Who's Who in the V:TES Community

Vital Statistics:

Name:
Year of Birth:
Occupation:
Other Games Played:

Number of Cards owned:

Number of Decks ready to play:

Play in:

Jo Herroelen
1975
IT-helpdesk
Roleplay (Vampire;MERP;Alternity;AD&D...),Lunch Money, All "999Games" board games, Axis & Allies.. basically anything we can get our hands on which is any good.
too many to count. Several thousands, at the least
usually 4 or 5 at hand. Enough in my head for it to take only 20 minutes or so..
Leuven, Belgium

Q1: How (and when) did you begin your career as a VTES-player? Who introduced you to the game? Where did you play originally?
I started playing between the release of "Jyhad" and "Vampire", in a small shop called "Avalon Too". One of the people who taught me how to play, is Ethel Verbiest (still my girlfriend after all these years). Even back in those WotC- days, we organized VTES tournaments which had up to 50-60 players from all over (Germany, France, Holland..) However, Avalon Too has now been closed for a couple of years, so there's not even a real central place to play left in Belgium and so at present we play at the different players homes.

Q2: Which of the Sets and Expansions to VTES is your favorite, and why is it your top choice?
I like (and dislike) certain things about all of them, but the original Sabbat set had 1 big advantage: the large boosters were ideal for Sealed Deck tournaments! Apart from that small detail, no real favorite.

Q3: What is your favorite deck to play, and why?
This changes constantly. Depends on the time you ask me (current metagame, formats etc) and my mood.
Of late I've been playing -at tournaments- different versions of what should be known in Europe by now as the "Greta Kircher"-deck.
(It's on www.vekn.de, and I guess will soon appear on the Paris site as well) I constructed this deck , gave it to Luk De Ron for the German Champonship (EC Qualifier) this year and played a CE-adapted version of it myself on the French Open. (It won both times.) It's a deck that can do a lot of weird things, and still make unexpected moves if you change but a few cards.I guess that makes it my most recent favorite, but as I said, this changes often.

Q4: If you could add something to the game, what would it be?
Cardwise? I still think there should be some card (preferably no discipline required, otherwise something well-spread, but rarely used like celerity)which equals up to some sort of deflection (WITHOUT requiring dom or AUS) or something antid-eflection (from the targets point of view of course). One of the biggest problems this game has always had (certainly on a tournament level) is that dom or aus based decks really excel at bleed defense. his makes for a constant error in metagame: why don't we see Gangrel, Nosfe, !Brujah, Ravnos, Setites, Assamites, Daughters, etc win constructed tournaments? Why do we rarely see them at all, while in fun play, you see them a lot more? Because they do not have easy access to anything that amounts to deflection, tel. misdirection,.. The game would be far better balanced if you didn't need one of 2 disciplines..
If not cardwise but in general: utopia: some way to prevent stupid players from screwing up the game by dying..

Q5: What do you do to help promote the game / why are you in this list of people?
*I try to keep the spirit alive (which is hard enough since the game is nearly not sold in Belgium anymore), rally the Belgian players to go to as many foreign tournaments as possible, keep up the relations with the other international playgroups etc.Besides, pertaining to the game: I make sense most of the time, which is more than can be said of others.. *I'm in this list because most European top players know me and regard me as one of them. After so many years in the tournament scene (we show up at just about every big event in Europe within our reach), you get to know the difference between the players that accidentally end up in the finals and the ones that are always present and have something usefull to say/are interesting enough to watch. * In a more direct manner: I'm in this list because I taught the current European champion how to play (and am co-author of the deck in reality). My young Padawan has done well.. :-)) *BTW: I'm somewhat renowned as a top deckbuilder (after constructing the number 2 deck of last years EC in 3 minutes and 17 seconds, and constructing the decks that won the German and French Chamionships this year), and either fully construct or cooperate in constructing a lot of decks for different players, in different countries for a lot of tournaments. :-)) *We are currently constructing (finally) a VTES site for the Belgian playgroup (will probably be www.vekn.be), but have run into some difficulties.Hopefully this will be up and running by january/february 2003.

Q6: What is your favorite deck style for casual play / tournament play?
For one thing:I love playing lots of masters. Not strictly master decks (like the AR-Anson deck), but virtually all decks I play contain a relatively huge amount of them (or so everybody says). People never seem to understand how to play 90 card decks with 24, 27, 30 master cards in them without playing Rumors, Parthenon etc) but I seem to get away with it..

Q7: Is there a difference between your casual play and tournament play?
Absolutely!! I would never be crazy enough to play without delaying tactics, DI's, Sudden, deflection etc in tournament play to begin with (apart fom trick decks of course) It's just not the same: casual play is strictly for fun! This allows for extremely bizar/freaky decks. Must admit though, that in our casual play, very bizar things tend to happen sometimes.(But you will hopefully be able to read about that on the belgian site soon) Also, casual play is for experimenting. You simply don't do that in a tournament, since you don't last long enough to enjoy it.

Back to the index of Who's Who in V:TES.

Q1: How (and when) did you begin your career as a VTES-player? Who introduced you to the game? Where did you play originally? I started playing between the release of "Jyhad" and "Vampire", in a small shop called "Avalon Too". One of the people who taught me how to play, is Ethel Verbiest (still my girlfriend after all these years). Even back in those WotC- days, we organized VTES tournaments which had up to 50-60 players from all over (Germany, France, Holland..) However, Avalon Too has now been closed for a couple of years, so there's not even a real central place to play left in Belgium and so at present we play at the different players homes.	Q2: Which of the Sets and Expansions to VTES is your favorite, and why is it your top choice? I like (and dislike) certain things about all of them, but the original Sabbat set had 1 big advantage: the large boosters were ideal for Sealed Deck tournaments! Apart from that small detail, no real favorite.
Q3: What is your favorite deck to play, and why? This changes constantly. Depends on the time you ask me (current metagame, formats etc) and my mood. Of late I've been playing -at tournaments- different versions of what should be known in Europe by now as the "Greta Kircher"-deck. (It's on www.vekn.de, and I guess will soon appear on the Paris site as well) I constructed this deck , gave it to Luk De Ron for the German Champonship (EC Qualifier) this year and played a CE-adapted version of it myself on the French Open. (It won both times.) It's a deck that can do a lot of weird things, and still make unexpected moves if you change but a few cards.I guess that makes it my most recent favorite, but as I said, this changes often.	Q4: If you could add something to the game, what would it be? Cardwise? I still think there should be some card (preferably no discipline required, otherwise something well-spread, but rarely used like celerity)which equals up to some sort of deflection (WITHOUT requiring dom or AUS) or something antid-eflection (from the targets point of view of course). One of the biggest problems this game has always had (certainly on a tournament level) is that dom or aus based decks really excel at bleed defense. his makes for a constant error in metagame: why don't we see Gangrel, Nosfe, !Brujah, Ravnos, Setites, Assamites, Daughters, etc win constructed tournaments? Why do we rarely see them at all, while in fun play, you see them a lot more? Because they do not have easy access to anything that amounts to deflection, tel. misdirection,.. The game would be far better balanced if you didn't need one of 2 disciplines.. If not cardwise but in general: utopia: some way to prevent stupid players from screwing up the game by dying..
Q5: What do you do to help promote the game / why are you in this list of people? I try to keep the spirit alive (which is hard enough since the game is nearly not sold in Belgium anymore), rally the Belgian players to go to as many foreign tournaments as possible, keep up the relations with the other international playgroups etc.Besides, pertaining to the game: I make sense most of the time, which is more than can be said of others.. I'm in this list because most European top players know me and regard me as one of them. After so many years in the tournament scene (we show up at just about every big event in Europe within our reach), you get to know the difference between the players that accidentally end up in the finals and the ones that are always present and have something usefull to say/are interesting enough to watch. * In a more direct manner: I'm in this list because I taught the current European champion how to play (and am co-author of the deck in reality). My young Padawan has done well.. :-)) BTW: I'm somewhat renowned as a top deckbuilder (after constructing the number 2 deck of last years EC in 3 minutes and 17 seconds, and constructing the decks that won the German and French Chamionships this year), and either fully construct or cooperate in constructing a lot of decks for different players, in different countries for a lot of tournaments. :-)) We are currently constructing (finally) a VTES site for the Belgian playgroup (will probably be www.vekn.be), but have run into some difficulties.Hopefully this will be up and running by january/february 2003.	Q6: What is your favorite deck style for casual play / tournament play? For one thing:I love playing lots of masters. Not strictly master decks (like the AR-Anson deck), but virtually all decks I play contain a relatively huge amount of them (or so everybody says). People never seem to understand how to play 90 card decks with 24, 27, 30 master cards in them without playing Rumors, Parthenon etc) but I seem to get away with it..
Q7: Is there a difference between your casual play and tournament play? Absolutely!! I would never be crazy enough to play without delaying tactics, DI's, Sudden, deflection etc in tournament play to begin with (apart fom trick decks of course) It's just not the same: casual play is strictly for fun! This allows for extremely bizar/freaky decks. Must admit though, that in our casual play, very bizar things tend to happen sometimes.(But you will hopefully be able to read about that on the belgian site soon) Also, casual play is for experimenting. You simply don't do that in a tournament, since you don't last long enough to enjoy it.