Permanent intercepts are almost always good to have, especially for decks prepared or even dedicated to blocking and intercepting your opponents. Besides all the pool-costing perma-intercept locations that I assure you are hotly contested on a typical day, the AUS discipline provides most of the more efficient Intercept cards. But aside from a few equipment, and some target-specific cards like Divine Sign, there are precious few cards that provide permanent intercepts to any vampire, not to mention an efficient one.
Anima Gathering is perhaps the most efficient intercept package packed into a single card. It requires decks built around to support it, but if it comes into play it can provide a great advantage to your blocking vampire with an impressive +2 intercept, no questions asked.
What can +2 Intercept do? Well, this is a super Channel 10 in play, all the time. And if this card is placed on a vampire equipped or prepared for blocking, especially with power-ed up blocking cards like No Secrets from the Magaji, Vigilance, Atonement, or even just Homonculus, the vampire can block a lot of stuff without any other card support. Slap a Sniper Rifle on a Magaji with No Secrets and Anima, and it takes block denial cards like Elder Impersonations just to go through him.
But there is significant difficulty in using this card as well. First you need a vampire, then you need to commit that vampire and he cannot untap. You can't go around this card by using other methods to untap this vampire, since untapping him means burning the card. Needless to say, influencing a weenie to do this is a significant allocation of resources, and it takes time.
It usually takes about 1 or 2 pool to get a weenie with basic AUS, then you need to slap a Anima on him. Consider this versus paying 2 pool for Channel 10 and you can see that it is not really that bad a deal. If you manage to actually put another AUS master discipline card on the weenie, the chosen blocker gets a +1 Bleed for a bonus - a welcomed one for AUS discipline since there are not many ways for AUS vampires to enhance bleeds besides the expensive Pulse.
Now it normally doesn't make a lot of sense stacking Anima unless you want the bleed enhancement, +4 Intercepts are truly overkills. Spread out your Animas if you have more than 1, and hopefully more than 1 capable blocking vampire too.
That brings out the difficulty of having multiple minions tapping with Anima Gathering? Saturating your crypt with weenies is not always the easiest way to get all the vampires that you need, at the right time, not to mention the speed you'll lose because of that. There are ways to go around this, the most notable is with breeding cards that allows you to search for master discipline cards to place on them as they emerge. Waters of Duat, Creation Rites, Third Tradition, and even Bamba if you have the right Magaji. These little ones will then come out with all the necessary training to do your Anima, mostly next turn of course.
Now these little Anima-ed fellows can then be Tributed to get those blood back, and since they do not untap, it doesn't really matter. A simple Blood Doll or Vessel and a Hunting Ground will also make it a permanent pool recovery machine.
This makes for a powerful blocking engine with +2 intercepts that cannot be removed via any method short of a Smear Campaign. Even if the enemy sent the Anima Gathering vampire to torpor, you can still maintain the Anima vampire without untapping him - you see how resilient this little card is? Permanent +2 Intercept and potentially +1 Bleed, on a single card, and a weenie vampire.
Now put this concept into play with allies in mind, and you have a whole big new world to explore. I'm not referring to the incredibly difficult to use Alia, or the Bima, who can play Anima Gathering. Consider using your vampires to put Anima Gathering on allies such as Ossian, War Ghouls, Succubus, or even just Shambling Hordes. With intercepts, these allies can now block very effectively, and who knows, with bleeds now they can also become quite deadly.
This is potentially the foundation of a Gehenna deck.
(o.o)
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
At Your Disposal : Anima Gathering
Permanent intercepts are almost always good to have, especially for decks prepared or even dedicated to blocking and intercepting your opponents. Besides all the pool-costing perma-intercept locations that I assure you are hotly contested on a typical day, the AUS discipline provides most of the more efficient Intercept cards. But aside from a few equipment, and some target-specific cards like Divine Sign, there are precious few cards that provide permanent intercepts to any vampire, not to mention an efficient one.
Anima Gathering is perhaps the most efficient intercept package packed into a single card. It requires decks built around to support it, but if it comes into play it can provide a great advantage to your blocking vampire with an impressive +2 intercept, no questions asked.
What can +2 Intercept do? Well, this is a super Channel 10 in play, all the time. And if this card is placed on a vampire equipped or prepared for blocking, especially with power-ed up blocking cards like No Secrets from the Magaji, Vigilance, Atonement, or even just Homonculus, the vampire can block a lot of stuff without any other card support. Slap a Sniper Rifle on a Magaji with No Secrets and Anima, and it takes block denial cards like Elder Impersonations just to go through him.
But there is significant difficulty in using this card as well. First you need a vampire, then you need to commit that vampire and he cannot untap. You can't go around this card by using other methods to untap this vampire, since untapping him means burning the card. Needless to say, influencing a weenie to do this is a significant allocation of resources, and it takes time.
It usually takes about 1 or 2 pool to get a weenie with basic AUS, then you need to slap a Anima on him. Consider this versus paying 2 pool for Channel 10 and you can see that it is not really that bad a deal. If you manage to actually put another AUS master discipline card on the weenie, the chosen blocker gets a +1 Bleed for a bonus - a welcomed one for AUS discipline since there are not many ways for AUS vampires to enhance bleeds besides the expensive Pulse.
Now it normally doesn't make a lot of sense stacking Anima unless you want the bleed enhancement, +4 Intercepts are truly overkills. Spread out your Animas if you have more than 1, and hopefully more than 1 capable blocking vampire too.
That brings out the difficulty of having multiple minions tapping with Anima Gathering? Saturating your crypt with weenies is not always the easiest way to get all the vampires that you need, at the right time, not to mention the speed you'll lose because of that. There are ways to go around this, the most notable is with breeding cards that allows you to search for master discipline cards to place on them as they emerge. Waters of Duat, Creation Rites, Third Tradition, and even Bamba if you have the right Magaji. These little ones will then come out with all the necessary training to do your Anima, mostly next turn of course.
Now these little Anima-ed fellows can then be Tributed to get those blood back, and since they do not untap, it doesn't really matter. A simple Blood Doll or Vessel and a Hunting Ground will also make it a permanent pool recovery machine.
This makes for a powerful blocking engine with +2 intercepts that cannot be removed via any method short of a Smear Campaign. Even if the enemy sent the Anima Gathering vampire to torpor, you can still maintain the Anima vampire without untapping him - you see how resilient this little card is? Permanent +2 Intercept and potentially +1 Bleed, on a single card, and a weenie vampire.
Now put this concept into play with allies in mind, and you have a whole big new world to explore. I'm not referring to the incredibly difficult to use Alia, or the Bima, who can play Anima Gathering. Consider using your vampires to put Anima Gathering on allies such as Ossian, War Ghouls, Succubus, or even just Shambling Hordes. With intercepts, these allies can now block very effectively, and who knows, with bleeds now they can also become quite deadly.
This is potentially the foundation of a Gehenna deck.
(o.o)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Great article. I had a Henry Twister deck that used AUS weenies to power him up and deflect bleeds. Since they do not really untap with WWEF, the Anima stays on.
Word of caution though: A Babble busts open your Anima. :)
-Cry Wolf
Ya~ Babble, and all those untap other vampire thingy, like those hated Salubri Spirit Marionette decks.
But again, they have to get through that +2 Intercept~ :)
(o.o)
But then Babble is a reaction. :)
-Cry Wolf
oh ya~ :)
(o.o)
Post a Comment