Well, I don't think that there is a whole lot to be said about my deck in this game. However, I have a bunch of other comments:
The Ravnos still appear to be quite weak. John's deck was innovative, but had little it could do versus combat ends, and lacked real potential for doing damage to its prey. This is something worth thinking about; do we want to fix the "problems" with the Ravnos, or do we want to let them stand as challenges to the deck designing skills of the populace? =)
On Aphotic Disruption:
I don't think this is nearly as powerful a card as people are making out. Its use in this game suffered from at least four problems:
More specifically, in this game Chris had the advantage of a predator and prey who were ill-suited to dealing with his deck. Dave's deck seemed very unfocused and contained few directed actions; a strong temptation deck, for example, would have caused me serious problems and given Chris no opportunities to block. James' passive play allowed Chris to recover from hand jam on a few occasions. Some bumbling on my part helped too (such as when I forgot that Political Stranglehold counted *all* vamps, not just ready vamps). I think that the major problem that people had dealing with Chris' deck was that it was a very different deck than most of us are used to playing against; it required a readjustment of play strategy and tactics to deal with it successfully.
On Serpent's Strike:
Not that effective, IMNSHO, but I agree somewhat out of flavor for the clan in the Jyhad game (if not VtM).
On Audio Generator:
A good standard card
On Watchful Eyes:
Surprising effective; I'm glad we got a chance to playtest it because I had considered it wallpaper up until this game.
On the new vamps:
All seemed useful and well balanced, with the possible exception of Rue.
Okay, well, one important point I'd like to bring up: the Ravnos still have many problems, but they would have been easily able to take out the AD deck. I had Fortitude to prevent the Weather Control, I could simply bide my time with his responses, and then strike for large amounts of damage, by committing him to an attack then turning the tables on him with Eidolon of Frailty or Shadow Boxing. If he prevented, I could try again later.
Unfortunately, none of my rush came out, and the Ravnos are still very slow to develop. The Ravnos are sort of stuck to combat right now, and the Brujah and Gangrel are better suited to fast combat than the Ravnos. This is what really needs to be addressed.
Well, obviously I've got to stick my oar in here as well and have my say.
Basically, the cards that came up to be used were Serpent's Strike, which was the major card in my deck, Viper (just the normal retainer version) and Audio Generator.
The description I've tended to use for Serpent's Strike is "broken" which is wrong. Inappropriate would be more like it. Basically, Serpentis isn't supposed to be a good combat discipline really but I thought that this card was too good. The distinction between it and a 1 point claw is minimal since if you don't come up against Immortal Grapple it doesn't really matter. At superior, I find it superior to a claw card simply because you don't end up paying for it, really. Basically, I just feel it's too good for Serpentis. Personally, I feel more comfortable with either a Corruption based card or the 2 damage/with first strike idea that various people worked on.
Viper - I didn't get a chance to use this really. I couldn't play it at that stage in the game but it worked exactly the same as Wolf Companion so I don't think it would have been a problem. And personally, I prefer it that way to Hatch the Viper but we have that now. Oh well.
Audio Generator - Well, I couldn't really afford to contest this card because Chris brought it out earlier. It looks like it'll be a neat card but one which could go in any deck - like Sudden Reversals, Blood Dolls and Wakes.
The other real playtest card in my deck was Concert Hunting Ground which looks like it'll be in a similar situation. However, even with a regular hunting ground you have to be certain of two turns and here you have to be certain of three so that should temper it a bit, I feel.
My vamps that came out were Ivan and Esad:
Ivan - (4) Ventrue FOR ser +1 intercept versus caitiff
Esad - (6) Setite PRE SER for obf Non-Cam
Both of these seemed perfectly balanced although I do wonder whether Ivan will be used in any decks other than my very bizarre Serpentis- Fortitude combination. At least Esad has the good fortune of having other disciplines as well.
For me, the major problem in the game was Aphotic Disruption. The thing is, with Chris as my prey I *HAD* to try and take him out. I can't just sit there because if I don't take him out I can't take anyone out. I had to resort to whining at the other players, trying to convince them to help me cross-table when it wasn't really THAT advantageous for them to do so. The thing is unless I'd been playing a pretty heavy stealth bleed deck, I don't think I could have got passed him another way really. Any other deck would have been screwed by what happened, I think. Rob got a bit lucky with a little bit of hand jam, I think, but I just don't like the card.
It wasn't like my deck couldn't cope with combat. Combat was it's thing. It had damage prevention in there by the bucket load. Dave's deck (it's prey) got screwed by performing innocuous actions such as hunting. At least if the damage wasn't being done until strikes, he could have done something like an S:CE. The fact that all of this happens both pre-range and pre-Elysium (I think) just shows that the card is very wrong, IMHO. If it had been a Dawn Operation, I could very easily have chosen simply to not block his actions but with the Aphotic, it is very difficult for me to not perform any actions. To cycle cards, I was having to attack my predator far more than I would have liked. It jsut ended up really stalling the game.
Personally, I think it is just downright wrong. But then, I am obviously biased because I fell prey to it. And don't forget, I'm crap as a player - at least, incredibly different to any other players I've seen on JOL.
While my combo worked marvelously (Raven Spies/Cat's Guidance/Aphotic Disruption/Skin of Night/Weather Control), I realized that there wasn't much for me to do. The Dawn Ops didn't seem to come at the same time as the Graverobbings, and so I never had enough minions to swarm my prey. At the end, things got a little better as I ate one of Rob's IC members, and almost another. I think it would have worked better as originally designed (Tremere Auspex/Aphotic Disruption/Skin of Night/Supernatural Tenacity/Weather Control), or using Aphotic Disruption/Drawing Out the Beast/Earth Meld (or Form of Mist).
While I started off in good shape I had the misfourtune to be Chris AD/WC prey. Soon most of my vampires were resting in torpor, stolen or just plain dead. Most of the game was spend dragging my heels and not getting ousted. Got to plan a couple of Sense the Sin cards and a Nile Croc, but far too late to have any effects in the game.