Official V:EKN Newsletter for Anarchs - June, 2004

Message-ID: 6f81fa2c.0406230947.7cf75c70@posting.google.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 17:47:50 +0000 (UTC)

Contents:

I � Gehenna Overview
II � Vampire of the Month (Julius)
III � Card of the Month (Principia Discordia)
IV � Deck Ideas/Strategy (Happy Families...Backwards)
V � Conclusion

I � Gehenna Overview

This month I will begin tackling card-by-card some of the new

possibilities that Gehenna brings us, but I thought it would also be a
good idea to give a quick overview of how the set affects Anarchs as a
whole. In general, HUGE boost. There are a number of 3-ways, of
course. In particular, Smoke and Mirrors is exactly the card that I
have been wanting, the one that I had thought was necessary to really
enable a lot of the Anarch paradigms I've wanted to push. (I won't
bother examining it deeply, as I don't want to infringe upon the
territory of the State the Obvious Newsletter.) And of course,
Reformation is the card that seems to have everybody trying out
Anarchs at least a little bit. In general I'm happy with that, since
it means people will try things they haven't tried before, but these
casual Anarch players frequently forget the dom and chi powers of that
card, which are quite substantial. More about that in the strategy
section.

However, there are also the generic cards that end up helping the
Anarchs quite a lot. Rise of the Nephtali, of course, goes right into
last month's Big Anarch decks. Diversity and Recalled to the Founder
are generally quite good for Anarchs, though less so if you are locked
onto the "Reformation helps Setites" idea. But one of the biggest
boosts to any deck that has some issues with combat defense (which
sometimes includes Anarchs) is Flash Grenade. Concealed Flash
Grenades are quite nasty, particularly if you have minions to spare
and your opponent does not. Sure there are ways around it, but it's a
surprisingly good deterrent in many cases, and deterring blocks makes
Anarchs happy.

II � Vampire of the Month (Julius)

Last month, big vamps. This month, the smallest of the small. I
know, you're wondering how Julius could possibly be useful,
considering his drawback, but Julius is a prime example of my
continued assessment that many Anarch cards are specifically designed
to get us to look at vamps we had otherwise discarded long ago. And
so, we look at Julius:

Julius
Caitiff
Group: 2
Capacity: 1
qui ser
If Julius goes into torpor, burn him.
So yeah, ouch. Because of his drawback and fairly lame (by old
standards) discipline spread, Julius has probably been the least-used
Caitiff out there. Now, however, there are a couple 3-ways that can
make you think twice about him, and perhaps say, "Well it's only one
pool."

Now, when considering Caitiff and Panders in your Anarch deck, the
first thing you have to think about is the added difficulty in getting
them to be Anarch. They are extremely fragile (particularly Julius),
and so it turns out you probably don't want to take the cardless
action if you can avoid it (especially because they can't be first).
Seattle Committee and Galaric's are highly recommended, but on the
other hand that can be difficult to do quickly enough with one-caps.
So, in general I look for one or more of several things to happen
before taking the cardless action with Julius � 1) I have several
minions, most of which will be taking actions people would prefer to
block instead of Julius, 2) I have the Anarch Railroad in play or in
hand, so Julius can hunt after the cardless action at +2 stealth, or
3) I have a Concealed Weapon and a Flash Grenade in hand. In this
latter case, Julius actually becomes a great decoy, setting up a bit
of breathing space for your other minions.

Okay, now that Julius is Anarch, what use is he? Well, for one thing
he's a one-cap who can play that Reformation power that's gotten
everyone so excited. That's cool enough by itself, right? But in
addition, he is in fact the only vampire out there who can play both
the qui and ser versions of Principia Discordia, this month's card.
(The only other vamp with both qui and ser is Aziz, who has votes and
therefore can't easily be Anarch.) Principia seems to be made for
Julius, and his being able to play either the qui or ser version is
huge, making him well worth the one transfer.

III. Card of the Month (Principia Discordia)

So my favorite new 3-way (aside from Smoke and Mirrors) is definitely

Principia Discordia. I like Reformation and Friend of Mine, don't get
me wrong. But there are a couple things about Principia that just
make me happy.

Here's the text:

Principia Discordia
Action
+1 stealth action. Requires a ready anarch
[aus] (D) Burn an equipment card.
[qui] (D) Burn 1 blood on an untapped vampire and tap that vampire.
[ser] (D) Steal 1 blood from a ready tapped vampire.

The two things I like about it are that first of all it gives a decent
3-way power to Auspex, which desperately needed one. (Improvised
Tactics does not count.) And secondly, the harmony between the qui
and ser powers is phenomenal, particularly if you pack other
blood-stealers - like Gregory Winter � or votes such as Free States
Rant. It also makes for a very nasty tap-and-bleed add-on to an
Anarch bleed deck or tap-and-rush with Tariq (who is another
dual-power user of the card), or it can power up your Temptations or
Shadow Twins.
All in all, it's a great hoser action, particularly if you can do
several in a row. This means that one of the big potential uses for
it is in maintaining table balance. Demonstrating that you can take
this action whenever necessary can be very helpful for either
cross-table threats or cross-table deals, especially if you have shown
you can use any of the powers.

IV � Deck Ideas/Strategy (Happy Families...Backwards)

Before I talk about this month's deck, I'd like to talk about a piece
of strategy that exists as sort of an undercurrent within the online
community � Happy Families. Not everyone uses it, but many people
(myself included) respect it for what it does even if we don't use it
all the time. The primary purpose of Happy Families is to build a
library that takes advantage of the full discipline spread of a crypt.
It does this by calculating the statistical likelihood of certain
disciplines appearing and then generating ratios of cards requiring
those disciplines for your library. (For more, see:
http://www.monocleofclarity.com/HappyFamilies.html)

Now, for Anarchs, this may be all well and good � you can build a
crypt and then run Happy Families and maybe use some 3-ways where the
discipline ratio overlap is appropriate. However, I am here to
propose a different kind of deck-building scheme, which could be
viewed as "Happy Families Backwards." The basic premise of this is
that you start with a certain set of 3-ways that you would like to
use. You then decide which powers you do and do not want to use, and
in approximately what ratio. Then, you build your crypt from the
library, with discipline mixing based on how often you want each
particular 3-way power to show up.

For example, in this month's deck I selected four 3-ways: Principia

Discordia, Reformation, Skullduggery and Smoke and Mirrors. I then
built a crypt that could use every single one of the 12 powers on
those cards, but I emphasized certain disciplines because I preferred
certain powers as more usable. With Principia, for example, I didn't
think that nasty cross-table equipment would come up too terribly
often (and I have Reformation to deal with equipment next to me), so I
de-emphasized Auspex in favor of Serpentis and Quietus, though there
is slightly more ser than qui because � again � the ser power is
slightly more usable. I split Reformation roughly equally into ser
and chi, with just a couple vamps in my crypt able to use the dom
(hunting grounds are infrequent in Chicago). The overall effect of
this practice is a deck that flows like a Happy Families deck, perhaps
even better. And the significant advantage of it is that it really
gets you to look at your 3-ways more carefully and see just how they
interact. (It also gets your opponents reading through your discard
pile very carefully to see just what you're capable of, which can be
fun.)

Now, for those of you who are more mathematically inclined, it may be
possible to figure out a formula similar to the Happy Families formula
specifically for this purpose. However, one thing I would like to
note is that this is supposed to be more flexible than formulaic.
It's just a way to think about deck-building. You may, for instance,
want to emphasize the aus power of Principia more than I did because
of your local metagame, so your crypt may look different from mine.
Anyway, here's the deck:

Deck Name: Reformation of the Church of St. Eris

Created by: Eric Simon
Description: Anarch (Discordian) Weenie Horde

Crypt: (13 Cards, Min: 8, Max: 18, Avg: 3.31)

----------------------------------------------
Aaron Duggan obt � Lasombra 2
Ali Kar obf qui � Assamite 3
Anka, Priestess of Thorns ani chi pro � Ravnos 4
Celine Chevalier obf cer � Setite 3
Count Ormonde dom OBF pre ser � Setite 5
Guido Lucciano dom obf OBT � Lasombra 5
Harika Guljan QUI � Assamite 3
Josef ani obf obt - !Nosferatu 4
Julius qui ser � Caitiff 1
Lalitha ser � Setite 2
Nepata obf pre ser � Setite 4
Salbatore Bokkengro CHI for pro � Ravnos 4
Tsigane aus chi � Ravnos 3

Library: (84 cards)

-------------------
Master (19)
The Anarch Free Press
Anarch Railroad
Archon Investigation
5x Blood Doll
4x Effective Management
6x Galaric's Legacy
Hospital Food

Action (31)
Aranthebes, The Immortal
Form of Corruption
10x Principia Discordia
8x Reformation
4x Shadow Twin
6x Skullduggery
Temptation

Action Modifier (12)

12x Smoke and Mirrors

Combat (7)
4x Concealed Weapon
3x Dodge

Equipment/Allies/Retainers (15)
8x Flash Grenade
2x Gregory Winter
J. S. Simmons, Esq.
2x Laptop Computer
Tasha Morgan

Comments:
So, obviously it's a weenie horde, and a reasonably scary one at that.
What's great about it, though, is its startling ability to
table-balance. The first few times I played it I got caught up so
much in this aspect of the deck that I didn't end up going forward so
much. I'm working on tweaking that in my play of the deck, but it's
definitely good to know that the ability is there.

The library has a little bit of room to play if there is something you
want to emphasize more than I have. For instance, if you want to do
more than just weenie-steal with your Reformations, then you might add
6 more and lean your crypt towards the Serpentis side of things.
Alternately, you could toss in a few more +bleed permanents and some
more Skullduggery, adjusting your crypt slightly to match.

V � Conclusion

The possibilities opened up with the new set are enormous, and to some
extent require new approaches and new ways of thinking about Anarchs
and their cards. I'll be continuing to explore the "Happy Families
Backwards" method as I push into some of the other new 3-ways.
Specifically, next month I'll take a look at Friend of Mine, and there
will be another visit to the combat side of Anarchs.