When I was in Manila, I got into a discussion with Bann about the standard stance to take at the opening of a Vtes 5-players game. I was trying to share with him the concept of not going after the prey too much so that the dynamics of the table will move towards a more favourable path for one's eventual victory. Bann looked at me puzzled and told me : "Of course, and you've only figured it out now?" (not the exact wordings of course, but the geez is there~ :P).
Nevertheless, better late than never, and that last minute understanding of the play strategy went a long way in helping me in the Asian Championship. So I think that it deserved to be noted here, in case I go torpor again and needs to be reminded how to play Vtes properly when someone rescue me in the future.
Anyway.
I used to spend a good majority of my effort going forward at the beginning of the game, hoping to quickly reduce my prey to a pulp of digestible pool. For some decks this may be the only choice (talking about you bleeders), but even so, the pace might be able to be more controlled rather than a mad show of "die, prey, die!" activities. (Only the mad Sabbats do that)
I was thinking, if I take some time off my prey in the early game, say after I have my first one or two vampires, and concentrate in improving my survivability by, say, gaining pool, speed up influence, setup etc; my prey will have time to do his/her own thing and my predator will have to deal with a more defensive prey. What this usually translate to is that the prey will focus more on offence, especially if you give him/her a little deal of "not bleeding you more than 1/2" or "not entering combat with you next turn" - which are all good incentives for the prey to go forward. Meanwhile, the predator will have to look at your untapped vampires, or simply content with reducing the speed of your pool gain/asset accumulation.
The security given to the prey will usually prompt him/her to bring out more vampires - this is probably one of the best ways to reduce his pool - made he himself do it - 4 pool a turn is way faster than most people can bleed. Granted, he'll have a new minion that you have to deal with - but well, very often, this one extra minion will not be a whole lot of issues when it comes to ousting him.
This forward movement of the prey will create a ripple in the game dynamics. By your prey going forward, your ally (grand prey) will generally suffer a little more - forcing him to commit more resources to defence and reduce his offensive moves - which will in turn reduce the pressure received by your grand predator who should then capitalize on the lucky break and go after your predator, reducing his ability to pressure you. So if you keep this balance properly, you should damage your prey just enough, but give him enough incentives to go forward and weaken your grand prey so that the grand predator will threaten your predator enough to leave you relatively safe. A couple of such turns will see you in a favourable position on the table.
This is of course a delicate issue and tend to change table to table and definitely from deck to deck and player to player. (Danz will upset the entire mechanics here, kill him first, no questions asked). One must be careful not to leave the prey too free to actually oust his prey without you able to oust him right away or at least quick enough. The moment the table goes down to 4 players this 5-player dynamics will change drastically and you must be able to adapt to it.
Again, if all goes according to plan, you should have enough on table threat to quickly decimate your prey's ability to oust your ally when you see that your ally can no longer survive without your help. Time the attack against the prey properly, as a bad timing will usually end up with you facing a happy prey with 1 VP. If that is done well, you will be left with a new weakened prey, giving you a very good chance of getting 2VPs plus 12 pool without much challenge. With those new shinys in hand you should be able to go after the grand predator now, and since your predator is usually in a more pressured position and therefore relatively weak, his ability to impede your attacks against your new prey will be severely limited.
That said, at this point it is often very good for your opponents to gang up on you, since VPs-wise they have very little motivation to not forge an alliance with each other. You can of course break this apart by offering your predator to kill you after you oust your prey, giving him 2 VPs while you take home 3 and the GW - it usually works, since that is most probably the best option for your predator at that point. If this deal can pull through, there is little chance for your prey to survive for long.
Not all deck types can practise this dynamics, and this is definitely not a static "always do this" strategy. I'm glad to say that Vtes doesn't have something so simple, and therefore variations or changes to this broad concept should be practised based on the types and genre of decks on the table, for eg, if you need the vote superiority and there is only another single vote deck on table, it might be prudent to help whoever it is to get rid of him first.
And of course, if everyone hates you then... you know~
(o.o)v
3 comments:
Once you are down to a two player table you are bound to try to win outright. You can't transfer out or otherwise not play to win.
Govern the Unaligned is a great card for the sort of actions you are talking about. Presence has Enchant Kindred. Both have +bleed, but Dominate has Deflection to help change the dynamics fast enough to overwhelm your prey. Ian Lee likes to hunt and do silly things while he waits for the table to line itself up. There are a lot of ways to look nonthreatening and yet be threatening. Anarchs with three blood can bleed for four with one card, after all.
I have always been a fan of letting people do their game a bit. People have, more than once, in social games asked me why I'm not going full tilt at my prey to oust them. Most often my answer is "Because I can get him later, I'll let him soften up his prey a bit more...". One player in particular in my group seems to wonder openly why people don't just roll over and die for him, or why other people aren't smashing headlong into their prey.
Will from my playgroup, after using my Lasombra dirty sleaze bleeding "I need to bathe in disinfectant with steel wool to remove the dirt" deck... said "I smashed my prey quickly but I found it really hard to get the next guy when everyone claimed I was the table threat". When I played a game with my deck, and him on another table, he sort of understood how I got the 4VPs in that game.
Let your prey be a credible predator. Everyone needs a credible predator. The player with the ineffective predator is usually the winner.
Hey! What the...
Post a Comment