Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Retaining and Regaining Life for Allies

One important aspect when playing an ally deck in VtES is, how can you keep them alive, either by preventing damage or by gaining life. For a vampire that's quite an easy task. First of all there's hunting, but there also a large of number of cards that provide blood directly (e.g. Hunting Grounds, Taste of Vitae, Theft of Vitae, etc.) or indirectly (e.g. Blood Doll, Vessel, ..) Furthermore a large number of vampires have access to damage prevention cards (Fortitude, Thaumaturgy, etc.). The options for allies on the other hand are rather limited in comparison, and a lot them is build on their special abilities.
What's the best ally with regards to life regeneration & damage prevention? Remnant of the Endless Storm look like quite good. He has a high starting life, max. damage per strike against him is two and he regenerates one life every untap, but this comes with very, very hefty price of 6 pool. Probably the best non-unique in my opinion are the mid-cost allies Nephandus and War Ghouls. Both are rather cheap and without playing combat cards (or permanent extra strength) they not killable. Of the unique allies, Ambrosius the Ferryman, Ponticulus and Tye Cooper shine, since most decks are not able to kill them. On the other hand, Shambling Hordes seem to be quite bad when it comes down to life regeneration, because they simply can't. But then can you see them as what their are expendable rush allies, or you can play Glancing Blow or even put a Flak Jacket or Kevlar Vest on them. In any ally deck containing a number of allies have 2 or more life, the Vagabond Mystic is a must, since he's the best way of keeping allies alive for a long time.
And if all that doesn't help, there a number of cards that can bring back allies after being burned:
  • Compel the Spirit, Daemonic Possession (both req. Necromancy & Resurrection can bring back an ally burned since your last turn.
  • Pressing Flesh can bring back an ally (burned since your last turn.) as zombie with an extra life (at superior Thanatosis), who can also play Fortitude cards, but cannot gain life anymore.

6 comments:

extrala said...

Thanks to Hardy for helping build this list!

Anonymous said...

Please deck of the month back, we miis it.

Louhi said...

Hellhound
Type: Ally
Cost: 2 pool
Ghoul with 2 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed.
The Hellhound cannot take actions. If the Hellhound has only 1 life during your untap phase, it gains 1 life from the blood bank.

!

Anonymous said...

Ghouled is a way to get another starting life for some allies.

And Leech is just pure gold: gain another life, untap AND play inferior Potence cards -now the War Ghoul uses Infernal Grapple!

-Lönkka

Anonymous said...

Ah, prevention-vise there's also Martyr's Resilence and Infection.

-Lönkka

Eric Chiang said...

Don't forget that several allies can play Thaumaturgy cards (Talaq the Immortal, Rafastio Ghoul, Samuel Haight) and so they can gain extra life by playing steal blood cards like Theft of Vitae.

For damage prevention, you can also potentially use Martyr's Resilience or Randall's special.

Finally, I don't know if you want to specifically mention Imbued as well.