I just got hammered by an Una deck..you need to see this!

I'll just say he took something like 53 actions in ONE turn and went through his ENTIRE 90 card deck in the same turn. Thank God he got PTO'ed but not before sending both of my vampires to torpor and following it up with a bleed of 13....in that SAME single turn. 53 freak drives! I've been playing this game since it came out and that was the SICKEST, WRONGEST thing I've ever seen! He swept the table the game he previously played the deck. I'm not sure but the word "broken" came to mind when I was getting raped by Una. But hey, thats just me. We'll see what it continues to do. Open for your opinions! Here it is: Creator-Dennis Lien from L.A. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 36, Max: 36, Avg: 9) ------------------------------------------- 12 Una dem ANI FOR PRE PRO 9 Gangrel Antitribu Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Action (12 cards) 1 Big Game 1 Bum`s Rush 1 Harass 1 Ambush 1 Blessing of Chaos 1 Ablative Skin 1 Shadow of the Beast 1 Fire Dance 1 Eternal Vigilance 1 Clan Impersonation 1 Heart of the City 1 Tier of Souls Action Modifier (56 cards) ****56 Freak Drive***** Political Action (1 cards) 1 Sabbat Inquisitor Retainer (10 cards) 1 Ghoul Retainer 1 Murder of Crows 1 Owl Companion 1 Jackie Therman 1 Raptor 1 Raven Spy 1 Mr. Winthrop 1 Robert Carter 1 Tasha Morgan 1 J. S. Simmons, Esq. Equipment (11 cards) 1 Hawg 1 Leather Jacket 1 Ivory Bow 1 Sire`s Index Finger 1 Flak Jacket 1 IR Goggles 1 Erebus Mask 1 Seal of Veddartha 1 Eye of Hazimel 1 Laptop Computer 1 Inveraray, Scotland ***JediMike***

Clever! But each Freak Drive costs one blood, so how does Una play more than 9 in one turn? I also notice there's no combat at all, and all of these actions are at +1 stealth. Block just a few of them, and where does that leave Una? The word "broken" doesn't come to mind. I'm not even certain how this deck is meant to work.

bjorn...@yahoo.com wrote: > Clever! But each Freak Drive costs one blood, so how does Una play more > than 9 in one turn? Read Una's special. > I also notice there's no combat at all, and all of these actions are at > +1 stealth. Block just a few of them, and where does that leave Una? > > The word "broken" doesn't come to mind. I'm not even certain how this > deck is meant to work. If there is not a blocker in place when Una starts her turn, she will go through her *entire deck* that turn. Of course, one well-placed Direct Intervention might delay her as well. She'll bleed for a helluva lot... Heart of the City: +2 Tier of Souls (maybe): +1 Sabbat Inquisitor (maybe): +1 Robert Carter: +2 Tasha Morgan: +1 J.S. Simmons, Esq.: +1 Seal of Veddartha: +1 Eye of Hazimel: +1 Laptop Computer: +1 So that's guaranteed bleeds of 10, maybe 12 *every action*. And if she tools up Inverary, even more! Archon Investigation would ruin her day, but she'd probably clean the table by then. As good as this is, I bet it could be improved ever so slightly. 1x Giant's Blood (for the turn after Una goes nuclear) 1x Writ of Acceptance (cheaper anti-PTO tech than Clan Imp) 1x Aaron's Feeding Razor (she's hunting anyway to cycle Freaks, right?) 1x Starshell Grenade Launcher (just in case the Bow gets contested) That ought to do it. ;) Jeff

I don't know how this is sweeping tables...I mean, sure she can cycle the deck in one turn, and that gets through a prey or two tops, but isn't anyone playing with bounce? Or combat? Or intercept? And what's this crap about not having a blocker in place? She's a 9 capacity vampire. If you don't have someone out by then there's something pretty wrong with your crypt. Just my thoughts. I understand that my meta is a lot different from most, but if someone tried to pull this crap around here we would laugh as Una was sent to torpor and diablerized within a turn of going off like that. Cthulukitty

"***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> writes: > I've been playing this game since it came out and that was the > SICKEST, WRONGEST thing I've ever seen! He swept the table the game he > previously played the deck. I'm not sure but the word "broken" came to > mind when I was getting raped by Una. But hey, thats just me. We'll see > what it continues to do. > > Open for your opinions! *Falls down on his knees, in worship of absolute, merciless beauty.* -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

CthuluKitty wrote: > I don't know how this is sweeping tables...I mean, sure she can cycle > the deck in one turn, and that gets through a prey or two tops, but > isn't anyone playing with bounce? Bounced at zero stealth is easy to block. > Or combat? Ivory Bow, Ghoul Retainer, IR Goggles, Flak Jacket, Leather Jacket, Ablative Skin, Shadow of the Beast, Hawg, Jackie Therman, Murder of Crows, Fire Dance, Owl Companion, Sire's Index Finger, and Eye of Hazimel can go a long way in combat. :P > Or intercept? Fine. Block any *several* of those actions. If you don't torpor her immediately, she'll simply Freak Drive and keep the train a'rollin'. > And > what's this crap about not having a blocker in place? She's a 9 > capacity vampire. If you don't have someone out by then there's > something pretty wrong with your crypt. Which blocker? The one she rushed into the ground with one of her two unrestricted enter combat actions? Oh, *that* blocker. Good luck surviving three or more rounds of Ivory Bow goodness in combat with all those maneuvers. Hell, she ought to keep that Clan Impersonation and go Gangrel then get a Dog Pack just to deal with S:CE (and PTO). > Just my thoughts. I understand that my meta is a lot different from > most, but if someone tried to pull this crap around here we would laugh > as Una was sent to torpor and diablerized within a turn of going off > like that. Personally I think that Una ought to have 3 weenie support vampires/chump blockers in the crypt. The odds of seeing one of them are pretty darn good, and you're guaranteed of seeing Una herself. Jeff (looking for Freak Drives)

Doh! I do know Una's special, and I still had to ask. I see it now. But still. If there is not a blocker in place when she starts shopping, well, why isn't there? And when she bleeds (as CthuluKitty says), what if your prey bounces? Or plays Archon Investigation? Or even blocks? Sure would you not block a bleed for 10+, even if she has the Ivory Bow? Or if your prey has Protected Resources? Not that it isn't a very nice and clever trick, and it would probably come as a nasty surprise, but "broken"? I can think of dozens of ways that it can fail.

I had two blockers and she got around them both and sent them to torpor. You can only block so many thing even if your dedicated intercept. ***JediMike***

jeff...@pacbell.net writes: > Which blocker? The one she rushed into the ground with one of her two > unrestricted enter combat actions? Oh, *that* blocker. Two? Are you counting Eternal Vigilance, or am I missing something? I only found Eye of Hazimel and a bunch of non-permanent rush cards. > surviving three or more rounds of Ivory Bow goodness in combat with all > those maneuvers. Hell, she ought to keep that Clan Impersonation and go > Gangrel then get a Dog Pack just to deal with S:CE (and PTO). Going Independent will not help her against PTO. A Writ of Acceptance would, but that would destroy her ultra-useful Eternal Vigilance. And she can get around S:CE simply by using Freak Drives... :-P How about adding one Direct Intervention, just for PTO? > Personally I think that Una ought to have 3 weenie support > vampires/chump blockers in the crypt. The odds of seeing one of them > are pretty darn good, and you're guaranteed of seeing Una herself. Agreed. Or more than three. That Pentex Subversion sure can ruin your whole game... [ quoted text not captured ]

Janne Hägglund wrote: > jeff...@pacbell.net writes: > > > Which blocker? The one she rushed into the ground with one of her two > > unrestricted enter combat actions? Oh, *that* blocker. > > Two? Are you counting Eternal Vigilance, or am I missing something? > I only found Eye of Hazimel and a bunch of non-permanent rush cards. I was actually counting Bum's Rush and Big Game, both of which ought to be in your hand along with Harass and Ambush after Una goes off. Didn't even think about the Eye's perma-rush. > > surviving three or more rounds of Ivory Bow goodness in combat with all > > those maneuvers. Hell, she ought to keep that Clan Impersonation and go > > Gangrel then get a Dog Pack just to deal with S:CE (and PTO). > > Going Independent will not help her against PTO. A Writ of Acceptance > would, but that would destroy her ultra-useful Eternal Vigilance. And she > can get around S:CE simply by using Freak Drives... :-P Oh right. Gangrel gone Indie. I suppose you really ought to just risk it and stay Sabbat for the EV. DI is probably sufficient for anti-vote tech. Interestingly, if she is getting the Erebus Mask anyway (ack, I was confusing this with Changeling Skin Mask).... Well now, since she's gone Harbingers and has +1 stealth, I can see now how bounce might be fairly effective. I was thinking she could get a Changeling Skin Mask and you could pack 1x Confusion of the Eye as well just in case of PTO accidents (if you really expected to face two PTOs in a single game). > How about adding one Direct Intervention, just for PTO? Or several DIs. ;) > > Personally I think that Una ought to have 3 weenie support > > vampires/chump blockers in the crypt. The odds of seeing one of them > > are pretty darn good, and you're guaranteed of seeing Una herself. > > Agreed. Or more than three. That Pentex Subversion sure can ruin your > whole game... Maybe 1x DI and 1x Sudden Reversal? ;) You'd still have several Rushes available, a couple Freaks and room for Masters. If you didn't want to go the Harbingers/Stealth route, you could always toss in a Waste Management Operation to cycle a Freak Drive. Rush via Eye, Torpor, Freak, Bleed for 10+ will eventually wear down just about anyone. Jeff

***JediMike*** wrote: > Action Modifier (56 cards) > ****56 Freak Drive***** Just because it's appropriate (even though I don't believe it)... WE NEED CARD LIMITS!!!! ;) Jeff

***JediMike*** a écrit : > I'll just say he took something like 53 actions in ONE turn and went > through his ENTIRE 90 card deck in the same turn. Thank God he got > PTO'ed but not before sending both of my vampires to torpor and > following it up with a bleed of 13....in that SAME single turn. 53 > freak drives! I'm not surprised it's a Dennis Deck : I remember his "Great beast tools up with the eye of hazimel and wreaks havoc" stuff :D A friend in paris tried the same thing a long time ago, and was fairly succesful. He also played 7 raptors to prevent other players to harm him in combat. He recruted them via Muricia's call and Jack of both sides to avoid the NRA, so he could have 3 raptors in a single turn. He also added Sargon fragment to bring back all the useful cards if needed. The problem is the same with all mono vampire decks: you are highly vulnerable to stuff like seduction, unpreventable damage (you have not other vamp to protect or rescue the main star), pentex... I'm really curious to know what other cards were at that table when Dennis did the sweep :)

***JediMike*** wrote: > I've been playing this game since it came out and that was the > SICKEST, WRONGEST thing I've ever seen! He swept the table the game he > previously played the deck. I'm not sure but the word "broken" came to > mind when I was getting raped by Una. But hey, thats just me. We'll see > what it continues to do. Yeah, I'm not quite sure if this is, like, comedy or not. I mean, yeah, she can take 53 actions in one turn. She could potentially bleed for a lot, but at zero stealth. She can't survive combat even remotely--there is, like, a Murder of Crows, an Ivory Bow, a Leather Jacket, and an Ablative Skin? You just let her take the 53 actions, when she comes to bleed for 12 you block her with +0 intercept, and either stand around and watch her do run out of cards as she can't really hurt you otherwise. The real flaw is the lack of combat defense (well, and stealth)--she gets in a fight with someone even remotely combaty, and she will end up in torpor right quickly, and never get out, as she doesn't have any freinds to rescue her. Heck--her offensive abilitiy is stopped dead in its tracks by a small handfull of Majesties. Or dodges. Or fortitude. Or, well, I'm sure you get the point. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "So in conclusion, our business plan is to sell hot, easily spilled liquids to naked people." -Brittni Meil

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ***JediMike*** wrote: | I'll just say he took something like 53 actions in ONE turn and went | through his ENTIRE 90 card deck in the same turn. Thank God he got | PTO'ed but not before sending both of my vampires to torpor and | following it up with a bleed of 13....in that SAME single turn. 53 | freak drives! Hee! Funny stuff. | I've been playing this game since it came out and that was the | SICKEST, WRONGEST thing I've ever seen! He swept the table the game he | previously played the deck. I'm not sure but the word "broken" came to | mind when I was getting raped by Una. But hey, thats just me. We'll see | what it continues to do. Well, the weaknesses here are that: - -- All the actions are at 1 stealth, unless you hit the Clan Impersonation before the Erebus Mask. This only matters because it makes it very easy to block the key cards. - -- The only ousting action the deck can take is "I bleed for (a gazillion)", and it can only do that once per turn, and it can do that at no more than 1 stealth. It can Rush things once it gets the Ivory Bow, but the Bow is far from trump combat. It has a lot of maneuvers and presses, but ... see below. Despite the card explosion on turn 1, it is actually a fairly slow mover, so it runs a big risk of being ousted cross-table in some fashion. - -- There are only a few "prevent"-like cards: Ablative Skin, Fire Dance, Flak Jacket, Leather Jacket. Leather Jacket is one-shot-only. All those presses it has become less useful since the +1 strength from the Eye isn't as good now. - -- If you don't have any of the prevent cards early on, you have a significant problem if anyone can block and do damage to you. Specifically, block-and-agg people are the deck's primary fear; even though it can Freak Drive and rescue itself, there's always the chance there are two blockers available, and then it's Munch City. Also, the self-rescue will be 2 blood that it can't necessarily afford at that point in time. - -- Saving your blocks for key actions can cripple the deck. Blocking the Ivory Bow, for example, removes the vast majority of Una's combat threat; I would have definitely included the Sargon Fragment here, to give myself an out in case this happens. I would have used two Day Operations as well, JUST in case -- although going to torpor is scary for this deck. - -- Any deck that can put Una in torpor empty, of course, will stop this deck cold (Signpost/Blur, Magnum/Blur). There are a lot of hidden strengths, too, though. - -- The cardless "hunt" action is not covered under NRA anymore; I assume this is how the deck can afford all the cards that cost blood. This is also the deck's primary defense against "hit-you-for-lots" combat, and why it doesn't need THAT much prevention; it can always cycle Freak Drives and hunt itself back up for a few blood. Someone who goes after Una while she's on 8 blood and punches her down to 3 is making a big mistake. - -- While some of the toys cost pool, Una's still only a 9-cap. Plenty of spending room, especially when you can Rush backwards if things look like big bleeders. - -- Blocking individual actions without a clear purpose is largely meaningless, as Una simply plows through the toys and moves on. She has no need for ALL the bleed retainers, for example -- so being too clever and trying to block the +bleeders is simply wasting intercept. - -- The only chance of hand jam is being caught without a Freak Drive, and the best chance of this is at the start of the game, when the most non-Freak Drive cards are in the deck. If no blockers can torporize or somehow incapacitate Una, he's almost certain to get his entire deck out in a single turn. Actual math works out to less than .01% chance of no Freak Drives in his first 10 cards (3 discard phases before Una can act)... and yes, that is point oh-one percent, not 1%. Seriously? I think this is a damned funny novelty deck,... but I don't see it as broken. I think its slow forward motion is its biggest weakness, and any deck that has some cross-table capacity is going to be able to handle this effectively... although it will certainly disrupt things while it's around. Like all the turbo decks, though, hardly a guaranteed win... more of an all-or-nothing shot. | Action Modifier (56 cards) | ****56 Freak Drive***** Uh-oh. David Tatu has some competition! :) - -- Derek insert clever quotation here -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCvs9AtQZlu3o7QpERAkvlAKDeMwik7aHEo3+i4w5zre3XIUrzEwCgk3X2 QrPXFNY3a7TlPHwjqDWuhh4= =hy8r -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

The deck isn't Broken, but i just wish to make the point that even if una is blocked 7 times in a turn (i just don't think that the odds of drawing more Wakes or Forced Awakenings in a turn is even worthy considering) but if she is torporized and manage to have 2 blood (or other way) to exit torpor she can exit torpor and hunt 9 times and get filled again. The point is that it is'nt important that her actions are at 0 stealth, if someone block her once, ok, that action wasn't succesfull, untap, action, block her twice, ok, untap, if she got beated she hunts, hunts hunts to get some blood, and do another action, i don't think that after that there's anyone that CAN block her, all are tapped or otherwise unable to block, even at 0 stealth. And i want to know how does she sweep the table killing it's prey and grand prey in one turn if she can only bleed once a turn.

I would laugh until I passed out if Una was the unfortunate victim of a "The Name Forgotten". And who in the hell owns 53 Freak Drives? Aren't there laws against that sort of thing? TTFn

I was at the table with Mike when this thing went off. It's not a 100%-win kind of broken, but Una's ability is inappropriately strong in a deck with 56 Freak Drives (no surprise). Many of you write this deck off like it's nothing and you can block a linch pin card to make the deck fall apart. It's not quite that easy, though there are a few key stops (Ivory Bow, Clan Impersonation/Erebus Mask). But you have to know they're coming and that's tough to predict the first time to see this thing. Dennis will also do what he can to make sure that the cards flow in an order that improves the odds of successfully completing the action. Other say just deflect. Right. While you've waiting to do that Dennis gets +1 stealth, 3 maneuvers, 2 presses, 3 flavors damage prevention, immunity to agg damage, an autorush and environmental ranged agg damage (ghoul/bow). At some point in the turn, he will use those Bum's Rush, Ambush and Big Game that are clogging his hand to take down your deflectors (and maybe a stealth bleeder). So much for that plan unless you can stop between 1 and 5 sequental rushes with environmental agg damage kickers. Good luck with that, by the way. Some suggested punking Una after she's tooled up. HA! Hoping you're playing CEL/FOR - anything else will have trouble with the damage prevention and multiround ranged environmental agg. So sure, if you can rush Una and put her down before she gets to act, Dennis is done. If you can block and and punk Una, Dennis is done. You can Archon Investigate or PTO and Dennis is done. If he gets bled heavily early, or late at stealth, Dennis is done. Every deck has weak spots, and this is no exception. We're simply saying Una is overpowered in this situation. With regards to adding stuff like DI - Dennis said (and I agree) that you want to avoid adding anything that might contribute to hand jam, especially given that there are 3 ephemeral rushes in the deck already. That means zero masters, including DI, and you just take a chance on PTO. Rush any Inner Circle and try to take it down after you're tooled up, but don't add dead cards. We did talk about Mylan Horseseed and Sargon Fragment as possible adds and maybe a few weenies to rescue/defend if anything goes wrong. But Dennis' original plan was only Una, with a bunch of crap stacked on her and nothing else in play......a design foible we'll forgive. So yeah, not the "be-all" of decks, but a very strong concept that gets out of the gate immediately - and one of only 2 decks that I've seen deplete it's entire library in one turn to because simply freaking scary (the other being Black Cat/Concealed Weapon). D.

Peter D Bakija wrote: > ***JediMike*** wrote: > I mean, yeah, she can take 53 actions in one turn. She could potentially > bleed for a lot, but at zero stealth. I'm sure you've the Erebus Mask posts by now. > The real flaw is the lack of combat defense (well, and stealth)--she gets in > a fight with someone even remotely combaty, and she will end up in torpor > right quickly, and never get out, as she doesn't have any freinds to rescue > her. She's doing hands and the ghoul retainer is using the Ivory Bow. > Heck--her offensive abilitiy is stopped dead in its tracks by a small > handfull of Majesties. Blessing of Chaos. > Or dodges. Or fortitude. Or, well, I'm sure you get > the point. As was said elsewhere, this is certainly an "all or nothing" proposition. If you've got one of the answers to the deck then it dies...otherwise it doesn't. :) -Robert

Robert Goudie wrote: > I'm sure you've the Erebus Mask posts by now. Sure. I missed a lot of the subtleties of the deck without pouring over it with a fine tooth comb, but still. > She's doing hands and the ghoul retainer is using the Ivory Bow. Which is solid. But still doesn't foil S:CE (though Majesty is trumped by the Blessing of Chaos) or fortitude or prevent a point of damage Celerity or anti-weapon tech. > As was said elsewhere, this is certainly an "all or nothing" > proposition. If you've got one of the answers to the deck then it > dies...otherwise it doesn't. :) Sure, but lots of decks do that too. There are a few key stops (Ivorty Bow, Clan Impersonate, Erebus Mask) that shut the deck down dead. Even when completely set up, the deck is very vulnerable to getting its single bleed a turn blocked or deflected. The deck is *incredibly* vulnerable to having Una rushed before she gets to take an action, where she'll get to do nothing but stand there, take damage, punch for 1, and go to torpor. And a single superstar hoser (Pentex Subversion or whatever) is going to end the deck immediately. I suspect that in the long run, the deck will have a reasonably good chance of getting 1 very quick and unexpected VP, after which, it'll likely get bogged down and/or killed. Once and a while, it might get everything to lock into place and get a table win. But that describes a lot of decks that already exist. [ quoted text not captured ]

I guess my comments went rather unappreciated by the majority of posters in this thread. I guess what I'm getting at is that in order to curtail decks like this, people need to adopt a different philosophy of the game. Up here in Western Mass, EVERYONE packs cards for cross-table manipulation and people are simply prepared to team up against tricky decks that threaten to sweep. Yeah, Una's combat package is pretty mean IF she gets all her stuff, but who's to say you can't block and torporize her on the first action? Lots of decks around here could easily do that. Miller Delmardigan comes to mind as an apt candidate for the job. Or Omaya. Hell, Blythe Candeleria could do it and she's a freakin' 3 capacity vapire. Sure, if everyone at the table is playing some trick deck or S&B with the intent of a quick sweep then Una wins because she does it faster. That doesn't mean the deck is broken. It just means the table isn't prepared for it. Cthulukitty

(Sorry, don't know if this is going to the right thread - I'm having some trouble with this google group thing... Says "Unable to retrieve message") I think it's a pretty genius deck, and has the potential to slay pretty much any deck without much trouble. The way I see it, it has three major faults. One, it's a one-man-show (or a one-woman-show, haven't seen the vampire), and is vulnerable to all kinds of nastiness targeting single, powerful vamps. Still, rarely do those come up in your first few turns or are doable right then and there... So I wouldn't want to start as Una's prey. Two, it can die from a bad shuffle or draw. If for some reason, the deck only gets a few freaks in the first 3-5 rounds of the game, it's pretty dead. Alternately, if it ONLY gets freaks, it can't do much either (as the only actions you can do without cards are pretty much hunt and bleed). Three, it can die if the opponent has a good hand. Basically the strategy here is to first equip everything you can and hire all the retainers you can, then attack the enemy minions with direct attacks (torporizing or at least tapping them), and then bleed for a lot. If the enemy can withstand the attacks (which only takes a handful of dodges, S:CEs or fortitude) - or even worse, torporize Una (agg damage won't do the trick most likely as she has plenty of maneuvers and damage prevention, but things like Coma would work) - the cycle stops, and doesn't start again easily. I do think its a powerful deck, IF it starts to run smoothly, and the above three things do not come up. However, I also think that a sign of a good deck is the ability to recover from a bad situation, and that's something this deck lacks in a major way. Once Una goes to torpor, its very unlikely she'll ever make it back out. If the player gets a bad draw, he's gonna get eaten alive before he can discard himself into better cards. Since there are so few direct attack cards, Una can also be stopped by a good hand of defensive combat, and once those rushes are gone, there's little she can do but bleed once per turn and get blocked. It IS a nasty deck though. ;)

CthuluKitty wrote: > I guess my comments went rather unappreciated by the majority of > posters in this thread. I don't think that's true at all. Mainly, if you're not playing intercept-combat, a relatively uncommon archetype, *and* don't have the hand to torpor her immediately, Una has a very significant chance of going off the first turn she acts. It's all about playing the metagame, and I think this deck stands a very good chance to do some serious damage in just about *any* environment. Sure, it's a one-trick pony, but it is one helluva trick. Jeff

In message <BEE47BA8.20462%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >I suspect that in the long run, the deck will have a reasonably good chance >of getting 1 very quick and unexpected VP, after which, it'll likely get >bogged down and/or killed. Once and a while, it might get everything to lock >into place and get a table win. But that describes a lot of decks that >already exist. In a tournament environment, I'd expect to see it do somewhat like the Turbo-Arika[0] deck. That is, it can do well (extremely well, potentially), but once players know what it's doing, they'll try to get you off the table RIGHT NOW if they can't get something out of it (a deal, bouncing, or whatever). Unlike the Turbo-Arika deck, it will absolutely need multiple turns to try to sweep a table. (The Turbo decks sometimes stall based on the distribution of cards, of course, but could in theory do it all in one turn.) The deck interests me a great, great deal, however. [0] Any Turbo deck could do, if it can repeat bleed by burning itself and replacing itself with another vampire, and so on. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Darby Keeney wrote: | heavily early, or late at stealth, Dennis is done. Every deck has weak | spots, and this is no exception. We're simply saying Una is | overpowered in this situation. I think this is poorly stated, though I see what you're getting at. I suggest a better phrasing: Given the design decisions made by the Design Team in the recent sets, and given the obvious intent of a number of past decisions and errata, this deck's existence doesn't appear to be in line with the direction the Design Team wishes the game to go -- ie. away from solitaire, and more towards interaction. It is likely that a simple solution would be to return the NRA restriction on cardless hunts. NRA was removed from equip and recruit actions to help allies, retainers, and equipment suck less; hunting didn't actually suck in the first place. | That means zero masters, including DI, and you just take a chance on | PTO. Rush any Inner Circle and try to take it down after you're tooled And take a chance on other players using DI as well, of course. I didn't bring it up in my analysis because obviously, the "This isn't broken because of DI" argument is not productive... but given the prevalence of DI, I'm not sure I can think of a deck that fears it more than this one. | So yeah, not the "be-all" of decks, but a very strong concept that gets | out of the gate immediately - and one of only 2 decks that I've seen Another problem, I think, is that the deck really relies on surprise and luck (not sitting next to the Tzmisce, frex.) a LOT. If you've seen the deck before, you know to wait and block the key actions; and they aren't hard to pick out (Ivory Bow) even when you don't know the deck list. I'd actually be interested in seeing a non-hyperbolic version of this deck that is more robust on defense and ousting -- perhaps one that doesn't erase its library on turn 3, but can have more consistent forward momentum in a variety of environments. - -- Derek insert clever quotation here -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCvw+ltQZlu3o7QpERAh8kAJ9p0svYWzjtPv1rna5JN4IXGXZTjwCg4vR0 bfRZwWP7aownoPlRRzaWp/0= =9OXh -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

NorthSaber wrote: > One, it's a one-man-show (or a one-woman-show, haven't seen the > vampire), and is vulnerable to all kinds of nastiness targeting > single, powerful vamps. Still, rarely do those come up in your first > few turns or are doable right then and there... So I wouldn't want to > start as Una's prey. True. > Two, it can die from a bad shuffle or draw. If for some reason, the > deck only gets a few freaks in the first 3-5 rounds of the game, it's > pretty dead. That's pretty unlikely. Half the deck is freaks. > Alternately, if it ONLY gets freaks, it can't do much > either (as the only actions you can do without cards are pretty much > hunt and bleed). That happens but it is unimportant. I watched Dennis get a glut of freaks and he just hunted, freaked, hunted, freaked, until he got something useful. > Three, it can die if the opponent has a good hand. Certainly. Pred or Prey can do the job. -Robert

In message <0pGdnbb4ioY...@giganews.com>, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> writes: >I suggest a better phrasing: Given the design decisions made by the >Design Team in the recent sets, and given the obvious intent of a >number >of past decisions and errata, this deck's existence doesn't appear to >be >in line with the direction the Design Team wishes the game to go -- ie. >away from solitaire, and more towards interaction. > >It is likely that a simple solution would be to return the NRA >restriction on cardless hunts. NRA was removed from equip and recruit >actions to help allies, retainers, and equipment suck less; hunting >didn't actually suck in the first place. Whilst that is certainly one side-effect of it, I'm not 100% sure that it was entirely the intent. I'm pretty certain it wasn't the sole intent, at least. Part of the problem with the V:EKN floor rule was that it was complicated to explain. From conversations LSJ had online at the time, before it could be integrated into the base rules, there was a strong desire to simplify the rule without breaking it. So, this is probably sort of looking at it from a different angle, but I'm not 100% sure that it was "hunting and equipping need an upgrade" rather than "removing this list of actions from NRA will not break things AND will make things simpler to explain." IYSWIM. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I'd actually be interested in seeing a non-hyperbolic version of this > deck that is more robust on defense and ousting -- perhaps one that > doesn't erase its library on turn 3, but can have more consistent > forward momentum in a variety of environments. For what it's worth, here's an Una deck I've been working on: Deck Name: Una Gets Freaky v2.0 Created By: Kevin J. Mergen Description: Obvious Una Fortitude abuse. Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 24, Max: 36, Avg: 7.83) ---------------------------------------------- 6 Una dem ANI FOR PRE PRO 9 !Gangrel 4 Antonino ani FOR pre pro 6 Gangrel 2 Brunhilde ANI FOR pre PRO 8 Gangrel Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (14 cards) 3 Blood Doll 1 Dia de los Muertos 3 Direct Intervention 1 Giant`s Blood 1 Golconda: Inner Peace 1 Hungry Coyote, The 1 Secure Haven 3 Sudden Reversal Action (22 cards) 2 Army of Rats 2 Charming Lobby 4 Enchant Kindred 1 Entrancement 1 Eternal Vigilance 4 Kindred Spirits 3 Legal Manipulations 2 Mind Numb 3 Social Charm Action Modifier (30 cards) 5 Awe 5 Beast Meld 16 Freak Drive 4 Voter Captivation Political Action (9 cards) 4 Conservative Agitation 5 Kine Resources Contested Combat (15 cards) 2 Alpha Glint 4 Earth Meld 4 Form of Mist 5 Skin of Steel Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

Think about what we're saying. There's no such thing as a bad draw. Almost 2/3rds of the deck is Freak, so you'll never draw a starting hand without a couple. If you get all Freaks, hunt them away and you'll get the other stuff. Dennis hunted 8 straight times in our game. Forget any hand-jam considerations - they don't exist. Yeah, if you opponents punk Una before, or in the first action then you're stuck. But this is admitedly a blaze-design deck - and it either goes off or not. When it does, it very difficult to stop. For the solutions you propose, the options are pretty limited. You can't dodge environmental agg damage (ghoul retainer + ivory bow), nor can use use many common prevention cards that rely on preventing strikes. You can't play presence-based S:CE, nor can you play Coma (Blessing of Chaos). Yeah, there are other S:CE and damage prevents, but Dennis was effective in minimizing the number of available options - it's just tough to see that at first glance. And you better have several of them in hand, cause he'll rush 5 times in his opening gambit. There is insidious strength in this deck - after it gets tooled up.

jeff...@pacbell.net wrote: > Mainly, if you're not playing intercept-combat, a relatively uncommon > archetype, *and* don't have the hand to torpor her immediately, Una has > a very significant chance of going off the first turn she acts. If you are playing: -Rush combat (kill Una before she takes a single action) -Bleed bounce (send her 1 bleed a turn somewhere else) -Light intercept (block her key action, like, equip with Ivory Bow or Clan Impersonate) -Intercept combat -Protect Thine Own -DI (DI the first Freak Drive) which is a lot of decks, she'll have to get lucky to go off on her first turn. I mean, like, yeah, the first time this deck gets played in a given environment, it'll probably go off ('cause no one will know what is going on) and do well. But after it gets played once, everyone will know what it does ('cause if nothing else, the funny angle will spread the word far and wide), and after that, it'll need to get lucky. I see the tournament performance of this deck going like this: -Round 1: Goes off without a hitch. Gets a VP or two. Might win the table if everything goes its way. -Round 2-3: Might get a VP once or twice. Likely gets shut down a few times. -Finals, if it makes it: Likely gets shut down and killed without a VP. [ quoted text not captured ]

Darby Keeney wrote: > There's no such thing as a bad draw. Almost 2/3rds of the deck is > Freak, so you'll never draw a starting hand without a couple. Sure, but an opening hand of nothing but Freaks means you have to take a few actions that are like "hunt, Freak, hunt, Freak...", and if you get blocked on one of those (and hunting 4 times in a row with Una is likely to yell out "block me soon or never!"), you have zero defense--your whole deck strategy is revolving around a +1 stealth action when you have zero combat defense other than permanents--it is pretty easy to get blocked on your first action and killed right off. [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > For what it's worth, here's an Una deck I've been working on: This deck looks both much more robust and much less crack wacky--I'd say this deck has a much more reliable win chance than the other one under discussion. The "53 Freak Una" deck under discussion has, as its main weapon, Surprise (and a fanatical devotion to the Pope...). If you don't know what it is going to do, it'll probably do it quickly and devestatingly. But if you do know what it is going to do, you can shut it down pretty easily. [ quoted text not captured ]

CthuluKitty wrote: > I guess what I'm getting at is that in order > to curtail decks like this, people need to adopt a different philosophy > of the game. Up here in Western Mass, EVERYONE packs cards for > cross-table manipulation and people are simply prepared to team up > against tricky decks that threaten to sweep. While this is a completely different discussion, this idea is generally support that something *is* broken--if a deck is so effective that it requires the players to reguarly circumvent or ignore the established predator/prey relationship, then something is clearly wrong. This being said, I don't think this Una deck is terrifying enough to justify needing to cross table nuke it. Heck--a deck with moderately reliable +1 intercept and enough combat to torp someone will shut it down immediately: A: "Una takes a plus 1 stealth action to get some cool thing." B: "Um, I block with +1 intercept." A: "Oh, ok. We fight." B: "I [Claws of the Dead/Tzimisce Aggro/IG+Disarm/Animalism+Crows+Bats/whatever] kill you." A: "Huh. I just stand here and take it. But then I freak and untap 'cause I was aggro poked and still have blood! Una takes a +1 stealth action to rescue herself from torpor!" B: "Um, I Forced and block with +1 intercept and diablerize you." A: "Huh. That's no good..." [ quoted text not captured ]

Man, my HoS Brinkmanship deck will own this thing, as its pred... ~SV

>>While this is a completely different discussion, this idea is generally support that something *is* broken--if a deck is so effective that it requires the players to reguarly circumvent or ignore the established predator/prey relationship, then something is clearly wrong. I don't really feel that this is the case. In the games I play it is very common to see people taking cross table actions to neutralize what they see as the major threat to the table. This isn't circumventing the prey/predator dynamics; it's just understanding them on a more nuanced, long-term basis. In a 5 player game, which is the norm, no player is more than 1 oust away from being either your prey or predator, depending on where they sit. So everyone at the table has the potential to become your enemy, and it makes sense to weaken those potential enemies while you still can, even if it means diverting attention from your immediate goals. Frequently, you can bargain with your prey and/or predator to make this happen. For example: "Don't bleed for a turn and I'll hit the threat"; or "Let me take this next action unblocked and then I'll hit the threat". >> ...Heck--a deck with moderately reliable +1 intercept and enough combat to torp someone will shut it down immediately... Yeah. I definitely agree with you on that note, as is clear from my earlier comments. Cthulukitty

"***JediMike***" <Jedi...@rebelscum.net> schreef in bericht news:1119760053.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > > Action Modifier (56 cards) > ****56 Freak Drive***** > Just when I gave up on trying to use victim of habit. :)

Peter D Bakija wrote: > I see the tournament performance of this deck going like this: > > -Round 1: Goes off without a hitch. Gets a VP or two. Might win the table if > everything goes its way. > -Round 2-3: Might get a VP once or twice. Likely gets shut down a few times. > -Finals, if it makes it: Likely gets shut down and killed without a VP. Or: two of those decks make it to the finals and contest Una the whole time. :-). -- LSJ (vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply) Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

CthuluKitty wrote: > I don't really feel that this is the case. Ok. > In the games I play it is > very common to see people taking cross table actions to neutralize what > they see as the major threat to the table. Yeah, see, that is pretty much circumventing or ignoring the predator/prey dynamic. And usually it is a dumb idea as it just makes someone else win. If you focus on ousting your prey, then you get VPs. If you focus on ousting someone else's prey, someone else gets VPs. > This isn't circumventing the prey/predator dynamics; it's just understanding >them on a more nuanced, long-term basis. Umm, ok. Me PTOing someone crosstable is likely just making that guy cross the table get ousted by someone who isn't me. At which point I have to PTO someone else cross table, who then also gets ousted by someone who isn't me. You are much better off just killing your prey. And the game as a whole is much better off if you just kill your prey. > In a 5 player game, which is the norm, no > player is more than 1 oust away from being either your prey or > predator, depending on where they sit. Correct. >So everyone at the table has > the potential to become your enemy, and it makes sense to weaken those > potential enemies while you still can, even if it means diverting > attention from your immediate goals. Only if you like making other people win the game. Weakening your non immediate opponents usually makes your immediate opponents stronger. When your immediate opponents are stronger, you are weaker. And your now stronger opponents who are less worried about weaker you go on to kill your weaker non immediate opponent, and become even stronger. See, if there is a deck that the table that requires the whole table to gang up on it to keep it from sweeping with impunity, then there is something wrong with the game that needs fixing. In other circumstances, the need to mess with folks cross table is generally few and far between. > Frequently, you can bargain with > your prey and/or predator to make this happen. For example: "Don't > bleed for a turn and I'll hit the threat"; or "Let me take this next > action unblocked and then I'll hit the threat". At which point the game bogs down in people wheeling and dealing to try to get people to give them an incentive to take an action that has significant (reasonably so) built in disincentive to attempt. Which is a bad idea. Yeah. Sometimes a cross table shenanagin seems like a good idea. Most of those times it actually isn't. Just kill your prey. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > I see the tournament performance of this deck going like this: > > > > -Round 1: Goes off without a hitch. Gets a VP or two. Might win the table if > > everything goes its way. > > -Round 2-3: Might get a VP once or twice. Likely gets shut down a few times. > > -Finals, if it makes it: Likely gets shut down and killed without a VP. > > Or: two of those decks make it to the finals and contest Una the whole time. > :-). Or: two Una decks immediately make a table split deal. One gets 3 VPs and then let's the other withdraw. :) -Robert

Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:<BEE4CB2D.20478%pd...@lightlink.com>... > Darby Keeney wrote: > Sure, but an opening hand of nothing but Freaks means you have to take a few > actions that are like "hunt, Freak, hunt, Freak...", and if you get blocked To me it seems like that NRA is fine for hunt, but I don't think a vampire should be able to hunt when at full blood. That would stop this deck from burning extra Freaks to get a better hand.

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> schreef in bericht news:BEE57091.20493%pd...@lightlink.com... > CthuluKitty wrote: > >> I don't really feel that this is the case. > > Ok. > >> In the games I play it is >> very common to see people taking cross table actions to neutralize what >> they see as the major threat to the table. > > Yeah, see, that is pretty much circumventing or ignoring the predator/prey > dynamic. And usually it is a dumb idea as it just makes someone else win. > If > you focus on ousting your prey, then you get VPs. If you focus on ousting > someone else's prey, someone else gets VPs. where did you make the jump from "weakening someone cross table who became too strong and will in all likelyhood be you next predator" to "oust someone/PTO someone cross table"? IMO, there's a difference. a HUGE difference. In the first, you slow him down from getting a vp, not give someone else a VP. Addionally, it gives you more time to try to get your prey. > > Yeah. Sometimes a cross table shenanagin seems like a good idea. Most of > those times it actually isn't. Just kill your prey. > like you said indeed, most of the time. But sometimes it's just for the best.

"Darby Keeney" <darby....@gmail.com> schreef in bericht news:1119829750.4...@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... > Think about what we're saying. > > There's no such thing as a bad draw. yes there is. Because of non redundancy in the cards it possible that the ivory bow is in the last 5 cards of his deck. Making the rushes a non playable (well, very inefficent in any case) card. no combat also means you cannot cycle your for prevent.

Screaming Vermillian schrieb: > Man, my HoS Brinkmanship deck will own this thing, as its pred... > > ~SV At least one deck you will oust with that Slaughterhouserubbish... ;o)

NorthSaber wrote: > To me it seems like that NRA is fine for hunt, but I don't think a > vampire should be able to hunt when at full blood. That would stop > this deck from burning extra Freaks to get a better hand. Yeah, I'm not seeing this particular deck as a need to change the NRA rules--other than this deck (and in the case of this deck, it is only arguably problematic), hunting while full is hardly a problem at all. It only ever comes up, generally speaking, in the following situations: -You have a hand full of Freak Drives (in a non Una abuse deck) and want to fish for something useful. For my money, people fishing for something useful by burning Freak Drives is just fine. -You have a very teniously and sketchily set up Kyoko Shinsegawa strategy going. If you can set this up and not get immediately ousted, more power to you. -You are playing the "March Halcyon tries to withdraw on Turn 3" deck. Yeah, this needs shutting down... If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet to be convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage (say, change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards or actions" or something.) [ quoted text not captured ]

Jeroen Rombouts wrote: > where did you make the jump from "weakening someone cross table who became > too strong and will in all likelyhood be you next predator" to "oust > someone/PTO someone cross table"? Weakening someone xtable is getting him ousted by someone who isn't you. If I Rush/KRC/Parity Shift/PTO/whatever someone across the table, I am making someone who is not my immediate foe weak. Which makes someone who is is my immediate foe stronger--I make my grand prey lose 4 pool to a ConAg, that makes my prey's job 4 pool easier, which makes my job harder. PTO was just a convinient and extreme illustration. But it could have been 3 pool loss to a KRC or my torping someone by xtable Rushing. By making someone who isn't my prey weaker and consequently making someone who is either my predator or prey stronger, I compromise my own position. See, the game has built in disincentive to do this. Yet people still don't see that. > IMO, there's a difference. a HUGE > difference. In the first, you slow him down from getting a vp, not give > someone else a VP. Addionally, it gives you more time to try to get your > prey. How does it give you more time to get your prey to waste actions making it easier for someone else to get their prey? > like you said indeed, most of the time. But sometimes it's just for the > best. Sure. Sometimes it is. But that is the vast minority of the time. Sometimes, someone will do something crazy and hose someone cross table, and then they'll sweep and the crazy cross table shenanagins will turn out to have been completely brilliant. But 90% of the time that someone does something crazy to hose someone xtable, it just makes someone else win. I just like pointing out that it is usually a bed precident to set to try to make xtable shenanagins a desirable aspect of the game. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> schreef in bericht news:BEE591BC.2049F%pd...@lightlink.com... > Jeroen Rombouts wrote: > >> where did you make the jump from "weakening someone cross table who >> became >> too strong and will in all likelyhood be you next predator" to "oust >> someone/PTO someone cross table"? > > Weakening someone xtable is getting him ousted by someone who isn't you. I thought the topic here was: doing xtable things to neutralise a xtable threat. You're not a threat in my book if you're easily ousted. >If > I Rush/KRC/Parity Shift/PTO/whatever someone across the table, I am making > someone who is not my immediate foe weak. weakER. if he/she is the threat of the table, in a good position to sweep (my definition of a threat). >Which makes someone who is is my > immediate foe stronger--I make my grand prey lose 4 pool to a ConAg, that > makes my prey's job 4 pool easier, which makes my job harder. PTO was just > a > convinient and extreme illustration. But it could have been 3 pool loss to > a > KRC or my torping someone by xtable Rushing. By making someone who isn't > my > prey weaker and consequently making someone who is either my predator or > prey stronger, I compromise my own position. See, the game has built in > disincentive to do this. Yet people still don't see that. OTOH, you could argue: in the case that say, your grand predator is the big Threat of the table, slowing him down from getting a vp makes your own position better. But I guess were just talking about different things. My premises were: there is a BIG threat on the table who is not my prey/predator. If the threat is not stopped by his prey or predator, he will likely sweep. Provided those two cannot do this, I can maybe help. Thus securing my chance at the GW. doesn't happen regularly. I thought this was the topic of the discussion. > >> IMO, there's a difference. a HUGE >> difference. In the first, you slow him down from getting a vp, not give >> someone else a VP. Addionally, it gives you more time to try to get your >> prey. > > How does it give you more time to get your prey to waste actions making it > easier for someone else to get their prey? eg if the crosstable person is you grand predator and about to oust your predator. every turn he survives is another turn (wich he will mostly spend trying to survive, not comming after you) you can go forward without having to defend against the Big Threat. > >> like you said indeed, most of the time. But sometimes it's just for the >> best. > > Sure. Sometimes it is. But that is the vast minority of the time. > Sometimes, > someone will do something crazy and hose someone cross table, and then > they'll sweep and the crazy cross table shenanagins will turn out to have > been completely brilliant. But 90% of the time that someone does something > crazy to hose someone xtable, it just makes someone else win. > > I just like pointing out that it is usually a bed precident to set to try > to > make xtable shenanagins a desirable aspect of the game. agreed. And more often than not will result in countertable balancing and time outs.

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005, Peter D Bakija wrote: > -You have a very teniously and sketchily set up Kyoko Shinsegawa strategy > going. If you can set this up and not get immediately ousted, more power to > you. You mean Kyoko hunts off someone, Freaks, hunts off someone else, etc? I'm sure that would be a popular strategy (see Cryptic Mission, except Kyoko doesn't need a card for it) if it were legal. Her hunt action is granted by a card in play (herself) and subject to NRA. Matt Morgan

"Matthew T. Morgan" <far...@io.com> schreef in bericht news:2005062710...@fnord.io.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I think he knows that :) He was talking about the fact that kyoko wouldn't been able to hunt while full if you changed NRA.

[ quoted text not captured ] She can't anyway (unless of course she can gain all the blood she needs in one hunt). Kyoko can't perform the normal cardless hunt action. Matt Morgan

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 11:13:20 -0400, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: >NorthSaber wrote: > >> To me it seems like that NRA is fine for hunt, but I don't think a >> vampire should be able to hunt when at full blood. That would stop >> this deck from burning extra Freaks to get a better hand. > >Yeah, I'm not seeing this particular deck as a need to change the NRA >rules--other than this deck (and in the case of this deck, it is only >arguably problematic), hunting while full is hardly a problem at all. It >only ever comes up, generally speaking, in the following situations: > >-You have a hand full of Freak Drives (in a non Una abuse deck) and want to >fish for something useful. For my money, people fishing for something useful >by burning Freak Drives is just fine. > >-You have a very teniously and sketchily set up Kyoko Shinsegawa strategy >going. If you can set this up and not get immediately ousted, more power to >you. > >-You are playing the "March Halcyon tries to withdraw on Turn 3" deck. Yeah, >this needs shutting down... > >If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet to be >convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that >could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage (say, >change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards or >actions" or something.) To be fair, there's also Force of Will, for Fortitude bleeds. I've had to Hunt at capacity to do that in my !Ven deck. And personally, I'm not real fussed about this deck. Sure, it goes off 'in a big way'. But seriously, aren't there enough other decks that can do this in their own ways, that makes this less special? Certain turbo decks. Weenie bleed. Etcetera. Morgan Vening

Jeroen Rombouts wrote: > I think he knows that :) He was talking about the fact that kyoko wouldn't > been able to hunt while full if you changed NRA. Oh. Uh, yeah. That's it. That's what I meant all along... [ quoted text not captured ]

Matthew T. Morgan wrote: > You mean Kyoko hunts off someone, Freaks, hunts off someone else, etc? > I'm sure that would be a popular strategy (see Cryptic Mission, except > Kyoko doesn't need a card for it) if it were legal. Her hunt action is > granted by a card in play (herself) and subject to NRA. Yeah, that was likely what I meant, and then not paying attention that it wasn't legal. Making it even less desireable to change the NRA rules. [ quoted text not captured ]

Morgan Vening wrote: > To be fair, there's also Force of Will, for Fortitude bleeds. I've had > to Hunt at capacity to do that in my !Ven deck. And ya think that the rules need to be tweaked so that you can't hunt if at capacity to prevent folks from using Force of Will? [ quoted text not captured ]

Just a note to add here, since Jeroen is defending my position on this fairly adequately: my play group does not play with time limits. The nearest place to play in tournaments is over 2 hours drive away, and I've only gone once with one other player. Our experience with time limits there only confirmed our distaste for them, as we saw game after game time out because of what looked like intentionally slow, or at least unexcusably slow play. The game is drastically different without the time limit, and not just shorter. When there's no pressure to get multiple ousts ASAP it is much more reasonable to spend time improving your own position via permanents and bloating, and weakening the position of other players who appear to present a threat. It's also worth noting that at that one tournament I played, the closest I came to a GW was achieved by back-ousting my CEL guns predator with a Kindred Spirits. Not exactly going xtable, but still contrary to the pred/prey dynamics as many here are defining them, and perfectly defensable in that situation. I understand that 90% of the time it's better to focus on ousting your own prey, but that other 10% is still a relevant and important part of play. If it weren't, cards like Eagle's Sight wouldn't exist, and Anneke would not nearly as popular as she is, just to name a few examples. Cthulukitty

Peter D Bakija wrote: > If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet to be > convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that > could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage (say, > change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards or > actions" or something.) If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet to be > > convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that > > could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage (say, > > change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards or > > actions" or something.) > > If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's > in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. Just limit the number of actions a minion can take by their capacity... Seems reasonable to me. Makes fatties 'better'. ~SV

What problem is there? If this were an unbeatable, or nearly unbeatable deck, that would be one thing (something would be "broken"), but it isn't. In fact, it sounds fragile and hard to play well. Probably requires a good deal of skill *and* luck. We already have a long list of things that would stop this deck dead even if you weren't specifically prepared for it. It's still brilliant and spectacular, and congrats to the creator, but if it swept up tables, it was probably due more to shock value than anything. Super-equipped Una rushes? I prevent one (aggravated) damage from the Ivory Bow. Press? I prevent again. If she struck me at short range, she just rushed for 4 non-aggravated damage. I'm more afraid of your average Brujah or Assamite. Come to think of it, how would she deal with Assamites, or Tremere? It's a very clever trick, but it doesn't "break" anything, and it doesn't demonstrate a need to change any rules.

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:48:04 -0400, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: >Morgan Vening wrote: > >> To be fair, there's also Force of Will, for Fortitude bleeds. I've had >> to Hunt at capacity to do that in my !Ven deck. > >And ya think that the rules need to be tweaked so that you can't hunt if at >capacity to prevent folks from using Force of Will? Nope. Sorry, I had just finished a 16 hour shift, and was winding down. There should have been no "To be fair" part. Sounds snooty. It should have been "In addition, here's another reason why I don't think a 'cant hunt at capacity' ruling would be bad". Morgan Vening

LSJ schrieb: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet to be > > convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that > > could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage (say, > > change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards or > > actions" or something.) > > If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's > in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. Nit-pick: Used to be nigh impossible to accumulate this amount of Freak Drives before its rarity changed from R to U ... Not totally impossible, I know. But still. Sigh! Those were the days ... Alf

Peter D Bakija wrote: > If you are playing: > -Rush combat (kill Una before she takes a single action) > -Bleed bounce (send her 1 bleed a turn somewhere else) > -Light intercept (block her key action, like, equip with Ivory Bow or Clan > Impersonate) > -Intercept combat > -Protect Thine Own > -DI (DI the first Freak Drive) > > which is a lot of decks, she'll have to get lucky to go off on her first > turn. And from my experience in Germany i would say, it will be mostly the last type that kill the Una deck (the DIs). Normaly every Deck packs 2 DIs. Some have 3, some have only 1. That is 8 DIs against the Una deck. Very reasonable that we have one in the first round or one after cycling cards in the second. Every DI will stop one whole turn of that deck, and that is deadly for a deck that only has speed to survive.

CthuluKitty wrote: > Our experience with time > limits there only confirmed our distaste for them, as we saw game after > game time out because of what looked like intentionally slow, or at > least unexcusably slow play. Yeah--we don't play with time limits either. But if a single game goes longer than, like, an hour and a half here, we were all clearly very distracted and Sackett kept getting up to go get drinks or something. I can't imagine playing in an environment where single games regularly went longer than the standard two hours that a tournament time limit affords you. > The game is drastically different without the time limit, and not just >shorter. How long are these games of which you speak? > It's also > worth noting that at that one tournament I played, the closest I came > to a GW was achieved by back-ousting my CEL guns predator with a > Kindred Spirits. If you have to mess up your predator to win, you mess up your predator to win. At least your predator is sitting next to you. > Not exactly going xtable, but still contrary to the > pred/prey dynamics as many here are defining them, and perfectly > defensable in that situation. Well, not really contrary to your predator/prey dynamic, as, well, they are your predator. I mean, like, I'm not saying it is generally a good idea to get your predator ousted, but it is much more likely to be useful to get your predator ousted than it is to get some random dude across the table ousted. > I understand that 90% of the time it's > better to focus on ousting your own prey, but that other 10% is still a > relevant and important part of play. Sure. But that is a vast minority of the time. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's > in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. Ya think? Like, Freak Drive has been around forever, and while it was certainly a problem pre-NRA, post NRA it hasn't been a problem at all, and is only a problem now due to Una. And the hunting in-turn repeatability has only ever been a problem in the context of Una being able to cycle an infinite number of Freak Drives to find something useful--anyone could already do this, but without the free play ability of Una, packing a deck with 53 Freaks has never been really worth the effort. I mean, like, yeah, tweaking either Freak or hunting certainly could be an option, but that would have a much bigger effect that isn't necessarily warranted than tweaking Una. [ quoted text not captured ]

Morgan Vening wrote: > Nope. Sorry, I had just finished a 16 hour shift, and was winding > down. There should have been no "To be fair" part. Sounds snooty. It > should have been "In addition, here's another reason why I don't think > a 'cant hunt at capacity' ruling would be bad". Heh heh :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:58:21 GMT, LSJ <vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com> wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: >> If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet >> to be >> convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that >> could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage >> (say, >> change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards >> or >> actions" or something.) > > If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's > in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt at capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. -- Bye, Daneel

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Daneel wrote: > Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt at > capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable > (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. Actually, no. If you look at the RPG, there are numerous examples of vampire gluttons who hunt despite being full (at capacity). If vampires hunting while at capacity really bothers you, just play Restricted Vitae. Then they won't. Matt Morgan

Peter D Bakija wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > > If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's > > in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. > > Ya think? Like, Freak Drive has been around forever, and while it was > certainly a problem pre-NRA, post NRA it hasn't been a problem at all, and > is only a problem now due to Una. Yeah, but when you look at other vamps with the same special (with a different skill) they aren't broken. As well, there are tons of cards that can be put in play and that create a somewhat similar effect (paths, for example) and none of those are very impressive either. So while Una hasn't existed until now, the "vampire that pays 1 less for Discipline X" has been around for a long time and there isn't anything inherently wrong with it...until it interacts with Freak Drive. -Robert

Peter D Bakija schrieb: > .. --anyone could > already do this, but without the free play ability of Una, packing a deck > with 53 Freaks has never been really worth the effort. Every Vampire equipped with Ankara Citadel and FOR like say Cardano, or Mata Hari could have done the trick before Una. Nothing too new here, just less set up needed. Alf

Even if they tweak una some tremere or mata hari can equip with Ankara Citadel, Turkey, I don't think that restricting the actions would be wise, anyway, it's fun to do those kind of things, i don't know anyone that own at least 30 freakdrives. Maybe a solution would be adding the option in the rated CONSTRUCTED tournaments of a card limit, i think that based in the consensum of the playgroup maybe it would be good to add a limit of 10 of the same cards (or even 4). Basically, let the group choose in what kind of tournament they wanna play.

"Omael" <omael....@gmail.com> schreef in bericht news:1119973034....@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] not that again :-s

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, back in the good ol' days when the number of actions per turn your minions would take would correlate with your income level. Ah, yes, those were the days... :) -Robert

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:33:50 -0500, Matthew T. Morgan <far...@io.com> wrote: > On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Daneel wrote: > >> Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt >> at >> capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable >> (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. > > Actually, no. If you look at the RPG, there are numerous examples of > vampire gluttons who hunt despite being full (at capacity). I believe there are cards representing that sort of gluttony. > If vampires hunting while at capacity really bothers you, just play > Restricted Vitae. Then they won't. You seem to miss the point. -- Bye, Daneel

[ quoted text not captured ] I'd guess that the rule was dropped because it is uneccessary complexity (doesn't add anything to the game and isn't needed for balance). -Robert

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Daneel wrote: > On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:33:50 -0500, Matthew T. Morgan <far...@io.com> wrote: > >> On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Daneel wrote: >> >>> Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt at >>> capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable >>> (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. >> >> Actually, no. If you look at the RPG, there are numerous examples of >> vampire gluttons who hunt despite being full (at capacity). > > I believe there are cards representing that sort of gluttony. Thanks for the non-sequitor. The point is the RPG supports the idea that vampires can feed when they don't need to. >> If vampires hunting while at capacity really bothers you, just play >> Restricted Vitae. Then they won't. > > You seem to miss the point. No. I just nailed it. See above. Matt Morgan

"Jeroen Rombouts" <jeroen....@NOSPAMtelenet.be> wrote in message news:Joewe.132309$nd5.7...@phobos.telenet-ops.be... [ quoted text not captured ] You've got to forgive him. I'm sure he doesn't know the can of worms that he's opening. :-) DaveZ Atom Weaver (else, he does, and the post is just a goad...)

bjorn...@yahoo.com wrote: > What problem is there? If this were an unbeatable, or nearly unbeatable > deck, that would be one thing (something would be "broken"), but it > isn't. In fact, it sounds fragile and hard to play well. Probably > requires a good deal of skill *and* luck. > > It's a very clever trick, but it doesn't "break" anything, and it > doesn't demonstrate a need to change any rules. Now that I've had a few days to let the shock dissapate, I'm afraid I have to agree with you. The particular game I was in, I was not ready to stop Una so soon. Either was his predator. Next time I hope I'm playing my Intercept/Horrid Form Deck. Una won't stand a chance. Still I find myself questioning if a vamp that pays one less for For. is "good" for the game. I suspect that in the long run it won't mattter much. ***JediMike***

more like a 55 gallon drum of worms! ***JediMike***

>> How long are these games of which you speak? Typically no more than 2 and a half hours. I actually find that no time limit can make the game go *faster* at times too, because no one has any incentive to slow things down for their 1/2 VP or undeserved game win. >> I understand that 90% of the time it's >> better to focus on ousting your own prey, but that other 10% is still a >> relevant and important part of play. >>>Sure. But that is a vast minority of the time. Returning to the original topic of discussion, I feel that a trick deck like the Una one posted going off warrants xtable interference. Sure, it's better that it be stopped by its own predator or prey --and certainly possible-- but it may be necessary, and intelligent, for players to cross the table to keep it from going off. Decks like that simply do not have any defense if they are attacked before they pull the trick, and are thus exceptionally vulnerable to a well prepared table. Cthulukitty

Oh. Another thing about playing with no time limit, which should have been included in the last message. It's very common in our games for players to concede when one player clearly has the game in hand. Obviously, this doesn't happen until only 2 or 3 are left at the table, but it serves to shorten the game. In 2 hour time limit games, people will often keep playing in positions they know they can't win just to score the 1/2 VP and possibly prevent an opponent from getting a GW. The one tourney I went to I saw a player in a clearly lost position in the 1v1 phase of the game repeatedly counting his cards without playing anything as the clock ran down, as though somehow he would have a number other than 7 in his hand. I mentioned this to other players and noone seemed bothered by it, which is weird. In any case, the lack of an incentive to draw games out to the time limit, can actually make games a lot shorter. Wow this thread has gone OT. Cthulukitty

"CthuluKitty" <vtana...@riseup.net> wrote in message news:1119985051....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... >>> How long are these games of which you speak? > > Typically no more than 2 and a half hours. I actually find that no > time limit can make the game go *faster* at times too, because no one > has any incentive to slow things down for their 1/2 VP or undeserved > game win. > "undeserved game win" ...interesting concept. How does one get an undeserved game win (other than by collusion or other methods of cheating), with or without a time limit? DZ AW

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, given how you wouldn't normally want to hunt at capacity unless you were playing a trick deck, I'm not sure about that. The vast majority of decks don't really care whether the rule is in place or not. If a deck like this one is a problem, I think reinstalling that rule would still be the best solution. -- Bye, Daneel

"CthuluKitty" <vtana...@riseup.net> wrote in message news:1119985363.4...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... > Oh. Another thing about playing with no time limit, which should have > been included in the last message. It's very common in our games for > players to concede when one player clearly has the game in hand. > Obviously, this doesn't happen until only 2 or 3 are left at the table, > but it serves to shorten the game. In 2 hour time limit games, people > will often keep playing in positions they know they can't win just to > score the 1/2 VP and possibly prevent an opponent from getting a GW. > The one tourney I went to I saw a player in a clearly lost position in > the 1v1 phase of the game repeatedly counting his cards without playing > anything as the clock ran down, as though somehow he would have a > number other than 7 in his hand. I mentioned this to other players and > no one seemed bothered by it, which is weird. Aye, weird. The judge should have issued a penalty for slow-play... > In any case, the lack of > an incentive to draw games out to the time limit, can actually make > games a lot shorter. > I think you might be (justifiably) confusing the effect of slow-play (not allowed under VEKN rules), with the effect of a time limit. You need better (more active)officiating, such that the former is eliminated. In the abscence of that, its reasonable to see why one wouldn't like time limits... DZ AW

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opss3g2b...@news.chello.hu... > On 28 Jun 2005 10:10:03 -0700, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote: > >> Daneel wrote: >>> On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 21:58:21 GMT, LSJ <vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com> >>> wrote: >>> >>> > If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's >>> > in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. >>> >>> Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt >>> at >>> capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable >>> (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. >> >> I'd guess that the rule was dropped because it is uneccessary >> complexity (doesn't add anything to the game and isn't needed for >> balance). > > Well, given how you wouldn't normally want to hunt at capacity unless > you were playing a trick deck, I'm not sure about that. The vast majority > of decks don't really care whether the rule is in place or not. I think that is an fairly accurate indication (definition, even?) of an "unnecessary complexity"... > If a deck > like this one is a problem, I think reinstalling that rule would still be > the best solution. > Yeah, but it isn't. At least, its no greater a problem than Cardano with Ankara Citadel has been since Ancient Hearts... I agree, though, that it must have been quite a shock for the unprepared, the first time Una went supercritical... Thanks out to Jedi Mike for pointing out the tactic. DZ AW

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, David Zopf wrote: >> If a deck >> like this one is a problem, I think reinstalling that rule would still be >> the best solution. >> > Yeah, but it isn't. At least, its no greater a problem than Cardano with > Ankara Citadel has been since Ancient Hearts... I agree, though, that it > must have been quite a shock for the unprepared, the first time Una went > supercritical... Thanks out to Jedi Mike for pointing out the tactic. Agreed. Jason Babbit used to run a deck where Cardano or Ulugh Beg would get the Citadel and Govern down, Freak, Fourth Tradition every turn. Nice trick and very strong if nobody had intercept, but there are plenty of ways to stop it. Matt Morgan

> > Well, not really contrary to your predator/prey dynamic, as, well, they are > your predator. I mean, like, I'm not saying it is generally a good idea to > get your predator ousted, but it is much more likely to be useful to get > your predator ousted than it is to get some random dude across the table > ousted. > Now why did you put in that little word "random"? Ofcourse that is a bad thing,...but what if it is not random,... I go crosstable a lot if i think i need to stop someone getting a VP. So usually not to oust someone crosstable, but to stop someone from ousting crosstable. Give someone xtable three KRC-damage and they suddenly have to defend against their predator instead of just going full forward. Could very well be worth it in my book. I dont want that player ousted,..not at all, but perhaps i dont want him ousting either,... Sometimes it aint necesary to do the xtable stuff yourself,...just hold back a little on your prey, so that he can put some more pressure, either by deal or not,... Just ousting your prey isnt what this game is about if you ask me. Ousting your prey while stopping others from growing too fast. That's how i see this game. W

***JediMike*** wrote: > Still I find myself questioning if a vamp that pays one less for > For. is "good" for the game. I suspect that in the long run it > won't mattter much. Funny that you mention your Tzimisce deck as a counter to the Una deck and wonder whether Una's special is "good for the game". You are familiar with Meshenka's special, right? ;) Una clearly isn't the problem. I've narrowed the root problem down to a toss-up between Freak Drive or Dennis Lien. I'm currently leaning toward Dennis. -Robert

Peter D Bakija wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > >>If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's >>in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. > > Ya think? Yes. > Like, Freak Drive has been around forever, and while it was > certainly a problem pre-NRA, post NRA it hasn't been a problem at all, and > is only a problem now due to Una. And the hunting in-turn repeatability has > only ever been a problem in the context of Una being able to cycle an > infinite number of Freak Drives to find something useful--anyone could > already do this, but without the free play ability of Una, packing a deck > with 53 Freaks has never been really worth the effort. Which doesn't really address the issue of which link in the chain is the offending one (assuming there's any offense at all). That the chain has only now been completed is not material to determining which link is the crux. How many cards untap the acting minion? How many of those can untap the same acting minion more than once in a turn? How many actions can be repeated? How many of those are cardless? (Note: I don't think repeat hunting is the link of interest. I included it only because it is the link whose adjustment would be the easiest to swallow. Assuming any adjustment is warranted, of course.) > I mean, like, yeah, tweaking either Freak or hunting certainly could be an > option, but that would have a much bigger effect that isn't necessarily > warranted than tweaking Una. Limiting repeat hunting would not have a much bigger effect than fixing Una. Limited repeat Freaks have a bigger effect, sure. But that's why it would only be done if it was warranted. I never suggested making an unwarranted change to Freak. If Freak is the problem, then changing it is warranted, by definition. -- LSJ (vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply) Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Daneel wrote: > Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt at > capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable > (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. The original rules did not prohibit at-capacity hunting. It was added in 1995. It was subsequently reset in 1998. Allowing hunting at capacity makes sense, since vampires can. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > ...Freak Drive has been around forever, and while it was > certainly a problem pre-NRA, post NRA it hasn't been a problem at all, and > is only a problem now due to Una. And the hunting in-turn repeatability has > only ever been a problem in the context of Una being able to cycle an > infinite number of Freak Drives to find something useful.... Another deck that gets an inordinate advantage from Freak + repeatable hunts is the Rabbat bloat deck. Use the Hungry Coyote or Aaron's Feeding Razor to allow Rabbat to hunt for 2, then hunt-Freak-repeat until you're out of Freaks. Each hunt gains you a pool...and Rabbat's no fun to block.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 21:23:17 GMT, LSJ <vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com> wrote: > Daneel wrote: >> Come to think of it, what happened to the rule stating you cannot hunt >> at >> capacity? That rule would mostly make this kind of trick deck unusable >> (if it's a problem at all), and it kind of made sense anyway. > > The original rules did not prohibit at-capacity hunting. > It was added in 1995. It was subsequently reset in 1998. > > Allowing hunting at capacity makes sense, since vampires can. I think that while vampires who are freshly fed can technically hunt according to the source material, they seldom do so (except for special cases). Hence it would make sense that in VTES they can not do it without a special card or effect. I mean, a vampire of the source material can choose to go and see the sunrise for the last time (which they often do in their angst-ridden melancholy), yet in VTES I can't just say "Okay, my famous Marlene ends her own life." without providing for a special circumstance to back that up (like, playing Daring the Dawn). Not that it would matter much, I just felt like pointing that out. -- Bye, Daneel

Matthew T. Morgan wrote: > Agreed. Jason Babbit used to run a deck where Cardano or Ulugh Beg > would get the Citadel and Govern down, Freak, Fourth Tradition every > turn. Nice trick and very strong if nobody had intercept, but there are > plenty of ways to stop it. I think there may be a qualitative shift when you go from sixteen Freak Drives to, like, fifty. -- David Cherryholmes

Joscha wrote: > At least one deck you will oust with that Slaughterhouserubbish... ;o) If you can get Brinksmanship on the table, it ousts just fine (or at least some do). -- David Cherryholmes

[ quoted text not captured ] My vote is for banning Dennis! :) Seriously, there is a huge difference between throwing 5 or 6 Horrid Forms (of 18) in a combat vs. 53 Freak Drives in one single turn. As nasty as my Tzimisce deck can be, I often DON'T have the goods. What Una can do is....well....INSANE! If a fix needs to be made (and thats a BIG if) I would not want to be the one to decide which "link" in the chain is the culprit. Still, I own 47 Freaks and it makes me think....hmmmmm. ***JediMike***

Robert Goudie wrote: > > Una clearly isn't the problem. I've narrowed the root problem down to > a toss-up between Freak Drive or Dennis Lien. I'm currently leaning > toward Dennis. > > -Robert Banning Dennis won't help. There are plenty of other people crazy enough to come up with more Turbo decks. Plus, if you banned Dennis, you'd have to ban Legbiter for his contributions to Turbo Baron, and we don't want to see Leggy banned. JediMike & Dennis, Thanks for finding the perfect vampire for my vamp gets Soul Gem, Freaks, plays Dual Form, Dual Form plays Force of Will, vamp with Soul Gem burns, get free full vampire, and then Possession original vamp back into play and rinse and repeat as needed. Oh, its fragile, but it will be a good time if no one can block. Later, ~Rehlow

Always a pleasure to get slaughtered for the masses! :) Anyone know how to get to some place called "The Gallows" ? ***JediMike***

CthuluKitty <vtana...@riseup.net> wrote: > Oh. Another thing about playing with no time limit, which should have > been included in the last message. It's very common in our games for > players to concede when one player clearly has the game in hand. > Obviously, this doesn't happen until only 2 or 3 are left at the > table, but it serves to shorten the game. In 2 hour time limit > games, people will often keep playing in positions they know they > can't win just to score the 1/2 VP and possibly prevent an opponent > from getting a GW. And the problems with that are...? Do you disagree with the philosophy that a player in a losing position is allowed to lose any way he wishes? > The one tourney I went to I saw a player in a > clearly lost position in the 1v1 phase of the game repeatedly > counting his cards without playing anything as the clock ran down, as > though somehow he would have a number other than 7 in his hand. I > mentioned this to other players and noone seemed bothered by it, > which is weird. And when you mentioned this obvious stalling to the judge, what happened? > In any case, the lack of an incentive to draw games > out to the time limit, can actually make games a lot shorter. I'd like to see some hard data supporting this position, but I'd wager that it's your playgroup's lack of playing with 2 hour time limits in non-tournament games that has biased you to believe that the longer the game is allowed to continue the shorter the final game length will actually be. > Cthulukitty Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

***JediMike*** wrote: > Robert Goudie wrote: > > ***JediMike*** wrote: > > > Still I find myself questioning if a vamp that pays one less for > > > For. is "good" for the game. I suspect that in the long run it > > > won't mattter much. > > > > Funny that you mention your Tzimisce deck as a counter to the Una deck > > and wonder whether Una's special is "good for the game". You are > > familiar with Meshenka's special, right? ;) > > > > Una clearly isn't the problem. I've narrowed the root problem down to > > a toss-up between Freak Drive or Dennis Lien. I'm currently leaning > > toward Dennis. > > > > -Robert > > My vote is for banning Dennis! :) Seriously, there is a huge difference > between throwing 5 or 6 Horrid Forms (of 18) in a combat vs. 53 Freak > Drives in one single turn. Exactly. But notice that in the description of the differences, you are discussing Horrid Form and Freak Drive and not the difference between Una and Meshenka ('cause there ain't none!). -Robert

[ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, well I'd say there are more glorious game wins (like, defeating the concerted effort of the whole table in an epic struggle for domination), and less glorious ones (like, having your prey say "what the fuck" and launch a suicide attack at your grandprey after one and a half hours of boring tug-of-war that has 10% chance of giving him 1 VP and 90% of giving you 2 VP). I think that depending on what contributed more to your GW it may seem more or less "deserved". Winning by strategizing, resource management, outthinking the other players is generally considered better than winning by a lucky draw, the ending of the game or bullshitting. At least, by me... ;) -- Bye, Daneel

Omael wrote: > Maybe a solution would be adding the option in the rated CONSTRUCTED > tournaments of a card limit, Oh just stop now. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "So in conclusion, our business plan is to sell hot, easily spilled liquids to naked people." -Brittni Meil

"Rehlow" <news...@rehlow.com> schreef in bericht news:1120000046.9...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... >> > JediMike & Dennis, > Thanks for finding the perfect vampire for my vamp gets Soul Gem, > Freaks, plays Dual Form, Dual Form plays Force of Will, vamp with Soul > Gem burns, get free full vampire, and then Possession original vamp > back into play and rinse and repeat as needed. Oh, its fragile, but it > will be a good time if no one can block. > How do you plan on fishing for Una? you can't put more than 1 in your crypt, esp. because of the cap decrease of Dual form. also: possesion only gives you a new Una with 1 blood. so no more Dual form.

"Jeroen Rombouts" <jeroen....@NOSPAMtelenet.be> schreef in bericht news:7zwwe.132968$JD6.7...@phobos.telenet-ops.be... > > "Rehlow" <news...@rehlow.com> schreef in bericht > news:1120000046.9...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... >>> >> JediMike & Dennis, >> Thanks for finding the perfect vampire for my vamp gets Soul Gem, >> Freaks, plays Dual Form, Dual Form plays Force of Will, vamp with Soul >> Gem burns, get free full vampire, and then Possession original vamp >> back into play and rinse and repeat as needed. Oh, its fragile, but it >> will be a good time if no one can block. >> > How do you plan on fishing for Una? you can't put more than 1 in your > crypt, esp. because of the cap decrease of Dual form. stupid me: completely forgot Recruitment. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Rehlow" <news...@rehlow.com> wrote in message news:<1120000046.9...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] very difficult, because DualForm lowers your capacity,...you will never be certain you get the good vampire,...or you need to find a way to get +2capacity in your turbocycle,.. W

If you have 2 VPs in hand and another player would clearly be able to score the remaining 3 (or has, say 1 already, and needs only oust you in the 1v1, which is the most applicable scenario for this kind of complaint) then you win with 2.5 VPs if the game times out. Make sense? Cthulukitty

In message <1120073928.8...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] If someone is stalling to take advantage of the time limit, then a judge can address this with either a Slow Play or a Stalling penalty, whichever they feel is most appropriate and/or supportable. Repeatedly saying "But people are stalling for the time limit" doesn't address a real issue - that can already be penalized. If your judge isn't doing so, it's no wonder that time limits cause problems. What other rules does he or she ignore? :-( > Make >sense? It would make a lot more sense if you'd quote relevant portions from the posts you are following up - like in this post. Then it would be quite obvious what you were responding to. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Out of curiousity, does anyone currently believe that anything related to this deck is broken under the current rules? To me, the idea of having +1 intercept, or bouncing a +1 stealth bleed of 10 to my prey, seems like a very common form of defense. Sure, this deck might win sometimes, but it doesn't seem broken to me. After the recent discussion, I wonder if anyone thinks it's still broken. Ira

LSJ wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > > I mean, like, yeah, tweaking either Freak or hunting certainly could be an > > option, but that would have a much bigger effect that isn't necessarily > > warranted than tweaking Una. > > Limiting repeat hunting would not have a much bigger effect than fixing Una. > Limited repeat Freaks have a bigger effect, sure. But that's why it would > only be done if it was warranted. > I never suggested making an unwarranted change to Freak. > If Freak is the problem, then changing it is warranted, by definition. Right. So in theory, if Freak is the problem you try fix the actual problem so that it doesn't show itself in another form at a later time. If Freak is the problem and repeat hunting or Una or some other piece of the chain were fixed simply because it'd be easier to swallow, a new destructive chain based on the broken Freak could show itself at a future date. I wonder how often you are fortunate enough that the actual broken piece that you are fixing also happens to be the easiest to swallow? Probably not often enough. :) -Robert

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 ira...@gmail.com wrote: | Out of curiousity, does anyone currently believe that anything related | to this deck is broken under the current rules? Not really, no. Freak Drive has been strong stuff for a long time, and back in the days when you could 5th Tradition yourself (to go along with Voter Captivation, which you can still do), decks like this were occasionally seen -- take about 12 actions per turn with two big minions, four of which were prey-hostile. Not to this extreme, admittedly, but then, the game has changed and all. | To me, the idea of having +1 intercept, or bouncing a +1 stealth bleed | of 10 to my prey, seems like a very common form of defense. +1 intercept is ineffective unless used on the key cards. Bounce could well be ineffective since your guys with DOM are going to get Rushed a few times before he actually takes the "I bleed" action. That said, +1 intercept is not uncommon to see, and if the deck doesn't get the Bow, the Rushes are much less useful. | Sure, this deck might win sometimes, but it doesn't seem broken to me. | After the recent discussion, I wonder if anyone thinks it's still | broken. Hopefully not that many, or I've wasted a bunch of time posting a detailed analysis. =) - -- Derek insert clever quotation here -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCwxQFtQZlu3o7QpERArncAKDczvJ8rTBKQ0O82BDV1dd4k5fohQCfWHAR vIkdRQzVBuHQg3EoKrHNAvc= =EYda -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

In message <1120078534.6...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >Right. So in theory, if Freak is the problem you try fix the actual >problem so that it doesn't show itself in another form at a later time. > If Freak is the problem and repeat hunting or Una or some other piece >of the chain were fixed simply because it'd be easier to swallow, a new >destructive chain based on the broken Freak could show itself at a >future date. That depends. If, across the card-set as a whole at the moment, you could adequately define that fixing Una would fix the problem[0], then fixing that would make the problem go away. Then you could attempt to ensure that the problem never, ever, ever occurred again, by never releasing a card that allowed it to happen. This has the downside that it might be very difficult to spot such an interaction in the future. However, by way of analogy, one way of fixing Return to Innocence, way back when, would have been to say "Let's limit the total of ANY bleed to a given number (or numbers, based on whatever)." But instead, we just got rid of Return to Innocence and promised ourselves that we'd never allow such an effect back in the game. [0] It's not clear that it would; as other people have pointed out, Ankara Citadel is a possibility, though that does rely on getting one out. However, you could (potentially) "stand still" until you got one, by hunt, freak, hunt, freak, hunt, freak.... Ankara Citadel. And just hope that they're not in the bottom 20 cards of the deck. And, of course, it might not be Una that you fix. As you say, it might be Freak, or repeat hunting, or whatever. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <1120078534.6...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, > Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: > >Right. So in theory, if Freak is the problem you try fix the actual > >problem so that it doesn't show itself in another form at a later time. > > If Freak is the problem and repeat hunting or Una or some other piece > >of the chain were fixed simply because it'd be easier to swallow, a new > >destructive chain based on the broken Freak could show itself at a > >future date. > > That depends. > > If, across the card-set as a whole at the moment, you could adequately > define that fixing Una would fix the problem[0], then fixing that would > make the problem go away. Well sure. If this deck's approach were considered a problem then any of the proposed solutions (non-repeatable hunts, no at-capacity hunts and so on) would fix the problem--for the moment. > Then you could attempt to ensure that the problem never, ever, ever > occurred again, by never releasing a card that allowed it to happen. > This has the downside that it might be very difficult to spot such an > interaction in the future. Yeah, that's a lot of overhead. All future cards would need to have this specific interaction checked against. > However, by way of analogy, one way of fixing Return to Innocence, way > back when, would have been to say "Let's limit the total of ANY bleed to > a given number (or numbers, based on whatever)." But instead, we just > got rid of Return to Innocence and promised ourselves that we'd never > allow such an effect back in the game. I guess I'm discounting these types of fixes since in my estimation Scott seems to like to fix the actual broken component over altering an unbroken component--even if altering the unbroken component happens to have a welcome side-effect. Or, to use Scott's "chain" analogy... Breaking *any* link in the chain does indeed break the chain. Seems that it would be a better idea to break the right link (if you can figure out what it is) and avoid new problem chains reforming. > And, of course, it might not be Una that you fix. As you say, it might > be Freak, or repeat hunting, or whatever. Certainly. -Robert

On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 21:06:16 +0100, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > If someone is stalling to take advantage of the time limit, then a judge > can address this with either a Slow Play or a Stalling penalty, > whichever they feel is most appropriate and/or supportable. > > Repeatedly saying "But people are stalling for the time limit" doesn't > address a real issue - that can already be penalized. If your judge > isn't doing so, it's no wonder that time limits cause problems. But isn't determining whether someone is stalling the discretion of the judge? It's not like taking 2:30 minutes with your turn is playing in a sportsmanlike manner, and taking 2:31 is stalling. So I guess if the judge does not see any stalling, there is none occuring. Which kind of makes this whole issue a bit too hazy for anything but a far-fetched theoretical debate. -- Bye, Daneel

Daneel wrote: > But isn't determining whether someone is stalling the discretion of the > judge? Yes. To have a good tournament, you need a good judge. > It's not like taking 2:30 minutes with your turn is playing in > a sportsmanlike manner, and taking 2:31 is stalling. How do you decide whether or not someone is stalling? Why don't you trust a judge to make the same decision? Or choose a judge you trust?

On 29 Jun 2005 13:28:05 -0700, ira...@gmail.com <ira...@gmail.com> wrote: > Out of curiousity, does anyone currently believe that anything related > to this deck is broken under the current rules? Well, not really, no. It's an all-eggs-in-the-same-basket deck that in particular seems like a much better instrument to lose games than to win them. At least in our local metagame, where its nemeses (Archon Investigation, Direct Intervention, aggressive Intercept/Combat) are abundant. And I never even mentioned PTO. So all in all, it's a clever and interesting deck that may sometimes win but isn't nearly broken. Of course, it does offer less of an interactive game experience, which is probably a bad thing. -- Bye, Daneel

[ quoted text not captured ] Given the whole thread, there are many times I've played in casual games, where a game has been sped up for sake of completion, that could have been legitametly expanded a half hour or more, if playing under time limits. Essentially, it was one player with a substantial pool, but losing 1 (net result) a turn. Couldn't stop it, couldn't kill his opponent. Enough interaction on the table that he could spend 2 minutes at least doing his turn. Under tourney, he would have been quite capable of going to time, even though he was unable to win. Morgan Vening

> Given the whole thread, there are many times I've played in casual > games, where a game has been sped up for sake of completion, that > could have been legitametly expanded a half hour or more, if playing > under time limits. Essentially, it was one player with a substantial > pool, but losing 1 (net result) a turn. Couldn't stop it, couldn't > kill his opponent. Enough interaction on the table that he could spend > 2 minutes at least doing his turn. Under tourney, he would have been > quite capable of going to time, even though he was unable to win. That's a large part of what I'm saying. You don't have to stall or play ridiculously slow to take (what I consider) unfair advantage of the time limit. All you have to do is insist on playing out an endgame you know you cannot win, but which your opponent does not have time to finish. There's nothing a judge can do about this under VEKN rules, and there really shouldn't be anyhow as it would get horribly messy. Cthulukitty

>>Do you disagree with the philosophy that a player in a losing position is allowed to lose any way he wishes? Strawman argument. The point is that drawing the game to time is not losing; it's often winning from a position where it is completely impossible otherwise. >>I'd like to see some hard data supporting this position, but I'd wager that it's your playgroup's lack of playing with 2 hour time limits in non-tournament games that has biased you to believe that the longer the game is allowed to continue the shorter the final game length will actually be. It's not a bias; it's a theoretical proposition, and you've misstated it. Obviously, with no time limit, games will frequently (or at least sometimes) go longer than 2 hours. What I'm saying is that if there's an incentive for players to draw the game out to a full 2 hours, they often will, whether by illegitimate or legitimate means. When there is no incentive like this, games will often be ended by resignation much earlier, so the time limit actually can make games longer. Compiling data to determine whether 2 hour TL games a typically shorter or longer than no TL games would be close to impossible, and wouldn't really address the problem anyhow. The problem as I see it is that the current VEKN rules give players a reason to draw things out further than necessary, while at the same time weighting the game in favor of quick win strategies, like the one that initiated this post, and against slower winning strategies that often make for much interesting and challenging games. Cthulukitty

CthuluKitty wrote: > The problem as I see it is that the > current VEKN rules give players a reason to draw things out further > than necessary, while at the same time weighting the game in favor of > quick win strategies, like the one that initiated this post, and > against slower winning strategies that often make for much interesting > and challenging games. The V:EKN rules give 2 hrs as the *minimum* round time. Tournament organizers may choose any time limit as long as it is at least 2 hours. If you feel a 2 hour time limit overly benefits quick win strategies, I suggest you lobby your local players and choose a different time limit for your events. -Robert

x5m...@gmx.de wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: >>-DI (DI the first Freak Drive) >> >>which is a lot of decks, she'll have to get lucky to go off on her first >>turn. > > > And from my experience in Germany i would say, it will be mostly the > last type that kill the Una deck (the DIs). Normaly every Deck packs 2 > DIs. Some have 3, some have only 1. That is 8 DIs against the Una deck. And some pack 5 :-)) -- johannes walch

In message <1120004990.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >Exactly. But notice that in the description of the differences, you are >discussing Horrid Form and Freak Drive and not the difference between >Una and Meshenka ('cause there ain't none!). In an ideal world, I don't think there would be. However, I think it's wrong to claim that there's no difference between reducing the cost of cards from discipline A by 1 and reducing the cost of cards from discipline B by 1. Probably the most extreme example of it being a little weak is found on Marconius, as that deals with Mytherceria, a Bloodlines discipline. I don't think you could reasonably say that Marconius's ability is, in practise, the same value as Meshenka's ability or Una's ability. However, leaving aside an inherently difficult discipline, you have the problems of variances between disciplines. For example, many of the most commonly played Potence cards are free. For quite a few Potence decks, a cost reduction wouldn't make that much difference - perhaps playing a few more Fists of Death instead of Torn Signpost or Increased Strength. At the extreme end again, though, I'm pretty sure that if a vampire came up with a cost reduction for Dominate, that would get costed as being better than a cost reduction for J. Random Discipline. Whilst it might, in theory, cost the same as any other discipline, I'd be surprised to see it turn up without a few extra corners cut - an extra half point, say, that could have turned him or her into a Prince or whatever. Thing is, Dominate has quite a few more strong and popular cards that do cost blood - Govern the Unaligned, Conditioning, Deflection, The Sleeping Mind, Mind Rape and Dominate Kine are the obvious ones I'd pick out that are generally useful to many decks. (That is to say, Chain of Command is also good, but typically requires a more specialised deck.) A number of the disciplines that are obviously "better" (particularly, Fortitude and Dominate) than other disciplines (FSVO "better") are unlikely to be repeated in the same way with other disciplines, and are partly an anomaly from Wizards of the Coasts design. Not taking the practicalities of cards available into account is going to lead to mis-readings of power, I feel. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1120106445....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, CthuluKitty <vtana...@riseup.net> writes: >That's a large part of what I'm saying. You don't have to stall or >play ridiculously slow to take (what I consider) unfair advantage of >the time limit. All you have to do is insist on playing out an endgame >you know you cannot win, but which your opponent does not have time to >finish. The reverse of this situation is easily found, however - players who would prefer the game to go on for a bit longer (because their deck has set itself up to be very strong in the long game, for whatever reason - a bit of luck in the draw, a few of the choices they were forced to make) but who becomes more aggressive because the time limit is 20 minutes away. With no time limit, they'd often take the less risky path.[0] I know I've seen that happen. I have, for instance, been in a friendly game where two players were discussing what they should do. (One of them was a new player who was looking over the shoulder of the experienced player, so they were discussing it together as a learning thing.) We both had 1 VP on a 4 player table. To win, I needed to oust him. So they started planning what they should, and how they thought I'd act, and what they'd block, and which vampires they thought they could torporize, or whatever. (That they were going to be trying to do this was obvious from the set- up of the table.) End result? I sat there. And waited. And waited. I had enough attrition on the table that I didn't need to go forward with my vampires (thus getting them torporized) and I could generally defend it. So, I got an oust and, had it been a tournament, a table win. Under a time limit, I'd have been forced to go forward if I wanted the TW; the game would have been both shorter and, most probably, much more lethal for me. [0] Permanents in play can start to do a lot here, if you can sit back and wait for attrition. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1120112764.4...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: >The V:EKN rules give 2 hrs as the *minimum* round time. Tournament >organizers may choose any time limit as long as it is at least 2 hours. > >If you feel a 2 hour time limit overly benefits quick win strategies, I >suggest you lobby your local players and choose a different time limit >for your events. And, it's quite possible to play 2 3 hour games instead of 3 2 hours, if that's what suits people. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <1120004990.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, > Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> writes: > >Exactly. But notice that in the description of the differences, you are > >discussing Horrid Form and Freak Drive and not the difference between > >Una and Meshenka ('cause there ain't none!). > > In an ideal world, I don't think there would be. > > However, I think it's wrong to claim that there's no difference between > reducing the cost of cards from discipline A by 1 and reducing the cost > of cards from discipline B by 1. I hear ya. [clip] > At the extreme end again, though, I'm pretty sure that if a vampire came > up with a cost reduction for Dominate, that would get costed as being > better than a cost reduction for J. Random Discipline. Whilst it might, > in theory, cost the same as any other discipline, I'd be surprised to > see it turn up without a few extra corners cut - an extra half point, > say, that could have turned him or her into a Prince or whatever. > > Thing is, Dominate has quite a few more strong and popular cards that do > cost blood - Govern the Unaligned, Conditioning, Deflection, The > Sleeping Mind, Mind Rape and Dominate Kine are the obvious ones I'd pick > out that are generally useful to many decks. (That is to say, Chain of > Command is also good, but typically requires a more specialised deck.) Yeah, a "Dominate costs 1 less certainly gives me chills." :) Again, though, that's because there are a bunch of cards that are just plain too powerful (as opposed to just 1 for Fortitude). If Dominate could be brought into line by altering its one bad chain link, then cool. It just seems too far gone to bother. > A number of the disciplines that are obviously "better" (particularly, > Fortitude and Dominate) than other disciplines (FSVO "better") are > unlikely to be repeated in the same way with other disciplines, and are > partly an anomaly from Wizards of the Coasts design. > > Not taking the practicalities of cards available into account is going > to lead to mis-readings of power, I feel. Yeah, the practicalities should be looked at during design and we shouldn't just assume balance when we make the same specials on all vamps. I agree. So maybe someone could say that Una shouldn't have been made. Maybe I'd even be able to agree with that statement in this hypothetical conversation. But I'd still also respond that the reason that Una shouldn't have been made is because of one unruly card--placing the blame where it belongs. :) -Robert

Rehlow wrote: > Robert Goudie wrote: > > > > Una clearly isn't the problem. I've narrowed the root problem down to > > a toss-up between Freak Drive or Dennis Lien. I'm currently leaning > > toward Dennis. > > > > -Robert > > Banning Dennis won't help. There are plenty of other people crazy > enough to come up with more Turbo decks. Plus, if you banned Dennis, > you'd have to ban Legbiter for his contributions to Turbo Baron, and we > don't want to see Leggy banned. ;-) Oddly enough, and quite independently of Dennis, i have been building an Una turbo deck, which i deployed for the first time last night [unsuccessfuly in the first game, COMPLETELY successfully after Tatuisation* in the second game]. However, if you are going to change your mind and ban me now then i think you should also ban certain other Big Boys Who Made Me Do It, and then Ran Away, for this is not my idea. Instead it trickled down to me through Rob Treasure, who in turn got the idea from someone Scandinavian, possibly Eirik Torstensson. *Tatuisation means trimming your deck down to the minimum number of library cards where it still works. It is particularly important for trick/turbo type decks to be Tatuised, IME, but almost all decks need to be challenged as to whether or not they could benefit from Tatuisation, IMO. Ben has a different point of view, which i respect without agreeing with.

Legbiter, Can we see a decklist? I`m quite excited with this deck. I just need more freak drives...say...like 25 more ;) legb...@mailandnews.com ha escrito: [ quoted text not captured ]

> ;-) Oddly enough, and quite independently of Dennis, i have been > building an Una turbo deck, which i deployed for the first time last > night [unsuccessfuly in the first game, COMPLETELY successfully after > Tatuisation* in the second game]. However, if you are going to change > your mind and ban me now then i think you should also ban certain other > Big Boys Who Made Me Do It, and then Ran Away, for this is not my idea. > Instead it trickled down to me through Rob Treasure, who in turn got > the idea from someone Scandinavian, possibly Eirik Torstensson. > > *Tatuisation means trimming your deck down to the minimum number of > library cards where it still works. It is particularly important for > trick/turbo type decks to be Tatuised, IME, but almost all decks need > to be challenged as to whether or not they could benefit from > Tatuisation, IMO. Ben has a different point of view, which i respect > without agreeing with. So he gets his proper due, the scandinavian in question was in fact a Finn, by the name of Mikko Raimi who had been playing a deck much like the one mentioned (ie 50 odd freaks and some cool action based toys)on irc with deckbot a few months ago. And it performed pretty well, much as people have suggested here, but it was by no means infallible... especially when you have seen it in action once or twice as surmised in this thread :O)

"Legbiter, Can we see a decklist? I`m quite excited with this deck. I just need more freak drives...say...like 25 more ;)" Yes, you may. August !Gangrel NL [to be published around mid-July, for such is our way] will have it. i think you need about 27 Freak Drives to make it work, so you may have enough already.

first off, this deck is hilarious. i'd hate to lose to it a few times, but the first loss as it's prey i would gladly stand up and applaud its delicious madness. second, that's where all the freak drives went! son of a bitch! *shakes fist at the heavens* share the wealth, you bad, bad man! bloody hell, it's crap like this that makes me mad about CCGs at times. ;) third, and this one surprises me that no one said it yet (unless it was said somewhere in the bajillion+ posts i read and missed it), but a simple obedience also works wonders on this deck. or a bloodstorm of chorazin and cybele or huitzi'chipotle'. no freak for you, una, just sit there and wait as the whole table now waits to gang rape you. and fourth i concur with, was it derek ray?, who said a little reliable intercept and diablerie and this deck is out. either that or amaranth after torpor from combat. considering most decks field an expendable vampire at some point a little aus, or even agg'boo'/rotschreck/amaranth, will vape this madness. but give this guy a double plus good gold star -- oh and don't trade anymore freak drives to him.

>>... even agg'boo'/rotschreck/amaranth, will vape this madness. That's not a legal combo. Rotschreck ends the combat and Amaranth is a combat card. You cannot play Amaranth after Rotschreck, which is good because it would be a severely broken combo if you could do it, as a friend of mind once did before we read the relevant clarifications. His deck was built around titled Tzimisce intercepting and diablerizing vamps with enough votes to avoid the blood hunt. It wasn't nice to play against in the least. Cthulukitty

my bad. i swear, there's more confusion and questions about rotschreck than any other card. even regular players make their share of mistakes on it. but it's good to know that combo doesn't work. [ quoted text not captured ]

CthuluKitty <vtana...@riseup.net> wrote: > If you have 2 VPs in hand and another player would clearly be able to > score the remaining 3 (or has, say 1 already, and needs only oust you > in the 1v1, which is the most applicable scenario for this kind of > complaint) then you win with 2.5 VPs if the game times out. Make > sense? If the 2VP player walled up and simply stopped every action that his "vs." opponent took, in an effort to either a)get the extra 0.5VP to get the game win, or b)eventually wreck his opponent to eventually get the 4VP and the game win, would you say he is violating the rules? Isn't he playing-to-win in both cases? > Cthulukitty Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

> If the 2VP player walled up and simply stopped every action that his "vs." > opponent took, in an effort to either a)get the extra 0.5VP to get the > game win, or b)eventually wreck his opponent to eventually get the 4VP and > the game win, would you say he is violating the rules? Isn't he > playing-to-win in both cases? Sure it's playing to win, but that has nothing to do with the problem I'm talking about. If there's actually a fighting chance for the player to win by attrition, then it makes sense to keep the game going, and it would be really nice if it could finish IMO. If there is no chance, and "playing to win" means "playing to time out" then that sucks and strikes me as an abuse of the time limit, even if it's not illegal under VEKN rules. As noted before, it can also result in an extension of the game length and thus in some cases defeat the purpose of the time limit. Guys, I can understand defending time limits if you really feel they're necessary for tournament play. Attempts to make it seem like there aren't problems with them are silly however. If you support the 2H TL then defend its merits. Don't try to downplay its faults, as there are certainly plenty of them. Cthulukitty

CthuluKitty wrote: > Guys, I can understand defending time limits if you really feel they're > necessary for tournament play. They are wildly necessary. Granted, I rarely am in games that time out in competition (well, not counting draft games :-), but I know that many games go to time, and without the time limit, many of those games would never end. As I was discussing this with a pal of mine on the way home from Origins, I realized that I am what we decided to term a "load bearing" player--I don't like wheeling and dealing; I do like to win on my own merits or die trying. What this means is that in games that I (or someone like me) is in, I'll either do well or get ousted, either of which makes the game as a whole move faster--if one player is willing to continually take the forward action, or willing to get ousted if that isn't working (this isn't to say I'm unwilling to wall up if necessary, but when I wall up, I tend to move quickly anyway and not spend inordinate amounts of time trying to get people to do things for me), the game overall goes faster--if I oust someone, the game moves faster. If someone ousts me, the game moves faster. Where games bog down is when no one is willing to be this player, and everyone is super conservative and wheely-dealy. > Attempts to make it seem like there > aren't problems with them are silly however. There are certainly problems with it--it the draft I was in at Origins, I lost a table by virtue of 5 minutes. If I had 5 more miuntes of game time, I certainly would have got a 3VP table win. But I didn't. So I didn't. Just 'cause in my instance it was only 5 minutes that I needed doesn't mean the time limit is a bad idea. >If you support the 2H TL then defend its merits. The merits of the time limit are that games that wouldn't otherwise end, end. In a given, say, 5 table tournament, in 2 hours, usually, like, 3 or 4 tables are done in under the time limit. 1 or 2 usually go to time. If there was no time limit, the ones that go to time, generally, would never end. Sure, sometimes, someone is, like, 5 or 10 minutes from victory. But usually not. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "So in conclusion, our business plan is to sell hot, easily spilled liquids to naked people." -Brittni Meil

<jeff...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:1119774507....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > ***JediMike*** wrote: >> Action Modifier (56 cards) >> ****56 Freak Drive***** > > Just because it's appropriate (even though I don't believe it)... > > WE NEED CARD LIMITS!!!! ;) There ARE card limits: 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches. The cards go no further than that. And so it should be.

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BEE4CD9E.2047A%pd...@lightlink.com... > While this is a completely different discussion, this idea is generally > support that something *is* broken--if a deck is so effective that it > requires the players to reguarly circumvent or ignore the established > predator/prey relationship, then something is clearly wrong. Well, perhaps, though maybe not for the reason most people would assume was why you said that. You don't give the reasoning behind your comment so I wouldn't assume but most people would say something like that because they're thinking that any deck which inspires such a response must be overpowered. I'm not sure that's valid though. Or at least, it's not as bad a situation, power-wise, as people fear just because inspiring table opposition in a multiplayer game is obviously a self-balancing drawback to *appearing* powerful. The emphasis on the word "appearing" is very important because I think decks that can do strong things but appear even stronger in the early going - before they've gotten any ousts - than they really are actually turn out to be a pretty weak thing in my experience. Table opposition can grate you down very quickly, deceptively so, like cheese on a shredder. (UMMMMMM!!! CHe-e-e-e-e-e-ssssssse!) So the decks I worry about as being truly overpowered are the ones that sneak up on the table and spring their power suddenly, followed quickly by ousts. The real reason I'm not very hot on decks that are very strong and appear very strong and scary right away and thus inspire table opposition isn't that they're unbalanced. More that they tend to be very disruptive. You manage to PTO or find some other way to bonk Una but when the dust finally clears, one random guy winds up set up with two rapid ousts in front of him for not very much work while maybe someone else had to sacrifice most of their resources to help out and do a bunch of dirty work because that person happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bleh. Not much of a game of skill when stuff like that happens. I suppose you can enjoy the race to stop Una as a 4-on-1 gangup but I sort of prefer games that yield results which are roughly reflective of who played how well. There's a lot about this that reminds me of Anarch Revolt decks. Fred

"David Zopf" <david...@snetx.net> wrote in message news:sghwe.719$4m3...@newssvr19.news.prodigy.com... > > "CthuluKitty" <vtana...@riseup.net> wrote in message news:1119985051....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com... >>>> How long are these games of which you speak? >> >> Typically no more than 2 and a half hours. I actually find that no >> time limit can make the game go *faster* at times too, because no one >> has any incentive to slow things down for their 1/2 VP or undeserved >> game win. >> > "undeserved game win" ...interesting concept. How does one get an undeserved game win (other than by collusion or other methods > of cheating), with or without a time limit? Lots of ways. For instance, my predator and prey both play Mono-Una decks and can do nothing but contest Una their whole, short games. With the free VP, six pool, and early lack of a predator, the overwhelming advantage propels me to victory. This is "deserved"? How - other than by defining the concept of "deserving" a victory by who gains it? (That is, by semantics leading to circular reasoning.) Fred

"A.J.Behrends" <tree.beard.D...@gmx.de> wrote in message news:1119954720....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > > > LSJ schrieb: >> Peter D Bakija wrote: >> > If there is a problem that this deck is indicative of (which I am yet to be >> > convinced of, personally, but that is me), it is a problem with Una that >> > could easily be tweaked by fixing her without doing collateral damage (say, >> > change her ability to "Una pays 1 less blood for Fortitude combat cards or >> > actions" or something.) >> >> If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's >> in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. > > Nit-pick: > Used to be nigh impossible to accumulate this amount of Freak Drives > before its rarity changed from R to U ... No it wasn't.

"LSJ" <vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com> wrote in message news:i6jwe.568$aY6...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net... > Peter D Bakija wrote: >> LSJ wrote: >> >> >>>If there's a problem here, I doubt if it's Una. It's either Freak's >>>in-turn repeatability or hunt's in-turn repeatability. >> >> Like, Freak Drive has been around forever, and while it was >> certainly a problem pre-NRA, post NRA it hasn't been a problem at all, and >> is only a problem now due to Una. And the hunting in-turn repeatability has >> only ever been a problem in the context of Una being able to cycle an >> infinite number of Freak Drives to find something useful--anyone could >> already do this, but without the free play ability of Una, packing a deck >> with 53 Freaks has never been really worth the effort. > > Which doesn't really address the issue of which link in the chain is > the offending one (assuming there's any offense at all). I'm not sure there's an offending link. Sometimes there just isn't. In a game, multiple elements can all be fun-n-balanced(tm) but just turn mean and become undesirable when combined. The "Black Summer" of Necropotence decks in Magic drove that point home for me: there was just no single thing in that deck that wasn't a reasonable idea on its own and in combination with most other cards but when combined with each other, it all yielded a very bad effect. It's a nasty problem, when it happens. All effective solutions are at least somewhat distasteful. (Not saying I'm sure this is such a situation.) Fred

On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 22:54:56 -0700, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> Nit-pick: >> Used to be nigh impossible to accumulate this amount of Freak Drives >> before its rarity changed from R to U ... > > No it wasn't. Depends. If you maintain a huge collection, then no, you can easily open enough rares to have enough. Also, you might be playing with folks who open a lot but don't play Fortitude (for whatever reason). But where I play, Freak Drives were the single most sought-after commodities back in the day. Trading for them was nigh impossible (I only had a single copy, and I gave like, three very good rares for it). So I guess for most people I know getting Freak Drives really WAS that hard. -- Bye, Daneel

In message <BEF05DFD.2070C%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >They are wildly necessary. Granted, I rarely am in games that time out in >competition (well, not counting draft games :-), but I know that many games >go to time, and without the time limit, many of those games would never end. >As I was discussing this with a pal of mine on the way home from Origins, I >realized that I am what we decided to term a "load bearing" player--I don't >like wheeling and dealing; Whilst there is probably a correlation between "wheeling and dealing" and length of game, it doesn't have to take large amounts of time, especially if you have experienced players to hand. (All aspects of the game take a bit longer when you have newbies, of course.) For instance, I've seen, during one negotiation over a Dramatic Upheaval, James McClellan turn to Rob Treasure (as prey and predator of the calling vampire) and say "If you do that, you'll put us next to each other and we'll have to table-split." (From my position as another player on that table, that was a fair assessment - a judge who could see more may have differed, but I don't think any of the players on the table would have objected at that point on purely "Is it legal?" grounds.[0]) Rob turned back to James and agreed. End result: All the wheeling and dealing you could need done in about 20 seconds. This altered the proposed Dramatic Upheaval; had it not done so (and it had got through), a further short period of negotiation to determine who got what would most likely have ensued.[1] It is certainly something that can get speedier with practise. [0] The table was: war ghouls, Lasombra weenie power structure/bleed, Tariq multi-rush with a Rowan Ring, Euro-Brujah and !Malkavian stealth (but not much bleed). [1] On that table, I'd probably have leaned towards Rob getting the win, though it was up for grabs. James could take out the Tzimisce being used to get War Ghouls very easily, but the War Ghouls could have a good go at getting Tariq (whose major offence was the Rowan Ring, which doesn't work against them, of course). [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 06 Jul 2005 09:36:28 +0200, Daneel <dan...@eposta.hu> scrawled: [ quoted text not captured ] for what it's worth, around these parts it's still kind of like that. except now, it's more like "well, i get some in this ventrue starter, and with these few others, i can really make a <random freak drive deck> go! no way i'm trading them away!" whereas before it was more "well, i only have 2, so, umm...i'll need one for my collection, but man, i don't really want to part with this other one, it's useful to sneak a 2nd action through in my Law Firm deck.." salem http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/VtES/index.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

On 5 Jul 2005 11:48:26 -0700, "CthuluKitty" <vtana...@riseup.net> scrawled: >aren't problems with them are silly however. If you support the 2H TL >then defend its merits. Don't try to downplay its faults, as there are >certainly plenty of them. i think defending 2H time limits, and defending the concept of time limits in general, are not quite the same thing. I think you may find most people have been defending the latter. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opsthd22...@news.chello.hu... > On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 22:54:56 -0700, Frederick Scott > <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > >>> Nit-pick: >>> Used to be nigh impossible to accumulate this amount of Freak Drives >>> before its rarity changed from R to U ... >> >> No it wasn't. > > Depends. If you maintain a huge collection, then no, you can easily open > enough rares to have enough. Also, you might be playing with folks who > open a lot but don't play Fortitude (for whatever reason). But where I > play, Freak Drives were the single most sought-after commodities back > in the day. Trading for them was nigh impossible (I only had a single > copy, and I gave like, three very good rares for it). Anybody on the planet could buy them from singles sellers. They may not have been able to acquire 50 some in a single deal but that many could be had before too long with some diligence. Fred

On Wed, 6 Jul 2005 08:48:09 -0700, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > "Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message > news:opsthd22...@news.chello.hu... >> On Tue, 5 Jul 2005 22:54:56 -0700, Frederick Scott >> <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> >>>> Nit-pick: >>>> Used to be nigh impossible to accumulate this amount of Freak Drives >>>> before its rarity changed from R to U ... >>> >>> No it wasn't. >> >> Depends. If you maintain a huge collection, then no, you can easily open >> enough rares to have enough. Also, you might be playing with folks who >> open a lot but don't play Fortitude (for whatever reason). But where I >> play, Freak Drives were the single most sought-after commodities back >> in the day. Trading for them was nigh impossible (I only had a single >> copy, and I gave like, three very good rares for it). > > Anybody on the planet could buy them from singles sellers. They may not > have been able to acquire 50 some in a single deal but that many could be > had before too long with some diligence. I'm not sure where you are getting here. This looks like the strawman argument. I mean, sure, theoretically speaking, you could've collected the 50+ copies of Freak Drive. Cool. But in reality, on the average, given the rarity of Freak Drive and the available supply and demand, the vast majority of players were not, practically speaking, in a position to ever reasonably amass more than a very few copies of Freak Drive. -- Bye, Daneel

Daneel wrote: [clip] > > I'm not sure where you are getting here. This looks like the strawman > argument. I mean, sure, theoretically speaking, you could've collected > the 50+ copies of Freak Drive. Cool. But in reality, on the average, > given the rarity of Freak Drive and the available supply and demand, > the vast majority of players were not, practically speaking, in a > position to ever reasonably amass more than a very few copies of Freak > Drive. I won't speak for Fred but whenever I see scarcity brought up as something that makes a bad thing more tolerable, I can't help but cringe. If something is overpowered it does not become acceptable just because the guy who pulls it off had to spend $500 on singles to do it. I realize that you are speaking about "on average" and "vast majority" but I think it is more helpful to discuss "can someone with unlimited resources do this?" When we think about a player with unlimited resources, we head-off problems that appear just because a rarity level was changed from R to U or C. -Robert

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opsth2r3...@news.chello.hu... >>>>> Nit-pick: >>>>> Used to be nigh impossible to accumulate this amount of Freak Drives >>>>> before its rarity changed from R to U ... >>>> >>>> No it wasn't. >>> >>> Depends. If you maintain a huge collection, then no, you can easily open >>> enough rares to have enough. Also, you might be playing with folks who >>> open a lot but don't play Fortitude (for whatever reason). But where I >>> play, Freak Drives were the single most sought-after commodities back >>> in the day. Trading for them was nigh impossible (I only had a single >>> copy, and I gave like, three very good rares for it). >> >> Anybody on the planet could buy them from singles sellers. They may not >> have been able to acquire 50 some in a single deal but that many could be >> had before too long with some diligence. > > I'm not sure where you are getting here. This looks like the strawman > argument. I mean, sure, theoretically speaking, you could've collected > the 50+ copies of Freak Drive. Cool. But in reality, on the average, > given the rarity of Freak Drive and the available supply and demand, > the vast majority of players were not, practically speaking, in a > position to ever reasonably amass more than a very few copies of Freak > Drive. I'm actually not sure what you're getting at. In reality, 50 Freak Drives could be acquired over time without that much problem. I was speaking quite literally, not theorectically. Of course, if large number of players had tried to do it, it would have been a lot harder. (But then, I suspect the price would have gone up scaring up additional sources of Freak Drives in response.) But at the price they could be had at the time, it was certainly possible for any dedicated person to do such a thing with some cash and some patience but without a lot of trouble. As with most other "scarce resources", the market does what it does. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > Anybody on the planet could buy them from singles sellers. They may not > have been able to acquire 50 some in a single deal but that many could be > had before too long with some diligence. Well, that, and for a while, at least in the US (in 1995 or 96?), you could get *boxes* of boosters for $5.00 (or $3.00 if you bought 10+). You buy a few cases that way, and you were likely to average about a Freak Drive per box. [ quoted text not captured ]

Daneel wrote: > But in reality, on the average, > given the rarity of Freak Drive and the available supply and demand, > the vast majority of players were not, practically speaking, in a > position to ever reasonably amass more than a very few copies of Freak > Drive. Nah. Plenty of people were. Remember that the game was dead for a few years. While thegame was dead, you could scoop up boxes of boosters for practically nothing. I don't think a lot of people had 50 Freak Drives. But it wasn't at all difficult to pull off if you were inspired to do so. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <BEF1C58F.20767%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >Well, that, and for a while, at least in the US (in 1995 or 96?), you could >get *boxes* of boosters for $5.00 (or $3.00 if you bought 10+). Outside of the US, this was much harder due to shipping and minimum orders. As I recall, one of the companies doing the cheap 3-10 dollar boxes would ship internationally but required a minimum order of something very high. $100 or something. But then on top of that, the shipping got quite a lot, of course. I know a few people who got other people in the states to buy a few and then brought them back when visiting the states, or similar, but I don't know many people who did much of that. [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie wrote: > I won't speak for Fred but whenever I see scarcity brought up as > something that makes a bad thing more tolerable, I can't help but > cringe. If something is overpowered it does not become acceptable just > because the guy who pulls it off had to spend $500 on singles to do it. I agree. That just drifts the game into "Mr Suitcase wins again!", territory. Sometimes it's nice to play with proxies too. It would be nice[0] if the game didn't become broken in these circumstances. [0] Of course, white-wolf cares less about such players - but even when I regularly played with proxies, we bought many cards too. Often with purchases driven by proxy use. -- * lehrbuch (lehr...@gmail.com)

"lehrbuch" <lehr...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dai6j9$goq$1...@domitilla.aioe.org... > Robert Goudie wrote: >> I won't speak for Fred but whenever I see scarcity brought up as >> something that makes a bad thing more tolerable, I can't help but >> cringe. If something is overpowered it does not become acceptable just >> because the guy who pulls it off had to spend $500 on singles to do it. > > I agree. > > That just drifts the game into "Mr Suitcase wins again!", territory. > > Sometimes it's nice to play with proxies too. It would be nice if > the game didn't become broken in these circumstances. There's also the on-line game. I expect that to be "use as many of every card in existence as you want" to build decks except when deliberately simulating limited play. If the thing doesn't simulate constructed play which assumes unlimited collection size, I won't touch it. And assuming it does, we'll be wanting the game to be balanced. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: [lehrbuch] >> Sometimes it's nice to play with proxies too. It would be nice if >> the game didn't become broken in these circumstances. > > There's also the on-line game. Good point. I keep forgetting about these confounded new intergeek things. What will they think of next? -- * lehrbuch (lehr...@gmail.com)

On Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:31:21 -0400, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Daneel wrote: > >> But in reality, on the average, >> given the rarity of Freak Drive and the available supply and demand, >> the vast majority of players were not, practically speaking, in a >> position to ever reasonably amass more than a very few copies of Freak >> Drive. > > Nah. Plenty of people were. Remember that the game was dead for a few > years. > While thegame was dead, you could scoop up boxes of boosters for > practically > nothing. I don't think a lot of people had 50 Freak Drives. But it > wasn't at > all difficult to pull off if you were inspired to do so. Dunno about that. Where I live, "virtually nothing" was about the current equivalent of $100 per booster display. I guess here VTES never really died... -- Bye, Daneel

On 6 Jul 2005 10:20:41 -0700, Robert Goudie <rob...@vtesinla.org> wrote: > > Daneel wrote: > [clip] >> >> I'm not sure where you are getting here. This looks like the strawman >> argument. I mean, sure, theoretically speaking, you could've collected >> the 50+ copies of Freak Drive. Cool. But in reality, on the average, >> given the rarity of Freak Drive and the available supply and demand, >> the vast majority of players were not, practically speaking, in a >> position to ever reasonably amass more than a very few copies of Freak >> Drive. > > I won't speak for Fred but whenever I see scarcity brought up as > something that makes a bad thing more tolerable, I can't help but > cringe. If something is overpowered it does not become acceptable just > because the guy who pulls it off had to spend $500 on singles to do it. I agree. I did not really deny that, though. I just chimed in to give my experience on getting a hold of Freak Drives. I actually quite agree that rarity should be disregarded when assessing the power level of a card (or its effect on gameplay). The effect should be balanced with the cost, not the rarity. > I realize that you are speaking about "on average" and "vast majority" > but I think it is more helpful to discuss "can someone with unlimited > resources do this?" When we think about a player with unlimited > resources, we head-off problems that appear just because a rarity level > was changed from R to U or C. -- Bye, Daneel

Daneel wrote: > Dunno about that. Where I live, "virtually nothing" was about the > current equivalent of $100 per booster display. I guess here VTES > never really died... Well, by "died" I mean "Was no longer being produced or officially supported". Which was the case for 3 or 4 years in the mid nineteys. And during that time, in the US, you could get boxes of Jyhad boosters for $3.00 a *box* (i.e. for the cost of a cappucino...). Josh Duffin, James Hamblin, and I one day opened up a box of 13 pounds (~6 Kg?) of Jyhad cards (probably, like, 10 booster boxes). For, like, nothing, monetarily speaking. So yeah, it seems unlikely that you could ever get cards that cheap in, where, Hungary? But in the mid ninteys in the US, if you really wanted 50 Freak Drives, you could get them, effectively, for $3.00 each (i.e. buy 50 boxes of cards, probably get 50 Freak Drives). I don't remember what the whole point of this was, but I think it was someone harkening back to the "good old days" when you couldn't get 50 Freak Drives. But see, you could. And it didn't even cost that much money. At least in the US. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 09:06:54 -0400, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Daneel wrote: > >> Dunno about that. Where I live, "virtually nothing" was about the >> current equivalent of $100 per booster display. I guess here VTES >> never really died... > > Well, by "died" I mean "Was no longer being produced or officially > supported". Which was the case for 3 or 4 years in the mid nineteys. And > during that time, in the US, you could get boxes of Jyhad boosters for > $3.00 > a *box* (i.e. for the cost of a cappucino...). Josh Duffin, James > Hamblin, > and I one day opened up a box of 13 pounds (~6 Kg?) of Jyhad cards > (probably, like, 10 booster boxes). For, like, nothing, monetarily > speaking. > > So yeah, it seems unlikely that you could ever get cards that cheap in, > where, Hungary? But in the mid ninteys in the US, if you really wanted 50 > Freak Drives, you could get them, effectively, for $3.00 each (i.e. buy > 50 > boxes of cards, probably get 50 Freak Drives). > > I don't remember what the whole point of this was, but I think it was > someone harkening back to the "good old days" when you couldn't get 50 > Freak > Drives. But see, you could. And it didn't even cost that much money. At > least in the US. I missed the "good old days" part. I'm glad, for example, that Freak Drive is more common now. As for the rest, you are basically right. -- Bye, Daneel

lehrbuch wrote: > Sometimes it's nice to play with proxies too. It would be nice[0] if > the game didn't become broken in these circumstances. It's interesting to hear someone else say this. It might seem like I say this or that is too powerful/broken more than average, but I think some of my insights come from being in a playgroup that will proxy at the drop of a hat. -- David Cherryholmes

> lehrbuch wrote: > >> Sometimes it's nice to play with proxies too. It would be nice[0] if >> the game didn't become broken in these circumstances. Huh. I missed this the first time. How does the game become broken with proxies? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 6 Jul 2005 23:23:19 +0100, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> scrawled: >In message <BEF1C58F.20767%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija ><pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >>Well, that, and for a while, at least in the US (in 1995 or 96?), you could >>get *boxes* of boosters for $5.00 (or $3.00 if you bought 10+). > >Outside of the US, this was much harder due to shipping and minimum >orders. In Australia they got down to about AUS$20 a box at one point. That was pretty sweet. Dark Sovereigns also got down around AUS$30-$40 too. Damn Ancient Hearts never got below about $80, though, IIRC. Not quite the same sort of stupidly cheap scale as the US, but not too shabby either. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BEF32441.207EB%pd...@lightlink.com... >> lehrbuch wrote: >> >>> Sometimes it's nice to play with proxies too. It would be nice[0] if >>> the game didn't become broken in these circumstances. > > Huh. I missed this the first time. > > How does the game become broken with proxies? He means that a game which is only balanced because the overpowered cards are too rare to see much play will become broken when proxies are allowed. That is, if the only reason a 56-Freak-Drive deck is balanced is that it's effectively impossible to acquire 56 Freak Drives, then this barrier is removed by the use of proxies and the game would break in a proxies-allowed environment. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > He means that a game which is only balanced because the overpowered cards > are too rare to see much play will become broken when proxies are allowed. > That is, if the only reason a 56-Freak-Drive deck is balanced is > that it's effectively impossible to acquire 56 Freak Drives, then this > barrier is removed by the use of proxies and the game would break in a > proxies-allowed environment. Is he serious? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:BEF3298F.207F4%pd...@lightlink.com... > Frederick Scott wrote: > >> He means that a game which is only balanced because the overpowered cards >> are too rare to see much play will become broken when proxies are allowed. >> That is, if the only reason a 56-Freak-Drive deck is balanced is >> that it's effectively impossible to acquire 56 Freak Drives, then this >> barrier is removed by the use of proxies and the game would break in a >> proxies-allowed environment. > > Is he serious? ?? I don't understand the question. I think he's being serious in saying the game, even when played with proxies, should ideally not be broken and I'd like to think most would agree. Beyond that, perhaps you're taking something from his post which he wasn't implying? Fred

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Is he serious? For the record, I do not think, and did not mean to imply, that the game breaks in a proxied environment. I think if any random card can become "dreams" or "di" on a whim, then some people who don't see things like I do might appreciate my perspective a little more. Or maybe not, but that was my point. And while we're talking about it, a heavy DI environment will cramp (no, not "shutdown", just cramp significantly) this deck's performance. -- David Cherryholmes

Frederick Scott wrote: > "Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote... > > Is he serious? > > ?? I don't understand the question. Me neither. > I think he's being serious in saying the game, even when played with > proxies, should ideally not be broken and I'd like to think most > would agree. Yep. Possibly to clarify, I do *not* think that vampire is currently broken when played with proxies. Playing with proxies is just an extreme case of playing NCL - you are not limited by what you own. Given that vampire is designed for NCL, I think a natural consequence is that it still works with proxies. -- * lehrbuch (lehr...@gmail.com)

Frederick Scott wrote: > ?? I don't understand the question. I was responding to someone saying "this game breaks down when you play with proxies" (unless I misunderstood something), as that seemed to be what was being said (i.e. I read a post where someone said "VTES, when played with proxies, falls apart and becomes unbalanced".) I was asking if the person saying "VTES falls apart when you play with proxies" was serious. Or maybe I just misunderstood something. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > I was responding to someone saying "this game breaks down when you play with > proxies" (unless I misunderstood something), as that seemed to be what was > being said (i.e. I read a post where someone said "VTES, when played with > proxies, falls apart and becomes unbalanced".) > > I was asking if the person saying "VTES falls apart when you play with > proxies" was serious. > > Or maybe I just misunderstood something. He was talking hypothetically -- about some game Foobar (in his case, Foobar was one of the possible futures that lay in store for VTES if scarcity were used as something to excuse overpowered cards). Foobar being any game which is only balanced because the overpowered cards are too rare to see much play. Such a game, he claims, would become broken when proxies are allowed (since it has overpowered cards which are only kept in check by rarity, removing the rarity limitation removes the only check on such cards.) (Check the thread on Google again with that idea in mind and see if it reads differently to you now) -- LSJ (vtesr...@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply) Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

LSJ wrote: > He was talking hypothetically -- about some game Foobar (in his case, Foobar > was > one of the possible futures that lay in store for VTES if scarcity were used > as > something to excuse overpowered cards). Foobar being any game which is only > balanced because the overpowered cards are too rare to see much play. Such > a game, he claims, would become broken when proxies are allowed (since > it has overpowered cards which are only kept in check by rarity, removing > the rarity limitation removes the only check on such cards.) Ah. That makes much more sense now. I totally lost the context of things. (Let this be a lesson to you all--having a context for your discussion is always helpful :-) Thanks! [ quoted text not captured ]

"David Cherryholmes" <david.che...@gmail.com> wrote > > It's interesting to hear someone else say this. It might seem like I > say this or that is too powerful/broken more than average, but I think > some of my insights come from being in a playgroup that will proxy at > the drop of a hat. JOL has always been, essenatially, a proxy environment. I've seen a lot of crap decks played there because their builders feel free to use 90 DIs or whatever. In my experience, this freedom often seems to hinder more than help. Players that build solid decks, regardless of the rarities of individual cards, tend to do better, I think. Most of my JOL decks are versions of decks I've made with cards that I own. I have seen (and made) a few decks that would be very difficult to make without proxies, but they are usually more funny/interesting than they are game-breaking. There does seem to be a lot of Una lately though... Cheers, WES