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Tuesday 1 June 2010

Tears of Mephistopheles: No path for the Samedi

Hi folks!

As some of you might know, I am a big fan of the bloodlines. Since HttB I constantly think of building new types of Samedi decks like my Pressing Shambo deck. I don't want to build any well known deck around them like the Reanimated Corpse, or turbo Baron deck. While trying to figure out new ways of using Samedi I realized that there is one card missing like hell: a Path!

Samedi's greatest problem lies in blood management. You have Houngan, which is great, but surely not enough. While Samedi have awesome cards, like Under My Skin, Rigor Mortis or Compress, most of their goodies cost blood. Since they cannot bounce bleeds and can't generate enough intercept, you need to rely on Vessels, Blood Dolls or Villeins to get some pool. This will leave your vampires with only 3-4 blood left or even less. From this blood amount you need to be able to pay for their cards. I am pretty sure you will run out of blood very fast.

This is the point the Path could come handy. You could play those combat cards "for free" to get blood back from taste of vitae, or you could use that Under My Skin to stealth over any blocking minion when going for a restoration. Let's take a look at two other Path cards that were released in HttB!

The Ahriman got the Path of Harmony. No doubt, it is a great card, but did they need one? I'd say no. Ahriman was already very strong without the Path. With cards like Engling Fury and Vulture's Buffet, they were very good at blood management without the Path. Cards like Ears of the Hare, Falcon's Eye, Swiftness of the Stag, Speak with Spirit's don't even cost blood!

The other Path I want to write about is the Path of Servitude. Was there really a need for it? Again, my answer is no! Raking Talons, Roll, Dive Bomb, Patrol, Voice of the Castle and the list continues. Notice something? They don't cost blood. With Potence as a clan discipline and all their prevent cards, the Gargoyles are perfectly fine with Taste of Vitae as the only source of blood management, but they also can defend the Rack.

I am only one player, so my word really doesn't count, but if there is somebody out their who feels a little sympathy for the Samedi please support me. A Path of Voodoo or whatever the card will be named wouldn't really hurt the game, but it would help the Samedi a lot!

by: Mephistopheles

8 comments:

  1. What the Samedi need most, in my modest oppinion, is more good combat cards, so rush combat, although not very effective play style, at least becomes a feasible deck option. There´s no single combat-ends hoser as clan card ( see death-seeker) or as thanatosis card.

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  2. I see the Samedis a clan stuck with ally decks, Reanimated Corpse ones, and Reanimateds + Shambling Hordes.

    A path wouldn't hurt, but would make Reanimateds really cheap: with Path and Charisma, and a minion with sup THN, a Reanimated with 4 counters is free! Don't know if it's the boost we would need or it would be disbalancing.

    In the other hand, better combat cards for the Samedi would be a good start point.
    When I first saw Groaning Corpse, a combat module with Trap+Groaning+Prevention(Superior Mettle?... expensive), and the Samedis *could* be some threat.

    Finally, for Under My Skin and Putrescent Servitude, mainly, the Path would be sweet, UMS is a must-carry on the deck

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  3. In my oppinion, it has to do with background.
    I don't know if you have ever played Vampire: The Masquerade, the roleplaying game. V:TES is mainly based on it, of course. In the roleplaying game, the Samedi don't have a path of their own (like, for example, the Lasombra and the Path of Night). That's the reason why, sadly, the Samedi will never have a Path card.

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  4. T-34!

    I don't really play v:tm, so I didn't know that. Well, it doesn't have to be path, but they could get a card with similar effect.

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  5. I agree, something like retain the quick blood maybe?

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  6. Perfectionist is better than most paths if you plan right. Perfectionist gives a blood every turn on a successful action where no reaction cards are played, something not hard to accomplish between stealth and freak drives. There is no need to defend perfectionist and it is free.

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  7. I still think that the biggest problem for the Samedi is the lack of ousting power. They don't have any offensive cards, no votes, not even disciplines that could be used to deal a lot of damage. What they have is a lot of stealth, a lot of bloat-tech and a medicore combat-tech. Well, not all clans are for total domination, there should be some for toolboxing and I think the Samedi are perfect for that.

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  8. Distilling wisdom from Ishvalan's and T-34's comments:

    I would rather see a card that make only Thanatosis combat cards cheaper, so We would not have to create a non-existing unrooted thing as a path for the Samedi, and we would not inballance the game with too cheap undead hordes for the Wodoo people.

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