The Hunger (anti-weenie card proposal)

I was giving some thought to the whole anti-weenie discussion and came up with this general use master card. Let me know what you think. ============================== The Hunger Master Out-of-Turn You may play this card during your turn. Place this card on a vampire that has a capacity above 7 and has less than 3 blood on her. The vampire with this card taps and enters combat with a vampire controlled by another methuselah with a capacity below 4. The vampire with this card has +2 strength for the duration of this combat. Any blood lost by the opposing vampire goes to the vampire with this card at the end of each round. If the opposing vampire is not ready at the end of this combat, this vampire untaps. Burn this card at the end of combat. =============================== Thematically, this card represents the hunger that ancient vampires have for the blood of younger vampires. After centuries of unlife, the blood of normal humans no longer sates them and they start to crave the vitae of their younger brethren. This is also why many vampires fear the antedilluveans. The rationale behind this card is that you can basically force someone else's vampire to fight a weenie for you. That vampire can potentially gain from this situation so it is not necessarily bad to have it played against you. It is meant to be a weenie-killer obviously, and since the effect occurs outside of the normal turn structure, it could conceivably slow down a weenie deck without adversely affecting the non-weenie Methuselahs. It could also be used in more of a co-operative way than a coercive way, which is an aspect of the game that I believe could be expanded on somewhat. Additionally, because the vampire this card is played on must have less than 3 blood, it could be used offensively against someone who has just Minion Tapped. Example. LARRY --> Minion Tap Arika down to 1 WES --> Cool. I play The Hunger to force Arika to fight Gillian Krader LARRY --> Damn you to hell. Play in conjunction with Frenzy and Save Face for Fun +2! Thoughts? (As usual, this card is public domain and White Wolf is welcome to have it or whatever... I give up the rights to it. Does this even help or am I talking out of my ass again?) Cheers, WES

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:<a6aas...@enews4.newsguy.com>... > I was giving some thought to the whole anti-weenie discussion and came up > with this general use master card. Let me know what you think. > > ============================== > The Hunger > > Master Out-of-Turn > > You may play this card during your turn. Place this card on a vampire that > has a capacity above 7 and has less than 3 blood on her. The vampire with > this card taps and enters combat with a vampire controlled by another > methuselah with a capacity below 4. The vampire with this card has +2 > strength for the duration of this combat. Any blood lost by the opposing > vampire goes to the vampire with this card at the end of each round. If the > opposing vampire is not ready at the end of this combat, this vampire > untaps. Burn this card at the end of combat. > > =============================== Nice name! Now it needs Bowie / Bauhaus flavour text. I like the idea behind the card - fatties smashing weenies = good. But there are loopholes... ONE--- "You just minion tapped Arika! Great! I'll give her The Hunger, and she can rush some weenie... hmm, how about my embraced Ravnos? Yeah, him with two blood!" Followed by Illusions of the Kindred / Drawing out the Beast / IG / Burning Wrath... Is that the intent of the card? TWO--- This is not an action, so I presume that it's unblockable? Unlike every other 'rush' in the game? (OK, except Bruhaj Frenzy, which is a lot less reliable) THREE--- Should the word "ready" be in there somewhere? Or can a torpored vampire 'rush' with The Hunger? That would be cute! Minion tap Ulugh to 1. Rush, Weather Control * 6. Mutual torpor. The Hunger, Immortal Grapple. Ulugh goes back to 1 blood. Rescue Ulugh (rescuer pays). Repeat next turn. OR Rush a famous vampire. Disguised Magnum + multiple Psyche! and a Blur. Torpor it. Force it to rush Watenda via The Hunger. Disguised weapon. Is that the intent of the card? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Hollowboy" <icantbelievehollow...@hotmail.com> wrote > Nice name! Now it needs Bowie / Bauhaus flavour text. I love that movie :) > I like the idea behind the card - fatties smashing weenies = good. But > there are loopholes... Agreed. > ONE--- > > "You just minion tapped Arika! Great! I'll give her The Hunger, and > she can rush some weenie... hmm, how about my embraced Ravnos? Yeah, > him with two blood!" > > Followed by Illusions of the Kindred / Drawing out the Beast / IG / > Burning Wrath... > > Is that the intent of the card? Well, no... but it would be damn funny :) Actually, making Arika become *your* minion temporarily might be better since you could not do the above. Of course, then you'd be able to abuse her in other ways--Golconda comes to mind (albeit not without an additional MPA). Of course, making this card target *other* people's minions is perhaps too powerful. Making it usable only on your own might even be sufficient. You know what your deck has in it. If you use Arikas and Minion Taps, use this as extra offence/defense. > TWO--- > > This is not an action, so I presume that it's unblockable? Unlike > every other 'rush' in the game? Right... is that too powerful? I would think the limitations are enough to seriously hamper any attempt to abuse it. At worst you're going to torpor someone's weenie (and who knows if there will be any at the table even?) who probably deserves it anyway. I envision several methuselahs working together to use this card against a commonly perceived threat. > THREE--- > > Should the word "ready" be in there somewhere? Or can a torpored > vampire 'rush' with The Hunger? That would be cute! Torpored vampires are notoriously hungry... Hell, why not? :) > Minion tap Ulugh to 1. Rush, Weather Control * 6. Mutual torpor. Sure... but I don't think relying on this combo is going to work all that well. You need two MPAs... granted, not hard but now there is less focus to the deck. You need a hell of a lot of cards at the right time. You need the right type of opponents. I don't see this card becoming the core of any strategies in its present incarnation (ie non-existent :) > Rush a famous vampire. Disguised Magnum + multiple Psyche! and a Blur. > Torpor it. Force it to rush Watenda via The Hunger. Disguised weapon. > > Is that the intent of the card? Ehh... it's just a thought and certainly could use some tweaking. I'd be afraid of Disguised Weapon, Ivory Bow, Amaranth myself. Call a blood hunt on the elder vampire and have two problems solved. Still, that's pretty card-intensive and not likely to work all that often. The more I think about it though, the more it seems like something that should be playable only on your own guys. Consider this... without Anson or Parthenon etc you could not simply Minion Tap/Hunger somebody. Possibly workable? What about this? During the combat, no combat cards can be played. This gives less protection to the weenie but in turn means the elder vampire is less likely to get destroyed themselves. The idea is to whack-a-mole the weenies and give the older vampire a slight edge. More or less. Thanks for the input! Cheers, WES

icantbelievehollow...@hotmail.com (Hollowboy) wrote in message news:<614f2a39.02031...@posting.google.com>... > "Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:<a6aas...@enews4.newsguy.com>... > > ============================== > > The Hunger > > > > Master Out-of-Turn > > > > You may play this card during your turn. Place this card on a vampire that > > has a capacity above 7 and has less than 3 blood on her. The vampire with > > this card taps and enters combat with a vampire controlled by another > > methuselah with a capacity below 4. The vampire with this card has +2 > > strength for the duration of this combat. Any blood lost by the opposing > > vampire goes to the vampire with this card at the end of each round. If the > > opposing vampire is not ready at the end of this combat, this vampire > > untaps. Burn this card at the end of combat. > > > > =============================== Hmmm.. Methuselahs Thirst..:) I still think Legacy of Caine could help out in this regard, but adding more instances is only good..:) > Nice name! Now it needs Bowie / Bauhaus flavour text. Why not a quote from "The Hunger" movie? :) > I like the idea behind the card - fatties smashing weenies = good. But > there are loopholes... > > ONE--- > > "You just minion tapped Arika! Great! I'll give her The Hunger, and > she can rush some weenie... hmm, how about my embraced Ravnos? Yeah, > him with two blood!" > > Followed by Illusions of the Kindred / Drawing out the Beast / IG / > Burning Wrath... > > Is that the intent of the card? I would say no. I would like the idea of stealing the blood as with cryptic mission or Francois Villon's special. > TWO--- > > This is not an action, so I presume that it's unblockable? Unlike > every other 'rush' in the game? > > (OK, except Bruhaj Frenzy, which is a lot less reliable) Well, it is a weenie hoser, and clan hosers are not blockable either. > THREE--- > > Should the word "ready" be in there somewhere? Or can a torpored > vampire 'rush' with The Hunger? That would be cute! > > Minion tap Ulugh to 1. Rush, Weather Control * 6. Mutual torpor. > > The Hunger, Immortal Grapple. Ulugh goes back to 1 blood. Rescue Ulugh > (rescuer pays). > > Repeat next turn. > > OR > > Rush a famous vampire. Disguised Magnum + multiple Psyche! and a Blur. > Torpor it. Force it to rush Watenda via The Hunger. Disguised weapon. > > Is that the intent of the card? Ulugh could still freakdrive and rapid heal himself..:p Oh no, not with out blood off course.. DUH! *slaps his own head* I think that a card like this could be fun, but I would rather see it as a Fattie's Hoser then something else. Remember that partaking vitae from another vampire has some consquences: 1: potential bond 2: Methuselah's Thirst. The latter is something that is a real problem for elders, because they will not be able to sustain themselves with mortal blood. Legacy of Caine is a card that works perfectly for that purpose. I do like the idea of adding more dominance to fatties and letting weenie's be at the short end of the stick, but this is not the way to go I think. Grtz, Pepijn Kok

If you want to reduce the effectiveness of weenies simply errata Computer Hacking to cost 1 blood. Simple.. BernieTime On 10 Mar 2002 22:52:18 -0800, [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <3c8cc86c...@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >If you want to reduce the effectiveness of weenies simply errata >Computer Hacking to cost 1 blood. > >Simple.. Problems exist with *disciplined* weenies, which are also extremely doable. e.g. the weenie dom/DOM deck of nightmare. -- James Coupe Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks, PGP 0x5D623D5D And the rich folks hate the poor folks. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 All of my folks hate all of your folks, 13D7E668C3695D623D5D It's American as apple pie.

On Mon, 11 Mar 2002 15:32:35 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <3c8cc86c...@netnews.attbi.com>, >berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>If you want to reduce the effectiveness of weenies simply errata >>Computer Hacking to cost 1 blood. >> >>Simple.. > >Problems exist with *disciplined* weenies, which are also extremely >doable. > >e.g. the weenie dom/DOM deck of nightmare. That is a problem with Dominate, not with weenies. Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything that any other discipline can do, and often better. Presence is almost as bad, and is still damn nasty to play against. I'm half tempted to run a "fun" tournament banning the use of Dominate and Presence to see what people would do.. BernieTime [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <3c8cff8a...@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>Problems exist with *disciplined* weenies, which are also extremely >>doable. >> >>e.g. the weenie dom/DOM deck of nightmare. > >That is a problem with Dominate, not with weenies. It is far more likely to be a combination of the two. >Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >that any other discipline can do, and often better. This is, as you know, not true. <snip - my sig> Please don't quote sig files unless you are commenting on them. That's what the sig-sep is there for. [ quoted text not captured ]

berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM wrote in message news:<3c8cc86c...@netnews.attbi.com>... > If you want to reduce the effectiveness of weenies simply errata > Computer Hacking to cost 1 blood. > > Simple.. > > BernieTime YES! Start a petition! I'll sign!

[ quoted text not captured ] Hmmm. In all my weeny decks, I do not have a single Computer Hacking. I've been a little bit tempted at times to build a deck with Computer Hackings but never quite done it. I'm sure I'd burn all mine if they were modified to cost a blood. On the other hand, I don't think anyone considers me a fearsome god of a Jyhad player. Then and again, I don't know of any players I'd think of that way that I've ever seen playing serious weeny decks either. From my perspective, the concept that weeny decks are overpowered is more myth than anything else. If anything, I see Camarilla prince decks with their 5th/Minion Tap bloat, 2nd Tradition reactions, and voting dominance to be far more abundant and successful in tournaments than anything else. (Specialize the deck to taste, of course.) Fred

On Mon, 11 Mar 2002 22:36:41 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <3c8cff8a...@netnews.attbi.com>, >berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>Problems exist with *disciplined* weenies, which are also extremely >>>doable. >>> >>>e.g. the weenie dom/DOM deck of nightmare. >> >>That is a problem with Dominate, not with weenies. > >It is far more likely to be a combination of the two. > >>Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >>that any other discipline can do, and often better. > >This is, as you know, not true. Actually it IS true. What do you want to do today, shall I count the ways? BLEED: Govern & Conditioning (and a horde of other cards) POLITICS: Kindred Coercion, Pulling Strings in conjunction with Ventrue AntiTribue will shut down Presence voters so fast it makes their heads spin (also could include Denial of Aphrodites Favor in that deck type). COMBAT: Avoid combat via Seduction, Obedience, and Sleeping Mind. Thoughts Betrayed in conjunction with another discipline can absolutely wreck you (and outfight combat:prime decks). Oh yeah, you can Dodge now with Absorb the Mind CONTESTING: Thanks for the Donation, Clio's Kiss, sprinkle with a little Betrayer [Master] for added goodness BOUNCE: Deflection & Redirection STEAL LOCATIONS: Dominate Kine STEAL MINIONS: Graverobbing, Mind Rape NEED POOL?: Govern, Scouting Mission TAP MINIONS: Steal the Mind STEALTH: Some available for Bleed actions, and use Seduction, etc.. So what's left that Dominate can't do on it's own? Well, here's where it absolutely rules.. Pair it off with ANY other discipline (just a sprinkle now) and it becomes nigh unstoppable. There are only a few instances where Dominate is unable to make significant contributions, which typically is made up for by the #2 discipline of Presence or an addition of Master Cards. FYI, there are 172 vampires in print that can use Dominate. Card's that put a crimp in Dominate's style: Blessing of Chaos, Iron Heart, Lobotomy, Perfect Clarity, and a few others. ALL of these cards are cornercase hoo-ha which will only find thier way into certain deck types. ><snip - my sig> > >Please don't quote sig files unless you are commenting on them. That's >what the sig-sep is there for. As you wish. I prefer to comment on sigs via private e-mail so as not to generate off-topic spam. - >James Coupe <Snip: Sig > Regards, BernieTime

fred writes: > From >my perspective, the concept that weeny decks are overpowered is more myth >than anything else. If anything, I see Camarilla prince decks with their >5th/Minion Tap bloat, 2nd Tradition reactions, and voting dominance to >be far more abundant and successful in tournaments than anything else. >(Specialize the deck to taste, of course.) I found prince decks to be very abundant in my limited experience. That said, the only thing that seemed to stop the weenie decks in the games I saw was table gang-bang. That did not seem necessary against the prince decks (and often was impossible, with as many as 3 per table.) Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

In message <3c8d771a...@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >>>that any other discipline can do, and often better. >> >>This is, as you know, not true. > >Actually it IS true. And whilst you can provide many things it can do well, you have failed to note that it can't do everything that any other discipline can do - something of which you are well aware, most certainly. As a result, I am at a loss as to why you are lying about this, unless you are attempting hyperbole badly. Going through your categories: Bleed: It cannot, for instance, combine bleed with pool gain. Other disciplines have the ability to bleed other Methuselahs (Obfuscate, Dementation) Politics: You masterfully provide a number of things Dominate can do, and then spectacularly fail to note that Kindred Co-ercion and Pulling Strings are reactions. It is also notable that Ventrue Antitribu are not Dominate. :( You cannot outmatch Presence or Melpominee on forward facing votes. You effectively cannot use Dominate to pass your own votes. You cannot use Dominate to gain pool when your own votes pass (Presence). You cannot use Dominate to cancel the votes of others when calling votes (Auspex). Contesting: Certainly, this is one of Dominate's slowly facilitated strengths. (That is, it wasn't originally.) It is notable that, if you can invoke Ventrue Antitribu above, then the Lasombra can do similar things here with locations. There is also Betrayer (as you note, which still isn't Dominate) and Blood Siege for non-identical, but analogous, situations. Combat: Dominate can avoid combat quite well, under the right circumstances. (That is, a deck can plan for it, but it won't just happen.) It can Dodge, but the fall-back level of Absorb the Mind isn't that brilliant (though, certainly, a good example of how fallback levels should work). If you're playing Dominate, you probably wouldn't include Absorb the Mind, though you would if you were playing myt/dom, which is slightly different. Thoughts Betrayed is good, if expensive Now, of course, Dominate also has Imaginary Card one which will deal aggravated damage (Protean, Potence, Vicissitude). It also has Made Up Card which will prevent damage. It, further, has I'm Ignoring What Cards Exist which is excellent for ending combat once you're in there (because you weren't untapped or woken). It can also use that much maligned card, We're Making It Up As We Go Along, for considerable maneuvering power and This Card Wasn't Even Designed Let Alone Printed provides an excellent source of additional strikes. Combat is *obviously* one arena where Dominate can, in your words, "[do] everything that any other discipline can do". Quite clearly so. Bounce: Telepathic Misdirection and My Enemy's Enemy exist, but in general Redirection and Deflection are, indeed, the better choice. Of course, if we're looking more generally at bleed *defence*, then Dominate is far from the only option. Folderol, Telepathic Counter, Folderol, various Chimerstry cards and Folderol all provide useful bleed reduction. Stealing: Locations and vampires, yes. Of course, you need to have the vampires in torpor for Graverobbing, which is not an inconsiderable effort. Corruption, Form of Corruption and Temptation provide a very different strategy for the Setites. Combat defence will save you from Graverobbing but it cannot save you from the Setites. Mind Rape has the delay, and requires older vampires, which is also to be considered. Need Pool: With specified actions, yes, you can gain pool. What you can't do is gain pool as a by-product of other actions, which Necromancy (Tower of London) and Presence (Social Charm et al) can do well, and a couple of other deck styles can have a go at with Bribes, Anathema and so on (though votes will make Presence useful, though not essential). Tap Minions: Sure, though a number of other disciplines also have this option down quite nicely. Stealth: Certain amounts of bleed based stealth, sure. And certain amounts of "you can't block" is excellent, but not the same. Now, let's go round a few other things: Intercept: One of the fundamentals of the game, and something that Dominate just can't do. Sure, you can pair it off with something else but your assertion that Dominate can do "everything that any other discipline can do" and, when challenged, "it IS true" don't add up to pairing things off with other disciplines. Dominate cannot help with any intercept. Real stealth: You want arbitrary stealth for other actions. Not every deck is playing simple bleeds, so Bonding and Kine Dominance are not the best of options. (For instance, the pool gain actions you cite cannot benefit from them.) Card recycling: Necromancy par excellence, of course, but also available to political action focused decks, which Dominate cannot let you pass, only react to. Untap: Thaumaturgy, Fortitude, Temporis, Presence and so on are not Dominate, as much as you might like them to be. Whether you can combine with them or not is not relevant to Dominate's ability to do "everything that any other discipline can do". Dominate cannot provide you with arbitrary amounts of untap, via permanent additional actions, transient untaps (either defensive, or active) or so on. Millstone: A number of millstone options are available to different disciplines - for instance, Auspex's minor fun in Revelations, through Raptor and Feline Saboteur. Reconnaissance: Auspex is good here - what's in their hand, combined with discard from Revelations - though Owl Companion certainly has its uses. Blood gain: Necromancy and Fortitude work well here. They're certainly reasons why you might play things that aren't dominate, per your original assertion. Restoration, Regeneration, Rapid Healing, Summon Soul etc. Blood loss: Thaumaturgy and Obtenebration, along with active indepedent vote decks for Free States Rant, have excellent options available for blood loss, combined with Society of Leopold, Daemonic Possession and so on. Obviously, this is something that Dominate "can do, and often better". and so on. Just go round disciplines and find interesting, fairly unique things they can do. So, when you said that Dominate can "do everything that any other discipline can do", re-asserting this with "it IS true", I can only assume you were ignoring the facts of what the cards do for some unknown reason. :( [ quoted text not captured ]

CurtAdams wrote: > > fred writes: > > >From > >my perspective, the concept that weeny decks are overpowered is more myth > >than anything else. If anything, I see Camarilla prince decks with their > >5th/Minion Tap bloat, 2nd Tradition reactions, and voting dominance to > >be far more abundant and successful in tournaments than anything else. > >(Specialize the deck to taste, of course.) > > I found prince decks to be very abundant in my limited experience. That > said, the only thing that seemed to stop the weenie decks in the games > I saw was table gang-bang. That did not seem necessary against the > prince decks (and often was impossible, with as many as 3 per table.) I'm not sure you and I are talking about the same thing as "weeny decks". You mentioned in another thread that "weeny presence bleed" won two of the three tournaments at Orccon. The only effective deck I know of that can be called that is Settite stealth-bleed, where the likes of Nepata and Hadrian Garrick are major players. If so, "weeny" is kind of a misnomer or at least, not what I think of as a true weeny deck that gets bleeds and other actions past you by shear numbers. It's really just smaller-than-normal mid-caps doing all the things that stealth-bleeders do with S:CE for combat defense. No? Fred

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 12:37:32 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <3c8d771a...@netnews.attbi.com>, >berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>>Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >>>>that any other discipline can do, and often better. >>> >>>This is, as you know, not true. >> >>Actually it IS true. If you want to win games it's true. >And whilst you can provide many things it can do well, you have failed >to note that it can't do everything that any other discipline can do - >something of which you are well aware, most certainly. > >As a result, I am at a loss as to why you are lying about this, unless >you are attempting hyperbole badly. It happens. I don't get all caught up in diction and semantics like some folks do. You may wish to consider whether it's good form to call someone a liar until you fully understand their position on a subject. I don't take offense to this as I'm certain it wasn't intended to be construed as an attack. As for the use of hyperbole, here's a definition for those that care. Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which the expression is an evident exaggeration of the meaning intended to be conveyed, or by which things are represented as much greater or less, better or worse, than they really are; a statement exaggerated fancifully, through excitement, or for effect. [as taken from Dictionary.com] >Going through your categories: > >Bleed: It cannot, for instance, combine bleed with pool gain. Other > disciplines have the ability to bleed other Methuselahs > (Obfuscate, Dementation) Bleeding other Methuselah's (besides your prey) most often will not win you a game. So if you like to (D) bleed others and not get VP's, it's true that Dominate will not do that. >Politics: You masterfully provide a number of things Dominate can do, > and then spectacularly fail to note that Kindred Co-ercion and > Pulling Strings are reactions. It is also notable that Ventrue > Antitribu are not Dominate. :( You cannot outmatch Presence or > Melpominee on forward facing votes. You effectively cannot use > Dominate to pass your own votes. You cannot use Dominate to > gain pool when your own votes pass (Presence). You cannot use > Dominate to cancel the votes of others when calling votes > (Auspex). I did not note that those cards are reactions as I'd assumed you were aware that they were such. Sorry if you had to look that up and I wasted your time. Seriously though, I noted that with the pairing of Ventrue AntiTribue, Dominate shuts down presence/voting. Granted this is an instance where a specific clan pairing is necessary to enable Dominate to "do it all". Please note that it's a very likely clan pairing. >Contesting: Certainly, this is one of Dominate's slowly facilitated > strengths. (That is, it wasn't originally.) It is notable > that, if you can invoke Ventrue Antitribu above, then the > Lasombra can do similar things here with locations. There is > also Betrayer (as you note, which still isn't Dominate) and > Blood Siege for non-identical, but analogous, situations. >Combat: Dominate can avoid combat quite well, under the right > circumstances. (That is, a deck can plan for it, but it won't > just happen.) It can Dodge, but the fall-back level of Absorb > the Mind isn't that brilliant (though, certainly, a good example > of how fallback levels should work). If you're playing > Dominate, you probably wouldn't include Absorb the Mind, though > you would if you were playing myt/dom, which is slightly > different. Thoughts Betrayed is good, if expensive > > Now, of course, Dominate also has Imaginary Card one which will > deal aggravated damage (Protean, Potence, Vicissitude). It also Who needs combat cards when you have Obedience and Seduction? If combat never occurs you really don't need them. And if you're concerned about having a strike card, there is the new dodge available. > has Made Up Card which will prevent damage. It, further, has > I'm Ignoring What Cards Exist which is excellent for ending > combat once you're in there (because you weren't untapped or > woken). It can also use that much maligned card, We're Making > It Up As We Go Along, for considerable maneuvering power and > This Card Wasn't Even Designed Let Alone Printed provides an > excellent source of additional strikes. Using my example of Obedience & Seduction you've just found your damage prevention as combat never ocurred. So don't give me that making stuff up hoo-ha. So no, Dominate does not provide additional strikes which is entirely unnessesary as it (dom) cancels impending combats either via Obedience or in combat with Thoughts Betrayed. Seeing as you want to focus on Combat. I'll say it up front, Dominate (on it's own) will not be able to hit harder than a combat oriented deck. Point is that they don't need to. > Combat is *obviously* one arena where Dominate can, in your > words, "[do] everything that any other discipline can do". > Quite clearly so. And better too. When your rush predator has hand jam all day long from not being able to cycle cards. I'd say it's pretty damn effective. >Bounce: Telepathic Misdirection and My Enemy's Enemy exist, but in > general Redirection and Deflection are, indeed, the better > choice. Of course, if we're looking more generally at bleed > *defence*, then Dominate is far from the only option. Folderol, > Telepathic Counter, Folderol, various Chimerstry cards and > Folderol all provide useful bleed reduction. Never said it was the only option, though I think people would argue that Deflection is usually the best option for not having to tap. >Stealing: Locations and vampires, yes. Of course, you need to have the > vampires in torpor for Graverobbing, which is not an > inconsiderable effort. Corruption, Form of Corruption and > Temptation provide a very different strategy for the Setites. > Combat defence will save you from Graverobbing but it cannot > save you from the Setites. Mind Rape has the delay, and > requires older vampires, which is also to be considered. True. The point being that Dominate has the ability to Steal. You successfully managed to point out a Clan which has a primary focus on stealing. They too can play dominate, well 5 of them can anyway. Let's not forget that Dominate can also steal Retainers and Allies thanks to Far Mastery. >Need Pool: With specified actions, yes, you can gain pool. What you > can't do is gain pool as a by-product of other actions, which > Necromancy (Tower of London) and Presence (Social Charm et al) > can do well, and a couple of other deck styles can have a go at > with Bribes, Anathema and so on (though votes will make Presence > useful, though not essential). The point being that they have cards which enable them to gain pool. >Tap Minions: Sure, though a number of other disciplines also have this > option down quite nicely. Point again is that Dominate can play the Tap minion game too.. >Stealth: Certain amounts of bleed based stealth, sure. And certain > amounts of "you can't block" is excellent, but not the same. Not entirely the same, but if you view Stealth as the tool to push an action through then it may as well be the same category. >Now, let's go round a few other things: > >Intercept: One of the fundamentals of the game, and something that > Dominate just can't do. Sure, you can pair it off with > something else but your assertion that Dominate can do > "everything that any other discipline can do" and, when > challenged, "it IS true" don't add up to pairing things off with > other disciplines. Dominate cannot help with any intercept. So what does dominate want to intercept? Bleed? Combat? Votes? I've pretty much established that Dominate can shut down the 3 primary archetypes with little forethought. And decks based on dominate still have Master cards available to them. >Real stealth: You want arbitrary stealth for other actions. Not every > deck is playing simple bleeds, so Bonding and Kine Dominance are > not the best of options. (For instance, the pool gain actions > you cite cannot benefit from them.) Sure, but I don't see how this is an arguement. Dominate more often gets pool from ousting prey. Granted, it's never a sure thing but not many players can handle bleeds of 3-9 for very long. And technically there is Shroud of Absence, though it does require a pairing with obtenebrate. >Card recycling: Necromancy par excellence, of course, but also available > to political action focused decks, which Dominate cannot let you > pass, only react to. Okay. A corner case ability that gets used on a so-so basis that doesn't win games. It's true, dominate cannot do that on it's own. Thank goodness for Master cards like Visit to the Capuchin that everyone can use. >Untap: Thaumaturgy, Fortitude, Temporis, Presence and so on are not > Dominate, as much as you might like them to be. Whether you can > combine with them or not is not relevant to Dominate's ability > to do "everything that any other discipline can do". Dominate > cannot provide you with arbitrary amounts of untap, via > permanent additional actions, transient untaps (either > defensive, or active) or so on. I can see that I should have claified my opinion that "Dominate does it all" to allow for the concept of deckbuilding which does include basic cards that anyone can use. Though I would just as easily argue who needs to tap minions when Deflection works all day long. >Millstone: A number of millstone options are available to different > disciplines - for instance, Auspex's minor fun in Revelations, > through Raptor and Feline Saboteur. Grant you this one. Probably forgot about Millstone as 1. I detest it (leftover effect of my Magic playing days) 2. It doesn't win games 3. Only serves to piss people off >Reconnaissance: Auspex is good here - what's in their hand, combined > with discard from Revelations - though Owl Companion certainly > has its uses. Given. Dominate does not have the ability to scout hands. It's too busy bleeding for 3-9 per minion. >Blood gain: Necromancy and Fortitude work well here. They're certainly > reasons why you might play things that aren't dominate, per your > original assertion. Restoration, Regeneration, Rapid Healing, > Summon Soul etc. Quoting myself from Origins 2001 "You don't need to worry about pool gain if you're not getting bled". >Blood loss: Thaumaturgy and Obtenebration, along with active indepedent > vote decks for Free States Rant, have excellent options > available for blood loss, combined with Society of Leopold, > Daemonic Possession and so on. Obviously, this is something > that Dominate "can do, and often better". Yep, Dominate can stop your votes cold and move the Society to another minion (at +1 stealth) nigh unblockable with Seduction. >and so on. Just go round disciplines and find interesting, fairly >unique things they can do. And more often than not very corner case, fragile, and do not win games. The only exception that comes to mind are of the Shadow Twin and Cryptic Mission variety, which do not last long to Dominate bleed. So before you jump my case, >So, when you said that Dominate can "do everything that any other >discipline can do", re-asserting this with "it IS true", I can only >assume you were ignoring the facts of what the cards do for some unknown >reason. :( Oh, and let's not forget the closing point from my original post: "Well, here's where it absolutely rules.. Pair it off with ANY other discipline (just a sprinkle now) and it becomes nigh unstoppable. There are only a few instances where Dominate is unable to make significant contributions, which typically is made up for by the #2 discipline of Presence or an addition of Master Cards." I'll rephrase the "Dominate does it all" quote just for you. Take your pick: a: "A Dominate focused deck can do everything it takes to win games consistently". b: "A deck built primarily on Dominate and basic cards (disciplineless) can practially replicate what other decks do, and often better" c: "Dominate is easily the strongest discipline available due to it's sheer versatility in all areas of play" d: "All of the above" >-- >James Coupe BernieTime "Somebody has said of the boldest figure in rhetoric, the hyperbole, that it lies without deceiving" --Macaulay

In message <3c8e0dd...@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>In message <3c8d771a...@netnews.attbi.com>, >>berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>>>Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >>>>>that any other discipline can do, and often better. >>>> >>>>This is, as you know, not true. >>> >>>Actually it IS true. > >If you want to win games it's true. Moving goal-posts helps no-one. You have already asserted that Dominate is a powerful discipline. This is an observation with which many would agree. However, your assertion was then that it could do "everything that any other discipline could do". This is what has been taken issue with - because it simply isn't true on any factual level, at all, ever. >>And whilst you can provide many things it can do well, you have failed >>to note that it can't do everything that any other discipline can do - >>something of which you are well aware, most certainly. >> >>As a result, I am at a loss as to why you are lying about this, unless >>you are attempting hyperbole badly. > >It happens. I don't get all caught up in diction and semantics like >some folks do. >You may wish to consider whether it's good form to call someone >a liar until you fully understand their position on a subject. You have been representing this in a factually untrue manner. When I mentioned this, you asserted again that "it IS true". Asserting things which are not true as true is generally called lying. If you would prefer to reclassify repeatedly stating that something is true as something else, feel free. I am claiming that you have repeatedly asserted something which is factually incorrect at the most fundamental levels is untrue. >>Going through your categories: >> >>Bleed: It cannot, for instance, combine bleed with pool gain. Other >> disciplines have the ability to bleed other Methuselahs >> (Obfuscate, Dementation) > >Bleeding other Methuselah's (besides your prey) most often will not win >you a game. I am happy that you have managed to pre-empt every deck strategy, ever. Clearly, there is no utility in allowing players options which suit their play strengths. What you appear to be saying is that bleeding other Methuselahs doesn't win *you* VPs. Being able to intimidate and 'control' other Methuselahs with direct, backed-up threats can be an extremely useful mechanism - if you're the right player, choosing the right target. >So if you like to (D) bleed others and not get VP's, it's >true that Dominate will not do that. And people who want to (D) bleed others for purposes which will allow them to get VPs? Your arrogance about knowing how people's play-styles work is shocking in the extreme. >>Politics: You masterfully provide a number of things Dominate can do, >> and then spectacularly fail to note that Kindred Co-ercion and >> Pulling Strings are reactions. It is also notable that Ventrue >> Antitribu are not Dominate. :( You cannot outmatch Presence or >> Melpominee on forward facing votes. You effectively cannot use >> Dominate to pass your own votes. You cannot use Dominate to >> gain pool when your own votes pass (Presence). You cannot use >> Dominate to cancel the votes of others when calling votes >> (Auspex). > >I did not note that those cards are reactions as I'd assumed you were >aware that they were such. I am. > Sorry if you had to look that up and I >wasted your time. *yawn* I know it, and you know it. Yet you present it as being able to match or better every other discipline on politics. Which is just blatantly untrue and beneath you. >Seriously though, I noted that with the pairing >of Ventrue AntiTribue, Dominate shuts down presence/voting. Which is irrelevant to your assertion that Dominate does everything than any other discipline can do. Please, do not try and wriggle out of your own, self-created problems. You are failing to address the fact that Dominate cannot do everything when it is pointed out, right in front of you. >Granted >this is an instance where a specific clan pairing is necessary to >enable Dominate to "do it all". But Dominate can do everything that any other discipline can do already. You told us, repeatedly. >Please note that it's a very likely >clan pairing. For certain values of very likely. It is likely that a !Ven deck will include some Dominate, since it is a powerful option available to them. Likelihood of someone who wants to play Dominate necessarily choosing !Ven is a different matter entirely, which will vary from player to player. For instance, both the Malkavians and the Ventrue (Camarilla) are generally popular choices for playing Dominate. <snipped - contesting> Please show some consideration and snip points of posts to which you are not responding. This is basic netiquette. >>Combat: Dominate can avoid combat quite well, under the right >> circumstances. (That is, a deck can plan for it, but it won't >> just happen.) It can Dodge, but the fall-back level of Absorb >> the Mind isn't that brilliant (though, certainly, a good example >> of how fallback levels should work). If you're playing >> Dominate, you probably wouldn't include Absorb the Mind, though >> you would if you were playing myt/dom, which is slightly >> different. Thoughts Betrayed is good, if expensive >> >> Now, of course, Dominate also has Imaginary Card one which will >> deal aggravated damage (Protean, Potence, Vicissitude). It also > >Who needs combat cards when you have Obedience and Seduction? When you're doing everything that any other discipline can do and sometimes better, you need them. >If combat >never occurs you really don't need them. And if you're concerned about >having a strike card, there is the new dodge available. Certainly - but which is a generally poor card, for Dominate use. Now, if you're playing Mytherceria then you're playing something else - and you can't see why people play anything else. >> has Made Up Card which will prevent damage. It, further, has >> I'm Ignoring What Cards Exist which is excellent for ending >> combat once you're in there (because you weren't untapped or >> woken). It can also use that much maligned card, We're Making >> It Up As We Go Along, for considerable maneuvering power and >> This Card Wasn't Even Designed Let Alone Printed provides an >> excellent source of additional strikes. > >Using my example of Obedience & Seduction you've just found your >damage prevention as combat never ocurred. Your brain appears to be equating combat avoidance with damage prevention, when the two are unfortunately not the same thing - however useful that might be. Seduction is, of course, limited to one per action. Thus you will find yourself with fewer options regarding other blocking vampires, if you're relying on Seduction and Obedience. Obedience requires an older vampire for use, and this limits its ability when non-weenified combat enters an arena. (For instance, Eurobrujah Vote/Combat decks, Tzimisce decks, Gangrel royalty decks and so on, all of which have shown themselves repeatedly as viable archetypes.) Gargoyles will also provide you with some, erm, interesting problems, at least, with intelligent play. Siren's Lure provides some more interesting options. Fortitude from the DoC makes it much harder for you to do anything substantial to them in response, though their ability to advance in combat requires careful consideration. Of course, Dominate is doing things much better. >So don't give me that >making stuff up hoo-ha. Well, if Dominate can do everything that any other discipline can do, and sometimes better, you are certainly making things up because this is factually incorrect. > So no, Dominate does not provide additional >strikes which is entirely unnessesary as it (dom) cancels impending >combats either via Obedience or in combat with Thoughts Betrayed. It can cancel certain impending combats, and if you believe that Thoughts Betrayed is serious combat *defence* then you're just ignoring the facts of what other decks can do. When you are in combat, you lose two blood to Thoughts Betrayed, which you are unlikely to gain back. (Bearing in mind, of course, that this use requires DOM, which is different from the weenie dom/DOM situation that was notioned a few posts back.) This is, in itself, not inconsiderable. The Brujah can, of course, throw down Torn Signpost and Blur. Thoughts Betrayed does nothing. The Tzimisce have similarly styled options. Weapon decks have weapons, and additional strikes, and will be mildly hampered by not being able to play, say, Undead Strength, but you've just paid two blood anyway, which might as well be two damage for all the difference it will make. Toreador-esque gun decks (most likely as a sideline to another option, given the difficulties, though Telepathic Tracking is a potentially potent option) do well here, similarly the !Tor hand damage decks that have been gone over again recently, playing the Art of Pain and so on. The Gangrel do lose the really quite nice option of Scorpion Sting (a pity) but do have the not inconsiderable asset of Carrion Crows and claws, sufficient to torporise someone arrogant enough to believe that Thoughts Betrayed was sufficient defence for when people catch you. The Assamites are different, in that most of their power *does* come from strikes. Certainly, Thoughts Betrayed is a potent defence against this. (And it certainly seems it was intentional to develop this side in Final Nights, from where I stand.) Taking situations where Obedience is useful - weeniefied rush - you need to be playing slightly older vampires. This makes weenie dom/DOM less viable in this instance. However, assuming you're tapped, they rush you, enter combat, you die. So you need to untap or wake *or* already be untapped. (As covered elsewhere, Dominate has no useful sources of untap in this manner, though Obedience will "not tap" you if you were untapped.) This means another resource down - either an action potentially missed, or a Wake used for defence in that option that could otherwise have been used for, say, Deflection - an important trade-off, given that you lack serious bleed defence in other ways, being unable to take out other serious bleeders, for instance. But in any event, weenified rush can result in situations where you're facing three or four rushes a turn, with careful use of Haven Uncovereds. (Where an intelligent player picks a vampire who is tapped, so your untapped would-be Obedience fodder can't come in, because they can't block the +1 stealth.) >Seeing as you want to focus on Combat. This is untrue. :( Had I wanted to focus on combat, I would have done so. Combat was one topic among lots. However, because combat has so many diverse options it is certainly easier to make the point that you're basic assertion is fundamentally flawed. >I'll say it up front, Dominate >(on it's own) will not be able to hit harder than a combat oriented >deck. Point is that they don't need to. No, they don't need to. That's not the point you initially made, however, which was that Dominate could do everything other disciplines could do, and sometimes better. Certainly, Presence doesn't need to be able to deal out aggravated damage, but then no-one was claiming that Presence could do everything Protean (or whatever) could do. You're seemingly attempting to prejudge other people's options. Dominate certainly has its place in multiple useful deck-styles (either heavily focused, or not). It is not, however, the only deck style or, indeed, the only viable deck-style. Lasombra's deck archive is a testament to that. Someone whose metagame is substantially shifted in such a fashion as you need to be able to hit out combatively (or defend with 100% accuracy) or DIE (these things happen) will find many reasons to avoid Dominate as an all-curing panacea. Someone whose ability with combat is such that they find themselves much more able to control a table sufficiently for a table-win (for instance, they can quickly despatch a prey, followed by waiting until they're down to the final two and just kill the other player for 3VPs for a table win, able to manipulate and distract people in the mean-time ("Oh, it was just a lucky flow of cards. It's a bit combo intensive, I mean, look, I'm having to discard <X>, <Y> and <Z>")) will find many reasons to avoid Dominate because Dominate is not a generally useful discipline for advancing in combat. (Of course, certain corner cases exist, where players have skilfully used the inferior version of Thoughts Betrayed to great effect when the cards have turned up right.) Those wanting to control their position on the table - in terms of physicality - will need to move forward into Presence and may, as a result, shift away from Dominate. Calling votes is not something to which Dominate is well-suited. Few would note political decks as being non-viable in most non-metagame specific circumstances - it is certainly possible to play political decks well. >> Combat is *obviously* one arena where Dominate can, in your >> words, "[do] everything that any other discipline can do". >> Quite clearly so. > >And better too. When your rush predator has hand jam all day long >from not being able to cycle cards. I'd say it's pretty damn effective. Against a dedicated rush deck, you need two or three defences every turn. That many untapped vampires, that many wakes and that many Obediences (season to taste) prevent Dominate being an all-seeing, all- knowing, all-powerful discipline in this regard. It is certainly a poor player who has not considered what happens when a rush is foiled. (As can happen with many decks.) Inclusion of hand- cycling mechanisms and careful use of discard phases, along with repeated drawing out of your defence in less intensive manners (with, for instance, Haven Uncovered) is not exactly uncommon for any people with a handle on the situation. Offensive, *productive* combat is a difficult style to play. History shows us that it is certainly possible, however. >>Bounce: Telepathic Misdirection and My Enemy's Enemy exist, but in >> general Redirection and Deflection are, indeed, the better >> choice. Of course, if we're looking more generally at bleed >> *defence*, then Dominate is far from the only option. Folderol, >> Telepathic Counter, Folderol, various Chimerstry cards and >> Folderol all provide useful bleed reduction. > >Never said it was the only option, though I think people would argue >that Deflection is usually the best option for not having to tap. But you're not doing everything that other disciplines are doing, still. Deflection is certainly a powerful option, as noted. (Redirection vs Deflection is a separate argument.) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Frederick Scott wrote: > I'm not sure you and I are talking about the same thing as "weeny decks". > You mentioned in another thread that "weeny presence bleed" won two of the > three tournaments at Orccon. The only effective deck I know of that can > be called that is Settite stealth-bleed, where the likes of Nepata and > Hadrian Garrick are major players. If so, "weeny" is kind of a misnomer > or at least, not what I think of as a true weeny deck that gets bleeds > and other actions past you by shear numbers. It's really just > smaller-than-normal mid-caps doing all the things that stealth-bleeders > do with S:CE for combat defense. No? FoS != weenie presence. There are 14 vampires <= 3 capacity with pre. There are 3 vampires <= 4 capacity with PRE. It's the standard weenie-thing, with buckets of Majesty and Presence Bleed. You can riff on it a little bit and do Anarch Revolts, or mix in a damaging votes to let each little weener get by NRA when they Majesty out of their first action. I'm sure there are more refined descriptions and other variations, but it is most certainly not FoS stealth-bleed. David Cherryholmes Prince of Durham

Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:<3C8E1CEA...@removethis.com>... > > You mentioned in another thread that "weeny presence bleed" won two of the > three tournaments at Orccon. It's really just > smaller-than-normal mid-caps doing all the things that stealth-bleeders > do with S:CE for combat defense. No? > No. It's even more stupid than that. And, sadly, more effective. Igo and Antoinette come out in turn 1. Vasilis and Delilah come out in turn 2. More tiny pre types arrive each turn. Every turn they all bleed with Enchant Kindred and the S:CE with Majesty if they get blocked. There are a few other innovations, but basically, that's it. The deck relies on pure development speed and swarm tactics to get through. Tragic really. -Ben Swainbank

"CurtAdams" <curt...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20020312004534...@mb-mv.aol.com... > fred writes: > > > From > >my perspective, the concept that weeny decks are overpowered is more myth > >than anything else. If anything, I see Camarilla prince decks with their > >5th/Minion Tap bloat, 2nd Tradition reactions, and voting dominance to > >be far more abundant and successful in tournaments than anything else. > >(Specialize the deck to taste, of course.) > > I found prince decks to be very abundant in my limited experience. That > said, the only thing that seemed to stop the weenie decks in the games > I saw was table gang-bang. That did not seem necessary against the > prince decks (and often was impossible, with as many as 3 per table.) I'd pretty much agree with this. I probably always see more Prince (or other titled votey) decks than weenies at tournaments, but the weenies are almost always the bigger immediate table threat. That may contribute somewhat to their lesser popularity: they're seen as "cheesy" so people don't want to play them and be hated; they're seen as big table threats, so people don't want to play them and get ganged up against; they're seen as boring, so people don't want to play them if they're tired of playing boring decks. I don't think we see a lot more Princey decks in the Lasombra's tournament-winning-deck archive than we do weenie decks (or even other nonstandard decks), but that's just an impression, not the result of analysis (though I remember people doing such analysis, only I forget what they came up with). Josh don't fear the weenie

[ quoted text not captured ] I have no idea what "riffing on it" - a little bit or a whole lot - could possibly mean. Anarch Revolts never struck me as making more than a loose and inefficient combo with bleed. And if you try politics with weenies, you'd better go into to it full bore or you're in grave danger of having a significant portion of your deck rendered worthless by a couple of princes. So until I see someone actually do this well, I stick with my original concept, that the only _effective_ small-cap presence bleed deck is FoS. (Of course, we're probably just butting heads over differing metagames. Then and again, I never caught a whiff of whatever decks Curt could be talking about and I was at Orccon the whole time. Strange stuff.) Fred

<Snip: James Coupe's response/arguements to this thread> James, Are you going to continue with criticism with the remainder of my message or is it too convenient to stop where it suits you. Or is that proper netiquette? Bernie

In message <3c8ecba0...@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >Are you going to continue with criticism with the remainder of my >message or is it too convenient to stop where it suits you. My apologies for also having a life to attend to. Next time, I'll e-mail you to ask for permission before going off to do important things like, err, my degree. If you'd care to e-mail my department, I'm sure they'll happily bend the immutable deadline to which I'm working. Or alternatively, you could ego-wank yourself some more and prove just how little you actually know - because, of course, Dominate can do everything and your personal methods of playing the game absolutely, 100 per cent over-ride other people's considerations. Of course, bleeding other Methuselahs absolutely loses you the game. Or alternatively, it gives you a serious bargaining tool. Obviously, we should all bend to your all-conquering, all-seeing knowledge of the game which seems to being and end with your personal prejudices. Repeated threads show how little you seem to actually understand. :( I am continually appalled by the complete lack of knowledge you show regarding the game and am continually and repeatedly shocked to newer and deeper levels that people with this little ability to show critical thought regarding the game were responsible for the NJL split. >Or is that proper netiquette? It's considered proper netiquette to snip the bits to which you are not replying. Since I was not replying to the rest of that post, when I posted, I snipped it. Would you prefer I trail the rest of the post for you because you don't understand how Usenet works? You keep the bits you're referring to, you snip the other bits. I wasn't referring to the other bits because I didn't have time and many of the points that could have been made were variations on a theme - basically, you're being arrogant beyond belief thinking you can dictate other people's play-styles based on what works for you, and decide that that makes Dominate do everything, when it clearly, factually doesn't. So I snipped the parts I wasn't referring to. That's. How. It. Works. I'm sorry if this is too difficult for you. Perhaps you know better than long-established netiquette and I really should spend my whole life on Usenet responding to your posts, following your orders and licking your boots. Now, run along, there's a good chap. I understand that this might be difficult for you but invoking "proper netiquette" only really helps when you're *right*. Your desire to make me respond to every point you make when it suits you is not, and never has been, part of netiquette. So please don't make comments about things you clearly don't understand. [ quoted text not captured ]

<the whole ugly mess snipped> James, you are right. Bernie's statement that "Dominate does everything the other disciplines do, and sometimes better" was false when taken strictly. You proved that. The insulting way you wrote it was unnecessary, but when you get past that your analysis of the VTES game mechanics that dominate does not perform was right on. Of course, as Bernie suggests, you fail to get past that. Bernie clarified his thoughts and clarified his argument, and you chose to ignore it. So, I'll get to the heart of it and re-post the end of Bernie's re-analysis. Please tell him what you agree with and what you do not so this can begin resembling reasonable debate instead of "But you SAID...." Quoth Bernie I'll rephrase the "Dominate does it all" quote just for you. Take your pick: a: "A Dominate focused deck can do everything it takes to win games consistently". b: "A deck built primarily on Dominate and basic cards (disciplineless) can practially replicate what other decks do, and often better" c: "Dominate is easily the strongest discipline available due to it's sheer versatility in all areas of play" d: "All of the above" End Quoth. Personally I dont agree with B, and I acknowledge the strength of statements A and C. I think C is the strongest statement by far. At a table of mono-discipline decks I think the mono-dominate deck will win more than 70% of the VPs/table wins. Matt

In message <978c2422.02031...@posting.google.com>, Matt Latham <sv...@chartermi.net> writes: >The insulting way you wrote it >was unnecessary Hence the first simple direct statement. When people persist with bollocks, I see no particularly compelling reason to play nicely. [ quoted text not captured ]

sv...@chartermi.net (Matt Latham) wrote: ><the whole ugly mess snipped> > >James, you are right. Bernie's statement that "Dominate does >everything the other disciplines do, and sometimes better" was false >when taken strictly. You proved that. The insulting way you wrote it >was unnecessary, but when you get past that your analysis of the VTES >game mechanics that dominate does not perform was right on. > >Of course, as Bernie suggests, you fail to get past that. James's first response was merely: "This is, as you know, not true." Bernie failed to get past that (with the incredible "Actually it IS true." response). And then James responded with a lengthy, but non-insulting, post illustrating the falseness of the statement (which should not have been necessary in the first place, since the statement is obviously false - e.g. Dominate doesn't produce aggravated damage). The post included "I am at a loss as to why you are lying about this, unless you are attempting hyperbole badly.", which is as close as it came to being insulting. The statement is obviously false. Bernie's continued defense of it as true was [fill in the blank]. Fortunately, Bernie recognized it for what it was (not an insult): "I don't take offense to this as I'm certain it wasn't intended to be construed as an attack." Bernie responded with "not getting caught up in semantics" as a way around the "actually it IS true" response, although I cannot see how that was supposed to accomplish the task. This despite the many examples James posted illustrating the obvious truth. Again, not getting past the "but, it's not true" point. James didn't make the original claim. So it's not up to him to get past it if the claimant seeks to hold on to it. >Bernie clarified his thoughts and clarified his argument, and you >chose to ignore it. So, I'll get to the heart of it and re-post the >end of Bernie's re-analysis. Please tell him what you agree with and >what you do not so this can begin resembling reasonable debate instead >of "But you SAID...." That might help. It would also help if Bernie contributed in kind with what he agrees with and what he does not: 1) Dominate doesn't do *everything* the other disciplines do. 2) Dominate is strong, even though 1) is true. >Quoth Bernie > >I'll rephrase the "Dominate does it all" quote just for you. >Take your pick: > >a: "A Dominate focused deck can do everything it takes to win games >consistently". > >b: "A deck built primarily on Dominate and basic cards >(disciplineless) >can practially replicate what other decks do, and often better" > >c: "Dominate is easily the strongest discipline available due to it's >sheer versatility in all areas of play" That should be "... in most areas of play", IMO. >d: "All of the above" > >End Quoth. > >Personally I dont agree with B, and I acknowledge the strength of >statements A and C. I think C is the strongest statement by far. At a >table of mono-discipline decks I think the mono-dominate deck will win >more than 70% of the VPs/table wins. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson

"Frederick Scott" <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:3C8EC86B...@removethis.com... > David Cherryholmes wrote: > > FoS != weenie presence. There are 14 vampires <= 3 capacity with > > pre. There are 3 vampires <= 4 capacity with PRE. It's the standard > > weenie-thing, with buckets of Majesty and Presence Bleed. You can riff on > > it a little bit and do Anarch Revolts, or mix in a damaging votes to let > > each little weener get by NRA when they Majesty out of their first > > action. I'm sure there are more refined descriptions and other > > variations, but it is most certainly not FoS stealth-bleed. > > I have no idea what "riffing on it" - a little bit or a whole lot - could > possibly mean. Anarch Revolts never struck me as making more than a loose > and inefficient combo with bleed. And if you try politics with weenies, > you'd better go into to it full bore or you're in grave danger of having > a significant portion of your deck rendered worthless by a couple of > princes. So until I see someone actually do this well, I stick with my > original concept, that the only _effective_ small-cap presence bleed deck is > FoS. > > (Of course, we're probably just butting heads over differing metagames. > Then and again, I never caught a whiff of whatever decks Curt could be > talking about and I was at Orccon the whole time. Strange stuff.) Yes. If you don't think weenie presence bleed is effective, you must have a *seriously* different metagame from any I've played in. Check Jay Kristoff's Cunctator Motion: Madison winning deck on The Lasombra's page - yeah, there are three 5-caps and two 4-caps in there, but that leaves nine of 3-cap or below. And a lot of straight-up bleeding. Well, looking at it, that deck's more of a Presence-based Crypt Machine than it is a nothing-but-bleed deck, but the principle's the same, I think. There are several Dominate-based weenie bleed decks toward the top of the TWD page too. Johnny Tullner's Fleecing the Gaje: DC-winning weenie deck's pretty good too. Almost a no-discipline deck, but it doesn't play that much differently from a straight presence-weenie bleed deck, except that it has Deflections. Nick Watkins' Bloodbath in New York-winning deck was modeled on Jay Kristoff's Robyn Tatu's OrcCon Tournament 4-winning deck is presence weenies bleeding too. So is Stuart Smith's OrcCon Tournament 2-winning deck, and even more bleed-focused. Do decks like that really not work in your group? In every game I've seen one played, it works well enough to be pretty threatening, even if it doesn't win. Josh present!

In message <a6nr6e$fvhev$1...@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de>, Joshua Duffin <jtdu...@yahoo.com> writes: >Yes. If you don't think weenie presence bleed is >effective, you must have a *seriously* different >metagame from any I've played in. What *sometimes* happens (I've seen it done) is that it's the newbie players who play weenie bleed. I've been in tournaments and obliterated weenie decks before, because I can cope with them. And the older players sometimes eschew them as being too easy, or cheesy, or whatever. Sometimes. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorry for the bad formatting and replying to Josh instead of Fred, but Fred's post got lost in a frenzy of "delete." > "Frederick Scott" <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message > > I have no idea what "riffing on it" - a little bit or a whole lot - could > > possibly mean. Anarch Revolts never struck me as making more than a loose > > and inefficient combo with bleed. And if you try politics with weenies, > > you'd better go into to it full bore or you're in grave danger of having > > a significant portion of your deck rendered worthless by a couple of > > princes. So until I see someone actually do this well, I stick with my > > original concept, that the only _effective_ small-cap presence bleed deck > > is FoS. Riffing is a musical term. It means, loosely, variations of a set. I'd thought this would be obvious in the context, but I'm glad to clarify it for you, since you asked. Now, to the actual substance.... Anarch Revolts: you've probably never heard the term "Riding the wave," either. Anarch revolt: everybody lose 1. Weenies: I'm spending a hell of a lot less pool for my vampires than anyone else but another weenie-player. Ride the wave home. It's a little trickier than that, but it does work. Not %100, but nothing is. Politics: you are going to Majesty out when you get blocked, anyway. If you've got some light blood gain, like HG, or (more likely) Blood Doll, then you have the option of being untapped and ready to act again. The votes are just spice with some BO if you need it, but you can likely sell the vote on the spare point that's going to go.... somewhere. Probably not as good as just doing straight bleed, but I've seen it do well. As to "seeing this do well," just crawl out from under that rock and take a look at Lasombra's tournament winning deck archive. FoS are not especially small-cap, and they aren't even in the same league as weenie-presence bleed (i.e. they ain't broken). > > (Of course, we're probably just butting heads over differing metagames. > > Then and again, I never caught a whiff of whatever decks Curt could be > > talking about and I was at Orccon the whole time. Strange stuff.) If you are oblivious to the mere existence of weenie presence bleed decks, then I wish I had your metagame. ;) [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > My apologies for also having a life to attend to. Based on the number of posts you make daily, I would never have guessed. > Next time, I'll e-mail you to ask for permission before going off to do > important things like, err, my degree. If you have a degree to work on, why are you spending your time on USENET being an obnoxious ass clown? > I am continually appalled by the complete lack of knowledge you show > regarding the game and am continually and repeatedly shocked to newer > and deeper levels that people with this little ability to show critical > thought regarding the game were responsible for the NJL split. Fuck off you little blue blooded, queen worshipping, tea guzzling, crumpet snarfing, stiff lipped, prissy, prima donna. One of the reasons for the NJL split was because of the attitudes of the people that populated the VEKN, like you, you obese maggot. One of the reasons we got back decided to join the VEKN was because it seemed like a sense of cooperation had been acheived. Clearly, there are still pig fuckers like you that I'd rather pummel into a coma than play Jyhad with. Noal

In message <bb705c59.02031...@posting.google.com>, Noal McDonald <dhar...@my-deja.com> writes: >James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> My apologies for also having a life to attend to. > >Based on the number of posts you make daily, I would never have >guessed. Sorry, shall I e-mail you for permission too sir? Beg pardon sir. May I go to the county fair this weekend? Oh, thank you sir. And might I ask for half a shilling too? *tugs forelock* >> Next time, I'll e-mail you to ask for permission before going off to do >> important things like, err, my degree. > >If you have a degree to work on, why are you spending your time on >USENET being an obnoxious ass clown? I enjoy using Usenet, but see no reason to pander to idiots. <snip - Noal pouring out abuse> Good grief. I insult his ability to understand the game based on the given facts at hand, which demonstrate so little understanding of the game I'd swear he was a newbie who thought that Malkie stealth and bleed was a l33t new strategy, and you come out with bile and vitriol aimed at nothing in particular because you seemingly can't actually argue with the facts in hand - that one of the lead people in the NJL is clearly showing that he doesn't know a thing about V:TES outside of his personal prejudices. *sigh* Yet you feel it acceptable to pour our bile and abuse, rather than deal with the facts. *shrug* Just goes to show, even intelligent people like Noal can entirely miss the point. Perhaps you need more coffee? [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > ou come out with bile and vitriol aimed at > nothing in particular because you seemingly can't actually argue with > the facts in hand - that one of the lead people in the NJL is clearly > showing that he doesn't know a thing about V:TES outside of his personal > prejudices. No. Take time to read what you wrote. > I am continually appalled by the complete lack of knowledge you show > regarding the game and am continually and repeatedly shocked to newer > and deeper levels that people with this little ability to show > critical thought regarding the game were responsible for the NJL > split. People. Not Bernie. People is plural. In this case, that plurality includes me. If you make baseless accusations against me, expect to receive them back tenfold. It is obvious to me, and every one in the Michigan area, that you have some personal axe to grind about the NJL. Otherwise, you would have limited your insults to Bernie instead of Dave "Raille" McCarty and myself as well. The NJL, as an entity, hasn't made any waves in over a year. Get over it, pig fucker. Noal

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<T$RAU+O2B...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... <Snip silly sarcastic self-important musings on permission> > because you seemingly can't actually argue with > the facts in hand - that one of the lead people in the NJL is clearly > showing that he doesn't know a thing about V:TES outside of his personal > prejudices. > > *sigh* HE MADE ONE POOR GENERALIZATION!!! To extrapolate from one poor generalization to a statement like "he doesn't know a thing about V:TES outside of his personal prejudices" is why someone as intelligent as Noal would feel forced to spew the vitriol he did at you. I approve of Noal's beratement of you no more than I do your beratement of Bernie, but just as Bernie should have said right out "OK, you were right, Dominate doesnt do EVERYTHING" you need to accept that sweeeping generalizations and mocking tones tend to engender the kind of ill will Noal levelled at you. Also, dragging Bernie's NJL affiliation into this where it clearly is not needed shows a pre-existing prejudice against him and the group. Sad. Matt

In message <3C8FD578...@yahoo.com>, Noal McDonald <dhar...@yahoo.com> writes: >> ou come out with bile and vitriol aimed at >> nothing in particular because you seemingly can't actually argue with >> the facts in hand - that one of the lead people in the NJL is clearly >> showing that he doesn't know a thing about V:TES outside of his personal >> prejudices. > > >No. Take time to read what you wrote. I have what with, err, writing it in the first place. >> I am continually appalled by the complete lack of knowledge you show >> regarding the game and am continually and repeatedly shocked to newer >> and deeper levels that people with this little ability to show >> critical thought regarding the game were responsible for the NJL >> split. > >People. Not Bernie. People is plural. Certainly. People is plural. People is not universal. Bernie was one of the top people. Clearly, people beneath him wanted this or they would have replaced him. Ergo, they (being a significant sub-group) wanted someone with the level of V:TES understanding he clearly doesn't have in charge. It is unlikely, unless the intention was socking, that people with significantly better understanding of the game would want people with very little understanding of the game in charge - would you want LSJ in charge, or Andrew S. Davidson, for instance? Ergo, people. This does not mean *all* people, or these people were *solely* responsible. Nor did I write "the people" (recasting the sentence appropriately), where such readings would be much more appropriate. If I had meant any of these things, I would have written them. I didn't. I was quite precise with my wording on this matter. You may respond saying that this is a lie and wriggling. However, I assure you it is not, as no slight to yourself was intended. And put it this way, when I've been so blatantly critical of one person *and* you've been calling me pig-fucker, why would I lie in this manner about what I meant in this manner? >In this case, that plurality includes me. You may choose to read it that way. It is not the intention of the author, however, that it be read that way. (This is a common problem with the English (especially) language, where unintended ambiguities creep into a text which work against the intention. See deconstructionalism, passim.) >If you make baseless accusations against me, I didn't. >expect to receive them back tenfold. I will. I didn't make baseless accusations against you. See the post describing you as "intelligent". >It is obvious to me, and every one in the Michigan area, that you have >some personal axe to grind about the NJL. Then it is perfectly obvious to me that you are wrong, given that I know what I think. :( I will reserve judgement about the entire Michigan area, allowing them to speak for themselves if they feel it necessary. I usually find it to be better to ask me what I think on a question, rather than deciding something is "obvious". Any player from the Michigan area or who participated in the NJL who wishes to clarify my position on this, or any other, matter is perfectly at liberty to write to me - e-mail address provided - or to take issue with it in a relevant thread. I will respond, as time allows, to the best of my ability. I do have an axe to grind against people who think they actually have a clue issuing dictats about the game without putting the slightest effort into them. Bernie is one of those people, who repeatedly asserted - even when prompted - that his position was true when it was blatantly, ludicrously and obviously false. And I continually find it ludicrous that he was ever (partly) responsible for issuing rulings - in the same way that many people find it ludicrous that <insert random President here from history> was ever allowed into office. This is rather different from having some personal axe to grind over the NJL. The NJL just happens to be the body with which he was associated and so is referenced by name. Were it to be 4-Card-Limit-Players-Of- The-World-Unite, Jyhad-For-The-Third-World, Cat-Lovers-Who-Play-V:TES or any other potential random group of players, I would be shocked in the same way. >Otherwise, you would have limited your insults to Bernie instead of >Dave "Raille" McCarty and myself as well. You were not the entirety of the NJL, and 3 people cannot set up the NJL on their own - they need other people to go along with them. People does not mean *everyone*. You may think it does. It does not. For instance, see many miscellaneous phrases including "people" e.g. a common response to questions like "Why is there war in the world?" is "People are greedy", or some similar response. This does not mean all people - for instance, you may or may not be greedy about any given item(s). (For things that aren't Derange, of course, where the answer is already known.) >The NJL, as an entity, hasn't made any waves in over a year. Get over >it, I am perfectly "over" it. >pig fucker. Oh dear, and you were doing so well. Do you really think that this helps you, when you were actually attempting an extremely coherent argument, which only seriously fails based on the mis-understanding of my attitude? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <978c2422.0203...@posting.google.com>, Matt Latham <sv...@chartermi.net> writes: >James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<T$RAU+O2B...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... ><Snip silly sarcastic self-important musings on permission> I fear you have rather missed the point. The point is that I, like everyone else, don't need to ask permission. >> because you seemingly can't actually argue with >> the facts in hand - that one of the lead people in the NJL is clearly >> showing that he doesn't know a thing about V:TES outside of his personal >> prejudices. >> >> *sigh* > >HE MADE ONE POOR GENERALIZATION!!! I would point you to the whole series of posts, rather than fixating on "one poor generalisation" - a belief in which makes the rest of your post somewhat ill-targeted, I feel. For example, see: "If you want to win games it's true." (Playing other disciplines wins games fine; see Lasombra's deck archive.) "Bleeding other Methuselah's (besides your prey) most often will not win you a game. So if you like to (D) bleed others and not get VP's, it's true that Dominate will not do that." (Pre-judging other players' options to a ludicrous point.) "Who needs combat cards when you have Obedience and Seduction?" (Ignoring the mechanisms of combat.) "And better too. When your rush predator has hand jam all day long from not being able to cycle cards. I'd say it's pretty damn effective." (Unable to guarantee hand jam, unable to prevent cycling, necessity of them each time, Seduction only stopping one vampire, say) "Seeing as you want to focus on Combat. I'll say it up front, Dominate (on it's own) will not be able to hit harder than a combat oriented deck. Point is that they don't need to." (Some players *do* need to. And just because Dominate can block combat in this fashion, doesn't mean it does everything. And combats can, and still, will happen. If your only defence is Obedience/Seduction - especially in a !Ven deck where you don't have the powerful option of tradition wake - your vampires will find life tricky.) And so on - each of which fundamentally mis-understand the points at hand. Obedience is certainly useful as a tool for combat defence. It is certainly not a case of being able to blithely dispense with combat cards when you have it, and Seduction, available, however. etc. etc. etc. If you pass through his posts in this thread, there are continual points like this which tend to read - it can be played this way, ergo it is the way. Which just fundamentally misses the point. Dominate cannot, and never has been, able to do it all, and simply pre-judging other people's play-styles is a hugely unhelpful thing to do in any situation. Ever. [ quoted text not captured ]

I'd suggest that the problem here lies in the fact that while Bernie did overstate the effectiveness of Dominate, he did so in a manner that was obviously an intentional overstatement. James' own conflicts with so many posters comes from his refusal to read posts with anything other than a strict interpretation of the exact English used. (Call it an occupational hazard, similar to LSJ's frequent use of mathematical logic and proofs in rulings, or something similar that we all do :) For me, Bernie's generalization was obvious in its intent, but may have needed some amount elaboration (which he got around to). It'd be nice if we all had the time to post our exact thoughts, but I got the gist of what B- was getting at. It seems he explained himself sufficiently for most people, but then, James isn't most people... James, you might be better served by loosening up your interpretations a bit, since USENET _is_ (or at least, is supposed to be) a rather casual linguistic environment. It may not help your degree efforts, though, and I'd miss the vitriolic responses a bit if you did. :-) Regards, R. David Zopf guenh...@mindspring.com Atom Weaver

freds64_at_...@removethis.com writes: >(Of course, we're probably just butting heads over differing metagames. >Then and again, I never caught a whiff of whatever decks Curt could be >talking about and I was at Orccon the whole time. Strange stuff.) To my knowledge, there were 3 Pre weenie, 1 Dom weenie, and 1 Computer Hack weenie at Orcon. I saw one of each type. The Dom and CH deck were shredded by the bounteous rush combat. The Dom deck was shredded but it was still a bad thing; once it ousted one player and then the table tore it apart; I was its prey the second time and my extensive bleed defense, along with assistance from the table, "saved" me in the sense that I still had 3 pool and 3 minions with 1 blood each when his last minion went to torpor, courtesy of his rush combat predator. Not a high win rate, but boy, does it spoil the game. Anyway, that's about 10 out of about 40 tables with weenie decks so I suppose you might have missed them. I seem to have gotten more than my share so that lowers your odds. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:kGldaP6l...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > > >pig fucker. > > Oh dear, and you were doing so well. > > Do you really think that this helps you, when you were actually > attempting an extremely coherent argument, which only seriously fails > based on the mis-understanding of my attitude? > Umm... no offense, but... pot, meet the kettle. You're both black, learn to deal with it.

"Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:bDWj8.36060$q2.5142@sccrnsc01... [ quoted text not captured ] To clarify, as no one seems to understand me when I try my hand at brevity... You might want to consider the number of times you have posted an otherwise perfectly reasonable point, sprinkled liberally with completely unprovoked insults.

Joshua Duffin wrote: (Re: weeny presence bleed examples) > Do decks like that really not work in your group? In > every game I've seen one played, it works well enough > to be pretty threatening, even if it doesn't win. I don't know. I'll have to look at Lasombra's archive and check out your examples. ("processing"....click... whirr....) Phoenix is a small metagame. I cut my teeth on playing in the Bay Area, where the experienced meths just seemed to detest playing things like the super straight-forward types of stealth-bleed decks. No one I ever played with ever had any issues about others doing in it (nor do I), we just none of us had the appetite for anything that "plain vanilla". So I never got much experience dealing with stealth-bleed outside of tournaments. Likewise, I've seen this kind of deck tried either. If this really is an obvious deck that doesn't have a particular problem in either of these metagames (Phoenix or BA), then chalk it up to chance, I guess. Also, therein lies the danger of turning up one's nose at players who do take the cheap-n-easy path. If you never see something, you won't learn about it or how to deal with it until it comes about the hard way - in a tournament. On the OTHER other hand, I've played quite a few tournament games for this to be all _that_ popular and I've never seen it. Weird, man. Fred

CurtAdams wrote: > > Anyway, that's about 10 out of about 40 tables with weenie > decks so I suppose you might have missed them. I seem to > have gotten more than my share so that lowers your odds. Yea, but I attended every tournament at the 2001 Gateway and Gamex conventions as well and never saw such a deck. Nor at any of the Bay Area tournaments I've been to nor at 2000 Gencon. This can NOT be that common of a deck archetype! Fred

In message <a6p12t$23c$1...@slb5.atl.mindspring.net>, R. David Zopf <guenh...@mindspring.com> writes: > James, you might be better served by loosening up your >interpretations a bit, since USENET _is_ (or at least, is supposed to >be) a rather casual linguistic environment. Casual linguistics is one thing. Posting rubbish, being corrected, and then asserting your rubbish is still true is another. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <bDWj8.36060$q2.5142@sccrnsc01>, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes: >> Do you really think that this helps you, when you were actually >> attempting an extremely coherent argument, which only seriously fails >> based on the mis-understanding of my attitude? >> >Umm... no offense, but... pot, meet the kettle. I see a difference between attacking someone for posting rubbish and attacking someone with terms like "pig-fucker", which are not relevant to the point at hand. YMMV [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] HE shoots! He Scores! Raille

James Coupe wrote: > > In message <bDWj8.36060$q2.5142@sccrnsc01>, Chris Berger > <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> writes: > >> Do you really think that this helps you, when you were actually > >> attempting an extremely coherent argument, which only seriously fails > >> based on the mis-understanding of my attitude? > >> > >Umm... no offense, but... pot, meet the kettle. > > I see a difference between attacking someone for posting rubbish and > attacking someone with terms like "pig-fucker", which are not relevant > to the point at hand. > > YMMV What difference, either your attacking some one or your not. Cause for the attack is immaterial. Raille

James Coupe wrote: > > In message <a6p12t$23c$1...@slb5.atl.mindspring.net>, R. David Zopf > <guenh...@mindspring.com> writes: > > James, you might be better served by loosening up your > >interpretations a bit, since USENET _is_ (or at least, is supposed to > >be) a rather casual linguistic environment. > > Casual linguistics is one thing. > > Posting rubbish, being corrected, and then asserting your rubbish is > still true is another. More rubbish I have to read and sort through. Raille

In message <3C907860...@spamcop.net>, Raille <rai...@spamcop.net> writes: >What difference, either your attacking some one or your not. Cause for >the attack is immaterial. Your opinion is noted. I disagree strongly. Justification and reasoning are what separate us from beasts. There is, from where I stand, a significant difference in calling someone, for instance, an idiot (which may be based on significant evidence to hand) and calling someone a pig-fucker (which is not). You are entitled, of course, to your opinion. But if reasoning and cause have no place, what's the point? Does it not matter to you *why* someone says "I love you"? After all, they're still telling you they love you, motivation or not. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > > In message <3C907860...@spamcop.net>, Raille <rai...@spamcop.net> > writes: > >What difference, either your attacking some one or your not. Cause for > >the attack is immaterial. > > Your opinion is noted. I disagree strongly. > > Justification and reasoning are what separate us from beasts. There is, > from where I stand, a significant difference in calling someone, for > instance, an idiot (which may be based on significant evidence to hand) > and calling someone a pig-fucker (which is not). > > You are entitled, of course, to your opinion. But if reasoning and > cause have no place, what's the point? Does it not matter to you *why* > someone says "I love you"? After all, they're still telling you they > love you, motivation or not. Matters not. Everyone has a different reasoning and their own personal cause. If you love some one you treat them well. If you hate some one you hit them. Initially the results are the most important, a hit or a kiss. the Underlining causes *might* be important later. Raille

In message <3C907DA4...@spamcop.net>, Raille <rai...@spamcop.net> writes: >> You are entitled, of course, to your opinion. But if reasoning and >> cause have no place, what's the point? Does it not matter to you *why* >> someone says "I love you"? After all, they're still telling you they >> love you, motivation or not. > >Matters not. Again, noted, and strongly disagreed with. The ends are not the only thing that matter because life is not that simple. For instance, in a given situation, if someone says something but can provide strong, significant reasoning for their stance - their cause, their justification, their motivation - then this can feed into other processes. Shouting irrelevances and calling people pig-fucker seems to have far less impact on such. We all end up like Andrew S. Davidson, if reasoning is irrelevant - saying things, and never having to engage brains about why we say them. And since mis-understandings *do* happen, paying attention to what someone's motivation is can provide useful interpretation frameworks - as one does, quite often, when you say "Oh, I'm sure s/he didn't mean it like that." I am reminded vaguely of a, perhaps (probably) apocryphal, tale of a political contest in America. The candidates escape my recollection. It involved one asking his team to spread the rumour that his opponent fucked pigs. When questioned why, given that this was baseless, his response was that he just wanted to see him deny it. [ quoted text not captured ]

"R. David Zopf" wrote: > > I'd suggest that the problem here lies in the fact that while Bernie > did overstate the effectiveness of Dominate, he did so in a manner > that was obviously an intentional overstatement. James' own conflicts > with so many posters comes from his refusal to read posts with > anything other than a strict interpretation of the exact English used. > For me, Bernie's generalization was obvious in its intent, but may > have needed some amount elaboration (which he got around to). It'd be Example: X: "all mammals are dogs". Y: "That's not true, and you know it." X: "it IS true. For you see, some mammals are dogs" Y: "I have no idea why you've chosen to present that falsehood as true, but it is not. If you want to say that dogs are mammals, then I think we can all agree, but saying that all mammals are dogs is clearly not true." X: "Semantics." This is not a matter of elaboration. This is a matter of failing to yield an erroneous statement. Better if X's second post was: X: "OK, it's not true. What I meant was that some mammals are dogs." -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

On Thu, 14 Mar 2002, Frederick Scott wrote: > Yea, but I attended every tournament at the 2001 Gateway and > Gamex conventions as well and never saw such a deck. Nor > at any of the Bay Area tournaments I've been to nor at 2000 > Gencon. This can NOT be that common of a deck archetype! What was your attendence like prior to 2001? Maybe it's due to the flood of new cards. There may have been a big drop-off over this last year as people played with the new toys, and tried to get an edge by doing new things. Remember how long the game was more or less static, though. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <Pine.GSO.4.21.02031...@petunia.mc.duke.edu> , David Cherryholmes <d...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu> writes: >What was your attendence like prior to 2001? Maybe it's due to the flood >of new cards. There has been a significant shift, from the reports I've read and tournaments I've judged (nothing recent, mind), towards a number of the new cards, for exploration's sake. Whether people will stick with these new cards in great numbers is anyone's guess. [ quoted text not captured ]

David Cherryholmes wrote: > > On Thu, 14 Mar 2002, Frederick Scott wrote: (re: weeny presence bleed, not based on obfuscate stealth) > > > Yea, but I attended every tournament at the 2001 Gateway and > > Gamex conventions as well and never saw such a deck. Nor > > at any of the Bay Area tournaments I've been to nor at 2000 > > Gencon. This can NOT be that common of a deck archetype! > > What was your attendence like prior to 2001? Maybe it's due to the flood > of new cards. There may have been a big drop-off over this last year as > people played with the new toys, and tried to get an edge by doing new > things. Remember how long the game was more or less static, though. That may be it. Before 2001, I mainly played tournaments up in the Bay Area, and there are far fewer of them. With the personality of the players there, I'm not surprised I wouldn't see something like this. (I love Robyn's description of her "Fun with Hastily Built Presence" deck: "Bleed like it's the last tournament and your clever decks have failed you.") Fred

Just to let people know, I haven't forgotten about this thread but have some "real-life" stuff to attend to firstly. Priorities.. B.

"Frederick Scott" <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:3C905063...@removethis.com... > Phoenix is a small metagame. I cut my teeth on playing > in the Bay Area, where the experienced meths just seemed > to detest playing things like the super straight-forward > types of stealth-bleed decks. Jaded, aren't they? ;-) (Me too.) > On the OTHER other hand, I've played quite a few tournament > games for this to be all _that_ popular and I've never seen > it. Weird, man. That is weird. I don't know that weenie *Presence* bleed specifically is all that popular, but I do see weenie bleed decks of one stripe or another (Dominate, Presence, or disciplineless Computer Hack, usually) at the rate of at least one a tournament, I think. Like I was saying elsewhere (I think), these decks could probably be more popular if they weren't kinda boring to play and didn't suffer such a constant risk of getting ganged up against as the big fast-moving table threat. But they're certainly a major archetype in my experience, and one of the stronger ones. Josh the only good weenie is a potent weenie

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:<a6aas...@enews4.newsguy.com>... > I was giving some thought to the whole anti-weenie discussion and came up > with this general use master card. Let me know what you think. > > ============================== > The Hunger > > Master Out-of-Turn > > You may play this card during your turn. Place this card on a vampire that > has a capacity above 7 and has less than 3 blood on her. The vampire with > this card taps and enters combat with a vampire controlled by another > methuselah with a capacity below 4. The vampire with this card has +2 > strength for the duration of this combat. Any blood lost by the opposing > vampire goes to the vampire with this card at the end of each round. If the > opposing vampire is not ready at the end of this combat, this vampire > untaps. Burn this card at the end of combat. > > =============================== > > Thematically, this card represents the hunger that ancient vampires have for > the blood of younger vampires. After centuries of unlife, the blood of > normal humans no longer sates them and they start to crave the vitae of > their younger brethren. This is also why many vampires fear the > antedilluveans. > > The rationale behind this card is that you can basically force someone > else's vampire to fight a weenie for you. > > That vampire can potentially gain from this situation so it is not > necessarily bad to have it played against you. > > It is meant to be a weenie-killer obviously, and since the effect occurs > outside of the normal turn structure, it could conceivably slow down a > weenie deck without adversely affecting the non-weenie Methuselahs. > > It could also be used in more of a co-operative way than a coercive way, > which is an aspect of the game that I believe could be expanded on somewhat. > > Additionally, because the vampire this card is played on must have less than > 3 blood, it could be used offensively against someone who has just Minion > Tapped. > > Example. > > LARRY --> Minion Tap Arika down to 1 > WES --> Cool. I play The Hunger to force Arika to fight Gillian Krader > LARRY --> Damn you to hell. > > Play in conjunction with Frenzy and Save Face for Fun +2! > > Thoughts? > > (As usual, this card is public domain and White Wolf is welcome to have it > or whatever... I give up the rights to it. Does this even help or am I > talking out of my ass again?) > > Cheers, > WES ANY CARD THAT DESTROY/KILL/DELAY WEENIE ALWAYS MIGHT BE ACCEPTED !!!!!! NICE CARD m8!!!!! WW WILL HAVE PrODUCE LOTS OF IT!!!

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<8TvL$hDT5G...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <a6p12t$23c$1...@slb5.atl.mindspring.net>, R. David Zopf > <guenh...@mindspring.com> writes: > > James, you might be better served by loosening up your > >interpretations a bit, since USENET _is_ (or at least, is supposed to > >be) a rather casual linguistic environment. > > Casual linguistics is one thing. > > Posting rubbish, being corrected, and then asserting your rubbish is > still true is another. *shrug* See. You cannot let it go, despite (all) others being able to. If people were posting something related to chemistry that was wrong from a technical standpoint, yet served to explain a statement, I'd hope I could restrain myself better... BTW, Bernie elaborated on what exactly he meant with his over-statement (In that end part of his post that you snipped. Twice.) Rubbish? Maybe. Taken literally, sure. Within the context that it was presented (as an obvious overstatement), it could be understood in its intent. Including that twice snipped elaboration? Not rubbish. Regards DaveZ Atom Weaver

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3C9083EF...@white-wolf.com>... > "R. David Zopf" wrote: > > > > I'd suggest that the problem here lies in the fact that while Bernie > > did overstate the effectiveness of Dominate, he did so in a manner > > that was obviously an intentional overstatement. James' own conflicts > > with so many posters comes from his refusal to read posts with > > anything other than a strict interpretation of the exact English used. > > > For me, Bernie's generalization was obvious in its intent, but may > > have needed some amount elaboration (which he got around to). It'd be > > Example: > > X: "all mammals are dogs". > Y: "That's not true, and you know it." > X: "it IS true. For you see, some mammals are dogs" > Y: "I have no idea why you've chosen to present that falsehood as true, > but it is not. If you want to say that dogs are mammals, then I > think we can all agree, but saying that all mammals are dogs is > clearly not true." > X: "Semantics." > > This is not a matter of elaboration. This is a matter of failing to > yield an erroneous statement. > Only if you take statements made in a casual environment as an exercise in mathematical logic. Intentional overstatement (such as with dominate), while not mathematically rigorous, is a common habit used to show superior performance of a particular entity without needing to resort to either strict English, or a mathematical proof. Common enough so that the average reader understands what the poster is driving at, without an excess of text. > Better if X's second post was: > > X: "OK, it's not true. What I meant was that some mammals are dogs." Done by Bernie at the end of the twice-snipped post. (Reposted here) QUOTE: I'll rephrase the "Dominate does it all" quote just for you. Take your pick: a: "A Dominate focused deck can do everything it takes to win games consistently". b: "A deck built primarily on Dominate and basic cards (disciplineless) can practially replicate what other decks do, and often better" c: "Dominate is easily the strongest discipline available due to it's sheer versatility in all areas of play" d: "All of the above" END QUOTE Again, even these statements are not provided for the benefit of a mathematical exercise. Sorrys to LSJ and James, but the massive majority of posters in USENET do not (and will not ever) think or post with The Rigorous Standards of English and Mathematics that you would have them hold to. Nor should they, as its a rather inhuman means of communication (despite the esteem with which you hold your disciplines, respectively...) Regards DaveZ Atom Weaver

fred writes: [ quoted text not captured ] One of the other players in my group didn't want to play weenie presence bleed because he had played it last time and failed since he sat at a table with *another* WPB and they'd contested each other into the ground. So, common enough around here. Another player had a WPM deck he's played in casual games but not tournaments. I agree with other posters that most good players avoid it because it's just too cheesy and they're embarassed to play it. [ quoted text not captured ]

atomweaver wrote: > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3C9083EF...@white-wolf.com>... > > Better if X's second post was: > > > > X: "OK, it's not true. What I meant was that some mammals are dogs." > > Done by Bernie at the end of the twice-snipped post. (Reposted here) > > QUOTE: > I'll rephrase the "Dominate does it all" quote just for you. > Take your pick: > > a: "A Dominate focused deck can do everything it takes to win games > consistently". > > b: "A deck built primarily on Dominate and basic cards > (disciplineless) > can practially replicate what other decks do, and often better" > > c: "Dominate is easily the strongest discipline available due to it's > sheer versatility in all areas of play" > > d: "All of the above" > END QUOTE Bernie's post above started with the problem statement: "If you want to win games [the obviously false claim] is true". > Again, even these statements are not provided for the benefit of a > mathematical exercise. Sorrys to LSJ and James, but the massive > majority of posters in USENET do not (and will not ever) think or post > with The Rigorous Standards of English and Mathematics that you would > have them hold to. Nor should they, as its a rather inhuman means of > communication (despite the esteem with which you hold your > disciplines, respectively...) This is not relying on the "Rigorous Standards of English and Mathematics", this is merely relying on standard practices of communication. See the dog and mammal example. If someone points out that you have overstated something, you don't have the luxury of both reasserting that the false overstatement is true *and* of stating some weaker true claim to illustrate how the false claim is true. This ends my involvement in this thread. The points being restated are obvious. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2002 11:27:15 GMT, LSJ quoted Bernie : >> a: "A Dominate focused deck can do everything it takes to win games >> consistently"... I'm not that interested in silly debating points but my killfile isn't keeping enough of this "he said...she said...the consequence was that the dog is a mammal" discussion from me. To make it more useful, could someone please post an example of the uber-Dominate deck as I, for one, might be interested in playing it if it's so good. Currently I'm not quite digging how it deals with combat and vote decks. Andrew

In message <4c6f3f3e.02031...@posting.google.com>, atomweaver <guenh...@mindspring.com> writes: >> > James, you might be better served by loosening up your >> >interpretations a bit, since USENET _is_ (or at least, is supposed to >> >be) a rather casual linguistic environment. >> >> Casual linguistics is one thing. >> >> Posting rubbish, being corrected, and then asserting your rubbish is >> still true is another. > >*shrug* See. You cannot let it go What's to let go? You appear to be reading rather more into my actions than is intended. As with elsewhere, I would suggest enquiring as to my attitudes on something, rather than random assumption. A series of posts occurred. A point was raised. I responded to a point that I wanted to. This is not a case of letting go, or not. This is a case of taking part in Usenet. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <55F04142265036DD.22A44EFC...@lp.airnew s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes: >To make it more useful, >could someone please post an example of the uber-Dominate deck as I, >for one, might be interested in playing it if it's so good. Currently >I'm not quite digging how it deals with combat and vote decks. Vote defence can be attempted using Kindred Co-ercion, Pulling Strings and so on. This is not perfect, however. Delaying Tactics often proves to be better defence. In low powered vote environments, you can't, for instance, affect the votes of Ventrue Headquarters or political action cards. Combat defence can be attempted with Obedience. This requires the vampire being rushed to be untapped, or woken, and to be older. These can all be attempted, but none is a given. Thoughts Betrayed provides certain elements of combat defence. Absorb the Mind can be useful, but Dodge! may be better unless all your vampires will definitely have Dominate. (For instance, you may later want to repeat a Mind Rape to do something else with the stolen vampire, and their being torporised might not be of use to you. Or you may be playing a primarily Dominate based deck, but with one or two less obvious situations occurring - though in a mono-Dominate deck, it is usable.) Seduction is a different kettle of fish - attempting to prevent you from being blocked. This is difficult if any undirected actions are to be attempted, though a Dominate deck may be doing substantial numbers of directed actions, of course. Eagle's Sight, and so forth, may come into play, though this is not a given in any environment but they can throw sufficient curve-balls from any deck which is doing minor intercepting (for instance, random Tzimisce decks, doing Pulse/Changeling, along with some intercept and combat and taste.) Dominate has habitually been one of the stronger disciplines played mono. Fortitude also has its place. (I recall a thread on this some time ago. The combat defence, blood gain, bleed and unblockability that Fortitude garnered was considered especially important, dealing with a range of things in a very different way.) [ quoted text not captured ]

>>People. Not Bernie. People is plural. > > Certainly. People is plural. People is not universal. > Bernie was one of the top people. One of. Part of a Team. Trust me when I say that our debates on rulings in that team were not always the most high browed of conversations. I'm not saying that Bernie is always correct in his perceptions. Hell, neither am I. That's why there were multiple people involved to give different perspectives. However, public belittling, over-generalizations and being an arrogant prick (not that this is new behavior for you) is deserving of my comtempt. > Clearly, people beneath him wanted this or they would have replaced him. Like it or not, Bernie is a leader in the Michigan VTES community and one of the most enthusiastic at that. That was why he was wanted. He kept things from stagnating and provided a different perspective. Remeber, our rules team was deliberately comprised of people with different priorities (balance, simplicity, printed text, etc.) to prevent any single agenda from skewing the results. > Ergo, they (being a significant sub-group) wanted someone with the level > of V:TES understanding he clearly doesn't have in charge. Again, you make another generalization based on a few threads. Just because someone has a different perspective doesn't make them an idiot. Even worse, rather than insult only Bernie, you insult an amorphous group of people you've never met. Nice. In other contexts, they have a word for that; bigotry. This statement only serves to reinforce my belief that you're an immature, arrogant prick. > This does not mean *all* people, or these people were *solely* > responsible. Nor did I write "the people" (recasting the sentence > appropriately), where such readings would be much more appropriate. > > If I had meant any of these things, I would have written them. I > didn't. I was quite precise with my wording on this matter. > > You may respond saying that this is a lie and wriggling. If it looks like bull shit, smells like bull shit and is attracting flies in the middle of a field filled with cattle, it probably ain't apple pie. The complete list of people that served in the NJL rules team that also post in the newsgroup are: Dave "Raille", Sorrow, Bernie and myself. Since you said that your insulting generalizations included those that supported him...and all the people in the rules team supported Bernie...exactly which of those four people are you insulting or not insulting? > However, I assure you it is not, as no slight to yourself was intended. As a founding member of the NJL and one of the most vocal proponents of its formation, an insult to the NJL is an insult to me. In the future, if you wish to make slights to an individual, you may wish to not drag in any group affiliations. Doing so usually pisses off that group's memebers. > I do have an axe to grind against people who think they actually have a > clue issuing dictats about the game without putting the slightest effort > into them. That may be your belief. I believe otherwise. Bernie has a valid point, if somewhat overstated. > And I continually find it ludicrous that he was ever (partly) responsible > for issuing rulings - in the same way that many people find it ludicrous > that <insert random President here from history> was ever allowed into > office. Too fucking bad. I don't remember giving two shakes about what arrogant prick in England (btw, I'm Cherokee and Irish, so I have a special "love" for the English already) thought when we formed the Michigan Jyhad League's rules team. Personally, I find it ludicrous that you'd issue nettiquette corrections when the corrections are off topic and therefore nettiquette violations themselves. > This is rather different from having some personal axe to grind over the > NJL. The NJL just happens to be the body with which he was associated > and so is referenced by name. There was no valid reason you can make for dragging in his group affiliation. The rules team to which he belonged has been disbanded for over a year. There is no longer a reason to even bring it up. Get over it or get therapy. > >pig fucker. > > Do you really think that this helps you, when you were actually > attempting an extremely coherent argument, which only seriously fails > based on the mis-understanding of my attitude? No. I was simply communicating my utter contempt of you. Noal

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<55F04142265036DD.22A44EFC...@lp.airnews.net>... > To make it more useful, could someone please post an example of the > uber-Dominate deck as I, for one, might be interested in playing it > if it's so good. Doing a google search for "Crypt Machine" should provide a decklist, at some point. It might even be on one of the deck archive sites. At heart, though, it's: All of the vampires of capacity 3 or less with dominate, Isabel Giovanni, and Ingrid Russo (the two 4-capacity vampires with DOM). * A few dominate skill cards * assorted other masters to taste, probably including either Info Highway, Effective Management, and Sudden Reversal * Lots of Govern the Unaligned * Threats (? That's what I'd include, anyway, as opposed to Conditioning, though Foreshadowing Destruction would also be good) * maybe Bonding or Seduction/The Sleeping Mind * maybe some wake/Deflection * maybe a little light combat defense (disciplineless dodge/maneuver), but this can be left alone * maybe some Delaying Tactics It can pretty much be built with all common/uncommon cards. General strategy involves bringing up one of the vampires with DOM, or getting out a 3-capacity vampire and slapping a skill card on that one, then getting more vampires out for free. Eventually, just swarm bleed everyone to death. It is definitely a strong deck, but it mostly relies on speed and lots and lots of actions to win, rather than any inherent skill at surviving other deck styles. > Currently I'm not quite digging how it deals with combat and vote decks. It doesn't deal with the former, except through multiple expendable minions. Combat kills it, but often not fast enough. It could splash some Obedience in, as a capacity of 4 is larger than some weenie decks, but this will generally not be useful. With the latter, it can use Delaying Tactics to stave off any really nasty votes, and hopefully survive to the next turn, in which it might gain more pool (with superior Govern) or in which it might oust its prey. Xian useful

In message <bb705c59.0203...@posting.google.com>, Noal McDonald <dhar...@my-deja.com> writes: >>>People. Not Bernie. People is plural. >> >> Certainly. People is plural. People is not universal. >> Bernie was one of the top people. > >One of. Part of a Team. Yes, I understand this. Hence "one of the". >> Clearly, people beneath him wanted this or they would have replaced him. > >Like it or not, Bernie is a leader in the Michigan VTES community A community leader is not necessarily a good base for someone who needs substantial, in-depth, critical knowledge of a game. >> Ergo, they (being a significant sub-group) wanted someone with the level >> of V:TES understanding he clearly doesn't have in charge. > >Again, you make another generalization based on a few threads. Not true. >Just >because someone has a different perspective doesn't make them an >idiot. He has been asserting that false things are true. This is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of fact. >Even worse, rather than insult only Bernie, you insult an >amorphous group of people you've never met. Nice. In other contexts, >they have a word for that; bigotry. This statement only serves to >reinforce my belief that you're an immature, arrogant prick. Good grief. There were some people - clearly - who want a man who asserts lies are truth (partly) responsible for issuing rulings. This is fact. You've noted that he was wanted, fact. I've noted that he's asserted demonstrably false things are true, fact. Facts. >If it looks like bull shit, smells like bull shit and is attracting >flies in the middle of a field filled with cattle, it probably ain't >apple pie. Fine, you are welcome to think I'm lying about my intent. I'm not. >The complete list of people that served in the NJL rules team that >also post in the newsgroup are: Dave "Raille", Sorrow, Bernie and >myself. Since you said that your insulting generalizations included >those that supported him...and all the people in the rules team >supported Bernie...exactly which of those four people are you >insulting or not insulting? *LSJ* (hint: not me) has demonstrated quite clearly in this thread that Bernie has presented demonstrably untrue statements as truth. Why anyone would support someone's ability when he repeatedly lies about such situations is beyond me but, hey, there you go. >> However, I assure you it is not, as no slight to yourself was intended. > >As a founding member of the NJL and one of the most vocal proponents >of its formation, an insult to the NJL is an insult to me. There was: a) an insult to Bernie b) a suggestion that someone with so little critical thought about the game shouldn't be let anywhere near a ruling c) a ponderance on potential reasons why anyone would go counter to b), with two specific potential hypotheses >In the >future, if you wish to make slights to an individual, you may wish to >not drag in any group affiliations. Doing so usually pisses off that >group's memebers. *shrug* He's an American, too, you know. Obviously, all Americans are EVIL. (This is, in fact, probably not true.) >> I do have an axe to grind against people who think they actually have a >> clue issuing dictats about the game without putting the slightest effort >> into them. > >That may be your belief. I believe otherwise. Bernie has a valid >point, if somewhat overstated. Demonstrably untrue "facts" cannot be valid points. They're the very opposite of "valid points". >> And I continually find it ludicrous that he was ever (partly) responsible >> for issuing rulings - in the same way that many people find it ludicrous >> that <insert random President here from history> was ever allowed into >> office. > >Too fucking bad. I don't remember giving two shakes about what >arrogant prick in England (btw, I'm Cherokee and Irish, so I have a >special "love" for the English already) thought when we formed the >Michigan Jyhad League's rules team. If you don't give two shakes about it, why are you responding to this thread? It would seem you do care something about my points, or it seems likely that you would not respond to them. >Personally, I find it ludicrous >that you'd issue nettiquette corrections when the corrections are off >topic and therefore nettiquette violations themselves. Correct use of a newsgroup is on-topic for a group, de facto, with certain specific exceptions. (Various moderated announce groups, with companion discussion groups, for instance.) >> This is rather different from having some personal axe to grind over the >> NJL. The NJL just happens to be the body with which he was associated >> and so is referenced by name. > >There was no valid reason you can make for dragging in his group >affiliation. I mentioned it because it occurred. I could have mentioned that I found it ludicrous Bernie was ever (partly) responsible for issuing rulings. However, this would seem confusing, given the nature of issuing rulings *now*. Referencing the NJL clarifies the point that he was not responsible for issuing DCI/RTR/DTR/LSJ type rulings. >The rules team to which he belonged has been disbanded >for over a year. There is no longer a reason to even bring it up. Get >over it or get therapy. I'm perfectly "over it", as I already noted elsewhere in the thread. >> >pig fucker. >> >> Do you really think that this helps you, when you were actually >> attempting an extremely coherent argument, which only seriously fails >> based on the mis-understanding of my attitude? > >No. I was simply communicating my utter contempt of you. You have "utter contempt" for me, yet still respond to my posts. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002 19:18:28 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <3c8e0dd...@netnews.attbi.com>, >berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>In message <3c8d771a...@netnews.attbi.com>, >>>berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>>>>Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >>>>>>that any other discipline can do, and often better. >>>>> >>>>>This is, as you know, not true. >>>> >>>>Actually it IS true. >> >>If you want to win games it's true. > >Moving goal-posts helps no-one. Especially soccer players. I've not read the netiquette handbook, but it would be intuitive that if a subject were to split off from it's original topic a new subject thread should be started so that others (who might be interested in the new thread) would be able to keep abreast of the new/changed topic. Looking at the number of responses to this thread it seems that your statement is incorrect. >You have already asserted that Dominate is a powerful discipline. This >is an observation with which many would agree. However, your assertion >was then that it could do "everything that any other discipline could >do". This is what has been taken issue with - because it simply isn't >true on any factual level, at all, ever. Permit me to repost my original message which spawned all of this discussion. Please note the section that follows my "counting the ways". ========================================================== >berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>>Problems exist with *disciplined* weenies, which are also extremely >>>doable. >>> >>>e.g. the weenie dom/DOM deck of nightmare. >> >>That is a problem with Dominate, not with weenies. > >It is far more likely to be a combination of the two. > >>Frankly, why play anything else BUT dominate. It does everything >>that any other discipline can do, and often better. > >This is, as you know, not true. Actually it IS true. What do you want to do today, shall I count the ways? BLEED: Govern & Conditioning (and a horde of other cards) POLITICS: Kindred Coercion, Pulling Strings in conjunction with Ventrue AntiTribue will shut down Presence voters so fast it makes their heads spin (also could include Denial of Aphrodites Favor in that deck type). COMBAT: Avoid combat via Seduction, Obedience, and Sleeping Mind. Thoughts Betrayed in conjunction with another discipline can absolutely wreck you (and outfight combat:prime decks). Oh yeah, you can Dodge now with Absorb the Mind CONTESTING: Thanks for the Donation, Clio's Kiss, sprinkle with a little Betrayer [Master] for added goodness BOUNCE: Deflection & Redirection STEAL LOCATIONS: Dominate Kine STEAL MINIONS: Graverobbing, Mind Rape NEED POOL?: Govern, Scouting Mission TAP MINIONS: Steal the Mind STEALTH: Some available for Bleed actions, and use Seduction, etc.. So what's left that Dominate can't do on it's own? Well, here's where it absolutely rules.. Pair it off with ANY other discipline (just a sprinkle now) and it becomes nigh unstoppable. There are only a few instances where Dominate is unable to make significant contributions, which typically is made up for by the #2 discipline of Presence or an addition of Master Cards. FYI, there are 172 vampires in print that can use Dominate. Card's that put a crimp in Dominate's style: Blessing of Chaos, Iron Heart, Lobotomy, Perfect Clarity, and a few others. ALL of these cards are cornercase hoo-ha which will only find thier way into certain deck types. ><snip - my sig> > >Please don't quote sig files unless you are commenting on them. That's >what the sig-sep is there for. As you wish. I prefer to comment on sigs via private e-mail so as not to generate off-topic spam. - >James Coupe <Snip: Sig > Regards, BernieTime ========================================================== Again, I will grant you that my choice of wording in the beginning of my response (taken in absolutes) was poorly stated. However, it should be clear if you were to read the entire statement that I did acknowledge Dominate has a few gaps "There are only a few instances where Dominate is unable to make significant contributions, which typically is made up for by the #2 discipline of Presence or an addition of Master Cards." >>>And whilst you can provide many things it can do well, you have failed >>>to note that it can't do everything that any other discipline can do - >>>something of which you are well aware, most certainly. >>> >>>As a result, I am at a loss as to why you are lying about this, unless >>>you are attempting hyperbole badly. >> >>It happens. I don't get all caught up in diction and semantics like >>some folks do. >>You may wish to consider whether it's good form to call someone >>a liar until you fully understand their position on a subject. > >You have been representing this in a factually untrue manner. When I >mentioned this, you asserted again that "it IS true". Asserting things >which are not true as true is generally called lying. Yes I did overstate with an absolute in order to make a point, which as you pointed out is called "Hyperbole". >If you would prefer to reclassify repeatedly stating that something is >true as something else, feel free. > >I am claiming that you have repeatedly asserted something which is >factually incorrect at the most fundamental levels is untrue. > >>>Going through your categories: >>> >>>Bleed: It cannot, for instance, combine bleed with pool gain. Other >>> disciplines have the ability to bleed other Methuselahs >>> (Obfuscate, Dementation) >> >>Bleeding other Methuselah's (besides your prey) most often will not win >>you a game. > >I am happy that you have managed to pre-empt every deck strategy, ever. >Clearly, there is no utility in allowing players options which suit >their play strengths. Nice to see you can be happy about something James, I was beginning to wonder. >What you appear to be saying is that bleeding other Methuselahs doesn't >win *you* VPs. Being able to intimidate and 'control' other Methuselahs >with direct, backed-up threats can be an extremely useful mechanism - if >you're the right player, choosing the right target. True enough. And back before a (D) Bleed was strictly defined as bleed your prey only, I used (D) Bleed as an intimidation tactic. Now that it's clearly defined and there are only 2 cards that allow for bleeding any methuselah, it's become an unlikely corner-case. Cat Burglary: Go ahead and bleed me for one. Ouch. Kindred Spirits: This one has bite. Currently limited (primarily) to the Malkavian Anti-Tribue. Only reason this gets painful as Dementate has cards that are an exact mirror of some bleed modifiers found in Dominate. >>So if you like to (D) bleed others and not get VP's, it's >>true that Dominate will not do that. > >And people who want to (D) bleed others for purposes which will allow >them to get VPs? > >Your arrogance about knowing how people's play-styles work is shocking >in the extreme. What's amazing James is your ability to personalize everything posted that (apparently) conflicts with your personal viewpoints. If someone wishes to disagree with my take on a subject, I have no issue with that person. If someone wishes for elaboration on a point with wasn't quite clear, I will be happy to provide additional detail. My opinion is just that. My opinion. You don't have to like it, you can disagree with it if you wish. Such is your right in a free society. What I do take objection to are your veiled (and not really subtle) personal attacks. I've elaborated on my position and offered up some options for this thread to conclude civilly. Yet you still want to jump all over my back and beat this dead horse. >>>Politics: You masterfully provide a number of things Dominate can do, >>> and then spectacularly fail to note that Kindred Co-ercion and >>> Pulling Strings are reactions. It is also notable that Ventrue >>> Antitribu are not Dominate. :( You cannot outmatch Presence or >>> Melpominee on forward facing votes. You effectively cannot use >>> Dominate to pass your own votes. You cannot use Dominate to >>> gain pool when your own votes pass (Presence). You cannot use >>> Dominate to cancel the votes of others when calling votes >>> (Auspex). >> >>I did not note that those cards are reactions as I'd assumed you were >>aware that they were such. > >I am. > >> Sorry if you had to look that up and I wasted your time. > >*yawn* > >I know it, and you know it. Yet you present it as being able to match >or better every other discipline on politics. > >Which is just blatantly untrue and beneath you. Every other discipline on politics = Presence / Melpominee And yes, Dominate in the right deck can go toe to toe with a Presence voter(s). Melpominee would be a little tougher due to Echo of Harmonies. >>Seriously though, I noted that with the pairing >>of Ventrue AntiTribue, Dominate shuts down presence/voting. > >Which is irrelevant to your assertion that Dominate does everything than >any other discipline can do. Per my original post, the implication was that Dominate can participate in all arenas of play and really shines when paired with another disciplilne or enhanced with Master cards. >Please, do not try and wriggle out of your own, self-created problems. >You are failing to address the fact that Dominate cannot do everything >when it is pointed out, right in front of you. Seems that my biggest problem is that you have the uncanny ability to only read 2/3rds of a message. >>Granted >>this is an instance where a specific clan pairing is necessary to >>enable Dominate to "do it all". > >But Dominate can do everything that any other discipline can do already. >You told us, repeatedly. See the originating post. More precisely the section following "counting the ways". >>Please note that it's a very likely >>clan pairing. > >For certain values of very likely. It is likely that a !Ven deck will >include some Dominate, since it is a powerful option available to them. >Likelihood of someone who wants to play Dominate necessarily choosing >!Ven is a different matter entirely, which will vary from player to >player. For instance, both the Malkavians and the Ventrue (Camarilla) >are generally popular choices for playing Dominate. > > ><snipped - contesting> > >Please show some consideration and snip points of posts to which you are >not responding. This is basic netiquette. Considering the apparent interest in this thread, I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on the complete conversation at hand. >>>Combat: Dominate can avoid combat quite well, under the right >>> circumstances. (That is, a deck can plan for it, but it won't >>> just happen.) It can Dodge, but the fall-back level of Absorb >>> the Mind isn't that brilliant (though, certainly, a good example >>> of how fallback levels should work). If you're playing >>> Dominate, you probably wouldn't include Absorb the Mind, though >>> you would if you were playing myt/dom, which is slightly >>> different. Thoughts Betrayed is good, if expensive >>> >>> Now, of course, Dominate also has Imaginary Card one which will >>> deal aggravated damage (Protean, Potence, Vicissitude). It also >> >>Who needs combat cards when you have Obedience and Seduction? > >When you're doing everything that any other discipline can do and >sometimes better, you need them. > > >>If combat >>never occurs you really don't need them. And if you're concerned about >>having a strike card, there is the new dodge available. > >Certainly - but which is a generally poor card, for Dominate use. Now, >if you're playing Mytherceria then you're playing something else - and >you can't see why people play anything else. > >>> has Made Up Card which will prevent damage. It, further, has >>> I'm Ignoring What Cards Exist which is excellent for ending >>> combat once you're in there (because you weren't untapped or >>> woken). It can also use that much maligned card, We're Making >>> It Up As We Go Along, for considerable maneuvering power and >>> This Card Wasn't Even Designed Let Alone Printed provides an >>> excellent source of additional strikes. >> >>Using my example of Obedience & Seduction you've just found your >>damage prevention as combat never ocurred. > >Your brain appears to be equating combat avoidance with damage >prevention, when the two are unfortunately not the same thing - however >useful that might be. > >Seduction is, of course, limited to one per action. Thus you will find >yourself with fewer options regarding other blocking vampires, if you're >relying on Seduction and Obedience. > >Obedience requires an older vampire for use, and this limits its ability >when non-weenified combat enters an arena. (For instance, Eurobrujah >Vote/Combat decks, Tzimisce decks, Gangrel royalty decks and so on, all >of which have shown themselves repeatedly as viable archetypes.) True, Obedience requires an older vampire to play. Point being that Dominate has Obedience as an option to avoid combat completely with little effort. Allow me to point you in the direction of the Anneke "block everything" decks which have had great success. >Gargoyles will also provide you with some, erm, interesting problems, at >least, with intelligent play. > >Siren's Lure provides some more interesting options. Fortitude from the >DoC makes it much harder for you to do anything substantial to them in >response, though their ability to advance in combat requires careful >consideration. > >Of course, Dominate is doing things much better. More often than not. >>So don't give me that >>making stuff up hoo-ha. > >Well, if Dominate can do everything that any other discipline can do, >and sometimes better, you are certainly making things up because this is >factually incorrect. > >> So no, Dominate does not provide additional >>strikes which is entirely unnessesary as it (dom) cancels impending >>combats either via Obedience or in combat with Thoughts Betrayed. > >It can cancel certain impending combats, and if you believe that >Thoughts Betrayed is serious combat *defence* then you're just ignoring >the facts of what other decks can do. Which is a part of VTES deckbuilding. Every deck is going to have weak spots. That is a given, which I'm sure even you must agree with. Point being that Dominate can cover more of those weaknesses than the other disciplines (when compared on a one-to-one basis). Potence answer to bleed = Rush Potence answer to combat = I Kill You Potence answer to vote = Rush Dominate answer to bleed = Bounce Dominate answer to combat = Avoidance Dominate answer to vote = Counter Vote Presence answer to bleed = Attempt to block? Presence answer to combat = Strike:Combat Ends Presence answer to vote = Vote Superiority or Counter Vote Some other disciplines have more options available to them than Potence, which is used in this example to show the sheer versatility that Dominate has available to others in comparison. And if using the strictest of terms (as you seem fond of) Potence doesn't even have rush available until adding in cards from outside it's discipline. >When you are in combat, you lose two blood to Thoughts Betrayed, which >you are unlikely to gain back. (Bearing in mind, of course, that this >use requires DOM, which is different from the weenie dom/DOM situation >that was notioned a few posts back.) This is, in itself, not >inconsiderable. > >The Brujah can, of course, throw down Torn Signpost and Blur. Thoughts >Betrayed does nothing. The Tzimisce have similarly styled options. >Weapon decks have weapons, and additional strikes, and will be mildly >hampered by not being able to play, say, Undead Strength, but you've >just paid two blood anyway, which might as well be two damage for all >the difference it will make. Toreador-esque gun decks (most likely as a >sideline to another option, given the difficulties, though Telepathic >Tracking is a potentially potent option) do well here, similarly the >!Tor hand damage decks that have been gone over again recently, playing >the Art of Pain and so on. The Gangrel do lose the really quite nice >option of Scorpion Sting (a pity) but do have the not inconsiderable >asset of Carrion Crows and claws, sufficient to torporise someone >arrogant enough to believe that Thoughts Betrayed was sufficient defence >for when people catch you. Glad to see you have numerous answers for Thoughts Betrayed. Shows that the Rules Team is doing it's job. My original point is that Dominate can cover more aspects of gameplay than any other discipline. Apparently you missed the point inferred and locked tunnelvision onto the single sentence "Dominate can do it all". >The Assamites are different, in that most of their power *does* come >from strikes. Certainly, Thoughts Betrayed is a potent defence against >this. (And it certainly seems it was intentional to develop this side >in Final Nights, from where I stand.) > > >Taking situations where Obedience is useful - weeniefied rush - you need >to be playing slightly older vampires. This makes weenie dom/DOM less >viable in this instance. However, assuming you're tapped, they rush >you, enter combat, you die. So you need to untap or wake *or* already >be untapped. (As covered elsewhere, Dominate has no useful sources of >untap in this manner, though Obedience will "not tap" you if you were >untapped.) This means another resource down - either an action >potentially missed, or a Wake used for defence in that option that could >otherwise have been used for, say, Deflection - an important trade-off, >given that you lack serious bleed defence in other ways, being unable to >take out other serious bleeders, for instance. > >But in any event, weenified rush can result in situations where you're >facing three or four rushes a turn, with careful use of Haven >Uncovereds. (Where an intelligent player picks a vampire who is tapped, >so your untapped would-be Obedience fodder can't come in, because they >can't block the +1 stealth.) > >>Seeing as you want to focus on Combat. > >This is untrue. :( Really? Just counting the number of lines which are used to point out combat fallicies, it would appear so. Of course, I could just be lying again. >Had I wanted to focus on combat, I would have done so. Combat was one >topic among lots. However, because combat has so many diverse options >it is certainly easier to make the point that you're basic assertion is >fundamentally flawed. > > >>I'll say it up front, Dominate >>(on it's own) will not be able to hit harder than a combat oriented >>deck. Point is that they don't need to. > >No, they don't need to. > >That's not the point you initially made, however, which was that >Dominate could do everything other disciplines could do, and sometimes >better. Certainly, Presence doesn't need to be able to deal out >aggravated damage, but then no-one was claiming that Presence could do >everything Protean (or whatever) could do. > >You're seemingly attempting to prejudge other people's options. >Dominate certainly has its place in multiple useful deck-styles (either >heavily focused, or not). It is not, however, the only deck style or, >indeed, the only viable deck-style. Lasombra's deck archive is a >testament to that. As is my 2-day win at Origins last year. One deck based primarily on Protean. But you just don't seem to be able to grasp the point James. And I'm tired of spelling it out for you. >Someone whose metagame is substantially shifted in such a fashion as you >need to be able to hit out combatively (or defend with 100% accuracy) or >DIE (these things happen) will find many reasons to avoid Dominate as an >all-curing panacea. > >Someone whose ability with combat is such that they find themselves much >more able to control a table sufficiently for a table-win (for instance, >they can quickly despatch a prey, followed by waiting until they're down >to the final two and just kill the other player for 3VPs for a table >win, able to manipulate and distract people in the mean-time ("Oh, it >was just a lucky flow of cards. It's a bit combo intensive, I mean, >look, I'm having to discard <X>, <Y> and <Z>")) will find many reasons >to avoid Dominate because Dominate is not a generally useful discipline >for advancing in combat. (Of course, certain corner cases exist, where >players have skilfully used the inferior version of Thoughts Betrayed to >great effect when the cards have turned up right.) Seeing as we're still mumbling on about combat decks. Here's a fact for you: Combat decks are harder to win with. Can they win? Sure! Peter finally won a tournament with his Nossie deck (you go Pete!), which is a very strong deck. How many years of playing and tweaking to get him there? I first saw it back in 1998. >Those wanting to control their position on the table - in terms of >physicality - will need to move forward into Presence and may, as a >result, shift away from Dominate. Calling votes is not something to >which Dominate is well-suited. Few would note political decks as being >non-viable in most non-metagame specific circumstances - it is certainly >possible to play political decks well. As noted numerous times, Dominate (in terms of vote) is most effective in the Anti-Ventrue deck. It (dom) has no power in bringing votes to the table, it's strength (in voting) is preventing other vote decks from having total table advantage. Point being that Dominate can participate in the Political arena, even if it's role is primarily reactive. Can Celerity do that? How about Protean? Necromancy? and so on.. An example being the well documented case of Kindred Coercion saving my bacon during the Origins qualifier last year vs. Dave Tatoo. >>> Combat is *obviously* one arena where Dominate can, in your >>> words, "[do] everything that any other discipline can do". >>> Quite clearly so. >> >>And better too. When your rush predator has hand jam all day long >>from not being able to cycle cards. I'd say it's pretty damn effective. > >Against a dedicated rush deck, you need two or three defences every >turn. That many untapped vampires, that many wakes and that many >Obediences (season to taste) prevent Dominate being an all-seeing, all- >knowing, all-powerful discipline in this regard. In the right deck, blocking 2-3 rush actions per turn is not unthinkable. Again I refer you to the Anneke "block everything" deck types. >It is certainly a poor player who has not considered what happens when a >rush is foiled. (As can happen with many decks.) Inclusion of hand- >cycling mechanisms and careful use of discard phases, along with >repeated drawing out of your defence in less intensive manners (with, >for instance, Haven Uncovered) is not exactly uncommon for any people >with a handle on the situation. > >Offensive, *productive* combat is a difficult style to play. History >shows us that it is certainly possible, however. > > >>>Bounce: Telepathic Misdirection and My Enemy's Enemy exist, but in >>> general Redirection and Deflection are, indeed, the better >>> choice. Of course, if we're looking more generally at bleed >>> *defence*, then Dominate is far from the only option. Folderol, >>> Telepathic Counter, Folderol, various Chimerstry cards and >>> Folderol all provide useful bleed reduction. >> >>Never said it was the only option, though I think people would argue >>that Deflection is usually the best option for not having to tap. > >But you're not doing everything that other disciplines are doing, still. > >Deflection is certainly a powerful option, as noted. (Redirection vs >Deflection is a separate argument.) > > >-- >James Coupe Bernie B.

On Wed, 13 Mar 2002 09:11:20 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <3c8ecba0...@netnews.attbi.com>, >berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>Are you going to continue with criticism with the remainder of my >>message or is it too convenient to stop where it suits you. > >My apologies for also having a life to attend to. No apology necessary. Life priorities should always preclude game stuff. >Next time, I'll e-mail you to ask for permission before going off to do >important things like, err, my degree. If you'd care to e-mail my >department, I'm sure they'll happily bend the immutable deadline to >which I'm working. Really?? Nice to see I have some clout across the water. Send me that e-mail address and I'll hook you up. >Or alternatively, you could ego-wank yourself some more and prove just >how little you actually know - because, of course, Dominate can do >everything and your personal methods of playing the game absolutely, 100 >per cent over-ride other people's considerations. Of course, bleeding >other Methuselahs absolutely loses you the game. Or alternatively, it >gives you a serious bargaining tool. Obviously, we should all bend to >your all-conquering, all-seeing knowledge of the game which seems to >being and end with your personal prejudices. Repeated threads show how >little you seem to actually understand. :( Considering that I usually don't post often on the newsgroup, it's of some interest that you've read all of my threads. But then again, you read all threads. Not bad for someone with no free time. >I am continually appalled by the complete lack of knowledge you show >regarding the game and am continually and repeatedly shocked to newer >and deeper levels that people with this little ability to show critical >thought regarding the game were responsible for the NJL split. Who says this is an NJL thing? I was a founding member of said group, but fail to see how my involvement with them has anything to do with this thread. Oh, that's right! I'm a idiot designated so by Mr. Coupe! So how could a upstanding group of people as the NJL place me on the NJL RulesTeam? Quite simple really, I have the ability to ask questions AND listen (some folks have a real problem with the listen part). Quite freely admit that there are others within my group that have a greater degree of knowledge regarding the multitude of errata which flows down from on high. It doesn't mean that my contributions to the team are insignificant. >>Or is that proper netiquette? > >It's considered proper netiquette to snip the bits to which you are not >replying. Since I was not replying to the rest of that post, when I >posted, I snipped it. Seeing as you only read 2/3rds of a given post I suppose that makes sense. >Would you prefer I trail the rest of the post for you because you don't >understand how Usenet works? > >You keep the bits you're referring to, you snip the other bits. I >wasn't referring to the other bits because I didn't have time and many >of the points that could have been made were variations on a theme - >basically, you're being arrogant beyond belief thinking you can dictate >other people's play-styles based on what works for you, and decide that >that makes Dominate do everything, when it clearly, factually doesn't. Who said I was dictating how other people play? I posted a query/statement showing the inherent strengths of dominate for the consideration of others. If they choose not to do so is no skin off my back. >So I snipped the parts I wasn't referring to. > >That's. How. It. Works. > >I'm sorry if this is too difficult for you. Perhaps you know better >than long-established netiquette and I really should spend my whole life >on Usenet responding to your posts, following your orders and licking >your boots. Seeing as you obviously have nothing better to do. Not having any boots to lick, I'll settle for following my orders. Order #1: Be Happy. Order #2: Give priority to the things in life that have real meaning. Order #3: Don't lick boots, it's unseemly. >Now, run along, there's a good chap. I understand that this might be >difficult for you but invoking "proper netiquette" only really helps >when you're *right*. Your desire to make me respond to every point you >make when it suits you is not, and never has been, part of netiquette. >So please don't make comments about things you clearly don't understand. People that invoke proper netiquette do so primarily to brow-beat others with their own seeming intelligence. Isn't that about right, or do I still not understand? >James Coupe Bernie Bresnahan - The other white meat

In message <3c924310....@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >>Or alternatively, you could ego-wank yourself some more and prove just >>how little you actually know - because, of course, Dominate can do >>everything and your personal methods of playing the game absolutely, 100 >>per cent over-ride other people's considerations. Of course, bleeding >>other Methuselahs absolutely loses you the game. Or alternatively, it >>gives you a serious bargaining tool. Obviously, we should all bend to >>your all-conquering, all-seeing knowledge of the game which seems to >>being and end with your personal prejudices. Repeated threads show how >>little you seem to actually understand. :( > >Considering that I usually don't post often on the newsgroup, it's of >some interest that you've read all of my threads. But then again, you >read all threads. Not bad for someone with no free time. I read pretty much every thread that turns up in rec.games.trading- cards.jyhad, when I have the time. Occasionally, some posts go walk about, due to the nature of Usenet. And I am unsure as to where you have developed the idea that I have no free time. Quite clearly, I do. I didn't, at that time, and haven't had a great deal for the last few days. (Those extrapolating my free time from the number of posts I make may care to consider that much of my work is done on computers, or in my room, as I find libraries unhelpfully claustrophobic. Given various other responsibilities I have, I need to monitor my incoming news and mail, as various important (to me) items may come in that way. As a result, seeing new posts come in is not exactly hard. It is also generally true that I will work far more efficiently and usefully when under some degree of time pressure, hence it is sometimes (perhaps often, doing an arts degree) the case that I can put off work for a while and just mess around doing random shit/other jobs. And where some might, say, spend a few evenings a week playing in a band, I often don't - I actually enjoy using various different bits of computers and the 'net in general hence I may also be reading bits of Usenet whilst, say, watching/listening to a broadcast, using IRC, talking to a friend on ICQ, updating a website or similar - and, for reference, the groups to which I tend to pay most attention varies from time to time, but at the moment are probably uk.misc (read selectively, because of the current troll infestation which recurs occasionally, along with wildly spurious cross-posting, which isn't part of the UKMTC, people just think it is) and rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad. Bear in mind also that I can generally type quickly (occasionally, my ablty t otype goesall to pot and i Have to retype it, andmyspacebar seems todecide to stop working properlyeverycoupleof weeks at themoment) and know my way around rulings, card text files, on-line databases and so on, for when I need to drag those things up. Usenet is very often a background thing, that I use as a distraction from whatever else it is I'm doing - except for when I post items that are six or seven hundred lines long.) >>I am continually appalled by the complete lack of knowledge you show >>regarding the game and am continually and repeatedly shocked to newer >>and deeper levels that people with this little ability to show critical >>thought regarding the game were responsible for the NJL split. > >Who says this is an NJL thing? You were (partly) responsible for issuing rulings in that environment. Yet you asserted that false things are true. Were you just a random newbie who'd only been playing the game for a few months in a small isolated group, that would be one thing. Hence the comment. >Oh, that's right! I'm a idiot designated so by Mr. Coupe! More usefully, you've repeatedly asserts that lies are true, even when corrected. >So how could a upstanding group of people as the NJL place me on >the NJL RulesTeam? Quite simple really, I have the ability to ask >questions AND listen (some folks have a real problem with the listen >part). So why, when you were told that what you were posting was not true, did you continue to post that it was? That is not how I understand listening to work. That is ignoring the truth. >>>Or is that proper netiquette? >> >>It's considered proper netiquette to snip the bits to which you are not >>replying. Since I was not replying to the rest of that post, when I >>posted, I snipped it. > >Seeing as you only read 2/3rds of a given post I suppose that makes >sense. This is not true. You are, again, posting things that are not true. >>You keep the bits you're referring to, you snip the other bits. I >>wasn't referring to the other bits because I didn't have time and many >>of the points that could have been made were variations on a theme - >>basically, you're being arrogant beyond belief thinking you can dictate >>other people's play-styles based on what works for you, and decide that >>that makes Dominate do everything, when it clearly, factually doesn't. > >Who said I was dictating how other people play? Your post quite demonstrably showed how going contrary to your vision gains zero VPs. LSJ has cited this point in one of his posts. >I posted a >query/statement showing the inherent strengths of dominate for the >consideration of others. No, you posted a statement lying about Dominate's strengths, when you had already been corrected on this point. >>Now, run along, there's a good chap. I understand that this might be >>difficult for you but invoking "proper netiquette" only really helps >>when you're *right*. Your desire to make me respond to every point you >>make when it suits you is not, and never has been, part of netiquette. >>So please don't make comments about things you clearly don't understand. > >People that invoke proper netiquette do so primarily to brow-beat others >with their own seeming intelligence. Sometimes, but this can vary greatly between groups. If this is what you are seeing predominantly in your newsgroups, you may care to experience some others. (And I am only, so far as I know, only present in one group you read, unless you lurk in other groups I use.) >Isn't that about right, or do I >still not understand? Perhaps in the areas of Usenet you use, you are right. Usenet can be quite diverse. talk.origins, for example. *shudder* I've been given reports of talk.politics.medicine (I think) which tended to end up as "I pay for medical insurance/private health insurance (alter according to locations) so why won't my doctor prescribe things on demand?" Then you get groups like, in uk.*, uk.rec.motorcycling (or is it motorcycles? no matter), which is usually the biggest group in uk.* for posts. As uk.* Control put it when we spoke about it, bikers are chatty. Lots of comp.* is quite functional - things stay quite focused and on-topic in a lot of groups. comp.lang.perl.misc actually springs to mind as one group which would be pretty much to the contrary of your statement e.g. Randal [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 15 Mar 2002 15:17:35 +0000, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >In message <55F04142265036DD.22A44EFC...@lp.airnew [ quoted text not captured ] Exceptionally stated James. A lot of nastiness on this thread probably could have been avoided had you simply asked me to elaborate my point a bit further. The implication of ALL meant that it (dom) could participate in all arenas of play, while not perfectly executed was the intent of my topic. As has been pointed out, there are a number of things that dominate cannot do (on it's own). Peace & Out, BernieTime

So let's just boil down a lot of attitudes into a few items: James: I'm English Bernie: I'm Irish James: I don't like you Bernie: I don't like you either James: I think you're an idiot Bernie: I think you're a sycophant James: It's people like you that destoy the newsgroup Bernie: It's people like you that keep others from getting involved on the newsgroup James: I have no repect for the NJL except for people that call me "pig-fucker". Bernie: The NJL has put aside old prejudices to bring everyone into playing one game. We put it behind us, so why can't you? Peace & Out, BernieTime

In message <3c924767....@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >Exceptionally stated James. > >A lot of nastiness on this thread probably could have been avoided had >you simply asked me to elaborate my point a bit further. Your initial point was completely untrue - something which I noted simply and directly. When something is unclear, it is usually possible to ask for elaboration or clarification. When something is untrue, there is little to elaborate. YMM(OD)V [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <3c924c03....@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM writes: >James: I have no repect for the NJL except for people that call me >"pig-fucker". This is fundamentally untrue. I would ask you to read the thread again. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <55F04142265036DD.22A44EFC...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> mumbled something about: >the dog is a mammal" discussion from me. To make it more useful, >could someone please post an example of the uber-Dominate deck as I, >for one, might be interested in playing it if it's so good. Currently >I'm not quite digging how it deals with combat and vote decks. cf. Google search for "Crypt Machine", deck listing thereof. The variants you will find range from the original version many years ago (disciplineless Dodge as combat defense, Pulling Strings as vote defense) to the ultra-fast version played by Patrick O'Shea at the Atlanta qualifier (60 cards, no vote defense, no combat defense, bleeds for ~15 per turn) to variants utilizing Gloria Giovanni and miscellaneous others. All share the same basic characteristics: 1) use of small-capacity Dominate vampires 2) use of superior Govern the Unaligned to avoid paying very much, and in some cases anything at all for additional vampires past #1 3) heavy use of ALL Dominate bleed cards and modifiers 4) heavy use of Seduction and Sleeping Mind to avoid being caught 5) heavy use of Deflection, since almost every deck will eventually bleed you The "classic" version makes use of 12 four-cap vampires with inferior Dominate, and a bunch of skill cards in the deck. The first one out gets a skill card on turn 2, and plays superior Govern on the second. One transfer is made to each of 3 remaining vamps, the second vamp comes out. Turn 3, the second vamp gets a skill card, both play superior Govern (with Seduction if necessary) -- 2 more vamps come out, spend 4 transfers and 1 pool to see the 5th. At the start of turn 4, you have spent 8 pool (including the 1 pool to see a crypt vamp), and have 4 vampires with Dominate. Some decks will have just gotten their first or second vampire. Normally at this point the deck empties its hand of any card with chain-links on it, bleeding for a ridiculous amount. Wakes, Deflections, etc. will slow down the relatively inevitable, and intercept wall decks that are using their head CAN kill it, as long as they have a way around Seduction. Its defense against most things is simply "have more pool and more minions than they can easily get rid of". Ways to stop it? Have early +1 intercept available to more than one vampire and stop the superior Govern actions. Be able to Deflect lots. Be able to pool-gain lots. Be able to Rush vampires lots. Toolbox decks generally just get run over. Many focused decks also get run over, because the definition of "lots" really is "lots". Playing this thing is tantamount to putting a large bullseye on your forehead, taping a $20 to it, and daring the table to come get you. In certain environments (the Southeast), influencing a vampire such as Laurent de Valois, Shane Grimald, or Ramiro first may earn you early cross-table Sudden Reversals, KRC points, or "i-just-gotta-cycle-cards" Rushes, along with the sarcastic question "gee, is that a 4-cap with inferior Dominate?" Frequently, it dies from getting mobbed by 4 other players. Just as frequently, it gets mobbed and sweeps anyway. It's not unbeatable, and the current environment has made it somewhat weaker (lots more +1 intercept, specifically). But it's awfully damn good. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

You know, I think Bernie and James are the yin and yang of this forum. As a long time lurker I would definately agree with a previous poster that James's samewhat literal grasp of english seems to cause these issues. It was obvious to me that what bernie originally meant was basically 'Dominate is the best discipline'. As proven by James and others that assertion can be challenged, but at Tournament level it *is* obvious it is one of the most played disciplines. As someone who has no idea what rules groups anyone belonged to, I (and I suspect most post readers) don't care about prior affiliations and I submit to James that he should not post personal attacks based on previous personal experiences. However 'pig-fucker' insults should really not be bandied about either. Had the info that James is English (I should've guessed really) and Bernie is Irish been supplied earlier, I would've understood the antagonism much easier! PS - Necromancy is the best discipline - Go Giovanni!

On 15 Mar 2002 10:15:26 -0800, Xian wrote: >Doing a google search for "Crypt Machine" should provide a decklist, >at some point. It might even be on one of the deck archive sites. > >At heart, though, it's... It seems to me that Presence is equally good at doing a speed weenie deck. On the one hand, Dominate has the Govern trick for getting out more minions and good bleed defense (Deflection) but, on the other, Presence has good combat defense (Majesty) and lots of strong vote cards. I really wish that the winning deck archive was in a normalised format so that one could quickly analyse the comparative frequency of the cards by discipline. But here's a substitute. From the recent almost complete storyline stats: 8 Lasombra - dom, obt, pot 7 Ravnos - ani, chi, for 7 Ventrue - dom, for, pre 6 Brujah - cel, pot, pre 6 Gangrel - ani, for, pro 5 Followers - obf, pre, ser 4 Malkavian - aus, dom, obf, 4 Tremere - aus, dom, tha 3 Blood Bros - for, pot, san 3 Giovanni - dom, nec, pot 3 !Malkavian - aus, dem, obf 3 Toreador - aus, cel, pre 2 Assamites - cel, obf, qui 2 Nosferatu - ani, obf, pot 2 Ahrimanes - ani, pre, spi 2 Tzimisce - ani, aus, vic 1 !Gangrel - ani, aus, pro 1 !Nosferatu - ani, obf, pot 1 Salubri - aus, for, obe 1 !Toreador - aus, cel, pre 1 !Ventrue - aus, dom, for 1 Pander - ? This makes the weighted discipline totals as below and so Dominate is indeed the winner (though not by much). dom 27 for 25 pre 24 pot 23 ani 21 aus 20 obf 13 cel 12 obt 8 chi 7 pro 7 ser 5 obf 4 tha 4 dem 3 nec 3 san 3 qui 2 spi 2 vic 2 obe 1 Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:7CF9F06E8C7009A2.8789A9A3...@lp.airnews.net... > It seems to me that Presence is equally good at doing a speed weenie > deck. On the one hand, Dominate has the Govern trick for getting out > more minions and good bleed defense (Deflection) but, on the other, > Presence has good combat defense (Majesty) and lots of strong vote > cards. That intuition is probably correct. They each have their advantages and drawbacks. Presence has somewhat better combat defense, but Dominate has much better bleed defense. In a tournament, you are likely to see much more decks focusing on bleed, as opposed to combat. Of course, I'm talking the world over, not just the UK metagame. :) > I really wish that the winning deck archive was in a normalised format > so that one could quickly analyse the comparative frequency of the Yes, that would be nice. I'm sure if someone volunteered to do the work, Jeff would probably post it on his site. > cards by discipline. But here's a substitute. From the recent almost > complete storyline stats: Not really a useful analysis, because without looking at the winning decklists, it's hard to say whether or not they actually used all of those disciplines, or if they added any "off" disciplines, like Ben Peal's (winning) Ravnos deck that used Dominate as well, or if someone won with a Setites with Dominate deck. > 8 Lasombra - dom, obt, pot > 7 Ravnos - ani, chi, for > 7 Ventrue - dom, for, pre > 6 Brujah - cel, pot, pre > 6 Gangrel - ani, for, pro > 5 Followers - obf, pre, ser > 4 Malkavian - aus, dom, obf, > 4 Tremere - aus, dom, tha Or you might as well say that of the clans with four or more wins, half of them had dominate. Or something along those lines. I'm not sure that the weighted discipline totals are really useful either, for much the same reason. Fortitude, Dominate, and Presence all scored high, but perhaps they were artifically boosted by the way you are analyzing the Ventrue (who had 7 wins); in reality, perhaps only one of the decks used Fortitude, and the others made do with just Presence and Dominate. Xian

James Coupe wrote: > A community leader is not necessarily a good base for someone who needs > substantial, in-depth, critical knowledge of a game. > This is a false statement. A good Leader simple has to be good at leading. Any other skills and abilities help to support the leadership position. Just take a close look as GW Bush. The best thing leaders can do is to get useful people to support them. > > > He has been asserting that false things are true. > > This is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of fact. <snip> > There were some people - clearly - who want a man who asserts lies are > truth (partly) responsible for issuing rulings. > > This is fact. You've noted that he was wanted, fact. I've noted that > he's asserted demonstrably false things are true, fact. > > Facts. Facts lie. You can reconstruct almost any situation to suit your position with Facts, but that will not make the position the best of most truthful one. Lawyers work with facts, and I would not trust a single one to actually tell the truth, but they NEVER Lie. > > *LSJ* (hint: not me) has demonstrated quite clearly in this thread that > Bernie has presented demonstrably untrue statements as truth. > > Why anyone would support someone's ability when he repeatedly lies about > such situations is beyond me but, hey, there you go. Perhaps Bernie purposefully mistaked the statements to create a situation when in a new view of the position could be captured. <Snip> > He's an American, too, you know. Obviously, all Americans are EVIL. > (This is, in fact, probably not true.) Its a Fact. Just ask the Taliban. But is it True? > > I mentioned it because it occurred. I could have mentioned that I found > it ludicrous Bernie was ever (partly) responsible for issuing rulings. Well Thats a Fact. So you will have to get over it. > However, this would seem confusing, given the nature of issuing rulings > *now*. Referencing the NJL clarifies the point that he was not > responsible for issuing DCI/RTR/DTR/LSJ type rulings. Uhm. How do you know that? LSJ issues the rules and ruling based on player input and discussion. In a small waym any person who influences LSJ to make a ruling, errata or such, has become responsible for issuing a ruling. They don't get to sign their name to it however. > > > >No. I was simply communicating my utter contempt of you. > > You have "utter contempt" for me, yet still respond to my posts. > Ah, here you fail to perceive our evil plan. By the continual reply to posts, we help keep your grades down, reducing your fiscal ability to earn money at the top of your career feild, eventually, this will cause a moral dilema, whenin you take to drink, and Vtes playing 24/7, eventually the life of sin causes bankruptcy and your ability to post to the newsgroup. Then we will all be happy. Raille

berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM wrote: > > James: I have no repect for the NJL except for people that call me > "pig-fucker". > Bernie: The NJL has put aside old prejudices to bring everyone into > playing one game. We put it behind us, so why can't you? James is 2dimensional. He has no behind. Raille

James Coupe wrote: > and i Have to retype it, andmyspacebar seems todecide to stop working > properlyeverycoupleof weeks at themoment) and know my way around > rulings, card text files, on-line databases and so on, for when I need > to drag those things up. Usenet is very often a background thing, that > I use as a distraction from whatever else it is I'm doing - except for > when I post items that are six or seven hundred lines long.) Well this explains a lot. R.g.t-c.j is simply a distraction from whatever else your doing. Maybe you could use more life and less game play? <snip> > > >Oh, that's right! I'm a idiot designated so by Mr. Coupe! > > More usefully, you've repeatedly asserts that lies are true, even when > corrected. I haven't seen any lies here! Bernie was flat out telling the truth, he is an idiot compared to you. > > So why, when you were told that what you were posting was not true, did > you continue to post that it was? > > That is not how I understand listening to work. That is ignoring the > truth. Bernie was making a statement. A Statement based on his personal views. This is not untrue by anymeans. Its a fact of Bernie views on the game. But we also Know that all facts are true and that Facts lie. > No, you posted a statement lying about Dominate's strengths, when you > had already been corrected on this point. > Raille

swcrusader wrote: > personal experiences. However 'pig-fucker' insults should really not > be bandied about either. Have to agree. Noal comments were to me, a little over the top, even for him. > Had the info that James is English (I should've guessed really) and > Bernie is Irish been supplied earlier, I would've understood the > antagonism much easier! Uhm. That might explain things. I'm a little Irish also. > PS - Necromancy is the best discipline - Go Giovanni! No! Serpentis! Raille

"Raille" <rai...@spamcop.net> wrote in message news:3C935A9C...@spamcop.net... > > > swcrusader wrote: > > > personal experiences. However 'pig-fucker' insults should really not > > be bandied about either. > > Have to agree. Noal comments were to me, a little over the top, even > for him. > I'm willing to give Noal a little leeway and see where he's going with this. Perhaps the question of whether or not James fucks pigs (or is a "swine-lover", the preferred term) is relevant to whether or not the NJL was a bunch of big stupids with bad teeth. As long as it's on-topic... ;) > > PS - Necromancy is the best discipline - Go Giovanni! > > No! Serpentis! > Melpominee, dude. Melpominee.

In message <7CF9F06E8C7009A2.8789A9A3...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> mumbled something about: >It seems to me that Presence is equally good at doing a speed weenie >deck. On the one hand, Dominate has the Govern trick for getting out >more minions and good bleed defense (Deflection) but, on the other, >Presence has good combat defense (Majesty) and lots of strong vote >cards. The vote cards are a wash, though. Dominate is better for vote defense than Presence ever will be, because of the single card Pulling Strings (shuts down Bewitching Oration and Awe on the spot). Presence can pass its own votes, something Dominate cannot do -- but in a bleed deck, this is irrelevant. Weenie Presence is very strong, but its lack of Deflection hurts it, as you can count on almost all decks attempting to bleed you, and only a few will try to beat you up. Worse, the decks that try to beat you up generally have provided counters for Majesty in some form or other, and so your combat defense may turn out to be totally worthless... which is where the Dominate deck's advantage comes in of not having even bothered trying in the first place. =) Presence also lacks Seduction and Sleeping Mind, which are critical to the offense of such a deck. >I really wish that the winning deck archive was in a normalised format >so that one could quickly analyse the comparative frequency of the >cards by discipline. But here's a substitute. From the recent almost >complete storyline stats: Valid conclusions regarding the current state of the game cannot be drawn from the Storyline stats. Several other people have alluded to this, but the clan restrictions (must have 9+ of one clan in your crypt to satisfy the 75% rule) forced people away from the strongest deck archetypes (discipline-based) and towards more goofy decks. It's also worth noting that many strong decks borrow equally from the "primary" and "antitribu" versions of clans, and THOSE decks were Storyline-illegal. Simply put, the clans that won can be classed very simply as "the clans who are best suited to a particular strong archetype", but they will NOT be the strongest decks of that given archetype -- and they also did not have to face a number of strong discipline-based archetypes. >8 Lasombra - dom, obt, pot >7 Ravnos - ani, chi, for This, for example, is slightly skewed. While the Ravnos are a strong clan and nothing to EVER take lightly (I would just like to note for the record that I've been telling people this since the week after Final Nights was released, and nobody believed me then... I also remember that some people were very vocal about how Week of Nightmares was such a sucky card), I would never rank them as second-strongest in the game. However, in an environment where weenies are very unlikely, all the Ravnos mid-caps with super-good discipline selection start to come into their own and become noticeably more viable -- pushing the Ravnos up the list for the Storyline tournaments. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 17 Mar 2002 06:05:25 GMT, Derek Ray wrote: >Valid conclusions regarding the current state of the game cannot be >drawn from the Storyline stats. That depends what you think "the game" is. Nobody plays the standard rulebook game. There are various constructed formats such as NRA, CL and clan. So far as VEKN is concerned, I only play draft and clan-based events. And I consider the storyline events to be the highest form of the game because they have an impact beyond finding that so-and-so won with such-and-such a deck. And we see that they are the most popular. >It's also worth noting that many strong decks borrow equally from the "primary" >and "antitribu" versions of clans, and THOSE decks were Storyline-illegal. And that's another reason that the storyline format is superior. The way that the unrestricted game drives you to combine opposing sects is stupid. INWO/Illuminati did this better. It also portrays a struggle between secret masters but its alignment mechanics make opposing groups tend to destroy each other than work together. >Simply put, the clans that won can be classed very simply as "the clans >who are best suited to a particular strong archetype", but they will NOT >be the strongest decks of that given archetype -- and they also did not >have to face a number of strong discipline-based archetypes. Nevertheless, it's still hard evidence that Dominate is the strongest discipline - better than the ad-hom mudslinging which passes for argument in the rest of the original thread (I'm now changing the subject line to disassociate myself from it <grin>) Dominate clans won 27/72 of the storyline events and no other discipline did as well. The results support Bernie's case. But it occurs to me that can study the non-storyline game in a similar way too. From Lasombra's archive of winning decks, the clan totals are: 22 Ventrue - dom, for, pre 16 Malkavian - aus, dom, obf, 11 Brujah - cel, pot, pre 10 Tzimisce - ani, aus, vic 9 Lasombra - dom, obt, pot 9 Nosferatu - ani, obf, pot 9 Toreador - aus, cel, pre 7 Tremere - aus, dom, tha 6 !Malkavian - aus, dem, obf 5 Gangrel - ani, for, pro 5 !Toreador - aus, cel, pre 4 !Nosferatu - ani, obf, pot 4 Pander - ? 3 Followers - obf, pre, ser 3 Assamites - cel, obf, qui 3 !Gangrel - ani, aus, pro 2 !Brujah - cel, pot, pre 2 Giovanni - dom, nec, pot 1 !Ventrue - aus, dom, for 1 Blood Bros - for, pot, san There are a bunch of non-clan decks and I categorise these as: 9 Pre 8 Dom 3 Ani 2 Dom Obf 2 Obf, Pre 2 Aus, Dom, For, Pot, Pro 1 Pot 1 Obf 1 Aus Obf 1 Aus, Dom 1 Dom, Pro 1 Aus 1 Aus, Pre Put this all together and you get a discipline victory ranking of: Disc Arch Story Total Vampires ---- --- ----- ----- -------- dom 71 27 98 172 pre 64 24 88 163 aus 63 20 83 196 obf 47 17 64 154 pot 41 23 64 167 for 31 25 56 159 ani 34 21 55 118 cel 30 12 42 156 pro 11 7 18 65 obt 9 8 17 32 vic 10 2 12 27 thau 7 4 11 71 dem 6 3 9 22 ser 3 5 8 33 chi 0 7 7 25 qui 3 2 5 28 nec 2 3 5 41 san 1 3 4 10 spi 0 2 2 5 obe 0 1 1 3 tem 0 0 0 3 dai 0 0 0 5 mel 0 0 0 5 val 0 0 0 5 myt 0 0 0 5 than 0 0 0 7 vis 0 0 0 8 The columns are the winning game archive, the storyline event and a total. The number of vampires having this discipline is included because this is a significant factor - Protean doesn't show so well from the original Camarilla disciplines because it isn't possessed by as many vampires and clans as the rest. If you divide the victory totals by the vampire total, you can get an interesting stat - victories per hundred vampires. Scarce disciplines like Obtenebration, Dementation and Sanguinous now reflect their true strength while Potence and Fortitude drop a lot. Dominate is still top though. Disc Victories/Vampires/100 ---- ---------------------- dom 57 pre 54 obt 53 ani 47 vic 44 aus 42 obf 42 dem 41 san 40 spi 40 pot 38 for 35 obe 33 chi 28 pro 28 cel 27 ser 24 qui 18 thau 15 nec 12 Dominate seems to come out best any way you slice it except one. When it comes to weenie decks, the archive shows that Presence has a slight edge. And what I want to know is what's wrong with the Giovanni? They're a Dominate clan with another respectable discipline, Potence, but just don't perform. Does Necromancy drag them down? One might ask similar questions about the antitribu Ventrue but I assume that their problem is that they are too much in the shadow of the main clan. Andrew

In message <8DAF65143E61F0E3.8FC38A29...@lp.airnews.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> mumbled something about: >On Sun, 17 Mar 2002 06:05:25 GMT, Derek Ray wrote: > >>Valid conclusions regarding the current state of the game cannot be >>drawn from the Storyline stats. > >That depends what you think "the game" is. Nobody plays the standard As everyone else has been discussing for this whole thread and every other time the subject comes up, it's the current state of the tournament game. The current state of the individual playgroups is completely dependent on the playgroups themselves, and therefore is not predictable. >that so-and-so won with such-and-such a deck. And we see that they >are the most popular. Because there was a broken promo card attached to them. Duh. >>It's also worth noting that many strong decks borrow equally from the "primary" >>and "antitribu" versions of clans, and THOSE decks were Storyline-illegal. > >And that's another reason that the storyline format is superior. The >way that the unrestricted game drives you to combine opposing sects is >stupid. INWO/Illuminati did this better. It also portrays a struggle >between secret masters but its alignment mechanics make opposing >groups tend to destroy each other than work together. Your opinion is noted. We are glad that you feel free to share the opinion that the ability to "borrow" from an antitribu clan is stupid. However, as this is not a role-playing game, but is instead a strategic card game, then we will simply have to mark it as "just an opinion" and move on. >>Simply put, the clans that won can be classed very simply as "the clans >>who are best suited to a particular strong archetype", but they will NOT >>be the strongest decks of that given archetype -- and they also did not >>have to face a number of strong discipline-based archetypes. > >Nevertheless, it's still hard evidence that Dominate is the strongest >discipline - better than the ad-hom mudslinging which passes for (shrug) The argument you present below is much better hard evidence that Dominate is the most powerful discipline. Not that it needed much hard evidence to begin with. >argument in the rest of the original thread (I'm now changing the >subject line to disassociate myself from it <grin>) Dominate clans >won 27/72 of the storyline events and no other discipline did as well. >The results support Bernie's case. Bernie's case is flawed, but largely due to the way Bernie stated it. >But it occurs to me that can study the non-storyline game in a similar >way too. From Lasombra's archive of winning decks, the clan totals >are: > >22 Ventrue - dom, for, pre >16 Malkavian - aus, dom, obf, Also, it takes very little experience to conclude that the Ventrue are using FOR as a distant third, and the Malkavians were using AUS as a less-distant third. >11 Brujah - cel, pot, pre Second appearance of Presence -- often touted as the second-best. >10 Tzimisce - ani, aus, vic Second appearance of Auspex, and this time in a primary role. > 9 Lasombra - dom, obt, pot Third of Dominate, second stealth discipline, and second POT. > 9 Nosferatu - ani, obf, pot Third stealth discipline, third POT, and this is just the top 6. Animalism has made a show twice, although here it is probably not used very much. > 9 Toreador - aus, cel, pre Third for Auspex and Presence. Celerity an obvious distant third. >There are a bunch of non-clan decks and I categorise these as: > >9 Pre >8 Dom Also not surprising. >Disc Arch Story Total Vampires >---- --- ----- ----- -------- >dom 71 27 98 172 >pre 64 24 88 163 >aus 63 20 83 196 >obf 47 17 64 154 >pot 41 23 64 167 And this matches up with what we see above. >Dominate seems to come out best any way you slice it except one. When >it comes to weenie decks, the archive shows that Presence has a slight >edge. And that's because most people feel really filthy playing the Samson, Ohanna, Mustafa, and Royce deck. =) >And what I want to know is what's wrong with the Giovanni? They're a >Dominate clan with another respectable discipline, Potence, but just >don't perform. Does Necromancy drag them down? One might ask similar Actually, they perform VERY well, and have done so lately. But I suspect their non-appearance in Storyline events was simply due to style choice -- their most effective deck is a stealth/bleed variant, and people shy away from this. >questions about the antitribu Ventrue but I assume that their problem >is that they are too much in the shadow of the main clan. The !Ventrue have the same difficulty the Ventrue do -- no stealth. The Ventrue make up for it by the raw effectiveness of the Traditions (when you get the action through, it will matter lots), the cheap availability of Princes, and the free S:CE from Majesty. [ quoted text not captured ]

Andrew S. Davidson wrote: > >It's also worth noting that many strong decks borrow equally from > >the "primary" and "antitribu" versions of clans, and THOSE decks were > >Storyline-illegal. > > And that's another reason that the storyline format is superior. The > way that the unrestricted game drives you to combine opposing sects is > stupid. INWO/Illuminati did this better. It also portrays a struggle > between secret masters but its alignment mechanics make opposing > groups tend to destroy each other than work together. I disagree. The vampires from opposing sects aren't necessarily working together. They're simply doing the bidding of their hidden Methuselah master. > And what I want to know is what's wrong with the Giovanni? They're a > Dominate clan with another respectable discipline, Potence, but just > don't perform. Does Necromancy drag them down? There's nothing wrong with the Giovanni. The Seduction/Call of the Hungry Dead bleed archetype is very strong. I'm just surprised it's not being used more often. > One might ask similar questions about the antitribu Ventrue but I assume > that their problem is that they are too much in the shadow of the main clan. Nah, people just aren't using their Obtenebration enough. - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com

Nicely done, sir! I think this is my favorite piece on the newsgroup in some time. I think your reasoning is wrong, mind - but it was polite, well-written, and thought provoking. > Nevertheless, it's still hard evidence that Dominate is the strongest > discipline - better than the ad-hom mudslinging which passes for > argument in the rest of the original thread (I'm now changing the > subject line to disassociate myself from it <grin>) Dominate clans > won 27/72 of the storyline events and no other discipline did as well. > The results support Bernie's case. > Sure...if there's a 'best' discipline, it might well be Dominate. Bleeding for a lot is always a good approach if you want to win. However, I can't agree with your conclusion that victories per discipline is meaningful when you count it that way. After all, dominate is a common discipline: if a Ventrue deck wins, you count it as a victory for presence, dominate, and fortitude; if a Tremere deck wins, you count it as a victory for thaumaturgy, auspex, and dominate, and so on. Obviously, the 'rare' disciplines that are found with a large number of vampires who also have dominate are going to do very badly under this formula, while the Lasombra, with few Obtenebrators, will do rather well. Another way of thinking here is like this: let us suppose that all of the clans discipline sets - including the Blood Brothers and Ahrimanes, but not the other Bloodline clans, who haven't won any tournaments I'm aware of - were equal in strength, and won an equal amount over 234 games (which is about our sample size). If we compare the 'expected' victories, based on the presumption that each of the clan discipline sets is equal in strength, to the actual results, we can get the deviance - and this works out as: Disc Vamp Clans Exp V Exp V/V Act V/V Deviance ani 118 4 52 44 47 +7% aus 196 6 78 40 42 +6% cel 156 4 52 33 27 -19% chi 25 1 13 52 28 -46% dem 22 1 13 59 41 -31% dom 172 5 65 38 57 +51% for 159 5 65 41 35 -14% nec 41 1 13 32 12 -62% obf 154 5 65 42 42 -0% obt 32 1 13 41 53 +30% pot 167 4 52 31 38 +22% pre 163 5 65 40 54 +35% pro 65 2 26 40 28 -30% qui 28 1 13 46 18 -61% san* 10 1 4 39 40 +3% ser 33 1 13 39 24 -39% spi* 5 1 4 78 40 -49% thau 71 1 13 18 15 -18% vic 27 1 13 48 44 -9% *since these disciplines have only been available for a limited time, I weighted them at 30% of the victories expected for the others. 'Exp V' means Expected Victories, 'Exp V/V' and 'Act V/V' refer to victories per vampire with the appropriate discipline. This suggests that Dominate is indeed overrepresented - followed by Presence, Obtenebrate, Potence, Animalism, Auspex, Sanguinus, and Obfuscate, in that order. (My sample size is slightly smaller than the actual sample; I chose it in order to avoid fractions) The underrepresented disciplines are, from 'best' to 'worst', Vicissitude, Fortitude, Thaumaturgy, Celerity, Protean, Dementation, Serpentis, Chimersty, Spiritus, Quietus, and Necromancy. I don't think for a moment that this is a very good way of measuring the strengths of the disciplines, for three reasons. First, it's my belief that the non-primary clan - primary clan discipline ratio is higher among the one-clan disciplines like Thaumaturgy and Protean than it is among the multi-clan disciplines like Dominate and Potence. I could be wrong - I'm certainly not about to check. Second, we're only speculating on the number of vampires in the winning decks that have the disciplines - it could well be that some of the winning 'Ventrue' decks had zero fortitude cards and twenty obfuscate cards, for example. I refuse to try to work out the exact numbers. =) A great number of basically one-clan decks only play two of the three disciplines. Third, and most importantly, we only have access to the winning decks. In order to have meaningful numbers, we would need to know how many unsuccessful decks at the tournament level had the relevant disciplines - I'm going to bet that you'll find that Dominate, for example, is simply played more at the tournament level than the other disciplines with a comparable number of vampires - and, if so, it's hardly surprising that it should win more. Hannigan

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 09:07:16 +0000, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote: > >But it occurs to me that can study the non-storyline game in a similar >way too. From Lasombra's archive of winning decks, the clan totals >are: > >22 Ventrue - dom, for, pre >16 Malkavian - aus, dom, obf, >11 Brujah - cel, pot, pre Just curious if you somehow forgot the euro-brujah.... T

In message <bf72a12e.02031...@posting.google.com>, fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) mumbled something about: >Andrew S. Davidson wrote: >> One might ask similar questions about the antitribu Ventrue but I assume >> that their problem is that they are too much in the shadow of the main clan. > > Nah, people just aren't using their Obtenebration enough. SHSHSHSHSHSH!@#$!#$ I actually just built/played a stealth-vote !Ventrue deck -- Quentin and Gustav repeatedly outvoted Alexandra, Anneke, and Victoria Ash. (on the defensive with some help from a cross-table Francois Villon, on the offensive just by Quentin's ability and TVC). Now, if I'd drawn into my Sudden Reversals for the Minion Taps, or my intercept for the 5ths, I might have done much better. =/ Oh well. The crypt only has 2 vamps without at least AUS/obt, though -- Kyle Strathcona (can't turn down a 9-cap Cardinal), and Dominique (can't turn down an in-clan 7-cap with a cool ability). There's a lot more of it out there than one would think. [ quoted text not captured ]

<Talo...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3c9655e4.168147383@news... [ quoted text not captured ] No, the problem is that he's making the assumption that any deck that focuses on a clan will use all three of their "clan" disciplines. Which is a rash assumption, if you ask me. Sure, one can make that generalization, but you'd get a much better picture if you went through the decks and checked what library cards were in there, or at least what the crypt tended towards. Of course, since there isn't really a uniform standard for the decks that are entered in there, this is a challenging task at best. I'd be willing to bet that a good third to half of the Ventrue decks in there make no use of Fortitude, and that one fourth to a third of the Malkavian decks make no use of Auspex. Of course, this only makes Dominate look better, but I just thought I'd mention it. Xian

"Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote in message news:a760ia$ip2ej$1...@ID-123937.news.dfncis.de... > > > I'd be willing to bet that a good third to half of the Ventrue decks in > there make no use of Fortitude, and that one fourth to a third of the > Malkavian decks make no use of Auspex. Of course, this only makes Dominate > look better, but I just thought I'd mention it. > I'm curious as to why you say the Ventrue wouldn't use fortitude. Do that many people play them like that? I mean, I suppose they don't *absolutely* need it, but I can't imagine playing Ventrue without Freak Drives. And up until recently Kiss of Ra wasn't such a bad idea either.

In message <6Vxl8.66204$Yv2.26859@rwcrnsc54>, "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> mumbled something about: [ quoted text not captured ] Six Freak Drive and two Kiss of Ra in an 80-card deck isn't exactly a heavy use of Fortitude. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

"Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:6Vxl8.66204$Yv2.26859@rwcrnsc54... [I wrote snipped stuff about the Ventrue] > I'm curious as to why you say the Ventrue wouldn't use fortitude. Do that many > people play them like that? I mean, I suppose they don't *absolutely* need it, Not any more. :) > but I can't imagine playing Ventrue without Freak Drives. And up until recently > Kiss of Ra wasn't such a bad idea either. True. Admittedly, I wasn't thinking about Freak Drive. I don't really think of that as a Fortitude card per se. Looking through the TWD, the first Ventrue deck is okay, but it's much lighter on fortitude than Presence, and maybe about even on Dominate. The next one back is by Martin Cubberly, so I'm not surprised to see a fair amount of Fortitude in there (gotta love that UK combat metagame). The next one after that has 3 fortitude cards, none of them being combat. Again, the next one after that has maybe 8 or 10 fortitude cards, only about half of them are combat. If we go back towards the beginning we find more with very very little fortitude, and one without any (http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#conor). I didn't do an exhaustive search, just hopped around a lot. I guess that I'm just trying to say that it's...sketchy, at best, to say that, oh, fortitude is one of the most used disciplines, just because the Ventrue have it, and they've won a lot of tournaments. Yes, it may be on the vampires, but that doesn't mean it's used (much) in the actual deck. Hell, one Ventrue deck (http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k2rebekka) hardly used any Dominate, aside from the obligatory Deflections. Xian

"Derek Ray" <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:vkcd9us4j1v0agpge...@4ax.com... > In message <6Vxl8.66204$Yv2.26859@rwcrnsc54>, > "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> mumbled something about: > > >I'm curious as to why you say the Ventrue wouldn't use fortitude. Do that many > >people play them like that? I mean, I suppose they don't *absolutely* need it, > >but I can't imagine playing Ventrue without Freak Drives. And up until recently > >Kiss of Ra wasn't such a bad idea either. > > Six Freak Drive and two Kiss of Ra in an 80-card deck isn't exactly a > heavy use of Fortitude. =) > Why stop at 6? ;)

In message <pCyl8.72302$uA5....@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>, "Chris Berger" <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> mumbled something about: >"Derek Ray" <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message >news:vkcd9us4j1v0agpge...@4ax.com... >> >> Six Freak Drive and two Kiss of Ra in an 80-card deck isn't exactly a >> heavy use of Fortitude. =) >> >Why stop at 6? ;) After all the times you get blocked and Majesty out at superior, how many times are you REALLY going to need to untap? =) [ quoted text not captured ]

On 18 Mar 2002 10:35:23 -0800, Hannigan wrote: >Nicely done, sir! You're welcome. >If we compare the 'expected' victories, based on the presumption >that each of the clan discipline sets is equal in strength, to >the actual results, we can get the deviance - and this works out as: > > >Disc Vamp Clans Exp V Exp V/V Act V/V Deviance >ani 118 4 52 44 47 +7% >aus 196 6 78 40 42 +6% >cel 156 4 52 33 27 -19% >chi 25 1 13 52 28 -46% >dem 22 1 13 59 41 -31% >dom 172 5 65 38 57 +51% >... You seem to be weighting the stats by both the clan numbers and vampire numbers - isn't this double-counting? >This suggests that Dominate is indeed overrepresented All roads lead to the same conclusion. >I don't think for a moment that this is a very good way of measuring >the strengths of the disciplines, for three reasons. Granted. I'd really like to do the analysis from the deck lists but that is currently not practical. But I don't think the result is as bad as you suggest because many of the distortions will tend to cancel out and the average result will remain. Andrew

On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 18:21:42 -0600, "Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote: >> >> Just curious if you somehow forgot the euro-brujah.... > >No, the problem is that he's making the assumption that any deck that >focuses on a clan will use all three of their "clan" disciplines. Which is >a rash assumption, if you ask me. Granted, but the workload otherwise would be tremendous. *If* that assumption were to be true more or less, then we can be sure that his theory holds weight. And I think it does personally, but you are correct about the assumption. Would be nicer to have more exact discipline counts but alas.... And any Ventrue deck that doesnt use FOR has a serious hole in its ability to defend v POT rush imo. T

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<F93751A851AF8B6C.6895460A...@lp.airnews.net>... > > >If we compare the 'expected' victories, based on the presumption > >that each of the clan discipline sets is equal in strength, to > >the actual results, we can get the deviance - and this works out as: > > > > > >Disc Vamp Clans Exp V Exp V/V Act V/V Deviance > >ani 118 4 52 44 47 +7% > >aus 196 6 78 40 42 +6% > >cel 156 4 52 33 27 -19% > >chi 25 1 13 52 28 -46% > >dem 22 1 13 59 41 -31% > >dom 172 5 65 38 57 +51% > >... > > You seem to be weighting the stats by both the clan numbers and > vampire numbers - isn't this double-counting? Well, I think that the (admittedly flawed) premise that the clan the vampires were listed as was relevant to the disciplines that they played was fundamental to both your argument and my argument. So I don't think that counting the clans represented by each discipline is double counting - if the discipline sets were equal in strength, we would expect each clan to win as often as each other clan in a large enough number of games, no? Obviously, this ignores the very reasonable argument that the Brujah/!Brujah, say, just have more vampires to choose from than the Ahrimanes do, and can just make a better crypt, which will win some games. But we're just discussing generalities with some numbers thrown in anyway, right? My basic point is this: some way of predicting how many victories one would expect the various disciplines to have if they were of equal strength is useful in determining if some disciplines are overpowered. And, since we're not simply considering the disciplines possessed by the vampires in the winning decks, but trying to infer them from the listed clans, we should consider also the sum of the disciplines possessed by all clans that have won tournaments. > > >This suggests that Dominate is indeed overrepresented > > All roads lead to the same conclusion. Our conclusions on discipline strength are not actually the same, except that we both rank dominate and presence first, and necromancy last. > > >I don't think for a moment that this is a very good way of measuring > >the strengths of the disciplines, for three reasons. > > Granted. I'd really like to do the analysis from the deck lists but > that is currently not practical. But I don't think the result is as > bad as you suggest because many of the distortions will tend to cancel > out and the average result will remain. > Nah. I don't really believe that. I think, for instance, that any count of vampires that considers Assamites and City Gangrel to be Obfuscate based clans, Toreadors to be a Celerity clan, or Nosferatu to have all three disciplines is fundamentally flawed. You could certainly build an Assamite Obfuscate deck, I've wanted to for some time (basing it on Embraces, Heartblood of the Clan, Khabar: Community, and even, if you felt inclined, Alamut) - but I've never actually seen one. How can I weight something like that? I can't. My own belief is that Obfuscate is actually a 'better' discipline as Obtenebrate, or that the two are at least equal; but it would be very hard to prove. I'd say that maybe 50% of the vampires who have Obfuscate are both playable and want to have the discipline; I'd say that maybe 75% of vampires with Obtenebrate are playable and want to have the discipline. That said, I don't think that the results are useless; just that there are so many flaws in the process that you can't really point to them and say that they prove anything either. Hannigan

<Talo...@nospam.hotmail.com> wrote in message news:3c9798d8.250835612@news... > On Mon, 18 Mar 2002 18:21:42 -0600, "Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote: > >No, the problem is that he's making the assumption that any deck that > >focuses on a clan will use all three of their "clan" disciplines. Which is > >a rash assumption, if you ask me. > > Granted, but the workload otherwise would be tremendous. *If* that I'm well aware. I've gone back through just the last year, and did something approximating an analysis of the tournament winning decks, but it was focused on what they were doing, rather than what disciplines they were doing with. It was a pain. Basically, I'm just saying that this sort of short cut tells us next to nothing, it just tells us what we think is true. Lots of Ventrue have won tournaments. If I think the Ventrue win without using much fortitude, then I can infer that the Ventrue win without using fortitude. If you think the Ventrue win *by* using fortitude, then you can claim this to be the case. Without looking at the decks, both of our viewpoints can be supported, to some degree. Doing a scan based on what vampires are in the decks is not good enough to really tell us anything. > assumption were to be true more or less, then we can be sure that his > theory holds weight. Exactly my point. If we assume that the assumption is correct...we are in trouble. > And any Ventrue deck that doesnt use FOR has a serious hole in its > ability to defend v POT rush imo. I am well aware of this, and I fully agree. As a matter of fact, I introduced this concept into my playgroup a while back. It took them a while to learn it, and I had a lot of fun beating things up. However, it really does look like a good percentage of the tournament winning Ventrue decks use next to no fortitude. Xian

On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 18:37:07 -0600, Xian wrote: >However, it really does look like a good percentage >of the tournament winning Ventrue decks use next to no fortitude. Looking at Lasombra's archive, 6/22 = 27% of the nominally Ventrue decks used no Fortitude. Obfuscate seemed to be the most common alternative. In other words, 73% of the deck did use Fortitude - that seems good enough for a broad brush analysis. It's not that hard to correct for either but it seems clear that it's not going to change the important finding - that Dominate is best. In the storyline event, I'd expect an even better fit because the proportion of vampires required to be from that clan was higher - 75% vs 42%. But there aren't any Ventrue deck listings readily available to check. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:E223C22D905CFF35.46F0C9E0...@lp.airnews.net... > On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 18:37:07 -0600, Xian wrote: > > >However, it really does look like a good percentage > >of the tournament winning Ventrue decks use next to no fortitude. > > Looking at Lasombra's archive, 6/22 = 27% of the nominally Ventrue > decks used no Fortitude. Obfuscate seemed to be the most common > alternative. In other words, 73% of the deck did use Fortitude - that > seems good enough for a broad brush analysis. It's not that hard to Sure. Again, though, a number of them (at a quick glance) used 6 to 10 fortitude cards at most. I think it would be a much more useful statistic to figure out what percentage of minion cards (that required disciplines) used each discipline. Not that I'm expecting anyone to do this. I would simply prefer something more measurable than "well, it's a clan discipline, so any deck using that clan must use it." I guess where it falls down (IMO) is that if 73% of the TW Ventrue decks are using Fortitude, this means that Fortitude is only 73% * (Ventrue decks/all decks with Fortitude) as good. I might have that equation wrong. What I mean to say is that only 73% of the the Ventrue decks should count towards your value of how good Fortitude is. And this will extend to other clans and their disciplines. > correct for either but it seems clear that it's not going to change > the important finding - that Dominate is best. I'm not arguing that. Dominate is great. I just object to the equal weighting of all "clan" disciplines. > In the storyline event, I'd expect an even better fit because the > proportion of vampires required to be from that clan was higher - 75% > vs 42%. But there aren't any Ventrue deck listings readily available > to check. Actually, one might expect a lower use of fortitude (by the Ventrue) in the clan-based events, possibly due to the lack of true weenie potence rush. Much like it's fairly ridiculous (though some do include it) to say that the winning Toreador decks use Celerity. Quick glance looked like 5 use no Celerity, 3 used a little celerity (about 6 to 10 cards), and one used lots of Celerity. Giving equal weight to the "clan" disciplines might make thematic sense, but as far as what the decks actually used, it doesn't really work. Xian

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<E223C22D905CFF35.46F0C9E0...@lp.airnews.net>... Responding here, because my post hasn't shown up on google yet. I *am* doing an analysis as I suggested, of the clan-based tournament winning decks, by percentage of each in-clan (and one condensed out-of-clan total) discipline based on total discipline-requiring cards (Sanguine Instruction, etc. excluded), and cards that require two disciplines count as one of each (thought about doing .5, but figured that was messy). So far, I've just done the Assamites, the Blood Brothers, and the first couple of Brujah decks. Leaning towards operationally defining a deck as "using" a discipline if it has 15% or more of the discipline-based cards using that discipline. "Focus" on a discipline indicates 45% (just a random, nice-sounding number...35% or 40% will probably be more realistic) of the cards use that discipline. "Splash" of a discipline indicates some percentage above zero, but below 15%. If anyone thinks these terms/concepts are useful (or not), or if the breakpoints should be changed, let me know in this thread. Significant figures tend to just be 2 digits (meaning 14.8% gets rounded up to 15%), for obvious reasons. Rounding errors may occur. Interestingly, I have found so far that: One of the winning Assamite decks used Celerity, Quietus, splashed Obfuscate, and had a heavy proportion (35%) of out-of-clan discipline cards (auspex and fortitude). The second only used Celerity and Obfuscate (actually focused on Obfuscate, using my terms) and no out-of-clans. The third Assamite deck used Obfuscate (44%...almost to the "focused" breakpoint), and focused on an out-of-clan (presence, at 56%) Josh's Blood Brothers deck only had clan disciplines in it (is anyone surprised that Josh built a focused deck?), all of them being "used" (FOR 15%, POT 39%, SAN 46%). We also find that apparently, Assamite decks only win tournaments in the northern hemisphere during the winter (January, February, March). :) Xian

Xian wrote: > > Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<E223C22D905CFF35.46F0C9E0...@lp.airnews.net>... > Responding here, because my post hasn't shown up on google yet. > > I *am* doing an analysis as I suggested, of the clan-based tournament > winning decks, by percentage of each in-clan (and one condensed > out-of-clan total) discipline based on total discipline-requiring > cards (Sanguine Instruction, etc. excluded), and cards that require > two disciplines count as one of each (thought about doing .5, but > figured that was messy). > > So far, I've just done the Assamites, the Blood Brothers, and the > first couple of Brujah decks. Leaning towards operationally defining > a deck as "using" a discipline if it has 15% or more of the > discipline-based cards using that discipline. "Focus" on a discipline > indicates 45% (just a random, nice-sounding number...35% or 40% will > probably be more realistic) of the cards use that discipline. > "Splash" of a discipline indicates some percentage above zero, but > below 15%. If anyone thinks these terms/concepts are useful (or not), > or if the breakpoints should be changed, let me know in this thread. I'd go with percentages of the deck, not of just the discipline-requiring cards. That way a deck with 3 Conditioning and a bunch of Computer Hacking doesn't get labelled as "focussed" on Dominate (where the same deck with the Computer Hackings replaced with Social Charms would then be just "using" dominate or have only a "splash" of dominate). -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<8DAF65143E61F0E3.8FC38A29...@lp.airnews.net>... > Nevertheless, it's still hard evidence that Dominate is the strongest > discipline. . . Dominate clans won 27/72 > of the storyline events and no other discipline did as well. > The results support Bernie's case. Well, Dominate is a certainly a very common discipline. 5 of the 13 clans have Dominate. 5/13 = about 38% Add in the antitribu and Pander, and 7 out of 21 "clans" have Dominate. 7/21 = 33%. So when you say that 27/72 (= 37%) of winning decks had Dominate, what did you expect? I'm not saying Dominate isn't powerful, but these results aren't good evidence that it's overpowered.

On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 18:37:07 -0600, "Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote: >> *If* that assumption were to be true more or less, then we can be sure that his >> theory holds weight. > >Exactly my point. If we assume that the assumption is correct...we are in >trouble. That would be a mistake, assuredly. The trick is to either back up that 'assumption' with numbers that much, or simply discuss the theory as just that, a theory. T

"Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote in message news:<a7a4l8$k1hmi$1...@ID-123937.news.dfncis.de>... > Not that I'm expecting anyone to do this. I would simply prefer something > more measurable than "well, it's a clan discipline, so any deck using that > clan must use it." Following up on this (and the other post, which hasn't shown up on google yet, nor have any replies, if they exist), I have actually gone through the clan-based TWDs. I'll try to post more about it later. Considering revising my percentages to 20% and 40%, and I can't remember if non-significant digits get truncated or rounded. Oh well. Assuming my figures are right, successful Brujah (and !Brujah) decks don't use much Presence, and successful Giovanni and Lasombra decks don't use much Potence. Malkavian decks tend to use all three clan disciplines, but not at the level of the other disciplines usually (though my numbers seem to be thrown off by a couple of outliers); Malkavian Antitribu decks, on the other hand, tend to use all their clan disciplines. The Toreador don't use much Celerity, and the Toreador Antitribu even less. Winning Tremere decks rarely use much Auspex. And lastly, the Ventrue use some, but not a lot of Fortitude (into the "use" level, but again, I think, thrown off by a couple of outliers). Xian

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:3C98C7A0...@white-wolf.com... > I'd go with percentages of the deck, not of just the discipline-requiring > cards. That way a deck with 3 Conditioning and a bunch of Computer Hacking > doesn't get labelled as "focussed" on Dominate (where the same deck with > the Computer Hackings replaced with Social Charms would then be just > "using" dominate or have only a "splash" of dominate). Ack. Now you tell me. :) Stupid google lag. Well, it shouldn't be too hard at this point to add in the total number of cards for each deck. There's only so many of them. Xian back to the grind