Why vote decks aren't dead

So I see there's a whole bunch of bullshit been posted lately that vote decks are dead and not worth playing. Allow me to just laugh in all your faces, openly, and predict that vote decks will get NO WEAKER as a result of this change, because the stuff that made them good has nothing at all to do with DU/KR. The primary arguments I've seen are these: -- Vote decks are weakened because they can't "get away" from a hostile Rush predator or prey. Well, suck it up and adapt, nerd-boys, because you're in the same boat as any NON-vote deck now. Those decks couldn't "get away" either, and they seem to be doing just fine against the myth of bad seating* -- you will learn to do the same, or you will just accept that you're no longer a "good" player. One way or the other, it's your choice. The cards would have been fine if your decision to bail affected you alone; ie "I bail out", and it only affected the deck you were bailing out or getting away from. But the vast, VAST majority of the time (and you KNOW that's true, bitches, so don't even try to whine to me about it) that's not how the vote was used; it was used to get behind the person who was low on pool and/or defenseless. If it was Kindred Restructure, you got the added benefit of being able to put the person you could most easily defend against as your predator. -- Vote decks will have to include all KRC and there won't be any variety, which is bad. There are plenty of other vote cards besides KRC. I'm sure all you clever souls who focus on variety at the expense of winning can figure out what to throw in. But honestly, variety isn't what the tournament rules are based on. The tournament rules assume that players will build decks that try to win, not decks that try to look cool in shades. The offensive power behind vote decks has always been the triple-threat of KRC, Parity Shift, and Domain Challenge. Replace with Con Ag if you're _really_ worried about Delaying Tactics, add some Ancilla Empowerment to help speed the game up, but those three cards were the FIRST thing you put in the deck, and then one or two DU or KR's so you could steal some VPs if the opportunity arose. Don't TELL me it didn't work that way, bitches, because again, _I know better_. I've built vote decks and won with them, and they did just fine at handing beatdowns to my sequential preys... and I almost never had to play the DU. -- People should just be including vote defense instead of complaining about DU/KR. Hey, guess what; there is no defense other than being able to block the action, or vote the stuff down. I've already pointed this out in the past, and I'll point it out again; vote decks have too many advantages that no other type of deck does. * Their ousting method starts at +1 stealth. * Their ousting method cannot have its target changed (Deflection). * Their ousting method gains them pool (Voter Captivation). Kindred Spirits and PRE bleed do this to some degree, but not on a par with vote decks, who can Minion Tap/Voter Cap for the tune of 10 pool per turn if they do it right. Easy as pie. * Their ousting method can be directed backwards as defense (see Kindred Spirits, again), while still trickling forward * They have access to many "tweaks" to the base game mechanics for free, where other decks need to spend pool or just don't have access: = Rumors of Gehenna for free, instead of Parthenon for 2 pool = Year of Fortune for free, instead of Elder Library for 1 pool = Political Flux; not available to non-political decks = Consanguineous Boon; not available to non-political decks = Praxis: Solomon; not available to non-political decks = Disputed Territory; not available to anything except superior Dominate for 2 blood, and even that doesn't get +1 stealth You think Delaying Tactics is enough? I spit in your face. THREE vote decks were in the finals at the NAC -- Christian Chenard's winning bleed-and-vote deck used Con Boons to gain pool (11 pool a pop isn't good tech? Think again, newb). This compared with one stealth/bleed deck and one CEL/guns deck. DT was ALL OVER the place, too; someone's KR got DT'ed three times in my first-round game, because all of us were packing some. No, I don't think vote is hurting at all, kids. Delaying Tactics doesn't even make a decent vote deck blink when it comes time to dish out the ousts, and it only had a SMALL effect against DU. If people had begun including so many DT that it was impossible to pass the vote directly, you would've seen Charming Lobby and Cryptic Rider see more play; of course, you were already seeing Charming Lobby a lot in order to protect DU from Direct Intervention. Can't DT an autopass vote, can you? And when you're cross table and someone is trying to DU to steal your VP, you can't even block the action. You can't DI, you can't block... all you can do is DT, and you might not even be able to do that because of Charming Lobby/Cryptic Rider. Isn't that some bullshit? Yeah, you know it is. So all you Chicken Littles out there can just STFU; the sky ain't falling for vote decks, and it hasn't been for some time. Let's move on and start discussing how vote decks should adapt themselves to not be the sit-bloat-and-snipe style that's been so common over the past couple years (leading directly to timeouts and excessive dealing), and instead can readapt themselves to be a proper game-winner with a little resiliency if they happen to get not a perfect seat. * I'll discuss the myth of bad seating in another post, but frankly, it's a myth. Too many of the same players win too frequently for it to be anything else; they aren't ALL lucky, are they? -- Derek a host is a host from coast to coast and no one will talk to a host that's close unless the host that isn't close is busy, hung, or dead

I generally agree, except: > -- Vote decks are weakened because they can't "get away" from a hostile > Rush predator or prey. - PTO - Banishment - Obedience - Secure Haven IMHO, it's PTO, which should be banned! Either ban PTO or make a card for sabbat, that burns IC. Why not to make something like justicar retribution for sabbat? sinaath

Wow, talk about being offensive. It's Flame Time!!11! No, really. ;) > Allow me to just laugh in all > your faces, openly, and predict that vote decks will get NO WEAKER as a > result of this change, because the stuff that made them good has nothing > at all to do with DU/KR. I'm not sure why posting this is any good for your cause. This is obviously falsehood. You might be right that vote decks are still up high and kicking, but they did lose their most unbalanced power effect. They are somewhat weaker but not significantly, as their true strength remains unharmed. > * Their ousting method starts at +1 stealth. > * Their ousting method cannot have its target changed (Deflection). > * Their ousting method gains them pool (Voter Captivation). Kindred > Spirits and PRE bleed do this to some degree, but not on a par with vote > decks, who can Minion Tap/Voter Cap for the tune of 10 pool per turn if > they do it right. Easy as pie. > * Their ousting method can be directed backwards as defense (see Kindred > Spirits, again), while still trickling forward The worst part is, their ousting method can be directed crosstable with impunity withouth the recipient getting a legal chance of blocking. > You think Delaying Tactics is enough? I spit in your face. THREE vote > decks were in the finals at the NAC -- Christian Chenard's winning > bleed-and-vote deck used Con Boons to gain pool (11 pool a pop isn't > good tech? Think again, newb). This compared with one stealth/bleed > deck and one CEL/guns deck. DT was ALL OVER the place, too; someone's > KR got DT'ed three times in my first-round game, because all of us were > packing some. No, I don't think vote is hurting at all, kids. Delaying > Tactics doesn't even make a decent vote deck blink when it comes time to > dish out the ousts, and it only had a SMALL effect against DU. If > people had begun including so many DT that it was impossible to pass the > vote directly, you would've seen Charming Lobby and Cryptic Rider see > more play; of course, you were already seeing Charming Lobby a lot in > order to protect DU from Direct Intervention. Can't DT an autopass > vote, can you? That is the reason why I'm saying votes should be blockable by their targets. > * I'll discuss the myth of bad seating in another post, but frankly, > it's a myth. Too many of the same players win too frequently for it to > be anything else; they aren't ALL lucky, are they? Some very verbal players can sometimes control the table even from an iffy position. Yet the achievements of even the best players can fluctuate greatly. 2/7 one day, 0/0.5 the other? Tell me luck has nothing to do with that. As for the post: good points but terrible breath. ;) -- Bye, Daneel

[ quoted text not captured ] uhm, Fear of Mekhet? PTO doesn't need to be banned albeit a very powerfull card, one can defend against it in various ways. And you'll *need* to have that IC member to make it count. Right, that's 11 pool and a blockable action (as if Arika will Dare the dawn) AND you'll need to have the card ASAP... Vox Domini, DT, DI, intercept, Rush, outbleeding whatever will all defend against PTO. And if one can set up the PTO effectively, one could as well voted his/her prey to death with other PA's. Should Banishment also be banned as it has the same effect within one turn ( in making you lose one vampire?). Sheesh, don't worry about the card, adapt and defend. Sure it is powerfull, but so are soooo many other cards when properly setup, and played by a capable player. PTO is not a problem. The predator of any IC deck using PTO is the problem, he/she should oust faster...

> > IMHO, it's PTO, which should be banned! > > Either ban PTO or make a card for sabbat, that burns IC. > > Why not to make something like justicar retribution for sabbat? > uhm, Fear of Mekhet? ehm.. 2 pool, master phase slot, and you should wait, utill Arika is empty (note that Minion Tap is often followed by Voter Captivation) Usually I don't have slots for this one, there are DI's or VD > PTO doesn't need to be banned albeit a very powerfull card, one can > defend against it in various ways. And you'll *need* to have that IC > member to make it count. Right, that's 11 pool and a blockable action > (as if Arika will Dare the dawn) AND you'll need to have the card > ASAP... > Vox Domini, DT, DI, intercept, Rush, outbleeding whatever will all > defend against PTO. And if one can set up the PTO effectively, one > could as well voted his/her prey to death with other PA's. Should I didn't say about prey, but cross-table PTO. DT doesn't help much at all, neither does intercept, 4+ stealth followed by Elder Impersonation is usually enough and that can be made with just 2 cards (FL + EI) Besides, PTO usually hurts for more than 4-5 pool. > Banishment also be banned as it has the same effect within one turn ( > in making you lose one vampire?). Sheesh, don't worry about the card, Well Banishment hurts you only if you the vampire is empty. Add to PTO line: "Put all blood from targeted vampire to it's controller blood pool" and it won't be so broken. > adapt and defend. Sure it is powerfull, but so are soooo many other > cards when properly setup, and played by a capable player. PTO is not a > problem. The predator of any IC deck using PTO is the problem, he/she > should oust faster... Problem with PTO is that it's just ONE card can burn any vampire w/o threat of bloodhunt or 6th tradition. Rush followed by amaranth? ok, but how many cards do you need to achieve this? I guess that more than 3. Besides, many people dont know how much devastating this card is; they just play it "Because you won last game", or any other stupid reason. sinaath

sinaath wrote: > > > IMHO, it's PTO, which should be banned! > > > Either ban PTO or make a card for sabbat, that burns IC. > > > Why not to make something like justicar retribution for sabbat? > > > uhm, Fear of Mekhet? > ehm.. 2 pool, master phase slot, and you should wait, utill Arika is empty > (note that Minion Tap is often followed by Voter Captivation) > Usually I don't have slots for this one, there are DI's or VD True. But that is somewhat besides the point. Minion Tap-Voter Captivation isn't the problem, PTO is (according to you. However, if one is worried about PTO, one should make room for defenses against PTO, not Manion-Tap-VC. One of those defenses is Fear of Mehket. > > > PTO doesn't need to be banned albeit a very powerfull card, one can > > defend against it in various ways. And you'll *need* to have that IC > > member to make it count. Right, that's 11 pool and a blockable action > > (as if Arika will Dare the dawn) AND you'll need to have the card > > ASAP... > > Vox Domini, DT, DI, intercept, Rush, outbleeding whatever will all > > defend against PTO. And if one can set up the PTO effectively, one > > could as well voted his/her prey to death with other PA's. Should > > I didn't say about prey, but cross-table PTO. DT doesn't help much at all, > neither does intercept, 4+ stealth followed by Elder Impersonation is > usually enough > and that can be made with just 2 cards (FL + EI) > Besides, PTO usually hurts for more than 4-5 pool. In crosstable PTO, PTO isn't the problem. The player calling it is. Unless that particular PTO makes him or her grab more VP's than without it (either directly, or within a deal or whatever). Just playing PTO for the heck of it crosstable shows the lack of understanding tabledynamics or using a very powerfull card to a usefull effect, winning the game. There's no way around it. Either you win the game or have similar great benefit, because of calling PTO crosstable or it's just Bad Play. You can't blame a card for bad play. Ban the player. > > > Banishment also be banned as it has the same effect within one turn ( > > in making you lose one vampire?). Sheesh, don't worry about the card, > > Well Banishment hurts you only if you the vampire is empty. > Add to PTO line: > "Put all blood from targeted vampire to it's controller blood pool" > and it won't be so broken. > > > adapt and defend. Sure it is powerfull, but so are soooo many other > > cards when properly setup, and played by a capable player. PTO is not a > > problem. The predator of any IC deck using PTO is the problem, he/she > > should oust faster... But then Leandro can burn Hannibal (malk-!malk PTO-Malkavian derange) if his controller is low on pool like a Golconda that did not remove from game... Minion Tap on Hannibal for 9, PTO Leandro on Hannibal (+19 Pool), next rurn Redeem his Soul for 5 more. That's +24 pool. Not bad at all. > Problem with PTO is that it's just ONE card can burn any vampire w/o threat > of bloodhunt or 6th tradition. > Rush followed by amaranth? ok, but how many cards do you need to achieve > this? I guess that more than 3. > Besides, many people dont know how much devastating this card is; they just > play it "Because you won last game", > or any other stupid reason. True PTO is strong. Hell, I own a PTO-Derange deck using 6 copies of PTO and Reinforcements to get them back. The big difference is, I use PTO to burn my preys vampires and still DT, DI, Vox Domini or whatever stop me from being 100% effective. Again , it isn't the card, it's the player. If someone has the mentality as you describe above, any other powerfull card will screw you over anyways. They're bad players. Ban them.

In message <cp1486$1p27$1...@news2.ipartners.pl>, "sinaath" <sin...@kill.this.gmail.com> mumbled something about: >I generally agree, except: > >> -- Vote decks are weakened because they can't "get away" from a hostile >> Rush predator or prey. > >- PTO >- Banishment >- Obedience >- Secure Haven All these cards allow you to "terminate" a hostile Rush predator or prey. Note that my -- indicates a claim made by the "vote decks are weaker" crowd that I am about to refute. You have probably misread my entire post. Suggest redoing? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <opsikuxw...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >Wow, talk about being offensive. It's Flame Time!!11! > >No, really. ;) > >> Allow me to just laugh in all >> your faces, openly, and predict that vote decks will get NO WEAKER as a >> result of this change, because the stuff that made them good has nothing >> at all to do with DU/KR. > >I'm not sure why posting this is any good for your cause. This is obviously >falsehood. You might be right that vote decks are still up high and 1) It's a prediction. 2) It's not false. They can no longer snipe VP with DU/KR. But this can also no longer happen to THEM. In place of DU/KR and massive bloat (the way many "winning" vote decks had turned these days), they can now return to plain old raw damage... which is much faster and honestly, more reliable than DU/KR. They lose something, true... but gain something in return. Perhaps what I see them gaining is too intangible for most to see. I am certain that it is too intangible for YOU to see. >kicking, >but they did lose their most unbalanced power effect. They are somewhat >weaker but not significantly, as their true strength remains unharmed. They aren't any weaker at all. Too many people spent time trying to not look like a threat so they could hang around and snipe a VP. That was the best way, for a long time. That way doesn't exist anymore -- opening the path to start looking like a threat again. The Last Chance Qualifier at the NAC was won by a weenie obf/pre vote deck that did NOTHING but hammer out damage votes. It overran a traditional Malk OBF/DOM bleeder, another weenie deck, and two other decks that I'm not sure what they did. It may have had DU in it, but it certainly wasn't relying on it at all. >> * I'll discuss the myth of bad seating in another post, but frankly, >> it's a myth. Too many of the same players win too frequently for it to >> be anything else; they aren't ALL lucky, are they? > >Some very verbal players can sometimes control the table even from an >iffy position. Yet the achievements of even the best players can >fluctuate greatly. 2/7 one day, 0/0.5 the other? Tell me luck has >nothing to do with that. OK. It has nothing to do with that. On the second day, those players chose different decks, ones that weren't especially resilient or flexible. Or they played poorly and made some bad decisions. Or they faced more skilled opposition. I got 0/3 in the NAC. I do not attribute my score to bad luck; I place it squarely on my choice of deck, because I built something that had too many Masters and wasn't very flexible (left a hole against certain types of predators, etc.)... not to mention that I decided to go with one that hadn't ever been played before. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 09:03:02 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >>> Allow me to just laugh in all >>> your faces, openly, and predict that vote decks will get NO WEAKER as a >>> result of this change, because the stuff that made them good has >>> nothing >>> at all to do with DU/KR. >> >> I'm not sure why posting this is any good for your cause. This is >> obviously >> falsehood. You might be right that vote decks are still up high and > > 1) It's a prediction. For which you gave a reason (which is flawed). > 2) It's not false. They can no longer snipe VP with DU/KR. But this > can also no longer happen to THEM. Halt. There are n deck types. One of which are vote decks. The n-1 are non-vote decks. All n decks get stronger a bit because they cannot be VP sniped anymore. The 1 vote deck gets weaker, because it can no longer VP snipe. The rest of the (n-1) decks do not get weaker, because they could not reasonably expect to pull a VP-snipe to begin with. Kapish? > They lose something, true... but gain something in return. Perhaps what > I see them gaining is too intangible for most to see. I am certain that > it is too intangible for YOU to see. I will rephrase because this is hilarious. You mean that by TAKING AWAY OPTIONS that were actually SUPER POWERFUL you make decks stronger because they not have to use their remaining POWERFUL (but not superpowerful) methods at ousting? Derek, are you really this dumb? >> Some very verbal players can sometimes control the table even from an >> iffy position. Yet the achievements of even the best players can >> fluctuate greatly. 2/7 one day, 0/0.5 the other? Tell me luck has >> nothing to do with that. > > OK. It has nothing to do with that. > > On the second day, those players chose different decks, ones that > weren't especially resilient or flexible. Or they played poorly and > made some bad decisions. Or they faced more skilled opposition. So. If the same player plays the same deck in two different tournaments, what you say is that only the level of opposition matters for their score, but never luck. No good draw/bad draw, rock/paper/scissor deck type seating (random), no nothing. Are we playing the same game? > I got 0/3 in the NAC. I do not attribute my score to bad luck; I place > it squarely on my choice of deck, because I built something that had too > many Masters and wasn't very flexible (left a hole against certain types > of predators, etc.)... not to mention that I decided to go with one that > hadn't ever been played before. =) Yeah, I know that. I sometimes play decks that have "no reasonable chance to win" only to test the limits of reason. I sometimes win with them. But that is not mainstream. You choose a deck you want to win with and try to win. Seating, card flow and the rest of the table contribute to an intangible factor often labeled as "Luck". -- Bye, Daneel

> They lose something, true... but gain something in return. Perhaps what > I see them gaining is too intangible for most to see. I am certain that > it is too intangible for YOU to see. I will rephrase because this is hilarious. >You mean that by TAKING AWAY OPTIONS that were actually SUPER POWERFUL >you make decks stronger because they not have to use their remaining >POWERFUL (but not superpowerful) methods at ousting? The reason that they become more powerful is that every potential tournament winning deck no longer has to pack 4 Delaying Tactics or 4 Direct Interventions just to stop a VP Snipe. Therefore, they won't. This actually gives more breathing room for Political Decks. Cause...Effect....Reaction....Counter-Action.... Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

In message <opsile1i...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 09:03:02 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>>> Allow me to just laugh in all >>>> your faces, openly, and predict that vote decks will get NO WEAKER as a >>>> result of this change, because the stuff that made them good has >>>> nothing >>>> at all to do with DU/KR. >>> >>> I'm not sure why posting this is any good for your cause. This is >>> obviously >>> falsehood. You might be right that vote decks are still up high and >> >> 1) It's a prediction. > >For which you gave a reason (which is flawed). In your opinion. We've already seen that your opinion is not really in touch with reality or the rest of the world. ;) >> 2) It's not false. They can no longer snipe VP with DU/KR. But this >> can also no longer happen to THEM. > >Halt. "Stunned in his tracks by the facts, he begged a halt to think." >There are n deck types. One of which are vote decks. The n-1 are non-vote >decks. > >All n decks get stronger a bit because they cannot be VP sniped anymore. > >The 1 vote deck gets weaker, because it can no longer VP snipe. The >rest of the (n-1) decks do not get weaker, because they could not >reasonably expect to pull a VP-snipe to begin with. And the 1 vote deck gets stronger, because now it will focus on actually ousting its prey instead of sitting around and bloating, risking table timeout. You do realize that vote decks often timed out tables, resulting in their own loss, right? Oh... I guess you forgot that. That's OK. Maybe you will learn someday. >> They lose something, true... but gain something in return. Perhaps what >> I see them gaining is too intangible for most to see. I am certain that >> it is too intangible for YOU to see. > >I will rephrase because this is hilarious. > >You mean that by TAKING AWAY OPTIONS that were actually SUPER POWERFUL >you make decks stronger because they not have to use their remaining >POWERFUL (but not superpowerful) methods at ousting? > >Derek, are you really this dumb? Daneel, are you really this dumb? I'd rather have something powerful but consistent, than something superpowerful but not always reliable -- especially when that something superpowerful can cause a table to time out, or may never produce an opportunity. Come on, man, you're too easy. Think! =) Oh, wait, I guess they don't teach you to do that in school where you're from. A shame. >>> Some very verbal players can sometimes control the table even from an >>> iffy position. Yet the achievements of even the best players can >>> fluctuate greatly. 2/7 one day, 0/0.5 the other? Tell me luck has >>> nothing to do with that. >> >> OK. It has nothing to do with that. >> >> On the second day, those players chose different decks, ones that >> weren't especially resilient or flexible. Or they played poorly and >> made some bad decisions. Or they faced more skilled opposition. > >So. If the same player plays the same deck in two different tournaments, >what you say is that only the level of opposition matters for their score, >but never luck. No good draw/bad draw, rock/paper/scissor deck type >seating (random), no nothing. You forgot "making poor decisions on one day and not the other". You do realize nobody plays even CLOSE to perfectly, right? ;) Many errors are made (some not realized during the game, but only after) by every player. The player who makes the least errors typically wins. >Are we playing the same game? Of course not. I'm playing V:TES; you're playing "Victorian Honor Code Tell the Truth Don't Think Outside the Box". >> I got 0/3 in the NAC. I do not attribute my score to bad luck; I place >> it squarely on my choice of deck, because I built something that had too >> many Masters and wasn't very flexible (left a hole against certain types >> of predators, etc.)... not to mention that I decided to go with one that >> hadn't ever been played before. =) > >Yeah, I know that. I sometimes play decks that have "no reasonable chance >to win" only to test the limits of reason. I sometimes win with them. But >that is not mainstream. You choose a deck you want to win with and try to >win. Seating, card flow and the rest of the table contribute to an >intangible factor often labeled as "Luck". And incorrectly labelled so. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1102350770.8...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, X_Ze...@cox-internet.com mumbled something about: >> They lose something, true... but gain something in return. Perhaps >what >> I see them gaining is too intangible for most to see. I am certain >that >> it is too intangible for YOU to see. > >>I will rephrase because this is hilarious. > >>You mean that by TAKING AWAY OPTIONS that were actually SUPER POWERFUL >>you make decks stronger because they not have to use their remaining >>POWERFUL (but not superpowerful) methods at ousting? > >The reason that they become more powerful is that every potential >tournament winning deck no longer has to pack 4 Delaying Tactics or 4 >Direct Interventions just to stop a VP Snipe. Therefore, they won't. >This actually gives more breathing room for Political Decks. Not to mention that Delaying Tactics is no longer an automatic save for an ousting vote or a seat-switcher; meaning you can trick people into playing it on cards you didn't want to use that turn anyway. Direct Intervention, similarly, will no longer be the must-save-forever card that it had become. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 6 Dec 2004 00:54:01 -0800, time...@mail.com scrawled: > >sinaath wrote: >> I generally agree, except: >> >> > -- Vote decks are weakened because they can't "get away" from a >hostile >> > Rush predator or prey. >> >> - PTO >> - Banishment >> - Obedience >> - Secure Haven >> >> IMHO, it's PTO, which should be banned! >> Either ban PTO or make a card for sabbat, that burns IC. >> Why not to make something like justicar retribution for sabbat? >> >> sinaath > > >uhm, Fear of Mekhet? heh. i played that cross table on anneke after she stuck her nose into my poor little embrace doing a bleed for 1 on my prey! 1! anneke burned. heh. salem domain:canberra http://www.geocities.com/salem_christ.geo/vtes.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:46:01 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >>> 1) It's a prediction. >> >> For which you gave a reason (which is flawed). > > In your opinion. We've already seen that your opinion is not really in > touch with reality or the rest of the world. ;) Out of arguments, Johnnie...? ;) >>> 2) It's not false. They can no longer snipe VP with DU/KR. But this >>> can also no longer happen to THEM. >> >> Halt. > > "Stunned in his tracks by the facts, he begged a halt to think." ...seems so. >> There are n deck types. One of which are vote decks. The n-1 are >> non-vote >> decks. >> >> All n decks get stronger a bit because they cannot be VP sniped anymore. >> >> The 1 vote deck gets weaker, because it can no longer VP snipe. The >> rest of the (n-1) decks do not get weaker, because they could not >> reasonably expect to pull a VP-snipe to begin with. > > And the 1 vote deck gets stronger, because now it will focus on actually > ousting its prey instead of sitting around and bloating, risking table > timeout. Strawman. Saying that every single political deck (or even the majority of political decks) just want to bloat and VP-snipe is inane. Yeah, I've seen such sniper decks, but the situation in which you can actually safely steal a VP is not that common. Even if your deck is especially designed to facilitate the forming of such a snipe-worthy situation. Competitive voting decks maybe included one or two seatswitcher, to be used or discarded as seen fit. Meaning, they had like 20 damaging votes and 2 seat switchers. Now they'll have 22 damaging votes. So what? That's only a little boost with respect to doing damage, but a well-played seatswitcher vote easily amounts to more than a damaging vote with respect to getting closer to a VP. > You do realize that vote decks often timed out tables, resulting in > their own loss, right? Oh... I guess you forgot that. The key is (as with most cards) that decks that *relied* on seat switching probably timed out tables, but the concept was most likely flawed to begin with. Decks that *used* seat switchers (instead of relying on them) had an advantage they'll now lack. Most competitive vote decks used seat switching votes but I doubt many actually wanted to rely on them. > That's OK. Maybe you will learn someday. From you, not likely... You have very little to teach. :D >> I will rephrase because this is hilarious. >> >> You mean that by TAKING AWAY OPTIONS that were actually SUPER POWERFUL >> you make decks stronger because they not have to use their remaining >> POWERFUL (but not superpowerful) methods at ousting? >> >> Derek, are you really this dumb? > > Daneel, are you really this dumb? C'mon, even you can do better than that. At least I hoped you can... > I'd rather have something powerful but consistent, than something > superpowerful but not always reliable -- especially when that something > superpowerful can cause a table to time out, or may never produce an > opportunity. Having something powerful and consistent with an option to peak in superpower is the way to go. 20 damaging votes, 2 seat switchers, to be used or discarded when drawn into. > Come on, man, you're too easy. Think! =) Oh, wait, I guess they don't > teach you to do that in school where you're from. A shame. Well, I see that your reasoning is pretty much "I resort to insults as soon as my arguments are proven wrong"... which is far too easy for anyone whose cognigive functions surpass those of a mollusc. =) >> So. If the same player plays the same deck in two different tournaments, >> what you say is that only the level of opposition matters for their >> score, >> but never luck. No good draw/bad draw, rock/paper/scissor deck type >> seating (random), no nothing. > > You forgot "making poor decisions on one day and not the other". Yeah, that's a good point. > You do realize nobody plays even CLOSE to perfectly, right? ;) Many > errors are made (some not realized during the game, but only after) by > every player. The player who makes the least errors typically wins. That is still far fetched to me. You can make poor decisions and worsen your position or you can make good decisions and enhance your position, but you make it sound as if choice of cards, card flow and seating were indeed insignificant. Whereas, IMHO players constantly take risks, like, in assuming that they'll draw a bounce if they cycle their bleed mods - which might or might not happen. Likewise, one's predator might cycle a single bounce only to draw a bleed mod. I don't see how player skill can avoid these issues - it is a card game, played with cards, and if you draw poorly, you might get toasted. Sure, you can be less or more prudent based on how good your hand and fiels looks like, but risks are inevitable. And risks introduce chance. It's not just decisions. >> Are we playing the same game? > > Of course not. I'm playing V:TES; you're playing "Victorian Honor Code > Tell the Truth Don't Think Outside the Box". Well, I like it how all threads seem to converge in your posts when you're cornered like a little furry rat who was caught sneaking away with cheese. >> Yeah, I know that. I sometimes play decks that have "no reasonable >> chance >> to win" only to test the limits of reason. I sometimes win with them. >> But >> that is not mainstream. You choose a deck you want to win with and try >> to >> win. Seating, card flow and the rest of the table contribute to an >> intangible factor often labeled as "Luck". > > And incorrectly labelled so. I disagree, as stated above. Unless, of course, you consider it a mistake (instead of misfortune) to rely on a good chance of drawing a bounce and then not drawing it in the end, even after cycling a reasonable amount. > a host is a host from coast to coast You should change your sig. Like: "A troll is a troll from post to post..." ;) -- Bye, Daneel

On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:57:07 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> The reason that they become more powerful is that every potential >> tournament winning deck no longer has to pack 4 Delaying Tactics or 4 >> Direct Interventions just to stop a VP Snipe. Therefore, they won't. >> This actually gives more breathing room for Political Decks. > > Not to mention that Delaying Tactics is no longer an automatic save for > an ousting vote or a seat-switcher; meaning you can trick people into > playing it on cards you didn't want to use that turn anyway. I sometimes called a seatswitcher even when I wanted to oust my current prey. Gets rid of the DTs quite well. I see little gain from not being able to do that. > Direct Intervention, similarly, will no longer be the must-save-forever > card that it had become. But there's still PTO. You always save one of the following for it: Delaying Tactics Direct Intervention Vox Domini Abandoning the Flesh -- Bye, Daneel

Derek Ray wrote: > So I see there's a whole bunch of bullshit been posted lately that vote > decks are dead and not worth playing. Allow me to just laugh in all > your faces, openly, and predict that vote decks will get NO WEAKER as a > result of this change, because the stuff that made them good has nothing > at all to do with DU/KR. Voting decks are NOT dead. I never said that. I just said that they become weaker. This may be the right way, as they were overpowered (IMHO). But I'd better ban Voter Captivation :) > The primary arguments I've seen are these: > > -- Vote decks are weakened because they can't "get away" from a hostile > Rush predator or prey. > > Well, suck it up and adapt, nerd-boys, because you're in the same boat > as any NON-vote deck now. Those decks couldn't "get away" either, and > they seem to be doing just fine against the myth of bad seating* -- you > will learn to do the same, or you will just accept that you're no longer > a "good" player. One way or the other, it's your choice. > > The cards would have been fine if your decision to bail affected you > alone; ie "I bail out", and it only affected the deck you were bailing > out or getting away from. But the vast, VAST majority of the time (and > you KNOW that's true, bitches, so don't even try to whine to me about > it) that's not how the vote was used; it was used to get behind the > person who was low on pool and/or defenseless. If it was Kindred > Restructure, you got the added benefit of being able to put the person > you could most easily defend against as your predator. > I'm not going to discuss whether KR and DU were "fair cards" or not. But they were powerful enough, and without them voting decks are weaker. It's pretty obvious, isn't it? BTW, your tone, especially these words: "suck it up and adapt, nerd-boys, because you're in the same boat as any NON-vote deck now" clearly show that voting decks ARE weaker now. And let me assure you that voting decks AREN'T "in the same boat" now. They simply cannot pack enough cards against all sorts of dangerous predators (Rush decks, stealth-bleed decks etc.), as they must devote their place to political actions, vote-pushing, probably stealth, and so on. Thus, I really hope to see a new political action that just switches your predator with any other player (not yourself and, possibly even not your prey). This card would help voting decks to avoid extremely dangerous predators. Ector

In message <opsimtwq...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:57:07 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>> The reason that they become more powerful is that every potential >>> tournament winning deck no longer has to pack 4 Delaying Tactics or 4 >>> Direct Interventions just to stop a VP Snipe. Therefore, they won't. >>> This actually gives more breathing room for Political Decks. >> >> Not to mention that Delaying Tactics is no longer an automatic save for >> an ousting vote or a seat-switcher; meaning you can trick people into >> playing it on cards you didn't want to use that turn anyway. > >I sometimes called a seatswitcher even when I wanted to oust my current >prey. Gets rid of the DTs quite well. I see little gain from not being >able to do that. I'm sure you can find some equally obnoxious vote to put in its place. PTO? Banishment? Take your pick, there are lots. >> Direct Intervention, similarly, will no longer be the must-save-forever >> card that it had become. > >But there's still PTO. You always save one of the following for it: > >Delaying Tactics >Direct Intervention >Vox Domini >Abandoning the Flesh Not if you're playing Camarilla, or if you aren't playing One Big (Indie/Sabbat) Vamp decks. I don't like PTO either, but I've solved the problem by simply not playing One Big Vamp decks anymore -- hence, a vampire burned by PTO looks just like a vampire burned by Tariq, except Tariq probably gets more of my guys. With DU/KR gone, I have very little to worry about cross-table PTO. I still want the card gone because it's too strong an effect, and because One Big Vamp decks should be at least a LITTLE more viable (they will still get cross-tabled), but don't expect that DI/DT are going to be auto-saved for PTO. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 08:44:43 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> I sometimes called a seatswitcher even when I wanted to oust my current >> prey. Gets rid of the DTs quite well. I see little gain from not being >> able to do that. > > I'm sure you can find some equally obnoxious vote to put in its place. > PTO? Banishment? Take your pick, there are lots. Yeah, you're right. I was just referring to the issue with superpowerful votes. I don't mind the cards being banned though, because they were indeed unbalanced. >>> Direct Intervention, similarly, will no longer be the must-save-forever >>> card that it had become. >> >> But there's still PTO. You always save one of the following for it: >> >> Delaying Tactics >> Direct Intervention >> Vox Domini >> Abandoning the Flesh > > Not if you're playing Camarilla, or if you aren't playing One Big > (Indie/Sabbat) Vamp decks. I don't like PTO either, but I've solved the > problem by simply not playing One Big Vamp decks anymore -- hence, a > vampire burned by PTO looks just like a vampire burned by Tariq, except > Tariq probably gets more of my guys. With DU/KR gone, I have very > little to worry about cross-table PTO. With the newer expansions there are a lot of cards that empower Sabbat and/ or Independent vampires, which is probably considered to offset the existing few non-Camarilla killing cannons (PTO, Segregation). Playing a one-man-show deck is pretty fragile anyway. Cailean with 7 Raptors can be killed in a lot of ways, not just PTO. Alas, the cross-table PTO issue is not completely gone (I've seen vote decks burn a vamp or two from their grandprey before issuing the coup de grace for their preys). > I still want the card gone because it's too strong an effect, and > because One Big Vamp decks should be at least a LITTLE more viable (they Exactly. > will still get cross-tabled), but don't expect that DI/DT are going to > be auto-saved for PTO. -- Bye, Daneel

> > > a host is a host from coast to coast > > You should change your sig. Like: "A troll is a troll from post to post..." > At least we get quality trolling on this newsgroup. Regards, Patrick Columbus, OH

sam...@hotmail.com wrote: > At least we get quality trolling on this newsgroup. > Regards, > > Patrick Sure, just like you get quality food at McDonalds. If you ever feel the need to practice truth in advertising, just say the goods or services you are hawking have quality. Of course they do. Good quality, bad quality, it's all quality. I seem to be channeling my 9th grade English teacher. My apologies.

sam...@hotmail.com wrote: > At least we get quality trolling on this newsgroup. > Regards, > > Patrick Sure, just like you get quality food at McDonalds. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <opsimtpe...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:46:01 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>>> 1) It's a prediction. >>> >>> For which you gave a reason (which is flawed). >> >> In your opinion. We've already seen that your opinion is not really in >> touch with reality or the rest of the world. ;) > >Out of arguments, Johnnie...? ;) You've been out for some time; you've been trying to argue something that can't even be argued =) In fact, let's just go ahead and sum up, shall we? I predict that vote decks will be no weaker. This means, in short, that they will perform no worse than they have up 'til now in tournaments because of their lack of DU/KR. I say this will be so because while they have lost DU/KR as both an opportunistic VP grab AND a whole-deck strategy (bloat and snipe), they have gained the memory of How To Win By Going Left -- and they have fallen significantly in the Threat Factor, meaning that a vote deck who is sitting and apparently idling will no longer draw cross-table shenanigans based on the premise of "I _know_ they've got a DU and are waiting to use it." Vote decks will be ignored more, (DT will be less prevalent), and as such will not lose any effectiveness as a result of this ban. These are some pretty intangible things, true, but if you don't understand or can't think outside the box, that's not my problem. Your entire counterargument so far has consisted of "BUT THE CARDS ARE GONE, NO, REALLY, GONE!". Big fuckin' deal. See above. Reread until you get it. Now, you can babble on endlessly about whatever you want, (webforum refugees typically do), but here's some harsh reality for you; You don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about. We already have seen that you don't really know how to win the game, because you play in an artificially sanitized environment (no deals), and you repeatedly insist that the "fun" for you isn't related at all to winning... so you really don't try to win (and you have mentioned in the past that you often play theme decks). Given that you're not playing the same game the rest of us are, I have no choice but to conclude that your point of view on certain issues (deck strength, as determined by "how to win") is simply irrelevant. I suggest you do some reading on a concept referred to as "threshold of knowledge", something I don't see you as having obtained yet in V:TES. In short, you don't know enough about the game to understand what you don't know, so you're stuck in a fixed mode of thinking that reads "power card gone, oh no, deck suck now". This is very short-sighted, but common. The rest of your message related to the myth of poor seating and the role luck plays in the game has been discarded from this one and picked up in a separate thread. Have fun. -- Derek a host is a host from coast to coast [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <opsimtpe...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Mon, 06 Dec 2004 22:46:01 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>> So. If the same player plays the same deck in two different tournaments, >>> what you say is that only the level of opposition matters for their >>> score, >>> but never luck. No good draw/bad draw, rock/paper/scissor deck type >>> seating (random), no nothing. >> >> You forgot "making poor decisions on one day and not the other". > >Yeah, that's a good point. > >> You do realize nobody plays even CLOSE to perfectly, right? ;) Many >> errors are made (some not realized during the game, but only after) by >> every player. The player who makes the least errors typically wins. > >That is still far fetched to me. You can make poor decisions and worsen You may think it's far-fetched but it makes it no less true. Standing behind the finalists at the NAC, we were EASILY able to identify the wrong decisions each player was making -- and clearly distinguish the decisions that were only wrong because they couldn't see their opponents' hands from the ones that were just a bad evaluation of the table situation, or a poor play based on cards-in-hand, or missing cards-on-table that would affect a play. Some errors result from being forced to make a guess, because you have inadequate information available to you. Intuition plays a large part in this game, as does reading your opponents. How much harder is it for you to read someone who doesn't speak your native language? How about someone who doesn't speak your native language and can't speak English well either? But these errors are still errors, and all add up. >your position or you can make good decisions and enhance your position, >but you make it sound as if choice of cards, card flow and seating were >indeed insignificant. Whereas, IMHO players constantly take risks, like, Choice of cards and card flow are not insignificant, but these are all done in the "deck building" phase, -- a phase that consists of 0% luck, unless your cat jumps on the table and spills coffee on your Disarms. >in assuming that they'll draw a bounce if they cycle their bleed mods - >which might or might not happen. Likewise, one's predator might cycle a Whether or not to take a risk is a decision. Sometimes results prove that it was a poor one. Many risks cannot be adequately evaluated given the time available to players. This doesn't mean that the players don't make errors. >single bounce only to draw a bleed mod. I don't see how player skill can >avoid these issues - it is a card game, played with cards, and if you >draw poorly, you might get toasted. Sure, you can be less or more prudent >based on how good your hand and fiels looks like, but risks are >inevitable. And risks introduce chance. It's not just decisions. Just because a game has an element of chance in it (the shuffle, for example, is a random element that players have no control over) does not mean the game itself is governed solely by chance, or even that a significant portion of the game is governed by chance. The rest of the decisions made in the game, AND before the game, will always far outweigh the random elements such as the shuffle and seating position. I think that many players tend to want to blame their "bad draw" simply because they lost, when often the circumstance is just that they sat next to a better deck than theirs, or the other player made fewer errors than they did, or another player made decisions that affected them adversely. This all will typically be incorrectly perceived as luck. -- Derek a host is a host from coast to coast [ quoted text not captured ]

[Derek] [snip excellent post] > This all will typically be incorrectly > perceived as luck. This is kind of implied by what you wrote, but I'll say it anyway. Luck can strongly influence the performance of a *bad* deck design. For example, my deck is a political deck and has no stealth (beyond the inherent +1 stealth of political actions). I sit at a table that contains no intercept and do quite well, maybe even sweep the table. The next table everyone has some intercept, I get everything significant blocked and die screaming. I could say, "that was bad luck that I lost that second game". However, I imagine, you'd quite rightly say "No, you TOOL! It was bad *deck design* that caused you to lose." That is, if you have a bad deck, luck can make it/you seem less bad - at least once. * lehrbuch

This also applies to decks that are excessively toolboxed, or are badly constructed due to factors beyond the builder's control. My own DoC Vote deck is a bad deck in that I don't have any Anarch Railroad, don't have a second Bastille Opera House, and only have 3 Fee Stakes (though I have two copies of Boston) and 2 Firebrands. This inevitably creates consistency issues.

On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 20:45:44 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >>> You do realize nobody plays even CLOSE to perfectly, right? ;) Many >>> errors are made (some not realized during the game, but only after) by >>> every player. The player who makes the least errors typically wins. >> >> That is still far fetched to me. You can make poor decisions and worsen > > You may think it's far-fetched but it makes it no less true. Let's get down to it. > Standing behind the finalists at the NAC, we were EASILY able to > identify the wrong decisions each player was making -- and clearly > distinguish the decisions that were only wrong because they couldn't see > their opponents' hands from the ones that were just a bad evaluation of > the table situation, or a poor play based on cards-in-hand, or missing > cards-on-table that would affect a play. > > Some errors result from being forced to make a guess, because you have > inadequate information available to you. Intuition plays a large part > in this game, as does reading your opponents. How much harder is it for > you to read someone who doesn't speak your native language? How about > someone who doesn't speak your native language and can't speak English > well either? > > But these errors are still errors, and all add up. Interesting points. How about the error of having an unlucky draw? Or the error of being seated between the two wall decks, as opposed to being seated opposite to them? >> your position or you can make good decisions and enhance your position, >> but you make it sound as if choice of cards, card flow and seating were >> indeed insignificant. Whereas, IMHO players constantly take risks, like, > > Choice of cards and card flow are not insignificant, but these are all > done in the "deck building" phase, -- a phase that consists of 0% luck, > unless your cat jumps on the table and spills coffee on your Disarms. Whoa. Are you saying that you should put your library cards in a specific order? I thought the rules said you have to *randomize* your deck, which means that you have technically absolutely no clue as to which order the cards are in - of course, what you know is which cards are in your deck. >> in assuming that they'll draw a bounce if they cycle their bleed mods - >> which might or might not happen. Likewise, one's predator might cycle a > > Whether or not to take a risk is a decision. Sometimes results prove > that it was a poor one. Many risks cannot be adequately evaluated given > the time available to players. This doesn't mean that the players don't > make errors. Please tell me that the following situation is a question of misjudgement and not misfortune: You have a 80 card deck and have 10 Deflections in your deck. You have cycled through 30 cards and saw none. Meaning, that of the remaining 50 cards 10 are deflections. If you cycle one card you have an approximately 20% chance of drawing one. You therefor cycle 10 cards during your turn, with Dreams, Fragment and actions, hoping to draw a Deflection so that you can protect yourself from your predator's bleed. You quickly assess your chances and find that you probably have over 90% chance of drawing at least one bounce. You instead draw none. Was this a bad decision, not knowing that your 90%+ chance was irrelevant, or was this poor draw? I think that if you have over 90% chance to do something, you're making a mistake if you're not trying it. But, every now and then you'll be reminded that a 90% success also means a 10% failure. Another example: You rush your predator' Mariel, Lady Thunder. You torporize her and play Tortured Confession. Your predator has three other Malkavians, but his hand includes five stealth cards, a wake and a deflection. you have 9 pool. Seeing how your predator bled you for a lot last turn, and had no real chance to cycle stealth cards, you take your chances and lunge at your prey, hoping that the Tension you have in play will do enough damage to allow you to oust him the next turn. Your grandpredator, having been informed of your predator's bounce, bleeds for 1 that gets bounced (you have no untapped minions but you soak it, still being at 8 pool). Your predator replaces his hand and draws a Dreams and a Conditioning. During his turn, he plays Dreams, draws to replace - a Govern. Bleeds for a total of 8. Were you ousted by your misjudgement, or did your predator have a lucky draw? >> single bounce only to draw a bleed mod. I don't see how player skill can >> avoid these issues - it is a card game, played with cards, and if you >> draw poorly, you might get toasted. Sure, you can be less or more >> prudent >> based on how good your hand and fiels looks like, but risks are >> inevitable. And risks introduce chance. It's not just decisions. > > Just because a game has an element of chance in it (the shuffle, for > example, is a random element that players have no control over) does not > mean the game itself is governed solely by chance, or even that a > significant portion of the game is governed by chance. There is also seating. The very same table can be arranged in many different ways. If there are two wall decks and you play Law Firm, you might easily sweep if the wall decks are placed as your "allies", while having them beside you means you're toast. It is not a mistake to be seated between them. > The rest of the decisions made in the game, AND before the game, will > always far outweigh the random elements such as the shuffle and seating > position. I couldn't disagree more. Because you are not aware of these random elements you cannot tune your deck to cope with them. You do generic tuning, maybe consciously leaving areas of vulnerability based on your perception of the metagame, maybe try to defend against all prevalent attack forms, but in the end it is luck that determines your opposition. Decks beat eachother in a Rock->Scissors->Paper way, and you always bring one deck to play with. > I think that many players tend to want to blame their "bad > draw" simply because they lost, when often the circumstance is just that > they sat next to a better deck than theirs, or the other player made > fewer errors than they did, or another player made decisions that > affected them adversely. I disagree. Consider the following. 5 player table. Nobody has any votes and your neighbors have no intercept or rush. If you play Law Firm, your +1 stealth and prince titles will be enough, and you will sweep the table withouth even blinking once. If your predator and prey have access to 2nd Traditions, you will be screwed if you only have 1 stealth. However, if you have a Lasombra stealth vote deck that easily has 3 or more stealth you can get around them. If your predator or prey plays 4-5 intercept block, you need Arika and her crew to OBF past their block attempts. Not being caught you need little combat defence, whereas the Law Firm had lots of Majestys and Prevent. You can use Obedience against rushes and you won't get blocked anyway, going for the votes at +6 stealth from two stealth cards, with the option to EI. How about a deck which has no Intercept but has 7× DT and 10× Deflection as defence? Arika will be screwed, as she won't be able to play stealth. Yet Sir Walter and his Oily Bottom Boys would easily swarm past such a deck. Metagame determines what makes a good deck and what makes a poor deck. The good deck is which can exactly use all of its resources to achieve what it intends to. For example, if your deck plans to do everything at +3 stealth, you will be very succesful against a deck that tops at +2 Intercept, but will be less effective against someone with no Intercept or someone with 3. So the moral of the story is, while I can see where the "luck does not matter" school comes from, it is simply wrong. If you have 5 players with roughly equal skill and roughly equal current performance, games will be dictated by the relative strengths of their decks and their draw. Sure, many games balance themselves out a bit, and could go any way, but in the end luck is often a determining factor. -- Bye, Daneel

On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 20:32:03 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> Out of arguments, Johnnie...? ;) > > You've been out for some time; you've been trying to argue something > that can't even be argued =) In fact, let's just go ahead and sum up, > shall we? > > I predict that vote decks will be no weaker. This means, in short, that > they will perform no worse than they have up 'til now in tournaments > because of their lack of DU/KR. So you're basically saying... that even though vote decks losed some power cards, and have become weaker in the process, they will not perform worse, because they (having become weaker) also pose less of a threat and as such other decks pack less vote defence. Aside of basically supporting my argument (vote decks becoming directly weaker because of the gone powercards) if we indeed assume that your assertion stands (that they indirectly did not become weaker as other decks will not pack that much vote defence as some of the most annoying power cards are gone), it is not hard to look further and conclude that even if vote decks remained the same relative strength *because* other decks pack less vote defence, those slots that were previously occupied by vote defence now can be allocated to promote more proactive tactics, in the end making every other deck stronger. Wouldn't you agree? > I say this will be so because while they have lost DU/KR as both an > opportunistic VP grab AND a whole-deck strategy (bloat and snipe), they > have gained the memory of How To Win By Going Left -- and they have > fallen significantly in the Threat Factor, meaning that a vote deck who > is sitting and apparently idling will no longer draw cross-table > shenanigans based on the premise of "I _know_ they've got a DU and are > waiting to use it." Vote decks will be ignored more, (DT will be less > prevalent), and as such will not lose any effectiveness as a result of > this ban. These are some pretty intangible things, true, but if you > don't understand or can't think outside the box, that's not my problem. See my previous paragraph. > Your entire counterargument so far has consisted of "BUT THE CARDS ARE > GONE, NO, REALLY, GONE!". Big fuckin' deal. See above. Reread until > you get it. BUT THE CARDS ARE GONE, NO, REALLY, GONE! ...happy? ;) > Now, you can babble on endlessly about whatever you want, (webforum > refugees typically do), but here's some harsh reality for you; You don't > have the slightest clue what you're talking about. I beg to differ. In my opinion you are too snobbish to see that sometimes a tit is a tit and a tat is a tat. You can go as far as you want to in assessing the rippling consequences, but insisting on going through the less and less significant consequences and stopping at the point that supports your side of the argument without even glancing a step forward hints at a perverted cause and effect relationship. Meaning, you *know* what you want to say and use the available evidence exactly as it supports your view (as opposed to trying to conclude, based on the available evidence, what the outcome will be). > We already have seen that you don't really know how to win the game, > because you play in an artificially sanitized environment (no deals), > and you repeatedly insist that the "fun" for you isn't related at all to > winning... so you really don't try to win (and you have mentioned in the > past that you often play theme decks). Given that you're not playing > the same game the rest of us are, I have no choice but to conclude that > your point of view on certain issues (deck strength, as determined by > "how to win") is simply irrelevant. Getting personal... I would like to clarify because while some of these statements have a grain of truth in them, they are lacking in sincerity and good will. I'm not obsessed with winning, true, and I sometimes try decks that have no reasonable chance of winning in theory, yes, but that does not mean I don't try to win the game. In fact, I do. I grab a concept and try to get the most bang out of it. I'm sure everyone does that. I might be saying that I'm not in this game for winning, but then I also say that the game is balanced for five players attempting to oust eachother in a consecutive fasion. In order to play the game and get most of it you must play to win, because otherwise you only hose others' play. I like to win, but I'm not necessarily having the most fun when I do. Since winning is secondary, I do not try to win at all costs. But I try to win nevertheless. I don't break the rules of the game (cheat or use illegal decks) nor my own house rules that contribute to my fun (breaking deals and such). As for the deals part - I sometimes deal, but usually prefer not to. When playing with mature people who are also experienced players, deals become less relevant. I mean, what's the point of chatting about something when everyone plays to win? If I gain from it I will rescue a torpid vampire cross-table regardless of a deal. I will allocate the leftovers from votes in a way beneficial to my game. In short, I consider excessive dealing to be a characterstic of poor players (because most deals are agreed to by poor players, even if good players proposed them). If both players involved are experienced, dealing becomes less important. > I suggest you do some reading on a concept referred to as "threshold of > knowledge", something I don't see you as having obtained yet in V:TES. > In short, you don't know enough about the game to understand what you > don't know, so you're stuck in a fixed mode of thinking that reads > "power card gone, oh no, deck suck now". This is very short-sighted, > but common. I don't really know what to say. Except, of course, that having a strong opinion and being articulate about it does not necessarily mean you actually know what you are talking about. > The rest of your message related to the myth of poor seating and the > role luck plays in the game has been discarded from this one and picked > up in a separate thread. Have fun. I intend to... Asshole. ;) -- Bye, Daneel

Picasso had a good sentence: "inspiration exists, but when it comes, you have to be working in order to use it" Translated to V:TES, it could be something like "luck exists, but to take adventage of it you need to be prepared and take the correct decisions". To have a "lucky draw" is perfectly possible. We all have had situations where we cycled the deck just to take a "lucky draw" and we took it. Which is lucky (if you have , say, 1 DI in your deck and you draw it JUST when you need, that is lucky). However, in order to take adventage of that "luck" you do need to a)have spent a card slot on DI b)have cycled your deck c)use the DI against the "right" thing, otherwise it is useless no matter how "lucky" you drew it.

In message <1102473592.2...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, "lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> mumbled something about: >[Derek] >[snip excellent post] >> This all will typically be incorrectly >> perceived as luck. > >This is kind of implied by what you wrote, but I'll say it anyway. > >Luck can strongly influence the performance of a *bad* deck design. Yes. I use "the myth of bad seating" for a reason, as opposed to "the myth of good seating". Technically both are myths, but people rarely blame good luck for winning. ;) >For example, my deck is a political deck and has no stealth (beyond the >inherent +1 stealth of political actions). I sit at a table that >contains no intercept and do quite well, maybe even sweep the table. >The next table everyone has some intercept, I get everything >significant blocked and die screaming. > >I could say, "that was bad luck that I lost that second game". >However, I imagine, you'd quite rightly say "No, you TOOL! It was bad >*deck design* that caused you to lose." Yes. This is exactly what I'd say -- "You failed to allow for the existence of +1 intercept." In the first game, you sat next to a bunch of decks that had failed to allow for a natural vote deck, and they deserved to get boned by you. In the second, you sat next to a bunch of decks that had all DELIBERATELY compensated for a vote deck, and you got boned. None of this is really due to luck. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <opsiovlv...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 20:32:03 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >>> Out of arguments, Johnnie...? ;) >> >> You've been out for some time; you've been trying to argue something >> that can't even be argued =) In fact, let's just go ahead and sum up, >> shall we? >> >> I predict that vote decks will be no weaker. This means, in short, that >> they will perform no worse than they have up 'til now in tournaments >> because of their lack of DU/KR. > >So you're basically saying... that even though vote decks losed some >power cards, and have become weaker in the process, they will not perform >worse, because they (having become weaker) also pose less of a threat >and as such other decks pack less vote defence. No. They will improve their natural offense, tweak the deck type to support the fact that they CAN'T change anymore, and become stronger in a different aspect. During play, they will be perceived as being less of a threat, and people will modify their deckbuilding and play styles accordingly. They will be just as much of a threat as they always have been, however. >Aside of basically supporting my argument (vote decks becoming directly Read again. >weaker because of the gone powercards) if we indeed assume that your >assertion stands (that they indirectly did not become weaker as other >decks will not pack that much vote defence as some of the most annoying >power cards are gone), it is not hard to look further and conclude that >even if vote decks remained the same relative strength *because* other >decks pack less vote defence, those slots that were previously occupied >by vote defence now can be allocated to promote more proactive tactics, >in the end making every other deck stronger. Wouldn't you agree? Remove vote defense = make deck stronger against vote decks? You realise this is exactly what you've said, right? It's almost exactly a mirror image of the counterargument you're attempting to provide, which is that "Remove DU = Vote Deck Weaker!" A Rush deck that previously packed 2 DT and removes them in favor of 2 Disarm will now be able to perform its offense better. This may or may not make the deck stronger, however, as they sacrifice some reactive effectiveness against vote in favor of better proactive effectiveness. This is the difference between a nickel and five pennies, frankly, and if you note is a mirror image of MY argument; the Rush deck gets no stronger and no weaker. >Getting personal... I would like to clarify because while some of these >statements have a grain of truth in them, they are lacking in sincerity >and good will. You have little room to talk, as you spend an inordinate amount of time in your posts concerning yourself with whether I've called you a poo head, and almost no time with whether or not you're thinking clearly. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:55:12 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > They will be just as much of a threat as they always have been, however. In that case the people who modify their decks to include less vote defence are the poor players. If we are assuming competent players who can see the threat vote decks still pose, they will not include any less vote defence. Meaning you are left with a bunch of unchanged (non-political) decks and the political deck, which now has been stripped of two power cards. Thus the political deck has become weaker because it lost two power cards. I really see no way around that... ;) If they have not become significantly weaker, then competent players will not use less vote defence, and you are left with the fact that they lost some power options, resulting in at least a slight reduction of power. If they have indeed become significantly weaker, then other players might change their decks to include less vote defence to defend against the reduced threat, but in this case we are talking about an effect, not a cause. An effect of political decks becoming weaker. >> Getting personal... I would like to clarify because while some of these >> statements have a grain of truth in them, they are lacking in sincerity >> and good will. > > You have little room to talk, as you spend an inordinate amount of time > in your posts concerning yourself with whether I've called you a poo > head, and almost no time with whether or not you're thinking clearly. Frankly, I do not really give a shit about what you think of me. Sorry to upset you... ;) I like inflammable assholes, and I sometimes put a match to their regular farts, as a sort of entertainment. That however has nothing to do with the points they make. I tend to assess the points separately. In fact, I kind of prefer civilized discussion, even if the little devil in me urges me to flame back whenever I am flamed. -- Bye, Daneel

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:57:51 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Yes. I use "the myth of bad seating" for a reason, as opposed to "the > myth of good seating". Technically both are myths, but people rarely > blame good luck for winning. ;) Actually... I am more keenly aware of my own mistakes. I usually make them. So when I win I usually just say I got lucky (to having won despite my mistakes). I haven't won a single time where I had a bad draw and a bad seating. None of which are under my direct control. Having a Rush prey and a stealth bleed predator can be awesome if I draw combat defence and bounce, and an spell my doom in a matter of turns if I draw neither. >> For example, my deck is a political deck and has no stealth (beyond the >> inherent +1 stealth of political actions). I sit at a table that >> contains no intercept and do quite well, maybe even sweep the table. >> The next table everyone has some intercept, I get everything >> significant blocked and die screaming. >> >> I could say, "that was bad luck that I lost that second game". >> However, I imagine, you'd quite rightly say "No, you TOOL! It was bad >> *deck design* that caused you to lose." > > Yes. This is exactly what I'd say -- "You failed to allow for the > existence of +1 intercept." > > In the first game, you sat next to a bunch of decks that had failed to > allow for a natural vote deck, and they deserved to get boned by you. > > In the second, you sat next to a bunch of decks that had all > DELIBERATELY compensated for a vote deck, and you got boned. > > None of this is really due to luck. But the opponents you face are determined randomly. If a third of the players play Rocks, a third plays Scissors and a third plays Paper, and then seating is determined randomly, you might have a Rock deck that gets a Rock, Paper or Scissors prey and predator. If your rock gets a paper for both, you are screwed. If it gets a Scissors for both, you rock. Unless, of course, you are required to be psychic and foresee which decks you'll encounter. -- Bye, Daneel

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opsio6up...@news.chello.hu... > But the opponents you face are determined randomly. If a third of the > players play Rocks, a third plays Scissors and a third plays Paper, and > then seating is determined randomly, you might have a Rock deck that gets > a Rock, Paper or Scissors prey and predator. If your rock gets a paper > for both, you are screwed. If it gets a Scissors for both, you rock. > Unless, of course, you are required to be psychic and foresee which decks > you'll encounter. And how do all the lesser (smiley) tournaments handle this? If you're in a MtG single elimination tournament and get seated opposite a deck that exploits your weak spot, which card do you play to change opponents to one more to your liking? What would that ability, if it existed, mean for the opponent whom you chose? -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

Derek Ray, though we've fought in the past, telling it like it is.

I am another person thinking that vote decks are weaker without the 2 table switching political cards... BUT they are still worth playing... RavATwoFaces

[Daneel] > But the opponents you face are determined > randomly. The composition of heats, in the say an olympics running race, are (I believe) determined randomly. Does luck play a significant part in who wins a gold medal (amongst the athletes that actually make it to the event)? > Unless, of course, you are required to be psychic > and foresee which decks you'll encounter. You're not required to be psychic. Decks are not wildly different from each other. There are only a few archetypes: bleed, combat, vote (maybe intercept, deck depletion and master card madness). If you're prepared for these archetypes it shouldn't matter much the particulars of how the other decks embody the archetypes. If you're not prepared for one or any of these archetypes then you are merely playing a crap deck, or you are taking a risk that the ignored archetype won't show. Taking a risk (even if it doesn't pay off) is different from being screwed by luck. * lehrbuch

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:36:58 -0500, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > "Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message > news:opsio6up...@news.chello.hu... >> But the opponents you face are determined randomly. If a third of the >> players play Rocks, a third plays Scissors and a third plays Paper, and >> then seating is determined randomly, you might have a Rock deck that >> gets >> a Rock, Paper or Scissors prey and predator. If your rock gets a paper >> for both, you are screwed. If it gets a Scissors for both, you rock. >> Unless, of course, you are required to be psychic and foresee which >> decks >> you'll encounter. > > And how do all the lesser (smiley) tournaments handle this? > > If you're in a MtG single elimination tournament and get seated opposite > a deck that exploits your weak spot, which card do you play to change > opponents to one more to your liking? What would that ability, if it > existed, mean for the opponent whom you chose? If you intend to draw a parallel with single elimination tournaments, and how other games are not exempt from the Rock Paper Scissors phenomenon often understood to be part of VTES, then I neither can nor will debate that. The sole purpose of my argument was to illustrate how the vagaries of seating contribute to a random environment that presents specific opportunities and threats that cannot be foreseen during deck construction. Also, I maintain that the irregular availability of resoures (deck shuffling) likewise has an unforeseeable effect on one's performance during the game. Neither of those were adressed in your post (I'm not saying you were trying to refer to them). Back to your post - what I think you say is that normally jumping between opponents is not part of any game. That is probably right in most cases. I in fact do not disapprove of the bannings (for what its worth). I'm not saying the effect is bad for the game in general. But there is an effect. -- Bye, Daneel

On 8 Dec 2004 13:02:10 -0800, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote: > [Daneel] >> But the opponents you face are determined >> randomly. > > The composition of heats, in the say an olympics running race, are (I > believe) determined randomly. Does luck play a significant part in who > wins a gold medal (amongst the athletes that actually make it to the > event)? You do see the folly of your example, I'm sure. Racing against a clock is extremely different from trying to oust specific other contestants. If you are faster than anyone, then any number of runs will result in your victory. Unlike in a competition with direct ousting. You only face a portion of the other players and your deck types have a great influence on the outcome of the game. >> Unless, of course, you are required to be psychic >> and foresee which decks you'll encounter. > > You're not required to be psychic. Decks are not wildly different from > each other. There are only a few archetypes: bleed, combat, vote > (maybe intercept, deck depletion and master card madness). If you're > prepared for these archetypes it shouldn't matter much the particulars > of how the other decks embody the archetypes. These are the words of an inexperienced player. What do you put in a deck against a weenie computer hacking bleed predator, without seriously impeding your chances to win? What do you put in the same deck against a Pander vote predator? A Malkavian Antitribu stealth bleed predator? A Beast (D) Rush predator? An Anson Master card predator? A Law Firm? An Arika&Co Banishment, Reins of Power, PTO deck? A Harbinger Slaughterhouse deck that takes no blockable actions? I'm curious, because I thought that there is no ultimate deck. I always thought that decks were strong or weak mostly relative to other decks, and not objectively by themselves. A War Ghoul deck might cream a stealth bleed, but will die horribly to a well prepared combat deck (like Torn Signpost, Sideslip Inferior, Blur). A weenie CH deck might eat either easily, but will die horribly to a prepared vote deck. Which in turn might be quite vulnerable to blocking. However, a blocking deck is helpless against a harbinger deck depletion deck. Which is again hosed by many decks. Etc... So because to make the finals you do not even remotely have to be better than the rest of the players, only a randomly selected bunch of them, and because you cannot anticipate the decks you'll be facing... You get the picture. > If you're not prepared for one or any of these archetypes then you are > merely playing a crap deck, or you are taking a risk that the ignored > archetype won't show. Taking a risk (even if it doesn't pay off) is > different from being screwed by luck. Being prepared (with cards) for everything usually means you have no ousting power. You can include 20 DT, 30 bounce and 40 prevent in a deck, but you'll not be any better off than by trying to win. Knowing that your deck has a weakness might be a conscious deck construction decision. Like, instead of putting in 10 combat cards that offer a slim protection against a rush predator, you include no combat but instead gain more ousting speed. This way you will fare better in the 66% of the cases where your predator is not combat, and suffer a bit when your predator is combat. All in all you might be better off with a known weakness than the illusion of being prepared for everything, because a focused deck will have more stealth, intercept, votes, whatever than you can "splash in" intercept, stealth, votes, etc. -- Bye, Daneel

[Daneel] > What do you put in a deck against a weenie computer > hacking bleed predator, without seriously impeding > your chances to win? What do you put in the same deck > against a Pander vote predator? A Malkavian Antitribu > stealth bleed predator? A Beast (D) Rush predator? > An Anson Master card predator? A Law Firm? An > Arika&Co Banishment, Reins of Power, PTO deck? > A Harbinger Slaughterhouse deck that takes no > blockable actions? Being prepared for each of these things doesn't necessarily mean putting specific counter cards for each in your deck. For example, worried about votes? Put some voters of your own in your deck, stick some intercept into your deck, stick some pool gain into your deck (so you're not so bothered by KRC etc), minimise the number of fiddly bits in your deck that can be disrupted by votes (locations, single-vampire-shows etc). Some of the above "counters" for votes will also protect you against rush and stealth bleed. Some of them will also help *you* go forward. Pick the ones that fit with whatever your strategy is. If your strategy allows no room for anything else, then I guess you picked a crap strategy. > You can include 20 DT, 30 bounce and 40 prevent in a > deck, but you'll not be any better off than by trying to win. Pick a defensive strategy that is synergistic with your offensive. * lehrbuch

In message <opsio6kc...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 08:55:12 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> They will be just as much of a threat as they always have been, however. > >In that case the people who modify their decks to include less vote >defence are the poor players. I refer you to my example of the Rush deck which removes two DT and replaces it with two Disarms. The vote deck remains equally strong at getting VP; the Rush deck, no longer having an immediate need to protect against DU/KR, can refocus its efforts on offense and what it does best. Even though the composition of both decks has changed, their relative strength remains equal. Thus, your education proceeds. >If we are assuming competent players who can see the threat vote decks >still pose, they will not include any less vote defence. Sure they will. KRCs are a different type of threat than DU. One prevents you from gaining VPs by ousting you, while the other prevents you from gaining VPs by taking your prey away from you. DTs are not as effective against damage votes as they are against one-of-a-kind votes like Dramatic Upheaval. Damage votes in a deck are typically NOT 15 KRCs; they are more along the lines of 6 KRC, 4 Parity Shift, 3 Con Ag, 2 Domain Challenge. Delaying an Upheaval can often save you a VP; a big effect. Delaying a KRC (especially now without table switching) is likely to just get you hit by a different damage vote called by the 2nd minion, and then the same damage vote on the next turn. Not that worthwhile -- therefore it is actually in the Rush deck's best interest to dump his DTs in favor of Disarms. Dead vampires can't call votes. >Meaning you are left with a bunch of unchanged (non-political) decks and >the political deck, which now has been stripped of two power cards. > >Thus the political deck has become weaker because it lost two power cards. > >I really see no way around that... ;) Well, pop your head out of your cardboard once in awhile, then. =) Despite my efforts to introduce an amount of math into this game, not everything can be reduced to numbers about it. >>> Getting personal... I would like to clarify because while some of these >>> statements have a grain of truth in them, they are lacking in sincerity >>> and good will. >> >> You have little room to talk, as you spend an inordinate amount of time >> in your posts concerning yourself with whether I've called you a poo >> head, and almost no time with whether or not you're thinking clearly. > >Frankly, I do not really give a shit about what you think of me. Sorry >to upset you... ;) Honestly, dude, nothing you could say would upset me at this point. I spend a certain amount of time each day dealing with people like you and setting them firmly back in their place. You really develop a thick skin for this sort of thing; especially when you realize that it doesn't matter, people like you will _never_ get it. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <opsiovg5...@news.chello.hu>, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> mumbled something about: >On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 20:45:44 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Standing behind the finalists at the NAC, we were EASILY able to >> identify the wrong decisions each player was making -- and clearly >> distinguish the decisions that were only wrong because they couldn't see >> their opponents' hands from the ones that were just a bad evaluation of >> the table situation, or a poor play based on cards-in-hand, or missing >> cards-on-table that would affect a play. >> >> Some errors result from being forced to make a guess, because you have >> inadequate information available to you. Intuition plays a large part >> in this game, as does reading your opponents. How much harder is it for >> you to read someone who doesn't speak your native language? How about >> someone who doesn't speak your native language and can't speak English >> well either? >> >> But these errors are still errors, and all add up. > >Interesting points. How about the error of having an unlucky draw? Or the >error of being seated between the two wall decks, as opposed to being >seated opposite to them? How about the error of not building your deck with at least some option to handle wall decks? Or the error of incorrectly predicting that wall decks would be popular at this tournament? Or the error of making the choice to leave wall decks as your weakness? "unlucky draw" is typically a direct result of "poor deck choice" (a deck which relies on certain unique cards showing up to win), or "poor deck building" (not enough of a critical card, or too many of a non-critical card getting in the way of your critical card, or failure to include hand-cyclers to allow you to fix your draw. >>> your position or you can make good decisions and enhance your position, >>> but you make it sound as if choice of cards, card flow and seating were >>> indeed insignificant. Whereas, IMHO players constantly take risks, like, >> >> Choice of cards and card flow are not insignificant, but these are all >> done in the "deck building" phase, -- a phase that consists of 0% luck, >> unless your cat jumps on the table and spills coffee on your Disarms. > >Whoa. Are you saying that you should put your library cards in a specific >order? I thought the rules said you have to *randomize* your deck, which >means that you have technically absolutely no clue as to which order the >cards are in - of course, what you know is which cards are in your deck. Good job reading what I said, and then making some totally unrelated stuff up and claiming that it was what I said. Moving on, since you appear to have conceded this point to me. >>> in assuming that they'll draw a bounce if they cycle their bleed mods - >>> which might or might not happen. Likewise, one's predator might cycle a >> >> Whether or not to take a risk is a decision. Sometimes results prove >> that it was a poor one. Many risks cannot be adequately evaluated given >> the time available to players. This doesn't mean that the players don't >> make errors. > >Please tell me that the following situation is a question of misjudgement >and not misfortune: OK. >You have a 80 card deck and have 10 Deflections in your deck. You have >cycled through 30 cards and saw none. Meaning, that of the remaining 50 >cards 10 are deflections. If you cycle one card you have an approximately >20% chance of drawing one. You therefor cycle 10 cards during your turn, >with Dreams, Fragment and actions, hoping to draw a Deflection so that you >can protect yourself from your predator's bleed. You quickly assess your >chances and find that you probably have over 90% chance of drawing at least 91.7%, to be exact. >one bounce. You instead draw none. Was this a bad decision, not knowing >that your 90%+ chance was irrelevant, or was this poor draw? I think that >if you have over 90% chance to do something, you're making a mistake if >you're not trying it. But, every now and then you'll be reminded that a 90% >success also means a 10% failure. And what's your point in this, honestly? =) You had 10 Deflections. In an extremely corner-case, contrived scenario, you did not draw any of them. (99.94% chance of getting at least one). Your choice is to adapt to not drawing your Deflections, or die. You may not get the time to adapt, and this means that your predator has won this round. If your deck is sufficiently resilient, you can still do well. The law of averages says this must happen sometimes; you need to figure out what you'll do in cases like this. Sometimes, the answer is "lose". But the chances are equal that your predator draws none of his Governs, for example. Nobody is trying to say there are zero random elements in the game, Daneel. What I'm saying is that this whole "I got bad seating so I lost" is just a myth. If your deck is THAT vulnerable to what it sits next to, build a better deck. >Another example: > >You rush your predator' Mariel, Lady Thunder. You torporize her and play >Tortured Confession. Your predator has three other Malkavians, but his hand >includes five stealth cards, a wake and a deflection. you have 9 pool. You have made an error in not Rushing your predator earlier. >Bleeds for a total of 8. Were you ousted by your misjudgement, or did your >predator have a lucky draw? You have made an error in not Rushing your predator earlier, and your grandpredator has made an error by taking a bleed action. Your risk in going forward is a risk indeed, but given that you have already made an error, the best decision in your circumstance is to take that risk, as NOT taking the risk does not improve your situation. >> Just because a game has an element of chance in it (the shuffle, for >> example, is a random element that players have no control over) does not >> mean the game itself is governed solely by chance, or even that a >> significant portion of the game is governed by chance. > >There is also seating. The very same table can be arranged in many >different ways. If your deck is THAT vulnerable to what it sits next to, build a better deck, and then learn to adapt your play once you have a deck that is NOT so vulnerable. >If there are two wall decks and you play Law Firm, you might easily >sweep if the wall decks are placed as your "allies", while having >them beside you means you're toast. > >It is not a mistake to be seated between them. Neither is it bad luck. It is a possibility which you should at least consider, that you will sit next to at least ONE wall deck. >> The rest of the decisions made in the game, AND before the game, will >> always far outweigh the random elements such as the shuffle and seating >> position. > >I couldn't disagree more. Because you are not aware of these random That's nice. >elements you cannot tune your deck to cope with them. You do generic Sure you can. You know, at any given decently sized tournament: -- There will be stealth/bleed. -- There will be stealth/vote. -- There will be a Rush deck. -- There will be a heavy intercept deck. -- There will be a weenie deck. -- There will be a one-vamp-wonder deck. Your deck should have some resilience against all these, and you can prioritize which you choose to lose to as you choose. Deliberately increasing protection against one or another type may leave you vulnerable to corresponding opposite types, but these are your decisions! Do not delude yourself into thinking that you can't help what you sit next to. Nut up and TRY. >> I think that many players tend to want to blame their "bad >> draw" simply because they lost, when often the circumstance is just that >> they sat next to a better deck than theirs, or the other player made >> fewer errors than they did, or another player made decisions that >> affected them adversely. > >I disagree. That's nice. >Consider the following. (metagame example snipped) >Metagame determines what makes a good deck and what makes a poor deck. No. Some decks are good in any metagame. See "Kindred Spirits bleed", which exhibits remarkable resilience against almost every deck out there, despite seating position. Other players' deck choices help determine whether or not your deck performs well at any given tournament. But then, isn't that your strategy pitted against theirs? Hmmm... I don't see where luck enters the picture apart from the shuffle. >So the moral of the story is, while I can see where the "luck does not >matter" school comes from, it is simply wrong. If you have 5 players Wait...! Do you hear that? No, THAT... Listen more closely. It's the sound of a weak player making excuses. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Wait...! > > Do you hear that? > > No, THAT... Listen more closely. > > It's the sound of a weak player making excuses. > > -- Derek This should go on a t-shirt. hehee:) Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) "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

On Thu, 09 Dec 2004 00:08:17 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> How about the error of having an unlucky draw? Or the >> error of being seated between the two wall decks, as opposed to being >> seated opposite to them? > > How about the error of not building your deck with at least some option > to handle wall decks? Die horribly is an option. The environment determines which deck is good and which is bad; there is no best deck. If there was, everyone would be playing that. So you must determine what sort of precautions you include. Defence against votes amounts to wasted card slots when noone wants to vote. > Or the error of incorrectly predicting that wall > decks would be popular at this tournament? If you play fair, you have no option to augur what type of decks will be prevalent and with whom you will get seated. I mean, even if you are correct in assuming that wall decks will be scarce, you might get seated beside all the three wall decks that attend the tournament (beside 15 SB, 15 vote and 10 rush). That is luck... or its lack thereof. > Or the error of making the > choice to leave wall decks as your weakness? I doubt any deck can elect _not_ to have a weakness. Even most decks that are generally considered to be excellent choices usually require good card flow to defend against most threats. Like, a KS SB deck can rely on its forward momentum as defence against certain types of offence. However, if that is somehow hindered, it suddenly becomes vulnerable to a lot of things. > "unlucky draw" is typically a direct result of "poor deck choice" (a > deck which relies on certain unique cards showing up to win), or "poor > deck building" (not enough of a critical card, or too many of a > non-critical card getting in the way of your critical card, or failure > to include hand-cyclers to allow you to fix your draw. I've seen many games where drawing the hand cycler meant victory over defeat. Including hand cyclers is usually a sign of good deck design, but drawing them is luck. I mean, say you put 80 cards in a deck. You have a motor that keeps your deck going (it consists of three main cards, is repeatable 13 times, taking up 39 slots). You also have a contingency support for your main strategy (say, an additional 15 cards). You get 13 masters which support your strategy, and another 13 freebie cards for miscellaneous/defence applications. But, you might easily not draw into crucial cards when needed. Or you might draw into them. How many times did someone win when his or her predator would have won had he or she cycled just an additional card? How many times is the reverse true? You can (and should) play your game from what's in your hand, cycling through it as needed and trying to get the best of all your cards, but sometimes that's just not the case. Having a worse than average draw might doom you if your predator has a better than average draw. >>> Choice of cards and card flow are not insignificant, but these are all >>> done in the "deck building" phase >> Are you saying that you should put your library cards in a specific >> order? > Good job reading what I said, and then making some totally unrelated > stuff up and claiming that it was what I said. Moving on, since you > appear to have conceded this point to me. I no longer trust you to be capable of understanding what someone else writes. But there might still be at least a slim chance that you can understand what *you* wrote. Please reread. Card flow is not set during deck construction phase. >> You have a 80 card deck and have 10 Deflections in your deck. You have >> cycled through 30 cards and saw none. Meaning, that of the remaining 50 >> cards 10 are deflections. If you cycle one card you have an >> approximately >> 20% chance of drawing one. You therefor cycle 10 cards during your turn, >> with Dreams, Fragment and actions, hoping to draw a Deflection so that >> you >> can protect yourself from your predator's bleed. You quickly assess your >> chances and find that you probably have over 90% chance of drawing at >> least > > 91.7%, to be exact. Good. I'm glad the assesment in the example hints at a competent player. ;) >> one bounce. You instead draw none. Was this a bad decision, not knowing >> that your 90%+ chance was irrelevant, or was this poor draw? I think >> that >> if you have over 90% chance to do something, you're making a mistake if >> you're not trying it. But, every now and then you'll be reminded that a >> 90% >> success also means a 10% failure. > > And what's your point in this, honestly? =) > > You had 10 Deflections. In an extremely corner-case, contrived > scenario, you did not draw any of them. (99.94% chance of getting at > least one). You might just as well draw only one or two Deflections instead of none at all and still be outbled by your predator. Or you might draw bounce but no wakes (or vice verse). Or you might draw lots of bounce when you need Delaying Tactics. Or you might draw into a lot of stealth when you need bleed. Etc. > Nobody is trying to say there are zero random elements in the game, > Daneel. What I'm saying is that this whole "I got bad seating so I > lost" is just a myth. If your deck is THAT vulnerable to what it sits > next to, build a better deck. Dunno... I had a Law Firm deck once that was designed with keeping many contingencies in mind. It of course had two seat switchers... ;) But I digress. I swept tables sitting between *two* wall decks. Thanks to good card flow and luck. I was then seated with a wall prey and a Slaughterhouse predator... Who milled through all my Kiss of Ras and all but one of my Daring the Dawns (which cards were my tickets against walls) in like three turns. Was it my poor deck design that placed my Fortitude action modifiers where my predator could mill them out? Or was it my misfortune? Also, when I finally called a seat switcher with Daring the Dawn, was it my poor deck construction that my predator had his only Vox Domini in hand? Or was it his lucky draw? Indirectly, my poor luck? Dunno, I sometimes get the feeling that luck is highly underrated. I would have swept the same table mercilessly if I had drawn only two Kisses and two Darings. The same goes for the reverse; originally, when I swept from between two walls, I drew at leas one Kiss early (and a Daring not far into the game). Had those cards been at the bottom of my library, I would have scored exactly five fewer VPs. >> Another example: >> >> You rush your predator' Mariel, Lady Thunder. You torporize her and play >> Tortured Confession. Your predator has three other Malkavians, but his >> hand >> includes five stealth cards, a wake and a deflection. you have 9 pool. > > You have made an error in not Rushing your predator earlier. I actually tought that this example was based on competent players. I should have known better anyway; who the hell plays with Tortured Confession anyway? It's the worst. Card. Ever. ;) >> Bleeds for a total of 8. Were you ousted by your misjudgement, or did >> your >> predator have a lucky draw? > > You have made an error in not Rushing your predator earlier, and your > grandpredator has made an error by taking a bleed action. Can errors made by other players be considered to be luck in a sense that they influence your game mostly regardless of your skill or deck? > Your risk in going forward is a risk indeed, but given that you have > already made an error, the best decision in your circumstance is to take > that risk, as NOT taking the risk does not improve your situation. Not taking it would be an error, I presume. >>> Just because a game has an element of chance in it (the shuffle, for >>> example, is a random element that players have no control over) does >>> not >>> mean the game itself is governed solely by chance, or even that a >>> significant portion of the game is governed by chance. >> >> There is also seating. The very same table can be arranged in many >> different ways. > > If your deck is THAT vulnerable to what it sits next to, build a better > deck, and then learn to adapt your play once you have a deck that is NOT > so vulnerable. Okay, assume I did that. Both of that. And I sit down with players who also did that. Both. So now what? We're back at the point where luck and the presence (or absence) of errors will determine the outcome. But if we are all good players, then deck strategies pitted against eachother and card flow will determine the outcome. Card flow is random, and seating is likewise random. >> If there are two wall decks and you play Law Firm, you might easily >> sweep if the wall decks are placed as your "allies", while having >> them beside you means you're toast. >> >> It is not a mistake to be seated between them. > > Neither is it bad luck. It is a possibility which you should at least > consider, that you will sit next to at least ONE wall deck. But if you consider the possibility, and decide that you can afford to lose to wall decks, because chances are you'll only encounter one at best... and then get seated next to a wall all three games, you made the mistake of not being prepared? So for the next tournament you swap out cards to be able to kill walls. Then you encounter not a single wall deck and your wallkillers clog your hand. Oops, bad choice again... > Sure you can. You know, at any given decently sized tournament: > > -- There will be stealth/bleed. > -- There will be stealth/vote. > -- There will be a Rush deck. > -- There will be a heavy intercept deck. > -- There will be a weenie deck. > -- There will be a one-vamp-wonder deck. > > Your deck should have some resilience against all these, and you can > prioritize which you choose to lose to as you choose. Deliberately > increasing protection against one or another type may leave you > vulnerable to corresponding opposite types, but these are your > decisions! Indeed. Those decisions are made in a vacuum. Preparing heavily against a deck type might prove to be a grave mistake or a winning move based on the RANDOM seating. > Do not delude yourself into thinking that you can't help what you sit > next to. I thought we started off discussing how banning the seatswitchers changed the game. You no longer have this option. ;) Anyway, I'm beginning to see a pattern here. First, you say that card flow is 0% luck, then you state that you have a choice what you sit next to? I advise you to read the tournament rules that kind of disagree with you. Unless you are the organizer, of course. Or very good at poker. >> I disagree. > > That's nice. Why thank you. I tend to practice that a lot. ;) >> Metagame determines what makes a good deck and what makes a poor deck. > > No. Some decks are good in any metagame. See "Kindred Spirits bleed", > which exhibits remarkable resilience against almost every deck out > there, despite seating position. Yes, that is indeed a good deck. Unless, of course, it is so good that three KS SB decks are sitting at the same table contesting eachother's asses off. But that is beside the point. We've seen War Ghouls or Shambling Hordes cream !Malkavians in no time. The main strength of the Kindred Spirits SB is being a very focused deck. Part of its defence (pool resilience) comes directly from its offence (Kindred Spirits). Deny that and you punch the deck in both nuts. Kind of like an all-eggs-in-one-basket approach. > Other players' deck choices help determine whether or not your deck > performs well at any given tournament. But then, isn't that your > strategy pitted against theirs? Hmmm... I don't see where luck enters > the picture apart from the shuffle. In the seating. You pit your strategy against a random selection of opponents. >> So the moral of the story is, while I can see where the "luck does not >> matter" school comes from, it is simply wrong. If you have 5 players > > It's the sound of a weak player making excuses. Why would I make any excuses? Remember, it is not I who is obsessed with winning. I don't mind losing as long as I enjoy the game and it is kept fair. I don't mind winning either, though. ;) -- Bye, Daneel

[Daneel] > I no longer trust you to be capable of understanding > what someone else writes. But there might still be > at least a slim chance that you can understand what > *you* wrote. Please reread. > > Card flow is not set during deck construction phase. Possibly a language issue, I forget whether English is your native language or not. Derek does not mean the "specific order in which cards are drawn", when he says "card flow". He means something like the "rate at which cards are played/drawn and the probability that the next card will be useful/playable". Card flow is largely set during deck construction, as it is a strong function of what cards are in the deck, which minions can play which cards etc. It can be influenced by other players a bit, the point of not attempting to block a stealth-bleed deck, for example, is to stop their card flow. * lehrbuch

[ quoted text not captured ] I think that the possibilities and probabilities of card flow are determined during deck construction (and they are not subject to luck at all). The exact deck flow will be determined randomly, within the boundaries set up during deck construction. I think we agree here... But what we probably disagree at is that I think the actual card flow (as determined by the randomization of the cards, within the boundaries of deck construction) is quite an important factor in VTES. Of course, you cannot have a good draw from a shitty deck, but you can have a shitty draw from a good deck. -- Bye, Daneel

On 8 Dec 2004 19:12:00 -0800, lehrbuch <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote: >> You can include 20 DT, 30 bounce and 40 prevent in a >> deck, but you'll not be any better off than by trying to win. > > Pick a defensive strategy that is synergistic with your offensive. Which will obviously mean you will be more prone to certain offences. If you have a fictional deck and its offence and bloat work in such a way that you can include average combat defence for 10 card slots and excellent combat defence for nothing short of 20+ cards, whereas you can include average bleed defence with 5 cards and super bleed defence with 10, you will probly make a design mistake in including 20 combat cards. Sure, that's a deck, but if you make the wise choices you select the most efficient defences. Meaning, you'll probably choose mediocre combat defence and super bleed defence over average combat defence and average bleed defence. Meaning, you'll get hosed by combat (but you will have an edge against bleed). If you get a bleeder predator during the random seat allocation, you got lucky, if you get a combat predator, you got unlucky. -- Bye, Daneel

On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:29:06 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I refer you to my example of the Rush deck which removes two DT and > replaces it with two Disarms. > > The vote deck remains equally strong at getting VP; the Rush deck, no > longer having an immediate need to protect against DU/KR, can refocus > its efforts on offense and what it does best. > > Even though the composition of both decks has changed, their relative > strength remains equal. Thus, your education proceeds. I sometimes get the feeling that you already know you are wrong, you're just too dumb to relize that it's far too obvious. Head on approach: You take away a card and an option. The set from which you took it becomes weaker. Forcing others to play your game is always good. If others react to that and consider you to be less of a threat they do that because you are indeed less of a threat. While enjoying a little leeway may be good, that does not change the fact that you are weaker and less of a threat because a power card was taken. > Sure they will. KRCs are a different type of threat than DU. One > prevents you from gaining VPs by ousting you, while the other prevents > you from gaining VPs by taking your prey away from you. I might add, getting ousted is worse than staying in the game and losing one potential VP. That's veteran experience for you: I made VPs after my prey was stolen, but I never really recall making any after I was ousted. > DTs are not as effective against damage votes as they are against > one-of-a-kind votes like Dramatic Upheaval. Damage votes in a deck are > typically NOT 15 KRCs; they are more along the lines of 6 KRC, 4 Parity > Shift, 3 Con Ag, 2 Domain Challenge. If you play Princes, you'll play both DU and KR. I did that frequently; call one, get it DTed, and call the other. Works wonders. Especially since even if the second was DIed, I'm still sitting there all untapped, the table is just short of two cards that could have stopped my oust, and I can just relax and get on to ousting my prey. If you don't have princes, you'll probably use 10 KRC 5 Con Ag. Domain is too risky and conditional to have lots of; maybe a splash or two just in case. But it can be avoided easily. Your main weapons would be KRC and Con Ag. One DT can easily divide the damage you can do to your prey by 2-3. That's a lot. Not to mention DTing a ConBoon for a weenie prey low on pool. -- Bye, Daneel

Daneel wrote: > On Wed, 08 Dec 2004 23:29:06 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> I refer you to my example of the Rush deck which removes two DT and >> replaces it with two Disarms. >> >> The vote deck remains equally strong at getting VP; the Rush deck, no >> longer having an immediate need to protect against DU/KR, can refocus >> its efforts on offense and what it does best. >> >> Even though the composition of both decks has changed, their relative >> strength remains equal. Thus, your education proceeds. > > > I sometimes get the feeling that you already know you are wrong, you're > just too dumb to relize that it's far too obvious. > > Head on approach: You take away a card and an option. The set from which > you took it becomes weaker. Forcing others to play your game is always > good. > > If others react to that and consider you to be less of a threat they do > that because you are indeed less of a threat. While enjoying a little > leeway may be good, that does not change the fact that you are weaker > and less of a threat because a power card was taken. I think his point is: DT only made sense in his deck because of DU/KR. Without DU/KR, those two DTs actually make his deck weaker than if he takes them out and replaces them with Disarms. >> Sure they will. KRCs are a different type of threat than DU. One >> prevents you from gaining VPs by ousting you, while the other prevents >> you from gaining VPs by taking your prey away from you. > > > I might add, getting ousted is worse than staying in the game and losing > one potential VP. That's veteran experience for you: I made VPs after my > prey was stolen, but I never really recall making any after I was ousted. Getting ousted takes many votes, losing your prey takes only one. And (usually) you only have to worry about getting ousted by your predator, but anyone can take you prey... >> DTs are not as effective against damage votes as they are against >> one-of-a-kind votes like Dramatic Upheaval. Damage votes in a deck are >> typically NOT 15 KRCs; they are more along the lines of 6 KRC, 4 Parity >> Shift, 3 Con Ag, 2 Domain Challenge. > > > If you play Princes, you'll play both DU and KR. I did that frequently; > call one, get it DTed, and call the other. Works wonders. Especially > since even if the second was DIed, I'm still sitting there all untapped, > the table is just short of two cards that could have stopped my oust, > and I can just relax and get on to ousting my prey. Most vote decks I've seen included a couple of copies of each at most, having both in hand at the same time is unlikely. > If you don't have princes, you'll probably use 10 KRC 5 Con Ag. Domain is > too risky and conditional to have lots of; maybe a splash or two just in > case. But it can be avoided easily. Your main weapons would be KRC and > Con Ag. One DT can easily divide the damage you can do to your prey by > 2-3. That's a lot. > > Not to mention DTing a ConBoon for a weenie prey low on pool. DT is great, but to be effective against an aggressive vote deck you'll need more than a couple. Using only a couple of DTs is fairly effective defense against an opportunistic DU/KR, but won't make much of a difference against most vote decks. Flux

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 01:39:18 +0000, Flux <fl...@netc.pt> wrote: > I think his point is: DT only made sense in his deck because of DU/KR. > Without DU/KR, those two DTs actually make his deck weaker than if he > takes them out and replaces them with Disarms. DT allows you to call the same vote next turn. Giving you only a turn to set things right. Unless, a rush deck's way of setting things right is to kill all minions cross-table to prevent the seat switching. Otherwise I think the main problem with the combat deck was the inability to apply forward pool pressure. The political deck is probably far more apt in that, meaning that even with the +1 turn the combat deck's pool reach is probably shorter than the political deck's. >> I might add, getting ousted is worse than staying in the game and losing >> one potential VP. That's veteran experience for you: I made VPs after my >> prey was stolen, but I never really recall making any after I was >> ousted. > > Getting ousted takes many votes, losing your prey takes only one. And > (usually) you only have to worry about getting ousted by your predator, > but anyone can take you prey... If we think this a bit further, taking one's prey is only beneficial if said prey is on the verge of being ousted. In most cases a hard core political deck can dish out more damage than a classic bleeder or a combat deck can. >> If you play Princes, you'll play both DU and KR. I did that frequently; >> call one, get it DTed, and call the other. Works wonders. Especially >> since even if the second was DIed, I'm still sitting there all untapped, >> the table is just short of two cards that could have stopped my oust, >> and I can just relax and get on to ousting my prey. > > Most vote decks I've seen included a couple of copies of each at most, > having both in hand at the same time is unlikely. Also, having two copies of either at hand is not too likely either... >> Not to mention DTing a ConBoon for a weenie prey low on pool. > > DT is great, but to be effective against an aggressive vote deck you'll > need more than a couple. Using only a couple of DTs is fairly effective > defense against an opportunistic DU/KR, but won't make much of a > difference against most vote decks. I think... For seat switchers, DT is probably the third best option. You do not repeat seat switchers during a turn. The card itself is probably quite valuable in a moment when you want to use it. Therefor I think that against Seat-Switching the best solution is Direct Intervention. It allows you to kill that one card and in many cases there won't be another one, not that turn, not next turn. The second best solution is Vox Domini, as it costs the same, does basically the same, except it uses up your "Vox Domini" slot, which could be saved for something really fatal (like being ousted, or getting one's vampire PTOed). The third best option is Delaying Tactics. I think that Delaying Tactics works best against Kine Resources Contested (predator) or Consanguineous Boon (prey). Those votes are excessively repeatable and widely used. DI one and another pops up; DT one and you're in the clear for a turn, even if another 4 copies clog your neighbour's hand. Parity Shift may be an option, but it is usually only one-shot anyway. Still, a card and a blood might be worth 5 pool. -- Bye, Daneel