i Nephandii

VDB

Highlights

This an Allies swarm deck relying on the excellent Nephandus, coupled with their preferred recruiter, Antonio d'Erlette.

The deck aims at recruiting at least one Nephandus a turn, sometimes two by using Mirror Walk for stealth and protection against blocks, building a swarm of them to bleed their prey. The Nephandii ability makes them resilient and, with just Target Vitals, they are painful for a low cost.

On the defense side, the deck uses Deflection against bleeds and Delaying Tactics against votes. It aims at playing The Unmasking as soon as possible, to allow the Nephandii to provide better protection.

The deck uses the Liquidation & Ashur Tablets combination to bloat, and The Shard, London for cost reduction.

Tips & Tricks

The occasional Haven Uncovered and Frontal Assault allow for spikes of rushes from the Nephandii, that can swing the whole table balance.

Secure Haven can protect Antonio d'Erlette from rushes. Otherwise, a second vampire to provide a bit of resilience in Deflection works, as any decent Stealth & Bleed deck will be able to pass the Nephandii if noone is bouncing.

The 3 Tupdog in crypt are an interesting inclusion. They can serve as meat shields to protect Antonio d'Erlette in the first turn, but they can also mislead the opponents in mistaking the deck for a Tupdogs deck, an for quite a long time if the player manages to keep the charade going, since using Nephandii is a strong variant of that archetype.

Dreams Of The Sphinx is useful to cycle out the multiple copies of unique cards and keep the cards flowing, and it can occasionally gain a turn when drawn first, with Antonio d'Erlette being capacity 5.

Variants

Since he built the deck first, Darby Keeney's list and his comments are worth a look. For example, he does not bother with FBI Special Affairs Division, Secure Haven, nor Archon Investigation. That said, these are all worth consideration depending on the meta.

The Bounce variant, introduced by Martin Weinmayer, uses a different crypt with more superior Auspex A, aiming for a sidekick who can block with Sniper Rifle. It fields so many bounces, the deck is virtually impregnable to bleeds. It is a slower but more resilient deck, fit for a bleed-heavy meta.