Four weeks ago, the winner of the French National Championship 2023 posted his tournament winning deck, and I must say this is the most interesting deck I have seen in a long time. It has a lot of unique ideas and uses a lot of cards you won’t see in regular decks, let alone in a tournament winning one.
The deck is “Escaped from Museum” and was designed & played by TTC_master (you can look up his real name in the tournament results on VEKN.net if you want to).
The name of the deck is already naming two of the important cards in this deck, namely the Escaped Mental Patient and the British Museum, London. The deck is basically a weenie rush combat, but it does that in a unique way. The weenies itself do not facilitate the rush combat, but the Escaped Mental Patient. But since almost all of the vampires in the crypt are not Malkavian antitribu, there has to be another way, in this case the answer is Summon History. Easy, right?! But wait, none of the weenies have Temporis, and here the fun starts. Typically this works then via Agent of Power, but this deck also uses the otherwise rarely used Vial of Elder Vitae. There are a couple of reasons for this, the most compelling one is that you can use it anytime to get after you equipped with it. Also you can have more than one (Agent of Power is unique!), and you don’t loose any tempo, because with the British Museum, the minion equipping the Vial untaps afterwards immediately. (Also the Museum reduces the cost of the equipment to zero pool).
When you have rushed a vampire with the Patient and (hopefully) torporized a minion, he dies after the combat. Then you use Pressing Flesh to bring him back to (un-)life and rush again (if necessary) in the same turn, since then he has no “summing sickness”.
While the use of Vial of Elder Vitae & Agent of Power looks good, it’s actually quite limited with its 8+4 copies. You can get some back using Tye Cooper’s special ability, but that’s somewhat sketchy. Therefore it’s actually to use the the one Malkavian antitribu (Bloodfeud) for recruiting the Patients and Abebe for playing Pressing Flesh, provided of course you’re able to get them in the first place. So the ideal crypt would probably be, Abebe (for Thanatosis), Bloodfeud (Malkavian antitribu), Lubomira (for superior Obfuscate) and either Keith Moody or Jackson Asher (for Dominate). And that Dominate is the last part of the combo, that is using Grave Robbing to deny the other player from rescuing his torporized, ideally even bringing him back to your own ready region.
The deck also has a nice assortment of allies from which you can choose according to the opponents, e.g. you an use the Veneficti for a little stealth bleed (provided your prey has little/no intercept) or you can use the Ponticulus for defend against rush combat decks, etc. The rest of the deck are basically support cards like the Obfuscate stealth cards or the Fake Out combat cards.
This deck is not easy to play as it looks. You’ll have find the right target for the Rush/Torporize/Grave Robbing, you’ll have to find the right time for this and you have to turn all of this into game win, most likely by also striking a deal of some sort with another player. Easiest opponents are probably decks featuring a star vampire, whose loss is crippling to your prey or predator (or from whoever your stealing it).
Deck Name: escaped from museum
Author: TTC_master
Description: Champion de France 2023.
Crypt (12 cards, min=6 max=14 avg=2.33)
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2x Abebe 4 nec obf thn Samedi:4
1x Keith Moody 3 DOM Tremere antitribu:4
1x Lubomira Hradok 3 OBF Nosferatu antitribu:5
1x Alu 2 obf Banu Haqim:5
1x Bloodfeud 2 obf Malkavian antitribu:4
1x Denette Stensen 2 obf Gangrel antitribu:4
1x Jackson Asher 2 dom Ventrue:4
1x New Blood 2 san Blood Brother:ANY
1x Old Neddacka 2 obf Nosferatu antitribu:4
1x Cäsar Holfield 1 obf Caitiff:4
1x Iris Bennett 1 pro Caitiff:5
Library (80 cards)
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Master (17; 4 trifle)
4x Agent of Power
5x British Museum, London, The
1x Direct Intervention
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Inceptor
1x Information Highway
2x Not to Be
1x Powerbase: Montreal
Action (21)
5x Graverobbing
8x Pressing Flesh
8x Summon History
Ally (10)
1x Carlton Van Wyk
1x Cry Wolf
2x Escaped Mental Patient
1x Felix “Fix” Hessian
1x Gianna di Canneto
1x Muddled Vampire Hunter
1x Ponticulus
1x Tye Cooper
1x Veneficti
Equipment (12)
1x Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Ritual Goblet
1x Sargon Fragment, The
8x Vial of Elder Vitae
Action Modifier (12)
1x Cloak the Gathering
4x Domain of Evernight
1x Faceless Night
1x Lost in Crowds
1x Spying Mission
4x Veil the Legions
Combo (2)
1x Swallowed by the Night
1x Gift of Sleep
Reaction (2)
1x Deflection
1x Delaying Tactics
Combat (2)
2x Fake Out
Event (2)
2x Unmasking, The