The Girls must die
suoli
latest weekly games, more specifically about how to stop it. The only
reliable method we came up with was burning every minion as they get
influenced out. Is there anything more realistic one can do to prepare
against the deck? Does it rely on the recursion so much that
Trochomancy or burning Anthelios makes a dent? Is it viable to oust it
with nothing but direct pool damage or does it bloat too fast? Does
packing 12x Sudden Reversals make any sense?
brandonsantacruz
I would think that if you can take out it's action modifiers, you
could at least block it. Short of Trochomancy, DI could slow it down.
How about The Rising to limit bloat and make them interact(and get
beaten up) by the table some more? Rush combat? Once the vampires are
out of blood or diablarized, there isn't much they can do. Fear of
Mekhet(for the second stringers)? Justicar Retribution?
In my limited experience playing against Ashur Tablets, it is best to
wait until the first set go off before trying to sudden them. One
there are fewer in the deck to play, you stand a better chance of
successfully stopping them from going off again(especially if there is
no Anthelios in play). Bleeding the Vine?
Simply bleeding, unless you are playing a real hardcore bleed deck,
probably won't kill the deck unless they draw no Villeins(or you
sudden them).
That's what I've got.
Brandon
suoli
wrote:
>
> How about The Rising to limit bloat and make them interact(and get
> beaten up) by the table some more?
Awesome. Anthelios even makes The Rising slightly easier to play.
> Bleeding the Vine?
In one game my prey was playing a similarly master heavy deck so I
tried fetching Wash with Sargon Fragment every turn. It made just
about zero difference. He did have Anthelios on the table, though.
brandonsantacruz
Looking at the decklist again, there is a decent amount of blood gain
in the form of Giant's Blood, Jake, and the Coven. If I had to pick a
bleed deck to counter it, I'd go with some variation on tap and bleed.
Make him pay the infernal penalty each turn and reduce the chance that
his sidekick can bounce a bleed. Weenie presence with a handful of
Mind Numbs? Serpentis with Revelation of Ecstacy and Revelation of
Desire? Something like that might do better.
Brandon
Petri Wessman
> Does it rely on the recursion so much that
> Trochomancy or burning Anthelios makes a dent?
Based on our (limited) testing: yes. Trochomancy *really* hurts this
deck. Take away the Ashurs, the Golcondas, the Villeins, and then
start either removing all the action modifiers or the combat defense
(depends on the table). Without the cycling of critical cards, this
deck is a lot less dangerous.
Removing the Anthelios is a nice bonus, but not as critical.
-Petri
Juggernaut1981
Is there a decklist somewhere? Have I missed seeing a list for a deck
that is apparently catching the minds of many?
Petri Wessman
> Is there a decklist somewhere? Have I missed seeing a list for a deck
> that is apparently catching the minds of many?
Check out Erik's deck which won the EC Legendary Vampire *and* EC Day
1 tournaments last weekend for a good sample. :)
http://www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=4855
It's a *scary* deck archetype, and damn hard to stop (when played
properly).
-Petri
Martin Tibor Major
It's pretty easy to play against that deck imo. Any deck at that table
that can combat must torporize the first vampire asap. Basically every
vampire that enters play must be torporized and nobody should rescue.
Playing 12 Suddens is overkill, but modern v:tes is pretty master
heavy so playing some Suddens seems to make sense anyway.
Juggernaut1981
wrote:
I'd be looking at actions that can tap Askinya during your minion
phase. Sure most decks should probably have 1 or 2 SRs just for
general safety, but I do see things like an Ani-Obf Rush/Bleed deck
being one way around it.
Miscellaneous Weenie-Midcaps with any combo of Animalism & Obfuscate.
Taunt the Caged Beast, Faceless Nights for stealth, Camera Phones,
Animalism Air Support Combat (Crows & Bats), (your own Ashur Tablet
sets??), Deep Song... and any other action that will cause a vampire
to TAP without it being blocked. I remember there is at least one
anarch card with that sort of effect.
suoli
wrote:
>
> It's pretty easy to play against that deck imo. Any deck at that table
> that can combat must torporize the first vampire asap. Basically every
> vampire that enters play must be torporized and nobody should rescue.
And diablerized, I imagine. Otherwise it will play Golconda on the
torped vampires and keep bringing new minions.
suoli
>
> I'd be looking at actions that can tap Askinya during your minion
> phase. Sure most decks should probably have 1 or 2 SRs just for
> general safety, but I do see things like an Ani-Obf Rush/Bleed deck
> being one way around it.
>
> Miscellaneous Weenie-Midcaps with any combo of Animalism & Obfuscate.
> Taunt the Caged Beast, Faceless Nights for stealth, Camera Phones,
> Animalism Air Support Combat (Crows & Bats), (your own Ashur Tablet
> sets??), Deep Song...
Majesty is a pretty annoying foil to Deep Song.
> and any other action that will cause a vampire
> to TAP without it being blocked. I remember there is at least one
> anarch card with that sort of effect.
This deck has serious bloat. I think you'd need Vignes or DEM-weenie
caliber bleed to go that route.
Izaak
>that is apparently catching the minds of many?
You've been sleeping?
This particular deck has been tearing up tournaments like no tomorrow in
past 18 months...
Petri Wessman
wrote:
> It's pretty easy to play against that deck imo. Any deck at that table
> that can combat must torporize the first vampire asap. Basically every
> vampire that enters play must be torporized and nobody should rescue.
Easy to say, hard to do (tried it at the EC with a rush deck ;). You
cannot usually afford to concentrate only on one deck if playing rush,
and of course other people will possibly help the Cybele deck (rescue
from torpor etc) just because they either don't want to see you get a
VP, want it putting pressure on you, or they just don't realize how
dangerous the thing is.
Sure, if you have a rush deck and the whole table agrees to help you
kill the "Girls" deck, it's doable (still a pain, due to the
torporized vamp just getting a Golconda the next round). In actual
play, getting the whole table to agree on that doesn't happen all that
often. And of course, you need to play a rush deck, or an intercept
deck with *lots* of intercept.
In my experience, having played against these deck multiple times: no,
it's not easy.
-Petri
Izaak
"suoli" <suolir...@gmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:b7db9dcd-4c4c-4c72...@30g2000yql.googlegroups.com...
As an illustration -
On the recent EC I was playing a combat heavy Nana/Ashur deck and had the
girls as my prey. I did manage to torp the first two minions the turn they
came out and as such denied my prey his Villein's. Because of crosstable
votes, I couldn't diablerize so my prey was able to Golconda them back to
his pool and bring new ones out. Now, I would have ousted him if he had not
been given a free VP by his grandprey, but from then on it was just carrying
water to the sea. Even if you manage to kill the minions, the deck generates
such obscene amounts of pool that you just can't oust it with a fighty deck.
You need some help from the table, which is not going to happen any time
soon.
And that is the biggest problem. When Una comes up everyone realizes she
needs to die or she sweeps the table (depending on the table of course, but
this is what we usually see). When Aksinya comes up, people are like "meh...
ok just let her bloat and bring out a few Inner Circles". This archtype
needs constant pressure from the get-go to be taken down. However, on the
average VTES table, not many people will allow you to put said constant
pressure and will try and interfere with it or -god forbid- HELP the
abomination. And once you start helping the deck survive, you might as well
concede the game right away. :)
The Lasombra
>Is there a decklist somewhere? Have I missed seeing a list for a deck
>that is apparently catching the minds of many?
It has appeared in the TWDA in the hands of many different players,
but Erik Torstensson does it most consistently.
Erik Torstensson
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010ecday1
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010eclegvam
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010sncorebro
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010gothconeq
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k9orebromarch
Patrick Benoit
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010psvillefort
Isak Bjarmark Esbjornsson
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010arargs
Antonio Cobo Cuenca
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2010neonateparis
Adam Esbjörnsson
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k9phantomsgs
Teemu Sainomaa
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k8espoomq
http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k7vantaamq
Brum
> "suoli" <suoliruse...@gmail.com> schreef in berichtnews:b7db9dcd-4c4c-4c72...@30g2000yql.googlegroups.com...
That is what I've been seeing too.
People might go so far as to help the Predator of this deck, but many
times that help will not be as big as it could (votes for diablerie
example).
It is the same as with Gehenna packed imbued. Players need to oust him
first and then star playing VtES. If given the time to grow, it will
screw everyone's game. But it took a long time for players to start
playing against the big threat first.
Decks like these IMO are very polarizing and unbalancing for a table,
because either players acknowledge that most of the times they need to
play in order to give his Predator a VP (and do it all the way) or
give the Girls the table by half trying and actually accomplishing
nothing, except waste resources.
The Final of the First Day is an excellent example.
Me and Lonkka explained to Ricardo what the deck was during round 3
(he had never seen it before). We had one at our table. Lonkka and
Ricardo worked together to oust the player with the Girls and still he
almost won.
In the Final Una could have been directed to destroy the Girls first,
with help from the other players and with a different seating things
could have been different.
A nice deck, for sure.
I play Cybellotron and bloat like hell, with far less Golcondas and
Ashurs, so I can imagine.
Tiago
The Lasombra
> Is there anything more realistic one can do to prepare
>against the deck? Does it rely on the recursion so much that
>Trochomancy or burning Anthelios makes a dent? Is it viable to oust it
>with nothing but direct pool damage or does it bloat too fast? Does
>packing 12x Sudden Reversals make any sense?
Always check the fringes for hidden commentary.
http://iclee.wordpress.com/2010/11/04/cast-off-the-yoke/
http://brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/2010/11/102-ladykiller.html
Ben Peal
Packing 6x Sudden Reversal worked out well for me as his predator
(playing Kiasyd Fastbal) in Round One of Day Two of the EC in Paris.
I choked his master phase, kept up the bleeds, and ousted him.
The global metagame has been master-heavy for a few years now, and
has been ripe for exploitation by Sudden Reversal. Catch up.
- Ben Peal
Lönkka
> The global metagame has been master-heavy for a few years now, and
> has been ripe for exploitation by Sudden Reversal. Catch up.
>
> - Ben Peal
Indeed so.
A couple of weeks prior to EC the Helsinki scene seemed to have a
noticeable increase of Washes and especially Suddens.
I was kinda surprised that I didn't see those cards THAT much at the
EC.
-Janne / Lönkka
Hyllan
> The global metagame has been master-heavy for a few years now, and
> has been ripe for exploitation by Sudden Reversal. Catch up.
>
> - Ben Peal
I cannot see Wash/Sudden as a real alternative for stopping Ashur/
Liquidation recursion decks as they will always have more in-turn MPAs
than I can have master out of turn MPAs. 1 standard + 1 Cybele/Nana/
Anson + 1 Parthenon + eventual Rumors of Gehenna, versus 1 standard
master-out-of turn action + eventual Bleeding the VIne. I'll probably
have to play the Parthenon myself in order to get a MPA during my own
turn, but even denying them Parthenon they'll always have at least one
more in-turn MPA than I have out of turn MPAs. With three itMPA
against one ootMPA they can even immediately recycle a suddened master
with Anthelios if needed.
Sudden is good against a great number of decks (such as classic
villein bloat) but, IMHO, not enough against Girls.
Are13
imbued, if Xtable is fine with Girls (or Imbued) taking the table,
they will. It's not fun to play 4-1, but what can you do?
brandonsantacruz
I don't know that that's true. Weenie flung junk could do well against
Imbued, for example, as could a Stanislava deck. Against Cybelle,
maybe a dunk + diablarie deck or Sensory Deprivation Cybelle's
sidekick(multiple times, if needed because of Golconda). The Cybelle
deck will at least be slowed down by Sudden, which may be all that a
bleed deck needs to oust it(as Ben Peal mentioned, above). Making a
deck too myopic means that the 90% of the time you aren't facing the
thing you are meant to counter, you won't do that well. Weenie flung
junk dies to stealth bleed with dodge or S:CE or politics. Stanislava
dies to Archon Investigation or just helps a bouncing prey win. Agg
poke vs fortitude. Toolboxy decks with cards thrown in to counter
annoying decks or playing super aggressive bleed decks are a good fall-
back.
Brandon
Wedge
Trochomancy can reduce its effectiveness, but at a cost (card slots).
Using sudden to "attack" its strongest phase, I think can work but you
have to choose what masters to cancel.
For my money, what should be attacked is the crypt acceleration
If you are bleeding, you need to be able to tap Aksinya.
The Rising will cripple it, But I have yet to see a viable deck with
it.
Voting seems like the most viable of the standard deck, but I don't
know if you can beat its bloat.
If you want to crush it play the Spirit Marionette/ burn deck.
Or run you own master deck using Anson and Democritus
suoli
>
> The Rising will cripple it, But I have yet to see a viable deck with
> it.
http://tinyurl.com/risingmadness
Apparently this got 3 game wins, 9 victory points and a full sweep at
the final table of the Last Chance Qualifier for EC 2010. Looks really
hardcore, I particularly like the Sibyl's Tongues.
suoli
In addition to that, the Girls made an appearance in the same finals
and got presumably steamrolled.
http://vtesec2010.blogspot.com/2010/10/results-ec-2010-last-chance-qualifier.html
henrik
Must be some kind of error there. Girls.. can't be killed unless the
entire table is packing Trochomancy and gangs up.
Izaak
>Must be some kind of error there. Girls.. can't be killed unless the
>entire table is packing Trochomancy and gangs up.
Ooooh troll!
Petri Wessman
> Trochomancy can reduce its effectiveness, but at a cost (card slots).
Well, it *is* a +1/+2 bleed modifier in addition to the card-burning
cost/side effect, you know. For some weird reason I find bleed
modifiers to be quite useful things, in general -- it's not like it's
only there to nuke recursion decks ;)
-Petri
squidalot
Ashur is lovely but it's better when you have 3 master phases to
choose exactly what you want to play each turn (very powerful with
blind spot especially)
I've played against it far too many times and the earlier Hutzi
Council decks which are pretty similar (but not as good) and combat,
as Izaak noted, has the issue of everytime you rush they golconda
which is really bad as you don't have infinite rush!
However a quick deck that can get it with one minion out pre-Villein
should have a fair chance.
I don't think it's the kind of deck that encourages a table to gang up
on it as unlike Una here the opponents still get to play...
Juggernaut1981
Actually, you should possibly play an Agg-Wall type deck packing
Vulnerabilities.... (I'm thinking of things like Sebastian's Quick
Jabbing Buddies and good ol' You Look Like You'd Make a Nice Footstool
Tzims...)
I'd also consider a Rob them From their Coffins deck. One of our
playgroup has a NASTY piece of work exploiting Lorenzo Detuono's text,
but a simple old Rush + Graverob type deck would do just fine.
Kevin M.
What are you talking about? Stealth Bleed kills Imbued every time.
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017
Kushiel
> I'd also consider a Rob them From their Coffins deck. One of our
> playgroup has a NASTY piece of work exploiting Lorenzo Detuono's text,
> but a simple old Rush + Graverob type deck would do just fine.
Yeah, I think weenie DBR would crush Girls... And given that the
former tends to pick on any fattie decks at the table, it probably
wouldn't even matter where the two were seated with regards to each
other.
John Eno
_angst_
No, designer ^^
Juggernaut1981
Troll in Prada...
Abdul alHazred
You should take into account that the girls deck didnt have Aksinya in
the starting crypt nor drew a single liquidation which obviously can
happen in games, but I wouldn´t count this game as a true test against
a girls-deck running normally. Not saying the deck ´wouldn´t beat the
bloat obviously it won the tournament and had a stellar record thgough
the tournament, but this would have taken a lot longer if girls
woudlve run as normal.
cheers
Tomas
suoli
>
> You should take into account that the girls deck didnt have Aksinya in
> the starting crypt nor drew a single liquidation which obviously can
> happen in games, but I wouldn´t count this game as a true test against
> a girls-deck running normally. Not saying the deck ´wouldn´t beat the
> bloat obviously it won the tournament and had a stellar record thgough
> the tournament, but this would have taken a lot longer if girls
> woudlve run as normal.
>
> cheers
>
> Tomas
You mention beating the bloat which makes me wonder if you missed the !
Malk-deck's namesake card.
Rising, The
Type: Event
Gehenna. Do not replace until your prey is ousted.
Requires at least two other Gehenna cards in play. A Methuselah cannot
gain pool during his or her own turn unless he or she has the Edge or
at least one victory point. Any pool he or she would gain goes to the
bank instead.
The Girls will definitely not have the edge during their master phase
and from what I can tell by looking at the different deck lists they
don't seem to oust fast. Still, I agree that one tournament is not
definitive proof that the deck is now obsolete or anything.
Abdul alHazred
Getting that third gehenna card in play wouldn´t normally happen
before the second villein is played and it will of course present
problems for girls. Then if girls get the enkil kog played you have
to start playing around that which would slow down your own assault
considerably and the Rising affects everybody which would/could also
speed up the girls getting their first vp. What I mean is, it can be a
really troublesome card for all decks who count on bloat and girls
does that more than most, but it will still deflect a bleed per turn
and will still pack punch enough to oust fairly quickly. Especially if
their prey has their bloat hampered by the Rising.
cheers
Tomas