In our last post, we talked about the original Death Star design and I shared
some of the criteria that I used when determining what clans might be suitable
replacements for Banu Haqim in a Death Star variant. In this segment, we'll
discuss my Followers of Set variant. They were the first clan I chose to make a
variant with.
My Original Follower of Set Version
This is the first version that I made. (Keeping all of my versions of
decks finally pays off!) I was able to reach the finals with it,
gathering 2GW 7 VPs along the way. A poor seating choice and a misplay
cut my chances to zero. Let's take a look at the deck.
Deck Name: Death Star (Setite Version) Author: Karl Schaefer Description: Original version. Crypt (13 cards, min=4 max=26 avg=3.77) ======================================= 1x Qufur am-Heru 7 OBF PRE SER cel tha Ministry:2 1x Sarrasine 7 OBF PRE aus nec ser Ministry:2 1x Ezekiel, Lord of Montreal 6 PRE SER obf pot Ministry:3 1x Hesha Ruhadze 6 SER ani obf pre Ministry:2 1x Samat Ramal-Ra, Archon 6 OBF pre ser tha Ministry:2 1x Sir Marriot D'Urban 5 PRE aus obf ser Ministry:2 1x Nepata 4 obf pre ser Ministry:2 1x Celine Chevalier 3 obf ser Ministry:2 5x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:ANY Library (78 cards) ================== Master (17; 2 trifle) ---------------------- 1x Archon Investigation 1x Barrens, The 2x Blood Doll 1x Club Illusion 1x Fear of Mekhet 1x Ferraille 1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum 2x Obfuscate 1x Opium Den 1x Pentex(TM) Subversion 1x Presence 1x Seattle Committee 1x Twilight Camp 2x Villein Action (16) ------------ 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 1x Form of Corruption 2x Temptation 7x Waters of Duat Ally (1) --------- 1x Saatet-ta Political Action (16) ---------------------- 1x 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 (26) --------------------- 4x Bewitching Oration 2x Cloak the Gathering 1x CrimethInc. 2x Cryptic Rider 2x Elder Impersonation 2x Faceless Night 2x Lost in Crowds 3x Perfect Paragon 2x Spying Mission 2x Veil the Legions 4x Voter Captivation Action Modifier/Combat (2) --------------------------- 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 ( |
Anarch Salon 5 Consanguineous Boon 2 Villein1 4 Voter Captivation |
| Childer |
4 The Embrace 5 Web of Knives Recruit |
7 Waters of Duat |
| Permanent Bleed |
Club Illusion |
Club Illusion Saatet-ta |
| Transient Bleed |
Khabar: Glory 3 Spying Mission ( |
2 Spying Mission ( |
| 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 Ferraille 3 Firebrand Patsy |
| Transient Vote Support |
2 Cryptic Rider |
4 Bewitching Oration 2 Cryptic Rider Eat the Rich2 3 Perfect Paragon ( |
| Permanent Stealth |
— |
The Opium Den Saatet-ta |
| Transient Stealth |
18 |
14 3 Perfect Paragon ( |
| Permanent Unlock |
2 Firebrand |
CrimethInc. ( 3 Firebrand 2 Temptation |
| Transient Unlock |
6 CrimethInc. ( |
— |
| Defense |
Archon Investigation Yoruba Shrine |
Archon Investigation Saatet-ta |
- 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
- The permanent and transient pool gain is roughly the same. The Voter Caps, making up for the lost Exclusion Principle. And let's be honest, Anarch Salon is barely a pool gain vote.
- 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, Waters of Duat can gain skill cards and sect. (This was before most childer inherited sect and Web of Knives Recruit still doesn't.)
- These decks are roughly even on bleed boost.
- The damaging vote packages are mostly the same. The original is more consistent (just KRCs and RevCos), but the variant has higher damage potential.
- We lost a lot of permanent vote options, but gained a significant amount of transient votes. Since Alamut requires bleeding, this may be a net-win.
- As you can see, I cut the number of true transient stealth cards and added some polyvalent "stealth" with Perfect Paragon and some stealth permanents to make up the difference.
-
The big gain is in the improved unlock support. The Assamite version only
had a handful of transient unlocks in addition to the unlocks provided by
Firebrand. The Setite version gains
Temptation unlocks, a card, which should only
ever be played on your own minions in this design. I retained a single
copy of CrimethInc. because at
t it's so powerful that it's worth a slot even though only two vampires can play it.
The Tournament-Winning Version
The deck had nine revisions over the years. Most of that playing with
the balance of the original deck. A
Dream World crept in at one point, but only
lasted one version. This version garnered 2 GWs 7 VPs in the prelims and
2 VPs (won on seeding) in the final.
Deck Name: Death Star (Setite Version) Author: Karl Schaefer Description: Version 10; TWD. Crypt (12 cards, min=4 max=25 avg=3.67) ======================================= 1x Qufur am-Heru 7 OBF PRE SER cel tha Ministry:2 1x Ezekiel, Lord of Montreal 6 PRE SER obf pot Ministry:3 1x Hesha Ruhadze 6 SER ani obf pre Ministry:2 1x Samat Ramal-Ra, Archon 6 OBF pre ser tha Ministry:2 1x Count Ormonde 5 OBF dom pre ser Ministry:2 1x Sir Marriot D'Urban 5 PRE aus obf ser Ministry:2 1x Elizabeth Dimitros 4 SER obf Ministry:3 5x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:ANY Library (78 cards) ================== Master (16; 4 trifle) ---------------------- 1x Anarch Railroad 1x Archon Investigation 1x Barrens, The 2x Blood Doll 1x Coven, The 1x Fear of Mekhet 1x Ferraille 1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum 3x Obfuscate 1x Opium Den 3x Villein Action (19) ------------ 2x Entrancement 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 4x Temptation 7x Waters of Duat Ally (1) --------- 1x Saatet-ta Political Action (15) ---------------------- 4x Consanguineous Boon 1x Domain Challenge 2x Eat the Rich 1x Exclusion Principle 2x Firebrand 1x Kine Resources Contested 2x Reckless Agitation 2x Revolutionary Council Action Modifier (23) --------------------- 2x Bewitching Oration 1x CrimethInc. 2x Cryptic Rider 3x Elder Impersonation 3x Faceless Night 2x Lost in Crowds 2x Memory Rift 3x Perfect Paragon 2x Spying Mission 3x Voter Captivation Action Modifier/Combat (2) --------------------------- 2x Swallowed by the Night Event (2) ---------- 2x Uncoiling, The
Most of the balance tweaks are in 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.
The largest deviation from the Assamite version and my original variant is the addition of Entrancement. We all know how good that card is in the current meta. The Uncoiling is a silver bullet problem solver. I dropped Club Illusion because of the prevalence of other Anarch decks in the V5 meta.
Final Thoughts
I hope this comparison of the Assamite version and my Setite variants will
show you how you can adapt and rebalance existing designs. This type of
transformation helps increase your own deckbuilding skill as you determine
what the valid alternatives are. You can even end up with some that in
many ways exceeds the original's power. Consider all of the permanent
unlock that the Setite versions have.
Villein into
Temptation gives you a vampire that can easily
take two actions per turn for the rest of the game.
As we'll see in the next variant, the Daughters of Cacophony variant,
sometimes you just can't get good alternatives for some aspects. Then
the decisions become harder.
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