Cause and Effect - 09

Greetings all!

Hear is the last episode of the first season of Cause and Effect. Any comments and suggestions can be posted here or e-mailed to . During our christmas and new year break we will upload games of the us, Erik Torstensson and Aleksi Kivilathi playing vtes. This episode we talked about Ahrimanes and Temptaion of Greater Power. Pascal challange to build a deck based around Count Germaine is still on. The challange is due January the 15th.




The decks we talked about during this episode:

The deck talked about in part 1:


The deck talked about in part 2:



Part 1:


Part 2:

Ahrimanes AND Temptation of Greater Power - cool!

The thing about Ahrimanes two allies are reduction of temporary resources.
Now, that sounds strange, so let me divulge.

First of, they're both expensive. High Top is iffy to pay 4 pool for, I'll admit that.

Let's look at them both:

Ohoyo Hopoksia (Bastet)
Type: Ally
Requires: Ahrimane
Cost: 3 pool
Unique werewolf with 3 life. 3 strength, 0 bleed.
When a minion you control is about to enter combat with an acting minion, you may tap Ohoyo to cancel that combat; Ohoyo enters combat with the acting minion instead. She gets an optional maneuver each combat. If she has less than 3 life during your untap phase, she gains 1 life from the blood bank.

Rarity: LoB:R

What Ohoyo does is to act like a wake that punches people. Also, she protects your vampires from rushes, which in some cases actually help. Aggpoking weenies is one of these cases.
Her basic function is to allow your Ahrimane to block an action with all your intercept and still remain untapped afterwards. This is especially nice in the long run, since she's basically acting like a Cat's Guidance each and every turn. Which makes sense, since she's a cat.
A constant CG for 3 pool isn't too shabby.
The punch for 3 isn't bad either, at least not against most non-combat decks.
Also don't forget about that built-in maneuver. If you're up against something that can kill you in one hit at close range, maneuver out.

Trust me, when you're facing down that Gas-Powered Chainsaw-wielding weenie horde that you never thought you'd ever see on a table, you'll be thankful about it.

I don't think you loose much by including her in an Ahrimanes deck compared to what you get, in a sense she's a "multi-spectrum antibiotics" more than a "silver bullet". If course, if you know there's a lot of combat decks in your meta don't use her. Though to be honest, if there's a lot of combat decks in the meta I wouldn't play Ahrimanes to start with. They can't handle dedicated combat.


High Top
Type: Ally
Requires: Ahrimane
Cost: 4 pool
Unique werewolf with 3 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed.
High Top gets +1 intercept. High Top may enter combat with any minion controlled by another Methuselah as a action. High Top gets an additional strike each round and an optional maneuver once each combat. He may play cards requiring basic Celerity [cel] as a vampire with a capacity of 4. If High Top has less than 3 life during your untap phase, he gains 1 life.

Rarity: BL:R1 LoB:R

High Top is expensive. I really dislike that cost of 4. I really, really do.
What you do with him is to conserve resources. Much like Ohoyo saves you wakes, High Top saves you intercept cards. Because every time your prey or predator does an action at +1 stealth, High Top can decide to be annoying. Which makes your prey/predator waste stealth cards to surpass the good 'ol wolf. Now your Ahrimane can step in and use her transient intercept to block. This saves you intercept cards in the long run. You're not burning a card to block a +1 stealth action, this saves 1 card. If they can pass you with 2 stealth, you've wasted an intercept card for nothing. If you can save intercept cards by not having to spend them on simple +1 stealth actions, you have a higher chance of having enough intercept to block the +2/3/4/5/whatever action barreling down at you.
Since many Ahrimane decks are built on the attrition principle, this is very important.

Admittedly, a Raven Spy does the same job for a lot less.

He can also be active in rushing people, though 1+1 isn't that impressive. At all. In some situations though, I can see this actually helping. But I usually prefer to have him untapped. Also, if you're facing a tap n' bleed deck it's better to rush than to wait. Make them clog on tapping cards.



Further, Visionquest sucks. If any, I prefer sangineous instructions. It can grant you either , or which I prefer a lot more. I'm a bit torn on whether or not it's worth to include SI in decks, but at least the bloodlines have a much better usage for it, since they don't have the luxury of plenty of vampires with the discipline spread you want. So, don't do Visionquest. If any, do Sangineous Instructions.

A point about g 4-5 Ahrimanes is that they have two solid weenies, Darlene and Ayiana. Having small dudettes to help out with various actions really help. Compare these two, a 2 and a 3 cap, with the G2 variants. We have a 4-cap and two 5-caps, none of these are worth it. Or at least not as far as I'm concerned. Actually I should say one 5-cap, because don't try and use Helena Stone. Just don't.

Finally:
Muricia is the f****ing founder of the bloodline. It annoys me that The Howler and Sylvia Helgon have a higher cap than her.


+++EDIT+++
Also, Temptation of Greater power is disgusting with Parity Shift.
"Oh ho ho, I out-bidded everyone for that star vampire so now I'll take it. Oh, ooops. I have less pool than my prey."
*Plays Parity Shift*
"Now that's what I'm talking about"

Shadowhunter wrote:

The thing about Ahrimanes two allies are reduction of temporary resources.
Now, that sounds strange, so let me divulge.

First of, they're both expensive. High Top is iffy to pay 4 pool for, I'll admit that.

Let's look at them both:

Ohoyo Hopoksia (Bastet)
Type: Ally
Requires: Ahrimane
Cost: 3 pool
Unique werewolf with 3 life. 3 strength, 0 bleed.
When a minion you control is about to enter combat with an acting minion, you may tap Ohoyo to cancel that combat; Ohoyo enters combat with the acting minion instead. She gets an optional maneuver each combat. If she has less than 3 life during your untap phase, she gains 1 life from the blood bank.

Rarity: LoB:R

What Ohoyo does is to act like a wake that punches people. Also, she protects your vampires from rushes, which in some cases actually help. Aggpoking weenies is one of these cases.
Her basic function is to allow your Ahrimane to block an action with all your intercept and still remain untapped afterwards. This is especially nice in the long run, since she's basically acting like a Cat's Guidance each and every turn. Which makes sense, since she's a cat.
A constant CG for 3 pool isn't too shabby.

Where do you get that using Ohoyo makes the the blocking vampire untap/not tap?

Shadowhunter wrote:

Further, Visionquest sucks. If any, I prefer sangineous instructions. It can grant you either , or which I prefer a lot more. I'm a bit torn on whether or not it's worth to include SI in decks, but at least the bloodlines have a much better usage for it, since they don't have the luxury of plenty of vampires with the discipline spread you want. So, don't do Visionquest. If any, do Sangineous Instructions.

Visionquest has uses when you're not playing a very clan-focused deck (your weenies can get superior all by themselves, or you're using big Feral Spirited Gangrel/!Gangrel so you don't have many guys to give you superior with Sanguine Instruction).

Actually I should say one 5-cap, because don't try and use Helena Stone. Just don't.

Finally:
Muricia is the f****ing founder of the bloodline. It annoys me that The Howler and Sylvia Helgon have a higher cap than her.

It's Maria Stone (not Helena).

Yeah, it is kind of odd that there are so many Ahrimanes bigger than Muricia. You have similar situations with the Samedi (Troglodytia is bigger than Samedi, though it's probably because she's an old-school Cappadocian), the !Salubri (a lof ot !Salubri are bigger than Adonai, but they're mainly Warrior Salubri from the Dark Ages), and the !Tremere (several 10-caps who are on par with the founder Goratrix). At least with the Ahrimanes, you could maybe explain it away as the Ahrimanes recruiting (via Feral Spirit) big-capacity Gangrel/!Gangrel.

Also, Temptation of Greater power is disgusting with Parity Shift.
"Oh ho ho, I out-bidded everyone for that star vampire so now I'll take it. Oh, ooops. I have less pool than my prey."
*Plays Parity Shift*
"Now that's what I'm talking about"

Well, at least Temptation of Greater Power is once per game. You can do something similar with Hostile Takeover, which can be used in multiples. In the old days (before the "errata" to Hostile Takeover) Parity Shift + Hostile Takeover was just ridiculously good.

Shadowhunter wrote:

Ohoyo Hopoksia (Bastet)
Type: Ally
Requires: Ahrimane
Cost: 3 pool
Unique werewolf with 3 life. 3 strength, 0 bleed.
When a minion you control is about to enter combat with an acting minion, you may tap Ohoyo to cancel that combat; Ohoyo enters combat with the acting minion instead. She gets an optional maneuver each combat. If she has less than 3 life during your untap phase, she gains 1 life from the blood bank.

Rarity: LoB:R

What Ohoyo does is to act like a wake that punches people. Also, she protects your vampires from rushes, which in some cases actually help. Aggpoking weenies is one of these cases.
Her basic function is to allow your Ahrimane to block an action with all your intercept and still remain untapped afterwards. This is especially nice in the long run, since she's basically acting like a Cat's Guidance each and every turn. Which makes sense, since she's a cat.
A constant CG for 3 pool isn't too shabby.
The punch for 3 isn't bad either, at least not against most non-combat decks.
Also don't forget about that built-in maneuver. If you're up against something that can kill you in one hit at close range, maneuver out.

Trust me, when you're facing down that Gas-Powered Chainsaw-wielding weenie horde that you never thought you'd ever see on a table, you'll be thankful about it.

I don't think you loose much by including her in an Ahrimanes deck compared to what you get, in a sense she's a "multi-spectrum antibiotics" more than a "silver bullet". If course, if you know there's a lot of combat decks in your meta don't use her. Though to be honest, if there's a lot of combat decks in the meta I wouldn't play Ahrimanes to start with. They can't handle dedicated combat.

I think you've missunderstod the card. You do tap and do not untap if you successfully block and make the ally use it's card text. So this is kind of moot!

Shadowhunter wrote:

Admittedly, a Raven Spy does the same job for a lot less.

Yeah this is my biggest problem with the High Top. Plus that he's extreamely expansive.