Imbued power decks?
luis....@gmail.com
it seems it's almost a different game inside VTES with its own
terminology. I don't even know that terminology nor the rest. I don't
plan to play with it or buy those cards.
But since i've been reading and hearing a lot about those Imbued power
decks that win 90% of the times, can someone explain me _in a simple
way_ what are its strengths, how does it wins (it's like S&B? Rush
combat? weenie bleed?...) and why it's so effective? Thanks a lot in
advance for your pacience.
.- Luis
niko...@hotmail.com
- They have a lot of "permanent" effects from convictions, that
vampires most often have to acquire in some way.
- They are hard to kill (imbued decks, not imbued in themselves) and
they recover much, much faster than any other deck. When vampire decks
get more and more limited as the game progresses, as most of their
actions cost blood or somehow make them lose blood, imbued pay for
their actions/powers with convictions which they recuperate every
turn.
- The "penalty" for burning an imbued can be hard to overcome
especially in the late game, where a vampire who takes 2-3 damage for
burning it, will most likely go to torpor.
- Many events dont affect vampires.
- People dont know enough about them, and rely on trying to stop them
late in the game, which is near impossible.
Imbued are not hard to shut down, if you do it early and if you get
help. The problem is that if they are played by a guy with even a
minimal amount of table talk skills, he can most often convince his
allies not to go against him early "so as to not imbalance the table",
which means he will be able to build up to a stage where it is
suddenly too late to stop him.
witness1
Generally speaking, the imbued oust their prey by repeatedly bleeding
for 2 (Strike With Conviction) with multiple minions. Some decks can
get more than that (Donate or Laptop Computer), but 2 is a baseline
that every imbued can easily reach. If the situation warrants it, they
can use Second Sight to make monsters -1 intercept for the action.
It's difficult for them to be more stealthy than that without OBF
backup vampires, but that one point is often enough. They can't call
votes, and imbued combat isn't much to be worried about.
They have means of getting out several minions in short order. Travis
"Traveler72" Miller can put two blood on an uncontrolled guy as a +1
stealth action; Church of Vindicated Faith puts one on an uncontrolled
guy if you take a successful action. Inspire also allows blood to be
put on an uncontrolled guy. If neither predator nor prey blocks these
actions (or kills Travis or the Inspiring imbued), it's not difficult
to get a swarm out in a few turns of peace.
A fair number of cards (Taste of Vitae, Disarm, etc.) cannot be played
against the imbued. A fair number of other cards (Ancient Influence,
Smiling Jack, etc.) work far better against the imbued. Imbued decks
are generally built with this in mind and pack cards like Determine,
DI, Poison Pill, Sudden Reversal, etc. to combat their greatest
weaknesses. Several decks have a hard time getting around the
immunities (rush combat decks in particular). Many other weaknesses of
allies (such as vulnerability to Entrancement) can be canceled with
React With Conviction.
The imbued have Determine (cancels an action card played by your
predator or prey OR sends your predator to bleed his predator),
Champion (cause a (D) action to fail, fight this imbued instead),
Vigilance (free permanent untap if you take a successful action OR
costed untap as a reaction) which gives them strong defensive options.
Acquiring a power untaps the imbued, so he can get multiple powers in
a single turn.
They gain one conviction each per turn from hand or ash heap, which
means they can keep up the pressure if they're in a strong position,
or wall up easily if they're in a weak position. Edge Explosion allows
each imbued to gain 1 extra conviction a turn if he takes a successful
action.
They become incapacitated when they lose their last life, unlike
vampires which need that one extra point when empty to bin them. They
cannot take an action to rescue each other, instead they come out
during the untap phase (gaining 1 life) by burning 3 conviction (only
2 conviction, and during any untap phase, with Jennie "Cassie247"
Orne's card text). This makes it somewhat difficult to keep them down
in combat, unless you can take the action to burn them once they're
incapacitated.
You can also check out my archived newsletters here:
http://vtes-hunter-net.tripod.com/newsletters.htm
witness1
Frederick Scott
news:1191504130.6...@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com...>> ...can someone explain me _in a simple way_ what are its strengths,
>> how does it wins (it's like S&B? Rush combat? weenie bleed?...) and
>> why it's so effective?
In Los Angeles, they jokingly refer to Imbued as "the Immune". That is
VtES is rife with effects that don't matter to allies. Gehenna events
are particular favorites of Imbued decks - starting, of course, with The
Unmasking but also including a bunch of nightmarish (not to mention pain-
in-the-ass to keep track of) stuff that tends to shut down the usage of
Vampires but leaves allies alone.
At the same time, unlike the normal, brittle, easily burnable allies that
you get from recruit actions, these allies don't burn on the loss of their
last life. Incapcitation is a torpor-like penalty box from which they can
emerge again, if the extra action is not taken to burn them. But taking
actions against the Imbued is especially hard - they have a freely
available Conviction card (conviction cards regerate one-per-turn) that is
burned for 1 intercept and another which simply cancels an action to change
control of the Imbued (so don't get too many thoughts of pulling off a Far
Mastery - even if you have lots of stealth). As time passes, they get
access to more intercept and an untapping ability.
The Imbued power up fairly easily. They have things called "Power cards"
which are like equip actions except they're not destroyable or stealable
once played and, most importantly, an Imbued who successfully acts to place
a power card on itself untaps and can do something else the same turn.
The power cards tap for various abilities, many quite formidible. I like
Champion the best: it counts as a reaction card (so the Imbued must normally
be untapped to tap it for its ability) but it makes *ANY* directed action
against the Imbued player fail and puts the Imbued in combat with the acting
minion. Stick an Ivory Bow/Sengir Dagger/Crusader Sword on it and block two
things a turn, since using the Champion power only taps the Champion card, not
the Imbued itself. And since the action simply fails, it doesn't matter how
much stealth you have. Champions even make Stanislava's actions fail.
The Imbued themselves are basically weenies and, while they can't use Blood
Dolls, they have a number of ways to bloat by moving blood to uncontrolled
Imbued. There's a power which does it, there's a location which does it, and
there's an Imbued who has an innate skill to move _2_ blood to an uncontrolled
vampire. Hell, pool flows out of every orafice of most Imbued players once
they get going!
The main way of shutting Imbued down is intercepting them early (especially
their powers - a failed attempt to play a power card will not untap the
Imbued) and incapacitating them. Decks which pour out intercept can do this.
The vast majority of decks don't have enough. That's why Imbued have been
considered overpowered up to this point. It's not that there aren't decks
out there which can beat them. It's just that there's a LOT of decks which
do just fine in the rest of the metagame which have little hope of shutting
down Imbued. If the Imbued player winds up next to such a predator and prey -
as they often will - the game turns into this boring, hopeless drudgery of
waiting for the Imbued player to play his turn (he has a lot of cards to tend,
especially as his position builds up) and eventually wipe everybody out. In
such games, the best the other players can hope for is that the Imbued's
prey will move forward quickly enough to make enough ousts to deprive the
Imbued players of a game win. (One Imbued weakness is not having a lot of
intercept or effective combat potential early, nor the ability to stop a
prey from bleeding his grandprey.) Other than that, people just stare at
their useless cards which, they usually find, will not work against the
Immune,...er, I mean the Imbued.
> Imbued are not hard to shut down, if you do it early and if you get
> help.
...and you have the right deck.
> The problem is that if they are played by a guy with even a
> minimal amount of table talk skills, he can most often convince his
> allies not to go against him early "so as to not imbalance the table",
> which means he will be able to build up to a stage where it is
> suddenly too late to stop him.
This person is WAAYYYYYY understating how often an Imbued's predator and
prey won't be able to stop an Imbued player early just because they don't
draw enough intercept. The Imbued are weenies. There will be lots of them
acting, constantly tooling up - playing a power and untapping, equipping with
an Ivory Bow, putting out Mr. Winthrop, putting out Carlton Wan Wyck, yadda,
yadda, yadda. A deck with an average amount of intercept just won't do the
trick.
Oh, yea, and then there's Memories of Mortality. 'Nuff said.
Fred
luis....@gmail.com
(...)
> The main way of shutting Imbued down is intercepting them early (especially
> their powers - a failed attempt to play a power card will not untap the
> Imbued) and incapacitating them. Decks which pour out intercept can do this.
> The vast majority of decks don't have enough. That's why Imbued have been
> considered overpowered up to this point. It's not that there aren't decks
> out there which can beat them. It's just that there's a LOT of decks which
> do just fine in the rest of the metagame which have little hope of shutting
> down Imbued. If the Imbued player winds up next to such a predator and prey -
> as they often will - the game turns into this boring, hopeless drudgery of
> waiting for the Imbued player to play his turn (he has a lot of cards to tend,
> especially as his position builds up) and eventually wipe everybody out. In
> such games, the best the other players can hope for is that the Imbued's
> prey will move forward quickly enough to make enough ousts to deprive the
> Imbued players of a game win. (One Imbued weakness is not having a lot of
> intercept or effective combat potential early, nor the ability to stop a
> prey from bleeding his grandprey.) Other than that, people just stare at
> their useless cards which, they usually find, will not work against the
> Immune,...er, I mean the Imbued.
For what i understand here the best way to stop a Imbued deck for the
whole table is to rely on its predator capacity to stop him at the
very begining, otherwise it will surelly win the table in a boring
game.
The alternative is to create a mass attack at the begining of the
game, with all the players joining together to eliminate early the
imbued guy, even breaking the "play to win" rule?
Is this *really* VTES? For the guys who wins a lot with the Imbued
decks surelly is...
And i'm pretty sure that if we got another 100 anti-Imbued/Allies/
Event cards the problem will still exists... Weenie-bleed decks got
stopped with Misdirection change, Weenie-Vote got stopped with the
vote-burn rule change, and maybe here there is room for some kind of
change.
Sidenote: this reminds me a lot Magic in those days of the Academy
decks with all those artifacts, and huge ammounts of mana and stuff,
that dominated the game scene for a while. Not for the winning speed
but for its efficiency.
luis....@gmail.com
> Champion the best: it counts as a reaction card (so the Imbued must normally
> be untapped to tap it for its ability) but it makes *ANY* directed action
> against the Imbued player fail and puts the Imbued in combat with the acting
> minion.
Wow! This is so much better than Direct Intervention or the Trujah
cards!
But how many times per turn can an Imbued stop a predator action? (can
he "wake" and use Champion again?)
Is it possible to build a deck with a mix of Imbued and Vampires to
take advantage of this kind of cards?
Like having an Imbued with this Champion and an Ivory Bow as a defence
against any (D) action, and Vampires to act (forward)?
The Lasombra
>But how many times per turn can an Imbued stop a predator action? (can
>he "wake" and use Champion again?)
Once. No.
>Is it possible to build a deck with a mix of Imbued and Vampires to
>take advantage of this kind of cards?
Sure.
>Like having an Imbued with this Champion and an Ivory Bow as a defence
>against any (D) action, and Vampires to act (forward)?
Can be done.
Wookie813
Let's not forget that they are immune to/can ignore the majority of
the Event card effects, and so can stack all sorts of frustration for
everyone at the table playing vampires.
prophail
>
> - Show quoted text -
The more you play Imbued the more you will realise that they are very
fragile, especially early on. I hardly ever see Break the Code despite
it going a long way to making an Imbued deck stall. Early stealth is
devestating, as is sitting next to a block deck. Even light combat is
usually enough to take out a minion. Despite what many people think,
Imbued decks win alot less tournaments than stealth-bleed and a number
of other deck types.
nood...@iprimus.com.au
> fragile, especially early on. I hardly ever see Break the Code despite
> it going a long way to making an Imbued deck stall. Early stealth is
> devestating, as is sitting next to a block deck. Even light combat is
> usually enough to take out a minion. Despite what many people think,
> Imbued decks win alot less tournaments than stealth-bleed and a number
> of other deck types.
Quick glance through the last 50 or so decks of the TWDA, about a
fifth of them are Imbued decks. The curve is thrown out by one player,
who's played the same deck over and over however, so not sure how
accurate a figure it really is.
Stealth bleed seems to lag behind that number, though if you include
tap bleed, it sits about even with the Imbued. It's interesting to
note that the Imbued have a much higher win record in the larger
tournaments, though again that might be pure happenstance, as it's
that same player playing the same deck in all the major euro tourneys.
andrea....@infinito.it
i'll give you a comment that i found on the report for the last
Hungary qualifier (search google for hungary and imbued and is the
second entry)
i think it's soooo true.
"Peter was an old timer who parked V:tES for a few years and then
re-emerged with this tournament. He was completely powerless
against the imbued deck, although I told him that he should
feel free to take his time to read everything, he gave up and
decided to play his deck and just assume that the Imbued are
the strongest clan who have permanent +1 stealth, +1 bleed, +1
intercept, +1 strength, have built-in action fails, and get out
one new member each turn."
Andrea
craigs...@gmail.com
> take advantage of this kind of cards?
> Like having an Imbued with this Champion and an Ivory Bow as a defence
> against any (D) action, and Vampires to act (forward)?
This is the best (fun) way to play Imbued, IMO. Best value set EVER,
if used this way. I got just 8 boosters of that set, plus 3 or 4 more
convictions (commons) from friends. This was enough to make my Imbued
module.
Now every time I wanna play a 1-vampire trick deck (Henry Taylor,
Jayne Jonestown, Mata Hari), I use this module to support it. That's
tons of mileage from 8 boosters.
Module = 7 Imbued in the crypt + about 30 support cards in the
library. I use a simple intercept + defensive combat mix for them...
Rejuvenate makes the Imbued heal like Garou. Leather Jackets and
Vagabond Mystic also help them bounce back from light combat.
My first effort was a Henry Twister:
About 25 Imbued cards (6 powers, about 15 convictions, support stuff
like Vagabond Mystic and The Unmasking)
About 15 Henry cards (Waste Management Operation, Protean stuff,
wakes)
About 15 others (Smiling Jack, Jake Washington, Mr Winthrop, Sport
Bike, Carlton Van Wyk...)
...and topped up to 60 cards with burn-clause stuff.
In this small deck, I could usually get the right stuff to hit 3
intercept with my Imbued within a few turns. Good survivability.
Once I was set up with permacept on Henry and Jack in play, the Imbued
gave a huge go-forward boost from a small and permanent / recyclable
pool of cards. Good oustability.
Waste Management Operation made my Life in the City / Jake Washington
combo immortal, so I could keep helping X-table peeps. Good, um,
buddyability.
Perfect vamp-imbued symbiosis.
Meej
> i'll give you a comment that i found on the report for the last
> Hungary qualifier (search google for hungary and imbued and is the
> second entry)
> i think it's soooo true.
> "Peter was an old timer who parked V:tES for a few years and then
> re-emerged with this tournament. He was completely powerless
> against the imbued deck, although I told him that he should
> feel free to take his time to read everything, he gave up and
> decided to play his deck and just assume that the Imbued are
> the strongest clan who have permanent +1 stealth, +1 bleed, +1
> intercept, +1 strength, have built-in action fails, and get out
> one new member each turn."
Yeah, that seems to me to be exactly the reason the Imbued win so
often - lots of opponents don't want to make the effort to understand
that, in fact, that's nowhere near true; to read the cards and
understand what's out on the table at a given moment; to realize that,
if anything, they've got +1 of any one of those per turn, but not all,
if you keep putting pressure on them.
So yeah, that seems to me to be a "soooo true" summary of why they win
a lot - folks give up or freak out or grossly overestimate their
effectiveness, and wait for an opening that's not going to come
instead of playing an attrition game which the Imbued will typically
lose if you start it early enough and keep it up.
That might not be what you meant, though.
- D.J.
Mr_Wyrm (AKA Pentex)
man, i second your thoughts.
most people that play VTES in my country work, some have family and
spend few hours for week reading a local VTES forum and sitting each
other and playing a hand of VTES.
most of them play VTES for 4+ years, spending a lot of time in the
beggining learning how to play, how to use cards, reaging errata/
interaction/cornercases/etc cause VTEs are not so intuitive game (i
have 20% of my cards labeled jyhad at back ;) ). every week on the
tables a couple of guys spend several minutes teaching others on the
week interpretations of rules.
when we have a new set, we enjoy a few weekends talking about new
cards, combos, how to improve the old decks and make plots of new
decks. this paint an apacible and 100% satisfactory game, that
encourage social interaction and give to all a joyfull time.
when NoR comes, i see it and give up. i does not have time AND
interest to learn a new game. remember a lot of new power/creeds/
whatever signs and also remember what effect can play each one, etc
etc...
when i face a vampire, i know what can i expect from it (even with ian
forestal). i know if he can prevent, if he can stealth, pump a hit or
bleed, etc etc. this give me an "treath rate" that i use to build my
tactic to win. when i face imbued, i asume the same statement that
peter at bulgarian nac. if you face Leaf "Potter116" Pankowski you
can read the entire text. you can remember every power that he can
play in a normal fashion. but then you remember edge explosion and say
"whatever. i dont have the minimal clue that this little boy can do".
and then, asume the worst case escenario.
ok, then i assume the worst case escenario. and i look at my hand, and
re read the cards and realize that some of them doest not work against
imbued.
i'm not whining. im only trying to ilustrate a common escenario, at
least in my country, that explain why people does not understand
imbued. and the few times that you face it, they do unexpected things.
cheers.
Meej
wrote:
I totally understand that there's frustration involved in learning
something new, and in adapting to what a particular minion is, or
isn't, capable of. And you're definitely not whining. But still...
And please, *please* - don't take this upcoming rant as directed
solely, or even mainly, at you. I know English isn't your first
language, and that not every country has the same level of access to
cards and so on. In fact, I can kind of understand where your
perspective on it is coming from. But I really don't have any clue
why this perspective - "I don't have any idea what an Imbued could do,
and can't keep track of it, so I'll assume the worst and be really
cautious" - is so widespread. So, again, please - this isn't aimed at
you, especially not the harshness of it.
> when NoR comes, i see it and give up. i does not have time AND
> interest to learn a new game. remember a lot of new power/creeds/
> whatever signs and also remember what effect can play each one, etc
> etc...
The set has SIXTY CARDS. Of those, twenty are minions and a handful
are masters or creed-based permanents or whatever. Heck, one of
them's an anti-Imbued event. Most of the cards go into play. There
are exactly three convictions to pick from. And a number of the cards
are complete crap, so you'll never see them anyhow. (I mean, come on,
Expiate? requires *5* conviction? If you ever get that, the other
folks are doing something wrong.)
> if you face Leaf "Potter116" Pankowski you
> can read the entire text. you can remember every power that he can
> play in a normal fashion. but then you remember edge explosion and say
> "whatever. i dont have the minimal clue that this little boy can do".
> and then, asume the worst case escenario.
Edge Explosion only allows *powers* from out of Virtue. And then,
only one per minion. So the cards Edge Explosion allows are on the
table already, or don't matter at any given moment. And, hell -
assume it'll be a Vigilance (untap) or a Champion (*expensive* action-
cancel) anyhow, because the others are mostly so-so enough that
they'll only end up on the guys with that Virtue anyway, in most
decks.
Read the cards in play, and look at the ash heap for what's been
played or discarded. That's all you need to do! (Yes, there might be
a bunch. There will only be a bunch in play if you've failed to keep
pressure on them, haven't blocked powers and so on, but I'll grant
that that doesn't always get to happen.)
Other than those cards in play, there are exactly *13* transient
effect cards that require a given Virtue that you might need to
learn. Of those, I'd say two just plain don't count (Expiate and Muse
of Flame, which I've never seen considered let alone played) and most
are fairly bad anyway. There is exactly *one* reaction - Determine.
There are only *5* combat cards, one of which is Expiate. The rest
are actions.
> ok, then i assume the worst case escenario. and i look at my hand, and
> re read the cards and realize that some of them doest not work against
> imbued.
So? Some of them work better. And some of them don't work against a
Skin of Steel deck. Or whatever. That's what happens. (Yes, it's
odd that some of the common combat cards don't work. I'm not against,
say, Disarming or Decapitating Imbued, for instance.)
> i'm not whining. im only trying to ilustrate a common escenario, at
> least in my country, that explain why people does not understand
> imbued. and the few times that you face it, they do unexpected things.
Only if, frankly, you don't take the time to look at what they're
playing, and if you let them build up convictions. The rules managed
to fit on the sides of *five cards.* It's not like they're that
complex...
Again, please understand - the venom's not directed specifically at
you. It just drives me up the wall...
- D.J.
Mr_Wyrm (AKA Pentex)
you make a pragmatic summary from imbued. i'll make a citation:
"Edge Explosion only allows *powers* from out of Virtue. And then,
only one per minion. So the cards Edge Explosion allows are on the
table already, or don't matter at any given moment. And, hell -
assume it'll be a Vigilance (untap) or a Champion (*expensive*
action-
cancel) anyhow, because the others are mostly so-so enough that
they'll only end up on the guys with that Virtue anyway, in most
decks."
well, i suppose that the worst case situation on imbues is that every
imbued have the chance to untap every turn or make lots of my actions
fail. if you think about this, i think that is a little overpowered.
time will show it, the game change and, as lasombra says, play the
game.
Meej
wrote:
> of course man, no problem :) and your post was very polite.
Thanks; I definitely had a lot of rant to unleash, and wanted to make
sure it didn't feel aimed at you, so...
> well, i suppose that the worst case situation on imbues is that every
> imbued have the chance to untap every turn or make lots of my actions
> fail. if you think about this, i think that is a little overpowered.
Yep; just like the worst-case situation on a sense dep deck is that
all your minions are locked down, or with a combat deck you're all in
torpor, or with stealth-bleed you're... um... ousted.
That action-fail (Champion) costs 2 turns worth of convictions and a
turn's worth of forward-action, most of the time (since it requires
you to be untapped). Determine (which I don't even *play* a lot; I've
found it to slow me down too much - but that may just be me) is
similarly defensive at the cost of forward actions, though it's only 1
Conviction.
And honestly, if the Imbued get to a point where they've got Vigilance
on every minion for untap, and a bunch of Champions out, and none are
going incapacitated or really stressing their convictions, something's
gone wrong anyhow, either on your part or the guy on the other side of
them. Yes, if you let the deck set up whatever it wants, it's got a
fair shot at winning. So, um, don't?
Yes, that's easier said than done in some metagames. Boston's big on
"casual intercept" (for lack of a better term - being able to at least
occasionally generate 1 or 2 intercept), since it's really pretty much
guaranteed that a few times in the course of a game, minimum,
someone's going to do something - equip, vote, hunt, rescue, get a
power - that you're going to want to block even though it started at 1
stealth. Yeah, it's not going to be enough to stop a dedicated
stealth deck, but *shrug* at least it's easy to cycle against them if
you need to. Maybe that colors my judgement, although frankly I can't
see the arguments for it not being a good tactical choice anyhow. But
I've needed to graft OBF onto my Imbued deck to get it to work here,
because folks understand how Imbued work, and how to put pressure on
them, and how to make them *not* work.
- D.J.