Tactical Nuke decks

Hi folks! I want to make a list of decks that can hang around patiently for quite a long time and than suddenly launch a tactical nuke for a one turn oust. I believe the Death Star deck would be a classic example for this. Also Toreador Grand Ball decks can play very defensively and than play 2 unblockable actions in one turn like a Parity Shift followed by Anarchist Uprising. So any decks you want to add to the list? Death Star Assamite Toreador Grand Ball Vote NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

I always think of Palla Grande/embrace decks as being really powerful. Ravnos Clown Car does much the same thing. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

As mentioned, any deck involving Palla Grande or Week of Nightmares can do this, although the threat is pretty obvious for a while. !Ventrue grinders tend to launch tactical nukes too; the will just sit there Governing at superior and blocking for a while and when they see an opening they produce 15 bleed. Vignes also tends to do this, although that gets usually accompanied with a Misdirection and a turn 2 Anarch Troublemaker that everyone forgot about. Kiasyd bleed is another such deck thanks to Song of Pan, but that's also one of those decks where you see the trick coming from miles away. The best non-dominate example I can come up with is a DoC embrace/vote deck that can out of nowhere play and pass 5-6 KRCs in a single turn thanks to Echo of Harmonies. Something similar can be done with Nos breed, but that requires saving up KRC's for a *long* time and Nosferatu are less likely to have votelock, while for the daughters, between Conductor and Bastille Opera House, this is pretty trivial. That said, in all fairness what you are asking is "what kind of decks can lunge". Both the decks you describe are decks with a strong ability to produce a LOT of pool damage with relatively few cards. Any deck can do this by just saving up, say, 4 Conditionings. The trick is, as you actually describe, to play defensively and safe up offense to use when you have a shot. This isn't really about deck types, but more about playstyle and playing the deck well. I always try to remind people that nuking your prey when you can't oust him is an excercise in futility. Unless your deck is built for constant pressure (KS, Lawfirm) there is really no point in blowing all your +bleed on one prey, leave him at 5 pool in a superdefensive stance while your grandprey cleans up the table. The tactical nuke you speak of is, IMO, not really a deck-unique thing. It's just a very efficient way to oust people.

Some Ventrue law firm (although it's pretty hard to keep a low profile and a straight face with ), Carna or Blackhorse Tanner grinders, Malkav royalty with Madness network. And pretty much any Justicar deck: Temptation of Greater Power IS a tactical nuke.

Turbo Nergal is missing. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I used to play a Serenna/Matthew deck that survived on permanent bleed reduction, Renewed Vigor and cheapened Villeins and some amount of bounce. It would bloat and play Revelations for a while and then bleed like crazy with the combined powers of Spirit Marionette, Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers, Heidelberg and Andre Leroux. It did pretty well against everything but a rushy predator. Adding combat defense would probably hamper the flow of the deck too much.

Girls is a good deck for lunge also. It works little bit same as !Ventrue grinders. But generating lot of pool for surviving instead of blocking/deflecting. When there's enough ICs and permanent bleed on the table, you can get oust cards with one Ashur tablets swing. Ashurs are amazing for lunge. This is very easy to see coming but I feel players need to reminded of this constantly. That DEM going full throttle in your crosstable is not table threat for you (well depends) if you go whack that deck you will just play table for Girls/!Ventrue or some deck with strong end game.

I've never quite got it working the way I want it to, but I've been tinkering for several years now with an Assamite deck that generates lots of pool via Haqim's Law Leadership (and in some versions, Con Boon), puts out lots of small guys, and then lunges with a combination of Khabar Community and superior Dream World. In theory, it does exactly what you're referring to here, particularly since it doesn't look very threatening before the first Dream World comes out.

> Kushiel wrote: > I've never quite got it working the way I want it to, but I've been tinkering for several years now with an Assamite deck that generates lots of pool via Haqim's Law Leadership (and in some versions, Con Boon), puts out lots of small guys, and then lunges with a combination of Khabar Community and superior Dream World. In theory, it does exactly what you're referring to here, particularly since it doesn't look very threatening before the first Dream World comes out. > I've found that Reliquary: Shango Remains + Lilith's Blessing adds a great deal of consistency to weenie Assamites, to the point where it just outright wins games. Presence-Assamites probably don't mind Discipline grafting, either.

> Izaak wrote: > As mentioned, any deck involving Palla Grande or Week of Nightmares can do this, although the threat is pretty obvious for a while. > > !Ventrue grinders tend to launch tactical nukes too; the will just sit there Governing at superior and blocking for a while and when they see an opening they produce 15 bleed. Vignes also tends to do this, although that gets usually accompanied with a Misdirection and a turn 2 Anarch Troublemaker that everyone forgot about. Kiasyd bleed is another such deck thanks to Song of Pan, but that's also one of those decks where you see the trick coming from miles away. The best non-dominate example I can come up with is a DoC embrace/vote deck that can out of nowhere play and pass 5-6 KRCs in a single turn thanks to Echo of Harmonies. Something similar can be done with Nos breed, but that requires saving up KRC's for a *long* time and Nosferatu are less likely to have votelock, while for the daughters, between Conductor and Bastille Opera House, this is pretty trivial. > > That said, in all fairness what you are asking is "what kind of decks can lunge". Both the decks you describe are decks with a strong ability to produce a LOT of pool damage with relatively few cards. Any deck can do this by just saving up, say, 4 Conditionings. The trick is, as you actually describe, to play defensively and safe up offense to use when you have a shot. This isn't really about deck types, but more about playstyle and playing the deck well. > > I always try to remind people that nuking your prey when you can't oust him is an excercise in futility. Unless your deck is built for constant pressure (KS, Lawfirm) there is really no point in blowing all your +bleed on one prey, leave him at 5 pool in a superdefensive stance while your grandprey cleans up the table. > > The tactical nuke you speak of is, IMO, not really a deck-unique thing. It's just a very efficient way to oust people. > Yep, it is much about playstyle. I play my new Toreador Grand Ball deck like that. But some decks can't be played like that some demand you to play like that. I am curious which decks prefer to be played that way. NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

Guruhi/Osebo Brutal Influence should be like that. Certainly you can see it coming, but that 10-12 point bleed that happens during a Strange Day should always be game changing.

+1 to Jeff's post on Brutal Influence decks, especially when combined with a little multiaction and Banishment/Exile. The version I built spent alot of time looking like it was in trouble: Brutal down to pull 2 off, Exile backwards for defense, call a few votes, etc. Then, it turned left for 12-18 pool damage to oust and went back to (trying) to look innocent. I think there are new Blood Brothers decks that can be played the same way. Redistribution + Slake the Thirst, Hive Mind both ways, Tribute to the Master - just move counters around (and back to your pool) to survive your predator, until you get 5 minions with 3 blood and a couple Walk of Caine + Shell Games. Bleed for a 6 per minion at 2 stealth, 3 times. Bounce remains more of a problem in this construct, though intercept is less of a problem (you can bleed for 6 at 4 stealth with 2 cards, once per turn) Robert Goudie's Bleedzooka also did this. Think Malk '94 using a lot of Mask of 1000 Faces as the meat of the stealth module. Wait until you can bring up 3 [DOM][obf/OBF] minions at once, and by that time your prey is probably around 14 pool. Come up and Govern+Condition with all 3 minions, playing the Masks at [obf] if needed to cycle (and allow multiple Command of the Beasts). The potential opening salvo would be 25 bleed if the stars align right. I've seen it do close to that, killing 2 people in that first turn of action. Most Imbued decks function the way you describe too. Tool up, intercept + Champion to survive, move a lot of cards around, then produce a flurry of 2-3 pt bleeds at 1-2 stealth from each minion, creating an oust in 1-2 turns. Turbo Nergal/Cycle calling the Beast and Eternal Masking is clearly another version of this, though one that doesn't sit around.

> Mephistopheles wrote: > Yep, it is much about playstyle. I play my new Toreador Grand Ball deck like that. But some decks can't be played like that some demand you to play like that. I am curious which decks prefer to be played that way. > I feel it totally depends what kind of deck you build. For example with DEM weenies you have very strong early game and you almost should bleed forward with every action. There isn't any cards usually in DEM weenies to make your your table position stronger and your offence is almost your defense (Kindred Spirits). Every game round you don't bleed has a chance of your prey or grand prey getting stronger (like getting pool or +intercept permanents). Some decks are build for defense and for strong end game. They also might have cards like Golconda which are awesome to make come back if things doesn't go as planned. With those decks you wait for right moment and you strike when your prey is weaker (low on blood, tapped or with bad hand cards). Strong end game decks should have cards which can gain you blood/pool or some permanent effects. Bounce works awesome for offence/defense in those decks. Also I am not a fan of not looking like a threat play style. If somebody is just gaining pool and putting new Assamites in play, everybody with some experience should see that there is some oust shennigans about to happen some turn. Playing no threat style only works against newbies or players playing stupidly. I don't want to plan my deck which works best if random seating is giving me right players. I plan my deck to work against the best players. I can see "I'm not threat" playstyle working in smaller not so serious tournaments tho. EDIT Tabletalk is very important also and it usually favors the "I'm not threat" playstyle.