Thoughts on: survival against stealth bleed decks

Hi folks!

Just a little brainstorming from my hotel room in Orlando, Florida. This is about how to survive a stealth bleed predator, supposing you are not playing a wall deck.

1. Total block denial

This is the most important point. You want to make your predator's hand jam with stealth and reaction cards as fast as possible. Key point here is that you never let him cycle any stealth card, so you never block. Make sure your grand predator never tries to block the stealth bleeders undirected actions, like hunting or actions like The Call. Should your predator try to cross table act in order to provoke a block attempt (stealing Montreal, Rack, etc.) make sure you convince the target player to decline the block attempt.

2. Try to cancel card drawing master cards

Should you play with Sudden Reversal or Wash keep them for your predator. At the early stage of the game don't mind your prey playing a minion tap or whatever. You really should focus on surviving first. Fortunately v:tes is not a turbo game, you'll have plenty of time to deal with your prey, supposed you survive! So save those Sudden's for cards like Dreams of the Sphinx, The Barrens or similar cards. Remember, we want our predator jam on useless cards.

3. Try to convince your grand predator not to bleed

Most of the popular stealth bleed deck play with bleed bounce. This is why you want to convince your grand predator not to bleed, not even for one! This way your predator will not only jam on stealth cards, he will also jam on reaction cards! You might need to offer your grand predator something in return, like calling the KRC's 2/2 or even 1/3 or just to back rush. Whatever helps you making your predator jam on his hand!

4. If playing combat, always back rush first

This very basic rule of combat decks applies even more if you have a stealth bleed deck as a predator. Let's say Gilbert Duane hits the board behind you. If your predator promises you not to bleed for two turns if you don't rush him you should reject! It's better to take a bleed for 6 right in the beginning and get rid of a threat than to let him Govern down 1-2 times and then face 2-3 vampires you might not be able to handle by the time you realize the threat!

5. Make use of the tables sympathy

You'll have it! More often you will notice that even your own prey will be willing to help you. An aggressive stealth bleed will almost always end up in being the table hate number 1. Since you will be his "victim" you will have the tables sympathy. Make use of it! Grab every resource you can (getting pool from another players Parity Shift, getting the Montreal, etc.) and try to get other players to rush/vote against the stealth bleeder.

Normally it shouldn't take you long to get your predators hand jammed. Let's say you achieve your goal after 25-30 minutes after the start. Another 30 minutes of defensive play should help you recover. You will still have an hour left to play for the game win!

All this only works with certain deck types. I think in modern v:tes it is important that your tournament deck has ways to produce pool. It can be the Ashur/Liquidation tech, Parity Shift or Con Boons, Blood Dolls and cards that add blood from the blood bank to your uncontrolled vampires, etc. Being able to generate pool is a basic requirement for a tournament deck, at least in my eyes.

This strategy needs a lot of self-control and more often plenty of table talk, but for me it worked. Next time Morel hits the table behind you remember this article and give it a try.

by: Mephistopheles