Basic Mistakes: do the math!

Hi folks!

I thought it might be helpful to analyse some mistakes that actually did happen, so people won't make these mistakes again (hopefully). So whenever I see something done really bad I will make a note and share it with you guys.

This one is a classic mistake I often see:

It happened at the ECQ in Burton-on-Trent. Player A had a 5 cap vampire with superior Potence and some inferior disciplines including a basic Presence. He had discarded a combat card. Player B had two vampires in play, a 2 cap Animalism weenie (maybe Mouse) with a blood doll and a Bobby Lemon (4cap sup ANI).

Player A announces a bleed for 1. Player B blocks with Bobby Lemon. I don't remember all of the combat cards played, but Player B played a Carrion Crows + Aid from Bats and Player A surely played Slam + Immortal Grapple + Taste of Vitae and had to play something else, since Bobby Lemon ended up in torpor with 0 blood. Player B rescued Bobby Lemon with Mouse and went to hunt with Bobby. Next turn he had to use the Doll, to avoid hunting with Mouse.

So, let's see the mistake or with other words: let's do the math! Since Player A announced a bleed for 1 without any action card and his first vampire in play had only inferior Presence it was easy to predict that he played a weenie/midcap Potence rush deck, which rarely includes any Presence bleed modifier. An unexpected Aire of Elation would have been only +1 bleed anyway. So with a Blood Doll in play and no intercept around (prey was a stealth-bleed deck) a hunt action wouldn't have been blocked. So why not take the bleed for 1? Use the Doll, hunt with Mouse and you still have your Bobby with 4 blood. This way you loose only one action/turn. Small loss when compared to what actually happened.

In modern v:tes 1 maneuver against a POT deck is surely not enough, since Slam found it's way in almost all POT decks. It was easy to "read" that Player A had a Slam or at least any other long range card (Thrown Sewer Lid, Earthshock) in his hand, otherwise he surely wouldn't had risked a combat with an ANI weenie. The other negative effect the original solution had, was that Player A could cycle his hand. In the case I suggested Player A would have had to discard cards to find an action or master card, while all he could have done with his vampires is a bleed for 1, which the blood doll + hunt duo easily defends.

So that's it. I hope you find this new topic interesting and/or helpful. As always, comments are appreciated!

by: Mephistopheles