Lyrics of the Night : Multiple Copies

One of the most challenging thing about building a deck is the number of copies of certain cards that you want to include in the deck. Granted, there are quite a good number of cards that is generally easy to decide - for example, few includes more than 1 copy of Giant's Blood, or Ancient Influence in a deck simply because they can only be used once in a game, and are rarely game changing, or completely essential to the operation of a deck (at least I've not seen that happening).

There are also quite a good number of not-so-crucial cards that are good to have, and because they are unique, don't normally see more than 1 copy in any one deck - good examples would be all the Hunting Grounds, the occasional Aranthebes or unique allies such as Carlton or Mylan. 

There are exception to the rule of Uniqueness though - not all unique cards are worth only a single copy in the deck. Of course, being unique simply means that any extra copy that you have in your hand when the same card is already on table are dead weight, which is a bad thing; the trade off is that you get to draw the card more frequently, preferably right in the beginning. This is a very common tactic - inserting multiple copies to increase draw chance, and very often seen with speed cards such as Information Highway or Dreams of the Sphinx. In the latter case, since Dreams actually do expire after you use it a couple of times, having extra copies is not necessarily a bad thing. There is also the existence of thematic decks that utilized interesting combos to cycle or exploit unique cards - Soul Gem is the prime example of those kinds of decks~

The issue of how many copies a card deserves to take up in a deck very much depends on what you want to do with it, how often, and how important its place is in the greater scheme of things. For example, a Thrown Gates deck have pretty much the whole deck dedicated to Thrown Gates because that's what it does and Thrown Gates is the most effective card that it wants to draw. Therefore a good number of card slots will be allocated to it.

A deck only has a maximum of 90 cards, and every card is an asset. (or at least should be) The allocation of these slots is therefore an important aspect of the Vtes greater game. 

I commonly allocate 4-6 for cards that I want to use, and up to 12 for cards that I know is very important to me. This ratio is only a guide, and due to the incredible number of cards that I want to include in every deck, there is never enough space. For me, I use these numbers as a reference:-

1 - unique cards, good to have, if never draw, fine, used also for surprise cards or meta cards. Example - Hunting Grounds, Giant's Blood, Mylan Horseed, Carlton Van Wyk, Crimson Sentinel, Entrancement.

4 - semi-important cards that I want to draw as a backup for situations - generally allocated to maneuvers or light combat defense cards. Example - Charismatic Aura, Engling Fury, Nocturn in a non-Nocturn bleed deck.

6 - cards I intend to use frequently but is generally more defensive and not completely crucial to the game, or doesn't expire easily, or is rather costly or risky to play. Example - .44 Magnum in a gun deck, Deflection, Awe, Preternatural Strength, Majesty.

8 - important card that is the backbone of the deck, or have multiple applications. Example - Freak Drive, Ambush in a combat deck, Immortal Grapple, Domain of Evernight, Swallowed by the Night.

10 or more - a must have card, expected to use frequently and aggressively, or requires a good number to be effective, or simply runs out very quickly. Example - Aid from Bats, Kindred Spirits, Gremlins.

Deck recycling tech in Vtes is rather limited, so the exact multiples that you may need to sweep a table is the magic number that you need to prepare for. Having mental excercises on how each attack will consume cards is a good habit if you like to build Vtes decks a lot. I believe that there is no "most correct" number of each type of deck genre, simply because the immediate environment in every community is going to be different, and every person's playstyle will deviate a little. This number will eventually become clear after one toys with the deck for a while, and adapt to the people around him. Of course, this deck will have to evolve whenever a new expansion comes by, or sometimes even react to a particularly interesting or influential new entrant into the game~

And then there is the limitation post by the availability of cards - I would very much like to have 6 Siren's Lure in my Daughter's deck, but I simply do not own that many...

That is the unlife's reality man, sad, but true~

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Opening Game

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

Lyrics of the Night : Efficiency

I quite firmly believed in action efficiency, and strongly believed that if one is doing everything more efficiently than one's prey, then in the medium run, assuming no disasters happen, one should be way ahead of the prey's growth curve and therefore able to overpower him by sheer efficiency.

In Vtes, this efficiency is measured in the various assets - pool, blood, minions and on-table resources. The idea is to have more than everyone on the table, and one should be able to eventually win.

That said, Vtes is a complex game, and therefore not as simple as just the "I have 2 more minions than you, I win" scenario. So many factors inter-relate with each other to make simple efficiency analysis impossible - for example, even if you have 3 more minions than your prey, and has more blood in total, a battle-hardened elder can very quickly decimate that; also, having 2 more locations than your prey cannot equate to having a Constant Revolution in play. Add to this equation all those things that bite back - such as Smiling Jack, and you have a mess of mathematical possibility that is way beyond my ability to comprehend, not to mention capitalize.

In reality, I have a rather simple outlook of efficiency when building decks - card comparison. My one most important criteria for card comparison is speed, which is my idea of efficiency.

Let's take a look at the classic example of Governed the Unaligned vs. Scouting Mission. In essence Scouting Mission is just a younger brother to Governed, and they do the same thing, only at a different degree and a different cost. I used to think that having free cards (doesn't cost blood) is a good thing, but now I tend to use faster cards regardless unless the cost is overwhelming or the deck is ruled by certain theme or constraints.

Consider this is the second turn of the game, and you have Ingrid Russo in play while your prey has Gloria Giovanni. If you're playing Governed and your prey is playing Scouting Mission, assuming the crypt is similar, your Governed would have allowed you to bring out a 3-cap and a 4-cap, with the likely hood of getting ahead in terms of vampire resources. At the end of that turn, it seems that both you and prey could have 3 minions of 10 blood count on table each, but don't forget you are 1 capacity ahead of him - you can have up to 2x4-caps and 1x3 cap while your prey, all things equal, can only have up to 2x4-caps and 1x2 caps. Now we all know that there are no 2-caps with superior DOM, but there is Keith Moody. In a simple 2-player fight with pure DOM tech going forward, you are actually quite significantly ahead, and will get further and further ahead if you keep playing Governed, and he keeps playing Scouting.

Of course, this is never static, since you will run out of blood way faster than your prey, and he probably can afford to ghetto fight you to death that way. However, add in the extra 1 bleed from Governed, and you'll suddenly find that you are more efficient in killing him. Assuming the 2 decks are just weenies with no other tech, you'll be faster in bringing out vampires, and bleed harder. I assure you that in no time you will win the race.

It is this reason that multi-act tech is so powerful. A single minion can usually only do 1 action per turn, and then hopefully draw a wake to defend (1 card for 1 defensive attempt) - therefore, if your deck's discipline has access to multi-actions, always attempt to add some. That said, try not to "cycle" Freak Drives in order to get the right cards unless you really have to, untapping for the sake of untapping is a true waste of efficiency.

Master Phase is another important aspect of getting ahead of your opponent. Most Master cards are quite powerful - from the simple Hunting Ground to the exotic Ancestor Spirit, they all add powerful on-board boost to assets - from extra blood to extra bleeds to all sorts of random capabilities. It is definitely a crime not to have the option to play Master cards every turn. This requires very careful construction of the deck to facilitate maximum utilisation of the Master Phase.

The contest between permanent and one-use cards for deck space is always a delicate matter. We all wish for effective cards that can be used again and again - like a good'old .44, or even just a Procurer, and the ever useful Mylan. But calling these fellas take an action, and requires a card space plus a vampire committed to it (not to mention pool or blood cost). They are also extremely obvious to good players how you intend to use them. Cards like these tend to stay in your hand when you lack either the delivery method to get them onto the table (like sitting beside a Tzimisce Wall with 7 Raptors), or the time to do it (need to block that one vampire that bleeds you every turn for 5 with no stealth) - in such cases, these cards turn from efficient on-board assets to dead weight. The decision to take an action to summon/employ/equip these cards can sometimes be pretty game changing.

Another thing, I don't believe in hunting unless there are excellent hunt/blood recover tech in the deck - like the Ahrimanes. I tend to treat my vampires like engines that can achieved only that much. In most decks I expect my vampires to deal a certain amount of damage with a certain of blood invested, say for example, I intend to have Gloria to play superior Governed once, bleed with Governed once and boost it with Conditioning, and Deflect once. After that she'd done her job. In order to maximize her success I have a Creepshow Casino in the deck to facilitate superior Governs, and a couple of Call the Hungry Dead to substitute for the Conditioning or Deflection when needed. After that if she can come back from the lack of blood good, if not it's ok.

For older vampires this cannot be done, they have to have the ability to recover blood to keep themselves active all the time - for that not every deck has the luxury of the Ahrimanes or some of the more efficient hunters, such as Blood Brothers. In order to minimize down time, a deck that requires star vampires to work relentlessly should have non-hunt blood recovery tech to enhance economics - losing one action to a hunt is terrible. There are a lot of such cards in the game, some more effective than others- like Voter Cap or Taste of Vitae, some a lot more passive, like Hunting Ground, and some conditional or severely limited, like Giant's Blood. For this purpose I must always point to 2 of my favourite - Jake Washington and Lilith's Blessing.

There are too many variables to consider in even the simplest of decks (maybe not so much for the mighty Thrown Gates), but I think a good approach is to create a dream scenario in your mind, and then construct your decks based on that - how many times you can expect Endiku to untap in a single round, and how many times you want to do that consecutively - add in another one third of the necessary cards to maximize draw potential (and include draw support like Dreams) and your primary dream scenario is a green to go~

Of course, if your projected kill tech is flawed in the first place, the most efficient ratio wouldn't do you any good~

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Laibon

The Laibons are a fairly new addition to the Vtes scene, given that they are pretty much the last "sect"-based keywords that was introduced before Vtes goes into torpor a second time. 

The Laibons, being in Africa and all, comes with their own set of special advantages just for being exotic. This article tries to look at the different Laibon cards that are good enough to be included in most Laibon decks (or at  least considered), or perform very well in Laibon-based deck concepts or clans.

First of all, let's look at one of the defining, though not really very successful concept of Laibon-based tech - Aye and Orun. 

Well we all know it is not really easy to slap 3 or any one of these onto a vampire quickly, not to mention 3 of both of them to enable them to"transcend". Moreover, these fellas only really work (and interact with cards) when they are in a suite of 3s - so any time you have a vampire with 2 Ayes, for example, is not of much use to you.

Comparing them, Aye seems to be easier to use - wake and cancel Frenzy seems to be marginally more useful than increase capacity against opponent's cards and extra votes. (1 vote for 3 Oruns is a terrible bargain for the effort). The Highs on these 2 cards are quite powerful though. High Ayes provides excellent stealth for some of the otherwise stealth-light Laibon clans, and High Orun is incredible for blood-intensive combat decks. Dusk Work is pretty much a free Freak Drive, and Unholy Radiance is a good oration useable even as a reaction. Of course, the down side is still the Aye and Orun requirement.

Aside from these, there are several combat cards that rubs off Ayes or Orun, some of them are quite interesting. Invoke Poison Glands is actually easy to use as a single Orun gives sort of a +1 STR all the time though I must say that the Akunanses usually have better means of fighting with all those Devil Channels, which bring me to Devil Channel Feet, which is a misplaced card since most Akunanses won't be needing much of Strike:Dodges (though I guess the press is cool, moreover, with 1 blood cost the Akunanse might as well as Freak Drive).

There are some decks that uses Ayes or Oruns pretty effectively. The Lucian Orun bleed deck that I've encountered in Philippines is a deadly deck when ready (I heard the highest bleed was 29 or something), well, he managed to bleed me for 12 in a single attempt. I have a Eze deck who uses Aye as well, and it is reasonably effective.

Although one can technically use Nkishi to place more Oruns and Ayes, still, not the most efficient decks in the world.

Other Master Cards

The 2 Powerbases are powerhouses. Powerbase : Tshwane is very good for pool saving, and every Laibon deck who uses a reasonable number of cards which cost pool should throw in one for good measure. Powerbase : Luanda is an auto-include if you're playing a combat-able deck. Ancestor Spirit is another auto-include as long as you have a reasonable number of vampires above 4 cap. Finally, Mbare Market is also a good card to play, though a little expensive.

I've yet to try out the effectiveness of Mundane and Pallid but I think they are circumstantial at best.

Action Cards

Well Marked is possibly the best Laibon action card here, a prevent 1 damage card in combat is always good, and if you use it with a 5cap or above vampire it is pretty much a free action. Aside from this, perhaps Masai Blood Milk is a honorary mention, too bad it is unique and doesn't last too long if you don't utilise it in a hurry - that really remove quite a bit of functionality from an otherwise very efficient card.

Bamba is Laibon's breeding card, and it is pretty ok with reasonable requisite and really shines in a Magaji deck.

Action Modifier Cards

Strange Day my friends, Strange Day. This one probably turns up in almost every Laibon deck - really no reason not to play 1 copy of it.

Besides that we should mention the Kholos (since every Laibon clan gets one). Again Kholos are excellent card, useable as vote boost or vote defense, always good to have too~

Equipment

Laibons have quite a couple of cool equipment. Kduva's Mask is a must, 1 bleed 2 votes plus (don't forget this one) anti Auspex is an excellent package not to have in any Laibon deck, also, Reliquary : Trinket and Kerrie are all interesting equipment in the right deck.

Reaction

Oh, Terra Incognita, one of the most valuable card you pray for when your predator bounced the last 20 million bleeds to you. The Familial Bond, though limited to usually the predator's minions, are also quite useful for a combat deck that is built to exploit it.

Referendum

Here the Laibons have powerful cards. No elaboration is needed for the much feared (though blood intensive) The Eldest Command Undeath.  Very few cards in Vtes burn vampires just like that, so even though this card will put the playing vampire into quite a bit of a vulnerable position, the ability to just burn one of your prey's minion is too much an advantage, especially if there is one important or highly invested one available for you to target.

The Secret Must Be Kept is another unique referendum not duplicated in other clans/sects. It targets allies and retainers, and again burn them straight. Combine this with Ilomba and you get a cute (though not exactly a very deadly) combo.

Retainers

Shaman is a superb multi-purpose retainer, but the other Laibon retainers are so-so only, though you occasionally do see Elephant Guardian in a Demdemeh deck.

In summary, they may not look much with these cards above, but when you're building a Laibon deck, you'll often find that quite a few of those mentioned above are auto-include and significantly improve the efficiency of your deck. A similar vote deck, for example, say with the Ishtarri versus a typical Toreador PRE vote, gets pretty much most of the advantageous cards useable by the Toreador, augmented by many of the Laibon-only cards - starting with the specialized referendums. Combat decks also, cards like Powerbase : Luanda and Well Marked are exceptional cards for combat decks; Ancestor Spirit and Kduva's Mask are good to have in bleed decks, and Terra Incognita is a reasonably effective defense for those clans (such as the Akunanse) without good bounce tech.

If you don't have a Laibon deck yet, try building one, they're great fun to play. 

(o.o)dum dum dum dum

Lyrics of the Night : Toolbox

Well, the Asian Championship did pull out quite a bit of interest in Vtes for our community, and we are starting to plan for regular games again. Needless to say, we are all planning new decks and recreating older decks to prepare ourselves for Vtes games again. I am therefore, committed to reviving Singing Vtes as well~ lots of battles to record and I'm sure, lots of insights to learn from my esteemed nemesis(es).

The first thing I do is to re-sleeve many of my old decks with all these Japanese card sleeves that I've received from my Japanese friend. In the process of doing so, I automatically attempt to make each deck better by tuning it to fit my idea of an optimized version. After tuning a couple of decks, I find that I've probably found my preferred play-style now. Contrary to what I used to do, which is to build a deck type of every kind, I kinda like playing toolbox style decks. I've been lucky to win 2 Asian Championship now, and both decks are pretty toolboxy in nature. All the more successful decks that I played are also quite toolbox too. I guess it's a personality thing - I just couldn't commit to a single efficient kill plan, but prefer to be as prepared as possible for all occasions.

Well, toolbox is just that - to be able to do multiple things, or I should say, to attempt to be able to answer all threats, and work around all problems. This is of course a myth - nothing can handle everything Vtes throws at you - it is just too diverse to allow that. However, a toolbox deck usually has the flexibility to handle more situations than other more focused deck types.

For me, I just like the idea that the deck I'm playing has enough thoughts put into it to make it flexible and adaptable.

For toolbox decks I always try to achieve the following for the deck, each element must be answered.

1. Kill Intensity

I try to have enough damaging cards to remove 50 pool in order to sweep the table. I try to make it happen with at least 2 avenues whenever I can - a couple of KRCs in my Prince Gun deck and Magaji Wall; Fame in Maureen Servitor deck and Enticement in my Typhonic Beast deck. So if you add in all the bleed cards, bleed modifiers and other damage cards, you will usually find about 50 damage potential in these cards.

When that is not possible, I will add in elements to either recycle the damage cards, or improve the delivery system to ensure success of the damage.

2. Delivery System

One key specialty of a toolbox deck is its ability to handle different kinds of defense. My Howling deck can stealth through low intercept decks, and can punch through low combat defense deck - a mix of stealth and bruise bleed, with the extra ability to surgically attack bleed bouncers or toublesome defenders. I try to add in stealth of some kind whenever possible, especially if the deck in question has difficulty of branching into multiple adaptations.

3. Defensive Options

Again, one of the key purpose of a toolbox deck is its flexibility to handle most common predators' attacks. Most of my toolbox deck has answers to attackers' common ousting method - a lot of them can do at least 2 of the common defensive measures - bounce, bloat, block or beat. IMHO, a good toolbox deck should be able to adjust itself to match the tempo and environment of the table - shifting the kill strategy as needed. Much of this can only be done because there is a viable defensive plan that one can adopt.

4. Combat

My toolbox deck will never just keel over and die when faced with combat. One important element of a toolbox approach is the ability to handle combat. For that, I try to always have some offensive combat capability, and will throw in multiple defensive option whenever possible - combat ends, damage prevention, maneuvers; combine with high damage output or more commonly, aggravated damage cards should provide some deterrent to the enemy.

For decks that lack bouncing capability (I consider blocking unreliable, and bloating is a must in every deck, so that's automatic), I will try to include surgical enter combat capability so that the deck can handle high bleeders - worse comes to worse, pack AIs or Aranthebes, or even a Lost in Translation or 2.

5. Bloat

All my toolbox deck must have a bloating plan, without that it probably couldn't be called a toolbox. Bloating will of course be customized to be as efficient and as non-intrusive as possible - don't rely on Vessels with high blood usage decks such as Ravnos, and don't bother with Vessels when a PRE vote deck replenish blood every 3 seconds.

6. Surprise Elements

Most fun of the deck building part - always include at least one "wow" card. More often than not, it will wow the table and win you brownie points even if you lose, and occasionally it will win you games too! A Horseshoe in my Lasombra stealth bleed deck was instrumental in winning me a game~

All in all I just adore toolbox decks, they are flexible, they are adaptable, and they are lots of fun to play and usually make you feel that you have a chance in every table, no matter the prey or the predator.

Just that feeling of "Just have to draw that card" is worth all the effort in making every deck toolbox - lots of work to be done.

(o.o)tuning deck in progress

Lyrics of the Night : Predator

The one who sits (usually) to your right, looking at you with that blood-thirsty eye is your predator. He is the one that you hate most, but cannot get rid of (usually) until the end. In fact, it can be said that the ultimate purpose of every Vtes game (preferably), is to get rid of all those preys who are standing in your way to finally get the satisfaction (and the VP) of killing your first predator. In many ways, the predator at your side, is your ultimate goal.

That said, sometimes, your predator can suddenly become your best friend - becoming a pool of resisting blood against the other blood-thirsty guy who is already eyeing the VP that you represent. At such times you may be forced to help your predator to fend off some of the assaults from your (previous) ally. But make no mistakes, almost every predator will jump at the chance of ousting you if you let your guard down - regardless of what they've told you earlier. All will be done in the guise of "I must play to win". Simply put, he hates you, so hate him back.

There are 2 major path of thought in handling your predator.

The first is to cripple him quickly, and ensure that he sits there fending off his predator without coming at you ever. This is easier said than done. Normally when you go after the predator - be it combat attacks to reduce his minions, or pool damage to force him to defend - it creates a very bitter situation for the predator. Not only is he angry, but very often he becomes demoralized, and quickly fall prey to his predator, giving you a new threat that you might not want to face. (and definitely losing the satisfaction of getting that VP from him)

Therefore, the mode of attack, and the intensity of attack, is extremely important.

It is said that if you do injury to your predator, it should be so severe that you fear no vengeance or retaliation from him. This is correct, but it must be managed to a degree where he should still be able to defend against his predator for a while, and pretty much stay in the game. In order for this to happen, you must make sure that the predator retains enough defensive mechanism, pool and more importantly, the motivation to stay in the game.

We can usually achieve this with some level of "warning" or negotiation. For example, tell your predator that you're going to send 2 of his 3 vampires into torpor, and let him choose which one; alternatively, tell him you'll let 2 of those remains in his service if he doesn't bleed you with one of them (or both of them for a couple of rounds). But even if the predator is submissive, you should still cause some damage to him, preferably something that he'll need time to recover, but cannot recover completely - for example, getting rid of his Rack, or his brand new AK-47, or the Conductor whom is rallying all those daughters.

On the other hand, a predator is like any predatory animal - a lion only hunts when he is hungry, and when he's satisfied, the predator and prey live peacefully together - until the lion is hungry again. If you can make the predator feels that he is doing his job and getting his way, he may leave you alone for a while, or let down his guard. This level of deception is incredibly difficult. Bring your pool too low, and he might actually go all out to kill you, being out too few minions, and you can't get your VP, hang on to your important assets and you can't do your thing; and finally, whining and complaining can only go so far.

Negotiation seems to be the best way to achieve the "low profile, I'm already doomed" facade, but as your reputation as a player grows, this ruse will be more and more difficult to pull off. So, this deceptive level of ascendence is really not easy to do.

Most decks have some sort of predator defense - combat, blood steal, incapacitation, direct pool loss etc. But there are some decks, most notably the straight-forward moving decks, have no means of handling the predator. For these decks, the predator is really quite inconsequential - just kill your prey and hope that you do that faster than your predator can kill you.

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Playing a Vtes Game

After playing a good number of Vtes games, I find that despite the exponentially huge permutations of Vtes possibilities, every Vtes game is just a variation of the same thing - an aggressive opening, patient mid-game and the inevitable rush to oust. That said, I don't think it is actually possible to exhaust all the possible scenarios of Vtes given the incredible amount of freedom and randomness built into the mechanics of the game itself.

You see? Vtes is a great, great game.

But is Vtes actually constrained, despite in a very minute way, by the very nature of the fact that it has a finite number of cards, and therefore, a finite number of combinations and permutations, making it a game that can be exhausted in terms of all the possible encounters that one can meet in a lifetime? Let's explore this by looking at the way of playing a Vtes game in general.

Every good player with a reasonably competitive deck will tell you that the beginning of the game is very important. Perhaps the most important in the whole game, as it sets your pace, prepare your means to victory, and when played well, create your defense and put you in front of all your opponents right on day 1.

So, what you always need is an aggressive opening.

An aggressive opening is not defined as multiple attacks, or high intensity attacks towards your prey. In fact, very often it is the opposite. Good players like to remain in a reasonably low profile to avoid attracting too much attention to himself in the fear of, at the very least, the prey taking too much of a defensive stance while the predator is awarded the freedom to at least cripple you - in another words - table hate.

Therefore an aggressive opening usually refers to quick influence of vampires, preparation of defense mechanism, acquisition of important assets, and a good but not overly excessive offensive action to prepare the eventual demise of the first prey.

All deck types have means of doing this. Combat decks show off their capabilities by sending one or two of their immediate opponents' minions to lala land; Wall decks put on enough intercepts and deterrents to tell the predator to look the other way; Bleed decks and Vote decks concentrate on getting enough cold bodies to prepare for mid-game attacks and even decks without a clear objective will try to talk the predator/prey into doing whatever you would like them to do.

Simply put, you need your prey to go forward and your predator to look backwards. An aggressive show of strength is usually good enough to achieve a certain level of that, and sometimes, that aggressiveness can simply be in the form of aggressive bargaining, threatening, or even plain begging. But it has to be aggressive.

Once the opening phase is over, the mid-game is usually spent in quietly preparing the position to kill off everybody while fending off your attackers. This part of the game is very interesting, and very dynamic. Sometimes it passes very quickly, with snowballing effect once the first player is ousted, sometimes it takes forever as all or some of the players in good position attempt to out-maneuver the opponent.

It is here where players start looking out for potential VP-thieves and arch-nemesis. Here players with good judgment of the table might, and very often take actions to slow down the player which they think is the main obstacles to their path towards dominating the table - it could be that DOM bleeder that is killing off your predator, or the voter who is gaining the vote superiority, or perhaps just the weenie player whom is putting too many minions on table. Here, patience really counts as one must be sure that he can eliminate enough preys to win the table, before taking rash actions that might land him in an unforgiving place.

Of course, it is not likely that a player will always have a chance to win the table, so sometimes, the mid-game leads to a rush to get those VPs. Could be all the VPs available on the table, or just that single one you have a chance to get before being ousted yourself. This last phase is a mad and hectic phase for Methuselahs, as they must make the decision at some point to just go, and damn the torpedoes anyway.

It seems to me that every Vtes game falls into this category of process, at least for me. Different opponents and different table seatings influence the way I operate a deck - such as who to influence first, what to do first, and who to target first. But in essence every game is a variation of these dance-steps, and every game, at the end of the day, is the same. But the possible decision making and crisis management process is so diverse with so many different decks that one can play and will face, the chances of any game being the same, is really quite low. Not to mention that the memory loss we suffer as we go torpor everyday.

So I guess I have to agree that Vtes is a finite game. But I think the fun it offers is nearly infinite.

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Cycling

Very often we see Methuselahs desperately trying to do random things so that he/she can cycle into what is (most of the time) absolutely life-saving, or at least useable; over here we called that cycling. I'm not sure if this is the official term, or at least a general accepted definition of this activity, but I was just thinking that cycling is such an important, and common aspect of Vtes, that we should actually look at it as an integral part of deck building, and if possible, actually plan for it if possible.

What usually prompts a frantic cycling is a perceived (or real) threat that one cannot handle with whatever is in his/her hand, it also happens when there is a perceived (or actual) opportunity to exploit and one knows that that (or those) cards are in the deck somewhere, and therefore must quickly get rid of whatever is in the current hand to get to it. Finally, sometimes it's just that whatever is in the hand is simply useless, and has to be exchanged for something else so that the deck can get on with it - it could be that the hand is lacking a key card, or a supporting card that is needed to get the engine started.

But when should we start doing random things, sometimes even silly things like recruiting expensive allies just to get rid of it in hand?

For the first case, it usually can't be planned into the deck, as all decks have weaknesses, and even if the deck is prepared to meet such a problem, it usually doesn't pack enough of those contingencies to warrant a good chance to get the necessary card(s) into hand. That said, there are threats that a deck is well prepared to meet, but simply didn't draw the right card(s) and therefore the Methuselah must cycle quickly to get to those cards. The most common aspect of this cycling is for combat cards or Intercepts/Deflections - as these are the 2 most commonly encountered threats that most decks can handle in one way or another. I think that few Methuselahs will spend the effort cycling if he doesn't have a good chance to get the cards, hoping to draw that one Delaying Tactics in a 60+ card library isn't a good investment of your time and actions. However, hoping for a Majesty where there are at least 6-8 copies in the deck is a good idea, provided one is sure that it will save the key vampire for at least another turn. But again, this might be questionable, since the random cycling might actually make one's position even more untenable if one didn't draw into the Majesty afterall. Therefore, my thought is that, cycling for defensive cards, unless it's for Intercepts where you know you can block and kill important vampires, or Deflections if you know your predator is going to bleed for many many for sure, isn't that good an investment most of the time. (As you can see, those "defensive" cards you should be cycling for are still offensive in some way)

The second case deals with kill technique or ousting most of the time, and therefore warrants frantic cycling. The reward of the VP and 6 pool dangles in front of the Methuselah whenever he is faced with such a situation. I feel that this case almost always warrant cycling, since the VP is worth the effort. However, I've seen Methuselahs over cycle and neglects their defenses and gave their predator the VP instead. Overcycling is never good.

The last situation is either simply a bad day, or the ration of the cards ain't right. For such cases, if the key card is ABSOLUTELY necessary (like Summon History, or Spirit Marionette), then there is no choice but to do that. However, the deck-building process should have taken this into consideration and provided means for the Methuselahs to do this when needed.

There are certain cards that helps in cycling, or at least reduce the needs of cycling. Dreams of the Sphinx is such a gem simply because it allows the user to cycle his hand as well. A Dream's most effective function is not the extra 1 transfer, but the extra 2 cards that you can bring to hand, and discard the 2 cards that are useless in your hand after that, in addition to your discard phase - that's 3 lousy cards gone - one is 2 turns ahead of his opponents with a single use of the Dream's hand size capability.

There are other dedicated discard (and therefore cycling) methods - the Fragment of the Book of Nod, for example, allows one to draw cards and then cycle away the useless ones. Is this necessary in most decks? Probably not, but is it good to have when you know your hand is going to face severe clotting very often.

Many clan-only cards also allow for some sort of cycling - the Mokole Blood, the Shilmulo Tarot, all allows the Methuselah to stack (and sometimes even select the right) cards into a secret stash and therefore thins the deck and allow cycling into those cards as needed. It also in some way provides extra hand size, which is in fact, another boost to cycling, as it reduces the need to cycle since you have more cards in hand. Visit from the Capuchin doesn't really help in cycling, but it does quickly fill your hand with 4 more cards, and therefore is good to have in terms of getting the right cards.

Generic cycling cards cannot be better than the Heart of Nizchetus. Case closed.

Can a deck planned for cycling? Well, I think it is possible, and many decks have already factored that into the construction. Most notably are combat decks, and sometimes they use hand size increase in combats to achieve that purpose. Main reason that many combat decks does this is because they know they'll have lots of combat cards, and simply will not need so many, so a temporary increase in hand size allows them to get the cards they need and then remove those they don't after the combat, while making sure that they have enough cards in hand to deal with that. Other decks sometimes have that option too, like Flurry of Action, also allows card draw when needed.

Multi-action decks are most capable of cycling - therefore sometimes you see Una happily enjoying herself doing all those idiotic things so that she can draw into something useful and finally contribute something, or sometimes a whole lot of Web of Knives Recruits may decide to just have a party with guns just so that a single Contract can be drawn. This is however, both wasteful and dangerous.

There is sadly no way one can ensure that the hand is always good and nice - that would be the ultimate goal of all deck building process of course, and for some decks it is possible, such as the famous Thrown Gate deck (no way you can miss that one). But one should always take steps in making sure the ratio and number of cards in the deck is as optimal as possible - afterall, cycling may be needed, but it is definitely not welcomed.

However, it is a hilarious thing in Vtes.

(o.o)

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)

Lyrics of the Night : Advance Vampires

There are 37 vampires with Advance option, that is, if you have the vampire on table, and another copy of it's other incarnation (be it the basic or advance version), you can spend 4 transfers and 1 pool to merge the vampire and make him into something like an "experienced" version of the same vampire. This merging will replace the advance version's title/clan with the basic's one, and many of them gain a merged ability. Moreover, the abilities of both the vampire's version remains in effect, usually making that vampire quite a powerhouse for its capacity.

The thing here is, is it worth it?

4 transfers and 1 pool to enhance the power of a vampire is generally a very reasonable price to pay. Even giving a typical vampire a .44 will cost you1 action and 2 pool with the risk of being blocked, so using this as a context, enhancing a vampire at the cost of 1 pool and an "unblockable action" doesn't seem like much of a problem. One might also argue about getting the difficulty of getting both the 2 right version of the vampire onto the uncontrolled region from the crypt, but in a sense you need to draw the right equipment card from at least 1 60-card deck in order to throw a gun onto your Janine - while the crypt is usually about 12 cards strong, so it shouldn't be too tough.

So you see, the numerical cost of getting a vampire merged doesn't seem that bad.

But the opportunity cost is another matter altogether.

Let's first ignore the might of a merged vampire, since they range from "completely detrimental" to "oh my Caineness!", and affect different decks in different ways. Let's first assume that it gives an average benefit, like giving a title, or a +1 something (be it stealth or bleed).

For such cases, let me irresponsibly declare that there are enough ways to enhance vampires through better and more efficient means than merging.

Let us analyze the opportunity cost of using a merged vampire. 4 transfers and 1 pool at mid or late game means very little most of the time, but think of the crypt construction when you're doing that. For a reasonable chance to ever see a vampire on table, 2 copies in a crypt of 12 is a pretty common composition. But if you have 1 copy of the basic version and 1 copy of the advance version of that vampire and hope to have them merged on the table, I don't know the math, but I think the odds of doing that isn't very high, and is probably somewhere around drawing your single Heart of Nizchetus in a 90 card deck in the first turn. So the practical solution to this is to increase the number of both vampires in the crypt. But you usually only play with 12, so 4 vampires (any mix of the versions) will imply that you've given up a third of your options of minion selection. But even so it still doesn't give you a good chance of having both versions of the vampires in your opening crypt, and even though pulling vampires out onto your uncontrolled region is easy, it is still slow and painful.

There are very few ways for you to pull out the right vampires from your crypt. Recruitment is the only sure way, but that's 2 extra pool. Cards like Stranger Among Us, Mesu Bedsheet, Kindred Intelligence and Coroner's Contact are not generically useful, and Effective Management has too much of a random factor. And don't even think about Epiphany unless you throw in a very good number into it while reducing your advanced version in the crypt - quite a feat to make it work that way if you ask me.

So you see, if you want to enhance a vampire by merging its versions, the merged effect, has to be really really worth it.

So what constitutes "worth" in this case?

Some vampires, when merged, are ridiculously deadly, and definitely worth merging. Take for example, Tariq. Some others have abilities that compliment each versions very well that together they form the basic combo of the deck, or an advantage so strong that it screams to be merged, such as Ambrogino's combined stealth and bleed, Ferox's combined combat advantages and Petaniqua's ally modification capabilities. For these vampires, who are most often used in Star decks, merging becomes a basic need rather than an option. And IMHO, these are the times that merging a vampire is a reasonable basis for deck/crypt construction.

Otherwise, even another weenie of 2 pool or so is better than using a alternate version of the vampire. Of course, there are also times where it is "good" to merge, but not critical at all, then including one copy of each vampire's version might be a good idea, and usually is, since you won't be wasting the crypt space for a card that doesn't contribute for it's extra presence except for drawing into it.

So how many copies of each of the versions do you use when you need a merged vampire in your deck? I usually use about 6-7 copies combined, and include cycling cards to aid in getting the right one onto the uncontrolled region~

What about you guys?

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Methuselah Allies

Well, a Methuselah ally is a VP waiting to happen, but until the fella to your left is lying in his own coffin waiting for you to claim that 6 pool, the ally is someone you have to work with most of the time.

In general, there are 3 kinds of allies - your grand prey, your grand predator, and Danz.

Danz we'll talk about in private, but the others, we can discuss.

It's in your best interest to keep your grand prey alive until your prey is dead. That reasoning is really really simple - if your grand prey dies, your prey gets 6 pool, making your life 6 pool more difficult, and more importantly, losing you that 1 VP. 6 pool you can get back by some other means, 1 VP however, cannot be retrieved. (Well, I guess there are ways, but definitely not by something you can do) So do whatever you can to make sure that doesn't happen.

As for your grand predator, your job is to make sure that he put enough pressure on your predator to distract your predator from committing all his efforts in distracting you. Every pool that your grand predator depleted from your predator, however, is one step nearer in making him your predator, and 6 pool stronger, not to mention the loss of 1 VP also. Therefore, you may want to make sure that your grand predator is not really that smooth in fighting your predator.

All these sounds very logical and easy, but in practice it is extremely difficult to judge and make all the necessary decisions to ensure that happens. Too many factors will come in to affect your decision in handling your allies.

But let's first look at what you can do to work with your enemies' enemies until they become your prey.

The most important issue is bleed responsibly. Bounce is a common defense, but can usually be quite easy to spot if you know what to look out for. Against DOM and AUS heavy decks you much always be ready for bounce (especially DOM). If your prey has a DOM weenie standing there untapped, you know it is highly likely that you will be facing a bounce defense. This shouldn't keep you from bleeding of course, but if you can afford it, or it you see that your grand prey is defenseless against bounces, do bleed with care - don't enhance your bleeds too heavily in case you damaged your grand prey instead. This is one of the most disastrous thing you can do to your grand prey, since you're not only creating anger in your ally, you're making your prey's life easier if you help him to bleed his prey. Of course, sometimes you don't have a choice, sometimes you'd want to take that risk (usually near ousting your prey), and sometimes you just don't care. There are of course certain cards that can help you do your bleeding responsibly - like the famous Spying Mission; cards that target preys specifically (like Tier of Souls) or simple do not add too much stealth so that the prey is able to block. A simple gesture to at least ask the grand prey whether or not he can handle a bounce could also mean a lot - it allows the grand prey to intimidate his predator for bounces, or simply beg you to stop, which you can then try to negotiate for a good deal for your immediate or future benefit (like supporting your votes for example)

The other way to help your grand prey is to bloat him, but that is not easily achieved unless you have the right deck(s). And to be honest, this doesn't usually work very well. Giving your grand prey Intercepts through perma-locations is a good idea if you think you can afford the pool and the grand prey has a good chance in blocking a deadly attack. Chances are, if the grand prey can, he will fight with his best ability to torpor or at least damage the infringing vampire, that would give you an edge over your prey later.

In extreme cases, if you have to sacrifice a Methuselah ally, never sacrifice your grand prey unless he is the deck that will and can trump yours (like dominating the vote scene). You should even help him get rid of his prey in order to deny your prey the 6 pool.

Boons and rescuing are also good stuffs that you can do to help out your allies - boons should be reserved for grand prey, and rescuing should be done more commonly for your grand predator. The logic is that you want your grand prey to be weaker when you're done with your prey, and you don't really want him to be strong, especially if it'll make you work extra hard to get your second VP. As long as your grand prey has enough minions to survive, leave him alone if he has some vampires in torpor, that's his problem. Rescuing his vampires isn't going to help you in the long run. Rescuing vampires for your grand predator, however, is usually a good move, as it will put pressure on your predator to reduce his ability to distract you.

But after all said and done, Vtes tables are dynamic and changes with actions and counter-actions. You really have to read the table properly to see who will be your biggest problem towards getting the Game Win. For those targets, show no mercy, ally or not.

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Prey-Predator Relationship

The 2 most important entity to you the moment you sit on a Vtes table, are your Prey, and your Predator, their wellbeing directly impact your success on the table, and therefore, one should quickly decide on what to do with them, and how to deal with them. This is almost like the mission statement of a running company.

For the prey, it is usually rather simple. He is 6 pool and 1 VP to you, a floating VP for you to go grab as soon as possible. You want him dead, ousted, removed, or at least not putting up any aggressive defense against what you want to do to him.

When dealing with your prey, there is only this couple of things you want to consider. First, if he is weak, or you think you can circumvent or defeat his defensive mechanics, then there is absolutely no need to negotiate or respond to any of his deals - just oust him and end his misery. Unfortunately, this magical situation is seldom straightforward, and rarely come early. So there is some window for a certain level of negotiation on most games.

Key number 1 is to make him look forward. Having a prey dedicating all his effort in defense is not a good thing. You want him to move some (preferably most) of his pool to influence minions where you can bypass or destroy, indirectly bleeding him; and you want him to weaken his prey as much as possible to open the way for you to get that VP after you got rid of him. In order to do that, you have to talk to your prey a little, reduce his anxiety about your offensive capability, and perhaps even make him a deal or 2 to entice him to take up some offensive actions against his prey. You should always remember that when your prey fights his prey, he has a chance of losing minions, blood and other precious resources (not to mention the ability to block you) that you otherwise have to take out yourself.

There is also another, albeit pretty sad situation, where you're in a position where you see very little chance of ousting your prey. Perhaps your predator is too strong, perhaps your prey hose your deck's primary and maybe even secondary path to victory, or perhaps you have a terrible draw, or luck dictates that you lose a critical minion early in the game. In such cases, it makes most sense to ask your prey for a deal. Let your prey has all his freedom in killing his prey and every other prey he has, except you - you want a deal whereby you help your prey kill everyone else, and then he let you have the final 2 VP by yielding to you at the last. This is a pretty good proposal to most preys, especially if you still have some punch in your deck, or your predator is truly fearsome. Sometimes, it can be the case where your prey simply requires you as a buffer for a couple of turns before he is ready. By getting this deal, you'll have had a chance to turn an otherwise zero VP game into a 2VP "second place", very favourable in a tournament. Not to forget that your prey might still become too weak along the way and you can then re-negotiate to let him yield prematurely since he can no longer get any VP. (Word your negotiations carefully)

Of course, don't do this the moment you see the prey bring out Enkidu, or be intimidated to do so. This should be a last resort where you have little to no chance of continuing the game the normal way.

It is easier to help your prey sweep then it is for anybody else, so this is one last weapon that you can use when all else have failed.

As for the predator, well, you're his VP and 6 pool, so most of the time his proposals to you will simply be variations of "Die, Scum!". Occasionally you might get something like the above, but that is rare. However, when your grand-predator is getting close to oust your predator, you can then start negotiations that is similar to the above by offering help when you can - intercept from your KRCG, some Consanguinous Boons, or even rushing your grand predator's minions. This is of course to prevent a stronger predator from coming into the picture - and during such cases you usually will get quite good deals from your predator. Don't just let him die like that unless he chooses to. Worst comes to worst, offer him the deal that was highlighted before to entice him to hang on. A pool buffer is the best defense one can ever have.

If your deck has the ability to intercept your prey's of predator's actions, then there usually is quite a bit of bargaining. The norm to remember is that, don't bother to block things that you think will hardly affect you - Camera Phones on your prey's minions, Ablative Skin or Armor of Terra where you use Coma in combat, your predator's minions' hunt when they need it to defend against his predator (when he's hunting he's not bleeding, you can then block his bleed) The same goes for combat - try not to reduce your predator's minion count to too low a level where he cannot defend against his predator, but you don't really have to consider too much where it comes to your prey, though sometimes you may want him to have some minions to go forward.

Basically, the whole idea of prey-predator relationship is very similar to the common distribution of a KRC's damage points - 3 to your prey, 1 to your predator. For those who still don't get it - 3 to your prey because you want him dead as soon as possible, 1 to your predator to reduce his resources and force him to adopt a defensive stance rather than spending those resources on ousting you.

Happy hunting.

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Weenies

Weenies are young vampires generally of 4-cap or less, meaning that you can usually bring out 1 weenie per influence phase after the first turn of limited transfers. Weenies tech is a rather effective and usually deadly force on the table, mostly due to their speed to get to the table, and the large number that they usually comes in, resulting in a swarm of actions that few decks can hope to intercept totally. Of course, they come with their own set of problems as well.

By themselves, the weenie decks rely usually on speed and quantity to oust their preys, generally using only a few kinds of cards to achieve their purpose. But that similarity pretty much ends there. There are many different kinds of weenie decks in existence, and brilliant Vtes players had found almost every mean to use the weenies with their respective disciplines and abilities, and therefore you do see a myriad selection of all kinds of weenie decks.

The effectiveness of a weenies deck is based on several key points.

First, they are fast and cheap to influence. On a good turn, you might even see 4 weenies being slapped on the table in turn 1, especially if the Methuselah is the fourth player, and had Information Highway in play. That translate to a staggering 4 bleed in the next round, if you are not ready to defend against it. (And that's not easy by turn 2) Even without such beautiful alignment of the crypt and cards, most weenie decks can bring out at least 1, if not more vampires onto the table per turn, or at least one every 2 turns.

This speed of influence allows the Methuselah with the weenie deck, to take many actions every round, and every action potentially advances his position on the table, be it a bleed action, a bloat action, some referendums or even equip actions to prepare for the coming battle. Every round, the weenie deck is going to out-action you, and if not curb in time, will soon leave you far behind in the action-efficiency of the game.

This is sometimes compounded by the fact that these vampires are cheap to call out, allowing the weenie Methuselah to retain much pool. These savings can then be either used to call out other pool-costing resources (like allies or weapons), or simply use to defend against the predator's attacks. The low cost of the weenies also allow the Methuselah to shake off the losses incurred when one or even several of his weenies are sent to torpor. Most of the time, losing a couple of weenies will not impede the Methuselah's effort too much, definitely not in the range of what it will mean to other decks with mid or even fat vampires.

Secondly, weenie decks are usually efficient in what they do. True, most of them have few disciplines and mostly only at the inferior level. Because of that, almost every weenie decks play with a good number of Master Discipline cards to enhance the weenies, and/or play with cards that either do not require disciplines, or work pretty well even with the inferior effect of the discipline in question. Most weenie decks also compensate the loss of efficiency of the card actions with the vast number of actions that the deck can do - a DOM weenie might not Condition for 3 every time, but enough of the Conditioning you for 2 is not going to be something you can take for long.

Lastly, the cheap nature of the weenie decks, allows the Methuselahs to make more mistakes than most other kinds of decks. Losing a couple of minions, and/or failing in some of the actions is not a big deal to the weenie Methuselah, afterall, many more can try again. This psychological advantage is a double-edged sword though, leading to reckless behaviours sometimes.

The weenies do have their issues too.

They are small, and therefore lacking in capability to both power up actions that require blood, or endure punishment dished out by the opponents. Minus some dedicated combat weenies, many weenie decks cannot handle combat very well. If a predator/prey has the ability to get into combat with the weenies with any reasonable ability to fight, the weenie deck can lose vampires so quickly that the main advantage of multi-actions is neutralized by the losses.

With inferior discipline (and the lack of multi-disciplines), many weenies are not really effective in what they do until they learn the superior version of the discipline. Until then they're sitting ducks, or at least an inefficient minion in the deck. And not to forget that many low-cap weenies have random disadvantages, making them vulnerable to random effects here and there.

There are also many cards that can hurt or shut down weenies. Neonate Breach, Domain Challenge are all deadly to weenie Methuselahs.

There are several cards that are almost always linked to weenies - Information Highway, Effective Management, Tribute to the Master and so on. These cards are almost essential in weenie decks, to the degree that the moment somebody see you play one, they'll almost instantly assume that you're playing a weenie deck. This also means that countering those cards can be a problem for you.

Weenies are also effective as a supplement to no-weenie decks. They add actions, and most importantly, serve as insurance to help your other more precious vampires to survive or succeed. How many times have you yearned for a weenie to be around for rescue mission when your Enkidu was sent to torpor by a Rotschreck? The weenies can also go for the kill when your bigger vampire are done removing the defense of your prey, or jump in front of your star vampire when your predator Bum's Rush him. Even using a weenie as nothing more than a hunting pool recovery machine can be invaluable at the right time.

There are many weenie deck genre - for example, Nosferatu weenie votes rely on their stealth to call forth many Praxis Seizures and Justicars, and then vote your pool out - so many of them are acting that you can't expect to block all; DOM weenies are extremely deadly, as a single weenie can bleed you with Governed the Unaligned with Conditioning by turn 2, removing 5 pool from you straight away; combat weenies can go in repeatedly, and the attrition that they can afford will eventually kill off your minions (not to mention CEL gun weenies); AUS weenies are always there blocking, and so many of them are there that you can forget about doing anything during your turn; the famous Pander votes with Legacy of Panders is a prime example of how deadly a deck can be, even without coherent discipline spread.

Weenies are a pain, and they're pretty prominent especially in tournament play. Don't leave home without one in your deck. (unless you're playing Inner Circle Votes)

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Defensive Measures

Well, when there is fog in a war we kinda have to guess where the enemies are and where they'll turn up, and of course what they're up to. Fog of War is a problem common to Methuselahs too, since they have little idea what their opponents have up their sleeves and what they'll be throwing at them during their turns, as well as their potential defensive measures when one is taking a certain action.

Of course, the Fog of War works against the opponents as well, since they will have very little idea what you have up your sleeves as well as your defensive capability, until you kind of show them what you can do. On the other hand, if your deck is so predictable that there is absolutely no question about what you're going to do, and what you can do, then I feel that it is a miracle you remain a Methuselah after these many centuries. (That said, if the opponent can't do a thing despite knowing exactly what you can do, well, that works too)

Your defensive capability is therefore important to both deny, and better still, deter, your opponent from taking aggressive actions against you. Most of these defensive measures concern themselves with the predators, since the prey will be the one that you'll be using all your offensive options against most of the time. There are exceptions of course, Danz being the prime example.

I think there are 3 kinds of broad category of defenses that one uses in Vtes, active defense deals with incapacitating your predator enough that he/she will stop bothering you - this almost always involves combat, but there are certain cards that can achieve that as well, such as Cryptic Mission, and more recently, Shattering Crescendo. Reactive defense is the most common defense that people use, mainly due to their efficiency. Wake cards, Deflections and bleed-reducing cards are the prime examples, supplementing the Intercept cards that forms the bulk of defenses for most reactive decks. Passive defenses are most commonly expressed in pool-gains, or deterrents such as high on-board Intercepts or blocking capabilities - it is sometimes combined with active defenses by using the famous scare tactic.

Active defenses is usually part of the offensive strategy. A combat deck example, also relies on their ability to enter combat with their predator's minions to remove the ability of the predator to damage him. In essence this is also the deck's main strategy of getting rid of the prey. Although pool damage is rarely applied to the predator (such as Fame), supporting damage will sometime still go through (such as Tension in the Ranks). The problem with this style of defense is that it normally weakens the predator significantly, paving the way for your grand-predator to surf through his prey and get started on you. As a side effect it also slow down your work against your prey, wasting precious actions of your minions and the even more precious cards that you spent to take out the predator. The skill to know when to start and when to stop targeting the predator is important in this kind of defenses. There are of course exceptions, such as certain Daughter's deck that use votes to kill but Crescendo to defend, seconding the Crescendo against the prey when it is convenient. But most of the time, every action that one spent to fight the predator is one that is not going towards the acquisition of a victory point. Therefore, active defense should always try to couple with intimidation tactics. (and therefore becoming a passive defense)

Reactive defense, unless it is a wall deck, is usually a part of the deck that is packed strictly for the predator - take Telepathic Counter for example - this is an excellent defensive card, but completely useless against your prey. Reactive defensive cards that specialized in bouncing will use those bleeds taken by the predator against the prey as well, and that will supplement the offensive campaign against the prey. However, this still doesn't hide the fact that these cards are circumstantial - IF the predator does not bleed, or bleed only occasionally and for very little amount, then all the bounce cards are not going to be very efficient, and at worse may jam up your hand, preventing you from getting the cards that is necessary in ousting your prey. Reactive defenses are therefore efficient in action-cost (your vampires "reacts", and is free to "act" during your turn, not losing any action options during your turn) but low in card efficiency (you need wake cards, reaction cards and so on, diluting your offensive package)

A very specific kind of reactive defense deals with blocking, which will then involve combat and sometimes intercept cards. Such wall decks are also often card intensive, and can be denied of their effectiveness if their opponents fight better than them. Dedicated Wall decks, normally, are the ultimate in defenses, and are usually quite hard to crack, but consequently their ousting power are usually sacrificed to enable a large combat/block package in the deck.

Passive defenses are defenses that increases the pool, and just "defend with your pool"; or a better option will be the creation of a strong intimidating package on-board or through playing cards, and thereby deterring your predator from being too aggressive against you. Bloat decks will increase their pool faster than what their predator can deplete, thereby creating a defense through what they are made to do in the first place - such decks usually have a swarm bleed or vote option to oust the prey in the later game, and requires patience to play. These decks are also often reasonably slower and require longer setup time, during which they have little defense against aggressive predators.

Intimidation defense is probably a subset of the passive defense, and should be the one that every kind of defensive package can achieve if they do their talking right. (Of course it has to be backed up by actual defensive capability, unless you're really good with karate or an excellent speaker. On the other hand, you can bribe your predator.) A frightened predator is a preferred predator - if your predator is afraid to take actions against you, and wait until he has the "perfect hand" to deal with you, it will almost always give you a relatively easier time which you can dedicate to deal with your prey or continue your preparation to the ultimate victory.

There are multiple ways to do this, of course. Ferox with +3 Intercept and Preternatural Strength is a very good trump card to show to your predator, and it will give you a lot of mileage when you discuss the potential medical insurance that your predator has to pay for his minions when he cannot stealth through your defenses. If the "negotiation" is successful, you can limit the damage to your pool to a minimal. Such negotiations, however, normally only come by after you show your predator what they can expect if they fail in their actions - meaning, you have to have a show of force before the intimidation factor can kick in.

There is one last defensive measure.

You can beg.

(o.o)

Lyrics of the Night : Deck Size

The construction of a deck will necessarily deal with the size of the deck's crypt and library, and therefore is often one of the earliest decisions that one has to make when assembling a deck. A Vtes deck has 2 components - the crypt and the library, and therefore technically one has to make 2 decisions as to the size of each of these.

The Crypt is a simpler choice. Although there is no cap as to how many vampires you can include in your crypt, the tournament standard is of a minimum of 12 vampires, and that is the normal number that you'll see in the vast majority of decks. Only weenie decks and certain themed decks (such as some Soul Gem Turbo decks, or Goodnight My Sweet Prince decks) will play with more vampires than 12. Even that, the crypt will generally revolve around maybe 18 vampires at most. In most cases, if you're able to bring out all 18 vampires onto the table, then you must be doing something right, or all your opponents are doing everything wrong. Of course there is that one famous deck with ALL the vampires in the crypt, but it is a legendary concept that I've yet to see on the field.

The library is a totally different animal, with a size range from 60-90, technically depending on the number of players on the table, but rarely do we actually care about that. Therefore, one pretty much has the option to build a library of 60 cards to 90 cards, depending on his style and needs.

In theory, since Vtes allows the replacement of spent cards almost immediately, the cards in your hand is a valuable asset, and therefore the library is a big warehouse for you to keep your resources - the reason why anyone would play with less than 90 cards (the maximum number of assets that you can have) is mainly about how quickly or efficiently you can find the right cards in your warehouse, exactly when you need them. The more cards you have, well, the less chance you'll get the one card you need unless you throw in a lot more copies of that than other cards, who will then affect your ability to get other cards that you need. Of course, the right ratio will mathematically means you'll draw the same card in a 60-card deck or 90-card deck by statistics. But since you'll probably be spending your cards in different ways in different games, this mathematical concept doesn't seem too reliable. (There must be some mathematical concept behind it but that's beyond me)

Having a larger library has its benefits. For certain kind of decks, it becomes a necessity. Imagine a POT combat deck. Let's say you rely on combat to deal with most of your problems, and you use POT as the key discipline for it. Assuming you'd need to enter combat with 2 minions of each of your prey before rendering them ineffective, and assuming you'd want to kill off 4 preys.

Now let's say you use exclusively Ambush to enter combat, a Torn Signpost with Undead Strength damage package coupled with Immortal Grapple for the combat end answer as well as a second round to secure a kill. That's 4 cards per combat. Multiply that by 2 minions and 4 preys, and you'll need to fight 8 times, and that will require you to have 32 cards just to achieve that. Now assuming that you throw in 4 Taste of Vitae to replenish your vampires' blood, 4 maneuver cards in case your vampires' Ambush is blocked and you need extra movement to get in touch, 4 Sideslips to get out of jail and a Disarm for fun and laughter. This combat package will need a commitment of 45 cards. In this example, if you use a 60-card deck, that will only give you 15 more cards to insert, including Master cards, reaction, and most importantly your means to kill off your prey - namely Bleed cards and/or pool-damage cards like Dragonbound and Fame. In this case, a 60-card deck might not be a very good idea. This is of course an over-simplification of a combat deck, but it illustrates the basics of it.

The same idea goes towards many other deck types, which is why you see so many 90-card decks around the place. Malkavian Stealth Bleed for example, need to combo Kindred Spirit with at least 1 stealth card, preferably 2, more if the environment is Auspex heavy, and more multi-purpose cards like Swallowed by the Night if combat is an issue, and then there is the need of bleed enhancer. So for every Kindred Spirits you'll probably be looking at a 3-5 cards package. And you'll need to bleed an average of 10-15 times in order to secure a table win (at least), that would be a staggering 45-60 cards requirement before looking at anything else like defense and Master cards. So if you have a stealth bleeder that uses a 60-card deck it'll likely to lose out on a 5-player table.

Of course, if you have a deck built with 3 players in mind then everything needs to be re-calibrated. But I see few players who does that at all.

The case for 60-cards or decks with less than 90 are usually decks who goes for the throat, with very efficient and fast combo that requires either a particular few cards to pull off, or requires a very quick consecutive card-chain to get it up to speed. Many theme decks are like this. A Spell of Life deck, for example, do not require a lot of cards once the Spell is pulled off, so a lesser deck that secures a more consistent draw might be crucial. I believe that this is the key reason for using libraries that are less than maximum.

Not to forget, one of the key issue in using smaller libraries is the ultimate financial reason. In order to keep to an efficient ratio of key cards, one may be forced to play a smaller library simply because he doesn't own the necessary number of cards in that combo chain. Face it, there is only so many Sensory Deprivation (Boo!) that one has, then one cannot play a Sense-Dep deck with 90-card library - you might never draw the 1 of 3 that you have.

(o.o)