Alternative tournament format - Honour the Elders
by Skaffen Amtiskaw
www.8ung.at/colddawn


The rules:

Quite a few of them, the ideas behind them will be explained
afterwards. Note that this format was designed for an unofficial
tournament of our playgroup, it requires a certain amount of
pre-planning. Here we go:

1. Each player choses one vampire with a capacity of nine or higher in
advance (the Elder). Only one Elder per clan is allowed for the
tournament. The chosen Elders are made public prior to the tournament.

2. A copy of the Elder is placed in his uncontrolled region at the
beginning of each game. The crypt (minimum size of 11) is shuffled and
three more vampires are added to the uncontrolled region. 

3. All Elders are considered famous, and this is considered a unique
effect (so you can't play Fame (the card) on an Elder).

4. Other minions cannot take directed actions as long as an Elder of
their clan is not in play.

5. Each minion has a minimum cost of six pool to bring out. If it has
a lesser capacity, the excess drains off.

6. The Elder is attached to a Methusalah until it's brought into play.
(So if another player brings out a copy of the vampire you have chosen
to be your Elder, that copy is not an Elder. But if your Elder gets
stolen later in the game, it's still considered an Elder, so minions
of the same clan can take d-actions).

7. Elders do not contest. Any contesting copies of an Elder are burnt
upon entering play. (This is similar to Jimmy Dunn's special, if a
copy of a vampire you have chosen as your Elder enters play while you
already have your Elder out, or if you bring out your Elder and
another copy of that vampire is already in play, that copy burns
immediately.)

8. Being an Elder of a clan is not attached to the clan of the Elder
during play. (If your Elder gets deranged or clan impersonates, he's
still the Elder of his original clan.)

9. Clanless vampires have no restriction on taking d-actions. 

One card is banned in addition to the regular list: Brainwash (Reason:
Only Sudden Reversal or cross-table help would save you once one is
played on your uncontrolled Elder - since without him you can't take
the d-action against the controller of the Brainwash to get rid of
it).

Apart from that all standard rules apply.


The idea:

Well, first of all it is meant to create a challenging and fun
environment for V:tES play a little outside the normal meta game. I
was trying to create a limited format that forces players to change
their views on deck-building and come up with interesting
combos/strategies (especially by giving them one Elder to toy with, so
they will have access to a discipline set or special ability of their
choice without having to build a mono-vampire crypt with 5 or 6 copies
of the one). It is also an experiment to find out if and how a
restricted format might result in a broken game - i.e. will taking the
most-quoted-as-broken strategy (weenie) out of the equation make the
game more balanced or just exploitable in a new way. Most of the rules
were invented to balance the three strategies (bleed, vote, combat) in
this environment - the d-action rule to stop semi-swarm bleed decks,
the fame rule to give high-cap combat a chance to actually oust
someone. The political angle IMO didn't need any restrictions as most
of the possible Elders have votes in one form or the other, so
vote-lock is very hard to achieve, nor any boon as obviously
Bewitching/Awe/Telepathic Vote Counting is still a promising way to go
(not to mention table agitation).

The result:

We gave this format a try during two consecutive regular playing
sessions, 3 rounds + final. As it turned out we had only one dedicated
vote deck (a Cailean-based Obf/Pre deck), and many players stuck to
classic archetypes (Arika and Giovanni power bleed, Cock Robin
Ani-wall, Brujah Antitribu bruise'n'bleed) or tried a one-vampire show
(Lambach 7 Raptors, Rachel Brandywine Madness Network action). Still
the format made an impact on all decks, with strong combat defense in
most of them and many trump masters flying around (Pentex, Archon
Investigations, Golconda, Secure Haven).

I experienced the games as very "fragile": Many had early ousts, but
many (and sometimes the same ones) also went to time. People were
trying to protect their small pool amounts (after bringing out 2-ish
minions at a total cost of roughly 16) against the threats of drastic
actions (Arika bleeds for 8 anyone?) - those that couldn't cope died
soon. Card cycling was naturally difficult with fewer actions to be
taken, I felt the danger of exposing myself much stronger than
usually, but often had to do something to draw into my defense.

Did it break the game? No, though I don't think many players were
actually trying hard (well, I did, with a Tremere Signet/Pier
13/Incriminating Videotape effort, but neglected the defense a
little), but that might be attributed to the fact that with all those
rules the meta game looked complicated enough to most, so they tried
to figure how to survive first. No surprise on the winner(s): Ventrue
and Giovanni monster bleed dominate the final, Ventrue win.

Was it fun? Hell, yeah! (And that, apart from sharing this idea, is
the real message for this issue: While all discussions on the
newsgroup and usually also within this letter are strictly based on
tournament V:tES play with all applicable rules, one should never
forget that playing by alternative house rules is probably as popular
as the official way, and that every way to make V:tES even more
enjoyable is worth trying.)