IT WAITS TO KILL (Imbued newsletter, July 2008)

I.      IT WAITS TO KILL
II.     THE HERE AND NOW
III.    TOOLS OF THE HUNT
IV.     SURVIVAL GUIDE
V.      ON WHOSE SIDE DO YOU STAND?
VI.     WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

I.      IT WAITS TO KILL

IT WAITS
TO KILL
IT WAITS
TO KILL
IT WA-

II.     THE HERE AND NOW

It’s been a long time since the last newsletter, and there’s a lot to
catch up on: two banned cards, and two new expansions have shifted the
game for the imbued, and we’re long overdue for another newsletter.

The loss of Edge Explosion has taken with it certain kinds of imbued
decks, most notably Thanks for the Donation. It also tunes down Darby-
dance style decks quite a bit, but those should remain potent.

III.    TOOLS OF THE HUNT

As I mentioned before, there’s a fair amount of new material to work
with. For now, I’m only going to focus on a few:

Target: Hand
Combat
Aim. Play when choosing a strike.
The opposing minion may discard two combat cards to cancel this card.
If any damage from this strike is successfully inflicted on the
opposing minion, he or she gets -1 strength this action, and you may
destroy a weapon he or she has. A minion may play only one aim each
strike.

Quick Jab
Combat
Do not replace until after combat.
Strike: make a hand strike (at strength damage) with first strike. If
more than 1 damage is inflicted with this strike, ignore the excess.

Shoulder Drop
Combat
Grapple.
Play when you successfully inflict damage from a hand strike. After
strike resolution, if this minion is still ready, the opposing minion
takes 1 additional damage. The opposing minion cannot press this
round. A minion may play only one Shoulder Drop each strike.

When combined with a Trap, this combination can beat up a defenseless
opponent with no return damage. Shoulder Drop can stop the opponent
from using any presses to get out, and any of the cards can be used to
reset the trap. Of course, most opponents will have some kind of
defense against this, but with the imbued, you can cancel Majesties
with RwC, and with the help of Jennie Orne, Rejuvenate, and Vagabond
Mystic, you ought to be able to recover from hitback when you need to.
Round out the deck with some small vampires in the crypt; they can
play the core combat package, commit diablerie, and burn Smiling Jack
if necessary. Use Maman Boumba and The Rose Foundation to save them
from bloodhunts, along with:

Urban Jungle
Event
Inconnu.
Blood hunt referendums get an additional 2 votes against the
referendum.

IV.     SURVIVAL GUIDE

Lords of the Night brought a lot of new threats to the table, some
more dangerous than others. Defending against many of them, like
Autonomic Mastery or Set’s Curse, is as simple as remembering to pack
enough React with Conviction. While these cards are still dangerous,
particularly if your opponents are stressing your convictions in other
ways as well, they don’t need much treatment here: just don’t get
caught with your pants down.

With that said, here are the cards I consider the real threats from
Lords of the Night:

Ambulance
Type: Equipment
Cost: 1 pool
Vehicle.
After a combat between this acting minion and a blocking minion, you
may tap the Ambulance to continue the action as if unblocked. If the
action is blocked again, burn this card. This minion may tap the
Ambulance to attempt to burn an incapacitated imbued as a +1 stealth
(D) action. A minion may have only one vehicle.

This card is actually worth including in many imbued decks
(particularly for matches against other imbued). Equipping can be done
with Angel of Berlin, and the action-continues part can be useful in
many situations. I wouldn’t pack more than a couple, as a waking
minion is liable to simply re-block you after you use it and waste
your investment, but it can be invaluable in a lunge.

When used against us, it’s both an action-continuer (bad for us
because we don’t have good wake options) and a stealth-pillowfacing
that doesn’t allow you to burn convictions to damage the opponent (but
also doesn’t allow the opponent to take your gear). The stealth part
is only likely to give you trouble if it’s coming from another imbued
deck (since The Unmasking, Second Sight, Discern, and even Champion
completely fail to work against mortal allies) or a deck that’s
packing additional stealth to back it up.

Can't Take it with You
Type: Political Action
Successful referendum means each Methuselah gains 1 pool. Each
Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location or retainer
card he or she controls.

Ouch. Gain 1 pool, then pay 1 for Church, Rose Foundation, Ivory Bow,
Crusader Sword, Laptop… Yet another good reason to include a handful
of Poison Pills.

Cave of Apples
Type: Master
Requires: Follower of Set
Cost: 3 pool
Master: unique location.
Any Follower of Set you control may put a corruption counter on an
ally or younger vampire controlled by your prey as a (D) action. If
the action is successful and the number of your corruption counters on
the minion equals or exceeds his or her capacity or cost, you may burn
those counters to gain control of him or her.

Some people will probably be surprised that I include this here, but I
think this card is a real threat. Sure, a React With Conviction
cancels the change of control effect, but if you do, the corruption
counters remain on your imbued, and once you’ve reached that point,
every setite can just keep stacking more counters on you until you run
out of RwC and they steal you. It’s probably worth your while to block
those actions when you can (but Champion’s 2 conviction cost vs.
burning 1 React to cancel is usually not worth it).

Command the Legion
Type: Action
Requires: Dominate
Cost: X blood
[dom] Tap X-1 allies or younger vampires.
[DOM] As above, but one of the minions may be the same age or older.

What’s that I hear you saying? (D) action canceled by React With
Conviction? Nay, a canny opponent will pay 1 extra blood to tap a
single minion you don’t control (possibly even the acting minion
himself at superior Dominate). Now the action is undirected, which
means it cannot be canceled by React nor failed with Champion. Best to
DI or Determine it. Failing that, you’ll need to have several untaps
available to stop the inevitable bleed machine that’s coming along
behind you.

Into Thin Air
Type: Action Modifier
Requires: Obfuscate
Do not replace until your untap phase.
[obf] +1 stealth. Once this action, this vampire may burn 1 blood to
give an ally or younger vampire -1 intercept. Into Thin Air and Lost
in Crowds cannot both be played on the same action.
[OBF] As above, but for +2 stealth.

I’m not sure how many people will actually use this card over Lost in
Crowds, because of the Do Not Replace clause. Still, imagine that your
predator’s called a deadly vote, and when you tried to block, he plays
Forgotten Labyrinth. You think you’re safe, holding Channel 10 in
reserve as you get to 4 intercept with The Unmasking, Discern, Second
Sight, and a Sport Bike. Then your opponent pops Into Thin Air. It’ll
be a pain in the butt trying to scrape up a seventh point of intercept
against that vote deck.

Permanent Vacation
Type: Political Action
Choose a ready ally. Successful referendum means that ally is removed
from the game.

Byebye Jennie! Looks like we’ll see you next game. Along with The
Secret Must be Kept, this is probably the best reason to include Vox
Domini in your deck. If you’re playing hybrid decks, make sure to
include some Delaying Tactics.

Trochomancy
Type: Action Modifier
Requires: Auspex & Necromancy
[nec] Remove 13 cards in the target Methuselah's ash heap from the
game to get +1 bleed. Not usable if there aren't enough cards in that
ash heap. You cannot play another action modifier to increase this
bleed.
[aus][nec] As [nec] above, but remove only 7 cards.
[AUS][NEC] As [aus][nec] above, but for +2 bleed.

What can I say? Play carefully against a necromancy predator, and
especially carefully against Harbingers or other aus/nec vampires.
Keeping convictions out of the ash heap is much harder without Edge
Explosion to back you up. Strongly consider packing extra convictions
if you think you’re likely have this played against you.

Tye Cooper
Type: Ally
Requires: Giovanni
Cost: 3 pool
Unique wraith with 1 life. 0 strength, 1 bleed.
Tye is immune to non-aggravated damage. He may burn a non-ready minion
as a (D) action. If that action is successful, you may move a library
card from your ash heap to your hand (discard afterward).

Tye has a built-in pillowface without conviction damage (even if you
could conviction damage him, he’d be immune). Just be wary of him.

Aside from these cards, there are several that work on “allies or
younger vampires”. You’re going to be on the bad end of all these
cards, but you’re most likely to see them played by larger vampires,
so at least you should have some minion advantage.

V.      ON WHOSE SIDE DO YOU STAND?

With the advent of Twilight Rebellion, anarch decks have become far
more potent. Expect to see Anarch Revolt played frequently. Normally,
this would be a problem for the imbued, but for the Anarch Convert:

Anarch Convert
Clan: Caitiff (group ANY)
Capacity: 1
Powers (Disciplines):
Independent. Anarch: When the convert enters play, you may remove him
from the game to make a non-titled vampire you control anarch and
either gain 1 pool or draw a card from your crypt.

Putting a few Anarch Converts into your imbued deck can be a strong
move. He makes you immediately immune to Anarch Revolt damage, as well
as being able to take actions restricted to vampires only (such as
burning Smiling Jack). He enables a lot of other cards such as
Delaying Tactics, and it’s no big loss for him to throw Flash Grenades
if he gets in a fight. If you can’t actually get through to Smiling
Jack, he can at least burn a blood and hunt every turn, potentially
buying you an extra turn to oust your prey or draw into your own Jack
to contest. The best part is, he does all that for just one pool
invested, with no drawbacks.

Beware, however, that an anarch predator may choose to contest the
Convert with you, especially if he’s using Anarch Revolt as a primary
ousting mechanism. Try to avoid bringing yours into play until after
he’s used a few for their special ability. Alternatively, you could
include another small vampire such as Sandra White, and use the
Convert to make her into an anarch instead.

VI.     WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

Deck Name : Urban Jungles
Author : Witness1 
Description :

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 5 average: 3.66667
------------------------------------------------------------
2x Jennie "Cassie247" Orne	5  inn jud vis  Imbued:4
1x Travis "Traveler72" Miller	5  mar def      Imbued:4
1x Jack "Hannibal137" Harmon	4  def jud      Imbued:4
1x John "Cop90" O'Malley	4  jud ven      Imbued:4
1x Leaf "Potter116" Pankowski	4  inn red vis  Imbued:4
1x Maman Boumba           	4  inn mar      Imbued:4
1x Marion "Teacher193" Perks	4  red jud      Imbued:4
1x Pedro Cortez           	4  mar ven      Imbued:4
1x Marta                  	3  aus dem      !Malkavian:4
1x Anarch Convert         	1               Caitiff:0
1x Sandra White           	1               Caitiff:3

Library [90 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Action [8]
  3x Ambush
  2x Bum's Rush
  3x Harass

Combat [29]
  1x Molotov Cocktail
  6x Quick Jab
  2x Shoulder Drop
  10x Target Hand
  10x Trap

Conviction [24]
  8x React with Conviction
  8x Second Sight
  8x Strike with Conviction

Equipment [3]
  1x Crusader Sword, The
  1x Heart of Nizchetus
  1x Ivory Bow

Event [5]
  1x Dragonbound
  1x Narrow Minds
  2x Unmasking, The
  1x Urban Jungle

Master [15]
  4x Angel of Berlin
  2x Church of Vindicated Faith, The
  1x Direct Intervention
  1x Fame
  1x Filchware's Pawn Shop
  1x Haven Uncovered
  1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
  2x Specialization
  2x Wash

Reaction [6]
  3x On the Qui Vive
  3x Poison Pill

Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Wed Jul 09 11:28:58 2008]

Thanks for reading once again. Contributions are always welcome.

-witness1