9/1/2000 Editors Corner - Ethan Burrow, Prince of Austin I'd like to thank Sorrow for hosting Tradition Upheld last month. It's not often that we get a chance to go to a tournament that we aren't hosting/judging, and we all had a lot of fun. Hope you guys can make it down to our Crusade : Austin (Sabbat War draft), which we have tentatively planned for Dec 16th. Sabbat War is only 2 months away. Order/Purchase through your local retailers. While I may not have much specific Toreador-Antitribu stuff to cover anymore, I'm still convinced that this clan plus the Camarilla counterparts are among the most versatile vampires/clans to play in the game. So I will continue to write newsletters until such time as Legbiter and I both throw up our hands and say it's not worth it anymore :-) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Card of the Month - Dramatic Upheaval I really love it when a card that was somewhat useful but underplayed finally gets it's day of reckoning. This card is so amazing in helping you win the game with almost no effort. This card has 2 uses, one of which should be your primary goal...while the other is a backup plan. Primary Goal : Use the vote to switch places with the player about to oust their prey. Then during the same turn if possible, oust your prey. This has been used quite effectively by players seemingly harmless to jump across the table and steal a victory point from a strong predator. In tournaments, this tactic is even more telling as people rush to get their victory point to ensure their place in the final. Since your strategy is not to oust your current prey, but wait until someone is weak, you can effectively alter the meta game (since without pressure some players are more aggressive). This will likely result in someone's pool being reduced drastically, and then you can swoop in like a vulture. The beauty of this tactic, is the strong predator expended most of his resources to hit his prey, and with almost no effort you come in and take his victory point from him. While Kindred Restructure is more powerful, it requies a Prince/Justicar to call. Dramatic Upheavel requires a neonate :-) Even Smudge can help you in your goal to win ;-) Secondary Goal : Move away from an aggressive predator. This is a survival strategy to make sure that YOU are not the weakest person on the table. If you have a predator that you cannot handle, get the hell out of there! :-) This card works well even in decks that do not vote. TheLasombra put it in his Lasombra Commons deck, and since everyone else was practically playing weenie decks, his votes usually passed. If you have any deck with a couple of spare cards slots, consider putting in a few Dramatic Upheavals. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Deck Design - Modules Norm (X-Zealot) and I were discussing possible deck strategies while I was in New Orleans, and he had a deck that he was putting together. He had taken a piece of paper, and was scribbling his deck composition on it. I noticed he had written "5th Tradition Backbone" and I asked him what that meant. He replied that it's a grouping of cards that he always includes in his decks to make them function competitively. Namely 5th Tradition, Minion Tap, and 2nd Tradition of about 7-10 cards each. I realized that was probably a good idea to ensure pool gain and defense in Prince decks which usually require high capacity vampires to function. Then it hit me. This modularity can extend to any facet of the game. Instead of building 'decks' as we have traditionally done, you can build 'modules' that work for several decks. This strategy of deckbuilding heavily favors those who either don't have a lot of cards, or tend to mirror the same strategies across several decks. Once Norm and I started running with this idea we realized how much it could add to our current thinking of building decks. A novice player can attempt to trade and collect cards to build modules. You can interchange those built modules to build different types of decks using the same mix of cards. Now a player that could usually only field 3-4 competitive decks can now field 10+ using the same cards. Instead of organizing by decks, you organize by modules. Build a deck using modules, play the deck, and seperate the modules afterwards. Here are several examples of modules that I have come up with : Prince Pool Gain Module: (17 cards) 8 5th Tradition - Hospitality 8 Minion Tap 1 Giant's Blood Weenie Pool Gain Module: (11 cards) 8 Tribute to the Master Inbase Discotek Aaron's Feeding Razor Palatial Estate Prince Influence Module: (8 cards) 5 4th Tradition - Accounting 2 Tomb of Ramses 1 Dreams of the Sphinx Dominate Influence Module: (12 cards) 8 Govern the Unaligned 3 Information Highway 1 Dreams of the Sphinx Dominate Bleed Defense Module: (14 cards) 5 Deflection 5 Redirection 4 Major Boon Auspex Bleed Defense Module: (14 cards) 5 Telepathic Misdirection 5 Telepathic Counter 4 Archon Investigation Potence Grapple Combat Module: (30 cards) 8 Immortal Grapple 6 Undead Strength 6 Torn Signpost 2 Disarm 8 Taste of Vitae Presence Vote Module: (20 cards) 4 Charming Lobby 2 Dread Gaze 6 Bewitching Oration 2 Awe 6 Voter Captivation Rush Module: (16 cards) 6 Bum's Rush 6 Ambush 4 Haven Uncovered Brujah Weapons Module: (25 cards - 2 vampires) 2 Black Cat Al's Army Apparatus 2 Arms Dealer 3 Bahk Nahk 4 .44 Magnum 1 Ivory Bow 4 Leather Jacket 6 Flash 4 Blur As the last module will illustrate, you can and should include vampires in the module where appropriate. I would also like to note that the crypt of the ceck is intended to be somewhat independent of the modules themselves. You should take great care in collecting modules together and then ensuring that you get a proper fit of vampires to utilize your modules. I'll illustrate with the Brujah (if you noticed the modules, you likely saw it coming). Brujah Rush - using modules --------------------------- Prince Pool Gain Module - 17 cards Potence Grapple Combat Module - 30 cards Brujah Weapons Module - 25 cards - 2 vampires Rush Module 16 cards --- Total Cards 90 with 2 vampires in crypt Since you're playing with modules that require Princes, Potence, and Celerity - Jump over to Crypt Monger and find the 10 most efficient vampires for that mix. And here's where the modules become really interesting. Let's say you find the Brujah Weapons module inefficient since you already have potence combat, and your finding that you're discarding all the equipment anyways. Well, switch out the Brujah Weapons modules for the Dominate Bleed Defense modules and the Prince Influence module, plug-n- play :-). Brujah Rush - using modules --------------------------- Prince Pool Gain Module - 17 cards Potence Grapple Combat Module - 30 cards Prince Influence Module -8 cards Dominate Bleed Defense Module -14 cards Rush Module 16 cards --- Total Cards 87 Now you have a mix of Princes, Potence and Dominate. Jump over to Crypt Monger again and find the 12 most efficient vampires for that mix. If you knew as well as I did that there a actually several Brujah with Dominate, then this modification hopefully made sense to you. By no means are the above modules likely the most efficient, but I'm sure the community working together could easily establish very tuned modules for every facet of the game. If using modules intrigues you enough to create your own, I would be very interested to hear what everyone comes up with. If there is enough interest, I will start a module archive to collect and catalogue them. Props go to Norm (X-Zealot) for planting the seed in my head that created this brainstorm of an idea. ------------------------------- Ethan Burrow - Prince of Austin ethan@ddg.com http://whitestar.ddg.com/vtes/