Lyrics of the Night : Card Ratio

Almost all my decks have a crypt of 12 and a library of 90. The only reason I felt that the library should be less than 90 is when I'm lacking the numbers of certain key cards to make up the required ratio where the chances of drawing that card will be good enough for the deck to work. Since my community over here play with a max library of 90 I tend to want to maximise my library resource. The issue of building (or tuning) a deck is not just about which card to include, but more importantly, how many of each card should be in the deck. The number should ensure that you hold a hand of 7 useful cards most of the time, or at least should have a majority of cards that contribute to your strategy or defense. It's no point having the library full of a certain card and find it most often than not clot up your hand. I have this problem of want to include as many resources in the library as possible in order to fulfill the different function integral to a good deck - offense, defense, pool gain etc etc. But 90 is not a very large number, and multiples of certain cards must be provided to ensure recursion of the action, or the abundance of defense/offense made available by the card. For example, if you only have 2 Majesty as the defense for your Vampire, not only are the chances of ever drawing them pretty slim, but you can only handle 2 combat. So multiples of cards should be included if that card is going to see use either frequently, or is important enough that you want that card in your hand as soon as possible. Therefore, it is imperative for you to figure out what your local environment is like, so that the functions can be broken down, and that will impact the number of cards that you need to include - for example, if you know that the environment has few stealth decks, then perhaps light Intercept cards would be enough - perhaps there isn't even a need to include Intercept Heavy cards such as Enhanced Senses, or maybe a few of these cards would be sufficient. That said, the ratio of the cards is still a problem to ponder. We know that typical games usually last about 12-16 turns, so you shouldn't have a lot more Master cards in your deck than necessary unless your deck is build to handle that. This is probably the only type of cards that has a good guideline for ratio, all others are very dependent on the strategy of the deck. The number of cards to include in a deck eventually leads to only 3 classification - just 1, a couple, many many. The decision to put each card in which is determined by the recursion, the importance and the effciency of the card. The recursion of the card is determined by how many times you want to use it (or how many times you can use it). A gun deck will probably need a lot more .44s than a bleed deck, while the bleed deck will need way more bleed enhancers than a combat deck and vice versa. If the card is to be used again and again, than it should be in great numbers - up to 20-30 for very specialized decks (Night Moves or Cryptic Mission) but usually about 15 if - such as combat strike cards which cycle very quickly. If the card is useful but not needed in every occasion, then perhaps somewhere near "a couple" - 3 to 6 will be good enough. The importance of the card will dictate how quickly one needs to have that card in hand. Certain deck requires a particular card to be in hand in order to work - for example, a Soul Gem deck needs to have either the Soul Gem, Vast Wealth or other form of cards to retrieve it from the deck (such as Magic of the Smith), and therefore these cards, though inefficient, should be in great numbers to ensure early appearance. 8 or more is usually what I do. If a card is "good to have" or simply for fun and laughter, then perhaps it should be kept below 3. Certan support cards also fall into this category, for example, Engling Fury is good to have, but does nothing but to keep your Vampire healthy, so a full hand of 7 is not going to do much for you. I define the efficiency of the card as the potential uses of these cards. Some cards are unique, and therefore, if you're lucky to have them in play, a second copy is not going to help at all - for these cards, unless they have a burn option that can be executed by the opponent, or they're too important and have to appear quickly, or else I normally would only have 1 copy of these cards - most Hunting Grounds fall into this category. Very flexible cards that serve multiple functions will generally be more forgiving to include multiple copies since they can be used up pretty quickly anyway -things like Swallowed by the Night, Aura Absorption all have multiple uses, and one usually wouldn't having having a couple in hand. Very specialised cards will be limited to 1 or 2 unless I'm expecting to face such opponents in the games to come - things like Delaying Tactics for example. For what I call "Surprise" cards are also usually limited to 1, just for the wow factor, but these can keep your opponent guessing and sometimes even win you a VP. (o.o)y

Vampire : The Evaluated Situation : 23-09-08

Night of 23rd September 2008, Paradigm Infinitum We lost 2 Methuselahs due to their other worldly commitment. Zen and Robin couldn’t make it, therefore we were playing 2 tables of 4, and instead of bleeding Robin I would be bleeding Bann instead. There was half a pack on my table that was left un-drafted and my table quickly completed that – the cards drafted was pretty inconsequential anyway. Putting the cards that I’ve drafted in the second round, this was what was added or taken out from the deck – Crypt – -Paulo de Castille, +Janni and Antonine the Lost Library – +Dreams of the Sphinx, Sense the Savage Way, Hell for Leather, Brute Force and another Baseball Bat I bid 2 pool for the Anarch Free Press and got it. The start of the second round had me as the second player, being bled by Paul’s Spell of Life deck and bleeding Bann’s semi-combat deck with Lorrie and Pascek. Richard was my ally. My draw was fantastic, with a first round Dreams of the Sphinx and a second round Twilight Camp. Enkidu went after my predator and quickly torpored his vampire, but not before he Reckless Agitation me for 5 pool. Enkidu apparently drew all the hate on the table, and after a surprise Fillip which woke up Lorrie, both Enkidu and Lorrie went into torpor. I failed to block all the attempts to diblarize Enkidu and when he’s done, I’m pretty much done for. Richard completed the kill (he eliminated Paul earlier on) but was bled dry by Bann. Table Standing Bann - 2VP Richard - 2VP Undaunted I went forward to draft the 3rd round, choosing a pack of TR, hoping for a Anarch Convert to make my crypt efficient. Alas it was not meant to be, but I did got myself a Monkey Wrench to increase my kill ability. I got some good cards to help my deck – a Eluding the Arms of Morpheus, a Legworks, Song of Serenity and a Power of One. I put some of these into the deck and went forward to round 3. I won the Diversion with 1 pool. In round 3 my draw was fantastic still, again blessed with a first turn Dreams of the Sphinx and a 3rd turn Twilight Camp. This time I ‘m the 4th player bleeding Paul, bled by Donkey and my ally is Bann. I took out Janni in turn 1 and equipped her with a Kpist by turn 2 – again drawing all the hate of the table. I got all the random Can’t take it with you, Peace Treaty and everyone went after my Enkidu. I was bled dry by Donkey’s mass little critters. Recovering from my attacks, Paul's Count Germaine bled Bann for 7 in a single bleed. Combine that with the rest of his Settites he quickly eliminated Bann. Donkey's vampires couldn't faced up to Paul's relentless bleeding and soon was ousted from the table and gave Paul the Game Win. Table Standing: Donkey - 1VP Paul - 3VP Oh well, I’ve already committed to Enkidu, but I would try to make the deck more well-rounded next round by using more vampires with good Potence/Celerity/Quietus if I can draft some. I think I’ll go for a LotN the next round and hope I don’t end up drawing everybody’s fire. This is the state of the deck by the end of Round 3: Crypt: Enkidu, Paulo de Castille, Izhim adb Azrael, Janni, Anarch Convert, Antonine the Lost Library: Master Dreams of the Sphinx Frenzy Major Boon Twilight Camp Guardian Angel Anarch Free Press Fires of Insurrection Libertas Blood Turnip Action Haven Hunting Steely Tenacity Modifiers Rooftop Shadows Monkey Wrench Missing Voice Combat Diversion Song of Serenity Scorpion Sting Brute Force Hell for Leather Blur Lam Into High Ground Groundfighting Molotov Cocktail Fleshbond Mercury Arrow Form of Mist Projectile Reaction Legworks Fillip Sense the Savage Way Eluding the Arms of Morpheus Open Dossiers Equipment Kpist m/45 Baseball Bat x 2 Bloodstone (o.o)y

One Clan to rule them all : Gargoyle

Gargoyle is the first clan that I had a deck built when I was a fledging Methuselah playing with Stealth Bleed decks that seems to do only one thing. Whenever there's a combat deck that look my way, my only defense was to hope that Coma can land on target. After being pounded into a myriad of different types of mess, I decided to build a combat deck myself. I bought a box of Bloodlines then, and after going through the cards a bit, I decided that no one can fight better than the Gargoyles. I wasn't too far from the truth.

The Gargoyles practically have 4 in-clan disciplines at their disposal. POTENCE, FORTITUDE, the unique VISERATIKA, and Flight. (There are too few Vampires that has Flight (or the means to get Flight) that Flight cards are only commonly seen in Gargoyle decks to the extent that it is pretty much an in-clan discipline for the Gargoyles.) All these disciplines are very combat-able. You couple that with their Clan specific cards that practically screams combat, and you have yourself a very focused combat clan.

We don't really have to explain the might of POTENCE and FORTITUDE in combat. POTENCE provides a large number of heavy damage strikes, some manouever strikes, the means to increase strength, and the singularly most feared card that beats most combat defense strikes - the Immortal Grapple. Fortitude is able to prevent pretty much 90% of whatever damage that the opponent can dish out. Put these 2 disciplines together and you already have a combat powerhouse. Now add in the Mighty VISERATIKA. The damage-dealing capacity of VISERATIKA is good, but nothing much to write home about; its damage prevention, however, is a good addition to the FORTITUDE cards. Stonestrength and Rockheart can deal with damage that cannot be prevented by FORTITUDE, such as Dead Hand, but are also good enough to supply a good damage prevention alternative that is still useful for those Gargoyles without superior FORTITUDE. Bond with the Mountain and Flow within the Mountain also give Gargoyles other options in combat.

What the Gargoyles lacked in manuoever cards is supplied by Flight and VISERATIKA. Roll and High Ground are both options to be used for direct manuoever, while Swoop not only add to the arsenal of movement, but also increase hand damage. Crawling Chamber is a good replacement for Flash. Flight also added the free and good strike Pounce that not only adds a +2 damage but also trumps additional strikes upon a hit, giving the Gargoyle a certain level of security in combat when used in conjunction with Immortal Grapple. Don't be tempted to focus on long range combat. Granted, the Gargoyles have good long range strike and set-range cards - but they're either costly or are difficult to execute. Most importantly, they lack the ability to handle Dodges and Combat Ends in this way.

But this is not the end of the Gargoyle's ability in combat. Clan-specific cards make the Gargoyles doubly fearsome. They are one of the very few clans that has easy access to permanent Damage Prevention, which couples as a means to ignore Aggravated Damage. The mighty Armor of Terra makes the Gargoyle equipped with it a very difficult target to destroy. Raking Talons, useable by the smallest Gargoyle, gives them a cheap aggravated hand strike. Once you throw in their damage dealing retainers - Razor Bats and Stone Dogs, and you have Gargoyles that are able to deal good aggravated hand damage with multiple (and reuseable) manouevers, able to defeat Dodges, Combat Ends and other pesky combat strikes, and can prevent pretty much everything you can throw at them, now add in a consistent means to enter combat with retainers that cause environmental damage? No wonder they are a fearsome lot.

 The Gargoyles have some variety to the things that they can do - they can generate stealth that Brujahs and Toreadors can only dream off - Skin of the Chameleon gives a +2 Stealth at superior with an optional Manuoever AND press; the Flight card Soar gives a +1 Stealth on undirected actions (very important for those Armor of Terras and Razor Bats). When all is lost the Gargoyle still have the option of using Flow Within the Mountain to continue the action if it still has a chance of carrying on - as you can see, for undirected action, a Gargoyle with superior VISERATIKA can add a +3 stealth to it - very handy for those important recruit actions. The Gargoyles are good with Intercept too. Razor Bats are superior Murders of Crows with Intercepts and are not that easy to kill, Patrol adds another free +1 Intercept useable by every Gargoyle, and the deadly Scry the Hearthstone gives Intercepts and Manuoevers, or you can use it to cancel common stealth cards from OBFUSCATE or CHIMERSTRY. What's there not to like about this range of abilities? The cost. Razor Bats and Stone Dogs are expensive retainers, and not too many will see the table if you're not too good with pool control. Gargoyle combat are card-intensive, in order to truly deal damage with your Gargoyles you will easily burn through 4-5 cards in combat - in this order - Raking Talons, Torned Signpost, one Manouever card, Immortal Grapple and Pounce. Granted, opponents without damage prevention ability rarely survives a controlled Gargoyle attack, but you're not going to have so many good hand to execute these combats too often. The Gargoyles of group 3-4 also suffers from a lack of Crypt, there just isn't enough Gargoyle to build a deck with these 2 groups effectively, and they will need to integrate Tremeres or Tremere Antitribus to work. That said, though Group 2 Gargoyles do have the numbers to fill out a minimum Crypt of 12, there are only 3 non-salve Gargoyle that can do damage to your opponent directly.

 The slave-status is a double-edged sword. It allows the Gargoyle to jump in front of their masters and fight on their behalf, which is a fearsome threat most of the time, at the cost of the slaves being unable to take any directed action if no masters are around. There are only 2 Tremere Antitribu slaves so their involvement is non-existence in non-TupDog decks. The addition of Tremeres will allow their slaves to take directed actions, but that will thin the crypt and require the maintainance of multiple disciplines in a Clan that already has problem finding space for all those combat cards. (VISERATIKA does has some THAUMATURGY functions, but they're pretty lame most of the time) Do remember that without directed actions, the Gargoyles are nothing but Guardians and can do nothing serious to your prey if he doesn't let you. So there are pretty much only 3 kinds of Gargoyle decks that one see - the Tupdogs, pure Gargoyle decks, and Gargoyles with Tremeres. Each has their own merits and demerits. The Tupdog is probably the most famous Gargoyle (and the most expensive to buy in ebay). It is a non-unique 1 cap ballistic missile. I've not had the privilege of either playing or playing against a Tupdog deck (I doubt the total number of Tupdogs present in Singapore is enough to support one), so I can't really comment on it's effectiveness, though it looked fearsome on paper. Pure Gargoyle decks rely on the independent Gargoyles - Ferox, Erinyi and Obsidian. They sometimes use Hatchling to produce some offsprings to add in some punch, and you will usually still see a couple of Slaves (Ublo-Satha for sure) that will stay back to guard your pool. Independent Gargoyles lack in some Tremere cards that can add to the effectiveness of the deck, most notably Defenders of the Haven and Soul of the Earth - both being extremely valuable to the Gargoyles. What they have in return are consistent pure crypt, and a more focused library full of Gargoyle discipline spread cards with no necessity to think about the Tremeres.

Tremere supported Gargoyles have good support cards mentioned above, and the Tremeres included in the deck usually has DOMINATE to help in bleeding the prey, which is what the Gargoyles really lack. Decks like these also have more options on Crypt and generally has more warm bodies to pester the prey rather than require a slow build up phase. They will of course, suffer from a lack of focus on card selection and has to dedicate some space for the Tremeres to be effective, unless they're just weenies serving as command center and Blood Dolls. The question in these decks is always "How many Tremeres to include?" Another problem with the Gargoyles is their inability to generate big bleeds. You add up all their disciplines and they still can't generate anything reasonable to enhance bleeds. Only Saxum has a level of PRESENCE to use, but that is hardly the solution. Force of Will can be used to bleed for more, but it requires either sacrifice, or some set up before it is reasonable to use, so it'll take a while for you to bleed your prey to death. Alternatively, you can rely on torpor damage to kill your prey, but that will also take a while.

Combat-wise, the Gargoyles will also feel quite a problem when going up against a FORTITUDE deck that can prevent all the heavy hits that the Gargoyles throw out. Against a deck like that the Gargoyles have no clear solution but to hope for the best. They are also slow to set up, it takes a while to put in enough Razor Bats and Armor of Terra for your vampires to be truly dangerous, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem, since even a single Razor Bat plus any Intercept-locations such as KRCG will give you a good change to block and kill most attackers - remember, Rotchreck is your friend since Raking Talons is available to every Gargoyle.

In summary, the Gargoyles are a fearsome lot in combat, good defenders (and probably should focus on it for a while), but lack the ability to quickly oust a prey, and they are normally pool/blood intensive and require a long setup time. But a fully setup Gargoyle deck with a couple of Razor Bats, Armor of Terra and Guardian Angels is a rock-solid stone wall - hit it and lose a minion, every time.

(o.o)y

Lyrics of the Night : Bounce

Well, bouncing bleeds is one annoying method of defending your pool, annoying to your predator that is. Unlike blocks, there is much less ways of getting around this than just bite it and hope your ally is able to take that damage without giving your prey another 6 pool. (eventually) Granted, certain decks have no issues against this, specifically voters and combat decks. Vote decks will just vote the bouncer to death, and combat decks usually leaves a whole bloody mess of the bouncer on the floor (and pretty much everybody else) anyway.

But bouncing is a great defensive asset, and there are a good number of bounce cards that will work miracle for you if your predator is a heavy bleeder without ways to tackle your bounce defense. DOMINATE is the master discipline for bounces - they have the magnificent Deflection, the somewhat less efficient Redirection and the multi-purpose Murmur. AUSPEX is another discipline commonly sprouting bounce tech - My Enemy's enemy and the more direct Telepathic Misdirection. There are other cards and other ways to bounce bleeds, to the extent of exotic means such as Aksinya Daclau's master bounce, but primarily one only expect aggressive bouncing from the above 2 disciplines. There are no bounce cards for the others.

Directional bouncing where you can target any specific Methuselah is a great defense - not only did you prevent a bleed from your predator, you can use it to either deplete your prey's pool or defensive actions, or even bargain with your ally (or anyone else of interest) to block and fight the bleeding vampires, preferably dealing enough damage to him to either remove him from the equation, or at least slow him down a couple of turns. The side effect of bouncing is purely psychological - to enhance the bleed or not? If your predator does that, and you manage to bounce it to a defenseless prey, he's as good as bleeding your prey for you. This will become a problem for him.

Non-directional bounce with My Enemy's Enemy is less focused but cheaper, without restrictions such as blood cost, age or minion type, but you do not get to choose who it bounces to, and cannot use it in a late game without a grand predator. This is seldom a major issue given the power of the card, but one might want to include a range of AUSPEX bounces instead of just including My Enemy's Enemy.

There are some defense against bounces. First of all is simply have enough bleeds that the prey cannot bounce them all. Bouncing is costly, it either costs an action, or costs blood, sometimes both, and it always costs a card. Even a fat Vampire with superior DOM can only bounce so many bleeds. Against many small bleeds, this defense will not be enough to save him for long. On the other hand, one can bleed "responsibly" - by using cards such as Spying Mission or Change of Target to help reduce the damage done to the new target. Spying Mission can then be used to bleed even more against your prey again, and he can't bounce you forever; while Change of Target will keep your ally's (and your bleeding vampire) blocking vampire untap for defense against your prey's action. The event card Narrow Minds will increase of cost of bouncing and should be included whenever possible for decks that rely heavily on bleeding to oust his prey.

There are usually indicators (which also could be a hoax to trick you) that your prey is going to bounce your bleed. Having an untapped Vampire with superior DOM or AUS is one good indicator, in fact, having any Vampires with these 2 disciplines will constitute a possiblity of doing so. Some Vampires scream bouncing - Helena for example. But with Lost in Translation, anyone can bounce, and I find it cool to include one copy in every deck just so to make the deck a little more unpredictable - so one will never know.

(o.o)y

Netting a new deck

I gathered a lot of deck lists from the internet, mainly from the deck archives of Lasombra. (By the way, for the uninitiated, Lasombra.com is a great place to go if you're looking for anything Vtes). I also had the chance to read through the decks featured in the Vtes Player's Guide book, and its KMW add-on. And I almost always start creating a deck based completely on the list. For example, I would come across a deck designed by, say Norman S. Brown Jr, and find myself thinking "wow, that's cool", and then proceed to pick up cards around the place and duplicate the deck, down to every last card. This is however, very rarely achieved due to insufficient cards in my collection. (Not everybody has Entombments) Therefore most of the time I have to improvise by replacing cards with others of either similar function, (though often less efficient) or even replaced them completely (nothing replaces Entombment). For example, it is very common for me to replace On the Qui Vive with either WEF or Forced Awakening.

I'd then adjust the card ratios, often due to changes in the card list, and I have to make the ration efficient again by changing the numbers in (usually) categories of cards - the best example is the issue with the card Vessel. You see, replacing all the Vessel in a list with Blood Dolls is so going to screw up the Master Cards ratio - a 22 Master Card list with 6 Vessels isn't going to work very well when they're all Blood Dolls. I'll also need to change some of the things that I do not understand, for example, why would a Warzone Hunting Ground be in a deck without any Brujah Antitribu. There could be errors in the list, or functions that I cannot fathom. In those cases I tend to just take it out and replace with either some generic good cards (Dreams of the Sphinx) or some cards that I think will help in filling in some of the areas that I expect to face issues. The deck will then be nicely sleeved, named and rubber-banded, stacked in a nice box and await the day where it will face its first battle. Every Tuesday, and whenever I can, I will bring along these decks to try them out during the regular games, or even in a constructed deck tournament. Most of the time they don't do very well. The deck will then go into it's 2nd phase of tuning to match the local challenges and my own playstyle, adjusting until I either give up, or it's to my satisfaction. Getting a deck tuned to the playstyle of oneself, and then playing it correctly in a game and making the right decisions while knowing what to expect from the deck is the beauty of any CCG. I believed that getting a deck list from the internet, and then modifying it to the ability of oneself, is a great way to utilise the resources made available to us from the internet, it is also a great way to learn from the others in the world. (o.o)y

Vampires : The Evaluated Situation : 16-09-08

Night of 16th September 2008, Paradigm Infinitum. 10 Methuselahs gathered for the Anarch and Alastor Storyline Draft Tournament, and of course, yours truly is amongst them. Since we get to choose whatever expansions that we wanted, in whatever order and numbers, the cards available on the table would be very random where expansions were concerned, and therefore, many options would be available. Since the storyline was to favor Anarch and Trophy Hunting techs, I decided to take 2 packs of KMW, and 2 packs of 3rd Ed. My reasoning was simple : open up the KMW first, and try to get some of the more useful Vampires in the expansion - Enkidu, Mata Hari, or even Count Germaine (I can possible bid for the basic Count Germaine on the table and have a Baron, which I'm pretty sure all those Methuselahs drafting TR will not be taking the Baron-required cards.) The 3rd Ed have great all-round options, and I'll open them after the KMW, hopefully by then I'd know what my options are and focus on the required tech/disciplines. My first rare was NSA Trio, which is an expensive rare, but I felt that it was too easily removed in a draft environment, and decided to pick up a Groundfighting instead, especially since the players to my left and right are both drafting TR I expected to be quite into Anarch tech. Lo and Behold I ended up with quite a few Anarch cards, which included a Twilight Camp, a Chameleon and an Anarch Convert. My second KMW pack yielded an Enkidu, and with him my draft strategy was pretty much decided. I decided to go Anarch combat, and was blessed with good luck. My rares in the 3rd Ed was expensive but not really much of an addition to the strategy - an Inconnu Tutelage and a Left for Dead; but my draft was more successful - here's what my deck look like after the draft. Crypt (4 Vampires) : Enkidu, Anarch Convert, Izhim adb Azrael, Paulo de Castille Library (20 cards) : Master (5) Twilight Camp Major Boon Frenzy Blood Turnip Guardian Angel Action (3) Haven Hunting Steely Tenacity Rave Combat (6) Groundfighting Mercury Arrow Lam Into Projectile Flesh Bond Scorpion Sting Reaction (2) Fillip Rooftop Shadows Equipment (3) Baseball Bat Kpist m/45 Bloodstone Modifiers (1) Missing Voice I threw in the Fires of Inquisition promo card and the deck is ready to go. The voice behind the counter had decided our table position before the draft, and I was to be the 4th player, preying on Ed and being bled by Richard. On the table the Voice behind the counter was my grand predator, and Zen was my grand prey. The bidding was fun, it started off with Zen going after the Seattle Commitee. He finally got it after a bid of SEVEN pool, beating the 6 pool bid from Richard (it was pretty much between them). TVC (The Voice Behind the Counter) got himself a nice Tatiana, Richard a Count Germaine, and myself the Molotov Cocktail. (all of these are free I think). Ed ended up with Lucinde, which on hindsight I thought was a really good deal. The reason that I went after the Molotov Cocktail was because I felt that that was one troublesome combat defense against Enkidu, and I wanted it at least out of the table.

Richard was playing a semi-combat bleed deck, with Monkey Wrench as one of his killing card, and some Potence combat such as Brute Force and Hell for Leather to cause damage. Ed was using a weenie bleed, also with Monkey Wrench, but there was a Jackie with Confusion and Kindred Spirit too. Zen had lots of vampires too, and he was focused on defending against Ed's big bleeds and just kept many of his vampires untapped. TVC had Jack Drake and several other vampires, the fact that he used a Fires of Inquisition probably spoke of his combat capability. (But I never saw any combat involving his vampires) The game went on pretty well, I brought out Enkidu and an Anarch Convert on turn 3, got a Twilight Camp up immediately while TVB played the Fires of Inquisition. Enkidu went after the predator as Richard was aggressively trying to bleed me, and pretty much destroyed his vampire resources. I brought out Paulo, and eventually Izhim with the Fire's help, grabbed the Rack from Zen and pretty much dominated the table after that. Ed's weenie bleeding deck had very little defense against Enkidu so I basically just went around waving my fists at everyone. Enkidu is supported by an Izhim that was equipped with a baseball bat and a Steely Tenacity, which made the duo very dangerous killing machine. Twilight Camp and the Rack kept my vampires pretty fat and supported the combat expenditure. Zen eliminated TVC, and I got my VP from Ed. Richard had pretty much given up the game by then and it was in his best interest to help Zen sweep, so he surrendered his VP to Zen while keeping pressure on me. Zen quickly ended his misery and it was then between me and him. Zen was running a weenie deck and outnumbered me 2-1, and I was unable to wrestle the edge from him for many turns. With only 2 vampires available (Paulo went into torpor after a while), I kept Enkidu untapped to block, and let Izhim went in to beat up his vampire one by one (as Izhim wrestled the Rack from Zen after he took it back from Enkidu) I was down to 3 pool before I finally got rid of Zen's last standing vampire. I got my last VP after that. Final Standing for the table Me : 3VP Zen : 2VP Final Standing for the round Bann : 3VP Me : 3VP Zen: 2VP Robin: 1VP Paul: 1VP We had time to finish the draft for the second round, but will have to complete the deck and continue the battle next week. I chose to draft a pack of 3rd Ed, hoping to get more utility cards. I declared publicly that I was craving for a Dreams of the Sphinx, and VOILA!, I got myself a Dreams of the Sphinx! Boy, the lucky star was with me. The draft went ok for me where my strategy is concerned. I got a Hell for Leather, a Sense the Savage Way and a Janni to add to my minimum crypt, and some other rather useless cards. From espionage I got to know that my predator Paul is playing a Spell of Life FOS deck with many Spells of Life, and a Lucinde. (most probably a Mummy) I was told that he had ample stealth. My prey Robin had an equipment heavy deck, I knew they drafted heavy on LotN, so I might be looking at an AK-47, some Bundis and Nightsticks - which is a big problem for Enkidu. And since I'm going to be player 2 I will be having issues bringing out my Enkidu fast enough to prevent being run over. I might have to re-do my deck a little next week, perhaps even moving Enkidu out of the deck, or at least rely on Izhim more. I have Janni, and she is a natural combo with my Kpist m/45. I also have quite a few Assamite cards, such as Haqim's Law : Leadership, and Open Dossiers. I might make my deck a little more Assamite then~

(o.o)y

Lyrics of the Night : Draft

Just had the chance to play the Anarch and Alastor Storyline draft tournament, and boy it was fun. The 10 of us went through the first and second round of the draft, with a total of 4+1 packs, and I pretty much had a great time with this draft format. Each of us gets to choose which expansion we wanted to draft, and how many packs of it, plus the order of the drafting, AFTER we know our table positions. We also have to take into account the issue of the cards up for auction. It was great fun. I will write a tournament report. (Eventually) I was never good at drafting. Too darn stupid and rigid to be a good drafter. I tend to stick to a strategy and become rather inflexible, I don't read the table well, and I hardly counter-draft (unless I really have nothing else to take to enhance my draft deck) I tend to do these things in my draft, in this order: 1. Get the most expensive card, usually the rare, or sometimes an immediate card that I wanted, out of the game. Granted, these are normally very powerful cards - such as Heart of the City, Heart of Nizchetus, Powerbase : Montreal. But sometimes, cards that are expensive have absolutely no purpose in a draft environment, especially if you've committed to a particular strategy, or is not using that particular discipline. Heart of the City can be such a case. (Or Preternatural Strength for that matter). In these cases, my instinct of $$$$-sense will still take over and I'll take that card anyway. 2. Get the card that is most flexible, either a card that most of my drafted vampires can use, or a generic card that can be used in any decks - such as equipment, masters etc. This leads to me forgoing opportunities to counterdraft - for example, I will most probably take a Camera Phone instead of a Spell of Life. 3. When that is all done, get cheap and small vampires even if they have absolutely no discipline spread that I can use. Cheap bodies are always good in a draft environment. 4. When these are all done, only then will I try to take away cards that might counter my strategy or endanger my survival - say, an aggravated damage combat card if I'm using a combat deck, or intercept cards if I'm primarily stealthing with my Vampires. Most of the time, by the time we're done, I have absolutely no idea what is going on the table, and is completely focused on my own deck-building. Hardly the best drafter in the market. But, hey, I'm usually pretty good at getting an efficient deck running, which (usually) has good library ratio and good vampire crypt. However, I also lose most of these games. I'll need a lot of practise. (o.o)y

What is VTES?

What do you mean by you have no idea what is Vtes?

Well, Vtes stands for Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. It is a collectible card game designed by the legendary Richard Garfield, based on the ridiculously rich background of White Wolf's Vampire the Masquerade role playing campaign setting in the Old World of Darkness.

If you still have no idea what I'm talking about, just know this:

This is a great game, and if you want to feel like an immortal, come to the following location every Tuesday night after 7pm :

Paradigm Infinitum

Orchard road, opposite Somerset MRT station, Midpoint Orchard shopping center, 3rd floor, look for the coolest shop with lots of smart and stylish people throwing cards at each other.

Bring friends, live ones, you won't regret it.

 (o.o)y

Lyrics of the Night : Bleed

I've always got a lot to consider when it comes to building a new deck. Some said that I think too much, and nothing will ever get done. Well, statistically my non-net-based decks usually take forever to build, but tuning an existing list stolen from the net is no easy feat either. The key element of my considerations is of ousting my prey. Well, to put it bluntly, a deck that doesn't know how it is going to do that has no reason to be on the table. I therefore dedicate a good number of hours play-testing to figure out what I need and how long it takes to kill my prey. This will constitute much of my consideration on card ratio. The most common ousting support cards are bleed enhancers. Without these, even weenies will take quite a while to kill a prey, and that will give your predator time to bother you, as well as giving your prey ample opportunities to recover, or even to get ahead of you. For some disciplines this is a no-brainer : DOMINATE has the mighty Conditioning and the lesser Threats, to name just a few, PRESENCE has good bleed actions such as Enchant Kindred and the modifier Aire of Elation. Most disciplines have some form of bleed enhancers, not all of them efficient, but almost always good to include a couple, or even just one in the deck, for the surprise that may give you that 1 VP. Some of these bleed enhancers are actually pretty good multi-purpose cards (Sense the Sin comes to mind) and should always be in a deck where the relevant disciplines are being utilised. Some disciplines suffer from a complete lack of bleed enhancers, POTENCE for example, have little support where it comes to enhancing bleeds. Of course, there are always support disciplines to fall back to in order to fill in that blank, which is why vampires have several in-clan disciplines. But there will come a time when you find that certain clans have ABSOLUTELY no support with in-clan disciplines where bleeding is concerned. In such cases I generally look at the 2 potential alternatives : permanent bleed enhancers or discipline-less bleed cards. Permableeds are usually retainers or equipment. The free Camera Phone allows a (D)+1 Bleed, which adds up after a while (better than nothing), and they have displaced many Laptop Computers. JS Simmons and Tasha Morgan are free retainers that add to your bleeds. These take an action to equip or recruit, but stay with you after that. The retainers are unique, so not too many of these are usually in the deck - making it unreliable. Master cards such as Pentex Loves You! gives bleed enhances, and again, is good to have, but nothing to write home about. Apparently the stronger bleed enhancing master cards are already reserved for clans who have no problems generating heavy bleeds. Oh well. There are other Permableeds that are discipline-related - usually for disciplines that are not known for strong bleeding enhancements. Tier of Souls and Pulse of the Canaille are some examples, and whenever I can, I'll include a couple in the deck. Single-use bleed cards such as Computer Hacking can help you to generate the necessary bleed enhancement. Usually used in weenie swarms or ally decks that really has no time to equip, or no means of keeping the vampire alive for too long to justify any further investment, these cards can still help you to speed up the demise of your prey significantly. I've tried working with decks without a single bleed enhancement card, relying on their primary ousting path, like combat-related pool damage cards such as Dragonbound. But these are generally unique master cards that are neither efficient nor reliable. At the end of the day, even my Gargoyle deck is peppered with several Force of Will, just so that I can deliver a good bleed to keep my prey guessing - without that, sometimes you can be completely looked down upon. (o.o)y