VtES Clan Newsletters in July 2008

Three clan newsletter have been posted in the “rec.trading-cards.jyhad” usenet newsgroup this month. Beside using a newgroup reader, you can also access the newsgroup by Google Groups.

• Imbued Newsletter July 2008.
• Harbinger of Skulls Newsletter Summer 2008.
• Asssamite Newsletter July 2008.

The Harbinger of Skulls Newsletter is particularly interesting for beginners since it contains a section how the different defenses against bleed work.

Memorable Quotes (Part 18)

“Yes, Miss, this is the National Championships for V:TES, but this is the CCG, are you sure you’re not looking for the role players?” — comment from an unknown player to Robyn Tatu

Did you know, that … (Part 20)

.. you cannot play “Freak Drive” after you played “Kiss of Ra“? Since the action ends immediately when playing “Kiss of Ra“, it does not enter the resolution stage. The action is neither successful nor unsuccessful, so playing “Freak Drive” is not a feasible card in this situation.

The same applies to “Claiming the Body” (at inferior “Sanguinis“), to “Scry of the Heart Stone” (at superior “Visceratica“), and to “Unseen Hibernation” at superior “Abombwe“) since they are all ending/canceling the action right away.

Reference: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

Deck Archetypes: Aching Beauty

The Aching Beauty deck archetype is based on the Toreador card of the same name. In essence it is a mixed bleed/political deck that uses the cards Aching Beauty & Change of Target, and Majesty (to name the basic cards) to punish blockers. You don’t see this deck as often in the finals of tournaments since other deck archetypes like Inner Circle Vote or Kindred Spirits Bleed are a bit stronger, but played properly it can be a real asset.

How to win with them

Unlike most other deck archetypes, this deck’s vampires want to be blocked, since by blocking you’re hurting the blocker’s pool (or blood on vampires). The pool damage/blood loss is inflicted mainly by the two cards Aching Beauty and Crocodiles Tongue. Both cards requirements can be covered by using mid- to high-capacity Toreador vampires, since Aching Beauty requires Toreador vampires, and Crocodiles Tongue requires Auspex and is only usable against younger vampires and allies.

To maximize the effect, both Change of Target and Majesty are used. The use of these two cards allows a vampire to perform a second action even after he’s blocked. So the acting vampire can often either

1. perform the 1. action successfully if not blocked at all.
2. perform the 2. action successfully, and punish the blocker for blocking the 1. action.
3. perform no action, but punish the blocker twice.

Usually the two actions are one bleed action and one political action. Which one should you attempt first depends largely on the current situation and the cards in your hand. For example, if your prey has access to bleed bounce and is tapped out, you want to try the political action first, since this would require your prey to play an untap card and if he blocks, you can bleed more freely since the chance that he has another untap card is reduced now. If you have a Parity Shift on your hand and your prey has more pool than you, you will attempt the Parity Shift first, since if you bleed first he has likely less pool than you, rendering the Parity Shift useless for the current turn.

Crocodiles Tongue, despite the restrictions to younger vampires and allies, is quite useful, especially when it mutates from a block punishing card to a block denial card later in the game when vampires are low on blood and cannot (or want not) spent blood for being able to block. If the designated blocker is an ally or vampire with one blood, the action cannot be blocked by this reacting player anymore, and if the blocker is an ally with two life, e.g. the popular Carlton van Wyk, he has to sacrificed if the reacting player wants to block the action at all.

Another blood burner is the political action “Camarilla Exemplary” which forces the blocking vampire to burn a blood each time he attempts to block a vampire with “Camarilla Exemplary”. This is an alternative to the other political actions like Parity Shift or Kine Resources Contested.

A typical action sequence could look like this:

• Anson with Aching Beauty attempts Parity Shift.
• Action is blocked by your prey.
• Prey pays one pool for attempting to block.
• Anson plays Change of Target.
• Anson attempts tries to steal Procurer from its prey with Entrancement.
• Carlton van Wyk tries to block.
• Prey pays one pool for attempting to block.
• Anson plays Crocodiles Tongue.
• Preys declines any blocks, since he doesn’t want to lose a life from his precious Carlton.
• Anson takes control of the Procurer.

In the end you gained control of the Procurer and your prey lost two pool. One the other hand the whole action sequence cost you four cards and the action of one of your vampires. This is not a good ratio per se, but eventually it wears your prey down. And in this example he will be weary to block any crucial action of your’s with Carlton van Wyk again, since this might be forcing him to burn Carlton if an vampire with superior Auspex attempts an action.

The buildup of the deck is rather slow. It takes some time to influence out the mid-cap/large cap Toreador vampires and giving them the necessary Aching Beauties, although it is possible to start the action-block-untap/cancel action cycle without the Aching Beauties, but that’s only half the fun for your prey/predator.

One of the strengths of the deck is that the Toreador can bleed and vote quite good, since they have

• Presence for using Aire of Elation, Entrancement and Legal Manipulations during bleed actions, and
• number of princes for utilizing Parity Shift, Kine Resources Contested and Banishment as political actions.

A rather new addition to this decktype is Ambulance which lets you continue an action even after a successful block. If the action is then blocked a second time, the Ambulance is gone, but on the other hand your prey has lost another pool or more.

A general issue for the deck is the pool management, since Aching Beauty is a costly card. It makes no sense to use blood farming since your vampires are quite large, and the actions you want to take are either bleed or political actions. The main means of gaining pool are those of a large-cap vote deck, i.e. Minion Tap and a preferably a successful referendum with Voter Captivation in the following minion phase. Giants Blood is also very often included, but since there’s only copy in your deck and one Giants Blood can be played per game, it’s generally too unreliable.

When choosing vampires for the crypt, the Toreador Princes and Justicars are on the top list, usually Anson and Anneke leading the crowd of G1/G2 crypt. When focusing on these groups Alexandra and Tatiana Romanov are also often included. The other grouping would be G2/G3 (since the lack of good group 4 vampires for this deck), in this grouping Alexandra, Madame Guil, Fleurdumal and Francois Villon are first choices to pick from.

Bleed defense
The Toreador have generally two approaches to cope with bleed. The first option is to use Auspex for bouncing bleeds with Telephatic Misdirection (and possibly My Enemies Enemy). The second approach is to use Second Tradition: Domain for untapping and blocking the bleed attempts. Of course both approaches can be combined/mixed. Both approaches have their advantages, the first one gives your prey additional actions to block or to cope with. The second approach gives you both intercept and the ability to untap, enabling to make your deck successful with even two (or three) vampires only.

Vote defense
The deck relies here often solely on their inherent votes, and omit cards like Delaying Tactics or Poison Pill. Some newer variants of the deck feature Scapel’s Tongue, since it is possible to use the card in the defense and in the offense to cancel another vampires votes.

Combat defense
Combat defense can be divided into two sections, combat defense when acting and combat defense when reacting. In the first case there both Majesty and Change of Target are used, Change of Target is often preferable since it prevents the use of cards like Immortal Grapple or Psyche. Only in order to tap a previously untapped blocking minion, Majesty will be better, since it makes your acting vampire untap after the action, while it (usually) taps the blocking minion. Combat defense while reacting is provided with Majesty and Obedience, although the later requires Dominate which only a number of Toreador have, but usually only at the inferior level. Both usuable for offensive and defensive means are Majesty and .44 Magnum, the later are sometimes added in low numbers to the deck. The .44 Magnum is good since it gives indirectly/possible damage prevention due to the range, and it hurts the opposing minion. On the other hand if the opposing vampires has access to maneuvers it won’t help much.

How to win against them
The hardest decision is usually which actions to block when a Toreador with an Aching Beauty or two is acting. You cannot possibly block all of them since damages your pool far too much. If you have access to bleed bounce, bounce the bleeds boosted with Legal Manipulations or Aire of Elation. If you have votes, do not block the political actions and try to make the following referendum fail. In general, you should decide how much the block and and a potential follow-up action might cost you. For example, a bleed for three is less damage than a block attempt against an Aching Beauty and a following Kine Resource Contested.

Rush Combat is the greatest weakness of the deck, since in these decks both Psyche or Immortal Grapple are included which foil the decks main combat defense Majesty. The Toreador also often does not feature a Secure Haven, since it frequently plays master card on his own minions and a “Secure Haven” would increase their cost each time for a given vampire. Intercept combat decks often have hard time against an Aching Beauty deck since it is very costly to consistently block the Toreador, and often the Change of Target and Majesty have a reverse effect on your wall deck.

If a Toreador vampire has been dunked to torpor, it is often the best option to diablerize him, especially if there are one or more copies of Aching Beauty on that vampire. Blocking the rescue attempt is often not a viable option, because the Toreador vampires then play their usual game here by announcing an action, and if blocked play Majesty or Change of Target.

Most vote decks can compete with the Toreador in terms of vote, but often it’s important who actually calls the vote and can play vote push cards like Bewitching Oration or Awe. Most vote decks have access to a decent amount of bleed bounce, but since the “Toreador” will try to bleed consistently this can be problem.

When playing a Stealth Bleed or Powerbleed deck as a predator of an Aching Beauty deck, your chances of ousting are quite good, but you have to be aware of two things. First they can bounce usually quite well, so keeping a Spying Mission at hand or bleeding at no stealth can be crucial. Secondly, since your chances of ousting are good, your prey will likely go backwards and try to oust you with Parity Shift and Kine Resources Contested. As a prey of an Aching Beauty deck, you’ll have to outrace the Aching Beauty. Bounce any bleeds bigger than 2, try to play Delaying Tactics or Direct Intervention against the most damaging votes.

Key Cards

• Aching Beauty — main deck card; hurts the blocker’s pool when an action is blocked.
• Change of Target — enables your vampire to perform multiple actions per turn if blocked.
• Majesty — Offensive/defensive combat card.
• Crocodiles Tongue — block deterrent for allies; wears down blocking vampires.
• Ambulance — makes a blocked action succesful or let’s your prey pay another time for the Aching Beauty.

Notable Examples & Variations

• Aching Beauty by Ferenc Vasadi — basic all-round variant; Winner of EC 2007.
• Fork-Tongued Socialites by Robert Scythe — with a high count of “Camarilla Exemplary” and Crocodiles Tongue punishes blockers extra hard.
• Quintuple A by Johannes Walch — strictly speaking not a pure Aching Beauty deck, but adding Ambulance is stroke of genius.
• Masking The Unblockable by Sten During — focuses on Toreador with Obfuscate to make use of Mask of 1K Faces after blocks are declined.

References

• Toreador Clan Newsletter March 2001

Sample Decklist

Lock: Columbus
Columbus, Ohio
May 28th, 2006
13 players
2R + FDeck Name: Blocking is Pain, We Bring the Pain
Created By: John Bell
Description: Fairly straightforward; stacking Cam Exemplary, Archon, and Aching Beauty followed up with Croc Tongue punishes blockers. Getting a .44 further adds to the misery late game.Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 31, Max: 43, Avg: 9.33)
3 Alexandra dom ANI AUS CEL PRE 11 Toreador
2 Anneke dom AUS CEL PRE 10 Toreador
2 Francois Villon chi obf pot AUS CEL PRE 10 Toreador
4 Anson aus dom CEL PRE 8 Toreador
1 Tatiana Romanov cel pre AUS 7 Toreador

Library: (90 cards)
Master (24 cards)
8 Aching Beauty
1 Giant`s Blood
9 Minion Tap
1 Art Museum
1 Secret Horde
1 Parthenon, The
1 Toreador Grand Ball
1 Archon Investigation
1 Direct Intervention

Action Modifier (31 cards)
7 Voter Captivation
7 Change of Target
4 Aire of Elation
7 Crocodile`s Tongue
6 Bewitching Oration

Political Action (17 cards)
4 Camarilla Exemplary
2 Archon
6 Kine Resources Contested
1 Banishment
2 Parity Shift
2 Ancilla Empowerment

Reaction (5 cards)
5 Second Tradition: Domain, The

Combat (8 cards)
8 Majesty

Equipment (4 cards)
4 .44 Magnum

Event (1 cards)
1 Anthelios, the Red Star

Top Ranking Non-Unique Equipment

Here’s the list of non-unique equipment in VtES that are most frequently used in tournament winning decks. The number shows the number of decks where the equipment appeared (at least once) on Lasombra’s TWDA(as of 13/June/2008).

1. .44 Magnum — 97x
2. Leather Jacket — 80x
3. Sport Bike — 78x
4. Laptop Computer — 54x
5. Sniper Rifle — 44x
6. IR Goggles — 43x
7. Flak Jacket — 27x
8. Assault Rifle — 20x
9. Flash Grenade — 16x
10. Unlicensed Taxicab — 14x
11. Flamethrower — 13x
12. Deer Rifle — 12x

The good, old .44 Magnum leads the field, closely followed by two other allrounders, the Leather Jacket, and the Sport Bike.

Origin of Words (Classic Edition)

A lot of words in the World of Darkness (and often in VtES as well) stem from greek or roman mythology or biblical references. Here’s list of words that are used in VtES and a short explanation of their meaning and origin. The texts for the explanations are taken from Wikipedia.

• “Anathema” — Anathema (Greek) meaning originally something lifted up as an offering to the gods; later, with evolving meanings, it came to mean:
  1. to be formally set apart,
  2. banished, exiled, excommunicated or
  3. denounced, sometimes accursed.
• “Alastor” — In Greek mythology, Alastor (English translation: “avenger”) was the personification of familial feuds. He was also associated with sins that pass down from parent to child. As a genius, or spirit of the household in Roman mythology, he incited people to murder and other sins.
• “Archon” — Archon is a Greek word that means “ruler”, frequently used as the title of a specific public office. It is the masculine present participle of the verb stem a??-, meaning “to rule”, derived from the same root as monarch and hierarchy.
• “Antediluvian Awakening” — The word antediluvian (syn.Prediluvian) (Latin for “before the deluge”) is used to describe a period of time that preceded the Great Flood of Noah as related in the Book of Genesis in the Bible.
• “Auto-Da-Fe” — The phrase auto de fé refers to the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment (that is, after the trial). Auto de fé in medieval Spanish means “act of faith”. The phrase also commonly occurs in English in its Portuguese form auto-da-fé.
• “Camarilla” — A camarilla is a group of courtiers or favorites which surround a king or ruler. Usually, they do not hold any office or have any official authority but influence their ruler behind the scenes. Consequently, they also escape having to bear responsibility for the effects of their advice. The term derives from the Spanish word, “camarilla”, meaning “little chamber” or private cabinet of the king. The term also entered the German language and is used in the sense given above.
• “Cunctator Motion” — Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (ca. 280 BC-203 BC), called Cunctator (the Delayer), was a Roman politician and General, born in Rome around 280 BC and died in Rome in 203 BC. He was consul five times (233 BC, 228 BC, 215 BC, 214 BC and 209 BC) and was twice dictator in 221 and again in 217 BC. He reached the office of censor in 230 BC. His epithet Cunctator (akin to the English noun cunctation) means “delayer” in Latin, and refers to his tactics in deploying the troops during the Second Punic War. His cognomen Verrucosus means warty, a reference to the wart above his upper lip.
• “Curse of Nitocris” — Nitocris (Greek ??t?????) has been claimed to have been the last pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty. Her name is found in the Histories of Herodotus and writings of Manetho but her historicity is questionable.
• “Gehenna” — Gehenna (hebrew) is the Jewish hell or purgatory. In Judaism hell is a place of purification and fire for the wicked, most being punished there up to a year but some for eternity.
• “Herald of Topheth” — Topheth (to´feth; ?????; ha-topheth; etymology uncertain) most probably is connected with a root word meaning “burning” – the “place of burning”; the King James Version, Tophet, except in 2 Kings 23:10. The references are to such a place: “They have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire” (Jeremiah 7:31). On account of this abomination Topheth and the Valley of Hinnom should be called “The Valley of Slaughter: for they shall bury in Topheth, till there be no place to bury,” the Revised Version margin “because there shall be no place else” (Jeremiah 7:32); see also Jeremiah 19:6, Jeremiah 19:12, Jeremiah 19:13, Jeremiah 19:14. Josiah is said to have “defiled Topheth” as part of his great religious reforms (2 Kings 23:10). The site of this shameful place would seem to have been either at the lower end of the Valley Of Hinnom, near where Akeldama is now pointed out, or in the open ground where this valley joins the Kidron Valley.
  Also see this website which explains how this valley was renamed Gehenna, meaning hell. “Then it became the place of abomination, the very gate or pit of hell.”
• “Hierophant” — The role of the Hierophant in religion is to bring the congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy. The word comes from Ancient Greece, where it was constructed from the combination of ta hiera, “the holy”, and phainein, “to show.” In Attica it was the title of the chief priest at the Eleusinian Mysteries. A hierophant is an interpreter of sacred mysteries and arcane principles.
• “Kaymakli Barrier” — Kaymakli Underground City is contained within the citadel of Kaymakli. First opened to tourists in 1964, the village is about 19km from Nevsehir, on the Nevsehir-Nigde road. The ancient name was Enegup. The houses in the village are constructed around the nearly one hundred tunnels of the underground city. The tunnels are still used today as storage areas, stables, and cellars. The underground city at Kaymakli differs from Derinkuyu in terms of its structure and layout. The tunnels are lower, narrower, and more steeply inclined. Of the four floors open to tourists, each space is organized around ventilation shafts. This makes the design of each room or open space dependent on the availability of ventilation.
• “Tithings” — A tithe (from Old English teogoþa “tenth”) is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a (usually) voluntary contribution or as a tax or levy, usually to support a Jewish or Christian religious organization. Today, tithes (or tithing) are normally voluntary and paid in cash, cheques, or stocks, whereas historically tithes could be paid in kind, such as agricultural products. Several European countries operate a formal process linked to the tax system allowing some churches to assess tithes.

Memorable Quotes (Part 17)

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” — Theodore Roosevelt