Combat - why is it currently considered weak ?

Ohlmann wrote:

...Combat is extremely weak...to the point an increasingly big number of deck don't pack any defence against it...

echiang wrote:

And there are some decks that don't bother with bleed defense. They try to outbloat any bleed their predator throws their way, or they intend to preemptively torporize their predator's minions first.

Lots of decks don't bother with vote defense...

Aside from the "pre-emptive torporization" which is rare, both these comments are kind of unfortunate to see. They both contain some truth, but the main thing is that they both point to the increasing trend of lack of interaction between minions.

Girls decks typify this best of all. They just bloat like mad while honing their library and then cruise in when the table is weak to take victory points. Combat decks are the other extreme. They force interaction between minions but at great cost and risk.

I don't think combat ever will or ever should be become the dominant strategy in VTES, but I think that minions need more interesting ways to get involved with each other. That's what makes the game fun and interesting.

The bloat thing is really different, as outbloating a bleed predator isn't useless if you're not being bled. It doubles fine as vote defense and if you have a passive predator you just get a bunch of extra vampires out. I'd argue that bloating is actually just that - bleed defense. Just not the classic Deflection - AI type of bleed defense.

The reason people play combat defense nowadays is that it makes sense to actually have combat defense against the combat people play. The most common combat archtpyes are - at the moment - sticks, animalism and allies (mostly Nephandi and Crater Cats).

A few years ago the combat you ran into was of the type that the only realistic defense against was prevent. That meant, if you didn't run fortitude, it really made no sense packing majesties or dodges. You would still end up just getting destroyed by grapples and/or phsyches while your S:CE would stick in your hand uselessly. So whether you had combat defense or not, you'd die anyway.

And compare that decks to the ones back 2009 or so. They really featured NO combat cards at all. So that is new.

This is mostly thanks to the rise of animalism. I personally don't think Deep Song is the sole responsible card for this development, although it's certainly a good card. Thaumaturgy suffers from same weakness as animalism (as in that it gets foiled pretty easily) and that has been doing pretty well last year for precisely the same reason: People didn't play majesties.

Non-prevent combat defense making its way back into decks is the response to animalism dominating 2011, not due to combat being a lot stronger suddenly.

bakija wrote:

You are mostly relying on whacking your predator's vampires for defense.

I get out three guys (any more than that and I'm likely to be ousted due to the fact that my crypt is all 4+ capacity and my "defense" is slooooow). How many turns do I have to spend doing nothing but backwards 'Shoes until my predator's vampires are beat up enough that they're in torpor or empty? Will my prey already have effectively won by then? Once my predator sees what I'm doing, why is he going to do anything other than try to oust me as quickly as possible to avoid ending up with an empty ready region?

These are the same problems that a traditional no-defense rush deck faces, which is why I don't play those, either.

bakija wrote:

Well, if you have a lot of sideline POT and are already using obfuscate (say, Nosferatu Breed Boon or something), Horseshoes is a fantastic way to deal with, like, Carleton Van Wyk or the occasional "I Villeined Arika down to 1!" you run into. It is a great card for that sort of thing. But you need to already have the stealth going for you.

Yeah, that's basically what Jay's deck was. The OBF-having Nossie princes and Nikolaus Stinkfinger (who's going to be in there even if your only discipline-requiring cards are Obfuscate cards, because of his special) generally have POT as well. Throw in a couple of 'Shoes for a rainy day and maybe a Preternatural Strength or two and the deck certainly has a lot more zazz than the traditional breed/boring. I think Jay's deck even had some trophies in it...but that's probably a Kristoffian angle that us mere mortals couldn't make work.

Kushiel wrote:

I get out three guys (any more than that and I'm likely to be ousted due to the fact that my crypt is all 4+ capacity and my "defense" is slooooow). How many turns do I have to spend doing nothing but backwards 'Shoes until my predator's vampires are beat up enough that they're in torpor or empty? Will my prey already have effectively won by then? Once my predator sees what I'm doing, why is he going to do anything other than try to oust me as quickly as possible to avoid ending up with an empty ready region?

Well, sure. That is often how these sorts of things go. If you have an incredibly aggressive predator, you'll probably die or make your prey win. But you don't always have an incredibly aggressive predator. The deck works surprisingly ok.

These are the same problems that a traditional no-defense rush deck faces, which is why I don't play those, either.

Certainly. Again, it isn't like a brilliantly effective deck or anything. But it can do ok. And win occasionally.

You can build a fairly nice defense module to group 2-3 obf/pot deck by adding some copies of Teresita and some watchtower four ride forth, truth in inks, raven spies/abbots/information network, cats guidance, and sense the savage ways, and maybe delaying tactics if you see lot of votes. Teresita has OBF POT anyway and with watchtower you can always have her untapped to play the truth in inks and delaying tactics so you don't need much of the cats and senses.

Necro-posting! "Cause I came in late to the party!

I think Combat has several big problems:

- It's unreliable. There's a lot of combat cards out there to throw your game off.

- It's swingy. Either you or your opponent has the trump, and that's it. Not so much give and take.

- Its results are extreme, AND not interactive. You dunk an opposing minion, which just shuts down someone else's game. This in turn shuts down them messing with your g-prey/g-predator's game (or whatever).

- It's card intensive with low returns. You either wipe out your peer's games and waltz oh-so-slowly to victory, or your victims are swept up opportunistically by the other players at the table.

The solution? STOP MAKING COMBAT CARDS DO MORE COMBAT-ISOLATED THINGS! We don't need another "hit you for more!" and "nuh-uh, no you don't!" cards going back and forth. We need more "me hitting you for more is bad for your long-term plans!"

That's why I liked the promise of Street Cred. But there's still not enough diversity. There needs to be a shift from combat's sole role as minion denial -- which leads to less interaction because it's a trump laden on/off switch -- into a spectrum where both benefits and penalties can be accrued from enduring it.

I'll throw in some card ideas to explain my ideas...