Archive for category VTES
Gangrel Dominate Deck: Stanislava and Ingrid
Posted by Preston Poulter in VTES on December 11th, 2009
Recently a purchaser of my Barbed Wire decks off of eBay asked me to make an advanced deck for him. I put together a deck that was a longtime favorite tournament deck. I had worked on it with Paul Johnson of the Los Angeles VTES crew. Here’s the decklist:
Crypt
7 x Stanislava, Gangrel Inner Circle Member, +2 Bleed, Allies can not block, retainers lose abilities in combat, DOM CEL PRO FOR ANI
5 x Ingrid Rossler, Prince of Geneva, +2 Transfers when ready, ANI PRO FOR dom
Library
Master Cards
Golconda: Inner Peace x3
Ecoterrorists
Dominate
Legendary Vampire
The Barrens
Dreams of the Sphinx x3
Storage Annex x2
Minion Tap x5
Actions
Restoration x2
Political Actions
Anarchist Uprising
Ancient Influence
Ancilla Empowerment
Banishment
Disputed Territory
Parity Shift x2
Reins of Power
Action Modifiers
Conditioning x3
Earth Control x5
Forced March x8
Combat
Claws of the Dead x4
Earth Meld x4
Forn of Mist x4
Reaction
Guard Dogs x5
Cat’s Guidance x4
Obedience x4
Deflection x8
Second Tradition: Domain x2
Combo Cards
Rapid Change x4
Murmur of the False Will x7
This deck would be classified as a tool box by most VTES players because it does a lot of different things. Read the rest of this entry »
Tournament Report: Austin Qualifier, 2009
Posted by Preston Poulter in Gaming, VTES on September 6th, 2009
The two playgroups in Texas that I have any experience with are the Dallas and Austin playgroup. At one point, when I first started playing in North Texas around 2005, both playgroups were of comparable size. Unfortunately, last year, the turnout and enthusiasm for the Austin playgroup began to wane. Come this year, it seemed that the entire playgroup had fallen off the face of the Earth. When asked who was going to be attending the Dallas Qualifier for North American Championship, Ethan, one of the players there, texted us, “Austin VTES is dead.”
That was unfortunate. VTES, like any collectible card game, isn’t much fun if there’s not a community to play with. With the failure of the Austin playgroup, Dallas stood as the only regularly operating playgroup in Texas that I knew of. Worse still, the Lafayette, Lousiana playgroup seemed to be following a similar fate. It’s understandable that CCG playgroups die, and quite frankly amazing that a game such as Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, which was originally published under the name Jyhad in 1994, is till being played at all. The vast majority of CCGs that came out after Magic: the Gathering have merely been splashes in the pan that died out shortly after introduction. I remember playing the CCG Netrunner, which was the third game published by Wizards of the Coast under the monicker “Deckmaster” and enjoying it a good deal, only to see if soon fade from play altogether.
Let’s face it. If Wizards of the Coast can’t get a CCG off the ground, it just doesn’t bode well for the viability of the genre. That’s not to say certain games don’t find an audience, they do. But the key seems to a small publisher finding, nurturing, and responding to the needs of a small market. In our case, the small market of VTES players seemed to be getting smaller by the month.
It’s can be discouraging to watch the player base decline. You start to wonder when you should just get out of the game altogether or find a new hobby. Of course, we in Dallas have also had some victories in attracting new players. So it’s not all doom and gloom. Still, I didn’t like seeing the Austin playgroup fall off the map.
The Problems of the Tremere in VTES, Part II
Posted by Preston Poulter in Gaming, VTES on August 23rd, 2009
It was a challenge to try to make a playable Tremere deck from Jyhad commons. As I mentioned in my last post, the Tremere have to have some sort of combat package: it helps to get your bleeds through and you won’t have to block as many actions if you torpor/burn the minions you do block. The combat options for Thaumaturgy in the basic Jyhad set are limited to:
- Blood Rage or Blood Fury
- Theft of Vitae
- Walk of Flame
- Drain Essence
Walk of Flame is a powerful card, but it (like Cauldron of Blood and Drain Essence) requires you to make it beyond the first round of combat, and that requires some form of press based combat. I found from play testing that Traps worked quite well with the overall combat package. You could drain off the opposing vampires blood with a Theft in the first round and, if all went well, burn the opposing minion with a Walk of Flame in the subsequent rounds. That makes for a fairly threatening combat package. It can’t deal with a strike to end combat, but that’s something the Tremere are notorious for having a problem with.
Having decided on a rough combat package, the next step was in selecting the crypt. The Group 1 Tremere vampires include: Read the rest of this entry »