Four-Card Format - Opinions?

Several of us at the FLGS are discussing a four-card format as we're finding the decks use the same narrow range of monotonous combos over and over again. (I'm not making a judgment - I play it and enjoy it regardless.) I'm just curious if anyone has tried this format and how it works for them? Problems? Complications? Thanks, Christian

[ quoted text not captured ] There have been so many discussions about this in the far flung past, that I can't even begin to bring myself to look them up for you. Search google groups for Four card Limit, 4CL, etc etc. It won't make your games better. It won't make your decks different. Only *you* the players can make your decks different. And you can only do that with no limits. That said, any VTES is better than no VTES. best - chris

[ quoted text not captured ] Personally I feel the game should do away with rarities. There is no cash incentive or high rewards in tournaments anyway (like magic) and if the focus is the game and the players then I think having the ability to get the cards you need without spending a ton on the secondary market would be awesome (of course there still may be more expensive cards, but not like we see them now). And if someone were to complain that more people were to have access to cards like Enkil Cog, etc. then there is a problem with the game. Chase cards destroyed other games entirely. And the only reason Magic hasn't gotten away with it is the four card limit and it's long standing and large player base. However, I guess that is what makes VTES "collectible."

On Nov 3, 11:30 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] My apologies. I wasn't aware that this subject had been discussed before. Didn't mean to take up group bandwidth with it.

[ quoted text not captured ] > before. Didn't mean to take up group bandwidth with it.- Dölj citerad text - > > - Visa citerad text - My experience is that it "blands" decks out. You get very restricted when building nifty combo decks and combat decks suffer immensly. You get only 4 immortal grapple in a potence deck, you get only 4 carrion crows in an animalism weenie deck, but you have a number of different viable S:CE cards for non combat decks, but even they get more bland. So less diversity between decks which imo goes completely against what I want to see when I play. Try to play a couple of Highlander games (only 1 copy per card per deck) and you get the impact it gets on the game while trying to build a deck.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah. That pretty much grabs it. There is absolutely 0 chances for an Animalism/Celerity/Potence typed combat deck to be viable in a 4CL environment. There is only one Carrion Crows and nothing that duplicates it. There is only one Psyche! and nothing that duplicates it. There is only one Immortal Grapple and nothing that duplicates it. It would also kill all the dementation, sanguinus, and other bleed decks that have only limited amount of options. On the other hand there are 8 obfuscate stealth cards that you can use for practically the same effect. For Dominate there are 3 action cards and 5 modifiers that add to bleed unconditionally with a cost of 1 or 0. For Presence the same numbers are 7 actions and 1 modifier. In Presence there are also 4 combat end cards available. Thus the effect a 4CL would have on already strong dominate and presence based bleed decks would be close to 0, while it would ruin some of the already struggling deck types like Celerity or Potence combat. There are several examples of whole deck types that would be ruined by the 4CL, and most of them are already struggling to be successful on a larger scale.

[NOTE: This has been discussed at-length before but not recently, so I'm going to repost some information along with some examples. --KJM] Christian wrote: > Several of us at the FLGS are discussing a four-card format Why 4CL? Why not 3? or 5? or 2? or 6? > as we're finding the decks use the same narrow range of monotonous > combos over and over again. (I'm not making a judgment - I play it > and enjoy it regardless.) Why is the game structure being blamed for your player's inability or unwillingness to stop playing the same decks over and over again? Do you all have a bleed deck? Do you all have a combat deck? Do you all have a vote deck? Do you all have a bruise/bleed deck? Do you all have an intercept-wall deck? Do you all have an intercept/bleed deck? Do you all have an ally (or Imbued) deck? Do you all have a Camarilla deck? Do you all have a Sabbat deck? Do you all have a Independent deck? Do you all have a Laibon deck? Do you all have a <CLAN> deck? Also, what makes your group believe that a 4CL will stimulate any creativity or a 'wider range of combos'? Consider: 16 Bum's Rush vs 16 KRC or: 4 Bum's Rush vs 4 KRC 4 Ambush 4 ConAg 4 Harass 4 Neonate Breach 4 Big Game 4 Finding the Path How about this: 20 Enchant Kindred vs 20 Govern the Unaligned or: 4 Enchant Kindred vs 4 Govern The Unaligned 4 Social Charm 4 Scouting Mission 4 Legal Maniplations 4 Mind Rape 4 Public Trust 4 Slaughtering the Herd 4 Propaganda 4 Spirit Marionette How about this: 24 Enhanced Senses vs 24 Lost in Crowds or: 4 Enhanced Senses vs 4 Lost in Crowds 4 Eagle Sight 4 Cloak the Gathering 4 Melange 4 Faceless Night 4 My Enemy's Enemy 4 Domain of Evernight 4 Precognition 4 Spying Mission 4 Spirit's Touch 4 Swallowed by the Night How about this: 20 Bleed actions vs 10 Wake with Evening's Freshness 10 'Bounce' cards (either DOM or AUS) 4 Bleed Action A vs 4 Wake with Evening's Freshness 4 Bleed Action B 4 On the Qui Vive 4 Bleed Action C 2 Forced Awakening 4 Bleed Action D 4 Deflection and 4 Redirection (DOM) 4 Bleed Action E 4 'Bounce' cards and 4 'Reduce' Cards (AUS) How about this: 24 Rolling With the Punches vs 24 Majesty or: 4 Rolling With the Punches vs 4 Majesty 4 Skin of Steel 4 Staredown 4 King of the Mountain 4 Catatonic Fear 4 Superior Mettle 4 Putrefaction 4 Infection 4 Unholy Penance 4 Armor of Vitality 4 Force of Personality Do you really see this as the 'wider range of combos' that you and your playgroup are looking for? As a famous player once said: "The main skill and challenge in building 4CL decks is figuring out how to get around the card limit. Once you have exausted 4 of every useful card you need, you spend the rest of the time trying to figure out how to make other cards do what you want circumvent the limit." And why restrict DEFENSE so much? You like quick, fast, death games? Consider: 16 Bum's Rush vs 16 Obedience or: 4 Bum's Rush vs 4 Obedience 4 Ambush [...] 4 Harass 4 Big Game How about this: 20 Enchant Kindred vs 20 Deflection or: 4 Enchant Kindred vs 4 Deflection 4 Social Charm 4 Redirection 4 Legal Maniplations [...] 4 Public Trust 4 Propaganda How about this: 20 Enchant Kindred vs 10 Telepathic Counter 10 Telepathic Misdirection or: 4 Enchant Kindred vs 4 Telepathic Counter 4 Social Charm 4 Telepathic Misdirection 4 Legal Maniplations [...] 4 Public Trust 4 Propaganda > I'm just curious if anyone has tried this format and how it works > for them? Problems? Complications? The only real problem with an 'xCL' in VTES is that VTES is produced specifically to be a game without card limits. By artificially using an 'xCL' you make the common cards, which are specifically created to be plentiful in decks, less-good, and the rares, which are created to be scarce in decks, are unaffected one way or the other. The cards are playtested within a NCL framework and they are powered as such. Why do you believe that altering that power level will enhance your group's creativity or a 'wider range of combos'? And why introduce such randomness (4 in 90 instead of, say, 12 in 90) into the game? Is that something desirable to your group? Or, do you have some fear within your playgroup that someone who spends more on the game will have some kind of advantage over the other players? Are you trying to level the playing field in your group by artificially restricting the number of cards a person can play with in order to make everyone feel better, even though there is zero evidence that more cards equals more wins? Also, the VTES designer(s) and community dislike Banned/Restricted lists and want everyone to be able to play with all their cards (since VTES has no 'block' format) so an 'xCL' is undesirable. Lastly, there are certain deck types which are DESTROYED by 'xCL'. Just off the top of my head: - Third Tradition/Embrace/Creation Rites/other 'embrace' decks - War Ghoul/Shambling Hordes/Reanimated Corpse decks - Cryptic Mission decks - Theft of Vitae decks - Shadow Twin decks - Immortal Grapple decks - Corruption decks - Deep Song decks - Horrid Form decks - 419 Operation decks - crazy Anarch decks, e.g. 30x Undue Influence - crazy Trophy decks, e.g. 29x Trophy:Progeny - crazy decks with lots of one card, e.g. Una, Turbo Baron, Khazar's 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/ Please buy my cards! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html

> And why introduce such randomness (4 in 90 instead of, say, 12 in 90) > into the game? Is that something desirable to your group? Well your deck shouldnt reallly be 90 in the first place... :P

Ruben Feldman wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] That's debatable. You should try playing a rush combat deck. In any case, a 12 in 70 to 4 in 70 comparison still proves my point. Is that all you got out of that post? :P [ quoted text not captured ]

On Nov 3, 10:22 pm, Christian <chrisi...@aol.com> wrote: > I'm just curious if anyone has tried this format and how it works for > them? Problems? Complications? The short version: Yes. People have tried this format (it was, for a very short window of time, the official tournament rule. In, like, 1995 or something...) and the end result is that it breaks the game in a bad way. The game was specifically designed to not use a per card card limt. And the result of forcing a per card card limit into the game is that certain deck strategies (i.e. the ones that use cards that have a lot of similar cards that provide redundancy, like Obfuscate and Dominate) don't suffer at all while others (i.e. the ones that revolve around a specific card with no similarly redundant card, like Immortal Grapple, Shambling Horde, or Cryptic Mission) are completely demolished. The long version: Kevin posted a very long description of what using a card limit does. Which is dead on. To shorten the long version--if you want to stealth and bleed someone with Obfuscate and Dominate, you can use 20x Lost in Crowds and 20x Govern the Unaligned. Or, you can use 4x each of Lost in Crowds, Cloak the Gathering, Swallowed by the Night, Faceless Night, and Spying Mission, and then 4x each of whatever + bleed cards you have handfulls of. And in reality, the deck using 4x of each of 5 different cards will be *better* than the deck that uses 20x each of 1 card ('cause of the way the rules interact with stacking cards--you can only play a single Lost in Crowds on a given action, but can stack 5 different ones if you need to). Also, a per card limit makes it much harder to play the game without spending a ton of money--card limits often increase the necessity and power of hard to get rare cards, and consequently, give players with more money an advantage. For example, if you are making a Presence based vote deck, with no card limit, you can use 10 common Bewitching Orations to pass your votes as needed. With a limit of 4x Bewitching Orations, you need to get ahold of 4x rare and expensive Awe and/or difficult to get a hold of Perfect Paragon. -Peter

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, Christian wrote: > My apologies. I wasn't aware that this subject had been discussed > before. Didn't mean to take up group bandwidth with it. Well, don't worry about that. If you're receptive to the reasons why 4CL is a bad idea (see KevinM's post), then we've done good work here. It's a much better use of our time than telling Peter he's a big dummy for playing a four-player final in an unsanctioned, unrated event. The funny thing is I saw this post and figured "Four-Card Format" meant you were playing vtes with a deck that only had four cards in it, like a variant of Duffin Draft. I'm intrigued!

Taken from Lasombra.com We should play with Card Limits (ie a 4 card limit). Suggestion: Playing with a card limit provides the following benefits: a) Increased Creativity b) Helps players with fewer cards (ie those who have spent less) c) Decreases the possibility of Boring Decks (ie cheese decks / degenerate decks) d) Cards that are "Broken", aren't "Broken" if you only see 4 per game Response: a) Reducing the number of copies of a particular card you can play in a deck has nothing to do with increasing creativity. Some very creative decks can only be made effectively with large quantities of specific cards, ie Cryptic Mission, Corruption, Shadow Twin, Enticement. If a card or strategy exists, you can make creative use of it using any number of copies, the only question is how many copies does it take for that strategy to be effective, and artificially limiting or prohibiting those decks takes away from the creativity of the game. b) "If you limit the number of commons that someone can play, you eliminate the effectiveness of someone who favors paying rent over buying lots of cards." - jonathan bradford bailey 8/18/1995 If you are playing a vote deck that would like to increase its votes with action modifiers, the new player with Eight Bewitching Oration cards and Zero Awe cards is hampered completely by a card limit while the person with a little more money spent and 4 Awe and 20 Bewitching Oration isn't hurt by a 4 card limit at all. The one who spent more money can put in 8 vote modifiers while the new player can only put in 4. Clearly, a card limit does not help those players who have spent less money. c) A card limit does not prohibit a deck from being boring. If every action of every vampire is the same (ie, bleed with an action card) it is no more boring if the action card is the same card every time (32 Computer Hacking) or if it is a different card every time (4 Media Influence, 4 Social Charm, 4 Legal Manipulations, 4 Intimidation, 4 Enchant Kindred, 4 Entrancement, 4 Propaganda, 4 Computer Hacking). The only part that may be boring is that your deck may not be prepared for 32 +bleed actions so you will be sitting out the rest of the game waiting for the game to finish. d) Whether or not a particular card is balanced is not in any way affected by the number of times per game you see it played. As an example, it is only necessary for a Return to Innocence to played one time for a 11-17 pool swing to take place. This swing is too much for one card, regardless of the number of times it happens in a game. As such, card limits will not fix the card, nor will card limits prevent this card from being "broken". As such, the card is banned and the rest of the set is not affected. For more views on card limits, read Mark Langdorf's archive of articles on the subject. You can find that archive here: http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/. James Coupe also wrote a compelling recap of the arguments against card limits here: http://www.TheLasombra.com/card-limits-coupe.txt.

[ quoted text not captured ] Or a four-card limit (you can only have four distinct cards, but as many copies of those four cards as you like), which is what I thought when I saw the subject.

On 4 marras, 11:36, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Why is the game structure being blamed for your player's inability > or unwillingness to stop playing the same decks over and over again? Don't be obnoxious. The man sincerely asked opinions on a 4CL. Why are you being so aggressive about attacking the format when he isn't even defending it? Do you just take every question as an argument? Or do you just hate it when people question the status quo? We should all just shut up and put up, is that what you want? Why do you hate freedom, Kevin?

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, RoddPrime wrote: > Personally I feel the game should do away with rarities. There is no > cash incentive or high rewards in tournaments anyway (like magic) and > if the focus is the game and the players then I think having the > ability to get the cards you need without spending a ton on the > secondary market would be awesome (of course there still may be more > expensive cards, but not like we see them now). And if someone were to > complain that more people were to have access to cards like Enkil Cog, > etc. then there is a problem with the game. Chase cards destroyed > other games entirely. And the only reason Magic hasn't gotten away > with it is the four card limit and it's long standing and large player > base. However, I guess that is what makes VTES "collectible." I'm not sure what this has to do with a 4CL, but just because you want more Enkil Cogs and I want more Villeins doesn't mean that all cards should have the same rarity. KoT is a huge set, so yeah the rares are kind of tough to get. It can be tough to get enough of a common card you want even. The guiding philosophy for rarity in vtes these days (this hasn't always been true) is that cards you want more of will be more common. Of course this isn't implemented perfectly and the design team can't know what decks you want to build. They do know that you might have a few different decks with 8x Cloak the Gathering or 12x Torn Signpost (see how this keeps showing up in multiples in starter decks?), but probably won't have any decks that want to have 8x Enkil Cog. I think a good example of a card that should've been rare but wasn't is Houngan from Legacies of Blood. I probably have like 15 of these and have never had use for more than two of them at a time. It's unique and only goes in Samedi decks. I'll bet 99% of the Houngans in print have never been played. Do away with rarity and you'll have as many Arcane Appraisers as you will Deep Songs. Does that make sense? I have a deck with 9x Deep Song. Will you make a deck with 9x Arcane Appraiser? Matt Morgan

[ quoted text not captured ] Whoa, new format! :) [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Is this a joke post? Where's the emoticon? PETER HELP!!! [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > suoli wrote: >> "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >>> Why is the game structure being blamed for your player's inability >>> or unwillingness to stop playing the same decks over and over again? >> Don't be obnoxious. The man sincerely asked opinions on a 4CL. Why >> are you being so aggressive about attacking the format when he isn't >> even defending it? Do you just take every question as an argument? >> Or do you just hate it when people question the status quo? We >> should all just shut up and put up, is that what you want? Why do >> you hate freedom, Kevin? > > Is this a joke post? Where's the emoticon? PETER HELP!!! A plea to be nice, especially to new faces, should be no joke. A plea to constructive discourse when it comes to topics appropriate to this group should be no joke.

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009, LSJ wrote: > Matthew T. Morgan wrote: >> >> The funny thing is I saw this post and figured "Four-Card Format" meant you >> were playing vtes with a deck that only had four cards in it, like a >> variant of Duffin Draft. I'm intrigued! > > Or a four-card limit (you can only have four distinct cards, but as many > copies of those four cards as you like), which is what I thought when I saw > the subject. I smell a TWDA challenge! Who can get the deck with the fewest distinct cards in the archive?

[ quoted text not captured ] So you believe that I wasn't nice and/or my post wasn't constructive? As with suoli, I can't tell what you're saying. Perhaps you could be more direct so that I can understand you? [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > LSJ wrote: >> Kevin M. wrote: >>> suoli wrote: >>>> "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >>>>> Why is the game structure being blamed for your player's inability >>>>> or unwillingness to stop playing the same decks over and over >>>>> again? >>>> Don't be obnoxious. The man sincerely asked opinions on a 4CL. Why >>>> are you being so aggressive about attacking the format when he isn't >>>> even defending it? Do you just take every question as an argument? >>>> Or do you just hate it when people question the status quo? We >>>> should all just shut up and put up, is that what you want? Why do >>>> you hate freedom, Kevin? >>> Is this a joke post? Where's the emoticon? PETER HELP!!! >> A plea to be nice, especially to new faces, should be no joke. >> >> A plea to constructive discourse when it comes to topics appropriate >> to this group should be no joke. > > So you believe that I wasn't nice and/or my post wasn't constructive? So you believe the bit quoted above was constructive? You don't believe it was overly aggressive in the context in which the OP asked his question? > As with suoli, I can't tell what you're saying. Perhaps you could be > more direct so that I can understand you? The direct statement: Posters should post with civility, and optimally out of an earnest desire to find common ground. If that's still too circumshrubbish: Be nice.

[ quoted text not captured ] Need to firm up those parameters, to avoid confusion: "...including crypt cards".

On 4 marras, 17:37, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > As with suoli, I can't tell what you're saying. Perhaps you could be > more direct so that I can understand you? Probably not.

LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> writes: [ quoted text not captured ] Damn, there goes my claim for fame. I won the Ropecon 1999 tournament with a deck with five different library cards: Info Highway, Misdirection (old and broken version), Computer Hacking, Dodge and Fake Out. Crypt was all the 1-caps in existence then, minus Uriah Winter and Julius twice. HG

LSJ wrote: > Kevin M. wrote: >> LSJ wrote: >>> Kevin M. wrote: >>>> suoli wrote: >>>>> "Kevin M." wrote: >>>>>> Why is the game structure being blamed for your player's >>>>>> inability or unwillingness to stop playing the same decks over >>>>>> and over again? >>>>> >>>>> Don't be obnoxious. The man sincerely asked opinions on a 4CL. >>>>> Why are you being so aggressive about attacking the format when >>>>> he isn't even defending it? Do you just take every question as >>>>> an argument? Or do you just hate it when people question the >>>>> status quo? We should all just shut up and put up, is that what >>>>> you want? Why do you hate freedom, Kevin? >>>> >>>> Is this a joke post? Where's the emoticon? PETER HELP!!! >>> >>> A plea to be nice, especially to new faces, should be no joke. >>> >>> A plea to constructive discourse when it comes to topics >>> appropriate to this group should be no joke. >> >> So you believe that I wasn't nice and/or my post wasn't >> constructive? > > So you believe the bit quoted above was constructive? > > You don't believe it was overly aggressive in the context in which > the OP asked his question? I can see where a certain type of person might find it a challenging and/or direct question, but to be so touchy-feeley about challenging one's beliefs? Really? >> As with suoli, I can't tell what you're saying. Perhaps you could >> be more direct so that I can understand you? > > The direct statement: Posters should post with civility, Being direct and challenging one's beliefs isn't civil, now? > and optimally out of an earnest desire to find common ground. So it isn't truth or 'the best' that you're after, it's compromise? > If that's still too circumshrubbish: > > Be nice. I rewrote the post several times to 'nicen it up', and I believe that, while challenging and direct, it falls under the definition of 'nice'. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 4 marras, 17:55, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > I can see where a certain type of person might find it a challenging > and/or direct question, but to be so touchy-feeley about challenging > one's beliefs? Really? What beliefs? The opening post gives no hints that a reasonable person could follow to come to conclusions about Christian's beliefs on 4CL. Do you know something that we don't or are you just assuming too much?

[ quoted text not captured ] Here's a question: What would make you believe you could have a reasonable, constructive conversation with someone who hates freedom, who assumes too much, and who just wants everyone to shut up? [ quoted text not captured ]

On 4 marras, 18:07, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Here's a question: > What would make you believe you could have a reasonable, constructive > conversation with someone who hates freedom, who assumes too much, > and who just wants everyone to shut up? Nothing. Which is why I would draw attention to these personal qualities. Knowing that you have a problem is the first step in the healing process.

[ quoted text not captured ] 16 distinct cards may still be pretty close. I don't really care to comb the TWDA to see if anyone has done it with fewer. Maybe secretlibrary can tell us.

[ quoted text not captured ] No one's being touchy-feely. And no one is saying anything pro or con about challenging one's beliefs. Really. > >>> As with suoli, I can't tell what you're saying. Perhaps you could >>> be more direct so that I can understand you? >> The direct statement: Posters should post with civility, > > Being direct and challenging one's beliefs isn't civil, now? It can be done civily, and it can be done not civily. But that's not the issue. >> and optimally out of an earnest desire to find common ground. > > So it isn't truth or 'the best' that you're after, it's compromise? > >> If that's still too circumshrubbish: >> >> Be nice. > > I rewrote the post several times to 'nicen it up', and I believe that, > while challenging and direct, it falls under the definition of 'nice'. And apparently it isn't perceived that way by at least one reader.

On Nov 4, 10:28 am, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > Is this a joke post? Where's the emoticon? PETER HELP!!! I dunno--I thought the part where you hated freedom was funny, smiley or no :-) -Peter

I wasn't offended by the reply. I sincerely didn't think 4CL had been the subject of conversation to any great and/or recent length. Though as someone who usually lurks and rarely posts, I do think LSJ is correct in that you guys are sometimes rather harsh with your replies (just not in my case, IMO). Just one man's opinion. I think the rest of my post is fodder for a separate subject heading so I'll start a new thread there. Christian

A limited format has been tested years ago (when I didn't know the existence of VTES) and still survives today, in Lyon, France. This was a simple format with 5CL, and only 3 copies of each unique. However an addition was made to this : as the library had been restricted, the grouping restriction was removed. You can play Leandro with Lutz, etc. The good side of this is that new players could fit in with competitive decks right away - kinda. You could see unexpected vampire matching, like making a nice POT/SER bruise and bleed deck. The 5CL was decided simply as a result of M:TG CL. 60 cards decks > x4. average 80 cards decks > x5. By now the playgroup has evolved and most players play unlimited. Unlimited proves to bring more deckbuilding span but at the same time allows more "archetypal" decks. And on a table, sometimes a CL deck is played, and gets ousted fast by lack of the right card at the right time. Kevin pointed what issues are when using CL. I won't discuss this any further. If I can add something, it would be that we still use this CL mainly for a special format with no crypt and only one 9 to 10-cap vampire to avoid boring monomaniac games like mono Una and bring true diversity to this format. It diverts the game from its original rules, but creates new opportunities. That's why we players are looking for, aren't we? PS. About rarity : WW's policy about fixing demand with offers is nice. However, some cards are underused and would benefit from being uncommons or even rares. Houngan was a good example. Plus, some cards are clearly spoilers and are rare as gold. ie. Carlton Van Wyk, Touch of Clarity, Villein, Enkil Cog. The bad thing with villein is that you need at least 5 of them in every deck that would use Minion tap. On 3 political decks with voter captivation you'd need at least 15... So you'd need to buy 15 KoT boxes. And mixing Villeins/Minion Taps is bad. The Vessel/blood doll balance is far better. (that was out of subject)

On Tue, 3 Nov 2009 19:22:52 -0800 (PST), Christian <chri...@aol.com> wrote: > Several of us at the FLGS are discussing a four-card format as we're > finding the decks use the same narrow range of monotonous combos over > and over again. (I'm not making a judgment - I play it and enjoy it > regardless.) > > I'm just curious if anyone has tried this format and how it works for > them? Problems? Complications? The main problem I see is that it won't trim down the monotonous combos - in fact, you can be sure to see more of it. Most current decks would be almost useless in a 4-card format. Off the top of my hat, I can think of a couple of examples that might still work, and they are all pretty monotonous. Weeny vote: Kine Resources Contested, Bewitching Oration, Bribes, Dodge Kindred Spirits: KS, Lost in Crowds, Learjet, Elder Impersonation etc. You would hardly see any Master cards at all, maybe except Life in the City, or any of the highly conditional, situational cards that you usually just splash into the deck. I'd also wager that the decks you see would be 60-cards (and even then you will pull off the same combo 15-20 times). The benefit I see is moving people to think and cope with a new situation (e.g. do I build my deck based on a basically 3-card combo, and then I can splash in a couple of copies of a nice-to-have card, or do I forego situational coverage and go for a solid 4-card combo?). But, all in all, I think it would probably be a bad idea. :) -- Regards, Daneel

On Nov 3, 9:22 pm, Christian <chrisi...@aol.com> wrote: > > I'm just curious if anyone has tried this format and how it works for > them? Problems? Complications? > See, I thought four-card format was something totally different from both the actual question (on 4CL) and from what other people misinterpreted. I thought maybe you wanted to play with just 4 cards in your hand, and were planning to reduce the "monotonous" combos that way... fewer cards in hand means less chance to make your combo! And then I got to thinking... how about a 4-card hand where card slot was replaced from a distinct draw-pile? So, say you have a draw pile A, B, C, and D (each player determines the contents of each pile for himself, so in essence you build 4 decks that go together instead of one deck)... at the beginning of the game, you draw one card from each pile. When you play a card, I'm not sure if you should be allowed to draw from any of the 4 piles, or if it has to come from the same pile that you played from. If the latter, then you'd have to make some additional changes. 1) to facilitate remembering which card came from which pile you'd have to put each pile is in sleeves with a different color back. Or perhaps you don't hold your cards in hand - you must leave them face down next to the pile they came from, and you can look at the card at any time... 2) when you Do Not Replace a card, that draw pile is essentially out of play until you can replace it. 3) when you increase your hand size, you increase the number of cards you can see at a time from 1 or more draw piles. I'm tempted to say that you cannot decide to see like 7 cards from pile C and 1 each from the rest of the piles. I'd say you have to increase them evenly... Essentially you have 4 different hands which each has a hand size of 1. Things that decrease hand size would decrease the hand size of the hand you played/discarded from. Things that increase hand size are split between the hands as evenly as possible - if you gain +4 hand size from Visit From the Capuchin, you increase each hand size by 1. If you bring out Guillaume (it's Guillaume, right?) Giovanni and have 16 locations in play, you increase each hand size by 4... If you run out of cards from a particular pile, you may *not* split the hand size from that pile up among your other piles. I dunno, just an idea I got from the OP...

On Nov 4, 1:04 pm, Christian <chrisi...@aol.com> wrote: > I wasn't offended by the reply. I sincerely didn't think 4CL had been > the subject of conversation to any great and/or recent length. Heh. It has died down in the recent past, and this is the first 4CL thread I remember seeing in a few years, but really, the 4CL debate was one that raged on and on for years and years, and never seemed to go away from, like, 1996 till the early 2000's. -Peter

"RoddPrime" <rodd...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:0a9f962c-c1c1-4905...@h2g2000vbd.googlegroups.com... On Nov 3, 11:30 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > Personally I feel the game should do away with rarities. There is no > cash incentive or high rewards in tournaments anyway (like magic) and > if the focus is the game and the players then I think having the > ability to get the cards you need without spending a ton on the > secondary market would be awesome (of course there still may be more > expensive cards, but not like we see them now). And if someone were to > complain that more people were to have access to cards like Enkil Cog, > etc. then there is a problem with the game. Chase cards destroyed > other games entirely. And the only reason Magic hasn't gotten away > with it is the four card limit and it's long standing and large player > base. However, I guess that is what makes VTES "collectible." I have great sympathy with your point of view. I've always hated rarity-for-the-sake-of rarity in CCGs. To me, the brilliant innovation Richard Garfield added to the field of gaming will always be the constructed deck format of playing card games. The collectible/rarity thing is simply what made the format commercially viable and even, for some products, downright lucrative. However, that said, the commercial side of the game endeavor is still a key to getting our game printed and on the market for us to buy, use, and enjoy. So - until someone thinks up a better way to make money in this format - I think we have to take artificial rarity limitations and lump it. I agree with you that chase cards can kill a CCG in the long run. I think White Wolf understands that and they take advantage of rarity in only limited and temporary ways. (That is, eventually, you'll get reprinted, relatively cheap copies of those key cards. Just maybe not for two or three or years.) It's all a matter of opinion but I think they've balanced profit against playability as well as any game company I've seen. Also, keep in mind that a perfectly player-oriented mix of cards wouldn't involve an equal number of copies of all cards in any event. Players would want cards that get used in multiple kinds of decks and used in multiples within decks (the various forms of Wakes and Blood Dolls would be the most obvious examples) to be far more common than those cards needed only for specialized decks and in small numbers of copies. Ironically, if Enkil Cog had been as common as On the Que Vive in Keepers of Tradition boosters, we'd probably be scowling at them when we pulled them out of packs. For simple utility's sake, we certainly want _some_ level of inequality in card commonality. Fred

On Wed, 4 Nov 2009 10:22:43 -0600, "Matthew T. Morgan" wrote: >>>> I smell a TWDA challenge! Who can get the deck with the fewest distinct >>>> cards in the archive? >16 distinct cards may still be pretty close. I don't really care to comb >the TWDA to see if anyone has done it with fewer. Maybe secretlibrary can >tell us. 13, for Turbo Arika http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k8sequeenslandcq Steven McRoy's Tournament Winning Deck DeckName: Arika Turbo Created by: Steven McRoy Vamps (15) [avg=11] Arika x15 (could have more, 15 was enough) Library (90) Daring the Dawns x10 Force of Wills x10 Soul Gems x7 Majesty x3 Freak Drive x10 Conditioning x10 Distraction x10 Awe x10 Praxis Seizure: Geneva x4, Berlin x4, Cairo x2 Forgotten Labyrinth x5 (would add one more) Elder Impersonation x3 (would exchange for Faceless Night x4 Seduction x2 (would delete)

[ quoted text not captured ] That's 15, BTW. There are three distinct Praxes.

> That's 15, BTW. There are three distinct Praxes. Peter Bakija's "Nos Hate You" deck has 14 unique library cards. Robert Goudie's got a weenie dominate deck in the TWDA with 12. Here's one with 11 unique library cards: ----------------------- Steve Wampler's Praxis Seizure: Ithaca March 1998 Crypt [avg = 2.47]: 2x Antoinette Duchamp 2x Gideon Fontaine 2x Mariana Gilbert 2x Delilah Easton 1x Igo, the Hungry 1x Roland Loussarian 1x Violette Prentiss 1x Vasilis, the Traitor of Don Cruez 1x Khalil Anvari 1x Angela Decker 1x Uma Hatch --- 15 vampires Library: 1x Information Highway 2x Effective Management 7x Presence 3x Misdirection 1x The Barrens 1x Entrancement 11x Enchant Kindred 8x Social Charm 5x Legal Manipulations 13x Aire of Elation 7x Majesty ------------------------------ -John Flournoy

John Flournoy wrote: >> That's 15, BTW. There are three distinct Praxes. > > Peter Bakija's "Nos Hate You" deck has 14 unique library cards. Robert > Goudie's got a weenie dominate deck in the TWDA with 12. > > Here's one with 11 unique library cards: Sure. But we're counting all the cards, not just the library.

On Nov 3, 7:22 pm, Christian <chrisi...@aol.com> wrote: > Several of us at the FLGS are discussing a four-card format as we're > finding the decks use the same narrow range of monotonous combos over > and over again. (I'm not making a judgment - I play it and enjoy it > regardless.) > > I'm just curious if anyone has tried this format and how it works for > them? Problems? Complications? In the last year, I have been playing mostly with a 4cl group. If it was my only group, I'd probably care about moving to the standard game, but I like variant play and play enough normal ... well, NoCal isn't normal, ... standard, legal and often utterly insane ... play. Problems are a function of what players are trying to do with games. Can NCL be monotonous? Sure. But, that's a function of players who don't appreciate the variety offered by CCGs and players too lazy to metagame to destroy predictable decks. xCL can be even more monotonous on both play and deck construction levels even if it doesn't seem so as the number of viable decks is smaller. Is 4cl easily broken? Sure, but I don't think it happens in those rare groups that play with a CL. The reality is that 4cl feels right to people who don't want to break games, so they don't try to break games and never see how much more unbalanced a 4cl environment will be than a NCL environment will be. It's pointless to bring up the Aus/ Dom/Obf or Pre or whatever examples of broken decks under card limits because the people who want the limits aren't likely to build strong decks no matter what the rules are. Fun in gaming comes from players being on the same page about what is enjoyable. A belief that card limits will improve this game is more about "cover" for having a general interest in not trying to play the game as competitively as possible than it is about making for a better environment. Anyway, my 4cl environment has related features that help define it as one where players are playing a particular house game rather than trying to play V:TES as it was intended. Sure, there's been a problem of the introduction of new sets to my group that seemingly break the environment - Presence gets too many combat ends or whatever. But, that's just lack of perception since highly redundant disciplines such as Auspex, Dominate, and Obfuscate were already broken. Meanwhile, it gets ignored how utterly screwed some disciplines are under card limits. It didn't take me long to realize why no one I played with knew what any of the Dementation cards did, for instance. But, again, some of the players want it for whatever reason, not all of which are easily dismissed (e.g. I only kept enough copies of each card to play four in a deck since that's all we were allowed, or whatever). And, I personally don't care since I've played plenty without card limits and I'm always looking for some sort of limitation on deckbuilding to make me less bored. What really hurts, by the way, are the 4cl, Jyhad only or Sabbat only (libraries) decks that I started building since 4cl wasn't restrictive enough. x4 Forced Awakenings for wake effects without getting into Animalism? Ouch!! The 1CL deck I have isn't so thrilling to play, either. As for the 4dcl (four different cards limit) decks (libraries, I fail to see the basis for limiting crypt variety), I tried 2dcl and that was painful in actual play. My old 4dcl deck of Effective Management, Enchant Kindred, Majesty, Dread Gaze was under the old wording of Majesty. I do think there is some interesting thought in dcl - for instance, consider why I used up a valuable slot on Dread Gaze in that deck.

[ quoted text not captured ] So how does your playgroup react to a visiting player (who doesn't have a deck that is 4cl) or more importantly, a player who have moved into your area due to work or whatever? Are the players in your group willing to accept a non-4cl deck on the same table? Or will the new player be forced to convert to the 4cl format or become an outcast? Similarly, what about new players who enter the game through your playgroup? What happens when they move to another place and get the shock of their lives when the 5th copy of Kindred Spirits or Aid from Bats (for example) is played by another player? Do you inform new players that the 4cl is, in fact, a variant play and that the standard rules allow for no CL? Reason I'm asking is because there is a risk of the player quitting the game, simply because there is no where else to play the game without converting. I think that, given how hard it is to get new players, player retention becomes an important way of keeping the game alive. Cheers YY

On Nov 5, 10:05 pm, YY <the1andonl...@yahoo.com.sg> wrote: > So how does your playgroup react to a visiting player (who doesn't > have a deck that is 4cl) or more importantly, a player who have moved > into your area due to work or whatever? Are the players in your group > willing to accept a non-4cl deck on the same table? Or will the new > player be forced to convert to the 4cl format or become an outcast? It's a house game. People know up front about the 4cl. Only one other person from the region's general playerbase has played with the group, and he knew about the 4cl for a long time. For someone who isn't interested in 4cl, there's two regular groups at opposite ends of the region. The reason most of my play has been with the CL group is because it was consistently weekly and not terribly inconvenient like the other weekly group. Again, if that was all I could play, ... actually, I just don't care anymore. But, if I hadn't been playing the game for 13 years already, I might care about trying to play standard rules. > Similarly, what about new players who enter the game through your > playgroup? What happens when they move to another place and get the > shock of their lives when the 5th copy of Kindred Spirits or Aid from > Bats (for example) is played by another player? Do you inform new > players that the 4cl is, in fact, a variant play and that the standard > rules allow for no CL? The CL group is aware that the standard game lacks card limits. There's been talk at times about the nature of playing with a card limit. The CL is not the hardest thing to deal with. The history of the group was a house game that mistakenly thought there was a CL and that wasn't plugged into rules changes. So, a lot of rules have been changed since I started playing with them and there are still issues with card text. There are cards I don't play because the card text migrations are too vast, such as Anarch Revolt. Changing to NCL probably wouldn't be any greater a challenge than the numerous rules and card text changes, but I don't bother arguing for a change since I don't care. I used to have a weekly game where the host and I had played previously with the same group of players in another house game but never showed up at the same time. They had house rules - anyone playing a vote deck had to be ousted as quickly as possible to avoid screwing up the game, no repeat *successful* action, etc. It drove him nuts as he was learning the game to try to play by two sets of rules. Didn't bother me. Nevermind that my original group didn't allow any cards from sets other than Jyhad, so I'd play Jyhad only decks in my house game and Sabbat only decks at conventions. So, having had a history of playing under multiple sets of rules, I don't find any problems playing under them now. It is, of course, lunacy for anyone trying to learn the game to play under multiple rules sets. > Reason I'm asking is because there is a risk of the player quitting > the game, simply because there is no where else to play the game > without converting. I think that, given how hard it is to get new > players, player retention becomes an important way of keeping the game > alive. If people want to play with house rules and can find enough players, then so be it. I don't care enough about how to play games anymore to try to convince people to do things they don't want to do. However, everyone should be aware enough that this only works with that one group and that, in general, it's better for everyone to play the same game so that you are part of a greater community. More generally, I'm no longer as caring about trying to retain people who don't really want to play the game. If you want to do something, do it, if you don't, don't. It's a game. It's meant to be fun. Btw, since most of my decks are 4cl these days, I routinely play them with NCL groups. The deck I played in the after Gen Con tournament at Ankur's house was a 4cl deck.

On 5 nov, 00:20, The Lasombra <TheLasom...@hotmail.com> wrote: > 13, for Turbo Arika > > http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k8sequeenslandcq > > Steven McRoy's Tournament Winning Deck > DeckName: Arika Turbo > Created by: Steven McRoy > > Vamps (15) [avg=11] > Arika x15 (could have more, 15 was enough) > > Library (90) > Daring the Dawns x10 > Force of Wills x10 > Soul Gems x7 > Majesty x3 > Freak Drive x10 > Conditioning x10 > Distraction x10 > Awe x10 > Praxis Seizure: Geneva x4, Berlin x4, Cairo x2 > Forgotten Labyrinth x5 (would add one more) > Elder Impersonation x3 (would exchange for Faceless Night x4 > Seduction x2 (would delete) Sorry to interrupt : This deck was not created by Steven Mc Roy, but rather by Philippe Lang and François Alix. Now that the information is corrected, we're pleased. We can go back to torpor where we belong. Good night, gentlement.