Deck for critique...

Hi all, I'd like some ideas on how to improve my deck. It is a Lasombra/Giovanni deck that was originally intended to be a combat Pot/Dom deck. However, that quickly went by the wayside and over time has been totally reworked and is now a S&B deck with ranged Potence thrown in for combat protection. The stealth actually comes from a smattering of Nec and Obt. Its very much a toolbox kind of deck, but has proven pretty effective in my playgroup thus far. Anyway, let me know what you think and all ideas are welcome. Thanks in advance. Deck Name: Las/Gio S&B Created by: John Woods Description: Lasombra/Giovanni Steath & Bleed with enough Potence and toolbox stuff thrown in. Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 16, Max: 31, Avg: 6] 1 Cameron (dom pot, Lasombra, 3) 2 Carlotta Giovanni (dom NEC obf POT, Giovanni, 7) 1 Enzo Giovanni (ani DOM NEC pot tha, Giovanni, 8) 1 Francesca Giovanni (dom nec pot, Giovanni, 4) 1 Gratiano (DOM obf OBT pot, Lasombra, 8, Priscus) 1 Ignacio (dom obt pot, Lasombra, 4) 1 Lisette Vizquel (DOM POT pro, Lasombra, 6, Bishop) 1 Lucita (cel DOM FOR OBT pot, Lasombra, 8) 1 Stefano Giovanni (DOM nec pot pre, Giovanni, 6) 1 Talley (aus dom OBT POT, Lasombra, 6) 1 Vittorio Giovanni (dom for nec pot, Giovanni, 5) Library: (90 cards) Master (21 cards) 1 Barrens, The 3 Blood Doll 1 Direct Intervention 2 Dominate 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Elysian Fields 1 Morgue Hunting Ground 2 Necromancy 2 Obtenebration 1 Political Hunting Ground 1 Potence 1 Powerbase: Montreal 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The 1 Short-Term Investment 1 Sudden Reversal 1 Tribute to the Master Minion (69 cards) 1 Arson 4 Bonding 4 Conditioning 2 Deflection 4 Eyes of the Night 3 Forced Awakening 2 Foreshadowing Destruction 3 Govern the Unaligned 2 Increased Strength 2 Leather Jacket 1 Mind Rape 1 Mr. Winthrop 1 Palatial Estate 2 Pushing the Limit 2 Redirection 4 Scouting Mission 4 Seduction 4 Shadow Play 1 Sleeping Mind, The 6 Spectral Divination 2 Spiritual Intervention 1 Sport Bike 7 Thrown Gate 3 Undead Strength 3 Wake with Evening's Freshness Carlotta is important to keep going and getting used cards, especially when I get a bad mix of vamps. While I have enough Potence to throw gates at people, presses are big in my play group (weenie trap/undead persistance and obf/cel gun decks), I needed a couple of S:CE. I tried doing up close and personal combat, but putting the necessary cards in (IG, TS) took too much away from the s&b, plus it just wasn't good enough at combat to keep up with real combat decks (too many vamps have minor potence). I can see what some of you are saying now about getting a bad crypt draw and its happened, but I'm able to cycle cards fast enough (Barrens, Carlotta) that I've been able to sweep a table getting out 4 Giovanni (thank god for Carlotta). There's also enough intercept to stop stuff I really don't want happening (bad votes, recruiting Mr.Winthrop/sports bike, etc.). I usually have no trouble bringing out all 4 (sometimes 5) vampires with GtU and Scouting Missions (when not used for bleed). And if I get a slow start, I have deflections and redirections to give me some time (while its not a fast deck, its not slow either). Thanks, John Woods

> Hi all, > > I'd like some ideas on how to improve my deck. It is a Lasombra/Giovanni > deck that was originally intended to be a combat Pot/Dom deck. However, > that quickly went by the wayside and over time has been totally reworked and > is now a S&B deck with ranged Potence thrown in for combat protection. See! See! I told you so! =) > The stealth actually comes from a smattering of Nec and Obt. Its very much a > toolbox kind of deck, but has proven pretty effective in my playgroup thus > far. Anyway, let me know what you think and all ideas are welcome. Thanks > in advance. It sounds like you went in the right direction, at least. > Deck Name: Las/Gio S&B > Created by: John Woods > Description: Lasombra/Giovanni Steath & Bleed with enough Potence and > toolbox stuff thrown in. > > Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 16, Max: 31, Avg: 6] Let's break this down a bit. They all have dom/pot, at least. That's good. Notably, Cameron and Lisette make about as good Giovanni as they do Lasombra, having no Obtenebration, but Cameron is the cheapest dom/pot guy in the game, and Lisette the cheapest DOM/POT gal in the game. > 1 Cameron (dom pot, Lasombra, 3) > 1 Lisette Vizquel (DOM POT pro, Lasombra, 6, Bishop) Then you've got 4 more Lasombra, that do have Obtenebration, 3 at superior: > 1 Gratiano (DOM obf OBT pot, Lasombra, 8, Priscus) > 1 Ignacio (dom obt pot, Lasombra, 4) > 1 Lucita (cel DOM FOR OBT pot, Lasombra, 8) > 1 Talley (aus dom OBT POT, Lasombra, 6) and 5 Giovanni (6 in the crypt) with 2 ("3") of them with NEC, and the rest with inferior. > 2 Carlotta Giovanni (dom NEC obf POT, Giovanni, 7) > 1 Enzo Giovanni (ani DOM NEC pot tha, Giovanni, 8) > 1 Francesca Giovanni (dom nec pot, Giovanni, 4) > 1 Stefano Giovanni (DOM nec pot pre, Giovanni, 6) > 1 Vittorio Giovanni (dom for nec pot, Giovanni, 5) What I take away from this is that half the vamps can play Necromancy cards, but only a third of them can play Obtenebration cards. > Library: (90 cards) > Master (21 cards) Usually r.g.t-c.j criticism: Too many Masters. Lasombra masters: > 1 Elysian Fields > 1 Political Hunting Ground Giovanni Masters: > 1 Morgue Hunting Ground All worth keeping, really. At 6 and 6, both Hunting grounds are good. Skill cards: > 2 Necromancy > 2 Obtenebration > 2 Dominate > 1 Potence This takes up a lot of space. The Necromancy and Obtenebration I assume are to help you out of crypt screw, but if you draw 3 Giovanni and Cameron, and have a handful of OBT cards, odds are one of those 2 skill cards isn't going to leap to the top of the deck. If you really want it, you should have 4+ of each. Since you don't have room for that, get rid of one of each, so they're there to help, but don't jam your hand full of Masters. Only 5 of your guys have DOM, and you're hoping for Govern backwards and Bonding stealth, so you'd better leave the 2 Dominate masters in. Drop the Potence Master. You're not rushing people, just whacking them some on your way buy when they're unkind enough to block. Ideally, all your actions are at +1 stealth, and one Potence master isn't going to make your intercepting kill off people. > 1 Barrens, The > 1 Dreams of the Sphinx With this many Masters, you'll need these just to kill your handjam, but they're always good. Consider dropping the Barrens if you end up contesting it in your playgroup. > 3 Blood Doll > 1 Tribute to the Master I'd rather have 4 Blood Dolls, myself. Your minions aren't THAT small, so you're kind of hoping for the Tribute to show up late. > 1 Direct Intervention > 1 Sudden Reversal Good, but if you jam on Masters, these will only make things worse. If they keep saving your ass, leave them in, but if you jam on Masters, dump them. > 1 Powerbase: Montreal Cute, but you haven't got Masters to spare. Dump it, and steal someone else's when they pull it out. > 1 Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The You need this, yes. > 1 Short-Term Investment If you dumped all 7 Masters that I just said "maybe dump," you're still at 14 Masters. Most games in our playgroup are about 12-13 turns TOTAL. At one per turn. This card is 3 Master Phase actions before you even see a 1 pool gain...would you put in Ascendance, a 1 pool gain for one Master Phase action? You don't get that second (and last) pool of profit until the 4th Master Phase action, which you'll only see in very slow tables. Short answer: dump it. Long answer: Never, ever put Short Term Investment in any deck with only one Master Phase action per turn. > Minion (69 cards) Dominate (27 cards): > 4 Bonding > 4 Conditioning > 2 Deflection > 2 Foreshadowing Destruction > 2 Redirection > 4 Scouting Mission > 4 Seduction > 3 Govern the Unaligned > 1 Mind Rape > 1 Sleeping Mind, The Well, they all have Dominate. I find the Sleeping Mind to be best for "I Sleeping mind THAT old tapped guy at inferior and Seduce your other weenie, bleeding for 3." Ignore all the bozos screaming how the clarification on Wake beating Sleeping Mind (superior) makes SM wallpaper. I like to have MORE Deflection/Redirection, say 3 of each, but we get a lot of bleed, and 5 player games. Also, you need that Govern/Scouting backwards to make the deck get going, so add in another Govern; the older vamp doing it can afford the blood. Everything else looks good, but with dumping some of those masters, I'd consider tossing in Kine Dominance, perhaps instead of the > 1 Arson But if not, keep the Arson. Too many good locations to nuke or steal. Potence(14 cards): > 2 Increased Strength > 2 Pushing the Limit > 7 Thrown Gate > 3 Undead Strength Not really key to your strategy, with as often as you'll be stealthing. Definitely dump that Potence Master. Everyone in the crypt can all already play the cards, and you're not going a'torping with these few cards. Obtenebration(8 cards): > 4 Eyes of the Night > 4 Shadow Play 4 stealth, 4 intercept. OK. Necromancy (8 cards): > 6 Spectral Divination > 2 Spiritual Intervention 6 Stealth/Intercept, 2 combat. Only 8 cards each, so despite being 10 of your stealth cards, they're not really the core of your deck. Again, dump the second master card of each skill card, but, thinking about it, keep the Barrens, to get around crypt/library mismatch. Again, note that you have 6 vamps (5, really, but 6 of the 12) that can play the Necromancy, but only 4 who can play the Obtenebration cards, despite having 6 Lasombra. Consider dropping one Eyes of the Night and one Shadow Play. Besides, the Divinations are more versatile, so you'd rather have a handful of those, anyway. > 3 Forced Awakening > 3 Wake with Evening's Freshness Early in the game, you'll be getting a big guy and Governing backwards, and you'll want to have a Wake/Deflection in hand. Add 2 more Wakes, so you can keep taking actions. Also, if you get stuck with "The Vamp" that can play your hand out (say, Carlotta being your only vamp out with NEC for intercept), that one vamp has a chance of both being effective and cycling your hand. > 2 Leather Jacket *shrug* Depends on your metagame. > 1 Palatial Estate Bet you do spend a lot of blood, dontcha? =) Might also consider an Aaron's Feeding Razor, especially if you drop the Tribute to have 4 Blood Dolls instead of 3. > 1 Mr. Winthrop > 1 Sport Bike These and the Rumor Mill, and the transient cards make good casual intercept. > Carlotta is important to keep going and getting used cards, especially when > I get a bad mix of vamps. Toss in 2 Whispers from the Dead. Like Carlotta, it gives you 2 things: a card you need AND a discard of something you don't. If Carlotta is the only vamp that can play the Whispers, you lose nothing by *playing* them instead of using her ability, but you might well gain the ability to swap out 2 cards in one turn (or, god forbid, do it if you don't draw Carlotta in your crypt. =) > While I have enough Potence to throw gates at > people, presses are big in my play group (weenie trap/undead persistance and > obf/cel gun decks), I needed a couple of S:CE. Well, heck. Toss out a Shadow Play and a Eyes of the Night for and Oubilette and a Shadow Body (good for Govern to your crypt actions at superior), and toss out a Spectral Divination for another Spiritual Intervention. > I tried doing up close and > personal combat, but putting the necessary cards in (IG, TS) took too much > away from the s&b, plus it just wasn't good enough at combat to keep up with > real combat decks (too many vamps have minor potence). Then don't focus on it. Drop one each of the Potence strikes, since you're not really going to win. Or drop both Pushing the Limits and all 3 Undead Strength and just have the IS/Gate for a few combats. If combats are killing you, toss out half the Potence cards and put in Obedience instead. I'm sure I contradicted myself in several places, but take the advice as you will. Just pretend it's a roomful of comments. =) -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

"John Woods" <jo...@pacificcoast.net> writes: > Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 16, Max: 31, Avg: 6] > 1 Cameron (dom pot, Lasombra, 3) > 2 Carlotta Giovanni (dom NEC obf POT, Giovanni, 7) > 1 Enzo Giovanni (ani DOM NEC pot tha, Giovanni, 8) > 1 Francesca Giovanni (dom nec pot, Giovanni, 4) > 1 Gratiano (DOM obf OBT pot, Lasombra, 8, Priscus) > 1 Ignacio (dom obt pot, Lasombra, 4) > 1 Lisette Vizquel (DOM POT pro, Lasombra, 6, Bishop) > 1 Lucita (cel DOM FOR OBT pot, Lasombra, 8) > 1 Stefano Giovanni (DOM nec pot pre, Giovanni, 6) > 1 Talley (aus dom OBT POT, Lasombra, 6) > 1 Vittorio Giovanni (dom for nec pot, Giovanni, 5) A good crypt, from what I can tell. Talley is an excellent vampire for it, I think. Shane Grimald might work mildly better than Vittorio, giving you a fractionally smaller crypt, since the extra point for Fortitude is probably pointless - though an extra capacity can sometimes be useful, and it stays in clan. > 1 Potence Possibly drop since they all have it and it's, probably, the least important discipline in the deck. > Minion (69 cards) > 1 Arson > 4 Bonding > 4 Conditioning You have very little in the way of decent blood gain, I feel, so you might want to swap this for Threats, even though it limits the bleed you can do. > 2 Deflection I'd be tempted to up the number of Deflections and drop Redirection, going against the whole blood gain thing, I guess. Deflection, in this deck, would be much better, because you have a number of small vampires, I feel. > 2 Increased Strength Are these *really* worth it? How's it been coming up in play? -- James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D "Definitely a woman" - www.thespark.com/ Standard disclaimers apply to this post. Full written details available upon request. Your statutory rights are not affected.

Hi Pat and James, I took both your guys' advice and made some of the changes you suggested. > Usually r.g.t-c.j criticism: Too many Masters. This is something that has always boggled me. I know that 20-21 masters is too many, but I believe that its important to play a master card every turn (waste of a resource if you don't). Anyway, just an observation. > Skill cards: > > 2 Necromancy > > 2 Obtenebration > > 2 Dominate > > 1 Potence > This takes up a lot of space. The Necromancy and Obtenebration I assume > are to help you out of crypt screw, but if you draw 3 Giovanni and Cameron, > and have a handful of OBT cards, odds are one of those 2 skill cards isn't > going to leap to the top of the deck. If you really want it, you should > have 4+ of each. Since you don't have room for that, get rid of one of > each, so they're there to help, but don't jam your hand full of Masters. > Only 5 of your guys have DOM, and you're hoping for Govern backwards and > Bonding stealth, so you'd better leave the 2 Dominate masters in. > Drop the Potence Master. You're not rushing people, just whacking them > some on your way buy when they're unkind enough to block. Ideally, all your > actions are at +1 stealth, and one Potence master isn't going to make your > intercepting kill off people. Yup, I dropped the Potence. > > 1 Barrens, The > > 1 Dreams of the Sphinx > With this many Masters, you'll need these just to kill your handjam, but > they're always good. Consider dropping the Barrens if you end up contesting > it in your playgroup. I kept the barrens in. Even though they do appear quite often in my playgroup, I think its an important enough card in case of a hand jam. > > 3 Blood Doll > > 1 Tribute to the Master > I'd rather have 4 Blood Dolls, myself. Your minions aren't THAT small, > so you're kind of hoping for the Tribute to show up late. Done. Minus one Tribute. Plus another Blood Doll. > > 1 Direct Intervention > > 1 Sudden Reversal > Good, but if you jam on Masters, these will only make things worse. If > they keep saving your ass, leave them in, but if you jam on Masters, dump > them. Not usually a problem. Plus, its nice to cancel an annoying master (KRCG Radios are the bane of my existance). > > 1 Powerbase: Montreal > Cute, but you haven't got Masters to spare. Dump it, and steal someone > else's when they pull it out. Dumped. > > 1 Short-Term Investment > If you dumped all 7 Masters that I just said "maybe dump," you're still > at 14 Masters. Most games in our playgroup are about 12-13 turns TOTAL. At > one per turn. This card is 3 Master Phase actions before you even see a 1 > pool gain...would you put in Ascendance, a 1 pool gain for one Master Phase > action? You don't get that second (and last) pool of profit until the 4th > Master Phase action, which you'll only see in very slow tables. > Short answer: dump it. Long answer: Never, ever put Short Term > Investment in any deck with only one Master Phase action per turn. Fair enough. Dumped. > > Minion (69 cards) > > Dominate (27 cards): > > 4 Bonding > > 4 Conditioning > > 2 Deflection > > 2 Foreshadowing Destruction > > 2 Redirection > > 4 Scouting Mission > > 4 Seduction > > 3 Govern the Unaligned > > 1 Mind Rape > > 1 Sleeping Mind, The > Well, they all have Dominate. I find the Sleeping Mind to be best for > "I Sleeping mind THAT old tapped guy at inferior and Seduce your other > weenie, bleeding for 3." Ignore all the bozos screaming how the > clarification on Wake beating Sleeping Mind (superior) makes SM wallpaper. I agree. Sleeping mind just puts one more crimp in my prey's plans. Especially with the Tzimizce and Gangrel decks that float around my group. > I like to have MORE Deflection/Redirection, say 3 of each, but we get a > lot of bleed, and 5 player games. Done. Threw in a more Deflects/Redirects. Saved my ass last night. > Also, you need that Govern/Scouting backwards to make the deck get > going, so add in another Govern; the older vamp doing it can afford the > blood. Done. > Everything else looks good, but with dumping some of those masters, I'd > consider tossing in Kine Dominance, perhaps instead of the > > 1 Arson > But if not, keep the Arson. Too many good locations to nuke or steal. Don't have a Kine Dominance, so I'll keep the Arson. > Potence(14 cards): > > 2 Increased Strength > > 2 Pushing the Limit > > 7 Thrown Gate > > 3 Undead Strength > Not really key to your strategy, with as often as you'll be stealthing. > Definitely dump that Potence Master. Everyone in the crypt can all already > play the cards, and you're not going a'torping with these few cards. Done. Dropped all the Undead Str and Pushing the Limits. I kept the Inc. Str. just as a deterent, but more on that later. > Obtenebration(8 cards): > > 4 Eyes of the Night > > 4 Shadow Play > 4 stealth, 4 intercept. OK. I dropped one Eyes of the Night for a Shadow Body. > Necromancy (8 cards): > > 6 Spectral Divination > > 2 Spiritual Intervention > 6 Stealth/Intercept, 2 combat. I also kept these and even added in 2 Whispers of the Dead. > Only 8 cards each, so despite being 10 of your stealth cards, they're > not really the core of your deck. Again, dump the second master card of > each skill card, but, thinking about it, keep the Barrens, to get around > crypt/library mismatch. > Again, note that you have 6 vamps (5, really, but 6 of the 12) that can > play the Necromancy, but only 4 who can play the Obtenebration cards, > despite having 6 Lasombra. Consider dropping one Eyes of the Night and one > Shadow Play. Besides, the Divinations are more versatile, so you'd rather > have a handful of those, anyway. I like keeping the Shadow Plays. I feel its really important to have that extra stealth. > > 3 Forced Awakening > > 3 Wake with Evening's Freshness > Early in the game, you'll be getting a big guy and Governing backwards, > and you'll want to have a Wake/Deflection in hand. Add 2 more Wakes, so you > can keep taking actions. Also, if you get stuck with "The Vamp" that can > play your hand out (say, Carlotta being your only vamp out with NEC for > intercept), that one vamp has a chance of both being effective and cycling > your hand. I added in and extra wake and forced awake. > > 2 Leather Jacket > *shrug* Depends on your metagame. Lots of aggravated damage in my metagame. Leather jackets have a tendency to postpone that for a while. > > 1 Palatial Estate > Bet you do spend a lot of blood, dontcha? =) Might also consider an > Aaron's Feeding Razor, especially if you drop the Tribute to have 4 Blood > Dolls instead of 3. Wish I had a Feeding Razor, but I don't. I love the Palatial Estates though. > > 1 Mr. Winthrop > > 1 Sport Bike > These and the Rumor Mill, and the transient cards make good casual > intercept. I ended up dropping the sports bike after last nights game. > Toss in 2 Whispers from the Dead. Like Carlotta, it gives you 2 things: > a card you need AND a discard of something you don't. If Carlotta is the > only vamp that can play the Whispers, you lose nothing by *playing* them > instead of using her ability, but you might well gain the ability to swap > out 2 cards in one turn (or, god forbid, do it if you don't draw Carlotta in > your crypt. =) Done. :) > you're not really going to win. Or drop both Pushing the Limits and all 3 > Undead Strength and just have the IS/Gate for a few combats. If combats are > killing you, toss out half the Potence cards and put in Obedience instead. > > I'm sure I contradicted myself in several places, but take the advice as > you will. Just pretend it's a roomful of comments. =) Its some good advice, so I followed it. Last nights game was very interesting. My predator was a Gangrel/!Ventrue Pro/Dom deck based on Illana and Lazvernius. Very effective deck actually. Uses a lot of Form of Mists. My prey was the typical Tzimizce deck, lots of intercept and aggravated damage. The key to the game was my "ally" across the table. A weenie Fortitude deck that had a lot of Traps and Undead Persistances. It keep my predator busy enough and did enough damage to my prey that the pressure was kept off me for the most part. The deflections and redirections saved my ass multiple times (everytime Lazvernius or Illana would come my way, I'd make an annoying "BOINGGGGGG!" sound and call out my prey's name). Everyone thought I was done when I had 3 vamps tapped and I transferred out my 2nd copy of Carlotta (the 1st copy was burned during my minion phase) and let myself with one pool. Fortunately, I had a couple of Wakes and Deflections in hand and was able to keep alive for a few more turns. I thought I was really done when I had a 6 point bleed about to go through when my predator used his KRCG Radio Station to give that extra intercept to my prey to keep him alive. Fortunately, that only delayed the inevitable. The game took about 3 hours. The first 2h, 45m still had everyone in the game, but once my prey fell, the other two quickly followed and I swept the table. The game itself had some very interesting moments. Lucita and Carlotta both got burned in combat. Lazvernius and Ingrid both got diablerized. Camille Devereux became the Gangrel Justicar and Banished Stephano Giovanni (in the 2nd to last turn, but it ended up killing the player who did this). Horatio was lent an intercept to block an attempted recruiting of a Renegade Garou in the 2nd turn. All in all, a fun and devious game with the allies helping each other out quite a bit. We don't get a lot of backstabbing in my group. Usually the bitterness will carry over for the next few games After the game, I got rid of the 3 Inc. Str and the Sports Bike and I threw in another Deflection, 2 Obedience and a WWEF. I'm really starting to like this deck. It has enought stealth and bleed to give my prey fits. It has enough intercept so that I can stop the stuff I really don't want to happen and enough combat/combat avoidance so that I can keep my vamps alive. Anyway, thanks again Pat and James. John Woods

> Hi Pat and James, > > I took both your guys' advice and made some of the changes you suggested. > >> Usual r.g.t-c.j criticism: Too many Masters. > > This is something that has always boggled me. I know that 20-21 masters is > too many, but I believe that its important to play a master card every turn > (waste of a resource if you don't). Anyway, just an observation. Depends how long your games go on. If your games usually take 20-21 turns, and you cycle exactly 6 *other* cards between Master phases, you're right on. (Except that then your deck would be 140+ cards, once you had enough minion cards to play those 6 cards each of the 20 turns.) But, arguments to that aside, games just don't usually last 20+ turns. Round here 12 turns is the "normal" game length. More of a median or a mode than a mean. Note that that's the *entire* game, so someone's usually ousted by turn 7-10. Even in a "long" game, 16 turns or so, that's 5-6 Master Cards you put in that you'll NEVER play. Also, when you're tweaking a deck up to work better, it cycles better. If you improved that, then you'd better expect to draw up into a hand of Masters unless you cut some. And as I'm fond of saying in my group "The gray-er my hand, the gray-er my mood." =) >>> 2 Leather Jacket >> *shrug* Depends on your metagame. > > Lots of aggravated damage in my metagame. Leather jackets have a tendency > to postpone that for a while. Appropriate, then, certainly. Since you added 2 and not just tossed one in, I figured you had a reason. > Its some good advice, so I followed it. Well, all advice followed that results in a sweep the next time it's played seems pretty good in 20/20 hindsight. =) But thanks. > Last nights game was very interesting. [snip] > The deflections and redirections saved my ass multiple times (everytime > Lazvernius or Illana would come my way, I'd make an annoying "BOINGGGGGG!" > sound and call out my prey's name). Last tournament in Colombia, SC, garnered up a new annoying phrase (new to the Atlanta group, at least; I don't know if it was coined at the tournament or before) with the HUGE amounts of bleed and deflection: "Hey, get that for me, will you?" (said as faux earnestly as possible =) > The game took about 3 hours. The first > 2h, 45m still had everyone in the game, but once my prey fell, the other two > quickly followed and I swept the table. Keep track of turns. You may well be in an environment with 20 turn games, at that rate. Is that the the usual? > I'm really starting to like this deck. It has enought stealth and bleed to > give my prey fits. It has enough intercept so that I can stop the stuff I > really don't want to happen and enough combat/combat avoidance so that I can > keep my vamps alive. Well, once you're ready to "bronze" it, repost it or mail it to me, and I'll give it a whirl in our group. (though, I might chuck a few Masters out of it. =) -- Pat Ricochet Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta

Pat Ricochet wrote: > > > Hi Pat and James, > > > > I took both your guys' advice and made some of the changes you suggested. > > > >> Usual r.g.t-c.j criticism: Too many Masters. > > > > This is something that has always boggled me. I know that 20-21 masters is > > too many, but I believe that its important to play a master card every turn > > (waste of a resource if you don't). Anyway, just an observation. > > Depends how long your games go on. If your games usually take 20-21 > turns, and you cycle exactly 6 *other* cards between Master phases, you're > right on. (Except that then your deck would be 140+ cards, once you had > enough minion cards to play those 6 cards each of the 20 turns.) Or if you plan to use your discard phase productively - discarding unneeded cards (like master cards, if they clump). It's a rare turn that' I'll pass my free discard (usually at the start of the game when I'm not sure yet what the other players are up to). > But, arguments to that aside, games just don't usually last 20+ turns. > Round here 12 turns is the "normal" game length. More of a median or a mode > than a mean. Note that that's the *entire* game, so someone's usually > ousted by turn 7-10. Even in a "long" game, 16 turns or so, that's 5-6 > Master Cards you put in that you'll NEVER play. The poster indicate that he wants to *reliably* play a master card for every master phase action he acquires. I played a deck last night that had 20 master cards in it and failed to use many of the master phase actions that I acquired. I had put a Parthenon in my deck, but traded it away (via Succubus Club) since my pool level was low and I wasn't really using all my MPAs in the first place. > Last tournament in Colombia, SC, garnered up a new annoying phrase (new > to the Atlanta group, at least; I don't know if it was coined at the > tournament or before) with the HUGE amounts of bleed and deflection: > > "Hey, get that for me, will you?" (said as faux earnestly as possible =) It's a standard in our group, yes. The reverse is used for Major Boon: "Let me get that for you." -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | Friends help you move. http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson | Real friends help you Graphics Specialist and V:TES Rulemonger | move bodies.

>>>> Usual r.g.t-c.j criticism: Too many Masters. >>> >>> This is something that has always boggled me. I know that 20-21 masters is >>> too many, but I believe that its important to play a master card every turn >>> (waste of a resource if you don't). Anyway, just an observation. >> >> Depends how long your games go on. If your games usually take 20-21 >> turns, and you cycle exactly 6 *other* cards between Master phases, you're >> right on. (Except that then your deck would be 140+ cards, once you had >> enough minion cards to play those 6 cards each of the 20 turns.) > > Or if you plan to use your discard phase productively - discarding unneeded > cards (like master cards, if they clump). It's a rare turn that' I'll > pass my free discard (usually at the start of the game when I'm not sure > yet what the other players are up to). I've thought of that as well, but I personally consider having extra Masters that I'm just going to discard as "unproductive" use of my discard phase. I think of the discard phase as a way to get around clumping. If I'm counting on it to dump my excess Masters AND then I clump, I'm going to need more discards. If I've got weird "setup" combos, where I need multiple copies of a card to get it early (say, Fame, in a Fame/Shadow Twin deck) then I like to include card cyclers as well. Not to mention the toolboxy decks that often have "corner case" cards, like Release of the Shackled Soul or Fast Hands, that you may figure out quickly that you'll never use in the game you're in; those are discards you need. Also, another way to think about it (that I've never seen posted here) is to consider your discards as a non-renewable resource, just like your Master Phase Actions. * Assume a 12 turn game (adjust for your metagame.) That's 12 Masters and 12 discards. * Let's say I'm playing a Fame/Shadow Twin deck, and I've got 5 copies of Fame, 3 copies of the Catacombs, and 3 copies of Humanitas. I need 2 Master Phases for Fame; one might get sudden reversed, or I might actually blow through one prey and need to play another. Then I ALSO need 3 discards allocated for the remaining copies of Fame. I need probably only one Master Phase for Humanitas, being unlikely to be Suddened, but I'll need 2 more discards for the 2 copies I'm not using. No MPAs for the Catacombs, but I'll need 2 more discards for the extra copies as they come up later. * So far I've "used" only 3 of my 12 MPAs, but used up 7 of my 12 discards already. Since the deck also has 6 Embraces and 6 Obtenebration skill cards, I know I'll be discarding the skill cards as I draw them, and now I'm using 13 of my 12 discards. I'm in trouble. * If I add a Barrens, say, assume I'll get it halfway down my deck. Since it takes a couple turns of startup, I'll assume that I get the Barrens on turn 7, so add 5 more discards. That's 13 I "know" that I'll use, out of ~17 discards, giving me 4 more for getting rid of clump. Better not include any corner case cards I might have to discard. * But, I've only "used" 3 of my MPAs, and have 9 to play with. Toss in a Hunting ground an an Elysian Fields (but only one of each, or I have to "spend" discards on the other copies), one Sudden and one DI, and I've got 5 MPAs to play with. I'll toss in a Slave Auction, and guess there will still be 4 players left when I get it (even in a 12 turn game, most everyone is still in by halfway through, but let's assume a 5 player game where one guy got run over), and that's 5 MPA's (1 to play it, and 4 of taking the pool back). For the "god forbid you run out of cards" camp: if this deck runs out of cards and it's not dead, it's got 8+ minions, and at least the Catacombs or Humanitas, usually both. Bleeds for one a lot, and rescues blocked/torped guys well. And, it hasn't actually run out of cards yet. I'm that camp that believes if you always have cards left when you finish, but spent discards just to get the "right" cards every turn, >> But, arguments to that aside, games just don't usually last 20+ turns. >> Round here 12 turns is the "normal" game length. More of a median or a mode >> than a mean. Note that that's the *entire* game, so someone's usually >> ousted by turn 7-10. Even in a "long" game, 16 turns or so, that's 5-6 >> Master Cards you put in that you'll NEVER play. > > The poster indicate that he wants to *reliably* play a master card for every > master phase action he acquires. I played a deck last night that had 20 > master cards in it and failed to use many of the master phase actions that > I acquired. I had put a Parthenon in my deck, but traded it away (via > Succubus Club) since my pool level was low and I wasn't really using all > my MPAs in the first place. Well, using my extremely silly math, you get the Parthenon on say, turn 7, and that gives you 5 extra MPAs, for a total of 17. If you played it on turn 2, then in 12 turns you've got 23 Masters, and of course you didn't run out of 20 Masters, especially if you were also discarding. "I had the Parthenon in my deck" isn't an inconsequential statement when you're talking about having too many or not enough Masters. But, "want[ing] to *reliably* play a master card for every [MPA]" would certainly lead you to put in "more than enough Masters," so that even if you don't cycle so well, or clump up on other cards, that you've always got a Master in hand to play. However, I find the flip side is having too many Masters. Sure, you want one in your hand every turn you can play one; but for every extra Master in your hand that you *don't* play, you're reducing your hand size by one. You can, as you say, discard the extras, but I want to "reliably" be discarding the ONE card I don't need, not picking one of two. I don't want to have a Blood Doll, a Tribute, and second Hungry Coyote AND a Deflection in my hand when it gets down to 2 people, and get to discard only one card. > >> Last tournament in Colombia, SC, garnered up a new annoying phrase (new >> to the Atlanta group, at least; I don't know if it was coined at the >> tournament or before) with the HUGE amounts of bleed and deflection: >> >> "Hey, get that for me, will you?" (said as faux earnestly as possible =) > > It's a standard in our group, yes. > The reverse is used for Major Boon: "Let me get that for you." Still hasn't quite caught on here, yet. Keep forgetting to say it when I'm playing with Deflections. [ quoted text not captured ]

I think you are on the right track here. The goal is to not waste your MPAs but also not clog your hand. The deck of mine that most fits what we're talking about here is a combat deck. The only masters in it are Parthenon and a bunch of Secret Hordes. If I get a Parthenon and Horde in my opening hand I'll dump 10 or 12 pool on it (adjust for your meta game). I then take 2 off it per turn. It requires very few master cards (completely avoiding master hand jam) and I always make use of my MPAs. -Robert rob...@vtesinla.org http://vtesinla.org

> I think you are on the right track here. The goal is to not waste your MPAs > but also not clog your hand. Well, I actually realized what WAS wrong with my Fame/Shadow Twin deck as I was typing up the example. I made appropriate changes, and it flowed much better, and got 3 of 4 VPs last night. Something worth analyzing on decks more often, especially in decks with extra copies of cards that must appear early, as such decks have "already used" their discards. However, I never did get to take any of the 4 blood OFF of the one Slave Auction that I played before the game was over. Unfortunately, I forgot to count turns, but I think it was less than 10. > The deck of mine that most fits what we're talking about here is a combat > deck. The only masters in it are Parthenon and a bunch of Secret Hordes. > If I get a Parthenon and Horde in my opening hand I'll dump 10 or 12 pool on > it (adjust for your meta game). I then take 2 off it per turn. It requires > very few master cards (completely avoiding master hand jam) and I always > make use of my MPAs. Certainly not every deck can do this, but yes, decks that have MPA's to burn but easily get into hand jam (notably, combat decks) actually can make great use of "Investment" cards. I've managed to avoid certain cards I might put in by thinking "is this card better than Ascendance?" Very often, there are cards that I'm likely to only gain 1 pool from the entire game, sometimes costing 2 or more master phases to do so. Well, I'd never actually put Ascendance in a deck, so I certainly shouldn't put in a card that nets me one pool and "costs" more than one MPA. [ quoted text not captured ]