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q Malkavian Dementation

Highlights

This is a brutal stealth & bleed deck using Malkavian q and their legacy e.

The plan is to bleed hard, with stealth. Kindred Spirits provides a bit of bloat and e has great modifiers like Confusion and Eyes of Chaos. The Master module provides a bit of bloat with Blood Doll and Villein, as well as card cycling tools like Dreams of the Sphinx and The Barrens. But, most importantly, it includes counters against Master cards with Sudden Reversal and Wash: they're used to prevent bloat on the prey's side.

O is used for stealth, with a wide range of different modifiers so as to be able to stack them. It also provides No Trace, the only combat defence of the deck. A provides a bit of defence, with Telepathic Misdirection for bounces. Hand management is key: if a prey has only low intercept they might decide to never try to block to jam the hand with stealth.

An interesting point about the deck is that Kindred Spirits allows to bleed any Methuselah, so one can even use it strategically against someone else, like their predator. Obviously though, it's best used on the prey as a rule of thumb.

Tweaks and variants

A few e legacy cards are excellent additions to this deck, like Deny, Restructure and The Call. On the other hand, a few additional counters against Master cards can help too if you can trade for more Sudden Reversal and Wash. Some variations play a dozen of those to completely bar the prey from their Master module. Depending on the cases, you might find the library a bit short. If this is the case, adding a few Kindred Spirits and half that amount of Confusion is an easy way to increase it.

This is not the fastest crypt one can use for this build. The main article about the archetype presents alternatives if you have access to a few legacy cards. With a fast enough crypt, one can focuse completely on bleeding and forego bounces and bloat Masters altogether.

What to buy

The bulk of the cards come from two First Blood: Malkavian and V5 Malkavian, with a few additions from Keepers of Tradition 1. The Master counters Sudden Reversal and Wash are the trickiest to come by: they can be found in the Sabbat Precons or should be traded for. Dreams of the Sphinx can be found in the 25th Anniversary.