How to Build a Vote Deck

Extrala over at VTES One has outdone himself with a great in-depth article on how to build a vote deck.  Everything from the most common cards used, the best clans and even strategies.  Be sure to check it out.

Patterns in Politics

2015 Regular Games

2015 has kicked off and the regular games have started up again.  We will soon be doing our annual drive to try and dig up some players, new and old.  If you're interested in trying VTES and are located in Townsville, Australia, please send an email to dshrike at gmail dot com.

This year's qualifier is expected to be held sometime in May-July.

Special mention to last year's recruits Belle and Shannon for sticking with the game and helping make the Townsville VTES community what it is today.

Townsville 2014 Continental Qualifier

The Townsville 2014 Continental Qualifier was held last weekend with a total of 8 people participating.  The tournament was a 2 round plus final event that saw 3 new players take part.  Round 1 saw only 1VP on each table but round 2 had a game win and a time out, making VPs rather few and far between on the day.  There was a 3 way tie for 3rd going into the final, luckily the final table was 5 players.

Final standings were:

Mark 7VP 2GW - Weenie Auspex featuring Tariq
Shannon 2VP 0GW - Brujah Anti Toolbox-ish
Penne 2.5VP 0 GW - Show of Force with Cailean, Marcus Vitel and Huitzilopochtli
Chris 1VP 0GW - Raptor wall featuring Baron Dieudonne
Ozzy 1VP 0GW - G2/3 Toreador Bleed

Learning Aids Updated

I've put up two new documents I threw together with info I gathered from other places on the Internet on the Learning Aids page.  The first file shows all the in-Clan Disciplines with their respective icons.  The second is some background info on the different Disciplines taken from the White Wolf Wiki.

If anyone has ideas on other ways to help teach and understand the the game please send them in.

New Players and Regular Meets

A big welcome to the 3 new players that have started playing V:TES over the past few weeks, and one old player who has stirred from torpor.  We have started meeting at 1pm Saturday at Realms of Magic and Miniatures.  Everyone is encouraged and welcome to come down and play or check out what the game is all about.

AUSNZ 2013 VTES Championship Report

Here's my write up for AUSNZ 2013 VTES Championship that happened on October 5th in Sydney.

15 players (3 tables of 5)

I decided to take my Kiasyd bleed deck again as I’m quite comfortable with it and it’s proven itself in many games.  It’s had a couple of modifications since I played it in Melbourne, which bring it up to version 6.

Round 1

Tony (weenie ani / aus wall) > Simon (Baali vote / bleed) > Pete (Carna toolbox) > Me (Kiasyd bleed) > Craig (Toreador crazy bleed of some kind)

Decent crypt and library draw, I was happy.  My predator decides to tool up most of the game, leaving me to bleed hard into my prey.  Most of the bleeds land with only the odd one or two being flicked which makes mincemeat out of Craig.  The pressure now gets put on Tony but he manages to flick a bleed of 4 at 1 stealth to Simon which ousts him, not so good.  Pete decides to start taking some actions towards me now and I’m able to block some and bounce a bleed to Tony.  Tony’s starts attacking Pete with his “death from a thousand paper cuts” strategy.  I managed to get my 3 star vamps out so I was feeling quite confident of being able to out Tony and have a good shot at Pete.

Tony ends up going down and it does indeed end up being a faceoff with Pete.  Pete blocks one of my bleeds with Carna who happens to have an Ivory Bow and puts The Arcadian into torpor.  Not to worry, as I was then able to bleed him out with Omme.

The most helpful card on this table was the Antediluvian Awakening I played in the 2nd or 3rd round.

Me 1GW 4VP, Tony 1VP

Round 2

Jim (Nos Princes breed/boon) > Nick (Stani and friends vote) > Simon (Baali vote / bleed) > Steve (Synesios vote) > Me (Kiasyd bleed)

I was surrounded by vote decks.  Votes as far as the eye could see.  Thankfully Omme Enberbenight was in my opening crypt giving me 3 votes and lock in the Prisci sub-referendum, which amounted to cancelling out my prey’s votes and not much else.

Steve was being pressured by Simon but still managed to get the odd vote through and a bleed or two.  I took the tiny window I had to oust Jim but missed him by 1 pool.  On Jim’s next turn he managed to bloat back out to about 9 pool.  

There was a lot of vote talk on this table and it was great to see everyone calm and level headed.  I spent a turn or two on 4 pool and Steve had a chance to oust me as time was running out but he didn't draw into what he needed.  The table timed out and we all got 0.5 VP.

Round 3

Steve (Synesios vote) > Dave > James Bonham (!Tremere wall featuring Una rush) > Tony (weenie ani / aus wall) > Me (Kiasyd bleed)

My turn to have a crack at Steve this round and I had to go about it rather quickly as I had Tony’s weenie ani/aus on my back and I thought Steve would try and back-oust me.

The details of this game are a bit hazy for me and I remember trying not to get too involved in the politics of the game.  I bleed hard into Steve as much as I could for at least 2 or 3 as a base and boosting it if I could, not fearing the Archon.  Eventually I ousted Steve but I soon fell to Tony who just kept chipping away at me with little bleeds or 1 and 2 with his many minions.

Chris 1VP, Tony ??

Final Round

Me (Kiasyd bleed) > Tony (weenie ani/aus wall) > Simon (Baali Vote) > Will (Ventrue Lawfirm) > Pete (Carna toolbox)

So I made it to the final table in 1st seed with 1GW 5.5VP achieving the goal I set for myself, make the final table.  I sought some advice from Jim about where I should sit and in the end I chose to sit as Pete’s prey and Tony’s predator.  In hindsight I may have been better off being Tony’s prey and Simon’s predator, but if my library draw was the same, the outcome would have been identical for me.  I chose to sit between Pete and Tony because I knew Pete would tool up and give me about 5-6 rounds of peace with maybe 1 or 2 bleeds to me.  Also since Tony was packing intercept it would help cycle through the stealth in my deck (Ha!).

The game starts and it goes as I had planned, and my opening hand looks alright as I have a bit of everything, even a Pentex.  I managed to get my 3 main vampires out and things are still looking okay but I'm not drawing into much stealth at all and I end up getting into combat with Tony way too much.

The next thing to happen is probably one of the craziest things I’ve seen happen in a game.  Simon bleeds Will for 3.  Will flicks it to Pete.  Pete flicks it to me.  I flick it to Tony.  Tony flicks it back to me.  I flick it back to Tony.  Tony flicks it back to me.  6 flicks later it stays with me and I’m bleed for 3.  I see it as an even up, as one of my bleeds of 4 landed on Simon earlier in the game, however during this crazy flick-a-thon I'm trying to cycle into more flick but instead I draw into 4 of the 6 Wakes in my deck, all sitting on top of each other!  How the heck that happened I have no idea.

Soon after I made my final mistake of the game, which cost me possibly an oust.  During Tony’s Master phase he backwards Pentexs one of my 3 vampires.  On my next turn I try to remove the Pentex but since I’m having a terrible time drawing anything useful from my deck like stealth, I'm blocked.  On Pete’s next turn I get ousted.  However, if I had not been so unsettled by my bad crypt draw and just the pressure of the whole game, I would have realised I could Pentex forward with the Pentex that was still in my hand and contest it with my prey.  I can only assume Tony Pentexed me because he was running out of flick or intercept.

The next to fall was Will and then Pete came for Tony and got him.  With about 5mins to go Pete managed to lunge enough to oust Simon to give him the Championship.  Well done Pete.

Final Thoughts

I played something like 11 games of VTES in 3 days.  That's about the same number of games I get to play in a year in Townsville.  I learnt a LOT of new things about deck types and synergies I’d never thought of.  Thanks to Steve, Simon, Jon for the extra games, DC Comics: Deck Building Game is awesome, and the hilarity that was Cards Against Humanity, but most of all for being great guys to hang out with.

Thanks to Andrew Chirgwin for organising the venue and running the Championships and the Bruce Cup on Monday, and to Steve for running the LCQ. Thanks again to Steve and Andrew for the prize support across the whole weekend. Lastly, thanks to everyone who showed up and made it a successful event!

Sealed Starter Tournament

It'd been more than 12 months since we'd tried a sealed deck competition and it was also a good excuse to introduce some new cards into people's collections.

We had 1 of each starter deck from Legacies of Blood (Akunanse, Ishtarri, Osebo & Guruhi) and the Followers of Set starter from Lords of the Night.  To go with these starters were 6 boosters each, Ebony Kingdom boosters for the LoB starters and Lords of the Night boosters for the Followers of Set starter.

Once the starter decks and boosters were assigned randomly we had 90mins to construct a deck.  We decided to allow 5mins between games to adjust decks.  What was to follow was 3 games (2hr time limit) with the winner being the person with the most game wins (GW) and/or victory points (VP).

Who ended up with what:
Chris - Guruhi
Mark - Followers of Set
Adam - Ishtarri
Dave - Akunanse
Ben - Osebo

Game 1: Chris > Mark > Adam > Dave > Ben >
It was a slow start as we all had to figure out our strategies for our newly created decks.  I started and since my deck relied on votes I had to influence the only vampire in my uncontrolled region that had a title, Ugadja.  A 10 capacity so I took a few cheap bleeds from Ben on turns 2 and 3.  Luckily they were only for 1 and 2.  Mark was lucky and managed to get a couple smaller Followers of Set out and put Form of Corruption into play.  Adam was also a slow starter but was on the back foot from the get-go due to having a stealth bleed predator. Dave had a fairly easy start since Adam was preoccupied with staying alive, and was able to influence out a couple of minions without too much trouble.  As Dave's deck was probably the closest thing to a combat deck he was keeping Ben in check.  Ben's deck worked as a wall-ish type deck with small amounts of intercept and combat with a splash of bleed.

Eventually Adam was able to put some pressure on Dave with some bleeds for 4, but it was too little too late as Mark had Adam running low on pool.  As Mark laid on the second bleed of his turn, Adam was unable to block it and was about to be ousted when suddenly from across the table, Ben plays an Eagle's Sight to block the bleed!  However Mark still had one more minion and all it took was 1 more bleed and Adam was ousted.  Just what Mark needed to boost his own pool which was starting to run low due to a number of successful Conservative Agitations that hit him for 4 pool each time.  The table timed out before anything else could happen.

Game 2: Chris > Mark > Adam > Ben > Dave >
We took a few minutes at the end of the last game to refine our decks and weed out some cards.  I had a dream pick up this game.  Lots of votes to call, minion taps were coming to hand, even got to play the Giant's Blood that's in the deck.  Dave was walling up a bit and not putting much pressure on me. Mark was my prey again and he was quick to get some minions out but didn't seem to have much go forward.  After landing a number votes and having my prey on 4 pool ready for the oust, I tap one of my minions and announce I'm calling a Domain Challenge which will leave Mark with 1 pool as 3 of his 4 minions are tapped.  Perfect I thought, I'll get him with my next minion's vote for the oust, or so I thought.  I look a little further around and notice Adam, my grand-prey only has 2 pool... and 3 tapped minions.  So if my Domain Challenge passes, I'll end up giving my prey a VP and 6 pool before doing 3 damage to him.  Not the smartest thing to do, but it was the only vote card in my hand at the time, and it turned out to be what I needed to do, as the replacement card I picked up was an Conservative Agitation.

I didn't have any other choice but to vote against my own referendum.  With that out of the way, I still had 3 other minions to call some votes, which I did. The Conservative Agitation was enough to oust Mark(4 points to him and 1 to Adam) and leave Adam with 1 pool. After playing some action modifiers to boost the votes I picked up some more vote cards.  I then called an Ancilla Empowerment which ousted Adam and did 5 pool damage to my new prey, Ben. With my last action I called another Domain Challenge, and actually voted for it this time.  The details of exactly how I ousted Ben are hazy.  But either way I managed to do about 14 pool damage in 2 turns to him, 9 of which was while he was my great grand prey.  Vote decks can be very nasty.

After ousting Ben I had to try and take out Dave.  I got close with Dave only having 2 pool at one stage but he was able to bloat out to 6 or so on his next turn.  Time ran out before I was able to land the final killing blows.

Game 3: Dave > Adam > Mark > Ben > Chris >
The game timed out.  Dave was very close to being able to oust Adam but time wasn't on his side.  We were all tired and/or drunk by this stage and were glad to see the game over.

Things we learnt: Mundane played as an out-of-turn Master to cancel an action card requiring a discipline does not trigger the no repeat action clause because the card was cancelled and the action did not resolve.

Final results were:
Chris 0.5, 3.5, 0.5 = 4.5VP
Mark 1.5, 0, 0.5 = 2VP
Dave 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 = 1.5VP
Ben 0.5, 0, 0.5 = 1VP
Adam 0, 0, 0.5 = 0.5VP

My first VTES tournament win :D