[Spirit Marionette] Making the puppet dance

Lately, I have been trying to think of ways to abuse Spirit Marionette (at OBE) to its fullest, so I thought I'd open up a discussion on it. Here are my thoughts on the various cards we might use: Pentex(tm) Loves You! If you see a lot of Sabbat Vampires you can use this card to make SM bleeds into bleeds for two that also burn a blood off the SM'ed vampire. There are 701 vampires in the game and 258 of them are Sabbat, ie elgible to use this card. You could also include Sabbat vampires in your own crypt, just in case. It's costly at 2 pool, so you need to be sure that you will get some usage out of it. Ericyes Fragment If you're going to be stealing your prey's vampires for a bleed action, you may as well use their bleed modifiers too. Granted, they may not even use bleed modifiers but they'll probably have *something* juicy in their ashheap, so you may as well do some digging. The card is stealable, but with Matthias this should not be an insurmountable problem. Daring the Dawn This one seems to be a favourite with many puppetmasters, for its ability to send the puppet vampires right to torpor, and likely without having been blocked. Of the 701 vampires in the game, 225 have at least [for]. Given that you are presumably playing Salubri, your vampires also have at least [for], so there is some synergy. It is also relatively easy to give a vampire [for] with a skill card, though this seems like a lot of work for little payoff. Dawn Operation Used at the right moment, this card will ruin someone's day. If you steal a vampire with [FOR], bleed your prey and get blocked, throw this card down to make all damage aggravated and no chance to back out. If the blocker has no way to avoid combat, you can send *both* vampires to torpor. Of the 701 vampires, only 93 have [FOR]. Of course, that's a lot of "ifs"-- too many for my tastes... Day Operation Overall the effect of this will be very similar to Daring the Dawn, except that there is no damage involved. Daring the Dawn is more generally useful for our purposes. If we're going to force their vampire into torpor, we may as well make them take some damage too. Conditioning Of the 701 vampires in the game, 257 have at least [dom]. And as we all know, Dominate is completely broken </joke>. This card can be played as a surprise or just used to burn the blood if needed. It's unlikely that Archon Investigation will be used on the marionette, but if it does, who cares? Not our problem. Since the outferior of Spirit Marionette is [dom], you could conceivably use SM as a base action for the bleed, making it a total bleed of +4 which is pretty scary. Aire of Elation There are 253 vampires with at least [pre], and many of them are Toreador. This effect is similar to Conditioning, but Conditioning is probably a safer bet. Alacrity If you want to be sure the bleed gets through, Alacrity will force the puppet with [cel] to spend two blood. Two blood is pretty expensive and tends to add up, which is why people only use this card as a last resort. There are 235 vampires with at least [cel]. The manuever that comes with [CEL] could potentially help if blockers try to move away from their own vampire. Since most intelligent players will probably not bother to block a SM bleed for 1, you will likely not need the stealth and thus this card is inferior to other options. It would be funny however. Scrying of Secrets There are 308 vampires with some level of Auspex. That's a lot compared to the aforementioned disciplines. Scrying is probably more annoying than effective, but could be used in the right situation. In tandem with Revelations, it gives you even more information about the deck you face, and that can never be bad. It also makes the bleeding vampire burn a blood, possibly forcing a hunt. At superior you can strip some of their bleed action cards away which might find something you could use with Ericyes Fragment, should you also choose to play that. Since it is an [aus] card, there is existing synergy with Salubri. Precognizant Mobility We can use this to untap an abusable vampire and then SM that vampire immediately after. This could conceivably be used to grab Inner Circle members who inherently bleed for 3. The action costs 1 blood and needs [AUS] to be effective. My thinking is that this is not a great way to go about things. If your opponents are tapping all their vampires out so you can't SM them, just use SM at [obe] to bleed for 2. It's far less card-intensive, in my opinion. There are other potential cards for less-popular disciplines, but given the relative infrequency they are probably not worth playing. Horrific Countenance springs to mind... Any other good cards/ideas I've missed? Cheers, WES

<snip> > Any other good cards/ideas I've missed? I've been on the receiving end of Spirit Marionette / Heidelberg more than once. It's the worst combo if you ask me and very reliable. It basically means, never have more than 2-3 blood or you lose it and never equip, or I'll steal it. And the synergy with Vitae Block is of course awesome. All it lacks is stealth, which is something you can add fairly easy. Or you could play daring the dawn and use Obeah and Fortitude to get your guys back out of torpor. Or, you could do as a deck in our playgroup does, and lure out intercept and wakes with Change of Target. The deck I mean does this Spirit Marionette/Heidelberg thing and defends itself by concealed magnums. Once you get to later turns, vitae block + .44 is almost a guaranteed "go to torpor" since unless you have free combat end, prevention or dodge (keyword free) you're fucked. Add to that you have low blood (spirit/heidel) and he has massive amounts of pool (Salubri are kinda poolgain machines) and it's pretty damn tough to beat. Sure, it dies to dedicated combat but between the AUS (your aforementioned pregocnizant mobility, but also revelations) weenies, the two good Salubri, foritude and that darned Obeah, you're gonna need quite a focussed deck to beat up this toolbox. It's a fun deck to play against though.

"Izaak" <i.hav...@SPAMklg.nl> wrote > > I've been on the receiving end of Spirit Marionette / Heidelberg more > than once. I was trying to think of cards that would let you modify the bleed action. You are correct however that Heidelberg is a great way to abuse the puppet in transit. I really should have mentioned it... <snip deck> Sounds pretty good... got a list? Cheers, WES

[ quoted text not captured ] I'll ask and post it here.

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:c6nos...@enews4.newsguy.com... > Lately, I have been trying to think of ways to abuse Spirit Marionette > (at OBE) to its fullest, so I thought I'd open up a discussion on it. > > Here are my thoughts on the various cards we might use: [snip] > Any other good cards/ideas I've missed? > Babble superior lets you untap *any* vampire. think about it oscar

> > Any other good cards/ideas I've missed? > > Cheers, > WES > Obviously, as mentioned above, heidelberg. Also, don't forget that SM outferior at dom is "D: Bleed at +1" so don't panic and pack 15 of them. Either to steal vamps, bleed with your vamps (inf OBE) or bleed with the puppet if it has the correct discipline(dom) If you plan to add 4+ daring the dawn, adding some for skill cards is not that bad, along with Tension in the Ranks or Fame (you may order the post-action events as you like, so you may choose to return the vamp first, then let the daring the dawn effect trigger once it is again under it's owner control) To build a real wacky deck, you might add some daughters of cacophony for sideboard stealth: Paris opera house and siren's lure (which at outferior is the same as an alacrity) which might come really handy either to pass your SM or to get the SM bleed go through. Just my 2 cents... Smiling Tom

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message > I was trying to think of cards that would let you modify the bleed > action. You are correct however that Heidelberg is a great way to abuse > the puppet in transit. I really should have mentioned it... More of an aside really: If the vampire you steal has a pulled fangs on them somehow, you can Heidleburg the blood off and attempt to hunt. They go to torpor instead of hunting and you still have control because no action has happened yet. Your next action is... Sacrifical Lamb? Graverobbing? Weird, but there might be something in it. Matt.

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> a écrit dans le message de news: c6nos...@enews4.newsguy.com... > Of the 701 vampires, only 93 have [FOR]. Of course, that's a lot > of "ifs"-- too many for my tastes... if you go for the fortitude angle, you could use outferior Neutral Guard to guarantee burning a vampire with inf. Daring the Dawn, while using OBE at other times for obvious reasons. Stone

> If you plan to add 4+ daring the dawn, adding some for skill cards is not > that bad, along with Tension in the Ranks or Fame (you may order the > post-action events as you like, so you may choose to return the vamp first, > then let the daring the dawn effect trigger once it is again under it's > owner control) > Daring the Dawn is post-resolution, not post-action. They go to torpor while you control them. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3E53DEE3.3010202%40white-wolf.com&oe=ISO-8859-1&output=gplain

> Lately, I have been trying to think of ways to abuse Spirit Marionette > (at OBE) to its fullest, so I thought I'd open up a discussion on it. as an aside ... if you give Jesus (i forget the 7pt Sal name) a skill card (say NEC) and a Signet of King saul then all your actions with Jesus incl. SM are unblockable with a Neutral Guard... very nasty also a thought - if any vamp you've taken has superior FOR and the blocking vamp doesn't have fortitude (say the bleed gets deflected...) you could play Kiss of Ra with their acting vampire... not nice jds

>I've been on the receiving end of Spirit Marionette / Heidelberg more >than once. It's the worst combo if you ask me and very reliable. >Sure, it dies to dedicated combat but between the >AUS (your aforementioned pregocnizant mobility, but also revelations) >weenies, the two good Salubri, foritude and that darned Obeah, you're >gonna need quite a focussed deck to beat up this toolbox. It's a fun >deck to play against though. Last line seems inconsistent with the thrust of the post. I'd say it's very much not remotely fun to play against. I've sat down to a game and new it was over as soon as I realized my prey was playing Spirit Marionette. I had an expensive crypt. I couldn't get a vampire out fast enough to tap it. I couldn't generate enough intercept once one came out, though it wasn't likely to matter as the SM could have just been Daring-ed. I finally bothered to bring out a vampire because it wasn't like I could do anything else to prevent being ousted and promptly had it burned. Of course, if it only ever happened once or with bad play, could say lots of other things are just as bad or worse. Happens routinely with the archetype to either get fucked or totally fucked whether the SM deck ends up winning or not. The part of the combo that is most bothersome is Heidelberg. Amazingly enough, Heidelberg is also the most bothersome part of many other temporary steal combos. Sorry about getting off topic, but it was an easy opening to rant about the archetype.

Wes wrote : > Any other good cards/ideas I've missed? > > Cheers, > WES Slaughtering the Herd inf : Bleed at +2 Bleed. Allies cannot Block this action With Daring the dawn it adds insult to the the injury Mathieu

(snip all) Also a very good card to use is Neutral Guard since you're allready very likely to play this card you can use the minor for (atleast I think it was for) to make the SM'd minion burn a blood and then you're able to burn him using daring the dawn. I think the larger question here should be how do you abuse SM and what kind of deck can you build around them. Lately I've been working on a Salubri only deck which makes great use of the SM the biggest draw back is offcourse the Scarce bit but also the fact that even with a Pulse on you're vampire you're ousting power is virually none but then again I might not be able to play the Salubri. So I'm also wondering is there any body else who has a succesfull Salubri only deck. If the need might arise I'll post my deck list here but I wouldn't want to litter the news group with more pointless deck lists made by people who tell you they're deck has won the last couple of games but now want feed back on how to improve they're deck (I hate those kind of posts but that's entirely difirent post all together) Emile "We are an ape with a symbiotic relationship to a mushroom"

> if you go for the fortitude angle, you could use outferior Neutral Guard to > guarantee burning a vampire with inf. Daring the Dawn, while using OBE at > other times for obvious reasons. > > Stone > > you don't need neutral guard for this if you are heidleburging. Just steal all blood and then hunt wath daring. You don't of course get to bleed them but a burnt vamp is a burnt vamp. John

> Lately I've been working on a Salubri only deck which makes great use > of the SM the biggest draw back is offcourse the Scarce bit but also > the fact that even with a Pulse on you're vampire you're ousting power > is virually none but then again I might not be able to play the > Salubri. I've played and tried many Salubri SM mods, most of them successful casually, none at tourney level yet. (I played Salubri at the Canberra Qualifier but it was misreported as SM when it really was just Renewed Vigour Bloat Stealth Bleed. It died to weenie pot rush in two out of three games. Ironically, the only time it was working successfully was when I pulled up the 3 SM's in the deck.) The key is not to play Salubri only IMO. The great thing about SM is once your prey realises what you are doing they always tap out, so a supporting vamp or two with dom works really well as they can play SM to bleed for 2 then condition as required. Most decks simply run out of wakes. Group 1 Malks work well as they can use anasthetic touch at inf aus to dodge at close. AT also works well with pulled fangs which really makes sure that once they have PF on a vamp that vamp ALWAYS taps cause if they don't and are stolen then they are going to torpor and not coming out for a while. If you play wake and intercept to protect the Malks then the only problem really is long range intercept combat. The next Salubri deck I build will be rush believe it or not. The killer combo as I figure it is Nose of the Hound, Vitae Block, Anesthetic touch, Pulled Fangs. That'll handle a vamp with 5 blood or less. If you do it in your turn then they don't get the blood back until your next untap which means there is 3 blood incentive to eat. Even better if they are famous and have less than 5. Rush, torpor, rescue and then you don't even have to rush again to get them back into torpor. John

"John Alston" <jra...@internode.on.net> escribió en el mensaje news:4090c8ea$1...@duster.adelaide.on.net... [ quoted text not captured ] The vamp won't burn this way: Mathias-> Spirit Marionette on Arika Heidelburg -drain all blood from Arika Arika hunts Arika plays Daring the dawn at inferior Action succesfull: Gain 1 blood Daring the dawn->2 aggravated damage Result: Ends in torpor with no blood To burn a vamp via daring the dawn, the vamp needs to be empty at the end of the action.

> > you don't need neutral guard for this if you are heidleburging. Just > steal > > all blood and then hunt wath daring. You don't of course get to bleed > them > > but a burnt vamp is a burnt vamp. actually you can't do this at all: If a minion cannot take a mandatory action (for whatever reason), the he is stuck and can take no action. [LSJ 20010810] take care, jds

freakdrivr wrote: > actually you can't do this at all: > > If a minion cannot take a mandatory action (for whatever reason), the > he is stuck and can take no action. [LSJ 20010810] Spirit Marionette allows you to hunt if its mandatory. --Colin McGuigan

"Smiling Tom" <tma...@almadrava.net> wrote in message news:c6qnfk$fcpqt$1...@ID-233037.news.uni-berlin.de... [ quoted text not captured ] Ahh yes, my bad. forgot the gain a blood from hunting bit. :)

The funniest thing i tried with Spirit was having blanche hill clan imp to malk, then use (and protect) the madness network. At the end of my predators turn i spirit marionette a (non)malkavian vamp which i then have in my untap/master phase. (i golcondaed arika which was quite amusing, but was focussing on social ladder) I think ill try the deck again sometime, since i like the idea.

"Matt Green" <ma...@rid0utass0ciates.c0.uk> wrote in message news:<c6o354$g4v$1...@hercules.btinternet.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Golconda? W

"Nikolaj Wendt" <niko...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht news:22f564b8.04043...@posting.google.com... > The funniest thing i tried with Spirit was having blanche hill clan > imp to malk, then use (and protect) the madness network. > At the end of my predators turn i spirit marionette a (non)malkavian > vamp which i then have in my untap/master phase. (i golcondaed arika > which was quite amusing, but was focussing on social ladder) You can't do that. You steal Arika, bleed with her and give her back after the action. You won't have her in your turn. > I think ill try the deck again sometime, since i like the idea. Won't work.

Izaak wrote: > "Nikolaj Wendt" <niko...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht > news:22f564b8.04043...@posting.google.com... >>The funniest thing i tried with Spirit was having blanche hill clan >>imp to malk, then use (and protect) the madness network. >>At the end of my predators turn i spirit marionette a (non)malkavian >>vamp which i then have in my untap/master phase. (i golcondaed arika >>which was quite amusing, but was focussing on social ladder) > > You can't do that. You steal Arika, bleed with her and give her back > after the action. You won't have her in your turn. Arika cannot bleed through the Madness Network, since she is not a Malkavian. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Wouter...@yahoo.com (Wouter Kuyper) wrote in message news:<44a2da05.04043...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] You dont have it in your master phase unless you do something first.

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:j1Lkc.13570$Xj6.2...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net... [ quoted text not captured ] So that means that the Blanche/CI to Malk gimmick would work? If so, and since Arika would be controlled by Blanche's controller during untap & master phases, wouldn't the following also be allowed (among many other things, of course): 1) Minion Tap Arika or 2) Golconda Arika and gain 11 pool for Blanche's controller or 3) Burn Arika during untap to burn the Antediluvian Awakening - Pat

How about Clan loyalty??? Costs 1 and usually people are using the same clan for all their vamps.

"Pat Lusk" <patrick.l...@comcast.nyetspam.net> wrote in message news:<jp6dncjPktY...@comcast.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Yes, its possible. Thats the whole point. Allthough as i said i tried Social Ladder, since the targets get settled when i use the master, she still burns in my influence phase, even though i dont control her at that time.. and i transfer her blood to an older vampire (wont work with arika off course, but with younger vampires)

niko...@hotmail.com (Nikolaj Wendt) wrote in message news:<22f564b8.04043...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] can you post the decklist? i've tried to make it work, but couldn't syncronize the moving parts...

sonnenk...@aol.com (arden mcbathan) wrote in message news:<aae0be1a.04050...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I tried with leandro to protect the network, but i want to do it with maris instead, as soon as i get my fourth copy of her.

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> schreef in bericht news:c6ntp...@enews4.newsguy.com... > > "Izaak" <i.hav...@SPAMklg.nl> wrote > > > > I've been on the receiving end of Spirit Marionette / Heidelberg more > > than once. > > I was trying to think of cards that would let you modify the bleed > action. You are correct however that Heidelberg is a great way to abuse > the puppet in transit. I really should have mentioned it... > > <snip deck> > > Sounds pretty good... got a list? It's not the exact same deck, since this was reconstructed from memory, so numbers can be off be 1 or 2. This is the idea though. Now that I got the list anyway, I intend to give it a shot on deckbot soon. I threw some random comments in here and there for possible improvment. Most of it is more a playing style-thing Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 28, Avg: 5,33) ---------------------------------------------- 4 Matthias AUS FOR nec OBE 7, Salubri:2 3 Blanche Hill aus FOR OBE 6, Salubri:2 1 Billy AUS dom for 5, Ventrue Antitribu:2 1 Maldavis for pre AUS 4, Caitiff:3 1 Isabel de Leon AUS 3, Toreador:2 1 Zoe AUS cel obf 3, Malkavian:2 1 Martin Franckel tha AUS 3, Tremere:3 I think it can do better with more aus/for around in the crypt instead of the AUS guys. Juan Cali and Peter Blaine come to mind. Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (15 cards) 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 3 Heidelberg Castle, Germany 1 Metro Underground 7 Minion Tap 1 Secure Haven 1 Sight Beyond Sight 1 Sudden Reversal I'm a Blood Doll fan, especially with those Weenies around. They can play perfect hunt-dolls. Action (25 cards) 1 Force of Will 5 Precognizant Mobility 7 Renewed Vigor 3 Revelations 8 Spirit Marionette 1 Unburdening the Bestial Soul That last card is so incredibly evil if you have the blood. It's *worse* than Sense Dep. At least it has a cost. Action Modifier (17 cards) 5 Change of Target 6 Freak Drive 6 Repulsion I'd play Daring the Dawn instead of Change of Target, but that may be me. Or go with both. Reaction (9 cards) 4 Enhanced Senses 5 Telepathic Misdirection Don't see much use for Enhanced Senses considering Mattias already has +1 intercept, gets to +2 with Telepathic and +3 with Sight Beyond Sight. Combat (20 cards) 3 Aura Reading 4 Concealed Weapon 7 Skin of Steel 6 Vitae Block Aura reading is cute, but I'd rather go 5/5 Magnum/Conceal for more consistency. Equipment (4 cards) 4 .44 Magnum