David Naseby wrote:
"But this discussion probably belongs on another thread, or another newsgroup,
away from people who really enjoy the tournament metagame."
Nah. It belongs here. There really isn't much of a tournament meta game in
the states either, as there really aren't that many Jyhad tournaments, so that
isn't really an issue.
Yeah, around here we also tried to play the "Nice guy" Jyhad game for a while,
with no S+B and no damaging votes, but what always ended up happening was that
someone would come to the table with a deck that most other players considered
"too effective", they would win, and everyone would castigate them for playing
a "too good" deck ("Ooh! Look at the big man! He can play Conditioning _and_
Lost in Crowds! Woo!"), or whatever. This would end up pissing off people who
just wanted to play a fun game, yet there was no real good way to quantify what
was "fun". To some players in our group, S+B speed decks were "fun". To other
players, only decks with huge vampires that weren't really good at anything
were "fun". It was a battle ground of opinions.
Then, the game ground down to being based completely on the whims of the
players with the more assertive personalities, and while sure, 3 or 4 players
were happier playing "soft" Jyhad, the other 4 or 5 would have rather played
"hard" Jyhad, but were stuck with the "Nice" rules cause the 3 or 4 "soft"
players were more pursuasive than the other guys. Then everyone started
getting pissed cause, for instance, one contingent though viscious combat decks
were "fun" but S+B decks were unacceptable, but the other contingient
considered combat decks just as lame as S+B decks. And so on and so on.
At some point, our group, as a consensus, decided to build decks that could
"win". This meant that people would be playing S+B decks, KRC decks, and god
knows what else. S+B decks, for instance, are part of the game, and without
them, the whole thing unravels. If everyone plays "to win", everyone tries
really hard to build decks that can compete in an enviornment with S+B or
whatever other kind of "effective" decks came up. Sure, occasionally someone
will try a goofy deck design, and they will get run over, but then they come
back next week with a deck built on the same idea, but more competetive, and
don't get killed the second time around.
We have plenty of different kinds of decks in circulation around here, and they
all win occasionally. Some of the more successful decks around here are:
Brujah Potence Rush combat.
Nosferatu Potence Rush combat.
Nosferatu Animalism intercept.
Malkavian S+B.
Malkavian/Gangrel S:CE/S+B.
All Justicar/IC 10 discipline deck.
Potence/Fortitude combat.
Ravanos intercept/Illusions of Kindred.
Assamite Contract/Blurred Blood Sweat combat.
Tremere Bruise and Bleed.
Potence/Dominate/Fortitude Bruise+Bleed.
As you can see, no single deck style dominates our play circle, and while some
decks are better than others, they all have a chance from the get go, as they
are designed to have a chance.
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
"I was satisfied with my life
before I ate Strawberry Cream Puff."
-Shonen Knife
PDB6 wrote:
> At some point, our group, as a consensus, decided to build decks that could
> "win". This meant that people would be playing S+B decks, KRC decks, and god
> knows what else. S+B decks, for instance, are part of the game, and without
> them, the whole thing unravels. If everyone plays "to win", everyone tries
> really hard to build decks that can compete in an enviornment with S+B or
> whatever other kind of "effective" decks came up. Sure, occasionally someone
> will try a goofy deck design, and they will get run over, but then they come
> back next week with a deck built on the same idea, but more competetive, and
> don't get killed the second time around.
Ahh. I've been wanting to discuss this for a while now. I think this
is the only way the game can be played. I don't think the meta-game
ever comes into its own unless people play to win instead of playing to
show off complex deck designs or 5-card combos. I don't think fun vs.
effective is a true dichotomy. Our effective decks are fun.
If you play "nice" jyhad then you have what people consider "cheese"
decks -- which are anything that anyone else thinks is easy to make and
play or something that is considered an easy winner. The cry of "cheese
deck" seems to fly around quite a bit. Here there is no such thing.
S&B is the deck design most often called Cheesy. In our environment
(and probably yours) S&B has to deal with Rush, players smart enough not
to block a heavy stealth deck, votes, and even faster bleed. Building a
S&B deck then becomes a difficult proposition because the designer has
to examine the metagame to determine weather he'll face heavy or light
interceptors. This then drives the proportions of S and B. If big
bleeders are popular then maybe he takes out 4 Conditioning for 2
Deflections and 2 Wakes. Is Bum's Rush on the rise? Maybe he needs
some Obedience. Haven Uncovereds in vogue? He may need some intercept
and Obedience. If he screws up on any of these decisions he may be left
helpless in combat, or jammed-up with cards that make the deck
ineffective. See, S&B is only cheesy in the "soft" environment that
Peter mentions because those people don't try and stop it, they just try
to shame it away. In the brutal world of "play-to-win" Jyhad all deck
designs require a master's skill and keen meta-game perceptions to be
successful.
I think that the most underestimated skill in Jyhad is being able to see
the movements in the metagame. The better you are at understanding the
metagame the better player you are. Based on what is the current
leanings in deck design, you can make a good deck. If you're really
smart, you can make a great deck that will kick butt on almost anything
in your current environment. This will cause another shift in the
metagame. This time the other players will shift around you. Then its
your turn again. I pulled out a silly old weenie fortitude/Undead
Persistance deck a couple of weeks ago. It seemed the right move. I am
making a killing. In fact, last weekend the deck just smoked a deck
that is being called a "cheese deck" in one of the JOL games. My
Multiple Increased Strenth Burning Wrath deck messed up so many S:CE
type decks that it singlehandedly got Rotschrek back into decks as well
as a meta-game shift towards damage prevention.
I think when the game is played the way your group and my group plays,
there are no "cheese" decks and there are no sure bets. Fun and
effective overlap and the meta-game comes alive!
-Robert Goudie
rrgo...@earthlink.net
> I think when the game is played the way your group and my group plays,
> there are no "cheese" decks and there are no sure bets. Fun and
> effective overlap and the meta-game comes alive!
>
> -Robert Goudie
I'mmm back...
I have to totally agree with this one. The metagame is very important. I
have always watched it closely and tried to exploit any advantage I can
get. This has caused shifts in deck construction and strategy. As others,
like Robert, have realized this the competition has improved greatly. I can
safely say there is no way to certainly dominate in our playgroup anymore.
I have seen some of the cheesiest of "cheese" decks (weenie dominate bleed,
S/B, weenie vote, Thoughts betrayed decks) get torn apart in our playgroup.
I've also seen them win. There is just no set pattern. As the metagame
flows, strategy and tactics need to change.
For example, there is currently a revival of Thoughts Betrayed decks in our
group. So far nobody has directly dealt with this menace (besides making
there own TB deck). I plan to deal it. The metagame will again shift...
Steve Bucy
The lurking wanderer...
>
> PDB6 wrote:
> > At some point, our group, as a consensus, decided to build decks that could
> > "win". This meant that people would be playing S+B decks, KRC decks, and
god
> > knows what else. S+B decks, for instance, are part of the game, and without
> > them, the whole thing unravels. If everyone plays "to win", everyone tries
> > really hard to build decks that can compete in an enviornment with S+B or
> > whatever other kind of "effective" decks came up. Sure, occasionally
someone
> > will try a goofy deck design, and they will get run over, but then they come
> > back next week with a deck built on the same idea, but more competetive, and
> > don't get killed the second time around.
>
> Ahh. I've been wanting to discuss this for a while now. I think this
> is the only way the game can be played. I don't think the meta-game
> ever comes into its own unless people play to win instead of playing to
> show off complex deck designs or 5-card combos. I don't think fun vs.
> effective is a true dichotomy. Our effective decks are fun.
>
At the same time, it's good to depart from traditional deck styles.
"Fun" decks that can also trounce the average Malk S&B bring in the best
of both worlds. Every time I build a deck, I try to think of a really odd
combination and then see how I can take advantage of the combination as
best I could. I thought about the Dawn Op/Weather Control angle
approximately 1 day before I saw it on the newsgroup. I was all ready to
scare the hell out of my competition and then saw that someone else had
already done it... 8)
My Necrophilic Inner Circle deck was designed to get out free Inner
Circle members, fill them to capacity, and then minion tap them down. It
was basically a horde bleed deck which should have overwhelmed my prey
with 10 or more vamps, all bleeding at +1 or higher and with capacity
above 7. Unfortunately, it died due to lack of stealth. The
Protean/Necromancy version is due to follow...
In JOL63, my Brujah sneak & bleed got an amazing draw, and I doubt that
my Anarch Revolting prey will survive. (I hope he's not reading the
newsgroup, or he'll probably make me eat my words.)
So, it *is* possible to make fun decks that win, but it takes some
thought. (Okay, so I haven't actually proved it's possible to *win* with
these decks, but I'm sure it'll happen at some point...)
-Chris
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
There is a counter deck for every deck makeable. Sneak and bleed decks are
unimaginative and ultimately unfulfilling. They can be countered, just as
combat ends types, but they require a great deal of deck space to do so. Among
my stalwart band, we have a general understanding that such decks are a little
on the scummy side and we shy away, though no one gets pissed off if someone
does play such a deck - most players simply combine to take them down before
things get out of hand. New strategies are the lifeblood of any group and S&B
and CE decks diminish this. DOn't impose rules against it, just do whatcha
gotta do.
Robert Goudie wrote:
"Ahh. I've been wanting to discuss this for a while now. I think this is the
only way the game can be played. I don't think the meta-game ever comes into
its own unless people play to win instead of playing to show off complex deck
designs or 5-card combos. I don't think fun vs. effective is a true dichotomy.
Our effective decks are fun."
Testify, brother!
So yeah, the local meta-game dynamic is what the whole game is about. Around
here, for instance, combat decks were big. In fact, there were so many
Immortal Grapple/Rush decks in town that you were virtually assured to have at
least one at every game. For a while, the combat decks were killing every one.
Then some players said "Hey...What if we make decks that can't be killed in
combat?", so people started using decks with Fortitude, and the combat decks
stopped being effective. As a result, most of the combat decks stopped being
used, and the local dynamic swung twards bleeding and such, so all of the
combat defense in the various decks became useless hand jam, and so it started
filtering out. Then a good combat deck showed up at the table, and the whole
thing started again.
If everyone keeps reacting to whatever new decks show up, the game keeps moving
and stays interesting. Without everyone trying their very darndest to kill
their friends, there is no incentive to react.
[ quoted text not captured ]
vampchamp1 wrote:
"Among my stalwart band, we have a general understanding that such decks are a
little on the scummy side and we shy away, though no one gets pissed off if
someone does play such a deck - most players simply combine to take them down
before things get out of hand. New strategies are the lifeblood of any group
and S&B
and CE decks diminish this. DOn't impose rules against it, just do whatcha
gotta do."
But having a general understanding that S+B decks are a little on the scummy
side is effectively imposing a rule against it. Saying "sure, you can play a
S+B deck around here, but if you do A) you are an unimaginitve loser and B) the
entire table is going to completely throw away the normal predator/prey
relationship jut to punish you for breaking our local ethics code." is as
effective a rule prohibiting a particular deck style as oughtright banning it.
S+B decks are part of the game, just like combat decks, vote decks, pool gain
decks, and do nothing useful at all decks. If you remove part of the game,
even with little more than peer pressure, the game falls apart.
Every deck should have some way to deal with most common threats, those being
votes, bleeds, and combat. The way to deal with such things for many decks can
be as general as "Well, anyone who is any sort of threat, I'll beat up..." or
as specific as having Deflections or Delaying Tactics. Building decks with
common defenses in mind is part and parcel of the game.
[ quoted text not captured ]
I don't deny anyone the right to play their S&B decks. They are for the most
part easily countered, but the aount of skill taken to make a truly dastardly
s&B deck is significantly lower than that required to make other varieties of
decks, not to mention the skill necessary to counter it. A few deflections and
pack tactics stop the novice Malkie, for the truly annoying, it becomes ever a
contest of could you find enough intercept?
As I said, no one is denied, we just try to encourage new ideas.
S&B has been done to death and I feel it's time to move on. But I will not
preach to nor make rules for anyone else to do so, just express my own opinion.
Steven Bucy wrote:
> For example, there is currently a revival of Thoughts Betrayed decks in our
> group. So far nobody has directly dealt with this menace (besides making
> there own TB deck). I plan to deal it. The metagame will again shift...
Uh, Steve wasn't kidding. He won the table with an Obedience deck that
made my thoughts betrayed deck helpless. The bastard! Other Obedience
decks were played too.
The other big decks of late have been using Form of Mist to perpetrate
evil. A Kis of Ra deck, and weenie intercept everything deck, gave it a
good butt kickin' this week.
-Robert
Robert Goudie
rrgo...@earthlink.net
>I've also seen them win. There is just no set pattern. As the metagame
>flows, strategy and tactics need to change.
I've been seeing a large influx of new blood into the N.G. so perhaps
it might not be a bad idea to repost whatever article it was that you
guys (Robert? Steve?) wrote about the concept of the Metagame.
Sorrow
---
I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am
anymore |--------------------------------
I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...?
anymore | you never seen anyone try to
I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sorrow wrote:
>
> >I've also seen them win. There is just no set pattern. As the metagame
> >flows, strategy and tactics need to change.
>
> I've been seeing a large influx of new blood into the N.G. so perhaps
> it might not be a bad idea to repost whatever article it was that you
> guys (Robert? Steve?) wrote about the concept of the Metagame.
This was from Richard Garfield's "Lost in the Shuffle" column in an old
Duelist. It was never printed in the newsgroup as far as I know. I'll
summarize.
First, Garfield talked about how when he was younger, he used to break
his deals when he played the game Diplomacy. This deal-breaking won
Richard a few games, but after a while, no one ever trusted him. As he
got older, he began keeping his deals even if it meant losing the
current game. Richard felt that in the end he won more games by being a
man of his word. Each individual game of Diplomacy was part of the
larger game of who won the most.
Also Richard talked about the MIT Mystery Hunt. If you've never heard
of it, various teams compete to find a coin hidden somewhere on the MIT
campus. The location can only be found by solving brutal puzzles (how
about a cryptogram done in an extinct egyptian language) and is usually
solved over the course of a few days. Richard explained that each
puzzle was a game but was part of the larger game. Whether or not to
get a full night's sleep vs. stayin-up to work on puzzles is a meta-game
question. Is the sleep of more value in the long-run than the time
spent by tired minds solving puzzles? Is is better to split up and work
on different puzzles (with 1/2 the brain power) or is it better to keep
everyone on one puzzle at a time? These questions are all questions of
MetaGame moves. Garfield briefly touched upon the subject of card
trading as a metagame move and tournaments as a metagame.
My own example is that of a game of poker. I think of each game of
Jyhad as a hand of poker. I may not win a given hand but each hand is
an opportunity to learn something about the players at my table and the
game in general.Also, there is a certain amount of luck involved in
Jyhad and I try not to get too upset at how any one game goes. I just
figure that in the long run, if I have the better play skills and deck
design skills, I will win more games than the other players.
In Jyhad, one of the more obvious appearances of the Meta Game is the
examination of the play environment and making changes to your decks or
style of play based on that examination. Frankly there are no such
things (as long as the game mechanic and cards are sound) as killer
decks or strategies in Jyhad. That is why the newsgroup gets all upset
when they see the deck that won this tournament or that. You hear the
cries of "That deck sucked. I could beat that deck down easily with my
[insert deck name here] deck." Assuming that the skill of the players
is about equal, the decks that win are the proper decks to be played in
the current game environment. It is my contention that the best VTES
players are those who understand the meta-game best. How quickly can
you go into a new playgroup and figure out how to win? How about a
tournament where you can only judge by the players' reputations what
will be played. If I see Peter at GenCon or somesuch tournament you can
bet that I'll have some way of dealing with a good combat deck. If I
know that a playgroup plays 4-CL and they rarely play using the the DCI
rules, I can probably expect a ton of S:CE and deflections. This is
truly the measure of a great player.
-Robert
Robert Goudie
rrgo...@earthlink.net
made (possibly out of dumb luck) jatis soundis properly possible asthe
andit is a series of complex pu
Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> writes:
>First, Garfield talked about how when he was younger, he used to break
>his deals when he played the game Diplomacy. This deal-breaking won
>Richard a few games, but after a while, no one ever trusted him. As he
>got older, he began keeping his deals even if it meant losing the
>current game. Richard felt that in the end he won more games by being a
>man of his word. Each individual game of Diplomacy was part of the
>larger game of who won the most.
This is the classical "prisoner's dilemma" outcome, followed by the
"iterated prisoner's dilemma".
In the prisoner's dilemma, the best option for personal gain is to
cheat/defect/whatever. But, if the dilemma is iterated (over a
series of games, for example), cooperation produces a better outcome
overall, even though defection would give the better individual
result at each isolated encounter.
--
L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | When a smurf chokes, what
http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sjohnson/home | color does it turn?
Graphics Specialist and V:tES Rulemonger. |