Deck Archetypes: Ventrue Lawfirm

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

• bloat with "Govern the Unaligned", "Enchant Kindred", "Voter Captivation" and "Parity Shift",
• bleed with inherent bleed modifiers (e.g. "Queen Anne" or "Arika") or the Dominate and Presence based actions and action modifiers, and
• push political actions through like "Parity Shift", "Kine Resources Contested" and "Banishment" using the Presence-based action modifiers, inherent titles and other permanents.

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 defense
Nothing 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 defense
The 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 them
Blocking 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 Cards

• "Kine Resource Contested" -- the bread & butter vote for the Lawfirm.
• "Voter Captivation" -- pool gain and refill for the vampire.
• "Ventrue HQ" -- secondary source for permanent votes.
• "Majesty" -- primary and often only combat card.
• "Deflection" -- bleed defense

Notable Examples & Variations

• "Ventrue Lawfirm" by Sergio Gracia -- basic version with G1/G2 Ventrue.
• "Bridges, Coleman and Nash" by Antony Coleman -- also with G1/G2 Ventrue but more bleed orientated.
• "Neo-Lawfirm" by Alex Ek -- based on G3/4 Ventrue.
• "Ventrue 2009" by Juan "Juanxo" Oyarce -- based on G4/5 Ventrue.
• "Arika & Friends" by Luiz Fernando K. Ferreira -- G2/3 Lawfirm with Obfuscate support.

The 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 Decklist

Enero 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]
------------------------------------------------------------
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