Lasombra Newsletter April 2007 INTRODUCTION Although last week I said I would be taking a more in-depth look at Sword of Caine my preparation for my upcoming exams has prevented me from being able to get much play experience with the new set, so I think I shall wait until I've used the cards myself before I take a proper look at them. On a similar note this month I won't be focusing on any minions or library cards. To try and make up for this I thought I'd feature a Deck of the Month for the first time since I took over duties as editor. On that note... DECK OF THE MONTH What follows is the first Lasombra deck I ever built. While looking over some old records of decks I came across this and thought it might serve nicely as an example deck, seeing as I'm trying to angle this newsletter towards new players. The deck itself is a rather standard Group 2 Lasombra political deck that makes use of Presence. As I recall the main reason I was so enthusiastic to make use of Presence was because I had discovered just how effective (and abusive) the combo of Awe and Voter Captivation is. That and I found that Voter Captivation had the potential to be an extremely powerful bloat strategy, which made it more feasible to play a deck using high capacity vampires despite a local player's taste for sneak bleed at the time. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 7 max: 10 average: 9 ------------------------------------------------------------ 3x Ambrosio Luis Monç 10 DOM OBT POT PRE aus for cardinal Lasombra:2 3x Francisco Domingo 9 DOM OBT POT PRE pro archbishop Lasombra:2 2x Gratiano 8 DOM OBT obf pot priscus Lasombra:2 1x Marcus Vitel 10 DOM FOR OBF OBT PRE prince Ventrue:3 1x Alvaro, The Scion 9 OBT POT dom pre archbishop Lasombra:2 1x Antonio Delgado 9 DOM OBT POT tha archbishop Lasombra:2 1x Tobias Smith 7 DOM OBT PRE pot Lasombra:3 Generally speaking when it came to crypt construction I was trying to make do with what I had at the time. Obviously my primary concern was to get hold of a titled Lasombra who had Presence. At the time however our local metagame didn't lean towards politics very much, so I felt justified in including Gratiano despite his lack of Presence. In all honesty he could well be worth it anyway, as he usually guarantees the Priscus vote will go my way. Antonio and Alvaro were pretty much there to fill out the ranks. Antonio's lack of Presence was usually very annoying, though often worse was Alvaro's lack of superior Dominate, which was somewhat offset by his +1 bleed and useful bloating special. Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Master [14] 1x Dreams of the Sphinx 1x Elysian Fields 1x Information Highway 1x Legendary Vampire 6x Minion Tap 1x Political Hunting Ground 1x Presence 1x Secure Haven 1x Tomb of Rameses III As the master selection probably reveals I was terrified of influencing out a fat vampire only to find myself without a Minion Tap to help me recoup the costs. That still happened on a number of occasions, but in most games I would manage to draw into one in good time. I included the Elysian Fields for obvious reasons and I tried to accelerate the speed at which I could bring out vampires by including copies of both Information Highway and Tomb of Rameses III. On reflection the Tomb was probably a poor choice, but I was happy to have the Information Highway in there; even when I drew into it late in the game it could sometimes help the rapid influencing of a larger vampire and occasion saved me from an untimely death. The hunting ground was included to try and offset the cost of some of the cards in the deck while the copy of Presence was included to try and counter the fact that the crypt wasn't ideal. As we'll see later, there was a distinct lack of maneuvers in the deck, so I included a copy of Secure Haven to try and give me a better chance of surviving any combat assaults. If this was done early in the game it would prove frustrating once I started drawing into my Minion Taps however. Legendary Vampire was something of a prayer card, but it tended to pay off nicely. Action [7] 7x Govern the Unaligned Not much variety here obviously. It's extremely rare that I build a Lasombra deck that DOESN'T make use of Govern the Unaligned. Here obviously the card is primarily used to speed up the transfer of a second vampire and then it the later game it's used to land heavier bleeds and bloat. Action Modifier [26] 3x Awe 5x Bewitching Oration 3x Conditioning 8x Shadow Play 7x Voter Captivation Awe was included to try and ensure that if I did run into another serious vote deck I'd have a fighting chance beyond my titles. The Action Modifier selection is all pretty straightforward; Awe and Bewitching Oration to help pass votes, Voter Captivation for bloating, Shadow Play to try and ensure actions would pass and a few copies of Condition to provide a surprise bleed punch at a pinch. Combat [13] 5x Majesty 4x Oubliette 4x Shadow Body Clearly, S:CE was the combat plan. Ideally I would have replaced the Oubliettes with a few more copies of Majesty and/or Shadow Body (both of which were quite useful, Majesty more so though). Obviously if anyone was packing Immortal Grapple I was screwed but thankfully at that time not many people were (not many people were playing combat at all). These days I would ideally include some maneuvers, or a few copies of Torn Signpost, or anything that could give me a Plan B in combat. Political Action [12] 1x Ancient Influence 2x Banishment 7x Kine Resources Contested 1x Political Stranglehold 1x Reins of Power Pretty simple here. Kine Resources Contested for the oust, 2 copes of Banishment to get rid of any annoying vampires and then a few other cards for bloating. On reflection I don't think I included quite enough Kine Resources Contested, but I was usually able to secure an oust by combining what I had with bleeds and deflections. Reaction [18] 6x Deflection 6x Obedience 6x Wake with Evening's Freshness Never build a Dominate deck without Deflections. I learnt that lesson quickly; between Monçada's special ability and the Wakes I usually had someone to make use of them. The Obedience's served as my "other" combat defence, trying to dissuade any would-be-rushers SIGN OFF Well, that's it for this month. Sorry about the lack of depth, but sometimes that happens. Again, although my exams start in a few weeks I still hope to manage to produce these newsletters. If there is a temporary pause normal service will resume by June. Once again, thanks goes to my proof reader of the month Revamp.