At Your Disposal : Cavalier

Cards that provide untaps are always good to have, especially those recurring ones. Cards like Homonculus and Monster are invaluable, as are untap modifiers like Freak Drives and Forced March. In HttB, a new addition, and potentially the best of them all has been added - the mighty Cavalier.

As an archetype, it is a master card that can be attached to a vampire, and allows the vampire to untap once a turn by burning a blood IF he successfully performs any action that cost 1 or more blood.

Now this may not be as commonly useful as Freak Drives or Homonculus, as the condition attached to Cavalier does requires some thinking and making a deck that more or less tries to maximize its use. But cards like these normally shine more in a deck that traditionally does not have FOR or untap-related disciplines in the first place. And for those decks, this card can be invaluable.

First, let's just think about how often your deck try to do actions that costs 1 or more blood. Not always, of course, there are weenie decks that almost never use a single blood in their actions (like DEM bleeds). But many more decks do use actions that costs blood, and many of those would scream at the opportunity to have Cavalier in play.

The most commonly used blood-cost action that comes to mind is Govern the Unaligned. Imagine the speed this card will lend to DOM vote decks that can now Govern at superior or inferior, get it through, and then burn a blood to untap and call a vote. If even a single vampire can do this a couple of times in a game it'll really add up to the multi-actions that these decks normally need. Come to think of it, this card is a god-send for vote decks that traditionally does not have FOR to untap with Freak Drives. Hear that, Toreadors? Enchant all the way!

Now, the tricky part is the blood cost. Burning one extra blood, plus the cost of the action itself, is no small matter. Your vampire will need means of getting those blood back in order to do this again and again. Multi-blood gain actions or blood-gaining options are abound in Vtes - Hunting Grounds; Hungry Coyotes; Hospital Food; Rack etc etc. So getting enough blood to power up Cavalier, only once a turn anyway, shouldn't be a big issue.

And PRE voters will just shrug and play more Voter Caps.

And there is a clan that will simply die to have this card - the Tremere. With Ankara Citadel many of their actions are free, but they're considered costing 1 blood or more. Without FOR they traditionally relies on Rutor's Hand to untap, but now with Cavalier things look a lot brighter for these fellows. And their discipline spread has so many options - DOM bleed or bloat, AUS spying or THA magic.

And somehow the Daughters seems to be gaining a hell lot from this card if you can get a lot of the ladies to be Cavaliers. Imagine a horde of Cavalier-ed Daughters calling Lily Preludes with Madrigal, untap to support the Conductor, and then bleed or Shatter when all the Preludes are over. In theory, every Daughter is only going to use up 1 blood for the Lily Prelude (and if you have Voter Caps every Daughter is going to be a happy Daughter)

And all those vampires with in-build actions that costs blood may want this archetype on them too, since they can always untap if they can afford the blood. (Cybele comes to mind)

Multi-action vampires have never been happier. Be Cavalier, friends!

(o.o)