Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Deck of the Month: July 2011: Govern is Weak Sauce

This month's deck is the tournament winning deck "Govern is Weak Sauce" played by Darby Keeney. Darby managed to win two tournaments in the past ten weeks (albeit smaller ones) with this Guruhi Brutal Influence deck. A close second for this month's best deck was the Assamite Auspex deck by Genis Prats, who won one of the Spanish ECQ tournaments with it.

Barby's deck relies mostly on Brutal Influence (for gaining pool as well as bleeding), but also on Exile and Banishment for handling opposing vampires at the table. The deck is not one for the quick oust, but requires quite some patience and an eye for the right moment to lunge for the oust. It requires quite some time to influence out Eze in the first place and putting enough Orun on him (or his buddies). It also lacks significant stealth or block denial, but that's compensates by Eze's special to untap after the first successful non-hunt action. But once up and running the deck becomes fearsome, influencing new vampires quickly and bleeding hard.

The deck also nicely complements another Deck of the Month, namely "Eze Like Sunday Morning", which also relies heavily on Eze, but uses Aye instead of Orun.

Deck Name: Blood Awakening: Govern is Weak Sauce
Author:
Description:
Tournament: Blood Awakening
Location: Denver, CO
Format: Constructed, 3R+F
Players: 10
Winner: Darby Keeney

Guruhi Brutal Influence

First run though with adjustments after the Powerbase LA Win. Eze still runs low on blood. I guess sitting next to the Beast (twice) and Una (finals) might have contributed to that situation.

Crypt (Capacity min=7 max=11 avg=9.42; 12 cards)
===================================================

1x Aren, Priest of Eshu 7 ani obf POT PRE Guruhi:4
5x Eze, The Demon Prince 11 aus ANI NEC POT PRE THA Guruhi:3
2x Iniko, The Black Lion 9 cel ANI OBT POT PRE Guruhi:4
2x Nana Buruku 8 ANI POT PRE Guruhi:4
1x Ubende 7 for obf qui CEL PRE Ishtarri:4
1x Ugadja 10 dom for ABO ANI POT PRE Guruhi:4

Library (73 cards)
=====================

Master (20 cards)
1x Ancestor Spirit
1x Giant's Blood
1x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1x Monastery of Shadows
12x Orun
3x Villein
1x Wider View

Action (19 cards)
10x Brutal Influence
1x Entrancement
3x Exile
1x Magic of the Smith
2x No Secrets From the Magaji
1x Revelations
1x Rutor's Hand

Political Action (9 cards)
1x Ancient Influence
4x Banishment
1x Disputed Territory
1x Political Stranglehold
1x Reins of Power
1x Rumors of Gehenna

Equipment (3 cards)
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Kduva's Mask
1x Nkishi

Ally (1 cards)
1x Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Action Modifier (16 cards)
1x Approximation of Loyalty
2x Call of the Hungry Dead
1x Enkil Cog
2x Iron Glare
2x Mirror Walk
1x Perfect Clarity
4x Perfect Paragon
1x Strange Day
2x Voter Captivation

Combat (3 cards)
3x Majesty

Combo (2 cards)
1x Force of Personality
1x Guruhi Kholo

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Aug 3, 2011 09:36:52)

5 comments:

Prince of Lisboa said...

Hi,

I believe it's the deck of the month of July 2011 and not 2010 :)

cheers

extrala said...

Thanks for catching that error ..

Matkov said...

I liked this deck idea. So I builded it and tried. I run into bunch of problems:
- Vampires dry out of blood too quickly.
- Very low combat defense.
- Block deck is a problem if he can do at least moderate combat because you either run out of blood quickly or just don't act and than you can't draw enough Orun's.
- Aggressive predator ousted me without problem even when I draw Villen and Ancient influence.

I have problem to establish enough Oruns (6). Best I got was 5.

I'd like to hear how to play this deck because I like it a lot.

extrala said...

Matkov, to some degree I agree with you. I played a similar deck (based on Exile and Brutal Influence) and also had problems, especially with wall decks.

But I had an email exchange with Darby where he explained how the deck (at least in his meta/environment) works. Or maybe the decks needs just better players than you and me .. ;)

Darby Keeney said...

Sorry I didnt get to this earlier - but 2 week vacations deprioritize V:tES discussions.

Since there have been SO many comments on 3 different boards about how to play this deck, I'll offer some comments on this again.

SPEED.

This isn't a fast deck, your prey needs to spend down so that a lunge is meaningful. You might bleed for 1-2 and get a Cog installed, but you don't want to make them wall up or rush backwards out of immediate fear.

Sure, if they're just a bloat deck, things change, but in most situations, the deck plays more like Stickmen - just waiting around for a while.

Brutal down EXCLUSIVELY during the early going. Nana is the optimal 2nd minion if possible.

Stay at 14-15 pool with a threatening predator, transfering 2 back from uncontrolled minions at every opportunity, even up to 20 pool.

This is where a lot of players seem to approach this deck differently than I do.....they tend to want to grow too fast.

There is power in that number "14". It tends to make a predators's Governs/Enchants go down instead of left, since they can't immediately oust you. Since Brutal becomes more effective than Govern on a card-per-card basis, this deck should benefit from decisions like that which length the game

If your predator is relentlessly bleeding and not handjamming on either combat or stealth, you were going to die with most non-bounce deck archetypes. C'est la vie.

Between being a "14+ count pool wall", handjamming your predator on stealth and timely upstream Banishment/Exile on key minions, you can often wait until your prey overextends and take your shot at him.

BLOOD.

If all your minions run too low on blood, you may using Villein improperly. It doesn't read "suck you minion dry."

I have low blood problems at times, but Brutal down, get a new minion, Heidleburg over solves a lot of problems.

BLOCKED.

Eze doesn't read "first action" - its is closer to "first successful non-hunt action."

Majesty/Rutor's/Mylan all give him another shot at his card text, assuming he survived the combat.

Magic of the Smith doesn't get blocked often. "Less offensive" actions often get through as people hold intercept for that Something Worse(tm). That is even more true after they see the first Majesty flow into a Banishment.

Dedicated, degenerate intercept shuts the deck down, so I have to wait for a huge Strange Day bleed with antibounce in hand (prayer). But then again, that type of deck shuts down almost everything, so I don't view it as a problem unique to this deck.

RUSH TARGET.

This is really the bigger problem....Eze with Rutors, a Heart, Nkishi and 6 Orun is a large target. I use other minions as blockers and start decentralizing Orun and equipment at that point. It might feel like "spinning your wheels" but that one turn to reset your playspace often creates favorable situations later.

Hope that helps explain why this deck seems to work for me.

Regards,
Darby