[RANT] dominate, auspex, delaying Tactics.

Hi, Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree with most of them, BTW. 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the strongest disciplines in the game. Other forms of bleed defence: * Rushing backwards against stealth bleeders is not always enough or it'll probably just outright kill them and rushing a weenie bleeder is often too slow to be effective. * Intercept has trouble with 'blocking attempt fails'-cards. Besides, when playing a deck that relies on permanents for the intercept you're probably too slow to get you're defences up in time, because s&b decks need pratically no set-up. And there's always Pentex Subversion... * No blocking and jamming them on stealth? Most bleed decks pack Dreams of the Sphinx, Visit, Barrens against this very tactic. AND you need quite a lot of pool gain to keep using it. * Bloating like crazy? well, this used to be a good form of bleed defence but was seriously limited by the card changes in CE. 1 well placed sudden reversal will still kill you BTW. * Mastercard Defence: Major Boon, Archon, Protected Resources are IMO not good enough or too dependent on the situation to deserve an Master slot in a deck. Other reasons why bounce is still superior: * if almost everyone is playing them the above will not work and you become the "horrible Black Void" for every bleed attempt. * in terms of "number of cards needed for an effect" BOUNCE is not only the most efficient but also the least card-intensive.¨ Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Or ,alternativly, more vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean enough vampires for each clan. 2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. reasons for this: * other combat decks. * Big chance of killing your predator and getting a new one who still has al his vampires and kan probaly kill you in one turn. * Less 'ousting power' even with Fame and Tension. This means that you CAN win a table, but sweeping is almost impossible. Not so for vote or bleed decks. * and, of course, the real killer, IMO: combat is too card-intensive. Not only will you deck yourself really fast, but you don't have lots of room for other things. The chance for handjam is bigger too, because of the larger combo's you need. * you're prey and predator will work together when you're a combat deck by rescuing each other's minions. Something you cannot block. And trying to burn minions will only increase the card-intensitivity (is that a word?). Especially because you need to work around s:ce. * 2 wellplaced obedience cards will jam you're hand with combat card and no rush. The only card that counters that is Perfect Clarity and it costs 2 blood AND keeps the obedience in your opponents hand. So you need to play one every time. * Almost no poolgain. In a combat deck you don't have enough card slots for an efficient pool gain engine. Bounty is a step forward as an idea, but should've been a bit better. Anathema is very difficult to play with in a rush deck. 3. Delaying tactics There's nothing realy wrong with this card. BUT once everyone is packing 2-4 of them it really stops political decks from doing anything. I've seen and played games like this. It really sucks to be the vote deck. Related: people do have a reason to put this much DT in a deck. Protect thine own comes to mind, and VP sniping with Dramatic upheavel or Kindred Restructure. 4. Succubus Club again. Nothing really against the card itself but 2 things about it really bug me. * the BIG one: slows the game down TREMENDOUSLY. A succubus club in play alone should be reason enough to get an extra 30 minutes of game time. * threats of Power Self-Ousting. (Yes, kamel, this means you ;) ) the tactic of threatening the rest of the table into helping you get VP's because you can self-oust by giving everything you have (pool, minions and masters) to their prey. Kinda sucks to be on the receiving end of that. 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of Western Europe, BTW. Vote decks seem to have lost their 'oomph' and I can't figure out why. Yes, CE vamps with votes are bigger, but the old Group 1&2 vamps are still around... Maybe because of the change to 5th tradition? and, of course, see nr. 3 above. And the rise of the number of DI in almost every deck? This is getting waaay too long. Maybe I'll add some others points, but these are the most important ones. Comments welcome, Jeroen Rombouts

Jeroen wrote: > * threats of Power Self-Ousting. (Yes, kamel, this means you ;) ) > the tactic of threatening the rest of the table into helping you get > VP's because you can self-oust by giving everything you have (pool, > minions and masters) to their prey. Kinda sucks to be on the > receiving end of that. Remember that a player cannot self-oust if he has any reasonable chance of getting more VPs. -- 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/

Jeroen expounded: > Hi, > > Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go > to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general > remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree > with most of them, BTW. > > 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > > Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to > bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the > strongest disciplines in the game. They sure are good. OTOH I reckon the Ravnos can make a decent go of things without -Draba and Sensory Deprivation make a huge difference -we don't see a lot of Ravnos decks but a good one can perform consistently well. I reckon there's still a Gangrel out there too. > Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? > disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Or ,alternativly, more > vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean > enough vampires for each clan. Now you want MORE bounce?! I'd rather see a 'change of target' that actually changed the target so the bleeder could play at bouncing too - then again that would make S+B even more powerful which isn't something I really want. > 2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. > > reasons for this: > * other combat decks. > * Big chance of killing your predator and getting a new one who still > has al his vampires and kan probaly kill you in one turn. Killing the predator can be a real problem. I've decided it's not worth trying to keep them in the game once you have hit them too hard though - let them be a speed bump and either soften up the futuer-pred a bit or preferably go forward in the time you have freed for yourself. > * Less 'ousting power' even with Fame and Tension. This means that you > CAN win a table, but sweeping is almost impossible. Not so for vote or > bleed decks. I so love it when Assamites play Tension ;D Would be good tohave another card like Tension that would stack with it. I absolutely agree with your desire to see bounty improved. Right now I can only see it really being useful in a non-combat deck to get others to hit your enemies and even then there are better choices. Make it 2X counters please. (possibly with a limit though I would rather not) > 3. Delaying tactics Wish I'd had some of them yesterday. > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. Don't forget the "Hammer Bleed" or "Giovanni" archetype. Vote decks do ok when I've seen them. Maybe people just don't feel like playing them so much at themoment? Ross won a tournament yesterday with no shortage of Bloat -Awe/Voter Cap/Minion Tap or BDolls works fine still. It certainly can be done especially if you have the Stealth+Votes to get out of the way of the S+B monster (then again why wouldn't you put deflections in your Ventrue deck?).

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> schreef in bericht news:3F6EF97E...@white-wolf.com... > Jeroen wrote: > > * threats of Power Self-Ousting. (Yes, kamel, this means you ;) ) > > the tactic of threatening the rest of the table into helping you get > > VP's because you can self-oust by giving everything you have (pool, > > minions and masters) to their prey. Kinda sucks to be on the > > receiving end of that. > > Remember that a player cannot self-oust if he has any reasonable > chance of getting more VPs. > sure. But if you still have a chance to get your own VP(s) the SC -player will not start threatening, I hope.

On 22 Sep 2003, Jeroen wrote: > 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. That's the safe bet, but I'd dispute your heavily-emphasized use of the word "needs". It is possible to take those 8 - 12 card slots and use them to make some other aspect of your deck more reliable. This is purely anecdotal, but I routinely play decks without bounce *or* pool gain, and I do pretty well. Table management, timing, and good old dumb luck become even more important without that cushion, but it doesn't matter if you have 1 pool left or 100, as long as you get the win. But I do agree with your general point that Dominate also having bounce is pretty crappy. > Other forms of bleed defence: > * Rushing backwards against stealth bleeders is not always enough or > it'll probably just outright kill them and rushing a weenie bleeder is > often too slow to be effective. Outright killing them is OK as long as you get a more manageable predator. Then again, I'm almost never playing for the sweep. Agreed about rushing a weenie deck not being too effective, but that goes back to what makes a rush deck good, and it getting ignored a lot. > 2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. Agreed. > * and, of course, the real killer, IMO: combat is too card-intensive. > Not only will you deck yourself really fast, but you don't have lots > of room for other things. The chance for handjam is bigger too, > because of the larger combo's you need. When designing combats, I try to keep the necessary components at three cards or less. I spend a lot of time looking for two, or sometimes one, card combat strategies; finding vampires with good specials, like Fatima, Laz, Pascek, Thetmes etc. is very helpful in this respect. Even without particular key vampires, a two-card combat is often no more intensive than stealth bleed.... rush, card A, card B. Bleed, stealth, bleed modifier (or more stealth, or perhaps anti-bounce tech). > * you're prey and predator will work together when you're a combat > deck by rescuing each other's minions. Not entirely disagreeing with you here, but that kind of activity also slows down the table, which is generally good for you. > * 2 wellplaced obedience cards will jam you're hand with combat card > and no rush. The only card that counters that is Perfect Clarity and > it costs 2 blood AND keeps the obedience in your opponents hand. So > you need to play one every time. I think you could concoct equally frustrating scenarios for any strategy, but sure, it sucks. Obedience is one of the reasons it's better to run intercept combat than rush combat, but that's hard to win with in its own way (although a friend of mine, Matt Guinn, keeps demonstrating his ability to do it). > * Almost no poolgain. In a combat deck you don't have enough card > slots for an efficient pool gain engine. Bounty is a step forward as > an idea, but should've been a bit better. Anathema is very difficult > to play with in a rush deck. This I really disagree with. Taste of Vitae has virtually no opportunity cost if you're already playing significant combat, and provides the foundation for Blood Dolls and Minion Taps. Provisions exists as well, but it's a special case. The only bad thing about Taste-based bloat is diminishing returns as the table empties itself of blood on minions. > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. > I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is > over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of > Western Europe, BTW. My impression of Western Europe, gained solely from reading this NG, is that there are indeed a *lot* of people content to keep playing Malk S+B decks. Anything that predictable is ripe for exploitation, but I've also been nuked fast and hard enough times myself to know it is frustrating. > Vote decks seem to have lost their 'oomph' and I > can't figure out why. My off-the-cuff opinion is that a lot of people are distracted by the new obf/OBF vampires and running PTO's because it's such an ego-stroke. As vote decks swing back to mid-caps spiced with some key 7's and 8's and just deal with getting about half their stuff blocked, I think you'll see them return in force. David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

"David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu... [ quoted text not captured ] As I am sure you know, judging the metagame is something you have to try to do before you play in any tournament. If you know there will be S&B, try Archon Investigations, these cards hurt like hell, but please pack more than one : ) Also Protected resources in a combat fame deck rocks. A suggestion for Fame Combat, attack the famed vampire last. If you kill all of the guys guarding the famous one, generally your prey will keep spending pool working to protect that one, then when your prey gets low, have a field day. David Demon Hunter

"David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote > Outright killing them is OK as long as you get a more manageable > predator. Then again, I'm almost never playing for the sweep. then we are not playing the same game. and you violate some basic vekn rules by doing so ;)

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > Hi, Hello :) [ quoted text not captured ] I have used presence vote bloat as bleed defence, with Parity Shift to turn being bled into a weapon. People will hate you for it (at least for the duration of the game), but in the right deck that is their problem, not yours. Yes, Sudden Reversal and (especially) Delaying Tactics can be problematic, but often people won't SR your defence (at least not cross-table), just your offence (such as Zillah's Valley or the Parthenon. At the storyline tournament in Newark, OH, I would have done a lot better if there had been less DT around. Bleed bounce is the answer to heavy bleed, as is DT to vote and S:CE to combat. How is that unbalanced? I agree that Dominate is somewhat too strong, but so is Presence in it's own way, or Potence for that matter: what mono-discipline deck is succesful that does not use one of these three? Maybe weenie celerity guns, but not remotely as much. So, what my argument comes down to: it all depends on deckbuilding and table talk :). Regards, Patrick Columbus, OH

Reyda expounded: [ quoted text not captured ] A more manageable predator increases your chance of being able to go forward and get VPs without dying: there is no rule that you have to minimise anyone else's VPs.

[ quoted text not captured ] > "David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote [ quoted text not captured ] You aren't suggesting that playing to win means playing to sweep, are you? Have you been out back shooting bullets in your head again? [ quoted text not captured ]

>1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > >Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to >bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the >strongest disciplines in the game. I'd make two exceptions. Weenie decks don't have to have bounce. Ravnos, as mentioned, have Draba. Counterargument, which I'm not sure how to refute, would include the often successful Nos P/J archetype. >Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? >disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Probably because they'd see too much play. Deck construction becomes lazy, which will result in a more stagnant environment. Or, maybe I'm reaching, and it's just because it would weaken Auspex too much. > Or ,alternativly, more >vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean >enough vampires for each clan. It's bad enough that clans already splash Dom just for bounce. Just going to increase the disruptive nature of Dom if everyone has to play it. Out of clan AUS in sufficient quantities is stretching credibility. Put another way, don't want every deck to look alike. >2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. Okay, so what? If I were to complain about something "missing", it would be decks balanced across all three legs. Sure, there are tons of toolboxed decks. But, how many bleed a little, vote a little, fight a little? I'd put the number around a hand full (of good decks). >3. Delaying tactics > >There's nothing realy wrong with this card. BUT once everyone is >packing 2-4 of them it really stops political decks from doing >anything. I've seen and played games like this. It really sucks to be >the vote deck. Related: people do have a reason to put this much DT >in a deck. Protect thine own comes to mind, and VP sniping with >Dramatic upheavel or Kindred Restructure. Sure there's something wrong with the card. It's Memory Lapse. So, it's not Counterspell, it's still a counterspell. OTOH, see below for my comments about vote decks. >4. Succubus Club again. > >Nothing really against the card itself but 2 things about it really >bug me. >* the BIG one: slows the game down TREMENDOUSLY. A succubus club in >play alone should be reason enough to get an extra 30 minutes of game >time. >* threats of Power Self-Ousting. (Yes, kamel, this means you ;) ) >the tactic of threatening the rest of the table into helping you get >VP's because you can self-oust by giving everything you have (pool, >minions and masters) to their prey. Kinda sucks to be on the >receiving end of that. If you aren't against the card, what's good about it? >5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. > >I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is >over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of >Western Europe, BTW. Vote decks seem to have lost their 'oomph' and I >can't figure out why. Yes, CE vamps with votes are bigger, but the >old Group 1&2 vamps are still around... Maybe because of the change >to 5th tradition? and, of course, see nr. 3 above. And the rise of >the number of DI in almost every deck? Vote decks scare me more, though. A (good) vote deck has an answer to everything. Awful seating position? Move. Want to kill a weenie deck? Call a couple votes. Don't like combat? Besides what disciplines give you for defense, Banish, PTO, backoust, crosstable oust, bloat its prey, move it. Anyway, sure it's trickier to get to the referendum, not have it Delayed, and win it then it is to bleed at stealth or swarm bleed someone, but when you can pass votes, your control ability is insane. For example, early this year, I was morally opposed to being rushed by my predator and had another vote deck across from me *and* there was no other deck at the table that seemed to have any ousting ability, so I ousted my predator, then my prey, then my predator to take it down to the two player for a 2-2-1 split. Couple of times in drafts ousted players crosstable which eventually led to victory. Combat decks have pretty strong control elements, though this is somewhat dependent upon build, but they have ousting problems. Bleed decks often lack control elements. >This is getting waaay too long. Maybe I'll add some others points, >but these are the most important ones. With it being storyline season, I'd like to mention something I don't think gets nearly enough attention. While the evolution of competitive balance in the game under WW's stewardship has been positive, there isn't a quick enough rotation at the top. It's important to have significant variation over time as to such things as the tier 1 clans and tier 1 decks. Even though weaker clans have been getting better relative to stronger, to produce an interesting environment requires seeing them overtake at least temporarily. May want to avoid drastic turnover at the top, but you want constant turnover to keep the game fresh.

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Treetop Dave wrote: > As I am sure you know, judging the metagame is something you have to try to > do before you play in any tournament. Actually, I don't think you can judge a metagame. I think it's all dumb luck. There are various reasons for this, but one that I'll throw out there is that, at least where I play, there is a decent enough variety of decks being played -- even if you can say, overall, that S+B is most common -- that it's a true crapshoot what you'll sit next to. > If you know there will be S&B, try I'd like to know how these people *know* any of this. I suspect they know it just like they "know" what the table's going to look like three turns from now. But sure, it's not rocket science to assume you will at some point in any given tournament have a heavy stealth bleed deck breathing down you neck. Beyond this one archetype, though, it becomes even more thin of a guess as to what you'll see. This is one of the reasons I build mostly proactive decks, and trust my mojo will beat theirs. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> schreef in bericht news:20030922132111...@mb-m25.aol.com... > >1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > > > >Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to > >bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the > >strongest disciplines in the game. > > I'd make two exceptions. Weenie decks don't have to have bounce. Ravnos, as > mentioned, have Draba. > > Counterargument, which I'm not sure how to refute, would include the often > successful Nos P/J archetype. Sheldon has AUS :-) And this decktype has more problems now, with the changes to 5th.

cur...@aol.commetal (Curevei) wrote in message news:<20030922132111...@mb-m25.aol.com>... > For example, early this year, I was morally opposed to being rushed by my > predator and had another vote deck across from me *and* there was no other deck > at the table that seemed to have any ousting ability, so I ousted my predator, > then my prey, then my predator to take it down to the two player for a 2-2-1 > split. Couple of times in drafts ousted players crosstable which eventually > led to victory. I seem to remember being the first one ousted at this table. Tegyrius was not happy to have his Giant's Blood Suddenly Reversed. I suppose I should have left him uncontrolled to take advantage of your HtEs (though I hadn't seen your deck yet). > With it being storyline season, I'd like to mention something I don't think > gets nearly enough attention. While the evolution of competitive balance in > the game under WW's stewardship has been positive, there isn't a quick enough > rotation at the top. It's important to have significant variation over time as > to such things as the tier 1 clans and tier 1 decks. Even though weaker clans > have been getting better relative to stronger, to produce an interesting > environment requires seeing them overtake at least temporarily. May want to > avoid drastic turnover at the top, but you want constant turnover to keep the > game fresh. It would seem a good way to do this is increase the power of clan-specific cards for those clans which have inherent biases against them regarding their discipline spreads or sect affiliation. Take Assamites for example: Suppose Kali's Fang only cost 2 pool but was usable only by Assamites. Suppose there were a Quietus specific action put onto a vampire which afforded 1 pool gain every time a minion were sent to torpor by the acting minion, or perhaps better yet afforded an untap on a successful burn/torpor. Anyway, there are plenty of examples where things could change among the clans. It is a tricky situation for White Wolf to be in I would imagine. They have an expansion design/release schedule they need to meet. More importantly, each new set/expansion is structurally intended for a relatively narrow set of clans--it would have been odd to include a brand new Necromancy action in the Camarilla Edition. Each set gives the various clans new vampires for experimentation, but the strength of each clan is defined and determined more by what it can do collectively with its clan- or discipline-specific cards. I think this is part of the mass appeal of the Bloodlines Expansion: There was indeed something for everyone! I'm not sure how WW would accomplish this laudable goal with every new release, but it would definitely help the game as a whole.

"David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu... > On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Reyda wrote: > > > "David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote > > > > Outright killing them is OK as long as you get a more manageable > > > predator. Then again, I'm almost never playing for the sweep. > > > then we are not playing the same game. > > and you violate some basic vekn rules by doing so ;) > > You aren't suggesting that playing to win means playing to sweep, are > you? Have you been out back shooting bullets in your head again? And you obviously can't recognize a simple joke when you see one. When i play a game, i'm always thinking of that : me against the world, me go for table sweep. It's that simple. and please no answer with the redundant stereotype on french people, thank you :)

cur...@aol.commetal (Curevei) wrote in message news:<20030922132111...@mb-m25.aol.com>... > With it being storyline season, I'd like to mention something I > don't think gets nearly enough attention. While the evolution of > competitive balance in the game under WW's stewardship has been > positive, there isn't a quick enough rotation at the top. It's > important to have significant variation over time as > to such things as the tier 1 clans and tier 1 decks. Even though > weaker clans have been getting better relative to stronger, to > produce an interesting environment requires seeing them overtake > at least temporarily. May want to avoid drastic turnover at the > top, but you want constant turnover to keep the game fresh. The problem with quick rotation of the relative strength of clans/strategies is that players need to be current and up-to-date with their card collections. Sure, that's not necessarily a problem for WW. However, I much prefer the way that it currently is, in that players who haven't played or purchased cards for years can turn up to a game and play competitively. Maybe they're occasionally baffled by some odd disciplines or new terminology, but they still know how to play and what is strong in the game. If the relative strengths of strategies changed frequently, I think WW would make more money (at least in the short-term) as players competed in an arms race, but the game itself would suffer and there would be less incentive to play the game for a long time. * lehrbuch

On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 15:39:07 +0100, Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> scrawled: [snip] >> Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? >> disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Or ,alternativly, more >> vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean >> enough vampires for each clan. > >Now you want MORE bounce?! I'd rather see a 'change of target' that >actually changed the target so the bleeder could play at bouncing too - >then again that would make S+B even more powerful which isn't something >I really want. Contingency Planning? [snip] >I absolutely agree with your desire to see bounty improved. Right now I >can only see it really being useful in a non-combat deck to get others >to hit your enemies and even then there are better choices. Make it 2X >counters please. (possibly with a limit though I would rather not) 2nd-ed. At the moment, the max profit you can make off Bounty is 1 pool, if you play it yourself. So you'd most likely be better off playing Ascendance, and skip out ont he chance that you either can't put the target away, or that someone else does it. It really is for non-fighters who want to encourage OTHER people to beat up certain vampires. I'd like it to actually be useful FOR fighters. salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > > Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to > bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the > strongest disciplines in the game. > > Other forms of bleed defence: [snip] You forgot a very important one - bleed reduction. There are several cards for this. They're mostly reaction cards, but also include a Master: Location. My Nos/!Nos Barons deck does very well with Banners of Neutrality and Dummy Corp. The beautiful thing is that I also can have an AI in my hand - burn the Dummy Corp and/or Banner if it's 3 or less, burn the minion if it's more. I rarely have a huge problem with stealth-bleed. (Plus that deck bloats like crazy.) I also love playing the dom version of The Mole. That throws a big wrench in s+b decks. They jam on stealth AND you don't actually get bled. Yes, Telepathic Counter and The Mole still use the disciplines that you are saying are overly necessary, but things like Ecstasy, Banner of Neutrality and Dummy Corp are not. Bleed reduction, combined with decent bloat, combat or forward motion can stop most s+b or unblockable-bleed decks (and isn't vulnerable to Perfect Clarity). Basically, one should assume that the default deck behind you is going to be bleeding. Why? Because it's the only cardless way of ousting your prey. That's the way the game is, and every deck should be built to cope with it somehow. > Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? > disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Or ,alternativly, more > vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean > enough vampires for each clan. I'd prefer more ways of reducing the acting minion's stealth to 0 or making an action outright fail. Not enough credit has been given to The Mole and Car Bomb for their ability to do this. > 3. Delaying tactics > > There's nothing realy wrong with this card. BUT once everyone is > packing 2-4 of them it really stops political decks from doing > anything. I've seen and played games like this. It really sucks to be > the vote deck. Related: people do have a reason to put this much DT > in a deck. Protect thine own comes to mind, and VP sniping with > Dramatic upheavel or Kindred Restructure. I've rarely seen a situation where "everyone is packing 2-4 of them". In a tournament environment you will probably see a vote deck or two, but that much is just begging for hand-jam. People who play with that kind of risk can reasonably expect to see some solid benefit. (In this case, stopping the vote decks.) If someone has a DT at just the right time, I say good for them. Nothing broken here. > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. > > I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is > over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of > Western Europe, BTW. Vote decks seem to have lost their 'oomph' and I > can't figure out why. Yes, CE vamps with votes are bigger, but the > old Group 1&2 vamps are still around... Maybe because of the change > to 5th tradition? and, of course, see nr. 3 above. And the rise of > the number of DI in almost every deck? I doubt that 5th has anything to do with vote decks losing their oomph. Vote-and-bloat never needed 5th to fill up. That's what Voter Cap is for. The change to 5th only hurt the "Prince Wall" decks, which is fine, imho. I think the prevalence of intercept is causing vote decks to show up less often. This is why my Ventrue/OBF vote-and-bloat deck does so well, and why Lasombra vote can be quite devastating. The problem with claiming that "x is the most powerful archetype" is that by saying so you ignore the multi-player aspect of the game. Stealth-bleed, even stealth-bleed unmitigated by bounce, does not necessarily sweep. Quite often it will tear up its prey and then crash and burn against its grand-prey, who has had lots of time to build up with no pressure from behind. But this is true of many decks that go forward too strong and too soon. It's part of the game. I've said it before, I'll say it again - Forward motion gets a VP, table management wins the game. So what's the most powerful archetype? The one that can manage the table under any circumstances. But there is no deck-type with such an ability. That ability comes from just one thing - the skill of the player. Eric Simon Prince of Chicago

> Hi, > > Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go > to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general > remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree > with most of them, BTW. Brilliant post! I agree with almost everything you wrote. Robert

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu>... > On Mon, 22 Sep 2003, Treetop Dave wrote: > > > As I am sure you know, judging the metagame is something you have to try to > > do before you play in any tournament. > > Actually, I don't think you can judge a metagame. I think it's all dumb > luck. There are various reasons for this, but one that I'll throw out > there is that, at least where I play, there is a decent enough variety of > decks being played -- even if you can say, overall, that S+B is most > common -- that it's a true crapshoot what you'll sit next to. True. However, in slight support of Jeroen's description of the european metagame: These were my first predators in the Belgian Qualifier: 1. Giovanni Powerbleed 2. (!)Ven Bruise 'n Bleed 3. Ven Vote/Bleed with stealth (though heavy on the vote) 4. (!)Tor S&Bleed Not 4 'true' S&B decks, but I know I will be packing more than 1 AI in my next deck, if it doesn't have dom/aus. :) But I've also heard others not having such bleedy predators, so it's just one anecdote. > > If you know there will be S&B, try > > I'd like to know how these people *know* any of this. I suspect they know > it just like they "know" what the table's going to look like three turns > from now. But sure, it's not rocket science to assume you will at some > point in any given tournament have a heavy stealth bleed deck breathing > down you neck. Beyond this one archetype, though, it becomes even more > thin of a guess as to what you'll see. This is one of the reasons I build > mostly proactive decks, and trust my mojo will beat theirs. And, if you're shooting to make the final, maybe you can expect the likelyhood of S&B (or some sort of heavy bleeder) to go up. So if you want to WIN that final... Tobias Deventer

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > Hi, > > Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go > to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general > remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree > with most of them, BTW. <snip all comments> I was going to react to a post in this thread, that mentioned such things as the problems with too much forward pressure, table dynamics, and the effect of being ganged-up on by multiple players if you were winning, by stating that all that was true. Wven then, aus and dom still come off handsomely. It's true that this is a game of skill where any deck can win, where good control of the pressure you dish out, and timing is important. It's also true that aus and dom are very good. The question is: do we mind? I almost never see people get discouraged about the 'power' of the decktype they would like to play - although it happens sometimes with bloodlines-based decks, but that expansion was made to be difficult to use on its own (barring such things as blood brothers, etc.). So we have some obvious powerhouses. We could try to level the playing field, giving everyone a fair shot, making it wholly unpredictable what you would see on the table. Or, we could keep the current structure, call it the 'state of the (meta)game', where we know what to expect somewhat, can prepare for it, are occasionally suprised by some 'wierd' deck doing well, where the occasional expansion provides subtle changes in the (meta)game.... and where we cheer for the occasional underdog taking the #1 spot. Of course, I can fully understand it, if you play tons of games, always run up against the same types of decks, always see the 'easy' S&B perform well, always see those DI's and DT's (Hi, Kamel! ;) ), always see AR - you might get fed up with it a little. The best remedy would probably to play the game a bit less. Go out in the fresh air with your girl. :) Tobias Deventer

salem expounded: > On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 15:39:07 +0100, Timlagor > <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> scrawled: > > [snip] > >> Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? > >> disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Or ,alternativly, more > >> vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean > >> enough vampires for each clan. > > > >Now you want MORE bounce?! I'd rather see a 'change of target' that > >actually changed the target so the bleeder could play at bouncing too - > >then again that would make S+B even more powerful which isn't something > >I really want. > > Contingency Planning? I suppose that fits the description and the limit to 1 bleed isn't really a bad thing but does it need to be a Master? Couldn't there me a Pre mod? (i would say Aus but we seem to think that's powerful enough) > [snip] > >I absolutely agree with your desire to see bounty improved. Right now I > >can only see it really being useful in a non-combat deck to get others > >to hit your enemies and even then there are better choices. Make it 2X > >counters please. (possibly with a limit though I would rather not) > > 2nd-ed. > At the moment, the max profit you can make off Bounty is 1 pool, if > you play it yourself. So you'd most likely be better off playing > Ascendance, and skip out ont he chance that you either can't put the > target away, or that someone else does it. > > It really is for non-fighters who want to encourage OTHER people to I do like that theme which but I have ever seen it used for that either -I suppose people prefer Pentex; Bounty is too reliant on other people who don't have to help you out and might not even bat at the table. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:<3F6EF97E...@white-wolf.com>... > Jeroen wrote: > > * threats of Power Self-Ousting. (Yes, kamel, this means you ;) ) > > the tactic of threatening the rest of the table into helping you get > > VP's because you can self-oust by giving everything you have (pool, > > minions and masters) to their prey. Kinda sucks to be on the > > receiving end of that. > > Remember that a player cannot self-oust if he has any reasonable > chance of getting more VPs. Joeroen refers to a game i've played in the last EC. I have to contest the anson of my grand prey (i have 12 anson in my crypt, so i suppose i was right to think that was the only choice i have). I've tried to make my "ally" yeld the contest (via 8 pools, or 4 pools and the parthenon...). He has refused. My predator was a malky ! malky S&B, and there was one or two anarch revolt into play (played by my grand prey). When i start to ask for help, nobody's answered. So the turn after, i say "i'm at 13 pools with no vamps. If no one wants to help me, i will be ousted in three turns, perhaps less, so i will tap the SC and give all my pool to my predator. Is someone wants to help me ??;-)))". I'm not lsj ;-))) but, i suppose that was legal... (for the story, suddenly, i became the best friend of my prey, who started to give me pool, and blocked via eagle sight the bleeds of my predator. And i get my VP...). Kamel SENNI.

Kamel SENNI expounded: > Joeroen refers to a game i've played in the last EC. I have to contest > the anson of my grand prey (i have 12 anson in my crypt, so i suppose > i was right to think that was the only choice i have). I've tried to > make my "ally" yeld the contest (via 8 pools, or 4 pools and the > parthenon...). He has refused. > My predator was a malky ! malky S&B, and there was one or two anarch > revolt into play (played by my grand prey). > When i start to ask for help, nobody's answered. So the turn after, i > say "i'm at 13 pools with no vamps. If no one wants to help me, i will > be ousted in three turns, perhaps less, so i will tap the SC and give > all my pool to my predator. Is someone wants to help me ??;-)))". > I'm not lsj ;-))) but, i suppose that was legal... He is :) Sounds perfectly legal to me. > (for the story, suddenly, i became the best friend of my prey, who > started to give me pool, and blocked via eagle sight the bleeds of my > predator. And i get my VP...). That's just silly though.

"Kamel SENNI" <kamel...@yvelines.pref.gouv.fr> wrote > When i start to ask for help, nobody's answered. because you were playing Anarch Revolt :)

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu>... > On 22 Sep 2003, Jeroen wrote: > > > 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > > That's the safe bet, but I'd dispute your heavily-emphasized use of the > word "needs". The word consistently is in that sentence too. See below. >It is possible to take those 8 - 12 card slots and use them > to make some other aspect of your deck more reliable. This is purely > anecdotal, but I routinely play decks without bounce *or* pool gain, and I > do pretty well. So do I. Result: except for 1-2 tourneys this year I end up with 1 Game Wins. >Table management, timing, and good old dumb luck See consistency above. >become > even more important without that cushion, but it doesn't matter if you > have 1 pool left or 100, as long as you get the win. But I do agree with > your general point that Dominate also having bounce is pretty crappy. > > > Other forms of bleed defence: > > * Rushing backwards against stealth bleeders is not always enough or > > it'll probably just outright kill them and rushing a weenie bleeder is > > often too slow to be effective. > > Outright killing them is OK as long as you get a more manageable > predator. As in: My grandpredator is NOT a stealth bleeder. Right... >Then again, I'm almost never playing for the sweep. Agreed > about rushing a weenie deck not being too effective, but that goes back to > what makes a rush deck good, and it getting ignored a lot. For bigger tournement (50+) this probably means you need 3 game wins t get to the finals. The Vote and S&B deck can make it with 1/2 GW and a lot more VP. > > > 2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. > > Agreed. Again 'consistently' > > > * and, of course, the real killer, IMO: combat is too card-intensive. > > Not only will you deck yourself really fast, but you don't have lots > > of room for other things. The chance for handjam is bigger too, > > because of the larger combo's you need. > > When designing combats, I try to keep the necessary components at three > cards or less. I spend a lot of time looking for two, or sometimes one, > card combat strategies; finding vampires with good specials, like Fatima, > Laz, Pascek, Thetmes etc. is very helpful in this respect. Even without > particular key vampires, a two-card combat is often no more intensive than > stealth bleed.... rush, card A, card B. Bleed, stealth, bleed modifier > (or more stealth, or perhaps anti-bounce tech). You forget one thing: without a govern or Kindred Spirit in hand a vampire can still bleed. You cannot get into combat without a rush card in hand. And besides, you still need to play with taste of vitae-like cards. So compare: Rush + anti s:CE card + min. 1 combat card + Taste = bare minimum of 4 cards Bleed: Govern or Conditioning + 1 or ,say, 2 stealth cards = Minimum of 3 cards. > > > * you're prey and predator will work together when you're a combat > > deck by rescuing each other's minions. > > Not entirely disagreeing with you here, but that kind of activity also > slows down the table, which is generally good for you. Slows down the table, but it also slows you down more than the rest. Ratio: 1 action for each of predator and Prey against 2 actions for you. Better ratio if you can put them in torpor empty, because they have to hunt, but that is easily by-passed by Blood Doll, Life in the city,.... > > > * 2 wellplaced obedience cards will jam you're hand with combat card > > and no rush. The only card that counters that is Perfect Clarity and > > it costs 2 blood AND keeps the obedience in your opponents hand. So > > you need to play one every time. > > I think you could concoct equally frustrating scenarios for any strategy, > but sure, it sucks. Obedience is one of the reasons it's better to run > intercept combat than rush combat, but that's hard to win with in its own > way (although a friend of mine, Matt Guinn, keeps demonstrating his > ability to do it). Agree here. Another reason is Rotschreck. But Intercept combat has even less forward pressure. > > > * Almost no poolgain. In a combat deck you don't have enough card > > slots for an efficient pool gain engine. Bounty is a step forward as > > an idea, but should've been a bit better. Anathema is very difficult > > to play with in a rush deck. > > This I really disagree with. Taste of Vitae has virtually no opportunity > cost if you're already playing significant combat, and provides the > foundation for Blood Dolls and Minion Taps. Intelligent players seated next to a combat deck know that the Taste is vital and will eg, try to empty their vamps themself. There goin to torpor anyway, so... And you don't really have enough mastercard slots. > Provisions exists as well, > but it's a special case. The only bad thing about Taste-based bloat is > diminishing returns as the table empties itself of blood on minions. > > > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. > > > I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is > > over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of > > Western Europe, BTW. > > My impression of Western Europe, gained solely from reading this NG, is > that there are indeed a *lot* of people content to keep playing Malk S+B > decks. Well, a lot of players over here play to win. If s+b wins and keeps winning, they will keep playing that. I can't blame 'm for that. >Anything that predictable is ripe for exploitation, but I've also > been nuked fast and hard enough times myself to know it is frustrating. > > > Vote decks seem to have lost their 'oomph' and I > > can't figure out why. > > My off-the-cuff opinion is that a lot of people are distracted by the new > obf/OBF vampires and running PTO's because it's such an ego-stroke. As > vote decks swing back to mid-caps spiced with some key 7's and 8's and > just deal with getting about half their stuff blocked, I think you'll see > them return in force. > Hope you're right on this one...

Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.19da1f516...@news.freeserve.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Silly maybe, but it got me a GW with 4 (IIRC) VP's.

Angus, the Unruled expounded: > > > (for the story, suddenly, i became the best friend of my prey, who > > > started to give me pool, and blocked via eagle sight the bleeds of my > > > predator. And i get my VP...). > > > > That's just silly though. > > Silly maybe, but it got me a GW with 4 (IIRC) VP's. Er. Were you the prey? I assumed he got the VP from his prey dying.. was it a withdraw?

tobiasop...@hotmail.com (Tobias) wrote in message news:<8aa6db00.03092...@posting.google.com>... > joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > > Hi, > > > > Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go > > to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general > > remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree > > with most of them, BTW. > > <snip all comments> > > So we have some obvious powerhouses. We could try to level the playing > field, giving everyone a fair shot, making it wholly unpredictable > what you would see on the table. I'd like this better. But gradually, of course. >Or, we could keep the current > structure, call it the 'state of the (meta)game', where we know what > to expect somewhat, can prepare for it, are occasionally suprised by > some 'wierd' deck doing well, where the occasional expansion provides > subtle changes in the (meta)game.... and where we cheer for the > occasional underdog taking the #1 spot. We have been doing this for 10 years now. Maybe time for a change. > > Of course, I can fully understand it, if you play tons of games, > always run up against the same types of decks, always see the 'easy' > S&B perform well, always see those DI's and DT's (Hi, Kamel! ;) ), > always see AR - you might get fed up with it a little. Indeed. > > The best remedy would probably to play the game a bit less. Go out in > the fresh air with your girl. :) > I don't even play once a week, prefer my air polluted and can't keep seeing a girl for more than 10 days before I get bored. :-) Jeroen

On Tue, 23 Sep 2003, Reyda wrote: > And you obviously can't recognize a simple joke when you see one. And yet, I can spot a jackass from a continent away! > When i play a game, i'm always thinking of that : > me against the world, me go for table sweep. Then you've probably lost a lot of games you might otherwise have won. > It's that simple. Actually, the game is a lot more complex than that. I mean, you can look at it however you like, but I'd hate to think some newbie is lurking out there looking to learn something about how to play the game, and reading that. > and please no answer with the redundant stereotype on french people, thank > you :) You haven't done anything redundantly stereotypical, yet. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 23 Sep 2003, Tobias wrote: > True. However, in slight support of Jeroen's description of the > european metagame: These were my first predators in the Belgian > Qualifier: > 1. Giovanni Powerbleed > 2. (!)Ven Bruise 'n Bleed > 3. Ven Vote/Bleed with stealth (though heavy on the vote) > 4. (!)Tor S&Bleed Oh, I believe that the Euro metagame leans much more towards fast Stealth-Bleed than the one on this side of the pond. That doesn't make what I said any less true, though. I wasn't saying "If you don't see a lot of S+B then you can do this thing over here." It was "even with lots of stealth bleed, I believe you can do just as well by making your own half-dozen or so moving parts more reliable." The biggest problem I see is that there aren't enough people playing anything other than that. I mean, if you are the lone rush deck on table with 4 S+B decks, you may very well be screwed no matter how lean and mean you deck is. There just isn't anyone else applying pressure "outside of the box". If you have a table that's, say, split 50-50 down the middle between stealth-payload and big combat, suddenly the stealth bleed decks aren't looking so good, because there are now enough rushes/combats en toto to make a big dent. If you can't get that kind of cooperation out of your metagame (and I can't really think of how you could create it), then a multi-rush deck may be good for you, as the number of rushes it generates are, if not open-ended, sufficiently so that the table can't plan around how much of it you'll do. > And, if you're shooting to make the final, maybe you can expect the > likelyhood of S&B (or some sort of heavy bleeder) to go up. So if you > want to WIN that final... Uh.... play a combat god that doesn't cost more than 8 and has fortitude? Not that I think combat is the end-all, be-all, but we're talking about alternatives to bounce here, right? [ quoted text not captured ]

On 23 Sep 2003, Tobias wrote: > So we have some obvious powerhouses. We could try to level the playing > field, giving everyone a fair shot, making it wholly unpredictable > what you would see on the table. I would like this. > Of course, I can fully understand it, if you play tons of games, > always run up against the same types of decks, always see the 'easy' > S&B perform well, always see those DI's and DT's (Hi, Kamel! ;) ), > always see AR - you might get fed up with it a little. This was true for me until recently. Some old blood dropped out, and some fresh blood came in, and out metagame is a lot more mixed than it once was. We just had a few players that were more interested in playing the same deck over and over than trying something new and losing. In hindsight, those players were perfroming a valuable service by creating a very tournament-like environment for the rest of us to bounce goofy crap around in. > The best remedy would probably to play the game a bit less. Go out in > the fresh air with your girl. :) I think it would be worse for a person who holds this opinion, and only gets to play occasionally. Even when I'm getting pounded by mold, I know the next game isn't very far away. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 23 Sep 2003, Jeroen wrote: > David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu>... > The word consistently is in that sentence too. See below. I read it and incorporated it into my response. > >It is possible to take those 8 - 12 card slots and use them > > to make some other aspect of your deck more reliable. This is purely > > anecdotal, but I routinely play decks without bounce *or* pool gain, and I > > do pretty well. > So do I. Result: except for 1-2 tourneys this year I end up with 1 > Game Wins. If that's all I could get out of following my own advice I wouldn't be giving it. I win my share of tournaments, and usually make the finals. > >Table management, timing, and good old dumb luck > See consistency above. I wasn't making excuses for poor performance. I think those elements are *always* important. Ignore them and the weeniest, bleediest, speediest deck can still blow up in your face. I like the Prince of Chicago's adage about what gets you a VP and what gets you a table-win. Still, without -- IMO -- unfair mechanical advantages, derived from unbalanced elements of the game, those things become even more important. > As in: My grandpredator is NOT a stealth bleeder. Right... Then take him out, too (I can make that assumption because we agree that we've just taken out a deck just like him). I wouldn't advocate repeated back-ousts for the 2 VP table win, but the option exists. If your combat really is that shit-hot, you probably can flex a little and get your prey's minions off the table and get that crucial 1 VP for yourself, and then you can back-oust to your little heart's content. > For bigger tournement (50+) this probably means you need 3 game wins t > get to the finals. The Vote and S&B deck can make it with 1/2 GW and a > lot more VP. This is true, and probably why the tournament reports from Europe look so, well, dull. Your tournaments are huge and, over large numbers, the unfair stuff stands out. > Again 'consistently' How consistent do you want it? All things being equal, you are only going to win one game in five. If you are up above 30%, then you're doing something right. > You forget one thing: without a govern or Kindred Spirit in hand a > vampire can still bleed. You cannot get into combat without a rush > card in hand. And besides, you still need to play with taste of > vitae-like cards. You're neglecting part of what I wrote. I said to pick large-ish vampires with good specials. Inherent rush it at the top of the list of good abilities, so it's not unfair to assume you don't need a card. Also, cards like contracts can provide repeated returns on your investment. But even so, the powerhouse bleed decks tend to run a bleed action *and* a bleed modifier. If you chop the bleeds in half by only wanting to count one or the other, then the deck just got a lot slower and, thus, a lot easier to survive. And you don't *need* to play with ToV, it's just really good for bloating. For example, if I play Fatima with an Assault Rifle then over a large number of combats it is fair to say I will be at long, expend no cards, and take no damage. Demonstrate the *need*, or retract that from the list of necessary cards. > So compare: > Rush + anti s:CE card + min. 1 combat card + Taste = bare minimum of 4 > cards Three. Or two. You won't always need the S:CE cards. > Bleed: Govern or Conditioning + 1 or ,say, 2 stealth cards = Minimum > of 3 cards. I'll even spot you that that is two cards. Wouldn't float in my metagame, but it may in yours. Regardless, three cards per action, as the combat decks I'm designing assume, isn't a large number of cards. You should drop the "gag" issue. > Slows down the table, but it also slows you down more than the rest. > Ratio: 1 action for each of predator and Prey against 2 actions for > you. Better ratio if you can put them in torpor empty, because they > have to hunt, but that is easily by-passed by Blood Doll, Life in the > city,.... I'm not following you. I take one action, to dunk some vampire. Then, someone takes an action to rescue. Then that vampire takes an action to hunt. It seems like you've got your numbers backwards. And, yeah, I assume they are in torpor empty. If they aren't, it's because I'm going right back in to rescue them myself, and I want them full-ish. > Intelligent players seated next to a combat deck know that the Taste > is vital and will eg, try to empty their vamps themself. There goin > to torpor anyway, so... Great. They can "intelligent" themselves straight into a dirt-nap, and that's that many fewer cards I need to play to do it. But like I said, Taste has diminishing returns. Luckily, it isn't a necessity, but a really nice benny. > And you don't really have enough mastercard slots. To do what? Bloat? My whole initial premise was that you don't absolutely have to have pool gain, but if you think you do, four blood dolls usually consumes some of the 12 to 15 mastercards a combat deck plays with. > Well, a lot of players over here play to win. If s+b wins and keeps > winning, they will keep playing that. I can't blame 'm for that. Nor would I, but it'd still be dull, dull, dull. [ quoted text not captured ]

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > tobiasop...@hotmail.com (Tobias) wrote in message news:<8aa6db00.03092...@posting.google.com>... > > joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > > > Hi, > > > > > > Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go > > > to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general > > > remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree > > > with most of them, BTW. > > > > <snip all comments> > > > > So we have some obvious powerhouses. We could try to level the playing > > field, giving everyone a fair shot, making it wholly unpredictable > > what you would see on the table. > > I'd like this better. But gradually, of course. > > >Or, we could keep the current > > structure, call it the 'state of the (meta)game', where we know what > > to expect somewhat, can prepare for it, are occasionally suprised by > > some 'wierd' deck doing well, where the occasional expansion provides > > subtle changes in the (meta)game.... and where we cheer for the > > occasional underdog taking the #1 spot. > > We have been doing this for 10 years now. Maybe time for a change. I guess it depends on your definition of gradually. :) > > The best remedy would probably to play the game a bit less. Go out in > > the fresh air with your girl. :) > > > I don't even play once a week, prefer my air polluted and can't keep > seeing a girl for more than 10 days before I get bored. :-) Hmmm... 10 years of VTES, 10 days of same girl.... :) Tobias Deventer

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) writes: > 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > > Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to > bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the > strongest disciplines in the game. A little while ago, I started a thread called "Bleed sink, how not to be one." You might want to check it out, I got some exellent suggestions about how to win without AUS or DOM. (I didn't make Storyline finals though, but did tie for the best non-finalist.) > * [your] prey and predator will work together when you're a combat > deck by rescuing each other's minions. Something you cannot block. If my predator started rescuing my prey's minions, I'd rub my hands together and chuckle with glee, since I'm of course playing with Fame and Tension in the Ranks. :-) > * Almost no poolgain. In a combat deck you don't have enough card > slots for an efficient pool gain engine. Try a hunting Caitiff with a Blood Doll. Worked magnificently. Two cards. > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. When you're playing rush and you find out your prey is a S&B deck, that's when you know that life is good. :-D -- hg@ It's better to open your mouth and appear stupid, iki.fi than to hold it shut and keep thinking you know it all.

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote: > > I don't even play once a week, prefer my air polluted and can't keep > > seeing a girl for more than 10 days before I get bored. :-) tobiasop...@hotmail.com (Tobias) wrote: > Hmmm... 10 years of VTES, 10 days of same girl.... > > :) So it seems that not only is VTES better than sex, it's also at least 365.25 times better than having a happy and meaningful relationship with a woman. :-D [ quoted text not captured ]

h...@iki.fi.remove.these.to.reply.invalid expounded: > > joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote: > > > I don't even play once a week, prefer my air polluted and can't keep > > > seeing a girl for more than 10 days before I get bored. :-) > > tobiasop...@hotmail.com (Tobias) wrote: > > Hmmm... 10 years of VTES, 10 days of same girl.... > > > > :) > > So it seems that not only is VTES better than sex, it's also at least > 365.25 times better than having a happy and meaningful relationship with a > woman. :-D Have you tried teaching them to play VTES?

David Cherryholmes expounded: > > Of course, I can fully understand it, if you play tons of games, > > always run up against the same types of decks, always see the 'easy' > > S&B perform well, always see those DI's and DT's (Hi, Kamel! ;) ), > > always see AR - you might get fed up with it a little. > > This was true for me until recently. Some old blood dropped out, and some > fresh blood came in, and out metagame is a lot more mixed than it once > was. We just had a few players that were more interested in playing the > same deck over and over than trying something new and losing. In > hindsight, those players were perfroming a valuable service by creating a > very tournament-like environment for the rest of us to bounce goofy crap > around in. Weird. I like playing decks until I can win with them consistently. If that happens I'm likely to get bored of it pretty quickly.

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003, Timlagor wrote: > Weird. I like playing decks until I can win with them consistently. If > that happens I'm likely to get bored of it pretty quickly. Me too. Not everyone feels that way, apparently. One friend had his one Jyhad deck, pure Malk 1994 Bleed, that he played every game for, oh, at least a year. He said he didn't have time to build anything, so it was either play that or not at all. He's since gone on to build lots of other stuff, though (some of it wicked good.... I think he's got weenie fortitude about as good as it can be). He's also the last active holdover from The Weenie Years. Sorry for the ramble. Personally, I like hearing about players and decks. If there's any possiblity of putting the metagame together, it's by lots and lots of that. [ quoted text not captured ]

Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.19da64266...@news.freeserve.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Yes, i was his Prey. I ousted all others (Maybe 1 got someone else before, don't remember exactly. But anyway i made either 3 or 4 VP's), then we both withdrew as agreed.

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu>... > On 23 Sep 2003, Tobias wrote: > > > So we have some obvious powerhouses. We could try to level the playing > > field, giving everyone a fair shot, making it wholly unpredictable > > what you would see on the table. > > I would like this. I wouldn't mind, if handled carefully. And we all know LSJ cares about balance. > > Of course, I can fully understand it, if you play tons of games, > > always run up against the same types of decks, always see the 'easy' > > S&B perform well, always see those DI's and DT's (Hi, Kamel! ;) ), > > always see AR - you might get fed up with it a little. > > This was true for me until recently. Some old blood dropped out, and some > fresh blood came in, and out metagame is a lot more mixed than it once > was. Yes, you've mentioned this, and we've mailed about it. I wholly understand where you're coming from. (Although I'm happy to hear the new blood's working out well). > We just had a few players that were more interested in playing the > same deck over and over than trying something new and losing. In > hindsight, those players were perfroming a valuable service by creating a > very tournament-like environment for the rest of us to bounce goofy crap > around in. Of course, that could be a problem with the players as much as the existence of powerhouse decks. Although I guess they would naturally gravitate to something that works well. Must be really annoying to play the same pile of crap every time and get your butt handed to you. > > The best remedy would probably to play the game a bit less. Go out in > > the fresh air with your girl. :) > > I think it would be worse for a person who holds this opinion, and only > gets to play occasionally. Even when I'm getting pounded by mold, I know > the next game isn't very far away. True enough. I guess we're blessed with a lot of variation over here in the Netherlands. Only a few people really run with a concept for more than 1-2 tournaments. -- Tobias Deventer

Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.19da64266...@news.freeserve.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] In fact, he gets 3 vp ad GW. The lasombra (muy grand predator have ousted rubens, the malky. We agreed on a mutual withdraw (deal 3/2, then 3/1). Kamel SENNI.

Angus, the Unruled expounded: [ quoted text not captured ] Ah. Well I take that back then. It wasn't sillyat all: great play, well done. I can see that the rest of the table will have a long and abiding hate of ARs after that :)

> > I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is > > over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of > > Western Europe, BTW. > > My impression of Western Europe, gained solely from reading this NG, is > that there are indeed a *lot* of people content to keep playing Malk S+B > decks. I think that happens because it is extremely easier to build a deck this way with a collection of fewer cards than any other archetype. Get one or two Malk pre-con decks, or one and a few cards with a friend, and you're ready to go. With a Cam booster display (to get a better crypt and a few more cards) you're probably up to reach the finals of a tournament. Alternatively, combat decks need a lot of different cards you won't find easily in a pre-con, or won't find in good amounts. Compare the Malks with Assamites, Brujah, Nossie or Gangrel ones: you get some kind of combat-toolboxy approach, and won't be able to counter a few dodges or S:CE. And the cards to circumvent this are often uncommon or even rare, and anyone who owns them often use all they have in their decks already and won't pass along. And we haven't talk yet of the really good combat vamps, like Tariq, Pascek or the 6-cap !Nossies with all-in-superior disciplines. I've been buying cards since December 2002. I'd love to play a tournament seriously with a Brujah or !Nossie deck, but how could I do this with only one IG? Got one Gio pre-con, two Assamite, one Malk, one Nossie, one Toreador, one Barons and tons of Cam, Final Nights and Anarch boosters (up to the equivalent of two booster displays, I think), and I own only one IG. So i'm stuck to the assamites (5 Psyche! cards is fine, I think) when I'm planning reliable combat, and it took me months to get alternatives on them (more Fatimas, Tariqs, Tegyrius, Clandestine Contracts instead of master Contracts, more Market Squares for some intercept etc.). And I don't own yet the necessary Freak Drives to try the Fatima-with-an-assault-rifle multirush archetype. It's not a surprise that I've made only one VP in 4 tournaments when playing decks that not rely on votes, bloat or stealth-bleed. And made my way to a final when I was not ashamed of trying the tap-and-bleed-big Gio archetype. You do want to make combat viable in tournaments? Make IG and other anti-S:CE easier to draw on boosters. We don't need to be afraid to make them common. we'll see more combat decks, and rushing your predator won't be an issue since he's probably been rushed by *his* predator. In all tournaments i've played, the problem is not relying on Fame/Tension and rush actions to win; the problem is that archetype is often represented by only one courageous soul in a five-player table. Every table that happens to get two or more combat monsters tend to be far more balanced, no matter if the other three are using bounce, vote, bloat, S+B or whatever. And it would help a lot to get new players, since occasional VTES tournament attendants that get used to the S+B archetype are the ones who often become quickly bored with the game - "is that all there is? i'll come back to pen-and-paper, thanks..." []s the_capuchin - just my two cents

Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.19db5ae72...@news.freeserve.com>... > Angus, the Unruled expounded: > > Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<MPG.19da64266...@news.freeserve.com>... > > > Angus, the Unruled expounded: > > > > > > (for the story, suddenly, i became the best friend of my prey, who > > > > > > started to give me pool, and blocked via eagle sight the bleeds of my > > > > > > predator. And i get my VP...). > > > > > > > > > > That's just silly though. > > > > > > > > Silly maybe, but it got me a GW with 4 (IIRC) VP's. > > > > > > Er. Were you the prey? I assumed he got the VP from his prey dying.. was > > > it a withdraw? > > > > Yes, i was his Prey. > > I ousted all others (Maybe 1 got someone else before, don't remember > > exactly. But anyway i made either 3 or 4 VP's), then we both withdrew > > as agreed. > > Ah. > Well I take that back then. It wasn't sillyat all: great play, well > done. > I can see that the rest of the table will have a long and abiding hate > of ARs after that :) I suppose their hate would concentrate more on Succubus club. PS: I hate it too

joen...@hotmail.com (Jeroen) wrote in message news:<5f0d2397.03092...@posting.google.com>... > Hi, Hi again Jeroen. After some more thinking, I posted a bit more of a reply, but of course computer SNAFU's prevented some of that. Another attempt. > Last weekend I've been talking to a number of people who regularly go > to tourneys and who are competitive players. A couple of general > remarks about the state of the game really came up regularly. I agree > with most of them, BTW. > > 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. > > Reason is obvious: these are the only 2 disciplines that have acces to > bounce. To make matters worse: dominate is already (one of?) the > strongest disciplines in the game. They're not the strongest disciplines because of their bounce, I think, but of what they do in ADDITION to their bounce. Some of those effects are scary even without the bounce effect. And bounce is only powerful when bleed is powerful. Bleed is powerful (especially in the form of dominate) because within the same discipline (generally DOM or PRE) other powerful effects can be found - bounce, obedience and seduction in case of dom, vote push/voter cap/s:ce in case of presence. Would a disicpline that only had bounce cards be worth playing? Not unless it doesn't force too difficult a crypt selection. Would dominate and auspex be worth playing without their bounce? Yes. What might the game be like if bounce was not found in dominate and auspex, but in potence, thaumaturgy, protean or serpentis? > Why is there still no (inferior) bounce card for others? > disciplineless? Or maybe a master card? Or ,alternativly, more > vampires with dom/DOM or AUS as an out-of-clan discipline. And I mean > enough vampires for each clan. Enough of those vampires for each clan will make them all way too alike and only increase the problem (as much as there is one). Disciplineless bounce would make bounce (much) more prevalent, reducing the power of bleed decks. Whether that's a good thing depends on your viewpoint. Note that Dummy corporation, while not a disciplineless bounce, may be a master that was made with your observations as a reason. > 2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. <snip> > * Big chance of killing your predator and getting a new one who still > has al his vampires and kan probaly kill you in one turn. It's a defense where you are getting very little in the way of hurting your prey for your efforts (both in actions and cards). Going too much against your predator is totally counter to what most s&B decks do - going (sometimes too much as well) against your prey. > * Less 'ousting power' even with Fame and Tension. This means that you > CAN win a table, but sweeping is almost impossible. Not so for vote or > bleed decks. > * and, of course, the real killer, IMO: combat is too card-intensive. > Not only will you deck yourself really fast, but you don't have lots > of room for other things. The chance for handjam is bigger too, > because of the larger combo's you need. The card-intensiveness combines with the ousting power issue as well. What would the effect be of a card that would make your PREY lose a pool for every minion that was torporized/burnt ANYWHERE on the table? Another issue is that combat is opposed by at least as many countering methods as S&B are and Vote is. Maybe more? > 3. Delaying tactics > > There's nothing realy wrong with this card. BUT once everyone is > packing 2-4 of them it really stops political decks from doing > anything. I've seen and played games like this. It really sucks to be > the vote deck. It can be somewhat frustrating, yes.... :) > Related: people do have a reason to put this much DT > in a deck. Protect thine own comes to mind, and VP sniping with > Dramatic upheavel or Kindred Restructure. Yup. Just as bounce is powerful when bleed is powerful, so DT is powerful when vote is powerful. It becomes a problem when every deck MUST contain certain cards to survive. So, how much evidence is there REALLY of decks needing DT/bounce to survive/win? (I mean counting TDWA or upcoming reports, whatever). Or, using bounce/DT to perform more effectively than decks without them? > 4. Succubus Club again. > > Nothing really against the card itself but 2 things about it really > bug me. > * the BIG one: slows the game down TREMENDOUSLY. A succubus club in > play alone should be reason enough to get an extra 30 minutes of game > time. > * threats of Power Self-Ousting. (Yes, kamel, this means you ;) ) > the tactic of threatening the rest of the table into helping you get > VP's because you can self-oust by giving everything you have (pool, > minions and masters) to their prey. Kinda sucks to be on the > receiving end of that. It's a card that leads quickly into the grey areas where a judge might be required. It does slow the game down immensely, sometimes. Don't know how to improve that. > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. > > I know a lot of you are gonna say: "not over here". But it sure is > over here and on the most places I have played. That is most of > Western Europe, BTW. Vote decks seem to have lost their 'oomph' and I > can't figure out why. Yes, CE vamps with votes are bigger, but the > old Group 1&2 vamps are still around... Maybe because of the change > to 5th tradition? and, of course, see nr. 3 above. And the rise of > the number of DI in almost every deck? Just pure effectiveness is the base for S&B's success, I guess. Requires little setup, and with just one obf/dom minion you can be starting the hurt, early, fast, and hard. Of course it's really vulnerable some things as well, but because those other 'things' (combat, for instance) hold less of a guarantee of getting (multiple) ousts, there'll be relatively few of them around. Tobias Deventer

On 24 Sep 2003 06:48:00 -0700, fa...@cohesp.com.br (the_capuchin) scrawled: >You do want to make combat viable in tournaments? Make IG and other >anti-S:CE easier to draw on boosters. We don't need to be afraid to IG has already dropped from being rare to uncommon. Psyche has always been uncommon. I think if you make them common, people who _don't_ want to play anti-s:ce combat are going to find they have too many sitting around doing nothing, AND the people who were already playing with them will get pissed off because there hard to get cards they traded for are suddenly commons... salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm

On 24 Sep 2003 07:31:42 -0700, tobiasop...@hotmail.com (Tobias) scrawled: [sni] >Would a disicpline that only had bounce cards be worth playing? Not >unless it doesn't force too difficult a crypt selection. Would >dominate and auspex be worth playing without their bounce? Yes. > >What might the game be like if bounce was not found in dominate and >auspex, but in potence, thaumaturgy, protean or serpentis? hmmm....if dominate and auspex are still worth playing without their bounce, and if bounce were found in thaumaturgy....well, Go Tremere! hmmm...another substanceless post by me.... [ quoted text not captured ]

David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSO.4.21.03092...@petsparc.duhs.duke.edu>... [ quoted text not captured ] We think alike, on this one. A bit further downthread I ramble some things which agree with this. If you're the 'lone' decktype, you're happy if you're vote. Maybe some of the combat afficionado's can give some comments on how happy they'd be to be on a 4 S&B and one combat guy table. Better or worse than having another combat deck on the table? > > > And, if you're shooting to make the final, maybe you can expect the > > likelyhood of S&B (or some sort of heavy bleeder) to go up. So if you > > want to WIN that final... > > Uh.... play a combat god that doesn't cost more than 8 and has > fortitude? Not that I think combat is the end-all, be-all, but we're > talking about alternatives to bounce here, right? > > David Cherryholmes > Duke Radiology > P.E.T. Facility > (919) 684-7714 > david.che...@duke.edu Tobias Deventer

On 24 Sep 2003, Tobias wrote: > Maybe some of the combat afficionado's can give some comments on how > happy they'd be to be on a 4 S&B and one combat guy table. Better or > worse than having another combat deck on the table? When I play a combat deck, I'm always more worried about other combat decks than I am S+B or vote. I assume I can take those guys out, and I build decks that can move quickly by turn three. It's those first three turns that may spell disaster, if you have a predator that is just that quick. If I've made it that far, it's usually only trump combat or the various things that are the bane of one-vampire decks that will take me down, and I mitigate the one-vampire weaknesses as much as possible with a "one big guy and a few nerds" crypt. If I were playing weenie rush, I'd be less concerned about the three turn window, and more concerned with trump combat and card flow in general. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Tobias" <tobiasop...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:8aa6db00.0309...@posting.google.com... > > Maybe some of the combat afficionado's can give some comments on how > happy they'd be to be on a 4 S&B and one combat guy table. Better or > worse than having another combat deck on the table? Depends on: if the combat kills yours, and if one of the bleeders who is not your predator can bleed you directly. If the combat kills yours then you are hampered into Dying if they are your prey/predator, or having to get them killed. If you kill their combat, great! If its you and 4 S&B then you kill your predators deflectors, and try and kill your prey as fast as possible. Try to act like you don't have rushes for a little bit. If they see you as the threat and its 4v1 you are probably toast 2v1 is much better. If your prey can bleed backwards you are probably screwed as you have to kill two decks at once. Or just keep talking until things go your way, ; ). Colin Riggs why did I always get sore throats during tournaments?

"Jeff Kuta" <jeff...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:621dd332.03092...@posting.google.com... > Anyway, there are plenty of examples where things could change among > the clans. It is a tricky situation for White Wolf to be in I would > imagine. They have an expansion design/release schedule they need to > meet. More importantly, each new set/expansion is structurally > intended for a relatively narrow set of clans--it would have been odd > to include a brand new Necromancy action in the Camarilla Edition. That's why we had Abomination and Mythic Form in Final Nights, a set full of werewolves and gangrels :p

> Have you tried teaching them to play VTES? Oh man. I've got some horror stories about that, boyo. :) noodleboy

On 25 Sep 2003 18:00:03 -0700, nood...@iprimus.net.au (noodleboy) scrawled: >> Have you tried teaching them to play VTES? > >Oh man. > >I've got some horror stories about that, boyo. :) me too! not my girl, but my housemates. wasn't great while they were going out. after they broke up...it was eleventy billion times worse. [ quoted text not captured ]

> 1. For a deck to do well consistently NEEDS Auspex or Dominate. You can play also - heavy rush, through allies (WG, garou), beware of the restructure - heavy rush through minions (based on POT) though you can be screwed by lamers who play ^protean "can't win" decks - animalism based intecept, which is very fast and efficient - even faster offense, like weenie PRE (by the way, I can't understand why people rant against this definitely non broken archetype) or DEM obf aus (no redirections) bleed - mass bloat, like in an Anson Mtap Golconda Parthenon deck And by the way, dom and AUS are among the more commonly found out-of-clan disciplines > 2. Combat can win, but is less reliable than the other 2 deck types. > reasons for this: > * other combat decks. > * you're prey and predator will work together when you're a combat > deck by rescuing each other's minions. Something you cannot block. And > trying to burn minions will only increase the card-intensitivity (is > that a word?). Especially because you need to work around s:ce. I just cut the reasons from your list I did not agree. May I mention that cards like pulled fangs or graverobbing are interesting alternatives to burning vampires. However, for me, the worse problem is other combat decks that can screw you too easily, you can't have a deck that can handle any combat deck during a fight appart if you are a <insert rude terms> who plays many combat cards, nbo rush and then whines at the S&B that kille dhim. > 3. Delaying tactics > > There's nothing realy wrong with this card. BUT once everyone is > packing 2-4 of them it really stops political decks from doing > anything. I've seen and played games like this. It really sucks to be > the vote deck. Related: people do have a reason to put this much DT > in a deck. Protect thine own comes to mind, and VP sniping with > Dramatic upheavel or Kindred Restructure. I think Direct intervention is far more of a problem than delaying. Delaying delays things for one turn. DI shuts your vote, removing the usefullness of playing original, creative votes > 4. Succubus Club again. I agree with you. This card should be banned, it leaves too much place for kingmaking, and there are yet enough cards that can allow cross table nteraction and dealmaking. The card by itself is interesting, but self oustiing or table splitting with succubus are too easy. > 5 S&b is still the most powerfull archtype. Yes, though it can sometimes be beaten 6 DI screws any original/opportunist deck. Interesting, innovative, creative combo decks are too easily shut down by DI. A combat deck can get his hand jammed by a DI on drawing out the beast, Immortal grapple and any such "once each combat" cards. A cross table DI on a redirection can kill you. As opposed to this, a S&B that is DI ed simply needs to play a different stelth or bleed card. DI is a cheesy, too polyvalent defense, that doesn't help you win that much, but that easily allows you to make someone loose. It helps S&B, uncreative decks and can shut down combo decks too easily. Moreover, as Jyhad relies on timing and on the faculty to attack at the right moment, DI can destroy your timing cross-table, and screw your carefully planned oust.

salem_ch...@yahoo.com writes: >(the_capuchin) scrawled: >>You do want to make combat viable in >>tournaments? Make IG and other >>anti-S:CE easier to draw on boosters. >>We don't need to be afraid to >IG has already dropped from being rare to >uncommon. Psyche has always >been uncommon. I think if you make them >common, people who _don't_ >want to play anti-s:ce combat are going >to find they have too many >sitting around doing nothing, AND the >people who were already playing >with them will get pissed off because >there hard to get cards they >traded for are suddenly commons... I think being friendly to new players is far more important than protecting the financial value of small parts of existing players' collections. IG is too rare as uncommon; it would be too common as a common but since it's such a staple card that's OK. Ditto Psyche, although I personally find I have enough of that - perhaps because I don't have any really aggressive CEL combat decks at the moment. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

<snip> Not seeing your point, brother - the tournament scene is just window-dressing, don't forget - the game is WAAAAY bigger than that!

On 26 Sep 2003 10:28:44 -0700, e...@boursorama.com (Emmanuel Martin) scrawled: >6 DI screws any original/opportunist deck. >Interesting, innovative, creative combo decks are too easily shut down >by DI. A combat deck can get his hand jammed by a DI on drawing out >the beast, Immortal grapple and any such "once each combat" cards. True. which is why good decks can still function if they're missing a part of their combo. It's just as bad as if you hadn't drawn into that particular card of your combo. with the bonus that the DI'er loses their next master phase action and one pool. > A >cross table DI on a redirection can kill you. I don't see many cross-table people actually benefitting from doing something like thus. Sure, in the odd corner case, but in general, most people don't want to see anyone but their prey die. And even more so when it would cost them a MPA and a pool. > As opposed to this, a >S&B that is DI >ed simply needs to play a different stelth or bleed card. DI is a >cheesy, too polyvalent defense, that doesn't help you win that much, >but that easily allows you to make someone loose. >It helps S&B, uncreative decks and can shut down combo decks too >easily. Moreover, as Jyhad relies on timing and on the faculty to >attack at the right moment, DI can destroy your timing cross-table, >and screw your carefully planned oust. Plan better. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

"legbiter" <legb...@mailandnews.com> schreef in bericht news:22fea992.03092...@posting.google.com... > <snip> > > Not seeing your point, brother - the tournament scene is just > window-dressing, don't forget - the game is WAAAAY bigger than that! I know. I was, of course, only refering to tournement play.

salem <salem_ch...@yahoo.com> wrote > > DI is a > >cheesy, too polyvalent defense, that doesn't help you win that much Played well, of course it helps you win. You can DI the Majesty played by your prey's minion with Fame, thus allowing it to go to torpor (ousting your prey with the loss of 3 pool). You can DI the reaction card played by your prey's minion when you have Deflected or Redirected a bleed to him, ousting your prey with your predator's bleed. Those are common, non-cornercase solutions that might earn you a VP. -- james o'rance http://www.geocities.com/dragon-dreamer/vampire