Play progress...

Thought I'd add in some play progress for my Cryptic Treaty deck, since its ability seems to be highly questionable in a number of people's eyes.

This is the third game it's one, this one was a 6-player. 4VPs

My prey was an Aching Beauty deck (Change of Targets, Torrents, Public Trust + Awe... Its opening bleed was for 8). It quickly took out a Brujah-Anti deck that is usually fairly competitive mostly because of hand-jam on the part of the Brujah... It slowly took out my Brutal Influence deck (which I have to admit, most people tend not to play so well but was basically shut down on both sides).

My prey bloated well (bringing out Alexandra, Anneke and Delilah Easton. Alex & Anneke had Aching Beauty and he had Art Museum), plus the 12 pool from ousting 2 players certainly helped.

For my own deck, I drew the Treaty of Laibach a little later than wanted (and then drew two more in the next two turns). Once the Laibach was on the table, I went into drive mode. Bled my prey out in around 3 turns. Then it went into a grind-mode. Gregory Winter and Cryptic Missions meant my minions had blood and the remaining two players didn't. Bleed reduce kept my pool nice and stable and the other two decks had issues getting actions off around each other. So I steadily bloated through the Edge.

My prey had Carna (w/ Ivory Bow & Archon) and I'd had a Carna in my uncontrolled since the initial draw. So, I contested Carna (paying for it with the Edge pool) and then proceeded to bleed him out (About 9 bleed in the first turn and the remaining 3 in the next). During the grinding period, I triggered my Ashur Tablets and then reclaimed all of my bleed and corruption counter tech. Turned around and bled out the only other player in 2 turns.

Downsides:

• No early Treaty of Laibach,
• Only got 1 Temptation off (when the Aching Beauty deck had Alex Pentexed and only Delilah who was tapped at the time).

Positives:

• Early Gregory Winter (He was vitally important for grinding more and more blood from minions. Players were looking to block him more than my other minion's actions. When I tried to recruit an Impundulu, cross-table players were suggesting the action should be blocked.) I think an early Impundulu would probably have been similar.
  
• Got plenty of Defensive Auspex (neutralised my predator and would have neutralised most predators)
• Drew enough combat to keep alive (Thefts, Read Intentions kept me alive against all of the different combat)
• One or two corruption counters can be placed early and people do forget about them until you land the 6-bleed.

Play History:
4 plays
3GWs 10+VPs
Opponents playing a variety of combat, walls, S&B and votes. Including a basically Tier 1 Ventrue Vote, Fairly stable bloating wall (Anathemas, Tre-Princes), AAA, Aching Beauty, Kindred Spirits, The Unnamed Nuke-Bleed...