Wall of Birds

I'm not a particularly strong Gangrel player, so this deck is in part to force me to play more Gangrel and also to push my ability to play Gangrel better. I'm keen to hear feedback about this. Deck Name : Wall of Birds Author : Juggernaut1981 Description : This is intended to be a Wall Deck based around Animalism retainers, mixed Animalism/Protean combat and classic grinding cards (Jack, Antediluvian, Army of Rats, Anarch Revolt). I'm not planning to go anarch with the deck but wear the grind on my pool through the Blood Dolls. I'll probably try to set it up as strongly-forward blocking as I can manage. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 4 max: 9 average: 5.91667 3x Lord Ashton 5 ANI for pro Gangrel:3 3x Bobby Lemon 4 ANI pro Gangrel:3 2x Ingrid Rossler 9 ANI FOR PRO dom prince Gangrel:2 2x Danielle Diron 7 ANI PRO chi for 1 vote Gangrel:3 2x Horrock 6 ANI PRO vic Gangrel:3 Library [82 cards] Action [8] 2x Army of Rats 2x Movement of the Slow Body 1x Shepherd's Innocence 2x Tier of Souls 1x Trainer Action Modifier [10] 4x Earth Control 6x Freak Drive Combat [34] 10x Aid from Bats 2x Canine Horde 6x Carrion Crows 4x Drawing Out the Beast 8x Flesh of Marble 4x Form of Mist Master [11] 1x Anarch Revolt 1x Antediluvian Awakening 4x Blood Doll 1x Ecoterrorists 1x Gangrel Revel 1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch 2x Zoo Hunting Ground Reaction [8] 8x Cats' Guidance Retainer [11] 2x Dog Pack 2x Homunculus 1x Murder of Crows 4x Raven Spy 2x Wolf Companion Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

You're missing Pack Alpha and Taste of Vitae. And some anit-Midget tech (Deep Song) (it also works against guys with lots of stealth).

Every Gangrel deck needs 1x Gather. It's too good not to use. and no one ever gets rid of it. And if they do, well, they weren't bleeding you, they were getting rid of your Gather. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

Nice. I definetely would play two or three aggravated handdamage. Remember the evil allies like Ambrosius, Tye Cooper or Ponticulus. And it's always nice to send some minion to torpor of course. Baron of Frankfurt

For 82 cards I would go for more Ravens, with some Pack Alphas. You could need some anti-Pentex-tech, like Washes or ... Pentex Why the Movements? "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

I agree with adding a couple claws, not too many. Every once in a while you'll get a chance to burn a vampire with the extra crow damage, when the math adds up right. and having the superior provide an emergency maneuver or press is never bad. You might have too many flesh of marble, I would swap a few out. with protean you want to take advantage of flexibility. Rapid Change or Earth Meld can be good replacements, since they protect you in combat and provide other benefits. I disagree on including Gather. in my experience, it's not worth its salt unless you're using plenty of 8-11 cap Gangrel. in this deck, at best you can get a 7 cap from it, and only sometimes. it takes an action and 2 turns to set up, and within that time you have enough transfers to bring a vampire out normally anyway. instead of going to that trouble, I recommend a 2nd copy of Ecoterrorists or even an extra Blood Doll, because at least those provide guaranteed pool regain. why Movement of Slow Body? oh yeah, and Taste of Vitae will usually be worth 3 blood to you, not a bad refill method.

I see a bunch of Gangrel very low on blood with few way to regain it. I would suggest the Rack and a few taste of vitae. PB:Monstreal could also fit this deck. I would also stick to long range combat, ditching the DotB, Wolf Companions and most of the Flesh of Marble. Danielle Diron + vessel is also very strong. Overkill is highly underrated. You know, like in computor games and such.

A lot of the guys around my local playgroup are playing combat in various forms, it pays to be able to neuter the 'cel-guns' guys just as much as the 'Pot-hug' guys. Aggpoke is making some appearances, so the Movements are there to potentially get me out of a tight spot of not enough actions to get people out of torpor. I was thinking of Gather but declined purely because of the additional actions it takes (and pool cost for something a bit borderline). I could toss in some Tastes. Rack & PB:M seems like stable additions. Seems like good "try and take it if you're suicidal" cards. Well, Pentex sees little play in Sydney. I think most players don't because they'd feel dirty for doing it. I realise if I was going to play in the US and Europe I'd need to pack 2x Pentex + 2x Wash just to deal with that... but for playing socially around Sydney I'll not bother. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Haze wrote: > I disagree on including Gather. in my experience, it's not worth its salt unless you're using plenty of 8-11 cap Gangrel. in this deck, at best you can get a 7 cap from it, and only sometimes. it takes an action and 2 turns to set up, and within that time you have enough transfers to bring a vampire out normally anyway. instead of going to that trouble, I recommend a 2nd copy of Ecoterrorists or even an extra Blood Doll, because at least those provide guaranteed pool regain. > Ecoterrorists takes THREE turns to profit from, and it's an auto-include. Compare to the '2 turns' you say that Gather requires. Seriously, he's got freak-driving Gangrel here, and he's at 82 cards. Gather is awesome. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

You usually immediately save 1 pool from Ecoterrorist, which makes both cards have the same cost. However, Ecoterrorists has this neat lack of burnability Gather doesn't have. Yeah, Freak Drive is cool, but Gather can't play it. You really need the House of Sorrows to play Gather.

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > I'm not a particularly strong Gangrel player, so this deck is in part to force me to play more Gangrel and also to push my ability to play Gangrel better. > Full well realizing you plan on this being a Gangrel deck, there isn't a reason to actually keep it purely Gangrel. > Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 4 max: 9 average: 5.91667 > 3x Lord Ashton 5 ANI for pro Gangrel:3 > 3x Bobby Lemon 4 ANI pro Gangrel:3 > 2x Ingrid Rossler 9 ANI FOR PRO dom prince Gangrel:2 > 2x Danielle Diron 7 ANI PRO chi for 1 vote Gangrel:3 > 2x Horrock 6 ANI PRO vic Gangrel:3 > You could easily fit in Beetleman and Stick. I mean, yeah, no Protean or Fortitude, but still can play most of the cards in the deck, and are cheap with ANI--turn one each of Ashton and Lemon into Beetleman and Stick. Or, conversely, you could put in Celeste (5 cap !Gangrel with ANI, PRO, for) and Janey (6 cap !Gangrel with ANI, PRO, for and built in aggro hand damage). > Reaction [8] > 8x Cats' Guidance > > Retainer [11] > 2x Dog Pack > 2x Homunculus > 1x Murder of Crows > 4x Raven Spy > 2x Wolf Companion > There are two significant problems I see in this deck (and by "significant problems", I mean "things that I suspect will get it killed more often than not"). 1) No wakes. Yeah, there are 8x Cat's Guidance, but with a lot of retainers, you are going to spend a lot of time going to get a retainer, being tapped, and then not being able to untap and block anything. At 82 cards, you could just add 8x Forced/On the Qui Vive, and be in much more workable shape. 2) Not remotely enough Raven Spies. I play decks like this a lot, and even with, like, 8-12 Ravens, I often find myself not drawing them early and often enough to be able to deal with a stealthy predator. I'd totally turn the 2x Dog Pack (as most of the time, you don't really care if they S:CE that much--you've blocked them and stopped whatever horrible thing they were going to do to you--sending them to torpor too is just icing), 1x Murder of Crows, and 2x Wolf Companions into 5x more Raven Spies (which would give you 9, which is not out of the realm of reasonable).

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Well, Pentex sees little play in Sydney. I think most players don't because they'd feel dirty for doing it. > So Heaven is in Australia? Good to know . Baron of Frankfurt

> KevinM wrote: > Ecoterrorists takes THREE turns to profit from, and it's an auto-include. Compare to the '2 turns' you say that Gather requires. Seriously, he's got freak-driving Gangrel here, and he's at 82 cards. Gather is awesome. > put 2 copies of Ecoterrorists in a deck, and you have really good chances of drawing it early. if the game goes for an average of 12 turns, that's a profit of around 8 pool maybe. even more if the game drags out (since this is a wall deck) I've tried Gather with midcaps, it really doesn't work. I've tried it with 8+ caps and it's wonderful, almost better than Villein! it may have something to do with if you could transfer the vampire out in 1 turn normally, you should go ahead and do that for game tempo, then blood doll them later. This deck has Ingrid so it can speedy transfer the midcaps out, so it feels redundant to me.

I think the easiest way to think of it is: Pentex is for those who can't Banish or send someone to torpor... "Pentex is for the weak", plus its just a card people don't ever consider for a social game. The other way to think of it is an unspoken 'gentleman's agreement'. RE: Ecoterrorists You need to own two. RE: Retainers Planning to try stay untapped as possible and I'm not seeing many high-stealth decks around. Dog Packs aren't for "send to torpor" but for "No Untap from Majesty for you!" (also seeing a fair amount of Unholy Penance in our meta). I'll post an edited version soon. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418