Game mechanics: 90 cards vs smaller decks
Tazar
increases chance of you drawing right cards. In vampire it is more
tricky, because there is no card limit so you can increase your chance
just by adding more copies.
Still my idea is that unless you draw all you library cards there is
no need to increase your deck size. Also if you are able to bring out
enought minions with some permanents you can finish the game even
without any further cards. This is especially true for Ashur tablet
decks where you can get some important cards back.
Problem with bigger deck is that you are more likely to experience
"hand jam" where you have either too many actions (and no modifiers),
or too many combat cards without ability to enter combat, or too many
master cards so you can just sit and wait few turns until you play
them.
I'm interested to read why to play 90 cards decks and how to approach
to building 90-cards deck to avoid hand jams and other problems. What
are advantages of 90 card deck.
Petri Wessman
> I'm interested to read why to play 90 cards decks and how to approach
> to building 90-cards deck to avoid hand jams and other problems. What
> are advantages of 90 card deck.
The advantage is that you're less likely to run out of deck. Some
decks cycle cards like crazy (when they are running right). More
static decks can (and often should) be trimmed down to less than 90.
-Petri
YY
Also, a bigger deck may be a result of adding options. In 2 players
games (mtg, vs, l5r, etc) the deck is usually designed to trigger off
a certain killer combo or to achieve a very specific winning condition
to the extent of ignoring what-ifs or 'fun' stuff. If your deck works
right, you're generally in a very good position to win, regardless of
what your opponent can do.
V:tES, I found, is less so.
Combat decks need to include things to get around s:ce, not to mention
cards that help to oust. Close combat decks need to deal with that and
maneuvers. So more cards get added to deal with those and more of what
was originally in the deck gets increased to keep the ratios useful.
Vote decks are reliant on table votes. Sometimes your deck works
exactly the way it should, but random on-table votes somehow happen to
be enough to shut you down, so you'll need a plan B (bleed cards,
combat with fame on the side, etc). This means more cards in the deck
and more of the original cards to keep the ratio.
Toolbox decks are extremely likely to hit the 90-card mark just
because of their nature. You need enough cards to support each "tool"
and make sure that the "tool" is effective.
My 2 cents.
-YY
_angst_
> I'm interested to read why to play 90 cards decks and how to approach
> to building 90-cards deck to avoid hand jams and other problems. What
> are advantages of 90 card deck.
Answer is simple. You shouldn't!. There is no benefit of 90 card
decks, period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
And I'm not trying to be a troll here. Just trust me. If you want to
build good decks you never want them to be 90 cards.
Trust your magic sense when it's tingling. It'll most likely help you
alot in understanding deckbuilding in all CCG's.
//Alex
Xaddam
> Toolbox decks are extremely likely to hit the 90-card mark just
> because of their nature. You need enough cards to support each "tool"
> and make sure that the "tool" is effective.
These are the decks which could go up to 75 card size. Rest should be
60-65-ish.
Petri Wessman
> Answer is simple. You shouldn't!. There is no benefit of 90 card
> decks, period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Well, provably not true. A 90-card deck is much less likely to run out
of deck than a smaller one is, and is also more resilient vs.
millstone stuff (Slaughterhouses etc). So there are exceptions. Do
those exceptions matter? Depends.
Some decks cycle cards at an insane rate. I've run out of cards with
90 card decks, within the 2h time limit, with some decks. Sure, it's
rare, but it does happen.
So yes, there *are* benefits to 90-card decks.
Do you get more benefits in comparison by shrinking the deck size?
Maybe. Maybe not. Depends hugely on the deck. I see a lot of brilliant
tournament players using 90-card decks and doing great with them.
Don't confuse your own preferences with universal truths ;)
-Petri
_angst_
I'm decently sure my preferences are universal truths ;)
I can share some other words of VtES wisdom if you want. Other divine
truths like "1/10 cryptacc cards is never enough if you want to win
with fatties", "V:tES is a game about rolling a dice and see who gets
to have a starting pool of 40", "if it's from Switzerland it's
probably good" and "V:tES is a game about bleeding for 6".
Ofcourse there are cornercase situations where a 90 card deck will get
the upper hand from the extra 15-30 cards it packs but considering how
rare it is for VtES players to actually understand how to build good
decks I much rather say that there is absolutely no benefit to
building 90 card decks than saying there is almost no benefit. Because
hearing that almost part will make alot of people think their 90 card
piles of cards are ok and will prevent them from trying to evolve
their decks and play.
And yeah, I know I sound like a complete **** but seriously guys,
recent studies have proven most people don't understand the
fundamentals of this games, I'm seriously...
//Alex
Teeka
> In my experience from magic. Smaller deck is better because it
> increases chance of you drawing right cards. In vampire it is more
> tricky, because there is no card limit so you can increase your chance
> just by adding more copies.
>
If you're a ratio freak, it might a good thing that in this game you
can add more cards. In MTG the maximum ratio of any card X vs card Y
is 4:1. In VTES, you can make 1:5:7:9 ratios (or whatever), should you
so desire.
> Still my idea is that unless you draw all you library cards there is
> no need to increase your deck size. Also if you are able to bring out
> enought minions with some permanents you can finish the game even
> without any further cards. This is especially true for Ashur tablet
> decks where you can get some important cards back.
>
This is true most of the time, sure. I guess it mostly depends on the
amount of different options you want. Keep in mind that quite a few
'permanents' are unique so you can't have more than 1 at a time and if
someone already has one, you need to contest before you can continue
with your set-up. In MTG terms, it's very possible to have a deck
that's 40% legendary cards. So having a plan B might be good.
> Problem with bigger deck is that you are more likely to experience
> "hand jam" where you have either too many actions (and no modifiers),
> or too many combat cards without ability to enter combat, or too many
> master cards so you can just sit and wait few turns until you play
> them.
>
Well, that's why we have the discard phase and cards like The Barrens.
If you build a deck that you think might jam, always include some
discard tech. There's also a lot of 'cyclable' cards out there: cards
that you can play without much requirement, and even though you know
they're not really going to do anything, you can at least draw
something else.
Also, thinking ahead and discarding "this-might-be-useful-later"-cards
early to avoid a possible hand jam is part of the game's strategy,
which I personally like a lot. If you have a hand full of masters it's
often not a good idea to, as you say, sit and wait few turns until you
play them. In most cases, you should just accept the fact you had some
bad luck drawing and get rid of some of them asap (preferrably by the
time you hit 4 or 5, if possible of course).
It's the no.1 beginner's mistake in my experience, especially from MTG
players: keeping stuff in hand for turn after turn because the
player's 'CCG-think' is still counting on a fresh draw and seeing
discarding as a bad thing (which it is in MTG). This is where the
'more cards' thing comes in handy: it's ok to discard good cards if
they come up at the wrong time, because you have more!
That all being said, I don't usually go all the way up to 90. But it
happens. The biggest disadvantage I can really think of is the
shuffling! :-)
Teeka
> In MTG terms, it's very possible to have a deck
> that's 40% legendary cards.
Oops, brain spasm. That's not what I meant to say. I meant something
more along the lines of "40% of your deck could be "legendary cards"
and cards that require targets/situations/costs that might not come up/
be possible". Sorry, hit the send button before re-reading my own post.
Vincent
There are exceptions:
Turbo decks need (for most) 90 cards.
A deck that cycles 10 cards per turn needs 90 cards (combat, weenie
bleed etc.).
Combo decks work better in 60-65 cards.
Other decks can usually be 75 cards big.
Petri Wessman
Barrens, Heart, whatever) your deck includes is also a big factor. A
big deck becomes less of a problem and more of a bonus if you have
tech to cycle the stuff you don't need out of your hand.
Also: small decks have less redundancy (or none) versus a card getting
cancelled/blocked. Bigger decks may include multiple copies. Now, this
is again a "depends" issue... in a small deck, if that one copy of
card X gets Washed, it's gone for good (barring deck recycle tech). In
a larger deck you may get a chance to try again... but of course, if
it succeeded the first time, you may draw into a card you can't use
anymore.
...and of course, if the deck does have recycle tech (Ashurs,
Anthelios, etc etc), it can easily be made smaller, since you get the
option of going back for the stuff you need or which failed the first
time round.
I think the matter is a lot less clear-cut than people would like to
imagine, and previous Magic experience doesn't always scale into this
game, at least not for general deck types.
-Petri
_angst_
Don't have any experience with turbo decks but I must say I disagree
about combat, weenie and bleed decks. See no reason whatsoever why
you'd want more than 75 cards in such a deck. If you haven't won with
75 cards of such a deck you're very unlikely to win with an extra 15.
//Alex
tobiasopdenbr...@notsocoldmail.com
> And yeah, I know I sound like a complete **** but seriously guys,
> recent studies have proven most people don't understand the
> fundamentals of this games, I'm seriously...
Which studies are those, and what are the fundamentals, then?
Tobias
Martin Tibor Major
I agree with Alex. My Animalism combat is 75 cards, my Brujah toolboxy
Alastor is 75. Recently I cut down my Hardestadt eats the World deck
to 80 cards. My new tournament deck, which is also very toolboxy is 78
cards. I once played a Blanche Hill and friends powerbleed for like
two years. The deck ended up with 60 cards only. I never-ever used
more than 40, even when I swept with 1GW%Vps.
There is simply no point in playing 90 cards in a good deck. There is
one deck type only where I put 90 cards in: those casual game chill
out decks, where I don't give a damn if they are good or not.
_angst_
wrote:
If this was facebook I would have liked your comment ^^
gpett...@gmail.com
It's about deck control. A 60-card deck increases the chances that you
run out of a certain card. When you draw your last Conditioning, it
tends to sit in your hand, jamming it a lot more than having 3 of them
does.
A 60-card deck has a granularity of probabilities to it that 90 does
not. You'll note, going through the TWDA that the decks that win the
continental tournaments often have neither 60 cards nor 90, usually
they're close to one or the other but a few cards off because they're
more finely tuned than that.
Besides, with burn option cards, you can build an arbitrarily small
deck. Why are you limiting yourself to 60?
--
- Gregory Stuart Burdick Pettigrew
Juggernaut1981
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
One of my own decks that really does need its cardslots is a highly
reactive combat wall.
A card sequence from that deck is usually:
Untap
2-3 combat cards
Cat's Guidance
It does block multiple actions a turn and during a social game, it
burned through its 90 cards long before the table got down to 2
players. That's also why in my moderate-to-high cycling wall and/or
toolbox style decks, I tend to include Ashur Tablets as a way to add
"card longevity" as well as "adjusting to the metagame".
Tazar
xcver
>
> Turbo decks need (for most) 90 cards.
> A deck that cycles 10 cards per turn needs 90 cards (combat, weenie
> bleed etc.).
>
> Combo decks work better in 60-65 cards.
> Other decks can usually be 75 cards big.
Isn't a Turbo deck a Combo deck? Have a 60 card Turbo Baron deck that
works quite nice (in 2 JOL league games I got 1 GW and the other one
that is currently running at least 1 VP).
Also do 90cards most of the time, but if I can get myself to
downsizing it almost always feels to be better.
Example of a deck with 90 cards would be Guillaume Location based
decks (at least imho). I am running out of cards with it on a regular
basis.
Izaak
I'm decently sure they're not.
> V:tES is a game about rolling a dice and see who gets
> to have a starting pool of 40",
If this is you referring to the brokenness of Villein+Giant's Blood then I
agree. Otherwise I don't get it.
> Ofcourse there are cornercase situations where a 90 card deck will get
> the upper hand from the extra 15-30 cards it packs but considering how
> rare it is for VtES players to actually understand how to build good
> decks I much rather say that there is absolutely no benefit to
> building 90 card decks than saying there is almost no benefit.
It's funny how you just tell about 90% of the tournament winners in the
history of VTES that they are bad at building decks. Some of those might be,
but I'm pretty sure the majority of the good players have a pretty good
grasp on deck flow mechanics.
There are various reasons to run more than 60-65 cards. For starters, there
is masters to consider. 12 masters in 60 is not the same as 15 masters in
75. Even though the ratio is the same, there is such a thing as the discard
phase in VTES where you get to discard a card you choose. Discarding one of
your 12 masters in the smaller deck has more impact than discarding one of
your masters in the bigger deck. With cards that flushes your hand, like
Barrens, Lear Jet, Dreams and Aura Reading being a given in almost every
deck you can get rid of stuff you don't need -right now- while still having
it in your deck for a next prey or predator. Having more stuff in your deck
obviously makes it bigger, because you can't really afford to decrease your
main ousting mechanism to maintain the ratio's because you'll simple run out
of cards to oust with.
If I want to be a dem/obf bleeder with muddled vampire hunter tech (you
know, some Target Vitals, a couple of Glancing Blow) I would never make it
60 cards. Simply because after 10-12 masters and 10-12 cards to support the
MVH module, I'd be trying to jam 3 VP worth of stealth and bleed into 40
cards, which is clearly not going to happen. And then I still have zero
defense. This deck would probably go up to 70-75 cards. Maybe even 80 with
some extra cycle tech.
I agree that you shouldn't blindly make a pile of 90 cards with stuff and
pray it works. Neither should you blindly remove cards until you're at 60
and pretend you're being efficient. What you *should* do when building decks
is start with enough cards to get 3 VP. Then you add masters and then you
add defense to actually live long enough to get those 3 VP. Then add any
cute tricks or surprises you want to include. Decks with lots of permanents
can likely be built around 60-65 cards. Decks that rely on played cards a
lot (think S/B or even vote) would likely need 70-75. Add 10-15 to that if
you're multi-acting because of Freak Drives and the need for extra actions.
Any deck that has significant combat or a funny combo will likely need 80-90
cards.
> And yeah, I know I sound like a complete **** but seriously guys,
> recent studies have proven most people don't understand the
> fundamentals of this games, I'm seriously...
What studies?
Which fundamentals?
Link or it didn't happen.
Kevin M.
> Tazar wrote:
>> I'm interested to read why to play 90 cards decks and how
>> to approach to building 90-cards deck to avoid hand jams
>> and other problems. What are advantages of 90 card deck.
>
> Answer is simple. You shouldn't!. There is no benefit of 90 card
> decks, period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Alex, what would you remove from this deck to make it better?
http://members.cox.net/kjm1971/decks/The%20Next%20Una.txt
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
_angst_
trolling and try to do the same.
On Nov 11, 11:47 am, "Izaak" <nom...@usenet.plz> wrote:
> > I'm decently sure my preferences are universal truths ;)
>
> I'm decently sure they're not.
>
> > V:tES is a game about rolling a dice and see who gets
> > to have a starting pool of 40",
>
> If this is you referring to the brokenness of Villein+Giant's Blood then I
> agree. Otherwise I don't get it.
>
I'm happy to see you get this one :)
> > Ofcourse there are cornercase situations where a 90 card deck will get
> > the upper hand from the extra 15-30 cards it packs but considering how
> > rare it is for VtES players to actually understand how to build good
> > decks I much rather say that there is absolutely no benefit to
> > building 90 card decks than saying there is almost no benefit.
>
> It's funny how you just tell about 90% of the tournament winners in the
> history of VTES that they are bad at building decks. Some of those might be,
> but I'm pretty sure the majority of the good players have a pretty good
> grasp on deck flow mechanics.
>
The fun and somewhat curse of VtES is that you don't have to be a good
deckbuilder to win a tournament. Actually most of my decks in the TWDA
is just plain terrible. You also don't have to know everything about
cardflow and optimizing your build to be a good deckbuilder. Good
deckbuilding usually is about finding what's strong and then not
messing up the mechanics of the deck too much. So I'm not sure I'm
saying 90% of tournament winners are terrible. I am however saying
that 90% of tournament winners should take the time to develop their
deckbuilding skills even further making hem even better.
> There are various reasons to run more than 60-65 cards. For starters, there
> is masters to consider. 12 masters in 60 is not the same as 15 masters in
> 75. Even though the ratio is the same, there is such a thing as the discard
> phase in VTES where you get to discard a card you choose. Discarding one of
> your 12 masters in the smaller deck has more impact than discarding one of
> your masters in the bigger deck. With cards that flushes your hand, like
> Barrens, Lear Jet, Dreams and Aura Reading being a given in almost every
> deck you can get rid of stuff you don't need -right now- while still having
> it in your deck for a next prey or predator. Having more stuff in your deck
> obviously makes it bigger, because you can't really afford to decrease your
> main ousting mechanism to maintain the ratio's because you'll simple run out
> of cards to oust with.
>
Perhaps I've been misunderstood here. Which is fair enough considering
my post wasn't very structured. I'm not saying decks have to be 60-65.
Actually I find 60 card decks to generally be a bit too tight for my
taste. I am however saying you should try to use less than 80 cards.
My own preference is 65-75. I never go above 75 and I rarely go below
65.
The thing with building decks this way is that you don't have to use
the discard phase as often and you almost never have to use
cardflushing cards like learjet and infernal pursuit. It's much easier
to always draw the right cards which makes the build stronger. You
will generally have the cards you need and thus flushing them isn't as
key as with 90 card piles where you rarely have the cards you need on
your hand. Dreams is still key but that's because dreams is awesome
and doubles as crypt acc.
> If I want to be a dem/obf bleeder with muddled vampire hunter tech (you
> know, some Target Vitals, a couple of Glancing Blow) I would never make it
> 60 cards. Simply because after 10-12 masters and 10-12 cards to support the
> MVH module, I'd be trying to jam 3 VP worth of stealth and bleed into 40
> cards, which is clearly not going to happen. And then I still have zero
> defense. This deck would probably go up to 70-75 cards. Maybe even 80 with
> some extra cycle tech.
>
16 KS, 10 Confusion, 5 Deny, 5 Mind Tricks and 4 Eyes of Chaos. That's
an additional bleed of 34 and with master support it's probably enough
to break walls too. Anyways, silly nitpicking example aside I agree. I
usually play KS bleed on 70-75 cards so we're in agreement.
> I agree that you shouldn't blindly make a pile of 90 cards with stuff and
> pray it works. Neither should you blindly remove cards until you're at 60
> and pretend you're being efficient. What you *should* do when building decks
> is start with enough cards to get 3 VP. Then you add masters and then you
> add defense to actually live long enough to get those 3 VP. Then add any
> cute tricks or surprises you want to include. Decks with lots of permanents
> can likely be built around 60-65 cards. Decks that rely on played cards a
> lot (think S/B or even vote) would likely need 70-75. Add 10-15 to that if
> you're multi-acting because of Freak Drives and the need for extra actions.
> Any deck that has significant combat or a funny combo will likely need 80-90
> cards.
>
Agreed. First thing you always have to ask you in any VtES related
situation, which includes deckbuilding, is how am I going to win? Your
oust cards are your most important cards so beginning with those is a
good idea. Rest of what your writing is fine except for the last part.
Don't trick yourself you will need those extra cards in your deck when
doing tricks. Instead take the time to test the ratios and make it
work on less than 80 cards. Doing this will make your trick deck work
better in most cases.
> > And yeah, I know I sound like a complete **** but seriously guys,
> > recent studies have proven most people don't understand the
> > fundamentals of this games, I'm seriously...
>
> What studies?
> Which fundamentals?
> Link or it didn't happen.
Considering the South Park quotes in what I wrote I would have linked
you to something funny and semi-relevant at southparkstudios at this
point. But I only have access to the Swedish version of the site so
such a move would have been completely useless.
Regards
Alex
_angst_
> _angst_ wrote:
> > Tazar wrote:
> >> I'm interested to read why to play 90 cards decks and how
> >> to approach to building 90-cards deck to avoid hand jams
> >> and other problems. What are advantages of 90 card deck.
>
> > Answer is simple. You shouldn't!. There is no benefit of 90 card
> > decks, period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
>
>
> 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
Hehe, the Una deck, what might be the exception that proves the
rule ;)
If you want honest feedback feel free to send your deck to
alexander[dot]s[dot]ek[at]gmail[dot]com and I'll gladly take a look at
it. I know myself and thus I know if I get it in a mail I'll remember
to take a look but if it's imbedded in a NG-post I won't :)
//Alex
Myrdin
>
> - Visa citerad text -
I agree with the idea that 90 decks are usually not good. But I'm not
sure that claiming such a thing without a really good explanation
works.
As I personally see it (not that I am a great deckbuilder, I'd say
mediocre at best) you don't need 90 cards to win a game. Running
counter to this argument though is the question that begs to be asked,
if 90 cards is too much why is there a limit? Running out of cards
isn't even a base win-condition.
My own opinion is that people have concepts for decks, ideas that wish
to be fulfilled and they stuff them into a 90 cards and wish for the
best. If the mindset is to build 80-card decks the same problem as a
90-card deck would be apparent in a 80-card deck. The problem of
stuffing too much into the same deck, it doesnt really matter if you
build it 90 or 80 the same problems would present themselves wich
really has nothing to do with the amount of cards in the deck.
If you have a slim and working concept and have a steamlined oust plan
with win-potential in the deck there is no reason to build it larger
than it has to be, card prediction is important and it's easier to get
proper cardflow/prediction in a 75-80 card deck since chances are
random and less cards is less random. But then again, why the limit?
Mostly i believe it's an old concept from magic where the library was
a win-condition and also that certain abuse was found in using cards
like infernal pursuit. Imho though with the gy recursion going on at
the moment dropping the upper decklimit would not be broken.
/Ivan
Martin Tibor Major
I often find it helpful to approach this whole decksize thing from a
different point of view. When I have a deck concept in my head I open
the deckbuilder and start putting the cards in I feel I have to put in
there. Then I stop and take a look at numbers. Sometimes I find myself
staring to a 120 card deck, in this case I dump the idea. Sometimes I
find myself staring at 54 or 73 or whatever number of cards. If the
number is less than 60 I add some cards I think would fit in. If the
number is 60 > x >90 than I just play it a couple of times. After the
games I either add or remove cards. We humans tend to like round
numbers like 90, 60 or in case of v:tes 75. Forget this. There is
nothing wrong in playing with 63, 71, 79 or 81 cards if you feel like
the deck is complete!
Haze
> And yeah, I know I sound like a complete **** but seriously guys,
> recent studies have proven most people don't understand the
> fundamentals of this games, I'm seriously...
>
> //Alex
I was curious if this were really true, so I conducted an informal
survey. I asked several random people on the street some simple
questions about the fundamentals of VTES. It turns out most people
really don't understand basic concepts such as gaining stealth, or
what the edge is used for. They had no grasp on the Influence phase
and transfers. One guy tried to mug me, so I marked him down as
understanding combat even though he had no clue that he's supposed to
try to oust his prey.
So this confirms that, yes, most people in the world just don't know
jack about VTES deckbuilding.
Martin Tibor Major
ROTFLMAO
extrala
> In my experience from magic. Smaller deck is better because it
> increases chance of you drawing right cards. In vampire it is more
> tricky, because there is no card limit so you can increase your chance
> just by adding more copies.
>
Some data I sampled from Lasombra's TWDA a few weeks ago:
Decksize # Decks
60 41
61 6
62 3
63 4
64 3
65 9
66 8
67 4
68 2
69 1
70 41
71 9
72 13
73 9
74 12
75 42
76 19
77 28
78 12
79 10
80 87
81 16
82 23
83 15
84 15
85 18
86 23
87 21
88 48
89 65
90 894
Shown in a more fancy graphical representation here:
http://extrala.blogspot.com/2010/11/vtes-historical-deck-size-statistics.html
Best Regards, Ralf
P.S.: No, this is *not* the study/research _angst_ was talking about.
_angst_
I <3 you :)
Rehlow
>
> Best Regards, Ralf
>
> P.S.: No, this is *not* the study/research _angst_ was talking about.
Can you also relate those numbers to tournament size in some
meaningful way? Bad decks win tournaments in the USA all the time.
I wonder what the numbers are when you remove all tournaments with <25
players.
Later,
~Rehlow
Peter D Bakija
<1ba7440c-e36d-4208...@m20g2000prc.googlegroups.com>,
Rehlow <news...@rehlow.com> wrote:
> Can you also relate those numbers to tournament size in some
> meaningful way? Bad decks win tournaments in the USA all the time.
To be fair, bad decks win tournaments all over the world all the time.
Half the time that I see a posted TWD, I'm like "Really? How does this
crap win?"
Peter D Bakija
pd...@lightlink.com
http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html
"It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?"
-Gaff
extrala
> I wonder what the numbers are when you remove all tournaments with <25
> players.
Here's the information you requested, only examining tournaments with
25+ players (only difference the base data is the current one, not the
one a few weeks ago):
60 12
61 1
62 2
63 3
64 0
65 3
66 3
67 0
68 0
69 0
70 19
71 4
72 2
73 4
74 3
75 12
76 7
77 6
78 4
79 3
80 24
81 3
82 11
83 5
84 2
85 2
86 3
87 2
88 7
89 15
90 195
Still 55% of these decks (195 out of 357) are 90 card decks.
Best regards, Ralf
====================
http://extrala.blogspot.com
Kushiel
> One guy tried to mug me, so I marked him down as
> understanding combat even though he had no clue that he's supposed to
> try to oust his prey.
This just made my night. Thank you.
John Eno
Abdul alHazred
>
> - Visa citerad text -
Hi Ralf
Is it possible to limit this survey to lets say 2005- or maybe even
2008- in a manageable way? I am really curious to see if the idea of
trying to slim your deck has been more prevalent in recent twd:s than
before because the theories of building v:tes decks is of course
evolving and it has taken big strides since the mid nineties.
cheers
Tomas
Robert Scythe
> > P.S.: No, this is *not* the study/research _angst_ was talking about.
>
> Can you also relate those numbers to tournament size in some
> meaningful way? Bad decks win tournaments in the USA all the time.
Not sure why you are bagging on the U.S. specifically. I've seen
plenty of TWD's from all over that made me wonder "How did that win?".
When I've played in Europe I do not recall being daunted or
intimidated by their 'superior deck building abilities'. I frankly
believe that even a relatively decent deck can be taken to a win by a
good player. Table play may be half or more of the equation involved
for a victorious solution. Playing in a very competitive small
tournament is just as 'meaningful' than a large tournament with a lot
of fluff. Of course, if the large tournament is just that hardcore
than it would rock to be involved but then, with the numbers involved,
how will that relate in a "meaningful way" for your request in
relation to good or bad decks by tournament size? (which seems a
rather subjective judgment anyway).
extrala
> Is it possible to limit this survey to lets say 2005- or maybe even
> 2008- in a manageable way? I am really curious to see if the idea of
> trying to slim your deck has been more prevalent in recent twd:s than
> before because the theories of building v:tes decks is of course
> evolving and it has taken big strides since the mid nineties.
>
Best Regards, Ralf
====================
http://extrala.blogspot.com
Vincent
A turbo deck is a specific type combo deck. A turbo Nergal deck needs
90 cards to perform its ~90 pool damage. (in 60 cards it would do only
60 pool damage which is not sufficient to get the GW).
Vincent
> On Nov 10, 3:28 pm, Vincent <v.rip...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> > > On Nov 10, 9:13 am, Tazar <varga_mar...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > > > to building 90-cards deck to avoid hand jams and other problems. What
> > > > are advantages of 90 card deck.
>
> > > decks, period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
>
> > > build good decks you never want them to be 90 cards.
>
> > > Trust your magic sense when it's tingling. It'll most likely help you
> > > alot in understanding deckbuilding in all CCG's.
>
> > > //Alex
>
>
> > Turbo decks need (for most) 90 cards.
> > A deck that cycles 10 cards per turn needs 90 cards (combat, weenie
> > bleed etc.).
>
> > Combo decks work better in 60-65 cards.
> > Other decks can usually be 75 cards big.
>
> about combat, weenie and bleed decks. See no reason whatsoever why
> you'd want more than 75 cards in such a deck. If you haven't won with
> 75 cards of such a deck you're very unlikely to win with an extra 15.
>
> //Alex
I have some weenie decks where getting the right card early isn't
necessary, but playing 5 times the same card or pair of cards in a row
is (therefore, it requires a 90 cards deck in order to put 15 copies
of that card or pair of cards).
And I have some decks that are depleted too quickly in 60 cards only.
Rehlow
I should not have said US. I should have said, bad decks win small
tournaments all the time. Maybe its my misperception, but it seems
like Europe has a lot more larger tournaments than the US does. And I
really shouldn't say winning with a bad deck is easier in a small
tournament, but rather making the final with a bad deck is easier in a
small tournament. There are so many factors that go into playing a
final that a bad deck stands a decent chance of winning if it actually
gets to the final.
I also get the impression that more players in the US are interested
in trying to win with a bad or weird deck and that in Europe more
players are interested in playing a good, efficient, reliable deck.
All of this is just my personal observations and bias though (and
since I've never actually played in Europe, all of that bias is based
on what I read here).
Later,
~Matt
Curevei
> I should not have said US. I should have said, bad decks win small
> tournaments all the time. Maybe its my misperception, but it seems
> like Europe has a lot more larger tournaments than the US does. And I
> really shouldn't say winning with a bad deck is easier in a small
> tournament, but rather making the final with a bad deck is easier in a
> small tournament. There are so many factors that go into playing a
> final that a bad deck stands a decent chance of winning if it actually
> gets to the final.
>
> I also get the impression that more players in the US are interested
> in trying to win with a bad or weird deck and that in Europe more
> players are interested in playing a good, efficient, reliable deck.
>
> All of this is just my personal observations and bias though (and
> since I've never actually played in Europe, all of that bias is based
> on what I read here).
Look at the decks that win 50+ person tournaments sometime. I posted
the list at one point (for a given year, I think) on the UK forum and
Rob responded with a comment about how it made sense that stranger
decks are more likely to win the largest tournaments relative to? some
level of smaller tournament size.
Also, regardless as to what wins, "good"/"great"/"tier 1"/"strong"/
whatever decks lose tournaments all of the time. What do people think
the percentage is for tournaments won by the "best" deck fielded in
the event? I have a hard time imagining it being even close to 10%,
overall, with maybe 10% only in certain areas. Of course, we lack
data, and it's questionable whether people even agree on what the best
decks are, or whether a particular build qualifies as a best deck even
if the deck archetype could be agreed upon as a top tier archetype.
Martin Tibor Major
True.
Fortunately v:tes isn't about buying the most recent super expensive
cards, netdeck them into one of the 3 possible Tier1 decks that can be
built by the current Type2 rules and than play 33% mirror matches...
No, v:tes is about long term planing, strategy, psychological skills,
a little mathematics and a portion of luck with the seatings. The deck
is more often the least important (but still important) factor,
supposing your not a moron a built a really shitty one. If you're good
with the points above you don't need to sharpen, tighten or whatever
unethical things you might do to your deck on lonesome nights.
If players would use their energy they spend on chasing the perfectly
fine-tuned deck on just simply playing better than they would achieve
much more. By the way, I am practicing a good lot of self-criticism
here.
DeBomas
>
> Best Regards, Ralf
>
> P.S.: No, this is *not* the study/research _angst_ was talking about.
Even though these numbers are really interesting (and thank you for
listing them !), I'm not sure if any usefull conclusions about '90 vs.
less' can be drawn from them.
Quoting your blog:
"It's not so easy to draw any conclusion whether 90 cards decks are
good (or even optimal), since you don't really know if these decks
would have performed any better with less cards. On the other hand,
decks with 60 or 70 are not automatically better than those with
higher card counts, otherwise more of them would show up in finals or
as tournament winners."
I'm not an expert (or even amateur) in statistics, but I guess that if
you really wanted to find out wheter 90- or 60/70-card-decks do
better, you shouldn't be looking just at the decksizes of TWD
winners.
You should also bring in the number of total tournament partipants
playing 90cards (or less).
As an example: If during tournament x, 70% of players plays a 90-card
deck, than only for that reason the winner is more likely to be a 90-
card-player. That has got nothing to do with deck strengths or your
conclusion that "60 or 70 aren't auomatically better [...] otherwise
more of them would show up".
Thar 55% of winners are 90cards, says something completely different
in the situation of 80% of total tournament particpants bringing 90-
carddecks, vs the situation of only 30% (or whatever, I'm exaggerating
for clarity) bringing 90card-decks. So unless you have those total-
participant-numbers, the 'winners-only'-stats don't really tell you
anything.
I guess even more conclusions could be drawn if you could compare the
number of 90- vs 'less'-players in any given 1 tournament, and then
check them against number of GW's/ VP's/TP's or something, (and then
for all tournaments, though that'll take some work).
Of course, my proposal of comparing decksizes within tournaments
against GW/VP/TP isn't flawless either: players are influenced by
current 'ideologies' as well, and especially players involved in the
game enough to lurk on the newsgroup frequently or read about deck
strategy, will be more likely (arguably) to be better players as well
as better deck builders, and also be more likely to go for the smaller
deck size (since theory seems to say that's what works better). This
is at least something i can say for our local meta. These preferences
linked to player involvement/skill could also effect outcome of GW/VP/
TP-ratio...
So as far as numbercrunching and research goes: I'd say we're a far
cry from getting anything usefull out of them. :-)
Of course, these numbers from past tournaments are mostly lost, but
maybe there could be some calculating/stat-forming button in the
archon (adding the option to enter decksize) for this ? If any of you
programmertypes feels so inclined, i'd make very intersting data
probably.
Though Ralf, I appreciate your handy-work of course ! :-)
librarian
> On Nov 10, 1:52 pm, _angst_<alexander.s...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Answer is simple. You shouldn't!. There is no benefit of 90 card
>> decks, period. There are no exceptions to this rule.
>
> of deck than a smaller one is, and is also more resilient vs.
> millstone stuff (Slaughterhouses etc). So there are exceptions. Do
> those exceptions matter? Depends.
>
> Some decks cycle cards at an insane rate. I've run out of cards with
> 90 card decks, within the 2h time limit, with some decks. Sure, it's
> rare, but it does happen.
>
> So yes, there *are* benefits to 90-card decks.
>
> Do you get more benefits in comparison by shrinking the deck size?
> Maybe. Maybe not. Depends hugely on the deck. I see a lot of brilliant
> tournament players using 90-card decks and doing great with them.
>
> Don't confuse your own preferences with universal truths ;)
>
Haven't read the rest of the thread, but my own experience is this:
Typically if you are building 90 card decks, you have stuff in there that
is not helping you win, but instead preventing you from losing. Stuff that
is like, "Well, this situation may come up, I should pack this".
About a year ago I started consciously building decks that were only 60
cards, that had the *core* of my strategy/deck concept; and leaving almost
everything else out (except 1 dreams, 1 Carlton, 1 Ivory Bow, and 1 other
thing Robert Scythe says is key in every deck, maybe DI or Sudden or Wash,
I forget). Then I would give myself the luxury of 10-12 "other" cards.
Usually those other cards were 6-9 Ashur Tablets, but not always.
I had a lot more success on JOL than I had before; and more importantly, I
could very quickly see if my deck concept was ass or not; where before I
couldn't be sure if it was the deck concept, or the other stuff.
I still have some 90 card decks, but most of my decks have been pared down
to 60-75 cards, and I'm much happier.
I rarely run out of cards still.
chris
Are13
If you can not (mathematically) prove a less than 90 card deck is
better, then 90 card deck is better as said in the beginning:
_www.thelasombra.com/musicman.htm_
If this is wrong (in a general deck), you should be able to prove it.
(Proof would include probability calculations to show how much better
chance of having the right cards in every situation you would have, 90
cards versus less.) The only thing that is sure to happen in a game is
consumption of cards. It might be easier to see this if you forget
about time limit. The number of turns is not really a thing you can
control and _can_ be a lot.
It is possible to have a deck concept that needs to run out of cards
and there may be other exceptions.
librarian
You completely forget that your hand size is only 7, and that has a clear
relationship to whether you will draw a specific card or not, and that is
based on your deck size, among other things.
Also not sure where proof was requested.
Just thought I'd give my own personal experience.
Thanks for participating.
Chris
Xaddam
I don't know enough statistics to put this in mathematical terms, but
I'm
sure that most v:tes players wouldn't know enough math to read it
either
way. The idea is anyway, in words instead of number, this:
I would like to break down the qualities of different sized deck into
three
parts; ratios, variation and absolute number of wasted cards.
As said, the terms might be wrong for someone with a mathematics
education, so I'll explain what I mean by them.
Ratio is easy; it translates to how big the probability to draw a
given card.
9 villeins in a 90-card deck gives the same ratio as 6 villeins in a
60-card
deck. Ratios are the same. This is intuitive and this is the first
thing a
vtes deck builder learns. It also functions in the exact same way no
matter
whether you have a 60-card deck or a 90-card deck.
Variation is a little less intuitive. This is the number of possible
draws you
can get. With a draw I mean through-out an entire game's length. With
9
villeins in a 90-card deck it is increasingly likely to draw 4 of them
in a row
than it is to draw 4 villeins in a row in a 60-card deck. 4 is an
arbitrarily
chosen number picked to illustrate an "unlucky draw".
This is very counter-intuitive; so I will try to explain it throughly.
This comes
down to the "possible draws" you can have, the many different
permutations
of a draw, if you like. In the case with the 9 villeins you will have
Villein nr.1
through 9, any four of these can be part of an "unlucky draw". One
permutation with an unlucky draw might include villein nr 1, 4, 5 and
8,
another might include villein nr. 2, 4, 5 and 6. So the number of
unlucky
permutations is increasingly larger the more cards you add.
For illustration I would like to point out the extremes in either
case. The
extreme in our example 90-card deck is to draw 9 villeins in a row,
the
extreme in our 60-card example is to draw 6 villeins in a row. This
is
where hand size becomes a limiting factor in our deck building. The
60-
card deck player will have 1 additional card, the 90-card player will
have
to cycle 3 cards before he gets more options. While the absolute
extreme
wouldn't be regularly happening we can look at extremes to see in
which
direction tendencies are taking the deck.
The variation of a deck would not be a problem if we also increased
our
card managing 'buffer' and 'reaction'. In the case of deck management
the buffer is our hand size and the reaction is our discard. A 40 card
deck
with 4 villeins, 4 hand size and 1 discard phase action (case A) would
for
all intents regarding variation be the same as a 80-card deck with 8
villein,
8 hand size and 2 discard phase actions (case B). Both case A and case
B
are exactly as good, from a deck management point-of-view. Case A is
more desirable because of the following: increasing our hand size and
discard phase actions costs in-game resources (elder library or the
barrens),
decreasing our deck size and maintaining ratios costs no in-game
resources.
The last part is the lengthy term ”absolute number of wasted cards”.
What I mean by this is specific to a few deck types, which function
even
better as 60-card decks than most other decks. They are decks which
require one copy (and no more than one copy) of a card. An assamite
breed-boon might be an example; they would most likely need an Alamut.
In a 90-card deck with 3 Alamuts the probablity to draw all of them is
exactly
the same as the probability to draw all 2 Alamuts in a 60-card deck.
The
important point here is that in one of these cases we have wasted two
card
slots and in the other we have wasted one card slot.
Of course I am aware of the fact that no deck functions with no cards
in the
library; you will see in the TWDA that I have no winning 60-cards
deck.
I will have to give Stefan Karlsson credit for an idea of his, that I
would like
to promote as well: always start with 60 cards and then increase until
you
have enough cards to last you the entire game.
Regards,
Adam Esbjörnsson
Prince of Lindesberg
Xaddam
The formatting of my text is totally off in the google newsreader, I
recommend copy-pasting into word for maximum readablity if you find it
annoying.
Additionally I'm not prince of Lindesberg anymore, I'm prince of
Örebro.
Regards,
Adam Esbjörnsson
Prince of Örebro (!)
Curevei
Why should one thing need proof and not another?
Prove 90 is better, first, then maybe somebody can waste the time
proving otherwise.
Or, don't. I don't know why people care so much about how big other
people's decks are. I like 75 or 80 card decks because those sizes
balance discipline with variety for my style of play. If someone else
is happy building nothing but 90 card decks, means nothing to me. I
only suggest building smaller decks when people express unhappiness at
their 90+ card efforts.
Juggernaut1981
>
> - Show quoted text -
I am an advocate of "Build a Core Module" and then "Include Other
Options". For most people around here, that is "Build a 60card deck
then toss in Carlton, Ivory Bow, Pentex Subversion, Secure Haven &
Some other Card I need to Contest", or so it seems.
If I'm building an S&B deck, then I try to keep the S&B part to be the
majority of a 60 card deck (often in the league of 44 cards since I
tend to build in 4s). Then I will throw in some combat (maybe 4
copies of a couple of versatile cards + 2 comas for instance) and then
toss in some other miscellaneous "Handy if I get it but don't care if
I discard it" cards.
Reasoning being: I know that I tend to not use Discard Phase Actions
more than any other action. So I tend to get decks that are multiples
of 4 (60, 68, 76 or so) and decks of flat 90 (particularly high-card-
speed decks like Combat Walls, Rush Decks etc).
Are13
that it is very difficult to prove smaller decks better, and proof
might not exist. Proof could be anything based on fact.
I might add that I have been playing from the begining and I
understand the feelings people have about deck size. Few thoughts in
random order:
To me it is clear that running out of cards is almost certainly a lost
game. There is no other sure way to loose (having N Villeins in hand,
or M Traps or what ever, might even be a good thing).
If you need one specific card, it is more likely to get it by adding
another copy than it is to get it by limiting deck size. (More likely
to draw it, and in case of sudden or DI, more likely to get it into
play)
"Core Module" or deck idea does not depend on deck size (in general).
If people add bad cards, it is not the fault of deck size.
Meta game, feelings, play style, preference and such are not fact and
therefore not reasons to alter deck size.
Are13
is maybe not an absolute fact, but to me, it is as close as I can get.
I think most Vampire player are smart and understand things like
hypergeometric distribution if they come in contact with it.
Vincent
I've written a program to simulate the run of a turbo deck, testing
each deck composition 1 million time and comparing the results. Deck
composition varies with the number of copies of each card and the deck
size.
On a turbo Nergal deck (CtGB + Bleed > FD > action provided by CtGB >
Bleed > FD > EM > DtD) it appears that the "best" deck is in 90 cards.
Best in that case is calculated on the average total bleed amount (the
bigger the best)
On a turbo Jacob deck (IF > FD > SH > DtD), the best deck size was 67
if I recall correctly.
Best in that case was calculated on the average total number of allies
put in play.
These cases are quite extreme, since we're speaking about turbo decks
which are very sensible to hand jam and doesn't work like many other
decks, but illustrates the fact that there is no global "best" deck
size.
.
Xaddam
Interesting idea!
Is it possible to configure the simulator to simulate the difference
between a 90-card Nergal turbo average total bleed amount to a 60-card
Nergal turbo but only counting the first 60 cards in both cases?
To eliminate the fact that a turbo deck will most likely be able to
draw all its cards.
Vincent
I can answer even without simulation : the 60 cards deck will perform
better than the 90.
A more interesting figure is the bleed amount repartition, whether the
deck performs its max bleed 95% of the time, or if each bleed amount
is equally represented.
I don't have it in mind, but since I write an article about it, it
will get known soon ;)
Myrdin
> > Interesting idea!
>
> > Is it possible to configure the simulator to simulate the difference
> > between a 90-card Nergal turbo average total bleed amount to a 60-card
> > Nergal turbo but only counting the first 60 cards in both cases?
>
> > To eliminate the fact that a turbo deck will most likely be able to
> > draw all its cards.
>
> > Regards,
> > Adam Esbjörnsson
> > Prince of Örebro
>
> I can answer even without simulation : the 60 cards deck will perform
> better than the 90.
> A more interesting figure is the bleed amount repartition, whether the
> deck performs its max bleed 95% of the time, or if each bleed amount
> is equally represented.
> I don't have it in mind, but since I write an article about it, it
>
> - Visa citerad text -
Interesting, what are you using to make the simulations? Matlab?
/Ivan
Vincent
A custom multi-threaded program I made in C#. I can release the
sources if you want, but I'll have to do some cleanup.