39: Using the Advantage

So, say you find yourself in a good table position relative to your predator and prey, how do you maintain and use that advantage without having the table turn against you?

I don't know that I'm very good at this, but I have a few ideas.

1) Don't let people know you have the advantage- You can not play your trump/power cards to not show how dangerous your deck is. Pool up your good cards and wait for the right time to play them. This could come in the form of letting little bleeds through while you hold a deflection, not fully unleashing your combat nastiness, or letting actions that you could block go un-blocked. Save that sudden for when it really makes a key difference, rather than playing it on something more trivial. This makes you look like you are in a worse position than you are, though some of this is just smart play.

2) Make a deal with someone who can help you win, but who you should be able to defeat- This is pretty classic Machiavelli. By siding with the weaker against the stronger, you gain a lot of good will and hopefully 2 vps or the game win. Having someone on your side means having fewer enemies, so your good cards can go to work for both of you. Even just gestures of good will without explicit deals can help you, depending on how much you can translate someone's appreciation into them actually doing something you want.

3) Threaten to direct your power against someone if they turn against you- Usually, I would have this as a last resort. Once you threaten and it becomes clear that you can't follow through or run out of cards to let you do that, you're toast. To be threatening or aggressive and also temporarily weakened is a dangerous place to be.

If these things fail or you just don't use them and are seen as the table threat, what then? It's funny, but at many tables, people won't have anything to offer your victim for support. When you find yourself in this situation, assess how well you will do against your grand prey, how well you will survive with your current predator, and then decide if it is best to kill your prey quickly or slowly. Many times, I've trounced my prey only to be looking down the barrel of a loaded gun. Malk 94 has this problem all the time because of it's fast out the gate play style and obvious threat to the table. Knock down your prey too quickly (or if he refuses to interact with his prey), and you usually have a strong opponent after you punch through and you will likely stall out.

At a table where you are seen as a threat and people have the ability to mess with you, you are in for trouble. The cards that are in your deck could make a big difference in how well you do when you have several people on the "beat down that guy" detail. In general, Strike: Combat Ends is your best combat defense, bounce is your best defense against massive bleeds, intercept or delaying tactics are great against votes, and being crafty can make a big difference.

A few tricks for the reader:
-Make an example of the first player to attack you. If others expect that they might get the same result from an action that doesn't directly benefit them, they might think twice before they cross-table you.
-Play possum. Let people think you are not as big of a threat as they had first assessed as they play out their actions against you until they let down their guard, then pounce.
-Use tricky cards, like Major Boon, to make people hesitant to attack you.
-Use your predator's bleeds against your prey by bouncing them.
-Convince them that someone else is a bigger threat with situations that are real or imagined(but plausible) (i.e. "He has a handful of bleed cards and is waiting for you to tap out!")

If all else fails, die gracefully and wait for another game. Winning isn't everything. First and foremost VTES should be enjoyable. Learn what happened and apply it later. At some point, you'll have the opportunity to show off your VTES Judo. Hopefully you will have learned enough that you can take advantage of your good situation, and it will be awesome.

What I'm (re)reading today:
Basic Concepts of Deck Construction by Gregory Williams, found on The Ash Heap

38: What decks to make next?

After purchasing a half box of KoT from Ian, I have a few new cards to play with.
-Heart of the City
-Renegade Garou
-Scourge of the Enochians (weenies are not usually a problem, but Andy has a Bamba deck now)
-Toreador Grand Ball (this is my 4th)
-Another Scorn of Adonis (my 2nd)
-Two more Eyes of Argus (now I have 5-6)
-Arcane Library
-Charnas the Imp
-Another Ecoterrorists (my 2nd)
- Two more copies of Rego Mortis (I now have at least five)
-A Bang Nak (yay! I'll add it to the pile.)
-A bunch of crypt cards including another copy of Dr. Dee and Gabriella, the topless bloodsucker.

What should I make out of this, along with my other stuff? I have a few ideas:

-Gangrel or Nos Wall featuring animalism and/or protean and/or potence combat
-Ravnos toolbox/wall
-Toreador Grand Ball deck (new or old Toreador?)
-Fortitude monkeys
-Some Malk 94 variant (nothing beats a deck without bounce like bleeding for 20!)
-Tremere combat/wall/something
-Princely baby makers
-Tap and bleed

The obvious answer to the guns problem I face is ANI POT Drawing out the Beast, Immortal Grapple, crows and/or big nasty punches to the face. It might help against against Andy's malk stealth bleed deck as a bonus, but requires a fair amount of cards and has ousting problems. Here's a version that won a tournament:
http://www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=467

A less aggro, but still honed response might be a Ravnos wall featuring mainly for/CHI for defensive combat and Mayaparisatya. Trapparition comes to mind. Pool defense and blood management are obvious problems here.

Going more general, fortitude weenies are resilient and I could go with some sort of for/dom combination to enhance pool defense and ousting power. Not very exciting, but I'd better try more things to see what works.

Building a Toreador Grand Ball deck would be a challenge for me. I only own four copies and no Anthelios, so I couldn't count on having it in play, even in a 60 card deck. Some sort of hybrid Toreador wall/unblockable vote deck is a possibility. Combat and rush defense are easy, but I'd have to dedicate a lot of cards to vote push just in case I come across Garrent's Brujah deck. A Toreador deck with casual unblockability? Sounds like a tool-box, which might fit the bill. Do I go with old school toreador? My group 1-2 Toreador selection is pretty weak, so AAA wouldn't quite work. If it was more of an Anson deck, I could do that. I have plenty of the new Toreador, they just don't have the same awesome special abilities to make the Grand Ball trick go off. There is a lot of DOM between the IC, Justicar, and Prince of NY. Why is this important? I don't know, to do a less effective AAA? To Alastor a Helicopter and bloat? They aren't short on AUS, so bounce isn't a problem.

I don't play tremere much because I don't own any Magic of the Smith, a crucial card for their tooling up in the right order. If I want to hose weapons, I could go with a mix of Blood Fury/Rage and Soul Burn with some Taste and a couple Walk of Flames. Transitory combat has it's problems, but at least it isn't as boring as CEL/guns.

Tap and bleed is pretty straight forward, except I don't own any Mind Numbs. Between Pentex Subversion, Misdirection, Seduction, etc, I could still put up a pretty good fight. This sort of deck has the cheese factor, but not as much as the next...

Malk 94, good old table threat. I don't play this archetype hardly at all and for good reason. Why draw the wrath of the entire table? Sure, you are good for at least one VP, but what fun is it to be the prey of such a deck? At a tournament, expect to see hardcore stealth bleed decks, but they can ruin a game for people in casual play.

Now that I have 15+ copies of Third Tradition: Progeny, I could easily make a deck that pops out a bunch of 1-2 cap vampires and then.... I don't know what they should do from there. Swarm bleed? Why do I need princes for that? If I do princes with dom or something, I could use dom skill cards to deliver a massive payload. It's a good excuse to use Gird Minions, but I could see totally choking on the wrong cards. Is there anything really exciting about a weenie horde? I have my doubts, but I'll have to try it and find out.

What deck(s) will I settle on? I have some idea, but I won't spoil it yet. If I'm just trying to win, S:CE is good, Dominate is good, foiling key actions is good. Some combination of these, if properly constructed, usually does well. We'll see.

37: The Eternal Struggle

One thing that has come up in our playgroup recently has been the shifting metagame. Between Jeff, Ian, Andy and myself (with the occasional cameo from Oliver, Eric S, Eric Haas, or someone else), the metagame was somewhat predictable. Andy would play a variation of his group 4-5 Malk stealth bleed deck, Ian would play an experimental deck that mostly sits around, Jeff would play one of Ian's decks, and I would play Ventrue vote, FoS bleed, or combat.

Garrent, a Stanford grad student and native of Singapore, has been the new and, thankfully, reliable addition to our play group. Garrent plays a lot more tier 1 type decks, which has added some challenge to the scene. One deck that he likes to play is a group 4-5 Brujah Parity shift deck that seems to take a VP without much trouble, but has a hard time winning the table. As an answer to this, he added Alastor and an Assault Rifle, which usually goes on Carlak. This, stealth rush, and lots of maneuvers has pushed me towards more DI, Vox Domini, DT, and I'm even on the verge of including Illegal Search and Seizure in case I don't stop the gun from coming into play.

This last Sunday, the Alastored Assault Rifle wrecked my game. It didn't help me that I cross-table burned one of Andy's baby makers in his Bamba + Guruhi are the Land deck, earning me cross-table hate. I saw the train coming from Andy a mile away, but Garrent back-rushed me and took down one of my two 5/6 caps, who was subsequently diablarized for lack of a cross-table rescue. Not having a decent chance of victory, I went for the spite rush and assured both my destruction and Garrent's. I'm amazed Andy didn't sweep the table, but he got close.

In a short sealed booster event after our three games, there was some disagreement over whether Renegade Garou decided the game. Without the Garou, Ian might have died quickly. With the Garou, he was able to steal two minions to end up with around 5 or 6 to my 4, soon to be zero. The Sourge event I played early on was a table-screwing move that left me in relatively good position, but probably left bad feelings.

Is it just part of the game that those who do well get a target on their backs? Changing the decks that you play can help you avoid heat, since people won't know what to expect. Ruben, on the other hand, is an amazing player who plays one of like four decks at any given event. Lets see if I remember them... Pander Vote, Counsel of Doom, weenie dem bleed, Bleeding Vignes.
Ruben may be an exception as he is an exceptional player.

Ira is a winning player in our area, but he draws a bit more heat than Ruben does. For one, their play styles are someone different. While they both like to take some time and tool up, Ira is always arguing his case, always visibly trying to get the best deal he can. He's not overly greedy with VPS, but he's very vocal about why things should be done this way, even if the argument isn't that compelling. A lot of players just relent and give him what he wants, but some react viscerally against this sort of table controlling talk.

Is the issue demeanor? I have noticed that Ruben has a way of lending players a hand in order to get himself the win. Ira is more about securing more for himself while he's playing. This isn't a great direct example, but when I was playing at a table with Ruben, I failed to draw rush and needed to get into combat with my prey or pred. Ruben had out Maris Streck and lent me intercept against my prey to shut down his nocturn machine. He helped me hamper his pred, giving him the space he needed to tool up.

In the first game of the last miniqualifier in Berkeley, Ira was cross-table from me at a four player table and was tooling up fast with various Laibon. My prey was Russ, a player who frequently doesn't belong at a table playing VTES. My pred was Henri, who I had never played with before, but who had a somewhat threatening !ventrue deck that seemed to lack intercept. In order to keep Ira from completely running the table, I had to try and convince Russ, who had a DT in hand, that he needed to stop Ira from gaining like 6 pool. After a goofy argument from Ira about "would you have played DT if you didn't know I blah blah blah," Russ relented. As punishment for table talking(I kid you not), Ira cross-table KRCd me for three. Having earned my animosity for the rest of the game, I managed to convince Henri and Russ that it was better to foil Ira and let the game time out than to go for more vps, especially since Ira seemed on the verge of sweeping.

I believe that someone who was writing about VTES strategy(it could have been Ruben himself) said that it's better to let people play out their game while you set up and they won't even notice the dagger enter their side. Offensive combat is not the way to do this, nor is aggressive bleeding, they are both too in-your-face. Table talk can be over-done, especially when you're being dogmatic. Tooling up is sneaky and needs to be done with care so that it's not too obvious you are a threat. In the case of Garrent's Parity Shift deck, you know he has lots of Parity Shift, so you just keep an eye on your pool or pack "vote fails" stuff. My usual options are a bit hampered by the fact that New Carthage doubly puts my usual vote decks in a bad spot by increasing his votes and decreasing mine. In order to avoid the totally aggro and stupid route of like Framing the Ancient Grudge, Fear of Mekhet, or No Confidence, I'll have to think hard about a type of deck that isn't just a reaction to Garrent's deck and more of a balanced, tool-up, sneaky deck that can answer various threats. I also need to examine my demeanor for things that give away my cards, my intentions, or my displeasure. Stay tuned!

36: Games from 10/11

Ian, Jeff Yin, Andy, Garrent and myself met up for 3.25 games at Andy's house this last Sunday. Here's a rough low-down on how the games went(actual starting players unknown):

Game 1:
Garrent(new Brujah vote with celerity/fortitude stealth)-> Me(AUS OBF vote)-> Ian(Assimite swarm bleed)-> Andy (swarm bleed with black hand tech)

This game was a fast one for me. I brought out Lucian(regular old Lucian) and was going to get out a prince when I was parity shifted in consecutive turns. I managed to Villein, only to be shifted again. Andy eventually got around to bleeding against Garrent, but it was too late for me. I believe that the game timed out with Andy and Ian hanging on to dear life with bleed reduction.

Highlights of the game:
-Andy played Ministry and failed to block a three stealth vote called by Garrent (used Forced March at CEL FOR and RteG), tapping him out against Ian.
-Andy reduced 3-4 consecutive bleeds with Truth in Ink to Ian's great frustration (he was trying to get the edge).

Game 1.25:
Ian (Imbued w/weapons)-> Garrent (Brujah Vote from earlier)-> Me (Torry wall)-> Jeff (4cl Nephandus)-> Andy (Black hand deck from above)

Rather than throw myself under a bus, I elected to use a deck that can defend. The way the game played out, Ian quickly got out a small handful of blocky, bleedy, bruisy guys who are un-phased by aggravated damage. The game quickly degenerated. Andy realized that he had no way of getting the stealth to reliably get past the flash grenade and Ivory Bow wielding imbued. Garrent couldn't call votes because imbued or I would block them. I put up little offense, same with Jeff. Once Garrent died to a combination of transferring and imbued bleeds, we called it.

Highlight: Everyone concludes that imbued generally and blocking in particular is un-fun.

Game 2:
Me (dom PRO bleed featuring Inceptor)-> Andy (Malk dem bleed)-> Jeff (OBT dom monkey business)-> Garrent (!trem bruise/bleed)-> Ian (trem with swords and potence)

Ian tooled up all game with swords and Biothaumaturgic experiments and never succeeded in doing anything in combat. Andy was viciously bleeding Jeff who bounced or soaked up a lot of it. Andy used Touch of Clarity to land a bleed against Jeff's deflection defense that made a big defense. I bled into Andy who used Eluding to untap, but was forced to block my slippery bleeders who got him anyway. After a bleed from Stanislava was bounced to Jeff, he used up his defenses to flick it to Garrent, who flicked it to Ian. Ian wanted to block the bleed, which I was then forced to add stealth to.

After Andy ousted Jeff, I went on the offensive. I had Ingrid Rossler, Stanislava, Deliah w/dom, Igo the Hungry and Huang w/dom all bleeding. I took him out, but not before Ian made use of Andy's Coven. I ousted Garrent and the game timed out.

Highlights:
-Never getting Inceptor, but using my weenies for small bleeds and chump blocks from turn 2 on.
-Andy's use of Touch of Clarity to cancel a bounce, leaving Jeff with more Deflection that he couldn't use after scouting out what was in Jeff's hand.

Game 3:
Garrent(vote from above)-> Jeff (Samedi vote)-> Me (AUS OBF vote)-> Andy (dom/POT rush/bleed)-> Ian (Fatty Malks)

I got out Lucian again who was a Legendary Vampire, then quickly got out Zoe to chump block. Votes were tightly contested between Ian, me, Garrent, and Jeff. I used a Parity Shift to get an early head start against Andy, who proceeded to rush Ian and myself. I washed Jeff's Coroner's Contract, just to screw up his crypt and slow him down. Andy eventually beat down Lutz and ousted Ian with dominate bleeds, changing the balance of the table and getting rid of Ian's Madness Network. I ousted Andy with bleeds at minimal stealth and with the help of Jorge De La Muerte, who gets +1 bleed vs Sabbat.

Before tangling with Garrent's Carlak with Alastor'd Assault Rifle, I had out a Legendary Lutz, Greger Anderssen, Ozmo, Sheldon, and Zoe. I bled into Garrent with Greger who was blocked by Carlak. Greger dodged via Behind You!, was shot, and pressed to end with Read Intentions. What followed was not so good. I bled into Garrent with Lucian, Ozzmo, and Zoe, who were shot down in order via Carlak's 2nd traditions. I survived until the next turn with three minions in torpor and no vote lock. I did draw into Telepathic Vote Counting and had a Domain Challenge, which I agonized over. I bled with Sheldon, using faceless night + lost in crowds to elude Carlak's last 2nd tradition, then pumped it with Old Friends. I wanted to double-oust Garrent and Jeff, but figured they would get me with thrown vote cards or maybe just bad math. Finally, I bled for one with Greger for my second VP. The game timed out shortly afterwords.

Highlights:
-I rescue Zoe from torpor and she hunts at zero stealth out of turn(which I have to sealth) via Ian's Madness Network after Ian passes me priority.
-I oppose most votes called by Garrent, but especially his Alastor, which he passes anyway through Scalpel Tongue.
-One of Andy's minions schools Carlak on the way of Thrown Gates, sending him to torpor.

Moral of the story: If all you need for the GW is a bleed for one, don't dick around, just do it.

35: VTES Birthday Wish

Dear White Wolf,

As someone who has been a loyal customer since the mid-90's, I hope it wouldn't be too much to make a simple request for my birthday: please promote VTES more. As someone who is relatively new to VTES, at least as Methuselahs go, I can still remember my humble VTES beginnings. Years ago, I first learned of Vampire: The Masquerade. The setting, characters, themes and the catharsis of getting to role-play compelling imaginary lives really got me hooked. In high school, I LARPed in San Jose.

When I heard that the game had been killed off, I was pretty sad. Supposedly, the New World of Darkness was a new and more playable version of the old game. I just saw the new game as White Wolf giving up on their fans.

Now, a VTES player, I can't help but think that this game is anemic. The few players within a hundred miles of me have to make a special effort to keep the game alive. If I didn't stumble across Ian Lee on the WW VTES forum, I probably would have just given up the game in frustration. Through my whole time as a VTES player, I haven't seen any promotion of the game come from WW and games are hard to find. I do not want to see this game die, whether it is to some new, "better" card game or not.

It is true that players should do their part to promote the game, but that should be second to the company's self-promotion. My birthday is this Saturday and I'll be 27, on my way out of the CCG demographic. Please don't let VTES die, because you'll lose me to the many other things that grown-ups do.

Sincerely,

Brandon Haas

34: Capitalism: A Love Story

I watched Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, this Friday and was impressed with how Moore presents his case. I've seen Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9-11 and Sicko, Capitalism is right on the money, so to speak.

In Capitalism, Moore spends a lot of time talking about de-regulation, foreclosures, and all of the trouble they've caused. These issues have also been discussed by Ira Glass, host of This American Life on NPR:

http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1318

And by The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt

And I've been reading Longer Hours, Fewer Jobs by Michael D. Yates

The economy is in a really bad place between people being out of work, in foreclosure, or just scared to spend money. Just going on buying cheap crap from China is not going to get us out of the quagmire, we need to invest in America.

So, what have we done so far? President Bush, then President Obama and Congress have bailed out banks and mortgage companies with billions of dollars(trillions?). There has been a little help in re-negotiating home loans (to the great dismay of Republicans, or at least the ones not directly benefiting from it, who accuse those needing help of being freeloaders). Congress did pass a bill to help fund "shovel-ready" projects and create jobs, which has mostly helped pad the bottom line of states who would have spent the money anyway.

These measures have been wrong, insufficient, and poorly implemented. Politicians and "news" networks have been busy playing up differences and bickering, which brings down the level of debate in our country to toddlers slinging mud. Look at the Great Depression and what FDR tried to bring to people. FDR suggested that there should be a second Bill of Rights that would promise the following:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education."

These are pretty basic demands that I don't think could be shot down as a bad idea. A healthy, educated, secure polity is the best way forward and rather than picking as much meat(money) off the bones of the ailing American, we should work together to make everyone stronger.

Personally, I'm going to do my best to buy products made in America because if I do, I'm helping support American jobs. One more job means one less person receiving state aid and a better job market if I have to look for work. Wal-Mart is anti-American in that they are part of this global bottom dollar seeking, short term gain machine that tries to bring our country to the level of Honduras or China.

Government and business take notice because if you're not with U.S., you're against us, and I'm not the only person with this conviction.

33: It's OK to kill your predator (or watch them die)

It seems like I learn many lessons the hard way- by keeping people in the game who actually get in the way of my victory.

Case 1: Early active predator who blocks/bleeds a lot

I was playing a version of the Ventrue vote deck I just posted and discovered that I had a thorn in my side in the form of Ahrimane toolbox. Had I drawn deflections early, I might have been able to keep my momentum going. As it was, my predator blocked many an undirected action and bled me for 2+ a turn that I had no real defense against. A wall that bleeds at stealth? Okay...

Anyway, I should have assessed that had I let/made my pred die, I would have a voting pred without enough voting power to overcome mine often enough to be really afraid of them. My pred was also a wallish deck, so he would be drained to be the only one to block actions. What did I do? I waited until I was nearly dead and threw a KRC backwards, leaving my pred at two or so pool. My cross table ally failed to break through all of the reactions and untapped guys for the oust, leaving me to take another turn of bleeds. I was ousted.

Case 2: This might be kinda funny

In the endgame of an interesting 4-player game, Lutz calls a KRC where everyone at the table but him is at low pool. The Lutz player (Jeff) decides that he needs to kill both his prey and his next prey in the same vote in order to survive the endgame. I had Jeff on the ropes with a famed minion in torpor and Lutz at low blood, plus a rush in my hand and Dragonbound in play. After the debate was done about who to kill with the vote, I calmly played my Delaying Tactics. It was a good laugh, but it meant having my pred stay alive with no pressure for a turn, exactly what he needed to cripple my minions. I could have survived, had I played a card right, but I basically gave myself a much smaller window for success in the end.

Case 3: Cross-table oust? If the shoe fits...

In the third game in the same day, I managed to screw myself again. I was playing the Ventrue vote deck for a second time and working from prey to pred, I faced an Assamites deck featuring Kabede Maru, then a Magaji breed/Remnant/Vote deck that had mysteriously changed from 4cl, then finally a !Gangrel/Gangrel bleed/rush deck. With 10 copies of Majesty and plenty of quite a few deflections, I wasn't overly concerned by my pred. I was afraid that my pred would become too hard to kill and maybe a danger in combat if I didn't push aggressively against him, so I ousted him with 10 pool damage from votes and bleeds between Democritus and Helena Casimir. In my enthusiasm to get an oust, I over-damaged my pred with votes (maybe 4 or so damage overall) and he was ousted by Ian. Had I thought harder about it, I should have ousted Ian first to keep him from getting No Secrets and blocking every action I did. As it happened, he didn't draw another No Secrets while playing against me and we played a long and boring endgame to the point where walling up was the best option for me. Lesson learned: cross-table oust if you can't handle your next prey.

That's enough for now, I'll do better next time (or practice learning the hard way some more).