5/1/99 Editors Corner - Ethan Burrow, Prince of Austin Well, I have a confession to make. I was crushed in the tournament in New Orleans. I didn't get a single victory point. I was shamed... I will explain what I did wrong so that you won't make the same mistakes when you visit another city to play in a tournament. A special thanks to Sorrow for showing such hospitality to TheLasombra and myself while we visted his domain. If you care to peruse my thoughts and pictures on the event, you can find them at my "Judgement : Camarilla Segregation - Behind the Scenes" page. I'd also like to take this moment to get on my soapbox and explain why I think Misdirection should be banned in tournament play. Leaving vampires untapped for defense is one of the many decisions methuselahs face. The balance between offense and defense is indeed one of the basic fundamentals of the game. I probably do not need to go into detail on the overpoweredness of Misdirection being able to remove that element of control from your strategy. Rather I will explain how the cost to defend against it is so great, that the card creates an unbalance in the game when used. To cite example, in the recent tournament in New Orleans a dominate weenie bleed deck used a misdirection every turn to make sure it's prey's minions were all tapped. Every turn. If you were unfortunate enough to have this deck be your predator, you have the following options to avoid destruction. 1. Put as many Sudden Reversals in your deck as your predator has Misdirections. This way you are almost guaranteed that your minions will be unaffected. The cost to you is your master phase action every turn for the whole game, and several card slots. Having to focus this much resources for defense, mostly just to insure that you can *mount* a defense, is quite unbalanced in my opinion. 2. Put 2-3 times as many Wake/untap cards in your deck as your predator has misdirections. Even though your minions are misdirected, you can still react or block the actions. However this method will likely take a 3rd of your deck and focus most of your decks resources against your predator....which will not land you a victory point unless you are playing with life boon. That's another problem entirely, but I'll table that until it really pisses me off. 3.Play with enough Protected Resources and/or Archon Investigations to slow down the weenie deck. And slow him down you will, but you may not be able to completely stop them. 4.Play a weenie dominate/misdirection bleed deck and bleed your prey faster than your predator can oust you. I frankly don't want to see a weenie dominate/misdirection deck at every tournament I go to for now on, but unless we ban misdirection....how else are people going to win? Some of you may argue the rush element, but do you really want to be the only rush deck on a table with this thing? Let the flame war commenceVampire of the Month - Remilliard, Devout Crusader He's probably the best low cost vamp you could pull into your crypt from our clan. At a cost of 4, he's a good pick for your first minion to influence if he shows up in your initial 4. And he's got the skills to defend your pool while you influnce the bigger guys. And he can still be useful later in the game. With superior Auspex he can provide all the bleed defense and intercept you might need in the opening turns of the game. While he has inferior presence, he can still be used to good effect to bleed or vote with, provided your neighbors choose to influence big vamps and thus have no initial defense. Take care however, for he doesn't have Celerity. He might not survive long in combat without help. Card of the Month - Palla Grande This is a nice master to place in any deck that focuses on clan Toreador Antitrbu. The only cost is your master phase action. And for 3 turns, all your Toreador Antitribu get +1 bleed. Whether you want to increase bleeds for you bleed deck, or force combat with your combat decks, this baby will do the job. One interesting thing to note, is that it affects *all* Toreador Antitribu. I have played games before where multiple methuselahs were playing with Toreador Antitribu, and they all beamed when it was played by one Methuselah. If someone in your group plays with Jost all the time, realize that this card could benefit them as well. How I prepared for the New Orleans tournament, and why it cost me dearly The moment TheLasombra and I decided to make the trek to New Orleans, one of the first things I asked were details on their Meta Game. TheLasombra's previous encounter with them involved his Mind Rape/Banishment deck which terrorized them to no end. TheLasombra explained the reasons the deck performed so well : little to no intercept and vote lock with only 2 titled vamps (no vote modifiers). I had this in mind when I tweakedmy Vote and Bleed deck. Without displaying the whole deck (simply because I'm lazy), it essentially involved Jost and Rebekka for bleeds, and Natasha for calling votes. I filled out the crypt with Arika, Gideon, Sir Walter and Timothy, so I had titled votes and superior presence. I bled with propoganda and social charms, and when my prey was all tapped out I'd use domain challange. There were other toys as well, but you get the idea. I figured this deck would take advantage of New Orleans play style of mostly combat and give me some easy victory points. A day before the tournament, we got together with Sorrow and a couple of the New Orleans players for some "friendly" games. Not only was it a lot of fun, but it mostly confirmed everything TheLasombra had depicted of their playing style. I deliberately did not play with my chosen tournament deck that day. I saw no reason to show everyone how the deck worked before round 1. However, on tournament day I was in for quite a surprise. Sorrow had anticipated that someone from Austin would bring a vote deck (rightly so), and he brought his Ventrue Antitribu anti-vote deck which had intercept and Vote denial. A new player Lauren showed up with a presence bleed deck, which I frankly wasn't expecting either. But the real kicker was the insideous and lame deck that Steven brought. The ill-famed misdirection/weenie bleed template that literally sweeped every table it was on. I was stuck on his table all but once. And on the one game where I wasn't at his table, I had the pleasure of contesting Sir Walter with my prey Norm. No victory points for me. What did I learn ? Meta Games are predictable except for tournaments. Everyone goes in with a different mindset than under normal gaming days. Expect and plan for the worst of decks, not the decks you've seen your opponents play. I was wrong to assume that I was going to face only combat heavy decks. Speed is paramount in tournaments, not staying power. Pool gaining resources and large capacity vamps may seem like good ideas....but will it come out in time to defend yourself against the weenie horde? And rest assured, there will always be one weenie horde in each tournament...or that city is doing it wrong. Deck Medic/Strategy Corner The one gleaming gem from the New Orleans experience, is TheLasombra's Aggressive Tactics deck which took 6 victory points and made it to the finals. This deck using the Toreador Antitribu is pretty nasty, and I give you the deck composition : Vampires 1 Carter 1 Ian Wallingford 2 Jessica 2 Lachlan, Noddist 1 Lolita 2 Remilliard, Devout Crusader 2 Sheila Mezarin 1 Victor Revell, Loyalist Library 5 Acrobatics 7 Blur 4 Flash 8 Lucky Blow 5 Pulled Fangs 6 Sideslip 4 Taste of Vitae 4 Leather Jacket 2 Sport Bike 8 Aggressive Tactics 4 Blood Doll 1 Fetish Club H. G. 1 Information Highway 5 Enhanced Senses 8 Forced Awakening 8 Precognition 4 Spirit's Touch 6 Telepathic Misdirection 90 Total library cards 69 common 8 uncommon 13 rare 39 combat 6 equipment 14 master 31 reaction Game Environment: NCL, post 1/5/99 RTR. -- Ethan Burrow - Prince of Austin ethan@ddg.com http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/