines and sacrifices an ally/retainer seems balanced to me).
Thing is, the ally/retainer bit isn't necessarily a sacrifice. You can easily include a few of your own disposable allies/retainers but take a pot shot at a convenient ally or retainer when they come up - and note that it doesn't require any of the disciplines on React with Conviction, making it potentially very tasty there. The fact that you can plan to power it yourself if you have to smoothes out a lot of the spikiness of most cards that target an opponent's ally or retainer.
As it would improve bleed for any deck with a Samedi in the ready region and an ally/retainer in play, some ideas would be:
- Stealth bleed deck using
The Baron
and
Lisandro Giovanni
and potentially a few other Samedi with plenty of Dominate masters. For the library, use this card and
Under My Skin
, a few Dominate bleed cards, and some Fortitude.
The vast majority(*) of decks that require discipline master cards to power themselves are an exercise in poor crypt design. Splashing one or two in is fine, but "plenty", not so much. Paying 1 pool and 1 transfer for a level of a discipline in your influence phase is a massively better bargain, especially when you consider:
a) you could be playing Villein, Pentex(tm) Subversion, Dreams of the Sphinx, Giant's Blood etc.
b) Dominate is a
really easy to find discipline, especially Dominate + Fortitude. Instead of transferring out Lisandro Giovanni, I could bring out Ingrid Russo and Catherine du Bois and throw down two copies of Threats or Conditioning with Ingrid before Lisandro is even ready. I can even wander into vampires like Ranjan Rishi to power a Dream World, if I like that sort of thing. Since I get native access to dom/DOM and a decent crypt, I can crypt machine a bunch of vampires out with Govern.
Playing an off-clan discipline onto a vampire (especially Dominate) can also be a massive signal to players that there's a way of gumming up your card flow - if I Wash that Dominate skill card, you bleed me for less and your card flow is much reduced.
(*) Breed decks that can use discipline masters are the major exception, because they're only sort-of master cards in that deck. There are some other possibilities, such as Seterpenre
- Weenie bleed deck with a Samedi or two in the crypt.
There aren't any good Samedi to include as weenies, really. Below 6 capacity, you have Toy (not useful), Angel (THAN), Abebe (than obf nec), Brigitte (NEC than obf for), and Lithrac (OBF tha for). None of them are compatible with any common weenie bleed decks (weenie Dem, weenie Dom, weenie Pre), except just possibly a heavy, heavy Obfuscate one - though since weenie Obfuscate teams up pretty well with both Presence and Dementation, it seems much more straightforward to rely on those for spicing up a deck, simplifying my card flow instead of hoping to draw Abebe
and this card. There's a clutch of 5 caps with PRE/obf + PRE/OBF, especially in group 4, which would likely be a better include for such a deck.
- Make a defensive gun deck with the celerity Samedi that could decently bleed.
Defensive? How? The three-and-a-half(*) Samedi with Celerity don't have strong defensive options. Very little intercept, with only Genina having Auspex. None of them can play it with superior NEC. Genina can't play it at all (no NEC). The defensive Celerity gun deck also needs to manage getting out some allies or retainers so that it can play the thing.
(*) Genina, Jorge, Jack Dawson and Jack Dawson-advanced.
- As you say, make the Reanimated Corpse variety more bleed-offensive.
The fact that the card gives extra bleed to every minion means that you should really be playing it with lots of minions, not cramping yourself up with big vampires with Celerity.
Based on the card text as it stands, you can bring a Reanimated Corpse out for 1 blood (or free if you have superior Thanatosis) and burn it immediately, because allies that have just been recruited are
controlled (though not ready), making them a legal target for many effects
. Obviously, if you chose to use some retainers or other allies, they could be used the same way. Vagabond Mystic is also free and not awful. Jake Washington has a long history in War Ghoul decks (because you get an ally to burn without wasting time to take a recruit ally action first), but could be potentially interesting here. Absimiliard's Army(*) gives you potentially plenty of access to disposable allies, and you could choose some of the less aggravating Gehenna events to power it.
(*) It's common for players to go "Oh, but what about if I turn a super duper card into an ally instead of Lost in Crowds?" Unless you empty your entire library in a game - comparatively rare, but it does happen - it's just the same outcome as if the shuffle had put that card in the undrawn cards.
[Submission] Call the Athanatos
, could play this card)
)
)
