The Gangrel Do Not Fight

When I first started playing V:TES, as I mentioned in my Bindusara's Diary interview, I started out with the Gangrel preconstructed deck from the Anarchs set; if I remember right, I got two of them, because, unlike the newer preconstructed decks released by Black Chantry, the preconstructed decks needed several cards to make them competitively playable. Still, I loved the fact that the Gangrel, via Protean (PRO), had easy access to aggravated damage, which, unless one's opponent used damage prevention, or Strike:Combat Ends, normally meant one's opposing minion was going into torpor. While I dabbled with the non-aggresive side combat side of PRO (Earth Control, Form of Mist, etc.), I didn't really build any deck which made heavy use of it.

Until now.

I was thinking of a deck that could block (intercept) and get actions through (stealth). While Auspex (AUS) is the premier intercept discipline, and Obfuscate (OBF) the premier stealth discipline,  the Gangrel have access to Animalism (ANI), which is no slouch at intercept, and PRO, which has both stealth and some intercept. With that in mind, I set out to build a deck which did not make use of aggressive combat. Instead, I tried coming up with a deck which could bleed and block, and possibly survive combat.

Mind you, this is still a work in progress, but basically, it's a toolbox deck. It's either the minions bleed with Deep Song, augmented by either the Laptop or Tier of Souls (well, for three of them anyway), or put pressure on the table via the Jack, and defend it.

Horrock, with his built in Path (Protean cards cost one less blood), is the center, with both Pickman and Lamontagne as back-up. The others are midcaps that simply round out the crypt.

I still have to put this together, and test drive it, but I do have a good feeling about this. Another player in our circle, Faust, has used the PRO strike:combat ends in his own deck, and has had good results with it. A little bit of tweaking, and this deck shoudl be good to go.



Deck Name:   The Gangrel Do Not Fight

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 19, Max: 24, Avg: 5.41)
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  3  Horrock                            vic ANI PRO                6  Gangrel                   G3
  2  Janey Pickman                 for ANI PRO                6  Gangrel Antitribu    G4
  2  Celeste Lamontagne         for ANI PRO               5  Gangrel Antitribu    G4
  1  Spider                             ani for CEL PRO           6  Gangrel Antitribu     G4 
  1  Bernard                            ani for pre pro              5  Gangrel                    G4 
  1  Dr. Allan Woodstock      ani aus for PRO            5  Gangrel                    G3 
  1  Jacob Fermor                         ani tha PRO            5  Gangrel                    G4 
  1  Jezebelle                                ani for pro               4  Gangrel                    G4 
  
   
Library: (90 cards)
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Master (14 cards)
  2  Smiling Jack, The Anarch
  2  Tribute to the Master
  2  Dreams of the Sphinx
  1 Ecoterrorists
  1 Ennoia's Theater
  1  KRCG News Radio
  1  WMRH Talk Radio
  4  Vessel

Action (14 cards)
  2  Shadow of the Beast
  2  Army of Rats
  8  Deep Song
  2  Tier of Souls

Action Modifier (8 cards)
  8  Earth Control

Reaction (22 cards)
  4  Eyes of the Beast
  6  Sonar
  4  Cats' Guidance
  2  Guard Dogs
  6  Instinctive Reaction

Combat (22 cards)
  6  Claws of the Dead
  6  Earth Meld
  6  Form of Mist
  4  Form of the Ghost

Retainer (4 cards)
  4  Raven Spy

Equipment (2 cards)
  2  Laptop Computer

Combo (4 cards)
  4  Rapid Change