'Rush Deck NT' (my sucky new Brujah deck)

So I was kinda tired of playing my old effective Brujah pot/cel rush deck, so I turned it into this one for the novelty value of using those cool Brujah princes and justicars and such. Unfortunately when I played it for the first time last night I was unceremoniously defeated by hand- jam, unfortunate vampire draw, and THE CONSPIRACY OF MY PREDATOR AND PREY TO REMOVE ME FROM THE GAME! Ahem. Sorry about that. ;-) It went like this: My initial vamp draw was Dr. Dre, Jacob Bragggg, Jimmy Dunn, and Gwendolyn. I went second. So I put one on each of Dre and Bragg; my second turn I brought them both out; my third turn I brought Dunn out. My fourth turn, I paid one to look at another vamp, knowing that Gwendolyn, while loaded with votes, couldn't play my 5th Traditions, 2nd traditions, Anathemas, or Archons. Found Constanza Vinti, exactly what I was looking for. Sadly, before my fifth turn, I was bled for nine (seven from one vamp, two from another), reducing me to seven pool and making me unable to get out the necessary Constanza. Bo. Now, this didn't have to happen. My predator (Jon Sushinsky) was playing a Toreador/Anti-Toreador presence bleed deck. He brought out Jost Werner first, so I pounded him down to 0 blood (but unfortunately not to torpor). Jon slapped a Blood Doll on him so he could harm me instead of hunting... Next Jon brought out Alexandra (yipe!). I pounded her into torpor with Jimmy Dunn before she got to take an action. Tried to bleed to get the edge and then diablerize, but was blocked bleeding (my prey, Jon Evers, was playing an anti-Nosferatu combat/intercept/Army of Rats/stuff deck), so that failed. So then my prey rescued Alexandra from torpor for my predator, cause he didn't want Jon S to be unable to put pressure on me. Great. So the next turn, Alexandra gained Blood Doll, a point of blood, and came to bleed tapped-out me with Social Charm and Aire of Elation for seven. Plus Jost on the Social Charm for two. Oh look, now I suck. Well anyway, so much for my pointless anecdote; I was ultimately ousted by Jon S Telepathic Misdirecting two stealthy bleeds my way from his predator (Trey Morita) with the Obf/Pres bleed deck. Oh well. So the upshot is, I think my deck could have done somewhat better if (a) I had not had four master cards clog my hand all at once or (b) I had managed to get out a Prince/Justicar for Minion Tap/5th Traditioning before being reduced to insufficient pool to start that trick. So here's the deck. Tell me if you have any good ideas for making it work better, preferably while preserving the Prince/Justicar angle, although I'm thinking that maybe I ought to lose the votes (which I may be completely unable to win in the first place) and stick with just the P/J cards, maybe add some 3rd Trad: Progeny or something. (The deck was partly inspired by "Joanie Loves Chachi", but I didn't want to make it a two-vamp deck. Well, plus I don't have six each of Constanza and Donal. Although if I did, that might not be completely a bad idea. Oh wait, yes it would.) crypt (13 vamps just cause I like using 13): Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn - 3 pot cel Jacob Bragg - 3 pot cel Jimmy Dunn x2 - 4 POT CEL Volker the Puppet Prince x2 - 5 pot CEL prince Rake - 6 pot cel prince Anvil - 6 POT CEL primogen Bianca - 6 pot CEL 2 hand damage Donal O'Connor - 8 POT CEL prince Constanza Vinti - 8 POT CEL prince Don Cruez the Idealist - 10 POT CEL justicar Gwendolyn - 11 POT CEL inner circle +2 bleed --- I think Gwendolyn is probably a bad idea after all. The theory is that she can help pass votes, and she's the best for Minion Tapping or Golconda'ing, but she can't play any of my P/J cards. library (90): masters: 3x Potence 2x Celerity 4x Haven Uncovered 5x Minion Tap 2x Golconda Inner Peace actions: 4x Bum's Rush 3x Ambush 4x 5th Tradition Hospitality 3x Leather Jacket Brujah Justicar 2x Anathema (accidentally lost one of those somewhere, used to have 3) 4x Archon reactions: 3x 2nd Tradition Domain combat: 12x Immortal Grapple 11x Torn Signpost 7x Blur 7x Taste of Vitae 2x Fists of Death 2x Pushing the Limit 3x Undead Strength 4x Flash 2x Amaranth --- The idea behind the combat card split was to try and make fewer cards per combat still do the work of putting vamps in torpor - eg superior Signpost superior Grapple superior Blur for 9 damage, rather than superior Signpost superior Grapple superior Undead Strength for 5, press with Grapple, maybe Grapple again, hit for 3-5... In this way I figured I could get away with reducing the proportion of combat cards in the deck and putting other interesting stuff in. (used to be about 60 combat/30 non including 13 masters.) At the same time, the Archons are intended to reduce the need for as many Rush actions, again to save space. Problem is it's all still in theory, since I didn't even draw an Archon let alone get to play one. I'd like to play this deck (but may well end up playing its predecessor) at the tourney LSJ is running in Columbia next weekend, but I'd have to be more confident that it would work well. (Clearly I am obligated to play one combat deck or another, as it is my sworn mission in life to defend the tourney viability of combat decks.) Josh 'got killed by ten million pounds of sludge from new york and new jersey' -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own

The Josh-i-nator wrote: "crypt (13 vamps just cause I like using 13): Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn - 3 pot cel Jacob Bragg - 3 pot cel Jimmy Dunn x2 - 4 POT CEL Volker the Puppet Prince x2 - 5 pot CEL prince Rake - 6 pot cel prince Anvil - 6 POT CEL primogen Bianca - 6 pot CEL 2 hand damage Donal O'Connor - 8 POT CEL prince Constanza Vinti - 8 POT CEL prince Don Cruez the Idealist - 10 POT CEL justicar Gwendolyn - 11 POT CEL inner circle +2 bleed" As much as I love Gwendolyn, and even though I had her in my most recent Brujah-Titled Vampires-Thrown Object-Rush deck, I would say lose her, and defenitely go with 2 Constanzas (as who doesn't want to be _her_ love slave?). I'v also been a bit sketchy on Bianca. Isn't there some !Bru who is better for cheaper? Comander Sela? The guy with +1 hand damage who is a 7? Someone? Or, just another Donal... "3x Potence 2x Celerity 4x Haven Uncovered 5x Minion Tap 2x Golconda Inner Peace" 16 Masters, huh? As you say, it was probably clog city. I'd also want some Blood Dolls in there (for that long term bonus as to get you out of tight spots). "4x Bum's Rush 3x Ambush 4x 5th Tradition Hospitality 3x Leather Jacket Brujah Justicar 2x Anathema (accidentally lost one of those somewhere, used to have 3) 4x Archon" 3 Leather Jackets? Wha? I mean, yeah, they are cool and all, but wha? And you can have, like, 4 Archons at once, right? That is strong. "3x 2nd Tradition Domain" Squeze in more of these. They kick ass. You'll have 3 more slots when you take out the Leather Jackets :-) "12x Immortal Grapple 11x Torn Signpost 7x Blur 7x Taste of Vitae 2x Fists of Death 2x Pushing the Limit 3x Undead Strength 4x Flash 2x Amaranth" Very Industry Standard. The Flash is always tricky, and I can assume you are only using 4 due to the local meta-action. More than 2 Amaranths would probably be good (4?). I'd also put in one (just one, no more) Death of my Consience (which I can't spell, apparently). It is freaking hysterical, and it helps unsightly hand jam real well. Maybe a single Burning Wrath as well... Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "Occasionally I'm callous and strange" -Willow Rosenberg

In article <79uu94$nc$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Joshua Duffin <jt...@cornell.edu> wrote: >crypt (13 vamps just cause I like using 13): > >Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn - 3 pot cel >Jacob Bragg - 3 pot cel >Jimmy Dunn x2 - 4 POT CEL >Volker the Puppet Prince x2 - 5 pot CEL prince >Rake - 6 pot cel prince >Anvil - 6 POT CEL primogen >Bianca - 6 pot CEL 2 hand damage >Donal O'Connor - 8 POT CEL prince >Constanza Vinti - 8 POT CEL prince >Don Cruez the Idealist - 10 POT CEL justicar >Gwendolyn - 11 POT CEL inner circle +2 bleed >--- >I think Gwendolyn is probably a bad idea after all. The theory >is that she can help pass votes, and she's the best for Minion Tapping >or Golconda'ing, but she can't play any of my P/J cards. Indeed. 11 of your pool/transfers for something that can't do what your deck needs to do. If you did manage to get her out early, you'd need to be using the P/J cards quickly or else you'd lose, and instead they'd jam your hand. I'd be tempted to ditch Bianca and Anvil for Lupo/Koko/Hesina, since your crypt is large enough as it is -- you're unlikely to be able to easily get out all of your starting crypt, and against alot of decks pot is enough. Besides, shouldn't the Princes have their lackeys? ;-) >masters: >3x Potence >2x Celerity >4x Haven Uncovered >5x Minion Tap >2x Golconda Inner Peace Looks to me like you don't need any Cel cards, and I'd go to 2 potence. This would add more space for Minion Taps, and some badly needed hand cycling. 2 Cel, 1 Pot -> Barrens, Dreams of the Sphinx, Minion Tap. >actions: >4x Bum's Rush >3x Ambush >4x 5th Tradition Hospitality >3x Leather Jacket I'm just not a leather jacket fan. I'd rather have Sideslip. >Brujah Justicar >2x Anathema (accidentally lost one of those somewhere, used to have 3) >4x Archon Banishment (although rather cheezy IMHO) would be good too. I'd also rather have 5 or 6 Archons, so you can get them early, and discard/push duplicates later. >reactions: >3x 2nd Tradition Domain I think I'd rather have more Taps/5ths personally. >combat: >12x Immortal Grapple >11x Torn Signpost >7x Blur >7x Taste of Vitae >2x Fists of Death >2x Pushing the Limit >3x Undead Strength >4x Flash >2x Amaranth Do you really need the Potence Strikes? I'd just add more FoD (well, assuming you can get them). With that much 5th tradition/Taste of Vitae I'd also look into a few Burning Wraths (seems fitting somehow). -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

In article <7a0n0a$o5r$1...@news.NERO.NET>, phil...@tx.ENGR.ORST.EDU (Jasper Phillips) wrote: > In article <79uu94$nc$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > Joshua Duffin <jt...@cornell.edu> wrote: > >crypt (13 vamps just cause I like using 13): > > > >Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn - 3 pot cel > >Jacob Bragg - 3 pot cel > >Jimmy Dunn x2 - 4 POT CEL > >Volker the Puppet Prince x2 - 5 pot CEL prince > >Rake - 6 pot cel prince > >Anvil - 6 POT CEL primogen > >Bianca - 6 pot CEL 2 hand damage > >Donal O'Connor - 8 POT CEL prince > >Constanza Vinti - 8 POT CEL prince > >Don Cruez the Idealist - 10 POT CEL justicar > >Gwendolyn - 11 POT CEL inner circle +2 bleed > >--- > >I think Gwendolyn is probably a bad idea after all. The theory > >is that she can help pass votes, and she's the best for Minion Tapping > >or Golconda'ing, but she can't play any of my P/J cards. > > Indeed. 11 of your pool/transfers for something that can't do what your > deck needs to do. If you did manage to get her out early, you'd need > to be using the P/J cards quickly or else you'd lose, and instead > they'd jam your hand. I'd be tempted to ditch Bianca and Anvil for > Lupo/Koko/Hesina, since your crypt is large enough as it is -- you're > unlikely to be able to easily get out all of your starting crypt, > and against alot of decks pot is enough. > > Besides, shouldn't the Princes have their lackeys? ;-) Yeah, I know, and I like small vamps, but the whole theory behind this deck was to use the big fat Princes as the meat of the deck... and that I would need to have at least a couple titled vamps out to have a shot at passing things like Archon and Anathema. But I might be better off doubling up on all three 'good' princes (Volker/Constanza/Donal), and dropping Rake, Gwen, Don Cruez, and Bianca, and then possibly losing the votes for simple P/J cards. > >masters: > >3x Potence > >2x Celerity > >4x Haven Uncovered > >5x Minion Tap > >2x Golconda Inner Peace > > Looks to me like you don't need any Cel cards, and I'd go to 2 potence. > This would add more space for Minion Taps, and some badly needed > hand cycling. 2 Cel, 1 Pot -> Barrens, Dreams of the Sphinx, Minion Tap. But I've got, um, three whole vamps with inferior Cel! Uh, yeah. Now that I look at the actual skills, you're probably right. And the hand cycling does seem to be badly needed. Maybe Barrens and Fragment (don't have any Dreams unfortunately) or Elder Library... > I'm just not a leather jacket fan. I'd rather have Sideslip. Yeah, me too, except that the person I would Sideslip against uses a bunch of Scorpion Stings in his Gangrel deck - plus, there are a couple other Potence combat decks that get played sometimes. And I was figuring that with the 2nd Traditions and all, it might be reasonable to pick some fights by blocking instead of rushing. > Banishment (although rather cheezy IMHO) would be good too. > I'd also rather have 5 or 6 Archons, so you can get them early, and > discard/push duplicates later. Yeah, but I hate Banishment. Plus I don't think I own any. More Archons might be better, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pass them in the first place, especially in a tournament... my 'argument in favor' would pretty much have to be 'Well, if you don't vote against it, I won't come over and beat up your Prince and then call another one'... but that isn't exactly guaranteed to go over well. > >reactions: > >3x 2nd Tradition Domain > > I think I'd rather have more Taps/5ths personally. Yah, maybe; I was just trying to work in some flexibility seeing as it's not exactly a completely 'traditional' Brujah rush deck. > Do you really need the Potence Strikes? I'd just add more FoD (well, > assuming you can get them). With that much 5th tradition/Taste of > Vitae I'd also look into a few Burning Wraths (seems fitting somehow). Yah, I only have the two Fists of Death. I could probably get more though. Burning Wrath might not completely suck here actually; it would certainly avoid that annoying 'I sent her to torpor but then she got rescued by my prey!' angle. ;-) thanks for the advice, Josh [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <19990211165918...@ng118.aol.com>, pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > The Josh-i-nator wrote: > "crypt (13 vamps just cause I like using 13): > > Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn - 3 pot cel > Jacob Bragg - 3 pot cel > Jimmy Dunn x2 - 4 POT CEL > Volker the Puppet Prince x2 - 5 pot CEL prince > Rake - 6 pot cel prince > Anvil - 6 POT CEL primogen > Bianca - 6 pot CEL 2 hand damage > Donal O'Connor - 8 POT CEL prince > Constanza Vinti - 8 POT CEL prince > Don Cruez the Idealist - 10 POT CEL justicar > Gwendolyn - 11 POT CEL inner circle +2 bleed" > > As much as I love Gwendolyn, and even though I had her in my most recent > Brujah-Titled Vampires-Thrown Object-Rush deck, I would say lose her, and > defenitely go with 2 Constanzas (as who doesn't want to be _her_ love slave?). > I'v also been a bit sketchy on Bianca. Isn't there some !Bru who is better for > cheaper? Comander Sela? The guy with +1 hand damage who is a 7? Someone? > Or, just another Donal... Another Donal maybe. Richter (+1 hand CEL POT 7) is better maybe, but not cheaper, and he's not worth a vote for Brujah Justicar. Commander Sela's cute, but she's 6 POT cel Bishop +1 bleed, no +hand, and I think +1 hand/CEL is better than POT/cel no +1 hand here. Rigby is 5 CEL pot, which is just like Volker and Black Cat, and she has no votes or anything else cool. > "3x Potence > 2x Celerity > 4x Haven Uncovered > 5x Minion Tap > 2x Golconda Inner Peace" > > 16 Masters, huh? As you say, it was probably clog city. I'd also want some > Blood Dolls in there (for that long term bonus as to get you out of tight > spots). Yeah, I love Blood Dolls, but the immediate rush of Minion Tap is just so satisfying... so it's hard for me to justify putting in Blood Dolls rather than more Taps. > "4x Bum's Rush > 3x Ambush > 4x 5th Tradition Hospitality > 3x Leather Jacket > Brujah Justicar > 2x Anathema (accidentally lost one of those somewhere, used to have 3) > 4x Archon" > > 3 Leather Jackets? Wha? I mean, yeah, they are cool and all, but wha? And > you can have, like, 4 Archons at once, right? That is strong. Leather Jackets are a metagame move against Gangrel combat (punch for 2 agg with Scorpion Sting) and other Potence combat decks. Although if your point is that they're probably not a good tournament metagame move, you're probably right. Yeah, 4 Archons at once would be nothing but buff. See, what I really want to be able to do is have Archons running rampant and diablerizing people left and right. The problem is being able to have vote superiority without overly compromising combat ability. I'm reeeealy dubious about putting in any specific vote-passing cards like Bewitching Oration, but not sure if I can really pass anything without them... > "3x 2nd Tradition Domain" > > Squeze in more of these. They kick ass. You'll have 3 more slots when you > take out the Leather Jackets :-) heh. I think I only own three 2nd traditions though.. maybe four. It's hard to believe that with all those boxes full, I still need more cards. (Sad but true...) > Very Industry Standard. The Flash is always tricky, and I can assume you are > only using 4 due to the local meta-action. More than 2 Amaranths would > probably be good (4?). I'd also put in one (just one, no more) Death of my > Consience (which I can't spell, apparently). It is freaking hysterical, and it > helps unsightly hand jam real well. Maybe a single Burning Wrath as well... Yeah, the 4 Flash is a complete metagame move on no one being likely to maneuver away too often. Although Jon Sushinsky's bleed deck kept doing it - just for some reason my shuffle was perfect in that I always had the Flash when he tried to go to long. I'd actually like to have more Flashes but they are also there on the theory that by using fewer Flash I can squeeze more 'pound your vampire' cards into the same amount of deck space. More Amaranth would be great, plus maybe a little Burning Wrath. Death of my Conscience is pretty hilarious, but also pretty pricey. I think the crypt is the most important thing to work out probably. If I could come up with a way to draw the important vamps and get them out quick that would be excellent. (I considered trying to fit some Info Highways in but decided against it since (a) they're only useful at the beginning of the game and (b) when I put them in a deck I can never draw them at the beginning of the game.) Josh [ quoted text not captured ]

> > Banishment (although rather cheezy IMHO) would be good too. > > I'd also rather have 5 or 6 Archons, so you can get them early, and > > discard/push duplicates later. > Yeah, but I hate Banishment. Ok, I'll bite. What is it you all don't like about Banishment? a0 [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7a1h53$936$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Joshua Duffin <jt...@cornell.edu> wrote: >> Besides, shouldn't the Princes have their lackeys? ;-) > >Yeah, I know, and I like small vamps, but the whole theory behind this >deck was to use the big fat Princes as the meat of the deck... and that >I would need to have at least a couple titled vamps out to have a shot >at passing things like Archon and Anathema. But I might be better off >doubling up on all three 'good' princes (Volker/Constanza/Donal), >and dropping Rake, Gwen, Don Cruez, and Bianca, and then possibly >losing the votes for simple P/J cards. I didn't mean to suggest ditching the princes, merely that you didn't need to have nothing but large vampires. A few smaller vamps, perhaps 1/3 to 1/4 of the crypt would complement the princes well. >> I'm just not a leather jacket fan. I'd rather have Sideslip. > >Yeah, me too, except that the person I would Sideslip against uses a >bunch of Scorpion Stings in his Gangrel deck - plus, there are a couple >other Potence combat decks that get played sometimes. And I was figuring >that with the 2nd Traditions and all, it might be reasonable to pick >some fights by blocking instead of rushing. I suppose the jackets might give you the leg up on another potence deck, which is definitly a good thing. >> Banishment (although rather cheezy IMHO) would be good too. >> I'd also rather have 5 or 6 Archons, so you can get them early, and >> discard/push duplicates later. > >Yeah, but I hate Banishment. Plus I don't think I own any. More Archons >might be better, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pass them in the first >place, especially in a tournament... my 'argument in favor' would pretty >much have to be 'Well, if you don't vote against it, I won't come over >and beat up your Prince and then call another one'... but that isn't >exactly guaranteed to go over well. I know what you mean about Banishment. In this deck Anathema is probably better anyway. I made a deck like this once, except I had a few Presence vote cards, and Delaying actions to get things going. Once you get the Archons going, it's much easier to keep vote dominance. >> >3x 2nd Tradition Domain >> I think I'd rather have more Taps/5ths personally. > >Yah, maybe; I was just trying to work in some flexibility seeing as >it's not exactly a completely 'traditional' Brujah rush deck. On second thought, those probably aren't a bad idea. Plenty of decks don't have heavy stealth, so those should serve fairly well as "rush" actions. >> Do you really need the Potence Strikes? I'd just add more FoD (well, >> assuming you can get them). With that much 5th tradition/Taste of >> Vitae I'd also look into a few Burning Wraths (seems fitting somehow). > >Yah, I only have the two Fists of Death. I could probably get more though. >Burning Wrath might not completely suck here actually; it would certainly >avoid that annoying 'I sent her to torpor but then she got rescued by >my prey!' angle. ;-) It'll do that all right. ;-) If you're having trouble with that, you might want to stick in some Pulled Fangs. 0 Blood vampires in torpor without fangs often stay there. :-) Not as expensive as the Wrath either. If I could get the cards, I'd probably go with an even number of FoD and Torn Signpost in a deck like this, probably with 8 or 9 of each. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7a1o40$fo8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <agen...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: > >> > Banishment (although rather cheezy IMHO) would be good too. >> > I'd also rather have 5 or 6 Archons, so you can get them early, and >> > discard/push duplicates later. >> Yeah, but I hate Banishment. > >Ok, I'll bite. What is it you all don't like about Banishment? It's borderline broken, IMHO. I'd probably have changed it along with the 7/7 errata. It's the only card left that really bothers me. Plus it makes large vampires even worse in a metagame sense. [ quoted text not captured ]

>It's borderline broken, IMHO. I'd probably have changed it along with >the 7/7 errata. It's the only card left that really bothers me. No offense, Jasper, but this did not answer my question - what is wrong with it? >Plus it makes large vampires even worse in a metagame sense. I don't see how since the metagame is always shifting. If someone brings out a political deck, bring out a deck that can deal with it. Just as if someone brings out a brutal Pot/Cel/IG deck, you bring out your prevention deck. a0

"AgentZero" <agen...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: >>It's borderline broken, IMHO. I'd probably have changed it along with >>the 7/7 errata. It's the only card left that really bothers me. >No offense, Jasper, but this did not answer my question - what is wrong >with it? He answered. He thinks it's effect is too great for its (relatively low) expense. Note; I personally don't share this sentiment, but I can see where he's coming from... >>Plus it makes large vampires even worse in a metagame sense. >I don't see how since the metagame is always shifting. If someone >brings out a political deck, bring out a deck that can deal with it. Just >as if someone brings out a brutal Pot/Cel/IG deck, you bring out >your prevention deck. I believe he was referring to large vampires as being a greater liability, as a consequence of this card coming into the game (this, among a long, rambling list of other reasons...). This is generally true, regardless of the decks on the table. Regards, R. David Zopf guenh...@mindspring.com Atom Weaver and V:EKN Prince of Charlotte, NC

In article <7a1seo$5j0$1...@news.NERO.NET>, phil...@tx.ENGR.ORST.EDU (Jasper Phillips) wrote: > In article <7a1o40$fo8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > <agen...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: > >Ok, I'll bite. What is it you all don't like about Banishment? > > It's borderline broken, IMHO. I'd probably have changed it along with > the 7/7 errata. It's the only card left that really bothers me. > > Plus it makes large vampires even worse in a metagame sense. I hadn't thought about this before, and I *do* use them in my little version of Noal's "The Grind" deck, but now that I *am* thinking about it, it seems odd that they're that much more powerful than The Peace of Khetamon, and the only real difference is that Banishment is more rare than Peace... Although I wouldn't quite say it's broken (and I realize Jasper didn't...), it *is* a powerful card, and there is little additional cost to play it. Sacrifice & Protect Thine Own at least have a semi-difficult restriction on what sort of vampire you need to do the action (Sabbat vampire above 6 and only vs. same clan, Justicar or Inner Circle...) Xian [ quoted text not captured ]

Agent0 wrote: "No offense, Jasper, but this did not answer my question - what is wrong with it?" It is borderline broken (in the opinion of many) as it is too effective for what it costs. It is a vote, just like, say, the base line KRC, and has the exact same cost as KRC in every possible sense, and yes, it has the possibility of being less effective than KRC sometimes, more often than not it has a far greater effect, for the exact same cost. Figure you have to Banish a vampire who is down 3 blood to break even. This isn't that rare of a situation, and in addition to costing the banished player 3 pool (effectively), you cost them transfers and actions. Any vampire who is misisng more than 3 pool that gets banished makes the Banishment more effective than the KRC. I'm not saying that the opportunity cost is negligible, but it isn't sufficient. Making it only useable on younger vampires would fix it right quick. That, and compare Banishment to Peace of Khetemon. What possible reason is there to use Peace when you could use Banishement? "I don't see how since the metagame is always shifting. If someone brings out a political deck, bring out a deck that can deal with it. Just as if someone brings out a brutal Pot/Cel/IG deck, you bring out your prevention deck." Do you actually chose decks based on what other people are bringing to the table? How does anyone ever settle on a deck then? "Hmm. You are bringing your bleed deck, so I'll use my combat deck." "You are using your combat deck now? Fine, then I'll use my Fortitude deck." "What? You are going to use your Fortitude deck? Fine then, I'll use my Tremere deck."... You don't seceretly and simultaneously chose decks and then sit randomly? Weird. As to the Meta-Game notion here, Banishment makes big vampires less useful on a strategic sense. The existance of Banishment (and decks that use Caitiff to call them) makes it that much riskier to use a big vampire ("Oh, hey. Democrotus is at 6 blood? Navar Banishes him."), and big vampires already sucked before Banishment came out. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "Go back to where you came from. The future is not what it used to be" -G'Kar

In article <7a24rd$aft$1...@birch.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, AgentZero <agen...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: >>It's borderline broken, IMHO. I'd probably have changed it along with >>the 7/7 errata. It's the only card left that really bothers me. > >No offense, Jasper, but this did not answer my question - what is wrong >with it? Errr, good point. I didn't really say anything, did I? I don't like it because I think the effect is too great. Being able deprive someone of a vampire (anything near empty may just about as well have been burned) because your opponent didn't have a Delaying Action is just too much (True, one could also intercept, but that's as easily countered by Stealth or Day Operation). On a side note, I'm playing Devil's Advocate a bit here, since the card is simply borderline broken to me, and not a clear case. >>Plus it makes large vampires even worse in a metagame sense. > >I don't see how since the metagame is always shifting. If someone >brings out a political deck, bring out a deck that can deal with it. Just >as if someone brings out a brutal Pot/Cel/IG deck, you bring out >your prevention deck. Large vampires are more vulnerable simply because they cost more to replace. They're also already narrowly usefull (pretty much only with 5th tradition/Minion Tap)... Having to also fear having a political deck at the table makes a difference. Even a 5th/Minion Tap deck can have a bad time of things if there vampires are ever not at max capacity before they really get their machine going. [ quoted text not captured ]

> It is borderline broken (in the opinion of many) as it is too effective for > what it costs. It is a vote, Yes, it is a *vote*. I do have a point to make here about how political decks are now kind of hamstrung and how Banishment, being a vote, pretty much takes the entire table to determine it's passage or failure (just like any other vote), but I'm not sure how to word my point. > That, and compare Banishment to Peace of Khetemon. What possible reason is > there to use Peace when you could use Banishement? Is a vampire in your torpor region considered "Ready"? > Do you actually chose decks based on what other people are bringing to >the table? No, but if you start to see a shift to damage prevention decks, you're pretty stupid if you bring your Brujah Pot/Cel deck to the table. > You don't seceretly and simultaneously chose decks and then sit >randomly? Weird. We do. You misunderstood my (obviously inadequite) point. I wasn't talking about a single session of play, but more over the course of time see how the metagame shifted. > As to the Meta-Game notion here, Banishment makes big vampires less >useful on a strategic sense. Hrmmm, well you can make the same claim in a combat environment. a 10 can get burned as easily as a 2 by a well built combat deck. It would seem that larger vampires are less here, too. >The existance of Banishment (and decks that use Caitiff to > call them) makes it that much riskier to use a big vampire ("Oh, hey. > Democrotus is at 6 blood? Navar Banishes him."), and big vampires already > sucked before Banishment came out. Except that wasn't the new Vote Pushing ruling supposed to curb weenie vote decks? a0 [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7a9hih$mah$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, agen...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > I do have a point to make here about how political decks are now > kind of hamstrung and how Banishment, being a vote, pretty much > takes the entire table to determine it's passage or failure (just > like any other vote), but I'm not sure how to word my point. I have yet to see any vote deck apart from WVP be hamstrung by the voting change. > > That, and compare Banishment to Peace of Khetemon. What possible reason is > > there to use Peace when you could use Banishement? > > Is a vampire in your torpor region considered "Ready"? If you have Banishment, you can skip the "Must Send to Torpor First" step in the use of Peace of Khetmon. > > As to the Meta-Game notion here, Banishment makes big vampires less > >useful on a strategic sense. > > Hrmmm, well you can make the same claim in a combat environment. > a 10 can get burned as easily as a 2 by a well built combat deck. It > would seem that larger vampires are less here, too. Burning a 10 with a 2 is VERY difficult, practically impossible. And it takes lots of cards (a Potence skill card for superior Potence, Torn Signpost (3), Increased Strength (+2+2+2), Immortal Grapple to prevent a Dodge or S:CE, Undead Strength (+2 = 11), Taste of Vitae to fill back up to 2 after being hit, Decapitate). That's 9 cards vs. Banishment's perhaps 4 cards (Presence skill for superior, Banishment, Bewitching Oration, and maybe Closed Session). Taking a 10 out of play is much easier with a 2 capacity with Banishment than with combat..... > Except that wasn't the new Vote Pushing ruling supposed to curb > weenie vote decks? No, they were supposed to curb weenie vote push decks that required absolutely no thought. You can still build an effective weenie vote deck, but it takes a good deal more thought than just stuffing your library with vote cards, Gird Minions, and Effective Management. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP - Prince of Urbana-Champaign http://www.shout.net/~mbohlman/ [ quoted text not captured ]

Agent0 wrote: "Yes, it is a *vote*." Yes, a vote. And as a vote, it has the exact same cost and difficulty as, say, KRC, but the potential to be _far_ more damaging than KRC is. A KRC can cause you to lose 3 pool. No more. A Banishment can cause you lose 10 pool, a vampire, 10 transfers, and 3 turns of actions/blocks performed by that vampire. I fully realize that Banishment has an opportunity cost, in that if your prey never has a vampire without any blood missing, it won't ever do any good, but in practice, I have never seen a Banishment played that was less effective than a KRC, and most of the time it is far, far more effective. For the exact same cost. Calling a vote. "I do have a point to make here about how political decks are now kind of hamstrung and how Banishment, being a vote, pretty much takes the entire table to determine it's passage or failure (just like any other vote), but I'm not sure how to word my point." I assure you that vote decks are in no way hamstrung. The No Vote Push rule has done little more than prevent the "12 random caitif/90 KRC decks" of old. And yes, Banishement is a vote, and has all the same advantages and disadvantages of all the other votes. But Banishment is verging on abusively powerful, where votes like Regaining the Upper Hand, Praxis Solomon, and Kindred Segregation have the exact same cost (i.e. they are votes) but are in no way even close to as effective as Banishment. Yes, votes are very dependant on the table situation. This is a granted. But given this, why is it acceptable to have political action A be close to useless and political action B be amazingly powerful, for the exact same cost? My point, in brief, is that Banishment and KRC have the exact same cost, and Banishment is, more often than not, much more effective. All I would like to see happen to Banishment is that it get a slightly higher cost--only callable on a younger vampire, can only be called by a Prince/Justicar, something, to make it more expensive to use than KRC. "Is a vampire in your torpor region considered "Ready"?" Hmm. I'm missing your point, but I suspect that this is because I don't have a Peace of Khetemon on me... "Except that wasn't the new Vote Pushing ruling supposed to curb weenie vote decks?" Sort of. it was to curb the "12 random caitif and 90 KRC" decks. Weenie vote decks are still perfectly effective, just not overly effective. A weenie vote deck built out of all the 1s, 2s, and 3s with Pre, many damaging votes, 10 Praxis Seizures and 10 Bewitchings will be highly effective in just about any situation. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7a9mjk$qo6$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <mboh...@shout.net> wrote: >In article <7a9hih$mah$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > agen...@my-dejanews.com wrote: >Burning a 10 with a 2 is VERY difficult, practically impossible. And >it takes lots of cards (a Potence skill card for superior Potence, >Torn Signpost (3), Increased Strength (+2+2+2), Immortal Grapple to >prevent a Dodge or S:CE, Undead Strength (+2 = 11), Taste of Vitae to >fill back up to 2 after being hit, Decapitate). That's 9 cards vs. >Banishment's perhaps 4 cards (Presence skill for superior, Banishment, >Bewitching Oration, and maybe Closed Session). > >Taking a 10 out of play is much easier with a 2 capacity with Banishment >than with combat..... Well, that's true, but Potence can do it easier than you imply. Torn Signpost, Disarm, Decapitate is often enough, although you'll generally need to add in Immortal Grapple and/or Maneuver. Hmmm, on second thought you'd need a 3 Cap, or Taste of Vitae to afford the 2 cost Decapitate -- but still. All in all it's still quite a bit more card intensive, and more prone to failure, than Banishment even if you can do it to someone full of blood. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <19990215123158...@ng152.aol.com>, pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > Agent0 wrote: > "Yes, it is a *vote*." > > Yes, a vote. And as a vote, it has the exact same cost and difficulty as, say, > KRC, but the potential to be _far_ more damaging than KRC is. A KRC can cause > you to lose 3 pool. No more. A Banishment can cause you lose 10 pool, a > vampire, 10 transfers, and 3 turns of actions/blocks performed by that vampire. > I fully realize that Banishment has an opportunity cost, in that if your prey > never has a vampire without any blood missing, it won't ever do any good, but > in practice, I have never seen a Banishment played that was less effective than > a KRC, and most of the time it is far, far more effective. For the exact same > cost. Calling a vote. Hm, changing card text again? Errata? OK, if it has to be. IMO, Banishment is really a bit tough, especially when compared with RtUH, or Praxis: Solomon. Perhaps a cost of 1 blood would bring the card in balance? Just musing. > My point, in brief, is that Banishment and KRC have the exact same cost, and > Banishment is, more often than not, much more effective. All I would like to > see happen to Banishment is that it get a slightly higher cost--only callable > on a younger vampire, can only be called by a Prince/Justicar, something, to > make it more expensive to use than KRC. I agree here (more or less). ;) > Peace of Khetemon on me... This card is wallpaper. Carl (VEKN Prince of Vienna) [ quoted text not captured ]

agentzero wrote: > I do have a point to make here about how political decks are now > kind of hamstrung How so? Vote decks that don't use Presence are hamstrung, but Presence is a easy discipline to build a crypt around. > >The existance of Banishment (and decks that use Caitiff to > > call them) makes it that much riskier to use a big vampire ("Oh, hey. > > Democrotus is at 6 blood? Navar Banishes him."), and big vampires already > > sucked before Banishment came out. > > Except that wasn't the new Vote Pushing ruling supposed to curb > weenie vote decks? ...but not weenies with Presence. In jol100, Droz is about to find out why ToRIII isn't a big deal anymore. He brought out an 8 cap Brujah with it at (4/8) and I have Lazar Dobrescu and Delilah Easton. I will put a Presence card on Delilah giving her sup. Presence, use her to call Banishment and back it up with Awe. Lazar will then take one blood from the now fallen Brujah to ensure that he doesn't get it out on his next turn. Banishment is a very nasty card when a deck is built around it. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit [ quoted text not captured ]

PDB6 wrote(among other things): > I assure you that vote decks are in no way hamstrung. The No Vote > Push rule has done little more than prevent the "12 random caitif/90 > KRC decks" of old. And yes, Banishement is a vote, and has all the > same advantages and disadvantages of all the other votes. But > Banishment is verging on abusively powerful, where votes like > Regaining the Upper Hand, Praxis Solomon, and Kindred Segregation > have > the exact same cost (i.e. they are votes) but are in no way even > close to as effective as Banishment. Yes, votes are very dependant > on the table situation. This is a granted. But given this, why is > it acceptable to have political action A be close to useless and > political action B be amazingly powerful, for the exact same cost? > > My point, in brief, is that Banishment and KRC have the exact same > cost, and Banishment is, more often than not, much more effective. > All I would like to see happen to Banishment is that it get a > slightly higher cost--only callable on a younger vampire, can only > be called by a Prince/Justicar, something, to make it more expensive > to use than KRC. I agree that, theoretically, banishment should have one of those two conditions in order to keep it in line with the other cards, but game theory aside, I am unconvinved that this is actually worth going to the trouble of errataing. Banishment is not, as you have asserted "just plain better" than KRC. There is a subtle but important difference between costing pool and actually doing "damage." KRC does damage. Pass enough, someone dies. Banishment, on the other hand, only costs pool if your target brings out the vampire again. A player at low pool may well take the opportunity to suck the blood back to himself. An infinite number of banishments will not slay a player. (of course, when he's out of vamps you can bleed him to death, but when facing competetive decks you will rarely have time to build up votes, then remove all of your preys vamps, then bleed, and the odds of repeating the process with your next prey are even worse.) Banishment is, actually, slightly more "expensive" to use than KRC in the sense that it will often require more votes to pass it. Huh? What? Why? Consider: as has been noted, controlling the vote situation is often difficult. In many cases you will need support from other players in order to pass a vote. This is true for KRC as well, but the difference is that KRC has 4 points to distribute so you can use one or two to get someone else's prey and buy some votes. Banishment has one target. Its only ever good for two people at a time (as opposed to potentially four). You truly need vote dominance in order to actually win with it. Plus the best targets for banishment (large vamps) tend to have their own votes to make your job more difficult. Many cards could/should be tweaked minorly in order to make the game more "perfect" but for most of them the "problem" is so small that it is better to just leave the card as written because the game benefits even more from keeping errata to a minimum. From what I've seen, Banishment is one of those cases. -Steve Wampler

CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at wrote: > In article <19990215123158...@ng152.aol.com>, > pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > > Peace of Khetemon on me... > > This card is wallpaper. In a weenie vote deck, PoK can be used on its own torporized vampires to get them out of torpor more cheaply and usually more quickly. --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu (NeXTmail capable)

Steve "Where the hell did you come from" Wampler wrote: "I agree that, theoretically, banishment should have one of those two conditions in order to keep it in line with the other cards, but game theory aside, I am unconvinved that this is actually worth going to the trouble of errataing." While you are probably correct (I don't find Banishment _that_ game shattering, but it is a bit too good, and I just don't like it...), I am really thinking in terms of pure theory more than anything else. All things considered, though, I am in no way opposed to errata if it makes the game a better place, and I suspect that a fixed Banishement would make the game a better place. "Banishment is not, as you have asserted "just plain better" than KRC. There is a subtle but important difference between costing pool and actually doing "damage." KRC does damage. Pass enough, someone dies. Banishment, on the other hand, only costs pool if your target brings out the vampire again." All perfectly valid points. Banishment, while not completely compareable to KRC, still tends to be far more effective, for the cost, than KRC is when called. Yeah, a deck made of 20 Banishemnts won't really get you anywhere, where a deck of 20 KRCs will be perfectly effective, in terms of what you get when you do call the Banishment, you are getting a better deal in the appropriate situations. When the KRC goes off, you do 3 damage. When the Banishment goes off, you lose either a vampire (which is, in all other situations, incredibly difficult or costly to pull off) or you lose a substantial amount of pool, transfers, and actions. Again, not as cut and dry as I made it seem, yeah, but enough to justify Banishment having a somewhat higher cost than KRC. My favorite is "only callable on a younger vampire". "A player at low pool may well take the opportunity to suck the blood back to himself." But then you have cost them a vampire. Trading 2 or 3 pool for a vampire cause you can't afford to get him back out isn't a good trade. "Banishment is, actually, slightly more "expensive" to use than KRC in the sense that it will often require more votes to pass it. Huh? What? Why? Consider: as has been noted, controlling the vote situation is often difficult. In many cases you will need support from other players in order to pass a vote." This, most of the time, is not the case. Barring an early lockout (i.e. everyone at the table denying the WVP deck from turn one), vote decks tend to get vote dominance and keep it, unless they are completely losing the game. "This is true for KRC as well, but the difference is that KRC has 4 points to distribute so you can use one or two to get someone else's prey and buy some votes." In any situation where your voted deck is relying on the goodwill of others to pass your votes, you are losing. Yeah, sometimes it happens, but a vote deck _needs_ to have complete dominance on its acting turn (through titled vamps and action modifiers), or it will lose. You simply cannot rely on table dynamics to help you along, as you _will_ get screwed. Yes, table politics play a large part in most games, but all the successful, compettetive vote decks win by being completely dominant, or they are dead. (in our last tourney, Ian's vote deck was in a situation where he had to make deals with Eric's vote deck to get anything done. When it came time for Eric to win, however, and Ian asked him to help pass a vote, Eric said "Nope." Eric had complete vote dominance. Ian was dead.) "Many cards could/should be tweaked minorly in order to make the game more "perfect" but for most of them the "problem" is so small that it is better to just leave the card as written because the game benefits even more from keeping errata to a minimum." I'm real iffy on the concept of "minimum errata makes for a better game", but that is me. In any situation where I have the choice of less errata or an overpowered card fixed, I will always opt for the errata, but again, that is just me. [ quoted text not captured ]

> action modifiers), or it will lose. You simply cannot rely on table dynamics > to help you along, as you _will_ get screwed. Yes, table politics play a > large part in most games, but all the successful, compettetive vote decks > win by being completely dominant, or they are dead. Isn't this what many of us who were opposed to the new VP rules were saying and getting maligned for saying it? And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being viable. Whatever. a0 [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter> action modifiers), or it will lose. You simply cannot rely on table Peter> dynamics to help you along, as you _will_ get screwed. Yes, table Peter> politics play a large part in most games, but all the successful Peter> compettetive vote decks win by being completely dominant, or they Peter> are dead. AgentZero> Isn't this what many of us who were opposed to the new VP rules AgentZero> were saying and getting maligned for saying it? Amen brother. I can prolly go back and find the posts from several people that said that a vote deck should have to bargain with others. No other deck strategy has to barter. Why should this one have to? AgentZero> And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty AgentZero> much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being viable. *nods* Absolutely correct with the possible exception of bruise and vote. So far, MJL has found the best balance is to rule that PA cards spent for votes can't be replaced until the end of the current turn and the old rule that no cards are replaced during a referendum. We're still working on a better method, but that's the best we've got for now. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7ak1f4$pc0$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, agen...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > >action modifiers), or it will lose. You simply cannot rely on table > >dynamics to help you along, as you _will_ get screwed. Yes, table > >politics play a large part in most games, but all the successful, > >compettetive vote decks win by being completely dominant, or they are > >dead. > Isn't this what many of us who were opposed to the new VP rules > were saying and getting maligned for saying it? I disagree with the original poster whose name you've snipped. It is true that you cannot _rely_ on the table to help pass your votes. But the table can help you with some. So it's up to you to measure your risk. > And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty > much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being viable. Bzzzt, wrong answer. Ever hear of titles? Titles alone, however, will rarely give you vote dominance. So you need a supporting strategy. I currently have two decks that rely on votes to some extent or another to win the game without using Presence. The first is a Lasombra Stealthy Vote/Rush deck. Political Struggle gains votes quite well. Power Structure also works nicely. Rush any big voters to assure vote dominance. It wins in my current group 7 out of 10 times, I'd say. It's primary way of reducing my prey's pool is with votes. The second is a deck I constructed last week. It uses the Brujah Euro-Princes, Rake, and their Justicar whose name escapes me right now. This one works on a similar principle. Rush enough voters so that I have vote dominance through title. It worked rather well with a Ventrue vote/bleed predator. On its first and only game so far, it had its prey down to three pool before a Kiss of Ra on a 5 point bleed forced me to go defensive. And lastly, a weenie Praxis Seizure deck still works quite nicely. If you get one weenie out on your first turn, you will have vote dominance for at least 2 turns. By that point, you have 4 or 5 Princes and will probably maintain vote dominance. I have always maintained that vote decks are quite possible with no vote pushing. To truly pass votes even with vote pushing allowed, you still need to rely on other methods to get vote dominance or you're going to need a deck consisting almost entirely of vote cards. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP - Prince of Urbana-Champaign http://www.shout.net/~mbohlman/ -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

Agent0 wrote: "Isn't this what many of us who were opposed to the new VP rules were saying and getting maligned for saying it?" No. The reason the old VP rules were changed was because: A) The current official way is very arguably the way the rules were originally designed to work. B) Under the old VP rules, having votes in your deck had effectively no cost, and led to completely unrestricted (and unprecidented) card cycling ("Oh. I have 6 supurfluous Praxis Seizures in my hand. I know, I'll toss tham all out on some random vote called by some guy across the table and draw 6 new cards by doing nothing.") C) The original VP rules allowed for the highly degenerate, zero discipline, WVP deck which was _far_ more effective than it deserved to be. "And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being viable." Which is incorrect. Titled vampires and/or locations that give you votes are just as good at securing a vote lock as Pre is. If I have 3 Princes and an IC member, in all likelyhood, I will win every vote I call on my turn, Pre or no. If I am playing a weenie, say, Gangrel deck, I can easily call Gangrel Justicar in the first three turns and expect to win (with a few Gangrel on the table and possibly the Edge. I'll point out that it is also much easier to pass this vote with the current VP rules, cause there is that much less opposition). I now have a Justicar. Next turn I get the Edge, and Call a Praxis Seizure on one of my weenie Gangrel. I have 5 votes to pass this political action, easily, and early in the game, when it is unlikely that there will ba many other titled vampires at the table. This is not even taking into account the possibility of killing off anti-voters before they put down my votes. When the Praxis Seizure passess, I now have 5 votes on the table, and get a 6th with any Political action, and a 7th with the Edge. Our group has been playing with the current VP rules forever, and it is perfectly possible to make a good, competetive, non Pre based vote deck. Yes, decks with Pre are the best for voting, just like decks with Obf are the best for S+B and decks with For are the best for damage prevention. You can still make powerful vote decks without Pre, it just takes more effort (just like making a good S+B deck without Obf). "Whatever." Hmm. Helpful. [ quoted text not captured ]

> I disagree with the original poster whose name you've snipped. It was Peter, I believe. > true that you cannot _rely_ on the table to help pass your votes. > But the table can help you with some. So it's up to you to measure > your risk. I've found that the table helps you not at all. On votes like Praxis or Crusade, even if you throw down a Bribes it'll get voted down. Why? Because every title you gain is less control they have on your votes. > > And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty > > much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being viable. > Bzzzt, wrong answer. Whatever. >Ever hear of titles? You mean the "Prince", "Justicar", "Primogen", "Inner Circle", etc. You mean those? Yeah, I think I have. >Titles alone, however, will rarely give you vote dominance. So you >need a supporting strategy. But the above makes it sound like you say the titles do give you dominance. When I say that a deck must have Presence to viable, I'm taking for granted that it has titled vamps in the crypt or has title gaining vote cards. The problem with either is: * often there are many other titled vampires on the table effectively countering your titles * all an opposing meth needs is *1* vote card to stop your early PS or Crusade votes >I currently have two decks that rely on votes to some extent or another >to win the game without using Presence. So I've heard you speak of these decks on occasion. I'd love to see them. Post them for us? > The first is a Lasombra Stealthy Vote/Rush deck. Political > Struggle gains votes quite well. The problem I see here is that in order to put a vamp into torpor, reliably, you need alot of combat cards (or alot of blood). So much so that your political angle gets watered down. I see this as a problem with Brujah Bruise-Vote as well. > now. This one works on a similar principle. Rush enough voters > so that I have vote dominance through title. But again, your rush or your vote is watered down. And again, I'd love to see either of the above decks. > And lastly, a weenie Praxis Seizure deck still works quite nicely. All your opponents need is *1* vote card to completely shut this strategy down. > If you get one weenie out on your first turn, you will have vote > dominance for at least 2 turns. Again, unless of course your opponent has a vote card of his own. Since you can't push, you're screwed. You have to wait another turn. In that time, someone else could bring out a title vamp effectively shutting you down. >By that point, you have 4 or 5 Princes and will probably maintain >vote dominance. If you're lucky. Your posts make me think that your playgroup rarely plays with titled vamps. Mine play with them all the time. There are usually 2 or 4 other princes on the table. Often, I have the same number under my control so all votes are effectively cancelled. The only edge I have is the vote card. If someone else throws down a PA, the vote fails and Bribes doesn't work here. As a matter of fact, I rarely see it work anywhere. At least with the old VP rules where you couldn't redraw until the end of the turn, you had a chance. And under the old rules, clans like the Nossies and Gangrel could make a viable political deck. Now they do nothing but die a slow and painful death. > I have always maintained that vote decks are quite possible with > no vote pushing. You must be in a fairly apolitical playgroup then. > To truly pass votes even with vote pushing allowed, > you still need to rely on other methods to get vote dominance or you're > going to need a deck consisting almost entirely of vote cards. That makes no sense. If that was the case, you'd most certainly get jammed. a0

In article <7akm60$22u$1...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "AgentZero" <agen...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: > I've found that the table helps you not at all. On votes like > Praxis or Crusade, even if you throw down a Bribes it'll get voted > down. Why? Because every title you gain is less control they have > on your votes. Duh. I figured a person could deduce that one wouldn't expect vote help or non-opposition on a vote to gain more votes. I was speaking in terms of votes in general. Obviously, some votes are much more likely to evoke opposition. > But the above makes it sound like you say the titles do give you > dominance. In the end, if you aren't playing Presence, the only way you'll get vote dominance is with titles. So of course that's what I'm saying. > When I say that a deck must have Presence to viable, I'm > taking for granted that it has titled vamps in the crypt or has title > gaining vote cards. The problem with either is: > * often there are many other titled vampires on the table effectively > countering your titles > * all an opposing meth needs is *1* vote card to stop your early PS > or Crusade votes If your group is heavy with vote decks, playing a weenie PS based deck is a bad idea. Otherwise, you can usually bleed, get the Edge, and then call your PS. Odds are that there won't be two vote decks against you unless you are in this heavy vote deck environment. > So I've heard you speak of these decks on occasion. I'd love to see > them. Post them for us? No problem. I'll sort them and post them sometime this weekend. > The problem I see here is that in order to put a vamp into torpor, > reliably, you need alot of combat cards (or alot of blood). So > much so that your political angle gets watered down. I see this > as a problem with Brujah Bruise-Vote as well. Not really that hard. The Lasombra have two main options. Entombment (vs. Fortitude) or Arms of the Abyss and Disarm (vs. other types). Thoughts Betrayed provides the stopper to S:CE. At the most, you'll use 3 cards to send a vampire to torpor. For the Brujah, Fortitude will slow them down significantly. Otherwise, Torn Signpost, Immortal Grapple, and Blur, also 3 cards, will send most vampires to torpor. You only need to do either of these a few times before you have vote dominance. > All your opponents need is *1* vote card to completely shut this > strategy down. A weenie vote deck is a speed deck. You give up many things in exchange for speed. Other options people have mentioned are Justicar votes. You can also usually bleed to gain the Edge away. If someone brought out a blocker, they aren't going to be bringing out a titled vampire of their own very soon (for most clans). > > If you get one weenie out on your first turn, you will have vote > > dominance for at least 2 turns. > > Again, unless of course your opponent has a vote card of his own. > Since you can't push, you're screwed. You have to wait another turn. > In that time, someone else could bring out a title vamp effectively > shutting you down. Weenie vote is obviously risky. But when it works, it works quite well. You make it sound like vote decks should always be perfectly effective. No other deck gets to be that way... > Your posts make me think that your playgroup rarely plays with titled > vamps. Mine play with them all the time. There are usually 2 or 4 > other princes on the table. Often, I have the same number under my > control so all votes are effectively cancelled. Typically, each player has at least 3 votes in my group sans any vote deck. Sounds like I have to deal with more titled vampires than you. > The only edge I have > is the vote card. If someone else throws down a PA, the vote fails > and Bribes doesn't work here. As a matter of fact, I rarely see it > work anywhere. Have you seen me mention Bribes? Bribes is a prayer on a vote that someone might be on the fence for. I never put it in my decks because if I need to give other people a pool to help me, my deck sucks. > At least with the old VP rules where you couldn't redraw until the end > of the turn, you had a chance. And under the old rules, clans like the > Nossies and Gangrel could make a viable political deck. Now they do > nothing but die a slow and painful death. I asked Noal how many vote cards his typical non-Presence vote decks use(d). So I'll ask you. How many vote cards do you put in a non-Presence vote deck? > > I have always maintained that vote decks are quite possible with > > no vote pushing. > > You must be in a fairly apolitical playgroup then. Nope. My decks, on average, get out 4 or 5 votes, unless I'm playing a voting deck. The others average about the same, maybe a little less. I need to rush 2 or 3 vampires in opposition to get vote dominance. And I don't call votes that my grand-prey/predator might not like, so I don't have to worry about him voting me down. > > To truly pass votes even with vote pushing allowed, > > you still need to rely on other methods to get vote dominance or you're > > going to need a deck consisting almost entirely of vote cards. > > That makes no sense. If that was the case, you'd most certainly get > jammed. So how are you not jamming then? If you have as much opposition as you say, you might pass one vote a turn. Is that really effective and win you the game? I seriously doubt it. It certainly wouldn't in my group. [ quoted text not captured ]

Agent0 wrote: "It was Peter, I believe." Yeah, that'd be me. "I've found that the table helps you not at all. On votes like Praxis or Crusade, even if you throw down a Bribes it'll get voted down. Why? Because every title you gain is less control they have on your votes." So you need to use Justicar votes (which come with extra votes built in), locations that give you votes (throw some small Ventrue in your Gangrel deck for the Ventrue HQ), other titled vampires, the Edge, or other non Pre vote cards. "* all an opposing meth needs is *1* vote card to stop your early PS or Crusade votes" Not if you have the Edge. Or a Justicar vote. You also seem to be ignoring the fact that the current VP rules make it that much easier to pass a vote, due to the limited surprise opposition. Yeah, you opponent only needs *1* vote card to stop your early PS, but in the old days, your opponent (or opponents) could use *5* vote cards to stop your early PS just as easily. "The problem I see here is that in order to put a vamp into torpor, reliably, you need alot of combat cards (or alot of blood). So much so that your political angle gets watered down. I see this as a problem with Brujah Bruise-Vote as well." It isn't amazingly easy, no. I am missing your viewpoint here. No one is saying that non Pre vote decks are as easy to use as Pre vote decks. No one denies that. Just like non Obf S+B decks. The Obf based S+B decks will _always_ be more effective at S+B-ing than a non Obf S+B deck. You can make a very compettetive non Obf S+B deck, but it is tricky, just like a non Pre vote deck. I fail to see the problem. "All your opponents need is *1* vote card to completely shut this strategy down." Again, not if you have the Edge, or a Justicar vote, and in the old days, it was just as easy to get your early vote get shut down by 2 or 3 vote cards out of each opponents hand, making Pre fairly useless. "Again, unless of course your opponent has a vote card of his own. Since you can't push, you're screwed. You have to wait another turn. In that time, someone else could bring out a title vamp effectively shutting you down." Yes, nothing is certain. "If you're lucky. Your posts make me think that your playgroup rarely plays with titled vamps. Mine play with them all the time. There are usually 2 or 4 other princes on the table." Whichj means those decks are fat and slow. Make a deck that is really lean and fast, and punishes your opponents for playing with so many fat and slow decks. Pretty soon, there won't be 2 or 4 other Princes at the table all the time. "Often, I have the same number under my control so all votes are effectively cancelled. The only edge I have is the vote card." Get the Edge. Or more titles. "If someone else throws down a PA, the vote fails and Bribes doesn't work here. As a matter of fact, I rarely see it work anywhere." Bribes doesn't exist to get you votes. It exists to get you pool. If it gets you votes, you are lucky. "At least with the old VP rules where you couldn't redraw until the end of the turn, you had a chance. And under the old rules, clans like the Nossies and Gangrel could make a viable political deck. Now they do nothing but die a slow and painful death." Incorrect. Make a Nosferatu titled vampire pool gain deck (Minion Tap/5th) and get out 3 or 4 princes and a Justicar (or Harrod). You will have 9-12 votes on the table. With Night Moves, you'll always have the Edge. Make a weenie Gangrel vote deck with Gangrel Justicars and a smattering of Pro combat, secure an early vote lock with the Justicar and start calling Praxis Seizures. Both are perfectly competetive. [ quoted text not captured ]

"AgentZero" wrote: > > The first is a Lasombra Stealthy Vote/Rush deck. Political > > Struggle gains votes quite well. > > The problem I see here is that in order to put a vamp into torpor, > reliably, you need alot of combat cards (or alot of blood). So > much so that your political angle gets watered down. I see this > as a problem with Brujah Bruise-Vote as well. *nods emphatic agreement* The only time I've seen voting being an effective strategy to combine with combat is if you use the votes to augment your combat or give you some bonus for doing so...Anathema or Archon, for example. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

Mike wrote: > I asked Noal how many vote cards his typical non-Presence vote decks > use(d). I actually don't recall this question, but I normally put 20-30 vote cards in a deck whose entire point is voting. I rarely play voting decks that don't use Presence. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7ak7j5$v60$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com writes >Amen brother. I can prolly go back and find the posts from several people >that said that a vote deck should have to bargain with others. No other >deck strategy has to barter. Why should this one have to? > Because this one is incredibly powerful and has a large amount of flexibility at its disposal? And anyway, you can *never* ensure vote dominance with a vote deck anyway. What happens if you get two irresistible forces sitting down at the same table? And my combat decks do sometimes have to barter. Will you back me in a Bloodhunt, for example. Do you want me to play Haven on that vampire, if I'm having problems drawing cards? >AgentZero> And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty >AgentZero> much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being >viable. > >*nods* Absolutely correct with the possible exception of bruise and vote. Matt Green's Alamut deck is doing him pretty well currently. It uses presence, but only for the additional bleed. Could very easily be another bleed method, if you wanted to chop and change clans. Actually, a Malkavian/Assamite cross-over might work quite well - bigger bleed, Obfuscate on the Malks (no need to keep Tansu ready with the Cloaks, as he was doing), possibility of some cross-over with obf-cel. But do they lose the dominate for having the cel? Hmm..... Lunar's Nosferatu Prince and Justicar machine - Murat, Sheldon, Kendrick, Nikolaus etc. - is apparently damn scary. I haven't seen it in its new incarnation which is about half votes, then stealth and Computer Hacking, with Minion Tap/5ths to boot. Scared the shit out of Matt Green when he kept having it on his table. Rob Treasure's Weenie Legacy of Pander deck has been clocked at having a record 36 votes on the table at once. He sometimes puts a little presence in the deck to help the first few Legacies pass, but the speed he has makes it almost always unnecessary. Three more exceptions, I feel. Hell, one would almost think that the line "You need presence to win votes" is looking to be wrong. -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia, England) Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net http://www.obeah.demon.co.uk

In article <7anb47$g9r$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > I actually don't recall this question, but I normally put 20-30 vote > cards in a deck whose entire point is voting. I rarely play voting > decks that don't use Presence. So with 60 to 70 cards separate from your votes, you can't figure out supporting strategies that don't use Presence to pass vote reliably? Come on, Noal, you're better than that. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7anajv$fqp$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > The only time I've seen voting being an effective strategy to combine > with combat is if you use the votes to augment your combat or give you > some bonus for doing so...Anathema or Archon, for example. Obviously, if you're playing combat supporting voting, Anathema is a near automatic choice. Only not automatic when you are using things like Disarm and Entombment to send to torpor or in combat heavy environments where an opponent might get to earn its effect first. Other votes include Disputed Territory, KRC, and any other votes (besides pool gainers if you're using Anathema) that you'd include in a vote deck. [ quoted text not captured ]

mboh...@shout.net wrote: > So with 60 to 70 cards separate from your votes, you can't figure out > supporting strategies that don't use Presence to pass vote reliably? > Come on, Noal, you're better than that. :) Well, Mike, thanks for the vote of confidence. To be honest, I've tried other strategies and found them extremely inconsistent or weak. I thought that the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo might work, but after trying it myself and defending against it in jol94, I have seen that it really won't work. Nobody will vote to burn the Revolt if you play a Malk Rider Clause. You almost have to have Pulling Strings and Kindred Coercion for it to work, but those cards have no effects on votes gained from the Edge, PA cards or locations. A Lasombra/Giovanni deck may work, but I haven't tried it yet. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 21 Feb 1999 Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > mboh...@shout.net wrote: > > So with 60 to 70 cards separate from your votes, you can't figure out > > supporting strategies that don't use Presence to pass vote reliably? > > Come on, Noal, you're better than that. :) > > Well, Mike, thanks for the vote of confidence. To be honest, I've > tried other strategies and found them extremely inconsistent or weak. > I thought that the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo might work, > but after trying it myself and defending against it in jol94, I > have seen that it really won't work. Whoa there Noal. I'm the guy who played the deck that you defended against. While it is true that, in that case, the deck did not do so hot, it is not right to draw such sweeping conclusions on so limited a basis. First Point: I won a victory point before I was ousted. This is pretty much breaking even, since each Methuselah brings with him one victory point to the table. When all points are counted, I will probably come in about 4th out of 8 Methuselahs. This is certainly not an exceptional performance, but neither is it disasterous. Second Point: The deck was an experimental one I was playing the first time. I have learned from the experience and certainly expect to do better if I try again. Third Point: I already knew, when I tried the deck, that one of the worst things that can befall an Anarch Revolt deck is a fast weenie Presence bleed predator. It was this sort of deck that defeated Marco "Vampchamp" Balaguer's infamous Anarch Revolt deck at Ithaca. As it turned out, you were my predator, with weenie presence fast-bleed. Fourth Point: I almost swept the table. The turn before you ousted me, you yourself came within range of being oused. If your predator had had a single +2 bleed card in his hand you would have been gone (and he *did* have these in his deck). Had this happened I would have survived another round, allowing me to plonk down 2 more ARs and play one or two Computer Hackings. I then would have ousted 3 methuselahs in a row and gained 18 pool. The rest of you would not have lasted much longer. I'm not trying to deny you the glory of a much deserved victory, but if you are trying to make this an example of how non-Presence vote decks are totally non-competitive, it is not a truly convincing one. Lupus Australis ____ ____ \ \----/ / |()__()| __\ __ /__ / __\()/__ \ |/ \==/ \| | || |

In article <7aq37o$lu6$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > To be honest, I've tried other strategies and found them extremely > inconsistent or weak. Could you list these? The only one you ever seem to talk about is the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo. Obviously, a deck that depends entirely on the rest of the table to pass its votes isn't going to do well. > A Lasombra/Giovanni deck may work, but I haven't tried it yet. Lasombra work great. Power Structure and Political Struggle are great cards. I'd try making a Giovanni deck but I've already got 3 Potence based decks (Lasombra, Brujah bruise & vote, and Pot/Obf vampire denial deck) using most of my Potence cards that I'd base it on. It's been a while since I've looked at Giovanni cards so there might be non-combat based ways for them to pass votes. [ quoted text not captured ]

Noal> I thought that the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo might work, Noal> but after trying it myself and defending against it in jol94, I Noal> have seen that it really won't work. > Lupus> Whoa there Noal. I'm the guy who played the deck that you defended Lupus> against. While it is true that, in that case, the deck did not do so hot, lupus> it is not right to draw such sweeping conclusions on so limited a basis. Lupus, the discussion is about _voting_, not Anarch Revolts. Yes, the Anarch Revolt card is a strong card. However, using it in combo with Malk Rider Clause will _not_ pass more than one or two votes. In your game, you managed the AR/MRC combo a grand total of _once_ which makes all the rest of what you brought up completely irrelevant to the discussion of voting. As a tool to depend on passing votes, it falls short. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

Dharzhak> To be honest, I've tried other strategies and found the Dharzhak> extremely inconsistent or weak. Mike> Could you list these? The only one you ever seem to talk about is Mike> the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo. Eep. I don't usually make notes on decks that fail miserably or don't do anywhere near as well as I would like. I'll have to get back to you on this. Noal> A Lasombra/Giovanni deck may work, but I haven't tried it yet. Mike> Lasombra work great. Power Structure and Political Struggle are Mike> great cards. It's been a while since I've looked at Giovanni cards Mike> so there might be non-combat based ways for them to pass votes. Well...I figured that a Dominate/Potence deck would be okay. The Giovanni have the Mausoleum (I think) for 2 votes and the Powerbase: Rome as well. Enzo would be a given to stop other people's votes and there are two Giovanni with votes. It seems like it would be a rather slow starting deck. I'll have to give this some thought after I get around to toying with the 30 DotB concept I've be...oops. I've let it slip. *grin* Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In article <7ak7j5$v60$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com writes > >AgentZero> And the *only* way to become dominant now is with Presence, pretty > >AgentZero> much effectively eliminates other vote deck types from being > >viable. > > > >*nods* Absolutely correct with the possible exception of bruise and vote. > I would disagree with that, in that there are a number of albeit obscure ways to create a viable non-presense vote deck. Most of the best ways are listed on the thread somewhere (Lasombra Power Structure being one of the best IMO). However, just about all Presense vote decks will be better than these in most cases. > Matt Green's Alamut deck is doing him pretty well currently. It uses > presence, but only for the additional bleed. Could very easily be > another bleed method, if you wanted to chop and change clans. Actually, > a Malkavian/Assamite cross-over might work quite well - bigger bleed, > Obfuscate on the Malks (no need to keep Tansu ready with the Cloaks, as > he was doing), possibility of some cross-over with obf-cel. But do they > lose the dominate for having the cel? Hmm..... > 'Fraid not dude, the deck has 5 Awes for the express purpose of forcing through Praxis seizures, toreador justicar and Banishment. however, the Alamuts were invaluable at teh weekend allowing me to get my votes through even when playing against 2 dedicated vote decks. It really works with a few presence skill cards to get high bleeds through- after that it is just a matter of time before you get control from your own princes and banishing the opponents'. As for using Malks with it- Presence bleeds and votes. Hot dang- just what the deck does, and more to the point no one ever contests the Assamites/toliet-doors. > Lunar's Nosferatu Prince and Justicar machine - Murat, Sheldon, > Kendrick, Nikolaus etc. - is apparently damn scary. I haven't seen it > in its new incarnation which is about half votes, then stealth and > Computer Hacking, with Minion Tap/5ths to boot. Scared the shit out of > Matt Green when he kept having it on his table. > This deck was a bastard to play against for the reason that it kept making static votes and though the Alamut deck could deal with it in the end i could only ever get to deal it damage when it was my prey. The amount orf blood it gained back for the quality of vamps produced was way scary. Nothing that Memory's fading glimpse couldn't handle though. > Rob Treasure's Weenie Legacy of Pander deck has been clocked at having a > record 36 votes on the table at once. He sometimes puts a little > presence in the deck to help the first few Legacies pass, but the speed > he has makes it almost always unnecessary. > This is what scares me about allowing vote push. This deck is just about unstopple with vote push. To quality i have played competitively for an awful long time and have never seen a deck swep so much. It boring to the extreme to constantly lose to it. And lose you will. Strong word i know- i mean it. > Three more exceptions, I feel. Hell, one would almost think that the > line "You need presence to win votes" is looking to be wrong. > Hmm, not sure- possibly6, but i don't like the alternatives. matt [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7arn1a$vr3$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > Well...I figured that a Dominate/Potence deck would be okay. The > Giovanni have the Mausoleum (I think) for 2 votes and the Powerbase: > Rome as well. Enzo would be a given to stop other people's votes and > there are two Giovanni with votes. It seems like it would be a rather > slow starting deck. I might have to tear apart some decks to put together the Giovanni. Of course, all the expansion clans are somewhat slow because of their lower access to small and medium vampires (counting the days to a hopefully mostly vampire "expansion" this year). > I'll have to give this some thought after I get around > to toying with the 30 DotB concept I've be...oops. I've let it slip. *grin* This weekend turned out to be hectic, so my Lasombra and Brujah bruise and vote decks will be posted tonight. [ quoted text not captured ]

>So you need to use Justicar votes (which come with extra votes built in), Except that I only own 1 of each of the various Justicar PAs >locations that give you votes (throw some small Ventrue in your Gangrel deck >for the Ventrue HQ), other titled vampires, the Edge, or other non Pre vote >cards. This is a very iffy strategy. You throw in too many, it ceases to be a Gangrel deck. Too few and you're fuxrd if you don't draw any in your crypt. >"* all an opposing meth needs is *1* vote card to stop your early PS > or Crusade votes" >Not if you have the Edge. Or a Justicar vote. Conceed the Justicar angle, although I don't own enough to use. However, I kind of have issue about the point you make about the edge. I believe it was you (and if it wasn't, my apologies for attributing this to you) who said that you could have a weenie out and call the PS (and have it pass) on your first turn because noone else would have anyone else out (with votes?). If your one weenie is getting the edge, then it's not calling the PS. >You also seem to be ignoring the >fact that the current VP rules make it that much easier to pass a vote, due to >the limited surprise opposition. Yeah, you opponent only needs *1* vote card to >stop your early PS, but in the old days, your opponent (or opponents) could use >*5* vote cards to stop your early PS just as easily. Point conceeded. However, it's much easier to cause a vote to fail in a non presence based voting deck. Much easier, IMO, than it ought to be. >"The problem I see here is that in order to put a vamp into torpor, >reliably, you need alot of combat cards (or alot of blood). So >much so that your political angle gets watered down. I see this >as a problem with Brujah Bruise-Vote as well." >It isn't amazingly easy, no. I am missing your viewpoint here. That is my viewpoint. I believe it was Mike who made it out to be very easy. I'll address the other points when I have more time. a0 a0

In article <7as1fn$d5q$1...@ash.prod.itd.earthlink.net>, "AgentZero" <agen...@my-dejanews.com> wrote: > Conceed the Justicar angle, although I don't own enough to use. > However, I kind of have issue about the point you make about the edge. I > believe it was you (and if it wasn't, my apologies for attributing this to > you) who said that you could have a weenie out and call the PS (and have > it pass) on your first turn because noone else would have anyone else out > (with votes?). If your one weenie is getting the edge, then it's not > calling the PS. It's probably me you're referring to. Obviously, the same minion can't do both things. I'm assuming you have enough 1 capacities that unless you go first, you're going to have two vampires ready to act on your second turn - one to bleed, other to call the PS. > >"The problem I see here is that in order to put a vamp into torpor, > >reliably, you need alot of combat cards (or alot of blood). So > >much so that your political angle gets watered down. I see this > >as a problem with Brujah Bruise-Vote as well." > >It isn't amazingly easy, no. I am missing your viewpoint here. > > That is my viewpoint. I believe it was Mike who made it out to be very > easy. I'm sorry I gave that impression. You and Noal (to a lesser extent) stated that Presence was the only viable voting strategy without vote push. It's quite possible and is not "very easy" by any means. It's not a matter of just throwing a bunch of cards together like you can for a deck that will use vote push. Building a vote deck without Presence is like building a stealthy deck without Obfuscate. It's doable but more difficult. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 22 Feb 1999 Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > Noal> I thought that the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo might work, > Noal> but after trying it myself and defending against it in jol94, I > Noal> have seen that it really won't work. > > Lupus> Whoa there Noal. I'm the guy who played the deck that you defended > Lupus> against. While it is true that, in that case, the deck did not do so > hot, lupus> it is not right to draw such sweeping conclusions on so limited a > basis. > > Lupus, the discussion is about _voting_, not Anarch Revolts. Yes, the Anarch > Revolt card is a strong card. However, using it in combo with Malk Rider > Clause will _not_ pass more than one or two votes. In your game, you managed > the AR/MRC combo a grand total of _once_ which makes all the rest of what you > brought up completely irrelevant to the discussion of voting. As a tool to > depend on passing votes, it falls short. In that case, I'm a bit confused as to why you brought it up. Did I misunderstand, or did you not mention the deck as an example of an ineffective non-Presence political deck? How many votes I passed was irrelevant. It was a short game. Passing one vote gained me a victory point. Had I passed two (which I might have done had I played my cards right), I would have probably swept the table. [ quoted text not captured ]

Agent0 wrote: "Except that I only own 1 of each of the various Justicar PAs" Yeah, sometimes you really need the Justicar votes to make a non Pre vote deck work, just like you need IG to make a Rush deck work. That is just how it goes. Luckily, however, Justicar votes are real easy to get, with Korshavn selling them for .25 each (well, that, and Jyhad boosters are $7.00 a box). But yeah, they are sometimes vital cards for a non Pre vote deck, or at the very least, one of the best ways to build a Pre free vote deck. "This is a very iffy strategy. You throw in too many, it ceases to be a Gangrel deck. Too few and you're fuxrd if you don't draw any in your crypt." It isn't unreasonable to put in, say, 4 small Ventrue (say 2 each of the 2 and 3 with for) in a Gangrel deck in include 2 or 3 Ventrue HQ. "Conceed the Justicar angle, although I don't own enough to use. However, I kind of have issue about the point you make about the edge. I believe it was you (and if it wasn't, my apologies for attributing this to you) who said that you could have a weenie out and call the PS (and have it pass) on your first turn because noone else would have anyone else out (with votes?). If your one weenie is getting the edge, then it's not calling the PS." If you are playing a weenie, non presence based vote deck, all of your vampires are going to be 1 pointers, you aren't going to have any doubles, and you are going to be using 4 or 5 Info Highways. As a result, it is highly likely that you will have more than one vampire on the first turn, if not 4. "Point conceeded. However, it's much easier to cause a vote to fail in a non presence based voting deck. Much easier, IMO, than it ought to be." I don't think anyone is saying that it is simple to make a non presence based vote deck (I certainly am not). You need odd combinations of cards, large titled vampires, or a good supply of rares. However, as I have pointed out before, this does not strike me as a problem, as it is completely analagous to making a non Obf based S+B deck--it isn't going to be as good at pure S+B as an Obf based S+B deck, so it needs to rely on whatever angle you get from not being an Obf based S+B deck. You are going to build a non Pre vote deck because you have a clever angle and think that the clever angle will make it worth playing the deck even though it will be less effective in an absolute sense than the Pre based deck. An example of this (in a not vote sense) is my own Rush deck. I play a very effective Pot/Obf small vampire based Rush deck, made out of Nosferatu. Conventional wisdom would say that the deck would be better off built out of Brujah with Pot/Cel, with all of my Behind Yous replaced with Flash. However, as I see it, the Nosferatu have a better vampire selection (more small vampires that come with POT) as well as access to the Storm Sewers, so I go the Nosferatu route. In one on one combat, vs a Brujah deck, I'll probably lose. The rest of the time, however, I kick ass. A non Pre based vote deck will have trouble if sitting next to a pure Pre vote deck, yeah. However, it won't always be sitting near such a deck, and in the appropriate environement, it will do great. If your local environement consists of nothing but severe, Pre based vote decks, your Nosferatu Prince deck probably won't do all that well. Bring one into a low vote environement, or into a blind tournament, and you'll be perfectly compettetive. [ quoted text not captured ]

Lupus Australis <jbwh...@dorsai.org> wrote: > In that case, I'm a bit confused as to why you brought it up. Did I > misunderstand, or did you not mention the deck as an example of an > ineffective non-Presence political deck? I said that the AR/MRC combo was an ineffective alternative to Presence voting. Your deck used the combo and when I sat on the defending end, I saw the weaknesses more clearly than when I tried to use it myself. > How many votes I passed was irrelevant. It is entirely relevant to the discussion of effective vote passing. > Had I passed two (which I might have done > had I played my cards right), I would have probably swept the table. Unlikely. I had two Dread Gazes in my hand. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7arl58$uaj$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <Dhar...@yahoo.com> wrote: >Lupus, the discussion is about _voting_, not Anarch Revolts. Yes, the Anarch >Revolt card is a strong card. However, using it in combo with Malk Rider >Clause will _not_ pass more than one or two votes. In your game, you managed >the AR/MRC combo a grand total of _once_ which makes all the rest of what you >brought up completely irrelevant to the discussion of voting. As a tool to >depend on passing votes, it falls short. Is that entirely true? True, if you play the 'Rider, people may not vote to remove the Anarchs, but then the Anarchs are still around. Furthermore, people are less likely to call the vote if they think you have a 'Rider in hand, since vampire actions tend to be at a premium, and they've already paid the cost for the Anarchs this time around the table. In short, I would say that the votes _are_ effective, even if they don't work, because they make your main strategy more effective. -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

On Tue, 23 Feb 1999 Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > Lupus Australis <jbwh...@dorsai.org> wrote: > > In that case, I'm a bit confused as to why you brought it up. Did I > > misunderstand, or did you not mention the deck as an example of an > > ineffective non-Presence political deck? > I said that the AR/MRC combo was an ineffective alternative to Presence > voting. Your deck used the combo and when I sat on the defending end, > I saw the weaknesses more clearly than when I tried to use it myself. Well, I'd like to prove you wrong, but I'm not anxious to try it again any time soon. While AR decks are deadly, they can be horrendously unfair to the other players, even when they don't do that well. Nor are they much fun. My poor prey was ousted before he could even take a single minion action. He never stood a chance, and that is not quite fair. > > How many votes I passed was irrelevant. > > It is entirely relevant to the discussion of effective vote passing. I used votes as a significant part of my strategy in this particular deck. As such, it was (marginally) effective. You are arguing that if it was a different kind of deck I would have needed to pass more votes. So what? It is the kind of deck that it is, it uses votes as part of it's strategy, and it narrowly missed sweeping the table as a result of its vote strategy. What you are really saying is that if you put Malkavians in decks designed for Ventrues, it will not work that great. Or that my vote deck is not really a vote deck because if it were it would have needed to pass seven votes to win instead of two. But again, if it were not really a vote deck, why use it as an example of an ineffective one? Besides which, an AR deck inevitably draws the hostility of the entire table. It is not a fair testing ground for the general effectiveness of the Malkavian Rider Clause in terms of passing votes. > > Had I passed two (which I might have done > > had I played my cards right), I would have probably swept the table. > > Unlikely. I had two Dread Gazes in my hand. What is unlikely is that I would have ended up with a fast weenie bleeder who draws three dread gazes in the opening game. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 23 Feb 1999, Jasper Phillips wrote: > In article <7arl58$uaj$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <Dhar...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >Lupus, the discussion is about _voting_, not Anarch Revolts. Yes, the Anarch > >Revolt card is a strong card. However, using it in combo with Malk Rider > >Clause will _not_ pass more than one or two votes. In your game, you managed > >the AR/MRC combo a grand total of _once_ which makes all the rest of what you > >brought up completely irrelevant to the discussion of voting. As a tool to > >depend on passing votes, it falls short. > > Is that entirely true? True, if you play the 'Rider, people may not > vote to remove the Anarchs, but then the Anarchs are still around. > Furthermore, people are less likely to call the vote if they think > you have a 'Rider in hand, since vampire actions tend to be at a premium, > and they've already paid the cost for the Anarchs this time around > the table. > > In short, I would say that the votes _are_ effective, even if they don't > work, because they make your main strategy more effective. This is all correct. One point you did not mention is that the only strategy that can really defeat an AR deck is "racing" -- the ability to drain your prey of pool *significantly* faster than the AR player is draining his. You cannot do this if you are wasting minion actions trying to burn ARs, especially if so many of the votes-to-burn are ineffective. Playing Malk Rider Clauses in such cases creates a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SUN.3.96.990224201748.11756A-100000@amanda>, Lupus Australis <jbwh...@dorsai.org> wrote: >> In short, I would say that the votes _are_ effective, even if they don't >> work, because they make your main strategy more effective. > >This is all correct. One point you did not mention is that the only >strategy that can really defeat an AR deck is "racing" -- the ability to >drain your prey of pool *significantly* faster than the AR player is >draining his. You cannot do this if you are wasting minion actions trying >to burn ARs, especially if so many of the votes-to-burn are ineffective. >Playing Malk Rider Clauses in such cases creates a damned-if-you-do, >damned-if-you-don't situation. I'd say the weakness of an AR deck is a little more general -- if any player is able to drain his prey faster than you, you'll have trouble. Well, that and you've a good chance of drawing cross table rushes, etc. [ quoted text not captured ]

Lupus Australis wrote: > What you are really saying is that if you put Malkavians in decks designed > for Ventrues, it will not work that great. Or that my vote deck is not > really a vote deck because if it were it would have needed to pass seven > votes to win instead of two. But again, if it were not really a vote > deck, why use it as an example of an ineffective one? I think you are confusing the difference between an ineffective combo and an ineffective deck. Your deck was effective because it used the Parthenon to generate 2 Anarch Revolts a turn. The one AR/MRC combo you did pull off proabably didn't have much effect on the game as I doubt your prey would have lasted more than another turn. The point is that as a combo, AR/MRC is not a consistent method to pass votes. Whether your deck is able to win because it generates 2 AR cards a turn is irrelevant to this point. > Besides which, an AR deck inevitably draws the hostility of the entire > table. It is not a fair testing ground for the general effectiveness of > the Malkavian Rider Clause in terms of passing votes. It is definitely a "fair testing ground" to determine whether a AR/MRC combo is an effective means to pass votes. Clearly, it is not. In fact, you're the only person arguing that it is. > What is unlikely is that I would have ended up with a fast weenie bleeder > who draws three dread gazes in the opening game. *grin* Those came from getting ousted in my very first JOL game by two CA votes from across the table. I added them for vote defense and I'm glad to see that the decision was a good one. Btw, there are only 6 Dread Gazes in the deck. I think I've got 3 Suprise Influences in there as well (to stack them). Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 25 Feb 1999 Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > Lupus Australis wrote: > > What you are really saying is that if you put Malkavians in decks designed > > for Ventrues, it will not work that great. Or that my vote deck is not > > really a vote deck because if it were it would have needed to pass seven > > votes to win instead of two. But again, if it were not really a vote > > deck, why use it as an example of an ineffective one? > > I think you are confusing the difference between an ineffective combo and > an ineffective deck. I don't think I'm confused at all. I see my deck as a vote deck because it uses political actions. modifiers, and vote reactions as a major part of its overall strategy. > Your deck was effective because it used the Parthenon > to generate 2 Anarch Revolts a turn. That *is* the main part of its strategy, but you are now oversimplifying. The deck works as a whole. In order to ensure that I will benefit from these Anarchs, I must damage my prey early and fast. This is essential. > The one AR/MRC combo you did pull > off proabably didn't have much effect on the game as I doubt your prey > would have lasted more than another turn. At the rate you were bleeding me, a delay of one or two turns in ousting my prey might have cost me the game, as I would have been ousted first by your bleeds and my own Anarchs. Seven pool loss to one's prey is never anything to underestimate. Timing and speed is all-important in an Anarch Revolt deck. Sure, my prey would probably have been doomed in any event, but what good is that to me if you are the one that gets the vp after ousting me? In retrospect, however, I wish I had divided the pool-loss equally between prey and grand-prey, as I might have ousted 2 Methuselahs in this case. But that is hindsight. Other mistakes, I wish I had bled for the edge prior to casting the Malkavian Justicar vote. Besides which, I "pulled off" multiple AR/MRC combos. The ones that did not get me an automatically-passed offensive vote had other valuable effects: They kept the ARs in play longer and caused my opponents to waste additional minion actions to try to remove them, when they needed to be racing me *real* fast to oust their own prey first. The Conservative Agitations that I did not pass still had the effect of intimidating people out of burning the Anarch Revolts. Anarch Revolt, BTW, *is* a vote card, and AR/MRC is a vote combination. That makes my deck a sort of political deck even without the offensive vote cards like conservative agitation. > The point is that as a combo, > AR/MRC is not a consistent method to pass votes. True, but unlike vote reactions like Dread Gaze, it serves as a dual purpose. It can be used defensively to prevent hostile votes from passing, as well as to gain enormous benefit from those that do pass. I don't think you have given fair consideration to its benefits. Calling it "unreliable" is misleading. Sure, it is "unreliable" but in spite of this, it is 100% effective every time it is played. While its effects may be unpredictable (appropriate for a Malkavian deck), it's effect always benefits you if you play it during a referendum that you would not otherwise wish to pass. You either stop the vote, or you get a free vote of your own. > Whether your deck is > able to win because it generates 2 AR cards a turn is irrelevant to this > point. Except that that is not in itself sufficient to ensure victory in this type of deck. Besides which, those AR cards are vote cards, making my deck political if I choose to do anything to defend them (which I did). We are going to keep arguing in circles, saying that each-other's points are "irrelevant". Everything you say is true, but I still think you are missing the big picture. As best as I can recall the original main point of this discussion is whether non-presence vote decks are effective. I maintain that they are, and you are maintaining otherwise. I agree that this deck is not the best example to prove my case, but, on the other hand, it certainly does not benefit yours -- and you are the one that brought it up. We are discussing a single non-presence vote deck that failed to win, but also failed to lose, in the context of a single game. This neither proves nor disproves the effectiveness of non-presence vote decks or of Malkavian Rider Clause. First off, the deck did indeed "work" to a marginal extent; second, cards that don't work in one deck might work better in another; third, this is just one example of a zillion possible non-presence vote decks. > > Besides which, an AR deck inevitably draws the hostility of the entire > > table. It is not a fair testing ground for the general effectiveness of > > the Malkavian Rider Clause in terms of passing votes. > > It is definitely a "fair testing ground" to determine whether a AR/MRC > combo is an effective means to pass votes. Clearly, it is not. In fact, > you're the only person arguing that it is. I don't remember arguing that AR/MRC was a reliable means of passing votes. Clearly it can be an effective means of passing them. When it fails, it serves to defeat opposing votes. It is a great non-presence political card. Dread Gaze may be more effective at defeating votes you don't like, but when it fails to achieve this purpose it does not have the wonderful side effect of letting you automatically pass your own votes. Besides which, I did not rely on the Rider Clause alone to pass votes. I used a combination of Surprise Influence, and bleeding for the edge to cause the vote to pass after the Rider Clause was played. I also hoped to put a Justicar on the table, which failed because I foolishly failed to bleed for the edge first, and got defeated by a Dread Gaze at Superior by a margin of 1 vote. There were other tricks up my sleeve that I unfortunately never got to try. You are tempting me to try the deck again, though I am sure no-one at the table will thank me. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7arn1a$vr3$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > Dharzhak> To be honest, I've tried other strategies and found the > Dharzhak> extremely inconsistent or weak. > > Mike> Could you list these? The only one you ever seem to talk about is > Mike> the Anarch Revolt/Malk Rider Clause combo. > > Eep. I don't usually make notes on decks that fail miserably or don't > do anywhere near as well as I would like. I'll have to get back to you > on this. > > Noal> A Lasombra/Giovanni deck may work, but I haven't tried it yet. > > Mike> Lasombra work great. Power Structure and Political Struggle are > Mike> great cards. It's been a while since I've looked at Giovanni cards > Mike> so there might be non-combat based ways for them to pass votes. > > Well...I figured that a Dominate/Potence deck would be okay. The > Giovanni have the Mausoleum (I think) for 2 votes and the Powerbase: > Rome as well. Enzo would be a given to stop other people's votes and > there are two Giovanni with votes. It seems like it would be a rather > slow starting deck. I'll have to give this some thought after I get around > to toying with the 30 DotB concept I've be...oops. I've let it slip. *grin* I suspect thirty isn't nearly enough, unless you're building a very small deck. Someone was playing one of these at Praxis: Columbia SC on Saturday (I think it was Derek Ray? but my memory is terrible and I met too many people that day) and had something like 50 in a 90-card deck. Based on weenies of (looked like) up to 3 cap with at least inf animalism, plenty of Ani skill cards, a little rush, and a lot of bleeding for one. At least, as I recall. Oh, and Aid from Bats/Fake Outs to get to long range sometimes so as to avoid going to torpor from 10-point hand hits. It mauled my Brujah pot/cel rush deck horribly as my prey; there was simply nothing I could do once he got started but (at best) trade vamps to torpor, and he definitely had more of them than I did. Josh might've been able to put him down if I'd thought to do it earlier, but foolish me, I let him live... [ quoted text not captured ]

Lupus Australis <jbwh...@dorsai.org> wrote: > We are going to keep arguing in circles, saying that each-other's points > are "irrelevant". Everything you say is true, but I still think you are > missing the big picture. As best as I can recall the original main point > of this discussion is whether non-presence vote decks are effective. Actually, I believe that the point was that the AR/MRC combo wasn't a consistently effective means (in and of itself) to pass votes. At this point, we'll just have to agree to disagree. > You are tempting me to try the deck again, though I am sure no-one at the > table will thank me. Heh. Warn me. I'll stay away from that table. I surely wouldn't want to play my Tzimisce Transformers deck against it. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

Noal> I'll have to give this some thought after I get around Noal> to toying with the 30 DotB concept I've be...oops. Josh> I suspect thirty isn't nearly enough, unless you're building a Josh> very small deck. This is was my idea for the "abusive 30 card deck" that Peter wanted to see. For 30 cards to be effective, they have to be cumulative and not be a double-edged sword. After all considerations, DotB fits the bill. > Based > on weenies of (looked like) up to 3 cap with at least inf animalism, plenty > of Ani skill cards, a little rush, and a lot of bleeding for one. I was thinking something to the effect of a Gangrel deck with Dawn Op, Skin of Night and lots of DotB cards. Since it cranks up someone's hand damage, obviously Skin of Steel, Skin of Rock and Flesh of Marble are called for. I figured on a combo of Bums Rush and Computer Hacking. With all the fun and excitement of getting ready to move next month, I've not had time to give thought to it. Maybe in April when things settle down. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 15:58:58 GMT, jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: >I suspect thirty isn't nearly enough, unless you're building a very small >deck. Someone was playing one of these at Praxis: Columbia SC on Saturday >(I think it was Derek Ray? but my memory is terrible and I met too many >people that day) and had something like 50 in a 90-card deck. Based Ick, no. :) I was playing the dom/PRO "sneak once, bleed lots" deck that was your predator in the third round. I think the ANI deck belonged to Robert Grau, and I may even have spelled his name right. >on weenies of (looked like) up to 3 cap with at least inf animalism, plenty >of Ani skill cards, a little rush, and a lot of bleeding for one. At >least, as I recall. Oh, and Aid from Bats/Fake Outs to get to long range >sometimes so as to avoid going to torpor from 10-point hand hits. It >mauled my Brujah pot/cel rush deck horribly as my prey; there was simply >nothing I could do once he got started but (at best) trade vamps to torpor, >and he definitely had more of them than I did. He had something like 50 or 60, as I recall - several ANI skill cards, the aid from bats, Guard Dogs to untap and get a maneuver when someone bled him, and assorted rushes in case he got an excessively dangerous predator behind him. I think he ran into a problem with running out of library cards, though. >might've been able to put him down if I'd thought to do it earlier, >but foolish me, I let him live... -- Derek (replying by email? remove the nospam from my domain :)

In article <7b6jqm$f7d$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, <Dhar...@yahoo.com> wrote: >Noal> I'll have to give this some thought after I get around >Noal> to toying with the 30 DotB concept I've be...oops. > >Josh> I suspect thirty isn't nearly enough, unless you're building a >Josh> very small deck. > >This is was my idea for the "abusive 30 card deck" that Peter wanted to >see. For 30 cards to be effective, they have to be cumulative and not >be a double-edged sword. After all considerations, DotB fits the bill. You honestly think 30 DotB is abusive? IMHO it's not even close. >> Based >> on weenies of (looked like) up to 3 cap with at least inf animalism, plenty >> of Ani skill cards, a little rush, and a lot of bleeding for one. > >I was thinking something to the effect of a Gangrel deck with Dawn Op, >Skin of Night and lots of DotB cards. Since it cranks up someone's hand >damage, obviously Skin of Steel, Skin of Rock and Flesh of Marble are >called for. I figured on a combo of Bums Rush and Computer Hacking. Dawn Op might be nice, but you're probably better off just maneuvering to range. I'd add a healthy mix of Aid from Bats and Carrion Crows, although Protean would be nice for Quick Meld. The deck aught to be able to function off of only Animalism, so you can stick with smaller vamps. Let your combat defense be light maneuvering, and then the relative expendability of your vamps. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <9106211C5A46482A.097CE6F0DFF5F1B3.A545A7E2C9389BBB@library- proxy.airnews.net>, lor...@nospam.nineball.org (Derek S. Ray) wrote: > On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 15:58:58 GMT, jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) > wrote: > > >I suspect thirty isn't nearly enough, unless you're building a very small > >deck. Someone was playing one of these at Praxis: Columbia SC on Saturday > >(I think it was Derek Ray? but my memory is terrible and I met too many > >people that day) and had something like 50 in a 90-card deck. Based > > Ick, no. :) I was playing the dom/PRO "sneak once, bleed lots" deck > that was your predator in the third round. I think the ANI deck > belonged to Robert Grau, and I may even have spelled his name right. Rob Grau, that was it. I couldn't remember his name for some reason. My only excuse is that I've been sick for a week... (I do remember you and your deck, I was just confused. No really. Six Earth Control. Three in your opening hand. See, I remember.) > He had something like 50 or 60, as I recall - several ANI skill cards, > the aid from bats, Guard Dogs to untap and get a maneuver when someone > bled him, and assorted rushes in case he got an excessively dangerous > predator behind him. I think he ran into a problem with running out > of library cards, though. Yeah. Running out of library cards is the obvious problem with a DotB deck. It was always the problem I mentioned when people talked about doing one back in Ithaca. Of course, no one there had enough DotB to do it, so we never got to find out for sure... Even so, he did get some victory points, although I don't think he made the final. (Hey LSJ, is there going to be a tourney report? Or have I missed it?) Josh [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 26 Feb 1999 21:56:33 GMT, jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: >In article <9106211C5A46482A.097CE6F0DFF5F1B3.A545A7E2C9389BBB@library- >proxy.airnews.net>, > lor...@nospam.nineball.org (Derek S. Ray) wrote: > >> Ick, no. :) I was playing the dom/PRO "sneak once, bleed lots" deck >> that was your predator in the third round. I think the ANI deck >> belonged to Robert Grau, and I may even have spelled his name right. > >Rob Grau, that was it. I couldn't remember his name for some reason. My >only excuse is that I've been sick for a week... (I do remember you and >your deck, I was just confused. No really. Six Earth Control. Three >in your opening hand. See, I remember.) Heheh. Don't remind me. =) I had *that* part of the tourney metagame nailed dead on, too - people would block once to see if I had it and then never block again... and SOOO I never ran out of bleed actions and modifiers. But getting half my stealth in my opening hand and then getting two more of them in the first 15 cards was enough to make me want to scream, especially when you were visibly OUT of rush actions and I had to spend two turns taking no actions and discarding while waiting around with one crummy Deflection in hand. Oh weeeeeelllll. Chalk it up to bad luck. >> He had something like 50 or 60, as I recall - several ANI skill cards, >> the aid from bats, Guard Dogs to untap and get a maneuver when someone >> bled him, and assorted rushes in case he got an excessively dangerous >> predator behind him. I think he ran into a problem with running out >> of library cards, though. > >Yeah. Running out of library cards is the obvious problem with a DotB >deck. It was always the problem I mentioned when people talked about >doing one back in Ithaca. Of course, no one there had enough DotB to do >it, so we never got to find out for sure... > >Even so, he did get some victory points, although I don't think he made >the final. (Hey LSJ, is there going to be a tourney report? Or have I >missed it?) He got 2 VP's for "last one standing" when he was at my table. I didn't play with him in rounds 1 or 3, so don't know... the final was Conor, Brian, David Tatu, Stu, and Stayce. [ quoted text not captured ]

Noal wrote: "This is was my idea for the "abusive 30 card deck" that Peter wanted to see. For 30 cards to be effective, they have to be cumulative and not be a double-edged sword. After all considerations, DotB fits the bill." No, no, you are missing the point of what I am looking for. What I wanted, from the get go, was a deck that used an absurd amount of one card that: A) Is so effective (in a grand sense, not a narrow sense) that it wins on a more than reliable basis, B) Has no common and/or incredibly obvious crippling weaknesses, C) Requires decks be designed specifically to beat it, or die. What I was not looking for was a deck that had an absurd number of one card that: A) Is really good at one particular thing, but is easily trounced in most other common situations, B) Isn't capable of getting VPs in a reliable fashion (i.e is not a deck that can actually win). The 50 DotB deck, while novel and kind of funny, does not fulfil any of the points in the first list and fulfils all of the points in the second list. A deck with weenie ANI vamps and 50 DotB will completely shut down a Rush deck and will cause a great deal of trouble to a zero stealth horde bleed deck, sure. However, it seems highly unlikely that it will be able to oust anyone in any timely fashion, will be quicky destroyed by a quick S+B or vote predator, will suffer from hideous hand jam ("Look. I have 7 DotB in my hand, but no one wants to block my bleeds for 1..."), and will be hard pressed to get any VPs, let alone win a table (or a tournament for that matter), and will run out of cards very quickly. Not an overly effective deck in my book. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "There are people in chains... we can ride them like ponies." -Evil Willow

Joshua Duffin wrote: > > In article <7arn1a$vr3$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > > to toying with the 30 DotB concept I've be...oops. I've let it slip. *grin* > > I suspect thirty isn't nearly enough, unless you're building a very small > deck. Someone was playing one of these at Praxis: Columbia SC on Saturday > (I think it was Derek Ray? but my memory is terrible and I met too many > people that day) and had something like 50 in a 90-card deck. Based > on weenies of (looked like) up to 3 cap with at least inf animalism, plenty > of Ani skill cards, a little rush, and a lot of bleeding for one. At > least, as I recall. Oh, and Aid from Bats/Fake Outs to get to long range > sometimes so as to avoid going to torpor from 10-point hand hits. It > mauled my Brujah pot/cel rush deck horribly as my prey; there was simply > nothing I could do once he got started but (at best) trade vamps to torpor, > and he definitely had more of them than I did. > Okay, Here's the deck: Crypt: (12 Vamps) 2x Vliam Andor 2cap ani 2x Panagos Levidis 3cap ani obf 1x Raziya Samater 3cap ani pot 1x Dani 2cap ani 2x Anastasia Grey 3cap ani pro 1x Wendy Wade 3cap ani aus 1x Navar McClaren 1cap ani, blocks funny 1x Leon 2cap ani, for 1x Gillian Krader 2cap ani, dem, no political actions Library: (90 Cards) 45x Drawing out the Beast 11x Aid from Bats 11x Animalism 11x Bum's Rush 7x Fake Out 5x Guard Dogs Well, That's it. I'm painfully short on Sabbat vamps or else I'd streamline the crypt by taking out a Panagos and Anastasia, throwing in Tommy, and doubling up on either Dani or Leon. Don't bother doubling up Navar, blocking is good. As far as the library is concerned, you can't toss any animalism, I'd maybe trade a Bats for another Guard Dogs or possibly a stray cat's guidence for a token +1 intercept. I need the fake outs because there are the occasional "combat decks" that have maneuvers. <Who plays combat decks at tourneys? :)> The library is pretty pure, you could aid a Fragment or Barrens, or maybe one or two special application cards, I don't know what. You play the deck as a weanie horde bleed thing. The first time your prey blocks you DotB the minion into oblivion. Your prey won't block to many bleeds after that. The Bum's Rush is there to take out your predator's minions when he/she decides to do that S&B or Political or whatever. Anyway, Drawing out the Beast is as abusive as any other card in the set, it hoses equipment, presses, manuevers, fortitude, S:CE, and well, just combat in general. It gets stopped by obedience, but that card is pretty powerful in its own right. It stops combat from happening when a block occurs and combat would normally happen. I don't think there's another card that both stacks, and is as powerful on a card vs. card basis. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

PDB6 wrote: > > Noal wrote: > "This is was my idea for the "abusive 30 card deck" that Peter wanted to see. > For 30 cards to be effective, they have to be cumulative and not be a > double-edged sword. After all considerations, DotB fits the bill." > > No, no, you are missing the point of what I am looking for. What I wanted, from > the get go, was a deck that used an absurd amount of one card that: > > A) Is so effective (in a grand sense, not a narrow sense) that it wins on a > more than reliable basis, More reliable basis than what? My DotB deck regularly gets one VP, usually more. > B) Has no common and/or incredibly obvious crippling weaknesses, To a card: Obedience. To a deck architype: Massive pool gain. Everything else is fair game. > C) Requires decks be designed specifically to beat it, or die. My local playgroup has built several decks specifically to combat it. Since obedience and dominate are pretty common, we've seen the bunch of huge vamp/obedience/dom bleed decks. They work decently without my deck in play. I'll have to give you this one. > What I was not looking for was a deck that had an absurd number of one card > that: > > A) Is really good at one particular thing, but is easily trounced in most other > common situations, > > B) Isn't capable of getting VPs in a reliable fashion (i.e is not a deck that > can actually win). > > The 50 DotB deck, while novel and kind of funny, does not fulfil any of the > points in the first list and fulfils all of the points in the second list. I think you're a little quick to judgement here. You're right, it isn't the most overpowered deck ever.(TM) But it isn't "easily trounced" either. It's one of the strongest rush decks I've seen, and it doesn't even use immortal grapple. Tired of that "Josh Duffin" in your group with all the Brujah combat? Here's a decent deck. (I mention Josh because he's always posted such quality brujah decks, check for yourself.) > deck with weenie ANI vamps and 50 DotB will completely shut down a Rush deck > and will cause a great deal of trouble to a zero stealth horde bleed deck, > sure. However, it seems highly unlikely that it will be able to oust anyone in > any timely fashion, will be quicky destroyed by a quick S+B or vote predator, > will suffer from hideous hand jam ("Look. I have 7 DotB in my hand, but no one > wants to block my bleeds for 1..."), and will be hard pressed to get any VPs, > let alone win a table (or a tournament for that matter), and will run out of > cards very quickly. Not an overly effective deck in my book. Haven't you just cited the problems with rush in general? It's balanced with the other two deck arctitypes, bleed and vote, so yes, the right vote or S&B would get it, suffers from hand jam when there isn't any combat, and most people assume that they won't bleed enough to win tables or tournaments. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Joshua Duffin wrote: > Rob Grau, that was it. I couldn't remember his name for some reason. My > only excuse is that I've been sick for a week... (I do remember you and > your deck, I was just confused. No really. Six Earth Control. Three > in your opening hand. See, I remember.) Egad. No Earth controls. But kudos for trying to remember my first hand, I don't. >(Derek S. Ray wrote:) > > He had something like 50 or 60, as I recall - several ANI skill cards, > > the aid from bats, Guard Dogs to untap and get a maneuver when someone > > bled him, and assorted rushes in case he got an excessively dangerous > > predator behind him. I think he ran into a problem with running out > > of library cards, though. > > Yeah. Running out of library cards is the obvious problem with a DotB > deck. It was always the problem I mentioned when people talked about > doing one back in Ithaca. Of course, no one there had enough DotB to do > it, so we never got to find out for sure... You run out of cards in a hurry if you rush everyone. You have to take the weanie bleed angle to conserve combat cards, and after a couple combats your prey usually lets you have the 4+ bleeds for 1 each turn. > Even so, he did get some victory points, although I don't think he made > the final. (Hey LSJ, is there going to be a tourney report? Or have I > missed it?) > I got three. (It took five to make the finals.) In fairness, though, I wound up against Conor Key's massive pool gain/Aching Beauty deck twice, and in the third game my grand preadtor did nothing to hinder my predator and actually helped him oust me a little. I had David Tatu down to one blood in that game, too. Ugh. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Robert F. Grau wrote: > > Joshua Duffin wrote: > > Rob Grau, that was it. I couldn't remember his name for some reason. My > > only excuse is that I've been sick for a week... (I do remember you and > > your deck, I was just confused. No really. Six Earth Control. Three > > in your opening hand. See, I remember.) > > Egad. No Earth controls. But kudos for trying to remember my first hand, I don't. > Oops. You ment that for Derek, not me. Sorry. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Robert Grau wrote: "More reliable basis than what? My DotB deck regularly gets one VP, usually more." Ahh. What we have here is a failure to communicate :-) Apparently you are missing out on the context of the post you are responding to. Over the last couple of weeks, Noel and I (among others) were involved in a thread that I started, where I wanted someone to show me a deck that contained at least 30 of one card that was so amazingly effective that it required the imposition of a rule (i.e. CL) to prevent it from existing. As a common defense of playing with a CL is "it keeps people from playing super decks that use 30 of one card", I wanted someone to show me one of these "super decks". None of the CL people came to their own defense. Noel said that he would develop such a deck. When your Ani DotB deck was mentioned by Josh in this here thread, Noel suggested that such a deck (with 45 DotB) was an example of such a deck. I was simply refuting the idea that your deck design was _so_ good that it fit the bill of what I was looking for (a deck with over 30 of one card that was so effective that it needed a rule to prevent it from existing). I was not specifically responding to _your_ deck. That was not the point of my post. "I think you're a little quick to judgement here. You're right, it isn' the most overpowered deck ever.(TM) But it isn't "easily trounced" either." That was my whole point. I was explaining to Noel that this deck (with 45 DotB) was not so effective that it needs to be prevented from existing (i.e. it does not justify a blanket CL). I have great faith that this sort of DotB combat deck is very effective. Just not _too_ effective. "It's one of the strongest rush decks I've seen, and it doesn't even use immortal grapple. Tired of that "Josh Duffin" in your group with all the Brujah combat? Here's a decent deck. (I mention Josh because he's always posted such quality brujah decks, check for yourself.)" I am the Josh Duffin in my group :-) (I taught Josh how to play and we developed the "good Rush deck" theory together...) "Haven't you just cited the problems with rush in general? It's balanced with the other two deck arctitypes, bleed and vote, so yes, the right vote or S&B would get it, suffers from hand jam when there isn't any combat, and most people assume that they won't bleed enough to win tables or tournaments." Yes. That was part of my point. Again, I was not downplaying the effectiveness of your deck. I was illustrating to Noel that this deck was not so effective to fit the bill of what I was looking for: a truly degenerate, overly effective, completely envronment dominating deck that was as good as it was because it included a rediculous number of one card and justified inventing a blanket CL to prevent it from being played. This deck is not that. [ quoted text not captured ]

pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > Over the last couple of weeks, Noel and I (among others) were involved in a > thread that I started, where I wanted someone to show me a deck that contained > at least 30 of one card that was so amazingly effective that it required the > imposition of a rule (i.e. CL) to prevent it from existing. I have one question. Who's Noel? I don't recall a Noel posting on the news group at all, much less this thread. (No...I'm not a f**cking Christmas angel) > As a common defense > of playing with a CL is "it keeps people from playing super decks that use 30 > of one card", I wanted someone to show me one of these "super decks". None of > the CL people came to their own defense. Noel said that he would develop such a > deck. *nods* With the exception of the irritating misspelling of my name, this is true. > When your Ani DotB deck was mentioned by Josh in this here thread, Noel > suggested that such a deck (with 45 DotB) was an example of such a deck. Actually, I was considering designing such a deck before Josh posted his. It was an idea that I was toying with and one that I hadn't finished developing. If I was to go the route of using Dawn Op with 30+ DotB's you can bet I'll be packing actions that people will feel they have to block. > I was > simply refuting the idea that your deck design was _so_ good that it fit the > bill of what I was looking for (a deck with over 30 of one card that was so > effective that it needed a rule to prevent it from existing). I was not > specifically responding to _your_ deck. That was not the point of my post. I'd say it should be hard to refute a deck design that hasn't even been started, much less completed. > "I think you're a little quick to judgement here. Considering the previous point, I'd agree...but for different reasons. > Yes. That was part of my point. Again, I was not downplaying the effectiveness > of your deck. I was illustrating to Noel that this deck was not so effective to > fit the bill of what I was looking for: a truly degenerate, overly effective, > completely envronment dominating deck that was as good as it was because it > included a rediculous number of one card and justified inventing a blanket CL > to prevent it from being played. This deck is not that. Well, the other DotB deck may not be overpowered, but I'd like to take a crack at it before the whole concept is dismissed out of hand. I never said that my version of a 30+ DotB deck would fit the bill, just that it was an idea that I was bouncing around. To be honest, I've touched my Jyhad cards a grand total of twice in the last month. Noal (not "Noel") -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <36D8F0D2...@eos.ncsu.edu>, "Robert F. Grau" <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote: > Joshua Duffin wrote: > > Rob Grau, that was it. I couldn't remember his name for some reason. My > > only excuse is that I've been sick for a week... (I do remember you and > > your deck, I was just confused. No really. Six Earth Control. Three > > in your opening hand. See, I remember.) > > Egad. No Earth controls. But kudos for trying to remember my first hand, I > don't. Yeah, that was meant to be Derek's first hand as you realized. ;-) I might have it wrong though. > >(Derek S. Ray wrote:) > > > He had something like 50 or 60, as I recall - several ANI skill cards, > > > the aid from bats, Guard Dogs to untap and get a maneuver when someone > > > bled him, and assorted rushes in case he got an excessively dangerous > > > predator behind him. I think he ran into a problem with running out > > > of library cards, though. > > > > Yeah. Running out of library cards is the obvious problem with a DotB > > deck. It was always the problem I mentioned when people talked about > > doing one back in Ithaca. Of course, no one there had enough DotB to do > > it, so we never got to find out for sure... > > You run out of cards in a hurry if you rush everyone. You have to take the > weanie > bleed angle to conserve combat cards, and after a couple combats your prey > usually lets you have the 4+ bleeds for 1 each turn. Yeah, I think it's got a lot of potential given that the vamps are so small and yet can be so effective in combat. The worst thing that can happen, it seems to me, is having your vamps go to torpor empty too much, and not being able to rescue. Saw the deck listing; wonder if some Blood Dolls would help? Or even (gasp) Gird Minions... That is, I guess, if you find torpor to actually be a real problem. Three VPs eh? Three more than I got... I was sucking pretty badly though. Made some especially bad decisions about contesting vamps. Josh [ quoted text not captured ]

Noal wrote: "I have one question. Who's Noel? I don't recall a Noel posting on the news group at all, much less this thread. (No...I'm not a f**cking Christmas angel)" Dude. Relax. It was a mistake. I didn't do it intentionally. I'm not that kid in 3rd grade who kept making fun of your name. Take a deep breath. My name isn't spelled "PDB6", as it is at the beginning of your post, but you don't see me freaking out about it :-) "Actually, I was considering designing such a deck before Josh posted his. It was an idea that I was toying with and one that I hadn't finished developing. If I was to go the route of using Dawn Op with 30+ DotB's you can bet I'll be packing actions that people will feel they have to block." What actions do people feel they _have_ to block (in a situation where if they block, they will have a vampire burned)? Maybe Sensory Deprivation. That is pretty much it. If you can make the Ravanos the backbone of _the_ deck that justifies CL, I'll be impressed. "I'd say it should be hard to refute a deck design that hasn't even been started, much less completed." Man. You are awfully testy today. What I was refuting was that the deck in question (45 DotB weenie Rush combat), which you mentioned as possibly similar to what you had envisioned, didn't quite cut it as the degenerate monster I was looking for. I was not dismissing a deck which you have imagined yet have not yet shown to us. "Well, the other DotB deck may not be overpowered, but I'd like to take a crack at it before the whole concept is dismissed out of hand." All I dismissed was the idea that the deck in question (Grau's DotB weenie Rush) was not the degenerate deck I was looking for, for the aforementioned reasons. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7be4tg$dal$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > > Over the last couple of weeks, Noel and I (among others) were involved in a > > thread that I started, where I wanted someone to show me a deck that contained > > at least 30 of one card that was so amazingly effective that it required the > > imposition of a rule (i.e. CL) to prevent it from existing. > > I have one question. Who's Noel? I don't recall a Noel posting on the news > group at all, much less this thread. (No...I'm not a f**cking Christmas angel) > > > As a common defense > > of playing with a CL is "it keeps people from playing super decks that use 30 > > of one card", I wanted someone to show me one of these "super decks". None of > > the CL people came to their own defense. Noel said that he would develop such > a > > deck. artaxerxes interjects.. I posted an article, on why 4CL *does* legislate against [quasi-mythological] 30 Card monstrosities, to which, as far as I can ascertain, there has been no real response, apart from ... 'yeah that makes sense'. It notes the basic paradox of the 4CL position, that 30 card fear, or more accurately the '5+ card fear' is an artifact of 4CL. The DotB deck would slaughter every single player in the enviroment in which I play because we cannot field NCL decks, and even given card equity we would not 'get' the metagame. > > *nods* With the exception of the irritating misspelling of my name, this is > true. [...] > Noal (not "Noel") artaxerxes the monocled 4CL'er (article in preparation). [ quoted text not captured ]

jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: > Even so, he did get some victory points, although I don't think he made > the final. (Hey LSJ, is there going to be a tourney report? Or have I > missed it?) You missed it - but so did DejaNews and AltaVista. It was Message-ID: <7as9fr$a...@redwood.cs.sc.edu> posted (not through DejaNews) on Feb 22. Apparently, it didn't get off the local news server (although I did see that it was successfully posted there). And now, of course, it has expired. If anyone out there saw it, and saved it, could you please post it again for me? If not, I'll type it in again tomorrow afternoon (once I get my hands on Stu's deck listing again, etc.) Thanks for the reminder. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | Got Kleptomania? http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson | Take something for it. Graphics Specialist and V:TES Rulemonger | [ quoted text not captured ]

On 1 Mar 1999 18:44:10 GMT, pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: >What actions do people feel they _have_ to block (in a situation where if they >block, they will have a vampire burned)? Maybe Sensory Deprivation. That is >pretty much it. If you can make the Ravanos the backbone of _the_ deck that >justifies CL, I'll be impressed. Hmm. Upon investigating this... 3x Vaclav Petalnegro, 6 - CH AN fo 2x Sarisha Veliku, 6 - ch AN FO 3x Joaquina Amaya, 6 - CH AN FO 2x Natalia, 7 - ch AN fo 2x Kostantin, 9 - CH AN FO Since you need superior ANI, superior CHI, and weenie FOR for this action, stick a few Chimerstry cards in the library and you're off and running. Your worst crypt draw is the only four vampires with inferior chi - could happen but highly unlikely. Second worst is 3 of them and Kostantin, but at least Kostantin can Sense Dep 3 times before he has to reload. Multiple Sense Deps, tons of DotB ... could make a decent base. Couldn't bleed for squat, but if you can manage to SD enough vampires you may not NEED to bleed for much. Aid from Bats, of course. Added advantage, don't NEED to have enough DotB to burn since torporized guys with huge blood loss is sufficiently irritating, so you get a little room to wedge something like Restoration in to keep paying for the Sense Deps. And hopefully some blood gain since you'll probably have to SD your predator to save yourself. Since it can't bleed I don't know if it would be abusive. But this is just five minutes of thought - and the "lose a vampire/lose a vampire" combo is certainly heinous enough. [ quoted text not captured ]

Artaxeres wrote: "I posted an article, on why 4CL *does* legislate against [quasi-mythological] 30 Card monstrosities, to which, as far as I can ascertain, there has been no real response, apart from ... 'yeah that makes sense'." There were plenty of responses to this article. Most of them stated that what you were positing was based entirely upon circular logic that simply dosen't hold up if a part is removed. Yes, if someone comes to one of your 4CL games with a 45 DotB Rush deck, they will kill you all and eat your lungs, furthering your belief that NCL Jyhad is bad. However, this is simply not sound logic because the 45 DotB deck is to be viewed through the lens of NCL Jyhad, as that is where it was built. "It notes the basic paradox of the 4CL position, that 30 card fear, or more accurately the '5+ card fear' is an artifact of 4CL." Yes, and this is why it is a completely moot point in this discussion. I agree that, circular logic as a given, a 45 DotB deck, in a CL game, will support the notion that NCL is bad, but only in the context of CL, which is not where I am trying to find a degenerate deck. I am looking for a deck, that in the context of NCL, is so degenerate that it justifies imposing a CL on the game. "The DotB deck would slaughter every single player in the enviroment in which I play because we cannot field NCL decks, and even given card equity we would not 'get' the metagame."" This point is understood. However, again, it is fairly moot. Yes, in a game where all the players like playing CL and all have only 4 of each card, a "30 card monstrosity" shows up, it will do little more that entrench their beliefs. This has little to do with the argument at hand, however. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <19990301183730...@ng123.aol.com>, pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > Artaxeres wrote: > "I posted an article, on why 4CL *does* legislate against [quasi-mythological] > 30 Card monstrosities, to which, as far as I can ascertain, there has been no > real response, apart from ... 'yeah that makes sense'." > > There were plenty of responses to this article. Most of them stated that what > you were positing was based entirely upon circular logic that simply dosen't > hold up if a part is removed. To which I candidly admitted. Yes, if someone comes to one of your 4CL games > with a 45 DotB Rush deck, they will kill you all and eat your lungs, furthering > your belief that NCL Jyhad is bad. However, this is simply not sound logic > because the 45 DotB deck is to be viewed through the lens of NCL Jyhad, as that > is where it was built. However it does mean that in our enviroment 45 card monsters are indeed legislated against. As you admit, they would tear us apart. The argument is circular granted, but that was part of the thrust of my argument. We can see no way out, barring purchasing essentially another two-three collections, an oulat I am unwilling to make. > > "It notes the basic paradox of the 4CL position, that 30 card fear, or more > accurately the '5+ card fear' is an artifact of 4CL." > > Yes, and this is why it is a completely moot point in this discussion. I agree > that, circular logic as a given, a 45 DotB deck, in a CL game, will support the > notion that NCL is bad, but only in the context of CL, which is not where I am > trying to find a degenerate deck. I am looking for a deck, that in the context > of NCL, is so degenerate that it justifies imposing a CL on the game. > > "The DotB deck would slaughter every single player in the enviroment in which I > play because we cannot field NCL decks, > and even given card equity we would not 'get' the metagame."" > > This point is understood. However, again, it is fairly moot. Yes, in a game > where all the players like playing CL and all have only 4 of each card, a "30 > card monstrosity" shows up, it will do little more that entrench their beliefs. > This has little to do with the argument at hand, however. > > Peter D Bakija > PD...@aol.com > > "There are people in chains... > we can ride them like ponies." > -Evil Willow > I have not asserted that NCL is bad... just trying to expose the weakness of the argument where the NCL merely says 30 is not bad becasue it would not do well in his game..... which is exactly the same terminaology as our argument, except they would do to well. artxerxes the monocled 4CL`er [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 02 Mar 1999 02:16:29 GMT, artax...@my-dejanews.com wrote: >In article <19990301183730...@ng123.aol.com>, > pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: >> Artaxeres wrote: >> "I posted an article, on why 4CL *does* legislate against [quasi-mythological] >> 30 Card monstrosities, to which, as far as I can ascertain, there has been no >> real response, apart from ... 'yeah that makes sense'." >> >> There were plenty of responses to this article. Most of them stated that what >> you were positing was based entirely upon circular logic that simply dosen't >> hold up if a part is removed. > >To which I candidly admitted. Then why keep bringing it up as a point when it fails logical tests? >However it does mean that in our enviroment 45 card monsters are indeed >legislated against. As you admit, they would tear us apart. The argument is >circular granted, but that was part of the thrust of my argument. We can see >no way out, barring purchasing essentially another two-three collections, an >oulat I am unwilling to make. Through no fault of the Rules Teams (who have NEVER officially supported any kind of card limits), you have taken yourselves into an environment where 45-card monsters will tear you up. The rest of us cannot be obligated by the mistakes of a few - we are glad for your group's sake that you enjoy playing with a 4CL and that it works for you, everyone having traded away their cards over time, but we cannot officially advocate a 4CL simply because one group has painted themselves into a corner, so to speak. Hence Peter's curiosity if such a "45 card monster" can even be PRODUCED under No Limits, and i'll admit to some curiosity myself. >> >> This point is understood. However, again, it is fairly moot. Yes, in a game >> where all the players like playing CL and all have only 4 of each card, a "30 >> card monstrosity" shows up, it will do little more that entrench their >beliefs. >> This has little to do with the argument at hand, however. >> >I have not asserted that NCL is bad... just trying to expose the weakness of >the argument where the NCL merely says 30 is not bad becasue it would not do >well in his game..... which is exactly the same terminaology as our argument, >except they would do to well. Except that the offical rules have never supported any sort of card limit, and the game was designed with NCL in mind. There is no weakness here - we are playing the game by the rules. Your group has imposed limitations on itself which are outside the rules - it works for you, but the official rules remain NCL, and just because a 30 card monster would trash a 4CL group's game does not mean that a 30 card monster is somehow "degenerate" or "abusive". Your argument hinges entirely on something your group chose to adopt completely on its own, and you have structured your collections around it. If you choose to vary from the set path, you must be prepared for the scenery to look different on your path than on everyone else's. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7beunp$58e$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, sjoh...@math.sc.edu (L. Scott Johnson) wrote: > If anyone out there saw it, and saved it, could you please post it > again for me? > > If not, I'll type it in again tomorrow afternoon (once I get my hands > on Stu's deck listing again, etc.) > > Thanks for the reminder. Boh. DejaNews, why must you betray me? It seems that DN also doesn't have any articles listed as being posted to r.g.t-c.jyhad on Feb 27. I'm suspicious that maybe it just lost them... Josh stupid, stupid dejanews! [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <5191BDDB2F826C2D.FD6BC8BD...@library-proxy.airnews.net >, lor...@nospam.nineball.org (Derek S. Ray) wrote: > On Tue, 02 Mar 1999 02:16:29 GMT, artax...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > >In article <19990301183730...@ng123.aol.com>, > > pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > >> Artaxeres wrote: > >> "I posted an article, on why 4CL *does* legislate against [quasi-mythological] > >> 30 Card monstrosities, to which, as far as I can ascertain, there has been no > >> real response, apart from ... 'yeah that makes sense'." > >> > >> There were plenty of responses to this article. Most of them stated that what > >> you were positing was based entirely upon circular logic that simply dosen't > >> hold up if a part is removed. > > > >To which I candidly admitted. > > Then why keep bringing it up as a point when it fails logical tests? Merely because I wanted to suggest that 4CL players are aware just how ridiculous the assertion looks and it shoule not be used as the deciding criteria for the worthiness of 4CL as a playing style. The 30 card argument was old hat the instant it was proposed, yet it has been fostered on us as our only argument. Essentially NCL'ers say... this is your only 4CL argument, and it is -nonsense-, now use that argument to prove 4CL is any good. See the problem yet? 4 CL may of sprang from that misguided view that Jyhad could slip into a Magic style suitcase game [which I attempted to illuminate]. Ultimately a whole -variant- of the game exists which uses a four card limit, and it is good fun. It does not matter why they initially used this variant rule, it matters that they enjoy it. We merely ask for recognition of the fact that 4CL enjoys widespread play, and that we are not all obvious idiots for playing with such rules. All our decks are valid NCL decks, we merely choose to change the metagame by limiting card choice to four, and considering the negative financial impact of attempting to change this I have patiently attempted the NCL lobby to acknowledge us. Is not variation to be encouraged? > > >However it does mean that in our enviroment 45 card monsters are indeed > >legislated against. As you admit, they would tear us apart. The argument is > >circular granted, but that was part of the thrust of my argument. We can see > >no way out, barring purchasing essentially another two-three collections, an > >oulat I am unwilling to make. > > Through no fault of the Rules Teams (who have NEVER officially > supported any kind of card limits), you have taken yourselves into an > environment where 45-card monsters will tear you up. The rest of us > cannot be obligated by the mistakes of a few - we are glad for your > group's sake that you enjoy playing with a 4CL and that it works for > you, everyone having traded away their cards over time, but we cannot > officially advocate a 4CL simply because one group has painted > themselves into a corner, so to speak. Hence Peter's curiosity if > such a "45 card monster" can even be PRODUCED under No Limits, and > i'll admit to some curiosity myself. 'I'm all right Jack'. With the parlous state the hobby is in at the moment, I see little place for such smug complacency. And we have seen that attendees to one of the recently posted Tournaments, who managed to boost up the numbers to the required 8, 3 where 4CL (iirc). This needs to be encouraged, not told 'Sorry, but it is your own fault, now get outta town.' > > >> > >> This point is understood. However, again, it is fairly moot. Yes, in a game > >> where all the players like playing CL and all have only 4 of each card, a "30 > >> card monstrosity" shows up, it will do little more that entrench their > >beliefs. > >> This has little to do with the argument at hand, however. > >> > >I have not asserted that NCL is bad... just trying to expose the weakness of > >the argument where the NCL merely says 30 is not bad becasue it would not do > >well in his game..... which is exactly the same terminaology as our argument, > >except they would do to well. > > Except that the offical rules have never supported any sort of card > limit, and the game was designed with NCL in mind. There is no > weakness here - we are playing the game by the rules. Your group has > imposed limitations on itself which are outside the rules - it works > for you, but the official rules remain NCL, and just because a 30 card > monster would trash a 4CL group's game does not mean that a 30 card > monster is somehow "degenerate" or "abusive". > > Your argument hinges entirely on something your group chose to adopt > completely on its own, and you have structured your collections around > it. If you choose to vary from the set path, you must be prepared for > the scenery to look different on your path than on everyone else's. > > -- Derek > (replying by email? remove the nospam from my domain :) > True, up to a point. However, considering we are here, at this point with 4CL collections, should we be given the encouragement to return to the fold, and join tournaments geared, or at least acknowledging our position. Or should we be told, as above, 'your fault' sorry, nothing we can do. I have suggested that perhaps, a show case of 4CL could occur at a DCI sanctioned event. ANd if we don't show, the feel free to rubbish the argument about alienating a substantial minority. Not until then though. artaxerxes the monocled 4CL'er -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

artax...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > In article <19990301183730...@ng123.aol.com>, > Artaxeres wrote: > > pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > > > Yes, if someone comes to one of your 4CL games > > with a 45 DotB Rush deck, they will kill you all and eat your lungs, > > furthering > > your belief that NCL Jyhad is bad. However, this is simply not sound logic > > because the 45 DotB deck is to be viewed through the lens of NCL Jyhad, as > > that is where it was built. > > However it does mean that in our enviroment 45 card monsters are indeed > legislated against. As you admit, they would tear us apart. The argument is > circular granted, but that was part of the thrust of my argument. We can see > no way out, barring purchasing essentially another two-three collections, an > oulat I am unwilling to make. How about this way out: building a deck that just beats the deck. I have no figures, so I can't ensure perfection, there are decks and playing styles that defeat a rush deck. (45 DotB is just a rush deck) The metagame will shift, the DotB guy will look for something more fun and effective. No new card collections required. > > I have not asserted that NCL is bad... just trying to expose the weakness of > the argument where the NCL merely says 30 is not bad becasue it would not do > well in his game..... which is exactly the same terminaology as our argument, > except they would do to well. > You may have a point, it isn't the 100% best, perfect, ironclad argument ever. I'd say there might be 20 or 30 cards out of the 1000 or so created that are not complete failures when you have 30 or more in a deck, and of that 20 or 30 there might be 2 or 3 which are (possibly) considered overpowered. DotB is one of those really strong cards. Because there are a couple cards that could be exceptions doesn't cause this argument to come crashing down like a house of cards. I can't recall how the two arguments use "exactly the same terminology" so I'll have to hold off on that one, until I can dig back through the thread and compare. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Artxerxes wrote: "We can see no way out, barring purchasing essentially another two-three collections, an oulat I am unwilling to make." Which is understandable, but probably uneccessary, as Jyhad boosters go for about 10 bucks a box, and you can buy commons for along the lines of 20 for a dollar off the net. I'm not saying you should go out and blow all your money on cards if you don't want to, but if everyone in your group is willing to blow, maybe, 15-20 bucks on new cards, you no longer have to be limited by card mix. I'm not saying you should, but if your hurdle is price, it just isn't a big enough hurdle to stop you. "I have not asserted that NCL is bad... just trying to expose the weakness of the argument where the NCL merely says 30 is not bad becasue it would not do well in his game..... which is exactly the same terminaology as our argument, except they would do to well." I'm kind of missing what you are trying to get at here. I'm not trying to prove that a "30 card monstrosity" will not be overly effective in a CL game. You are correct. It will be. However, this has no bearing on my argument. It is just more circular logic. What I am looking for, again, is a deck, that in the context of NL Jyhad, is _so_ horrible and _so_ effective that it justifies imposing a CL upon the game to prevent it. That is where this came from. I'm not saying that you, Artxerxes, is saying "I play CL because it keeps people from playing decks with 30 of one card" (even though, essentially, that is what you are saying in this thread...), however, it is a fairly common defense of CL folks. Again, what I am looking for is a deck that justifies changing the basic rules of the game to prevent it from existing. That is all. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 02 Mar 1999 16:39:40 GMT, artax...@my-dejanews.com wrote: >> Then why keep bringing it up as a point when it fails logical tests? > >Merely because I wanted to suggest that 4CL players are aware just how >ridiculous the assertion looks and it shoule not be used as the deciding >criteria for the worthiness of 4CL as a playing style. The 30 card argument >was old hat the instant it was proposed, yet it has been fostered on us as >our only argument. Essentially NCL'ers say... this is your only 4CL >argument, and it is -nonsense-, now use that argument to prove 4CL is any >good. Do you have another argument for 4CL that may hold water, then? I don't recall seeing one... there is the common claim that NL favors Mr. Suitcase who will just use all his rares, but there have been plenty of examples where all-common decks beat Mr. Suitcase's all-rare decks up OR a deck with 12 commons is shown to be just as effective as a deck with 12 rares, disproving that. There was a brief claim once that 4CL stops sneak & bleed, which truly -is- nonsense. >See the problem yet? We'd like you to use -any- argument. But it needs to be based from a game balance standpoint. Why is the game unbalanced under NL to such a degree that a 4CL or 6CL or whatever is required? >4 CL may of sprang from that misguided view that Jyhad could slip into a >Magic style suitcase game [which I attempted to illuminate]. Ultimately a This seems a very accurate assessment. But Jyhad was carefully designed to NOT be like Magic, where a "who could get the most of the 'power cards'" sort of dealie would prevail. It seems to have done very well in that respect - I see no individual card on Mark Korshavn's list retailing for more than about ... $3? Certainly no cards are even as much as $10 each, and compare that with Magic's single-card-for-$100? Eeeeyuch. We can appreciate everyone's concerns, but ultimately applying a 4CL to Jyhad -was- misguided. >whole -variant- of the game exists which uses a four card limit, and it is >good fun. It does not matter why they initially used this variant rule, it >matters that they enjoy it. We merely ask for recognition of the fact that >4CL enjoys widespread play, and that we are not all obvious idiots for >playing with such rules. All our decks are valid NCL decks, we merely choose >to change the metagame by limiting card choice to four, and considering the >negative financial impact of attempting to change this I have patiently >attempted the NCL lobby to acknowledge us. Is not variation to be >encouraged? I will question how "widespread" 4CL is, actually - the MJL doesn't play under a card limit in tournaments, and I believe Noal's informal guidelines involve a 6CL. I don't know of any group in the Southeast that plays with a 4CL - and there was a turnout of approximately 20 people for the Carolina tournament, with a number of people from Atlanta not able to show up. No one is calling you idiots, nor are we saying your decks are invalid. You would be perfectly legal in any current DCI tournament with a 4CL deck. But we ARE saying that you have made a mistake by carefully limiting your COLLECTIONS in this fashion, and that mistake may negatively impact your ability to compete on an equal footing in these tournaments. The negative financial impact you speak of, considering the going price of a box of Jyhad boosters, is minimal and only applies specifically to you at the moment, since I haven't heard any other 4CL advocates jump up and say 'we only have 4 of each card too!' This mistake was not encouraged by WotC or WW, the creators of the game. In fact, one of their primary design goals was to produce a game that did NOT require card limits, having seen what a mess it turned Magic into. You guys really did do it to yourselves. You ask if variation is not to be encouraged - tell us, should *we* encourage people to make the same mistake and play a variation that will make them unable to compete on an even footing in official DCI tournaments? Of course not. Anyone is welcome to impose whatever house rules they want on their games - the official rules need to remain the official rules, however, so that new players can come in and experience the complete game, not merely a subset of it. >> Through no fault of the Rules Teams (who have NEVER officially >> supported any kind of card limits), you have taken yourselves into an >> environment where 45-card monsters will tear you up. The rest of us >> cannot be obligated by the mistakes of a few - we are glad for your >> group's sake that you enjoy playing with a 4CL and that it works for >> you, everyone having traded away their cards over time, but we cannot >> officially advocate a 4CL simply because one group has painted >> themselves into a corner, so to speak. Hence Peter's curiosity if >> such a "45 card monster" can even be PRODUCED under No Limits, and >> i'll admit to some curiosity myself. > >'I'm all right Jack'. With the parlous state the hobby is in at the moment, >I see little place for such smug complacency. And we have seen that >attendees to one of the recently posted Tournaments, who managed to boost up >the numbers to the required 8, 3 where 4CL (iirc). This needs to be >encouraged, not told 'Sorry, but it is your own fault, now get outta town.' See above. In addition, none of the 20 attendees of the Carolina tournament were playing with a 4CL. The game is not in the best shape at the moment, no - largely due to its lack of presence in retail outlets and the fact that it did not make enough money originally (and you guys don't want to spend more money, but want the game to grow? hmm). New players should be encouraged, and taught to play the game properly so that we do not have additional situations like this arise in the future, where a fringe group has essentially screwed itself and now doesn't wish to spend any more money to bring itself back into line with the mainstream, instead preferring to lobby endlessly for recognition despite the obvious flaws with their variant. No 4CLer will ever be BARRED from a tournament merely for playing a 4CL deck! They just need to understand that the official DCI rules are No Limits, and that a NL environment is potentially very hazardous for a 4CL deck to enter into. >> Your argument hinges entirely on something your group chose to adopt >> completely on its own, and you have structured your collections around >> it. If you choose to vary from the set path, you must be prepared for >> the scenery to look different on your path than on everyone else's. > >True, up to a point. However, considering we are here, at this point with 4CL >collections, should we be given the encouragement to return to the fold, and >join tournaments geared, or at least acknowledging our position. Or should >we be told, as above, 'your fault' sorry, nothing we can do. I have >suggested that perhaps, a show case of 4CL could occur at a DCI sanctioned >event. ANd if we don't show, the feel free to rubbish the argument about >alienating a substantial minority. Not until then though. A substantial minority is nevertheless a minority, and from what I see you guys aren't as substantial as you think. You are here with 4CL collections - it is advisable to spend the minimal cash outlay (two boxes of Jyhad really ought to give you most all the additional commons you'll need, unless you want to start trying for the 45-DotB deck) and bring yourselves back into the fold instead of lobbying us with "PITY US" arguments. The game is not in such bad shape that we need to encourage broken variants just to get players. If someone were to showcase 4CL at a DCI event, be certain that someone will also "showcase" the weenie presence bleed horde for which no defense exists under 4CL. How does this improve 4CL's position as a worthwhile variant to add to the OFFICIAL rules? [ quoted text not captured ]