My first real deck. Lasombra

I've been trying to find a clan that can blend the stealthy bleeding of Malks with the versatile combat and equal sneakiness of the Nosferatus. Lasombra seem ideal, and as such, I've tried my hand at versatile deck that will bleed hard strategically, hit like a train and be stealthy enough to get both actions and bleeds in. I've yet to test the current version, as games are hard to come by, and free time doubly so. I have no illusion about this being a consistent winner, but more a deck that at least won't get me embarrassed at organised play All feedback is welcome, though keep in mind I don't really have the means to boost it with expensive cards(Cogs, Shroud of Absence, Villeins, etc.) Deck Name: Lasombra BBB Author: Description: A first attempt at a competitive Lasombra deck, meant to be a bruise bleed, with added stealth for uninterrupted Govern breeding. Finding it a bit difficult to strike a balance between fighting and ending combat. Thought is to get either Anton, Carolina or Conrad out first, and Govern Vauxhall and Badr out fast, combining it with standard transfer. Crypt (Capacity min=3 max=9 avg=7.33; 12 cards) ================================================== 2x Antón de Concepción 9 aus ANI DOM OBT POT Lasombra:4 2x Badr, Shadow of Granada 7 DOM OBT POT Lasombra:5 2x Carolina Vález 9 aus DOM OBT POT PRE Lasombra:5 2x Conrad Adoula 8 ani cel DOM OBT POT Lasombra:4 1x Ermenegildo, The Rake 5 pot DOM OBT Lasombra:4 2x Lord Vauxhall 7 DOM OBT POT THA Lasombra:4 1x Lucy Markowitz 3 dom obt Lasombra:4 Library (90 cards) ===================== Master (16 cards) 2x Blood Doll 1x Elder Library 2x Elysian Fields 1x Information Highway 1x KRCG News Radio 1x Papillon 3x Path of Night, The 1x Political Hunting Ground 1x Power Structure 2x Sudden Reversal 1x Vessel Event (1 cards) 1x Uncoiling, The Action (10 cards) 1x Black Metamorphosis 1x Descent into Darkness 6x Govern the Unaligned 2x Scouting Mission Equipment (2 cards) 2x Zaire River Ferry Action Modifier (20 cards) 2x Bonding 3x Conditioning 1x Seduction 6x Shadow Play 3x Shroud of Night 2x Tenebrous Form 3x Threats Reaction (14 cards) 5x Deflection 3x Eyes of the Night 1xObedience 3x On the Qui Vive 2x Wake with Evening's Freshness Combat (26 cards) 5x Arms of the Abyss 5x Dark Steel 2x Oubliette 1x Shadow Body 2x Shadow Step 3x Taste of Vitae 2x Thrown Sewer Lid 5x Torn Signpost 1x Undead Strength Combo (1 cards) 1x Fae Contortion

Interesting deck - the Lasombra are a very fun clan, and it's nice to have a bleed, stealth, and combat discipline. So nice choice of clan. As for my suggestions, I urge you to take everything I say with a grain of salt. Ok, so first, I'd try to cut down your deck. Decks almost always run better with fewer cards. Personally I try to get my decks down to 70-75 cards. You may find that you want more or less cards in your deck, but I think there is no reason to ever run 90 cards (except in very specific trick decks). As for specific card choices, the first thing I notice is the sparsity of blood recursion (meaning cards like Blood Doll that return blood to your pool). I see that you have a few, but you're going to want several more. Say 6 blood dolls in 90 cards. This is especially true if you want to capitalize on your Potence combat and blood gain through Taste of Vitae. If you are looking for Master Cards to cut to make room for extra Blood Dolls, I would consider cutting the Paths of Night. I don't see that they are doing all that much for you in this deck. A couple of other random thoughts: I would strongly consider replacing all Scouting Mission with Govern the Unaligned (and don't cut any of these if you do cut down your deck - you need to make sure you can oust), and all your Threats with Conditioning. 1 blood for 1 pool is always a good trade. I'd also look into Disarm, it works great with Arms of the Abyss (dodge, punch for 1, Disarm). The other combat card missing is Immortal Grapple, which stops the opponent from ending combat. Of course that doesn't work so well with Arms of the Abyss, so maybe you don't want many. Otherwise here is a list of cards that I'd consider cutting: 1x Elder Library 2x Elysian Fields 1x KRCG News Radio 1x Papillon (only 4 of your crypt are Archbishops, not sure that's enough for this card) 1x Power Structure 1x Black Metamorphosis 1x Descent into Darkness 2x Zaire River Ferry 1x Seduction 1x Obedience 2x Oubliette (Not sure you need to be packing Combat Ends... but maybe) Just a few ideas. Good luck, and let us know how the deck works for you! Brett Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

Cheers for the feedback, Brett. I've played some earlier builds, where I found myself getting low on blood, because I did not have path of night in the deck, nor Badr, which made the combined blood costs of DOM and OBT-card, too much to sustain. I've prioritized Shadow Play and Elysian, in order to minimize the number of stealth cards. Intercept locations and cards, are primarily in there to protect the permanents. Keeping blood costs down are also the reason for using scounting missions and threats, though I may also be coloured by getting slapped with two Archons Inv. at my last playmeet, so I've tried to strike a balance where I would keep the bleed to 3, unless I'd have a Sudden in hand. I'll look into adjusting this, though, as I've struggled to get the crucial opening Govern, in order to get the 7's out in one turn. I hear you on the papillon, will use it for a NOS royals i'm working on instead, and get more Dolls in. Are Vessels preferable to Dolls, or is that debate still open? I actually hadn't considered the disarm advantage of Arms of the Abyss, I just though it a very solid card, and a means of avoiding Agg. dam. I guess that's the reason for the S:CE cards as well, getting out of unfortunate situations. I recently got hold of Black Metamorphosis, and figured it would work well with Badr. Is it incompatible with Arms of the Abyss, though? I'll try and shave the deck in general, as the combat package may be a bit too extensive, with both dark steel, signposts and different strikes.

Your average crypt is expensive with few ways to recoup their cost. If you don't have Villeins, try putting Minion Tap in it instead, or more Blood Dolls. Otherwise, you risk a miserable time being ousted very quickly and having to wait for the game to end. The crypt is not great, especially the two 9-cap. First, they cost 9 which means 3 turns of influence. Second, they can't Govern down on each other. Since you're not playing votes, you could use some 8 cap vampires instead such as : Giangaleazzo, The Traitor Clan: Lasombra (group 4) Capacity: 8 Disciplines: OBT POT PRE dom Camarilla Prince of Milan: Any Lasombra controlled by another Methuselah can enter combat with Giangaleazzo as a action. During your discard phase, if there are any Gehenna cards in play, Giangaleazzo can burn a blood to untap. Saul Meira Clan: Lasombra (group 5) Capacity: 8 Disciplines: CHI DOM OBT POT Sabbat. Black Hand: Saul may burn a blood during your discard phase to untap another ready Black Hand vampire. There is another good vampire with OBT POT: Otieno Clan: Lasombra (group 4) Capacity: 6 Disciplines: OBT POT ani dom Laibon: Otieno gets +1 bleed when bleeding a Methuselah who controls a ready Guruhi. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Wouldn't I face the same issue with 8-caps, unless I get to go 4th or 5th? I do have 2 copies of Giangaleazzo, and did use him earlier, though I found his basic dominate to be quite a nuisance, for the blood invested in him. I also found his special to be rather useless, unless I'd use Gehanna cards, which I struggled to use, while the specials of both current 9-caps seem a lot more applicable. I haven't been able to find any of the other vamps mentioned, though I've mostly tried to work with what I already have, and found Badr to be reason enough to move to the 4/5 range, excluding the black hands of 3, among others. The Archies, as well as Power Structure, when meant to give at least some voting power/defense, but I do have a little bit of everything,

Right now your deck is too toolboxy and as Brett said it has too many cards. If you can slim down your combat to simply Arms of the Abyss + Disarm (roughly 8/3) or drop all of it and rely just on strike: combat ends, then you will have that many fewer cards choking your hand when what you really need to do is stealth bleed. Regarding crypt choices- Group 2/3 Lasombra are almost always better than the other groups. Lots of titles, superior disciplines, +1 bleed and other abilities. Under Siege is another reason to go with group 2/3 if you want to block. In either case I would include some more Information Highway, Dreams of the Sphinx (if you have them) and Zillah's Valley in order to get out your early vampires faster. Vessel is too slow and generally a bad deal. Consider Wider View if you run a lot of copies of the same crypt cards so that you can swap out duplicates and then trade WV in for pool when needed. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

Signpost+ Dark Steel +Grapple+Taste with more Blood dolls will give you a solid return on your vitae. I could see a few leather jackets or a Guardian Angel to stop agg poke. 1 or 2 Arms of Abyss could still work. I think 80 cards in a combat-heavy deck works fine. Swapping out 2-4 of your Masters for Haven Uncovereds will allow you to deal with a fast bleedy predator who could shut you down before you get rolling. Agitate Responsibly, but Influence Unduly.

two main things I would fix in this deck are: - average capacity of your vampires is too high - deck needs streamlining. It's too toolboxy at the moment. Here is the deck I was playing some time ago. In casual games it was very succesfull: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 22, Max: 29, Avg: 6,33) 2 Badr DOM OBT POT 7 Lasombra 1 Black Wallace DOM obt POT tha6 Lasombra 1 Conrad Adoula ani cel DOM OBT POT8 Lasombra 2 Gianmaria Giovanni POT dom nec obt5 Giovanni 2 Lord Vauxhall DOM OBT POT THA7 Lasombra 2 Otieno ani dom OBT POT6 Lasombra 2 Virginie obt DOM POT 6 Lasombra Library: (90 cards) Master (12 cards) 2 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Fame 1 Giant`s Blood 1 Haven Uncovered 2 Monster 1 Pentex Subversion 3 Villein 1 Yawp Court Action (22 cards) 2 Ambush 7 Bum`s Rush 11 Govern the Unaligned 2 Rumble Action Modifier (6 cards) 2 Conditioning 1 Foreshadowing Destruction 3 Seduction Reaction (12 cards) 7 Deflection 1 Delaying Tactics 4 On the Qui Vive Combat (37 cards) 8 Dark Steel 10 Immortal Grapple 4 Slam 7 Taste of Vitae 8 Torn Signpost Equipment (1 cards) 1 Heart of Nizchetus