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The Future is Now: A V5-Only Preview, Part 3: Tzimisce

With two games in, I wanted to try to play with the British Museum.  I've been hot on British Museum since Fall of London debuted, but have not actually managed to get a tournament win with it yet.  The Museum provides a lot of interesting options, but has a very limited card pool to work with in V5.  Recently, Garou Rim Gazette had a nice article about the card , if you want to understand it more fully. The Deck With the design criteria in place, that is to use the British Museum in V5, what type of deck can we make?  While we can build the Aggressive Corpse-Kevlar designs, the equipment that provides the most power is Living Manse.  Living Manse provides +1 bleed and a pre-range combat ends effect.  So, it helps with ousting and helps with keeping your vampires ready to do the ousting.  Though the latter effect removes the Manse, the vampire can just grab another (and unlock). Let's dig into the deck and talk more about...
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The Future is Now: A V5-Only Preview, Part 2: Toreador

While this was the first game in the series, we have released the content second because we didn't have our cameras on and everyone wants to see our lovely faces, right?  Game 1 was short-handed, no Gines...and Hugh cheats, but he runs BCP, so he can get away with it. The Deck I've played various versions of weenie Presence over the years.  Group 1/2 has enough Dominate to work in some bounce, which makes that deck more survivable in the current meta.  However, it's always been a deck that dies when outpaced and has zero stealth.  I re-envisioned that archetype for the V5 format using only Toreador.  This approach grants a bleed boost on Aire of Elation and allows the use of the Loup, the new Toreador stealth card.  Unlike many super streamlined versions, this version is more of a toolbox, having options for many situations.  Let's take a look at the deck and we'll talk about some card choices afterwards. Deck Name: Tore...

The Future is Now: A V5-Only Preview, Part 1: Hecata

Black Chantry Productions is introducing a V5 format.  I was kindly asked to join a series of demonstration games, using the V5 card pool.  The goal of these games is to show off V5 as a format the isn't limited in innovation, challenge, or fun, just in card pool.  Part and parcel with the games, I will be discussing and releasing deck lists that I played in them. The Deck I had already experimented with quite a few Hecata decks.  I played a zombie-rush version for Welcome Hecata 2025 , making the final along side another  Hecata zombie rush deck.  I was able to get set up after the other Hecata deck was ousted, but had wasted too much pool by that point.  Steve had seen a few versions of my Hecata decks and after I mentioned having one that was V5-compliant, was basically told to play it. A V5 ally deck is missing events, most importantly The Unmasking.  Let's be honest it's broken, so not having it in V5 is a good thing....

Contesting Changes That Didn't Happen

It's been more than 18-months since Black Chantry Productions attempted to test a rule change for vampire contesting.  Given that my NDA has expired regarding that test and we have a new format in open playtest, I wondered if it was time to talk about resurrecting the potential change. Proposed Change This text is from the rules test and not my invention.  The highlight section is the proposed change: At any time during this phase, if a vampire has at least as many blood counters as their capacity, you can move that vampire face up to the ready region, unlocked. The counters are kept on them to represent their blood.  Counters in excess of his capacity drain off immediately as usual. If the vampire grants additional transfers, those cannot be used on this turn because transfers are gained at the start of the influence phase. If the vampire would contest, you may choose to remove it from the game instead of moving it to the ready region and distribute the pool on it among ...

A New Kind of Draft

It's always fun to crack open some packs and make something on the spot, but we have no more booster packs.  Enter the new Draft Kit.  Rumors of this magical draft cube have been floating around for a while and my friend Serge talked about it on his blog .  Black Chantry Productions is still in the final stages of testing and tweaking the Draft Kit, so this is a preview.  Also, note that as contents could change, cards and draft effects that I talk about may differ from the final Draft Kit. Montreal Cup Weekend Draft The North American Cup weekend in Montreal featured the Cup event on Saturday and a draft event on Sunday.  The attendance for the Cup event was great, but as we had a lot of travelers, only 9 folks returned for the draft on the following day.  That's actually plenty, as we had 2 tables each round, plus the final.  However, it did mean that we were drafting 8 packs each, which is quite a lot.  This was ...

Customizing LackeyCCG

A lot of us use LackeyCCG to play Vampire: The Eternal Struggle online.  One of the most important things you can do to make the games run more smoothly is to customize your settings to improve your keyboard shortcuts.  In this quick post, I'll go over the keyboard shortcuts that I use and you can configure your Lackey to your own liking. Keyboard Preferences I'm sure most of you know that Lackey has keyboard preferences, but if not, they are available on the Preferences tab and the Key Bindings subtab. Lackey comes preconfigured with a variety of Key Bindings preset, but I don't actually like the default configuration.  I have eliminated several bindings and replaced many others.  If you'd like to update a key binding, simply put your cursor in the appropriate box and press whatever key combination you'd like to set it to.  Lackey will record that and display it as the selected key binding Avoid using Key Bindings that d...