Vampires with built in actions: my new obsession!

Hi folks!

Since I announced my return to v:tes and the revival of my blog quite some time passed. While not much happened on this blog at least part of that announcement became true. I did play several times. Not only with friends just for fun, but I also attended another tournament (sorry, I was too lazy to write a report). So far all the decks I played where some kind of reworks, or even exactly the same, than what I played in the good old days.

Some of you already know that my biggest (and eternal) struggle (yes, this terrible pun was intended, I rate 5/7) is deck building. First of all I hate net decking. In the few occasions I do so, I mostly heavily regret it afterwards. My goal is not to create something the world has never seen before, nor to be some stylish hipster or what not. I often ended up with decks you could find a lot of on online sources. I rather feel like I have more fun when I actually build my own from scratch, because I end up with something I actually want to play. Also for me building a deck involves playing it alone over and over again. Shuffle, draw, simulate scenarios. Test the "flow" of the deck. Adjust. Remove 1-2 her, add 1-2 there. Rinse and repeat. Over and over again. Doing this gives me a feel for the deck. I find this very important.

Now let's finally jump to what I wanted this post to actually be about. Since I currently have no interest in playing wall decks, well guess what, I want to build active decks. Dang. What do all active decks have in common? Yep. They make actions. Never saw that coming, huh? Maybe it is because I am a poor deck builder or just RNJesus is not on my side, but when building and playing active decks I used to find myself quite often in the situation where I couldn't really take meaningful actions, because my hand got stuck with action modifiers or combat cards or what not.

That's how I came to appreciate having a crypt with a star vampire or even better with vampires, that have built in actions. So that even with a bad draw you still have at least one meaningful action to do, to maybe force a block attempt so you can cycle some action modifiers or combat cards (if that built in action is a rush), helping your deck to get the flow going, or just for the result of the action itself, helping you out while you discard and hope for something useful to pop up. 

In the last couple of days I have been thinking about many deck concepts, even made some in a deck building tool and managed to build one physically. I caught myself with a totally new approach on how I build my decks. I now start with the crypt. The first thing is, that I look for vampires that really complement each other and at least one of them should have a built in action. Here are some I really value a lot and you will most likely see me playing them:

Dmitra Ilyanova

I get it. Nothing new. Still she has to be on this list, because of the endless variety you can build around her. From Alastor control to Stealth vote to multi action vote/bleed to bloat/breed Brujahs with boon, to "only" being a strong support besides a star like Lutz von Hohenzollern, she can do it all. You can cycle tons of action modifiers on her, like any vote increases, freak drives, forced marches and voters and she provides a great engine for your deck, while also being able to bribe some players.

Mary Anne Blaire

Being a Ventrue you really want to build around the classic Majesty + Freak Drive engine and just overwhelm your enemies with the sheer amount of actions you take. Having a built in bloat mechanic is maybe the best you could ask for. Bloat means more vampires means more actions, but getting this action blocked means you just forced an intercept and/or wake card that could have blocked your Govern or Parity or Mind Numb or... you get it. 

Nangila Were

On of my favorites. Hand size and built in rush make this vampire super reliable. Cycle your combat to draw your next action like a Founder or Deep Song. How many times did I have the problem with a rush deck, that I had all the cards to kill that pesky Giovanni, or Malkavian behind me, but I didn't have the rush. Obviously this is true for all vampire with d-rush built into them, but Nangila stands out for me, as she can be played together with Nana for 9 hand size, 2 master phase actions and a rush. Pretty strong for 2 vampires. I admit this isn't new from me either, as I played this deck this year already, but it fits the theme so well.

Kamiri wa Itherero advanced

This one is maybe my number one wish to build a deck around. Being able to one-shot Nephandi from the board is always nice, but basically what you are looking at is a wall deck that is able to remove 4 blood from the table / round with the help of Enkil's Cog. I haven't found the balance to fit all I want into a deck within 90 cards (maybe less), but what I am aiming for is to deteriorate the table with stuff like Narrow Minds, Young Blood, Ossian, Kamiri's ability as fast as possible and throw a Smiling Jack. 

Ghede

This vampire came out a long time after I stopped playing, so I didn't have the chance to do so, yet. Ages ago I had a deck where I played way too many Vast Wealth cards to have one in my opening hand to put on Nakthorheb so I can fetch my Eye of Hazimel... well just play Ghede and I can finally put my Typhonic Beasts to work. Also note to myself: never ever play a rush deck again with no built in rush. I love reliability.  

Without further explanation (and without the need for completion):

Annazir, Beckett, Benjamin Rose, Drozodny, Gabrielle di Righetti, Malgorzata, Mistress Fanchon, Nostoket, Undele, Victoria Ash

That's it for today. I need to spend more time studying crypt cards and thinking of concepts I want to play. I hope you enjoyed this article. I will try my best to waste less time on online games and invest more time into v:tes so I can up with some quality articles for this blog. If you used to enjoy this blog when it was updated regularly or you are a new follower and wish to read new content regularly then please kindly leave a comment or just check one of those boxes below (funny, interesting, cool). Feedback like this is a huge driving force for me and will help me a lot to keep writing regularly which I really need as writing such articles is pretty time consuming (this one took 2 hours + the time and energy to even come up with an idea). 

yours truly: Mephistopheles 

After the EC...

Hi folks!

A part of me really wants to be past the EC. I have so many ideas I want to test and play! But not before the EC since I want to practice with the decks I will be playing there. I hope there will be some tourneys around here after Warsaw so I don't have to wait until 2012. I hope I will find the courage to play all the non-Tier1 ideas I have...

by: Mephistopheles

Netdecking ain't no good...

Hi folks!

It's not the first time that I realize that re-building other players decks just won't work out for me. No matter how successful that deck archetype is otherwise when I copy paste one I just suck with it. My most successful decks are those I don't think much about but build them following a sudden impulse. It seems to work vica versa since whenever I borrow somebody a deck of mine they just suck with it, too. 

So I reached the point when I say to myself: no more scrolling through the TWDA! I think the reason for all this is the difference in players play style. The same deck concept built with almost the same cards (more or less) will still differ very much. One player might put the focus on reaction cards and play the deck more slowly and defensively while the other player will put the emphasize on combat cards and play it more aggressively. When they switch decks they won't automatically switch playstyle so both will "screw up". 

In the case I see something interesting on the net I will just look at the basic idea and then open a deck builder and start building the deck myself instead of looking at the original deck list. Have you guys made similar experience with this? Comment!

 by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: Villein, Vessel, Blood Doll

Hi folks!

My recent observation of the game lead to this article. I've seen quite a dozen different decks or even more in the last week and either played with/against them or just watched the game. I am aware of the fact that such inputs are hard to generalize since meta game is an important factor and an observer playing in another playgroup might get a totally different result. So here are my thoughts:

Villein

This card is pure gold. The king of pool gainers. It's not only good in master heavy or big cap decks, but also owns vessel or blood doll in many mid cap based decks. In all the recent games I have never ever seen the drawback of the card causing any problem. Instant pool gain is always strong, remember Minion Tap, but having the ability to play two of them in the same round? Ridiculously strong. It can totally save your ass. Besides there is still the notorious and infamous Villein + Giant's Blood combo, which I have seen many times. Just enough text here, this card is purely awesome.

Vessel 

Overrated in most decks, with some exceptions. If you need the pool fast Villein is way better, but even Blood Doll will generate the pool faster. In case you play a deck in which your vampires might need blood back on them from time to time Blood Doll is just way better. This would be certainly the case for almost any stealth bleed, tap and bleed or weenie deck. The only archetype I can think of which really could profit from Vessel is the wall deck. In a deck were you want to ensure a permanent pool income (via Rack, HG, etc) and also have quite a lot of master cards Vessel is the top pick. 

Blood Doll 

With the appearance of Vessel Blood Doll became barely used. I think this tendency is slowly turning around and Blood Doll might see more play in the future. I described some of it's advantages above. Remember you can prevent a vampire from hunting by just playing a Doll on it and use it right away! It is the faster pool gain and the more versatile card and its drawback you ask? Well in the recent past when I played a Blood Doll it never got removed. Since bleed decks want to play with master canceling cards anyway I suggest playing Wash + Blood Doll. Both cards are very useful on their own, but Wash can protect your Blood Doll. Also Wash is trifle so you can play a Blood Doll on your 0 blood bleeder guy after playing the Wash on your preys Villein...

by: Mephistopheles 

Some rough statistics on the Play Test Weekend

Hi folks!

We've taken notes on 9 games during the Play Test Weekend and here I have some numbers for you. Feel free to make your own conclusions:

Average pool damage a player suffered to get ousted: 19,58333...
Minimum pool damage caused to oust somebody: 11
Maximum pool damage caused to oust somebody: 29

Here are the numbers for each oust (pool damage) we could record (not complete): 15, 20, 11, 16, 16, 28, 12, 13, 17, 15, 24, 27, 15, 29, 21, 28, 20, 17, 19, 24, 22, 18, 29, 14

Number of turns the recorded games lasted: 12, 9, 13, 10, 16, 12, 17, 11, 10
Turns needed to see the first oust (same order than above, so you can see how much turns were between the first and last oust): 9, ?, 10, 7, 11, 7, 5, 7, 5

Some notes f.y.i.:

- the game was very Villein heavy, Vessel was almost never seen played.
- Villein + Giants Blood was seen many times
- there were many decks built around big cap vampires

Feel free to comment and ask questions!

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: predator is right (2nd part)

Hi folks!

So here is the second part of the article. I am going to give some examples here, all based on personal experience from games I played. Since some of these games happened years before I might be wrong in some of the details (or just reflecting the general idea of what happened), but that won't change anything in the point I am trying to make. If you haven't read the first part of the article scroll down and bit. :)

Like a lurking snake

This example is taken from the vanishing past when I used to play focused and hyper aggressive bleed deck. My favorite one was the Blanch Hill and dom/for powerbleed deck you can find on this blog: here. In those days I hated combat decks and adjusted my play style against them. The most important part, which was also the key to many game wins, was the one-turn oust technique. When I faced a combat deck as a prey I started slow on purpose. The key was to make many little deals, like when you offer not to bleed next turn so your prey won't rush you backwards. I transfered on different vampires with the plan to bring out several in one turn instead of bringing them out one by one. The use of the discard phase was also very important. You wanted to prepare either the perfect "anti-combat hand" or the "perfect oust hand", depending what philosophy you follow considering breaking deals. I had quite a long time in my v:tes career when I did break deals and there are many players who have no problem with this, so you always must take deal-breaking into consideration when planing your game!

In the case I wanted to keep my deal I've built the anti-combat hand. Once I had those cards I brought out all my other vampires (2-3) into play in the same turn (Governs or Enchant Kindreds kick ass). Of course my prey wanted to back rush at this time. All he achieved with this was a) tapping out and b) cycling my hand. So in my turn I had nothing else to do then to just play my freshly acquired bleed cards and do the oust, even if not all of the actions were successful. In the case I went for the deal break I brought my vampires out one by one carefully considering how much I may allow myself without loosing the option to deal with my prey. I made the I don't go forward if you don't rush me deal and kept it once or twice, depending on the situation. At one point, when my hand was ready for it I just broke the deal and ousted my prey in that turn. 

All this just works if your prey doesn't play his combat deck the appropriate way. Now let us change the point of view. We are the combat deck and the bleed deck is our predator. Let us play the way I proposed in the previous part and the moment a potential bleeder shows up behind us just go and hit it no matter what deal he offers. There will be no Governs or whatever at superior, he will built up way slower and will have to face pressure himself so going forward will not be an option for a while. Even if your predator will suicide into you, he will do way less damage than with the one-turn-oust strategy. Never allow a situation when your predator can finish his turn with 4 healthy bleeders.

The Cantina decision     

I played my Nana Buruku deck with some success at this tournament: tournament report. The second round of the preliminaries perfectly reflects my point. My predator brought Gerald Windham into play. I already wanted to announce my action to rush him, when he started offering deals to me. The guy who was my predator is player who can be trusted (I've never seen him breaking a deal), so accepting his deal that he won't come forward for 3 turns seemed tempting. I reminded myself of all I've learned about combat decks and did rush him. Well it turned out he had a Secure Haven + a Ponticulus in his hand. Since my prey was a tough nut to crack I am sure that I would have never won that game if I had accepted his deal. Since I couldn't win the 3rd preliminary round this one decision turned out to be very important. In the case I take his offer I would not have made it to the final!

When I had no chance


One of my all time favorite decks to play is my Dmitra Alastor deck, which has won me two finals (+ played at least 2 more finals) and never finished a tournament without a game win. One of its biggest strength is its combination of versatility and reliability at the same times. It can answer many situations, however there was one game were I had no chance at all. My prey was Guyla Ferdos who played a Toreador antitribu deck which was something like a wall and bleed hybrid deck. Not a deck I need to be afraid of, usually. Guyla made it sure that all my actions that I needed to set up will get blocked. No matter what deal I offered him, he simply denied to allow me any action, even Parity Shifts called from my predator with me offering him pool. I never got close to oust him. I write this down, because it shows that even non-combat decks should be very much be aware of their predator. Normally I have no problems with ousting such hybrid decks, but in this case I finished the table with 0 vps.

When I didn't play my way, I've failed


Back at the ECQ in Burton-upon-Trent (UK) I had a wonderful start. I started with 3 transfers and a Dreams in my hand, so I could put Dmitra into play within 2 turns. In the 3rd turn I played a Grooming the Protege and used my Dreams for the last time to have Carlak in play, too. The 4th turn gave me an Alastor with an Assault Rifle. Awesome. At this point I wasn't consequent enough. Even with an easy to oust prey and this awesome start I should have back rushed every turn. My predator was a Kyasid stealth bleed and my grand predator was a weenie animalism deck, who stupidly enough didn't rush him with the deep songs, but bled, which was of course deflected. The Kyasid promised me not to bleed me in the case I go forward. It was too tempting. So I focused on ousting my prey like the majority out there thinks is the right thing to do. What happened was the one-turn-oust technique becoming my doom. When the Kyasid put his additional 2 vamps in play I back rushed, just to cycle his meanwhile accumulated s:ce cards. The Kyasid made 2 easy vps and won the game. This mistake was even more annoying, since I've won the last round and had a vp from the first turn, too. So that stupid mistake cost me the final, since even a 1GW 3VP from that second table would have been enough to make it to the final.

Obeying the pressure to remain silent


With this article written I put this subject six feet under. You either agree with me or you don't. The next time you play any version of combat and get suddenly ousted without a clue what happened, ask yourself if you did back rush after the first Govern at superior being played (actually you should rush back before the Govern can be played). If you didn't, you have the answer why you got ousted, even if it happened turns later.

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: predator is right (1st part)

Hi folks!

In today’s article I am going to explain my „oh so controversial” v:tes rule. I am aware that the vast majority of v:tes players will always argue with me about this. This rule is by far not a golden rule featuring an absolute truth, but it is very valid in certain situations. In this article I will go through these points:

I. To what kind of decks does this rule apply?

II. Time factor and phases of the game.

III. So why not going forward right away?

IV. Examples

V. Conclusion

I hope this article will make my point of view clear. I personally think that the reason why most players (even very good ones, like members of the Hall of Fame) think that you either can’t win with combat decks or that it is way more hard to do it, think so because they or not playing by the strategy described here. This article is not only a summary of my individual thoughts, I came to these conclusion by observing successful combat deck players and taking the advice given to me by more experienced players. I have to give a special tribute here to Sebestyén Balázs (aka Sebestien Galas), who thought me some of the more important points you will read here. Balázs is a very successful Hungarian player, who did play many combat decks and piloted them to several finals and tournament wins (although plenty of them were not reported). I also need to make this clear: in no way do I think that I am (or players like Balázs are) a better player than those who can’t play combat decks (successfully). I do think however, that we do play differently. While playing a bleed, vote, bloat and breed deck or whatever combinations of these exist will require you the “prey is left” attitude combat decks (most of them) do work differently. There are few players who are expert at both.

I. To what kind of decks does this rule apply?

I pretty much answered it above: combat decks. There are of course many different sub types of them. While I think that all combat decks should be played according to this strategy, you can say that the fewer defenses (intercept, bleed bounce, pool gain, etc.) your deck has the more this rule applies. Also add to this list certain types of toolbox decks, especially those who need time to set up.

II. Time factor and phases of the game.

Regardless of what kind of decks people play, I often see the same “mistake”.  They try to push forward in any situation and if they are not doing well you see that they become stressed. Some players can lean back and prepare a launch, but even many of these tend to lose patience. Let me quote Stefan Ferenci, who was one of the best v:tes players in his active time: “rushing gives you vp’s, patience gives you game wins”. So true. When asking people why they are pushing or trying so hard instead for just staying untapped and discarding for a couple of turns they tend to answer something like: “I need to oust my prey!” or “but I have to do something”. Foks! A game win achieved in the last 2 minutes is just as valuable as one achieved after 40 minutes and way more valuable than a single vp achieved in whatever short time!

The phases of the game often look something like this:

1. Transfers and first actions (early phase)

This is the time when people bring out their first vampire and go for their first few actions. Many decks do play cards that add pool from the pool bank to the vampires in the uncontrolled region. This is the time they play it. Other decks will want to fetch that important equipment (Soul Gem, Heart of Cheating, etc) or setup with permanent intercept (Raven Spy is the most common).  This phase is rather peaceful.

2. First forward actions (early-mid phase)

This is the time when bleed decks go for their first Kindred + Stealth + Confusion (Govern + Stealth + Conditioning, etc) “combo”, vote decks play the first KRC or Parity Shift, wall decks start blocking more frequently and combat decks should rush backwards (explanation will follow later).

3. The blood is flowing away (mid phase)

There is a natural tendency in this game that with the time progressing, the overall amount of blood on vampires will get less and less (despite cards like voter cap, etc.). This tells us two things: 1) the less blood the easier to torporize and 2) try to avoid getting low on blood. It is this phase that a combat deck can start causing damage effectively.

4. Collapse (mid-end phase)

At this point either somebody is already ousted or is in big danger. We have a table threat and the table is not balanced anymore. The weaker players try to avoid the strong one from winning, or they try to make their only vp before the strongest player takes the rest. It can also happen that everybody is weak and the slightest mistake or bad card draw will be the difference. Overall pool is low and some vamps are emptied or in torpor.

5. Game over (end phase)

This is the short period when it’s obvious who will win and they just play because giving up is lame, or we reached an interesting heads-up where two players are fighting for the game win, both with a reasonable chance of getting it.

III. So why not going forward right away?

This is the most important part. There are many reasons and I couldn’t clarify all of them to write them down so I will go with what seems clear to me. First of all you want to avoid the natural fate people meet (regularly). You don’t want to get low on blood and pool by the time you reach mid phase. As a solid goal you should try to reach having around 3 mid (6-8cap) cap or 5 low cap (3-5cap) vampires with almost full blood and 10+ pool, once you reach mid phase. This can be almost always achieved only if you don’t have to face and deal with pressure from your predator’s side. Remember that any good bleed or vote deck is built around the idea to deal massive damage on one single turn. Skilled players will often try to oust combat decks in a single turn instead of continuously putting pressure on it. That’s why they will try to make deals like “I won’t bleed you if you don’t rush back” or say “Hey, why are you hitting me, I didn’t do anything”. Don’t be a fool. They are just waiting for the moment to try the one-turn-oust. Their deck is specialized on this. That is why you should rush backwards first, especially if facing disciplines like Dominate, Dementation or Presence. If you hit them before they can prepare you buy yourself valuable time!

Of course meanwhile our prey is doing his job. Let him do it, let him even take a vp if that grand prey could become unpleasant to you. Just make sure your prey won’t make the game win and doesn’t become too strong. Don’t panic, our goal is to oust him, you just don’t need to oust him right away. Remember we have 2 hour time to win. A strong prey -> weak grand prey -> strong grand predator -> weak predator. Of course very generally spoken, but this is in our favor. Also don’t get me wrong: we do not want to back oust, we just want to make our predator so weak that he needs to play for the survival. In the case that our predator plays a deck that can only go forward feel free to back oust.

How are we going to win you ask? Let’s say we reached our goal, we have 3-4 mid caps in play. Our deck should include Fame and Dragonbound as well as other sources of ousting power (political cards in a deck like bruise and vote, +bleed from either Deep Song, or Dominate (remember Euro Brujah), etc.). Alternatively we just have 5+ vampires (weenie Potence, DBR). Let’s do some math. Let us say we did torporize 1-2 weenie support vamps from our prey so we don’t have to deal with that one later. I’ll go with 1 being a pessimist. We have the Fame and torporize 2 minions from our prey in the first turn we decide to finally go forward. We got the famed one. That is -3 pool and 3 vamps down. He rescues 1, so he’ll lose 2 pool from Dragonbound (should we have it). At this moment our prey is already quite under control. Since he wants to rescue and has already vamps down, there is really not much left to go forward with. Next turn we need 2 vamps to finish up the rest and have a free action to either bleed or vote. Let us say it is a bleed for 2. So far damage is: 3 from Fame, 1 Fame untap, 2 Dragonbound, 2 bleed, 1 Fame untap and let us say only 2 Dragonbound = 11 pool in 2 turns roughly. Wow. Believe me I’ve done better quite often.

This is why this strategy works. A combat deck is not good if you want to suddenly oust somebody, but it rocks if you want to lock down a strong deck. Let us say your prey has 3 mid caps that can multi act and cause a potential damage of 15+ pool/turn (seen that quite often). Your prey has ~15 pool. Doesn’t he seem like he is winning the game? Well a good combat deck, with some preparation can send all those vamps to torpor in one round (or 2 in one -> 1 rescue -> 2 next round) at 0 blood. Without vampires that 15 pool isn’t that scary.  Since you let him play he did the dirty job for you and weakened his prey, so you have potentially 2 vp’s in front of you. You can do the math without Dragonbound, but with an occasional bleed 3-4 with Conditioning that nobody can deflect, or a Parity Shift that nobody can block, etc.

Another reason why you want to delay your forward play is this: people don’t like combat. If you start the game with going forward you will use up your resources just to see your grand prey rescuing your preys vampires. You will have pressure from your predator and you will come to the fate of v:tes namely that you get low on pool and blood with time. Not good.

Once we reach the next phase (collapse) we need to make sure that we are the strongest player. Also: in either the case that our prey made a vp meanwhile or that we more or less accidentally back ousted our predator or even both we will find our self in an actually better position than a 5 player setup could be. The fewer players there are in this phase the less vampires do we have to send to torpor. In a 4 player setup we can even offer somebody a vp which we can easily achieve (basically you shouldn’t go for this, but it is an option). A three player setup is easy to win with combat.

That‘s it for the first part. I hope it made some things clear. In the second part I will give examples, all taken from actual games that did happen. Those examples will make many things clear. This article repeats many points from my previous thoughts on: combat decks articles. In this one it is organized differently and shown from a different point of view. This article will be translated to Hungarian and be added to the “Magyarul” page.

Thank you for reading,

by: Mephistopheles 

Thoughts on: game theory leads to deck building

Hi folks!

I realized that almost always building a new deck starts with a basic idea like "I want to try this vampire (or clan, or library card, etc)" or "I want to build a stealth-vote (or wall, rush combat, etc)". So the basic idea is given by either cards or a deck type. In the second step you build the deck, or at least the basic outline of it. In the last step you might think about meta game choices, surprise cards. Finally you play it and then fine tune it. This is the way I did my deck building.

So here comes the question: why not figuring out first what effect you want to have on the table? You first make thoughts about what you want to see happen in general and only after you figured this out you start looking for cards in the second step only? I give some examples so you see what I mean:

1st example:

You have a theory that an important part of v:tes is blood management. So you start looking for ways how to ruin everybody else's blood support. You want to see this effect on the table: everybody looses the blood on his vampires at a dramatical speed. This will make the table collapse very fast. You of course want to be more or less immune to this effect which will put you in a winning position. After you figured this you look at the cards and find some possibilities:

a) Play imbued, cause they are immune to blood loss causing cards. Pack the anti-blood cards: Society of Leopold, Vampiric Disease, Gehenna Block, Young Bloods, Gregory Winter...

b) Step outside the current mentality! Build something like this: Parthenon for extra Master phases, a crazy lot of Vampric Disease + Society of Leopold. Use group 2 Ahrimanes, because Howler has a built in maneuver and Carrion Crows + Aid from Bats + Swiftness of the Stag is strong and you will be able to maneuver a crazy lot. Add some Terror Frenzy's to play at inferior against other decks with lot of maneuvers. Superior version helps you getting rid of other vampires blood (because of the Disease a superior Majesty will cost 3 blood). Maybe play Engling Fury and Vulture's Buffet for your own blood support. You have very good intercept available! While having the entire table suffering from the Disease and collapsing fast you can make sure that your prey will get hurt the most! Throw in a Smiling Jack to finish the table off in the end game.

c) Make a Spirit Marionette deck based on Eurayle Gelasia Mylonas and The Ankou. Use Spirit Marionette + Heidelberg to steal a vampires and empty them! Instead of bleeding you will have a mandatory hunt action! The Ankou will then punish...

Maybe you don't like The Ankou and want something else? Go for a Eurayle + Tremere! deck so you have two vampires to Spirit Marionette with. Instead of building the classic bleed deck you can go for a wall like version with Sniper Rifle and play some Society's on the vamps you already drained the blood off...

This c) version doesn't effect the entire table. This can be an advantage or a drawback. It still follows our idea to ruin our preys blood management.

2nd example:

In this example you also want to make the table collapse as fast as possible, but this time doing direct pool damage. You can play weird things here: Antediluvian Awakening, Curse of Nitocris and Contagion. Should your prey have the Nitocris he or she burns 3 pool right away. To get hurt less than others get some pool gain! Let us take a look what provides pool gain while enabling us to play the cards above: Kindred Spirits with Petaniqua! Make the deck extra fast! Use Zillah's Valley and all those 8 cap Malkavians or Malkavian antitribus who have +1 bleed. Villein will give you some pool back to be hurt less than others. Don't mind blood management here: obfuscate stealth, Kindred Spirits and Eyes of Chaos are for free. Don't mind defense too much: the table will collapse and therefore be over so fast if things go well.

3rd example:

I posted this idea on the newsgroup already. This is again an idea where you want to put pressure on the entire table and put it in a situation where you will be the strongest player. Even worse: put people in a loose - loose position. This idea of mine came from a conversation with Ralf Lammert. He noticed that the current trend shows a rise of big cap vampires. So you have the change to act first and act undisturbed! You put an Anarch Convert (or use it and put an anarch into play, depending on transfers) into play and get a first turn Constant Revolution (you might need play 8 or so)! It comes into play with a counter already. If most of the table plays big caps, the Constant will have 3-4 counters before they even have the chance to remove it! You basically need to defend for few turns, since once it reaches the 7th counter people either cycle their entire hand or take pool damage. Throw in a Smiling beside this. Eagles Sight will prevent your prey from making a vp.

I hope you enjoyed this article as much as I did. I will try some of these ideas next year in the new v:tes season. Have fun!

by: Mephistopheles

/this article reminds me a little bit of Physics, like the M-theory is developing right from the other direction than what theories we had before/

Thoughts on: cost for combat cards

Hi folks!

I've just read something on the newsgroup that inspired me to write this brief article. A guy asked if Dissolution was a good card or not. There was one reply to this which I really liked. The idea is plain and simple: if a combat card costs you blood than it have to give you a real boost, otherwise it's not worth playing it. I tend to agree with this. When playing a combat deck you must always be aware that others will hit back. So when you enter combat you will get damaged yourself (most likely) therefore playing cards with blood cost will cause your vampires to run out of blood quickly, leaving them vulnerable. A good combat deck needs to solve the blood management first! Back to the original point: in order to take the disadvantage of paying blood for a combat card it has to give you a big boost.

Let's look at these cards:

You can see that all of these cards provide a press or a maneuver with an optional press. When we compare Dissolution to Flash we see that they are basically the same. There is no question that Flash is the better card. Dissolution costs you a blood, but gives you no boost in exchange that another free card couldn't give you. Of course there is the discipline issue. You might want to play a combat deck where celerity is not available. Since Protean however does good aggravated damage you might not need any press in your deck. A maneuver is much more important. I will come back to this.

Let us compare Flash to Resist Earth's Grasp first. Both are pretty much the same when we consider the inferior celerity level of Resist. Resist does cost a blood, but it provides an awesome boost: stealth! This is a boost worth paying for with most decks. A Brujah or Brujah antitribu can use this stealth to pass an important political action like Party Shift or Dogs of War. A bruise and bleed version can use this to go for the oust. Any rush deck can use this to stealth over any ally (Jake Washington, Procurer, Tye Cooper) when trying to "hit the target".

Back to the Protean issue, lets take a look here:

These are both better alternatives to Dissolution. Quick meld can be used for a free maneuver or can be used for an additional maneuver at the cost of 1 blood. It is a better card than Dissolution because the cost is optional. Claws of the Dead's strength is the aggravated damage. You need to make a choice here! You either mix Quick Meld and Claws to be able to stay at close and hit aggravated damage (let's say you play 6 Quick Melds and 8 Claws) or you go for Claws only (14 copies). The drawback is that a maneuver + aggravated damage will cost you 2 blood which is a lot. There is an advantage though, which is reliability. You will always have your main combat weapon (the aggravated damage) available. Your choice here shouldn't be made on an emotional base here (like "Oh, I like this artwork" or "Oh, more different cards are more fun"). You should take a look at your deck and consider your blood management: if you can prevent and refill your vampires (Amaranth, 2 Hunting Grounds, +blood when hunting, etc) than you should go for reliability and pack 14 Claws. In the other case, when blood support might be a problem you should go for the free maneuver!

This is just an example. Next time you build a combat deck take the time to check all the available combat cards and try to figure if those cards that cost blood are really worth to cost (= good boost that free combat cards can't provide). You might find a cheaper option.

by: Mephstopheles

/well, it didn't finish as a brief article. I hope this article is of any use actually and that it made any sense to write this/

Thoughts on: the top view (1st part)

Hi folks!

It's been awhile since my last brainstorming article. Today I want to write about some ideas concerning table dynamics, long term planing and well whatever comes to my mind while writing this.

More than often I see players playing "short-sighted". They pop out their first vampire and start running their deck's script. It often reminds me like a simple program written with if-then-else and do-loop-while. After let's say the first "mandatory" actions like Govern the Unaligned at superior or Magic of the Smith are done they focus on how I call it "1,5 sides". The 1 being their prey the 0,5 being the predator. From time to time when a very strong cross table player seems to become unstoppable they think of "how are we gonna stop him from winning?". Well it's this kind of attitude to the game that I think will limit them and make them less successful players.

Rule 1.: at every single moment during the whole game you should focus on the question "how am I going to win this table?".

Let us assume you play in a tournament in your country with players you know, since most of the tournaments you play will fall into this category. This means that even before the game starts you already have some sort of information. You will most likely know things like A is very fast and aggressive, B likes to talk a lot and loves to make deals, C can be easily frightened and D is very passive in the beginning. Make sure you look at the guys and recall everything you know about them. After the first few turns everybody will have a vampire in play and most likely have discarded and/or played a couple of cards. At this point stop thinking about your game. Take those 30 seconds or that minute to look at everything. From the information you already got you can most likely tell all the decks strategies you see! Like A is obf-dem stealth-bleed, B is a vote deck, C is a wall deck and so on.

Rule 2.: Focus on the game and gather all the information you can get!

It is now that you can start planing your long term strategy! I can't emphasize enough at this point that v:tes is not about gaining a vp! You want the game win, nothing else. The number of possible situations is of course potentially endless. Therefore I am going to give some examples only.

Example number 1.:

You play a wall deck or a toolboxy deck with good blocking potential. Your prey plays a Khazar's Diary deck. Your predator plays a non-aggressive deck which you can handle pretty good. Your grand prey plays a deck you know you won't have serious problems with. You are very much afraid of your grand predator.

So what to do with this setup? You are lucky here since this one is easy. You have a free go on your prey so go for it! What do we know about the Khazar's Diary deck? It's plain and simple: it's strength is in having a crazy lot of minions in play. The bottom line says it's ousting plan is swarm-bleed. The more minions it has the harder it is to stop. So what do we do? Block everything it does. Everything. Remember we have an easy to deal with predator. Don't mind blocking an occasional bleed for 1 or 2 instead use that blocking potential against your prey. You just have the right deck against him.

Let's look at the table's dynamic: you crush into your prey. This keeps the pressure entirely off your grand prey who can become strong. Remember, in this setup it's a deck you will be able to deal with. A strong grand prey will without pressure on him will be able to go forward resulting in a weak grand predator. Remember that is the guy we are afraid off. The drawback is that your predator may have less pressure on him, so he can come forward. Remember it's a deck you can deal with. Take some minor damage that's ok. Hit him a little when needed to make him more careful so he slows down.

Pretty soon there should be a new game situation: you made your oust. Great! No it's important to remember that this game is not about vp's! Let's look at the new situation. Strong prey, but a one you can deal with. Weak grand predator, but with a deck that can hurt you. Strong predator with a deck you can deal with. At this point it's time to switch directions. You want your new prey to make his oust, but don't help him if you see he can make it on his own. He should use up his own resources. Start weakening your predator, but be careful: you don't want to back oust him! By the time you got the pressure off you there are 2 possible situations: a) your new prey made the oust, b) he didn't yet but will soon. In the case of a) you can now start going forward again. You have a situation where you have 2 other players left, but small or no pressure on you and two decks you can handle. You should win here. In the case of b) you might wait a little, use the time to prepare for the endgame, otherwise it's the same situation. You should have the Game Win here for sure.

Rule 3.: Never mind (a) deck(s) who could do you harm getting ousted, even if your prey makes the vp.

Even if those decks are cross table. Remember how I started the article. There might be a situation when that guy thinks "I need to stop him (that be you) from winning".

Rule 4.: Think about table dynamics and plan your game according to it.

You have two goals here: 1) keep pressure off you. 2) prepare an endgame which favors you.

Rule 5.: Game Win => Victory Points

Enough for today. In the next part of this article I will analyse starting situations which are much worse for you than this one. With the right strategy and patience you can win games you never thought that winning them is possible.

Please remember: it's of course not that simple. You might need to table talk a lot, you might need to switch strategies due to unexpected events, you might need to make very though decisions, but never forget that most important think in v:tes is (I truly believe in this) your attitude (remember Rule 1.!!!).

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: survival against stealth bleed decks

Hi folks!

Just a little brainstorming from my hotel room in Orlando, Florida. This is about how to survive a stealth bleed predator, supposing you are not playing a wall deck.

1. Total block denial

This is the most important point. You want to make your predator's hand jam with stealth and reaction cards as fast as possible. Key point here is that you never let him cycle any stealth card, so you never block. Make sure your grand predator never tries to block the stealth bleeders undirected actions, like hunting or actions like The Call. Should your predator try to cross table act in order to provoke a block attempt (stealing Montreal, Rack, etc.) make sure you convince the target player to decline the block attempt.

2. Try to cancel card drawing master cards

Should you play with Sudden Reversal or Wash keep them for your predator. At the early stage of the game don't mind your prey playing a minion tap or whatever. You really should focus on surviving first. Fortunately v:tes is not a turbo game, you'll have plenty of time to deal with your prey, supposed you survive! So save those Sudden's for cards like Dreams of the Sphinx, The Barrens or similar cards. Remember, we want our predator jam on useless cards.

3. Try to convince your grand predator not to bleed

Most of the popular stealth bleed deck play with bleed bounce. This is why you want to convince your grand predator not to bleed, not even for one! This way your predator will not only jam on stealth cards, he will also jam on reaction cards! You might need to offer your grand predator something in return, like calling the KRC's 2/2 or even 1/3 or just to back rush. Whatever helps you making your predator jam on his hand!

4. If playing combat, always back rush first

This very basic rule of combat decks applies even more if you have a stealth bleed deck as a predator. Let's say Gilbert Duane hits the board behind you. If your predator promises you not to bleed for two turns if you don't rush him you should reject! It's better to take a bleed for 6 right in the beginning and get rid of a threat than to let him Govern down 1-2 times and then face 2-3 vampires you might not be able to handle by the time you realize the threat!

5. Make use of the tables sympathy

You'll have it! More often you will notice that even your own prey will be willing to help you. An aggressive stealth bleed will almost always end up in being the table hate number 1. Since you will be his "victim" you will have the tables sympathy. Make use of it! Grab every resource you can (getting pool from another players Parity Shift, getting the Montreal, etc.) and try to get other players to rush/vote against the stealth bleeder.

Normally it shouldn't take you long to get your predators hand jammed. Let's say you achieve your goal after 25-30 minutes after the start. Another 30 minutes of defensive play should help you recover. You will still have an hour left to play for the game win!

All this only works with certain deck types. I think in modern v:tes it is important that your tournament deck has ways to produce pool. It can be the Ashur/Liquidation tech, Parity Shift or Con Boons, Blood Dolls and cards that add blood from the blood bank to your uncontrolled vampires, etc. Being able to generate pool is a basic requirement for a tournament deck, at least in my eyes.

This strategy needs a lot of self-control and more often plenty of table talk, but for me it worked. Next time Morel hits the table behind you remember this article and give it a try.

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: Villein decks (?)

Hi folks!

One or two weeks ago I had a conversation with Ben Peal which was really inspiring. He actually called my TGB deck a "Villein Deck" more or less claiming that the Villein is actually your most important card. Next day I played my Hardestadt deck, which is a Villein Deck, too. This whole Villein Deck thing got really stuck in my brain and I just had to write this article.

In almost any Big Cap deck the most important thing is getting enough pool back in order to pop out 1-2 new vampires and still having enough pool to survive. In the good ol' times we played Minion Tap which got Sudden-ed from time to time. These days most of us play Villein which gets Wash-ed all the time, though the Sudden vs. Wash seems a much more difficult choice than the Minion Tap vs. Villein decision.

I tried to reload my memories which I have left somewhere in the deep v:tes ocean of my subconsciousness (poetry attempt: fails) and took a look at all my games I played with Mid/Big Caps. Almost every time my first Villein got Sudden-ed I couldn't make a game win, or even had a hard time to make a Vp. This is mainly true because the decks I played with didn't use any cards like Govern the Unaligned or Fourth Tradition: the Accounting. If you have no access to these kind of actions you will have a hard time to "play your game" once your Villeins got canceled.

Why am I writing all of this? There are two reasons. The first one being the pure and simple fact that entirely relying on Villein is bad. When building a deck you should try to avoid to plan your entire pool gaining mechanism on master cards. The problem is, that there are vampires who can't do better. In this case it is worth considering playing much more Villeins than you actually want to play in a game. Jay Kristoff's deck is a great example for this! You will find a second or third Villein soon enough to find your way back into the game after a Sudden-ed first Villein.

The second reason: Back at the NAC 2009 I've seen many big cap voter deck, which actually seem to dominate most of the day2 events and other "important" tournaments because of their very strong table control abilities. Most of these decks rely on an early pool gain. If you are aware of this you can easily tweak your deck against them. Play any kind of fast deck that can cause serious pool damage and throw in at least 4 Sudden Reversal's and a couple of delaying tactics. Save these cards to cancel their pool gain, even cross table if needed. You should be able to cut your way through the table!

The bottom line: Villein is a strong card, but planing your entire deck around it makes you vulnerable. Have alternatives or exploit this weakness! As always feel free to comment and share your ideas!

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: numbers, numbers, numbers...

Hi folks!

I am thinking about some new decks these days. After reading the article "Cutting down a vtes deck" on extrala, I've asked myself some questions:

1. How much successful political actions do you need for a game win?

2. What bleed potential must your deck have to ensure a game win, before running out of bleed modifiers?

3. How much vampires do you have to torporize/burn to win? How much combat cards are needed for this?

It would be great if some of you guys could take a closer look at these points during the next few tournaments. Let's make some notes during the game! If you already have a statistic like this, please kindly mail it to me: major.martin.tibor@gmail.com

// The last time I played a Toreador Grand Ball deck I played only 6 political actions and won the game with 1GW 4Vp's. The deck started with 90 cards, after the first few games I reduced it to 80. Now I am seriously considering to cut it down to 70-75. //

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: Deal breaking

Hi folks!

When I first started playing v:tes I've really enjoyed the game without ever getting close to getting a vp. I loved the way it reflected the role playing game. I loved the fact that it is so social, much more than any other card game I've ever played. After a year or so, when I mastered most of the rules and got to know the game better I started to feel an urge to be more successful. At this time I developed an attitude that simply resulted in the idea that everything is allowed to achieve the game win. I started to play much more aggressive decks and yes, I made many deal breaks. It didn't took the local v:tes community a long time to realize this and well, the respond wasn't really positive. Less people were smiling at me. Though being much more successful I wasn't really happy. I couldn't enjoy the game anymore. When I lost, I was angry and depressed. When I won a game including a deal break of mine, I felt bad. This went on for like 2 years until I reached a point, when I started to hate the game, while being sort of addicted to it.

It was at this time that I stopped deal breaking. I started to play different type of decks, and didn't want to win every game. I tried to have fun again. Oddly enough, it was after this turning point that I started to become really successful. I managed to win three finals without any deal breaking and I started to have fun again.

Let's just think about what v:tes means to us! For me it is a game, a hobby, a free time activity where I want to have fun. After 6 years of playing almost all of my friends are from the v:tes community. I met many-many nice people around the world, who share this love of v:tes. Do I want to break a deal against them. For God's sake: NO!

Is an NAC or EC title worth deal breaking? Not for me. Come on guys, if you want to be successful at something so much, than try to be successful in real life.

Another point, from the "technical " point of view: just don't make any deals any player may feel tempted to break. If you have a good deck, and a good understanding of the game, you won't need big deals to win a game.

And from the other point of view: if you make a deal with your predator that he won't bleed, don't be so stupid to tap out and discard a deflection...

Don't get me wrong, I am not at all mad at those players who break deals. If I see anybody break a deal I will remember him or her and just simply refuse to make a deal with him or her.

Guys, remember that this game should make fun and no game win or tournament win will make you something more...

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: Combat Decks (2nd part)

Hi folks!

Here is the second part of my thoughts on combat decks. In the first part I was talking about the importance of having something beside the combat part of your deck. In this part I will focus on a different aspect of combat decks. I always thought that just hitting vampires into torpor isn't really a winning strategy, therefore I was always looking for ways to get rid of vampires for sure.

It's pretty basic mathematics: let's say you can torporize 2 vampires a round and let's also suppose that you may afford to attack your prey only. Your actual prey has in play: 4 weenie or midcap/weenie vampires, 1 Hunting Ground and 1-2 Vessels or Blood Dolls on some of them. You send 2 vampires from these into torpor with 0 blood, then it's your preys turn: he or she will rescue those 2 with the remaining two, then hunt with both of them. In your turn you torporize the other 2, because they have more blood on them. They end up with 0 blood on them (in torpor). It's your prey's turn again: He gains 1 blood from the Hunting Ground and 1 blood from his pool via one of the Vessels/Blood Dolls, then comes the rescue + hunt. In this set-up he or she will loose only 1 pool/turn, while you have to consistently be able to rush him or her twice a round; if your prey plays with combat cards like maneuver or dodge you also have to have the cards to torporize his or her vampires again. Where is this going? Nowhere, believe me. This is a very realistic situation, even more: it is optimistic from your point of view. Many decks play with cards that help them in such a situation or just outrun your rush abilities with 5-7 vamps in play. I can remember a similar situation when I played a "heads-up" for the game win against a rush deck. I played a toreador antitribu tap 'n bleed deck and had six vamps in play. I didn't had a hunting ground, but I could go for Enchant Kindreds or Art Scams to ensure the pool needed to use the blood dolls and rescue my vampires. In the end I've won that game.

So what can we do with combat decks to avoid such situations (and I still wasn't talking about cross table rescuing, one of the most annoying things that can happen to a combat deck)? Pretty easy: if there is nothing to rescue, you'll be fine! Let's take a look at cards that can handle this problem!

Amaranth

This one is maybe my favourite. It's plane and simple: by diablerizing your victim in combat you won't loose any action, nor will you see that vampire again. Of course you can't use this card in any kind of deck, but its worth planning on it. There are several vampires who have a special to avoid being burned by a Blood Hunt (Theo Bell advanced, Ariadne, Tariq, Muaziz, etc.), and there are ways to build a combat deck around the idea of having the vote lock.

Anathema

Another card I love to play. Not only does it burn your victim, it also gives you pool, which is always a great thing. Anathema may be the best choice for a Potence Princes, Nosferatu, or Brujah deck, but also be a good choice for a Toreador gun deck. My experience tells me that you mustn't be greedy with this card. It's better to burn a 4-5 cap vampire for sure than to call it on a biggy and taking the risk of giving 9-10 pool to somebody else.

Graverobbing

Though I don't like this card, it has to be mentioned here. If you manage to steal someone's key vampire with it, it's like a blessing. Especially tupdog decks will want to play this card, as well as pot-dom decks will want to add some copies of them to their deck. It's only theory, because I have to admit, that I never play with Graverobbing, but if I would play with it I'd definitely play with Golconda, too. Seems funny to steal a star vampire and turn it into pool for more tupdogs.

Allies that burn vampires in torpor

Depending on what kind of deck you play, you may find it the easiest solution to play allies that will make the job for you. Such allies are Nephandus, Gregory Winter, Amam the Devourer or Tye Cooper. It's not really a reliable choice, since you won't add too many copies of them to your deck (the exception may be Nephandus), but it's still an option.

Tension in the Ranks + Fame

Ok, this one is obvious. Anybody building a rush deck without Fame should switch to Pokemon. The exception of course being decks that burn vampires in combat. Tension in the Ranks is less used, at least in my meta-game, but is still a must in any combat deck that isn't afraid of going into topor too from time to time.

Torpid Blood

This card may really be of big help. If you have stealth available on your rushes, than it's definitely a good choice, since you can torporize the bigger vamps, making it (too) hard for your prey to rescue them. It forms a little "combo" with Narrow Minds when used in a bruise and bleed deck. Your prey won't have blood for both: rescue and bounce.

I won't try to list every single card that can support your combat deck. Try to be creative and be aware of the fact, that it's worth getting rid of vampires, so you won't have to spend recources on them again. Many other cards (Form of Corruption, Raw Recruit, sufficient aggravated damage ...) can be of help, depending on your deck. Find what best fits your deck!

I am still not done with combat decks, so expect another one of my useless and long articles...

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: Combat Decks (1st part)

Hi folks!

When I first started to play v:tes I tried many different decks. I never managed to achieve anything with combat decks, so I developed a negative attitude towards them. For a couple of years I played only bleed and/or vote decks, because it seemed easier to make game wins with them. It took me a long time to realize the power of combat. During this period I played plenty of finals, but never managed to win one (with the exception of one unofficial tournament) . The main reason was maybe our meta-game. For a long time wall decks dominated the Hungarian v:tes scene. I've once been at a tournament were 4 Tremere wall decks sat at one table. An average Hungarian final had 2-3 wall decks. Even worse, those wall decks were played by our best players.

At one point my friend Balazs Sebestyen told me that I should build new decks and try out new ways of playing v:tes. So I started building different combat decks, or toolbox decks that had combat options. I don't know if others share the same experience or not, but I figured that it is harder to reach the finals with a combat deck, but much easier to win them once you're there. It's an interesting statistic: from the ~30 finals I played with bleed/vote decks I could win only one. From the 4 finals where I played with a combat deck I won 3!!!

Looking back at all the games I played I have to draw the following conclusions:

1. The power of combat/rush lies in table control

While bleed decks have only a very limited option to play slow, defend or interfere cross table, rush decks are much more versatile. Vote decks do have this power, but in a different way. Banishment is an excellent card, but you don't always play a big cap voter. With a rush deck you have almost unlimited options to make deals, weaken players or reduce pressure from your predators side. It takes some experience and a good understanding of how a table's dynamic works, but this versatility makes a good rush deck very strong.

2. Don't build combat only decks!

From what I've learned so far I have to say that combat/rush itself isn't enough. You should always have a solid mechanic going on besides the combat part of your deck. A combat only deck, especially all those noob decks that use a bigcap and can only torporize 1 vampire a round will often find themselves stuck with these problems:

a) if I hit my prey my predator will oust me, if I hit my predator I wont make a Vp.
b) if I hit my predator he will get ousted and I will have an even stronger predator.
c) if I kill my preys first vampire, he will stand up leaving behind 20+ pool and I can only bleed for 1-2 each turn.
d) my predator and prey always keep rescuing each other. I use up my resources and can't find a way to win the table.
e) and so on...

To avoid this it is essential to have other options available besides combat! Here are some examples:

a) Nana Buruku + animalism weenie with Ashur tech + Deep Song.

This deck features many interesting things. You have enough vampires to launch multiple rushes in a turn. This is important because: it helps you to defend better and it allows you to "take care" of your prey, once he did his job (weakened his prey). With cards like Fame + Dragonbound and Deep Songs +1 bleed ability you have a very strong ousting power. If your prey refuses to transfer on more vampires you still can easily bleed for 6-7 in a turn. The Ashur tech will help you in 2 more ways: extra pool for more weenie vampires and regaining resources. I've once won a game by recycling more than 20 deep songs in the game!

b) Alastor decks

I still believe that an Assault Rifle + celerity combat is one of the strongest combat techs in the game. You will have a built in rush, maneuver and 4R damage on your vampire. This is incredible efficient! With this combat tech you will be able to save many card slots for cards like Second Tradition, Parity Shift and other goodies. This will make your deck very consistent. Such a deck can answer almost every situation and has a bunch of tactical options.

c) Potence + Dominate

This deck has two important options that make it much more attractive for me than a weenie potence deck. First of all you can bounce bleeds so you don't necessarily have to rush all of your predators vampires if he plays a bleed deck. Secondarily you have that extra ousting power with those Conditionings in your deck.

d) Good Ol' Bitch Fight with Howler

This deck is very good in defence. You can generate extra pool with Vessel + Rack and Enchant Kindred at superior. Howlers special makes her a very efficient. This isn't a classic combat deck, because it is more like a wall, but I like to build my Ahriman decks a little toolbox like. Those Speak with Spirits and Falcons Eyes will help you to keep vampires in torpor, where they belong. Let the Dragonbound and/or Smiling Jack do the job for you.

I could give many more examples of decks that mix combat with another strategy like the Nosferatu princes or Akunanse decks. I still can't emphasize it enough: don't combat only! Have something beside it!!!

3. Resource Managment

Good Resource Managment is the key to success. When building your deck ,take at look at your combat engine. Maybe you have a super combo that can torporize any vampire, but if it takes you 10 cards per combat than it's crap. You need to have the resources to win a table! Try to have as many built in abilities like +strength, maneuver, press, enter combat as possible. Also calculate with the fact that some players will actually hit back! Maybe you can burn a vampire, but if it takes you 3-4 blood for the cost of the cards you will find yourself in torpor soon. I've often seen decks that wasted more than half of their deck + almost all blood on their vampires for their first Vp. They couldn't make another one. It's a joke, but I like to compare combat engines to a Kiss of Ra + Crocodiles Tongue combo: 2 cards will send a vampire to torpor and burn 4 blood on it. It's more efficient than what most combat decks can do.

I am tired know, so this is it for today. I am not finished with the subject, yet. Please feel free to comment this article and share your thoughts. Any constructive criticism is appreciated.

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: Narrow Minds vs. The Uncoiling

Narrow Minds seems like a very good card to have in any deck that doesn’t use bleed bounce. However I think that if you take a closer look, you will find that there are some arguments against playing with it. Basically there are two types of decks that will use this event card (based on what I have seen so far at tournaments).

The first being some sort of aggressive bleed deck that doesn’t use dominate or auspex like: weenie presence, pre-obf, weenie dementation, weenie obf (either computer hackers, or spying mission/night moves deck) and so on. Within this category I would suggest to make another distinction. You can either go with the standard 90 cards deck, or you can try to make your deck as tight as possible for a better card draw and maybe add some Ashur Tablets if you are afraid of running out of cards too early. My personal playstyle suggests the tightened version. In this case there are two important facts you want to keep in mind: a) since you want to tighten your deck, you will have only very few spots for master and event cards and b) you will rush for the end of the game as fast as possible. Because of a) you won’t find a free spot for Narrow Minds, since for any aggressive bleed deck the master section has to cover two things first: 1) efficient block denial and 2) sufficient blood support. My experience tells me that for a 60-75 card deck you should not play more than 13 master cards, assuming that you use some trifle master cards. At this point I have to make clear that I consider an event card to be a sort of master card. The reason is, that when you draw to replace action or action modifiers and you draw a master card you will have one less card in your hand that you can use to make a bleed successful! It's the same with event cards. With a deck that easily plays 10 cards or even more in a given turn you may end up with an annoying master/event jam. To cover point 1) and 2) you will most likely use the following cards: Pentex Subversion, Anarch Troublemaker, Misdirection, The Coven, Giants Blood, Life in the City/Vessel/Blood Doll. Let’s say we are going to play a weenie presence bleed deck. In this case we surely want to play: 2x Pentex Subversion, 1-2x Anarch Troublemaker, 1-2x Misdirection, 1x Coven, 1x GB and let’s say 4x Life in the City (better than Vessel because you can avoid hunting, maybe better than Blood Doll because it’s trifle). So you already used up ~11 master spots and you still didn’t cover the two other essential points: 3) prevent your prey from getting pool (due to villein, minion tap, blood doll, vessel, etc.) and 4) ensure yourself a better card draw (Dreams of the Sphinx, The Barrens for those of you who are afraid of contesting the Dreams, etc.). See what I’m saying? You have only 2 spots left and still have to face two unsolved points. At this pont you can either go with 2x Wash (wouldn’t miss this card) and leave point 4) unsolved or you can reduce your blood support and sacrifice 2x Life in the City for 2x Dreams of the Sphinx. So here comes the question: where is the free spot for Narrow Minds?

This question becomes even more interesting, if you look at fact b). Narrow Minds will increase the cost of bouncing bleed by one blood, which seems sweat, but imo doesn’t actually help your game. Since in the early stage of the game all vampires will be at full, or at least close to full capacity, the increased cost for bouncing a bleed will be only unpleasant for your first prey. I’d say that at least 75% of your whole game depends on how fast or easily you can oust your first prey. If your find yourself preying on a weenie auspex, or a defensive type of Ventrue! Grinder deck, your chances to win the game drop dramaticaly. Even to make that one vp will use up most of your resources and Narrow Minds won’t make the difference. When could Narrow Minds be of big help? I’d say only in the late game, when most of the vampires are on a low blood level, but this is exactly what you want to avoid! With a tightened, aggressive deck you never want to reach this stage of the game.

So, from what I discussed so far you can see that I am against the usage of Narrow Minds in decks like weenie presence, etc. But how about using The Uncoiling? You will still have a hard time to find a spot for it in your deck. The difference to Narrow Minds is that there are 3 good arguments to force The Uncoiling into your deck: a) The Unmasking, b) Anthelios and maybe surprisingly c) Dragonbound. The Unmasking can basically kill your deck. Imagine some Nephandi staying as a wall in front of you with a constant 1 intercept. Imagine a Khazar’s Peasant deck with The Unmasking in play. Nightmare. If you play a weenie presence deck, that one intercept will make your entrancements useless. You can’t mind numb, or use Anarch Troublemaker on allies. You can’t bypass them with a daring the dawn. A weenie dementation deck will have to play a stealth card besides confusion on every bleed action, but will be totally helpless against an imbued deck or a Carlton van Wyk. It’s often a metagame based decision, but ally decks with Unmasking are still pretty often seen at tournaments. Another event card that can really crush your game is Anthelios, the Red Star. An ever returning Minion Tap or Liquidation can really use up your whole bleed potential, leaving you with too little cards left in your deck for the Game Win, if you ever manage to oust this sort of deck. Don’t hesitate to burn Anthelios cross tabel! I mentioned Dragonbound because you will have 1-2 vampires in torpor almost every game, maybe even more. However, with a weenie deck this doesn’t have to mean that you can’t win the game, since you will often have enough pool to bring out more vampires. With 2-3 vampires in torpor, maybe one of them with a Fame and a successful bleed for 1-2 from your predator Dragonbound can be a real pain in the ass. Those extra 2-3 pool per turn will most often rob you of the opportunity to tranfer and bring out more vampires. Conclusion: though depending on your metagame I’d suggest to find a spot for The Uncoiling. This card can turn a possible disaster into a(n easy) game win and I wouldn’t think of burning an Unmasking or Anthelios as a corner case.

I think the discussion above will pretty much apply to a 90 cards version of any aggressive deck, too. The difference is, that you will be able to find a spot for Narrow Minds and The Uncoiling. This might make sense, because it provides you with versatility. While having the option to burn nasty events with The Uncoiling you still have the option open to play Narrow Minds instead. Since a 90 cards version won’t run out of resources too fast, you still can have a chance in the mid or end game. At this point the extra blood cost can make a difference so the usage of Narrow Minds can be justified.

The second deck type that may find usage for Narrow Minds is a non-auspex based wallish deck, which doesn’t have dominate available for bleed bounce. Such decks are: Ahriman, Ravnos (if it’s not based on Gabrin), Gangrel/Gangrel!, Nosferatu/Nosferatu!, etc. Narrow Minds can help these decks in two ways: a) less pressure from your predators side, since he/she won’t cycle bounce cards on bleeds for 1 (ofc. There are other reasons as well), and b) your prey will have a hard time bouncing your bleeds. Since you are most likely going to play Deep Songs or presence cards (I love Enchant Kindred in Ahriman decks) your prey will either have to take the bleed or loose 2 blood for playing that Deflection or Telepathic Misdirection. Since you can block his/her hunt actions, or other actions to gain blood and hurt him/her in combat this seems really sweet. A big pro for playing Narrow Minds here. However never forget to take a close look at the tables dynamic before you play Narrow Minds, since it effects the whole table. You may find yourself in a situation where it will hurt you more than it will help. Since I always play a copy of Dragonbound in such decks, I wouldn’t consider to play The Uncoiling.

My conclusion: in a bleed deck The Uncoiling is far more important than Narrow Minds, while most of the wallish or toolbox decks may find Narrow Minds a considerable card to play. This conclusion actually differs a little from what I have seen so far, but don’t forget that this article reflects my personal playstyle and therefore is entirely subjective. I hope you find this article interesting and if you have any thoughts feel free to comment. Helpful criticism is also appreciated.

by: Mephistopheles