Less Is More

Apparently, continuing a series of … Is …

The subject of availability of V:TES cards came up recently.  Yes, it’s harder to get various packs/boxes/precons then it was.  That has actually been true for ages.  No, I can’t put myself in the shoes of someone trying to get into the game or expand what is possible for them to build.  But, I’d be curious to try.

I enjoy owning all of the cards for a CCG.  I enjoy having tons of chase cards others don’t.  I don’t think it’s a good idea when people can’t compete because it’s prohibitively expensive to get tournament necessary cards.  Of course, what is prohibitively expensive is open to question.

I can’t compete in constructed Magic formats with my current collection, with a few specific deck exceptions.  For instance, I could probably get a couple of sideboard cards and compete in Legacy with a Red Deck Wins deck.  I do own x4 Force of Will, though I read that Force is becoming less useful.

Staying on the subject of older formats, I’m missing largely two key things – modern creatures which are much more powerful and aggressively costed on average, multilands.  I have hardly any original dual lands and I’ve never tried to acquire sets of more modern multilands.  To me, fixing the land problem, by itself, seems prohibitively expensive.

In terms of more modern formats, though not so much Modern, I could run out and acquire a bunch of Standard legal cards, trade, pick up key singles, and become competitive only sinking a thousand* dollars into the game.  Again, that strikes me as prohibitive.

*  Based on typical value of singles of modern Magic decks adding up to $300-400 a deck, discounting because I’d buy boxes of cards rather than all singles.  Of course, this is a suboptimal way to compete in Magic from a cost standpoint.  Far better to draft against inferior players for rares, buy what is needed for a single tournament and turn around and sell cards that won’t get reprinted, and so forth – these strategies for cost containment, however, don’t sound appealing to me.

Getting back to V:TES, what is a prohibitive level of expenditure in effort and/or $$?

My recommendation to a new player (to an existing group) is to borrow decks until the player is sure that they want to play it for the long haul, then go find someone getting out of the game or putting a collection up on eBay.  That should give somewhere between 5,000 and 50,000 cards to work with at a cost of something along the lines of $50-$300.  Then, can hunt for harder to get cards to build weirder decks.

That’s not how I got into the game.  I did borrow decks before investing.  I decided I was interested in creating my own decks from my collection.  I started buying Jyhad boxes.  Then, I bought some Sabbat.  Then, I bought some Dark Sovereigns and Ancient Hearts.  At some point, I had a case or more of Jyhad – it being so cheap at various points that we played a single game of sealed box Jyhad.  I stupidly didn’t buy a ton of Sabbat when it was cheap.  I bought lots of every White Wolf published expansion.  I virtually never traded in the 16 years I’ve been playing.  I have bought singles on eBay at times but not for years and, obviously, not before eBay was a thing.

On a tangent, speaking of playing for 16 years, it’s kind of interesting to realize that.  I still enjoy the game quite a bit, testament to the value of CCGs I would say.  Why only 16 years?  I was introduced to the game in 1995 and started playing the following year.

I had an epiphany at some point with the Babylon 5 CCG.  I know I’m rambling, but I’m finally getting to the point.  I had all of the cards, for all intents and purposes.  My collection was defined more by how many autographed rares or chase promos I had.  One day, I thought about how much more fun it was to build decks when I had only a couple of boxes of starters and a couple of boxes of boosters, roughly my initial purchases.

Ever since then, I’ve always kept in mind that there are disadvantages to being a Mr. Suitcase.  Mark Rosewater goes on about restrictions breeding creativity, and I can see that with collection sizes.  I felt much more creative and passionate about decks I designed when I had to struggle to figure out how to compete.  I put this down to thinking way more about each card when:  I had less of them to think about; I couldn’t just play a better card all of the time.  Then, the more thought put into a deck, the more I care about a deck, so the more I’m likely to enjoy a deck.

I frequently restrict myself when it comes to deck construction.  It’s not just because of house rules for play groups I might play with or even laziness.  Nor is it something I do just for V:TES.  I built rareless decks for B5.  I wrote a Scrye article on a rareless, promoless deck for Wheel of Time, a game chock full of power rares/promos.  Likely, it has something to do with Ultimate Combat! being my first CCG and how that CCG restricts deck construction by rarity.  I built iceless corp decks for Netrunner.  Minionless V:TES tournament deck … that got the edge twice in one round.  An all ax kick deck for UC!.  And, so on and so forth.

There’s just something stimulating about limitations.  When I look at V:TES, B5, WoT, or UC!, I can almost build any deck possible.  That tends to inflict me with an ennui.  Why?  Too many options.  Lack of focus.  I can easily put together 20 decks; how am I ever going to be as emotionally invested in 20 decks as I would have been for the 1-2 I had to put real effort into?

Anyway, it’s all great to talk about my own interests, but how does this relate to someone trying to compete in V:TES?

Unlike most CCGs, I don’t see where someone needs much to compete with a reasonable variety of decks in V:TES.  This isn’t Magic, where multilands are essential to multicolor decks.  This isn’t WoT, where even Light decks wanted ultrarare recruitable Forsaken cards for their discard effects.  This isn’t Dragonball Z, Star Wars, or a multitude of other CCGs with similar ultrarare issues.

The more cards you have, obviously, the more options you have.  But, not having every option is supposed to be a feature of CCGs.  It would suck if the only deck someone with under 5,000 cards could build for V:TES that could compete is Malk SB.  But, that’s also not the case.

What is the case?  Again, I can’t really put myself into other people’s shoes.  This most commonly comes up when trying to think of how to recruit new players to games that I’ve been invested in for years.  But, that’s another topic.

If I were limited to around a thousand cards, which is like some starters and two booster boxes, what could I do?  I’d imagine there would be a lot of problems with V:TES at that level, mostly because of the need for wake effects, pool gain (blood conversion if you are reading Darby’s latest offerings over at Inferior Babble), and certain staples that might not come in the particular precons I started with (or I was using starters from the pre-precon sets).

By the way, the starter box + x2 booster box level is the level of investment that I think of when I think of the concept of when I enjoy a CCG most.

V:TES is hard on new players due to no card limits – a primary reason why I would always have card limits, in fact prefer 3cl in my CCGs.  At the same time, it’s a game where a lot of decks can win.

How many?

I’m curious.  There’s probably a tool out there to do simulated booster packs for this game, but I don’t have it.  Precons are easy, I even have a bunch unopened, nevermind how easy it is to rebuild them.  However, precons have largely been missing far too many essential cards, being light on the most important things of quality masters and wakes, while also often having bizarrely unplayable crypts.

In reality, I have enough unopened product or unorganized product (never sorted boosters I opened) that I can run a number of experiments on what it’s like to have a modest collection.

So, I guess I should.

3/4 Berkeley Tourney

Brandon and I drive up, get to Berkeley before 10AM, find a good parking place, and are left wondering what to do about food.  We wander around a bit and settle on a breakfast/lunch coffee/tea place.  Run into Ian and his friend while eating, then head over to Games of Berkeley.

I repeatedly made the comment about how I was amazed that more people weren’t familiar with Games of Berkeley’s basement.  We used to run Babylon 5 tournaments down there over a decade ago.  A lot about the store was the same, but the downstairs was a lot better.  It was better lit, there were more gaming areas, so it felt less like a dungeon with many employee only exits, it might have smelled better than back in the day.  Still little air flow, so it got warm and stuffy.

Anyway, folks tried to contact everyone under the Sun to get to a tenth player since, as everyone knows, the only prize that actually matters in V:TES tournaments is the TWDA.  Didn’t work.  I blame East Bay people.  I used to care more about this sort of thing.  Another sign of how much less gravitas I put on the game is that it didn’t really bother me.

Round 1

Eric (Ayo Igoli & Ishtarri) -> Kenneth (Shamblers) -> Ian L. (Ezmerelda 1st Tradition) -> Alex CH (Tzimisce wall)

This was horrid seating for me, knowing very well that Alex’s not new deck was just going to be an endless succession of combat cards supported by easily being able to block my actions.  Meanwhile, if Kenneth went forward with Shamblers, the two combat cards in my deck weren’t going to stop me from being minionless.

What was funny was that my Pushing the Limit was in my opening hand.  Combined with no one yet having seen the deck, it was unclear what the deck did.  I Info Highway first turn, put 5 on Ezmerelda.  Turn two, Rake.  I couldn’t really decide who I wanted out first.  Rake was the best disguise but less useful than either Gilbert Duane who was the only crypt option for my primary discipline – Obfuscate – or Ezmerelda who could be Villeined early.

Alex and I had virtually no interaction in the game.  I didn’t want to take easily blocked actions, so usually acted only when Gilbert could stealth me.  What little bleeding I did was bounced.  My votes kept getting discarded, though I did Banish Le Dinh Tho.  His first two discards were On the Qui Vive and Pushing the Limit.  Eric didn’t have a whole lot of impact in the game, getting largely beaten up by Alex and losing a Famous Ayo Igoli to Breath of the Dragon, which made no sense to me.

If I had to say why I’ve had more success than a lot of other locals, it would mostly be due to my interest in playing until the game is over.  Another sign of fewer gravitasons in my sphere of influence is that I really stopped caring about this game.  Kenneth Famed me and rather than tap Dreams before entering combat with a Shambler, I let the Shambler come for Gilbert and drop him.  Not that it really mattered.  The game was inevitably between Alex and Kenneth and it was all a matter of how the combats went between them.

Round 2

Ian T. (Armin Brenner Coalition) -> Lev (Barrenness) -> Alex O. (Nahum PRE anarch) -> Ian L.

Much chagrin by Ian T. over Lev’s deck as Barrenness shuts down his deck’s babymaking and nukes the weenies.  Funny thing was that Scourge of the Enochians came down early and it only ever blew up one of Ian’s dorks.

More screwed was Alex.  He tried Pentex Subversion on The unnamed, but I burned it as it was way too early.  The unnamed quickly got Enkil Cog and double bled a lot, which Alex had limited defense against, relying more on Scobax for bleed reduction than Auspex for good bleed defense.

Armin did Banish The unnamed, which helped a little.  Some of my cool plays got killed with Evil Eye.  But, I essentially had no predator, so I amassed Princes and blew up Ezmerelda a few times.  I played a fairly early First Tradition, which mostly hurt Alex, but it still seemed okay.  I later dropped multiple First Traditions to lock Ian and Lev out of the game and had enough offense to finish Lev off, though it was disturbingly close.

The five player timed out as the first round five player timed out.

Finals

Ian T. and Kenneth were fourth and fifth.  Brandon chose to sit downstream of Kenneth.  I didn’t want anything to do with either Kenneth or Brandon, but I’d rather be upstream of Kenneth and didn’t fear being downstream of Ian, so I inserted between Ian and Kenneth.  Alex liked how impotent my deck was offensively and wanted to be away from Brandon and sat between Kenneth and me, though I would have also considered being between the two Ians as he would have been away from both other combat decks and didn’t really have anything to fear from either of us.

Ian T. -> Ian L. -> Alex CH -> Kenneth -> Brandon (ANI rush)

My first two turns I discard Fear of Mekhet.  Therefore, I cannot lose if you define losing as not discarding two Fear of Mekhet on one’s first two turns.

Ian T. did not have a good game.  His first vampire was a !Gangrel with inferior Presence, so no superior Enchant Kindred, no Unexpected Coalition, only one vote.  All of my vampires have 2 votes.  I brought out Volker on turn 2 and Greger on turn 4, not having any acceleration to bring out Ezmerelda for a few turns after.

While the best of the games, if not the best for me, there still wasn’t a whole lot going on.  Brandon couldn’t care less about Shamblers, which he could nuke at will.  Ian had little to do that mattered as I didn’t feel much threatened.  Alex had the most meaningful interaction for much of the game.

Alex managed to get low on pool as most of his masters got Washed away by Kenneth and me.  I was doing okay with Papillon to restore my guys who got emptied, such as Ezmerelda who got hit for nine in one combat by Velya and Rotschrecked another time.  I untapped with an empty Ezmerelda and considered whether to pop her or whether to lunge.  I figured lunging made more sense since there was so little chance of my deck getting through Alex’s normally.

I fail.  I fail a couple of other times as well, having bleeds of three from Greger, his Camera Phone, and his Old Friends getting bounced.  Meanwhile, Brandon takes out Ian with Fame and bleeds, which tends to happen when you have no predator.  I suppose I should mention that I couldn’t pass votes much of the time as I allowed Ian to get Cardinal Benediction off and Alex had Meshenka and Velya, so Ian going out was interesting to me.  Brandon going out would have been better, in theory, removing Narrow Minds from play and giving Kenneth the ability to do stuff forward.

Instead, time limit drew near and Brandon finally destroyed my board and bled me out.

Oh well.  I do have a few things to say about my deck.

Deck Name:   110626  Ezmerelda Tradition
Created By:  Ezmerelda

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 23, Max: 44, Avg: 8.25)
———————————————-
1  Calebros                           ANI obf pot    5  Nosferatu
5  Ezmerelda                          ANI CHI dom FOR PRE tha11 Ravnos
1  Gilbert Duane                      AUS DOM OBF    7  Malkavian
1  Greger Anderssen                   AUS dom OBF pro7  Malkavian
1  Murat                              OBF POT ser    7  Nosferatu
1  Nikolaus Vermeulen                 ani for obf POT7  Nosferatu
1  Rake                               aus cel pot PRE6  Brujah
1  Volker                             CEL pot        5  Brujah

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (21 cards)
3  Dreams of the Sphinx
2  Fear of Mekhet
1  Giant`s Blood
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
2  Information Highway
1  Papillon
7  Villein
4  Wash

Action Modifier (16 cards)
3  Change of Target
6  Cloak the Gathering
1  Forgotten Labyrinth
3  Old Friends
3  Veil the Legions

Political Action (15 cards)
3  Banishment
1  Domain Challenge
7  First Tradition: The Masquerade, The
3  Kine Resources Contested
1  Neonate Breach

Reaction (13 cards)
6  Deflection
2  On the Qui Vive
5  Second Tradition: Domain, The

Combat (2 cards)
1  Dodge
1  Pushing the Limit

Ally (2 cards)
1  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Equipment (2 cards)
2  Camera Phone

Combo (4 cards)
4  Swallowed by the Night

First, I never played a KRC all day.  The deck is probably offense shy, anyway, since I need to violate people while First Tradition is in play, but it’s no wonder that I felt like I couldn’t really hurt folks (ignoring the whole wall deck as prey two rounds thing).

Second, I still don’t have a great idea how to use First Tradition in this deck.  In two games, I didn’t even try putting it into play, fearing that it only helped others more than me.  Yet, those two games were the two games I lost.  And, the deck chokes horribly if it just discards them.

Third, there was a third thing, but I forgot.  I guess I could say that the crypt could be less silly as the Brujahs’ main value seemed to be in confusing people rather than causing pool loss.

Lack of Parity Shifts?  That was intentional.  I considered at the last minute putting some into this deck I designed in June, but then, I remembered how boring Parity Shift is.

Deck does need changing.  If it doesn’t play First Tradition, it fails conceptually/strategically, and it’s not very good at playing First Tradition.  Not that I’m much of a fan of First Tradition since the whole point of the card is to limit interaction – that may be good, but it’s antifun.

Alternatives To Fun

My original intent was to focus on an aspect of V:TES – you know, that game I theoretically play and haven’t said much of anything about for weeks – with this post.

But, I read tomorrow’s Magic article by lead developer Zac Hill and started thinking about something else, then started thinking about rolling everything together since it all ties into pondering what makes games fun.

The V:TES part has to do with a common problem I run into when building decks on paper.  I create a lot of concept decks that are more akin, sometimes, to others’ tournament decks and, in other cases, try to prove a point about the game.  More specifically, the decks I’m talking about are very focused, unlike a lot of the decks I prefer to play.

And, that’s the problem.  There are some ideas I very much am curious about in terms of how well they would work, but the point of playing games is to have fun, and I don’t project that a lot of these decks will be fun to play in the setting – tournament play – that they are intended to be played in.  I suppose if I played a lot of tournaments, it would be fine to try more of these experiments, but tournament play is sufficiently scarce that I want to play something that will interest me throughout a day and not decrease the enjoyment of others.

Examples?  Combo.  I actually want to see how a Turbo Baron deck plays out, for instance.  I’m no great fan of combo in the first place, but it’s counterproductive not to examine such things.  Vicious or metagamey stealth bleed.  While I actually like stealth bleed, I don’t see how I can make the game fun for others by playing good stealth bleed decks, including ones that would be good because they abuse the metagame, such as masterkiller decks.

Meanwhile, crafting the fun deck for tournament play requires some thought.  The first part being what I’d actually enjoy playing, which is not a constant.  The second part is making sure that it achieves the low threshold of viability that I talk about often.  Probably not all that surprising that when you aren’t trying for good, it’s not superhard to achieve bad.  The third part is being memorable, more so to my opponents than to myself.  That memorability may be achievable with a modicum of cards or may require a more developed angle.

As an example of a deck that probably hit #1 and #2 and intended to hit #3 but likely failed, I had my Sea Pirates deck.  There were two primary elements to the deck:  I have never won a tournament playing Protean; Restoration should be better than I have long thought it is.  But, neither Protean nor Restoration nor the combination is distinctive enough to gain the all important “cool points” that any real deckbuilder is looking for.

Meanwhile, in our December qualifier, I played a !Nos deck that actually *gasp* rushed.  It arguably hit #2 and might have hit #3 only because people don’t expect me to play serious combat, but it utterly failed at #1.  Sure, it wasn’t a pure rush deck, a deck archetype I tend to despise, but any sort of rush requires way too many decisions I don’t enjoy making in tournament play.

So, to wrap up a bit about my V:TES decks so that I can move on to addressing some elements of Zac’s article, I have a bunch of decks across many years that I have never put together because, while they may be interesting scientifically, they strike me as unfun.

While I’m writing this, I haven’t actually finished his article.  But, there are so many things that could be commented upon, I’ll go through the ones I want to, in order.

Feeling

A central point to the article is explaining why people game.  People game to feel something.  Now, if you know about Timmy, Johnny, and Spike, you know that words like experiencing something are used to differentiate the psychographic profiles.  Still, it seems intuitively obvious that the reason to play games is for fun and that fun is a feeling.

It’s this feeling that ties the article into what I talk about above with decks.  Sure, I can play a really good stealth bleed deck.  But, that’s boring.  Where’s the challenge?  Winning a tournament?  Been there, done that … and with some really sketchy decks.  Win a major?  A continental championship?  Besides how rare it is for me to play those, the feeling of achievement in the game wouldn’t be nearly as high playing a boring deck as playing a non-boring deck.

Every once in a while, I play FreeCell.  I also play a lot of solitaire with an actual deck of cards while I watch TV, but FreeCell is a good example, here.  There’s a reason that when I play FreeCell I think in terms of 100 or 200 game sets.  Winning any single game of FreeCell is so pathetically easy that it provides no feeling of achievement.  It’s the ability to concentrate over the course of hundreds of individually trivial games, to grind, that is being tested.  Overcoming that lapse in concentration is the achievement and seeing the 100% win rate over hundreds of games is the payoff that a 100% win rate over a few dozen doesn’t provide.  I’d imagine that poker is like this for professionals – the achievement isn’t one big hand which might have been luck or bad play by an opponent but grinding other players out due to superior play.

Flow

I’m one of those people who despises Madness of the Bard.  That may seem a bit odd when you consider how many joke decks I build for CCGs.  But, maybe we can sort out this paradox by looking at the three elements of the flow experience:  clear goals, rigidly defined rules of engagement, and the potential for measured improvement in the context of those goals and rules.

I have learned, at least to some degree, that playing contrary to the goals of a game ruins the play experience for everyone.  Madness of the Bard does actually relate to the goal in the game of eliminating opponents’ pool, so why do I find it so offensive?  Because it’s a separate game.  I don’t actually care a whole lot about what it does to pool totals.  Anyone trying to play to the card, for whatever reason, is engaging in a poetry contest, not playing a card game.

Meanwhile, many of my joke decks are jokes in that they play around with people’s expectations, not jokes in that they are opposed to a plan of winning.  My Minbari Intrigue deck in the pre-Shadows days was trying to win, it was just trying to win with an awful strategy and with awful cards.  My Dance, Dance Revolution deck, currently built, can win … as substandard as Wind Dance is as a combat play.  I don’t think I make a lot of joke decks that make no effort to be viable.  I do, however, end up with a fair number of decks intended for humor that tried to be viable and failed.  The result ends up being the same, and it’s not a good thing to screw up games for others with such decks.  I could see someone arguing that the Minbari Intrigue deck was non-viable; I certainly don’t remember it doing anything productive.  But, sometimes, you can’t tell until you go to play the deck.  I’ve built decks that I thought would be competitive, that were built to try something productive, and that failed miserably.

Fiero

Fiero addresses more precisely why I hate easy wins.  I’m not terribly clear on why anyone else is in favor of easy wins, and fiero would suggest that they shouldn’t be, but it’s entirely possible that what I think is an easy win is perceived as more challenging by someone else.

Anyway.  When I talk about not enjoying winning in and of itself, it’s very possibly due to the level of fiero that is provided.  I take pride in all of the V:TES tournament wins I can think of off the top of my head because I felt challenged in every event.  In truth, I can’t really think of any CCG tournament win where I didn’t feel challenged.  On the other hand, there have been tons and tons of individual games, whether CCG or boardgame or whatever competitive game, where I felt no satisfaction from winning.  Any game where I get handed victory feels hollow.

Oh, I think I may have thought of an example of something that was competitive, if not a tournament:  the Prophecies League that V:TES did, now many years ago.  I won the first two games.  Won the next two games.  Nine weeks later or whatever, when it ended, nobody else had more than three wins.  I vaguely recall individual games where I might have gotten the game handed to me, but, more importantly, the overall experience wasn’t all that satisfying.  I even would skip playing for a week hoping someone would make some progress catching up, only to eventually end up winning on my efforts through week two.  A huge reason the other participants didn’t make it a challenge was that they didn’t make any real effort to metagame.  The league rules were utterly brutal to the unprepared and, since I got to choose one of the rules every week for the entire event, I kept choosing rules I thought made for interesting deckbuilding decisions, rules that lent themselves to building very odd decks.  That proved unfierotastic when people didn’t take the rules into account.

The End

Zac mentions how Magic is flowriffic because there’s always a correct decision.  Um, I won’t try arguing with that because I grief on Magic enough and it’s essentially right, anyway.  The important bit is that games fail when you don’t know whether your decision mattered.

I don’t like El Grande.  I’m a strategist, of what level I don’t really know, but I do know that I’m a bad tactician.  El Grande is far too tactical for me.  I have no idea whether my early game decisions to forego short term points will pay off because hammering leaders is expected.  This lack of understanding the payoff deprives me of any joy in making decisions earlier, then, later, the game may be so out of hand that there’s no joy in the later game decisions, either.

By the way, if anyone was curious as to why I suck so bad at jobhunting, some of it has to do with not knowing the payoff of my decisions.  Probably goes even further than that.  From a flow perspective, I don’t clearly understand the goal, since I don’t know specifically what job I want, I don’t have any sense of rigidly defined rules of engagement, but, on the other hand, I do have a sense of improvement in terms of more interviews, better interviews, and offers.

Qualifier – 2011

Weekend ended up being too busy to put thoughts down on the qualifier and other V:TES games.  Reading some other tournament reports, I don’t know if it’s that I never went into the same level of detail that others do or that I’ve lost interest in going into as much detail.  Oh well.  Highlights, then.

Event 1 (whatever it was called)

Round 1:

Andy (Cavalier Malk SB) -> Joel E. (EuroBrujah) -> Ian T. (Samedi RC) -> Joel M. (Week of Nightmares) -> Ian L. (Newcromancy)

24 players!!  Really?!?  So bizarre that we are setting attendance records.  Guess mid-December is a pretty good time for tournaments.

The Ian and Joel show was okay.  An interesting mix of somewhat notable with completely non-notable.  On turn two, I play cards, including Govern (bleed) and Spectral Div.  I never bleed like this early, but I wanted to cycle out of Summon Soul and burning the two blood seemed okay.  My overwhelming aggression was only likely to confuse my opponents.

Didn’t last long.  I played one card in the next hour.

I chose to be handjammed with two wakes and two bounce and a complete lack of masters.  In fact, I didn’t draw a master until the turn that my predator ousted me.  But, before that happened, I was in pretty good shape.  My grandprey did a good job of defending with Second Traditions, though we weren’t entirely sure why he didn’t rush backwards with Theo Bell.  Beast joined the ready region eventually.  Andy got beaten up a bit.  While I didn’t bounce much as JM tooled up with Tumnimos and whatnot, I didn’t get bounced much either, so Andy goes down to one pool and it looks like two easy VP for me, while having down little to nothing in the game.

Then, JM decides to oust me.  Andy bouncing a bleed back to me creates the kill situation, which was reasonable as I would have killed him on my turn.  It wasn’t terribly disappointing to fail to get VPs, it wasn’t like I deserved any.  The deck had a lot of masters and I didn’t bother digging, for instance.

No, what was disappointing was that I didn’t play anything interesting in the game, except, maybe, one Transfusion, which without a Path in play, wasn’t terribly meaningful.  An interesting strategic and tactical game but boring from a card interaction standpoint.

JM went on to easily get other VPs.  IT had an interesting lack of stealth in his Samedi (best stealth clan in the game) deck.  Looked like he could get JM into a non-playing position, but a Sensory Dep on The Baron was limiting and JM gained a bunch of pool off of blood farming.

Round 2:

Ian -> Matt (Pre/Obf w/ Events) -> Dan (Gargoyle bleed) -> Joel M. -> Joe (Toreador B&B)

Much more interesting for me.  I had complete control over my predator’s Toreador guns bruise and bleed deck with my early draw of two Promise of 1528s.  I played masters.  The Path of Bone never got burnt.  I wondered if my prey had Parity Shift for the longest time.  I expected his early Fortschritt Library into Break the Code to lead to The Rising, but it never hit the table.  I didn’t get the point of the event cards.

After Chair of Hades-ing Carlton, I stealth bleed Matt out by drawing into a second Govern to enable me to bleed for 12 when he had 11 pool.  While I didn’t have bounce in my hand, it was funny how the table correctly decided that my predator bleeding me when my prey was tapped out with 11 pool was a terrible thing to do.

Dan fell quickly as his deck wasn’t holding up well under the pressure of bleeds for 3 at stealth and votes for 3.  With only three bleed cards left in my library, which was maybe 25 cards tall, I couldn’t get Joel.  TW and 2.5 VPs was .5 VPs short of a tie for fifth place, so not getting one more VP was huge, potentially large.  I did consider letting Dan try to oust Joel, but I didn’t think I could ever get Joe.

Pickup Interlude:

Yeah, I really don’t have as much interest in explaining more details about games, in particular what was going on with others.

I played Ani/Cel/For, 4-cl, Jyhad/DS/AH-only.  We realized halfway in the game that my Quinton McDonnell had the only vote on the table.  My Ass, long range combat predator couldn’t really do anything to me due to my deck being full of combat cards.  On the other hand, my lack of ousting power and inability to get more permacept in play meant my Week of Nightmares prey could do whatever he wanted.

Actually, the Rom Gypsy gave him two VPs.  I had a Raven Spy early, but I couldn’t deal with two permanent stealth between RG and Fortune Teller Shop.  What was weird about this game, besides Andrei Puxon and Quinton McDonnell being combat beasts, was my prey playing Week of Nightmares when I had Andrei and Kostantin.  Kostantin got Sensory Depped, stole a Camera Phone, Freaked.  Andrei took the Camera Phone to become a three bleeder.  How to allocate Week counters was oddly wonderful with people moving them to my Andrei as well as my prey.  I kept getting SensDepped.

Long after we should have called the game and long after the Week ended, my prey conceded the last two VPs as I was gaining three pool a turn and only losing two, while doing things to me was costing my prey.  My plan was to bloat enough to bring out Lucretia, since everyone knows that’s full of win, and have two vamps not SensDepped.

Qualifier:

Ian (!Nos w/ Dominate) -> Matt (Imbued Beretta rush) -> Mike Z. (Giovanni Embraces) -> Alex (Ass w/ Dominate)

Only 21 players, heh.  Four player tables, for the most part, not as enthralling.

My game got warped horribly by the Imbued.  Because I knew that Dragon’s Breath Rounds were coming, I had to play around being tooled by Berettas.  There’s actually a lot of details I could mention about this game, but one can fill in the backwards beatdowns to stop Badr and Ur-Shulgi from bleeding me too much and whatnot.

I use Dreams at one point and my end of turn discards are Preternatural Strength, Torn Signpost, and Villein.  I had to hold on to every Swallowed by the Night for the maneuvers to make sure I could land against the Imbued and, then, started drawing Immortal Grapples, which I choked on as I couldn’t discard those either.  By playing virtually the whole game with just Julio Martinez and Mateusz, I had little ousting energy.  I kept being reluctant to bring up Gustaphe Brunnelle as I kept getting bounced to and my 4-cl deck didn’t have a whole lot of bounce.  Or, more importantly, it didn’t have a lot of wakes.  I knew my deck was wake poor, especially given the crypt size.

So, after Alex got ousted, we settled into a painful three-way of Mike not wanting to do anything into the face of my combat and my Underbridge Stray who had intercept from The Unmasking, Matt getting nowhere against Mike, and my punking an Imbued once in a while only to have it pop back up.  I actually hoped Matt would oust Mike, as I figured I could do more in a heads up game with my combat.  We timed out.  I’m mostly surprised Matt didn’t use the Imbued with built in rush to rush Mike more, but whatever.  My inability to oust a rush Imbued deck was just sad.

Round 2:

Brad (Ventrue grinder) -> Ian -> Brandon (Trem) -> Dennis (Diversion rush) -> A.J. (fat Tzimisce)

I’d say the main takeaway for me from this game is that I played it impatiently.  I played it like I see a lot of other people play.  Brad played “my game” – doing nothing until his inevitable victory.  A.J. was just impotent in the face of damage prevent.  I did bring out Gustaphe who promptly got Preternatural Strength, so at one point, Dennis and I had reduced Brandon to one ready minion, which became three ready minions, two of which were empty.  I took a low percentage shot at ousting Brandon only to have Conditioning bounced.  I was stuck on actions as I was spending so much time trying to contain Brandon, so I discarded Seal of Veddartha at one point and kept not putting Mylan into play.

Just impatient.  Though, I wasn’t at all clear how to prevent Brandon from getting 2 VPs as A.J. never got strong.  In fact, what hurt me a lot was that A.J. kept having bleeds of two bounced to me that I had to eat, which let Brad exactly oust me with a Govern when Brandon was on the ropes.

Just evidence that I suck at playing with combat decks.  First time I haven’t qualified in our local qualifier in my memory.  Really going downhill as a player – the way it should be.

Sunday

Sunday was all about pickup games with the guys up from Los Angeles.

Matt (!Gangrel vote) -> Mike Z. (Giovanni w/ Embraces) -> Ian (Dance, Dance, Revolution) -> Dennis (Journal of Hrorsh) -> Brandon (New Nos)

I am constantly amazed at how much pool damage I can do with Constant Revolution.  My opening game sucked as I had four Anarch Converts in my crypt draw.  Dennis did his Mr. Noir gains 25 pool or whatever thing when Brandon hadn’t even brought out a dude yet.

Eventually, Dennis Hostile Takeovers my Kurt Strauss and Matt gives up on the game by ousting himself with a bid of nine.  The numerous global effects of Judgment: Camarilla Segregation (Brandon), Constant Revolution (me), Anarch Revolt (me, again), even Smiling Jack (yup, me) just didn’t make the game comfortable for folks.  I’m fairly sure I could have stopped Dennis’s second round of gaining massive pool with Power of All on Freak Drive, but I was spending too much time thinking about Filchware’s and whether to stop Journal or not to actually play Power of All.

James (Corrupt Construction) -> Robert (!Toreador w/ War Ghouls) -> Ian (Blessed Resilience) -> Dennis (Eternal Mask IC) -> Matt (Trochomancy)

Matt has two Trochomancys DIed in the same turn (prey and predator).  I manage three intercept to block Ancient Influence and Matt bouncing backwards finishes off Dennis.  Robert has to go through nine crypt cards to get to a Tzimisce to play a War Ghoul.  James withdraws after sucking down a number of Trochomancys with his Corrupt Construction deck … still gets out an 18-life CC at one point.

With four possible Force of Will bleeds, I only need two to oust Matt.  Robert screws around in the endgame by bleeding for zero with a War Ghoul, so with four vampires in my ash heap, zero controlled, and zero uncontrolled, I The Parthenon, Blessed Resilience, hunt, bleed for three with Force of Will, and Call of the Hungry Dead past Robert’s second War Ghoul.  While tainted by the nonsensical War Ghoul bleed, I find ousting someone with five vampires and two War Ghouls while having no controlled or uncontrolled vampires to be highly amusing.

Dennis (Sylvie Helgon) -> James (Selma & Trap/UP) -> Ian (Nos anarch bleed) -> Brandon (Ariadne Garou) -> Mike C. (Ur-Shulgi Contract)

I figure that James’s deck is Trap/UP when March is his first dork.  Selma Anathema-ing Sylvie is just horrendous.  Even more worser is James not playing Blood Hunt on her but on my Anarch Convert, which lets Mike gain tons of pool.  Brandon offends Dennis by looking to rush Sylvie with a Garou to prevent Mike from gaining, not being aware that you have to reduce to zero in combat.  What would have been funny is Dennis’s comment about rushing my Blood Hunted Convert with Sylvie to give me pool, but alas.

Brandon knows my deck, so he rushes backwards with Garou.  I finally play a Kindred Intelligence with this deck.  I finally bring out Josef von Bauren, the only vamp above 5-cap.  I don’t do much to impact the game and get ousted.

Decks (any Path of Lilith is really Lilith’s Blessing):

Deck Name:   111127  Newcromancy
Created By:  Baldesar

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 32, Avg: 4.66)
———————————————
2  Baldesar Rossellini                aus for nec DOM POT8  Giovanni
1  Don Michael Antonio Giovanni       DOM NEC POT    7  Giovanni
1  Gualtiero Ghiberti                 cel pot tha DOM NEC7  Giovanni
1  Guillaume Giovanni                 CEL DOM NEC POT obt9  Giovanni
1  Lia Milliner                       dom nec        3  Giovanni
1  Primo Giovanni                     domnec pot     4  Giovanni
1  Raphaela Giovanni                  DOM NEC pot pre6  Giovanni
4  Tupdog                             POT VIS        1  Gargoyle

Library: (80 cards)
——————-
Master (20 cards)
1  Barrens, The
2  Blood Doll
1  Dis Pater
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1  Necromancy
3  Path of Bone, The
1  Path of Lilith, The
1  Powerbase: Cape Verde
1  Rack, The
4  Vessel
2  Villein
1  WMRH Talk Radio
1  Wall Street Night, Financial Newspaper

Action (11 cards)
2  Chair of Hades
6  Govern the Unaligned
1  Haunt
1  Pandora`s Whisper
1  Summon Soul

Action Modifier (14 cards)
5  Call of the Hungry Dead
2  Conditioning
1  Foreshadowing Destruction
5  Transfusion
1  Trochomancy

Reaction (13 cards)
6  Deflection
1  Fillip
6  On the Qui Vive

Combat (8 cards)
2  Mercy for Seth
6  Spiritual Intervention

Ally (1 cards)
1  Leonardo, Mortician

Retainer (2 cards)
2  Masquer (Wraith)

Equipment (2 cards)
1  Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
1  Sargon Fragment, The

Combo (9 cards)
3  Promise of 1528
6  Spectral Divination

Not hugely interesting.  Metagamed for Imbued.  Really only delivered on the Promise of 1528 (I’ve already done the Transfusion thing often enough to know how tasty it is).

Deck Name:   110903  AniCelFor  4cl
Created By:  Andrei Puxon

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 23, Max: 39, Avg: 8)
——————————————-
3  Andrei Puxon                       ani cel chi for5  Ravnos
3  Kostantin                          ANI cel CHI dom FOR9  Ravnos
3  Lucretia                           ANI aus cel for OBF pot10 Nosferatu
3  Quinton McDonnell                  ani cel FOR pro8  Gangrel

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (15 cards)
1  Animalism
1  Barrens, The
4  Blood Doll
1  Celerity
1  Fortitude
1  Giant`s Blood
1  Information Highway
3  Minion Tap
1  Park Hunting Ground
1  Rack, The

Action (2 cards)
2  Restoration

Action Modifier (5 cards)
4  Freak Drive
1  Kiss of Ra, The

Reaction (12 cards)
4  Cats` Guidance
4  Rat`s Warning
4  Wake with Evening`s Freshness

Combat (27 cards)
2  Canine Horde
4  Flash
2  Hidden Strength
2  Indomitability
2  Psyche!
4  Sideslip
2  Skin of Rock
3  Skin of Steel
4  Taste of Vitae
2  Unflinching Persistence

Retainer (9 cards)
1  J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1  Mr. Winthrop
2  Murder of Crows
4  Raven Spy
1  Tasha Morgan

Equipment (5 cards)
4  .44 Magnum
1  Ivory Bow

The J/DS/AH restriction is to fit in better with the Pleasanton crowd that I haven’t played with in ages.  This deck has been entertaining, if really, really slow.

Deck Name:   111210  antiNos Qualifier Perfect
Created By:  Lucian, The Perfect

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 14, Max: 37, Avg: 6.91)
———————————————-
2  Gustaphe Brunnelle                 obf ANI DOM POT8  Nosferatu
1  Harold Tanner                      ani dom obf POT6  Nosferatu
1  Joseph Cambridge                   ani dom obf POT6  Nosferatu Antitribu
2  Julio Martinez                     ANI DOM nec OBF POT9  Nosferatu Antitribu
1  Lucian                             ANI AUS DOM OBF POT PRE 11 Guruhi
1  Mateusz Gryzbowsky                 ANI OBF POT    8  Nosferatu Antitribu
2  Tarbaby Jack                       dom ser ANI OBF POT8  Nosferatu Antitribu
2  Tupdog                             POT VIS        1  Gargoyle

Library: (80 cards)
——————-
Master (13 cards)
1  Archon Investigation
1  Barrens, The
1  Direct Intervention
1  Dreams of the Sphinx
1  Information Highway
3  Life in the City
1  Nosferatu Kingdom
4  Villein

Action (12 cards)
1  Bum`s Rush
4  Deep Song
4  Govern the Unaligned
1  Harass
1  Preternatural Strength
1  Sense Death

Action Modifier (4 cards)
2  Conditioning
1  Into Thin Air
1  Spying Mission

Reaction (14 cards)
3  Cats` Guidance
1  Confusion of the Eye
4  Deflection
4  On the Qui Vive
1  Redirection
1  Sense the Savage Way

Combat (24 cards)
1  Canine Horde
4  Carrion Crows
1  Drawing Out the Beast
4  Immortal Grapple
2  Slam
4  Taste of Vitae
1  Terror Frenzy
2  Thrown Gate
4  Torn Signpost
1  Vanish from the Mind`s Eye

Ally (3 cards)
1  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)
1  Underbridge Stray

Retainer (1 cards)
1  Mr. Winthrop

Equipment (2 cards)
1  Ivory Bow
1  Seal of Veddartha

Combo (7 cards)
1  Hide the Mind
2  Murmur of the False Will
4  Swallowed by the Night

More wakes.  Made me sad Lucian never tabled.  I’ll have to build more Lucian focused decks.

Deck Name:   110709  Dance, Dance, Revolution
Created By:  Sarah Cobbler

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 21, Avg: 3.25)
———————————————
4  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff
1  Brooke                             dom tha        3  Tremere Antitribu
1  Hannigan                           AUS dom THA    5  Tremere Antitribu
1  Ignatius                           aus dom tha    4  Tremere
1  Jing Wei                           dom tha        3  Tremere
1  Kurt Strauss                       aus DOM tha    5  Tremere Antitribu
1  Merrill Molitor                    aus dom THA    5  Tremere
1  Reverend Blackwood                 DOM obf THA    6  Tremere Antitribu
1  Sarah Cobbler                      dom THA        4  Tremere

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (20 cards)
2  Anarch Revolt
1  Barrens, The
4  Blood Doll
1  Dominate
2  Dreams of the Sphinx
1  Path of Lilith, The
1  Powerbase: Montreal
1  Rack, The
1  Rotschreck
5  Smiling Jack, The Anarch
1  Thaumaturgy

Action (7 cards)
5  Constant Revolution
2  Govern the Unaligned

Action Modifier (5 cards)
3  Conditioning
2  Mirror Walk

Reaction (22 cards)
9  Deflection
8  On the Qui Vive
2  Power of All
1  Redirection
2  Scry the Hearthstone

Combat (15 cards)
2  Burst of Sunlight
1  Diversion
1  Walk of Flame
1  Weather Control
10 Wind Dance

Ally (4 cards)
2  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)
1  Nephandus (Mage)

Retainer (1 cards)
1  Charnas the Imp

Equipment (1 cards)
1  Bowl of Convergence

Will have to change this deck as I want to play it again.  So many things I didn’t see in that game.

Deck Name:   110918  Blessed Resilience
Created By:  Macoute

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 25, Max: 32, Avg: 7.25)
———————————————-
3  Babalawo Alafin                    ani AUS FOR NEC7  Harbingers of Skulls
3  Macoute                            FOR obf NEC thn6  Samedi
3  Mordechai Ben-Nun                  ANI AUS FOR NEC8  Harbingers of Skulls
3  Morlock                            FOR NEC THN obf8  Samedi

Library: (90 cards)
——————-
Master (26 cards)
4  Blessed Resilience
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
4  Life in the City
1  Parthenon, The
1  Path of Lilith, The
6  Storage Annex
6  Villein
3  Wider View

Action (18 cards)
9  Force of Will
1  Possession
5  Rapid Healing
3  Restoration

Action Modifier (27 cards)
4  Call of the Hungry Dead
8  Daring the Dawn
14 Freak Drive
1  Trochomancy

Reaction (14 cards)
7  On the Qui Vive
7  Telepathic Misdirection

Ally (1 cards)
1  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

Combo (4 cards)
4  Spectral Divination

Man, I love the crypt for this deck – got the perfect draw of one of each, by the way, in that game.  Dennis strongly suggested adding about three Trochomancy.  There’s actually a lot of tweaks I could make now that I realize it’s not quite as kamikaze as I expected.  Still have won every game I’ve ever played playing HoS Force of Will …

Deck Name:   111119  Josef`s Army
Created By:  Toby

Crypt: (15 cards, Min: 4, Max: 32, Avg: 4.46)
———————————————
4  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff
1  Beetleman                          obf ANI        4  Nosferatu
1  Foureyes                           obf pot        3  Nosferatu
2  Jeremy Wix Wyzchovsky              ani obf pot    5  Nosferatu
2  Josef von Bauren                   cel ANI DEM OBF POT11 Nosferatu
1  Petra                              aus ANI OBF    5  Nosferatu
1  Ruxandra                           ani aus OBF    5  Nosferatu
1  Slag                               ani obf pot    4  Nosferatu
2  Toby                               ani obf pre    5  Nosferatu

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (20 cards)
1  Barrens, The
4  Blood Doll
1  Dreams of the Sphinx
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1  Labyrinth, The
2  Obfuscate
1  Path of Lilith, The
3  Perfectionist
4  Villein
2  Wider View

Action (9 cards)
4  Computer Hacking
1  Conceal
4  Kindred Intelligence

Action Modifier (16 cards)
4  Cloak the Gathering
2  Elder Impersonation
2  Faceless Night
1  Leverage
1  Monkey Wrench
4  Spying Mission
2  Veil the Legions

Reaction (12 cards)
4  Confusion of the Eye
2  Delaying Tactics
4  On the Qui Vive
2  Wake with Evening`s Freshness

Combat (8 cards)
4  Dodge
4  No Trace

Ally (1 cards)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Retainer (3 cards)
1  J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1  Robert Carter
1  Tasha Morgan

Equipment (1 cards)
1  Camera Phone

Event (1 cards)
1  Scourge of the Enochians

Combo (4 cards)
4  Swallowed by the Night

Have already decided to cut two of the crypt.  I never gain advantage from playing 15.  I also identified the need for Fragment of the Book of Nod after the first time I played it, but I haven’t cared enough to make the change.  After all, I never get blocked, so I discard stealth constantly.

Recent Winners – 2010/2011

It’s that time of year again.  The time to look at how the “clans” have fared in the last couple of years within the V:TES TWDA.  Why not wait until the end of the year?

Because we keep having a regional qualifier late in December.  By looking at what has done well or poorly recently, gives me food for thought leading into our premier event.

From the general …

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Malkavian	20	17	37
Ventrue	11	17	28
Ventrue antitribu	15	12	27
Tremere antitribu	12	11	23
Toreador	11	10	21
Giovanni	8	10	18
Tremere	10	7	17
Imbued	8	9	17
Brujah	5	11	16
Ahrimanes	5	9	14
Nosferatu	7	7	14
Malkavian antitribu	6	8	14
Guruhi	5	9	14
Lasombra	7	6	13
Baali	5	8	13
Tzimisce	6	6	12
Gangrel antitribu	2	10	12
Gargoyle	4	7	11
Kiasyd	7	4	11
Akunanse	4	6	10
Follower of Set	3	6	9
Assamite	1	7	8
Ishtarri	1	6	7
Ravnos	6	1	7
Brujah antitribu	2	4	6
True Brujah	2	4	6
Gangrel	5	1	6
Toreador antitribu	4	2	6
Daughter of Cacophony	1	4	5
Salubri	2	3	5
Osebo	1	3	4
Samedi	0	3	3
Harbinger of Skulls	2	1	3
Pander	1	2	3
Blood Brother	1	1	2
Nosferatu antitribu	2	0	2
Caitiff	1	1	2
Abomination	0	1	1
Salubri antritribu	0	1	1
Nagaraja	0	0	0
Grand Total			428

If we look at the top of the winners, five clans break 20 wins.  Three are original gangster.  Who would have guessed back in the day that the two winningest Sabbat clans would be the !Tremere and !Ventrue?

Bottom feeders – bloodlines (of course), Caitiff and Pander, and !Nosferatu.  I have said about as much as I’m interested in saying in the thread on vekn.net about which of !Brujah, !Gangrel, and !Nosferatu need the most help.  I didn’t even answer the question since my belief is that all three should receive help.  Where the weaker Cammie clans could always rely on powerful Cammie cards as well as a plethora of crypt options, the antitribu have largely been shafted historically.  With exceptions, of course.  !Toreador, for some reason, got cards like Art Scam and Palla Grande, later Foundation Exhibit.  That !Nos are really bad in tournament wins at the moment is not all that exciting.  Sample size issues mean that you can get wild swings in wins.

On the other hand, the two clans with double digit wins in 2011 that aren’t in the top five over the two year span are Brujah and !Gangrel.  So, worrying overmuch about the !Gangrel is mistimed.  Can argue all one wants that !Gangrel are supported by superstars, but determining who isn’t requires deep diving into every clan.

Anyway, a long list, let’s break up into my usual “classes”:

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Malkavian	20	17	37
Ventrue	11	17	28
Toreador	11	10	21
Tremere	10	7	17
Brujah	5	11	16
Nosferatu	7	7	14
Gangrel	5	1	6
Caitiff	1	1	2
Grand Total			141

The demise of Gangrel from elite status is just stunning.  Sure, as time has gone by and groups get added, they’ve lost Camarillaness, lost Dominate, lost Nadima.  Loki’s Gift hardly gets exploited like some other new cards, while Deep Song sees more use with winnies, fatties(!), and Nana Buruku-ies, er, Guruhi then with Gangrel.

Caitiff isn’t terribly surprising.  While the number of people who play Scourge of the Enochians seems really low, the threat of it ending your game seems sufficient to push out Caitiff and Pander, but not Tupdogs for whatever reason.  It’s hard to get enthused by one-caps.  Also, if we hadn’t seen this same effect with Pander, it could be argued that the awfulness of more recent Caitiff has a lot to do with the paltry number of wins.

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Giovanni	8	10	18
Follower of Set	3	6	9
Assamite	1	7	8
Ravnos	6	1	7
Grand Total			42

Always interesting to look at the original indies.  My sense is, without going back to look at the numbers, that they see the greatest swings of any “class” of clans.  We even see crazy swings from 2010 to 2011 with this data.

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Ventrue antitribu	15	12	27
Tremere antitribu	12	11	23
Malkavian antitribu	6	8	14
Lasombra	7	6	13
Tzimisce	6	6	12
Gangrel antitribu	2	10	12
Brujah antitribu	2	4	6
Toreador antitribu	4	2	6
Pander	1	2	3
Nosferatu antitribu	2	0	2
Grand Total			118

Besides unhappy Panders, it’s interesting to me how the most distinctive Sabbie clans by virtue of getting, at the time they came out, a unique discipline, fall into the 3, 4, and 5 slots on wins.  I believe all of the Sabbies, including the “leader” clans – Lasombra, Tzimisce – maybe especially the leader clans, should be getting more toys.  That !Ventrue have such unimpressive clan toys speaks volumes about what sort of vampires they’ve gotten.

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Ahrimanes	5	9	14
Baali	5	8	13
Kiasyd	7	4	11
Gargoyle	4	7	11
True Brujah	2	4	6
Daughter of Cacophony	1	4	5
Salubri	2	3	5
Samedi	0	3	3
Harbinger of Skulls	2	1	3
Blood Brother	1	1	2
Abomination	0	1	1
Salubri antritribu	0	1	1
Nagaraja	0	0	0
Grand Total			75

A notable rise across the board from 2010 to 2011.  New expansions really do have a major, if possibly short term, impact in popularity.  Though, it’s funny that one of the big winners is Ahrimanes when Heirs to the Blood didn’t give them the same sort of boost other bloodlines got.  In fact, they got nothing of great significance as either a clan toy or in Spiritus.

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Imbued	8	9	17
Grand Total			17

…

Clan	Wins 2010	Wins 2011	Total
Guruhi	5	9	14
Akunanse	4	6	10
Ishtarri	1	6	7
Osebo	1	3	4
Grand Total			35

Again, across the board increases.  Starting to look less pathetic.

Movement from 2010 to 2011:

Clan	Total
Gangrel antitribu	8
Ventrue	6
Brujah	6
Assamite	6
Ishtarri	5
Ahrimanes	4
Guruhi	4
Samedi	3
Baali	3
Gargoyle	3
Daughter of Cacophony	3
Follower of Set	3
True Brujah	2
Brujah antitribu	2
Osebo	2
Giovanni	2
Akunanse	2
Malkavian antitribu	2
Abomination	1
Salubri antritribu	1
Salubri	1
Pander	1
Imbued	1
Blood Brother	0
Nagaraja	0
Nosferatu	0
Tzimisce	0
Caitiff	0
Harbinger of Skulls	-1
Tremere antitribu	-1
Lasombra	-1
Toreador	-1
Nosferatu antitribu	-2
Toreador antitribu	-2
Ventrue antitribu	-3
Tremere	-3
Kiasyd	-3
Malkavian	-3
Gangrel	-4
Ravnos	-5
Grand Total	42

Probably don’t need to include a total, though I guess it’s worth noting that 42 additional decks are listed for clans, and the year isn’t over.  To get at a total total, the non-”clan” decks need to also be taken into account, and those numbers are up on extrala.blogspot.com, anyway.  What happened to the Ravnos?  They can play Deep Song, too.

So, for me, does any of this matter?

On the perpetual underdog side:  I’ve gotten bored with Nagaraja, but I consider Samedi having such poor showings as more about being underplayed than undercompetitive.  I don’t mind Off Kilter.  Maybe, I can get a bit more enthused with Reanimated Corpse and Little Mountain Cemetery or just try something radical like Groaning Corpse.dec.

On the “what happened to you?” side:  !Nos, sure.  Ravnos?  Why not?  Besides that I’ve won every tournament I’ve ever played with them, a list that gets shorter every time I return to a clan.  Course, not that the TWDA shows it, the same situation exists for Samedi.

On a more general level of what is going on with the game, while there are certainly movements, the picture I get from glancing at this data is one more of stability.  Lack of new sets might have something to do with that.  If only Ebony Kingdoms was the set it should have been – 150 cards, double digit new crypt options for each clan – maybe Laibon would have gotten a much bigger bump.  Guess it makes it that much more interesting that the numbers are rising for them even for the Nana Burukuless clans.

Cacophony

How does one prove deck quality in V:TES?

By winning?  But, say you play six tournaments and win once.  Is the deck that plays one tournament and wins better?

The problem is solved in CCGs where vast quantities of tournaments are played to where you (generally) overcome small sample size problems.  Not many CCGs have the volume.

Maybe in a six-month span, V:TES generates enough events that at least a few things can be determined.  Imbued were obviously broken – take a look at results here from March 2007 through the end of the year.  As a percentage of wins and in terms of quality of wins (based on tournament size), Imbued dominated.

Or, did they?  If I were to pinpoint the most overlooked factor in determining what is good and what isn’t in V:TES, it would be looking at what lost.  Unfortunately, we really have no idea what loses.  Where Magic can support a system where every matchup in a tournament is recorded, we don’t have a list of all of the table results for every tournament or, pretty much, even a single tournament in most cases.

Personal results should be meaningless.  Nevermind that those who play in 30, 40, 50, 75, 100 player tournaments have experiences I’ve had less than a handful of times.  My entire tournament career is a small sample size with huge biases in player skill and player interests.  Though, I will point out, as an arguing point, that I’ve lost every tournament I’ve ever played where I was running weenie Dominate to go with all of the “I’ve won every tournament I’ve ever played playing …[junk]…” statements.

Revisiting the issue of whether it’s possible to determine or credit deck quality in this game comes, unsurprisingly, right after we had a tournament.  It’s quite amusing.  We’ve had what I consider the most successful tournament season in the region ever in the past month or so.  Sure, storyline seasons saw more total participants, but from a competitive standpoint, we’ve had better than a qualifier weekend’s worth of events spread out to a degree that shows some stability.

Anyway, here is a deck I did not play:

Russian ECQ
Moscow, Russia
September 3, 2011
12 players
3R + F

Konstantin Prischepa’s Tournament Winning Deck

Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=3 max=6 avg=4.5)
==============================================
2x Angela Preston            5 for PRE MEL     Daughter of Cacophony:2
2x Céleste, The Voice of a Secret 3 pre mel         Daughter of Cacophony:2
2x Delilah Monroe            4 for pre MEL     Daughter of Cacophony:2
2x Gaël Pilet                6 chi pre FOR MEL     Daughter of Cacophony:2
2x Muse                3 ani for mel     Daughter of Cacophony:2
2x Yseult                6 FOR MEL PRE     Daughter of Cacophony:3

Library (78 cards)
==================
Master (10)
1x Command Performance
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Elder Library
1x Fear of Mekhet
4x Hanging Fermata
1x Paris Opera House
1x Protected Resources

Action (33)
18x Choir
4x Concert Tour
6x Enchant Kindred
5x Harmony

Ally (6)
6x Member of the Entourage

Action Modifier (18)
4x Freak Drive
8x Missing Voice, The
2x Phantom Speaker
4x Virtuosa

Combat (11)
4x Majesty
4x Skin of Steel
3x Soak

The relevance of this deck should become clearer by posting the deck I did play.  Ta da:

Deck Name:   110910  Harm-on-ye v2
Created By:  Angela Preston

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 23, Avg: 3.5)
——————————————–
4  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff
2  Angela Preston                     for MEL PRE    5  Daughters of Cacophony
1  Celeste                            mel pre        3  Daughters of Cacophony
1  Delilah Monroe                     for MEL pre    4  Daughters of Cacophony
1  Gael Pilet                         chi FOR MEL pre6  Daughters of Cacophony
1  Muse                               ani for mel    3  Daughters of Cacophony
2  Yseult                             FOR MEL PRE    6  Daughters of Cacophony

Library: (80 cards)
——————-
Master (14 cards)
1  Bastille Opera House
1  Command Performance
1  Conductor
1  Coven, The
1  Failsafe
1  Hanging Fermata
3  Life in the City
1  Paris Opera House
4  Wider View

Action (14 cards)
10 Choir
4  Harmony

Action Modifier (32 cards)
4  Bribes
4  Echo of Harmonies
10 Freak Drive
5  Missing Voice, The
4  Siren`s Lure
1  Virtuosa
4  Voter Captivation

Political Action (9 cards)
7  Consanguineous Boon
1  Free States Rant
1  Lily Prelude

Combat (7 cards)
2  Majesty
2  Soak
1  Toreador`s Bane
2  Zip Gun

Combo (4 cards)
4  Madrigal

Is one deck better than the other?  I have no frickin’ clue.  It’s easy to say that one deck won and my deck wasn’t that deck.  In fact, I gained .5 VPs over two rounds.  One could read the tournament report from the Russian event like I did (to the extent that I could have the page translated to English), but I’m still not at all clear how the first deck was so successful beside that it didn’t have either of the stealth bleed decks behind it in the finals.

It could easily be that Konstantin is a better player than I am.  Going off on a tangent, I’ve noticed that I come away from tournaments feeling like I haven’t played much, that I don’t have much to talk about.  I realized that a likely reason for this is that I used to be in finals frequently and there’s no guarantee that I’ll be playing pickup games when the finals of events are occurring these days.

My deck … before I attempt some analysis, I’d note that I took a deck I wrote up almost exactly a year ago – 9/12/10 – and modified it some after goldfishing it once and realizing a lot of vote action modifiers aren’t a good idea when you don’t draw any votes.  Plus, I cut it from 90 to 80.

My deck is not the sort of deck I like to play.  For me, it’s awfully high risk and inflexible.  For a whole lot of other people, this might seem hilarious as it’s way less high risk and way more flexible than most Choir decks.  I could play Konstantin’s deck, but I could never build Konstantin’s deck.

I’ve played maybe four or so different Choir builds.  The general problem of Daughters being unable to defend themselves against pool loss, only made worse when you are forced to fill your deck with awful cards like Choir, is one I’m constantly trying to address.  Based on yesterday’s results, I’m tired of using vote bloat.  People do not respect the fact that you must bloat in decks like this or you will be easily ousted.  It’s also rather boring to Con Boon over and over again.  What was interesting was that I lowballed Choirs so much in my final build that I wasn’t bored with Choir for the first time ever.  I actually hoped to draw Choirs and was entertained when I played them.

Besides dropping the vote angle and likely going with Forestal bounce, I would not run the Anarch Converts as Wider View makes them redundant and Wider View is filtering with pool gain while Convert is filtering with pool loss.  Sure, I dodge Anarch Revolts, but that’s not a major problem these days, and I don’t really have the combat defense to survive anarch removal attempts, anyway.

Removing the vote angle so changes the deck that it’s not that clear how it would look or what sort of vote defense plays I’d consider.  One thing I have to consider is how much evasion to run.  I keep ending up discarding Siren’s Lure and The Missing Voice even though they are tactically crucial.  As I say to people, getting actions through with Daughters is easy, but at what cost of jamming on evasion?  Of course, all problems are solved with Dreams and The Barrens, which may be another reason my game has fallen off, though …

Getting back to the problems of determining deck quality, player skill has a huge impact on results.  Even if you believe deck strength is more important than I do, I believe it’s an easier argument that player skill affects results than deck quality.  Which brings me to my skill.  As I said, I was in finals far more back in the day.  What can that be attributed to?  Smaller events might have something to do with that.  Only need about 2 VPs to get into the finals of a 10-12 player event.  But, recent discussion about how I don’t deal or don’t try to really talk at all to improve my positions in games leads me to believe that my skill has fallen off significantly because I no longer try (to a meaningful degree) to influence games in my favor with politics or table talk.

Sure, the less table politics influence play, the more deck strength will.  My argument on the irrelevancy of deck strength, assuming a minimum threshold of viability, is because any game can be talked to victory, overriding the power of card play.  It’s not because deck strength is meaningless in a vacuum.

Anyway, here’s how my day went:

Round 1:

Rodney (Dementation bleed) -> Ian (Harm-On-Ye) -> Steve (Imbued) -> Brandyn (Aching Beauty)

Steve’s V:TES goal seems to be to destroy vampires and put lots of cards in play.  Rodney was amazingly ineffectual, though his position wasn’t that bad, so at least I didn’t have a lot to worry about from that side.  On the other, though, I didn’t realize until too late that Steve never intended on trying to win and simply wanted to beat up vampires, starting with mine.

I quickly learned that my deck chokes on voting.  Not terribly bad in some respects because stealth bleed behind me can only be survived with my votes, but it meant I got off to a slow start.  Normally, that would be fine and I’d just wait to lunge, but Steve wanted my guys dead even when all I was doing was gaining pool and was perfectly willing to let Brandyn do whatever he wanted, so I was in the mindframe to play for 1 VP anyway.  By the way, 16 player tournament meant all four-player tables and a decent chance of needing a GW to make the finals.

I ended up with four vampires in torpor, but I didn’t feel like I was going to get ousted before time was called, leaving Rodney as the only one to fall.  I also thought I had a reasonable chance of ousting my prey if he “tapped out” (he had Vigilances) by taking the leave torpor action with Delilah with three blood, untapping with Command Performance, gaining blood with magic, Freak Driving for Choir and Harmony.  Might have taken two turns as I had two Life in the City in hand and earlier had played The Coven without using it, though it went when Rodney went.

Did the game bother me?  Not really.  A lot of things did make some sense.  Steve beating down my vampires made some sense.  Brandyn never rescuing made sense.  Rodney going forward made sense.  The game was fairly pointless, but I did stuff and had chances.  You can’t legislate against bad play and whose bad play was really at fault?  Could argue that I let things happen by not pointing out that Brandyn was free to do what he wanted until so late that the game was going to time out.

Round 2:

Joel (Clown Car) -> Sean (Lasombra bleed) -> Ian -> Gerentt (Newjah)

I never tried blocking the Lasombra bleeds.  Talley Govern.  Gratiano.  Guess I’ll just keep Con Booning and playing Bribes/Voter Cap.  I did call one for Abominations to make sure I could cycle a Cap.  I choked horribly on my bloat early, even discarding one of the three Con Boons in my opening hand.  That was okay, I ended up calling seven or eight with Echo of Harmonies help.

I thought it was hilarious that both my prey and my predator talked about my being able to just “Choir my prey out”.  One turn, I played a Choir that got blocked – it was the only one in hand – and ended up bleeding for as much damage as I could have done if I had gotten Choirs through.  Another turn, I Choired for a mighty 2 pool damage.  Late in the game I Harmonyed for 3.  I can take solace in the fear I generate when I’m being completely ineffectual.  Gerentt didn’t even bother bringing out a third vampire because I was such a threat.  Joel got Sean just in time to prevent my being ousted on Sean’s turn.  Didn’t really matter.  I misplayed by bringing out an Anarch Convert rather than blowing a Wider View because I forgot all of the Tumnimoses had superior Chimerstry and it was easy to stealth by this “key” blocker.  Eventually, Joel swept.

Pickup:

Rather than go into too much detail, I’ll simply say that Shattering the Gates is pretty easy when no one cares if you get counters.  I fell a Sense the Sin short of ousting my prey which would have meant two VPs and 12 precious pool, and, then, I died never bringing out anyone besides merged Nergal.  Failsafe getting Suddened by my predator may or may not have mattered, but it was funny how important it is to the South Bay group that I not be allowed to play Failsafes.

Good times, but I should probably either get more pickups in or try to get into the finals to have more to talk about after tournaments.

Bay Area Qualifier

It was like a V:TES convention for me.  Now, three tournaments or whatever is kind of conventionlike in the first place, but as I played until 1:30AM or whatever in Pleasanton before the qualifier weekend, it was very conventiony.

Friday

So, I get into Pleasanton about 8PM, start playing about 8:30PM.  Played two games, both times with the same predator.  First game, I play my awesome Jyhad-only (library), Toreador, Victoria Ash makes an appearance, Business Pressure-Disarming Presence 4cl deck.  It’s all good when I have so many masters to play that I have to wait to play the broken Elysium: The Arboretum – not so much broken because the group plays it as written but because the combat deck I play against all of the time is Camarilla.  My prey is playing the deck and punking his prey, who is playing Celerity/Fortitude; my grandpredator is playing Nos vote, and my predator is playing some Gangrel/! thing.  I call Rumors of Gehenna at some point which my grandpredator doesn’t like as I choose myself and my prey and I play Business Pressure and Disarming Presence, nobody cares about tapping, so everyone votes, but my prey and my grandpredator spend a bunch of pool to counter each other and it fails, though I could have played Telepathic Vote Counting to take it back into my hand.  Eventually, my grandprey and my predator die.  I die.  Nos win in an untimed game.  Discarding a Minion Tap was probably not a good idea on my part as my guys were pretty much always fullish.

Instead of playing my other Pleasanton-oriented deck, which was another Presence vote deck, I play a cut down version of my Elisabetta deck, 67 cards after making it 4cl.  I bring out Mylan, my prey takes it and that’s kind of game as he gets 6 minions in play.  I sit at 1 pool for 4-5 turns but don’t really feel that threatened by my predator who is playing the same or similar Gangrel/! deck.  Across the table, the Aus/Cel/Pre?/Obf? deck keeps getting blocked equipping and doesn’t use Greta’s ability enough.  I don’t really remember doing much cool, though I did rush some with Steely Tenacity with Forestal.  I draw Failsafe a turn too late.

Saturday

My alarm wakes me up.  I have a great internal clock for waking up, so this almost never happens.  Not only does it wake me up, but I don’t realize it’s my alarm for a while.  I felt like crap.  So, off to play two tournaments.

Tournamet #1, Round 1:

Ian (Nagaraja w/Obt) -> Dan (Trem w/ Talbot’s Chainsaw) -> Mike (Malk 1/2 Prank Parity Shift) -> Sean (Miller Time) -> James (Corrupt Construction)

James puts Fame on my Kanimana right away, it never triggers, going away when he’s eventually ousted.  I have nothing but Nagaraja in my uncontrolled, so even though I get Obtenebration from Lilith’s Blessing, I keep not bringing out a second vampire.  I do block Talbot’s.  Mike keeps playing Pranks which only cost James pool and guarantee Sean getting a VP as he chooses a single number for everyone every time and hits James every single time rather than just giving him 4 pool.  Dan is tooling.  I have Anarch Troublemaker in play from turn 1, The Erciyes Fragments in play, give up on Descenting into Darkness and pay 3 extra for Raful.  James’s Corrupt Constructions never come my way.  Dan doesn’t draw a wake, so I oust him with Troublemaker plus bleed for 6.

This brings up a rather important point, something I just don’t get about how people build decks.  If you have enough wakes in your decks, I will never oust you.  Yet, I oust people reasonably often.

Game times out as Mike bloats off of Pranks, Sean is only a halfway threat to me, and I choose not to get ousted.

Round 2:

Sean -> Matt (Multitaskmites) -> Ian -> Ira (Akunanse vote)

I don’t believe in hitting one’s prey hard early.  It engenders table hate, causes one’s prey to wall up (and often whine), and uses cards that could have been used to lunge.  I hit Ira early.  I know his deck, I know how his decks work, I know that I have to give Sean some room both because this is 4 player and because Ira and Matt are far better players.  I hope that Sean recognizes what I’m doing, but as I expected, I neither topdeck some bleed to take Ira below 4 pool nor do I get any help containing Ira.  Sean pounds Matt’s pool down.  Ur-Shulgi tries to bleed me some but isn’t achieving much even with Pentex on my Raful.  My Bartholomew gets Banished, which is kind of annoying, so I only have Pentexed Raful and Forestal (completely different draw).  Speaking of completely different draws, Sean gets out Anneke and starts blocking meaningless actions, like Thetmes getting Retain the Quick Blood and my going anarch with Forestal … across table.  Matt, with like no pool, tries a bleed of 7 and I don’t bounce with Auspex, don’t bounce with Dominate, don’t bleed reduce with Friend of Mine a *second* time … I just Archon him.  Sean doesn’t oust Matt when he has plenty of chances to finish him off.  Anneke gets a Pulse only to immediately burn from Matt’s Fear of Mekhet (Ira discards his).  I had given up on trying to oust Ira once he got back up to 8 pool, so Ira kills Sean who doesn’t have wakes since he blocked those other actions earlier, has no problem with Matt, I can’t last the 5 minutes I need to time out and either get into the finals with 2 VPs or do a rolloff for the finals with 2 VPs.  I did first turn discard Shadowed Eyes, so who is the real winner?

Finals:

Pretty sure Ira was top seed.  I know the order of play was Mike, Brandon (THA), Ira, Robert (Ahrimanes vote, I think), A.J. (Tzimisce wall).  Brandon gets ousted, game times.

I played my only pickup game of the weekend.  I play the Jyhad 4cl deck from above.  I first turn Info Highway, Victoria Ash, call Rumors for only myself, bring out Anson becomes that’s funny, Minion Tap Anson for 8 and Giant’s Blood because that’s the way I roll, put Elysium in play with my prey playing a Cam deck because that’s the way I role, tap my prey’s Tara with Consanguineous Condemnation + Disarming Presence combo because that’s the way I successfully bleed at no stealth with Legal Manipulations.  My predator and grandpredator fight a lot as my predator is Baali intercept and my grandpredator is some sort of Lasombra fight deck.  My prey’s Ventrue Law Firm deck with two non-Ventrue in play doesn’t put any meaningful pressure on his prey’s Salubri deck until late.  Salubri get a couple VP, and I clean up.

Point #2.  People worry way too much about how good their decks are.  I was in a dominant position at all times with a 4cl Jyhad library deck that has only 4 votes that can do pool damage and 8 bleed cards (with obviously zero Aires of Elation).

Point #3.  Don’t need new cards to compete.

Qualifier, Round 1:

Joel (Laz & Friends) -> Ira (Ira … Rivers & Alexandra) -> Andy (Dem stealth bleed) -> Gerrentt (Cock Robin & Friends) -> Ian (Anarch OBF antivote)

Joel kept punking Ira … Rivers, containing Ira.  Andy kept getting punked between Cock and Ira, being contained.  I actually thought about helping him, but I knew his deck too well to do that.  Gerrentt did a bit to me, mostly with annoying Tiers of Souls, which slowed down my tooling up.  But, I was mostly free to do what I wanted, Joel not rushing me that much and not hurting me when he did.  I got out a lot of guys.  Joel ousts Ira without expending too many resources in what is a crushing beatdown.  Andy is at risk, but I oust Joel with Monkey Wrench and stuff.  Andy ousts.  I arrange my turn so that Mylan can Computer Hack oust Andy with my last action.

Round 2:

Ian -> Dan (!Trem Gargoyle) -> A.J. (Pre/Vic) -> Ira -> Ian T. (Valerius)

This was awesome.  I kind of ruined it in the end, but it now goes down as one of the *those* games.  After an hour, I had played two cards.  I had three cards in my ash heap:  Old Friends (discarded even though I had it in hand when I bled before my prey got up a vampire), J.S. Simmons, Delaying Tactics (discarded).  Wait, J.S. Simmons hadn’t been discarded?  Ira tried playing J.S. and he got blocked.  I tried playing J.S. and I got blocked … playing mono Obfuscate … by my predator!!!  I had also played a Villein in that first hour as my second card played, I think.  Averaging a card played every 30 minutes or so …

Why?  My prey had rush with Tupdogs.  My predator blocked my actions that he never should have tried to block, so I was content to only take actions nobody cared about, like hunting.  So, and this does make some sense, I think like only one of my actions got blocked after J.S. for about an hour, again, by my predator, who had Alexandra behind him.  I got a Camera Phone and bled for 1 without it a couple of times – nobody blocked.

The pivotal moments in the game were oddly in the midgame.  My prey had Famed Velya and punked it repeatedly.  Matteus calls Banishment, not targeting Velya, not targeting his prey, not targeting his predator, not targeting me (what did I care?), but targeting Ian T.’s second vampire.  It passes, leaving Ian fairly helpless to do anything.  On another turn, my grandprey had Velya and Matteus up and decided to play Festivo dello Estinto with Velya empty and Famous.  That was not wise as it guaranteed that either his prey or his predator would block.  Ira was actually low on pool after bringing out Alexandra, like 5 pool.  Then, Matteus calls KRC, which a torped Velya can’t help pass.  If Velya had somehow hunted or Change of Targeted and A.J. had something more brutal than KRC, Ira might have been in a world of hurt.  Dan gets A.J., Ira gets Ian, I start playing some cards bringing my card per minute average (well, minute per card) way down to 27 minutes a card and, then, to under 10 minutes a card as I die.  Ira wins easily.

There was much discussion after this game about my building a deck that tries to win off of playing no cards.  Not to be confused with my building decks that try to make zero decisions in the game – 20 Ascendance, 50 Earth Meld, 20 The Embrace is the prevailing idea.  Of course, it was the finals which contributed to this line of thinking.

Finals:

Ian -> Sean (fat Toreador) -> Robert (Ahrimanes vote) -> Ira -> Joel

Joel was top seed.  Ira tried to talk Sean out of bringing out Alexandra.  Ira wrecked Robert and ignored the Haven Uncovereds Joel threw backwards because Joel didn’t use them.  Joel beat my guys down sometimes, often enough for me to track how many cards in my ash heap were played.

I don’t know how much time into the game it was, maybe between 45-60 minutes, but I think I had around 5 cards in my ash heap and none of them had been played.  Maybe.  I played two cards that give stealth the entire game, neither to give stealth.  I played superior Spying Mission and Swallowed by the Night to make a rush meaningless.  I had zero actions blocked.  If Joel didn’t punk and then oust me on his turn, I might have ousted my prey with a topdeckable Monkey Wrench.  Robert was Sean’s bitch, going down to 1 pool, playing a DI on Ira and asking Sean whether he wanted him to tap Tshwane or not to continue being his bitch.  Ira contested Alexandra!  Sean ousted Robert.  Joel didn’t die, so Joel won on a time out.

The lesson with my deck?  I think an obvious lesson is that even playing mono-Obfuscate bleed where I don’t defend (except against votes) and have nothing better to do than stealth bleed my prey out of the game rapidly, I can find a way to play any deck passively.  I got annoyed by my predators doing things to my minions when all they had to do was bleed me, which I had pretty much zero defense against.  Of course, it worked.  Both times my predators messed with my minions significantly, I got ousted, though one of the times wasn’t by my predator.  Furthermore, my predators in both cases never ousted my preys, so my spite arguably worked.  It was highly amusing to do nothing with a deck that can only go forward since I didn’t have any bloat, either.  And, the deck did do what it was supposed to – the only opponent with no vote cards won.

Hung around a bit to talk, no late night pickup game for me though, so I go home.

Sunday

Don’t feel as crappy but more just exhausted, so I get a late start on the day, have to lie down for a while after I get up, and proceed to hit every frickin’ red light on the 15 minute-ish drive to Andy’s.

Draft.  I try to joke about it to seem less arrogant, but I’m a way better draft player than constructed player.  I don’t screw around in draft.  I know how to draft.  And, yes, I was the second ranked limited player in the world for nearly a year and had won 5 straight limited events, including one in the DC area, playing with Josh Duffin and Matt Morgan.  Might have even won the next event I played with them if someone hadn’t passed Matt a Mbare Market, giving him two(!!!), and if my grandprey in the finals had trusted me a bit better so that I could oust Josh (my prey, his predator), which I almost did anyway before Matt’s horde of minions rose up.  Not that I’m as good as I was, as I don’t really enjoy draft anymore.

Nevertheless, even though I got zero Monkey Wrenches, zero Anarch Converts, passed most bleed cards and almost all Zip Lines, didn’t draft Assamites even though that was my preferred KMW strategy, and banked my deck on my two Mata Haris, I played 33 cards in my deck rather than the minimum 30 (with 1 recursion) because there was nothing to cut.  For one thing, it helped that people didn’t realize how import An Anarch Manifesto is when drafting Twilight Rebellion.  Second, I wisely didn’t try to draft a deck that Laecanus would fit into since he hates me and causes me to always lose.  Third, people rare draft.  Fourth, people often don’t know how to draft.  Sure, I passed Garibaldi, which is insanely good.  But, I got passed Failsafe(!), which made me incredibly happy as I now play Failsafe in most of my decks*.  I got passed King’s Rising.  I’m pretty sure I got passed Club Illusion.  I got passed My Enemy’s Enemy.  My first library pick?  Tumnimos.  By the way, we drafted vampires first.

*  Friday night, after the game in which I sat at 1 pool for a bunch of turns, I commented that it’s really hard to play the game at 1 pool … but, at 2 pool, there’s a lot of things you can do.  Failsafe is my way to get off of 1 pool, which happens far too often.

Of course, the real strength of my deck, besides pool gain, was Aksinya Daclau.  Mata Hari really wasn’t that important, the only cards I needed her for were Waters of Duat, Black Sunrise, rushing with Steely Tenacity.

Round 1:

Andy -> Ian T. -> Eric -> Ian (I think Andy is the starting player)

In my opening hand, I have Failsafe and King’s Rising.  It would have been hilarious to end my game on turn one with bodacity, but I only play the Failsafe.  Mata Hari comes out, gets Tumnimos and Waters quickly.  Andy and I keep up in minions.  Eric threatens my pool with Steely Tenacity and stuff.  I let Eric know that if I’m still at 6 pool, I’ll bring out another vampire.  I stay at 6.  I bring out Aksinya to go to 2.  I defend well.  I pop Failsafe, later play King’s Rising.  Andy’s Anima Gatheringed Joe Boot Hill, btw, also encourages me not to go forward.  Eric plays Constant Revolution, which actually ends up being his death both because he taps a guy to do it when he’s low on pool and Ian has obvious offensive potential and because it causes me to randomly lose Con Boon which I was thinking of using to give him pool.  Eric goes for the 5 bleed, which I bounce, of course, but I stupidly didn’t try to block first as he had a Zip Line, so I actually have to tap a few more guys to oust Andy, Eric dies.  I outminion Ian and had dropped Club Illusion for extra beats.

Round 2:

Gerrentt -> Eric -> Dan -> Ian

It doesn’t make sense that I’d go last twice, so in the previous game, maybe Andy wasn’t first.  Anyway, Gerrentt brings out Convert, bleeds, gains like 5 pool from the Edge.  Dan doesn’t bleed me forever, though his deck is full of bleed.  I get Aksinya much earlier but don’t have my pool gain.  Gerrentt amasses a ridiculous number of dudes.  I bounce a 2 bleed at stealth.  Dan tries a real bleed of Force of Will Monkey Wrench 6 at 1 stealth which I, of course, bounce, putting Gerrentt into kill range.  I keep hoping Eric will oust Dan as I’m not nearly as scared of Eric’s deck; he doesn’t do that, but he kills Mylan with Keystone Kine, which I was all happy about.  I sweep.

Finals:

Mike -> Sean -> Ian -> Gerrentt -> Matt

I’m top seed, winning a flip against Matt.  I’m fine with being behind Gerrentt.  I’m fine with having the only player without a brutal aggro deck (I don’t count) being behind me.

The game was actually quite interesting, involved, strange, and surprising.  Let’s see.  My predator brings out Lorrie Dunsirn!  Wow, what a terrible choice.  I transfer 1 to each of my three 5 caps rather than Mata Hari and know Aksinya is on top of my crypt since she’s upside down.  If my predator, who I knew had Aksinya in his crypt didn’t bring her out, I would have decrypted, but he brought her out.  Matt lent Gerrentt The Rumor Mill to stop my getting An Anarch Manifesto, which he regretted when Gerrentt got Heart of Nizchetus, which Matt was far more concerned about than I was.  In fact, Matt was incredibly worried about me all of the time, which I think was mostly due to my being top seed and because he knew I had cards like Failsafe and King’s Rising, rather than knowing my true power.  He lent Rumor Mill to Gerrentt later to stop me from getting a Sport Bike, and Gerrentt proceeded to get a Pulse of Canaille.  Gerrentt put out Twilight Camp and Crypt’s Sons – damn, what hot rares!

Meanwhile, back in my world, it was pain.  Mike conned Sean into rushing Mata Hari, which really didn’t affect me since I had no plans to go forward for the first 1.5 hours of the game, anyway.  Sean also kept tapping Aksinya to do things, which was nonsensical as everyone knew Mike had two Monkey Wrenches.  Mike contested Louis Fortier with me, which was probably accidental, so he spent all of the rest of the game trying to kill me as his grandprey, well, at least, put me down to where he could take Sean and me right away.  So, I tried to kill him back.  Mike cut deals with Matt to contest Crypt’s Sons with Gerrentt, so he was contesting 2 cards for a while.

It was hilarious.  Sean kept hurting me with rushes or bleed of 4 or Perpetual Care for 4, but all I did the entire time was try to figure out how to keep him alive and keep his predator under control.  As I expected, Matt finally lunged and took Mike out, something anybody should have expected given that Matt and I were tied with 7 (out of 8) VPs.  Gerrentt was free, though, to Pulse bleed on Matt.  I Power of Alled a Patsy that would have killed Sean.  Fortunately, Matt had called a Peace Treaty when I was at 3 pool, so I kept my Baseball Bat and gained 4 pool from Failsafe, making me unkillable.  I played King’s Rising, which was when two of the observing Haases knew I was going to win.  Sean died.  I ousted Gerrentt.  When I contested Toby with Matt with about a minute left, Matt conceded in a very sportsmanlike move since he was dead on my turn.

Spend half the game contesting a 5 cap in limited?  Have a grandpredator trying to kill me?  Have a predator unwisely use his actions to maximize damage to me?  Explain to my predator that keeping Aksinya untapped would do more pool damage to me than he could do by taking actions with her?  Not ever bring out my Aksinya who pretty much gave me two table wins?  Wait about 100 minutes to bleed my prey for the first time?  Of course, my prey would concede in the endgame with 1 minute left.  What other choice did he have?  What other choice did any of my opponents have?  Oh, right, they could have done less pool damage to me – that would have screwed me …

Thank yous for:

Brandon – Running everything, getting phat loots for the events.

Matt – Not stalling to win even though I would have been cool with it as Mike’s plays annoyed me and Matt would have been a worthy victor.  I think it’s great that players like Matt, Jeff Thompson, etc. display such sportsmanship.  I try to live up to those examples.

Out of town players – Mike, Matt, Robert, James – great to have people from other regions.

Mid-East Bay players – Dan, Sean, A.J., Joel – great to have players still playing in that area and willing to make the trek.  Sure, Ian came from further, but one would think a lot more Berkeley and SF players would have made it out.

The rest of the players – games don’t work unless you have opponents.

Haas household – Andy, Eric, their dad – for hosting, having food and drink available, putting up with a bunch of gamers, especially crazy people like Robert.

Forgetting anyone?  Hope not.

Well, that was exhausting.  It was great, though.  Now, off to see if I own 20 Jyhad The Embraces, so that the deck can be Jyhad-only, as well.

Draft deck:

x1  Toby
x1  Louis Fortier
x1  Paul Forrest
x2  Mata Hari
x1  Aksinya Daclau

x1  Club Illusion
x1  Failsafe
x1  King’s Rising
x1  Libertas
x1  Sermon of Caine
x1  Svadharma
x1  Trophy: Safe Passage
x1  Warning Sirens
x1  Chameleon
x1  Fee Stake: Corte (all players were allowed to add these three)
x1  Fee Stake: Los Angeles
x1  Fee Stake: Perth
x1  Shattering
x1  Tumnimos
x1  Undue Influence
x1  Waters of Duat
x1  Zip Line
x1  Changeling
x1  Command of the Beast
x1  CrimethInc.
x1  Burst of Sunlight
x1  Song of Serenity
x2  An Anarch Manifesto (thought I had 3)
x1  Baseball Bat
x1  Sport Bike
x1  Consanguineous Boon
x1  Conservative Agitation
x1  Exclusion Principle
x1  Black Sunrise
x1  My Enemy’s Enemy
x1  Power of All
x1  Steely Tenacity

Recent Winners

While still in my mind, for many years, my only real motivation with V:TES tournaments was winning with particular clans, whether those without wins or, when more and more clans ceased being winless, those shafted in the game.  More recently, I haven’t really been following winning decks on an overall level.  Given our qualifier in a couple of weeks being one of the few tournament opportunities in the span of a year, I’m inclined to take a look around and see if anything interesting is going on that may have been missed.

So, in 2009 and 2010, from http://thelasombra.com/decks/clan-twd.htm, we get:

Ahrimanes:  5, 1+4 – ticking back up

Akunanse:  7, 3+4 – much higher than I expected

Assamites:  5, 4+1 – low, what’s going on fanboys?

Baali:  8, 4+4 – this actually seems low

Blood Brothers:  1, 0+1 – just a really horrible clan

Brujah:  14, 9+5 – KoT, KoT, KoT

!Brujah:  2, 2+0 – *sigh*, business as usual

Caitiff:  3, 2+1 – don’t actually care

Daughters of Cacophony:  1, 0+1 – really?

Followers of Set:  9, 6+3 – how the almost mighty have fallen

Gangrel:  11, 7+4 – how the truly mighty have fallen

!Gangrel:  6, 4+2 – business as usual

Gargoyles:  7, 3+4 – nothing Gargoyle matters while Tupdog exists

Giovanni:  22, 14+8 – robust!

Guruhi:  7, 2+5 – Nana, Animalism is sure good these days, too

Harbingers of Skulls:  2, 0+2 – of course

Imbued:  14, 6+8 – not dead yet

Ishtarri:  5, 5+0 – interesting drop off

Kiasyd:  7, 1+6 – unsurprising uptick

Lasombra:  17, 10+7 – solidly in the middle

Malkavians:  41, 22+19 – mighty!

!Malkavians:  14, 8+6 – not bad for the other clan with Dementation

Nosferatu:  16, 9+7 – just keeps getting wins

!Nosferatu:  5, 3+2 – business as usual

Osebo:  4, 3+1 – business as usual

Pander:  4, 3+1 – aaaaaaahhh, the old ones rise!

Ravnos:  9, 3+6 – double from 2009 to 2010?

Salubri:  3, 1+2 – also double, but too low to judge

!Salubri:  3, 3+0 – the bloom is off

Samedi:  2, 2+0 – really? they aren’t that bad

Toreador:  17, 8+9 – bland

!Toreador:  8, 4+4 – where have all of the Palla Grandes gone?

Tremere:  21, 12+9 – not shocking

!Tremere:  19, 7+12 – would be shocking if there weren’t obvious reasons

True Brujah:  2, 0+2 – look, Auspex

Tzimisce:  14, 9+5 – trending downwards or just a down year?

Ventrue:  38, 30+8 – what a year, last year, for them

!Ventrue:  27, 14+13 – Hugh, play something different

Let’s reorganize this some, putting them into natural groups.

Brujah:  14, 9+5
Gangrel:  11, 7+4
Malkavians:  41, 22+19
Nosferatu:  16, 9+7
Toreador:  17, 8+9
Tremere:  21, 12+9
Ventrue:  38, 30+8
Caitiff:  3, 2+1

As good as KoT has been to Brujah, who certainly needed the help, they still fare poorly.  Gangrel do surprisingly poorly, likely because there’s nothing to fill the Tradition void this time around like there was when they gained Serpentis.  The Malk and Ventrue domination is stunning.  Sure, they dominated early in the game’s history, but other clans held their own to a much better degree for many years.

A question begged is why Malks and Ventrue have done so well since 2009.  I’m sure there are plenty of theories.  Lutz is overly popular.  Dementation bleed doesn’t go out of style.  Etc.  I do find it interesting that both clans match up well against winnie Animalism.  The former because it can just nuke any deck before it gets going, the latter with multiaction and superb combat defense, often in the same card.

The next question that comes to mind is why the Ventrue dropped off so much from 2009.  Overplayed in 2009, with ennui setting in?  Then, the Malks’ 2010 is huge even compared to other Cammies.

Sucks to be 1 or 2 caps these days.  Actually, I think the design of 1 caps has gotten worse, often making them useless even without Scourge of the Enochians.

High:  41   2009:  30   2010:  19

Low (ignoring Caitiff):  11   2009:  7   2010:  4

Assamites:  5, 4+1
Followers of Set:  9, 6+3
Giovanni:  22, 14+8
Ravnos:  9, 3+6

Crazy disparity, here.  Start at the top, Assamites dropped from 14 wins in 2008.  I’m not terribly surprised since there’s not much new to do.  FoS didn’t change that much.  Ravnos picked up in 2010.  In 2008, Giovanni did quite well, as well.  It’s funny that Ashur Tablets opens up recursion to everyone, but in a day and age when the ash heap is the hotness, Giovanni still abuse it better with Shambling Hordes, Sudario Refraction, Khazar’s Diary, et al.

High:  22   2009:  14   2010:  8

Low:  5   2009:  3   2010:  1

!Brujah:  2, 2+0
!Gangrel:  6, 4+2
Lasombra:  17, 10+7
!Malkavians:  14, 8+6
!Nosferatu:  5, 3+2
Pander:  4, 3+1
!Toreador:  8, 4+4
!Tremere:  19, 7+12
Tzimisce:  14, 9+5
!Ventrue:  27, 14+13

In reality, these should be broken up even more.  Lasombra and Tzimisce should be compared against each other – they are close enough to call a wash.  Then, pull out Pander, who the Enochians are after and who have always gotten ill treatment.

Leaving the antitribu, the stories are:  !Brujah suck, as usual; !Tremere are rockin’, no doubt due to Nephandus; and, !Ventrue are off the hoof, ho! the day of the grinder is here.

High:  27   2009:  14   2010:  13

Low:  2   2009:  2   2010:  0

High is better than indies due to 2010, lows are just sad.

Ahrimanes:  5, 1+4
Baali:  8, 4+4
Blood Brothers:  1, 0+1
Daughters of Cacophony:  1, 0+1
Gargoyles:  7, 3+4
Harbingers of Skulls:  2, 0+2
Kiasyd:  7, 1+6
Salubri:  3, 1+2
!Salubri:  3, 3+0
Samedi:  2, 2+0
True Brujah:  2, 0+2

It always amazes me how few people play bloodlines … it’s obvious you only get numbers this low when you don’t even try.  Kiasyd are finally rising up, something that should have happened from day 1.  Baali aren’t doing quite as well as one might think, but, then, a lot of the “Girls” decks aren’t Baali decks.

I could speak more about bloodlines, but, really, what’s the point?  People don’t play them, so they don’t win, and the numbers are too low to draw much in the way of meaningful conclusions about how they fare against each other.  Harbingers double their win total this year, and … whatever.  Still no Nagaraja win at all, and, of course, I don’t consider the Fuzzface deck an Abomination deck.

High:  8   2009:  4   2010:  4

Low:  0   2009:  0   2010:  0

Ridiculous.  Leads me to believe that tournament results, more than ever, are coming from highly competitive events where people play boring crap.

Akunanse:  7, 3+4
Guruhi:  7, 2+5
Ishtarri:  5, 5+0
Osebo:  4, 3+1

I totally don’t remember all of those 2009 Ishtarri decks.  I don’t really remember any Akunanse decks.  The only thing not flying under the radar is that Nana has led to Guruhi being viable, with them going from 3 wins prior to 2009 to more than triple that today.

Akunanse are flat, having about 4 wins a year except for 2007.  Osebo chug along at 2 wins a year.  Ishtarri were fine through 2009, 2010 has been harsh to them.  They did get little from Ebony Kingdoms, but, then, so did Osebo.  I might believe that there are few Laibon players and Guruhi cannibalized wins from Ishtarri, or something.

High:  7   2009:  5   2010:  5

Low:  4   2009:  2   2010:  0

Imbued:  14, 6+8

Pretty flat, as 2007 saw seven wins.  Enough of the metagame to matter – note how much better they do than Laibon, bloodlines, low tier Sabbat clans, and, impressively, most of the original independents.

Of course, a major piece of the metagame – non”clan” decks – is missing from this analysis.  I’m sure there are quite a few winnie decks not being taken into account, and cursory examination reveals a good number of superstar or multifattie decks, such as “Girls”.  Not that I was trying to break things down for high level competition, I was much more interested in more flavorful elements of the game.

Once upon a time, I would have concluded that I needed to play Nagaraja, followed by Abominations, then other loser clans.  Do I still care about such things?  Well, guess I’ll find out in 12 or so days.

San Francisco Regional Qualifier 2010

So, qualifier weekend. Standard constructed Saturday morning (not a miniqualifier for some reason), qualifier in the evening, storyline on Sunday.

Round 1:

James (Ferryman/Talbot’s) -> Eric (Black Cat Kpist) -> Ira (Ani/Dom/Obf) -> Ian (For/Pro intercept) -> Gerentt (4/5 Brujah Royalty)

This wasn’t terribly memorable except for all of the intercept locations that came down. Five of them got played, plus The Anarch Free Press. Eric could never do anything as he kept getting blocked trying to get a gun, and it wasn’t clear what the deck did without one. Ira, with no predator, amassed the expected army. I got Gerentt with Monkey Wrenches. James actually had his deck do what it was supposed to and got Talbot’s on the Ferryman. Some backwards rush kept Gerentt weak, ousting Eric was pretty easy. Talbot’s finally got blown up by Canine Horde, removing the only threat James had to Ira’s deck, and I barely survived on time.

Round 2:

Mike (Shattering Crescendo vote) -> Ian -> Michael (weenie Hack w/ Obf) -> Alex (Torrance Circle) -> James

Alex thought it was impressive that Mike torped all of my vampires with Death of the Drum (off of my maneuver) and Shattering Crescendo.  I was far, far more impressed that Alex stabilized almost immediately against the horde with Thicker Than Blood and Info Highway and beatings.  Of course, with my lack of pressure, Michael just kept decrypting to build his fleet.  Mike was annoyed by all of the intercept around him and kept threatening Alex with the idea that Michael was a better predator to James, but James did virtually nothing.  The real problem for Mike was that his deck seemed to go way too much forward.  I think he should have killed off James as Alex would have still been constrained by the horde.  Alternatively, he nukes the weenies, unloosening Alex to make James defend, and then, goes after me.

Anyway, Michael lunges unsuccessfully, setting me up for 2 after I recover.  James takes out Mike who has no defense.  James and I should time out as he could just stay untapped and I could never get through because Daring the Dawn isn’t so useful against allies.  But, we try to do stuff, and eventually he is tapped enough for me to finish him off.

Finals:

James -> Ian -> Brandon (Dom/more Dom/For) -> Oliver (some anarch thing) -> Robert (weenie Presence bleed)

This was kind of dumb as there were two decks that needed ganging up on.  I was second seed and had an okay seat.  People ganged up on Brandon and he couldn’t get the draw to take out Oliver, so I ousted him.  People didn’t gang up on Robert, so he won.  I think Brandon should have worked with someone, like me, to put some pressure on Robert with bounce, rather than just keep throwing bleeds at Oliver, hoping he would die.  It was taking so long to get Oliver that even if he did get him, Robert would win.  My unloosening Oliver didn’t do much as he failed to rescue my “Force of Will for the oust” third vampire and I couldn’t deal with the weenie horde.

Qualifier, round 1:

Mike (Renegade Garou can bleed) -> Ian (The Horde) -> Alex (EuroBrujah) -> Eric (Qawiyya) -> Matt (Soul Scan)

At least it was quick.  I learned pretty quickly that my attempt at combo horde of Hordes didn’t combo much and didn’t exactly horde as I only brought out about 7.  Matt’s game might have been less interesting than mine as he spent pretty much the whole game just rescuing and hunting as Eric went completely forwards.  For some reason, Eric didn’t continue to contest Fame, so Mike ousted me (after I got Eric to twice Hide the Mind bleeds when I was at 2 pool).

Round 2:

Matt -> Andy (Crazy Santa[leous]) -> Robert (Ahrimanes) -> Ian -> Brandon (weenie anarch Auspex)

Matt and I had a really, really lame tournament.  He couldn’t do anything as Brandon would block him.  Even with no predator, I couldn’t do anything, either.  My horde of free, stealth bleeding dudes was actually just 5 to 7 “I hit you for one” dudes.  Andy propped me up some to try to put pressure on Brandon, but that was mostly ineffectual, so with around 15 minutes left, he finally decided to oust me, and the game timed out.

Finals:

Robert won again, beating Mike, Andy, Jeff?, and Eric.  I was showing Kuta how to play Race for the Galaxy.

Storyline, round 1:

Matt (Chicago Circle) -> Michael (Tupdog) -> Alex (Torrance Circle) -> Ian (Trujah vote)

Alex was loyalist, I think.  I think Michael cheated.  Matt and I definitely cheated.  The two BB decks were scared to even bring out minions against the Tupdogs, even though they both fought well enough when they finally did.  Seating meant I won … but not before I gave Matt a VP by crosstable Banishing Pugfar.  I was usually above 20 pool and brought out 35 pool worth of vampires, working on a 10 cap when I won.  Amusing?  Tupdog getting Pentexed and still getting into combat via slave mechanic.

Round 2:

Ian -> Brandon (Off Kilter) -> Ian (Samedi ally) -> Ira (Samedi Dabbler)

Yeah, that would make three (out of three) Samedi decks at my table.  That slowed them down.  Mistrust and my prey having 2 permanent votes slowed me down, so I never had three minions at the same time.  I did bloat enough to keep Ira from reducing me below 1 pool, which he managed twice.  Ian should have put way more pressure on Ira by attempting to block Brandon’s bleeds so that the bounces were at stealth.  He became an ineffectual predator, allowing Ira to put six or so Samedi in play.  I had one turn in which I could have gotten Brandon, but I assumed he had Archon Investigation and I had problems doing things.

Finals:

Ian -> Oliver (Kiasyd w/ vote) -> Brandon -> Steve (The Horde) -> Ira

Third seed.  I don’t think Oliver chose wisely, but he only knew Steve’s deck.  Ira had no chance of winning, I had virtually no chance.  Oliver brings out a dude and becomes a Cardinal.  I don’t bring out any dudes with votes, ever.  I Free States Rant Steve, which only impacts one Horde because along with Oliver and I, he is cheating.  I forget why Hall of Hades’ Court isn’t a good card and bleed Brandon for 3, which kills him when I figure he’s going to win as he’d oust Steve on his next turn and Ira would gladly capitulate for a Samedi victory.  I play an awful lot of Free States Rants to slow Oliver’s five Kiasyd, but he gets Steve, anyway, and the game times out with a chance I could have gotten Oliver with more time.  I make another hugely stupid mistake, not that it would have had any impact on the results by not playing Legendary Vampire on my fourth Trujah.

Deck Name:   Sea Pirates
Description:  Restoration shouldn’t be that bad.  Besides, I’ve never won a tournament with Protean

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 26, Avg: 3.91)
———————————————
  5  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff
  1  Antonino                           FOR ani pre pro6  Gangrel
  1  Harry Reese                        cel obf FOR PRO6  Gangrel Antitribu
  1  Maria Stone                        cel obf pro FOR5  Gangrel Antitribu
  1  Mariel St. John                    dom pro AUS FOR6  Ventrue Antitribu
  1  Mowgli                             ani cel FOR PRO5  Gangrel Antitribu
  1  Nadima                             ani aus FOR PRO SER8  Gangrel
  1  Sophia Watson                      obf pro ANI FOR6  Gangrel

Library: (80 cards)
——————-
Master (17 cards)
  1  Anarch Free Press, The
  2  Archon Investigation
  1  Barrens, The
  6  Blood Doll
  1  Direct Intervention
  2  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
  1  Rumor Mill, Tabloid Newspaper, The
  2  Storage Annex
  1  Wall Street Night, Financial Newspaper

Action (10 cards)
  2  Force of Will
  8  Restoration

Action Modifier (13 cards)
  1  Daring the Dawn
  7  Freak Drive
  5  Monkey Wrench

Reaction (22 cards)
  4  Eyes of the Beast
  4  Forced Awakening
  4  On the Qui Vive
  4  Sonar
  5  Steadfastness
  1  Wake with Evening`s Freshness

Combat (12 cards)
  1  Armor of Vitality
  1  Claws of the Dead
  4  Earth Meld
  2  Form of Mist
  1  Lam Into
  3  Soak

Ally (1 cards)
  1  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

Retainer (3 cards)
  1  J. S. Simmons, Esq.
  1  Mr. Winthrop
  1  Tasha Morgan

Equipment (2 cards)
  2  .44 Magnum

I never drew a Storage Annex in three games, I just realized.  As you can plainly see, the second .44 clearly defines this as one of my combat decks.  The fact that I have no actual way of getting actions through is testament to the efficacy of my philosophy of doing nothing until my inevitable victory.  Or, in other words, sea pirates!!

Deck Name:   100331  The Horde Trust
Created By:  The Horde
Description:  Try not to pay for minions, in reality, suck.

Crypt: (25 cards, Min: 12, Max: 12, Avg: 3)
——————————————-
  25  Horde                             dai obf pre    3  Baali

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (38 cards)
  1  Antediluvian Awakening
  2  Archon Investigation
  9  Ashur Tablets
  6  Effective Management
  1  Failsafe
  3  Obfuscate
  3  Parthenon, The
  2  Path of Evil Revelations
  4  Presence
  7  Tend the Flock

Action (10 cards)
  1  Aranthebes, The Immortal
  9  Public Trust

Action Modifier (16 cards)
  2  Aire of Elation
  3  Change of Target
  2  Cloak the Gathering
  1  Domain of Evernight
  1  Elder Impersonation
  1  Faceless Night
  1  I Am Legion
  1  Into Thin Air
  1  Leverage
  1  Lost in Crowds
  1  Spying Mission
  1  Veil the Legions

Reaction (5 cards)
  4  Delaying Tactics
  1  Dread Gaze

Ally (3 cards)
  3  Infernal Servitor

Event (1 cards)
  1  Scourge of the Enochians

Combo (2 cards)
  1  Gift of Sleep
  1  Swallowed by the Night

I don’t typically tune decks.  For a deck that I didn’t know how to build correctly, that I only pulled the cards for the morning of the tournament, I sure made a lot of tweaks as I goldfished the deck.  I don’t know that they helped.  The big problem is that the deck doesn’t actually do what it’s supposed to do.  I’m only supposed to pay for like two Hordes.  But, the number of moving parts is bad enough without trying to do the Ashur Tablets angle.  I’m supposed to be playing Effective Management and Tend the Flock every turn, and I didn’t build that deck.  Without the storyline rule of no infernal payments, I should have just played The Horde intercept combat with a bunch of Evil Revelations.  It couldn’t have been worse.

The whole concept was to play something different – different from my first deck, different from my style of play in that I’m neither fond of combo nor aggro and this was supposed to be both.  If I cared about qualifying in this event, which wasn’t really meaningful as I was already qualified from Vegas, I might have tried something less experimental, but whatever.  Gotz to try different stuff to grow as a player.

Deck Name:   Battle Lines – Trujah
Created By:  Synesios
Description:

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 30, Max: 39, Avg: 8.58)
———————————————-
  1  Al-Muntaquim                       TEM POT FOR obf pre8  True Brujah
  1  Al-Muntathir                       AUS FOR PRE TEM obf qui8  True Brujah
  1  Cybele                             ANI DAI OBF PRE SER THA10 Baali
  1  Huitzilopochtli                    AUS DAI DOM OBF PRE POT10 Baali
  1  Ibn Khaldun                        for POT PRE TEM7  True Brujah
  1  Krassimir                          dom nec POT pre TEM7  True Brujah
  1  Lydia                              AUS FOR POT TEM dom pre9  True Brujah
  1  Mikael Birkholm                    PRE TEM aus for pot8  True Brujah
  1  Nehemiah                           obt POT PRE SER TEM9  True Brujah
  1  Nu                                 ani aus POT PRE pro TEM9  True Brujah
  1  Shalmath                           POT PRE TEM    10 True Brujah
  1  Synesios                           obf POT PRE ser TEM8  True Brujah

Library: (90 cards)
——————-
Master (21 cards)
  1  Barrens, The
  2  Blood Doll
  1  Direct Intervention
  1  Dreams of the Sphinx
  1  Giant`s Blood
  1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
  2  Information Highway
  1  Legendary Vampire
  2  Obfuscate
  1  Sudden Reversal
  1  Tabriz Assembly
  7  Villein

Action (3 cards)
  1  Clio`s Kiss
  1  Kiss of Lachesis
  1  Summon History

Action Modifier (24 cards)
  5  Domain of Evernight
  6  Iron Glare
  4  Pocket Out of Time
  1  Recurring Contemplation
  1  Tangle Atropos` Hand
  7  Voter Captivation

Political Action (13 cards)
  1  Ancient Influence
  2  Banishment
  1  Disputed Territory
  5  Free States Rant
  1  Kine Resources Contested
  1  Neonate Breach
  1  Political Stranglehold
  1  Reins of Power

Reaction (7 cards)
  1  Internal Recursion
  4  On the Qui Vive
  2  Rewind Time

Combat (16 cards)
  8  Majesty
  7  Outside the Hourglass
  1  Taste of Vitae

Ally (1 cards)
  1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Equipment (1 cards)
  1  Heart of Nizchetus

Event (1 cards)
  1  Scourge of the Enochians

Combo (3 cards)
  2  Hall of Hades` Court
  1  Quicksilver Contemplation

Man, this was way more fun than I expected.  Man, the scarce rule is insipid and should be removed from the game so that people can actually have fun, even if they don’t get to have 10 unique crypt options for their scarcies.  Of course, Lilith Blessed this deck.

I didn’t really make much of an effort.  The lack of ability to pass votes was a “what the hell?” decision.

And, yes, I had no bounce cards in any of my three decks.  Only certain sea pirates play bounce.

March 6th, D[r]aft

So, we did something of a postrelease event for Heirs to the Blood by doing an Elder Draft where nearly 90% of the boosters were Httb.

I was confused, thinking that we would Rochester draft the vampires, but that’s another format.  One I think is worthwhile and that I’ve done a couple of times but not pertinent to yesterday.

Anyway, I’m less concerned with the mechanics and results and more with the lessons learned.

#1

Draft pods of 4 are too small.  Maybe 5 is too small, too.  But, you just see too few cards.  That might be okay with another game, but this game has so many different clans and disciplines that you want to see a lot of variety of cards.  I think I realized this in the past and forgot it.  We had 13 players, so we could have done 6 and 7.

#2

If you see every pack, realize when you are not going to get what you want.  As soon as I saw the fourth pack, I should have switched drafting strategies both with the vampires and, later, with the library cards.

#3

Think more about vampires.  One of my big areas of weakness is that I don’t really think about what vampires are viable when drafting particular sets.  I knew pool gain was easy and offense was slight, so I should have thought more strongly about fatties and Baali.  I actually had The unnamed but didn’t draft library cards to go with it.  With other sets, I don’t go weenie as much as I should.

#4

Envision how the games will go.  I thought I had a reasonable crypt of 4 vampires with varying capacities to use Tend the Flock, only to discover that my bleed reduction and pool gain meant I always wanted a fifth crypt member.  I tended to have plenty of pool but not enough force to push through players or enough blood.

#5

Don’t fixate on a strategy.  My plan was to force !Salubri for the bleed reduction off of Auspex outferiors and for the combat ends of Valeren to counter other people drafting heavy combat.  That might have worked better with larger pods as I might have gotten at least one Tinglestripe or something that might hurt someone.  Much like I overly focused in the vampire draft, I should have switched out when I wasn’t seeing enough Valeren and no Tinglestripes, nevermind that I should have read Hide the Heart more carefully and picked it higher when I actually saw one.

Sticking to a strategy doesn’t tend to be a problem with V:TES because people who don’t know how to draft or who are rare drafting will pass you absurdly good cards, e.g. On the Qui Vive, Off Kilter multiple times (including being the final card in a pack), Public Trust (in a low offense environment), Tend the Flock.  It’s not like Magic where fighting over something is clear and costs valuable picks.  But, the real problem with my drafting was when I wasn’t seeing Tinglestripe – having no bleed, no vote (not that voting was all that plausible), and no combat meant no way to overcome someone.

#6

20 card libraries are tiny.  One third of your deck is in your opening hand.  I should have managed my card plays better to my deck size.  While I don’t mind one recursion, I actually like bigger limited decks because I’m more used to conserving resources and playing to single copies of cards.  I probably should have played a larger deck since I had a number of about equally marginal “20th” cards.  I didn’t have any particular power play I was going for and I had two searching masters.

#7

Grasp the rules better.  I forgot we weren’t contesting vampires owned by other players.  That likely cost me my first round game when I didn’t bring out my fourth vampire until I wanted to contest.  While it’s not a problem understanding the rules, I forgot to recurse one turn, which screwed me up for the next turn.

#8

Think about card combos more.  There was one game where I had As the Crow and Off Kilter in my opening hand and didn’t play As the Crow after bleeding my minionless prey.  I made other dumb mistakes like that with not playing my cards in productive combinations.  I tend to think of cards too much in isolation, which is reflected in my deckbuilding practices where my plays are often 1 or 2 card combos rather than the long strings that other players seem to enjoy.

#9

Draft cool stuff.  Because I used to actually be good at limited play, I feel like I should uphold some sort of standard.  But, the reality is that I tend to find limited play rather dull and the number of events I’ll play will be few.  Having seen HttB in bulk in action, I would have done things quite differently, but I don’t foresee us doing another limited event any time soon and certainly not with so much HttB, so I might as well have taken the Maleficia/Striga risk since I saw so many of those cards passed rather than the boring “please don’t oust me” strategy I went with.