Skirmishes in the Dark : 14-09-2010

The night of 14th September, in the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.

My first game after the ceased production thing, but in essence, all things seems to be normal, and even Paul and Sheena were at the store for a while, but weren't able to play since there were a 6-player table going on. Oh, how I missed bleeding them. I hope they come back again next week.

I quickly let myself die in Game 1 because I was to have a business meeting (sort of) with a friend in PI. So that was quite an irrelevant game for me.

Randomized Seating for Game 2.

Hadi's Tremere bleed, bleeding

John's !Ventrue Wall, bleeding

YY's War Ghouls, bleeding

My Loss in Darkness, bleeding

LF's Voting Girls (with some guys).

This is a sad deck, since I simply slapped this deck together with all the Sniper Rifles (got a lot of that during KOT) and Losses I had, and had this idea that Assamites can be good blockers - or rather, specifically, Assamites Magajis can be good blockers.

The game went rather slow for me in the beginning, bringing out Kabede and Reza, with a Recruit in training and a Sniper Rifle on Kabede. YY's Meshenka was looking at everything I do, and eventually he asked Lambach to join him in the viewing gallery. Meanwhile, LF was having a rather good time with Arishat and Scout Youngwood throwing Reckless Agitations and Lilies at Hadi. Hadi was doing relatively ok still, since LF had to be concerned over my ability to block her votes, as well as the good number of counter votes on the table.

With that John was on the chopping board, since Hadi deflected a good number of bleeds to him while applying DOM bleed pressure on John. I had quite an ok time bleeding LF, since her vampires were not exactly capable of blocking my stealth Losses. An early Path of Blood allowed me to bleed pretty consistently. I thought all was going well for me until YY thrown down the first War Ghoul. I was rather careful after that, almost always keeping Kabede untapped to prevent the War Ghoul from slaughtering my younger vampires.

John ultimately lose one of his vampires after blocking YY (Rotschrecked), but he did get his revenge by Sudden Reversing a Powerbase Barranquilla AFTER YY counted ALL 10 counters to put on the card. YY Dark Influenced my Loss during the turn that I was actually going for the kill, but LF wasn't able to take that time to oust Hadi.

YY had 2 War Ghouls by then, and was able to send my Recruits into torpor, but not before I managed to finally oust LF and Hadi. I brought out Sajid, but a battle between Kabede and Meshenka resulted in both of us in torpor - multiple attempts to rescue and leave torpor were thwarted by John. I thought I was a goner, but John actually had the time to try to kill YY. YY only had 4 pool left, and John tried a good bleed with Daring the Dawn, finally getting through Lambach and ousting YY!

But after that he wasn't in much shape to handle my Losses.

Final VP Count

Me - 4 VPs plus GW

John - 1 VP

(o.o)

At Your Disposal : Ascendance

Well. This is one card you don't really see. Why? 'Cause this is one card that you shouldn't be using if you at least have some options left.

You see, Master cards are very powerful actions in a game, so powerful that it has a phase dedicated to it, and you can generally only play one Master card during your turn. Ascendance is a good example of wasting that privilege. In a nutshell, spending one card and one "action" for gaining a miserable pool is an absolute indicator of a newly embraced player. (Or one that is so superior he needs to handicap himself in a game)

Look at all the other options you can have to gain that one pool. For example, a Powerbase Montreal. The Powerbase is generally alright for giving you that 1 pool too, as long as you have somebody at the uncontrolled region and some spare transfers to bring it back - and you can use it again and again provided you can defend it. Even a Blood Doll (bless'im) can bring back 1 pool as long as you have some blood lying somewhere with your vampires, and again it is a lot more permanent than an Ascendance. Various Investment cards, though unable to give you the pool immediately, can provide more kick for your card space in the long run.

And if you consider action cards, then you have even more options. From the ever popular Governed the Unaligned, to the very popular Off Kilter lately, the ability to get pool back from action cards far surpasses Ascendance.

However, with all that said. I think at the end of the day, Ascendance is still the only card that give you 1 extra pool from the bank, immediately as the card is played, with absolutely no other requirements besides the need to play this card successfully.

It is therefore one of the best cards to include in a demo deck.

And therefore, it'll never go away, despite the lack of support.

I think it is a great Vtes card.

(o.o)v

The Eternal Jyhad : I Remember

I remember.

I remember Chi Yong showing me the 3rd Edition starters, and telling me that slapping 2x !Malkavian Starters together makes a tournament worthy deck, cheapest possible CCG to start during that time. I remember committing my hard-earned income on those starters while cursing and swearing on what AEG had done to me with their multiple "reboots"

I remember how happy I was about Vtes that very day.

I remember bleeding very hard, and very well - myself included.

I remember the rush to find cards in eBay. I remember literally bleeding my wallet dry getting my first Entombment.

I remember pondering over all those Bloodlines, and my everlasting relationship with the Gargoyles.

I remember my Air Rock deck winning me my first tournament.

I remember sending many vampires to torpor, and seeing many of mine joining them.

I remember new Prince, new Players, new Havens, and most importantly, new cards.

I remember old Princes, Old Friends, Old places, and most importantly, old games.

I remember the first time I play my Succubus Club. I remember the first time Danz Social Ladder me as an ally.

I remember cursing Brainwash, I remember praising Consanguinous Boons. I remember contesting Carlton, and I remember yielding Powerbase Montreal.

I remember the happiness I get for opening tons and tons of booster packs. I remember painstakingly sorting my cards into alphabetical order, in my room, and in the pool.

I remember hiding Diabolic Lure from my wife, and giving Ascendences to my sons. I remember throwing demo games, and I remember sitting in them.

I remember reading the Player's Guide and highlighting important concepts. I remember writing blogs and editing lines. I remember copying deck lists, and downloading ARDB.

And I remember Bann's absurd ability to recall almost every card in Vtes. And my own ability to misread most of them - though it's handy at times.

I remember bleeding the preys (or even allies) I don't like, and I remember bloating allies (and sometimes prey) whom I like. I remember wowing Keith's 100million NEC decks, and teasing Ryans's answer to all problems - combat.

I remember BK's ever-bloating deck, and I remember the Magaji who didn't even let me look into my fridge for a snack.

I remember much of the laughter. I remember much of the fun.

I also remember that I'm still a Vtes player.

Eternally, perhaps not. But for a darn darn long time I'm sure.

(o.o)o

The Eternal Jyhad : Vtes is gone.

Rest in Peace, my fellow Methuselahs.

May we leave torpor some day.

Meanwhile, I think I'm just going to go somewhere and sulk for a moment, before asking all my minions to go burn the ghouls that are responsible for this.

They deserved the Sixth Tradition, my friends.

(T.T)

Lyrics of the Night : Allies

Very few allies are vampiric, and they don't even burst into flame or turn to dust in the sun, but you still see many of them running around bleeding, killing, or doing random things to Methuselahs that are usually minding their own business. What's so attractive about spending for a little thing that is usually not even immortal? (Of course, there are those who are, but they aren't as cool as vampires anyway, except the Succubus of course, who even has her own club)

Well, allies have several standard advantages over our reliable kindred. First of all, they don't really differentiate aggravated damage from normal damage - which means that if your combat deck relies on the "1 aggravated damage" to remove your prey's minions, you'll have to do it many times to even to be able to get rid of some lowly allies, and for some, you simply will never be able to do so.

Secondly, the ally is kind of an "action" card, and comes into play usually through the action of some other minions, giving one the potential of overwhelming the table with many minions over several turns, since it sorta "bypass" the limit of the influence phase. (Trivia - say I Clan Impersonate Appius into Tremere, slap an Ankara Citadel on it, and then Clan Impersonate him back to Lasombra with a Path of Night in play, and then slap a Charisma and a Perfectionist on it; assuming that he has full blood and no blocks or reactions cards were ever played while he's at it, and assuming he can untap without cost and without limits, how many Nocturns can he call in a round before he runs out of blood?)(I know, it's stupid, but it's fun)

Lastly, allies are able to bypass many interesting and often deadly stuff that vampires do to each other but conveniently forgotten to get it useable on allies. Daring the Dawn for example, is completely useless on even the lowest Arms Dealer (or even a Stray). That can be life or death when you're up against a deck that uses a lot of "vampires cannot block" tech.

And many of the better allies has abilities that make even the eldest kindred drool with envy. Take Ossian for example, on a good day he might have more life counters than the whole bank of Caine can afford (Imagine a vampire with that much blood counters on him...), or the in-built Stealth and Bleed of our latest Veneficti. (And all the other cool stuff that it has). Not to mention that some really really good allies can play discipline cards like a vampire (or be able to gain that ability in some way, like with Leech)

There are many dedicated ally decks that make use of some of the best allies in game, the Nephandus, the Renegade Garou, the Nocturns, Tunnel Runners, War Ghouls, Shambling Hordes and the occasional Reanimated Corpse.

Certain cards are key to ally decks, Unmasking is almost always present in every deck that uses a good number of allies. The no-questions-asked +1 Intercept for all allies is a ridiculous advantage in defense - but it can backfire if your prey (or predator) happens to use either the right ally, or also with lots of allies. You can of course choose not to play the Unmasking. Speaking of Unmasking, most events are the allies of the allies, since they rarely affect them, and many of them gives them advantages that can trump the vampire's advantages over them - like the FBI.

Speaking of the vampire's advantages - the first is the vampires' ability to recover from damage - be it hunting, or leave torpor. When an ally runs out of life it is gone, to the ash heap it goes. Besides Ossian, I don't think any other allies can recover life easily - most combat allies get to recover about 1 life per turn, but can never go beyond their starting life, and it is really hard to do that. Vegabond may help to recover life for the allies, and some disciplines have abilities to do so (OBE for example), but it is usually pretty inefficient to do that. I think that NEC has the best means of utilizing the allies AFTER they're dead (usually a couple of times), but those are specific decks (Mental Patients in our case)

There are also cards that can really startled the allies - Entrancement is something you really don't want to see when your War Ghoul is on the table. Random cards can eliminate your allies just like that, no matter how threatening it may look like - take Entombment for example, or stuff like The Secret Must Be Kept.

But throwing generic advantages and problems aside, allies are usually used for 4 main purposes.

1. Combat.

Combat allies abound in the environment. From the 史上最强werewolf (Remnents), to War Ghouls and Reengade Garous, their one standard ability is the ability to enter combat directly. They also usually come with the ability to end the combat victoriously - be it with their ridiculous amount of Strength, the ability to generate aggravated damage, or simply the inability for unprepared vampires to kill it. Combat allies deck is one of the most common sight for ally decks.

2. Bleed

Bleeding allies can either use an overwhelming number of actions (like the Khazar's Wraiths, or the Nocturns), or in-built stealth (or the ability to play stealth) and bleeds like the Veneficti. Some may play discipline cards to either get stealth or bleeds, like the Servitors or Thuggees.

3. Defense

Many allies are defensive in nature, even combat allies are sometimes used just to add in some defense. Carlton is the star of defensive allies, so good he is that he is even used in decks just to deny the opponent from having him. There are also those who can only be killed with aggravated damage, like Tye Cooper, and with Unmasking it is often difficult to get pass him. Certain allies can add (or have)Intercepts or untaps for their masters, like the Strays, or High Top.

4. Enhancement

There are certain allies that are used because their abilities enhance or complement the deck effectively - for example, the use of Succubus or Young Blood in a Cryptic Mission deck, Ambrosius in a Zombie deck, Arms Dealer in a weapon deck and so on. Sometimes the ally can be so good that they become the star of the deck, like the Nephandus; or they can be integral to the deck's operational ability and become so important that their removal can spell a great setback for the deck - like the Procurer.

Overall, allies are nice pets to have in a deck, some of them are truly amazing, many are quite useless for their cost, but most are just icing for your deck. Use them carefully, and use them well.

(o.o)

Skirmishes in the Dark : 07-09-2010

The night of 7th September, in the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.

Now that the qualifiers is over, I don't have the pressure of testing or tuning decks for the deadly struggle of a tournament, so I started taking out old old fun decks and went down to PI for a game. YY and LF were already there doing community service in sorting clan cards for the pool, and after quite a while, other Methuselahs soon appear after their dinner hunting trip.

Randomized Seating for Game 1 (only 1 anyway)

YY's Kiasyd bleed, bleeding

LF's Ventrue Vote, bleeding

John's !Ventrue Block/Bleed, bleeding

Bann's Nosferatu vote, bleeding

My Kissing Guns.

Bann was the first to bring out vampires, a 2-cap Nosferatu, and he was my predator. I had a whole hand of master cards, one of them was an Information Highway contesting LF's, so I didn't play it but slapped down the Wider View and Barrens instead, using the Barrens to discard the Highway to draw...another Highway...

In response to Bann's early minion, I pulled out Freddy Gage and Johan Wrede. 2 more transfers went to Al-Muntaqim. LF was very fast with her titled Ventrues and started throwing Conservative Agitations and KRCs towards John before he had his minions ready. I started discarding Master Cards just to clear my hands, but thanks to the Barrens I was able to have a reasonably effective hand pretty quickly. I hard-purchased an Assault Rifle for Freddy, and had him rushing Bann's Agrippa, sending her to torpor. That one gun frightened YY's Kiasyds and he transferred to multiple minions with the intention to bring them all out at one shot.

That gave LF quite a happy time against John, with 3 vampires against 2 - though John's intercepts did prevent LF from running away with the game. Meanwhile, Bann was having a hard time after I brought out Al-Muntaquim and Walker Grimes. Bann's titled vampire (including Greger Andersen) bled me good good, but I drew enough combat cards to attack and sent them into torpor, while znging my Trujah. An early Rack helped Al-Muntaquim from keeping himself fit for battle.

Soon YY's Kiasyds were out in the open, and I was too busy fighting off the occasional DOM bleed from Bann to really care. Most of my bleeds against YY were bounced to LF anyway... LF's progress was hampered by both John's intercepts, and YY's bleeds.

Bann was the first to go, dying to John's bounce and bleeds. LF, robbed of her victory, did managed to banish a Kiasyd (Isanwayan, I think) before finally dying to YY, though by then, YY had only 1 active Kiasyd on the table. Influencing another Kiasyd out brought YY's pool down to a level that I could kill.

John then made the mistake of blocking one of my inconsequential action - Hourglass of the Mind at basic TEM, and I promptly sent his vampire into torpor with the standard Outside+Domain combo. YY's last vampire were sent into torpor and he transferred himself out - stating that it was totally legit since he had no way of getting more VPs. By then all of John's vampires were in torpor and he conceded the game.

Final VP Count

Me - 3 VPs plus GW

YY - 1 VP

John - 1 VP

('^')v

Singing a New Tune - Forest of Blood

Crypt [12 vampires]

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

2x Paul Forrest, False Prophet

1x Ganesh

1x Tsunda

1x Callirus

1x Papa Legba

1x Brian Thompson

1x Devyn

1x Gharston Roland

1x Johann Matheson

1x Gwen Brand

1x Marion French

Library [90 cards]

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

Action [21]

10x Edged Illusion

2x Fatuus Mastery

2x Sensory Deprivation

1x Sensory Overload

6x Tumnimos

Action Modifier [11]

1x False Resonance

8x Fata Morgana

2x Mirror's Visage

Action Modifier/Combat [13]

7x Mirror Image

6x Occlusion

Ally [1]

1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

Combat [12]

10x Apparition

2x Mayaparisatya

Combat/Reaction [2]

2x Fata Amria

Equipment [3]

1x Karavalanisha Vrana

1x Shilmulo Tarot

1x Treasured Samadji

Master [25]

7x Chimerstry

2x Dreams of the Sphinx

1x Fortune Teller Shop

1x Jake Washington (Hunter)

3x Path of Paradox, The

2x Perfectionist

1x Ravnos Carnival

4x Vessel

1x Wash

2x Week of Nightmares

1x Lilith's Blessing

Reaction [2]

2x Ignis Fatuus

After the unsuccessful application of the Forest of Blood in the Asian Qualifiers, I've went back to the drawing board again and stripped the deck apart and put it back together. Well, defeat is the best motivator. So here's the new Forest.

Primary Path of Ousting

This is a breed and bleed deck, and it has very little secondary option. In a nutshell it needs to generate enough minions and then bleed quickly and often enough to overwhelm the defender, relying on the pool gain from ousting to survive. It may sound like a bad strategy since there is no plan B if somehow the primary path is compromised, but after using this deck for quite a while, even at a disadvantageous situation, I found that this deck's primary means of getting rid of the prey is quite difficult to deter.

Fundamentally, I bring out as many 5-cap and above vampires as soon as possible, and then call forth as many Tumninos as I can afford, hopefully with CHI master card on them. In this deck, a simple 3 cap superior CHI Tumnimos is just as effective as pretty much all of the other Ravnos. Bleed whenever I can, boost the bleed if I can afford it, stealth through if I need to, fight if I must, losing a minion or two shouldn't worry me too much. When the time is right, drop the Week of Nightmares and start charging forward. The idea is to kill 3 preys, and not sweep the table, since when the Nightmare expires I'm probably out of the game.

Secondary Path of Ousting

This deck doesn't really have one. But if the enemy isn't careful, a good round of Edged Illusion and/or Sensory Deprivation will disable him for a turn or two. And then I can bleed him good good.

Crypt

Pretty much a unique crypt, but Paul Forest is a good preference to have on the table due to his ability to help boost bleeds. Other than that, 5-cap vampires should be the priority since they're the only ones able to call Tumnimos. After that go for vampires with superior CHI unless you have a good load of CHI master cards in hand.

Combat

Surprisingly this deck can handle most kinds of combat attacks. Mirror Image and Occlusion are excellent multi-purpose cards, and can help to deal with most combat that can't deal very efficiently with combat ends. Against all others there is Apparition. The problem with this is the blood cost to play these cards, so I'm only truly safe when the Path of Paradox is in play. This deck also have several surprises for the enemy in combat, Mayaparitsaya can be a really deadly defense, and Fata Amria can sometimes slow down the enemy a little.

Defense

This deck's main defense is offense. Use Edged Illusion and Sensory Deprivation to deny the predator from doing too many things. Perhaps I can consider using more Sense Dep than Edged Illusions but we all know how difficult it is to get Sense Deps. Other than that, block with pool.

Pool Recovery

Very bad, besides the 4 Vessels, which the vampires are probably quite without blood after a while, this deck has no real means of getting pool back besides killing the prey quickly.

Surprise Element

Nope. Nothing too surprising for the enemy except when you're going to drop the Nightmare.

Known Weaknesses

This deck's pool recovery is pathetic. And if the prey bounces consistently, or bloats effectively, and slow down the kill speed of the deck, then it is done for. High Intercept decks can also deal effectively with this deck since most stealth from this deck requires blood - which means that burning the Path of Paradox will also vastly reduce the threat level of this deck, and the deck has very little means of defending the Path anyway.

Playing the Deck

Get 5-cap Ravnos, get more Tumnimos, bleed, bleed, bleed. When the time is right, drop the Week of Nightmares and bleed bleed bleed.

(o.o)nightmare

Vampire : the Evaluated Situation : Asian Championship Qualifiers

The day of 5th September, in the year 2010, Games Garage.

It was a pretty last minute decision (or rather, approval) for me to be able to participate in this qualifier, given the recent health crisis in the family and the issue that it was actually being held on a Sunday AND in the morning wee hours at 9am! (Must miss Church, must miss sleep, must entice wife...you know the drills...)

Nevertheless I managed to start preparing for the qualifiers around Saturday midnight, and after pondering for about 5 minutes, decided to use my Forest of Blood deck in the tournament (mainly because it was lying conveniently in sight), but made the most idiotic decision to replace all the Week of Nightmares with (you wouldn't believe this) Lilith's Blessing. I was to regret this decision in every round that I played in the tournament.

Goes to prove the Week of Nightmares is so so so powerful. Don't leave home without it, or it'll make your Ravnos really weak.

After a walk in the rain, I finally reached GG. Despite being late for almost 7 minutes, it seems that most Methuselahs have difficulty Daring the Dawn, and we all waited for about an hour more before the game started. Proudly, I was the first to register for the qualifiers.

Randomized Seating for Game 1

Derek's Tremere Bruise Bleed, bleeding

My Forest of Blood, bleeding

Bann's Nosferatu, bleeding

Dzaki's Saulot Marionette, bleeding

YiPeng's Imbued.

Sitting below a DOM bleeder is a nightmare for every deck, and Derek is a very aggressive bleeding predator. Immediately at the start of the game I started getting consistent Governs and Conditionings from Derek's Selena and gang and I was forced to shift to full defense for the entire game. I was the best predator the whole world could ask for, since I did absolutely nothing to my prey.

Despite this, Bann wasn't able to do too much due to Dzaki's very defensive nature and Saulot's early Biothaumaturgical Experiment cancelling many of his Aid from Bats' advantage in combat. Not to mention that he didn't draw any master ANI cards for his little weenies. On the other hand, YiPeng was being ultra conservative despite having almost no pressure from Dzaki, his Imbueds spending most their time getting bloated, and occasionally bleeding me since Derek was able to happily bounce most bleeds to me. The NSA Trio played by YiPeng destroyed my only hope of using my Paul Forest's Karavaranisha Vrana's ability to bloat a little. (Despite Bann's hints (twice), I forgot the blood discount that Karavaranisha gave me, and proceeded to actually use Paul's blood for all the CHI things he did.)

The only reason I was able to survive was because of Derek's consistent lack of stealth, and my numerous minions blocking most of his bleeds. Of course, eventually I ran out of blood since I didn't draw any Sense Dep for defense, and no Chimestry Master card AND no Path of Paradox.

Surprisingly, maybe it was due to the early morning syndrome, the game lasted the entire 2 hours. I was the first to be ousted, though it was a close one, as Derek was down to 3 pool when YiPeng was done with him, and he used that opportunity to oust me, getting the first VP in the qualifiers (Every other table's Methuselahs were surviving their battles pretty well, no one was ousted until me, so not only was I the first to register, I was the first to be ousted, and by the end of the first game the ONLY one with no VP!). YiPeng did finally ousted Derek before time out.

Final VP Count -

YiPeng - 1.5 VP

Derek - 1 VP

Everybody else but me - 0.5 VP

Me - 0 VP. ZERO. Zip.

Randomized Seating for Game 2

Edward's DOM weenies, bleeding

Derek's Tremere Bruise Bleed, bleeding

Danz's Toreador thing, bleeding

My Forest of Blood.

I got lucky this game with Danz as my predator, as historically he always do a lot of work to eliminate his allies, whom usually holds the exalted position of being my prey. This game was no exception.

Ed started off as aggressive as any DOM weenies are, bleeding CONSISTENTLY with Scouting Mission/Governed the Unaligned + Conditioning/Bonding, with the occasional Sleeping Mind. Derek was having a really hard time handling that, but with his signature doggedness, bounce and bleed Danz whenever he could. Meanwhile, Danz's first vampire was sent into torpor, and after that, had to withstand consistent attacks from the DOM bleeder.

At one point, Derek bounced a 5-point bleed to Danz, and that sent Danz into an extremely defensive mode, though Danz got back on his feet with a Parity Shift (on me), he kinda made Ed's life extremely difficult after playing a successful My Enemy's Enemy (also of a 5-point bleed, now this is retribution).

My Edged Illusions against Ed was devastating, especially after Danz played a Tension in the Ranks. Ed was down to 1 pool when he tried his final turn to oust Derek. He wasn't successful, but was able to reduce Derek to 3 pool (This number seems to be Derek's favorite key number in this qualifier) before I ousted him. After that I was able to cruised through Derek's badly weakened defenses, and finally through Danz to sweep the table.

I was a happy Methuselah.

Final VP Count -

Me - Mine, All Mine. 4VPs plus GW.

Randomized Seating for Game 3

YY's Daughters Vote, bleeding

Bann's Nosferatu, bleeding

My Forest of Blood, bleeding

Keith's Khazar's Diary.

I had very little pressure in playing this game since I know I'm almost definitely going to make it to the finals. But I wanted more VPs, getting in as the top seed was a highly attractive thing. However, I was up against 3 of the best players in my area, and Danz was not my predator.

Strictly speaking, I had the best crypt draw in this game, all my vampires in the opening crypt had superior CHI, making my early attacks rather efficient, and with Tsunda on table I could actually speak in YY's political attempts, keeping most damaging votes to my predator and prey. However, Keith, as usual, had about a ton of minions blocking my bleeds, and with an early Unmasking, (and I have no Path), forced me to be more conservative in bleeding.

Bann was having a bad day against the Daughters, with his only vampire with Raven Spy Sense Dep-ed by me. His attempts to block YY wasn't very successful, but got a lot out of his investment in his minions by bleeding me with Deep Song.

I wasn't able to survive despite reducing Keith's pool to a single row of 5 (after many Liquidation...). YY paid for his inability to oust Bann to give me the chance to oust Keith, and was ousted by Keith straight after my death.

After Keith's pool reached about 20 by playing enough Liquidation, Bann decided to give up and yielded the game.

Final VP Count-

Keith - 3 VPs plus GW

Bann - 1 VP

This was the VP situation as I know it, please visit Domain Singapore for a clear and concise battle report for the finals (coming soon) since I saw YY writing A LOT of notes on the game and LF taking A LOT of pictures. Suffice to say that it was a great game!

Final VP Situation at Finals -

Robin - 1 GW, 5.5 VPs

Me - 1 GW, 4 VPs

Keith - 1 GW, 3.5 VPs

Danz - 1 GW, 2.5 VPs

Derek - 3 VPs

Other Methuselahs present were -

BK, Bann, Dzaki, Edward, YiPeng, YY (for standing in), LF (organizer and photographer) and Faiz.

Too bad Sheena was sick (I heard) and Paul wasn't able to turn up. Really wanted to play with you guys again! Missing Methuselahs please register for Last Chance Qualifiers - we still have a lot of excellent players here to trump the world!

Looking forward to the LCQ!

(o.o)

My Deck in the Asian Qualifiers

Deck Name : Forest of Blood

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 6 average: 4.5

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

2x Paul Forrest, False Phrophet

1x Ganesh

1x Tsunda

1x Callirus

1x Papa Legba

1x Brian Thompson

1x Devyn

1x Gharston Roland

1x Johann Matheson

1x Gwen Brand

1x Marion French

Library [90 cards]

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

Action [22]

10x Edged Illusion

4x Fatuus Mastery

2x Sensory Deprivation

6x Tumnimos

Action Modifier [10]

1x False Resonance

8x Fata Morgana

2x Mirror's Visage

Action Modifier/Combat [12]

6x Mirror Image

6x Occlusion

Ally [1]

1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

Combat [13]

10x Apparition

3x Trap

Equipment [4]

1x Camera Phone

1x Karavalanisha Vrana

1x Shilmulo Tarot

1x Treasured Samadji

Master [24]

7x Chimerstry

1x Dreams of the Sphinx

1x Fortune Teller Shop

1x Jake Washington (Hunter)

1x Park Hunting Ground

3x Path of Paradox, The

2x Ravnos Carnival

4x Vessel

1x Visit from the Capuchin

1x Wash

2x Lilith's Blessing

Reaction [2]

2x Ignis Fatuus

(o.o)

At Your Disposal : Ex Nihilo

Well, if Vtes doesn't come up with new expansion(s) soon, I will have to write about Ascendance eventually. But meanwhile let's look at a very special (and requires pretty much a special deck for it) card - Ex Nihilo.

The first time I saw this card I didn't realize how powerful it can be (it happens a lot to me, you need to write "+10 bleed" on a card to make me realize a card is good) During then I have yet to understand the value of an on-table +1 Stealth. And that's only part of the cool stuff that Ex-Nihilo gives your vampire.

So basically you have this card on a vampire and you pay 1 blood for +1 Stealth every round or you can burn the card, or burn the vampire during your master phase.

But the +1 Stealth is only the icing for what this card truly offers you - it gives you the ability to ignore aggravated damage! On the other hand, it reduced the damage that you do to zero - which means that you can't really rely on the vampire to damage the enemy. This may sounds like a completely defensive package, and it does work very well as a defensive measure - but have no doubt that this card can allow the vampire with it to become a killing machine, if you know how to prepare it.

One of the most common means of doing this is with the Zombie retainer, where it still does its own damage by itself without asking for the Ex Nihilo-ed vampire's help - and as a bonus you could burn the zombie for 2 blood when you feel the pain of maintaining the Ex Nihilo for too long. And with this methodology you have a full range of options - Ghoul Retainer, Murder of Crows, Elephants, or even just Lady Thunder. (Why you'd have Lady Thunder in such a deck is open for discussion -though she does have DOM and THA, so probably useable in a Nihilo bleed deck) Well, it all sounds cool on paper but I assure you that in practice this will not do much more than being another defensive enhancement for your vampire.

THA-abled vampires play with Trap and Weather Control with Ex Nihilo. (Please remember not to play Zombie AND Weather Control at the same time, the zombies will be blown away too) The Weather Control damage dealt to your own vampire is neutralized by Ex Nihilo, while the enemy will have a great time suffering in the storm. This is a much more effective killing engine, but it however, suffers from the issue of a thin selection of vampires without playing Master Discipline cards, and most of them are 7-cap and up. (Ambrogino Giovanni seems to be the most popular vampire for this, since he has +Stealth +Bleed as his base and merged ability, and he has a great ability to recover some blood). Remember to use Theft too, not only does it help your vampire to regain some blood after the Nihilo is burnt, it also effectively deals 2 "damage" to your opponent while the Nihilo in on. (You don't the blood of course, but who cares?)

But I personally think that using Ex Nihilo as a combat package is quite a waste for the effort it required to maintain this card. In the best case scenario, in my opinion, this card should be maximized in a deck where vampires can either take multi-actions in a round, and/or able to recover the blood spent on maintaining the Ex Nihilo. And all the NEC bloodlines have some benefits in this area. (The Giovannis already have DOM...)

First, many Samedis and Harbingers have FOR. With FOR we all know that Freak Drives will help them in taking multiple actions in a round, maximizing the +1 Stealth given by Ex Nihilo, and we also know that Samedis have lots of things to do in a round - Bleed, Off Kilter, Cemetery, Reanimated Corpse, Decompose etc etc. And once the vampire ran out of blood (and they do run out of those really fast), use Restoration to get those blood back. On the other hand, the FOR allows you to handle the occasional aggravated damage that comes along to prevent the vampire from going into torpor in those rare occasions that it is actually blocked.

The Nagaraja has even better blood recovery abilities - Emergency Rations, Consume the dead etc etc. The deadliest thing about this is that many of them has DOM, and that makes them excellent bleeding minions. The extra +1 Stealth is deadly in this case.

The one issue about Ex Nihilo is the maintainence. Eventually your vampire will run out of blood, since it cannot gain any while Ex is Nihiloing it. The way around is therefore to burn the Ex Nihilo when your vampire ran out of blood, and then quickly regain enough blood and slap a new Nihilo on it.

There are some vampires that will do very well with Ex Nihilo too, for example, Eze, since he gets a free extra action with his special ability, and he can use voter cap to regain a good number of blood after the Nihilo is burnt; and Oliver Thrace will just Weather Control away anyone who dared to block him without ability to generate aggravated damage.

Nevertheless, using Ex-Nihilo in a deck is unlikely to be a coincidence, since the maintainance cost is pretty high, though it'd be interesting to just include a copy or 2, just in case, since it can actually remove a lot of combat threat. The good thing is that Ex Nihilo works pretty well even at basic NEC, so it is not hard to use it in any deck with the relevant discipline.

You know what? I'm surprised that I've yet to see one of Keith's deck doing this - tweaked to a ridiculously effective and surprising level of course.

(o.o)

At Your Disposal : Underbridge Stray

When I first saw the doggie I wasn't too impressed. Just another generic little ally doggie that could help a little, and it has no bleed. Not worth the deck space was my original thought of this little card. I, of course, like most other times, were proven wrong rather quickly when the Stray turned up left right center among the ANI decks in my area. And these doggies are good!

The little doggie might look innocent at first glance, especially to naive neonates like me, but looking deeper into it now (several of my preys and/or predators have motivated me to read it carefully), it has a lot of utility packed into one single card.

Let's look at what it does, and where it fits. (besides under the bridge)

First, it is an ally, and therefore a minion, giving you another action (or reaction) once it hits the table. It looks innocent, and generally most enemies will leave it alone, and few will actually attempt to block your effort in recruiting this dog. They will soon regret it. The Stray can then do what most allies can do, block or burn some random cards (like an Army of Rats, or even better, some random Path, and would be really funny if you manage to use a Wall Street on the Stray and has some investment to target).

Don't forget that it only costs 1 blood. The only other non-unique allies which costs 1 blood or less, and has the utility of this little dog, IMHO, are the Nocturn, and the Arms Dealer. (And the Bima if you can actually has a deck built with him in mind). And even these 2 doesn't have the overall effectiveness of the Stray. I think it is not too much to say that the Stray is probably the best non-unique ally at his cost.

But that's if you play it at superior ANI. At basic it's cool, but not something you can write home about, and probably dies rather quickly. Once you play it at superior (that's the issue with ANI, at basic it is usually not too exciting, and the value-added at superior is truly superior), the doggie truly shines like a Pluto.

It now has 1 strength, therefore it can fight. If it causes 1 damage to the opponent it usually means you have more or less make back the cost of the Stray. Since it has 2 life, there is a chance that it can cause 2 points of damage before it goes~

But the true value of the Stray is in his ability. Burning a blood to provide a press (at superior it can do this twice) is useful once in a while in the right ANI deck to allow Carrion Crows to do one more round of damage, or prevent the enemy from getting away from that persistent Aid From Bats. In fact, the presence of the Stray alone can sometimes convince your enemy to give up on pressing to end. So you see, at superior ANI, you now have 2 on-table presses.

But that's not all, if you need, you can burn the Stray to untap a minon you control. Note the word UNTAP. This is not a wake card, it untaps a minion of your choice, so that even if you do fail to block with that minion, he or she will still be good to block the next action and so on. It also allows that untapped minion to take all sorts of defensive reactions that he/she fancies - Telepathic Misdirection for the Tzimisce, Terra Incognita for Akunanse, and all the other funky things that ANI vampires can do besides blocking. (even Fast Reaction would be cool). Of course, the untap is limited to useable only during a D action against you, but I'm sure you'll agree that D actions against you happens really often.

For ANI decks, blocking is a common strategy, and the presence of a Stray forced your opponent to really consider his actions against you, and therefore is something like a litmus test when the opponent tries to do something to you. Normally, if all your vampires are tapped out, an attempt to bleed might be a gamble to lure your untaps and wakes, but with a Stray on table (it doesn't even needs to be untapped), the action (unless the opponent is careless, ignorant, or plain stupid) is usually taken with some consideration of either surviving your blocks, or defeating your defenses. That is a pretty good hint for you to decide what to do. (There are devious psychological warfare meant to confuse you even when you have a Stray - don't care, just burn it and block it with your biggest vampire, chances are, if the opponent tries to talk to you about not blocking, do the opposite!)

Almost all of the ANI decks will benefit from this ally, some more than the others, and almost always superior in decks that use a good number of ally cards. I think that Derek is on the right track by including some of these puppies in his Renegade Garou deck, and a couple of them with the Tzimisce will serve both as the foundation of the War Ghoul's right foot, or as an alarm clock to remind the War Ghoul that somebody is knocking at the door (certainly better than using On the Qui Vive)

When all else fails, it bleeds for 1 with Computer Hacking.

(o.o)

Skirmishes in the Dark : 31-08-2010

The night of 31st August, in the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.

The last day of August, and quite a while since I had Vtes in PI, due to the recent crisis in the family. But it seems to be all clear now, so I'm starting to dedicate time for my favourite hobby.

6 Methuselahs were present so I thought I would be sitting out the first game, since I only brought 1 deck yesterday, but Bann had superior CEL, and opted out before I can say "Vtes". So I got into the first game and started the long night of being bullied by G1 (AND YY).

Randomized Seating for Game 1

YY's Daughters, bleeding

John's Malkavian Wall, bleeding

Keith's Bleeding Hordes, bleeding

G1's Valerius Wall, bleeding

My Howling.

It was a sad sad day for my Ahrimanes. G1's second turn Valorius with a TupDog frightened me so much that I kept all my Ahrimanes in the uncontrolled region until I'm ready to move all 3 of them out in a single turn. That of course, is a super mistake - shame on me for being such a coward.

Anyway, that probably make G1 pretty happy, and soon I realized that his TupDog are such crypt cycler, and isn't as scary as Bann's pack. During a turn where he has no TupDog (and influenced Uta instead), I brought out the long awaited Wild Girls - Siamese, Howler and Nettie Hale. By then YY's Daughters had been happily Reckless Agitating John and devastating my mood with his ridiculous number of pool from all the Voter Caps and Fringe Benefits from Performing.

The double Vessel that I placed on the Ahrimanes, and the Powerbase Montreal kept me alive against G1's occasional bleeds, but G1's high intercept makes my life pretty difficult since I cannot easily stealth through Valorius's Bowl plus all his Auspex Intercepts. I did got through a Muricia's Call and had a Murder of Crows on Howler, and Siamese had the New Moon Vigil.

After a while, G1's Biothaumaturgically enhanced Uta and Valorius kinda cancelled my Howler's and Siamese's maneuvers, and we actually didn't get into much combat. I tried to focus on the Daughters, but by then it was too late. With Dmitra and Scout Youngwood (plus a whole horde of pool), my attacks were easily neutralized by YY's pool defense.

John was the first to go, with all those Reckless Agitation and KRCs (plus the occasional Lily), John was ousted quickly by the Daughters. Keith was then forced to attack relentlessly with his Hordes (which happens to be a bleed with Computer Hacking), and somehow his Hordes were able to bleed for 5 at 1 stealth, which was of course promptly deflected to me while I wasn't ready.

A massive combat sent Valorius into torpor, but Howler joined him quickly. Keith was soon ousted by the Daughters, and with Valorius weakened, even though I started to go easy on G1, YY didn't really need a lot of effort to kill G1 off. My death was then without a doubt.

Final VP Count

YY - All YY's

Randomized Seating for Game 2

I can't believe it, but I'm still being bled by G1, and bleeding YY.

My Howling, bleeding

YY's Samedi Bleed/Bloat, bleeding

Bann's Anarch !Toreador, bleeding

John's Malkavian Wall, bleeding

G1's Valorius Wall.

Another sad sad game for my Ahrimanes. It started off ok, with Howler and Cynthia onto the table pretty quickly. It then quickly went downhill as G1 blocked pretty much everything I do whenever he could - no Raven Spies, no Engling Fury, no nothing. And Howler went into torpor twice, once because of Rotschreck, and the other simply because G1 can.

Again, it allowed YY to run away with the game since I sucked as a predator. Though Howler was eventually allowed to get her Heart of the City, and that did manage to make Howler an effective bleeder, but the lack of Raven Spies made me unable to deal with YY's bloating mechanics. Aranthebes, Army of Rats, and the standard Rack+Vessel combo did keep my pool healthy enough to survive.

Bann had a terrible draw, since his bleed deck isn't really bleeding his prey very well, but was quite dedicated to dying. YY's Troglodytia truly exhibited the great ability to look at everybody's hand and I believed that that allowed YY to make a lot of informed choices. John's wall was effective this time, blocking 9 out of 10 of Bann's bleeds, and depleting his vampires' bleed quite effectively with Weighted Walking Sticks and so on. Meanwhile, G1 was enjoying himself sending my Howler into torpor, but besides that wasn't that effective in killing my pool. (Again, his Valorius had the Bowl, plus Abbot, plus Guardian Angel, so he wasn't too concerned about direct attacks)

The Cemetry and Off Kilter kept YY's controlled region full of minions, and soon all of them had Camera Phones and stuff and pretty much all of them bleed for 3. That contributed greatly to Bann's demise. The battle against John took a little longer, but all that changed when G1 sent (I think it was Titus) into torpor and Grave-Robbed him (comes with free Blood Doll and Weighted Walking Stick). Even though I quickly sent Titus into torpor it was too late for John. He never recovered from the shock and was soon ousted by YY.

With Valerius around, the OBF of the Samedi wasn't very popular, and YY started to have many of his actions blocked. Meanwhile I tried extremely hard to recover from the damages that G1 had done, and many thanks to the Powerbase Montreal and the Rack, I did. Though G1's Smiling Jack eventually caused a lot of damage to me (All my vampires only had 1 blood left and I was down to 6 pool), he was ousted before Jack could accumulate the 5th counter.

It was late and YY, after a few combat against obviously a very angry and pent up Howler, decided to give me the 2 VP and win the game.

Final VP Count

YY - 3 VPS.

Me - 2 VPs.

(o.o)