V:EKN Clan Newsletter - Toreador Antitribu

A quick question to the group, if I only had a web version of the newsletter instead of posting it here, how many people would not be able to read it? Due to formatting it takes about 10 minutes to copy/paste....and I'm starting to feel lazy ;-) 5/1/99 Editors Corner - Ethan Burrow, Prince of Austin Well, I have a confession to make. I was crushed in the tournament in New Orleans. I didn't get a single victory point. I was shamed... I will explain what I did wrong so that you won't make the same mistakes when you visit another city to play in a tournament. A special thanks to Sorrow for showing such hospitality to TheLasombra and myself while we visted his domain. If you care to peruse my thoughts and pictures on the event, you can find them at my "Judgement : Camarilla Segregation - Behind the Scenes" page. I'd also like to take this moment to get on my soapbox and explain why I think Misdirection should be banned in tournament play. Leaving vampires untapped for defense is one of the many decisions methuselahs face. The balance between offense and defense is indeed one of the basic fundamentals of the game. I probably do not need to go into detail on the overpoweredness of Misdirection being able to remove that element of control from your strategy. Rather I will explain how the cost to defend against it is so great, that the card creates an unbalance in the game when used. To cite example, in the recent tournament in New Orleans a dominate weenie bleed deck used a misdirection every turn to make sure it's prey's minions were all tapped. Every turn. If you were unfortunate enough to have this deck be your predator, you have the following options to avoid destruction. 1. Put as many Sudden Reversals in your deck as your predator has Misdirections. This way you are almost guaranteed that your minions will be unaffected. The cost to you is your master phase action every turn for the whole game, and several card slots. Having to focus this much resources for defense, mostly just to insure that you can *mount* a defense, is quite unbalanced in my opinion. 2. Put 2-3 times as many Wake/untap cards in your deck as your predator has misdirections. Even though your minions are misdirected, you can still react or block the actions. However this method will likely take a 3rd of your deck and focus most of your decks resources against your predator....which will not land you a victory point unless you are playing with life boon. That's another problem entirely, but I'll table that until it really pisses me off. 3.Play with enough Protected Resources and/or Archon Investigations to slow down the weenie deck. And slow him down you will, but you may not be able to completely stop them. 4.Play a weenie dominate/misdirection bleed deck and bleed your prey faster than your predator can oust you. I frankly don't want to see a weenie dominate/misdirection deck at every tournament I go to for now on, but unless we ban misdirection....how else are people going to win? Some of you may argue the rush element, but do you really want to be the only rush deck on a table with this thing? Let the flame war commence <g> Vampire of the Month - Remilliard, Devout Crusader He's probably the best low cost vamp you could pull into your crypt from our clan. At a cost of 4, he's a good pick for your first minion to influence if he shows up in your initial 4. And he's got the skills to defend your pool while you influnce the bigger guys. And he can still be useful later in the game. With superior Auspex he can provide all the bleed defense and intercept you might need in the opening turns of the game. While he has inferior presence, he can still be used to good effect to bleed or vote with, provided your neighbors choose to influence big vamps and thus have no initial defense. Take care however, for he doesn't have Celerity. He might not survive long in combat without help. Card of the Month - Palla Grande This is a nice master to place in any deck that focuses on clan Toreador Antitrbu. The only cost is your master phase action. And for 3 turns, all your Toreador Antitribu get +1 bleed. Whether you want to increase bleeds for you bleed deck, or force combat with your combat decks, this baby will do the job. One interesting thing to note, is that it affects *all* Toreador Antitribu. I have played games before where multiple methuselahs were playing with Toreador Antitribu, and they all beamed when it was played by one Methuselah. If someone in your group plays with Jost all the time, realize that this card could benefit them as well. How I prepared for the New Orleans tournament, and why it cost me dearly The moment TheLasombra and I decided to make the trek to New Orleans, one of the first things I asked were details on their Meta Game. TheLasombra's previous encounter with them involved his Mind Rape/Banishment deck which terrorized them to no end. TheLasombra explained the reasons the deck performed so well : little to no intercept and vote lock with only 2 titled vamps (no vote modifiers). I had this in mind when I tweakedmy Vote and Bleed deck. Without displaying the whole deck (simply because I'm lazy), it essentially involved Jost and Rebekka for bleeds, and Natasha for calling votes. I filled out the crypt with Arika, Gideon, Sir Walter and Timothy, so I had titled votes and superior presence. I bled with propoganda and social charms, and when my prey was all tapped out I'd use domain challange. There were other toys as well, but you get the idea. I figured this deck would take advantage of New Orleans play style of mostly combat and give me some easy victory points. A day before the tournament, we got together with Sorrow and a couple of the New Orleans players for some "friendly" games. Not only was it a lot of fun, but it mostly confirmed everything TheLasombra had depicted of their playing style. I deliberately did not play with my chosen tournament deck that day. I saw no reason to show everyone how the deck worked before round 1. However, on tournament day I was in for quite a surprise. Sorrow had anticipated that someone from Austin would bring a vote deck (rightly so), and he brought his Ventrue Antitribu anti-vote deck which had intercept and Vote denial. A new player Lauren showed up with a presence bleed deck, which I frankly wasn't expecting either. But the real kicker was the insideous and lame deck that Steven brought. The ill-famed misdirection/weenie bleed template that literally sweeped every table it was on. I was stuck on his table all but once. And on the one game where I wasn't at his table, I had the pleasure of contesting Sir Walter with my prey Norm. No victory points for me. What did I learn ? Meta Games are predictable except for tournaments. Everyone goes in with a different mindset than under normal gaming days. Expect and plan for the worst of decks, not the decks you've seen your opponents play. I was wrong to assume that I was going to face only combat heavy decks. Speed is paramount in tournaments, not staying power. Pool gaining resources and large capacity vamps may seem like good ideas....but will it come out in time to defend yourself against the weenie horde? And rest assured, there will always be one weenie horde in each tournament...or that city is doing it wrong. Deck Medic/Strategy Corner The one gleaming gem from the New Orleans experience, is TheLasombra's Aggressive Tactics deck which took 6 victory points and made it to the finals. This deck using the Toreador Antitribu is pretty nasty, and I give you the deck composition : Vampires 1 Carter 1 Ian Wallingford 2 Jessica 2 Lachlan, Noddist 1 Lolita 2 Remilliard, Devout Crusader 2 Sheila Mezarin 1 Victor Revell, Loyalist Library 5 Acrobatics 7 Blur 4 Flash 8 Lucky Blow 5 Pulled Fangs 6 Sideslip 4 Taste of Vitae 4 Leather Jacket 2 Sport Bike 8 Aggressive Tactics 4 Blood Doll 1 Fetish Club H. G. 1 Information Highway 5 Enhanced Senses 8 Forced Awakening 8 Precognition 4 Spirit's Touch 6 Telepathic Misdirection 90 Total library cards 69 common 8 uncommon 13 rare 39 combat 6 equipment 14 master 31 reaction Game Environment: NCL, post 1/5/99 RTR. -- Ethan Burrow - Prince of Austin et...@ddg.com http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/

Ethan wrote: >>I'd also like to take this moment to get on my soapbox and explain why I think Misdirection should be banned in tournament play. Leaving vampires untapped for defense is one of the many decisions methuselahs face. The balance between offense and defense is indeed one of the basic fundamentals of the game. I probably do not need to go into detail on the overpoweredness of Misdirection being able to remove that element of control from your strategy. Rather I will explain how the cost to defend against it is so great, that the card creates an unbalance in the game when used.>> I really don't think Misdirection is all that powerful. When building a deck, you need to take into account how you are going to defend yourself. If your main defense is blocking, you need to be able to deal with stealth and be able to untap reliably, otherwise your blocking defense simply isn't going to be effective. If the only defense of your deck is leaving vampires untapped and hoping they don't have blasters..er..I mean stealth, you probably aren't going to survive very long, Misdirection or no. An intercept deck (or any deck that relies on blocking reliably) is going to need a good supply of intercept and untaps to work, and thus doesn't need to worry about Misdirection all that much. Just standing around and hoping to block an opponent gets you nowhere--what if they have stealth? What if they have Misdirection? In both cases, you end up dead. Thus, you need to take these things into account, and generally not rely on standing around to block, hoping your opponent doesn't have Misdirection. >>To cite example, in the recent tournament in New Orleans a dominate weenie bleed deck used a misdirection every turn to make sure it's prey's minions were all tapped. Every turn. If you were unfortunate enough to have this deck be your predator, you have the following options to avoid destruction.>> If his prey's vampires were all tapped out every turn doing things that were useful, instead of standing around hoping that the Dominate deck didn't have a Misdirection, A) they would have done much better and B) the Dominate deck would have a whole deck full of useless Master cards. >>1. Put as many Sudden Reversals in your deck as your predator has Misdirections. 2. Put 2-3 times as many Wake/untap cards in your deck as your predator has misdirections. 3.Play with enough Protected Resources and/or Archon Investigations to slow down the weenie deck. 4.Play a weenie dominate/misdirection bleed deck and bleed your prey faster than your predator can oust you. I frankly don't want to see a weenie dominate/misdirection deck at every tournament I go to for now on, but unless we ban misdirection....how else are people going to win? Some of you may argue the rush element, but do you really want to be the only rush deck on a table with this thing?>> Or, play a deck that can deal with such a speedy deck and doesn't rely on standing around and trying to block. The basic defense strategies one can use against Bleeding are: A) Block: To be good at this, you need to have reliable intercept and reliable untaps. Without both, the Block strategy simply won't be effective. B) Race: Be just as fast, or faster, than your predator. In this situation your vampires are always tapped out and the existance of Misdirection has no effect on the deck. C) Bounce: Like the Block defense, the Bounce defense needs reliable untap to work with the Bounce, otherwise it just won't work, Misdirection or no. D) Pool Gain: Gain an awful lot of pool really fast. You won't care that your predator is bleeding you. E) Rush: Kill their vampires. They can't bleed you. Your vampires are tapped out every turn, so again, the Misdirection has no bearing on the game. Of these basic defense strategies, Block and Bounce are affected by Misdirection, but only if you don't have reliable untap, and if you don't, again, your deck isn't going to have particular success vs any sort of bleed deck. Misdirection is incredibly handy in environments where everyone plans on blocking out of sheer habit. In environments where decks only plan on blocking when they are designed to block stuff, the Misdirection becomes much less useful. I'd be perfectly happy to be at a table as the only Rush deck with said weenie Dominate deck (i'd be even happier if I was the second Rush deck at the table :-). Rush decks can be just as fast, the weenie Dominate deck generally has zero combat defense, and their little vampires are never coming out of torpor. He gets out a vampire, I torporize it. He gets out two, I torporize two. And so on. Yes, weenie bleed decks are very powerful, probably overly so (but that is due to the game design as a whole, not because of Misdirection), but you can build decks that are perfectly competetive and also able to compete with such decks. You need to accept the fact that you might be the prey of a deck that can Misdirect you every turn, realize that it is going tobe very good at killing you, and build a deck that can deal with it. And it can be done without tons of SR, AI, or PR, using basic strategies. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "I dunno, Marge. Trying is the first step towards failure." -Homer

don't forget that it also combos with Goth Band :) [ quoted text not captured ]

On 1 May 1999, PDB6 wrote: > If his prey's vampires were all tapped out every turn doing things that were > useful, instead of standing around hoping that the Dominate deck didn't have a > Misdirection, A) they would have done much better and B) the Dominate deck > would have a whole deck full of useless Master cards. well, even if all your minions do "something useful" everyturn, large amounts of unblockable bleed will still hurt. big time. and assuming the Dominate deck was built to play Misdirection every turn, as it sounds, the methuselah playing it loses nothing when you tap out all your minions, as she can always misdirect for zero. so she can still play misdirection every turn, just like she planned, and you still have all your vampires tapped, just like she planned, and the only difference is she has more pool. > D) Pool Gain: Gain an awful lot of pool really fast. You won't care that your > predator is bleeding you. you'd need a LOT of pool gain. maybe more than 8 a turn. so you'd have to build a whole deck around it. then you'd wind up hosing your predator (if he's playing bleed) and not doin much to your prey... -davey!

In article <19990501170937...@ng122.aol.com>, pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (PDB6) wrote: > Ethan wrote: > >>I'd also like to take this moment to get on my soapbox and explain why I > think Misdirection should be banned in tournament play. Leaving vampires > untapped for defense is one of the many decisions methuselahs face. The > balance between offense and defense is indeed one of the basic > fundamentals of the game. I probably do not need to go into detail on > the overpoweredness of Misdirection being able to remove that element of > control from your strategy. Rather I will explain how the cost to defend > against it is so great, that the card creates an unbalance in the game > when used.>> > > I really don't think Misdirection is all that powerful. When building a deck, > you need to take into account how you are going to defend yourself. If your > main defense is blocking, you need to be able to deal with stealth and be able > to untap reliably, otherwise your blocking defense simply isn't going to be > effective. If the only defense of your deck is leaving vampires untapped and > hoping they don't have blasters..er..I mean stealth, you probably aren't going > to survive very long, Misdirection or no. An intercept deck (or any deck that > relies on blocking reliably) is going to need a good supply of intercept and > untaps to work, and thus doesn't need to worry about Misdirection all that > much. Wrong. I had plenty of intercept and 8 Forced Awakenings. I had been bled for 20 before I had played my 6th card. I was unable to cycle to any of my untaps because I was dead. > Just standing around and hoping to block an opponent gets you > nowhere--what if they have stealth? If they have stealth you play your intercept. If you aren't playing intercept you play your bounce. If you are playing Toreador Antitribu you play with both, whichever is in your hand at the time. > What if they have Misdirection? With one played every single turn by the Methuselah playing them, you die. > If his prey's vampires were all tapped out every turn doing things that were > useful, instead of standing around hoping that the Dominate deck didn't have a > Misdirection, A) they would have done much better and B) the Dominate deck > would have a whole deck full of useless Master cards. B is Wrong. Remember you can pay 0 for cards that have X as their cost every turn to cycle your hand, and since you were planning on playing it anyway, you simply saved some pool. Therefore, you have no useless master cards in hand when you are ready to bleed. How do you define things that are useful? Every turn that other decks were its prey they tried to oust their own prey. In this particular case it didn't work. The only thing that would have saved them was the inclusion of Rush, which sadly did not make an appearance at that tournament. > >>1. Put as many Sudden Reversals in your deck as your predator has > Misdirections. > 2. Put 2-3 times as many Wake/untap cards in your deck as your predator > has misdirections. > 3.Play with enough Protected Resources and/or Archon Investigations to > slow down the weenie deck. > 4.Play a weenie dominate/misdirection bleed deck and bleed your prey > faster than your predator can oust you. > > Or, play a deck that can deal with such a speedy deck and doesn't rely on > standing around and trying to block. The basic defense strategies one can use > against Bleeding are: > > A) Block: To be good at this, you need to have reliable intercept and reliable > untaps. Without both, the Block strategy simply won't be effective. Agreed. 8 Forced Awakenings plus bringing out a vampire every turn is usually considered reliable. It was not. > B) Race: Be just as fast, or faster, than your predator. In this situation > your vampires are always tapped out and the existance of Misdirection has > no effect on the deck. Agreed. How are you going to be faster than a bleed for 4 with every minion every turn with another new/fresh vamp every turn? > C) Bounce: Like the Block defense, the Bounce defense needs reliable untap to > work with the Bounce, otherwise it just won't work, Misdirection or no. Agreed. Bringing out a new vamp that can bounce every turn should have been helpful too. It was not. > D) Pool Gain: Gain an awful lot of pool really fast. You won't care that your > predator is bleeding you. How are you going to do this when you predator bleeds you for: minimum of 4 on turn 2 minimum of 8 on turn 3 minimum of 12 on turn 4 minimum of 16 on turn 5? You are bled for 24 pool before the start of your 4th turn. Unless you are playing rush, or his predator is playing rush, you are dead. > E) Rush: Kill their vampires. They can't bleed you. Your vampires are tapped > out every turn, so again, the Misdirection has no bearing on the game. This is the only truly viable alternative. And isn't it special how you oust your predator to save yourself. Wasn't this the argument against cross-table bleeds? If you must pay the Anti-Misdirection deck to even survive, isn't that the definition of broken? > Of these basic defense strategies, Block and Bounce are affected by > Misdirection, but only if you don't have reliable untap, and if you don't, > again, your deck isn't going to have particular success vs any sort of bleed > deck. Wrong. If I have out a vamp with superior dominate and some blood, I can bounce for weeks without using any untap. All of my other vampires can do whatever else the deck is supposed to do. Misdirection takes away my options. > Misdirection is incredibly handy in environments where everyone plans on > blocking out of sheer habit. In environments where decks only plan on blocking > when they are designed to block stuff, the Misdirection becomes much less > useful. Wrong. My deck was designed to block stuff and still suffered because I couldn't cycle to the untaps that were there because I could never play any of the cards in my hand. And it is a successful intercept deck because it won every other table that it played at except the one where the Misdirection deck was my immediate predator. > I'd be perfectly happy to be at a table as the only Rush deck with said weenie > Dominate deck (i'd be even happier if I was the second Rush deck at the table > :-). Rush decks can be just as fast, the weenie Dominate deck generally has > zero combat defense, and their little vampires are never coming out of torpor. > He gets out a vampire, I torporize it. He gets out two, I torporize two. > And so on. Agreed. <snip the rest.> Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own

The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> wrote: > pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (PDB6) wrote: > > D) Pool Gain: Gain an awful lot of pool really fast. You won't care that your > > predator is bleeding you. > > How are you going to do this when you predator bleeds you for: > minimum of 4 on turn 2 > minimum of 8 on turn 3 > minimum of 12 on turn 4 > minimum of 16 on turn 5? > > You are bled for 24 pool before the start of your 4th turn. Unless you > are playing rush, or his predator is playing rush, you are dead. For completeness, may I ask what his predator was doing to him? It sounds like he was tapping out every turn, not doing any blood gain, *and* paying extra pool to tap your vampires. Why was his predator not ousting him? (I'm asking in earnest - this information is necessary for the debate.) In many tournaments, you'll find that if your grandpredator is weak (has a weak deck or poor playing skills), your predator will have a much easier time ousting you. An unfortunate truth about multiplayer games. > > E) Rush: Kill their vampires. They can't bleed you. Your vampires are tapped > > out every turn, so again, the Misdirection has no bearing on the game. > > This is the only truly viable alternative. > > And isn't it special how you oust your predator to save yourself. Beating up minions doesn't oust your predator. It slows him down and (usually) allows his predator to oust him more quickly. A proper deck will stop short of wiping out all of it's predator's vampires and allow the predator to mount some small defense (or, if he chooses, some small offense). > Wasn't this the argument against cross-table bleeds? No. The arguments against Cross Table Bleeds were/are: *) It is not supported by any incarnation of the rulebook. *) The game's designer said that it wasn't supposed to work that way. *) It detracts from the game by increasing the King-maker effect. > If you must pay the Anti-Misdirection deck to even survive, > isn't that the definition of broken? If anti-misdirection is not part of a large number of strategies, and the problem isn't also a function of the grandpredator's deck being too slow to put any pressure at all on the misdirection deck. > > Of these basic defense strategies, Block and Bounce are affected by > > Misdirection, but only if you don't have reliable untap, and if you don't, > > again, your deck isn't going to have particular success vs any sort of bleed > > deck. > > Wrong. If I have out a vamp with superior dominate and some blood, I > can bounce for weeks without using any untap. All of my other vampires > can do whatever else the deck is supposed to do. Misdirection takes away > my options. As would Mind Numb or Distraction or Jar the Soul or other "tap a minion" effect. There is a problem with single-minion defense that is not tied to Misdirection. -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and DCI (tournament) rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html [ quoted text not captured ]

> For completeness, may I ask what his predator was doing to him? Bleeding him. > It sounds like he was tapping out every turn, not doing any blood > gain, *and* paying extra pool to tap your vampires. Why was his > predator not ousting him? Because everyone but him was playing with largish vamps. Well, larger than what he was using. Generally, both is pred and his prey had only 2 - 3 vamps in play at once. With the speed that he was able to oust his prey and the fact that his pred could only bleed him 2 - 3 times per turn plus the fact he wasn't spending that much on vamps in the first place, he didn't have to worry much about his pool. > In many tournaments, you'll find that if your grandpredator is weak > (has a weak deck or poor playing skills), your predator will have a > much easier time ousting you. None of the decks, with one exception, were particularly weak. That one exception was a newbie who was participating. And with just one other exception, everyone participating had good playing skills. >An unfortunate truth about multiplayer games. Agreed. While it doesn't help the debat much, you really needed to be there to see it. Both what you and Peter point out are very valid points. However, they didn't mean diddly last weekend. > A proper deck will stop short of wiping out all of it's predator's > vampires and allow the predator to mount some small defense (or, if > he chooses, some small offense). The problem with being a rush deck against this predator is that you: a) could never have enough minions to take out his vamps b) you'd be dead before you could. > If anti-misdirection is not part of a large number of strategies, and > the problem isn't also a function of the grandpredator's deck being > too slow to put any pressure at all on the misdirection deck. The only other deck type that wouldn't have been too slow would have been another weenie deck. So that's what it comes down to in tournaments if you want to win... Screw all the other perfectly viable non-weenie tournament decks. Sorrow -- I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am anymore |-------------------------------- I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...? anymore | you never seen anyone try to I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lasombra wrote: >>Wrong. I had plenty of intercept and 8 Forced Awakenings. I had been bled for 20 before I had played my 6th card. I was unable to cycle to any of my untaps because I was dead.>> Sometimes you just get killed. Had he been bleeding you with stealth instead of Misdirection, it is just as likely that you would have been bled for just as much just as quickly. How much intercept were you packing? If you were packing enough to stop a reliable S+B deck, and were relying on it as your main defense, you probably should have had more untaps. Sometimes, however, even in the best situations, your cards don't fall right, and then you are just killed. It happens. >>With one played every single turn by the Methuselah playing them, you die.>> Unless you don't care wheither or not you are untapped. >>B is Wrong. Remember you can pay 0 for cards that have X as their cost every turn to cycle your hand, and since you were planning on playing it anyway, you simply saved some pool. Therefore, you have no useless master cards in hand when you are ready to bleed.>> Notice I said "useless" and not "unplayable". You can still cycle the Misdirections, they just don't do you any good. >>How do you define things that are useful? Every turn that other decks were its prey they tried to oust their own prey. In this particular case it didn't work. The only thing that would have saved them was the inclusion of Rush, which sadly did not make an appearance at that tournament.>> Ahh. If only more people had the strength of will to play Rush decks :-) That is why Rush decks need to exist--they are the Rock to this sort of deck's Scisors, and if no one is playing Rock, Scisors wins a lot more often than it should. However, I also don't believe that Rush was the only thing that would have stopped it. Another deck just as fast would have killed it--what was its predator doing while it was tapping out every turn killing you? If its predator had been fast as well, the weenie dominate deck would have been smashed. A more reliable Intercept deck would have stopped it as well. >>Agreed. 8 Forced Awakenings plus bringing out a vampire every turn is usually considered reliable. It was not.>> Sometimes your deck just doesn't work. That, and a dedicated intercept defense really needs more than 8 untaps in 90 cards. That is one of the failings of the intercept defense--it takes up way too much of your deck space to be reliable. The intercept deck I posted in my latest Nosferatu Newsletter has 23 untap cards (5 FA, 5 Rats, 6 2nd, 7 Cats), and it still often isn't enough. >>Agreed. How are you going to be faster than a bleed for 4 with every minion every turn with another new/fresh vamp every turn?>> You aren't. You are going to be just as fast. Or you are going to be playing a weenie vote deck that plays KRC for 3 every action, but as all the vampires in question are tiny, you get more actions per round. >>Agreed. Bringing out a new vamp that can bounce every turn should have been helpful too. It was not.>> More untap. If your only way to stop bleeds is to block/bounce them, you need more than 8 untaps. 12? 15? >>How are you going to do this when you predator bleeds you for: minimum of 4 on turn 2 minimum of 8 on turn 3 minimum of 12 on turn 4 minimum of 16 on turn 5?>> You need an awful lot of pool gain. Probably won't work real well in the face of a weenie bleed deck, sure, but not due to the Misdirection. >>You are bled for 24 pool before the start of your 4th turn. Unless you are playing rush, or his predator is playing rush, you are dead.>> Or your grand predator is is killing him just as fast as he is killing you, or you are playing a deck that can reliably block his deck, regardless of Misdirections. >>This is the only truly viable alternative. And isn't it special how you oust your predator to save yourself. Wasn't this the argument against cross-table bleeds?>> You don't oust your predator, you slow him down. If he needs to be ousted, then you get him ousted. That is how a Rush deck works. >>If you must pay the Anti-Misdirection deck to even survive, isn't that the definition of broken?>> Again, the problem is not Misdirection. The problem is that weenie bleed decks are generally too effective when compared to non weenie decks, Misdirection or no. The Misdirection is poweful in combination with the fact that the deck at hand is an incredibly fast, incredibly focused weenie bleed deck. These sorts of decks tend to sweep like mad and are incredibly effective regardless of the Misdirection. After a few tournaments of running into this sort of nightmare, I decided to build all of my competetive decks to be able to deal with fast, weenie decks, as they have a tendency to completely dominate tournament play (which I mention all the time in all of my tournament strategy related posts, I might add. If only everyone had listened :-). Weenie decks are, IMO, more powerful than they should be, but there really isn't any way to fix that, so you kind of have to deal with it. Thus, any decks I make to bring to a competetive, tournament situation needs to be viable in the face of some sort of weenie nightmare. Have you yet been the prey of a weenie deck that plays 3 Anarch Revolts a turn, every turn? That'll also probably oust you before you play 6 cards without any Misdirections. Again, not the specific master card, the problem that weenie decks are too useful. >>Wrong. If I have out a vamp with superior dominate and some blood, I can bounce for weeks without using any untap. All of my other vampires can do whatever else the deck is supposed to do. Misdirection takes away my options.>> So does Mind Numb, Pentex Subversion, or any other card that puts down a vampire. >>Wrong. My deck was designed to block stuff and still suffered because I couldn't cycle to the untaps that were there because I could never play any of the cards in my hand. And it is a successful intercept deck because it won every other table that it played at except the one where the Misdirection deck was my immediate predator.>> Then it just wasn't fast enough to deal with the Misdirection deck. This sort of thing happens. Or, you got screwed by a bad hand. Again, the problem is the fact that weenie bleed decks are too effective and too environment dominating. If you bring a deck to a tournament that can't deal with a fast, effective weenie bleed deck, you are probably going to get killed. The Misdirection helps, sure, but it isn't the main problem. The card in and of itself just isn't that powerful. If his predator had been playing a fast weenie deck as well, the Dominate deck would have been ousted quickly, as he was tapping out every turn _and_ paying for Misdirection. I realize that this leads to a horrifying arms race of weenie decks, but that is the end result anyway, and Misdirection isn't the reason. That is why I play quick Rush decks... [ quoted text not captured ]

> The moment TheLasombra and I decided to make the trek to New Orleans, > one of the first things I asked were details on their Meta Game. > TheLasombra's previous encounter with them involved his Mind > Rape/Banishment deck which terrorized them to no end. Indeed it did. One of the most intense decks I've ever played against. I'm really glad to hear that it's as evil in his local games as it was here. It makes me feel a little better. :p > TheLasombra explained the reasons the deck performed so well : little to > no intercept and vote lock with only 2 titled vamps (no vote modifiers). > I had this in mind when I tweakedmy Vote and Bleed deck. We have a very combat heavy meta-game. Generally. However, what's really odd about our playgroup is that all our decks are so diverse, it's really hard to pin anything down. One moment we'll be playing lots of intercept and the next lots of bleed, then lots of fortitude. hrrmm, that's not really an adequate explanation. I guess it boils down to this: generally in any playgroups meta-game you can pretty much guess what everyone is going to play and you can accomidate for that. In our playgroup, you can't. The only thing you can expect in our playgroup is that 6 times out of 10, there will be at least one combat deck. Also, I'm very surprised that Jeff appraised our meta-game as such. Generally there are alot of titles on the table and we do use light intercept. Just no permanents. > but you get the idea. I figured this deck would take advantage of New > Orleans play style of mostly combat and give me some easy > victory points. Couple of things to be said about the last tournament that Jeff wasn't really privy. There were a few reasons why there was combat at the last one and all had to do with the fact that the players who were playing them didn't really have cards enough to build anything else that they were comfortable with. Since that time, their collections have increased 5 - 10 fold and are now able to build better decks using their own cards. That's why Lauren went from playing a crap combat deck to a much better Setite Presense bleed deck. > A day before the tournament, we got together with Sorrow and a couple of > the New Orleans players for some "friendly" games. Not only was it a lot > of fun, but it mostly confirmed everything TheLasombra had depicted of > their playing style. Mostly. Although, to be fair, 3 of our normal players didn't show up with their everyday decks. Also, I had recently taken apart one of my political decks. > However, on tournament day I was in for quite a surprise. Sorrow had > anticipated that someone from Austin would bring a vote deck (rightly > so), and he brought his Ventrue Antitribu anti-vote deck which had > intercept and Vote denial. I love that deck. :p >A new player Lauren showed up with a presence bleed deck, which I >frankly wasn't expecting either. :) > But the real kicker was the insideous and lame deck that Steven brought. Indeed it was. I play with him on a regular occasion and I didn't expect it. Maybe that's why he played it, although he gave different reason which came out as a very weak excuse. I've wreaked terrible havoc with weenie bleed decks in the past and have gotten complaints from all my players on how 'not fun' it was and they asked that I not play it in the last tournament. I play to win, but I also play to have fun as do all the people I play with. Given our past, I was very shocked to see it show up. > The ill-famed misdirection/weenie bleed template that literally sweeped > every table it was on. I was stuck on his table all but once. And on the > one game where I wasn't at his table, I had the pleasure of contesting > Sir Walter with my prey Norm. No victory points for me. It was a great game for me, however. :p > Meta Games are predictable except for tournaments. Everyone goes in with > a different mindset than under normal gaming days. Indeed. > Expect and plan for the worst of decks, not the decks you've seen your > opponents play. I was wrong to assume that I was going to face only > combat heavy decks. Even if Steve hadn't played the deck he did, you were wrong to have assumed this. > Speed is paramount in tournaments, not staying power. I think it is a little of both. Unless you are playing a weenie deck, you need staying power. >Pool gaining resources and large capacity vamps may seem like >good ideas....but will it come out in time to defend yourself against >the weenie horde? No, but I don't see weenie hordes has dominating (pardon the pun) the tournament scene. >And rest assured, there will always be one weenie horde in each > tournament...or that city is doing it wrong. Unless they want to have fun. Steve clearly did not want to have fun and made sure noone else did either. Not that this is entirely wrong. > The one gleaming gem from the New Orleans experience, is TheLasombra's > Aggressive Tactics deck which took 6 victory points and made it to the > finals. This deck using the Toreador Antitribu is pretty nasty, and I > give you the deck composition : It was nasty. But if I had been playing my combat deck like I was this || close to playing, it would have died a horrible death. btw - you suck. :p I was going to post the decks that were in the finals tonight. I just haven't had much time this week. [ quoted text not captured ]

> I really don't think Misdirection is all that powerful. It's pretty powerful when you think that it denies you your means of defense. Say you build a deck that is comfortable with leaving a few vamps untapped to take care of the meaner things that your predator does and don't feel the need to include untap cards. You're screwed. Not every deck uses WwEF, FA, etc. I seem to recall, Peter, you saying that you almost never play with them. What do you do? Tap all your vamps every turn? Leave a vamp untapped so you might be able to do something? In the case of te latter, you are screwed against a misdirection deck. > you need to take into account how you are going to defend yourself. If your > main defense is blocking, you need to be able to deal with stealth and be able > to untap reliably, So *every* deck has to have intercept and *every* deck has to have untap capability. Is this what you are saying, Peter? What if you want to build a deck that defends yourself in other ways? Like leave a vamp untapped that can deflect? Or leave one untapped that can play vote reaction cards? Or one that can block a BR and survive the resulting combat? All of these perfectly viable options are denied with Misdirection. >otherwise your blocking defense simply isn't going to be effective. Depends on what you want to block. >If the only defense of your deck is leaving vampires untapped and > hoping they don't have blasters..er..I mean stealth, you probably aren't going > to survive very long, How many times, really, have you tried to block any actions of your S&B predator? Even if you have some light intercept? These aren't the actions you are going to block lest you allow your pred to cycle his/her hand. There are other things you are going to want to block. Some that aren't at stealth and others when you have light intercept. All of which you could have blocked with your untapped vamp if it were still untapped. >Misdirection or no. An intercept deck (or any deck that > relies on blocking reliably) is going to need a good supply of intercept and > untaps to work, Jeff's deck had both and it died horribly. >and thus doesn't need to worry about Misdirection all that much. How many should one put in their deck so as not worry about it much? Jeff had 8 and he got clobbered. Should we take a lesson from this and include 12? 15? And water our decks down terribly? >Just standing around and hoping to block an opponent gets you > nowhere--what if they have stealth? What if they have Misdirection? In both > cases, you end up dead. Thus, you need to take these things into account, and > generally not rely on standing around to block, hoping your opponent doesn't > have Misdirection. So we should tap out every turn if we don't include intercept or wakes... Even when there are a gagillion of other no stealth actions available? > If his prey's vampires were all tapped out every turn doing things that were > useful, instead of standing around hoping that the Dominate deck didn't have a > Misdirection, A) they would have done much better and B) the Dominate deck > would have a whole deck full of useless Master cards. Not true on both cases. First, unless you were playing a weenie deck as well, you would not have gotten anywhere in ousting your prey. The only thing you would have done was made it easier for the weenie-dominate deck to oust it after being done with you. Second, you can play a Misdirect and have 0 as the cost thus not allowing it to jam up your hand. > Or, play a deck that can deal with such a speedy deck and doesn't rely on > standing around and trying to block. This is overly simplistic. > A) Block: To be good at this, you need to have reliable intercept and reliable > untaps. Without both, the Block strategy simply won't be effective. Which you can't do against a Misdirection deck unless you pack a huge number of untaps. > B) Race: Be just as fast, or faster, than your predator. In this situation your > vampires are always tapped out and the existance of Misdirection has no effect > on the deck. Which requires you to play a weenie deck. And this makes it sounds like that is the only kind of deck that is tournament viable which is simply not the case. > C) Bounce: Like the Block defense, the Bounce defense needs reliable untap to > work with the Bounce, otherwise it just won't work, Misdirection or no. Which you can't do against a Misdirection deck unless you pack a ton of wakes and a ton of deflections. Sooner or later either you'll have no cards in your hand or blood on your vamps. > D) Pool Gain: Gain an awful lot of pool really fast. You won't care that your > predator is bleeding you. There is no way you can gain enough pool so as to not be ousted by this kind of deck. > E) Rush: Kill their vampires. They can't bleed you. Your vampires are tapped > out every turn, so again, the Misdirection has no bearing on the game. I very seriously doubt that even your Nosferatu rush deck could have lasted against this deck. > Of these basic defense strategies, Block and Bounce are affected by > Misdirection, but only if you don't have reliable untap, and if you don't, > again, your deck isn't going to have particular success vs any sort of bleed > deck. Except that you don't have to tap to Deflect and with one vamp you can deflect practically all your predators bleeds. With your *one* untapped vamp. > Misdirection is incredibly handy in environments where everyone plans on > blocking out of sheer habit. In environments where decks only plan on blocking > when they are designed to block stuff, the Misdirection becomes much less > useful. Not really. It is useful in all occasions. When it's prey is tapped, simply play it and pay 0 cost. > I'd be perfectly happy to be at a table as the only Rush deck with said weenie > Dominate deck (i'd be even happier if I was the second Rush deck at the table > :-). Again, I very seriously doubt you would survive. > Yes, weenie bleed decks are very powerful, probably overly so (but that is due > to the game design as a whole, not because of Misdirection), but you can build > decks that are perfectly competetive and also able to compete with such decks. I'd love to see one that can have a weenie-dominate Misdirection deck as it's predator and still be tournament viable. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorow wrote: >> Not every deck uses WwEF, FA, etc. I seem to recall, Peter, you saying that you almost never play with them. What do you do? Tap all your vamps every turn?>> Yup. My most tournament viable deck (i.e. the deck I have that is most likely to do well in a tournament that involves such weenie decks) is my Rush deck. I tap out every turn. I never attempt to block. I never attempt to react. I use all of my vampires every turn and let my predator do what ever they wan't with the few vampires they have to act with. Occasionally, I leave someone untapped to try and block something, but usually that is a last ditch effort when I am already losing. >>So *every* deck has to have intercept and *every* deck has to have untap capability. Is this what you are saying, Peter?>> No, only ones that want to survive by blocking and intercepting. Not every deck strives to do this. >>What if you want to build a deck that defends yourself in other ways? Like leave a vamp untapped that can deflect? Or leave one untapped that can play vote reaction cards? Or one that can block a BR and survive the resulting combat? All of these perfectly viable options are denied with Misdirection.>> I'd A) use untap cards or B) realize that I am going to be killed by a weenie bleed deck with Misdirections. >>How many times, really, have you tried to block any actions of your S&B predator? Even if you have some light intercept? These aren't the actions you are going to block lest you allow your pred to cycle his/her hand. There are other things you are going to want to block. Some that aren't at stealth and others when you have light intercept. All of which you could have blocked with your untapped vamp if it were still untapped.>> I don't block unless I know I am going to be able to do so. That is how I design my decks. Few, if any of them, rely on blocking regularly without being dedicated intercept decks. >>Jeff's deck had both and it died horribly.>> 8 FA does not a viable untap defense make. >>How many should one put in their deck so as not worry about it much? Jeff had 8 and he got clobbered. Should we take a lesson from this and include 12? 15? And water our decks down terribly?>> If that is what it takes to be able to compete with a weenie bleed deck in a environement that they do well in, then that is what you have to do. >>So we should tap out every turn if we don't include intercept or wakes... Even when there are a gagillion of other no stealth actions available?>> If it helps you win, yes. I far prefer to tap out every turn in the furthering of my own goal, rather than standing around waiting to muck up my prey. I perfer pro-action to re-action. That is me, though. >>Not true on both cases. First, unless you were playing a weenie deck as well, you would not have gotten anywhere in ousting your prey. The only thing you would have done was made it easier for the weenie-dominate deck to oust it after being done with you. Second, you can play a Misdirect and have 0 as the cost thus not allowing it to jam up your hand.>> I have already addressed both points in a previous post. >>I very seriously doubt that even your Nosferatu rush deck could have lasted against this deck.>> I built the deck I play specificially because of this sort of deck (yeah, it used Presence instaead of Dominate, but the end result is the same), and sometimes I do well as the predator of this sort of deck, some times I don't. However, what usually happens is he gets out a vampire, I torporize it. He gets out 2, I torporize both of them. And so on. What the game comes down to, more often than not, is how effective his predator is. Again, as I have expounded upon at length the problem here is not the Misdirection. It is that weenie decks are simply far more effective than they should be, and as a result, they tend to dominate any tournament environment they are brought to. If you are unaccustomed to seeing such decks, then you doubtlessly will be appalled by how well they do. The Misdirection is a useful tool for such decks, but not the reason they do as well as they do. Weenie decks are good because they are incredibly fast, incredibly focused, and incredibly efficient. For 10 pool, you can have 2 vampires and 2 actions a turn or 4 vampires and 4 actions a turn. As this is a built in factor of the game, there really isn't any way to fix it. Thus, you need to adapt to survive. I assure you that without Misdirection, weenie bleed decks are just as effective, just as quick, and just as environment dominating. Decks that rely on huge, slow vampires tend to die in this sort of environment. Decks that are well rounded and flexible also tend to die in this sort of environment. It is because weenie decks simply are more efficient and effective than decks built out of larger, slower vampires. The Misdirection does not help the situation, no, but it isn't the root cause. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: > > > For completeness, may I ask what his predator was doing to him? > > Bleeding him. > Sometimes the die you use to determine seating order plays kingmaker. It sounds to me like this weenie deck won the seating order game. He took out all defence from his deck to focus on destruction. He lucked out and found a predator who didn't exploit his defenselessness, thus becoming scissors in that particular game. This happens sometimes. > > It sounds like he was tapping out every turn, not doing any blood > > gain, *and* paying extra pool to tap your vampires. Why was his > > predator not ousting him? > > Because everyone but him was playing with largish vamps. Well, > larger than what he was using. Generally, both is pred and his prey > had only 2 - 3 vamps in play at once. With the speed that he was > able to oust his prey and the fact that his pred could only bleed him > 2 - 3 times per turn plus the fact he wasn't spending that much on > vamps in the first place, he didn't have to worry much about his pool. From this it sounds like his predator had a dedicated bleed deck. If they were both doing nothing but bleeding helpless preys (one got made helpless, one who decided to be) and one achieved his goal first, then that deck was probably just a better deck. If his predator found a large portion of his deck to be useless (for whatever reason) when bleeding a weenie deck, then he lost the metagame. Either scenario is just a part of the game. <snip> > While it doesn't help the debat much, you really needed to be there > to see it. Both what you and Peter point out are very valid points. > However, they didn't mean diddly last weekend. Some guy won the metagame in a big way. This is rare, but does occasionally happen. It is a natural result of the metagame factor in jyhad, which IMHO is part of what makes it such a god game. > > A proper deck will stop short of wiping out all of it's predator's > > vampires and allow the predator to mount some small defense (or, if > > he chooses, some small offense). > > The problem with being a rush deck against this predator is that > you: > a) could never have enough minions to take out his vamps > b) you'd be dead before you could. Then your ruch deck isn't up to par. Any combat deck which is claims to be tournament viable should be 50/50 at worst at stopping a weenie bleed predator. Once you have torporized his first four vamps he can't get out more than one a turn (or he can, but it requies him to wait a while, which gets him killed and doesn't bring out an /average/ of more than 1 a turn) which you kill before it can take an action. Even if you go first and your pred drops his entire crypt first turn, you should still have a potent weenie standing around by the time the first four bleeds come for you. Block one, take the other 3 on the chin. On your next turn torp another bleeder and get out a second rusher. Your pred gets one more bleed action before being permanently deprived of vampires. Unless every card draw goes against you, weenie decks shouldn't be able to beat a rush deck. > > If anti-misdirection is not part of a large number of strategies, and > > the problem isn't also a function of the grandpredator's deck being > > too slow to put any pressure at all on the misdirection deck. > > The only other deck type that wouldn't have been too slow would have > been another weenie deck. > So that's what it comes down to in tournaments if you want to win... > Screw all the other perfectly viable non-weenie tournament decks. Actually, there are many decks which can defeat weenie decks, often soundly (see my example above). These decks, as well as weenie decks and all other decks are part of the metagame. If you think you'll see a lot of weenie decks, plan to be able to kill them. -- Steve Wampler swam...@clarityconnect.com 撤oor, simple-minded Bart; he always picks Rock." "Good ol' Rock. Nothing beats that!" Lisa and Bart Simpson

> >> Not every deck uses WwEF, FA, etc. I seem to recall, Peter, you saying that > you almost never play with them. What do you do? Tap all your vamps every > turn?>> > > Yup. My most tournament viable deck (i.e. the deck I have that is most likely > to do well in a tournament that involves such weenie decks) is my Rush deck. I > tap out every turn. I never attempt to block. I never attempt to react. I use > all of my vampires every turn and let my predator do what ever they wan't with > the few vampires they have to act with. Occasionally, I leave someone untapped > to try and block something, but usually that is a last ditch effort when I am > already losing. > > >>So we should tap out every turn if we don't include intercept or wakes... > Even when there are a gagillion of other no stealth actions available?>> > > If it helps you win, yes. I far prefer to tap out every turn in the furthering > of my own goal, rather than standing around waiting to muck up my prey. I > perfer pro-action to re-action. That is me, though. I played a weenie Pre/Dom horde in a tournament, and did pretty well mainly because other decks at my tables weren't great, and weren't designed to handle it. When designing my deck, I realized that the reason I am playing my deck is because I belive it will have a greater effect on my prey than my predator will have on me, each turn. Me simply choosing to leave some vampires untapped with no clear goal is a waste of resources, and any action my vamps could take should gain me more in the game than any action my predator is taking. Otherwise, I should just be playing my predator's deck, because it will be better. Basically, you need to make a deck that is dedicated to doing one thing. Unless your deck is dedicated to blocking, you shouldn't bother, as your other actions should help you more toward your goal than blocking a random action by your predator. The only time I was in trouble in the games was when I fell prey top a weenie equipment horde that wiped me out because I couldn't afford to tap out three to four vamps each turn, and I had no combat defense. Brian Roberson

In article <7ghneh$9eu$1...@holly.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: [snip some stuff] [someone else wrote] > > Speed is paramount in tournaments, not staying power. > > I think it is a little of both. Unless you are playing a weenie deck, you > need staying power. Weenie decks have staying power, don't they? Their staying power is in the six pool they gain for each person they oust, I think. > >Pool gaining resources and large capacity vamps may seem like > >good ideas....but will it come out in time to defend yourself against > >the weenie horde? > > No, but I don't see weenie hordes has dominating (pardon the pun) > the tournament scene. I think your perception here may be incorrect. Weenie hordes do tend to dominate tournaments (whether or not they use Dominate ;-) in my view. Take the Los Angeles tournament scene - probably the biggest one in the country, from what I've heard. Weenie dominate bleed decks (with Misdirection?) have been all over their tourneys for quite some time. I'm not sure that they always win, but they are certainly a well-known force. Weenie presence bleed won one of the Ithaca tourneys I ran (Steve Wampler's deck). Rush decks are typically at least semi- weenie decks; a rush deck with an average capacity over 4 is probably too slow to be competitive in a tourney environment. Weenie vote is one of the enduring archetypes as well. Weenie decks *are* inherently more efficient than non-weenie decks because they pay less pool to get the same number of actions as everyone else, or the same amount of pool to get more actions. And actions are one of the key resources in Jyhad, as I think everyone knows? (First you get the actions, then you get the power, then you get the women...) If you Misdirect someone's minions, you have essentially robbed them of their actions by paying pool. This is good because it means the person you Misdirect gets less use out of his/her minions than you do out of yours. It is useful, then, in the same way that playing a Wake is useful: it gains an 'action equivalent' when you play it. Note that Wake costs a card but no pool to play; however, Misdirection can produce more than a one-'action equivalent' swing. Although the pool cost adheres to the 'offense is more expensive than defense' principle, the multi-minion factor may make Misdirection somewhat overpowered. Still, I'm skeptical that Misdirection is really banning material. To me it looks like being on the high end of the remaining powerful-masters range: it is about as nasty as Anarch Revolt, Society of Leopold, Hostile Takeover; somewhat nastier than Curse of Nitocris or Minion Tap; much nastier than Metro Underground or Deal with the Devil. As Peter has said, the most effective way to deal with Misdirection is to be able to ignore it, by building a deck that expects to tap out its minions every turn. If you are not doing this, you are effectively robbing yourself of actions if you do not block successfully. Misdirection may cause you to lose those actions, but so would Mind Numb, Pentex Subversion, excessive stealth, Banishment, or a successful Bum's Rush on the untapped vampire. Josh chiming in late [ quoted text not captured ]

jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: > As Peter has said, the most effective way to deal with Misdirection is > to be able to ignore it, by building a deck that expects to tap out > its minions every turn. If you are not doing this, you are effectively > robbing yourself of actions if you do not block successfully. Agreed. Busy minions are effective minions. If your minions aren't busy ousting your prey, your deck isn't working. There are only three reasons you shouldn't tap out: 1) You're on the ropes. 2) Further actions will not prove productive. (i.e., your predator has enough blockers showing and combat will not gain you anything or that you have cheap allies that exist only to be fodder for blocking) 3) You're playing a Malk oot deck > Misdirection > may cause you to lose those actions, but so would Mind Numb, Pentex > Subversion, excessive stealth, Banishment, or a successful Bum's Rush on > the untapped vampire. I hope that you don't mean that Bums Rush taps the vampire, but rather by putting them in torpor they are no longer able to block other actions. Noal -- "The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering!" -Ashleigh Brilliant [ quoted text not captured ]

Forgive all the questions if they seem trite, but I haven't the cards to try this one out, and our playgroup tends to look down on proxies. > Deck Medic/Strategy Corner > > The one gleaming gem from the New Orleans experience, is TheLasombra's > Aggressive Tactics deck which took 6 victory points and made it to the > finals. This deck using the Toreador Antitribu is pretty nasty, and I give > you the deck composition : > > Vampires > > 1 Carter > 1 Ian Wallingford > 2 Jessica > 2 Lachlan, Noddist > 1 Lolita > 2 Remilliard, Devout Crusader > 2 Sheila Mezarin > 1 Victor Revell, Loyalist I have to commend you on the lack of Jost Werner. Impressive to see a Toreador Antitribu deck that doesn't use him. Any reason why? > Library > > 5 Acrobatics > 7 Blur > 4 Flash > 8 Lucky Blow > 5 Pulled Fangs > 6 Sideslip > 4 Taste of Vitae > 4 Leather Jacket Do your minions tend to have troubles if combat gets into multiple rounds? The Taste of Vitaes help, but deadlier damage is often dealt in the later rounds, and those additional strike cards could counteract the Tastes. Just wondering. Also, do the Pulled Fangs really help that much? Since they've been errata'd to deal non-aggravated they don't seem to be used nearly as often. > 2 Sport Bike > 8 Aggressive Tactics > 4 Blood Doll > 1 Fetish Club H. G. > 1 Information Highway Geez that's a lot of Aggressive Tactics. Have you ever managed to get your target down to 0 cards? Do you try to lay them all on one Methuselah, or do you tend to distribute them around more? > 5 Enhanced Senses > 8 Forced Awakening > 8 Precognition > 4 Spirit's Touch > 6 Telepathic Misdirection Mucho reacto. Mucho intercepto. Do you get jammed a lot with intercept cards? Aggressive Tactics doesn't give stealth to the action to remove it, so I was wondering if you get jammed when playing against non-stealth decks. Was there a reason you didn't want to go with Eagle's Sight? Did it just not fit in? One last thing: It looks like this deck might have trouble with a speedy rush deck. Is that the case, or are you able to cut them down to so few cards that they aren't effective? p.

In article <372DD477...@alpinetaxi.com>, Patrick Harris <alp...@alpinetaxi.com> wrote: > Forgive all the questions if they seem trite, but I haven't the cards to try > this one out, and our playgroup tends to look down on proxies. I look down on proxies too. Their are plenty of people around the world to trade with, that's how I ended up with 8 Aggressive Tactics. > > Deck Medic/Strategy Corner > > > > The one gleaming gem from the New Orleans experience, is TheLasombra's > > Aggressive Tactics deck which took 6 victory points and made it to the > > finals. This deck using the Toreador Antitribu is pretty nasty, and I give > > you the deck composition : > > > > Vampires > > > > 1 Carter > > 1 Ian Wallingford > > 2 Jessica > > 2 Lachlan, Noddist > > 1 Lolita > > 2 Remilliard, Devout Crusader > > 2 Sheila Mezarin > > 1 Victor Revell, Loyalist > > I have to commend you on the lack of Jost Werner. Impressive to see a > Toreador Antitribu deck that doesn't use him. Any reason why? The point is to block actions against the Aggressive Tactics not bring out another target. Jost also doesn't have celerity and is very easily burned when not playing with plenty of majesties. And, he is too expensive not to have one of the only two skills in the deck. > > Library > > > > 5 Acrobatics > > 7 Blur > > 4 Flash > > 8 Lucky Blow > > 5 Pulled Fangs > > 6 Sideslip > > 4 Taste of Vitae > > 4 Leather Jacket > > Do your minions tend to have troubles if combat gets into multiple rounds? > The Taste of Vitaes help, but deadlier damage is often dealt in the later > rounds, and those additional strike cards could counteract the Tastes. Just > wondering. This deck was built for tournament use only. It has been my experience that combat doesn't go to multiple rounds in tournaments. As much as possible I try to dodge their strike then additional strike then taste if appropriate. Most of the combat won't work against a serious rush deck. But since the only people that play serious rush decks in tournaments are jack-booted thugs that live far to the north of me, I had no fears in that direction. > Also, do the Pulled Fangs really help that much? Since they've been > errata'd to deal non-aggravated they don't seem to be used nearly as often. Pulled Fangs is still great. Take a vampire down to 1 blood then Pull their Fangs so that they are at zero and they will go to torpor on their turn and usually stay there. 3 actions are too many to make that vampire useful again. And if the vampire does get rescued and the actions taken then there are 3 more actions that you may block that are at inherent stealth to cycle your intercept and combat cards on. > > 2 Sport Bike > > 8 Aggressive Tactics > > 4 Blood Doll > > 1 Fetish Club H. G. > > 1 Information Highway > > Geez that's a lot of Aggressive Tactics. Have you ever managed to get your > target down to 0 cards? No. I usually only play 2 or 3 in a game. Usually I will be on to my next prey by the time I draw the next Aggressive Tactics so I have not taken anyone below 5 cards yet. > Do you try to lay them all on one Methuselah, or do you tend to distribute > them around more? I try to oust my prey by making them play my game rather than the game that their deck was designed for. It works remarkably well. > > 5 Enhanced Senses > > 8 Forced Awakening > > 8 Precognition > > 4 Spirit's Touch > > 6 Telepathic Misdirection > > Mucho reacto. Mucho intercepto. Do you get jammed a lot with intercept > cards? Occasionally. I always expect stealth bleed at tournaments though and I haven't ever been disappointed. It's always nice to block a bleed at +4 stealth and have their hand jam with action cards or masters. > Aggressive Tactics doesn't give stealth to the action to remove it, > so I was wondering if you get jammed when playing against non-stealth decks. I only play it in tournaments so I have always seen stealth capable decks. I also block hunts, votes, torpor leaving and rescuing, and anything else that I can that my prey does. > Was there a reason you didn't want to go with Eagle's Sight? Did it just > not fit in? I forgot. I will probably put a few in if I ever play it again. > One last thing: > It looks like this deck might have trouble with a speedy rush deck. Is that > the case, or are you able to cut them down to so few cards that they aren't > effective? I would expect to have trouble with a speedy rush deck. I would not expect to see one at a tournament in my area. So far I have not. Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7gkj7e$6r0$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, dhar...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: > > As Peter has said, the most effective way to deal with Misdirection is > > to be able to ignore it, by building a deck that expects to tap out > > its minions every turn. If you are not doing this, you are effectively > > robbing yourself of actions if you do not block successfully. > > Agreed. Busy minions are effective minions. If your minions aren't busy > ousting your prey, your deck isn't working. There are only three reasons you > shouldn't tap out: > > 1) You're on the ropes. > 2) Further actions will not prove productive. (i.e., your predator has enough > blockers showing and combat will not gain you anything or that you have cheap > allies that exist only to be fodder for blocking) > 3) You're playing a Malk oot deck See? Even in Michigan they know this. ;-) ;-) ;-) > > Misdirection > > may cause you to lose those actions, but so would Mind Numb, Pentex > > Subversion, excessive stealth, Banishment, or a successful Bum's Rush on > > the untapped vampire. > > I hope that you don't mean that Bums Rush taps the vampire, but rather by > putting them in torpor they are no longer able to block other actions. That's exactly what I meant, yes. I hope I didn't confuse anyone - I forgot that 'a successful Bum's Rush' could be read as meaning an unblocked action, where I was thinking of a successful combat resulting in a torporization. Josh as everyone knows, Bum's Rush doesn't make its victim tapped... it only makes him DEAD! (dead dead dead dead undead) [ quoted text not captured ]

> I look down on proxies too. > Their are plenty of people around the world to trade with, that's how I ended up > with 8 Aggressive Tactics. I may have to try to trade for more and see how they work with the Tzimisce. The Animalism/Auspex combo just has to be viable. > The point is to block actions against the Aggressive Tactics not bring out > another target. Jost also doesn't have celerity and is very easily burned when > not playing with plenty of majesties. And, he is too expensive not to have one > of the only two skills in the deck. That's what I thought. Could be useful for bringing out the equipment you have, if that's ever a problem. Or you could just throw in Alacrity. But then again, that's just diluting the deck. > This deck was built for tournament use only. It has been my experience that > combat doesn't go to multiple rounds in tournaments. As much as possible I try > to dodge their strike then additional strike then taste if appropriate. Ah. There are a few decks around here that use either Drawing out the Beast or Weather Control along with Trap. And a few of the Brujah rush decks like to press. And then there's the Cailean deck. *sigh* > Most of the combat won't work against a serious rush deck. But since the only > people that play serious rush decks in tournaments are jack-booted thugs that > live far to the north of me, I had no fears in that direction. Heehee. You southerners are so polite. > Pulled Fangs is still great. Take a vampire down to 1 blood then Pull their > Fangs so that they are at zero and they will go to torpor on their turn and > usually stay there. 3 actions are too many to make that vampire useful again. > And if the vampire does get rescued and the actions taken then there > are 3 more actions that you may block that are at inherent stealth to cycle your > intercept and combat cards on. I'd forgotten about that "If the vampire must hunt it goes to torpor" part. > No. I usually only play 2 or 3 in a game. Usually I will be on to my next prey > by the time I draw the next Aggressive Tactics so I have not taken anyone below > 5 cards yet. So more of a lure then, and not so much a serious detriment. Although a detriment still. Hmm. I guess they are kind of pricey as well, so too many played would be more of a detriment to you. I see now. > I try to oust my prey by making them play my game rather than the game that > their deck was designed for. It works remarkably well. So each goes towards your prey. And when he/she is dead they go to the new prey. Mm-hmm. > Occasionally. I always expect stealth bleed at tournaments though and I haven't > ever been disappointed. It's always nice to block a bleed at +4 stealth and have > their hand jam with action cards or masters. I guess I'm just used to my playgroup more. Lots of combat. Peter would love it I think. And with all the Fortitude we use to prevent, there are some Assamite and Tremere decks that work well here. Xian would love it as well. =) And yes, it is nice to foil that huge stealth bleed that they just know isn't going to be blocked. Ha! "You're at +4 stealth? Well I'm already at +5 intercept. Got any more stealth?" > I only play it in tournaments so I have always seen stealth capable decks. I > also block hunts, votes, torpor leaving and rescuing, and anything else that I > can that my prey does. Definitely a point there. I don't make it to many tournaments, and that's why combat seems to be prevalent here. That and larger vampires. I haven't seen a weenie deck played in a while actually. > I forgot. I will probably put a few in if I ever play it again. Ah. Well, there it is. > I would expect to have trouble with a speedy rush deck. > I would not expect to see one at a tournament in my area. > So far I have not. Ah. There it is again. No jack-booted thugs. No speedy rush decks. Is there a larger variety of unorthodox decks in your area? (like this one) Thanks for the response. p.

Hey now, don't get ahead of me. The Goth Band is another newsletter into itself. davey sprocket <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: > don't forget that it also combos with Goth Band :) > > On Sat, 1 May 1999, Ethan Burrow wrote: > > > Card of the Month - > > > > Palla Grande -- [ quoted text not captured ]

<a lotta snipping> The main basis for my conclusion that misdirection should be banned is the pure cost/effect ratio. I had a weenie dominate deck (pre-errata / pre 7/7) that used seductions and sleeping mind instead of misdirections. It was powerful, and it won me a tournament, but it didn't sweep a tournament round in 20 minutes either. If swapping out one card for another provides *that* much affect on the game environment, then the card needs to be looked at. Tomb of Ramses III didn't maul our playgroup even though we play with The "Mr. Suitcase" Lasombra, but it was still errated since it was overpowered for it's cost. While other playgroups may not be as affected by Misdirection than Austin's or New Orlean's, I still think Misdirection is too powerful for it's cost. And I also prefer banning cards rather than card text changes myself ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

A couple of questions for Peter : How often do you rush "upstream" to your predator in tournaments? How many victory points on average do you get a round with your rush decks? Are they weenie as well or do you play with mid-level vamps? PDB6 <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote: > Yup. My most tournament viable deck (i.e. the deck I have that is most likely > to do well in a tournament that involves such weenie decks) is my Rush deck. I > tap out every turn. I never attempt to block. I never attempt to react. I use > all of my vampires every turn and let my predator do what ever they wan't with > the few vampires they have to act with. Occasionally, I leave someone untapped > to try and block something, but usually that is a last ditch effort when I am > already losing. -- [ quoted text not captured ]

Ethan wrote: >>How often do you rush "upstream" to your predator in tournaments?>> Often. It is the only defense I have, so I plan on doing it. I try and pay as much attention to my prey as possible, but usually my first action tends to result in my predators vampire being destroyed. >>How many victory points on average do you get a round with your rush decks?>> Depends a great deal on the table, the decks, and the seating. Generally, I get (assuming a 5 player game) either 4VPs, 1 VP, and 0 VPs, with about equal distribution. The last tourney, I got 4, 1, 1, and then 4 in the final. At Origins last year, I got 1, 4, 1, and 0 in the final. As I pointed out in a recent thread (I think it was the "Fame in a Rush Deck" thread a few weeks back), my deck tends to work in three modes: 1. Complete table dominance, in which case I get 4 or 5 VPs (I usually end up getting my first predator ousted, so I only get 4 VPs). 2. Precarious from the begining, in which case I usually get 1 VP, and then ousted quickly after that, as I simply can't get anywhere on my second prey. 3. Completely shut down, in which case I never do anything and usually get ousted quickly. >>Are they weenie as well or do you play with mid-level vamps?>> My current crypt is something along the lines of: 2 Hasina Kesi 2 KoKo 2 Duck 2 Agatha 2 Olivia 1 Nigel 1 Beast which is an average of 3.5. I am always iffy on having Beast in there, as he is so big, but he is awfully good... [ quoted text not captured ]