Unnamed Barrenness by Lev Jasper

Creator: Lev Jasper (Berkeley, CA) Debut: Alastor - San Jose Qualifier Date: Saturday, December 17, 2011 Played by: Jeff Kuta Prelims: 2 GW, 7 VPs, top seed Finals: 0 VPs (though it was strong enough to win) So, I have to tell everyone about this deck. IT IS FREAKING AMAZING. If only I had been able to play with it--at all--before this tournament, I think the result would have been better. It is so strong that I was able to gather 2 GWs and 7 VPs without having played the deck every before (though my friend Lev tuned it well). Here's the deck I recently played (pardon the lame formatting): UNNAMED BARRENNESS Crypt (12) 4x The Unnamed 8x The Horde Library (60) Masters (21) 6x Ashur Tablets 5x Maleficia 2x Wider View 1x The Barrens 1x Dreams of the Sphinx 1x Fragment of the Book of Nod 1x Jake Washington 1x Metro Underground 1x Pentex(tm) Subversion 1x Perfectionist 1x Secure Haven Actions (17) 12x Barrenness (burn option) 3x Unleash Hell's Fury (burn option) 1x Homunculus 1x Veneficti (burn option) Action Modifiers (17) 4x Lost in Crowds 4x Psalm of the Damned 3x Psychomachia 2x Elder Impersonation 2x Enkil Cog 1x Earth Control 1x Forgotten Labyrinth Combo (4) 4x Evil Eye (burn option) Event (1) 1x Scourge of the Enochians I can't say enough about how good this deck is. How potentially broken it is. The setup is pretty obvious. Get an Unnamed in play with Maleficia and either a Homunculus or Metro Underground, then wreck the table while gaining 4 pool every round trip. There are 20 (!!) burn option cards in this 60 card deck, *all of which are playable later after Ashur Tablets recursion*. This is crucial. You can pitch any Maleficia cards until you get Maleficia on a minion. Feel free to discard Barrenness (burn option), Unleash Hell's Fury (burn option), Evil Eye (so strong...burn option) and Psalm of the Damned (regular discard or Barrens/Fragment) until you're ready to setup. Get Maleficia, or superior Maleficia and get to work. Barrenness provides a free untap, AT INFERIOR MALEFICIA. Make sure every other vampire on the table is smaller than 10-cap. Unleash Hell's Fury and your defense is complete. Evil Eye takes care of nasty actions, AND LEAVES THE ACTING VAMPIRE TAPPED! The biggest weakness of this deck is against stealth bleed. I was ousted in the finals when the two other remaining players ganged up on me and bounced a stealth bleed for 7 followed by a stealth bleed for 6. That was coupled with the fact that I never got superior Maleficia in the entire game due by my own recklessness (I had discarded 2 early), plus *TWO* Sudden Reversals of the first 2 I tried to play. Having played it, this deck needs either 1x Archon Investigation or 1x Lost in Translation to deal with heavy bleeds. AI is probably the better choice since this deck will (eventually) burn minions. I burned two Inner Circle members the first game I played and took that game 3 VPs to 2. In fact, the tournament winner, Michael Courtois, played that deck and won the whole thing in the finals, as my prey. Good luck trying to be the first to win a tournament with this monstrosity, and congrats to whoever pulls off that feat. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

Funny deck. > > Jeff wrote: > Make sure every other vampire on the table is smaller than 10-cap. > Why? Did I miss something? Protecting The Unnamed from Banishment ? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

To be sure to be able to use Psychomachia maybe ?

Yes, to either enable the Unnamed or defend against possible negative consequences of others cards. Psychomachia on offense. Banishment, Murmur of the False Will, inferior Redirection, Lost in Translation on defense. It's also useful to limit voters who want to use Reins of Power, Ancient Influence, or Political Stranglehold. Bloat decks which rely on Voter Captivation are not as effective either. 2-capacity difference is HUGE. It is easy for this deck to get 1x The Unnamed and 3x The Horde into play mid-game. The Unnamed gets 2x Maleficia and each of The Horde have 1x Maleficia. In the game where I burned two ICs, I took each of them down to 9-cap early on. Then after an Ashur Tablet reset, took 4x Barrenness actions (untap after inferior Maleficia, no need to pay Infernal!), and burned them with the Scourge. Very brutal. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

It looks intriquing but not as strong as all that. One nit: Unleash Hell's Fury is burnable but it require Daimoinon, not Maleficia - so once you get a minion out, it's not really burnable. (Doubt it matters, but I'm just saying...) Without having played it or played against it, it appears vulnerable to bleed and maybe to rush combat (at least to some extent; limited to taking out Hordes, once the Secure Haven is in place). Granted, the hand-editing powers of the deck look awesome and the powers of some of the maleficia cards certainly rock. But I'd think it would falter against a predator with smaller minions that just plain did too much to stop. There are only four Evil Eyes and they don't work against cardless actions and once they're discarded, they can't be regenerated quickly. The UNF are likely a lot weaker if you're suffering table hate. (If I know you're the only guy who's likely to diablerize my minion or try to stop me from rescuing it, I'm not going to be as intimated by them. And nothing you hold, including Evil Eyes, will help you intercept a rescue except another Unleash Hell's Fury - which is unique.) If you're allowed to get three Hordes and The unnamed on the table and not get messed with or bled a lot, I'd say you'd probably have a pretty strong chance of winning. But that's a big 'if' - especially once folks see the deck. I'd think it would attract a lot of table hate and that would be its demise in a lot of tournaments. But, you know, sometimes weeny bleed decks win tournaments in spite of the same thing.

> fredsct wrote: > And nothing you hold, including Evil Eyes, will help you intercept a rescue except another Unleash Hell's Fury - which is unique.) > Not even that: UHF only blocks actions against you.

@Fred: I was playing bruise and bleed, but even I had to be careful against the Unnamed because of his 2r agg damage and the fact that unless I kept a guy untapped to be the last successful bleeder before his turn, he'd gain an additional pool from the edge. My case might have been a bit better if my predator would have bounced/bled me more. Jeff's seating originally made me happy because he was playing the only deck without a bounce discipline vs my 10 wakes and 11 bounce cards. Maybe a 4th minion would have made the difference, but Leandro kinda fucked me there. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

Brandon, When you say you had to be "careful against his 2r agg damage", did you have Immortal Grapples or any kind of answer to agg damage strikes? I would say a Bruise and Bleed deck needs such things in good quantity or it's not going to discouarge people from blocking it. Might be just a bad metagame matchup, too. I'm not saying it's a bad deck. I'm just saying the hype for it at the top sounds a little overstated - at least until I get a chance to see it in action myself. Fred

> fredsct wrote: > I'm just saying the hype for it at the top sounds a little overstated - at least until I get a chance to see it in action myself. > Fred > This is exactly why I wasn't surprised to see you chime in, Fred. It really is a freakishly strong deck. I am fairly confident that I could have at least gotten one VP if I had superior Maleficia at any point during the game. Evil Eyes would have shut down Mike's Inner Circle power bleed (and his Matthias [anti-Baali!] Minion Tap [no Villeins in the final!] Renewed Vigor bloat. It would have been tough, but I think it would be possible. That's why one Archon Investigation needs to be in the deck. Once Cog'd up, gaining 4 pool and (usually) inflicting 4 pool loss per turn around the table is very strong. Potence Rush might be difficult to deal with, but Hordes are chump blockers and Secure Haven shows up pretty regularly with 20 burn option cards. The biggest problem this deck will have is drawing too much table hate. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > Evil Eyes would have shut down Mike's Inner Circle power bleed (and his Matthias [anti-Baali!] Minion Tap [no Villeins in the final!] Renewed Vigor bloat. > With four Evil Eyes, even recursed, I don't think you could have shutdown the bloat completely. And I don't think you could have done that much against his bleeds. Cancel the Mind Rapes and the Hearts, I suppose but I'm guessing his deck still bleeds pretty strong without those. If I'd been him, I might have been tempted to just forego using them unless and until you'd been ousted. > Jeff wrote: > Once Cog'd up, gaining 4 pool and (usually) inflicting 4 pool loss per turn around the table is very strong. > Minor nit: your bleed attempts each cost you a pool - or at least a blood in the case of Homuculus untap. Strong - but quite as strong as your summary. Somebody packing Telepathic Counters could get a tad annoying.

> fredsct wrote: > With four Evil Eyes, even recursed, I don't think you could have shutdown the bloat completely. And I don't think you could have done that much against his bleeds. Cancel the Mind Rapes and the Hearts, I suppose but I'm guessing his deck still bleeds pretty strong without those. If I'd been him, I might have been tempted to just forego using them unless and until you'd been ousted. > Well, I did shut it down in the first game of the tournament, by burning two Inner Circle members and Eurayle. I was fortunate in that game to have an Ahrimanes predator who couldn't bounce into me, though they worked together feverishly against me. If you forego using them, you don't cycle and end up less effective. Two Cogs gets set up pretty quickly with 20 burn options as well. > Minor nit: your bleed attempts each cost you a pool - or at least a blood in the case of Homuculus untap. Strong - but quite as strong as your summary. Somebody packing Telepathic Counters could get a tad annoying. > There are very few cards which cost a lot of blood in the deck. Evil Eye and some stealth/block fails. Since you never take blood off of the Unnamed (he just spends it all), it is pretty efficient. Eventually you'll get Perfectionist going. I also used Homunculus during my own untap phase three times (twice in one game) in order to get Jake Washington blood into the Unnamed. I know I am posting very glowingly about this deck, but it has a solution for many problems, and the cycling aspect makes it much more likely to address those that arise. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> fredsct wrote: > Brandon, > > When you say you had to be "careful against his 2r agg damage", did you have Immortal Grapples or any kind of answer to agg damage strikes? I would say a Bruise and Bleed deck needs such things in good quantity or it's not going to discouarge people from blocking it. > > Might be just a bad metagame matchup, too. I'm not saying it's a bad deck. I'm just saying the hype for it at the top sounds a little overstated - at least until I get a chance to see it in action myself. > > Fred > I had 4-5 Rego Motuses in my deck, but that wasn't enough to deal with consistent ranged agg. Most of the combat is Apportation and Theft, which grinds down decks pretty quick, with a couple Walk of Flame for shock and awe/random burnings. It used to have 1x Blood to Water, but that's just a dead card most of the time. Once a perfectionist gets on The Unnamed, you can pretty much forget about him running out of blood short of strange shennanigans (Horseshoes, Cryptic Mission, Vampiric Disease, etc). Until then, 10 blood is plenty. Jeff was getting through his deck faster than I could get my 2-3 suddens to stop him setting up. The deck proved pretty strong, IMO. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > I had 4-5 Rego Motuses in my deck, but that wasn't enough to deal with consistent ranged agg. Most of the combat is Apportation and Theft, which grinds down decks pretty quick, with a couple Walk of Flame for shock and awe/random burnings. It used to have 1x Blood to Water, but that's just a dead card most of the time. > OK, that's what I'd call a bad metagame matchup. It sounds like your deck depends heavily on maneuver away for its combat survivability and then using the Rego Motuses to cover the odd Breath of the Dragon or Taste of Death or what have you. Innate ranged agg damage is rare and, while I don't want to undervalue how neat that is, it won't be quite as effective against a lot of combat defense schemes.

> fredsct wrote: > > > brandonsantacruz wrote: > > I had 4-5 Rego Motuses in my deck, but that wasn't enough to deal with consistent ranged agg. Most of the combat is Apportation and Theft, which grinds down decks pretty quick, with a couple Walk of Flame for shock and awe/random burnings. It used to have 1x Blood to Water, but that's just a dead card most of the time. > > > OK, that's what I'd call a bad metagame matchup. It sounds like your deck depends heavily on maneuver away for its combat survivability and then using the Rego Motuses to cover the odd Breath of the Dragon or Taste of Death or what have you. Innate ranged agg damage is rare and, while I don't want to undervalue how neat that is, it won't be quite as effective against a lot of combat defense schemes. > Ivory Bow is a common enough card in many playgroups and that results in a continuous stream of "1R aggravated damage" in combat. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

The typical metagame play, assuming Magic of the Smith, is Flak Jacket or Kevlar Vest. But that's not news to you, Eric, nor does it help against the unnamed's 2R strike.

Well, you could simply include 1 Flak Jacket and 1 Kevlar Vest, and get both of them on the same minion! pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> echiang wrote: > > > fredsct wrote: > > OK, that's what I'd call a bad metagame matchup. It sounds like your deck depends heavily on maneuver away for its combat survivability and then using the Rego Motuses to cover the odd Breath of the Dragon or Taste of Death or what have you. Innate ranged agg damage is rare and, while I don't want to undervalue how neat that is, it won't be quite as effective against a lot of combat defense schemes. > > > Ivory Bow is a common enough card in many playgroups and that results in a continuous stream of "1R aggravated damage" in combat. > Sure. So?

I think what he's saying is that you need to account for ranged aggravated damage in any metagame. Which is why my response boils down to "yeah but accounting for Ivory Bow is not the same as accounting for 2R all night every night."

> fredsct wrote: > Innate ranged agg damage is rare and, while I don't want to undervalue how neat that is, it won't be quite as effective against a lot of combat defense schemes. > Well that's the thing. In this deck, The Unnamed uses its inherent R2Agg strike as a deterrent to rushers and blockers rather than a reason to get into a combat it can win. Unleash Hell's Fury is also a deterrent for similar though purely defensive reasons. If your deck has reliably good combat against The Unnamed, you might just win. But block fails is strong and this deck packs quite a bit of that. Plus, if a minion gets tooled up sufficiently enough, it may just get burned by Barrenness/Scourge. Besides, combat can largely be ignored in most metagames because it is generally so weak. If I am not mistaken, I think The Unnamed only ENTERED COMBAT ONE TIME the entire tournament, and Brandon played a Rego Motus to prevent the strike. He even had to remind me to pay for the strike late in the finals because I hadn't used it for nearly 6 hours in my first ever session playing the deck! When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Dorrinal wrote: > I think what he's saying is that you need to account for ranged aggravated damage in any metagame. Which is why my response boils down to "yeah but accounting for Ivory Bow is not the same as accounting for 2R all night every night." > Huh? #1) Ivory Bow isn't really that much like The unnamed. Ivory Bow has to be equipped - and so could (for instance) be stopped by intercepting the equip action or DIing it or something. More importantly, it's a lot easier to control your chances of getting a star vampire than a unique piece of equipment. #2) It may be "common enough" in some sense but it's far from ubiquitous - if that's what he's trying to say. I go months without seeing an Ivory Bow. ("...all night every night...", as you say.) This leaves the possibility that one may "account for it" by simply ignoring the possibility (as Brandon is likely doing in his Bleed-and-Bruise deck) and taking your lumps when it appears. Hell, I often do this for the entire genre of political decks (supposedly one of the three main legs of the Jyhad triad) and I'm not convinced that it's the wrong thing. #3) (Most importantly) So what? How does does contradict a thing I said? Yea, The unnamed is a bad metagame matchup for Brandon's Bleed and Bruise deck. So's an Ivory Bow. So what?

Eric was just refuting your assertion that ranged aggravated damage was rare. I also disagree with that assertion, and I think that planning to encounter the Ivory Bow is smart. But I also think that Eric's point, as you say, doesn't contradict what you said about the metagame matchup. So you see, I have been on your side all along.

Note that if this deck basically ignore combat, it does mean that either enter combat action are not reliable enough or combat is not strong enough to shut down a deck. (since it's far from being the first deck that more or less rely on that, master-recursing deck often rely on less than 6 S:CE from what I see, and Animalism combat is also strong in part because no real combat tend to be played)

> Jeff wrote: > > > fredsct wrote: > > Innate ranged agg damage is rare and, while I don't want to undervalue how neat that is, it won't be quite as effective against a lot of combat defense schemes. > > > Well that's the thing. In this deck, The Unnamed uses its inherent R2Agg strike as a deterrent to rushers and blockers rather than a reason to get into a combat it can win. > Sure - I got that. I'm just saying the effect was rather more effective against Brandon's deck than it would be against a lot of other decks. My point is, to run into a deck that happens to rely on maneuver away, you got a bit lucky. Not to spit on unnamed's combat strike ability - but it won't always be quite that effective. > Jeff wrote: > Unleash Hell's Fury is also a deterrent for similar though purely defensive reasons. > Agreed - but that's where I think the table hate situation becomes relevant. Again, to go back to one of the points I started off with, guranteed torporization is a lot scarier if, say, your grand-predator is willing to take a stab at stopping the rescue of your predator's vamp so that it can ultimately get diablerized - or at least make your predator fight and spend resources to keep him on the table. If that doesn't happen, UHF is a single-action annoyance. The ability to resist table hate is a big thing to me. Without it, deck strength isn't nearly as meaningful or can even become a liability when it's well known to your opponents. If everyone sees it coming in the finals, they'll plan for it. And in most touraments, you won't be able to rely on the occasional foolish play in the finals, unlike the preliminary rounds. The fools are usually gone by the finals. > Jeff wrote: > Besides, combat can largely be ignored in most metagames because it is generally so weak. > I don't know if I agree with that. Decks that rely purely on combat, Enkidu and Assamite star vampire decks and so forth, may well be rare nowadays. But I've seen too many good decks that rely on at least some element of offensive combat to make me think it's fair to say, "combat can largely be ignored". I'll leave that to smarter people than me but it sounds a bit off to my ear. > Jeff wrote: > If I am not mistaken, I think The Unnamed only ENTERED COMBAT ONE TIME the entire tournament, and Brandon played a Rego Motus to prevent the strike. He even had to remind me to pay for the strike late in the finals because I hadn't used it for nearly 6 hours in my first ever session playing the deck! > This particular anecdote is another thing that makes me think you got lucky and not that the deck's so wonderfully good. It should have run into more combat in a common metagame. If your point is that your opponents were avoiding combat, that may well be true - but even so, that you would run into all opponents that can't do much about innate ranged agg damage seems explainable as luck to me. Time will tell.

> Jeff wrote: > Creator: Lev Jasper (Berkeley, CA) > Debut: Alastor - San Jose Qualifier > Date: Saturday, December 17, 2011 > Played by: Jeff Kuta > Prelims: 2 GW, 7 VPs, top seed > Finals: 0 VPs (though it was strong enough to win) > > So, I have to tell everyone about this deck. IT IS FREAKING AMAZING. If only I had been able to play with it--at all--before this tournament, I think the result would have been better. It is so strong that I was able to gather 2 GWs and 7 VPs without having played the deck every before (though my friend Lev tuned it well). > > Here's the deck I recently played (pardon the lame formatting): > > UNNAMED BARRENNESS > > Crypt (12) > 4x The Unnamed > 8x The Horde > > Library (60) > Masters (21) > 6x Ashur Tablets > 5x Maleficia > 2x Wider View > 1x The Barrens > 1x Dreams of the Sphinx > 1x Fragment of the Book of Nod > 1x Jake Washington > 1x Metro Underground > 1x Pentex(tm) Subversion > 1x Perfectionist > 1x Secure Haven > > Actions (17) > 12x Barrenness (burn option) > 3x Unleash Hell's Fury (burn option) > 1x Homunculus > 1x Veneficti (burn option) > > Action Modifiers (17) > 4x Lost in Crowds > 4x Psalm of the Damned > 3x Psychomachia > 2x Elder Impersonation > 2x Enkil Cog > 1x Earth Control > 1x Forgotten Labyrinth > > Combo (4) > 4x Evil Eye (burn option) > > Event (1) > 1x Scourge of the Enochians > > I can't say enough about how good this deck is. How potentially broken it is. > > The setup is pretty obvious. Get an Unnamed in play with Maleficia and either a Homunculus or Metro Underground, then wreck the table while gaining 4 pool every round trip. There are 20 (!!) burn option cards in this 60 card deck, *all of which are playable later after Ashur Tablets recursion*. This is crucial. You can pitch any Maleficia cards until you get Maleficia on a minion. Feel free to discard Barrenness (burn option), Unleash Hell's Fury (burn option), Evil Eye (so strong...burn option) and Psalm of the Damned (regular discard or Barrens/Fragment) until you're ready to setup. > > Get Maleficia, or superior Maleficia and get to work. Barrenness provides a free untap, AT INFERIOR MALEFICIA. Make sure every other vampire on the table is smaller than 10-cap. Unleash Hell's Fury and your defense is complete. Evil Eye takes care of nasty actions, AND LEAVES THE ACTING VAMPIRE TAPPED! > > The biggest weakness of this deck is against stealth bleed. I was ousted in the finals when the two other remaining players ganged up on me and bounced a stealth bleed for 7 followed by a stealth bleed for 6. That was coupled with the fact that I never got superior Maleficia in the entire game due by my own recklessness (I had discarded 2 early), plus *TWO* Sudden Reversals of the first 2 I tried to play. > > Having played it, this deck needs either 1x Archon Investigation or 1x Lost in Translation to deal with heavy bleeds. AI is probably the better choice since this deck will (eventually) burn minions. I burned two Inner Circle members the first game I played and took that game 3 VPs to 2. In fact, the tournament winner, Michael Courtois, played that deck and won the whole thing in the finals, as my prey. > > Good luck trying to be the first to win a tournament with this monstrosity, and congrats to whoever pulls off that feat. > you could put some flurry of actions to bleed and untap Archbishop of Vitória

> Wand wrote: > you could put some flurry of actions to bleed and untap > Well see, part of the beauty of this deck is you don't need Flurry to untap. Barrenness gives an untap. Unleashed Hell's Fury gives an untap. 20 cards in the deck are burn options. Homunculus and Metro Underground are untaps. Enkil Cog allows acting while untapped. Perfectionist and Jake Washington keep you healthy. Really, it's a slow and steady deck. Get set up with a Cog and Homunculus or Metro. Then every turn, do something relatively innocuous at 1s, untap, bleed for 2 or 3, gain 2 pool, untap during discard (MU) or an untap (Homunc), cancel really bad stuff with Evil Eye, during predator's turn bleed for 2 or 3, gain 2 pool. Gain from the Edge and repeat. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Ankha wrote: > Funny deck. > > > > Jeff wrote: > > Make sure every other vampire on the table is smaller than 10-cap. > > > Why? Did I miss something? Protecting The Unnamed from Banishment ? > I'd bet money that it is so that no one a contest Enkil Cog with him.

That too. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes