At Your Disposal : Blood of Sandman

There are quite a bit of hooha on this powerful THAUMATURGY card that was given to the Tremeres and !Tremeres (and all other THAUMATURGY-able Vampires) in Keepers of Tradition. This card may look innocent but is in fact a deadly card against some decks, and a pain in the ass for almost every opponent. Even a casual deck, as long as it has some generally high-cap Vampire, this card will come in handy in offense and even defense.

At basic, the 2 blood cost to burn an ally at +1 Stealth is good, but nothing that fantastic to write home about, there are far better cards to do so, and they're with a discipline that is available to most THAUMATURGY clans, Far Mastery being one of the most effective of those. It is the superior version of this card that is revolutionary in the game.

At +6 Stealth, only the most ridiculously prepared blocker can even have a chance to block it (unless you're facing CHIMERSTRY's Draba or Veiled Sight), so getting it across isn't too difficult, especially if you've already planted a Dark Influences on the table to prevent Direct Interventions, which is the the most feasible defense against this card. What it does to a younger tapped Vampire is in practical, remove his ability to react, until he goes to torpor where this card will be burnt (and then you can do it to him again if you want).

Most decks do not have a plan B if one or even multiples of their Vampires are no longer able to play wakes. Without wakes their defense will be severely compromised - no bounces, no blocks and therefore no defense. In a way it translates to them being unable to optimize the value of their minions - if he takes an action, he will be unable to defend when the predator attacks, period.

This put the Methuselah in a dilemma. Most players will have an action-path to oust the prey, and usually relies on wakes to defend against their predator, or to block harmful actions taken by their prey. Blood of Sandman removes that option, forcing them to do either. Generally, due to the uncertainty of blocking, most players will have to bite the bullet and take the action and hope that the predator goes soft on him and leave him alive long enough to perform what the deck is supposed to do. Imagine the slowdown that you'll impose on your prey when you Blood one of his key bouncer or blocker. As for the target, if he refuses to do anything, you will have THAUMATURGY's arsenal of cards to ensure that he runs out of blood (or even Cryptic Mission if you're desperate enough), wait for him to hunt and tap, and then feed him the Blood of the Sandman.

Now imagine what this can do to your predator. With one of his defenders (or even multiples of them, but that is generally quite rare) unable to defend, your predator will have to consider doubly hard on taking actions, which is usually detrimental to you, and may have to commit that Vampire to defense by leaving him untapped. By doing this to him the pressure on defense will be somewhat alleviated for you, which leaves you free to do some other random devious thing to your prey.

Note that this actually opens a very interesting room for negotiations for the table. Being unable to defend you'll have lots of things to talk to your prey about. Any non-interference that you may offer will be a lot more attractive than if he has his full compliment of defensive measures in hand. One can now offer to the prey a turn or two of free action in exchange for damaging the grand prey, calling through some votes or even getting at your predator. Sometimes, the Methuselah may even be desperate enough to let the Vampire go torpor in order to get rid of the card and then rescue it - giving you the opportunity to actually get rid of the Vampire if you're able. A more common defense against this is to influence another Vampire, but that is not always feasible, especially if the Blooded Vampire already has many assets invested on it - moreover, more pool invested in influencing, equals less damage you need to do to oust him.

There are decks that aren't that concerned about this card. Weenies, for example, completely ignore this, given the fact that most weenie decks aren't too somber with waking anyway, and those who wake will have a ton of other Vampiric flesh to call into service for their defense. Decks that can still block while tapped without needing to play a card suffers a lot less from the card too, like No Secrets from the Magaji, but it'll still forced them to be more prepared before they can start their blocking engine since all the Intercept cards cannot be used while the Magaji is tapped. Fillip or Special Report are other options that go around Blood of Sandman, but they are not common wakes, usually seen only in Lorrie decks. And of course, if their Vampires are bigger than yours...

All in all, this is a powerful card for decks that have high-cap Vampires, and I think that it is good to include a copy, or maybe 2 if you have the deck space, as a good surprise for your opponent. Like I say, if they're not ready for it, they're not able to deal with it. Also, just a side note, this card works really well with the new Tremere Inner Circle Mistress Fanchon, since she has the ability to draw the card out when necessary, as well as having the age to put it on almost everybody that isn't an Inner Circle.

(o.o)y