Deck Archetypes: Nosferatu Royalty

The classic "Nosferatu Royalty" deck is a political deck based on the Group 1/2 Nosferatu Princes and Justicar. The decks uses political cards like "Parity Shift" and "Kine Resources Contested" to oust its prey as well as a variety of other cards that require Camarilla a prince or justicar as support. The deck is quite solid since the crypt selection offers relatively cheap Nosferatu princes, who in addition all have "Obfuscate" to make the political actions more likely to be successful.

How to win with them
The deck's crypt is built on the relatively cheap Nosferatu princes and justicar. The capacities of the Nosferatu royalty (Prince/Justicar) in Group 1/2 are 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, which is the lowest average of all Camarilla clans in these groups. Among these "Nikolaus Vermeulen" excels, since his special ability to put 1 blood from him to an uncontrolled Nosferatu allows to speed up influencing additional Nosferatu or at least indirect pool recovery. So often "Nikolaus Vermeulen" is the first vampire of this deck that is moved into controlled region. The deck can also add other non-Nosferatu princes with (superior) "Obfuscate" like the Ventrue "Suhailah" or the Malkavian "Gilbert Duane". Another option is to switch to group 2-3 and add the Malkavian Justicar "Maris Streck", whose special ability gives the Nosferatu princes together with "Second Tradition: Domain" some decent intercept capabilities.

The deck's main weapon are the political actions "Parity Shift" and "Kine Resource Contested". Due to the nature of the "Parity Shift", it is not only used for damaging its prey's pool, but also pool gain for the deck itself. To be able to play the "Parity Shift" throughout the game, the deck constantly influences out new vampires or buys equipment for its minions. For killing its prey the vampires either bleed (usually for one) or play a "Kine Resource Contested" as the finishing move. Sometimes also the deck sports "Judgement: Camarilla Segregation", but this can backfire if your grandprey or grandpredator have not only Camarilla vampires and they no pool gain or are under pressure anyway.

For making the political action successful the deck uses "Obfuscate", especially "Forgotten Labyrinth", "Lost in Crowds" and "Elder Impersonation", making it very hard to block for all decks except very dedicated intercept decks. In terms of making the actual vote/referendum a success, the deck relies almost exclusively on the titled-based votes of its vampires, with "Legendary Vampire" and (less often seen) "Animal Magnetism" as the exceptions to this rule.

Another important angle of the deck are the "Tradition" cards that require a Camarilla Justicar or Prince. "Second Tradition: Domain" offers an untap as well as +2 intercept for blocking; "Fourth Tradition: Hospitality" allows vampires to be refilled after paying the Obfuscate cards or being damaged in combat; "Third Tradition: Progeny" gives the Nosferatu in this deck additional minions, either for the occasional bleed or as chump blocker.

The whole deck can be moved into the direction of the "Breed & Boon" deck archetype by adding a couple "Third Tradition: Progeny" and "Consanguineous Boon", giving it additional minions as well as some more decent pool gain.

Bleed defense
This is definetely the deck's main weakness. The lack of bleed bounce disciplines makes it vulnerable to Stealth&Bleed or Powerbleed decks. Some deck variants play "Second Tradition: Domain" to compensate this deficit, thus providing both untap and +2 intercept to princes and justicars. Other variants do not play reaction cards at all, instead they rely on the decks ability to play "Parity Shift" backwards against the aggressive predator in order to compensate the pool loss and punish the predator at the same time. If necessary the deck will even go so far, to oust its predator if pressed too hard.

Vote defense
The deck relies primarily on its vampire's inherent title, and to some extent the ability to block political actions using "Second Tradition: Domain".

Combat defense
This is where the various deck variants have their greatest differences. Some decks decide not to pack any combat cards at all, concentrating on the actions and the subsequent vote. This usually works better in a tournament environment where combat is less often seen as is casual games. The other half of the decks do have a moderate amount of combat cards. Either fight back with "Potence" (e.g. "Thrown Gate" or "Pushing the Limit") and/or use "Animalism " for using "Carrion Crows" and "Aid From Bats". This is usually enough to keep no-combat-orientated decks at bay, but usually they'll lose the fight against a dedicated combat deck.

How to win against them
The deck relies heavily on its titled vampires, since it almost never features an action modifiers which give additional votes (like "Animal Magnetism") or which prevent other vampires from voting (like "Closed Session"). Therefore if these vampires are removed, e.g. by combat or by votes, the deck will have problems bringing making the votes successful.

Bleed decks have usually an easy task going forward, since the Nosferatu do not have more +2 intercept in this deck, and lack any bleed bounce. But as bleeder you must fear the retaliation of the Nosferatu Royalties, i.e. they are playing "Parity Shifts" or "Kine Resources Contested" upstream.

A good defense against the deck is not block their political actions, since it's quite of hard to block the political actions +1 stealth in addition to the "Obfuscate" stealth cards the Nosferatu can play.

Secondly, if you use "Delaying Tactics" against the "Parity Shift" the deck cannot play another one for the current turn. This can be crucial for the Nosferatu, if for example they have lowered their pool before in order to be able to play the "Parity Shift" .

Key Cards

• "Nikolaus Vermeulen" -- the archetypical Nosferatu princes, with his special the cornerstone vampire of this deck.
• "Parity Shift" -- both pool gain and pool damage card rolled into one neat package.
• "Fourth Tradition: The Accounting" -- reliable way to refill vampires quickly.
• "Second Tradition: Domain" -- untap and intercept for princes and justicars.
• "Elder Impersonation""Forgotten Labyrinth" -- the main cards to make the political actions successfully.

Notable Examples & Variations
There is no definitive version for this deck; the number of stealth cards may vary, the ratios of "Parity Shift" and "Kine Resource Contested" are different, and the amount of combat cards included is widely different. While checking Lasombra's TWDA, one could see that the French version of this deck archetype features more stealth, while the Americans are definetely including more combat cards into their deck.

• "Legendary Nosferatu" by Kamel Senni -- strictly focused on "Parity Shift" with spending pool during the whole game, to make "Parity Shift" work almost all the time.
• "Nosferoyalties" by Olivier Perez -- very similar version to the deck above.
• "Nikolas's Crew" by Trey Morita -- uses Group 2/3 instead 1/2, and has large, diversified combat package.
• "The Nosferatu Is Your Friend!" by Pekka Miettinen -- more combat orientated with "Thrown Gate" as main combat card.
• "Cloaka Company" by Daniel Carretero Ferres.-- typically version of the archetype; favours KRC instead of "Parity Shift".
• "Turbo Parity" by Daniel Carretero Ferres -- reduced to the decks basic stealth vote combination; total lack of combat & reaction cards.
  

Sample Decklist

Tournament name : Coupe de Paris 2007
Location and date : Paris, France - 03/04/07
32 players

The winner is Kamel Senni (Enters 3rd in final with 2GWs, 7VPs - Wins the final with 3 VPs) playing Legendary Nosferatu:

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 19, Max: 35, Avg: 7)
-------------------------------------------
1 Suhailah pot ser FOR OBF 9 Ventrue
3 Selma the Repugnant ani for OBF POT 8 Nosferatu
2 Nikolaus Vermeulen ani for obf POT 7 Nosferatu
2 Sheldon for ANI AUS OBF POT 9 Nosferatu
1 Dimple obf 2 Nosferatu
2 Calebros obf pot ANI 5 Nosferatu
1 Murat ser OBF POT 7 Nosferatu

Library: (73 cards)
-------------------
Master (24 cards)
3 Specialization
1 Last Stand
1 Giant`s Blood
1 Temptation of Greater Power
1 Labyrinth, The
9 Zillah`s Valley
7 Legendary Vampire
1 Pentex Subversion

Action (3 cards)
3 Scrounging

Action Modifier (22 cards)
2 Faceless Night
5 Lost in Crowds
4 Elder Impersonation
3 Forgotten Labyrinth
8 Freak Drive

Political Action (20 cards)
1 Conservative Agitation
6 Kine Resources Contested
3 Banishment
10 Parity Shift

Retainer (3 cards)
1 Tasha Morgan
1 J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1 Robert Carter

Combo (1 cards)
1 Swallowed by the Night