1. Wondering what size decks players use for a 2-player game and for every player added. I know the max size, but was curious if well designed decks were constructed with less cards.
2. Any good formulas of the number of each type of card in someone's Library?
60 cards max
10-12 masters
Keep decks lean and don't develop bad deck-building habits.
When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike.
pckvtes.wordpress.com
@pckvtes
I normally play between 60 and 75 cards in decks. They're designed for 5 player games, but they're fine for 4 player games as well. If you play 2 or 3 player games, I see no reason to play anything but 60, maybe even include a few burn option cards to bring it down an additional 5-7 cards.
Adam Esbjörnsson,
Prince of Örebro
> Trigger wrote:
> 1. Wondering what size decks players use for a 2-player game
>
None. If there are only 2 players, I find something else to do.
There are plenty of good 2 player games, standard V:TES isn't one of them.
Variant V:TES is a good alternative.
> Trigger wrote:
> and for every player added. I know the max size, but was curious if well designed decks were constructed with less cards.
>
I don't know of anyone that plays with the deck construction rules as printed in the rulebook. The online community has used the tournament rules practically since their introduction. Decks are 60-90 cards and the number of players doesn't matter.
> Trigger wrote:
> 2. Any good formulas of the number of each type of card in someone's Library?
>
Legbiter had a theory for that called Happy Families . The second link in the left hand pane has theory and examples or you can examine just the theory, here .
I've found that 75 cards is a good goal to aim towards. But that does depend on the type of deck you are playing, and how many of your "power cards" you are using.
If you are building a Potence combat deck and you own 5-6 Immortal Grapple, than I would recommend a smaller deck (60-70 cards,) For a 90 card deck you will probably want 10 Immortal Grapple.
Often, you will have a variety of "power cards" such as Pentex Subversion, Giant's Blood, Heart of Nizchetus etc. You might have one or two copies of some of these card. A smaller deck will assure you see more of these cards in the course of a game.
The other thing to consider is that with a smaller deck you have to make your actions count. Failed actions with a smaller deck are more costly than failed actions with a larger deck. In a long game you might find yourself running out of cards which could make the different in a game win. But more often, you will be ousted seeing less than half of your deck.
Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.
> Adonai wrote:
> None. If there are only 2 players, I find something else to do.
>
I agree with this. There is no reason to play VTES unless you are 4 or 5 players.
The only 2-player variant I like is the "Common pool"-variant (www265.pair.com/perlman/vtes/vtes2p.html )
"My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."
> Trigger wrote:
> 2. Any good formulas of the number of each type of card in someone's Library?
>
Hypergeometric distribution is what you want.
In Excel it's HYPGEOMDIST (N, Z, X, Y)
where
X is the number of a certain card that you have in the deck.
Y is the number of cards in the deck.
Z is the number of cards you are drawing.
N is the number you are checking for.
So, if you have a 70 card deck with five Lilith's Blessings and you're wondering what are the odds of finding at least one amongst the ten first cards, you would put this in excel:
HYPGEOMDIST (1, 10, 5, 70)
The answer is about 40%, btw. Naturally you'd want to put it into Excel so that you'll have the Z going up from seven so that you can check what's you chance of finding the first Lilith's Blessing at a particular time in the game.
There's also an online tool for this but it isn't as handy:
stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
> Lemminkäinen wrote:
>
> > Trigger wrote:
> > 2. Any good formulas of the number of each type of card in someone's Library?
> >
> Hypergeometric distribution is what you want.
>
> There's also an online tool for this but it isn't as handy:
> stattrek.com/online-calculator/hypergeometric.aspx
>
Or you could use the tools that Ira put together.
www.irafay.com/cards.php
Thanks for the information about the tool.
I can't get it to work for crypt draws. What am I doing wrong?
Looking for the chance to draw at least one if I put in 5 of a vampire in my crypt.
=HYPGEOMDIST(1,4,5,12)
It turns up 35%.
I've always wanted to be able to run crypt probabilities myself, so I am grateful for that link.
4 out of 12 crypt cards = 86% chance to draw in initial crypt
5 out of 12 crypt cards = 93% chance to draw in initial crypt
V:tes has won ten years in one when people started playing 60-cards deck consistently (well I am a big fan of 70 myself but I can understand the point), don't try to make it regress 10 years by going back to 90 cards.
IC Organized play coordinator
Please contact me with any OP query using the mail in my profile
Well... it depends of the type of the deck that you are using...
If you use ashur tablets 60 will do the trick...
Otherwise you should playtest... must decks will fare well with 70-80 cards... if you have a rush deck that uses a lot of cards in each action you might end up without a library...