t Helena Guns
Highlights
This is a classic guns wall on a Toreador t crypt, starring Helena. The plan is straightforward: block everything that moves, shoot the blocked minion into torpor at long range, and let Fame and Smiling Jack, The Anarch convert those blocks into pool damage.
Every vampire in the crypt has both Auspex and Celerity , all at superior except the smallest, Yvette. Helena anchors the wall: even locked, a blood lets her block and play her Auspex reactions, so she is never really out of the game. Ira Rivers cycles the reaction pack at high speed, and Joaquin Murietta is the designated gunman.
More than a third of the library is reactions: Eagle's Sight, Enhanced Senses, Eyes of Argus and Quicken Sight pile up intercept, with KRCG News Radio and Bowl of Convergence as permanent support. What cannot be blocked gets bounced by Telepathic Misdirection and My Enemy's Enemy.
Combat is guns and Celerity : .44 Magnum and Sniper Rifle, often flashed mid-combat with Concealed Weapon, with Pursuit and Quicken Sight maneuvers to keep the fight at long range. Blur provides additional strikes and Psyche! starts it all over again, while Sideslip dodges or prevents and Taste of Vitae refills the blood spent along the way.
The pool engine is a spread of master cards: Vessel, The Rack and Society Hunting Ground sustain the vampires, while Powerbase: Montreal speeds up the influence of the star. The deck wins slowly — hold the table, torpor the troublemakers, and let Fame and Smiling Jack, The Anarch grind the pools down.
Tips & Tricks
Sniper Rifle shines on defense: as the blocker one can force long range, where most acting minions cannot shoot back, and Blur at superior adds two more shots for up to 6 ranged damage. Keep Psyche! in hand against combat-ends cards: it counters them and queues a fresh combat, which is what makes this wall genuinely dangerous rather than merely annoying.
Millicent Smith is a wall's dream gift: pass her to the predator, and any of their minions one blocks burns outright, Millicent with it. Given Helena's ability and the number of Eagle's Sight, all opponents must ask permission when they have her on board. Wash plays a defensive role too, canceling a Pentex Subversion that would otherwise shut the star down, and Direct Intervention stops the one minion card the deck cannot afford to see resolve.
The Erciyes Fragments can lift a bounce or a wake from the prey's ash heap. Do not block everything: the library is finite, and the deck applies little forward pressure of its own, so pick the actions that matter.
Variants
The main line is remarkably stable: Ricardo Nelson's deck, which won a 38-player event, is virtually the same list card for card. The Mariachi build of Yuri Prange's deck only tweaks the crypt and adds Giant's Blood and a pair of Villein to the same skeleton.
The Downward Spiral variant of Eduardo Mateus' deck is built around Helena (ADV), who pays no blood cost for her Auspex and Dominate reactions. It drops the guns entirely for a pure reaction game: 13 Obedience and 10 Deflection on her superior , plus Diabolic Lure enabled by her infernal Daimoinon , with Antediluvian Awakening and Smiling Jack, The Anarch doing the ousting.
The Massassi variant of Andrew Stott's deck transplants the same guns and Celerity combat package onto an Osebo Z crypt. Massassi can enter combat on her own, tilting the archetype from wall towards rush, with Ashur Tablets recycling the combat cards and Dragonbound plus Fame turning each torpored vampire into pool damage.
The Themistocles variant of José Barbosa's deck leads with the Brujah o Themistocles over a mixed Toreador t and Osebo Z support crypt. It keeps the guns and the reaction wall but adds Nose of the Hound and Haven Uncovered to go pick fights with locked minions instead of waiting for something to block.