Statistics on Clan-Specific Cards (V5)

When I was looking at the Banu Haqim (Assamite) specific cards, I noticed how high the number cards compared to other clans are, in fact a whooping 35 cards are only playable by the Banu Haqium. After that I checked the other V5 clans (clans which got a starter deck in V5 so far), and the trend really is that the formerly independent clans (Banu Haqim, Ravnos, Ministry) have the highest count, followed with a considerable gap by the other “regular” clans (Brujah, Gangrel, etc.), and at the bottom are the former Bloodlines clans, in this case the Salubri. (The Tremere are a little bit of an anomaly here, but this because they have number of cards where they share requirements with the Tremere antitribu and which are intended to use with the Gargoyles).

This is not a good or bad thing per se, but can you can see that the former Independent clans (for a lack of a better word for that group) not necessarily have the more powerful tools, but they can choose from a lot of cards. So, BCP design team, here you have some room for improvements: give the “old” clans some more shiny card/tools too.

VTES Starter Deck Statistics (Update)

Since the invention of the clan-based starter deck in VTES, the basic parameters with 12 crypt and 65 library cards have been fixed. What actually differs is the number of different crypt and library cards in each starter. Here’s the updated statistics how these number changed over time/expansions:

• Sabbat Wars
  • Brujah antitribu (SW) — 56
  • Lasombra (SW) — 53
  • Tzimisce (SW) — 59
  • Ventrue antitribu (SW) — 61

  Average of 57.25 different library cards.
  Average of 12 different crypt cards.

• Final Nights
  • Assamite (FN) — 42
  • Follower of Set (FN) — 53
  • Giovanni (FN) — 53
  • Ravnos (FN) — 54

  Average of 50.5 different library cards.
  Average of 12 different crypt cards.

• Camarilla Edition
  • Brujah (CE) — 43
  • Malkavian (CE) — 36
  • Nosferatu (CE) — 38
  • Toreador (CE) — 45
  • Tremere (CE) — 40
  • Ventrue (CE) — 43

  Average of 40.83 different library cards.
  Average of 12 different crypt cards.

• Anarchs
  • Baron (Anarch) — 38
  • Gangs (Anarch) — 49
  • Gangrel (Anarch) — 44

  Average of 44 different library cards.
  Average of 12 different crypt cards.

• Black Hand
  • Malkavian antitribu (BH) — 36
  • Noferatu antitribu (BH) — 37
  • Toreador antitribu (BH) — 33
  • Tremere antitribu (BH) — 30

  Average of 34 different library cards.
  Average of 12 different crypt cards.

• Kindred Most Wanted
  • Alastors (KMW) — 38
  • Anathema (KMW) — 40
  • Baali (KMW) — 36
  • Gangrel antitribu (KMW) — 39

  Average of 38.25 different library cards.
  Average of 12 different crypt cards.

• Legacies of Blood
  • Akunanse (LoB) — 42
  • Guruhi (LoB) — 44
  • Istarri (LoB) — 37
  • Osesbo (LoB) — 37

  Average of 40 different library cards.
  Average of 6 different crypt cards.

• 3rd Edition
  • Brujah antitribu (3rd) — 41
  • Malkavian antitribu (3rd) — 38
  • Tremere antitribu (3rd) — 37
  • Tzimisce (3rd) — 44

  Average of 40 different library cards.
  Average of 9 different crypt cards.

• Lords of the Night
  • Assamite (LotN) — 39
  • Follower of Set (LotN) — 38
  • Giovanni (LotN) — 39
  • Ravnos (LotN) — 38

  Average of 38.5 different library cards.
  Average of 6 different crypt cards.

• Keepers of Tradition
  • Brujah (KoT) — 30
  • Malkavian (KoT) — 29
  • Toreador (KoT) — 30
  • Ventrue (KoT) — 30

  Average of 29.75 different library cards.
  Average of 6 different crypt cards.

• Heirs to The Blood
  • Tremere/Gargoyle (HttB) — 33
  • Lasombra/Kiasyd (HttB) — 34
  • Ventrue/Salubri antitribu (HttB) — 34
  • Nosferatu/Samedi (HttB) — 35

  Average of 34 different library cards.
  Average of 11 different crypt cards.

So the general trend is, that the average number of library cards has been reduced. While this gives a new player less different cards, it generally improves the playability of these decks greatly. The uptick in the HttB can be attributed to the first dual clan starters which needs a wider coverage than you average one-clan starter deck.

 

VTES History: Rarity Distribution in Jyhad Boosters

This information is from a post by LSJ, answering the question how rare, uncommon, common and vampire cards are distributed in the Jyhad series. It dates from May 26th, 1998. It also explains how/why there a two different grades rare (R1/R2) and uncommon (U1/U2) rarities. R1/U1 are those cards that only appear once on a rare/uncommon print sheet, whereas R2/U2 appear twice on the same sheets.

Type of card	Booster	Starter
Rare	1 (5.3%)	2 (2.6%)
Uncommon	3 (15.8%)	13 (17.1%)
Commmon	11 (57.9%)	45 (59.2%)
Vampire*	4 (21.0%)	16 (21.0%)
Total	19	76

* There may not be 4/16 actual vampires: some of the spaces on the vampire sheet are taken up with vote cards.

This is the overall number of different rares, uncommons, commons, and vampires (related to given print sheet 11×11).

• Rares: 92 on a 121 sheet (29 are duplicated)
• Uncommon: 103 on a 121 sheet (18 are duplicated)
• Common: 121 on a 121 sheet
• Vampire: 111 vamps + 10 votes on a 121 sheet

Reference: rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

How to be a Great Clan … without Dominate

Greetings Methuselahs!

I was looking through my Clan Breakdown of the TWDA, trying to figure out which clans were the “Great Clans” in terms of tournaments wins, but while doing this, I ran into a problem — what cutoff should be used to separate the most successful clans from the chaff? Ultimately, I settled for figuring out which clans were doing better than average. If you look at the wins racked up by all the major clans (so no Laibon, Caitiff, or Bloodlines) since 2008, the average number of wins per clan is 44.7, so any clan who has won more events is better than average, and makes the cut. Below is the list of these clans, in descending order of wins (from 2008 to present):

I wonder what these Great Clans have in common?

1. Ventrue (90 wins)
2. Giovanni (89 wins)
3. Malkavian (75 wins)
4. Ventrue Antitribu (69 wins)
5. Toreador (64 wins)
6. Tremere (60 wins)
7. Lasombra (56 wins)
8. Tzimisce (56 wins)
9. Brujah (48 wins)
10. Tremere Antitribu (47 wins)
11. Gangrel (46 wins)
12. Malkavian Antitribu (46 wins)

When looking at this list, I notice two things almost simultaneously. First — that all the clans with Dominate made it past the cut (well, except the Kiasyds, but they’re a bloodline), and they occupy the very highest positions on the list. Second – that all the Camarilla clans except the Nosferatu made the cut. The Sabbat is represented by two clans without Dominate (Tzimisce, and Malkavian Antitribu), and the Independents have no clans on the list who do not have Dominate. I think that both of these observations make a lot of sense. Dominate is the undisputed offensive and defensive master of bleeding in a game where the default method of ousting is bleeding. And the Camarilla has access to some of the best sect-specific cards in the game.

But I’m not very interested in pontificating on the awesomeness of Dominate (at least not today). What I want to examine today is what makes a clan without Dominate become a “better-than-average” (Great) clan. If we take the above list and discard all the clans who have Dominate as an in-clan discipline, we’re left with these clans:

1. Malkavian
2. Toreador
3. Tzimisce
4. Brujah
5. Gangrel
6. Malkavian Antitribu

And, of course, the big question is: what separates these clans from the below-average clans — how did they rise to the top without the power of Dominate? My first hypothesis for why so many Camarilla clans without Dominate had been elevated to Great Clan status was simply due to the number of crypt cards that these clans possess. More vampires mean more options, and a better chance of being able to bring together an optimized crypt for your deck, and I had assumed that the Camarilla clans possessed the most crypt cards. However, when I actually looked at the number of crypt card available to each clan (summarized in the chart below), I found my assumption was unfounded. While the Camarilla clans have many more crypt cards than their Sabbat counterparts, their crypt selection is roughly comparable to that possessed by the Independent clans (admittedly, having so many vampires in group 2 and so few in group 3 is a bit of a hindrance as it essentially forces group 4 to pair with group 5 rather than having a choice). If the Camarilla really was enjoying an advantage due to their wide crypt selection, this should be an advantage shared with the Independent clans. Since no Independent clan without Dominate made it on the list, I think it is safe to discard the idea that crypt selection is the determining factor for which clans become Great.

Camarilla		Sabbat		Independent
Brujah	66	Brujah Antitribu	43	Assamite	66
Gangrel	75	Gangrel Antitibu	56	Followers of Set	62
Malkavian	63	Lasombra	46	Giovanni	62
Nosferatu	64	Malkavian Antitribu	43	Ravnos	62
Toreador	66	Nosferatu Antitibu	43
Tremere	68	Toreador Antitribu	43
Ventrue	68	Tremere Antitribu	43
		Tzimisce	48
		Ventrue Antitribu	43

So if crypt size isn’t the determining factor, what is? To answer that, I’ll have to look at each clan in turn and figure out what allows them to win without the power of Dominate. And now is as good of a time as any to warn you, gentle reader, that this article began with modest aims which have swollen greatly. As a consequence, this article is long, for which I apologize. The other disclaimer that I should offer upfront is that I spend quite a bit of time categorizing winning decks from these Great Clans without Dominate according to how they win, but I have no strict criteria for what makes a winning deck a political deck or a bleed deck, or an intercept combat deck. I examined the deck lists of each deck, and made a judgment call on how that deck would be most likely able to acquire victory points. But this is significantly more difficult to do in some situations than others. How should a deck that needs to tool up with Alastor and Archon political actions, but which then switches to become a rush or intercept combat deck after that be categorized? So when I discuss each deck category, I’ve tried to point out all the variations that are contained within that header, but I want to emphasize that each category includes decks on the fringes that might be better categorized as a different type of deck. If you are willing to accept this rather lengthy list of caveats and addenda, then by all means, proceed!

Clan Tzimisce — Lords of the Old World

Greetings fellow Methuselahs!

I recently returned to this game after a lengthy hiatus, and I quickly noticed that while the game is still loved and played by many people (my local playgroup is only a tiny bit smaller than when I left), and there are still a lot of tournaments world-wide, there isn’t very much new content being written about the game.  Personally, I know that my excitement in a game depends partially on my ability to think about and interact with the game between matches, and I assume this is true for others as well.  While I contemplated this observation, and lamented the lack of new content, I realized that I am not the new player I once was, and that I actually have enough experience with the game to have some (semi) reasonable things to say about it, and that these thoughts might actually be of interest to others.  Ralf has been kind enough to offer to host these thoughts.  I’ve always thought that VTES ONE is an amazing blog, and it’s incredible how much amazing content is available on this site.  I am very pleased to be able to contribute to it in a small way.  You can expect occasional articles from me to appear on this site in the future.

Before I discuss my first topic, let me briefly introduce myself.  I discovered VTES just after the release of Camarilla Edition, but while I purchased a few starter decks, I didn’t really do much with the game. Mostly I remember the enthusiasm with which our designated Tremere player would announce that he was using Eagle’s Sight to block random actions and pressing to the second round of combat with his Hawg — second round combat was no joke to us in those days!  But I didn’t really start playing until 2011, shortly after all the Heirs to the Blood had sold out.  I was taken in by the fantastic players of the San Francisco Bay Area play groups, and was even given a large and generous starter collection of cards, for which I am eternally grateful.  I played frequently until the end of 2013, when my work schedule suddenly prevented me from attending the weekly game.  I participated in a number of tournaments, got into the finals a few times, and even won a 20 player event with a Tzimisce Vote Deck.

The star of my only deck in the TWDA.

And that brings me to my topic for today.  I’ve been going through the Tournament Winning Deck Archive (TWDA) and separating it according to clan.  It’s been a long process (I’ve only gone back as far as 2009 so far), but it’s proven to be a treasure trove of fascinating information. You can check out the my Clan Breakdown of the TWDA here.  One of my interesting observations is Clan Tzimisce — the old lords of Eastern Europe. They’ve done amazingly well for a Sabbat clan. Indeed, looking at the numbers from 2009 to the present (as of the date of writing), Clan Tzimisce has racked up 48 total wins, making them the second highest winning Sabbat clan. Indeed, few clans from any sect can claim to have more victories (the list includes the Giovanni, Malkavian, Tremere, Toreador, Ventrue, and Ventrue Antitribu).

But the thing that makes the Tzimisce especially interesting is the crypt composition of the winning decks. While most clans favor certain crypt groupings over others, the Tzimisce take this to an extreme: 45 of those wins either use group 2 alone, or combine group 2 and 3. Only three decks use any group 4 vampires, and there are no decks in the archive that utilize group 5 to any degree. That’s rather stunning, and begs the question of what makes group 2 and 3 so special, and what makes group 4 and 5 so crappy.

Crypt Statistics (Part I)

Here are two quick statistics I was gathering when looking at VTES crypt cards (this includes crypt cards up and including to the Storyline Rewards 2015 cards).

The first graph/statistics is about the distribution of groupings (group 0 corresponds to the “Any” group). You can see a pattern here, the even groups are the main pillars, and the uneven groups are the fillers/bridges . And there’s yet a little room for vampires in group 5 and plenty in group 6 …

The second graph/statistics is about the distribution of vampire capacities. There’s a nice bell curve for the distribution, but there’s a dent in the graph for vampires of capacity 10. My guess is that some of these should be maybe capacity 11 (Nergal, for example), but the designers choose to restrict assigning cap. 11 for a selected, very, very small group. Also the numbers for vampires of capacity 8 should be slightly lower, say 150.

Most Popular Decks in 2013 on Secret Library

Some useless statistics (maybe as complementary information to the Deck of the Year post), here are the most viewed (tournament winning) decks from Secret Library for the year 2013 (data as of Feb 12th, 2014):

Deck	Player	Date	Views
Danish Nationals 2013: Obey the Tremere	Rudolf Garski	May 11	446
EC 2013 Day 2: Better Gents with Sticks	Hugh Angseesing	Oct 6	444
Paranormal: Spider, the best	Germán Uriarte	Mar 23	389
Black No. 1: Nadima Wall	Pedro Coelho	Jan 13	377
Coupe de Paris 2013: Black Hand Assamite Bleed	Kamel Senni	Feb 16	362
Russian National Championship 2013: Byzar	Grigory Cherbakov	May 25	352
Belgian Nationals 2013: The Black Plague	Martin Schumacher	Nov 10	347
“I Have to Get This Cheese to Washington Immediately!”	Jon Darbro	Feb 25	339
EC 2013 Last Chance Qualifier: White Lily Rush	Matti Palomäki	Oct 4	332
Metagame II: Elimelech goes to war	Péter Korsós	Mar 23	325

The statistics is flawed (to be honest), for example, decks created near the end of the year have generally less hits, and some more issues … but still some interesting decks to check!

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics Summary 2013

As a follow-up to the previous post, here’s some statistical data on past five European VtES Championships, regarding the distribution of game wins and timeouts. Using the Archons (ExcelSheets) from the ECs in Palma de Mallorca (2009), Paris (2010), Warsaw (2011), Budapest (2012) and Stockholm (2013), it was possible to add up the results from all the different tournaments (Legendary Vampire/Nations Cup, Last Chance Qualifier, Day 1, Day 2 and First Chance Qualifier). The summary for these tournaments look like this:

In this comparison you can see, that the trend towards less gamewins was dramatically interrupted during this year’s EC. We will see if that trend is truly broken after the EC 2014 in Mannheim, Germany. What is quite astonishing, is that not the GWs with 2 or 3 VPs were gaining significantly, but the GWs with 4 or 5 VPs had a huge comeback in Sweden. This can almost certainly attributed to the observation that in general the Swedish players tend towards decks that can oust (e.g. bleed decks). This is exemplified by the 43 decks (out of 100) used in the Day 1 tournament which can tagged as bleed decks,  Out of these 43 bleeds decks 25 (out of 40) then qualified for the Day 2 tournament.

Take note, that only games with exactly 5 players were included into the statistics.

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics 2013

The organizers of the VtES European Championship 2013 (thanks to Isak, Randal and Ivan in particular) were so kind to give me the Archon ExcelSheets containing the tournament results of the EC 2013. I have collected/aggregated the different game win types (i.e. game win with 5 VPs, 4 VPs, etc.). This is the same as I did in for the EC 2011 and EC 2012.

	GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	SUM
NC	0	3	2	4	3	12
LCQ	5	9	13	6	14	47
Day 1	6	21	16	6	10	59
Day 2	3	3	8	5	5	24
FCQ	1	11	14	5	11	42
SUM	15	47	53	26	43	184
AVERAGE	8.15%	25.54%	28.80%	14.13%	23.37%

For better comparison here are some graphs for the different tournaments:

The percentage of timeouts (which does not necessarily mean there wasn’t game win) for the individual tournaments:

• NC — 50.00%
• LCQ — 36.17%
• Day 1 — 18.64%
• Day 2 — 37.50%
• FCQ — 38.10%

What is quite interesting to see is that the “trend” (or slump”) of last year’s EC to less gamewins, was flipped over. Last year’s EC there 33% of the games without a gamewin, whereas this year the rate dropped to a staggering 23%. Especially the Day 2 tournament, usually notorious for few gamewins, had this year only 21% of these games. I guess, this is due to the number of more aggressive decks (especially bleed decks) present at the Day 1 and 2 tournaments.
The metagame of Day 1 was especially fast and furious. The percentage of timeouts (18.65%) was the lowest recorded, and at the same time the percentage of games with gamewins (83.05%) was the highest ever recorded. Also quite interesting to note, is that the while the games without gamewins dropped dramatically, the average percentage of timeouts (35,33%) is the same range as with the previous ECs. This can be explained, by the fact that even if games timed out, it was often the case at a given table a player already had 2 VPs (and a few times even 3 VPs) when the game ended.
Take note that in the above statistics only games with 5 players were used. Also the number of games (these statistics are based on) was significantly less than the previous ECs.

Time after Time

In the Finals are boring. Pt. 1: Slow Play Johannes mentioned the DGT Cube for keeping track of time in multiplayer games. DGT is a dutch company, producing mainly digital clocks and electronic boards for chess, but started recently to develop clocks for multiplayer games. So this drew my interest as the DTG cube looks like interesting tool for getting more information where/which players/decks take how much time in a game of VtES. A comment on YouTube described the cube as useful for those suffering from “chronic analysis paralysis” ..

The DTG cube according to the description six different modes for time keeping:

1. Move Timer
2. Move Timer + Save
3. Count Down Game Timer
4. Count Up Game Timer
5. Turn Counter

Especially the fourth mode seems to be useful to check how much time each of the players use up during a game. To get some useful overall results, I think the following needs to be recorded:

• Total time played
• Total number of turns
• VP distribution
• Type of deck played (per players)
• Number of turns played (per player)
• Time a player used (per player)

I ordered such a time keeping cube this week, and hopefully I can gather some interesting data on time consumption in VtES. I’ll keep you posted as soon as I have a sufficient amount of data.

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics Variation 2012

One of the readers (Adam) asked me, if I could adjust the statistics on GW/VP distribution during the past ECs by excluding the Legendary Vampire/Nations Cup, because they are different types of tournaments compared to Day 1, Day 2, FCQ and LCQ. I don’t really agree (Day 2 is also kind of special), but nonetheless here they are. There are some differences in percentages, but the phenomenon stays the same. Somewhat drastic GW5 drop and increase of no GWs in 2012.

Statistics exluding Legendary Vampire/Nations Cup:

		GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	Sum	Timeout
EC 2012	SUM	3	50	75	39	79	246	86
EC 2012	AVERAGE	1,22%	20,33%	30,49%	15,85%	32,11%		34,96%
EC 2011	SUM	17	50	80	34	76	257	94
EC 2011	AVERAGE	6,61%	19,46%	31,13%	13,23%	29,57%		36,58%
EC 2010	SUM	18	63	87	38	79	285	102
EC 2010	AVERAGE	6,32%	22,11%	30,53%	13,33%	27,72%		35,79%
EC 2009	SUM	15	36	52	29	55	187	64
EC 2009	AVERAGE	8,02%	19,25%	27,81%	15,51%	29,41%		34,22%

Statistics including Legendary Vampire/Nations Cup:

		GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	Sum	Timeout
EC 2012	SUM	4	56	82	40	91	273	92
EC 2012	AVERAGE	1,47%	20,51%	30,04%	14,65%	33,33%		33,70%
EC 2011	SUM	18	51	83	39	81	272	102
EC 2011	AVERAGE	6,62%	18,75%	30,51%	14,34%	29,78%		37,50%
EC 2010	SUM	19	63	88	41	89	300	109
EC 2010	AVERAGE	6,33%	21,00%	29,33%	13,67%	29,67%		36,33%
EC 2009	SUM	15	36	52	29	55	187	64
EC 2009	AVERAGE	8,02%	19,25%	27,81%	15,51%	29,41%		34,22%

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics Summary 2012

As a followup to the previous post, here’s some statistical data on past four VtES European Championships, regarding the distribution of game wins and timeouts, I dug up the Archons (ExcelSheets) from the ECs in Palma de Mallorca (2009), Paris (2010), Warsaw (2011) and Budapest (2012). After adding up the results from all the different tournaments (Legendary Vampire/Nations Cup, Last Chance Qualifier, Day 1, Day 2 and First Chance Qualifier), the summary for these tournaments look like this:

		GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	Sum	Timeout
EC 2012	Sum	4	56	82	40	91	273	92
EC 2012	Pct	1,47%	20,51%	30,04%	14,65%	33,33%		33,70%
EC 2011	Sum	18	51	83	39	81	272	102
EC 2011	Pct	6,62%	18,75%	30,51%	14,34%	29,78%		37,50%
EC 2010	Sum	19	63	88	41	89	300	109
EC 2010	Pct	6,33%	21,00%	29,33%	13,67%	29,67%		36,33%
EC 2009	Sum	15	36	52	29	55	187	64
EC 2009	Pct	8,02%	19,25%	27,81%	15,51%	29,41%		34,22%

As you see this year there was a downturn for game wins, and a significant one, too. Game wins with 5 VPs almost disappeared, at the same time the number of games without game wins increased significantly (plus 3.6%). The question is what the reason for this change towards less game wins has happened, and if this constitutes the beginning of trend. One reason could be that the players are more willing to split the table 2-2-1, which would be in alignment with the drop of timeouts (down 3.8%) in EC 2012 when compared to the EC 2012.

One remark regarding the base data:

1. I am only counting the five player games in order to have more comparable results.

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics 2012

The organizers of the EC 2012 (thanks to Milan & Tibor in particular) were so kind to give me the Archon ExcelSheets containing the tournament results from the EC 2012. I have collected/aggregated the different game win types (i.e. game win with 5 VPs, 4 VPs, etc.). This is the same as I did in for the previous year’s EC.

	GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	SUM
NC	1	6	7	1	12	27
LCQ	2	20	24	14	14	74
Day 1	0	15	32	14	26	87
Day 2	0	4	2	3	15	24
FCQ	1	11	17	8	24	61
SUM	18	51	83	39	81	273
AVERAGE	1,47%	20,51%	30,04%	14,65%	33,33%

For better comparison here are some graphs for the different tournaments:

What is quite interesting to see is the relatively low number of game wins with 5 VP (absolute) and in comparison with previous years. They almost disappeared! At the same time most the number of games without any game wins increased significantly (by 4%). One reason is that during the Nations Cup the players were more willing to split the table 2-2-1, which is the most common distribution of VPs in a game.

The percentage of timeouts (which does not necessarily mean there wasn’t game win) for the individual:

• NC — 22,22%
• LCQ — 31,08%
• Day 1 — 39,08%
• Day 2 — 66,67%
• FCQ — 49,81%

A few observations from my point of view (and by no means exhaustive): The number of timeouts in the FCQ remains rather high, although the stakes (if you want to call it that) are so much lower than in the regular games. I would attribute that to less efficient decks (in terms of pool removal) often seen at the FCQ tables.

But what is appalling is the lack of game wins and number of timeouts in the Day 2 tournament. In 2011 the percentage was already high with 42%, but was easily topped with 66% this year. With this in mind it’s not really surprising that you only needed 1 GW 4 VP for entering the final round of Day 2. And even the top seed only had 1 GW, which maybe a first in the history of European Championships.

I will make a more direct comparison with the previous three European Championships in a separate article (later today), which will show that this year something has changed.

Outferior Stats

A large percentage of cards that require a bloodline discipline (Obeah, Valeren, etc.), also have an effect that require an (inferior) “common” discipline. In VtES slang this is often called the outferior effect.

The following graph shows how many cards each discipline has and how many of those an outferior effect have:

The following graph shows which common disciplines are used for outferior effects:

It’s interesting to see that three disciplines (Animalism, Auspex and Presence) are used much more for the outferior effects than other  (not counting Thaumaturgy, since that’s tightly bound to Visceratika). While others like Quietus, Celerity or Protean are rarely seen.

Some more facts on bloodline disciplines:

• Sanguinis is the only discipline that has no cards with an outferior effect.
• Visceratika is the only discipline that is tied to only one discipline, namely Thaumaturgy.
• Resurrection is the only card that requires not one of the common disciplines, but a bloodline discipline.
• Quietus is the only discipline not used for any outferior effect of a bloodline discipline.

Post Scriptum: I haven’t included Maleficia and Striga.

Black Hand Distribution

“In essence, the Black Hand is a sect within a sect, made up of the most dedicated and capable Sabbat members. Part paramilitary, part religion, part survivalist militia, these vampires wholeheartedly believe that Gehenna is coming. They do all they can to prepare for the rise of the Antediluvians.” — Wikipedia entry on the Black Hand

When looking for a suitable Black Hand vampires (and talking to my fellow VtES players on #vekn. I was examining the distribution of Black Hand vampires across the different clans:

• 1x — Abomination, Ahrimanes, Followers of Set, Harbingers of Skulls, Nagaraja, Pander, Samedi, Salubri Antitribu, True Brujah
• 4x — Brujah Antitribu, Toreador Antitribu, Tzimisce
• 5x — Lasombra, Malkavian Antitribu, Nosferatu Antitribu, Tremere Antitribu, Ventrue Antitribu
• 7x — Gangrel Antitribu
• 8x — Assamite

Why this emphasis on Gangrel antitribu and Assamites (in particular)? Is there some WoD reason I don’t know about? Or is it a decision for giving more support to weak (perceived or not) clans?

And it’s quite similar when looking at the number of Seraphsavailable to the different clans:

• 1x — Gangrel Antitribu, Nosferatu Antitribu, Tzimisce, Ventrue Antitribu
• 2x — Lasombra
• 3x — Assamite

VtES Tournament and Attendance Statistics

After drnlmza had posted a statistics on VEKN.net (about a week ago) on the number played during the past years as well as the average number of players in a tournament for the past 4 years, I wanted to extend the statistics for the remaining years. Basis for the the following statistics is Lasombra’s Tournament Winning Deck archive:

	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Sum Tournaments	68	113	95	113	111	197	221	237	211	246
Avg. #Players	22,46	21,88	23,71	23,70	25,46	22,31	21,44	20,57	21,56	19,33
Std. Deviation	11,82	11,21	11,40	11,54	11,71	11,15	10,12	8,51	10,18	7,82

The statistics suggests that the actual number of tournament has increased for years while the average attendance of players is dropping more or less steadily since 2006. But I think the data base is somewhat tainted, since the data is based only on those information from Lasombra’s TWDA. It would be more interesting to also check the data from the VEKN rating system to actually cross-check this information and see if the data and the trend are actually valid. It could be also the case, that only the willingness to report the tournament winning deck has increased.

A geographical distribution is in my opinion very hard to do sensibly at the moment. For most countries there’s simple not enough sample data. When the new tournament reporting system (on VEKN.net) is up and running for year or two, we can extract more data and make some reasonable trend analysis.

One observation that I have made while looking at the raw data, is that the number of tournaments with approx. 10 to 12 players and only 2 rounds and a final has actually increased, which would explain why the average player attendance has dropped a bit.

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics Summary 2011 (Update)

As a marginal note: I have updated the EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics Summary 2011 post with the information from the missing First Chance Qualifier (Paris 2010). The data from the different tournaments is now even more resembling to each other! Quite astonishing, in my opinion.

Many thanks to Pascal and especially Vincent for their efforts of getting hold of the EC FCQ 2011 Archon!

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics Summary 2011

Since I was asked about statistical data on past VtES European Championships, regarding the distribution of game wins and timeouts, I dug up the Archons (ExcelSheets) from the ECs in Palma de Mallorca (2009), Paris (2010) and Warsaw (2011). After adding up the results from all the different tournaments (Legendary Vampire, Last Chance Qualifier, Day 1, Day 2 and First Chance Qualifier), the summary for these tournaments look like this:

		GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	Sum	Timeout
EC 2011	Sum	18	51	83	39	81	272	102
EC 2011	Pct	6,62%	18,75%	30,51%	14,34%	29,78%		37,50%
EC 2010	Sum	19	63	88	41	89	300	109
EC 2010	Pct	6,33%	21,00%	29,33%	13,67%	29,67%		36,33%
EC 2009	Sum	15	36	52	29	55	187	64
EC 2009	Pct	8,02%	19,25%	27,81%	15,51%	29,41%		34,22%

As you can see, despite some suggestions given on VEKN.net, there’s no trend towards less game wins. It’s even interesting to notice how similar the distribution of GWs are over the past three EC tournaments. At most, you can see see a very slight trend towards more timeouts (last column in the table above), but this could also very well to be within the normal statistical deviation. After all, the data proves only how individual impressions can lead to false conclusions which are not founded on the actual data.

Two remarks regarding the base data:

1. The data from Prague is missing the Legendary Tournament (the format was introduced in 2010 in Paris).
2. I am only counting the five player games in order to have more comparable results.

Update: On November 28th, I have added the missing data from the Paris FCQ tournament.

EC Gamewin & Timeout Statistics 2011

The organizers of the EC 2011 (thanks Marcin!) were so kind to give me the Archon ExcelSheets containing the tournament results from the EC 2011. I have collected/aggregated the different game win types (i.e. game win with 5 VPs, 4 VPs, etc.)

	GW5	GW4	GW3	GW2	No GW	SUM
LV	1	1	3	5	5	15
LCQ	8	23	28	8	20	87
Day 1	5	17	23	12	18	75
Day 2	0	3	6	5	10	24
FCQ	4	7	23	9	28	71
SUM	18	51	83	39	81	272
AVERAGE	6,62%	18,75%	30,51%	14,34%	29,78%

For better comparison here are some graphs for the different tournaments:

To draw any conclusion is rather hard. For that I would need more data from previous European Championships. But in my opinion the number of games without game wins especially for the FCQ qualifier.

The percentage of timeouts (which does not necessarily mean there wasn’t game win):

• LV — 53,33%
• LCQ — 21,84%
• Day 1 — 38,67%
• Day 2 — 54,17%
• FCQ — 49,25%

The number of timeouts during the Legendary Vampire & Day 1 tournament are (in my experience) is what you can expect when such a number of high quality players (and decks) are present, I find the number of timeouts in the Last Chance Qualifier and even more so in the First Chance Qualifier rather high. Without having seen the contents of the decks I wouldn’t attribute it to excessive table talk, but the bloat capability of the decks (i.e. the use of Villein). I would be nice to actually have the average number of Villein (or similar cards) in the decks.

Top Ten Viewed TWDs on Secret Library

This is the list of the most viewed tournament winning decks on Secret Library as of July 5th, 2011:

Pos.	Deck	Creator	Created	Views
1.	EC 2010 Day 2: 17 Wakes	Brian Moritz	Oct 31, 2010	1004
2.	And the Gehenna, when it gonna be?: Burst of Rotschreck	Alberto Muñoz (Shinji)	Feb 23, 2008	671
3.	Drink New Blood: Vidal the Trickster	Jörg Alten	Oct 23, 2010	467
4.	And So It Begins… Blood Vacuum	Rob Thompson	Sep 25, 2005	464
5.	Abyssal Hunter: Atlanta: Tremere Group 3/4 Bruise and bleed	John Newquist (Witness1)	Jan 15, 2006	453
6.	Australian 2010 Continental Championship: The Beautiful People 2.0	Jason Ryan	Jun 13, 2010	430
7.	US National Championship 2010: Father to be	Jay Kristoff	Jun 25, 2010	425
8.	Reliquary: Akunanse Remains: Ravnos Sensory Nightmare	Michael Streatfield	Feb 27, 2007	424
9.	Blood of Sandman: Greyskull	Felipe Fiuza	Jan 23, 2010	407
10.	Michigan GLQ 2010: Ivan’s Shilmulo Tarot	David Wilson	Aug 22, 2010	394

VtES Usenet Newsgroup Statistics

The diagram above shows number of posts in the VtES Usenet Newsgroup (since 2000) and the dramatic decline of posts after LSJ had announced leaving the newsgroup and the appearance of the VEKN forum (both at the end of 2010). Especially the last two month show an unprecedented low in posts to the Newsgroup.

Historical VtES Deck Size Statistics

Currently there’s a discussion going on in the VtES Usenet Newsgroup regarding the optimal decksize. By chance, a few weeks I collected some data from Lasombra’s TWDA, checking for decks and their number of cards used by tournament winners. As you can see 90 card decks make nearly 60% of the total TWD. This number has dropped in recent years, but still a fair number of decks from the past few years carry 90 cards.
Please take note the scale is logarithmic, otherwise you wouldn’t see much beside the overwhelming number of 90 card decks. It looks as if there’s no deck with the size of 69 cards, but due to the logarithmic scale the one deck with 69 cards is not shown.

In addition, some data from the VtES EC 2010. During the EC in Paris the average decksize of the five finalists of the five main tournaments were as follows:

• Legendary Vampire — 78 cards average
• Last Chance Qualifier — 78 cards average
• Day 1 Tournament — 87 cards average
• Day 2 Tournament — 88 cards average
• First Chance Qualifier — 90 cards average

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.

In summary, all I am saying is that historically (with the data given) there’s no evidence that 90 card deck do inherently better or worse than decks with less cards.

Here’s the raw data as extracted from Lasombra’s TWDA:

Decksize	# Decks	Decksize Grp	#Decks
60	41	60-64	57
61	6
62	3
63	4
64	3
65	9	65-69	24
66	8
67	4
68	2
69	1
70	41	70-74	84
71	9
72	13
73	9
74	12
75	42	75-79	111
76	19
77	28
78	12
79	10
80	87	80-84	156
81	16
82	23
83	15
84	15
85	18	85-89	175
86	23
87	21
88	48
89	65
90	894	90	894

VtES Storyline "Battle Lines": Current Standings

The VtES Storyline event “Battle Lines” is about to end in two weeks (on June 30th, 2010), so I have I compiled some statistics how the different bloodlines clans are ranked, and how the Loyalist vs. Bahari faction standings is right now. You can find the raw data on the Battle Lines Storyline Standings web page.

Right: The Baali are clearly leading with 10 wins over the Kiasyd with the 7 sevens wins. The 3rd place is shared by the Daughters and the Salubri with 4 wins each. Almost all of the Bloodlines clans managed to get at least one win in the storyline events with the exception of the Harbingers of Skulls and the Samedi. But the most astonishing thing is that the Nagaraja managed to claim victory 3 times, although they don’t have yet a single entry (as a clan) in Lasombra’s Tournament Winning Deck archive (TWDA).

The Bahari faction is clearly leading with 24 to 13 wins against the Loyalists. The Baali alone account for 10 wins of the 24 Bahari victories.

For the Kiasyd (as current runner-up) matters are a little more complicated. Of their 7 victories 4 can be attributed to the Bahari faction, and 3 to the Loyalist faction.

Bloodlines Crypt Card Distribution

After seeing the distribution of the Bloodlines clans of the next VTES expansion “Heirs to the Blood” on White Wolf’s preview page for the expansion, I was curious if and how it changed along the three different Bloodlines-related expansions “Bloodlines“, “Legacies of Blood” and “Heirs to the Blood“. I was a little bit surprised to see how relatively even the distribution of crypt cards is. There a few hiccups like the Blood Brothers and Gargoyles initial boost, but they got toned a bit in the next expansion. The real change with “Heirs to the Blood” is that the three scarce clans get an extra crypt card in the expansion.

Bloodlines	BL	LoB	HttB	Sum
Ahrimanes	5	5	5	15
Baali	5	(5)	5	15
Blood Brother	10	2	5	17
Daughters of Cacophony	5	5	5	15
Gargoyle	8	3	5	16
Harbingers of Skulls	5	5	5	15
Kiasyd	5	5	5	15
Nagaraja	3	3	4	10
Salubri	3	3	4	10
Salubri Antitribu	5	5	5	15
Samedi	6	5	6	17
True Brujah	3	3	4	10

The five Baali vampire attributed to the “Legacies of Blood” expansion, were actually part of the “Kindred Most Wanted” expansion. I also omitted from the tables any vampires that were only available as promo card.

Requirements for Multi-Discipline Cards

When looking at the requirements of multi-discipline cards (i.e. those cards that require two discipline simultaneously) in VtES I observed a certain tendency toward certain disciplines. To confirm my suspicion I compiled the following statistics:
As you can see, the single-clan discipline (and the few bloodline disciplines) lag a little bit behind the other disciplines as expected. What’s quite surprising is the large number of multi-discipline cards which require Auspex. Actually, out of 41 multi-discipline cards there are 21 cards that require Auspex.

The statistics are based on all expansions up and including “Ebony Kingdom“.