Group: 4
Capacity: 10
Caste: Vizier
obf AUS CEL NEC QUI
Independent: Once each combat, Dmitri may burn 1 blood to prevent all damage from the opposing minion's strike. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to get +1 stealth. Blood cursed.

Out Of The Box: Draught, Truth of Blood, Bounce options, and the ability to recycle burnt minions via Demonic possession. The specials are fairly strong, although burning a blood for an obf minions is maybe a it wasted. The ability to ignore non additional hitback is huge though, and can see this guy doing a very nice wall deck

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Can I plz haz special?!?

Dmitri is a Star. That's all you need to know. He can have fun with various Necro tricks. More so than Qadir the only other Assamite that has the discipline. Whispering here and there, possessing this and that, feeling the chill of oblivion, picking up a chair to hades. Whatever you need. He can even play Trochomancy the new Auspex\Necro combo card. Speaking of the Auspex as mentioned he can bounce. But he can also do some other interesting things, such as Pulse or even wall up if you are so inclined. Then we get to combat and he's an Assamite, what can't he do. Oh and he can even prevent the initial hit back if any. Meaning he can take that Breathe of the Dragon, the Conflagaration or anything else of that nature.

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By way of deception, thou shalt do war. --Mossad Motto
The young can't teach the traditions to the old. --Yoruba Proverb
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my Brother. Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii

Question: what's the best way to burn guys with Dmitri?

Obviously he wants to burn people. He can play Draught of the Soul (aka Sir Card Not Reprinted in This Starter) and Daemonic Possession, and has stealth, and is an Assamite. Burning folks is just a natural thing for him to want to do. But how? What's the best play for him?

I'd speculate that CEL/guns/taste of death might be workable, if difficult. It's permanent-based, at least. Runs into the standard "odd blood, no death for you" issue, but you can fix that with Exuding Blood or Blood Sweat. Seems to be a waste of his prevention ability though.

If Dmitri is a star, he's a blocking star; he has AUS and no multiaction disciplines, so the best way for you to get two uses out of him a turn is by blocking. However, he can play Quickened Sight, one of the best intercept cards in the game.

He's really the king of multidiscipline cards, being able to play:
Quickened Sight
Trochiomancy
Truth in Blood
Draught of the Soul
Retain the Quick Blood
Masque of Judas inferior
Shadow Strike inferior

Most of those are pretty good cards. (Well, Trochiomancy is a poor man's Threats, but it's still good for a dude with no DEM/DOM/PRE - like Dmitri...)

I don't consider Dmitri to be a star. There are three vampires with AUS/CEL/QUI/obf in groups 4/5 (Massassi and Kabede Maru) and seven Assamites with Auspex (5 inf/2 SUP). That's a lot of Auspex!

The thing Assamites lack now is +strength. Joe gets the only unconditional version and Jamal is only good vs Camarilla. So we're going to have to work weapons (guns) or Quietus strikes (probably at range) in G4/5 for the time being.

Quicken Sight is great for this obviously, as is Selective Silence. Open Dossier, Resist Earth's Grasp, and Mercury's Arrow are all cards which supply maneuver capability from Lords of the Night. REG and MA also cost blood, so get those Retain the Quick Bloods and have a blast.

Demitri + Loss + inherent stealth is very strong. Pulse him up if you feel like risking him entirely.

Telepathic Counter + Nest of Eagle's can also go a long way if you want to be wallish with your Auspex. Really, there are lots of options. This guy is going to be big for clan Assamite.

He has multiple options outside of diablery. Unpreventable stuff from a distance until empty, then spit some agg. Unpreventable melee weapons until they suffer from agony. The rather popular WWS blur some talons. Could even use some Necromancy for anti-Fort combat. A bloody garrote deck would be possible but the other options are far better.

It essentially comes done to the question of. Do you want close range or long range combat? If you go long. I'd go the Sweat to Death route. You can always taste back any blood you don't save via Retain the Quick Blood or a Path.

We might worry from time to time when another cel deck is 'round. But other than that, we can prevent the Conflag, the Breath of the Dragon, a Gate or a well aimed car even. Don't even have to worry 'bout walk of flame. We can even have a secondary protection with Chill of Oblivion and use Whispers for recursion of needed\useful cards.

I also agree with what Jeff said.

_________________
By way of deception, thou shalt do war. --Mossad Motto
The young can't teach the traditions to the old. --Yoruba Proverb
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my Brother. Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii

It's not a bad crypt, tho it can be largish. My version of the new Smitespex crypt only has 2 Dmitri, since i want to get at least 3 minions out most games. I'm running a few AUS skillz and WoKR as well for backup. It works okay.



I've found inherent stealth to be strong regardless of cost. Morrow the Sage has won me a game on her permastealth before, and her special costs double. Perfectionist or Capitalist can minimalize this somewhat.



Yeah, bleed reduction is getting more solid with Nest/T-Counter. That's a potential 5 bleed reduction with two cards. Drop in a few T-Mis and Major Boon, a couple Dummy Corporation, and you're pretty solid.

I think:

2 Telepathic Misdirection
5-6 Telepathic Counter
5-6 Nest of Eagles
2 Dummy Corporation
2 Major Boon
4-6 untaps of choice (Black Sunrise being preferable for staying untapped after a failed block and reducing the bleed).

...is a pretty solid defensive package that runs 20-24 cards, doesn't allow stealth to cycle much, and will really slow down small-cap or ally-based bleed. It'll do okay against large-cap bleed as well.

If your predator refuses to bleed you, you may have difficulty moving them cards, however. I find that if i'm moving forward with enough tenacity my predator just can't help himself.

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The simulacrum is never that which conceals truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none.
The simulacrum is true.

-Ecclesiastes

He could be nice eye of hazimel star.
something like thin blood+grapple+Scorpion's Touch/Dagon's Call/dead hand.

turn should go:
flurry --> use build-in stealth if needed --> untap --> rush

Having built in prevent makes this guy pretty fearless in combat. I'd prolly utilize this special to go the close route to ignore the hitback. That opens up a few options with SatTF + cel or baal + garrote. If you got the path in play I'd roll with thin bloods too to help with S:CE and prevents with blood costs.

Another route I found to be quite useful of late is Sacrificial Lamb. It's assamites answer to to the blood curse and with Dmitri's stealth special he's better equipped to pull it off. Stealth in to burn a dood in torpor and cash in his capacity in blood plus all his equip.... all with no blood hunt. It's a D action so it qualifies for trophies and also for draught as well.

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Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Unless it cuts off your legs. Then it just makes you shorter.

You could do a Mercy for Seth multistrike deck that catches them on the backside with a Foul Blood when they hunt.

<edit> I just posted a deck based around this idea int the Assamite deck forum. It's called, "Dmitri's Merciful Glory".

Mod Edit: Here's a link to it.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=257

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Comments Welcome,
Norman S. Brown, Jr
XZealot
Archon of the Swamp

http://archonoftheswamp.tripod.com/

He has great special, innate inf. skin of steel! what Assamites need when up against real combat? prevent. that's a real treat.

I see a nice synergy with Truth of Blood and Trochomancy, block needs a discard of 2 random cards and as said before in target-strategy discussions <-that has also nice synergy with ToB.

Multiacting isn't easy for this bugger, but there's that Monster.

Lots of variation with this vampire, doesn't need to be a star vamp, but he has lot to offer on that part too.

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http://kotisivut.edu.pkamk.fi/~0601966/

While I don't think very highly of Dimitri, I think he suffers too greatly from "I'm a star", he can however be a serious blood / action denier.
Scorpion's Touch followed by Mercy for Seth = bloodloss galore and actions to get rid of them. Both work as very effective anti-Imbued as well, which is very nice to have when in contact with them.

Ofcourse, any vampire able to play Draught of the soul out of the box is nice, but having blood curse on top of it, well.. Shameful. Kabede Maru in this aspect clearly outshines him, what with having access to aggravated hands and IG as well.

I hope to see someone come up with something innnovating concerning him, though I dont have my hopes up for it.

Dimtri can burn vampires as well as any Assamite can. He can set to long, make you sweat to death with appropriate amounts of press, additionals and tastes. Not to mention the ability to get retain the quick blood at 2 stealth with his secondary special.

If you don't like that method of burning a vamp. There are options with the Assamites. With Dimtri you can even use Necromancy to your advantage. It's not necessary to make him a star. But there's also no reason not to take advantage of some cards. A couple chill of oblivion wouldn't hurt you. However at the same time with his main special are you really worried about agg? What it comes down to is what's best for the deck you want to build, if you want to build it in the first place.

_________________
By way of deception, thou shalt do war. --Mossad Motto
The young can't teach the traditions to the old. --Yoruba Proverb
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my Brother. Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii

Actually, he's blood cursed. And being able to take a cardless action against a vampire in torpor versus adding combat cards and agg-permanents to do multiple aggravated damage is a big difference.

All the non-blood cursed Assamites can burn vampires "better" than Dmitri.

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The simulacrum is never that which conceals truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none.
The simulacrum is true.

-Ecclesiastes

But even the uncursed Assamites need combat cards or agg weapons to commit the act. As Vampires don't willingly go to torpor. Sure there are exceptions to that. But for the most part you need combat to get vampires in torpor.

_________________
By way of deception, thou shalt do war. --Mossad Motto
The young can't teach the traditions to the old. --Yoruba Proverb
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he to-day that sheds his blood with me. Shall be my Brother. Henry V, Act IV, Scene iii