I was playing an ally deck that was once again completely crippled before I could even do anything. Two other players started Corrupting my weenies before I could even start playing with them and so, I was left playing contest wars with my predator, dooming us both to loss. Now, I died before my predator, Blinky, did, netting him a VP, but I had to spend so much energy fighting him that my prey, Xian, was given free reign of the board.
Xian's deck was very strong, and he's a good player. I think we've all seen excellent improvement in his play as well over the time course of these games. I wasn't even allowed to get out more than one of my allies because Xian was good at blocking my actions.
There was one important mistake in my deck design; I didn't have enough diversification of my vampires. I only played with Smudge, Spinoza, Enrichetta, and Rudolpho. I hoped to ignore my vampires for a long time, having them only come out long enough to start the ally machine rolling and follow up with Compel the Spirit as necessary. Of course, this meant that I could only contest vampires once Smudge, Spinoza, and Enrichetta were stolen from me.
I still have a long way to go, here.
My deck was a SoL Corruption/combat deck. Ya know beat them up then slap some temptations on them, some hidden lurkers, snake baskets... stuff like that. I was having a blood/hand jam prob, so when I did finally get a good combo going my vamps had no blood. I think I managed to pull a hidden lurker/disguised weapon/machine pistol deal at the end, but by then it didn't matter O yeah and that whole contesting thing with everyone kinda screwed me over ;) Tho it was a fun game.
As you have all figured out by now, I have a weakness for playing historically looked down-upon clans/decks, and the Toreador are nothing if not that. I admit to taking some advantage of what I'd seen of the playtest metagame, where vote decks appear to have been under-represented, unlike regular JOL where they're quite prevalent. Admittedly, this is in part because there hasn't been that much added for voting in the playtest set, but I thought it would be fun to see what I could do to tweak a Toreador deck.
Obviously the idea was to vote some, bleed a little, and pool gain. It did work better because John was doing very little to me, but I think it might have been okay even if he wasn't in such trouble.
I got a lot more intercept in hand than I thought I had put in. Same with Alacrity. Damn, that was useful. I didn't get to use many of the playtest Celerity combat cards, because I hardly got into combat. I used a couple of the Presence cards, Summon and Power Play for certain...no others came up. Crazy. I pulled all my Alacrity, but I think only 4 of 9 Conservative Agitation. Weird.
Anyway, the playtest cards I used follow:
Toreador Trend: Artiste -- Highly useful, I thought. I'd prefer to keep the trend cards as they are. Poseur could be more useful, but I like the Artiste as is.
Summon -- Not bad. I like the superior a lot. Obviously that's what it's most useful for, unless you're playing a Nec/Pre retainer deck...
Power Play -- Excellent in combo with Voter Captivation. Very nifty.
Sudden Motion -- Didn't get to play it. Intriguing, but not the most exciting card in the universe.
Evasion -- I like the 1 blood prevent 1/2 damage version I was playing with, I think it's since been changed...but no big deal. It's nice to have something aside from Fortitude preventing damage, and Celerity is p robably the best bet.
Prediction -- Didn't think I'd get much chance to use this, and I didn't. Oh well. It's an interesting card...
Comments about other decks:
Gomi's decks always scare me. Always. I know he's doing something crazy, but I'm usually concerned I'm not going to figure out what it is until it's too late. Ankur was pretty crazy, and I'm glad I started drawing votes when Gomi finally started picking up Deflections.
Chris' deck is *going* to work one of these days. I think it's just the seating...
Dave's deck was rather disturbing. Especially the Cryptic & gain a pool with Juliette...I was worried I wasn't going to get through bleeds & votes once I saw all the Auspex he had out on the table. I'd be interested to know if I just got lucky, or Auspex wasn't a major focus for the deck...
Hmm...Blinky...I'm still begrudging that victory point...it was mine, I tell you! Mine!!! Umm...okay...I'm alright now. I was a little surprised that the Form of Corruption didn't get burned to take control of Tatiana when she was down to 1 blood. All the subversion that was going on was quite neat to watch.
John's deck was wild and crazy, but I suspect too much pool was spent on locations. And contestation. Felt a little bad that he lost so much to contesting...but not *too* bad. Helped me out a good deal. Not having Ambrosius on my back (you did have a chainsaw somewhere, right?) helped a *whole* lot.
The few comments I have are as follows.
Juliette, I tried very hard to abuse the special ability and must admit that It is abusable, but not highly. I made the mistake of taking an action against my Grand prey, just a turn to early, which then made it nearly impossible for me to take him out.
Still I think the deck has merit and will probably try it again when I have more time.
>Dave's deck was rather disturbing. Especially the Cryptic & gain a pool
>with Juliette...I was worried I wasn't going to get through bleeds &
>votes once I saw all the Auspex he had out on the table. I'd be
>interested to know if I just got lucky, or Auspex wasn't a major focus
>for the deck...
You just got lucky! I had lots of Rats warning, Cats guidence Wakes and Forced wakes. You think I'd get some when the chips were down. Pah! Things went from OK to worse, really fast. Still, if I had been a little more careful.
ps AUS THA and ani was the theme.
PT cards used:
12xRaise the Ancients
6xHidden Presence
4xAnkur, Dreamweaver
2xFagan
Raise the ancients was pretty crucial as a speedtoy -- I can't think of any speedtoy I'd rather have in my opening hand (of the available IWay, DotSphx, and TorIII). So I packed 12, knowing I'd jam on them later in the game but figuring I absolutely had to get the drop on the table since I was (a) using big vamps and (b) needed some setup actions.
The draw of the deck was pretty sweet -- I had good luck getting what I needed. Got too low on pool and didn't provide adequate vote defence, which is what did me in.
I've seen Hidden Presence screw over combat decks before and tossed it in -- I think it needs to be toned down so there's *some* way to cope with it.
Ankur -- Excellent special. Made this attempt at a tap/bleed deck almost viable.
Fagan -- never hit the table (blinky brought him out first, and I was disinclined to contest after blowing 18 pool on Ian and Ankur).