Reduce vs Flick

My feeling is that almost all the time, flicking a bleed is better than merely reducing it. I was wondering if people would like to expand on times when that is wrong. If you don't have access to flick, but do have access to reduce, obviously reduce is better than nothing (Serpentis, Potence, etc). But if you can do either (AUS), then why not flick instead of reduce? witness1 (John Newquist) posted back in January that counter is good if you are going to suffer multiple bleeds of relatively small size (1-3), since TC doesn't tap you, while TM/My Enemy's Enemy/etc does. Is that the only time when Telepathic Counter is better than TM? Oh wait, if you are playing a deck like Robert Scythe's Bartholemew deck (if he's untapped at the beginning of your turn, gain a pool. He Tele Counters and Folderols bleeds). I guess the only other time might be when you don't have a lot of blood on vamps and paying for TM is a challenge. Even then, MyEnemy's Enemy seems like a better bet... I never play with Tele Counter, always opting for Tele Misdirection, esp because it also doubles as intercept. I won't even sprinkle in Tele Counter. But I'm willing to listen to reason and ranting to show me why I'm wrong... Thanks, chris

[ quoted text not captured ] One of the most convincing uses I find for Reduce as a tactic is to cause frustration to your predator, but also it helps you in some cross table situations. My preferred tactic for reduce is to frustrate my predator in three main ways: #1 Handjam: S&B decks HATE choking on stealth... so don't block and reduce instead. Same goes for "Bleed'n'Smash"... let them die on handjam. #2 They flick at you: Reducing flicks at you keep you and your x-table on good terms and also means that your predator has done very little to change your table-state (you can still block, potentially reduce their actions, haven't gotten into a combat with Hektor x-table) #3 Contempt: you aren't blocking their actions, you aren't really doing anything to them... you don't care that they are bleeding you... (insert acting to emphasise your thinly veiled contempt at their feeble attacks on you) while you turn around and do your best to brutally savage your prey. Sure it's a "playing the man" tactic, but in VTES that's all part of the mix. The changes to the way reduce functions with bleeds has pulled back another tactic I would use in an AUS flick-reduce deck. Previously bleeds were reduced against you and not so against your prey, bleed- amounts appeared to reset when you changed target. So I would block and generate some light intercept, then reduce it to suck out any bleed modifiers, then "fail to block" and flick it. My prey has watched me struggling hard to block/reduce something (giving the impression to both Prey & Pred I don't have a flick) and then flick it at them with stealth and +bleed on it.

[ quoted text not captured ] Reasons why reduce is *sometimes* better than bounce (a few, scattered examples, some of which you have mentioned) 1) Inaccessability of AUS or dom with the desired crypt 2) May not want to hurt prey before your turn (i.e. Parity Shift, Personal Involvement) 3) Bounce usually taps the bouncer, where reduction does not (compare an untapped AUS minion fighting a bunch of bleeds of 1-2 vs the same minion trying to bounce all of those bleeds. Bounce. Wake + Bounce. Wake + Bounce (5 cards) vs TC, TC, TC (3 cards, free) 4) Sometimes there are efficiency issues, usually working against reduction, sometimes not (see #3). Depends on the meta. 5) Specific cards' benefits: - Confusion of the eye as reduction/vote hosing -Wrong and Crosswise as reduction/ vote hosing -Ecstacy as helping you tempt minions at SER Note- the first two cards can easily be combined with Malk/!Malk. If you want a pure dem/DEM deck, Wrong and Crosswise is really good. 6) Perverse satisfaction with playing funky cards (I'm looking at you, Raille) Just a few ideas to mull over.... There are obviously good reasons for not using reduce, but the above are a few reasons for using it. Brandon

librarian wrote: > My feeling is that almost all the time, flicking a bleed is better than > merely reducing it. I was wondering if people would like to expand on > times when that is wrong. You mention: no access to bounce, staying untapped to handle multiple small bleeds, and blood management. To that, add: Reduction lets you keep the Edge. If your prey has bounce and her prey does not, reduce may be better than letting your prey further weaken her prey. Likewise, if you're not a bleed deck yourself, bouncing bleed may help your prey "cycle" bounce out of her hand (and draw into the intercept she needs to block your referendums). Bounce can be bounced back to you, leaving you to pay the whole bleed.

On Feb 23, 6:57 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > My feeling is that almost all the time, flicking a bleed is better than > merely reducing it. I was wondering if people would like to expand on > times when that is wrong. Most of the time, bounce is just better. I mean, yeah, once and a while, it goes badly, but for the most part, bounce is just so stupidly powerful and effective than bleed reduction, if you have bounce available, is just not a great idea. The trick is when you don't have bounce available--I really like non Auspex based bounce, and am on record many times that I'd like to see more *good* non Auspex based bleed reduction (i.e. cards that are, like, do something useful at inferior and reduce a bleed by 2 at superior like the super obvious example of "obf: +1 stealth. OBF: Reduce a bleed by 2.") The game has slowly and klunkily been moving in that direction, but I think that most of the non Auspex bleed reduction cards are kind of janky. Truth in Ink is totally reasonable (although it lacks flexibility) and I use it all the time; Nest of Eagles is totally good in moderation for the Assamites. I like Friend of Mine in Anarch decks (although it totally could have been free and still not remotely too good) while I find the free Detect Authority seems less attractive, as Tha usually comes with Dom or Aus anyway. I got a lot of mileage out of Auspex reduction in a weenie aus/obf deck that mostly revolved around Victoria and keeping the edge (which Reduction is more successful at than bounce), which worked ok, but really, bounce would have probably been just all around better. Which is usually the case. > If you don't have access to flick, but do have access to reduce, > obviously reduce is better than nothing (Serpentis, Potence, etc). Exactly. Which is why I'd like to see it show up more. Steadfastness is ok, but only reduces by 1 (which isn't generally worth it, even on a flexible card). Make cards like that that reduce by 2 at superior. > But if you can do either (AUS), then why not flick instead of reduce? > witness1 (John Newquist) posted back in January that counter is good if > you are going to suffer multiple bleeds of relatively small size (1-3), > since TC doesn't tap you, while TM/My Enemy's Enemy/etc does. Is that > the only time when Telepathic Counter is better than TM? Yeah, there was a lot of analysis of this in that thread, and John's situation was a solid one (having bounce and reduction in a single deck is good, as you can reduce the first bleed and then bounce the second on 2 cards, where trying to bounce both bleeds takes 3 due to being tapped the first time, assuming AUS bounce), but for my money, I generally prefer the certainty of one or the other instead of both. But that is me. > I never play with Tele Counter, always opting for Tele Misdirection, esp > because it also doubles as intercept. I won't even sprinkle in Tele > Counter. I'm in the same boat. > But I'm willing to listen to reason and ranting to show me why I'm wrong... I generally don't think you are. Again, if you have no bounce available? I like reduction, and would like to see more of it where no bounce is available. But if you have dom or AUS? Bounce is going to take up the card slots the vast majority of the time. -Peter

A clever prey will work together with your predator to slow you down. A clever predator will work together with your prey to avoid you from getting your VP. An additional reason for not playing flicks/bounces is to avoid your prey from cycling his hand on your predator's bleed. There's also another reason, an extension of something already addressed by brandon on his response (see topic 3 of his message) IMHO, every decision you make to include a card on a deck means leaving out something else that may help you oust your prey and ultimately win the game. Having to create those extra slots to house your flicks will mean you may have to weaken your main deck strategy. Regards, Claudio Gomes

Peter D Bakija wrote: > On Feb 23, 6:57 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: >> But I'm willing to listen to reason and ranting to show me why I'm wrong.... > > I generally don't think you are. Oh, he seems sincere in his willingness to me. :-) (Yeah, I took your comment out of context on purpose. So what? :-) I really did have a moment of shock when first reading your post, as the above is what I read initially, before reading the rest of that paragraph). Also, to my previous list, add Bouncing a bounced bleed from a cross-table buddy to a block-capable Methuselah, which tends to be all of them, is often worse for the cross table ally than reduction would be. Spiteful, even. Thanks for reminding me.

On Feb 23, 8:07 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Oh, he seems sincere in his willingness to me. :-) > > (Yeah, I took your comment out of context on purpose. So what? :-) I really did > have a moment of shock when first reading your post, as the above is what I read > initially, before reading the rest of that paragraph). Heh. I'm not *that* much trouble :-) > Also, to my previous list, add > > Bouncing a bounced bleed from a cross-table buddy to a block-capable Methuselah, > which tends to be all of them, is often worse for the cross table ally than > reduction would be. Spiteful, even. > > Thanks for reminding me. I do what I can. -Peter

We've got a player who played her Slaughterhouse + Brinksmanship deck very often. I found the TC in preference to TM worked a treat to stop that deck. When forced to withdraw if you've got 3 or 4 TCs you can survive the withdraw without a problem.

[ quoted text not captured ] Also one more benefit of reduce over bounce that nobody has mentioned yet... you can't bounce when there is only 2 people left in the game anymore, but reduce still works just fine. You can also easily craft in rather effective reduce module. Just play Isabel de Leon (or any other 3 cap with AUS) and a handful of telepathic counters, you probably wont slow your forward action much by just leaving her untapped every turn to reduce bleeds. She only needs to reduce two bleeds to pay her cost back. Piotr Andreikov works for this too as even cheaper alternative (using truth in ink instead of telepathic counter of course)

On Feb 24, 7:57 am, klaita...@gmail.com wrote: > You can also easily craft in rather effective reduce module. Just play > Isabel de Leon (or any other 3 cap with AUS) and a handful of > telepathic counters, you probably wont slow your forward action much > by just leaving her untapped every turn to reduce bleeds. Sure, but this falls back on the concept of if you are going to have Isabel de Leon and a handful of Telepathic Counters, why not have Isabel de Leon and a handful of Telepathic Misdirections? A handful implies not a ton (6-8?), which means you are unlikely to have multiples in hand at any given time. At which point, bounce is generally a much better option (if you have 1 bleed defense card, you are usually better with the bounce than you are the reduction). That, and the flexibility of it also being +1 intercept (in case your predator doesn't bleed you) makes it even stronger. Yeah, if you have Isabel de Leon standing around, and, like, 15 Telepathic Counters, that is going to be pretty solid bleed defense. But then having 15 Telepathic Counters in your deck comes with all sorts of other problems. -Peter

On Feb 23, 3:57 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > My feeling is that almost all the time, flicking a bleed is better than > merely reducing it. I was wondering if people would like to expand on > times when that is wrong. > > But I'm willing to listen to reason and ranting to show me why I'm wrong... I see reduce as a mindgame. There are various ways it's situationally better, like how a deck is probably going to run out of wakes, jamming a prey on bleed defense, jamming a combat predator on combat, etc. But, the mystery benefit is how much it disguises your deck, throws off your opponents, or whatever. For instance, it's more passive than bounce. For me, since I lowball offense all of the time, it's too passive as I need bounce to generate a reasonable amount of pool damage. But, it's an interesting distraction to a deck with Govern/Conditioning, Legal/Aire, or whatever. Does it convey false weakness? A more esoteric plan for winning? It's more friendly. Sure grandpredator, bleed like crazy, I can suck it up. It may be more of a comfort to a grandpredator than bounce wars, especially as bounce wars can lead to overloading someone's wakes. And, while reduce looks better in an endgame for you, may very well want someone else to be playing it in a threesome rather than engage in bounce wars. Does this gain much, if anything? Depends upon how much you can position yourself at a table and how much doing so buys you something. How do people's perceptions of decks change when someone just reduces? This is what I see being the key to justifying reduction. Otherwise, yeah, bounce is so powerful against the typical field that it's hard to stray from (or not bolt on).

[ quoted text not captured ] Reduce also saves you deck slots since it doesn't tap your guy. So instead of the 9 telepathic misdirections and 8 wakes or whatever, you could play 17 telepathic counters and just leave a chump with AUS untapped and you will last lot longer. Or play just like 12-14 or something and use the rest of the slots to more offense.

klai...@gmail.com schrieb: > On 24 helmi, 07:48, Benird <bernard.macnau...@gmail.com> wrote: >> We've got a player who played her Slaughterhouse + Brinksmanship deck >> very often. I found the TC in preference to TM worked a treat to stop >> that deck. When forced to withdraw if you've got 3 or 4 TCs you can >> survive the withdraw without a problem. > > Also one more benefit of reduce over bounce that nobody has mentioned > yet... you can't bounce when there is only 2 people left in the game > anymore, but reduce still works just fine. Very good point. Also I like the unexpected appearance of reduction since nobody plays it. Most bleed decks try to include cards to work around bounce, it is hard to counter reduce unless with more bleed, but that is usually maxed out anyway. Another point is that you can use bounce effectively against 1 point bleeds as well. Telepathic Misdirection against a 1 point bleed is not very effective, especially since you are tapped.

klai...@gmail.com wrote: > > > Reduce also saves you deck slots since it doesn't tap your guy. So > instead of the 9 telepathic misdirections and 8 wakes or whatever, you > could play 17 telepathic counters and just leave a chump with AUS > untapped and you will last lot longer. Or play just like 12-14 or > something and use the rest of the slots to more offense. This response really resonated with me. Lots of other good posts here too, but klaital's response makes me want to go and update a specific deck with almost all counters now and try it out... best - chris

LSJ wrote: > Bouncing a bounced bleed from a cross-table buddy to a block-capable > Methuselah, which tends to be all of them, is often worse for the > cross table ally than reduction would be. Spiteful, even. It is good to see that you finally came to your senses regarding our previous conversation about cross-table shenanigans and what they may and can mean to you. ;D Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ Las Vegas NAQ 2009! http://members.cox.net/vtesinlv/

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: >On Feb 24, 7:57 am, klaita...@gmail.com wrote: >> You can also easily craft in rather effective reduce module. Just play >> Isabel de Leon (or any other 3 cap with AUS) and a handful of >> telepathic counters, you probably wont slow your forward action much >> by just leaving her untapped every turn to reduce bleeds. > >Sure, but this falls back on the concept of if you are going to have >Isabel de Leon and a handful of Telepathic Counters, why not have >Isabel de Leon and a handful of Telepathic Misdirections? Taken in isolation, the tapping and the blood cost. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

On Feb 24, 5:23 pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > Taken in isolation, the tapping and the blood cost. Well, yes, but the context was a "bleed defense module" that consisted of Isabel de Leon and a handful of Telepathic Counters. Assuming a "handful" means "not so many that you'll regularly have multiples in hand", the blood cost and the tapping is going to be mostly irrelevant, as Isabel's whole purpose is just standing around and protecting you from bleeds. If she can reduce a single bleed by 2 or bounce a single bleed of X, most of the time, she is going to be better off used to bounce a bleed of X instead of just reducing the bleed by 2 (assuming you are being bled for significant amounts; if you are only being bled for 1 at a time, the Telepathic Counters are going to be better, but if you are only ever being bled for 1 at a time, you probably have other significant things to worry about). Even if she never hunts and only bounces a single bleed of 3 a turn, those 3 bounced bleeds are going to pay for Isabel 3 times. Again, as I mentioned in my previous post, if you are going to have a lot of Telepathic Counters, and are being bled for middle amounts a lot, and she can reduce multiple bleeds a turn, then the Counters are going to be gold. But that it s lot of "and"s in there. And most of the time, the bounce is just going to be better. -Peter

On Feb 24, 2:21 pm, klaita...@gmail.com wrote: > Reduce also saves you deck slots since it doesn't tap your guy. So > instead of the 9 telepathic misdirections and 8 wakes or whatever, you > could play 17 telepathic counters and just leave a chump with AUS > untapped and you will last lot longer. Or play just like 12-14 or > something and use the rest of the slots to more offense. This is a definite advantage of reduction, except if you aren't being bled, you have 12-14 cards in your deck that are totally dead. And no untap for other stuff you want to untap for occasionally, where if you had 9 Misdirections and 8 Wakes, you'd have the flexibility of also having 9 intercept cards and 8 cards that untap you for other stuff. -Peter

On Feb 25, 9:23 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] As mentioned by myself and others, the major reasons for using reduce are: #1 Mindgames... #2 Usability in the final game stages #3 Breaking the Flick Chain The two can combine very effectively when you have a bleed-heavy predator in the final game stages. If he knows that he is not going to really get anywhere by tapping out to bleed it may convince them to go into a bloating tactic to try outlast the remaining one or two players (including yourself). Building up frustration in your predator can be a very very effective game tactic. It subtly encourages them to make mistakes, to leave themselves open, to over or under-estimate their effectiveness and so on. Sure more experienced players are harder to frustrate like this, but it can demoralise your predator when you reduce a full-on bleed assault with one or two minions with AUS... They are also gold if you have Archon Investigations in the deck. You can tempt a predator to overstep the mark and try get you for 4 or more before you reduce... Flick-chains are a common enough thing on a table with a lot of AUS and DOM. You can see a bleed get passed all the way around a table (2006 Qualifiers in Sydney saw two vampires get Archon Investigation'ed by the Predator Methuselah after being passed around a table in the one game... total of 7 Archon Investigations played during that qualifier of about 20 players). By using reduce, you can control which bleeds get passed around and limit some of the pressure applied to a X-table buddy. It may mean that he only has to deal with 1 or 2 players worth of bleeds rather than 4 players worth of bleeds.

> Reduce also saves you deck slots since it doesn't tap your guy. So > instead of the 9 telepathic misdirections and 8 wakes or whatever, you > could play 17 telepathic counters and just leave a chump with AUS > untapped and you will last lot longer. Or play just like 12-14 or > something and use the rest of the slots to more offense. If you base your defense on having an untapped guy, you are very vulnerable to cards like Anarch Troublemaker and Misdirection. I think everyone knows how it feels to die with several reaction cards in hand, but no wake. -- -bur

[ quoted text not captured ] I agree... you need a way to untap out of turn, like guard dogs. Or sudden reversal. There are cards like mind numb that are actions to tap you. Count on Ruben to use them all ;P Brandon

i think the problem lies in how we are conceiving this argument. Bounce (aka Flick) IS reduction. it just functions differently. it reduces 100% (though not permanently upon the bleed) + adds offense, for the price of a tapped minion, card, and blood. other forms of reduction reduce by fixed number (permanently) for the price of a played card (and occasionally a blood). naturally one plays up better versus swarms and other extenuating situations -- the advantage is fixed in the cost of not having to tap a minion and not having to worry about the bleed coming back full force (bounced back). but overall that just lengthens an already usually long game, plays jedi mind tricks which may or may not work, and shoots for a smaller slice of the threatening bleed pie. when i went through some silly sphere of influence thinking, with circles representing areas of interaction, i found that intercept and stealth is pretty much it's own specialized game, its Action Sphere if you will. however this sphere affects everything from gear, votes, combat, and bleed. so that's why i don't really accept the argument that intercept exists as a solution to complaints about bleed's current status, because technically it can be a solution to all minion actions. it affects all minion action spheres up until the point it fails. however combat and votes do have quite a pool of cards to interact and contest once the intercept sphere has been breached, being their Combat and Vote Sphere respectively. but bleed, fixed reduce, AI-esque reduction + punishment, and bounce is its own sphere, the Bleed Sphere. and in that sphere the pool of cards is very limited indeed in comparison. there is less room for contestation of the most basic function of the game than there is of the more highly specialized functions! O_o further, the exercise we are doing now also highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the two most powerful and prevalent archetypes of contestation defense within this Bleed Sphere. but note, outside of endgame, swarms, and specialized circumstances, bounce tends to find itself as the better general tool for bleed contestation in the Bleed Sphere. additionally it re-sets up the Action Sphere for its own offensive uses -- an epic benefit with few decent caliber responses by the acting player (which is for the best in this game currently). bleed contestation could definitely use a new look for creative solutions. perhaps focus on percentage reduction or new offense/defense rewards and penalties could be added to spice new reduction cards (because i've established Bleed Sphere defenses are essentially all reducers). however we must continually keep in mind how strong "100% reduction + offense" is in this sphere, otherwise new solutions will fail as soon as they are born.

On Feb 25, 1:54 pm, opaop...@yahoo.com wrote: > i think the problem lies in how we are conceiving this argument. > Bounce (aka Flick) IS reduction. it just functions differently. Well, kind of? Certainly in the context of this discussion, "Reduction" is specifically referring to bleed reduction cards that don't send the bleed somewhere else. So claiming that "Bounce" (i.e. cards that move a bleed from one target to another) is "Reduction" (i.e. cards that reduce the amount of a bleed a fixed number but keeps the target of the bleed the same) is kind of oblique semantic juggling. Yes, in effect, a bleed bounce cards reduces the amount of bleeding that happens to you, but that isn't really what anyone is talking about. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Peter> I thought I smelled Enron/Subprime Mortgages/Collateralised Debt Option - styled logic origami going on. I just didn't feel like untangling the 4000 steps invovled in that last post. There are very valid reasons for using Reduce not Flick/Bounce... Personally I would almost never consider using Telepathic Misdirection in a !Salubri deck even though there is a giant pile of aus/AUS amongst them. I would however use the Aversion at any of the levels... [cel] is good (reduce for celerity and no Anarchiness?? woohoo!!), [val] is nice (no edge for you!! bye bye Snake-deck of Enticement Doom), [VAL] is great (chew on that weenie bleeder) Sure most !Salubri decks will treat your bleeding with a pile of block and a lightsabre (Sword of the Righteous + Bastard Sword + other Valeren goodies), but for those !Salubri that don't just block everything around them and lightsabre you... Aversion is GOLD. No need to tap on a bleed, you can pick on the hunting Vampire. No need to worry about those snakes bleeding for 1 or 2... they can't Enticement you afterwards cause they don't get the edge. No need to worry about those "Embrace/Waters of the Duat/Tumnimos" breed like rats and bleed for 1 with 10 minions... you just Aversion them at [VAL] and block every attempt they make to remove the thing. Flick is very effective at increasing the pressure on a prey who cannot flick. If they can flick, all you're doing is piling up more players worth of pressure on the guy without AUS or DOM who is at the end of the Flick-Chain. Here is where flick fails: it dumps more pressure in one location than would normally be there and you can't necessarily control that pressure. With Reduce I negate the pressure on me while I continue to apply the same pressure to my prey. Flick = pile up pressure somewhere Reduce = reduce the pressure applied to you

On Feb 25, 7:01 pm, Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: > There are very valid reasons for using Reduce not Flick/Bounce... Sure, but I think the vast majority of the time, in a practical sense, if you have the choice of bounce over reduction (i.e. you have reliable access to dom or AUS), bounce is going to be the way to go. As being able to send a bleed of 5 at +3 stealth to your prey with a single card and 1 blood is simply too attractive of an option, as bleeds of 5 at +3 stealth are both incredibly dangerous and common enough to worry about. > Here is where flick fails: it dumps more pressure in one location than > would normally be there and you can't necessarily control that > pressure. With Reduce I negate the pressure on me while I continue to > apply the same pressure to my prey. Sure, but if you are being bled for 3-5 per action reliably, the reduction is just going to slow down your death a bit, where if you had bounce, it might just oust your prey instead. Again, reduction is ok, and good when you have no other options (i.e. you are Black Hand without bounce disciplines, or you are the Assamites for example). And good in combination with some Bounce if you have AUS. But for the most part, bounce is going to work better on average. -Peter

On Feb 25, 6:17 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > > Here is where flick fails: it dumps more pressure in one location than > > would normally be there and you can't necessarily control that > > pressure. With Reduce I negate the pressure on me while I continue to > > apply the same pressure to my prey. > > Sure, but if you are being bled for 3-5 per action reliably, the > reduction is just going to slow down your death a bit, where if you > had bounce, it might just oust your prey instead. > Here might be a meta-game issue. Around here, bleeds of 3+ at 1 or more stealth are fairly uncommon. I mean, it happens - the newer players have a dem/obf deck that will do that (but rarely more than 3 or 4 at a click) and a dom/obt deck that can bleed for lots at lots of stealth, mostly because those are the types of deck to recommend to newer players, because they can win and are easy to build. But to have 1 of them at a table is not a given - even somewhat uncommon. Because bounce is so easy of a defense (and because of AI), a lot of players have been building decks that don't have to bleed for 3+ at 1+ stealth to succeed. Swarm bleed (1 or 2 bleed at a time, more times than you can bounce), block denial (one very nice one involve a Francois Villon/Alexandra deck with Aching Beauty, Crocodile's Tongue, Heart's Desire, Majesty, Change of Target, votes... etc..., and another uses Nergal with Elder Intervention, Approximation of Loyalty, and Psychomachia), bruise & bleed, and, of course, rush or voting. Those decks that do intend to bleed for a lot tend to pack Spying Mission and/or Revelations to sniff out bounce, and Two Wrongs is due to become prevalent soon, since most in our playgroup have 2 of them. Even for the heavy no-stealth bleeders, it's not a given that bounce is better because you usually want to attempt to block before bouncing, and that can be punished. Bounce is certainly in use, but those decks that have access to AUS and use reduction do not seem to be at a disadvantage. Bleed reduction does have its advantages when compared with bounce, many of which have been named in this thread - less cycling, edge doesn't move, no chance for your grandprey to take the damage, more useful in endgame (both because it's useful in 2-player, and because it can facilitate withdrawal), generally less blood cost and no tapping, etc... Plus there are cards like Folderol and Ignis Fatuus that can be useful cross-table. In addition, spending 1 blood and possibly tapping to send a blood to your prey at 0 stealth is unlikely to help all that much, especially if rendered completely worthless by a Change of Target. Reduction might do something as good as denying a Forced March, Truth of 1000 Lies, or Freak Drive (inf) even in the case where bounce *would* have given a success Granted, if you compare any reduction card currently in print versus Deflection, you will always come up lacking. Deflection is the supreme bleed defense card, even taking into account the circumstances listed above. But with most bleeds coming in at 2 or 3 bleed and 1 or less stealth, and with Telepathic Misdirection costing a blood and tapping, I don't think it's clear-cut which is better. If you have access to Deflection, you pretty much have to use it. But if you have AUS, I contend that a reduction-based defense can be just as good as a bounce-based defense. In that case, I feel it depends on the metagame and how much blood/pool-gain and untap you have. If you don't have access to bounce (other than perhaps Lost in Translation), and do have access to decent reduction (Truth in Ink, Aversion, Nest of Eagles, and in some situations Ecstasy and Folderol and a few other cards with multiple uses like Covincraft), then the decision is kind of made for you, but I don't think it's that much of a handicap. If the point is to hopefully beef up reduce, then I can't really disagree, but if the point is that reduction is pointless when you can graft on some bounce - I think that in some ways the game has moved past that point, and at worst it's metagame dependent...

On Feb 23, 5:57 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > My feeling is that almost all the time, flicking a bleed is better than > merely reducing it. I was wondering if people would like to expand on > times when that is wrong. The advantange of flic versus reduction has to do with the average size of the bleeds that you see. If your average size of bleeds is less than 3 then Reduction is superior If your average size of bleeds is greater than 3 then Bounce is superior If your average size of bleeds is equal to 3 than there is no trade- off Under this model Reduction is the ability to reduce a bleed by 2 or more, and Bounce is the ability to chose the new target of the bleed. So sub-optimal cards tend to fall out of the model, such as Ecstasy, My Enemy's Enemy, etc.

On Feb 25, 8:59 pm, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > Here might be a meta-game issue. Around here, bleeds of 3+ at 1 or > more stealth are fairly uncommon. I mean, it happens - the newer > players have a dem/obf deck that will do that (but rarely more than 3 > or 4 at a click) and a dom/obt deck that can bleed for lots at lots of > stealth, mostly because those are the types of deck to recommend to > newer players, because they can win and are easy to build. But to > have 1 of them at a table is not a given - even somewhat uncommon. Oh, sure. I don't see bleeds of 5 at +3 stealth every game or anything, but the point is that they show up at least relatively reliably (especially in a blind competition), and as they tend to be incredibly debilitating when they do, you kind of *need* to plan for them as the worst case scenario, which is why bounce tends to win the card slot war; not 'cause you *know* you are going to run into huge stealthy bleeds, but 'cause you might, and if you do, you are going to die if you don't have the bounce, and the bounce is still gonna be good against 2 point bleeds if that is all that is coming at you anyway. If you are talking about a local environment, and you can reliably plan on only ever getting bled for 2 at a time for whatever reason, then yeah, reduction could be pure gold. But if you are looking at kind of a generic blind environment (like a tournament), I think big bleeds at stealth are common enough to justify the bounce over the reduction most of the time. > If the point is to hopefully beef up reduce, then I can't really > disagree Oh, I'm totally on the "Make reduce better in non bounce disciplines" camp. And have been. For a while. > , but if the point is that reduction is pointless when you can > graft on some bounce - I think that in some ways the game has moved > past that point, and at worst it's metagame dependent... I'd never say it was pointless, but still, most of the time, in most circumstances, bounce is going to eclipse reduction. -Peter

Everyone agrees that in any deck with [dom] or [DOM] as a major feature... Redirection/Deflection is the pants. Since Dominate doesn't really have a reduce card... we can assume that anyone who has [dom] or [DOM] throughout their deck will be teflon-suiting that bleed to their prey, like clockwork. Let's assume that in most cases we are going to be talking about Reduce in one of two contexts: Auspex or Bloodline Disciplines (Myt, Val, Obe, Mel, etc). Bloodline Disciplines: #1 Most of these cards are more versatile and more powerful than Telepathic Misdirection for comparable blood cost and often without a tap. #2 Most of the bloodline Disciplines come with either [dom] or [aus] as a clan discipline (Myt, Val, Obe) or more combat disciplines (Val, Vic, San) Auspex-centred Decks are often wall/block decks of some kind. Either the combat-wall (Tzimisce, Tor-Guns, Massasi hates everyone) or an overt forward pressure + wall (Vote-Wall, Bleed-Wall, Attrition Wall like Anarch Revolt/Smiling Jack decks) A BLOCK DECK STRATEGY Even if I am the super-freaky untap beast (read: big untap/act as if untapped function in the deck) with a highly reliable 3+ Intercept... there are still reasons why I would use a Telepathic Counter over a Telepathic Misdirection. These hinge around me being able to more effectively block actions. #1 I know my predator/prey will want to perform an undirected action that will be crucial to their turn (i.e. Hunt with a Superstar, Rescue that Prince from torpor, remove the Anarch Revolt, etc)... if I reduce their bleeds I can block more of their actions that protect themselves. This can potentially force them to take fewer forward actions (by losing minions to torpor or needing to hunt) or to really put it all on the line to get me (leaving themselves vulnerable to being bled heavily). #2 Most decks that are going to want to bleed for 3+ will do so at some level of stealth... bare minimum 1 from something like a Marijava Ghoul or a Veil the Legions at Superior. No block = no cycling on stealth... sure it may mean that they get a few more of those undirected actions off as they burn through a handful of stealth, but if they are a bleed deck then they'll choke slowly on their stealth or spend it where they don't want to. #3 Most decks that don't bleed for bucketloads at high stealth will need to take undirected actions to breed. They will Enchant Kindred @ PRE, GtU @ DOM, Founders of the Ebony Kingdom and Breed actions (Tumnimos/Waters of the Duat/The Embrace/etc)... these are the things you want to block, not the trifling bleed for 1 from a small minion. As either the Prey or Predator of these sorts of decks, having the option to block either a bleed on myself or the Breed action, blocking the Breed action will probably have greater long-term effect on the game.

On Feb 25, 7:01 pm, Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: > No need to > worry about those "Embrace/Waters of the Duat/Tumnimos" breed like > rats and bleed for 1 with 10 minions... you just Aversion them at > [VAL] and block every attempt they make to remove the thing. Mind you, I don't think Aversion is totally terrible, but there's a flaw in your logic here. If you can block every attempt they make to remove Aversion, you can just as easily block every attempt they make to bleed you. If this actually turns out to be true in play, you can cut out Aversion to save card slots. John Eno

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: >> There are very valid reasons for using Reduce not Flick/Bounce... > > Sure, but I think the vast majority of the time, in a practical sense, > if you have the choice of bounce over reduction (i.e. you have > reliable access to dom or AUS), bounce is going to be the way to go. > As being able to send a bleed of 5 at +3 stealth to your prey with a > single card and 1 blood is simply too attractive of an option, as > bleeds of 5 at +3 stealth are both incredibly dangerous and common > enough to worry about. That brings up an interesting point, one which my friend Nat always seems to bring to my attention. Bleeds of 1 at 0 stealth are more common than all other types of bleed at any level of stealth put together. So, does that mean that Reduce is a better option than we have previously considered? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Feb 26, 2:13 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Bleeds of 1 at 0 stealth are more common than all other types of bleed at > any level of stealth put together. So, does that mean that Reduce is a > better option than we have previously considered? Probably not for the reason I brought up before--I agree that bleeds of 1 at 0 stealth are the most common bleed you see. But they also aren't (generally speaking) the bleeds that oust you quickly. They aren't the worst case scenario that blows you out of the game in 3 turns. The bleeds of 5 at +3 stealth are. Bleeds of 1 at 0 stealth are something that, most of the time, decks can deal with without having bounce. Again, if you are being bled for 1 at 0 stealth, you probably have other things to worry about (like the Rushes that come with them, or the Con Boons and 20 minions being made, or whatever), but as a generic threat, you are generally better off ignoring the bleeds of 1 at 0 stealth (or blocking them or bloating to counteract them) than you are building in specific bleed defense to deal with them. The bleeds of 5 at +3 stealth, however, have the impact factor that results in you dying very quickly; usually you take 3 bleeds of 5? Your game is over. You take 3 bleeds of 1? You might not even notice if you have some Blood Dolls in play. That is one of the *huge* advantages bounce has over reduction and why it is so attractive; it saves you from the worst case scenario and still is worth using in the best case scenario. Reduction helps you in the best case scenario, but doesn't actually help the worst case scenario that much. -Peter

> Reduction might do something as good as denying a Forced > March, Truth of 1000 Lies, or Freak Drive (inf) even in the case where > bounce *would* have given a success Just pointing out that this is not really the case - you can play a Forced March etc. on an unblocked bleed of 0, as the action is still successful. You just don't get the Edge. -- -bur

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, sorry I must have been drunk when I wrote that. I know that rule, but completely blanked. Of course, a successful bleed of 0 is still a successful action, and all the cards I mentioned can be played.

[ quoted text not captured ] I believe he was talking about Aversion at basic. And even if not, you don't have to block their actions to remove it. If they use an action to remove it then thats an action they could have used to, for example, bleed you. So even if you never intend to block people its still reducing two bleeds with one card.

On Feb 26, 1:03 pm, klaita...@gmail.com wrote: > I believe he was talking about Aversion at basic. No. Re-read the part of the post I quoted, which specifically talks about using Aversion at [VAL]. > And even if not, you > don't have to block their actions to remove it. That's not what Juggernaut1981 was saying. > If they use an action > to remove it then thats an action they could have used to, for > example, bleed you. So even if you never intend to block people its > still reducing two bleeds with one card. I agree, which is why I think Aversion is an okay card. But that's not what Juggernaut1981 was saying, and which I was replying to. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] Except you were still wrong, because each Aversion at VAL is still a bleed you don't have to block, compared to ditching Aversion and trying to block every bleed instead of blocking Aversion-removal. -witness1

On Feb 26, 3:22 pm, jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net wrote: > Except you were still wrong, because each Aversion at VAL is still a > bleed you don't have to block, compared to ditching Aversion and > trying to block every bleed instead of blocking Aversion-removal. Moot. Juggernaut1981 didn't say anything about trying to block all the actions to remove Aversion, just about actually doing so. I don't know that such is possible. I doubt that it is, actually. But if it is, you don't need Aversion - replace them with wakes, which don't cost blood. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] My point about Aversion is this... Aversion at [VAL] ensures that your predator, if they bleed, will take actions to remove the Aversion instead of leaving it there to weaken their strategy. Aversions also Stack. So you can pile 2 or 3 Aversions onto the one vampire for the bleed of 3 at mild stealth thereby reducing the bleed capacity of that minion to basically squat all. Now that you have slowed that minion to a crawl, they will want to take actions to remove it (also removing the need to block bleeds from those minions and buying you time to bloat or get your prey) and blocking THOSE actions puts further slowdown on your predator (who will be wanting to get rid of the Aversions before they accumulate all over their vampires which he may continue to bleed with). Aversion can be tactically used to put a significant slow-down on your predator beyond the mere "reduce bleed" because they are convinced to take non- bleed actions against you. This is similar to the tactics used with Smiling Jack/Anarch Revolt wall decks that grind down prey pool and then the minions by blocking attempts to remove the Jacks/Revolts. That's also why I went into a longer discussion about AUS reduce (since realistically the only debate to be had is whether AUS-Flick is better than AUS-Reduce... because there is no reduce for DOM and DOM- Flick is the pants...). My opinion is "No", the price of tapping to far greater than the general and unspecific advantage or potentially passing a big bleed onto your prey. If you're worried, and regularly get worried, by bleeds of 4+ at 3+ stealth... then ditch 4 Wakes and stick in 4 Archon Investigations. That will slow up the "supercheese" bleeding really fast decks if they have a 50-50 bet you're packing an AI. Sydney appears to have gone into a protracted phase of combat-oust, vote-oust and "bleed for 3 or less at moderate sustainable stealth" ever since the 2007 Qualifier where over 7 Archon Investigations were played in 2 rounds amongst 20 players... including 5 in one game. When you watch your bleed get flicked around to your predator and then Archoned... it shows you that big bleeds at stealth is not only dangerous to you, but also unlikely to hit your target. If you're going to bleed big at stealth, you need to develop ways to control the results or you'll give VPs away all over the table. 5+ bleeds at 3+ stealth = loose cannon that nobody wants on the table because nobody needs to get that flicked at them at any time during the game. DOM-Flick = THE PANTS AUS-Reduce = always reliable slowdown/defensive AUS-Flick = not always worth the risk, not always reliable, no guarantees on result

Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > DOM-Flick = THE PANTS > I believe the phrase "The Pants" means it's the worst. Is that what you mean? best - chris

[ quoted text not captured ] Chris... the reverse... excuse the strange slang i end up picking up from my ecclectic circle of friends...

[ quoted text not captured ] If something is "pants" or "complete pants", then it is worthless (unlike pants). If it is "the pants", then it is the best thing ever, also unlike pants. It's a mad mad mad mad world. "I hope he tells us to burn our pants, these things are driving me nuts.... ... Don't you hate pants?"

On Feb 27, 11:08 am, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > If something is "pants" or "complete pants", then it is worthless > (unlike pants). If it is "the pants", then it is the best thing ever, > also unlike pants. It's a mad mad mad mad world. Ah. So it's like "shit" vs. "the shit" in US slang. Got it. -- Jason