One of the things Steve wanted to see was innovative-but-competitive deck
ideas, so i'm reposting my Malkavian OOT Prince-protean combat deck. This is
an updated version, probably fifth edition by now.

The basic idea is to use Madness Network actions to rush OOT and strike for
agg damage, so that you can whack a rotschreck on to Kibosh SCE and damage
prevention decks. Some judgement is required in playing the Rotshrecks since
you have to play them simultaneously with the strikes, and you only get one
Rotshreck per time round the table. Then you use weenies to diablerise [or
you block and diablerise].

It works BRILLIANTLY. At the last Portsmouth tournament there were two decks
like this, and mine got 5 and Rob Treasure's got 12 in the heats. Then we
contested each other to death in the final. It's doubtful whether Rob will
ever speak to me again as a result, but i honestly had no choice - my then
version of the deck ABSOLUTELY relied on Greger Anderssen.

Apart from reducing its reliance on the toothsome Prince of Stockholm, i also
adoapted the deck in view of the fact that William Lee's !Nos "Cailean says
the range is LONG" deck beat me up quite badly in two of the heats there [A
Lasombra Shadow step deck would do the same thing, of course]; so i decided
to put in a bit of LR agg dam. Here roughly is the deck as it currently
stands:

CRYPT:
3 x Greger Anderssen
2 x Whatsisponsyface, Prince of Monaco
2 x Zebulon
Victoria
Watenda
Dollface
Normal
Brazil

4 x Madness Network
7 x Rotshreck
2 x Tribute to the Master
4 x Protean
2 x Fame
The Rack

12 x Bum's Rush
4 x Progeny

4 x Swallowed by the Night
2 x Rapid Change

9 x Second Tradition: Domain
4 x Precognition
2 x Eagles' Sight

2 x Homunculus

Ivory Bow
White Phosphorous grenade

13 x Claws of the Dead
3 x Flesh of marble
6 x Form of the Ghost
2 x Body of Sun

As you see, a VERY focussed combat deck whose [almost incidental] Plan B is
swarm bleed. Rob's deck is similar but not quite so focussed on combat. We
more- or-less evolved the concept independently, i believe, though of course
one talks about decks during tournaments and passes ideas around.

****************************

On a separate topic but in the same thread, and much as it pains me to
disagree with my old friend JediMike [from jol64 - Hiya matey!], i really do
not think you and steve are thinking clearly about the purpose of
tournaments. IMO tournaments are there purely and simply to promote the game.
Thus if they are working properly there should always be a healthy proportion
of new guys n gals coming along and playing, often playing badly and
generally losing of course but ALWAYS being cossetted and aided by the
experienced players.

This is certainly the philosophy at Portsmouth - we experienced players are
RUTHLESS with each other but we give the new people every possible aid short
of actually showing them which cards they should play to oust us. [Actually
come to think of it on the Isle of Wight i near enough did that - two new
people turned up and i lent them two of my decks and showed them how to play
the decks.] So as i see it there are TWO tournament metagames - one is the
jousting of the experienced players with each other, but the much more
important one is the less experienced players BECOMING experienced.

Anyway, i don't mean to come over all pompous and sanctimonious - by all
means let's talk about both, and remember that we were ALL totally shit at
Jyhad once upon a time, until some kind person showed us how to play
properly.