Basic Mistakes: think it through!

Hi folks!

In this post I am going to discuss two biggies I have seen. They had a really hard impact on the game and these types of mistakes are actually pretty common.

1st: You don't have to play a card just because you can play it!

The situation was this: my grand predator had a Kyasid in play. My predator had already 3 Blood Brothers on the board. Since I started with two influences and was playing an 11 cap, I had two pool on a six cap and 8 on my main vampire. My grand predators turn comes and he plays a Kaymakli Nightmare:

WTF??? It's obvious what happened: that player was just reading the card and playing it, because he considered only the effect it will have on him. He had it in his, but no other masters, so he just played without any consideration on how this card will effect the table. What happened was: I needed 3 more turns to transfer and had not a single vampire in play (the six cap was put into play by another player, so I couldn't go for that) while my predator had 4 vamps. He bled me with Walk of Cain. All together I've lost like 12 pool and in addition couldn't back rush. Oh, and by the way, the Kyasid got ousted and the Blood Brothers won the table.

So please guys, for God's sake, try to consider the effect of cards they have on the entire table before you play them!

2nd: Basic Table Talk

This was another really strange situation. I started the game with a Smiling Jack and got Howler out. I could defend the Jack against my prey. Meanwhile my predator brings into play two a Brujah from group 4-5. He was playing a presence based Brujah vote deck without any bleed bounce. My grand predator (so the guy who wants to oust the Brujah) had a Lucian the Perfect in play. Remember, he has superior Dominate and Obfuscate and +3 bleed. The Brujahs turn comes and he plays a Pentex Subversion on Howler to burn the Smiling Jack. WTF???

I know Smiling Jack is strong and people wanna get rid of it, but here is the big mistake: he could have totally got rid of it without playing the Pentex on Howler. All he should have done was to talk a little. Something like this: "If you let me burn the Jack I will Pentex Lucian and not Howler". Of course I would have agreed. So the Brujah guy gets rid of the Jack and is save from a bleed monster.

Do I need to say, that Lucian the Perfect got the game win?

by: Mephistopheles

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