i Tupdogs & Nephandus

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Highlights

This is an rush deck using Tupdogs to take down opposing vampires and Nephandus to bleed and defend. Antonio d'Erlette is the star in a sense, since his ability provides sure Nephandus recruitments with no risk of block.

The combat is dominated by the Tupdogs and their V and P cards combination, using Brick By Brick to set the range if needed, Immortal Grapple to prevent Dodge and Combat Ends, and Raking Talons for aggravated damage. Torn Signpost and Target Vitals can provide additional damage if needed.

The Nephandus themselves are not too shabby in combat, especially since they can use Haven Uncovered to rush and Target Vitals to inflict more damage.

The critical part of the deck is to get a Tremere antitribu i out, so that the Tupdogs can rush, Nephandus can be recruited and Deflection played. Antonio d'Erlette is best, he can even allow two Nephandus to hit the table in a single turn.

The core issue of the deck is the high pool cost. Tupdogs only last a single turn and the deck should get one out every turn at least for safety and control. Plus the Nephandus are 2 pool a piece, and the deck aims to recruit 4 to 6. This makes the Ashur Tablets and The Parthenon combination a perfect fit for the deck: it will bring a bit of pool back and provide a nice recursion to shape the deck and its combat module according to the table.

Tips & Tricks

To make use of Antonio d'Erlette's ability and influence a Tupdog in the same turn, more than 4 transfers are necessary. Master cards provide one more transfer, with Dreams of the Sphinx, Information Highway or Powerbase: Montreal.

Vote decks can be an issue here, as pool is scarce and quite a few minions can be out at the same time: Anarchist Uprising and Ancilla Empowerment might oust the deck swiftly. To cover this, the deck uses Delaying Tactics and Yawp Court.

Direct Intervention should be kept in hand to counter anti-ally actions like Entrancement, or problematic "one shot" votes like Reins of Power.

You might want to read Tommi Hakomaa's article about this specific archetype, it goes a bit more in details on how to build and play it.

Variants

The Naked variant does not rely on the Ashur Tablets inclusion and instead use Failsafe for a bit of additional pool, like in Filipe Iório's deck from 2014. In an environment where the Ashur Tablets module is likely to become a competition, this might be a better bet. That said, Martin's Weinmayer combination here is considered more stable and powerful overall.

Although this is a different archetype, Nephandus can also be used without the Tupdogs, like in Lukasz Modzelewski's deck from 2013. This is more of a toobox but it has fallen a bit out of fashion since the apparition of Emerald Legionnaire and the invention of the deck listed here.