Introduction: We've had the pleasure of running an EC-qualifier during the gamingconvention Gothcon this Easter. The tournament attracted 35 players and as judge I had the opportunity to follow play in a way I never get to do while participating. We all have an idea of what works, what's usually tried and what's frowned upon, but the perceived truth differs between the player participating in the game and the observer watching the game. Sitting at the table we'll take note of the builder/breeder who stacks more and more permanent cards on the table and we'll get more and more uncomfortable with the presence of an unstoppable juggernaut to be. As an observer I could come back to the table half an hour later noting that the stacks of cards had become even more impressive but nothing had happened that was actually bad for the player being preyed upon. I made the same conclusion when a player got a mid-cap vampire stolen/burned. It's something rather awful when it's happening to you, but watching the table from the outside I was surprised to notice how little impact it really had on the game. General Bloodlines observation: We have a full three months of tournaments with legal play of Bloodlines, and the winning impact on tournaments this far is close to zero. A fast controll of the Tournament Winning Deck Archive did surprise me. One deck with Blood Brothers only. Apart from that a grand total of two (2) vampires from Bloodlines - both Kiasyd. Does this mean that the tournaments are void of Bloodlines cards? Of course not, but apparently their vampires don't show up in the winning decks. I had to control this, and the tournament last week gave me a perfect opportunity to do this, especially as it attracted players we normally never see here. The result was depressing. A couple of Salubri and Nagaraja, a lonely Kiasyd and an equally deserted Harbinger of Skulls. The one card that has made it into several decks is Sanguine Instruction, which hardly is a surprise. General observation: I almost, just almost, start longing for Malkavians. They have more or less vanished from the scene over here, and out of 35 decks I saw one (1) Malkavian, who coinsidentically happened to be Anatole beefing up an !Malk deck. The Toreador has been a popular clan in tournament decks, but unless the player walks in some strange direction they never make it to the finals. I saw one Anneke/Alexandra -deck that eventually fell apart as a result of combat. There was another protean based toreador deck that blocked and torporized it's neighbours, but with several other decks featuring combat as well it eventually ran out of blood and after that ran out of pool. Dominate bounce/bleed/blockdenial seems to be the archetypical winning decks these days, so I expect to see a lot more rush combat and intercept combat with Eagles Sight - and of course even more bounce. Complaint of the month: A strange header it may seem, but I've spent the last three tournaments listening to players lamenting the abusive power of dominate-bleeders. They're too powerful, too lacking in imagination, too boring to meet and too. My response is that they are none of the above, but rather too easy to crush - if players had bothered to prepare for them. I mean, one of the core actions in the rules is to bleed your prey. When you bleed your prey his/her pool is reduced. Reducing your preys pool to zero is what you're supposed to do. What's the problem? Countermeasure: Toreadors have access to three main ways to counter this core strategy: Intercept, soak and bounce. Of these intercept is the most risky as you may end up with loads of intercept and none of your vampires allowed to block otherwise unstealthed bleeds. Soak, by means of Telepathic Counter, is a good way to handle bleeds for three or less, especially if you play with high capacity vampires and don't wish to tap, but it's really not an option against anything playing Govern the Unaligned followed by Conditioning. An Embrace with dom that have hunted twice will kick your pool for five, and if the bleeder don't wish to empty their small minions they can still Scouting Mission and Threat you for three points of pool loss, in which case you'll take one point of pool loss for each capacity two vampire in the swarm behind you. Bouncing with Telepathic Misdirection leaves you tapped at the cost of one blood - and it requires AUS, so you'll need a few cap 3 and 4 vamps with AUS in your crypt to really feel safe. I'd still go with Telepathic Misdirection any day. Sticking anything between five and eight of those in your library will greatly enhance your chances of staying alive. Players frown upon what I consider to be the greatest boon with the card - it's inferior +1 intercept for the cost of one blood. Why is this so important? First, it's another source of intercept - you might have a rabid voter behind you rather than a bleeder. Second, Toredor decks tend to be slow but resilient - it's good to know that the card can be used for something else than discarding when there are only two of you left at the table. Bouncing is good for you, bouncing is bad for your prey and bouncing usually is highly disturbing for your predator. Just remember to control the table before you start bouncing that five point bleed to your prey. Ask a couple of questions mentally first: O: Can the bleeder add more stealth than your prey can handle? A: Yes. Action: Attempt to block, fail and bounce to your unhappy prey. Unless Q: Can the bleeder add more stealth than your prey can handle? A: Yes. Q: Is your prey likely to bounce? A: Yes. Action: Bounce to your prey immediately. Q: Can the bleeder add more stealth than your prey can handle? A: No. Q: Does my grandpredator play a combatmonster? A: Yes. Action: Bounce backwards so that your grandpredator may chew up the offending vampire. Unless Q: Can the bleeder add more stealth than your prey can handle? A: No. Q: Does my grandpredator play a combatmonster? A: Yes. Q: Can my grandpredator afford tapping a vampire? A: No. Action: Attempt to block if allowed, otherwise bounce to your prey. There is another card for the Toreador who can handle making more than two enemies at the table - Eagles Sight. Just remember that blocking crosstable makes you about as popular as rushing crosstable. I don't mean that this is always the same as getting the entire table against you. Disturbing or even killing off the archetypical bleeder will generally be applauded by everyone else - it may buy you a turn with no offensive actions from your predator if you sweet-talk him/her into it. I've seen it happen quite often that a player promises to risk his/her back for a crosstable interference if the table (except the targeted player of course) agrees that it's worth one turn when the interfering player doesn't have to worry about blocking - after all, extreme bleeders are unpopular enough for making me write this part of the newsletter and despised enough to gain you a good (and sometimes stupid) bargain in return for your acting on prejudice. When to bleed: If bleeding is so bad while at the same time the core method of ousting your prey then how should you bleed? Toreador are after all good potential bleeders. Legal manipulation in combination with Aire of Elation when playing Toreador is just a mirror of the dreaded Govern/Conditioning -combination. If you play Toreador you probably don't want to remove one main strategy from your library. So, how do we proceed? To begin with. Do not play the above combination as your first action. Never, ever! Bad move! You just drew the attention of the entire table and made certain that your prey is going to be extremely defensive. You just can't afford this because Presence is not Dominate and it's likely that you have just performed your last succesful bleed at turn two. The trick is to either oust your prey with the superbleed or just stick to bleeds for two by means of Social Charm. In the latter case make sure that the table hears you repeating that it's part of you bloat strategy and that you don't have any bleed-modifiers in your deck. If you're trying the final bleed trick, then you probably don't need more than five or six Aire of Elation in a 90 card library. No action-cards for bleeding, just those modifiers. You can always try equipping, recruiting or voting and get blocked, play Majesty at superior and bleed for one as your last action. Your prey will dislike when you finally equip with a laptop, but as you never play other bleed-cards he/she will settle down as a bleed for two is acceptable. You will probably even see the bounce-cards get discarded during the game as it's not worth paying one blood to see your vampire untap after a prearranged combat with your grandprey. A core Toreador bleed/bounce library: 49 cards Political actions: 6 Consanginous Boon 3 Kine Resources Contested 3 Action modifiers: 12 Aire of Elation 6 Repulsion 3 Bribes 3 Equipment: 1 IR Goggles 1 Retainers: 1 Jackie Therman 1 Combat: 12 Majesty 8 Pursuit 4 Reaction: 17 Spirits Touch 2 Precognition 2 Melange 2 My Enemys Enemy 1 Telepathic Misdirection 6 Wake with Evenings Freshness 4 It's based on AUS, pre, cel with the occasional PRE and enough vote to fool the table. It leaves space for your choise of going with princes/justicars or untitled vampires.