Thoughts on: Narrow Minds vs. The Uncoiling

Narrow Minds seems like a very good card to have in any deck that doesn’t use bleed bounce. However I think that if you take a closer look, you will find that there are some arguments against playing with it. Basically there are two types of decks that will use this event card (based on what I have seen so far at tournaments).

The first being some sort of aggressive bleed deck that doesn’t use dominate or auspex like: weenie presence, pre-obf, weenie dementation, weenie obf (either computer hackers, or spying mission/night moves deck) and so on. Within this category I would suggest to make another distinction. You can either go with the standard 90 cards deck, or you can try to make your deck as tight as possible for a better card draw and maybe add some Ashur Tablets if you are afraid of running out of cards too early. My personal playstyle suggests the tightened version. In this case there are two important facts you want to keep in mind: a) since you want to tighten your deck, you will have only very few spots for master and event cards and b) you will rush for the end of the game as fast as possible. Because of a) you won’t find a free spot for Narrow Minds, since for any aggressive bleed deck the master section has to cover two things first: 1) efficient block denial and 2) sufficient blood support. My experience tells me that for a 60-75 card deck you should not play more than 13 master cards, assuming that you use some trifle master cards. At this point I have to make clear that I consider an event card to be a sort of master card. The reason is, that when you draw to replace action or action modifiers and you draw a master card you will have one less card in your hand that you can use to make a bleed successful! It's the same with event cards. With a deck that easily plays 10 cards or even more in a given turn you may end up with an annoying master/event jam. To cover point 1) and 2) you will most likely use the following cards: Pentex Subversion, Anarch Troublemaker, Misdirection, The Coven, Giants Blood, Life in the City/Vessel/Blood Doll. Let’s say we are going to play a weenie presence bleed deck. In this case we surely want to play: 2x Pentex Subversion, 1-2x Anarch Troublemaker, 1-2x Misdirection, 1x Coven, 1x GB and let’s say 4x Life in the City (better than Vessel because you can avoid hunting, maybe better than Blood Doll because it’s trifle). So you already used up ~11 master spots and you still didn’t cover the two other essential points: 3) prevent your prey from getting pool (due to villein, minion tap, blood doll, vessel, etc.) and 4) ensure yourself a better card draw (Dreams of the Sphinx, The Barrens for those of you who are afraid of contesting the Dreams, etc.). See what I’m saying? You have only 2 spots left and still have to face two unsolved points. At this pont you can either go with 2x Wash (wouldn’t miss this card) and leave point 4) unsolved or you can reduce your blood support and sacrifice 2x Life in the City for 2x Dreams of the Sphinx. So here comes the question: where is the free spot for Narrow Minds?

This question becomes even more interesting, if you look at fact b). Narrow Minds will increase the cost of bouncing bleed by one blood, which seems sweat, but imo doesn’t actually help your game. Since in the early stage of the game all vampires will be at full, or at least close to full capacity, the increased cost for bouncing a bleed will be only unpleasant for your first prey. I’d say that at least 75% of your whole game depends on how fast or easily you can oust your first prey. If your find yourself preying on a weenie auspex, or a defensive type of Ventrue! Grinder deck, your chances to win the game drop dramaticaly. Even to make that one vp will use up most of your resources and Narrow Minds won’t make the difference. When could Narrow Minds be of big help? I’d say only in the late game, when most of the vampires are on a low blood level, but this is exactly what you want to avoid! With a tightened, aggressive deck you never want to reach this stage of the game.

So, from what I discussed so far you can see that I am against the usage of Narrow Minds in decks like weenie presence, etc. But how about using The Uncoiling? You will still have a hard time to find a spot for it in your deck. The difference to Narrow Minds is that there are 3 good arguments to force The Uncoiling into your deck: a) The Unmasking, b) Anthelios and maybe surprisingly c) Dragonbound. The Unmasking can basically kill your deck. Imagine some Nephandi staying as a wall in front of you with a constant 1 intercept. Imagine a Khazar’s Peasant deck with The Unmasking in play. Nightmare. If you play a weenie presence deck, that one intercept will make your entrancements useless. You can’t mind numb, or use Anarch Troublemaker on allies. You can’t bypass them with a daring the dawn. A weenie dementation deck will have to play a stealth card besides confusion on every bleed action, but will be totally helpless against an imbued deck or a Carlton van Wyk. It’s often a metagame based decision, but ally decks with Unmasking are still pretty often seen at tournaments. Another event card that can really crush your game is Anthelios, the Red Star. An ever returning Minion Tap or Liquidation can really use up your whole bleed potential, leaving you with too little cards left in your deck for the Game Win, if you ever manage to oust this sort of deck. Don’t hesitate to burn Anthelios cross tabel! I mentioned Dragonbound because you will have 1-2 vampires in torpor almost every game, maybe even more. However, with a weenie deck this doesn’t have to mean that you can’t win the game, since you will often have enough pool to bring out more vampires. With 2-3 vampires in torpor, maybe one of them with a Fame and a successful bleed for 1-2 from your predator Dragonbound can be a real pain in the ass. Those extra 2-3 pool per turn will most often rob you of the opportunity to tranfer and bring out more vampires. Conclusion: though depending on your metagame I’d suggest to find a spot for The Uncoiling. This card can turn a possible disaster into a(n easy) game win and I wouldn’t think of burning an Unmasking or Anthelios as a corner case.

I think the discussion above will pretty much apply to a 90 cards version of any aggressive deck, too. The difference is, that you will be able to find a spot for Narrow Minds and The Uncoiling. This might make sense, because it provides you with versatility. While having the option to burn nasty events with The Uncoiling you still have the option open to play Narrow Minds instead. Since a 90 cards version won’t run out of resources too fast, you still can have a chance in the mid or end game. At this point the extra blood cost can make a difference so the usage of Narrow Minds can be justified.

The second deck type that may find usage for Narrow Minds is a non-auspex based wallish deck, which doesn’t have dominate available for bleed bounce. Such decks are: Ahriman, Ravnos (if it’s not based on Gabrin), Gangrel/Gangrel!, Nosferatu/Nosferatu!, etc. Narrow Minds can help these decks in two ways: a) less pressure from your predators side, since he/she won’t cycle bounce cards on bleeds for 1 (ofc. There are other reasons as well), and b) your prey will have a hard time bouncing your bleeds. Since you are most likely going to play Deep Songs or presence cards (I love Enchant Kindred in Ahriman decks) your prey will either have to take the bleed or loose 2 blood for playing that Deflection or Telepathic Misdirection. Since you can block his/her hunt actions, or other actions to gain blood and hurt him/her in combat this seems really sweet. A big pro for playing Narrow Minds here. However never forget to take a close look at the tables dynamic before you play Narrow Minds, since it effects the whole table. You may find yourself in a situation where it will hurt you more than it will help. Since I always play a copy of Dragonbound in such decks, I wouldn’t consider to play The Uncoiling.

My conclusion: in a bleed deck The Uncoiling is far more important than Narrow Minds, while most of the wallish or toolbox decks may find Narrow Minds a considerable card to play. This conclusion actually differs a little from what I have seen so far, but don’t forget that this article reflects my personal playstyle and therefore is entirely subjective. I hope you find this article interesting and if you have any thoughts feel free to comment. Helpful criticism is also appreciated.

by: Mephistopheles