[DECK] TREMERE DOM/THA

Hi, i'm a new player and not very familiar in deck building strategies. How could i improve this deck ?? Thanks for help Jyhad 2 Justine - Elder of Dallas 2 Merill Molitor 2 Sarah Cobbler 2 Muaziz, Archon of Ulugh Beg 2 Bryan Van Duesen 2 Reverend Blackwood 2 Academic Hunting Ground 2 Arcane Library 2 Blood Doll *** 4 Dominate 2 Minion Tap 2 Mob Connections 2 Short Term Investment 1 Slave Auction 2 Ankara Citadel, Turkey 2 IR Goggles 4 Bum's Rush 5 Govern the Unaligned 5 Bonding 9 Deflection *** 2 Enhanced Senses 3 Redirection 2 Spirit's Touch, The 8 Apportation 15 Theft of Vitae 7 Thoughts Betrayed *** 2 Trap 4 Walk of Flame 2 Blood to Water

In article <19990322151948...@ng-fa1.aol.com>, jsta...@aol.com (JStark666) wrote: > Hi, > i'm a new player and not very familiar in deck building strategies. > How could i improve this deck ?? > Thanks for help > I've got a similar deck which works quite well. I'll share my thoughts on some of the design decisions I made. I dumped all deflection and redirection because I wanted to concentrate on blocking bleeds and then stealing blood. With the AUS you can stop most S&B and then steal blood during the combat. I also have several traps in the deck in order to get to the second round (works as more of a surprise than the police station). I also have lots of Cryptic missions because they provide both defense and offense. On the defense side you can steal blood from your predator, thus reducing blood for bleed modifiers and other nasty actions. On the offense side, each blood you take from your prey is one less that can be taken off the blood doll, tribute, etc. I use both the blood doll and the Tribute to generate pool and, with the Theft, can keep your pool strong. My crypt concentrates on the THA (superior) with minor concentration in DOM and AUS. Clearly you've taken a slightly different approach (a little more DOM) but the idea is similiar. My only concern, although it hasn't happened to me yet, is that a brujah dodge and additional strike deck will cause havoc. Although the thoughts betrayed will help avoid this (depending on the current restrictions) it is expensive and requires superior DOM. I have Fast Reaction in my deck which works well against the dodge. -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own

In article <7d6k4m$hes$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, c34m...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <19990322151948...@ng-fa1.aol.com>, > jsta...@aol.com (JStark666) wrote: > > Hi, > > i'm a new player and not very familiar in deck building strategies. > > How could i improve this deck ?? > > Thanks for help > > I think the deck looks lovely. i'm an OLD player but certainly in no position to give you constructive advice about the Tremere, who are a clan i simply can't seem to make competitive. > > I've got a similar deck which works quite well. I'll share my thoughts on > some of the design decisions I made. I dumped all deflection and redirection > because I wanted to concentrate on blocking bleeds and then stealing blood. > With the AUS you can stop most S&B and then steal blood during the combat. I > also have several traps in the deck in order to get to the second round > (works as more of a surprise than the police station). You mean Mob Connections .... o, wait, maybe the Mob run the police station where you live too? I also have lots of > Cryptic missions because they provide both defense and offense. On the > defense side you can steal blood from your predator, thus reducing blood for > bleed modifiers and other nasty actions. On the offense side, each blood you > take from your prey is one less that can be taken off the blood doll, > tribute, etc. I use both the blood doll and the Tribute to generate pool > and, with the Theft, can keep your pool strong. My crypt concentrates on the > THA (superior) with minor concentration in DOM and AUS. Clearly you've taken > a slightly different approach (a little more DOM) but the idea is similiar. > My only concern, although it hasn't happened to me yet, is that a brujah > dodge and additional strike deck will cause havoc. Although the thoughts > betrayed will help avoid this (depending on the current restrictions) it is > expensive and requires superior DOM. I have Fast Reaction in my deck which > works well against the dodge. > Gee, i admire both of you for building Tremere decks that work. Actually i once built a functional Tremere deck by accident, when i was experimenting with tha/ cel/aus using Jyhad cards only. It worked really well in two playgroups but i retired it cos i found it boring. The best Tremere decks i ever saw in action were Strait's deck of Tremere permanents [including Talbot's Chainsaw and Chantry] and Tatu's deck of Cryptic missions and Societies of Leopold. Both these guys are BRILLIANT players but even in their hands the Tremere kinda sucked. Jamie Lewis who comes to the Portsmouth tournaments is also a good player and he often brings a Tremere deck and it ALWAYS gets creamed. I guess those experiences and a certain, erm, coolness deficit about the warlocks have put me off building a "real" tremere deck ..... the closest i've ever got to DESIGNING a functional tremere deck is giovanni/anti-tremere, but it's still at an early stage of playtesting. Why am i rambling like this? Pre-coffee and fag time, is why. Sorry all! i'll go and rectify that right now. "What do we want? GLOBAL WARMING!! When do we want it? NOW!!!!!!" [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] I think the best Tremere deck I ever saw was by a friend of mine whose name was Edward Coleman. He put together a deck used Fortitude and Celerity with the normal Tremere disciplines. One of the more deadly combos he had was set up by a big bleed that would definitely be blocked. Then he'd lay on a Dawn Operation so all damage in combat was aggravated. Once combat began he'd play a Skin of Night so all aggravated damage was treated as normal for him, then play a Weather Control to do unpreventable damage to each combatant before the strike phase. Unless the opposing minion could also change aggravated damage to normal, combat was over and they were in Torpor before they even got a chance to strike at you. *That* was dangerous. You didn't want to block because you were going to lose a minion for a while, but if you didn't he'd lay a painful bleed on you (always 3, so as to avoid any Archon Investigations). I don't know if that combo is still viable in today's tourneys, but it was nasty back then. p.

In our group there is an Brujah Combat deck an last night he demolishes me, incredible What can you do against IMMORTAL GRAPPLE ??? It was like I had no chance at all CU

Thanks, Thanks, Thanks !!!! Yes this was really my first try in deck building and now I have printed out your comments and will try your comments on my helpless prey I'll let you hear how it works To the next time CU

[ quoted text not captured ] Maneuver to long range, where you can't be grappled. -- Derek (replying by email? remove the nospam from my domain :)

jsta...@aol.com (JStark666) wrote: > In our group there is an Brujah Combat deck an last night he demolishes me, > incredible What can you do against IMMORTAL GRAPPLE ??? Maneuver. If you're at long range, he can't use it. I suppose you could also use Thoughts Betrayed to keep him from playing strike cards...but that won't help you against a bunch of pre-range Potence cards and Blur. Bye and large, a Tremere combat deck is usually defeated by a well-built Brujah deck. If you can build a Tremere deck to beat a Brujah rush deck, chances are it's a damn good deck. Noal -- "Excuse me. Are you a yuppie?" -woman at a gas station in Detroit [ quoted text not captured ]

JStark666 wrote: > In our group there is an Brujah Combat deck an last night he demolishes me, > incredible > What can you do against IMMORTAL GRAPPLE ??? > It was like I had no chance at all > CU First thought that comes to mind is Thoughts Betrayed. Then his minion can't play strikes, Grappled or not. Another thought would be to use Fortitude in your Tremere deck. Many of them have it already, and a few Skin of Steel would help greatly. Another thought that comes to mind would be Obedience. If his minion tries to combat you, just look at him cooly and tell his minion to "Sit". I need to check the newer rules on Obedience to be sure about that one though. I don't know if it can be used by a tapped vampire, so there may be trouble there if you tap out from bleeding. p.

In article <19990323133301...@ng25.aol.com>, JStark666 <jsta...@aol.com> writes >What can you do against IMMORTAL GRAPPLE ??? Elysium: The Arboretum (avoid combat) Obedience (avoid combat) Terror Frenzy and a gun (they never stay at close range to use it) Play the same deck (hit them back equally hard) Damage prevention (doesn't matter if you can't dodge then) Banish their vampires (votes) Direct Intervention (they only have so many IGs) Weenie decks (more difficult to kill all of your vampires, so they run out of IGs) Maneuver away from them (especially see Quick Meld) Play a faster, harder hitting deck (*FAST* stealth bleed) Hit them with aggravated damage - Potence clans aren't noted for wonderful damage prevention, so they totter off to torpor, and if you're playing Gangrel, you prevent all their damage Thoughts Betrayed (superior) - They have to work that much harder to get a good strike against you (say, Torn Signpost, Fists of Death etc.) Vote yourself away from them (Dramatic Upheaval, Kindred Restructure) -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia, England) Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net http://www.obeah.demon.co.uk

Hullo, Long post people. I started writing, then wrote some more, then kept writing, hope it gets you thinking Mr Stark666. JStark666 wrote in message <19990322151948...@ng-fa1.aol.com>... >Hi, >i'm a new player and not very familiar in deck building strategies. >How could i improve this deck ?? >Thanks for help Well, I was pretty impressed by your first (?) effort. >Jyhad >2 Justine - Elder of Dallas >2 Merill Molitor >2 Sarah Cobbler >2 Muaziz, Archon of Ulugh Beg >2 Bryan Van Duesen >2 Reverend Blackwood A lot of people will tell you different things about vampire selection. Of course, it is contingent upon what you are attempting to do. For a deck like this I can't resist putting Cassandra in. Extra hand size, +1 hand damage are just great. The minion taps and other blood gain should suffice to bring out the big lady. Thats a personal thing. I see you have chosen vampires with THA restricting the need for improvement only to dominate. That is a sign of a competant deck builder. >2 Academic Hunting Ground >2 Arcane Library >2 Blood Doll *** >4 Dominate >2 Minion Tap >2 Mob Connections >2 Short Term Investment >1 Slave Auction 17. Personally I like to play with less masters in a deck that is mostly powered by minion actions. This is a choice you should make by substituting cards in and out during gameplay to see what you are comfortable with. Blood gain is the focus of your masters and again I think that is a wise choice, your crypt, even without my enlarging suggestion has larger vampires. Mob Connections might as well be a tremere card, and two of them is insurance. You may want to substitute the anti-T-HG, so that you could have 2 operating simultaneously. The slave auction I would make a dreams of the sphinx if you can get it- very helpful in the first few turns in conjunction with an arcane library. A further note; I think that in an attack deck it is not wise to play without card cycling mechanisms. You are playing what is known as a bleed and bruise deck and the biggest danger for you will probably not be your opponents, but the mismatching of cards and opponents because, compared to other decks you are having to split your focus between combat and bleeding. Fragment of the book of nod and the barrens are good choices, and dreams of the sphinx (yes, i like that card). >2 Ankara Citadel, Turkey >2 IR Goggles >4 Bum's Rush >5 Govern the Unaligned Ankara! huge card. Rather than have two, you should consider 2 magic of the smith, an archetypal tremere card. So, if the citadel gets destroyed you dont have a backup, but allows you to go through your library for it, or the IR goggles. The additional benefits of MotS are large, +3 stealth as all your vampires have THA which makes it unlikely you will be blocked + the ability to control your deck. Govern the Unaligned is a beautiful card, but im thinking that you may want to replace one for a kine dominace (dominate kine), the +1 stealth bleed you may find extremely handy stacking with bonding. + with Muaziz w/ DOM you could make the steal location power work, not just detroying but stealing someone's location can turn games, eg The Elysium as you have no votes, or a hunting ground, or even a secure haven, all of which prevent you from hurting vampires. Rutors Hand. Can't recommend it enough. Its awful blood cost is offputting but the mileage you get from it is huge. Cass. or another large vampire can afford it esp with a citadel and having 2 minion actions rather then 1 makes your bigger vampire a better investment. While there is the NRA rule, you have the perfect deck archetype to make use of multiple actions by rushing and bleeding. I also throw in Aaron's feeding razor to make sure that I always have a worthwhile second action to take. Heck, even if you dont take a second action, its a permanent WWEF. 4 Rush actions isnt very many. You may want to consider putting some Havens in or upping this to say 6. Its good in theory that people will have to block you as you are bleeding for 5 a time, but confronting other decks like yours, they will simply deflect your impressive bleeds, and a handful of combat cards does you no good, if noone will fight you. >5 Bonding Maybe replace 2 with conditioning. Your strategy is bruise and bleed, so have some faith in yourself. The extra punch you get from a conditioning may be enough to oust someone that might have been able to recover because you couldnt quite bleed them out with the bonding. >9 Deflection *** >2 Enhanced Senses >3 Redirection >2 Spirit's Touch, The Okie, I was going to save this till the end, but might as well do it now. The two biggest threats other then your deck itself will be Immortal Grapple and Misdirection. Misdirection is as cheesy and no-brainy as cards come in this game, but people play them at tournaments (heh, tell us what you really think!). I lost a tournament because I was holding 3 deflections but no sudden reversal or WWEF when the misdirection came. My suggestion is to include some wakeup even with the latest errata. You probably dont want to lower the number of deflections so may I suggest dropping two intercept cards and the redirections for a corpse minion and adding 4 WWEF? Hold the wakeup until you really need it, it will not be wasted. >8 Apportation >15 Theft of Vitae >7 Thoughts Betrayed *** >2 Trap >4 Walk of Flame >2 Blood to Water Again, fine choices for the combat cards, but you have made one small beginner's mistake. Theft of vitae is one of the best combat cards in the game, 3 in a round with a blur is magnificent, however there is a situation where it is not the best card to have in your hand. If your opponent has no blood then theft of vitae becomes a terrible card to have in your hand. With 15 of them you will always have them available (always being a relative term in a chance based card game :> ), even when they are not needed. As you are not playing with celerity it is unlikely that you will play more then 2 in a combat. Blood fury may not look like a good card on first inspection, but is quite a powerful card, and does damage that penetrates fortitude, while theft cannot finish the opposing vampire off. Also you may want to increase the number of presses you have, while it may seem that there are a lot, you will find that even a rudimentary defense like the police station stretching you to get to 2 presses. I suggest backing your presses in the same way you did the maneuvers, with a hawg (which you would go and get with the magic of the smith), for a permanent press. On the immortal grapple front. We tremere don't like it any more then wussy S:CE users. All of our strikes are not hand strikes so it shuts you down completely, which means that it is good defense even after thoughts betrayed has been played, and for potence decks that play with torn signpost and fists of death, its not really an impediment at all. The only way to get around this is to maneuver (read 'only way' as only way to continue to use tha. strikes), and while you have some maneuvers, considering how to get more for your money is worthwhile. Jackie Therman might be an option considering rutor's hand as equipping a retainer is a different action to equipping IR goggles. I have yet to play a deck with this many thoughts betrayed (boycotted the old version as too powerful), but maybe now I will. The biggest trick is that with TB, just like immortal grapple, while it is in effect, you really have to make it stick, because it is your only weapon against S:CE. This goes back to card cycling to defeat possible mismatches with your hand, blah etc. Okay. Thats enough for now. If you can synthesize all the deck changes I have suggested, mostly increases, and keep your deck trim, taut and terrific then you will have become a master deckbuilder and I will come to you for advice :> . Good Hunting. James B. Floate. Sig file boycott.

In article <7d8vjb$hf7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: > I suppose you could also use Thoughts Betrayed to keep him from > playing strike cards...but that won't help you against a bunch of > pre-range Potence cards and Blur. IMNSHO, Thoughts Betrayed is too expensive and the DOM requirement is generally too pricey in terms of capacity and deck space for a Tremere combat deck. But it does work. > Bye and large, a Tremere combat deck is usually defeated by a > well-built Brujah deck. If you can build a Tremere deck to beat > a Brujah rush deck, chances are it's a damn good deck. Man...all this Tremere talk going on while I'm sleeping. No good at all. Especially that Legbiter, going on and on about how the Tremere are difficult. :P Which they are, but you're scaring away the younglings! Hmm...maybe I can write the April newsletter all about Tremere combat, and the application thereof. Not like I haven't been posting Tremere combat decks in most of the other newsletters... Have I mentioned that a while ago, I fought a !Brujah combat deck to a stand- still? We were the only combat decks on the table, and we of course ended up next to each other. I was his predator. Most unfortunate, the seating arrangements in that game. But yeah...stand-still. It was the Ani/Cel/Tha deck. Fun fun fun. Anyway, the elsewhere-mentioned Fortitude/Thaumaturgy deck is a good one. I play it with Scouting Missions and Threats (and a couple of Govern the Unaligneds) so you can tailor your bleed for anything from 2 to 4, 5 with a GtU. Though, it's not really a combat deck, just a bleed deck with serious consequences for blocking. Kind of a better Kiss of Ra. For combat, I prefer Thaumaturgy and Celerity. Works better. Maneuvers to get away from Immortal Grapple, and additional strikes and presses. Theft of Vitae or Soul Burn first round, and then Blood to Water + Walk of Flame second round. And then, there's always Potence and Thaumaturgy, but that's a little too odd for most of you. Heh. Working on a pretty much straight Thaumaturgy combat deck, which even I probably couldn't build IRL, unfortunately...not enough Sabbat, but I like it so far. It will be out in the March newsletter, which I will hopefully post tonight after I whip off some crappy fiction. Xian But rain falls down and I feel cold A cold that sleeps within my heart It tears the earth and sun apart --New Order, "Shellshock" [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7d86gd$idq$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: > A lot of people will tell you different things about vampire selection. Of > course, it is contingent upon what you are attempting to do. For a deck like > this I can't resist putting Cassandra in. Extra hand size, +1 hand damage > are just great. The minion taps and other blood gain should suffice to bring Cassandra is just so darn expensive for what you get. That's my main problem. And when do you use the hand damage? Ideally, you're striking with thaumaturgy, neh? > On the immortal grapple front. We tremere don't like it any more then wussy > S:CE users. All of our strikes are not hand strikes so it shuts you down What do you mean, we Tremere don't like it? It's really fun when *we* use it! Hehe. Mmm...tasty... > I have yet to play a deck with this many thoughts betrayed (boycotted the > old version as too powerful), but maybe now I will. The biggest trick is Ahhh...a kindred spirit. I still have not fully gotten over my boycott. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7datcl$1qd$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: [responding to me re Thoughts Betrayed] > Bah. (aggro mode :>) You dont even think Cassandra is a good vampire > (according to a newsletter I read). TB doesnt thwart a combat deck, it stops > S:CE. To defeat a good brujah deck takes much more work. True. Still...I maintain that it's still probably too expensive in general, even if you are using Theft of Vitae...Thaumaturgy combat can become fairly blood intensive. [re that durn Legbiter] > Yeah. We should play some JOL and bite his leg! Poo. I never ever am in the same game as Legbiter...well, except JOL84, which was/is quite umm...odd. > There is a weird thing in terms of combat and balance. Everyone agrees that > the old TB was broken. However, a gangrel + potence or a nosferatu deck can > play drawing out the beast + immortal grapple, > trumping any combat strategy except fortitude. TB is a single card that > costs 2 blood, whereas the other is a combo but costs no blood to play. TB > requires DOM, whereas the other combo requires ani/pot to be effective. DotB DOM is still easier to find than ani/pot, and it's easier to draw that one TB than to get a combo in hand. (Says he who often goes for 5-7 card combos...) > also has the disadvantage of giving the opposing minion +1 hand damage, > while in combination with IG the shut down of weapons loses its effectivness > (although is great for the cost otherwise). Any other deck using IG > approaches this maximum of efficiency depending on the maneuvers available > to each minion (a deck I've always wanted to try is the Lasombra w/ 6-8 > shadow step +immortal grapple - but I only have one). Same here. Mmm...Lasombra rush...damn, I need more Political Struggles. And Terror Frenzies. > See where im going with this in discussing tremere and combat? The tremere > have no answer to the DotB/IG combo, you may have well played an old TB on > them. On top of this, tremere really have no answer for celerity - brujah; > dodge, blur, strike, strike, no retaliation by tremere. True. All very true. They don't have an answer with straight-up clan disciplines... > Well, the first thing is a little theory- I think that 1 combat discipline > does not a combat deck make. The brujah, gangrel and assamite (?) are very Yes. This is something it takes many people a while to realize. Good combat decks almost[1] always have 2 disciplines...one doing most of the work, and the other providing back-up. Peter's Nosferatu Rush deck uses Pot/Obf, with Obf providing most of the maneuvers, along with Bum's Rush. Josh Duffin's Brujah Rush deck has Celerity doing a lot of the work with Blurs and such, but Potence providing the Torn Signposts and Immortal Grapples. The Tremere usually need to pack an additional discipline to really do combat well. Thaumaturgy *is* largely combat-oriented, which tricks a lot of people into thinking that they should play the Tremere that way. Which you should only do if you're going to go all-out combat and forget about everything else. > The tremere combat deck will have augmented tha with something else - the two > most common being celerity and fortitude (my favourite deck is a > tremere+fortitude deck - but not a cheesy dawnop/weathercontrol/skinofnight - > no thats a different deck :>) Yup yup. Though I would tend to disagree on the dawn op/WC/skin of night being cheesy. It's a lesson. One the group I play with most regularly hasn't learned yet. So much fun. They're still stuck on needing to block anything and everything I can. They got so worked up about it that they tried to gang up on a friend playing my deck. Didn't work. It's a powerful deck, and is just another form of bleed deck. You just have a greater motivator not to block it. I suspect you're talking about Tremere Tha/For Dawn Op + Blood Fury/Rage or Soul Burn...that *is* definitely fun, but since the primary end is the same as the Weather Control deck, it's much simpler to do it with Weather Control. Safer too. Additionally, you don't have to concentrate so much on getting superior thaumaturgy, so you can focus more on the bleeding. The hard part with the Blood Fury route is getting them to block your actions...it obviously doesn't work well if you're rushing and not bleeding... > Use cryptic mission to drain their blood, seeds of corruption to make it Ick. Cryptic Mission. I've seen it used effectively in 1 deck IRL. Not effective enough for the space in most of my decks. Seeds is good, but I don't have enough of them, myself. > difficult for them to come at you, magic your equipment out of your deck > quicker, bleed at stealth, or seduce their vampires, steal locations and Equipment. Bah. Us Tremere don't need no steekin' equipment. > What about tremere combat you ask? well thats a post for another time. Hey, > im not the newsletter editor :> Heh. I'll do my best not to miss another month...though I'll be busy in New Orleans from the 1st to the 5th of April... Xian [1] I've seen a straight potence deck recently on here, but I can't remember whose it is. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7datcl$1qd$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, James B Floate <flo...@ihug.com.au> writes >Bah. (aggro mode :>) You dont even think Cassandra is a good vampire >(according to a newsletter I read). TB doesnt thwart a combat deck, it stops >S:CE. To defeat a good brujah deck takes much more work. > Defeat it, yes. Annoy it, no. A lot of combat decks do use strikes, and clogging their hand with them, when they could be drawing that IG, that Decapitate or whatever, is always good. > >Yeah. We should play some JOL and bite his leg! No, no, no. *shakes head* He gets to bite *your* leg. [ quoted text not captured ]

Xian wrote in message <7d9kte$42p$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >In article <7d8vjb$hf7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > Dhar...@yahoo.com wrote: >> I suppose you could also use Thoughts Betrayed to keep him from >> playing strike cards...but that won't help you against a bunch of >> pre-range Potence cards and Blur. > >IMNSHO, Thoughts Betrayed is too expensive and the DOM requirement is >generally too pricey in terms of capacity and deck space for a Tremere combat >deck. But it does work. Bah. (aggro mode :>) You dont even think Cassandra is a good vampire (according to a newsletter I read). TB doesnt thwart a combat deck, it stops S:CE. To defeat a good brujah deck takes much more work. >> Bye and large, a Tremere combat deck is usually defeated by a >> well-built Brujah deck. If you can build a Tremere deck to beat >> a Brujah rush deck, chances are it's a damn good deck. > >Man...all this Tremere talk going on while I'm sleeping. No good at all. >Especially that Legbiter, going on and on about how the Tremere are difficult. >:P Which they are, but you're scaring away the younglings! Yeah. We should play some JOL and bite his leg! There is a weird thing in terms of combat and balance. Everyone agrees that the old TB was broken. However, a gangrel + potence or a nosferatu deck can play drawing out the beast + immortal grapple, trumping any combat strategy except fortitude. TB is a single card that costs 2 blood, whereas the other is a combo but costs no blood to play. TB requires DOM, whereas the other combo requires ani/pot to be effective. DotB also has the disadvantage of giving the opposing minion +1 hand damage, while in combination with IG the shut down of weapons loses its effectivness (although is great for the cost otherwise). Any other deck using IG approaches this maximum of efficiency depending on the maneuvers available to each minion (a deck I've always wanted to try is the Lasombra w/ 6-8 shadow step +immortal grapple - but I only have one). See where im going with this in discussing tremere and combat? The tremere have no answer to the DotB/IG combo, you may have well played an old TB on them. On top of this, tremere really have no answer for celerity - brujah; dodge, blur, strike, strike, no retaliation by tremere. Rough neh? What to do, what to do... Well, the first thing is a little theory- I think that 1 combat discipline does not a combat deck make. The brujah, gangrel and assamite (?) are very strong in combat because they have two heavily combat oriented disciplines. The tremere look like a combat deck because tha is such an interesting set of abilities, but without anything to support it, it is still only 1 disicpline. So I might distinguish between a tremere_clan_deck and a tremere-based combat deck. The practical difference is that the tremere clan deck will seek to be as tremere-ish as possible - only fighting against less capable opponents and avoiding combat with those more capable. The tremere combat deck will have augmented tha with something else - the two most common being celerity and fortitude (my favourite deck is a tremere+fortitude deck - but not a cheesy dawnop/weathercontrol/skinofnight - no thats a different deck :>) Im getting very sleepy so I will finish my point by saying that to play a tremere_clan_deck you have to play cleverly. You will lose if you try to mix it up with a combat deck like solid brujah rush. Because you are trying to do something the deck cant do. You have to cheat. Could you beat a chess grandmaster at a sit down tournament? Could you beat him if his house was being repossesed?, he hadnt slept in 48 hrs? his family is being held hostage conditional on the outcome of the game? Use cryptic mission to drain their blood, seeds of corruption to make it difficult for them to come at you, magic your equipment out of your deck quicker, bleed at stealth, or seduce their vampires, steal locations and vampires that are in torpor, give someone the glorious gift that is charnas, intercept their equipping actions, deflect your predator onto your prey, when they rush you tell them to behave like a good doggie, and when it comes to combat stack it as much as possible in your favour as you can, have maneuvers, presses and theft and walk cards coming out your butt so that if they do run out of IG then you can hit them back. The outcome wont be dependent on only the combat but the extent to which you were able to misdirect, mislead, harry and interfere with their plans. So while a brujah might be able to beat your tremere in combat, your deck can beat their deck in the broader context of the game. What about tremere combat you ask? well thats a post for another time. Hey, im not the newsletter editor :> James B.

sorry for double post, its late. James B. *falls on keyboard****************************

Allrighty then; *puts boxing gloves on* Xian wrote in message <7dbjg3$qcl$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >Cassandra is just so darn expensive for what you get. That's my main problem. >And when do you use the hand damage? Ideally, you're striking with >thaumaturgy, neh? Ack! I'm not listening I'm not listening.... Cassandra is the BEST vampire. I find the hand damage useful all the time, not even just when you have run out of cards either. If only she had fortitude *sighs wistfully and dreams of a perfect vampire world*. But we can fix mistakes that the design team make. >What do you mean, we Tremere don't like it? It's really fun when *we* use it! >Hehe. Mmm...tasty... Fair enough. I had a deck w/ Astrid, Sabine, Ulugh and Lazarus that used potence, really freaks people out when they get punched out by a tremere. >> I have yet to play a deck with this many thoughts betrayed (boycotted the >> old version as too powerful), but maybe now I will. The biggest trick is >Ahhh...a kindred spirit. I still have not fully gotten over my boycott. I noticed. It really does help us against S:CE though. And we needed that. Because the best way to do it without TB is to have *heaps* of wakeup and fast reaction people. And now thats more difficult because of the ruling on WWEF. James B. Insult Cassandra one more time and thats it! We're goin' at it. :>

Xian and Floatey continue to wrangle; Xian wrote in message <7dbkkg$r60$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >DOM is still easier to find than ani/pot, and it's easier to draw that one TB >than to get a combo in hand. (Says he who often goes for 5-7 card combos...) Hrmm. Think I said that somewhere. I can be quite pernickity. >I suspect you're talking about Tremere Tha/For Dawn Op + Blood Fury/Rage or >Soul Burn Nope. Theft of vitae, blood fury, blood to water and walk of flame, I just back it by making my tremere hard. Its an archetypal tremere deck, balanced a little more towards combat and fortitude added- some skin of steel for big hits, indomitability for presses, masochism cause we pay for lots of cards and ablative skin (prevention on a stick). I really enjoy playing this deck and it came into being for two reasons. First- I really love to play straight tremere decks with a bit of everything that the clan can do, but I found that the vamps just couldnt go the distance against nasty gangrel and brujah, so I made us as hard as the gangrel. Second- Kiss of Ra. I hate that card. Heh but I love it when ventrue players look stupidly at you as you explain to them that they cant play KoR because Cassandra(!) or Ulugh has fortitude. :> >Equipment. Bah. Us Tremere don't need no steekin' equipment. The infamous wizard bike gang of original jyhad. Actually I tend to agree with you, I like to play with as little equipment as possible, its an image thing. >Ick. Cryptic Mission. I've seen it used effectively in 1 deck IRL. Not >effective enough for the space in most of my decks. Seeds is good, but I >don't have enough of them, myself. > I hope my point was not lost? The tremere have other ways to fight. We are one of the most frustrating clans to play against when all our tricks are working. Anyway I couldnt let that cryptic mission quip pass. Here is one of my favourite nasty decks back from when I was on a single card deck kick. I still play it when I want to get some vps :>. Cryptic mission can be devastating when used correctly. Try to work on one vampire at a time until they are drained and keep them there with the succubus, and ram home your bleed when you can. Toss any discipline master cards that are jamming your hand because you can just pick them up with the embraces. Comments welcome. Cryptic Mission Deck mk III Royce Magdelena Schaefer Heinrick Schlempt Roreca Quaid Ohanna Brooke Jing Wei Ingrid Russo Kurt Strauss Thomas Thorne Spiridonas Ulugh Beg 1 Arcane Library 1 University Hunting Ground 1 Infernal Pact 1 Fragment of the Book of Nod 1 Minion Tap 1 Tribute to the Master 2 The Parthenon 3 Effective Management 1 Society of Leopold 1 Fear of Mekhet 3 Dominate 6 Thaumaturgy 23 1 Succubus 1 Nephandus 1 Talaq the Immortal 1 Charnas the Chimp 5 The Embrace 6 Govern the Unaligned 2 Far Mastery 22 Cryptic Mission 39 3 Seduction 5 Bonding 3 Conditioning 11 6 Deflection 6 2 Theft of Vitae 2 __ 81

In article <7dco3b$p7b$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: > Xian and Floatey continue to wrangle; > > Xian wrote in message <7dbkkg$r60$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... > > >Ick. Cryptic Mission. I've seen it used effectively in 1 deck IRL. Not > >effective enough for the space in most of my decks. Seeds is good, but I > >don't have enough of them, myself. > Anyway I couldnt let that cryptic mission quip pass. Here is one of my > favourite nasty decks back from when I was on a single card deck kick. I > still play it when I want to get some vps :>. Cryptic mission can be > devastating when used correctly. Try to work on one vampire at a time until > they are drained and keep them there with the succubus, and ram home your > bleed when you can. Toss any discipline master cards that are jamming your > hand because you can just pick them up with the embraces. > Comments welcome. [snip decent looking deck with lots of Cryptic Mission] I've been occasionally playing a fairly Cryptic deck myself lately, which has been surprisingly (to me) effective. Mine goes much more heavily for the Cryptic/Society trick though. I think it's something like 2 Magdelena Shafer 1 Roreca Quaid 1 Heinrick (ver)Schlempt 2 Blythe Candelaria 1 Dr. John Casey Casem 1 Jing Wei (no way. Jing Wei!) 1 Brooke 2 Sarah "Peach" Cobbler 1 Merrill Molitor 9 Society of Leopold 3 Thaumaturgy 2 Parthenon 3 Effective Management 1 Chantry 2 Arcane Library 1 University (?) Hunting Ground 3 Blood Doll 2 Unnatural Disaster 20 Cryptic Mission (I'd use more but this is all I own) 3 Seeds of Corruption 3 Computer Hacking 12 Theft of Vitae (So, you lose blood to the Cryptic, or you block and lose blood to the Theft. Real good vs non-IG decks.) 5 Wake/Forced Awakening 3 Deflection 3 Eagle's Sight 3 Bomb (for blowing up Hunting Grounds... some days you just can't get rid of a bomb.) --- That's not exactly right (don't have it in front of me) but it's something along those lines. 90 cards. The best things about Cryptic are twofold: one, your Blood Dolls are always full. Two, it bumps off annoying allies very easily. (Last night I killed a Gypsies (maybe two Gypsies?) and a Succubus with Cryptics.) And that's not even counting 2a: it empties vampires so they die to Society. The Society is almost rude, frankly. It just burns vampires way too easily. Distasteful to me for the same reason as Sacrifice, Protect Thine Own, Banishment - to kill a vampire you should have to do it the old- fashioned way, by beating him up and ripping his head off most violently. But it's still kinda fun for me to play. (Probably less fun for the people getting their vampires burned though.) I actually don't like Seeds of Corruption very much at all lately. Maybe it's cause I've been trying to use it in basically weenie decks, but the prey-only restriction and burnability make it seem much less worthwhile than it used to. I'll probably take the last three out sometime soon. Josh "Brooke goes to blow up the Zoo Hunting Ground with her Bomb." "Uh.. okay. Why?" "So you can't keep Stanislava alive, of course." [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7dco3b$p7b$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: > Xian and Floatey continue to wrangle; > Nope. Theft of vitae, blood fury, blood to water and walk of flame, I just > back it by making my tremere hard. Its an archetypal tremere deck, balanced > a little more towards combat and fortitude added- some skin of steel for big > hits, indomitability for presses, masochism cause we pay for lots of cards > and ablative skin (prevention on a stick). I really enjoy playing this deck > and it came into being for two reasons. First- I really love to play > straight tremere decks with a bit of everything that the clan can do, but I > found that the vamps just couldnt go the distance against nasty gangrel and > brujah, so I made us as hard as the gangrel. Second- Kiss of Ra. I hate that > card. Heh but I love it when ventrue players look stupidly at you as you > explain to them that they cant play KoR because Cassandra(!) or Ulugh has > fortitude. :> Ah...(couldn't figure out where to snip that...) I see. Not bad, but personally, I probably wouldn't include the Walk of Flame in it...but it looks like it works. Anyway, as I've mentioned time and again, and Peter is probably going to *thwap* me one of these days if I don't stop mentioning it, my early learning experiences were against Gangrel decks. Let's say 3 of 4 at a table. So, being the fool I am, I decided that I should out-fight them. With the Tremere. Unpreventable agg being the way to go. It never worked great, and I have learned the lesson that you generally don't want to take the Gangrel on head-to-head, but it still warps my opinions... > >Ick. Cryptic Mission. I've seen it used effectively in 1 deck IRL. Not > >effective enough for the space in most of my decks. Seeds is good, but I > >don't have enough of them, myself. > > > > I hope my point was not lost? The tremere have other ways to fight. We are Oh, no. I've just been on a combat deck kick recently. I'll come up with something new for the April newsletter... > one of the most frustrating clans to play against when all our tricks are > working. Agreed. > Anyway I couldnt let that cryptic mission quip pass. Here is one of my > favourite nasty decks back from when I was on a single card deck kick. I > still play it when I want to get some vps :>. Cryptic mission can be > devastating when used correctly. Try to work on one vampire at a time until > they are drained and keep them there with the succubus, and ram home your > bleed when you can. Toss any discipline master cards that are jamming your > hand because you can just pick them up with the embraces. > Comments welcome. Low intercept environment, eh? It's nice, though I probably wouldn't put Ohanna and Roreca in. And I'd remove 'the Watcha' (said in that Sir Mix-a-Lot voice...) Otherwise, rather nice. This does not necessarily change my opinion that Cryptic Mission is a little underpowered, but not bad...obviously more Succubi would help, but hey...I only have one too. And you only have 2 (or 3? What the heck clan is Royce again?) !Tremere. Hmm...well, you're not depending on the Succubus, so it's all okay. > Cryptic Mission Deck mk III > > Royce > Magdelena Schaefer > Heinrick Schlempt > Roreca Quaid > Ohanna > Brooke > Jing Wei > Ingrid Russo > Kurt Strauss > Thomas Thorne > Spiridonas > Ulugh Beg > > 1 Arcane Library > 1 University Hunting Ground > 1 Infernal Pact > 1 Fragment of the Book of Nod > 1 Minion Tap > 1 Tribute to the Master > 2 The Parthenon > 3 Effective Management > 1 Society of Leopold > 1 Fear of Mekhet I almost asked what these previous two were in here for, but then I realized I've been working for 13 hours, and been up for 21, so I'm not thinking straight. > 3 Dominate > 6 Thaumaturgy 23 > > 1 Succubus > 1 Nephandus > 1 Talaq the Immortal Hehe. Talaq! Cool. > 1 Charnas the Chimp > 5 The Embrace > 6 Govern the Unaligned > 2 Far Mastery > 22 Cryptic Mission 39 > > 3 Seduction > 5 Bonding > 3 Conditioning 11 > > 6 Deflection 6 > > 2 Theft of Vitae 2 I'd probably add in a little more combat to bring the total up to 90. Probably just more Theft of Vitae...maybe a couple Obedience. Xian [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7dcmfp$oc6$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: I'm beginning to like this! :) > Xian wrote in message <7dbjg3$qcl$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... > >Cassandra is just so darn expensive for what you get. That's my main > >problem. > >And when do you use the hand damage? Ideally, you're striking with > >thaumaturgy, neh? > > Ack! I'm not listening I'm not listening.... > Cassandra is the BEST vampire. Best Tremere, or best vampire? My vote for best Tremere would have to be for Cardano. He'll "take your money and your honey." (Ack...just can't help myself with the poor poor UPN "The Watcher" quotes today...) But seriously, the cel FOR plus THA DOM ani aus is really really good. Best vampire? I think I stayed out of that one last time...no...I didn't...it's gotta be Lupo! Well, and Igo...he's just so hungry...no one understands his poor tormented soul. > I find the hand damage useful all the time, not even just when you have run > out of cards either. If only she had fortitude *sighs wistfully and dreams > of a perfect vampire world*. But we can fix mistakes that the design team > make. Heh. Ah well...I won't continue to aggravate you with my humble opinion on Cassandra. > >What do you mean, we Tremere don't like it? It's really fun when *we* use > it! > >Hehe. Mmm...tasty... > > Fair enough. I had a deck w/ Astrid, Sabine, Ulugh and Lazarus that used > potence, really freaks people out when they get punched out by a tremere. See the November (first issue) newsletter. Sabine, Astrid, some others, and Lazarus. New ruling on combat cards means Immortal Grapple only applies the first round. Which means you can punch and then Walk of Flame. Hehehehe. > I noticed. It really does help us against S:CE though. And we needed that. > Because the best way to do it without TB is to have *heaps* of wakeup and > fast reaction people. And now thats more difficult because of the ruling on > WWEF. True. Still...it gives me the willies to this day. Can I recommend the bigger card combo of Animalism, Celerity and Thaumaturgy? Terror Frenzy + Maneuvers + Blur + Tha strikes = goodness. Go Cardano, Javier, and Tommy Thorne! Okay, so it doesn't really help against S:CE, but it's fun. Hmm...maybe I can build a thaumaturgy Hidden Lurker deck. Hmm...hmm... Xian, thinking "GtU + (mods) + no stealth = block, leading to Hidden Lurker..." *grins* <----ack!!! I'm picking up Noal's mannerisms!!! [ quoted text not captured ]

xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: > Best vampire? I think I stayed out of that one last time...no...I > didn't...it's gotta be Lupo! Well, and Igo...he's just so hungry...no one > understands his poor tormented soul. Heh. My favorite Caitiff is Uriah Winter. He makes a great Trojan Horse. You can do a quite a few bizarre things to him and send him off to your prey. Put Fame on him and send him to your prey and bounce him in and out of torpor. While your prey controls him, play Betrayer to nail your prey for at least two pool. (assuming you have another in your uncontrolled region) Use Vasilis to play Revelation of the Sire to make Uriah a Brujah to give your Giovanni (and Ranjan Rishi) +1 bleed. After he passes on to other players, you can use Brujah Frenzy on Uriah's actions to tap your prey's vampires. (This is one of several examples of using Revelation to change Uriah's clan to activate the special text on vampires or make clan hosers consistently useful.) There are quite a few other things you can do. Noal -- "The time for action is past! Now is the time for senseless bickering!" -Ashleigh Brilliant [ quoted text not captured ]

> Best vampire? I think I stayed out of that one last time...no...I > didn't...it's gotta be Lupo! Well, and Igo...he's just so hungry...no one > understands his poor tormented soul. Hey, don't ignore Smudge! p.

In article <7ddmja$k0m$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: [re: me raving about one of my favourite decks with little to no point] > Ah...(couldn't figure out where to snip that...) I see. Not bad, but > personally, I probably wouldn't include the Walk of Flame in it...but it > looks like it works. What?? no walk? how do you kill people? We have very different ideas about playing the tremere. Anyway, as I've mentioned time and again, and Peter is > probably going to *thwap* me one of these days if I don't stop mentioning it, > my early learning experiences were against Gangrel decks. Let's say 3 of 4 > at a table. So, being the fool I am, I decided that I should out-fight them. > With the Tremere. Unpreventable agg being the way to go. It never worked > great, and I have learned the lesson that you generally don't want to take > the Gangrel on head-to-head, but it still warps my opinions... Sure you can. did it every game for ages, but I had fortitude too. Granted if they use IG as well its very bad. > > Low intercept environment, eh? It's nice, though I probably wouldn't put > Ohanna and Roreca in. And I'd remove 'the Watcha' (said in that Sir > Mix-a-Lot voice...) Otherwise, rather nice. This does not necessarily > change my opinion that Cryptic Mission is a little underpowered, but not > bad...obviously more Succubi would help, but hey...I only have one too. And > you only have 2 (or 3? What the heck clan is Royce again?) !Tremere. > Hmm...well, you're not depending on the Succubus, so it's all okay. > Hmnn should have explained more. 1. Not low intercept invironment. We have a guy who plays this annoying wake and intercept deck. The trick with my cryptic mission deck is that you overwhelm their defenses. If he blocks your embraces thats bad, so you try and tap him out blocking your other actions. 2. No, I have 3 succubi, but only put 1 in the deck. I used to have more, but found that 1 was enough, so as you went on to say if I get her out thats great, otherwise- not a problem. 3. Wouldnt put ohanna and roreca in? They are the backbone of the deck. Well actually I should substitue Mustafa Rahman for ohanna now that I have taken the muddled vampire hunter out. Wouldnt put the watcher in? Its been so long I cant remember why i did. I think I used to use 3rd trads instead of only embraces- thanks for pointing that one out. There is another card inconsistency I just noticed rereading the deck, I have 5 tremere decks made and I dont have many academic HG's (card distribution is weird) so back when I made it I had to use a University HG instead, never got round to changing it. > I'd probably add in a little more combat to bring the total up to 90. > Probably just more Theft of Vitae...maybe a couple Obedience. Originally played with no combat cards at all. Put the 2 thefts in to confuse people about the deck, and for last second saves. Obedience is a good idea. Didnt get this post, had to go looking on deja for it when I noticed someone else responging to a post I hadnt seen. Is that my mistake somewhere? or what.. Also, the screen for this reply is just a bit bigger then IE's window and it is very annoying, dont know how you do it all the time :> . Floatey (changing handle) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <36FA7F7E...@alpinetaxi.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] I'm the *last* person to ignore Smudge. But he's just not as hungry as Igo is. Still...I *did* build a deck around Smudge. It's out there somewhere...I like the part where he gets 7 hand damage permanently. Xian But rain falls down and I feel cold A cold that sleeps within my heart It tears the earth and sun apart --New Order, "Shellshock" -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7degje$cg2$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, flo...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <7ddmja$k0m$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: > [re: me raving about one of my favourite decks with little to no point] > > Ah...(couldn't figure out where to snip that...) I see. Not bad, but > > personally, I probably wouldn't include the Walk of Flame in it...but it > > looks like it works. > > What?? no walk? how do you kill people? We have very different ideas about > playing the tremere. I was thinking Dawn Op, use Blood Fury/Blood Rage/Soul Burn. That burns people good. Or simply torporizing them works well, especially in a deck crafted for Muaziz. > >I have learned the lesson that you generally don't want to take > > the Gangrel on head-to-head, but it still warps my opinions... > > Sure you can. did it every game for ages, but I had fortitude too. Granted if > they use IG as well its very bad. No, no, silly. You *can*, but it's generally a better option to play a deck they can't deal with. Like Ventrue Fortitude Pool-gain. Next to no way for the Gangrel to figure out how to stop that. Intercept & agg or intercept & rush meets with Skin of Steel. Bleeding lots meets with pool-gain and loses. Voting just doesn't work. > > > Hmnn should have explained more. 1. Not low intercept invironment. We have a > guy who plays this annoying wake and intercept deck. The trick with my cryptic > mission deck is that you overwhelm their defenses. If he blocks your embraces > thats bad, so you try and tap him out blocking your other actions. Hmm...again, this is probably where I'd switch to a different deck style if this guy keeps playing the same deck. But maybe that's just me. > 3. Wouldnt put ohanna and roreca in? They are the backbone of the deck. Well > actually I should substitue Mustafa Rahman for ohanna now that I have taken > the muddled vampire hunter out. Wouldnt put the watcher in? Its been so long > I cant remember why i did. I think I used to use 3rd trads instead of only > embraces- thanks for pointing that one out. I think this deck is pretty neat, don't get me wrong...I just think that unless you have a *pile* of Cryptic Missions (see Josh's deck), they aren't worth the time, if you're going to focus on bleeding... > Didnt get this post, had to go looking on deja for it when I noticed someone > else responging to a post I hadnt seen. Is that my mistake somewhere? or No...newsgroups don't always have perfect distribution. I even miss some stuff on DN. > what.. Also, the screen for this reply is just a bit bigger then IE's window > and it is very annoying, dont know how you do it all the time :> . What size window are you using? What size monitor & what resolution? It's only about 2/3 of the window on IE4 on my 17" at 1024x768. :) Xian [ quoted text not captured ]

Okaaay. I didnt realise that it would create a whole new account at Deja News. Still, now I know. Floatey.

Xian wrote in message <7dg8rv$s4e$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... [re not using walk of flame] >I was thinking Dawn Op, use Blood Fury/Blood Rage/Soul Burn. That burns >people good. Or simply torporizing them works well, especially in a deck >crafted for Muaziz. > Erg. Muaziz. [re taking the gangrel on with the tremere] >> Sure you can. did it every game for ages, but I had fortitude too. Granted if >> they use IG as well its very bad. >No, no, silly. You *can*, but it's generally a better option to play a deck >they can't deal with. Like Ventrue Fortitude Pool-gain. Next to no way for >the Gangrel to figure out how to stop that. Intercept & agg or intercept & >rush meets with Skin of Steel. Bleeding lots meets with pool-gain and loses. >Voting just doesn't work. Silly? Hmpf. That was inflammatory :> . I find this illogical captain. It seems like you are saying that there are clan mismatches and that one shouldn't play a mismatched clan against its nemesis. Do you bring eight decks along and ask people what they will be playing so that you can get the better of them by selecting the correct deck? Perhaps you would like to sideboard clan hosers until you find out what people are playing at the table? If I want to play a certain deck, a flagship deck if you will, then that deck should have means to deal with any deck it comes across. I have ~25 decks made up. Of those at least half are novelty decks with_SILLY_ideas I have had, my ravnos zip gun/mass reality deck for instance. These decks focus on one idea and if someone has a counter to the plan then the deck dies- but thats okie, it was a novelty deck. Of the 25 decks only ~8 are played regularly, and taken seriously. Once a deck reaches this status it should be able to deal with all comers. If my favourite deck routinely comes across another deck that makes it look_SILLY_by shutting it down/slaughtering it, then its not a good deck. Sure you can have weak points, no deck is/should be invulnerable (because that would end the game on a metagame level), but it should have a fighting chance. Now, call me_SILLY_but it is a matter of pride that I build a deck that can deal with threats, esp the most dangerous threats. If I have to run and get another deck because something will ruin me, then I either a) have done a poor job, or b) it is one of my novelty decks, and you take the good with the bad. If I had to hazard a guess I would say that your early experiences with the gangrel have scarred you permanently. I can appreciate this. Interesting that all the ways you suggest of burning people cannot be blocked by fortitude. Also I dont play decks in the hope that my prey "can't deal with" them. One of the best games I ever played I was playing my straight brujah rush deck and had tura vaughn who got into combat with crusher played by a friend at the table, we went through half of our decks in one fight, it was awesome (and I won - go girl! - heh, course then we ran out of cards early and were ousted by the other people playing). Its an interesting metagame question though. If you put it to someone like Peter Bajika with his notorious marty lechtansi deck, I suppose that he hopes that his prey wont have a counter for his deck because all the angles seems to be covered. The ultimate counter for my cryptic mission deck would be an atonement/fortitude deck, but even then I think I would have a chance. It would depend on who got which cards when. Which is how it should be between two good decks and two good players. I am going to stop now because this discussion is leading into why one plays the game, what one hopes to get out of it etc. Suffice to say, I do not go and get a ventrue deck when my prey/ predator unholsters their gangrel. Hmmn. *ponders*. I think we are in what is known as a pissing contest Xian. I apologise, I think I started it. But then, good things can come out of people being a little aggro at each other :> . (Im a philosophy student- if that explains anything) >I think this deck is pretty neat, don't get me wrong...I just think that >unless you have a *pile* of Cryptic Missions (see Josh's deck), they aren't >worth the time, if you're going to focus on bleeding... ??? see Josh's deck? what about mine? It had more *pouts petulantly*. The deck's idea is to support the bleeding with cryptic mission, because ultimately the idea of any winning deck is to remove blood from the prey, in some fashion. My cryptic mission deck bleeds good. I do not understand. (Sorry Josh I liked your deck, will post about it) >No...newsgroups don't always have perfect distribution. I even miss some >stuff on DN. Oh. Thanks for that . I am not Mr Technical Competancy. :> Floatey

Joshua Duffin wrote in message <7ddkou$i67 >I've been occasionally playing a fairly Cryptic deck myself lately, >which has been surprisingly (to me) effective. Mine goes much more >heavily for the Cryptic/Society trick though. I think it's something >like [decent looking deck with_waay_too many society's for one person] Heh, you only have 20 cryptic missions but 9 society's? I would put your deck together and test it out, but even with my collection I can't!. Yeah, I can see how this would work. Ultimately what I envisiged with the cryptic mission deck was hordes streaming across draining vampires of their blood every round. So when I orginally built the deck there were 8 embraces and 4 3rd traditions and 35 cryptic missions. However, this deck didnt work at all, a pure novelty deck. However, when I converted it to a 2 discipline deck with the dominate, all of a sudden I had a deck that won. There were several reason for , the main one is cryptic mission I think is a powerful card, but it has some limitations. Most importantly it cannot send a vampire to torpor, and does no damage to their pool (directly). So if I had a supremely successful game where I had 10 minions doing cryptic missions constantly, the game ended up with neither my prey or predator with any blood and stagnated, and generally lost to the 4th person. So- if I can get my hands on that many society's I will have to rebuild the original deck. Weird how I thought to blow the cryptic missions out of proportion, but not the follow up move :>. >The Society is almost rude, frankly. It just burns vampires way too >easily. Distasteful to me for the same reason as Sacrifice, Protect Thine >Own, Banishment - to kill a vampire you should have to do it the old- >fashioned way, by beating him up and ripping his head off most violently. >But it's still kinda fun for me to play. (Probably less fun for the people >getting their vampires burned though.) Almost? You have admirably found a way to exploit it to its utmost :> Just like cryptic mission its a reasonably innocuous card until you use a lot of them, and plan around them. >I actually don't like Seeds of Corruption very much at all lately. Maybe >it's cause I've been trying to use it in basically weenie decks, but the >prey-only restriction and burnability make it seem much less worthwhile >than it used to. I'll probably take the last three out sometime soon. Not a great card for our single focus deck, I agree. Much better in a more archetypal tremere deck where you would be able/eager to block actions. Floatey.

In article <7dh459$1cd$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: > Erg. Muaziz. Hey. I actually rarely use her for the diablerie thing, but the aus dom for THA is really really nice. Only Pieter is smaller (6) and he's just got for tha (plus like OBF PRO, I suppose). > Silly? Hmpf. That was inflammatory :> . I find this illogical captain. It > seems like you are saying that there are clan mismatches and that one > shouldn't play a mismatched clan against its nemesis. Do you bring eight Well...I'm saying that maybe if you keep playing one deck over and over, and you don't like the relative frequency of your wins, maybe you should change for a while. Throw a monkey wrench into the metagame. > decks along and ask people what they will be playing so that you can get the > better of them by selecting the correct deck? Perhaps you would like to > sideboard clan hosers until you find out what people are playing at the > table? Now *there's* an inflammatory remark! Hehe. No...none of the above are true options (although sometimes people will tell me...), it was mainly just a metagame comment. Yeah, there are anti-deck decks, like Rush being anti-S&B, and Gangrel combat being anti-most-other-combat (except wacked-out Tremere)... I don't think you should necessarily worry too much about it, but I also don't think you should feel obligated to keep on a losing streak. In the example I gave, switching to a Ventrue Fortitude-pool gain deck, it's the perfect thing to do to a bunch of Gangrel players, cause they have a really hard time dealing with it...it screws all their basic strategies, and usually beats out the poor Gangrel bleeding for 1 each. The Ventrue deck is probably the closest thing you'll find to an anti-Gangrel-combat deck... > If I want to play a certain deck, a flagship deck if you will, then that > deck should have means to deal with any deck it comes across. I have ~25 > decks made up. Of those at least half are novelty decks with_SILLY_ideas I Holy crap. You beat me and Noal for the biggest...erm, deck length...I believe at last count, we were at 8 to 10 currently active... > have had, my ravnos zip gun/mass reality deck for instance. These decks That's not silly, that's **cool**!!! > focus on one idea and if someone has a counter to the plan then the deck > dies- but thats okie, it was a novelty deck. Of the 25 decks only ~8 are > played regularly, and taken seriously. Once a deck reaches this status it > should be able to deal with all comers. If my favourite deck routinely comes > across another deck that makes it look_SILLY_by shutting it > down/slaughtering it, then its not a good deck. Sure you can have weak > points, no deck is/should be invulnerable (because that would end the game > on a metagame level), but it should have a fighting chance. Hmm...I tend to agree, but I suspect that in any highly evolved game environment, you are going to come across a deck that can shut yours down wit some frequency. Most decks just can't deal with *every* threat. This to me doesn't mean that it's a bad deck, just that it has a weak area which you may not be able to cover. Nothing to worry about. Ya takes yer lumps. Now, if this is happening regularly, then it's something to be concerned with, especially if it's a major deck archetype. If your Ventrue vote deck is regularly getting shut down by some combat deck, maybe you need a little more combat defense. Or smaller vampires. If your Tremere combat deck is getting shut down by other combat decks, retool a little...that's all I'm saying... > Now, call me_SILLY_but it is a matter of pride that I build a deck that can > deal with threats, esp the most dangerous threats. If I have to run and get That's the thing. You build a deck to deal with the most dangerous threats. There are some you can't prepare or be bothered to deal with. If I have a deck that will only be regularly be shut down by someone using the Assamites, because umm...well, just because...then I wouldn't worry about it too much. No one (except Mike Bohlman...hehe) plays the Assamites with any regularity. :) Now, if my deck is going to get regularly screwed by a Ventrue vote deck or Brujah combat, then maybe you want to work on that, as those are possibly the two most popular decks outside of Malkavian S&B. > another deck because something will ruin me, then I either a) have done a > poor job, or b) it is one of my novelty decks, and you take the good with > the bad. Mmm...novelty deck. I think we're saying the same thing here, just at slightly different frequencies, so there's some sort of static going on. > If I had to hazard a guess I would say that your early experiences with the > gangrel have scarred you permanently. I can appreciate this. Interesting Probably true. I still hesitate to include Walk of Flame sometimes, cause I think, "Skin of Steel can prevent this!" Sigh. > that all the ways you suggest of burning people cannot be blocked by > fortitude. Also I dont play decks in the hope that my prey "can't deal with" Yup yup. Symptom. Your diagnosis is correct, doctor. I'm slowly unlearning all of this. And no, never play hoping that your prey can't deal with it...that's a losing proposition. I didn't actually suggest that, did I? I hope not...if I did, I was obviously sleep-deprived... > Suffice to say, I do not go and get a ventrue deck when my prey/ predator > unholsters their gangrel. Ditto, but after about 10 games in a row where they're playing the same damn deck, it's time to screw with their head. > Hmmn. *ponders*. I think we are in what is known as a pissing contest Xian. > I apologise, I think I started it. But then, good things can come out of > people being a little aggro at each other :> . Hey...no problems here. I was beginning to think that people were regarding me as another Legbiter, as hardly anyone actually responds to some of the points I post, which I took to mean that either they figured I was spouting complete gibberish, or (less likely) that I was so right, it wasn't worth contesting my opinion. > (Im a philosophy student- if that explains anything) Hehe. Durn philosophy students. (Us psychology/english majors will wrassle with ya any day...mmm...psychology of language...) > ??? see Josh's deck? what about mine? It had more *pouts petulantly*. The > deck's idea is to support the bleeding with cryptic mission, because > ultimately the idea of any winning deck is to remove blood from the prey, in > some fashion. My cryptic mission deck bleeds good. I do not understand. > (Sorry Josh I liked your deck, will post about it) D'oh. I didn't look hard at Josh's deck...your deck *does* have more Cryptic Missions...I guess it's my feeling that any deck that has 20+ of the same card in it should be taking more of an advantage of that card, which as you noted, Josh's does with the Society. Hell, I don't have that many either, so I couldn't do it, but it's nice. I'm not confused by the Cryptic Mission/bleed thing, and I'm sure it does bleed well, but it's simply less focused than Josh's Cryptic Mission deck. That's all. A 1 blood for 1 action trade for the most part doesn't do it for me... Oh...re Seeds & such...in February, I threw together a Presence/Thaumaturgy deck that places Seeds on the prey, then passes Kindred Restructure to move your prey to your predator's spot...really off-the-cuff, but amusing if it could work. In the newsletter, I believe... Xian...who should get back to posting more crazy crazy decks. [ quoted text not captured ]

Xian wrote in message <7dj67r$9r7$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >Hey. I actually rarely use her for the diablerie thing, but the aus dom for >THA is really really nice. Only Pieter is smaller (6) and he's just got for >tha (plus like OBF PRO, I suppose). I guess you have to love Muaziz. This is strange to some people but I would have preferred her without the +1 stealth ability, and instead maybe FOR, or maybe +1 damage w/ thaumaturgy strikes, or even some kind of restricted attack d-action (she is an archon after all). She was the perfect size to fit into my tremere + for deck but the +1 stealth makes her TOO much of a target on the table. This is my wish-list vampire (I prob shouldnt put it out here or I will never get it :>). Ariel (insert favourite name), Muaziz's Enforcer. Clan:Tremere Cap 5 THA,dom,for +1 damage with all strikes. Ariel may not bleed for more then 1 pool. If Ariel bleeds for more than 1, ignore excess bleed. Pretty chronic eh? Ah well, we can dream. >Now *there's* an inflammatory remark! Hehe. No...none of the :> >Holy crap. You beat me and Noal for the biggest...erm, deck length...I >believe at last count, we were at 8 to 10 currently active... Hehe. My_deck_(list) is bigger than yours. > >> have had, my ravnos zip gun/mass reality deck for instance. These decks > >That's not silly, that's **cool**!!! It works pretty well actually. Gimme an email and i'll send it to you. >Mmm...novelty deck. I think we're saying the same thing here, just at >slightly different frequencies, so there's some sort of static going on. Heh. Agreed. I was going to use 'different wavelengths', which just goes to show its true. *chuckle* >Hey...no problems here. I was beginning to think that people were regarding >me as another Legbiter, as hardly anyone actually responds to some of the >points I post, which I took to mean that either they figured I was spouting >complete gibberish, or (less likely) that I was so right, it wasn't worth >contesting my opinion. Yes! We are right! (except when I am wrong) >> (Im a philosophy student- if that explains anything) > >Hehe. Durn philosophy students. (Us psychology/english majors will wrassle >with ya any day...mmm...psychology of language...) > Oooh! language Pretty! ExpreSSion good self be. Make nice words talk to Xian. *pets words fondly* Hmmn, if you wanna take this to email thats cool, but you'll have to email me first. *sigh* (using outlook express to read news and eudora to do mail and they wont talk to each other _dont_ask_) Dum de dum, Floatey.

<snip boy-talk about Muaziz. There's a shop around here that sells lives .... gimme a tenner and i'll buy one each ;-p> > > >Hey...no problems here. I was beginning to think that people were > regarding > >me as another Legbiter, as hardly anyone actually responds to some of the > >points I post, which I took to mean that either they figured I was spouting > >complete gibberish, or (less likely) that I was so right, it wasn't worth > >contesting my opinion. Oi! I heard that!! Anyway, you ARE another Legbiter. In fact, since i am going on holiday for Easter i hereby deputise you as jester-in-chief to the various jyhad newsgroups. In token of which pray accept the e-bladder of nuncle-marrying and the virtual jester's cap of extreme jollity, together with the Java-scripted manual of how to do merry pranks properly. And now repeat the Oath after me .... with a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no! ************************************************* On the topic of this thread, i would value [both of] your warlocky thoughts about Spiridonas, long a favourite vampire of mine. Now that RtI is taking a tournament bow, he is suddenly a VERY interesting vampire indeed. i'm thinking of a Lasombra/Tremere pot/dom deck that brings him out and pumps him up via extra masters and Heidelberg-transferred Camarilla vitae slaves. Hmmm, maybe anti-malks and the Dauntain Black Magician in the right environment. Anyway, Rack to fill him up, Obedience to avoid combat, Deflection to avoid bleeds, votes should be OK because he has pre doesn't he? Set the killer blow up with a Misdirection and a sleeping mind. What can go wrong???? Hmmm, maybe he would need obf so's to take the Mask 1k route. I'm talking myself into making it anti- malks ..... Claven blees you for 1 at +8 million stealth. It's through, no reactions or anything. Oops, it was in fact the noble prince of athens, capacity 13/13 who now burns 13 blood to make that a bleed for 11. Legbiter the Ignored, +1 hand damage when in combat with vampires who fail to laugh at his jokes. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7dh5as$1ot$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: > Joshua Duffin wrote in message <7ddkou$i67 > >I've been occasionally playing a fairly Cryptic deck myself lately, > >which has been surprisingly (to me) effective. Mine goes much more > >heavily for the Cryptic/Society trick though. I think it's something > >like > [decent looking deck with_waay_too many society's for one person] > > Heh, you only have 20 cryptic missions but 9 society's? I would put your > deck together and test it out, but even with my collection I can't!. > Yeah, I can see how this would work. Ah, well I cheated you see. I bought about 7 of my Societies from Mark Korshavn for about a buck each. The Cryptics came out of my many pack purchases, plus a little trading. And I may have inadvertently given away some Cryptics before I realized that I wanted to make a deck with Way Too Many of them. > >The Society is almost rude, frankly. It just burns vampires way too > >easily. Distasteful to me for the same reason as Sacrifice, Protect Thine > >Own, Banishment - to kill a vampire you should have to do it the old- > >fashioned way, by beating him up and ripping his head off most violently. > >But it's still kinda fun for me to play. (Probably less fun for the people > >getting their vampires burned though.) > > Almost? You have admirably found a way to exploit it to its utmost :> Just > like cryptic mission its a reasonably innocuous card until you use a lot of > them, and plan around them. Yes, exactly. I should mention that I didn't come up with the idea on my own though; the first I saw of it was in Robert Goudie's Caitiff newsletter for August 1998. I immediately said 'Ooh! Brilliant!' and began to scheme toward making a deck like that myself... Josh tragically unable to see the beauty of 'cryptic and bleed' due to my brain always claiming that 'tap and bleed' would be much easier... [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7do2mq$6vn$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, legb...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > <snip boy-talk about Muaziz. There's a shop around here that sells lives .... > gimme a tenner and i'll buy one each ;-p> Make sure mine comes wrapped with a pretty bow on top. [me making scardey-sounds about Legbiter-equivalenct] > Oi! I heard that!! > > Anyway, you ARE another Legbiter. In fact, since i am going on holiday for > Easter i hereby deputise you as jester-in-chief to the various jyhad > newsgroups. I would instantly accept, except I'm going on vacation for Easter too. Well, not *for* Easter, but over that weekend. Hopefully, I won't stumble into a gutter drunk and crack my head open in New Orleans... > In token of which pray accept the e-bladder of nuncle-marrying > and the virtual jester's cap of extreme jollity, together with the > Java-scripted manual of how to do merry pranks properly. And now repeat the > Oath after me .... with a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no! hey and a ho and a hey nonny no! > ************************************************* > > On the topic of this thread, i would value [both of] your warlocky thoughts > about Spiridonas, long a favourite vampire of mine. Now that RtI is taking a I haven't played with him much, honestly...my Tremere decks (as Floatey, and perhaps James Coupe have pointed out) have tended to focus on combat, not bleeding. And although he's not awful in that arena, there are other less expensive vampires. I will, however offer opinions off the top of my head, as I like this deck idea... > tournament bow, he is suddenly a VERY interesting vampire indeed. i'm > thinking of a Lasombra/Tremere pot/dom deck that brings him out and pumps him > up via extra masters and Heidelberg-transferred Camarilla vitae slaves. Hmmm, You could also throw in a few Clan Impersonations to make him a Lasombra...and Ankara Citadel wouldn't hurt either. Though I suppose if you're going to have HC anyway, there's really no need to use the Impersonations... > maybe anti-malks and the Dauntain Black Magician in the right environment. Probably a little too diverse...though it could be done...but I think regular Malkies would be better. At least they'd have dominate, too... > Anyway, Rack to fill him up, Obedience to avoid combat, Deflection to avoid > bleeds, votes should be OK because he has pre doesn't he? Set the killer blow Yup. He's got presence. Although you might want to just use his votes & Kindred Coercion or somesuch...Malkavian Rider Clause, perhaps... > up with a Misdirection and a sleeping mind. What can go wrong???? Hmmm, maybe Wake & Deflection? I think it's a little risky...mainly because the build-up would be so slow... > he would need obf so's to take the Mask 1k route. I'm talking myself into > making it anti- malks ..... Claven blees you for 1 at +8 million stealth. > It's through, no reactions or anything. Oops, it was in fact the noble prince > of athens, capacity 13/13 who now burns 13 blood to make that a bleed for 11. It would work, but I think the obf is too much, and you'd have to test smaller bleeds to draw out Wake+Deflection, as that still works vs. Sleeping Mind. And the build-up would be nasty. I'd say go with dominate weenies/Lasombra. And you might still include the Clan Impersonation to turn the weenies into Lasombra. Xian [ quoted text not captured ]

Joshua Duffin wrote in message >Ah, well I cheated you see. I bought about 7 of my Societies from Mark >Korshavn for about a buck each. The Cryptics came out of my many pack >purchases, plus a little trading. And I may have inadvertently given >away some Cryptics before I realized that I wanted to make a deck with >Way Too Many of them. *nod* Singles buying helps no end. Immortal grapple, I had 4 before I bought some from Mark. and I wouldnt have been able to make a deck with 35 corruptions without singles buying. >tragically unable to see the beauty of 'cryptic and bleed' due to >my brain always claiming that 'tap and bleed' would be much easier... Well, the deck I posted is a weenie horde deck of a slightly different flavour. On a good game you should get ~10 minions out. The large numbers of minions + the threat of dominate puts a great deal of pressure on your prey, so that you can often squeeze 3-4 single bleeds through in a turn under the threat of the dominate bleed. Also the cryptic mission 'en masse' has a couple of spinoffs that tap doesnt. It makes vampires more vulnerable to damage. Even though I cant do a great deal, sucking all their blood out with cryptics means they have less to spend on combat cards. Also it can prevent people from gaining pool with blood dolls The long arm of the cryptic mission is very long, it can target any player, any minion, and even any retainer. But I guess ultimately I find it more fun to play :> . Please give my deck a go (maybe 2-3) and see what you think. Floatey.

Xian wrote in message <7dp2et$4r8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >In article <7do2mq$6vn$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > legb...@my-dejanews.com wrote: >> <snip boy-talk about Muaziz. There's a shop around here that sells lives .... >> gimme a tenner and i'll buy one each ;-p> > >Make sure mine comes wrapped with a pretty bow on top. mmm...Muaziz/life. Thats a tough one. (_leg_bite_r ... must be a fetish or something) [snip bizarre talk about being a jester that I wasnt invited to] >> >> On the topic of this thread, i would value [both of] your warlocky thoughts >> about Spiridonas, long a favourite vampire of mine. Now that RtI is taking a tournament bow Well, the obvious possibilites first; From his picture he seems like a really fun and zany guy, although he may want to do something with his hair. Give the man fortitude. Missing your unblockable RTI? Have a crypt of 12 Spiridonas's, lots of fortitude master cards and soul gems, pump your current one up to 10 or 11 cap, then burn all his blood to bleed and your daring the dawn will neatly toast him at the end of the action, bringing the next one happily into play. I think even without the above appalling mistreatment he is a viable choice if you dont rely on auspex. I use him in my cryptic mission deck (which im determined to talk about!!), because you can easily make people forget about his special ability. Pretend you dont even really notice it, put a few bleeds through with threats and say "Wow, vampires with super dominate can bleed for_heaps_". Your prey will think you are an idiot and will stop prioritising spiridonas. Then you hit them for 12! Well, okay, it wont work like that, but it is an extra option for when you are short on options and I like him for that. I dont really try and abuse the crap out of his ability, I tend to think of it as a permanent conditioning card. So he extends my hand if you see what I mean. The presence and potence are a strange mix (well not for a brujah). I have a deck called the Tremere PR department, Magus Spinus Doctorus. He comes in very handy there along with CASSANDRA (:>), lydia, aylea and bryan van duessen. Bit of voting and some legal manipulations, backed by thaumaturgy and TB for clients who get uppity! (Yes, I play tremere waaay too much). Also I have experimented with tremere with potence (of course), and its a strange combo because (if you had read my most excellent theoretical post earlier) the big trick of potence Immortal Grapple (i.e. apart from doing 15 dam with a punch), is mutually exclusive with thaumaturgy strikes. In aforementioned post I said that it takes two combat disciplines to tango, and Xian pointed out the point I left out which is that the two disciplines also need to be complimentary. [getting slightly off Legbiter's question which Xian of course answered by talking about how he would go and get another deck- muah!, im a meanie. My own agenda of course is to numb everyone with as much theory as possible until I lull people into a true sense of security] Potence, proetan and thamaturgy are your offensive disciplines and fortitude and celerity are the support disciplines (then later you have quietus is offensive and obtenebrate has some support in combat, + vicissitude is just odd). Now of course there are overlaps, like you can substitute guns for potence esp with celerity, and all disciplines have some flexibility if they are combat oriented, like protean which is_almost_all you need in combat except flesh of marble wont save you from going to torpor against agg dam, so you need fortitude. Now thats not to say that potence and thaumaturgy cannot be combined effectively. Cant use thau strikes with IG grapple huh? Well, okay- How about starting the fight off with a few weather controls (they are stackable) this is a sweet card because it does unpreventable_damage_which means that you can taste of vitae the blood at the end of the round. You get to second round and its close range with your superior IG? Oh look! that just happens to be the conditions for playing blood to water! You can always not play the IG and toss a theft to replenish. Cryptic mission and seeds of corruption help you set up the combat so that you win (tremere dont play fair :>). Not to mention rutor's hand which will allow you to rush twice a turn. And the ankara citadel certainly helps with paying for those burning wraths, decapitates and fists of death (I turn Ulugh into bruce lee!), which of course you got out with your magic of the smith. Anyway, bringing the discussion tenuously back to Spiridonas he also has something very valuable, he has a title. One thing is sure whether you are playing him to use pot or rort his bleed ability as much as possible, he is going to run out of blood fast. With a nice prince title you can fill yourself up, if you 5th with a rutor's hand, you can rush/ bleed and then fill yourself up! The only sad part to this story is that Javier from the _i_suck_bad_ club wont really help you out with your dominating and bleeding, nor with your potence pounding, nor with your damage prevention. He does have presence and im trying to see if I can forgive a tremere not having dominate enough to actually put him in a deck (if you cant play govern the unaligned and deflection you are no good to me, hit the road son!). A tremere prince deck could be quite frightening actually. I'll get to work on it (I have never done it before because Javier doesnt really exist for me, and two princes and a justicar is mighty thin on the ground, we need one more prince!) So, I hope I answered the questions that you didnt ask well, and avoided the ones that you did. :> Floatey.

In article <7e0vvm$o27$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: my god floaty can babble...., erm, i mean, discuss issues at length. > are combat oriented, like protean which is_almost_all you need in combat > except flesh of marble wont save you from going to torpor against agg dam, > so you need fortitude. well, i've slapped a deck together of weenie pro guys, not using for, and wondering what other deck all my damn flesh o marbles are in.... probably my etrius deck mkIII. > A tremere prince deck could be quite frightening actually. I'll get to work > on it (I have never done it before because Javier doesnt really exist for > me, and two princes and a justicar is mighty thin on the ground, we need one > more prince!) i made one. basically combat. bloodhunt actions instead of rushes and havens, command of the harpies to make sure you can bloodhunt them, a few 5ths, a few 2nds, a few shotgun rituals....works ok. > So, I hope I answered the questions that you didnt ask well, and avoided the > ones that you did. :> i seem to recall catching the tail end of a thread section about how many decks ppl have operating at once. are we counting half decent decks, or all decks, regardless of whether they've ever got a vp or not? ta ta, salem. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7dp2et$4r8$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: > In article <7do2mq$6vn$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > legb...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > up with a Misdirection and a sleeping mind. What can go wrong???? Hmmm, >>maybe > > Wake & Deflection? I think it's a little risky...mainly because the build-up > would be so slow... and...ummmm...doesn't good old fashioned wake and block also work versus superior sleeping mind? i'm pretty sure there was some post from LSJ some time back saying that wake gives the vampire the ability to block as if untapped, and that overrides the sleeping mind's bit about tapped vampires not being able to block. inferior sleeping mind, however, and a seduction, can guarantee two minions that can't block (minions in general or just vamps? i don't know. play with a 'command' just in case allies are not allowed to be used for seductions/sleepers). blah blah, salem. [ quoted text not captured ]

salem_...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: > > legb...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > >> up with a Misdirection and a sleeping mind. What can go wrong???? Hmmm, > > > > Wake & Deflection? > > and...ummmm...doesn't good old fashioned wake and block also work versus > superior sleeping mind? Yes. > i'm pretty sure there was some post from LSJ some > time back saying that wake gives the vampire the ability to block as if > untapped, and that overrides the sleeping mind's bit about tapped vampires > not being able to block. Sleeping Mind's bit about tapped vampires (minions) not being able to block is true in general - whether or not Sleeping Mind (sup) was played. Wake worked before (allowing a tapped vampire to attempt to block, even though tapped vampires cannot attempt to block in general). Wake doesn't override sleeping mind except in the way that it overrides the general rule that tapped minions cannot attempt to block. -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and DCI (tournament) rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/VTES_Rules.html [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7e0vvm$o27$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: [ooog...long...must respond, but brain tired...] [Spiridonas] > Give the man fortitude. Missing your unblockable RTI? Have a crypt of 12 > Spiridonas's, lots of fortitude master cards and soul gems, pump your > current one up to 10 or 11 cap, then burn all his blood to bleed and your > daring the dawn will neatly toast him at the end of the action, bringing the > next one happily into play. Unfortunately, RTI is a) currently banned from tournaments, and b) last I checked, reworded to say remove from play to get rid of nasty Soul Gem tricks. > The presence and potence are a strange mix (well not for a brujah). I have a > deck called the Tremere PR department, Magus Spinus Doctorus. He comes in > very handy there along with CASSANDRA (:>), lydia, aylea and bryan van > duessen. Bit of voting and some legal manipulations, backed by thaumaturgy > and TB for clients who get uppity! (Yes, I play tremere waaay too much). No, no, it's all good...I posted something like that in the February newsletter (and the April one will be out soon...) > Also I have experimented with tremere with potence (of course), and its a > strange combo because (if you had read my most excellent theoretical post > earlier) the big trick of potence Immortal Grapple (i.e. apart from doing 15 > dam with a punch), is mutually exclusive with thaumaturgy strikes. In Not any more! IG only operates for one turn! Well, okay...they are mutually exclusive in the same *round* but not in the same *combat* which you can use to your advantage...IG & punch first round, then Walk of Flame second. Majesty will get you second round, but you can always just stick to the potence against S:CE'ers... > aforementioned post I said that it takes two combat disciplines to tango, > and Xian pointed out the point I left out which is that the two disciplines > also need to be complimentary. Yup yup yup. > Now thats not to say that potence and thaumaturgy cannot be combined > effectively. Cant use thau strikes with IG grapple huh? Well, okay- How > about starting the fight off with a few weather controls (they are > stackable) this is a sweet card because it does unpreventable_damage_which > means that you can taste of vitae the blood at the end of the round. You get Unfortunately, the Weather Control damage is considered to be environmental, and can't be tasted back...but I like it... [snip] > The only sad part to this story is that Javier from the _i_suck_bad_ club > wont really help you out with your dominating and bleeding, nor with your > potence pounding, nor with your damage prevention. He does have presence and > im trying to see if I can forgive a tremere not having dominate enough to > actually put him in a deck (if you cant play govern the unaligned and > deflection you are no good to me, hit the road son!). Javier is *the* man in my Ani/Cel/Tha rush deck. Loads of fun. Terror Frenzy & Flash & Theft/Walk of Flame...plus I've started to add in a few TB to get over my nervousness about them. Xian [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7edf91$78b$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: > In article <7e0vvm$o27$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, > "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: > > [ooog...long...must respond, but brain tired...] Not kidding about the tired brain, are you? ;-) > [Spiridonas] > > Give the man fortitude. Missing your unblockable RTI? Have a crypt of 12 > > Spiridonas's, lots of fortitude master cards and soul gems, pump your > > current one up to 10 or 11 cap, then burn all his blood to bleed and your > > daring the dawn will neatly toast him at the end of the action, bringing the > > next one happily into play. > > Unfortunately, RTI is a) currently banned from tournaments, and b) last I > checked, reworded to say remove from play to get rid of nasty Soul Gem tricks. Yah, but he's not talking about actually using RTI, he's talking about a similar effect you can produce by using Spiridonas' special ability with self-burning via Fortitude. I think this does still work with the Soul Gem. > > Now thats not to say that potence and thaumaturgy cannot be combined > > effectively. Cant use thau strikes with IG grapple huh? Well, okay- How > > about starting the fight off with a few weather controls (they are > > stackable) this is a sweet card because it does unpreventable_damage_which > > means that you can taste of vitae the blood at the end of the round. You get > > Unfortunately, the Weather Control damage is considered to be environmental, > and can't be tasted back...but I like it... Actually, Taste of Vitae doesn't care what the damage source is, as far as I know. Disarm does... (Taste does care whether you're going to torpor though, so don't play *too* many Weather Controls.) Josh just being (un)helpful ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: >In article <7edf91$78b$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: >> In article <7e0vvm$o27$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, >> "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: >> >> [ooog...long...must respond, but brain tired...] >Not kidding about the tired brain, are you? ;-) Not at all...just spent the entire weekend in New Orleans...I certainly could have had more to drink, but I feel comfortable with my pleasant state of only being buzzed at night at clubs. The all-day-drunk many people decide to go for just isn't me... >> Unfortunately, RTI is a) currently banned from tournaments, and b) last I >> checked, reworded to say remove from play to get rid of nasty Soul Gem tricks. >Yah, but he's not talking about actually using RTI, he's talking about >a similar effect you can produce by using Spiridonas' special ability >with self-burning via Fortitude. I think this does still work with the >Soul Gem. You are *so* right...silly me... Completely unrelated point, I need to sign up for Mike's newsletter. Damn. >> > Now thats not to say that potence and thaumaturgy cannot be combined >> > effectively. Cant use thau strikes with IG grapple huh? Well, okay- How >> > about starting the fight off with a few weather controls (they are >> > stackable) this is a sweet card because it does unpreventable_damage_which >> > means that you can taste of vitae the blood at the end of the round. You get >> >> Unfortunately, the Weather Control damage is considered to be environmental, >> and can't be tasted back...but I like it... >Actually, Taste of Vitae doesn't care what the damage source is, as >far as I know. Disarm does... (Taste does care whether you're going >to torpor though, so don't play *too* many Weather Controls.) Hmm...I think you're right. Apparently, I'm just completely off my feed. Oh well. And I'm using a new newsfeed. Dejanews has just gotten too dumb for me. All this formatting change. Hopefully this will come out okay...

In article <7eds5j$f7i$2...@remarQ.com>, xi...@waste.org wrote: > jt...@cornell.edu (Joshua Duffin) wrote: > > >Not kidding about the tired brain, are you? ;-) > > Not at all...just spent the entire weekend in New Orleans...I > certainly could have had more to drink, but I feel comfortable with my > pleasant state of only being buzzed at night at clubs. The > all-day-drunk many people decide to go for just isn't me... Oooh, fun. > >Actually, Taste of Vitae doesn't care what the damage source is, as > >far as I know. Disarm does... (Taste does care whether you're going > >to torpor though, so don't play *too* many Weather Controls.) > > Hmm...I think you're right. Apparently, I'm just completely off my > feed. Oh well. And I'm using a new newsfeed. Dejanews has just > gotten too dumb for me. All this formatting change. Hopefully this > will come out okay... Man, I know what you mean. And the last couple days they're having trouble with updating newsgroups too. I wish I had a good alternative. Other than breaking down and buying an ISP that is... I'm almost tempted to go back to my Cornell unix account which apparently they haven't cleared out yet, and taking my chances on it going away... Josh reading newsgroups by threads is all well and good, but waiting for a new webpage to load each time is annoying even on a fast connection... [ quoted text not captured ]

Xian > > Hmm...I think you're right. Apparently, I'm just completely off my > > feed. Oh well. And I'm using a new newsfeed. Dejanews has just > > gotten too dumb for me. All this formatting change. Hopefully this > > will come out okay... Josh > Man, I know what you mean. And the last couple days they're having > trouble with updating newsgroups too. I wish I had a good alternative. > Other than breaking down and buying an ISP that is... I'm almost tempted > to go back to my Cornell unix account which apparently they haven't > cleared out yet, and taking my chances on it going away... > reading newsgroups by threads is all well and good, but waiting for > a new webpage to load each time is annoying even on a fast connection... I have gone back to simply using Power Search on DejaNews. Use the correct group and set the dates to the last two days, choose sort by date and you get everything that is a new post in the old list format. Their new format really sucks. Carpe Noctem. Lasombra http://members.tripod.com/~Lasombra [ quoted text not captured ]

Joshua Duffin wrote in message <7edq2s$gsj$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>... >In article <7edf91$78b$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, > xi...@waste.org (Xian) wrote: >> In article <7e0vvm$o27$1...@toto.tig.com.au>, >> "James B Floate" <flo...@ihug.com.au> wrote: >> >> [ooog...long...must respond, but brain tired...] > >Not kidding about the tired brain, are you? ;-) [Floatey resolutely says nothing...] [re me ranting in response to Legbiter] >> Unfortunately, RTI is a) currently banned from tournaments, and b) last I >> checked, reworded to say remove from play to get rid of nasty Soul Gem tricks. > >Yah, but he's not talking about actually using RTI, he's talking about >a similar effect you can produce by using Spiridonas' special ability >with self-burning via Fortitude. I think this does still work with the >Soul Gem. Yay! Thanks Josh, even though I went away for easter someone stood up for me. :> >> Unfortunately, the Weather Control damage is considered to be environmental, >> and can't be tasted back...but I like it... > >Actually, Taste of Vitae doesn't care what the damage source is, as >far as I know. Disarm does... (Taste does care whether you're going >to torpor though, so don't play *too* many Weather Controls.) Muah! *high5's Josh* Xian just saw my sig at the bottom and had to argue with the post :> Was that stuff about spiridonas what you were after Bitelegger? Hope everygroupreaderpersun had a good non-demoninational festival of indeterminate, but chocolatey, spirtual significance. Floatey.

In article <7ekfo4$3i0$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> wrote: > I have gone back to simply using Power Search on DejaNews. > Use the correct group and set the dates to the last two days, > choose sort by date and you get everything that is a new post > in the old list format. That's what I've been doing to post lately, too. But it's annoying that I can't use My DejaNews to tell whether there are new messages - and which ones are new. > Their new format really sucks. Yeah, I sent them an email complaining about it, and they said they'd pass my comments on to the developers, but somehow I doubt it's going to get a lot better. Josh 'and dream of sheep' [ quoted text not captured ]