Upcoming Event: Praxis Seizure Budapest

Hi folks!

Name: Praxis Seizure Budapest 2010

Date: 18th of December, 2010

Location: Cantina, Budapest (you'll find a link to google.maps on the page "gaming sites")

Format: Constructed, 3R + Final

Entrance Fee: 1800 HUF, includes a booster

Come and join us!

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: HNC Final Nagymaros

Hi folks!

I've played my Nana Buruku deck again. I've chosen that deck again, because I didn't want to play any untested deck and this was the only I wasn't bored with yet. I managed to make a 1GW 4VP's which isn't a bad result but was not enough to make it to the final. I won a game where I made a very fast VP and let my predator die. After that I waited for my new prey, a Malkavian sb, to oust my new predator (Inner Circle vote). On the 1 vs. 1 I've played a Frontal Assault and the game win was mine. I could have won the first table too, if my last Ashur hadn't been washed away. I ran out of cards, so I couldn't oust anymore and my predator played an Enkidu deck I could never beat in combat. I could have made a Game Win with 3 VP's there and than died on the 1 vs 1 against Enkidu, but as I wrote before: I ran out of cards. So I finished somewhere between the 8th and 10th place from the top 40, that's ok.

I didn't stay to watch the final, but I was told later that a Trujah deck won and our new National Champion is Peter Botos. Here is his winning deck:

Deck Name: True Power
Created By: Botos Péter

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 36, Avg: 6,75)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
1 Tyler McGill AUS pre 4 Toreador
1 Andre LeRoux aus 3 Toreador
2 Veejay Vinod AUS 3 Nagaraja
4 Lydia AUS FOR POT TEM dom pre9 True Brujah
4 Al–Muntathir AUS FOR PRE TEM obf qui8 True Brujah

Library: (90 cards)
–––––––––––––––––––
Master (16 cards)
1 Tabriz Assembly
3 Perfectionist
3 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Anarch Troublemaker
4 Villein
1 Wider View
1 Pentex Subversion
1 Giant`s Blood
1 Remover

Action (12 cards)
7 Vaticination
3 Summon History
2 Mind Numb

Action Modifier (24 cards)
11 Domain of Evernight
2 Crocodile`s Tongue
2 Recurring Contemplation
7 Tangle Atropos` Hand
2 Freak Drive

Reaction (18 cards)
3 My Enemy`s Enemy
3 On the Qui Vive
6 Eyes of Argus
6 Telepathic Misdirection

Combat (10 cards)
10 Outside the Hourglass

Ally (1 cards)
1 Veneficti (Mage)

Equipment (3 cards)
1 Guarded Rubrics
1 Heart of Nizchetus
1 Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers

Combo (6 cards)
6 Quicksilver Contemplation

Congratulations to Peter for winning with this nice deck!

For me this tournament marked the end of an era. Some time after the release of KoT I changed my play style and started to build and play combat decks only. Oddly enough the majority of people state that you can't win with combat decks, or they say that it is at least unlikely to win with them. Well, before KoT I played decks like tap and bleed, power bleed, stealth-vote, etc. and never won a tournament (well I did win 1 unofficial one with a toreador anti tap and bleed) although I played like ~15 finals at least. After switching to combat I played less than 10 finals but won 5 tournaments within 1 and a half year! Who says you can't win with combat?

Well, but as I told you this era has come to an end. I won't play my Brujah Alastor, Nana Buruku and Hardestadt decks on tournaments anymore. In order to avoid getting stuck it's now time to move on and try new ideas and new ways. 2011 will be the beginning of a new era. Since my major goal was to enter the Hall of Fame, which I achieved this month, I will be able to play much more relaxed. Now the goal has changed: fun is now more important than winning and I am looking forward to this!

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/

New page: Trading Zone

Hi folks!

I've added a page to my blog called Trading Zone. I will list those cards there I am looking for or I don't need anymore. Feel free to write me an e-mail! I will keep that page always updated. I want to do trade within Europe only, for overseas a trade must be of value otherwise I don't think it's worth it.

by: Mephistopheles

/please do not comment your trade proposals here, all trading should be done via e-mail or facebook/

Killer Combo: Derange + Sacrifice

Hi folks!

Okay, don't take this too seriously. It should sound more like this: funny combo. You know I like the vampire Louhi so from time to time I try to figure out what to play with her. And here we go:

I guess you can see the idea here. It's like playing with a PTO again. Since you have a Cardinal, you can also use the derange to get vote lock. Throw in some Banishments for the 7-9 caps and annoy your playgroup with this.

by: Mephistopheles

/I am working on Hungarian translations, so don't expect any smart post until I am finished with that./

Magyar oldal a blogon! (Hungarian page on my blog)

Kedves Magyar olvasóim!

Az alábbi mappába lesznek feltöltve a magyarra lefordított cikkeim:

Hun Fragment mappa

A "Magyarul" jelzésű oldalra is kirakom majd a linket. Az oldalon fel fogom sorolni az összes dokumentumot egy rövidke összefoglalóval.

Kellemes olvasást kívánok!

by: Mephistopheles

___________________

Hi folks!

There will be a page where I upload my articles I translated into Hungarian. I just announced that now. The main page (this one) will stay in English only.

Cheers.