ave

Back from a very bad EC (that does happen a little too much every year, lol), since we had the discussion sooner, I will try to summarize what I consider the top decks around, with one advantage, one disadvantage. I am not really sure if this is useful, I did not even put decklists but you can find them on Lasombra TWD pages fairly easily, I guess. 

The most important point here is to compare decks in the current metagame, I hope.

TIER 1 Archetypes

While most people consider tier 1 archetypes to be the best decks around, I have a fairly different approach as I do not think best or worse apply very well to V:tes (apart from Khazar's diary of course) ^^

In my opinion, the tier 1 decks are the one who win on the most regular basis considering a large number of decks you might face. To me 10 decks are really the tier 1, the best of each category or so.

!Malkavian Bleed/stealth -> cross-table damages/ weak against rush

Lasombra Nocturn -> strong against rush/ straightforward 

Khazar's diary -> Invincible or quite so/ slow

War ghoulator -> Prevent 1/ source of hate

Imbued -> Unknown to many / Feared by many

Edward Vignes -> Never handled/ Totally handlable

Legacy of Pander -> Perfect when it goes well/ Horrible when it goes bad

Weenie Animalism intercept -> So solid/ Dies to S/B

Weenie Auspex intercept -> More solid/ Slower also

Tupdogs -> Goes to final/ Does not win final

It is probably the kind of decks who win easily 50 to 70% of games played with players of your level who do not play tier 1 archetypes. They all have the same problem when arriving to the final: most good players know your deck, what to do and how to react accordingly, and then you get in trouble to kill them.

TIER 2 ARCHETYPES

There are a lot of tier 2 archetypes you can build. Any deck that win tournaments is virtually a tier 2. Tier 2 generally in my opinion suffer against more than one type of deck or virtually die to a specific card, which is the reason they are not higher. Here is a shortlist of the deck you would expect:

Nephandi -> Very good against tier 2/ Has problems handling most tier 1

Shamblings -> Versatile deck/ Weak against target vitals, contest a lot

Giovanni powerbleed -> Resistant and recycle cards / Weak under pressure

Ravnos week of nightmares -> Kills noobs/ Dies to good players

Weenie animalism rush -> Can kill any deck/ Can die to any deck

AAA (TGB vote) -> Bloat as hell / Dies to rush

Lasombra presence -> Unexpected/ For good reasons

Una freak show -> You play you win/ Most of the time you do not play

Carna -> Versatile and powerful/ Requires great skill

CEL Gun -> Best rushers around/ Suffers from the "salmon" syndrom aKa kill my predator

weenie potence -> win tables / do not win tournaments, worse than tupdogs

weenie DBR -> tricks opponents/ dies to weenies

Henry taylor twister -> on 1/3 table you have no problem/ you are not sure to even win those

Palla Grande -> more potential than ravnos / also dies faster

Ahrimanes -> same as weenie animalism with bigger vampires

!ventrue -> same as weenie auspex with bigger vampires

Nosferatu royalty -> kill his prey / does not seem to be able to do more

weenie PRE bleed -> cross table potential/ has troubles with B/S

I did willingly avoid Cybele and Arika on the list, as they seem too weak for me on current tables!

and you, which decks do you like to play? where would you rank them among this list?

 

Trophy: allies

Competitive, entertaining, here is the subjective list of the 10 non-unique allies I would make decks with and the reason why!!!!! (imbued are out of the competition, obviously)

1/ GOLD MEDAL: War Ghoul

It is very hard to contest that the war ghoul is the strongest ally ever printed. Its drawback of burning a minion or retainer is easily beaten with cards such as Jake washington and bleed retainers, which also prove to be very synergetic with the deck.
The tzimische have good weenie vampires to recruit the war ghouls, and you can put trap cards such as plasmic form or breath of the dragon in your deck also.
On the table, the well played war ghoul is almighty. Rush without fear or stay untapped to avoid being stolen... you are the master.
Finally, the thing I really like with war ghouls is the many versions you can make with the deck; weenies, obfuscate, mata hari, little taylor...

2/ SILVER MEDAL: Nephandus

The Nephandi might be claiming a spot in the top 10 cards of the game. They are resilient. They are classy especially in the sabbat edition and they are combo with many good cards (who said target vitals?).
Also, with Antonio d'erlette around, they are the easiest allies to recruit. I have played them a lot and they tend to get under estimated. There are not many decks around who can kill you easily.
Finally, the thing I really like with nephandi is the ability to make a really strong and compact decks with no dead cards, which is very well balanced, will always be played the good way!

3/ BRONZE MEDAL : Renegade garou

The garous are the leader of the style!!!! Who would not love to play with drugged sunglassed garous ? Of course you need to play them with the old drawing!!!! They rush at stealth, they hit hard, they regenerate.
To me, their only drawback are the vampires who need to play and the absence of ways to defend them properly from being stolen.
Finally, the thing I really like with renegade garous is the inherent combination they might do with a good old parity shift! This is the first ally we have played, let's keep him up!!!

4/ CONSOLATION PRIZE: Pupeeteer

This is probably subjective but this guy is a monster. Cross-table actions, allies stealing, stealth with shroud mastery, good vampires behind. He is the king of resistance and a deck with tons of them is a true archetype tournament winning deck.
They are the best for combining offense and defense and with Unmasking they become living dangers.
Finally, What I like the most with pupeeteers is being able to have Andrea Giovanni with charisma, and sudario refraction on pupeeteer, shroud mastery, and sudario refraction to start every turn!!!!


5/ BIMAS

They are strong, they are tricky, they bleed hard, they look difficult to play but they are not. There is not much lacking for the bimas for being powerful allies. My biggest reproach to them is that they lack charisma! They don't give you envy to play a Bima deck: you are simply playing setiths with Bimas. I don't like those allies who are like vampires in the game.
Nevertheless, bimas are competitive and this is important enough to bump them into the Top5

6/ BIG LOSERS: SHAMBLINGS

I am pretty sure you were expecting them higher but, I don't like shamblings. Good players know exactly what to do against them, the deck is not nearly as frightening as it used to be, which might all in all be a good thing.
Shamblings have troubles against many cards and they can be locked pretty fast, which I don't like. Shambling hordes swiss way remains a strong archetype you have to personnally handle on the table most of the time, which deserves the fifth spot
Finally, what I like the most with shambling hordes is rushing with one, trapping, burning and recruiting a new one thanks to this.

7/ SURPRISE OF THE CHIEF: ASANBONSAM GHOUL

I nearly won a tournament with them. This ally is the best for defending yourself. It protects your vampires very well and presents strong synergy with playing embraces because they both ask you to focus on your blood management only.
They are not making it higher in the ranking because they don't bleed, which makes it very difficult to take game wins with them.
Finally, what I like the most with them is trapping a big vampire with FBI Special affairs division on the table.

8/ OUR LAIBON FRIENDS: ANANASI VAMPIREPHILE/ TUNNEL RUNNER

They are kind of bleeding renegade garous. The big problem with them is that you have to play those freaky little laibons and this is soooooo difficult. Yet, when Jacob Fermer goes out, they turn into bleeding machines [bleed for 2 is nice] that have eventually stealth, and can break easily the mouth of any bold blocking vampire.
Finally, what I like the most with them is seeing the face of my opponents when playing the first one.

9/ SHADOW COURT SATYRS

They have style, especially in sabbat edition. You can play tricks with them... a lot!!!!!! They are funny to play in themselves, and competitive. So why do they not make it higher in my ranking? Well, mostly because the deck with them is always the same and is kind of a nasty stealth bleed, not funny at all. Let's find a competitive combat shadow court satyr and they could be the renegade garou of the new century.

10/ SUCCUBUS

The succubuses (do we say succubi????) do not make it higher in the ranking mostly because when you compare them to Nephandi, they seem weak. What they are not, of course. But they seem so, and recruiting one is not always enough to prevent your predator from bleeding you fearlessfly, which I dislike.
Win tournaments with them, give to other people higher opinion of their abilities, and they could be a really powerful ally in the future.

HONORABLE MENTIONS GO TO
My dear couriers
Abyssal hunters
Heralds of Topheth
Marijava Thugees
Underbridge strays
and Nocturn which, for ethical reasons, I could not put in my top10

French championship part 2

Now I am to focus more on a mostly generic approach of 3-days tournament [I have already covered that but you never speak too much on how you have to deal on big tournaments] and more specifically on French championship and its evolution towards the years.

Concerning French championship this year, first remark was that there were only few people gathered in Caen {38 all in all} which results often in giving a better edge to the best players who have natural skills in paying attention to what is happening in the tournament and have a generic good idea to how many victory points will be needed to enter the final.

Therefore, in my opinion, it is not a surprise to see generally considered good players filling the top 10 of the tournament. On a side note, there is something surprising also. In 2005, 2007 and 2009, finals was gathering really very good players or so, while in 2006 and 2008 the final was more surprising. The reason seems to be the number of victory points needed to enter the final. In 2006 and 2008, it was rather low due to lot of time limits, so favorizing random players. Interesting, isn't it?

This year, the level was very high among the 38 players which shows that, in my opinion, the current qualifying system is rather well balanced. However, most of the players still don't understand what a French championship and play random decks just because they "feel" so, a common mistake I also did in the past. It is very important to determine your goals and take a deck able to achieve them. I cannot blame people for thinking that their ravnos illusions of the kindred coma amaranth is the best deck around, but if they had considered it for a while, they would have seen it was probably not a great idea to bring it.

Concerning the metagame this year, there was less intercept than usual, except for the classical weenie auspex that many French players like. Strangely, weenie animalism seems to have jumped to the bottom of the decks people like to play while we have seen everywhere during this year. The deck were rather agressive, resulting of three of them entering the finals at 3rd to 5th spot while intercept decks were claiming the 2 1st spots [carna and ahrimane] due to the level of the players as well as their decks choices.

Can we except a similar change to the European scene? I am enclined to think so. With generic masters such as ashur tablets, even defensive decks can present a much more agressive profile. I am expecting to see bleed decks of our favourite intercept clans in Palma. I am also expecting lot of Laibons, as the latest tournaments prove Guruhi and Osebo to handle the job very properly.

If there is something you need to know about finals in major tournaments, it is that people generally approach them under two different ways: either they want to survive, or they want to try be agressive and kill preys. The players who manage a final are the one who manage to play their usual game that brought them to the final table, adding a slight shrewdness concerning using the other players behavior against themselves. 

Finally, we are one week away from Palma so I am telling it to everybody, TEST YOUR DECKS! SPEAK ABOUT THEM WITH YOUR PLAYGROUP! DO YOUR BEST!

and see you in Palma, obviously, where I will be shamelessly selling cards at discount prices during three days :)

French championship 2009

It is difficult to write an article about a tournament, especially if you are participating in. While writing about the open and french championship 2009, I was wondering if I should focus on my personnal experience or the general information about the tournament.

I have tried to do both by
1/ summarize my own report of the tournament
2/ gather information in other player's reports

I hope they will be useful. If there is any shady information, feel free to ask.

First one is my SUMMARY

My summary is of course subjective. If you read between the lines, I give valorization judgments about many French players. Do not mind. They generally deserve it ^^ If you think that playing Nana Buruku in an over-agressive environment is a good idea, please don't read what is going to follow, I don't want to break your gullibility.

French championship in caen was kind of a myth. There had been many stories of possible dates changing at the last minute, inextricable deckchecks, incompetents judges... we have been disappointed because the organization was very good, the judges had trained and did their best [of course they still did mistakes but as long as they know they could, I was accepting that]
I still need to give that story to you:
my prey at the French Championship "I play concealed weapon" and mask a card
me "you need to tell on which card you do it"
him "no"
me "we can call a judge but I can tell you from playing dragon breath rounds all years long, you have to"
let's call the judge then
...
judge arrives, doesn't know the answer, goes checking, comes back and confirms my prey's play
him "sorry for your 10 years"

:D :D XD that was a good one

Concerning players then, the level was fairly good. To be honest, I was afraid local players might ruin the day but they did play higher than average and that was very interesting. I also met two players I never saw playing before and who were so good I convinced them to come at the EC... so beware.

From where should I begin... yes, preparation! As usual, when Florian Prosper arrives home from Nice, we are going to test like pigs!!!! Test, test, test!!! The result? We play video games instead, I play 3 games in the week for one vp total... fairly good preparation, right. When you will play like a God like me, you would be able to do that!!!! :)

I will try to give you some good reasons for the decks I chose
OPEN edward vignes -> handles stealth bleed [in fact it is the only deck I could build on Friday evening at 10 P.M in 10 minutes]

French CHAMPIONSHIP mono Una -> because it is a deck to play alone [in fact it was the only built deck I had]

Open, I was playing edward vignes. I would make some slight changes to the decklist below if I was to come back in time. I would remove 3 majesty to 3 force of personnality and 2 slaughtering the herd to 2 govern. For the other cards, deck is near perfect in my opinion. The deck is stable, never jamms, except when you draw slaughtering the head.

Deck Name: Edward vignes cf 1.1
Created By: TTC


Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 15, Max: 25, Avg: 5) ------------------------------------------- the crypt is a little bit more technical than the one from Ruben Feldman and you will probably have more choices to do than with this version

1 Diana Vick dom pre 3 Ventrue
1 Lana butcher dom for 3 Ventrue
1 Gloria Giovanni DOM nec 4 Giovanni
1 Boss Callihan dom for pro PRE 5 Ventrue
1 Catherine du Bois for obf pre DOM 5 Ventrue
2 Ranjan Rishi for DOM PRE 5 Ventrue
3 Edward Vignes for DOM PRE 6 Ventrue
1 Ingrid Russo for DOM 4 Ventrue Antitribu
1 Peter Blaine dom for 4!Ventrue

Library: (70 cards) -------------------
Master (12 cards)
1 Giant`s Blood
3 Pentex Subversion
2 Anarch Troublemaker
2 Jake Washington (Hunter)
1 Coven, The
2 Misdirection
1 ???? no secret tech! I just can't remember lol.

Action (19 cards)
13 Govern the Unaligned
2 Mind Numb
2 Entrancement
2 Slaughtering the Herd

Action Modifier (21 cards)
4 Daring the Dawn
4 Bonding
2 Foreshadowing Destruction
7 Conditioning
4 Seduction

Reaction (13 cards)
2 Delaying Tactics
7 Deflection
2 Redirection
2 On the qui vive

Combat (3 cards)
3 Majesty

Combo (2 cards)
2 Force of personnality

First seating of the day lets me remember why Vignes is not so good after all.
TTC -> Osebo classical -> Lazverinus -> weenie potence -> Lasombra B/S
I ma just seated where I don't want to. The Osebo breaks my mouth after pentexing my T1 influenced Ingrid Russo... I don't have Vignes on this table, of course!
There is a very fast 3/2 deal between Lazve and the Osebo. A deal that cannot work since I czan transfer out easily. They still want to do it. My predator lets me trying my chance and I manage with a superb combination at 4 pools, torporized fame, to make my vp like this . I have 2 vampires, there are 2 untapped osebo, one of them has 0 blood .
pentex on the other, govern, force of personnality, conditionning
slaughtering the herd, daring the dawn, foreshadowing destruction

makes a vp right...
after this, I respect my predator's fairness by transfering out and Lazverinus takes the other vp out.

Second one is a better seating, I hope...
TTC -> Florian Prosper (anson grooming vote whom I know, from the tweaks we made, that he is running 3x protected resources) -> Tzim horrid toolbox -> weenie animalism feat magaji -> potence and creation rites/

The key is whether or not anson will draw protected. The gods of Jyhad are with me as I kill him swiftly by delaying a parity shift early in the game. I have no pression but the Tzim is a too defensive deck. At 2 minuts of time limit, I give my last try by bleeding in daring for 6, longly stacked, that will be bounced :'(. I am therefore looking at a 2 blood Edward and decide not to try. I still discard and draw another daring the dawn... my prey doesn't do anything and say next. My little prey kills my predator. Game is again on me, baby!????
30 seconds left
Jake, govern,daring, top deck foreshadowing directed by my preadtor, conditionning, 2nd vp and GW... obviously should my predator have directed daring the dawn, it would not have been the same thing... but it is always difficult to remain lucid when you just took one vp lol.

so I did steal a GW and here comes the last seating
TTC -> Nana Buruku presence -> !ventrue cept/fight-> eurobujah ->!malk

I rape Nana while she bangs the !ventrue.
Then I rape the !ventrue while the eurobrujah rapes the !malk
Then I rape the eurobrujah and takes GW4 in 40 minuts.
Jyhad is easy... 2GW7,5 without doing good! Great!

Final is the following:
Akabar (1st - 2GW8,5 - Enkidu) -> Florian Prosper (5th - 1GW7 - anson grooming vote) -> Bolo (2nd - 2GW7,5 - lasombra B/S from TTC) -> TTC (3rd - 2GW7,5) -> Arnaud Baigts (4th - 2GW5,5 - brujah debate)
Bolo is making the final all alone by bleeding me for 24 in one turn (!!!!) Happily everything is bounced and Anraud dies the first!!!! But Bolo has a plan and goes on bleeding. Finally he kills me but cannot pass Enkidu and Enkidu wins it.

I went very fast on the final. The most important is to get lessons from it , I guess:
-> it was a good idea to bleed me strong, surprisingly. It had several effects. I did cost me my bounces, it put pression on Enkidu
-> the good idea afterwards might have been to let me try my chance on Enkidu. Even if I had managed to kill the beast, that would have cost me several daring the dawn to do so... giving Bolo a good edge of killing me before I get 3rd vp
-> if I didn't manage to kill Enkidu, all good for Bolo


The day after, I have 91 cards in my Una deck, and my second mantle of the bestial majesty stays at the hotel while I am playing this

Deck Name: Una freak show - CF 2009 V1.1
Created By: TTC

Description: Drive safely
Crypt: (13 cards, Min: 4, Max: 36, Avg: 4,69) ---------------------------------------------
1 Antoinette DuChamp cel pre 1 Caitiff
1 Huang pro 1 Pander
1 Franciscus aus 1 caitliff
1 March Halcyon for 1 Pander
1 Nedal cel nec 1 Caitiff
1 Royce dom 1 Pander
1 Sandra White 1 Caitiff
6 Una dem ANI FOR PRE PRO9 Gangrel Antitribu

Library: (90 cards) -------------------
Master (1 cards) 1 Pentex Subversion

Action (24 cards)
1 Ambush
1 Big Game
1 Blessing of Chaos
1 Bloodlust
1 Bum`s Rush
1 Covenant of blood
1 Creation Rites
1 Deep Song
1 Dual Form
1 Embrace, The
1 Enrage
1 Eternal Vigilance
1 Games of Instinct
1 Harass
1 Heart of the City
1 Loki`s Gift
1 Mantle of the Bestial Majesty
1 Rumble
1 Scrounging
1 Sense Death
1 Shadow of the beast
1 Taunt the Caged Beast
1 War Party
1 Zillah`s Tears

Action Modifier (47 cards)
45 Freak Drive
2 Perfect Paragon

Political Action (2 cards)
1 Scourge
1 Templar

Ally (1 cards)
1 Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Retainer (4 cards)
1 J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1 Jackie Therman
1 Mr. Winthrop
1 Tasha Morgan

Equipment (10 cards)
1 Aaron`s Feeding Razor
1 Blood tears of Kephran
1 Hawg
1 Ivory Bow
1 Kevlar Vest
1 Light Intensifying Goggles
1 Mark V
1 Sire`s Index Finger
1 Sengir dagger
1 Leather jacket

Combo (1 cards)
1 Touch of Clarity

comments, not many, sengir dagger is only here because the risk of not finding a weapon is too high. There are other cards that could be in, but I like the many tricks I put in there. I will be very fast on the rounds because rounds with Una are not very technical.

TTC -> (auspex/presence vote/cept?) -> (weenie auspex) -> (imbued disease) -> Florian Prosper (AAA)
my first turn to Una dies to DI. Then there is a vampiric disease on me and two players are playing eagle's sights. Finally I manage to get in with a deal with Florian. Comment; I was needing a deal to win and that is happy my predator was someone whom I could trust because I had to let him alive with Alexandra and Anson in order to achieve the deal.
An additionnal point... there is slow withering on the table but I should be immune because I have diablerized... I lost many bloods thanks to its controller "forgetting"... well It is very hard, Florian gives me two victory points but we miss the little trick to kill the imbued [in details, before killing my first prey, get an ancilla empowerment in its discard pile with Erciyes fragments, but that was like 5 turns before we could have actually used it ]
Finally, I get a well-deserved GW2,5

Round 2/ 4-players table, many say it is good of Una
TTC -> (cel/gun) -> (princes ventrue) -> (!malk)

it is hot. Sarah Brando rushes me on T3 and I don't block... good call. Sarah leaves Una with 2 bloods and cannot go further. The rest is easy on a table where nobody can harms me. I don't give you details but after emptying my deck I am still able to burn 4 !malk in one single turn ;)


Round 3, my predator plays ahriman and I cannot do anything. Swiftness x2 + carrion every combat (I influence 2 Unas in the game). Unfortunately for me, he also decides to be my predator during the final.

TTC (4th 2GW6,5) -> Stone (3rd 2GW7 !malk) -> Matthieu (5th 1GW7 !ventrue) -> Blackwood (2nd 3GW8 carna without carna) -> Gratiano (1st 3GW10 ahrimanes Gr2 )
I need all my tricks to try playing during the finals. The problem is... even when I manage to play, I am still not handling the Ahriman correctly. I try to agress my prey and stay alive but it is very difficult. I still manage to play a little and obtain 2 points in exchange for leaving my prey quiet (more because he was tired I guess)

I guess Stone was the only player in the final who did not make mistakes and I guess as often, the one who does not make mistakes, win it all at the end!

More information on the French championship to come

Sweeper

Small message today but very important one

Pierre Tran-Van, also known as Stone, is the new French championship.
He is one of the players who illustrate the most important qualities a V:tes player needs:

1/ Know your deck

Stone has, for once, played decks he had already won tournaments with, without changing much cards. He was well aware of decks strengths and weaknesses of and against his deck.

2/ Know the rules

Stone is probably the player I know who focuses on rules the most. It is very important to know them. During finals, I could have equipped out of a minion in torpor. I probably was aware of that but due to the mental tiredness and to the pressure, I forgot it. Had I been Stone, I probably would have thought about it.

3/ Play to win

Stone has won the final because he always went straightforward, trusting his deck, even when things were getting complicated. It might have been a foolish thing but this is how he won.

4/ Be a gentleman

He is a kind player, always dedicated to play friendly and interesting games. He generally does not complain against other players and focuses on his own mistakes

He was a great champion. He is a French champion we can be proud of. I hope to be able to take revenge against him during the European championship.

I did a summary of my championship but at the moment it is not translated. For the nosy one, I was playing Edward Vignes at the open, and mono Una at the French championship. I made both finals but had very difficult seating (entering 3rd and 4th into the finals). I will focus on the championship later, there is so much to say!!!!!

Tortured confession

Dear friends,

today, before leaving for DMF Amsterdam (the world of warcraft tournament), I wanted to cover some questions that have been asked to me and that are quite interesting, and, I think, worth studying a little bit.

Hope this little article covers as many things as possible. The upcoming article focuses on something different: we are going to see an archetype and try to comment it, and, eventually, customize it!

Here are the questions and my answers

What are the correct ratios for a deck, and how do you work them out?

The number of a precise card I will use in my deck will depend of the result of several ratios I am going to calculate. Those ratios answer the following questions:
-> how many of the card do I need to play during a game?
-> do I need the card early or late?
-> how important is the effect of the card ?
-> what is my experience with a card?
-> is there a situation where the card becomes useless?
-> are there any considerations of metagame/tournament I shall take into account?
-> is this figure logic compared to the deck I am building?

for example, let's take the example of Majesty [combat ends, untap] in the deck commonly called AAA [Anneke/Anson/Alexandra vote with a touch of bleed, heavy bloat] and let's try to think.
-> I can have a to play a lot of majesties during a game
-> I might need the card early but generally it's effective during all the game
-> the effect of the card is vital
-> I have great experience with the card
-> I don't see much situations where the card is useless (a bleed for 3 at 0 stealth from Alexandra will generally find a blocker)

-> then I will adapt the figure considering if I am expecting lot of intercept/combat in the tournament
-> then I will adapt the figure considering how many cards I play in the deck

and I generally will go to about 8/10% of majesties in the deck because
-> less would not be enough to be sure having one early
-> more would be too much handjamming
-> the effect is vital, I don't see any card to replace it
I will adjust depending on the metagame. And pick the figure according to how many cards I want to play in total.

Now, things change when considering other cards. For example, it is very important in my opinion to limitate the number of masters in your deck because you get jammed to easily [now, I see some players do great with 20 masters] and if you look my decklists, except for focused decks I generally don't go above 14 masters, I also try to include as many triffles as possible.

Also, taking into consideration similar decklists as the one you are building is a good solution for the beginning but if you are feeling you need more of a card, don't hesitate to give it a try, this could be a good surprise!

What are your thoughts on hosers (e.g. Scourge of the Enochians)?

Well, except for really specific issues, I never play hosers, for once. I am the kind of player who agresses the table. I rather use all my resources for this purpose.

Now, facing them, I think uncoiling is a rather good solution against most of the gehennas outside there. So, if I put an anti-hoser, it generally is uncoiling as it can kill also Anthelios, Unmasking, Dragonbound... which is very versatile. Now, I would not include it in many type of decks for a lack of space and too easy jam: I don't think it is useful in most of the stealth/bleed decks, I don't think you can afford the slot if playing combat/

When you design a deck, do you accept that it won't be able to handle certain match-ups (e.g. Weenie Auspex as first prey)? How many possibilities do you try to cover?

This is a very interesting question. First, I always like to remind you that you, by definition, have no way to handle all decks out there. If you think you can, it is generally that either you are wrong or your deck has solutions against too many things and that is not good overall.

Now, to answer the question precisely, I would say that when I design a deck, I don't think about it. I try to make the best deck possible. I don't want to know at that moment that the deck has not a chance against weenie animalism. I want to have a good deck, that's all.

But in tournament, that is different. You have to think about the upcoming finals. Again, I generally accept losing one round if seating is too horrible but I want a deck able to win the two other rounds to be first into the final. So, focusing on my deck is priority. Afterwards, if I am first into the finals, horrible seating is not a big deal.

Now, the best way to win against a weenie auspex deck as first prey is something that you need to think about, even if you don't have much solution. Be prepared, know your solutions, and try to put them into practice. Also, don't forget you are not alone on that table!!!!

How much do you metagame?
Should I play 6x Obedience instead of 3xObedience, 3x Shadow Body in my Lasombra PRE if I'm pretty sure thatnobody is going to be playing Ally Rush?

If you manage to have a great view of what there is going to be at the tournament, use it!!!! Great tournament winning decks have won because the player knew , or just tried to guess and tried out, how the tournament would do.
If I was pretty sure nobody would play vote, or at least nobody in the finals, I would drop all my delaying tactics without hesitation.
Now, the problem is, how to be pretty sure!!!!!

Reversal of fortune

Hey there

so finally I have broken the deal with you, my friend, as I was not able to write during my holidays (Internet was not easy to access and it is easier to write on the blog directly than using microsoft word and then copy/paste)

but... I thought about v:tes quite a bit as I have seen some of my oldest pal players and we discussed v:tes a lot, and also we thought about the upcoming French championship.

Now, let's face today's subject that has been proposed to me:
what about those unfortunate times when you get sat to the left of a hardcore S&B deck and don't have a ton of bounce in your deck

First, I would like to say that v:tes is a tragic game where you cannot handle everything. You generally have to accept being killed by a deck you don't handle. The most important thing you have to care is winning enough rounds to come to the finals .

[I have already covered the importance of fitting the result you want to achieve to the deck -> for example, you wanna play intercept when there are less players and you just need 1 good GW to enter the final, but it is dangerous when there are lots of players because finals might need 2 GW with high points and intercept statistically is less inclined to let you achieve this score]

Now, independantly from the final result, what to do when you have a S/B deck on your right. Well, I would say it depends strongly on what you are playing and what you are facing. Let's cover the different match-ups after looking at general guidelines:

-> always wonder if you have a chance to kill your prey before you get killed when wondering about damaging your predator. Also, wonder if your grand-predator is able to damage your predator also

-> look for cross-table help if you have something strong to offer in exchange

-> if you are playing rush, try to deal with your predator because if he starts bleeding you strongly, even if you kill him afterwards, your chances of getting a GW are somewhere nearby 0%.

-> a general guideline is: cycle, cycle, cycle. Go through to your useful cards to survive, you will probably need them.

If you don't survive, don't consider your deck awful. 95% of the preys of a weenie dementation deck will die to it in the first 4 turns.
---------------------------------------

If I am playing a bleed deck, I might:
-> try to go faster than my predator

-> always look like I can bounce. I would never tap out myself. I want my predator to play resources on me. I also want him to ponder his bleeds to avoid myself get my victory point first[which is a mistake in my opinion but most players would do that]

-> offer my predator a 3/2 or even a "I make 1 vp and then oust myself and damage my prey as much as possible" deal for him and eventually try to steal the 2nd/3rd victory point somewhere later in the game

If I am playing a combat deck, I might:

-> try to consider working with my predator as said above

-> always look like I can rush successfully. I will try to look strong on the table. I will try to rush with success always. The moment I miss a rush, a good player will take the opportunity to kill me even if he cannot in one single turn

-> bloat as much as possible

If I am playing vote, I might:

-> outbloat my predator strongly

-> vote against my predator - to both damage his pool and also avoid him pulling out more vampires.

-> ask for cross-table help in exchange with votes

If I am playing intercept, I might:

-> try to use my block attempts to bounce on the strongest possible bleeds

-> cycle as much as possible because if I get jammed I die

-> consider aura reading and similar cards as spoilers

-> focus on vampires I can block more easily [inferior obfuscate for example] AND on vampires I can send into torpor if I block them

-> bluff as much as possible on my potential

If I am playing a toolbox, I might:

-> play the cards as well as possible and try to imagine how I can survive this matter.

Letter from Vienne

I will be on holidays next week.
That means I might (I say might lol) have more time to write

but... I am not sure what to write on

so drop a mail either at

c o i n c o i n m a s t e r @ h o t m a i l . com

or

o r i a n g i s s l e r @ a l i c e a d s l . fr

and tell me which subject you would like to see explored!!!!


Best
orian

Thanks for the donation

Hey there

I am taking some time today not to speak about strategy but to consider if the latest thought by our friend LSJ would be a good thing or a bad thing.

Lsj offers the following:
Well, with the understanding that influence-back rule was added to handle contesting issues (and has ended up turning Ecoterrorists and superior Govern and the like into bloat tools instead of the pack-building tools they were designed to be), I'd say changing something along those lines wouldn't be too out of line (as long as something's getting changed regarding contesting): Remove "spend 2 transfers to move 1 counter from a card in your uncontrolled region to your pool." Add "remove from the game a crypt card in your uncontrolled region that would contest a card in play to move all blood counters from it to your pool and draw a card from your crypt". And make yielding a crypt card return the crypt card to the permanent controller's uncontrolled region, for good measure.

I would say that people complaining against contesting are not real competitors in my opinion. When playing, contest is a key factor. Avoid contesting early, contest at the right moment your opponent's star vampire, make them believe you could contest them... there are many possibilities contest helps with.

So I would say removing the contest removes a big part of the game. For example, whenever you were playing Arika, you were afraid of being contested, that is for sure. So whenever a good player wanted to play Arika, he had to consider this possibility.
When I read that the initial complain was from someone who got Lutz, the malkavian inner circle, contested 2 times in a row, I can't help laughing! I mean... Lutz!!!!! come on guys, you don't need playing 6 Lutz in your deck, you can just play 3... and yet, if you play 6, announce you are influencing him because your ally might be smart and playing other vampires too, avoiding the problem.

This problem of contesting was giving a slight edge to worse decks and vampires because they were getting less played. Who cares contesting when playing Mugur Sabau?

In addition, the thing I really don't like is that it completely screws up bloat cards in the wrong way. When estimating that Govern the Unaligned was not for retrotransferring, LSJ denies the freedom of players to use the card as they wish to. Players over the year have estimated that retro-transferring using GtU was a good move and they have worked on it. Now, LSJ wants to take it back and I don't like it.

In addition, Powerbase: Montreal, my favourite card, would be as good as dead :-( that has finished me off.

I don't think we should argue about contesting. I don't think any solution would be good. Players need to take their responsability when they player high-probability-to-be-contested vampires

Best
Orian

Golconda: inner peace

Level: medium
Out of game section

Concentration

Before we talk about a very interesting discussion I read about concentration in V:tes, I wanted to let you know how happy I was that Paris was chosen to welcome you in 2010 for the European Championship. I probably won't be playing there and it could be my last tournament... I don't know yet. But anyway what is sure is that we are going to have a lot of fun.

Now, concerning concentration.

Concentration is one of the two most important qualities of a V:tes player, the other one being how well you play. It is useless to be a great player technically if you are not concentrated enough to extract as much as you can from the information of the table.

Concentration could be variable from an individual to another, as some have no problems following a game, chatting and watching TV in the same time (I am one of those) but everybody, is focusing on the game, should be able to benefit of it.

I Be part of the game

You're playing a multiplayer game here, so concentration is very important because there are many more information to get than in a single player game. You have four sources of information, to make it clear. Try to extract from them everywhere. Look at how they look scared during their predator's master phase, look at how hesitant their hands are when they declare a bleed, then compare to what you already know and determine what could be deducted.

You can get information from many ways:
-> cards played
-> players physical tells
-> players chatting
and potential tricker things like players out of game indications sometimes.

How can you get those information? Be part of the game.
Being part of the game is dedicating yourself to think deep about the game. You are not the spectator who looks your prey playing a deflection, you are the actor determining under which conditions your prey would be playing a deflection.

When being part of the game, your mind must be making deductions everywhere, must anticipate what is going to happen, look if you were right, then assume the correct things about it.

An interesting stuff to note is that bluff is scarcely important for a v:tes player and 90% of the time, when you see a physical tell, it is probably the truth. A player not even bother thinking on 1 stealth action probably does not have intercept in his hand or wakes to play, except if he is a very good player able to decide very fast what he is going to block.

On the opposite, don't assume everybody is playing right because you are good. If a player lets a bleed for 3 pass when at 4 pool and 2 vampire to act after, don't assume he has no bounce or 2 bounces exactly in his hand because he could be playing badly and have 1 bounce or make a strange move...

II Go for it

I see many players making correct assumptions but not using them accordingly. You often hear "I was sure you did not have any wake, I should have tried to kill you back then". An important step of progressing in V:tes is gaining confidence. If you are confident, you will not have to lose actions trying to lure your opponent. You will not need those "bleed for 1" to test your opponent's wakes. Instead, you will start with big bleeds based on your assumption. Sometimes it won't work because your opponent has drawed something good in the meantime but on the long level, it is fairly positive to be able to do so.

If you have correct readings, you also win possibilities to control the table by determining how the table is going to move on easily. Determine who is the dead meat, who is struggling with his cards and offer him solutions accordingly.

Finally, I would say that an experienced player does not use his instinct instead on critical situations. Experienced player will just play accordinly to their cards and information they get. Only in a life or death situation, will they refer to instinct additionnaly. You don't need instinct if you're playing your right cards at the right moment, thanks to the reading on your opponent.


-----------------

I will be speaking of more out-of-game situations soon but I have much work waiting for me at the moment, all best, orian.

Path of retribution

Hey there

I just realized that the current weeks were really full of card playing. That inspired me this little article which describes what I consider the different periods of the V:tes year and which goal you should consider important there. This should be updated considering the continent you're playing on, of course.

November to February -> gest some rest after the hard tournaments you have played at the end of the year. Take notes on the deck you met. Watch the google groups and forums for ideas and note them also.

March to June -> get prepared. Make new lists. Update your successful decks. Qualify as soon as possible for your national and continental championships. Then, test news decks out.

July to September -> prepare your national championship. What I do is that I try to play with players that I am not playing during the championship as much as possible, and I try to conceal my precise decklists as much as possible also.
I generally have a short list of 3-4 decks for every day in July and I try to rank them during those three months. Before the tournament, I take lot of time to study decks similar to mine among the past years to determine if I have forgotten something.

Play the tournament.

October - November -> depending on your result, re-consider your list of decks and update them for continental championship. If a new deck has come out, I advise you to keep it for the year after, except if it is extraordinaryly powerful. Also think about how the metagame changes for continental championship

Play the tournament.

If you are playing full-time v:tes and enjoying it, I advise you to play about:
3 Continental qualifiers
6-8 National qualifiers
5-10 regular tournaments
in the year

If you are playing other card games and have less time, focus on
as much continental qualifiers as you can
national qualifiers until you are qualified and all the one you can attend easily
no regular tournaments
in the year

All best

Orian

Spell of love

A little deck I built recently. It shows how you can take benefit of archetypes to kill unprepared people

Deck Name: spell of love
Created By: TTC

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 16, Max: 27, Avg: 5,41) ----------------------------------------------
1 Ahmose Chambers obf ser 3 Followers of Set
1 Sahira Siraj obf ser tha 4 Followers of Set
1 Sisocharis cel obf pre 4 Followers of Set
3 Black Lotus aus obf ser DOM 5 Followers of Set
3 Halim Bey obf tha DOM SER 6 Followers of Set
3 Amenophobis dom pre OBF SER 7 Followers of Set

Library: (70 cards) -------------------
Master (11 cards)
1 Opium Den
3 Jake Washington (Hunter)
1 Pentex Subversion
1 Misdirection
2 Dominate
1 Anarch Troublemaker
2 Perfectionist

Action (16 cards)
4 Spell of Life
10 Govern the Unaligned
2 Temptation

Action Modifier (24 cards)
7 Conditioning
4 Faceless Night
5 Lost in Crowds
2 Spying Mission
3 Veil the Legions
3 Cloak the Gathering

Reaction (8 cards)
7 Deflection
1 Delaying Tactics

Ally (6 cards)
1 Nephren-Ka
2 Qetu the Evil Doer (Bane Mummy)
1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1 Ossian
1 Amam the Devourer (Bane Mummy)

Combo (5 cards)
3 Swallowed by the Night
2 Form of the Serpent

Creation rites 2

Hey there

I am moving on with my Ariadne Abactor (remember Creation Rites first article).
I had decided to play the deck during French Qualifier at Nancy, which was looking a good spot for testing the deck with around 20 players and a final entrance at 1GW4 or 1GW5 I was assuming.

I slightly changed the decklist when building the deck. Some stuff were coming to my mind and I came finally with that:

4x Ariadne
1x Talbot
1x Shiloh Marie (I had misread her cardtext so she is to be removed)
2x Jacob Fermor
1x Gunnar
1x Lillian
1x Fergus Alexander
1x Robert Price

Library [80 cards]

22 masters
8 Vessel
3 Villein
3 Minion tap
2 Ecoterrorists
2 Backways
2 Dark influences
1 Powerbase: Montreal
1 Pentex subversion

Actions 25
10 Abactor
8 Renegade garou
1 Ossian
1 Vagabond Mystic
1 Carlton van wyk
2 Underbridge stray
1 Heart of Nizchetus
1 Robert Carter

Modifiers 8
4 Beast meld
4 Freak drive

Combat 17
8 Form of mist
8 Claws of the dead
1 Body flare

Events 3
2 Dragonbound
1 Unmasking

Reactions 5
2 On the qui vive
2 Delaying tactics
1 Hard case


How did the tournament go?
Fairly well, but the deck ran into huge problems. Being bled by a bleed/stealth is one. Time you get your vessels out, you are dead. And maybe you are also dead even after. You have to play to survive all game long.

Also garous stolen were a huge problem too. All in all, in the 3 games, I found myself not advancing. I was playing cards to bloat, pulling garous out but not moving forward except if everything was really fine behing. I could not outbloat my predator also. I suppose the agressive type of predator was too agressive for me, and a safe kind of predator would probably play combat. All in all, not good.

I managed to make 1GW4 and enter 5th seed in the final but could not make a miracle. I took 2 vps but finished second.

Concerning the sery "creation rites", what are our options when a deck did not work fine?
1/ Test it again and tweak it
2/ Change the structure of the deck
3/ Forget the deck

In the next article creation rites 3 we will see what we are going to do with Ariadne Abactor.

Malkavian game

Hey there.

This article, sorry for my dear Malkavian friends, will not treat on how to win at rock-paper-scissors (well, I can tell you to go with stone at first, always) but will relate you something strange that happened to me.

I was playing a world of warcraft tournament last week-end and it is a game I like very much. It is full of nice and competitive people and you got lots to learn from them. So this week-end it was a really big tournament called realm championship, a kind of French Cup of WoW.

I was doing surprisingly well (generally I am a fair player but lack of training creates me some problems) attacking the two last rounds with 5 victories for 1 losses, winning against the French champion on the path. I was playing my tournament against a guy I did not know, playing the same deck as me.

I had a revelation during that match. Of course I knew that you could learn from one game to another, and use what you learnt to become better but it came to me somehow, playing against the same deck, that I could predict fairly well what the other guy had in hand and would do, as a result of my V:tes experience. And then I was here, thinking, what other benefits did I learn in v:tes I don't use at the moment. The answer jumped to my mind: what don't you bluff a little bit?

I was indeed playing like a wow player, not giving any information to my opponent, neither right nor wrong and I thought, why would not I play like a vampire player.

In the two last rounds and the top 8 following, I did play my bluffs as a v:tes player would do. I was hesitating, even tapping my resources when thinking about playing a counter I would not have in my hand. I trash-talked them a little bit also, to disturb their concentration...

Finally, that worked out very well for me, I won the 2 last rounds, the top 8 and got the prize pool of 2000 € given to the winner of the tournament.

Whatever game you are playing, think about what stereotypes of your game are giving information to your opponent and use that knowledge to lead them to defeat!

(and yeah, you could guess I was too happy celebrating to write down some V:tes knowledges this week ;-))

Creation rites

I want to create an archetype!!!!!!














Most people do create decks but, to my opinion, too few are giving themselves enough credit when they do so, which results in bad/middle-ranged decks, sometimes very original, sometimes not at all. They create decks for casual decks but they then rely on classical decks for tournaments, or eventually they bring a new tournament but it is "just for fun"





























When I create a deck, it is for several different reasons: I need one, I want to, I have seen something interesting. But in any case, I am always willing to create a deck that

WILL WORK IN ANY TOURNAMENT

Of course, I am not always successful and some of my decks are not to be put out of casual games (Mugur Sabau multi-diableryyyyyyyy) but I tried to make them the best I could and my sole limit was the card/my ability.



This is by working like this that I forced myself into making a killer "Khazar's diary" deck. The card was strong and fun, I made the deck strong before than making it fun. I tried to find the concepts that would help it being irresistible, no matter how much it could lack of fun (for example, putting embraces).



Now, let's see what his my classical way of processing, and, cherry on my cake, I will offer you to follow me in a concrete example of deck creation, working today on what, in my opinion, could be a killer deck:





1/ Starting point





Your starting point is not vital. You do not need to stay focus to it if you do not feel it. For example, working on my new pupeeteer deck made me think about mixing them with Guillaume Giovanni and I changed the deck I was working on.



But having a starting point is a great source of motivation. It can be a tournament coming, a game at your house, how to get rid of your 15 lightning reflexes somehow, or a card you want to play more.



In my case today, there is a card I really love out of the now promos:
well in case your browser does not get pictures, the card is Abactor. This +1 stealth hunt action allows your vampire to get 5 blood instead of 1 and a blood hunt is then called. In terms of advantage, it is clearly one of the most powerful card of the game: it creates a 5-blood difference in only one card, which is very powerful for a non-vote card.

Of course, there is a huge drawback here but I know that there are several ways to dodge this.



2/ Determine the structure you want to build

The structure of your deck is its main guideline. It should be one sentence that explains which goal you were to reach with your deck. When building your deck later, my advice is: get back to your structure and consider if you are respecting it or not. If not, ask yourself the question: is my structure correct? If yes, how should I go back to it.



How to determine your structure?

Using your starting point, you will need to use your imagination. This is the most difficult part so do not get bothered if it does not work at first glance. You will sometimes need to pick up your ardb/feldb/monger software, your card collection, have a look at several forums and google groups, in order to find interesting information that are going to help you.



Try to identify what are the good combinations of cards that will be interesting with your starting point, try to determine which vampires could use those combinations, try to set up a generic idea for the deck



In our example, we have Abactor here. Basically two ideas come to mind:

- survive to the blood hunt: play votes or cards to survive blood hunts
- play vampires that are immune to blood hunt



The two ideas are correct. Of course I am not advocating that there is only one choice possible. There are generally several choices. I did choose the second option because I considered that it was either dangerous or long to use the first option and that second option was completely suitable. You could have chosen the first one. If you thought it was the best one before reading my last sentence, please do work on a deck with Urban Jungle, or with voters, or whatever. I will be glad to post and comment on it.

Well, back to business, the next step now that I have chosen a strategy is to look what opportunities are given to me. Here is a list of vampires and cards immune to blood hunt:

Samat Ramal-Ra, Archon, 6, pre ser tha OBF, Followers of Set, 2, [FN:U2]


Muaziz, Archon of Ulugh Beg, 7, aus dom for THA, Tremere, 2, [AH:V3, CE:PTr] - +1 stealth

Tariq, The Silent, 7, cel AUS FOR OBF QUI, Assamite, 2, [FN:U2] - Independent: Tariq's capacity is reduced by 4 while he is controlled. Tariq can enter combat with a vampire controlled by another Methuselah as a (D) action. Blood hunts cannot be called on Tariq. The Blood Curse doesn't affect Tariq.

Theo Bell, 7, cel dom pre POT, Brujah, 2, [FN:U, CE:PB] - Camarilla: Theo may enter combat with any ready minion controlled by another Methuselah as a (D) action. If you control a ready Prince or Justicar, blood hunts cannot be called on Theo.

Genina, The Red Poet, 8, aus cel for CHI OBF THN, Samedi, 3, [Promo-20050914] - Independent, Red List: If a blood hunt is succesfully called on Genina, she goes to torpor instead of being burned. Genina gets +1 stealth on diablerie actions and on undirected actions.

Ariadne, 8, chi ANI FOR PRO, Gangrel, 5, [KoT] - She gains an additiona blood when she successfully hunts.

The library card "Archon" Political Card -- Worth 1 Vote. Called by any prince or justicar at +1 stealth. Choose a Camarilla vampire. If this referendum is successful, put this card on the chosen vampire. This vampire may enter combat with a vampire controlled by another Methuselah as a +1 stealth (D) action. Any vampire attempting to block this vampire burns 1 blood. Blood hunts cannot be called on this vampire. Any Camarilla vampire can call a referendum to burn this card as a +1 stealth political action.



I might have forgotten some but here the main candidates. I am sure it is possible to make great decks with about any of them but I had a very clear idea in my mind:

* fortitude because of freak drive after/before abactor would give flexibility to the deck

* a complete safety that no blood hunts would be called because since this would be my first time with Abactor, I wanted to go safe



That was leaving me with three vampires: Tariq, Muaziz and Ariadne. Tariq with 3-cap was a little bit small to be useful so I forgot him and was left with my two potential stars who in addition of being immune to blood hunts have great side effect powers:

- Muaziz hunts at 2 stealth

- Ariadne gets 1 more blood

Now, to be frank, I guess it is possible to make very good decks with both vampires but for this example, I chose Ariadne, because she is a new vampire and would give me access to cards I almost never play [as I consider Gangrel apart from gr1/2 titled vampires to be rather weak vampires]

so my star would be

At the moment, I have a correct stucture for a deck :make a star deck with Ariadne using Abactor to get 6 blood each turn, allowing me to get pool and play expensive cards. If you are inexperienced in deckbuilding I would advise you to push the limit of your structure a little further, by determining already which would be your means to stay alive/kill your prey/ win the table. It will be useful. I do consider myself experienced enough to go directly to the third step and balance the deck correctly later

3/ Build, build, build

Here is a list of what I do when making a deck at that time:

- look at all vampires entering the clan/grouping of my star vampire

- look at all vampires with the same disciplines/grouping

=> make a basic crypt that I can improve later with new orientation

- look at clan-based library card

- look at discipline-based library card

- add a defensive module

- polish the master cards module

- look if anything really kills my deck and enter something against

- look if being anarch or black hand brings me something important

=> I generally arrive at a 120 cards list lol

- cut, cut, and cut

- check if you new deck corresponds to your structure, compare it with decks with similar goal to see if you have forgotten something

=> library finished

=> tweak your crypt according to your library

=> post your deck on forums to get good advices except if you want to keep it secret

and here is what I get with my Ariadne Abactor deck

Deck Name: Ariadne abactor

Created By: TTC

Description: + 10 Abactor
Crypt: (13 cards, Min: 11, Max: 32, Avg: 5,23)

5 Ariadne chi ANI FOR PRO 8 Gangrel

1 Calvin Cleaver for pro 3 Gangrel

1 Fergus Alexander pot pro 3 Gangrel

1 Gunnar for PRO 4 Gangrel

2 Jacob Fermor ani tha PRO 5 Gangrel

1 Lillian ani pro 3 Gangrel

1 Robert Price pro 2 Gangrel

1 T.J. cel for 3 Gangrel

I did a very simple crypt here as I was focusing on the lowest gangrel possible to recruit renegades and defend Ariadne, and in the same time Jacob was so strong I had to put two of him... he is kind of the finisher here.

Library: (80 cards)-------------------

Master (20 cards) [relatively big master modules, I hope to be able to reduce it after some games played]

1 Backways

2 Direct Intervention (mostly for garous being stolen)

2 Ecoterrorists

1 Fame

2 Minion Tap

1 Pentex Subversion

1 Perfectionist

7 Vessel

2 Villein

1 Zoo Hunting Ground

Action (12 cards)

10 Abactor

2 Sensory Deprivation [for garous stolen mainly]

Action Modifier (12 cards)

3 Earth Control

8 Freak Drive

1 Kiss of Ra, The

Combat (13 cards) [if you are expecting more combat or more garous stolen, target vitals is very strong, or rotschreck also]

4 Claws of the Dead

5 Earth Meld

4 Form of Mist

Ally (13 cards)

1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter) [to play it before the other player]

1 Ossian

8 Renegade Garou

2 Vagabond Mystic

1 Gypsies

Retainer (3 cards)

1 J. S. Simmons, Esq.

1 Robert Carter

1 Tasha Morgan

Equipment (4 cards)

1 Aaron`s Feeding Razor

3 Camera Phone

Event (1 cards) 1 Unmasking, The

Combo (2 cards) 2 Rapid Change

So all in all, I have built what I consider, before playing with it, a very solid deck since it has very good bloat, good offensive abilities with garous, a plan B if things go wrong (little gangrel/ vessel/ go hunt) and I lose Ariadne for a reason or another. It has weaknesses at the moment, for example against vote decks but it can fare reasonnably well against other decks so... interesting deck in my opinion with a very good potential.

How did I build this deck? Well, I followed the steps I gave you earlier. Simple, isn't it???

Now I need to find the cards, find some games to try the deck, tweak it [ALWAYS NOTE YOUR TWEAKS DURING GAME AND CHANGE THEM AT HOME THE SAME DAY] and play it again until it

1/ proves to be a killer

2/ proves itself disappointing

Now, what do you think of my deck? what changes did you make? Did you build another deck using Abactor or did you focus or another new card? I am waiting for your comments!!!!

Take care

Orian

Shadow play

We have seen some weeks ago how easy it was to give problems to most combat decks. I had decided before working on the next article to try a concrete example by bringing a deck to the tournament that cannot handle combat decks theorically but could handle it on practice. I played that tournament, last Saturday, 9th of May, in Paris and that went pretty cool. I always come to the tournament to play well, give my best, and hopefully win.

So I was reading my article "mercy for the weak" and thinking about the tournament. There are several information I want to gather when going to the tournament:
- what is my goal?
- who are the other players? Are they good? What type of decks do they usually play?
- how many players should be attending: what will be required to enter final table?


What is my goal?
I am here to win the tournament and prove that you can handle combat without slowering your offensive power

Who are the other players?Many Parisian players. Classically playing, it is difficult to identify what is going to be played.

What will be required?About 13 players are registered, I am expecting 1GW3,5 or 4 to be enough to make it to the final table.


Several decks could be played in similar situation. I finally decide to settle for a Nocturn Lasombra Bleed/Stealth deck.Here is the decklist I played and some comments on how you can use it against combat deck:

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 17, Max: 27, Avg: 5,41)---------------
1 Tobias Smith pot DOM OBT PRE 7 Lasombra
1 Henri Lavenant pot qui DOM OBT 7 Lasombra
1 Lord Vauxhall DOM OBT POT THA 7 Lasombra
2 Onaedo aus pot DOM OBT 6 Lasombra
1 Banjoko obt pot DOM 5 Lasombra
1 Dame Hollerton myt DOM OBT 5 Kiasyd
2 Ermenegildo pot DOM OBT 5 Lasombra
1 Lucy Markowitz dom obt 3 Lasombra
1 Leila Monroe dom obt pre 4 Lasombra
1 Andrew Emory aus dom pot OBT 5 Lasombra


Library: (80 cards)-------------------
Master (13 cards)
2 Pentex Subversion -> pentex subversion is very useful to agress your prey but also to slow your predator. A rusher with pentex subversion can have trouble against it. A pentex subversion played early in the game can save my life and give me time to spawn minions out

1 Giant`s Blood -> when a rusher thinks he has me cornered, I can finish him off with a surprise bleed
1 Coven, The -> same use, even better than giant's blood, as generally two bloods is enough for bleeding strong and I can play another master (path of night, dreams...) afterwards

4 Path of Night, The
4 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Elysian Fields


Action (14 cards)
13 Govern the Unaligned
1 Dominate Kine


Action Modifier (28 cards)
7 Shadow Play
4 Shroud of Absence -> combat ends when acting. Very useful tool against intercept/fight. I don't hesitate playing 4 or even more if needed.
5 Shroud of Night
3 Tenebrous Form
2 Blanket of Night
6 Conditioning
1 Foreshadowing Destruction

Reaction (12 cards)
5 Deflection
1 Redirection
2 Delaying Tactics
4 On the Qui Vive -> against combat, allow my nocturns to bleed and then defend

Combat (2 cards)
2 Shadow Body -> 2 only, but they are precious against intercept/fight decks to let them realize that maybe they should not block my recruit actions


Ally (10 cards)
10 Nocturn -> the ultimate anti-rush card since they will handle at least one rush, potentially more (having to rush thrice to get past two nocturns is something most rushers would not consider a good play and they will wait one more turn if they have the ability)

Event (1 cards) 1 Uncoiling, The


Now if you look, I have more or less 20 cards with effects against combat decks but what is strong here is that they are weaker than any other card in my offensive strategy: I am increasing my defensive and offensive power at the same time with those cards whereas combat ends or maneuvers are better but not offensive at all and could make me lose if there is no combat player on the table.

For the tournament itself there is nothing really relevant so I will refer mainly to how I did against combat decks.

During round 1 my predator pulled out Hardestadt but he was no playing combat and I could settle a 3/2 deal with him that I held on.

During round 3 my predator was playing weenie intercept animalism and definitely shadow body was the card of the match up: against his untapped minions, he would never know if he should block or let pass... smart ^^


Now I faced a weenie potence during round 2, he was my predator and I thought I could handle him but I had an horrible handjam and got crushed very fast. Too much stealth, the most horrible thing that can happen. Too much bleed is not good but still useful. Too much stealth is just something you are much likely going to keep for all day long.


Finally, I had my revenge when I won final dual of the final table by killing the same weenie potence, using nocturns as chump blockers and bleeding him with every single vampire I could :)


I will consider more deckbuilding later. Till then, take care

Telepathic tracking

Hi there

I wanted to give you a very fast post to answer some comments posted to my past article "Drawing out of the beast".

To the little Johannes, you are perfectly right. There is an important work of thought when you play combat on when to rush (could be important than who to rush). Several factors could have you rush somebody. Here are the main factors I can think of:
- its potential ability to damage you
- its potential ability to bloat a lot
- its potential ability to create minions
- its potential ability to set up a defense against you
- its potential ability to oust its prey


* You will rush more likely somebody able to damage you because obviously you do not want to take the risk to take damages and have to rush afterwards. You will, if afraid, have to take the first step by rushing him. Of course, intermediate paths can be taken in order to avoid entering the "cold war" with your opponent.

* You will rush more likely somebody able to bloat a lot, especially if you play combat deck with no ability to make lot of damages. Let's take an example. Your prey pulls out Huitzilopochtli. It is very likely that he will make something like minion tap/ golconda - minion tap/ giant's blood, even villein/ giant's blood/ minion tap on his vampire. You generally will not like him gaining 20 pools in one turn, so you will rush him beforehand.

* You will rush more likely a deck able to create minions because you are afraid that he can outnumbers your rushes at a time and then rescue its vampires from torpor . You will try to rush as soon as possible embrace swarm decks for example.

* You will rush more likely somebody who could set up a defense against you. If you see a magaji or a tremere out and you do not handle sniper rifle, you should rush him immediately because its first action might be to equip with one.

* You will rush more likely your prey if he is close to ousting its prey in order to prevent him doing so or prevent him using its 6 pools acquired to speed up the table and get other victory points in the row

------------------------------

To the little Matt, that is a good work to pull thoughts out for other people. You can learn from their comments, clarify what you think, think deeper and be better. I certainly have other tricks in my mind but when I think about them, I will write them down

------------------------------

To Jacob finally, there is no problem with me posting decklists. I think this is interesting to see how a deck is built. I was saving my decklist for an article on how to build a rush deck but I think I can use another example so here you are more or less, some cards change from one tournament to another:

Deck Name: Animalism Rush
Created By: TTC


Description:
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 7, Max: 25, Avg: 3,75)---------------------------------------------
1 Dani ani 2 Nosferatu Antitribu
1 Devin Bisley vic ANI AUS 5 Tzimisce
1 Zip ani 2 Ravnos
1 Lisa Noble ani 1 Caitiff
1 Dragos vic ANI AUS 7 Tzimisce
1 Mouse ani 2 Nosferatu
1 Omaya pro ANI AUS FOR 7 Gangrel Antitribu
1 Spleen ani chi 2 Ravnos
1 Calebros obf pot ANI 5 Nosferatu
1 Caliban ANI AUS VIC 6 Tzimisce
1 Gillian Krader ani dem 2 Pander
1 Bobby Lemon pro ANI 4 Gangrel


Library: (90 cards)-------------------

Master (14 cards)
5 Vessel
1 Pentex Subversion
1 Haven Uncovered
2 Frontal Assault
2 Powerbase: Montreal
1 Monster
2 Fame

Action (14 cards)
2 Abbot
10 Bum`s Rush
2 Nose of the Hound

Reaction (8 cards)
2 Read the Winds
2 My Enemy`s Enemy
2 Eagle's sight
2 On the qui vive


Combat (50 cards)
13 Carrion Crows
5 Terror Frenzy
18 Aid from Bats
2 Canine Horde
6 Taste of Vitae
4 Target vitals
2 Trap

Equipment (2 cards)
1 Bowl of Convergence
1 Ivory bow

Event (2 cards)
2 Dragonbound

Take care
TTC

Drawing out of the beast

Author: TTC
Level: Basics
Part: the art of combat

Okay. We have seen in the last article "mercy for the weak" what are the most useful strategies to handle combat. To be equally fair, we now have to work on full rush decks a little bit. How do they work? What are the generic cards you will need? What are the basic strategies you can use in order to perform well with them?

I am not intending to determine which combat deck is better than which one here. I personnally consider that many clans are not fit for full combat, for example !salubri or blood brothers, but this is only my point of view and I am sure you do not share it.
Instead of this, I will try to show you generic principles that you need to keep into mind when coming at the table of the tournament with your combat deck.

Here are the main focuses of the article:
1/ How to survive
2/ How to score points
Pretty simple, isn't it? Well, it is as simple to say it that it is hard to manage it on field, that's why it's so difficult to play combat.

How to survive

There are plenty of things to consider when playing combat but as a French saying goes by
"being prudent is mother to being safe". I consider this very true especially when you are playing combat. The reason beneath this is very simple: while agressive decks have to hurry, you are the one playing combat, so you are in theory not much afraid of playing 1 vs 1 against anybody. You do not have to speed things, you can look behind before looking forward. You can afford to be prudent and take things one by one

You will need to:
- analyse your situation, especially your predator: how many damages can he deal to you in one turn, what is his potential to survive on the table, can you handle him easily? Ask yourself those questions. Ask yourself what would result of your different possible moves which generally will be:
- backrush your predator until he has no vampires left
- don't backrush your predator
- something in the middle of the two abovehand options

and eventually more important, ask yourself HOW DO YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOUR PREDATOR AFFECT YOUR RESULT AT THE TABLE?????

I have seen too many times people backrush and backrush and backrush until being killed by their prey who is playing ravnos embrace and that they cannot handle. I am not saying you always get the choice and sometimes you just have to cry and die. But looking at the table globally and imagining how you will achieve your Game Win are as much important as studying your direct opponent.

There is no obvious answer but if you apply the following principles you have better chances to be safe:
- if possible, never allow one single player to get two points unless it garantees you to get the 3 last points.
- talk to your predator, reach an agreement on what can he do and what he cannot. Apply your terms, don't negotiate with thim.
- be careful to bounced bleeds. If your predator runs, dominate, apply them to your terms.
- stay high in pool, as high as possible (masters are here for this)
- don't speed things up, use your resources carefully.

As for resources, using them carefully is important as your image on the table is sometimes the very important thing. I was sitting playing animalism full rush in the middle of the final day of the North American Championship last year. Ferenc Vasadi was my predator playing Toreador vote (Ferenc is the past European champion in 2007 between other achievments). After using a well-placed Fame to kill my first prey, Mark Loughman, we were down to 4 players. At that time, there had been no agression between Ferenc and me. Why? Because I had manage to show strength. I had pulled Omaya out and kept her untapped all the time. I had shown that I had possibilities to backrush if needed. I had kept my pool high (about 20 pools) and shown that I was not to be killed in one turn.
A good player such as Ferenc is sensible to those information and without having to tell him, he was not trying to do anything. Sometimes things go smooth. Finally, we made a 3-2 deal. This shows that backrushing your predator at sight when you see vote/dominate or presence is not always the best solution.

On the other hand, you need to underline to your predator the benefits he can get from this situation: things can go bad and he can win thanks to this situation.

Let's go back to the table with Ferenc. We had chosen the 3/2 way and Ferenc had greatly helped me by playing kine resources contested on my prey twice, making her lose 6 pools. I then moved for the kill. My prey was a Canadian player playing Nosferatu royalty vote. The problem was, during the turn I tried to kill him, we realized he had more combat than we thought. He played many wakes and second traditions, combat cards, and managed not only to survive but also to torporize some of my vampires.
Then, dragonbound was on the field and he tried to rescue himself. I just had to block the hunt of a progeny to win. I did not. As I failed, Ferenc spotted that I could not block anything any more and forced his path through this weak spot I had. I died the very same turn.

Conclusion: both players could retire good things of the predator/prey situation. Try to identify if your predator is a guy you can play with or an asshole.

How to score points

Now that you have secured your spot to survive, you need to score points. There is a basic formula I would consider when playing V:tes. You cannot count on dragonbound to make damages because for example your first prey can only be playing one vampire and it can be diablerized. To ensure damages you need to count on fame mainly. My logic is:

The more vampires The less Fame
the more you can bleed, the less Fame you need to play since you are already making damages to your prey consistently.

Bleeding is often enough the right way to kill people. Pressure them, rush correctly, make them block one day or another, kill them with bleeds. I would advise you to play some bleed modifiers when possible (+2 bleed in one card at least) in order to kill somebody who is not expecting it.

When you do not have enough vampires to bleed consistently (is that a good combat deck, I am not sure but we will discuss of this in a later article), you need to make pool damages otherwise. I would advise you to use as many Fames as possible, play it over and over again, as soon as it gets burned. Eventually put a rescue module if you have space (humanitas is great), especially if you can consistently block the hunt of the Fame with 0-blood on it.

There are of course other classical pool-damaging cards that you cannot ignore.
Tension in the ranks is particularly good when you don't go to torpor. (you play celerity, fortitude, long range)
Dragonbound will be most used when you send people to torpor for them never to go out (you play big hits, you play pulled fangs, you play carver's meat and storage packing, you play titled vampires)
Leadership vacuum is cornercase but very interesting, as well as Path of Lilith if you can defend it.

Depending on the playgroup, you can also consider the fact that if nobody has vampires ready except you, you have won [I say depending because in some playgroups people rather oust themselves than accept to be killed in the right order]

Deckbuilding according to what we have seen

12 Vampires Average capacity = X

Library must include:
5 to 8 cards to gain pool (Powerbase:Montreal is a must-have in many decks to me, vessel, blood doll...)

Y Fame [I apply my formula in order to get (X-Y)/X equals near 0,5 which corresponds to Y= 1/2 X more or less] => weenies need 1 fame just in case, mid caps need 2/3 fame in order to make kills , big vampires need 4/5 fame in order to play it as fast as possible.

2 Dragonbound/ Tension in the ranks

2/3 Frontal assault = killer card, will prevent you from jamming, will have strong efficiency. If not playable, can be discarded easily. I consider it the most powerful tool any combat deck has.

+ Other modules we will see in later articles.

That's all for the basics of combat. Next set of articles will go deeper into deckbuilding. Till then, keep the good play.

All best
TTC

Mercy for the weak

Author: TTC
Level: Basics
Part: The art of combat

Originally, Jyhad is a game of violence, of destruction and of immortal grapples. You are plying with vampires, they are considerably strong. Even the smallest 1-capacity vampire of your crypt could take off 10 humans easily (ye, even Lisa Noble could). Yet, pure combat decks have had more and more problems making good results. This could be explained by the offensive power of most tournament decks, or by the difficulty to make vps or by the number of victory points needed to access finals. There are also more subjective reasons:
- many combat-deck players are newbies
- all decks that are afraid of combat try to ally to pull them out of the table
- the combat decks tend to fight between each other
- players have found many ways of avoiding being destroyed by combat decks

This last sentence is the theme of this article. I will try to present many applicable defenses against combat, what are their strengths, weaknesses, how many cards you needs, what combat archetype do they manage easily. I will mainly envisage how to cope with full combat deck at the moment and we will be interested in more specific tactics against intercept-combat decks later. Also we will work more specifically on deck-building in a later article dedicated to building modules against combat.

HOW TO COPE WITH COMBAT

1/ Minimize the quantity of rushes
2/ Protect your main vampires
3/ Manage the rushes targetting your main vampire

To minimize the number of rushes, is to survive a rush deck the better. If you manage never to be rushed, you will win. There is eventually a possibility of avoiding rushes with your mouth, by negotiating, by not agressing, by granting advantages, but this is not the point of this article. What we are going to talk about is how to block a vampire before he acts in order to limit its potential of actions or to limit its efficiency when rushing.
I will not spend time detailing all discipline cards helping you, but you can enter them of course: the almighty sensory deprivation [CHIMESTRY] being the most useful one, but also Art's traumatic essence [MELPOMINE], seeds of corruption [THAUMATURGY], changelin ward [KYASID CLAN] or Yoruba Shrine [ASSAMITE CLAN]. There are also plenty of generic cards that might help you eliminating a dangerous opponent:
- Pentex subversion: the must-play card, present in a lot of modern Jyhad decks. This card presents the advantage of not being restricted. This is a master so cannot be blocked. This is possible to break it but combat decks do not have so many friends. Also, playing pentex subversion is strong because it can handle many different type of decks at the same time. What does Pentex manage best:
star vampire combat (Una, count germaine, Enkidu, Beast...)
What does Pentex does not help against? weenie combat

-Secure haven and other secret passage: versatile against rushes but also other directed actions such as sensory deprivation or temptation. The main problem is that the card protect your sta vampire only, making the other easier targets, even more temptating than before.

-Mind numb [PRESENCE]: a card of a discipline often played, very spread on many vampires, which will paralyse a vampire for two turns. The main advantage of the card: it only costs one blood and when it is done, it cannot be broken. It remains an action so it is possible to be intercepted. Like Pentex, it can be played as an offensive card or a defensive card, at your convenience and could prove useful versus various type of decks.
It would handle best combat decks without intercept, especially with big vampires. It will die to most intercept/combat decks.

- Vote cards: It is important not to neglect, when playing votes, that you have a great potential against cobat decks. If the most powerful vote against combat was Protect Thine Own [R.I.P] some other cards might work as good to harm or to protect yourself versus the agression of a combat deck.
Banishment is of course important to gain time, or manage to oust your predator which plays combat by opening a window to your grand-predator. To paralyse him, use free state rants, to kill weenie combat use anarchist uprising or friends. The main advantage of those votes is that you can strike from anywhere on the field, granting you initiative versus your opponents. The main problem is that if you miss your shot, you will most probably be rushed the turn after, for surviving purpose or mere vengence of the combat deck.

- events or imbueds: it is always possible to handle rush decks by disturbing them. The event module the most classical packs slow withering - veil of darkness - blood weakens and greatly disturbs the vote deck which, with no ousting power, will have to cope with it until you are dead. The imbued module is based on imbued allies having defensive powers in combat (maneuver first round) and goes out of incapacited areas more or less easily. Also, there are possibilities of playing sniper rifle, especially with defensive decks [no secrets from the magji/ eternal vigilance for example] to handle some of the combat decks packing maneuvers but no long strike. Last solution would be play to play a vampire with an integrated anti-combat power: Edward Vignes, Ambrosio Luis Moncada and Louhi are perfect examples.


Protect your main vampires is a key to surviving while being able to maintain your own offensive strategy. You have many ways of protecting your main vampires:

- play allies: allies get two main advantages: they are immune to many good combat cards (drawing out of the beast, taste of vitae) and you can find some you can pack in any deck regardless of what you play (repo man or procurer are good and cheap generic allies). Then, once on the field, they prove to be a useful defense for some cheap cards. Some of the combinations can be very stressful, for example:
Jake Washington + Anthelios, the red star
Carlton Van wyk + The Unmasking
Procurer + FBI Special affairs division
Ambrosius,the ferryman + Talbot's chainsaw
Rom Gipsy (combination in itself lol)

Every pack has its advantage and problems - Carlton has got intercept and a dodge but costs 2 pools, Mylan Horseed will not block vampires... and so on. By mixing 5 to 10 cards allowed to you defense, and maybe an offensive power in here, allies can become a very great source of frustration so you might have to think about them.

- Embrace-like: the advantages of embrace cards is that they are vampires, so they can bleed, they can rescue... this is much way cool. The opposing is true: as vampires, they will let you suffer of fame/ tension in the ranks/ dragonbound. Moreover they generally have to hunt the turn they come into play so it can prove long before they are useful. I would consider embraces as a great optio to defend when they are directly part of the offensive strategy but would not include them if they are not part of the strategy of the game
[Sidenote: for those who like to play Keepers of Tradition card, think about a great surprise card, called Legacy of Power, which could turn your embrace into a rusher-killer]

- Little vampires: I would almost say anarch converts like as the little 1-cap anarch is so played at the moment. Little vampires have a swarm effect, cannot be blocked since they are not action cards. The idea is to benefit those little vampires to achieve your offensive strategy and protect your star vampire in the same time (michael luther in a camarilla vote deck is a good example)

Manage rushes that touch your vampire is still a possibility you have to consider. The best way to handle rushes is to play a combat defense card in a certain quantity: 6x obedience, 8x majesty, 8x earth meld... but another solution has been opened by cards with more than one effect. Those cards present the advantage of helping both your agressive turns and your defense, generally stealth at inferior and combat effect at superior.

Let's see a list of those:
-stealth and strike:
protean - rapid change
chimestry - mirror image and occlusion
vicissitude - plasmic form

-stealth and maneuver:
obfuscate -swallowed by the night
obtenebration/mytherceria - fae contortion
serpentis - form of the serpent

- stealth and other effects
dementation - deny [press]
abombwe - predator's transformation [pool damages]
spiritus - the ultimate swiftness of the stag [press or maneuver]
necromancy - breath of thanathos [aggravated damage but limited]
presence - force of personality [combat ends but not granting stealth]
celerity - Resist earth's grasp [maneuver and press]

Here were covered the basic ways of combat. Also I have decided to update slightly this article. I wanted to add that in the past years Direct Intervention was a very reliable of preventing rushes by directing the action to enter combat or the right combat card. Now I am not that sure because of the single card FRONTAL ASSAULT that is a pain in the ass if you cannot handle it and that I see more and more played. I would consider adding sudden reversal in my defense list more and more... it will always be useful.

If you are always playing combat, read this the opposite way and consider how your opponents will try to beat you. Your time will come, I promise you.

Best regards
TTC

Persistent echo

Author: TTC
Level: advanced
Part: playing the game

First, I want to warn you. This article follows the previous one "take the good road". We have seen in "Take the good road" that many concrete factors were as many facts you have to take into account when playing. Obvious things such as cards you have, the deck your opponent plays but also tricky things like the time remaining in the game, or the potential outcomes of letting a player die when you can save him.

I am pretty sure that with training you can handle all those things. They are tricky but they are part of a regular game. When you look at the table, you can observe all those things, take information and act consequently. Those tricks can be more or less shameful. You can or not use them. At least you need to know they exist because if you do not, you will be on the losing side. Again, use them first to know that they probably are used against you.


Yet, there is more into V:tes than cards. V:tes allows you to speak to your opponents. You can do what you want, really. I have seen very good players use huge gestures, stand up or stop speaking during 10 minutes just to convince another player. Your imagination is your sole limit.

This article tries to give you as much information as you might need to play a good v:tes game while using your mouth as much as your card. However, it is very difficult to determine the perfect way to go because it will depend of the table. I will try to do my best but don't feel I am giving you a guideline. I am barely sharing experience of useful stuff and I think they can be useful to you too.

Oh, and don't forget many people do think this is bad to use those elements to win. I understand this. I consider for myself you need to take any opportunity offered to win. Anything legal of course. LOL.

Before tournament starts

I have recently heard somebody say before a tournament "Wow, look at that good player, he is manipulating people even before the tournament begins"

Well, I hope you do not find this absurd because starting to play before the tournament is a very strong move that many great players use. Here is all you can do before a tournament starts:

- You could try to give false indications about the deck you play: give false indications to people when casually chatting with them in your casual games, or before the tournament, build another deck with the same crypt and play it, start discussions on your national forum about a card you do not play and say how good it would be in your deck, give your decklist for other players to comment but forget some key cards in it, lose casual games on purpose with your deck, put a crazy card on top of your deck with the same sleeve, list another decklist on the morning of the tournament, incidentaly let a card slip from your deck...

Example:
-> tell them you cannot handle weenies in your Carna toolbox deck when you have just entered 3x domain challenge in the list
-> build a Stanislava power bleed deck and bring Stanislava Baltimore purge to the tournament
-> put a Disarm card in top of your Lasombra Stealth/Bleed deck

- You could try to learn as much as you can about your opponent's deck: listen to every bit of information, look at the deck played on the casual games of the week before the tournament because some people will most likely play them again on the week-end, if anybody lists his deck before the tournament, ask him to have a look, offer to lend cards to people to learn what they are playing, look at your national forums for the list of persons playing and if they have posted decklists recently since most players just play their last deck.

- You could try to look gentler than you really are: comment the fact that you are already qualified, that you are testing a funny deck idea, that you anyway need to depart before final round. I am sure you are more imaginative than I am.

Example: When playing in playgroups where everybody plays combat, I bring a Stealth/bleed deck disguised in a combat deck (carna B/S for example) and keeps yelling: OK TODAY I BLOCK EVERY SINGLE BLEED AND KILL YOUR VAMPIRE!

- You could turn other people into the threat you are not. Look at these guys, they come from a country where everybody plays Stealth/bleed. They completely destroyed you at their last qualifier. This guy won the last tournament. I am not lying. Do it casually. You do not want to sound too melodramatic, do you?

During tournament

So now you are here, the round starts. There are many players around you. Evetually, you are contemplating the huge smile behind your predator's teeth... rainy day, you think.

During the tournament, there are several hints you might use. You can have influence on many things and you should try to use them. As you will see, they are all more or less related.

The general atmosphere on the table: What do you want for a table? You should wish to have a relaxed general atmosphere. First, this is better for you. If you are tensed, you could make mistakes, but also you could be angry for the following rounds and make other mistakes there. Also, playing with smiling guys is always better (except for Jack). Then if everyhing goes smoothly, players will be more willing to listen to you. They will accept deals more easily if they like you. Finally, they will not make moves like self-ousting because they want to get rid of the game.
There are many ways to achieve this and there are simple: smile, shake hands, be polite, offer to drink something with everybody after the game, chat a little bit (and take informations if possible). Have fun and your fellow players will have to. All the best.

Your predator's agression: There is no magical solution to your predator agressing you. If he plays an !malkavian Bleed/Stealth, his options in the beginning of the game are very limited but you should always try to talk to him before he bleeds you to heavy:
- look concerned about you both die if you have to make damages on him, especially if you are playing combat
- negotiate what you can. If he bleeds for 6 potentially, ask him to bleed for 3 maximum in exchange of you not playing parity shift on him

Generally, in the beginning of the game, the best way to handle your predator is to look like you care about him, not about you. You don't care to die. You care that you both live. It is different.

When the game moves on, you will have other opportunities to play with your predator. You need a build a bond between you with little agreements that will rise the trust between you. For example, if you have opportunity to take advantage of a situation where is weak, show him that you are not and
1/ ask for something in exchange if you need
2/ underline that you are not even asking something in exchange

There are two realities behind this: this will soften most of the predators because they will not consider you like a prey. They will lose their agression aura, if you prefer. Also, they will start, and you can play on this when possible, to consider that you might achieve a deal sometimes.
Let him consider what would happen if you were getting 3victory points... he would get the 2 last victory points, right? Let him think about it. If you have to offer it, be careful to handle things carefully, as a deal generally creates a counter-deal between the other players.

Example: Better than "deal 3/2 for me", you could say "If I was to make 3 victory points, which obviously is not possible at the moment, of course I would give you the 2 last points since I already would have the Game Win"

Your prey's agression: I would advise you to be careful with your prey. While your predator only answers to natural game logic when trying to kill you, your prey only answers to its own toughts: If he thinks you need to die, he will do it. If not, he won't. Very simple.

To be sure he will not try, set simple rules. Explain him. Better than bleeding him for 1 and being rushed by Beast when he is all-tapped, you could say "look, you have the edge. I understand you would like to get one pool but I cannot afford this because my deck does not make too many damages. I have to bleed you now and take the opportunity. If you don't have the Edge, I will not bleed you. If I had a vote, I would play it so you could burn the Edge" . If he is not happy with that, tell him the truth "I cannot do otherwise. I understand you want to rush me. If you need to, do it. But again, I am not a threat to you at the moment". Except when playing maniac decks, a good player is never a threat at the beginning of the game. He sets up and wait for the table to damage itself.

Your ally/allies : They are very important. You want to keep a good confidence with them as much as you can. I could give you advises like: Rescue them from torpor when it is free. Try to influence their votes. Give them simple services without looking too close to them. In fact, this is not how it works.

Over the past years, what I understood with my allies is that the important thing with them is not how I consider them but how they consider me. I have played with the most wonderful allies of the word and with guys barely deserving the name. You need to treat each one of them accordingly.

-> Your best friend: he is always helping. He wants to play with you. His best play is Kine Resources contested putting two damages to your prey. You need to help that guy out. If he has a crap deck (and he generally will have, because this attitude is characteristic of the underconfident casual player most of the time), help him even more. Don't go forward too fast, he will do it for you. Stay static and help him without playing your cards. Prepare yourself to speed things up. Play so that one of the two following situations happen:
* suddenly, you speed up and kill your prey weakened by your ally.
* your ally finally offers you a deal: we both kill our prey and we fight (4 players table)/ I kill your prey, you let me kill mine before going on me.

Then, you can almost play without looking your cards. Accept the deal. Make your victory points. Then, prepare yourself, weaken your next opponent. Break the deal if you feel you should. Personnally, I do not like to if I think I can win the final match after. Destroy your nice ally the way you want.

-> The guy who is not here: he is helping you only when it is good for him. He will not do anything if there is not something for him in exchange. It is generally the sign of a good player eventually a maniac. Behave as the nice guy but don't give too much in the process. Don't play cards to help him. Don't hesitate punishing him when possible. On a general way, this is the most difficult type to play with.

Example: signify to your predator that Aranthebes the Immortal can give -1 stealth to its predator voting Ventrue prince who has no stealth card. This is only fair to remind cardtext right.

-> The maniac: he will try to kill you no matter what. He will diablerize you cross-table, vote against all of your votes, let your predator free of pressure. He does not like you, obviously.

Use this situation as a strength. Underline that this maniac behaviour probably hides a plan to take the Game Win and explain which one. Appear much more weakened than you really are. Ask for help from the rest of the table. Let your prey take its freedom and think you are miles away from killing her. Then, go for the kill.

Generics: You can influence many other things on the table. In fact, you can influence everything. You can make deals, break deals, make somebody vote against a referendum.
There are many tips, I could try to list them but I think every move is special in itself. Here are the main categories:

-> sentences:
Ex: Tell your prey he should vote against the parity shift called by your predator because it will pass anyway but the voter captivation following after would be dangerous for him (your prey) if you die. Then, when it passes by only 3 votes, play your Akunanse Kholo and the domain challenge you were keeping in your hand.

-> proposals:
Ex: lose-deal with somebody because he is too strong at the table and look at other players killing him after he accepted the deal. Rid of your main opponent, make the table

-> eyes:
Ex: Make glances to strategic places (your prey's pool, your pool) during specific moments and change the signs when needed. (ex: Turn 5, look at your prey's pool during the bleed then ask if it is modified then take it, Turn 8 do the same thing and wait for the biggest bleed on earth)

-> moves:
Ex: With 3 pool and protected resources on the field, you can survive your predator's next bleed [and that's good because its vampire bleeds for 8] but cannot play your pentex. You need to play your pentex to win. If you really need to win, tell how unhappy you are you cannot damage your prey enough, break the protected resources by bleeding, tap all your vampires out except one and even discard a deflection card for the dramatic effect. Then look at your predator not bleed you.

BEFORE THE FINAL

So now you are very close to the victory spot. Good, good, isn't it?
You still have work to do. What you can do before the final is:

-> Gather as many information you can about other players deck. I don't consider that spying or lurking is a good thing. You can do it if you feel so, you can also ask the other finalists what they play simply. You can look at the results to understand what kind of deck they play. A deck with 3GW6 is most likely intercept for example.

-> Imagine the ideal seating for you and try to manipulate the other players into it. If you want John to be the predator of Jim, tell him how defensive is William's deck. Prepare your ideal table.

-> Learn your decklist as much as you can. Final are special spots and you need to know it 100% if you want to win on a regular basis.




Well, this is all for today. Speeches are very important part of V:tes and I know I did not cover 1% of all you can do at a V:tes table but... this shall give you some nice advices, and I hope I will be able to write more on the subject soon.

All best
ORIAN

Take the good road

Author: TTC
Level: Basics of V:tes
Part: Playing the game


When playing V:tes, you are playing one of the most difficult Trading Card Games in terms of decisions to take because every decision in V:tes can be

-countered by any player using a master out-of-turn card
-cancelled by the acting player most of the time (spying mission, approximation of loyalty)
-cancelled by the reacting player most of the time (delaying tactics, deflection)
-cancelled by another player next action
-cancelled by a speech of another player changing a third player's way of playing
-disastrous in the long run

I insist: when playing a classical TCG such as Magic the gathering, you have most of the time easy decisions to take. They are determined by your hand, your deck, your field. It is the same for your sole opponent. You have also to add some external parameters such as time remaining in the game. Sometimes, more difficult decisions might happen involving maths, probability... but you will never have more than those parameters to take into account, which is already a lot, but almost nothing compared to the variety of parameters V:tes offers. You are always taking decisions in V:tes especially when you are not expected to.

In this article, I will try to determine which points are relevant when taking a decision and share with you on my experiment on decision taking process when going for the Game Win

YOUR OPPONENTS

The human factor is vital when playing V:tes. You are not in a 1-1 match versus another player where you have to play the best way possible to win. You are here to win by playing the best way possible according to other players . When taking any action, or determining general strategy, you have to take into account several information:

-what are my opponents characteristics? (question 1)
-what is the current goal of my opponent? (question 2)
-Is my current action/strategy favourable to my opponent? according to question 2
-Can my opponent do anything to prevent me from using it? according to question 1
=> What will my action bring as consequences in the near future, on the long run and concerning the final result? You need to think not only how you can handle the current situation but also how you can handle the table evolution.

This is very obvious, isn't it? Yet, it is infinitely complex. Only the right combination of a fair logic [by putting yourself in your opponent shoes for example] and
experience of The SITUATION/ THE OPPONENT/ THE CARDS can help you finding the correct solution.

Example 1: Here are some games you play 1 vs 1 with your neighbor Eddie who happens to play his Carna [you know, +1 cept princess bitch] deck every time. You happen to be playing your Eurobrujah deck against him every time also. [Lucky you]

A)This is the first time you play with Eddie and he is your predator. He has brought Carna outand you are really willing to make this Govern the Unaligned down on Theo Bell using Donal O'connor:
Since you don't know anything about Eddie so you cannot use any information about him and you will have to determine the correct decision using the cards only [we will see this in the next section]

B)This is the fifth time you play with Eddie and you have seen that every time he plays with you, both preying on you or being your prey, he tries to block govern the unaligned down when he can:
Since you have information on Eddie Characteristics, use it -> if you want him to block, govern down. If not, don't. This is as simple as this.

C)You have been playing with Eddie for two years now and you have regularly torporized his vampire when he has tried to boldly block you early in the game. Now, there is kind of a routine between you: every time you had good combat cards in your hand, you had gone for the govern down:
Since you have information on Eddie Characteristics+ a good reading on Eddie's goal [avoid being torporized], use it -> you can go for the govern down even without combat in your hand, but be careful because if Eddie has a good hand, he might be blocking you and you're good for 10 years of Carna blocking all your governs.


YOUR CARDS

The most useful information you can get concerns CARDS:
- cards in your hand
- cards on the field
- cards in the ash heaps
- any other piece of information you might have (especially if you have any on your opponent's hands)

When playing against your opponent you need to define if the road you take is safe, your cards determine how fast you can go on it. Analysing your potential of offense/defense is one thing but analysing also the one of each of your opponents is vital in any situation. Obviously, you cannot afford to bleed an !malkavian bleed/stealth and leave him at 1 pool, except if you have really good reasons. You need to appreciate whether the opposition between your deck and your opponent's deck should be solved in your favor by a quick stab or a long battle.

Example 2: Here are some games you play with your girldfriend Pamela. While Pamela does not understand everything about the game, her play is very solid and you cannot easily kill her.

A) You're preying on Pamela with your dominate/fortitude bleeding deck featuring Edward Vignes and she is playing a Giovanni sudario refraction deck with sudario in her hand, sudario, deflection and delaying tactics in her ash heap... so.... you cannot take her lightly. If you bleed her strong, you probably will kill her prey rather than her:
Your read of the opponent's deck but also of the possibility offered by your deck in terms of offensive and defensive potential indicates you how to play against Pamela at the moment

B) In the same game, you just drew a direct intervention. Now, you start to have better possibilities. Is Direct intervention enough? That is the information you need to think about, by considering how many sudario refractions can Pamela play and how many she has already played, in order to determine if she might have more than one in her hand:
Your previous decision gave you information about the road to take, the direct intervention just gave you a possibility to speed on a little bit

C) On the very same turn you drew your direct intervention, Pamela is tapping out to kill her prey with a last conditionning. Now, should you play your direct intervention to save your grand-prey?

This is one of the common situations you encounter. While some players say:
- ALWAYS LET PEOPLE DIE
- ALWAYS PREVENT YOUR PREY FROM GETTING A VP

I say, consider everything. Here is a shortlist of what I would consider in the given situation

If I am more inclined, to play my Direct Intervention:
- since Pamela is all tapped, can I kill her in my next turn with my current hand? SHORT TERM
- if yes, do I have fair confidence that she does not have the reaction to save her ass? SHORT TERM
- if yes, do I want my next prey to survive? LONG RUN
- if yes, does this play grant me the GW? LONG RUN/ FINAL RESULT
- if yes, do I have time to achieve this? FINAL RESULT

If I am more inclined not to play my Direct Intervention:
- can I handle Pamela with 6 more pools? SHORT TERM
- if yes, will I get an opportunity to kill her? SHORT TERM
- if yes, is it easier to take the GW with Pamela's prey out? LONG RUN/ FINAL RESULT
- if yes, do I have time to achieve this? FINAL RESULT


There are several other mechanisms involved if you want to be a top player and I hope I will be able to introduce them in future articles. Here is a brief guideline of what to consider for those of who who want to go further:

- how to maximise my victory points
- can I deal/breakdeal/manipulate one player easily
- who is dangerous/not dangerous when forecasting the final round
- do I plan a second plan of action if the first one does not work
- what are the physical tells my opponent let slip?



I hope you have learnt something today, even if this article was at the basics level. Basics are important, like in a sport, you need to masterize them at 100% before anything else. If you have any comment or question, just post a comment, I would be glad to hear it.

Also, thanks to everybody for their support

Best regards
Orian

Govern the Unaligned, Action, 1 blood, Dominate, C/PL2/PV , [Jyhad:C, V:TES:C, SW:PL2/PV, FN:PG2, CE:C/PV4, Anarchs:PAG]: [dom] (D) Bleed with +2 bleed.
[DOM] +1 stealth action. Move 3 blood from the blood bank to a younger vampire in your uncontrolled region.

Sudario Refraction, Action, Giovanni, R , [KMW]: +1 stealth action. Choose three cards in you ash heap and move them to the top of your library. Then discard three cards at random from your hand (and draw up to your hand size afterward).

Carna, The Princess Witch, 7, AUS DOM THA, Tremere, 3, [CE:V]: Camarilla Primogen: During your untap phase, Carna can burn 1 of her retainers to gain 2 blood. +1 intercept.

Eurobrujah defines a classical type of deck based of Brujah princes coming from European cities (especially Donal O'Connor and Constanza Vinzi but also Volker, the puppet prince) with the use of prince cards and the combination DOMINATE/CELERITY/POTENCE

ECQ Paris on 18th April 2009

Author: TTC
Level: Tournament report
Part: Complete analysis



Yeah! I finally did won a fuc**** ECQ after so many tryouts. As far as I reckon, in any ECQ event I attended in the past three years, I made it to the final but got :
unlucky/ unsuccessful/ an headache

every time.
In 2006, I was playing weenie dragon breath's rounds in Geneva and got hammered by Olivier Perez's shamblings. Two years laters in Geneva I also went to the final round with weenie animalism rush but could not stand a weenie dementation/ eurobrujah coalition against me.

In France, I was in final of ECQ Nice in 2007 but after killing the tupdog player cross-table, I could never find any bleed card in my pupeeteer deck. Finally, in Paris ECQ 2008, my mono-Una deck got crushed by the incredible number of weenie decks in the final round.

Well, all this to explain how happy I am. There was 36 players in the tournament and many of them were accomplished players. The final round was very intense and I even got lucky more than once. The tournament could definitely have gone to somebody more than once but at the end it was all mine.

Here is the deck I was playing:
Deck Name: 2 bad broken guys
Created By: TTC
Description:

Crypt: (13 cards, Min: 12, Max: 36, Avg: 6,53) ----------------------------------------------
1 Almodo Giovanni dom pot 3 Giovanni
1 Baldesar Rossellini aus for nec DOM POT8 Giovanni
1 Cristobal Ghiberti nec 2 Giovanni
1 Don Michael Antonio Giovanni DOM NEC POT 7 Giovanni
1 Gualtiero Ghiberti cel pot tha DOM NEC7 Giovanni
5 Guillaume Giovanni obt CEL DOM NEC POT9 Giovanni
1 Lia Milliner dom nec 3 Giovanni
1 Primo Giovanni dom nec pot 4 Giovanni
1 Raphaela Giovanni pot pre DOM NEC 6 Giovanni
[as a building note, the crypt was very hard to build as many good vampires could be involved. Nunzio Giovanni, Sennadurek and Donatello Giovanni did not make the cut here]

Library: (82 cards) -------------------

Master (29 cards)
1 Anarch Troublemaker
1 Barrens, The
1 Carver`s Meat Packing and Storage
1 Charisma
1 Direct Intervention
1 Dis Pater
1 Dummy Corporation
1 Filchware`s Pawn Shop
1 Information Highway
1 Jake Washington (Hunter)
1 Metro Underground
1 Misdirection
1 Monastery of Shadows
5 Parthenon, The
1 Pentex Subversion
1 Powerbase: Cape Verde
1 Powerbase: Montreal
1 Powerbase: Savannah
1 Powerbase: Zurich
1 Secure Haven
4 Storage Annex
1 Tower of London

Action (15 cards)
1 Chair of Hades
1 Dominate Kine
1 Far Mastery
8 Govern the Unaligned
4 Sudario Refraction

Action Modifier (15 cards)
1 Bonding
5 Call of the Hungry Dead
4 Conditioning
5 Shroud Mastery

Reaction (8 cards)
5 Deflection
2 Delaying Tactics
1 Redirection

Ally (8 cards)
1 Ambrosius, The Ferryman (Wraith)
1 Mylan Horseed (goblin)
5 Puppeteer (Wraith)
1 Tye Cooper


Equipment (1 cards)
1 Gran Madre di Dio, Italy

Event (2 cards)
1 Anthelios, the Red Star
1 Unmasking, The

Combo (4 cards)
4 Spectral Divination

The first guy I have ever seen playing Guillaume Giovanni was Erik Thorstensson during German championship. I was not fully convinced at that time. But the second part of Guillaume's text (+1 stealth on recruit and employ actions) told me that there probably was some potential here. The deck behaves fairly well as most decks packing GtU, deflection and sudario refraction would.
The deck handles pretty well Stealth/Bleed (fairly if seated your predator, perfectly if seated elsewhere), gets a fair chance against vote and rush, handles intercept pretty well. Also, it is very stable and there is not much variance playing it, which is something you need to appreciate.

The three preliminary rounds of ECQ were rather smoothly, better than what I expected when I saw that half the tables were 4-players table. I still managed to take 1GW4 on those + 1GW4 on the only 5-players table I had.

1st round: Rodolphe (Gratiano swarm) -> Antonio (ventrue vote 1/2) -> TTC -> Cedric (weenie potence).

I immediately reach an agreement with Cedric: no vampire with dominate other than Guillaume, no bleed on him during 7 turns, no bounce on him. So Cedric goes forward and I just have to defend against Antonio.
Strange enough, Cedric cannot take his point despite tension in the ranks early in the game. At the end of turn 6 of the agreement, I choose to pull out Don Michael Antonio Giovanni, Lia Milliner, take back Tye Cooper from Antonio and play a puppeteer. Done with Cedric that had no rushes left. Then, I am all tapped and Antonio moves for his kill. He manages to play first tradition but cannot kill me.

I have a difficult decision when at 5 pool I am being bled by Antonio for 3 with a redirection and a delaying tactics in my hand. I finally choose to let it pass, go down to 2 pools and believe in Rodolphe to kill Antonio. I could have chosen to bounce the bleed and prey for Antonio not having any freak drive but playing with Rodolphe was looking like a fair solution to me. At worse, I could have convinced him to oust to provoke a 2/2 between Antonio and me.

Finally, at Rodolphe's turn, he pays for first tradition, plays a pentex subversion and... dies in the process.... changing all my calculations. Antonio kills me with every damage he can.

Antonio 2
TTC 2

On a side note, having a very strong player with you on a 4-player table is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to you on a v:tes game. Strong players generally know how to move table dynamics to their advantage and they can take profit of this to take the GW or at worse prevent anybody from taking it.
When you are in this situation, always consider how the table looks, how it could evoluate, who can prevent you from taking your GW, and who you want to cope with at the end of the game.

Round 2: Jeremie (carna's talbot chainsaw) -> Jérome (!malk S/B) -> David (nosfe royalty toolbox) -> TTC -> Eric (carna toolbox)

This is typically the type of game that goes smooth with a deck like mine. Your predator has a lot of pressure, giving you time for a free setup. You handle your prey pretty well. Your grand-prey does not move too fast.

So here I go, I setup while pressuring Eric's pool when I can, without showing him too much. I pull out Mylan, precious in that kind of game. I always keep delaying tactics in case David try a move.
Finally, everything goes well. I wait for Eric to show a lack of reactions and kill him using block denials. Then in the 3-players configuration when David finally dies, I bounce every bleed from the !malkavian and take all remaining points

TTC GW4
Jérome 1

As a side note, when you know what is going to happen, do not forget that you need to get in your hand first priority not what can help you achieving your GW but what can save you from any problem. You are playing the dangerous deck, you are more or less preying on all the table. Be careful, you could be cross-table assaulted!!!!

Round 3: TTC -> Hervé (Lutz + inners) -> Karim (!malk) -> Denis (garous I guess)

As I previously said, good players know how to manage a 4-players table but on that one I could really do nothing but watch. Indeed, with information highway touching Hervé's part of the table on turn 1, there were 2 decks that were going too fast for me. 15 minutes from the start, I was already playing 1 on 1 vs Hervé's deck.
The match was very hard and lasted about one hour. I played all my cards and finished the last twenty minutes without deck then the last ten minutes without hand. I finally won because of monastery of shadows granting a free 1-stealth bleed every turn

TTC GW2
Hervé 1
Karim 1

As a sidenote, it is important to consider the worse scenario possible when you are duelling. If you have the advantage during the match but your opponent could kill you with the good cards, try to find a solution so that he cannot kill you no matter what. Many cards can help him cycling, he could also be stacking cards. Don't give him any chance to steal your game win!

Final round:
Antonio (ventrue vote 1/2 2GW8)
-> TTC (2GW8 - 2nd in the final after beating Antonio at rock/paper/scissors)
-> Romain (2GW7 - council of doom)
-> Lucas (2GW9 - ventrue 3/4 vote)
-> Rodolphe (2GW7 - weenie presence)

2 side tips, one being probably more useful than the other one:
-> when playing rock/paper/scissors against a random person, always choose rock. That looks crazy but scissors is the most instinctive gesture most people would choose, then rock. By playing rock, you minimize your chances to look.
However against Antonio, whom I know to play rock every time, I chose to play rock every time myself because I was feeling he could try to trap me by playing scissors to break my paper that would have broken its classical rock.... Not sure if it was clear. Well, remember the tip
ALWAYS PLAY ROCK

Hey, this tip also works for V:tes. Always play to survive, more or less. Surviving is generally the key to winning tournaments

Now the second little thing. About choosing a seat. Many players ask me how I choose a seat. There are many important facts to take into account:
- is there a weaker player at the table
- is there a stronger player at the table
- how many victory points would I need to win
- do I handle a deck better than another one
eventually
- guess where the other players might want to be

Generally I would advise you not to take the weak nor the strong player as your predator. The weak could be manipulated into trying to kill you and damage you severely in the process. The strong would be dangerous on your back. Choose an average, rather defensive player, if you can.

Then, your prey should be a deck you can handle, with as little defense as possible. You do not care about its ousting power, you just care how much time you need to oust him.

Avoid as much as you can the deck you cannot handle, avoid taking a stealth/bleed as predator and I will agress you from the start no matter what.

FINAL ROUND SUMMARY

I started the game with a good news, Lucas took the spot I wanted him to take, with the less agressive deck behind him. That was granting me a good spot for killing two preys in a row, as I was the only pure-bleed deck at the table.
I also started with a bad news, though, Guillaume was not here in my starting crypt. I would have to do with 7 cards obviously.

Since I was the not-voting deck, I tried to avoid as much as possible being damaged, letting slip the potientality of a delaying tactics helping me cycle on each vote.
HINT: When you threaten somebody with a delaying tactics, do not use the reason that you are taking damages because the player will probably play it anyway, since you will not be able to delay eternally the vote. But if you give me another good reason for you to play the delaying (deal with the main target of the vote for example) then you are not doing it for the sake of not taking damage but for a better reason, superior to the previous one... this will probably work!

Then, everything I had to do was to wait and hope, because my prey had Maris Streck out, already using villein/giant's blood on her, so killing her early was out of my reach, especially without Guillaume.
Finally, the hope came in the person of an Hostile takeover played by my predator on the ventrue justicar of the weenie presence, its predator and... bought by my prey, probably a little bit too confident. Then, during its turn, he failed to play villein on Maris and pulled out Huitzilopochtli... tapped by Grand madre de dio (good card, you should try it, lol)

Then it was all understanding what would happen next. Unfortunately what I understood is that the weenie presence was getting the vote lock and was going to roll over the table. I had to kill a second prey and make a back-oust + self-oust.

[Back-ousting someome litteraly means killing your predator. In a final round, it can force the players into a 2/2/1 by weakening your predator (form of back-oust) then self-ousting yourself.]

Happily, the key card was Dummy Coporation that saved my ass from Antonio + Rodolphe's coalition and I had much luck that Rodolphe could not kill Antonio before I self-ousted myself either, provoking a 2/2/1

Hint: Winning the final is always better. First, this is good to win. Then, the ranking can be affected by those points. But the most important thing is Take the safest way to victory.

Here I could have killed Rodolphe but two things could have happened in the process:
- Rodolphe manages to survive because of a wake or whatever and he can kill Antonio and me in a row
- Antonio plays direct intervention on my last card, manages to survive and gain two points.

Also, I would not have weakened Antonio before the final match-up.

All in all, it was not the most romantic play ever, but it was the safest. I was happy to win like this and that is far enough for me.

My geography of V:tes

Author: TTC
Level: Basics of V:tes
Part: Playing the game


I have travelled a lot to play V:tes. Of course, I play in the parisian playgroup regularly, but I have also moved about everywhere in France, in various European locations, in North America and I even got the chance to share the life of the Japanese playgroups during six months.

My geography of V:tes is not exhaustive but it will give you the basics of what I refer to. When I use a player's name in any article of this blog, you can be sure it will be one of this list, as they are the one that showed, told and let me observe most of the things I know. I have had to make selection so I am really sorry for the one I don't mention here. I am sure you will recognize yourself in future articles.

MY PLAYGROUP

-> K S is a wonderful Parisian player, master of tricks, master of the tongue, known for its various mind tricks realization, but it is also a very complete player who knows how to play about every deck to its best possibility. KS has been 2nd in the world ranking for years.

-> Arnaud Baigts is a rather unknown player as he doesn't travel much. He is the guy who showed me how to put as much pressure as possible on your prey. His playstyle is rather uncommon and pretty hard to describe

-> Denis Gerard is a member of the SIF community [http://sabbatinfrance.org/]. Playing with him showed me how patient you need to be to achieve the goal you want.

FRENCH PLAYERS

-> Florian Prosper has been my partner for years and I cannot reckon how much I owe him. He is probably the best player of the world on several fields. He has been part of the top 10 in the world and is a dangerous opponent in every tournament he takes part.

-> Julien Moisy is a player from Strasbourg, in East of France. Technics and deckbuilding never had any secret for him and he is at the origins of many top decks we will discuss about on the blog.

-> Lucas Bonroy and Jonathan Ramha taught me how to play V:tes, how to build decks and how to win tables. If it was not for them, I would not be playing V:tes today

EUROPEAN PLAYERS

-> The Swiss Academy, Olivier Perez , Ruben Feldman and Amiel Feldman, have been ruling the world of V:tes during years, winning almost any tournament they took part in. Today, only Ruben still plays constistenly, but I am sure their level of achievement will never be equaled.

-> Erik Thorstensson is the guy who won the most tournaments in the European history and is also the player I respect the most because he manages to keep excellence while playing in the same playgroup and travelling only one or two times per year.

-> The Spanish players, Inaki Jimenez, Inaki Puigdollers, Sergio Grazia and Gines Qinonero are players you need to count in every time they show off. They have been making great progresses lately (for the three first I named, Gines being excellent for years) and nobody should take them lightly.

-> Johannes Walch is not only the European coordinator but also a deadly threat on any table.

AMERICAN PLAYERS

-> Ben Peal is simply the guy who won the most tournaments in history. What more can I say?

-> Matt Morgan is a very smart guy, whose technic is excellent and whose deckbuilding capability are very high. I did not play with Matt enough but I will be using its decklists a lot.

-> Jay Kristoff is a very impressive U.S player. Also, I did not get the chance to play with him enough.

There are many other great players of course and if you use them in future articles, I will try to tell you who they are as good as possible.

Cheers
TTC

Story of a puppet master

Hi everybody and thanks for coming to my humble BLOG. A blog is, according to my english dictionnary of words for nerds, "A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video".

Wow, I am not sure this is ever being regular. I am the kind of guy who goes from West to East in one second, and can go back the minute after... so, the more comments you will give me, the more motivation I will get.

What will I talk about? My personnal life of course, as you are all interested in this. Or not. To be fair, I am the one the most interested in what happens in my everyday life. You will probably be more interested in reading generic articles on the theory, the practice and seeing decklists of the most interesting of the Trading Card Game, named Vampire: the eternal struggle.

I am Orian Gissler, also known as TTC Master, and I am currently, on 21st of April 2009, 1st in the world ranking of Vampire: the eternal struggle, and have been claiming this spot for about six months now, since my final in the continental north american championship.
I am 24, I live in France and I have been playing V:tes seriously for about 5 years now. If you play large V:Tes tournaments, you have probably met me in the past.

As your host here, I will try to give you as much information as possible I learnt on the path to become 1st in the world ranking. There is useful information I hope, as well as funny stories and little tips that will help you one day.

I would like to thank everybody who either read this or did not but helped me out in the last years. Meeting great players and sharing their discussions, and learning from them, is the most important part in becoming a top player. I hope you can meet me through this blog.

Best regards
TTC