V:EKN Clan Gangrel Antitribu Newsletter, January 1999, Part II Alright, my hangover is now back to manageable levels so here is something a bit more solid to get your fangs into. A deck, in fact. Its excuse for appearing in this newsletter is that it contains ALL the gangrel antitribu. Along with all the other vampires admittedly, but hey, we're an equal opportunity kinda bloodline, k? A while back i posted the germ of an idea for using Betrayer in a deck. For playtesting, I built three versions of this deck and used them in jol79, 84 and local 8. I am now out in all these games and got a total of 2VPs, but actually the deck did a lot better than that implies - it became "the deck to kill" in 84 and 8, and would have got another VP in 79 if Mike, Bleu and all the others hadn't ganged up on me. Here is the version of the deck i used in 84, where it flowed BEAUTIFULLY and would have cleaned up, i think, but for some seriously WEIRD politics [Madness Network and Reversal of Fortune ... nice combo, but boring to be on the receiving end of]. CRYPT [500 vampires - 1 of each plus enough weeny 1-caps so that they amount to 1/3 of the total] Javier Montoya 9 Lazarus 9 Cassandra, Magus Prime 10 Cardano 9 Gwendolyn 11 Kalinda 6 Parnassus 7 Klaus van der Veken 9 Al-Ashrad, Amr of Alamut 9 Aaron Duggan, Cameron’s Toady 2 Cameron 3 Ignacio, The Black Priest 4 Ramiro 4 Guido Lucciano 5 Aurora Van Brande, Paladin 6 Lisette Vizquel 6 Gratiano 8 Alvaro, The Scion of Angelica 9 Antonio Delgado 9 Angelica, The Canonicus 10 Horatio 2 Wendy Wade 3 Lolita Houston 4 Devin Bisley 5 Corine Marcon 6 Violet Tremain 6 Dragos 7 Meshenka 8 Stravinksy 9 Lambach 10 Anton 8 Didi Meyers 5 Thelonius 4 Jing Wei 3 Vanessa 6 Ingrid Russo 4 Gloria Giovanni 4 Christine Boscacci 2 Ohanna 2 Mustafa Rahman 2 Samson 2 Kurt Strauss 5 Grendel - The Worm Eaten 5 Mitchell, The Headhunter 2 Jimmy Dunn 4 Lena Rowe 3 Rex, The Necronomist 3 Gillian Krader 2 Anvil 6 Jacko 8 Sela 6 Richter, The Templar of Du Mont 7 Fredrick the Weak 2 Volker, The Puppet Prince 5 Hugo 4 Rake 6 Hector Sosa 4 Don Cruez - The Idealist 10 Lupo 2 Josef 4 Quira, The Bitch Queen 6 Anson 8 Dan Murdock 3 Magdelena Schaefer 2 Black Cat 5 Nepata 4 Saqqaf, Keeper of the Grand Temple of Set 9 Boy Toy 2 Amisa 8 Lalitha 2 Artemis 6 Vasantasena 9 Yorik 3 Korah 7 Kephamos, High Priest of Marrakech 8 Dedefra 5 Mario Giovanni 3 Cristofero Giovanni 3 Carlotta Giovanni 7 Regina Giovanni, The Right Hand of Augustus 10 Ian Forestal 8 Melek 7 Delilah Easton 2 Masika 10 Harika Guljan 3 Abd al-Rashid 5 Lolita 3 Jost Werner 6 Marianna Gilbert 4 Ian Wallingford 6 Sadie 2 Caitlin 5 Pieter 6 Blaise 7 Genevieve 10 Giuliano Vincenzi 2 Leon 3 Sasha Miklos 2 Luther 6 Vliam Andor 2 Monique 5 Natalia 7 Sarisha Veliku 6 Gitane St. Claire 7 Katarina 9 Joaquina Amaya 6 Lazar Dobrescu 3 Tsigane 3 Salbatore Bokkengro 4 Andre Puxon 5 Petru Sipos 7 Tereza Rostas 8 Darius Styx 9 Kostantin, Baro of the Caravan 9 Kanya Akhtar 2 Tansu Bekir 4 Husamettin 8 Thetmes, Calif of Alamut 10 Angel 2 Vasilis, The Traitor of Don Cruez 2 Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn 3 Raziya Samater 3 Uma Hatch 3 Yuri - The Talon 4 Brachah 5 Bianca 6 Akram 8 Constanza Vinti 8 Donal O’Conner 8 Miranda Sanova 8 Tura Vaughn 8 Crusher 9 Appolonius 10 Jacob Bragg 3 Sarah Brando 3 Dodd 5 Rigby, Crusade Vanguard 5 Salinger 9 Bronwen 10 Khalil Anvari 3 Hadrian Garrick 4 Aisha 6 Kemintiri 10 Anastasia Grey 3 Chandler Hungerford 3 Panagos Levidis 3 Ricki Van Demsy 3 Roman Alexander 4 Bear Paw 5 Camille Devereux 5 Raven 5 Mirembe Kabbada 5 Badger 6 Zack North 6 Gunther - Beast Lord 7 Iliana 7 Faruq 8 Quinton McDonnell 8 Angus - The Unruled 10 Basilia 10 Wynn 10 Stanislava 11 Shane Grimald 4 Zachary 7 Samantha 10 Brazil 2 Normal 2 Dollface 3 Watenda 3 Zoe 3 Aleph 4 Roland Bishop 4 Victoria 5 Zebulon 5 Dancin’ Dana 6 Damaskenos, Herald of Leandro 6 Ozmo 6 Gilbert Duane 7 Gregor Anderssen 7 Mariel - Lady Thunder 7 Cornelius Ottavio 8 Dr. Jest 8 Sylvester Simms 8 Roxanne, Rectrix of the 13th Floor 9 Lucian 10 Leandro 11 Claven 4 Muriel Foucade 5 Virgil 8 Imogen 9 Hannibal 10 Dimple 2 Koko 2 Duck 3 Regillio, The Seeker of Akhenaten 3 Agrippina 4 Daliyah 4 Laurent de Valois 4 Sammy 4 Tiberius, The Scandelmonger 5 Judah 6 Tusk - Talebearer 6 Chester DuBois 7 Nikolaus Vermeulen 7 Sebastian Marley 7 Amadeo 8 Ebanezer Roush 8 Murat 7 Selma - The Repugnant 8 Marty Lechtansi 9 Sheldon - Lord of the Clog 9 Lucretia - Cess Queen 10 Harrod 11 Dani 2 Tommy 3 Agatha 4 Nigel the shunned 5 Olivia 5 Beast, The Leatherface of Detroit 7 Kendrick 7 Calebos 8 Cailean 10 Yong-Sun, Harmonist 10 Dieter Kleist 2 Colin Flynn 3 Isabel de Leon 3 Demetrius Slater 4 Dorian Strack 4 Felicia Mostrom 5 Ramiel Dupre 5 Adrianne 6 Kallista - Master Sculpter 6 Radeyah 6 Sigrid Bekker 6 Elliot Sinclair 7 Tatiana Romanov 7 Makarios, The Seducer 8 Marcellus 8 Andreas - Bard of Crete 9 Anneke 10 Francois Villon 10 Alexandra 11 Carter 2 Remilliard, Devout Crusader 4 Victor Revell, Loyalist 5 Sheila Mezarin 6 Jessica 7 Lachlan, Noddist 8 Donatien 9 Matteus, Flesh Sculptor 10 Roreca Quaid 2 Blythe Candeleria 3 Dr. John Casey 3 Ignatius 4 Sarah Cobbler 4 Merrill Molitor 5 Sabine Lafitte 5 Elisabetta Romano 6 Lydia Van Cuelen 6 Thomas Thorne 6 Astrid Thomas 7 Muaziz, Archon of Ulugh Beg 7 Justine, Elder of Dallas 8 Rebekka, Chantry Elder of Munich 8 Spiridonas 9 Etrius 11 Heinrick Schlempt 2 Brooke 3 Richard Tauber, Ayelea’s Puppet 4 Reverend Blackwood 6 Bryan Van Duesen 7 Kij Dansky 8 Ethan Locke 9 Ayelea, The Manipulator 10 Rufina Soledad 2 Gideon Fontaine 3 Itzahk Levine 3 Roland Loussarian 3 Courtland Leighton 4 Violette Prentiss 4 Jazz Wentworth 5 Melissa Barton 5 Ranjan Rishi, Camarilla Scholar 5 Heather Florent, The Opportunist 6 Luccia Paciola 6 Nakova, Advocate of Golconda 6 Sir Walter Nash 7 Timothy Crowley 7 Emerson Bridges 8 Bindusara, Historian of the Kindred 9 Helena Casimir 9 Natasha Volfchek 9 Suhailah 9 Wilhelm Waldburg 9 Democritus 10 Queen Anne 10 Arika 11 Billy 5 Gerard 5 Dylan 6 Marlene, The Infernalist 6 Dominique 7 Quentin 9 Lazverinus, Thrall of Lambach 10 Rudolpho Giovanni 3 Vittorio Giovanni 5 Patrizia Giovanni 5 Gaspare Giovanni 6 Rafaele Giovanni 6 Stefano Giovanni 6 Enzo Giovanni, Pentex Board of Directors 8 Francesca Giovanni 4 Vaclav Petalengro 6 Juan Cali 3 Ulugh Beg, The Watcher 10 plus 22 each of: Nik 1 Antoinette DuChamp 1 Royce 1 Angela Decker 1 Basil 1 March Halcyon 1 Huang, Blood Cultist 1 Navar McClaren 1 Smudge - The Ignored 1 Franciscus 1 Hasina Kesi 1 Igo - The Hungry 1 Julius 1 Uriah Winter 1 LIBRARY [99 Cards] 25 Betrayer 14 The Parthenon 16 Recruitment 9 Rumours of Gehenna 4 Protected Resources 8 Bribes 4 The Barrens 5 Kine Resources Contested 2 Kindred Segregation 2 Dramatic Upheaval 2 Dreams of the Sphinx 2 Slave Auction 2 Disputed Territory 2 Domain Challenge 2 Fragment of the Book of Nod Obviously the idea is to Recruit out one of your prey's vamps and pile on the Betrayers. Pool gain is through bribed votes, especially Rumours of Gehenna so that you get the other master phase action. Defence against bleed and vote is not spending much on influence. As the game proceeds your deck turns into a bit of a weenie swarm, because you tend to have recruited the little guys your successive preys brought out. I've also built a real-space version of this deck which is changed to reflect the partial success of the playtesting. Don't have it with me right now, but the following things are different: 90 library cards. Yes Euro-Meths, you COULD be facing this in the VERY NEXT tournament y'all attend. Or the one after that. Or sometime. Just as soon as i've figured out a way of shuffling a 500-card crypt. No Camille. I just couldn't face putting 500 half-opaque protectors on the crypt for the sake of one vampire. And if i did, my crypt would fall over every time someone breathed. No unnecessary masters [Dreams, Barrens, Slave auction, Fragment, Protected Resources]. The multiple weenie-1's are out. In go all the <5 dom/DOM VTES-backed vampires i could spare, plus a judicious dose of the following cards: GtU, Computer hacking, Deflection, Delaying Tactics. The idea is to Scotch nasty votes and quick-bleed decks which otherwise are bad for the Betrayer, plus get in a few quick bleeds or the odd fluky pool gain. Combat decks are np; frankly, they are COMPLETELY useless against the Betrayer concept. This deck is not THAT much fun to play .... it IS efficient, though. Also it is absolutely hysterical to watch the reactions of other people at the table [a] when they see your crypt, and [b] once they figure out what is going on. I've seen grown Methuselahs BEGGING each other to torporise/diablarise/Banish their own Betraying vampires! Salem Christ Prince of Canberra came up with the same idea completely independently, i might add. His slant on it is not quite the same as mine, however. I hope he will post his version ..... it is easier and cheaper to build than mine, for one thing. On a different topic, thanks to James Coupe for the plug on the Malkavian MN/ Rotshreck out-of-turn combat concept. I've built this deck too and am using it in an online game which unfortunately seems to have ground to a halt. i also have a Real Life version of this deck now but the playtesting is at a much less advanced stage so please forgive me if i don't post it just yet [i've talked it over with Michael [Beer] and sent it to one or two people as private mail ... Joss, i think you were one? ... and had some VERY useful feedback]. Finally, i am in the market for [a] <5cap VTES-backed dom/DOM vampires and [b] Netrunner cards .... the vamps for obvious reasons, and Netrunner because it is being remaindered at our local virgin store so i bought a load of it and now i want to try to make complete sets [Proteus, too]. If anybody is up for trades on either of these, please email me privately.