Honest Idea for fixing overly strong master cards!

Prepare to have your mind blown by the ultimate fix for any problematic card. Large errata too complicated? Banning out of question? Not really that over-powered? Introducing the "Louche" label! (Name is potential subject to change) Deriving form the meaning of "not reputable or decent", a card that is labeled as "Louche" is hated by many, but still played nonetheless. Potential candidates are many, from "Ashurs Tablets" to "Villein". (Note: "Louche" is only meant for master cards, rational further below) "Louche" is labeled in the same way "Trifle" or "Unique" is. (see spoiler) Warning: Spoiler! A card that is "Louche" is still played the same way and is not effected itself by that label. When somebody cancels it though, that's a whole different story: 1.6.2. Master Cards [...] 7. Louche: Some master cards are identified as being louche. When a louche master card is canceled, the canceling Methuselah may gain 1 pool. If the card used to cancel the louche master card is an out-of-turn master card, that card does not count against the canceling Methuselah's out-of-turn master card limit. Ok, so let me give first an simple example: Warning: Spoiler! Methuselah A plays a "Pentex Subversion" (Louche). Methuselah B plays a "Sudden Reversal". No further interference. Methusalah A's "Pentex Subversion" goes to the ash heap. Methusalah B may gain 1 pool and is allowed to still play an out-of-turn master card. More complex case: Warning: Spoiler! Methuselah A plays a "Pentex Subversion" (Louche). Methuselah B plays a "Sudden Reversal". Methuselah C plays a "Sudden Reversal" on Methuselah B's "Sudden Reversal". No further interference. Methuselah A pays 2 pool and puts "Pentex Subversion" on the chosen minion. Methuselah B may not gain a pool and cannot play any more out-of-turn masters till his next turn. (The pool and out-of-turn master effect only trigger with a successful cancel) Methuselah C cannot play any more out-of-turn masters till his next turn. So for the two effects: As for gain 1 pool, I think that it helps cards like "Bleeding the Vine" and works well with "Rewind Time" and "Sanatoleus"' special, without making "Sudden Reversal" and "Wash" over-powered (more on that later). I decided to make it optional with "may", so that games are not too strongly effected by it and it removes the potential need for rewinds. As for the out-of-turn master card effect, if somebody has e.g. 3 master phase actions, playing a "Sudden Reversal" on a "Villein" seems like a fruitless endeavor, with most probably the next "Villein" following. So allowing multiple cancels balances this out in my eyes. Also this is itself counteracted by the fact that any other Methuselah can stop a "Sudden Reversal" streak, by canceling it without loosing his out-of-turn master card. The trifle effect of "Wash" is covered by the rules and cannot give more than one additional master phase action, no matter in which turn the multiple "Wash"s are played. Although irrelevant of how many out-of-turn master cards you play, you gain only one fewer master phase actions next master phase. Also it makes carrying more canceling cards viable to counter act card like "Anthelios, The Red Star". As for the label itself, I think that it is very easy to bring to public knowledge by having for example at tournaments a list of all cards labeled "Louche", with maybe potential reprints coming with the label included. Also if nobody cancels, then the label does not disrupt play. And why only master card can be "Louche", the answer is very simple: "Direct Intervention" and "Dark Influences". A free "Direct Intervention", with the ability to play another one or a "Sudden Reversal" afterwards is too strong (IMHO). Also why I generally am not a big fan of countering like in Magic, I think that there has been a clear trend to more and more master cards, even in non-"Cybele"/"Nana"/"Anson" decks. So while more master cards is becoming viable, so should countering more master cards. I also think that "Sudden Reversal" itself should be "Louche". This should balance the pool gain and prevent too much abuse. Here is the second example from before with "Sudden Reversal" as "Louche". Warning: Spoiler! Methuselah A plays a "Pentex Subversion" (Louche). Methuselah B plays a "Sudden Reversal" (Louche). Methuselah C plays a "Sudden Reversal" on Methuselah B's "Sudden Reversal". No further interference. Methuselah A pays 2 pool and puts "Pentex Subversion" on the chosen minion. Methuselah B may not gain a pool and cannot play any more out-of-turn masters till his next turn. (Furthermore Methuselah B cannot play another "Sudden Reversal" on Methuselah C's "Sudden Reversal", because he is only allowed to play another out-of-turn master card after "Pentex Subversion" has been successfully canceled) Methuselah C may gain 1 pool and is allowed to still play an out-of-turn master card. In the previous scenario Methuselah B's "Sudden Reversal" did not take effect, but it robbed Methuselah C of his ability to play an out-of-turn master card till his next master phase. Now in the new scenario Methuselah C had to give up a master phase action next turn, but he can still defend himself with another "Sudden Reversal" or "Archon Investigation" (etc). Now this might seem too beneficial for Methuselah A and C, but a "Sudden Reversal" from another Methuselah could turn this around again. So now for the most controversial part, which cards to label: Here are my candidates in two groups, certain and uncertain: Certain: Warning: Spoiler! Pentex Subversion Villein Ashurs Tablets Giant's Blood Golconda: Inner Peace (For being played on own minions) Parthenon Direct Intervention Uncertain: Warning: Spoiler! Sudden Reversal (see above) Anarch Troublemaker (To interrupt Tap+Contest) Dark Influences Dreams of the Sphinx (Uniqueness kinda balances it though...) Powerbase: Montreal (sometimes stealing seems impossible, so as a precaution) Liquidation As you can see, even if all of those made it, it would just 13 (plus maybe a few I forgot), so nothing impossible to remember. Please tell me what you think! Just as a small rule for replying: You may not recommend more cards for the list or criticize it, till you leave a meaningful review of the "Louche"-rule. Same applies for name suggestions for the rule.

I really do appreciate the work you put in this. I mean it. However I am not sure that v:tes needs a rule like this. Here is the reason why I oppose this rule: 1. A rule like this would certainly (with no doubt) massively encourage people to play several copies of Sudden Reversal in basically every deck (but for sure every tournament deck). 2. Besides the desired effect of hosing those nasty master cards you listed, or at least making them less dominant, there will be a secondary impact on the game: For the last few years before v:tes was "killed" the people designing it tried to make big cap decks more playable. Many cards show this, like Scourge of the Enochians, Neonate Breach, but also Villein for example. When asking players and taking a look at the decks played at tournaments big cap decks seem now to be close to what I would call "balanced". With still room left to "expand". Big cap decks are more than any other deck archetype in the game forced to generate pool, which is mostly achieved by Minion Tap (old school) or Villein (new). Also many big cap decks need to have crypt acceleration cards like Information Highway, Zillah's Valley, etc. Note something? All master cards! Conclusion: if you favor the play of Sudden Reversal so much that will lead to a rise of weenie or weenie/mid cap aggressive bleed decks with a bunch of Suddens. An archetype that is already strong. This will have a very negative impact on big caps deck making them disappear from tournament play once more. So while you would achieve your primary goal of making those nasty master cards less dominant you would sacrifice a way of playing v:tes (yeah, you do have to play and build big cap decks in a different way). Of course all these thoughts here are based on my meta game and are entirely subjective. However I think these are solid arguments. by: Mephistopheles NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

If a "fix" would be required for certain master cards (which I don't think is the case at the moment) then the last thing I would want is to add a keyword that will never be printed on those cards. Any changes at this point should be rule changes without requiring errata. That said, I don't get all the sudden hate on master cards. Yes, Villein is a good card. Is it too good? Probably, but at least it allowed an ENORMOUS amount of decks to be playable. Yes, Ashur Tablets and Liquidation also spawned a new archtype. Well, actually it's more a new deck because Liquidation + Sudario has been around since Lords of the Night. There is !Malk S&B at every tournament. There has been since forever and nobody ever complained. There is a lawfirm at every tournament. There has been since forever and nobody ever complained. There is dom/for powerbleed and/or dom/aus wall/bleed at every tournament as well. That has been the case since Ruben Feldman won like 7 tournaments with Vignes and I haven't heard anyome complain. Now there is also Nana/Cybele at every tournament and suddenly people start randomly hating on master cards and decks that gain pool. Ye sure it's a good deck and everything but really... do we want a whole bunch of confusing errata and new rules JUST for one deck? If the VEKN *really* agrees that something needs to be done (which, again, at this point is in my opinion not the case), then THE single easiest solution is to just ban Aksinya.

No additional rules fGS! My present list of problematic masters: Villein Ashurs both DI Sudden/wash And only villein is too powerful, all others are just bad designed. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > No additional rules fGS! > > My present list of problematic masters: > Villein > Ashurs > both DI > Sudden/wash > > And only villein is too powerful, all others are just bad designed. > Sudden Reversal and Wash? Are you serious? pckvtes.wordpress.com

I don't think adding terminilogy to the game is a good idea as a prince. Further every year people complain about certain decks or cards more than others. I have seen very little of parity shift this year. Yet it was awesome and running rampant 2 years ago. I don't think a single card should be added to the ban list at this time either. Aksinya Daclau was always there to abuse. And just like imbued there are ways to beat the deck. I could list other decks like Nergal or turbo royalty that drew much hatred towards them. Villein is a good card. So are other cards. Don't get up in arms in such a hurry. Let another year go by and see where we are at. By that time I am sure people will know how to play against the girls decks and frustrations will subside. Consider any drastic moves made can weaken the player base and make it even harder to bring in new players.

> Amenophobis wrote: > > > elotar wrote: > > No additional rules fGS! > > > > My present list of problematic masters: > > Villein > > Ashurs > > both DI > > Sudden/wash > > > > And only villein is too powerful, all others are just bad designed. > > > Sudden Reversal and Wash? Are you serious? > Yea. "counterspell" is generally boring and frustrating mechanic, and in vtes it also disrupts the flow of the game, where there are almost no other "responce" cards. NC Russia

I think Sudden and Wash are very solid and well balanced cards that this game really needs. However I loathe Direct Intervention and Dark Tranquility, because they are the only card in the entire game you can't prepare for and defend against. Sure the later gives you a defense against the first, but you never really gonna play more than 1 copy of it, so chances are quite low there... See when a Vessel, Hunting Ground, Skill Card or whatever gets canceled, that rarely will ruin your entire turn. Your minions will be still save and you can re-plan your actions in time. But DI? You plan your entire turn, make the math and then you run into a DI. Your basically screwed. A DI on your Immortal Grapple that will save your main vampire from an Ivory Bow, a DI on the crucial Elder Impersonation so the Tzimisce can block you, a DI on the Conditioning played on bleed going on with Daring the Dawn, etc. You just can't prepare and quite often it'll cost you the game. Still wouldn't ban it or nerf it. Just saying that it's far worse than Sudden or Wash. NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

Cool idea. Myself I favour banning cards though. Another dead CCG, Star Trek, has a bunch of rules, erratas and complicated stuff that don't read on the cards, and it's always a pain in the ass to check. I don't think Villein is one of the problem masters though, the problems are Golconda, the too cheap MPA minions themselves, LB and Giant's Blood. And Parity Shift

Honestly I disagree with you premise, while not all masters are equal, I've not experienced any of them being TOO POWERFUL. What I do see is bad meta game environments and decks that are too 1d and can't do anything different and hence die. If you could give me an example of TOO powerful, I'd love to know, but while I dislike Villein strongly (imo it should have been 4 pool min), I don't think it's too good, nor have I ever seen a game where I felt that way. I've love to "be convinced" but I don't think it will happen. As a game mechanic, I'd have no problem with your idea if Vtes went back into production. Best dervish More evidence that your deck need not be good in order to win: thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011tottco

I don't think that this kind of rule should be added. It is a needless complexity. My own view on Villein is simple: It should not be playable on a vampire with less than 2 blood. Any card which is an 'automatic inclusion' or a card which must always be considered during deck building (i.e. played by your prey/pred) should be either overpowered or at least close to overpowered. This would immediately put the following cards into contention: Carlton Van Wyk Pentex Subversion Giants Blood I don't really see too many other cards turning up so frequently in people's consideration or decklists. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Few words about Giant Blood - it's much less powerful then it seems (Earlier I too think it must be banned, but changed my mind). It's useless if smd played it first. Everything equal, your chance to sucсesfully play it is 1/num of players having it in decks. So your avarage gain from it is lower, than (max capasity in your crypt)/(num of players you expect to play it at table). 4 example if you got Nana B in europe, the numbers are 8/4= 2 blood from one master. Not so good. Real number depens on the meta, but jenerally at tournament level I think it's playable only in big cap decks. NC Russia

> Mephistopheles wrote: > Conclusion: if you favor the play of Sudden Reversal so much that will lead to a rise of weenie or weenie/mid cap aggressive bleed decks with a bunch of Suddens. An archetype that is already strong. This will have a very negative impact on big caps deck making them disappear from tournament play once more. > I second that. I like to add that nothing at all prevents you from playing Sudden Reversal without the Louche rule. Okay, you use your master phase action and things. But you can counter one crucial master card, which could be enough for the oust. Strong enough for me. We in fact have already a Loucherule in our playgroup. Everytime a Villein, Liquidation or Ashur Tablet is played everybody at the table sighs "boring". Which it isn't of course. But playing with only the strongest cards is cowardly at best. Besides: You made up a nice presentation of your idea, congrats. Baron of Frankfurt

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > I don't think that this kind of rule should be added. It is a needless complexity. > > My own view on Villein is simple: It should not be playable on a vampire with less than 2 blood. > I've never seen a game unbalanced because of that. Yeah, you can cycle a card, big deal. Usually it leaves the vampire empty and costs pool because it's probably not the first villein you play on it. > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Any card which is an 'automatic inclusion' or a card which must always be considered during deck building (i.e. played by your prey/pred) should be either overpowered or at least close to overpowered. > > This would immediately put the following cards into contention: > Carlton Van Wyk > Pentex Subversion > Giants Blood > I don't really see too many other cards turning up so frequently in people's consideration or decklists. > Carlton Van Wyk is dangerous to include if stolen you can't handle it. Pentex Subversion is great in many decks to handle that star-wallish-tower vampire that will prevent you from doing anything (for me it's an autoinclude sure, but that's my way of playing). I don't play Giant's Blood in decks that don't care for it. But don't forget to add to your list: Blood Doll, Vessel, Govern the Unaligned, Delaying Tactics... Everyone seems to be playing them. They should all cost 2 pool more of course. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I think counter cards like Sudden and DI are very important to the game as they make it unpredictable. This is one of the great things in vtes. How often was the suspense at its peak, when you(or somebody else) lunge for the VP/GW and have to worry about is somebody acts against you with one of those cards. Matt stated in his report that he held on to his DT, to make a strategic move to win the game, not rescuing someone who was sgetting dangerous for his overall situation. I like it very much to have those cards, as they make some Decks survivable against other deck. For example, Warghoul Decks without DIs will be at loss. Just my 2 cents. - Prince of Karlsruhe, Germany

> Erol wrote: > I think counter cards like Sudden and DI are very important to the game as they make it unpredictable. > If your games are predictable without DI and suddens, then you are doing something wrong. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > > > Erol wrote: > > I think counter cards like Sudden and DI are very important to the game as they make it unpredictable. > > > If your games are predictable without DI and suddens, then you are doing something wrong. > They already are even with those. Hey which one of the ten different power decks are you playing? Oooh Anson, never seen that guy before. Hey how about some !Toreador deck? Nah, can't parity shift nor have 50 masters in the deck, that won't work...

First of all thanks for all the replies. I totally shouldn't have added the 4th option to the poll... So as for the replies: > Ankha wrote: > > > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > Any card which is an 'automatic inclusion' or a card which must always be considered during deck building (i.e. played by your prey/pred) should be either overpowered or at least close to overpowered. > > > > This would immediately put the following cards into contention: > > Carlton Van Wyk > > Pentex Subversion > > Giants Blood > > I don't really see too many other cards turning up so frequently in people's consideration or decklists. > > > Carlton Van Wyk is dangerous to include if stolen you can't handle it. > Pentex Subversion is great in many decks to handle that star-wallish-tower vampire that will prevent you from doing anything (for me it's an autoinclude sure, but that's my way of playing). > I don't play Giant's Blood in decks that don't care for it. > > But don't forget to add to your list: Blood Doll, Vessel, Govern the Unaligned, Delaying Tactics... Everyone seems to be playing them. They should all cost 2 pool more of course. > This is actually the reason why I went only after master cards. Carlton Wyk is really strong, but his action can be blocked, he can be stolen. On the other hand a Piper cannot be blocked (still stolen though). Also the idea was not to just attack the most played/auto-include, it was meant to help you stop cards that are really strong (Pentex) or cards that benefit a lot from multiple master phase actions (Ashurs). If you could play as many out-of-turns as MPAs, I wouldn't mind the latter group of cards. (but that would mess with the balancing of Rotschreck etc) Also what is really annoying is the Anthelios + multiple MPAs, which renders Sudden more or less useless. (except when canceling GB) With 3 MPAs, a Sudden barely slows you down. Also for the notion that is just a trend like any other: I beg to differ. Akynasa or whatever her name is, was in the wrong group to be played with anson and hutzli. But now with Cybele, Akynasa and Nana Buruku all in compatible groups it changed the playablility of Akynasa by a lot. Also ignoring the Girls decks, I think the Anson+Liquidation/Ashurs is also rather over average. And here again why MASTER CARDS: They can only be canceled on the spot to prevent their effect. Actions can be blocked (except if you have somebody with MEL and 3+ blood etc) and combat can be avoided in many ways. So only events are as hard to stop, but events effect everybody which is itself the balancing of them. I drew a lot from my experience here (2.5 years of VTES) and I used Ashurs before their rise to fame and abuse. So when I see that my whole deck is turned unplayable by any deck using ashurs and any additional MPAs (which are very popular, check TWD) and now that we don't have any new editions coming out in the near future, this trend will probably be here to stay. As a last remark, here is my first idea to give decks like my Ashurs deck a chance to actually survive other ones: Warning: Spoiler! What do you think about this one?

> Serazahr wrote: > As a last remark, here is my first idea to give decks like my Ashurs deck a chance to actually survive other ones: > > Warning: Spoiler! > > What do you think about this one? > Very good idea indeed! pckvtes.wordpress.com

Ashurs + liquidation is just 6 pool for 4 MPA - nothing too spectacular. Multiple MPA are spectacular. But the answer to them in the form of "let's make a card, punishing MPA" isn't an elegant one. You'll get problems with trifles, angel of berlin and general problem with silver bullets. I got no right answer right now. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > Ashurs + liquidation is just 6 pool for 4 MPA - nothing too spectacular. > > Multiple MPA are spectacular. But the answer to them in the form of "let's make a card, punishing MPA" isn't an elegant one. You'll get problems with trifles, angel of berlin and general problem with silver bullets. > > I got no right answer right now. > Punishing trifles and out-of-turn is part of the cards. As all events it is supposed to affect everybody, some just more than others. Also about the Ashur+Liqui, it is not just 6 pool, it is also a lot of Decksorting, and up to 6 additional cards ack to your library. That makes it a lot more than just 6 pool for 4 MPA.

> Serazahr wrote: > Punishing trifles and out-of-turn is part of the cards. > So why you want to randomly punish trifles and oot? As a player of, mostly, fewer than 90 cards in decks I see no point in 6 additional cards. Decksorting is also for the decks, which is packed with pointless cards. I dislike ashurs too, but for slowing the game prosess of chousing cards and shuffling, while all other 4 players are just waiting. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > > > Erol wrote: > > I think counter cards like Sudden and DI are very important to the game as they make it unpredictable. > > > If your games are predictable without DI and suddens, then you are doing something wrong. > Or I am doing something really right - Prince of Karlsruhe, Germany

> elotar wrote: > > > Serazahr wrote: > > Punishing trifles and out-of-turn is part of the cards. > > > So why you want to randomly punish trifles and oot? > Why does Blood Weakens punish all disci cards, why does Fall of the Sabbat punish all Sabbat and why does "Reversal of Hierarchy" punish all Master cards after the first? That's what events do. If you have a deck that plays maybe 2 trifles and has no additional MPA, then playign that card would help you against multi MPA decks and against suddens (if they cost 1 pool, people might not sudden smaller stuff for example.) Noticed a typo in the name...^^

> Serazahr wrote: > > > elotar wrote: > > > > > Serazahr wrote: > > > Punishing trifles and out-of-turn is part of the cards. > > > > > > > > So why you want to randomly punish trifles and oot? > > > Why does Blood Weakens punish all disci cards, why does Fall of the Sabbat punish all Sabbat and why does "Reversal of Hierarchy" punish all Master cards after the first? > > That's what events do. If you have a deck that plays maybe 2 trifles and has no additional MPA, then playign that card would help you against multi MPA decks and against suddens (if they cost 1 pool, people might not sudden smaller stuff for example.) > > Noticed a typo in the name...^^ > So it's the problem with your idea - you are trying to make card whith no clear justification for it's effects, just because one of them seems good. As a result you'll have one "happy" player (not so happy, cause all this card does are just making villein-golconda recursion cost 1 pool), and 4 angry players, who suddenly got unplayable Lifes in the city, oot masters and losing one pool from angel of berlin, played by predator at untap. Good design! Most events are, btw, bad designed. NC Russia

At this point, I'm of the opinion that virtually all card text changes (including errara) are a bad idea. Complicated rules changes can be ruled out entirely. Judging by the responses to your poll, most would not like to see the changes you suggest. Instead of taking issue with these master cards, why not focus on how to beat them? Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

Problem is that everytime you concentrate on countering one deck type, your deck just loose strength on average. The balance at this point seems to be 3-5 Suddens per deck that has problems with MMPA decks. Here is what I don't like though: If your deck has problems with combat, you can include S:CE, obedience/mental maze, man+doge, prevent, aggro poke. So you have a lot more creativity you can go with whatever fits your deck. Which sadly is not the case for dealing with Master cards.

> Serazahr wrote: > Problem is that everytime you concentrate on countering one deck type, your deck just loose strength on average. > > The balance at this point seems to be 3-5 Suddens per deck that has problems with MMPA decks. > Here is what I don't like though: If your deck has problems with combat, you can include S:CE, obedience/mental maze, man+doge, prevent, aggro poke. > So you have a lot more creativity you can go with whatever fits your deck. Which sadly is not the case for dealing with Master cards. > Here are a few things I've been toying with that help deal with excessive pool gain: Parity Shift Perma Rush (i.e. Bloodhunt, War Party, Public Enemy) Stealth Bleed Sudden Tap and bleed burn location/equipment (target parthenon, heart of cheating, etc) EDIT: Oh, and of course uncoiling There are more things out there to help counter silly decks like the Girls, but that's a start. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

That is my impression for years now: If some cards annoy players they are much more creative with suggestions for rules changes or card bannings than coming up with good inplay options to counter those cards. The reason is: They fear that their streamlined, ultrafocused decks lose power if they build in antitech. If you think you cannot live with a bit less focus than learn to live with what annoys you. Baron of Frankfurt

> Joscha wrote: > That is my impression for years now: If some cards annoy players they are much more creative with suggestions for rules changes or card bannings than coming up with good inplay options to counter those cards. > > The reason is: They fear that their streamlined, ultrafocused decks lose power if they build in antitech. If you think you cannot live with a bit less focus than learn to live with what annoys you. > Well said. If toolboxing isn't for you, draw your rock, paper, or scissors and act accordingly. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Joscha wrote: > That is my impression for years now: If some cards annoy players they are much more creative with suggestions for rules changes or card bannings than coming up with good inplay options to counter those cards. > > The reason is: They fear that their streamlined, ultrafocused decks lose power if they build in antitech. If you think you cannot live with a bit less focus than learn to live with what annoys you. > Maybe. My impression is that there are always players who resist all changes to the game because they want to play only the few viable decks you can make and don't really care about seeing different decks. What was the reaction to banning PTO? Edge Explosion? Memories of Mortality? Yep. No changes needed, let's just all play the same decks because that's a fun game right there. Why complain when you can counter PTO by playing Camarilla, I mean, Confusion of the Eye, that's an awesome card right there, just have 10 and you're good to go... And now that the game is dead, there have been talks about playing printed cards. Well obviously, there are players who have all the cards they want to play, that is Anson, Parity Shift and three different master cards, and don't really mind if everybody just plays the viable cards everybody has in great quantities i.e. Dominate. Let's just say this is a perfect game and no change could make it better, losing even one card from the massive card pool V:TES has isn't really worth it no matter how many other things it could make viable. Well anyway. Even while I like ranting, this is pointless. No community ever gets around to deciding something.

How about playing Villein as written (period!) and not compare it to other cards that move blood so we don't get really dumb rulings about it. Prince of Puyallup

@Demnogonis Saastuttaja There are so many un-played cards just sitting in boxes out there. They don't have to be ruled out because "better" cards exist. I just played victim of habit the other day for not only laughs, but also vps! If you find that people are stuck playing too many of the same cards, throw in a little hoser and let the fun begin! Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Joscha wrote: > That is my impression for years now: If some cards annoy players they are much more creative with suggestions for rules changes or card bannings than coming up with good inplay options to counter those cards. > > The reason is: They fear that their streamlined, ultrafocused decks lose power if they build in antitech. If you think you cannot live with a bit less focus than learn to live with what annoys you. > Totally understand what you're saying here, but my angle (and the reason why I am interested in some change) actually stems from a discussion at the EC after the same deck won the Legendary Vampire and EC Day 1. It seems like only 3 decks were really able to deal with such a deck as prey. DOM bleed + Mind Rape, Trochomancy and Parity Shift. And while those decks are cleary not weak and unplayable if the deck in question is not around, they are hard to build: e.g. I cannot build any of them. No Mind Rape, only 2 Trochomancy and no Parity Shifts. (And there are also probably other examples) So if I have to go out and buy overly expensive cards (with exception of Trocho) just to be able to survive the tournament scene, I feel like I am playing Magic and not Vampire. And I have to repeat myself here: No new cards means very little change to the tournament scene, which in turn means that those decks are becoming very much staple decks, and also staple TWDs.

Do you have many cards? If so, from what sets? There are plenty of decks that can tool the new hot shit, such as intercept combat. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

That's why one of my favourite decks contained two of the different "holds". It was gorgeous to play. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Serazahr wrote: > No new cards means very little change to the tournament scene, which in turn means that those decks are becoming very much staple decks, and also staple TWDs. > No change of the tournament scene means that you can easily put decks together that can handle the problems because you can be sure you'll hit the target. Do you own Graverobbing? Nice . Baron of Frankfurt

ok ok, my only problem is that I don't want DOM/POT, DOM/Tupdog and DOM/THA. And sofar I've been unsuccessful in building any other DOM combat deck (I don't have any of the dom !gangrel) As for cards, I have somewhere between 1000-2000 cards methinks.

> Serazahr wrote: > ok ok, my only problem is that I don't want DOM/POT, DOM/Tupdog and DOM/THA. And sofar I've been unsuccessful in building any other DOM combat deck (I don't have any of the dom !gangrel) > > As for cards, I have somewhere between 1000-2000 cards methinks. > Your problem is that you think, that the game must be changed because you've been unsuccessful in deckbuilding. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > Your problem is that you think, that the game must be changed because you've been unsuccessful in deckbuilding. > Hehe, nice one, but really don't go there. I outlined my reasons in the first and 1-2 other posts on this thread. I thought it through, I expect the same from you.

> elotar wrote: > > > Serazahr wrote: > > ok ok, my only problem is that I don't want DOM/POT, DOM/Tupdog and DOM/THA. And sofar I've been unsuccessful in building any other DOM combat deck (I don't have any of the dom !gangrel) > > > > As for cards, I have somewhere between 1000-2000 cards methinks. > > > Your problem is that you think, that the game must be changed because you've been unsuccessful in deckbuilding. > PWNED!!! NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

> Serazahr wrote: > Totally understand what you're saying here, but my angle (and the reason why I am interested in some change) actually stems from a discussion at the EC after the same deck won the Legendary Vampire and EC Day 1. > > It seems like only 3 decks were really able to deal with such a deck as prey. DOM bleed + Mind Rape, Trochomancy and Parity Shift. > Any rush deck can deal easily with the Girls find Inner Peace variants including but not limited to: Tupdog, Weenie POT, CEL GUN, Animalism Deep Song, Weenie DBR, Shambling Hordes, War Ghoul. Half of the decks I listed are quite easy to build. And all of them have won tournaments.

Weenie swarm bleed like weenie Pre, weenie Dem, weenie obt/dom nocturn, etc. with ~5 Suddens should also be able to oust the Girls will find deck archetype. NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

Yeah, I just noticed I never had a Girls deck as prey or pred... the closest thing was council of doom as crosstable after ousting my prey it was my new prey. But the Girls deck on the table would always get the GW... Yeah, makes me actually want to see if my favourite deck can handle it. Nevertheless,I still like the idea of the rule. As I said, it wasn't thought up on a whim.

Then introduce the rule to your local playgroup and test it. Have fun with it. On an official and international level people don't want to see any errata, new key word on already printed cards or major changes in the rule. The game is pretty well balanced and trends come and go. There was a year when everybody play Guillaume powerbleed and many won. Still there is no need to limit the maximum hand size. There was a time when Ventrue anti grinder dominated the scene. Now they became quite rare. But you heard this argument before... NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

> Mephistopheles wrote: > On an official and international level people don't want to see any errata, new key word on already printed cards or major changes in the rule. > Not really don't want, we just need other foundation for it. NC Russia

I stay with my statement, cause that's what I experienced. Honestly I think this is a good attitude. Changing rules and card text too much is bad as well as baning cards. The best way to keep a game balanced is to print new cards that push the game a little toward the desired direction (this happened quite often in v:tes actually). Well, that is my opinion. Feel free to disagree. NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

> Mephistopheles wrote: > I stay with my statement, cause that's what I experienced. Honestly I think this is a good attitude. Changing rules and card text too much is bad as well as baning cards. The best way to keep a game balanced is to print new cards that push the game a little toward the desired direction (this happened quite often in v:tes actually). Well, that is my opinion. Feel free to disagree. > New cards are great, but we can't do it right now (exept one idea, but it looks quite bad to me). So we have to explore other possibilities. NC Russia

Other possibilities for what? Joscha's earlier post was indeed an eye-opener for me. Instead of complaining about certain cards just build in anti-tech into your deck. You don't want to put anti tech cards into your otherwise well balanced, sharp, one-trick tourney deck? Well, than don't complain. Currently there is nothing so unbalanced in the game that endangers it. Sure Villein is good. Sure Ashur/Liquidation is strong. But that's nothing you can't solve with already existing cards. NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

> Mephistopheles wrote: > Other possibilities for what? Joscha's earlier post was indeed an eye-opener for me. Instead of complaining about certain cards just build in anti-tech into your deck. You don't want to put anti tech cards into your otherwise well balanced, sharp, one-trick tourney deck? Well, than don't complain. > > Currently there is nothing so unbalanced in the game that endangers it. Sure Villein is good. Sure Ashur/Liquidation is strong. But that's nothing you can't solve with already existing cards. > I've put 5 suddens in my last tournament deck, as well as ashur-liquidations and got no problems with overpowered masters and generally winning But all games with it was boring agony both for me and for my opponents. It will be very sad if everybody will start to do it. NC Russia

And when almost everybody does this some people will start playing decks that don't really need master cards, like an '94 nosferatu breed boon or whatever and just own. NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

> Mephistopheles wrote: > And when almost everybody does this some people will start playing decks that don't really need master cards, like an '94 nosferatu breed boon or whatever and just own. > And it still be sad. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > I've put 5 suddens in my last tournament deck, as well as ashur-liquidations and got no problems with overpowered masters and generally winning > > But all games with it was boring agony both for me and for my opponents. It will be very sad if everybody will start to do it. > I also tried to use 6 Sudden Reversals in my !Brujah deck, but I found out that it's survival is still so shaky it really needs it's master slots for bloat. I'm not really sure I'd like to see a metagame that encourages mass Sudden Reversal though, that would simply invalidate some decktypes. You have those cheesy +MPA minions, you can still play masters, you don't, and you're screwed when somebody packs that 12 SR deck.

> Mephistopheles wrote: > Instead of complaining about certain cards just build in anti-tech into your deck. You don't want to put anti tech cards into your otherwise well balanced, sharp, one-trick tourney deck? Well, than don't complain. > You should not assume that whenever someone suggests changes it's because it makes their favorite deck better. Sometimes people really do think that making changes would make the game more enjoyable/diverse/challenging/etc for everyone involved. This same argument comes up every time someone brings up any sort of concern about game balance. It's very arrogant, naive, and insulting and does nothing to address the specific issue at hand.

Generally yes I agree with you. Totally. There are many things in the game I would love to see enhanced or made weaker. In the case of the listed master cards I think the game isn't unbalanced, though they are surely strong. Besides the usual Sudden Reversal / Uncoiling etc. arguments I have to mention this: Ashur and/or Liquidation and/or Villein made many decks playable on a tournament level that earlier were too weak. Good examples are decks like: 1. Peter Botos' Rock Cat deck: Rock Cat 2. Blood Brothers especially the new group, but also the others need Ashur Tablets. Ben Peal played such a deck at several tournaments here and he achieved a game win at every tournament with the deck. Another player who played Blood Brother without the tablets failed to ever achieve a game win. And he is a very good player, especially with combat decks. 3. Villein is the main reason why big cap vampires are now seen again on tournaments on a regular basis. At least in our metagame. If I would take the time to check all the TWDA etc., I could surely find more examples. Banning these cards will "destroy" tier1 decks like Girls will.. dekcs, but it would also "kill" many tier2-tierwhatevernumber decks which aren't broken but funny and creative. I'd prefer Johannes' idea to print/create new cards that have an effect on let's say vampires with a Villein on them. Just keep the balance... NC for Hungary hunfragment.blogspot.com

> Mephistopheles wrote: > Generally yes I agree with you. Totally. There are many things in the game I woul > Ashur and/or Liquidation and/or Villein made many decks playable on a tournament level that earlier were too weak. > It's quite obvious, that if a card combination is too strong, than putting it into weak deck may make this deck not so weak. But it's not making tournament scene more interesting, cause we really get no more different combat decks with ashurs, we get more ashurs deck with some combat. NC Russia

> Suoli wrote: > > > Mephistopheles wrote: > > Instead of complaining about certain cards just build in anti-tech into your deck. You don't want to put anti tech cards into your otherwise well balanced, sharp, one-trick tourney deck? Well, than don't complain. > > > You should not assume that whenever someone suggests changes it's because it makes their favorite deck better. Sometimes people really do think that making changes would make the game more enjoyable/diverse/challenging/etc for everyone involved. > > This same argument comes up every time someone brings up any sort of concern about game balance. It's very arrogant, naive, and insulting and does nothing to address the specific issue at hand. > I admit that there are reflective and sensible players out there, who carefully analyse cards and their impact on the game. And there were good changes of cards in the past, no doubt about that. On the other hand we hear all sort of complaints about cards on a regular basis. Often it is a "that is much too strong, I can't do nothing against it, the end is near"-chant which really annoys me. What I like the most of VtES is the possibility to handle every situation. There is NO silver bullet if you don't turn a card into one by ignoring the downsides. A deck relying exclusively on master cards have many other weaknesses. Instead of whining about how strong master cards are use their disadvantages to your favour. What I like to see is an analysis of what cards have a big impact on the game at the moment AND a creative way to counter it. And the latter is often enough replaced by a "let's change/ban it"-behaviour which, sorry, sucks big time. Because: There is a guy who comes up with a good idea to have success at the current metagame (for example the scandinavian players with the Girls-deck). Fame to him. The other guys don't adapt to that idea and don't come up with some own ideas to handle that. Of course it is harder to think of a solution than to simply weaken the hated card. But come on, is that the way how it should be? I'm not the most clever deckbuilder myself, but I try my best. I'm sorry if that POV sounds arrogant and insulting to you. Baron of Frankfurt

> Joscha wrote: > I admit that there are reflective and sensible players out there, who carefully analyse cards and their impact on the game. And there were good changes of cards in the past, no doubt about that. > On the other hand we hear all sort of complaints about cards on a regular basis. Often it is a "that is much too strong, I can't do nothing against it, the end is near"-chant which really annoys me. What I like the most of VtES is the possibility to handle every situation. There is NO silver bullet if you don't turn a card into one by ignoring the downsides. A deck relying exclusively on master cards have many other weaknesses. Instead of whining about how strong master cards are use their disadvantages to your favour. > The question, to me at least, is whether answering the dominant archetype leads to creative deck building or stagnation. If the only reliable answer (as in doesn't suck against everything else) to Girls is DEM-weenie with The Rising we're looking at a very boring metagame. > What I like to see is an analysis of what cards have a big impact on the game at the moment AND a creative way to counter it. And the latter is often enough replaced by a "let's change/ban it"-behaviour which, sorry, sucks big time. > You shouldn't assume that about other people. > Because: There is a guy who comes up with a good idea to have success at the current metagame (for example the scandinavian players with the Girls-deck). Fame to him. The other guys don't adapt to that idea and don't come up with some own ideas to handle that. Of course it is harder to think of a solution than to simply weaken the hated card. But come on, is that the way how it should be? I'm not the most clever deckbuilder myself, but I try my best. > There are very few viable solutions to Girls. I haven't seen one that isn't boring in the long run. > I'm sorry if that POV sounds arrogant and insulting to you. > I don't mind that you hold that view. But I do find that people are more receptive to my ideas when I keep my preconceptions about others out of the discussion.

What I don't understand is how people jump from "we need to nerf girls" to "we need to nerf masters". Masters are for everyone, and girls won tournaments before Ashur Tablets and Villein. If you really want to nerf the Girls, you should rather wonder what they have and others don't.

My point of view on this is so people who are creative and come up with some tricky decks get punished. I have been away from the game a long time. This is one of the reasons why I left. It started to feel like MtG ,and that when cards or combos looked to strong they got nerfed. The one thing that got me into this game was the multi-player aspect. I understand that some cards come out and are broken maybe. I just think it has more to do with tourneys than home games. Tourney decks are so focused that most get hosed if their weakness is next to them. If people have to +/- cards from their decks to combat certain cards or combos then so be it. Take your loss or lumps and adjust your deck don't just say lets change cards or add. I really think that " Johannes' idea to print/create new cards that have an effect on let's say vampires with a Villein on them. Just keep the balance..." is the best way go. I perfect example is archon investigation. In our area stealth bleed decks were killer because everyone would bleed for more than 3 until that card got played then after that decks got changed so not to lose vampires, check and balance. It then became a choice when I built a bleed deck take a chance and bleed for more than 3 and die or have 5 vamps bleed for 3.

> Suoli wrote: > The question, to me at least, is whether answering the dominant archetype leads to creative deck building or stagnation. If the only reliable answer (as in doesn't suck against everything else) to Girls is DEM-weenie with The Rising we're looking at a very boring metagame. > I agree, that would lead to boredom in the metagame. What I've found to work as a counter to strong players and decks that are silly if uncontrolled is aggression, but it doesn't have to be boring. The Rising is just an idea I'm working with, but you could use combat, lots of small bleeds, Banishment, or whatever. A toolboxy deck with the right tools can put a hurt on any deck, cross-table or not. In my experience, the biggest problem is that people don't treat strong players/decks as a threat. Don't give them pool, don't destroy their pred/prey, etc. I've made that mistake before and seen it made plenty of times. Don't give up ;P Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Suoli wrote: > If the only reliable answer (as in doesn't suck against everything else) to Girls is DEM-weenie with The Rising we're looking at a very boring metagame. > There are quite a few answers to 'Girls who' decks. It was first ousted at my table in the NAC day 2, and neither the Rising nor DEM-weenie were on the table. It was also ousted on another table and wasn't in the finals that day at all.

> Adonai wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > If the only reliable answer (as in doesn't suck against everything else) to Girls is DEM-weenie with The Rising we're looking at a very boring metagame. > > > There are quite a few answers to 'Girls who' decks. > > It was first ousted at my table in the NAC day 2, and neither the Rising nor DEM-weenie were on the table. It was also ousted on another table and wasn't in the finals that day at all. > I'm talking about reliable answers. Decks or modules that have an obvious advantage over Girls. I don't know why the Girls got ousted at NAC but two losses at one tournament doesn't seem to be enough to indicate anything. To be clear, I'm not even sure if the Girls are as overpowered as it seems. This is all academic on my part.

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > I agree, that would lead to boredom in the metagame. What I've found to work as a counter to strong players and decks that are silly if uncontrolled is aggression, but it doesn't have to be boring. The Rising is just an idea I'm working with, but you could use combat, lots of small bleeds, Banishment, or whatever. A toolboxy deck with the right tools can put a hurt on any deck, cross-table or not. > The problem with Girls is that it doesn't have any obvious weak points that a toolbox could exploit. Bleeds need to overcome Aksinya and insane bloat. Combat needs to burn every minion they bring out before they get Villein/Golconda. You pretty much need to either commit your deck to a single line of attack or get the whole table against them. > In my experience, the biggest problem is that people don't treat strong players/decks as a threat. Don't give them pool, don't destroy their pred/prey, etc. I've made that mistake before and seen it made plenty of times. Don't give up ;P > Thanks but I'm not personally struggling against Girls at the moment. It's just a deck that I believe has the potential to make the tournament scene less fun.

though the Girls did comes sixth in the NAC day2 i think (and the master aksinya module did win the FCQ)?

> Suoli wrote: > Thanks but I'm not personally struggling against Girls at the moment. It's just a deck that I believe has the potential to make the tournament scene less fun. > It already has. Some years ago it was still exciting to go to a tournament, where you presume people will play better and have more thought out decks. Now? Have fun with your timeouts and don't do any kind of a deck that can't oust some player who bloats 20 pool in a turn... See the wonders of Anson and Girls at every table. The choice is binary. A minion removal deck, or an incredibly aggressive pool damage deck, that's all I can think of that will work in the current metagame.

> Demnogonis wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > Thanks but I'm not personally struggling against Girls at the moment. It's just a deck that I believe has the potential to make the tournament scene less fun. > > > It already has. Some years ago it was still exciting to go to a tournament, where you presume people will play better and have more thought out decks. Now? Have fun with your timeouts and don't do any kind of a deck that can't oust some player who bloats 20 pool in a turn... See the wonders of Anson and Girls at every table. > > The choice is binary. A minion removal deck, or an incredibly aggressive pool damage deck, that's all I can think of that will work in the current metagame. > I agree with this. Obviously I wasn't a player back then, but reading tournament reports from a couple of years back is fun, while current tournaments are just timeout followed by timeout.

> Serazahr wrote: > > > Demnogonis wrote: > > > > > Suoli wrote: > > > Thanks but I'm not personally struggling against Girls at the moment. It's just a deck that I believe has the potential to make the tournament scene less fun. > > > > > > > > It already has. Some years ago it was still exciting to go to a tournament, where you presume people will play better and have more thought out decks. Now? Have fun with your timeouts and don't do any kind of a deck that can't oust some player who bloats 20 pool in a turn... See the wonders of Anson and Girls at every table. > > > > The choice is binary. A minion removal deck, or an incredibly aggressive pool damage deck, that's all I can think of that will work in the current metagame. > > > I agree with this. Obviously I wasn't a player back then, but reading tournament reports from a couple of years back is fun, while current tournaments are just timeout followed by timeout. > Yes. Gehenna is upon us. Jesus Christ. Erm, I was flipping through the TWDA at Lasombra's page and read the last results. Yes, there were Girls decks too. There were some bleeding decks. There were Shamblers. There were weird things. It is like the 17 years before. Come on. I'm not a Girls fan too. I even don't like Ashur Tables much. But I hate also !Ventrue-Grinders and boring Kindred Spirit Bleed. So play Suddens on the Villeins, send Aksinya to torpor and diablerize, Mind Rape her, Nightmare Curse her, make her Anathema, I don't know. But stop that depressive behaviour. Baron of Frankfurt

> Joscha wrote: > I'm not a Girls fan too. I even don't like Ashur Tables much. But I hate also !Ventrue-Grinders and boring Kindred Spirit Bleed. So play Suddens on the Villeins, send Aksinya to torpor and diablerize, Mind Rape her, Nightmare Curse her, I don't know. But stop that depressive behaviour. > Suddens against Girls is just silly, you don't want to compete with a single MPA and 4-8 Suddens against a deck with 2-3 MPA's and 40+ master cards. A combat deck would need to reliably burn a minion every turn, survive a predator and oust a bloat deck. It can be done but then we're talking about Tupdog or POT-weenie. Mind Rape means you're playing Stanislava or something, which leads to AI or a couple of bleeds of 3 a turn. That's nowhere near enough. Lastly, the 6 copies of Nightmare Curse in the TWDA were only used for out/inferior effect. There's just no tournament viable deck for AUS/CHI minions that could properly use it.

> Suoli wrote: > Suddens against Girls is just silly, you don't want to compete with a single MPA and 4-8 Suddens against a deck with 2-3 MPA's and 40+ master cards. > But you don't have to cancel every master card the deck plays. You concentrate on crucial ones. But that discussion leads nowhere. Enough other players mentioned possibilities in this thread. Maybe the Girls-issue is more about how players at a given table help a Girls deck too much instead of letting it die. What I find silly is to speak of boring tounaments with many Timeouts without proper evidence. I often read the tournamentreports too and though there are a few mentioned tourneys with many TO the majority of finals are in the limit. That said I just want to repeat that I appreciate Serazahr's presentation of his idea of louche-cards. I rated it "too complicated" but liked the discussion. In the beginning there were nice arguments for and against. But then again it slipped away in the already known and tiring master-card and Girls-bashing routine. It's like the everlasting PTO-discussion some years before. You could say: "If it tires you why do you answer?" True. I'm off. Baron of Frankfurt

> Suoli wrote: > > Suddens against Girls is just silly, you don't want to compete with a single MPA and 4-8 Suddens against a deck with 2-3 MPA's and 40+ master cards. A combat deck would need to reliably burn a minion every turn, survive a predator and oust a bloat deck. It can be done but then we're talking about Tupdog or POT-weenie. Mind Rape means you're playing Stanislava or something, which leads to AI or a couple of bleeds of 3 a turn. That's nowhere near enough. Lastly, the 6 copies of Nightmare Curse in the TWDA were only used for out/inferior effect. There's just no tournament viable deck for AUS/CHI minions that could properly use it. > Point One- You do not need to burn a minion every turn, or maybe ever. Even though the Girls gain a lot of pool, they do not have an unlimited supply of vampires in their uncontrolled region and crypt. If you eliminate (or the offending player does by way of Golconda) the bouncing chick or even Cybelle, there may not be another one handy. Defense has to come from somewhere, so take part/all of that out. Point Two- Nightmare Curse is a somewhat more difficult to use version of Sensory Deprivation. Sens Dep *is* an effective means of locking down the bouncer that doesn't require burning her. She will still have to be tapped, so how about a little Misdirection, Anarch Troublemaker, Edged Illusion, Nightmare Curse, Deep Song, etc. I sense a Ravnos comeback! Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

You can put solid ANI combat module in girls, so combat isn't really an answer. NC Russia

> Joscha wrote: > But you don't have to cancel every master card the deck plays. You concentrate on crucial ones. > Anthelios and multiple Villeins/Golcondas/Liquidations makes it very difficult to stop the bloating with Suddens. > That said I just want to repeat that I appreciate Serazahr's presentation of his idea of louche-cards. I rated it "too complicated" but liked the discussion. In the beginning there were nice arguments for and against. But then again it slipped away in the already known and tiring master-card and Girls-bashing routine. It's like the everlasting PTO-discussion some years before. > That discussion lasted only as long as PTO did.

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > Point One- You do not need to burn a minion every turn, or maybe ever. > Even though the Girls gain a lot of pool, they do not have an unlimited supply of vampires in their uncontrolled region and crypt. If you eliminate (or the offending player does by way of Golconda) the bouncing chick or even Cybelle, there may not be another one handy. Defense has to come from somewhere, so take part/all of that out. > > Point Two- Nightmare Curse is a somewhat more difficult to use version of Sensory Deprivation. Sens Dep *is* an effective means of locking down the bouncer that doesn't require burning her. She will still have to be tapped, so how about a little Misdirection, Anarch Troublemaker, Edged Illusion, Nightmare Curse, Deep Song, etc. I sense a Ravnos comeback! > Points one and two both relate to removing Aksinya and Girls responds to both methods the same way: Villein+Golconda and, if that's not enough to handle the bleeds from a rush/Ravnos deck, bring out another Aksinya via Wider View/Info Highway/Zillah's. You'd need PRE-weenie caliber tap&bleed to race them.

I would prefer designing new cards that hose Ashur Tablets and Villein instead of new rules. Sadly it seems hard to convince the player community to agree on adding new cards (too many LSJ fanboys). But I don´t think this discussion should focus more on what we think Vtes should be. The learning curve is really wrong. At tournaments it not so much "my vamp bleeds/vote, you block, I stealth etc" as "now we have to ally the whole table against the broken Girls-deck" (which is really difficult with newbies). It get harder and harder to teach new players the game with these abstract and/or combo decks. I don´t think it´s Vtes any more in the sense the game was originally created - "the spirit of the game". "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Ashur wrote: > I would prefer designing new cards that hose Ashur Tablets and Villein instead of new rules. > Like Juggernaut said earlier on it would help if Villein had to be played as written. Magic bullet for Ashurs might be trickier as it would have to be way better than Wash or Sudden in order for it to be added to decks so I'd still stick with those myself. Much more widely useable than silver bullet for Ashurs. > Ashur wrote: > Sadly it seems hard to convince the player community to agree on adding new cards (too many LSJ fanboys). > Please stand by citizen! It is not altgether impossible that you might get what you wish... (and BTW one should give a ton of credit & respect for LSJ for designing a truckful of nifty cards and rules for the game and thus improving it immensely... ) Finnish Politics!

> Suoli wrote: > Lastly, the 6 copies of Nightmare Curse in the TWDA were only used for out/inferior effect. There's just no tournament viable deck for AUS/CHI minions that could properly use it. > My view is that proper use of Nightmare Curse is the inferior. But, we are talking about using it against a particular deck. I'm still failing to see how the Chi version isn't exactly what you want to tap Aksinya. When I read the decklists, I see like 2-3 untap reactions. In a more general sense, still on the topic of Girls, I see it having the opposite problem to various weenie decks. Where a good weenie deck should ensure a dead first prey except for another weenie deck but have problems turning the corner against an aware table to where there are reasons to avoid them as a metagame choice, the Girls decks can bloat forever but can't necessarily decide to oust people. Maybe I'm missing something, but the offense looks limited in the decklists I see to where another deck that bloats can ignore it and decks with decent defense can weather it; sure, it can grind well with constant 3 bleeds backed up by the most efficient combat in the game today, but that can be handled by the right decks. In theory, it's not necessarily a good metagame choice because it won't get you to the finals and, these days, may end up with contestation problems. As for masters being the problem, well, that's not exactly new, but I wouldn't say it's the masters so much as it is multiple MPAs. Multiple MPAs has always been broken, which is why I've seen Anson played in decks that used none of his other features - disciplines, title, Toreadorness. This is the root cause of a lot of tedious decks. While I may abhor Ashur Tablets, Liquidation (more so for being essentially a promo), Anthelios, Villein (Minion Tap neither needed to get stronger nor needed to be hosed), etc., the game is entirely different when you can play more of the "best cards in the game" faster to where I'd also like to see Rumors of Gehenna and The Parthenon out of the game along with the current versions of all of the vampires specials that give MMPAs. Lastly, stop with suggesting hosers. They almost never work and they make CCGs less fun. V:TES is late to the party in the hoser mentality, but it's clear that it started embracing it in recent years, and the efforts - Vessel, Villein, Scourge of the Enochians, etc. - are not ones I believe make for a better game. Traveller Card Game

> ICL wrote: > My view is that proper use of Nightmare Curse is the inferior. But, we are talking about using it against a particular deck. I'm still failing to see how the Chi version isn't exactly what you want to tap Aksinya. When I read the decklists, I see like 2-3 untap reactions. > Gabrin Tap&Bleed probably can't muster up enough consistent bleed power to overcome the bloat. I agree with your other points.

> ICL wrote: > As for masters being the problem, well, that's not exactly new, but I wouldn't say it's the masters so much as it is multiple MPAs. Multiple MPAs has always been broken, which is why I've seen Anson played in decks that used none of his other features - disciplines, title, Toreadorness. > Exactly, at least I would say that other than maybe Huitzilopocthli, the MPA specials are way underpriced. 8 Cap, +MPA (ok, maybe...) prince (what?) two superiors inf. out-of clan dominate (the hell?). The same goes with Nana, the same even goes with a 10-cap Baali who also can bleed for 3 and has a score of superior disciplines... > ICL wrote: > Lastly, stop with suggesting hosers. They almost never work and they make CCGs less fun. V:TES is late to the party in the hoser mentality, but it's clear that it started embracing it in recent years, and the efforts - Vessel, Villein, Scourge of the Enochians, etc. - are not ones I believe make for a better game. > Exactly. Though I think Vessel was fine since it didn't wallpaper Blood Doll

I've only played against Girls decks a few times in tournaments, including once during the Origins NAC. they didn't seem to do that well on those days. I ended up sweeping one of those games. I'd say like all powerful decks, it still depends on player skill and/or luck to get its wins. However, I think some people here may have a point about hosing multiple MPAs. there really isn't any card that can deal with that advantage directly, besides maybe the Rising. and sometimes Veil of Darkness, if they actually use disciplines. you can mess up someone's minion card flow with Meddling Of Semsith or Blood Weakens. Port Authority and Camarilla Threat can screw up discard phase actions, and there's other cards to weaken or deny Untaps. it'd be interesting if there had been a card like Camarilla Threat that affected Master Phase Actions. playing 5 master cards a turn (Nana + Cybele + Parthenon + Trifle) should maybe have a little bit of risk attached. if only new VTES cards could be made, I'd be okay with a little silver bullet. every other strategy in the game already has one, after all.

Just played in a tournament last sunday, 22 players, there was at least 2 girls decks there, might have been 3, didn't look that closely, none of them made it to the finals. I played with DEM/obf weenie bleed that was picked specifically because it should be able to beat girls decks. Bad news was that I didn't actually ever get to the same table with any of them, good news was that I still won the tournament, so there is a deck that should be able to beat girls and is also effective against most other things.

> Klaital wrote: > Just played in a tournament last sunday, 22 players, there was at least 2 girls decks there, might have been 3, didn't look that closely, none of them made it to the finals. I played with DEM/obf weenie bleed that was picked specifically because it should be able to beat girls decks. Bad news was that I didn't actually ever get to the same table with any of them, good news was that I still won the tournament, so there is a deck that should be able to beat girls and is also effective against most other things. > And that's why I might start to hate the Girls.

> Suoli wrote: > > > Klaital wrote: > > Just played in a tournament last sunday, 22 players, there was at least 2 girls decks there, might have been 3, didn't look that closely, none of them made it to the finals. I played with DEM/obf weenie bleed that was picked specifically because it should be able to beat girls decks. Bad news was that I didn't actually ever get to the same table with any of them, good news was that I still won the tournament, so there is a deck that should be able to beat girls and is also effective against most other things. > > > And that's why I might start to hate the Girls. > +1 The problem with ridiculous decks is that you need ridiculous answer to them, and then ridiculous answer to ridiculous answer. As a result we got ugly play environment. NC Russia

It appears you two are not reading Klaital's post right. Let's try again: > Just played in a tournament last sunday, 22 players, there was at least 2 girls decks there, might have been 3, didn't look that closely, none of them made it to the finals. Bad news was that I didn't actually ever get to the same table with any of them > Let's pick this apart, shall we? First we see that neither of the two girls deck made the finals. That means that neither had accumulated enough Gamewins (or more likely given the 22-player size, a gamewin at all) to be amongst the top 5 of the day. That means that said girls decks were either ousted OR (more likely) did manage to time the game with less than 2 VP. Secondly we see that Klaital has not played against said Girls decks, which means that decks OTHER THAN Klaital's deck must have been the decks ousting and/or stopping the girls. Now, unless we are looking at the highly unlikely scenarios that everyone else played weenie dementation, it appears there are *plenty* of decks that can defeat the girls. > The problem with ridiculous decks is that you need ridiculous answer to them, and then ridiculous answer to ridiculous answer. > A deck is as ridiculous as you let it become. I have ousted a girls deck with my Assamite Pancake Mix deck, which is hardly a "ridiculous" deck. I have ousted a girls deck with a freaking Muaziz Abactor deck (which I suppose can be classified as ridiculous if you put "hilarious" behind it) and I have ousted girls with a neo-Brujah lawfirm WITHOUT A SINGLE COPY OF PARITY SHIFT which could, I guess be classified as ridiculously bad. I have also failed to oust or have been ousted by girls plenty of times with decks that are all considered a lot stronger than above decks. If you want to sit there and play passive, sure girls will win. If you have girls as grandprey and you cripple your prey enough to make him forget he has a prey, sure girls will win. Any other scenario, they are just another deck at the table. Seriously. Stop randomly hating on good decks you can't build. Start playing better.

Minimum amount needed for finals was 1 GW 5 VP (two of the ones with that amount got to finals, other two didn't, due to having less tournament points, didn't actually have to flip coin). At least on one round the two girls decks were at same table next to each other and contested Cybele pretty much whole game. And I think they timed out in most of their other tables too without too many vps.

> Izaak wrote: > Seriously. Stop randomly hating on good decks you can't build. Start playing better. > I have the necessary skills to build and pilot a !DEM-weenie and a number of other decks that would consistently win against Girls and do well against other decks as well. I feel that playing those decks too often makes the game less fun for everybody involved. This has been alluded to several times before but I can forgive you for not reading the whole thread in depth.

Can you list them? Because other then weenie dem or anything that fights I don't think people are actually convinced decks exist that are the paper to the Girls' rocks. I believe that given 5 competent players, the Girls are just a very slow grinder that instead of auspex play tons and tons of poolgain to never get in lunge range. The deck is totally harmless without an Inner Circle on the table and should be dealt with accordingly. What girls, or any deck with heavy poolgain for that matter, are capable of is capitalize on lack of pressure. That's where it shines. And even then it still needs a master at the wheel to be driven to victory, as is being proven time and time again. Erik or Hugh playing girls is freaking dangerous. Joe average doing it? Meh, just a guy jumping the popularity train causing tables to time. See also Owain Evans. As I said, let it go and it will win. Give it space and it will win. It's really not different from any other decent deck. The difference is that it always seems harmless at start. I'd have though people have caught up by now.

Timeouts is one thing that happens with these master decks all too often. It's sort of weird to know you can't win the game unless you oust the master deck from wherever it is because you can't allow him to stall every turn with 5 MPA's...

> Izaak wrote: > Can you list them? > > Because other then weenie dem or anything that fights I don't think people are actually convinced decks exist that are the paper to the Girls' rocks. > This is the crux of the matter.

> Suoli wrote: > > > Izaak wrote: > > Can you list them? > > > > Because other then weenie dem or anything that fights I don't think people are actually convinced decks exist that are the paper to the Girls' rocks. > > > This is the crux of the matter. > I actually just came up with a new idea how to trump Girls but won't discuss it before it has been tested. Also it doesn't have to be weenie dem, anything that consistently bleeds with 2-3 with several minions all the time will do. But you naturally have to be "upstream" of the girls if you can't choose whom you're bleeding. And like said before, Trochomancy is also sweet! But, erm, hard to use if Girls are your predator... Finnish Politics!

Girls surely can be beaten by anything if you ally table against them, or torporize all their minions by heavy combat, or weenie bleed them. But any deck can be beaten in such a way. But most other decks have some weaknesses, which may be explored by "convenient" decks, having 2-3 pool damage a turn as a way to win, whithout any "foreign" help. The whole point of the game is to do it while protecting own weaknesses. But such approach with the girls just don't work - no matter where you're seating, if you'll not deal with them in the first half of the game you'll never win. But I still want to mention, that the problem really is not in the deck, but just in Villein + MMPA + ash heap recursion combination. NC Russia

> Izaak wrote: > First we see that neither of the two girls deck made the finals. That means that neither had accumulated enough Gamewins (or more likely given the 22-player size, a gamewin at all) to be amongst the top 5 of the day. That means that said girls decks were either ousted OR (more likely) did manage to time the game with less than 2 VP. > I didn't see the other Girls deck, but the one I saw got a game win. Also, it featured some experimental tech so it wasn't girls in their purest form. > Secondly we see that Klaital has not played against said Girls decks, which means that decks OTHER THAN Klaital's deck must have been the decks ousting and/or stopping the girls. Now, unless we are looking at the highly unlikely scenarios that everyone else played weenie dementation, it appears there are *plenty* of decks that can defeat the girls. > People are finally realizing that the whole table needs to turn on the girls. The previous tournament I was sitting at a table with girls as my grand predator and me and my prey managed to convince the table that they need to be dealt with. My Malkavian predator bled upstream, I voted KRC in a three to girls, one to my prey fashion and my prey bled like a loony after making sure that his prey could bounce to the girls. And even so it was ridiculously close as next turn would've been villein golconda and the girls would've had ~20 pool more. So yeah, they are beatabale. I'm just not sure how much fun it is to go after them with the whole table and afterwards settle for the real game.

Wouldn't a better way to go about this be to first look at whether Girls and similar decks are a problem to competitive and/or casual play? How often does the deck show up at tournaments? When it shows up, how often does it win? If the deck (and similar decks) got a much higher win ratio than other decks, then maybe we could look into why it wins, but trying to figure out the solution before figuring out the problem seems a little silly to me.

> Lemminkäinen wrote: > People are finally realizing that the whole table needs to turn on the girls. The previous tournament I was sitting at a table with girls as my grand predator and me and my prey managed to convince the table that they need to be dealt with. > I (being your prey) am still happy that everyone agreed that Lauri's Girls were a problem that had to be quickly dealt with! Heh, it was the first time with that deck that I got pulse of the Canailles immediattely to my guys, not just one or two but all three of them! Cyrus, am I correct in assuming that you actually havn't runa corss one of these Girls decks? They consistently tend to do well at tournaments and when top tier player is playing such a deck you're in deep doo doo.... Finnish Politics!

When not being crushed - all the time.

> Cyrus wrote: > How often does it actually win? > I've never played at a table where a Girls deck won. I've played against it less than a dozen times though.

> Cyrus wrote: > The point I was trying to make is to move beyond the anecdotes. How often does it actually win? > What about it? The point is how the master bloat and these ++MPA decks change the game. Can you oust a deck that bloats for 10-20 in a master phase with some reasonable toolbox deck? Or an ordinary non-parity shift vote deck? How about wall decks? C'mon. The problem with masters is that they are non-interactive save for the few master cancels that won't help against the +MPA decks anyway. Whatever, I too can play stealth bleed, the most tired, boring deck in the game.

> Cyrus wrote: > > I took a look at Daclau, and she's featured in 14 girls decks in 2010 and 2011, compared to 11 decks with Isabel Giovanni. > Ye, Isabel is a good plan against MMPA NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > Ye, Isabel is a good plan against MMPA > In case you missed my point: maybe the sky isn't falling?

> Cyrus wrote: > > > elotar wrote: > > Ye, Isabel is a good plan against MMPA > > > In case you missed my point: maybe the sky isn't falling? > Nothing is falling, we just got boring games and disappointed players. Correction - you got it, we don't have enough villeins here. NC Russia

> Cyrus wrote: > Wouldn't a better way to go about this be to first look at whether Girls and similar decks are a problem to competitive and/or casual play? > > How often does the deck show up at tournaments? > When it shows up, how often does it win? > > If the deck (and similar decks) got a much higher win ratio than other decks, then maybe we could look into why it wins, but trying to figure out the solution before figuring out the problem seems a little silly to me. > We know what the problem is if it exists. In a year or so we should have enough data to know if the problem exists. In the meanwhile, I am content with discussing V:TES theory.

> Suoli wrote: > In the meanwhile, I am content with discussing V:TES theory. > So say we all.

People. Really. Girls decks don't win more than / Grinders, Shamblers or / Bleed. Check the TWDA. There are allot of different decks winning everywhere, all the time.

> elotar wrote: > But I still want to mention, that the problem really is not in the deck, but just in Villein + MMPA + ash heap recursion combination. > Agreed. klubtitanatlas.hr/ former NC for Croatia

> Brum wrote: > People. Really. > Girls decks don't win more than / Grinders, Shamblers or / Bleed. > Check the TWDA. > There are allot of different decks winning everywhere, all the time. > Those would be at the top of a list of archetypes I would play against Girls. What would be worrying is if a lot of people had the same idea and the tournament metagame boiled down to Girls and 4 anti-Girl archetypes. Not exactly a lot of different decks.

> Suoli wrote: > What would be worrying is if a lot of people had the same idea and the tournament metagame boiled down to Girls and 4 anti-Girl archetypes. Not exactly a lot of different decks. > That's the point, though: people don't do that. There's always been a short list of the absolute best tournament decks, and there've always been people who insisted that those decks couldn't be beaten except by another very short list of decks, and yet people have continued to play all kinds of different decks in tournaments in spite of (and in some cases, deliberately because of) the existence of both of those lists. That the specific decks on that short list have changed over time isn't surprising; what is surprising is that every time a new decktype makes it onto that list, there are people who freak out about that new decktype as though there's never been a new good deck archetype before. The number of people who are going to metagame specifically against Girls decks (a deck which, as it's been pointed out over and over again, isn't actually any more successful than any other Tier One deck, none of which get specifically metagamed against in any meanginful way) is so vanishingly small that your worry that the metagame is going to distort around people playing Girls decks is ill-founded. Girls decks aren't some metagame gravity well of a kind we've never seen before; they're just the new [insert personally hated new deck type here].

> Kushiel wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > What would be worrying is if a lot of people had the same idea and the tournament metagame boiled down to Girls and 4 anti-Girl archetypes. Not exactly a lot of different decks. > > > That's the point, though: people don't do that. > Well, there was the guy in this very thread who chose to play DEM-weenie specifically because of Girls. But that's anecdotal. I don't see any way for either one of us to prove the other wrong at this moment so I'll leave this point alone. > There's always been a short list of the absolute best tournament decks, and there've always been people who insisted that those decks couldn't be beaten except by another very short list of decks, and yet people have continued to play all kinds of different decks in tournaments in spite of (and in some cases, deliberately because of) the existence of both of those lists. That the specific decks on that short list have changed over time isn't surprising; what is surprising is that every time a new decktype makes it onto that list, there are people who freak out about that new decktype as though there's never been a new good deck archetype before. > I don't know if there are that many archetypes that can only be countered by specific archetypes. Most matchups can be handled by adding more stealth, bounce, combat defense, intercept, maneuvers, specific hoser cards like Scourge of the Enochians, etc. to the deck of your choice. Some decks will still outright suck against other decks. I have a feeling that there are significantly more decks that suck against Girls than there are decks that suck against the other major archetypes. > The number of people who are going to metagame specifically against Girls decks (a deck which, as it's been pointed out over and over again, isn't actually any more successful than any other Tier One deck, none of which get specifically metagamed against in any meanginful way) > I've heard people say that but I haven't heard any convincing arguments. The TWDA isn't very strong proof if you don't adjust for the difficulty of acquiring multiple Villeins, Ashurs and Liquidations. > is so vanishingly small that your worry that the metagame is going to distort around people playing Girls decks is ill-founded. Girls decks aren't some metagame gravity well of a kind we've never seen before; they're just the new [insert personally hated new deck type here]. > I contend that against past [hated new deck type]s it was enough for most decks to add countermeasures but against Girls most decks outright suck.

> Suoli wrote: > I don't know if there are that many archetypes that can only be countered by specific archetypes. Most matchups can be handled by adding more stealth, bounce, combat defense, intercept, maneuvers, specific hoser cards like Scourge of the Enochians, etc. to the deck of your choice. Some decks will still outright suck against other decks. I have a feeling that there are significantly more decks that suck against Girls than there are decks that suck against the other major archetypes. > And yet somehow those Girls decks aren't winning every tournament they're being played in, in spite of most other decks sucking against them. Mostly it's just when Hugh or Erik plays the Girls that they win - I know where I think that causal chain originates, just as when Vignes was the most hated flavor of the month and people didn't seem to notice that it was generally awesome players who were winning with it. I notice nobody else has responded to this point, which Izaak made earlier in the thread, but I don't really expect them to due to how the pattern of I-Hate-the-New-Flavor! plays out. > Suoli wrote: > I've heard people say that but I haven't heard any convincing arguments. The TWDA isn't very strong proof if you don't adjust for the difficulty of acquiring multiple Villeins, Ashurs and Liquidations. > If that difficulty is a real factor, and Girls decks are so hard to build that few people can do so, there's even less chance that the archetype is going to somehow warp the metagame in the same "play it or play to beat it" way that Return to Innocence did. > Suoli wrote: > I contend that against past [hated new deck type]s it was enough for most decks to add countermeasures but against Girls most decks outright suck. > What evidence is this contention based on? I hear a lot of bitterness on these boards about Girls; other than that, I don't see them winning more than any other Tier One deck, which indicates that people seem to be beating it just as well as any other good deck.

> Kushiel wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > I contend that against past [hated new deck type]s it was enough for most decks to add countermeasures but against Girls most decks outright suck. > > > What evidence is this contention based on? I hear a lot of bitterness on these boards about Girls; other than that, I don't see them winning more than any other Tier One deck, which indicates that people seem to be beating it just as well as any other good deck. > I think that the most frustrating thing is how difficult it is to oust. As a predator, you can write off a lot of games when you discover that after a few turns, your prey will be gaining at least a handful of pool every turn. If you are playing powerbleed and cripple it early, you may not have a problem. If you are playing rush combat, you may "win the battle and lose the war," as often happens. You're not going to block the deck because it doesn't have to act to survive. Is it all-powerful? No, but it is a bitch to oust. This isn't to say that it is unique in it's survival capabilities (see weenie auspex), it just may be unusually difficult to handle. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

I don't think bitterness comes from what wins or not but how it feels to play against a particular deck archetype. The hostility to Girls, I believe, likely comes from the ease with which it bloats and the difficulty of interacting with the bloat. That's not specific to this archetype, but it's much easier, say, to stop a weenie deck from Con Booning for a ton of pool. I don't get the sense that weenie decks win disproportionately either, as a different sort of example, but the hostility comes from how easy it is to get taken out of a game before you can do anything. I always like to point to how my pool doubled in a tournament before I took an action, from 1 to 2, to what a weenie deck is capable of. That deck lost, by the way. Traveller Card Game

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > I think that the most frustrating thing is how difficult it is to oust. > This flashes me back to "Vignes is impossible to oust" and "imbued are impossible to oust" so hard that I'm seeing trails. Don't get me wrong - I'm not disagreeing with you here. But nobody called for a change to Raven Spy once Nevermore won, and that deck was just as annoying as Girls. Would that deck have been the victim of New Flavor Hate if it had become popular? Of course. Which is why I kind of roll my eyes at all the griping about Girls, just like I did Vignes, and turbo-Parity Shift, and the imbued, and every other new decktype that suddenly became popular (often after having been played for years without winning - there's a newsgroup post of me asking how an early iteration of Girls won a tournament way before they were so visible, and asking "how does that win?" is stage one of the New Flavor Hate cycle). I only jumped into this thread to dispute the argument that the emergence of Girls on the tournament scene is going to somehow be a black hole of tournament deckbuilding, as I don't really care enough to argue about the specific merits/weaknesses/artwork/whatever of the Girls deck itself. It's just...this New Deck Hate? It's happened before, and will happen again. It's not going to stop anyone from playing Shattering decks or Samedi rush or whatever crazy shit they like or think can take some people by surprise, any more than the previous decks which have completed the New Flavor Hate cycle and now are considered merely tournament staples did.

> ICL wrote: > I don't think bitterness comes from what wins or not but how it feels to play against a particular deck archetype. The hostility to Girls, I believe, likely comes from the ease with which it bloats and the difficulty of interacting with the bloat. > I agree, but that's not generally what gets verbalized about the deck by people who despise it, at least around these parts. There's a big difference between "that deck's boring/annoying" and "that deck is so good that I need to built a specific antideck to beat it," and I keep seeing the latter here.

> Karo wrote: > > > elotar wrote: > > But I still want to mention, that the problem really is not in the deck, but just in Villein + MMPA + ash heap recursion combination. > > > Agreed. > As I see many people ignore the fact that isn't the problem in Girls Archetype it's in the boring recursion that Elotar said very good, and nothing else. And it's a winner/broken in many TWDA as Kiasyd bleed/ Tupdog rush/ Girls etc. It's the recursion that affects the game in a bad manner while hosing other cards and other mechanics or gameplay. To that fact you can add that almost any deck is viable for play with Ashurs/Villein and as a response we get many weeny bleeders etc. to stop this. Yeah most people don't play this mechanic but it doesn't mean it isn't broken. Villein never should have been printed as it is, 2 pool max. would be enough and Ashurs should have been a clan based card. klubtitanatlas.hr/ former NC for Croatia

> Kushiel wrote: > And yet somehow those Girls decks aren't winning every tournament they're being played in, in spite of most other decks sucking against them. Mostly it's just when Hugh or Erik plays the Girls that they win - I know where I think that causal chain originates, just as when Vignes was the most hated flavor of the month and people didn't seem to notice that it was generally awesome players who were winning with it. > You say they aren't winning disproportionately often, I say they might be. > I notice nobody else has responded to this point, which Izaak made earlier in the thread, but I don't really expect them to due to how the pattern of I-Hate-the-New-Flavor! plays out. > I could remark about how pointing out the I-Hate-the-New-Flavor! pattern falls into the Nothing-Is-Ever-Wrong-With-the-Game-So-Stop-Talking! pattern but that would be a non-argument with no relevance to a discussion about the potential effects of Girls on the tournament scene. Instead of trying to undermine the credibility of those with opposing views I choose to address the actual issue. > > Suoli wrote: > > I've heard people say that but I haven't heard any convincing arguments. The TWDA isn't very strong proof if you don't adjust for the difficulty of acquiring multiple Villeins, Ashurs and Liquidations. > > > If that difficulty is a real factor, and Girls decks are so hard to build that few people can do so, there's even less chance that the archetype is going to somehow warp the metagame in the same "play it or play to beat it" way that Return to Innocence did. > Yeah, I guess. > > Suoli wrote: > > I contend that against past [hated new deck type]s it was enough for most decks to add countermeasures but against Girls most decks outright suck. > > > What evidence is this contention based on? I hear a lot of bitterness on these boards about Girls; other than that, I don't see them winning more than any other Tier One deck, which indicates that people seem to be beating it just as well as any other good deck. > It indicates that there is no proof positive of them winning a lot. The reason for that could be that Girls are as easy to beat as other decks, that the metagame has already shifted against them, that they don't get played as often as other decks but still show up in the TWDA, that they get played way more than other decks but royally suck, that the archetype hasn't caught on yet or any number of things. I don't think it's very practical to limit our analysis of the game to strictly empirical methods. We're just never going to have the level of hard data that would require. As a result, any useful insights on the game are ultimately going to be based on subjective experiences and deduction.

> Kushiel wrote: > I only jumped into this thread to dispute the argument that the emergence of Girls on the tournament scene is going to somehow be a black hole of tournament deckbuilding, as I don't really care enough to argue about the specific merits/weaknesses/artwork/whatever of the Girls deck itself. It's just...this New Deck Hate? It's happened before, and will happen again. > Broken cards have happened before. Broken cards have been banned before and the game has been better for it. The proper way to identify which pattern is occurring would be to examine the specifics. I understand if you're not interested in that but I hope that you'll also understand why I disagree.

Golconda gives you however much pool your minion is worth or two point offense. Villein/LG/GB gives you practically free minions. Ashurs give extra pool and ability to play what you want. All that easy master-based pool gain just makes this game more boring to me. How much can you gain pool with minion cards? Dark Mirror of the Mind, 2 pool with a big guy, blockable. Breed Boon, well, lots of pool but all that's blockable and hosed by the easy Scourge of the Enochians. What sort of actions you usually block from your prey? Bloat actions is what I'd go for. How do you prevent master bloat? With other masters and that's it. Let's have an event that makes extra MPA's cost 2 pool. Then we'll have one more lol card to include in every deck.

> Demnogonis wrote: > Golconda gives you however much pool your minion is worth or two point offense. > > Villein/LG/GB gives you practically free minions. > > Ashurs give extra pool and ability to play what you want. > > All that easy master-based pool gain just makes this game more boring to me. How much can you gain pool with minion cards? Dark Mirror of the Mind, 2 pool with a big guy, blockable. Breed Boon, well, lots of pool but all that's blockable and hosed by the easy Scourge of the Enochians. What sort of actions you usually block from your prey? Bloat actions is what I'd go for. How do you prevent master bloat? With other masters and that's it. > Completely agreed in the quoted part To me, Ashur should be made to retrieve just minion cards and not also master cards Maybe even lessening the number of card retrieved (13 is a huge amount for a clanless and disciplineless and no-cost card such ashur; it's over 4 card retrieved per single ashur slot in the deck, sudario refraction stops at 3 and it's a blockable and clanned action) Emiliano vekn.net administrators staff

> nc-italy wrote: > Maybe even lessening the number of card retrieved (13 is a huge amount > for a clanless and disciplineless and no-cost card such ashur; it's over 4 card retrieved per single ashur slot in the deck, sudario refraction > stops at 3 and it's a blockable and clanned action) > This is not a fait comparison: Sudario brings the 3 cards you need right now back in your hand, 3 Ashur only get 1 card back in hand. I like the idea of Ashur bringing back minion cards only, though.

> Demnogonis wrote: > How do you prevent master bloat? With other masters and that's it. > Not true. Getting rid of the minion is a very effective way as well. You can even do it before their next master phase and they can´t do anything about it. Tupdog loves the Girls find Inner Peace deck. The truth is everybody is playing big caps now and complains that they can´t do anything to the Girls Deck before it gets going. You can play smaller minions with combat, rarely seen now. Or you could play Tzimisce Wall, which used to be a tournament staple and which I have not seen ONCE at the whole Week of Nightmares. GfiP play either Majesty or Animalism combat, both easily trumped by VIC (Roetschreck and/or Telepathic Tracking) People need to get up from their chair, think about the current tournament environment and then make their deck to cope with GfiP, if you are afraid of that. It is a very strong archetype right now and since I have been playing V:TES in tournaments there had been strong archetypes which you either played or had a counter against.

> johannes wrote: > People need to get up from their chair, think about the current tournament environment and then make their deck to cope with GfiP, if you are afraid of that. > It has been noted several times now that to cope with the Girls is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes or Wall of Doom. This, IMO, would have a negative effect on the metagame.

> Suoli wrote: > It has been noted several times now that to cope with the Girls is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes or Wall of Doom. This, IMO, would have a negative effect on the metagame. > See, but the way to cope with *most* viable, tournament contending decks is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes, or Wall of Doom. As (well, at least the first 3, the last not so much) these are decks that are very good and win a lot, and are resilient, and can be relied upon in general to be successful. So if Cybelle/Daclau is encouraging people to play, ya know, decks that are already wildly effective, does it really matter, as people are already playing decks that are wildly effective? I'm yet in my life to see a Cybelle/Daclau deck in actual play. But I have seen plenty of weenie Dementation or weenie Dominate or weenie Presence or weenie Obfuscate or Tupdog or whatever decks in play and doing very well. So it isn't like Cybelle/Daclau is providing significantly more incentive to play decks that, ya know, are already really good at winning.

> bakija wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > It has been noted several times now that to cope with the Girls is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes or Wall of Doom. This, IMO, would have a negative effect on the metagame. > > > See, but the way to cope with *most* viable, tournament contending decks is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes, or Wall of Doom. As (well, at least the first 3, the last not so much) these are decks that are very good and win a lot, and are resilient, and can be relied upon in general to be successful. > If I expect to see weenies, Tupdogs, Vignes or Wall of Doom I don't hurl my shitty trick deck at the wall and pick one of those decks to play. I just include Ossian, Aranthebes or Gran Madre di Dio or adjust card ratios. With most decks you can't viably do that against Girls.

I dunno, I would prefer to have Girls as my predator over any of those decks you just listed. Probably as my prey also in most cases, well at least with most decks I would take to tournaments in first place. There is really just two things you need to do to take it out with a fairly normal deck... which is to tap Aksinya with some way (mind numb is probably best and most easily accessible card for that), and either get rid of Anthelios in some way, or eat his ashheap. The first option is likely easier since there is lot of ways to deal with a gehenna event, though the second way is more effective since it also hoses ashur. Of course if your deck doesn't bleed, then you don't even need to worry about tapping Aksi, making it easier.

> Suoli wrote: > You say they aren't winning disproportionately often, I say they might be. > The crucial difference is that my position is based on evidence, and yours is based on conjecture. > Suoli wrote: > I don't think it's very practical to limit our analysis of the game to strictly empirical methods. We're just never going to have the level of hard data that would require. As a result, any useful insights on the game are ultimately going to be based on subjective experiences and deduction. > I agree, which is why I've arrived at the position I have. I've watched the TWDA and tournament reports, seen that there are loads of decks being played in and winning tournaments which are neither Girls nor antiGirls decks, and deduced that your fear is groundless.

> Kushiel wrote: > I've watched the TWDA and tournament reports, saw that there are loads of decks being played in and winning tournaments which are neither Girls nor antiGirls decks, and deduced that your fear is groundless. > It's fair to say that there are decks in the TWDA that aren't Girls or antiGirls. But that's not my argument. I don't think it's fair to say with confidence that Girls hasn't and will not affect the metagame because there are decks in the TWDA that are not Girls or antiGirls.

> Suoli wrote: > It's fair to say that there are decks in the TWDA that aren't Girls or antiGirls. But that's not my argument. > No, your argument is that > > Suoli wrote: > ...to cope with the Girls is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes or Wall of Doom. This, IMO, would have a negative effect on the metagame. > Clearly, since there are plenty of decks winning tournaments which aren't included in your list, your contention is based on a perceived problem which doesn't actually exist out in the real world. > Suoli wrote: > I don't think it's fair to say with confidence that Girls hasn't and will not affect the metagame because there are decks in the TWDA that are not Girls or antiGirls. > No one's argued that the deck type hasn't affected the tournament metagame at all. Of course it has; it's become a tournament staple, and all tournament staples affect the metagame. But "affected the metagame" and "forced everyone to play it or one of a very limited number of other decks" aren't even remotely the same thing.

> Kushiel wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > It's fair to say that there are decks in the TWDA that aren't Girls or antiGirls. But that's not my argument. > > > No, your argument is that > > > > Suoli wrote: > > ...to cope with the Girls is to play weenie X, Tupdog, Vignes or Wall of Doom. This, IMO, would have a negative effect on the metagame. > > > Clearly, since there are plenty of decks winning tournaments which aren't included in your list, your contention is based on a perceived problem which doesn't actually exist out in the real world. > I maintain that decks ("plenty" is subjective and unproven) in the TWDA that aren't Girls or antiGirls does not conclusively prove that there are and will not be an increase in the number of antiGirls decks in tournaments. > > Suoli wrote: > > I don't think it's fair to say with confidence that Girls hasn't and will not affect the metagame because there are decks in the TWDA that are not Girls or antiGirls. > > > No one's argued that the deck type hasn't affected the tournament metagame at all. Of course it has; it's become a tournament staplem, and all tournament staples affect the metagame. But "affected the metagame" and "forced everyone to play it or one of a very limited number of other decks" aren't even remotely the same thing. > I haven't argued that everyone has as of this moment been forced to play a limited number of decks. This exchange seems to be moving toward straw men and nitpicking. I think I'm losing interest.

> Suoli wrote: > If I expect to see weenies, Tupdogs, Vignes or Wall of Doom I don't hurl my shitty trick deck at the wall and pick one of those decks to play. I just include Ossian, Aranthebes or Gran Madre di Dio or adjust card ratios. With most decks you can't viably do that against Girls. > Well, the point you seemed to be making was that Cybelle/Daclau being good will warp the play environment and make people play Weenie/Vignes/Tupdog/whatever decks, which will make the game suck, not that you couldn't adjust your decks to deal with them. I was pointing out that the play environment is already full of those decks (as they are reliable and strong). So if your fear is that Cybelle/Daclau will warp the environment, that train has already left the station.

> bakija wrote: > Well, the point you seemed to be making was that Cybelle/Daclau being good will warp the play environment and make people play Weenie/Vignes/Tupdog/whatever decks, which will make the game suck, not that you couldn't adjust your decks to deal with them. > Might. > I was pointing out that the play environment is already full of those decks (as they are reliable and strong). So if your fear is that Cybelle/Daclau will warp the environment, that train has already left the station. > Well, I wouldn't say that the metagame is so warped that it could not warp any more.

I find it interesting that this debate is still going. And yet there is some good conversation and concerns. However, looking at the last few tournaments there are no girls decks. Looking back a little further there are not an over abundance to say the least. More than some other deck archetypes? Absolutely. But, it was a catchy archetype that many people have tried out this year. And every year there seems to be some debate as to the power of the latest trend. Again, parity shift anyone? 10 pool swing is nuts, but it has not derailed this years tournaments. Yet, in the past there were high hopes and expectations the card would get banned. Thankfully that did not happen. And this last year there are several cards that have made decks better. In particular Master cards. Villein and Lilith's Blessing for sure. Others such as Wider View have seen there way into many decks. And considering all of this I am glad as it has brought about change in an otherwise stale environment. It forces adaptation and people to think of new ways to handle things like Girls and now things that are more viable that previously were not Tier 1. To the powers that be, if this Prince has any say in the overall voice I believe things should stay the same for now.

Decks that were efficient and tier 1 before Girls became prevalent can all oust or defend themselves against the Girls deck without any modification. What the deck do, though, is that it cannot (save extreme measures) be ousted or defended against by inefficient decks. This is quite unique in V:tes, which is probably the reason it's winning inordinately much. You cannot have a 90-card deck with Confusion of the Eye, Touch of Pain or Wider View if you're going up against Girls. I think Girls appearance on the tournament scene is good because it forces players to optimize their decks and reduce it's size, which is good for the game. More to the topic: You'd remove offensive cards (Pentex Subversion, Anarch Troublemaker) in favor of defensive cards (Sudden Reversal, Wash)? This rule suggestion would increase time-outs and make the game more boring, in my opinion. I can see the case you're making for Ashur Tablets and Villein, but Pentex Subversion and Anarch Troublemaker are good for the game. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Xaddam wrote: > You'd remove offensive cards (Pentex Subversion, Anarch Troublemaker) in favor of defensive cards (Sudden Reversal, Wash)? > I don't see the blocking of pool gain by my prey as defensive. I play Sudden Reversal in my bleed decks against Villein, Minion Tap, Blood Doll, Vessel and Golconda. Sure, sometimes it takes up a slot of your hand and you wait for the right time to play it. OTOH Sudden Reversal guaranteed often my VP, when my prey overextended his influence relying on the back cash of pool with Villein. Those Villeindecks are only good as long as nobody get their weak point. Adaptability is the key. Baron of Frankfurt

> Xaddam wrote: > I think Girls appearance on the tournament scene is good because it forces players to optimize their decks and reduce it's size, which is good for the game. > It moves the meta towards focused decks and away from versatile decks. I don't know if this is good for the game.

> Joscha wrote: > I don't see the blocking of pool gain by my prey as defensive. I play Sudden Reversal in my bleed decks against Villein, Minion Tap, Blood Doll, Vessel and Golconda. Sure, sometimes it takes up a slot of your hand and you wait for the right time to play it. OTOH Sudden Reversal guaranteed often my VP, when my prey overextended his influence relying on the back cash of pool with Villein. Those Villeindecks are only good as long as nobody get their weak point. Adaptability is the key. > If Pentex or Anarch Troublemaker would be "louche" then sudden reversal would be more defensive. As it stands, yes, I agree, it can be used as both. My critique was what the rule change would do to the card, and it would make the card more defensive. > Suoli wrote: > It moves the meta towards focused decks and away from versatile decks. I don't know if this is good for the game. > What you call 'focused' is what I call good decks (what wins in spite of the odds), what you call 'versatile' I call bad decks (what wins only with a good amount of luck). My point stands, the decks you call 'versatile' were bad decks before Girls came into the tournament scene. The decks you call focused were the decks that won before. Nothing has changed, so there's nothing to dislike about it. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Xaddam wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > It moves the meta towards focused decks and away from versatile decks. I don't know if this is good for the game. > > > What you call 'focused' is what I call good decks (what wins in spite of the odds), what you call 'versatile' I call bad decks (what wins only with a good amount of luck). > It takes skill to build a versatile deck without compromising consistency but with current recursion options (not just Ashurs), hand management tech, permanents and efficient reactions it can most definitely be done. > My point stands, the decks you call 'versatile' were bad decks before Girls came into the tournament scene. The decks you call focused were the decks that won before. Nothing has changed, so there's nothing to dislike about it. > Versatile decks != bad decks. They are just harder to build correctly. This leads to lots of badly made toolboxes but that doesn't mean that toolboxes are inherently bad.

Yeah, I realize that's your opinion. My opinion is that what you call versatile is actually bad. They would for instance have no chance of ousting Girls or defending against it. EDIT: Clarification: That's how I actually define a good or bad deck when building new decks; whether or not they can defend against/oust girls. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Xaddam wrote: > Yeah, I realize that's your opinion. My opinion is that what you call versatile is actually bad. They would for instance have no chance of ousting Girls or defending against it. > > EDIT: Clarification: That's how I actually define a good or bad deck when building new decks; whether or not they can defend against/oust girls. > I agree with you that non-focused decks are bad if good is defined by the Girls-matchup. I don't agree that Girls being the measuring stick is good for the game, though. Focused decks aren't inherently 'better' for the game than versatile decks. It's the exact opposite if anything.

With an unfocused deck you have no sure-fire tactic option. You cannot say to yourself "ok, I'm gonna oust this player/stay alive until time/utterly destroy this players minions". You can opt to do a number of these half-way, but that is subject to your card drawing. You simply leave yourself in the hands of luck. If everyone does this you will hover around a 20% win chance in any given game (25% in on a 4-player table). Additionally when all players are playing toothless decks there is no point in deals and table interaction because every deck has close to 50% chance of winning the duel against every other deck. There'd also be no point in doing a educated guess and choosing a deck that is appropriate to the given tournament's expected meta game, a skill that is heavily undervalued. We'd all be engaged in an extremely complex 5-sided dice. While parts of this oversimplified, this extreme serves as an illustration of where the game is gravitating towards. If all of us made decks without an overarching game-long strategy we'd be moving towards a game where skill and table talk matters less. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Xaddam wrote: > With an unfocused deck you have no sure-fire tactic option. You cannot say to yourself "ok, I'm gonna oust this player/stay alive until time/utterly destroy this players minions". You can opt to do a number of these half-way, but that is subject to your card drawing. You simply leave yourself in the hands of luck. If everyone does this you will hover around a 20% win chance in any given game (25% in on a 4-player table). > That is what I consider to be a badly built toolbox. It doesn't have to be that way. > While parts of this oversimplified, this extreme serves as an illustration of where the game is gravitating towards. If all of us made decks without an overarching game-long strategy we'd be moving towards a game where skill and table talk matters less. > Now you're talking about a definition of 'versatile' that I don't recognize as my own. The deck you're describing sounds like a deck that has no win condition and no options whereas the deck I've been talking about has more than one win condition and several options.

> Suoli wrote: > It takes skill to build a versatile deck without compromising consistency but with current recursion options (not just Ashurs), hand management tech, permanents and efficient reactions it can most definitely be done. > > Versatile decks != bad decks. They are just harder to build correctly. This leads to lots of badly made toolboxes but that doesn't mean that toolboxes are inherently bad. > Can you give specific examples of the kind of decks you're talking about? I know what Xaddam is referring to w/r/t super-focused decks, but while you seem to have a very clear idea of what you mean, I can't think of any examples of the kinds of decks you're referring to. (FWIW, I don't have a horse in this race since I agree with different aspects of what both of you are saying, but I'm curious as to what deck(s) you're thinking of.)

> Xaddam wrote: > With an unfocused deck you have no sure-fire tactic option. > You won't have one anyway, all decks can face a total 0% win scenario. VTES is a game of luck where seating determines everything, the game that follows alters the preordained result only by odd card draws and mistakes if the players make them. The player who sits in the right position wins, and no matter how much skill everybody has they can't change their seat, and no matter what anyone says everybody knows how the game works and won't be conned into doing silly things. (Hm, clarification : a winner of a game where a table-alliance destroyed something is still the one who sat in the right place, able to reap the rewards of the target's misfortune) With a well-built toolbox deck you should have good chances against almost everything, but with the late changes to the game that is no longer the case as your chances of ousting bloat decks are very slim. > Xaddam wrote: > You cannot say to yourself "ok, I'm gonna oust this player/stay alive until time/utterly destroy this players minions". You can opt to do a number of these half-way, but that is subject to your card drawing. You simply leave yourself in the hands of luck. If everyone does this you will hover around a 20% win chance in any given game (25% in on a 4-player table). > If everybody does this then the game becomes much more interesting and more about playing the game than winning with lol luck. But anyway a toolbox deck is usually built in such a way that it survives, at least that's what I think. So you survive, wait for opportunities and constantly think about your options as the game progresses. If you die fast you can't wait for those opportunities. Think about a !Ventrue grinder deck, that's a pretty good toolbox, what with all that survivability and also hefty ousting power. Perhaps you're thinking about some crap decks I don't recognize, I'm mostly a Tzimisce player and those decks aren't unfocused all-over-the place rubbish, just don't have dominate so wtf stop bloating 20+ pool every master phase turn scoop fuck this game > Xaddam wrote: > Additionally when all players are playing toothless decks there is no point in deals and table interaction because every deck has close to 50% chance of winning the duel against every other deck. > That's an entirely made-up probability because the decks aren't equal and even a few cards might make one deck completely dominate another. While it's true that playing toothless decks usually means timeouts with 0,5 vp's for everyone, nobody's suggesting to make that kind of decks. What would they have anyway, 90 random cards from fortitude and animalism? This is not a game with a whole bunch of noobs, everybody's a veteran at least here and suggesting stupid things isn't table-talk but game-related comedy. > Xaddam wrote: > There'd also be no point in doing a educated guess and choosing a deck that is appropriate to the given tournament's expected meta game, a skill that is heavily undervalued. > How so undervalued? Of course it's important now. Hey how about building a solid deck you think has a stable performance and taking that and then playing the game... Anti-things decks such as 14 entrancement decks and coinflip strategies such as stealth bleeds that are either 0% or 100% don't make for good gameplay, just a waste of time of for whom lady fortuna whores. > Xaddam wrote: > We'd all be engaged in an extremely complex 5-sided dice. > Well we are now. > Xaddam wrote: > While parts of this oversimplified, this extreme serves as an illustration of where the game is gravitating towards. If all of us made decks without an overarching game-long strategy we'd be moving towards a game where skill and table talk matters less. > Okay, just what sort of decks are you talking about that don't have a strategy, and how is the game gravitating towards that?

> Demnogonis wrote: > VTES is a game of luck where seating determines everything, the game that follows alters the preordained result only by odd card draws and mistakes if the players make them. The player who sits in the right position wins, and no matter how much skill everybody has they can't change their seat, and no matter what anyone says everybody knows how the game works and won't be conned into doing silly things. > No offense, but are you being serious here? I can't tell, because I can't imagine wanting to play the game if that's really how you think it plays, but at the same time the rest of your post seems to support the idea that you really mean this.

> Kushiel wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > It takes skill to build a versatile deck without compromising consistency but with current recursion options (not just Ashurs), hand management tech, permanents and efficient reactions it can most definitely be done. > > > > Versatile decks != bad decks. They are just harder to build correctly. This leads to lots of badly made toolboxes but that doesn't mean that toolboxes are inherently bad. > > > Can you give specific examples of the kind of decks you're talking about? I know what Xaddam is referring to w/r/t super-focused decks, but while you seem to have a very clear idea of what you mean, I can't think of any examples of the kinds of decks you're referring to. (FWIW, I don't have a horse in this race since I agree with different aspects of what both of you are saying, but I'm curious as to what deck(s) you're thinking of.) > I'm wary of giving examples as it usually sidetracks into long arguments about some irrelevant details at the cost of discussing the issues that were meant to be highlighted. That said, the new Tremere royalty might be a good example. They have access to some of the most efficient cards in the game and between Alastor, offensive votes, Dominate, Second Trad and so on can choose from several lines of attack without fully committing to any of them.

> Suoli wrote: > I'm wary of giving examples as it usually sidetracks into long arguments about some irrelevant details at the cost of discussing the issues that were meant to be highlighted. > You must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. While I know what you mean about getting sidetracked, in this case I do think it would be useful to offer at least deck archetypes, rather than decklists. The latter is a lot less likely to get picked apart than the former, and since you're insisting that there are good toolbox decks, the burden of proof is on you to at least mention what they are. > Suoli wrote: > That said, the new Tremere royalty might be a good example. They have access to some of the most efficient cards in the game and between Alastor, offensive votes, Dominate, Second Trad and so on can choose from several lines of attack without fully committing to any of them. > Agreed. I'm kind of surprised that I haven't seen more of them in tournaments, actually. Probably more of a psychological block about people only wanting to play honed, streamlined decks rather than taking a chance on versatility. Fear is the mind-killer, people! It's also worth pointing out that both the NAC and EC in 2010 were won by toolbox decks. I don't want to go so far as to say that those decks were better than the other ones that finalized, since I'm convinced that player skill has a much greater impact on the game than deck contents (ie, the Jay Kristoff Factor), but those are at least good examples that toolbox decks can win in the face of even the most serious competition.

Demnogonis Saastuttaja, you're quite hostile in your response and you're really unreasonable in a few formulations, but I'll try to answer anyway. As I said in the end of my post (and that you, by chance, couldn't be bothered to reply to) I was willfully oversimplifying simply to illustrate which trends will appear in a meta with only 'versatile' or toolboxy decks. > Demnogonis wrote: > VTES is a game of luck where seating determines everything, the game that follows alters the preordained result only by odd card draws and mistakes if the players make them. > Sure, seating will give players' different chances of winning the game from the start. What makes a good player is one who can realize what those percentages are early enough to start affecting them (by deals, cross-table interaction, waiting to oust or lounging for an oust early), which becomes a lot harder if other players around the table try to do the same. This is what vtes really is; a game about realizing what the other players' have realized that the other players' have realized about... etc, etc. The player who manages to stay the step ahead of everyone else will have a higher win chance than everyone else. An unfocused deck can't do either of 1)deals, 2)cross-table interaction, 3)waiting to oust or 4)lounging for an oust early nearly as well as a focused deck. And if you really want to be argumentative it's actually the roll of a die which decides the seating order, and that roll depends on a person and how he/she rolls it in interaction with gravity and the surface's texture and tilt. Additionally everyone's ability to predict the table could be determined in advance as well as everyones' responses to this. Being deterministic is not really helpful in a discussion like this. > Demnogonis wrote: > If everybody does this then the game becomes much more interesting and more about playing the game than winning with lol luck. > This is covered in the rulebook; you have to play to win. Anything else is a rules' breach. > Demnogonis wrote: > But anyway a toolbox deck is usually built in such a way that it survives, at least that's what I think. > No, sorry, that's just inaccurate. A toolbox deck can by definition never be as effective in defending as a focused deck, because you have things that are non-defensive in the library. > Demnogonis wrote: > How so undervalued? Of course it's important now. Hey how about building a solid deck you think has a stable performance and taking that and then playing the game... > I'm not a 100% sure I understand you, so correct me if I'm getting this wrong. If you're implying that there is a deck that has a "stable performance" in every single tournament, you're wholly incorrect (unless you mean that 1,5vp is stable?). Providing you played flawlessly and that everyone else played flawlessly, if you didn't win the tournament there was a better deck choice to make. > Demnogonis wrote: > Anti-things decks such as 14 entrancement decks and coinflip strategies such as stealth bleeds that are either 0% or 100% don't make for good gameplay, just a waste of time of for whom lady fortuna whores. > If you analyzed the meta game and concluded that there would be a lot of allies and then went for Gines' Simply Irresistable deck as a counter and you won the tournament because of the 14 entrancement you deserve the win, in my opinion. If you haven't analyzed the climate and just went for a counter-deck blindly, I'd tend to agree, though. > Demnogonis wrote: > Okay, just what sort of decks are you talking about that don't have a strategy, and how is the game gravitating towards that? > I'm not saying the game is actually gravitating towards anything, it was in the hypothetical scenario discussed. Sorry if I was unclear. My opinion is that the actual changes going on the world are going in the other direction. Decks that don't have a strategy? I'd rather not throw around insults, so I'll stick to non-specifics. About 98% of all decks in the TWDA are unfocused decks by my definition, though decks have gotten alot better in recent years. So start reading from the start. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Kushiel wrote: > No offense, but are you being serious here? I can't tell, because I can't imagine wanting to play the game if that's really how you think it plays, but at the same time the rest of your post seems to support the idea that you really mean this. > Sure. VTES still has a bunch of good stuff, too, like how it gets cool people together, and deckbuilding is fun. But any luck-influenced mechanics I have grown to loathe in any strategy games, and this has greatly lessened my enthusiasm for VTES. Perhaps I need to elaborate, I think that VTES skill is playing effectively in your seat, and very good players tend to nearly always win in the lucky seat - you don't just sit in an advantageous position and do pretty much whatever. You have to do it right. But I think everybody's in the community are so experienced now that somebody just botches it, plays it badly because they don't know what to do. I should also say that there's no such a thing as new players around here. A lot of situations in the game are told as facts nobody bothers to contest (who does that anymore, "Yeah my position isn't so good no not really just look" when it's clearly BS), or not said at all because they are so obvious. > Xaddam wrote: > Demnogonis Saastuttaja, you're quite hostile in your response and you're really unreasonable in a few formulations, but I'll try to answer anyway. > I don't mean to be hostile, if I seem so I apologize. > Xaddam wrote: > As I said in the end of my post (and that you, by chance, couldn't be bothered to reply to) I was willfully oversimplifying simply to illustrate which trends will appear in a meta with only 'versatile' or toolboxy decks. > I didn't think about that so much, what do you exactly mean? > Xaddam wrote: > Sure, seating will give players' different chances of winning the game from the start. What makes a good player is one who can realize what those percentages are early enough to start affecting them (by deals, cross-table interaction, waiting to oust or lounging for an oust early), which becomes a lot harder if other players around the table try to do the same. This is what vtes really is; a game about realizing what the other players' have realized that the other players' have realized about... etc, etc. The player who manages to stay the step ahead of everyone else will have a higher win chance than everyone else. An unfocused deck can't do either of 1)deals, 2)cross-table interaction, 3)waiting to oust or 4)lounging for an oust early nearly as well as a focused deck. > Agreed, well this is how VTES works when it's at it's finest. A lot of times, however, there exist a series of roadblocks, hard counters, total inability to defend or oust something, and so on. Then the game is just random lol, a result of seating that doesn't change at all during the game, a waste of time. And lately, an overwhelming majority of the games I have observed or played are so, I don't know why but something's changed, or possibly I didn't see that before. I just see a lot of games where somebody sits in the win seat and nothing else happens in the game as the other players don't have reasonable options but to play their game. Nobody will just go out their way to ruin their and somebody else's game to make somebody else win, or if they do, well then the new winner had the lucky seat. > Xaddam wrote: > And if you really want to be argumentative it's actually the roll of a die which decides the seating order, and that roll depends on a person and how he/she rolls it in interaction with gravity and the surface's texture and tilt. Additionally everyone's ability to predict the table could be determined in advance as well as everyones' responses to this. Being deterministic is not really helpful in a discussion like this. > Lol, who uses die anymore when you can just draw cards, what's this gravity business have to do with that? But let's say we have bad players, messing with the game, that's another luck element right there, helping some lucky guy. I have to ask, do you see a lot of deals such as "I don't bleed you the next turn", because I think nobody trusts that kind of stuff anymore. I have a rush deck, you have 3 Dominate minions, we all know what's going to happen and there's no point in making a BS deal somebody is going to break. > Xaddam wrote: > This is covered in the rulebook; you have to play to win. Anything else is a rules' breach. > Huh, I didn't say that people aren't playing to win. I'm saying that the game works fine with decks that have options in the given game and then people are thinking and there's strategy involved, but too many times there are no options, there are coinflip decks in the table and nobody has options save for maybe the lucky player who got to be in the winner's seat. > Xaddam wrote: > No, sorry, that's just inaccurate. A toolbox deck can by definition never be as effective in defending as a focused deck, because you have things that are non-defensive in the library. > No, you don't need maximum weenie auspex defense to survive. C'mon, you know that you can construct a deck with less or more defense, and a toolbox deck is one that tends to have more. A toolbox deck isn't a wall deck, but it has to be defensive enough that it's player can be patient in the game. > Demnogonis wrote: > I'm not a 100% sure I understand you, so correct me if I'm getting this wrong. If you're implying that there is a deck that has a "stable performance" in every single tournament, you're wholly incorrect (unless you mean that 1,5vp is stable?). Providing you played flawlessly and that everyone else played flawlessly, if you didn't win the tournament there was a better deck choice to make. > By stable performance I mean it's a deck that has a low amount of bad matchups, and I think a solid toolbox deck should be just that. > Xaddam wrote: > If you analyzed the meta game and concluded that there would be a lot of allies and then went for Gines' Simply Irresistable deck as a counter and you won the tournament because of the 14 entrancement you deserve the win, in my opinion. If you haven't analyzed the climate and just went for a counter-deck blindly, I'd tend to agree, though. > I don't care about who wins the tournament or who deserves what, that just goes as it goes. But if the games are a series of complete shutdown matchups where some people don't actually get to play, that is boring and that shouldn't happen in a good strategy game. > Xaddam wrote: > I'm not saying the game is actually gravitating towards anything, it was in the hypothetical scenario discussed. Sorry if I was unclear. My opinion is that the actual changes going on the world are going in the other direction. > > Decks that don't have a strategy? I'd rather not throw around insults, so I'll stick to non-specifics. About 98% of all decks in the TWDA are unfocused decks by my definition, though decks have gotten alot better in recent years. So start reading from the start. > Okay. I tend to agree, I mean a lot of TWDA decks make me think about lucky seating, obviously What I was curious about is what sort of decks do you mean that don't have a strategy? Was I confused in thinking you mean toolbox strategies aren't good for the game? Anyway, even unfocused, bad decks tend to have a strategy, they just can't execute it with much consistency. I get the feeling there's some glitches in this discussion, what I said about seating is pretty off topic - I mean to say that good toolbox-style decks operate in a stable, less luck-dependent manner, unlike many of the ultra-focused strategies that have a lot of bad, even impossible matchups. Therefore I find games with a lot of toolbox strategies much more interesting and harder to accurately predict. However many toolbox decks (generally the ones without dominate) will find it difficult to deal with the current master bloat-heavy metagame, mostly because they don't have access to good, efficient solutions to that. So. Then we get games where we have zero options, impossible odds, completely predictable and unchangeable outcomes, bored faces, angry people and often somebody who gets VP's by the virtue of luck. Not every match - but the majority of them, in my perception.

> Demnogonis wrote: > I didn't think about that so much, what do you exactly mean? > I don't actually mean that a table with 5 toolbox-decks will have a 20% chance of each player winning if you run the scenario 1000 times (the remark about the 5-sided dice). With toolbox decks the best player might have a 29% chance of winning and then 25%, 20%, 15%, 11% in order of descending skill. If all players played focused decks on the other hand the best player might have a 50% of winning and then 25%, 10%, 8% and 7% in descending order of skill. The latter is to prefer in my opinion. > Demnogonis wrote: > Agreed, well this is how VTES works when it's at it's finest. A lot of times, however, there exist a series of roadblocks, hard counters, total inability to defend or oust something, and so on. Then the game is just random lol, a result of seating that doesn't change at all during the game, a waste of time. And lately, an overwhelming majority of the games I have observed or played are so, I don't know why but something's changed, or possibly I didn't see that before. I just see a lot of games where somebody sits in the win seat and nothing else happens in the game as the other players don't have reasonable options but to play their game. Nobody will just go out their way to ruin their and somebody else's game to make somebody else win, or if they do, well then the new winner had the lucky seat. > This might just be my gamer brainwashing, but in my opinion there is always something that can be done. That thing to do might have been to choose another deck. The only time I've experienced domino-like tables in favour of a single player is if that player fielded an appropriate and focused deck on a table with unfocused and/or inefficient decks. > Demnogonis wrote: > I have to ask, do you see a lot of deals such as "I don't bleed you the next turn", because I think nobody trusts that kind of stuff anymore. I have a rush deck, you have 3 Dominate minions, we all know what's going to happen and there's no point in making a BS deal somebody is going to break. > Of course not. Those deals are, as you say, bullshit. The kind of deals I'm referring to is when two players see a mutual advantage in forcing a three-way or four-way and they need to cooperate (or simply confirm eachothers' intention) to bring it about. Deals without trust, but in which game theory dictates that they should talk about it to make sure they see the situation in the same way. > Demnogonis wrote: > No, you don't need maximum weenie auspex defense to survive. C'mon, you know that you can construct a deck with less or more defense, and a toolbox deck is one that tends to have more. A toolbox deck isn't a wall deck, but it has to be defensive enough that it's player can be patient in the game. > If you're gonna survive (in a way where you can still win the game) a focused ousting-oriented deck (Vignes, weenie KS, obf-vote), yeah you do kinda need an aus weenie. If you're just gonna survive other unfocused toolbox decks, no, I don't suppose you need to play an aus weenie. > Demnogonis wrote: > What I was curious about is what sort of decks do you mean that don't have a strategy? Was I confused in thinking you mean toolbox strategies aren't good for the game? Anyway, even unfocused, bad decks tend to have a strategy, they just can't execute it with much consistency. > To be a good deck in my opinion the deck needs to only consist of cards that fit into the strategy seamlessly or be defensive cards that are extremely efficient and/or general enough that they're not dead cards. The defensive cards usable in decks where defense isn't a part of the strategy are cards like bounce, Delaying Tactics, Direct Intervention, Jake Washington, The Uncoiling, Nocturn or Majesty. Other than that an example of an unfocused deck is if you play a KS bleed deck and you choose to include two Passion. KS bleed is a stealth-bleed so using two cards that are tap-bleed diverges from the decks strategy. Another example is including earth swords in a Kiasyd stealth bleed. Simply put the cards that you face-palm when you replace instead of that stealth or +bleed you needed to win the table. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Xaddam wrote: > I don't actually mean that a table with 5 toolbox-decks will have a 20% chance of each player winning if you run the scenario 1000 times (the remark about the 5-sided dice). With toolbox decks the best player might have a 29% chance of winning and then 25%, 20%, 15%, 11% in order of descending skill. If all players played focused decks on the other hand the best player might have a 50% of winning and then 25%, 10%, 8% and 7% in descending order of skill. The latter is to prefer in my opinion. > Okay. I don't agree with this at all, obviously. Playing such a game where, say, everybody stealth bleeds doesn't require an ounce of skill or thought from anyone, and it resolves in a mechanical manner. The best player, in this case, needs to be the one who gets the best seat (or card drawing luck since in this case the decks are so similar), because everybody is playing a railroaded coinflip deck. > Xaddam wrote: > This might just be my gamer brainwashing, but in my opinion there is always something that can be done. That thing to do might have been to choose another deck. The only time I've experienced domino-like tables in favour of a single player is if that player fielded an appropriate and focused deck on a table with unfocused and/or inefficient decks. > Scenario : Your minions are being matched by an equal number of Asanbonsam ghouls with Unmasking. You can't generate 3 stealth on your bleed actions, instead you have something like Seduction and Block Fails which won't help you with these buggers, one doesn't work and the other just makes him change the blocker to another AG. You don't pack offensive combat, neither can you chip through them with hand strikes, as that would mean taking 6 damage (later you could be facing FBI and Vagabond Mystic, which are likely in this deck). To boot, the Tzimisce, the bastard that he is, has bounce. So : your ousting is completely blocked. You might even have a predator, that's not good, what to do... (If your deck a toolbox, you could probably kill them, or block them as they are recruited, but you are a focused necrobleed or some such thing, so this is what you get.) Choosing another deck is a matter for the next games, it doesn't improve this single game in any way and won't give you options to do anything. Many focused decks are made with other focused decks in mind and often hard counter them in one way or another. > Xaddam wrote: > If you're gonna survive (in a way where you can still win the game) a focused ousting-oriented deck (Vignes, weenie KS, obf-vote), yeah you do kinda need an aus weenie. If you're just gonna survive other unfocused toolbox decks, no, I don't suppose you need to play an aus weenie. > This is simply not true, defenses against bleed decks are pretty elementary. Obf vote is more difficult, it depends on how much stealth he has crammed on to the thing and how many of those are Forgotten Labyrinth. But Vignes, KS... these are the kind of decks I like seeing as my predator if I play a solid Toolbox myself. That being said, should the VTES become the kind of lol game where there's ten different power decks, including the likes of weenie KS and Vignes, I don't think there's any point in continuing to play, you could as well play poker by then, at least you can win money in that one. > Xaddam wrote: > To be a good deck in my opinion the deck needs to only consist of cards that fit into the strategy seamlessly or be defensive cards that are extremely efficient and/or general enough that they're not dead cards. The defensive cards usable in decks where defense isn't a part of the strategy are cards like bounce, Delaying Tactics, Direct Intervention, Jake Washington, The Uncoiling, Nocturn or Majesty. Other than that an example of an unfocused deck is if you play a KS bleed deck and you choose to include two Passion. KS bleed is a stealth-bleed so using two cards that are tap-bleed diverges from the decks strategy. Another example is including earth swords in a Kiasyd stealth bleed. Simply put the cards that you face-palm when you replace instead of that stealth or +bleed you needed to win the table. > Yes. This applies to a toolbox deck as well, it shouldn't have lolrandom cards and magic bullets.

> Demnogonis wrote: > VTES is a game of luck where seating determines everything, the game that follows alters the preordained result only by odd card draws and mistakes if the players make them. The player who sits in the right position wins, and no matter how much skill everybody has they can't change their seat, and no matter what anyone says everybody knows how the game works and won't be conned into doing silly things. > Yeah, that's why the same players keep racking up win after win in the VTES Hall of Fame, because it's all due to seating and odd card draws. I'm not sure that I've ever seen such a complete misunderstanding of a game as embodied in this quote of yours, so I've got to ask: Do you really, actually believe this? 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

> Demnogonis wrote: > Playing such a game where, say, everybody stealth bleeds doesn't require an ounce of skill or thought from anyone, and it resolves in a mechanical manner. The best player, in this case, needs to be the one who gets the best seat (or card drawing luck since in this case the decks are so similar), because everybody is playing a railroaded coinflip deck. > Another hugely ignorant misunderstanding of the game. You should have been at Origins this year to see your theory demolished in more than one final, so you'd be yanked screaming and kicking into the way that VTES really works. I do hope that someday your blinders are removed so that your mind can become opened to the joy of complexity that is the infinite-theory CCG that we call VTES. 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 specifically play VTES because many of the other games out there appear to be elaborate Mexican standoffs or an overly complicated game of Russian Roulette. I promise you, if VTES boiled down to "what order you sit" then I'd roll a d6, do something else for 2 hours and come back to roll a d6 again. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Interesting. The argument is focused decks do well against a number of decks, while diversified decks do decently against all decks. Is it really such a big deal if said toolboxes only do decently against a wide variety of deck instead? No deck should ever be a sure fire way to win a game. Having a less offensive toolbox deck lose to a differentiated deck, ie. a deck which gain a lot of pool, doesn't seem so bad to me.

The Girls deck is essentially a toolbox deck in itself...

> KevinM wrote: > Yeah, that's why the same players keep racking up win after win in the VTES Hall of Fame, because it's all due to seating and odd card draws. > Those players play so many tournaments that of course they get a lot of wins, and obviously they're good enough to build solid decks and play the game that follows seating. > KevinM wrote: > Another hugely ignorant misunderstanding of the game. You should have been at Origins this year to see your theory demolished in more than one final, so you'd be yanked screaming and kicking into the way that VTES really works. > > I do hope that someday your blinders are removed so that your mind can become opened to the joy of complexity that is the infinite-theory CCG that we call VTES. > Yeah, I think differently, it's a shallow game after all. @ Cyrus : I'm not even sure if toolbox decks suck against bloat decks, it's not really a fact at this point. Could as well be that many of them haven't adjusted for the metagame. However the tournament metagame has changed for certain, and the sort of games we get now are so boring, whatever the reason.

I don't understand why you keep completely ignoring the (valid) opinions of the people that have been playing this game for years at the highest level of competition available for VTES. Are you REALLY suggesting that people like Hugh, Ben and Erik are ONLY win a lot of tournament games because they play a lot of tournaments? Let me tell you, I've had the privilege of playing against all three of them and their game is just a whole step ahead of yours. They play near flawless, are masters of deception and of course don't play with bad decks. If VTES would be a complete crapshoot where the deck seating determined the outcome of the game, I can guarantee you there wouldn't have been hundreds (if not thousands) of dedicated players organizing and playing international tournaments of a dead game.

Why not, a lot of people play Warhammer 40k and that used to be resolved with the die roll to determine who gets to go first - like Iron Hands and Space Wolves used to be so good because they got access to a re-roll of the starting die. And I don't mean that those players aren't good, but VTES isn't a skill game to such a degree that they can expect to enter a single tournament, completely outclass everyone and win. Compared to something like, say, Starcraft where the best play for money and outclass your ordinary player crazily.

> Demnogonis wrote: > And I don't mean that those players aren't good, but VTES isn't a skill game to such a degree that they can expect to enter a single tournament, completely outclass everyone and win. Compared to something like, say, Starcraft where the best play for money and outclass your ordinary player crazily. > Now I think you're just trolling, since the statistics completely contradict what you just said. Yes, players like Jay Kristoff, Ben Peal, Matt Morgan, John Bell, Hugh Angseesing, Erik Torstensson, Ruben Feldman, Orian Gissler, and Darby Keeney ARE concerning to play against and DO expect to win every event that they enter, no matter where it is. THAT IS WHY THEY WIN SO OFTEN. Robyn Tatu should probably be on that list, too, and she wins more than some of those players that I mentioned, but she is so low-key -- and a girl besides -- that only those that have had their hopes personally crushed by her are really aware of her at all. Which is part of her strategy, I'm sure. WHICH IS WHY SHE WINS SO OFTEN. Your Starcraft analogy is spurious, since we don't play for money, but I'll bite. What we play for in VTES is two-fold: Bragging rights, and a TDWA entry. In our game, that's as-valuable as money is to the Starcraft players. If we did play for money, every single one of those players I mentioned would have been sponsored for the last 10 years and would have been playing VTES as a living, I guarantee. Certainly, there is a lot to be said in VTES about the 'random' elements of deck choice and table seating. But to continue to deny the skill level of the top players shows that you're either a troll, or delusional. In either case: Please seek help. 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

> Why not, a lot of people play Warhammer 40k and that used to be resolved with the die roll to determine who gets to go first - like Iron Hands and Space Wolves used to be so good because they got access to a re-roll of the starting die. > This analogy doesn't hold true either. The vast majority of the people that play Warhammer do it for the hobby aspect of molding and painting the miniatures. You just get a (rather shitty, IMO) game along with it. > And I don't mean that those players aren't good, but VTES isn't a skill game to such a degree that they can expect to enter a single tournament, completely outclass everyone and win. Compared to something like, say, Starcraft where the best play for money and outclass your ordinary player crazily. > Other than just repeating what Kevin said, they actually DO outclass the ordinary player. Your argument is that the Flashes and Jeadong's (or Neastea's and MVP's is you're into SC2) of VTES don't outclass joe average in that game, while in fact they do. It just happens that they are not playing against Joe Average. They are playing against the Bisu's and Fantasy's of VTES. Sure they'll drop a game occasionally.

> KevinM wrote: > Now I think you're just trolling, since the statistics completely contradict what you just said. > I don't care about that, I don't know the specifics of all the tournaments they have played but until I see it I don't believe anybody can be so magical as to simply go and win a tournament without a good amount of luck, considering that every participant knows how to play the game and didn't bring with them some total crap deck (which is often the case, but unskilled players with bad decks just add another luck element that has to do with seating). Like I said, everybody's pretty experienced already. > KevinM wrote: > Yes, players like Jay Kristoff, Ben Peal, Matt Morgan, John Bell, Hugh Angseesing, Erik Torstensson, Ruben Feldman, Orian Gissler, and Darby Keeney ARE concerning to play against and DO expect to win every event that they enter, no matter where it is. THAT IS WHY THEY WIN SO OFTEN. > What? This is like saying they win because they have psychic powers. > KevinM wrote: > Your Starcraft analogy is spurious, since we don't play for money, but I'll bite. What we play for in VTES is two-fold: Bragging rights, and a TDWA entry. In our game, that's as-valuable as money is to the Starcraft players. If we did play for money, every single one of those players I mentioned would have been sponsored for the last 10 years and would have been playing VTES as a living, I guarantee. > Okay. I don't play for that at all, I wouldn't brag with what I perceive as a result of random chance. I want to play good games with good people. However while it used to be that tournaments were exciting since you knew everybody was going to really try to win and probably packed good decks, too, now they're so monotonous I don't find them much fun, and the competitive aspect is overshadowed by the luck element. > KevinM wrote: > Certainly, there is a lot to be said in VTES about the 'random' elements of deck choice and table seating. But to continue to deny the skill level of the top players shows that you're either a troll, or delusional. In either case: Please seek help. > I continue to state that while these players are skilled, you can't improve that much over the average skill level everybody already has. But continue to worship some VTES players like statues if you so wish. > Izaak wrote: > This analogy doesn't hold true either. The vast majority of the people that play Warhammer do it for the hobby aspect of molding and painting the miniatures. You just get a (rather shitty, IMO) game along with it. > Well, no argument there, except that there used to be a lot of WH40k players who wouldn't even bother painting their miniatures (or gluing them together in some cases), they were in it for the game. The same goes for WHFB, I have played against an army where there was a headless horse, some elf and a dog without tail, resembling nine Bretonnian Grail Knights. I'm just saying, people play games for a lot of different reasons. > Izaak wrote: > Your argument is that the Flashes and Jeadong's (or Neastea's and MVP's is you're into SC2) of VTES don't outclass joe average in that game, while in fact they do. It just happens that they are not playing against Joe Average. They are playing against the Bisu's and Fantasy's of VTES. Sure they'll drop a game occasionally. > No, my argument is that there aren't Flashes or Jeadongs, since that kind of divergence of skill from the general level isn't possible.

> No, my argument is that there aren't Flashes or Jeadongs, since that kind of divergence of skill from the general level isn't possible. > Well.. then you're either not following SC/SC2 or have no idea about V:TES. Pick whichever you one prefer.

> Demnogonis wrote: > No, my argument is that there aren't Flashes or Jeadongs, since that kind of divergence of skill from the general level isn't possible. > Bell curve, FTW. Not only is it possible, it happens. There have been maybe 40 Continental Championships ever. There are probably only a dozen players who have actually won one of these. Brian Moritz is another such elite consistent player. Conversely, think about how many players out there have never won a tournament. If you have a robust casual play group, think about those players who win tables at best 1 out of 10 games they play. You know these people exist, but they diverge in the other direction. I think the best argument against your fallacious proposition is that VTES is a multi-player game. The inherent strength of some cards is more than balanced against them because of "table hate." Yes, some cards and some strategies tend to dominate, but it's mainly the players who make it happen. You can't just give a Girls deck to any random player and expect them to wreck every table. Now, I sleep. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

So, your claim is that a limited number of players (as listed by KJM and added to by others) have due to random chance been multiple-time-winners of Continental Championships in Europe and Nth America. Let me inform you, that such a statistical anomaly to a random distribution would make me immediately claim "bull-crap". If it is random chance, then the Archon's Ideal Table seating must completely favour a limited number of people (e.g. the game is rigged so those players consistently win) OR the alternative is that it is NOT just random chance and other factors must impact on the game (e.g. some people are better players than others). Since I'm happy to assume that people are NOT rigging the game worldwide to favour Hugh Angseeing et al... the only other conclusion is that random chance does not win games but skill must be a significant contributing factor. At your claim that some people have psychic powers, it's probably just a combination of extensive experience of the game, bluffing and reading faces. Basically the same skill set that tends to make good poker players. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Demnogonis wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > Now I think you're just trolling, since the statistics completely contradict what you just said. > > > I don't care about that, > {snip} > Then nothing else you have to say is worthy of discussion. 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

> Demnogonis wrote: > What? This is like saying they win because they have psychic powers. > Play with Kamel Senni at a table and you know what manipulating other players mean. And that it doesn't have to do a yota with luck. Seriously. If you lose it is definitely not only bad luck (most often). It is the way how you play. And only if you manage to find out what it was it makes you a better player. The good players win despite the odds, that's what makes them good. Baron of Frankfurt

> Izaak wrote: > Well.. then you're either not following SC/SC2 or have no idea about V:TES. Pick whichever you one prefer. > I mean in VTES, of course it's possible in SC which is a skill-based strategy game. > Jeff wrote: > Bell curve, FTW. > > Not only is it possible, it happens. There have been maybe 40 Continental Championships ever. There are probably only a dozen players who have actually won one of these. Brian Moritz is another such elite consistent player. > That is interesting. I think that these players, perhaps, used to be as roughly as good back then, when most players hadn't caught up with experience. I also suppose a lot of people don't enter these tournaments regularly so they don't know what they are like. Well, experience is skill so in that regard I suppose those top players are good at these tournaments, but I'm not thinking about that at all but play skill. > Jeff wrote: > Conversely, think about how many players out there have never won a tournament. If you have a robust casual play group, think about those players who win tables at best 1 out of 10 games they play. You know these people exist, but they diverge in the other direction. > I don't know any such players save for one guy who has no idea at all how to play any game, whom I consider a massive luck element if he enters any tournament. I should also say that I don't really consider deck choice to be skill - of course all of us know the tired, T1 decks, but choosing them doesn't make you more skilled, just more likely to win than with something different. > Jeff wrote: > I think the best argument against your fallacious proposition is that VTES is a multi-player game. The inherent strength of some cards is more than balanced against them because of "table hate." Yes, some cards and some strategies tend to dominate, but it's mainly the players who make it happen. You can't just give a Girls deck to any random player and expect them to wreck every table. > I'm not talking about decks, either, well not anymore. A girls deck can dominate in some positions, well a lot of positions I think. A solid stealth bleed deck can dominate in some positions, but it's choices are so limited it's a luck based strategy in my eyes. Yet many win tournaments because it's such a popular archetype. > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > So, your claim is that a limited number of players (as listed by KJM and added to by others) have due to random chance been multiple-time-winners of Continental Championships in Europe and Nth America. Let me inform you, that such a statistical anomaly to a random distribution would make me immediately claim "bull-crap". > No, my claim is that people that go to every tournament on earth get a lot of tournament wins because the luck factor evens out the more you play. My claim is that an individual game of VTES is a game of chance because of how much seating, something you can't control, affects the game. And my claim is that people left in VTES are so skilled and experienced now, in my perception, that the brightest don't seem that bright anymore and I doubt it is possible to have such a skill you can win an individual game just by skill. Bah, I shouldn't have started talking about this tournament and top player stuff anyway, there's a lot more going on in tournaments than just the game. > Jeff wrote: > If it is random chance, then the Archon's Ideal Table seating > I don't know what that is and couldn't find it with Google. > Jeff wrote: > At your claim that some people have psychic powers, it's probably just a combination of extensive experience of the game, bluffing and reading faces. Basically the same skill set that tends to make good poker players. > I was just responding to Kevin's nonsensical statement that these players win because they want to. > KevinM wrote: > I don't care about that, > {snip} > Then nothing else you have to say is worthy of discussion.[/quote] 'k. Nice talking to 'ya. > Joscha wrote: > Play with Kamel Senni at a table and you know what manipulating other players mean. And that it doesn't have to do a yota with luck. Seriously. > I know what that means, everybody can do that. > Joscha wrote: > If you lose it is definitely not only bad luck (most often). It is the way how you play. And only if you manage to find out what it was it makes you a better player. The good players win despite the odds, that's what makes them good. > It is ordinary luck, after all there are usually four losers in a game of VTES. Rarely it has to do with anything else than the dynamics between the decks, a result of seating.

> Demnogonis wrote: > It is ordinary luck, after all there are usually four losers in a game of VTES. Rarely it has to do with anything else than the dynamics between the decks, a result of seating. > Well, here is the thing. I'd never claim that luck of seating is not a significant factor in a game of VTES. As it is a very significant factor--as they say, "Man with no predator wins game". Which is true. What decks you randomly sit next to has a *huge* impact on the game, as VTES is very Paper/Scissor/Rock. What seat you are next to, what decks are at the table, and how you happen to draw cards in a given game have a lot to do with weather you win a given game or not. This is all true. That being said, player skill also has a lot to do with winning. Building a good deck, playing the cards you draw well, and doing what you can with the random position you end up in is just as significant. Being a good player in VTES means that you make the right moves at the right time, play the right cards that you happen to draw in the right circumstances. Being a good player in VTES means you build your deck well and know how to play it. Yes. People who play VTES tournaments a lot have more opportunities to win a lot. But that doesn't mean that all players win 1/5th of their games, in the grand scheme, which is what would be the case if your claim that VTES was governed simply by luck. There are plenty of people who play in regular groups. And over the long haul, in those groups, some people win more often than others. Which, if the game was purely random chance, wouldn't happen. People who win lots of tournaments do so 'cause they are good at the game. In ways that transcend pure random chance. Like, I'd never claim that I'm the best VTES player in the world or anything. But I've been playing a log time, and I'm reasonably good. And I win more often than, say, friends who haven't been playing as long and don't grasp the game as well as I do, for example. And this isn't just the result of "I play a lot so my 1/5th chance of winning each game randomly adds up!". Again, I'm no VTES genius or anything. But I'm pretty good. And I win more often than people who are less pretty good than me. And people who are better at VTES than me win more often than I do. All of which adds up to "there is significantly more to this game than pure, random chance". People who go to a lot of tournaments and win a lot do so 'cause they are good at the parts of the game that are not governed by chance. Using Matt Morgan as an example as, A) He just won the NAC, B ) (can I again point out that I hate automated smiley code? Really? I can't type "B" and a parenthesis without getting a stupid sunglasses smiley face? For real?) He wins a lot in general, and C) I've played a lot of games with him. Matt doesn't win a lot of VTES 'cause he is insanely lucky in terms of seating. And he doesn't win a lot of games if VTES 'cause he uses psychic (or just mundane) powers of mind control to get people to do what he wants. He wins a lot of games of VTES 'cause he understands the game very well, makes good decks, and can play the position he is dealt very well. He has specific, concrete skills involving the strategy and tactics of the game. Yes. The position he sits in and what he is next to is very random. But what you do with that position and what cards you draw is completely skill based. And is something that you can be good at (and thus win a lot) or bad at (and thus lose a lot). This is *skill*. Not luck. Yeah, sometimes you just win 'cause you are lucky or lose 'cause you are unlucky. Most games are like that. And luck certainly has an impact on the game. But skill in building a deck and playing a position is just as, if not more so, significant than pure chance.

> KevinM wrote: > What we play for in VTES is two-fold: Bragging rights, and a TDWA entry. > And the funny thing is that every top player I've ever met has been really down to earth guy who doesn't brag with his/her results. Quite the opposite really as they seem to be quite modest as well as helpful & encouraging towards not-so-able co-players. While seating des have some effect in the game the biggest point still is the player skill. Hey, I've played quite a lot and look at my win ratio... Finnish Politics!

> bakija wrote: > That being said, player skill also has a lot to do with winning. Building a good deck, playing the cards you draw well, and doing what you can with the random position you end up in is just as significant. Being a good player in VTES means that you make the right moves at the right time, play the right cards that you happen to draw in the right circumstances. Being a good player in VTES means you build your deck well and know how to play it. > Exactly. I don't mean to say that VTES is purely a luck game. I'm saying it has a significant luck element that cannot be overcome with pure skill. I'm saying that very often any player has a 1/5 chance to sit in the winning position, it doesn't always happen, but it's common enough, and with that, to win a lot you need to play a lot. Originally I was arguing that bit about master bloat forcing less toolboxy decks with less options, because that kind of a game is simply boring random chance to me. Well here's a thing, if we have a scenario where everybody is playing decks with options, and none of them are hard counters to the next, we play a game where skill matters much more - then I'm willing to say we see even great differences in skill.

> Demnogonis wrote: > Exactly. I don't mean to say that VTES is purely a luck game. I'm saying it has a significant luck element that cannot be overcome with pure skill. I'm saying that very often any player has a 1/5 chance to sit in the winning position, it doesn't always happen, but it's common enough, and with that, to win a lot you need to play a lot. > Well, sure. But you can say that about lot of games--Poker, which is a very skill based game, is very influenced by luck. And yet the people who are good at poker win a lot more often than people who are not good at poker. And it has nothing to do with luck. I mean, yeah, if you only ever get dealt bad cards, even the best players in the world won't win much. But as luck tends to average out, the game is far more about skill then chance.

Agreed, well from what I understand of poker, you play so many hands over so many games in poker that the luck thing evens out, after all people wouldn't be able to earn their living with it otherwise. This is also why I say the top players win a lot of tournaments, because they enter a lot of tournaments. However a single VTES game has one seating, and a single tournament has two-three + finals usually, so getting a win seat or suck seat even once is significant. Especially in the finals.

> Demnogonis wrote: > This is also why I say the top players win a lot of tournaments, because they enter a lot of tournaments. > Well, yes. There are people who enter a lot of tournaments and win a lot. But there are also people who enter just as many tournaments who don't win at all. Which, again, supports the idea that skill is more important than luck. Yes. Sometimes you get a horrible seat and get killed due to a bad RPS issue. Sometimes you get a horrible shuffle and get killed due to your deck not working. And usually, skill won't save you from this. But over the long haul in VTES, skill is likely more important than luck is. As luck averages out. Skill doesn't.

> bakija wrote: > > > Demnogonis wrote: > > This is also why I say the top players win a lot of tournaments, because they enter a lot of tournaments. > > > Well, yes. There are people who enter a lot of tournaments and win a lot. But there are also people who enter just as many tournaments who don't win at all. > > Which, again, supports the idea that skill is more important than luck. > > Yes. Sometimes you get a horrible seat and get killed due to a bad RPS issue. Sometimes you get a horrible shuffle and get killed due to your deck not working. And usually, skill won't save you from this. But over the long haul in VTES, skill is likely more important than luck is. As luck averages out. Skill doesn't. > Neither luck nor skill averages out. And skill count, for a lot. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Lech wrote: > Neither luck nor skill averages out. And skill count, for a lot. > Well, no, luck does, in fact, average out. As that is what luck does. If you roll a single 6 sided die and take the result, it will not seem average ("I got a 6! I win!"). If you roll a 6 sided die 100 times, you will roll each number about 1/6th of the time. And the more you roll it, the closer it will get to exactly 1/6th of the time. Assuming 5 player games, on average, you will win 1 game in 5 (well, really, a little less if you consider 2-2-1 ties, but let's just go with it for now). And the more games you play, assuming you are completely average, you will approach winning 1 game in 5. If you are completely average (again, ignoring ties), you will win 1 game in 5 and average out to 1VP per game. That is middle. People who are good win more often than that. People who are less good win less often than that. And as people do win more often than 1 in 5, and people lose more often than 4 times in 5, there is more to the game than pure chance.

I think Vtes takes lot of skill but biggest luck factor comes from seating. Major reason for this luck factor is that people still play too random decks in tournaments and random I mean not so optimized decks. Vtes tournament scene has been surprisingly varied compared to some other games. It is very hard to predict the metagame. Lately Vtes tournament scene has become bit more focused which is only good thing. It's not bad thing that there is only 5-10 strong archetypes which you see always. In that situation you know how to plan your deck and what you are playing against. In focused tournament skill also matters the most. Bad player will lose with girls or some netdeck anyway. Contesting crypt cards of course can be totally random thing that kills you (which is totally stupid rule but that is other topic) It takes lot of skil in Vtes also to adapt new situaition you will face b/c random seating but sometimes that can be asking too much. Last tournament with 90 players I had 2 gw before third game. In that final game my predator was playing with random deck which shouldnt maybe belong to tournament. Not surprisingly neither of us won and I didnt go to finals. But still I see the same names in top20 of almost every tournament so there must lot of skill in Vtes. Luck can just affect in what order those names are in that top20.

> Xaddam wrote: > You cannot have a 90-card deck with Confusion of the Eye, Touch of Pain or Wider View if you're going up against Girls. > Ummm... Wider View? It's pretty much an autoinclude for me if my crypt isn't made up of just a single vampire or alternatively every vampire being unique. The ability to rearrange your uncontrolled region to your liking is absolutely huge and the cost of a trifle MPA that provides you with a pool is laughably low. As for your definition of "versatile", I agree with Suoli that your definition is a really strange one that doesn't seem to have much in common with the usual nomenclature. Euro Brujah, to take a well-known archetype that tends to do somewhat well, is a very versatile deck type in that it features bleed, politics, rush combat, bounces and intercept.

> Surreal wrote: > I think Vtes takes lot of skill but biggest luck factor comes from seating. Major reason for this luck factor is that people still play too random decks in tournaments and random I mean not so optimized decks. > Please define "optimized". It is not trivial in a multiplayer and incomplete information game. Surprise factor and low table hate are not to be neglected. > > Vtes tournament scene has been surprisingly varied compared to some other games. It is very hard to predict the metagame. Lately Vtes tournament scene has become bit more focused which is only good thing. It's not bad thing that there is only 5-10 strong archetypes which you see always. In that situation you know how to plan your deck and what you are playing against. > Circular logic here: it is better to have few archetypes because it favors archetypes. Besides, I think most players disagree with you: a varied tournament scene IS a desirable objective on its own because it makes tournaments more appealing: why should I get up at 6am and go to some far place to see the same decks that are all over the internet? > > It takes lot of skil in Vtes also to adapt new situaition you will face b/c random seating but sometimes that can be asking too much. Last tournament with 90 players I had 2 gw before third game. In that final game my predator was playing with random deck which shouldnt maybe belong to tournament. Not surprisingly neither of us won and I didnt go to finals. > Now you just sound like a sore loser. Are you really blaming your predator for bringing a deck that shuts yours?

> Non-existant user wrote: > Now you just sound like a sore loser. Are you really blaming your predator for bringing a deck that shuts yours? > I can't speak for Surreal but I've seen decks in tournies that I don't think belong in tournaments. The one taking the cake was a Beast and Theo rush deck whose oust mechanism was "bleed for one with two minions once all the other vampires are in torpor". So in effect it randomly destroyed someone's game (in essence giving a huge boost to it's grand prey) and never was even close to getting an oust.

How do you know he didn't just fail to draw his pool damage cards? And even if he didn't play them, that's beside the point. You can blame your predator for failing to turn prey-crushing into a vp, but you can only blame yourself when you get crushed by him. Or to say it differently: you got crushed by a deck and it was a bad deck. You did not get crushed because it was a bad deck.

> Non-existant user wrote: > Please define "optimized". It is not trivial in a multiplayer and incomplete information game. Surprise factor and low table hate are not to be neglected. > Optimized decks I mean are decks which are working archetypes or decks that can play well against most of them. Awesome if somebody can make up working deck for surprise factor also which work against many decks. I just see "bad decks" too often, like Harrod is just bad vampire whatever secret tech you try to include. Table hate is very hard thing to predict and I see it more thing of table talk and how you play the deck not what deck you play. > Non-existant user wrote: > Circular logic here: it is better to have few archetypes because it favors archetypes. > > Besides, I think most players disagree with you: a varied tournament scene IS a desirable objective on its own because it makes tournaments more appealing: why should I get up at 6am and go to some far place to see the same decks that are all over the internet? > Well, that's my point and what I would like to see. I don't mind favouring archetypes at all. The question really is are there too few working tournament decks and do people like playing with or against those decks. I still see a lot of variety in Vtes tournaments and there are very many working decks so don't see that as problem. Many will answer that question differently. Althoght I see strong master cards as problem also (or extra master phase actions is the real problem) but lets not go to what this whole topic was originally about . I don't even mind playing against same DEM bleed netdeck as my predator every game of tournament b/c my deck should manage that. I don't even find that boring at all. Of course I don't want to play that kind of Vtes everytime, I see Vtes in tournament and Vtes in friendly games almost different games, both which I enjoy a lot. Just not a fan of some random trick/funny deck messing table balance and upping the random meter in tournament. Those decks are ok for friendly games. > Non-existant user wrote: > Now you just sound like a sore loser. Are you really blaming your predator for bringing a deck that shuts yours? > You misunderstood me. It is totally cool to oust me and destroy my deck. But not so cool to destroy my deck but not manage to oust me even nearly.

> Non-existant user wrote: > Or to say it differently: you got crushed by a deck and it was a bad deck. You did not get crushed because it was a bad deck. > Well, situation was bit more complicated in that tourney. My predators two first vampires were Koko and Dimple so I was expecting normal nosfe royalty. I got hit by 11 pool dmg before rushing both to torpor. Predators third vampire was Harrod without playing villein/tap so grand predators bleed deck had easy work killing my predator. Bleed decks predator was wall deck with very little foward momentum so it was perfect spot for bleed deck. That example is not so good but there is a problem when decks are not very close in power level in the same table. Random seating can affect the outcome too much then. > Lemminkäinen wrote: > I can't speak for Surreal but I've seen decks in tournies that I don't think belong in tournaments. The one taking the cake was a Beast and Theo rush deck whose oust mechanism was "bleed for one with two minions once all the other vampires are in torpor". So in effect it randomly destroyed someone's game (in essence giving a huge boost to it's grand prey) and never was even close to getting an oust. > I think I know what deck you are talking about if it was this year Ropecon. It had dragonbound and anarch revolts at least.

Well, I'm not a fan of bad decks in tournaments, either. In friendly games it's cool to play that Shadow Parasite lol deck, because it's funny, but in a tournament it's probably going to make a lot of no predator / free VP situations.

> Non-existant user wrote: > How do you know he didn't just fail to draw his pool damage cards? And even if he didn't play them, that's beside the point. You can blame your predator for failing to turn prey-crushing into a vp, but you can only blame yourself when you get crushed by him. > > Or to say it differently: you got crushed by a deck and it was a bad deck. You did not get crushed because it was a bad deck. > He told me he had one Fame in a 90 card deck and that was all the pool damage he could do besides bleed for one. I mean, I suppose it's possible that he was lying but that's very much beside the point. Also, I didn't get crushed by him. Him crushing his prey meant that his grand prey had a free reign and took the table. As an aside, I now see why Suoli didn't want to give a concrete example earlier as all of this is beside the point. My point is that I have seen very, very bad decks in tournaments and that skews the game in a random way. I mean, all the skill in the world and the best deck ever can be trumped randomly by a deck that isn't looking for VPs but merely for maximum mayhem. > Surreal wrote: > I think I know what deck you are talking about if it was this year Ropecon. It had dragonbound and anarch revolts at least. > Last year's Ropecon. This year I didn't run into any horrid decks.