Austin Final Nights Pre-Release Report
The Lasombra
New Cards for the second time in less than a year!
Ten players gathered for our pre-release event celebrating Final Nights.
(One showed up an hour late, but still got the cards and watched the games.)
We did not draft or allow trading. We had each player ransack the three
boosters we were allowed, and then had 30 minutes to tweak our decks.
(Survery Says: NEVER AGAIN. Draft of some sort is essential, I got
one vampire for my clan, and two rares that were appropriate, and all
of the rest of the cards from the boosters were for other clans. Ok, so
they were both the Path of Bone, but the deck could have used
a lot more help.)
With only nine players, one clan had to appear 3 times. That clan was the
Followers of Set. All three Followers managed to gain victory points, and
so all three made it to the finals.
The Ravnos and Assamites each failed to gain any victory points, so both
sets of players for those decks played other things while the finals was
going on.
The Giovanni took victory points every game but one. Four in a five player
the
first round and none the second from one deck. One in the first round and
three
in the second for the other deck.
In the finals, we were seated as follows:
Giovanni (1+3) -- Follower of Set (0-1) -- Giovanni (4+0)
-- Follower of Set (3+4) -- Follower of Set (1+1)
The Giovanni (1+3) took the the first victory point of the finals, after
which
the Follower of Set (3+4) took one, the Giovanni (1+3) took his second vp,
the Follower of Set (3+4) stole Enzo with a Form of Corruption, then took
out the Giovanni.
Final totals for victory points on the day:
Assamites 0
Followers of Set 13
Giovanni 10
Ravnos 0
The Austin group was fairly well convinced that the Giovanni starter
was the best prepared, being the only deck with bleed bounce, in
addition to having stealth bleed. All players were disappointed with
the blood management aspects of their decks, and the Assamite players
were very vocal in their denounciation of some of their new clan members
drawbacks. (ie Parmenides gets Kalis Fang, then Banished, then
returned to play, then gives his new Fang away to a vampire of his
predator -- ouch!!!)
Ten boatloads of feces will be shipped to the home of the monkeys
who decided typesetting needs (fonts, discipline symbols, colorization
of reprinted art).
Kudos to all who actually were creative in the design of the cards,
particularly Todd Bannister, L. Scott Johnson, and the artists.
Hope you get your cards soon, I won't see any more 'til the 14th
according to Potomac Distribution.
Carpe Noctem.
Lasombra
Ian Lee
>boosters we were allowed, and then had 30 minutes to tweak our decks.
>(Survery Says: NEVER AGAIN. Draft of some sort is essential, I got
>one vampire for my clan, and two rares that were appropriate, and all
>of the rest of the cards from the boosters were for other clans. Ok, so
>they were both the Path of Bone, but the deck could have used
>a lot more help.)
We tended to conclude that drafting only made sense at the second limited
tournament for a set.
Besides not knowing what the new cards do, there's the time it takes to look
over the starter. It doesn't make much difference for, say, necromancy or
serpentis cards, but does with generic cards like weapons.
There's the issue of rare drafting. One of the reasons I think only certain
people should ever draft (ones who don't need the cards).
Then, there's the issue of players unfamiliar with draft or a particular form
of draft. This may be minor, but it adds to difficulties. Speaking of which,
is there a standard draft variation for V:TES events? I believe I've heard the
most about Rochester. Booster a lot of people are familiar with, if only
intuitively. Solomon would be funny. There's also the potential for team (4
person teams, each member takes one of the clans).
Anyway, I believe only Blackmail really helped me. Course, we only had enough
boosters for each player to get 2, so we were even more likely to rely on the
starter cards.
LSJ
> is there a standard draft variation for V:TES events? I believe I've heard the
> most about Rochester. Booster a lot of people are familiar with, if only
> intuitively. Solomon would be funny. There's also the potential for team (4
> person teams, each member takes one of the clans).
Yes. See the V:EKN Tournament rules online. They describe booster draft,
table
draft (aka Rochester Draft), and a mixed-format draft.
--
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/