Blackmail

About Blackmail

Blackmail, Action, designed by Brian LeBlanc first released in June 2001 in the set Final Nights.

Blackmail is most useful in an Obfuscate stealth-bleed, political, or multi-action deck that wants to neutralize a particularly important blocker—especially an older vampire that Seduction cannot affect—since its superior version can prevent that vampire from blocking the acting vampire across multiple actions unless the target spends 2 blood to burn it; however, it is generally less efficient than standard stealth and block-denial options such as Elder Impersonation, Lost in Crowds, or Seduction, which provide immediate protection without requiring a separate setup or allowing the opponent to remove the effect later. Blackmail can be a reasonable metagame choice in a deck that repeatedly acts against the same key blocker, but its inferior version is weak and the superior version is situational, so it usually should not see regular play unless your deck specifically exploits persistent blocker suppression or has unusually strong Obfuscate recursion and multi-acting.