Deck Name: tariq-bh-merged Author: David Cherryholmes Description: Most people are familiar with "Tariq eats the world" style decks. This deck takes that concept as a point of departure and refines it, so I'll focus mainly on the differences. Firstly, rather than utilize a lot of freak drives (or forced marches) for multirush, it uses wakes and eagle's sight. While differences exist, bum's rushing your prey's vampire and snagging him when he twitches with an Eagle's both amount to the same thing: combat with your chosen target. And in the case of Tariq, you will always have one proactive rush available every turn. This means your opponents can't try to stymie you by not acting with the vampire they care most about (although that scenario isn't exactly a loss for you, either). There are miscellaneous advantages to "inverting" the combat vehicle towards an Eagle's platform. For example, it addresses the question "what to do about politics, what to do about PTO?" There's no 100% answer to Arika calling a PTO cross table, but ES and permacept at least give you a chance. Focusing on ES also gives you a nice answer to Obedience decks, traditionally a hard bone to rush strategies. The next significant difference between this Tariq deck and the baseline is that it uses Atonement and the merged special. First, while he's still a low cap vampire, you Atone him. After that, you merge him. Now you have a 7+ cap vampire who doesn't tap to block, is running eagle's sights, and is building up permacept via Draught of the Souls. Black Sunrise also covers the window in which Atonement might (should) be burned by the horde at your back, when you are tapped out from getting it. Sunrise up, block the burn action, and stay untapped to block further attempts. Then we move on to the Anarch portion of the deck. Granted, this is another moving part that isn't absolutely essential, but I believe the overall advantages of going anarch are worth it. Firstly, you must consider that Tariq decks are weapon decks. As such, immortal grapple and DotB/Terror Frenzy are going to be your major trumps (there are others of course, but these are the most common in a tournament). Groundfighting plugs this hole, and is perfectly cyclable as a free maneuver or press if need be. Another advantage of going anarch is the ability to play Anarch Revolts. You of course are an anarch yourself, so you don't take any damage. You allow the rest of the table to go anarch, but either block your prey's attempts or rush whatever anarchs he has with Tariq's inherent rush in order to focus damage on him. Later, you can rush your grandprey's and great-grandprey's anarchs to yank the rug out from underneath them. Eagle's Sight and general intercept give you a chance to block attempts to call the vote to remove it, and you can always employ the threat of a rush..... carrot: "Don't call that vote to remove it and I'll torpor your prey's anarch" .... stick: "If you call that vote to remove it I'll burn your best vampire." Miscellaneous anarch advantages include Powerbase: LA, which has great synergy with your overall strategy of untapping and then staying untapped to block via Atonement. Another is Diversion, one of the earliest "playable" anarch cards. Tariq's Black Hand attribute isn't exploited very much in this deck. The only card I'm using at the moment is Corporal Reservoir. However, that is a great card, and helps out the last major component of the deck: Events. The events are focused on hosing disciplines, or at least making them more difficult to play. Your deck is largely disciplineless (Atone, cardless rush, weapon strike, amaranth), so on the whole you should benefit from it. The events may not make you popular with the rest of the players, but I've had enough experiences of easily-manipulated tools ignoring an Arika deck, in order to blow Tariq off the table (yes, I'm looking at *you*, EC 2005), so you can probably assume a lineup of hysterics screaming like little girls about your deck anyway. Screw 'em. The last bit of flavor is the dollop of Dementation sprinkled on the deck. Of course Psyches would be great, but there really isn't room for enough to make them more than a prayer card. Instead, the deck relies on getting Blessing of Chaos (which provides additional benefits) and NSA Trio. It's not a super-trump to S:CE but, then again, you are blocking, bleeding for a significant amount with Draughts, hitting with unbounceable pool damage from Anarch Revolts, and not wasting any cards in a combat in which they must strike first. No, it's not as good as 12 Immortal Grapples, but I consider the issue addressed. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 7 average: 5.34 ------------------------------------------------------------ 4x Tariq, The Silent 7 AUS FOR OBF QUI cel Assamite:2 3x Tariq, The Silent Adv 7 AUS FOR OBF QUI cel Assamite:2 1x Dan Murdock 3 aus obf Caitiff:1 1x Dollface 3 aus obf Malkavian:1 1x Lena Rowe 3 aus obf pre Pander:2 1x Watenda 3 obf Malkavian:2 1x Zoe 3 AUS cel obf Malkavian:2 Library [90 cards] ------------------------------------------------------------ Action [6] 4x Atonement 2x Blessing of Chaos Action Modifier [2] 2x Lost in Crowds Action Modifier/Combat [7] 5x Draught of the Soul 2x Swallowed by the Night Combat [28] 10x Amaranth 4x Disguised Weapon 5x Diversion 5x Groundfighting 2x Rolling with the Punches 2x Unflinching Persistence Equipment [10] 1x Flamethrower 3x Ivory Bow 1x Kali's Fang 3x Rowan Ring 2x Sengir Dagger Event [3] 1x Blood Weakens 1x NSA Trio 1x Slow Withering, The Master [20] 3x Anarch Revolt 3x Corporal Reservoir 1x Dementation 1x Effective Management 7x Galaric's Legacy 1x Gift of Experience 1x Pentex Subversion 2x Powerbase: Los Angeles 1x Vast Wealth Reaction [14] 3x Black Sunrise 7x Eagle's Sight 4x Forced Awakening