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