Inspiring Innocents

Description: Get out a ton of Imbued and Strike with Conviction until everyone is ousted. This deck is a real killer and surprisingly resilient as well. I can't recall ever having been ousted while playing it, although sometimes the table falls in unfortunate ways (see game 1 above). Now that I've won a tournament with a basic Imbued deck like this, it's only weird tricks and hybrid decks from here on out. I promise! You might think I'd want more copies of Travis or Jennie here but in some games, I really come close to emptying my crypt. I've just found it useful to be able to get out as many as 11 Imbued. I never really use Unity, but it seems like it should be here. Brothers Grimm is very key. Nobody ever tries to take it. It's just free pool! There are really a lot of masters here and I usually am holding way more than I can expect to play. That's fine. Imbued decks do not need to cycle cards the way vampire decks do thanks to the way Convictions work. Transients really aren't needed. It is also interesting to mention that I don't think I played a single Angel of Berlin this tournament. There was once or twice I might have, but it was more important to Sudden something earlier in the turn. Totally useless. I don't think I've ever played Bond. If I were to keep playing this deck, I'd drop these in an instant. You really can't have too many Convictions. Considering how many minions I tend to get out, this is a little light. But just having 8 or 9 minions usually makes you win anyway, so there's not any real need to add more. I always go for React first since the worst thing someone can do is steal my minion and use it against me. I am notoriously lucky in drawing The Unmasking early. In fact, I think I played it on the first or second turn (once thanks to Fortschritt) in each round this tournament. Thirst is just there as an enabler, but sometimes it helps to hurt other vampire decks. I'm not that interested in playing a bunch of events that would hurt people cross-table. This deck isn't intended to make any extra enemies until the endgame. The most important rule for Champion is to never use it. As soon as you have Champion out, your predator makes it a top priority to get it tapped or to burn/steal that minion. As long as that guy is just sitting there untapped with his Champion, your predator will dispair. Inspire is a very nice power because the individual effect is too small to get that worked up over, but when used repeatedly by multiple minions, it is devestating. Donate is very nice because people forget about it. I think I've mostly just used it for extra bleed, but could easily imagine wanting it for the other uses. I'm also a big fan of Rejuvenate. It's really the only thing that makes Beatrice playable. On the other hand, I've found very little use for Hide or Project. Most of the time, I just don't want to spend the extra convictions and gaining a little extra stealth or protection for one minion doesn't really contribute to the swarming strategy. I really haven't gotten much use out of these. I know some players swear by them, but I don't like bouncing bleeds to the wrong place and actions I have to stop are usually better handled by blocking or Direct Intervention.