VEKN Gangrel anti-tribu Newsletter July 98

Gangrel Anti Newsletter Vol1 number 5 July 1st 1998 IN THIS ISSUE .... FICTION: A Philosophical Introduction ...... Legbiter introduces a totally new deck concept to the playing- and story-telling arena. LEGBITER'S THEOREM ON COMBAT DECKS IN TOURNAMENTS: A proposition for scientific evaluation. IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW RULINGS FOR GANGREL ANTIS: Why we suddenly became the top combat clan. OUR MAN IN THE CHANTRY: We reveal the secret power of the gangrel anti-tribu in the heart of the Wizards Empire ........ FICTION LEGBITER JOL79 TURN 1: A Philosophical Introduction ...... In the secure wing of the Carstairs State Mental Hospital a bearded man in a strait-jacket is building a model of the Parthenon with his teeth, toes and a collection of toilet-rolls. Satisfied, he hops back up onto his hard bed and surveys his handiwork, tilting his head to left and right in an owlish manner. Then he looks up at the ceiling, and addresses it in the following terms: "Haha! I knew you'd find me eventually. But you're too late: the Other Voice came first. And do you know what it said to me???? Son, it said, the time is coming when I shall awake and kick the shit out of every last one of them. O dear, I said, does that mean me too? No leggy, not you - PROVIDED you help me with a little, erm, preparation, I'll go dibs with ya on Scotland, k? Deal big daddy, i replied quick as a flash, what's the job? The job, my boy, is to remove some of your brothers from the scene ... I've made a little list ..... now you know me, I LOVE my brothers and sisters and would NEVER hurt them, so just THINK of my relief when I looked down the list and saw that it was just the names of you lot, cos you're only a bunch of scummy voices in my head. In fact I now realise that none of you has any Objective Reality and that you're just Epiphenomena of the Dialectic. Hehehe ..... I'm not just a pretty face y'know .... I've been reading Marx, Hegel, Wittgenstein and Colour Climax while I've been, erm, resting in this mansion. And the Other Voice and I have devised our own Philosophical creed ... I'm going to call it Malkav-Legbiterism. Vampires of the World, Arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains, and ..... a ...... World ........ to ........ " Legbiter's eyes have been revolving alarmingly in his head throughout this peroration, and at this point his voice suddenly slows, his head slumps and then with a tremendous jerk he takes off, does a somersault, lands with a tremendous crack on the floor and lies there twitching, bleeding copiously and muttering in ancient aramaic .... some of the blood soaks into the model of the Parthenon ..... the door of the cell creaks open and three vampires come in, all dressed in the asylum uniform. All three lap at the spreading pool ..... then suddenly Legbiter leaps up back onto the bed. One of the vampires howls and flees, but the other two are held by his hypnotic gaze ....... "Command us, Master" say Huang and Navar in unison. "That's Comrade Master to you, Comrade Fuckwits" replies Legbiter. "Caine's Fork and Bedding Tool, whoever embraced you pair should be staked out on the wrong side of Mercury right now. Ah well, can't be helped ... we have a little Philosophy to Implement." "Comrade Master, is it true that we're all going to be eaten alive by the Antediluvians?" "Nononono, don't you worry about that .. I'll see to it ....." GAME TERMS Starting Pool: 30 Untap: Not yet Master: play The Parthenon Minion: Not yet Influence: 1 on number 256 Navar McClaren, 1 on number 69 Huang, Blood Cultist 1, 2 on number 166. Remaining uncontrolled vampire is number 199. Discard: Rumours of Gehenna This, of course, is the debut of the Betrayer deck [see last month's newsletter for a guide to it]. I thought y'all might be interested in how it works out! LEGBITER'S THEOREM ON COMBAT DECKS IN TOURNAMENTS After yet another unsuccessful outing for a Legbiter combat deck in tournaments I'm beginning to see more clearly the circumstances under which a combat deck loses or wins. We talked last month about the need for speed, and so I implemented an increased speed deck using fortitude and freak drives. Unfortunately this increased speed merely raised the rate at which my predator and prey got buggered up, and therefore made things even easier for my grand-predator and grand-prey. Also, now people have got used to the fact that I like combat decks and that if they sit next to me they will get hurt, so Thoughts Betrayed is raising its merry head in our little coterie. But the most interesting game was number 3, in which two combat decks competed with two non-combat decks, one of which was Barney's, the eventual winner of the tournament. This was a truly excellent game and eventually William Lee's Tzimisce combat deck prevailed with 3VP. At one point nobody had any ready or rescuable vampires at all! All of which reinforces Legbiter's central dogma of tournament combat: COMBAT DECKS NEVER WIN TOURNAMENTS UNLESS 50% OR MORE OF THE TOTAL DECKS COMPETING ARE ALSO COMBAT DECKS. I can provide a rationale for why this might be - briefly, it is because of the innate slowness of combat compared to voting or bleeding, and the dynamics of the sequential predator-prey relationships. But I'm more interested in testing the dogma with real data. Does it fit with other people's experience? Can anyone see a way out of it? I must admit that I am coming round to pure fortitude or possibly for/pro/intercept/Rotschrek [new rules] or for/dom [Thoughts Betrayed, though this is likely to be banned from tournament play under the new dispensation]. Or possibly more cross table stuff ...... IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW RULINGS FOR GANGREL ANTIS. The Gangrel anti-tribus received a significant boost with LSJ's new and correct ruling on Rotschrek. In particular, the Black Spiral Buddy and Shadow Court Satyr [with Burst of Sunlight] are now AWESOMELY powerful. You tangle with either of these dudes on my turn, you go to torpor and not all the damage preventions, Thoughts Betrayed, dodges or strikes to end combat in the world can save you. Coupled with the diablarising card [Gangrel Conspiracy] and you are looking at the top clan for the forseeable future. London evening Star, KRCG news, sports bike, IR goggles-wearing BSB's with Rotshreck ..... WOW!!!!! OUR MAN IN THE CHANTRY Jason Carl posted something interesting to us on the mailing list, and I replied as follows: To: vin...@wizards.com Subject: Leon Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:17:49 < I'm also Leon the Gangrel from The Sabbat expansion. A miserable 2 Blood, how embarassing... sad, isn't it? ;-) Sincerely yours, Jason Carl DCI Policy Director Wizards of the Coast> Nice picture! Maybe you should try eye-drops .... Hey, one of my minions diablarized you during the Portsmouth Sealed-deck tournament. No hard feelings, I hope????? Legbiter. Alright, see you all again in August. Byeeee!

Legbiter wrote: > IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW RULINGS FOR GANGREL ANTIS. > The Gangrel anti-tribus received a significant boost with LSJ's new and > correct ruling on Rotschrek. In particular, the Black Spiral Buddy and > Shadow Court Satyr [with Burst of Sunlight] are now AWESOMELY powerful. > You tangle with either of these dudes on my turn, you go to torpor and not "... You tangle with [them] on *your* turn, ..." you mean - you still cannot play Rotschreck on your own turn. -- L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings: http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch

Legbiter wrote: "COMBAT DECKS NEVER WIN TOURNAMENTS UNLESS 50% OR MORE OF THE TOTAL DECKS COMPETING ARE ALSO COMBAT DECKS." Nope. Nope. Nope. Incorrect. Flawed theorem. Faulty logic. Negative. In two recent tournaments I played in, the first had 8 players and 2 combat decks, which came in first and second place. In the second toruenament of 10 plyers and 3 combat decks, all three combat decks were in the finals, and one of them won. Not 50%. 25%-33%, ok, maybe. Certainly not 50%. :-) "I can provide a rationale for why this might be - briefly, it is because of the innate slowness of combat compared to voting or bleeding, and the dynamics of the sequential predator-prey relationships. But I'm more interested in testing the dogma with real data. Does it fit with other people's experience? Can anyone see a way out of it? I must admit that I am coming round to pure fortitude or possibly for/pro/intercept/Rotschrek [new rules] or for/dom [Thoughts Betrayed, though this is likely to be banned from tournament play under the new dispensation]. Or possibly more cross table stuff ......" Combat decks don't need to be slow. If they are quick to start up and quick to kill, they cause a great deal of damage really quickly. You slay every vampire your prey brings out. You slay every vampire your predator can hurt you with. If your prey refuses to bring out vamps, you bleed him some and kill all the other vampires at the table. You just kill, kill, kill. The only really viable way to send vampires to torpor, however, is with zero blood due to Potence or some other large strikes (blurred Blood Sweat?). You need to prevent vampires from getting out of torpor by either burning them right out, or sending them in with zero blood, and killing off any freinds. Sending vamps to torpor full of blood only slows them down a bit, or makes you waste actions (and minions) with diablere. If your opponents are getting vampires out of torpor as quickly as you are sending them there, then you are accomplishing nothing. Rush decks that revolve around small vampires (2-5ish) and large Pot strikes backed by Pulled Fangs/Disarm/Decapitate can be very effective in a tournament setting. Elaborate combat decks, that revolve around larger vampires and weird combos are much harder to get anywhere with, due to the above mentioned factors, but small, quick ones are perfectly viable competitors. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "I am the world's forgotten boy the one who searches and destroys." -Iggy Pop

In article <199806291432...@ladder03.news.aol.com>, pd...@aol.com (PDB6) wrote: > Legbiter wrote: > "COMBAT DECKS NEVER WIN TOURNAMENTS UNLESS 50% OR MORE OF THE TOTAL DECKS > COMPETING ARE ALSO COMBAT DECKS." > > Nope. Nope. Nope. Incorrect. Flawed theorem. Faulty logic. Negative. In > two recent tournaments I played in, the first had 8 players and 2 combat decks, > which came in first and second place. In the second toruenament of 10 plyers > and 3 combat decks, all three combat decks were in the finals, and one of them > won. Not 50%. 25%-33%, ok, maybe. Certainly not 50%. > > :-) Well, that may indeed scupper my theory. But I phrased it a little clumsily. It is really that combat decks do not win a HEAT unless 50% or more of the decks IN THAT HEAT are combat decks. My basic point is that if there are two combat decks in ANY Jyhad game, then given equal players and reasonable luck, one of them will win. [ quoted text not captured ] Fair enough. I'll try that.

In article <35978B...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > Legbiter wrote: > > IMPLICATIONS OF THE NEW RULINGS FOR GANGREL ANTIS. > > The Gangrel anti-tribus received a significant boost with LSJ's new and > > correct ruling on Rotschrek. In particular, the Black Spiral Buddy and > > Shadow Court Satyr [with Burst of Sunlight] are now AWESOMELY powerful. > > You tangle with either of these dudes on my turn, you go to torpor and not > > "... You tangle with [them] on *your* turn, ..." you mean - you still > cannot play Rotschreck on your own turn. > Quite right, sorry. "You tangle with either of these dudes when it is NOT my turn ......"

Legbiter wrote: "Well, that may indeed scupper my theory. But I phrased it a little clumsily. It is really that combat decks do not win a HEAT unless 50% or more of the decks IN THAT HEAT are combat decks. My basic point is that if there are two combat decks in ANY Jyhad game, then given equal players and reasonable luck, one of them will win." Ahh. That theory I'll buy. If, in a given 5 player round of Jyhad, there are two competent Ruah decks at the table, it does seem likely that one of them will win, especially if they are sitting across the table from each other. If they are sitting next to each other, however, the guy in across the table from both of them will probably win. That is one of the most humerous things about Jyhad as a whole. Games are won and lost completely by seating position, and very often you can call the winner before the game even starts if you know what decks are playing and where they are sitting. Cracks me up. [ quoted text not captured ]

PDB6 wrote: > > Legbiter wrote: > "Well, that may indeed scupper my theory. But I phrased it a little > clumsily. It is really that combat decks do not win a HEAT unless 50% or more > of the decks IN THAT HEAT are combat decks. My basic point is that if there are > two combat decks in ANY Jyhad game, then given equal players and reasonable > luck, one of them will win." > > Ahh. That theory I'll buy. If, in a given 5 player round of Jyhad, there are > two competent Ruah decks at the table, it does seem likely that one of them > will win, especially if they are sitting across the table from each other. If > they are sitting next to each other, however, the guy in across the table from > both of them will probably win. The actual ratio is 2 decks in 5 - or roughly 40%. I agree completely with your analysis. A lone combat deck will often get killed by its own grand-prey (given that your grand prey has a decent deck and any skill level at all). One neat thing too. I have seen it where if two combat decks are side-by-side, they will co-operate so that at least one of them will win the game - a 'Brotherhood of the Combat Deck' so to speak. > > That is one of the most humerous things about Jyhad as a whole. Games are won > and lost completely by seating position, and very often you can call the winner > before the game even starts if you know what decks are playing and where they > are sitting. Cracks me up. > I have made this point very often myself. Nothing like watching your predator flip over his first controlled vamp......and you know your own chances of winning just dropped 50-80%. The best games I have ever seen were ones where a deck won (or did well) despite the seating positions. Where luck of the draw and player interaction created a situation where a previously 'screwed' player manages to prosper - I do like to root for the underdog. Of course, this is why we still play the game. [ quoted text not captured ]