Help with a deck concept: Samedi Transfusion

So for some time I've wanted to build a deck using the Samedi combat card "Transfusion" Transfusion Only usable after a successful action. Add 1 blood to a ready vampire. As above, but add 1 life to a ghoul or 1 blood to a ready vampire. Only usable after combat if this vampire is still ready and successfully inflicted any damage on the opposing minion in that combat. Put a transfusion counter on the opposing minion. If the minion now has 3 of your transfusion counters, burn them all to take control of that minion. Only one Transfusion may be played at superior each turn. Any suggestions on how to get this to work? I was thinking of using Troglodytia and her compatriots with many rushes and a lot of damage prevention. I'm not looking for a tournament winning deck here, but one that is playable in a casual environment. Suggestions on how to get this to work? Baron of Berkeley

I´ve also looked at this, but haven´t come up with anything yet. Accoring to the Secret Library database, neither have someone else. I guess you need both rushes and stealth. Some Haven Uncovered-based deck with several THA-minions? Or multi-rush Troglodytia, as you say. It doesn´t sound very stable "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Count wrote: > I'm looking for a tournament winning deck here, but one that is playable in a casual environment. > I'm going to assume that you meant not a tournament winning deck. > Suggestions on how to get this to work? > This is going to sound negative but I feel that it needs to be said: there's no way to make superior Transfusion work in the sense that you wouldn't be better off with a 90x Ascendance-deck. In the best case scenario, you'll need a rush action, stealth, Transfusion and a turn to achieve one third of your goal. That's assuming no kind of combat defense at all. If you include countermeasures against combat defense and other interference the card chain gets completely out of hand. Let's say the trick works out and you steal someone. What do you do with him? Rush and punch for 1? Bleed for 1 at stealth? Clog up the deck with useful actions? It's just one of those cards that looks like fun but has absolutely everything going against it. This is coming from the guy who regularly starts deck lists with Agent of Power and Clan Impersonation.

> Suoli wrote: > > I'm going to assume that you meant not a tournament winning deck. > Yes, that is what I meant. Post edited for clarity. A combat module I've used with Samedi has been "Dust to Dust" with "Groaning Corpses" which works somewhat effectively. I know this deck concept probably will never work, but it could be fun. Stealth rush into combat, dodge with groaning corpses inflicting damage, prevent as much damage as possible and transfuse once each turn. Maybe for table play, one could focus on grabbing vampires with fortitude and pack some "Force of Will" for bleeds? All of this is, of course, a long shot. Potentially fun, though. Baron of Berkeley

> Count wrote: > A combat module I've used with Samedi has been "Dust to Dust" with "Groaning Corpses" which works somewhat effectively. I know this deck concept probably will never work, but it could be fun. Stealth rush into combat, dodge with groaning corpses inflicting damage, prevent as much damage as possible and transfuse once each turn. Maybe for table play, one could focus on grabbing vampires with fortitude and pack some "Force of Will" for bleeds? All of this is, of course, a long shot. Potentially fun, though. > I suppose Dust to Dust + Groaning Corpses is playable but damage from the Corpses isn't damage from the vampire so it doesn't work with Transfusion. Trick decks are fun but what I'm afraid of is that Transfusion is literally impossible to pull off. Never mind that you're not getting victory points, but if the trick isn't even happening? I'd just go with Illusions of the Kindred + Lorenzo Detuono, that achieves something at least every once in a while.

Transfusion is ridiculously bad and slow. even if you play it just to have fun, you'll probably get ousted before the fun kicks in. that's no fun. it practically requires taking rush actions to focus the transfusion counters on the same minion, and takes 3 whole turns to complete. or 2 turns if you Enkil Cog rush, but then you need a 10-cap star rusher. Graverobbing or the vampire Josette would be much more fun alternatives. requires 1 turn minimum and it doesn't care how you sent them to torpor (or if you were even the one responsible)

You're looking for a fun deck at best. And I'm with you, it is a very tempting card; I just wish I had more copies to futz around with. I will say the 'outferior' is the best ability, especially with the Path of Bone existing. If you wanted to do a stronger deck based on that, that'd be easy. Given that you wanna minion steal -- and not dissuaded that the brokenness of dominate continues to have the strongest version of permanent minion steal since the original Jyhad set, Graverobbing -- there's a few directions I'd take this. Fastest result would be 2 of your turns (at least 2 table rounds) due to "Only one Transfusion may be played at superior each turn." clause: 1) Dirty Contract (or whatever) for rush, DIvine Sign for blocks. Req: THN nec (7 vampires) 2) Hidden Lurker, Divine Sign for blocks. THN nec obf (7 vampires) 3) Hidden Lurker and Fast Reaction (better chance to land the strike). THN aus obf (4 vampires) 4) Dirty Contract (or whatever) for rush and Status Perfectus. Req: THN (12 vampires) And all of these methods are very conditional... The big thing is you need to be able to get into combat as the reacting minion because this speeds up the combo. You need to use other people's turns to beat that ending clause.

Yeah you can achieve the same result (stealing a vampire) much more easily with Josette's special than Transfusion. Josette can do it all herself even, rush someone prevent + disarm, freak drive, steal the freshly torpored vampire.

> Count wrote: > ... Maybe for table play, one could focus on grabbing vampires with fortitude and pack some "Force of Will" for bleeds? All of this is, of course, a long shot. Potentially fun, though. > Take a leaf out of the book of the Late Great Matt Barnett... If you want them to have Fortitude, give them Fortitude. One of his decks relied on giving your predator Fortitude cards so he could then Spirit Marionette them and Bleed + Day Op your prey. If you wanted to do that kind of thing, you give them Fortitude Discipline cards... steal them with Transfusion and bleed them using cards like Dawn Op and put in some simple fotitude cards like Skin of Night to avoid the Agg damage. I'd also use The Baron (for his ) so you could use Empowering the Puppet King for the bleed actions. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

I thought the classic use of "give 'em fortitude" Spirit Marionette was Spirit Marionette, Heidelberg down to 1 blood, bleed, Day Op, Daring the Dawn. Then they wink out like tinkerbell. It's like Golconda without passing GO-> and collecting $200.

Azel, If you want to nerf completely the minions you're stealing; which is what Matt's deck did. Transfusion makes them permanently yours, so completely destroying the minion is pointless. Instead you should just utilise them to get at your prey without completely nerfing the minion. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Hum. Maybe Toy would work in a transfusion deck? Make a deck that does bad things to your preys vamps. When you become blocked, either use his Slave status or hidden lurker. Action: Mind of a Child/Mind of a Killer/Prison of the Mind/Total Insanity/Haunting/Lunatic Eruption Deck needs blood gaining, since these actions cost a hell lot of blood.

It's not just that the Necromancy level is better, it's that it's so obscenely better than even the inferior Than version. (I had a deck built around the superior. I did steal a vampire once ... a Samedi. Other than contestations, I was never a factor in that game.) Thanatosis is at the top of the list for disciplines to get a general cost reducer (a path). While a lot of the awful cards that cost blood will remain awful, they would be, um, less awful. Though, it seems unlikely people would want Reanimated Corpse and Under My Skin to be better, so really, the cost reducer should be: general, one vampire with a special is lame; for Thanatosis (obviously); for combat cards only. Traveller Card Game

> The big thing is you need to be able to get into combat as the reacting minion because this speeds up the combo. You need to use other people's turns to beat that ending clause. > in case some people haven't noticed, Transfusion is an action modifier. you can't use it when blocking, nor with Hidden Lurker and Fast Reaction. and since Toy can never act, he can never play it either. using the card at with Path of Bone sounds kind of cool though. I'll have to try it sometime.

Well I'll be... I assumed it was a combo card because of the combat relatedness of the superior (and refusing to believe it was that bad). It may have sucked from inception, but it could've been somewhat entertaining as a trap option Act Mod/Combat combo card. But now that I've seen my oversight, I'm stunned. Wow, there's absolutely nothing fruitful that can be done with that effect then. Now that's some inexcusably pitiful design right there.

> Azel wrote: > Well I'll be... I assumed it was a combo card because of the combat relatedness of the superior (and refusing to believe it was that bad). It may have sucked from inception, but it could've been somewhat entertaining as a trap option Act Mod/Combat combo card. > > But now that I've seen my oversight, I'm stunned. Wow, there's absolutely nothing fruitful that can be done with that effect then. Now that's some inexcusably pitiful design right there. > Well, as soon as I get a ninth one of these I'll try out a more wallish design with contracts. version probably. It ought to be fun. Slow, obviously, but if Transfusion makes up only a slice of the deck's design, then it might work okay. It seems like a fun card, even though it's very combersome to pull off. I'll just have to try it out. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

I like the idea of Shambling Hordes with 5 life.

They are zombies though. Since it only works for ghouls the few interesting targets I can think of are war ghoul (combo crypt) and corrupt construction. Lidingö Scourge

Ah. Yes. Good point. What about Agent of Power on weenie Malks and some Muddled + Ghouled + Transfusion, to have a 4-strength first-striking minion with 3 life?

> Haze wrote: > > > The big thing is you need to be able to get into combat as the reacting minion because this speeds up the combo. You need to use other people's turns to beat that ending clause. > > > in case some people haven't noticed, Transfusion is an action modifier. you can't use it when blocking, nor with Hidden Lurker and Fast Reaction. and since Toy can never act, he can never play it either. > > using the card at with Path of Bone sounds kind of cool though. I'll have to try it sometime. > Why can't you use it with Toy? He can't act, but he can hidden lurk, thus play action modifiers during his lurking. I'm not sure about the Slave thing...

A requirement for playing action modifiers is that you have to be the acting minion. As usual, the Golden Rule of Cardtext ( Rulebook 1.4 ) might override this rule in some cases, such as Hidden Lurker.

Exactly. Hidden Lurker has explicit text allowing the exception. Transfusion does not. Therefore, since Transfusion is an Act Mod only, with no text allowing exceptions, it has to be played only by the acting minion. Ghoul allies/retainers are fair targets. Though outside of keeping Gregory Winter alive w/o exposure, or Bima hordes, I'm at a bit of a loss. And there's always mortal ally + Ghouled, which might be interesting in a Brujah + Samedi mix. Putrescent Servitude also could help. But again, not many allies are worth their costs, let alone the extra card slots. It does pique my madness for something to do with Rafastio Ghouls. Rafastio Ghouls, Biothaumaturgic Experiment, Elephant Guardians, Apportation press to continue. Transfusions to keep the insanity alive. But by then, am I really playing to win anymore?