Theory in VTES - Risk in VTES

I think what you're trying to say with risk can be easier said with expected value. Analyze choices and individual cards by identifying their costs, probabilities and potential gains. Seek interactions with positive expected value, avoid interactions with negative.

Juggernaut wrote:

I want to extend the idea of risk beyond just 'taking this action or that action now' to talk about how the cards influence the kinds of risks there are in a game.

Or: how does a given card influence risk/reward calculations in a given situation? Mirror Walk is a good example of this concept in practice. It usually requires a card to answer and it negates risk to your acting minion. At worst, it should be an even trade in hand quality. At best, you get your action through. Of course, in real games there can be other real costs and rewards associated with such a play but you get the point.

I found MtG games to be highly metagame dependent and that bringing the metaphorical knife to a gun fight meant a very boring FNM.

This is completely false. Yes, decks have good and bad matchups, that's certainly true. Brining your balls-to-the-walls aggro deck into a FNM where everyone else plays midrangy decks is going to be an unfun experience, sure. But as a blanket statement, it's just nonsense.

Well, that, or you have never learned to sideboard properly.

The "risk", as you define it, in MTG is mostly the randomness of your opening hands, which, at one card a turn, is of more influence to the outcome of the game than what they are in VTES.

However, VTES Tournaments do overtly attempt to manipulate Metagame Risk between rounds, which leaves the majority of risk in a VTES tournament to be found in Lunging Risk and Card/Hand Risk.

Huh? How does one manipulate the metagame? In VTES, decks *also* have good and bad matchups. Bringing the right deck for the metagame is a HUGE factor for how well you are going to do. You sit where you sit and if your neighbour is something your deck can't handle, you're just going to roll over and die. Which is a problem at 2 hours a round instead of 20 minutes.

In my eyes, one of the largest shortcomings of VTES is the lack of a sideboard. Ironically the game, with its hunderds of narrow-application and thus unplayabe cards, lends itself excellent for sideboarding.

One of those is chance, one is decision making. I think that is one of the reasons why I still love playing the game: because more often than not, it is my own good or bad decisions which get me the results in the games...

As opposed to what?

There are quite a lot simplistic analyses of VTES, but not much like this, so it is good to have variety for those who understand the advantages of systematic approach over oversimplification!

Actually the point is to create another way to look at VTES. People traditionally have couched VTES tactics and card design from a viewpoint of:

- offence
- defence
- pool

I get that this is your goal, but how is different apart from redefining existing term ? Maybe it's "only" to recall people that blood management and card flow are useful concept ?

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

So yes, I don't care if you find the 'traditional answers' easier. They are familiar, I expect them to be easier and they are also distilled because we have all heard them.

My point is not that they are easier, but that they are clearer and as much informative, except for the card flow part which is omitted from the "classic" analysis in your post. In a general view, seeing discussion about card flow, oust range, blood management, and co, is commonplace and I don't see what add the keyword "risk"

Let's take the Giant Blood, which in my opinion is the worst one and the one where I wonder the most what is supposed to be read :

Because you get to fill a vampire completely for the cost of a card + 1 MPA.

You have removed all of the accumulated minion risk from the minion, as well as done so for a low investment (1 MPA + 1 card) AND no doubt gained significant benefit from the minion as it accumulated its minion risk (i.e. it spent the blood preserving you or ousting your prey). Plus you do not need to take risks in your Minion Phase.

I don't see how the second way add any useful information. It just change the term the base fact by talking about "minion risk" instead of "filling your vampire). And it cloud the fact that the most dangerous part of being empty is not "taking risk of being intercepted", but "losing one action", which you almost cannot avoid anyhow.

giant blood seem particulary bad, because it fail to account two simple fact :
* often, being low on blood is not a vulnerability at all. "low on blood" being deck and game dependant, sometime 1 blood will be enough until the end of the world (look at Goratrix wall for example). In this part, Giant blood make the same work as a Life in the City.
* hunting is an action, so you can't do anything else on the turn. Which is by far the best thing about refilling a vampire, and which is completely ignored - more or less by design, since "having additional action" isn't easily labeled as a risk or an absence of risk.

In other words, the problem ain't that your idea is difficult (as in very abstract or needing efforts). It's that it seem useless to me ; even focusing only on the defensive part of the game, I fail to see a benefit to go "I have a hand risk" instead of "my hand is jammed". And striking a balance between cycling his hand, conserving blood on his minion, and minion action (or reaction) ain't new.

In any case, I believe your "new" analysis to be not streamlined enough and quite unclear, so I believe it's the main part that need improvement. Don't hesitate to actually use existing term, your idea is not better or worse because it talk about card flow instead of "hand risk", but it will be easier to understand and make connection with other interpretation.

+1 to the sideboarding idea

Suoli wrote:

I think what you're trying to say with risk can be easier said with expected value. Analyze choices and individual cards by identifying their costs, probabilities and potential gains. Seek interactions with positive expected value, avoid interactions with negative.

Expected value with respect to pool/blood. Fundamentals are everything.