New, some questions.

Hi, I started collecting V:TES when it first came out, even some Jhyad too, but I stopped because there was no-one to play them with, and although they were 'pretty' it wasn't justifying the cost per booster. I've just picked up a black hand started (tremere anti) with the intention of trying to start playing again, but I'm curious on some points. 1: Does this game have 'blocks' like magic? So that X expansion is the current legal one for tourneys, or X and Y, etc? Or does it mean all the cards I had from the first base set of VTES are legal along side these new black hand cards? (I see blood-doll at least has been reprinted from the base set). 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly dominated by GW and MTG) have any set requirements to deck building? (possibly related to question 1) 3: (a downer question) if the answer to 1 is "no block rules, any card is legal" does that mean, to be any good at this game I need to purchase as much as I can from 6 different expansions plus a base set? This was one of the reasons I stopped magic for a while, was because no matter how many cards you had, you always needed more. Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's enough people to play it. Chris

Chris wrote: > 1: Does this game have 'blocks' like magic? So that X expansion is the > current legal one for tourneys, or X and Y, etc? Or does it mean all the > cards I had from the first base set of VTES are legal along side these new > black hand cards? (I see blood-doll at least has been reprinted from the > base set). Library: No restriction. Crypt: Yes. You can't use vampires that aren't from consecutive groups. Currently, there are three groups, so you can't use vamps from group 1 and 3 in the same crypt, but 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 are both legal. A vamp's group number is in the lower left corner of their portrait (3 for most Black Hand vamps). A vamp without a group number is group 1 if they don't have an expansion symbol in the upper right corner (the base Jyhad and V:teS sets), and group 2 if they do (Sabbat, Dark Sovereigns, Ancient Hearts, Final Nights, Bloodlines). Camarilla, Anarchs, and Black Hand all have the group numbers. Reprints are for people who couldn't get the cards the first time around. Camarilla, for example, was mostly reprints as far as library cards are concerned. Boosters (as opposed to starter decks) don't contain reprints, though (Camarilla being an exception). > 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly > dominated by GW and MTG) have any set requirements to deck building? > (possibly related to question 1) 12 card crypt minimum (no max), 60-90 card library. Using a mix of Jyhad-backed and Vampire-backed cards is legal, as long as you're not marking the deck (judge's call). Every year, there's a "Storyline" tournament, which has the restriction that 75% of your crypt has to be of the same clan. But that's the exception. > 3: (a downer question) if the answer to 1 is "no block rules, any card is > legal" does that mean, to be any good at this game I need to purchase as > much as I can from 6 different expansions plus a base set? This was one of > the reasons I stopped magic for a while, was because no matter how many > cards you had, you always needed more. No. You can make a reasonably good deck from just the commons in the Jyhad/V:tES set. It won't be original, and you won't get points for creativity, but you can do it. Typically, for any given deck style, there are a few key cards you will need, and anything else is gravy. For instance, a deck using Potence will pretty much need Immortal Grapples and Tastes of Vitae. Blood Dolls are useful in just about any deck. The more sets you have, the higher variety of decks you can make, but unlike M:tG, where rares are inherently better than commons/uncommons, here they're just rarer: they may be more useful, but only in more specialized instances. Also, the sets revolve around a theme. For instance, if you want to play Followers of Set, you'd want to pick up cards from Ancient Hearts (if you could) and Final Nights, but wouldn't necessarily benefit (hugely) from Camarilla or Black Hand. > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > enough people to play it. Check here: http://206.65.59.246/vtes/calendar/princes.tpl Also, finally, since you're from M:tG, you should note that V:tES doesn't have card limits. --Colin McGuigan

> Crypt: Yes. You can't use vampires that aren't from consecutive groups. > Currently, there are three groups, so you can't use vamps from group 1 > and 3 in the same crypt, but 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 are both legal. A > vamp's group number is in the lower left corner of their portrait (3 for > most Black Hand vamps). A vamp without a group number is group 1 if > they don't have an expansion symbol in the upper right corner (the base > Jyhad and V:teS sets), and group 2 if they do (Sabbat, Dark Sovereigns, > Ancient Hearts, Final Nights, Bloodlines). Camarilla, Anarchs, and > Black Hand all have the group numbers. So I could just pick up Cam, Anarchs and Black Hand, and be satisfied that I can make a decent-ish deck? Also, when does the new card design come in? I imagine if the group numbers appear in Cam, then it starts there? > > Reprints are for people who couldn't get the cards the first time > around. Camarilla, for example, was mostly reprints as far as library > cards are concerned. Boosters (as opposed to starter decks) don't > contain reprints, though (Camarilla being an exception). So Camarilla is the set to hit if I want to start picking up the new cards? > > > 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly > > dominated by GW and MTG) have any set requirements to deck building? > > (possibly related to question 1) > > 12 card crypt minimum (no max), 60-90 card library. Using a mix of > Jyhad-backed and Vampire-backed cards is legal, as long as you're not > marking the deck (judge's call). I can sleeve the cards. Most of my old VTES are sleeved, because they were not really cared for (I was going to cut the vamp pics out to decorate things with, until I realised recently that they have some play value), and now I'm worried about them getting too much damage. > Every year, there's a "Storyline" tournament, which has the restriction > that 75% of your crypt has to be of the same clan. But that's the > exception. I heard something about that. I'd prefer to stick with 1 clan at the moment as it makes things easier. > > 3: (a downer question) if the answer to 1 is "no block rules, any card is > > legal" does that mean, to be any good at this game I need to purchase as > > much as I can from 6 different expansions plus a base set? This was one of > > the reasons I stopped magic for a while, was because no matter how many > > cards you had, you always needed more. > > No. You can make a reasonably good deck from just the commons in the > Jyhad/V:tES set. It won't be original, and you won't get points for > creativity, but you can do it. Typically, for any given deck style, > there are a few key cards you will need, and anything else is gravy. > For instance, a deck using Potence will pretty much need Immortal > Grapples and Tastes of Vitae. Blood Dolls are useful in just about any > deck. Well I know a store that sells commons of VTES for 5p (2c-ish) each (base set onwards) so I can always delve into there, plus the boosters are (wonderfully) cheaper than MTG so I can pick up some old boosters too. > The more sets you have, the higher variety of decks you can make, but > unlike M:tG, where rares are inherently better than commons/uncommons, > here they're just rarer: they may be more useful, but only in more > specialized instances. > > Also, the sets revolve around a theme. For instance, if you want to > play Followers of Set, you'd want to pick up cards from Ancient Hearts > (if you could) and Final Nights, but wouldn't necessarily benefit > (hugely) from Camarilla or Black Hand. At the moment, the most vamps I have from the old sets is Malk/Trem, but I'd like to store those cards away for the moment and focus on the new cards, then when I'm much better at deck building I can revive the old cards. > > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > > enough people to play it. > > Check here: > > http://206.65.59.246/vtes/calendar/princes.tpl > > Also, finally, since you're from M:tG, you should note that V:tES > doesn't have card limits. I was wondering at the 5-of-a-card, apparent in the starter deck of black hand. I looked at some decks on the VTES forums but it doesn't seem many people use this "no limits" rules much (i.e. like 5 of army of rats or something). > --Colin McGuigan > Another query, is looking at TcardsUK.com, they have the Anarchs sets in, but their starters seem different. "Baron" "Gang" and "Gangrel". Are barons and gangs just mixed vampires? I'm going to try and get in a starter from each set to get a new card-base, but I dnno what barons and gangs involves. Thanks again :)

Chris wrote: > I've just picked up a black hand started (tremere anti) with the intention > of trying to start playing again, but I'm curious on some points. Good., good! > > 1: Does this game have 'blocks' like magic? So that X expansion is the > current legal one for tourneys, or X and Y, etc? Or does it mean all the > cards I had from the first base set of VTES are legal along side these new > black hand cards? (I see blood-doll at least has been reprinted from the > base set). Nope. Well, not really. In your library, you can use any cards you want. In your crypt, you can combine Group 1 (vampires from the original Jyhad or VTES set) and Group 2 (any vampire with an expansion symbol but no group number--i.e. vamps from Dark Soverigns, Ancient Hearts, Sabbat, Sabbat War, Final Nights, Bloodlines) or Group 2 and Group 3 (any vampire with a 3 as a group indicator). You can't combine Group 1 and Group 3 vampires. Theoretically, there could be Group 4 vampires introduced, in which case you could have a Group 1+2 crypt, a Group 2+3, or Group 3+4 crypt, but there aren't any group 4 vampires yet. > > 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly > dominated by GW and MTG) have any set requirements to deck building? > (possibly related to question 1) 12 vampires in crypt (with legal groupings). A library of 60-90 cards. VTES does not have any per-card card limits, so if you wanted to make a deck that consists of 12 KoKos and 90 Nosferatu Putrescences, you could. > > 3: (a downer question) if the answer to 1 is "no block rules, any card is > legal" does that mean, to be any good at this game I need to purchase as > much as I can from 6 different expansions plus a base set? This was one of > the reasons I stopped magic for a while, was because no matter how many > cards you had, you always needed more. Nah. This game is very egalatarian--you mostly need just commons (there are very few "power rares", and even those that could be called that aren't really necessary), and you can usually find commons in bulk for not much money on the internet. Good, old Malkavian Stealth and Bleed (use Malkavians with Obfuscate and Dominate, fill your deck with stealth and bleed modifiers and just go to town) is *still* a winning deck strategy and can be made with nothing but commons. In terms of the expansions/sets: -Jyhad/VTES: Lots of good cards. Staple of the game. You can still win using nothing but basic Jyhad cards. -Dark Soverigns: Fairly sketchy. Most important cards have been reprinted in later expansions. -Ancient Hearts: Same as above. -Sabbat: Lots of good cards, but most of this set was reprinted in Sabbat War or in other expansions. -Sabbat War: Mostly reprints of Sabbat. Starter decks are worth getting. -Final Nights: Good expansion, but really only necessary if you are going to play the clans if focuses on (Assamites, Ravanos, Settites, Giovanni). -Bloodlines: Fun, but kind of a fringe stand alone. Unecessary for competition. -Camarilla: Basically an updated base set. Good, staple stuff. -Anarchs: Fun, but also kind of fringe and stand alone. -Black Hand: Very good set, with lots of good cards for everyone. > > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > enough people to play it. Good luck, Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "The gun is good! The penis is bad!" -Zardoz

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003 02:27:54 -0000, "Chris" <Chris....@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: >So I could just pick up Cam, Anarchs and Black Hand, and be satisfied that I >can make a decent-ish deck? Also, when does the new card design come in? I >imagine if the group numbers appear in Cam, then it starts there? Camarilla & Black Hand, yes. Anarchs, not so much. :) There's currently an "interesting" thread ranging over the merits and flaws of the Anarch set. I'd stay away from it (the set, not the thread) for the time being, unless you like the concept of Anarchs thematically. It's not really for beginners (even if they used to play way back when). >So Camarilla is the set to hit if I want to start picking up the new cards? If by new cards, you mean new card design, yes. Camarilla was mostly reprints of the Jyhad/V:tES base set, with new vampires. Depending on what clans you like, you might go back and pick up either Sabbat War (Lasombra, Tzimisce, !Ventrue, !Brujah) or Final Nights (Assamites, Followers of Set, Giovanni, Ravnos), but if you have no interest in those clans, I don't think that those sets are by any means required purchases. [Storyline tournaments] >I heard something about that. I'd prefer to stick with 1 clan at the moment >as it makes things easier. A lot of people seem to like this style tournament, and yes, it generally is easier to build beginning decks around one clan. For tips, there was recently an article posted on this newsgroup on deckbuilding for "n00bs" (search on that term, spelled as is, and you should find it). Another resource might be (tooting my own horn) the slightly out-dated (but not vastly so) primer at http://www.waste.org/~xian/geek/jyhad/strategy/deckbuild.html >I was wondering at the 5-of-a-card, apparent in the starter deck of black >hand. I looked at some decks on the VTES forums but it doesn't seem many >people use this "no limits" rules much (i.e. like 5 of army of rats or >something). A lot of this is due to the fact that frequently, you don't need more than 5, 6, 7 copies of a specific card in any deck. Sure, you could have a deck with 30 Majesty in it, but what happens if no one ever gets into combat with you. Those cards become dead weight, jamming your hand, instead of turning into a useful card. Lots of people build for versatility, but even people that try to focus on one trick rarely include more than 12 of any given card in their decks. The few examples I can think of that involve a large number of one card are decks that rely on repeated actions, such as Corruption, Cryptic Mission, or Shadow Twin. Beyond that, very few decks ever need more than 10 or 12 copies of the same card, simply because of the opportunity cost. Or some other fancy term from economics/game theory. Xian parenthetical

Chris wrote: > So I could just pick up Cam, Anarchs and Black Hand, and be satisfied that I > can make a decent-ish deck? Also, when does the new card design come in? I > imagine if the group numbers appear in Cam, then it starts there? I'd probably avoid the Anarchs set, and jost go Camarilla/Black Hand. > So Camarilla is the set to hit if I want to start picking up the new cards? Most of the good/important cards from the previous sets appear in Camarilla boosters/starters. > I heard something about that. I'd prefer to stick with 1 clan at the moment > as it makes things easier. The Storyline tournaments are generally pretty casual, and only compose, like, 1 tournament a year, so don't worry about that as a factor. > Well I know a store that sells commons of VTES for 5p (2c-ish) each (base > set onwards) so I can always delve into there, plus the boosters are > (wonderfully) cheaper than MTG so I can pick up some old boosters too. Oh. Totally go and buy up all the commons you can for disciplines that the clans you like use. In lots of 10. > I was wondering at the 5-of-a-card, apparent in the starter deck of black > hand. I looked at some decks on the VTES forums but it doesn't seem many > people use this "no limits" rules much (i.e. like 5 of army of rats or > something). The game was specifically designed to play with no card limits, and doesn't work so well with card limits. So stay away from them :-) > Another query, is looking at TcardsUK.com, they have the Anarchs sets in, > but their starters seem different. "Baron" "Gang" and "Gangrel". Are barons > and gangs just mixed vampires? I'm going to try and get in a starter from > each set to get a new card-base, but I dnno what barons and gangs involves. Again, the Anarchs set is kind of a fringe expansion--I'd just pick up Camarilla and Black Hand for the time being. The Barons/Gangs decks are kinda kooky mixed vampire decks that focus and various aspects of the Anarchs set. -Peter

Chris wrote: > So I could just pick up Cam, Anarchs and Black Hand, and be satisfied that I > can make a decent-ish deck? Also, when does the new card design come in? I > imagine if the group numbers appear in Cam, then it starts there? Easy ones first: The new card design came in Camarilla. Anarchs (and Black Hand) made the small modification that the name of the card is now fully in the left, whereas in Cam it begins after the green bar. As for decentish: Depends what you're looking for. You won't be able to make any good Assamite/Follower of Set/Giovanni/Ravnos decks without Final Nights. If you like the Camarilla clans, load up on Cam. Black Hand is getting very good reviews from the Sabbat angle. Anarchs...eh. I wouldn't use them as a starting point. > So Camarilla is the set to hit if I want to start picking up the new cards? I'd recommend it. Either it or Black Hand. Personally, I prefer Cam. > I can sleeve the cards. Most of my old VTES are sleeved, because they were > not really cared for (I was going to cut the vamp pics out to decorate > things with, until I realised recently that they have some play value), and > now I'm worried about them getting too much damage. Then it's not a problem. > I was wondering at the 5-of-a-card, apparent in the starter deck of black > hand. I looked at some decks on the VTES forums but it doesn't seem many > people use this "no limits" rules much (i.e. like 5 of army of rats or > something). People may exist who use 4CL or 5CL, but I believe they'd be the minority. The official tournaments are all no card limit. It's legal to have a deck that's, say, 90 computer hackings if you wanted. > Another query, is looking at TcardsUK.com, they have the Anarchs sets in, > but their starters seem different. "Baron" "Gang" and "Gangrel". Are barons > and gangs just mixed vampires? I'm going to try and get in a starter from > each set to get a new card-base, but I dnno what barons and gangs involves. Yes. The Anarch starters are mixed clans, with one of the touted advantages of anarchs being their flexibility (eg, cards with three different inferior discipline effects). You can get a list of what's in each starter here: http://thelasombra.com/decks.htm (Search for 'preconstructed') You can get card text for any card here: http://monger.vekn.org --Colin McGuigan --Colin McGuigan

Hi Chris - Chris wrote: > 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly > dominated by GW and MTG) > . . . > > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > enough people to play it. I snipped all the other stuff, because these two sentences jumped out at me. Don't know where in England you live, but check out <http://206.65.59.246/vtes/calendar/princes.tpl> There are 24+ UK princes, with the Watford, Portsmouth, London, Southsea, and Edinburgh groups appearing the most active here on the Newsgroup. And Milton Keynes too... Hope at least one of these domains is near you! best - chris -- chris shorb <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site) prince of torrance, california *** Into the abyss I'll fall - the eye of Horus Into the eyes of the night - watching me go Green is the cat's eye that glows - in this temple Enter the risen Osiris - risen again - Dickinson

"> > 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly > dominated by GW and MTG) have any set requirements to deck building? > (possibly related to question 1) > > > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > enough people to play it. > > Chris Hey, man. Where in England do you live? Tony Literary Thug.

Chris expounded: > 2: Do the tourneys (if I can get to one, I live in England, and it's mostly > dominated by GW and MTG) have any set requirements to deck building? > (possibly related to question 1) Already answered but just to clarify MINIMUM of 12 vampires in the Crypt; there is NO MAXIMUM CRYPT SIZE. The next tournament I am aware of is at Dragoncon in London and will be a Cam Booster Draft (I think). There is a calendar linked from the WW vtes site. > 3: (a downer question) if the answer to 1 is "no block rules, any card is > legal" does that mean, to be any good at this game I need to purchase as > much as I can from 6 different expansions plus a base set? This was one of > the reasons I stopped magic for a while, was because no matter how many > cards you had, you always needed more. I find that Uncommons are the nuisance cards mostly: Taste of Vitae, Immortal Grapple, and Freak Drive being hard to get enough of. If you have old cards you will probably want to dig out your Blood Dolls too as they are only reprinted in the Starters and you don't get as many as most people like to put in their decks. It is probably a good idea to buy two copies of the *same* Starter. Buying a bunch of commons or buying the starter from the other half of the Clan (eg Tremere anti +Tremere) would probably work :) The only rare I can think of that you could really *need* is Path of Paradox for the Ravnos (not in the Starter and very rare in the FN boosters). I'd steer clear of FN initially anwyway -you're likely to get a lot of cards you don't want as they each have their own Discipline. As everyone has said: don't buy Anarchs until you've tried everything else. > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > enough people to play it. Where are you? If you're in the South, there are regular tournaments in Watford and London and I've heard there is regular play in Milton Keynes, Reading, Portsmouth and Guildford as well. (I play in the latter two). They also play in Cambridge on tuesdays. If you are in the south: where is this shop? www.thelasombra.com is a great site with links to pretty much every other site you might want. Check out the Clan Newsletters archived there for oodles of good advice on building decks and playing them.

Chris wrote: >>Crypt: Yes. You can't use vampires that aren't from consecutive groups. >> Currently, there are three groups, so you can't use vamps from group 1 >>and 3 in the same crypt, but 1 and 2 and 2 and 3 are both legal. A >>vamp's group number is in the lower left corner of their portrait (3 for >>most Black Hand vamps). A vamp without a group number is group 1 if >>they don't have an expansion symbol in the upper right corner (the base >>Jyhad and V:teS sets), and group 2 if they do (Sabbat, Dark Sovereigns, >>Ancient Hearts, Final Nights, Bloodlines). Camarilla, Anarchs, and >>Black Hand all have the group numbers. > > So I could just pick up Cam, Anarchs and Black Hand, and be satisfied that I > can make a decent-ish deck? Also, when does the new card design come in? I > imagine if the group numbers appear in Cam, then it starts there? You can make a decent-ish deck with just Camarilla Edition. Or with just precons (two of the same pre-con mixed together and thinned-down to a particular focus). Black Hand focuses on the Sabbat, so would mix better with cards from the Sabbat expansion or the Sabbat War expansion. Camarilla is where the new look first appeared, yes. >>Reprints are for people who couldn't get the cards the first time >>around. Camarilla, for example, was mostly reprints as far as library >>cards are concerned. Boosters (as opposed to starter decks) don't >>contain reprints, though (Camarilla being an exception). > > So Camarilla is the set to hit if I want to start picking up the new cards? He means that Camarilla Edition had reprints in the boosters, not that it didn't have reprints in the starters. Note also that the Anarchs boosters had reprints of the Gangrel and Protean stuff. > I was wondering at the 5-of-a-card, apparent in the starter deck of black > hand. I looked at some decks on the VTES forums but it doesn't seem many > people use this "no limits" rules much (i.e. like 5 of army of rats or > something). The game depends on inherent limits rather than artificial ones. So putting too many of a single card in your deck may work against you. > Another query, is looking at TcardsUK.com, they have the Anarchs sets in, > but their starters seem different. "Baron" "Gang" and "Gangrel". Are barons > and gangs just mixed vampires? I'm going to try and get in a starter from > each set to get a new card-base, but I dnno what barons and gangs involves. The Barons and Gangs decks are not single-clan, but they are fixed (non-random). -- 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/

Timlagor <Timlagor...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: : Chris expounded: : It is probably a good idea to buy two copies of the *same* Starter. : Buying a bunch of commons or buying the starter from the other half of : the Clan (eg Tremere anti +Tremere) would probably work :) Quite so. With the Black hand starters, it's really easy to get started with some clans. Want to play a Tremere deck? Buy one of the Tremere (Camarilla) and !Tremere (Black Hand) starters or two of either. You can't really go much farther away from the old times of "Buy a pack of boosters and random selection starters and you _may_ be able to put together one or two decks" and this is certainly for the better :) Same goes with malk/!malk, tor/!tor and nos/!nos, with some Final Nights and Anarch starters going somewhat well with other select starters as well. Gives some added flexibility but still you know what you're getting and that you can actually construct a quite an ok and working deck out of those. //T

"Tony" <ztr...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:19048d48.03112...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Wolverhampton, West Midlands

> I find that Uncommons are the nuisance cards mostly: Taste of > Vitae, Immortal Grapple, and Freak Drive being hard to get enough of. If > you have old cards you will probably want to dig out your Blood Dolls > too as they are only reprinted in the Starters and you don't get as many > as most people like to put in their decks. I'll start buying up blood-dolls then ;) > It is probably a good idea to buy two copies of the *same* Starter. > Buying a bunch of commons or buying the starter from the other half of > the Clan (eg Tremere anti +Tremere) would probably work :) > > The only rare I can think of that you could really *need* is Path of > Paradox for the Ravnos (not in the Starter and very rare in the FN > boosters). I'd steer clear of FN initially anwyway -you're likely to get > a lot of cards you don't want as they each have their own Discipline. As > everyone has said: don't buy Anarchs until you've tried everything else. > > > Thanks. I hope to get my friend to play this game, and I know there was a > > prince in my city, so I'm hoping he will start up a club again, if there's > > enough people to play it. > > Where are you? If you're in the South, there are regular tournaments in > Watford and London and I've heard there is regular play in Milton > Keynes, Reading, Portsmouth and Guildford as well. (I play in the latter > two). They also play in Cambridge on tuesdays. > If you are in the south: where is this shop? I live in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, by Birmingham. however, Birmingham doesnt' have any tourneys, and there was a prince for Wolvers, but he doesnt' answer mail anymore. > www.thelasombra.com is a great site with links to pretty much every > other site you might want. Check out the Clan Newsletters archived there > for oodles of good advice on building decks and playing them. I'll check it out, see what I can do with my cards and co. thanks :)