Contents:
I – Tournament Winning Strategies
II – Vampire of the Month (Barry)
III – Card of the Month (Friend of Mine)
IV – Deck Ideas/Strategy (Anarch Combat Revisited)
V – Conclusion

I – Tournament Winning Strategies

GenCon is coming up, so I figured I'd do a quick overview of some of the Anarch strategies that have won tournaments, and some of the things you can keep in mind if you want to represent the movement in the big brawl. In the last year, four Anarch decks have been posted to the TWD archive (refer to thelasombra.com). They are:
The Trickstars (Tom) – Anthelios-based toolbox
Ravnarchs (Izaak Kemp) – Ravnos vote/bleed toolbox
Transfer of Power (Philippe Morel) – pre/aus vote
Stay-Puft Marshmallow Deck (Ben Peal) – bleed/bloat
A quick browse through these decks will show you that an Anarch Tournament-Winning Deck looks very different from other kinds of TWDs. The only one that could really be described as "focused" is Philippe's Transfer of Power. Ben's Stay-Puft Deck is somewhat focused, though you can fairly easily see in it his characteristic "virus" paradigm, so it has a few more things going on. Tom's Trickstars and Izaak's Ravnarchs, though, show us just how amazingly toolboxy the Anarchs can be and still be competitive. Also note that these decks demonstrate how much the independent clans have benefited from the new 3-ways. Now, let's consider some of the factors all these decks have in common:
1) Permanents – locations, masters, equipment. These are very necessary in order to have a competitive Anarch deck. Most solid Anarch concepts are in it for the long haul, not necessarily for speed.
2) Stealth and/or action canceling – In a tourney situation, you don't want to be too carefree with even your smallest minions. Also keep in mind how fragile you're likely to be until you become Anarch. Note that many of these decks also have prevention and/or combat ends.
3) Disciplines shared outside of 3-ways – Usually I consider this fairly important. I'm starting to explore other options, but for now having at least one discipline outside of 3-ways – particularly a stealth discipline – is probably a good idea.
4) Mid-range crypt size – The Anarch weenie horde is certainly viable, as I think I demonstrated last month, but to be relatively solid in a tournament environment, particularly for voting, an average crypt in the 5-6 range is about right.
So, obviously you may want to experiment with something new and different to surprise people, but these are just a few things to keep in mind.

II – Vampire of the Month (Barry)

I was tempted to do a full-clan analysis of Blood Brothers this month, but the nice thing about them is that being Anarch really allows you to forget about the Sanguinus for a change, which means you can actually include them individually. Sure, Chicago Circle does a decent job of playing The Mole, and Torrance can actually get use out of Skullduggery, but really if you're playing all Brothers, you're going to tend towards the combat. It would be kind of cool to build the Blood Brothers Barons deck, but that's getting kind of quirky. So anyway, on to the vamp: Barry
Blood Brothers
Group: 2
Capacity: 5
ani for pot san vic
Chicago Circle. Barry gets +1 strength when in combat with an ally or a younger vampire. Sterile.
Barry has become a great Anarch as a result of the new 3-ways. He could be a perfect vamp for the Vicissitude Gear Up/Ambush/Loose Cannon combo, or he could apply the Loose Cannon threat when he goes for the Smash and Grab or the Fee Stake. He has access to arguably the best powers of The Mole and Diversion, and his special is decently useful. Most importantly, however, is the combination of The Mole (ani) and Friend of Mine (for). Just by himself, Barry makes for decent bleed defense with these two cards. And if you DO get into combat, Barry should be in a position to back it up. With all of the options he has available now, the inability to use Sanguinus is fairly minor. Compare him to Nettie Hale, who is also an excellent 5-cap Anarch with a single (usually) unused discipline.

III. Card of the Month (Friend of Mine)

This month, it's back to combat. One of the drawbacks of any dedicated combat deck tends to be lack of defense. A rush deck usually just tries to apply combat backwards if its predator is moving too quickly, but this often has limited success. Some combat paradigms have better defense than others (EuroBrujah), but combat Anarchs have characteristically been among the worst defenders. This has changed significantly with the introduction of one particular 3-way, my second favorite of the Gehenna set:
Friend of Mine
Reaction
Cost: 1
Requires a ready anarch
[for] Reduce a bleed against you by 2.
[nec] +1 Intercept
[obt] Only usable when a vampire successfully bleeds you. The acting vampire burns 2 blood
The Lasombra Newsletter has already discussed the Obtenebration power fairly well, and I tend to think that it's not as good unless you're focusing on it, so I'll discuss the other two powers. The Fortitude power is really the big one. It's bleed reduction for a combat discipline! More importantly, it's bleed defense for a number of clans who had little option before, such as Gangrel, Samedi, Daughters of Cacophony, and so on. Yes, there was always Banner of Neutrality, but that's too conditional and card-intensive for serious bleed defense. And the massive advantage is that you frequently will build your Anarch combat defense around Fortitude anyway, so having that cover your bleed defense as well is huge.
The Necromancy power is also quite good. It is in fact the first unconditional intercept on a 3-way, and with the nec power of Gear Up, it's looking like the Giovanni will be joining the movement soon. But really, this card looks like it was made for the Samedi - it covers two things they're weak on in a single card. How can you beat that?
Overall, Friend of Mine massively expands the options of Anarchy by enabling paradigms that have historically been weak on defense. I predict this is likely to become as critical a card as Diversion for Anarch decks that don't have Auspex or Dominate.

IV – Deck Ideas/Strategy (Anarch Combat Revisited)

One note about deck construction: last month I talked about the concept of "Happy Families, Backwards" as a way of thinking about Anarch crypts. As an example of this, Gaspare was not originally in the crypt for this deck. He only made it in when I realized that I wanted a little bit more of the nec and cel powers, and I have been very happy with that tweak.

Deck Name: Famous Friends
Created by: Eric Simon
Description: Potence rush with Mole and Friend of Mine for defense
Crypt: (13 Cards, Min: 8, Max: 18, Avg: 3.31)
----------------------------------------------
Aurora van Brande dom for OBT pot – Lasombra 6
Barry ani for pot san vic – Blood Brother 5
Earl dom for pot – Ventrue 4
Gaspare Giovanni cel nec POT – Giovanni 6
Gerard Rafin ani for OBF POT – Nosferatu 6
Jerry cel for pot SAN – Blood Brother 5
Jimmy Dunn CEL for POT – Pander 4
Tom for pot san – Blood Brother 3
Vincent Day aus dom for pot tha - !Ventrue 5
Vittorio Giovanni dom for nec pot – Giovanni 5
Wolfgang for obf pot – Nosferatu 4

Library: (90)
-------------------
Master (13)
The Anarch Free Press
5x Blood Doll
2x Fame
4x Haven Uncovered
Hospital Food

Action (20)
4x Ambush
3x Bum's Rush
8x Go Anarch
4x Smash and Grab
The Status Perfectus

Combat (40)
2x Disarm
10x Diversion
7x Immortal Grapple
5x Taste of Vitae
3x Thrown Sewer Lid
3x Torn Signpost
10x Undead Strength

Reaction (16)
9x Friend of Mine
7x The Mole

Event (1)
Dragonbound

Comments:
If I owned a second Dragonbound, it would be in there. However, I usually am able to bring it out in reasonable time (unless it's at the bottom) because the deck cycles pretty well. The combat is not so huge that everyone is worried about you, but it's generally good enough, particularly once Dragonbound hits the table. This is one of the few situations where I will use the Go Anarch action, because it cycles better in a combat deck. Also, I have a lot of them because I don't mind being blocked, but do prefer the card to the cardless action.

V – Conclusion

I hope this month's discussions will inspire some of you to take up the banner of Anarchy for the big events coming up – if not for the NAC itself, then at least for the Shadow Twin. Next month's newsletter (which may or may not come before GenCon) I will tackle Loose Cannon and Elizabeth Westcott. Err, ahem. Yeah. Until then.

Eric Simon
Prince of Chicago
Anarch Newsletter Writer