My 1st Deck (Having Never Played VTES)

@Elotar: What about a good player with a bad deck?

@ReverendRevolver: I just really liked the idea of hitting for tons of agg damage. I'm kind of sad and puzzled that the Gangrel don't have Potence innately, but I'm of the opinion that VTM should've given each clan 4-5 core disciplines and not just 3. Or that the Protean cards that grant Potence-like effects be much better. And that +bleed would be more common across more disciplines.

@ Blooded Sand: I will work on it.

LivesByProxy wrote: @Elotar: What about a good player with a bad deck?

A good player will be able to play with most anything!

For example, I've seen and heard Ben Peal play a starter or two starters mashed together and play a mean game.

Tube (Vuokko) often plays with decks that don't really contain much anything special but most often manages to come on top.


Ability to read the game, and players, is also a huge factor.

Lönkka wrote:

LivesByProxy wrote: @Elotar: What about a good player with a bad deck?

A good player will be able to play with most anything!

For example, I've seen and heard Ben Peal play a starter or two starters mashed together and play a mean game.

Tube (Vuokko) often plays with decks that don't really contain much anything special but most often manages to come on top.

Ability to read the game, and players, is also a huge factor.

I have to second this. Here in Helsinki we have hall of famer Otso Saariluoma, who in my opinion is one of those people who can win a tournament with a ham sandwich. Lately he has been in a habit of randomly showing up to our weekly games without any decks, loaning somebodys deck and then usually sweeping the table. How do people like him do it, is a mystery to me.

LivesByProxy wrote: @Elotar: What about a good player with a bad deck?

@ReverendRevolver: I just really liked the idea of hitting for tons of agg damage. I'm kind of sad and puzzled that the Gangrel don't have Potence innately, but I'm of the opinion that VTM should've given each clan 4-5 core disciplines and not just 3. Or that the Protean cards that grant Potence-like effects be much better. And that +bleed would be more common across more disciplines.

@ Blooded Sand: I will work on it.

Re: doing tons of agg damage, you can do that with potence:

Burning Wrath
Combat
3 Blood
[pot] Strike: hand strike at +1 damage, aggravated.
[POT] Strike: hand strike at +2 damage, aggravated.

If you can recoup the blood, the card does exactly what you want. Toss in Torn Signpost and/or Increased Strength and you are doing 5 agg, plus any other bonuses (target vitals, innate + strength). Combine this with Brujah/!Brujah's PRE and you have a solid bruise/bleed combo. I would be happy to help you build that deck, if you are so inclined.

!Gangrel and Gangrel don't have potence because it was not one of their disciplines in Vampire the Masquerade, which this card game is based on. Some groupings may have some extra potence, but in general you can count on ANI CEL FOR OBF PRO, none of which are good bleed disciplines and none are potence. That's not to say that they are bad at combat or bleeding, but the route you are trying for is not recommended. Gangrel/!Gangrel with dominate is a classic, tournament winning deck. Gangrel toolbox is, too. Both rely on things that Gangrel can actually do.

Here's something along the lines of what I might start with ... then want to change for reasons mentioned below.

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 16, Max: 28, Avg: 5.5)

---

1 Alessandro Garcia pot pre pro 4 Brujah Antitribu
1 Bill Butler pot pro 3 Gangrel Antitribu
2 Henry Taylor cel pre pro POT6 Brujah Antitribu
2 Icarus ani for pro OBF POT7 Nosferatu Antitribu
2 Nails ani obf pro POT5 Nosferatu Antitribu
1 Skryta Zyleta obf pot pro CEL5 Gangrel Antitribu
2 Soldat cel dom obf POT PRO7 Gangrel Antitribu
1 Tabitha Fisk obt pot pro 4 Lasombra

Library: (80 cards)

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Master (17 cards)
1 Channel 10
1 Depravity
2 Fame
1 Hungry Coyote, The
4 Minion Tap
2 Potence
2 Protean
1 Tension in the Ranks
3 Vessel

Action (7 cards)
2 Abbot
2 Bum`s Rush
1 Games of Instinct
2 Harass

Reaction (13 cards)
4 Eyes of the Beast
2 Forced Awakening
5 On the Qui Vive
2 Sonar

Combat (38 cards)
3 Claws of the Dead
5 Flesh of Marble
3 Gleam of Red Eyes
7 Immortal Grapple
3 Mighty Grapple
2 Slam
4 Taste of Vitae
8 Torn Signpost
3 Wolf Claws

Ally (1 cards)
1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

Retainer (1 cards)
1 Mr. Winthrop

Equipment (3 cards)
1 Camera Phone
2 Sport Bike

If all you want to do is aggpunch folks, then this is tolerable. It has awful ousting power, so would look for either more permableed at the expense of _?? Or, change crypt for more Dominate to go with Soldat and play with better cards.

The other thing I don't like about the crypt is that it's a titleless crypt that doesn't make much use of Sabbatdom. Having titles and the ability to torpor/burn votey types would make for better vote defense. Whenever I have titleless crypts, I wonder about going anarch, but I did drop some non-Sabbies so that the crypt was pointlessly pure. Field Training would be a way to upgrade disciplines if the anarch route.

Also, blood is going to be a problem. Few Tastes, not much of a plan for refill. Actually, Giant's Blood would be obvious to include as a two way play. I don't know. The deck is already fat. Now, I did assume Preternatural Strength wasn't available. If it is, then the deck can increasingly permasize to get leaner.

Anyway, this is just a quick draft of something along the lines of what you were looking for that is more my speed. For tournament play, might want to just go with Pot/Dom which is rather common, with a splash of Pro in the crypt or with skill cards if Pro is that necessary.

@ Brandon: I see now that relying on Protean for agg damage is kinda unnecessary, but I thought Burning Wrath was a bit too expensive. :/ I was actually reworking my crypt to make use of OBF Spying Mission and looking at some Camera Phones, Deep Songs and Army of Rats (a fair number of my guys have animalism), and Guarded Rubric - I've got some Black Hand vamps, notably my girl Nails <3

My biggest problem besides finding the right balance / mix of cards, is that I want to play certain clans, but those clans don't have really have the disciplines necessary for the strategy I wanted to implement, on top of the Grouping rule making things more constrained. :[

@ ICL: I really like Preternatural Strength, but since no one else mentioned it as an option, I kinda assumed it was bad. I like it in theory though. Also, what is the difference between Qui Vive, Evening's Freshness, and Forced Awakening? The differences seem superfluous at best.