Colloquial Dictionary

This is a list of frequently used colloquial terms in Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. Please take note, that these terms are not game terms per se, i.e. they are not appearing in VTES rule book.

  • A
    • Attrition — Attrition or (more precisely) attrition damage is periodic damage inflicted to other player’s pool which is not caused actively by bleeding, voting, etc., but by permanents which stay in play until removed. Examples for cards which apply attrition damage are Army of Rats or Anarch Revolt.
    • Aggro-poke — Hitting a vampire with aggravated damage, but only for one, in combat. Aggropoke decks use this as means of putting down a number of the opposing player’s vampire. Gangrel/Gangrel antitribu using Claws of the Dead (and similar cards) are the clans often used for this kind of tactics.
  • B
    • Bleed Reduction — Bleed reduction is achieved by playing cards that reduce the amount of pool damage inflicted by bleed actions. Examples for these are Dummy Corporation or Telepathic Counter.
    • Bloating. — Bloating is the ability to increase one’s pool size either repeatedly or by large amounts. Examples for bloating are playing Minion Tap/Villein for four blood or more, repeatedly hunting with a vampire who has a Blood Doll/Vessel, or playing Govern the Unaligned and then moving the blood back to the pool in the influence phase. Bloating is often used as defensive strategy or in order to allow to move more minions to the ready region.
    • Block Denial — Block denial is the ability to prevent players from blocking without the use stealth, e.g. by cards like Elder Impersonation or Seduction. This ability is sometimes used as strategy in a deck, e.g. a block-denial bleed deck.
    • Bleed Bounce — (also Bounce). Bleed bounce is the ability to redirect bleed actions to another target player. Cards commonly used for bleed bounce are Deflection or Telepathic Misdirection.
    • Breeding — Breeding is act of putting new vampires (usually weenies) into play. Cards often used for that are Embrace, Third Tradition: Progeny, Creation Rites.
  • C
    • Card Limit — Using a card limit restricts a player to maximum number of the same card in a deck. While Magic the Gathering has a 4 card limit (abbreviated 4CL) in its rules, VtES don’t use card limits at all.
    • Chump Block — A vampire of smaller capacity blocking a larger vampire (or otherwise important minion), often in order to protect defending the player or his resources. The blocking vampire is considered to be expendable in comparison to the protected asset.
    • Combo — a combination (or short: combo) is a set of cards that interact very well when played together, e.g. Bewitching Oration and Voter Captivation. Combo decks (like in Magic: the Gathering) where a player can win a game almost instantly when playing a certain combo are non-existent in VTES.
    • Crypt Acceleration — a number of cards allow to influence vampires from the crypt to ready region in a faster way.
  • D
    • Deck Archetype — Archetypes are decks which are frequently seen in casual games and tournaments. They tend to revolve around a particular clan, card, combo, or strategy. Examples are Malkavian ’94 or Ventrue Lawfirm.
    • Deck Category— In general decks fall into one of three categories:
      • Bleed: A deck type that ousts its prey by taking primarily bleed actions.
      • Combat: A deck type that torporizes or burns its prey minions in order to oust or to prepare oust.
      • Vote: A deck type that ousts its prey by taking primarily political actions.
    • Deck Description — There are no official conventions for naming a deck. Popular decks often get their own unique nicknames (e.g. Una Freakshow), but most decks are described by the name of the Clan, the average capacity of the vampires, a specific star vampire and the general strategy employed. Examples for deck names are Brujah Rush Combat, Tremere Wall or Weenie Computer Hacking.
    • Deck Size — (also crypt size or library size) The number of cards in your deck. The minimum crypt size is 12, the deck size may vary between 60 and 90 cards (in tournaments).
  • E
    • Environmental Damage — Environmental damage is combat damage inflicted not by a minion’s strike, but by a different effect. Examples for this type of cards are Carrion Crows, Weather Control or Elephant Guardian.
    • European Stealth — Instead of using regular stealth (e.g. action modifiers requiring Obfuscate, Obtenebration, etc.), the so called European Stealth mandates cards that (directly or indirectly) prevent the opposing player’s minions from blocking. Most often used are cards like Pentex Subversion, Anarch Troublemaker or Misdirection
  • F
    • Fatty — (see also High-cap) A vampire of capacity 9 or more.
  • H
    • High-cap — (see also Fatty) A vampire of capacity 9 or more.
    • Hoser Cards — also (Clan Hoser) — A number of cards from the earlier expansions which target vampires of a specific clan only. Examples are Cultivated Blood Shortage or Letter from Vienna.
  • J
    • Jedi Mind Tricks — (also Mind Trick) A Jedi Mind Trick is bluff, swindle or misdirection used by a player in order to make an opponent play sub-optimally or even make blatant mistakes.
  • L
    • Low-cap — (see also Weenie) A vampire of capacity of less than 4.
  • M
    • Metagame — The meta game consists of the deck types that are currently popular and expected to show up in large numbers in a local game group or a tournament.
    • Mid-cap — A vampire of capacity 5 to 8.
    • Milling — Milling is deck strategy which moves cards from the opponents hand or library to the ash heap in order to deplete his library.
    • Module — A (card) module is a (small) set of cards that can be added to decks and fulfills a certain functionality, i.e. a bleed reduction module.
    • Multi-Action — Multi-action allows a minion to take more than action (often Rush) in a single turn. Examples for cards commonly used for this tactics are Freak Drive, Mylan Horseed (Goblin) or Monster.
  • N
    • Net Decking — Net Decking is the act of copying a deck from the Internet (often a tournament winning deck) and playing it unmodified or only with slight changes.
    • No Repeat Action (NRA) — Although not an official rule term, No Repeat Actions are those action that can be taken only once per turn per minion. NRA actions are bleeding, calling a political action and any action card (or card in play that provides an action). Which means a vampire can only bleed once per turn or can play  Govern the Unaligned only once per turn (regardless if played at superior or inferior Dominate before).
  • P
    • Powerbleed — A bleed action that results in pool damage of four or more). Usually more than one card is used to achieve this effect. Four is the limit for defining a bleed as powerbleed, since with a bleed of four or more the acting vampire is vulnerable for Archon Investigation.
    • Proxy — A proxy card is an easily acquired or home-made substitute for a collectible card.
  • R
    • Recursion — Recursion allows players to return cards from his ash heap back to his hand or library. Cards commonly used for recursion are Ashur Tablets, Sudario Refraction or Sargon Fragment.
    • Rush — (also Rush Combat) Rush is a deck strategy which is based on entering combat actively with the opponent’s minions with the goal of putting them to torpor or burning them.
  • S
    • Self-Ousting — when having no (reasonable) chance of gaining more victory points, a player can choose to oust himself voluntarily, e.g. by spending his last pool on playing cards or moving his last pool to an uncontrolled vampire. This is sometimes used for threatening another player into a deal or another player to help. Also another player can use this to prevent another player from getting the game win.
    • Small-cap — (see also Weenie or Low-cap) A vampire of capacity of less than 4.
    • Silverbullet — A card where the main purpose is to nullify a particular card or hose a particular deck strategy. Examples are Protected Resources or Scourge of the Enochians.
    • Summoning Sickness — The word is derived from its use in Magic: The Gathering and is an informal term for the rule that an ally cannot act in the same term as it was recruited. The logic behind the term is that an ally is disoriented by being summoned that it has to rest before it can do anything.
  • T
    • Table Split — A table split deal between two players is sometimes used to divide the VPs of a game (i.e. “the table”) between these two players.
    • Tapped Out — A player is considered to be tapped out, when all of his minions are tapped.
    • Toolbox — A toolbox deck is a deck which is not focused on a single strategy (see also Deck Types), but has a diversified approach for offense and/or defense.
    • Topdecking — Topdecking is considered as drawing the exact card a player needs at a given time. A player in “top decking mode” is doing this repeatedly (often in a single turn).
    • Turbo — Usually denotes a type deck which burns its own vampires, only to move up the next vampire using Soul of Gem of Etrius, and repeating the cycle.
    • Twister — A decktype that features a lot of cards with the burn option. The burn option is used primarily to artificially reduce the deck size. This allows very focused decks, often enhanced by a recursion component.
  • V
    • Vote Lock — If a player has more permanent votes (via titles or locations) than any other player at the table, he is considered having vote lock.
    • Vote Push — Action modifiers which increase the number of votes significantly. Typical vote push cards include Awe or Bewitching Oration.
  • W
    • Wake — Any card which allows a tapped vampire (or even ally) to attempt to block or play reaction cards. The namesake of the card was Wake with Evening’s Freshness, but in the meantime a number of cards have surpassed it in popularity like On the Qui Vive or Forced Awakening.
    • Wall — A deck strategy that relies on intercept for preventing important actions of its opponents to happen.
    • Weenie — (see also small-cap). A vampire with a capacity of 4 or less.

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