Here is the sporadic heartily unexpected Malkavian Antitribu newsletter Vol. No. 1. for the left hand of Augustus (August 5th). I was going to spend some time sifting this information for the newsletter that has been sitting on my computer for a few weeks, but instead I'll just send it. ThE MaLKAVianS are MAD, you sEe (as evidenced by the random use of capital letterings in this sentence). Malkavian Antitribu Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 1 Episode 1 Contents: 1. Interesting piece of fun. 2. A look at some vampires. 3. A deck. 1. Interesting piece of fun. Why do !Malks have Dementation while Malks have Dominate? http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~lotze/natumalk/domintat.html 2. A look at some vampires. Here are the vampires that make up this dysfunctional clan. The average rating for a !Malk vamp from me is 3.2 (3 is average) - which suggests that for vampires they are not a great clan. Rating System: 1-5 stars, based on worth, usefulness, disciplines, special ability *** Artemis: A good vampire, good amount of disciplines for his cost, only has regular auspex but has regular celerity too. ** Boy Toy: An unfortunate vampire - regular dementation can't do too much. **** Claven (or "Gary Coleman" as he is more commonly known). Your standard !Malk, he is great to have a couple of in a deck. Useful for all !Malky strategies, thus the four stars. *** Hannibal. A Cardinal, everyting at superior, regular celerity and regular dominate if you want to mix him with the regular Malks he's pretty good. His special ability is not nearly as good as Francois Villon's (Francois gets +1 stealth and can do steal up to 2 blood from ANY vampire) but potentially useful. ** Imogen. A little dissapointing utimately (even if she's eating SOMEBODY'S ARM!!). Only has regular obfuscate. IS an archbishop, but her special power is a little useless. While Dr. Jest can do something similar for free every round during untap, Imogen has to do it as an action, and forcing someone to discard a random card (which could be a useless one) and pick up a card from their ash heap is not very punishing. (And no, you can't use it to make someone put a burned vampire in their hand). Is very possibly too expensive if you don't need the votes. A possible fun combo would be to put cards back in somebody's hand that a vampire could later steal: *** Korah - A priscus, superior everything, very nice. ** Muriel Focade - A good blocker for combatty !Malk decks, but she doesn't have obfuscate. Put a blessings of chaos on her and let her fight with her +1 hand damage. However, since !Malks don't have much in the way of damage prevention, she could go down hard, unless she has a new leather jacket every turn *** Quira, The Bitch Queen - A vampire that's great to put in your deck just so you can say, "I will bleed you with The Bitch Queen!!" She doesn't have dementation, but with an automatic +1 bleed she can still belong in your stealth bleed deck (or your block and disguised weapon deck, with superior obfuscate AND auspex). She could go in your malkavian deck for that matter. . . **** Vasantasena - Truly a great vamp. Many a game has been won (I would think) because of this fine vampire. Everything at superior, dominate if you wanted to mix in malkavians, +1 bleed, and +1 stealth when bleeding a methuselah who doesn't control a ready titled vamp (which happens quite a bit in my games, and if he does have a titled vamp you can focus on getting rid of that one vamp) (what is rule about bleeding - only if your prey needs titled vamp?) *** Virgil Has celerity, and everything at superior and is a bishop. His special ability IS useful if you remember to use it for stealing retainers. Not really for burning them though, though the idea of him going out and stealing peoples raven spys and eating them is funny, because he's probably not going to get much more blood than he would get hunting. . .though I thought of a combo with him and the giovanni. . . *** Yorik A good vamp for your front line of stealth bleeders, he could also whip out a gun at any time. 1. Sample Deck: Rabid Clowns!!!! This is a deck I used in a tournament a couple years ago. As I type it in, I'm realizing a lot of problems with it, but here it is. I think I tied for second in the competition, so it does have some potential. See comments after the deck. . . 2. Crypt: Artemis x2 Claven x1 Hannibal x 1 Korah x 1 Muriel Foucade x 1 Quira, The Bitch Queen x 1 Vasantasena x 1 Virgil x 1 Yorik x 1 Zoe x 2 Library (Action Cards): Bum's Rush x4 Hidden Lurker x1 Psychic Veil x1 Sacrificial Lamb x2 Atonement x2 Blessing of Chaos x3 Kindred Spirits x2 Revelations x1 (Action Modifiers): Faceless Night x2 Lost in Crowds x5 Eyes of Chaos x5 Walk through Arcadia x1 (Reaction Cards): Eagle's Sight x2 Enhanced Senses x5 Fast Reaction x1 Spirit's Touch x4 Wake with Evening's Freshness x5 Forced Awakening x2 Telepathic Counter x4 (Retainer Cards) Mr. Winthrop x1 (Combat Cards) Amaranth x1 Behind You x1 Dodge x5 Backstab x1 Coma x5 Primal Instincts x3 (Equipment Cards) IR Goggles x1 Ivory Bow x1 Sengir Dagger x1 Leather Jacket x4 (Master Cards) Blood Doll x2 Blood Puppy x1 Elysium: The Arboretum x1 Giant's Blood x1 Minion Tap x2 Police Department x1 Vast Wealth x1 Heidelburg Castle x1 Tomb of Ramses x1 Dementation x1 Institution Hunting Ground x1 Sermon of Caine x1 If I remember, the Revelations was very helpful in the tournament as it pissed my prey off to the point that he sent everyone against it and was rebuked. Also, as you all probably know the Blessings of Chaos was extremely useful - my predator in a latter game was a gangrel dominate deck which did a lot of form of mist - but if I had so much as ATTEMPTED to block his action with my Blessings of Chaos vamp he couldn't add any dominate action modifiers. 5 Comas was probably too much - it's a very expensive card. The backstab was in there as a little surprise (you'll notice that several !Malks have celerity (more on this in a later issue). Typically the deck did a little powerful stealth bleed but spent much of its time blocking and fighting. I don't know why I didn't have the Enchanted Marionette in there either. . . Zoe usually ended up getting dementation and then she was mega powerful. Next issue: The Dementation Special The "One of Us!" political/combat deck A look at each of the dementation cards, individually. Another piece of fun.