Lyrics of the Night : Meta-Game

I think one of the coolest thing about Vtes is the fact that almost every deck that one has needs to constantly evolve to adapt to the changing environment of the play-field. The extreme of it would be what I think people call Meta-Game - where one actively changes the cards in order to hose one or several other players' known deck or playstyle.

In most other games Meta is not always necessary, and may be seen as overly competitive and "victory-hungry". Sometimes, metagame can also spoil a game, making a game unnecessarily long or unwieldy as in the case of some boardgames. And of course, sometimes the immediate community are so friendly to each other that "sabotage" game styles are simply detested. Fortunately, all such issues aren't present in Vtes. We are, afterall, selfish bastards who can't wait to go for the throat of our prey (and predator, eventually), right?

Moreover, meta-gaming in Vtes is almost a necessity for survival for the majority of decks. And it is exactly this that make this game always interesting and ever-changing, even for the most conservative and unmoving elders. Imagine the entrance of 2 new players who come to the gaming night consistently bringing about their brand new sneak bleed decks, that could have been absent in the community for a while, and soon you'll see an influx of deflect defense and/or fellow sneak-bleeders or dedicated walls. On the other hand, the exit of a particular player whom had been prominent in playing Gehenna decks would see players starting to shift out anti-Gehenna cards since no one else is toying with Gehenna anymore.

Of course, the crucial and staple elements of any (and perhaps every) deck will remain unchanged. My Gargoyle Air Rock will forever be combat heavy, Bann's Palla Grande Anarchs will continue to bleed heavily, and it is unlikely we'll ever see a Flash deck packed with more than 5 copies of Delaying Tactics, regardless of the amount of vote decks you see in the community. Beyond a certain level of "counter" tactics, a deck has still need to pack in enough of it's own "offensive" elements in order to work.

So technically it's not really that much of a meta-gaming we're talking about here, more like a reaction or a defensive mechanism prepared to face expected threats. However, I'm actually thinking of building a Sibyl's Tongue Hoser deck just because. For such decks where clan hosers are active and present, meta-gaming considerations will be important. Which clan to hose and which clan to ignore will be something that one needs to consider.

But I guess as long as Danz is not on the table nobody is going to do any meta-gaming over the top afterall~ :)

(o.o)