OFFICIAL VEKN NOSFERATU ANTITRIBU NEWSLETTER VOL 5

OFFICIAL VEKN NOSFERATU ANTITRIBU CLAN NEWSLETTER VOL 5 This newsletter is not going to be packed with strategy. It will not have a decklist. It will not involve use of a single card to aid your decks. This newsletter is going to bring to light something that is going unnoticed by the powers that be, and while I cannot expect them to do anything about it (because as I will prove its not their fault), I can hope that the playtesters of Camarilla will keep this article in mind. There hasn't been any VTES content of any substance for a long time for the Nosferatu Antitribu. Final Nights was completely devoid of useful Nosferatu cards. Lets look at what they got in their Clan Disciplines. OBFUSCATE: Blackmail Action (D) Tap a ready vampire (D) Put this card on a ready vampire. The vampire with this card cannot block this acting vampire. He or she may burn this card by burning 2 blood during his or her untap phase. The inferior of this card is ok. Sure, both Jar the Soul and Mind Numb are inherently better, but this is in a discipline where the stealth to get this action through resides, but for the Nosferatu who lack the fortitude to bleed-while-tapped or untap, or the dominate/presence to bleed modify a bleed now that you could get passed a tapped blocker, why not just replace this card with more stealth and just get past it? The Superior is a costless version of Incriminating Videotape, and who plays with that? This card, while not worthless, is pretty weak for the Nosferatu. POTENCE: Relentless Pursuit Combat Blood cost: 1 TEXT: Press Press, and if another round of combat starts, your hand size is two cards larger for the remainder of combat. The Nosferatu Antitribu are not known for needing multi-round combat, and even if they did they have the host of Obfuscate presses or Mighty Grapple, which are all free. Not worthless, but not great either. ANIMALISM: Crimson Fury Reaction/combat 1 blood Text This card can be played as a reaction card or a combat card. Only usable when this vampire is being diablerized. Usable by a tapped vampire. Usable by a vampire in torpor The diablrie is canceled and the diablerist burns 1 blood. Burn both the diablerist and this vampire. (The diablrie is still considered successful.) This is junk. Half the time you are in torpor you have no blood, so the card is useless. The other half of the time all you are doing is guaranteeing that the Blood Hunt will be successful, which it generally will anyway. That's it. That's what the Nosferatu got from Final Nights. The Nosferatu Antitribu got a great Vampire, but that's what they were known for anyway. good Vampires with lots of Superior disciplines. That's their only strength and they got even stronger with the terribly drawn but well powered and disciplined Christianus Lionel. Lets look at Bloodlines. Here are the clans previewed thus far. Nagaraja aus dom nec Samedi FOR nec obf thn Harbingers FOR aus nec Daughters FOR mel pre Arihmanes ani pre spi Gargoyles FOR pot vis Kiaysid dom myt obt Salubri FOR aus obe Trujah pot pre tem Blood Borthers FOR pot san One clan with Obfuscate. One clan with Animalism. Three clans with Potence. No clan sharing two clan disciplines with Nosferatu. In contrast, the strong get stronger. Malks get Naga with AUS/DOM. Ventrue get Daughters with PRE/FOR. Lasombra get Kiaysid with OBF/DOM. Brujah get True Brujah with PRE/POT. Settites get Baali with OBF/PRE. Clans that we already saw at every tournament in record numbers get support. Clans like Ravnos and Nosferatu, who rarely get played at tournaments get absolutely no help. Now its not the designers fault. In tying themselves to the White Wolf Mythos they are stuck with their Bloodlines. As someone who wants to play the Nosferatu as something other than weenie potence rush, I am just continually disappointed by the clan's overall competitive un-playability. When people ask about Nosferatu in decks, what do you hear? Weenie potence rush and the mythical (re: never placed reliably in a tournament) Nosferatu voter. The Nosferatu are a clan in desperate need of support and it sure doesn't look like Bloodlines is going to answer that need. With this in mind, the Nosferatu Antitribu newsletter is going Bi-Monthly. I should still be able to write up some beginner strategies with the Nosferatu every other month, and hope that when Bloodlines comes out and Camarilla gets playtested someone will realize that a clan has been left behind the curve and some cards are introduced to help them out. Expect the next few newsletters to have a lot of Ahrimanes content... Matt Latham Denizen of the Sewers of Detroit

I have had some success with a long range Nosferatu Anti deck in my playgroup (we play with 4CL). The deck has some flame throwers, combat shotguns, traps, manuvers, presses, carrion crows, sewer lids, Throw gate, Well aimed cars. Though we have a house rule for Calian that he gets 2 manuvers instead of setting range each round which is well insainly powerful heard they might change his speciallity that might just be rumors. The deck has one big weekness, long range agg damage, but what deck doe not have that wekness :) Walker Karlskrona Sweden

> Final Nights was completely devoid of useful Nosferatu cards. Lets look at > what they got in their Clan Disciplines. Dude, you have got that all wrong! > OBFUSCATE: > > Blackmail > Action > (D) Tap a ready vampire > (D) Put this card on a ready vampire. The vampire with this card cannot > block this acting vampire. He or she may burn this card by burning 2 blood > during his or her untap phase. > The inferior of this card is ok. Sure, both Jar the Soul and Mind Numb are > inherently better, but this is in a discipline where the stealth to get > this action through resides, but for the Nosferatu who lack the fortitude to > bleed-while-tapped or untap, or the dominate/presence to bleed modify a > bleed now that you could get passed a tapped blocker, why not just replace > this card with more stealth and just get past it? The Superior is a > costless version of Incriminating Videotape, and who plays with that? This > card, while not worthless, is pretty weak for the Nosferatu. This is a potentially great card! First off, it is a no stealth action. This means you are asking someone to try and block it. Second, it is an action requiring Obfuscate... that ISN'T about stealth or bleed! This is a nice change. What this gives you is a potentially useful action to irritate the hell out of your prey. Use weenies, clog him up so he can't block, and computer hack. Use weenies with pot / obf with a few to tooling them to POT/OBF and you have a great little deck. The reason nobody plays with Incriminating Video Tape is the same reason why few people play with Blood Bond - simply because it is costly and takes time to get going. However, Blackmail has zero cost, and the potential of being blocked. This is a good thing, allowing you to thump other vampires. Add Gang Tactics into the mix and you get a guaranteed grapplefest. Blackmail has potential. > POTENCE: > Relentless Pursuit > Combat > Blood cost: 1 > TEXT: > Press > Press, and if another round of combat starts, your hand size is two cards > larger for the remainder of combat. > The Nosferatu Antitribu are not known for needing multi-round combat, and > even if they did they have the host of Obfuscate presses or Mighty Grapple, > which are all free. Not worthless, but not great either. OK, the nossie antis aren't great at multi round. However, they should be - Carrion Crows, Song of Serenity, Conquer the Beast, Grapple, Torn Signpost, all of these are good for the whole of combat. So extra presses are surely a good thing (tm), especially since the other potence press is only to continue combat - no good for fighting off that trap the war ghoul has just used... If you press with the RP, you also get an extra hand cycling dynamic previously lost to a potence deck unless you have a Dreams in play. I found recently that unless you play cel / pot you can end up with a very clogged hand very quickly. With Cel you get additional strikes, easy presses, and Infernal Pursuit to cycle your hand. Potence has a lot less. Extra cards are a good thing (tm) since it has been proved that the most successful player is the one who sees the most cards. > ANIMALISM: > > Crimson Fury > Reaction/combat > 1 blood > > Text > > This card can be played as a reaction card or a combat card. Only usable > when this vampire is being diablerized. Usable by a tapped vampire. Usable > by a vampire in torpor > The diablrie is canceled and the diablerist burns 1 blood. > Burn both the diablerist and this vampire. (The diablrie is still considered > successful.) > > This is junk. Half the time you are in torpor you have no blood, so the card > is useless. The other half of the time all you are doing is guaranteeing > that the Blood Hunt will be successful, which it generally will anyway. Rubbish. There are lots of occasions where you will end up in torpor with blood on you, or at least with a blood doll on you. This can save your ass until you can do something about getting a vampire out, or burn in a petty revenge scenario. Most people wouldn't even attempt diablerie if they didn't have the voting dynamic on their side, either by cutting a deal or by having superiority. This screws over this sort of cautious muncher, and also the huge spate of "bloodhunt free" vampires (there are now 4 Muzaziz, Theo Bell, Tariq, and that setite). It can also be played by a tapped vampire, and it is also usable if someone does the Disarm / Anathama combo. A great card, but just a little hard to use in everyday play. > That's it. That's what the Nosferatu got from Final Nights. The Nosferatu > Antitribu got a great Vampire, but that's what they were known for anyway. > good Vampires with lots of Superior disciplines. That's their only strength > and they got even stronger with the terribly drawn but well powered and > disciplined Christianus Lionel. Bloody hell, no pleasing some people! The Gangrel got three cards and one vampire too. One very expensive, super rare combat card (Mythic Form), one very expensive and unnecessary damage prevention card (King of the Mountain), and Crimson Fury. Ramona is no way near as cool as Christianus - her special sucks and she is the least powerful signiture character by a mile. The best thing for the gangrel in final nights was Haakon - a !Gangrel vampire. So count your luckies that you got a spread of interesting cards to implement in the Jyhad - one new unprecidented action, one new combat utility card, and one intruiging reaction card. DH

"Matt Latham" <mla...@diamondtoolmfg.com> wrote > Blackmail > Action > (D) Tap a ready vampire > (D) Put this card on a ready vampire. The vampire with this card cannot > block this acting vampire. He or she may burn this card by burning 2 blood > during his or her untap phase. > The inferior of this card is ok. Sure, both Jar the Soul and Mind Numb are > inherently better, but this is in a discipline where the stealth to get > this action through resides, but for the Nosferatu who lack the fortitude to > bleed-while-tapped or untap, or the dominate/presence to bleed modify a > bleed now that you could get passed a tapped blocker, why not just replace > this card with more stealth and just get past it? The Superior is a > costless version of Incriminating Videotape, and who plays with that? This > card, while not worthless, is pretty weak for the Nosferatu. Well... there are a lot of Nosferatu with both Obfuscate and Fortitude (Chester, Nikolaus, Selma, Marty, Sheldon and Lucretia). Blackmail could synergize nicely with Force of Will. Blackmail to tap your prey's vampire then untap and bleed at +2 (with OBF stealth if needed). Throw in a few OBF weenies to play Blackmails/Psychic Veils or rescue your torpored vampires. Humanitas and Catacombs would be nice here. Most of the above Nossies also have votes... lots of possibilities there. Additionally, this combo will presumably have a lot more vampires available with the new set. The Baali posted today has 'OBF for' for example. Egottha has 'obf FOR' (better for this combo). The Samedi have OBF and FOR as clan disciplines. Six other new bloodlines have inherent FOR and a few of them must have OBF here and there. Cheers, WES

In message <9tjv8...@enews3.newsguy.com>, Wes <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> writes: <Force of Will> >Blackmail to tap your prey's vampire >then untap and bleed at +2 (with OBF stealth if needed). Merely as a clarification, Force of Will doesn't untap you. (It did in the original card text.) You just bleed, starting from a tapped state. (I can't recall the reason for this. I'm assuming it had something to do with "do not tap" vs "untap" type effects.) -- James Coupe Everybody knows that "No" means "Yes" PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Just like glasses come free on the NHS EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 But the more I look through them the more I see 13D7E668C3695D623D5D I'm becoming more like Alfie

James Coupe wrote: > Merely as a clarification, Force of Will doesn't untap you. (It did in > the original card text.) > > You just bleed, starting from a tapped state. > > (I can't recall the reason for this. I'm assuming it had something to > do with "do not tap" vs "untap" type effects.) If an action untaps you, then (if you aren't blocked) you end up untapped. Force of Will was not intended to untap tha vampire. The old RT tried to get around this by breaking FoW into two actions - one to untap and the second to bleed. That was cumbersome, so we end up with the current state. For an action that actually untaps you, see Patronage. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

"Matt Latham" <mla...@diamondtoolmfg.com> wrote in message news:<9tgkap$20j$1...@nntp2-cm.news.eni.net>... > OFFICIAL VEKN NOSFERATU ANTITRIBU CLAN NEWSLETTER VOL 5 <snip> > When people ask about Nosferatu in decks, what do you hear? Weenie potence > rush and the mythical (re: never placed reliably in a tournament) Nosferatu > voter. The Nosferatu are a clan in desperate need of support and it sure > doesn't look like Bloodlines is going to answer that need. > Mythical? I got to the finals as top seed in a tourney with a Nossie Vote deck (OK, it had Suheilah in there and watsername, the 2cap Ventrue)and I took another version to the EC where I had 2 games with a VERY bad draw (2nd game I only dreq 2 3th Traditions out of a possible 10 (75card deck), 3th I drew none at all (another thanks to Pierre for cutting my deck ;-)) Princes with OBF, Pot and for that's not too hard to make deck out of, is it? And for the anitribes: Kendrick is in there, too I don't have any deck lists here, but somewhere on Lasombra's site there is a nice - altough- a bit older example: *searching* *found: Todd Bannister's Winning Deck at Crusade: Columbia December 2000 Voting by Brute Force by: Todd Banister Crypt [avg = 6.67]: 1x Sheldon - Lord of the Clog (9) OBF POT for Justicar 2x Suhailah (9) OBF pot FOR Prince 1x Selma - The Repugnant (8) OBF POT for Prince 3x Nikolaus Vermeulen (7) obf POT for Prince 1x Murat (7) OBF POT Prince 1x Kendrick (7) obf POT Priscus 1x Volker (5) pot Prince 1x Duck (3) obf pot 1x Rufina Soledad (2) for Library: (89) Masters (17) 7x Minion Tap 3x Sudden Reversal 2x Dreams of the Sphinx 2x Info Highway 1x Elysium: The Arboretum 1x The Labyrinth 1x Ventrue HQ Actions: (15) 7x 5th Tradition: Hosputality 5x 4th Tradition: Accounting 2x Judgement: Camarilla Segregation 1x Ivory Bow Political Actions: (30) 10x Kine Resources Contested 5x Banishment 4x Parity Shift 2x Ancilla Empowerment 2x Conservative Agitation 2x Kindred Restructure 1x Ancient Influence 1x Disputed Territory 1x Nosferatu Justicar 1x Political Stranglehold 1x PS: Istanbul Action Mod: (8) 4x Forgotten Labyrinth 2x Freak Drive 2x Lost in Crowds Reaction: (7) 7x 2nd Tradition: Domain Combat: (12) 6x Skin of Steel 3x Pushing the Limit 2x Disarm 1x Sacrament of Carnage Jeroen

> Bloody hell, no pleasing some people! The Gangrel got three cards and > one vampire too. One very expensive, super rare combat card (Mythic > Form), one very expensive and unnecessary damage prevention card (King > of the Mountain), and Crimson Fury. Ramona is no way near as cool as > Christianus - her special sucks and she is the least powerful > signiture character by a mile. The best thing for the gangrel in final > nights was Haakon - a !Gangrel vampire. I am not comparing them to the Gangrel. I'm comparing them to the clans that are going to get a HUGE boost from Bloodlines (ie all the clans I listed that everyone seems to be ignoring). The Nosferatu need some help to make them as tourney viable as most other clans, and by the clans introduced so far on the sight they are going to get slighted. Again. Find me a clan that is as underrepresented Tourney wide as the Nosferatu. Hell, without weenie potence we'd be the most underrepresented clan around. Period. And I just wish it were not so. Matt Denizen of the Sewers of Detroit. PS: Ramona is the bomb. Good special, cool art.

>I am not comparing them to the Gangrel. I'm comparing them to the clans that >are going to get a HUGE boost from Bloodlines (ie all the clans I listed >that everyone seems to be ignoring). The Nosferatu need some help to make >them as tourney viable as most other clans, and by the clans introduced so >far on the sight they are going to get slighted. Again. Looking at the few advantages that allow for different deck-types for the Anti-Nos you have: COURIER: Which is really only decent in a deck focused on bringing out the Couriers en mass.. USING THE ADVANTAGE: Which is super-corner case, maybe with some pairing with the Malkavians & Madness Network. Too much trouble to use. None of the Anti-Nos vampires really stand out as being distinct. Sure, Beast is a monster rush god. And fits into absolutely ANY potence rush deck. Yong-Sun is pretty interesting, but needs to be combined with out of clan vampires to make his special usefull. >Find me a clan that is as underrepresented Tourney wide as the Nosferatu. Pander are never played as a clan deck, the only downside of the errata to Legacy of Pander. Sure, Pander get included in a ton of decks, but only as discipline filler.. >Hell, without weenie potence we'd be the most underrepresented clan around. >Period. And I just wish it were not so. Hmmm.. It's a game design problem I'm thinking. The (original) game designers intended for variance in deck building, but with each new expansion I'm thinking variation has gone way beyond Jyhad's initial design. Here's what you're not seeing played anymore (with some limited exceptions): Contestation Decks based primarily on clan Clan Hosers (Nosferatu Putresence, etc..) It's been mentioned that something like Vanguard (from Magic:TG) could assist crypt design. Sounded good to me at the time. Maybe if more cards forced you to take a harder look at who you put into play using [Judgement: Camarilla Segregation] for example. Taking it to an extreme, change the traditions so that they cannot be played if you control non-camarilla vampires. Not that this would happen, but you can really grasp the need to change Crypts in this case. The jist of what I'm saying is that there should be a greater empasis on new cards to promote playing in-clan, rather than hordes based on discipline alone. At that point maybe there would be something to help distinguish the Anti-Nos (and others) from their Camarilla contemporaries. >Matt >Denizen of the Sewers of Detroit. > >PS: Ramona is the bomb. Good special, cool art. Didn't really like her at first, better than my first impression. See ya at the pre-release, Bernie

"BernieTime" <berni...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20011123154952...@mb-fp.aol.com... [ quoted text not captured ] > Bernie Thank you Bernie for your well thought out and reasoned response. I'm glad to see that this article stimulated thought for you. Matt

> Hmmm.. It's a game design problem I'm thinking. > The (original) game designers intended for variance in deck building, > but with each new expansion I'm thinking variation has gone way > beyond Jyhad's initial design. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, can you please elaborate? > Here's what you're not seeing played anymore (with some limited exceptions): > Contestation > Decks based primarily on clan > Clan Hosers (Nosferatu Putresence, etc..) > > It's been mentioned that something like Vanguard (from Magic:TG) > could assist crypt design. Sounded good to me at the time. I liked the idea of Methuselah cards too, has some potential. > Maybe if more cards forced you to take a harder look at who you > put into play using [Judgement: Camarilla Segregation] > for example. > Taking it to an extreme, change the traditions so that they > cannot be played if you control non-camarilla vampires. > Not that this would happen, but you can really grasp the > need to change Crypts in this case. > > The jist of what I'm saying is that there should be a greater > empasis on new cards to promote playing in-clan, > rather than hordes based on discipline alone. > At that point maybe there would be something to help distinguish > the Anti-Nos (and others) from their Camarilla contemporaries. I'll admit that I tend to build decks based on discipline combos but when I look at discipline combos, in order to get the best "bang-for-buck" as it were, I look to see what clan has those disciplines as in-clan disciplines. A side-effect of this is that many of my decks mostly consists of one clan. Occasionally I'll build a deck based on a particular clan for various reasons. Unfortunately some clans ( esp !Gangrel ) are worse off than others when it comes to budget-sized vampires with the appropriate in-clan discipline(s) at the desired level(s). The Sabbat have a particularly hard time because they have a lot fewer vampires to chose from. A few cards that benefit you more based on the number of members of a clan you control wouldn't go astray though. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> Hmmm.. It's a game design problem I'm thinking. >> The (original) game designers intended for variance in deck building, >> but with each new expansion I'm thinking variation has gone way >> beyond Jyhad's initial design. > >I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, can you please elaborate? If you pick up a booster box of Jyhad with the intent of building mono- discipline decks, you'll find that 75%-85% of your Crypt is of a singular clan. Limited creativity came from combining unlikely discipline combos (like Obfuscate & Presence), which was pretty tough to do until later expansions. So in this time frame where Vote decks were primarily Ventrue, seeing Vampire contestations were fairly common. This pretty well held true up until the release of "The Sabbat" set where many of the sabbat clans discipline spreads are very close to their Camarilla counterparts. At this point is when you really start to see deck design shift away from clan specific to mono discipline designs. Currently The Lasombra has tournament winning decks listed by clan, IF the crypt contains 5 vampires of a given clan. That being a reflection of the shift. >> Here's what you're not seeing played anymore (with some limited >exceptions): >> Contestation >> Decks based primarily on clan >> Clan Hosers (Nosferatu Putresence, etc..) These examples above were supposed to highlight some game strategies which fell by the wayside primarily due to the shift in deck building. >> It's been mentioned that something like Vanguard (from Magic:TG) >> could assist crypt design. Sounded good to me at the time. > >I liked the idea of Methuselah cards too, has some potential. > >> Maybe if more cards forced you to take a harder look at who you >> put into play using [Judgement: Camarilla Segregation] >> for example. >> Taking it to an extreme, change the traditions so that they >> cannot be played if you control non-camarilla vampires. >> Not that this would happen, but you can really grasp the >> need to change Crypts in this case. >> >> The jist of what I'm saying is that there should be a greater >> empasis on new cards to promote playing in-clan, >> rather than hordes based on discipline alone. >> At that point maybe there would be something to help distinguish >> the Anti-Nos (and others) from their Camarilla contemporaries. > >I'll admit that I tend to build decks based on discipline combos but when I >look at discipline combos, in order to get the best "bang-for-buck" as it >were, I look to see what clan has those disciplines as in-clan disciplines. >A side-effect of this is that many of my decks mostly consists of one clan. >Occasionally I'll build a deck based on a particular clan for various >reasons. Unfortunately some clans ( esp !Gangrel ) are worse off than >others when it comes to budget-sized vampires with the appropriate in-clan >discipline(s) at the desired level(s). The Sabbat have a particularly hard >time because they have a lot fewer vampires to chose from. I too work out my decks based on discipline first, then look to see if focusing it within a specific clan gives it any edge over discipline efficiency. The Anti-Gangrel aren't in rough shape, though I do tend to build decks using multiple copies of 1-2 Vamps. The only disadvantage The Sabbat have over Camarilla is the strength of The Traditions. This might be evened out some if more Sabbat clan cards were to encourage straight-clan contruction. - Bernie

"BernieTime" <berni...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20011124163501...@mb-fy.aol.com... > >> Hmmm.. It's a game design problem I'm thinking. > >> The (original) game designers intended for variance in deck building, > >> but with each new expansion I'm thinking variation has gone way > >> beyond Jyhad's initial design. > > > >I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, can you please elaborate? > > If you pick up a booster box of Jyhad with the intent of building mono- > discipline decks, you'll find that 75%-85% of your Crypt is of a singular > clan. Limited creativity came from combining unlikely discipline > combos (like Obfuscate & Presence), which was pretty tough > to do until later expansions. > > So in this time frame where Vote decks were primarily Ventrue, > seeing Vampire contestations were fairly common. > > This pretty well held true up until the release of "The Sabbat" set where > many of the sabbat clans discipline spreads are very close to > their Camarilla counterparts. > > At this point is when you really start to see deck design shift away > from clan specific to mono discipline designs. Currently The > Lasombra has tournament winning decks listed by clan, IF the > crypt contains 5 vampires of a given clan. > That being a reflection of the shift. Ah yes, I get you, many of the anti clans having the same/very similar discipline set as their cammie brethern mean that they often get included in what would have otherwise been a single clan deck. [ quoted text not captured ] The Sabbat have some pretty powerful cards themselves, the Hungry Coyote being a lot better than Inbase but I think that the Sabbat cards require a bit more skill to use as effectively as the Traditions, which as real no-brainers.

>Thank you Bernie for your well thought out and reasoned response. I'm glad >to see that this article stimulated thought for you. > >Matt Way I see it, never hurts to put forth CONSTRUCTIVE criticism as long as everyone plays nice. I wouldn't be as vocal here if I didn't have concerns about where the game is going. As you know (Matt), we have an ongoing Sunday game which is often the only chance I get to see a number of my friends anymore. If the Vampire CCG started to really suck, I'm not sure if our little group would still get together or not. Hopefully The Lasombra doesn't mind my occasional Editorial as long as my newsletter (Caitiff) keeps things positive. Regards, Bernie Breshanan "I am my brother's keeper"