John Baker

The name of my deck was, "You Can't Get There From Here." I tried to use Powerbases, the Rack, and the GToS, Conceal them all, then just sit back and let them work for me without the fear that any investment on them would be destroyed.

Unfortunately, I never drew any powerbases except for New York, which is probably the weakest of the bunch, as it is little more than an infinite Protracted Investment. I was afraid it wouldn't work at first when I saw Bane, Gilbert, and the Tremere surround me (lots of Auspex) but when two of the three were ousted quickly, and I made a deal with the last to ignore my locations, I breathed much more easily.

I felt that although Gomi's truce with Autarch ruined the entire game dynamic, it was still a wise move for him--he won, with 3 VP, compared to Autarch's 2 and Justin's 1. Since the truce left Gomi to target me exclusively, I lacked the necessary resources to stbilize my position or get enough card flow. Still, interestingly enough, I was able to function without minions, thanks to the Temptation on Gilbert.

I didn't feel there were any real problems with any cards, except possibly Assassination. Although I feel that a good combat strategy should make use of non-strike cards, Assassination is still a Thoughts Betrayed. After all, the Assamites can quite easily handle maneuvers and damage prevention without trouble, they just can't handle Dodge or S:CE. Assassination gives the Assamites Carte Blanche to dominate in combat. Still, since Dodge/S:CE are huge holes in a combat defense, perhaps it is needed. No longer will

Gomi no Sensei

In the mid to late game, Autarch felt his position was poor, so he offered to oust himself in my benefit in exchange for my help ousting Justin. While I agreed, I didn't like the effect that deal had on the predator-prey dynamic, and don't think I'll take such deals in the future.

I was playing a goofy non-playtest vote deck called "Darken my Doorstep No More." Six Leandro, six Gilbert Duane, a load of Banishment/Might of the Camarilla combo (burning vamps without combat), with Masquerade Enforcement for spice. It went reasonably well, although I must say I got plain lucky vs. Rob's intercept/combat deck since the only stealth I had was Forgotten Labyrinth (admittedly, that's +4 stealth on a political action, but that's within doable reach for an Auspex deck).

Rob's Bane decks scare me. Bane is ultraviolentastic.

Autarch and Justin splatterfested against each other, but Autarch eventually carried the day, although I'm not sure how much of it was due to my meddling (I don't remember focusing on Justin *that* much).

Assamites seem to be pretty viable (and Assassination is pretty icky, to the point where I'm almost inclined to ask that it be toned down, but I want to play against it some more first).

Xian seems to have gotten a crappy draw, but the pot/tha angle remains interesting.

Rob Granat

I'm not going to comment on my own deck, since I'm using the same deck in pt18.

The name of my deck was, "You Can't Get There From Here." I tried to use Powerbases, the Rack, and the GToS, Conceal them all, then just sit back and let them work for me without the fear that any investment on them would be destroyed.

I agree with Justin on this one: the Grand Temple just sucks, even with Concealment.

I didn't feel there were any real problems with any cards, except possibly Assassination. Although I feel that a good combat strategy should make use of non-strike cards, Assassination is still a Thoughts Betrayed. After all, the Assamites can quite easily handle maneuvers and damage prevention without trouble, they just can't handle Dodge or S:CE. Assassination gives the Assamites Carte Blanche to dominate in combat. Still, since Dodge/S:CE are huge holes in a combat defense, perhaps it is needed. No longer will the Assamites be ignored.

The thing that bugged me about Assassination is that it was still usable when the Assamite was *not* the acting minion. I think perhaps it should be changed so that it can only be used by the acting minion.

Andrew Grichting

'as a mite nasty, doncha think?

Finally, I tweaked the playtest assamite deck I've been working on since pt13(?) into an operational format - It's not death-onna-stick but it was quite effective.

The deck was focussed around a contracted rush with Increased Agility for maneuvers, Assassination for S:CE defence, Black blood for combat punch, and Legacy/Tariq for pool gain. It suffered from a number of weaknesses, namely it required relatively big vamps, and insane levels of blood expenditure. A successful combat would cost me upwards of 3 blood (assassination, IncAgil, strike) and required a long enough card sequence without trying to add ToV to the mix. I did rely on the original AH strikes above the pt strikes, but I think that problem is partially fixed with some of the new pt strikes, but I think it will be very hard to supersede (or even match) blood sweat and taste of death. All in all, I think the Assamite have become a viable combat force (but don't mention DotB)

Assassination is powerful, but assamites would be unworkable without it as they would be reduced to psyche for S:CE prevention - it has a blood cost and a limitation on who can play it, and overall I don't think it should be changed at all (even to become an action modifier) unless the S:CE problem is addressed at the same time.

Regarding the deal with Gomi, there came a time when I realized that Gomi could oust me with a single turns effort, and I would be able to do nothing - I wanted to leave Rob in as a blocker against Gomi, but being between two combat decks was too much for my minions to endure. I milked the deal for all it was worth, but at the time I felt I had no choice - I needed to concentrate on Justin to get the combat advantage and couldn't take time out to deal with Leandro&co. Then of course, Justin sauntered over and took out Gomi with a single combat. Go figure...

My deck average at 68% pt cards (would have been more, but I used AH strikes nearly exclusively).

Justin Fang

My deck was a mostly non-pt pot/ani deck, with a crypt centered around Arkady and Nigel. With the standard set, the smaller vampires available to pot/obf decks give it an advantage over an pot/ani deck; I wanted to see if playtest vamps (which made up half my crypt) would make up for this.

Arkady's power is tailor-made for a Decapitate deck; pity I only got to use the combo once. Also in my deck were Emilia, for her immunity to Obedience; alas, Might of the Camarilla took her away from me. Plus I had the usual weenies: Karl Gruber, Pepin, and Ms. Meddle.

The only playtest cards in my library were Abandoned Warehouse, Collateral Damage, and Horace Theringwaite.

Abandoned Warehouse may be too good; admittedly there was no intercept near me, but it really does seem to be "tap to gain a pool".

I tossed in one copy of Collateral Damage and Horace Theringwaite on the off chance they would come in useful; they didn't.

Autarch and Justin splatterfested against each other, but Autarch eventually carried the day, although I'm not sure how much of it was due to my meddling (I don't remember focusing on Justin *that* much).

While getting a vamp Banished hurt, I think what really did me in was that Autarch essentially had no predator. He was free to concentrate all his attention on me (and diablerize my vamps) while I had to divide my efforts between Autarch and Xian, and later Autarch and Gomi.

It also didn't help that my deck was persistently jamming throughout the game, so that I had trouble getting the DotB's I needed to counter maneuvers, or the Decapitates I needed to put down Autarch's vamps for good.

Xian

Well, though I had no auspex going, I was relatively pleased by the early success of the deck. I believe that I put a couple of minions in torpor, or near to it before Gomi got worried and started Banishing, etc. my minions.

I'm still working on the proper way to play a combat deck after a couple of years of next to no Jyhad-playing going on locally. I'm not sure, but I believe I chose a couple of inopportune times to rush Justin. Or else he just got me at bad times. Anyway, I was out of the game pretty quick, IIRC.

I didn't see too much of the other decks, but I also don't recall anything that seemed like a huge problem. I still like the Tremere and !Tremere selection in the set, and Mercurial Blood seems cool, but not overpowered.

Beyond that, this game was over for me so long ago, that I have no really insightful comments to make.