At Your Disposal : Dabbler

HttB has some good archetypes, but the best is most probably Dabbler. Though it is not for everyone, it is flexible and efficient when it can be put into play. And it is not as difficult to use as it may seem.

First, it gives flexibility. It is the first archetype card that provides an option for a scenario. For Perfectionists, Monsters, or any other good archetypes, the benefit of the archetype is fixed, you don't really get to choose. Most involved getting blood or untapping, and Dabbler gives you the option to do either as and when the situation calls for it. That alone makes it a great archetype master.

Secondly, it is a trifle, meaning that it doesn't take up as much space reserved for master cards as most other good archetypes like Perfectionist or Capitalist. That is definitely a plus.

Its downside is of course the complexity to get the effect into play. 3 disciplines need to come into play during a single action in order for the benefit to kick in. This is of course, a problem, since not everyone has 3 disciplines that one uses frequently in a deck. This will limit the ability of your vampires in benefiting from this card. Some thoughts need to be put into the construction on your deck if you intend to make use of this great card.

There are of course obvious decks that will immediately benefit from this card, such as an Anarch deck who uses a lot of Keystone Kine with vampires able to utilize all 3 disciplines with that one single card. In decks like this the Dabbler should be an auto include since its benefits can be easily activated.

But even for decks that don't make use of cards like that, Dabbler can still be activated pretty easily. First, unlike some other archetype, the restriction of this card, except in some special cases, should designate it to be put on older vampires, since older vampires will have more disciplines (and usually at superior) in order for you to be able to use 3 disciplines effectively to activate the benefit of Dabbler.

Let's look at some alternatives to Keystone Kine.

For example,

1. A Brujah bleeds with Flurry of Action and enhance bleed with Iron Glare.

2. A Brujah bleeds with Enchant Kindred, blocks and get into combat, Immortal Grapple and Blurs for additional strikes.

3. A Ventrue bleeds with Legal Manipulation with Dawn Operations, uses POT cards in combat or enhance bleed with Conditioning.

4. A Kiasyd bleeds with Governed the Unaligned, adds stealth with Stone Travel and Shadow Play.

5. A !Salubri wakes with Forced Vigilance against a bleed, plays Hide the Heart to force the opponent to burn a blood to continue, and Telepathic Counter to reduce the bleed.

6. Any action that uses 2 disciplines (not necessarily in one card, for example, Lily Prelude with Voter Cap) plus Freak Drive. (now this is really easy to achieve)

So on and so on.

So it is not so difficult to use Dabbler afterall, and not to forget that it is "once each turn DURING an action", this makes Dabbler one of the few archetypes that can in theory benefit you multiple times instead of limiting its benefit to once YOUR turn.

Also, Dabbler can become quite a deterrent to your opponent in blocking certain actions, knowing that you'll then be able to untap and do something again. For example, A Nosferatu attempts to bleed with Deep Song, if any blocks are declared, chances are the Nosferatu will add some stealth to it with OBF, if the opponent then decides to add intercept to block anyway, the Nosferatu may be using POT in combat and therefore being able to untap after using 3 disciplines in one action. Imagine that this Nosferatu has FOR, and things will get even more interesting~ Deep Song Old Friends and Freak Drive = bleeds for 3, untap at the costs of only 1 blood.

Dabbler is a powerful archetype. Explore it, it has many possibilities - be it a multi-action card or an untap-reaction enabler. This is definitely a deadly card to look out for.

(o.o)