i Nephandus
Highlights
This is an allies toolbox deck using Tremere antitribu i and their excellent Nephandus ally.
The plan is to use Antonio d'Erlette's ability to recruit a swarm of Nephandus without even performing an action someone could block. Once there, they can defend with a bit of intercept from The Unmasking and Locations like KRCG News Radio or Channel 10, and simply bleed for 1 consistently to kill the prey.
The combat nodule is threatening: Trap and Target Vitals, combined with the Nephandus ability, is pretty strong. Obviously, stronger combat modules exist and they can definitely take a few Nephandus down but, if you can stack enough of them, they will be able to take down any ennemy. The deck also provides a bit of control in the form of combat rush with Harass and Haven Uncovered. Finally, the Tremere antitribu in the deck can help with the defence thanks to Deflection.
The biggest threat comes from anti-swarm votes like Anarchist Uprising and Ancilla Empowerment. The deck includes Delaying Tactics to prevent them to hurt too much or too soon. It can also come in handy against a prey using Consanguineous Boon for heavy bloat. Direct Intervention should be kepy to counter ally-stealing actions like Entrancement.
Tweaks and variants
There are a lot of ways to tweak this deck. Check the Information Highway article for another example. If you have access to them, more rushes with Bum's Rush can be added. Legacy intercept Locations like WMRH Talk Radio and Wall Street Night could be good. Carlton Van Wyk and Ossian too.
Another possibility is to revamp the master module to include The Parthenon and Ashur Tablets. It's tempting since it will help pay for the Nephandus, but it's also a risk: since there is no other source of additional master phase actions in the deck, running into another Ashur Tablets deck or contesting The Parthenon will disable the whole combination pretty fast.
Yet another idea is to use Piper (not yet reprinted), while making Antonio d'Erlette anarch thanks to Anarch Convert, can be a nice way to get more Nephandus into play faster, like in Cicero Jannyson's deck.
What to buy
The bulk of the cards come from two Pact with Nephandi decks, with a few additions from V5 Nosferatu, Anthology 1 and First Blood: Nosferatu. Direct Intervention is available as Print on Demand.