O Giovanni Powerbleed
Highlights
This is a powerbleed deck using the disciplines. The idea is to use Govern the Unaligned at superior to bring 4 midcap vampires out quickly and cheaply, then bleed as hard as possible.
Dominate provides heavy bleed with Govern the Unaligned, Conditioning and Foreshadowing Destruction. The core idea of this deck is to rely on block denial instead of stealth to make sure the huge bleeds get through. Seduction is complemented by Call of the Hungry Dead to that effect. Bonding and Spectral Divination provide a bit of stealth to reduce the number of potential blockers. A couple of Master cards support the plan: Pentex™ Subversion of course, but also Misdirection and Anarch Troublemaker.
On the defense side, the deck simply uses Deflection to avoid bleeds and add them to the offensive stack the prey has to burden with. For combat, simple avoidance with Spiritual Intervention.
The blood cost is pretty heavy in this deck. Half of the Master module is dedicated to blood regeneration with cards like The Coven, Acquired Ventrue Assets and Jake Washington. On top of that, a few hunts might be welcome if this does not give too much of a block opportunity to the predator.
The deck is very heavy on the prey and pretty straightforward to use. Timing is key here: going at a prey too soon will prevent her to spend pool on influence but also to hurt the next prey's pool. The ideal trajectory is to leave a bit of breathing room to the prey, bleeding sparingly and using a couple of Govern the Unaligned at superior, so that she can go forward a bit. Once the time is right and pool has been spent for influence, a few bleeds for 3 or 4 to exhaust the bounces and put pressure then, once the stars are aligned, full forward with bleeds for 6.
Given the slim combat module, the deck is fragile against combat decks. The plan is to avoid them, which can be difficult especially if they have rushes. If they are cross table it might be best to go slow to let their neighbour deal with them first. If they are prey, the best course of action might be to try to find some kind of deal to avoid getting hurt.
Tweaks and variants
This heavily inspired by many tournament winning decks, check the page for more information and variants.
A couple of Trochomancy can help control recursion-based decks like those using Ashur Tablets or Emerald Legionnaire. The proportions can be slightly adjusted to your preferences and to match the metagame you expect.
What to buy
All of the Giovanni O and cards you need can be found on DriveThruCards as Print-on-Demand. For the rest, you will just need a V5 Ventrue, a V5 Malkavian, a 25th Anniversary and a Parliament of Shadows.
If you have access to more cards and legacy cards, switching Marciana for Le Dinh Tho is an improvement. Moreover, adding copies of Dreams of the Sphinx, The Coven and Jake Washington can be good.