Tourney winning deck: Fleecing the Gaje, Washington DC (Oct 20, 2001)
Joshua Duffin
presented in its entirety and with comments from the
winning player, Mr. Johnny Tullner of Hampton, VA:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Weenies That Bleed
------------------
1 Ohanna 2 Mal dom
1 Mustafah 2 Tre dom
1 Christine 2 Pan dom vic
1 Samson 2 !Ven dom
1 Royce 1 Pan dom
1 Roreca Quaid 2
1 Dimple 2
1 March Halcyon 1
1 Antoinette 1
1 Smudge 1
1 Navar 1
1 Franciscus 1
--
12
4 Anarch Troublemaker
4 Effective Management
8 Information Highway
6 Misdirection
5 The Parthenon
2 Tribute to the Master
(29)
22 Computer Hacking
8 Threats
(30)
8 Deflection
8 Delaying Tactics
6 WWEF
(22)
--
81
Comments:
* I spent long hours tuning this deck to mathematical perfection.
* Using an Anarch Troublemaker and then playing one is an excellent tactic.
* Hand jam is the biggest problem, but usually the only thing to discard is
locations you already have out.
* Tribute to the Master is almost never used. It's there for emergencies.
* There are 4 rares, 21 uncommons, and 56 commons. I love the balance of
Jyhad that does not rely on rarity.
* The deck will usually sweep. Expect the whole table to come after you.
* My friends don't let me play this against them, and I don't blame them.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations to Johnny and thanks again to everyone who
played.
Josh
vekn prince of washington dc
Tobias Loehr
Actually, expect the whole table to come after you because you are
playing a lame Weenie horde.....
Joshua Duffin
> > * The deck will usually sweep. Expect the whole table to come after you.
>
>
> Actually, expect the whole table to come after you because you are
> playing a lame Weenie horde.....
No no. Because you're playing a *good* weenie horde. :-)
If you were playing a lame weenie horde (eg a bunch of 1-caps, a
bunch of Computer Hacks, but no Delays, Deflections, or Wakes),
the whole table wouldn't need to come after you because you'd
be easily killable by your predator.
In fact I'm somewhat surprised that this deck didn't have at
least a few disciplineless Dodges; rush combat would wreck it.
I guess Johnny figured the reliability-of-deck factor was more
likely to be important than minor-combat-defense.
Josh
Peter D Bakija
>>In fact I'm somewhat surprised that this deck didn't have at
least a few disciplineless Dodges; rush combat would wreck it.
I guess Johnny figured the reliability-of-deck factor was more
likely to be important than minor-combat-defense.>>
I know--I mean sure, it is a pretty solid looking speed deck, but even a
moderately effective pot combat deck with smallish vampires would shut it down.
None of the vampires can ever come out of torpor, and they will get sent there
with amazing regularity against aprey who can do even 2 points of damage a
strike.
Crazy.
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
http://www.geocities.com/bakija6
"...and the only person I can stand to be around
is a neutered vampire who cheats at kitten poker!"
-Buffy
Chris Berger
> Josh wrote:
> >>In fact I'm somewhat surprised that this deck didn't have at
> least a few disciplineless Dodges; rush combat would wreck it.
> I guess Johnny figured the reliability-of-deck factor was more
> likely to be important than minor-combat-defense.>>
>
> I know--I mean sure, it is a pretty solid looking speed deck, but even a
> moderately effective pot combat deck with smallish vampires would shut it down.
> None of the vampires can ever come out of torpor, and they will get sent there
> with amazing regularity against aprey who can do even 2 points of damage a
> strike.
>
combat "defense". Sure, I hit him for 8 and cycle all the cards I
want, but I don't have enough Tastes (probably need to buy some), so
we each lose two blood, and he brings out another vamp next turn. If
he's managed to Tribute one of the blood off his 2 cap, then I lose 2
blood, he loses 1.
There are ways to beat a weenie deck, but potence isn't it. Even
without the Lucky Blows, it takes you one action to kill a vamp when
he'll just get out 3 or 4 next turn. A *weenie* potence deck would
probably do pretty well, assuming you have Tastes packed in pretty
tight.
When trading blows in combat like that, it pretty much comes down to
blood lost on each side. If you lose just as much blood as he does,
you'll lose because his other vamps will be busy taking away your pool
(assuming he's your predator).
Xian
(Side note: mailandnews.com isn't working for outgoing posts, my own
isp is all screwed up, so I eventually just signed up with google.
Nice to be back in the loop.)
> A friend of mine plays a weenie horde that uses Lucky Blow as its
> combat "defense". Sure, I hit him for 8 and cycle all the cards I
I think that's a good one, especially as it's unexpected. Sure, he's
not going to hurt the Assamites, or anyone with fortitude, but it's a
better option than most others.
> There are ways to beat a weenie deck, but potence isn't it. Even
> without the Lucky Blows, it takes you one action to kill a vamp when
> he'll just get out 3 or 4 next turn. A *weenie* potence deck would
> probably do pretty well, assuming you have Tastes packed in pretty
> tight.
Well, Peter *did* say "but even a moderately effective pot combat deck
with smallish vampires would shut it down." Which probably covers
weenie potence. Since we all know that Peter never plays anything
else. :)
> When trading blows in combat like that, it pretty much comes down to
> blood lost on each side. If you lose just as much blood as he does,
> you'll lose because his other vamps will be busy taking away your pool
> (assuming he's your predator).
I was thinking pretty much the same thing as Peter when I was looking
at this deck. "He must have never had a rush deck as his predator."
Which reminds me that this last weekend, at the Minneapolis tournament
(which I'm still waiting to see a report on, so I can add my smartass
comments), I had a near perfect round with my Brujah Princes deck. 4
player table - I sat down behind a standard Malk S&B deck, across the
table was mid-cap Lasombra potence rush, and a Ravnos Trap/Undead
Persistence/Meathook deck was my predator. I let the Malkavian soften
up the guy cross-table, sat around for a bit, and then tried to take
out the Malkavians in one go. Unfortunately, the last vampire he
brought out was Mariel, Lady Thunder, which messed up my calculations
a little. One more successful combat, and I would have swept the
table, but he was able to push through and oust with his one (or was
it two?) remaining minion(s). Finished him off next turn, and then
cleaned up the table. Sitting down behind a straight S&B deck with
only maneuvers/dodge for defense was like a dream. Sigh. :)
Xian
Colin Riggs
> ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu (Chris Berger) wrote in message news:<5287ede4.0111...@posting.google.com>...
>
> Well, Peter *did* say "but even a moderately effective pot combat deck
> with smallish vampires would shut it down." Which probably covers
> weenie potence. Since we all know that Peter never plays anything
> else. :)
>
> > When trading blows in combat like that, it pretty much comes down to
> > blood lost on each side. If you lose just as much blood as he does,
> > you'll lose because his other vamps will be busy taking away your pool
> > (assuming he's your predator).
>
> I was thinking pretty much the same thing as Peter when I was looking
> at this deck. "He must have never had a rush deck as his predator."
> Which reminds me that this last weekend, at the Minneapolis tournament
> (which I'm still waiting to see a report on, so I can add my smartass
> comments), I had a near perfect round with my Brujah Princes deck.
>
Actually he sat in front of a Brujah Princes deck with Theo Bell
and Volker out in his second round. Johnny got out 4 vampires or so
and Theo had rushed one, torpor. Johnny tried to rescue, Volker 2nd'd
and blocked. He kept trying to rescue, until everyone was in torpor.
He still had all that pool left so he brought out 4 in one turn.
Sadly, that meant that the table threat shifted to me (I was Johnny's
prey), and Princes started trying to beat up my weenies, instead of
bleeding. I couldn't go through my prey, too much fortitude, too many
blockers. Brujah princes gave johnny my victory point before I was
going to get my prey by not killing his vampires. I had tapped out to
try and oust my prey, but he had one wake too many. Princes ousted
Johnny and my prey ousted princes.
But he did well enough in the other rounds to get into the finals.
There is a Tournament Report from a few different points of view here:
http://www.geocities.com/colinriggs/FleeceReport.html
Colin Riggs
Peter D Bakija
>>There are ways to beat a weenie deck, but potence isn't it.>>
Sure it is. Potence beats everything :-)
>>Even without the Lucky Blows, it takes you one action to kill a vamp when
he'll just get out 3 or 4 next turn.>>
He gets out 3 or 4 once, then he gets out 1 or 2 a turn, max. You don't even
have to take actions to kill them. Just block. Granted, I would take actions,
but if I didn't have the Rush cards, blocking would do just as well.
>>A *weenie* potence deck would probably do pretty well, assuming you have
Tastes packed in pretty tight.>>
What effective Potence deck isn't potentially called a "weenie" deck? Mine has
a vampire average of 3.5, which is pretty wee, and 8 Tastes.
Given the deck in question, where would Lucky Blows even fit in? He'd have to
take out enough of something to make them worth using, and they'll just clog up
his hand against someone who doesn't fight with him (deflections and/or
obediances).
Johnny
>
> In fact I'm somewhat surprised that this deck didn't have at
> least a few disciplineless Dodges; rush combat would wreck it.
> I guess Johnny figured the reliability-of-deck factor was more
> likely to be important than minor-combat-defense.
Absolutely... I've never observed Dodges alone to be worth
anything against a *combat* deck.
Johnny
> moderately effective pot combat deck with smallish vampires would shut it down.
Well, I've never seen such a deck work, and IMHO it just doesn't seem
effective. Perhaps it can be proven otherwise... I mean, I can
conceive
of such a deck, or read such a deck, but in either case I find glaring
flaws
to the point I would not consider it nearly tournament-worthy.
Mind you, I'm not disputing such a rush deck would shut me down, but
IMHO
it's just bad luck if someone is silly enough to play it in a
tournament.
I'd compare it to a corruption deck, which is a perfect counter to
weenies but otherwise doesn't seem to stand a chance in tournaments.
> None of the vampires can ever come out of torpor, and they will get sent there
> with amazing regularity against a prey who can do even 2 points of damage a
> strike.
My prey has *never* been a problem... between a fair amount of
tap-minion
cards and overrunning him... for the periodic blocker or wake, I'll
happily sacrifice 1-2 vamps to get in 8 bleed.
Johnny
> at this deck. "He must have never had a rush deck as his predator."
I did once, and I lost, but it was by my own silly mistakes that I
failed to oust my prey. I know better now... lack of experience
playing this deck (ie my friends won't let me play it) contributed to
my mistakes. :(
In the finals a war ghoul deck was my predator, but I wasn't worried
about that at all.
A predator-rush deck is the worst case, but I have a couple of bright
sides, in that they need a TON of rushes to stop me, and they have to
not be worried about their predator.
At home I did end up playing this deck at tables with 2-3 rush decks
(all trying to kill me, obviously) and I still swept every time.
Johnny
>
> Actually he sat in front of a Brujah Princes deck with Theo Bell
> and Volker out in his second round. Johnny got out 4 vampires or so
> and Theo had rushed one, torpor. Johnny tried to rescue, Volker 2nd'd
> and blocked. He kept trying to rescue, until everyone was in torpor.
> He still had all that pool left so he brought out 4 in one turn.
>
> Sadly, that meant that the table threat shifted to me (I was Johnny's
> prey), and Princes started trying to beat up my weenies, instead of
> bleeding. I couldn't go through my prey, too much fortitude, too many
> blockers. Brujah princes gave johnny my victory point before I was
> going to get my prey by not killing his vampires. I had tapped out to
> try and oust my prey, but he had one wake too many. Princes ousted
> Johnny and my prey ousted princes.
I made a terrible mistake that round... I should have swept. Through
lack of experience I felt the need to lose 3 vamps trying to rescue
*1*. It was ridiculous of me... for some reason I just assumed he
wouldn't have that many 2nd Traditions. Had I not lost the vamps
through completely useless rescuing actions, I would have easily
ousted my prey. And from experience I know I would sweep the other
two decks, they're my two best friends. :)
No offense, since you were my prey. :)
Your 1-cap/.38 special deck did throw me for a loop at first though...
> But he did well enough in the other rounds to get into the finals.
I swept the first round.
1 VP second round due to the above mistake.
0 VP third, the entire table was against me, but the only real
reason I didn't sweep was a corrupting predator.
Finals there was nothing among the other 4 decks that had even
a remote chance of stopping me. I only missed 1 VP because
my first prey Dramatic Upheavaled to let someone else kill
him! I still don't know if that was spiteful or legit. :)
Peter D Bakija
>>Well, I've never seen such a deck work, and IMHO it just doesn't seem
effective. Perhaps it can be proven otherwise... I mean, I can
conceive of such a deck, or read such a deck, but in either case I find glaring
flaws to the point I would not consider it nearly tournament-worthy.>>
...Blinks...Blinks...
You clearly are new around here.
No, no, really, Rush decks can and do win tournaments. They are difficult to
play, sure, and difficult to build effectively, but they work, and work quite
nicely (mostly because they take full advantage of all the folks who don't
consider them tournament worthy). I do well at tournaments with them. Folks I
know do well at tournaments with them. This past summer at Origins, the top
seat going into the National Qualifier (with 8 VPs) was such a deck. I did
pretty well with mine, and usually get into the finals of any tournament I play
at, and occasionally win.
>>Mind you, I'm not disputing such a rush deck would shut me down, but
IMHO it's just bad luck if someone is silly enough to play it in a
tournament.>>
I'm that silly. I play such a deck at tournaments all the time. Sometimes I
win. Sometimes not. Just like every other viable deck type.
Frederick Scott
>
> Johnny wrote:
> >>Well, I've never seen such a deck work, and IMHO it just doesn't seem
> effective. Perhaps it can be proven otherwise... I mean, I can
> conceive of such a deck, or read such a deck, but in either case I find glaring
> flaws to the point I would not consider it nearly tournament-worthy.>>
>
> ...Blinks...Blinks...
>
> You clearly are new around here.
>
> No, no, really, Rush decks can and do win tournaments. They are difficult to
> play, sure, and difficult to build effectively, but they work, and work quite
> nicely (mostly because they take full advantage of all the folks who don't
> consider them tournament worthy).
Hrrpmh. Let's see how tournament worthy they are after the 1st of the year...
Fred
Xian
[snip stuff about potence rush winning]
> Hrrpmh. Let's see how tournament worthy they are after the 1st of the year...
>
Heh.
Well, the last three tournaments I've played Potence rush at (okay, 2
weenie potence rush, one vaguely Rush Deck NT/EuroBrujah deck with
about 10 non-combat/rush cards), I've made the finals twice, with at
least one table win. The time I didn't make the finals was the
qualifying round for the NA Championship at GenCon this year. I am
still shaking my head about all the fortitude I ran into.
Currently, it seems that the conventional wisdom is that to have a
shot at the finals, you need one table win, and a few VP elsewhere. 2
table wins is better, but from everything I've seen, it looks like 1
will get you close. Although I suspect Peter hasn't been keeping
close track, I'm sure he's swept a number of times, especially in the
Good Old Days (tm), when you needed to explain IG to people. I know I
have with my clone(s) of The Nosferatu Hate You.
Xian
Colin Riggs
> colin...@yahoo.com (Colin Riggs) wrote in message news:<e20e44a.0111...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > Actually he sat in front of a Brujah Princes deck with Theo Bell
> > and Volker out in his second round. Johnny got out 4 vampires or so
> > and Theo had rushed one, torpor. Johnny tried to rescue, Volker 2nd'd
> > and blocked. He kept trying to rescue, until everyone was in torpor.
> > He still had all that pool left so he brought out 4 in one turn.
> >
> > Sadly, that meant that the table threat shifted to me (I was Johnny's
> > prey), and Princes started trying to beat up my weenies, instead of
> > bleeding. I couldn't go through my prey, too much fortitude, too many
> > blockers. Brujah princes gave johnny my victory point before I was
> > going to get my prey by not killing his vampires. I had tapped out to
> > try and oust my prey, but he had one wake too many. Princes ousted
> > Johnny and my prey ousted princes.
>
> I made a terrible mistake that round... I should have swept. Through
> lack of experience I felt the need to lose 3 vamps trying to rescue
> *1*. It was ridiculous of me... for some reason I just assumed he
> wouldn't have that many 2nd Traditions. Had I not lost the vamps
> through completely useless rescuing actions, I would have easily
> ousted my prey. And from experience I know I would sweep the other
> two decks, they're my two best friends. :)
I feel obligated to protest. If your predator, friend or no, had
just rushed you with Theo every round, you wouldn't have had vampires.
Also, I had more 1 caps than you, and they had guns. Your rescuing
actually *helped* you, because I started doing things, giving me
impetus to tap out when Brujah Princes gave you the VP. If you hadn't
rescued, those 3 guys wouldn't have done much besides got the shit
shot out of them if they bled me. After your first turn where you bled
me for 8, with 4 vampires, I wasn't going to turn my back on you.
You would have had a chance though with contesting, and the Anarch
Troublemaker plus a Misdirection (or 2 with the Parthenon). I still
would have had at least 2 blockers, but still a chance.
> No offense, since you were my prey. :)
> Your 1-cap/.38 special deck did throw me for a loop at first though...
Yeah, it was funnny. You looked, blinked, looked... then were *really*
puzzled after my second turn. Didn't work out for me though, not too
surprising.
>
> > But he did well enough in the other rounds to get into the finals.
>
> I swept the first round.
> 1 VP second round due to the above mistake.
> 0 VP third, the entire table was against me, but the only real
> reason I didn't sweep was a corrupting predator.
> Finals there was nothing among the other 4 decks that had even
> a remote chance of stopping me. I only missed 1 VP because
> my first prey Dramatic Upheavaled to let someone else kill
> him! I still don't know if that was spiteful or legit. :)
It was both, I know the guy, definitely both.
Frederick Scott
>
> Frederick Scott <fre...@netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:<3BEB8053...@netcom.com>...
> [snip stuff about potence rush winning]
> > Hrrpmh. Let's see how tournament worthy they are after the 1st of
> > the year...
>
> Heh.
>
> Well, the last three tournaments I've played Potence rush at (okay, 2
> weenie potence rush, one vaguely Rush Deck NT/EuroBrujah deck with
> about 10 non-combat/rush cards), I've made the finals twice, with at
> least one table win.
What difference does that make? I think you're missing the point about
the table wins comment. It's impossible to look backwards at a tournament
that was not played with the table wins rule and reassess the result in
view of the rule. Playing without the rule, an offer of victory points to
a predator is something of value. With the table wins rule in effect from
the get-go, a predator is not nearly as likely to care about them. You
can't go back and demonstrate how you would have scored table wins using
diplomacy that will less likely to succeed when everyone is aware of the
rule. Apples to oranges.
Fred
atomweaver
> > I'd compare it to a corruption deck, which is a perfect counter to
> weenies but otherwise doesn't seem to stand a chance in tournaments.
>
Embrace-Corruption Deck from his Atlanta days (99 or '00, IIRC)...
DaveZ/Atom Weaver
Peter D Bakija
>>Although I suspect Peter hasn't been keeping
close track, I'm sure he's swept a number of times, especially in the
Good Old Days (tm), when you needed to explain IG to people. I know I
have with my clone(s) of The Nosferatu Hate You.>>
Yeah, my deck sweeps occasionally--usually 4 of 5 VPs when it does really well.
The Table Wins rule will make it a tade harder to get into the finals in large
tournaments, I'm sure, but in general, in a 3 round tournament, I usually win
at least one table and get extra VPs in the process. The last one I did really
well at, I got into the finals on a win (4 VPs) and 2 non wins (2 VPs and 1 VP
respectively)--I had 1 table win and 7 total VPs going into the finals. That
was a pretty large tournament with about 25 people and a lot of good, name
players.
After the first, I'll be looking to see what gets into the finals--if the
finals of most largish tournaments consists of 5 people each with 3-0 records
then, well, it'll be grim for the Rush deck, but as I suspect that a tournament
around 15-20 folks (average size, as far as I am aware) will probably consist
of a 3-0 guy or two, a 2-1 guy or two, and then 1-2 guys by VP. With smaller
tournaments (12 or so), the bottom 3 spots will probably all be ties by VPs.
Xian
> Xian wrote:
> > Well, the last three tournaments I've played Potence rush at (okay, 2
> > weenie potence rush, one vaguely Rush Deck NT/EuroBrujah deck with
> > about 10 non-combat/rush cards), I've made the finals twice, with at
> > least one table win.
>
> What difference does that make? I think you're missing the point about
> the table wins comment. It's impossible to look backwards at a tournament
> that was not played with the table wins rule and reassess the result in
> view of the rule. Playing without the rule, an offer of victory points to
> a predator is something of value. With the table wins rule in effect from
Fred, you weren't there, so you don't know whether or not I made *any*
deals at the tournaments. Yes, it's:
a) skewed by my recollection
b) a little off because the rule wasn't in effect, but I can at least
think critically about it, and hazard a guess at what would have
happened.
> the get-go, a predator is not nearly as likely to care about them. You
> can't go back and demonstrate how you would have scored table wins using
> diplomacy that will less likely to succeed when everyone is aware of the
> rule. Apples to oranges.
Not entirely. Last weekend, I made 0 deals. Thinking back, I
probably wouldn't have let that one guy withdraw, as we ended up tying
the table, instead of me ending up with a win, but that one was a
close call anyway. At GenCon, it didn't matter, because I didn't have
any good opportunities to offer deals, and I got incredibly hosed in
the qualifying tournament. At the tournament before that, I know I
scored one table win without any deals. The other two games, I
believe I got 2VP each, and the Tzimisce deck that was right next to
me got the other three. Yes, that tournament is a little dodgy, as
far as looking back at it. The way things went, though, I'm pretty
sure I would have still made the finals.
Again, extrapolating from relatively non-dirty data isn't that
dangerous. I had no need to deal in most of the rounds because either
I was in no position to do so, or my position was strong enough that I
didn't need to do so.
Xian
Frederick Scott
> After the first, I'll be looking to see what gets into the finals--if the
> finals of most largish tournaments consists of 5 people each with 3-0 records
> then, well, it'll be grim for the Rush deck, but as I suspect that a tournament
> around 15-20 folks (average size, as far as I am aware) will probably consist
> of a 3-0 guy or two, a 2-1 guy or two, and then 1-2 guys by VP. With smaller
> tournaments (12 or so), the bottom 3 spots will probably all be ties by VPs.
Frankly, I suspect even in a largish tournament with three rounds there will
seldom ever be anyone with three table wins. And in almost all but the largest
tournament (> 30/35 players would be my guess), there will be at least one player
with only a single table win.
If you say you can make the grade with pure rush combat often enough to like playing
it, I'll have to take your word for it. You'll certainly deserve all kudos for
doing so if you do, I must admit. Rush combat winning under the games wins finals
rules answers every philosophical objection I have to rush combat. But I still
believe it will be significantly harder for you than it is now.
Fred
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