w Lasombra Pop
Highlights
This is a vote & bleed deck built on the legacy group 2 titled Lasombra w, one of the oldest shells in the game and still a quiet, regular winner. The crypt stacks Sabbat titles — Monçada the cardinal, the archbishops Antonio Delgado, Alvaro and Francisco, plus Gratiano and his extra ballot — and pops pool off the whole table with a thick pack of political actions. All of them opt for the Path of Power and the Inner Voice the moment they get influenced out.
As usual with , the plan is to get Monçada out first — Information Highway helps — and let him use Govern the Unaligned at superior to build the second vampire. The real engine is blood cycling: Villein turns a fat Lasombra w into pool, and Unholy Sacrament and Magnetic Authority feed it back into the uncontrolled crypt, so the second big vampire hits the table in a couple of turns without the pool ever really dropping.
The votes do the ousting. Kine Resources Contested spreads damage and opens negotiations, Cold War pairs pool damage with location removal, and Empires Fall punishes big-capacity tables. A toolbox of one-ofs — Banishment, Anarchist Uprising, Ancilla Empowerment, War of Ages — covers the rest. The native titles often lock the table on their own, with Power Structure and Powerbase: Madrid on top.
Referendums get through on Shadow Play, reliable at superior since every crypt member carries superior , backed by Shroud of Absence and a locked Elysian Fields. The same stealth serves the bleeds: Govern the Unaligned on its inferior is a bleed, and the titled Gratiano, Alvaro and Francisco all bleed at a bonus. Once the game goes heads-up, those bleeds, on top of the votes, are what closes it.
Defense is Deflection, usually lock-free given all the superior , propped up by the crypt's own unlocks: Monçada frees another ready Lasombra w every discard phase and Antonio Delgado readies himself after a passed vote, so holding Deflection open and acting the same turn rarely compete. Combat is a token combat ends package of Shadow Body and Oubliette.
Tips & Tricks
Everything hinges on opening with Monçada: he is the vote lock, and his discard phase unlock is what lets the deck act every turn and still hold Deflection open. Joscha Düll's own post-mortem is that four copies in a 12 card crypt was one too few — play 5 in 13.
Regent won this deck its final: 4 votes on a second minion, who then gets the double choice on Cold War. But the title paints a target — Sabbat vampires can rush the regent as a directed action — so it goes to the ash heap against combat-heavy Sabbat tables.
Pick the votes by the seating. Empires Fall is brutal into other big-cap decks and nearly blank into weenies — Neonate Breach is its mirror image — while Cold War doubles as location removal in a location-heavy meta. Alvaro banks 2 blood whenever he sits out a referendum, a small but steady income on wide tables.
The stealth package is deliberately lean and works in a tolerant meta; against dedicated blockers, more Shadow Play is the first tweak. Mind the crypt spread on the Potence / Presence modifiers: Gratiano can only play Dominant Personality at inferior.
Variants
The archetype is decades old — it lived a long life as Parliament of Shadows, described in the archive — and the 2025 Sabbat V5 set gave it its current shape, with Cold War, Empires Fall, Magnetic Authority and Unholy Sacrament replacing the older vote and refill packages. Recent winning lists are remarkably close to one another, and the differences sit at the margins.
Nikica Novaković's deck, winner of a 40-player event in 2026, runs the same five vampires in slightly different ratios but cuts combat cards entirely for five Obedience, goes deeper on Cold War and Banishment, and adds Unthinkable Humiliation and Voter Captivation to tax blockers and refill after referendums.
Robert Dvoran's deck from 2024 shows the pre-Sabbat V5 shape, leaning on Presence : Marcus Vitel splits the crypt, Minion Tap stands in for Villein, and the ousting adds Iron Glare bleeds with Voter Captivation bloat, Freak Drive double actions and Majesty to walk out of combat. It is essentially the old Vitel build described on the Parliament of Shadows page.