Bloody Disciplines - CHImerstry

Chimerstry is one of my favorite disciplines because it is such an unpredictable toolbox discipline that can do so many different things, some of them plainly scary, and many of them extremely efficiently. Of course, one of the main problems of this discipline is the blood cost that is attached to so many of its stapler cards, and therefore kinda curb its deadliness. On the other hand, the Ravnos, the one clan that used CHI almost exclusively, had many ways to reduce the cost of CHI cards, so all is good.

Action

CHI has some of the most interesting, and very often deadly action cards in Vtes. We all know about Sensory Deprivation - one of the most effective and difficult to remove, incapacitating card in Vtes. Simply put, this card has no equal; its might may be partially contained by its high blood cost, but a combination of Ravnos Carnival, Fatuus Mastery and Path of Paradox make this card more than useable, even in the hands of younger Ravnos. The power of Sensory Deprivation is so strong that it is never reprinted, except by the vastly nerfed Nightmare Curse, and even Nightmare Curse is still a deadly card when used.

Besides this, CHI still has quite a few interesting action cards in its library, though they're mostly thematic and do require decks that are built around it in order to maximize its effectiveness. For example, Mass Reality requires weapons, Edged Illusion works well only with multiple vampires, and the Trick of Danya really needs a lot of work to make it effective. However, they're all very interesting action cards that has very dynamic effects that no other discipline in Vtes can do.

Honorable mention goes to Fatuus Mastery, which is the only card in Vtes that actually accumulates "currency" counters for the bearer of the cards to be used to pay blood cost of cards - a most interesting, and sometimes very annoying book-keeping card. It is also one of the most effective cost-reduction cards for CHI-abled vampires since almost all the important CHI cards is costly in blood.

Modifiers

CHI has excellent multi-purpose modifiers. The several stealth options almost always come with a different function package, making these cards very deck-space efficient. For example, Mirror Image also provides combat defense in the form of Combat Ends, Occlusion provides Dodge. The more focused Stealth cards are also very useable, such as the mighty Will'o'the'wisp (An elder with enough blood can simply eliminate the opponent with high bleeds), Fata Morgana adds the much needed bleed enhancement to the stealth, very much like Bonding, but is way more flexible in its uses.

Put together, CHI can generate a very good amount of stealth just by itself, the problem remains the blood cost of the modifiers, and vampires will quickly run out of blood without the Path of Paradox or other blood-supporting cards in play.

Combat

People might under-estimate CHI in combat since so many of their decks focused on stealth and combat avoidance. But CHI is capable of excellent and often deadly combat if they want to. Mass Reality as an action card has already given it the possibility of using weapons very effectively in combat; and if you add in damage prevention given by Apparition, Horrid Reality to get the weapons (for free)[And by the way, how does the Dagger works with Horrid Reality? Does it burn if used at range?], and Mayaparisatya is one of the deadliest ranged aggravated damage card in the game.

Of course, blood cost remains the key issue with CHI combat.

Reaction

The mighty Draba is probably the most famous of them all, able to defeat the highest of stealth. Given the Ravnos' in-clan ANI, a Ravnos blocker with a couple of copies of Draba can defeat a very good number of stealth decks once they have one or two Raven Spies. Ignis Fatuus is another interesting card that CHI vampires can use, granting multi-function, and is a great defensive card that can sometimes double up as some sort of a Boon, usually to keep your predator or grand prey alive.

Crypt

One major major issue with CHI is that it is rare. Basically you only get them in the Ravnos, and a large number of them, even the older ones, do not have it at superior, and only 2 below-4 cap vampires have it at superior, and they don't share the same group. This makes weenie CHI a challenge to execute. Even at 7 cap, more than half of the 7-cap CHI-abled vampires do not have them at superior, which is most frustrating.

This thin selection of vampires where a key in-clan discipline is concerned is almost at the level of the bloodlines, I guess it is a mechanic to keep the Ravnos from running away with Vtes games, given the power offered by CHI as a discipline.

(o.o)