Wall decks and going forward...

I've been working with both a Ravnos and a Nos wall deck recently, and I was wondering if I could get some help with strategy. There is one main problem that I am having… Without advanced Auspex, my prey normally resorts to doing things I can't block. Bleeds, D-actions to other Meth's. My chances to disable my prey is low, what can I do to stop that? Pack rush and bleed mod's come to mind. I also have 2 strategy questions about walls: 1. I am not sure whether to stay untapped or to use untaps. Which is more effective? Both of these decks use lots of permanent intercept (Raptors for Nos, Masters + Ravens for Ravnos) and some surprise intercept (Nos have cats guidance and some auspex for C. Robin, Draba and Ignis Fatuus for Ravnos). Does the threat of remaining untapped work better, or is surprise a better element to use in your favor? 2. Is the purpose of a wall deck to be the last deck standing? That is normally what mine does, and the best I can do is tie. -- Direct access to this group with http://web2news.com http://web2news.com/?rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

>I've been working with both a Ravnos and a Nos wall deck recently, and I >was wondering if I could get some help with strategy. There is one main >problem that I am having… Without advanced Auspex, my prey normally >resorts to doing things I can't block. Bleeds, D-actions to other >Meth's. My chances to disable my prey is low, what can I do to stop >that? Pack rush and bleed mod's come to mind. You've likely thought of or incorporated Army of Rats, but since it isn't mentioned, feel the need to do so. Also, Tier of Souls. >I also have 2 strategy questions about walls: >1. I am not sure whether to stay untapped or to use untaps. Which is >more effective? Both of these decks use lots of permanent intercept >(Raptors for Nos, Masters + Ravens for Ravnos) and some surprise >intercept (Nos have cats guidance and some auspex for C. Robin, Draba >and Ignis Fatuus for Ravnos). Does the threat of remaining untapped work >better, or is surprise a better element to use in your favor? Should always have untaps otherwise all sorts of things are going to be highly annoying, things like Anarch Troublemaker. And, you might need to block a *lot* of actions in a particular turn. >2. Is the purpose of a wall deck to be the last deck standing? That is >normally what mine does, and the best I can do is tie. Ideally, the purpose of a deck is to win stylishly. To make a game count for something, any deck should at least strive for being able to win. Play with Smiling Jack. It at least gives an intercept deck a chance of winning.

On Thu, 12 Jun 2003, Cecil wrote: > I've been working with both a Ravnos and a Nos wall deck recently, and I > was wondering if I could get some help with strategy. There is one main > problem that I am having… Without advanced Auspex, my prey normally > resorts to doing things I can't block. Bleeds, D-actions to other > Meth's. My chances to disable my prey is low, what can I do to stop > that? Pack rush and bleed mod's come to mind. For Nos, I'd say rush. For Ravnos, you have a few more options. You can always Draba an action, even if you can't block it. Getting your grandprey to smear your prey is arguably better than doing it yourself. Sensory Depriving your prey can be similiar to rushing; careful not to overdo it and give your grandprey free reign. Pentex Subversion can help put your prey in park. It certainly affects the minion you target with it, and then they tend to expend quite a bit of effort trying to get rid of it, instead of doing whatever else they would have done. > I also have 2 strategy questions about walls: > 1. I am not sure whether to stay untapped or to use untaps. Which is Depends on the deck. Generally, though, I'd say it's better to have untaps and actually do things with your own minions. > 2. Is the purpose of a wall deck to be the last deck standing? That is A /good/ wall deck will get its first prey, and then go for last man standing. That's three VP's and a win. David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

I've played about with the Ravnos a bit. Fwiw here's some rambling: (never played Nos and can't see why they would be a wall) > problem that I am having… Without advanced Auspex, my prey normally > resorts to doing things I can't block. Bleeds, D-actions to other You are playing a wall -what do you mean things you can't block? You need more Intercept/Draba/Veiled Sight. VS is expensive but not quite so bad with the superior (if you have nothing better to do in combat). If you get your intercept up a bit then kill his stealth he has to start again from scratch and still top your intercept -do it twice and he's VERY unlikely to get past -if he does have that much stealth you are probably better off letting it jam his hand.... > Meth's. My chances to disable my prey is low, what can I do to stop > that? Pack rush and bleed mod's come to mind. Fata Morgana's pretty nice. It's much better if you can hurth them when you block them -horrid reality wth some nice weapons is good for this -NB YOU DO NOT PAY THE COST OF THE WEAPON so make it a big one (I could really use some assault rifles...) Alternatively use Ravnos cache. Ravnos are pretty good at stealth too with Fata Morgana, Fortune Teller Shop and Rom Gypsies (also useful blockers used with care) > I also have 2 strategy questions about walls: > 1. I am not sure whether to stay untapped or to use untaps. Which is > more effective? Both of these decks use lots of permanent intercept > (Raptors for Nos, Masters + Ravens for Ravnos) and some surprise > intercept (Nos have cats guidance and some auspex for C. Robin, Draba > and Ignis Fatuus for Ravnos). Does the threat of remaining untapped work > better, or is surprise a better element to use in your favor? If you aren't tapping then you aren't doing anything. This probably means you aren't going to oust your prey and won't have your Sports Bike and Leather Jacket ready with Mr.Winthrop when you want to block. Use the untaps. > 2. Is the purpose of a wall deck to be the last deck standing? That is > normally what mine does, and the best I can do is tie. Being the last standing is certainly a start. You do want to oust someone before that though or you can be last and still lose (5 or more players). Fata Morgana (I may have mentioned this card before) can certainly help the Ravnos and a few Computers (Hacking or Laptop) can be enough. If you can stop your prey killing your predator when it gets to 3 and outlast them both you will win - so be careful about letting your prey tool up. Don't worry too much about your grandprey so long as he isn't going to munch two and be strong enough to take you too. Make some deals. You can let your prey get a good number of minions out before you start bleeding too much. You are not going for big bleeds.. just keep them going on and on and on and on and on and on.... Of course you risk timing out if there's a limit. If you CAN get rid of a prey, Gambit Accepted would be good too. Lots of people know far more about this than me so I'll shut up now ;-)

David Cherryholmes wrote: > A /good/ wall deck will get its first prey, and then go for last man > standing. That's three VP's and a win. Which leads to the deckbuilding dilemma of how one goes about "getting my first prey" and "being a wall deck", which is what the originator of this thread is asking. Related to this question is "how do I prevent my prey from ousting the rest of the table out from under me?" Smiling Jack is certainly an option, but then you then get the question of "how do I handle the entire table trying to get rid of Smiling Jack?" Ack...I have to go play V:TES with the Boston group now...I'll try to pontificate on these issues tomorrow. :) - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com

On 12 Jun 2003 16:30:56 -0700, Ben Peal wrote: > David Cherryholmes wrote: >> A /good/ wall deck will get its first prey, and then go for last man >> standing. That's three VP's and a win. > > Which leads to the deckbuilding dilemma of how one goes about > "getting my first prey" and "being a wall deck", which is what > the originator of this thread is asking. Army of Rats for one. Moderately stealthy bleed (you aren't scared of being blocked after all). It doesn't matter if your prey lasts to the final three players so long as he dies before the other one. This is of course the tricky bit. Doing it before you run out of time is the other problem. > Related to this question is "how do I prevent my prey from > ousting the rest of the table out from under me?" Block his every non-directed action? (embraces; recruiting; employing; equipping; political actions...) > Smiling Jack is certainly an option, but then you then get the > question of "how do I handle the entire table trying to get rid > of Smiling Jack?" Hmm.. I thought you said it was a wall deck... Why don't you block them? How long do you think they will keep trying? I'd have thought a bigger problem with SJ might be making your prey fall first (or at least not last) -- I always lie. In the likely event of this not being the case I'm making it up! Have fun!

> Related to this question is "how do I prevent my prey from > ousting the rest of the table out from under me?" Sensory Deprivation is another option for Ravnos. You can use it to manage any part of the table too ;-) It's cheaper counterpart Sensory Overload can be used to devastating effect if you time it right as well. Try to make some deals. (both sensory cards are good fot this)

In message <Pine.GSO.4.21.030612...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu>, David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> mumbled something about: [ quoted text not captured ] A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose the GW is to let its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. A wall deck has complete control over the GW. The only way it can FAIL to gain the win is: - Allow its prey to get 3VP, eliminating anyone else from contention for the Game Win. - Allow its prey to get 2VP and someone else to get 1VP, guaranteeing that the best the wall deck can do is tie or allow another player to get a GW. - Allow its prey to get 1VP and someone else to get 2VP,... see above. - Let the table time out, guaranteeing that nobody gets a GW. None of these are an acceptable option when playing a wall deck. Therefore, a wall deck should have two primary focii: first, preventing its prey from EVER gaining a VP by any means necessary, and second, ensuring that the table does not time out under any circumstances. The first criteria mandates the use of Eagle's Sight, which mandates superior Auspex. No other means is sufficient. Even Eagle's Sight may not be enough against certain decks of your prey, but it will do for most. In addition, the first criteria also mandates that as few as possible of your prey's actions be successful. No action which causes damage to your grandprey, or gains your prey pool in some fashion, should be allowed to complete if at all possible. Judgement is required here -- if you're going to get killed blocking a bleed of 1, perhaps you should let it by. But your minions' survival is secondary to the Game Win; since you know you cannot win by inaction, you should be as antimaterialistic as necessary to stop your prey from gaining VP. Occasionally this will mean exploding one of your own minions, but it may be necessary. The second criteria can only be satisfied by cards such as the much-reviled Anarch Revolt and Smiling Jack. HOWEVER! This does not mean you should pitch Anarchs out of your hand like they're going out of style (Peter Bakija, I see you lurking in the back). Instead, keep one or two Anarchs in play at all times. Do not block attempts to remove them (unless of course your prey tries) -- they've already hurt the most important person, your prey. Combined with the heavy chain you're tying around your prey's ankles, your prey should be almost completely unable to do anything other than be pitifully ousted by the Anarchs -- since of course your own blood gain via Blood Dolls and just not-taking-pool-damage should be more than sufficient to outlast him. Once your prey is dead, let's pause for a moment and review our criteria. First, our prey has gotten no VPs, and we have 1. The table is definitely not going to time out, because the Anarchs and possibly Jack are being a dead weight on even the strongest bloat decks. What could be happening on the rest of the table? Only a few things: - It is very likely that our grandprey, having no pressure at all on him all game, has ousted our grandpredator and predator, gaining 2VP. However, he still has to oust us to ensure the table win, and we have the upper hand on him since our deck, like all wall decks, becomes a monster in a 1-on-1 situation. We like this situation, especially with Anarchs on the table forcing their hand and denying them the "bloat-and-get-ten-minions" approach. The only problem is going to be that we MUST obtain the Edge as soon as possible to deny pool gain, and our deck does not have a lot of room for stealth. A few Night Moves might be an excellent choice. - Our grandprey is pathetic, and our grandpredator has ousted our predator, gaining 1VP. (or our grandprey has ousted our grandpredator but has not yet finished the job on our predator, either way.) While our deck is strong in a three-player environment, the conditions are not yet ideal for us to be able to force the situation and win. We would like it to be 1-on-1. Conveniently, we are able to do this by changing strategy -- completely ignore our prey, and kill our predator ruthlessly. Once our predator is ousted, the score will be 1-1-1, and we are in the "duel" situation that we wanted in the first place. We should be able to handily win from here. - The entire table is flailing helplessly under the weight of the Anarchs. Sit back, defend, gain pool, and watch to see which of the above two situations it becomes. With the Anarchs out, it shouldn't take long for SOMEONE to fall into the well. Are we likely to be the table target? Well... the Anarchs will not make you popular, but once it's clear that you're not going to go nuts with them or prevent them from being removed, people will calm down somewhat. Your prey is going to be pretty pissy about it (as well he should be; he's the one taking it in the ass), but your grandprey is going to completely be your friend. Since your grandprey has no pressure, he is very likely to become the table target himself -- he'll have a lot more forward motion than you do, and that draws attention whether or not people realize it. By the time it's a three player game, everyone is a target anyway. Your task is to avoid being targeted during the 4-player or 5-player phases; from that point forward you'll be in a lot better shape. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

Derek Ray wrote: > A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose the GW is to let > its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. ... or get ousted. Or (pendantry): let its grand prey oust its grand predator and predator and then withdraw (with 3 VP). -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Derek Ray wrote: > HOWEVER! This does not > mean you should pitch Anarchs out of your hand like they're going out of > style (Peter Bakija, I see you lurking in the back). Hey! That deck does pretty well in, like, 3 or 4 player games. It even got into the finals at a tourney once. Granted, it died, but it did ok! And man! Hows about all those cool, new AUS vampires, eh? Lots of cool new pictures... Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "My health is failing me, so I flip on the television, and watch sad movies and look for sad, sick people like me." -Tegan and Sara

In message <3EE92219...@white-wolf.com>, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose the GW is to let >> its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. > >... or get ousted. Not much of a wall deck if it gets ousted, is it? =) >Or (pendantry): let its grand prey oust its grand predator and predator and >then withdraw (with 3 VP). I'll hang it around your neck, all right. (counter-PEDantry) [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip a great analysis> > The first criteria mandates the use of Eagle's Sight, which mandates > superior Auspex. No other means is sufficient. Even Eagle's Sight may > not be enough against certain decks of your prey, but it will do for > most. I don't htink you really NEED E's S. If you block every non-D action and your prey is still in danger of getting a VP, he should have the whole table on him -if he doesn't then you've been blocking too much ;-P

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 00:49:18 +0100, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: >On 12 Jun 2003 16:30:56 -0700, Ben Peal wrote: >> Smiling Jack is certainly an option, but then you then get the >> question of "how do I handle the entire table trying to get rid >> of Smiling Jack?" >Hmm.. I thought you said it was a wall deck... Why don't you block them? Have you played a dedicated Smiling Jack deck? Are you aware of the table ire that it can generate? Any rate, this is Not Easy. >How long do you think they will keep trying? Forever. > I'd have thought a bigger >problem with SJ might be making your prey fall first (or at least not last) Not really...your prey gets hit with it before anyone else, and then you can block his actions that attempt to put blood on his vampries, forcing him to start removing pool before anyone else. Xian

In message <zpqel7gb8vmw$.1c8ex4m1kncdz$.d...@40tude.net>, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> mumbled something about: [ quoted text not captured ] I repeat: Eagle's Sight is mandatory. Many decks take nothing but (D) actions. Stealth bleed, for example. Stealth bleed is your primary danger, in fact -- it will take nothing but (D) actions, and if you miss catching them once it may oust its prey and THEN where will you be? Skilled players, when they realize that you're playing heavy intercept, immediately reduce their stealth as low as possible and take nothing but (D) actions, in an attempt to jam you on intercept and catch you without Eagle's Sight. Many undirected actions are no longer necessary when you have a predator who is putting little direct pressure on you -- the Govern at superior that you were counting as pool gain, for example, suddenly turns into a bleed. The only way you luck out and DON'T need Eagle's Sight is if you happen to be the predator of a vote deck. And even those often include a good hunk of bleed in them. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: >>> 2. Is the purpose of a wall deck to be the last deck >>> standing? That is >> >>A /good/ wall deck will get its first prey, and then go for last man >>standing. That's three VP's and a win. > > A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose > the GW is to let > its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. > > Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. [snip] Excellent analysis of a hard to grasp mechanic. Out of interest, where do you think Life Boon fits into this (if at all)? Thanks man, good read. Rob [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 01:03:30 -0400, Derek Ray pontificated: >>> The first criteria mandates the use of Eagle's Sight, which mandates >>> superior Auspex. No other means is sufficient. Even Eagle's Sight may >>> not be enough against certain decks of your prey, but it will do for >>> most. >> >>I don't htink you really NEED E's S. If you block every non-D action and >>your prey is still in danger of getting a VP, he should have the whole >>table on him -if he doesn't then you've been blocking too much ;-P > > I repeat: Eagle's Sight is mandatory. > > Many decks take nothing but (D) actions. Stealth bleed, for example. > Stealth bleed is your primary danger, in fact -- it will take nothing > but (D) actions, and if you miss catching them once it may oust its prey > and THEN where will you be? Watching the rest of the table killing it? > Skilled players, when they realize that you're playing heavy intercept, > immediately reduce their stealth as low as possible and take nothing but > (D) actions, in an attempt to jam you on intercept and catch you without > Eagle's Sight. Many undirected actions are no longer necessary when you > have a predator who is putting little direct pressure on you -- the > Govern at superior that you were counting as pool gain, for example, > suddenly turns into a bleed. What does this do to their strategy? Is their prey just going to sit there and take it? > The only way you luck out and DON'T need Eagle's Sight is if you happen > to be the predator of a vote deck. And even those often include a good > hunk of bleed in them. How abotu those combat deacks you said never win? Anything that requireds equipment? Of course you do need to be able to damage them too - perhaps you don't call this a wall deck?

robtreasure wrote: > Derek Ray wrote: >> >> A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose >> the GW is to let >> its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. >> >> Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. > > [snip] > > Excellent analysis of a hard to grasp mechanic. Yes, brilliant analysis, Derek. > Out of interest, where do you think Life Boon fits into this (if at > all)? And Gambit Accepted? Is it a no-brainer to include in every wall deck? -- Francois I WAS NOT TOLD TO DO THIS Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 5F13

Derek Ray wrote: [1 on 1 situation] > The only problem is going to be > that we MUST obtain the Edge as soon as possible to deny pool gain, and > our deck does not have a lot of room for stealth. A few Night Moves > might be an excellent choice. Concoction of Vitality might be good too. On the plus side, it stays here until you need it in the end game. -- Francois I DID NOT WIN THE NOBEL FART PRIZE Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode AABF19

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 10:50:41 +0200, Francois Gombault <gombault...@BROKEN.ADDRESS.wanadoo.fr> scrawled: >robtreasure wrote: > >> Derek Ray wrote: >>> >>> A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose >>> the GW is to let >>> its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. >>> >>> Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. >> >> [snip] >> >> Excellent analysis of a hard to grasp mechanic. > >Yes, brilliant analysis, Derek. > >> Out of interest, where do you think Life Boon fits into this (if at >> all)? > >And Gambit Accepted? Is it a no-brainer to include in every wall deck? i may have mis-read the analysis, but i got the impression that once you'd ousted your first prey, all you had to do was wall up and be last man in, which shouldn;t be too hard considering the deck type, and you'll win. if you don't get the first vp, Gambit can't be played. if you do, you're on your way to winning anyway so why risk not having the vp if the game times out (because you're a wall deck and the other players might not futiley throw themselves against said wall). ? salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm

salem wrote: > if you do, you're on your way to winning anyway so why risk not having > the vp if the game times out (because you're a wall deck and the other > players might not futiley throw themselves against said wall). > ? Well, I had the impression that Gambit Accepted was very strong in the end game: you get to steal a pool each turn, and that's both a) keeping you alive b) more effortless forward pressure preventing the game to time out. Also please note that you get your VP back from Gambit Accepted if the game times out. And for the temporary VP loss: obviously an intercept deck is built to survive. In my opinion there is no safer deck for Gambit Accepted. -- Francois I WILL REMEMBER TO TAKE MY MEDICATION Bart Simpson on chalkboard in episode 2F14

On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 09:45:20 +0100, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: >> Many decks take nothing but (D) actions. Stealth bleed, for example. >> Stealth bleed is your primary danger, in fact -- it will take nothing >> but (D) actions, and if you miss catching them once it may oust its prey >> and THEN where will you be? >Watching the rest of the table killing it? It must be nice to live in a place where someone else will kill your prey. How much does it cost to live in this fantasy land? >> Skilled players, when they realize that you're playing heavy intercept, >> immediately reduce their stealth as low as possible and take nothing but >> (D) actions, in an attempt to jam you on intercept and catch you without >> Eagle's Sight. Many undirected actions are no longer necessary when you >> have a predator who is putting little direct pressure on you -- the >> Govern at superior that you were counting as pool gain, for example, >> suddenly turns into a bleed. >What does this do to their strategy? It doesn't matter what it does to their strategy. YOURS doesn't work. You're an intercept deck that isn't blocking the actions of the most important person for you to block. This will cause you to lose, regardless of how it effects their game. >Is their prey just going to sit there and take it? No, clearly in your experience the rest of the table is going to gang up and kill it, because you aren't doing anything to it. >> The only way you luck out and DON'T need Eagle's Sight is if you happen >> to be the predator of a vote deck. And even those often include a good >> hunk of bleed in them. >How abotu those combat deacks you said never win? Where was that in his post? Poorly played rush decks never win. Skilled players with rush decks win often enough. >Anything that requireds equipment? Will be putty in your hands, or they will do without the equipment and try to go forward on their own. Either of which is good for you, but then you will still want Eagle's Sight or Falcon's Eye to stop the actions that your grand-prey cannot. >Of course you do need to be able to damage them too - perhaps >you don't call this a wall deck? Did you actually read his article? Any deck can simply block everything its predator does and be a wall deck. This will not make it a 'good' wall deck. This will not be a 'winning' wall deck. If you aren't playing a good/winning wall deck, you are doing it wrong. His article stated that a good wall deck should put in Anarch Revolts or Smiling Jacks, both to keep the table from timing out and to do damage to your prey. Obviously, he has doing damage to his prey covered. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com

In message <7agjev4fbugk93gjd...@4ax.com>, The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> writes: >>Anything that requireds equipment? > >Will be putty in your hands, or they will do without the equipment and >try to go forward on their own. Either of which is good for you, but >then you will still want Eagle's Sight or Falcon's Eye to stop the >actions that your grand-prey cannot. Or, in the case of weapons, are playing Concealed Weapon. Or you managed to slip an early Pier 13 out. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D Lucky that my breasts are small and humble, EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 So you don't confuse them with mountains. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D

Derek Ray wrote: <snip Intro> > The first criteria mandates the use of Eagle's Sight, which mandates > superior Auspex. No other means is sufficient. Even > Eagle's Sight may > not be enough against certain decks of your prey, but it will do for > most. > I couldn't agree more. I always have a pocket of 6-10 Eagle's Sights in my "intercept deck of the moment". > In addition, the first criteria also mandates that as few > as possible of > your prey's actions be successful. No action which causes damage to > your grandprey, or gains your prey pool in some fashion, should be > allowed to complete if at all possible. Judgement is > required here -- > if you're going to get killed blocking a bleed of 1, > perhaps you should > let it by. But your minions' survival is secondary to the Game Win; > since you know you cannot win by inaction, you should be as > antimaterialistic as necessary to stop your prey from gaining VP. > Occasionally this will mean exploding one of your own minions, but it > may be necessary. > I believe that discretion may be afforded by certain deck types. If you know you can block your prey, some offensive actions can be allowed through to keep grand-prey from running amok. Key actions, key minons, and pool-gain should be blocked every time, however. > The second criteria can only be satisfied by cards such as the > much-reviled Anarch Revolt and Smiling Jack. HOWEVER! This does not > mean you should pitch Anarchs out of your hand like > they're going out of > style (Peter Bakija, I see you lurking in the back). > Instead, keep one > or two Anarchs in play at all times. Do not block attempts to remove > them (unless of course your prey tries) -- they've already > hurt the most > important person, your prey. Combined with the heavy > chain you're tying > around your prey's ankles, your prey should be almost > completely unable > to do anything other than be pitifully ousted by the > Anarchs -- since of > course your own blood gain via Blood Dolls and just > not-taking-pool-damage should be more than sufficient to outlast him. > I'd like to think that neither Anarch Revolt or Smiling Jack are absolutely necessary, even though they are probaby the best methods. I currently play a Tremere intercept-combat deck with a little Pulse, a little Conditioning and some efficient combat (maneuvers, prevent, Burst of Sunlight). Blocking a minion often means it goes to torpor and as long as I keep my prey from gaining pool, I can wear him down and squeeze in some good bleeds. It's won, it's lost, and I'm still trying new things. Just like to point out that AR and SJ might not be necessary... though I might throw some of that stuff in. <snip rest> I'll echo everyone else's praise. Good read. Ever so amused, Dorrinal [ quoted text not captured ]

>A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose the GW is to let >its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. > >Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. > >A wall deck has complete control over the GW. The only way it can FAIL >to gain the win is: > >- Allow its prey to get 3VP, eliminating anyone else from contention for >the Game Win. >- Allow its prey to get 2VP and someone else to get 1VP, guaranteeing >that the best the wall deck can do is tie or allow another player to get >a GW. >- Allow its prey to get 1VP and someone else to get 2VP,... see above. >- Let the table time out, guaranteeing that nobody gets a GW. Grandprey gets 2 VPs, game times out, TW to grandprey. Then, there's one's initial prey not being one's prey later, which may matter to this breakdown and which isn't that uncommon. >None of these are an acceptable option when playing a wall deck. >Therefore, a wall deck should have two primary focii: first, preventing >its prey from EVER gaining a VP by any means necessary, and second, >ensuring that the table does not time out under any circumstances. I like this analysis and all, but the wall deck still has to oust its prey at some point. You do mention ways to achieve this - AR and SJ - later, but they aren't reliable at taking out one's prey if the table conspires to help your prey. I'm having a hard time getting at what I want to say on this; if a deck has a limited path to victory and that path can be obstructed fairly easily, the deck has a lot of issues. I guess that's my point about trying to rely on AR or SJ, nevermind that AR can be suicidal as wall decks can't stop everything *all* of the time. If the wall's prey sees rampant blockage, then it can sit and spend the entire game trying to prevent the wall deck from ousting it. That's kind of annoying to the wall deck. Pretty much unrelated but in keeping with the doing nothing plan, I ousted a wall deck by doing pretty much nothing the whole game as I had nothing better to do than time out and be top seed going into the finals. Eventually, the wall deck had to do something to try and oust its prey and the combination of resistance, not holding on to bleed defense, and being bounced to killed it. More relevant to the discussion may be the observation that the bane of a lot of intercept decks is taking actions, makes games with intercept decks sitting next to each other so much fun [sarcasm alert].

[ quoted text not captured ] What do you use to prevent damage? > of Sunlight). Blocking a minion often means it goes to torpor and as > long as I keep my prey from gaining pool, I can wear him down and > squeeze in some good bleeds. It's won, it's lost, and I'm still trying > new things. Just like to point out that AR and SJ might not be > necessary... though I might throw some of that stuff in. Why would you choose not to put them in?

On 13 Jun 2003 19:22:59 GMT, Curevei wrote: >>A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose the GW is to let >>its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. >> >>Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. >> >>A wall deck has complete control over the GW. The only way it can FAIL >>to gain the win is: >> >>- Allow its prey to get 3VP, eliminating anyone else from contention for >>the Game Win. >>- Allow its prey to get 2VP and someone else to get 1VP, guaranteeing >>that the best the wall deck can do is tie or allow another player to get >>a GW. >>- Allow its prey to get 1VP and someone else to get 2VP,... see above. >>- Let the table time out, guaranteeing that nobody gets a GW. > > Grandprey gets 2 VPs, game times out, TW to grandprey. Then, there's one's > initial prey not being one's prey later, which may matter to this breakdown and > which isn't that uncommon. Definitely a problem if you get a new prey with a VP. Of course you can block the PA called to restructure... <snip> > More relevant to the discussion may be the observation that the bane of a lot > of intercept decks is taking actions, makes games with intercept decks sitting Could you explain this a bit more please? Do you mean that they aren't built to take actions? Or that they aren't built to wake up again?

In message <20030613152259...@mb-m15.aol.com>, cur...@aol.commetal (Curevei) mumbled something about: >>A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose the GW is to let >>its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. >> >>Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. >> >>A wall deck has complete control over the GW. The only way it can FAIL >>to gain the win is: >> >>- Allow its prey to get 3VP, eliminating anyone else from contention for >>the Game Win. >>- Allow its prey to get 2VP and someone else to get 1VP, guaranteeing >>that the best the wall deck can do is tie or allow another player to get >>a GW. >>- Allow its prey to get 1VP and someone else to get 2VP,... see above. >>- Let the table time out, guaranteeing that nobody gets a GW. > >Grandprey gets 2 VPs, game times out, TW to grandprey. Then, there's one's See where my original post says "let the table time out" being one of the ways to fail to gain a win? It doesn't matter how the table times out, who has VPs at that point, whatever. If you let the table time out, you lose. (Odds of you having gained 2VP and the table timing out with a deck like this: next to zero.) >initial prey not being one's prey later, which may matter to this breakdown and >which isn't that uncommon. It doesn't matter at all. If you let the game time out, you lose. If you let whoever is in your "prey" slot gain VP, you lose -- at that point there is too much to control on the table, and while you might luck out, you're probably screwed. If someone with 1VP switches to your immediate "prey" slot, well, you might lose. Conveniently, Eagle's Sight is effective at blocking cross-table Dramatic Upheavals/Kindred Restructures. >>None of these are an acceptable option when playing a wall deck. >>Therefore, a wall deck should have two primary focii: first, preventing >>its prey from EVER gaining a VP by any means necessary, and second, >>ensuring that the table does not time out under any circumstances. > >I like this analysis and all, but the wall deck still has to oust its prey at >some point. You do mention ways to achieve this - AR and SJ - later, but they >aren't reliable at taking out one's prey if the table conspires to help your >prey. I'm having a hard time getting at what I want to say on this; if a deck Then you have failed in the additional task I mentioned -- that of not becoming a target until the table's down to 3 players. If people are conspiring to help your prey, then you've screwed the pooch somehow. Your grandprey is CERTAINLY all about letting your prey go hang, since you're not rapid-ousting, you're just strangling him slowly. That's a free hand for him for the whole game. He'll be on your side, because he gets 2VP out of it and a chance to get 4 by beating you in the 1-on-1... OR if you let the table time out, he also wins. >has a limited path to victory and that path can be obstructed fairly easily, >the deck has a lot of issues. I guess that's my point about trying to rely on >AR or SJ, nevermind that AR can be suicidal as wall decks can't stop everything >*all* of the time. If the wall's prey sees rampant blockage, then it can sit >and spend the entire game trying to prevent the wall deck from ousting it. >That's kind of annoying to the wall deck. That's fine. The idea is not to have to take actions -- to be able to leave all your minions untapped every turn, maximising your blocking potential. A prey which remains untapped simply takes more hits from Jack and the Revolts, without providing himself any pool gain as recompense. Clearly, some Suddens are in order to stop annoying Blood Dolls and Hunting Grounds. >Pretty much unrelated but in keeping with the doing nothing plan, I ousted a >wall deck by doing pretty much nothing the whole game as I had nothing better >to do than time out and be top seed going into the finals. Eventually, the >wall deck had to do something to try and oust its prey and the combination of >resistance, not holding on to bleed defense, and being bounced to killed it. So it played foolishly? =) >More relevant to the discussion may be the observation that the bane of a lot >of intercept decks is taking actions, makes games with intercept decks sitting >next to each other so much fun [sarcasm alert]. Which is why I'm describing a deck which takes as few actions as possible. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <3967...@web2news.com>, "robtreasure" <robtreasure....@web2news.net> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: > >> A corollary to this: the only way a wall deck can lose >> the GW is to let >> its prey get any VP, or to let the table time out in some fashion. >> >> Reread that carefully. I know it'll surprise some people. > >Excellent analysis of a hard to grasp mechanic. >Out of interest, where do you think Life Boon fits into this (if at >all)? I don't think it fits at all, really. Life Boon simply makes one person hostile towards you who might not previously have been -- because until you're ousted, they don't dare get any VPs. While that's great for a deck that's generating tons of pool, I don't see it as being a viable mechanic for a deck that's going to need to win by the skin of its teeth. With the rule allowing one to kingmak^H^H^H^H^H^H^H die in the fashion they choose if they can't possibly win anyway, why would you want to give someone even more incentive to self-oust or otherwise suicide their game to spoil yours? There's plenty of that stuff going on anyway. >Thanks man, good read. No problem, eh. These just kind of pop out every so often. Random pontification and such. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > <snip good premise> > > The first criteria mandates the use of Eagle's Sight, which mandates > superior Auspex. No other means is sufficient. Even Eagle's Sight may > not be enough against certain decks of your prey, but it will do for > most. In my opinion, not enough wall decks use rush. And as you say, Eagle's Sight might not be enough. The bane of an wall deck is a stealth-bleed prey. For every Eagle's Sight you play, they can play an Elder Impersonation. > In addition, the first criteria also mandates that as few as possible of > your prey's actions be successful. No action which causes damage to > your grandprey, or gains your prey pool in some fashion, should be > allowed to complete if at all possible. Judgement is required here -- > if you're going to get killed blocking a bleed of 1, perhaps you should > let it by. But your minions' survival is secondary to the Game Win; > since you know you cannot win by inaction, you should be as > antimaterialistic as necessary to stop your prey from gaining VP. > Occasionally this will mean exploding one of your own minions, but it > may be necessary. Basically what you're looking for is any attempt to catch your prey doing something, and then spiking his minion into the ground. Once that's done, you've then set up future opportunities to catch him, as he'll be wanting to rescue. > The second criteria can only be satisfied by cards such as the > much-reviled Anarch Revolt and Smiling Jack. HOWEVER! This does not > mean you should pitch Anarchs out of your hand like they're going out of > style (Peter Bakija, I see you lurking in the back). Instead, keep one > or two Anarchs in play at all times. Do not block attempts to remove > them (unless of course your prey tries) -- they've already hurt the most > important person, your prey. Combined with the heavy chain you're tying > around your prey's ankles, your prey should be almost completely unable > to do anything other than be pitifully ousted by the Anarchs -- since of > course your own blood gain via Blood Dolls and just > not-taking-pool-damage should be more than sufficient to outlast him. I'm not certain one should not block attempts to remove Smiling Jack. A lot depends on the table's attitude and your ability to handle them. If the entire table decides that Smiling Jack has to go, then you're probably better off letting them get rid of it, as you don't want your defenses overloaded by the actions of 4 players to your 1. That's just asking your predator to oust you. If, however, the entire table isn't concerned about it, then you may want to consider trying to keep Smiling Jack around. In which case, make sure to spend your combat cards where you can, as you'll want to be cycling back into untap before it's your predator's turn. Another trick is to throw Millicent Smith into the mix. The player with Millicent isn't likely at all to try to get rid of Jack, so that cuts one player's worth of actions out of the equation every turn. It also helps to slow down the rest of the table, making players play more defensively, and hopefully keeping your grandprey around a bit longer. > Once your prey is dead, let's pause for a moment and review our > criteria. First, our prey has gotten no VPs, and we have 1. The table > is definitely not going to time out, because the Anarchs and possibly > Jack are being a dead weight on even the strongest bloat decks. Well, here's the problem: You're assuming that the table is going to let you get away with Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack and that you've caught your prey. But we'll assume you've been able to catch your prey. If you aren't able to catch your prey, your game is pretty much over anyway. If the ousting strategy is Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack, why would the rest of the table be oblivious to this and not try to get rid of them? And if you're not stopping attempts to get rid of them, how are you ousting people at all? I think you're underestimating the table reaction to seeing an Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack on the table. Those cards aren't thrown in casually. They're very obviously part of the offensive plan of a...oh, wait a minnit, you should be using Antediluvian Awakening in there, too...at any rate, they're very obviously part of the offensive plan of the deck that plays them. If you're looking to stop or slow down that deck, target the Anarch Revolts and the Smiling Jacks. So, now that we're assuming that the table recognizes the Anarch Revolt/Smiling Jack threat for what it is - the key to your offensive strategy - how do you go about ousting someone once those offensive measures have been eliminated? On top of that, it's certainly fair for other deck strategies to ask the question "How do I break through the wall?" One way you can do it is to either overload its ability to intercept or overload its ability to fight. A focussed stealth-bleeder typically makes a mockery of an intercept deck. A focussed combat deck can overload an intercept-combat deck by not having as many of those pesky intercept cards diluting the deck. Something you can do cross-table is mess with the wall deck's infrastructure. They're typically getting out The Rack, a Hunting Ground, Powerbase: Montreal, and so on. Taking actions to steal the Rack or Montreal really annoys an wall deck, as cross-table actions are a strain on the defense/untap of a wall deck. Similarly, rescuing the wall deck's prey's minions cross table really drives them nuts, as it removes opportunities to catch the prey taking actions, and helps keep the prey moving forward. These (and other) counter-wall strategies then get the wall deck thinking about what to do design-wise to counter them...Hybrids of intercept-combat and bruise-bleed, adding stealth back into the Tzimisce decks, Millicent Smith to help protect Smiling Jack, etc. Argh...gotta run...l8r... [ quoted text not captured ]

>> More relevant to the discussion may be the observation that the bane of a >lot >> of intercept decks is taking actions, makes games with intercept decks >sitting >Could you explain this a bit more please? Do you mean that they aren't >built to take actions? Or that they aren't built to wake up again? Wall decks usually win combats because they choose when and whom to fight. When they act, they lose a lot of control over what will happen in combat. They can't save combat for later seeing what the opponent will do, for instance. Another way they lose control has to do with the concept that only a minute fraction of their actions are crucial, so blocking those has more impact than blocking a deck that takes important actions more often. For instance, take an intercept deck that relies on Pulses to oust people and see what happens when the Pulses get blocked. Nothing to do with not being able to wake later.

>>> Many decks take nothing but (D) actions. Stealth bleed, for example. >>> Stealth bleed is your primary danger, in fact -- it will take nothing >>> but (D) actions, and if you miss catching them once it may oust its prey >>> and THEN where will you be? >>Watching the rest of the table killing it? > It must be nice to live in a place where someone else will kill your > prey. How much does it cost to live in this fantasy land? Just swallow this pill. Look it's nice and red. What's your reaction to seeing a Malk stealth bleed deck as your G-Predator? I'm not denying that stopping it would be very good. I'm just not convinced that you NEED to do it -there are three other Methuselae trying to win this game and he would need to go through at least two of them. I grant you that a pure bleeder as your prey is a serious threat BUT a) It's also a threat to everyone else and very obviously so b) If your wall gets hit by a serious combat deck it could go down anyway - if you have dropped the Aus you can make it tougher with those slots. c) Are you really sure that your version woudl be abel to stop it anyway? (granted you would probably make more of a contribution) Also although stopping your prey getting a VP gets you a win -letting him have one doesn't necessitate a loss. >>> Skilled players, when they realize that you're playing heavy intercept, >>> immediately reduce their stealth as low as possible and take nothing but >>> (D) actions, in an attempt to jam you on intercept and catch you without >>> Eagle's Sight. Many undirected actions are no longer necessary when you >>> have a predator who is putting little direct pressure on you -- the >>> Govern at superior that you were counting as pool gain, for example, >>> suddenly turns into a bleed. >>What does this do to their strategy? > It doesn't matter what it does to their strategy. > YOURS doesn't work. You're an intercept deck that isn't blocking the > actions of the most important person for you to block. This will > cause you to lose, regardless of how it Affects their game. If they can't oust their prey as a result it doesn't matter what they are doing. If you've crippled their forward movement and are hurting them your strategy *is* working. >>Is their prey just going to sit there and take it? > No, clearly in your experience the rest of the table is going to gang > up and kill it, because you aren't doing anything to it. Hmm you have a non Bleed-oriented deck suddenly bleeding all the time. Why is that not scary? >>> The only way you luck out and DON'T need Eagle's Sight is if you happen >>> to be the predator of a vote deck. And even those often include a good >>> hunk of bleed in them. >>How about those combat deacks you said never win? > Where was that in his post? Different post. > Poorly played rush decks never win. > Skilled players with rush decks win often enough. But does not blocking their rushes let them oust someone before you get through them? Their primary(/only) defence against a pushy predator is to rush the minions. If you have substituted your Auspex for some extra mortar and maybe a new spike or two on your wall this isn't going to do them a lot of good. >>Anything that requires equipment? > Will be putty in your hands, or they will do without the equipment and > try to go forward on their own. Either of which is good for you, but > then you will still want Eagle's Sight or Falcon's Eye to stop the > actions that your grand-prey cannot. >>Of course you do need to be able to damage them too - perhaps >>you don't call this a wall deck? > Did you actually read his article? Yes. Now I _have_ to keep arguing ;-P What I didn't make entirely clear (even to myself) was that I meant damage to them compared to their prey -if you hit them and hit the rest of the table almost as fast they may well be able to get the edge on their prey as everything collapses. If you are hitting them even moderately hard but not hurting their prey and have crippled their primary strategy, they're in trouble. > Any deck can simply block everything its predator does and be a wall Massive exageration. > deck. This will not make it a 'good' wall deck. This will not be a > 'winning' wall deck. > If you aren't playing a good/winning wall deck, you are doing it > wrong. No deck wins all the time but I think you can have a 'good' deck that doesn't use E's Sight but does emphasise blocking. Whether it qualifies as a "Wall" I couldn't say. Wall'n'Bleed? (making Derek's a Wall'n'Revolt deck) > His article stated that a good wall deck should put in Anarch Revolts > or Smiling Jacks, both to keep the table from timing out and to do > damage to your prey. > Obviously, he has doing damage to his prey covered. It's more collapsing the table than damaging the prey. With this approach you do need to protect your Grandprey.... hmmm.... might be an interesting approach: forget blocking your prey: just feed your G-Prey. I bet no one had *ever* tried that as a route to winning... I wonder why <g>. [ quoted text not captured ]

>It's more collapsing the table than damaging the prey. With this approach >you do need to protect your Grandprey.... hmmm.... might be an interesting >approach: forget blocking your prey: just feed your G-Prey. I bet no one >had *ever* tried that as a route to winning... I wonder why <g>. Never done it intentionally, but I've won two tournaments by having the entire table want to destroy my prey who could not be stopped from gaining the first VP. The true secret to winning with bad decks (I guess) - somehow make the finals, have top seed speed deck choose you as predator since you don't do anything and hope your grandprey holds out for a while and your grandpredator doesn't fall over. So, I think there may be possibilities to the strategy as long as you play with people who mind everyone else's business often.

cur...@aol.commetal (Curevei) wrote in message news:<20030614153556...@mb-m29.aol.com>... > So, I think there may be possibilities to the strategy as long as you play with > people who mind everyone else's business often. I've always thought you are the master of the San Francisco metagame. ;)

In message <16f3n7t0at1ly$.16a96xfqimgje$.d...@40tude.net>, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> mumbled something about: >On Fri, 13 Jun 2003 01:03:30 -0400, Derek Ray pontificated: >> >> I repeat: Eagle's Sight is mandatory. >> >> Many decks take nothing but (D) actions. Stealth bleed, for example. >> Stealth bleed is your primary danger, in fact -- it will take nothing >> but (D) actions, and if you miss catching them once it may oust its prey >> and THEN where will you be? > >Watching the rest of the table killing it? I suggest you reread the article. Once your prey gets the first VP, they are six pool richer, and you're already not putting much pool-pressure damage on them by the nature of your deck. In addition, even if the table turns on your prey and kills it, what happens when your grandprey gets the next 2 VP? No, allowing your prey to get any VP simply adds too many variables into the equation for a deck to properly handle. You want to simplify your situation as much as possible. I don't know why you think the rest of the table is going to turn around and kill your prey for you, either... they're more likely to kill you so that the deck in question can have a predator. This is why you absolutely MUST have Eagle's Sight -- so you can at least TRY to block bleed actions. Even if you fail, the table will be a lot friendlier towards you when they see that you're at least TRYING. >> Skilled players, when they realize that you're playing heavy intercept, >> immediately reduce their stealth as low as possible and take nothing but >> (D) actions, in an attempt to jam you on intercept and catch you without >> Eagle's Sight. Many undirected actions are no longer necessary when you >> have a predator who is putting little direct pressure on you -- the >> Govern at superior that you were counting as pool gain, for example, >> suddenly turns into a bleed. > >What does this do to their strategy? Is their prey just going to sit there >and take it? Mostly, their prey is going to bitch at you for not blocking more of the actions. If you aren't blocking with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't putting any real pressure on most decks -- so they do not NEED to be taking the Govern at superior actions, and instead can focus all their effort on killing their prey and winning. It is your job to stop this. Failure to stop this will mean you lose. >> The only way you luck out and DON'T need Eagle's Sight is if you happen >> to be the predator of a vote deck. And even those often include a good >> hunk of bleed in them. > >How abotu those combat deacks you said never win? Anything that requireds >equipment? Of course you do need to be able to damage them too - perhaps >you don't call this a wall deck? I don't see how any of these relate to whether a wall deck needs Eagle's Sight or not. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <bwd334kpl2xv$.1hpjparjzvjrq$.d...@40tude.net>, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> mumbled something about: >>>What does this do to their strategy? >> It doesn't matter what it does to their strategy. >> YOURS doesn't work. You're an intercept deck that isn't blocking the >> actions of the most important person for you to block. This will >> cause you to lose, regardless of how it Affects their game. > >If they can't oust their prey as a result it doesn't matter what they are >doing. If you've crippled their forward movement and are hurting them your >strategy *is* working. If you aren't playing with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't crippling their forward movement unless they're a vote deck, and therefore your strategy is failing. >> Poorly played rush decks never win. >> Skilled players with rush decks win often enough. >But does not blocking their rushes let them oust someone before you get >through them? Their primary(/only) defence against a pushy predator is to >rush the minions. If you have substituted your Auspex for some extra mortar >and maybe a new spike or two on your wall this isn't going to do them a lot >of good. Why are they going to Rush you? You're a block-stuff deck. Rush decks only need to turn backwards when they're taking lots of pool damage from behind -- something that you won't be doing much of right at first. The Anarchs are not something that removing your minions solves. >What I didn't make entirely clear (even to myself) was that I meant damage >to them compared to their prey -if you hit them and hit the rest of the >table almost as fast they may well be able to get the edge on their prey as >everything collapses. If you are hitting them even moderately hard but not >hurting their prey and have crippled their primary strategy, they're in >trouble. Again, this is why you play Eagle's Sight. If they are unable to hurt their prey with either non-directed actions or bleeds, then your grandprey is in great shape and will likely NOT fall first to the Anarchs. It doesn't matter who else dies -- you just need to make sure that your first prey does NOT get a VP, under any circumstances. >> If you aren't playing a good/winning wall deck, you are doing it >> wrong. >No deck wins all the time but I think you can have a 'good' deck that >doesn't use E's Sight but does emphasise blocking. Whether it qualifies as >a "Wall" I couldn't say. Wall'n'Bleed? (making Derek's a Wall'n'Revolt >deck) It qualifies as a wall deck, all too well -- it's only a wall up against its predator. I believe that with proper play, a wall deck that can't block its prey's bleeds, Rushes, Mind Numbs, etc. is going to fail miserably in the end. >It's more collapsing the table than damaging the prey. With this approach >you do need to protect your Grandprey.... hmmm.... might be an interesting Say, with Eagle's Sight? >approach: forget blocking your prey: just feed your G-Prey. I bet no one >had *ever* tried that as a route to winning... I wonder why <g>. People have, in fact, tried this with Malkavian Pranks and such. However, the problem with this is that you can't keep your prey from gaining pool from the Prank as well, and he has about a 25% chance of doing so. The other reason is that because giving the table pool is NEVER a useful route to winning the game -- it simply moves closer to a timeout, instead of further away from one (Anarchs/Jack). [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <bf72a12e.03061...@posting.google.com>, fu...@optical.mindstorm.com (Ben Peal) mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> <snip good premise> >> >> The first criteria mandates the use of Eagle's Sight, which mandates >> superior Auspex. No other means is sufficient. Even Eagle's Sight may >> not be enough against certain decks of your prey, but it will do for >> most. > > In my opinion, not enough wall decks use rush. Partly because Rushing is such an iffy way to go in the first place. More and more decks are including combat defense these days, and if you're trying to Rush and club someone on the head, you just invite them to play it on their terms. =/ > And as you say, Eagle's Sight might not be enough. The bane of an > wall deck is a stealth-bleed prey. For every Eagle's Sight you play, > they can play an Elder Impersonation. Yep. Again, some decks are just going to get past you. The "you don't block" deck is one of them -- while you can handle that as your predator just fine, there's no way you'll have enough Eagle's Sight to stop that. Conveniently for the wall deck, Seduction is noticeably inferior in this situation as the wall deck typically has 2+ vamps capable of blocking at any given time. >> since you know you cannot win by inaction, you should be as >> antimaterialistic as necessary to stop your prey from gaining VP. >> Occasionally this will mean exploding one of your own minions, but it >> may be necessary. > > Basically what you're looking for is any attempt to catch your prey > doing something, and then spiking his minion into the ground. Once > that's done, you've then set up future opportunities to catch him, > as he'll be wanting to rescue. Yep. And rescues are a guaranteed semi-endless supply of +1 stealth actions to move your intercept on that do NOT require Eagle's Sight... at least until they convince someone cross-table to rescue. Handily, so are hunt actions -- occasionally it might be worth it to leave a minion hunting, instead of torporizing them, just to let yourself cycle some more intercepty bits. While typically I don't advocate vaporizing every single vampire of your prey, in cases like this I'll make an exception -- he cannot be allowed to gain VP or pool, and sometimes the only way to do that is by splashing him all over the concrete. But making yourself a target in the process is a bad plan. =/ >> style (Peter Bakija, I see you lurking in the back). Instead, keep one >> or two Anarchs in play at all times. Do not block attempts to remove >> them (unless of course your prey tries) -- they've already hurt the most > > I'm not certain one should not block attempts to remove Smiling > Jack. A lot depends on the table's attitude and your ability to Oh, one should! What I meant was that one should not gratuitously "vote down" attempts to remove the Anarchs by Eagle's Sighting the vote to burn them. This will really piss people off and demonstrate ENTIRELY too much "reach", for lack of a better word. > If, however, the entire table isn't concerned about it, then you > may want to consider trying to keep Smiling Jack around. In > which case, make sure to spend your combat cards where you can, > as you'll want to be cycling back into untap before it's your > predator's turn. Absolutely. I should repost Daffy Deck for people. Most irritating thing to play, and also the best example of why cycling is important -- if you don't block everything, you don't get an opportunity to play the combat cards, and if you don't play the combat cards, you don't get to your untap, which makes you die miserably. > Another trick is to throw Millicent Smith into the mix. The player > with Millicent isn't likely at all to try to get rid of Jack, so > that cuts one player's worth of actions out of the equation every > turn. It also helps to slow down the rest of the table, making > players play more defensively, and hopefully keeping your grandprey > around a bit longer. I'm a bit shy of Millicent in this deck. First, because Millicent tends to slow the entire table down, something you're totally against doing. Second, because eventually someone will wise up to you and get a dingus burned to get rid of the thing. When I use Millicent, I almost never actually burn vamps with her. I let her sit there and drag the table down to my deck's speed, unless of course there's a too-crunchy-to-pass-up target running around out there (Sheldon). >> Once your prey is dead, let's pause for a moment and review our >> criteria. First, our prey has gotten no VPs, and we have 1. The table >> is definitely not going to time out, because the Anarchs and possibly >> Jack are being a dead weight on even the strongest bloat decks. > > Well, here's the problem: You're assuming that the table is going > to let you get away with Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack and that > you've caught your prey. Of course! Deck not intended for amateur liars. =) > But we'll assume you've been able to catch your prey. If you aren't > able to catch your prey, your game is pretty much over anyway. > > If the ousting strategy is Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack, why > would the rest of the table be oblivious to this and not try to get > rid of them? And if you're not stopping attempts to get rid of them, > how are you ousting people at all? Because you're not actively trying to oust in the first hour. You're putting just enough out at a time to maintain a constant plink-plink-plink of pressure, and this means you're always sitting on one in hand as necessary... meaning that you're usually going to be able to pitch one back out on the table. After the first time you discard an Anarch Revolt, however (due to having two in hand), people are going to pause and take stock of things. Most Revolt decks hunk out Anarch after Anarch after Anarch and actively try to stop them being removed. If all you do is keep 2 in play at all times, people are going to adjust their game around it and try to use it to oust THEIR prey -- and worry that you're going to Eagle's Sight and stop them from doing so as well. If you can convince the table that you're not going to be Eagle's Sighting around like a lunatic, then you have a lot better chance of them not considering you Someone Who Must Be Removed. You'll do pretty well at this if you avoid Eagle's Sighting minor "long-term" threats, and confine yourself to defending and offending. > I think you're underestimating the table reaction to seeing an > Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack on the table. Those cards aren't > thrown in casually. They're very obviously part of the offensive > plan of a...oh, wait a minnit, you should be using Antediluvian > Awakening in there, too...at any rate, they're very obviously part You can get rid of Antediluvian Awakening though. =/ I don't like having people survive with one pool because they burned one of their best vamps. Can really make things messy, and then they get a prime opportunity for spite. Just a bad scene... ask Machiavelli =) > of the offensive plan of the deck that plays them. If you're looking > to stop or slow down that deck, target the Anarch Revolts and the > Smiling Jacks. Of course. What you're trying to do is look like an Anarch deck that's not drawing into its Anarchs, or in some other fashion is failing to generate the proper amount of offensive momentum. Again, trying to skate under the radar. You can assist this by declaring openly "I won't block the remove actions. I have better things to worry about", and looking nervous while you do. I would be very careful about putting Jack on the table in the early game. He is an obvious "intercept offense" card, and I might save him for a long time, possibly even discarding the first copy of him (claiming "no way to defend him right now", or other such tripe). > So, now that we're assuming that the table recognizes the Anarch > Revolt/Smiling Jack threat for what it is - the key to your offensive > strategy - how do you go about ousting someone once those offensive > measures have been eliminated? Well, I don't really care THAT much if the Anarchs hurt other people at the table or not. They always hurt my prey, and that's what matters -- so every time one goes away, I just drop another one out there to replace it. Stop at 2, of course. I find that people obligingly get greedy after you do this often enough -- unlike the Paths, it's free for me to toss those out, and people start to get kind of pissy about "why did *I* have to burn the Revolt after I'd already taken the damage from it?" > On top of that, it's certainly fair for other deck strategies to ask > the question "How do I break through the wall?" > > One way you can do it is to either overload its ability to intercept > or overload its ability to fight. A focussed stealth-bleeder typically > makes a mockery of an intercept deck. A focussed combat deck can > overload an intercept-combat deck by not having as many of those pesky > intercept cards diluting the deck. Of course. Fortunately, the only one you have to worry about as your predator is the combat deck. It's pretty hard to get through a dedicated wall deck with stealth/bleed, even with no-block cards. And you can always use some Telepathic Misdirection for those opportunities that are too good to pass up. > Something you can do cross-table is mess with the wall deck's > infrastructure. They're typically getting out The Rack, a Hunting > Ground, Powerbase: Montreal, and so on. Taking actions to steal the > Rack or Montreal really annoys an wall deck, as cross-table actions > are a strain on the defense/untap of a wall deck. Similarly, rescuing > the wall deck's prey's minions cross table really drives them nuts, as > it removes opportunities to catch the prey taking actions, and helps > keep the prey moving forward. I would never put either the Rack or Montreal in this deck. Those cards help the table gain pool if I don't defend them, and as such they cannot be allowed on the table as "my fault". Minimize points of attack, minimize need to control. When all you have to control is your prey and your predator, you're in good shape. Hunting Grounds, of course, but those don't come with a built-in "I harass it" action. Club Zombie as well, and let's not forget the good old Hungry Coyote for personal pool gain. While it's possible to steal these, obviously, it's not as easy since your deck has to have the card in hand; I feel a lot safer about blocking a single Arson action, for example. > These (and other) counter-wall strategies then get the wall deck > thinking about what to do design-wise to counter them...Hybrids of > intercept-combat and bruise-bleed, adding stealth back into the > Tzimisce decks, Millicent Smith to help protect Smiling Jack, etc. Grim. Once you start second-guessing yourself you back even further into the hole, though. A certain amount of toolbox is necessary, but... [ quoted text not captured ]

>>> It doesn't matter what it does to their strategy. > If you aren't playing with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't crippling > their forward movement unless they're a vote deck, and therefore your > strategy is failing. A lot of decks need some setup to work effectively. I'll remind you against that you are bleeding your prey and/or killing his minions in my scenario. > Why are they going to Rush you? You're a block-stuff deck. Rush decks > only need to turn backwards when they're taking lots of pool damage from > behind -- something that you won't be doing much of right at first. The > Anarchs are not something that removing your minions solves. a) I will be doing significant (admittedly not huge) bleed - *I'm* not using slots for Eagles. b) Your prey isn't the only one who can rush you. c) They don't need to rush -you are going to block. >>What I didn't make entirely clear (even to myself) was that I meant damage >>to them compared to their prey -if you hit them and hit the rest of the >>table almost as fast they may well be able to get the edge on their prey as >>everything collapses. If you are hitting them even moderately hard but not >>hurting their prey and have crippled their primary strategy, they're in >>trouble. > Again, this is why you play Eagle's Sight. If they are unable to hurt > their prey with either non-directed actions or bleeds, then your I said *you* are not hurting their prey. I only need to hurt them more than they hurt their prey then. >>No deck wins all the time but I think you can have a 'good' deck that >>doesn't use E's Sight but does emphasise blocking. Whether it qualifies as >>a "Wall" I couldn't say. Wall'n'Bleed? (making Derek's a Wall'n'Revolt >>deck) > It qualifies as a wall deck, all too well -- it's only a wall up against > its predator. I believe that with proper play, a wall deck that can't > block its prey's bleeds, Rushes, Mind Numbs, etc. is going to fail > miserably in the end. Your wall isn't safe against stealth bleed either. I bleed the rushers out and have a tougher wall against them. With proper play there are 3 other people who don't want your prey to get VP either. >>It's more collapsing the table than damaging the prey. With this approach >>you do need to protect your Grandprey.... hmmm.... might be an interesting > Say, with Eagle's Sight? Sorry : replace "protect" with "bloat". >>approach: forget blocking your prey: just feed your G-Prey. I bet no one >>had *ever* tried that as a route to winning... I wonder why <g>. > People have, in fact, tried this with Malkavian Pranks and such. > However, the problem with this is that you can't keep your prey from > gaining pool from the Prank as well, and he has about a 25% chance of > doing so. The other reason is that because giving the table pool is > NEVER a useful route to winning the game -- it simply moves closer to a > timeout, instead of further away from one (Anarchs/Jack). Nothing to stop you having Anarchs and Jack as well. There are other ways to give pool too. You seem to be defending your Eagle's Sight Deck -I never said it wouldn't work ;-)

>>Watching the rest of the table killing it? > I suggest you reread the article. Once your prey gets the first VP, > they are six pool richer, and you're already not putting much > pool-pressure damage on them by the nature of your deck. In addition, > even if the table turns on your prey and kills it, what happens when > your grandprey gets the next 2 VP? No, allowing your prey to get any VP > simply adds too many variables into the equation for a deck to properly > handle. You want to simplify your situation as much as possible. *You* naren't putting pool pressure on your prey. My deck does put pressure on. Your original GrandPrey is already out if your prey got a VP. If your new GPrey gets 2 VP they have killed you anyway (5 player). If the table gangs up on your prey you have your VP and can wait for the end-game. > I don't know why you think the rest of the table is going to turn around > and kill your prey for you, either... they're more likely to kill you so > that the deck in question can have a predator. Been through this. I *am* bleeding. > This is why you absolutely MUST have Eagle's Sight -- so you can at > least TRY to block bleed actions. Even if you fail, the table will be a > lot friendlier towards you when they see that you're at least TRYING. That just makes you look incompetent - asking for trouble ;-P >>What does this do to their strategy? Is their prey just going to sit there >>and take it? > Mostly, their prey is going to bitch at you for not blocking more of the > actions. If you aren't blocking with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't Hmm that's right -when I build a deck and think about how to deal with a heavy bleed predator MY answer is always to rely on my GPredator to deal with it. >>How abotu those combat deacks you said never win? Anything that requireds >>equipment? Of course you do need to be able to damage them too - perhaps >>you don't call this a wall deck? > I don't see how any of these relate to whether a wall deck needs Eagle's > Sight or not. You don't need Eagle's to block equips/recruits/employs.

In message <1mkyhjtvov30z.175d86b15kdnn$.d...@40tude.net>, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> mumbled something about: >>>> It doesn't matter what it does to their strategy. >> If you aren't playing with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't crippling >> their forward movement unless they're a vote deck, and therefore your >> strategy is failing. > >A lot of decks need some setup to work effectively. I'll remind you against >that you are bleeding your prey and/or killing his minions in my scenario. So when you put that much bleed and killing-minions in your deck, you have to take out a lot of the intercept. You also have to put in a lot of untap, because now you're taking actions. You also allow your prey to cycle his Deflections, untap, and other toys that he's put in HIS deck. >> Why are they going to Rush you? You're a block-stuff deck. Rush decks >> only need to turn backwards when they're taking lots of pool damage from >> behind -- something that you won't be doing much of right at first. The >> Anarchs are not something that removing your minions solves. > >a) I will be doing significant (admittedly not huge) bleed - *I'm* not using >slots for Eagles. Removing Eagle's Sight from your deck is not going to give you enough slots for significant bleed. >b) Your prey isn't the only one who can rush you. >c) They don't need to rush -you are going to block. You can't block them without Eagle's Sight. How much more clear do I need to make this? YOU CANNOT BLOCK THEM. Clearly you have never seen a skilled player's response to a heavy-intercept predator. The response is to STOP TAKING UNDIRECTED ACTIONS. This is possible for way more decks than you think, and will even help some decks. Most decks' undirected actions are designed around defense (Mr. Winky, Sport Bike), not offense. When I see Mr. Six Intercept behind me, I discard all that stuff, because I KNOW that it will not matter enough and it just gives him a free chance to block me. >>>What I didn't make entirely clear (even to myself) was that I meant damage >>>to them compared to their prey -if you hit them and hit the rest of the >>>table almost as fast they may well be able to get the edge on their prey as >>>everything collapses. If you are hitting them even moderately hard but not >>>hurting their prey and have crippled their primary strategy, they're in >>>trouble. >> Again, this is why you play Eagle's Sight. If they are unable to hurt >> their prey with either non-directed actions or bleeds, then your > >I said *you* are not hurting their prey. I only need to hurt them more than >they hurt their prey then. Uh, yeah, that's what I wrote in the original article, dude. Except that I was guaranteeing that "amount of hurt they do to their prey" = 0. Oh, and incidentally denying them the opportunity to use any defensive cards whatsoever. >>>No deck wins all the time but I think you can have a 'good' deck that >>>doesn't use E's Sight but does emphasise blocking. Whether it qualifies as >>>a "Wall" I couldn't say. Wall'n'Bleed? (making Derek's a Wall'n'Revolt >>>deck) >> It qualifies as a wall deck, all too well -- it's only a wall up against >> its predator. I believe that with proper play, a wall deck that can't >> block its prey's bleeds, Rushes, Mind Numbs, etc. is going to fail >> miserably in the end. > >Your wall isn't safe against stealth bleed either. I bleed the rushers out >and have a tougher wall against them. With proper play there are 3 other >people who don't want your prey to get VP either. I'm sorry, I've crunched stealth bleed after stealth bleed deck with intercept. There are only so many Elder Impersonations and Seductions you can have, and when I leave three minions untapped with superior AUS, you're going to lose the first guy in. Stealth bleed as my PREY is a real problem. But as my predator? Pfft. It had better be the Baron playing Seduction, Call, and Elder Imp. >>>approach: forget blocking your prey: just feed your G-Prey. I bet no one >>>had *ever* tried that as a route to winning... I wonder why <g>. >> People have, in fact, tried this with Malkavian Pranks and such. >> However, the problem with this is that you can't keep your prey from >> gaining pool from the Prank as well, and he has about a 25% chance of >> doing so. The other reason is that because giving the table pool is >> NEVER a useful route to winning the game -- it simply moves closer to a >> timeout, instead of further away from one (Anarchs/Jack). > >Nothing to stop you having Anarchs and Jack as well. There are other ways to >give pool too. Great! I give someone pool with Prank, I take it away with Anarchs. Total progress: None. What a winning plan! [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <16peycxpdt164.1nmlr746ur0ct$.d...@40tude.net>, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> mumbled something about: >>>Watching the rest of the table killing it? >> I suggest you reread the article. Once your prey gets the first VP, >> they are six pool richer, and you're already not putting much >> pool-pressure damage on them by the nature of your deck. In addition, >> even if the table turns on your prey and kills it, what happens when >> your grandprey gets the next 2 VP? No, allowing your prey to get any VP >> simply adds too many variables into the equation for a deck to properly >> handle. You want to simplify your situation as much as possible. > >*You* naren't putting pool pressure on your prey. My deck does put pressure >on. Your original GrandPrey is already out if your prey got a VP. If your >new GPrey gets 2 VP they have killed you anyway (5 player). If the table >gangs up on your prey you have your VP and can wait for the end-game. Your deck either has way too much bleed to be a wall deck, or has just enough bleed to allow them to play Deflections. I don't know how you are under this delusion that the table is going to gang up on your prey just because you say so. >> I don't know why you think the rest of the table is going to turn around >> and kill your prey for you, either... they're more likely to kill you so >> that the deck in question can have a predator. > >Been through this. I *am* bleeding. For nothing worthwhile -- or you don't have a wall deck any more. If you don't have a wall deck, this discussion is over. The original article was about wall decks and how to make them win. If you're removing the "wall" from the deck, then you've lost the entire point. >> This is why you absolutely MUST have Eagle's Sight -- so you can at >> least TRY to block bleed actions. Even if you fail, the table will be a >> lot friendlier towards you when they see that you're at least TRYING. > >That just makes you look incompetent - asking for trouble ;-P Nowhere near as incompetent as sitting there saying "sorry, no eagle's sight in my intercept deck" while your prey bleeds through the table. Plus, having your Eagle's Sight + Spirit's Touch + Enhanced Senses intercept attempt stealthed past doesn't make you look incompetent at all, really. >>>What does this do to their strategy? Is their prey just going to sit there >>>and take it? >> Mostly, their prey is going to bitch at you for not blocking more of the >> actions. If you aren't blocking with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't > >Hmm that's right -when I build a deck and think about how to deal with a >heavy bleed predator MY answer is always to rely on my GPredator to deal >with it. Many decks are not equipped to deal with a deck that bleeds with EVERY minion, every turn. That's why stealth/bleed can be so strong. Your solution turns every deck into fast forward bleed. >>>How abotu those combat deacks you said never win? Anything that requireds >>>equipment? Of course you do need to be able to damage them too - perhaps >>>you don't call this a wall deck? >> I don't see how any of these relate to whether a wall deck needs Eagle's >> Sight or not. > >You don't need Eagle's to block equips/recruits/employs. THEY WON'T TAKE ANY OF THOSE ACTIONS. God, do you just play with a bunch of fools? [ quoted text not captured ]

Timlagor wrote: (snippity snip snip) >> I'd like to think that neither Anarch Revolt or Smiling Jack are >> absolutely necessary, even though they are probaby the >> best methods. I >> currently play a Tremere intercept-combat deck with a >> little Pulse, a >> little Conditioning and some efficient combat (maneuvers, >> prevent, Burst > What do you use to prevent damage? > Guardian Angel and Precognition. >> of Sunlight). Blocking a minion often means it goes to >> torpor and as >> long as I keep my prey from gaining pool, I can wear him down and >> squeeze in some good bleeds. It's won, it's lost, and >> I'm still trying >> new things. Just like to point out that AR and SJ might not be >> necessary... though I might throw some of that stuff in. > Why would you choose not to put them in? Currently using a bunch of other masters, including Rotschreck. I may remove the Minor Boons for 2 AR and 1 SJ though. View my deck to see how it might work: http://dorrinal.tripod.com/aurora_nocturnis.html [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > Ben Peal wrote: > > In my opinion, not enough wall decks use rush. > > Partly because Rushing is such an iffy way to go in the first place. > More and more decks are including combat defense these days, and if > you're trying to Rush and club someone on the head, you just invite them > to play it on their terms. =/ Well, the fact that more and more decks are including combat defense doesn't change the fact that combat is a major component of the deck. Relying solely on Eagle's Sight to catch your prey is, as you say, sometimes insufficient. A few rush cards can prove to be very valuable for clubbing a pesky stealth-bleeding prey, given that it's exactly the kind of deck that'll give your Eagle's Sights fits. > > And as you say, Eagle's Sight might not be enough. The bane of an > > wall deck is a stealth-bleed prey. For every Eagle's Sight you play, > > they can play an Elder Impersonation. > > Yep. Again, some decks are just going to get past you. The "you don't > block" deck is one of them -- while you can handle that as your predator > just fine, there's no way you'll have enough Eagle's Sight to stop that. > > Conveniently for the wall deck, Seduction is noticeably inferior in this > situation as the wall deck typically has 2+ vamps capable of blocking at > any given time. Typically it's the untap that gives Seduction-based delivery systems fits, as determining which vampire to Seduce becomes chancier. > > Basically what you're looking for is any attempt to catch your prey > > doing something, and then spiking his minion into the ground. Once > > that's done, you've then set up future opportunities to catch him, > > as he'll be wanting to rescue. > > Yep. And rescues are a guaranteed semi-endless supply of +1 stealth > actions to move your intercept on that do NOT require Eagle's Sight... > at least until they convince someone cross-table to rescue. And man, those cross-table rescues suck. They're the bane of fight decks - both intercept-combat and rush-combat. Is there a bigger threat to an intercept-combat deck than cross-table rescuing? > >> style (Peter Bakija, I see you lurking in the back). Instead, keep one > >> or two Anarchs in play at all times. Do not block attempts to remove > >> them (unless of course your prey tries) -- they've already hurt the most > > > > I'm not certain one should not block attempts to remove Smiling > > Jack. A lot depends on the table's attitude and your ability to > > Oh, one should! What I meant was that one should not gratuitously "vote > down" attempts to remove the Anarchs by Eagle's Sighting the vote to > burn them. > > This will really piss people off and demonstrate ENTIRELY too much > "reach", for lack of a better word. More importantly, you'll just be throwing away Eagle's Sights, as your opponents cross-table can generate many more actions to call the vote to get rid of Anarch Revolt than you can generate Eagle's Sights plus extra intercept to stop them. > > If, however, the entire table isn't concerned about it, then you > > may want to consider trying to keep Smiling Jack around. In > > which case, make sure to spend your combat cards where you can, > > as you'll want to be cycling back into untap before it's your > > predator's turn. > > Absolutely. I should repost Daffy Deck for people. Most irritating > thing to play, and also the best example of why cycling is important -- > if you don't block everything, you don't get an opportunity to play the > combat cards, and if you don't play the combat cards, you don't get to > your untap, which makes you die miserably. Well, the important part is being able to stop actions against you. With that in your hand, you have the ability to pick and choose which actions you stop. Once you _have_ blocked, however, you'll often have to cycle through your combat until you've got at least another untap card in your hand. > > Another trick is to throw Millicent Smith into the mix. The player > > with Millicent isn't likely at all to try to get rid of Jack, so > > that cuts one player's worth of actions out of the equation every > > turn. It also helps to slow down the rest of the table, making > > players play more defensively, and hopefully keeping your grandprey > > around a bit longer. > > I'm a bit shy of Millicent in this deck. First, because Millicent tends > to slow the entire table down, something you're totally against doing. > Second, because eventually someone will wise up to you and get a dingus > burned to get rid of the thing. Yeah, you'll want to consider carefully whether to play Millicent without Jack on the table, but if you've got Jack on the table, I can't see how Millicent is anything but a benefit. Also, sometimes slowing down a table that's slipping out of your control can help. And if someone wants to sacrifice a dingus to get rid of Millicent, then that's cool, too. > > Well, here's the problem: You're assuming that the table is going > > to let you get away with Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack and that > > you've caught your prey. > > Of course! > > Deck not intended for amateur liars. =) And if you're playing against smart players (or at least players who read the newsgroup), then you've gotta come up with Plan B. > After the first time you discard an Anarch Revolt, however (due to > having two in hand), people are going to pause and take stock of things. > Most Revolt decks hunk out Anarch after Anarch after Anarch and actively > try to stop them being removed. If all you do is keep 2 in play at all > times, people are going to adjust their game around it and try to use it > to oust THEIR prey -- and worry that you're going to Eagle's Sight and > stop them from doing so as well. If you can convince the table that > you're not going to be Eagle's Sighting around like a lunatic, then you > have a lot better chance of them not considering you Someone Who Must Be > Removed. You'll do pretty well at this if you avoid Eagle's Sighting > minor "long-term" threats, and confine yourself to defending and > offending. Either I'm giving my opponents too much credit, or you're not giving them enough. > > I think you're underestimating the table reaction to seeing an > > Anarch Revolt and/or Smiling Jack on the table. Those cards aren't > > thrown in casually. They're very obviously part of the offensive > > plan of a...oh, wait a minnit, you should be using Antediluvian > > Awakening in there, too...at any rate, they're very obviously part > > You can get rid of Antediluvian Awakening though. =/ I don't like > having people survive with one pool because they burned one of their > best vamps. Can really make things messy, and then they get a prime > opportunity for spite. Just a bad scene... ask Machiavelli =) I'm saying that you should be using Antediluvian Awakening instead of Anarch Revolts, but rather in conjunction. Yes, they can get rid of Antediluvian Awakening, but one is much less inclined to do that than for getting rid of Anarch Revolt, due to the higher cost of removal. > > of the offensive plan of the deck that plays them. If you're looking > > to stop or slow down that deck, target the Anarch Revolts and the > > Smiling Jacks. > > Of course. What you're trying to do is look like an Anarch deck that's > not drawing into its Anarchs, or in some other fashion is failing to > generate the proper amount of offensive momentum. Again, trying to > skate under the radar. You can assist this by declaring openly "I won't > block the remove actions. I have better things to worry about", and > looking nervous while you do. And then anyone who's read this thread or who has half a brain in their head will just remove the Anarch Revolts, and then you're scrambling to find Plan B. > I would be very careful about putting Jack on the table in the early > game. He is an obvious "intercept offense" card, and I might save him > for a long time, possibly even discarding the first copy of him > (claiming "no way to defend him right now", or other such tripe). Jack is definitely a mid to late-game card, though I don't mind playing him early to cycle it. > > On top of that, it's certainly fair for other deck strategies to ask > > the question "How do I break through the wall?" > > > > One way you can do it is to either overload its ability to intercept > > or overload its ability to fight. A focussed stealth-bleeder typically > > makes a mockery of an intercept deck. A focussed combat deck can > > overload an intercept-combat deck by not having as many of those pesky > > intercept cards diluting the deck. > > Of course. Fortunately, the only one you have to worry about as your > predator is the combat deck. It's pretty hard to get through a > dedicated wall deck with stealth/bleed, even with no-block cards. The combat deck has the advantage that your intercept cards are dead cards in your hand. Against the stealth-bleed deck, you can use all of your cards. Even still, a dedicated wall deck will have its hands full against a dedicated stealth-bleed deck. (Key for the stealth-bleeder: block the permanent intercept cards, even if it means torporization.) [ quoted text not captured ]

Howdy, > Is there a bigger threat to an intercept-combat deck than cross-table > rescuing? Sitting next to _another_ intercept combat deck? If it's your prey, all of your untap and intercept are dead cards, unless your predator is feeling suicidal. If it's your predator your chances of winning the one-on-one are kind of iffy. As a bonus, contesting Mr. Winky, KRCG, etc. is like your own personal Anarch. As noted by others, sitting next to rush combat is not a lot of fun either, as it typically takes fewer cards to put the 'rush' in rush combat than it takes to put the 'intercept' in intercept combat, and so there's more room for the 'combat' part. It usually comes down to the particular rock-paper-scissors of the combat types, though, in both cases, and even in some bruise/bleed cases. Finally, sitting next to weenies can make it tricky for any kind of combat - there's just so many minions to catch or block, though they do generally make a satisfying crunchy noise when apprehended. Intercept has the advantage here, at least if it's packing Atonement, Eternal Vigilance, Tension, etc. Fame is good for rush, though watch for auto-diablerie. Still, even if you do manage to oust the weenie player, you may go through too much deck doing it. Thoughts from the Master upon these situations? Thanks, Alex

wum...@attbi.com (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<15a537b3.03061...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Not pretending to be the Master of anything, but why did you leave out Anson-Anarch Revolt? Whatever's an intercept deck going to do about a 100% master, 0 action deck anywhere on the table? Or just the decks that laugh any intercept deck in the face: Unblockable/block fails/... The first being the main reason why I agree that if a combat deck doesn't pack rush, it simply shouldn't be sitting there. The second being the main reason I just don't believe in walls. Ever. just my 0.5 Eurocents greetz Jo

Alex Broadhead wrote: > > Is there a bigger threat to an intercept-combat deck than cross-table > > rescuing? > > Sitting next to _another_ intercept combat deck? If it's your prey, > all of your untap and intercept are dead cards, unless your predator > is feeling suicidal. If it's your predator your chances of winning > the one-on-one are kind of iffy. As a bonus, contesting Mr. Winky, > KRCG, etc. is like your own personal Anarch. It pretty much comes down to whose kung fu is stronger, but it's not going to be pretty for either of them. If it's your prey, your untap and intercept aren't completely dead cards - assuming you're using AUS. With Eagle's Sights, you'll be able to catch a lot of your prey's actions, but you have to hope your kung fu is stronger. For that matter, why would the untap be dead cards? > As noted by others, sitting next to rush combat is not a lot of fun > either, as it typically takes fewer cards to put the 'rush' in rush > combat than it takes to put the 'intercept' in intercept combat, and > so there's more room for the 'combat' part. It usually comes down to > the particular rock-paper-scissors of the combat types, though, in > both cases, and even in some bruise/bleed cases. The rush comback decks can also suffer greatly from cross-table rescuing, as well. > Finally, sitting next to weenies can make it tricky for any kind of > combat - there's just so many minions to catch or block, though they > do generally make a satisfying crunchy noise when apprehended. > Intercept has the advantage here, at least if it's packing Atonement, > Eternal Vigilance, Tension, etc. Fame is good for rush, though watch > for auto-diablerie. Still, even if you do manage to oust the weenie > player, you may go through too much deck doing it. Yeah, the trouble is cycling through enough combat cards to get to more untap cards, and hoping you don't jam on intercept. However, the weenie deck also has to hope it doesn't lose too much ooomph due to weenie loss. [ quoted text not captured ]

>>> pool-pressure damage on them by the nature of your deck. In addition, >>> even if the table turns on your prey and kills it, what happens when >>> your grandprey gets the next 2 VP? No, allowing your prey to get any VP >>> simply adds too many variables into the equation for a deck to properly >>> handle. You want to simplify your situation as much as possible. >>on. Your original GrandPrey is already out if your prey got a VP. If your >>new GPrey gets 2 VP they have killed you anyway (5 player). If the table >>gangs up on your prey you have your VP and can wait for the end-game. > Your deck either has way too much bleed to be a wall deck, or has just > enough bleed to allow them to play Deflections. I think we need a definition of a Wall Deck. Good point about the deflection though -I'll have to think about that one. We were talking about how terrible it would be if your prey got attacked by the other players here ;-) > I don't know how you are under this delusion that the table is going to > gang up on your prey just because you say so. You mean your opponents don't always do what you tell them?!? No wonder you have so much trouble! ;-D (of course it doesn't hurt if they oust someone very quickly and look like a major threat) >>> This is why you absolutely MUST have Eagle's Sight -- so you can at >>> least TRY to block bleed actions. Even if you fail, the table will be a >>> lot friendlier towards you when they see that you're at least TRYING. >>That just makes you look incompetent - asking for trouble ;-P > Plus, having your Eagle's Sight + Spirit's Touch + Enhanced Senses > intercept attempt stealthed past doesn't make you look incompetent at > all, really. I hope your G-Prey wasn't trying to let their hand jam with stealth cards -seems to be the most commen response to really heavy stealth decks. I don't really know how well it works though -if you've stopped them getting any permanents out I imagine it would be pretty effective. Weenies are a problem to pretty much everyone of course if you don't have any way to 'hose' them. >>>>What does this do to their strategy? Is their prey just going to sit there >>>>and take it? >>> Mostly, their prey is going to bitch at you for not blocking more of the >>> actions. If you aren't blocking with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't They're not going to expect Eagle's if you don't have Auspex anyway. > Many decks are not equipped to deal with a deck that bleeds with EVERY > minion, every turn. That's why stealth/bleed can be so strong. Stealth makes all the difference here. Weenies have to be hosed. I always at least think about these when building a deck. If the deck wasn't built to bleed every turn is it really such a threat? > Your solution turns every deck into fast forward bleed. I wonder if I can use that to persuade the table to gang up on them <g>. >>You don't need Eagle's to block equips/recruits/employs. > THEY WON'T TAKE ANY OF THOSE ACTIONS. There are a lot of undirected action cards too. > God, do you just play with a bunch of fools? Fools -I don't think so. Inexperienced though. I've never really played a wall deck either ;-P I'm definitely learning from this discussion however :-D

Howdy Ben, > > > Is there a bigger threat to an intercept-combat deck than cross-table > > > rescuing? > > > > Sitting next to _another_ intercept combat deck? If it's your prey, > > all of your untap and intercept are dead cards, unless your predator > > is feeling suicidal. If it's your predator your chances of winning > > the one-on-one are kind of iffy. As a bonus, contesting Mr. Winky, > > KRCG, etc. is like your own personal Anarch. > > It pretty much comes down to whose kung fu is stronger, but it's not > going to be pretty for either of them. That's what I meant by 'the particular rock-paper-scissors of the combat types' below, though your phrase is more apt. > If it's your prey, your untap and intercept aren't completely dead > cards - assuming you're using AUS. With Eagle's Sights, you'll be > able to catch a lot of your prey's actions, but you have to hope your > kung fu is stronger. For that matter, why would the untap be dead > cards? I was going with the presumption that the intercept decks are both trying to minimize their actions. If your prey is not taking any actions, just blocking his own prey's and setting down AR/SJ, there's nothing for you to intercept, Eagle's Sight or not. Though I suppose you could always jump on some hapless cross-table actions if you need to cycle... Which is another good argument for packing Eagle's Sight. > > Finally, sitting next to weenies can make it tricky for any kind of > > combat - there's just so many minions to catch or block, though they > > do generally make a satisfying crunchy noise when apprehended. > > Intercept has the advantage here, at least if it's packing Atonement, > > Eternal Vigilance, Tension, etc. Fame is good for rush, though watch > > for auto-diablerie. Still, even if you do manage to oust the weenie > > player, you may go through too much deck doing it. > > Yeah, the trouble is cycling through enough combat cards to get to > more untap cards, and hoping you don't jam on intercept. However, > the weenie deck also has to hope it doesn't lose too much ooomph due > to weenie loss. Of course it's not a zero-sum game; it's entirely possible for you both to just wreck each other, leaving some other player to clean up. In fact, that's usually the case when I try intercept - I wound myself, my predator, and (hopefully) my prey, and then my grandpredator sweeps up. Very reminiscent of poorly played rush, I know. But it is at least indicative that I'm trying to go forward. (And that I keep trying to win with !Ventrue...) I'm convinced intercept is at least as hard to learn as rush, if not more difficult, as the balance (forward vs. backward) is much more delicate and less predictable. (The rush maxim: Burned minions take no actions!) I suppose people will disagree with me there, but I think that most people who find intercept 'easy' are happy with 2 VP, which _is_ much easier than winning the table in the manner which Derek has expounded upon so elegantly. Hope that helps, Alex

In message <1fa0vu34k8mpx.f...@40tude.net>, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> mumbled something about: >>>> pool-pressure damage on them by the nature of your deck. In addition, >>>> even if the table turns on your prey and kills it, what happens when >>>> your grandprey gets the next 2 VP? No, allowing your prey to get any VP >>>> simply adds too many variables into the equation for a deck to properly >>>> handle. You want to simplify your situation as much as possible. >>>on. Your original GrandPrey is already out if your prey got a VP. If your >>>new GPrey gets 2 VP they have killed you anyway (5 player). If the table >>>gangs up on your prey you have your VP and can wait for the end-game. >> Your deck either has way too much bleed to be a wall deck, or has just >> enough bleed to allow them to play Deflections. > >I think we need a definition of a Wall Deck. Good point about the deflection >though -I'll have to think about that one. We were talking about how >terrible it would be if your prey got attacked by the other players here ;-) The description is sort of self-defining. A deck which intends to win by primarily never being ousted -- that is based entirely around defense. Highly effective at defending, because that's practically all it does. Tacking on enough bleed to provide significant offense sort of obviates the definition of 'wall deck'. Token bleed is usually the order of the day, but this is typically counterproductive for the wall deck as it permits its prey to play whatever its bleed defense cards are. >> I don't know how you are under this delusion that the table is going to >> gang up on your prey just because you say so. > >You mean your opponents don't always do what you tell them?!? No wonder you >have so much trouble! ;-D >(of course it doesn't hurt if they oust someone very quickly and look like a >major threat) If they've had no pressure the entire game, the backlash is very likely to come against you instead, as the useless slot on the table. Most people are used to the cry-wolf syndrome these days... where the first person to gain a VP is pointed at and shrieked "HE MUST BE STOPPED LEST HE GAIN A TABLE WIN". Most skilled players will consider the situation carefully before flying off the handle. And no skilled player will kill your prey for you. They may apply a small amount of pressure to stop his forward motion, but stopping a deck's forward motion doesn't equate directly to ousting. In fact, skilled players will SEE that you are trying to sneak a VP, and deliberately balance things carefully. >>>> This is why you absolutely MUST have Eagle's Sight -- so you can at >>>> least TRY to block bleed actions. Even if you fail, the table will be a >>>> lot friendlier towards you when they see that you're at least TRYING. >>>That just makes you look incompetent - asking for trouble ;-P >> Plus, having your Eagle's Sight + Spirit's Touch + Enhanced Senses >> intercept attempt stealthed past doesn't make you look incompetent at >> all, really. > >I hope your G-Prey wasn't trying to let their hand jam with stealth cards >-seems to be the most commen response to really heavy stealth decks. I don't >really know how well it works though -if you've stopped them getting any >permanents out I imagine it would be pretty effective. Weenies are a problem >to pretty much everyone of course if you don't have any way to 'hose' them. I don't know of any stealth permanents other than Marijava Ghoul that are interceptable actions, and I don't see Marijava Ghoul very much. It works well, though. Weenies are a lot less of a problem than you think, actually. Typically a weenie deck relies on the +1 stealth hunt action to keep its vampires going... and also tends to use very little combat, so you can easily blow the head off anything you catch. >>>>>What does this do to their strategy? Is their prey just going to sit there >>>>>and take it? >>>> Mostly, their prey is going to bitch at you for not blocking more of the >>>> actions. If you aren't blocking with Eagle's Sight, then you aren't > >They're not going to expect Eagle's if you don't have Auspex anyway. If you aren't using Eagle's Sight, the table will rapidly turn against you for being a dead slot. Your grandpredator will attempt to reduce you as low as possible while you can't block him easily, so that he can push through you and gain his 2nd VP, your grandprey will actively try to kill you for applying no pressure to his predator, and your predator was already trying to kill you. Your prey thinks this is pretty cool, but will happily watch you die anyway. >> Many decks are not equipped to deal with a deck that bleeds with EVERY >> minion, every turn. That's why stealth/bleed can be so strong. > >Stealth makes all the difference here. Weenies have to be hosed. I always at >least think about these when building a deck. If the deck wasn't built to >bleed every turn is it really such a threat? Yes. >> Your solution turns every deck into fast forward bleed. > >I wonder if I can use that to persuade the table to gang up on them <g>. You can't against skilled players. See above. >>>You don't need Eagle's to block equips/recruits/employs. >> THEY WON'T TAKE ANY OF THOSE ACTIONS. > >There are a lot of undirected action cards too. Your whole counterargument seems to be based on the concept that "people are stupid". Not everyone gratuitously takes actions in the teeth of a deck just WAITING to block and pound their head into the ground. Yes, you hose vote decks. That's a given. But most decks have their ousting power in the (D) actions. If you can't block those, you're setting up to lose. [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip> i'm going to print that out, and show it to my group. BRILLIANT analysis, Derek. How very, VERY much i wish i'd said that. Since i didn't, let me WARN all of you against trying to play Shadowrun: Duels outside on a sunny day. The plastic of which the figures and their gear are made is unusually ductile. Lady Legbiter and i discovered this JUST in time to stop Kyushi from melting.