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q Dementation Bleed

Highlights

This is a stealth & bleed deck using the eo disciplines. The idea is to bring maximum pool damage to the prey as fast as possible.

Stealth is very high, with many O and a few e modifiers. Many vampires in the crypt have a native +1 bleed ability, and the deck includes a lot of Eyes of Chaos to bring each bleed to a potential 4 or 5. It also includes a good number of Touch of Clarity, for a good chance of cancelling a Deflection and making sure the bleeds actually land.

Two thirds of the vampires have A, so Telepathic Misdirection can be used against bleeds. Nonetheless, the deck still includes Narrow Minds, with the idea that it will hurt the prey much more than it hurts the deck itself.

Kindred Spirits provides some bloat by itself and, coupled to a few Villein, this should let the deck get three or even four vampires out.

When it comes down to combat, the deck relies on No Trace to end them, but also packs a lot of Secure Haven and Secret Passage to avoid rushes.

Tips & Tricks

Compared to other e bleed variants, this deck takes its time. It is supposed to set things up calmly, taking the time to protect the main vampire (with the bleed bonus) with a Secure Haven or Secret Passage. It includes a few Spying Mission so that it can cancel a huge bleed being bounced if necessary: it would otherwise help the prey if carelessly allowed to hit the grandprey.

The couple of Wash should be kept in hand for the lunge: a well-timed counter on a Villein can amount to a bleed of 5. It can also counter a permanent intercept location like KRCG News Radio.

Dreams of the Sphinx helps with cards rotation and avoid jamming the hand with stealth if the prey chooses not to block. Touch of Clarity might be pointless if the prey is not using d bounces, but note it can also be used defensivly to prevent a d or r bleed action. It should be discard if useless but one might want to keep an eye on the next prey: if the prey is not bouncing, chances are the grand prey will be a target pretty soon...

Variants

Depending on what's expected, a few other cards could find their place in the deck. The Call is a common inclusion, Hide the Mind could be considered to have the possibility to also counter the widespread A bounces like Telepathic Misdirection. Finally, a couple of Restructure can be added against allies.

Louhi can give birth to interesting variations thanks to his ability, like in Pedro Paulo de Sousa Mendes's deck from 2015: Villein are out of question since he'll need his blood for his ability, but The Call can be used to compensate. The result is even slower, but, again, the availability of both Hide the Mind and Touch of Clarity can provide great lunge opportunities.

The deck can be built with E only, and lower capacity vampires, as in Bram van Stappen's deck from the 2013 German NC. This is far faster, but also more fragile as the stealth gets lower and the vampires have no good solution against opposing combat modules.