rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

LSJ - Decksize

16 messages from 12 participants · 26 June 2007 – 27 June 2007
original thread on Google Groups

BobbyDoc

Hi, In a V:EKN constructed deck tournament, each Methuselah's library deck must have between sixty and ninety cards. Maybe little stupid question, but why 60-90 ? What was the reasons for choosing these boundaries? Was 50 to few? 100 to many? My guess is that these boundaries was arbitrary chosen, but I could be wrong. Long discussions and tests may have come to these values. If so I'm very interested (yes, I like statistical tests) in those. Of course I'm also interested in the lower boundary of the crypt. Was that boundary chosen in the same matter as the deck limit? I notice there is no upper limit for the crypt. Do this mean I can come to a tournament with a crypt of 50000 vamps and a deck full of Recruitment's? Or do that fall under unsportsmanlike behaviour? Regards Robert

Jeroen

On 26 jun, 10:11, BobbyDoc <robert_dokto...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > > In a V:EKN constructed deck tournament, each Methuselah's library deck > must have between sixty and ninety cards. > > Maybe little stupid question, but why 60-90 ? In a normal game libraries are 40 to 40+ (10*number of players), since you only play 4 or 5 player games in tournements, library max should be 80 (4 players) or 90 (5 players.) Since you can't change your deck, they opted for the 90 card maximum. Where the 60 minimum comes from I don't really know. > <snip> > I notice there is no upper limit for the crypt. Do this mean I can > come to a tournament with a crypt of 50000 vamps and a deck full of > Recruitment's? Or do that fall under unsportsmanlike behaviour? IIRC, LSJ has said that you have to be able to randomise you crypt in a way that's fast enough to do in in max. a couple of minutes.

Slytherin

IANLSJ, but I was under the impression that 60-90 was chosen, as for ordinary play, the minimum decksize is 40, and maximum is 40 + (10 * number of players). As a tournament table should ideally be 4 or 5 players 40 + (10 * 4) = 80, 40 +(10 * 5) = 90. 60 minimum allows for a sufficient randomisation factor for the cards (even the twister strategy to get the effective deck down to 40 again can struggle, and can certainly jam for a turn or two). In the case of vampires, again it is the assumption that 12 allows for randomisation factor of selected minions, but having no upper limit on crypt size allows you to play a large number of minions strategy. You could come to a tournament with 50000 vamps and 90 recruitments, but I think you'd struggle, and therefore it wouldn't be unsportsmanlike. I think you'd need to speak with Richard Garfield about why minimums where chosen, and why they where set as they were. MTG and VTES both started with a minimum of 40. In MTG this only remains for limited play, in VTES it remains for casual and limited. However, in MTG they also have card limits, and 60 is effectively also the maximum deck size (also there is no maximum). In VTES, having a maximum forces card choice and puts another limit on resources (which I believe the game to be about). Andy VEKN Setite Ruler of Cambridge

PaulW...@gmail.com

> In a normal game libraries are 40 to 40+ (10*number of players), since > you only play 4 or 5 player games in tournements, library max should > be 80 (4 players) or 90 (5 players.) Since you can't change your deck, > they opted for the 90 card maximum. Where the 60 minimum comes from I > don't really know. The minimum of 60 comes from the same idea since you need at least 2 players to play the game. So it is 40 cards +10 for every player resulting into 60..

agzocgud

Ok then, why 40 as the "base" number? Why not 36 or 51?

PaulW...@gmail.com

On 26 jun, 12:32, agzocgud <per_math...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Ok then, why 40 as the "base" number? Why not 36 or 51? I think it is because almost all the ccg games use that number. Don't know why. But the same goes for why is blue called blue and not yellow?

LSJ

Jeroen wrote: > On 26 jun, 10:11, BobbyDoc <robert_dokto...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> In a V:EKN constructed deck tournament, each Methuselah's library deck >> must have between sixty and ninety cards. >> >> Maybe little stupid question, but why 60-90 ? > > In a normal game libraries are 40 to 40+ (10*number of players), since > you only play 4 or 5 player games in tournements, library max should > be 80 (4 players) or 90 (5 players.) Since you can't change your deck, > they opted for the 90 card maximum. Correct. Using the maximum maximum as the maximum. > Where the 60 minimum comes from I > don't really know. It comes from DCI (the first VTES tournament authority), who lifted it from Magic: The Gathering (whose DCI tournament rules also lifted the minimum deck size from 40 to 60). Minimum deck size is much less important in VTES than it is in Magic, however, except for a couple of rare (deviant?) VTES strategies. > <snip> >> I notice there is no upper limit for the crypt. Do this mean I can >> come to a tournament with a crypt of 50000 vamps and a deck full of >> Recruitment's? Or do that fall under unsportsmanlike behaviour? > > IIRC, LSJ has said that you have to be able to randomise you crypt in > a way that's fast enough to do in in max. a couple of minutes. Not that I recall. Anyway, if you have trouble shuffling your deck in a timely manner, call a judge for assistance. (Same if someone at your table has such trouble.)

Bram Vink

[ quoted text not captured ] I would assume that in the testing phase of the game, there was a conscious choice to make running out of cards a viable risk (hence the decksize being dependent on how many players there were) I think it's fair to assume that the amount of cards has been the result of playing, and seeing how many cards were played, then a simplification of that. So the original rules stated: 40+10/player is the maximum size. However, since in a tournament it isnt a good idea to have people alter their decks between rounds based on how many players they have to play against, a basic standard had to be set, in accordance to the rules above, taking into account the tournament maximum of players/ table is 5, the upper limit was set at 90. Since the minimum amount of players to play the game is 2, the lower limit is 60. That's how I'd assume things went, Cheers, B

Jeroen

[ quoted text not captured ] My bad. I seemed to think you said something like that to Legbiter when he posted his Betrayer deck (before grouping rules) with all vampires in the Crypt.

Jozxyqk

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Minimum deck size is much less important in VTES than it is in Magic, however, > except for a couple of rare (deviant?) VTES strategies. Thanks to Burn Option, those "deviant" strategies can really make a deck as small as you like, and pad it up to 60, with only a minor cost. So, minimum deck size is pretty irrelevant. Although personally, I have trouble building decks smaller than around 130 cards in their first draft :)

witness1

On Jun 26, 8:02 am, Bram Vink <jja.v...@hccnet.nl> wrote: > On Jun 26, 10:11 am, BobbyDoc <robert_dokto...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I would assume that in the testing phase of the game, there was a > conscious choice to make running out of cards a viable risk (hence the > decksize being dependent on how many players there were) I think it's > fair to assume that the amount of cards has been the result of > playing, and seeing how many cards were played, then a simplification > of that. They probably decided that running out of cards needed to be a risk because of two things - they wanted to avoid having a card limit, and they wanted cards to replace immediately. It's not terribly hard to burn through 10+ cards in a turn, and unlike most CCGs, you'll still have a full hand of 7 when you're done, instead of having to rebuild your hand over several turns. So by limiting deck size, you're still forced to manage your cards wisely, instead of just building a giant deck and playing as fast as possible. > So the original rules stated: 40+10/player is the maximum size. 40 likely being a holdover from magic, and 10 per player allows people to build 60-card decks for 2-player games. 60 is a nice round number that people would be used to if they played in any magic tournaments. > However, since in a tournament it isnt a good idea to have people > alter their decks between rounds based on how many players they have > to play against, a basic standard had to be set, in accordance to the > rules above, taking into account the tournament maximum of players/ > table is 5, the upper limit was set at 90. > Since the minimum amount of players to play the game is 2, the lower > limit is 60. The upper limit did need to remain constant across the tournament, hence 90 (allowing people to have enough cards for their 5-player games was presumably deemed more important than being restricted in your 4-player games). 60 is likely a holdover from magic, rather than actually being a meaningful number on it's own (or perhaps, it's just as meaningful as it is in magic, and was for that reason held over). witness1

Peter D Bakija

In article <1182863792.8...@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, witness1 <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > 60 is likely a holdover from magic, rather than actually being a > meaningful number on it's own (or perhaps, it's just as meaningful as > it is in magic, and was for that reason held over). It is both a holdover from Magic (as noted by a few others) due to the DCI having come up with the original tournament rules and also probably (also from Magic) an attempt to minimize "degenerate" deck building, which, also as noted, is mostly moot now due to the existence of burn option cards (i.e. build a 30 card deck and pad it out with 30 burn option cards. Or 30 Zip Guns, heh.) The only CCG I have run into with no deck size limits is Shadowfist (which does have a per card 5CL)--you can play a 6 card deck if you really want (T1: "I play a Feng Shui Site and a Friends of the Dragon. I, uh, have no deck left. I lose.") Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html

Jeff Kuta

On Jun 26, 1:26 am, Slytherin <a...@operamail.com> wrote: > IANLSJ, but I was under the impression that 60-90 was chosen, as for > ordinary play, the minimum decksize is 40, and maximum is 40 + (10 * > number of players). > > As a tournament table should ideally be 4 or 5 players 40 + (10 * 4) = > 80, 40 +(10 * 5) = 90. > > 60 minimum allows for a sufficient randomisation factor for the cards > (even the twister strategy to get the effective deck down to 40 again > can struggle, and can certainly jam for a turn or two). > > In the case of vampires, again it is the assumption that 12 allows for > randomisation factor of selected minions, but having no upper limit on > crypt size allows you to play a large number of minions strategy. > > You could come to a tournament with 50000 vamps and 90 recruitments, > but I think you'd struggle, and therefore it wouldn't be > unsportsmanlike. > > I think you'd need to speak with Richard Garfield about why minimums > where chosen, and why they where set as they were. MTG and VTES both > started with a minimum of 40. In MTG this only remains for limited > play, in VTES it remains for casual and limited. While this is technically true, most play groups adhere to tournament rules, so make sure you bring 60-card decks to the table. :) Jeff

BobbyDoc

So I guess the deck and crypt size boundaries have never been discussed thoroughly. The lower limit was inherited from Magic and have never been questioned and the upper limit was derived from the old +10cards/ player rule. Never got any answer about the minimum crypt size, but my guess is that it was an arbitrary chosen number. Cheers Robert

LSJ

BobbyDoc wrote: > So I guess the deck and crypt size boundaries have never been > discussed thoroughly. Perhaps. But they may have been discussed sufficiently. :-) > The lower limit was inherited from Magic and have never been > questioned and the upper limit was derived from the old +10cards/ > player rule. It *is* derived from the *current* +10/p rule, yes. > Never got any answer about the minimum crypt size, but my guess is > that it was an arbitrary chosen number. As was hand size and initial uncontrolled region size (and number of squares on a chessboard, for that matter). Where "arbitrary" = "determined by attempting to find the optimal number through play testing".

niko...@hotmail.com

> I notice there is no upper limit for the crypt. Do this mean I can > come to a tournament with a crypt of 50000 vamps and a deck full of > Recruitment's? Or do that fall under unsportsmanlike behaviour? > Yes it does! Before the grouping rules came up I played a deck with Synesios, loads of recruitment and then 1-2 copies of every vampire in the game. I would contest my preys vampires and then play Clios Kiss to take control of them. I only played it at a tournament and only once. It took a few points and a gamewin and made it into the final I think (10 man tournament only), but it was pretty hilarious to play. Obviously with the grouping rule it doesnt work anymore.. :(