The
Ventue Lawfirm deck archetype is along with the
Malkavian Dominate Obfuscate Bleed deck of the oldest existing and sucessful deck types in
VtES. Lately the
Ventrue Lawfirm has seen a tremendous comeback due to the new crypt choices that came along with the "
Keepers of Tradition" expansion. The name derives from the
Ventrue appearance as politicans and lawyers, and their ability to set and push a political agenda.
How to win with them
The deck has three angles with provide you with the necessary flexibility to adapt to the table dynamics in most cases. The deck can
The basic gameplan of the deck is a three stage approach:
Early in the game cards like "
Govern the Unaligned", "
Enchant Kindred" provide extra influence to speed up bringing vampires to the ready region. For the same reason (and because deck's crypt is composed of mid- and high-cap vampires) the deck packs a few (but not too many) "
Zillah's Valley" and "
Information Highway". At the same time "
Minion Taps" -- or nowadays "
Villeins" -- are used to regain pool that has been spend on vampires. This is usually the most critical phase for the
Ventrue Lawfirm deck, a failed "
Minion Tap" that is canceled by "
Sudden Reversal" or "
Parity Shift" that is suspended by "Delaying Tactics" can bring down the Lawfirm's deck to very low pool level.
In the middle game the decks purpose is to befriend with another deck crosstable that has also vote power, in order to help each other oust their respective prey. During this phase the deck is mainly keen on voting since it now has considerable vote power by either permanent titles,
Presence-based action modifiers (like "
Awe" or "
Bewitching Oration") and finally permanents like "
Ventrue Headquarters".
In the late game with three or less players the deck's goal is to overun the other decks by sheer number of minions/actions. Often the extra pool gained by ousting players or "
Parity Shift" is used for bringing new vampires in play. So it is a common sight that the Lawfirm deck has 4 to 5 mid- to high-capacity vampires in play during the late game.
Two other building blocks for a successful
Ventrue Lawfirm deck are "
Freak Drive" for multiple actions, and "
Second Tradition: Domain". "
Second Tradition: Domain" is often the only wake-type card, and gives the
Ventrue princes the ability to stop a "
Bowl of Convergence" or "
Carlton van Wyk" from being put into play. It's not so good against a bleed action if you want to actually bounce a bleed to your prey, since you first have to block, which don't actually want to happen. And even if you manage to bounce the bleed then it has cost you two blood effectively.
Crypt Composition
In the past the best choice for crypt were the group 1 & 2 vampires since they provided a large variety of mid- to large-capacity vampires with titles (2 votes or more), to be exact there are eight Ventrue that fit the profile. The core vampires are "
Sir Walter Nash", "
Timothy Crowley", and "
Emerson Bridges" on the lower and "
Arika" on the upper range.
With "
Keepers of Tradition" and the advent of the group 4 & 5 a competitive selection of titled
Ventrue vampires is available, but the average capacity of these nine vampires is somewhat lower than those of the group 1/2 vampires. In addition the G4/5
Ventrue have number of useful specials most G1/2
Ventrue lack. Also there are number of
Toreador titled vampires like "
Montecalme" and "
Epikasta Rigatos" who fit into the crypt almost perfectely (they lack
Fortitude though).
Bleed defenseNothing really exciting here, just the plain old "
Deflection", which today is complemented by "
Murmur of the False Will", and the bloating capabilities as described above. Also if the prey is being too strong you have also the means with "
Parity Shift" and "
Kine Resources Contested" to oust your predator.
Vote defenseThe inherent titles, mostly Prince and Justicar titles, as well master cards like "
Ventrue Headquarters" and "
Elysium: Versailles" are the main vote defense. Very rarely you can see "
Delaying Tactics" as vote defense. Also vote decks often don't have access to too much stealth, so blocking with "
Second Tradition: Domain" can also prevent the referendum from taking place.
Combat defense
The combat defense can be quite diversive in the deck with all three disciplines being used. First and foremost is "
" and to a lesser extent other
Presence-based "
Strike: Combat Ends". This also allows the
Ventrue if blocked to perform another action, e.g. voting after bleeding, or move blood on a vampire in the uncontrolled region via "
Govern the Unaligned" or "
Enchant Kindred". "
Majesty" is almost always included in the deck in abundance, so 10 or more Majesty are not an uncommon sight. The other combat defenses are not that regularly seen. A good option is "
Obedience", since the
Ventrue have a quite high average capacity. so it's somewhat likely that the acting vampire is younger. On the other hand "
Obedience" can only be used when reacting (and not against allies), so the number of this card shouldn't be too high in comparison with "
Majesty".
Fortitude damage prevention like "
Rolling with the Punches" or "
Soak" are sometimes added, especially if one expects a somewhat combat heavy environment.
How to win against themBlocking early on "
Enchant Kindred" and "
Govern the Unaligned" can be crucial, since this denies the
Lawfirm deck its much needed buildup. When the deck has three or even four of it's rather high capacity vampires on the table, it's hard to stop them with all the multi-actions capabilities (via "
Freak Drive" or "
Majesty") available.
When playing a bleed deck, you neither need to go all-out with bleed actions, or you need to remove the bounce cards via "
Revelations" or "
Precision". If you're bleeding only once or twice a turn, the
Lawfirm deck can easily bounce one or two bleeds, and recoupe the lost blood with "
Voter Captivation" and/or "
Villein".
Swarm Bleed with weenies or allies on the other hand is something the
Lawfirm deck does not like, since the "Deflections" won't help that much, and contiously bleed with 4+ minions each turn can wear the
Ventrue deck down, especially in the early part of the game.
A combat deck that wants to have a chance against the Lawfirm either needs an abundance of attackers, e.g. weenies or allies, so that the large numbers of "
Majesty" or "
Obedience" won't work, or a way to deal with strike combat ends. Usually these are "
Immortal Grapple", "
Psyche" and "
Telepathic Tracking".
Other vote decks usually have a hard time against the
Lawfirm deck, since the
Lawfirm deck has high number of permanent votes. You can overcome this obstacle with vote pushing cards, but eventually you either need to obtain the vote majority over the
Ventrue, or take out the
Ventrue deck entirely. Both ends are not esay to accomplish and you might wanna team up with another player at the table who also has some permanents votes.
In general there are two distinct distinct type of decks that the
Ventrue Lawfirm doesn't like, which are
- walldecks with abundance of untap capabilities or cards that allow to react as if untapped like "No Secrets from the Magaji".
- combat decks that can work around "Strike: Combat Ends" frequently as stated above.
Key CardsNotable Examples & VariationsThe most notable variant is the one with the addition of the
Obfuscate discipline for the additional stealth when calling a political action. This narrows the crypt down to the g2/3 Ventrue with
Obfuscate, but there are at least four usuable choices, that is "
Arika", "
Queen Anne", "
Markus Vitel" and "
Catherine Dubois".
Sample DecklistEnero Sangriento
January 25, 2009
Badia del Valles, Spain
34 players
3R + F
Sergio Gracia's Tournament Winning Deck took 4 Game Wins
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 9 average: 5.91
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2x Emerson Bridges 8 DOM FOR PRE pot Prince Ventrue:1
2x Sir Walter Nash 7 DOM FOR PRE Prince Ventrue:1
2x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:0
1x Wilhelm Waldburg 9 DOM FOR PRE aus cel Prince Ventrue:2
1x Anson 8 CEL PRE aus dom Prince Toreador:1
1x Timothy Crowley 7 FOR PRE ani dom Prince Ventrue:1
1x Rake 6 PRE aus cel pot Prince Brujah:1
1x Ranjan Rishi 5 DOM PRE for Ventrue:2
1x Courtland Leighton 4 dom for pre Ventrue:1
Library [77 cards]
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Action [14]
4x Enchant Kindred
2x Entrancement
6x Govern the Unaligned
2x Mind Numb
Action Modifier [24]
2x Awe
2x Change of Target
2x Conditioning
2x Daring the Dawn
1x Day Operation
2x Foreshadowing Destruction
9x Freak Drive
4x Voter Captivation
Action Modifier / Combat [1]
1x Force of Personality
Combat [8]
8x Majesty
Equipment [1]
1x Heart of Nizchetus
Event [1]
1x Scourge of the Enochians
Master [9]
1x Anarch Troublemaker
1x Coven, The
1x Dark Influences
3x Dreams of the Sphinx
2x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Ventrue Headquarters
Political Action [15]
1x Anarchist Uprising
1x Ancilla Empowerment
3x First Tradition: The Masquerade
5x Kine Resources Contested
1x Neonate Breach
4x Parity Shift
Reaction [4]
4x Deflection
On September 20th, 2009 the VtES Austrian EC Qualifier was held in Vienna, Austria with 15 players attending the qualifier tournament. The final standings were as follows:
