The art of being Robert Goudie's prey at GenCon

I heard that Robert played his (infamous) Dominate-Weenie-Misdirection deck at GenCon. I'll refrain from voicing my opinions on such a deck. However, I am curious how his immediate (and then his grand) prey fared. Did they have an opportunity to do anything really? How quickly were they ousted? Same questions of the grand prey. How far down stream did a player have to be in order to be able to do anything with with their deck? On the other side of the coin, how threatening was your predator, Robert, in each of your games? An extension of this question would be, what type's of decks were your Predator/Prey? I understand that you didn't actually win so at least in the finals you had to of hit some sort of snag. What was it? Sorrow --- I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am anymore |-------------------------------- I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...? anymore | you never seen anyone try to I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon ------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, 12 Aug 1999 13:57:13 GMT "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: > I heard that Robert played his (infamous) Dominate- > Weenie-Misdirection deck at GenCon. I'll refrain from > voicing my opinions on such a deck. However, I am curious > how his immediate (and then his grand) prey fared. Did > they have an opportunity to do anything really? How > quickly were they ousted? In one game I saw, most definitely. His prey got out Justine who doesn't tap to block vampires of capacity 3 or younger. He also had a Minion Tap in the hand to outlast the Misdirections. However, he made a bone headed move and bled or something. Robert's grand prey, playing Tzmisce had out the Femur of Toomler and made another bad play of sending Justine to torpor on the block and diablerizing her. Neither of them realised what they had done until Robert said something once it had all happened. I don't think he ever ran into heavy Animalism or other Wake- type cards, so that didn't stop him. I don't think anyone really showed up to deal with weenie decks. If you can slow them down at all, they often don't hold up because they depend on gaining the six pool from ousting their prey. I think that's why he didn't win the finals. [ questions skipped for Robert to answer ] > I understand that you didn't actually win so at least in the > finals you had to of hit some sort of snag. What was it? The other weenie deck was faster at ousting its prey and he had no one to deflect the bleeds to. Weenie decks are like the S&B decks of old (which I think there was only 1 or 2 of at GenCon). If you don't prepare for the fast blood loss of a heavy bleeding deck, you are hosed. Mike -- Posted via Talkway - http://www.talkway.com Exchange ideas on practically anything (tm).

> Weenie decks are like the S&B decks of old (which I think there > was only 1 or 2 of at GenCon). But it is my opinion that this particular deck type is worse than even S&B... >If you don't prepare for the fast blood loss of a heavy bleeding >deck, you are hosed. This is true. However, when you take into account that you are getting Misdirected every turn, it is much much worse. You can plan for heavy bleeds, even S&B by putting in some Deflections and Wakes. But you can't deflect if you are tapped and unless you put in tons of WwEF/FA, you can't use it. That's my biggest problem with this deck - you can prepare for a general strategy type (heavy S&B, etc), but unless you prepare for this specific deck, there is little to nothing you can do. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: > > > Weenie decks are like the S&B decks of old (which I think there > > was only 1 or 2 of at GenCon). > > But it is my opinion that this particular deck type is worse than even > S&B... > > >If you don't prepare for the fast blood loss of a heavy bleeding > >deck, you are hosed. > > This is true. However, when you take into account that you are getting > Misdirected every turn, it is much much worse. You can plan for heavy > bleeds, even S&B by putting in some Deflections and Wakes. But you > can't deflect if you are tapped and unless you put in tons of WwEF/FA, > you can't use it. That's my biggest problem with this deck - you can > prepare for a general strategy type (heavy S&B, etc), but unless you > prepare for this specific deck, there is little to nothing you can do. I'll respond more quickly to your first post in this thread but I did want to say that there were decks there that could have stopped my deck and there were decks there that should have stopped my deck and there were decks not present that would have stopped my deck. Whenever you have a large group of players in a tournament you will likely have a whole lot of players not at the top tier in skill. They made a lot of bad mistakes. Robert Goudie rrgo...@earthlink.net http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Sorrow wrote: > > I heard that Robert played his (infamous) Dominate-Weenie-Misdirection > deck at GenCon. I'll refrain from voicing my opinions on such a deck. > However, I am curious how his immediate (and then his grand) prey > fared. Did they have an opportunity to do anything really? How quickly > were they ousted? First round my prey was a weenie presence misdirect deck. He almost ousted his prey before I ousted him. He didn't have one of his roughly 18 Misdirects when he needed it. This left me with an easy 2 VP. The third prey went soon after. It took about four turns. Each of the players had three plus minions. Player 4 wasted his Rat's Warnings on his predator and spent a bunch of pool on equipment. If the presence deck had the Misdirection that it should have had, I probably would have been swept by it. Round two my prey brought out Justine but then immediately intercepted a big vamp with an agg damage dealing weapon. Oops! Justine was diablerized by my grand predator (why? I don't know). My tactic in this game was to influence out all four of my vampires on the third turn. My predator had a brujah deck and I didn't want to get rushed. I hoped that my prey would influence himself down low enough for me to bring up all four vampires at one time and then oust him before I could get rushed by my predator. Once my prey brought up Justine I thought I was dead. Once Justine died I was happy. When my predator's turn came around and he didn't rush I was even happier. I ousted my prey in one turn. I ousted my next prey the next turn. The next guy in line beat me down with an array of 2nd Tradition Domains and Sudden Reversals. Also, he had damage dealing votes. When he tried to split the Con Agg votes by placing one on his prey and 3 on me (his grand prey) I threatened to oust myself and give his prey 6 pool and a VP. Had he not relented I may have died with only one VP. Anyway, the winner that round was a Vote + 2nd Trad. deck. This was a definite 0 VP game had my prey not screwed up. Third round. 4 player table with David Tatu (VP leader at the time) was my grand predator/grand prey. David ousted his prey. I ousted my prey ( A brujah bruise and bleed deck that neither bruised nor bled). David's deck was supposed to life boon and then change the table order to deal the death blow himself. David made a calculation on how much pool to give my prey. He didn't want to go too low on pool so he gave my prey enough pool to handle anything but a Forshadowing Destruction. I had one though. Had David given the guy a couple more pool I would have had 2 fewer VPs. In the finals I was the top seed so chose last. I put Tatu as my prey because he only had big vamps and I thought I could get him out before he got off a minion tap. My predator seemed to have some kind of bleed deck. My grand predator had a bleed deck and my grand prey (the winner) had a presense bleed deck. He also used an abundance of majesties to have one sizable vamp block and untap with. My predator got me down really low and David Tatu got off a Minion Tap which delayed me quite a while. Everyone was able to develop their game. Save for David who was nursing his one vamp trying to get off a 5th Tradition and Minion Tap combo that would have put him out of reach. > Same questions of the grand prey. How far down > stream did a player have to be in order to be able to do anything with > with their deck? Usually grand prey. If you played with larger vampires (not using Tomb or Info Hwy.) then definitely grand prey. > On the other side of the coin, how threatening was your predator, Robert, > in each of your games? An extension of this question would be, what > type's of decks were your Predator/Prey? I never once had an action played on me that I wished I could block. I was never rushed. No bleed was ever deflected. Oh, lastly, after hearing about the Thursday tournament and the prevalence of weenie decks I had to decide what I'd play for Saturday's event. What I chose to do was devote a percentage of the deck to wakes and deflections and let the weenie decks help me oust my prey. I realized that this would slow me down so I added Gird Minions to avoid getting intercepted while hunting. The wakes and deflects did come in handy on occassion. > I understand that you didn't > actually win so at least in the finals you had to of hit some sort of snag. > What was it? I never played against the eventual finals winner in a prelim. I should have made him my prey leaving David's big deck as my predator. I think I would have either gained 3 VPs or swept had I made that choice. But, even with our seating I was essentially beaten by a 6 Cap vampire who woke 1 time and majestied 5 times. When you spend a lot to misdirect a weenie horde, you cannot be blocked many times before your pool is gone. Didn't people used to complain that the 20 majesty deck was broken? I'd have to agree! :-) Joe C.'s nasty intercept deck was almost solely responsible for a Weenie Presence deck not getting into the finals. Joe C.'s deck beat the tournament winner in a preliminary round. No one rushed me. Only one player had any amound of wakes or 2nd Traditions. No one hit me with votes. Only one Sudden Reversal (from the 2nd Trad. player) No one bled me hard, Mind Raped, Corrupted, Hostily took over, etc. I suspect we'll soon see my player rating jump up a bit. So, let me be proactive and take a moment to say that I've only played this deck in no more than one out of every three tournaments. My rating is not equal to the rating of "Weenie Misdirect Bleed". Last time I played this deck I lost multiple games (To Anarch Revolt decks and Rush Combat decks) and was beaten in the finals by a Low-Cap Potence Rush Deck. -- [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 12 Aug 1999 14:45:46 GMT "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: > But it is my opinion that this particular deck type is worse than > even S&B... It is actually tougher to defend against than S&B. There's no hand-jamming a weenie bleed deck. > This is true. However, when you take into account that you are > getting Misdirected every turn, it is much much worse. You can > plan for heavy bleeds, even S&B by putting in some Deflections > and Wakes. But you can't deflect if you are tapped and unless > you put in tons of WwEF/FA, you can't use it. That's my biggest > problem with this deck - you can prepare for a general strategy > type (heavy S&B, etc), but unless you prepare for this specific > deck, there is little to nothing you can do. But some preparation that you can do is quite simple and can be used against a variety of decks. Sudden Reversal is one. If they can't tap you out, they won't be able to bleed you as much. That can give you time to develop your deck. And if you don't face a weenie deck, Sudden Reversal is still useful. Atonement is another good one. The trick is getting the Atoned vampire back untapped after a Misdirection. Protean, Presence, and Animalism (Guard Dogs and Rats' Warning say to untap) can do that fairly easily. If you don't face a weenie deck, there are still often small vampires you can use this against and it can be useful for stopping vote decks. Put a gun on this vampire and you'll stop cold any weenie deck not using Misdirection. Pool gain can help you survive long enough for someone to oust the weenie. Usually, some deal making is involved to accomplish this. However, I think most people realise that if a weenie deck isn't killed, it will most likely sweep the table. Mike Courtois also played a weenie bleed deck, but I'm not sure it used Misdirection. He only faired 2 VP in the whole tournament. Obviously, they can be stopped. [ quoted text not captured ]

mbohlman wrote: > > On Thu, 12 Aug 1999 14:45:46 GMT "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: > > Sudden Reversal is one. If they can't tap you out, they won't > be able to bleed you as much. That can give you time to develop > your deck. And if you don't face a weenie deck, Sudden Reversal > is still useful. I agree. One of the reasons I played the deck at GenCon was because of the posts about the general distaste some people have toward Sudden Reversal (as witnessed by some recent threads). I felt that a SR shortage would benefit me greatly. > Pool gain can help you survive long enough for someone to oust > the weenie. Usually, some deal making is involved to accomplish > this. However, I think most people realise that if a weenie > deck isn't killed, it will most likely sweep the table. Weenie decks are popular in L.A. because Prince/Justicar/IC Minion Tap & 5th Trad decks are popular in L.A. It is a toss-up who wins this battle when these decks face each other. > Mike Courtois also played a weenie bleed deck, but I'm not sure > it used Misdirection. He only faired 2 VP in the whole > tournament. Obviously, they can be stopped. His had far more misdirection than mine. He had majesty in his. I had a few Dodges (for the combat threat that never materialized) and Wakes and Deflects. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote in message ... >> Weenie decks are like the S&B decks of old (which I think there >> was only 1 or 2 of at GenCon). > >But it is my opinion that this particular deck type is worse than even >S&B... As part of Robert's play group I definetly agree. It's much worse than S&B. However it is certainly possible to stop it. >>If you don't prepare for the fast blood loss of a heavy bleeding >>deck, you are hosed. > >This is true. However, when you take into account that you are getting >Misdirected every turn, it is much much worse. You can plan for heavy >bleeds, even S&B by putting in some Deflections and Wakes. But you >can't deflect if you are tapped and unless you put in tons of WwEF/FA, >you can't use it. That's my biggest problem with this deck - you can >prepare for a general strategy type (heavy S&B, etc), but unless you >prepare for this specific deck, there is little to nothing you can do. I have had the misfortune of being Robert's prey on several occasions. I also have been the prey of similar weenie presence misdirection deck on numerous occasions. I have survived them over 50% of the time. Usually due to Sudden Reversal. I have also managed to wake and majesty them to death, or even out last them with rats and cats or a mix of wakes, deflections, 5th tradition, and minion tap. Perhaps the worst thing is a weenie potence deck. They eat weeine bleed alive. They can also be wiped by Eagles Sight intercept decks (I have actually seen Robert misdirect an interceptor across the table before) and contesting with other weenie decks. I watched my preditor with the weenie presence bleed go down in flames in a tournament because someone contested Mariana Gilbert and gave me time to get rolling. As they say sh*t happens... For all the times I have seen them played at tournaments they don't seem to win more than other decks. Don't get me wrong, I still despise these decks and find them cheesy. I hate playing them myself even more. I know they involve some strategy, however it's just not the same. What I hate the most is their ability to take their prey out of the game no matter what. I said I survive them over 50% of the time. That's true. However I have almost always been so crippled that my new preditor annihilates me. Anyway, be that as it may, I can't say I think these decks are unfair. Jerky, annoying, and cheesy yes. However if someone enjoys playing them that's their right. Steve Bucy [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: >>But it is my opinion that this particular deck type is worse than even S&B...>> Worse in what sense? In my opinion, generic Malk S+B is only moderately effective, at best. In our local tournaments, Malk S+B decks tend to get nowhere, and quickly. Highly dubious and complex Dominate/Protean decks do pretty well, but your old "cheesy" S+B standby generally just gets whacked. >>This is true. However, when you take into account that you are getting Misdirected every turn, it is much much worse. You can plan for heavy bleeds, even S&B by putting in some Deflections and Wakes. But you can't deflect if you are tapped and unless you put in tons of WwEF/FA, you can't use it. That's my biggest problem with this deck - you can prepare for a general strategy type (heavy S&B, etc), but unless you prepare for this specific deck, there is little to nothing you can do.>> I agree that weenie bleed decks are powerful--probably more powerful than they should be. However, that being said, if you are going into a tournament, it seems prudent to build a deck that can stand up to a good weenie bleed deck, as it is likely that you will run into one, and it isn't that hard to do: -Weenie Pot Rush deck. Robert said he didn't run into any of these, and if he had, he might very well have not gotten anywhere. I have played in many games as the prey of a weenie bleed deck with my Nosferatu Rush deck. Some games I win, some games I lose, but it is by no way a steamroller. -Lots of untap/WWEF and deflect. If you are going to rely on deflection as a bleed defense, you need to be able to untap. Period. Building a deck with deflections and not an equal amount of Wakes (I'd go with 10 of each for a reliable defense) is asking to be killed. -Animalism/Protean defenses. Playing a Gangrel deck with Rats/Wakes and Earth Melds (or Cat's Guidance) will go an awfully long way to stopping such a deck dead in the water, and is perfectly viable in an offensive deck. I have a weenie Protean bleed deck with enough Wakes and Earth Melds (as well as light intercept and a few Attonements) to put up a very determined defense against such a deck. -Being just as fast. Make your own weenie bleed deck. Or a weenie Pre vote deck. Or an inhuman waves Embrace deck (what is he going to do? Misdirect 10 vampires every turn?) I know we had this very same discussion fairly recently, and all the same ideas still apply--if you leave vampires untapped, hoping to block/deflect a weenie bleed deck, you are clearly already losing. Tap out every turn (so his Misdirections are useless) either ousting your prey or beating up your predator's vampires. Then have reliable defenses that work when you tap out every turn (or by tapping out every turn). I completely agree that it is unfortunate that competetive Jyhad is so completely affected by weenie speed decks ('cause it is). However, barring some sort of significant rules change, this will always be the case, so you are best off going into a competetive situation with a deck that can compete. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "He sees the things he knows are his He sees the bright and hollow sky" -Iggy Pop

Peter D Bakija <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> wrote in article <19990812173357...@ng-ff1.aol.com>... > -Lots of untap/WWEF and deflect. If you are going to rely on deflection as a > bleed defense, you need to be able to untap. Period. Building a deck with > deflections and not an equal amount of Wakes (I'd go with 10 of each for a > reliable defense) is asking to be killed. Don't forget Telepathic Counter, too--you've only got to untap one vamp and you can use as many as you want with that vamp for each weenie bleed each turn. (Although a deck with 15 Telepathic Counters would be kinda ridiculous.......or would it? Look for a deck post soon!) KM

On 12 Aug 1999, Peter D Bakija wrote: > Worse in what sense? In my opinion, generic Malk S+B is only > moderately effective, at best. In our local tournaments, Malk S+B > decks tend to get nowhere, and quickly. Highly dubious and complex > Dominate/Protean decks do pretty well, but your old "cheesy" S+B > standby generally just gets whacked. i would guess that your group has a lot of combat decks in it; protean/dominate provides a lot more combat defense than the Malks can get. > I agree that weenie bleed decks are powerful--probably more powerful > than they should be. However, that being said, if you are going into a > tournament, it seems prudent to build a deck that can stand up to a > good weenie bleed deck, as it is likely that you will run into one, > and it isn't that hard to do: > > -Weenie Pot Rush deck. actually, this one is hard to do. it's fairly hard both to design and to play, but it's especially hard to hard to get cards for. IG and Torn Signpost, the cornerstones of this kind of deck, are not easy to get around here. and one tends to need a lot of them... > -Lots of untap/WWEF and deflect. If you are going to rely on deflection as a > bleed defense, you need to be able to untap. Period. Building a deck with > deflections and not an equal amount of Wakes (I'd go with 10 of each for a > reliable defense) is asking to be killed. 10?! wow, i would be surpised if a deck so heavily weighted against bleed would win in a tournament... > I know we had this very same discussion fairly recently, and all the same ideas > still apply--if you leave vampires untapped, hoping to block/deflect a weenie > bleed deck, you are clearly already losing. > Tap out every turn (so his Misdirections are useless) This doesn't make them useless. It only gives your predator pool. If his deck is designed to play a misdirection every turn, your tapping out does nothing to stop him, it only lowers the price he has to pay. -davey!

davey! wrote: >>i would guess that your group has a lot of combat decks in it; protean/dominate provides a lot more combat defense than the Malks can get.>> Yup. The Malks get totally killed by *any* sort of combat, as the only viable defense thay have is various Dodges (well, that and disguised guns, but that is a dubious angle at best). Thus, if there are any reliable combat decks sitting near a Malk deck, it doesn't get anywhere. I susepct the reason that so many people refer to the Malkavians as "cheesy" is because they don't play enough combat decks. >>actually, this one is hard to do. it's fairly hard both to design and to play, but it's especially hard to hard to get cards for. IG and Torn Signpost, the cornerstones of this kind of deck, are not easy to get around here. and one tends to need a lot of them...>> The designing has already been done, and the way to play them have been discussed at length. I have won tournaments with my Rush deck, as has Josh Duffin, James Hamblin, and other folks. These decks are floating around the web. Getting all the cards necessary is a problem, true, but with boxes of boosters costing 10 bucks a pop, and Korshavn selling uncommons for .25 each, and an entire internet of folks to trade with, it isn't *that* hard to get the cards you need. If you want to make a good Rush deck, you get the cards (much like if you want to make any good deck). As competetive Jyhad tends to be dominated by weenie speed decks, and Rush decks can compete against such decks, if you want to be competetive in tournament Jyhad, such Rush decks might be an option. >>10?! wow, i would be surpised if a deck so heavily weighted against bleed would win in a tournament...>> If you are relying on bleed bounce as your only bleed defense, then 10 might not even be enough. I personally wouldn't make a deck that relies only on bleed bounce as bleed defense, but I like being more pro-active than that. However, the point that was being made by Sorrow was that the Goudie style deck burns through light bleed bounce with no problem, which is correct. If you plan on stopping a weenie bleed deck with bleed bounce, you are going to need a lot of bounce and a lot of untap. >>This doesn't make them useless. It only gives your predator pool. If his deck is designed to play a misdirection every turn, your tapping out does nothing to stop him, it only lowers the price he has to pay.>> And if the deck is designed to play a misdirection every turn, it doesn't care that is has to pay the pool. My point is not that you gain some sort of huge advantage by making him not have to play misdirections, it is that you are much better off tapping out doing things that are useful, as he is going to misdirect you anyway. If your deck spends every action it has available destroying his vampires or gaining pool or killing your prey just as quick as he is killing you, you are going to be far more successful than if you take no actions, leave your vampires untapped so you can block him, and then get surprised when he misdirects you, again. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 13 Aug 1999, Peter D Bakija wrote: > I susepct the reason that so many people refer to the Malkavians as > "cheesy" is because they don't play enough combat decks. Form of Mist bleed is way cheesier than anything the Malks do. > The designing has already been done, and the way to play them have > been discussed at length. I have won tournaments with my Rush deck, as > has Josh Duffin, James Hamblin, and other folks. These decks are > floating around the web. Fair enough. > Getting all the cards necessary is a problem, true, but with boxes of > boosters costing 10 bucks a pop, and Korshavn selling uncommons for > .25 each, and an entire internet of folks to trade with, it isn't > *that* hard to get the cards you need. In several boxes of cards, I have pulled only 2 Torn Signposts and 1 Immortal Grapple, in addition to countless cards that will go unused. Korshavn sells Torn Signpost for $.50 and Immortal Grapple for $1.50. At least he would, were it not that he was almost continually sold out of them. As for the internet at large, I hereby request that anyone with Immortal Grapples and Torn Signposts for trade email me a list of wants! -davey! If only IG and TS were commons...

> Don't forget Telepathic Counter, too--you've only got to untap one vamp and > you can use as many as you want with that vamp for each weenie bleed each > turn. (Although a deck with 15 Telepathic Counters would be kinda > ridiculous.......or would it? Look for a deck post soon!) Here's the deck! I think this looks like a GREAT tourney deck. If there is ever another Mpls. tourney, I'd have to give it serious consideration....Please point out all of the major flaws I probably don't see in this deck. Deck name: Awesome Auspex Created by: Kristyl Meth Description: Auspex is your friend. I tried to create a deck that is jack-of-all-trades and master-of-some. This deck has bleed bounce/bleed reduce, vote defense, combat defense, and moderate bleeding. The goal: successfully defend against multiple types of predators while still being able to aggressively oust your prey. Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 15, Max: 30, Avg: 5.75] 1 Felicia Mostrom (Toreador, 5, AU CE pr) 2 Isabel de Leon (Toreador, 3, AU) 1 Jessica (Toreador Antitribu, 7, AU CE OT PR, Bishop) 1 Jost Werner (Toreador Antitribu, 6, an AU PR) 1 Kallista, Master Sculptor (Toreador, 6, AU CE pr pt) 1 Lachlan, Noddist (Toreador Antitribu, 8, AU CE do PR, Archbishop) 1 Makarios, The Seducer (Toreador, 8, AU do PR SE) 1 Remilliard, Devout Crusader (Toreador Antitribu, 4, AU pr) 1 Sheila Mezarin (Toreador Antitribu, 6, AU ce fo PR) 1 Sigrid Bekker (Toreador, 6, AU ce po pr) 1 Tatiana Romanov (Toreador, 7, AU ce pr, Prince) All vamps have superior Auspex and pr/PR (except Isabel). Library: (90 cards) Masters: (18 cards) 3 Aching Beauty 1 Art Museum 3 Blood Doll 1 Elysium: The Arboretum 1 Fetish Club Hunting Ground 1 Metro Underground 2 Minion Tap 1 Palla Grande 2 Presence 2 Secure Haven 1 Society Hunting Ground Auspex: (22 cards) 6 Pulse of the Canaille (maybe too many) 12 Telepathic Counter 4 Telepathic Misdirection Notice not much intercept--let bleeds go through, then reduce, or bounce the big ones. Celerity: (10 cards) 6 Alacrity (combine w/ Marijava for decent stealth against intercept-deck prey) 4 Sideslip (weakness--my only defense against IG along w/ the fragile Elysium) Presence: (24 cards) 4 Aire of Elation 5 Enchant Kindred 5 Legal Manipulations 10 Majesty Others: (16 cards) 2 Art Scam 4 Delaying Tactics 4 Marijava Ghoul 6 Wake with Evening's Freshness KM

On 12 Aug 1999 21:33:57 GMT, pd...@aol.comANTISPAM (Peter D Bakija) wrote: > >I know we had this very same discussion fairly recently, and all the same ideas >still apply--if you leave vampires untapped, hoping to block/deflect a weenie >bleed deck, you are clearly already losing. Tap out every turn (so his >Misdirections are useless) either ousting your prey or beating up your >predator's vampires. Then have reliable defenses that work when you tap out >every turn (or by tapping out every turn). Also option '3', for the sneaky and underhanded: when you have Wakes in hand, three vamps out, and a handful of combat, leave all your vampires untapped in order to make your predator oust himself faster by wasting blood for Misdirections. If he doesn't Misdirect, great! If he does, well, you expected it, and the combat cards had probably better go to removing those hideous little weenies first. >I completely agree that it is unfortunate that competetive Jyhad is so >completely affected by weenie speed decks ('cause it is). However, barring some >sort of significant rules change, this will always be the case, so you are best >off going into a competetive situation with a deck that can compete. I can't even think of a significant rules change that will affect only weenie decks, short of reprinting Atonement as a common card. ;) I guess that's not a rules change, is it... :) -- Derek (replying by email? remove the nospam from my domain :)

On Fri, 13 Aug 1999 06:53:38 GMT, davey! sprocket <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: > > >On 13 Aug 1999, Peter D Bakija wrote: > >> I susepct the reason that so many people refer to the Malkavians as >> "cheesy" is because they don't play enough combat decks. > >Form of Mist bleed is way cheesier than anything the Malks do. But it is also significantly more complicated to make work than anything the Malks do. And it falls over to Psyche!, Fast Reaction, etc... not to mention that a Woken vampire is still Awake, i believe, he just needs to generate an extra +1 intercept. And you can only Form of Mist once per action... Plus, you can make Malk bleed with a bunch of 4 and 5 caps. Caitlin is a 'must' for any serious PRO/DOM deck, as is Iliana, but you can't make an entire crypt of 2 vamps, and the other PRO/dom users are 8 and 9 caps... a far cry from 4 and 5. [ quoted text not captured ]

[big ol' snip] I believe you may be thinking incorrectly here. (If I'm mistaken, I apologize) If you leave only one minion untapped (or only plan on untapping one minion) to handle all the bleeding from your predator, any bleed greater than 2 will get through. Per action, each minion may only play a specific reaction card once. So a single minion couldn't play multiple Tel. Counters on each bleed attempt. He could only play one per bleed attempt. So 5 weenie bleeds for 4 each would still drop you 10 pool a round, and that's if you reduced each one. If you planned on leaving multiple minions untapped, however, then they could each play a Tel. Counter and reduce the bleed to a far greater extent. But this strategy leaves your prey strong, as you are not gutting him with those minions you leave untapped to reduce/defect. And as you pointed out, I think the deck would have troubles with opposing combat decks. p.

Patrick Harris <alp...@alpinetaxi.com> wrote in article <37B47CB9...@alpinetaxi.com>... > I believe you may be thinking incorrectly here. (If I'm mistaken, I apologize) > If you leave only one minion untapped (or only plan on untapping one minion) to > handle all the bleeding from your predator, any bleed greater than 2 will get > through. Per action, each minion may only play a specific reaction card once. > So a single minion couldn't play multiple Tel. Counters on each bleed attempt. > He could only play one per bleed attempt. So 5 weenie bleeds for 4 each would > still drop you 10 pool a round, and that's if you reduced each one. Whoa. I guess I've never gone up against a good weenie bleed deck. 5 weenie bleeds for 4 each on one turn!! That's ridiculous! What exactly is a "weenie"? Are these vamps all <=3 caps? 4 caps? How are these weenies _all_ able to bleed for 4? I always thought that weenie bleed decks were effective because they used multiple (6+) minions per turn to do bleeds for two pool or so each, not because they use weenies for 4 bleeds. Geez, 4 bleeds are tough enough to pull of for non-weenies! And yes, I built the deck knowing that my minion could only use one Tel. Counter per bleed, but as I just stated, I assumed that _most_ weenie bleeds would be for two or less. If weenie bleed decks can consistently take five bleeds per turn at 4 each, god help us all--why even create other types of decks then? > And as you pointed out, I think the deck would have troubles with opposing > combat decks. Only when they use lots of IG, though, right? KM

On Fri, 13 Aug 1999 21:02:36 GMT, "Kristyl Meth" <dapa...@riderlaw.com> wrote: >Whoa. I guess I've never gone up against a good weenie bleed deck. 5 >weenie bleeds for 4 each on one turn!! That's ridiculous! What exactly is >a "weenie"? Are these vamps all <=3 caps? 4 caps? How are these weenies >_all_ able to bleed for 4? I always thought that weenie bleed decks were >effective because they used multiple (6+) minions per turn to do bleeds for >two pool or so each, not because they use weenies for 4 bleeds. Geez, 4 >bleeds are tough enough to pull of for non-weenies! Heh. Well, the Weenie Presence Bleed monstrosity looks like this. A quick pull from ELDB shows that there are 13 vampires of 3-cap or less who have presence - one is Hideous Fontaine, who has PRE. One way to go about it is to Misdirect repeatedly and bleed with Social Charm every change you get. Your vampires need never hunt, and if you get PRE on a few of them, you start gaining pool in the process. You can also bleed with Legal Manip for a bigger smackdown per action, but your guys will eventually need to hunt. This is lethal in itself. Oh, yeah, toss about 8-10 Majesties in your deck as token combat defense (and to bring it up to 60 cards). This is the one you're thinking of, I suspect, where you end up getting a bunch of pre weenies who bleed for 2 or 3 each. Another pull from ELDB shows that there are 7 Toreadors of 4-cap or less, 3 of whom come pre-equipped with Presence. Toss in Presence masters now, and you can Social Charm/Aire of Elation for a bleed of 4 or 5-and-gain-1, depending on pre/PRE. A little more tricky/expensive to get rolling - a lot more vicious to be slapped with if you don't see it coming. Each of your Tories can do this twice without hunting, which is plenty, and you can get 3-4 guys out for RealDamnCheap. The biggest problem is the PRE skill cards you have to put in, which eat up Misdirection space. A pull from ELDB on Dominate shows that there are 8 vampires of 3-cap or less with dominate. Only Royce is a 1-cap, and include Ingrid Russo and Gloria Giovanni who are 4-caps with DOM, and you have a vicious little bundle already. Misdirect, bleed with Govern + Threats or Govern + Conditioning, which is a bleed for 4/5 or 5/6, depending on dom/DOM. Toss some Dominate skill cards in there and more Threats if you want your guys to hunt less - toss some Gird Minions in there instead if you don't see a lot of bounce. Screw the combat defense - this thing moves so fast it isn't EVEN funny. >And yes, I built the deck knowing that my minion could only use one Tel. >Counter per bleed, but as I just stated, I assumed that _most_ weenie >bleeds would be for two or less. If weenie bleed decks can consistently >take five bleeds per turn at 4 each, god help us all--why even create other >types of decks then? This would be the point of our discussion - weenie bleed is almost excessively powerful, requiring one to provide for its defense in any tournament deck. Some decks lend themselves well to weenie-busting. Weenie potence, for example; as soon as you see Samson and Mustafa Rahman come out, you just put them in torpor, because you KNOW what's going to happen. Weenie Dominate is the hardest to "sneak up" on people with, in my opinion - but far and away the most lethal and fast. Toreador PRE bleed is probably the sneakiest since it takes a little bit to get rolling - but it is also the most fragile. Some decks, unfortunately, don't - one of the reasons you see equipment getting bashed so heavily on here. It's not the equipment that's so bad, it's just that it takes so long to get it and then get moving with it, and what if someone generates +1 intercept, or you have a weenie horde behind you? You might be bled for a gazillion before you can get that Assault Rifle out (which admittedly tends to stop weenies very unsubtly). [ quoted text not captured ]

Geez, and I thought weenie bleed decks were menacing at bleeds for 2/3 pool each! Maybe one way to change the rules to counter this would be requiring an average crypt capacity above 4 or something at (constructed deck) tourneys? Or would that seriously hamper other cool aspects of Jyhad? KM

In article <01bee5dd$1258dfa0$81a5...@dapatrin.riderlaw.com>, Kristyl Meth <dapa...@riderlaw.com> writes >Maybe one way to change the rules to counter this would be requiring >an average crypt capacity above 4 or something at (constructed deck) >tourneys? Or would that seriously hamper other cool aspects of Jyhad? It would kill some of the weenie potence decks, for a start. I believe Josh or Peter got it down to about 3. Also, it would require strict checking by a judge, which currently you don't have to do in Jyhad. -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia, England) Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net http://www.obeah.demon.co.uk

On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, Derek S. Ray wrote: > But it is also significantly more complicated to make work than > anything the Malks do. ?? I'm not so sure this is the case. The deck has almost everything you could want available to it. Form of Mist itself is an excellent card, as it provides combat defense and sealth all a once. In general, protean provides stealth, combat defense, combat offense, and untaps for extra actions. Dominate provides bleed and bleed bounce as well as a host of other useful things. You could also splash fortitutde for blood gain and even more combat defense... By comparison, the Malks have very little to offer. Obfuscate gives the stealth, sure, but not all the other stuff you get from protean. Auspex is ok, but the malks can't make such good use of it. And they get creamed in combat... > And it falls over to Psyche!, Fast Reaction, etc... Fast reaction, if it even works against FoM, is a pretty weak card. In the end, you wind up with two tapped minions, and I can just play Earth Meld in the second combat to have no tapped minions. Then another of my minions can bleed... As for Psyche, yeah, it'll stop FoM, but Protean has other stealth to offer, which should go in this type of deck. The thing about protean that's so great is the extreme flexibility of the cards: FoM can be used defensively to dodge or end combat, or offensively to gain stealth and tap a minion. Rapid Change has similar flexibility. Claws can be used to maneuver or press or torporize your opponent (which beats Psyche!...) > not to mention that a Woken vampire is still Awake, i believe, > he just needs to generate an extra +1 intercept. And you can only > Form of Mist once per action... yup, this is true. but you can still gain more stealth, and FoM should not be the only stealth you play. and in any case, the Malks don't have a better card to offer in this situation. > Plus, you can make Malk bleed with a bunch of 4 and 5 caps. Caitlin > is a 'must' for any serious PRO/DOM deck, as is Iliana, but you can't > make an entire crypt of 2 vamps, and the other PRO/dom users are 8 and > 9 caps... a far cry from 4 and 5. First of all, I would say that the PRO is more important than the dominate in this kind of deck. If you let yourself use discipline cards and Computer Hacking, the crypt can be worked out. Secondly, Protean provides you with cards to untap your minions, most noteably Earth Meld and Homunculus. With these, having fewer minions does not mean fewer actions. Plus, the combat defenses offered by this deck generally make your vampires last longer than Malks. -davey!

On Sat, 14 Aug 1999 21:58:07 GMT, davey! sprocket <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: >On Fri, 13 Aug 1999, Derek S. Ray wrote: > >> But it is also significantly more complicated to make work than >> anything the Malks do. ^^ Keep in mind that THIS is my original point, not which type of deck is more effective. ^^ >?? I'm not so sure this is the case. The deck has almost everything you >could want available to it. Form of Mist itself is an excellent card, as >it provides combat defense and sealth all a once. In general, protean >provides stealth, combat defense, combat offense, and untaps for extra >actions. Dominate provides bleed and bleed bounce as well as a host of >other useful things. You could also splash fortitutde for blood gain and >even more combat defense... Yes, and the more of this you include in your deck, the less actual bleeding your deck will do, which reduces its focus significantly and makes it less offensively effective than the Malk deck. Form of Mist is an excellent card, but do NOT underestimate how weak its weaknesses really are. Also, as I pointed out below, getting vampires with PRO/dom is nowhere near as easy as getting vampires with some flavor of obf/dom. The Malkavian stealth/bleed can be built with, at its base, four cards - Govern, Conditioning, Lost in Crowds, Cloak - add to deck in proper amounts, bring out vampires, zoom, zoom. The PRO/dom stealth/FoM/bleed needs a LOT more work. > By comparison, the Malks have very little to offer. Obfuscate >gives the stealth, sure, but not all the other stuff you get from protean. >Auspex is ok, but the malks can't make such good use of it. And they get >creamed in combat... But you MUST have Rush combat to kill a S&B deck in this fashion, since the only type of deck that can hope to consistently generate +3 or better intercept is a dedicated intercept deck. A Malk S&B at a table with no Rush is in excellent shape unless it runs into some bounce somewhere. >> And it falls over to Psyche!, Fast Reaction, etc... > >Fast reaction, if it even works against FoM, is a pretty weak card. In >the end, you wind up with two tapped minions, and I can just play >Earth Meld in the second combat to have no tapped minions. Then another >of my minions can bleed... Fast Reaction *does* work against FoM. No, it isn't the greatest card, but you won't be able to Earth Meld in the 2nd combat due to card text on FR - "During the first round, the opposing minion cannot use any strikes." Any deck making use of FR will be sure to torporise your minion, usually with some agg weapon (ivory bow) or other, and a PRO/dom deck can't afford to be losing its minions temporarily this way - its vampires are too big. > As for Psyche, yeah, it'll stop FoM, but Protean has other stealth >to offer, which should go in this type of deck. The thing about protean >that's so great is the extreme flexibility of the cards: FoM can be used >defensively to dodge or end combat, or offensively to gain stealth and tap >a minion. Rapid Change has similar flexibility. Claws can be used to >maneuver or press or torporize your opponent (which beats Psyche!...) The other stealth is irrelevant. One Psyche! stops the action cold, which makes the block successful even if you S:CE away from the combat the second time as well - and the whole purpose of a FoM deck is to Not Get Caught. Rapid Change has its place, but in this type of deck, Earth Control or Earth Meld are much better alternatives (although I'd rather just put more FoM in the deck to get the S:CE). Putting Claws into your deck increases the blood spent by your vampires, and guarantees that you won't be able to continue the action, defeating the purpose of your deck again. (Also, dilutes your deck - you'll end up noticing that you have a Claws in hand when you need a FoM.) >> not to mention that a Woken vampire is still Awake, i believe, >> he just needs to generate an extra +1 intercept. And you can only >> Form of Mist once per action... > >yup, this is true. but you can still gain more stealth, and FoM should >not be the only stealth you play. and in any case, the Malks don't have a >better card to offer in this situation. The Malks don't get caught the first time, and have no risk from any form of combat other than Rush combat. They don't need a card in this situation, since they just generate +3 stealth with two cards, one of which could even be Faceless Night (tapping the attempted blocker). Much easier to make work properly than Form of Mist. Since your deck -requires- being blocked, a Potence deck that is temporarily out of rush can actually leave itself untapped and wait for you to come to it - and survive that way, if you run out of your alternate stealth cards. Ouch! Then, how much alternate stealth do you put in? If nobody blocks you (a very real possibility, and most people's standard response to any sort of stealth/bleed), you'll hand jam promptly on Earth Controls and FoM's. If you don't put enough in, the Wake-happy deck will get you with its KRCG radio, Rumor Mill, or just plain Spirit's Touch (since it didn't need intercept to block you the first time.) Trickier than Malk S&B by a long shot, since you can almost guarantee that people will just say "the hell with it" and quit blocking against Malks - people seem to want to block the FoM bleeders more. Meaning that Malk decks know not to include a WHOLE lot of stealth. =) >> Plus, you can make Malk bleed with a bunch of 4 and 5 caps. Caitlin >> is a 'must' for any serious PRO/DOM deck, as is Iliana, but you can't >> make an entire crypt of 2 vamps, and the other PRO/dom users are 8 and >> 9 caps... a far cry from 4 and 5. > >First of all, I would say that the PRO is more important than the dominate >in this kind of deck. If you let yourself use discipline cards and >Computer Hacking, the crypt can be worked out. I have a very functional PRO/dom deck, and i'm quite fond of it. From my experience, a pile (8) of DOM discipline cards is absolutely necessary, and you'll STILL only get out three minions, tops. Most Malk decks work well with only a couple OBF/DOM skill cards tossed in, so they have a lot more free master slots to include Sudden Reversals, blood gain, Forest of Shadows, etc. Again, much easier to do with Malks. The PRO weenie/Computer Hacking/Laptop/FoM deck is a different approach than PRO/dom. Much less susceptible to bounce, much easier to produce. Requires lots more FoM, though, and highly susceptible to people just not-blocking, since bleeds for 2 can often be ignored or Telepathic Countered. > Secondly, Protean provides you with cards to untap your minions, >most noteably Earth Meld and Homunculus. With these, having fewer >minions does not mean fewer actions. Plus, the combat defenses offered by >this deck generally make your vampires last longer than Malks. What other actions are you going to be taking, and what the heck do you want to be untapped for in a sneak & bleed deck? :) Just toss in some Wakes/Deflections, and a few Delaying Tactics if you have a vote problem, and off it can go on its merry little way. Sure, this will dilute your offense a little bit (although Deflections are only a minor dilution since they also provide offense), but -some- concessions for defense have to be made. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: >>It would kill some of the weenie potence decks, for a start. I believe Josh or Peter got it down to about 3. Also, it would require strict checking by a judge, which currently you don't have to do in Jyhad.>> Yeah, my Rush deck currently runs at an average of 3.5, but only 'cause I feel compelled to use Beast (as he kicks so much ass). If I was forced to play with a minimum average of 4, my deck would become larger, slower, and generally less effective against all decks, not just weenie speed decks. I have tossed around ideas of how to redude the effectiveness of weenie decks, but none of them ever seem worth it. I have considered the "minimum crypt average" angle, but it is difficult to impliment and shuts down non speed weenie decks that are perfectly reasonable (many combat decks: weenie Pot, weenie Ani, weenie Cel/Zip Gun; weenie horde/spawning decks). I have considered the constant "Masquerade Enforced" rule (all vampires cost an extra 1 to bring out), but it doesn't really curtail weenie speed decks and kind of screws a sizeable number of marginally effective decks. Sadly, however, I suspect that the only real answer to the dominance of weenie speed decks is to adapt or die. Many decks can compete against weenie decks, and can win tournaments doing so--in a competetive situation, you pretty much have to play one of these, which makes many other deck types pretty much futile to play (i.e. all the slow ones that spend a lot of pool on vampires and don't generate insane amounts of pool...). Sad. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Derek S. Ray wrote: > Fast Reaction *does* work against FoM. The only reason i have doubts is the "action continues as if unbloacked" vs. "play when a minion you control blocks..." interaction. > No, it isn't the greatest card, but you won't be able to Earth Meld in > the 2nd combat due to card text on FR - "During the first round, the > opposing minion cannot use any strikes." Whoops, I have forgotten about this. It's so rare that I see FR ever played, I guess :) > The other stealth is irrelevant. One Psyche! stops the action cold, What I meant was, if you see your prey using Psyche!, swith your game plan to playing the other stealth first, and use the FoM's for defensive combat, rather than trying to make your actions get through. Use the flexibility of the cards to make it not irrelevant. > which makes the block successful even if you S:CE away from the combat > the second time as well - and the whole purpose of a FoM deck is to > Not Get Caught. I would say the card has many purposes. Sometimes stealth, sometimes defense, sometimes just to tap an extra minion, which i find to be very useful in this kinda of strategy. At least, these are the most common uses I have for it... > Rapid Change has its place, but in this type of deck, Earth Control or > Earth Meld are much better alternatives I think I agree... > (although I'd rather just put more FoM in the deck to get the S:CE). Not me. For one thing, you can only use it for the SCE or the stealth once per action. I also like the untapping ability of Earth Meld, and I often need the extra sltealth from Earth Control. Which makes me think Rapid Change should be a Great card for this deck; I'll hafta try a few... For another thing, you can bait your prey into blocking and then use Earth Meld and untap, then come in with the real bleed. Mixing up the cards keeps 'em guessing. Plus it's just more flexible. > Putting Claws into your deck increases the blood spent by your > vampires, and guarantees that you won't be able to continue the > action, defeating the purpose of your deck again. (Also, dilutes your > deck - you'll end up noticing that you have a Claws in hand when you > need a FoM.) just a few claws is enough. i use fortitude as well; YMMV. > Since your deck -requires- being blocked, a Potence deck that is > temporarily out of rush can actually leave itself untapped and wait > for you to come to it - and survive that way, if you run out of your > alternate stealth cards. Ouch! I'm surprised you still haven't mentioned IG - a much more useable and used card than Fast Reaction. But a Malk deck is no better off when it runs out of stealth against a rush deck. And it's much worse off when the rush deck has rush, which should happen more often, right? > Then, how much alternate stealth do you put in? If nobody blocks you > (a very real possibility, and most people's standard response to any > sort of stealth/bleed), you'll hand jam promptly on Earth Controls and > FoM's. Obviously this varies depending on your metagame. But you can afford to use extra stealth since FoM does not need to be used for stealth. And Rapid Change, too, can be used in multiple ways. must remember to try that card... > I have a very functional PRO/dom deck, and i'm quite fond of it. From > my experience, a pile (8) of DOM discipline cards is absolutely > necessary, and you'll STILL only get out three minions, tops. Wow! I guess you and I have a different experience. My deck uses maybe 3-4 Dominate and 6 Protean. It's the first deck I ever got to really work, and it plays very well. I can generally expect only 3-4 minions, but this isn't usually a problem. You see, I focused the whole deck around "action advantage." I was thinking of parallels between Jyhad and MtG, and it seemed in Jyhad, the game's main pacing mechanic wasn't cards drawn but minion phase actions (which can be traded in for blocks.) So I tried to make a deck that multiplied the action effectiveness of my minions: FoM superior is a double action with stealth; Computer Hacking is a double bleed; Restoration is a triple hunt; telepathic counter is free blocking for bleeds; Deflection is like blocking and bleeding at once, with no fear of combat, and superior doesn't require tapping to block; Earth Meld steals your action and gives me another; ...Freak Drive, Homunculus, wakes, etc, etc. Since I built my whole deck around this concept, it plays extremely well, and eventually I neutralize enough of my opponents' actions while multiplying my own, and it's enough to overwhelm my prey. the card flow slows down in the late game, but by then I generally have more vamps due to the +6 pool for oustings. It doesn't always win, but the card flow is very, very nice. A freind of mine has a similarly, but independantly constructed deck, which uses HUGE capacity gangrels and lots of "action advantage" cards to make up for the fact that he only has 2-3 minions out for most of the game. There's some bleed but also a lot of votes - when he plays this deck, he usually has the politcal advantage with 7-14 votes from titles. It's nasty. We have specuated that the Toreador could pull off a similar feat, as they have majesty for untaps, some minor stealth/unblockability, and certainly the votes, but as yet nothing has come of it... > The PRO weenie/Computer Hacking/Laptop/FoM deck is a different > approach than PRO/dom. Much less susceptible to bounce, much easier > to produce. Requires lots more FoM, though, and highly susceptible to > people just not-blocking, since bleeds for 2 can often be ignored or > Telepathic Countered. Hmm. My deck has 6 or more CH, 6 FoM, and yet it makes use of dominate. It's not really a weenie deck, since the vamps are about 5-7. Maybe you've never seen one like it? Oh yeah, and did I mention I use Fortitude and Auspex? Really, it works very well :) But I must constantly tweak it to accomodate the combat flavor of the month. > What other actions are you going to be taking, Superior Govern to bring out another vampire, generally. that one good enough for ya? also restoration now and then. > and what the heck do you want to be untapped for in a sneak & bleed > deck? :) Bleed bounce mainly. And blocking. really :) which is where the Claws come in. I will post the deck's current iteration soon. -davey!

Well, after reading this whole thread (damn!) I just had to reply: THIS!!was the only reason why we started playing with the 6CL although I still hate it! I mean the Weenie PRE bleed, DOM bleed and POT rush have always been around since we started and they all got boring. This might be a defence for a CL. And about the dom deck: whatever happened to the vote decks? Anarchist uprising, domain challenge, even protected resources (which still is a good card in a vote deck). This PLUS some bleed bounce, Boons and archon investigation (although not too good against weenies). And why didn't the whole table, once they say the deck, close him down together? They know the treat.... Tim Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.

In article <7p8o3j$qni$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > Well, after reading this whole thread (damn!) I just had to reply: > THIS!!was the only reason why we started playing with the 6CL although I > still hate it! > > I mean the Weenie PRE bleed, DOM bleed and POT rush have always been > around since we started and they all got boring. > This might be a defence for a CL. I guess that's why MANY groups play with CL's. The game can quickly become *BORING* with NL. I've seen it myself. I assume there's in every group a player who goes for an uninventive, boring deck. And hell, the rules don't prohibit stupid, boring decks, therefore players install houserules, to stop them somewhat, so that the fun is not entirely killed. Carl PS: hehe, was that now a rant, a pro-CL posting, or simply a statement? Who knows... :) [ quoted text not captured ]

"davey! sprocket" wrote: > On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Derek S. Ray wrote: > > Fast Reaction *does* work against FoM. > > The only reason i have doubts is the "action continues as if unbloacked" > vs. "play when a minion you control blocks..." interaction. FoM: "Combat Ends...the action continues as if unblocked." FR: "Only usable after a blocking minion you control other than this vampire has just completed combat." The two are not at odds. A blocking minion you control has just completed combat (and, incidentally, the action is continuing). So you can play FR to enter combat. (And entering combat will cause the "continue action" thing to fizzle.) -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) V:TES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/rules.asp

On VTES-L, Sorrow wrote: > > > FoM: "Combat Ends...the action continues as if unblocked." > > FR: "Only usable after a blocking minion you control other than this > > vampire has just completed combat." > > The two are not at odds. A blocking minion you control has just > > completed combat (and, incidentally, the action is continuing). > > So you can play FR to enter combat. (And entering combat will > > cause the "continue action" thing to fizzle.) > > Out of curiosity, what mechanic, rule or precedent was used to make > that determination? Why is getting into combat a second time grounds > for causing the 'continue action' effect to fizzle? Why could the action > still not continue after the second combat so long as the acting minion > is still ready? > Not that I care either way, I'm just curious. Here's the word as it appeared the very first time: From: aa...@cats.ucsc.edu (Thomas R Wylie) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad Subject: Re: Form of Mist VS Fast Reaction Date: 23 May 1995 08:53:39 GMT Message-ID: <3ps7qj$3...@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> The official ruling is that both Psyche and Fast Reaction disrupt the effects of superior Form of Mist, such that the action does not successfully continue. The answer to this question is not particularly obvious, but this is the answer we were most comfortable with, given that all of the proposed answers were something of a stretch. You can, of course, play with a house rule to let the Misted action continue eventually. Tom Wylie rec.games.trading-cards.* Network Representative for aa...@cats.ucsc.edu Wizards of the Coast, Inc. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:11:02 GMT t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > Well, after reading this whole thread (damn!) I just had to reply: > THIS!!was the only reason why we started playing with the 6CL > although I still hate it! Before it even starts, I'll refute this argument right here and now. It is believed to be an argument for a CL when a CL has no effect at all on a weenie bleed deck. > I mean the Weenie PRE bleed, DOM bleed and POT rush have always > been around since we started and they all got boring. This might be > a defence for a CL. What exactly in a weenie deck is boring? Seeing the same cards or seeing the same focused set of cards? For Presence bleed, you have Social Charm, Legal Manipulations, Propaganda, Media Influence, Intimidation, Entrancement, Enchant Kindred, and Aire of Elation for bleed modifying cards. Where will a CL prevent a Presence weenie bleed deck? It won't. For Dominate bleed, you have Bonding, Command of the Beast, Conditioning, Dominate Kine, Foreshadowing Destruction, Govern the Unaligned, Kine Dominance, Mind Rape, Scouting Mission, Slaughtering the Herd, and Threats. Where will a CL prevent a Dominate weenie bleed deck? It won't. For Potence combat, Fire in the Blood, Fists of Death, Growing Fury, Increased Strength, Mighty Grapple, Pushing the Limit, Sacrament of Carnage, Torn Signpost, and Undead Strength. Where will a CL prevent a Potence weenie combat deck? It won't. Get the picture? While the above is unhampered, players only have 6 Redirections, 6 Deflections, 6 Wake, 6 Forced Awakening, 6 Guard Dogs, and 6 Rats' Warning. That is a serious hampering when faced with weenie bleed. > And about the dom deck: whatever happened to the vote decks? They just didn't show up? Settite and Lasombra votes are the only pure ones I would take to a tournament. Why? Because votes only have +1 stealth. Easily blocked by decks with light intercept. > And why didn't the whole table, once they say the deck, close > him down together? They know the treat.... Robert discussed this in his reply. People made mistakes for one. Robert is also very good at the social part of the game. Also, there was not a single rush combat deck that I saw. [ quoted text not captured ]

[big snip] I agree with everything Mike stated except: > For Potence combat, Fire in the Blood, Fists of Death, Growing > Fury, Increased Strength, Mighty Grapple, Pushing the Limit, > Sacrament of Carnage, Torn Signpost, and Undead Strength. Where > will a CL prevent a Potence weenie combat deck? It won't. I believe a CL would seriously hurt any Potence-based deck, as it takes away the heart of such decks: Immortal Grapple. With multiple card options for opposing vampires regarding ending combat as a strike, not having a good deal of IG will destroy the viability of many Potence-based decks out there. Especially against weenie bleed decks. [another big snip] p.

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 13:01:04 GMT, carl.pi...@philips.com wrote: >In article <7p8o3j$qni$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, > t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: >> Well, after reading this whole thread (damn!) I just had to reply: >> THIS!!was the only reason why we started playing with the 6CL >although I >> still hate it! >> >> I mean the Weenie PRE bleed, DOM bleed and POT rush have always been >> around since we started and they all got boring. >> This might be a defence for a CL. > >I guess that's why MANY groups play with CL's. The game can quickly >become *BORING* with NL. I've seen it myself. I assume there's in every >group a player who goes for an uninventive, boring deck. >And hell, the rules don't prohibit stupid, boring decks, therefore >players install houserules, to stop them somewhat, so that the fun is >not entirely killed. I dunno. Without NL, my Vicissitude bleed deck just wouldn't work properly. =) We have a pretty standard approach to weenie dominate bleed decks (and the like) in our group: you can play them, but we get to make fun of you for it as much as we want. :) Especially if it happens to get behind something that can stop it. :) (But we also have a penchant for taking crazy ideas and trying to actually make them work.) <brief_rant> as previously stated oodles of times, card limits don't stop weenie PRE bleed or weenie DOM bleed. Six of all the DOM bleed starters (computer hack, scouting mission, govern, and any others you care to include), and six of all the DOM bleed modifiers (bonding, threats, and conditioning) is still a plenty vicious deck. Presence has 7 different cards that are +bleed all by itself. This particular portion of the CL-argument has been beat to death and is just plain wrong. :) </brief_rant> >Carl > >PS: hehe, was that now a rant, a pro-CL posting, or simply a statement? >Who knows... :) -- Derek [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 08:45:02 GMT, davey! sprocket <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: >On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Derek S. Ray wrote: > >> which makes the block successful even if you S:CE away from the combat >> the second time as well - and the whole purpose of a FoM deck is to >> Not Get Caught. > >I would say the card has many purposes. Sometimes stealth, sometimes >defense, sometimes just to tap an extra minion, which i find to be very >useful in this kinda of strategy. At least, these are the most common >uses I have for it... but if you have a FoM bleed deck, its focus is on bleeding, being blocked, and using FoM to sneak it on through while tapping one of your prey's blockers, yes? I don't play FoM on actions unless I -want- the action to succeed. >> Rapid Change has its place, but in this type of deck, Earth Control or >> Earth Meld are much better alternatives > >I think I agree... > >> (although I'd rather just put more FoM in the deck to get the S:CE). I meant as opposed to Earth Meld. Obviously, Earth Control can't be replaced by FoM, and you *will* need the total of +3 stealth due to the prevalence of 2nd Tradition, which lets someone block you, get FoM'd, then block you AGAIN. This is also why I don't use Rapid Change - not enough stealth. And Earth Meld, well, it untaps, but, see below... >Not me. For one thing, you can only use it for the SCE or the stealth >once per action. I also like the untapping ability of Earth Meld, and I not quite true: FoM has been ruled to be an S:CE as many times as you want, even defensively if Rushed, but you can only use the "continue this action" portion once. Hence, why I prefer it over Earth Meld. >often need the extra sltealth from Earth Control. Which makes me think >Rapid Change should be a Great card for this deck; I'll hafta try a few... 2nd Tradition: Domain, Enhanced Senses, Pack Tactics, Elder Intervention, ... even one Raven Spy and superior Cat's Guidance. +2 intercept is still "light intercept" in my book, since you can get it rapidly with one card. +3 intercept requires effort, so +3 stealth will almost always get past. > For another thing, you can bait your prey into blocking and then >use Earth Meld and untap, then come in with the real bleed. Mixing up the >cards keeps 'em guessing. Plus it's just more flexible. Can't bleed twice - no repeat actions rule. And as SOON as I see Form of Mist, I quit blocking anything that isn't a bleed just on general principle, and I quit blocking ANYTHING if I don't have a way to beat FoM. :) Earth Meld may be flexible, but again I can't see that you have useful secondary actions to take. Except maybe "hunt". (Bleh) >> Putting Claws into your deck increases the blood spent by your >> vampires, and guarantees that you won't be able to continue the >> action, defeating the purpose of your deck again. (Also, dilutes your >> deck - you'll end up noticing that you have a Claws in hand when you >> need a FoM.) > >just a few claws is enough. i use fortitude as well; YMMV. but if your deck is running properly, you're not even being hit, and can't play the fortitude cards =) >> Since your deck -requires- being blocked, a Potence deck that is >> temporarily out of rush can actually leave itself untapped and wait >> for you to come to it - and survive that way, if you run out of your >> alternate stealth cards. Ouch! > >I'm surprised you still haven't mentioned IG - a much more useable and >used card than Fast Reaction. But a Malk deck is no better off when it >runs out of stealth against a rush deck. And it's much worse off when the >rush deck has rush, which should happen more often, right? Well, i figured it was sort of obvious, since IG rush will beat this deck AND a malkavian deck, just across the board. An occasional claw or two is not going to impress it (rescue self, continue abusing), and if you have enough claws (8) to be sure of always having one early on (while being rushed), you'll hand jam on claws when you don't have IG rush coming for you. Malk decks don't run out of stealth. That was my point. =) Malk decks usually HAND JAM on stealth. =) Rush decks occasionally run out of Rush, though, despite the 16 actions in the industry standard. >> Then, how much alternate stealth do you put in? If nobody blocks you >> (a very real possibility, and most people's standard response to any >> sort of stealth/bleed), you'll hand jam promptly on Earth Controls and >> FoM's. > >Obviously this varies depending on your metagame. But you can afford to >use extra stealth since FoM does not need to be used for stealth. And >Rapid Change, too, can be used in multiple ways. must remember to try >that card... Either you see a lot less +2 intercept than we do, or... =) >> I have a very functional PRO/dom deck, and i'm quite fond of it. From >> my experience, a pile (8) of DOM discipline cards is absolutely >> necessary, and you'll STILL only get out three minions, tops. > >Wow! I guess you and I have a different experience. My deck uses maybe >3-4 Dominate and 6 Protean. It's the first deck I ever got to really >work, and it plays very well. Heh. I have 12 vampires with PRO in my crypt, since pro just isn't an option. =) It's posted on the Jyhad Players of Atlanta website at http://intj.home.mindspring.com/jpa/ as "Gangrel Can't Bleed". The only alteration I usually make is to swap out the Delaying Tactics for Quick Melds, depending on whether or not I expect IG combat or votes to be present - and if I pull the DT's, I remove the Wakes and replace with Guard Dogs (since without DT's, I have no reason to untap except to deflect or, as a last resort, block bleeds.) This deck has outraced a weenie Night Moves horde and a weenie PRE horde before, so it usually moves very quickly unless you get no DOM cards in your opening hand and no dom vampires in your crypt (not likely, with 5 available). Usually I get Chandler, either Caitlin or Iliana, and one other token vampire - and people usually get very surprised when you haul out Chandler, then slap DOM on him and he bleeds you for 5. Most IG Rush decks also don't rush Chandler when he first comes out, as he doesn't look like much of a threat. > I can generally expect only 3-4 minions, but this isn't usually a >problem. You see, I focused the whole deck around "action advantage." I (various and sundry snipped) well, more minion actions -is-, in general, always better. but they have to be useful actions. Govern at superior is useful, but a PRO/dom deck has trouble getting DOM without getting Iliana, and you can't Govern at inferior, Earth Meld, then Govern at superior, because of the same-card No Repeat Actions rule. Earth Meld/Hunt is entertaining, but probably useless. :) > A freind of mine has a similarly, but independantly constructed >deck, which uses HUGE capacity gangrels and lots of "action advantage" >cards to make up for the fact that he only has 2-3 minions out for most of >the game. There's some bleed but also a lot of votes - when he plays this >deck, he usually has the politcal advantage with 7-14 votes from titles. >It's nasty. We have specuated that the Toreador could pull off a similar >feat, as they have majesty for untaps, some minor stealth/unblockability, >and certainly the votes, but as yet nothing has come of it... Which hopefully includes a bunch of Minion Tap/5th Tradition to make up for the fact that Gangrel with titles are 9-cap or higher. :/ The Tories can't pull it off because of two reasons: one, they can't Freak Drive after a successful action. Two, they can't FoM and continue the actions they would like to continue. But the "Anneke's Domain (Every Backyard is My Backyard)" deck is certainly an entertaining toy. :) >> The PRO weenie/Computer Hacking/Laptop/FoM deck is a different >> approach than PRO/dom. Much less susceptible to bounce, much easier >> to produce. Requires lots more FoM, though, and highly susceptible to >> people just not-blocking, since bleeds for 2 can often be ignored or >> Telepathic Countered. > >Hmm. My deck has 6 or more CH, 6 FoM, and yet it makes use of dominate. >It's not really a weenie deck, since the vamps are about 5-7. Maybe >you've never seen one like it? Oh yeah, and did I mention I use Fortitude >and Auspex? Really, it works very well :) But I must constantly tweak it >to accomodate the combat flavor of the month. it sounds like yours is a lot more of a "toolbox" type than a hardcore sneak and bleed, though - a lot more small bleeds. >> What other actions are you going to be taking, > >Superior Govern to bring out another vampire, generally. that one good >enough for ya? also restoration now and then. Again, where do you get the DOM with only 4 skill cards? =) and how many copies of Iliana did you have to put in the deck to get it? ;) >> and what the heck do you want to be untapped for in a sneak & bleed >> deck? :) > >Bleed bounce mainly. And blocking. really :) which is where the Claws >come in. What do you do about Misdirection? =) [ quoted text not captured ]

"Derek S. Ray" wrote: > davey! sprocket <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: > >Not me. For one thing, you can only use it for the SCE or the stealth > >once per action. I also like the untapping ability of Earth Meld, and I > > not quite true: FoM has been ruled to be an S:CE as many times as you > want, even defensively if Rushed, but you can only use the "continue > this action" portion once. Hence, why I prefer it over Earth Meld. No. FoM, when used at superior by an acting vampire, is a action modifier. Therefore the acting vampire can play superior FoM only once per action. Defensively (used by a non-acting vampire), it doesn't modify the action, so it doesn't count as an action modifier, so it isn't restricted. * The superior counts as an action modifier when played by an acting vampire, so cannot be played more than once per action at superior. [RTR 19980623] [ quoted text not captured ]

mbohlman wrote in message ... >On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:11:02 GMT t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > >Before it even starts, I'll refute this argument right here and >now. It is believed to be an argument for a CL when a CL has >no effect at all on a weenie bleed deck. The best way to solve the weenie anything deck is to impose a crypt average of 3 or higher. This prevents a crypt of say 20 1 cap vampires dominating play. >What exactly in a weenie deck is boring? Seeing the same cards >or seeing the same focused set of cards? Simple for its ruthless efficiency, the best defense is another weenie deck. I would love to see the DCI impose a crypt average which would do wonders to prevent this annoying deck style. Raille.

In article <19990815220456...@ng-cp1.aol.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> writes >Sadly, however, I suspect that the only real answer to the dominance of weenie >speed decks is to adapt or die. Probably about right. However, unlike the situation with RtoI, you *can* adapt here, and have perfectly playable decks. Masquerade Enforcement in a Political Deck could be fun, as could Might of the Camarilla, to stop them bringing out more - especially if you use the Third Tradition to bring out your vampires. Hehe. Or you could use the horrendous "Might of the Camarilla myself, and use Possession to get them out". Hideous, hideous deck. It got stuffed by intercept, but could so easily have had a much better position. Ancilla Empowerment and Anarchist Uprising (alter according to taste) provide useful ways of doing lots of pool damage, especially since weenie decks have a tendency to take a LOT of actions, normally. Kindred Restructuring yourself into a favourable position is an alternative. Memory's Fading Glimpse is a card I've seen used to good effect before, against *any* deck. Matt Green used it effectively versus Lunar's BIG Nosferatu Voting deck with his Old Man on the Hill deck (Alamut bleed/vote). If they're transferring out weenies one turn and having to bring them out the next, it can hurt them. It could also hit an Effective Management/Kindred Intelligence type deck between minion and transfer phases if you throw a Madness Network at it.... But it can be effective versus many deck styles. It would have a good go at weenies, but it would also do big vamps, too. Atonement and Justine - Elder of Dallas give intercept decks a good head start. Weenie decks just die next to them, if they have problems getting her tapped (Urgh... the weenie Misdirection deck should just DIE). But then, if you don't adapt to a weenie deck, what happens? Well, if I can't cope with stealth/bleed (as some decks can't) I'll die next to stealth bleed. If I can't cope with weenie, I'll die next to weenie decks. It happens, and some of it comes down to the luck of the draw. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:23:57 -0400 "Raille" <rai...@mich.com> wrote: > The best way to solve the weenie anything deck is to impose a crypt > average of 3 or higher. This prevents a crypt of say 20 1 cap > vampires dominating play. Or go to tournaments expecting to see weenie decks and be prepared for them. MB>What exactly in a weenie deck is boring? Seeing the same cards MB>or seeing the same focused set of cards? > Simple for its ruthless efficiency, the best defense is another > weenie deck. Since I was judging GenCon, I didn't take a deck that I would have played in the tournaments. However, if I had, you can bet that I'd have put in some way to deal with weenie bleed and stealth & bleed, the two most efficient deck types at ousting their prey. And it doesn't take a weenie deck to beat a weenie deck. There was at least one weenie deck at GenCon that only managed 2 VP's in the whole tournament. The weenie deck that won only barely made the finals with 5 VP in three rounds. Robert might also have been close to not making had players in a couple of his games not made major mistakes. > I would love to see the DCI impose a crypt average which would do > wonders to prevent this annoying deck style. As if there weren't enough things for judges to have to worry about. Going to tournaments not expecting fast, efficient decks and preparing for them is dooming yourself to failure. And playing one doesn't guarantee you a spot in the finals. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <rrhds7...@corp.supernews.com>, "Raille" <rai...@mich.com> wrote: [snipped] > > The best way to solve the weenie anything deck is to impose a crypt average > of 3 or higher. This prevents a crypt of say 20 1 cap vampires dominating > play. > > >What exactly in a weenie deck is boring? Seeing the same cards > >or seeing the same focused set of cards? > > Simple for its ruthless efficiency, the best defense is another weenie deck. > > I would love to see the DCI impose a crypt average which would do wonders to > prevent this annoying deck style. I figure that might be a nice thing. I would love to see *if* it works or not. IMO there would be a need to give special DCI sanctioned calculators out to judges to check the cryp average. :) (OK, forget the last sentence...) :) Carl [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, LSJ wrote: > FoM: "Combat Ends...the action continues as if unblocked." > FR: "Only usable after a blocking minion you control other than this > vampire has just completed combat." > > The two are not at odds. A blocking minion you control has just > completed combat (and, incidentally, the action is continuing). So you > can play FR to enter combat. (And entering combat will cause the > "continue action" thing to fizzle.) thanks for the confirmation :) -davey!

In article <EVUt3.3848$pO3....@c01read02-admin.service.talkway.com>, "mbohlman" <mboh...@vekn.org> wrote: > On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:11:02 GMT t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > > Well, after reading this whole thread (damn!) I just had to reply: > > THIS!!was the only reason why we started playing with the 6CL > > although I still hate it! > > Before it even starts, I'll refute this argument right here and > now. It is believed to be an argument for a CL when a CL has > no effect at all on a weenie bleed deck. Whoa wait a minute. I said this MIGHT be a DEFENCE, not an pro argument. I feel there are both advantages and disadvantages to CL and NL. The whole agument about whether or not you play with CL isn't relevant, since it's up to your group. > > > I mean the Weenie PRE bleed, DOM bleed and POT rush have always > > been around since we started and they all got boring. This might be > > a defence for a CL. > > What exactly in a weenie deck is boring? Seeing the same cards > or seeing the same focused set of cards? > > For Presence bleed, you have Social Charm, Legal Manipulations, > Propaganda, Media Influence, Intimidation, Entrancement, Enchant > Kindred, and Aire of Elation for bleed modifying cards. Where > will a CL prevent a Presence weenie bleed deck? It won't. > > For Dominate bleed, you have Bonding, Command of the Beast, > Conditioning, Dominate Kine, Foreshadowing Destruction, Govern > the Unaligned, Kine Dominance, Mind Rape, Scouting Mission, > Slaughtering the Herd, and Threats. Where will a CL prevent a > Dominate weenie bleed deck? It won't. Most of these cards cost blood, thus increase the average cryptsize, so the weenie part goes out. It got boring because I've played all of these without a CL 4/5 years ago and because I like decks where there are a lot of different cards and that are very flexible in there play style. So that's why. > > For Potence combat, Fire in the Blood, Fists of Death, Growing > Fury, Increased Strength, Mighty Grapple, Pushing the Limit, > Sacrament of Carnage, Torn Signpost, and Undead Strength. Where > will a CL prevent a Potence weenie combat deck? It won't. Yes it will. Immortal grapple is neccesary, as is a lot of (cheap) TS and Undead Strenght. With the cards that cost the vamps blood the crypt size goes up and they go into torpor easier. > > Get the picture? While the above is unhampered, players only > have 6 Redirections, 6 Deflections, 6 Wake, 6 Forced > Awakening, 6 Guard Dogs, and 6 Rats' Warning. That is a serious > hampering when faced with weenie bleed. > > > And about the dom deck: whatever happened to the vote decks? > > They just didn't show up? Settite and Lasombra votes are the > only pure ones I would take to a tournament. Why? Because votes > only have +1 stealth. Easily blocked by decks with light > intercept. > Still strange since a vote and bleed deck is very flexible against all kinds of prey. > > And why didn't the whole table, once they say the deck, close > > him down together? They know the treat.... > > Robert discussed this in his reply. People made mistakes for one. > Robert is also very good at the social part of the game. Also, > there was not a single rush combat deck that I saw. > > Mike > -- > Posted via Talkway - http://www.talkway.com > Exchange ideas on practically anything (tm). > > AND JUST A COMMENT: THE MOST OF YOU ARE ONLY TALKING ABOUT EFFECTIVE TOURNAMENT STYLE DECKS. WHATEVER HAPPENED WITH THE FUN THAT SHOULD COME FROM PLAYING???? WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING....THIS GAME IS JUST ABOUT A COUPLE OF GUYS AND GIRLS DRINKING COLAS, PLAYING SOME KIND OF GAME AND ENJOYING THEMSELVES ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON. (sorry 'bout that) Tim [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999 07:36:21 GMT t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: [ CL to stop weenies argument smashing snipped ] > Whoa wait a minute. I said this MIGHT be a DEFENCE, not an pro > argument. I feel there are both advantages and disadvantages to CL > and NL. The whole agument about whether or not you play with CL > isn't relevant, since it's up to your group. You're right, but the context was talking about a tournament. I don't think most people care what other people's play groups use for their house rules. But stay away from implying anything close to CL in tournaments. :) [ List of Dominate and Presence bleed cards snipped ] > Most of these cards cost blood, thus increase the average > cryptsize, so the weenie part goes out. Not necessarily. You only need to keep blood on them long enough to oust your prey. The point was that a CL doesn't really hamper Presence-based and Dominate-based weenie bleed decks. > Yes it will. Immortal grapple is neccesary, as is a lot of (cheap) > TS and Undead Strenght. With the cards that cost the vamps blood > the crypt size goes up and they go into torpor easier. There are 14 vampires with inferior Potence with a capacity of 3 or less. If each of those vampires is rushing each turn, your S:CE will most likely not always be in your hand. Of course, if they aren't playing S:CE no big deal. > AND JUST A COMMENT: THE MOST OF YOU ARE ONLY TALKING ABOUT > EFFECTIVE TOURNAMENT STYLE DECKS. WHATEVER HAPPENED WITH THE FUN > THAT SHOULD COME FROM PLAYING???? WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING....THIS > GAME IS JUST ABOUT A COUPLE OF GUYS AND GIRLS DRINKING COLAS, > PLAYING SOME KIND OF GAME AND ENJOYING THEMSELVES ON A SATURDAY > AFTERNOON. If it's just a comment, why are you shouting? This thread was about a tournament that took place a little over a week ago. One goes to a tournament to try to win. At home or wherever, the above holds true. The only thing you get from winning in your local group is bragging rights and bit more satisfaction... or at least that's what I take from it. In any case, don't jump into a tournament-based thread expecting someone to talk about playing their 5 discipline deck to try to win the next tournament they're in. And don't assume that because people play cut-throat decks in tournaments that they also play the same decks against their friends most of the time. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > No. FoM, when used at superior by an acting vampire, is a action modifier. > Therefore the acting vampire can play superior FoM only once per action. > Defensively (used by a non-acting vampire), it doesn't modify the action, > so it doesn't count as an action modifier, so it isn't restricted. > > * The superior counts as an action modifier when played by an acting > vampire, so cannot be played more than once per action at superior. > [RTR 19980623] I know that Fast Reaction cancels the continue action part of FoM if it is played in the first combat. But what if no FoM is played in the first combat, but one is played by the acting vampire in the second combat? (Assuming Fast Reaction is played and the second combat goes to a second round so that the acting vamp is allowed a strike.) Does the acting vampire only get the S:CE effect, or may he continue the action? Thanks again, p.

On Mon, 16 Aug 1999, Derek S. Ray wrote: > but if you have a FoM bleed deck, its focus is on bleeding, being > blocked, and using FoM to sneak it on through while tapping one of > your prey's blockers, yes? I don't play FoM on actions unless I > -want- the action to succeed. hmm, I guess I play a lot more mind games than you. often I'll want to tap potential blockers on a decoy action so that the REAL bleed will get through. > I meant as opposed to Earth Meld. Obviously, Earth Control can't be > replaced by FoM, and you *will* need the total of +3 stealth due to > the prevalence of 2nd Tradition, which lets someone block you, get > FoM'd, then block you AGAIN. This is also why I don't use Rapid > Change - not enough stealth. And Earth Meld, well, it untaps, but, > see below... These are good points, but so far I haven't run into this kind of deck. > > For another thing, you can bait your prey into blocking and then > >use Earth Meld and untap, then come in with the real bleed. Mixing up the > >cards keeps 'em guessing. Plus it's just more flexible. > > Can't bleed twice - no repeat actions rule. duh. > And as SOON as I see Form of Mist, I quit blocking anything that isn't > a bleed just on general principle, and I quit blocking ANYTHING if I > don't have a way to beat FoM. :) Earth Meld may be flexible, but > again I can't see that you have useful secondary actions to take. > Except maybe "hunt". (Bleh) eh? how is Govern superior not useful? how is deflection not useful? > >just a few claws is enough. i use fortitude as well; YMMV. > > but if your deck is running properly, you're not even being hit, and > can't play the fortitude cards =) Wrong! my deck is all about gaining action advantage over my opponents. rescuing from torpor is an action, so claws are very appropriate. > >Wow! I guess you and I have a different experience. My deck uses maybe > >3-4 Dominate and 6 Protean. It's the first deck I ever got to really > >work, and it plays very well. whoops, I think that was an older version. the current version has a mere 3 protean cards, and 2 dominate. i think this may be too low though :) > Which hopefully includes a bunch of Minion Tap/5th Tradition to make > up for the fact that Gangrel with titles are 9-cap or higher. :/ I don't think so. The idea is not about monster pool gain, just making use of the big vampires. 2 10-pointers is the same cost as 4 5-pointers. > The Tories can't pull it off because of two reasons: one, they can't > Freak Drive after a successful action. Two, they can't FoM and > continue the actions they would like to continue. But the "Anneke's > Domain (Every Backyard is My Backyard)" deck is certainly an > entertaining toy. :) The Tori IC member can untap them, and Masika can untap himself. as for FoM, they'd just have to do it right the first time :) > it sounds like yours is a lot more of a "toolbox" type than a hardcore > sneak and bleed, though - a lot more small bleeds. I can accept this characterization :) > Again, where do you get the DOM with only 4 skill cards? =) and how > many copies of Iliana did you have to put in the deck to get it? ;) 2 Illiana, one other vamp with DOM, 5 with dom. But I only need to have one vamp with DOM to do this trick. > What do you do about Misdirection? =) Well, I have a wake or two and perhaps a SR, but what can ya do? This card hoses so many otherwise viable decks that I'm glad my play group doesn't see decks built around it. Even when someone loses to this card, it's not really view as a failure of the deck, just circumstance. -davey!

[ quoted text not captured ] He gets the continue action at +1 stealth effect, as normal. [ quoted text not captured ]

mbohlman wrote in message ... >On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 21:23:57 -0400 "Raille" <rai...@mich.com> wrote: >Or go to tournaments expecting to see weenie decks and be prepared >for them. > >Mike >-- I played my Settite Deck at origins, and those poeple with weenies decks found the true meaning of terror! Ok so I'm bragging, but as you say, you at least need to me aware of the problem before you go to a tournement. Raille.

Raille wrote: > > mbohlman wrote in message ... > >On Mon, 16 Aug 1999 10:11:02 GMT t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > > > >Before it even starts, I'll refute this argument right here and > >now. It is believed to be an argument for a CL when a CL has > >no effect at all on a weenie bleed deck. > > The best way to solve the weenie anything deck is to impose a crypt average > of 3 or higher. This prevents a crypt of say 20 1 cap vampires dominating > play. Who said it dominated play? The other guy who came from L.A. played a weenie presence Misdirection deck and got zero VPs. Before the third round David Tatu had the most VPs with a big vampire deck. The guy who won played a small to mid size presence bleed and majestic block deck. > > >What exactly in a weenie deck is boring? Seeing the same cards > >or seeing the same focused set of cards? > > Simple for its ruthless efficiency, the best defense is another weenie deck. I build my rush combat decks with the same focus and, when used against a table full of S:CE decks they also produce results that look "ruthlessly efficient". > I would love to see the DCI impose a crypt average which would do wonders to > prevent this annoying deck style. Any perception of success by my weenie bleed deck is distorted due to the lack of appropriate decks that would have countered it. A weenie deck didn't win any of the GenCon events. Why aren't we having this discussion about Thursday's intercept deck? -- Robert Goudie rrgo...@earthlink.net http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <EVUt3.3848$pO3....@c01read02-admin.service.talkway.com>, > "mbohlman" <mboh...@vekn.org> wrote: [clip] > > > > > And about the dom deck: whatever happened to the vote decks? The second highest seed had some votes. I lost to a vote deck in the second round. > > > > They just didn't show up? Settite and Lasombra votes are the > > only pure ones I would take to a tournament. Why? Because votes > > only have +1 stealth. Easily blocked by decks with light > > intercept. > > > Still strange since a vote and bleed deck is very flexible against all > kinds of prey. > > > > And why didn't the whole table, once they say the deck, close > > > him down together? They know the treat.... Most players at GenCon are not of the highest caliber. Some didn't recognize the threat. At least one time I refused to influence out a vamp until I could oust my prey. I didn't want to be ganged-up on. > > Robert discussed this in his reply. People made mistakes for one. > > Robert is also very good at the social part of the game. Also, > > there was not a single rush combat deck that I saw. All three of those are true. :-) [clip] > > AND JUST A COMMENT: THE MOST OF YOU ARE ONLY TALKING ABOUT EFFECTIVE > TOURNAMENT STYLE DECKS. WHATEVER HAPPENED WITH THE FUN THAT SHOULD COME > FROM PLAYING???? WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING....THIS GAME IS JUST ABOUT A > COUPLE OF GUYS AND GIRLS DRINKING COLAS, PLAYING SOME KIND OF GAME AND > ENJOYING THEMSELVES ON A SATURDAY AFTERNOON. > > (sorry 'bout that) We're talking about effective decks because some people think weenie decks are too effective. If we were talking about how much fun I was having with my deck there'd be no reason for anyone to suggest that we restrict the crypt size. We'd instead be talking about requiring that everyone sign a sworn statement that they have fun playing their decks. Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite challenging to play. If the dichotomy of Jyhad is that we deplete our pool to oust our prey and that our pool is what keeps us alive, then I feel like I am playing one off the most exciting deck styles there is. I like living on the edge and using my pool to excessive degrees to oust my prey. I routinely influence slower or or self-contest as part of my strategy. How many decks do you have that consider these aspects of strategy. The only blood gain in the deck comes from ousting preys. I enjoy that immensely. The only time the deck is boring is when I have no combat, votes, or untap at the table. That's not my fault, though. [ quoted text not captured ]

> You're right, but the context was talking about a tournament. > I don't think most people care what other people's play groups > use for their house rules. But stay away from implying anything > close to CL in tournaments. :) Of course I will not imply CL's in tournaments, I would love to play without a cardlimit especially when playing a fun deck (check out Oh Lord which side is up?), but you are right that I might have taken this all out if context a bit. > > [ List of Dominate and Presence bleed cards snipped ] > > Most of these cards cost blood, thus increase the average > > cryptsize, so the weenie part goes out. > > Not necessarily. You only need to keep blood on them long > enough to oust your prey. The point was that a CL doesn't > really hamper Presence-based and Dominate-based weenie bleed > decks. Haven't thought about it like that. > > > Yes it will. Immortal grapple is neccesary, as is a lot of (cheap) > > TS and Undead Strenght. With the cards that cost the vamps blood > > the crypt size goes up and they go into torpor easier. > > There are 14 vampires with inferior Potence with a capacity of > 3 or less. If each of those vampires is rushing each turn, > your S:CE will most likely not always be in your hand. Of course, > if they aren't playing S:CE no big deal. That is true, also haven't thought about it like that.. Maybe I'll post a Rush-POT deck in a few days, under the CL. > > > AND JUST A COMMENT: THE MOST OF YOU ARE ONLY TALKING ABOUT > > EFFECTIVE TOURNAMENT STYLE DECKS. WHATEVER HAPPENED WITH THE FUN > > THAT SHOULD COME FROM PLAYING???? WINNING ISN'T EVERYTHING....THIS > > GAME IS JUST ABOUT A COUPLE OF GUYS AND GIRLS DRINKING COLAS, > > PLAYING SOME KIND OF GAME AND ENJOYING THEMSELVES ON A SATURDAY > > AFTERNOON. > > If it's just a comment, why are you shouting? Basically I wasn't really shouting. I was trying to seperate the comment on the cards from my opinion. Also it was more of a, somewhat misput here in this thread, question, since I am trying to get some new ideas after 4-5 years of play. This thread was > about a tournament that took place a little over a week ago. > One goes to a tournament to try to win. At home or wherever, > the above holds true. The only thing you get from winning in > your local group is bragging rights and bit more satisfaction... > or at least that's what I take from it. > > In any case, don't jump into a tournament-based thread expecting > someone to talk about playing their 5 discipline deck to try to > win the next tournament they're in. I was not trying to imply anything pro or against tournament decks. On the contrary: I'm trying to get the players here interested in playing tournaments. But since there aren't any tournaments in the Benelux that I know of, I'm probably gonna have to do it myself and write out a tournament. Any suggestions? [ quoted text not captured ]

Hi fellow players, This is the last call: There are still a number of VEKN Princes, which haven't contacted me and reclaimed their domain: North America: Kansas City, Shawn Harrison Madison, Adrian Sullivan Mexico, Robert Sarquis Rochester, Andrew Sackett Santa Curz, CA, Eric Badpolo South Carolina, Andrew Pieter Van Pernis Tucson, Michael Johnson Europe: Berlin, Thomas Stellmach Dortmund, Michael Beers Kosice, Jaroslav Rosenberger Naples, Luigi Silipo Skive, Jesper Kristen Pacific Area: Cairns, David Yee All Princes listed here are should contact me ASAP. If I get no word from them by monday, 23rd of august, they will no longer be VEKN Prince of the respective domain. I will have to send an Archon to investigate, if no response comes. :) If someone knows the whereabouts of the above named VEKN Princes, please let me know. If by monday any job is vacant, new applicants may contact me. :) Carl Pilhatsch (VEKN membership director) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 18 Aug 1999 07:06:44 GMT t_e...@my-deja.com wrote: > I was not trying to imply anything pro or against tournament decks. > On the contrary: I'm trying to get the players here interested in > playing tournaments. But since there aren't any tournaments in the > Benelux that I know of, I'm probably gonna have to do it myself and > write out a tournament. Any suggestions? Find out where gaming conventions are being held. Contact the organizers about running a V:TES tournament. Then contact all the players in the Benelux area that are in the WotC player registry. If there are no gaming conventions, contact all the players about interest in a tournament that you could run at a local gaming store or university, basically any place with lots of room, tables, and chairs. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <37B866EB...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > No. FoM, when used at superior by an acting vampire, is a action modifier. > Therefore the acting vampire can play superior FoM only once per action. > Defensively (used by a non-acting vampire), it doesn't modify the action, > so it doesn't count as an action modifier, so it isn't restricted. > The wording here implies that FoM may be used defensively at superior (for the S:CE; the continue action would not apply.) My understanding, however, is that this is not so. LSJ? -Korric [ quoted text not captured ]

kor...@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <37B866EB...@wizards.com>, > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > > No. FoM, when used at superior by an acting vampire, is a action > modifier. > > Therefore the acting vampire can play superior FoM only once per > action. > > Defensively (used by a non-acting vampire), it doesn't modify the > action, > > so it doesn't count as an action modifier, so it isn't restricted. > > > The wording here implies that FoM may be used defensively at superior > (for the S:CE; the continue action would not apply.) My understanding, > however, is that this is not so. LSJ? It is so. Superior FoM, when played by a non-acting vampire, is "Strike: End Combat". [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <EVUt3.3848$pO3....@c01read02-admin.service.talkway.com>, mbohlman <mboh...@vekn.org> writes >They just didn't show up? Settite and Lasombra votes are the >only pure ones I would take to a tournament. Why? Because votes >only have +1 stealth. Easily blocked by decks with light >intercept. Hmmmm.... Setite vote. How do you do that one? I find them too vote light to be of use, and non-Camarilla is annoying when combined with that - the Praxis Seizures can't be used until you get the Writ or the Invitation out, and so forth. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <37B83734...@alpinetaxi.com>, Patrick Harris <alp...@alpinetaxi.com> writes >I believe a CL would seriously hurt any Potence-based deck, as it takes >away the heart of such decks: Immortal Grapple. No, this is just weenie potence. It hits again and again. You run out of S:CE, or you put stupid amounts in your deck and so die horribly. When it gets to focus-ed weenie potence/celerity or potence/obfuscate, that's when it would hurt you. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <rrhds7...@corp.supernews.com>, Raille <rai...@mich.com> writes >I would love to see the DCI impose a crypt average which would do wonders to >prevent this annoying deck style. That can just as easily be read as: "I would love to see the DCI impose a crypt average which would do wonders to prevent a deck style I don't like." I know many people who *like* playing weenie bleed, or stealth and bleed. For them, it isn't annoying, it's fun. For them, my combat deck is annoying. "Annoying" is too subjective, you need something more concrete than that before you could even think about getting the DCI to impose it. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 19 Aug 1999 19:20:18 +0100 James Coupe <ve...@nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote: MB>They just didn't show up? Settite and Lasombra votes are the MB>only pure ones I would take to a tournament. Why? Because votes MB>only have +1 stealth. Easily blocked by decks with light MB>intercept. > Hmmmm.... Setite vote. How do you do that one? I find them too > vote light to be of use, and non-Camarilla is annoying when > combined with that - the Praxis Seizures can't be used until > you get the Writ or the Invitation out, and so forth. I've never actually made one, but with Presence, the problems would only be temporary. Some of your votes should be the one that makes all Setites Camarilla vampires. Use Bewitching Oration and Awe with Cryptic Rider until you get a couple Praxis Seizures. You may be able to skip the Praxis Seizures because at least two Setites have 2 votes and you could add Legendary Vampire as well. Of course, if your environment is heavy on titled vampires, this may not work well. Even the Lasombra would have a slow start in that environment. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > Simple for its ruthless efficiency, the best defense is another weenie deck. > I build my rush combat decks with the same focus and, when used against > a table full of S:CE decks they also produce results that look > "ruthlessly efficient". But with a lot more effort. I wouldn't consider this deck or Peter's weenie rush deck cheesy for that very reason. > Any perception of success by my weenie bleed deck is distorted due to > the lack of appropriate decks that would have countered it. A weenie > deck didn't win any of the GenCon events. Because, from what I understand, many of those decks had anti-weenie strategies incorporated into them. And I grant you that one can make a deck that wins in a tournament and be effective against weenies. That fact was proven at GenCon. However, the point is that those players had to decide - pick from a very small pool of decks to be able to compete against weenies or pick from another, also viable, pool of decks but more than likely get squashed. There really is no freedom of choice Robert, you are arguably one of the better players. And your playgroup is arguably one of the better playgroups and the skill level of the players there is nothing to sneeze at. When you play this weenie dominate deck against your other players (who, one would presume, build pretty effective and viable decks), does it regularly stomp all over them? My guess is that the answer is yes. If so, then it has very little or nothing to do with the level of the players' skill and everything to do with how exploitive that deck is. And Peter, in your ruthless and cutthroat - play only to win (because that is, after all, the entire point of the game), have you or any of your other players played a deck like that? If so, did (does) it regularly stomp all over the other decks? If you say no, then I'll only believe that when I see it. Pardon me while I digress here a little bit, this reminds me of my old Street Fighter 2 days. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it is a 2 player fighting style game similar to Tekken, Mortal Konbat, et al. There were 2 things in that game that were considered 'cheesy'. The kick-throw and the fireball-dragon punch. You could, theoretically, defend against and defeat those strategies, but to do so was pretty difficult and to do so, you had either use a similar strategy or stoop to doing the same thing. What made them 'cheesy' was that they exploited a part of the game. In the case of the kick-throw, the opponent couldn't (actually, had *very* little time to) react before they were thrown and in the case of the fireball-dragon punch, you either got hit by (and take a little bit of damage from blocking) the fireball or jumped over it and got hit by the invincible dragon-punch. Sure, you could always assume that a player would do these things to prepare and defend yourself, but to do so would make your style non-viable as you would only be opening yourself up for something else. I don't want to get too much into it, because it is a fairly complex and subtle game, but for those of you who've played, you know. This is very analogous <sp> to the weenie-dominate-misdirect deck. > Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite > challenging to play. Not to impune your skill, Robert, but it isn't that challenging. >If the dichotomy of Jyhad is that we deplete our pool to oust our prey >and that our pool is what keeps us alive, then I feel like I am playing one >off the most exciting deck styles there is. I like living on the edge and >using my pool to excessive degrees to oust my prey. While this may be true, to a degree, I almost lost what I was eating because I was going to bust out laughing. You spend what? 2 or 3 pool (if that) per turn to Misdirect? While you bleed your prey for up to 24 pool per turn with 4 weenies (GtU + Conditioning)? That sounds like a pretty safe (and brainless) investment to me. >I routinely influence slower or or self-contest as part of my strategy. But how often does this ever pop up? I can see influencing slower coming up semi-regularly, but self contesting? I can see that happening only very rarely. >How many decks do you have that consider these aspects of strategy. They are very opportunistic and depend heavily on the current table. I don't think this hasn't happened to any deck, so it's nothing special to your weenie deck and as such doesn't make it one of the 'great and subtle difficulties' only such weenie decks experience. >The only blood gain in the deck comes from ousting preys. I enjoy that >immensely. That may be true, but with the speed such a deck goes through it's prey, the fact that you only gain pool for your preys ouster isn't a drawback. >The only time the deck is boring is when I have no combat, votes, or untap >at the table. That's not my fault, though. To each their own. Just so long as you win, right? I remember alot of people didn't find the kick-throw cheesy. There were, after all, a (very) small number of ways around it. Never mind that those ways were very difficult. And to address another point made by someone else (I forget who) in another post - I don't consider a deck 'cheesy' if my effective/viable (or not) deck loses to it. My decks get trounced occasionally What matters to me is what they do and how they do it. And to date, the only decks that I've ever found to be 'cheesy' are S&Heavy Bleed and the weenie-dominate-misdirection. Sorrow --- I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am anymore |-------------------------------- I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...? anymore | you never seen anyone try to I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon ------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 14:23:17 GMT "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: RG> I build my rush combat decks with the same focus and, when used RG> against a table full of S:CE decks they also produce results that RG> look "ruthlessly efficient". > But with a lot more effort. I wouldn't consider this deck or > Peter's weenie rush deck cheesy for that very reason. I think the effort is perceived rather than actual. Building a decent weenie tap-n-bleed deck is not difficult. Building one that will win most of the time is very difficult in an environment where everyone is doing their best to win. > Because, from what I understand, many of those decks had > anti-weenie strategies incorporated into them. And from whom did you get this impression? Robert explicitly said that he only really ran into one deck of the type that could give him trouble: Tzimisce. There were no real small-vampire rush decks. He also pointed to the ineptitude of some of his opposition as well. I didn't see any Atonements. I saw one Justine. There were some Ancilla Empowerments in vote decks, but no Domain Challenges. > And I grant you that one can make a deck that wins in a tournament > and be effective against weenies. That fact was proven at GenCon. > However, the point is that those players had to decide - pick from > a very small pool of decks to be able to compete against weenies or > pick from another, also viable, pool of decks but more than likely > get squashed. There really is no freedom of choice Whatever. There were lots of decks at GenCon. Many of them were not tournament caliber. That was shown by most games being won with sweeps. Dave Tatu's deck used rather large vampires, and he swept once and took at least 4 VP at another 5 player table. It used several Minion Taps and 5th Traditions, IIRC. Joe Churchill's Tzimisce deck wooped ass, too, and Mike Courtouis' weenie bleed deck was hosed by it. If you were to list what decks are viable with weenie tap-n-bleed in the environment? I certainly wouldn't have picked Keith Thompson's Gangrel deck, but he managed 6.5 VP in three rounds. > Robert, you are arguably one of the better players. And your > playgroup is arguably one of the better playgroups and the skill > level of the players there is nothing to sneeze at. When you play > this weenie dominate deck against your other players (who, one > would presume, build pretty effective and viable decks), does it > regularly stomp all over them? My guess is that the answer is yes. The answer would be no. Robert mentioned in one of his posts about GenCon that the weenie tap-n-bleed in LA works in opposition to Minion Tap & 5th Tradition type decks. > And Peter, in your ruthless and cutthroat - play only to win > (because that is, after all, the entire point of the game), have > you or any of your other players played a deck like that? If so, > did (does) it regularly stomp all over the other decks? If you > say no, then I'll only believe that when I see it. If those players aren't capable of finding the holes in weenie tap-n-bleed or do not want to, of course the weenies are going to usually win. But that follows with what Peter said in that when everyone is trying their best to win, weenie decks aren't a problem. RG> Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite RG> challenging to play. > Not to impune your skill, Robert, but it isn't that challenging. When one has never played such a deck for any amount of time where the competition tried to improve their decks to compete, I don't think one should judge. > While this may be true, to a degree, I almost lost what I was > eating because I was going to bust out laughing. You spend what? > 2 or 3 pool (if that) per turn to Misdirect? If your prey isn't smart. If a weenie tap-n-bleed deck shows up as your predator and you know you can't beat them to ousting your own prey, why are you tapping your vampires to do anything but destroy their weenies? You're just saving them a few pool by tapping any of your vampires. > While you bleed your prey for up to 24 pool per turn with 4 > weenies (GtU + Conditioning)? That sounds like a pretty safe > (and brainless) investment to me. You obviously haven't played the deck if you think you're using GtU and Conditioning. That is a cost of 2 per action. Having your weenies hunting instead of bleeding is a waste. And if you are using Gird Minions, you aren't using Misdirection. Also, if you are bleeding for 24 with 4 weenies, they have superior Dominate. That means you are playing Dominate skill cards in place of some Misdirections. Lastly, if you're using only 4 weenies, you are very vulnerable to rush and untaps. RG>I routinely influence slower or or self-contest as part of my RG>strategy. > But how often does this ever pop up? I can see influencing slower > coming up semi-regularly, but self contesting? I can see that > happening only very rarely. If you are making your deck of GtU and Conditioning, you will be. Self-contesting is much quicker than hunting. RG>The only blood gain in the deck comes from ousting preys. I enjoy RG>that immensely. > That may be true, but with the speed such a deck goes through it's > prey, the fact that you only gain pool for your preys ouster isn't > a drawback. If your prey has out 3 vampires and doesn't tap them, you need to pay 3 pool a turn to tap them yourself. Each weenie costs 1 (of which there is only one with Domiante) 2 or 3 or even 4 if you aren't duplicating vampires in your crypt. Your pool will be drying up rapidly from influence, Misdirection, and perhaps your own predator. The only time you'll go easily through your prey is when they are incompetent or brought a "fun" deck rather than a deck made to win. RG>The only time the deck is boring is when I have no combat, votes, RG>or untap at the table. That's not my fault, though. > To each their own. Just so long as you win, right? Boring means not having fun. > I remember > alot of people didn't find the kick-throw cheesy. There were, > after all, a (very) small number of ways around it. Never mind > that those ways were very difficult. So that means the best players would be able to stop it. After all, novices or mediocre players aren't going to be able to do very difficult maneuvers. Banning the kick-throw would serve as a handicap so that the novices and mediocre players would have a chance. Personally, I'd much rather see the best players win in a tournament. Not because they overcame a handicap, but because they were the best. If I just wasn't capable of stopping the kick-throw, I wouldn't consider myself that great and am not worthy of winning a tournament where there are players who can stop it. If I just wasn't capable of stopping [insert very efficient deck], I wouldn't consider myself that great and am not worthy of winning a tournament where there are players who can stop it. Afterall, tournaments are for determining who the best is. > And to address another point made by someone else (I forget who) > in another post - I don't consider a deck 'cheesy' if my > effective/viable (or not) deck loses to it. My decks get trounced > occasionally. What matters to me is what they do and how they do > it. But figuring out why it lost or got trounced and trying to fix it doesn't matter? > And to date, the only decks that I've ever found to be > 'cheesy' are S&Heavy Bleed and the weenie-dominate-misdirection. Cool, I'll bring over a weenie Presence-based tap-n-bleed deck because it isn't cheesy by your definition. Btw, I find it somewhat ironic that someone who opposed the new rulings last year is complaining about weenie tap-n-bleed. The rulings eliminated a lot of what many people then considered "cheesy": Skin of Steel + Pulled Fangs to torpor Gangrel infinite loop decks with Fame Weenie vote push decks (weenie vote decks still viable) Mind Rape + Return to Innocence Where weenie tap-n-bleed differs from these is that S&B is already very similar. Unless you play heavy intercept, you aren't going to stop S&B from bleeding you. Unless you are playing with plenty of untaps, you aren't going to stop a Misdirection deck from doing whatever it wants on its turns. I really don't care what people do in their home groups. In mine, most people play decks that aren't tournament viable. But we still all have fun. If someone shows up with a really efficient deck, people either adjust or die, but no one complains. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > But with a lot more effort. I wouldn't consider this deck or > > Peter's weenie rush deck cheesy for that very reason. > I think the effort is perceived rather than actual. Building a > decent weenie tap-n-bleed deck is not difficult. Building one > that will win most of the time is very difficult in an environment > where everyone is doing their best to win. I do not believe it to be very difficult. By yours and Peters' own admission, at most tournaments people are doing there very best to win. So why is it that at most tournaments where there is a tap- n-bleed deck, it wins? I think GenCon was a fluke. [ quoted text not captured ] > The answer would be no. Robert mentioned in one of his posts about > GenCon that the weenie tap-n-bleed in LA works in opposition to > Minion Tap & 5th Tradition type decks. And nothing else? > If those players aren't capable of finding the holes in weenie > tap-n-bleed or do not want to, of course the weenies are going > to usually win. But that follows with what Peter said in that > when everyone is trying their best to win, weenie decks aren't > a problem. Again, there is only a small number of things you can do against weenie decks. And unless you limit yourself to those few things each and every deck you play, you are going to always get trounced by a weenie deck. > RG> Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite > RG> challenging to play. > > Not to impune your skill, Robert, but it isn't that challenging. > When one has never played such a deck for any amount of time > where the competition tried to improve their decks to compete, > I don't think one should judge. Umm, Mike, I have played in groups that used decks like this and who've tried to improve their decks to compete. While I've not played such a deck myself, I've seen one played many times. It is not that challenging. > > While this may be true, to a degree, I almost lost what I was > > eating because I was going to bust out laughing. You spend what? > > 2 or 3 pool (if that) per turn to Misdirect? > If your prey isn't smart. If a weenie tap-n-bleed deck shows > up as your predator and you know you can't beat them to ousting > your own prey, why are you tapping your vampires to do anything > but destroy their weenies? So you just sit there and force them to spend more pool to oust you. I've done it several times and it does do that. But not much else. And if you are playing medium to large vamps, you are gone before you get your 3rd vamp out. If smallish, you can get maybe 3. Either way, you may as well not have even played even if you did incorporate anti-weenie strategies but weren't able to draw the cards. >You're just saving them a few pool by tapping any of your vampires. But it isn't getting *you* anywhere. > > While you bleed your prey for up to 24 pool per turn with 4 > > weenies (GtU + Conditioning)? That sounds like a pretty safe > > (and brainless) investment to me. > You obviously haven't played the deck if you think you're using > GtU and Conditioning. That is a cost of 2 per action. Really and truly? > Having your weenies hunting instead of bleeding is a waste. And if > you are using Gird Minions, you aren't using Misdirection. > Also, if you are bleeding for 24 with 4 weenies, they have superior > Dominate. That means you are playing Dominate skill cards in > place of some Misdirections. Lastly, if you're using only 4 > weenies, you are very vulnerable to rush and untaps. Mike, I saw the deck. And I said "up to 24" meaning anything 24 and fewer. And again, looking at the deck, it is certianly capable of a turn bleeding for 24 if it needed to. You are nitpicking a general statement. > > But how often does this ever pop up? I can see influencing slower > > coming up semi-regularly, but self contesting? I can see that > > happening only very rarely. > If you are making your deck of GtU and Conditioning, you will be. > Self-contesting is much quicker than hunting. *shaking head*. Mike, it was a general statement. I'm smart enough to realize that you wouldn't use both cards, unless necessary, on the same turn. But again, if you just had to oust your prey this turn, you could misdirect and bleed for butt loads disregarding the cost. > > That may be true, but with the speed such a deck goes through it's > > prey, the fact that you only gain pool for your preys ouster isn't > > a drawback. > If your prey has out 3 vampires and doesn't tap them, you need > to pay 3 pool a turn to tap them yourself. Each weenie costs > 1 (of which there is only one with Domiante) 2 or 3 or even 4 if > you aren't duplicating vampires in your crypt. Your pool will be > drying up rapidly from influence, Misdirection, and perhaps your > own predator. The only time you'll go easily through your prey > is when they are incompetent or brought a "fun" deck rather than > a deck made to win. Such a noble soul you are, Mike, sacrificing and leaving yourself untapped in the wake of a weenie deck to make it a little (stress little) harder for your predator to oust you. I don't know many people who would be so noble and on top of that, you'd be only a minor speed bump. > RG>The only time the deck is boring is when I have no combat, votes, > RG>or untap at the table. That's not my fault, though. > > To each their own. Just so long as you win, right? > Boring means not having fun. Indeed. > > I remember > > alot of people didn't find the kick-throw cheesy. There were, > > after all, a (very) small number of ways around it. Never mind > > that those ways were very difficult. > So that means the best players would be able to stop it. It was more than difficult, but yes, the might be able to stop it sometimes. I read reports of even the best players in the world having problems with this. > very difficult maneuvers. Banning the kick-throw would serve > as a handicap so that the novices and mediocre players would > have a chance. Again, even the best players in the world (and this is out of hundreds of thousands of players) had great problems with it. > Personally, I'd much rather see the best players win in a > tournament. Not because they overcame a handicap, but because > they were the best. And that's exactly what you saw. You could do that move almost infinitely to win and unless the opponent was lucky and did one of the few counter moves and just the right time, the opponent would lose. Barring that is hardly a handicap. > If I just wasn't capable of stopping the kick-throw, I wouldn't > consider myself that great and am not worthy of winning a tournament > where there are players who can stop it. Not that many could and it was almost totally dependant on luck. > If I just wasn't capable of stopping [insert very efficient deck], I > wouldn't consider myself that great and am not worthy of winning > a tournament where there are players who can stop it. Mike, I consider you a good player. One that knows what he is doing both in building a deck and in playing the actual game. However, if you played an otherwise perfectly viable tournament deck against a weenie deck, you'd lose. In order not to lose, you'd have to pick from a small number of possible strategies and those strategies would have to dominate (no pun intended) the deck. This is the problem. > Afterall, tournaments are for determining who the best is. It doesn't necessarily. > > effective/viable (or not) deck loses to it. My decks get trounced > > occasionally. What matters to me is what they do and how they do > > it. > But figuring out why it lost or got trounced and trying to fix > it doesn't matter? That would mean that my decks are always stagnant, never changing wouldn't it? They are not so there is your answer. > > And to date, the only decks that I've ever found to be > > 'cheesy' are S&Heavy Bleed and the weenie-dominate-misdirection. > Cool, I'll bring over a weenie Presence-based tap-n-bleed deck > because it isn't cheesy by your definition. You are being stupid now, Mike. > Btw, I find it somewhat ironic that someone who opposed the new > rulings last year is complaining about weenie tap-n-bleed. The > rulings eliminated a lot of what many people then considered > "cheesy": > Skin of Steel + Pulled Fangs to torpor Not too sure why people thought this cheesy. > Gangrel infinite loop decks with Fame I agree that this was. And my, what a short memory you have, Mike. If you recall (which you don't), I wasn't against all the changes merely most. And the reason why I was against the change in Fame wasn't because of the the way it was changed to work but instead that it was rewritten. I didn't like RtI either, but I was against the change because I was against (and still am) re-writing cards. > Weenie vote push decks (weenie vote decks still viable) Nope. Didn't really think they were and I saw many. > Mind Rape + Return to Innocence I didn't like RtI, but I didn't think it was cheesy. And I got my ass *whipped* by Lasombra's Mind Rape deck and I don't think of it as cheesy. And while I played against his deck post 7-7, with the way he built it, it didn't matter if he had your vamp 1 turn or 2. > Where weenie tap-n-bleed differs from these is that S&B is already > very similar. Unless you play heavy intercept, you aren't going > to stop S&B from bleeding you. Unless you are playing with > plenty of untaps, you aren't going to stop a Misdirection deck > from doing whatever it wants on its turns. Indeed. And how is this point different from what I was saying? > I really don't care what people do in their home groups. In > mine, most people play decks that aren't tournament viable. In mine, they play a mix of both. > But we still all have fun. If someone shows up with a really > efficient deck, people either adjust or die, but no one > complains. Indeed. However the point I'm trying to make (and you are obviously missing) is that to adjust to a weenie tap and bleed deck, you have to forgo 99% of the other viable options open to you just for this one deck type. This is a bad thing (tm) [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: > > > > Simple for its ruthless efficiency, the best defense is another weenie > deck. > > I build my rush combat decks with the same focus and, when used against > > a table full of S:CE decks they also produce results that look > > "ruthlessly efficient". > > But with a lot more effort. I wouldn't consider this deck or Peter's weenie > rush deck cheesy for that very reason. Playing more cards but not more effort. When you are certain that everyone is playing S:CE (and there have been periods in the meta-game where this has been true) a well built Immortal Grapple deck will win. I had a deck that dominated our playgroup for an entire month, holding every table hostage. Without S:CE being so prevalent in LA I can hardly get a VP. > > > Any perception of success by my weenie bleed deck is distorted due to > > the lack of appropriate decks that would have countered it. A weenie > > deck didn't win any of the GenCon events. > > Because, from what I understand, many of those decks had anti-weenie > strategies incorporated into them. One had intercept and one had Wakes with Majesty. I don't think either play set out to build an anti-weenie deck. These are very common cards and strategies. > And I grant you that one can make a > deck that wins in a tournament and be effective against weenies. That > fact was proven at GenCon. However, the point is that those players had > to decide - pick from a very small pool of decks to be able to compete > against weenies or pick from another, also viable, pool of decks but more > than likely get squashed. There really is no freedom of choice I don't believe that is what happened. > > Robert, you are arguably one of the better players. And your playgroup > is arguably one of the better playgroups and the skill level of the players > there is nothing to sneeze at. When you play this weenie dominate deck > against your other players (who, one would presume, build pretty effective > and viable decks), does it regularly stomp all over them? My guess is that > the answer is yes. If so, then it has very little or nothing to do with the > level of the players' skill and everything to do with how exploitive that > deck That table sweep I got in the first round at GenCon was the first sweep I'd had with that deck in a very long time. Obviously I think the deck style is better suited for certain environments and more capable of winning it certain conditions. I thought those conditions would be likely at GenCon. I'll tell you what, if I'd gotten wind of Peter Bakija or James Hamblin being within 100 miles of GenCon I would have played something else. My typical deck building strategy is to leave one avenue of defense open (votes, bleed, or combat) and devote that deck space toward offense. I then choose the deck based on the meta-game or my perception of the types of decks that other people were playing. Feeling that there would be little combat and intercept I felt comfortable with the Weenie Dominate deck. > is. And Peter, in your ruthless and cutthroat - play only to win (because > that is, after all, the entire point of the game), have you or any of your > other players played a deck like that? If so, did (does) it regularly stomp all > over the other decks? If you say no, then I'll only believe that when I see it. Peter's group is just like mine. I was getting relentless crap from my playgroup for a weenie potence rush deck that used Fame and the Rescue and Return trick. It also packed a bunch of computer hacks. THAT was also called a cheesy deck. I refused to stop playing my deck and then the meta-game shifted again. Adjust or die. Combat has recently been more prevalent. Increased Strength + Thrown Gate has been winning! Adjust or Die! I'm moving back to my S:CE decks since they've stopped playing IG. Hostile Takeover decks or 80 Capacity worth of Prince Decks have also had their moments in the sun. Strangely though, their "moments" came from winning over and over again. Do the weenie bleed decks just cause more trouble because when everything is working right then win quickly or with dramaticly large bleeds? [clip] > > Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite > > challenging to play. > > Not to impune your skill, Robert, but it isn't that challenging. Well, I'll admit that the deck can be playing without skill--just not to the same level. I think I can (and did at GenCon) squeeze out of the deck and properly table-talk myself into some extra VPs. > >If the dichotomy of Jyhad is that we deplete our pool to oust our prey > >and that our pool is what keeps us alive, then I feel like I am playing one > >off the most exciting deck styles there is. I like living on the edge and > >using my pool to excessive degrees to oust my prey. > > While this may be true, to a degree, I almost lost what I was eating because > I was going to bust out laughing. You spend what? 2 or 3 pool (if that) per > turn to Misdirect? While you bleed your prey for up to 24 pool per turn > with > 4 weenies (GtU + Conditioning)? That sounds like a pretty safe (and > brainless) > investment to me. If it were that brainless and easy I would win every game. Small capacity vampires are common enough to make my costs much higher. Also, the 2 cap guys are thouroughly empty after one Gtu + Conditioning. 1 Raven Spy and (and maybe a couple of Cat's Guidance) and I'm filling my torpor region. In practice it isn't that easy. Also, as the game goes on your pool doesn't increase. You inevitably spend more than you get back (if you get any back). > > >I routinely influence slower or or self-contest as part of my strategy. > > But how often does this ever pop up? I can see influencing slower coming > up semi-regularly, but self contesting? I can see that happening only very > rarely. At GenCon it came up. I did this once to replace one vampire who was getting beaten up during the hunt. But, tt doens't come up when the deck is doing well. When I play it in LA or in the playgroup it comes up often. > >How many decks do you have that consider these aspects of strategy. > > They are very opportunistic and depend heavily on the current table. I > don't think this hasn't happened to any deck, so it's nothing special to your > weenie deck and as such doesn't make it one of the 'great and subtle difficulties' > only such weenie decks experience. Its a way I deal with Rush Combat. I guess its not particular to the deck though. An amateur playing my deck wouldn't be as successful as I am but I'll concede that they could still play my deck and do well in the right circumstances. > > >The only blood gain in the deck comes from ousting preys. I enjoy that > >immensely. > > That may be true, but with the speed such a deck goes through it's prey, > the fact that you only gain pool for your preys ouster isn't a drawback. I have less and less pool as the game goes on. In the GenCon finals, David Tatu brought up a huge vampire and then Minion Tapped it. As time passed my pool got lower and lower from my predator. When I finally got through David Tatu, my new prey already had 2 vps, a ton of minions, and a ton of pool. ONE minion tap! The Weenie Deck vs. Info Hwy, TombIII + Princely Minion Tap and 5th decks is a dead heat in L.A. Historically the big decks have won more times. > >The only time the deck is boring is when I have no combat, votes, or untap > >at the table. That's not my fault, though. > > To each their own. Just so long as you win, right? Not at all. What I mean is that I am playing a strong deck is often stopped by a number of other deck styles. I feel no worse about winning with this deck than I did when the Majesty decks used to win when no one played rush combat decks. [clip] > And to date, the only decks that I've ever found to be > 'cheesy' are S&Heavy Bleed and the weenie-dominate-misdirection. S&Heavy bleed is cheesy too? I don't have one of these decks but I don't mind them at all. I assume you also think S&B restricts opponents to only a couple of options, too? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <pxdv3.3589$1B5.2...@monger.newsread.com>, Sorrow <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: >Pardon me while I digress here a little bit, this reminds me of my old >Street >Fighter 2 days. For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it is a 2 player >fighting style game similar to Tekken, Mortal Konbat, et al. There were 2 >things in that game that were considered 'cheesy'. The kick-throw and the >fireball-dragon punch. You could, theoretically, defend against and defeat >those strategies, but to do so was pretty difficult and to do so, you had >either use a similar strategy or stoop to doing the same thing. What made >them 'cheesy' was that they exploited a part of the game. In the case of >the kick-throw, the opponent couldn't (actually, had *very* little time to) >react before they were thrown and in the case of the fireball-dragon punch, >you either got hit by (and take a little bit of damage from blocking) the >fireball or jumped over it and got hit by the invincible dragon-punch. >Sure, >you could always assume that a player would do these things to prepare >and defend yourself, but to do so would make your style non-viable as you >would only be opening yourself up for something else. I don't want to get >too much into it, because it is a fairly complex and subtle game, but for >those of you who've played, you know. This is very analogous <sp> to >the weenie-dominate-misdirect deck. Fairly off topic, but I've been in withdrawl since the days when I used to play hours a day, and posted to r.g.v.a instead of r.g.t.j. ;-) First, tick-throwing was only ever a problem in the original "vanilla" SF2 (where it was quite a problem! You couldn't stop someone good at it even if you saw it coming). This is an order of magnitude nastier than weenie bleed has ever been, and is a very unfair analyis. Second (and no offense), fireball-dragon punch is analagous to vanilla Malkavian S&B, not weenie tap-bleed. A technique perceived by beginners as broken, but in truth a 2nd rate strategy. Not a good analogy for your point, as you didn't even need to play a character with a fireball to deal with it, you just needed more practice. Sorry, I just couldn't let this one go (at least I didn't cross post!...) I can't say that I entirely disagree with you about Weenie Bleed, although I don't think the magnitude of the problem is as bad as you say. Making larger vampires more usefull would be good, although I'm afraid of creating a worse problem along the lines of 5th tradition/Minion Tap. Still, it's been enough of a problem that I've considered house rules for it: Blood discounts of (capacity/4)-1 round down? Ability to bring out larger vampires not at full capacity? Start with 3 vampires in crypt? Start with some influenced vampires? (Best solution IMHO) As above, but you get to choose the vampires? E.G.Start with one vampire of 5-8 cost, or 2 of 1-4 cost -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

Sorrow wrote: [snip] > > The rulings eliminated a lot of what many people then considered > > "cheesy": > [snip] > > Mind Rape + Return to Innocence > I didn't like RtI, but I didn't think it was cheesy. And I got my > [...] *whipped* by Lasombra's Mind Rape deck and I don't RtI (as printed) was much harder to defend against than Weenie bleed (requiring an even narrower set of defenses), even without being coupled with a steal-vampire effect. > think of it as cheesy. And while I played against his deck post > 7-7, with the way he built it, it didn't matter if he had your vamp > 1 turn or 2. Mind Rape + Return to Innocence doesn't work post 7/7. Mind Rape only gives you control of the vampire from minion phase to discard phase. RtI doesn't "kick in" until the following untap phase (at which time the vampire's prey (your grand-prey) would lose X pool). [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: > > > > But with a lot more effort. I wouldn't consider this deck or > > > Peter's weenie rush deck cheesy for that very reason. > > I think the effort is perceived rather than actual. Building a > > decent weenie tap-n-bleed deck is not difficult. Building one > > that will win most of the time is very difficult in an environment > > where everyone is doing their best to win. > > I do not believe it to be very difficult. By yours and Peters' own > admission, at most tournaments people are doing there very best > to win. So why is it that at most tournaments where there is a tap- > n-bleed deck, it wins? I think GenCon was a fluke. I don't know who is speaking anymore. Things are messed-up with the credits. Anyway, I think that at tournaments, even though most people are trying to win, most are ill-equipped as players to get the job done. At GenCon this was especially tryue. Tournament winners in LA, going backwards: a Ventrue Deck, Weenie Rush Potence, Weenie Rush Potence, UH, I'm forgetting some. I haven't won in a long time. Uh, before that, Large Cap Stealth Blood Gain, Gangrel Untap & Fight, Hostile Takeover deck, Cryptic Mission & Progeny deck, Stealth Bleed, and maybe one Presence Bleed deck in there somewhere. [clip] > > The answer would be no. Robert mentioned in one of his posts about > > GenCon that the weenie tap-n-bleed in LA works in opposition to > > Minion Tap & 5th Tradition type decks. > > And nothing else? Of course not. See the above list of recent winners. Large cap decks are a mainstay of the LA meta-game. The weenie decks came about as a viable threat to the decks that used to win a majority of the games. [clip] > Umm, Mike, I have played in groups that used decks like this and > who've tried to improve their decks to compete. While I've not > played such a deck myself, I've seen one played many times. It is > not that challenging. [clip] > >You're just saving them a few pool by tapping any of your vampires. > > But it isn't getting *you* anywhere. > > > > While you bleed your prey for up to 24 pool per turn with 4 > > > weenies (GtU + Conditioning)? That sounds like a pretty safe > > > (and brainless) investment to me. > > You obviously haven't played the deck if you think you're using > > GtU and Conditioning. That is a cost of 2 per action. > > Really and truly? Exactly the point I brought up. From experience I can tell you that you are in trouble if you empty the vampires. Although, if no one plays intercept or combat I might modify the percentages and increase my GtU and Conditioning counts. In a normal environment I cannot get away with this. > > > Having your weenies hunting instead of bleeding is a waste. And if > > you are using Gird Minions, you aren't using Misdirection. Excactly. Every turn you sit there you are probably being weakened by your predator which gives you less pool to spend on Misdirections. > > Also, if you are bleeding for 24 with 4 weenies, they have superior > > Dominate. That means you are playing Dominate skill cards in > > place of some Misdirections. Exactly. Or, you are playing with larger vampires. I think my deck only has 2 skill cards. >Lastly, if you're using only 4 weenies, you are very vulnerable to rush and >untaps. [clip] > *shaking head*. Mike, it was a general statement. I'm smart enough > to realize that you wouldn't use both cards, unless necessary, on the > same turn. But again, if you just had to oust your prey this turn, you > could misdirect and bleed for butt loads disregarding the cost. Then you have a whopping 1 VP, and a lot of empty vampires. Hmm. I wonder if you'll have any left 2 turns from now to be able to bleed again? [clip] > Such a noble soul you are, Mike, sacrificing and leaving yourself > untapped in the wake of a weenie deck to make it a little (stress > little) harder for your predator to oust you. I don't know many > people who would be so noble and on top of that, you'd be only > a minor speed bump. If you can oust your prey first or do damage to the weenie bleeder it is best to tap out. If you can Wake it is best to let the weenie bleeder spend to tap you and then wake and block. If the weenie bleeder has a good deck on their tail, the constant pool spending will eventually cause them to die. That's how I usually die. [clip] > Mike, I consider you a good player. One that knows what he is doing > both in building a deck and in playing the actual game. However, > if you played an otherwise perfectly viable tournament deck against a > weenie deck, you'd lose. In order not to lose, you'd have to pick from > a small number of possible strategies and those strategies would have > to dominate (no pun intended) the deck. This is the problem. Damn. According to this I should have actually won the last 4 tournaments I've played my deck in. Unfortunately I didn't win any. GenCon tournament 1 had no meta-game. An intercept deck won. He didn't *adjust* to beat the weenie decks. Tournament 2's winner just used majesty after blocking. How was this picking from a small number of strategies? Every one of those LA tournaments I lost was won by someone with a good deck. Not a single one ever used Atonement or Justine: > > Afterall, tournaments are for determining who the best is. > > It doesn't necessarily. I'd agree. *I* should have beat the eventual winner at GenCon. Seriously, I think the tournament winner is always the person with the best combination of deckbuilding and skill (including table-talk etc.) for the current play conditions. Sometimes players are lucky and happen to have the right mix for the meta game and sometimes they intentionally make decisions. [ quoted text not captured ]

I think Robert covered the important parts of this, so rather than use up more bandwidth, I just want to address and make a couple points. On Fri, 20 Aug 1999 16:39:09 GMT "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: [Street Fighter stuff that is totally off-topic ] > It was more than difficult, but yes, the might be able to stop it > sometimes. I read reports of even the best players in the world > having problems with this. Btw, does Seth Killian still post in that stuff? He went to the U of Illinois here, and I knew him from the arcade and a couple German classes. Cool guy and amazing to watch play Street Fighter (at least I got to enjoy kicking his butt in Primal Rage:). He played cross-handed and even had some kind of maneuver or slang named after him or something, IIRC. [ On to the point I want to address that's appropriate to r.c.t-c.j ] > Mike, I consider you a good player. One that knows what he is > doing both in building a deck and in playing the actual game. > However, if you played an otherwise perfectly viable tournament > deck against a weenie deck, you'd lose. In order not to lose, > you'd have to pick from a small number of possible strategies and > those strategies would have to dominate (no pun intended) the > deck. This is the problem. If your tournament viable deck falls over to weenie tap-n-bleed, it wasn't that tournament viable. At tournaments, you have to expect certain things: S&B, weenies, combat, and votes. Weenies being some sort of subclass of the others. MB> Where weenie tap-n-bleed differs from these is that S&B is already MB> very similar. Unless you play heavy intercept, you aren't going MB> to stop S&B from bleeding you. Unless you are playing with MB> plenty of untaps, you aren't going to stop a Misdirection deck MB> from doing whatever it wants on its turns. > Indeed. And how is this point different from what I was saying? I probably should have been a bit more clear with this statement. Unless you are playing untaps, you aren't going to be able to actually block the bleeds. That has the same net effect of having someone stealth past your block attempt. That's what I meant by that statement. I actually almost enjoy having an S&B deck sit down as my predator. It hurts taking the first few big bleeds, but then they jam on stealth. [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: <snip> > > Any perception of success by my weenie bleed deck is distorted due to > > the lack of appropriate decks that would have countered it. A weenie > > deck didn't win any of the GenCon events. > > Because, from what I understand, many of those decks had anti-weenie > strategies incorporated into them. And I grant you that one can make a > deck that wins in a tournament and be effective against weenies. That > fact was proven at GenCon. However, the point is that those players had > to decide - pick from a very small pool of decks to be able to compete > against weenies or pick from another, also viable, pool of decks but more > than likely get squashed. There really is no freedom of choice What you are saying here is that the people who succeeded did so because they played the metagame. There is nothing wrong with this. Sure, it takes more ingenuity to do well when you have to adapt to other people's decks, but it takes more ingenuity to make your deck work when your opponent's can block your actions, and I don't hear anyone calling for removing blocking from the game. > Robert, you are arguably one of the better players. And your playgroup > is arguably one of the better playgroups and the skill level of the players > there is nothing to sneeze at. When you play this weenie dominate deck > against your other players (who, one would presume, build pretty effective > and viable decks), does it regularly stomp all over them? My guess is that > the answer is yes. If so, then it has very little or nothing to do with the > level of the players' skill and everything to do with how exploitive that > deck > is. And Peter, in your ruthless and cutthroat - play only to win (because > that is, after all, the entire point of the game), have you or any of your > other > players played a deck like that? If so, did (does) it regularly stomp all > over > the other decks? If you say no, then I'll only believe that when I see it. I'm the guy in Peter's playgroup with the weenie bleed deck (actually, I use presence, but the overall effect is the same) and I don't regularly stomp all over everyone else when I play it. Sure, it has a reasonable chance of winning, but I wouldn't use a deck that didn't (at least not after testing had showed that it sucked). The deck does reliably have a large impact on the game, but any deck at a table of 5ish has some sort of large effect on the game one way or another as a result of the basic predator/prey structure. <snip> > > Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite > > challenging to play. > > Not to impune your skill, Robert, but it isn't that challenging. Not challenging to play, perhaps, but definitely challenging to play well. > >If the dichotomy of Jyhad is that we deplete our pool to oust our prey > >and that our pool is what keeps us alive, then I feel like I am playing one > >off the most exciting deck styles there is. I like living on the edge and > >using my pool to excessive degrees to oust my prey. > > While this may be true, to a degree, I almost lost what I was eating because > I was going to bust out laughing. You spend what? 2 or 3 pool (if that) per > turn to Misdirect? While you bleed your prey for up to 24 pool per turn > with > 4 weenies (GtU + Conditioning)? That sounds like a pretty safe (and > brainless) > investment to me. Only if you were clever enough with your deck design to have every card you need right when you need it, and have found some way to deal with the fact that this formula relies on all of your vampires magically getting 2 blood at the start of every turn. Also consider that weenie bleed decks have no defenses of any kind. While most such decks are designed to benefit from taking this calculated risk, it is still a risk, and sometimes it means losing the game. > >I routinely influence slower or or self-contest as part of my strategy. > > But how often does this ever pop up? I can see influencing slower coming > up semi-regularly, but self contesting? I can see that happening only very > rarely. For a long period my weenie presence deck self-contested Gideon Fontaine in oiver 50% of the games it played. > >How many decks do you have that consider these aspects of strategy. > > They are very opportunistic and depend heavily on the current table. I > don't > think this hasn't happened to any deck, so it's nothing special to your > weenie > deck and as such doesn't make it one of the 'great and subtle difficulties' > only > such weenie decks experience. Before you go declaring that weenie decks don't have their own unique and substantial difficulties, try playing one. Sure, you can play 'em brainless, but it's real hard to win that way. <snip> -- Steve Wampler swam...@clarityconnect.com “And then the clouds parted and God said, I hate you, Alfalfa.” -Alfalfa, The Little Rascals

Sorrow wrote: > Mike, I saw the deck. And I said "up to 24" meaning anything 24 > and fewer. And again, looking at the deck, it is certianly capable of > a turn bleeding for 24 if it needed to. You are nitpicking a general > statement. Because the statement seemed to be that a weenie deck could reliably do 24 bleed every turn. Quite simply, it can't. Sure, sometimes you pull it off, but every deck occasionally pulls off great things. Sometimes Peter's Nosferatu kill every vampire on the table in one turn. But not often. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <37BD8DD0...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Sorrow wrote: > [snip] > > > The rulings eliminated a lot of what many people then considered > > > "cheesy": > > [snip] > > > Mind Rape + Return to Innocence > > I didn't like RtI, but I didn't think it was cheesy. And I got my > > [...] *whipped* by Lasombra's Mind Rape deck and I don't > > RtI (as printed) was much harder to defend against than Weenie bleed > (requiring an even narrower set of defenses), even without being > coupled with a steal-vampire effect. > > > think of it as cheesy. And while I played against his deck post > > 7-7, with the way he built it, it didn't matter if he had your vamp > > 1 turn or 2. > > Mind Rape + Return to Innocence doesn't work post 7/7. > > Mind Rape only gives you control of the vampire from minion phase > to discard phase. RtI doesn't "kick in" until the following untap > phase (at which time the vampire's prey (your grand-prey) would > lose X pool). The deck didn't have any RtI's in it post 7/7. It had Heidelburg Castle, Banishment, and Vote Lock (usually). And since you (LSJ) had not yet made clear the strange effect of Banishment returning a vampire to an uncontrolled region other that the current controller of the vampire, I got away with a lot. I also used other people's vamps to fight and use up all of their blood to send them back in torpor or to get them burned by having them commit diablerie and killing them. Mind Rape is still a very effective card without RtI. Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra [ quoted text not captured ]

Sorrow wrote: >>And Peter, in your ruthless and cutthroat - play only to win (because that is, after all, the entire point of the game), have you or any of your other players played a deck like that? If so, did (does) it regularly stomp all over the other decks? If you say no, then I'll only believe that when I see it.>> A: I would not in any way describe my playgroup as ruthless, cutthroat, or play only to win. You clearly have been missing out on a great deal that I have been saying. My play group is competetive, yes, and by competetive, I mean that when we play with "tournament viable" decks, we try our darndest to win, don't pull any punches, and do our best to kill our enemies. That is because it is what the game is designed for. Jyhad is a competetive game with very well defined victory conditions. As has been pointed out multiple times by the likes of Fred and myself, if all players in a given game are not playing by the same rules, then no one has fun. The assumed rules of Jyhad are that everyone is playing to win the game by getting the most victory points. If everyone in a given game is not playing with this same motivation in mind, the game doesn't work. If 5 players sit down at a game of Jyhad, each with a different motivation in mind, the game will suck. For instance, if, in a given game: -Player A wants to win by getting the most VPs. -Player B doesn't care about VPs, he just wants to screw Player C, regardless of where he is sitting. -Player C doesn't care about VPs, he just wants to see how many Garou Packs he can get into play. -Player D wants to get ousted as quickly as possible, so he can go play Magic. -Player E is unconcerned with VPs, he just wants to try out his deck that exists solely to get its predator ousted. The game is going to suck for most players involved for various reasons. Player A is looking for good competition, and he isn't going to get any. Player C is going to be unfairly and arbitrarily destroyed by a player across the table. Player B isn't going to put any pressure on his prey. Player D is going to die very quickly, making his predator's life way too easy, making his grand predator's life too hard. And so on. The end result of this is that mosty players are not going to have a good time. While this is an extreme example, the whole "I don't like cheese" viewpoint simply isn't that different. By damning players who are playing perfectly legal, perfectly viable decks that are encouraged by the rules of the game, you are basically saying "I'm not playing the same game as you, but you suck for playing by the actual rules", and consequently playing with different victory conditions than your opponents. This results in the game sucking. B) Yes, we have very similar decks (weenie speed bleed decks or weenie presence speed vote) in regular rotation in our play group. When they were first introduced into our play environment, yes, the kicked our assess over and over again. However, rather than spending all of our effort complaining about them and calling them cheesy (which we did do for a while...), we decided to make decks that could compete (and were perfeclty viable regardless of the presence of weenie decks at the table, i.e. they were not specific "anti-weenie" decks), and we succeeded. At this point in time, when Steve brings out his weenie bleed/Anarch revolt abomination, no one says "Steve, you suck, cheesmiester!", we just play. Sometimes his deck wins. Sometimes it doesn't. Just like all the other decks. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "He sees the things he knows are his He sees the bright and hollow sky" -Iggy Pop

Sorrow wrote: >>I do not believe it to be very difficult. By yours and Peters' own admission, at most tournaments people are doing there very best to win. So why is it that at most tournaments where there is a tap- n-bleed deck, it wins? I think GenCon was a fluke.>> I'm not quite sure where you are coming up with this information. In most tournaments I have played in, there have been either straight Tap-n-Bleed decks, or fairly close to such decks (weenie bleed of some sort or incredibly quick weenie presence vote), and they simply do not win more than their fair share. Around here, Steve Wampler likes to play a very, very effective weenie Pre bleed/Anarch Revolt nightmare. While it wins fairly often, I think it has only actually won a single tournament (out of many) it has played in. At the last two Origins, no weenie bleed decks have won--this last year a Setite Corruption Deck won one tourney and a Tremere Cryptic Mission/Society of Leopopld won the other (in both tournies, there were multiple very effective weenie bleed or vote decks). Two years ago, Origins was won by a very clever, yet fairly obtuse Dom/Pro/Obf S+B deck (and again, there was a good spread of weenie speed decks in the tourney) In the last reigonal tournament we had, my Nosferatu Rush deck won, and again, there were multiple weenie speed decks in the tourney. Weenie speed decks are good. Possibly too good. But when everyone playing plans on being able to deal with them from the get go, they simply don't win more often than they should. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Around here, Steve Wampler likes to play a very, very effective weenie Pre > bleed/Anarch Revolt nightmare. While it wins fairly often, I think it has only > actually won a single tournament (out of many) it has played in. And I'd just like to take this opportunity to point out to everyone who thinks that playing such a deck is "brainless" that I only got to the finals by D bleeding my predator (Peter) in the third round to manipulate the overall standings and then D bleeding all over the table in the finals to make sure that VampChamp's anarch revolts were working to my advantage. (And for all of you who are quick to make rules corrections, this WAS during the period when you could direct bleeds at whoever you wanted to) [ quoted text not captured ]

> Bye the way, I do consider the weenie misdirect bleed deck quite > challenging to play. If the dichotomy of Jyhad is that we deplete our > pool to oust our prey and that our pool is what keeps us alive, then I > feel like I am playing one off the most exciting deck styles there is. > I like living on the edge and using my pool to excessive degrees to oust > my prey. I routinely influence slower or or self-contest as part of my > strategy. How many decks do you have that consider these aspects of > strategy. The only blood gain in the deck comes from ousting preys. I > enjoy that immensely. The only time the deck is boring is when I have > no combat, votes, or untap at the table. That's not my fault, though. Well, To anwer the question, I do have a couple of decks that I play without any blood gain... I have a weenie POT deck that just HAS to rush and kill since I NEED the pool. And I have a "fun" deck that I used to play before we had a 6Cl, which had 10 Life Boons and then got itself ousted, but practically always got at least 3 VP's out of 5 max. Allthough I still find that strange.... But in respect to any really competative game, ANYTHING goes!! No matter cheezy or not. And I also think that a lot of people don't realize how good a player you have to be to pull a deck like that off, some of them only see the results. As a player of a weenie deck you are at the mercy of the rest of the table. I mean I can't ever try a deck like that simply because the whole table will gang up on me, and won't feel sorry about it!! Even though they are GIVING my predator an easy VP, the threat it TOO real. But this is in no way a continuation of the pro's and cons of a weenie deck. But the weenies aren't really a theat to as I never see it. Gr, Tim (the maybe soon to be Prince of Utrecht, hint, hint...) So if anyone can give me the terms and rules in being royalty, please let me know.. [ quoted text not captured ]

The Lasombra wrote: > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > Sorrow wrote: > > [snip] > > > > The rulings eliminated a lot of what many people then considered > > > > "cheesy": > > > [snip] > > > > Mind Rape + Return to Innocence > > > I didn't like RtI, but I didn't think it was cheesy. And I got my > > > [...] *whipped* by Lasombra's Mind Rape deck and I don't > > > think of it as cheesy. And while I played against his deck post > > > 7-7, with the way he built it, it didn't matter if he had your vamp > > > 1 turn or 2. > > > > Mind Rape + Return to Innocence doesn't work post 7/7. > > The deck didn't have any RtI's in it post 7/7. > It had Heidelburg Castle, Banishment, and Vote Lock (usually). Odd that it should be mentioned where it was then: Firt Guy: "7/7 eliminated some cheese, like Mind Rape + RtI" Second Guy: "Well I played against and got whipped by Lasombra's deck post 7/7. With the way he built it, the 7/7 changes didn't matter." If it wasn't a "Mind Rape + RtI" deck, then the latter statement doesn't fit very well in the thread. Sorry for the confusion. > [snip] > > Mind Rape is still a very effective card without RtI. The point was that Mind Rape *plus* RtI was abusive. "Effective" is not a problem. 7/7 wasn't trying to turn Mind Rape into wallpaper. The fact that it is currently "very effective" even though its effect is *greatly* reduced from the original is an argument *for* the idea that it was too powerful before 7/7. Certainly we can all agree that (old style) Mind Rape + (old style) RtI was more "effective" than current Mind Rape with/without current RtI, yes? [ quoted text not captured ]

> Odd that it should be mentioned where it was then: > Firt Guy: "7/7 eliminated some cheese, like Mind Rape + RtI" > Second Guy: "Well I played against and got whipped by Lasombra's deck post > 7/7. With the way he built it, the 7/7 changes didn't matter." > If it wasn't a "Mind Rape + RtI" deck, then the latter statement doesn't > fit very well in the thread. > Sorry for the confusion. If I had paid more attention, I'd have realized that the original poster had meant Mind Rape [along with] RtI. I just figured he was commenting on those two individaul cards in general (not necessarily used together). Because of that, I addressed both cards in 2 seperate statements as follows: "> Mind Rape + Return to Innocence I didn't like RtI, but I didn't think it was cheesy. And I got my ass *whipped* by Lasombra's Mind Rape deck and I don't think of it as cheesy. And while I played against his deck post 7-7, with the way he built it, it didn't matter if he had your vamp 1 turn or 2." In the part that you quoted I was talking of Mind Rape on it's own. Notice how I didn't say Mind Rape/RtI deck. Lastly, the end part of that sentence was talking about how effectively Lasombra used the Mind Rapes he got out (ie, he didn't need 2 turns to do the damage he was going to do). Just clarifying some things up. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote in message ... >It would kill some of the weenie potence decks, for a start. I believe >Josh or Peter got it down to about 3. Also, it would require strict >checking by a judge, which currently you don't have to do in Jyhad. I'm at 3.1666666 (etc) I'm looking for one more IG, one more Decapitate, and one more Behind You!...little help? Oh, and details on upcoming Minneapolis events to follow soon... Xian www.waste.org/~xian

In article <Nwfv3.3615$1B5.2...@monger.newsread.com>, "Sorrow" <cbo...@apdi.net> wrote: [someone else wrote] > > I think the effort is perceived rather than actual. Building a > > decent weenie tap-n-bleed deck is not difficult. Building one > > that will win most of the time is very difficult in an environment > > where everyone is doing their best to win. > > I do not believe it to be very difficult. By yours and Peters' own > admission, at most tournaments people are doing there very best > to win. So why is it that at most tournaments where there is a tap- > n-bleed deck, it wins? I think GenCon was a fluke. I think this statement/question is too sweeping. I don't know that at most tournaments where there is a tap&bleed deck, it wins. I don't think anyone has done a broad enough survey of Jyhad tournaments to make such a statement. And more generally, in my opinion, the Jyhad tournament scene is not large enough that it would be very significant if tap&bleed decks *did* win most of the tournaments they were played at. The problem is (again IMO) that there are not enough good players playing good decks at enough sizable tournaments for individual tournament results to be a reliable indication of what is or isn't overpowered in tournament play. Because our game doesn't have that many players, it doesn't have that many tournaments either. And because the tournaments aren't played for 'meaningful' prizes (money for example), people aren't necessarily driven to search out the best possible winning strategies. Tap&bleed may be an abusive strategy (although I don't think it is), but a few tournament wins for it isn't good proof of that. Especially when there are 'flukes' like GenCon - at one of the largest Jyhad tournaments in the country. Josh coming to the discussion late (better than never? maybe..) [ quoted text not captured ]