Dealing with bleed
Ian Lee
fragmenting anyway.
I have never found big (power, whatever) bleed easy to deal with. In theory
you can do this or do that, but seeing a prey ousted by Govern, Conditioning,
and/or Foreshadowing is banal.
As an example, I like Followers of Set. I've played a couple different decks
in tournaments. In both cases, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure
out how to survive dominate bleed, which - amazingly enough - is ubiquitous in
tournaments, if not in all types of games. Neither deck had an answer. Sure,
I tried some things like Major Boons. Just not viable defense.
Bleed bounce: Of course it works, it's supposed to. As has been mentioned
repeatedly, it is also limited to two disciplines. And, it is possible to work
around it to a degree by playing smart and using tap effects.
Pool gain: Often slow or complicated. Being bled for a lot is neither slow
nor complicated, even by nonweenies.
Rush: Myriad of problems taken together which leads to seeing a lack of it in
tournament play. Even if you can completely shut down someone who can bleed
you for 6 with one minion, you've spent the entire game going backwards.
Intercept: Has problems with heavy stealth, tap, and takes a while to set up.
Also, you have to do something when you intercept, otherwise your just delaying
the problem. Also, has similarities often to rush decks in going backwards to
the exclusion of moving forwards.
Before commenting specifically on AI, which seems to be only part of the
discussion on dealing with bleed, I want to point out that, while the game
survives big bleed, it does it largely by limiting what decks are viable -
decks that are just as fast, or faster, to oust their prey or bounce. This is
completely unrelated to whether AI is worthwhile or not, except to show that AI
is not a reliable defense.
AI is an idiotic card. Happy? However, since it is no more idiotic than about
20 other cards, I simply can't get excited about it one way or the other.
Given how many times I haven't been able to deal with a simple bleed deck
because I've been trying to play with interesting cards, I'd love to own more
than one and love to burn vampires left and right with them. (I own only one
because while I have over 10,000 Jyhad cards I have about 100 V:TES base set
cards.)
Somehow, I don't think the various metagames I've played in, which feature
being bombed continuously with 4+ bleeds, are that uncommon.
Anecdote: In all the years I've gone to Gen Con (US), I've only played one
V:TES tournament. It wasn't that interesting, though it was quite a while ago.
I got a VP playing a Malk combat deck only because my prey got hit with AI.
skaffen_...@my-deja.com
cur...@aol.com (Ian Lee) wrote:
> I'm not sure where the best point to interject was and the subject seemed to be
> fragmenting anyway.
>
> I have never found big (power, whatever) bleed easy to deal with. In theory
> you can do this or do that, but seeing a prey ousted by Govern, Conditioning,
> and/or Foreshadowing is banal.
Nobody said it's easy. Massive stealth bleed is a straightforward, somewhat
boring but effective strategy.
>
> As an example, I like Followers of Set. I've played a couple different decks
> in tournaments. In both cases, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure
> out how to survive dominate bleed, which - amazingly enough - is ubiquitous in
> tournaments, if not in all types of games. Neither deck had an answer. Sure,
> I tried some things like Major Boons. Just not viable defense.
>
Playing Followers Of Set might not be the greatest option if your metagame
predicts massive bleeders all over the place. As with every clan it's
possible for them to deal with bleed in general, but you will have a hard
time against that Malkavian coming for 5 pool on round 2.
> Bleed bounce: Of course it works, it's supposed to. As has been mentioned
> repeatedly, it is also limited to two disciplines. And, it is possible to work
> around it to a degree by playing smart and using tap effects.
>
> Pool gain: Often slow or complicated. Being bled for a lot is neither slow
> nor complicated, even by nonweenies.
>
Don't forget that these strategies mix rather well. If you go for pool gain,
of course it takes a while to get those big vamps out. Your first minion
should be ready to deflect like crazy if your prey is a massive bleeder, but
don't forget that he should rethink his strategy if you just deflect his
bleeds to prey, so basically he's doing your job.
> Rush: Myriad of problems taken together which leads to seeing a lack of it in
> tournament play. Even if you can completely shut down someone who can bleed
> you for 6 with one minion, you've spent the entire game going backwards.
>
Not necessary. Of course Ozmo comes with a "kill me" tag on his forehead, but
if you make it clear to your predator that he's dead first if you have to
kill all his vampires, than you can concentrate on your prey after crippling
his offensive enough so that he has to concentrate on staying in the game. As
so often table manipulation is really important.
> Intercept: Has problems with heavy stealth, tap, and takes a while to set up.
> Also, you have to do something when you intercept, otherwise your just delaying
> the problem. Also, has similarities often to rush decks in going backwards to
> the exclusion of moving forwards.
What do you mean by heavy stealth? A good intercept deck should be able to
deal with +3 stealth and still do something in combat. I have an Euro Brujah
deck that uses second traditions and a few intercept locations, and it
destroys almost every vampire it encounters. If your prey is able to get more
stealth than that consistently, stop blocking and let him choke on his
stealth cards.
<snip stuff about AI, a card I find OK-ish, because it punishes the real
cheese, although it works in a way not really consistent with the game
spirit>
Regards
Skaffen
Chantry Elder Of Munich
"Our hearts discern wild images of Death,
Shadows and shoals that edge eternity."
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
legb...@my-deja.com
> fragmenting anyway.
>
> I have never found big (power, whatever) bleed easy to deal with. In theory
> you can do this or do that, but seeing a prey ousted by Govern, Conditioning,
> and/or Foreshadowing is banal.
>
> As an example, I like Followers of Set. I've played a couple different decks
> in tournaments. In both cases, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure
> out how to survive dominate bleed, which - amazingly enough - is ubiquitous in
> tournaments, if not in all types of games. Neither deck had an answer. Sure,
> I tried some things like Major Boons. Just not viable defense.
>
defense against massive stealth-bleed. But if you really want to persist
with them in this environment my suggestions would be as follows.
Protected resources and telepathic counters would work just fine in a
Setite vote/corrupt deck. Use Greta Kircher as a little Setite Friend - i
think Amisa has auspex and you could put Lena Rowe in there, too.
Dramatic Upheavals to take you out of stealth-bleedy person's reach or to
nip back in again when they are about to oust their prey. Life Boon just
in case they do it quicker than you anticipated. Enchant Kindred used for
pool-gain.
Derek Ray
>> Rush: Myriad of problems taken together which leads to seeing a lack of it in
>> tournament play. Even if you can completely shut down someone who can bleed
>> you for 6 with one minion, you've spent the entire game going backwards.
>
>Not necessary. Of course Ozmo comes with a "kill me" tag on his forehead, but
>if you make it clear to your predator that he's dead first if you have to
>kill all his vampires, than you can concentrate on your prey after crippling
>his offensive enough so that he has to concentrate on staying in the game. As
>so often table manipulation is really important.
Hm. This doesn't work against an experienced predator. You turn to
him, and what do you offer? "I won't vaporize all your vampires if
you don't try to oust me." So his response is: "Better kill them
then, because I'm coming in." He doesn't have any other options
unless he himself has a way to rearrange the table, and making any
"ok, i'll stay alive..." deals is not in his best interest.
Don't get me wrong. Looking harmless IS in his best interest;
bleeding for 1 or 2 a few times with a Malkavian is probably not the
worst thing he could do, if only to fool his prey into thinking his
deck does something other than what it does... and then waiting until
he gets out overwhelming force, and just running over his Rush prey.
But actually making a deal to do that would be bad; the element of
surprise matters a lot.
-- Derek
Jack-Booted Thug of Atlanta
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."
- C. Darwin, 1871
skaffen_...@my-deja.com
You are absolutely right, but I wasn't really mentioning a deal. Actually the
way you describe it is the way it works: You intimidate him so that he learns
what his "best interest" is. He should know what you are able to do, and
forcing you to kill him because he comes full blast every turn is not a good
idea - only if he knows that he can win this war of attrition. Still I think
that you could try to make some sort of deal with him - I could see a weenie
combat monster negotiating a truce with the bleeder: You don't bleed me for x
rounds, I will kill this nasty guy from your prey. This leaves you some time
to work on your predator, and your prey might have the chance to bring out
the one extra vampire that enables him to oust you in one sweep. Someone will
break the deal at some point, of course... When he/she sees a chance. But the
killing scenario where both loose is the worst option for both players IMHO.
By gaining some time the combat monster might get his prey softened up for
ousting, and the bleeder might build resources to surprise the combat deck.
Peter D Bakija
>>As an example, I like Followers of Set. I've played a couple different decks
in tournaments. In both cases, I spent a great deal of time trying to figure
out how to survive dominate bleed, which - amazingly enough - is ubiquitous in
tournaments, if not in all types of games. Neither deck had an answer. Sure,
I tried some things like Major Boons. Just not viable defense.>>
Again, the Followers of Set are really pretty screwed in terms of big bleed
defense, but the answer is to give the Followers of Set cards that help them
combat bleeds, not AI, but that is another thread. Probably the best plan for
the Setites in terms of anti-bleed is to play stealth politics, and rearrange
the table as soon as possible (i.e. play with plenty Kindred Restructure and
Bewitching Oration).
>>Rush: Myriad of problems taken together which leads to seeing a lack of it
in
tournament play. Even if you can completely shut down someone who can bleed
you for 6 with one minion, you've spent the entire game going backwards.>>
I don't know what to tell you. I play a Rush deck in pretty much every
tournament I go to. Sometimes I win. Usually I get into the finals. The decks
that bleed for 6 per action? Never the decks that cause me trouble. Ever.
>>AI is an idiotic card. Happy?>>
Happier.
>>However, since it is no more idiotic than about 20 other cards, I simply
can't get excited about it one way or the other.>>
I tend to think that it is more idiotic than most, as it is so obviously
overpowered and smacks completely of "Magic Bullet" that is such a weak fix in
this sort of game. But that is just me.
>>Somehow, I don't think the various metagames I've played in, which feature
being bombed continuously with 4+ bleeds, are that uncommon.>>
Nope. I play in one all the time. We hardly ever see an AI, people still bleed
for more than 3, and bleed decks do not dominate play. Sure, occasionally
someone gets rolled by sitting in the wrong place with the wrong deck, but that
is always a possibility, bleed deck or no.
Playing big bleed is a questionable strategy in general, simply because Bleed
Bounce exists--it is fairly common to run across bounce, thus it is not
unlikely that in any particular game, your prey will have bounce. If your prey
does have bounce, your bleeds for 7 are just going to be doing your prey's work
for him. Does this mean that every deck has to include Bounce to survive Big
Bleed? No. It means that the guy who is playing the 7+ bleed is foolish, and it
will bite him in the ass more often than you would think. Is this consolation
for the guy who is his prey and has no bleed defense and gets rolled? Of course
not, but in general, I don't think you are going to run into huge bleeds all
that often, and when you are playing huge bleeds, you will often spend time
smacking yourself on the head because *again* you have ousted your grand prey
for someone else.
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
http://www.geocities.com/bakija6
"Why so many swords?"
"I must kill many."
-Kikuchiyo
Joshua Duffin
seemed to be
> fragmenting anyway.
>
> I have never found big (power, whatever) bleed easy to deal with. In
theory
> you can do this or do that, but seeing a prey ousted by Govern,
Conditioning,
> and/or Foreshadowing is banal.
I actually agree with this to some extent. It is relatively
boring to get bled for three an action and get ousted within
ten actions.
Thing is, it's also boring to get Kine Resources Contested for
three an action and get ousted within ten actions.
It's even boring to get Rushed, Immortal Grappled, and torporized
every time you get a vampire out, leaving you unable to do much
of anything.
I think the problem is that all the most effective tactics
become boring after a while. I'm not really sure what's a good
solution to that. You can agree to play only non-effective decks
among your playgroup, but that doesn't help anything in tournaments.
You can decide that the cards that remove pool the most quickly
are overpowered and either up their costs (Govern and Conditioning
for 2 blood each, anyone?) or reduce their effects or ban them.
But I don't know how acceptable those options are. Or if they'd
be a good idea in the first place.
Heh. It might be interesting (if you think playing with weak
cards is interesting) to take, for example, all the cards in
the decks on The Lasombra's tourney-winning-decks page, and
play in a format where all those cards are banned. It would
leave, probably, a lot of cards, but not very many good ones.
There might still be gaping blind spots for good archetypes
that simply haven't shown up there, though. (Corruption, for
example, wouldn't be on the list, although Temptation and Form
of Corruption would.)
Josh
doesn't have all the answers
Ian Lee
>predicts massive bleeders all over the place. As with every clan it's
>possible for them to deal with bleed in general, but you will have a hard
>time against that Malkavian coming for 5 pool on round 2.
I think the reason I mentioned this has quickly gotten lost.
FoS are not an option at all if I care enough to try and win in a tournament.
That is the point. I was trying to follow up on all the comments about how
many of the clans in the game just aren't viable because they can't bleed
bounce, which is the one exceptional defense against big bleed.
Anyway, the game functions. I believe it could function far better, but that's
true of every CCG (except Ultimate Combat!, the only great CCG). Rewriting the
game won't work. But, getting back to AI, it is not a problem. The majority
of views for whether it is a good or bad card never say it is a problem. More
anti-bleed measures aren't likely to be a problem, since I doubt anyone sane
would make something as severe as AI again.
What I'm hoping for, which I see a bit of with SW, is moving the game towards
combat, especially different styles of combat, because combat is interactive.
As a side benefit, if every deck has a reasonable combat component, Grapple
becomes less annoying. As a side note, I'm lost as to why 3? new S:CE cards
were made when S:CE defeats 90% of combat. Need to make some more hosers for
it so that Grapple doesn't become more necessary for combat.
cantila
>Use Greta Kircher as a little Setite Friend
Came ot think of, can you use her ability to reduce her bleed by more
than one? It doesn't say on her text so I'd assume you can? I.e. burn 4
blood to reduce a bleed of 4 to 0.
James Coupe
<cur...@aol.com> writes
>As a side note, I'm lost as to why 3? new S:CE cards
>were made when S:CE defeats 90% of combat.
I was saddened by that, too, but Telepathic Tracking makes things very,
very different indeed.
--
James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D
"It's hard to carry on when you feel all alone. Now I've swung back down
again, it's worse than it was before. If I hadn't seen such riches I could
live with being poor." - James, "Sit Down"
James Coupe
Bakija <pd...@aol.comANTISPAM> writes
>Probably the best plan for
>the Setites in terms of anti-bleed is to play stealth politics, and rearrange
>the table as soon as possible (i.e. play with plenty Kindred Restructure and
>Bewitching Oration).
Kindred Restructure is awkward, requiring a Prince, which is why I
suggested Dramatic Upheaval.
Pat Ricochet
> <snip>
>
>> Use Greta Kircher as a little Setite Friend
>
> Came ot think of, can you use her ability to reduce her bleed by more
> than one? It doesn't say on her text so I'd assume you can? I.e. burn 4
> blood to reduce a bleed of 4 to 0.
Um, no?
Sabbat: If Greta is ready and you are being bled by an ally or a younger
vampire, Greta may burn a blood to reduce the bleed amount by one.
Note that Greta may not burn "X" blood to reduce a bleed by "X."
But, you're right, it doesn't clearly say "Once each time you are being
bled...yada yada" I think the answer is "No," but it might should be
clarified. (There is no such Clarification on the WW page)
--
Pat Ricochet
Soul Jar'rn Fool of Atlanta
LSJ
Once per bleed.
And you're right - this is more than a clarification.
--
LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc.
Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules:
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/
James Coupe
<sp...@socrates.gatech.edu> writes
> But, you're right, it doesn't clearly say "Once each time you are being
>bled...yada yada" I think the answer is "No," but it might should be
>clarified.
The text is "a" blood, and hence suggests one and only one.