Casual, as opposed to Competitive

I am primarily a competitive player. As such, I don't really know what casual players are thinking. Still, lion cubs play rough, right? It's a no-pressure simulation of what they might face later in their life. I think that's what a person's playgroup should be like. I'm trying to figure out what makes a person choose casual play or competitive play over the other. So far, I think one factor is, tournaments are all about winning. Those of us who feel pressured by that will more likely play casually, right? I love to lose. I never have so much inspiration to build a new deck, or change an existing one, as when I get utterly creamed in a good game. I think this is what makes me such a competitive player, as anyone who can't take losing may just take their focus off of it altogether. Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you do?

"Brian" <FirstCo...@aol.com> wrote in message news:a84b9185.0203...@posting.google.com... > I am primarily a competitive player. As such, I don't really know > what casual players are thinking. Still, lion cubs play rough, right? > It's a no-pressure simulation of what they might face later in their > life. I think that's what a person's playgroup should be like. > The incompatibility between these two styles (in reality, it is more a spectrum between) creates a layer of frustration and tension between players that can lead to hurt feelings, etc. In short, it can kill a playgroup. It killed ours. The Austin playgroup is dead. Hell, I'm inventorying my cards right now for a big run on Ebay. (Okay, there are other factors invovled. But exaggeration for emphasis...) > I'm trying to figure out what makes a person choose casual play or > competitive play over the other. So far, I think one factor is, > tournaments are all about winning. Those of us who feel pressured by > that will more likely play casually, right? There are many factors as to why some play in tournaments and others don't. For some, it is the deck types that they know they will face in a tournament (the cheese & sleaze argument). For some, they may not like meeting or playing with new people they haven't met socially first. And for others, they may not necessarily need to win, but they don't want to be crushed in the first 3 turns. They just want to play. In my personal experience, tournaments (especially big convention ones) are all about meeting fabulous players and people from all over. Meeting people whose posts you've read on the infamous newsgroup. Trying to figure out whether you could beat up Derek Ray in real life. And they are a blast. Of course, unlike your average gamer, I don't suffer discomfort in social situations. I can talk to a pretty girl without having to change my underwear afterwards. > I love to lose. I never have so much inspiration to build a new deck, > or change an existing one, as when I get utterly creamed in a good > game. I think this is what makes me such a competitive player, as > anyone who can't take losing may just take their focus off of it > altogether. I disagree. I think players who can take losing are more apt to play in casual environments. Players who "can't take losing" aren't in it for a "good game". Really, it's the old power gamer v. social gamer argument. Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. If they are losing because the metagame (the archetypes and unique characteristics of the decks that players are fielding) doesn't favor them, they will either try to change the metagame or stop playing. Of course, changing the metagame is favorable to reducing the number of available players in a playgroup. But what if the deck type required to change the metagame is one that you hate playing? The thing about this game is that you can build a deck that won't win without insuring that someone else will. You can build a deck that won't oust your prey, but will prevent them from playing (thank you HoS, to name one archetype. Too bad it isn't spelt "Skulles", because I think "HoSe" is more appropriate.) How do you change the metagame away from these deck types? > Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you do? I used to play to make people laugh. Then I played to win. Then I played to play. Now it's just not worth it if someone (not even the same person every time) is going to be furious at the end of every game. -Mike Ooi

I'm a competitive person. I picked it up from years of Little League baseball and wrestling. I've played CCGs competitively for about 7 years now, and I do so because it allows me to compete with people I normally would have an easy shot at beating in a physical contest. However, I do enjoy casual play. My close friends and I play Jyhad to relax, and to enhance our enjoyment of the RPG, of which we participate in multiple campaigns (Lasombra Antitribu and Tzimisce represent! :-D ). We like to play as our favorite clans, not because they're the most effective, but because we like the clan's ideals. I love the Brujah because they try to fight for their ideals, usually to a fault, while struggling to maintain their connection to humanity and their idealism. Any other thoughts? Robert M. Sachs Brujah Prince of Naperville, IL \ / "Who controls the past now, \ / controls the future. ----\---/---- Who controls the present now, V controls the past." ~ Zach de la Rocha

Mike Ooi wrote: > > "Brian" <FirstCo...@aol.com> wrote in message > news:a84b9185.0203...@posting.google.com... > > I'm trying to figure out what makes a person choose casual play or > > competitive play over the other. So far, I think one factor is, > > tournaments are all about winning. Those of us who feel pressured by > > that will more likely play casually, right? > > There are many factors as to why some play in tournaments and others don't. > For some, it is the deck types that they know they will face in a tournament > (the cheese & sleaze argument). For some, they may not like meeting or > playing with new people they haven't met socially first. And for others, > they may not necessarily need to win, but they don't want to be crushed in > the first 3 turns. They just want to play. To me, this is a strange question when asked in the context of Jyhad. Every place I've played, I see all the same guys playing tournaments that are in my casual play groups. The atmosphere seems the same as the casual games I play. There's maybe a little more adherence to technical rules. For instance, you get into your turn without taking the edge pool, you're just stuck whereas in a casual game you can take it and no one really bothers you about it. But for the most part, I barely notice the difference. Even in the large tournaments I've been going to in Los Angeles this past year are fine. Everyone's cordial, no one seems to have any problems with anyone else for the most part, and the lesser experienced players meld in just fine (albeit they don't necessarily win much). Magic was completely different in this respect. I stopped playing big Magic tournaments for a lot of reasons but one of the main ones was that everyone was so uptight about everything. Besides complete and absolute adherence to all the sticky technical rules and jokers trying to argue with you about minutia, you'd run into poor sports and hotshots with attitudes and people who thought "jedi mind tricks" were cute and just all sorts of boorish behavior. I found myself being irritable and overreactive from the environment I was in and it probably reflected in my own behavior towards others. The funny thing was that I found Magic boring outside of tournaments for the most part since too many people wouldn't take casual play seriously enough to make the play interesting. (Too many dumb trick decks and stuff.) I found the best niche was the local store tournaments where most everyone knew each other too well to behave uncivilly (after all, they would see each other again next week) but were serious enough to play to win. I might still be playing Magic that way if WotC didn't insist on their three expansions per year schedule. Fred

>The Austin playgroup is dead. > >Hell, I'm inventorying my cards right now for a big run on Ebay. >(Okay, there are other factors invovled. But exaggeration for emphasis...) I hope this is all a bit joke! We *can't* have Mike Ooi be quitting on all of us! Whose going to be there to make us all laugh??? >There are many factors as to why some play in tournaments and others don't. >For some, it is the deck types that they know they will face in a tournament >(the cheese & sleaze argument). For some, they may not like meeting or >playing with new people they haven't met socially first. And for others, >they may not necessarily need to win, but they don't want to be crushed in >the first 3 turns. They just want to play. I'm still not completely sure about tournaments. Though I've been posting on this newsgroup for as long as I can remember, I've only really been playing in tournaments fairly recently. My first two tournaments or so (last year) left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. It seemed too competitive, with people complaining about even the most minor of technicalities. Once you start having people demand you can't get Edge pool once you're in your Master phase, you have other such nit-picks. Oh, you just took a blood off your Blood Doll? Too late to use your HG. *All* the little nitty-gritty details are enforced because they might give some player a little bit of an edge. So overall, I found normal tournaments to have a bit of a hostile environment. I must admit that the past Storyline Tournament have been different. They lacked most of the obsessive competitiveness of the other tourneys. I've found them too be much more laid back and casual (almost too casual. At times they needed a bit more structure). In addition, another factor might be that I've gradually gotten to know some of the people who play at the tournaments. So perhaps a tournament may seem hostile when you don't know anyone there, but as you gradually get to know them, the very seem atmosphere drastically changes. And now I'm rambling so I'll stop. Halcyan 2

"Halcyan 2" <halc...@aol.com> a écrit dans le message news: 20020323125958...@mb-mc.aol.com... > >The Austin playgroup is dead. > > > >Hell, I'm inventorying my cards right now for a big run on Ebay. > >(Okay, there are other factors invovled. But exaggeration for emphasis...) > > I hope this is all a bit joke! We *can't* have Mike Ooi be quitting on all of > us! Whose going to be there to make us all laugh??? yeah, I hope too this is a joke. I want more Malk'n'cookies tabloids, Lasombra Christmas special and the like. C'mon, you're the funniest writer on this newsgroup...I have good memories of those posts with Free States Rants. Besides, you don't want to put an end to your plans of making Phobia a broken card, would you? Please stay in the VtES scene! Stone

sh...@texas.net writes: >"Brian" <FirstCo...@aol.com> wrote >> I am primarily a competitive player. As such, I don't really know >> what casual players are thinking. >The incompatibility between these two styles (in reality, it is more a >spectrum between) creates a layer of frustration and tension between players >that can lead to hurt feelings, etc. In short, it can kill a playgroup. It >killed ours. > >The Austin playgroup is dead. I'm not happy to hear that. I don't want to be nosy, but in the interest of avoiding similar problems, what happened? Hadn't you guys been around for a while? I've found Jyhad players to be a good bunch. It's a game, and people want to win, but they want other players to at least have fun. One player in our group has essayed a weenie presence bleed deck (we joke that he seems to pull it out after an embarrassing or annoying loss to get revenge) but he's said he doesn't want to play it anymore as it spoils the game for everybody else. That's the kind of attitude I'm used to seeing. I have a lot of Freak Drives and use them in my Fortitude decks, but I'd use less if they were giving an outrageously high win rate or the other players complained. >Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice >or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. Man, how could anybody who really hates to lose stand this game? With 5 players, even the best will lose most of the time. >The thing about this game is that you can build a deck that won't win >without insuring that someone else will. You can build a deck that won't >oust your prey, but will prevent them from playing (thank you HoS, to name >one archetype. Too bad it isn't spelt "Skulles", because I think "HoSe" is >more appropriate.) Would you believe I won a game with a HoSe predator last night? I was running a bloaty deck and the lack of forward pressure made me a monster by the time I ran out. Mostly i was really lucky, though; agressive grandpredator, aggressive prey, etc. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

Halcyan wrote: >>I'm still not completely sure about tournaments. Though I've been posting on this newsgroup for as long as I can remember, I've only really been playing in tournaments fairly recently. My first two tournaments or so (last year) left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. It seemed too competitive, with people complaining about even the most minor of technicalities.>> I gotta say that I find that odd. I don't play in a huge number of tournaments or anything, but I play at Origins every year, a few larger tournaments around the Northeast every year, and multiple smallish local events every year, and I find that tournament VTES players are quite personable and fun to play with. Sure, people are often much more sticklers to the actual rules (like missing out on taking pool for having the edge), but I have rarely run across people being psychos about stuff like that. The last two really big tournaments I played--Origins and the Northeast Quallifier both had very friendly competetors, and I can't remember any disputes over rules or game play--everyone was pretty chill. Certainly the small local events that tend to be made of people from three fairly close playgroups (that we see fairly often) are all very relaxed, even if we are playing for prizes. >>Once you start having people demand you can't get Edge pool once you're in your Master phase, you have other such nit-picks.>> I'm not quite sure what other such nit-picks there are. Getting blood from the edge is optional--if you don't take it at the right point in the turn, you are effectively opting not to take it. Sure, in casual play (and even in competetive play) I personally wouldn't care, and would let someone get blood from the edge if they forgot, but that is me, and I can certainly understand people wanting to play by the fairly strict enforcement of the rules, especially if money (i.e. prizes) are involved. >>*All* the little nitty-gritty details are enforced because they might give some player a little bit of an edge. So overall, I found normal tournaments to have a bit of a hostile environment.>> I don't think they are enforced 'cause they might give someone a bit of an edge--they are enforced 'cause they are the rules, and if you are playing competetively (i.e. where something is at stake--prizes, ratings, quallifiaction for another event, whatever), it is best that the rules get enforced. This doesn't mean that someone has to be a dick about it, no, but it is probably best to assume that rules (even small ones) will be strictly enforced in a competetive setting--that the default understanding is that everyone will be playing by the same strict rules, rather than assuming that everyone will be playing with the same casual outlook that you or I might have. All this being said, however, I still have had pretty much nothing but good experiences at VTES tournaments, and find that the vast bulk of competetive VTES players are very nice, cordial, and fun to play with. Sure, there is the occasional idiot or ass, but they are far fewer and further between than not. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com http://www.geocities.com/bakija6 "We have no pages lefted. It is too deep." -The deeply bizzare and inexplicable error message my junky windows machine at work gave me one day.

I've been playing since '95 and we started off for the first 3 years playing ante about 80% of the time. Needless to say I played very competitivley. Due to personel changes in our playgroup, our ante games decreased, and as I have won lots of games, my style went to more casual play. Unless I'm in an ante or tournament game, I play casual. Almost 7 years of VTES and winning alot has made me more interested in trying out weird decks and play styles. I still try my hardest to win, but I don't often build killer decks, or play in the viscously ruthless style of my earlier days. It seems to work ok with our current playgroup, most games are casual, and the tourneys and ante games are competitive. I feel I've found Golconda. Brad Nozik Toreador Prince of San Francisco

> The incompatibility between these two styles (in reality, it is more a > spectrum between) creates a layer of frustration and tension between players > that can lead to hurt feelings, etc. In short, it can kill a playgroup. It > killed ours. > > The Austin playgroup is dead. > > Hell, I'm inventorying my cards right now for a big run on Ebay. > (Okay, there are other factors invovled. But exaggeration for emphasis...) Dude, That blows. I just got promoted over Austin and should be visiting there at least once a quarter. I hope to get together with you and the other guys in Austin to put something together on my first trip which will occur on the week of April 1st. > There are many factors as to why some play in tournaments and others don't. > For some, it is the deck types that they know they will face in a tournament > (the cheese & sleaze argument). For some, they may not like meeting or > playing with new people they haven't met socially first. And for others, > they may not necessarily need to win, but they don't want to be crushed in > the first 3 turns. They just want to play. My biggest question what is crushing someone in 3 turns? Mono-Dominate weenies is about the only archtype that I know that does that. So combat should have cranked up really high? Does this happen or what? > In my personal experience, tournaments (especially big convention ones) are > all about meeting fabulous players and people from all over. Meeting people > whose posts you've read on the infamous newsgroup. Trying to figure out > whether you could beat up Derek Ray in real life. And they are a blast. Of > course, unlike your average gamer, I don't suffer discomfort in social > situations. I can talk to a pretty girl without having to change my > underwear afterwards. I wish I could do this. :) > I disagree. I think players who can take losing are more apt to play in > casual environments. Players who "can't take losing" aren't in it for a > "good game". Really, it's the old power gamer v. social gamer argument. True, but wasn't that where the "nut-puncher" comprimise happened? > Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice > or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. If they are losing > because the metagame (the archetypes and unique characteristics of the decks > that players are fielding) doesn't favor them, they will either try to > change the metagame or stop playing. This is true. > Of course, changing the metagame is favorable to reducing the number of > available players in a playgroup. But what if the deck type required to > change the metagame is one that you hate playing? > > The thing about this game is that you can build a deck that won't win > without insuring that someone else will. You can build a deck that won't > oust your prey, but will prevent them from playing (thank you HoS, to name > one archetype. Too bad it isn't spelt "Skulles", because I think "HoSe" is > more appropriate.) How do you change the metagame away from these deck > types? > Is this an actual Metagame event or just someone's annoying deck. I have found that the abandoned Tremere handle these FoS decks pretty well YMMV. > > Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you do? I try to instruct. My newbie metagame is shifting to Dominate. Wish me luck. :) Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

"Halcyan 2" <halc...@aol.com> wrote in message > It seemed too competitive, with people > complaining about even the most minor of technicalities. Once you start having > people demand you can't get Edge pool once you're in your Master phase, you > have other such nit-picks. Oh, you just took a blood off your Blood Doll? Too > late to use your HG. *All* the little nitty-gritty details are enforced because > they might give some player a little bit of an edge. So overall, I found normal > tournaments to have a bit of a hostile environment. I have a bit of a different take on the strict adherence to the rules. I believe its much friendlier to play with the strict adherence. When you think about it, there's less to argue about. If you typically allow people to take the edge pool and hunting grounds, etc. during their master phase, you'll inevitably run into a situation where someone at your tournament says "Hey, you already took blood from your hunting ground" or "you already gained a pool for the edge!". Not only that, but if you are going to allow take-backs and other exceptions to the rules, you'll eventually find situations that cannot be taken back "Oh, wait! I should have gained the edge last turn and I forgot to take it! So, I'm not ousted afterall!". Clearly, there is some point in which you're going to say that too much time has passed. Problem is, people will draw the line differently at where that line will be drawn. Then you open the door to claims of favortism ("The judge always let's his own playgroup do it!"). Ugh. Anyway, in small casual groups you can oftentimes work out most of the details and begin to think similarly about where to draw the line and how to judge these murky areas. This minimizes or eliminates the arguments. When you are playing with 30 strangers it makes much more sense to officially draw the line in the same way. As Peter said though, people shouldn't use the strict adherence as an excuse to be a jerk. > In addition, another factor might be that I've gradually gotten to know some of > the people who play at the tournaments. So perhaps a tournament may seem > hostile when you don't know anyone there, but as you gradually get to know > them, the very seem atmosphere drastically changes. In some games, playeres are essentially playing multiplayer solitaire. When my kids play Candyland, they make their way to the finish with no interaction between players. Victory in V:TES *requires* you to achieve your win on the corpses of your opponents. Games like V:TES are naturally more difficult to play with strangers. The tendency would almost be to want to apologize after torporizing the stranger's vamps. :) Getting to know people certainly makes it easier. -Robert Robert Goudie Chairman, V:EKN rob...@vtesinla.org

[ quoted text not captured ] All very good points. However, as you make them you have to understand that people are not going to typically understand this. Therefore, they may see tournaments as a more hostile environment, when in fact this is just the way it's got to be. I only bring this up since the focal point of the thread seems like it's really more about how people perceive the tournament environment than the justification for strict adherence to the rules. Fred

Fred wrote: >>All very good points. However, as you make them you have to understand that people are not going to typically understand this. Therefore, they may see tournaments as a more hostile environment, when in fact this is just the way it's got to be.>> Which I agree with, but am constantly confused by. Tournaments are places where folks go to play and win stuff--they are playing for money, prizes, bragging rights, whatever. In any game, whenever people play for something, rules tend to be strictly enforced, be it high school basketball, bridge, darts, or VTES. When people are playing for money, everyone likes to make sure that everyone is on the up and up. Playing by a strict adherence to the rules is the best way to do this. I guess where folks get confused is when they don't understand the difference between adhering to the rules and being a prick, as it is perfectly possible to adhere to the rules strictly without being a prick, and most people I have played tournament VTES with have been not pricks, while we all are pretty good about strict adherence to the rules. >>I only bring this up since the focal point of the thread seems like it's really more about how people perceive the tournament environment than the justification for strict adherence to the rules.>> The perception comes from, I'd figure, the assumption that people at a tournament are going to be completely laid back and just as flexible about the rules as your home play group, rather than the assumption that people at a tournament are going to strictly adhere to the rules, and expect that everyone do that. As I mentioned elsewhere, it seems likely that if everyone went to a tournament assuming that the default will be "strict adherence to rules" rather than "laid back and flexible adherence to the rules", everyone would be much happier. Just like if everyone went to a VTES tournament with the default assumption "everyone will be playing very effective decks that are going to do their best to kill me" rather than "everyone will be playing goofy, role-playing, theme decks, and will be just as amused as me when I play my all Werewolf pack deck". Kind of like when you go to a chess tournament, you'll automatically assume "my opponents are going to do their best to check mate me", where you won't automatically assume "my opponents will be unconcerened with actually trying to check mate me, but instead will be doing everything in their power to kill my Bishops above all other goals". [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote in message news:20020324174651...@mb-fe.aol.com... > Kind of like when you go to a chess tournament, you'll automatically assume "my > opponents are going to do their best to check mate me", where you won't > automatically assume "my opponents will be unconcerened with actually trying to > check mate me, but instead will be doing everything in their power to kill my > Bishops above all other goals". You mean I'm *not* supposed to just be going after the bishops? Man, I wish someone had told me. :) Also, I am in complete agreement. It would be better if everyone went in to a tournament with the assumption of strict rules adherence, but was polite about it, rather than a jerk. Played in a draft tournament yesterday (10 players, top seed in the finals, 3rd in the end, playing mostly Brujah stuff), and it was interesting to see that when I made a couple of errors, certain people would politely remind me, and others would be kind of jerky about it. Either way, my bad, but still...if you then expect me to be polite back, you're going to get a much better response with the former, I would think. By the way, I like the sig, Peter. Xian

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > Fred wrote: > >>All very good points. However, as you make them you have to understand that > people are not going to typically understand this. Therefore, they may see > tournaments as a more hostile environment, when in fact this is just the way > it's got to be.>> > > Which I agree with, but am constantly confused by. Tournaments are places where > folks go to play and win stuff--they are playing for money, prizes, bragging > rights, whatever. In any game, whenever people play for something, rules tend > to be strictly enforced, be it high school basketball, bridge, darts, or VTES. > When people are playing for money, everyone likes to make sure that everyone is > on the up and up. Playing by a strict adherence to the rules is the best way to > do this. OK....sure. But you're changing what I was responding to. This is not the same thing Robert Goudie was talking about. Robert was explaining the dynamics of why closer, more technical enforcement of the rules in a big tournament actually makes for a "happier" tournament. It seems like a bit of a subtle point to me. You're talking about people being surprised that rules would be enforced to a greater degree at all. I suppose some people are but I've never noticed that to be a real big problem on the whole. To the extent that they are surprised, it's probably because few people perceive that the prizes for the winners are any great thing to fight over so they're confused about why folks need to get all that persnickety. > I guess where folks get confused is when they don't understand the difference > between adhering to the rules and being a prick, as it is perfectly possible to > adhere to the rules strictly without being a prick, and most people I have > played tournament VTES with have been not pricks, while we all are pretty good > about strict adherence to the rules. Well, let's keep a little bit of reality in saying this. If I want to take one pool for the edge after paying for my hunting ground and you're telling me I'm screwed because I forgot the former for 10 lousy seconds, you're going to seem to seem like a bit of a prick to me unless I'm pretty mature and have my perspective on all these issues in good working order. Otherwise, I'm more likely to focus on the fact that since holding the edge around the able is rather uncommon, it's somewhat hard for many of us to keep it in mind after an entire turn of play. Add to this the fact that I'm pretty clearly not attempting to cheat and sucker someone into doing something they wouldn't otherwise by "feigning" not taking my edge pool for 10 extra seconds and the "prick" judgment comes rather easily. Under the circumstances, it's pretty easy to get confused about the why someone needs to technical about this if he's not a prick. Mind you, I'm not defending it. I'm just explaining why it doesn't seem like a hard thing to understand to me. Fred

"X_Zealot" <x_ze...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:Nfcn8.166928$Nn6.8...@e3500-atl2.usenetserver.com... > > The Austin playgroup is dead. > Dude, > That blows. I just got promoted over Austin and should be visiting there at > least once a quarter. Don't worry dude, we'll still be able to pull some games; but you should expect more drinking and goofing off than Jyhad. > My biggest question what is crushing someone in 3 turns? Mono-Dominate > weenies is about the only archtype that I know that does that. So combat > should have cranked up really high? Does this happen or what? The problem in Austin is that everyone here is at such a skill level that if you sit next to someone who has the counter to your deck, you will probably be screwed right out of the gates. It happens pretty often here and someone gets frustrated in nearly every game. How much of this is personality? that's open for debate. Also, the metagame has been switched to the idea of winning the 3 player game. Once a player has aVP, or one in reach, they are the target for the other 4 players. Players here are trying to play a waiting game while 2 players get ousted and then control the whole table. It's pretty lame, but it does almost guarantee a table win. Mike said: > > In my personal experience, tournaments (especially big convention ones) > are > > all about meeting fabulous players and people from all over. Meeting > people > > whose posts you've read on the infamous newsgroup. Trying to figure out > > whether you could beat up Derek Ray in real life. And they are a blast. I totally agree. My first 'big tourney' was Dragon con last year. Here's the experience for me in order of fun. 1 - Drinking with the Atlanta group and other out-of-towners 2 - Playing pick up games with new people 3 - The van ride from Austin to Atlanta (1100 miles ~14 hours) wackiness ensues 4 - Playing in the tournaments 5 - Not having to drive on the way back For me the game is about social interaction. I love the strategies involved and keeping track of so many variables, but there's a point where watching sleazy decks run amok isn't fun. > > I disagree. I think players who can take losing are more apt to play in > > casual environments. Players who "can't take losing" aren't in it for a > > "good game". Really, it's the old power gamer v. social gamer argument. Everyone here knows how to lose. Everyone's lost a lot of games. The problem is getting shut down on turn 3. (Bringing a knife to a gun fight or just bad luck or whatever). One of the main problems with being screwed like that is the fact that you've invested at least an hour of your time waiting to be knocked out. When someone is screwed (and that happens at almost every game) its like they're having root canal surgery for the whole hour. So they play their "I'm gonna get even" deck next, and someone else is buggered for the next hour. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. > True, but wasn't that where the "nut-puncher" comprimise happened? That was the idea, but different people had different ideas of what a nut-puncher was. The problem was you'd have one player that was basically worthless for the first 8 turns and another that was doing toolboxy stuff and kicking the tar out of the big setup deck. Also, Austin has greatly varied ideas of what decks should and shouldn't see casual play. One player might be playing a trick deck or a nut-puncher, and their predator may be playing a tourney-winning deck. No one really wanted to change their deck building or playing styles, which pissed some people off. > > The thing about this game is that you can build a deck that won't win > > without insuring that someone else will. You can build a deck that won't > > oust your prey, but will prevent them from playing (thank you HoS, to name > > one archetype. Too bad it isn't spelt "Skulles", because I think "HoSe" is > > more appropriate.) How do you change the metagame away from these deck > > types? > > > Is this an actual Metagame event or just someone's annoying deck. It's actually both. When bloodlines came out, we saw a handful of HOSer decks that dealt with resource denial, etc (the big nerf bat*). But also we saw many decks that focus on stopping their prey WITHOUT ousting. The local belief, like I said earlier, is that if you're going to oust your prey, the table will dogpile on you, and you lose. Brian said: > > > Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you do? I try to play forward moving decks. If I'm shut down right away, I generally (90% of the time) will do nothing and wait for the table dynamics to change. I still play competitively, but I also build silly decks that stand little chance of winning. I refuse to play table control/wait for 3-player game. > I try to instruct. My newbie metagame is shifting to Dominate. Wish me > luck. :) Good luck. I wish we had some newbies 'round here. -Brian * Evewalker, Seekonk, MA http://www.rustwurk.net/forums/viewtopic.php?topic=364&forum=1&8

>I'm not quite sure what other such nit-picks there are. Getting blood from >the >edge is optional--if you don't take it at the right point in the turn, you >are >effectively opting not to take it. Sure, in casual play (and even in >competetive play) I personally wouldn't care, and would let someone get blood >from the edge if they forgot, but that is me, and I can certainly understand >people wanting to play by the fairly strict enforcement of the rules, >especially if money (i.e. prizes) are involved. I personally prefer strict adherence myself, but it's just often hard to put things tactfully. For example, I forget to take Edge pool. Boy am I bad, my loss. So similarly, once someone takes a blood off their Blood Doll, it's too late for them to get Edge pool as well. Their loss. And then when I point out that it's also too late to get HG blood, they go on about how it says that HG's "say it happens during the untap so it's mandatory" (it's not), blah blah blah. Similarly, I've seen much more heated arguments (though nothing compared to the ones they apparently have down in Las Vegas!) about things such as judges calling time, did someone actually decline to block, etc, etc. Things that are almost never a problem in casual play. In addition, people (including me) get much more touchy about cross-table actions and (non-action) and it just gets really messy IMHO. Halcyan 2

> I guess where folks get confused is when they don't understand the difference > between adhering to the rules and being a prick, as it is perfectly possible > to adhere to the rules strictly without being a prick, and most people I have > played tournament VTES with have been not pricks, while we all are pretty good > about strict adherence to the rules. I would argue otherwise. For a while, some members of my playgroup called me a rules lawyer. I discovered that the only time it was said was when I pointed out that they were cheating (although not usually on purpose!). As people increasingly played by the rules, they stopped calling me that. My point is, when strict adherence hurts a player in-game, especially if they are ignorant of the rule, they will sometimes use that as reason enough to think that you're a prick. > >>I only bring this up since the focal point of the thread seems like it's > really more about how people perceive the tournament environment than the > justification for strict adherence to the rules.>> Actually, I didn't mention "tournament environment" at all in my original post. I was talking about competitive players, and I guess everyone so far assumed I meant tournament players. Nobody in my playgroup has ever been to a sanctioned tournament. Some of us are competitive, and some of us play casually. I would like us to be able to play together, but right now, casual's get stomped and competitive's have little challenge.

> There are many factors as to why some play in tournaments and others don't. > For some, it is the deck types that they know they will face in a tournament > (the cheese & sleaze argument). For some, they may not like meeting or > playing with new people they haven't met socially first. And for others, > they may not necessarily need to win, but they don't want to be crushed in > the first 3 turns. They just want to play. Nobody likes being crushed in the first 3 turns. Perhaps the difference is, competitive players prevent that by building their deck to compensate for it, and casual players prevent that by not playing against those decks. When you have 20 Computer Hacking, 20 Form of Mist, and 20 Earth Control bleeding you, what do you do? I reach for my Atonements, my Immortal Grapples, or my bloat. Casual players reach for the door or their Magic cards. > > I love to lose. I never have so much inspiration to build a new deck, > > or change an existing one, as when I get utterly creamed in a good > > game. I think this is what makes me such a competitive player, as > > anyone who can't take losing may just take their focus off of it > > altogether. > > I disagree. I think players who can take losing are more apt to play in > casual environments. Strange--I see lots of players who can take losing M:TG in tournaments, and the only two sore losers I know play solely in casual melee. I was the kid who never did my homework because if I don't try, I can't fail. I'll never disappoint myself, with zero expectations. I suggest some casual players may be the same way: People who don't think they can do well against competitive opponents might just forego trying altogether. Hell, why focus on winning at all, if you're no good at it? > Players who "can't take losing" aren't in it for a > "good game". Really, it's the old power gamer v. social gamer argument. As to casual players being in for a good game, I guess I define a "good game" as one in which all players do their best, and the matchup is really close. I don't see casual players enjoying or even achieving that state of affairs with any regularity. > Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice > or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. If they are losing > because the metagame (the archetypes and unique characteristics of the decks > that players are fielding) doesn't favor them, they will either try to > change the metagame or stop playing. I am confused. How can a metagame be against a player? When a player is playing to win, and the metagame works against their deck, they switch decks, right? > The thing about this game is that you can build a deck that won't win > without insuring that someone else will. You can build a deck that won't > oust your prey, but will prevent them from playing (thank you HoS, to name > one archetype. Too bad it isn't spelt "Skulles", because I think "HoSe" is > more appropriate.) How do you change the metagame away from these deck > types? If they're catching every action you do, either play more stealth than they can catch, or unblockable actions (seduction + CotHD works well). If they have too much intercept, play with NO stealth and only direct actions against your prey, so the HoS choke on their intercept. Avoid combat with them for hand jam, or rush them until they run out of combat. If it's deck destruction, play with permanents like guns, blood dolls and HG's or even stick in 2 copies of Waste Management Operation. Lots of ways to do it, it just depends on what their deck does specifically. --Brian

"Halcyan 2" <halc...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20020324224825...@mb-mv.aol.com... > > For example, I forget to take Edge pool. Boy am I bad, my loss. So similarly, > once someone takes a blood off their Blood Doll, it's too late for them to get > Edge pool as well. Their loss. And then when I point out that it's also too > late to get HG blood, they go on about how it says that HG's "say it happens > during the untap so it's mandatory" (it's not), blah blah blah. > That reminds me of an argument I had with a friend of mine. He said that Egotha's ability doesn't say anything about "may", so it's mandatory, so if he had Egotha out and I "forgot" to remove the top card of my library during his untap, I had to go back and do it. I told him to screw that, and if he didn't "remind" me to do it (i.e. use Egotha's ability), I wasn't gonna go back and do it later in his turn, especially once he knew what was on top of my library. For a while he was a real jerk about pointing out "ahem... it's my untap phase. You have something you have to do." Made me want to shove his Egotha up his ass. Use your vampire's ability or don't. It's not my responsibility to remember. The HG thing also leads to things like "I use the blood doll and the hunting ground to gain a pool." "Umm... no you don't, he's full." "What do you mean?" "Go back, and do things in order like the cards say."

Brian wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] We're attending tournaments once or twice a month so evening-play is mostly tweaking the deck for the next tournament - and people play to win, but with little time to make a new deck combined with the wish to build something new that is still competitive we rather often end up with decks that (almost) looked fine on paper. Sometimes one of us build a puniesher-deck and brings it to the tournament. Usually happens after one type of deck has made too much of an impact during the last tournaments, and that of course usually results in that type of deck vanishing for several months at least. Sten During

Chris Berger wrote: > That reminds me of an argument I had with a friend of mine. He said that > Egotha's ability doesn't say anything about "may", so it's mandatory, so if he > had Egotha out and I "forgot" to remove the top card of my library during his > untap, I had to go back and do it. I told him to screw that, and if he didn't > "remind" me to do it (i.e. use Egotha's ability), I wasn't gonna go back and do > it later in his turn, especially once he knew what was on top of my library. > For a while he was a real jerk about pointing out "ahem... it's my untap phase. > You have something you have to do." Made me want to shove his Egotha up his > ass. Use your vampire's ability or don't. It's not my responsibility to > remember. Egothha's ability is not optional. It's basically everyone's responsibility to remember (like reminding someone to pay one for a Famous vampire in torpor). The onus usually (and properly, IMO) falls to Egothha's controller to remember, but it's everyone's responsibility to make sure that the game rules are adhered to. If both he and you (and others at the table) "forgot" to have you remove the top card of your library, then that should be rectified. You've got a point about "especially once he knew what was on top of my library" In that case, some other arrangement should be made - like burning the new (unknown) current top card of you library (mid-turn) to make things right. As the VEKN rules say, it's important that no benefit be gained from these sorts of things. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Howdy, "Mike Ooi" <sh...@texas.net> wrote in message news:<EcUm8.208030$uv5.18...@bin6.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>... > "Brian" <FirstCo...@aol.com> wrote in message > news:a84b9185.0203...@posting.google.com... > > I am primarily a competitive player. As such, I don't really know > > what casual players are thinking. Still, lion cubs play rough, right? > > It's a no-pressure simulation of what they might face later in their > > life. I think that's what a person's playgroup should be like. Casual vs. competitive: I guess I'm more of a casual player, so I'll try to offer my perspective. I like to play games, but even moreso, I like to design (decks, characters, worlds, etc.). This probably stems from my being the only person I knew growing up who actually read the rules to the games, which meant that I could generally beat anyone else whom I could convince to play; the real issue was not winning, but rather convincing people to play, and then to play again. And when I couldn't do that, I'd play with myself <insert smiley thing here>, which is to say I'd design characters/worlds, or play decks/sides against each other, etc. for my own entertainment. Anyway, it is not sufficient for me to win; winning with a stock S&B deck bores me and makes me want to apologize to the other players for my lack of creativity. (It was the first deck I built, and, yes, I did actually think I was pretty clever to have come up with S&B until I realized that everyone else had too... Vote pushing would have been my next design triumph.) It seems too easy. (Given the vagaries of seating order in V:TES, of course, it's not really that easy... I'm generalizing across games here.) I'm much more interested in finding novel ways to win (Thus the editorship of the !Ventrue Newsletter - I'll let people know if I make a breakthrough...), and in enjoying the interaction of the cards and players. I do play to win, but I don't play _in order to_ win. I play because I like problem solving and interacting with other people in ways that exercise our brains/imagination. I have a hard time understanding why someone would play just to win - what possible life goal could that person be satisfying? (Step 143 of program of world domination: Establish mastery of Jyhad...) > The incompatibility between these two styles (in reality, it is more a > spectrum between) creates a layer of frustration and tension between players > that can lead to hurt feelings, etc. In short, it can kill a playgroup. It > killed ours. I can certainly see how that might be true. The massive influx of 'competitive' players to Magic: The Garnishing was a big part of why I stopped playing it. I mean, when the official magazines are publishing articles on how to 'psych your opponents out and win more games', it's time (for me, at least) to move on. > The Austin playgroup is dead. Bogus. On the bright side, now that I actually have no time to play (and am planning to move to Seattle), the Chicago playgroup(s) seem to be reviving... > Hell, I'm inventorying my cards right now for a big run on Ebay. > (Okay, there are other factors invovled. But exaggeration for emphasis...) I've certainly thought about doing this myself more than once, and may still get around to it. (Though I already have them inventoried - thanks Dave & Sorrow.) > > I'm trying to figure out what makes a person choose casual play or > > competitive play over the other. So far, I think one factor is, > > tournaments are all about winning. Those of us who feel pressured by > > that will more likely play casually, right? Why I played in tournaments: I had no other choice (other than not playing at all). There was no playgroup in my area, or at least not one that I could get to. Tournaments were the only avenue for me to play. Had I had a choice, I'm not sure I wouldn't have played in tournaments as well as casually, but I think it's important to keep in mind that for isolated players, a well advertised nearby tournament scene may be their only opportunity. > There are many factors as to why some play in tournaments and others don't. > For some, it is the deck types that they know they will face in a tournament > (the cheese & sleaze argument). For some, they may not like meeting or > playing with new people they haven't met socially first. And for others, > they may not necessarily need to win, but they don't want to be crushed in > the first 3 turns. They just want to play. I'd have to say that learning to play in tournaments was a really, really bad way to do it in my experience. Personal mistakes (#1) and seating order (#2) decided practically every game I played. It was frustrating enough when other people were patient; when they were jerks it was so intolerable that I nearly quit playing altogether. Of course, since my all tournament, all the time intro to the game, I've managed to play a few 'casual' games, and they have been, if anything, worse, by and large. There's nothing like spending an hour each way fighting traffic to spend three hours playing two games, both of which go like this: Player 1 (turn two): ...and four transfers brings up Devin! Player 5 (preying on 1): Dammit! You're not playing that deck again? Player 1: Yep. Player 5: Well, I can't win then. I'll make a deal with you... (Proceeds to make deal whereby he not only hoses himself, but also his grandprey - me.) Or: Player A (drawing initial crypt): Well, I can't win. Player A (later in game): Why am I cross-tabling? I'm hosed, so I thought I'd just help out other people who are in trouble. (Proceeds to help own predator.) Other people's familiarity (with each others' decks) certainly breeds my contempt. If the game wasn't so darn well-designed, and so many of the players weren't such, well, non-gamerish people, I'd have dropped it long ago. > In my personal experience, tournaments (especially big convention ones) are > all about meeting fabulous players and people from all over. Meeting people > whose posts you've read on the infamous newsgroup. Trying to figure out > whether you could beat up Derek Ray in real life. And they are a blast. That was definitely the high point of my GenCon experience. Of course, I didn't get to meet either Derek or the One They Call Ooi. > Of > course, unlike your average gamer, I don't suffer discomfort in social > situations. I can talk to a pretty girl without having to change my > underwear afterwards. Errr... Then what _were_ you doing in that parking lot? > > I love to lose. I never have so much inspiration to build a new deck, > > or change an existing one, as when I get utterly creamed in a good > > game. I think this is what makes me such a competitive player, as > > anyone who can't take losing may just take their focus off of it > > altogether. I don't mind losing - except when it was due to stupid mistakes on my part. > I disagree. I think players who can take losing are more apt to play in > casual environments. Players who "can't take losing" aren't in it for a > "good game". Really, it's the old power gamer v. social gamer argument. I've met only a few players who are poor losers - they make the game no fun for anyone. I suspect most such people find other games to play eventually. There's always Magic. > Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice > or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. If they are losing > because the metagame (the archetypes and unique characteristics of the decks > that players are fielding) doesn't favor them, they will either try to > change the metagame or stop playing. The odd thing about Chicago is that we get such random groups of players at tournaments that there is no identifiable metagame. This will probably change now that there are more and more regular playgroups. > Of course, changing the metagame is favorable to reducing the number of > available players in a playgroup. But what if the deck type required to > change the metagame is one that you hate playing? I guess I'd have to try to find a weird variant of that deck type which I could stand. But I'd think you'd probably already thought of that. Or you could always secretly substitute either a) non-sucky decks for all of the other players' decks or b) the deck required to change the metagame for one single opponent's deck (while they aren't looking). Or hire a patsy to play the metagame breaker? I don't know. > The thing about this game is that you can build a deck that won't win > without insuring that someone else will. You can build a deck that won't > oust your prey, but will prevent them from playing (thank you HoS, to name > one archetype. Too bad it isn't spelt "Skulles", because I think "HoSe" is > more appropriate.) How do you change the metagame away from these deck > types? I haven't experienced that yet. I have seen plenty of incompetent combat decks hose themselves, their prey, and their predator, though. > > Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you do? > > I used to play to make people laugh. Then I played to win. Then I played to > play. Now it's just not worth it if someone (not even the same person every > time) is going to be furious at the end of every game. With the jerks: If I was slow and careful people got pissed about me being slow. If I was fast and made mistakes people got pissed at me for being incompetent. If I played something effective, people got pissed at me for being cheesy. If I played something ineffective, people got pissed at me for being ineffective. Who really needs that kind of abuse? I hope your situation improves. If you want a new challenge (and an excuse for doing poorly in games) you could try to come up with a winning !Ventrue deck... Hope that helps, Alex

In message <15a537b3.02032...@posting.google.com>, wum...@attbi.com (Alex Broadhead) mumbled something about: >Howdy, > >"Mike Ooi" <sh...@texas.net> wrote in message news:<EcUm8.208030$uv5.18...@bin6.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>... >> Of >> course, unlike your average gamer, I don't suffer discomfort in social >> situations. I can talk to a pretty girl without having to change my >> underwear afterwards. > >Errr... Then what _were_ you doing in that parking lot? You misunderstand. ...He doesn't wear underwear. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

wum...@attbi.com writes: >I do play to win, but I don't play _in order to_ win. What a nice way to put it! >Player 5: Well, I can't win then. I'll make a deal with you... >(Proceeds to make deal whereby he not only hoses himself, but also his >grandprey - me.) >Player A (later in game): Why am I cross-tabling? I'm hosed, so I >thought I'd just help out other people who are in trouble. (Proceeds >to help own predator.) >Other people's familiarity (with each others' decks) certainly breeds >my contempt. If the game wasn't so darn well-designed, and so many of >the players weren't such, well, non-gamerish people, I'd have dropped >it long ago. Gosh, I must be lucky. Virtually every player I've played with in 3 different groups has a good attitude towards a bad situation. They always have an eye on ousting prey. If they really can't, they recognize they're kingmakers, and if there's a good reason they kingmake, but even then they usually deal with their predator to buy time and bang on their prey a bit (you never know - now and again it works). I can only think of one player who was a pest. My current group especially applies social pressure to go forwards. Sometimes when I'm play a bloaty deck with an aggressive predator and am upstreaming to get ahead of the table, I start getting criticized - even when IMO I had no chance of getting a VP by going forward right then. I had one bad experience at a tournament where my prey got ticked I was zapping him so hard with a fast aggressive Tor vote deck and he bled me out (back when (D) bleeds went anywhere). To no avail, of course. His best VP option would have been to threaten me to give him a turn or two to try ousting his own prey (he was doing OK). >Player 5 (preying on 1): Dammit! You're not playing that deck again? >Player 1: Yep. >Player 5: Well, I can't win then. This is a bad situation. I wish it were rarer. Unfortunately my recent experience has been that decks with broad defenses just get hosed by everybody and so you should either stack up against one and hope or go all-out forward and race. These design decisions increase the problem you mention and I'm resisting but all my decks seem to be mutating to lose their less effective defenses. >I hope your situation improves. If you want a new challenge (and an >excuse for doing poorly in games) you could try to come up with a >winning !Ventrue deck... Like you, I'm trying! But don't hold the presses... [ quoted text not captured ]

Xian wrote: >>Also, I am in complete agreement. It would be better if everyone went in to a tournament with the assumption of strict rules adherence, but was polite about it, rather than a jerk.>> Absolutely--I'm not a total stickler for rules or anything (i.e. even in tournament play, I'm not gonna make a fuss over forgetting the edge pool or missing your "get blood from a hunting ground" phase), but if an opponent is a stickler (without being an ass--me being objective enough to be able to discern "being an ass" from "being a rules stickler" :-) and is cool about it, I'm perfectly willing to play along. >>Played in a draft tournament yesterday (10 players, top seed in the finals, 3rd in the end, playing mostly Brujah stuff), and it was interesting to see that when I made a couple of errors, certain people would politely remind me, and others would be kind of jerky about it. Either way, my bad, but still...if you then expect me to be polite back, you're going to get a much better response with the former, I would think.>> I'm right with you--it is perfectly easy to be a rules stickler without being a jerk. But then it is perfectly easy to be a jerk without being a rules stickler :-) I suspect, however, that there is a reason that people who are jerks are playing VTES, rather than, say, out at dance club... >>By the way, I like the sig, Peter.>> Heh heh. Thanks. I kinda felt like I was on the Simpsons when that message came up: Lisa: "Dad? What does it mean?" Homer: "I don't know..." (from Mr. Sparkle) [ quoted text not captured ]

Fred wrote: >>Robert was explaining the dynamics of why closer, more technical enforcement of the rules in a big tournament actually makes for a "happier" tournament. It seems like a bit of a subtle point to me.>> Sure, it is a subtle point, but one that everyone seems to understand without question in competetive bridge, chess, poker, table tennis, basketball, and darts. Why people don't understand this subtle point in competetive VTES is the question at hand. >>To the extent that they are surprised, it's probably because few people perceive that the prizes for the winners are any great thing to fight over so they're confused about why folks need to get all that persnickety.>> Which seems a reasonable point--when I won the Quallifier, I got a dozen booster packs, a T-Shirt I gave away, and a uncommon vampire card signed by The Lasombra. Not really a vast cash prize, and not one that I would get persnickety over. But it isn't actually the prize that people are worrying about in this case--it is simply the environment of competetive play. >>Well, let's keep a little bit of reality in saying this. If I want to take one pool for the edge after paying for my hunting ground and you're telling me I'm screwed because I forgot the former for 10 lousy seconds, you're going to seem to seem like a bit of a prick to me unless I'm pretty mature and have my perspective on all these issues in good working order.>> Oh, certainly, but then you get into the whole "where do you draw the line" issue. Sure, if you remember in 10 seconds to get your edge pool, that is fine, but what about 20 seconds? Is that ok, and if not, why not? 45 seconds? After you play a master card? Once you start a turn? If it is ok to ignore or modify a rule a little bit, why not a lot? >>Otherwise, I'm more likely to focus on the fact that since holding the edge around the able is rather uncommon, it's somewhat hard for many of us to keep it in mind after an entire turn of play. Add to this the fact that I'm pretty clearly not attempting to cheat and sucker someone into doing something they wouldn't otherwise by "feigning" not taking my edge pool for 10 extra seconds and the "prick" judgment comes rather easily.>> Sure, all of these points seem reasonable as to why someone would feel this way, but again, if someone goes to a bridge, chess, or table tennis tournament, they will probably not have these issues--they will know what everyone is going to be a stickler for the rules, not question that fact, and go on happily, not feeling that everyone is being a prick 'cause they are rules sticklers. >>Under the circumstances, it's pretty easy to get confused about the why someone needs to technical about this if he's not a prick. Mind you, I'm not defending it. I'm just explaining why it doesn't seem like a hard thing to understand to me.>> Oh, I'm with you 100%. I just wonder why this is an issue with competetive VTES, but not so much with tournament bridge, chess, poker, or high school basketball. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > Fred wrote: > >>Under the circumstances, it's pretty easy to get confused about the why > someone needs to technical about this if he's not a prick. Mind you, I'm not > defending it. I'm just explaining why it doesn't seem like a hard thing to > understand to me.>> > > Oh, I'm with you 100%. I just wonder why this is an issue with competetive > VTES, but not so much with tournament bridge, chess, poker, or high school > basketball. Just a different sort of environment, I suppose. There's no type of tournament held at a gaming convention where you won't find people expecting to play by pickup rules. Chess and bridge have a lot more players and tournament venues dedicated solely to their event (I'm guessing). Every Jyhad tournament I've been to that wasn't at a gaming convention was in a game store, while junior high kids played Magic and Pokemon all around. Hell, even large Magic tournaments command enough respect that people will learn quite quickly not to expect a break from their opponents or the judges. I think it's just a question of expectations formed by the perceived formality (or lack thereof) of the event. Fred

FirstCo...@aol.com (Brian) wrote in message news:<a84b9185.0203...@posting.google.com>... > I am primarily a competitive player. As such, I don't really know > what casual players are thinking. Still, lion cubs play rough, right? > It's a no-pressure simulation of what they might face later in their > life. I think that's what a person's playgroup should be like. > > I'm trying to figure out what makes a person choose casual play or > competitive play over the other. So far, I think one factor is, > tournaments are all about winning. Those of us who feel pressured by > that will more likely play casually, right? > > I love to lose. I never have so much inspiration to build a new deck, > or change an existing one, as when I get utterly creamed in a good > game. I think this is what makes me such a competitive player, as > anyone who can't take losing may just take their focus off of it > altogether. > > Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you do? i think there's an uninspected premise in this post, namely that tournaments are competitive. i don't agree with this premise - i find that many games in tournaments are TOTAL cakewalks for one of the players, for diverse reasons such as uneven player ability, weird table dynamics and incompatibility of different metagames. i play in tournaments not for the competition but because i believe it's the best way to promote the game, so i'm always a little bit detached in such an environment. Given the choice i would always opt for a GENUINELY competitive game, which means players of equal ability playing decent decks that are all capable of showing what they can do in the environment provided by the other decks. Sometimes you get this in tournaments. At home i create a library of decks that are reasonably well-balanced vis-a-vis one another, and to equalise the playing field i allow guests and family to CHOOSE a deck, while i pick randomly from the ones that are left. But perhaps the best game in which i've played recently was at Rob's house when we were: Me, playing my Brit-combo deck [NOT the one i posted, the one i played was MUCH better], bleeding Rob, playing an Anneke/ToGP deck, bleeding Jon Cooper, playing a massive Malkavian takeover deck, bleeding Pierre, who was abusing the !Nosferatu library depletion cards, bleeding Barney, who was playing Assamites with the Succubus club. This was i suppose a friendly game and much beer was drunk, but the level of play was EXTRAORDINARILY high, and i've NEVER seen so many heart-breakingly powerful cards played, nor evil deals proposed and accepted, in a game. After about 3 hours of slaughter we decided that it was going to be a 2-all draw between me and Barney because the two of us were reduced to conspiring through the Succubus club to prevent Jon from getting the remaining 3 VP, and he was a bit bored by that prospect. Come to think of it we played two more games after that, both equally good [i think i won one with Malkavian ToGP, and lost the other with Rafastio Ghouls a gogo [Barney won IIRC]], before an alcoholic haze descended upon our faculties and Lady Legbiter arrived to take me home. In comparison, the tournament the next day was a bit tame, really. i've had equally good competitive games whilst visiting my SE USA friends and we occasionally get a REALLY good game down the pub on Wednesday night. So i suppose what i am saying is that people who dislike playing in tourneys may, actually, be pining for a GENUINELY competitive game, which they find is not afforded them by that environment.

> I love to lose. I never have so much inspiration to build a new deck, > or change an existing one, as when I get utterly creamed in a good > game. I think this is what makes me such a competitive player, as > anyone who can't take losing may just take their focus off of it > altogether. > Anyone have any opinions about this? Why do you play the way you > do? I feel the same way. I enjoy losing. I may bitch and moan about it sometimes depending on how stupid the people play, but I'd rather lose than win in regular games. Before I moved down here, I was part of a playgroup that was good. Really good. I *always* got my ass handed to me on a rusty platter. As a result, I got better. After moving down here, I'm rarely challenged. The players here seem to care very little about the game and even less about being competitive. As a result, my skills have waned significantly. *sigh* Sorrow --- "Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is a spiritual war. Our depression is our lives." - Tyler Durden

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote > I'm not a total stickler for rules or anything (i.e. even in > tournament play, I'm not gonna make a fuss over forgetting the edge pool or > missing your "get blood from a hunting ground" phase), but if an opponent is a > stickler (without being an ass--me being objective enough to be able to discern > "being an ass" from "being a rules stickler" :-) and is cool about it, I'm > perfectly willing to play along. I suspect that I often come across as one of the jerks about stuff like this... I don't mean to of course, but it irks me that people try to get away with grabbing edge-pool without asking the rest of the table. Additionally, I think this often becomes a downward spiral. If one person is forgiven a slight error, everyone else expects the same forgivness (rightly so). Where does it stop? I'd just as soon start the game with the agreement of all players that we just *not* allow takebacks (or alternatively *one* takeback per game or something). I'm usually punishing myself for forgetting the Edge. If I forget, I announce something like 'Damn... forgot the Edge' and don't take that pool. When someone else wants to grab it, that's hardly fair. Uniformity is the key I think... but politeness and patience are also essential. It's not that I want games to be ultra-competitive and unfriendly... quite the opposite. I just don't like to see a good game turn into some kind of free-for-all. Cheers, WES

Wes wrote: > > I suspect that I often come across as one of the jerks about stuff like > this... I don't mean to of course, but it irks me that people try to get > away with grabbing edge-pool without asking the rest of the table. The edge pool thing is the worst. Anything unusual that happens in your untap phase is just hard as hell to remember because you get so involved watching the other players take their turn. It's optional but there's almost never a reason not to take it. (Parity Shift might be the main thing, I suppose.) So I'm sure people get real irritated that all they did was turn over a master card and feel like it's no big deal if they can please have their edge pool anyway. Robert's explanation about why they can't is flawless. But I guess I have trouble seeing people as being all that "evil" if they try to cut a very small corner without permission. > I'm usually punishing myself for forgetting the Edge. If I forget, I > announce something like 'Damn... forgot the Edge' and don't take that pool. > When someone else wants to grab it, that's hardly fair. Uniformity is the > key I think... but politeness and patience are also essential. It may be that some people feel particularly vulnerable to this exact problem. There are times when I keep trying to say to myself through 3 1/2 other players turns, "Remember the edge (or hunting ground), remember the edge, remember the edge..." - and lose the thread right in the last minute of my predator's turn. It's incredibly aggravating! This part of the game was a bit of an unfortunate design choice because it's so brain- fart mistake-prone, which is not really what the game is supposed to be designed to challenge. It even defies any memory jog I've tried, like setting a pool counter on top of my library (you don't necessarily draw a card during untap phase). I think it would be better if edge pool, at least, were mandatory instead of optional. Fred

> I hope your situation improves. If you want a new challenge (and an > excuse for doing poorly in games) you could try to come up with a > winning !Ventrue deck... It exists, its the precon, and don't ask. Cameron

"Frederick Scott" <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:3CA0A321...@removethis.com... > > It may be that some people feel particularly vulnerable to this exact > problem. There are times when I keep trying to say to myself through > 3 1/2 other players turns, "Remember the edge (or hunting ground), remember > the edge, remember the edge..." - and lose the thread right in the last > minute of my predator's turn. It's incredibly aggravating! This part of > the game was a bit of an unfortunate design choice because it's so brain- > fart mistake-prone, which is not really what the game is supposed to be > designed to challenge. It even defies any memory jog I've tried, like > setting a pool counter on top of my library (you don't necessarily draw > a card during untap phase). I think it would be better if edge pool, at > least, were mandatory instead of optional. > The only thing I've found to even sort of eliminate this problem is to go very slow through the beginning of your turn. In Magic, we called it the "untap, upkeep, draw" mantra. "My turn... okay, untap, done. Upkeep... umm... okay. Draw." I've tried to teach myself to always ask myself at the beginning of my turn, "do I have the Edge? do I need to use a Hunting Ground? do I have a Temptation in play somewhere on the table? do I need to use a Blood Doll?" Not that it helps *much*, but that's because I'm a spaz and get all excited about the Khabar: Community that's in my hand and how I'm gonna ram Tasha Morgan, J.S. Simmons and 3 Laptops down my prey's throat, and I forget all about the fact that my biggest-bleedy minion needs a blood from the HG. But I'm convinced that practicing a very slow turn-start will eventually pay off.

FirstCo...@aol.com (Brian) wrote in message news:<a84b9185.0203...@posting.google.com>... > I'm trying to figure out what makes a person choose casual play or > competitive play over the other. (NOTE: OPINIONS FOLLOW) Well, for me its a variety of reasons why I abhor current competitive (tournament) play and stick to casual gaming. First, I play Jyhad to be entertained and to entertain. Not every deck that is not stealth bleed or weenie potence is a "all werewolf pack deck" or "try and kill your bishops." I like to experiment with new deck styles and discipline/clan combinations. I like to play against a variety of deck styles and players, and to use new deck styles myself. I went to the NA qualifier last year and saw carbon copy decks. Ventrue Bleed and Bloat. Eurobrujah bleed and bloat. Weenie presence. Weenie potence. Standard archtypes. I just dont gain a lot of joy out of playing against netdecks. Further, a lot of people play in tournaments specifically to meet new people and play against different playstyles than their local game. They sit down at a tourney table and are very likely to see the same deckstyle at table one as they see at table 2 as they see at table three, and thats not entertaining. To people like me, Jyhad is a game played for enjoyment. Enjoyment is not gained by winning prizes or beating opponents alone. Enjoyment for me (and I'll bet many others who play the casual game) is gained by doing your best and playing with nice blokes who are willing to be creative in deck design as well as play. Tournament Jyhad is generally not the place to find this. I love playing casual Jyhad with Jay from Columbus. However, look at his tourney deck choices... very different from sitting down with Jay over a casual game, and that difference is why I eschew Tourney level Jyhad. People feel they need to ramp it up to be competitive, and creativity in deck design is what often gets sacrificed to meet that end. Where Peter is dead nuts on is that rules enforcement should be strictly expected at any table, casual or tourney. However, when you remind someone of something they missed be kind about it. DO NOT jump up, point, dance and shout "You screwed up you screwed up." (I am not exaggerating. This happened to me at a tournament). Matt

Matt wrote: >>First, I play Jyhad to be entertained and to entertain.>> Me too. >>Not every deck that is not stealth bleed or weenie potence is a "all werewolf pack deck" or "try and kill your bishops.">> Of course they aren't--no one is claiming they are. At the NE Reigonals I saw just as many good, goofy deck types I hadn't seen in action before as not. >>I like to experiment with new deck styles and discipline/clan combinations.>> Me too. >>I like to play against a variety of deck styles and players, and to use new deck styles myself.>> Me too. >>I went to the NA qualifier last year and saw carbon copy decks. Ventrue Bleed and Bloat. Eurobrujah bleed and bloat. Weenie presence. Weenie potence.>> Did you actually go through them to see that they were copies? >>Standard archtypes. I just dont gain a lot of joy out of playing against netdecks.>> Ok. >>Further, a lot of people play in tournaments specifically to meet new people and play against different playstyles than their local game.>> Yup. Like me. >>They sit down at a tourney table and are very likely to see the same deckstyle at table one as they see at table 2 as they see at table three, and thats not entertaining.>> Not to you, sure, but why, in an absolute sense, is it not entertaining? No one is saying you have to enjoy playing against such decks, or enjoy playing in tournaments--you clearly do not, which is fine--but you assert that it is neither fun nor entertaining to see "cookie cutter decks" or "net decks" or "standard archetypes". I think it is great fun. I really enjoy playing in any sort of game where the players are cool and the competition is good. >>To people like me, Jyhad is a game played for enjoyment.>> And to people like me, Jyhad is a game played for enjoyment. >>Enjoyment is not gained by winning prizes or beating opponents alone.>> While I'm sure there are some folks out there who would claim that enjoyment is gained solely by winning prizes or beating opponents, I don't know any of them, and I certainly don't play with any of them. I enjoy playing tournament Jyhad 'cause I like meeting new players, I like getting together with players I already know but don't see often, I like good competetion, and I really like the game. Again, I fully accept that some folks aren't neccessarily going to like playing in tournaments for various reasons, which is fine, but to paint tournament play as an environment populated by people for whom the only concern is the utter humilliation of their opponents so they can escape with the vast cash prizes, laughing over the degraded corpses of their dead opponents (obvious exageration inserted :-) is either unkind or due to a misunderstanding of the environment. >>Enjoyment for me (and I'll bet many others who play the casual game) is gained by doing your best and playing with nice blokes who are willing to be creative in deck design as well as play.>> Which is exactly where I get my enjoyment out of Jyhad as well. Clearly, where I see a great deal of creativity in deck design, you do not, again, which is fine. It doesn't mean that this creativity isn't there, however. >>Tournament Jyhad is generally not the place to find this.>> I find that it is, but that is me. >>I love playing casual Jyhad with Jay from Columbus. However, look at his tourney deck choices... very different from sitting down with Jay over a casual game, and that difference is why I eschew Tourney level Jyhad.>> Which is an odd viewpoint to me. I think Jay is hysterical, and always like playing with him, tournament or no. As I usually only get to play with him at tournaments, I am stuck playing against his tournament deck choices (which always strike me as very creative), and I always have a good time. >>People feel they need to ramp it up to be competitive, and creativity in deck design is what often gets sacrificed to meet that end.>> And here is where I take issue--how is creativity in design sacrificed to be competetive? It takes a great deal of creativity and skill to make a good deck, regardless of they type. Run of the mill S+B simply doesn't win, for instance--there has to be a way to make it actually work given competent opposition and the game environment it is played in, which takes a great deal of effort, testing, speculaton, tweaking, and honing. These are the decks that actually do well and win--the ones that are honed and crafted. >>DO NOT jump up, point, dance and shout "You screwed up you screwed up." (I am not exaggerating. This happened to me at a tournament).>> Which is a rather pathetic tale (that someone would actually do that), but strikes me as a possibility in any game environment, tournament or no. [ quoted text not captured ]

Matt Latham wrote: > I went to the NA qualifier last year and saw carbon copy decks. > Ventrue Bleed and Bloat. Eurobrujah bleed and bloat. Weenie presence. > Weenie potence. Standard archtypes. I just dont gain a lot of joy out > of playing against netdecks. Well, here's a huge area of disagreement. I'd *much* rather play against a reasonably well-chosen, reasonably well-played net decks than some against some goofball with his Assamite combat deck that isn't even a decent Assamite combat deck. I don't care if I've seen it before or I see it all over the place right now for that matter, at least it's serious competition. I'm not sure what kind of pride I'd take from winning with my own original deck if I thought the only reason I won was because everyone else was so obsessed with originality that no one bothered to bring anything halfway challenging to play. > Further, a lot of people play in tournaments specifically to meet new > people and play against different playstyles than their local game. > They sit down at a tourney table and are very likely to see the same > deckstyle at table one as they see at table 2 as they see at table > three, and thats not entertaining. It seems like you don't have much faith in this game. I'm not sure where the idea comes from that the same six or seven deck archetypes are the only ones that are easy to win with. I see all kinds of decks that work well in tournaments and I don't think people only use them to vary their playstyles. I think if everyone who went to tournaments only ever used the best deck they knew about, you'd still see a lot of variety in the play. Fred

pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (Peter D Bakija) wrote in message news:<20020326171523...@mb-fd.aol.com>... > Matt wrote: > >>Not every deck that is not stealth bleed or weenie potence is a "all werewolf > pack > deck" or "try and kill your bishops.">> > > Of course they aren't--no one is claiming they are. At the NE Reigonals I saw > just as many good, goofy deck types I hadn't seen in action before as not. But when you talk about different deck types you traditionally site the "all werewolf pack" deck as your standard. Each time you do it I highlight that most "creative" deckstyles have nothing to do with something as "anti-win" as a Werewolf pack deck. Just as every time I point out the lack of creativity in deck design at tournaments you point out that its because you and I have a different perception of what creativity is. And that's cool. We are opposites, you and I. > >>I went to the NA qualifier last year and saw carbon copy decks. > Ventrue Bleed and Bloat. Eurobrujah bleed and bloat. Weenie presence. > Weenie potence.>> > > Did you actually go through them to see that they were copies? Yes. Within 5-8 cards they were card-for-card from what I had seen at tourney after tourney since 1997. > >>They sit down at a tourney table and are very likely to see the same > deckstyle at table one as they see at table 2 as they see at table > three, and thats not entertaining.>> > > Not to you, sure, but why, in an absolute sense, is it not entertaining You are absolutely correct Peter. I thought I had written the whole article as MY opinions on things, as asked for in the original post on this thread, but I should have noted this more explicitly here. Thank you for the correction. > >>Enjoyment is not gained by winning prizes or beating opponents alone.>> > > While I'm sure there are some folks out there who would claim that enjoyment is > gained solely by winning prizes or beating opponents, I don't know any of them, > and I certainly don't play with any of them. I enjoy playing tournament Jyhad > 'cause I like meeting new players, I like getting together with players I > already know but don't see often, I like good competetion, and I really like > the game. Again, I fully accept that some folks aren't neccessarily going to > like playing in tournaments for various reasons, which is fine, but to paint > tournament play as an environment populated by people for whom the only concern > is the utter humilliation of their opponents so they can escape with the vast > cash prizes, laughing over the degraded corpses of their dead opponents > (obvious exageration inserted :-) is either unkind or due to a misunderstanding > of the environment. I don't misunderstand the environment. I am offering my opinions on the tournament level game as I have witnessed it in over 6 years of playing this game both casually and competitively. I've seen great tables of tournament play (ie my first and third tables at last year's Origins, nice blokes with interesting decks that remembered it was a game, smiled, laughed, congratulated their opponents for good play, etc) and wretched tables (table two of Origins last year). In my experience the wretched outweighs the good, which is why I rarely play in tournaments. This thread asked for my opinions and I offered them. In closing, I can sum the difference between casual players and Tourney level players in one sentence (with clarifications of course). Casual players play to play. People who play in tourneys play to compete. Casual players can want to compete, and tourney players love to play, but a lot of people go to tourneys to measure themselves against the best. Most casual players just dont need to do that. And that's ok. I went into the qualifier at Origins knowing it would take a miracle to qualify. I just don't play with the focus necessary to win at tournaments anymore. I am more interested in getting to know the blokes I am playing with than in ousting them. I owe the table my best effort toward winning (else you screw the table dynamic). I owe the table a focus toward ousting my prey. But when I read the hour long deal-making sessions at the top tables (and the aforementioned dancing incident) I realize that tourney Jyhad is just not for me anymore. The tourney player is no better than the casual and vice versa. We may all SPEAK like we are and WRITE like we are but we arent. We just have different things we ask from the game. Matt

Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:<3CA122A7...@removethis.com>... > Matt Latham wrote: > > I went to the NA qualifier last year and saw carbon copy decks. > > Ventrue Bleed and Bloat. Eurobrujah bleed and bloat. Weenie presence. > > Weenie potence. Standard archtypes. I just dont gain a lot of joy out > > of playing against netdecks. > > Well, here's a huge area of disagreement. I'd *much* rather play against > a reasonably well-chosen, reasonably well-played net decks than some > against some goofball with his Assamite combat deck that isn't even a > decent Assamite combat deck. I don't care if I've seen it before or I > see it all over the place right now for that matter, at least it's > serious competition. I'm not sure what kind of pride I'd take from > winning with my own original deck if I thought the only reason I won was > because everyone else was so obsessed with originality that no one > bothered to bring anything halfway challenging to play. You can be creative and still be "halfway challenging". In Michigan I am blessed with both great players and creative deckbuilders. Hell, our two Storyline tourneys were won by City Gangrel and Ahrimanes respectively! I've travelled the country playing Jyhad and realize how blessed I am to have a playgroup that has blokes like Aaron, Noal, Bernie, and Jared. > > Further, a lot of people play in tournaments specifically to meet new > > people and play against different playstyles than their local game. > > They sit down at a tourney table and are very likely to see the same > > deckstyle at table one as they see at table 2 as they see at table > > three, and thats not entertaining. > > It seems like you don't have much faith in this game. I'm not sure > where the idea comes from that the same six or seven deck archetypes are > the only ones that are easy to win with. I see all kinds of decks that > work well in tournaments and I don't think people only use them to > vary their playstyles. I think if everyone who went to tournaments only > ever used the best deck they knew about, you'd still see a lot of > variety in the play. > > Fred First, I say nothing about ease of win. No deck is easy to win with. What is "easier" about established archtypes is that the initial testing and design is all done for you. I could tweak a weenie presence or a Ventrue bloat deck or a Eurobrujah deck or Malk S/B much easier than Jared making his Storyline-winning City Gangrel deck from scratch. And my thrill from winning would be 100 times greater following Jared's path than my path. Again, personal preference. Again, not every casual player comes to a tournament with a All Werewolf pack deck and not every tourney player is a slavering netdecker who dances on the corpses of his opponents or spends a half hour browbeating someone over a succubus club. People who enjoy playing in tournaments are not "wrong". Neither are casual players. This game NEEDS both styles of players. Matt

Matt Latham wrote: > > First, I say nothing about ease of win. No deck is easy to win with. > What is "easier" about established archtypes is that the initial > testing and design is all done for you. I could tweak a weenie > presence or a Ventrue bloat deck or a Eurobrujah deck or Malk S/B much > easier than Jared making his Storyline-winning City Gangrel deck from > scratch. And my thrill from winning would be 100 times greater > following Jared's path than my path. Again, personal preference. Fine. That's not what I responded to, though. It was where you were said, "I just don't gain a lot of joy out of playing against netdecks." What you're using yourself is your business and if you gain greater joy and pride out of building it one way vs. the other, that's a fair enough comment. I just said that I don't agree with worrying about whether the guy on the other side of the table has a net deck or an original creation. It doesn't make much difference to me as long as he puts up a good fight with it. No, you did not say anything directly about the ease of the win. But the problem I see with your position is that people often play pretty bad decks in their insistence on playing something original. If they can't do better and if were up to me to decide (which I realize it's not), then I'm saying contrary to your opinion, I'd rather they use a good deck they got off the net - as long as we're stating our druthers about what we'd like the other guy to do. > Again, not every casual player comes to a tournament with a All > Werewolf pack deck and not every tourney player is a slavering > netdecker who dances on the corpses of his opponents or spends a half > hour browbeating someone over a succubus club. Sure. > People who enjoy playing in tournaments are not "wrong". Neither are > casual players. This game NEEDS both styles of players. I don't know. I don't really agree with the "style of player" thing. I don't see the difference between tournaments and informal play, myself, except to what degree you're playing to learn the game vs. just winning that particular game. The issue of enforcing rules is a style of the game itself, not of the player. Fred

curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote in message news:<20020323145320...@mb-mb.aol.com>... > sh...@texas.net writes: > > >"Brian" <FirstCo...@aol.com> wrote > >> I am primarily a competitive player. As such, I don't really know > >> what casual players are thinking. > >The incompatibility between these two styles (in reality, it is more a > >spectrum between) creates a layer of frustration and tension between players > >that can lead to hurt feelings, etc. In short, it can kill a playgroup. It > >killed ours. > > > >The Austin playgroup is dead. I think Mike Ooi is just being melodramatic. I mean, he is an actor after all... > I'm not happy to hear that. I don't want to be nosy, but in the interest > of avoiding similar problems, what happened? Hadn't you guys been > around for a while? Austin has had regular players since Jyhad. Chances are we'll still keep playing on a less regular basis, but many of us are taking a break from the game. I'll try to explain why so you can see if your playgroup is headed for a meltdown. This is my perspective and I welcome any other Austin players, who haven't already, to chime in on this thread. I think it was mainly the evolution of the metagame which is the main problem. When we geared up for Lafayette we focused on how to win via the new game wins rules and psyched ourselves up to play against the best the Southwest could offer. I am apparently unique in my ability to turn off 'tournament Ethan', usually with the help of German beer, and move on to new and interesting stuff. After we got back from Lafayette however, some of the others in our group don't have this switch, and thus many times you're bringing a knife to a gunfight. Compound that with the fear of ousting a prey too quickly to avoid the table from dog-piling the scary deck.....you find yourself playing in a 2-3 hour game where you knew in the first 10 minutes that you couldn't do a damn thing. And your predator either can't or won't finish you off due to table dynamics. While sometimes it can still be fun to play a losing battle, I'll describe some situations later that cause the real problems. It seems like we're moving away from predator-prey relationships until the the 3-player game. A lot more (D) actions (or votes) to attack the strongest player. Austin games are also long because of the dealing and bloating. Turbo-ousting is still difficult since it pisses off your grand-predator. Sometimes the table actually gives you pool to stop you from turbo-ousting because it would affect the balance of the table. > I've found Jyhad players to be a good bunch. It's a game, and > people want to win, but they want other players to at least have fun. While true, I think our group has become too competetive. Since we never grew over 8-10 players, you usually play against the same players every game. I think we subconsciously bring vendetta's across games ;-) Some players, and I'm guilty of this at times, view winning more important that someone else testing a new deck concept. > >Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice > >or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. > > Man, how could anybody who really hates to lose stand this game? > With 5 players, even the best will lose most of the time. I would like to make a difference between losing and not even being able to play the game. I don't mind losing if I was able to play. But if a fatty rush deck attacks my minions and then burns them. Then proceeds to bleed me for one each turn, chances are we'll both lose - but at least my predator was able to play his deck. Also a Ventrue or Toreador vote deck sitting next to two animalism wall decks probably isn't going to be able to complete a single action, much less have fun playing the game. The best you can hope for is to sit there and do nothing for *an hour* and then hope that one wall deck needs your help against the other wall deck, and then *MAYBE* you *MIGHT* get off some actions. I have no interest in playing a game for at least 2 hours that I am not having fun at, and unfortunately it's nontrivial to leave the game without just getting up and physically leaving - which will still upset people still sitting at the table. If every game was 30-45 minutes things might be different. Problem is due to the bloating, deal making, and focus on surviving to the 3 player game, our games last a long time. Our storyline final was 18 turns long, and it was one of our quicker games. I wanted to end this thread by noting that most of the Austin playgroup are still very good friends, and we hang out doing other things rather than VTES. It's just hard to accomodate everyones needs in such a multiplayer type game such as VTES. Maybe time will soothe our issues. :-) > Would you believe I won a game with a HoSe predator last night? Not really, HoSe typically don't oust people <g>. You obviously survived to the 3 player game, which is the first milestone of a winning deck. :-) --------------------- Ethan 'The infamous 6th place at Nationals due to a die roll' Burrow http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/

Note that these suggestions apply to any playgroup experiencing the same issues as Ethan's, and since we have implemented these suggestions in Madison, we have become better players and, possibly, even gotten along better as friends. "Ethan Burrow" <saa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:fad0b3bc.02032...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] So why not limit the game to a 2-hour limit? > And your predator either can't or won't finish you off due to table > dynamics. While sometimes it can still be fun to play a losing > battle, I'll describe some situations later that cause the real > problems. > > It seems like we're moving away from predator-prey relationships until > the the 3-player game. A lot more (D) actions (or votes) to attack > the strongest player. Austin games are also long because of the > dealing and bloating. Turbo-ousting is still difficult since it > pisses off your grand-predator. Sometimes the table actually gives > you pool to stop you from turbo-ousting because it would affect the > balance of the table. > > > I've found Jyhad players to be a good bunch. It's a game, and > > people want to win, but they want other players to at least have fun. > > While true, I think our group has become too competetive. I'm not sure exactly what your definition of "competitive" is, so I can't tell for myself if I think it is a bad thing or not. At first glance, being competitive is a positive attribute, to me. > Since we > never grew over 8-10 players, you usually play against the same > players every game. I think we subconsciously bring vendetta's across > games ;-) I could say here "Why not just talk about the issue with all the players for 30 minutes or so, in an attempt to reduce the problem" but I don't know if that would work with your group. > Some players, and I'm guilty of this at times, view winning > more important that someone else testing a new deck concept. Well, it *is* a game after all, with the goal of "winning". I would think it would be impossible to "test" a new deck where you ask the other players to stop playing the game with the goal of "winning", since you now aren't really "playing" the "game". When people in our playgroup bring a new deck, they usually play 2-3 games in a row with the same deck (tweaked a bit game-by-game, as they go, of course), which allows them to genuinely "test" the deck against several other players and several other decks. > > >Players who hate to lose either won't or don't have fun (meaning by choice > > >or by genetics? nature v. nurture?) when they are losing. > > > > Man, how could anybody who really hates to lose stand this game? > > With 5 players, even the best will lose most of the time. > > I would like to make a difference between losing and not even being > able to play the game. I don't mind losing if I was able to play. > But if a fatty rush deck attacks my minions and then burns them. Then > proceeds to bleed me for one each turn, chances are we'll both lose - > but at least my predator was able to play his deck. If that is truly what happened, he is playing the "game" poorly since the goal of the game has certain victory conditions, which he didn't make. It might help to have some of the players at the table talk to him about why his deck is neat, but not a winner, and you can try to give him some suggestions as to how to make it better in this manner. > Also a Ventrue or Toreador vote deck sitting next to two animalism > wall decks probably isn't going to be able to complete a single > action, much less have fun playing the game. The best you can hope > for is to sit there and do nothing for *an hour* and then hope that > one wall deck needs your help against the other wall deck, and then > *MAYBE* you *MIGHT* get off some actions. Shit happens. You aren't saying that the game should be restructured so that everyone has a "chance" to "play", are you? > I have no interest in playing a game for at least 2 hours that I am > not having fun at, and unfortunately it's nontrivial to leave the game > without just getting up and physically leaving - which will still > upset people still sitting at the table. It sounds like maybe this isn't the game for you anymore, then. I'd be sorry to see you go, since I like you as a person and a player, but with those feelings you have mentioned (all valid feelings, mind you) it will be difficult for you to even sit down to play. > If every game was 30-45 minutes things might be different. Since that isn't how the game follows, this is a non-issue in my mind. It might be interesting to try to create a variant game under these conditions, in the same way that Derek posted his variant game a month or so ago. > Problem is > due to the bloating, deal making, and focus on surviving to the 3 > player game, our games last a long time. Our storyline final was 18 > turns long, and it was one of our quicker games. > > I wanted to end this thread by noting that most of the Austin > playgroup are still very good friends, and we hang out doing other > things rather than VTES. It's just hard to accomodate everyones needs > in such a multiplayer type game such as VTES. Maybe time will soothe > our issues. :-) Unless you (or others) change their feelings about the rules of the game to once again be conducive to playing under those rules, maybe doing other non-VTES things with contradictory personalities is the right approach. > > Would you believe I won a game with a HoSe predator last night? > > Not really, HoSe typically don't oust people <g>. You obviously > survived to the 3 player game, which is the first milestone of a > winning deck. :-) > > --------------------- > Ethan 'The infamous 6th place at Nationals due to a die roll' Burrow > http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/ Kevin M., Prince of Madison, WI (USA) "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

"Ethan Burrow" <saa...@yahoo.com> wrote > > I am apparently unique in my ability to turn off 'tournament Ethan', > usually with the help of German beer, and move on to new and > interesting stuff. After we got back from Lafayette however, some of > the others in our group don't have this switch, and thus many times > you're bringing a knife to a gunfight. Compound that with the fear of > ousting a prey too quickly to avoid the table from dog-piling the > scary deck.....you find yourself playing in a 2-3 hour game where you > knew in the first 10 minutes that you couldn't do a damn thing. And > your predator either can't or won't finish you off due to table > dynamics. While sometimes it can still be fun to play a losing > battle, I'll describe some situations later that cause the real > problems. I have noticed this trend in general over the years (and several different playgroups). FACT --> Experimentation helps make this game fun. FACT --> It's fun to win games FACT --> It's harder to win games when experimenting Therefore, I once suggested (albeit casually) to the Detroit players that we all agree to set aside some games as 'tournament level' with a time limit, any deck you want, essentially a standard tourney game. Other games however, would be designated 'deck-lab' games where we all play goofy or experimental 'fun' decks. No time-limit, anything goes... basically whatever (though of course players would be encouraged not to play 'proven' deck archetypes). Sure, the decks in the latter games would end up going up against equally weak decks, but who cares? At least you can try out your Valeren/Serpentis/Animalism/Obfuscate decks (ask Aaron :) without being trounced by the weenie Dominate deck behind you. What constitutes experimental is really up to the player him/herself but I think that most people would, to use your example, not bring rocket-launchers to a knife-fight. Now, this is not a serious problem for me--I get to play so infrequently that I thoroughly enjoy each game I can play. I also manage to get my experimental thrills by playing and moderating JOL games... but I think my suggestion might help prevent burnout a bit. Thoughts? Cheers, WES

[ quoted text not captured ] Who cares?!? That's kind of the whole point of experimenting, I think. I'm wondering who cares if your bizarre X deck works wonderfully against other players' bizarre decks Y, Z, and so forth but falls flat on its face against any serious, normal tournament decks? In Major League Baseball's spring training (Grapefruit and Cactus) leagues, there's an unwritten rule that addresses this same issue. In spring training, besides the regular players, teams also invite a number of high minor leaguers in order to evaluate them in major league play. The trouble is, if both teams only field minor leaguers in their lineup, they don't get evaluated in a major league game. It's essentially just another triple-A game, which the teams can test their players in all year. So the unwritten rule is that each team must keep at least four legitimate major league players on the field/in the lineup at all times so the other team can get an adequate evaluation of where their players are at. I feel the same way about Jyhad. I'm not going to force anyone in a pickup game to play a serious deck (after all, if my deck is an experiment, why not theirs?). But I'm sure not going to discourage it, either. Fred

gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net writes: >Therefore, I once suggested (albeit casually) to the Detroit players that >we >all agree to set aside some games as 'tournament level' with a time limit, >any deck you want, essentially a standard tourney game. >Other games however, would be designated 'deck-lab' games where we all play >goofy or experimental 'fun' decks. No time-limit, anything goes... basically >whatever (though of course players would be encouraged not to play 'proven' >deck archetypes). Not sure where I fit in into this system. My decks are always designed to win, to go forward, and to play cards efficiently. OTOH, I avoid the classic killer archetypes like Malk S&B, 5th Tradition prince, Brujah rush, etc. When I do build them, it's with a major emphasis away from the "kill" part. From experience I get whomped by the archetypes but I'm going to toast a deck with 3 out-of-clan disciplines, too. [ quoted text not captured ]

Matt wrote: >>But when you talk about different deck types you traditionally site the "all werewolf pack" deck as your standard.>> Hyperbole. Again, I see just as many kooky decks at tournaments as not, and they often do perfectly well. However, I do occasionally see, in both competetive and casual play, "all werewolf pack" type decks, that I find generally disruptive to play. These are decks that are generally built without any mind towards actually winning a game--they exist to pull off a funny combo, or they exist to try and get out as many allies as they can, or they exist to screw up the table as they are "crazy malkavians!", or some such. Decks like this aren't really good for actually playing against, as they tend to ignore the basic goal of the game, ousting their prey. If everyone is playing decks like this for whatever reason, that is fine, but generally what happens when someone is playing such a deck, they sit down at a table with someone who isn't, and the inevitable end result is that one player is unhappy 'cause their clever, creative deck was killed in three turns by a cheesy, lame ass netdeck while the other player is unhappy 'cause they were playing against someone using an "all werewolf pack" deck, which wasn't any challenge to play against, and screwed up the table dynamic. Sure, if someone has a playgroup where everyone is happy playing goofy, win-proof decks, more power to them. When these people attempt to integrate themselves into a wider playing arena, they are generally unhappy, however. What is my point? I dunno. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote: > FACT --> Experimentation helps make this game fun. > FACT --> It's fun to win games > FACT --> It's harder to win games when experimenting You missed one. FACT --> Developmental decks never make it to production (i.e., "tournament competitive") without extensive testing. > Therefore, I once suggested (albeit casually) to the Detroit players that we > all agree to set aside some games as 'tournament level' with a time limit, > any deck you want, essentially a standard tourney game. Given the most of us play with decks that are as competitive as they are bizarre, I don't think there is a need for this. Certainly, none of us are shy about bringing some whacked concept to the table. Most of us also have decks that will end a game, one way or another, in a half hour. Usually those get brought out when everyone is getting antsy but still wants to fit one last game in. > What constitutes experimental is really up to the player him/herself but I > think that most people would, to use your example, not bring > rocket-launchers to a knife-fight. Part of experimentation is understanding that it may start out as a knife. After extensive testing against stronger decks, you'll find out whether your deck idea can be honed to "rocket launcher" or if it is conceptually impractical. Reading Ethan's post, it occurrs to me that the problem in Austin wasn't the decks. It appears to be more of a group dynamic issue. I don't how see that, given the tournament environment of Michigan, we would get to that point as a group. Regards, Noal McDonald VEKN Prince of Metro Detroit

<snip> > > > It seems like we're moving away from predator-prey relationships until > the the 3-player game. A lot more (D) actions (or votes) to attack > the strongest player. Austin games are also long because of the > dealing and bloating. Turbo-ousting is still difficult since it > pisses off your grand-predator. Sometimes the table actually gives > you pool to stop you from turbo-ousting because it would affect the > balance of the table. > > > I've found Jyhad players to be a good bunch. It's a game, and > > people want to win, but they want other players to at least have fun. > > While true, I think our group has become too competetive. Since we > never grew over 8-10 players, you usually play against the same > players every game. I think we subconsciously bring vendetta's across > games ;-) Some players, and I'm guilty of this at times, view winning > more important that someone else testing a new deck concept. > <snip> wow, that sounds sort of like our playgroup. Especially the carrying over of vendetta's from previous games. Our core group is 4 people, but it's kinda similar since we play with each other so much, there's tons of cross-table shenanigans, weak positions being propped up by the stronger positions/players. The thing about our group is I don't care about winning, I just like hanging out/socializing, 2 of us are competitive and want to win and the other guy just loves to kick the ass out of the 2 competitive players. I wonder where we'll be in a couple years. Peter Muto VEKN Prince of Toronto

saa...@yahoo.com (Ethan Burrow) wrote in message news:<fad0b3bc.02032...@posting.google.com>... > curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote in message news:<20020323145320...@mb-mb.aol.com>... > > sh...@texas.net writes: > > <snip long report of expierences with playgroup> We had (still have, sometimes) similar problem. One possible way of reacting to this is, IME, recruit a number of newbies. Play demonstration decks with them. Ultra-tool box kinda stuff. Another way of getting a "frozen" metagame back on track: play draft, blind deck* (very funny, this one) or sealed deck. Or even go as far as to play theme games: combat, team play, Duel,.... Or, even better find your own variants of the game. I remember (BTW, a long time ago) that we had a great time with a V:TES Emperor Version (see M:TG.) And finally, the ultimate answer to a playgroup falling apart is: stop playing V:TES for a while. Play other games. Everyone takes all their decks apart and puts their cards in a locked drawer. Don't forget it though, you WILL start to miss Vampire. Jeroen * For those who don't know what I mean with blind deck: Everyone builds a deck. When the game starts everyone is asigned a deck (wich may or may not be the one you made yourself) which he may NOT look through. Ban cards that allow you to search the deck. When used in a tourney style: Every round you get a new deck, and again a new one for the finals.

Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:<3CA20645...@removethis.com>... > Matt Latham wrote: > > > > First, I say nothing about ease of win. No deck is easy to win with. > > What is "easier" about established archtypes is that the initial > > testing and design is all done for you. I could tweak a weenie > > presence or a Ventrue bloat deck or a Eurobrujah deck or Malk S/B much > > easier than Jared making his Storyline-winning City Gangrel deck from > > scratch. And my thrill from winning would be 100 times greater > > following Jared's path than my path. Again, personal preference. > > Fine. That's not what I responded to, though. It was where you were > said, "I just don't gain a lot of joy out of playing against netdecks." > What you're using yourself is your business and if you gain greater joy > and pride out of building it one way vs. the other, that's a fair enough > comment. I just said that I don't agree with worrying about whether the > guy on the other side of the table has a net deck or an original creation. > It doesn't make much difference to me as long as he puts up a good fight > with it. Absolutely. Its a matter of perspective. I gain more enjoyment from contesting with someone who I think put in some design work. Someone who came up with a creative concept, tested it, and brought it's best iteration to the table to spar with me with. For you, the thrill is the game and competiting regardless of the source of the deck. Different strokes for different folks. > No, you did not say anything directly about the ease of the win. But the > problem I see with your position is that people often play pretty bad > decks in their insistence on playing something original. If they can't > do better and if were up to me to decide (which I realize it's not), > then I'm saying contrary to your opinion, I'd rather they use a good > deck they got off the net - as long as we're stating our druthers about > what we'd like the other guy to do. Indeed, this whole thread is about "druthers". We were asked our opinions and we share them. Personally I gain no satisfaction from playing established archtypes, and I appreciate when people bring their own creations to the play table. Its how I choose to view the game. I show the rest of the table the respect of not acting like a Malk or bringing the all werewolf pack deck to the table, but there is a whole slew of decks that are pretty-competitive yet not an established archtype. I gained a lot of satisfaction by making the finals with a Ahrimanes deck of my own design at the Storyline tourney. I would have gotten no satisfaction from playing an established archtype like Malk S/B. Again personal preference. > > People who enjoy playing in tournaments are not "wrong". Neither are > > casual players. This game NEEDS both styles of players. > > I don't know. I don't really agree with the "style of player" thing. > I don't see the difference between tournaments and informal play, myself, > except to what degree you're playing to learn the game vs. just winning > that particular game. The issue of enforcing rules is a style of the > game itself, not of the player. I can see your point, and I'm having a hard time putting into words the difference. If you like to play with tourneys, you are apt to see casual games as playtest sessions where you can test new deck concepts against a gauntlet of "Tier I" decks (again, those established archtypes). I see casual games as a place NOT to play the established archtypes. In a field of first-draft decks a standard Malk S/B deck will destroy the table. The Weenie Presence deck will clearly win the table. I am confident that some deck concepts will never get out of the developmental stages, ie never be tier one. There are a whole slew of decks that, while they cannot beat a table with Eurobrujah, Ventrue Bloat, weenie potence and Malk S/B, they may be competitive against an Ahrimanes deck, a Lasombra bruise and bleed, a Giovanni theft deck, and Toreador with guns. In short, some deck designs will never qualify for further testing against a serious gauntlet, and hence never be tourney worthy. But casual games allow those fun, strange concepts to have a home. Casual games are a place where every deck has a chance. I know I didn't say that very clearly because its hard to describe but I hope I showed at least a little difference between the tourney and casual mindsets. Matt

pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (Peter D Bakija) wrote in message news:<20020327173551...@mb-co.aol.com>... > Matt wrote: > >>But when you talk about different deck types you traditionally site > the "all werewolf pack" deck as your standard.>> > > Hyperbole. > > Again, I see just as many kooky decks at tournaments as not, and they often do > perfectly well. However, I do occasionally see, in both competetive and casual > play, "all werewolf pack" type decks, that I find generally disruptive to play. > These are decks that are generally built without any mind towards actually > winning a game--they exist to pull off a funny combo, or they exist to try and > get out as many allies as they can, or they exist to screw up the table as they > are "crazy malkavians!", or some such. Decks like this aren't really good for > actually playing against, as they tend to ignore the basic goal of the game, > ousting their prey. If everyone is playing decks like this for whatever reason, > that is fine, but generally what happens when someone is playing such a deck, > they sit down at a table with someone who isn't, and the inevitable end result > is that one player is unhappy 'cause their clever, creative deck was killed in > three turns by a cheesy, lame ass netdeck while the other player is unhappy > 'cause they were playing against someone using an "all werewolf pack" deck, > which wasn't any challenge to play against, and screwed up the table dynamic. If your experience is that this is the "normal" casual player you run into and that this is your "general" experience with casual Jyhad, I'll make you this offer. Email me. I'll be happy to find you a place to stay for a few days here in Michigan and you can play in our casual games. Our casual decks do NOT exist to pull off wacky combos. For every "werewolf pack" deck there are 100 games that involve decks that are NOT standard archtypes and STILL manage to try to oust their prey, then their grand prey and so on. Our casual games use decks that ask questions. "Can Baali be made to work?" "Does auspex help the Assamites?" "What can I afford to give up to make my deck stronger against deflection?" "Can I play all Celerity?" "How would my Anti-voter fare against the Derange deck?" "Can I break Courier?". Stuff like that. Some of the answers end up "no" but there is still satisfaction to be found in asking the question and finding the answer. I'm not kidding. I know the Michigan contingant holds you in extremely high regard and would love to have you pop in for a weekend. My only objection is in using the crazy Malk or werewolf pack guy and using him as a characterization of casual Jyhad players. For every one of those there are 1000 casual Jyhad players who play by the rules and try to oust their prey. > Sure, if someone has a playgroup where everyone is happy playing goofy, > win-proof decks, more power to them. When these people attempt to integrate > themselves into a wider playing arena, they are generally unhappy, however. Its my experience that no playgroup is trying to play with win-proof decks. Again for every "I got 6 werewolf packs in play.. I win!" player there are 1000 casual players who play to oust their prey. > What is my point? I dunno. The point I got, and its a good one, is to outline the pitfall of the creative deckbuilder. By all means build decks and play them, no matter how outlandish and crazy. But if you take them into a tournament setting and ARE NOT prepared to face the archtypes (weenie bleed, weenie potence, s/b, etc) then you've got no right to bitch at the table for it. You've chosen to win or lose on your own terms, and thats YOUR fault, not the tables, not the tournaments, and certainly not the player who brought his "A" deck to the table. Its a lesson I learned last year. I took a deck of my own creation to Origins, lost a lot, had a good time save for the dancing incident outlined before. I knew that I may lose, but it was losing on my own terms and that was cool by me. Matt PS: The other point I got is that no matter WHAT deck you bring to a tournament it MUST have a function that attempts to oust its prey and prevent itself from being ousted. No other win condition exists in tourney Jyhad, and you really bollox up the table if you do not try to oust your prey and stay alive yourself. You owe it to yourself to try and win your way. You owe it to the table to try and win via the standard Jyhad win condition. If you are going to be a creative deckbuilder and try to win with your own design (even if your personal win condition is to do your best with something you made) you MUST play by the Jyhad rules and oust your prey. I agree wholeheartedly.

Jeroen wrote: > * For those who don't know what I mean with blind deck: Everyone > builds a deck. When the game starts everyone is asigned a deck (wich > may or may not be the one you made yourself) which he may NOT look > through. Ban cards that allow you to search the deck. When used in a > tourney style: Every round you get a new deck, and again a new one for > the finals. I tried this once for the heck of it...borrowed a friend's deck, and didn't bother looking at the contents. I ended up discarding the one weapon in a deck of Horrid Realities. :) - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com

"Noal McDonald" <dhar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:bb705c59.02032...@posting.google.com... > "Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote: > > FACT --> Experimentation helps make this game fun. > > FACT --> It's fun to win games > > FACT --> It's harder to win games when experimenting > > You missed one. > > FACT --> Developmental decks never make it to production (i.e., > "tournament competitive") without extensive testing. > > > Other games however, would be designated 'deck-lab' games where we all play > > goofy or experimental 'fun' decks. No time-limit, anything goes... basically > > whatever (though of course players would be encouraged not to play 'proven' > > deck archetypes). We tried something like this in Austin. We came up with the idea of the "nut-puncher" game. The idea was that everyone would bring an experimental deck to the table and we'd all enjoy a game where 1)no one was screwed right out of the gates and 2)the idea was to have FUN interacting with the other players instead of absolutely decimating them. There were a couple problems with the nut-puncher games: 1 - someone wouldn't build a nut-puncher and instead play a tourney level deck 2 - someone's idea of nut-punching was VASTLY different from their prey's "I'm playing a stealth bleed deck with no combat cards....so if someone rushes all my weenies, repeatedly, I'll be screwed" or "I'm playing a 10-turn build up deck, and my predator is playing a 6 bleed discipline deck." > > Therefore, I once suggested (albeit casually) to the Detroit players that we > > all agree to set aside some games as 'tournament level' with a time limit, > > any deck you want, essentially a standard tourney game. This is basically all non-nut-puncher games. > Reading Ethan's post, it occurrs to me that the problem in Austin > wasn't the decks. It appears to be more of a group dynamic issue. Please elaborate.... Ethan is correct though....the Austin V:TES scene isn't dead per se, it's pretty much just taking a little nap. If Norm (or any other out-of-towners) come into town, they'll be treated to an afternoon of Jyhad. Right now a unique combination of marriage, performances, vacations and jobs have been keeping us from getting together regularly. Put that together with the fact that people were getting pissed off at every gaming session, you get a playgroup that's on the ropes. I think that sooner or later the meta game will shift again, and people will stop playing with the idea of waiting and winning a 3 player game. -Brian

"Brian Reed" <cap...@austin.rr.com> wrote in message news:PXIo8.88494$Vl.31...@typhoon.austin.rr.com... > > We tried something like this in Austin. We came up with the idea of the > "nut-puncher" game. The idea was that everyone would bring an experimental > deck to the table and we'd all enjoy a game where 1)no one was screwed right > out of the gates and 2)the idea was to have FUN interacting with the other > players instead of absolutely decimating them. There were a couple problems > with the nut-puncher games: > 1 - someone wouldn't build a nut-puncher and instead play a tourney level > deck > 2 - someone's idea of nut-punching was VASTLY different from their prey's > "I'm playing a stealth bleed deck with no combat cards....so if someone > rushes all my weenies, repeatedly, I'll be screwed" or "I'm playing a > 10-turn build up deck, and my predator is playing a 6 bleed discipline > deck." > Similarly... in a JOL game that's going on now, I decided to bring my favourite nut-puncher, the Recycling Aurora deck (the combo being only slightly less powerful than the Baron combo and a little easier to pull off). After 5 turns of building with only one vampire out, I bled my prey for 11 in a turn. Sometimes the nut-punchers pull off their combo and their prey just gets screwed royally. Luckily for him, my predator is playing a Tzimisce deck, so he'll just intercept my Camarilla Vitae Slave if it looks like I'm going to oust anytime soon. But it could have been real bad for him. You may be rolling along, having fun with your Assamites-becoming-Camarilla-and-Praxis-Seizing deck, but then your Baali predator gets his Call the Great Beast out with POT/FOR/DAI and rushes 3 of your vamps in one turn, then bleeds you, and your game is over.

sv...@chartermi.net (Matt Latham) wrote in message news:<978c2422.0203...@posting.google.com>... > pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (Peter D Bakija) wrote in message news:<20020327173551...@mb-co.aol.com>... [snip "Werewolf Pack deck", etc.] > If your experience is that this is the "normal" casual player you run > into and that this is your "general" experience with casual Jyhad, As mentioned, I think that Peter just uses those examples as the most extreme examples of non-functioning decks that he has seen at tournaments. I don't want to put words in his mouth (but what the heck, I'm busily typing away anyway), and he'll have probably responded to this already, but I think that we've all seen the range of decks (and players), from "always competitive" to "experimental, but trying to be competitive" to "non-competitive". Actually, I'd like to make those distinctions as clear as possible in order to facilitate further discussion. The decks you describe at Tier 1 (EuroBrujah, weenie rush, weenie presence bleed, Malk S&B...though I disagree on the latter), I suppose fall into the "always competitive" bracket. You are almost certain to see some of these at any tournament, and they are likely to do well at any given casual table. Let's just call these "always competitive". Many other decks, which you describe as "casual", I would probably describe as "experimental" and on their way to being tourament-viable, in that they take into account the standard victory conditions and don't try for some alternate win condition. For ease, it might just be most useful to refer to these decks as "competitive"...whether or not they actually perform well, they are geared towards trying to win. (Oh, I also prefer "experimental" to "creative" simply because the former is a much more objective term than the latter.) A small portion of decks, but which one sees more frequently than one would like are the "Werewolf Pack" decks (or the "crazy Malkavian" players). I think it might be easiest to term these as "non-competitive" since they do not focus on the game's victory conditions. Admittedly, I'm not sure if there's a clear defining line where one can say: "Deck X is clearly non-competitive," barring the player getting up and doing a little dance because he got 5 Werewolf Packs on the table, but in general, I don't think that making this determination will be a problem...I expect any terminology to revolve around stereotypes, rather than around specific examples. And unfortunately, I'm not sure where "nut-punchers" should fall. My guess is in the "non-competitive" bracket, but certain ones might not. Anyway, in order to avoid further confusion or miscommunication, we have the following: Tier 1 = "always competitive" (or some other simpler phrase? contender? elite? hehe) experimental, but focused on winning the game = "competitive" werewolf pack decks = "non-competitive" [Peter's proposed trip to Michigan] > games. Our casual decks do NOT exist to pull off wacky combos. For You mean aside from Derange/Sacrifice and the whole Uriah Winter thing? (HI NOAL!) :) > My only objection is in using the crazy Malk or werewolf pack guy and > using him as a characterization of casual Jyhad players. For every one > of those there are 1000 casual Jyhad players who play by the rules and > try to oust their prey. Again, I don't think Peter is characterizing that as the "standard" casual V:tES player, he's using that as the extreme end...I'm pretty sure he's aware that most people fall into the middle ground. This doesn't prevent friction from occuring when people from different sides of the spectrum play, though. > Its my experience that no playgroup is trying to play with win-proof You'd be surprised. :) I've seen a few. One of them was astounded by my "novel" Nosferatu Princes & Babies deck that got out Assault Rifles and made Duck the Nosferatu Justicar. This was within the last year. > > What is my point? I dunno. > > The point I got, and its a good one, is to outline the pitfall of the > creative deckbuilder. By all means build decks and play them, no > matter how outlandish and crazy. But if you take them into a > tournament setting and ARE NOT prepared to face the archtypes (weenie > bleed, weenie potence, s/b, etc) then you've got no right to bitch at > the table for it. You've chosen to win or lose on your own terms, and > thats YOUR fault, not the tables, not the tournaments, and certainly > not the player who brought his "A" deck to the table. Exactly. I build my share of experimental decks, but I do my best to prepare for all of the standard offenses and archetypes. If you don't do this, and you go to a tournament with a deck that has a big hole in it, and that hole is bleed, vote, or combat...then you're in trouble. On the other hand, if your deck's hole is that you don't fare well against Animalism intercept walls, then you are probably much better off. Not that you won't see an animalism wall, but you're not likely to see one every round. :) [snip good post-script about things required to win] I really think that most of this is a matter of terminology, and that although the two of you have dissimilar goals in going to tournaments, that you both are very close on what decks should do in tournaments. Xian

Brian Reed wrote: > We tried something like this in Austin. We came up with the idea of the > "nut-puncher" game. The idea was that everyone would bring an experimental > deck to the table and we'd all enjoy a game where 1)no one was screwed right > out of the gates and 2)the idea was to have FUN interacting with the other > players instead of absolutely decimating them. There were a couple problems > with the nut-puncher games: > 1 - someone wouldn't build a nut-puncher and instead play a tourney level > deck > 2 - someone's idea of nut-punching was VASTLY different from their prey's > "I'm playing a stealth bleed deck with no combat cards....so if someone > rushes all my weenies, repeatedly, I'll be screwed" or "I'm playing a > 10-turn build up deck, and my predator is playing a 6 bleed discipline > deck." #2 is the big, gaping flaw in the whole concept. I think a lot of people _want_ certain kinds of neat, concept decks they've figured out to work. The trouble is, they won't work in a tournament environment or at the very least need a lot of tuning. So you come up with this idea for a "nut-puncher" game or, as Wes calls it, a "deck-lab" game. Let's call a spade a spade here, though: we're talking about playing games with weak decks so that other people with weak decks can have a chance. The trouble is, there's no play- balance in an environment with such deckbuilding rules because the deckbuilding rules aren't laid out in an understandable way. Everyone's definition of "weak" varies. People can't be sure if their deck is "weak enough" to conform to the standard because there's no objective standard. That's why we have deckbuilding rules and designers who focus on designing, banning, and errataing the environment - so that the environment is balanced. I suppose if you get a group of players who are pretty good at eyeballing a deck and figuring if it's about right for the unwritten standards of the environment, it might not work out too bad. To me, it doesn't seem like a very worthwhile exercise because I can't figure out what winning and losing means in an environment like that. If you just want to experience some kind of unusual and remarkable effect in the game - say, a minion with 7 Raptors or something of that nature - then perhaps this would appeal to you. That just doesn't spin my buttons, personally. Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] Something in here made me recall something about evaluating decks. When I play a new deck, I don't rate it on results. Too many times I've seen horrible decks win individual games. It has to play 3+ games for results to become meaningful. What I do rate it on is how smooth card flow is and how often it does what it's supposed to and whether what it's supposed to be doing is in any way effective. In experimental games, you will at least get some idea of these. You won't know whether you have the resilience or firepower to deal with tournament decks, but often, you will figure out some of the necessary tuning to make a deck better. In a tournament game, you may very well get pounded too fast to see how your cards interact and figure out what should be replaced. You will eventually want to put a deck up against stiff competition, but if that's all you do, you may miss out on possible lines of development.

"Noal McDonald" <dhar...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:bb705c59.02032...@posting.google.com... [snip] > Reading Ethan's post, it occurrs to me that the problem in Austin > wasn't the decks. It appears to be more of a group dynamic issue. I > don't how see that, given the tournament environment of Michigan, we > would get to that point as a group. You are partially correct, Noal. Most of the problems are a group dynamic issue. But decks (and to a larger extent new game mechanics) are still a big part of it. My latest deck which caused my roommate to threaten me with death and eviction ;^) (in that order!) is currently named, "I Can't Believe You Let Something As Aggravating As This In The Game, LSJ!" or " I Can't Believe It's But Nutter!" for short. It uses Agaitas & Ian Forrestal and other components. Once I'm setup, I replace cards almost exclusively from my prey's deck. I get his offense, I get his defense. The only counter is to burn/banish Agaitas (or Seeds). Failing that, his only hope is to include means of retrieving cards from his ash heap which (except for Carlotta) require cards to do. What happens if he includes those cards and I remove them? It's far worse than multiple Slaughterhouses. By turn 3 or 4, I can churn through 7 of his cards during my turn and 7 more during HIS if he's playing with transient intercept. But it doesn't oust. I built the deck in an attempt to break the game and succeeded in breaking it for other people. The problem is, is this a nutpuncher? Yes. No. Yes/No. Is this a tournament-level deck? Yes. No. Yes/No. How do I tune it into tourney level readiness without playing it? I was asked to warn them the next time I want to play it. Warning people about the deck you are playing is almost fruitless because you don't get a test against a random deck - the people you warn either then field their "survivor" decks, their rush decks, etc.or a crap deck they don't care about. A lot of the players in this game treat their decks like their children - they cut them repeatedly and store them in small boxes. No, wait, bad analogy. What I meant was - They get very illogically mad if their current favorite deck gets torn apart. And I don't want to play to ruin the game for others. I get just as upset when someone I'm playing with gets upset (whether it's my fault or not), partially because I don't want them to have a bad time, but also partially because I'm outraged that they got so disproportionately angry about a piddly little game and needed to vent it back onto the other players. And roll the dice to see who it's going to be Mr. Channeller of The World's Collective Subconscious Rage next game. Hell, I'm guilty of it. But when I get that angry, I kill the player responsible. And we've only lost 2 guys in that manner. Ultimately, as I once said to my roommates, "It's not like we have astronauts...dancing...on our penises." Which in normal speak means, "It's not like we are Mission Control, with lives hanging in the balance." But the rage...the rage only provokes rage in others. Hell, if we're going to get that angry, we should play Rage. > Regards, > Noal McDonald > VEKN Prince of Metro Detroit Regards indeed Noal, regards indeed. -Mike Ooi

"Derek Ray" <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:da6v9u0ht42h9a29t...@4ax.com... > In message <15a537b3.02032...@posting.google.com>, > wum...@attbi.com (Alex Broadhead) mumbled something about: > > >Howdy, > > > >"Mike Ooi" <sh...@texas.net> wrote in message news:<EcUm8.208030$uv5.18...@bin6.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>... > >> Of > >> course, unlike your average gamer, I don't suffer discomfort in social > >> situations. I can talk to a pretty girl without having to change my > >> underwear afterwards. > > > >Errr... Then what _were_ you doing in that parking lot? > > You misunderstand. ...He doesn't wear underwear. > You forgot to also ask, "What was that girl doing all bent over in front of you?" (tee-hee) -Mike

Matt wrote: >>If your experience is that this is the "normal" casual player you run into and that this is your "general" experience with casual Jyhad, I'll make you this offer.>> I'm not saying that this is my normal experience. I'm saying that I have run into this sort of thing occasionally--not often, but occasionally. Usually a very new player, or a very casual (i.e. they play rarely) player, and I'm simply explaining that is what I mean by such a phrase as an example. But it is clearly an extreme example. >>Email me. I'll be happy to find you a place to stay for a few days here in Michigan and you can play in our casual games.>> Thanks for the offer :-) >>Our casual decks do NOT exist to pull off wacky combos. For every "werewolf pack" deck there are 100 games that involve decks that are NOT standard archtypes and STILL manage to try to oust their prey, then their grand prey and so on. Our casual games use decks that ask questions. "Can Baali be made to work?" "Does auspex help the Assamites?" "What can I afford to give up to make my deck stronger against deflection?" "Can I play all Celerity?" "How would my Anti-voter fare against the Derange deck?" "Can I break Courier?". Stuff like that. Some of the answers end up "no" but there is still satisfaction to be found in asking the question and finding the answer.>> We do the same stuff around here all the time--I have plenty of "bad idea" decks that work fine under "casual" conditions, but don't really pass muster for a tournament (kind of "teir-2" decks, as Xian coined the phrase)--I'm currently playing an all cel weenie/gun/arms dealler/Autarkis Persecution deck. And a really bad Gagoyle deck. And a not real good Nosferatu/Samedi deck. We all have decks that aren't actually that effective, just mostly funny or clever in some way, that we play all the time. But when we go to play at a tournament, we pull out the really effective (tier-1) decks. At the NE Quallifer, I played so much VTES my eyes started to bleed, but I only played my tournament winning deck in 4 games--the 4 tournament rounds. The rest of the time I played goofy, half useful decks. Sometimes I won, sometimes I got creamed, either way was very entertaining. >>My only objection is in using the crazy Malk or werewolf pack guy and using him as a characterization of casual Jyhad players. For every one of those there are 1000 casual Jyhad players who play by the rules and try to oust their prey.>> Oh, I know--again, it is just an extreme example to illustrate points. I don't actually believe that most people play like this. I suspect that most folks play exactly the same way I do--make goofy, entertaining decks that sometimes are good, sometimes are not. I just turn that off for competition, and play mean, tier-1 decks at tournaments. And I only play, like, 3 or 4 actual tournaments a year--I play far more casual VTES than I do competetive VTES. >>The point I got, and its a good one, is to outline the pitfall of the creative deckbuilder. By all means build decks and play them, no matter how outlandish and crazy. But if you take them into a tournament setting and ARE NOT prepared to face the archtypes (weenie bleed, weenie potence, s/b, etc) then you've got no right to bitch at the table for it. You've chosen to win or lose on your own terms, and thats YOUR fault, not the tables, not the tournaments, and certainly not the player who brought his "A" deck to the table.>> Preach it, brother! [ quoted text not captured ]

"Xian" <xb...@qwest.net> wrote in message news:dbc1153.02032...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] These are great definitions Xian. I shall adopt them > [Peter's proposed trip to Michigan] > > games. Our casual decks do NOT exist to pull off wacky combos. For > > You mean aside from Derange/Sacrifice and the whole Uriah Winter > thing? (HI NOAL!) I died to the Uriah Winter deck, thank you very much. And the Derange deck made the finals of the Toronto Storyline Tourney (came in Second I believe... ) :) Matt

> It uses Agaitas & Ian Forrestal and other components. Once I'm setup, I > replace cards almost exclusively from my prey's deck. I get his offense, I > get his defense. > > The only counter is to burn/banish Agaitas (or Seeds). Failing that, his > only hope is to include means of retrieving cards from his ash heap which > (except for Carlotta) require cards to do. What happens if he includes those > cards and I remove them? I've seen a similiar deck. (guess who...) > It's far worse than multiple Slaughterhouses. By turn 3 or 4, I can churn > through 7 of his cards during my turn and 7 more during HIS if he's playing > with transient intercept. But it doesn't oust. I built the deck in an > attempt to break the game and succeeded in breaking it for other people. I found that the deck that I saw was slow to set up, was hard to use lifegain, and was ineffectual with many types of cards. Sure you can steal a lot of those 5ths and 2nd's but Uncle Ian sure as hell isn't going to be using them. Once you hand jam on that you're toast. > The problem is, is this a nutpuncher? Yes. No. Yes/No. no > Is this a tournament-level deck? Yes. No. Yes/No. no, not in the form you mention > How do I tune it into tourney level readiness without playing it? blind luck and guatamalan insanity peppers. > I was asked to warn them the next time I want to play it. Warning people > about the deck you are playing is almost fruitless because you don't get a > test against a random deck - the people you warn either then field their > "survivor" decks, their rush decks, etc.or a crap deck they don't care > about. A lot of the players in this game treat their decks like their > children - they cut them repeatedly and store them in small boxes. Yeah, I think that we in madison have found that some decks are simply dull to play against. We don't stop people from playing them, but usually people who are testing wack decks don't play them exclusivly. (Like 3-4 games a week for several months.) I made a slaughter house deck with the sole purpose of winning the last three VP's at any table. Intercept with FOR back and deck destruction forward, then finish them with pulsed bleeds. While annoying for some, it wasn't evil incarnate. It was beatable, and I had prey's who gained VP's. Of course, if their deck was slow they didn't, but they'd have died to weenie mind numb too and few people can't counter that. I think the bulk of the problem was that there isn't an immediate and obvious panacea to the newly introduced strategies, especially with the HoS. Combat has trouble with the FOR, Stealth with the AUS, so people get mad about them instead of thinking, and trouble comes to river city. Cameron PS. If anything was overpowered about BL, I would have guessed Blood Brothers, but no, its deck denial. Sigh.

"Matt Latham" <sv...@chartermi.net> wrote in message news:ua7e5ji...@corp.supernews.com... > > "Xian" <xb...@qwest.net> wrote in message > news:dbc1153.02032...@posting.google.com... > > Tier 1 = "always competitive" (or some other simpler phrase? > > contender? elite? hehe) > > experimental, but focused on winning the game = "competitive" > > werewolf pack decks = "non-competitive" > > These are great definitions Xian. I shall adopt them I'll try to as well. Glad you like them. :) > > You mean aside from Derange/Sacrifice and the whole Uriah Winter > > thing? (HI NOAL!) > > I died to the Uriah Winter deck, thank you very much. And the Derange deck > made the finals of the Toronto Storyline Tourney (came in Second I > believe... ) :) Heh. It's just fun to tease Noal and see if he catches that I'm joking before the coffee kicks in. Speaking of those decks though, once I get around to reworking my archive, they're gonna go on there along with "The Combo", assuming no objections from Noal. Man, I haven't updated that page in quite a while. Xian Freak Deck Archive: www.waste.org/~xian/geek/jyhad/freak/

[Xian wrote:] > > You mean aside from Derange/Sacrifice and the whole Uriah Winter > > thing? (HI NOAL!) [Matt responded:] > I died to the Uriah Winter deck, thank you very much. And the Derange deck > made the finals of the Toronto Storyline Tourney (came in Second I > believe... ) :) I don't think it matters but the deck that Noal brought to Toronto did not make use of Sacrfice so much as Malkavian Derangement: Paranoia and Clan Loyalty. I don't recall seeing a Sacrifice when I faced it though there may well have been some in the deck. I think Noal's version is probably *more* effective than the Sacrifice angle, though also not as cruel and obnoxious :) Cheers, WES

pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (Peter D Bakija) wrote in message news:<20020328174155...@mb-mn.aol.com>... > Matt wrote: [snip] > We do the same stuff around here all the time--I have plenty of "bad idea" > decks that work fine under "casual" conditions, but don't really pass muster Heh. You mean you don't play weenie potence every single game? :) > for a tournament (kind of "teir-2" decks, as Xian coined the phrase)--I'm I don't know what crack you're smoking...I totally did not say that. Though I'll take the credit just the same. I'll also take credit for: * always competitive * competitive * non-competitive as descriptors for decks/players, used in order to get away from this creative/uncreative and tournament-quality/casual split which is really not all that objective. I'll also take credit for inventing the internet, while we're at it. ;) > currently playing an all cel weenie/gun/arms dealler/Autarkis > Persecution deck. I keep meaning to build one of those. How's it going? I was thinking that Heidelberg with Pier 13 on Black Cat for free Laptops would be a really amusing addition, but I'm not sure how I'd fit it all in. > But when we go to play at a tournament, > we pull out the really effective (tier-1) decks. At the NE Quallifer, I played > so much VTES my eyes started to bleed, but I only played my tournament winning I hate it when that happens. I assume though, this is what Week of Nightmares 2002 will be like. And, with any luck, Origins will be as well. > [Matt] > >>My only objection is in using the crazy Malk or werewolf pack guy and > using him as a characterization of casual Jyhad players. For every one > of those there are 1000 casual Jyhad players who play by the rules and > try to oust their prey.>> > > Oh, I know--again, it is just an extreme example to illustrate points. I don't Personally, I enjoy the hyperbole Peter, so keep it up! Actually, every time I read "werewolf pack deck" it cracks me up as I imagine the thing. Hehe. > [Matt] > >>You've chosen to win or lose on your own terms, and > thats YOUR fault, not the tables, not the tournaments, and certainly > not the player who brought his "A" deck to the table.>> > > Preach it, brother! Amen. Xian

Xian wrote: >> don't know what crack you're smoking...I totally did not say that. Though I'll take the credit just the same. I'll also take credit for: * always competitive * competitive * non-competitive>> Well, someone said it. I figure it might as well be you :-) >>I keep meaning to build one of those. How's it going? I was thinking that Heidelberg with Pier 13 on Black Cat for free Laptops would be a really amusing addition, but I'm not sure how I'd fit it all in.>> It's alright. Mostly just funny. I get out lots and lots of little vampires with cel, get out lots of Arm's Deallers, give everyone .38's in case they are blocked, and Computer Hack, a lot. When low on pool, and I think I can pull it off, I call an Autarkis backed by a Bewitching, and get, like 11 pool. Nothing is better, though, than bleeding your prey for 1 with a pistol packing, jacked in Jake Washington. >>I hate it when that happens. I assume though, this is what Week of Nightmares 2002 will be like. And, with any luck, Origins will be as well.>> We can hope. You already get hotel reservations? I tried to get reservations in the Hyatt yesterday, and was told that it was already sold out, which means either A) something goofy is going on or B) the person I was talking to wasn't so good at looking up "Origins Rooms" on the computer. We got romms across the street, but it is still irritating. >>Personally, I enjoy the hyperbole Peter, so keep it up! Actually, every time I read "werewolf pack deck" it cracks me up as I imagine the thing. Hehe.>> Heh heh. I like werewolfs. [ quoted text not captured ]

>I am apparently unique in my ability to turn off 'tournament Ethan', >usually with the help of German beer, and move on to new and >interesting stuff. From what I've seen, it's a common problem for players to not have fun when they don't approach the game the same way. As long as everyone is on the same page, fun can be had regardless as to what the rules are, the card pool is like, or whatever. But, not everyone is amenable to being on the same page. Fixes? Don't know. The various suggestions have sounded reasonable. For one of my CCG groups (not V:TES), I tried suggesting all sorts of possibilities from variant formats to time limits to house rules to just trying to figure out what people liked and didn't like. None of it worked. Should note that there were far fewer problems when we had more players as any individual's exposure to what they found undesirable was lessened. I'm kind of surprised though that it has become a problem, in other words, that it wasn't a problem before but is now. I suppose people's styles can evolve over time. And, it is true that card pools evolve over time in ways that some may find less fun. Also, it can be the case that card pools don't evolve enough to keep a game fresh. Hmm. Maybe, it isn't so surprising. Does everyone realize there's a problem? If not, that's part of the problem. If that's out of the way, the various suggestions can be tried.

"Mike Ooi" <sh...@texas.net> wrote in message news:<aVLo8.9457$VJ1.9...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>... > My latest deck which caused my roommate to threaten me with death and > eviction ;^) (in that order!) is currently named, "I Can't Believe You Let > Something As Aggravating As This In The Game, LSJ!" or " I Can't Believe > It's But Nutter!" for short. > > It uses Agaitas & Ian Forrestal and other components. Once I'm setup, I > replace cards almost exclusively from my prey's deck. I get his offense, I > get his defense. I'm curious, exactly how did this deck work? I can see playing cards at basic with Ian, but that doesn't seem fast enough, and what if they're only useful at superior? Camarilla Vitae Slave and Vials of Elder Vitae? Do the cards burned by Death of my Conscience count as played (which I would think they don't), at least as far as replacing them with Agaitas goes? If so, I could see that ripping through your prey's library very quickly. JSpektr

"Xian" <xi...@waste.org> wrote: >>> You mean aside from Derange/Sacrifice and the whole Uriah Winter >>> thing? (HI NOAL!) >> >> I died to the Uriah Winter deck, thank you very much. Heh. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. I finally got the Uriah Winter/Seeds of Corruption/Betrayer thing to work. Not well, mind you. If it wasn't for the Prince/Minion Tap/5th Trad bloat angle I worked in, it would have collapsed under its own weight in record time. I'd put it at a "Tier 3" level. It was a fun deck, but not terribly consistent in game wins. >> And the Derange deck >> made the finals of the Toronto Storyline Tourney (came in Second I >> believe... ) :) Yep. Took 2nd and remains one of my favorite "tournament level" decks along with the Malkvaian "Vertigo" deck. But it was a Derange/Clan Loyalty and Paranoia deck. No Sacrifices at all in the deck. I tried the Sacrifice angle briefly. It was much less successful than any Uriah deck I have ever put together. The problem with Sacrifice is that weenie decks spawn to quickly to be severly impacted and big cap vampires are completely immune. > Heh. It's just fun to tease Noal and see if he catches that I'm joking > before the coffee kicks in. Naah. I always know the spirit in which you poke fun at me. :-) That and I don't scour the newsgroups as much as I used to. Getting bored with a lot of the topics that resurface every few months. > Speaking of those decks though, once I get around to reworking my archive, > they're gonna go on there along with "The Combo", assuming no objections > from Noal. Man, I haven't updated that page in quite a while. No complaints from me. I just wish I had the time to further develop my web site. Right now it only has instructions for setting up a USENET server on HP-UX 11.00. Regards, Noal

> > It uses Agaitas & Ian Forrestal and other components. Once I'm setup, I > > replace cards almost exclusively from my prey's deck. I get his offense, I > > get his defense. > > I'm curious, exactly how did this deck work? Well, I designed a deck like this (below). It's main job is milling through your prey's deck whilst unstoppedly killing his vampires, however, you also get to choose the best bits from your prey's hand. Ian Forrestal x4 Agaitas x4 Maybe some others Masters: Dreams x2 Slaughterhouse Blood Doll x4 Sudden x2 DI Celerity x5 Fragment of the Book of Nod Library: Nose of the Hound x5 Bums Rush x6 Forgotten Labyrinth x3 Pulse of the Canaille x2 Ex Nihilo x7 Aura Reading x6 Infernal Pursuit x6 Skin of Night x6 Weather Control x30 Freak Drive x4 The key bits for milling are the Infernal Pursuits and Aura Readings - 9 card hand size and a mill of 2:1 cards from your library (you draw from your preys library and burn the cards). Still a long way off working, but looks funny! DH

dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote: > Ian Forrestal x4 > Agaitas x4 > Maybe some others Heh. Why not the Assamite that changes clans? Regards, Noal

dhar...@my-deja.com (Noal McDonald) wrote in message news:<bb705c59.02040...@posting.google.com>... > Heh. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. I finally > got the Uriah Winter/Seeds of Corruption/Betrayer thing to work. Not > well, mind you. If it wasn't for the Prince/Minion Tap/5th Trad bloat > angle I worked in, it would have collapsed under its own weight in > record time. Huh. Interestingly, Josh just mentioned something to me about a certain deck being better if it ran Ventrue Princes instead of its real trick. Maybe all decks are better with Minion Tap/5th "tricks"? :) > Yep. Took 2nd and remains one of my favorite "tournament level" decks > along with the Malkvaian "Vertigo" deck. But it was a Derange/Clan > Loyalty and Paranoia deck. No Sacrifices at all in the deck. I tried Heh. That's good stuff. Do you have to run Parthenon/Rumors of Gehenna in order to get out enough Paranoias? Seems like one per turn would be mighty slow. > the Sacrifice angle briefly. It was much less successful than any > Uriah deck I have ever put together. The problem with Sacrifice is > that weenie decks spawn to quickly to be severly impacted and big cap > vampires are completely immune. Yeah, that and the !Malks don't have loads of voting power, I imagine. :) I liked the idea a lot, though. I acquired a bunch of Sacrifices a while ago, still not sure what I'm going to do with them. Maybe Lasombra Mind Rape/CI/Sacrifice. Ooooh. [I wrote] > > Heh. It's just fun to tease Noal and see if he catches that I'm joking > > before the coffee kicks in. > > Naah. I always know the spirit in which you poke fun at me. :-) That Dammit. :) > and I don't scour the newsgroups as much as I used to. Getting bored > with a lot of the topics that resurface every few months. What? You're kidding. The semi-annual CL debates have already bored you to tears? That's unusual. Heh. > No complaints from me. I just wish I had the time to further develop > my web site. Right now it only has instructions for setting up a > USENET server on HP-UX 11.00. Ack. HP-UX? Scary. Then again, I'm not really one to talk, seeing as how I work on creepy semi-proprietary systems. :) Anyway, hoping you'll make it to Origins, and that a good time will be had by all. :) Xian

dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote in message news:<9e10847c.02040...@posting.google.com>... > > > It uses Agaitas & Ian Forrestal and other components. Once I'm setup, I > > > replace cards almost exclusively from my prey's deck. I get his offense, I > > > get his defense. > > > > I'm curious, exactly how did this deck work? > > Well, I designed a deck like this (below). It's main job is milling > through your prey's deck whilst unstoppedly killing his vampires, > however, you also get to choose the best bits from your prey's hand. *deck snipped* > The key bits for milling are the Infernal Pursuits and Aura Readings - > 9 card hand size and a mill of 2:1 cards from your library (you draw > from your preys library and burn the cards). Got it. I was wondering if Infernal Pursuits were involved. My best thought on how to do it would be to play with Lachlan or Ethan Locke in your crypt, and fill your library with Distraction, Celerity and Shock Troops. When your hand is filled with Celerity, play a Shock Troops (Lachlan provides the Archbish required) and replace all of the Celerity cards from your opponent's deck. Use Lachlan or a Shock Trooper to play Distraction to ditch 5 cards, keeping any good ones you got from your prey. Add some Tributes to the Master and maybe a couple of Parthenons, and it might almost work. At the very least, the Shock Troops + Tribute should get you a decent blood factory going. JSpektr

xb...@qwest.net (Xian) wrote: >> Heh. Even a blind squirrel can find a nut once in a while. I finally >> got the Uriah Winter/Seeds of Corruption/Betrayer thing to work. Not >> well, mind you. If it wasn't for the Prince/Minion Tap/5th Trad bloat >> angle I worked in, it would have collapsed under its own weight in >> record time. > > Huh. Interestingly, Josh just mentioned something to me about a > certain deck being better if it ran Ventrue Princes instead of its > real trick. Well, I used Anson for his ability to crank out Master cards. I also added some Princes with Presence (to better match up with Anson) and Thaumaturgy for Seeds of Corruption to keep Uriah in place. (For those of you about to question this for the umpteenth time, do a Google search on Uriah Winter and Seeds of Corruption. Yes, Uriah's "disadvantage" is an ability which is disabled by Seeds.) I've found that the biggest problem with Uriah decks is that you have to ditch pool quickly in order to push Uriah to your prey in the first place. Once you've accomplished that, hoever, there's no reason to keep your pool low and the 5th Traditional Hospital/Minion Tap us the easiest way to accomplish that upswing with minimal effort. > Maybe all decks are better with Minion Tap/5th "tricks"? :) You can never go wrong with pool gain. That's certainly one of the easier ways. However, for some reason, there's a lot of intercept/combat decks in my metagame. Maybe it's time for me to drag out a Dawn Op/Skin of Night/Weather Control deck to teach that blocking is bad. :-D > > Yep. Took 2nd and remains one of my favorite "tournament level" decks > > along with the Malkvaian "Vertigo" deck. But it was a Derange/Clan > > Loyalty and Paranoia deck. No Sacrifices at all in the deck. I tried > > Heh. That's good stuff. Do you have to run Parthenon/Rumors of > Gehenna in order to get out enough Paranoias? Seems like one per turn > would be mighty slow. No...I only put a few in there. They work like a free non-unique Pentex Subversion once you've got enough Deranges on the table. Rather than carpet bombing the table with them (and getting everyone irritated with you) I prefer to use them to hit key vampires of my prey and predator. > Yeah, that and the !Malks don't have loads of voting power, I imagine. Not really. TVC only goes so far. > :) I liked the idea a lot, though. I acquired a bunch of Sacrifices > a while ago, still not sure what I'm going to do with them. Maybe > Lasombra Mind Rape/CI/Sacrifice. Ooooh. Heh. Still run into the same problem of being completely ineffective against weenie decks and bigger vampires. > What? You're kidding. The semi-annual CL debates have already bored > you to tears? That's unusual. Heh. That and "First Strike First!" and the questions about how Rotschreck works and Andrew stirring up the pot and some idiot making a dumb commentary and Derek jumping down his throat... It just gets to be like listening to Dark Side of the Moon on infinite repeat. At first it's really enjoyable....but after time you can barely keep your eyes open. > Ack. HP-UX? Scary. Heh. I am a Global Unix Admin, remember? As propietary Unices go, HP's version is among the easiest to administrate...especially when you have to network installs in Portugal, India, Japan and Mexico. Solaris and SGI's IRIX, by comparison, are royal pains in the ass. > Then again, I'm not really one to talk, seeing as how I work on creepy > semi-proprietary systems. :) Such as? > Anyway, hoping you'll make it to Origins, and that a good time will be > had by all. :) Barring unforseen issues, I should be able to make it. Regards, Noal