CE Changes/Cards I *Expected* But Didn't Happen

Okay, I've been meaning to make a post like this since GenCon but just never got around to. Some slightly similar posts have popped up, but this post is specifically to discuss changes and cards that people wish or *expected* White Wolf to have made in the Camarilla Edition, but which were not done. Here's some of mine: (No particular order) #1. Tone done Parity Shift a bit. #2. Slightly change Anarch Revolt to give it a bit more of a cost (being discussed in another thread). #3. Limit Freak Drive to once a turn (really expected them to do this, especially with it becoming an Uncommon). #4. Make Disarm less nasty. #5. (Not exactly a change) but I did expect at least some of the ante cards to be reprinted (or a new ante card). Even though most people don't play ante, many card games continue to print cards using the ante feature. #6. Was expecting some sort of global Dementation infection as opposed to all of the new reprinted vampires (a la Tajdid). Not sure whether what they did was better or worse but I did expect something that would using old Dominate Malks to be a bit easier. #7. Expected a Praxis Seizure: New York card. #8. Ban Arika! =P That's just off the top of my head. Anyone have any other thoughts? Halcyan 2

Halcyan 2 wrote: > #1. Tone done Parity Shift a bit. Parity is very potent, but difficult to pull off on a regular basis. Heck, I have that deck with 6 of them, and if I can play 2 a game, I'm impressed. > > #2. Slightly change Anarch Revolt to give it a bit more of a cost (being > discussed in another thread). That would have been good. > > #3. Limit Freak Drive to once a turn (really expected them to do this, > especially with it becoming an Uncommon). Eh. With the NRA rules in the rulebook, what are you gonna do with Freak that is that scary? Hunt 90 times and attempt to withdraw? :-) > > #4. Make Disarm less nasty. Not really that powerful, but then I'm biased :-) > > #5. (Not exactly a change) but I did expect at least some of the ante cards to > be reprinted (or a new ante card). Even though most people don't play ante, > many card games continue to print cards using the ante feature. I'm quite glad they didn't. > > #6. Was expecting some sort of global Dementation infection as opposed to all > of the new reprinted vampires (a la Tajdid). Not sure whether what they did > was > better or worse but I did expect something that would using old Dominate Malks > to be a bit easier. Would have been interesting. > > #7. Expected a Praxis Seizure: New York card. Isn't there already one called Calebros? :-) Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "I need a doctor, kinda, sorta. What's wrong with me? He said there's a skid mark on my aorta and there's no remedy." -The Donnas

halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote in message news:<20020907232100...@mb-cc.aol.com>... > Okay, I've been meaning to make a post like this since GenCon but just never > got around to. Some slightly similar posts have popped up, but this post is > specifically to discuss changes and cards that people wish or *expected* White > Wolf to have made in the Camarilla Edition, but which were not done. Here's > some of mine: > > > (No particular order) > > #1. Tone done Parity Shift a bit. Could have been done easily if they had made it: Choose a Methuselah who has more pool than you do. Allocate X of his or her pool among _at_least_two_ Methuselahs (including you), where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Successful referendum means the chosen Methuselah loses that pool, and it is allocated as you announced. Would have been more like an inverse to KRC and Conservative Agitation that way. > #2. Slightly change Anarch Revolt to give it a bit more of a cost (being > discussed in another thread). > > #3. Limit Freak Drive to once a turn (really expected them to do this, > especially with it becoming an Uncommon). We'll see if this becomes even more necessary with the more lax NRA rules coming into effect. > #4. Make Disarm less nasty. Yeah, Pulled Fangs and other cards at least allow the minion to attempt to take actions to get rid of it. A poor Disarmed mob has to get out of torpor, hunt three times (often) and then burn the blood. By then you are probably ousted. > #5. (Not exactly a change) but I did expect at least some of the ante cards to > be reprinted (or a new ante card). Even though most people don't play ante, > many card games continue to print cards using the ante feature. Nah. Ante cards are wallpaper. :) > #6. Was expecting some sort of global Dementation infection as opposed to all > of the new reprinted vampires (a la Tajdid). Not sure whether what they did was > better or worse but I did expect something that would using old Dominate Malks > to be a bit easier. I think there's a pretty good selection of Malks with Dementation. There are 5,6,6,7,8,8 caps all with Superior Dementation. That's probably a good enough base for a Group 3 crypt by itself. > #7. Expected a Praxis Seizure: New York card. ACK!! Don't suggest even more Praxis Seizures!!! :) > #8. Ban Arika! =P I suspect we'll see lots more Arika contesting in the near future if things swing toward more Camarilla based decks. I'm kinda surprised they didn't just go ahead and tweak all the Protean Strike: Combat Ends cards along with everything else. Gangrel will have a slight advantage over the others until Anarchs comes out (when I expect that will be finally addressed). I would have liked to see more symmetry in the Rarities of cards. Right now, there are lots of Clan (and other) rares that are designated R2, many of which are either not generally strong or less useful because they're unique. For example: Current R2 = Malkavian Prank, Storm Sewers, Tremere Convocation, Fragment of Nod, J.S. Simmons, Mr. Winthrop, Tasha Morgan, Rumors of Gehenna and Ghoul Retainer (last two aren't unique, but I'd have made 'em R1 anyway for usefulness) All of these could have easily been made R1s and no one would have complained. Now, Discipline rares are much better in quantities, since multiples can be included in a deck and they'll still be useful in decks. Most disciplines work across several clans and can have upwards of 170 (Dominate in 1+2 and 2+3) vampires for certain disciplines, so people really need and want those cards. Tthe number of crypts that can make use of these rares is much higher. For example: Current R1 = Murder of Crows, Cat Burglary, Abandoning the Flesh, Dominate Kine, Day Operation, Psycic Veil, Fists of Death, Entrancement, and Infernal Familiar I really wish the above rarities would have been switched. Even though some of those R1s aren't particularly useful, many of them really are and would find their ways into more decks. IMO, Clan specific cards should be slightly more powerful and focused than normal Rares since there are only 20 or so vampires available for a given clan. This would mean they could be nice R1 "chase" cards (though I'm not advocating WW really go there). Jeff

In article <621dd332.0209...@posting.google.com>, Jeff Kuta <jeff...@hotmail.com> wrote: >halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote in message news:<20020907232100...@mb-cc.aol.com>... >> #1. Tone done Parity Shift a bit. Shift is strong, but not overwhelming. I wasn't surprised it was left alone. >Could have been done easily if they had made it: >Choose a Methuselah who has more pool than you do. Allocate X of his >or her pool among _at_least_two_ Methuselahs (including you), where X >is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Successful referendum means >the chosen Methuselah loses that pool, and it is allocated as you >announced. That would have been ok, but I don't mind it as it is. >> #3. Limit Freak Drive to once a turn (really expected them to do this, >> especially with it becoming an Uncommon). > >We'll see if this becomes even more necessary with the more lax NRA >rules coming into effect. I don't actually think this is a problem. Multiple Freak Drives hoover your blood something fierce, and the infrastructure required to deal with this (Restoration, Rack, Palatial, Blood Tears, etc.) eats up a lot of deckspace. Bear in mind Freak Drives don't oust anyone -- you need to actually _do_ something other than untap a lot. >> #4. Make Disarm less nasty. >Yeah, Pulled Fangs and other cards at least allow the minion to >attempt to take actions to get rid of it. A poor Disarmed mob has to >get out of torpor, hunt three times (often) and then burn the blood. >By then you are probably ousted. Why would you bother, unless you're a strength-based combat deck? In every other case, -1 or -2 strength is pretty much irrelevant to what you want the minion to do. Just rescue him and leave the Disarm there. Pulled Fangs has a serious bad mojo (torpor if having to hunt) which gives you a strong incentive to nuke it. Disarm is eminently ignorable once the dude's rescued, for most decks. >Nah. Ante cards are wallpaper. :) Seconded. If ante cards never see print again, I'll be content. >I'm kinda surprised they didn't just go ahead and tweak all the >Protean Strike: Combat Ends cards along with everything else. Gangrel >will have a slight advantage over the others until Anarchs comes out >(when I expect that will be finally addressed). I would expect protean SCE to be left alone, actually. I'd offer you 3:2 odds on it. [snip] One I expected, didn't see, and am kind of bummed about: I wanted Immortal Grapple tweaked to allow only hand _and melee weapon_ strikes. This would have gone a long way towards boosting equipment and the attendant utility of equipment hosers. gomi -- Blood, guts, guns, cuts Knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts

"Gomi no Sensei" <go...@panix.com> wrote in message news:algfa9$imh$1...@panix3.panix.com... > > >> #4. Make Disarm less nasty. > > >Yeah, Pulled Fangs and other cards at least allow the minion to > >attempt to take actions to get rid of it. A poor Disarmed mob has to > >get out of torpor, hunt three times (often) and then burn the blood. > >By then you are probably ousted. > > Why would you bother, unless you're a strength-based combat deck? In > every other case, -1 or -2 strength is pretty much irrelevant to what you > want the minion to do. Just rescue him and leave the Disarm there. Pulled > Fangs has a serious bad mojo (torpor if having to hunt) which gives you > a strong incentive to nuke it. Disarm is eminently ignorable once the > dude's rescued, for most decks. > Exactly. Once you have a Disarm, you're only begging for your arms to be ripped off again. Instead, you just waddle around as a torso on legs and bite your prey for 6 pool. 8) And taunt the potent vampire about being immune to Disarm.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yea. Number one is arguable. None of the rest have any merit whatsoever, much as I detest Arika, too. The clear sign that number seven was a pipe dream was the lack of a Crusade: Strasbourg in Bloodlines. Sad. Fred

> > #1. Tone done Parity Shift a bit. > > Could have been done easily if they had made it: > > Choose a Methuselah who has more pool than you do. Allocate X of his > or her pool among _at_least_two_ Methuselahs (including you), where X > is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Successful referendum means > the chosen Methuselah loses that pool, and it is allocated as you > announced. > > Would have been more like an inverse to KRC and Conservative Agitation > that way. It would still be a damage vote that does 5 to one player. Not sure I would be opposed to "where X is the number of other Methuselahs in the game", though. Then it only bites for 4, which is harder than KRC, plus you gain 4 pool. > > #2. Slightly change Anarch Revolt to give it a bit more of a cost (being > > discussed in another thread). I'm for it. ;) > > #3. Limit Freak Drive to once a turn (really expected them to do this, > > especially with it becoming an Uncommon). I don't think so. Freak Drive is no longer a no-brainer, put into every deck with Fortitude; nor a power rare which most tournament winning decks need. It has been toned down enough for my tastes. When you consider it helps big vamps more than small ones (that's the trend right now), it's no wonder it hasn't been messed with. > > #4. Make Disarm less nasty. > > Yeah, Pulled Fangs and other cards at least allow the minion to > attempt to take actions to get rid of it. A poor Disarmed mob has to > get out of torpor, hunt three times (often) and then burn the blood. > By then you are probably ousted. I think Disarm might have been toned down because it is "go to torpor" for 0 blood, usable at basic. I'm almost never concerned with burning it. If it gets on someone important enough to rescue AND repair, he'll probably get Decapitated or diablerized that turn. > > #5. (Not exactly a change) but I did expect at least some of the ante cards to > > be reprinted (or a new ante card). Even though most people don't play ante, > > many card games continue to print cards using the ante feature. > > Nah. Ante cards are wallpaper. :) Agreed 100%. > > #6. Was expecting some sort of global Dementation infection as opposed to all > > of the new reprinted vampires (a la Tajdid). Not sure whether what they did was > > better or worse but I did expect something that would using old Dominate Malks > > to be a bit easier. It would be very hard to keep track of, unless it stayed in play and affected Malks brought into play after itself. In that case it might be too good, or too expensive to be practical. > I think there's a pretty good selection of Malks with Dementation. > There are 5,6,6,7,8,8 caps all with Superior Dementation. That's > probably a good enough base for a Group 3 crypt by itself. Yeah, it really is. Together with the Group 2's, I think Dementation stands to be a bleed powerhouse. > > #7. Expected a Praxis Seizure: New York card. > > ACK!! Don't suggest even more Praxis Seizures!!! :) I expect no more Praxis Seizures, ever. Not unless they create some new card or effect that makes contesting them easier, that is. > > #8. Ban Arika! =P > > I suspect we'll see lots more Arika contesting in the near future if > things swing toward more Camarilla based decks. > > I'm kinda surprised they didn't just go ahead and tweak all the > Protean Strike: Combat Ends cards along with everything else. Gangrel > will have a slight advantage over the others until Anarchs comes out > (when I expect that will be finally addressed). I think you're right. Form of Mist is REALLY good, and if it wasn't changed this set, that's likely because it wasn't IN this set. > I would have liked to see more symmetry in the Rarities of cards. > Right now, there are lots of Clan (and other) rares that are > designated R2, many of which are either not generally strong or less > useful because they're unique. For example: > > Current R2 = Malkavian Prank, Storm Sewers, Tremere Convocation, > Fragment of Nod, J.S. Simmons, Mr. Winthrop, Tasha Morgan, Rumors of > Gehenna and Ghoul Retainer (last two aren't unique, but I'd have made > 'em R1 anyway for usefulness) I have played with each of these cards, in serious decks, at one time or another. Exception: Ghoul Retainer. > All of these could have easily been made R1s and no one would have > complained. I would have. Right now I know at least two people looking for Pranks, and I wouldn't mind having another Fragment or Rumors. > Now, Discipline rares are much better in quantities, since > multiples can be included in a deck and they'll still be useful in > decks. Most disciplines work across several clans and can have upwards > of 170 (Dominate in 1+2 and 2+3) vampires for certain disciplines, so > people really need and want those cards. Tthe number of crypts that > can make use of these rares is much higher. For example: > > Current R1 = Murder of Crows, Cat Burglary, Abandoning the Flesh, > Dominate Kine, Day Operation, Psycic Veil, Fists of Death, > Entrancement, and Infernal Familiar All of the above cards only fit into decks using their respective discipline. Mr. Winthrop, Tasha Morgan, J.S. Simmons, Fragment of the Book of Nod, and Rumors of Gehenna require no discipline, and so they fit into more decks. Also, note that I've never used a Murder of Crows, a Cat Burglary, an Abandoning the Flesh, a Day Operation, or an Infernal Familiar in a serious deck. I disagree with you about the rarities, but that gives us an interesting opportunity: I will probably trade you R1's for R2's. Email me sometime. -- Brian

Halcyan 2 wrote: > #5. (Not exactly a change) but I did expect at least some of the ante cards to > be reprinted (or a new ante card). Even though most people don't play ante, > many card games continue to print cards using the ante feature. There is no ante, so there are no cards that affect ante. The ante rule was removed (completely) from the rules set in CE. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:3D7C8F9A...@white-wolf.com... > Halcyan 2 wrote: > > #5. (Not exactly a change) but I did expect at least some of the ante cards to > > be reprinted (or a new ante card). Even though most people don't play ante, > > many card games continue to print cards using the ante feature. > > There is no ante, so there are no cards that affect ante. > The ante rule was removed (completely) from the rules set in CE. > Bah. I love ante games. We'll continue to play our weekly ante games anyway. Ante is pretty much the basis for a limited-card-pool Jyhad League, which I really find to be one of the more enjoyable ways of playing. Of course, the preconstructed starters took a lot of the wind out of those sails already. They're just too focused for our purposes. And since we're playing a CE league, there are no ante cards. But it's still fun.

evilclon...@aol.com (Brian) wrote in message news:<24e59377.0209...@posting.google.com>... [snip] > I think Disarm might have been toned down because it is "go to torpor" > for 0 blood, usable at basic. > > I'm almost never concerned with burning it. If it gets on someone > important enough to rescue AND repair, he'll probably get Decapitated > or diablerized that turn. Yes, but burning Disarm on someone destined to be diablerized can be useful: it means diablerizer will get less blood for his heinous ;) action. Assuming it survives the following voting... Regards, G.

Halcyan 2 wrote: > > Okay, I've been meaning to make a post like this since GenCon but just never > got around to. Some slightly similar posts have popped up, but this post is > specifically to discuss changes and cards that people wish or *expected* White > Wolf to have made in the Camarilla Edition, but which were not done. Here's > some of mine: ... > #2. Slightly change Anarch Revolt to give it a bit more of a cost (being > discussed in another thread). Actually, upon reflection, there WAS one minor change to the environment which at least affects Anarch Revolt: the blood cost to Delaying Tactics. Now, personally, I never much cared for Delaying Tactics as a defense against opponents attacking my Anarch Revolts. I notice a number of others did, and the blood cost of it will make it a lot harder to run weeny Anarch Revolt decks that way. Or any Anarch Revolt deck that much counts on recovering pool for its minions' blood. Fred

> Okay, I've been meaning to make a post like this since GenCon but just never > got around to. Some slightly similar posts have popped up, but this post is > specifically to discuss changes and cards that people wish or *expected* White > Wolf to have made in the Camarilla Edition, but which were not done. Here's > some of mine: <snip> > That's just off the top of my head. Anyone have any other thoughts? > > Halcyan 2 I definitely expected Protect Thine Own to be toned down in similar way like ToGP. Karol

Karol Magda wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Protect Thine Own is not an overpowered card. Why should it be reworded? Because Omaya does not like it? >:-) Greetings, Damnans

>> I definitely expected Protect Thine Own to be toned down in similar way >like ToGP. > >Protect Thine Own is not an overpowered card. Why should it be reworded? >Because Omaya >does not like it? >:-) Powering down PTO was another thing I was expecting as well. I think it is overpowered when Arika can outright burn Lambach, Goratrix, Lazverinus, Sutekh, or a 20-cap Great Beast. Halcyan 2

Halcyan 2 wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] If you want PTO to be really effective, it has to be called by an Inner Circle member (11 pool + 3 or more turns to bring him or her into play, that is, an important investment). According to this, PTO is a very specific political action, and as a political action it is, you have to make it pass, which is an addional drawback. Non-Camarilla decks MUST be prepared against PTO, which is VERY easy. They just have to include some Direct Intervention, or Delaying Tactics, rushes (targetting IC members), Derange, Fear of Mekhet, etc., etc., etc. PTO is not a card you should have in great numbers in your deck, because it is only effective against non-Camarilla vampires. And if there are non-Camarilla vampires at a table, I would only play PTO on a those controlled by my predator or prey (depending on the situation). If your strategy relies mainly on PTO, then your deck is weak enough to be easily defeated. Oh, yes, I know PTO hurts, but Archon Investigation, Fear of Mekhet, Meddling of Semsith, Lapse, and many other cards hurt too, and that is not enough reason to say they are overpowered ;-) Greetings, Damnans

>Actually, upon reflection, there WAS one minor change to the environment >which at least affects Anarch Revolt: the blood cost to Delaying Tactics. >Now, personally, I never much cared for Delaying Tactics as a defense against >opponents attacking my Anarch Revolts. I notice a number of others did, and >the blood cost of it will make it a lot harder to run weeny Anarch Revolt >decks that way. Or any Anarch Revolt deck that much counts on recovering >pool for its minions' blood. I never found Delaying Tactics to be a very good tactic for Anarch Revolt decks. Minion A's referendum is cancelled and Minion A is untapped, but the Methusaleh can just have the rest of his vampires call referendums to burn all of the *other* Anarch Revolts. Even with multiple Delaying Tactics, he can just constantly call votes and flush the DT's out, leaving him with untapped minions... Halcyan 2

>PTO is not a card you should have in great numbers in your deck, because it >is >only effective against non-Camarilla vampires. And if there are non-Camarilla >vampires at a table, I would only play PTO on a those controlled by my >predator >or prey (depending on the situation). Unless of course you're using Derange to good effect. And I've seen some pretty effective Malkavian political decks. Wouldn't hurt too much to throw in a few weenie !Malks for the Derange aspect. Mind Rape + CI would work too. =) >Oh, yes, I know PTO hurts, but Archon Investigation, Fear of Mekhet, Meddling >of Semsith, Lapse, and many other cards hurt too, and that is not enough >reason >to say they are overpowered ;-) Except as James(I think) has pointed out, it's easier to create a non-Camarilla (via Derange, Mind Rape/CI, etc.) than it is to force a bleed of 3+, or a Justicar title on someone else. The non-Camarilla part is something you can design your deck to work around. Halcyan 2

In message <3D7E35DD...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: >Non-Camarilla decks MUST be prepared against PTO, which is VERY easy. They just >have to include some Direct Intervention, or Delaying Tactics, rushes >(targetting IC members), Derange, Fear of Mekhet, etc., etc., etc. You cannot pre-emptively rush a PTO, because it always comes as a surprise. And it's no good Rushing afterwards. Same with Derange/Fear of Mekhet. The only way out of PTO is to DI the card -- DT just means your vampire gets burned next turn, instead of this one. >PTO is not a card you should have in great numbers in your deck, because it is >only effective against non-Camarilla vampires. And if there are non-Camarilla >vampires at a table, I would only play PTO on a those controlled by my predator >or prey (depending on the situation). I dunno... In the Dragon's Breath tourney at DragonCon, your brother was going to PTO one of my vampires cross-table because he saw me as the biggest threat... even though I hadn't gained any VP and my prey looked like he was about to gain one himself. (events turned out somewhat differently). And I was his GRANDPREY. This is what I hate about PTO. You can't reasonably defend against it. I wouldn't have been able to intercept the vote, since I was cross-table; I had just burned my DI preventing my prey from ousting his own prey, and I had no votes to vote it down with. If it were a (D) action at +1 stealth, it would be much more possible to defend against it; but as it is, the cross-table PTO is indefensible. >Oh, yes, I know PTO hurts, but Archon Investigation, Fear of Mekhet, Meddling >of Semsith, Lapse, and many other cards hurt too, and that is not enough reason >to say they are overpowered ;-) Lapse is difficult to work into a winning deck. AI only hurts if someone bleeds for more than 3 -- easy to defend against. Fear of Mekhet is almost never seen. Meddling is just as bad as PTO, but nobody's -really- tried to break it yet. PTO is a crock of shit, though. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

Derek Ray wrote: > In message <3D7E35DD...@ono.com>, > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: > > >Non-Camarilla decks MUST be prepared against PTO, which is VERY easy. They just > >have to include some Direct Intervention, or Delaying Tactics, rushes > >(targetting IC members), Derange, Fear of Mekhet, etc., etc., etc. > > You cannot pre-emptively rush a PTO, because it always comes as a > surprise. And it's no good Rushing afterwards. Same with Derange/Fear > of Mekhet. The only way out of PTO is to DI the card -- DT just means > your vampire gets burned next turn, instead of this one. No way ;-) You can also attempt to intercept the PTO. And of course, you can Delay the PTO and attempt to get rid of the IC member on your turn. > >PTO is not a card you should have in great numbers in your deck, because it is > >only effective against non-Camarilla vampires. And if there are non-Camarilla > >vampires at a table, I would only play PTO on a those controlled by my predator > >or prey (depending on the situation). > > I dunno... In the Dragon's Breath tourney at DragonCon, your brother > was going to PTO one of my vampires cross-table because he saw me as the > biggest threat... even though I hadn't gained any VP and my prey looked > like he was about to gain one himself. (events turned out somewhat > differently). And I was his GRANDPREY. Yes, I know. Sometimes cross-table stuff is strategically necessary. And my brother had only 2 PTO in his deck, and only 2 Alexandra in his crypt to make them deadly. He plays with them just in case >:-) > This is what I hate about PTO. You can't reasonably defend against it. > I wouldn't have been able to intercept the vote, since I was > cross-table; The same could have happened with a cross-table Banishment, Parity Shift, etc. Little can be done against non-directed cross-table stuff. > I had just burned my DI preventing my prey from ousting his > own prey, and I had no votes to vote it down with. If it were a (D) > action at +1 stealth, it would be much more possible to defend against > it; but as it is, the cross-table PTO is indefensible. That's your deck's problem. If your deck seems too dangerous, be ready to get cross-table stuff. You can't complain about it. And political decks are very good at it ;-) Do not expect your deck to be prepared against all possible strategies. > >Oh, yes, I know PTO hurts, but Archon Investigation, Fear of Mekhet, Meddling > >of Semsith, Lapse, and many other cards hurt too, and that is not enough reason > >to say they are overpowered ;-) > > Lapse is difficult to work into a winning deck. AI only hurts if > someone bleeds for more than 3 -- easy to defend against. PTO is also easy to defend against. Just play with Camarilla vampires. ;-) or use Writ of Acceptance. > Fear of Mekhet is almost never seen. Meddling is just as bad as PTO, but > nobody's -really- tried to break it yet. Fear of Mekhet is now much better than before, since it can be moved to a Justicar as well. So it will be more played after the CE. Well, I also forgot to mention Justicar Retribution (this card burns IC members -all of them-, and this does not make it overpowered), Baltimore Purge, Thoughts Betrayed, etc. > PTO is a crock of shit, though. He, he...it hurts but if you play with worthy non-Camarilla vampires you must be prepared against it. Greetings, Damnans

Halcyan 2 wrote: > >PTO is not a card you should have in great numbers in your deck, because it > >is > >only effective against non-Camarilla vampires. And if there are non-Camarilla > >vampires at a table, I would only play PTO on a those controlled by my > >predator > >or prey (depending on the situation). > > Unless of course you're using Derange to good effect. And I've seen some pretty > effective Malkavian political decks. Wouldn't hurt too much to throw in a few > weenie !Malks for the Derange aspect. Mind Rape + CI would work too. =) Would work? It still has to be proven. Perhaps you'll need to many cards to work that deck, and you won't be able to win a game. And remember that you also need to control a ready Leandro (Arika or Etrius) to play PTO. You can't do so many things if you invest 11 pool to bring out a IC member that can only perform 1 action per turn (usually). > >Oh, yes, I know PTO hurts, but Archon Investigation, Fear of Mekhet, Meddling > >of Semsith, Lapse, and many other cards hurt too, and that is not enough > >reason > >to say they are overpowered ;-) > > Except as James(I think) has pointed out, it's easier to create a non-Camarilla > (via Derange, Mind Rape/CI, etc.) than it is to force a bleed of 3+, or a > Justicar title on someone else. The non-Camarilla part is something you can > design your deck to work around. You can take into account that there might be non-Camarilla decks at your table, but not at the expense of focusing on going against them, which makes your deck less effective. You just need to have a couple of cards to deal with non-Camarilla vampires (unless you play with Deranges, in which case you will need son many combos that you'll be ousted before you notice, since you will surely be targetted by cross-table stuff). Greetings, Damnans

[ quoted text not captured ] It can be effective, depending on how the players react to it. It certainly slows down the defense since the calling minion can't call any more votes at all that turn. So if the table is populated by players using few large minions, folks may clear some of the Revolts, but they won't clear them very fast. So it depends on how determined people are and how readily they're prepared to work together. If you've got two large minions and one of them gets its vote to burn a Revolt Delayed, then what is it going to do? What will the other one do? If they bleed or continue with offense or even develop that Methuselah's position with actions that bring on new permanents, what's his prey going to think? Even more so than usual, it depends on the quality of the players you're playing against. Poorer and/or less experienced players tend to be more vulnerable to squabbling amongst themselves and not finding a way to get rid of the Revolts with the added problems caused by the DTs. Better players get it done and then the Delaying Tactics wind up being fairly useless, as you say. I think the cost of the Delaying Tactics will make some difference against ARs, but I agree that it will be marginal. Still, I don't see the problem with Anarch Revolts in the first place. Fred

>> You cannot pre-emptively rush a PTO, because it always comes as a >> surprise. And it's no good Rushing afterwards. Same with Derange/Fear >> of Mekhet. The only way out of PTO is to DI the card -- DT just means >> your vampire gets burned next turn, instead of this one. > >No way ;-) You can also attempt to intercept the PTO. > >And of course, you can Delay the PTO and attempt to get rid of the IC member >on your >turn. Much easier said than done. And as Derek pointed out, that can be much more difficult since you do have to go cross-table. >> This is what I hate about PTO. You can't reasonably defend against it. >> I wouldn't have been able to intercept the vote, since I was >> cross-table; > >The same could have happened with a cross-table Banishment, Parity Shift, >etc. >Little can be done against non-directed cross-table stuff. Except neither effect is as de-stabilizing. Banishment requires an older vampire. If your vampire is near full, it's not that big of a problem. If your vampire is empty, then it's admittedly very similar to PTO (but that's assuming it's a younger, empty vampire). And you can always influence that vampire out again anyway. Parity Shift is nasty, but for all intensive purposes, cross-table it's sort of like a KRC/Conservative Agg cross-table. PTO burns a vampire outright (assuming non-Camarilla). Which means you lose X pool, you lost X transfers, and might very well leave you helpless against your predator. >> Lapse is difficult to work into a winning deck. AI only hurts if >> someone bleeds for more than 3 -- easy to defend against. > >PTO is also easy to defend against. Just play with Camarilla vampires. ;-) or >use >Writ of Acceptance. Except that Derange or Mind Rape + CI will still screw you over. Halcyan 2

> > I definitely expected Protect Thine Own to be toned down in similar way like ToGP. > > Protect Thine Own is not an overpowered card. Why should it be reworded? Because Omaya > does not like it? >:-) > > Greetings, > Damnans Nah, Omaya can usually deal with stupid votes pretty well as you might remember :), but that doesn't mean that PTO is not stupid right now: Compare PTO to ToGP of old: ToGP 1 ToGP supported playing with big vampires (that is 7 justicars of old) 2 ToGP in turn make it more difficult to play with big vampires since when building 'big vampire'deck this is another thing you have to worry about (besides weenies, pentex subversion and other stuff) 3 ToGP is a master card PTO 1 PTO support playing with big vampires (well 7 IC and to lesser extend 7 justicars of old) 2 PTO makes playing with big non camarilla vampires very difficult since it adds another think to 'must have defense against' list compared to big camarilla vampires. (currently including new camarilla vampires there are 306 independent/sabbat vampires and 586 total vampires, which means that it can target 50+ percent vampires, now if you do breakdown by clan it would target probably 75 percent clans in the game) 3 PTO is vote while ToGP is master. It's easier to put PTO in deck than ToGP and given the fact it is vote it is very hard to defend against it for many (especially independent) non-Camarilla clans. As to your counters Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do not receive PTO later is stupid. Delaying tactics only 'delays' PTO and do not counter it. Derange does not work now on IC (I would have to play with 10 cap A-Malk with two masters to be able to play derange ...) with old text it was better but it required vampires with dem/DEM which reduced it's avaiability as defense rapidly. Fear of Mekhet is master (costing two pools) with greater restriction than PTO. You suggest inferior card (in all aspects) to counter that PTO - looks like PTO is overpowered. The think which disturbs me most is that you can play protect repeatedly and it's effect increases with each succesful playing (much like ToGP of old). This can't be said about parity shift of banishment (since after succesful parity you probably can't play another, second banishment (targeting reinfluenced vampire who was previously banished) is less effective too). Also cardless defense against banishment is 'relatively' easy: Have enough blood on vampire so you can reinfluence it next turn. Against Parity shift Have less pool than Parity player Against Protect ? Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy to meet the same fate. Karol

Karol Magda wrote: > > > I definitely expected Protect Thine Own to be toned down in similar way like ToGP. > > > > Protect Thine Own is not an overpowered card. Why should it be reworded? Because Omaya > > does not like it? >:-) > > > > Greetings, > > Damnans > > Nah, Omaya can usually deal with stupid votes pretty well as you might > remember :), but that doesn't mean that PTO is not stupid right now: > > Compare PTO to ToGP of old: > > ToGP > > 1 ToGP supported playing with big vampires (that is 7 justicars of > old) > 2 ToGP in turn make it more difficult to play with big vampires since > when building 'big vampire'deck this is another thing you have to > worry about (besides weenies, pentex subversion and other stuff) Do you really think it was really difficult to play a ToGP deck with the combo Minion Tap + 5th Tradition? Ask Xavier Abad ;-) > 3 ToGP is a master card So what? A master card is much more difficult to cancel than an action card. A master card can only be canceled by a Sudden Reversal or a Rewind Time, while an action card can be blocked, DI'ed, Delayed, voted against, etc. > PTO > > 1 PTO support playing with big vampires (well 7 IC and to lesser > extend 7 justicars of old) PTO can only be effectively played by 7 vampires sin the game. And there is no vote yet that turns a vampire into an IC member. > 2 PTO makes playing with big non camarilla vampires very difficult > since it adds another think to 'must have defense against' list > compared to big camarilla vampires. Yes, but that defense is so easy. You just need to include a very versatile and useful card called Direct Intervention. If there is no IC member on the table, you needn't worry about PTO. Otherwise, you'd better be prepared against PTO. > (currently including new camarilla > vampires there are 306 independent/sabbat vampires and 586 total > vampires, which means that it can target 50+ percent vampires, now if > you do breakdown by clan it would target probably 75 percent clans in > the game) > 3 PTO is vote while ToGP is master. It's easier to put PTO in deck > than ToGP No way. Why? ToGP requirements: - 3 pool - Controlling a ready Justicar PTO requirements: - Ready untapped IC member - A non-Camarilla Vampire in play - Taking a political action - 1 blood - The referendum passes [...] > As to your counters > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > not receive PTO later is stupid. Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > Delaying tactics only 'delays' PTO and do not counter it. In some decks it can be more than enough. > Derange does not work now on IC (I would have to play with 10 cap > A-Malk with two masters to be able to play derange ...) False. It works. Derange only affects younger vampires when it is played, not when it is moved. So you can play with a non-Malkavian (or Antitribu) vampire in order to move a Derange to an IC member. Example: Hannibal plays Derange on Basil (also controlled by yourself) Basil moves Derange to Arika. It's quite simple. [...] > Fear of Mekhet is master (costing two pools) with greater restriction > than PTO. You suggest inferior card (in all aspects) to counter that > PTO - looks like PTO is overpowered. I only meant that IC members and Justicars are also fragile with the new Fear of Mekhet. > The think which disturbs me most is that you can play protect > repeatedly and it's effect increases with each succesful playing (much > like ToGP of old). This can't be said about parity shift of banishment > (since after succesful parity you probably can't play another, second > banishment (targeting reinfluenced vampire who was previously > banished) is less effective too). I disagree. Everything will depend on your deck's strategy and the game you are playing. > Also cardless defense against banishment is 'relatively' easy: > > Have enough blood on vampire so you can reinfluence it next turn. That's no "defense" against Banishment. This tactic only avoids you to repay the banished vampire's cost. The effect of Banishment is not cancelled by keeping a vampire at full capacity, since Banishment MOVES a vampire to your uncontrolled region, leaving you temporarily with one less vampire. > Against Parity shift > > Have less pool than Parity player Uhm, how exciting ;-) But that's not always reliable, since your predator can reduce his pool (via Blood Dolls, card payment, votes, etc.) during his or her turn so that you (your prey) have more pool than him at the moment of playing the Parity Shift. > Against Protect ? > > Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence > it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy > to meet the same fate. That's an emotional answer ;-) If you play with non-Camarilla vampires, be prepared against PTO, Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, etc. (which is very easy, as I have mentioned above). Greetings, Damnans

"Halcyan 2" <halc...@aol.com> wrote in message news:20020910185420...@mb-mq.aol.com... [ quoted text not captured ] the thing about derange is that if you want to make someone non camarilla it must be played by the !Malks and it must be younger, the way i see it, cross table shennanigans are to be expected, every deck i build has something to offer someone or threaten with. table control in a tournament environment is what wins games, being able to offer or threaten people cross table keeps them in check. -- Oscar Garza Prince of College Station The Crazy Aggie

Halcyan 2 wrote: > >> You cannot pre-emptively rush a PTO, because it always comes as a > >> surprise. And it's no good Rushing afterwards. Same with Derange/Fear > >> of Mekhet. The only way out of PTO is to DI the card -- DT just means > >> your vampire gets burned next turn, instead of this one. > > > >No way ;-) You can also attempt to intercept the PTO. > > > >And of course, you can Delay the PTO and attempt to get rid of the IC member > >on your > >turn. > > Much easier said than done. And as Derek pointed out, that can be much more > difficult since you do have to go cross-table. PTO does not require any special defense. Only DI, and/or intercept, or vote lock. > >> This is what I hate about PTO. You can't reasonably defend against it. > >> I wouldn't have been able to intercept the vote, since I was > >> cross-table; > > > >The same could have happened with a cross-table Banishment, Parity Shift, > >etc. > >Little can be done against non-directed cross-table stuff. > > Except neither effect is as de-stabilizing. Banishment requires an older > vampire. And PTO requires the oldest Camarilla vampires of all: IC members. Age arguments are not valid here. > If your vampire is near full, it's not that big of a problem. I would not be so sure. A Banishment played on a specially annoying vampire before dealing the final blow to his or her controller is as devastating as a PTO. > If your > vampire is empty, then it's admittedly very similar to PTO (but that's assuming > it's a younger, empty vampire). And you can always influence that vampire out > again anyway. > > Parity Shift is nasty, but for all intensive purposes, cross-table it's sort of > like a KRC/Conservative Agg cross-table. However, a Parity Shift can only be called by a Prince or Justicar, and a Conservative Agitation can be called by any vampire. > PTO burns a vampire outright (assuming non-Camarilla). Which means you lose X > pool, you lost X transfers, and might very well leave you helpless against your > predator. As well as a Banishment played at the right moment. But that's not the point. PTO has a stronger effect because its requirements are more than those of Banishment or Parity Shift. Or should Kiss of Ra be reworded just because lots of vampires lack Fortitude? Ask the Tzimisce and Toreador, for instance? ;-) [...] Greetings, Damnans

> Except that Derange or Mind Rape + CI will still screw you over. I think the recent wallpapering (IMHO -- *weep*) of Derange makes any of the old, fairly viable, "PTO only" strategies of Boy Toy, Yorik, and Arika (or Arika with a skill card, for that matter) a thing of the past. The fact that you'll have to invest some 20 pool and transfers just to PTO a reasonably good Camarilla target makes it a rather pricy, not to mention vulnerable, strategy. That's not to say PTO isn't a good, or even a great, card, but it's lost a little of its luster with the new Derange. I'm also inclined to argue that burning a vampire (with the requisite 1 blood, an 11-cap, and a non-Camarilla target) is less effective that four unbouncable pool damage called by any vampire... BJ, The Young Turk of Madison

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D7F5F5A...@ono.com>... > Karol Magda wrote: > > > > > I definitely expected Protect Thine Own to be toned down in similar way like ToGP. > > > > > > Protect Thine Own is not an overpowered card. Why should it be reworded? Because Omaya > > > does not like it? >:-) > > > > > > Greetings, > > > Damnans > > > > Nah, Omaya can usually deal with stupid votes pretty well as you might > > remember :), but that doesn't mean that PTO is not stupid right now: > > > > Compare PTO to ToGP of old: > > > > ToGP > > > > 1 ToGP supported playing with big vampires (that is 7 justicars of > > old) > > 2 ToGP in turn make it more difficult to play with big vampires since > > when building 'big vampire'deck this is another thing you have to > > worry about (besides weenies, pentex subversion and other stuff) > > Do you really think it was really difficult to play a ToGP deck with the combo Minion Tap + > 5th Tradition? Ask Xavier Abad ;-) > > > 3 ToGP is a master card > > So what? A master card is much more difficult to cancel than an action card. A master card > can only be canceled by a Sudden Reversal or a Rewind Time, while an action card can be > blocked, DI'ed, Delayed, voted against, etc. Master card has much higher cost to play than an action. Additionaly with the cost of 3 pool it is absolutely critical to play minion tap before ToGP , which adds another constraint to play this card - specific master played before ToGP. > > > PTO > > > > 1 PTO support playing with big vampires (well 7 IC and to lesser > > extend 7 justicars of old) > > PTO can only be effectively played by 7 vampires sin the game. And what was I saying ? And there is no vote yet that > turns a vampire into an IC member. And there is vote for a vampire becoming justicar - playing weeniefied version of ToGP decks might be fun, removes the need for minion tap but adds need for playing lots of justicar vote cards. > > > 2 PTO makes playing with big non camarilla vampires very difficult > > since it adds another think to 'must have defense against' list > > compared to big camarilla vampires. > > Yes, but that defense is so easy. You just need to include a very versatile and useful card > called Direct Intervention. If there is no IC member on the table, you needn't worry about > PTO. Otherwise, you'd better be prepared against PTO. So I need to be prepared to deal with a single card ? Seems like this card is some powerfull. Usually I need to prepare against deck archetypes , not single cards... I don't know if I would call DI a very versatile/usefull. I remember days when I put two in each decks I build but I don't do it anymore because OOT masters usually only slows you down. I mean you are playing with effectively reaction card in your master slot - wait for a threat that usually never come, which in turns reduce your active hand size by one. I would rather put something else in place of DI most of the times. > > > (currently including new camarilla > > vampires there are 306 independent/sabbat vampires and 586 total > > vampires, which means that it can target 50+ percent vampires, now if > > you do breakdown by clan it would target probably 75 percent clans in > > the game) > > 3 PTO is vote while ToGP is master. It's easier to put PTO in deck > > than ToGP > > No way. Why? > > ToGP requirements: > > - 3 pool > - Controlling a ready Justicar > - master phase action is another requirement - minion tap played before is another requirement so to summarize ToGP requirements: 3 pool , 2 master phase actions , minion tap, controlling a ready justicar (usually 9-10 cap vampire) > PTO requirements: > > - Ready untapped IC member > - A non-Camarilla Vampire in play > - Taking a political action > - 1 blood > - The referendum passes PTO requirements: ready untapped IC, a non-Camarilla Vampire in play somewhere on the table (don't tell me , this is too much of requirements - with only 7 clans counting as camarilla and rest non-camarilla, meeting this is pretty easy in most of the games), taking a political action (and what was I going to do with my IC anyway ?) , 1 blood (not that much of requirements, if it costs pool it would be somewhat balancing factor, but usually burning vampire costs more than one blood), referendum passes (which usually shouldn't be that problematic with you at least 5 votes and probably much much more) ToGP of old required much more preparation than PTO ever requires. > > [...] > > > As to your counters > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? > > > Delaying tactics only 'delays' PTO and do not counter it. > > In some decks it can be more than enough. In which decks ? > > > Derange does not work now on IC (I would have to play with 10 cap > > A-Malk with two masters to be able to play derange ...) > > False. It works. Derange only affects younger vampires when it is played, not when it is > moved. So you can play with a non-Malkavian (or Antitribu) vampire in order to move a > Derange to an IC member. > > Example: > > Hannibal plays Derange on Basil (also controlled by yourself) > Basil moves Derange to Arika. > > It's quite simple. > > [...] O.K. , forgot about it. The second thing (which you wisefully ommited) was that derange as PTO defense is only for !Malk right now (and was for any vamp with dem before) > > > Fear of Mekhet is master (costing two pools) with greater restriction > > than PTO. You suggest inferior card (in all aspects) to counter that > > PTO - looks like PTO is overpowered. > > I only meant that IC members and Justicars are also fragile with the new Fear of Mekhet. I explained that Fear of Mekhet as a counter for PTO is strange since it has much much steeper requirement than PTO. I will rather put pentex subversion as a 'counter' to PTO than this card. Since pentes has some other uses too. > > > The think which disturbs me most is that you can play protect > > repeatedly and it's effect increases with each succesful playing (much > > like ToGP of old). This can't be said about parity shift of banishment > > (since after succesful parity you probably can't play another, second > > banishment (targeting reinfluenced vampire who was previously > > banished) is less effective too). > > I disagree. Everything will depend on your deck's strategy and the game you are playing. > > > Also cardless defense against banishment is 'relatively' easy: > > > > Have enough blood on vampire so you can reinfluence it next turn. > > That's no "defense" against Banishment. This tactic only avoids you to repay the banished > vampire's cost. > > The effect of Banishment is not cancelled by keeping a vampire at full capacity, since > Banishment MOVES a vampire to your uncontrolled region, leaving you temporarily with one > less vampire. It is defense in a way - avoiding to repay vampire cost is good thing. Sure you can't do anything about reinfluence lag (which slows you down offensively) but remember that by banishing my key vampire he had to 'vaste' action of his key vampire too. > > > Against Parity shift > > > > Have less pool than Parity player > > Uhm, how exciting ;-) But that's not always reliable, since your predator can reduce his > pool (via Blood Dolls, card payment, votes, etc.) during his or her turn so that you (your > prey) have more pool than him at the moment of playing the Parity Shift. Yep, it is not always reliable, big surprise for a cardless defense. Yet it work excellently many times. Even cardless defense against stealth bleed of 'I don't block' does not work everytime but is still worth using. > > > Against Protect ? > > > > Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence > > it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy > > to meet the same fate. > > That's an emotional answer ;-) If you play with non-Camarilla vampires, be prepared against > PTO, Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, etc. (which is very easy, as I have mentioned above). It is not emotional answer. It is the best cardless defense so far. Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by others in this thread. Btw. Camarilla Segregation is much less problematic than PTO and I don't see it as a card to be prepared against. Karol

Karol Magda wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] You are forgetting a more devastating use of ToGP: pool loss (instead of "stealing" a vampire). I would gladly pay 3 pool so that my prey loses 15 pool. ToGP can and MUST also be used to "bleed". What do you prefer? Either losing a vampire or losing 15 pool? > > > PTO > > > > [...] > > > 2 PTO makes playing with big non camarilla vampires very difficult > > > since it adds another think to 'must have defense against' list > > > compared to big camarilla vampires. > > > > Yes, but that defense is so easy. You just need to include a very versatile and useful card > > called Direct Intervention. If there is no IC member on the table, you needn't worry about > > PTO. Otherwise, you'd better be prepared against PTO. > > So I need to be prepared to deal with a single card ? Yes and no. See below. > Seems like this > card is some powerfull. Usually I need to prepare against deck > archetypes , not single cards... > > I don't know if I would call DI a very versatile/usefull. I remember > days when I put two in each decks I build but I don't do it anymore > because OOT masters usually only slows you down. I mean you are > playing with effectively reaction card in your master slot - wait for > a threat that usually never come, which in turns reduce your active > hand size by one. I would rather put something else in place of DI > most of the times. It sure depends on your metagame, but no one can deny the usefulness of DI. DI can cancel Daring the Dawn, Day Operation, Votes, Purge of Baltimore, aggravated damage attempted out of turn so that no one can play a Rötschreckon Omaya; a Deflection played by your prey when you have just deflect a bleed to him or her, etc... > > > (currently including new camarilla > > > vampires there are 306 independent/sabbat vampires and 586 total > > > vampires, which means that it can target 50+ percent vampires, now if > > > you do breakdown by clan it would target probably 75 percent clans in > > > the game) > > > 3 PTO is vote while ToGP is master. It's easier to put PTO in deck > > > than ToGP > > > > No way. Why? > > > > ToGP requirements: > > > > - 3 pool > > - Controlling a ready Justicar > > > - master phase action is another requirement > - minion tap played before is another requirement > > so to summarize ToGP requirements: > > 3 pool , 2 master phase actions , minion tap, controlling a ready > justicar (usually 9-10 cap vampire) False. As I have stated above. It does not require 2 master phase actions, just one. > > PTO requirements: > > > > - Ready untapped IC member > > - A non-Camarilla Vampire in play > > - Taking a political action > > - 1 blood > > - The referendum passes > > PTO requirements: > > ready untapped IC, a non-Camarilla Vampire in play somewhere on the > table (don't tell me , this is too much of requirements - with only 7 > clans counting as camarilla and rest non-camarilla, meeting this is > pretty easy in most of the games), taking a political action (and what > was I going to do with my IC anyway ?) , 1 blood (not that much of > requirements, if it costs pool it would be somewhat balancing factor, > but usually burning vampire costs more than one blood), referendum > passes (which usually shouldn't be that problematic with you at least > 5 votes and probably much much more) There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum passes. Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > ToGP of old required much more preparation than PTO ever requires. No, as I mentioned above. > > [...] > > > > > As to your counters > > > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > > So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? You'd better act to win the game, and not only to oust your preys as quickly as possible. > > > Delaying tactics only 'delays' PTO and do not counter it. > > > > In some decks it can be more than enough. > > In which decks ? Weenie Protean Warghoules Shambling Hordes Any combat deck with Thoughts Betrayed or Lapses or other S:CE hosers. Intercept decks anti-political decks (Quentin, Demonstration, Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, etc.) !Malk decks with Deranges Weenie decks in general (it does not matter if one of your non-Camarilla vampires is burned via PTO) [...] > > > > Fear of Mekhet is master (costing two pools) with greater restriction > > > than PTO. You suggest inferior card (in all aspects) to counter that > > > PTO - looks like PTO is overpowered. > > > > I only meant that IC members and Justicars are also fragile with the new Fear of Mekhet. > > I explained that Fear of Mekhet as a counter for PTO is strange since > it has much much steeper requirement than PTO. I will rather put > pentex subversion as a 'counter' to PTO than this card. Since pentes > has some other uses too. Sure ;-) > > > Against Protect ? > > > > > > Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence > > > it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy > > > to meet the same fate. > > > > That's an emotional answer ;-) If you play with non-Camarilla vampires, be prepared against > > PTO, Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, etc. (which is very easy, as I have mentioned above). > > It is not emotional answer. It is the best cardless defense so far. No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > others in this thread. But feasible. > Btw. Camarilla Segregation is much less > problematic than PTO and I don't see it as a card to be prepared > against. Of course. Greetings, Damnans

In message <3D804851...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: >There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > >PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 >pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum >passes. If you're playing with IC members, you already have them supported in some fashion by your deck. Not significant to overcome. Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, these days. Not a significant issue. Political action + referendum passing -- IC members have 4 votes, and all too frequently IC decks are political decks already. Not a significant issue to overcome. 1 blood is negligible -- a vampire without the blood available to play PTO is a vampire who must hunt. Not significant. So say I want to play Thetmes. To defend against PTO, I must now include: - Intercept (for a clan which historically has much difficulty generating intercept) - Direct Intervention (which I must include 6 of to guarantee that I have one in my hand at all times, and I cannot use it on anything but PTO) - Votes (Independent voters are significantly weaker than any other voters, and they don't have a prayer of stopping Awe) Any or all of the above. Delaying Tactics? Yeah, right. It just happens again next turn. Inner Circle members don't come out without being able to play things like "Obedience" -- IC members already know how fragile their vampire is. Bum's Rush pre-emptively? Pointless. Fear of Mekhet pre-emptively? Pointless, not to mention that Fear of Mekhet is largely pointless to put in your deck in the first place. No. PTO is a card with an overpowered effect-to-cost ratio, and should have seriously been toned down. (under 7-cap only, for example). Suggesting that Direct Intervention is a suitable defense against ANYTHING indicates that the card is broken, since now we're heading into the "X or anti-X", and DI is the ultimate "anti-X". >Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + >Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P It's not even remotely overpowered. Protean weenies playing Amaranth lose the weenie to the Bloodhunt, for one -- so it costs them a vampire to cost you a vampire. EVEN ASSUMING that your deck packs none of the following: Dodges Maneuvers S:CE Damage prevention A way to send the weenie to torpor as well Obedience Due to the prevalence of combat decks (much more likely to see a combat deck than an IC deck), it's almost certain that your deck includes some basic defense against combat, and the Protean weenies are going to flounder around pointlessly. Maybe they get one of your guys, but they have to spend many many actions to do it, and it STILL costs them one of their own guys. Compared to PTO's cost of one action taken that costs one blood? No comparison. >Weenie Protean Weenie Protean doesn't care about PTO. It has plenty of minions. >Warghoules If the Little Tailor gets PTO'd, a War Ghoul deck is going in the ditch. >Shambling Hordes If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. >Any combat deck with Thoughts Betrayed or Lapses or other S:CE hosers. None of these hose Obedience, and combat as a pre-emptive strike against PTO is not effective, as previously discussed. >Intercept decks Daring the Dawn and/or Forgotten Labyrinth generally shut this down. Oh look! Arika can play both of these! >anti-political decks (Quentin, Demonstration, Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, etc.) Currently limited to the Ventrue and !Ventrue -- the Ventrue don't give a damn about PTO, usually. You can't Kindred Coerce an IC member without an IC member of your own, though. >!Malk decks with Deranges Can't Derange an IC member unless you're Hannibal with two skill cards. >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not viable by a single card. Useful. >> Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by >> others in this thread. > >But feasible. Never feasible. The only feasible defense is to hope like hell nobody plays one, because putting in defense against it simply clogs up your deck and makes it run worthlessly. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Derek Ray wrote: > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > these days. Not a significant issue. While I agree with the stuff I snipped, I think this statement is overly-simplistic. You may be 99% certain to see a non-cam vamp at the table, but it's the subset of those vamps that you'd actually want to target, at the time you have the card in hand, that affects PTO's playability. It may be over-powered, but the opportunity cost for inlcuding it in your deck is higher than your granting it, and that tones it down some. David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 d...@petsparc.mc.duke.edu

Derek Ray wrote: > In message <3D804851...@ono.com>, > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: > > >There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > > >PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > >pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > >passes. > > If you're playing with IC members, you already have them supported in > some fashion by your deck. Not significant to overcome. Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > these days. Not a significant issue. Maybe that percentage will be quite lower since the release of the Camarilla Edition. The most important thing is if those non-Camarilla vampires are controlled by your predator or prey. Cross-table PTOs will have to do with the course of the game. > Political action + referendum passing -- IC members have 4 votes, and > all too frequently IC decks are political decks already. Not a > significant issue to overcome. Not significant again?. What happens? Other clans lack titled vampires? You always make your votes pass when you control an IC member? If so, tell me your secret ;-) > 1 blood is negligible -- a vampire without the blood available to play > PTO is a vampire who must hunt. Not significant. Right. > So say I want to play Thetmes. To defend against PTO, I must now > include: Ahem!, I think you forget that Thetmes cannot play alone. He nees more Assamites, among which you have the option to include: Name: Tegyrius, Vizier [FN] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Assamite Capacity: 9 Discipline: pre AUS CEL FOR QUI Camarilla: If Tegyrius is ready, any Assamite may take a +1 stealth action to gain an allegiance counter. Any Assamite with an allegiance counter is considered a Camarilla vampire. +1 strength. (Blood Cursed) and/or Name: Qadir ul-Ghani [FN] Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Assamite Capacity: 9 Discipline: tha nec CEL OBF QUI Independent: Qadir may change his clan to a clan of his choosing as a +1 stealth action that costs 1 blood. +1 bleed. (Blood Cursed) > - Intercept (for a clan which historically has much difficulty > generating intercept) Many Assamites have Auspex. > - Direct Intervention (which I must include 6 of to guarantee that I > have one in my hand at all times, and I cannot use it on anything but > PTO) Not so many. 3 DI would do. > - Votes (Independent voters are significantly weaker than any other > voters, and they don't have a prayer of stopping Awe) At least, Assamites have Alamut. > Any or all of the above. Delaying Tactics? Yeah, right. It just > happens again next turn. Inner Circle members don't come out without > being able to play things like "Obedience" -- IC members already know > how fragile their vampire is. Some Assamites have Thaumaturgy, so you can rush IC members with Perfect Clarity to avoid Obedience (that's an idea). > Bum's Rush pre-emptively? Pointless. Fear of Mekhet pre-emptively? > Pointless, not to mention that Fear of Mekhet is largely pointless to > put in your deck in the first place. Yes, you are right. But Fear of Mekhet might help depending on your type of deck. > No. PTO is a card with an overpowered effect-to-cost ratio, and should > have seriously been toned down. (under 7-cap only, for example). > Suggesting that Direct Intervention is a suitable defense against > ANYTHING indicates that the card is broken, since now we're heading into > the "X or anti-X", and DI is the ultimate "anti-X". Do you think there will always be one of the 2 or 3 IC members (capable of effectively calling PTO) on every table you play at? If so, I am afraid there is going to be some kind of contesting sometimes, isn't it? > >Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > >Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > > It's not even remotely overpowered. Protean weenies playing Amaranth > lose the weenie to the Bloodhunt, for one -- so it costs them a vampire > to cost you a vampire. What a tragedy ;-). You have invested 2 pool on Sadie. Sadie rushes a IC member who unfortunately has no S:CE, so Sadie pays 1 blood to aggravate her hand strike, sends the IC member into torpor, plays Amaranth and burns afterward. Wow! > EVEN ASSUMING that your deck packs none of the > following: > > Dodges > Maneuvers > S:CE > Damage prevention > A way to send the weenie to torpor as well > Obedience > > Due to the prevalence of combat decks (much more likely to see a combat > deck than an IC deck), it's almost certain that your deck includes some > basic defense against combat, and the Protean weenies are going to > flounder around pointlessly. Maybe they get one of your guys, but they > have to spend many many actions to do it, and it STILL costs them one of > their own guys. Compared to PTO's cost of one action taken that costs > one blood? No comparison. That's a bad comparison, since PTO does not ONLY cost 1 blood. It is a political action. > >Weenie Protean > > Weenie Protean doesn't care about PTO. It has plenty of minions. Sure ;-) > >Warghoules > > If the Little Tailor gets PTO'd, a War Ghoul deck is going in the ditch. Then that is a bad Warghoul deck, because why should I invest 8 pool on Little Taylor when I can invest 4 pool on Lolita Houston and/or other mid or low capacity Tzimisce on which I can play Charisma. Relying on those vampires you spare pool when putting Warghoules into play. > >Shambling Hordes > > If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. Of course, if you base that deck on him, but basing a deck on a single vampire is usually stupid. As you know, Giovanni vampires can benefit from The Path of Bone and Acquired Ventrue Assets. > >Any combat deck with Thoughts Betrayed or Lapses or other S:CE hosers. > > None of these hose Obedience, and combat as a pre-emptive strike against > PTO is not effective, as previously discussed. You are assuming too much. Not every deck with IC members will play with Obedience. Why should they?. My brother's deck did not play with them, for instance. > >Intercept decks > > Daring the Dawn and/or Forgotten Labyrinth generally shut this down. Oh > look! Arika can play both of these! Then we are talking about just 2 or 3 vampires who can effectively call PTO (Arika, Etrius......, and Stanislava). Uhm, how overpowered a card!. ;-) > >anti-political decks (Quentin, Demonstration, Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, etc.) > > Currently limited to the Ventrue and !Ventrue -- the Ventrue don't give > a damn about PTO, usually. You can't Kindred Coerce an IC member > without an IC member of your own, though. But you can force that IC member to abstain via Pulling Strings. And do not forget there should be more titled vampires on the table you could Kindred Coerce. > > >!Malk decks with Deranges > > Can't Derange an IC member unless you're Hannibal with two skill cards. Yes, you can, as I mentioned on an earlier post: Example: Hannibal plays Derange on Basil (also controlled by yourself) Basil moves Derange to Arika. > >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not > viable by a single card. Useful. He, he... I would rather say: "by a single card that can only be effectively called by 2 or 3 vampires" > >> Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > >> others in this thread. > > > >But feasible. > > Never feasible. The only feasible defense is to hope like hell nobody > plays one, because putting in defense against it simply clogs up your > deck and makes it run worthlessly. It will always depend on the type of non-Camarilla deck you are playing with, and the type of deck the Methuselah with IC members is playing with. Greetings, Damnans

In message <DAydncbgYbS...@News.GigaNews.Com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> writes: >Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, >these days. Not a significant issue. 99% certain to see one as your prey? Calling PTO at your grand-predator, for instance, might not be a good idea. -- James Coupe PGP 0x5D623D5D Don't just clap. What's the use of that? EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 You there, gorgeous creature. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D Stop...that...bus!

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D804851...@ono.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I will deal with this question later in the post. > > > > > PTO > > > > > > > > [...] > > > > > 2 PTO makes playing with big non camarilla vampires very difficult > > > > since it adds another think to 'must have defense against' list > > > > compared to big camarilla vampires. > > > > > > Yes, but that defense is so easy. You just need to include a very versatile and useful card > > > called Direct Intervention. If there is no IC member on the table, you needn't worry about > > > PTO. Otherwise, you'd better be prepared against PTO. > > > > So I need to be prepared to deal with a single card ? > > Yes and no. See below. > > > Seems like this > > card is some powerfull. Usually I need to prepare against deck > > archetypes , not single cards... > > > > I don't know if I would call DI a very versatile/usefull. I remember > > days when I put two in each decks I build but I don't do it anymore > > because OOT masters usually only slows you down. I mean you are > > playing with effectively reaction card in your master slot - wait for > > a threat that usually never come, which in turns reduce your active > > hand size by one. I would rather put something else in place of DI > > most of the times. > > It sure depends on your metagame, but no one can deny the usefulness of DI. > > DI can cancel Daring the Dawn, Day Operation, Votes, Purge of Baltimore, aggravated damage > attempted out of turn so that no one can play a Rötschreckon Omaya; a Deflection played by your > prey when you have just deflect a bleed to him or her, etc... What's all that about Omaya ? :) I don't deny that DI MIGHT be usefull, but usually you don't need it (even for cards mentioned above) > > > > > (currently including new camarilla > > > > vampires there are 306 independent/sabbat vampires and 586 total > > > > vampires, which means that it can target 50+ percent vampires, now if > > > > you do breakdown by clan it would target probably 75 percent clans in > > > > the game) > > > > 3 PTO is vote while ToGP is master. It's easier to put PTO in deck > > > > than ToGP > > > > > > No way. Why? > > > > > > ToGP requirements: > > > > > > - 3 pool > > > - Controlling a ready Justicar > > > > > - master phase action is another requirement > > - minion tap played before is another requirement > > > > so to summarize ToGP requirements: > > > > 3 pool , 2 master phase actions , minion tap, controlling a ready > > justicar (usually 9-10 cap vampire) > > False. As I have stated above. It does not require 2 master phase actions, just one. So say it requires one master phase. I bring out Sheldon. Then he ToGP with lose vampire or lose 15 pool statement. I decided to lose vampire and ToGP deck goes down to 30-9(sheldon)-3(Togp)-10(togp) (other 5 pool is debt). So he is now at 8 pool NOT counting his prey's action's against him. Oh and he has a personal anarch revolt too. Goodbye sweet ToGP player. > > > > PTO requirements: > > > > > > - Ready untapped IC member > > > - A non-Camarilla Vampire in play > > > - Taking a political action > > > - 1 blood > > > - The referendum passes > > > > PTO requirements: > > > > ready untapped IC, a non-Camarilla Vampire in play somewhere on the > > table (don't tell me , this is too much of requirements - with only 7 > > clans counting as camarilla and rest non-camarilla, meeting this is > > pretty easy in most of the games), taking a political action (and what > > was I going to do with my IC anyway ?) , 1 blood (not that much of > > requirements, if it costs pool it would be somewhat balancing factor, > > but usually burning vampire costs more than one blood), referendum > > passes (which usually shouldn't be that problematic with you at least > > 5 votes and probably much much more) > > There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. Yet, diablerie is very tricky (requires some ways to put into torpor, diabolist is usually burned via blood hunt (which might or might not be significant) ) and burning vampires in combat is very card intensive and usually very vulnerable to fizzle. > > PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > passes. > > Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P That kinds of decks are stupid. Good for few laugh maybe, but not really viable. > > > ToGP of old required much more preparation than PTO ever requires. > > No, as I mentioned above. That was countered above. > > > > [...] > > > > > > > As to your counters > > > > > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > > > > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > > > > So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? > > You'd better act to win the game, and not only to oust your preys as quickly as possible. By ousting preys as quickly as possible one usually wins the game :). Sometimes another methods have to be used (but these are very intricate and fragile methods and any table which sees what you are doing will usually screw you up in some way) > > > > > Delaying tactics only 'delays' PTO and do not counter it. > > > > > > In some decks it can be more than enough. > > > > In which decks ? > > Weenie Protean > Warghoules > Shambling Hordes > Any combat deck with Thoughts Betrayed or Lapses or other S:CE hosers. > Intercept decks > anti-political decks (Quentin, Demonstration, Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, etc.) > !Malk decks with Deranges > Weenie decks in general (it does not matter if one of your non-Camarilla vampires is burned via > PTO) > > [...] As Derek countered some of yours examples I won't repeat his arguments. > > > > > > > Fear of Mekhet is master (costing two pools) with greater restriction > > > > than PTO. You suggest inferior card (in all aspects) to counter that > > > > PTO - looks like PTO is overpowered. > > > > > > I only meant that IC members and Justicars are also fragile with the new Fear of Mekhet. > > > > I explained that Fear of Mekhet as a counter for PTO is strange since > > it has much much steeper requirement than PTO. I will rather put > > pentex subversion as a 'counter' to PTO than this card. Since pentes > > has some other uses too. > > Sure ;-) > > > > > Against Protect ? > > > > > > > > Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence > > > > it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy > > > > to meet the same fate. > > > > > > That's an emotional answer ;-) If you play with non-Camarilla vampires, be prepared against > > > PTO, Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, etc. (which is very easy, as I have mentioned above). > > > > It is not emotional answer. It is the best cardless defense so far. > > No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) So, here we have card which basically reduces possible deck archetypes... > > > Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > > others in this thread. > > But feasible. Not really. [ quoted text not captured ]

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D80BD3E...@ono.com>... > Derek Ray wrote: > > > In message <3D804851...@ono.com>, > > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: > > > > >There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > > > > >PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > > >pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > > >passes. > > > > If you're playing with IC members, you already have them supported in > > some fashion by your deck. Not significant to overcome. > > Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. > Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. Depends. A Gangrel prince deck going first with infohigway (transfers on ingrid) , second turn ingrid , fourth turn Stanislava is anything but slow. > > > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > > these days. Not a significant issue. > > Maybe that percentage will be quite lower since the release of the Camarilla Edition. This is only temporary, since people will want to play with new toys. However Camarilla is only 6.5 clans out of 20+ avaiable. > > The most important thing is if those non-Camarilla vampires are controlled by your predator or prey. > Cross-table PTOs will have to do with the course of the game. > > > Political action + referendum passing -- IC members have 4 votes, and > > all too frequently IC decks are political decks already. Not a > > significant issue to overcome. > > Not significant again?. What happens? Other clans lack titled vampires? You always make your votes > pass when you control an IC member? If so, tell me your secret ;-) Independent clans usually aren't that good at voting for some reasons (like that they lacks votes). Passing any vote without even a vote lock depends on your skills of negotiation/explanation/manipulations. Last night there were votes flying everywhere. I did however protected some of my grandprey's 9 cap anyway. > > > 1 blood is negligible -- a vampire without the blood available to play > > PTO is a vampire who must hunt. Not significant. > > Right. > > > So say I want to play Thetmes. To defend against PTO, I must now > > include: > > Ahem!, I think you forget that Thetmes cannot play alone. He nees more Assamites, among which you have > the option to include: > > Name: Tegyrius, Vizier > [FN] > Cardtype: Vampire > Clan: Assamite > Capacity: 9 > Discipline: pre AUS CEL FOR QUI > Camarilla: If Tegyrius is ready, any Assamite may take a +1 stealth action to gain an allegiance > counter. Any Assamite with an allegiance counter is considered a Camarilla vampire. +1 strength. > (Blood Cursed) Teqyrius is excellent vampire. But not as an companion to Thetmes. The best thing about him (besides his AUS/FOR) is that he is Camarilla... > > and/or > > Name: Qadir ul-Ghani > [FN] > Cardtype: Vampire > Clan: Assamite > Capacity: 9 > Discipline: tha nec CEL OBF QUI > Independent: Qadir may change his clan to a clan of his choosing as a +1 stealth action that costs 1 > blood. +1 bleed. (Blood Cursed) I am not very impressed by this vampire. Sure he can defend himself against protect by changing his clan, but that way you would deny yourself access to assamite clan cards (which are one of the best in the game) > > > > > - Intercept (for a clan which historically has much difficulty > > generating intercept) > > Many Assamites have Auspex. And many don't. Usually you don't have the room to put that many aus cards in your decks with assamites since you have to focus on Clandestine/Provisions track in order to survive. Although Tegyrius Intercept/Combat deck is very feasible. > > > - Direct Intervention (which I must include 6 of to guarantee that I > > have one in my hand at all times, and I cannot use it on anything but > > PTO) > > Not so many. 3 DI would do. That's still one quarter of my precious master slot to stop stupid (political) action. > > > - Votes (Independent voters are significantly weaker than any other > > voters, and they don't have a prayer of stopping Awe) > > At least, Assamites have Alamut. Alamut won't stop Awe played by medium full IC. > > > Any or all of the above. Delaying Tactics? Yeah, right. It just > > happens again next turn. Inner Circle members don't come out without > > being able to play things like "Obedience" -- IC members already know > > how fragile their vampire is. > > Some Assamites have Thaumaturgy, so you can rush IC members with Perfect Clarity to avoid Obedience > (that's an idea). Might be interesting, but probably very costly/ useless against other decks. > > > Bum's Rush pre-emptively? Pointless. Fear of Mekhet pre-emptively? > > Pointless, not to mention that Fear of Mekhet is largely pointless to > > put in your deck in the first place. > > Yes, you are right. But Fear of Mekhet might help depending on your type of deck. Fear of Mekhet is virtually unplayable. How many times I should repeat that ? > > > No. PTO is a card with an overpowered effect-to-cost ratio, and should > > have seriously been toned down. (under 7-cap only, for example). > > Suggesting that Direct Intervention is a suitable defense against > > ANYTHING indicates that the card is broken, since now we're heading into > > the "X or anti-X", and DI is the ultimate "anti-X". > > Do you think there will always be one of the 2 or 3 IC members (capable of effectively calling PTO) on > every table you play at? If so, I am afraid there is going to be some kind of contesting sometimes, > isn't it? Not everytime. Fortunately. It does not mean that it is not overpowered, though. > > > >Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > > >Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > > > > It's not even remotely overpowered. Protean weenies playing Amaranth > > lose the weenie to the Bloodhunt, for one -- so it costs them a vampire > > to cost you a vampire. > > What a tragedy ;-). You have invested 2 pool on Sadie. Sadie rushes a IC member who unfortunately has > no S:CE, so Sadie pays 1 blood to aggravate her hand strike, sends the IC member into torpor, plays > Amaranth and burns afterward. Wow! IC's usually play with some combat defense, do they ? > > > EVEN ASSUMING that your deck packs none of the > > following: > > > > Dodges > > Maneuvers > > S:CE > > Damage prevention > > A way to send the weenie to torpor as well > > Obedience > > > > Due to the prevalence of combat decks (much more likely to see a combat > > deck than an IC deck), it's almost certain that your deck includes some > > > basic defense against combat, and the Protean weenies are going to > > > flounder around pointlessly. Maybe they get one of your guys, but they > > have to spend many many actions to do it, and it STILL costs them one of > > their own guys. Compared to PTO's cost of one action taken that costs > > one blood? No comparison. > > That's a bad comparison, since PTO does not ONLY cost 1 blood. It is a political action. And so what ? Cost blood and action of a vampire , who would usually do political action anyway. > > > >Weenie Protean > > > > Weenie Protean doesn't care about PTO. It has plenty of minions. > > Sure ;-) > > > >Warghoules > > > > If the Little Tailor gets PTO'd, a War Ghoul deck is going in the ditch. > > Then that is a bad Warghoul deck, because why should I invest 8 pool on Little Taylor when I can > invest 4 pool on Lolita Houston and/or other mid or low capacity Tzimisce on which I can play > Charisma. Relying on those vampires you spare pool when putting Warghoules into play. Maybe that 'bad' war ghoul deck plays with Little Tailor because he can do also other things which Lolita can not like bleed for two or Intercept/deflect ? > > > >Shambling Hordes > > > > If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. > > Of course, if you base that deck on him, but basing a deck on a single vampire is usually stupid. And basing decks on a two action war ghouls with charisma and small tsimisce is not stupid ? Or more fragile ? Basing deck on single (big vampire) is the only possible way how you can play them effectively (as otherwise you are unable to play with all his disciplines which in turns means that you should have put younger vampire in your deck in the first place) > > As you know, Giovanni vampires can benefit from The Path of Bone and Acquired Ventrue Assets. > > > >Any combat deck with Thoughts Betrayed or Lapses or other S:CE hosers. > > > > None of these hose Obedience, and combat as a pre-emptive strike against > > PTO is not effective, as previously discussed. > > You are assuming too much. Not every deck with IC members will play with Obedience. Why should they?. > My brother's deck did not play with them, for instance. > > > >Intercept decks > > > > Daring the Dawn and/or Forgotten Labyrinth generally shut this down. Oh > > look! Arika can play both of these! > > Then we are talking about just 2 or 3 vampires who can effectively call PTO (Arika, Etrius......, and > Stanislava). Uhm, how overpowered a card!. ;-) No, we are talking about how this card screws 50+ percent of vampires, 75+ percent of clans and how it screws playing with big non-Camarilla vampires and which indirectly support weenie madness. > > > >anti-political decks (Quentin, Demonstration, Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, etc.) > > > > Currently limited to the Ventrue and !Ventrue -- the Ventrue don't give > > a damn about PTO, usually. You can't Kindred Coerce an IC member > > without an IC member of your own, though. > > But you can force that IC member to abstain via Pulling Strings. > > And do not forget there should be more titled vampires on the table you could Kindred Coerce. > > > > > >!Malk decks with Deranges > > > > Can't Derange an IC member unless you're Hannibal with two skill cards. > > Yes, you can, as I mentioned on an earlier post: > > Example: > > Hannibal plays Derange on Basil (also controlled by yourself) > Basil moves Derange to Arika. > > > >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > > > I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not > > viable by a single card. Useful. > > He, he... I would rather say: "by a single card that can only be effectively called by 2 or 3 > vampires" It does not matter that it can be only played by 2-3 vamps effectively. As long as it will render large quantities of vampires/clans useless it will be played and abused. > > > >> Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > > >> others in this thread. > > > > > >But feasible. > > > > Never feasible. The only feasible defense is to hope like hell nobody > > plays one, because putting in defense against it simply clogs up your > > deck and makes it run worthlessly. > > It will always depend on the type of non-Camarilla deck you are playing with, and the type of deck the > Methuselah with IC members is playing with. > > Greetings, > Damnans Karol

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<GNPiNhIO...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <DAydncbgYbS...@News.GigaNews.Com>, Derek Ray > <lor...@yahoo.com> writes: > >Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > >these days. Not a significant issue. > > 99% certain to see one as your prey? > > Calling PTO at your grand-predator, for instance, might not be a good > idea. If the strongest player on the table has a non-camarilla vampire i'd sure as hell burn it. Chances are that if you can pass a PTO then you can pass a Dramatic Upheaval too. In tournament games, the enemy is the player most likely to get the table win, not your prey. mattgreen.

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> escribió en el mensaje de noticias GNPiNhIO...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <DAydncbgYbS...@News.GigaNews.Com>, Derek Ray > <lor...@yahoo.com> writes: > >Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > >these days. Not a significant issue. > > 99% certain to see one as your prey? > > Calling PTO at your grand-predator, for instance, might not be a good > idea. *Ejem* If there should be a ranking of "Most PTOed" vamp ever, at least in barcelona/Palma, Jost Werner will win without discussion, followed by Quentin, but since PTO quentin is usually a hard vote to pass, he shall survive the vote. And at least 50% of the PTO targeting him has been cross-table, generally. Whenever you use PTO in your deck, whenever you get it in your hand, you want to use it instead of discarding. So if neither your prey or predator got a non-cam, you choose a target elsewhere even to just pass the vote and play Voter Cap. Or to earn some kind of debt from that vamp's player prey/predator. At least for what I've seen from people who use to play this nasty card. I personally prefer Banishment rather than this one. Stelios [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <a346f9cb.0209...@posting.google.com>, mgreen02 <mgre...@bcuc.ac.uk> writes: >If the strongest player on the table has a non-camarilla vampire i'd >sure as hell burn it. Chances are that if you can pass a PTO then you >can pass a Dramatic Upheaval too. > >In tournament games, the enemy is the player most likely to get the >table win, not your prey. As someone who's watched lots of tournament games he hasn't been playing in, I'm never certain of this. Lots of situations turn into "He's not the threat, *he's* the threat". Walking round and watching people's hands and the like, it often seems that a number of players (not all, but certainly a large number, even if still a minority) *would* actually be better off just going for their prey - their enemy being taking their eye off the ball, with a highly competent diplomatic contingent on the table doing that for them. Remember: you only need two VPs for a table win, 3 for a guaranteed table win. A lot of games like this can continually turn into "He's the threat! Kill him! *dies* Now *she's* the threat! Kill her!" This is something demonstrably Garfield wanted to avoid with the predator/prey dynamic. However, assuming we allow for "taking out the strongest player" as a useful tactic - which it very definitely is, on an unspecified number of tables - are we 99% certain that a Non-Camarilla vampire will turn up on the strongest player? I'd say not. [ quoted text not captured ]

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > You are forgetting a more devastating use of ToGP: pool loss (instead of "stealing" a vampire). > > I would gladly pay 3 pool so that my prey loses 15 pool. ToGP can and MUST also be used to > > "bleed". > > > > What do you prefer? Either losing a vampire or losing 15 pool? > > I will deal with this question later in the post. > [...] > > DI can cancel Daring the Dawn, Day Operation, Votes, Purge of Baltimore, aggravated damage > > attempted out of turn so that no one can play a Rötschreckon Omaya; a Deflection played by your > > prey when you have just deflect a bleed to him or her, etc... > > What's all that about Omaya ? :) > > I don't deny that DI MIGHT be usefull, but usually you don't need it > (even for cards mentioned above) Of course ;-) [...] > > > so to summarize ToGP requirements: > > > > > > 3 pool , 2 master phase actions , minion tap, controlling a ready > > > justicar (usually 9-10 cap vampire) > > > > False. As I have stated above. It does not require 2 master phase actions, just one. > > So say it requires one master phase. I bring out Sheldon. Then he ToGP > with lose vampire or lose 15 pool statement. I decided to lose vampire > and ToGP deck goes down to 30-9(sheldon)-3(Togp)-10(togp) (other 5 > pool is debt). So he is now at 8 pool NOT counting his prey's action's > against him. Oh and he has a personal anarch revolt too. Goodbye sweet > ToGP player. It is much easier saying it than playing it, since the Methuselah playing a ToGP on Omaya (for instance, he, he...) will not start bidding 15 pool for her, but 5, 6, 8, 10, and so on (i.e., progressively), so that it is not that easy for you to give up to Omaya at once, almost forcing you to pay pool to keep control of her. > > > > PTO requirements: > > > > > > > > - Ready untapped IC member > > > > - A non-Camarilla Vampire in play > > > > - Taking a political action > > > > - 1 blood > > > > - The referendum passes > > > > > > PTO requirements: > > > > > > ready untapped IC, a non-Camarilla Vampire in play somewhere on the > > > table (don't tell me , this is too much of requirements - with only 7 > > > clans counting as camarilla and rest non-camarilla, meeting this is > > > pretty easy in most of the games), taking a political action (and what > > > was I going to do with my IC anyway ?) , 1 blood (not that much of > > > requirements, if it costs pool it would be somewhat balancing factor, > > > but usually burning vampire costs more than one blood), referendum > > > passes (which usually shouldn't be that problematic with you at least > > > 5 votes and probably much much more) > > > > There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > Yet, diablerie is very tricky (requires some ways to put into torpor, > diabolist is usually burned via blood hunt (which might or might not > be significant) ) and burning vampires in combat is very card > intensive and usually very vulnerable to fizzle. Yes, but it is a much more common strategy (by far) than using PTO. > > PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > > pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > > passes. > > > > Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > > Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > > That kinds of decks are stupid. Good for few laugh maybe, but not > really viable. It always depends on the meta-game. These kind of decks are sometimes scary and deadly. [...] > > > > [...] > > > > > > > > > As to your counters > > > > > > > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > > > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > > > > > > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > > > > > > So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? > > > > You'd better act to win the game, and not only to oust your preys as quickly as possible. > > By ousting preys as quickly as possible one usually wins the game :). Yes, if the other Methuselahs let you do it. > Sometimes another methods have to be used (but these are very > intricate and fragile methods and any table which sees what you are > doing will usually screw you up in some way) Yeah. [...] > > > > > Against Protect ? > > > > > > > > > > Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence > > > > > it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy > > > > > to meet the same fate. > > > > > > > > That's an emotional answer ;-) If you play with non-Camarilla vampires, be prepared against > > > > PTO, Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, etc. (which is very easy, as I have mentioned above). > > > > > > It is not emotional answer. It is the best cardless defense so far. > > > > No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > So, here we have card which basically reduces possible deck > archetypes... It does not reduce anything. According to the Lasombra's tournament winning decks archive: Non-Camarilla winning decks: 81 Camarilla winning decks: 109 Decks mixing Camarilla and non-Camarilla vampires: 29 Winning Decks with Protect Thine Own: 10 "The Turd", by Rob Treasure 2 PTO "Angus rules" (Gangrel bloat & voat) by Marko Saari 2 PTO "Gangrel say goodbye to the Camarilla!" (Vote/Bloat), by Luis Duarte 2 PTO Shaun McIssac's ICBM (Inner Circle Bloating Monstrosity) 1 PTO Camarilla Segregation Raleigh September 2001 Winning Deck by Richard Conrad Zink 1 PTO Justin Lacey's Ritual Challenge New Jersey Winning Deck (Malkavian Temptation of Greater Power) 2 PTO Olivier Jackson's The War is On! Tournament Hull City, Canada winning deck 1 PTO "Big Toreador Deck", by Brian Wellington 1 PTO Deck by Steve Wright 1 PTO Alex Harmon's Winning Deck @ Origins 1997 2 PTO HOW overpowered! ;-) I am afraid that weenie Dominate decks (for instance) are much more scary than 1 or 2 PTO. > > > Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > > > others in this thread. > > > > But feasible. > > Not really. Then a defense against PTO is not even necessary at all. Just ignore that card. ;-) Greetings, Damnans

Karol Magda wrote: > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D80BD3E...@ono.com>... > > Derek Ray wrote: > > > > > In message <3D804851...@ono.com>, > > > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: > > > > > > >There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > > > > > > >PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > > > >pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > > > >passes. > > > > > > If you're playing with IC members, you already have them supported in > > > some fashion by your deck. Not significant to overcome. > > > > Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. > > Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. > > Depends. A Gangrel prince deck going first with infohigway (transfers > on ingrid) , second turn ingrid , fourth turn Stanislava is anything > but slow. It's an exception. Do not talk about exceptions. > > > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > > > these days. Not a significant issue. > > > > Maybe that percentage will be quite lower since the release of the Camarilla Edition. > > This is only temporary, since people will want to play with new toys. > However Camarilla is only 6.5 clans out of 20+ avaiable. The Camarilla has SEVEN (not 6.5) clans, plus the Caitiff, 1 Assamite, 3 DoC, 1 FoS, 2 Samedi ;-P BUT each Camarilla clan has more vampires than each non-Camarilla clan. So the proportion you suggest needs some retouches ;-) > > The most important thing is if those non-Camarilla vampires are controlled by your predator or prey. > > Cross-table PTOs will have to do with the course of the game. > > > > > Political action + referendum passing -- IC members have 4 votes, and > > > all too frequently IC decks are political decks already. Not a > > > significant issue to overcome. > > > > Not significant again?. What happens? Other clans lack titled vampires? You always make your votes > > pass when you control an IC member? If so, tell me your secret ;-) > > Independent clans usually aren't that good at voting for some reasons > (like that they lacks votes). Passing any vote without even a vote > lock depends on your skills of negotiation/explanation/manipulations. Sure ;-) > Last night there were votes flying everywhere. I did however protected > some of my grandprey's 9 cap anyway. And who won? > > > 1 blood is negligible -- a vampire without the blood available to play > > > PTO is a vampire who must hunt. Not significant. > > > > Right. > > > > > So say I want to play Thetmes. To defend against PTO, I must now > > > include: > > > > Ahem!, I think you forget that Thetmes cannot play alone. He nees more Assamites, among which you have > > the option to include: > > > > Name: Tegyrius, Vizier > > [FN] > > Cardtype: Vampire > > Clan: Assamite > > Capacity: 9 > > Discipline: pre AUS CEL FOR QUI > > Camarilla: If Tegyrius is ready, any Assamite may take a +1 stealth action to gain an allegiance > > counter. Any Assamite with an allegiance counter is considered a Camarilla vampire. +1 strength. > > (Blood Cursed) > > Teqyrius is excellent vampire. But not as an companion to Thetmes. The > best thing about him (besides his AUS/FOR) is that he is Camarilla... Tegyrius is much better a vampire than Thetmes (well, at least, stronger), and can defend the entire Assamite clan (you control) against PTO. > > > - Votes (Independent voters are significantly weaker than any other > > > voters, and they don't have a prayer of stopping Awe) > > > > At least, Assamites have Alamut. > > Alamut won't stop Awe played by medium full IC. Then you are taking about one more requirement for PTO (i.e., AWE). I am starting to think PTO is underpowered ;-P (he, he) [...] > > > No. PTO is a card with an overpowered effect-to-cost ratio, and should > > > have seriously been toned down. (under 7-cap only, for example). > > > Suggesting that Direct Intervention is a suitable defense against > > > ANYTHING indicates that the card is broken, since now we're heading into > > > the "X or anti-X", and DI is the ultimate "anti-X". > > > > Do you think there will always be one of the 2 or 3 IC members (capable of effectively calling PTO) on > > every table you play at? If so, I am afraid there is going to be some kind of contesting sometimes, > > isn't it? > > Not everytime. Fortunately. It does not mean that it is not > overpowered, though. Of course this fact does mean PTO is not overpowered. > > > >Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > > > >Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > > > > > > It's not even remotely overpowered. Protean weenies playing Amaranth > > > lose the weenie to the Bloodhunt, for one -- so it costs them a vampire > > > to cost you a vampire. > > > > What a tragedy ;-). You have invested 2 pool on Sadie. Sadie rushes a IC member who unfortunately has > > no S:CE, so Sadie pays 1 blood to aggravate her hand strike, sends the IC member into torpor, plays > > Amaranth and burns afterward. Wow! > > IC's usually play with some combat defense, do they ? Which might be exhausted by the time Sadie rushes an IC member. [...] > > > >Warghoules > > > > > > If the Little Tailor gets PTO'd, a War Ghoul deck is going in the ditch. > > > > Then that is a bad Warghoul deck, because why should I invest 8 pool on Little Taylor when I can > > invest 4 pool on Lolita Houston and/or other mid or low capacity Tzimisce on which I can play > > Charisma. Relying on those vampires you spare pool when putting Warghoules into play. > > Maybe that 'bad' war ghoul deck plays with Little Tailor because he > can do also other things which Lolita can not like bleed for two or > Intercept/deflect ? Ahem! You could play with Lolita Houston, Devin Bisley (AUS), Corine Marcon (AUS), Caliban (AUS)... Little Taylor is not essential in a Warghoul deck. > > > >Shambling Hordes > > > > > > If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. > > > > Of course, if you base that deck on him, but basing a deck on a single vampire is usually stupid. > > And basing decks on a two action war ghouls with charisma and small > tsimisce is not stupid ? Or more fragile ? At all, if you have means to put them in play. However, basing a deck on a single vampire is too risky, because if you lose that vampire, your chances to win decrease tremendously. > Basing deck on single (big vampire) is the only possible way how you > can play them effectively (as otherwise you are unable to play with > all his disciplines which in turns means that you should have put > younger vampire in your deck in the first place) But who want to play with all of the disciplines of a 10-11 capacity vampire? I repeat, the more you focus your strategy on a single vampire the more fragile your deck becomes. [...] > > > >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > > > > > I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not > > > viable by a single card. Useful. > > > > He, he... I would rather say: "by a single card that can only be effectively called by 2 or 3 > > vampires" > > It does not matter that it can be only played by 2-3 vamps > effectively. As long as it will render large quantities of > vampires/clans useless it will be played and abused. You miss the point. That's exactly what matters. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the proportion of tournament decks including PTO prove you are wrong. Greetings, Damnans

In message <3D83B581...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> writes: >> > Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. >> > Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. >> >> Depends. A Gangrel prince deck going first with infohigway (transfers >> on ingrid) , second turn ingrid , fourth turn Stanislava is anything >> but slow. > >It's an exception. Do not talk about exceptions. Why? Gangrel royalty decks are a popular, powerful Gangrel archetype. Decks using Zillah's Valley are a necessary thing to understand too. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <3D83B581...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> > writes: > >> > Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. > >> > Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. > >> > >> Depends. A Gangrel prince deck going first with infohigway (transfers > >> on ingrid) , second turn ingrid , fourth turn Stanislava is anything > >> but slow. > > > >It's an exception. Do not talk about exceptions. > > Why? Gangrel royalty decks are a popular, powerful Gangrel archetype. > Decks using Zillah's Valley are a necessary thing to understand too. I said it was an exception because those decks are not very common (at least in Spain), and because they terribly increase the "requirements" of playing a PTO, since they have to bring out Ingrid Rossler first, or Information Highway or Zillah's Valley to put an IC member in play as soon as possible. Greetings, Damnans

karol...@yahoo.com (Karol Magda) wrote in message news:<df69cc0d.02091...@posting.google.com>... > > Fear of Mekhet is virtually unplayable. How many times I should repeat > that ? Hah! I got *hosed* by a well-played Fear of Mekhet this Thursday, when Jaroslav Pascek, at 3 blood got hit with one. Boom, one Justicar less in the world. :( Not to mention that Rachel Brandywine got eaten in the same round by a Gangrel weenie, when I got hit cross-table with a Haven Uncovered.... I think that Fear of Mekhet is *way* overpowered. :) Magnus

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D83AEE4...@ono.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Everyone loves to control Omaya it seems :) Even if he bids progressively it is quite easy to screw yourself up with ToGP. The chosen vampire might go to completly different player althogether (one with vast pool for instance) and given vampire might continue to be menace (saw this several times). ToGP compared to PtO is VERY difficult to implement and play correctly. (other players usually interfere with ToGP player by increasing bids for ToGP if it seems that he would gain vampire too cheaply for example} > > > > > > PTO requirements: > > > > > > > > > > - Ready untapped IC member > > > > > - A non-Camarilla Vampire in play > > > > > - Taking a political action > > > > > - 1 blood > > > > > - The referendum passes > > > > > > > > PTO requirements: > > > > > > > > ready untapped IC, a non-Camarilla Vampire in play somewhere on the > > > > table (don't tell me , this is too much of requirements - with only 7 > > > > clans counting as camarilla and rest non-camarilla, meeting this is > > > > pretty easy in most of the games), taking a political action (and what > > > > was I going to do with my IC anyway ?) , 1 blood (not that much of > > > > requirements, if it costs pool it would be somewhat balancing factor, > > > > but usually burning vampire costs more than one blood), referendum > > > > passes (which usually shouldn't be that problematic with you at least > > > > 5 votes and probably much much more) > > > > > > There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > > > Yet, diablerie is very tricky (requires some ways to put into torpor, > > diabolist is usually burned via blood hunt (which might or might not > > be significant) ) and burning vampires in combat is very card > > intensive and usually very vulnerable to fizzle. > > Yes, but it is a much more common strategy (by far) than using PTO. How many times do you actually saw vampire burned in combat. I think my experience is like 70 percent burned because of combat and 30 percent burned to PTO. That's lot for a single card. > > > > PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > > > pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > > > passes. > > > > > > Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > > > Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > > > > That kinds of decks are stupid. Good for few laugh maybe, but not > > really viable. > > It always depends on the meta-game. These kind of decks are sometimes scary and deadly. Maybe. If nobody is playing with combat defense. That is almost suicide in my current playgroup (Prague), was very hard to implement in previous one (Kosice) and depended on the moods of players in Barcelona. > > [...] > > > > > > [...] > > > > > > > > > > > As to your counters > > > > > > > > > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > > > > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > > > > > > > > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > > > > > > > > So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? > > > > > > You'd better act to win the game, and not only to oust your preys as quickly as possible. > > > > By ousting preys as quickly as possible one usually wins the game :). > > Yes, if the other Methuselahs let you do it. Not everyone is capable of cross table stuff. By what means do people win games in Palma anyway ? :) > > > Sometimes another methods have to be used (but these are very > > intricate and fragile methods and any table which sees what you are > > doing will usually screw you up in some way) > > Yeah. > > [...] > > > > > > > Against Protect ? > > > > > > > > > > > > Put six transfer on your 10 cap non-camarilla so you can reinfluence > > > > > > it the turn your vampire is burned ... and then watch the second copy > > > > > > to meet the same fate. > > > > > > > > > > That's an emotional answer ;-) If you play with non-Camarilla vampires, be prepared against > > > > > PTO, Judgment: Camarilla Segregation, etc. (which is very easy, as I have mentioned above). > > > > > > > > It is not emotional answer. It is the best cardless defense so far. > > > > > > No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > > > So, here we have card which basically reduces possible deck > > archetypes... > > It does not reduce anything. > > According to the Lasombra's tournament winning decks archive: > > Non-Camarilla winning decks: 81 11+ clans ... > > Camarilla winning decks: 109 7 clans ... [ quoted text not captured ] That's good point. However not valid one. Number of tournament won by ToGP = 3 Deck Name: The Turd Created By: Rob Treasure This is the winning deck of Hugues Bertrand for the tournament Theo Bell Invitational, held in Montreal on September 8, 2001. It's a new version of the deck he played at the Lure of the Serpent tournament. Note : The name of the deck can be translated something like this : "Winning without Dominate and Presence" GAGNER SANS DOMINATE NI PRESENCE (Montreal version) Justin Lacey's Ritual Challenge New Jersey Winning Deck Malkavian Temptation of Greater Power It won 3 tournaments in past years (of those that are archived on Lasombra's site) yet it was toned down for some reasons. Maybe TWD archive is not end all be all indicator of all that is broken (you can also have a look at how many times decks with misdirection won before it receiwed most recent printing curse - answer: not many) What was interesting for me to noticed was that far more people who played with 2+ justicars played without ToGP than people who played with 2+ IC played with PTO. > > I am afraid that weenie Dominate decks (for instance) are much more scary than 1 or 2 PTO. Depends on the metagame, or so Omaya tells me. (and my argument about PTO is that it is bad since it makes me (and other people too) not want to play with big non-Camarilla vampires, which in turn reduce variability of the game) > > > > > Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > > > > others in this thread. > > > > > > But feasible. > > > > Not really. > > Then a defense against PTO is not even necessary at all. Just ignore that card. ;-) Defense is not necessary, well because there is no defense. Karol

<not sure if message got throug on first attempt, I apologize for double post, if any> Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D83AEE4...@ono.com>... [ quoted text not captured ]

magn...@gmx.de (Magnus) wrote in message news:<70eabfe1.02091...@posting.google.com>... > karol...@yahoo.com (Karol Magda) wrote in message news:<df69cc0d.02091...@posting.google.com>... > > > > > Fear of Mekhet is virtually unplayable. How many times I should repeat > > that ? > > Hah! I got *hosed* by a well-played Fear of Mekhet this Thursday, when > Jaroslav Pascek, at 3 blood got hit with one. Boom, one Justicar less > in the world. :( Not to mention that Rachel Brandywine got eaten in > the same round by a Gangrel weenie, when I got hit cross-table with a > Haven Uncovered.... Yes, sometimes it might happen. Odds of it are low. > > I think that Fear of Mekhet is *way* overpowered. :) > At least you are not serious :) Karol

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D83B581...@ono.com>... > Karol Magda wrote: > > > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D80BD3E...@ono.com>... > > > Derek Ray wrote: > > > > > > > In message <3D804851...@ono.com>, > > > > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: > > > > > > > > >There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > > > > > > > > >PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > > > > >pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > > > > >passes. > > > > > > > > If you're playing with IC members, you already have them supported in > > > > some fashion by your deck. Not significant to overcome. > > > > > > Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. > > > Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. > > > > Depends. A Gangrel prince deck going first with infohigway (transfers > > on ingrid) , second turn ingrid , fourth turn Stanislava is anything > > but slow. > > It's an exception. Do not talk about exceptions. When you play with big vampires (be it for PtO , ToGP or something else) you should play with as much of speed enhancers as your deck space afford or be prepared to be swarmed by weenie or stealth bleed or anything fast. > > > > > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > > > > these days. Not a significant issue. > > > > > > Maybe that percentage will be quite lower since the release of the Camarilla Edition. > > > > This is only temporary, since people will want to play with new toys. > > However Camarilla is only 6.5 clans out of 20+ avaiable. > > The Camarilla has SEVEN (not 6.5) clans, plus the Caitiff, 1 Assamite, 3 DoC, 1 FoS, 2 Samedi ;-P I wrote 6.5 because in time the Anarchs will be released wast array of independent gangrels will be printed, hopefully. Caitiff is not a clan IIRC :). Those other 7 vampires might be considered as a 7.5th clan (with numbers slightly greater than your usuall bloodlines clan) > > BUT each Camarilla clan has more vampires than each non-Camarilla clan. So the proportion you suggest needs > some retouches ;-) I wrote also number of total canmarilla/non-camarilla vampires in some of my post. Go check it :) > > > > The most important thing is if those non-Camarilla vampires are controlled by your predator or prey. > > > Cross-table PTOs will have to do with the course of the game. > > > > > > > Political action + referendum passing -- IC members have 4 votes, and > > > > all too frequently IC decks are political decks already. Not a > > > > significant issue to overcome. > > > > > > Not significant again?. What happens? Other clans lack titled vampires? You always make your votes > > > pass when you control an IC member? If so, tell me your secret ;-) > > > > Independent clans usually aren't that good at voting for some reasons > > (like that they lacks votes). Passing any vote without even a vote > > lock depends on your skills of negotiation/explanation/manipulations. > > Sure ;-) > > > Last night there were votes flying everywhere. I did however protected > > some of my grandprey's 9 cap anyway. > > And who won? 5 VP to Corner case Gangrel Prince Deck :) ,1 VP to the poor 'he looks like a threat and he is non-Camarilla too so let's protect him table' Lasombra vote/bleed deck. > > > > > 1 blood is negligible -- a vampire without the blood available to play > > > > PTO is a vampire who must hunt. Not significant. > > > > > > Right. > > > > > > > So say I want to play Thetmes. To defend against PTO, I must now > > > > include: > > > > > > Ahem!, I think you forget that Thetmes cannot play alone. He nees more Assamites, among which you have > > > the option to include: > > > > > > Name: Tegyrius, Vizier > > > [FN] > > > Cardtype: Vampire > > > Clan: Assamite > > > Capacity: 9 > > > Discipline: pre AUS CEL FOR QUI > > > Camarilla: If Tegyrius is ready, any Assamite may take a +1 stealth action to gain an allegiance > > > counter. Any Assamite with an allegiance counter is considered a Camarilla vampire. +1 strength. > > > (Blood Cursed) > > > > Teqyrius is excellent vampire. But not as an companion to Thetmes. The > > best thing about him (besides his AUS/FOR) is that he is Camarilla... > > Tegyrius is much better a vampire than Thetmes (well, at least, stronger), and can defend the entire > Assamite clan (you control) against PTO. So all assamite should play with Tegyrius. That's cool variability :) > > > > > - Votes (Independent voters are significantly weaker than any other > > > > voters, and they don't have a prayer of stopping Awe) > > > > > > At least, Assamites have Alamut. > > > > Alamut won't stop Awe played by medium full IC. > > Then you are taking about one more requirement for PTO (i.e., AWE). I am starting to think PTO is > underpowered ;-P (he, he) Wrong, in order to alamut be of a problem for an IC it must have like 4-5 counters on it which means that I spent like 3 bleed actions with my assamites to acumulate counters (only tree because I play with hacking or tasha and I assumed that I got it in my hand or something), I also invested a pool and MPA to bring alamut in play. My predator play protect. I tap alamut and burn all counters. He then plays awe. His additional cards played with conjunction with awe caused my three action to be meaningless, (since I will lost my best offensive/defensive vampire soon I will probably die pretty fast and be unable to finsh my prey), and I spent a pool and MPA on a card which didn't helped. > > [...] > > > > > > No. PTO is a card with an overpowered effect-to-cost ratio, and should > > > > have seriously been toned down. (under 7-cap only, for example). > > > > Suggesting that Direct Intervention is a suitable defense against > > > > ANYTHING indicates that the card is broken, since now we're heading into > > > > the "X or anti-X", and DI is the ultimate "anti-X". > > > > > > Do you think there will always be one of the 2 or 3 IC members (capable of effectively calling PTO) on > > > every table you play at? If so, I am afraid there is going to be some kind of contesting sometimes, > > > isn't it? > > > > Not everytime. Fortunately. It does not mean that it is not > > overpowered, though. > > Of course this fact does mean PTO is not overpowered. > > > > > >Or perhaps do you think that burning vampires via weenies with Protean + rushes + Claws + > > > > >Amaranth is not that overpowered? ;-P > > > > > > > > It's not even remotely overpowered. Protean weenies playing Amaranth > > > > lose the weenie to the Bloodhunt, for one -- so it costs them a vampire > > > > to cost you a vampire. > > > > > > What a tragedy ;-). You have invested 2 pool on Sadie. Sadie rushes a IC member who unfortunately has > > > no S:CE, so Sadie pays 1 blood to aggravate her hand strike, sends the IC member into torpor, plays > > > Amaranth and burns afterward. Wow! > > > > IC's usually play with some combat defense, do they ? > > Which might be exhausted by the time Sadie rushes an IC member. His combat defense is exhausted because 1) he play with no combat defense and play with big vampires- he deserves to die :) 2) he had bad lack and he didn't draw anything 3) maybe he did played with combat defense but due to multiply rush attemps by weenie pro players none of his combat defense is in his hand and IC will die to sadie. The burning of IC by sadie in this case costed several actions and plenty of cards. Not like PTO which is more often than not one action plus one blood = one dead vampire > > [...] > > > > > >Warghoules > > > > > > > > If the Little Tailor gets PTO'd, a War Ghoul deck is going in the ditch. > > > > > > Then that is a bad Warghoul deck, because why should I invest 8 pool on Little Taylor when I can > > > invest 4 pool on Lolita Houston and/or other mid or low capacity Tzimisce on which I can play > > > Charisma. Relying on those vampires you spare pool when putting Warghoules into play. > > > > Maybe that 'bad' war ghoul deck plays with Little Tailor because he > > can do also other things which Lolita can not like bleed for two or > > Intercept/deflect ? > > Ahem! You could play with Lolita Houston, Devin Bisley (AUS), Corine Marcon (AUS), Caliban (AUS)... Little > Taylor is not essential in a Warghoul deck. Depends. In strictly Warghoul deck probably not. He however can play blessing of chaos which is otherwise significant. > > > > > >Shambling Hordes > > > > > > > > If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. > > > > > > Of course, if you base that deck on him, but basing a deck on a single vampire is usually stupid. > > > > And basing decks on a two action war ghouls with charisma and small > > tsimisce is not stupid ? Or more fragile ? > > At all, if you have means to put them in play. +3 stealth which such deck can generate might be not enough :) > > However, basing a deck on a single vampire is too risky, because if you lose that vampire, your chances to > win decrease tremendously. > > > Basing deck on single (big vampire) is the only possible way how you > > can play them effectively (as otherwise you are unable to play with > > all his disciplines which in turns means that you should have put > > younger vampire in your deck in the first place) > > But who want to play with all of the disciplines of a 10-11 capacity vampire? I repeat, the more you focus > your strategy on a single vampire the more fragile your deck becomes. You clearly do not play with say assamites that often. Camarilla big vampires usually played are those with title of at least prince. That means that when youd design a deck around big cammie vamp you count on 3 of their in clans disciplines, their prince/justicar 'discipline' their I am member of clan 'discipline' and their 'hey I can vote' 'discipline'. When playing with assamite you can only count on first three and the last discipline. That is not enough to justify playing with big vampire. You would be better of just to weeniefy your crypt and be more efficient, unless you include another factor - out of clan disciplines. Given the fact that say Thetmes and Tegyrius have very different discipline spreads it is clear to see, why you must base your deck on one big vampire if you want to play succesfully with them. > > [...] > > > > > >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > > > > > > > I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not > > > > viable by a single card. Useful. > > > > > > He, he... I would rather say: "by a single card that can only be effectively called by 2 or 3 > > > vampires" > > > > It does not matter that it can be only played by 2-3 vamps > > effectively. As long as it will render large quantities of > > vampires/clans useless it will be played and abused. > > You miss the point. That's exactly what matters. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the proportion of > tournament decks including PTO prove you are wrong. > I countered your point by giving example of how only 3 ToGP TWD deck archived on Lasombra site 'caused' most recent printing curse on TOGP. Also consider this card: I am the True Queen Played only by Arike +1 Stealth action Your prey's pool is reduced to zero. Can be played by Arika only. And is still broken. Karol

In message <3D84A88A...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> writes: >I said it was an exception because those decks are not very common (at least in Spain), and because they >terribly increase the "requirements" of playing a PTO, since they have to bring out Ingrid Rossler first, >or Information Highway or Zillah's Valley to put an IC member in play as soon as possible. Playing Zillah's Valley - a card practically designed to bring out Inner Circle members[0] at top speed and so a positive boon for the deck in (almost) no uncertain terms - increases the requirements terribly? Isn't that rather like saying Bum's Rush terribly increases the requirements of a rush deck aiming to get into combat easily? Playing ICs (predominantly) is a very, very difficult design decision if you *aren't* planning to get them out quickly (if your deck is primarily about bringing one/more out, as opposed to having one or two there for when you see your predator isn't about to swarm you to death). If your IC decks aren't designing decks for high probabilities of good Zillah's, Tomb or Info Highway flow, then they might as well be dead in the water. Vampires that take more than two turns to get out with a high probability (e.g. it's pretty likely if you only have one copy of Info Highway in a 90 card deck, but increasingly less likely if you fiddle with Zillah's, multiple Info Highway, Dreams of the Sphinx or whatever) which are key to a deck's functioning and so the vampires it will bring out are a *huge* problem to the deck. Pretty much for certain at the start, an IC deck is going to look a fair bit like a single vampire deck. And if you get hit, you need to replace them fast too - or you just get walked all over. Playing a deck with an IC focus, as a PTO deck is going to be for this usage of it, and planning to bring them out over three turns, not fewer? Surely that's going to be the exception nowadays? [0] And a few other vampires of no importance. Inner Circle members 0wnz them. [ quoted text not captured ]

Karol Magda wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] No ;-) Only you :-P > Even if he bids progressively it is quite easy to screw yourself up > with ToGP. The chosen vampire might go to completly different player > althogether (one with vast pool for instance) Then, the Methuselah who played the ToGP does not pay any additional pool (only the 3 pool cost of that master card), and you have lost a vampire. > and given vampire might > continue to be menace (saw this several times). ToGP compared to PtO > is VERY difficult to implement and play correctly. (other players > usually interfere with ToGP player by increasing bids for ToGP if it > seems that he would gain vampire too cheaply for example} And in PTO other players also use to interfere with their votes. [ quoted text not captured ] Where did you get those data from? ;-) [...] > > > > > > > As to your counters > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > > > > > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > > > > > > > > > > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > > > > > > > > > > So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? > > > > > > > > You'd better act to win the game, and not only to oust your preys as quickly as possible. > > > > > > By ousting preys as quickly as possible one usually wins the game :). > > > > Yes, if the other Methuselahs let you do it. > > Not everyone is capable of cross table stuff. That's their problem. If people focus their decks on just bleeding their preys, they might win (of course), but they cannot complain about cross-table stuff. > By what means do people > win games in Palma anyway ? :) He, he... By means of many strategies (vote, bleed, rush, Sensory Deprivation, PTO ;-) etc. [...] [ quoted text not captured ] Of course it is a valid one, since it proves that those decks were not only based on PTO, otherwise they would have included more than 2 PTO, which has not been the case. > Number of tournament won by ToGP = 3 On the other hand, the decks based on ToGP use to include more than 2 ToGP (as you probably know), because ToGP has a more devastating effect than PTO. First of all, it can be used against ANY vampire, and the target of a ToGP risks to lose one of his or her vampires, and give that vampire to his predator (usually). With PTO, your vampire is "only" burned, not given to any other Methuselah so that he or she can do scary things to him or her (Minion Tap, Golconda, bleeding you, calling a referendum affecting you, rushing you, etc.) > Deck Name: The Turd > Created By: Rob Treasure [...] > It won 3 tournaments in past years (of those that are archived on > Lasombra's site) yet it was toned down for some reasons. Maybe TWD > archive is not end all be all indicator of all that is broken (you can > also have a look at how many times decks with misdirection won before > it receiwed most recent printing curse - answer: not many) > > What was interesting for me to noticed was that far more people who > played with 2+ justicars played without ToGP than people who played > with 2+ IC played with PTO. But it depends on their decks' concepts. Not every deck with Justicars needs ToGP. > > I am afraid that weenie Dominate decks (for instance) are much more scary than 1 or 2 PTO. > > Depends on the metagame, or so Omaya tells me. (and my argument about > PTO is that it is bad since it makes me (and other people too) not > want to play with big non-Camarilla vampires, which in turn reduce > variability of the game) There are always ways to play with big non-Camarilla vampires. When I build non-Camarilla decks I never think: "oh, I will be probably PTO'ed sometime during the game", because I do not see PTO as a major or probable threat. Only when I see an IC member on a table, I begin to worry about being PTO'ed. > > > > > Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > > > > > others in this thread. > > > > > > > > But feasible. > > > > > > Not really. > > > > Then a defense against PTO is not even necessary at all. Just ignore that card. ;-) > > Defense is not necessary, well because there is no defense. Well, as I mentioned on previous posts, it is possible for anyone to defend against PTO. You just need to be able to intercept, play DI, or to do cross-table stuff. Greetings, Damnans

James Coupe wrote: > In message <3D84A88A...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> > writes: > >I said it was an exception because those decks are not very common (at least in Spain), and because they > >terribly increase the "requirements" of playing a PTO, since they have to bring out Ingrid Rossler first, > >or Information Highway or Zillah's Valley to put an IC member in play as soon as possible. > > Playing Zillah's Valley - a card practically designed to bring out Inner > Circle members[0] at top speed and so a positive boon for the deck in > (almost) no uncertain terms - increases the requirements terribly? If you play with Zillah's Valley, you will probably include more than one in your deck. If you want to have a Zillah's Valley (or card alike) in your starting hand, you should have 12 copies of it in your 90 cards deck. That's a lot of space. > Isn't that rather like saying Bum's Rush terribly increases the > requirements of a rush deck aiming to get into combat easily? Well, if you really want to optimize a rush deck, you'd better play with vampires with special abilities granting them the possibility of attacking other minions. > Playing ICs (predominantly) is a very, very difficult design decision if > you *aren't* planning to get them out quickly (if your deck is primarily > about bringing one/more out, as opposed to having one or two there for > when you see your predator isn't about to swarm you to death). If your > IC decks aren't designing decks for high probabilities of good Zillah's, > Tomb or Info Highway flow, then they might as well be dead in the water. Sure ;-) That's why I say that playing with IC is not an easy task. It requires a lot of resources. So if you want your IC deck to survive and effectively play one or more PTO, you'd better be prepared to survive against swarms or other quick decks. > > Vampires that take more than two turns to get out with a high > probability (e.g. it's pretty likely if you only have one copy of Info > Highway in a 90 card deck, but increasingly less likely if you fiddle > with Zillah's, multiple Info Highway, Dreams of the Sphinx or whatever) > which are key to a deck's functioning and so the vampires it will bring > out are a *huge* problem to the deck. > > Pretty much for certain at the start, an IC deck is going to look a fair > bit like a single vampire deck. And if you get hit, you need to replace > them fast too - or you just get walked all over. Agreed. > Playing a deck with an IC focus, as a PTO deck is going to be for this > usage of it, and planning to bring them out over three turns, not fewer? > Surely that's going to be the exception nowadays? But that does not mean PTO is overpowered (as others state). As you pointed out, decks with an IC focus need many resources to bring out vampires quickly, which means that playing PTO is not an easy and costless thing to do. [...] Greetings, Damnans

Karol Magda wrote: > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D83B581...@ono.com>... > > Karol Magda wrote: > > > > > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D80BD3E...@ono.com>... > > > > Derek Ray wrote: > > > > > > > > > In message <3D804851...@ono.com>, > > > > > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> mumbled something about: > > > > > > > > > > >There are several ways to burn vampires. The most common are combat and diablerie. > > > > > > > > > > > >PTO is the IC way to burn vampires, and it requires much more than the ways mentioned above: 11 > > > > > >pool (ready untapped IC member) + non-Camarilla vampire + political action + 1 blood + referedum > > > > > >passes. > > > > > > > > > > If you're playing with IC members, you already have them supported in > > > > > some fashion by your deck. Not significant to overcome. > > > > > > > > Not significant? I asure you that a 11 pool investment on a single vampire is quite significant. > > > > Besides, decks with IC members "use" to be slow. > > > > > > Depends. A Gangrel prince deck going first with infohigway (transfers > > > on ingrid) , second turn ingrid , fourth turn Stanislava is anything > > > but slow. > > > > It's an exception. Do not talk about exceptions. > > When you play with big vampires (be it for PtO , ToGP or something > else) you should play with as much of speed enhancers as your deck > space afford or be prepared to be swarmed by weenie or stealth bleed > or anything fast. Which implies more deck slots occupied by those "speed enhancers", decreasing the number of other cards (bleed actions, action modifiers, political actions, reactions, etc.) you could use in your deck. > > > > > > > > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > > > > > these days. Not a significant issue. > > > > > > > > Maybe that percentage will be quite lower since the release of the Camarilla Edition. > > > > > > This is only temporary, since people will want to play with new toys. > > > However Camarilla is only 6.5 clans out of 20+ avaiable. > > > > The Camarilla has SEVEN (not 6.5) clans, plus the Caitiff, 1 Assamite, 3 DoC, 1 FoS, 2 Samedi ;-P > > I wrote 6.5 because in time the Anarchs will be released wast array of > independent gangrels will be printed, hopefully. Caitiff is not a clan > IIRC :). I never said it was a clan. I only said: "The Camarilla has SEVEN (not 6.5) clans, plus the Caitiff", not "the Camarilla has 8 clans" ;-P When The Anarchs is released there will surely be indpendent Gangrel, but the default sect of the Gangrel will still be the Camarilla. I wonder why you are so obsessed with Camarilla clans being so good. People (like you) win tournaments with non-Camarilla clans as well. I think the proportion between Camarilla and non-Camarilla tournament winning decks has more to do with players' sect or clan preferences than with an objective Camarilla superiority. [...] > > > > The most important thing is if those non-Camarilla vampires are controlled by your predator or prey. > > > > Cross-table PTOs will have to do with the course of the game. > > > > > > > > > Political action + referendum passing -- IC members have 4 votes, and > > > > > all too frequently IC decks are political decks already. Not a > > > > > significant issue to overcome. > > > > > > > > Not significant again?. What happens? Other clans lack titled vampires? You always make your votes > > > > pass when you control an IC member? If so, tell me your secret ;-) > > > > > > Independent clans usually aren't that good at voting for some reasons > > > (like that they lacks votes). Passing any vote without even a vote > > > lock depends on your skills of negotiation/explanation/manipulations. > > > > Sure ;-) > > > > > Last night there were votes flying everywhere. I did however protected > > > some of my grandprey's 9 cap anyway. > > > > And who won? > > 5 VP to Corner case Gangrel Prince Deck :) ,1 VP to the poor 'he looks > like a threat and he is non-Camarilla too so let's protect him table' > Lasombra vote/bleed deck. Good for the Gangrel ;-) [...] > > > > > - Votes (Independent voters are significantly weaker than any other > > > > > voters, and they don't have a prayer of stopping Awe) > > > > > > > > At least, Assamites have Alamut. > > > > > > Alamut won't stop Awe played by medium full IC. > > > > Then you are taking about one more requirement for PTO (i.e., AWE). I am starting to think PTO is > > underpowered ;-P (he, he) > > Wrong, in order to alamut be of a problem for an IC it must have like > 4-5 counters on it which means that I spent like 3 bleed actions with > my assamites to acumulate counters (only tree because I play with > hacking or tasha and I assumed that I got it in my hand or something), Remember that there are Assamites with Presence or Dominate (and Auspex = Pulse of the Canaille), who can increase their bleeds. > I also invested a pool and MPA to bring alamut in play. My predator > play protect. I tap alamut and burn all counters. He then plays awe. > His additional cards played with conjunction with awe caused my three > action to be meaningless, (since I will lost my best > offensive/defensive vampire soon I will probably die pretty fast and > be unable to finsh my prey), and I spent a pool and MPA on a card > which didn't helped. You always think that PTO is always followed by an Awe, and that's not true. If you carefully read PTO's text, you will see that it does not read: "when playing PTO, search your library for an Awe and put it in your hand" ;-P [ quoted text not captured ] Several actions taken by several 2 or 3 capacity vampires (remember). > and > plenty of cards. Plenty of cards?????? a Bum's Rush and a Claws of the Dead (during strike resolution, i.e., after the strikes have been announced) per vampire are plenty of cards? Besides, rushes and claws is all what those decks do. [...] > > > > > >Shambling Hordes > > > > > > > > > > If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. > > > > > > > > Of course, if you base that deck on him, but basing a deck on a single vampire is usually stupid. > > > > > > And basing decks on a two action war ghouls with charisma and small > > > tsimisce is not stupid ? Or more fragile ? > > > > At all, if you have means to put them in play. > > +3 stealth which such deck can generate might be not enough :) Remember that Little Taylor has inferior Dementation, and that can play Mind Tricks to get +1 stealth. And do not forget that Creepshow Casino is an essential card in a Warghoul deck. So we are talking about a possible +5 stealth. ;-) > > However, basing a deck on a single vampire is too risky, because if you lose that vampire, your chances to > > win decrease tremendously. > > > > > Basing deck on single (big vampire) is the only possible way how you > > > can play them effectively (as otherwise you are unable to play with > > > all his disciplines which in turns means that you should have put > > > younger vampire in your deck in the first place) > > > > But who want to play with all of the disciplines of a 10-11 capacity vampire? I repeat, the more you focus > > your strategy on a single vampire the more fragile your deck becomes. > > You clearly do not play with say assamites that often. Camarilla big > vampires usually played are those with title of at least prince. That > means that when youd design a deck around big cammie vamp you count on > 3 of their in clans disciplines, their prince/justicar 'discipline' > their I am member of clan 'discipline' and their 'hey I can vote' > 'discipline'. When playing with assamite you can only count on first > three and the last discipline. That is not enough to justify playing > with big vampire. But PTO has nothing to do with it. > You would be better of just to weeniefy your crypt > and be more efficient, unless you include another factor - out of clan > disciplines. Given the fact that say Thetmes and Tegyrius have very > different discipline spreads it is clear to see, why you must base > your deck on one big vampire if you want to play succesfully with > them. Yes, but that makes you weak, unless your deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires. > > [...] > > > > > > > >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > > > > > > > > > I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not > > > > > viable by a single card. Useful. > > > > > > > > He, he... I would rather say: "by a single card that can only be effectively called by 2 or 3 > > > > vampires" > > > > > > It does not matter that it can be only played by 2-3 vamps > > > effectively. As long as it will render large quantities of > > > vampires/clans useless it will be played and abused. > > > > You miss the point. That's exactly what matters. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the proportion of > > tournament decks including PTO prove you are wrong. > > > I countered your point by giving example of how only 3 ToGP TWD deck > archived on Lasombra site 'caused' most recent printing curse on TOGP. > Also consider this card: > > I am the True Queen > > Played only by Arike > +1 Stealth action > Your prey's pool is reduced to zero. > Can be played by Arika only. And is still broken. Ha, ha...you are almost comparing PTO to this nice card ;-) and you should not, since PTO only burns a non-Camarilla vampire, it does not burn pool, nor ousts anynone. BTW, I have found another way to deal with PTO: Soul Gem of Etrius. With this equipment, your big non-Camarilla vampire's unlife will not come to an end in vain, since another younger vampire will occupy his or her place on your ready region. Besides, if you play with vampires with Necromancy, you can always attempt to resurrect your PTO'ed vampire via Possession. Greetings, Damnans

>This is what I hate about PTO. You can't reasonably defend against it. >I wouldn't have been able to intercept the vote, since I was >cross-table; I had just burned my DI preventing my prey from ousting his >own prey, and I had no votes to vote it down with. If it were a (D) >action at +1 stealth, it would be much more possible to defend against >it; but as it is, the cross-table PTO is indefensible. What I hate about it is that anyone could possibly consider its effect to have any value to the game whatsoever. No action should ever come close to what the card does. It's just grossly unfair. Just because a card doesn't break the game is not enough of a reason for the card to exist. >PTO is a crock of shit, though. What he said.

In message <3D874941...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> writes: >Sure ;-) That's why I say that playing with IC is not an easy task. It requires a lot of resources. Sticking half a dozen copies of Zillah's Valley (or four, with two Info Highway, or whatever) in a deck is obviously a very different definition of "a lot of resources" to the one I was previously aware of. Swarm decks using Embrace clearly require a lot of resources to set up, too, by this definition. Info Highway, Effective Management, Embrace... my god, will these demands never cease? I would also note that quoting the entire previous post is unnecessary. You only need to quote enough to get context. If I can put up a screen and get thirty lines of quote without any new content, you've almost certainly given *way* more than context. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <3D874941...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> > writes: > >Sure ;-) That's why I say that playing with IC is not an easy task. It requires a lot of resources. > > Sticking half a dozen copies of Zillah's Valley (or four, with two Info > Highway, or whatever) in a deck is obviously a very different definition > of "a lot of resources" to the one I was previously aware of. > > Swarm decks using Embrace clearly require a lot of resources to set up, Not so many ;-) It's not the same putting in play a IC member than an Embrace, or a 2 capacity vampire. And remember that swarm decks take lots of actions. [...] > I would also note that quoting the entire previous post is unnecessary. > You only need to quote enough to get context. If I can put up a screen > and get thirty lines of quote without any new content, you've almost > certainly given *way* more than context. Thanks for the advice ;-) I'll take it into account. Greetings, Damnans

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D875106...@ono.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Are you not using speed enhancers when playing with big vampires ? Be it PTO deck, TOGP deck or Any big vampire deck ? My comment was about Big vampires decks as a group so your argument in this case is not valid. > > > > > > > > > > > > Non-Camarilla vampire -- 99% certain to see one of these at your table, > > > > > > these days. Not a significant issue. > > > > > > > > > > Maybe that percentage will be quite lower since the release of the Camarilla Edition. > > > > > > > > This is only temporary, since people will want to play with new toys. > > > > However Camarilla is only 6.5 clans out of 20+ avaiable. > > > > > > The Camarilla has SEVEN (not 6.5) clans, plus the Caitiff, 1 Assamite, 3 DoC, 1 FoS, 2 Samedi ;-P > > > > I wrote 6.5 because in time the Anarchs will be released wast array of > > independent gangrels will be printed, hopefully. Caitiff is not a clan > > IIRC :). > > I never said it was a clan. I only said: "The Camarilla has SEVEN (not 6.5) clans, plus the Caitiff", not "the > Camarilla has 8 clans" ;-P > > When The Anarchs is released there will surely be indpendent Gangrel, but the default sect of the Gangrel will > still be the Camarilla. > > I wonder why you are so obsessed with Camarilla clans being so good. People (like you) win tournaments with > non-Camarilla clans as well. I am not obssesed anything. I just thing that PTO is comparable to TOGP of old and with recent change to TOGP I am surprised that PTO was also not toned down. Also note the Omaya deck you are refering to, gains very little from non-camarilla status (it uses/ used some of the clan/sabbat specific cards in it's various incarnations but none of this are really crucial, and If there was Camarilla clan with AUS/ANI clan disciplines I would used this setup over the current one...) Also note that people were able to win even in face of old misdirection or old TOGP or Hostile Takeover. It didn't imply hovewer that this cards were balanced or something. [ quoted text not captured ] Yes there are, most of the time I would rather play with Tasha (or Hacking)instead of Pulse and with three pool gained from blood doll (which was not spent on pulse) I would rather influence Harika , but that's just me. > > > I also invested a pool and MPA to bring alamut in play. My predator > > play protect. I tap alamut and burn all counters. He then plays awe. > > His additional cards played with conjunction with awe caused my three > > action to be meaningless, (since I will lost my best > > offensive/defensive vampire soon I will probably die pretty fast and > > be unable to finsh my prey), and I spent a pool and MPA on a card > > which didn't helped. > > You always think that PTO is always followed by an Awe, and that's not true. If you carefully read PTO's text, > you will see that it does not read: "when playing PTO, search your library for an Awe and put it in your hand" > ;-P I do not think that PTO is allways followed by Awe and I really know the text of PTO. Even against single IC calling PTO alamut might not be enough of defense. And even if it was it is a master slot dedicated to beat an action. Not that good type of counter. [ quoted text not captured ] I know. Still several is several. You might not have several bum's rushes in your hand to perform this. I would say that their capacity is more like 3-4 than 2-3 > > > and > > plenty of cards. > > Plenty of cards?????? a Bum's Rush and a Claws of the Dead (during strike resolution, i.e., after the strikes > have been announced) per vampire are plenty of cards? If they burn that IC after taking 4 actions (torpor on third rush and fourth action for diablerie) it costed than 4 action, 6 cards and 3-4 pool to take that IC down. That's a lot even for a weenie deck. > > Besides, rushes and claws is all what those decks do. Surely they also play with computer hackings in order to oust someone, do they ? > > [...] > > > > > > > >Shambling Hordes > > > > > > > > > > > > If Andrea Giovanni gets PTO'd, a Shambling Hordes deck will die slowly. > > > > > > > > > > Of course, if you base that deck on him, but basing a deck on a single vampire is usually stupid. > > > > > > > > And basing decks on a two action war ghouls with charisma and small > > > > tsimisce is not stupid ? Or more fragile ? > > > > > > At all, if you have means to put them in play. > > > > +3 stealth which such deck can generate might be not enough :) > > Remember that Little Taylor has inferior Dementation, and that can play Mind Tricks to get +1 stealth. > > And do not forget that Creepshow Casino is an essential card in a Warghoul deck. > > So we are talking about a possible +5 stealth. ;-) And you told before that Little Tailor is not crucial :) > > > > However, basing a deck on a single vampire is too risky, because if you lose that vampire, your chances to > > > win decrease tremendously. > > > > > > > Basing deck on single (big vampire) is the only possible way how you > > > > can play them effectively (as otherwise you are unable to play with > > > > all his disciplines which in turns means that you should have put > > > > younger vampire in your deck in the first place) > > > > > > But who want to play with all of the disciplines of a 10-11 capacity vampire? I repeat, the more you focus > > > your strategy on a single vampire the more fragile your deck becomes. > > > > You clearly do not play with say assamites that often. Camarilla big > > vampires usually played are those with title of at least prince. That > > means that when youd design a deck around big cammie vamp you count on > > 3 of their in clans disciplines, their prince/justicar 'discipline' > > their I am member of clan 'discipline' and their 'hey I can vote' > > 'discipline'. When playing with assamite you can only count on first > > three and the last discipline. That is not enough to justify playing > > with big vampire. > > But PTO has nothing to do with it. Given the way things are , PTO punish you excessively for playing with big assamite vampires (which is difficult feat even WITHOUT taking PTO into picture) > > > You would be better of just to weeniefy your crypt > > and be more efficient, unless you include another factor - out of clan > > disciplines. Given the fact that say Thetmes and Tegyrius have very > > different discipline spreads it is clear to see, why you must base > > your deck on one big vampire if you want to play succesfully with > > them. > > Yes, but that makes you weak, unless your deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires. My deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires by playing with all of their disciplines (why it is the way to go , is explained above) PTO makes this strategy (of playing with big non-Camarilla vampires) very hard to implement. Thus it follows that PTO makes playing with big non-Camarilla vampires harder. Do you think it is a good think ? (given the fact that such decks are far from being overpowered) > > > > [...] > > > > > > > > > >No the best cardless defense so far is playing with weenies or with Camarilla vampires ;-) > > > > > > > > > > > > I see, so a good 70% of the vampires in this game are rendered not > > > > > > viable by a single card. Useful. > > > > > > > > > > He, he... I would rather say: "by a single card that can only be effectively called by 2 or 3 > > > > > vampires" > > > > > > > > It does not matter that it can be only played by 2-3 vamps > > > > effectively. As long as it will render large quantities of > > > > vampires/clans useless it will be played and abused. > > > > > > You miss the point. That's exactly what matters. As I have mentioned in a previous post, the proportion of > > > tournament decks including PTO prove you are wrong. > > > > > I countered your point by giving example of how only 3 ToGP TWD deck > > archived on Lasombra site 'caused' most recent printing curse on TOGP. > > Also consider this card: > > > > I am the True Queen > > > > Played only by Arike > > +1 Stealth action > > Your prey's pool is reduced to zero. > > > Can be played by Arika only. And is still broken. > > Ha, ha...you are almost comparing PTO to this nice card ;-) and you should not, since PTO only burns a > non-Camarilla vampire, it does not burn pool, nor ousts anynone. How often does not burning 10 cap vampire by single card on turn it comes into play does not oust that player ? > > BTW, I have found another way to deal with PTO: Soul Gem of Etrius. With this equipment, your big non-Camarilla > vampire's unlife will not come to an end in vain, since another younger vampire will occupy his or her place on > your ready region. Well, another card which is inferior (unless implemented in certain combo deck you are well aware of) compared to PTO. Also note that lot of the time you would only draw second copy of the same vampire burned which would only adds insult to injury. Also having Fida'i on the table is far different than having Thetmes on the table. > > Besides, if you play with vampires with Necromancy, you can always attempt to resurrect your PTO'ed vampire via > Possession. Well possesion is most of the time used with conjunction of Might of Camarilla or Soul Gem. I don't think Giovanni power bleed (deck capable of playing possesion) would bother to play with possesion as a counter to PTO. Do you think otherwise ? Also note that counters you are suggesting are only marginally usefull to counter single card. Whereas protect can target all non-Camarilla vampires (which is huge percentage of total vampires) Karol

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D874600...@ono.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] He, he :) > > > Even if he bids progressively it is quite easy to screw yourself up > > with ToGP. The chosen vampire might go to completly different player > > althogether (one with vast pool for instance) > > Then, the Methuselah who played the ToGP does not pay any additional pool (only the 3 pool cost of that > master card), and you have lost a vampire. That vampire is somewhere on the table and might be able to give game win to that player. It happened lots of the time when ToGP was played. > > > and given vampire might > > continue to be menace (saw this several times). ToGP compared to PtO > > is VERY difficult to implement and play correctly. (other players > > usually interfere with ToGP player by increasing bids for ToGP if it > > seems that he would gain vampire too cheaply for example} > > And in PTO other players also use to interfere with their votes. That's true. The perif og interference in this case is much lesser than that when ToGP is played. (since you cannot directly die after playing PTO , but you can when you play TOGP) [ quoted text not captured ] There is no data. It is my personal experience. (which was stated above). Besides I am quite aware what data can or can not do. Doing any statistic on any kind of data is very tricky. > > [...] > > > > > > > > > As to your counters > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Rushing IC when it enters (even cross table) play just to ensure I do > > > > > > > > not receive PTO later is stupid. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Maybe, unless you think the IC member's controllers sees you as a threat. > > > > > > > > > > > > So I will act because he think that I think that I see him as threat ? > > > > > > > > > > You'd better act to win the game, and not only to oust your preys as quickly as possible. > > > > > > > > By ousting preys as quickly as possible one usually wins the game :). > > > > > > Yes, if the other Methuselahs let you do it. > > > > Not everyone is capable of cross table stuff. > > That's their problem. If people focus their decks on just bleeding their preys, they might win (of course), > but they cannot complain about cross-table stuff. They can hovewer complain when one card is excessively strong. > > > By what means do people > > win games in Palma anyway ? :) > > He, he... By means of many strategies (vote, bleed, rush, Sensory Deprivation, PTO ;-) etc. And usually they want to won as slowest as possible, especially in those tournaments game, do they ? :) [ quoted text not captured ] No they use TWO cards slot to counter whole groups of strategies relying on non-camarilla vampires. How fair. > > > Number of tournament won by ToGP = 3 > > On the other hand, the decks based on ToGP use to include more than 2 ToGP (as you probably know), because 2 used three. 1 used more than three. Not that big difference. > ToGP has a more devastating effect than PTO. First of all, it can be used against ANY vampire, and the > target of a ToGP risks to lose one of his or her vampires, and give that vampire to his predator (usually). The comparision of TOGP and PTO was done before. It was showed that they were on equal power. Actually using the TWD winning example the PTO were more powerful since they were used in more decks than TOGP. (you brought TWD into debate so deal with consequences :) ) > > With PTO, your vampire is "only" burned, not given to any other Methuselah so that he or she can do scary > things to him or her (Minion Tap, Golconda, bleeding you, calling a referendum affecting you, rushing you, > etc.) Only burned usually means burned forever. > > > Deck Name: The Turd > > Created By: Rob Treasure > > [...] > > > It won 3 tournaments in past years (of those that are archived on > > Lasombra's site) yet it was toned down for some reasons. Maybe TWD > > archive is not end all be all indicator of all that is broken (you can > > also have a look at how many times decks with misdirection won before > > it receiwed most recent printing curse - answer: not many) > > > > What was interesting for me to noticed was that far more people who > > played with 2+ justicars played without ToGP than people who played > > with 2+ IC played with PTO. > > But it depends on their decks' concepts. Not every deck with Justicars needs ToGP. And every Inner Circle needs PTO ? Is it that what statement above implies ? Remember 2 action slot used to counter multitudes of strategies. The card is so efficient that dedicating more than two slots to it is a waste of space. (unless they want real overkill or expect all non-Camarilla field) > > > > I am afraid that weenie Dominate decks (for instance) are much more scary than 1 or 2 PTO. > > > > Depends on the metagame, or so Omaya tells me. (and my argument about > > PTO is that it is bad since it makes me (and other people too) not > > want to play with big non-Camarilla vampires, which in turn reduce > > variability of the game) > > There are always ways to play with big non-Camarilla vampires. When I build non-Camarilla decks I never > think: "oh, I will be probably PTO'ed sometime during the game", because I do not see PTO as a major or > probable threat. Only when I see an IC member on a table, I begin to worry about being PTO'ed. > > > > > > > Card defense against PTO are much more problematic as explained by > > > > > > others in this thread. > > > > > > > > > > But feasible. > > > > > > > > Not really. > > > > > > Then a defense against PTO is not even necessary at all. Just ignore that card. ;-) > > > > Defense is not necessary, well because there is no defense. > > Well, as I mentioned on previous posts, it is possible for anyone to defend against PTO. You just need to be > able to intercept, play DI, or to do cross-table stuff. Most of those defenses were consulted and countered by me or other posters. PTO as it is now (with recent changes to comparable card) is overpowered. Karol

In message <3D88981C...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> writes: >> >Sure ;-) That's why I say that playing with IC is not an easy task. It requires a lot of resources. >> >> Sticking half a dozen copies of Zillah's Valley (or four, with two Info >> Highway, or whatever) in a deck is obviously a very different definition >> of "a lot of resources" to the one I was previously aware of. >> >> Swarm decks using Embrace clearly require a lot of resources to set up, > >Not so many ;-) With regards Zillah's Valley vs Embrace, it's more or less the same. 6-8 cards in a deck is not generally "a lot of resources". Lots of decks do similar sort of card requirements for general set-up, if they're playing something that wants it. 2 or 3 Effective Managements, 2 or 3 Info Highways[0], a Tomb, Zillah's Valley or whatever - that's not a lot of set-up. With a common methodology of around 20% of a deck being master cards, that's 18 in a 90 card deck. Taking out the obvious discipline cards (an IC deck should, generally, be heading towards the disciplines it needs, you'd expect), you get a couple of cards back in the deck. Finding decks using three or four such cards already isn't that difficult. Say, http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k2origins2 which has 2 Eco Terrorists (inappropriate for a fast start on an IC deck, of course) and 2 Info Highway. Obviously, not all decks want to. But we're playing an Inner Circle deck here. Like when playing a combat deck and you include the combative cards for getting into combat (be that permanents with Freak Drive, Bum's Rush, or whatever), you include the cards that make the deck *work*. Speeding up IC decks makes them work. Sure, it can be a bit of a bind. But if you don't include them, that's three turns to bring out Alexandra (or whoever you're choosing) - four (!) if you get first transfers. Just like if you don't include Bum's Rush (or one of multiple variants) in your rush deck, you'll find getting into combat a tad more tricky. And yes, playing those Bewitching Orations in a bruise-and-vote deck is a bit of a bind, but hey, it could be worse. You pick what's best for your deck. And almost every deck has some element of "uninteresting" staple cards which they need to play. That doesn't make them expensive, it tends to make them very necessary. >It's not the same putting in play a IC member than an Embrace, or a 2 capacity vampire. >And remember that swarm decks take lots of actions. Sure. That's very different to "a lot of resources", though. *Any* competent Inner Circle focus deck is going to be using similar tactics with regards getting vampires out. It simply has to, or it'll just die when its predator is the weenie swarm from hell. This isn't unique to PTO, it isn't unique to IC decks even. Any big vampire deck, or single vampire deck, is going to be doing similar things. (Such will, of course, vary slightly in their composition, as suits each deck.) Inner Circle members comes out in two turns (or, if dunlucky, three, but pretty much certainly not the four turn horror). True of any IC deck that wants to be fast and effective. So, let's try a few situations to go with this. Situation: Inner Circle deck plays, say, Obfuscate bleeds with large vampires, Presence, Dominate whatever. The "uninteresting" set-up for it, was, say, 2 Information Highways, 5 Zillah's Valley. (Just picking numbers randomly.) Situation: Inner Circle deck does some neat trick with Alexandra, Chimerstry and Illusions of the Kindred. (Ben Peal's idea, as I recall.) Similar set-up, to get out an Alexandra fast and replace her if she dies (or you Golconda them, say). Situation: The Inner Circle deck gets out vampires fast, and uses Govern the Unaligned to generate pool and get out other vampires fast too. Similar set-up. Situation: PTO. It uses a similar set-up to the above. Does it get a much bigger swing than others? I'm still unsure. But it's just the same set-up as other IC decks bringing out vampires fast. Sure, bring out vampires slowly if you want. And don't put Bum's Rush variants in your rush deck. That's not a lot of resources, that's playing the right cards in the right deck. I'm unsure whether I like, say, Arika being able to come out fast, Secure Haven herself (optional), Mind Rape a vampire, Clan Impersonate them and then burn them. Or even just throwing in half a dozen PTOs into a deck, throwing them at the vampires that get in their way, at either pred or prey most of the time. It strikes me as, uh, interesting. [0] Tangentially, Info Highway is one of the cards that contributed to the law of inverse probability. One Portsmouth player always had problems bringing out Info Highway when he put four in the deck. With three, he 'always' got one in his first hand. Ain't shuffling wonderful? [ quoted text not captured ]

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > > When you play with big vampires (be it for PtO , ToGP or something > > > else) you should play with as much of speed enhancers as your deck > > > space afford or be prepared to be swarmed by weenie or stealth bleed > > > or anything fast. > > > > Which implies more deck slots occupied by those "speed enhancers", decreasing the number of other cards (bleed > > actions, action modifiers, political actions, reactions, etc.) you could use in your deck. > > Are you not using speed enhancers when playing with big vampires ? Be > it PTO deck, TOGP deck or Any big vampire deck ? Of course I do: Powerbase: Montreal Information Highway Zillah's Valley Honor the Elders etc. > My comment was about > Big vampires decks as a group so your argument in this case is not > valid. But I also use enough cards to defend myself and the first IC member I put in play against swarms. [...] > > I wonder why you are so obsessed with Camarilla clans being so good. People (like you) win tournaments with > > non-Camarilla clans as well. > > I am not obssesed anything. I just thing that PTO is comparable to > TOGP of old and with recent change to TOGP I am surprised that PTO was > also not toned down. I countered that before. ToGP is an instant effect (you'd better have a Sudden Reversal in your hand), while PTO is not (it is a an action -which can be blocked-, and a vote -which must be voted-). > Also note the Omaya deck you are refering to, > gains very little from non-camarilla status (it uses/ used some of the > clan/sabbat specific cards in it's various incarnations but none of > this are really crucial, and If there was Camarilla clan with AUS/ANI > clan disciplines I would used this setup over the current one...) You could use Alexandra, and call a PTO from time to time ;-P > Also note that people were able to win even in face of old > misdirection or old TOGP or Hostile Takeover. It didn't imply hovewer > that this cards were balanced or something. True. [...] > > > I also invested a pool and MPA to bring alamut in play. My predator > > > play protect. I tap alamut and burn all counters. He then plays awe. > > > His additional cards played with conjunction with awe caused my three > > > action to be meaningless, (since I will lost my best > > > offensive/defensive vampire soon I will probably die pretty fast and > > > be unable to finsh my prey), and I spent a pool and MPA on a card > > > which didn't helped. > > > > You always think that PTO is always followed by an Awe, and that's not true. If you carefully read PTO's text, > > you will see that it does not read: "when playing PTO, search your library for an Awe and put it in your hand" > > ;-P > > I do not think that PTO is allways followed by Awe and I really know > the text of PTO. Even against single IC calling PTO alamut might not > be enough of defense. And even if it was it is a master slot dedicated > to beat an action. Not that good type of counter. But, at least the Assamites have some defense against politics. > > > The burning of IC by sadie in this case costed several actions > > > > Several actions taken by several 2 or 3 capacity vampires (remember). > > I know. Still several is several. You might not have several bum's > rushes in your hand to perform this. Or just ONE Haven Uncovered. > > > and > > > plenty of cards. > > > > Plenty of cards?????? a Bum's Rush and a Claws of the Dead (during strike resolution, i.e., after the strikes > > have been announced) per vampire are plenty of cards? > > If they burn that IC after taking 4 actions (torpor on third rush and > fourth action for diablerie) it costed than 4 action, 6 cards and 3-4 > pool to take that IC down. That's a lot even for a weenie deck. I am afraid you forget that you could use far less cards: Example: You play Haven Uncovered on Arika Let's suppose Sadie sends Arika into torpor during the third action. Sadie can diablerize Arika during that action via Amaranth. So you have needed 3 cards and 3 actions. [...] > Given the way things are , PTO punish you excessively for playing with > big assamite vampires (which is difficult feat even WITHOUT taking PTO > into picture) I repeat: only if there is an IC member on the table, and there are some PTO in that deck. > > > You would be better of just to weeniefy your crypt > > > and be more efficient, unless you include another factor - out of clan > > > disciplines. Given the fact that say Thetmes and Tegyrius have very > > > different discipline spreads it is clear to see, why you must base > > > your deck on one big vampire if you want to play succesfully with > > > them. > > > > Yes, but that makes you weak, unless your deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires. > > My deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires by playing > with all of their disciplines (why it is the way to go , is explained > above) PTO makes this strategy (of playing with big non-Camarilla > vampires) very hard to implement. Thus it follows that PTO makes > playing with big non-Camarilla vampires harder. Do you think it is a > good think ? (given the fact that such decks are far from being > overpowered) Non-Camarilla clans are far from being underpowered. I give you a few examples below: Lasombra Ventrue Antitribu Tzimisce Giovanni Followers of Set Ravnos Toreador Antitribu etc. The Assamite clan is a combat-oriented one. If your big Assamite vampires are not able to deal with IC members, I am sorry for them >:-) [...] > > Ha, ha...you are almost comparing PTO to this nice card ;-) and you should not, since PTO only burns a > > non-Camarilla vampire, it does not burn pool, nor ousts anynone. > > How often does not burning 10 cap vampire by single card on turn it > comes into play does not oust that player ? The probability of what your example is very, very low, and therefore an exception. We should not talk about exceptions. > > BTW, I have found another way to deal with PTO: Soul Gem of Etrius. With this equipment, your big non-Camarilla > > vampire's unlife will not come to an end in vain, since another younger vampire will occupy his or her place on > > your ready region. > > Well, another card which is inferior (unless implemented in certain > combo deck you are well aware of) compared to PTO. Also note that lot > of the time you would only draw second copy of the same vampire burned > which would only adds insult to injury. Also having Fida'i on the > table is far different than having Thetmes on the table. Including several copies of a single vampire in your crypt is often risky. I prefer to include just 1 copy of a single vampire in my crypts (when possible). > > Besides, if you play with vampires with Necromancy, you can always attempt to resurrect your PTO'ed vampire via > > Possession. > > Well possesion is most of the time used with conjunction of Might of > Camarilla or Soul Gem. Most of the time? :-o > I don't think Giovanni power bleed (deck > capable of playing possesion) would bother to play with possesion as a > counter to PTO. Do you think otherwise ? They also have better options (see below). > Also note that counters you are suggesting are only marginally usefull > to counter single card. Whereas protect can target all non-Camarilla > vampires (which is huge percentage of total vampires) Here is a list of possible PTO counters: Direct Intervention ;-) Derange (played by a Malkavian Antitribu) Pentex Subversion played on an IC member Intercept (Auspex, Animalism, etc.) Stealth reduction (Chimerstry) -The Ravnos can pretty deal with PTO- Vote reactions (Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, Dread Gaze, Treachery, Elder Kindred Network...) Sensory Deprivation, Sensory Overload... Delaying Tactics (I disagree with you and Derek on the fact that Delaying Tactics is not useful against PTO, because it actually delays the vote one turn AND makes the action modifiers played during that political action USELESS, and WASTED -Awe, Daring the Dawn, etc.-) Titles (Lasombra, Ventrue Antitribu, and other Sabbat clans have Cardinals, Archbishops and Prisci. You are almost always talking about Independent vampires). etc. Greetings, Damnans

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > > and given vampire might > > > continue to be menace (saw this several times). ToGP compared to PtO > > > is VERY difficult to implement and play correctly. (other players > > > usually interfere with ToGP player by increasing bids for ToGP if it > > > seems that he would gain vampire too cheaply for example} > > > > And in PTO other players also use to interfere with their votes. > > That's true. The perif og interference in this case is much lesser > than that when ToGP is played. (since you cannot directly die after > playing PTO , but you can when you play TOGP) You miss the point. It is not the same degree of interference, since the interference in a PTO referendum determines whether PTO takes effect or not, while the interference in a ToGP does not mean you keep control of your tempted vampire (it has to do with who will control "your" vampire).> > > > Not everyone is capable of cross table stuff. > > > > That's their problem. If people focus their decks on just bleeding their preys, they might win (of course), > > but they cannot complain about cross-table stuff. > > They can hovewer complain when one card is excessively strong. Which is not the case ;-P > > > By what means do people > > > win games in Palma anyway ? :) > > > > He, he... By means of many strategies (vote, bleed, rush, Sensory Deprivation, PTO ;-) etc. > > And usually they want to won as slowest as possible, especially in > those tournaments game, do they ? :) He, he... ;-) Sometimes :-P But there are always players (many) playing with quick decks (weenies, stealth/bleed...) > > Of course it is a valid one, since it proves that those decks were not only based on PTO, otherwise they > > would have included more than 2 PTO, which has not been the case. > > No they use TWO cards slot to counter whole groups of strategies > relying on non-camarilla vampires. How fair. I would rather say: "they use a two cards slot to ATTEMPT to burn a non-Camarilla vampire". [...] > > > What was interesting for me to noticed was that far more people who > > > played with 2+ justicars played without ToGP than people who played > > > with 2+ IC played with PTO. > > > > But it depends on their decks' concepts. Not every deck with Justicars needs ToGP. > > And every Inner Circle needs PTO ? Is it that what statement above > implies ? No, in fact I only have PTO in two of my many decks. One of them is an IC deck, and the other one is my brother's Toreador deck (with 2 Alexandra). I have no PTO in my Ventrue deck with ONE Arika (as I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include several copies of a single vampire in my crypt). PTO is not an vital card in a deck with 1 or 2 IC members. > Remember 2 action slot used to counter multitudes of > strategies. The card is so efficient that dedicating more than two > slots to it is a waste of space. (unless they want real overkill or > expect all non-Camarilla field) PTO does not counter strategies "stricto sensu", but it attempts to burn non-Camarilla vampires. Then, burning a vampire in combat or in any other way also counters strategies (regardless of the cards used in the process). Greetings, Damnans

James Coupe wrote: > In message <3D88981C...@ono.com>, Damnans <damna...@ono.com> > writes: > >> >Sure ;-) That's why I say that playing with IC is not an easy task. It requires a lot of resources. > >> > >> Sticking half a dozen copies of Zillah's Valley (or four, with two Info > >> Highway, or whatever) in a deck is obviously a very different definition > >> of "a lot of resources" to the one I was previously aware of. > >> > >> Swarm decks using Embrace clearly require a lot of resources to set up, > > > >Not so many ;-) > > With regards Zillah's Valley vs Embrace, it's more or less the same. > 6-8 cards in a deck is not generally "a lot of resources". Lots of > decks do similar sort of card requirements for general set-up, if > they're playing something that wants it. > > 2 or 3 Effective Managements, 2 or 3 Info Highways[0], a Tomb, Zillah's > Valley or whatever - that's not a lot of set-up. With a common > methodology of around 20% of a deck being master cards, that's 18 in a > 90 card deck. Taking out the obvious discipline cards (an IC deck > should, generally, be heading towards the disciplines it needs, you'd > expect), you get a couple of cards back in the deck. It's still not the same however, speeding up a weenie deck than an IC deck. Speeding up the latter requires more resources. Example: A weenie deck only needs a low pool investment, Information Highway, plus Effective Management (for instance). An IC deck needs a huge pool investment, Zillah's Valley (which increases the pool cost of an IC -in this case-, Information Highway, Tomb of Rameses III, Effective Management... If you want to recover that pool, you must also include Minion Tap. If you include Minion Tap you might see that you have too many master cards in your deck, which would make it necessary for you to include 2 or more Parthenon. Greetings, Damnans

<snip> > > > Of course it is a valid one, since it proves that those decks were not only based on PTO, otherwise they > > > would have included more than 2 PTO, which has not been the case. > > > > No they use TWO cards slot to counter whole groups of strategies > > relying on non-camarilla vampires. How fair. > > I would rather say: "they use a two cards slot to ATTEMPT to burn a non-Camarilla vampire". Where the attempt almost always succeed. By burning key vampire of a player on the table (by single card) (and remember there is always key vampire in player region unless he is playing weenie madness even if he do not constructed his deck with specific vampire in the mind) the PTO player disable/cripple his entire strategy. By single card. I repeat: by SINGLE card. > > [...] > > > > > What was interesting for me to noticed was that far more people who > > > > played with 2+ justicars played without ToGP than people who played > > > > with 2+ IC played with PTO. > > > > > > But it depends on their decks' concepts. Not every deck with Justicars needs ToGP. > > > > And every Inner Circle needs PTO ? Is it that what statement above > > implies ? > > No, in fact I only have PTO in two of my many decks. One of them is an IC deck, and the other one is my brother's > Toreador deck (with 2 Alexandra). > > I have no PTO in my Ventrue deck with ONE Arika (as I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include several copies of > a single vampire in my crypt). The argument was originally about 2+ IC in the crypt... How many of your decks with two or more IC does NOT use PTO ? How many of your decks with two or more Justicars didn't use 2 or more ToGP before it's errata ? If the card is absolote 'no-brainer' to include in deck (if all requirements are met) there's something wrong with the card, don't you think ? > > PTO is not an vital card in a deck with 1 or 2 IC members. > > > Remember 2 action slot used to counter multitudes of > > strategies. The card is so efficient that dedicating more than two > > slots to it is a waste of space. (unless they want real overkill or > > expect all non-Camarilla field) > > PTO does not counter strategies "stricto sensu", but it attempts to burn non-Camarilla vampires. Explained, why it counters strategies in various parts of this post. > > Then, burning a vampire in combat or in any other way also counters strategies (regardless of the cards used in > the process). The difference is of course that rush/(intercept) strategy (of burning vampires in combat) is about countering other people's strategies in that sense. It's Vampire version of magic counterspell deck with all of it's deckspace dedicated to this. I repeat whole deck dedicated to this one thing. With PTO I do not compromise my deck choise that much and I am able to do the same as decks mentioned above 60 percent of time. (given the fact this is roughly the proportion of non-Camarilla vs Camarilla vampires) Karol

<lots of things snipped> > I am not obssesed anything. I just thing that PTO is comparable to > TOGP of old and with recent change to TOGP I am surprised that PTO was > also not toned down. I countered that before. ToGP is an instant effect (you'd better have a Sudden Reversal in your hand), while PTO is not (it is a an action -which can be blocked-, and a vote -which must be voted-). PTO is deal or die card creating havoc on the table. Single card creating that havoc. ToGP is a master -which you must dedicate your precious master slot to- -which ca be suddened- -which you must have enough pool to play- -which DOES not remove vampire from the table, meaning that this vampire (even with other controller) can still be threat to your survivall- Requirements for playing ToGP are much steeper. It also can target any vampire. PTO requirements are easier to met. It can only target 60 percent of vampires. Observation 1: ToGP and PTO when all things are weighted are similar in power. Fact 1: ToGP effectiveness was toned down because it was overpowered. Corrollary 1: PTO is overpowered and needs to be toned down. > > > > > The burning of IC by sadie in this case costed several actions > > > > > > Several actions taken by several 2 or 3 capacity vampires (remember). > > > > I know. Still several is several. You might not have several bum's > > rushes in your hand to perform this. > > Or just ONE Haven Uncovered. > > > > > and > > > > plenty of cards. > > > > > > Plenty of cards?????? a Bum's Rush and a Claws of the Dead (during strike resolution, i.e., after the strikes > > > have been announced) per vampire are plenty of cards? > > > > If they burn that IC after taking 4 actions (torpor on third rush and > > fourth action for diablerie) it costed than 4 action, 6 cards and 3-4 > > pool to take that IC down. That's a lot even for a weenie deck. > > I am afraid you forget that you could use far less cards: > > Example: > > You play Haven Uncovered on Arika > Let's suppose Sadie sends Arika into torpor during the third action. > Sadie can diablerize Arika during that action via Amaranth. > > So you have needed 3 cards and 3 actions. On a perfect scenario, with Arika playing only majesty/staredown as a defense (but she has a fortitude, and there are other means of using fortitude than kiss my ra or daring) Hovewer explaining that you need 3 cards, 3 action, 1 MPA and 2-4 pool (plus a loss of momentum because of losing a weenie in controlled region) (depending on which weenie would be doing amaranth since you can not guarantee it will always be sadie) would be fair. And from that explanation it will turn out that even those ALTERNATE requirement for burning an IC are quite steep even for a weenie deck. > > [...] > > > Given the way things are , PTO punish you excessively for playing with > > big assamite vampires (which is difficult feat even WITHOUT taking PTO > > into picture) > > I repeat: only if there is an IC member on the table, and there are some PTO in that deck. The impilcation IC in deck => PTO in deck is almost always true. > > > > > You would be better of just to weeniefy your crypt > > > > and be more efficient, unless you include another factor - out of clan > > > > disciplines. Given the fact that say Thetmes and Tegyrius have very > > > > different discipline spreads it is clear to see, why you must base > > > > your deck on one big vampire if you want to play succesfully with > > > > them. > > > > > > Yes, but that makes you weak, unless your deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires. > > > > My deck is prepared to support big non-Camarilla vampires by playing > > with all of their disciplines (why it is the way to go , is explained > > above) PTO makes this strategy (of playing with big non-Camarilla > > vampires) very hard to implement. Thus it follows that PTO makes > > playing with big non-Camarilla vampires harder. Do you think it is a > > good think ? (given the fact that such decks are far from being > > overpowered) > > Non-Camarilla clans are far from being underpowered. I give you a few examples below: > > Lasombra > Ventrue Antitribu > Tzimisce > Giovanni > Followers of Set > Ravnos > Toreador Antitribu > etc. > Ravnos and Ventrue antitribu didn't won that many tournaments so far (it's your fault that you brought up TWD archive to your case :) ) , and I also remember that I intercepted (with my poor spanish skills) a conversation at VTES Spain yahoo group where you said that Ravnos (and Assamite) are not that good at winning tournaments (it was a while ago, in case you don't remember :) ) ... We are not talking about about non-Camarilla being underpowered (although numbers from TWD archive might point to that, heh you shouldn't really tried this TWD archive thing on me :) ) > The Assamite clan is a combat-oriented one. If your big Assamite vampires are not able to deal with IC members, I am > sorry for them >:-) Don't be sorry for them. Just realize that when playing with 8-10 caps not everything in your deck is combat in order to have a fighting change against other deck types. > > [...] > > > > Ha, ha...you are almost comparing PTO to this nice card ;-) and you should not, since PTO only burns a > > > non-Camarilla vampire, it does not burn pool, nor ousts anynone. > > > > How often does not burning 10 cap vampire by single card on turn it > > comes into play does not oust that player ? > > The probability of what your example is very, very low, and therefore an exception. > > We should not talk about exceptions. My statement above applies even if it happens later in the game. That is NOT an exception. > > > > BTW, I have found another way to deal with PTO: Soul Gem of Etrius. With this equipment, your big non-Camarilla > > > vampire's unlife will not come to an end in vain, since another younger vampire will occupy his or her place on > > > your ready region. > > > > Well, another card which is inferior (unless implemented in certain > > combo deck you are well aware of) compared to PTO. Also note that lot > > of the time you would only draw second copy of the same vampire burned > > which would only adds insult to injury. Also having Fida'i on the > > table is far different than having Thetmes on the table. > > Including several copies of a single vampire in your crypt is often risky. I prefer to include just 1 copy of a single > vampire in my crypts (when possible). Why don't you just attack my reasoning why it is necessary for some clans to play with multiplies copies of a given vampire, instead of saying 'it is risky' ? In perfect world I would also prefer to play with each vampire in my crypts only once. This is not a case most of the time (for a reasons described above). Playing with Thetmes,Tegyrius,Ur Shulgi,Aziz instead of 4xThetmes does not makes me any stronger against PTO. It makes me weaker against anything else since I can not gain maximum from my vampire's disciplines. > > > > Besides, if you play with vampires with Necromancy, you can always attempt to resurrect your PTO'ed vampire via > > > Possession. > > > > Well possesion is most of the time used with conjunction of Might of > > Camarilla or Soul Gem. > > Most of the time? :-o Yes, most of the time. Any other examples of GOOD decks which might use it ? > > > I don't think Giovanni power bleed (deck > > capable of playing possesion) would bother to play with possesion as a > > counter to PTO. Do you think otherwise ? > > They also have better options (see below). But surely there are not many, when you suggest useless (excluding soul gem / might of camarilla decks) cards as a way to deal with PTO. > > > Also note that counters you are suggesting are only marginally usefull > > to counter single card. Whereas protect can target all non-Camarilla > > vampires (which is huge percentage of total vampires) > > Here is a list of possible PTO counters: > > Direct Intervention ;-) > Derange (played by a Malkavian Antitribu) discussed before > Pentex Subversion played on an IC member stoled my idea :) > Intercept (Auspex, Animalism, etc.) > Stealth reduction (Chimerstry) -The Ravnos can pretty deal with PTO- > Vote reactions (Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, Dread Gaze, Treachery, Elder Kindred Network...) How often you play with this cards ? > Sensory Deprivation, Sensory Overload... Ravnos only, same argument as Derange apply (clan specific, not that good for remaining clans) > Delaying Tactics (I disagree with you and Derek on the fact that Delaying Tactics is not useful against PTO, because > it actually delays the vote one turn AND makes the action modifiers played during that political action USELESS, and > WASTED -Awe, Daring the Dawn, etc.-) > Titles (Lasombra, Ventrue Antitribu, and other Sabbat clans have Cardinals, Archbishops and Prisci. You are almost > always talking about Independent vampires). > etc. I can Protect usually even without vote lock. Karol

Karol Magda wrote: > > > > Of course it is a valid one, since it proves that those decks were not only based on PTO, otherwise they > > > > would have included more than 2 PTO, which has not been the case. > > > > > > No they use TWO cards slot to counter whole groups of strategies > > > relying on non-camarilla vampires. How fair. > > > > I would rather say: "they use a two cards slot to ATTEMPT to burn a non-Camarilla vampire". > > Where the attempt almost always succeed. By burning key vampire of a > player on the table (by single card) (and remember there is always key > vampire in player region unless he is playing weenie madness even if > he do not constructed his deck with specific vampire in the mind) the > PTO player disable/cripple his entire strategy. By single card. I > repeat: by SINGLE card. You may also lose your key vampire by other means (such as combat, for instance). The problem here is not that a SINGLE card (which is false) burns your key vampire. The problem is that your deck is not prepared for the loss of your key vampire (regardless of how it occurs). [...] > > I have no PTO in my Ventrue deck with ONE Arika (as I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include several copies of > > a single vampire in my crypt). > > The argument was originally about 2+ IC in the crypt... > > How many of your decks with two or more IC does NOT use PTO ? I do not usually play with IC members. They are too expensive and cannot play Traditions. So I only have 2 decks with 2 or more IC members (a Toreador vote deck, and an IC deck). Although I have 2 more decks with 1 IC member (a Ventrue vote deck, a Nosfetatu vote deck, and a Perfect Clarity/Bleed deck -none of which has a single PTO-). > How many of your decks with two or more Justicars didn't use 2 or more > ToGP before it's errata ? I only had 1 deck with ToGP (i.e., a deck focussed on this card). As I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include more than a single copy of a given vampire in my crypts (unless it is essential for the deck to work). > If the card is absolote 'no-brainer' to include in deck (if all > requirements are met) there's something wrong with the card, don't you > think ? It is not that simple. Playing with 2 or more IC members requires many resources, and is far more risky than playing with 4-7 capacity vampires, because you concentrate your strength on one or two big vampires. [...] > > Then, burning a vampire in combat or in any other way also counters strategies (regardless of the cards used in > > the process). > > The difference is of course that rush/(intercept) strategy (of burning > vampires in combat) is about countering other people's strategies in > that sense. It's Vampire version of magic counterspell deck with all > of it's deckspace dedicated to this. I repeat whole deck dedicated to > this one thing. With PTO I do not compromise my deck choise that much > and I am able to do the same as decks mentioned above 60 percent of > time. (given the fact this is roughly the proportion of non-Camarilla > vs Camarilla vampires) PTO is a very spectacular card, but a deck focussed on PTO has no future, since this card only affects non-Camarilla vampires. Yesterday, I was playing with my IC deck, and I could not oust my prey (an Ahrimane deck with 5 vampires in play), although I successfully PTO'ed 2 of his vampires and Banished another one. He managed to bring out new copies of the burned vampires as well as the Banished one. I lost the game because I ran out of stealth when calling another PTO with Arika, which The Siamese finally blocked. ;-) Greetings, Damnans

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > Requirements for playing ToGP are much steeper. > It also can target any vampire. > > PTO requirements are easier to met. Easy to meet? Are you kidding? ;-P > It can only target 60 percent of vampires. > > Observation 1: ToGP and PTO when all things are weighted are similar > in power. No way. There is no comparison, IMO. If ToGP is wisely played it causes the loss of lots of pool to your prey -usually- (which is a direct effect on your prey's pool), and PTO burns a non-Camarilla vampire controlled by your predator, prey, or any other Methuselah, depending on the situation (PTO is an non-direct effect on that Methuselah's pool). In other words, ToGP can oust a Methuselah when played, while PTO cannot. [...] > On a perfect scenario, with Arika playing only majesty/staredown as a > defense (but she has a fortitude, and there are other means of using > fortitude than kiss my ra or daring) > > Hovewer explaining that you need 3 cards, 3 action, 1 MPA and 2-4 pool > (plus a loss of momentum because of losing a weenie in controlled > region) (depending on which weenie would be doing amaranth since you > can not guarantee it will always be sadie) would be fair. And from > that explanation it will turn out that even those ALTERNATE > requirement for burning an IC are quite steep even for a weenie deck. You did not finished the last sentence. "... for a weenie deck that ONLY plays rushes and aggravated damage." Uhm... What else can they do? ;-) > > > Given the way things are , PTO punish you excessively for playing with > > > big assamite vampires (which is difficult feat even WITHOUT taking PTO > > > into picture) > > > > I repeat: only if there is an IC member on the table, and there are some PTO in that deck. > > The impilcation IC in deck => PTO in deck is almost always true. Almost, as you well point out. But neither always nor necessarily. And you should play with 2 or more IC in your crypt to start considering the addition of some PTO's to your deck. [...] > > Non-Camarilla clans are far from being underpowered. I give you a few examples below: > > > > Lasombra > > Ventrue Antitribu > > Tzimisce > > Giovanni > > Followers of Set > > Ravnos > > Toreador Antitribu > > etc. > > > Ravnos and Ventrue antitribu didn't won that many tournaments so far > (it's your fault that you brought up TWD archive to your case :) ) , > and I also remember that I intercepted (with my poor spanish skills) a > conversation at VTES Spain yahoo group where you said that Ravnos (and > Assamite) are not that good at winning tournaments (it was a while > ago, in case you don't remember :) ) ... I remember >:-) However my opinion about the Ravnos has completely changed, since one of our players (Josep Serra) started to make winning decks with them. Josep won at Praxis Seizure: Palma de Mallorca 2002 with a Ravnos deck based on Force of Will, Daring the Dawn, Freak Drive, Rapid Healing. Check the following link if you want to have a look at his deck: http://www.almadrava.net/damnans/pspm02/decks/Si_te_he_visto_no_me_acuerdo.html Josep also has 2 more Ravnos decks, on of which is also very deadly. He plays with Spider Killer and other mid capacity Ravnos, and also plays with lots of Sensory Deprivation and stealth. This deck slows down the table and uses to be very deadly. He has won several games with it. My opinion about the Assamites has not changed at the moment ;-) although I have built a deck with low and mid capacity Assamites, using Khabar: Community to bleed your prey to death. It has also won several games but, it is not as effective as other bleed decks. > We are not talking about about non-Camarilla being underpowered > (although numbers from TWD archive might point to that, heh you > shouldn't really tried this TWD archive thing on me :) ) He, he... But the TWD archive is the only data we have. [...] > > > How often does not burning 10 cap vampire by single card on turn it > > > comes into play does not oust that player ? > > > > The probability of what your example is very, very low, and therefore an exception. > > > > We should not talk about exceptions. > > My statement above applies even if it happens later in the game. That > is NOT an exception. Yes, it is, since it is not the same when one of your vampires is burned via PTO later in the game. There is no comparison, because at that time you "should" have enough resources either to deal with PTO or to gain enough pool to bring out another vampire. [...] > > Including several copies of a single vampire in your crypt is often risky. I prefer to include just 1 copy of a single > > vampire in my crypts (when possible). > > Why don't you just attack my reasoning why it is necessary for some > clans to play with multiplies copies of a given vampire, instead of > saying 'it is risky' ? The more you focus your strategy on a single vampire, the more vulnerable you become. Look, for example, at any turbo deck (Arika, Lucita, Aurora van Brande, etc.). These are the most vulnerable deck types. And the less vulnerable (if you lose a vampire) decks are those with no key vampire. > In perfect world I would also prefer to play > with each vampire in my crypts only once. This is not a case most of > the time (for a reasons described above). Playing with > Thetmes,Tegyrius,Ur Shulgi,Aziz instead of 4xThetmes does not makes me > any stronger against PTO. It makes me weaker against anything else > since I can not gain maximum from my vampire's disciplines. Yes, but every advantage has its drawback. ;-) [...] > > > Well possesion is most of the time used with conjunction of Might of > > > Camarilla or Soul Gem. > > > > Most of the time? :-o > > Yes, most of the time. Any other examples of GOOD decks which might > use it ? Possession is essential in a Giovanni bleed deck that performs bleeds for more than 3 (just in case one of your vampires is burned via Archon Investigation). Possession is deadly in the Turbo-Baron deck. Possession is also very effective in a deck Sabbat Inquisitor/burning the vampires with Thaumaturgy in your crypt. Possession is very useful in any deck with Carlotta Giovanni. Possession can be very useful in any deck with Soul Gem of Etrius Etc... http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rgtcjdeckarchive/messagesearch?query=possession [...] > > Here is a list of possible PTO counters: [...] > > Pentex Subversion played on an IC member > > stoled my idea :) So what? ;-) [...] > > Vote reactions (Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, Dread Gaze, Treachery, > Elder Kindred Network...) > > How often you play with this cards ? What has it to do with their effectiveness against PTO? [...] > > Titles (Lasombra, Ventrue Antitribu, and other Sabbat clans have Cardinals, Archbishops and Prisci. You are almost > > always talking about Independent vampires). > > etc. > > I can Protect usually even without vote lock. Usually?. Do you remember one of the games we played in Barcelona? You were playing with...uhm... can't remember... OMAYA ;-) and called a PTO against her. The vote did not pass, and Omaya survived, I could not oust you from the game. Do you remmeber? And that was the only PTO I could play in the game :-( Greetings, Damnans

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D8C5244...@ono.com>... > Karol Magda wrote: > > [...] > > > Requirements for playing ToGP are much steeper. > > It also can target any vampire. > > > > PTO requirements are easier to met. > > Easy to meet? Are you kidding? ;-P PTO requirements are EASIER to meet (than those of ToGP). > > > It can only target 60 percent of vampires. > > > > Observation 1: ToGP and PTO when all things are weighted are similar > > in power. > > No way. There is no comparison, IMO. If ToGP is wisely played it causes the loss of lots of pool to your prey -usually- > (which is a direct effect on your prey's pool), and PTO burns a non-Camarilla vampire controlled by your predator, prey, or > any other Methuselah, depending on the situation (PTO is an non-direct effect on that Methuselah's pool). Explained that that plan may and will backfire. You can oust yourself directly(unintentionally) by playing ToGP > In other words, ToGP can oust a Methuselah when played, while PTO cannot. Directly PTO can not oust people by itself. However more often that not the player who received PTO (on his key vampire) is ousted soon. > > [...] > > > On a perfect scenario, with Arika playing only majesty/staredown as a > > defense (but she has a fortitude, and there are other means of using > > fortitude than kiss my ra or daring) > > > > Hovewer explaining that you need 3 cards, 3 action, 1 MPA and 2-4 pool > > (plus a loss of momentum because of losing a weenie in controlled > > region) (depending on which weenie would be doing amaranth since you > > can not guarantee it will always be sadie) would be fair. And from > > that explanation it will turn out that even those ALTERNATE > > requirement for burning an IC are quite steep even for a weenie deck. > > You did not finished the last sentence. "... for a weenie deck that ONLY plays rushes and aggravated damage." Uhm... What > else can they do? ;-) Do you feel that resources used in order to burn IC by abovementioned deck are not significant ? If yes, please explain why, instead of adding comments of little relevance. > > > > > Given the way things are , PTO punish you excessively for playing with > > > > big assamite vampires (which is difficult feat even WITHOUT taking PTO > > > > into picture) > > > > > > I repeat: only if there is an IC member on the table, and there are some PTO in that deck. > > > > The impilcation IC in deck => PTO in deck is almost always true. > > Almost, as you well point out. But neither always nor necessarily. And you should play with 2 or more IC in your crypt to > start considering the addition of some PTO's to your deck. Same goes for ToGP or any other similar card (which require specific vampire to play). Note that implication Justicar => ToGP almost never holds true. > > [...] > > > > Non-Camarilla clans are far from being underpowered. I give you a few examples below: > > > > > > Lasombra > > > Ventrue Antitribu > > > Tzimisce > > > Giovanni > > > Followers of Set > > > Ravnos > > > Toreador Antitribu > > > etc. > > > > > Ravnos and Ventrue antitribu didn't won that many tournaments so far > > (it's your fault that you brought up TWD archive to your case :) ) , > > and I also remember that I intercepted (with my poor spanish skills) a > > conversation at VTES Spain yahoo group where you said that Ravnos (and > > Assamite) are not that good at winning tournaments (it was a while > > ago, in case you don't remember :) ) ... > > I remember >:-) However my opinion about the Ravnos has completely changed, since one of our players (Josep Serra) started > to make winning decks with them. Josep won at Praxis Seizure: Palma de Mallorca 2002 with a Ravnos deck based on Force of > Will, Daring the Dawn, Freak Drive, Rapid Healing. > > Check the following link if you want to have a look at his deck: > > http://www.almadrava.net/damnans/pspm02/decks/Si_te_he_visto_no_me_acuerdo.html I did have a look at that deck very soon after you published it on your site. > Josep also has 2 more Ravnos decks, on of which is also very deadly. He plays with Spider Killer and other mid capacity > Ravnos, and also plays with lots of Sensory Deprivation and stealth. This deck slows down the table and uses to be very > deadly. He has won several games with it. > > My opinion about the Assamites has not changed at the moment ;-) although I have built a deck with low and mid capacity > Assamites, using Khabar: Community to bleed your prey to death. It has also won several games but, it is not as effective as > other bleed decks. Um, Assamites are combat clan. Maybe you should try beauty of combat for a very first time :) . Winning with Assamites is VERY hard, hovewer. > > > We are not talking about about non-Camarilla being underpowered > > (although numbers from TWD archive might point to that, heh you > > shouldn't really tried this TWD archive thing on me :) ) > > He, he... But the TWD archive is the only data we have. But you should be very careful with information contained therein. Lots of decks published there are outdated , usefulness of some cards (protect :)) has increased rapidly from the time they were printed. In doing any analysis It would be probably very reasonable to include only decks that won tournaments from to years ago up to now. Also there are multiply entries from same playgroups and none from others, meaning you can see some patterns about metagame in one or two specific areas over time but have very little information to do analysis of a metagame over regions in given time. But thats just me. > [...] > > > > > How often does not burning 10 cap vampire by single card on turn it > > > > comes into play does not oust that player ? > > > > > > The probability of what your example is very, very low, and therefore an exception. > > > > > > We should not talk about exceptions. > > > > My statement above applies even if it happens later in the game. That > > is NOT an exception. > > Yes, it is, since it is not the same when one of your vampires is burned via PTO later in the game. There is no comparison, > because at that time you "should" have enough resources either to deal with PTO or to gain enough pool to bring out another > vampire. I am not sure how I should have always enough resources to bring another 10 cap in the game, after one was burned. If I always had such resources, I would never been ousted (which ufortunately is not my case :) ) > > [...] > > > > Including several copies of a single vampire in your crypt is often risky. I prefer to include just 1 copy of a single > > > vampire in my crypts (when possible). > > > > Why don't you just attack my reasoning why it is necessary for some > > clans to play with multiplies copies of a given vampire, instead of > > saying 'it is risky' ? > > The more you focus your strategy on a single vampire, the more vulnerable you become. You're just repeating yourself :) , I explained why it is way to go in some cases. > > Look, for example, at any turbo deck (Arika, Lucita, Aurora van Brande, etc.). These are the most vulnerable deck types. And > the less vulnerable (if you lose a vampire) decks are those with no key vampire. They are vurnarable because of 'turbo' aspect combined with single vampire mentality. 'Turbo' deck of different mentality (Baron deck, Possesion deck of one local (Tomas Varga) player) are something completely different. Same thing apply for single vampire decks without 'turbo' element. > > > In perfect world I would also prefer to play > > with each vampire in my crypts only once. This is not a case most of > > the time (for a reasons described above). Playing with > > Thetmes,Tegyrius,Ur Shulgi,Aziz instead of 4xThetmes does not makes me > > any stronger against PTO. It makes me weaker against anything else > > since I can not gain maximum from my vampire's disciplines. > > Yes, but every advantage has its drawback. ;-) Do you really think that Thetmes/Teqyrius/Ur Shulgi/Aziz crypt is better for PTO protection than 4x Thetmes crypt ? If yes, please explain. > > [...] > > > > > Well possesion is most of the time used with conjunction of Might of > > > > Camarilla or Soul Gem. > > > > > > Most of the time? :-o > > > > Yes, most of the time. Any other examples of GOOD decks which might > > use it ? > > Possession is essential in a Giovanni bleed deck that performs bleeds for more than 3 (just in case one of your vampires is > burned via Archon Investigation). If you search for Giovanni power bleed decks in TWD archive , you will notice, that none of it used possesion. Or I would do it for you: Deck Name: Yer Mom Don't Block Created By: Derek S. Ray possesion count: zero Deck Name: Pekka-Giovanni Created By: Hasse Hare Inc. Description: bleed-oust-win possesion count: zero Name: Giovanni Dominate Type: Unblock&Bleed Creator: Luis Duarte (luis....@clix.pt) possesion count: zero Deck Name: Giovanni Power Bleed Created by: David Anderson-Dávila possesion count: zero Looks like it is not that essential :) > Possession is deadly in the Turbo-Baron deck. That I am well avare of. I asked for good decks which: use possesion and (do not use soul gem or might of camarilla) > Possession is also very effective in a deck Sabbat Inquisitor/burning the vampires with Thaumaturgy in your crypt. Never seen it in action. It looks like less viable engine than soul gem/possesion or might of camarilla/possesion > Possession is very useful in any deck with Carlotta Giovanni. Umm ? > Possession can be very useful in any deck with Soul Gem of Etrius That I am well avare of. I asked for good decks which: use possesion and (do not use soul gem or might of camarilla) <snip> > > > Here is a list of possible PTO counters: > > [...] > > > > Pentex Subversion played on an IC member > > > > stoled my idea :) > > So what? ;-) Nothing, wanted to just remind you on that :) > > [...] > > > > Vote reactions (Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, Dread Gaze, Treachery, > > Elder Kindred Network...) > > > > How often you play with this cards ? > > What has it to do with their effectiveness against PTO? Everything. I will not accept cards of otherwise of marginal use as a 'counter' to PTO. If such desperate cards (possesion in wrong deck, treachery:), fear of mekhet) are needed to deal with PTO, it only support my cause. > [...] > > > > Titles (Lasombra, Ventrue Antitribu, and other Sabbat clans have Cardinals, Archbishops and Prisci. You are almost > > > always talking about Independent vampires). > > > etc. > > > > I can Protect usually even without vote lock. > > Usually?. Do you remember one of the games we played in Barcelona? You were playing with...uhm... can't remember... OMAYA Yes, it was Omaya definitely :) , it was hovewer prototype deck in those days with several issues I was able to solve to my satisfaction only night before the 2001 BCN qualifier. > ;-) and called a PTO against her. The vote did not pass, and Omaya survived, I could not oust you from the game. Do you > remmeber? And that was the only PTO I could play in the game :-( Because you were ousted very soon or something. Also remember my poor Omaya :) was saved only because my prey (Xavier Abad) voted AGAINST PtO. Later after the game he told me that he should have vote in favor of Burning Omaya but he decided against because he didn't like the PTO card... Karol

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D8C45E9...@ono.com>... > Karol Magda wrote: > > > > > > Of course it is a valid one, since it proves that those decks were not only based on PTO, otherwise they > > > > > would have included more than 2 PTO, which has not been the case. > > > > > > > > No they use TWO cards slot to counter whole groups of strategies > > > > relying on non-camarilla vampires. How fair. > > > > > > I would rather say: "they use a two cards slot to ATTEMPT to burn a non-Camarilla vampire". > > > > Where the attempt almost always succeed. By burning key vampire of a > > player on the table (by single card) (and remember there is always key > > vampire in player region unless he is playing weenie madness even if > > he do not constructed his deck with specific vampire in the mind) the > > PTO player disable/cripple his entire strategy. By single card. I > > repeat: by SINGLE card. > > You may also lose your key vampire by other means (such as combat, for instance). The problem here is not that a SINGLE > card (which is false) burns your key vampire. The problem is that your deck is not prepared for the loss of your key > vampire (regardless of how it occurs). No, you can prevent losing your key vampire by other means that PtO most of the time and even if that happens it costed them significant resources (even in most optimistic scenarios) to do so. Not with PTO. One card and you're out. Not good. > > [...] > > > > I have no PTO in my Ventrue deck with ONE Arika (as I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include several copies of > > > a single vampire in my crypt). > > > > The argument was originally about 2+ IC in the crypt... > > > > How many of your decks with two or more IC does NOT use PTO ? > > I do not usually play with IC members. They are too expensive and cannot play Traditions. So I only have 2 decks with 2 > or more IC members (a Toreador vote deck, and an IC deck). Although I have 2 more decks with 1 IC member (a Ventrue vote > deck, a Nosfetatu vote deck, and a Perfect Clarity/Bleed deck -none of which has a single PTO-). I asked about decks with 2+ IC in crypt. It's obvious that you would not use PTO with just one IC in crypt (and same counts for ToGP/Justicars equation) So see, here 2+ IC in crypt => PTO in the deck holds true. As expected. > > > How many of your decks with two or more Justicars didn't use 2 or more > > ToGP before it's errata ? > > I only had 1 deck with ToGP (i.e., a deck focussed on this card). And probably, you had dozens or so (given your collection :) ) decks which used 2+ Justicars and do not used ToGP. Can you confirm it ? > As I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include more than a single copy of a given vampire in my crypts (unless it is > essential for the deck to work). > > > If the card is absolote 'no-brainer' to include in deck (if all > > requirements are met) there's something wrong with the card, don't you > > think ? > > It is not that simple. Playing with 2 or more IC members requires many resources, and is far more risky than playing > with 4-7 capacity vampires, because you concentrate your strength on one or two big vampires. Playing with Turbo Lucita was risky in your words. Yet you managed to qualify for finals at Palma this year. There are lots of those risky one vampire decks winning tournaments/qualifing for finals which makes me wonder what is risky with those decks. Is succes risky ? :) > > [...] > > > > Then, burning a vampire in combat or in any other way also counters strategies (regardless of the cards used in > > > the process). > > > > The difference is of course that rush/(intercept) strategy (of burning > > vampires in combat) is about countering other people's strategies in > > that sense. It's Vampire version of magic counterspell deck with all > > of it's deckspace dedicated to this. I repeat whole deck dedicated to > > this one thing. With PTO I do not compromise my deck choise that much > > and I am able to do the same as decks mentioned above 60 percent of > > time. (given the fact this is roughly the proportion of non-Camarilla > > vs Camarilla vampires) > > PTO is a very spectacular card, but a deck focussed on PTO has no future, since this card only affects non-Camarilla > vampires. Why it has no future ? Even AFTER printing of Camarilla expansion (and taking those numbers in account) roughly 60 percent of vampires can be targeted by it. I think that this trend will continue. > > Yesterday, I was playing with my IC deck, and I could not oust my prey (an Ahrimane deck with 5 vampires in play), > although I successfully PTO'ed 2 of his vampires and Banished another one. > > He managed to bring out new copies of the burned vampires as well as the Banished one. Maybe there was something wrong with your non-PTO deck parts ? > > I lost the game because I ran out of stealth when calling another PTO with Arika, which The Siamese finally blocked. ;-) It WAS third PTO played by you that he blocked. How you managed not to oust him, puzzles me. Karol

Karol Magda wrote: > Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D8C5244...@ono.com>... > > Karol Magda wrote: > > > > [...] > > > > > Requirements for playing ToGP are much steeper. > > > It also can target any vampire. > > > > > > PTO requirements are easier to met. > > > > Easy to meet? Are you kidding? ;-P > > PTO requirements are EASIER to meet (than those of ToGP). Ah, OK :-P [...] > Explained that that plan may and will backfire. You can oust yourself > directly(unintentionally) by playing ToGP But that happens very seldom. > > In other words, ToGP can oust a Methuselah when played, while PTO cannot. > > Directly PTO can not oust people by itself. However more often that > not the player who received PTO (on his key vampire) is ousted soon. But that's not the same, and that's why ToGP requirements are steeper. [...] > And from > > > that explanation it will turn out that even those ALTERNATE > > > requirement for burning an IC are quite steep even for a weenie deck. > > > > You did not finished the last sentence. "... for a weenie deck that ONLY plays rushes and aggravated damage." Uhm... What > > else can they do? ;-) > > Do you feel that resources used in order to burn IC by abovementioned > deck are not significant ? Well, they are actually significant, since weenies spend several actions and cards to achieve that goal, but this does not mean it is much more difficult for a deck like this to burn an IC member, because it is completely focussed on combat. [...] > > My opinion about the Assamites has not changed at the moment ;-) although I have built a deck with low and mid capacity > > Assamites, using Khabar: Community to bleed your prey to death. It has also won several games but, it is not as effective as > > other bleed decks. > > Um, Assamites are combat clan. Maybe you should try beauty of combat > for a very first time :) . I actually do, from time to time ;-) [...] > I am not sure how I should have always enough resources to bring > another 10 cap in the game, after one was burned. If I always had such > resources, I would never been ousted (which ufortunately is not my > case :) ) You needn't bring out another 10 capacity vampire. And your deck with Omaya was quite capable of gaining enough pool to bring out another Omaya in a couple of turns. ;-) [...] > > > In perfect world I would also prefer to play > > > with each vampire in my crypts only once. This is not a case most of > > > the time (for a reasons described above). Playing with > > > Thetmes,Tegyrius,Ur Shulgi,Aziz instead of 4xThetmes does not makes me > > > any stronger against PTO. It makes me weaker against anything else > > > since I can not gain maximum from my vampire's disciplines. > > > > Yes, but every advantage has its drawback. ;-) > > Do you really think that Thetmes/Teqyrius/Ur Shulgi/Aziz crypt is > better for PTO protection than 4x Thetmes crypt ? If yes, please > explain. No, really not. [...] > > Possession is essential in a Giovanni bleed deck that performs bleeds for more than 3 (just in case one of your vampires is > > burned via Archon Investigation). > > If you search for Giovanni power bleed decks in TWD archive , you will > notice, that none of it used possesion. Or I would do it for you: [...] > Looks like it is not that essential :) But it surely might help. [...] > > Possession is very useful in any deck with Carlotta Giovanni. > > Umm ? I have seen many OBF + DOM decks (mainly political decks) with Carlotta Giovanni and some of them have 1 or 2 Possessions they discard until they think it's necessary to recover them. [...] > > > > Vote reactions (Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, Dread Gaze, Treachery, > > > Elder Kindred Network...) > > > > > > How often you play with this cards ? > > > > What has it to do with their effectiveness against PTO? > > Everything. I will not accept cards of otherwise of marginal use as a > 'counter' to PTO. If such desperate cards (possesion in wrong deck, > treachery:), fear of mekhet) are needed to deal with PTO, it only > support my cause. No, it does not support nothing, since PTO makes those cards more useful. As you will surely have noted, since the release of Bloodlines, new strategies have appeared, among which we can find the following ones: - Library destruction (This strategy might not be very effective to get VPs, but it's very disruptive, and you can deal with it with "marginal" cards). - Meddling of Semsith (What can I say about this card ;-) ? ). - Baltimore Purge (This card also very disruptive. "Marginal" cards will also be needed to counter it [e.g., Reform Body, Crimson Fury -in the case the Purger diablerizes vampires instead of stealing them-]) [...] > > > I can Protect usually even without vote lock. > > > > Usually?. Do you remember one of the games we played in Barcelona? You were playing with...uhm... can't remember... OMAYA > > Yes, it was Omaya definitely :) , it was hovewer prototype deck in > those days with several issues I was able to solve to my satisfaction > only night before the 2001 BCN qualifier. > > > ;-) and called a PTO against her. The vote did not pass, and Omaya survived, I could not oust you from the game. Do you > > remmeber? And that was the only PTO I could play in the game :-( > > Because you were ousted very soon or something. Also remember my poor > Omaya :) was saved only because my prey (Xavier Abad) voted AGAINST > PtO. Later after the game he told me that he should have vote in favor > of Burning Omaya but he decided against because he didn't like the PTO > card... Well, the fact is that Omaya survived ;-) Greetings, Damnans

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > You may also lose your key vampire by other means (such as combat, for instance). The problem here is not that a SINGLE > > card (which is false) burns your key vampire. The problem is that your deck is not prepared for the loss of your key > > vampire (regardless of how it occurs). > > No, you can prevent losing your key vampire by other means that PtO > most of the time and even if that happens it costed them significant > resources (even in most optimistic scenarios) to do so. Not with PTO. > One card and you're out. Not good. Do not mistake being out for being burned your strongest vampire, which needs not be the same (according to my experience). [...] > > I do not usually play with IC members. They are too expensive and cannot play Traditions. So I only have 2 decks with 2 > > or more IC members (a Toreador vote deck, and an IC deck). Although I have 2 more decks with 1 IC member (a Ventrue vote > > deck, a Nosfetatu vote deck, and a Perfect Clarity/Bleed deck -none of which has a single PTO-). > > I asked about decks with 2+ IC in crypt. It's obvious that you would > not use PTO with just one IC in crypt (and same counts for > ToGP/Justicars equation) > So see, here 2+ IC in crypt => PTO in the deck holds true. As > expected. But those decks usually contain just 1 or 2 PTO, which will occasionally burn 2 vampires during a game. Combat decks can burn or send into torpor more than 2 vampires during a game (although they need more resources to do so). > > > How many of your decks with two or more Justicars didn't use 2 or more > > > ToGP before it's errata ? > > > > I only had 1 deck with ToGP (i.e., a deck focussed on this card). > > And probably, you had dozens or so (given your collection :) ) decks > which used 2+ Justicars and do not used ToGP. Can you confirm it ? At the moment, there is no ToGP in any of my 40 decks. Before the release of the Camarilla Edition I had 2 decks with ToGP (but they were focussed on that card). However, I am seriously considering adding 1 ToGP to each deck containing 2 or more Justicars, because you can extremely weaken your prey by just paying 3 pool and one master phase action. > > As I mentioned earlier, I prefer not to include more than a single copy of a given vampire in my crypts (unless it is > > essential for the deck to work). > > > > > If the card is absolote 'no-brainer' to include in deck (if all > > > requirements are met) there's something wrong with the card, don't you > > > think ? > > > > It is not that simple. Playing with 2 or more IC members requires many resources, and is far more risky than playing > > with 4-7 capacity vampires, because you concentrate your strength on one or two big vampires. > > Playing with Turbo Lucita was risky in your words. Yet you managed to > qualify for finals at Palma this year. I was very lucky ;-) > There are lots of those risky > one vampire decks winning tournaments/qualifing for finals which makes > me wonder what is risky with those decks. Is succes risky ? :) Yes, it is (ha, ha...). Everyone is free to choose his or her strategies to win ;-) [...] > > PTO is a very spectacular card, but a deck focussed on PTO has no future, since this card only affects non-Camarilla > > vampires. > > Why it has no future ? Even AFTER printing of Camarilla expansion (and > taking those numbers in account) roughly 60 percent of vampires can be > targeted by it. I think that this trend will continue. How many PTO would you include in such a deck? > > Yesterday, I was playing with my IC deck, and I could not oust my prey (an Ahrimane deck with 5 vampires in play), > > although I successfully PTO'ed 2 of his vampires and Banished another one. > > > > He managed to bring out new copies of the burned vampires as well as the Banished one. > > Maybe there was something wrong with your non-PTO deck parts ? No. My deck perfect ;-P (he, he...) > > I lost the game because I ran out of stealth when calling another PTO with Arika, which The Siamese finally blocked. ;-) > > It WAS third PTO played by you that he blocked. How you managed not to > oust him, puzzles me. My prey's remaining vampires had blood dolls, and he also played many Enchant Kindred at superior to bring out more vampires. My lack of stealth and Obediences (my deck contains 15!!!!!) made me lose, for this time ;-) Greetings, Damnans

<snip> > > > > How many of your decks with two or more Justicars didn't use 2 or more > > > > ToGP before it's errata ? > > > > > > I only had 1 deck with ToGP (i.e., a deck focussed on this card). > > > > And probably, you had dozens or so (given your collection :) ) decks > > which used 2+ Justicars and do not used ToGP. Can you confirm it ? > > At the moment, there is no ToGP in any of my 40 decks. Before the release of the Camarilla Edition I had 2 decks with ToGP > (but they were focussed on that card). > > However, I am seriously considering adding 1 ToGP to each deck containing 2 or more Justicars, because you can extremely > weaken your prey by just paying 3 pool and one master phase action. Or kill yourself by trying :) <snip> > > > PTO is a very spectacular card, but a deck focussed on PTO has no future, since this card only affects non-Camarilla > > > vampires. > > > > Why it has no future ? Even AFTER printing of Camarilla expansion (and > > taking those numbers in account) roughly 60 percent of vampires can be > > targeted by it. I think that this trend will continue. > > How many PTO would you include in such a deck? If I play with 3+ IC in my crypt playing with 2-3 PTO at least would be good idea. <snip> Karol

<snip> > > Explained that that plan may and will backfire. You can oust yourself > > directly(unintentionally) by playing ToGP > > But that happens very seldom. Seldom in your group. <snip> > > And from > > > > that explanation it will turn out that even those ALTERNATE > > > > requirement for burning an IC are quite steep even for a weenie deck. > > > > > > You did not finished the last sentence. "... for a weenie deck that ONLY plays rushes and aggravated damage." Uhm... What > > > else can they do? ;-) > > > > Do you feel that resources used in order to burn IC by abovementioned > > deck are not significant ? > > Well, they are actually significant, since weenies spend several actions and cards to achieve that goal, but this does not mean it > is much more difficult for a deck like this to burn an IC member, because it is completely focussed on combat. DECK A 1 Can only burn vampires in combat and nothing else. 2 It cost him lot to do it even in best scenario. DECk B 1 Can replicate same feat by using single card against 60 percent of vampires. 2 He also can bleed for a lot, vote for a lot or something. Which deck you would play ? <snip> > > Um, Assamites are combat clan. Maybe you should try beauty of combat > > for a very first time :) . > > I actually do, from time to time ;-) I don't believe you. :) Is burning vampires by PTO considered combat by your standards ? :) <snip> > > I am not sure how I should have always enough resources to bring > > another 10 cap in the game, after one was burned. If I always had such > > resources, I would never been ousted (which ufortunately is not my > > case :) ) > > You needn't bring out another 10 capacity vampire. And your deck with Omaya was quite capable of gaining enough pool to bring out > another Omaya in a couple of turns. ;-) What's up with Omaya showing in all those examples of yours ? :) Do you have some personal problems with her, or something ? :) Sometimes you can bring same vampire in play when the first copy was burned. Very often, however those 7-10 pools you have to spend on him plus the 2-3 turns you play without him, means that you are quickly ousted. <snip> > > > > > Vote reactions (Pulling Strings, Kindred Coercion, Dread Gaze, Treachery, > > > > Elder Kindred Network...) > > > > > > > > How often you play with this cards ? > > > > > > What has it to do with their effectiveness against PTO? > > > > Everything. I will not accept cards of otherwise of marginal use as a > > 'counter' to PTO. If such desperate cards (possesion in wrong deck, > > treachery:), fear of mekhet) are needed to deal with PTO, it only > > support my cause. > > No, it does not support nothing, since PTO makes those cards more useful. But not usefull enoug to include in a deck (since besides being bad counter for PTO they are good for nothing) > As you will surely have noted, since the release of Bloodlines, new strategies have appeared, among which we can find the > following ones: > - Library destruction (This strategy might not be very effective to get VPs, but it's very disruptive, and you can deal with it > with "marginal" cards). Ahh, you mean those I get couple of Slaughterhouses in play and then I die decks :) , I would not consider such deck type a strategy. :) > - Meddling of Semsith (What can I say about this card ;-) ? ). I don't know what can you say :), I can say that I saw several times that player who played Meddling failed to gain GW because of one less card in his hand. He,he,he :) > - Baltimore Purge (This card also very disruptive. "Marginal" cards will also be needed to counter it [e.g., Reform Body, Crimson > Fury -in the case the Purger diablerizes vampires instead of stealing them-]) I saw that on VTES yahoo group you are asking for help against Baltimore Purge :) One evil decks which might be interesting to build would be some Stanislava monstrosity featuring some good balance of PTO,Baltimore Purge,Mind Rape lots of Beast Melds,Freak Drives and some rapid changes. Now that would be a deck which would spread HAVOC on the table :) <snip> > > > > I can Protect usually even without vote lock. > > > > > > Usually?. Do you remember one of the games we played in Barcelona? You were playing with...uhm... can't remember... OMAYA > > > > Yes, it was Omaya definitely :) , it was hovewer prototype deck in > > those days with several issues I was able to solve to my satisfaction > > only night before the 2001 BCN qualifier. > > > > > ;-) and called a PTO against her. The vote did not pass, and Omaya survived, I could not oust you from the game. Do you > > > remmeber? And that was the only PTO I could play in the game :-( > > > > Because you were ousted very soon or something. Also remember my poor > > Omaya :) was saved only because my prey (Xavier Abad) voted AGAINST > > PtO. Later after the game he told me that he should have vote in favor > > of Burning Omaya but he decided against because he didn't like the PTO > > card... > > Well, the fact is that Omaya survived ;-) I remember that you said on one memorable ocassion that she is in fact immortal. :) Karol Who actually do not play with Omaya that often, contrary to what Gines wants you to believe.

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > How many PTO would you include in such a deck? > > If I play with 3+ IC in my crypt playing with 2-3 PTO at least would be good idea. And your hand will get jammed with them in the case neither your predator nor your prey controls a non-Camarilla vampire. Which means that including more than 2 or 3 PTO in a deck is "risky" ;-) Greetings, Damnans

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > > And from > > > > > that explanation it will turn out that even those ALTERNATE > > > > > requirement for burning an IC are quite steep even for a weenie deck. > > > > > > > > You did not finished the last sentence. "... for a weenie deck that ONLY plays rushes and aggravated damage." Uhm... What > > > > else can they do? ;-) > > > > > > Do you feel that resources used in order to burn IC by abovementioned > > > deck are not significant ? > > > > Well, they are actually significant, since weenies spend several actions and cards to achieve that goal, but this does not mean it > > is much more difficult for a deck like this to burn an IC member, because it is completely focussed on combat. > > DECK A > > 1 Can only burn vampires in combat and nothing else. > 2 It cost him lot to do it even in best scenario. > > DECk B > > 1 Can replicate same feat by using single card against 60 percent of > vampires. > 2 He also can bleed for a lot, vote for a lot or something. > > Which deck you would play ? Look. You could build a deck based on ToGP (before the release of the CE), in which there could be 9, 10 or even more ToGP, and means to gain pool to minimize both ToGP's pool cost and possible backfire. Why? because ToGP affect any vampire. On the contrary, you cannot build a deck based on PTO, since you cannot include more than 2-3 PTO in it, if you do not want to get your hand jammed with them in an adverse scenario. ;-) > <snip> > > > > Um, Assamites are combat clan. Maybe you should try beauty of combat > > > for a very first time :) . > > > > I actually do, from time to time ;-) > > I don't believe you. :) You should >:-) 6 or 7 (can't remember) of my 40 decks are combat decks ;-) > Is burning vampires by PTO considered combat > by your standards ? :) Political combat ;-P [...] > > You needn't bring out another 10 capacity vampire. And your deck with Omaya was quite capable of gaining enough pool to bring out > > another Omaya in a couple of turns. ;-) > > What's up with Omaya showing in all those examples of yours ? :) Do > you have some personal problems with her, or something ? :) No, absolutely not ;-P She is sooo good a vampire that I would not dare to defy her >:-), because her wrath knows no boundaries. > Sometimes you can bring same vampire in play when the first copy was > burned. Very often, however those 7-10 pools you have to spend on him > plus the 2-3 turns you play without him, means that you are quickly > ousted. Not sure. I will have to analize every game I play with PTO from now on, so that I can ascertain the truth behind this ;-) [...] > > > > What has it to do with their effectiveness against PTO? > > > > > > Everything. I will not accept cards of otherwise of marginal use as a > > > 'counter' to PTO. If such desperate cards (possesion in wrong deck, > > > treachery:), fear of mekhet) are needed to deal with PTO, it only > > > support my cause. > > > > No, it does not support nothing, since PTO makes those cards more useful. > > But not usefull enoug to include in a deck (since besides being bad > counter for PTO they are good for nothing) They are also good for other political actions (such as Banishment, Meddling of Semsith, Parity Shift, Domain Challenge, Consanguineous Boon, etc.). The problem is that people do not usually play with political decks, and therefore, the presence of such decks is poor during their games, and they do not need vote hosers. Just the opposite happens to bleed hosers. Bleed es a very common strategy (at least much more common than voting you to death). So most decks include cards to deal with bleeds. In a non-bleed meta-game, I would consider cards like Deflection, Telepathic Misdirection, etc. as marginal cards, and of little use. [...] > > - Library destruction (This strategy might not be very effective to get VPs, but it's very disruptive, and you can deal with it > > with "marginal" cards). > > Ahh, you mean those I get couple of Slaughterhouses in play and then I > die decks :) , I would not consider such deck type a strategy. :) But it is, although it sucks ;-) [...] > > - Baltimore Purge (This card also very disruptive. "Marginal" cards will also be needed to counter it [e.g., Reform Body, Crimson > > Fury -in the case the Purger diablerizes vampires instead of stealing them-]) > > I saw that on VTES yahoo group you are asking for help against > Baltimore Purge :) Why do you just read ;-) ? It would be nice that you could post on VTES Hispania from time to time. I am completely sure people there will understand your Spanish ;-) > One evil decks which might be interesting to build would be some > Stanislava monstrosity featuring some good balance of PTO,Baltimore > Purge,Mind Rape lots of Beast Melds,Freak Drives and some rapid > changes. Now that would be a deck which would spread HAVOC on the > table :) Ha, ha, ha... You have read my mind >:-) !!!!!!! That's exactly the type of deck I will test on Friday ;-) I will also include some Renewed Vigor so that Stanislava does not stay in torpor for long. > I remember that you said on one memorable ocassion that she is in fact > immortal. :) Did I? I forgot (he, he...) > Karol > > Who actually do not play with Omaya that often, contrary to what Gines > wants you to believe. However, I know you played with Omaya at your National Qualifier this year ;-) Somebody told it to me >:-) And I also know that Omaya proved to not to be immortal there... ;-) Greetings, Damnans

<snip> > > What's up with Omaya showing in all those examples of yours ? :) Do > > you have some personal problems with her, or something ? :) > No, absolutely not ;-P She is sooo good a vampire that I would not dare to defy her >:-), because her wrath knows no boundaries. Absolutely true :) > > Sometimes you can bring same vampire in play when the first copy was > > burned. Very often, however those 7-10 pools you have to spend on him > > plus the 2-3 turns you play without him, means that you are quickly > > ousted. > > Not sure. I will have to analize every game I play with PTO from now on, so that I can ascertain the truth behind this ;-) Keep us informed :) <snip> > In a non-bleed meta-game, I would consider cards like Deflection, Telepathic Misdirection, etc. as marginal cards, and of little use. Since non-bleed meta-game is for some reasons non-existant (maybe because bleed is fundamental way of ousting someone) these cards are almost always of use. The problem of vote 'hosers' (compared to bleed 'hosers') is that playing vote 'hoser' does not warrant that vote you want to hose will not pass. It's less of issue with bleed hosers. > > > - Baltimore Purge (This card also very disruptive. "Marginal" cards will also be needed to counter it [e.g., Reform Body, Crimson > > > Fury -in the case the Purger diablerizes vampires instead of stealing them-]) > > > > I saw that on VTES yahoo group you are asking for help against > > Baltimore Purge :) > > Why do you just read ;-) ? It would be nice that you could post on VTES Hispania from time to time. I am completely sure people there > will understand your Spanish ;-) Probably they will, but I fear they won't :) > > > One evil decks which might be interesting to build would be some > > Stanislava monstrosity featuring some good balance of PTO,Baltimore > > Purge,Mind Rape lots of Beast Melds,Freak Drives and some rapid > > changes. Now that would be a deck which would spread HAVOC on the > > table :) > > Ha, ha, ha... You have read my mind >:-) !!!!!!! That's exactly the type of deck I will test on Friday ;-) I will also include some > Renewed Vigor so that Stanislava does not stay in torpor for long. Renewed Vigor sounds good. I will probably play with similar deck on friday too :) > > I remember that you said on one memorable ocassion that she is in fact > > immortal. :) > > Did I? I forgot (he, he...) Yes indeed you did. :) You seems to forgot lot of things you say :) Some problems with memory, you have or are you forgetfull because of your venerable age ? :) > > Who actually do not play with Omaya that often, contrary to what Gines > > wants you to believe. > > However, I know you played with Omaya at your National Qualifier this year ;-) Somebody told it to me >:-) And I also know that Omaya > proved to not to be immortal there... ;-) Yes I played it on Slovak National Qualifier this year (and placed fifth). And yes, Omaya was not immortal because Xavier decided that it would be nice to destroy her at all costs - it costed him and me all of our resources when I tried to block/torporize all of his minions in their cruel attempts. (and I failed :( ). But as a result, at least one assamite player recieved a game win :) Also earlier in that game I was contesting Omaya with my grandprey. (I brought her first :), but he decided to contest :( ) Sometimes Omaya is not immortal because her master is too weak and is ousted. But that surely is not fault of Omaya :) Karol

Karol Magda wrote: [...] > > In a non-bleed meta-game, I would consider cards like Deflection, Telepathic Misdirection, etc. as marginal cards, and of little use. > > Since non-bleed meta-game is for some reasons non-existant (maybe > because bleed is fundamental way of ousting someone) As well as voting... > these cards are > almost always of use. The problem of vote 'hosers' (compared to bleed > 'hosers') is that playing vote 'hoser' does not warrant that vote you > want to hose will not pass. It's less of issue with bleed hosers. But that is a players' problem, who mainly think that the best strategy to win is bleeding. Note that some vote hosers are very effective against Awes and cards alike (Pulling Strings or Kindred Coercion, for instance). [...] > > Why do you just read ;-) ? It would be nice that you could post on VTES Hispania from time to time. I am completely sure people there > > will understand your Spanish ;-) > > Probably they will, but I fear they won't :) Let them decide about it ;-) I asure you that there are some Spaniards posting there that write a terrible Spanish indeed >:-) [...] > > > I remember that you said on one memorable ocassion that she is in fact > > > immortal. :) > > > > Did I? I forgot (he, he...) > > Yes indeed you did. :) You seems to forgot lot of things you say :) > Some problems with memory, you have or are you forgetfull because of > your venerable age ? :) Ha, ha, ha...! Age has nothing to do with my amnesia. Remember that memories about bad experiences are usually erased from our minds ;-) [...] > Sometimes Omaya is not immortal because her master is too weak and is > ousted. But that surely is not fault of Omaya :) He, he... Maybe her master is too young ;-) Greetings, Damnans

karol...@yahoo.com (Karol Magda) wrote in message news:<df69cc0d.02092...@posting.google.com>... > <snip> > > > > Who actually do not play with Omaya that often, contrary to what Gines > > > wants you to believe. > > > > However, I know you played with Omaya at your National Qualifier this year ;-) Somebody told it to me >:-) And I also know that Omaya > > proved to not to be immortal there... ;-) > > Yes I played it on Slovak National Qualifier this year (and placed > fifth). Hmm, an entire deck based around Omaya? This is a decklist I would like to see! :) T

talo...@hotmail.com (Talonz) wrote in message news:<76d1d5ef.02092...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] It's not entirely based on Omaya , but since you asked here's decklist: Crypt (12 cards) 2 Omaya 7 ANI AUS 2 Caliban 6 ANI AUS 2 Devin Bisley 5 ANI AUS 1 Terrence 4 ani aus 1 Thomas Steed 4 ani aus 1 Wendy Wade 3 ani aus 1 Leon 3 ani 1 Dani 2 ani 1 Gillian Krader 2 ani Deck (70 cards) 1 Rack, The 1 Powerbase Montreal 5 Blood Doll 1 Guardian Angel 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Giant's Blood 1 Jake Washington 1 Anarch Troublemaker 3 Computer hacking 1 Tasha Morgan 1 J.S. Simmons esq. 1 Tier of Souls 1 Army of Rats 1 Muricia's Call 3 Raven Spy 1 Murder of Crows 1 Sniper Rifle 1 War Ghoul 8 Aid from Bats 6 Carrion Crows 6 Forced Awakening 4 Cat's Guidance 2 Guard Dogs 4 Read the Winds 4 Telepatic Misdirection 3 Enhanced Senses 2 My Enemies Enemy 2 Precognition 2 Eagle's Sight 1 Melange It's basically ANI/AUS deck which take advance of awesome Omaya's special (prevent one damage each combat) and her FOR (no need to fear Kiss of Ra, which is VERY important). This version of deck (as played on Slovak National Qualifier) use only two version of Omaya but you can easily replace one Caliban and Leon with Omaya and Vliam Andor if you want. The game plan of the deck is: 1 prevent pool loss (that's why I run 40% reaction cards in here) 2 bloat to bring more vampires (6 master slots dedicated to this) 3 bring permanents into play (intercept retainers and bleed enhancers) 4 bleed your prey with your army of midcaps and weenies 5 combat consists of (cardwise) very efficient Aid from Bats + Carrion Crows combo. With only 20% percent of combat cards (and three combat permanents) you can still torporize lots of minions. The cards to consider from CE would be: Gregory Winter and Zoning Board mainly. Karol

Damnans <damna...@ono.com> wrote in message news:<3D91E595...@ono.com>... > Karol Magda wrote: > > [...] > > > > In a non-bleed meta-game, I would consider cards like Deflection, Telepathic Misdirection, etc. as marginal cards, and of little use. > > > > Since non-bleed meta-game is for some reasons non-existant (maybe > > because bleed is fundamental way of ousting someone) > > As well as voting... > > > these cards are > > almost always of use. The problem of vote 'hosers' (compared to bleed > > 'hosers') is that playing vote 'hoser' does not warrant that vote you > > want to hose will not pass. It's less of issue with bleed hosers. > > But that is a players' problem, who mainly think that the best strategy to win is bleeding. Many clans can only win by bleeding (after torporizing all oposition, of course :) ) > > Note that some vote hosers are very effective against Awes and cards alike (Pulling Strings or Kindred Coercion, for instance). > > [...] > > > > Why do you just read ;-) ? It would be nice that you could post on VTES Hispania from time to time. I am completely sure people there > > > will understand your Spanish ;-) > > > > Probably they will, but I fear they won't :) > > Let them decide about it ;-) I asure you that there are some Spaniards posting there that write a terrible Spanish indeed >:-) He, he :) Probably I will try, writing one post will however take a long time - I will have to use dictionaries and such :) > > [...] > > > > > I remember that you said on one memorable ocassion that she is in fact > > > > immortal. :) > > > > > > Did I? I forgot (he, he...) > > > > Yes indeed you did. :) You seems to forgot lot of things you say :) > > Some problems with memory, you have or are you forgetfull because of > > your venerable age ? :) > > Ha, ha, ha...! Age has nothing to do with my amnesia. Remember that memories about bad experiences are usually erased from our minds ;-) Since there are many things you forgot it seems to me that you have many bad (vtes) experiencies. Poor, poor Damnans :) > > [...] > > > Sometimes Omaya is not immortal because her master is too weak and is > > ousted. But that surely is not fault of Omaya :) > > He, he... Maybe her master is too young ;-) Maybe he is. At least he is not forgetfull yet. :) Karol