One of my objectives to this VtES season was to go to an Continental Qualifier, and try to make good figure out of it, with a rush deck. If it could be Brujah, the better. And last month, I’ve tried.

I’ll not describe here all the tables, and all the casualties, but i prefer to put my deck, and try to analyze a little bit how did it get, and why. What were the main problems, and the solutions to pass them. On the standings i was the second with more ranking at the start of the final (2 GW and 10 VP’s). In the final table, that lasted for more than five hours, I got 2 VP’s and the second place.

Now lets go to the analysis. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is my complete opinion of Twilight Rebellion Library Cards. Soon I’ll post up the

Tier 1: you will make deck with this card, even if it implies extra setup
Tier 2: if you deck as the requirements, you will use this card as one of the main cards
Tier 3: usable, but not worth of big changes, or just as support
Tier 4: For fun games, or maybe a strange one trick pony.

º <- will be used soon on a deck of mine, that is almost ready

Read the rest of this entry »

If there is a deck archetype that I really enjoy playing, but I usually avoid in tournament, is rush combat deck. It’s fun making combat, ant the combat mechanics of vampire offer you a lot of variants, so that you have a lot of different ways to make your opponent fall into torpor, or just burn him in combat. But let’s talk about the archetype.

The combat

Well, its a combat deck, so in principle you have the ways to kill your enemies in combat, before it kills you. Talking about that in this text would be like water in the rain. But there are a couple of problems that combat decks often get in their combats, specially at tournament level.

- When you go out for combat, you normally need to kill, so Strike Combat Ends, its a real threat, and every  rush combat deck at tournament level have to deal with it. Well, the weenie rush deals with it normally by repeating the target, but that’s the weenie way. There are too types of way getting the kill, the first is to don’t let your opponent fall out of combat, by force. In this way you play cards after the S:CE as entered effect, ignoring its efect, Psyche! and Telepathic tracking are the most common forms of this. It as the advantage of making your opponent waste the S:CE card, but in the other hand you don’t get the efect of your strikes of the first combat. If you are using permanent effects, like aggravated hands, weapons and other stuff, this is the best option normally. And you prevent Röthshreck at the same time. But if you want to kill right away, your best way is to denial the chance of your opponent using S:CE at all. Oliver Thrace has it from itself, but you cannot always make rush decks with him. Permanent cards like Blessing of Chaos, are a good help but only from some types of combat ends. The two main choices for this kind of thing continues to be Immortal Grapple and Thoughts betrayed. When you play one of them, you’re opponent, if not a combat deck itself, have if fate doomed.

- The other thing that you’ll have to think is what to do with the torporized vampires. If you send them into torpor with mass damage, it’s not a hard thing to let them stay on torpor, but in the other end if you send them by trick (like Coma, Entombment), or by aggravated poke, you must do something. If must or diablerize, or make the vampire your own. Graverobbing is an excellent addition. But never let a vampire with blood on torpor alone, because he’ll come back.
The way to get the VP’s

This is the hard part of playing a combat deck. You’ll be killing vampires at your prey because he is your prey. Killing vampires of your predator because its your way of defence. Probably killing some vampires cross table for the control of the table. But what about the thing that gives you victory, getting the VP done?
I think that all the rush combat deck players tasted the frustration of killing a horde of vampires at the table, but in the end getting nothing of it, leaving the table with 0 vp’s. Its hard, but its very common. Some people say that Rush Combat its the harder way of winning in tournament, and I tend to agree. But there are some weapons.

- Fame: Definitively its the best solution to kill using rush, but its not enough normally. Even with the old trick of rescuing the opposite vampire from torpor, and getting him down again, you need more power.

- Tension in the ranks: If you don’t play weenie, or your combat is too risky making you go into torpor a lot, its a good card. But always have the problem that it’s easily destroyed, by discarding 2 master cards. It’s not the most regular card, but is pretty strong.

- Dragonbound: I truly like this card. It’s true that this card have a strong drawback, since you loose one permanent hand size to play it. It can be harsh, and could mean that you have a bigger change of handjam. But it’s a reliable source of damaging a lot of people. You need to think before putting it into play, since it’s almost indestructible once in play, and evaluate all the conditions. Nonetheless it’s a strong card.

- Anarch Revolt: Kill all the vampires your prey has, and are not anarchs, and get multiples copies of anarch revolt. A classic, but still a great choice.

- Bleeding: Well, even without any cards all vampires can bleed. And if your prey doesn’t have vampires to defend itself, it’s a choice. But never forget, this is only a true power strategy if you play weenie. Because 8 bleeds of 1, are a strong bleeding power.

When I asked Ben Peal about the Bringer of War list, the first thing he said was that the number one should be Una.

First of all, who’s Una? The picture at the right side show the vampire, as you already see it. At first glance, its a nice Country !Gangrel, with a title and presence, making her a potential good political deck star vampire. And her special is hot from the start, making her able to use freak drive and good damage prevention for free. But then… if she can freak drive for free, why not just giving her all the good equipment and permanent effect actions in one single turn? This is the principle that last year in LA turned a regular player, Matt Wedge, into the most hated player for many people in this game.

He just developed a deck where Una on a single turn can equip a lot of stuff, and blocking all that is a mad issue, because even the most strong wall doesn’t have 45+ wakes, and then rush all the table with the goods he just acquired. The deck get some sucess, mainly because getting the 45+ freak drives the deck needs is not easy, but since the beggining of 2008, it just showed in a number of places at full power. And yes this deck wins a lot.

The last report was from the European Qualifier in France, this saturday, and he just get a second place. But the problem isn’t this. Sometimes a deck shows power, or new power, and get a lot of sucess in the tournament scene. I can recall the quintuple A (Ambulance, Aching Beauty, Alexandra, Anson, Anneke), that have show at full power late 2007 and 2008, and no one said much against it. Why? Because its a regular VtES deck, that is strong, but do the things at the same point that VtES is always played. Una just exploits a gap on VtES, at least is what a lot of people think, just like the Turbo deck’s. The diference is that Una is getting wins at it.

The big question here is: Playing a turn of 30-40 minutes with almost zero interaction with the table, that is the main fun on VtES, is fair? What do you think? Many players around the world think that’s not. Sure that some things can be putted togheter to stop this at organization level. I’m not talking at banning (or even rewrite) Freak Drive, one of the most played cards ever. And even not sure about doing it to Una. If there is any solution, my favorite as to make a limit to the number of actions a vampire can make in a turn. Maybe a number around six or eight, will be fine. The normal decks using freak drive wouldn’t have many troubles with this, and the exploit like Una would be end.

There are some cards in Vampire that with they’re bare presence on the table, turn a deck that is just playing over there, with the others, in a enemy of the table. I’ve decided to call them, Bringers of War, since they’re interpreted by a lot of players as a declaration of war to the table.

In a talk with some players, I defined a little list of this kind of cards, and hosted a little fast vote. This list, and all the consequent voting is arbitrary, but its a list. Just a little bit of explanation about each one of them.

I asked a little group to make their voting, and this is the final result. Thanks Matt Morgan, Mats Ole, Jussi Hattara and Ben Peal to voting.

6th - Palla Grande

If there is a cardtype that truly get’s this concept out, is Palla Grande. Make a little new vampire or two, get yourself alive by intercepting and deflecting, regular stuff for a deck, not to agressive. Moments later, there come the Palla Grande, and the not so powerfull deck, becomes a killing machine. And its not breakable, and when it goes out, it does nothing bad to the one that as played it. Probably he plays another when he runs out the first one.

5th - Week of Nightmares

The card was always a frightening sight on any table. It is a palla grande that makes all your vampires +1 strength too. And Ravnos have better access to stealth. Sure, you have the drawbacks that Palla doesn’t have, but a more powerful punch, and it’s known to be used only when you have all that you need to go for the kill. Or you’re too desperate.

3th - Smiling Jack

When if first started to go to international forums about VtES, one of them was a Spanish one. There I read a player that as said that Walls are a lie created to protect the Smiling Jack. For sure that is not the only way walls have to oust in a game, but its the most common one. It unleashes a downgrade of power against all the table, except yourself. For sure that when you put in to play the Smiling one, you must have pool gain mechanism set, and a solid way to defend it. But when you do… its a win.

3th - Soul Gem of Etrius

In the same place of Smiling Jack, comes the Soul Gem of Etrius. If one is one card that boosts a traditional VtES deck archetype to a powerful level, the second one is the motivation to create a combo deck in VtES, that is not common. When you see the Soul Gem, you understand that you’re in presence of a turbo deck. If i have a Direct Intervention on hand, and see a Soul Gem, its very likely to get used right on that spot. If the combo starts, its almost unstoppable.

2th - Baltimore Purge

Who likes to see all the vampires at the table, except the ones of one Methuselah, going into torpor, beeing graverobed, striped from their blood and killed? When you see this card going into play, you know that the plan is to do all that stuff, and you’re on bad place. As the other cards on that list, you must unite, or be dead.

1th - Gehena

This is the only “card” in this set, that in the truth its not just one but a set of them. In the first list there was Recalled to the Founder, Wormwood, Blood Weakens, and so many others, but I think that they only are a thread because of the set of them, so they show here together. The concept of getting the vampires useless, or making their actions extremelly costy, makes a lot of people annoyed. And not just Imbued players use this, some decks that use weenies without disciplines, ally’s decks, and other tricks are using it.

The voting:

I may do a new listing, for that I would like to all put this list in the order of their choice, in the comment box below, to see what is the most terrifying Bringer of War.

What a best way to start a VtES blog, than to talk about new cards? And we are starting to get some impressions of they’re play here in Portugal. Our first event when they’re distributed to players was on Sunday, and some of them start to appear, but in a very shy way. Buts lets talk about each of them.

Cloak of the Abalone

How powerful can it truly be a card that is pure meta against two clans? All right, its not just one clan, and its a meta card to make you unblockable by two classic wall clans. But who will put it in on a tournament level deck? In my opinion, it’s not a card to use.

Convergence

Well, if you try to make a new approach to Pander deck, instead of just using weenies, this can truly be a valid card. you just bring up all the youngers, and after that you can bring Alfred or Matthew. Playable, but not great. I think the weenie approach is still the best way.

Path of the Void

When I first look at this card I thinked, wow! Great Baali card. It was just perfect, you could get the chance of paying 1 to untap, or discarding a master. And getting +1 stealth. But then I read it carefully, -1 bleed. Now it’s a card for a Baali deck that doesn’t need to bleed, but is offensive. So, if you want to go for a political Baali, this is a great card. Otherwise it can have spare use, but not great.

Reliquary: Shango Remains

For me, the best card in this pack. By the cost of 1 pool, and a vampire removed from your uncontrolled, you get a permanent dreams of the sphinx for 1 blood per use? Its a staple for almost all the Assamites decks.

Sound of a Breaking Oath

You can’t steal my minion, because I burn him! And you still take one damage point! Can it be better? For sure. Well, at least I get a new card to put my beer cup over.

Treaty of Laibach

Nice addition. It brings a new deck archetype up, or more. But my first view is for cryptic mission/temptation. With a low crypt is great, with tremere and setites with fortitude, can be great too. What to botter? Good cards, and pretty new decks to show up.

Walks-With-Might

I like it, but I must recognize that it isn’t a good card. The minion in itself its pretty strong. Nice life, nice strenght, and one of the best damage prevention I ever see on a minion. But the counterpart… its too heavy. You can play it on some decks, but in general, its not a top choice.

And for last…

Nergal

The first Nergal was pretty strong, but the new one, its even better. For sure the 2 bleed is powerful, and the card cost reduction (even if just one per turn), its great. But making the other vampires pay more for each reaction that they play? Its just amazing. And the +1 stealth is every time a good addition. Its a must for Baali lovers all around the world.

I’m not very good making the starting post’s on blogs and such. Well, many people probably say that I’m not very good at making the other posts too, but that’s just another question.

This blog is the result of my vtes experience, and the fact that I want to improve my English, that, as you at this point must have already been aware, is not great. And in fact as VtES is a small game, with not so many people playing, making a blog in English is the best chance to have somebody really reading it.

Well, and for sure to tell people how great Gwendolyn is.