Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Hi. just was alerted to this post on an AEG forum... check it out:

http://www.meatpatrol.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=580

How does this post apply to VTES? Does it apply to VTES?

I mean in a way, it seems this poster is right... VTES (thogh she was
referring to L5R...) seems to be more about WHAT you're playing at a
table (and where you're sitting) rather than HOW well you're playing
what you have!

Or not... just thoughts randomly passing through my brain that I'm
sharing for the world at large...

Comments? Flames? Huhs?

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

IMHO, VTES does a pretty good job of avoiding these issues. Essentially
you are there to kill your prey and avoid being killed in the process.
There are four traditional methods of doing this: bleeding, voting,
combat, or wall. Now all of the clans are not able to do each of the
four effectively, but they are all able to interact on all four of
these facets to a certain extent. In addition, VTES is an extremely
easy game to mix and match on, such that if you want a vote/combat
deck, you can easeily make it in a variety of different ways using a
variety of different vamps and clans. You deck can be as focused or
diffuse as you wish: I have one weenie dominate deck that does little
but bleed, while I have another Gangrel Royalty deck that bleeds at
stealth, Parity Shift Votes you, drops the occasional wolf claws on
you, or just Form of Mist/Earth Meld/Boucnes its way to victory.

Therefore, IMHO, VTES does not degenerate into Rock/Paper/Scissors at
all and a player of any given strategy is allowed to make sublte
changes to his deck composition to make adjustments to the metagame he
is facing without fundamentally changing his deck around.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

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Screaming Vermillian wrote:
| Hi. just was alerted to this post on an AEG forum... check it out:
|
| http://www.meatpatrol.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=580
|
| How does this post apply to VTES? Does it apply to VTES?
|
| I mean in a way, it seems this poster is right... VTES (thogh she was
| referring to L5R...) seems to be more about WHAT you're playing at a
| table (and where you're sitting) rather than HOW well you're playing
| what you have!

Not true. I did not intend to play in the Lafayette qualifier, and I
played a 76-card deck randomly thrown together with a crypt from another
deck, and I finished 6th out of 20.

I picked a "strong" archetype, weenie OBF -- but with some twists and of
course a non-optimal crypt and library. My seating was near the worst
possible each round:

Round 1: Predator OBF/AUS/dom, turn 2 Ozmo comes out, turn 3 Ozmo gets
a Secure Haven and a Pulse. Gilbert is next and gets his Pulse on his
first action as well. I almost oust my first prey anyway, but on the
free turn I was expecting to have my grandpredator's stealth bleed
chokes and can't bleed for 6 even though he has 5 standing on the table.
~ I get bled for 12 and ousted; if I get my free turn, I have 18 pool and
an easy sweep set up.

Round 2: Prey is ANI Raven Spy wall, with some Black Hand and location
toys. I get him anyway after a long, long time, as well as my next
prey. No GW though, pesky predator.

Round 3: Prey is Ahrimanes wall, the eventual tourney winner. I
eventually get him and my next prey 5 minutes before timeout to pick up
the GW with 2.5 VP.

Also note: No Dominate in my deck or other form of bleed bounce.

Sometimes you are just screwed, but that happens far more rarely than
people believe. I know people who would've given up as soon as they saw
Ozmo get the "perfect opening hand" behind them; I hung in there and had
more than a respectable chance to win that game.

Most people would just rather not admit that they misplayed their deck
and made poor decisions and guesses; instead, they'd prefer to blame the
seating. Fine by me; more VP coming my way.


- --
Derek

insert clever quotation here

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

"Screaming Vermillian" <vermillian69@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1114621334.175332.158660@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> Hi. just was alerted to this post on an AEG forum... check it out:
>
> http://www.meatpatrol.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=580
>
> How does this post apply to VTES? Does it apply to VTES?
>
> I mean in a way, it seems this poster is right... VTES (thogh she was
> referring to L5R...) seems to be more about WHAT you're playing at a
> table (and where you're sitting) rather than HOW well you're playing
> what you have!
>
If that were true, then WHO you are playing would be irrelevant. More often
than not, I find the quesiton of "Who am I Playing" to be the most important
one. The better you know them, and the game they're choosing to play. The
consistency of the highest ranked players in maintaining that status is
another indication that skill (HOW) is at least as important as deck (WHAT).

See also, Leggie's treatise on making mistakes (the second time in a week
that artilce is relevant, Leggie!), in the Oct. '04 edition of the !Gangrel
newsletter.

DaveZ
Atom Weaver

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Preston wrote:
> IMHO, VTES does a pretty good job of avoiding these issues.
Essentially
> you are there to kill your prey and avoid being killed in the
process.
> There are four traditional methods of doing this: bleeding, voting,
> combat, or wall. Now all of the clans are not able to do each of the
> four effectively, but they are all able to interact on all four of
> these facets to a certain extent. In addition, VTES is an extremely
> easy game to mix and match on, such that if you want a vote/combat
> deck, you can easeily make it in a variety of different ways using a
> variety of different vamps and clans. You deck can be as focused or
> diffuse as you wish: I have one weenie dominate deck that does little
> but bleed, while I have another Gangrel Royalty deck that bleeds at
> stealth, Parity Shift Votes you, drops the occasional wolf claws on
> you, or just Form of Mist/Earth Meld/Boucnes its way to victory.
>
> Therefore, IMHO, VTES does not degenerate into Rock/Paper/Scissors at
> all and a player of any given strategy is allowed to make sublte
> changes to his deck composition to make adjustments to the metagame
he
> is facing without fundamentally changing his deck around.



There is, however, Harbingers deck grinding, which can be very
difficult to defend against and almost guarantees that its prey will
not win the game. Rock, paper nor scissors will help you out in this
situation. You've got to use all your resources to try and oust your
prey(s) as fast as you can or go upstream and oust them (maiming isn't
good enough if they still have Slaughterhouses in play). Either way,
your chances of winning the table are significantly lowered no matter
how good a deck you have and/or how well you play it.


Robert Scythe

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

IMHO, most people build decks that are rather slow to develop. This
suits VTES because typically the first major player to establish
himself as a threat is at a disadvantage, but it does mean that a fast
and focused deck will virtually always earn 1 VP before running afoul
of the table.

Given that dynamic, I feel that the Harbingers deck grinding which will
at least caused problems for its pray and may oust it, but is limited
in who else it can oust does seem a real problem. Sure, its hard to
defense against and means that if they are your predator you can most
likely only earn 1VP at most, but that's not nearly as bad as a speed
deck ousting you entirely.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

On 27 Apr 2005 13:00:31 -0700, Robert Scythe <roberts@exploretalent.com>
wrote:

> There is, however, Harbingers deck grinding, which can be very
> difficult to defend against and almost guarantees that its prey will
> not win the game. Rock, paper nor scissors will help you out in this
> situation. You've got to use all your resources to try and oust your
> prey(s) as fast as you can or go upstream and oust them (maiming isn't
> good enough if they still have Slaughterhouses in play). Either way,
> your chances of winning the table are significantly lowered no matter
> how good a deck you have and/or how well you play it.

I've found that when I'm playing a good deck I don't often mind a
milling predator (that is, one who destroys my library but does
little else to harm my game).

If the miller starts with a Slaughterhouse on turn 3 and plays one every
turn until the 10th, I lose 72 cards in 10 turns. Likely, I will get
decked around the 9th turn. If I optimize my deck to last 12 rounds
(with probably some option for a more lengthy endgame in the form of
permanents or reusable vampire specials), I end up 3 rounds short, but
with basically no predator (because until I'm decked, my lost cards
could well be at the bottom of my library). Once I get decked, the tune
suddenly changes; though I find an inevitable doom and no predator to
be preferable in many cases. It's a fair trade: my predator gives me a
free ride at VPs for a period of time, after which he collects my VP
with an almost inevitable certainty. Much better then getting (D)
rushed to pieces by a combat deck predator and then getting ousted by an
opportunistic grand-predator...

--
Bye,

Daneel

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Derek Ray wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> Not true. I did not intend to play in the Lafayette qualifier, and I
> played a 76-card deck randomly thrown together with a crypt from
another
> deck, and I finished 6th out of 20.

Congrats, though poopy that that tournament had such a small turn
out... about a quarter of them were from my home state then, probably!
(OH. IO. poo
)
> I picked a "strong" archetype, weenie OBF -- but with some twists and
of
> course a non-optimal crypt and library.

Oddl enough I'd call that a non interactive archetype. I mean, that's
what OBF does... it doesn't want to interact. Well, ok, most obf
archetypes don't want to interact.

> My seating was near the worst
> possible each round:
>
> Round 1: Predator OBF/AUS/dom, turn 2 Ozmo comes out, turn 3 Ozmo
gets
> a Secure Haven and a Pulse. Gilbert is next and gets his Pulse on
his
> first action as well. I almost oust my first prey anyway, but on the
> free turn I was expecting to have my grandpredator's stealth bleed
> chokes and can't bleed for 6 even though he has 5 standing on the
table.
> ~ I get bled for 12 and ousted; if I get my free turn, I have 18 pool
and
> an easy sweep set up.

Poop. Did you interact with your pred? Didn't seem like you really
could. Your rock got papered.

> Round 2: Prey is ANI Raven Spy wall, with some Black Hand and
location
> toys. I get him anyway after a long, long time, as well as my next
> prey. No GW though, pesky predator.

There's the answer to resisting non-interaction. Interact with
reactions.

> Round 3: Prey is Ahrimanes wall, the eventual tourney winner. I
> eventually get him and my next prey 5 minutes before timeout to pick
up
> the GW with 2.5 VP.

Wait... didn't Jay Kristoff win that day? That Ahrimines deck was his
brother, Will, who was the last one ousted at the finals, right?
NEhow...

> Also note: No Dominate in my deck or other form of bleed bounce.

Oh man. Thats why you loose. j/k (or am I?)

~SV

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

David Zopf wrote:
> "Screaming Vermillian" <vermillian69@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1114621334.175332.158660@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > Hi. just was alerted to this post on an AEG forum... check it out:
> >
> > http://www.meatpatrol.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=580
> >
> > How does this post apply to VTES? Does it apply to VTES?
> >
> > I mean in a way, it seems this poster is right... VTES (thogh she
was
> > referring to L5R...) seems to be more about WHAT you're playing at
a
> > table (and where you're sitting) rather than HOW well you're
playing
> > what you have!
> >
> If that were true, then WHO you are playing would be irrelevant.
More often
> than not, I find the quesiton of "Who am I Playing" to be the most
important
> one. The better you know them, and the game they're choosing to
play. The
> consistency of the highest ranked players in maintaining that status
is
> another indication that skill (HOW) is at least as important as deck
(WHAT).
>
> See also, Leggie's treatise on making mistakes (the second time in a
week
> that artilce is relevant, Leggie!), in the Oct. '04 edition of the
!Gangrel
> newsletter.

Um... hmm... ok... who I'm playing is important. But lets say that's
fixed. Now its just a matter of what I'm playing. If there's an even
chance, and we're both playing what the AEG poster refered to as
military lion something... whatever. Say we're both playing combat or
something... then now its a matter of HOW WELL I'm playing. But if its
a set up of archetypes that typically can't beat one another, then its
just a matter of how many cards I have in my deck that MIGHT be able to
give me an advantage on that deck type... Like the AEG poster was
referring to about having different types of cards to confront each
type of deck... what we call tollboxing... meh...

ANyhow. OK. I'll read Leggies Oct 04 !gan newsie.

Later
~SV

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

On 27 Apr 2005 20:54:00 -0700, "Screaming Vermillian"
<vermillian69@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Wait... didn't Jay Kristoff win that day? That Ahrimines deck was his
>brother, Will, who was the last one ousted at the finals, right?
>NEhow...

The South Central Qualifier was in Lafayette, Louisiana. (Chad
Brinkley)

The Great Lakes Qualifier was in Lafayette, Indiana. (Jay Kristoff)


We were hoping to have the South East Qualifier in a Lafayette, but no
more were available, so we will hold it in Atlanta, Georgia.












Carpe noctem.

Lasombra

http://www.TheLasombra.com
Your best online source for information about V:TES.
Now also featuring individual card sales and sales
of booster and starter box displays.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

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Screaming Vermillian wrote:
| Derek Ray wrote:
|
|>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
|>Hash: SHA1
|>Not true. I did not intend to play in the Lafayette qualifier, and I
|>played a 76-card deck randomly thrown together with a crypt from
| another deck, and I finished 6th out of 20.
|
| Congrats, though poopy that that tournament had such a small turn
| out... about a quarter of them were from my home state then, probably!

20 isn't especially small in the land of 70-degree March. It's hard to
get people to show up when sunshine's around.

|>I picked a "strong" archetype, weenie OBF -- but with some twists and
| of course a non-optimal crypt and library.
|
| Oddl enough I'd call that a non interactive archetype. I mean, that's
| what OBF does... it doesn't want to interact. Well, ok, most obf
| archetypes don't want to interact.

Correct. Most. This one packed Walking Sticks, some Dodges, and Fake
Outs. It would have done better to throw out all the Dodges and replace
them with Lucky Blows, because people tend to get very careless about
blocking what looks at first glance like stock weenie Obfuscate.

|>My seating was near the worst
|>possible each round:
|>
|>Round 1: Predator OBF/AUS/dom, turn 2 Ozmo comes out, turn 3 Ozmo
| gets a Secure Haven and a Pulse. Gilbert is next and gets his Pulse on
| his
|>first action as well. I almost oust my first prey anyway, but on the
|>free turn I was expecting to have my grandpredator's stealth bleed
|>chokes and can't bleed for 6 even though he has 5 standing on the
| table.
|>~ I get bled for 12 and ousted; if I get my free turn, I have 18 pool
| and an easy sweep set up.
|
| Poop. Did you interact with your pred? Didn't seem like you really
| could. Your rock got papered.

I interacted with my predator exactly as much as was appropriate for
what was obviously a heavy-stealth deck; I NEVER attempted to block, and
I altered my pool expenditure and gain tactics appropriately.

Interpreting the performance in this round as "my rock got papered" is
silly; not many people could have managed to get within 1 pool of a VP
in front of such a deck, and it took quite a bit of doing to engineer
it, such as allowing my prey to block me in order to move combat cards
out of my hand.

|>Round 2: Prey is ANI Raven Spy wall, with some Black Hand and
| location
|>toys. I get him anyway after a long, long time, as well as my next
|>prey. No GW though, pesky predator.
|
| There's the answer to resisting non-interaction. Interact with
| reactions.

Sound bites don't really mean much. Is there a point?

My point remains: It isn't just rock, paper, scissors. This deck is
"paper" to my "rock", for many people; however, by altering my gameplay
carefully to attack his untap instead of his intercept, as well as
allowing myself to interact far more often with his minions than he was
expecting, I was able to overcome this instance of worst possible
seating and gain 2VP. This demonstrates quite well that there is, in
fact, a great deal of play skill involved, as opposed to "where you
sit". If I had played it in the typical fashion (try to stealth past
everything), all my minions would have been torporized and I would have
been ousted early on.

|>Round 3: Prey is Ahrimanes wall, the eventual tourney winner. I
|>eventually get him and my next prey 5 minutes before timeout to pick
| up the GW with 2.5 VP.

Jeff has already pointed out that this was the Lafayette, LA tournament.

See above for similar explanation of "it ain't just where you sit".
This particular Ahrimanes deck equipped with a Raven Spy on turn 2, and
then Muricia's Called up another one on turn 3 for standing +2
intercept. With this in front of you, it's not quite as easy as just
throwing 3 stealth cards out per turn.

|>Also note: No Dominate in my deck or other form of bleed bounce.
|
| Oh man. Thats why you loose. j/k (or am I?)

It's this sort of single-minded, sound-bite-oriented focus that holds
you back from properly understanding the game. Trying to include
Dominate in this deck would not have improved it any; instead, it would
actually have harmed it since I would've had to increase the crypt size
and use over-expensive, less-disposable vampires. Properly working out
the ratios and building this deck, instead of throwing together a bunch
of someone else's cards 15 minutes before the tourney start, would
surely have been the difference between 6th place and a seat in the
finals... where this deck is particularly geared to "getting a good start".

The Malk deck above, by the way, which is particularly non-interactive
(Secure Haven, no combat cards that I saw)... didn't make the finals.
Non-interactive decks look good on paper, but tend to lose with _no_
hope when they don't get a good seating position. So yes, you can
CHOOSE to make your game rock, scissors, paper if you like -- but it is
a weaker style of play, and as such will yield weaker results.

- --
Derek

insert clever quotation here

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Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

In message <2qn0715e1qap4bhpkdk67aubgsdn1mc9a2@4ax.com>, The Lasombra
<TheLasombra@hotmail.com> writes:
>We were hoping to have the South East Qualifier in a Lafayette, but no
>more were available, so we will hold it in Atlanta, Georgia.

Campaign with your local senators and congressmen to have another
Lafayette created. Turn V:EKN into a political weapon, and not just a
vehicle for card games!

--
James Coupe "Why do so many talented people turn out to be sexual
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D deviants? Why can't they just be normal like me and
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 look at internet pictures of men's cocks all day?"
13D7E668C3695D623D5D -- www.livejournal.com/users/scarletdemon/

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Screaming Vermillian wrote:
> I mean in a way, it seems this poster is right... VTES (thogh she was
> referring to L5R...) seems to be more about WHAT you're playing at a
> table (and where you're sitting) rather than HOW well you're playing
> what you have!
>
> Or not... just thoughts randomly passing through my brain that I'm
> sharing for the world at large...
>
> Comments? Flames? Huhs?

On one hand, we all have the same goal in The Eternal Struggle; to
reduce your prey (well 2 or more of them) to 0 pool. So, we all have
to interact with each other on that basis. Let us forget about
Brinksmanship for now, as I don't see such a deck getting more than one
VP on a regular basis. On the other hand, I am a fan of claiming that
where you sit can be more important than your deck and your skill. I
do recognize that this factor can be mitigated by the flexibility of
your deck and your abiliy to talk the table. I guess I often play
focused decks that can be victimized by the right kind of trump and
rarely try to win the table with my voice.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Screaming Vermillian wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
> > I picked a "strong" archetype, weenie OBF ....
>
> Oddl enough I'd call that a non interactive archetype. I mean, that's
> what OBF does... it doesn't want to interact. Well, ok, most obf
> archetypes don't want to interact.

So an "interactive" deck is one that wants to get into combat? There's
another name for that kind of deck: a combat deck.

All well-designed V:tES decks are interactive. They want to interact
with their prey's pool, or in some cases with their library.

The folks who are using "non-interactive" as a derogatory term for
decks they don't like appear to be defining it as "a deck I can't
figure out how to beat with my current deck".

When you're seated next to the rock to your scissors, remember that
sometimes scissors beats rock in this game. Any deck can sputter out
and fail. Reason out what circumstances are most likely to cause that
trump deck to fail against you, then play your game to create those
circumstances. You won't win all the time, but you can certainly better
your odds.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

"James Coupe" <james@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message
news:6x9ks67Z1JcCFwnc@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk...
> In message <2qn0715e1qap4bhpkdk67aubgsdn1mc9a2@4ax.com>, The Lasombra
> <TheLasombra@hotmail.com> writes:
>>We were hoping to have the South East Qualifier in a Lafayette, but no
>>more were available, so we will hold it in Atlanta, Georgia.
>
> Campaign with your local senators and congressmen to have another
> Lafayette created. Turn V:EKN into a political weapon, and not just a
> vehicle for card games!

This is *CULT* game!


People will laugh.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Emmit Svenson wrote:
> Screaming Vermillian wrote:
>>Oddl enough I'd call that a non interactive archetype. I mean, that's
>>what OBF does... it doesn't want to interact. Well, ok, most obf
>>archetypes don't want to interact.
>
> So an "interactive" deck is one that wants to get into combat? There's
> another name for that kind of deck: a combat deck.
>
> All well-designed V:tES decks are interactive. They want to interact
> with their prey's pool, or in some cases with their library.
>
> The folks who are using "non-interactive" as a derogatory term for
> decks they don't like appear to be defining it as "a deck I can't
> figure out how to beat with my current deck".

I think that perhaps the issue with the originally-cited message
is one of definitions as well.

"Good players with good decks should be able to win regardless
of the opposition" sort of defines what a good player and a good
deck are, rather than setting some sort of measure for an
acceptably-developed game.

e.g., if a toolbox deck is the only type that can *theoretically*
have a *reasonable* chance of winning regardless of the opposition,
then the statement above basically makes "good" decks a subset of
toolbox decks, excluding feast-or-famine (sweep or quickly ousted)
decks, like some focussed decks which would otherwise be
considered "good" decks.


--
LSJ (vtesrepSPAM@TRAPwhite-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep (remove spam trap to reply)
Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar:
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

DJ Feng Shui wrote:
> Screaming Vermillian wrote:
> > I mean in a way, it seems this poster is right... VTES (thogh she
was
> > referring to L5R...) seems to be more about WHAT you're playing at
a
> > table (and where you're sitting) rather than HOW well you're
playing
> > what you have!
> >
> > Or not... just thoughts randomly passing through my brain that I'm
> > sharing for the world at large...
> >
> > Comments? Flames? Huhs?
>
> On one hand, we all have the same goal in The Eternal Struggle; to
> reduce your prey (well 2 or more of them) to 0 pool. So, we all have
> to interact with each other on that basis. Let us forget about
> Brinksmanship for now, as I don't see such a deck getting more than
one
> VP on a regular basis. On the other hand, I am a fan of claiming
that
> where you sit can be more important than your deck and your skill.

Me too. It can be in situations. I wonder wha the percent of situations
in which this is the case?

> I
> do recognize that this factor can be mitigated by the flexibility of
> your deck and your abiliy to talk the table. I guess I often play
> focused decks that can be victimized by the right kind of trump and
> rarely try to win the table with my voice.

So HOW YOU PLAY also includes HOW YOU BITCH... right.

Archived from groups: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (More info?)

Screaming Vermillian wrote:
> Me too. It can be in situations. I wonder wha the percent of
situations
> in which this is the