We had a couple of new guys at the Isle of Wight festival and i lent them two
of my decks. The unlucky one got the Malkavian OOT combat deck which is
probably asking too much of a new person, but the other guy did just fine
with my presence-bleed deck of Cheese - 4th overall.

Anyway i've been thinking about the Malky combat deck and talking about it
with Rob Treasure and i think there is a better and simpler version, based on
protean aggravated damage.

Crypt:
4 Greger Anderssen
Normal
Brazil
Watenda
Dollface
Ohanna
Aleph
Roland Bishop
Didi Meyers

Masters [18]:
5 Madness Network
6 Rotshreck
2 Direct Intervention
5 Protean

Actions [18]:
11 x Bum's Rush
4 x 3rd tradition: Progeny
3 x GtU [either that or Sacrificial Lamb or Graverobbing]

Combat [40]:
12 x Flesh of Marble
12 x Claws of the Dead
6 x Form of the Ghost
5 x Amaranth
5 x Ritual of the Bitter Rose

Votes [10]:
Anathema x 3
Malkavian Justicar x 2
Consanguineous Boon x 3
Archon x 2

Reactions [4]:
2nd Tradition: Domain x 4

Maybe there ought to be a space for Ivory Bow in here, just one of them.
Possibly replacing one of the Archons. And if i build this deck in real space
i will have to replace most of the Flesh of Marbles with Leather jackets and
blood Tears cos i only have 4.

I'm not sure about the Amaranth/Ritual combo though, and that's the reason
for this post. Can i use Amaranth to diablerise a vampire that is going to
torpor due to Rotschreck? We [James Coupe, William Lee and I] talked about
this on the IoW and were really unsure, though our feeling was probably not -
once strike combat ends has occurred, you can't do anything else [so if we're
right Catatonic fear at superior on a vamp with no blood could not be
followed by Amaranth, for example]. If not [ruling, LSJ?], the Amaranth cards
would go out and be replaced by +stealth action modifiers to cover the
diablerie - also useful for voting and equipping so you could use Forgotten
Labyrinth.