[poll]: Most hated cards

Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be possible to make a Most Hated Deck. I'll start of: 5. Hostile Takeover. (IMO worse than ToGP, you only need Rufina to play it.) 4. Direct Intervention (still too good) 3. Golconda 2. Kindred Restructure & too a lesser extend) Dramatic Upheaval. (takes too much time to move and gives the Meth playing it almost always a VP. They can also be used to deny people their turn wich is significant if a game lasts only 12 or so turns) 1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, the Boonee will most of the time stop going forward (at least for a while) and just try to stay alive. Note: I deliberatly omitted Succubus Club because IMO it can be thrown in any deck. And anyone playing with it should be hanged by the balls. ;-) (please do NOT turn this thread in a new SC thread, pretty please with cherries on top) Other: "You play what!"- cards: Archon Investigation, Madness Network (good one thematically, but way overpowered), Parity Shift (a potential 10 pool difference and because of the Camarilla-only aspect), Anarch Revolt/Smiling Jack/ Antedeluvian Awakening (the whole table needs to gang up and give the predator of the guy playing it a free VP),ToGP,... I just noticed that I only chose Master and Political action. Jeroen

In article <5f0d2397.01110...@posting.google.com>, "Jeroen" <joen...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 > (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be > possible to make a Most Hated Deck. > > I'll start of: > > 5. Hostile Takeover. (IMO worse than ToGP, you only need Rufina to play > it.) > 4. Direct Intervention (still too good) 3. Golconda > 2. Kindred Restructure & too a lesser extend) Dramatic Upheaval. (takes > too much time to move and gives the Meth playing it almost always a VP. > They can also be used to deny people their turn wich is significant if a > game lasts only 12 or so turns) 1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, > the Boonee will most of the time stop going forward (at least for a > while) and just try to stay alive. > Protect Thine Own Especially when that Tremere justicar teamed up with Carlotta to pull it each round. Ouch. Francois

>===== Original Message From joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) ===== >Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 >(or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be >possible to make a Most Hated Deck. > >I'll start of: > >5. Hostile Takeover. (IMO worse than ToGP, you only need Rufina to >play it.) >4. Direct Intervention (still too good) >3. Golconda >2. Kindred Restructure & too a lesser extend) Dramatic Upheaval. >(takes too much time to move and gives the Meth playing it almost >always a VP. They can also be used to deny people their turn wich is >significant if a game lasts only 12 or so turns) >1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, the Boonee will most of the time >stop going forward (at least for a while) and just try to stay alive. Life boon at number one??? Clearly we haven't been playing it right, or possibly at all, since it was changed to prevent the possibility of you ousting yourself for a VP. > >Note: I deliberatly omitted Succubus Club because IMO it can be thrown >in any deck. And anyone playing with it should be hanged by the balls. >;-) (please do NOT turn this thread in a new SC thread, pretty please >with cherries on top) > >Other: "You play what!"- cards: Archon Investigation, Madness Network >(good one thematically, but way overpowered), Parity Shift (a >potential 10 pool difference and because of the Camarilla-only >aspect), Anarch Revolt/Smiling Jack/ Antedeluvian Awakening (the whole >table needs to gang up and give the predator of the guy playing it a >free VP),ToGP,... > >I just noticed that I only chose Master and Political action. > >Jeroen Mine would be: 1. ToGP 2. Hostile Takeover 3. Parity Shift 4. Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval 5. Sudden Reversal 6. DI 7. Deflection/Redirection 8. Conditioning 9. Obedience [Majesty is 9.5] 10. Skin of Steel. It's their ability to pull off ALL of these, plus Kiss of Ra [number 11] and Day Op/Daring the Dawn [number 12], that makes the Ventrue such a disgusting clan. Sorry, Ben. ------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at: http://MailAndNews.com Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser. ------------------------------------------------------------ -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

In message <3BF0...@MailAndNews.com>, James McClellan <legb...@MailAndNews.com> writes: >>1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, the Boonee will most of the time >>stop going forward (at least for a while) and just try to stay alive. > >Life boon at number one??? Clearly we haven't been playing it right, or >possibly at all, since it was changed to prevent the possibility of you >ousting yourself for a VP. I believe the idea is: You, me, LSJ and Robert Goudie sit down to play. Robert ousts me. LSJ plays Life Boon on me. As a result, I stop bleeding you in order that you can get rid of LSJ. That way, I can oust you and LSJ won't get the VP. Or something along those lines. -- James Coupe Everybody knows that "No" means "Yes" PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Just like glasses come free on the NHS EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 But the more I look through them the more I see 13D7E668C3695D623D5D I'm becoming more like Alfie

In message <9sgj2d$87p$1...@s1.read.news.oleane.net>, Francois Gombault <fgom...@i.dont.like.spam.activia.net> writes: >Protect Thine Own > >Especially when that Tremere justicar teamed up with Carlotta to pull it >each round. Ouch. You could play Writ of Acceptance, if your metagame dictates this. Or vote defence. A deck with Carlotta *and* Ulugh Beg out is unlikely to have *that* many votes available. (Telepathic Vote Counting and Closed Session being about the best it can manage, action modifier-wise. Careful use of DI's may help if you don't want to toolbox the deck too heavily.) Or just rush the Justicar/IC member. [ quoted text not captured ]

James McClellan <legb...@MailAndNews.com> wrote in message news:3BF0...@MailAndNews.com... > 1. ToGP > 2. Hostile Takeover > 3. Parity Shift > 4. Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval > 5. Sudden Reversal > 6. DI > 7. Deflection/Redirection > 8. Conditioning > 9. Obedience [Majesty is 9.5] > 10. Skin of Steel. Funny that only DI (and Redirection) are Sabbat cards, all others are Jyhad/VtES cards. Is this due to some 'old player' bias, or do newer players think the same? :-) Flux

In article <Zj$Cz5vra...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>, "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <9sgj2d$87p$1...@s1.read.news.oleane.net>, Francois Gombault > <fgom...@i.dont.like.spam.activia.net> writes: >>Protect Thine Own >> >>Especially when that Tremere justicar teamed up with Carlotta to pull it >>each round. Ouch. > > You could play Writ of Acceptance, if your metagame dictates this. Or > vote defence. > > A deck with Carlotta *and* Ulugh Beg out is unlikely to have *that* many > votes available. (Telepathic Vote Counting and Closed Session being > about the best it can manage, action modifier-wise. Careful use of DI's > may help if you don't want to toolbox the deck too heavily.) > > Or just rush the Justicar/IC member. > Yes, they are a lot of ways to prevent this from happening. And hopefully we won't see this often, it was a metagame-tuned one-shot trick deck. Basically Carlotta + Tremere + Tremere-Antitribu, for Sabbat Inquisitor/Possession/5th trad. With the additional Protect Thine Own bite. (how could that have even work ? don't ask me.) But it's just awful when you get caught off-guard. We now always include some token intercept and vote defence. Being bashed like this is the best way to learn. ;) Francois

> Mine would be: > > 1. ToGP > 2. Hostile Takeover > 3. Parity Shift > 4. Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval > 5. Sudden Reversal > 6. DI > 7. Deflection/Redirection > 8. Conditioning > 9. Obedience [Majesty is 9.5] > 10. Skin of Steel. Mine are: 1. Minion Tap 2. 5th Tradition 3. ToGP 4. Hostile Takeover 5. Change of Target 6. Kindred Restructure 7. Majesty 8. Direct Intervention 9. Judgement: Camarilla Segregation 10. Political Flux Roger

Jeroen wrote: > Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 > (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be > possible to make a Most Hated Deck. > 5. Golconda (you finally torp that S&B [for definition see 2.] prince and...) 4. Freak Drive (I only have one copy to play with and even so I can safely say this card has made all the difference on a number of occasions... wonder what it must be like to draw them reliably?) 3. Hostile Takeover 2. 5th Tradition (I seem to get stuck behind S&B [that's sneak&BLOAT] decks a lot lately) 1. 2nd Tradition ("Okay, so he plays an improved Wake without a drawback and Enhanced Senses at superior [without even having Auspex], all in one card. Sshyeah right, having tons of expensive cards really doesn't make a difference at all in political decks.") Thomas

On 9 Nov 2001, Jeroen wrote: > Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 > (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be > possible to make a Most Hated Deck. I don't have any static answer to this question, since the cards I hate, and think about, and plan for, drift with the metagame. Actually, I think it is the running response to this question which fuels the metagame. The only reason I hate them at any given time is that they stymie a certain deck to which I am partial and force me to consider other, perhaps more well-trodden, paths to victory. That said, off the top of my head: 1. The Embrace. I personally dislike weenie decks. When performed successfully, Embracing weenies add an order of magnitude to the problem. 2. Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval In sufficient amounts, dissolves the game into noise. Predator-prey relationships are viewed as the shifty, tenuous things they are. What's the point of doing "x", since everything could be radically shifted at any moment? Promotes existentialism, and moving the seating arrangement is a pain in the ass. 3. Kiss of Ra In a metagame heavy with fortitude and dominate, this card can more or less dictate that yes, you too are playing with fortitude. Or never block. Kiss of Ra/Freak/Graverobbing is sick. 4. Form of Mist Here my arguments start getting even less objective. It just has something to do with my belief that total minion actions are what generally determine the winner of the game. This card amplifies minion actions in a sense by halving the number of effective blockers the opponent has available. The damn thing should at least cost something. 5. Rotschrek/White Phosphorous Grenade I've been through the Rotschrek redefinitions, and I like the current one best. I can live with the OOT rush/Rotschrek loophole. But using the same grenade over and over again is stupid. This one certainly isn't overpowered; it just seems plain wrong. Note that these were in no particular order. I would've ordered them post hoc except I'm on a crappy, encryption-lagged, terminal session. David Cherryholmes Prince of Durham

Jeroen wrote: > > Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 > (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be > possible to make a Most Hated Deck. > > I'll start of: > > 5. Hostile Takeover. (IMO worse than ToGP, you only need Rufina to > play it.) At least the victim of the HT either receives pool or pays half price. ToGP: you see that vampire that was yours? Not anymore. If you want him *back*, you get to bid for him right alongside everyone else. > 4. Direct Intervention (still too good) Ah, barely use it myself. Master cards like DI, Sudden Reversal, and Unnatural Disaster are irritating to get played on you but I console myself that they're not very good strategy - that opponent may have screwed me but he could have been doing something much better for *himself* with that MPA. (And obviously, I love watching one of my opponents do it to another of my opponents.) > 3. Golconda One word: why? > 2. Kindred Restructure & too a lesser extend) Dramatic Upheaval. > (takes too much time to move and gives the Meth playing it almost > always a VP. They can also be used to deny people their turn wich is > significant if a game lasts only 12 or so turns) These can be nasty but at least require vote lock or politics. I think Dramatic Upheaval is almost always pretty much as bad as Kindred Restructure, though perhaps with less opportunities for negotiation if the person calling the vote needs someone's support to get it passed. Denying someone a turn isn't worth the minion action, usually. > 1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, the Boonee will most of the time > stop going forward (at least for a while) and just try to stay alive. Life Boon is extremely hard to use productively. I'm not sure why you'd fear it. Fred

>> Mine would be: >> >> 1. ToGP >> 2. Hostile Takeover >> 3. Parity Shift >> 4. Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval >> 5. Sudden Reversal >> 6. DI >> 7. Deflection/Redirection >> 8. Conditioning >> 9. Obedience [Majesty is 9.5] >> 10. Skin of Steel. From this list, Skin of Steel surprises me. >Mine are: > >1. Minion Tap >2. 5th Tradition >3. ToGP >4. Hostile Takeover >5. Change of Target >6. Kindred Restructure >7. Majesty >8. Direct Intervention >9. Judgement: Camarilla Segregation >10. Political Flux Judgement is somewhat annoying, but I think it has enough problems that it surprises me. Political Flux? First, Sudden is so much worse than DI when played. DI is often counterable by simply having another similar card in hand. However, I have a general disdain for counterspell effects, so I could see DI making a list, just not above SR. Also, since it somewhat relates, a very good idea (maybe once upon a time it would have been better) would be cards that can't be countered. For instance, Shock Troops should not have been SRable. A few others that come to mind (it would take quite a bit of effort to come up with a good list) include: Immortal Grapple, all other S:CE, Sensory Deprivation, Brainwash, 1st Tradition, Derange, Society of Leopold, Millicent. Basically, IG and S:CE horribly distort combat. The others are lockish, and I play games to do stuff.

"Roger Carhult" <rogc...@student.luth.se> wrote in message news:<9sgqrn$13020k$1...@ID-104455.news.dfncis.de>... > 5. Change of Target Wow, change of target, really? You must play a lot of intercept decks. Or you're really attached to bouncing, which is cheesy in itself. I play a lot of intercept decks, and even Red Herring doesn't scare me all that much, much less CoT.

On 9 Nov 2001 12:16:06 -0800, ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] With one card, I burn your Wake and your transients. Stay tapped and waste your intercept -- and jam up on combat cards! With only a small amount of luck, I'll be able to clean house. Mostly, it's more annoying for people to lose the Wake than it is any of the transients. By showing one Change of Target, I can force you to leave a minion untapped every turn, whom I can then tap with Mind Numb and other annoying toys like that. -- Derek "Agricultural barbarians? What do THEY do... rape, pillage, and plant?"

"Jeroen" <joen...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:5f0d2397.01110...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Here is my List, Great idea by the way :) 1. Contesting vampire (Does this Count??) 2. Rotschreck (sp?) 2. Deflection 3. Madness network 4. Brainwash 5. Pentex Subversion Please keep in mind I choose for me getting annoyed not nessessarly for power of a card. Errol

Legbiter wrote > Mine would be: > > 1. ToGP > 2. Hostile Takeover > 3. Parity Shift > 4. Kindred Restructure/Dramatic Upheaval > 5. Sudden Reversal > 6. DI > 7. Deflection/Redirection > 8. Conditioning > 9. Obedience [Majesty is 9.5] > 10. Skin of Steel. Skin of Steel? The frequency at which I see Carrion Crows has caused me to modify my Fortitude defense packages. My biggest gripe about Temptation of Greater Power and Hostile Takeover is that the only real defense against their being played is a Sudden Reversal. Their effect seems too great given the extremely limited countermeasure options. Funny that you hate ToGP and Hostile Takeover most, and then list Sudden Reversal at 5th place. ;) I think Parity Shift looks a lot less strong when you take it outside of the context of ToGP and Hostile Takeover (but it's still a strong card). Direct Intervention, while occasionally handy, is soooooo overrated. My biggest gripe about it is that it breaks the theme of Methuselahs being purely puppeteers. Apart from that, master phase actions are typically much stronger than an individual minion card, and as such, trading the former to counter the latter is very typically too high a price. You can almost always find a minion card countermeasure to cover your butt. That being said, I'll put a DI or two in a weenie deck to stop the occasional Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment in case my intercept can't cover it, or in a deck without superior Auspex if I'm concerned about Perfect Clarity dorks. I don't like Conditioning in casual play, but I think it's perfectly fine otherwise... Deflection, on the other hand, is the card I'd put right up top at #1 in my list. Yeah, I use it a lot myself, but it irritates me every time I do. It was my hatred of this card, and the ubiquitous bucket brigades of bleed bouncing that it caused, that led me to create Short Leash Bleed. It infuriated me that basic method for ousting your prey had been reduced to a complete joke. I thank you and love you, Change of Target. You are my light and salvation. > It's their ability to pull off ALL of these, plus Kiss of Ra [number 11] and > Day Op/Daring the Dawn [number 12], that makes the Ventrue such a disgusting > clan. Sorry, Ben. Must...avoid...the...bait... ;) Well, like I said, we've done a solid job over here of innoculating ourselves against the Ventrue. It's not like you can look at the tournament winning decks in the US from the past couple of years and say that they typically have a specific anti-Ventrue component. However, they do tend to pack a lot of general-purpose things that are effective against them. Look at the Ventrue-heavy decks that have won in the US in the past couple of years, and you'll see that they drop a lot of the Ventrue in favor of things that help defeat the typical countermeasures. I'm inclined to agree with Dave Zopf's assessment that the Ventrue provide a great supporting cast, rather than being great stand-alone. - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com

1. Protect Thine Own Arika voting all those 10 cap Sabbat power mongers away... 2. Temptation of Greater Power 3. Hostile Takeover These 2 cards can end game really soon. 4. Sensory Deprivation With big cap. deck 1-2 SD can shut you down. 5. Minion Tap & 5th Tradition Bloat! Bloat!

"Frederick Scott" <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:3BEC1D51...@netcom.com... > Jeroen wrote: > > > > Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 > > (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be > > possible to make a Most Hated Deck. > > > > I'll start of: > > > > 5. Hostile Takeover. (IMO worse than ToGP, you only need Rufina to > > play it.) > > At least the victim of the HT either receives pool or pays half price. > ToGP: you see that vampire that was yours? Not anymore. If you want > him *back*, you get to bid for him right alongside everyone else. ToGP you typically use offensively, unless in dire situations. HT can be used more effecitvely for master phase bleeds to your prey AND for turning your Predator in a speed bump, by his most dangerous vamp and give him loads of pool so he'll be forced to wall up and can survive with the extra pool, at the same time he won't put too much pressure on you. And there's the cost/ requierment difference. > > > 4. Direct Intervention (still too good) > > Ah, barely use it myself. Master cards like DI, Sudden Reversal, and > Unnatural Disaster are irritating to get played on you but I console > myself that they're not very good strategy - that opponent may have > screwed me but he could have been doing something much better for > *himself* with that MPA. (And obviously, I love watching one of my > opponents do it to another of my opponents.) > You've never seen your killing bleed DI'ed? The list was about most hated cards, not the best cards. > > 3. Golconda > > One word: why? 1. IMO, even more sleazy than MT/5th is MT/Golconda. At least a 5th can be blocked or DI-ed and cannot be done by a vampire in torpor (bane of combat decks). 2. It is has a similar use as HT (see above) when your predator is about to die. Keep him alive AND burn one of his vamps. 3. Which other card can be played that forces you prey to lose two pool or lose a 8+cap vamp at NO cost to you? > > > 2. Kindred Restructure & too a lesser extend) Dramatic Upheaval. > > (takes too much time to move and gives the Meth playing it almost > > always a VP. They can also be used to deny people their turn wich is > > significant if a game lasts only 12 or so turns) > > These can be nasty but at least require vote lock or politics. I think > Dramatic Upheaval is almost always pretty much as bad as Kindred Restructure, > though perhaps with less opportunities for negotiation if the person calling > the vote needs someone's support to get it passed. Denying someone a turn > isn't worth the minion action, usually. I saw Luk (De Ron, 2nd place on the EC) win a tourney with a Madness Network-kindred Restructure deck. > > > 1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, the Boonee will most of the time > > stop going forward (at least for a while) and just try to stay alive. > > Life Boon is extremely hard to use productively. I'm not sure why you'd > fear it. I don't fear it, I hate it. Like KR and DU, it distorts the predator -prey relationship. If someone plays a LB on my prey, I know he will stop going forward and he will wall up, making it almost impossible to oust him. At the same time my Grandprey will get a free ride. Jeroen

<snip> > > > 3. Golconda > > > > One word: why? > > 1. IMO, even more sleazy than MT/5th is MT/Golconda. At least a 5th can be > blocked or DI-ed and cannot be done by a vampire in torpor (bane of combat > decks). > 2. It is has a similar use as HT (see above) when your predator is about to > die. Keep him alive AND burn one of his vamps. > 3. Which other card can be played that forces you prey to lose two pool or > lose a 8+cap vamp at NO cost to you? Sorry, forgot 2: 4. Golconda gets aound the selfcontestation rules. If my key vamp forced to take a dirt nap, i can't influence him out again UNLESS I can play golconda on him. 5. Some people just don't know when to quit. They prolong their (un)lives by burning a big vamp, even if it won't save them, it 'll just stall their predator. <snip> Jeroen

Derek Ray <lor...@yah00.com> wrote in message news:<ieiout8j8u9aih6df...@4ax.com>... > > With one card, I burn your Wake and your transients. Stay tapped and > waste your intercept -- and jam up on combat cards! With only a small > amount of luck, I'll be able to clean house. > But if you're playing an intercept deck, then leaving a minion untapped shouldn't be that big of a deal. And you should have Forced Awakenings and/or Animalism untaps which won't kill your hand size like Wake will (and the untaps will get around Change of Target). If you're not playing an intercept deck, then a single Lost in Crowds will hose you just as much as a Change of Target, except that the action will actually get through rather than needing to try again. So how come you hate CoT more than Lost in Crowds? The only thing that doesn't cover is bleed bounce. CoT will sort of hose bleed bounce, which is nice. Bleed bounce is the cheasiest cheese ever. The first tournament I went to, I played in a game that had 4 decks with heavy bounce, and bleeds usually went all the way around the table to stop at the guy without bounce. That's crap. Not to mention that the best bleed bounce is in dominate, but I won't go into that here. On top of that, you're *supposed* to need an untapped minion in order to block. If you want to block, you leave a guy untapped, otherwise you just take what's handed to you. Wake kinda lets you cheat and get around this restriction, but it's not without its weaknesses, in that you're not actually untapped but are just pretending like you are. I see the CoT problem as more of a weakness to Wake than it is a horrible side effect of CoT. I've just never seen CoT to be a big deal, ever. It's almost a waste to put in a deck, except to combat bleed bounce. My metagame has been surprising free of bounce lately, so that may be one reason why I think the card sucks so hard, but bounce is cheesy, and it deserves to be hosed.

"Jeroen" <joen...@hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message news: 5f0d2397.01110...@posting.google.com... > Legbiter's newsletter gave me an idea: If a number of us give a top 5 > (or 10) "Most Hated cards When Played By Someone Else", it might be > possible to make a Most Hated Deck. reyda's most hated... 5 - Forgotten Labyrinth (breaks the Stealth/intercept game) 4 - Blood of Acid (too much pain preventing this...) 3 - Arika (yeah, it's a crypt card. I hate this overpowered vampire) 2 - hostile Takeover (only one pool to f*%k your whole strategy) and #1 is... >>DISARM<<... Grrrr... (should have restriction like Twisting the knife)

On 10 Nov 2001 09:25:24 -0800, ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote: >Derek Ray <lor...@yah00.com> wrote in message news:<ieiout8j8u9aih6df...@4ax.com>... >> >> With one card, I burn your Wake and your transients. Stay tapped and >> waste your intercept -- and jam up on combat cards! With only a small >> amount of luck, I'll be able to clean house. >> >But if you're playing an intercept deck, then leaving a minion >untapped shouldn't be that big of a deal. And you should have Forced >Awakenings and/or Animalism untaps which won't kill your hand size >like Wake will (and the untaps will get around Change of Target). However, if you're playing with LIGHT intercept (some permanents, a media location, and untaps), you're screwed, as your untaps suddenly become worth only a slight bit more than discards. Animalism untaps are cute, but only useful against bleed, and there are lots of things to do besides bleed. Especially if you've got a lot of CoT in the deck; you know you'll be using it, so you NEED things to do besides bleed, such as ... Restoration, or equipping a Blood Tears, or take your pick. Hand size is not the issue. If you're using untaps, then you are intending to take actions with your minions. If I can force you to reduce your actions-per-turn by 1 every turn, it is worth every CoT I've put in the deck, and I can always cycle them for free by bleeding for 1 and provoking a block. If I ever want your guy tapped, I just let you successfully block the first action... and I can always take a Mind Numb or Jar the Soul action to force you to block or tap anyway. So much for your untapped minion -- back to toasting Wakes I go. Fun! >If you're not playing an intercept deck, then a single Lost in Crowds >will hose you just as much as a Change of Target, except that the >action will actually get through rather than needing to try again. So >how come you hate CoT more than Lost in Crowds? Light intercept (Mr. Winthrop, a KRCG, and a Wake) can stop a Lost in Crowds -- light intercept dies to Change of Target. And not every deck can play Lost in Crowds at superior, while even the Political Ally can play Change of Target. >The only thing that doesn't cover is bleed bounce. CoT will sort of >hose bleed bounce, which is nice. Bleed bounce is the cheasiest >cheese ever. The first tournament I went to, I played in a game that Bah. Bleed is the best/easiest offense; it requires the most effective defenses to be present. The threat of bounce is the ONLY, repeat, ONLY thing stopping every game from simply being a combination of S&B variants mixed with heavy combat. Did you totally miss the "there is no cheese" thread, or are you just feeling opinionated today? =) >had 4 decks with heavy bounce, and bleeds usually went all the way >around the table to stop at the guy without bounce. That's crap. Not You mention "first". How long ago was that? (I know it was more than 3 years, so I'll go ahead and point out that your example is WAAAAAY outdated.) Heavy bleed decks come with their own risk; you don't know who you'll be bleeding at the end of it all. Want to have more chance of winning? Stop trying to bleed for 18 in one turn. >to mention that the best bleed bounce is in dominate, but I won't go >into that here. That's OK; Pat O'Shea already has in his newsletter, and I have in various other posts. It's my opinion that putting the best bleed offense and the best bleed defense in the same discipline was a major design error; witness the effectiveness of the Crypt Machine for an example. Vote decks have difficulty being purely mono-vote; the best Ventrue Law Firm decks include a chunk of bounce and intercept as well. Combat decks can be mono-combat but take an enormous risk as a result. DOM bleed decks, on the other hand, can just bleed big, bounce big, and be in very good shape UNLESS they happen to sit next to mono-combat. Low probability. If Deflection and Telepathic Misdirection had their card texts swapped, I think the game would have turned out very, VERY differently. (obviously, you'd have to change TM's inferior, as +1 intercept to dominate is wrong, but you get the idea; anything BUT bounce would do.) >On top of that, you're *supposed* to need an untapped minion in order >to block. If you want to block, you leave a guy untapped, otherwise >you just take what's handed to you. Wake kinda lets you cheat and get >around this restriction, but it's not without its weaknesses, in that >you're not actually untapped but are just pretending like you are. I >see the CoT problem as more of a weakness to Wake than it is a I don't consider CoT to be a problem, actually. I see it as a very strong card, but simply leaving a minion untapped DOES remove a great deal of its effectiveness, as now they have to find a way to tap that minion before taking their "good" actions. >horrible side effect of CoT. I've just never seen CoT to be a big >deal, ever. It's almost a waste to put in a deck, except to combat Oh, certainly not. Almost everyone plays with Wakes of some kind; every CoT in your deck is a "wake test" when his minions are tapped out, and may save your butt or win you a game. >bleed bounce. My metagame has been surprising free of bounce lately, >so that may be one reason why I think the card sucks so hard, but >bounce is cheesy, and it deserves to be hosed. There is no cheese. I suggest playing less bleed and more variety. -- Derek "This .signature for rent"

On Sat, 10 Nov 2001 16:09:09 GMT, "jeroen rombouts" <jeroen....@pandora.be> wrote: >> Life Boon is extremely hard to use productively. I'm not sure why you'd >> fear it. > >I don't fear it, I hate it. Like KR and DU, it distorts the predator -prey >relationship. If someone plays a LB on my prey, I know he will stop going >forward and he will wall up, making it almost impossible to oust him. At the >same time my Grandprey will get a free ride. This is a misplay by your prey. He needs to accelerate his offense, not wall up and hope that someone will oust the Booner. So he loses his first VP; if he sweeps the rest of the table, he'll be 4-1. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 10 Nov 2001 23:15:04 +0100, "Reyda" <re...@noos.fr> wrote: >#1 is... >>DISARM<<... Grrrr... (should have restriction like Twisting the >knife) Should never, never, never, never, NEVER have been able to send a vampire to torpor at inferior. Superior? Fine. Inferior? Wrong. [ quoted text not captured ]

jeroen rombouts wrote: > > "Frederick Scott" <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message > news:3BEC1D51...@netcom.com... > > Jeroen wrote: > > > 4. Direct Intervention (still too good) > > > > Ah, barely use it myself. Master cards like DI, Sudden Reversal, and > > Unnatural Disaster are irritating to get played on you but I console > > myself that they're not very good strategy - that opponent may have > > screwed me but he could have been doing something much better for > > *himself* with that MPA. (And obviously, I love watching one of my > > opponents do it to another of my opponents.) > > > You've never seen your killing bleed DI'ed? Um, can't come up with that scenario in my head but I'll give it you. It's probably a common one when playing with people who use DI. > The list was about most hated cards, not the best cards. I wouldn't hate it. See all that stuff I wrote above. My prey could likely have done something better with another master card rather than clutch a DI in his cute l'll hands for oh so many turns. Had he, I bet it's a lot less likely he's on the verge of being ousted right now. > > > 3. Golconda > > > > One word: why? > > 1. IMO, even more sleazy than MT/5th is MT/Golconda. At least a 5th can be > blocked or DI-ed and cannot be done by a vampire in torpor (bane of combat > decks). Yea, but you vigorously backward for your initial rush of pool. It hasn't been my observation that it's even close to worthwhile, saccing all your transfers for 2 or 3 turns along with two MPAs just to make back 10 extra pool on an original investment of 10. MT/5th just keeps giving and giving. > 2. It is has a similar use as HT (see above) when your predator is about to > die. Keep him alive AND burn one of his vamps. Assuming he doesn't (or can't) just pay the 2. > 3. Which other card can be played that forces you prey to lose two pool or > lose a 8+cap vamp at NO cost to you? Um, assuming he even plays an 8+cap vamp. Speaking of which, the card can very easily become a waste if there's no 8+cap vampires to attack with it. > > > 2. Kindred Restructure & too a lesser extend) Dramatic Upheaval. > > > (takes too much time to move and gives the Meth playing it almost > > > always a VP. They can also be used to deny people their turn wich is > > > significant if a game lasts only 12 or so turns) > > > > These can be nasty but at least require vote lock or politics. I think > > Dramatic Upheaval is almost always pretty much as bad as Kindred > > Restructure, though perhaps with less opportunities for negotiation if the person > > calling the vote needs someone's support to get it passed. Denying someone a turn > > isn't worth the minion action, usually. > > I saw Luk (De Ron, 2nd place on the EC) win a tourney with a Madness > Network-kindred Restructure deck. Ah, well, OK. But that's what I call a bizarre combo deck. *Typically*, it's not worth the minion action to deny someone a turn. There are exceptions. > > > 1. Life Boon (Destroys table balance, the Boonee will most of the time > > > stop going forward (at least for a while) and just try to stay alive. > > > > Life Boon is extremely hard to use productively. I'm not sure why you'd > > fear it. > > I don't fear it, I hate it. Like KR and DU, it distorts the predator -prey > relationship. If someone plays a LB on my prey, I know he will stop going > forward and he will wall up, making it almost impossible to oust him. At the > same time my Grandprey will get a free ride. Maybe. It's still not that fearsome of a card. For one thing, if he nearly got ousted, he *should* be pretty much walling up. Fred

>>#1 is... >>DISARM<<... Grrrr... (should have restriction like Twisting the >>knife) > >Should never, never, never, never, NEVER have been able to send a >vampire to torpor at inferior. Superior? Fine. Inferior? Wrong. Unless you're paying 3 blood for a limited strike and as a non-combat clan are probably going to torpor as well. Wait, that's a different thread, isn't it? In any case, Coma has enough limitations to justify the inferior power whereas Disarm...ugh! Halcyan 2

Derek Ray <lor...@yah00.com> wrote in message news:<seitut4hgdp5qm7n3...@4ax.com>... > > > >But if you're playing an intercept deck, then leaving a minion > >untapped shouldn't be that big of a deal. And you should have Forced > >Awakenings and/or Animalism untaps which won't kill your hand size > >like Wake will (and the untaps will get around Change of Target). > > However, if you're playing with LIGHT intercept (some permanents, a > media location, and untaps), you're screwed, as your untaps suddenly > become worth only a slight bit more than discards. > If you're playing an unfocused deck, you're begging to be screwed over when you can't do any one thing well enough. ;) > > >If you're not playing an intercept deck, then a single Lost in Crowds > >will hose you just as much as a Change of Target, except that the > >action will actually get through rather than needing to try again. So > >how come you hate CoT more than Lost in Crowds? > > Light intercept (Mr. Winthrop, a KRCG, and a Wake) can stop a Lost in > Crowds -- light intercept dies to Change of Target. And not every deck > can play Lost in Crowds at superior, while even the Political Ally can > play Change of Target. > I consider *reasonable* light intercept to be +1 intercept. Enough to stop +1 stealth actions. If it's already a +1 stealth action, than even your +2 intercept won't be enough to stop Lost in Crowds, but I think that only a very unfocused deck could generate +2 intercept without being an all-out intercept deck (which won't be that worried about having to untap again). And while the Political Ally can play Change of Target, he can't take many other reasonable actions after that. So while you may not get your chance to beat up the spooky Boys Club logo, your Wake has effectively served the purpose of blocking the action. > Did you totally miss the "there is no cheese" thread, or are you just > feeling opinionated today? =) > A little from column a), a little from column b... 8) I felt like having a bit of an argument (hope you don't mind), and I've always had strong feelings for how much Change of Target sucks. Lately, I've been very upset that the only options for combatting bleed bounce are Perfect Clarity and Change of Target, when I am of the opinion that neither card is really very good. I also happened to miss the "there is no cheese" thread. That would have really depressed me, as I like nothing more than sitting down to watch an episode of Space Ghost with a bottle of beer and a big block of Monterey Jack. It wouldn't be the same without the cheese. > >had 4 decks with heavy bounce, and bleeds usually went all the way > >around the table to stop at the guy without bounce. That's crap. Not > > You mention "first". How long ago was that? (I know it was more than 3 > years, so I'll go ahead and point out that your example is WAAAAAY > outdated.) True. But the idea was that this is how ridiculous things can get if the metagame gets to that point. I hated being forced to use dominate in my deck, and in turn seeing another 3 decks at the same table with it. Dominate pisses me off. I think I wouldn't be nearly so upset if bleed bounce was relegated to auspex, and say, chimerstry and dementation. > >to mention that the best bleed bounce is in dominate, but I won't go > >into that here. > > That's OK; Pat O'Shea already has in his newsletter, and I have in > various other posts. > We obviously agree on this point. Rest of your (very good) explanation snipped. > >bleed bounce. My metagame has been surprising free of bounce lately, > >so that may be one reason why I think the card sucks so hard, but > >bounce is cheesy, and it deserves to be hosed. > > There is no cheese. I suggest playing less bleed and more variety. I don't play much bleed. I try very hard, every once in a while, to play a bruise and bleed deck, which I think is a pretty good way of playing some variety. Unfortunately, I need you to block me, not bounce me over to your prey, and so my bruise and bleeders always fall flat on their faces. Other than that, I guess I just end up playing intercept decks and combat decks, which have their own way of dealing with bounce. Bounce just seems like too easy of a counter, as long as you want to play dominate. It's a nobrainer. I had a bit more of an argument here, but I realized I had no real point, so I snipped it and figured I'd go get a beer instead. Cheers.

On 11 Nov 2001 21:16:19 -0800, ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote: >Derek Ray <lor...@yah00.com> wrote in message news:<seitut4hgdp5qm7n3...@4ax.com>... >> However, if you're playing with LIGHT intercept (some permanents, a >> media location, and untaps), you're screwed, as your untaps suddenly >> become worth only a slight bit more than discards. >> >If you're playing an unfocused deck, you're begging to be screwed over >when you can't do any one thing well enough. ;) Toolbox decks win just as easily as focussed decks do. This isn't a valid argument anymore -- the game has long since progressed past the mindless charge-forward of such decks. =) >> Light intercept (Mr. Winthrop, a KRCG, and a Wake) can stop a Lost in >> Crowds -- light intercept dies to Change of Target. And not every deck >> can play Lost in Crowds at superior, while even the Political Ally can >> play Change of Target. >> >I consider *reasonable* light intercept to be +1 intercept. Enough to Mr. Winky and a KRCG are reasonable. Especially if backed up with a couple Sport Bikes and a Rumor Mill. Sure, you won't get them all out at once (and getting more than +2 intercept on any minion is a silly proposition) but light intercept to me is +1 with a transient available to +2. Or a Masquer and a bunch of Spectral Divinations, for example. (Did you know that a Masquer and Depravity on Gaspare can be extremely intimidating?) >stop +1 stealth actions. If it's already a +1 stealth action, than >even your +2 intercept won't be enough to stop Lost in Crowds, but I Assuming someone has OBF, and not just obf. It's probably a stupid idea for light intercept decks to attempt to block OBF decks anyway, as it's equivalent to putting a "free stealth cycling" sign on your deck's forehead, ...although a Raven Spy or Mr. Winky goes a long way towards emptying stealth out of such a deck. A coin flip is probably in order. >think that only a very unfocused deck could generate +2 intercept >without being an all-out intercept deck (which won't be that worried It doesn't cost THAT many card slots to put in a couple Sport Bikes/Raven Spies/Mr. Winkies and a couple news locations. "Very unfocused" seems to be a misnomer here. >about having to untap again). And while the Political Ally can play >Change of Target, he can't take many other reasonable actions after >that. So while you may not get your chance to beat up the spooky Boys >Club logo, your Wake has effectively served the purpose of blocking >the action. However, that's one more Wake out of your hand for little effect, and one Political Ally that DIDN'T die when drawing the Wake out -- because let's face it, it's sort of difficult to keep him alive in combat. If I see you with a bunch of tapped out minions, the first thing I will do is bleed with the Ally. So do you block IT knowing you won't kill it, or block the other actions I may be taking later? If you leave an untapped minion, the Ally will not be taking his action until you tap that minion. You then get to ask yourself whether to block my other actions and risk not drawing into a Wake (thereby losing 3 pool), or whether to let my other actions go. This can be a real pain when those "other actions" are all bleeds for 1 or an occasional 2. While the Wake has saved you from being bled for 3, it wasn't a very effective way of doing it. The Ally will be bleeding you next turn as well, mandating that you leave an untapped minion or have a Wake in hand. >> Did you totally miss the "there is no cheese" thread, or are you just >> feeling opinionated today? =) >> >A little from column a), a little from column b... 8) I felt like >having a bit of an argument (hope you don't mind), and I've always had Hope I *what*? You -did- read the name at the top of the message right? =) >strong feelings for how much Change of Target sucks. Lately, I've >been very upset that the only options for combatting bleed bounce are >Perfect Clarity and Change of Target, when I am of the opinion that >neither card is really very good. I also happened to miss the "there Perfect Clarity makes a neat bruise-and-bleed card, and makes a THA/dom deck somewhat viable, but there's still the problem of getting your 2 blood back when people quit blocking you. Oops. Change of Target is free. I like free. Did I mention how much I like free? Free is so cool. Free is groovy, whether it's free sex, free cards, or free beer. [0] And you can get it out of your hand very easily (the card, not the sex, and don't even THINK about my beer). It's certainly a beautiful thing for the !Ventrue, who can come up with lots of nifty carded actions to take and absolutely diddlysquat for stealth, pretty much guaranteeing that they'll get blocked at SOME point. >is no cheese" thread. That would have really depressed me, as I like >nothing more than sitting down to watch an episode of Space Ghost with >a bottle of beer and a big block of Monterey Jack. It wouldn't be the >same without the cheese. Velveeta! >True. But the idea was that this is how ridiculous things can get if >the metagame gets to that point. I hated being forced to use dominate >in my deck, and in turn seeing another 3 decks at the same table with >it. Dominate pisses me off. I think I wouldn't be nearly so upset if >bleed bounce was relegated to auspex, and say, chimerstry and >dementation. We came up with a term 'round here: the "bleed sinkhole". Anyone who doesn't have disciplines to bounce is the sinkhole, and he could expect to have a couple bleeds for 5 at +3 stealth chucked his way at one point. Fortunately, the idea of "responsible bleeding" has taken firm root, and it's a lot safer to play the Nossies and Gangrel as a result. (although you still will hear the occasional comment from a grandprey as someone is starting his turn: "Please try not to bleed me for 12 this turn, he hasn't discarded any Deflections yet") >I don't play much bleed. I try very hard, every once in a while, to >play a bruise and bleed deck, which I think is a pretty good way of >playing some variety. Unfortunately, I need you to block me, not >bounce me over to your prey, and so my bruise and bleeders always fall >flat on their faces. Other than that, I guess I just end up playing That's why my bruise and bleed always are based around either action modifiers for 3, or Computer Hacks for 2... and never around action cards, and rarely around permanents (inherent +1 bleeders like Al-Ashrad are an exception). In the first case, if I see an untapped bouncer or a likely bouncer, I can hang onto my modifier for awhile and make my prey eat a bunch of bleeds for 1 -- or trick him into wasting a Deflection on those bleeds, thinking I'm out of modifiers in hand. In the second case, while bleeds for 2 to your grandprey are annoying, they also aren't instantaneously going to oust him, either -- if he's short on untap, he can probably take the 2 (knowing that I won't bump it) and save his defense for his predator who'll be taking actions for MORE than 2. >intercept decks and combat decks, which have their own way of dealing >with bounce. Bounce just seems like too easy of a counter, as long as >you want to play dominate. It's a nobrainer. Certainly. It's why I was glad to see Enticement hit the game. It looks like a bleed, can only be blocked by the target, and does the amount of a good, solid bleed, but all the bleed-specific defenses are totally useless (ANI untap, Guardian Angel, Deflection). Telepathic Misdirection's inferior starts to look a lot more pleasant when you have Night Moves/Enticement rumbling around behind you. >I had a bit more of an argument here, but I realized I had no real >point, so I snipped it and figured I'd go get a beer instead. Cheers. Likewise. (I hate it when that happens; y'all have NO idea how many times I reread a paragraph and say "Wow, that makes no sense" and snip it.) [0] Ben Peal is free beer. -- Derek ...Vampire Squirrel has come to bite your nuts!

Derek Ray wrote: > Reyda wrote: > >#1 is... >>DISARM<<... Grrrr... (should have restriction like Twisting the > >knife) > > Should never, never, never, never, NEVER have been able to send a > vampire to torpor at inferior. Superior? Fine. Inferior? Wrong. Disarm is another in my "overrated" list. It's a strong card, but it still requires at least a two-card combo to send a vampire to torpor. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 11 Nov 2001 22:24:45 -0800, fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) wrote: >Derek Ray wrote: >> Should never, never, never, never, NEVER have been able to send a >> vampire to torpor at inferior. Superior? Fine. Inferior? Wrong. > > Disarm is another in my "overrated" list. It's a strong card, but > it still requires at least a two-card combo to send a vampire to > torpor. I often wonder how good such a deck would be, actually. Theory follows: multiple extreme-weenie POT vampires, based largely around Hasina, Uriah, Lupo, Koko, Mitchell, Paul diCarlo; all 2-caps or cheaper. Multiple copies of each in crypt. Masters consisting largely of Info Highway and Effective Management, with an Elder Library thrown in. Rest of library consisting of an obnoxious amount of copies of the combo: Rush, IG, Undead Strength, Disarm, Amaranth. It is a five-card combo, so it will be somewhat difficult to pull off repeatedly with only a 7- or 8-card hand. However, you don't always need the Amaranth (with the weenie advantage, a second vampire such as Uriah or Hasina can always be sent to diablerize after the beating), and you MAY not always need the IG, though it would be silly to not plan for it. It is also conceivable that you could go "light" on the Rush actions, reserving them for any vampire your predator may bring out while simply using good old "bleed for 1" to pick a fight with your prey. This leaves you vulnerable to a lot more defenses, of course. Fortitude, of course, hoses it, as does "hitting back harder" or somehow mutualling with your vampire in another way (Carrion Crows). But against a combat-weak table, it could conceivably burn every single vampire of its predator and prey that came out, and bleed for 1 lots if no vamps arrived. Your opening crypt can cost you no more than 8... probably less. I don't think this deck would be too terribly feared at the moment, because the metagame is shifting towards combat and "hitting back harder" than a punch for 2 isn't so uncommon anymore. But it illustrates my objection to Disarm's inferior quite well; Hasina burning Arika in *any* sort of combat is simply an unbalanced effect. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <e1nuutokic57dc41v...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yah0o.com> writes: >>think that only a very unfocused deck could generate +2 intercept >>without being an all-out intercept deck (which won't be that worried > >It doesn't cost THAT many card slots to put in a couple Sport >Bikes/Raven Spies/Mr. Winkies and a couple news locations. "Very >unfocused" seems to be a misnomer here. Having two of the news locations (Rumor Mill and KRCG being my preferred options, though as a result of their popularity you have to remember London Evening Star as an option), possibly doubling up on one which works best in your deck (a blood intensive deck will find the Rumor Mill annoying) provides a solid base. Adding one Sport Bike, one copy of Mr Winthrop and Atonement would give you 5 or 6 cards. Say 5, in an 80 card deck. Your chances of not drawing one in the first 10 cards are about 50%, I think, going down to about 40% in the next few. There is also the old stalwart of 2nd Tradition, which a number of decks do extremely well with - but, of course, limits your deck quite considerably. -- James Coupe Everybody knows that "No" means "Yes" PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Just like glasses come free on the NHS EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 But the more I look through them the more I see 13D7E668C3695D623D5D I'm becoming more like Alfie

<snip> > > > > 3. Golconda > > > > > > One word: why? > > > > 1. IMO, even more sleazy than MT/5th is MT/Golconda. At least a 5th can be > > blocked or DI-ed and cannot be done by a vampire in torpor (bane of combat > > decks). > > Yea, but you vigorously backward for your initial rush of pool. It hasn't been > my observation that it's even close to worthwhile, saccing all your transfers > for 2 or 3 turns along with two MPAs just to make back 10 extra pool on an > original investment of 10. MT/5th just keeps giving and giving. The deck I was thinking about doesn't use it's minions except to deflect or to play Delaying Tactics or sup. Govern the Unaligned(maybe Polital stranglehold and Ancient influence). It normally has about 50-66% Master Cards and 3 MPA/turn . Add enough speed toys and it normally works. The ONLY defence against this type of blood gain is SR. And plain math: MT/5th: you bring out a Justicar (10cap) next turn: play MT for a max of 9, otherwise he has to hunt. minion Phase: play 5th (+stealth) Result: you are still down 1 pool MT/Golconda same Justicar Minion Tap for 10 Golconda Result: a net gain of 10 pool in 1 (one!) Master Phase. Assuming the same for the next turns: turn 2 MT/5th: total gain of 18 MT/Golconda: total gain of 10 turn 3(remember speed toys) MT/5th: total gain of 27 MT/G: 20 MT/5th has a bigger pay-off than MT/G. But IMO the cost is a lot higher. MT/5th used: 3 MPA's (of 3) and 3 blockable actions out of three for the 10cap (barring Freak Drive, but then the MT gives less pool.). The possibility of losing the vamp to torpor is still there, thereby losing the ability to 5th. MT/Golconda: 4 MPA's (out of 6 or 9)and no actions. The vamp is only in play for one turn so the chance of him going to torpor is smaller. AAMOF, I'm building a deck based around Golconda. Not for bloodgain but for cycling my own vamp (ie, Spiridonas). Bleed for 12(Govern +2, Command of the Beast +1, conditioning +3, Perfect Clarity, ability +5), Golconda Spiridonas. Enter: new Spiridonas. (Not meant to be tier 1... yet!) > > > 2. It is has a similar use as HT (see above) when your predator is about to > > die. Keep him alive AND burn one of his vamps. > > Assuming he doesn't (or can't) just pay the 2. > > > 3. Which other card can be played that forces you prey to lose two pool or > > lose a 8+cap vamp at NO cost to you? > > Um, assuming he even plays an 8+cap vamp. Speaking of which, the card can very > easily become a waste if there's no 8+cap vampires to attack with it. Nobody packs Golconda unless they themselve have 8+caps in their Crypt.

[ quoted text not captured ] By your "plain math", I notice we're not counting the transfers to bring out Anson or the MPA to put The Parthenon into play. In both cases, the fun can't start until the turn after the minion is brought out so that part is a wash. > Result: a net gain of 10 pool in 1 (one!) Master Phase. > > Assuming the same for the next turns: > turn 2 > MT/5th: total gain of 18 > MT/Golconda: total gain of 10 HOLD IT!!! How did we get another 10 capper out in just one turn? Not to mention, any transfers used for the MT/5th can be used to bring out other minions that can do things. > turn 3(remember speed toys) > MT/5th: total gain of 27 I guess you must be counting a second Justicar coming out in a single turn and running MT, 5th on him as well. I'm still confused at how we're getting 10 transfers a turn. > MT/G: 20 > > MT/5th has a bigger pay-off than MT/G. But IMO the cost is a lot > higher. I have no idea how the hell you're calculating your so-called "plain math". The game does not work this way. > MT/5th used: 3 MPA's (of 3) and 3 blockable actions out of three for > the 10cap (barring Freak Drive, but then the MT gives less pool.). The > possibility of losing the vamp to torpor is still there, thereby > losing the ability to 5th. Assuming you can get 3 out and start running this 3/turn, you can get 27/turn for this. You'll never get more than 10 per, well not per turn unless you also have 10 transfers/turn. If you had 10 transfers per turn with the MT/5th deck, you'd bring out a whole library of Justicars and Inner Circle members before too long. This makes your MT/Golconda deck look sick (assuming no one intercepts the 5th traditions, of course). > > > 3. Which other card can be played that forces you prey to lose two pool or > > > lose a 8+cap vamp at NO cost to you? > > > > Um, assuming he even plays an 8+cap vamp. Speaking of which, the card can very > > easily become a waste if there's no 8+cap vampires to attack with it. > > Nobody packs Golconda unless they themselve have 8+caps in their > Crypt. Maybe. But it's not all that likely your prey will have one out. Certainly not worth the risk of doing it unless you're using your Golcondas for something else - like your bizarro Golconda/MT combo deck. In which case I suspect you're usually better off using it for that purpose than bleeding your prey for a measly two. Fred

Derek Ray wrote: > Ben Peal wrote: > > Disarm is another in my "overrated" list. It's a strong card, but > > it still requires at least a two-card combo to send a vampire to > > torpor. > > I often wonder how good such a deck would be, actually. Theory follows: > > multiple extreme-weenie POT vampires...<snip> > > Rest of library consisting of an obnoxious amount of copies of the > combo: Rush, IG, Undead Strength, Disarm, Amaranth. Take a look at Robert Goudie's Torpor Machine deck from the finals of the North American Championships. It looks to me that the deck started with that as its basis and evolved to its present state. You don't really have enough time for the "bleed for 1" strategy to work, so it includes Computer Hacking. You're not knocking that much blood off the vampires, so it's got Increased Strength. For that matter, the deck was based around Increased Strength, as it helps do a lot of damage and it cycles nicely. The occasional maneuver screws you, so it's got Gates and Sacrament of Carnage. In the end, it only has a few (2-4) Disarms. > But against a combat-weak table, it could conceivably burn every single > vampire of its predator and prey that came out, and bleed for 1 lots if > no vamps arrived. If you're dealing with a combat-weak table, most anything would work. > I don't think this deck would be too terribly feared at the moment, > because the metagame is shifting towards combat and "hitting back > harder" than a punch for 2 isn't so uncommon anymore. But it > illustrates my objection to Disarm's inferior quite well; Hasina burning > Arika in *any* sort of combat is simply an unbalanced effect. Any worse than Sadie using Wolf's Claws and Amaranth to burn a vampire? I approach this issue from the other end: If you're going to invest in very big vampires, it's reckless to not protect them. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yah0o.com> wrote in message news:<e1nuutokic57dc41v...@4ax.com>... > >> However, if you're playing with LIGHT intercept (some permanents, a > >> media location, and untaps), you're screwed, as your untaps suddenly > >> become worth only a slight bit more than discards. > >> > >If you're playing an unfocused deck, you're begging to be screwed over > >when you can't do any one thing well enough. ;) > > Toolbox decks win just as easily as focussed decks do. This isn't a > valid argument anymore -- the game has long since progressed past the > mindless charge-forward of such decks. =) > I think that the "focused versus all-over-the-place" debate (I supposed the "other side" might call it the "toolboxed versus narrowly single-minded" debate) still has merit. I know that the debate has been dragged on at length, but I think that a) it has not been drawn to an obvious conclusion, like the CL vs. NCL argument, and b) it has not been shown to be an unarguable point, like the argument over Minion Tap (I could be wrong about this, maybe it *is* unarguable). IMHO, a focused deck is nearly always better when you can accurately predict the metagame, even as a general thing. If you can say, "the metagame will have a lot of stealth," then you increase your chances of winning by not throwing in minor intercept or too many wakes. If you can say, "the metagame will have a lot of bleed bounce," then you increase your chances of winning by not playing a heavy bleed deck. It seems to me that a toolboxed deck only has an advantage over a focused deck (all other things being equal) when the focused deck has innacurately judged the metagame, since the toolboxed deck does not even really try (or at least doesn't try *too* hard) to predict and react. The toolboxed deck is ready for anything which is somewhat likely to occur. In effect, it takes a value of METAGAME = 0, whereas a focused deck tries to guess at a value. If that dichotomy is correct, then it seems that if you expect a lot of Change of Target in your metagame, you are better off playing a focused deck that can deal with that, rather than an unfocused deck, which is just the type of deck that Change of Target seems perfect against. In a sealed deck type of environment, Change of Target becomes a very good card. In a focused environment, such as I was used to and very happy with playing under until about the release of Final Nights, CoT is just not very useful. Still not sure what my ultimate point is here... The above paragraphs almost got snipped like the last few in my last post, but take them as you will. > >think that only a very unfocused deck could generate +2 intercept > >without being an all-out intercept deck (which won't be that worried > > It doesn't cost THAT many card slots to put in a couple Sport > Bikes/Raven Spies/Mr. Winkies and a couple news locations. "Very > unfocused" seems to be a misnomer here. > A deck would not be very unfocused if it had 2 Sport Bikes, 2 Mr. Winthrops, and 2 news locations. However, such a deck could not reliably generate +2 intercept, in addition to reliably being able to Wake. Unless you're playing an intercept deck, each Wake already makes your deck less focused. Having, say, 6 Wakes seems like an acceptable level of soft focus (smearing some butter on the lens, like they do in porn movies), and maybe 4-5 intercept permanents, but I can't see how such a deck could get 2 of those permanents out every game. Once you *do* get those 2 permanents out (probably 10 turns into the game), then how many Wakes do you have left? If you use 3 before you get them out (assuming you draw that many), and don't ever get to the last wake in the deck, then you maybe get 2 intercept-worthy wakes. That's not what I call "reliably" generating +2 intercept after you wake. And the fact that the intercept is all permanent means that CoT won't hurt you unless you are in the process of Waking. Lost in Crowds, Earth Control, Shadow Play, etc., however, could hurt you regardless. Note that the numbers are completely speculation, but you'd be hard pressed to get much better than that, unless you stack the deck to always draw what you need. In my environment, any deck that isn't a very focused combat deck will never draw out all the way, and certainly will not draw more than half the deck in 10 turns. Is yours different? Or do you just reliably draw all your intercept locations on the first turn? > However, that's one more Wake out of your hand for little effect, and > one Political Ally that DIDN'T die when drawing the Wake out -- because > let's face it, it's sort of difficult to keep him alive in combat. > Are you playing a combat deck? If so, rush the stupid ally. Are you playing an intercept deck? Then the loss of a wake doesn't hurt that much. Are you playing a bleed deck? Then keep smashing your prey. Stopping that bleed for 3 for one turn is worth almost as much as killing the stupid ally anyway. Are you playing a vote deck? Well, all you have to do with a good vote deck is get past the early game. Stop that 3 pool loss now, and stay around long enough to get out your big guys, get a vote lock, and not be very worried about that 3 pool later on. > If you leave an untapped minion, the Ally will not be taking his action > until you tap that minion. You then get to ask yourself whether to > block my other actions and risk not drawing into a Wake (thereby losing > 3 pool), or whether to let my other actions go. This can be a real pain > when those "other actions" are all bleeds for 1 or an occasional 2. > All this deciding whether to block or not is hurting my head. It just goes to show that CoT is good against toolbox decks. ;) > That's why my bruise and bleed always are based around either action > modifiers for 3, or Computer Hacks for 2... and never around action > cards, and rarely around permanents (inherent +1 bleeders like Al-Ashrad > are an exception). > If your bruise and bleed are based around action modifiers, then I presume you have tried what I've tried, which is using the Giovanni and Lasombra for dom/pot. The Toreador just can't get the combat aspect to really go their way, and anyone else using Aire of Elation, I find, just doesn't strike the same fear into your prey's heart. The Tremere can burn 'em down, but only if you're packing a lot of Thoughts Betrayed, and anyway, with Perfect Clarity, you can always play those huge bleeds for 8 or 9, and they'll have to block so you can refill with thefts. Malkavs, I guess, might have a chance too, with Disguised Weapons and Telepathic Tracking, but I've just never seen it tried. > In the first case, if I see an untapped bouncer or a likely bouncer, I > can hang onto my modifier for awhile and make my prey eat a bunch of > bleeds for 1 -- or trick him into wasting a Deflection on those bleeds, > thinking I'm out of modifiers in hand. > If you're playing dom/pot, then making your prey eat a "bunch" of bleed is tough. There just aren't a lot of small vamps with dom/pot. I usually end up with 3 vamps out at a time, which just isn't enough for small bleeds. The only alternative is to bring out your biggest vamp first and GtU the rest, but I haven't quite hit on a good mixture of GtU to make this viable (assuming there is one). I never have them when I need to get vamps out, and I always choke on them in combat.

"Reyda" <re...@noos.fr> wrote in message news:<9sk90u$c0b$1...@neon.noos.net>... > and > #1 is... >>DISARM<<... Grrrr... (should have restriction like Twisting the > knife) > When it was printed, it was vastly inferior to Pulled Fangs. It essentially has the same effect, except that PF didn't require a discipline, and, at the time, PF would also cause you to lose a blood (with the fixed agg rules, only multiple PF would cause the blood to be lost). As far as I'm concerned, Disarm is just fine. After the carnage of PF, this "kinder, gentler" version doesn't bother me in the least. It is *definitely* still a good card, perhaps even overpowered, but nothing compared to the unfixed PF. With PF, a vampire with inferior fortitude could burn a vampire at any current blood total by simply playing skin of steel and any number of PF. Even without multiple PF, just use a 2 cap and Amaranth and who cares about the blood hunt. Disarm at least requires potence, which really doesn't have a whole lot of trouble sending vampires to torpor anyway. What's really the difference between playing Disarm and playing another Increased Strength or two? The Increased Strengths will be useful more often.

Chris Berger wrote: > Disarm at least requires potence, which really doesn't have a whole > lot of trouble sending vampires to torpor anyway. What's really the > difference between playing Disarm and playing another Increased > Strength or two? The Increased Strengths will be useful more often. As an added bonus, the victim of the Disarm can leave the Disarm in place as a defense against further disarming (I've run into this problem before when trying to rely too heavily on Disarm). -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

>Lately, I've >been very upset that the only options for combatting bleed bounce are >Perfect Clarity and Change of Target, when I am of the opinion that >neither card is really very good. Well, could always not bleed for a lot at stealth. I don't mean build a different deck. A bit of a caveat, if all your prey's deck does is bounce, wake and bounce, bounce, this isn't going to help. If that's all your prey's deck does, then something is wrong, if only that you might have chosen the wrong deck to play. So, you start with a bleed. Your prey attempts to block, you stealth, he bounces. Wow, hit my grand prey for 1. The horror. Your prey is tapped out. You bleed, ask for blockers, no block, Conditioning (or whatever), bounce? - grand prey blocks, block - um, okay, that's what your minimal number of combat cards are for assuming your prey can fight at all. Working around bounce does not require Ben's short leash bleed concept. I have to do it all of the time as I have a penchant for stealth bleed. It comes down to restraint and tapping potential bouncers as waking *and* bouncing puts a lot more strain on your prey.

>You bleed, ask for blockers, no block, Conditioning (or whatever), bounce? - >grand prey blocks, block - um, okay, that's what your minimal number of >combat >cards are for assuming your prey can fight at all. This is, of course, unnecessary as the player declined to block. Basically, either you can stealth a lot and not pump the bleed or pump the bleed at no stealth if the player declines to block. Yes, you may put pressure on your grand prey by forcing him/her to block your bleeds*. If you end up contributing greatly to your grand prey's demise, I think you displayed a lack of restraint. * Note that I'm not commenting on the value of Change of Target, simply commenting on getting around bounce without it.

>> I don't think this deck would be too terribly feared at the moment, >> because the metagame is shifting towards combat and "hitting back >> harder" than a punch for 2 isn't so uncommon anymore. But it >> illustrates my objection to Disarm's inferior quite well; Hasina burning >> Arika in *any* sort of combat is simply an unbalanced effect. > > Any worse than Sadie using Wolf's Claws and Amaranth to burn a vampire? And at least Sadie can use Gangrel Conspiracy to survive the Blood Hunt too! Halcyan 2

cur...@aol.com (Curevei) wrote in message news:<20011112144750...@mb-df.aol.com>... > > So, you start with a bleed. Your prey attempts to block, you stealth, he > bounces. Wow, hit my grand prey for 1. The horror. Your prey is tapped out. > How is my prey tapped out? I bleed, he bounces. He spends 1 blood and his prey loses 1 pool. I lose an action. His vampire is still untapped. This is the *worst case scenario* of bleed bounce (worst case to the bouncer), that he uses up 1 blood to bleed his prey for 1 (actually, I guess worst case is that I don't bleed, but other than that). If bleed bounce were somehow useful when there are only 2 people left at the table, then the unbalance would run rampant and no one would ever play anything but bounce, because even in the worst case scenario, you spend one blood and one card to make your prey lose a pool and your predator lose an action (or you spend one blood and one card to make both your predator and prey both lose a blood, via the default hands/hands combat). It's only the inability to bounce when you're the last two decks on the table that really weakens bounce at all. It's like the inverse of intercept, good for the first 3 vps, bad for the last 2. > You bleed, ask for blockers, no block, Conditioning (or whatever), bounce? - > grand prey blocks, block - um, okay, that's what your minimal number of combat > cards are for assuming your prey can fight at all. > Assuming your grandprey isn't tapped out. In most cases you just end up hitting for one, but even this is strong. For one blood and a Deflection, your prey basically cancels your bleed (like a free block where he doesn't have to generate intercept and doesn't tap), and also causes your vampire and one of your prey's vampires to each lose a blood. That's strong already. On top of that, if you or your grandprey screw up, then he may end up causing a huge amount of damage to his prey. It's probably silly to have this argument about bounce. I do agree that bounce wouldn't be a bad thing if it were not given to dominate. If it was given to auspex (and yes, Auspex has bounce, but it's not as good as deflection), then you'd basically have a choice between intercept or bounce with the same discipline (although bounce would still usually be better). If it was given to chimerstry or dementation, you'd have an interesting ability for an out-of-the-ordinary discipline. As it is, dominate is just a big red gaping design flaw. Huge bleeds are somewhat unbalancing, except for the existence of bleed bounce. Bleed bounce is somewhat unbalancing too, in that it hoses not only big bleed, but can also be pretty useful against small bleeds. I just think that we've lived with it long enough to become used to it. I guess I feel the same way about bounce as a lot of people feel about Minion Tap (which I don't feel is overpowered). And I can see the flipside of the coin, that the fact that bounce is necessary to stop big bleeds is just part of the game. If you expect big bleeds, especially at stealth, then you gotta pack some bounce. If you're gonna bleed, especially for large amounts or at stealth, then you gotta be able to counter bleed bounce. I'm not saying it's unbeatable, just unbalancing, and IMHO it always has been.

>How is my prey tapped out? I bleed, he bounces. He spends 1 blood >and his prey loses 1 pool. I lose an action. His vampire is still >untapped. This is the *worst case scenario* of bleed bounce (worst >case to the bouncer), that he uses up 1 blood to bleed his prey for 1 >(actually, I guess worst case is that I don't bleed, but other than >that). If bleed bounce were somehow useful when there are only 2 >people left at the table, then the unbalance would run rampant and no >one would ever play anything but bounce, because even in the worst >case scenario, you spend one < snip the rest > Don't forget that your prey also has the additional cost that he's leaving a minion untapped to play the bounce (or at least is wasting Wakes and FA's each time). Halcyan 2

Chris Berger wrote: > IMHO, a focused deck is nearly always better when you can accurately > predict the metagame, even as a general thing. If you can say, "the > metagame will have a lot of stealth," then you increase your chances > of winning by not throwing in minor intercept or too many wakes. If > you can say, "the metagame will have a lot of bleed bounce," then you > increase your chances of winning by not playing a heavy bleed deck. > > It seems to me that a toolboxed deck only has an advantage over a > focused deck (all other things being equal) when the focused deck has > innacurately judged the metagame, since the toolboxed deck does not > even really try (or at least doesn't try *too* hard) to predict and > react. The toolboxed deck is ready for anything which is somewhat > likely to occur. In effect, it takes a value of METAGAME = 0, whereas > a focused deck tries to guess at a value. An alternate viewpoint on toolbox decks is "METAGAME = some", in that they expect the metagame to have a variety of deck styles, any of which could crush them if they're not adequately prepared. Over the course of the qualifying rounds of a tournament, you'll face 9-16 different opponents. You can reasonably expect to face a decent variety of deck types within those 9-16 decks. Sure, if you guess the metagame correctly, you'll have an advantage with a focussed deck. However, the toolbox fans prefer to not leave their success up to chance. Look at the decks of the finalists of the North American Championship. (http://www.thelasombra.com/road/nac_decks.htm) The only truly focussed deck was Robert Goudie's Torpor Machine, and he most definitely did guess the metagame correctly. Three of the decks (Jared Strait's, Trey Morita's, and Stephen Fazio's) are clearly toolbox decks. Mine lies somewhere in between - hedging my bet, I guess. Were Morita, Fazio, and Strait "begging to be screwed over" by using toolbox decks? Hardly not. They were minimizing the chance that they would get screwed over by unfavorable deck matchups. All three still packed an offense that was more than sufficient. Jared Strait is an interesting example, as he's been a major threat over the past four years (at least) using toolbox decks. [ quoted text not captured ]

Curevei wrote: > Working around bounce does not require Ben's short leash bleed concept. I > have to do it all of the time as I have a penchant for stealth bleed. It > comes down to restraint and tapping potential bouncers as waking *and* > bouncing puts a lot more strain on your prey. Oh, sure...I certainly don't point at Change of Target as the only option. Spying Mission works. Meld With the Land works. A little bit of effort will dig up some other cards that work. Restraint is another key factor. Short Leash Bleed isn't called that just because of the Changes of Target - not bleeding for a gazillion is a key part of it, too. Flushing out Wakes and Deflections is essential to successful bleeding, and Change of Target is just one tool you can use. I've got a number of reasons for picking Change of Target... I bleed...defender attempts to block...I play Bonding at superior... defender Deflects...I tap the Rumor Mill to let my grandprey block... I play Change of Target to untap both my guy and my grandprey's guy. My grandprey doesn't spend any resources to defend, and my guy is now untapped and ready to block/bounce, and I can send in a different guy to bleed. I bleed...defender Wakes and attempts to block...I play Change of Target and leave the twerp tapped. My guy is untapped and ready to block or bounce, and I can send in a different guy to bleed against a weakened defender. I bleed...predator (or whoever) unexpectedly plays Eagle's Sight and I'm not prepared for his intercept...I play Change of Target and bail out my vampire. Instead of having to keep a couple guys back to block, and only use a couple guys to bleed, I'm free to use all my minions in a given turn for the bleed effort. If one or more get blocked, I can use Change of Target and recover some minions for use as blockers/bouncers and send the rest in to bleed. If the first couple are successful, I can stay defensive with the other two or go for the jugular. In general, I've found that Change of Target gives me much more freedom to act. [ quoted text not captured ]

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message news: 3BF01F27...@white-wolf.com... > Chris Berger wrote: > > Disarm at least requires potence, which really doesn't have a whole > > lot of trouble sending vampires to torpor anyway. What's really the > > difference between playing Disarm and playing another Increased > > Strength or two? The Increased Strengths will be useful more often. > > As an added bonus, the victim of the Disarm can leave the Disarm in place > as a defense against further disarming (I've run into this problem before > when trying to rely too heavily on Disarm). our metagame have seen quite numerous Disarm decks. What annoys me is that non combat clans can also benefit from this. A lot of time you can always punch for one and prevent one (flack jacket anyone ? ) to disarm and decapitate/amaranth the poor thing. It's a poor combo because you cannot imagine a vampire losing his arm for *one damage*, that's plain stupid. If it had restriction like twisting the knife (eg: doing a certain amount of damage), it would be more logical. But logic is not the main priority in this game ;) LSJ's solution about keeping the disarm on your vampires is a good idea (since corrected card text), and i might add that i always keep the disarm only to burn at the least expected moment -eg: while in combat, during strike resolution while blocking an empty blood doll hunt action. anyway a lot of people think that disarm is a good replacement for pulled fangs. I must agree that PF was even more frustrating. Especially for my bank acount : the infamous errata was issued several weeks after i bought/traded about 14 pulled fangs. Sigh... reyda

ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote in message news:<5287ede4.01111...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] IMO, predicting the metagame is a)quite difficult when not in your home city and b)no solace when your prey or perdator is the one deck you can't handle. The real difference is the way you play the game. A focussed deck does one thing really well but has big holes in its defence, IOW a focussed deck is completely at the mercy of the seating. When playing a weenie pot deck, for example, every deck with fortitude (or protean)completely kills you. Toolbox decks OTOH try to cover some of the weak point in their deck. (Please note that in my definition of Toolbox there still is enough focus to do something well enough.) e.g., a vote deck that can also bleed when it doesn't get vote lock. No idea what's better. The difference is just playing style. "Do you like to gamble or play it a little safer?" sums it up for me. I have to say that I play longer with my toolbox decks. They are IMO more of a challenge to win with regularly. With really focussed decks the outcome can more easily be predicted.(I play weenie pot, my prey plays Gangrel with potence, my predator plays Ravnos ani-for combat. Outcome: I'm fucked.) Jeroen

In message <9sps40$bj8$1...@neon.noos.net>, Reyda <re...@noos.fr> writes: >our metagame have seen quite numerous Disarm decks. What annoys me is that >non combat clans can also benefit from this. A lot of time you can always >punch for one and prevent one (flack jacket anyone ? ) to disarm and >decapitate/amaranth the poor thing. It does, of course, require Potence to be knocking around - which isn't always the easiest of things. Also, against a non-heavy combat deck, whatever combat defence you have put in should be enough to save you from a Disarm - since they haven't played Immortal Grapple, you can dodge; since they have got maneuvers, you can Fake Out etc. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 12 Nov 2001 10:59:17 -0800, ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote: >Derek Ray <lor...@yah0o.com> wrote in message news:<e1nuutokic57dc41v...@4ax.com>... >> Toolbox decks win just as easily as focussed decks do. This isn't a >> valid argument anymore -- the game has long since progressed past the >> mindless charge-forward of such decks. =) >> >I think that the "focused versus all-over-the-place" debate (I >supposed the "other side" might call it the "toolboxed versus narrowly >single-minded" debate) still has merit. I know that the debate has >been dragged on at length, but I think that a) it has not been drawn >to an obvious conclusion, like the CL vs. NCL argument, and b) it has >not been shown to be an unarguable point, like the argument over >Minion Tap (I could be wrong about this, maybe it *is* unarguable). It's USENET. Everything is arguable. But others have done a pretty good job of arguing it up 'til now (while giving examples) -- and I'll point out that a suspicious lot of the UK decks have been filthy toolbox sleaze, and THOSE are certainly effective. I will repeat, though, that "toolbox" and "all-over-the-place" are not the same thing. I have a Ravnos toolbox that is pretty consistent about regaining blood as necessary, bleeding forward for 2-3 with each minion, and fetching Meat Hooks to match up with Apparition in case someone blocks. It just also has a bit of Ignorant Fatass and Fata Amria in it, and two Sense Deps (because you ALWAYS need to glue someone to the floor). That's "toolbox", to me. A bunch of similar wrenches, one screwdriver, and that weird bolt-cutter you picked up off the side of the road four years back. >IMHO, a focused deck is nearly always better when you can accurately >predict the metagame, even as a general thing. If you can say, "the Big caveat, 'when you can accurately predict the metagame'. I played a nice, focused Atonement/.44 deck last night. It sat down next to Assamites, an intercept/bleed deck, and later in the game was next to an Ex Nihilo/Weather Control deck. Despite having Nigel kitted up with the Atonement, two Fortitude cards, a .44, a Guardian Angel, a Rack, and two Blood Dolls, he still went splat something like 8 times in that game. Poor guy must have felt like a yoyo. Anyway, the point is that it's not really all THAT possible to accurately predict the metagame anymore... and it's going downhill. Bloodlines should REALLY screw things up for awhile. >If that dichotomy is correct, then it seems that if you expect a lot >of Change of Target in your metagame, you are better off playing a >focused deck that can deal with that, rather than an unfocused deck, Certainly. But you have to know that the CoT is coming. >which is just the type of deck that Change of Target seems perfect >against. In a sealed deck type of environment, Change of Target >becomes a very good card. In a focused environment, such as I was >used to and very happy with playing under until about the release of >Final Nights, CoT is just not very useful. And it's this statement and approach that MAKES CoT useful; people don't plan for it (although it's a bit tricky to plan for CoT) and so, their Evil Plans start to get twitched all over the place. If you're going to be chucking around 2nd Tradition/Obedience, it will suck to jam up on the Obedience. >> It doesn't cost THAT many card slots to put in a couple Sport >> Bikes/Raven Spies/Mr. Winkies and a couple news locations. "Very >> unfocused" seems to be a misnomer here. >> >A deck would not be very unfocused if it had 2 Sport Bikes, 2 Mr. >Winthrops, and 2 news locations. However, such a deck could not >reliably generate +2 intercept, in addition to reliably being able to No, but it can reliably generate +1 intercept with the transients to +2 for emergencies, which is what I originally said. >Wake. Unless you're playing an intercept deck, each Wake already >makes your deck less focused. Having, say, 6 Wakes seems like an >acceptable level of soft focus (smearing some butter on the lens, like >they do in porn movies), and maybe 4-5 intercept permanents, but I >can't see how such a deck could get 2 of those permanents out every >game. Once you *do* get those 2 permanents out (probably 10 turns Easy. You equip with them as they come into your hand. (Can't put 2 Mr. Winkies in, though - has to be 3 Sport Bikes and 1 Winky.) In my experience, 6 in a deck means that you'll usually get 2 of them within the first 5 turns or so. Plenty of time. >That's not what I call "reliably" generating +2 intercept after you >wake. And the fact that the intercept is all permanent means that CoT >won't hurt you unless you are in the process of Waking. Lost in >Crowds, Earth Control, Shadow Play, etc., however, could hurt you >regardless. These cards all require superior in a known-stealth discipline, unlike Change of Target. More powerful, yes, in that they permit the action to go through anyway. More restricted, yes, also. >Note that the numbers are completely speculation, but you'd be hard >pressed to get much better than that, unless you stack the deck to >always draw what you need. In my environment, any deck that isn't a >very focused combat deck will never draw out all the way, and >certainly will not draw more than half the deck in 10 turns. Is yours >different? Or do you just reliably draw all your intercept locations >on the first turn? Ours is quite a bit different, actually. We average about 12 turns per game, and often run 3/4 or more of the library out in that time (if you last that long, of course). And a lot of us also run "short decks" -- 6 permanents in a 75-card Atonement deck is stronger than 6 permanents in a 90-card deck. >> However, that's one more Wake out of your hand for little effect, and >> one Political Ally that DIDN'T die when drawing the Wake out -- because >> let's face it, it's sort of difficult to keep him alive in combat. >> >Are you playing a combat deck? If so, rush the stupid ally. Are you Excellent! One Rush wasted on the ally. (if I don't block with someone else, that is; he's worth keeping around just to screw with people). And playing Left for Dead on him at that point is Just Plain Funny. >playing an intercept deck? Then the loss of a wake doesn't hurt that >much. Are you playing a bleed deck? Then keep smashing your prey. The inability to play intercept and combat cards -does- hurt, though -- a good intercept deck will be designed to not carry much more than 2 Wakes in hand at any given point. >Stopping that bleed for 3 for one turn is worth almost as much as >killing the stupid ally anyway. Are you playing a vote deck? Well, >all you have to do with a good vote deck is get past the early game. >Stop that 3 pool loss now, and stay around long enough to get out your >big guys, get a vote lock, and not be very worried about that 3 pool >later on. "vote lock" is a pretty entertaining concept these days, in my opinion. With so many big/titled vamps running around, it's kind of rough to overtake the table votes, and pool gain is no guarantee what with all the light intercept floating through (being able to stop the 5th is critical). I think you underestimate the Ally a bit, and by extension, what CoT can do to protect the poor bugger. >> If you leave an untapped minion, the Ally will not be taking his action >> until you tap that minion. You then get to ask yourself whether to >> block my other actions and risk not drawing into a Wake (thereby losing >> 3 pool), or whether to let my other actions go. This can be a real pain >> when those "other actions" are all bleeds for 1 or an occasional 2. >> >All this deciding whether to block or not is hurting my head. It just >goes to show that CoT is good against toolbox decks. ;) Well, if you're a focussed deck, the decision is apparently simple; get bled for 3 each turn by an ally, or turn your focus aside to deal with that ally. =) >If your bruise and bleed are based around action modifiers, then I >presume you have tried what I've tried, which is using the Giovanni >and Lasombra for dom/pot. The Toreador just can't get the combat ...Or the Brujah/!Brujah for pre/POT (or CH/POT). Or the EuroBrujah for POT/dom, with the occasional Lasombra and Giovanni for flavouring. >aspect to really go their way, and anyone else using Aire of Elation, >I find, just doesn't strike the same fear into your prey's heart. The Hm, that's fine with me. Rigby/Amelia will happily bleed for 3 with an Aire, and Sela can manage 4. Hector and Hugo are going to have to make use of the Enchant Kindreds, but that's OK -- they don't mind, since they either only cost 2 or were possibly totally free. I'm always delighted to have my prey say "I take the bleed". I still have plenty of Rush actions backing it up for when I run out of bleed cards. >Tremere can burn 'em down, but only if you're packing a lot of >Thoughts Betrayed, and anyway, with Perfect Clarity, you can always >play those huge bleeds for 8 or 9, and they'll have to block so you >can refill with thefts. Malkavs, I guess, might have a chance too, >with Disguised Weapons and Telepathic Tracking, but I've just never >seen it tried. I managed a pretty nasty Malkavian/Hidden Lurker deck at one point; it revolved largely around Watenda getting a Disguised Flamethrower and staying untapped while everyone else bled for 1 with Conditioning as backup. Occasionally, someone would Grave Rob. =) It generally did pretty well, although with 6 Hidden Lurker in the deck, I usually discarded 4 of them (nobody ever blocks you after the first time they get roasted). I had CoT in that deck too, so I could "test" tapped-out decks after Watenda was already tapped. >If you're playing dom/pot, then making your prey eat a "bunch" of >bleed is tough. There just aren't a lot of small vamps with dom/pot. I avoid "weenie dom/pot" as a bruise-bleed option for largely this reason. If you're going to thump people, go ahead and go big. >I usually end up with 3 vamps out at a time, which just isn't enough >for small bleeds. The only alternative is to bring out your biggest >vamp first and GtU the rest, but I haven't quite hit on a good mixture >of GtU to make this viable (assuming there is one). I never have them >when I need to get vamps out, and I always choke on them in combat. Hmmm. I don't usually have that much trouble, but I also think that you have to assume that EVERY GtU is solely for pool gain, and slow down your offense as you get them in hand. Even if this means two Govern-superiors when your prey appears to be totally defenseless; he won't be going anywhere, and gaining 6 pool is -always- a good option. If nothing else, that gives you some breathing space to ignore your predator. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <4c52vtofkn9j2g71t...@4ax.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yah0o.com> writes: >>IMHO, a focused deck is nearly always better when you can accurately >>predict the metagame, even as a general thing. If you can say, "the > >Big caveat, 'when you can accurately predict the metagame'. I played a >nice, focused Atonement/.44 deck last night. It sat down next to >Assamites, an intercept/bleed deck, and later in the game was next to an >Ex Nihilo/Weather Control deck. And this could be more important with table wins, since getting screwed up by a particular non-metagamed deck (which then succeeds in going nowhere, but screws you up completely) could more substantially affect your chances of reaching the final in a situation where VPs each game are balanced differently against overall VPs. [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BF00FD6...@netcom.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I have to simplify, too many possibilities. (I once had the miracle start with Anson an Anneke: Zillah+4, Anson out. 2*Zillah+2 Anneke out, for a total of 21. Start using this possiblity in the maths) Therefore only only the cost/gain is calculated for your vamps. (Besides, Anson can play rumors of Gehenna and be Golconda-ed afterwards. > > > Result: a net gain of 10 pool in 1 (one!) Master Phase. > > > > Assuming the same for the next turns: > > turn 2 > > MT/5th: total gain of 18 > > MT/Golconda: total gain of 10 > > HOLD IT!!! How did we get another 10 capper out in just one turn? We didn't. that's why the total gain of the MT/G deck hasn't gone up since last turn. > Not to mention, any transfers used for the MT/5th can be used to bring > out other minions that can do things. > > > turn 3(remember speed toys) > > MT/5th: total gain of 27 > > I guess you must be counting a second Justicar coming out in a single > turn and running MT, 5th on him as well. I'm still confused at how > we're getting 10 transfers a turn. I don't see what you mean. He can MT/5th the same justicar every turn for a 9 pool gain. (iirc, 9*3=27) For the MT/G deck: it had 2 turns to bring out the next 10 cap, hence the remark about speed toys. > > > MT/G: 20 > > > > MT/5th has a bigger pay-off than MT/G. But IMO the cost is a lot > > higher. > > I have no idea how the hell you're calculating your so-called "plain > math". The game does not work this way. Keep in mind that these are "laboratory condition" calculations about potential pool gain. > > > MT/5th used: 3 MPA's (of 3) and 3 blockable actions out of three for > > the 10cap (barring Freak Drive, but then the MT gives less pool.). The > > possibility of losing the vamp to torpor is still there, thereby > > losing the ability to 5th. > > Assuming you can get 3 out and start running this 3/turn, you can get > 27/turn for this. You'll never get more than 10 per, well not per turn > unless you also have 10 transfers/turn. If you had 10 transfers per turn > with the MT/5th deck, you'd bring out a whole library of Justicars and > Inner Circle members before too long. This makes your MT/Golconda deck > look sick (assuming no one intercepts the 5th traditions, of course). > I think you may be confusing "pool gained in 1 turn" with "TOTAL pool gained since the first turn" in the example. > > > > 3. Which other card can be played that forces you prey to lose two pool or > > > > lose a 8+cap vamp at NO cost to you? > > > > > > Um, assuming he even plays an 8+cap vamp. Speaking of which, the card can very > > > easily become a waste if there's no 8+cap vampires to attack with it. > > > > Nobody packs Golconda unless they themselve have 8+caps in their > > Crypt. > > Maybe. But it's not all that likely your prey will have one out. Certainly > not worth the risk of doing it unless you're using your Golcondas for something > else - like your bizarro Golconda/MT combo deck. In which case I suspect you're > usually better off using it for that purpose than bleeding your prey for a measly > two. Agreed, but the dual use gives it additional versitality.

Jeroen wrote: > > Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BF00FD6...@netcom.com>... > > Jeroen wrote: > > > And plain math: > > > MT/5th: > > > you bring out a Justicar (10cap) > > > next turn: play MT for a max of 9, otherwise he has to hunt. > > > minion Phase: play 5th (+stealth) > > > > > > Result: you are still down 1 pool > > > > > > MT/Golconda > > > same Justicar > > > Minion Tap for 10 > > > Golconda > > > > By your "plain math", I notice we're not counting the transfers to bring > > out Anson or the MPA to put The Parthenon into play. In both cases, > > the fun can't start until the turn after the minion is brought out so that > > part is a wash. > > I have to simplify, too many possibilities. (I once had the miracle > start with Anson an Anneke: Zillah+4, Anson out. 2*Zillah+2 Anneke > out, for a total of 21. Start using this possiblity in the maths) > Therefore only only the cost/gain is calculated for your vamps. > (Besides, Anson can play rumors of Gehenna and be Golconda-ed > afterwards. This isn't a very realistic reflection of the game so let's not do that. To justify your assertion that MT+Golconda works, you need to count how hard it is to transfer out vampires. My whole objection to your scheme is exactly that bringing vampires out is its big weakness. > > HOLD IT!!! How did we get another 10 capper out in just one turn? > > We didn't. that's why the total gain of the MT/G deck hasn't gone up > since last turn. So it's not a total gain per turn - it's a total gain for the whole game. You weren't very specific about that. Some of your other comments seemed confusing to me if you're talking up the advantage 10 pool gain _total_ vs. the continual use of a minion. 10 pool is just not much of a boon to live without a 10 cap vampire you took 2 1/2 turns to transfer out, IMO. Fred

fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) wrote in message news:<bf72a12e.01110...@posting.google.com>... > Direct Intervention, while occasionally handy, is soooooo overrated. Agreed. > My biggest gripe about it is that it breaks the theme of Methuselahs > being purely puppeteers. Apart from that, master phase actions are Again, agreed. I think it's pretty much a waste of pool and a master phase, but then again, I am pretty much all about taking action, not reacting. I pretty much never play with Sudden Reversal or Direct Intervention. That being said, maybe I should throw a pile into whatever deck I end up playing this weekend in Madison. :) > cover your butt. That being said, I'll put a DI or two in a weenie > deck to stop the occasional Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment in > case my intercept can't cover it, or in a deck without superior Auspex > if I'm concerned about Perfect Clarity dorks. Hey, I resemble that remark! Anyway, Perfect Clarity is good stuff. Not that you'd expect to hear anything different from me. I've been trying to think of a list of most hated cards, and I've been having trouble. S:CE hasn't bothered me for ages, though it used to be way up there. The ones I don't like are mostly due to my play style, not because I think they're just wrong or anything. Hmm. Let me think here. (not necessarily in order) 1. Archon Investigation...I'm usually entertained to see people play it, but it seems way overpowered on the whole. I can only think of two other master cards that outright burn a vampire, and they have way more stringent requirements to be met. As has been said, "AI punishes you for bringing your deck to the table." Then again, when someone plays AI on my Sarah Cobbler after she's already pushed a few bleeds through and gets a little happy look on his face, I feel happy for them, knowing that playing AI just made their day brighter right before I oust them. :) 2. Blood of Acid - it'd be nice if it was before range is chosen, but it's obviously not broken by any means. It just bothers me that I play IG, he plays BoA. D'oh! 3. Oh, I can't think of anything that really bothers me, and I don't feel like looking through the rest of the cards. ToGP and Hostile Takeover are strong, true, and no one likes having their vampires stolen. I guess they're annoying. However, I'm usually the one playing them, not the one they're played on. And if I am, I just rush the justicar. :) Or make life painful for the Ventrue. Anyway, there just aren't that many cards that are just plain brown wrong anymore, thank goodness. I think someone around town was complaining that Bum's Rush is just wrong, and I found that highly funny. Hehe. Looking through the cards, I was just thinking it'd be funny to pull an Etrius/Horrific Countenance/Ankara Citadel/Clan Impersonation/Path of the Feral Heart/bleed/Perfect Clarity deck, but it seems like it'd be too much work for the combo. Funny, though. Xian

Derek Ray <lor...@yah0o.com> wrote in message news:<4c52vtofkn9j2g71t...@4ax.com>... > > And it's this statement and approach that MAKES CoT useful; people don't > plan for it (although it's a bit tricky to plan for CoT) and so, their > Evil Plans start to get twitched all over the place. > But the reason it's not planned for is because it sucks. ;) If you're building a focused deck, you would probably ignore a corner case like CoT, and when it's played, you won't care. Only when you build a toolboxed deck does it matter. CoT hoses half-assed intercept. The solution is don't play half-assed intercept. I do have a deck that has half-assed intercept in it, and if it got continuously CoT'd or Red Herring'd, it might not be able to intercept effectively. But even if that happens, it's no big deal, because intercept isn't what the deck *does* (actually I'm not entirely sure what it does, it's kinda all-over-the-place. 8) ). > No, but it can reliably generate +1 intercept with the transients to +2 > for emergencies, which is what I originally said. > By *reliably* generate +2 intercept, I mean that it will have it when it wants it. If you can generate +2 intercept during 30% of the gameplay, then you only have a 30% chance of having it in an emergency, because an emergency can happen at any time, even as far as a second turn Sens Dep at stealth. So, no, I don't agree that it can generate +2 intercept in an emergency, unless the emergency miraculously coincides with the time when you are most able to cope with it. > Easy. You equip with them as they come into your hand. (Can't put 2 > Mr. Winkies in, though - has to be 3 Sport Bikes and 1 Winky.) In my > experience, 6 in a deck means that you'll usually get 2 of them within > the first 5 turns or so. Plenty of time. > Well, it was originally only 1 Mr. Winthrop, for only 5 cards, but I decided 6 cards was reasonable. But do you seriously think that adding a second Mr. Winthrop will really make a difference? Even the chance of drawing *1* when you have 2 in the deck is not all that amazingly good, much less the chance of drawing both. I usually put 2 copies of a unique in, if I want to get it with some time left to use it. If I draw the second (usually in the end game), it's just a dead spot in the deck, but it doesn't happen that often. > Ours is quite a bit different, actually. We average about 12 turns per > game, and often run 3/4 or more of the library out in that time (if you > last that long, of course). And a lot of us also run "short decks" -- 6 > permanents in a 75-card Atonement deck is stronger than 6 permanents in > a 90-card deck. > But 6 intercept cards and 6 wakes is what I would consider reasonable in a 90 card deck (actually, on the high side of reasonable... 13% of your deck devoted to intercept is still a little high, with the possible exception of a devoted combat deck, which can see the intercept as another way of rushing, but which would then have the problem of clogging on them in combat). That would *usually* let you generate +2 intercept probably twice during the game, both times toward the latter half of the game. That's not really reliable. If you're playing, say, a 60-card deck, then 6 intercept cards and 6 wakes makes 20% of your deck. If you're going for, say, a toolboxed bleed deck (it's too small for a combat deck), then you might devote another 20% of your deck to combat defense, and another 5% to vote defense (3 Delaying Tactics). You've now got 45% of the deck taken up. Add in another 10% for master cards (only 6 masters!), and you've got less than half the cards you draw doing anything for your main strategy. I suppose it's possible for such a deck to win, perhaps even win often. However, this is certainly "all-over-the-place" rather than simply toolboxed. Such a mixture (12 cards devoted to blocking) in a 75 card deck, is, IMO, somewhere between being all-over-the-place, and merely having a decent defense. > ...Or the Brujah/!Brujah for pre/POT (or CH/POT). Or the EuroBrujah for > POT/dom, with the occasional Lasombra and Giovanni for flavouring. > CH/POT is not modifier based. And I dispute your stance that Aire of Elation is enough. Too much blood, too little pool. Playing a Lasombra B&B with both Threats and Conditioning, I found that people sighed in relief when the Threats came down. Add in the extra cost of Aire, and if you don't get blocked (or don't have a Taste when you need it), you're hurting. Conditioning is better because it makes for a quicker game, despite draining your vamps. Threats is better because it doesn't drain your vamps. > >If you're playing dom/pot, then making your prey eat a "bunch" of > >bleed is tough. There just aren't a lot of small vamps with dom/pot. > > I avoid "weenie dom/pot" as a bruise-bleed option for largely this > reason. If you're going to thump people, go ahead and go big. > Then I don't see how you can really make a B&B deck that isn't based around bleed-modifying action cards.

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<Zj$Cz5vra...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <9sgj2d$87p$1...@s1.read.news.oleane.net>, Francois Gombault > <fgom...@i.dont.like.spam.activia.net> writes: > >Protect Thine Own > > > >Especially when that Tremere justicar teamed up with Carlotta to pull it > >each round. Ouch. > > You could play Writ of Acceptance, if your metagame dictates this. Or > vote defence. > > A deck with Carlotta *and* Ulugh Beg out is unlikely to have *that* many > votes available. Sargon Fragment works much better, for that reason. Ulugh Beg / Angus equips the Sargon, Gwendolyn/Stanislava do the voting. > Or just rush the Justicar/IC member. Depends on the ICM/Justicars used. If they intend to shotokan their way into casting those votes, you just saved them a trip to the ash heap. PTO is pretty good and all, but I don't see it being *that* annoying unless you're really fond of the Sabbat. My top 5: 5) Rotschreck (too many lines of clarification needed to explain it) 4) Pentex Subversions 3) Pentex Subversions 2) Pentex Subversions 1) Pentex Subversions

> Again, agreed. I think it's pretty much a waste of pool and a master > phase, but then again, I am pretty much all about taking action, not > reacting. I pretty much never play with Sudden Reversal or Direct > Intervention. That being said, maybe I should throw a pile into > whatever deck I end up playing this weekend in Madison. :) Don't do it!!! Kevin already gets to happy with those damn cards. DIing Stealth to prevent a cross table oust is purely annoying in my book. DI just says that my deck loses to something, and instead of accepting that I need to act like a 14 year old magic player. (BLUE glorious BLUE) (no offence to anyone person by that, I just don't like the card). Sudden is more balanced, because in the game it takes place on the Player to Player level, but why would a 4th Gen keep Ozmo from playing a cloak the gathering? Oh, so a list: DI Rewind Time . . . Gosh, I guess thats it. I'm annoyed by cards for sure (Delaying Tactics) but those are the only two I really hate. Huh. Cameron

In message <a1e26d99.01111...@posting.google.com>, Cameron <orcao...@hotmail.com> writes: >why would a 4th Gen keep Ozmo >from playing a cloak the gathering? Something to do, I expect. [ quoted text not captured ]

> anyway a lot of people think that disarm is a good replacement for pulled > fangs. I must agree that PF was even more frustrating. Especially for my > bank acount : the infamous errata was issued several weeks after i > bought/traded about 14 pulled fangs. Sigh... You have nothing on all the freaking Tombs that I traded for before Zillah's came out. As an added insult I pulled another Tomb in the rare draw at the Minneapolis tournement. The next person got a Derange. Sigh... Cameron

Xian wrote: > I pretty much never play with Sudden Reversal or Direct > Intervention. That being said, maybe I should throw a pile into > whatever deck I end up playing this weekend in Madison. :) Yikes...no Suddens? I've found that one often needs them to stop pool gain cards - no sense in letting your prey bail themselves out. They're also good for those whammy masters, like Hostile Takeover, Temptation of Greater Power, Toreador Grand Ball, and so on. > > cover your butt. That being said, I'll put a DI or two in a weenie > > deck to stop the occasional Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment in > > case my intercept can't cover it, or in a deck without superior Auspex > > if I'm concerned about Perfect Clarity dorks. > > Hey, I resemble that remark! Anyway, Perfect Clarity is good stuff. > Not that you'd expect to hear anything different from me. *laugh* I kinda figured I'd get a response out of you. ;) Though your deck from the Shadow Twin tournament wasn't as annoying with Perfect Clarity as some other decks I've seen recently. Your Tremere were at least doing the bruise 'n bleed thing, rather than just sitting around waiting for the combo, if I remember correctly. That's what the deck looked like to me, anyway. > I've been trying to think of a list of most hated cards... > > (not necessarily in order) > 1. Archon Investigation...I'm usually entertained to see people play > it, but it seems way overpowered on the whole. I can only think of > two other master cards that outright burn a vampire, and they have way > more stringent requirements to be met. Archon Investigation is another in my "soooooo overrated" list. Bleed bounce totally outclasses AI. Then again, I hate Deflection, too. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

Ben Peal wrote: > > Xian wrote: > > I pretty much never play with Sudden Reversal or Direct > > Intervention. That being said, maybe I should throw a pile into > > whatever deck I end up playing this weekend in Madison. :) > > Yikes...no Suddens? I've found that one often needs them to stop > pool gain cards - no sense in letting your prey bail themselves out. > They're also good for those whammy masters, like Hostile Takeover, > Temptation of Greater Power, Toreador Grand Ball, and so on. I'm totally with Xian on this one. I'd rather be *playing* those Hostile Takeovers, Temptation of Greater Powers, Toreador Grand Balls, and so on for myself, not using my precious MPAs trying to prevent one of my three or four opponents from advancing his position. In this case, the best defense is a good offense because it's a much more efficient way to spend MPAs. Granted, certain decks do make you wish you could retroactively replace a few of your masters with Suddens once you know you're playing against them. But there aren't enough of them in the metagame to alter my thinking at deckbuilding time. Fred

"Frederick Scott" <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:3BF4DEFA...@netcom.com... [ quoted text not captured ] That's my thinking, a good offense is better than a good defense. You can't win the game without going forward ( unless you're playing a Dramatic Upheval or Kindred Restructure deck ). Those precious MPAs are usually better reserved for said offense. Occasionally a deck of mine has spare slots because the concept doesn't require many masters, in which case I put in some SR. I'm not a big fan of DI either, even though every tourny deck seems to pack at least one. For my money I think I'd spend so much time waiting for a good time to play it that it'll just jam up my hand. I think too often that I'll find that the card I've burned with it wasn't worth giving up 1 pool and a MPA for.

> That's my thinking, a good offense is better than a good defense. You can't > win the game without going forward ( unless you're playing a Dramatic > Upheval or Kindred Restructure deck ). Those precious MPAs are usually > better reserved for said offense. I totally disagree. Your minions are your offense. And they are what you use to oust your prey, not your Masters. When you think about it, what is your greatest offensive power in the game? What do you use most to cause your prey to lose pool? Your minions. What is the best way to gain pool in the game? So that you have a fair reserve for when your predators minions get through? Your Masters. This is true for most players. Knowing this going into a tournament, if you build your deck so that you can use your minions effective and efficiently to cause your prey pool loss (and thus ousting her), you can use your MPAs to thwart her strategies, not only in gaining pool but also in improving her position on the table. Sometimes all it takes is Suddening a key master or Intervening on a key action to cause a strategy or position to fold. Down to 2 pool and really need to get off a Minion Tap for 9? Sorry. Calling an AU to oust your weenie prey? Nope. Typically I'll pack 4 SRs and 2 DIs in a tournament deck. I'd rather use my minions to oust my prey and my MPAs to thwart her strategy. Sorrow --- no hate no wars no ignorance no politics no pain no force no weapons no oppression no sorrow no chemicals no dust no leaders no violence no dust no leaders no leaders now it's time for the world to see a man with open eyes now it's time to realize we tell ourselves the best of lies

fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) wrote in message news:<bf72a12e.01111...@posting.google.com>... > Xian wrote: [snip] > Yikes...no Suddens? I've found that one often needs them to stop > pool gain cards - no sense in letting your prey bail themselves out. > They're also good for those whammy masters, like Hostile Takeover, > Temptation of Greater Power, Toreador Grand Ball, and so on. Well, I addressed this elsewhere in a Josh/Peter/Xian side-thread, but I: a) Don't see a lot of ToGP/Hostile unless I'm the one playing it. b) With the decks I usually play, I rarely let a juicy Minion-tapping vampire sit around a full turn without hammering it or putting it in torpor. > > Hey, I resemble that remark! Anyway, Perfect Clarity is good stuff. > > Not that you'd expect to hear anything different from me. > > *laugh* I kinda figured I'd get a response out of you. ;) What, me? Tremere fanatic? Naaaah. > Though your deck from the Shadow Twin tournament wasn't as annoying > with Perfect Clarity as some other decks I've seen recently. Your I can't tell if that's a compliment or not. ;) > Tremere were at least doing the bruise 'n bleed thing, rather than > just sitting around waiting for the combo, if I remember correctly. > That's what the deck looked like to me, anyway. Oh yeah, I figure, I've only got so many PC in the deck, why wait around? If I've got a Govern in hand, no reason to let a perfectly good card go to waste. Seems like waiting for a combo is a pretty half-assed way to go about bruise-and-bleed. Wait. If they aren't using PC for bruise & bleed, what *are* they using it for? Kind of expensive (but funny) for Bum's Rush... [Xian's AI comments snipped] > Archon Investigation is another in my "soooooo overrated" list. > Bleed bounce totally outclasses AI. Then again, I hate Deflection, > too. :) Well, that's my basic feeling too...as mentioned, I'm usually amused to see it played. Doesn't keep me from feeling it's overpowered. I really have trouble believing that it should *burn* a vampire. I'd be much happier if it sent the vampire to torpor and cancelled the bleed or something. But again, no big deal. If they want to pay 3 to stop a bleed that was in all likelihood for 4 or 5, and they're most likely almost ousted anyway...no skin off my nose... Xian ...maybe I'll take to playing SRs just to cancel AIs cross table...hehe...

Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BF4DEFA...@netcom.com>... > Ben Peal wrote: > > Yikes...no Suddens? I've found that one often needs them to stop > > pool gain cards - no sense in letting your prey bail themselves out. > > They're also good for those whammy masters, like Hostile Takeover, > > Temptation of Greater Power, Toreador Grand Ball, and so on. > > I'm totally with Xian on this one. I'd rather be *playing* those Hostile > Takeovers, Temptation of Greater Powers, Toreador Grand Balls, and so on > for myself, not using my precious MPAs trying to prevent one of my three > or four opponents from advancing his position. In this case, the best > defense is a good offense because it's a much more efficient way to spend > MPAs. I'm not sure it is more efficient. Consider that you can play your own masters and still get "advanced" your next MPA to play a Sudden on your prey's turn. Not to mention that there are ways to increase your available MPAs. And then, the effectiveness of ToGP, Hostile, and TGBall is just as dependent on what your opponents play as Sudden: ToGP and Hostile are only good if your prey/predator are playing non-weenies; TGBall if people were going to block your non-bleed actions. In master cards, I really don't believe that the best defense *is* a good offense. Your offensive master cards in no way counter anyone else's (unless you ToGP your opponent's only Justicar before he gets a chance to do the same to yours - lucky at best). Sudden Reversal is the only thing that actually *is* a defense against such masters. Additionally, there are only a few strictly "offensive" master cards available: ToGP, Hostile, Anarch Revolt, and such. Most of your "good offense" masters are more like "strengthen my own position" masters: skill cards, Blood Dolls, Minion Taps, etc. Against those, Sudden acts more like an offensive card than a defensive one: you're not going to play them against just *any* of your 3-4 opponents; you're going to play them on your prey (when he tries to get out of a tight spot) or your predator (when he tries to screw you). Certainly not every deck wants to play Suddens, but from my point of view, a dogmatic refusal to play Sudden is just as silly as refusing to play Minion Taps would be: they're great cards that can cause very large swings in the balance of power. Josh 'let's play master and servant'

Ben wrote: >> Yikes...no Suddens? I've found that one often needs them to stop pool gain cards - no sense in letting your prey bail themselves out. They're also good for those whammy masters, like Hostile Takeover, Temptation of Greater Power, Toreador Grand Ball, and so on.>> Yesh, I pretty much never use Suddens either. I think in recent memory, I had a deck with 4 of them, but only because I wanted specific defense against Haven Uncovereds, not for blanket Master defense. When I include them in a deck, I eventually take them out simply because I can find something more effective to replace them with that I know will be useful all the time. Whenever I have them in my hand, I get stuck in the "Do I Sudden that Blood Doll? What if he plays a Temptation later? Then I'll be sorry!" mind trap which makes me nuts, so I just take them out. Josh mentioned a good idea which I might try out, however, which is the All Sudden deck, where *all* of your Master cards are Suddens, so you have, like, 15 or 18 or something, so you just Sudden everything your prey ever does, which would be really annoying, but possibly effective. >> Archon Investigation is another in my "soooooo overrated" list. Bleed bounce totally outclasses AI. Then again, I hate Deflection, too. :)>> Bounce does completely outclass AI, but AI can be used by *everyone*, and it is a rude surprise to get AI'ed when you aren't expecting it. If it sees a lot of play in a particular environment, everyone simply stops bleeding for more than 3 per action, which is significant in and of itself. A deck I am playing currently is one of those "All 4 Caps With Inferior Dominate" kinda decks (a really extreme one--I think it has 20 Scouting Missions, 15 Bondings, 14 Seductions, 9 Dodge, 9 Wake, 9 Deflection, and 14 Dominate Skill cards) only can bleed at 3 per action, specifically to avoid getting killed by AI. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 "...and the only person I can stand to be around is a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker!" -Buffy

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:PT8J7.83$jX1....@newshog.newsread.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I use my MPAs to enhance the effectiveness of my minions. Generally I don't believe in playing a reactionary style. I treat it like any sport in that reguard, you need to allow for another player's strategy but you always try to play the game the way you want it played and you force your opponent to adjust their strategy. The only thing I think a SR is particularly good for is stopping a Minion Tap or Blood Doll. If my deck is going well a Minion Tap or Blood Doll is not going to save a player, it's only going to put off the inevitable. I hate holding on to a SR waiting for a worthy mater to stop, I'd rather have a Blood Doll gaining me pool every turn. It's pretty rare that I've seen a SR or DI change the outcome of a game, but we're not big SR & DI players over here so my vision is probably a bit skewed. You're typically only putting off the inevitable, either that or you're wasting a slot in your hand waiting for that game changing oppourtunity. Once deck that I have does make extremely effective use of SR is a Giovanni deck that has 8 of them, 2 Parthenons and 8 Whispers. SR is a major part of the deck's strategy and I have one in my hand every turn but I'm playing to my strategy not my opponents. Having said all that, I imagine our metagame is totally different to yours which would explain the lack of DI & SR.

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote in message news:20011116163923...@mb-mn.aol.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I too hate holding on to a SR for a worthy master to cancel, while you do so it takes up space in your hand. When you make SRs part of your offence ( by having a lot of them, i.e 6+ ) then it's much more effective. You don't have to decide, you just sudden everything that your prey tries to play that could help him signifigantly. I've got a Giovanni deck w/ 8 SRs, Carlotta, 6 Haunt and 8 Whispers and when I play it everyone finds it incredibly annoying. If it gains pool I SR it ( unless it's not my prey and it's going to save their arse ), if it's a location I let em play it and burn it.

"Joshua Duffin" <duff...@bls.gov> wrote in message news:59b20daa.01111...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] The fact that there are very few purely offensive masters is one of the reasons why I don't use SR that often. > Certainly not every deck wants to play Suddens, but from my point > of view, a dogmatic refusal to play Sudden is just as silly as > refusing to play Minion Taps would be: they're great cards that > can cause very large swings in the balance of power. My main problem with SRs I think, is I hate holding on to the things for the best oppourtunity to play them unless I've got quite a few and I can play them at any time without worrying about wether I'll have one when I *really* need it. I will fill out my master slots with SRs if I have some left but it's pretty uncommon for me to have any left.

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote in message news:20011116163923...@mb-mn.aol.com... > Ben wrote: > >> Yikes...no Suddens? I've found that one often needs them to stop > pool gain cards - no sense in letting your prey bail themselves out. > They're also good for those whammy masters, like Hostile Takeover, > Temptation of Greater Power, Toreador Grand Ball, and so on.>> > > Yesh, I pretty much never use Suddens either. I think in recent memory, I had a > deck with 4 of them, but only because I wanted specific defense against Haven > Uncovereds, not for blanket Master defense. When I include them in a deck, I > eventually take them out simply because I can find something more effective to > replace them with that I know will be useful all the time. Whenever I have them > in my hand, I get stuck in the "Do I Sudden that Blood Doll? What if he plays a > Temptation later? Then I'll be sorry!" mind trap which makes me nuts, so I just > take them out. Josh mentioned a good idea which I might try out, however, which > is the All Sudden deck, where *all* of your Master cards are Suddens, so you > have, like, 15 or 18 or something, so you just Sudden everything your prey ever > does, which would be really annoying, but possibly effective. I've been thinking about this concept, but I can't figure out a deck that wouldn't want to use any Master cards. :) > >> Archon Investigation is another in my "soooooo overrated" list. > Bleed bounce totally outclasses AI. Then again, I hate Deflection, > too. :)>> > > Bounce does completely outclass AI, but AI can be used by *everyone*, and it is > a rude surprise to get AI'ed when you aren't expecting it. If it sees a lot of > play in a particular environment, everyone simply stops bleeding for more than > 3 per action, which is significant in and of itself. A deck I am playing > currently is one of those "All 4 Caps With Inferior Dominate" kinda decks (a > really extreme one--I think it has 20 Scouting Missions, 15 Bondings, 14 > Seductions, 9 Dodge, 9 Wake, 9 Deflection, and 14 Dominate Skill cards) only > can bleed at 3 per action, specifically to avoid getting killed by AI. Peter! I can't believe YOU wouldn't play any maneuvers to get away from IG! In my version of this deck, I don't even play maneuvers, since it just slows me down. I take the chance that I'll get 2-3 VPs before too many of my minions get killed. Works about 70% of the time for 2VP, 30% for 3VP, maybe 1 in 4 it sweeps. FWIW, here is the deck I play: Deck Name: DominHate You Created by: Kevin J. Mergen (concept stolen from Derek Ray) Description: All the 4-cap vamps with DOM. Govern backward or forward, Dominate master everyone, bleed like crazy. Cause Anarch Trouble when necessary. Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 16, Max: 16, Avg: 4] 1 Aleph (AUS dom, Malkavian, 4) 1 Courtland Leighton (dom for pre, Ventrue, 4) 1 Francesca Giovanni (dom nec pot, Giovanni, 4) 1 Ignacio (dom obt pot, Lasombra, 4) 1 Ignatius (aus dom tha, Tremere, 4) 1 Laurent de Valois (ani dom obf, Nosferatu, 4) 1 Peter Blaine (aus dom for, Ventrue Antitribu, 4) 1 Ramiro (dom obt vic, Lasombra, 4) 1 Roland Bishop (aus dom obf, Malkavian, 4) 1 Sarah Cobbler (dom THA, Tremere, 4) 1 Shane Grimald (ani dom pot, Gangrel Antitribu, 4) 1 Thelonius (aus dom tha, Tremere Antitribu, 4) Library: (72 cards) Master (13 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker [key!] 3 Direct Intervention [only used for stopping the vote that kills you] 10 Dominate [68.4% chance to get one in your first 9 cards] 1 Sudden Reversal Minion (57 cards) 16 Bonding 16 Command of the Beast 18 Govern the Unaligned 3 Conditioning 2 Wake with Evening's Freshness 2 Deflection > Peter D Bakija > PD...@aol.com > http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 > > "...and the only person I can stand to be around > is a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker!" > -Buffy Kevin M., Prince of Madison, WI (USA) "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

Joshua Duffin wrote: > > Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BF4DEFA...@netcom.com>... > > I'm totally with Xian on this one. I'd rather be *playing* those Hostile > > Takeovers, Temptation of Greater Powers, Toreador Grand Balls, and so on > > for myself, not using my precious MPAs trying to prevent one of my three > > or four opponents from advancing his position. In this case, the best > > defense is a good offense because it's a much more efficient way to spend > > MPAs. > > I'm not sure it is more efficient. Consider that you can play your > own masters and still get "advanced" your next MPA to play a Sudden > on your prey's turn. Not to mention that there are ways to increase > your available MPAs. It is more efficient. If I use an MPA for me, I'm plus one good advantage for myself in comparison to three other players. Other players need their own MPAs to match that. If I use an MPA to cancel an opponent's MPA, I'm no better off and he's no better off but our other two or three opponents can go advance their own position with their own MPAs and neither of us can do a thing about it. The fact that I'm "advanced" an MPA means exactly zero - I pay with my ability to use an MPA later. (This seems pretty basic - perhaps I'm confused about the point you're trying to make. But the fact that I can use my MPA in this turn and Sudden Reverse before my next turn doesn't change anything in the long run as near as I can tell.) As for there being ways to increase my available MPAs, that also doesn't enter into this argument. If I have two MPAs per turn, by the same reasoning as above, it's still more efficient to grab *two* advantages for myself than grab only one and cancel out one of my three or four opponent's advantages. If I have three MPAs, better to grab three advantages than to grab only two and cancel out an opponent's advantages. > And then, the effectiveness of ToGP, Hostile, > and TGBall is just as dependent on what your opponents play as Sudden: > ToGP and Hostile are only good if your prey/predator are playing > non-weenies; TGBall if people were going to block your non-bleed > actions. That's true but I consider it to be kind of irrelevant. I do see how a Sudden Reversal is "safer" in the sense that you can always hold it to use against the plays that actually hurt you significantly vs. the ones that don't. I guess I can only state that in my experience, my MPAs are very seldom that ineffective. Like someone else in this thread said, if I have a deck that actually has extra master slots, I'll begin to consider Sudden Reverses (after a bunch of other generalized things have been checked: The Barrens, Dreams of the Sphinx, Elder Library, et al) but those are *very* rare. The vast majority of the time I deck build, I'm gritting my teeth counting out master cards and eliminating ones I'd love to have in the deck because I just can't use that many masters. There ain't no room for a "safe" general master card in there. > In master cards, I really don't believe that the best defense *is* > a good offense. Your offensive master cards in no way counter anyone > else's (unless you ToGP your opponent's only Justicar before he gets > a chance to do the same to yours - lucky at best). No, but the "plus-one-for-me vs. minus-one-for-one-of-multiple-opponents" logic is inevitable. Master card slots are far too important to be using for the relatively limited benefit of stopping a single opponent from using a single MPA. > Certainly not every deck wants to play Suddens, but from my point > of view, a dogmatic refusal to play Sudden is just as silly as > refusing to play Minion Taps would be: they're great cards that > can cause very large swings in the balance of power. It's not dogmatic. It's based on very sound logic which seems to apply to almost all game situations. It applies often enough to make it a sound deckbuilding rule-of-thumb for me. Fred

Kevin wrote: >>Peter! I can't believe YOU wouldn't play any maneuvers to get away from IG!>> It is all 'bout playing the odds. Around here, I'm the guy voted most likely to have IG in a deck, so unless I'm playing against myself, I don't have to worry about it much :-) >>In my version of this deck, I don't even play maneuvers, since it just slows me down. I take the chance that I'll get 2-3 VPs before too many of my minions get killed. Works about 70% of the time for 2VP, 30% for 3VP, maybe 1 in 4 it sweeps.>> Yup. The Dodges in my deck are questionable--yeah, they save me a blood when I'm blocked, but I don't really need the blood much, and against anyone who can do more than 1 damage per combat, the Dodges aren't really going to help all that much (assming IG/Press/Multiple Strikes), but hey, I like the picture. >>Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 16, Max: 16, Avg: 4] 1 Aleph (AUS dom, Malkavian, 4) 1 Courtland Leighton (dom for pre, Ventrue, 4) 1 Francesca Giovanni (dom nec pot, Giovanni, 4) 1 Ignacio (dom obt pot, Lasombra, 4) 1 Ignatius (aus dom tha, Tremere, 4) 1 Laurent de Valois (ani dom obf, Nosferatu, 4) 1 Peter Blaine (aus dom for, Ventrue Antitribu, 4) 1 Ramiro (dom obt vic, Lasombra, 4) 1 Roland Bishop (aus dom obf, Malkavian, 4) 1 Sarah Cobbler (dom THA, Tremere, 4) 1 Shane Grimald (ani dom pot, Gangrel Antitribu, 4) 1 Thelonius (aus dom tha, Tremere Antitribu, 4)>> Yeah, I have the exact same crypt. Last night, a pal was trying to convince me to put in at least Gloria Giovanni and Ingrid Rossler (and maybe even Chas Giovanni), just 'cause if I don't have a Skill card, I'm totally useless. With those 2 or 3 in my crypt, I could at least bleed some before I got a skill card (in a game last night, the first two skill cards were both Suddened, really slowing the deck down...) I also might put in a second Peter Blaine, as he is the secret key to the deck! He is exactly the same as all the other vampires, but he gets an occasionally useful special ability! >>Library: (72 cards) Master (13 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker [key!] 3 Direct Intervention [only used for stopping the vote that kills you] 10 Dominate [68.4% chance to get one in your first 9 cards] 1 Sudden Reversal>> Yeah, I just went for 14 Dominate skill cards. Cut out the middle man. >>Minion (57 cards) 16 Bonding 16 Command of the Beast 18 Govern the Unaligned 3 Conditioning 2 Wake with Evening's Freshness 2 Deflection>> I got: 20 Scoutning Mission 15 Bonding 14 Seduction 9 Wake 9 Dodge 9 Deflection I figure if I only ever bleed for 3, I can't get AI'ed (and getting deflected isn't such a big deal), so I only have the Scoutings and Bondings. It works pretty well, but again, has trouble if it doesn't get an early skill card, and even with 14, it sometimes doesn't so much. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote in message news:20011117105403...@mb-bg.aol.com... [ quoted text not captured ] But Gloria & Ingrid (and Chas!) defeat one of the main purposes of the deck -- to be able to Govern out other vampires. With those two (three) in the deck, it becomes a whole different deck. > I also might put in a second Peter Blaine, as he is the secret key to the deck! > He is exactly the same as all the other vampires, but he gets an occasionally > useful special ability! No reason to. :) > >>Library: (72 cards) > Master (13 cards) > 1 Anarch Troublemaker [key!] > 3 Direct Intervention [only used for stopping the vote that kills you] > 10 Dominate [68.4% chance to get one in your first 9 cards] > 1 Sudden Reversal>> > > Yeah, I just went for 14 Dominate skill cards. Cut out the middle man. Oh my god, Bob Marley is so amazing! > >>Minion (57 cards) > 16 Bonding > 16 Command of the Beast > 18 Govern the Unaligned > 3 Conditioning > 2 Wake with Evening's Freshness > 2 Deflection>> > > I got: > 20 Scoutning Mission > 15 Bonding > 14 Seduction > 9 Wake > 9 Dodge > 9 Deflection > > I figure if I only ever bleed for 3, I can't get AI'ed (and getting deflected > isn't such a big deal), so I only have the Scoutings and Bondings. It works > pretty well, but again, has trouble if it doesn't get an early skill card, and > even with 14, it sometimes doesn't so much. But you can't bleed out people at ridiculous rates, either. These two decks we are talking about (yours & mine) are pretty different, and hence it's like comparing apples to oranges. I don't think AI is played hardly at all, so I mostly ignore the fact that it exists. > Peter D Bakija > PD...@aol.com > http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 Kevin M., Prince of Madison, WI (USA) [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BF62807...@netcom.com>... > It is more efficient. If I use an MPA for me, I'm plus one good advantage for > myself in comparison to three other players. Other players need their own MPAs > to match that. If I use an MPA to cancel an opponent's MPA, I'm no better off > and he's no better off but our other two or three opponents can go advance > their own position with their own MPAs and neither of us can do a thing about > it. The fact that I'm "advanced" an MPA means exactly zero - I pay with my > ability to use an MPA later. (This seems pretty basic - perhaps I'm confused about > the point you're trying to make. But the fact that I can use my MPA in this turn > and Sudden Reverse before my next turn doesn't change anything in the long run as > near as I can tell.) I don't know about this +1 advantage logic. It seems to me far too non-specific to be a useful analysis of VTES. For one thing, there aren't many masters that are *always* advantageous when you draw them. Hunting Grounds are useless if (a) you don't have the right clan of vampire or (b) don't have any vampires that need blood; Blood Doll is useless if your vampires don't have any blood to give you and you can't afford to give it to them; Minion Tap is useless if you don't have any Tappable vampires; KRCG is useless if you don't need intercept; Barrens is useless if you don't need an extra discard... everything is situationally contingent. Yes, you expect the "advantage" masters you put in your deck to be useful to you, but likewise you expect your prey's "advantage" masters to be worth cancelling. As such, it seems to me that playing with Sudden Reversals is worth doing when your deck is happier using your master phase actions to mess up your prey than to improve your own position. After all, it really doesn't matter if you're falling behind in the "advantage arms race" against your grandpredator, grandprey, or possibly even predator. You win the game by ousting your prey, not by building up "advantages". If Suddens make it easier to oust your prey, they may be the most useful master available. (the "master phase on credit" point I was trying to make was: you can, at least in theory, destabilize the table in your favor by playing an "advantage" master of your own and then, in the same time around the table, preventing your prey from getting an "advantage" master. That puts you at +1 vs your prey, compared to if both of you successfully played "advantages", which is good in your book, right? Yes, next time around, you don't get to play an "advantage" and your prey does, but just like with money, it's better to get your advantage earlier than later.) > As for there being ways to increase my available MPAs, that also doesn't > enter into this argument. If I have two MPAs per turn, by the same reasoning > as above, it's still more efficient to grab *two* advantages for myself than > grab only one and cancel out one of my three or four opponent's advantages. > If I have three MPAs, better to grab three advantages than to grab only two > and cancel out an opponent's advantages. I really don't agree with that; if you could get the draw to do it, it would usually be *much* better to play one advantage per turn and keep your prey from getting *any* than to play two advantages per turn. > That's true but I consider it to be kind of irrelevant. I do see how > a Sudden Reversal is "safer" in the sense that you can always hold it > to use against the plays that actually hurt you significantly vs. the > ones that don't. I guess I can only state that in my experience, my > MPAs are very seldom that ineffective. Like someone else in this thread > said, if I have a deck that actually has extra master slots, I'll begin > to consider Sudden Reverses (after a bunch of other generalized things > have been checked: The Barrens, Dreams of the Sphinx, Elder Library, > et al) but those are *very* rare. The vast majority of the time I deck > build, I'm gritting my teeth counting out master cards and eliminating > ones I'd love to have in the deck because I just can't use that many masters. > There ain't no room for a "safe" general master card in there. You might want to try building a deck around playing lots of Suddens sometime and see how it works for you (maybe you've already done this and found that it was no good, I don't know). If your prey is playing defensive masters, Suddens are actually more offensive than your own offensive masters. :-) > No, but the "plus-one-for-me vs. minus-one-for-one-of-multiple-opponents" > logic is inevitable. Master card slots are far too important to be using > for the relatively limited benefit of stopping a single opponent from > using a single MPA. But you're not really competing with multiple opponents on the master-card field. > It's not dogmatic. It's based on very sound logic which seems to > apply to almost all game situations. It applies often enough to make > it a sound deckbuilding rule-of-thumb for me. I'm not saying *you're* necessarily dogmatic about it, I'm just saying that being willing to play them when they'd be good is good policy. :-) Josh 'and the tea's on a silver tray the wolfhound's in the sculpture garden'

In message <59b20daa.01111...@posting.google.com>, Joshua Duffin <duff...@bls.gov> writes: >For one thing, >there aren't many masters that are *always* advantageous when you >draw them. Hunting Grounds are useless if (a) you don't have the >right clan of vampire or (b) don't have any vampires that need >blood; Blood Doll is useless if your vampires don't have any blood >to give you and you can't afford to give it to them; Minion Tap >is useless if you don't have any Tappable vampires; KRCG is useless >if you don't need intercept; Barrens is useless if you don't need >an extra discard... everything is situationally contingent. This, of course, is why Ascendance is broken. [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message news:<3BF62807...@netcom.com>... > > It is more efficient. If I use an MPA for me, I'm plus one good advantage for > myself in comparison to three other players. Other players need their own MPAs > to match that. If I use an MPA to cancel an opponent's MPA, I'm no better off > and he's no better off but our other two or three opponents can go advance > their own position with their own MPAs and neither of us can do a thing about > it. The fact that I'm "advanced" an MPA means exactly zero - I pay with my > ability to use an MPA later. (This seems pretty basic - perhaps I'm confused about > the point you're trying to make. But the fact that I can use my MPA in this turn > and Sudden Reverse before my next turn doesn't change anything in the long run as > near as I can tell.) > The thing is, there are certain decks that lend themselves to powerful master cards. MTs with big vamps, ToGP, Hostile Takeover. There are also decks that really rely on master cards in order to work well. Out-of-clan disciplines, Anarch Revolts, those crazy Madness Network themed decks. And finally, there are really good master cards that can sometimes turn the tide of a game. Zillah's Valley, Smiling Jack, KRCG, stealth locations. If you are in a position to use these cards, then throw them in. Skip the SRs. But some decks are not in a position to use the really strong masters, or at least not to be able to gain full effect out of them. If I could play a Dreams of the Sphinx but don't really need it, I might get 50% use out of it, so I get a .5 master advantage by playing it. If I SR *your* Dreams of the Sphinx (or ZV, or MT... note that if I was *only* worried about DotS, I could just use it to contest), which you were going to use to 100% effect, I keep you from getting a 1.0 master advantage. If you are my prey, I'd prefer to gain a 1.0 master advantage on you than to gain a .5 master advantage on the table. (actually, it's the difference between staying *even* and allowing *you* to gain a .5 master advantage on me). When I make a deck, I generally put in the masters that the deck *needs* first. Next are the slots for masters that might help, and SR is included in these. Very often, my combat decks, if they have enough discipline cards, will have 2 SRs in them, which are quite often put to good use. If I have the choice of playing something like an Elder Library, which could make my life a little easier and might help me out, or stop my opponent from playing that Protean master that he's really relying on, I'll go for the SR. There's definitely a frustration that you get from having your masters cancelled, and it's even better if you were planning your whole turn around that master. And SRing an Ascendance is just funny. 8)

ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote in message news:<5287ede4.01111...@posting.google.com>... > <snip> > > And SRing an Ascendance is just funny. 8) Even more funny (or frustrating, depending on your POV) is SRing the SR your Grandpredator played on his Prey's lifesaving Minion Tap. Jeroen

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<h3zM2CNI...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <59b20daa.01111...@posting.google.com>, Joshua > Duffin <duff...@bls.gov> writes: > >For one thing, > >there aren't many masters that are *always* advantageous when you > >draw them. Hunting Grounds are useless if (a) you don't have the > >right clan of vampire or (b) don't have any vampires that need > >blood; Blood Doll is useless if your vampires don't have any blood > >to give you and you can't afford to give it to them; Minion Tap > >is useless if you don't have any Tappable vampires; KRCG is useless > >if you don't need intercept; Barrens is useless if you don't need > >an extra discard... everything is situationally contingent. > > This, of course, is why Ascendance is broken. I have referred more than once to Ascendance as "best master in the game". :-) On the other hand, more pool is not always better. For example, when you want to call a Parity Shift. Josh left my deck in el segundo

>The thing is, there are certain decks that lend themselves to powerful >master cards. MTs with big vamps, ToGP, Hostile Takeover. There are >also decks that really rely on master cards in order to work well. >Out-of-clan disciplines, Anarch Revolts, those crazy Madness Network >themed decks. And finally, there are really good master cards that >can sometimes turn the tide of a game. Zillah's Valley, Smiling Jack, >KRCG, stealth locations. The most game turning master I usually see is a first turn Info Highway.

[ quoted text not captured ] Absolutely! But that's a classically risky master card to pack. If you don't draw it very early, it usually becomes near worthless very quickly. On balance, I don't care for it very much. Fred

On Mon, 03 Dec 2001 06:03:50 GMT, Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote: Slaughterhouse. And that vamp that draws from the preys library. Absolutely ridiculous. T

In message <3c124f06.1089885173@news>, Talo...@hotmail.com writes: >Slaughterhouse. And that vamp that draws from the preys library. >Absolutely ridiculous. I can see people's problems with Slaughterhouse. But the vamp (whose name I forget but who I probably own) isn't *that* powerful, mostly annoying - they have a big sign over their head for any deck playing with the ability to affect secondary resources, which is most decks that aren't a straight-forward bleed (or bleed simulating) deck. -- James Coupe PGP 0x5D623D5D It's been a long road, getting from there to here EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA213D7E It's been a long time, and my time is finally near 668C3695D623D5D I will see my dream come alive at last, I will touch the sky And they're not gonna hold me down no more, no they're not gonna change my mind

On Sat, 8 Dec 2001 01:24:14 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <3c124f06.1089885173@news>, Talo...@hotmail.com writes: >>Slaughterhouse. And that vamp that draws from the preys library. >>Absolutely ridiculous. > >I can see people's problems with Slaughterhouse. > >But the vamp (whose name I forget but who I probably own) isn't *that* >powerful, mostly annoying - they have a big sign over their head for any >deck playing with the ability to affect secondary resources, which is >most decks that aren't a straight-forward bleed (or bleed simulating) >deck. > It just yet another library denial card ability. And an annoying one at that. If I have a thaum strike coming up for my thaum skilled vampires, why should this vampire be able to swipe it from me and even possibly use it against me? Doesnt make a lot of sense. T

In message <3c12843f.9821874@news>, Talo...@hotmail.com writes: >>But the vamp (whose name I forget but who I probably own) isn't *that* >>powerful, mostly annoying - they have a big sign over their head for any >>deck playing with the ability to affect secondary resources, which is >>most decks that aren't a straight-forward bleed (or bleed simulating) >>deck. > >It just yet another library denial card ability. And an annoying one >at that. Perhaps. Yes, it's another library denial card. Yes, it's potentially annoying. It will, in general, hurt a toolboxed deck - with a number of prayer cards - more than a focused deck, where any card that goes is likely to feature in the deck multiple times. It's not unbeatable, it's not stupidly over-powered and it is limited to a unique resource - a vampire - which does make it hard to abuse, for a multiplicity of reasons, many of which are obvious. It also has the problem of lumping you with a card you can't use until you can get rid of it. And if you don't use the special because chances are they'll have *nothing* you can use, well, that's part of the costing wasted. >If I have a thaum strike coming up for my thaum skilled >vampires, why should this vampire be able to swipe it from me and even >possibly use it against me? In simple terms, Just Because (tm). The whole paradigm of the Methuselah controlling exactly what strike is employed (taking a Strike: card as an example) is slightly screwed up anyway, from a back-story point of view. Even in the Jyhad, a vampire will be able to choose if it hits with Discipline X or defends with Discipline Y. However, if we establish that a vampire can undermine a Methuselah's resources - by making them discard their library, as was established in the very first printing with Dr. Jest, as an example - then it is not a huge leap from being able to undermine those resources to being able to steal some of those resources, in a limited manner. The specifics of the situation will often not quite stand up to "logical" back-story based scrutiny. [ quoted text not captured ]