More on the 4CL...

This is my first post to any newsgroup, so I'll try not to mess up too much... I've been playing Jyhad on and off ever since it first came out... For the longest time, my group (5 or so originally, up to 7) played NCL. It was ok, cause it was all we knew. One day, we switched over to 4CL. It was a whole new game, and it was infinitely better. I must agree that it got kinda old playing the same 6 or so cards 10 times in a game. IMO, 4CL forces you to actually think about what you want your deck to do and how to go about making that possible... if you want a, well, not brainless, but less thought-provoking game, play NCL or Doom or something. 4CL makes for a much better game. Bill (wp...@mindspring.com)

William Pyle wrote: > This is my first post to any newsgroup, so I'll try not to mess > up too much... I've been playing Jyhad on and off ever > since it first came out... For the longest time, my group > (5 or so originally, up to 7) played NCL. It was ok, cause > it was all we knew. > > One day, we switched over to 4CL. It was a whole new game, > and it was infinitely better. I must agree that it got kinda old > playing the same 6 or so cards 10 times in a game. IMO, 4CL > forces you to actually think about what you want your deck to > do and how to go about making that possible... if you want > a, well, not brainless, but less thought-provoking game, play NCL I agree whole heartedly Please don't make this your last post I need all the help I can get :-)-~ But I agree that 4CL forces youto "PLAY" your cards not make a move just because you can't do anything else. The in game decision making is much more of a factor in how well you do. Eric

In article <3554cb6d...@news.mindspring.com>, William Pyle <wp...@mindspring.com> writes >This is my first post to any newsgroup, so I'll try not to mess >up too much... I've been playing Jyhad on and off ever >since it first came out... For the longest time, my group >(5 or so originally, up to 7) played NCL. It was ok, cause >it was all we knew. > >One day, we switched over to 4CL. It was a whole new game, >and it was infinitely better. I must agree that it got kinda old >playing the same 6 or so cards 10 times in a game. IMO, 4CL >forces you to actually think about what you want your deck to >do and how to go about making that possible... if you want >a, well, not brainless, but less thought-provoking game, play NCL >or Doom or something. 4CL makes for a much better game. > The point is, though, that none of the NCL players here are really advocating simply playing 6 cards in a game. If that's what you did, then it's no wonder you found the games boring. The thing about NCL is that it *allows* you to have more than 4 of each card in a deck - it does not force you. Cards like Bewitching Oration become more useful because you can have enough of them in the deck to rely on them - making something like a Setite vote deck much more possible (since the Setites don't really have any real voting power from their vampires - a couple with 2 votes each, I believe). And Corruption becomes viable as well. With only 4 in a deck, you're screwed because you'll find it a hard job to get all 4 out of the deck most likely and you'll only be stealing someone like, say, Gideon Fontaine, Roman Alexander or someone like that. But the other cards are yours to do what you will with. In a Ventrue vote deck, you might have quite a few Bewitching Orations, Conservative Agitations and Kine Resources Contested (multiples of each) but then you can do what you like. Do you want to have a few Elder Kindred Networks in there, just to put off other people calling votes? Maybe an Island of Yiaros or two. Have to defend your vampires so a few Majesties or Catatonic Fears might do the trick, or do you want to go for the slightly more difficult to pull off (when you only have 2 or 3 of each card in your deck) Skin of Steel with Pulled Fangs cheese? Well, there's always a couple of Hunting Ground cards in there - and you could have a couple of things like the Traditions to spice up the game a little. A few Dramatic Upheavals or Kindred Restructures will annoy a few people too. As prayer cards, you might like to consider Peace Treaty or Disputed Territory, and Praxis Solomon might help you bargain with a few people in the middle of them contesting each other. So, yes, you might have, say, 10 Bewitching Orations, 10 KRC and 10 Con Agi to allow you to have a solid, workable strategy, but with the other 40, 50, 60 or however many cards you've got left, you can go to town and have some fun and allow other strategies to develop. I mean, with your Ventrue, you can maybe drop a little bleed in there - doubling up as either transfers (GtU and Scouting Mission) or location stealing (Dominate Kine). -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia) Change nospam to obeah to reply Vampire: Elder Kindred Network madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

James Coupe <ve...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote: >with 2 votes each, I believe). And Corruption becomes viable as well. >With only 4 in a deck, you're screwed because you'll find it a hard job >to get all 4 out of the deck most likely and you'll only be stealing >someone like, say, Gideon Fontaine, Roman Alexander or someone like >that. But the other cards are yours to do what you will with. In a ok, I'll grant you that a 4CL makes cards like corruption almost totally useless... we did allow ourselves as many corruptions as we wanted... some theme decks just plain don't work with a 4CL...Our 4CL is not, in fact, a hard-and-fast rule, but just something we try to stick to, to make the game more interesting. Just as a note, when the pot/cel deck only has 4 IG's in it, the vote decks only need 4 majesties/s:ce cards... we have long since given up on stealth-bleed decks, they are just plain not fun.... "oh, look, bleed for 4 at 3 stealth... you've got 3 intercept? fine, 5 stealth...." that just gets lame after a while, especially if it's a weenie deck... Bill

Bill wrote: "One day, we switched over to 4CL. It was a whole new game, and it was infinitely better." What made it infinitely better? "I must agree that it got kinda old playing the same 6 or so cards 10 times in a game." If you were only playing with 6 cards, you were playing a very different game than most of the rest of us. NL alows you to build a deck to any possible specifications to do what you need to do. It does not make you play decks that have 15 copies each of 6 different cards. As an aside, in all of these recent 4CL/NL debates, the 4CL folks keep bringing up that the game is "more fun" because 4CL menas that you don't see the same cards over and over. I don't know about the rest of you, but I play Jyhad for the rich and varied strategic interactions between decks in a game, not to see all the cards. I have all the cards. I've seen all the cards. If I want to get a thrill out of seeing lots of different cards, I'll look in my boxes. The different pictures on the different cards are not what makes Jyhad an exiting game. It is the complex interaction between decks in a game. It is "What happens when a close range Rush deck sits between a weenie vote deck and a Fast Reaction Tremere Intercept deck?", not "Ooh! This time he played a Conditioning! Last time he played a Threats! Cool!". "IMO, 4CL forces you to actually think about what you want your deck to do and how to go about making that possible... if you want a, well, not brainless, but less thought-provoking game, play NCL or Doom or something. 4CL makes for a much better game." Ok, now this statement is just insane. Sure. You like 4CL because it makes all the decks less focused. Sure. You like 4CL cause it makes everyone use lots of different cards. Ok. You like 4Cl cause it slows the game down some. Alright. You like 4CL cause you don't have to figure out how to deal with deck that have 15 Majesties. Whatever. To state that 4CL makes Jyhad, a brilliant game that was specifically designed to _not_ have card limits a _better_ game than the designers intended is sheer lunacy. How does 4CL make the game more thought provoking? By limiting your options? By insuring that all 4CL decks will have exactly 4 of all the useful cards? By making the most important skill in deck construction to be "how do I get around the 4CL"? By completely nullifying the importance of the subtle differences between cards like Skin of Steel and Superior Mettle? Sure, you may like 4CL better than NL. By all means, go ahead. It certainly does not make it a _better_ game. Please don't take any of these comments as a personal afront. I'm glad you are here on the newsgroup, posting about and playing Jyhad. Please stay. Argue all you want. I'm just always like this. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "Are there heart stings connected to the poison coming out of your mouth?" -Belly

wp...@mindspring.com (William Pyle) writes: >ok, I'll grant you that a 4CL makes cards like corruption almost >totally useless... we did allow ourselves as many corruptions >as we wanted... some theme decks just plain don't work with a >4CL...Our 4CL is not, in fact, a hard-and-fast rule, but >just something we try to stick to, to make the game more interesting. >Just as a note, when the pot/cel deck only has 4 IG's in it, >the vote decks only need 4 majesties/s:ce cards... we have >long since given up on stealth-bleed decks, they are just plain >not fun.... "oh, look, bleed for 4 at 3 stealth... you've got 3 >intercept? fine, 5 stealth...." that just gets lame after >a while, especially if it's a weenie deck... Many CL'ers seem to enjoy relying on this sort of "gentleman's agreement" banning S&B. Meanwhile, a few groups (like yours) go further and staple on some exemptions to the CL to make the game work as it was supposed to. Why not just have a gentleman's agreement banning "boring" decks? You'll find that your old "boring" NL decks were inferior to the new NL decks you'll be building, and enjoy the game that much more (an extension of the reason Mr. Pyle gave for switching to CL in the first place). Eventually, you'll get to the point where you don't even have to rely on the "gentleman's agreement" banning boring decks - since your deck-building skills will have improved to the point that you will be able to survive in a S&B world. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | And to think I didn't believe http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sjohnson/home | THEM when THEY told me you Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger. | were paranoid.

PDB6 wrote: > I don't know about the rest of you, but I play Jyhad for > the rich and varied strategic interactions between decks in a game, I play Jyhad for the rich and varied strategic interactions between playersin a game.I like a game where each player has options to choose from, decisions to make, ect.... Now I know you'll argue that my decks are build able under your rules while yours are illegal in mine, and not all NL decks are one dimensional, ect... but in my opinion over reliance on one or two cards is an example of people trying to simplify a game of intrigue and complex card interactions down to rock/paper/scissors(bleed/vote/rush). I mean if you put 15 conditioning with 15 lost in crowds do the other cards in the deck really matter all that much?? > "Ooh! This time he played a > Conditioning! Last time he played a Threats! Cool!". no its just this turn I had the blood to spend last turn I didn'tbut since vampires don't run out of blood in NL They only use conditioning. :-)-~ > > > By making the most important > skill in deck construction to be "how do I get around the 4CL"? This is a misconception you have about us at least me anyway.We did not instate a rule just so we could figure out how to get around it. > By completely > nullifying the importance of the subtle differences between cards like Skin of > Steel and Superior Mettle? how so? could it not be said that NL players make a choice on a card based on...well hypothetical situations. while I might use 2 of each and make the choice of which to play based on a real in game situation. of course you'll argue that mine are not as reliable but since thats not my only option I'll more than likely be able to deal with whatever comes at me While your screwed if you didn't account for something while you were building your deck. not that anyone can be prepared for everything but you gotta admit my chances are better. just a thought Eric > >

In article <199805120312...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, PDB6 <pd...@aol.com> wrote: >Eric wrote: >"This is a misconception you have about us at least me anyway.We did not >instate a rule just so we could figure out how to get >around it." >You stated yourself in posts about Rush decks that Sports Bikes were a more >reliable way to get into combat. That seems like trying to get around the lack >of available Bum's Rushes to me. Not to mention that Eric's mentioned in the past his predilection for Carlotta and Whispers from the Dead, which is nothing if not emulating a NL environment. This is, to my mind, a key difference between NL and xCL: the role of Necromancy. Under NL, Necromancy's ashheap-trawling is tactically useful in order to get the right thing into the hand at the right time. Under xCL, ashheap-trawling confers the strategic advantage of busting the card limit in addition to the tactical advantage. >You seem to keep missing the concept that focused decks do not become screwed >by things that were not accounted for when building them. When building a good >deck, you need to consider all possible angles--"How will S+B affect me? How >will Fortitude affect me? How will Rush combat affect me? How will offensive >voting affect me?" All decks will have weaknessess, and the only thing you can >do about it is plan for them with your strategy. Focused decks win by virtue >of their strength and reliability. Diverse decks die by virtue of not being >reliable and not being able to respond to any particular threat in a >consistent manner. This is pretty much all that keeps me from building a Cryptic Mission/ Seeds of Corruption/Foul Blood "Torpor without Combat" deck -- The cardspace demanded by Cryptics and Seeds leaves no room for defenses. I'm considering weenie disposable vampires (Magdalena Schaefer, Harika Guljan, Julius, skill cards), but i've a gut feeling that's not gonna cut it. Advice? gomi -- go ahead, wreck your life: that might be good who can say what's wrong or right? nobody can

In article <35552A17...@uswest.net>, lk...@uswest.net wrote: > > > William Pyle wrote: > > > This is my first post to any newsgroup, so I'll try not to mess > > up too much... I've been playing Jyhad on and off ever > > since it first came out... For the longest time, my group > > (5 or so originally, up to 7) played NCL. It was ok, cause > > it was all we knew. > > > > One day, we switched over to 4CL. It was a whole new game, > > and it was infinitely better. I must agree that it got kinda old > > playing the same 6 or so cards 10 times in a game. IMO, 4CL > > forces you to actually think about what you want your deck to > > do and how to go about making that possible... if you want > > a, well, not brainless, but less thought-provoking game, play NCL > > I agree whole heartedly Please don't make this your last post I need all > the help I can get :-)-~ But I agree that 4CL forces youto "PLAY" your > cards not make a move just because you > can't do anything else. The in game decision making is much more > of a factor in how well you do. > > Eric > > I agree to. I also played ncl for along time. When we switched to 4cl, it really changed the game alot. For tournies people will always want to play ncl and that's ok, don't play tournies. But for just fooling around and playing with friends 4cl is much,much better. With ncl when you block you always will know what will happen after the second time it will always be the same. With 4cl you don't really know, you could get majesty, of form of mist, kiss of ra, or maybe even combat. And like I said earlier for tournies ncl is fine but there's no need for it in lieserly(sp) play. -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading

pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: >Bill wrote: >"One day, we switched over to 4CL. It was a whole new game, and it was >infinitely better." > >What made it infinitely better? see below... >"I must agree that it got kinda old playing the same 6 or so cards 10 times in >a game." > >If you were only playing with 6 cards, you were playing a very different game >than most of the rest of us. NL alows you to build a deck to any possible >specifications to do what you need to do. It does not make you play decks that >have 15 copies each of 6 different cards. ok, ok... the 6 cards/10 times thing was an exaggeration... but it served to get the point across... we had plenty of decks that relied on a smaller variety of cards, and worked well... I think I should qualify these arguments... we started on 4CL well before sabbat came out... In fact, I think we started when it was just Jyhad.. either Jyhad or DS.... but anyway, the main reason behind the switch was volume of cards....we didnt' have a whole lot of cards, but the number of certain cards (read here - Majesty) far outweighed the number of the only cards (at the time) that could defeat majesty (read here - IG). Once we switched, we never went back... > >As an aside, in all of these recent 4CL/NL debates, the 4CL folks keep bringing >up that the game is "more fun" because 4CL menas that you don't see the same >cards over and over. I don't know about the rest of you, but I play Jyhad for >the rich and varied strategic interactions between decks in a game, not to see >all the cards. I have all the cards. I've seen all the cards. If I want to >get a thrill out of seeing lots of different cards, I'll look in my boxes. The >different pictures on the different cards are not what makes Jyhad an exiting >game. It is the complex interaction between decks in a game. It is "What >happens when a close range Rush deck sits between a weenie vote deck and a Fast >Reaction Tremere Intercept deck?", not "Ooh! This time he played a >Conditioning! Last time he played a Threats! Cool!". For us, the 4CL games were more fun because they lasted longer... back in the day, there were a lot of degenerate decks, and 4CL was one of the ways around them... not the only way, but the way we chose... it forced us to choose other cards, and I think it worked for us... Bill Pyle (wp...@mindspring.com)

In article <3557919e...@news.mindspring.com>, William Pyle <wp...@mindspring.com> wrote: >pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: >>Bill wrote: > >ok, ok... the 6 cards/10 times thing was an exaggeration... but it served to >get the point across... >we had plenty of decks that relied on a smaller variety of >cards, and worked well... I think I should qualify these arguments... we >started on 4CL well before sabbat came out... In fact, I think we started when >it was just Jyhad.. either Jyhad or DS.... but anyway, the main reason behind >the switch was volume of cards... >we didnt' have a whole lot of cards, but the number >of certain cards (read here - Majesty) >far outweighed the number of the only cards >(at the time) that could defeat majesty (read here - IG). >Once we switched, we never went back... One of the few 4CL arguments that makes sense to me, although you'd still have problems with degenerate S&B which isn't touched by 4CL at all. Fortunatly the rarity aspect isn't as much of a factor anymore, at least for cards in the Jyhad set, since you can get boxes for ~$6 each. There also aren't very many power Rares in Jyhad, although the later sets did there best to add some, there still aren't very many, and none of them are as neccesary as Immortal Grapple. -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

Eric wrote: "I mean if you put 15 conditioning with 15 lost in crowds do the other cards in the deck really matter all that much??" This argument is completely pointless as a defense of 4CL. How is 15 Conditioning and 15 Lost in Crowds in any way strategically different than 4 Govern/4Conditioning/4 Bonding/4Threats with 4Lost/4Cloak/4Faceless/4Mask? There is no strategic difference, only subtle tactical difference that gets lost under the yoke of 4CL. Ok, perhaps you like 4CL because it makes people use all the different cards, but the strategic difference between these two examples are completely negligible, and consequently in no way a viable defense of 4CL as requiring "More creative decks". "no its just this turn I had the blood to spend last turn I didn'tbut since vampires don't run out of blood in NL They only use conditioning. :-)-~" And so this turn your deck doesn't work when last turn it did. If you have a deck that worries about running out of blood in NL, you use more Threats than Conditioning. If you don't care about blood costs, you use more Conditioning than Threats. Under 4CL, you just use 4 of each. "This is a misconception you have about us at least me anyway.We did not instate a rule just so we could figure out how to get around it." You stated yourself in posts about Rush decks that Sports Bikes were a more reliable way to get into combat. That seems like trying to get around the lack of available Bum's Rushes to me. "how so? could it not be said that NL players make a choice on a card based on...well hypothetical situations. while I might use 2 of each and make the choice of which to play based on a real in game situation." Sure, ok. If you decide that you only need 4 damage prevention cards in your deck, and you chose to use 3 Skin of Steel and 1 Superior Mettle for pure design reasons, then I grant you that. More often then not, however, under 4CL the two different cards just mean that you get to use 4 Skin of Steel and 4 Superior Mettle, effectively just getting around the limit on Skin of Steel. Under NL, a deck designer will have to make a specific choice between weither he wants to stop multiple strikes in one round, or stop strikes from pressed rounds of combat. Under 4CL, you just use 4 of each. The same goes for Obfuscate cards. Under NL, the differences between Lost in Crowds, Cloak the Gathering, and Faceless Night have specific meaning. Under 4CL, they don't, they are just more stealth cards that allow you to get around the 4CL. I just built a deck tonight, and decided that I had room for 9 cards that gave me stealth. I, for very specific reasons, chose to use 9 Cloak the Gathering. The Cloaks are much more useful than Lost or Faceless would be in this deck, so I used all Cloaks. Under 4CL, I would not have this choice. I would use 4 Cloak, 4 Lost, and one of something else, which would still work more or less, but would lose the tactical depth of the different card effects. "of course you'll argue that mine are not as reliable but since thats not my only option I'll more than likely be able to deal with whatever comes at me While your screwed if you didn't account for something while you were building your deck." You seem to keep missing the concept that focused decks do not become screwed by things that were not accounted for when building them. When building a good deck, you need to consider all possible angles--"How will S+B affect me? How will Fortitude affect me? How will Rush combat affect me? How will offensive voting affect me?" All decks will have weaknessess, and the only thing you can do about it is plan for them with your strategy. Focused decks win by virtue of their strength and reliability. Diverse decks die by virtue of not being reliable and not being able to respond to any particular threat in a consistent manner. Peter D Bakija [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6j8acf$bm4$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, umbr...@rocketmail.com wrote: > > In article <35552A17...@uswest.net>, > lk...@uswest.net wrote: > > > > > > William Pyle wrote: > > <snip message> > I agree to. I also played ncl for along time. When we switched to 4cl, it > really changed the game alot. For tournies people will always want to play > ncl and that's ok, don't play tournies. But for just fooling around and > playing with friends 4cl is much,much better. With ncl when you block you > always will know what will happen after the second time it will always be the > same. With 4cl you don't really know, you could get majesty, of form of mist, > kiss of ra, or maybe even combat. And like I said earlier for tournies ncl is > fine but there's no need for it in lieserly(sp) play. > > -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- > http://www.dejanews.com/ Now offering spam-free web-based newsreading > That's what NCL-players want: to train for tournies! We 4CL guys on the other hand want to have *more* fun in enjoying an evening full of funny and nerve-shattering situations. That's how we like to play it. Touneys: NCL, of course, cause that's competition. Nothing less. Anybody who disagrees is a, ahem, liar. ;-) Private games: unless you declare them as "trainig games" for the upcoming tourney, 4CL. Having fun. Knowing what happens when you block or get blocked the secong time isn't much of fun. And anyone who says: hey, I don't put 10 copies of this card my deck concept is based on into my deck, is, as said elswhere, a, ahem, liar. Cause you want to play hard, you want to win. So you take the cards to do the job. If you don't, then hell, what's the difference if you were playing 4CL. Don't say "because I *could* add more of a particular card if I wanted it*. That's hypocritical. Because you do it, or you don't. There's no *I could*!! Understood? Just my X cents worth of it :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

William Pyle wrote: > In fact, I think we started (4CL) when > it was just Jyhad.. either Jyhad or DS.... but anyway, the main reason > behind > the switch was volume of cards....we didnt' have a whole lot of cards, > but the number > of certain cards (read here - Majesty) far outweighed the number of > the only cards > (at the time) that could defeat majesty (read here - IG). Once we > switched, we > never went back... > You forgot Fast Reaction, Hidden Lurker and the Dawn Operation-Drawing out the Beast Combo. These cards or combination of cards could beat S:CE even in good old Jyhad times, besides of IG. Michael Beer

Gomi no Sensei wrote: > This is pretty much all that keeps me from building a Cryptic Mission/ > > Seeds of Corruption/Foul Blood "Torpor without Combat" deck -- The > cardspace > demanded by Cryptics and Seeds leaves no room for defenses. I'm > considering > weenie disposable vampires (Magdalena Schaefer, Harika Guljan, Julius, > > skill cards), but i've a gut feeling that's not gonna cut it. Advice? > > If you want to play Tremere, use Strained Vitae Supply (no hunting please) Arcanum Chapterhouse (no blood reload please) Society of Leopold (to burn vamps) Cryptic Mission Theft of Vitae (along with Apparition & Walk of Flame for combat) Charnas the Imp (no actions please) Succubus (to drain vamps and bleed) Thadius Zoo (to drain vamps and bleed) Nephandus (to burn vamps in torpor and bleed) If you want to play Malk Antitribu, use Derange (played the superior level to drain'em of blood and tap'em) Society of Leopold (to burn'em) combined with standard S&B Michael Beer

I've been playing Jyhad for about 3 or 4 years on a deck drawn from no more than a conglomeration of 5 or so starter decks and no more than a handful of boosters. With only a small bunch of fellow Jyhad players to trade with, and no tournaments to speak of out here in the backwaters of Ireland, our group hasn't had much choice about playing 4cl or not (with the odd exception -- 5 deer rifles instead of 4). Now that Wizards has decided to put an end to V:tES we've all decided to indulge our passion and go ahead and waste our savings on boxes and boxes of boosters. So for the first time we can construct the decks of our dreams. If we want to throw in 5 dawn operations we actually can. As you can imagine, this is fairly exciting: we're now playing the real V:tES, we're able to pursue tangible strategies that yield results fairly rapidly. It really adds an extra dimension to our whole game. The spendthrift player is no longer the one who wins -- it's the skilful player. But of course, as is evident from a quick browse of posts on this newsgroup, there are only a limited number of straightahead deck strategies to choose from: Brujah rush, Ventrue vote-to-death, Malk sneak and bleed, aggravated, etc.etc. I'm sure we'll all tire fairly quickly of playing super-tuned decks comprised of only an harmonic few cards. Yeah, your right I guess, varied decks are most entertaining. The varied, unfocused, well-played deck that's stood the test of time will be the one you turn to at the end of the day, when that novelty has worn off. But do appreciate the desire to indulge your dreams by putting together such a focused deck, especially when it's been a dream for so damn long, or more especially when it still is a dream. I guess that's why focused decks are referred to as "munchie" decks. Richard

I have never played with a 4cl because the groups of people I play with don't one. Be a responsible player and this is not an issue. I have had, and do have some decks that have more than 4 of a particular card in them but it does not unbalance game play and THAT is the issue. In jyhad if you put too much of one thing in your deck you are bound to find that it is lacking in something else. Now, if YOU can't manage to control how you build a deck and require a limit that is one thing, but don't project your inadequacies upon the rest of us. Most of us are capable of not building a malkavian stealth bleed deck everytime we pick up cards. I don't know anyone who 'trains' for tournament play. Just play, the objective is to have fun. I see it as exactly opposite, if there were a place for a 4cl (which there isn't) it would be in the touraments where you don't know the people you play with (and there might be money at stake). - Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

> > That's what NCL-players want: to train for tournies! We 4CL guys on the > other hand want to have *more* fun in enjoying an evening full of funny > and nerve-shattering situations. That's how we like to play it. > > Touneys: NCL, of course, cause that's competition. Nothing less. > Anybody who disagrees is a, ahem, liar. ;-) > The tourneys I've played in have been for fun. They've been for the experience of playing some Jyhad against someone other than the 5 people in my playgroup. I played a crappy deck and won very little but had fun. > Private games: unless you declare them as "trainig games" for the upcoming > tourney, 4CL. Having fun. > It's not impossible, you know, to have fun under NL. > Knowing what happens when you block or get blocked the secong time isn't > much of fun. And anyone who says: hey, I don't put 10 copies of this card > my deck concept is based on into my deck, is, as said elswhere, a, ahem, > liar. Cause you want to play hard, you want to win. So you take the cards > to do the job. If you don't, then hell, what's the difference if you were > playing 4CL. Don't say "because I *could* add more of a particular card > if I wanted it*. That's hypocritical. Because you do it, or you don't. > There's no *I could*!! Understood? > Generally, my NL decks have a concept that they are based around. My Ventrue bruise&bleed is based around doing big bleeds(6 GtU, 5 Conditioning, 4 Threats). If I get blocked, my usual strategy is to Trap them and hit them for a little damage each round(6 Traps, 6 Superior Mettle, various other fortitude prevention, and a few weapons). There are 2 Ivory Bows, since they can let the combat get over quicker. In the case where my vamps are low on blood, I'll bleed and use Trap and then Undead Persistance to take them down with me (this works because it has very low cap vampires in it. All less than 7 and a couple of 1's and 2's). The deck is, admittedly, a fun deck, but in my playgroup it wins its fair share against non-Tremere. The Tremere, unfortunately, waste me every time. Other than that, it's only weakness is against focused non-combat decks, which are frowned upon here. 8) I guess in this situation the non-combat deck stigmata is to my advantage. Anyway my point is, the deck would be pretty hard to make under 4CL, because I wouldn't have my Traps. But I still don't really have more than 6 or 7 of any card in the deck. Furthermore, it's not really the same combo all the time. It's true I have a lot of different damage prevention, but that's just as easy under 4CL. Really the only difference between it and a 4CL deck is that I have 2 extra traps, I used an extra Conditioning instead of, say, Foreshadowing Destruction, I used 2 extra GtU's instead of Scouting Mission, and I used 2 extra Superior Mettles instead of Skin of Steel (there are still 3 Skin's of Steel I think) or Rolling With the Punches (2 of these, I think). Granted single examples don't hold all that well, but I believe that NL decks really aren't as one-dimensional single-combo oriented as you seem to imply. A few are, and it's my contention that those decks can be taken out without too much trouble. The problem that I see with 4CL is that it still allows the abusive decks, while not giving the possibilities of strange decks. My Bauble/Assault Rifle/Daring the Dawn/Possession deck is not at all possible under 4CL. It's weak even under NL, but it's still possible. So, why is there a need for a limit that hurts new deck ideas, while not at all hurting existing abusive decks? ...Once again, I don't want to seem like I'm telling you what to do in your playgroup. Since we're pretty much agreed that tournaments should be NL and each playgroup should choose for itself, that's not really under contention. But when a 4CL advocate states that 4CL is better, I just find myself compelled to argue. No offensive meant, of course. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

Richard Mosse wrote: "But of course, as is evident from a quick browse of posts on this newsgroup, there are only a limited number of straightahead deck strategies to choose from: Brujah rush, Ventrue vote-to-death, Malk sneak and bleed, aggravated, etc.etc. I'm sure we'll all tire fairly quickly of playing super-tuned decks comprised of only an harmonic few cards." But that is an incorrect assessment of the situation. The decks that are brought up most often on this group, i.e. the ones you mention above, are brought up because they are easily identifiable and understandable archtypes, and consequently make for easy disccussion. I don't really need to explain what a Brujah Rush deck does or a Malk S+B deck for them to be used as a example in a debate. Other decks, however, are not so easily envisioned, and thus don't make good ammo for strategy disscussion. It is much easier to describe a Ventrue Vote Deck in three words than it is to explain a Malk/Gangrel/Lasombra Obf/Dom/Pro Form of Mist/Obediance/Bonding deck in 12 words, but both decks are prefectly viable and sucessful under NL. The Ventrue Deck gets alot more air time just because it is a much easier example. The strength of No Limit Jyhad is that there are literally an infinite number of decks that you can build, and most of them are pretty competetive. Under 4CL, the best Malk S+B deck is probably the best deck you can make, and will always dominate the play enviornment, requiring game circles to "Shame" players out of using the Malkavian S+B deck ("Yeah. Real clever, Stealth and Bleed boy..."). Under NL, there is no need for this, as any number of weird or archtypical decks can easily compete with such a Malk deck. Under 4CL, for instance, you can't build a Nosferatu deck that relies solely on Behind You (the only good Obf manuver available) for manuvering, as you can only use 4. Under 4CL, you can't build an Animalism deck that makes extensive use out of Aid From Bats, as you can only have 4 of them. Under NL, however, both of these weird deck concepts are perfectly viable and, when used in a well designed deck, can easily compete with the best archtype decks. I assure you that by playing with No Card Limits, and by pushing yourselves, your decks will never grow stagnant. I play Jyhad a great deal, and change my decks all the time. Currently I have a Pot/Obf Nosferatu Rush deck, a Wennie Pro untap/intercept/bleed deck, an Ani/Obf intercept/light combat/bleed deck, and a Obf/Pre spawning 3rd tradition pool gain deck. All of these are farily successful, completely competetive, and certainly not archtypical. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6jalfv$fkp$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] Okay, I think we agree that each playgroup should play the way they like it. In tourneys we play NL (we (in Vienna) tend to play a lot sealed, as this is a lot of fun). I know that it is not correct to only see in black and white. There are so many different ways of deck-building that you could build every day another deck. I don't like guys who always play the same to some extent. Everybody has some favorite cards he always includes in his/her decks. You on the other side seem to be a reasonable person. The deck you mentioned is cool in my opinion, but I have seen similar decks in 4CL. Taking your deck, it could be played under a 6CL, right? I want to make this clear: we are about 30-40 active players in Vienna. At least 20 of them are meeting regularly every thursday. I have 9 friends, with whom I play 3 or 4 evenings a week. We have been playing under NL, but didn't like it. Right now, I started a 6CL- league, and it is only half-heartedly accepted. IMHO, there should be room for NL-players, xCL-players, and sealed-players. To say "the game was designed for NL is not satisfying, and if you force NL, some players will simply stop to play. That's dangerous, as there aren't many V:TES players in the world. I agree that 4CL and NL are *very* different games indeed. I think, that the V:EKN should allow 4CL as well (I mean official rules, and so). Because it's the players that play the game. If they like to play 4CL then let them do so. I would *never* attempt to persuade any player to play 4CL if they didn't want to. I just want to make the other playgroups see my point and accept my 4CL opinion. I would like to meet all of you guys in a tournament series: a NL and a 4Cl tourney. We would see the differences and difficulties and learn to accept the ways of others. -Carl [ quoted text not captured ]

> Okay, I think we agree that each playgroup should play the way > they like it. In tourneys we play NL (we (in Vienna) tend to play a lot > sealed, as this is a lot of fun). > > I know that it is not correct to only see in black and white. There > are so many different ways of deck-building that you could build every > day another deck. I don't like guys who always play the same to some > extent. Everybody has some favorite cards he always includes in his/her > decks. > > You on the other side seem to be a reasonable person [he's taking about chris berger, not me ..... nothing reasonable about me, thank Caine!]. The deck you > mentioned is cool in my opinion, but I have seen similar decks in 4CL. > Taking your deck, it could be played under a 6CL, right? > > I want to make this clear: we are about 30-40 active players in Vienna. > At least 20 of them are meeting regularly every thursday. I have 9 > friends, with whom I play 3 or 4 evenings a week. Now THAT is a big group, and good activity. Kudos to you, fellow European! THAT is what we need more of! And I think Carl is probably right that the way the Vienna playgroup is organised is instrumental in not frightening off newbies, and bringing more people into the game. Carl, is 4CL your only concession to newbies, or do you have some other Fiendish Plan for attracting people into your group? We have been > playing under NL, but didn't like it. For normal play, you mean. That is our experience too! Right now, I started a 6CL- > league, and it is only half-heartedly accepted. > > IMHO, there should be room for NL-players, xCL-players, and sealed-players. > To say "the game was designed for NL is not satisfying, and if you > force NL, some players will simply stop to play. That's dangerous, as > there aren't many V:TES players in the world. Right as right can be!! But I don't think anyone is FORCING NL. I think people are making the point, with which I actually agree, that NL is the official, tournament mode, and that there are some kinds of decks that only really work properly under NL. This means that if we went over to a 4CL standard, we would lose some of the fascinating variety of the game. Actually there is another point here which no-one has made yet and I think is VERY important. The success of a card game has NOTHING to do with its intrinsic merits - if it did, Jyhad would obviously massively outsell any other game around. What makes a game a success is that people [usually collectors] buy TRUCKLOADS of cards at RIDICULOUSLY inflated prices. The NL mode of Jyhad/VTES means that tournament PLAYERS [anyway the guys that aim to win] also have to buy TRUCKLOADS of cards. Ultimately. it is the financial viability of Jyhad/VTEs that will determine whether or not new expansions get printed. > > I agree that 4CL and NL are *very* different games indeed. I think, that > the V:EKN should allow 4CL as well (I mean official rules, and so). > Because it's the players that play the game. If they like to play 4CL > then let them do so. I would *never* attempt to persuade any player > to play 4CL if they didn't want to. I just want to make the other > playgroups see my point and accept my 4CL opinion. I would like to > meet all of you guys in a tournament series: a NL and a 4Cl tourney. > We would see the differences and difficulties and learn to accept > the ways of others. > > I think that is a VERY interesting idea. Let's test out the 4CL-means-S&B-always-wins hypothesis SCIENTIFICALLY. Alright, do you play Jyhad online? Shall we get together a bunch of people who agree to play one game NCL and a second game 4CL? Alternatively, I could come to Vienna where i have relatives and we could do the test. I bet some of the German guys would come too. May the Great and Threefold Wyrm guide you into Darkness, Legbiter.

In article <not.available-1...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > > > > Okay, I think we agree that each playgroup should play the way > > they like it. In tourneys we play NL (we (in Vienna) tend to play a lot > > sealed, as this is a lot of fun). > > > > I know that it is not correct to only see in black and white. There > > are so many different ways of deck-building that you could build every > > day another deck. I don't like guys who always play the same to some > > extent. Everybody has some favorite cards he always includes in his/her > > decks. > > > > You on the other side seem to be a reasonable person > > [he's taking about chris berger, not me ..... nothing reasonable about me, > thank Caine!]. > > The deck you > > mentioned is cool in my opinion, but I have seen similar decks in 4CL. > > Taking your deck, it could be played under a 6CL, right? > > > > I want to make this clear: we are about 30-40 active players in Vienna. > > At least 20 of them are meeting regularly every thursday. I have 9 > > friends, with whom I play 3 or 4 evenings a week. > > Now THAT is a big group, and good activity. Kudos to you, fellow European! > THAT is what we need more of! And I think Carl is probably right that the > way the Vienna playgroup is organised is instrumental in not frightening > off newbies, and bringing more people into the game. Carl, is 4CL your > only concession to newbies, or do you have some other Fiendish Plan for > attracting people into your group? > > We have been > > playing under NL, but didn't like it. > > For normal play, you mean. That is our experience too! > > Right now, I started a 6CL- > > league, and it is only half-heartedly accepted. > > > > IMHO, there should be room for NL-players, xCL-players, and sealed-players. > > To say "the game was designed for NL is not satisfying, and if you > > force NL, some players will simply stop to play. That's dangerous, as > > there aren't many V:TES players in the world. > > Right as right can be!! But I don't think anyone is FORCING NL. I think > people are making the point, with which I actually agree, that NL is the > official, tournament mode, and that there are some kinds of decks that > only really work properly under NL. This means that if we went over to a > 4CL standard, we would lose some of the fascinating variety of the game. > > Actually there is another point here which no-one has made yet and I think > is VERY important. The success of a card game has NOTHING to do with its > intrinsic merits - if it did, Jyhad would obviously massively outsell any > other game around. What makes a game a success is that people [usually > collectors] buy TRUCKLOADS of cards at RIDICULOUSLY inflated prices. The > NL mode of Jyhad/VTES means that tournament PLAYERS [anyway the guys that > aim to win] also have to buy TRUCKLOADS of cards. Ultimately. it is the > financial viability of Jyhad/VTEs that will determine whether or not new > expansions get printed. > > > > I agree that 4CL and NL are *very* different games indeed. I think, that > > the V:EKN should allow 4CL as well (I mean official rules, and so). > > Because it's the players that play the game. If they like to play 4CL > > then let them do so. I would *never* attempt to persuade any player > > to play 4CL if they didn't want to. I just want to make the other > > playgroups see my point and accept my 4CL opinion. I would like to > > meet all of you guys in a tournament series: a NL and a 4Cl tourney. > > We would see the differences and difficulties and learn to accept > > the ways of others. > > > > > I think that is a VERY interesting idea. Let's test out the > 4CL-means-S&B-always-wins hypothesis SCIENTIFICALLY. Alright, do you play > Jyhad online? Shall we get together a bunch of people who agree to play > one game NCL and a second game 4CL? Alternatively, I could come to Vienna > where i have relatives and we could do the test. I bet some of the German > guys would come too. > > May the Great and Threefold Wyrm guide you into Darkness, Legbiter. > That's a sound plan. I'd like to meet you in person and test this thing out. I can tell you some of the key tactics against s&b under 4CL Put in Telepathic Counter, -Misdirection, Redirection, Deflection and My Enemy's Enemy. If your Predator is s&b than he'll probably help you in ousting your prey. People tend to forget that when saying that s&b is unstoppable under 4CL. Do you want to risk ousting your prey's prey? Archon Investigaion does a good job. Sure against "anarchs" it won't do you that much good, but higher Vamps (4+) tend to bleed only for 3 pool here in Vienna. Direct Intervention is always good for countering the feared bleed or stealth modifiers. Put in loads of intercept: I once had the fmaous "wall" deck, which was justly feared. Gangrel+Gangrel Antitribu, Cap no higer than 5, Skills protean (mostly sup) and Animalism. Lots of intercept (mostly Raven Spies, Raptors, Mr. Winthrop, Sport Bikes, all three locations) and most of all Atonement. This card really rocks. With the untap potential of the Gangrel and the low capacity you should be able to block any attempts to harm you or your cards in play by turn 3 or 4. I also had a lot of Blood support in this deck: Heidelburg castle, Hunting Grounds, Every Powerbase in the game, The Rack, Eco Terrorists, Inbase Discothek, Blood Dolls, Palatial Estate. Yes, the vamps have to equip a lot, but never forget the untap-potential of the Gangrels! Also I put every card in (which made any sense, that is) that could be destroyed or stolen with D-actions. This makes perfect sense, as a vampire can only bleed you or take a D-action against you once each turn. Weenies are pissed with Atonement, your Vamps don't have to worry about blood shortage, as you play S:CE or maneuvres (protean is one of the best versatile combat skills there is, and animalism also helps a great deal in untapping, think of guard dogs!) The deck wins eventually by implementing Smiling Jack the Anarch, and blocking any attempt to destroy it. I made the experience that most players don't care about this card when it is in play, as they think it will hurt their prey as well, or are to busy defending themself against their predator. Once there are 3 or 4 counter on SJ, all hell breaks lose, even the weenie get stuck. Ally right, sometimes someone else will get the VP's before you get the last two for being last in the game, but that's not important. All you need to do is sit and wait for the guys to come for you. With this deck you'll stop any tide. Never forget that weenie decks are hampered the same way as this deck under 4CL. Under 4CL weenie decks CANNOT pull off unlimited power-combos. This deck worked against anything, after some time I deactivated it, because it got boring. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-1...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > > > (snip part of message) > > We have been > > playing under NL, but didn't like it. > > For normal play, you mean. That is our experience too! > > Right now, I started a 6CL- > > league, and it is only half-heartedly accepted. > > > > IMHO, there should be room for NL-players, xCL-players, and sealed-players. > > To say "the game was designed for NL is not satisfying, and if you > > force NL, some players will simply stop to play. That's dangerous, as > > there aren't many V:TES players in the world. > > Right as right can be!! But I don't think anyone is FORCING NL. I think > people are making the point, with which I actually agree, that NL is the > official, tournament mode, and that there are some kinds of decks that > only really work properly under NL. This means that if we went over to a > 4CL standard, we would lose some of the fascinating variety of the game. > (snipped) > May the Great and Threefold Wyrm guide you into Darkness, Legbiter. > Well I and all the others know, that V:TES was designed for NL. I don't argue. But during the years and with the expansions, the game changed a *lot*, and the expansions have not been properly tested to see what changes would occur. You are right, that there are decks which don't work under 4CL. e.g. the corruption deck, as this is a card especially designed for NL (of course, as V:TES is *supposed to be* a NL game). But hey, under 4CL I incorporate this card as well in my Setite deck, together with Temptation and Form of Corruption, which I think are powerful cards (under 4CL at least). The point is: I get the impression that LSJ and V:EKN try to *enforce* the NL with slight pressure (in the form of arguments, that is). I don't see, why I have to play NL with my friends, only because the game *was designed that way* (as LSJ tends to repeat). A game has to be fun. If you have fun with CL and no fun with NL, then I play CL or stop playing. That's all I ever wanted to say. LSJ has the vision of all players playing the same style (NL) and only under DCI-rules. I think that will never happen. Totally different opinion with tourneys: NL is the rule, and rightly so. Some standard for all players has to be. But players shall have freedom of choice. Three formats for international tourneys would be great: NL, xCL (preferably 4CL) and sealed. *Big* tourneys should have all three formats included, local one the format which is most popular (or every time another format). I don't think that there would be a big problem for score-keeping and ranking list for three different types of formats. It works well with M:tG, so why not with V:TES? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-1...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > > (snip) > > > I think that is a VERY interesting idea. Let's test out the > 4CL-means-S&B-always-wins hypothesis SCIENTIFICALLY. Alright, do you play > Jyhad online? Shall we get together a bunch of people who agree to play > one game NCL and a second game 4CL? Alternatively, I could come to Vienna > where i have relatives and we could do the test. I bet some of the German > guys would come too. > > May the Great and Threefold Wyrm guide you into Darkness, Legbiter. > I'll tell you what: I plan a big event in Vienna in late Autumn this year, as there's the "Spielefest Wien" a rather big gaming con (sort of). I'm sure some of the germans will come, and players from any other country are most welcome, too, even from "across the great lake between". (Hey Mike Bohlman, waere toll wenn auch Du kommen koenntest!!) Anyone interested can send me email, but send you messages better to Alexander Racher (whose email adress is listed in the V:TES player's registry, Austria, on the WotC homepage, something like ......@univie.ac.at I don't know the exact adress right now). If you send it there, adress it to my name and it will get to me. If a lot of people come, we could even make some *sanctioned* tourneys! [ quoted text not captured ]

> > I'll tell you what: I plan a big event in Vienna in late Autumn this year, > as there's the "Spielefest Wien" a rather big gaming con (sort of). > I'm sure some of the germans will come, and players from any other country > are most welcome, too, even from "across the great lake between". (Hey Mike > Bohlman, waere toll wenn auch Du kommen koenntest!!) > > Anyone interested can send me email, but send you messages better to > Alexander Racher (whose email adress is listed in the V:TES player's > registry, Austria, on the WotC homepage, something like ......@univie.ac.at > I don't know the exact adress right now). If you send it there, adress it > to my name and it will get to me. > > If a lot of people come, we could even make some *sanctioned* tourneys! > Excellent, that sounds like a date to me!

CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at writes: > In article <not.available-1...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, > not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > The point is: I get the impression that LSJ and V:EKN try to *enforce* > the NL with slight pressure (in the form of arguments, that is). I don't > see, why I have to play NL with my friends, only because the game > *was designed that way* (as LSJ tends to repeat). A game has to be fun. > If you have fun with CL and no fun with NL, then I play CL or stop > playing. That's all I ever wanted to say. > LSJ has the vision of all players playing the same style (NL) and > only under DCI-rules. I think that will never happen. Not true on any points regarding me (except that I tend to repeat the fact that Jyhad was designed for NL - but only in response to articles that warrant the statement). The official rules (and by extension, the DCI rules) will always be NL. That's the only enforcement occuring. Some elements are trying to get DCI to start playing house rules, and that is probably not a good path to start down. I play a whole slew of house rules with my friends (Banned Fame, WwEF costs a blood, etc.), as I have noted before. So much for my "vision" of all players playing the same style... And I do not suggest that the DCI to incorporate my house rules into tournaments. I realize that my house rules are just that - my house rules. Which is not true for some 4CLers (who e-mail me and are surprised to learn that 4CL is not the rule or who have visions of DCI tournaments that incorporate their house rules). -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | Three can keep a secret... http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sjohnson/home | if two are dead. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6jem2c$6...@redwood.cs.sc.edu>, sjoh...@math.sc.edu (L. Scott Johnson) wrote: > CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at writes: > > In article <not.available-1...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, > > not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: NO HE DIDN'T!!! IT WAS CARL!!! PLEASE SIR PLEASE SIR I SAW HIM!!!! > > The point is: I get the impression that LSJ and V:EKN try to *enforce* > > the NL with slight pressure (in the form of arguments, that is). I don't > > see, why I have to play NL with my friends, only because the game > > *was designed that way* (as LSJ tends to repeat). A game has to be fun. > > If you have fun with CL and no fun with NL, then I play CL or stop > > playing. That's all I ever wanted to say. > > LSJ has the vision of all players playing the same style (NL) and > > only under DCI-rules. I think that will never happen. > > Not true on any points regarding me (except that I tend to repeat > the fact that Jyhad was designed for NL - but only in response to > articles that warrant the statement). > > The official rules (and by extension, the DCI rules) will always be > NL. That's the only enforcement occuring. Some elements are trying > to get DCI to start playing house rules, and that is probably not > a good path to start down. ABSOLUTELY agree with that. By definition, a house rule is a personal thing. Whose personal thing would we institute? Whichever, we would piss off more people than we would please. > > I play a whole slew of house rules with my friends (Banned Fame, > WwEF costs a blood, etc.), as I have noted before. So much for > my "vision" of all players playing the same style... > > And I do not suggest that the DCI to incorporate my house > rules into tournaments. I realize that my house rules are > just that - my house rules. Which is not true for some 4CLers > (who e-mail me and are surprised to learn that 4CL is not > the rule or who have visions of DCI tournaments that incorporate > their house rules). > > -- > L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | Three can keep a secret... > http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sjohnson/home | if two are dead. > Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger. | Yeah, lay off LSJ you guys .. he is a dam' fine fellow. And the VEKN is a dam' fine network.

> Why not just have a gentleman's agreement banning "boring" decks? Temptation... Since ther is no boolean parameter "boring" - "not boring", it would only be a matter of adding in one more Pulled Fangs, which would be marginally annoying, until there are 6, 8, 12... in a deck. L~R

PDB6 wrote: > > As an aside, in all of these recent 4CL/NL debates, the 4CL folks keep bringing > up that the game is "more fun" because 4CL menas that you don't see the same > cards over and over. I don't know about the rest of you, but I play Jyhad for > the rich and varied strategic interactions between decks in a game, not to see > all the cards. I have all the cards. I've seen all the cards. If I want to > get a thrill out of seeing lots of different cards, I'll look in my boxes. The > different pictures on the different cards are not what makes Jyhad an exiting > game. It is the complex interaction between decks in a game. It is "What > happens when a close range Rush deck sits between a weenie vote deck and a Fast > Reaction Tremere Intercept deck?", not "Ooh! This time he played a > Conditioning! Last time he played a Threats! Cool!". Well, that's YOUR humble opinion about it. You like strategical Jyhad, I like it tactical. Do we have to get all excited over it? > > "IMO, 4CL forces you to actually think about what you want your deck to do and > how to go about making that possible... if you want a, well, not brainless, but > less thought-provoking game, play NCL or Doom or something. 4CL makes for a > much better game." > > Ok, now this statement is just insane. Sure. You like 4CL because it makes > all the decks less focused. Sure. You like 4CL cause it makes everyone use > lots of different cards. Ok. You like 4Cl cause it slows the game down some. > Alright. You like 4CL cause you don't have to figure out how to deal with deck > that have 15 Majesties. Whatever. Anybody knows how to deal with such a deck. Pack in more Rush. (cf the post about about tactics against fortitude) >To state that 4CL makes Jyhad, a brilliant > game that was specifically designed to _not_ have card limits a _better_ game > than the designers intended is sheer lunacy. I'd like to know why? The designers playtested the whole thing. we did too, for the past 3 years. I don't care how they think I should be playing. After all, they once invented Thoughts Betrayed for me to play with. >How does 4CL make the game more > thought provoking? By limiting your options? It is a very old idea that limits are constructive. Frustration CAN be fertile. > By insuring that all 4CL decks > will have exactly 4 of all the useful cards? No. > By making the most important > skill in deck construction to be "how do I get around the 4CL"? No. > By completely > nullifying the importance of the subtle differences between cards like Skin of > Steel and Superior Mettle? No. Sorry if I'm being rude. > > Sure, you may like 4CL better than NL. By all means, go ahead. It certainly > does not make it a _better_ game. Thanx. At least we both have our convictions. > > Please don't take any of these comments as a personal afront. I'm glad you are > here on the newsgroup, posting about and playing Jyhad. Please stay. Argue > all you want. I'm just always like this. Same thing for me :) L~R

Jasper Phillips wrote: > > One of the few 4CL arguments that makes sense to me, although you'd still > have problems with degenerate S&B which isn't touched by 4CL at all. Well, it seems no 4CL group has this problem: as I read somewhere els, there's a gentleman's agreement about S&B. S&B is the opposite of nuclear weapons: in 4CL, if you use it you win, and all others die (statistics, of course); but this is not a war. It's a game. So who on earth wants to play and be sure to winn at no risk, in very little time? That's why S&B is almost never an issue in 4CL. Now it could be challenging to build a Videotape/Signet of King Saul/Blood Bond deck in 4CL, because it is more of a challenge, and success is a reward, then. > Fortunatly the rarity aspect isn't as much of a factor anymore, at > least for cards in the Jyhad set, since you can get boxes for ~$6 each. > There also aren't very many power Rares in Jyhad, although the later > sets did there best to add some, there still aren't very many, and > none of them are as neccesary as Immortal Grapple. Hm. Not true in Europe (large number of players, though): not only Jyhad is far more expensive (in France twice the price actually), but Extensions are available for a few weeks. After that, it's trade, trade, trade... L~R the Frog

Just 3 things: 1/ Has anybody in this group heard about 4CL players consistently using S&B decks? If not, could we please stop saying things like: > This argument is completely pointless as a defense of 4CL. How is 15 > Conditioning and 15 Lost in Crowds in any way strategically different than 4 > Govern/4Conditioning/4 Bonding/4Threats with 4Lost/4Cloak/4Faceless/4Mask? or: > If you have a > deck that worries about running out of blood in NL, you use more Threats than > Conditioning. If you don't care about blood costs, you use more Conditioning > than Threats. Under 4CL, you just use 4 of each. 2/ PdB, you wrote: > The same goes for Obfuscate cards. Under NL, the differences between Lost in > Crowds, Cloak the Gathering, and Faceless Night have specific meaning. Under > 4CL, they don't, they are just more stealth cards that allow you to get around > the 4CL. I just built a deck tonight, and decided that I had room for 9 cards > that gave me stealth. I, for very specific reasons, chose to use 9 Cloak the > Gathering. The Cloaks are much more useful than Lost or Faceless would be in > this deck, so I used all Cloaks. Under 4CL, I would not have this choice. I > would use 4 Cloak, 4 Lost, and one of something else, which would still work > more or less, but would lose the tactical depth of the different card effects. When you design a deck, you do not have to put in as many stealth as possible, because chances are your opponents won't have as many intercept as possible. So the subtleties between these cards are just as important for us decadent 4CL whiners. I've designed many decks where a specific version of one effect was really cool, and not the others. If every 4CL deck had 4 copies of each useful card in the game, how huge would they be? 3/ About "NCL wins, 4CL loses": > You seem to keep missing the concept that focused decks do not become screwed > by things that were not accounted for when building them. When building a good > deck, you need to consider all possible angles--"How will S+B affect me? How > will Fortitude affect me? How will Rush combat affect me? How will offensive > voting affect me?" All decks will have weaknessess, and the only thing you can > do about it is plan for them with your strategy. Focused decks win by virtue > of their strength and reliability. Diverse decks die by virtue of not being > reliable and not being able to respond to any particular threat in a consistent > manner. So a good NCL deck wins more often than others? What happens with only good NCL decks. A fairly probable outcome is that all decks lose, save for one! ;) Same goes for 4CL. That's why 4CL is a (flexible) RULE, and not an individual STYLE: when NCL encounters 4CL, NCL win more, because they has all the options of the other decks. Theorem: in most games, the number of winners will be 1, regardless of the mean strength of the decks. :) L~R

[ quoted text not captured ] So you don't ever play with *any* of the Malkavians? Or Dominate Cards? Or Stealth Cards? It's just a matter of adding one more until you have a Malk S&B deck, right? 4CL crowd has a pretty clear chorus going about the boring decks that are so "abundant" in NL - but now you say that "boring" is not a meanigful classification? [ quoted text not captured ]

Lambach <rut...@opium.fr> writes: >1/ Has anybody in this group heard about 4CL players consistently using >S&B decks? If not, could we please stop saying things like: >> This argument is completely pointless as a defense of 4CL. How is 15 >> Conditioning and 15 Lost in Crowds in any way strategically different than 4 >> Govern/4Conditioning/4 Bonding/4Threats with 4Lost/4Cloak/4Faceless/4Mask? Has anybody heard about NL players consistently playing boring decks? If not... (You can't have it both ways). [ quoted text not captured ]

Lambach wrote: "Just 3 things: 1/ Has anybody in this group heard about 4CL players consistently using S&B decks? If not, could we please stop saying things like:" The reason that 4CL players don't use S+B decks is becasue the completely dominate the play environment. This is becasue the 4CL functions to upset the balance of the game to the point that a single deck style has a far greater effect on the play enviornment than it should. 4CL players don't use S+B decks because they are "Shamed" out of it. Our playgroup, while playing with 4CL, also managed to "Shame" folks out of playing S+B decks, offensive vote decks, and any other deck that was too effective and difficult to deal with because of the 4CL. The sad part was, the players who generally were most sucessful at "Shaming" the other players out of playing effective decks were the players with the stronger or more pursuasive personalities, and the reason they were "Shaming" the other players out of doing things was because they just didn't want to deal with them (or were unable to, due to the 4CL), and thus they gained game advantage by being Alpha personalities. This is lame. Now that we play NL, no one has to be shamed out of playing anything, as all decks are equally competetive. [ quoted text not captured ]

My own personal feelings on the whole No-Limit[NL] vs X Card-limit things: I get bored playing a deck that has many many duplicates of any given card (say, 8 or more). If the game's going to go on for a while, there needs to be some variety to keep my interest. Even in a NL evironment, I doubt I'd ever include more than 10 cards that were functionally equivalent, or more than 6-8 of a single card, just because of my own personal preference for variety in a deck. This puts me at a potential disadvantage if going against NL decks. I prefer a game where I have a fair shot at winning, and so I prefer playing in an environment with card limits. An additional reason for this is that I don't like the game-play to get repetitive - even if my deck has variety and surprises, if my predator or prey is doing the same thing, with the same cards, every turn, again the game gets dull IMHO. If others are abiding by some card limits, this is less likely to happen. All that said, I think the 4 card limit is too small. It's just too restrictive on some strategies, and on generically useful cards like WakeWEF. I played a game with a group that used a 6 limit, and I think that works quite nicely. As far as the gentleman's agreements to avoid having the table swept by the Stealth/Bleed decks, to me it's more a matter of finding a playgroup composed of people imaginative enough that it's not a concern. Even the stealth/bleed thing can be made interesting by adding in some wacky Malkavian randomness and other surprises. If one of my opponents won't even bother doing that much, I'm not interested in playing with them anymore. -- Jeremy York Projectionist "Immersed, I explore. ThemeMedia Inc. VOX 425 602-3557 Text, not read, is understood. jer...@ThemeMedia.com FAX 425 602-3570 Words into wisdom." vmail 425 298-5933 http://thememedia.com

Jeremy York wrote: > I get bored playing a deck that has many many duplicates of any > given card (say, 8 or more). > This puts me at a potential disadvantage if going against NL decks. Why? Even in a NCL environment, decks with only x of each card may be competetive.Decks with huge quantities of a single card are more reliably able to persue a given strategy, deck with less cards of each usually are more flexible and not so vulnerable to others. > I prefer a game where I have a fair shot at winning, and so I prefer > playing in an environment with card limits. If your deck is ok, and you are a decent player, you ALWAYS have this fair chance.Have you never played this great game using the social aspect? x-card-limit players in a NCL environment tend to be diplomats and win not only because of their deck but also because of their ability to make friends and form strategic alliances. > An additional reason > for this is that I don't like the game-play to get repetitive - > even if my deck has variety and surprises, if my predator or > prey is doing the same thing, with the same cards, every turn, > again the game gets dull IMHO. Of course, but that was HIS choice. Just give him time to experience this boredom himselfand he will switch to other deck designs without being forced into the corsett of a card limit. > If others are abiding by some card > limits, this is less likely to happen. > Really? Players tend to use 4 cards of each (that is: be maximum boring possible).Even when they are not any more allowed to include 8 Majesties, are 4 Majesties and 4 Staredowns so much of a change? In my experience, card limits promote "suitcase players" with good access of rare cards, because they can nullify the card limit best by including hordes of rares to simulate a NCL deck. Players with mostly commons and uncommons are seriously hindered to build their most effective decks possible, and makes Bleed decks the predominant type of deck. Rush & Combat decks need means to get into combat, and restricting the number of Bum's Rushes and Ambush's will hurt them badly Even worse, Vote decks have mostly one staple card: Kine Recources Contested. Conservative Agitation is good in large groups, but becomes weaker in the course of the game. Parity Shift and Sabbat Threat requires Camarilla titled decks. With card limits, all cards will soon have the same rarity in your deck regardless of their own rarity status: the rarity of x (where x is your card limit). This may also happen in NCL decks, but is less likely, because anyone can use as much of the staple common cards as he needs. > All that said, I think the 4 card limit is too small. It's just too > restrictive on some strategies, and on generically useful cards like > WakeWEF. I played a game with a group that used a 6 limit, and I > think > that works quite nicely. > And still you would never see a Corruption deck working, and the Bribed Vote concept will not work properly (that is: to bribe EVERY vote so that successful vote decks with every clan are possible. Youare not anymore restricted to use Presence or Weeny titled vote). > As far as the gentleman's agreements to avoid having the table swept > by the Stealth/Bleed decks, to me it's more a matter of finding > a playgroup composed of people imaginative enough that it's not > a concern. Or functional Rush & Combat decks (which are most effective under NCL) > Even the stealth/bleed thing can be made interesting by > adding in some wacky Malkavian randomness and other surprises. If > one of my opponents won't even bother doing that much, I'm not > interested in playing with them anymore. "Ieks. He is just plain effective. He will crush me in no time in the most efficient way possible.I don't play with him anymore. (sets up his most upset face expression)." You don't think that you try to blackmail your fellow players to abide to your favorite playing style, ignoring that others may have other tastes, by threatening of leaving and perhaps destroying the playgroup, do you? Perhaps a little bit of sympathy and diplomacy will do our game (and your wishes) more good than just try to get ones will swinging a Sword over your neighbor's head. This may be appropiate for a Brujah, but leads too often to war or at least unhappy feelings towards each other. Just my two cents, Michael Beer V:EKN Prince of Dortmund

I have played against the most stuck up nasty players in the history of the card games, but what I find repulsive is blackmailing or making up rules to bennifit the victim of such attacks. So far I have probably won 6 of the 20 games or so that I have played (large groups here, it's hard finding two people, let alone large groups), but I keep playing without any sort of blackmail. The reason is I will be able to learn from their strategies and make new ones up, or be creative on existing ones to dismantle the nastiest of decks without becomming nasty. example of the people I have played: I keep getting pitted against the same person always as a prey or predator (he has those cards which allow him to attack his pred), and his friends. I don't really know them, so whenever they get to bleed out of turn or out of sequence (pred prey thing) they always bleed me. In essence I have a group of 3 predators chasing after me, while the other two do nothing, even if they could kill their own pred with that bleed. Frankly it does make me think they are cheap, but it also forces me to come up with something can can take on their decks, and a few times I did (I just had to leave early as with all games with these guys. these guys take 4 minute turns and 1am is a little late to continue playing a 3 hour game). Jyhad has had so few rule changes compared to the other games out there and that's why I keep playing it. It is also more along the lines of strategy than the others (and supports multi player a load better). I like to play against people who give me a challenge (even if they are cheap), at least it makes me think of ways to slaughter them or just marginally beat them next time we play. ><HTML><PRE>Subject: Re: More on the 4CL... >From: Michael Beer <Mi...@leila.ping.de> >Date: Sat, May 23, 1998 04:30 EDT >Message-id: <3566890D...@leila.ping.de> [ quoted text not captured ] ></PRE></HTML> ___________________ "If you were any other man I would kill you where you stand!" --- Commander Worf Star Trek First Contact

Michael Beer wrote: > > Jeremy York wrote: > > > I get bored playing a deck that has many many duplicates of any > > given card (say, 8 or more). > > This puts me at a potential disadvantage if going against NL decks. > > Why? Even in a NCL environment, decks with only x of each card may be > competetive. If having no-limits wasn't some kind of advantage, we wouldn't be having this discussion at all, would we? Anyway, I have played my style of deck in NL tournaments and had a good time. My point is just, if I'm going to abide by a restriction, it's nicer to play in an environment where others are as well. > > An additional reason > > for this is that I don't like the game-play to get repetitive - > > even if my deck has variety and surprises, if my predator or > > prey is doing the same thing, with the same cards, every turn, > > again the game gets dull IMHO. > > Of course, but that was HIS choice. Just give him time to experience > this boredom himself Hrm, I'm doing good if I get in 2 games a Jyhad a month, often it's more like one game every 2-3 months. Having a really good game every time I play is important to me, I don't have time to wait for my opponent to get bored for him to learn a lesson. > > If others are abiding by some card > > limits, this is less likely to happen. > > Really? Players tend to use 4 cards of each (that is: be maximum boring > possible).Even when they are not any more allowed to include 8 > Majesties, are 4 Majesties and 4 Staredowns > so much of a change? No, not really, which is why I like higher card limits than 4. Six or Eight seem like good numbers to me - the different card names become less of an advantage. > > All that said, I think the 4 card limit is too small. It's just too > > restrictive on some strategies, and on generically useful cards like > > WakeWEF. I played a game with a group that used a 6 limit, and I > > think > > that works quite nicely. > > > > And still you would never see a Corruption deck working, and the Bribed > Vote concept will not work properly If I played against someone in the card-limit environment I've been doing lately, and they brought in a Corruption deck that broke the limit rules, I don't think there'd be any complaints from any of the players. I haven't investigated this with people, but I think it comes down to this: we're relaxed about things, we're there to have fun, and we all like seeing new things. The corruption deck is a cool enough idea that we all want to see it happen, and we're relaxed enough that noone's going to throw a fit because it broke the card limits. However, we'll keep to our limits when building more conventional decks to avoid boredom and predictability. > > As far as the gentleman's agreements to avoid having the table swept > > by the Stealth/Bleed decks, to me it's more a matter of finding > > a playgroup composed of people imaginative enough that it's not > > a concern. > > > Even the stealth/bleed thing can be made interesting by > > adding in some wacky Malkavian randomness and other surprises. If > > one of my opponents won't even bother doing that much, I'm not > > interested in playing with them anymore. > > "Ieks. He is just plain effective. He will crush me in no time in the > most efficient way possible.I don't play with him anymore. (sets up his > most upset face expression)." It's more like "ieks. he's playing a strategy that will make this game as interesting as watching the price is right. damn, the only game we managed to get together for this month, and it has to be a predictable yawner like this." Then, depending on whether the person's company was enjoyable, I'd think either "I'll have to congratulate him for ousting me, and then try to get him to build a funner deck for next month," or "I hope he doesn't come back". Winning is good; having a really exciting game is better. Winning with a hackneyed total cheese deck is a yawn. For example, I've been playing a lot of Mythos this last year. That game has some poorly designed cards in the first releases, that can be used to put together some cheesy fast decks. However, in the good sized group that I've been playing with (both in friendly play and even in tournaments), I've very seldom seen the cheesy decks played. There's a general attitude that winning with a surprising and ambitious deck, or even only getting halfway there with such a deck, is vastly preferable to winning with a pile of cheese. I'm actually pretty surprised that this has been the case in tournament as well as friendly play, but all in all I think it's pretty cool. If none of that makes sense to you, I guess we both should be glad we're in different play groups. > You don't think that you try to blackmail your fellow players to abide > to your favorite playing style, > ignoring that others may have other tastes, by threatening of leaving > and perhaps destroying the playgroup, > do you? Hrm, you are really misinterpreting my remarks above. I've been playing with a good group of folks, and the restraint to not play the cheezy Stealth/Bleed deck just hasn't been an issue. It's hardly like I'm in there as a ruthless dictator, shouting and pouting to get the limits imposed. The group I've been playing with lately had their limits in place and attitude against boring decks long before I ever jumped in; it's just fortunate for me that I found a sympathetic group. I really doubt I'd go into a no-limits playgroup and insist that they play with limits. But then again, if I went a couple of times, and each time had basic deck type A on one side and basic deck type B on the other, I probably wouldn't come back anymore. > Perhaps a little bit of sympathy and diplomacy will do our game (and > your wishes) more good than just > try to get ones will swinging a Sword over your neighbor's head. Relax; my own experience has been best with groups that valued fun above all, and were relaxed about it. There's no sword swinging or sabre rattling going on here. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <3569D402...@thememedia.com>, Jeremy York <jer...@ThemeMedia.com> wrote: >Winning is good; having a really exciting game is better. Winning >with a hackneyed total cheese deck is a yawn. For example, I've >been playing a lot of Mythos this last year. That game has some >poorly designed cards in the first releases, that can be used to >put together some cheesy fast decks. However, in the good sized >group that I've been playing with (both in friendly play and even >in tournaments), I've very seldom seen the cheesy decks played. There's >a general attitude that winning with a surprising and ambitious >deck, or even only getting halfway there with such a deck, is vastly >preferable to winning with a pile of cheese. I'm actually pretty >surprised that this has been the case in tournament as well as >friendly play, but all in all I think it's pretty cool. If none >of that makes sense to you, I guess we both should be glad we're >in different play groups. This is segueing off topic for our newsgroup, but yeah, I know what you mean about the early Mythos cards. I've got a Dunwich and a Cairo deck that pretty much sit in a box until someone gets tired of trying to make their weird angle work. We call them the 'tantrum' decks, or the 'i want to win now' decks. They do the job, but they're not particularly useful, except possibly as a benchmark (*this* deck lasted *that* long against the Cairo deck...). gomi but i suppose we should take this to rec.games.trading-cards.misc -- go ahead, wreck your life: that might be good who can say what's wrong or right? nobody can

> > > > > I get bored playing a deck that has many many duplicates of any > > > given card (say, 8 or more). > > > This puts me at a potential disadvantage if going against NL decks. > > > > Why? Even in a NCL environment, decks with only x of each card may be > > competetive. > > If having no-limits wasn't some kind of advantage, we wouldn't > be having this discussion at all, would we? Anyway, I have > played my style of deck in NL tournaments and had a good time. > My point is just, if I'm going to abide by a restriction, it's > nicer to play in an environment where others are as well. > Generally, I make decks that would work in a 6CL environment (rarely 4CL). Usually, these decks are fairly competitive in NL. As far as I'm concerned, with some creativity, NL does nothing but allow strange decks to work. My philosophy (and my playgroup) may be somewhat of a hybrid, but I believe that other NL groups work this way too. That is, we build our decks to win and use no limits, but first and foremost is having fun, and weird decks are much appreciated. As many people say, "S&B isn't a factor in 4CL, because people want to have fun." At the same time, my games (both in Chicago and Pasadena) without limits don't have cheesy decks as a factor because fun is more important. So, I can make interesting decks without imposing an artificial restriction on my deck construction. > > > An additional reason > > > for this is that I don't like the game-play to get repetitive - > > > even if my deck has variety and surprises, if my predator or > > > prey is doing the same thing, with the same cards, every turn, > > > again the game gets dull IMHO. > > > > Of course, but that was HIS choice. Just give him time to experience > > this boredom himself > > Hrm, I'm doing good if I get in 2 games a Jyhad a month, often it's > more like one game every 2-3 months. Having a really good game > every time I play is important to me, I don't have time to wait > for my opponent to get bored for him to learn a lesson. > Well, that's sort of an artificial situation, since, if you can get together once a month or whatever, most people will have time for more than one game. If your playgroup has only 2 games per month (or less), then I could see how a card limit might be necessary. Without it, one would be tempted to build a tried-and-true deck. If you're only playing twice a month, you don't want to be ousted in 5 minutes. Since I play maybe 3 times per week, I'm more likely to try something new that I can test and tweak. > > > If others are abiding by some card > > > limits, this is less likely to happen. > > > > Really? Players tend to use 4 cards of each (that is: be maximum boring > > possible).Even when they are not any more allowed to include 8 > > Majesties, are 4 Majesties and 4 Staredowns > > so much of a change? > > No, not really, which is why I like higher card limits than 4. > Six or Eight seem like good numbers to me - the different card names > become less of an advantage. > But 6 and 8 aren't very restrictive. In 6CL, I can play with 18 Presence S:CE cards, plus 6 Dodge. So, I think that in this case, as in 4CL, the card limit is largely irrelevant, except for where it hurts hard-to-build decks. The no-brainers are still no-brainers, except for some cases where you need multiple rares to take the place of commons. > > > All that said, I think the 4 card limit is too small. It's just too > > > restrictive on some strategies, and on generically useful cards like > > > WakeWEF. I played a game with a group that used a 6 limit, and I > > > think > > > that works quite nicely. > > > > > > > And still you would never see a Corruption deck working, and the Bribed > > Vote concept will not work properly > > If I played against someone in the card-limit environment I've been > doing lately, and they brought in a Corruption deck that broke the > limit rules, I don't think there'd be any complaints from any of > the players. I haven't investigated this with people, but I think > it comes down to this: we're relaxed about things, we're there to have > fun, and we all like seeing new things. The corruption deck is a cool > enough idea that we all want to see it happen, and we're relaxed enough > that noone's going to throw a fit because it broke the card limits. > However, we'll keep to our limits when building more conventional > decks to avoid boredom and predictability. > Well, that's pretty much the way my current environment works. If someone pulls out a weenie vote (lots of Majesty, lots of KRC) or a Malk S&B, we endure it, gang up on it (not out of spite, but out of vested self-interest... when the Malks bleed out their prey, the grand-prey won't be alive for long...), and then after we lose to it, ask the player to switch decks for the next game. It's nice to be reminded once in a while of the power of brainless decks, and then to get on with the real Jyhad. But if someone pulls out, say, a killer Brujah S&B or a Tzimice vote-deck that pummels the entire table, we're likely to congratulate them and then try to re-tune our decks to beat it. In this way, NL Corruption is much more welcome than 4CL dom/obf. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

ber...@cco.caltech.edu wrote: > > That is, we build our decks to win and use > no limits, but first and foremost is having fun, and weird decks are much > appreciated. As many people say, "S&B isn't a factor in 4CL, because people > want to have fun." Wait, wait, wait. What if someone _wants_ to play a stealth and bleed deck? What's wrong with that? In a NL environment, it's not any better than any other effective strategy. You say yourself that you basically don't use card limits but that you still "play to win". So why is there still no S&B? > So, I can make interesting decks without imposing an artificial > restriction on my deck construction. That restriction being: "the deck doesn't have to be too effective"? How is this playing to win? You can make goofy decks, and they'll probably get trounced upon the first few times you play them, but you can make basically any deck effective with some practice and good deckbuilding skills. You don't have to impose an articifical "no S&B" rule. > Well, that's pretty much the way my current environment works. If someone > pulls out a weenie vote (lots of Majesty, lots of KRC) or a Malk S&B, we > endure it, gang up on it (not out of spite, but out of vested self-interest... > when the Malks bleed out their prey, the grand-prey won't be alive for > long...), and then after we lose to it, ask the player to switch decks for the > next game. But "the Malks", or any sleath/bleed, or _any_ effecitive bleed deck is just another deck in NL. If you don't want to put Bleed defense or Vote defense into your decks, and then shame people out of using bleed and vote decks, then you're not really playing Jyhad. You're playing some sort of meta-Jyhad. > and then after we lose to it, ask the player to switch decks for the > next game. It's nice to be reminded once in a while of the power of brainless > decks, and then to get on with the real Jyhad. The thing that I don't think you realize is that the brainless decks (like, for example, straight dom/obf S&B) are NOT VERY EFFECTIVE. (sorry to shout) Example: in Crusade:Ithaca a few weeks back, there was a straight Malkavian stealth/bleed deck. It got NO victory points the entire tournament. Why? Because the other decks had bleed defense. And this deck was not well enough constructed (I gathered the deck-owner was a new player) to handle this, and it died. THIS is the real Jyhad. When the Ithaca group, which I was until recently a part of, switched to NL, we had the same kind of problem. We build very, very narrow decks, without bleed or vote defenses, because nobody really liked playing those kind of decks. Hence we all played combat decks, and we evolved amazingly vicious combat decks. But when anyone would come by with a Ventrue bleed deck (with Skin of Steels and Bondings, natch), they'd sweep the table in a matter of minutes. The weenie vote and bleed decks would also sweep regularly. In many ways, our group was like what you describe. So what changed? We realized that we were just like we had been in our 4CL days, shaming people out of playing effective decks that we didn't know how to deal with. So we decided to start keeping score. We used the Corrupter's scoring system (I won't get into detail here), and started "playing to win". Suddenly, it was OK to play your vote deck, or your bleed deck. Once people got tired of losing to them, we learned to put in defenses, and our games got much more interesting because now we all had lots of different decks. People who had only made combat decks made killer bleed decks and had fun with them. Contrary to popular belief, some people enjoy playing effective stealth and bleed decks. If you peruse the deck archives, you'll find that I myself had an effective obf/pre deck. It won a lot, and was a lot of fun to play. But the deck didn't need to be ganged up on, either. Why should someone across the table deal with a deck just because it's a S&B deck? "Let _them_ deal with it! I'm busy ousting my own prey." Moral of the story: the game has ways to keep stealth/bleed under control. It doesn't need your help or extra unspoken rules (other than GT, natch) to make it work better. That's my rant for the day. :) James

In article <3569D402...@ThemeMedia.com>, Jeremy York <jer...@ThemeMedia.com> writes >Michael Beer wrote: >> >> Jeremy York wrote: >> >> > I get bored playing a deck that has many many duplicates of any >> > given card (say, 8 or more). >> > This puts me at a potential disadvantage if going against NL decks. >> >> Why? Even in a NCL environment, decks with only x of each card may be >> competetive. > >If having no-limits wasn't some kind of advantage, we wouldn't >be having this discussion at all, would we? Well, I don't know. The winning deck from the recent Portsmouth tournament was made under the (misguided) impression that he had to be working to a 5CL. It won. For many of us, the point about NCL vs 4CL is partly competitive. If I want to make an out and out combat deck, I should be allowed to. NCL allows me to make an out and out combat deck the way *I* want to. It doesn't force me to use Sport Bikes instead of Rush but I still have the option to do so IF I WANT. 4CL does have a little more of a tendency to homogonise some deck types because you run out of the cards you want to use and then have to use the other cards to replace them. And choice is the other major factor. Some discussions at Portsmouth basically boiled down to the following points: 1) NCL does allow you to play a hideously focussed deck strategy 2) If you're not very lucky, a very focussed deck won't do too well on its own - you need the diversification 3) However, 4CL virtually forces you to diversify which, though it should make for a better deck, doesn't *necessarily* do so 4) Though the need to diversify is there, surely I should be allowed to have as many of some cards as I like in a deck A real life example I don't think I've dragged out before is the way *I* play Gangrel decks. Of course, I like to have Claw cards in the deck - both Wolf and Claws of the Dead. However, I much prefer to have more Claws of the Dead in the deck since they CAN double up as maneuvers. I like to have a couple of Wolf Claws there to provide me the flexibility to press, of course (although I'm using, say, Gleam of Red Eyes and Form of the Ghost for both of these as necessary) but I just like Claws of the Dead better. I personally think I should have the choice to do what I want with the deck and not be forced, if I want claws, to have 4 of each - I'd rather have 6 to 8 Claws of the Dead and only a couple of Wolf Claws. And I can do other things with the deck - Damage Prevention, Animalism untap maybe, Shackles of Inky-Doo, a few of the really cool retainers etc. etc. etc. But for my combat section of the deck, I like to have full control over what I do with it. > Anyway, I have >played my style of deck in NL tournaments and had a good time. >My point is just, if I'm going to abide by a restriction, it's >nicer to play in an environment where others are as well. > Of course. If you want to play 4CL, then the group should play 4CL too, otherwise it's not fair on you. >Hrm, I'm doing good if I get in 2 games a Jyhad a month, often it's >more like one game every 2-3 months. Having a really good game >every time I play is important to me, I don't have time to wait >for my opponent to get bored for him to learn a lesson. This is a problem I can sympathise with. ATM, I rarely get to play Jyhad properly in a regular group. Personally, I quite like JOL in this respect. A lot of the people there are playing very cool decks, designed to, yes, be competitive but also to try out funny strategies that wouldn't work in real life or you couldn't do in real life. I personally enjoyed seeing Chris Berger's recent deck on JOL60. It didn't do too well but it was a very clever and innovative idea I'd certainly never seen before (using Inner Circle to call Might of the Camarilla to move his inactive vampires to his ash heap and then Possession them back out). > >> > If others are abiding by some card >> > limits, this is less likely to happen. >> >> Really? Players tend to use 4 cards of each (that is: be maximum boring >> possible).Even when they are not any more allowed to include 8 >> Majesties, are 4 Majesties and 4 Staredowns >> so much of a change? > >No, not really, which is why I like higher card limits than 4. >Six or Eight seem like good numbers to me - the different card names >become less of an advantage. > Well, it can be a hell of a difference. In this instance, Staredown only dodges at inferior - you can get panned on the additional strikes if someone's playing a nasty deck. But there are many other instances where the difference between two cards is more pronounced. What do I care more about doing? Untapping or dealing damage? In that case, Catatonic Fear versus Majesty is a real decision. Do I want to tap their vampires to prevent them blocking actions later in the turn or would I prefer the ability to get extra stealth on my actions from other vampires? In that case, Cloak the Gathering versus Faceless Night is a real decision. In many cases, it waits until you get the superior version of a card (rather than inferior) and then you have to start making decisions as to which is "better" for the type of deck you want to play. >If I played against someone in the card-limit environment I've been >doing lately, and they brought in a Corruption deck that broke the >limit rules, I don't think there'd be any complaints from any of >the players. I haven't investigated this with people, but I think >it comes down to this: we're relaxed about things, we're there to have >fun, and we all like seeing new things. The corruption deck is a cool >enough idea that we all want to see it happen, and we're relaxed enough >that noone's going to throw a fit because it broke the card limits. >However, we'll keep to our limits when building more conventional >decks to avoid boredom and predictability. But what happens when the Corruption deck does become a conventional deck? It has one card in it repeated many times, likely a dozen or so at least to be viable. Doesn't that deck then become boring and predictable? Would a player who regularly played it then have to stop playing it simply because it became run of the mill? > >Winning is good; having a really exciting game is better. Winning >with a hackneyed total cheese deck is a yawn. Yup, agreed. It can be a hell of a pain to watch someone win with ultra-cheese but that depends on your play environment. In your own group, you can ask people to play however you want. I know that before now, we (my group who I haven't seen in ages) have asked people to just play combat decks because we wanted a highly combative game, just as something different to do. But in a tournament, say, where people want to win for the prizes as well as play the game, you have to expect it I'm afraid. >I really doubt I'd go into a no-limits >playgroup and insist that they play with limits. But then again, >if I went a couple of times, and each time had basic deck type A >on one side and basic deck type B on the other, I probably wouldn't >come back anymore. Hmmm... this is the one thing that I think 4CL players misunderstand about NCL players (and we, obviously, misunderstand things about you). The thing I love about NCL is that, yes, you can play archetypal decks if you want to - just a normal S&B, vote or combat, but there is so much else you can do. Corruption is viable. Votes passed with Bribes, not Presence, becomes possible. Hundreds of weenie vamps created by princes using 3rd Tradition and pool gain using Consanguineous Boon is possible (not forgetting that you can then afford to diversify the deck in some ways that would normally be prohibitively expensive pool wise, using things like Flamethrowers :) You CAN play an archetype deck but NCL gives you the flexibility to NOT do so if you CHOOSE not to do so. Whether the players exercise that right to choose is another matter entirely. >Relax; my own experience has been best with groups that valued >fun above all, and were relaxed about it. There's no sword swinging >or sabre rattling going on here. There isn't? So all those copies of Bastard Sword and Meat Cleaver are going to waste? Damn ;) -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia) Change nospam to obeah to reply Vampire: Elder Kindred Network madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

> I think a point the NL'ers may have missed is that trying to build NL decks under a limit will not work at least not well enough to compete with a good deck( S+B excepted)a 4CL deck is a different animal altogether. Using second rate cards is simply not a viable option IMO.I use the same combos as many NL decks but only 4 of each piece, and I don't generally use a lot of "only good in the combo" type cards because the combo's only going to go off 2 or 3 times and each piece has to do something on its own to avoid hand jam.while I will agree that NL has more options I'll also argue that deck building under 4CL is much more challenging in order to get the killer deck with a CL you need to put more thought not less into which cards to bring in Just my 2 cents Eric >