Lyrics of the Night : Methuselah Allies

Well, a Methuselah ally is a VP waiting to happen, but until the fella to your left is lying in his own coffin waiting for you to claim that 6 pool, the ally is someone you have to work with most of the time.

In general, there are 3 kinds of allies - your grand prey, your grand predator, and Danz.

Danz we'll talk about in private, but the others, we can discuss.

It's in your best interest to keep your grand prey alive until your prey is dead. That reasoning is really really simple - if your grand prey dies, your prey gets 6 pool, making your life 6 pool more difficult, and more importantly, losing you that 1 VP. 6 pool you can get back by some other means, 1 VP however, cannot be retrieved. (Well, I guess there are ways, but definitely not by something you can do) So do whatever you can to make sure that doesn't happen.

As for your grand predator, your job is to make sure that he put enough pressure on your predator to distract your predator from committing all his efforts in distracting you. Every pool that your grand predator depleted from your predator, however, is one step nearer in making him your predator, and 6 pool stronger, not to mention the loss of 1 VP also. Therefore, you may want to make sure that your grand predator is not really that smooth in fighting your predator.

All these sounds very logical and easy, but in practice it is extremely difficult to judge and make all the necessary decisions to ensure that happens. Too many factors will come in to affect your decision in handling your allies.

But let's first look at what you can do to work with your enemies' enemies until they become your prey.

The most important issue is bleed responsibly. Bounce is a common defense, but can usually be quite easy to spot if you know what to look out for. Against DOM and AUS heavy decks you much always be ready for bounce (especially DOM). If your prey has a DOM weenie standing there untapped, you know it is highly likely that you will be facing a bounce defense. This shouldn't keep you from bleeding of course, but if you can afford it, or it you see that your grand prey is defenseless against bounces, do bleed with care - don't enhance your bleeds too heavily in case you damaged your grand prey instead. This is one of the most disastrous thing you can do to your grand prey, since you're not only creating anger in your ally, you're making your prey's life easier if you help him to bleed his prey. Of course, sometimes you don't have a choice, sometimes you'd want to take that risk (usually near ousting your prey), and sometimes you just don't care. There are of course certain cards that can help you do your bleeding responsibly - like the famous Spying Mission; cards that target preys specifically (like Tier of Souls) or simple do not add too much stealth so that the prey is able to block. A simple gesture to at least ask the grand prey whether or not he can handle a bounce could also mean a lot - it allows the grand prey to intimidate his predator for bounces, or simply beg you to stop, which you can then try to negotiate for a good deal for your immediate or future benefit (like supporting your votes for example)

The other way to help your grand prey is to bloat him, but that is not easily achieved unless you have the right deck(s). And to be honest, this doesn't usually work very well. Giving your grand prey Intercepts through perma-locations is a good idea if you think you can afford the pool and the grand prey has a good chance in blocking a deadly attack. Chances are, if the grand prey can, he will fight with his best ability to torpor or at least damage the infringing vampire, that would give you an edge over your prey later.

In extreme cases, if you have to sacrifice a Methuselah ally, never sacrifice your grand prey unless he is the deck that will and can trump yours (like dominating the vote scene). You should even help him get rid of his prey in order to deny your prey the 6 pool.

Boons and rescuing are also good stuffs that you can do to help out your allies - boons should be reserved for grand prey, and rescuing should be done more commonly for your grand predator. The logic is that you want your grand prey to be weaker when you're done with your prey, and you don't really want him to be strong, especially if it'll make you work extra hard to get your second VP. As long as your grand prey has enough minions to survive, leave him alone if he has some vampires in torpor, that's his problem. Rescuing his vampires isn't going to help you in the long run. Rescuing vampires for your grand predator, however, is usually a good move, as it will put pressure on your predator to reduce his ability to distract you.

But after all said and done, Vtes tables are dynamic and changes with actions and counter-actions. You really have to read the table properly to see who will be your biggest problem towards getting the Game Win. For those targets, show no mercy, ally or not.

(o.o)