Reasonably Priced Decks: Brujah antitribu

The following deck based on the Brujah antitribu clan is the second deck in the Reasonably Priced Decks series, which I have outlined in a previous blog post.

The deck is vote (& rush) deck based on the Kine Resources Contested and Conservative Agitation votes flavoured with some combat. Essentially it's a stripped down version of the Unexpected Coalition deck by David Wittmann.

Deck Name: Reasonably Priced Deck: Brujah antitribu
Author: extrala
Description: Reasonable Priced Deck for VTES beginners with 60 cards.

Crypt (Capacity min=4 max=9 avg=5.92; 12 cards)
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1x Axel Von Anders 5 cel obf pot PRE !Brujah:4
1x DeSalle 7 CEL POT PRE !Brujah:4
1x Jeremiah Noble 6 obt pre CEL POT !Brujah:3
1x Marcel de Breau 9 ani pro CEL POT PRE !Brujah:3
1x Mariano Pomposo 4 aus cel pot !Brujah:3
2x Miguel Santo Domingo 7 cel for POT PRE !Brujah:3
1x Patrick 4 pre POT !Brujah:4
1x Rodrigo 5 pot pre qui CEL !Brujah:4
2x Shawnda Dorrit 6 obt pot pre CEL !Brujah:4
1x Wah Chun-Yuen 5 cel dom pre POT !Brujah:3

Library (60 cards)
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Master (10 cards)
2x Blood Doll
1x Celerity
1x Fame
1x Gang Territory
1x Presence
1x Sudden Reversal
2x Vessel
1x Waste Management Operation

Action (2 cards)
2x Harass

Political Action (11 cards)
2x Consanguineous Boon
2x Conservative Agitation
1x Dogs of War
4x Kine Resources Contested
1x Crusade: Barcelona
1x Crusade: Rome

Equipment (4 cards)
1x .44 Magnum
1x Camera Phone
2x Desert Eagle

Action Modifier (6 cards)
2x Iron Glare
4x Voter Captivation

Reaction (4 cards)
2x On the Qui Vive
2x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Combat (13 cards)
3x Concealed Weapon
4x Pursuit
4x Thrown Gate
2x Thrown Sewer Lid

Combo (10 cards)
4x Resist Earth's Grasp
2x Scalpel Tongue
4x Unexpected Coalition

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Dec 2, 2011 20:43:42)

Offense: There are two parts of the offense. Number one is the vote part with the pool damaging votes like Kine Resources Contested and Conservative Agitation up front. The second part is combat (rush) component, but it's much weaker due to the restricted number of rush cards (2x Harass and 1x Dogs of War).

Defense: Vote defense is pretty good with both the titled vampires (and the Crusade political actions) as well as Scalpel Tongue and Unexpected Coalition. There is some defense against a combat deck, with an emphasis on ranged combat (using the guns). Depending on the amount of combat your opponent is playing, you can either use the Pursuits to go to long range and then shoot once (with an Desert Eagle) or you can stay at close range and then use the Pursuit to hit twice. The most vulnerable part is bleed defense. Unless it's clear that your predator is not using stealth (or very little), do not bother to block the bleed actions. It may hurt at first, but in the long run he'll be sitting on lot of stealth cards, and can only bleed for one with each of his vampires. In general, the deck relies on bloating using the Consanguineous Boon, the Voter Captivation, the Gang Terrority and Vessel/Blood Doll to bloat.

Crypt: Key vampires are the Brujah antitribu vampires with the titles, first and foremost, Shawnda Dorrit. At first you should bring out her (or Marcel de Breau) and then try to make another small or mid-cap vampire an Archbishop to consolidate your vote base. Also take note that two of the other vampires have quite neat special abilities, namely Miguel Santo Domingo (giving other Sabbat +1 bleed for the current action), and DeSalle (+1 stealth, which can be offset by other Sabbat vampires by paying a blood). The emphasis when moving vampires from your uncontrolled region to your ready region should be those vampires with superior Presence and/or Celerity. But at the same time you should aim at those lower capacity vampires since you're gonna need at least three Brujah antitribu in the ready region to make the deck work.

Typical Turn:

• Bleed for one (using the Iron Glare (at superior) only if you already have the vote majority) to get the Edge (usuable in the follow-up vote action).
• Call a vote and put 3 pool damage to your prey and one to your predator (using Kine Resource Contested). Use Voter Captivation to gain some blood on the acting vampire and more importantly to gain two pool.
• Depending if you can block your predator in general (does he has reasonable access to stealth), either leave a vampire untapped for blocking or get a gun, bleed another time or go hunting.
• Use the Gang Territory in your influence phase to gain a pool.

Strengths: The deck is somewhat toolboxy, but that allows you to switch your strategy according to the table situation. You can inflict some pool damage with the votes as well as some combat damage on (blocking) vampires. But there are two additional ways of hurting your prey's pool significantly. The first alternative is to put a Fame on one of your prey's vampire and then put him to torpor, of course. The second alternative is to consistently make use of Miguel Santo Domingo's special ability, which is to increase the bleed of a fellow Brujah antitribu (or himself) and therefore bleeding your prey for two with each bleed action (provided Miguel has an sufficient amount of blood). Another neat feature is the Waste Management Operation, which comes in very handy if you're playing a 60 card deck.

Weaknesses: Defense against dedicated bleed decks as predator, namely Dominate powerbleed, is rather weak. Mostly because there's no real intercept in the deck and no bleed bounce cards. The few rush actions are mostly not likely good enough to stop such a predator.

Asking Price: About 3 Euro for the library cards and about 1 Euro for the crypt cards, so in total 4 to 4.50 Euro.

Possible Extensions: The most obvious additions are either Creation Rites and/or Embraces to make better use of Consanguineous Boon and Unexpected Coalition. Also some additional Consanguineous Boon are very helpful, too. Both enhancements can either be used as defense or if the pressure from your predator is not too high as means to move even more Brujah antitribu to the ready region.

This improved/expanded version of the deck has bit more emphasis on voting (and breeding) by adding the following 15 cards to the original deck:

• 2x Consanguineous Boon
• 6x Creation Rites
• 1x Desert Eagle -- alternatively 1x Taste of Vitae
• 2x Harass
• 1x Concealed Weapon -- alternatively 1x Taste of Vitae
• 2x Unexpected Coalition
• 1x Vessel

Also the crypt needs a bit strengthening in the crypt with regards to titled vampires. So adding two vampires with titles is helping a lot with putting the Creation Rites into play. So I would recommend adding

• 1x Armin Brenner -- replacing DeSalle
• 1x Shawnda Doritt -- replacing Jeremiah Noble

Next week I will present the next installment of the series, this time a deck based on the Lasombra clan.