[Strategy Event] Dragonbound

The Lasombra has issued a challenge to all V:TES players to devise tactics that will properly utilize and maximize the new Event cards introduced in Gehenna. Here is one player's humble attempt at exploiting the event that has given combat heavy decks that extra ounce of ousting power to make them more competitive and viable alternatives to the tried and true stealth/bleed, politics/bleed, and other classic deck archetypes that people play and win with. Now, I do not claim to be an expert since I only began playing late last year, I am still learning, so to speak, but I hope I have enough good ideas in me to contribute to others. Strategy Article for Dragonbound, an Enabling Event from Gehenna Let's face it: combat decks are fun. Nothing gets a methuselah's blood going like having his minions rain bloody death and carnage upon the minions of other methuselahs. Nothing beats the feeling of satisfaction you get when you have sent to torpor bloodless all the vampires of your predator and prey, and yours are all that remain ready and standing on the body-strewn battlefield. But now what? Your prey still has 10-15 pool left, and he probably will not bother to influence out another vampire for fear of another blood bath. Sure, you can bleed without fear your prey, but the pool loss will not be as quick and painful if he brought out another minion. He will rely on the safety of the uncontrolled region, waiting for someone else to oust you, hoping the new guy behind him is not as violent as you. Meanwhile, though you no longer have pressure behind you at the moment, you have just handed your grand predator your predator's VP, and it is just a matter of time before he becomes your new problem. You modify your combat deck with Fame and Tension In The Ranks, but then you realize after playing for a while that you just cannot oust fast enough other methuselahs compared to the more direct stealth/bleed, stealth/politics, politics/bleed deck archetypes other people use. Then you realize one hard fact: combat decks may be fun, but it is hard to effectively win with them. But thanks to the new Gehenna expansion, combat decks have new cards that can help them gain VPs by exploiting what combat decks do best: sending vampires to torpor. Particularly, the new event card, Dragonbound, will have you rejoice every time you send a vampire to torpor. Let's take a look at the card and why it is a blessing to combat decks everywhere: Dragonbound Event. Gehenna. Do not replace as long as this card is in play. During each Methuselah's discard phase, he or she burns X pool, where X is the number of vampires in torpor he or she controls. As you can see, Dragonbound is one of the new Event cards introduced in the Gehenna expansion. At the end of your turn during your Discard Phase, you can opt not to discard a card and instead play an Event card. Event cards in general have universal effects that apply to all methuselahs in the game. It is controlled by the methuselah who plays it, and in general can only be removed by ousting the methuselah who controls it or by the text on the event card itself. Some event cards have effects that minions can be immune to once they meet specific requirements stated on the card. Also, some event cards are not replaced until certain requirements are met as stated in the card text, or until the event itself leaves play. People have began to classify Gehenna event cards into 3 main types: Gateway events (no other requirements need to be met, they can be played as is, and they may allow other events to be played later), Disabling events (they adversely affect other players or their strategies) and Enabling events (they can enhance deck types and strategies). Specifically, players have classified Dragonbound as an enabling event, because it enables our combat deck archetype to be more effective in ousting prey just by adding it to our deck. The premise is simple: if combat decks tend to send vampires to torpor, and Dragonbound makes methuselahs burn pool for vampires in torpor, then a combat deck should play Dragonbound during his discard phase and start sending his prey's vampires to torpor. Obviously, this card is useful for any combat deck, but the clans that can exploit it quite well are those specifically suited for combat: Gangrel/!Gangrel, Brujah/!Brujah, Nosferatu/!Nosferatu and Assamites. Other good clans are the Tremere/!Tremere, the Tzimisce, and others with decent sets of combat and intercept disciplines. But for this article, I will focus only on 2 clans, the Gangrel and Assamites, because they demonstrate the principle behind maximizing the event quite well. The card fits perfectly for the Gangrel and Assamites because they can easily and quickly send other vampires to torpor consistently because they can inflict aggravated damage on the first round and their disciplines have a nice combat synergy with each other. With the Gangrel, you have the good old Drawing Out The Beast-Scorpion Sting-Wolf Claws combo to send a vampire reeling. For the Assamites, you have a variety of options. You can go with long-range guns and celerity combat, long-range Blood Sweat celerity combat, or long-range Taste of Death. If you are a patient player, you can go with close-range Scorpion's Touch with Parmenides, Parnassus or Thetmes. Both clans can address one of the 3 main problems that combat decks in combat face: S:CE, strike: dodge, an prevention. The Assamites have the added advantage that some of the Quietus strikes are damage unpreventable at long range, while the Gangrel have the advantage of setting range with DOTB and having Scorpion Sting's that cannot be dodged. S:CE is the last obstacle to sending vampires to torpor, but the Assamites have access to Psyche, and the Gangrel have Dog Pack (though expensive, it is a permanent) to fall back on. Of course, never forget Rotschreck is always a good option for sending vampires to torpor if you are a reactive type, and it still trumps S:CE quite well. With these two clans' effective means of sending other vampires to torpor, you can start giving your prey the double-whammy once you lay down Dragonbound as you not only beat up his vampires, you make him lose pool for his inability to survive a fight. Therefore, you want to get the card out as soon as possible to maximize the pool loss. Since you are a combat deck, you should cycle through your cards fairly easily and get Dragonbound consistently in a game. But if you want to make sure that you will get it, you can put 1 or 2 Fortschritt Library master cards into your deck so you can search for Dragonbound and put in into your hand. Once you put the event down, you will probably be bum's rushing, or taking contracts out on your prey's vampires left and right and watching with glee during his discard phase as he burns pool for each torpored minion he has. Now, before we all go crazy on Dragonbound, there are a few things to consider. First, though it is a good card, it has one major drawback: you are forced to play with a smaller hand size because of the "Do not replace as long as this card is in play" text on Dragonbound. Strategically speaking, combat decks prefer to play with as big a hand as possible because the more cards they have in hand, the greater the likelihood it is a combat card they can use, thus more options in combat. And in general, as most of the articles on V:TES will tell you, the more options you have in hand, the better. Going down from a hand size of 7 cards to 6 cards essentially lessens your options by one. There are several ways to address this problem like Elder Library, Weeping Stone, Dreams of the Sphinx, and other hand-size increasing library cards. There are vampires as well that give you back that extra card slot like Nahir, Christanius Lionel, Shahid, Aristotle de Laurent, etc. The Gangrel have the added advantage of having in their crypt Beckett Advanced, because his ability increases your hand size for every other Gehenna card in play, so if other methuselahs put down Gehenna cards, you benefit as well. Also, he only burns pool for Dragonbound during his discard phase, which means if your prey's vampires can leave/are rescued from torpor before that, no loss of pool. This only becomes a problem if you let it be. You should let your prey get away with one or 2 rescue attempts because it depletes his vampires of blood and you can always send them to torpor again, being a combat deck and all. Eventually he will run out of blood and minions for rescue/leave torpor attempts, and when that happens, Dragonbound has them good. Of course, someone could always diablerize the vampires in torpor, but the loss of a vampire will always hurt. Or if you are truly impatient, you can always block the rescue or leave torpor actions, and the Gangrel and Assamites can be effective blockers. The Gangrel have Animalism retainers to give them permanent intercept, while a healthy number of the Assamite crypt have auspex like Tegyrius and Fatima. Or you can employ Mr. Winthrop or equip a sport-bike for the extra intercept needed. Also, and maybe a lot of you will disagree with me, but Dragonbound should not be the main ousting card of your combat deck. By this I mean, your deck should not just rely solely on this card, but rather Dragonbound should add to the other methods combat decks use to oust like Fame and Tension In The Ranks, or the new personal "Fame-lite" master card for non-Camarilla combat decks they introduced in Gehenna, The Path of Lilith. In fact, it is my opinion that The Path of Lilith is better than TITR because the torture counters are permanent until the Path is burned and you get to choose who gets them. Here, I propose that combat decks incorporate the Holy Trinity of Fame-Tension In The Ranks-Dragonbound or Fame-The Path of Lilith-Dragonbound for maximum effectiveness. With these 3 in play, you can make your prey lose 3 pool when you send to torpor his Famed minion on your turn after rushing him, tap the path to give him a torture counter, then on your prey's untap phase, he loses an additional 2 pool from Fame and the counter(s) from the Path of Lilith, and on his discard phase, he loses 1 more pool from Dragonbound. That is net loss of 6 pool for your prey, not counting the free bleeds you might get since all his vampires are in torpor or busy rescuing other vampires in torpor. One thing I need to stress about the Holy Trinity, you need to be patient and careful with the deck, and pick your combat wisely. Here, though it may not be apparent, timing is everything when it comes to sending your prey's vampires to torpor. You should wait until he has around 2 minions out, so you can send both to torpor and make him burn 2 pool at his discard phase. And be careful of how fast you go through your library, since if you want to oust as many as possible, you should have enough combat cards left to attack and send to torpor the minions of the other methuselahs on the table. Anyway, here is a sample deck that tries to utilize the Holy Trinity, while at the same time has other options of ousting just in case: Deck Name: The Gangrel Have Friends Created By: Paulo Francisco A. Agustin Description: Try and use the Holy Trinity of Combat Decks Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 18, Max: 36, Avg: 6.92) ---------------------------------------------- 2 Zayyat aus qui tha ANI FOR PRO 10, Gangrel, 2 votes 2 Celeste Lamontagne for ANI PRO 5, Gangrel Antitribu 2 Jezebelle ani for pro 4, Gangrel 1 Ryder ani pot FOR PRO 7, Gangrel 1 Nadima ani aus FOR PRO SER 8, Gangrel 1 Danielle Diron chi for ANI PRO 7, Gangrel, 1 vote 1 Brunhilde pre ANI FOR PRO 8, Gangrel 2 Beckett (ADV) cel tha ANI FOR PRO 8, Gangrel Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (14 cards) 1 Archon Investigation/Fortschritt Library (adapt for meta-game) 1 Backways 3 Blood Doll 1 Ecoterrorists 1 Fame 1 Fragment of the Book of Nod/Erciyes Fragment (adapt for meta-game) 1 Gangrel Revel 1 KRCG News Radio 2 Rotschreck 1 Tension in the Ranks/The Path of Lilith 1 Zoo Hunting Ground Action (7 cards) 1 Army of Rats 4 Bum`s Rush 2 Tier of Souls Action Modifier (4 cards) 4 Freak Drive Reaction (11 cards) 5 Cats` Guidance 6 Forced Awakening Combat (44 cards) 1 Body Flare 1 Bone Spur 6 Carrion Crows 3 Claws of the Dead 6 Drawing Out the Beast 4 Form of Mist 1 Mythic Form 2 Rolling with the Punches 6 Scorpion Sting 2 Skin of Rock 3 Skin of Steel 1 Soak 2 Superior Mettle 3 Taste of Vitae 3 Wolf Claws Retainer (9 cards) 1 Dog Pack 1 Homunculus 1 J. S. Simmons, Esq. 1 Murder of Crows 4 Raven Spy 1 Tasha Morgan Event (1 card) Dragonbound This deck was last saved at 12:44:34 PM on 6/3/2004 Obviously, the deck demands that your prey block your actions, and then you start sending his vampires to torpor with DOTB-Scorpion Sting-Aggravated damage card. The raven spies are there to give you enough permanent intercept to allow you to block all the leave torpor and rescue actions once Dragonbound hits the table, and the bleed retainers and Tiers of Soul will make ousting your prey faster, hopefully leaving you with enough combat cards left to oust your next prey. You play this deck methodically, waiting for your prey and grand prey to be low enough on pool that you can conceivably oust them in the next 3-6 turns with your Holy Trinity strategy and the free bleeds you get. In a 5-player table, you should give your prey enough leeway to weaken your grandprey, thus conserving enough combat cards for you to oust your grandpredator and predator once you oust your prey and grandprey. Well, that is all I have to say about Dragonbound. I hope other players can benefit and expound upon the ideas espoused here in this article.

addya...@yahoo.com (HushXXXTreme) wrote in message news:<e0f1fe62.0406...@posting.google.com>... > Specifically, players have classified Dragonbound as an enabling > event, because it enables our combat deck archetype to be more > effective in ousting prey just by adding it to our deck. The premise > is simple: if combat decks tend to send vampires to torpor, and > Dragonbound makes methuselahs burn pool for vampires in torpor, then a > combat deck should play Dragonbound during his discard phase and start > sending his prey's vampires to torpor. A card which should be played along with Dragonbound is Torpid Blood. As the pool damage happens to the Methuselah in his discard phase, he normally has ample time to rescue his minion from torpor. Torpid Blood makes this extra costly, so, unless he is very successful in refilling his minions, rescues should be impossible for him after a while. Magnus

There are several ways to address this problem like Elder > Library, Weeping Stone, Dreams of the Sphinx, and other hand-size > increasing library cards. There are vampires as well that give you > back that extra card slot like Nahir, Christanius Lionel, Shahid, > Aristotle de Laurent, etc. The Gangrel have the added advantage of > having in their crypt Beckett Advanced, because his ability increases > your hand size for every other Gehenna card in play, so if other > methuselahs put down Gehenna cards, you benefit as well. I was hoping for a few more ideas on how to ameliorate the drawback. Most rush decks can ill afford master slots as it is let alone ones that cost pool. Chris.

I put dragonbound in a Gangrel deck that also has: Fame, The Path of Lilith and Army of Rats. I have had torture counters and the army of rats and a famous vampire in torpor, all of which accounted for some heavy duty pool loss from my pray. The only problem I found is not replacing it... (from my experience at least... and I have probably been playing as long as you) is that combat decks rely on being able to cycle through cards, and having a permanent -1 hand size makes it really hard to run the deck LUKE

"Luke R" <tasslehof...@optushome.com.au> wrote in message news:<40c01bf9$0$13783$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au>... [ quoted text not captured ] IMO (and maybe in the foresee-able future IME :-) ) the decks that wil gain the most from dragonbound are those with a lot of Permanents for combat (and preferably intercept). So if you can minimize the number of cards you HAVE to play in a given combat, the minus 1 hand size is not THAT big of a problem. And now I'm off to build a Howler-based deck with a lot of Murder of crows, sniper Rifle and Carrion Crows. With Dragonbound, Fame, TitR and Path of Lilith :-) And for full table fun: Torpid Blood and Vampiric Disease. J

Get Beckett advanced now and put a couple of him in your crypt. If you play torpid blood as well he can give you a permanent +1 hand size. HOT

Chris Arthur wrote: > I was hoping for a few more ideas on how to ameliorate the drawback. > Most rush decks can ill afford master slots as it is let alone ones > that cost pool. Building for Short Chain Combat is one option. __ David Cherryholmes

Luke R wrote: > The only problem I found is not replacing it... (from my experience at > least... and I have probably been playing as long as you) is that combat > decks rely on being able to cycle through cards, and having a permanent -1 > hand size makes it really hard to run the deck you can try using 'Visit from the Capuchin'. increases your hand size temporarily and you don't replace cards played under that anyway...

Chris Arthur expounded: [ quoted text not captured ] Year of Fortune can usually be passed advantageously.

"Jeroen" <joen...@hotmail.com> wrote > And now I'm off to build a Howler-based deck with a lot of Murder of > crows, sniper Rifle and Carrion Crows. With Dragonbound, Fame, TitR > and Path of Lilith :-) And for full table fun: Torpid Blood and > Vampiric Disease. you know howler can't use weapons,don't you ? ;) ghoule retainer maybe ? ;)

"Reyda" <true_...@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht news:40c08c5d$0$5274$79c1...@nan-newsreader-05.noos.net... [ quoted text not captured ] nah. Howler won't be alone and the others don't have enough maneuvres.

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message > Howler-based deck with sniper Rifle Ability: Howler gets 1 optional maneuver each combat. She cannot use weapons. +1 strength. Sterile. :) -Bram Vink

> you know howler can't use weapons,don't you ? ;) > ghoule retainer maybe ? ;) Why not ? I have been thinking about this for quite a while. With Heidelburg Castle and the new BH HC light around it would be quite easy to get e.g. an Ivory Bow and a Ghould Retainer on Howler. And I don´t know about you but a Howler with a G.R and an I.B looks kinda scary to me.

It is hard to guess your name, probably add a footer to your posts. The article is quite well done for someone with not so much playing experience. I do have some comments, though. I have only quoted the parts where I see need for new ideas, the parts I left out are those where I am largely agreeing with you. > Now, before we all go crazy on Dragonbound, there are a few things to > consider. First, though it is a good card, it has one major drawback: > you are forced to play with a smaller hand size because of the "Do not > replace as long as this card is in play" text on Dragonbound. > Strategically speaking, combat decks prefer to play with as big a hand > as possible because the more cards they have in hand, the greater the > likelihood it is a combat card they can use, thus more options in > combat. And in general, as most of the articles on V:TES will tell > you, the more options you have in hand, the better. Going down from a > hand size of 7 cards to 6 cards essentially lessens your options by > one. There are several ways to address this problem like Elder > Library, Weeping Stone, Dreams of the Sphinx, and other hand-size > increasing library cards. There are vampires as well that give you > back that extra card slot like Nahir, Christanius Lionel, Shahid, > Aristotle de Laurent, etc. The Gangrel have the added advantage of > having in their crypt Beckett Advanced, because his ability increases > your hand size for every other Gehenna card in play, so if other > methuselahs put down Gehenna cards, you benefit as well. That is definitely a huge problem. To make it even worse the most often used direct attack card (Bum愀 Rush) cannot be replaced until the end of the action which means you are fighting with a hand size of 5. Probably enough against a Malkavian S&B but more than often not against any deck with a serious hitback option. Be it masters, Aura Reading or whatever (the options are numerous) I think a combat deck featuring Dragonbound needs to increase the hand size somehow. Then again a lot of combat decks will feature Dragonbound so you can probably wait until somebody else plays it to avoid this drawback. > Also, he only burns pool for Dragonbound during his discard phase, > which means if your prey's vampires can leave/are rescued from torpor > before that, no loss of pool. This only becomes a problem if you let > it be. You should let your prey get away with one or 2 rescue attempts > because it depletes his vampires of blood and you can always send them > to torpor again, being a combat deck and all. Eventually he will run > out of blood and minions for rescue/leave torpor attempts, and when > that happens, Dragonbound has them good. Of course, someone could > always diablerize the vampires in torpor, but the loss of a vampire > will always hurt. I think the fact that Dragonbound happens during discard should be given more attention than you do. First of all it suits perfectly to Intercept Combat Decks, just because of this fact so you are probably bettter off doing Tzimisce Intercept with Eagles Sight than Assamite Rush . But if you prefer an "active" combat deck I would include more cards to prevent your prey from leaving torpor with his Vamps. Carver's Meat Packing and Storage is quite cool for smallish vampires and also reduces the cross-table diablerie problem while your vampires gain valuable blood for pumping through blood dolls. Especially for the Assamite Foul Blood could be an excellent card because with all the rescuing the vampires will be empty very quickly and this puts them back to torpor right when you want it : before your preys discard phase. To increase the effect include some Vampiric Disease because Assamite is long range most of the time and it makes them loose blood which also limits their combat options apart from making rescuing more difficult. > Or if you are truly impatient, you can always block the rescue or > leave torpor actions, and the Gangrel and Assamites can be effective > blockers. The Gangrel have Animalism retainers to give them permanent > intercept, while a healthy number of the Assamite crypt have auspex > like Tegyrius and Fatima. Or you can employ Mr. Winthrop or equip a > sport-bike for the extra intercept needed. Well, the easiest victims, the S&B Decks have usually to much stealth to make that viable. I would rather opt for some of the things mentioned above. > Obviously, the deck demands that your prey block your actions, and > then you start sending his vampires to torpor with DOTB-Scorpion > Sting-Aggravated damage card. To be honest, I don愒 like the deck very much. What if he just doesn愒 block your actions ? They are not so dramatic after all .. Then you are left with 4 Bum愀 rush and a little intercept. Will die quickly in most tournaments. I guess whatever clan you choose for combat, either you have a lot of wake/intercept or permanent rush (tariq et al.) or 12+ Rush cards. > Well, that is all I have to say about Dragonbound. I hope other > players can benefit and expound upon the ideas espoused here in this > article. You forgot to mention one thing : You (the player of the combat) also has to pay pool for vampires in torpor. Quite a lot of rather successfull combat archetypes tolerate the loss of some of their minions. E.g celerity weenie gun or potence weenies often loose 2-3 smallish vampires to torpor to get a few big ones. But with Dragonbound in play that is all of a sudden not possible any more. The allready endangered pool (by S&B et al.) will decrease too quickly. So the Decks taking a good profit from Dragonbound are those with the "resistive" combat vampires, e.g those having fortitude/protean/dodges/roetschreck or any other way to keep their vamps alive along with some bigger vamps for the rushes instead of a lot of small vampires. Those are the comments on combat decks from a true Ventrue usually wielding political decks :-) Have Fun. -- johannes walch

chr...@comcen.com.au (Chris Arthur) wrote in message news:<5a63bace.04060...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Carver's Meat Packing and Storage might help with pool(blood doll)/blood gain and keeping vamps in torp, provided they are smaller. I am not sure what your metagame is like but it is a great way to keep them down. Dean

> The only problem I found is not replacing it... (from my experience at > least... and I have probably been playing as long as you) is that combat > decks rely on being able to cycle through cards, and having a permanent -1 > hand size makes it really hard to run the deck I lump that in with other opportunity costs -- if you're using it as an offensive measure, you compensate for the drawback in the deck, too. Elder Library is an obvious option. The possibility of permanent-based combat is a further option. I've got a deck that could revolve around Dragonbound with only minimal effort, yet would not be gimped by Dragonbound going away. Just need to rework the ratios to accomodate it and the other new cards that provide a huge boon to the deck. I don't think the -1 hand size would be a problem if I was prepared for it.

chr...@comcen.com.au (Chris Arthur) wrote in message news:<5a63bace.04060...@posting.google.com>... > > I was hoping for a few more ideas on how to ameliorate the drawback. > Most rush decks can ill afford master slots as it is let alone ones > that cost pool. > Don't drop it until you have put all your prey's vampires in torpor. :) G

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, be happy that this is an event card then :) -- "Wees jezelf, er zijn al zoveel anderen" - Loesje begin Your_MS_program_incorrectly_interprets_this_as_an_attachment.txt

On 5 Jun 2004 11:06:21 -0700, talo...@yahoo.ca (Geoff) scrawled: [ quoted text not captured ] if by 'it' you mean dragonbound, it doesn't matter if it's in your hand or in play, you'll still only have 6 other usable cards in your hand for the fightin'. salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email) "I like to play the field"-LSJ

Johannes Walch expounded: [ quoted text not captured ] Unless I'm very much mistaken there is nothing to stop Howler *equipping* a weapon; just can't *use* (strike with) it. Maybe I'm wrong.

[ quoted text not captured ] Howler cannot use the Ivory Bow, but she can hold it. Her Ghoul Retainer can use the Bow she's holding just fine, yes. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

LSJ expounded: > Timlagor wrote: > > Johannes Walch expounded: > >>>you know howler can't use weapons,don't you ? ;) > >>>ghoule retainer maybe ? ;) > >> > >>Why not ? I have been thinking about this for quite a while. With Heidelburg > >>Castle and the new BH HC light around it would be quite easy to get e.g. an > >>Ivory Bow and a Ghould Retainer on Howler. And I don´t know about you but a > >>Howler with a G.R and an I.B looks kinda scary to me. > > > > Unless I'm very much mistaken there is nothing to stop Howler > > *equipping* a weapon; just can't *use* (strike with) it. Maybe I'm > > wrong. > > Howler cannot use the Ivory Bow, but she can hold it. > Her Ghoul Retainer can use the Bow she's holding just fine, yes. Can Howler Equip the Ivory bow?

Timlagor expounded: [ quoted text not captured ] Sorry better clarify: Can howler take an action to equip the Ivory Bow? (or anything else)

"Timlagor" <TimSl...@yaMhoo.co.uk> wrote in message news:MPG.1b2e9559e...@news.eclipse.co.uk... [ quoted text not captured ] yes she can ! she can also disguise it. be she cannot use it.

> > Why not ? I have been thinking about this for quite a while. With Heidelburg > > Castle and the new BH HC light around it would be quite easy to get e.g. an > > Ivory Bow and a Ghould Retainer on Howler. And I don´t know about you but a > > Howler with a G.R and an I.B looks kinda scary to me. > > Unless I'm very much mistaken there is nothing to stop Howler > *equipping* a weapon; just can't *use* (strike with) it. Maybe I'm > wrong. The Heidelburg was not meant to be a necessity for equipping Howler with the goodies but to cut short the time to do so by letting some inferior crap Ahrimane doing the equipping/recruiting stuff. -- johannes walch

> I think a combat deck featuring Dragonbound needs to increase > the hand size somehow. Then again a lot of combat decks will feature > Dragonbound so you can probably wait until somebody else plays it to avoid > this drawback. As someone else already pointed out, it seems "Visit of the capuchin" is the best choice for that (you dont need a particular clan or discipline to play it). BTW,if you are going to a game expecting someone else to play a certain card, you might as well dont put it in, dont you think? What are you suggesting to do, ask another player if he is planning to play it in the near future?? Another problem I expect to see with Dragonbound-torpid blood combo is that sending your predator's vampires to torpor might be a too damaging proposition for him. You want him weak, not dead. Unfortunately, often the only defense a combat deck has against his predator is a good beating. In other words, you risk killing your predator instead just putting him in defensive mode. I think Path of lilith is probably more useful than Dragonbound in that sense.

gabusanvtes wrote: > As someone else already pointed out, it seems "Visit of the capuchin" > is the best choice for that (you dont need a particular clan or > discipline to play it). And Visit was already a great transient for multirush decks, so you might be playing it anyway. > Another problem I expect to see with Dragonbound-torpid blood combo is > that sending your predator's vampires to torpor might be a too > damaging proposition for him. You want him weak, not dead. When you are ousting your prey at a tolerable speed, trimming back your predator is less of an issue. > Unfortunately, often the only defense a combat deck has against his > predator is a good beating. In other words, you risk killing your > predator instead just putting him in defensive mode. I think Path of > lilith is probably more useful than Dragonbound in that sense. No, Dragonbound generates the most pool damage, which moves you forward fastest. Also, in a magical world where other players don't kamikaze into you out of stiff-necked pride, the pool damage your predator will take when you catch/jump him should serve as more of a deterrent. __ David Cherryholmes

In message <2itrieF...@uni-berlin.de>, David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> mumbled something about: >No, Dragonbound generates the most pool damage, which moves you forward >fastest. Also, in a magical world where other players don't kamikaze >into you out of stiff-necked pride, the pool damage your predator will >take when you catch/jump him should serve as more of a deterrent. Worth noting, because I think you may be misconstruing this: It's not pride. It's that like all good predators, I can smell fear. If my prey Rushes backwards once, I figure this is normal, rescue my dead dude (if he's not toast), and go on. If he rushes backwards to a degree I might consider "excessive" (multiple guys dead in a single turn in the early game, etc.) then I'm likely to just lower the big kaboom early, even if I can't get the oust. Why? Because someone who KEEPS Rushing backwards clearly has something to fear from me. If I've been creating that fear by bleeding heavily or some other fashion, well, that's my fault. But if I'm slowplaying my game, plinking away a little bit... or if I'm having trouble because my predator is working me over... either he actually _does_ have something to fear, or he's being paranoid. Either way, I typically just throw it all forward in one shot at that point; if I'm going to be Rushed backwards off the table anyway, I'm going to darn well make sure it was for a good reason. If this causes the Rush deck to lose, well, guess what; that deck's player made an error. I'm his predator, I'm going to damage him. It's my job. He needs to identify what amount of damage he's willing to live with, and then we can go from there and balance out how many of my guys get dead on a regular basis, vs. what amount of damage. If he's not willing to live with a certain amount of damage, he's liable to get a whole lot MORE damage, just because if we can't strike a balance, I'm going to revert to what I'd like: "Lots", and we can see if he has enough Rushes to survive. If he doesn't, I get my VP and maybe some more; if he does, oh well, I lose. But the important thing is that if I'm going to keep losing vampires, I'm going to try to stem the tide by ousting him QUICKER, so that if I do oust him, I have more guys left. Now, the converse is also true. It is possible for a Rush deck to decide that the amount of damage he's willing to live with is zero, at which point I run out of vampires if he's capable. A deck in a sufficiently good position can accurately make this decision and still win the game, but it's not necessarily an easy one. Sometimes, however, this decision is correct, as in the case of !Malk S&B: Just Kill It(tm). -- Derek a host is a host from coast to coast and no one will talk to a host that's close unless the host that isn't close is busy, hung, or dead