The Becoming

I'm a big fan of the card The Becoming. I really like the background. Unfortunately I find it hard to build an effective and competitive deck around the card. Hopefully your thoughts on this can help me and others who face the same problems. Let's have a look at the card. Becoming, The [Action] Action [2 Blood] +1 stealth action. Requires a non-sterile vampire. Put this card in play. It becomes a 0-capacity non-unique vampire of the same clan as the acting vampire. Move up to 1 blood from the acting vampire and up to 3 Discipline cards from your hand to this vampire. This vampire cannot act this turn. If this vampire has no capacity-increasing Discipline cards, burn him or her. Advantages: For just an action for two blood you may get a vampire with up to three capacity and nearly any combination of common disciplins you can think of. It doesn't require a titled vampire and (thus) can be played with low caps. If you like you can add a blood from the acting vampire to keep the new blood from hunting. Downsides: To really make the card count you have to have many Master: Disciplines in your deck. It cost of two blood is rather high. If you havn't got any Disciplines in hand you can't do the action. Regarding these points there are some thoughts coming into my mind. a) First question of course is which combination of disciplines do I have to take to get the best out of this card? b) Obviously the master section of such a deck will be rather big as you want to have many Master: Discipline cards in your hand when you play The Becoming. Big master sections almost always call for more MPAs to be able to get the MCs played. The question is how to adress this problem. c) As you will have many Master: Discipline cards in your deck, your aim should be to make as many The Becomings as you can. That means that you play rather midcap to lowcap minions to have more actions. Which ones? (That refers a bit to a) but not that much, as you are able to give your minions disciplines.) d) Blood management will be an issue, as the two blood (+1 if you want to give the new minion blood)for The Becoming is a big chunk for small minions. My thoughts on these points are: a) As I want to play with low to midcaps I have to plan using disciplines at inferior. The best use of inferior disciplines seems to be anarch cards. So what about for/cel? As you are limited in card slots because of the master cards, you will benefit from permanents. You could play Desert Eagles with Diversion and Groundfighting backed up with Psyche and Forced March. Splash in some Scattershots, maybe add a Magazine or two. You could add dom as third discipline for some Graverobbing and Deflection. b) You could play The Parthenon or build a deck around Anson or Nana. Anson can't become Anarch though. Nana is good as she is with ani-weenies. So there wouldn't be a need for Becomings. You could play with Abombwe as they are trifles. What about abo/pot/dom or something? c) My first take would be something like Caroline Bishops T.J. Abu Nuwasi Fahd al-Zawba`a Gustavo Morales Kenyatta Janni Elizabeth Conde 4 Owain Evans, The Wanderer for example. Owain is good for point d), the Blood Management. With cel/FOR he is a good addition. Blood Turnip is a little helper. As I plan for guns I'd go for at least some Taste of Vitae. Lilith's Blessing could be a good card in this deck giving blood and a Disciplinecard on an empty minion. The main problem of my planned deck is getting into combat. I have too few slots left for Bum's Rush or similar cards. I can't play enough Haven Uncovered because of my already full Master Section. I have to play cards like Dreams of the Sphinx to get a bigger hand to have the needed Disciplinemasters in hand at the right time. I need something vs. Scourge of the Enochians, that means The Uncoiling. I need at least one Aranthebes to counter one. I wish to add at least a Powerbase: Tshwane, Powerbase: Luanda and some Seattle Comitee, to let the Becomings become anarch. Actually I need at least a few Concealed weapons to get the guns inspite of Intercept. As there are some combos needed in the deck I don't feel very confident with it. What are your thoughts on a good Becomingdeck? Baron of Frankfurt

Reiner Stoschka and tha/dem Becomings might be an interesting choice. Making the discipline cards trifle means that getting rid of them is a lot easier, thaumaturgy means that new blood is relatively easy to come by and dementation is easy on the blood cost while being very effective. Or perhaps a Talbot & Aksinya deck (put those extra discipline cards to good use).

> What are your thoughts on a good Becomingdeck? > I don't think such deck exists. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the Becoming, but the card has one big glaring problem: the discipline cards have to come from your hand. That means that if you were to make the most of the Becoming to make it actually superior to just an embrace or a progeny, you have to stack your deck with discipline cards. And I mean like seriously stack. Surely you're not going to make just one little "becoming" guy, but are planning to make 3+. That means LOTS of discipline cards. Now, as mentioned above getting rid of them isn't all too hard (Assinya being the obvious choice) but the problem is, you just won't have sufficient cards in your hand/deck to actually make the best of a wacky 3-discipline combo.

> Izaak wrote: > Now, as mentioned above getting rid of them isn't all too hard (Assinya being the obvious choice) but the problem is, you just won't have sufficient cards in your hand/deck to actually make the best of a wacky 3-discipline combo. > Yep, that's the problem indeed. And you cannot afford adding things like Storage annexes or too many hand size enhancers as you already have got that many discipline masters in the deck. Although I have to mention that it doesn't have to be a 3-disci-deck. You always can give them the same disci twice. Baron of Frankfurt

> Izaak wrote: > Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the Becoming, but the card has one big glaring problem: the discipline cards have to come from your hand. > I agree. Compare to all the awesome Shock Troops and Zhenga decks out there. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

I find The Becoming works ok in a casual deck that already uses a fair bit of discipline cards anyway; it can provide a welcome way to clear the hand of them mid-game. A weenie presence deck, for example, with mostly inferior and not much superior Presence minions; the discipline cards are handy, and making more minions fits well. But at least in my case, I've found that a better crypt leads to not needing as many discipline cards, which makes for a better deck and which also crosses The Becoming off the list. For example, shifting to slightly larger cap vampires and putting together a weenie presence crypt where more than half already have sup Presence, now allows replacing those Presence master card slots with better cards. Meanwhile The Embrace becomes the better option for breeding. To build a deck around The Becoming, I'd be tempted to go to the Assamites, for Basir and Deviki Prasanta. Probably not a strong deck, but could be fun. VtES store : www.prunesquallor.net Card supplies & games : stores.ebay.com/Prunesquallors-Secret-Cache

I might consider it in a Giovanni deck. Either with Guillaume Giovanni to give you massively increased handsize, or using Sudario to fetch a Becoming and 2 discipline cards.

> Joscha wrote: > I'm a big fan of the card The Becoming. I really like the background. Unfortunately I find it hard to build an effective and competitive deck around the card. Hopefully your thoughts on this can help me and others who face the same problems. > > Let's have a look at the card. > > Becoming, The > [Action] Action > [2 Blood] > +1 stealth action. Requires a non-sterile vampire. > Put this card in play. It becomes a 0-capacity non-unique vampire of the same clan as the acting vampire. Move up to 1 blood from the acting vampire and up to 3 Discipline cards from your hand to this vampire. This vampire cannot act this turn. If this vampire has no capacity-increasing Discipline cards, burn him or her. > The Becoming is, from a design-viewpoint, a failure. What is it supposed to be? A replacement for The Embrace and 3rd Tradition? If yes, it is clearly inferior to those. The Embrace can be put in play anytime, it doesn't require a Master: discipline from your hand. 3rd Tradition has the bonus, that you can search your hand, library and ash heap for a discipline card to put it on the new vampire. The Becoming has a BIG opportunity cost, because you have to have at lease 1 discipline card in hand when you play it. How many Master: Discipline cards do you want to play in a non-specialised deck? IMO, the additional cost of 1 blood compared to 3rd Tradition, coupled with the opportunity cost makes it wallpaper. Would it be better if you were allowed to take up to 2 discipline cards from your hand, and search your library for a third? This would mean in the early stages of the game, you could be quite sure to get a Becoming in play. You'd have at least 1 discipline and payed 1 additional blood, compared to 3rd Tradition. In the late game, it would be less and less likely to able to put a Becoming in play due to lack of Master:discipline cards. The Becoming is poorly balanced, and was probably poorly playtested. Compare it to Shock Troops. In playtesting, the card was interesting, as you could take Master:discipline cards from your hand, ash heap and library. Sure, it enabled some mildly broken plays (aiming at time-outs, or multi-rush, etc.). But it got nerfed into oblivion. Who in their right minds plays Shock Troops? Having cards in the set that have such glaringly huge opportunity costs is bad set design and bad card design. What was the bit about the background you like about The Becoming? You don't mean the art, do you? pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > What was the bit about the background you like about The Becoming? You don't mean the art, do you? > I like the idea that you 'learn' some disciplines by getting the essence from your Sire when he embraces you. In the RPG you actually start with some dots at least in your inclan-discis. In VtES an Embrace gain nothing, bad. I don't think that you can compare Becoming to Shock Troops. The minions you get through Shock Troops can't bleed and get -1 stealth. THAT is bad. I'm still thinking about the best combo. Is it pot/for? Or pre/obf with !Tor? Baron of Frankfurt

> Amenophobis wrote: > The Becoming is poorly balanced, and was probably poorly playtested. > You're making a huge assumption -- that LSJ takes all the advice that he receives during play testing about how to fix the rocks in the gumball machine. I'll tell you right now: for whatever reason, he doesn't. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> Mael wrote: > I might consider it in a Giovanni deck. Either with Guillaume Giovanni to give you massively increased handsize, or using Sudario to fetch a Becoming and 2 discipline cards. > Or Laibon with many Reliquary: Trinket Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> KevinM wrote: > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > The Becoming is poorly balanced, and was probably poorly playtested. > > > You're making a huge assumption -- that LSJ takes all the advice that he receives during play testing about how to fix the rocks in the gumball machine. > > I'll tell you right now: for whatever reason, he doesn't. > Having been playtester myself, I'm fully aware of that. I have lost count of the now-wallpaperish cards which we had pointed out during playtest which would have needed a small boost... *sigh* pckvtes.wordpress.com

You can't compare Becoming to 3rd tradition, which is by default superior since it requires a title. Comparing Becoming to Embrace is what you should do as those have same cost and requirements. Originally Embrace let you get a discpline card also, but that was too good so it was changed to not get one, and Becoming was made to give a more balanced version of 'anyone can do' breed action that gets discplines.

> Klaital wrote: > You can't compare Becoming to 3rd tradition, which is by default superior since it requires a title. Comparing Becoming to Embrace is what you should do as those have same cost and requirements. Originally Embrace let you get a discpline card also, but that was too good so it was changed to not get one, and Becoming was made to give a more balanced version of 'anyone can do' breed action that gets discplines. > I'm aware that Becoming is not strictly comparable to 3rd Tradition. The increased cost seems to factor that in. However, The Becoming is not "a more balanced version of 'anyone can do' breed action that gets disciplines". 3rd Tradition, Creation Rites, Water of Duat, Tumnimos, etc. are all similar, that you can fetch a discipline card from hand, library or ash heap. The Becoming is a poorly designed card from the start, because of its opportunity cost. You have to have a Master:discipline in hand, or The Becoming burns. As I have already lined out, the opportunity cost could have been made a bit less significant with a little tweaking. The powers that have been at that point deemed another wallpaper card not a big problem. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > The Becoming is, from a design-viewpoint, a failure. > I don't know that that is true. It is costed reasonably and has an advantage over similar cards. I mean, yeah, it isn't the best card in the world or anything, and is kind of corner case, but from a design perspective, it makes sense. > What is it supposed to be? A replacement for The Embrace and 3rd Tradition? If yes, it is clearly inferior to those. > A replacement? No. Just a different version that you would use under different circumstances. The Embrace you can play with anyone, but it doesn't get any disciplines or blood from the acting minion. 3rd Tradition is very strong, but requires a Prince/Justicar. The Becoming can be played by anyone, can come into play with a discipline, and can get a blood so it doesn't have to hunt. Yeah, it isn't going to go in a lot of decks, but if your plan is to make a few of these with a single discipline on them? They'll probably work pretty well. > The Becoming has a BIG opportunity cost, because you have to have at lease 1 discipline card in hand when you play it. How many Master: Discipline cards do you want to play in a non-specialised deck? > Not that many. So you use The Becoming in specialized decks. The Embrace and 3rd Tradition are more generally useful. And as such, we didn't need any cards that were better than them. But there is certainly room for cards that are narrower in focus, which The Becoming is. Yeah, not going to go in a lot of decks. But some decks can use them effectively. Which describes an awful lot of cards in VTES. > The Becoming is poorly balanced, and was probably poorly playtested. > It strikes me as completely reasonably balanced. Narrow. And not particularly useful in a general sense, but will work fine in a narrow field of decks that are designed to use it. > Who in their right minds plays Shock Troops? > I've seen interesting, not ineffective decks that use Shock Troops. Are they going to compete with weenie dementation S+B? No, of course not. But not all decks aim to do that. Shock Troops is hard to use effectively, but a lot of people like cards that aren't obvious tier 1 cards, as they make the game interesting. Not all cards need to be Kindred Spirits. > Having cards in the set that have such glaringly huge opportunity costs is bad set design and bad card design. > The Becoming only has a high opportunity cost if you put it in a deck that isn't designed to use it. If you make, say, a weenie Obfuscate deck with a dozen Obf cards and 8x Becomings, you'll get a lot of weenies with obf/OBF really quick. Make a lot of your other master cards into trifles (Life in the City?) and the rest of the deck stealth and computer hackings and whatever. I suspect such a deck wouldn't do that bad. It is a card that isn't designed to *replace* the already obvious, good cards that make new vampires. It is designed to be a card that has a much narrower focus than that card and a more limited use, but benefits that someone might want to take advantage of and build a deck to use in.

> bakija wrote: > I've seen interesting, not ineffective decks that use Shock Troops. Are they going to compete with weenie dementation S+B? No, of course not. But not all decks aim to do that. Shock Troops is hard to use effectively, but a lot of people like cards that aren't obvious tier 1 cards, as they make the game interesting. > Dude. I'll give you 20 Shock Troops if you promise to make a serious deck with them and play it at least 6 times IRL. hehee Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> KevinM wrote: > Dude. I'll give you 20 Shock Troops if you promise to make a serious deck with them and play it at least 6 times IRL. hehee > Heh heh. My buddy Asif made a reasonably effective deck that is a preposterous combination of Guillaume Giovanni making a billion locations, having a hand size of 30, using Fabrizia to make Shock Troops that all become Anarchs, and then firing off the Death Star Canon for, like, 20. It doesn't win a lot, but when it does, it is quite entertaining. And uses shock troops effectively

Kevin, would you like me to play a Troops deck at the WoN? I have a Frontal Assault + Perpetual Care template designed using [pot] troops, discipliness combat cards and disarm. It's got a few rough edges, like dealing with [ANI] and it's not assembled yet. But I think I have enough unused Disarms lying around. I bet you a pizza I can take at least a few VP with it.

Deck Name : Crazy Twister 1.0 Author : DRSTRANGE26 Description : This is a first attempt at trying to build a deck around The Becoming. It uses Thaumaturgy to control the blood management issues in the deck. The Twister part is because of the many master cards that remain in play and the many permanents the deck plays with. Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 8 average: 6.25 5x Reiner Stoschka 7 AUS DEM THA obf Malkavian:5 3x Lord Ephraim Wainw 6 AUS THA for pre Tremere:5 2x Lazarus James 8 AUS DEM PRE obf tha Malkavian:4 2x Bela 3 DEM ani obf pro Malkavian:5 Library [60 cards] Action [13] 6x Becoming, The 2x Call, The 3x Kindred Spirits 2x Pulse of the Canaille Action Modifier [9] 3x Crocodile's Tongue 2x Eyes of Chaos 2x Into Thin Air 2x Mirror Walk Action Modifier/Combat [2] 2x Swallowed by the Night Action Modifier/Reaction [2] 2x Random Patterns Combat [7] 2x Coma 5x Theft of Vitae Equipment [3] 1x Bowl of Convergence 1x Rowan Ring 1x Sargon Fragment, The Event [1] 1x Inconnu Tutelage Master [21] 3x Ashur Tablets 4x Auspex 4x Dementation 6x Obfuscate 4x Thaumaturgy Reaction [2] 2x Eyes of Argus I have not playtested this deck. But I have run it through a random generator and it looks to function the way it should.

> KevinM wrote: > You're making a huge assumption -- that LSJ takes all the advice that he receives during play testing about how to fix the rocks in the gumball machine. > > I'll tell you right now: for whatever reason, he doesn't. > The reason is simple. I'm sure you know that I don't mean to disrespect, because I don't actually agree with the reason, but reality always has a nasty tendency to get in the way of the ideal. The reason is that the cards that get changed in playtest are the ones that are too strong. Those get lots of attention across multiple rounds of playtesting, because it's far worse for any CCG to have a brokenly-good element released into the wild than an element that's not particularly good. And since there's a limited amount of time and effort available to be expended on changing cards, and that effort gets expended on fixing the stuff that's way too good, the stuff that's not Tier One gets ignored. I mean, I know that you know this, so I'm not sure why you're being obstreperous here. But I'm okay with taking the time to drop this science for the audience at home. > Amenophobis wrote: > I have lost count of the now-wallpaperish cards which we had pointed out during playtest which would have needed a small boost... *sigh* > Again, no offense intended, but see above. This is why, in certain ways, collectible-whatever games will always be inferior on the design side to fixed-component games.

I personally think Becoming is best in a single discpline decks, like for example I used them quite well in my mono protean !gangrel rush deck that had lot of agg damage, amaranths and gangrel conspiracies in it, it had like 8 protean masters in it to get everyone up to superior protean, most of which were gained through diablerie, but becomings helped to flush out the extra ones from hand that I was drawing, while giving another protean guy to do stuff with.

> TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote: > Kevin, would you like me to play a Troops deck at the WoN? > > I have a Frontal Assault + Perpetual Care template designed using [pot] troops, discipliness combat cards and disarm. It's got a few rough edges, like dealing with [ANI] and it's not assembled yet. But I think I have enough unused Disarms lying around. > > I bet you a pizza I can take at least a few VP with it. > I will bet you a $20 dinner somewhere that you will average less than 2.0 VP per game and not be able to get a single GW with any Shock Troops deck that you care to field -- so if you meet either criteria, you win the bet. I'll supply 20+ Shock Troops, if the bet is on. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> KevinM wrote: > I will bet you a $20 dinner somewhere that you will average less than 2.0 VP per game and not be able to get a single GW with any Shock Troops deck that you care to field. > I quickly looked at some of the VP rates for the best players in the world. They seem to average about 2 VP per game played (back of the envelope calculation). If I were to play this PoS in a tournament, I would need at least a 33% win rate to hit the other criteria. I think that is significantly higher than my GW rate with better decks. Just so we're clear, you just set bar for a Shock Troops deck at the level of a top-5 player, playing first tier decks. Pshaw. I can tell you're from Vegas, the odds are stacked for the house. I'll toss a deck together, since it's mostly outlined anyway. If things are going too well at the NAC and I need to adjust my ego significantly downward, I'll play the Troops

Nice discussion! I have been playing around with becoming decks for some time, but havent struck gold yet. Due to the issues listed here. Not going to fill in all the deck data and oust info etc. Here are some of them: Deck Name: Becoming the Toreador Anti - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 8, Max: 19, Avg: 3,41) 1 Creamy Jade aus cel PRE vic5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Cristos Mantigo aus cel dom obf pre5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Gabriel de Cambrai aus cel dem obf pre5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Jonathan Gursel aus pre 3 Toreador Antitribu 2 Justine Chen pre 2 Toreador Antitribu 1 L`Epuisette aus cel pro 4 Toreador Antitribu 1 Loonar cel PRE 4 Toreador Antitribu 1 Monique Kim aus cel 3 Toreador Antitribu 2 Nicholas Chang aus 2 Toreador Antitribu 1 Sabrina aus cel pre 4 Toreador Antitribu Library: (90 cards) Master (46 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker 1 Archon Investigation 1 Direct Intervention 3 Dreams of the Sphinx 3 Foundation Exhibit 7 Hungry Coyote, The 22 Obfuscate 3 Palla Grande 4 Parthenon, The 1 Pentex Subversion Action (12 cards) 12 Becoming, The Action Modifier (22 cards) 6 Faceless Night 3 Forgotten Labyrinth 5 Lost in Crowds 4 Marked Path 4 Veil the Legions Political Action (8 cards) 8 Consanguineous Boon Event (2 cards) 2 Anthelios, the Red Star This deck was last saved at 23:07:21 on 30-03-2010 Deck Name: Becoming the Toreador Anti - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 8, Max: 19, Avg: 3,41) 1 Creamy Jade aus cel PRE vic5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Cristos Mantigo aus cel dom obf pre5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Gabriel de Cambrai aus cel dem obf pre5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Jonathan Gursel aus pre 3 Toreador Antitribu 2 Justine Chen pre 2 Toreador Antitribu 1 L`Epuisette aus cel pro 4 Toreador Antitribu 1 Loonar cel PRE 4 Toreador Antitribu 1 Monique Kim aus cel 3 Toreador Antitribu 2 Nicholas Chang aus 2 Toreador Antitribu 1 Sabrina aus cel pre 4 Toreador Antitribu Library: (90 cards) Master (53 cards) 1 Anarch Troublemaker 14 Celerity 2 Direct Intervention 2 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Fetish Club Hunting Ground 14 Fortitude 3 Foundation Exhibit 7 Hungry Coyote, The 3 Palla Grande 4 Parthenon, The 2 Pentex Subversion Action (18 cards) 1 Abbot 14 Becoming, The 3 Dream World Action Modifier (14 cards) 14 Forced March Political Action (4 cards) 4 Consanguineous Boon Event (1 cards) 1 Anthelios, the Red Star This deck was last saved at 16:33:37 on 19-03-2010 Deck Name: Becoming the media influence - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 7, Max: 15, Avg: 2,75) 1 Antoinette DuChamp cel pre 1 Caitiff 1 Celine Chevalier obf ser 3 Followers of Set 1 Clarissa Steinburgen ani obf 3 Nosferatu 1 Emerson Wilkershire III pre 2 Toreador 1 Frederick the Weak pre 2 Brujah Antitribu 1 Hadrian Garrick obf pre 4 Followers of Set 1 Krid obf 2 Nosferatu 1 Lena Rowe aus obf pre 3 Pander 1 Nepata obf pre ser 4 Followers of Set 1 Tock obf pot pre 4 Nosferatu Antitribu 1 Vasilis pre 2 Brujah 1 Watenda obf 3 Malkavian Library: (90 cards) Master (43 cards) 1 Barrens, The 2 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 Elder Library 11 Obfuscate 1 Pentex Subversion 22 Presence 4 Tribute to the Master 1 Wash Action (25 cards) 11 Becoming, The 14 Media Influence Action Modifier (15 cards) 3 Cloak the Gathering 5 Faceless Night 3 Lost in Crowds 4 Veil the Legions Reaction (4 cards) 4 Delaying Tactics Combo (3 cards) 3 Swallowed by the Night This deck was last saved at 13:48:41 on 01-12-2010 Deck Name: Zubeida becoming public trust - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 10, Max: 32, Avg: 5,08) 1 Axel Von Anders cel obf pot PRE5 Brujah Antitribu 1 Blister obf pot 3 Nosferatu Antitribu 1 Bloodfeud obf 2 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Gabriel de Cambrai aus cel dem obf pre5 Toreador Antitribu 1 Jeffrey Mullins cel OBF 4 Gangrel Antitribu 1 Lubomira Hradok OBF 3 Nosferatu Antitribu 1 Old Neddacka obf 2 Nosferatu Antitribu 1 Raphael Catarari aus pot tha OBF PRE5 Nosferatu Antitribu 4 Zubeida for ser OBF PRE PRO8 Abomination Library: (75 cards) Master (31 cards) 2 Dreams of the Sphinx 7 Fortitude 4 Hungry Coyote, The 4 Parthenon, The 14 Presence Action (18 cards) 7 Becoming, The 2 Dream World 9 Public Trust Action Modifier (24 cards) 6 Cloak the Gathering 4 Faceless Night 8 Freak Drive 3 Mask of a Thousand Faces 3 Veil the Legions Event (2 cards) 2 Anthelios, the Red Star This deck was last saved at 16:50:49 on 17-01-2011 Deck Name: Reiner becomes the Dementation - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 16, Max: 28, Avg: 5,33) 1 Antoine aus cel dem OBF5 Malkavian 1 Apache Jones aus for obf DEM5 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Arthur Denholm obf AUS DEM 5 Malkavian 1 Assad Salhoum aus dem dom obf5 Malkavian 2 Beauregard Krueller aus dem obf 4 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Bela ani obf pro DEM3 Malkavian 1 Luc dem vic OBF 5 Malkavian Antitribu 4 Reiner Stoschka obf AUS DEM THA7 Malkavian Library: (70 cards) Master (25 cards) 1 Asylum Hunting Ground 13 Dementation 1 Institution Hunting Ground 3 Jake Washington (Hunter) 5 Obfuscate 2 Tribute to the Master Action (18 cards) 7 Becoming, The 1 Blessing of Chaos 10 Kindred Spirits Action Modifier (15 cards) 2 Cloak the Gathering 6 Eyes of Chaos 2 Marked Path 2 Mask of a Thousand Faces 3 Spying Mission Reaction (6 cards) 4 Telepathic Misdirection 2 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Ally (1 cards) 1 Muddled Vampire Hunter Combo (5 cards) 3 Swallowed by the Night 2 Touch of Clarity This deck was last saved at 13:31:39 on 18-01-2011 Deck Name: Becoming the Dementation - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 10, Max: 16, Avg: 3,41) 1 Adelaide Davis aus dem obf 4 Malkavian 1 Beauregard Krueller aus dem obf 4 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Bloodfeud obf 2 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Cassandra Langely dem 2 Malkavian 1 Fabrizia Contreraz dem pot 4 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Florentina Lengauer aus OBF 4 Malkavian 1 Jackie DEM 3 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Jeremy Talbot dem obf 4 Malkavian 1 Marta aus dem 3 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Midget obf pre DEM 3 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Roger Farnsworth aus OBF 4 Malkavian Antitribu 1 Sean Rycek aus dem 4 Malkavian Library: (90 cards) Master (29 cards) 1 Asylum Hunting Ground 12 Dementation 1 Dreams of the Sphinx 1 House of Sorrow 1 Institution Hunting Ground 6 Obfuscate 4 Parthenon, The 1 Pentex Subversion 1 Specialization 1 Sudden Reversal Action (34 cards) 8 Becoming, The 6 Blessing of the Name 14 Kindred Spirits 6 Sibyl`s Tongue Action Modifier (20 cards) 2 Cloak the Gathering 8 Eyes of Chaos 2 Faceless Night 2 Lost in Crowds 2 Marked Path 2 Spying Mission 2 Veil the Legions Ally (1 cards) 1 Muddled Vampire Hunter Event (2 cards) 2 Anthelios, the Red Star Combo (4 cards) 1 Deny 2 Swallowed by the Night 1 Touch of Clarity This deck was last saved at 12:31:15 on 17-05-2011 Deck Name: Guillaueme becomming - START Created By: Description: Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 10, Max: 36, Avg: 5,33) 1 Almodo Giovanni dom pot 3 Giovanni 1 Cristobal Ghiberti nec 2 Giovanni 1 Donatello Giovanni aus pot pre DOM5 Giovanni 1 Eric Milliner pot 2 Giovanni 1 Gianmaria Giovanni POT dom nec obt5 Giovanni 4 Guillaume Giovanni CEL DOM NEC POT obt9 Giovanni 1 Kay Polerno dom necpro 4 Giovanni 1 Nunzio Giovanni nec pot 3 Giovanni 1 Primo Giovanni domnec pot 4 Giovanni Library: (90 cards) Master (36 cards) 2 Acquired Ventrue Assets 1 Dis Pater 10 Dominate 1 Elder Library 1 Giant`s Blood 1 Morgue Hunting Ground 4 Obtenebration 2 Parthenon, The 1 Powerbase: Savannah 1 Secure Haven 6 Storage Annex 6 Vessel Action (20 cards) 8 Becoming, The 1 Blessing of the Name 8 Govern the Unaligned 3 Sudario Refraction Action Modifier (12 cards) 2 Bonding 2 Foreshadowing Destruction 2 Seduction 3 Shadow Play 3 Shroud of Night Reaction (15 cards) 5 Deflection 2 Delaying Tactics 3 Obedience 1 On the Qui Vive 4 Wake with Evening`s Freshness Combat (3 cards) 3 Shadow Body Ally (3 cards) 1 Ambrosius, The Ferryman (Wraith) 1 Leonardo, Mortician 1 Tye Cooper Equipment (1 cards) 1 Palatial Estate This deck was last saved at 13:15:56 on 08-06-2011

> Kushiel wrote: > The reason is that the cards that get changed in playtest are the ones that are too strong. Those get lots of attention across multiple rounds of playtesting, because it's far worse for any CCG to have a brokenly-good element released into the wild than an element that's not particularly good. And since there's a limited amount of time and effort available to be expended on changing cards, and that effort gets expended on fixing the stuff that's way too good, the stuff that's not Tier One gets ignored. > I have been involved as playtester in all but 1 set from VTES/DS to LoB (we missed CE). In the WW-era, playtesting has always been the same, 3 rounds with a summary and no discussions. The thing is, you could catch 90% of the over- and underpowered cards just by reading the files. Any experienced player with a firm grasp of the rules and the costing concept could do that. And still those underpowered cards that got pointed out and got possible fixes for them presented remained how they were. That is sloppy playtest-coordination at best. Take some cards from FN: Tortured Confession, Relentless Pursuit, Pseudo Blindness, Fleecing the Gaje, etc. And coming back on topic, The Becoming is definitly not properly costed, as the huge opportunity cost is not factored in in a reasonable way. Sure, 3rd Tradition is cheaper and better as it needs P/J. But you should only play The Becoming if you have at least one skill card in hand (otherwise it's a wasted action!). The more the game progresses, the less are the chances to have a skill card in hand. This could have been mitigated somewhat. Balancing a card can be sometimes tough. But listening to playtesters is not. If you don't like to listen, invite only automatons to playtesting. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > I will bet you a $20 dinner somewhere that you will average less than 2.0 VP per game and not be able to get a single GW with any Shock Troops deck that you care to field. > > > I quickly looked at some of the VP rates for the best players in the world. They seem to average about 2 VP per game played (back of the envelope calculation). > Actually, the "less than 2 VP" average is just throwing you a bone. The second (and more relevant) part of his proposal is "not get a single Gamw Win". All you need to do is get one single Game Win with a Shock Troops deck and you got yourself a pizza. Now, since it is theoretically possible to not get a gamewin when you score 2 VP, Kevin is giving you an extra shot by accepting an average of 2 VP per game as well.