i Goratrix High Tower
Highlights
This is a wall deck starring Goratrix: a single vampire manning the whole tower. His superior and fuel the reaction pile, while provides stealthy utility actions, and his +1 bleed helps deliver the finishing blow.
The reaction module is enormous, including bleed bounces with Telepathic Misdirection and My Enemy's Enemy and a mass of wake and unlock effects, so Goratrix is never caught locked. Read the Winds is the signature card, buying intercept without locking him down; Eyes of Argus and Cats' Guidance keep him blocking round after round, and Eagle's Sight lets him police the whole table, blocking key actions even when he is not the target.
Goratrix needs very little help in combat: his ranged blood theft cannot be prevented and refills him every combat. Carrion Crows and the Murder of Crows retainers pile on damage each round on top of it, with Pack Alpha deploying a crow mid-combat or converting a spent one into permanent strength. Rego Motum covers prevention and Canine Horde answers weapons.
Pool damage comes from permanents the tower defends: Smiling Jack, The Anarch, Army of Rats, Constant Revolution and Creeping Sabotage. Removing them means acting into a mountain of intercept and a combat nobody wants. The Anarch Convert are there to make Goratrix an Anarch so he can put Constant Revolution in play himself.
The economy is solid: Villein, Vessel and The Rack keep the pool flowing, and Ashur Tablets recycle the deck's many one-of tech cards. The Erciyes Fragments adds a little theft from the prey's ash heap on top.
Tips & Tricks
Magic of the Smith fetches the one-of equipment suited to the table context: Heart of Nizchetus is almost always first — its card flow is what keeps such a sprawling wall coherent — then Bowl of Convergence for intercept, or Ivory Bow, Kevlar Vest and Ruins of Ceoris to upgrade combat when the crows are not enough.
Millicent Smith is a poisoned gift: she defects to the predator during the discard phase, and from then on every action they take is a gamble — if the tower blocks, their acting vampire is burned along with her. Against a wall that blocks everything, few predators keep acting at all. Given the number of Eagle's Sight, anyone on the table needs Goratrix permission to act if she is around.
Rutor's Hand lets Goratrix take an action — typically Magic of the Smith — and still unlock to defend. The deck's own Pentex™ Subversion is best saved for constest, or for the one blocker standing between the drain permanents and the prey's pool.
The backup crypt keeps the reactions live if Goratrix gets neutralized: Anastasz di Zagreb and Omaya both sport with , and the Animalism master can bump Anastasz to superior. Wash and Direct Intervention usually deal with the nastiest surprises first, while Anarch Convert and Wider View dig the crypt for the star.
Variants
The archetype is remarkably stable and has been winning quietly for years, lately mostly in Brazil. Mailton Silva's deck and his earlier win run an almost identical 90 cards: more Sense the Savage Way and Eagle's Sight in place of Read the Winds, all-in on Carrion Crows instead of the Murder of Crows and Pack Alpha package, and a Sniper Rifle added to the Magic of the Smith targets. The earlier list also packs an Enkil Cog to have Goratrix bleed at the end of the predator's turn.
Older builds leaned on Anarch Revolt as an additional clock — the Anarch theme is a legacy of that era, now trimmed down to powering Constant Revolution.