Tweaking Your Malkavian Starter: Advice for New Players

Some tips for for new Vtes players or for people on a budget: minimum investment can be as low as 2 starters.

We got a box of KoT starters recently so I decided to try to build a viable deck by combining two Malkavian starters. Of course the oust method will be sneak bleed as there were absolutely no damaging votes included in the precons. First thing to do is trim one deck by taking out all the useless cards. I started by removing nearly all the equipment and master cards. The focus of this starter was evident in the amount of blood gain in the deck to fuel Tryphosa’s ability. So to sum up: remove almost all of the blood gaining cards. Goodbye Life in the City, Coolers and Forgery! I kept The Coven though.

Next, sort through all the action modifiers. I’m really not a fan of Into Thin Air because the drawback is too much for me so I removed all copies of those along with Change of Target. I kept the combat cards: all four copies of Glancing Blow because sometimes just a point of damage prevention can save your vampire from torpor or outright destruction.

Reaction cards were trimmed down to just On the Que Vive and Spirits Touch. I really don’t plan on blocking much since blocking also means combat. Bounce is still the best defence since it helps get the oust.

Taking a look at the offensive package, the Malk starter comes with six copies of Kindred Spirits and six copies of Eyes of Chaos. Add in the contents of the other starter and that number doubles. Enough for a four player game maybe.

The master cards were almost useless since Bleeding the Vine and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta have large disadvantages. Key master cards are: Vessel, Giants Blood, Elysium: the Arboretum, The Coven and Effective Management.

After trimming the all the fat, I came up with a deck of around 60 cards. Just double up on the bleed, stealth and combat cards. Crypt selection is also important so I would advise on trading for some copies of Gem Ghastly and Arthur Denholme. Mid cap bleeders both with superior Dementate.

That’s the deck. It most likely won’t win any tourneys but it’s a great and cheap way to introduce the game to new players!

Gangrel Combat

I blame Wrath of the Lich King for this delayed post!

Since everyone and their mother probably has a few packs or starters of KoT by now, I think it’s time to talk about some deck ideas that are currently swimming in my head. One of them is: Simple Gangrel Combat.

Since the days of Jyhad and Ancient Hearts, Gangrel combat has pretty much stayed the same, using almost the same cards. Claws (wolf claws or claws of the dead) and Fortitude Prevention (skin of rock or skin of steel). Sabbat added Carrion Crows for environmental damage and Ancient Hearts added Dog Pack as a foil to combat ends.

Assuming your Gangrel already has a Dog Pack equipped (or hired since it’s technically a retainer), your combat chain would still consist of just 3 cards: Crows pre-range, Strike hands, Claws, Prevention. Simple and effective for most decks without dodges or prevention.

The last casual game I played showed me that the Philippine metagame hasn’t changed much. There’s still a lot of combat and combat avoidance in the form of Fortitude and combat ends.

I’ll try to make a basic combat package this weekend and see if I can tweak it to survive and hopefully dominate the local meta.

Key Gangrel vampire for my deck? Ariadne. Immunity to bloodhunts is simply too good to pass up.