A Rise of the Imperator report from New Berlin, WI

Summary; I played in the Rise of the Imperator storyline event in New Berlin, WI on Saturday, June 6th. As this was my first game in a very long time, I didn't really expect to do that well... and I didn't. :) I played two games for the event (we had 9 attendees) and I was the first ousted in both my games. Going into the event, I decided to go with a deck that I felt would fit the environment - a deck with big vampires with lots of political power. A long time ago, I played mostly Ventrue, so I looked at that... but I wanted to comes as close to the present as my cards would allow, so I played Group 2/3 - all vampires I have never used before. I bought some Blood Shadowed Court sets to get my 3s; I own nothing after Sabbat, really. The Deck; "Shadow Cabinet", a Ventrue stealth vote/bleed deck Crypt (12) 2 Arika 2 Marcus Vitel 2 Lucinde, Alastor 1 Queen Anne 1 Suhailah 1 Horatio Ballard 1 Victorine Lafourcade 2 Catherine du Bois Group 2/3 Avg capacity = 8.83 Max title votes = 15 (17 likely) The primary disciplines are obf, FOR, DOM, and PRE. Library (90) Master (18) 2 Sudden Reversal 2 Information Highway 4 Minion Tap 4 Blood Doll 2 Secure Haven 2 Uptown Hunting Ground 1 Ventrue Headquarters 1 Elysium: The Arboretum Presence (14) 8 Majesty 6 Voter Captivation Dominate (14) 8 Govern The Unaligned 6 Deflection Fortitude (14) 5 Rolling With The Punches 3 Skin of Steel 6 Freak Drive Obfuscate (12) 4 Elder Impersonation 4 Faceless Night 4 Lost in Crowds General (2) 2 Wake With Evenings Freshness Political (16) 1 Ancient Influence 1 Political Stranglehold 2 Banishment 2 Disputed Territory 10 Kine Resources Contested Some observations; To me, this deck seems like it shouldn't work. The crypt average cost is way, way, way too high. Still, one thing I am learning is that big vampires now aren't nearly the drawback they were in the distant past... or maybe they are. I dunno. Not like this strategy helped me do that well. The basics should be obvious - vote or bleed with stealth to back it up. Pool gain through Voter Cap as usual. Game 1; My predator was a Kindred Spirits Malkavian bleeder, my prey a Malk94 bleeder. Grandpredator was a Toreador wall deck and grandprey was a Brujah wall deck sorta - exploiting Arms Merchants and Starstrike Rocket Launcher to generate big intercept. My first vampire out was Marcus Vitel and I got off a Minion Tap to keep my pool high, but I made a crucial mistake... The game quickly wound up with my prey at 3 pool, my grandprey at 3 pool, and me at about 10 pool. The others were quite high still. I saw 2 Elder Impersonations, 1 Faceless Night, and a Govern the Unaligned in my hand. So, despite the Milicent Smith - Puritan Vampire Hunter on me, I thought I would try to stay in the game with a stealth bleed. My prey had 2 vampires, Muriel and Gilbert Duane, both tapped... he had intercepted before, but he'd need 2 this time to get it and this might keep me in the game. He had two... and my mistake was forgetting I could not play Elder Impersonation twice. Ah well. Milicent burned Marcus and things went down hill from there. The game breaker was a few turns later when, in another attempt to oust my prey with a KRC, I just needed the Toreador to not vote against... and they did, admitting that it was probably a mistake as it gave their prey an oust on me and an almost immediately following second oust on my prey. Lesson: Remember you can't play the same action modifier twice. And wait for Milicent to pass. Game 2; My predator was a Brujah bruise and bleed... with lots of anti- Ventrue. :/ And my prey was the Toreador wall from the first game, which seemed to have trouble pulling their strategy together. Grandpredator was Tremere... umm... bleeder? Sorta? I couldn't really tell. They didn't seem to really do anything "Tremereish" to me, neither fight nor tricks. And my grandprey was a Toreador vote deck... whose initial vampire Alexandra really put a kink in my prey's plan. Not that I could exploit it. Because everyone at the table had 3 to 5 votes almost immediately and I had nothing but vote cards in hand. And my predator wrecked my Lucinde in an Immortal Grapple right off the bat, too... what a bad draw as predator, really. Some hand jam and futile actions meant I quickly folded. Lesson: Big vampires really limit the number of actions you can take per turn.

[ quoted text not captured ] Sounds like in game one you did pretty well, then your rustyness struck. Everyone makes mistakes and it seems like you took your lumps as a learning opportunity. Do you want any suggestions on your deck? Brandon

On Jun 9, 12:15 pm, brandonsantac...@yahoo.com wrote: > Sounds like in game one you did pretty well, then your rustyness > struck. Everyone makes mistakes and it seems like you took your lumps > as a learning opportunity. Do you want any suggestions on your deck? I would love some suggestions. :) Eric Jome

On Jun 9, 12:00 pm, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > Summary; > > I played in the Rise of the Imperator storyline event in New Berlin, > WI on Saturday, June 6th. As this was my first game in a very long > time, I didn't really expect to do that well... and I didn't. :) I > played two games for the event (we had 9 attendees) and I was the > first ousted in both my games. Going into the event, I decided to go I know a lot of people care about what order they got ousted in, but there are no VPs involved in what order you were ousted. Sure, you can't get VPs if you are dead, but if you are ousted with 0 VPs first or last, you still have 0 VPs. I wouldn't get hung up on that. Also, Vampire is a difficult game to win at. With a dual, 1 on 1 game, you have about a 50% chance to win, with 5 players at the table you start out with 20%. You have to get used to losing a lot if you plan to eventually win. > with a deck that I felt would fit the environment - a deck with big > vampires with lots of political power. A long time ago, I played > mostly Ventrue, so I looked at that... but I wanted to comes as close > to the present as my cards would allow, so I played Group 2/3 - all > vampires I have never used before. I bought some Blood Shadowed Court > sets to get my 3s; I own nothing after Sabbat, really. > > The Deck; > > "Shadow Cabinet", a Ventrue stealth vote/bleed deck > > Crypt (12) > 2 Arika > 2 Marcus Vitel > 2 Lucinde, Alastor > 1 Queen Anne > 1 Suhailah > 1 Horatio Ballard > 1 Victorine Lafourcade > 2 Catherine du Bois > Looks pretty good. > Group 2/3 > Avg capacity = 8.83 > Max title votes = 15 (17 likely) > The primary disciplines are obf, FOR, DOM, and PRE. > > Library (90) > Master (18) > 2 Sudden Reversal > 2 Information Highway > 4 Minion Tap > 4 Blood Doll > 2 Secure Haven > 2 Uptown Hunting Ground I don't think you need 2 of these. I'd cut at least one, probably both. You have other ways to get blood back. > 1 Ventrue Headquarters > 1 Elysium: The Arboretum For the storyline event a solid choice. Unless you expect a lot of Camarilla combat in a different tournament its pretty hit or miss. > Presence (14) > 8 Majesty > 6 Voter Captivation Needs some Bewitching Oration and/or Awe. I think you learned this from round 2. Even with the large number of votes on your vamps sometimes you need to just push something through, like an ousting vote. > Dominate (14) > 8 Govern The Unaligned Maybe find room for a couple more Governs so you have plenty to both govern down for more vampires without paying their full cost or as pool gain late game and to use for bleeds. > 6 Deflection I'd try to add 1-2 Conditionings. You have a lot of big vamps, they need to hit really hard. You can really catch someone in a bad spot with a bleed for 6. > Fortitude (14) > 5 Rolling With The Punches > 3 Skin of Steel > 6 Freak Drive > Obfuscate (12) > 4 Elder Impersonation > 4 Faceless Night > 4 Lost in Crowds This is a pretty good mix. Alternatively you could try working some Cloak the Gathering or Veil the Legions (from Sword of Caine) to allow vamps with obf to get some stealth. > General (2) > 2 Wake With Evenings Freshness Need more. With a couple more wakes to go with deflection you can tap out without being defenseless. > Political (16) > 1 Ancient Influence > 1 Political Stranglehold > 2 Banishment > 2 Disputed Territory I don't care about locations that much to bother with Disputed Territory, but I have seen it pay off at times. > 10 Kine Resources Contested > I think I suggested adding more cards than what I suggested to remove. I guess I'll leave the tough decisions up to you. > Some observations; > > To me, this deck seems like it shouldn't work. The crypt average cost > is way, way, way too high. Still, one thing I am learning is that > big vampires now aren't nearly the drawback they were in the distant > past... or maybe they are. I dunno. Not like this strategy helped > me do that well. The basics should be obvious - vote or bleed with > stealth to back it up. Pool gain through Voter Cap as usual. > > Game 1; > > My predator was a Kindred Spirits Malkavian bleeder, my prey a Malk94 > bleeder. Grandpredator was a Toreador wall deck and grandprey was a > Brujah wall deck sorta - exploiting Arms Merchants and Starstrike > Rocket Launcher to generate big intercept. My first vampire out was That was me. The smallest Brujah with cel recruiting Arms Dealers and Black Cat equipping discount Starshell Grenade Launchers. Then the Arms Dealers take them from Black Cat and tap to give out -1 stealth. It does a decent job of staying alive, but isn't very good at ousting. Its more of a fun and funny deck and this tournament seemed like a decent event to play it in. > Marcus Vitel and I got off a Minion Tap to keep my pool high, but I > made a crucial mistake... The game quickly wound up with my prey at 3 > pool, my grandprey at 3 pool, and me at about 10 pool. The others > were quite high still. I saw 2 Elder Impersonations, 1 Faceless > Night, and a Govern the Unaligned in my hand. So, despite the > Milicent Smith - Puritan Vampire Hunter on me, I thought I would try > to stay in the game with a stealth bleed. My prey had 2 vampires, > Muriel and Gilbert Duane, both tapped... he had intercepted before, > but he'd need 2 this time to get it and this might keep me in the > game. He had two... and my mistake was forgetting I could not play > Elder Impersonation twice. Ah well. Milicent burned Marcus and > things went down hill from there. The game breaker was a few turns > later when, in another attempt to oust my prey with a KRC, I just > needed the Toreador to not vote against... and they did, admitting > that it was probably a mistake as it gave their prey an oust on me > and an almost immediately following second oust on my prey. > This game could have gone a lot different for you if you didn't get caught with Milicent or if the Toreador would have been in favor of you getting a VP (which is always a tough decision, but he probably should have let it happen). I think you were very close to 1-2 or maybe more VPs. I think your deck did a good showing here and could have used a touch more luck. > Lesson: Remember you can't play the same action modifier twice. And > wait for Milicent to pass. > > Game 2; > > My predator was a Brujah bruise and bleed... with lots of anti- > Ventrue. :/ And my prey was the Toreador wall from the first game, > which seemed to have trouble pulling their strategy together. > Grandpredator was Tremere... umm... bleeder? Sorta? I couldn't > really tell. They didn't seem to really do anything "Tremereish" to > me, neither fight nor tricks. And my grandprey was a Toreador vote > deck... whose initial vampire Alexandra really put a kink in my > prey's plan. Not that I could exploit it. Because everyone at the > table had 3 to 5 votes almost immediately and I had nothing but vote > cards in hand. And my predator wrecked my Lucinde in an Immortal > Grapple right off the bat, too... what a bad draw as predator, > really. Some hand jam and futile actions meant I quickly folded. > > Lesson: Big vampires really limit the number of actions you can take > per turn. Didn't see this game. Sounds like you unfortunately were sitting in the wrong spot. Maybe there were too many titles for even Bewitching Oration or Awe to help out, but my guess is you could have made a deal with one other player (I'll KRC 2 to my prey and 2 to yours) and then pushed it through with some vote mods. I think this was a tough tournament to bring a vote deck too since it seems a lot of players chose to use titled vamps even if they weren't a vote deck. Stick with it and better luck next time. Later, ~Rehlow

On Jun 9, 12:35 pm, Rehlow <newsgr...@rehlow.com> wrote: > > 2 Uptown Hunting Ground > > I don't think you need 2 of these. I'd cut at least one, probably > both. You have other ways to get blood back. So many actions in the deck require the vampire to burn a blood. Having these really seems like a good way to keep blood on them. In my second game I was force to transfer blood back to a vampire with Blood Doll... that feels like it is going the wrong way for sure. So these feel like pretty good cards to me, I guess. > > 1 Elysium: The Arboretum > > For the storyline event a solid choice. Unless you expect a lot of > Camarilla combat in a different tournament its pretty hit or miss. I guess I didn't know the errata on it. That's a very frustrating thing for me right now. So many core cards changed so radically I feel like I should just dump my 20k cards in the recycle bin; it's not like the text on many of them is useful and if the text isn't useful, what good is the card? > > 8 Govern The Unaligned > > Maybe find room for a couple more Governs so you have plenty to both > govern down for more vampires without paying their full cost or as > pool gain late game and to use for bleeds. This deck doesn't have a lot of smaller and larger to make that work out. And I have so few actions going on (because I am going to get maybe 2 minions in play) that I can't really count on having targets. > I'd try to add 1-2 Conditionings. You have a lot of big vamps, they > need to hit really hard. You can really catch someone in a bad spot > with a bleed for 6. I guess I don't feel like power bleeding is the main thing here. This is supposed to be a switch hitter - if I can't pass votes, I can stealth bleed. If I can't stealth bleed, I can pass votes. Putting in things that only work for one direction take the deck away from this utility. > This is a pretty good mix. Alternatively you could try working some > Cloak the Gathering or Veil the Legions (from Sword of Caine) to allow > vamps with obf to get some stealth. I don't own anything after Sabbat. And I don't get in enough minions to make Cloak better than other stealth cards, I think. > > 2 Wake With Evenings Freshness > > Need more. With a couple more wakes to go with deflection you can tap > out without being defenseless. Totally true. > I think I suggested adding more cards than what I suggested to remove. > I guess I'll leave the tough decisions up to you. Probably a few vote cards out for a few cards that help me manage the game state with few minions.

Eric Jome wrote: > On Jun 9, 12:35 pm, Rehlow <newsgr...@rehlow.com> wrote: >>> 1 Elysium: The Arboretum >> For the storyline event a solid choice. Unless you expect a lot of >> Camarilla combat in a different tournament its pretty hit or miss. > > I guess I didn't know the errata on it. That's a very frustrating > thing for me right now. So many core cards changed so radically I > feel like I should just dump my 20k cards in the recycle bin; it's not > like the text on many of them is useful and if the text isn't useful, > what good is the card? Not many have changed radically. But yes, the changes (errata or changes in a more-recent-printing) can be disconcerting.

On Jun 9, 10:00 am, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > Summary; > > I played in the Rise of the Imperator storyline event in New Berlin, > WI on Saturday, June 6th. As this was my first game in a very long > time, I didn't really expect to do that well... and I didn't. :) I > played two games for the event (we had 9 attendees) and I was the > first ousted in both my games. Going into the event, I decided to go > with a deck that I felt would fit the environment - a deck with big > vampires with lots of political power. A long time ago, I played > mostly Ventrue, so I looked at that... but I wanted to comes as close > to the present as my cards would allow, so I played Group 2/3 - all > vampires I have never used before. I bought some Blood Shadowed Court > sets to get my 3s; I own nothing after Sabbat, really. > > The Deck; > > "Shadow Cabinet", a Ventrue stealth vote/bleed deck > > Crypt (12) > 2 Arika > 2 Marcus Vitel > 2 Lucinde, Alastor > 1 Queen Anne > 1 Suhailah > 1 Horatio Ballard > 1 Victorine Lafourcade > 2 Catherine du Bois Really fatty crypt. Arika shines above the rest of your titled vampires with her +2 bleed, and OBF DOM FOR PRE. Depending on the way you build the deck, there are more specific suggestions I could give. When I construct decks with a lot of govern, I try to have a variety of different capacities. If you have 3-4x Arika (11 cap), you might want 3-4x 10 caps and/or 3-4x 9 caps, just some way that you can know you will get 2-3 different tiers of capacities. The Marcus/Arika combo is okay, except that they have different capacities. Arika is much better for the 1 extra pool you have to pay, so I think Marcus can either go or be considered for the 2nd tier. Only Arika and Marcus have OBF, so that should be considered later. > > Group 2/3 > Avg capacity = 8.83 > Max title votes = 15 (17 likely) > The primary disciplines are obf, FOR, DOM, and PRE. > > Library (90) > Master (18) > 2 Sudden Reversal > 2 Information Highway > 4 Minion Tap > 4 Blood Doll > 2 Secure Haven > 2 Uptown Hunting Ground > 1 Ventrue Headquarters > 1 Elysium: The Arboretum Like Rehlow said, 2x Uptown Hunting Ground is a bit much. 1x Giant's Blood is free and fills one of your vampires, which you can later tap if you want. For normal play, the 1x Elysium: Arboretum could be 1x Elysium: Palace of Versailles for the extra vote push to get votes through/voter cap off of. Arboretum isn't a bad card, but Ventrue are pretty tough anyway. > Presence (14) > 8 Majesty > 6 Voter Captivation Ugh, I'm not a fan of this format. Personally, I find it much more helpful to break down the library cards into Actions, Action Mods, Political Actions, Master, Combat, Reactions, Combo, just to make it clear how the parts are supposed to move. Just MHO. Awe/Bewitching would be very good. Majesty is really strong for this deck. > Dominate (14) > 8 Govern The Unaligned > 6 Deflection More bounce in case you get an aggressive pred. If you don't cycle fast, you might never see a deflection before the bleed for 8 at 1 stealth gets you. I might either make 2 Governs into Scouting Missions or just add 2 Scouting Missions > Fortitude (14) > 5 Rolling With The Punches > 3 Skin of Steel > 6 Freak Drive Freak Drive is really good, so is skin of steel. Might drop rolling with the punches and add a couple Kiss of Ra's to take down key blockers. > Obfuscate (12) > 4 Elder Impersonation > 4 Faceless Night > 4 Lost in Crowds I'd say you could diversify here. If you go group 1/2 with Arika and Queen Anne + cheaper princes, do some veil and cloak. If you really want the crypt you already have, -2 elder impersonation, -2 faceless night, +1 spying mission, +2 Swallowed by the night (cheap new common that can give you a maneuver to elude the IG) and +1 cloak or veil. Into thin air might not be bad to get the most bang for your buck (another cheap common). If you want to build the deck in a funny way, you could include Sylvester Simms and Dr. Jest for the OBF pre dom. > General (2) > 2 Wake With Evenings Freshness On the qui vive is a cheap new common that beats WWEF hands down in this case. I kinda liked Forced Vigilance for my Group 1/2 Ventrue deck I played(and won ;) ) the storyline with. Untap and deflect all day. > Political (16) > 1 Ancient Influence > 1 Political Stranglehold > 2 Banishment > 2 Disputed Territory > 10 Kine Resources Contested Parity shift is too strong to not include it here, maybe 4 KRCs should be other damaging votes, like Conservative Agitation or the new card Neonate Breech. Maybe it could be 4x Parity Shift 1x Banishment 6x KRC 3x Conservative Agitation 1x Neonate Breech 1xDomain Challenge/Anarchist Uprising/something My 2c Brandon

On Jun 9, 6:59 pm, brandonsantac...@yahoo.com wrote: > On Jun 9, 10:00 am, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Really fatty crypt. That's the way this deck works - it's a pretty standard archetype. > The Marcus/Arika combo is okay, except that they have different > capacities. Arika is much better for the 1 extra pool you have to pay, > so I think Marcus can either go or be considered for the 2nd tier. > Only Arika and Marcus have OBF, so that should be considered later. > Suhailah has OBF as well. > > Like Rehlow said, 2x Uptown Hunting Ground is a bit much. 1x Giant's > Blood is free and fills one of your vampires, which you can later tap > if you want. For normal play, the 1x Elysium: Arboretum could be 1x > Elysium: Palace of Versailles for the extra vote push to get votes > through/voter cap off of. Arboretum isn't a bad card, but Ventrue are > pretty tough anyway. > Arboretum, as mentioned, is great for Imperator. Considering that KoT just came out fairly recently, I think it's not a bad inclusion in any non-combat Camarilla deck. > > > Dominate (14) > > 8 Govern The Unaligned > > 6 Deflection > > More bounce in case you get an aggressive pred. If you don't cycle > fast, you might never see a deflection before the bleed for 8 at 1 > stealth gets you. I might either make 2 Governs into Scouting Missions > or just add 2 Scouting Missions > Personally, I hate more than 6 Deflections, cause I tend to choke on them. I only play 8 or more deflections in very specific decks. It's a question of personal feel, I guess, as well as how much you intend to discard for cycling... > > Fortitude (14) > > 5 Rolling With The Punches > > 3 Skin of Steel > > 6 Freak Drive > > Freak Drive is really good, so is skin of steel. Might drop rolling > with the punches and add a couple Kiss of Ra's to take down key > blockers. > This is crazy talk. Not because Kiss My Ra is bad, cause it's good. But because you say "Skin of Steel" is good, right before you say "drop Rolling with the Punches". RwtP = inferior Skin of Rock + superior Skin of Steel, your choice. Only Catherine DuBois doesn't have superior fortitude. Drop Skin of Steel before you even think about dropping RwtP. > > Obfuscate (12) > > 4 Elder Impersonation > > 4 Faceless Night > > 4 Lost in Crowds > > I'd say you could diversify here. If you go group 1/2 with Arika and > Queen Anne + cheaper princes, do some veil and cloak. If you really > want the crypt you already have, -2 elder impersonation, -2 faceless > night, +1 spying mission, +2 Swallowed by the night (cheap new common > that can give you a maneuver to elude the IG) and +1 cloak or veil. > Into thin air might not be bad to get the most bang for your buck > (another cheap common). If you want to build the deck in a funny way, > you could include Sylvester Simms and Dr. Jest for the OBF pre dom. > I mostly agree with this. Not necessarily with including the Malkavians, but with diversifying the stealth package. You might want to include some Cloaks for Victorine and Horatio. Veil the Legion is good, but most of the time I'd *rather* have Cloak unless there's too much inferior obfuscate. You *could* use Into Thin Air instead of Lost in Crowds (they don't stack), since you have lots of fatties, but the do not replace of Thin Air can be rough. Swallowed by the Night is really good. Spying Mission is good in other decks - not as much in this deck, but it's always good to have a wide variety of stealth cards so you can play the maximum stealth on a single action. So maybe 1 Spying Mission - I wouldn't go with more than 2. > > General (2) > > 2 Wake With Evenings Freshness > > On the qui vive is a cheap new common that beats WWEF hands down in > this case. I kinda liked Forced Vigilance for my Group 1/2 Ventrue > deck I played(and won ;) ) the storyline with. Untap and deflect all > day. > OtQV is ridiculously good, unfortunately. It is in almost all of the 3rd Edition starters and it's in KoT (maybe in some of the starters? not sure). But if you can't get any, WwEF shouldn't hurt you too much, since the only thing you'll be hoping to cycle into is deflection. > > Political (16) > > 1 Ancient Influence > > 1 Political Stranglehold > > 2 Banishment > > 2 Disputed Territory > > 10 Kine Resources Contested > > Parity shift is too strong to not include it here, maybe 4 KRCs should > be other damaging votes, like Conservative Agitation or the new card > Neonate Breech. Maybe it could be > 4x Parity Shift > 1x Banishment > 6x KRC > 3x Conservative Agitation > 1x Neonate Breech > 1xDomain Challenge/Anarchist Uprising/something > Are you saying to drop Ancient Influence and Political Stranglehold? Cause those are great pool gain. I wouldn't lose them. I think Banishment could be dropped pretty easily without hurting you. A Neonate Breach or two would be nice if you have them. At least 2 Con Ags, and 4 Parity Shifts sounds good too. The main reason to diversify the PA's is in case you get Delaying Tactics'd... but all those votes are situationally better than KRC as well (in the right situation).

[ quoted text not captured ] One thing I forgot to bring up, if you put a secure haven on your minion, your other masters that target him/her cost another pool. Might be worth it anyway, just a thought. I'm not sold on the RwtP, just because I wouldn't include that many copies of either. Majesty and not being blocked is a good basic defense. The splash of fortitude defense is for the "oh shit, he just grappled me or psyched" moment when I play is in Lawfirm, usually. I've been playing a lot less time than Chris, so maybe he's right over all. SoS is good at FOR to prevent damage from additional strikes. I didn't notice the prevalence of FOR, making RwtP better. As for the votes, I was thinking of the "you hurt me, I hurt my prey with a parity shift and then kill them with KRC" tactic, plus not giving out pool with Ancient Influence and Political Stranglehold. If you can successfully voter cap anyway, I'd prefer to throw three pool damage to my left in the process. Diversity in stealth action mods and votes is good, as Chris mentioned and as you experienced with your two Elder Impersonations. If you had two KRCs in hand and the first had Delaying Tactics, you would have been screwed! On bounce, Murmur of the False Will is pretty useful if you run DOM fatties. It seconds as a bleed mod and is dirt cheap, like the other post Sabbat cards I have mentioned. I forgot to mention Entrancement, which is good for offense or defense as the case may be. Enchant Kindred is about on par with Scouting Mission in this deck, too(more diversity for post freak drive bliss). Brandon

[ quoted text not captured ] My Arka decks usualy do the Grooming the Protégé + Govern superior trick. It speeds up the rate to have 2 - 3 vampires and the start pounding on the prey. My political actions are Banishment and Alastor (you can trade them for some of the 20k cards you wanna throw away) and I get with it Helicopter, Heart of Nizchetus, Ankara Citadel or Ivory Bow. I don't use Minion Tap. It's still my favorite deck to play. Cheers, Tiago

On Jun 9, 1:00 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Not many have changed radically. I imagine that to you of all people it doesn't seem like it is much at all. But to me, who can't really remember any game that didn't have "Jyhad" on the back of the cards, it's pretty radical. Camille Devereux = Raven ... to me, that's totally new and is a change of a change. Elysium: The Arboretum = Camarilla only? ... I guess it makes story sense, but it's worthless now Majesty always costs pool? Anarch Revolt is neutered because anyone can become an anarch? Fame doesn't even have a relationship to it's printed text anymore?! Something something about play it on your prey... ? Vampires in groups? I sure hope I don't ever screw this up... seems likely I will though as almost nothing I own is printed with the information Many titles are now contested by vampires I've never seen... I guess I don't understand why so many of the same cities were used over and over? These are things off the top of my head and I know I'm missing at least a half dozen more important things. This is not meant as criticism, but as background on why I feel a bit thrown by the whole issue; I have to assimilate 15 years of errata and rulings immediately. Eric Jome

Eric Jome wrote: > On Jun 9, 1:00 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > >> Not many have changed radically. > > I imagine that to you of all people it doesn't seem like it is much at > all. But to me, who can't really remember any game that didn't have > "Jyhad" on the back of the cards, it's pretty radical. > > Camille Devereux = Raven ... to me, that's totally new and is a change > of a change. Not really a change from Jyhad-only. She plays just the same as always in Jyhad-only decks. If you like, just treat it as a banning of Raven (with tacit approval to use copies of Ravens as proxies for Camille). > Elysium: The Arboretum = Camarilla only? ... I guess it makes story > sense, but it's worthless now Could be. That change stems from an old outlook on the relation to errata vis-a-vis backstory. When non-Camarilla were first introduced, the design team errataed a lot of existing cards to conform somewhat more to the backstory. That strategy is no longer in place, but the old errata hasn't been removed, either. Just integrated with card text in subsequent printings. That is a problem, for sure. My apologies for that. > Majesty always costs pool? > Anarch Revolt is neutered because anyone can become an anarch? > Fame doesn't even have a relationship to it's printed text anymore?! > Something something about play it on your prey... ? Yeah. There have been a few real changes made in the name of balance. These can be headaches, but are good for the game overall (YMMV as to whether this approach or ban-and-replace is better). These (the old backstory-toeing changes and the balance-changes) are the ones I'd cover with the "not many" qualifier in "not many have changed radically". > Vampires in groups? I sure hope I don't ever screw this up... seems > likely I will though as almost nothing I own is printed with the > information This is another non-change (just an addition). The form of the rule was chosen specifically to ensure that all decks made prior to the introduction of the rule were unaffected by this rule (that is: they remained legal under the rule). Every Jyhad-only crypt is still legal. Every crypt mixing no-group-number-printed cards is still legal. BTW, all cards with no group number are either group 1 or group 2. And you can tell those apart by looking for the expansion symbol: no expansion symbol means group 1; expansion symbol means group 2. > Many titles are now contested by vampires I've never seen... I guess I > don't understand why so many of the same cities were used over and > over? Hmm. That's not a change or an addition at all: city titles have always been unique (and contestable). There was a brief bubble of an alternate rule (exception) specifying how titles contested inter-sect (Cam vs. Sabbat) were handled, but that exception has been removed. To answer the question, though, using the same cities means that the rule on contesting cities isn't just wasted space. If each title were only used once, the issue of contesting them (as opposed to contesting vampires) would never come up once you get enough cities. > These are things off the top of my head and I know I'm missing at > least a half dozen more important things. > > This is not meant as criticism, but as background on why I feel a bit > thrown by the whole issue; I have to assimilate 15 years of errata and > rulings immediately. Sure. But don't feel that you have to. Play the cards the way you remember them in casual play. And if you want to prep for a tournament, post a concept or a decklist here to have the old hands point out pertinent changes.

On 10 jun, 16:59, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 9, 1:00 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > Not many have changed radically. > > I imagine that to you of all people it doesn't seem like it is much at > all. But to me, who can't really remember any game that didn't have > "Jyhad" on the back of the cards, it's pretty radical. > I disagree. Practically all errata were made because a card was a bit too strong, over/undercosted, or because it didn't work entirely well. So the large part of the errata'd cards still 'work' as they did earlier, just with a little tweak here and there. > Camille Devereux = Raven ... to me, that's totally new and is a change > of a change. No matter, unless by sheer bad luck you get both on the table and they contest. No big deal, won't happen a lot. > Elysium: The Arboretum = Camarilla only? ... I guess it makes story > sense, but it's worthless now It's still good. Just not as good as it used to be. I reckon it was errata'd because it was a bit too strong, even though the errata was done in an elegant, story-driven way. > Majesty always costs pool? Again, it was just a bit too good. It's still good now. > Anarch Revolt is neutered because anyone can become an anarch? Unless you also play an anarch deck, you need a minion to take an action that costs blood and can be blocked (so the minion is, barring untap, wasting a turn) , just to try and avoid this penalty. And when that anarch goes to torpor/burns, you need to do it again. Plus, vote/ sect-card based decks don't want to (or flat out can't) go anarch cause anarchs are always independent. I see no neuter. > Fame doesn't even have a relationship to it's printed text anymore?! > Something something about play it on your prey... ? Well yeah, I guess this one had a bigger change than most others. It now does the 3 damage to the controller of the famed vampire, instead of that player's prey. The rest of the text is still accurate. > Vampires in groups? I sure hope I don't ever screw this up... seems > likely I will though as almost nothing I own is printed with the > information No need to worry, it's easy. If there's no group number on your vampire and he's from the original jyhad/vtes base set, he's group 1. From any expansion, group 2. Btw, the grouping rule was very necessary. But others will probably be better at explaining why, than I am. > Many titles are now contested by vampires I've never seen... I guess I > don't understand why so many of the same cities were used over and > over? > What does that matter? Praxis Seizures and such have been around always. Just deal with it when/if it actually happens, or look up your city titles in ARDB when your building your deck, to see how many out- of-the-box contests you might encounter. > These are things off the top of my head and I know I'm missing at > least a half dozen more important things. > > This is not meant as criticism, but as background on why I feel a bit > thrown by the whole issue; I have to assimilate 15 years of errata and > rulings immediately. > Stop worrying about that, man. You don't need to "assimilate 15 years of errata and rulings immediately". Really, you don't. It's a rule of the game that any card played needs to be properly announced (cost, requirement, function), So you don't need to memorize all cards and errata beforehand, just deal with what gets played, the way it is announced, when it happens. Don't try to memorize the entire card/errata pool and then build a deck, just build a deck the way you think will work, and then look up if any of those 30-something different cards have any errata. Post the deck here and we'll gladly help you with that. Then, maybe, take out the (few) ones that were changed in a way you no longer like/can no longer use, and replace them. Most of your cards/ decks will still more-or-less work the way they did. Really! Almost all that's changed is a tweak here, a number change there. Sure there's stuff you need to learn, I'm not denying that. And you will, certainly, learn some of that stuff at bad times during games, and you will lose some games because of this. But don't let it bother you so much, it's really not the big deal you now (appear to?) think it is.

On Jun 10, 12:50 pm, Teeka <teeka_dra...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Most of your cards/ > decks will still more-or-less work the way they did. Really! Almost > all that's changed is a tweak here, a number change there. :) On the one hand, that probably seems like good advice ... to a person with lots of experience who already knows the errata. But please try to understand that to a person with no experience, "a number here and a number there" is everything. Cards go from playable to unplayable, reliable to unreliable with a single word or single digit change. And every time you encounter a change, it reduces your confidence in everything else you think you know about the game. Remember, I don't have casual games. It's play in a tournament or don't play at all. Just trying to deal with the fact that 2000 "new" cards even exist makes it very difficult for me to approach the game - if I post a deck, it is immediately deconstructed in favor of cards (or whole strategies) that I've never seen. A card I consider killer and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to figure out a plan for that, too. I am not intending this as a complaint. I like a lot of the changes; I don't care that they did change or what they changed to. To me, it's just hard to get it together. Eric Jome

Eric Jome wrote: > if I post a deck, it is immediately deconstructed in favor of cards > (or whole strategies) that I've never seen. A card I consider killer > and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made > completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that > right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to figure out a plan for > that, too. You could post a preface with your deck describing your pool of cards. Granted some "helpful" folks will ignore that parameter. But you can return the favor and ignore the untenable advice. :-) Some other players will actually relish the novelty of the added restrictions to set building, though, I'm sure -- and you should come out with some helpful advice. And Wake is far from obsolete, even if you had 90 On the Qui Vive on hand. On the Qui Vive carries additional restrictions which keep it from putting Wake out to pasture.

On 10 jun, 20:20, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 10, 12:50 pm, Teeka <teeka_dra...@hotmail.com> wrote: > > > Most of your cards/ > > decks will still more-or-less work the way they did. Really! Almost > > all that's changed is a tweak here, a number change there. > > :) > > On the one hand, that probably seems like good advice ... to a person > with lots of experience who already knows the errata. No no no, I wrote that because I know exactly what you mean. I've been in your situation too, not so very long ago. That's why I keep saying to you, that it really is not a big deal unless you let it. But please try > to understand that to a person with no experience, "a number here and > a number there" is everything. Cards go from playable to unplayable, > reliable to unreliable with a single word or single digit change. And > every time you encounter a change, it reduces your confidence in > everything else you think you know about the game. > Well, I for one, am -not- someone who knows all the errata. I also don't have much experience, because I normally play casual games with friends who don't play that well. So when I play with "real" players every now and then, I face the same difficulties you face now. The advice I gave you is presicely what I do, I too need to adjust decks or in-game plays each time I find out I played/remembered something wrong. Which is often. But I shrug it off, try to remember what was right for next time, and never allow it to ruin my game. Because I know I get better each time. I don't think cards go from playable to unplayable though. Although it's tough to 'unlearn' stuff and it sucks sometimes to see that card you were planning to build your deck around isn't that kick ass anymore. > Remember, I don't have casual games. It's play in a tournament or > don't play at all. Yeah, that kinda sucks. Try to teach some of your hometown friends, maybe? That's what I did, sometimes after some serious nagging and emotional blackmail through giving 300+ cards away as a present. :-) Just trying to deal with the fact that 2000 "new" > cards even exist makes it very difficult for me to approach the game - > if I post a deck, it is immediately deconstructed in favor of cards > (or whole strategies) that I've never seen. True, but you know, can't blame the veterans here for thinking their own way, i.e. often from a "I own every card 6 times" point of view. I say, post the decks anyway and emphasize the limits of your collection. I'm sure the guys here will be happy to help while keeping your situation in mind. A card I consider killer > and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made > completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that > right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to figure out a plan for > that, too. > Is that true? And even if it is, it doesn't mean your WWF's are now worthless. I play my 40+ WWF's in decks all the time and they still work fine. I mean, even if OtQV is (a bit?) better, WWF did not get worse, it still works the way it always did. And if that is what your deck needs, you're still good. Heck, all my decks *could* be better. But I'm fine with the way they are and don't intend to buy singles just to make a B into a B+, you know what I mean? > I am not intending this as a complaint. I like a lot of the changes; > I don't care that they did change or what they changed to. To me, > it's just hard to get it together. > Sure, I understand. Just, you know, try to take it all bit by bit. And never allow it to ruin your fun, cause this game is too good to pass.

On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:23:06 -0700 (PDT), Teeka <teeka_...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> ï¿œA card I consider killer >> and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made >> completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that >> right?)... so, um, yeah. ï¿œI guess I'll have to figure out a plan for >> that, too. > > Is that true? And even if it is, it doesn't mean your WWF's are now > worthless. I play my 40+ WWF's in decks all the time and they still > work fine. I mean, even if OtQV is (a bit?) better, WWF did not get > worse, it still works the way it always did. And if that is what your > deck needs, you're still good. Nitpick: Wake did get worse. It's DNR clause used to refer to the end of the action, not the next untap phase. I agree that it isn't a huge nerf (if you want to block, DNR probably hurts you enough anyway to look for other cards e.g. Forced Awakening), but it's a nerf. -- Regards, Daneel

Daneel wrote: > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:23:06 -0700 (PDT), Teeka > <teeka_...@hotmail.com> wrote: > >>> A card I consider killer >>> and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made >>> completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that >>> right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to figure out a plan for >>> that, too. >> >> Is that true? And even if it is, it doesn't mean your WWF's are now >> worthless. I play my 40+ WWF's in decks all the time and they still >> work fine. I mean, even if OtQV is (a bit?) better, WWF did not get >> worse, it still works the way it always did. And if that is what your >> deck needs, you're still good. > > Nitpick: Wake did get worse. It's DNR clause used to refer to the end > of the action, not the next untap phase. I agree that it isn't a huge > nerf (if you want to block, DNR probably hurts you enough anyway to > look for other cards e.g. Forced Awakening), but it's a nerf. Nitpick: That worsening had nothing to do with On the Qui Vive; OtQV came eight years after Wake's DNR adjustment.

Eric Jome wrote: > A card I consider killer and important, say Wake With Evening's > Freshness, has been made completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie > (am I even spelling that right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to > figure out a plan for that, too. Have you READ On The Que Vive? Do you realize how TERRIBLE it will be if you replace all of your WwEF with OTQV and you now can't untap as often as you'd like due to OTQV's "A minion may play only one On the Qui Vive between his or her untap phases" clause? When you run more than four 'wakes', most players use OTQV for only half the slots. There are newer cards like OTQV (or Villein) which may have made an older, staple card obsolete maybe half or two-thirds or 90% of the time, but those older cards are still usable half or one-third or 10% of the time, and always will be. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/

[ quoted text not captured ] ...which still makes the statement "Wake didn't get any worse" incorrect. Hence the nitpick. -- Regards, Daneel

Daneel wrote: > On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:52:22 -0400, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > >> Daneel wrote: >>> On Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:23:06 -0700 (PDT), Teeka >>> <teeka_...@hotmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>>> A card I consider killer >>>>> and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made >>>>> completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that >>>>> right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to figure out a plan for >>>>> that, too. >>>> >>>> Is that true? And even if it is, it doesn't mean your WWF's are now >>>> worthless. I play my 40+ WWF's in decks all the time and they still >>>> work fine. I mean, even if OtQV is (a bit?) better, WWF did not get >>>> worse, it still works the way it always did. And if that is what your >>>> deck needs, you're still good. >>> >>> Nitpick: Wake did get worse. It's DNR clause used to refer to the end >>> of the action, not the next untap phase. I agree that it isn't a huge >>> nerf (if you want to block, DNR probably hurts you enough anyway to >>> look for other cards e.g. Forced Awakening), but it's a nerf. >> >> Nitpick: That worsening had nothing to do with On the Qui Vive; OtQV >> came eight years after Wake's DNR adjustment. > > ....which still makes the statement "Wake didn't get any worse" incorrect. > Hence the nitpick. Only if one ignores the context. Hence the nitpick. "Wake has been made obsolete by On the Qui Vive" "I don't think so. Even if On the Qui Vive is better, Wake did not get worse"

On Jun 10, 2:20 pm, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > Remember, I don't have casual games. It's play in a tournament or > don't play at all. Just trying to deal with the fact that 2000 "new" > cards even exist makes it very difficult for me to approach the game - > if I post a deck, it is immediately deconstructed in favor of cards > (or whole strategies) that I've never seen. I've seen you post one deck. And it was met with "Yeah, that is still a good deck." (as it is). And maybe a few cards have been suggested to be added, but that is how that goes. > A card I consider killer > and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made > completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that > right?)... No, it hasn't. On the Qui has a significant limitation (only one per minion between your turns). Wake is still a totally useful card. > I am not intending this as a complaint. I like a lot of the changes; > I don't care that they did change or what they changed to. To me, > it's just hard to get it together. You've been back in the game for, what, 2 weeks? You'll catch up. It isn't that huge. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] If you don't paraphrase the context. Refer to the following sentence: "I mean, even if OtQV is (a bit?) better, WWF did not get worse, it still works the way it always did." Hence the nitpick. Had Wake been changed after QtQV was printed, it would have been a correction (as the statement would have been mostly false). Because Wake works the same way as it did right before OtQV was printed (but it does not work the same way it always did as it had been changed in the past) the statement is mostly true except for this minute detail. Hence, you know, a nitpick. -- Regards, Daneel

> You've been back in the game for, what, 2 weeks? You'll catch up. It > isn't that huge. To continue with the OtqV tangent a moment, when you are just using a couple wakes, OtqV is almost always better. I've only had the restriction come up once and it was when I had something like 5 OtqVs in my deck. I think it also matters how many minions you have out that could react in the same way (i.e. dom weenies can all deflect vs fatty wall relies on 1-2 minions). In most cases I would think that once you get above 3-4 wakes, swap in something else for the variance (eyes of argus, elude, forced awakening, WWeF, the Mole ;) ) On Peter's point, your deck is pretty good to start with and it does not take optimum decks to win. You will gain much more from practice than buying the latest Villein PwNaGe (even if it couldn't hurt). Brandon

Eric Jome wrote: A card I consider killer > and important, say Wake With Evening's Freshness, has been made > completely obsolete by On the Qui Vie (am I even spelling that > right?)... so, um, yeah. I guess I'll have to figure out a plan for > that, too. > Sort of thread drifting here, but I usually go 60% OtQV and 40% wakes, unless I'm playing a dedicated intercept deck, and then I use Forced Awakening. bes t- chris

On Jun 9, 7:52 pm, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > > For the storyline event a solid choice. Unless you expect a lot of > > Camarilla combat in a different tournament its pretty hit or miss. > > I guess I didn't know the errata on it. That's a very frustrating > thing for me right now. So many core cards changed so radically I > feel like I should just dump my 20k cards in the recycle bin; it's not > like the text on many of them is useful and if the text isn't useful, > what good is the card? > Hmm, no. What you do instead is you use one of the various search engines online or one of the V:TES tools. They contain the latest card texts, and then you learn those while you build your deck. Then you remember what the difference is when you actually play the card in a tournament (usually at least). Some search sites are: http://www.vekn.se/search.php?page=search http://monger.vekn.org http://www.secretlibrary.info/ Also some tools are: ARDB: http://www.nongnu.org/anarchdb FELDB: member.rpg.hu/bala/feldb.html Archie

On Jun 12, 10:25 am, Archibald Zimonyi <a...@aranzo.netg.se> wrote: > On Jun 9, 7:52 pm, Eric Jome <eric.j...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > For the storyline event a solid choice. Unless you expect a lot of > > > Camarilla combat in a different tournament its pretty hit or miss. > > > I guess I didn't know the errata on it. That's a very frustrating > > thing for me right now. So many core cards changed so radically I > > feel like I should just dump my 20k cards in the recycle bin; it's not > > like the text on many of them is useful and if the text isn't useful, > > what good is the card? > > Hmm, no. What you do instead is you use one of the various search > engines online or one of the V:TES tools. > > They contain the latest card texts, and then you learn those while you > build your deck. Then you remember what the difference is when you > actually play the card in a tournament (usually at least). > > Some search sites are:http://www.vekn.se/search.php?page=searchhttp://monger.vekn.orghttp://www.secretlibrary.info/ > > Also some tools are: > ARDB:http://www.nongnu.org/anarchdb > FELDB: member.rpg.hu/bala/feldb.html > > Archie Ardb is very good for this. usually as soon as the newest .csv (card list of all acrds in the game) is released, i add it to ardb, filter for newest expansion, and then read it. Granted, this is not that usefull to you right now, but remember, the vast majority of cards you will not see in play. An idea might be to filter just the jyhad cards, to get your head round the new text. Very few differences really. then go foward set by set. gotta add that secret libraray is great for this as you can do a not= search