Tow variants down and one last one to go. As we've seen previously with the
Followers of Set and Daughters of Cacophony versions, adapting the Death Star to
a new clan opens up new options.
My Original Ravnos Version
I never played this original version in a tournament. After a test of two and
some more experience with the other designs, I realized that I had taken an
incorrect approach. I won't make that many updates in the winning version,
but what was I thinking trying to play Durga Syn in this deck?
Deck Name: Shilmulo Death Star Author: Karl Schaefer Crypt (13 cards, min=4 max=30 avg=4) ==================================== 1x Durga Syn 9 CHI OBF THA ani aus dom for Ravnos:4 1x Alexis Sorokin 8 CEL CHI OBF PRO for Ravnos:4 1x Tatiana Stepanova, Alastor 7 CHI PRE ani for obf Ravnos:4 1x Vassily Taltos 6 aus cel chi dom for obf Ravnos:4 1x Irena 5 CHI ani for pre Ravnos:5 1x Paul Forrest, False Prophet 5 chi for pre Ravnos:4 1x Devyn 4 ani chi pre Ravnos:4 1x Marion French 3 ani chi Ravnos:4 5x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:ANY Library (76 cards) ================== Master (13) ------------ 1x Anarch Railroad 1x Archon Investigation 1x Barrens, The 2x Blood Doll 1x Carfax Abbey 1x Fear of Mekhet 1x Fortune Teller Shop 1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum 1x Pentex(TM) Subversion 1x Seattle Committee 1x Twilight Camp 1x Week of Nightmares Action (15) ------------ 1x Fee Stake: Boston 1x Fee Stake: Corte 1x Fee Stake: Los Angeles 1x Fee Stake: New York 1x Fee Stake: Perth 1x Fee Stake: Seattle 2x Illegalism 7x Tumnimos Ally (1) --------- 1x Rom Gypsy Equipment (1) -------------- 1x Shilmulo Tarot Political Action (17) ---------------------- 2x Anarch Salon 5x Consanguineous Boon 1x Eat the Rich 3x Firebrand 1x Kine Resources Contested 1x Patsy 1x Reckless Agitation 3x Revolutionary Council Action Modifier (22) --------------------- 5x Adhocracy 2x Bewitching Oration 1x CrimethInc. 2x Cryptic Rider 2x False Resonance 2x Fata Morgana 2x Mirror's Visage 2x Propaganda of the Deed 3x Smoke and Mirrors 1x Voter Captivation Action Modifier/Combat (7) --------------------------- 2x Mirror Image 3x Occlusion 2x Swallowed by the Night
Comparing the Decks
Let's break down the decks. I've chosen a series of categories for the
comparison. You'll notice that some cards end up in more than one
box. These polyvalent cards provide real power through different
options.
| Role | Original | Replacement |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent Pool Gain |
2 Blood Doll1 | 2 Blood Doll1 |
| Transient Pool Gain |
Anarch Salon 5 Consanguineous Boon Exclusion Principle 2 Undue Influence ( |
2 Anarch Salon 5 Consanguineous Boon Voter Captivation ( |
| Childer |
4 The Embrace 5 Web of Knives Recruit |
7 Tumnimos |
| Permanent Bleed |
Club Illusion |
Paul Forrest, False Prophet Week of Nightmares |
| Transient Bleed |
Khabar: Glory 3 Spying Mission ( |
5 Adhocracy ( Fata Morgana ( 2 Illegalism ( |
| Damaging Votes |
4 Kine Resources Contested Patsy 3 Revolutionary Council |
Eat the Rich Kine Resources Contested Patsy Reckless Agitation 3 Revolutionary Council |
| Permanent Vote Support |
3 Alamut Amaravati The Black Throne 6 Fee Stakes 2 Firebrand Patsy |
Fear of Mekhet 6 Fee Stakes 3 Firebrand Patsy |
| Transient Vote Support |
2 Cryptic Rider |
Adhoacracy ( 2 Bewitching Oration 2 Cryptic Rider Eat the Rich2 2 Propaganda of the Deed |
| Permanent Stealth |
— |
Anarch Railroad Fortune Teller Shop Rom Gypsy |
| Transient Stealth |
18 |
11 3Smoke and Mirrors ( 2 Swallowed by the Night ( |
| Permanent Unlock |
2 Firebrand |
CrimethInc. ( 3 Firebrand |
| Transient Unlock |
6 CrimethInc. ( |
2 Illegalism ( |
| Defense |
Archon Investigation Yoruba Shrine |
Archon Investigation |
- One could argue this isn't pool gain, but pool recoup. That's a different blog post.
- I am counting the title reduction as push.
Notes
- We're quite a bit weaker on transient pool gain, trading Exclusion Principle for a second Anarch Salon. Because Chimerstry and Tumnimos are blood intensive, this allows us to recoup some of that cost. Additionally it helps hold off the ill affects of Week of Nightmares. The permanent pool game is identical, with just two Blood Doll for farming.
- Even though there are two less childer, I consider this equivalent. Web of Knives Recruit takes 3 turns to come into play, so you're never going to play all of them. On the other hand, Tumnimos is a 2-cap that inherits sect. (This was before most childer inherited sect and Web of Knives Recruit still doesn't.)
- Week of Nightmares firmly tilts the bleed offense in favor of the Ravnos deck.
- The damaging vote packages are mostly the same. The original is more consistent (just KRCs and RevCos), but the variant has higher damage potential.
- There are no permanent vote master cards for this like we had in the other variants, so we have a lot more additional transient push. Of all of the variants, this one is best suited to not voting, but to oust by bleeding. This makes the vote package an ousting option instead of the ousting option.
- We do have a lower stealth count than the original, but have three stealth permanents to make up the difference. You'll also notice that most of the stealth cards are polyvalent. We also have the option to use Smoke and Mirrors in two ways.
- This deck has the weakest unlock package compared to all of the other variants. Not even sure why I kept the single copy of CrimthInc. because there's only one vampire that can play it.
The Tournament-Winning Version
Poor
Mark Loughman
was my punching bag for this event. I cross-table ousted him in round one and
backousted him in round two. All of which was necessary to obtain my game
wins. I earned 2 GW 6 VPs for first seed and took 4 VPs in the final.
Deck Name: Shilmulo Death Star Author: Karl Schaefer Crypt (12 cards, min=4 max=28 avg=3.92) ======================================= 1x Alexis Sorokin 8 CEL CHI OBF PRO for Ravnos:4 1x Chavi Oraczko 7 ANI CHI FOR nec Ravnos:5 1x Tatiana Stepanova, Alastor 7 CHI PRE ani for obf Ravnos:4 1x Vassily Taltos 6 aus cel chi dom for obf Ravnos:4 1x Irena 5 CHI ani for pre Ravnos:5 1x Paul Forrest, False Prophet 5 chi for pre Ravnos:4 1x Devyn 4 ani chi pre Ravnos:4 5x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:ANY Library (75 cards) ================== Master (15; 1 trifle) ---------------------- 1x Anarch Railroad 1x Archon Investigation 1x Barrens, The 2x Blood Doll 1x Carfax Abbey 1x Coven, The 1x Fear of Mekhet 1x Fortune Teller Shop 1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum 1x Giant's Blood 1x Infamous Insurgent 1x Pentex(TM) Subversion 1x Twilight Camp 1x Week of Nightmares Action (15) ------------ 1x Fee Stake: Boston 1x Fee Stake: Corte 1x Fee Stake: Los Angeles 1x Fee Stake: New York 1x Fee Stake: Perth 1x Fee Stake: Seattle 2x Illegalism 7x Tumnimos Equipment (1) -------------- 1x Shilmulo Tarot Political Action (16) ---------------------- 2x Anarch Salon 4x Consanguineous Boon 1x Domain Challenge 2x Eat the Rich 1x Exclusion Principle 1x Kine Resources Contested 1x Neonate Breach 2x Reckless Agitation 2x Revolutionary Council Action Modifier (22) --------------------- 5x Adhocracy 2x Bewitching Oration 2x Cryptic Rider 2x False Resonance 2x Fata Morgana 1x Forgotten Labyrinth 2x Mirror's Visage 2x Propaganda of the Deed 3x Smoke and Mirrors 1x Voter Captivation Action Modifier/Combat (6) --------------------------- 3x Mirror Image 3x Occlusion
Almost identical balance tweaks to the voting package, we dropped some transient vote support and swapped a Revolutionary Council for a Reckless Agitation. Eat the Rich proved so useful, I added a second copy. Swapping one Consanguineous Boon for an Exclusion Principle, which is closer to the original design, and helps protect against Delaying Tactics. The Domain Challenge helps when you have other breed or ally swarm decks at the table. Lastly, this version drops the Kine Resources Contested for a Neonate Breach.
The most impactful change was to add a second Red List vampire to make
Infamous Insurgent worthwhile. I chose
Chavi over
Mata Hari because her specials were more useful
to me even though Mata Hari would have been
another vampire with
The deck uses Animalism, Celerity, Chimerstry, Obfuscate, and Presence. Being able to take advantage of the Presence Ravnos, the Obfuscate Ravnos, and the Red List Ravnos with the Anarch threeways and the use of single discipline power cards, like Voter Captivation and Forgotten Labyrinth. It's important to not hold onto cards, even if they're powerful if you can't play them right away. (We can discuss discarding in a future post.)
Finally, the winning version should have a City Star Taxi in it, but I never did add the Rom Gypsy replacement when the new card was available.
Final Thoughts
This final version shows off interesting ways to mix in common out-of-clan
disciplines. Bleeding the most bleed intensive variant, it also provides a
template for perhaps reducing the voting package and working with more bleed
until the Death Star is fully operational.
Next, we'll have a short wrap-up post covering this approach and offer some
suggestions for deckbuilding exercises to help you improve your deckbuilding
skills.
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