VTES
This is the rambling and ranting page. For "real" stuff like deck ideas, check the decks page. The dropdown appears if you cursor over VTES in the navigation bar.
Early days
Cards were printed between 1994 and 1996. I started playing in 1999, when there were no cards. My collection was mainly original 1994 Jyhad stuff, and a smattering of the other sets. Jyhad was available cheaply, so I had:
It was a flawed game in 1999:
The game balance was mainly social in nature: straight bleed decks and other very simple decks were (and still are) boring to play with or against. Most VTES players got their kicks from innovative decks and attempting to make trick strategies work.
- a good selection of the Camarilla clans
- an infinite number of staple cards, like Wake, Blood Doll and so on
- Not enough of the specialised stuff - in particular, I wanted more Immortal Grapple (more than 1!) and extra Taste of Vitae, which were essential for combat.
It was a flawed game in 1999:
- Combat was weak - Majesty was common and free, and S:CE was nearly impossible to counter
- Bleed was (too) strong. So was bleed bounce. Dominate was king.
- Titles / votes were overpowered
- Votes were easy to pull off in a low-intercept environment.
- Intercept was weak - most of it was Auspex, and Auspex couldn't fight.
The game balance was mainly social in nature: straight bleed decks and other very simple decks were (and still are) boring to play with or against. Most VTES players got their kicks from innovative decks and attempting to make trick strategies work.
Glory years
I loved the first new sets - Sabbat War, Final Nights.
Best of all:
Sabbat War and Final nights worked and mixed really well with old cards. If you'd bought, say, 1 box each of the early sets (Jyhad, VTES, Dark Sovereigns, Ancient Hearts, Sabbat) and were running 6-10 decks based on them, you could buy any quantity of the Sabbat War and Final Nights cards, and find them useful.
Buying just 1 booster of Sabbat War, you'd possibly get:
-a Carrion Crows that would go straight into your Nos deck
-Victor Tolliver and Evangeline to power up the Potence (flung junk) deck you'd half built
-a Forced Awakening
-several other immediately useful cards.
I got my first tourney win in these days, with a Hesha / Pochtli / Francois / Queen Anne / Arika deck, (basically an Obfuscate and special abilities deck) despite being Sense Deprived and Decapitated fairly often.
- intercept became viable beyond 2nd tradition and trick decks - Auspex was now available on combat-ready clans, Eternal Vigilance was an option, and load of Sabbat cards became much more available to play with the old Auspex clans, such as Rumour Mill, Precognition, Leather Jacket.
- Balance via crypt: Mixing sects gave great midcap selections to weaker clans, while Malk bleed and Ventrue vote got relatively little. For example, you could build a much better cel/pot crypt, but not a better obf/dom crypt. The indies were also better-rounded.
- Balance via cards:better availability of previously very hard to get cards such as Immortal Grapple made it easier for other deck styles to compete with top-tier bleed & vote.
- New strategies such as Horde and Enticement decks added variety, options which were outside the bleed/vote/rush standard decks. Importantly - they still interacted quite well / normally with other decks.
- Errata and re-balancing: concealed weapon becoming discipline-less made several deck types much easier to play. The changes to Banishment, Hostile Takeover, Enchant Kindred and so on were all good.
Best of all:
Sabbat War and Final nights worked and mixed really well with old cards. If you'd bought, say, 1 box each of the early sets (Jyhad, VTES, Dark Sovereigns, Ancient Hearts, Sabbat) and were running 6-10 decks based on them, you could buy any quantity of the Sabbat War and Final Nights cards, and find them useful.
Buying just 1 booster of Sabbat War, you'd possibly get:
-a Carrion Crows that would go straight into your Nos deck
-Victor Tolliver and Evangeline to power up the Potence (flung junk) deck you'd half built
-a Forced Awakening
-several other immediately useful cards.
I got my first tourney win in these days, with a Hesha / Pochtli / Francois / Queen Anne / Arika deck, (basically an Obfuscate and special abilities deck) despite being Sense Deprived and Decapitated fairly often.
Decline
bThese good-to-great changes and early sets were hard to improve upon, and subsequent releases did less to interest me. Some additions have been good overall, like the Black Hand tricks (a bit weak but some OK stuff - I like Ministry, Corporal Reservoir and Weeping Stone), and the Trifle mechanic. Some changes actively annoy me:
1) The big one: there are more cards around that lend themselves to really monotonous decks:
a) Star vampire decks, where, at the tournament level, the name of the star vampire defines the deck:
b) Star library card decks, where, at the tournament level, the name of the key library card defines the deck:
c) Tight combos that stop anything except a small number of counters.
...most of these are frustrating and boring to play against, as they DO NOT INTERACT (worse than Malk 94) if their counters are not present.
2) Bad for me, because I like combat: combat got some new difficulties, and became less tournament worthy.
NOTE: I'm negative about repetitive strong actions (such as Una Bores World) but less so about repetitive strong combat (such as 20 Aid from Bats & 20 Carrion Crows) because those combat cards can be foiled / interacted with by a slew of other, simple, widely available cards (most decks can include Obedience, Majesty, watever), at low cost. There is no simple equivalent to defeat an Una Bores World deck.
1) The big one: there are more cards around that lend themselves to really monotonous decks:
a) Star vampire decks, where, at the tournament level, the name of the star vampire defines the deck:
- Una deck. You know it will have 35+ Freak Drives. Can you shut her down (Pentex or similar) or kill her very quickly? If no, go for lunch while she plays solitaire for 45 minutes. You get no actions, all game.
- Sebastian Goulet: you know there will be 10+ Satyrs. Can you defeat infinite S:CE, and its support (The Unmasking, Deflection)? If not, prepare to slowly, tediously get crushed by the same few cards being played over and over. Also: die if you rely on allies yourself (Garou, Shamblers).
- Henry Twister: Can you get past the permacept + infine S:CE? If not, you get no actions, all game. Hooray.
b) Star library card decks, where, at the tournament level, the name of the key library card defines the deck:
- Shattering Cresendo - it needs many copies, and specific support (stealth, Fame etc), so the key card defines most of the deck.
- Spell of Life - ditto. Less of an issue cos the FoS have such low survivability.
- Red Herring - any RH deck needs to use the cheapest CHI vamps, multiple Paths, a slew of actions which invite blocks (lots of bleed and Sensory Deprivation).
- Week of Nightmares - some variety here, but usually uses breeding (Tumnimos), non-hunt blood gain, stealth etc, so all WoN decks are somewhat alike. When they go off, they work exactly like a weenie deck that always has Computer Hacking and Lucky Blow in hand. Why is that a good thing?
c) Tight combos that stop anything except a small number of counters.
- Permacept / Sniper Rifle / No Secrets
- Imbued tooled up - which they do easily! (Unmasking / Champion / Leather Jacket etc)
...most of these are frustrating and boring to play against, as they DO NOT INTERACT (worse than Malk 94) if their counters are not present.
2) Bad for me, because I like combat: combat got some new difficulties, and became less tournament worthy.
- it is nerfed by some new cards e.g. the Imbued are are immune to staples like Drawing out the Beast, Taste of Vitae.
- it is eclipsed by some cards e.g. Shattering Crescendo, Baltimore Purge that axe vampires more easily than combat.
NOTE: I'm negative about repetitive strong actions (such as Una Bores World) but less so about repetitive strong combat (such as 20 Aid from Bats & 20 Carrion Crows) because those combat cards can be foiled / interacted with by a slew of other, simple, widely available cards (most decks can include Obedience, Majesty, watever), at low cost. There is no simple equivalent to defeat an Una Bores World deck.
Further Decline
Villein ruined about a third of my decks. Back in the day, all my decks based around 8-10 capacity vampires used 3-6 Minion Taps. The introduction of Villein wallpapered Minion Tap, so I either had to spend about $100 per deck on Villeins, or stop playing with these decks.*
I accept that replacing MT with Villein would power up these decks, by freeing up Master slots. If it had been a widely printed common, I would be fine with it. However, it was hard to obtain / high cost. I didn't like the arms war / power creep aspect of being forced to pay money to keep an old deck viable. Therefore, in the post-Villein environment, I simply broke up all my large vampire decks. I switched to all weenie decks, or to mid capacity vampires with lots of defense (intercept / bleed flick). I don't see how this reduction in variety was good for the game. Even for people willing to spend the money, it doesn't really lead to more variety: Blood Doll and Minion Tap just becomes Life in the City and Villein. *I tried some alternatives, like Eternals of Sirius / multi action / Khobar Towers, but then the deck ends up being a bunch of non-interactive crypt wanking. |
Wish list
Edit 2015: [the below text is a few years old. To my delight, the Official Expansion Sets are almost exactly what I wished for]
V:TES is dead, no new cards. Ideally, if they did print more, they'd be filler sets - maybe 60 cards (like Nights of Reckoning) and focusing on balancing what has already been printed. Like how the new Concealed Weapon made Toreador Guns and other decks a lot more playable, allowing large sections of old player's collections to be dusted off and used for the first time.
Many card types never get used (press combat, whole classes of reaction cards)
Many individual cards are too costly or corner case to get played (Chainsaw!)
There are clans that still suck (Assamites apart from Loss / star decks)
Most disciplines have a few good cards, and large numbers that are never played (Serpentis, Quietis, Thanatosos)
Big vampires in general only get played for their titles / specials, seldom for disciplines.
One major way I'd be happy to see this done is via cards with two or three separate effects (like Dreams of the Sphinx). One or two uses would be OK for supporting existing deck types, and the third would enable a strategy / group of cards that are currently so weak they are never seen in tournament play. Go Postal below is an attempt to showcase that type.
The other way is with cards balanced to be very useful against boring strategies, but otherwise a little weak. Expendable Ally below is an attempt to showcase this.
V:TES is dead, no new cards. Ideally, if they did print more, they'd be filler sets - maybe 60 cards (like Nights of Reckoning) and focusing on balancing what has already been printed. Like how the new Concealed Weapon made Toreador Guns and other decks a lot more playable, allowing large sections of old player's collections to be dusted off and used for the first time.
Many card types never get used (press combat, whole classes of reaction cards)
Many individual cards are too costly or corner case to get played (Chainsaw!)
There are clans that still suck (Assamites apart from Loss / star decks)
Most disciplines have a few good cards, and large numbers that are never played (Serpentis, Quietis, Thanatosos)
Big vampires in general only get played for their titles / specials, seldom for disciplines.
- Good 6-caps, like Caliban (ANI VIC AUS) see use.
- Caliban's Dad, a hypothetical 10-cap bishop with ANI VIC AUS qui cel pre and some random special (like +1 stealth on actions to enter combat with titled vampires), would never get played.
One major way I'd be happy to see this done is via cards with two or three separate effects (like Dreams of the Sphinx). One or two uses would be OK for supporting existing deck types, and the third would enable a strategy / group of cards that are currently so weak they are never seen in tournament play. Go Postal below is an attempt to showcase that type.
The other way is with cards balanced to be very useful against boring strategies, but otherwise a little weak. Expendable Ally below is an attempt to showcase this.
Go Postal
Master: Trifle. Unique.
Put this card on a vampire you control. This card does not untap. Tap this card to discard a melee weapon from your hand. Tap this card to strike: 2R. Burn this card before range is determined to equip with a Bomb, Chainsaw or RPG launcher from your hand. This vampire may burn 1 blood to reduce the cost of this equipment by 1 pool.
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Expendable Ally
Type: allyCost: 1 + 2X blood, where X is the number of Expendable Allies the recruiting player controls
Mortal with 1 life, 0 strength, 0 bleed. Expendable ally can gain one life as a +1 stealth action. The Expendable Ally cannot take any other actions. If Expendable Ally attempts to block a bleed and fails, you may tap him to reduce the bleed by 1.
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