View this newsletter and all previous ones online and with hyperlinks at http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/newsletterarchive.html ----------- 6/1/2000 Editors Corner - Ethan Burrow, Prince of Austin Sorry the newsletter is late, but I was busy at Praxis Seizure Dallas. Praxis Seizure Dallas was the largest tounament in Texas that we've had (14 methuselahs!), and I had a great time meeting everyone...most for the first time. I hope we get a chance to mix playgroups again. I'm thinking of hosting another constructed tournament before Sabbat War releases, so if you're interested in coming to Austin for such a tournament let me know. Now our group has to prepare for DragonCon. Six of us plan on going, so watch out Atlanta! Card of the Month - Aura Reading This card among others is very useful simply because the inferior and superior do completely different things. Cards of this variety give you more versatility and options per card than other cards do, which is why I like them so much. Since it does two different things, let's view each seperately. Inferior - Note this is only usable before range is chosen. Being able to view your opponents hand, especially when you're the acting minion is very useful. Being able to view the possible responses to your play will greatly help your combat strategy. The added bonus is that everyone gets to view your prey's hand as well. So you help your grandprey, as well as possibly thwart your prey's metagame plans. However it may sometimes be in your interests not to show your prey's hand to the table. Thankfully, you can still cycle the card via the superior. Superior - At some point in your career with V: TES you eventually realize how important cycling your hand is. Not being able to play cards when you need to is akin to death in V:TES. With Aura Reading, your ability to cycle your hand is greatly increased. Sometimes it may be worth sending a vampire into a combat it might not win, just so you can cycle cards out of your hand for your other minions to be worthwhile. Note that the superior can be played at any time, so if you manage to cycle to an Aura Reading during combat and you still need to cycle your hand, you can play the superior. Standard combat decks, and how to prepare for them. While it is almost impossible to prepare your deck for *all* types of combat, you can certainly read your metagame (some players always stick to the same types of decks) and prepare your deck accordingly. This list attempts to show most of the common deck types in play, and the foils for them. So if you consistantly have a problem with a certain type of combat deck your friend always plays, look below for the solution to your problems. This assumes you want to play combat avoidance and focus your deck on other things. If you're playing combat yourself, view my previous 3 articles on combat decks. Obviously the sweeping generalizations I make below will not ALWAYS be the case, and that's what makes deck building fun :-) Some decks employ more than one of the philosophies below (i.e. Gangrel Claw plus Animalism Trap...prepare according to your local environment) Immortal Grapple Rush Decks Maneuvers. Most grapple decks require a certain number of cards to maintain the combo. Since their deck is packed so tight, they tend to either hope for close range and/or depend on the maneuver from the rush card. Putting several to a lot of maneuvers in your deck will allow you to make it to long range....and never get grappled. Rarely do grapple decks also have ranged strikes, so you won't might not need to S:CE or Dodge at range, although obviously that depends on the style of your opponents Fortitude. The mainstay of surviving combat, grapple decks have no way around fortitude aside from running you out of fortitude cards. Superior Mettle would be your card of choice, since you can still prevent damage if the grappler presses. Beware of POT/CEL decks, as the additional strikes may run you out of prevention cards faster than you think. Tremere Second Round Decks - Most Tremere Decks only frighten you after the first round. So the object of survival is to avoid going to a second round of combat. S:CE or Dodge the first strike (likely a Theft of Vitae) and then make sure you have a Press to End if you don't S:CE. Police Station is very useful in this instance, since it's a free, permanent once per turn, press. Open Grates are also nice, since you can replace and it's skilless, but if you have skills that have presses you should probably use those to enhance your options during combat. Tremere usually pack a lot of presses and traps, so if you can't avoid the second round, you probably are going to regret it no matter what cards you're playing with. Celerity/Weapon Decks With the ability to control combat, especially the additional strikes, S:CE is really the only way to go unless you're also playing with celerity. Fortitude might work, but you might eventually run out of fortitude since combats will be very one sided with multiple strikes and multiple rounds. Gangrel Claw Decks While one of the meanest combats, if prepared Gangrel can be thwarted quite easily. Since you're only usually receiving 1 damage which is also aggravated, the flak jacket could very well be your answer. It'll prevent the one damage and be permanent for the game. Make sure you have presses to end if you use the Flak Jacket. Obviously Dodge, S:CE, and Fortitude could also work. If using fortitude against Gangrel, try to pack Indomitability and/or Unflinching Persistance so you can prevent the one damage you might take and still have other options available to you. Assamite Ranged Attack Decks Your best option is S:CE. While they have access to Psyche!, they'll likely be playing with less of those than you will of S:CE cards. If you can't S:CE, make sure you stay at close range. Most of the deadly quietus strikes only work at long range. Your minion stands a better chance of survival at close range in most cases. Animalism Trap Decks Since Sabbat, Animalism has seen new life with several cards that provide a lasting effect throughout combat. With the aid of Trap, it has become quite nasty. The only way of really dealing with this type of combat is S:CE. Fortunately the only things you have to worry about is a Dog Pack and multiple Drawing out the Beasts both of which are rare. Fortitude will also help in this situation, however with the environmental damage, make sure you pack Skin of Rocks as well as strike prevention. You will still get hosed by the Drawing out the Beasts though, pray it's not more than 2. Indomitability is a MUST so you can press to end while also preventing damage you'll likely take. You may notice that almost all combat can be avoided successfully with S:CE, which is apparently why some groups have such a proliferation of it. If you find your group is very heavy S:CE, the solution, which is to help them understand that they are not untouchable, is to play the typical weenie potence Immortal Grapple decks that have been posted. (You can visit TheLasombra's deck archive, there are several Potence/Immortal Grapple decks via several of the links) Decks using Thought's Betrayed and Psyche! are also useful, but harder to pull off. Once you've kicked some ass with Immortal Grapple after a few weeks, you'll see the metagame shift away from pure S:CE (i.e. no maneuvers or presses) and thus it becomes less of a problem. All decks have a foil. The goal is not to sit next to the one for your deck ;-) Until next month, dream of Lucita and all the new cards we'll get come October. ------------------------------------------- Ethan Burrow - Prince of Austin ethan@ddg.com http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/