Deck of the Month: June 2008: Mummy Strength!

This month's deck is the tournament winning deck "Mummy Strength" played by Matt Morgan during the NACQ qualifier in New York City. Close second for this month's deck was "Darkbob's Angry Dragon" deck, which is also a "Follower of Set", but not based on "Spell of Life", but rather "Typhonic Beast" & "Immortal Grapple".

Matt's deck convinced me because of the deck size (61 cards!), and its simplicity. It basically contains 4 parts (aside from the master card section):

• "Spell of Life",
• Stealth package,
• Bleed defense package,
• Allies (Mummies) and ally related events

The rest of commentary (see below) is from Matt himself.

New York City Qualifier
New York, New York
Saturday May 24th, 2008
17 players
3 Rounds + Final

Matt Morgan's Tournament Winning Deck

Deck Name: Mummy Strength!
Created by: Matt Morgan
Description: Get mummies. Block, fight, rush, bleed, win!

Crypt [13 vampires, average capacity: 7]
1x Nakhthorheb OBF PRE SER 10 Follower of Set:4
1x Seterpenre AUS NEC OBF PRE SER 10 Follower of Set:5
1x Neferu OBF PRE SER THA dom nec 9 Follower of Set:4 2 votes
1x Pentweret OBF PRE SER aus for obe 9 Follower of Set:5
1x Porphyrion CHI OBF PRE SER for 9 Follower of Set:5
1x Shemti OBF POT PRE SER vic 9 Follower of Set:5 1 vote
1x Amenophobis OBF SER dom pre 7 Follower of Set:4 primogen
2x Halim Bey DOM SER obf tha 6 Follower of Set:4
1x Black Lotus DOM aus obf ser 5 Follower of Set:4
1x Sahira Siraj obf ser tha 4 Follower of Set:4
1x Sisocharis cel obf pre 4 Follower of Set:5
1x Ahmose Chambers obf ser 3 Follower of Set:5

/* The larger vampires are obviously not meant to be influenced out and never were. They might as well have been Enkidu, Hazimel, Sha-Ennu, Saulot, etc., but it never really mattered as I rarely had a mummy burned by losing all its life. Two copies of Halim and 3x Effective Management meant I got him out in every preliminary round. In the final he showed up late and ended up having to join the ranks of the mummies. */

Library [61 cards]
Master [14]
2x Blood Doll
1x Centralized Background Check
1x Channel 10
1x Charisma
3x Effective Management
1x Fame
1x Jake Washington (Hunter)
1x KRCG News Radio
1x Mob Connections
1x Opium Den
1x WMRH Talk Radio

/* The media outlets helped a lot. I'm a firm believer in Unmasking + media locations in an ally deck. It really gets the job done. Centralized Background Check was in my starting hand in the first two games, but I didn't see it in round 3 when I was killed by .44s. Ah well. It's good in theory. */

Action [11]
1x Set's Curse
10x Spell of Life

/* Set's Curse was originally Far Mastery, but more of my crypt can play Set's Curse and there are more available targets. In round 1, I was a little slow with it and Meno Ngari got a skill card before I could hit him with it. In round 2, I turned Lupo into a snake, which was really cool, even if it probably didn't cause me to win any more than I was already winning. I died too quickly to make use of it in round 3, but turning one of Ben Peal's War Ghouls into a snake would've been pretty great. There were small vampires that would've made good targets for this in the final, but sadly I had nobody with SER to play it, so it had to be discarded. 10x Spell of Life was pretty good in a 61 card deck. I normally got the Spell off around turn 7 or so, I think. I never tried to get it to happen again and never needed it. Each game concluded a turn or two after I completed the Spell (or in the case of round 3, the game concluded for me the turn before I would've completed it). */

Action Modifier [13]
2x Cloak the Gathering
2x Conditioning
1x Domain of Evernight
2x Faceless Night
2x Lost in Crowds
2x Spying Mission
2x Veil the Legions

Action Modifier/Combat [2]
2x Swallowed by the Night

/* Heavy intercept would've probably been a problem for me, but luckily there was none. My first prey of the day was an Akunanse deck, but I managed to block it tooling up with intercept permanents. Veils were good to add stealth to mummies (since I never had anyone with OBF for cloak). Conditioning, just because I'd be crazy not to. */

Ally [8]
1x Amam the Devourer (Bane Mummy)
1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1x Kherebutu (Bane Mummy)
1x Nephren-Ka
1x Ossian
1x Qetu the Evil Doer (Bane Mummy)
1x Tutu the Doubly Evil One (Bane Mummy)
1x Vagabond Mystic

/* Carlton made frequent appearances. I had Ossian in round 2, but he really only served to cycle my prey's Swallowed by the Night maneuvers. I got Qetu out in the first round and actually successfully bled my prey twice, which I think is pretty good (she bleeds for 2). An early Nephren-Ka probably gave me the final, because I rushed the dom/obf deck a lot to keep it from having the steam to oust me. I sadly never had the pool to get Kherebutu or Tutu. I'll have to keep playing the deck until I make good use of them. Vagabond Mystic was the 61st card in this deck (originally designed at 60), but I never drew him. */

Event [3]
1x Dragonbound
1x FBI Special Affairs Division
1x Unmasking, The

/* I believe the only one of these I ever played was FBI Special Affairs Division, which was really useful when Carlton was blocking Matata at 1 blood. Matata couldn't take the risk of going to torpor and never coming back, so Carlton got away with dodging three or four times. */

Reaction [10]
5x Deflection
2x Delaying Tactics
3x On the Qui Vive