Introduction:
Early spring, at least at this northern part of the world, and we're
still in the middle of continental qualifiers. The first results have
arrived and clan Toreador is sadly lacking among the winners.
Late april and early may should see a frenzied activity on different
forums as the release of the Anarch set draws close.
Players from at least seven regions will have a major problem with
split vision as the release will be very close in time to seven
continental championships. The qualifier at Origins may very well turn
out to include some mad gaming as there is a possibility that the new
cards will have been tournament legal for an amount of time that could
be measured in hours rather than days.
On tournaments:
We've been having a couple of limited tournaments this year as well as
travelling to one in Denmark. I can definitely recommend the format as
you could hardly have more fun buying your cards. i'm looking forward
to the Anarch expansion to see if it works differently from a limited
format aspect.
I believe there is a need of more limited tournaments as it's a good
way of introducing new players to the tournamentarena. They can play on
the same terms as us with huge amounts of cards, and they actually
build up their collections in a consistent way.
The Camarilla Edition suffers from lack of wake-capacity and reliable
bloating apart from voting and Minion Tap - at least if you're booster-
drafting.
On new players:
Having convinced some ten new players that VTES is a good game we do see
the problems with decks based on Camarilla Edition only. Fourtenately
those of us with large collections are able to help out with staples,
but it's painfully clear that the old argument that any player can
easily build up a collection of cards to play in a competitive way is
far from true. It's simply a matter of money.
By now I'm VERY happy that the Camarilla Edition included a lot of
reprints, but a few "goes into every deck" are sadly missing unless the
new player is to buy several copies of starter decks.
Having said all this it would seem very likely that new players need
access to experienced players with very large collection of cards in
order to stay interested in the game.
On a different theme - there is very little complaint from our newbies
about different layout - even though they seem to prefer the new one.
On old players:
Having access to a place to play friendly games is important as well,
and someones home is simply not enough. Depending on the profile of your
new players, or actually your preferred profile, different types of
locations makes different players. A gamingstore will get you younger
people who are still studying while a pub/cafe etc will get you a larger
portion of older people with jobs. After a while games at home will
start up naturally and your weekly games at the public place becomes an
event that attracts a smaller portion of the entire playgroup with
different faces being there from week to week.
Without new players you'll slowly see the old ones disappear, so getting
more people into the game is important to keep a healthy playgroup.
For long term survival of the local arena several playgroups are needed
as they create crossbreeding of playstyles within a limited geographical
area.
Retrospect newsletter mars 2003:
Experimenting with Fortitude and Toreador Grand Ball almost turned out
to be a success. Three gamewins into the final but hopelessly outclassed
during that final. Well, I've never grabbed three GW during the prelims
before. The deck has proven itself to be comparatively effective during
our weekly games as well.
Name: CE Mastering the unblockable Loop
Author: Sten During
Description: Camarilla Edition of my old looping Toreador Grand Ball
deck.
Gun away when blocking and don't get blocked while acting. Slow
starting, but the Freak Drives will get you back soon enough.
Crypt Cards Total: 12
Min: 11 Max: 40 Avg: 6.5
Name Amount
Annabelle Triabell 1
Emerson Wilkershire III 1
Francois Villon 1
Ira Rivers 1
Isabel de Leon 2
Madame Guil 3
Marcellus 1
Yvette, The Hopeless 2
Library Cards Total: 90
Name Amount
Master Total: 23
Art Museum 1
Blood Doll 7
Club Zombie 1
Fortitude 4
KRCG News Radio 1
London Evening Star, Tabloid Newspaper 1
Powerbase: Montreal 1
Society Hunting Ground 1
The Rack 1
Toreador Grand Ball 5
Action Total: 4
Bum's Rush 1
Harass 2
Nose of the Hound 1
Political Action Total: 3
Parity Shift 3
Action Modifier Total: 8
Freak Drive 8
Combat Total: 16
Pursuit 5
Sideslip 5
Taste of Vitae 6
Reaction Total: 24
Eagle's Sight 3
Forced Awakening 7
Second Tradition: Domain 9
Telepathic Misdirection 5
Equipment Total: 10
Assault Rifle 5
IR Goggles 2
Palatial Estate 1
Pier 13, Port of Baltimore 1
Sport Bike 1
Retainer Total: 2
Mr. Winthrop 1
Resplendent Protector 1
I did try out the idea of basing a deck on Scorn of Adonis in order
to find out if the card only looks like a good idea or actually does
function in a real game. Five "friendly" games later I've won three
tables and been crushed at another two.
Name: Disrespect
Author: Sten During
Description: Vote, breed and bleed. Most voting damage will probably
occur as a result of Scorn of Adonis rather than actually passing the
vote.
If you're caught behind an intercept wall you'll probably have to do
nothing but bleed, bring up more weenies and wait until he/she runs
out of wake/untap capacity. If you're caught between two such decks
you'll die horribly - and never forget that this deck will make you
no friends. I, for one, am one of the first to agree to killing it off
first should I ever see it on the table.
I have Booned for 14 with this deck. I have also been asked what I
could possibly do when totally outvoted, and I responded by bleeding
for one - with eleven vampires.
If your environment is filled with intercepting combat I'd recommend
dropping both daggers and both retainers in favour of three dodges
and another Majesty. In any case, if you finish the game with less
than a fourth of your vampires in torpor you should be happy.
Crypt Cards Total: 12
Min: 10 Max: 26 Avg: 4.42
Name Amount
Anson 1
Colin Flynn 1
Delilah Easton 1
Demetrius Slater 1
Dieter Kleist 1
Dorian Strack 1
Felicia Mostrom 1
Isabel de Leon 1
Mariana Gilbert 1
Ramiel DuPre 1
Tatiana Romanov 1
Victoria Ash 1
Library Cards Total: 90
Name Amount
Master Total: 15
Archon Investigation 3
Art Museum 1
Effective Management 5
Elysium: The Arboretum 1
Elysium: The Palace of Versailles 1
Information Highway 1
Society Hunting Ground 1
Sudden Reversal 2
Action Total: 12
Arson 2
The Embrace 10
Political Action Total: 25
Consanguineous Boon 6
Conservative Agitation 3
Disputed Territory 1
Kindred Segregation 1
Kine Resources Contested 5
Peace Treaty 1
Praxis Seizure: Athens 1
Praxis Seizure: Atlanta 1
Praxis Seizure: Cairo 1
Praxis Seizure: Cleveland 1
Praxis Seizure: London 1
Praxis Seizure: Monaco 1
Praxis Seizure: Paris 1
Toreador Justicar 1
Action Modifier Total: 25
Change of Target 9
Scorn of Adonis 16
Combat Total: 3
Majesty 3
Reaction Total: 4
Telepathic Counter 4
Equipment Total: 4
Ivory Bow 1
Monocle of Clarity 1
Sengir Dagger 1
The Crimson Sentinel 1
Retainer Total: 2
J. S. Simmons, Esq. 1
Tasha Morgan 1
The two decks are somewhat archetypical of two distinctly different
styles of playing the Toreador. Either "block and kill" with high
capacity gunning princes or "go for it" with close to no reactive
defence at all - something that requires small, expendable, vampires.
The perceptive reader will also notice that the vampires from 1994
and 1995 are most definitely still playable.
Sten During
"Sten During" <ya...@netg.se> wrote in message
news:3E967CA9...@netg.se...
> On tournaments:
>
> We've been having a couple of limited tournaments this year as well as
> travelling to one in Denmark. I can definitely recommend the format as
> you could hardly have more fun buying your cards. i'm looking forward
> to the Anarch expansion to see if it works differently from a limited
> format aspect.
Yeah, draft is great!
> I believe there is a need of more limited tournaments as it's a good
> way of introducing new players to the tournamentarena. They can play on
> the same terms as us with huge amounts of cards, and they actually
> build up their collections in a consistent way.
Plus it's fun! :-)
I hear that some longtime players aren't big fans of draft because
they already have "enough cards" or otherwise aren't that interested
in buying more to play limited. But yeah, it's good for newer
players in the sense of an equal card basis, although it can (I'm
guessing) be tricky for them in that they may not be as familiar
with the cardsets and experienced in how to whip up decks on the
fly. It's probably doubly good for them cardwise, though, in that
players with large collections may be willing to donate their
excess commons/uncommons after the tournament. :-)
> The Camarilla Edition suffers from lack of wake-capacity and reliable
> bloating apart from voting and Minion Tap - at least if you're booster-
> drafting.
While this is certainly true - and it's also true of Sabbat war booster
draft, which has Tribute to the Master but no Blood Doll or Minion Tap -
to me it's one of the interesting things about draft. Because you don't
have nearly as much easy access to recouping the blood you put on your
vampires to influence them out, or much ability to use them to block as
well as act in the same table-cycle, the game is largely stripped down
to its basic interactions of acting, blocking, staying untapped, and not
running out of pool. The value of each point of blood and pool, and the
importance of minion actions vs blocking ability is really emphasized in
draft, I think.
Josh
nearly became ranked in limited, except the totalcon draft tournament
fell through...
Joshua Duffin wrote:
>>The Camarilla Edition suffers from lack of wake-capacity and reliable
>>bloating apart from voting and Minion Tap - at least if you're booster-
>>drafting.>
>
> While this is certainly true - and it's also true of Sabbat war booster
> draft, which has Tribute to the Master but no Blood Doll or Minion Tap -
> to me it's one of the interesting things about draft. Because you don't
> have nearly as much easy access to recouping the blood you put on your
> vampires to influence them out, or much ability to use them to block as
> well as act in the same table-cycle, the game is largely stripped down
> to its basic interactions of acting, blocking, staying untapped, and not
> running out of pool. The value of each point of blood and pool, and the
> importance of minion actions vs blocking ability is really emphasized in
> draft, I think.
>
Absolutely agreed :)
However, there is the problem that arise when you teach you new players
the basics of "good playing", where, if said new player starts looking
at intercept and blocking, wake/untap is more or less a must. The basics
of blocking is more or less lost during a draft (more on this later).
There is also the rule of draining big vamps of at least some of their
blood as you normally never need all of it.
The last rule is "you play weenie only if you accept the table going
after you". This rule is false during a draft as well, and drafting as
many weenies as possible at least gives you a sporting chance of
blocking as well as partaking in the game (ie actually having a minion-
phase worth its name).
Draft is immensly fun to play, and I suck major at it :)
Sten During
Joshua Duffin wrote:
> nearly became ranked in limited, except the totalcon draft tournament
> fell through...
Hey! You got to oust Sackett, didn't you? That is *better* than getting
ranked, let me tell you...
Peter D Bakija
PD...@bigplanet.com
http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6
"she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine
but the left wing's broken and the right's insane"
-Bowie
"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message
news:BABCA134.DD67%PD...@bigplanet.com...
> Joshua Duffin wrote:
>
> > nearly became ranked in limited, except the totalcon draft tournament
> > fell through...
>
> Hey! You got to oust Sackett, didn't you? That is *better* than getting
> ranked, let me tell you...
Actually... no! Trey ousted Sackett before I could get to him.
I did get to oust Wampler, Trey, and Ben Peal, though, which
counts for something I guess. It's probably not as satisfying
as ousting Sackett, though. ;-)
Josh
especially cross-table!
"Sten During" <ya...@netg.se> wrote in message
> Early spring, at least at this northern part of the world, and we're
> still in the middle of continental qualifiers. The first results have
> arrived and clan Toreador is sadly lacking among the winners.
>
Ah yes...I did horribly at our qualifier down in Texas. Well that is to say
I would have done wonderfully if only I had one more turn or wasn't ousted
the turn I was. Oh well that is my luck at tournaments...always one
card/turn away from ousting my prey or putting myself in a great defensive
possition (like the first round I was ousted with a Minion Tap + Giant's
Blood in my hand and a full Anson in front of me).
My problem was that I forgot to tweak the deck with more bleed defense, but
otherwise it did rather well considering I only got 1 VP that day. So I
take the responsibility for letting the clan down....:(
But on a lighter note I had a lot of fun, and some of the guys there where
impressed/intimidated by the deck or more accurately the deck's potential.
If you'd like a list let me know.
Sten During <ya...@netg.se> wrote:
> On new players:
>
> Having convinced some ten new players that VTES is a good game we do see
> the problems with decks based on Camarilla Edition only. Fourtenately
> those of us with large collections are able to help out with staples,
> but it's painfully clear that the old argument that any player can
> easily build up a collection of cards to play in a competitive way is
> far from true. It's simply a matter of money.
Dunno, a new player can make a competitive deck. For example,
Malk+!Malk group 2/3 crypt with cap 3-7 vamps. No need for duplicates.
Some DEM+OBF bleed, auspex for bleed defence. To responsible bleed,
some spying missions, which can be found in CE Malk, and much maligned
Nos starter. A *creative* deck that is competitive, that needs money
:(
-Antero
[ quoted text not captured ]
The problem here is that to do what you wrote above this new player
does indeed need access to an older player with more !Malk than he
or she needs.
Let's say that you want to introduce your friend playing whatever
other CCG. Having a decent economy this friend of yours agrees to
buying into VTES and promtly walks into your local carddealers store.
For simplicitys sake this storeowner does have a stock of CE and
the restocked starters from White Wolf.
Your friend actually likes the game enough to buy one displaybox
of CE starters as well as one CE boosters, which for trying out a new
game is a comparatively large investment.
What occurs now is that this friend of yours is going to find out
that the amount of different cards compared to each other very much
differs from archetypical decks (basically not enough reactions and
bloat), and will only be able to construct more than one deck from
a forward motion point of view.
If you have some five or six decks ready at all times do check your
stack of commons and you'll soon find out that you most probably have
much more actions, actionmodifiers and agressive combatcards compared
to reaction and bloatcards.
This skewing of "cardavailabilitybalance" seems to be more noticable
in the CE edition compared to at least Sabbat Wars. What is slightly
concerning me is that Final Nights and Blood Lines had this "problem"
as well and new players may have a major problem buying all those
cards from the last millenia that the rest of us take for granted -
and I'm talking common cards now.
I hope I'm wrong, and I haven't done a proper calculation, but it's
a feeling I get from buying some four boxes from each expansion both
starterdeck-wise as well as boosterpack-wise.
Sten During
[ quoted text not captured ]
I would of course very much like a decklist as I immediately get a free
deck to display in an upcoming newsletter :)
I just came home from todays local tournament having got a dismal
total of one (1) VP with my Scorn of Adonis deck. Of course I brought
it to an orgy of blocking walls :)
Sten During
Sten During <ya...@netg.se> wrote in message news:<3E99B52E...@netg.se>...
[ quoted text not captured ]
Cant say reliably, I have given away stacks of commons, but (see
below)
> This skewing of "cardavailabilitybalance" seems to be more noticable
> in the CE edition compared to at least Sabbat Wars. What is slightly
> concerning me is that Final Nights and Blood Lines had this "problem"
> as well and new players may have a major problem buying all those
> cards from the last millenia that the rest of us take for granted -
> and I'm talking common cards now.
>
> I hope I'm wrong, and I haven't done a proper calculation, but it's
> a feeling I get from buying some four boxes from each expansion both
> starterdeck-wise as well as boosterpack-wise.
>
> Sten During
A quick search in Monger showed that there are 1115 different
librarycards (in the whole set from Jyhad to CE) Of those, there is
193 Action Cards, 110 PA, 76 Equipment, 54 Ally, 32 Retainer.
465 cards of 1115 that require a action, I can see your point.
(Reactioncards' number was 75).
-Antero
"Sten During" <ya...@netg.se> wrote in message
news:3E96F0E2...@netg.se...
> However, there is the problem that arise when you teach you new players
> the basics of "good playing", where, if said new player starts looking
> at intercept and blocking, wake/untap is more or less a must. The basics
> of blocking is more or less lost during a draft (more on this later).
I'm not sure I get what you mean by the basics of blocking that
are lost? That, without (copious) Wakes, there's not as much
possibility of blocking, in draft?
To me, the *really* basic basics of blocking are emphasized in
draft: the rulebook-game balance between being able to do things
by tapping your minions to take actions, and being able to keep
people from doing bad things to you by leaving your minions
untapped to block. Yeah, this is very *different* from
constructed play, where if you're playing any big vamps, you're
probably using a number of "untaps" to get reaction-use out of
them as well as action-use. But, to me at least, it's not
*worse*. Just different. I guess you're saying that it's
confusing to new players, because it's very different from what
you're trying to teach them about making decks more effective
by getting double use out of their minions?
> There is also the rule of draining big vamps of at least some of their
> blood as you normally never need all of it.
Yep. Again, a good rule for constructed, just not usually
feasible in limited. :-)
> The last rule is "you play weenie only if you accept the table going
> after you". This rule is false during a draft as well, and drafting as
> many weenies as possible at least gives you a sporting chance of
> blocking as well as partaking in the game (ie actually having a minion-
> phase worth its name).
Yeah, this is true, although (interestingly?) I haven't all
that often seen people really try to "play weenie" in draft.
My guess is that this is partly because there just aren't
that many weenie vamps that show up to be drafted in most of
the current draft sets (only 5 two-caps in CE boosters, 4
one-caps and 6 two-caps in SW), and then partly because there
aren't that many disciplineless cards that you'll be able to
draft for them to use.
Certainly true that getting some weenies is useful, though,
since you really can't afford to buy more than one fattie
per game in draft (unless you get lucky). :-)
> Draft is immensly fun to play, and I suck major at it :)
Indeed. Well, I can't corroborate that you suck at it, but
it's definitely loads of fun. :-) (There ought to be more
VTES draft events so people could get better at it, it's
lots of fun and it's hard to get enough practice to actually
get a sense of how to be good at it when draft tournaments
are still pretty few and far between.)
Josh
vampire: elder draft network
>On tournaments:
>
>We've been having a couple of limited tournaments this year as well as
>travelling to one in Denmark. I can definitely recommend the format as
>you could hardly have more fun buying your cards. i'm looking forward
>to the Anarch expansion to see if it works differently from a limited
>format aspect.
I think we figured out, after some grumbling about how people didn't need to
buy new cards, that we should hold more limiteds soon after a set comes out and
eschew them otherwise. Though, really, we should have a sealed or precon plus
draft at every game con.
>I believe there is a need of more limited tournaments as it's a good
>way of introducing new players to the tournamentarena. They can play on
>the same terms as us with huge amounts of cards, and they actually
>build up their collections in a consistent way.
Sealed with precons (any CCG I've played with them) is boring after the first
couple of times. Then, there quickly comes a point where people no longer want
to get more precons. So, sealed would be good and all if enough people were
interested, but it's hard to sustain interest.
Draft is not particularly easy for newbies.
With the ability of players to borrow decks, constructed could be the easiest
way for a newbie to compete tournamentwise.
>The Camarilla Edition suffers from lack of wake-capacity and reliable
>bloating apart from voting and Minion Tap - at least if you're booster-
>drafting.
We just had a SW/Bl/CE Elder draft. I believe: no Dolls, 1 Tap, 1 Forced
Awakening in 72 boosters. But, there was unreliable bloat as one round my
predator had out Victor (!Tor), Idalia, Laz, Menele (brought out last ... of
course), and double digit pool at one point. He didn't get any VPs.
BTW, Agaitas is broken in limited.
>Yeah, this is true, although (interestingly?) I haven't all
>that often seen people really try to "play weenie" in draft.
>My guess is that this is partly because there just aren't
>that many weenie vamps that show up to be drafted in most of
>the current draft sets (only 5 two-caps in CE boosters, 4
>one-caps and 6 two-caps in SW), and then partly because there
>aren't that many disciplineless cards that you'll be able to
>draft for them to use.
What often happened to weenies, which there weren't that many of, in our last
draft was that they got hit for more blood than they had and they never came
out of torpor.
Curevei wrote:
> We just had a SW/Bl/CE Elder draft. I believe: no Dolls, 1 Tap, 1 Forced
> Awakening in 72 boosters.
No Dolls is expected - there are no Blood Dolls in SW/FN/BL/CE boosters.
--
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/
Joshua Duffin wrote:
<SNIP>
>
> I'm not sure I get what you mean by the basics of blocking that
> are lost? That, without (copious) Wakes, there's not as much
> possibility of blocking, in draft?
>
> To me, the *really* basic basics of blocking are emphasized in
> draft: the rulebook-game balance between being able to do things
> by tapping your minions to take actions, and being able to keep
> people from doing bad things to you by leaving your minions
> untapped to block. Yeah, this is very *different* from
The random spread of vampires tend to create a comparatively
large crypts (which is not only understandable but also good to
promote different kind of decks when constructing them), which
sometimes makes the question of "which vampires to act with and
which vampires to block with" moot. With a reasonably statistically
bit of unluck you're never going to see more than two vampires
during a draft game.
>>There is also the rule of draining big vamps of at least some of their
>>blood as you normally never need all of it.>
>
> Yep. Again, a good rule for constructed, just not usually
> feasible in limited. :-)
Agreed, as a norm in constructed play is that you'll be able to
influence 20 points worth of vampires without turning to some
specliaized "trick" or massive bloat.
>
>>>The last rule is "you play weenie only if you accept the table going
>>after you". This rule is false during a draft as well, and drafting as
>>many weenies as possible at least gives you a sporting chance of
>>blocking as well as partaking in the game (ie actually having a minion-
>>phase worth its name).>
>
> Yeah, this is true, although (interestingly?) I haven't all
> that often seen people really try to "play weenie" in draft.
> My guess is that this is partly because there just aren't
> that many weenie vamps that show up to be drafted in most of
> the current draft sets (only 5 two-caps in CE boosters, 4
> one-caps and 6 two-caps in SW), and then partly because there
> aren't that many disciplineless cards that you'll be able to
> draft for them to use.
Strange. People who "go for it" usually get away with getting a
crypt with some five or six vampires cap five or lower when we
play here.
>
> Certainly true that getting some weenies is useful, though,
> since you really can't afford to buy more than one fattie
> per game in draft (unless you get lucky). :-)
>
>>>Draft is immensly fun to play, and I suck major at it :)>
>
> Indeed. Well, I can't corroborate that you suck at it, but
> it's definitely loads of fun. :-) (There ought to be more
> VTES draft events so people could get better at it, it's
> lots of fun and it's hard to get enough practice to actually
> get a sense of how to be good at it when draft tournaments
> are still pretty few and far between.)
Oh, I suck at it - really bad :)
We're trying to run drafts bimonthly now, and the interest is
at least decent.
Sten During