Adopt a newbie

Hi,
Another fellow beginner here. I've been playing a few games on Lackey with the Toreador CE preconstructed deck which I find fun to play(casually). My question is, now that I'm a little more familiar with the cards in the deck, how can I improve it to make it better? To have all these cards to choose from feel a a bit overwhelming, to say the least. Should I add more political cards? I usually have a hard time against stealth bleed, so more intercept, maybe? Outmaneuvering your opponent in combat and use those guns are fun, so I'll keep those

Thanks for your answers

And here is the deck list:

1 Kindred Segregation
1 Command of the Harpies
3 Consanguineous Boon
2 Kine Resources Contested
2 Ancilla Empowerment
1 Banishment
1 Lextalionis
4 Conservative Agitation
4 Blood Doll
1 Elysium: The Palace of Versailles
1 Society Hunting Ground
1 Vast Wealth
1 Louvre, Paris, The
3 .44 Magnum
1 Saturday-Night Special
1 IR Goggles
1 Leather Jacket
3 Social Charm
1 Life Boon
1 Distraction
1 Charming Lobby
2 Enchant Kindred
1 Enhanced Senses
1 Second Tradition: Domain
2 Precognition
4 Spirit's Touch
3 Wake with Evening's Freshness
1 Catatonic Fear
1 Sideslip
1 Dragon's Breath Rounds
1 Riposte
1 Side Strike
1 Concealed Weapon
4 Pursuit
3 Flash
1 Disarming Presence
1 Telepathic Vote Counting
1 Awe
2 Bribes
3 Aire of Elation
2 Voter Captivation
2 Scorn of Adonis
4 Bewitching Oration
1 Marijava Ghoul

Crypt:
1 Sir Henry Johnson
1 Klaus van der Veken
1 Alexandra
1 Yvette, The Hopeless
1 Sigrid Bekker
1 Victoria Ash
1 Isabel de Leon
1 Radeyah
1 Makarios, The Seducer
1 Francois Villon
1 Barth
1 Marcellus

Strictly, speaking, you would find better luck posting your deck in the "Deck Clinic" part of the forum, answering the guidline question posted there in a "sticky" topic. Also, you might find more people willing to help you if you posted your decklist in a more readable fashion, e.g. this is Toreador CE precon as exported in a bbcode from secretlibrary.info:

Deck Name: Camarilla Edition: Toreador
Author:
Description:
Camarilla Edition Toreador preconstructed deck

Crypt (Capacity min=3 max=11 avg=6.58; 12 cards)
===================================================
1x Alexandra 11 dom ANI AUS CEL PRE Toreador:2
1x Barth 5 aus cel PRE Toreador:3
1x François Villon 10 chi obf pot AUS CEL PRE Toreador:2
1x Isabel de Leon 3 AUS Toreador:2
1x Klaus van der Veken 9 aus obf tha CEL PRE Toreador:2
1x Makarios, The Seducer 8 dom AUS PRE SER Toreador:2
1x Marcellus 8 pro AUS CEL Toreador:2
1x Radeyah 6 pot pre CEL Toreador:2
1x Sigrid Bekker 6 cel pot pre AUS Toreador:2
1x Sir Henry Johnson 4 aus pot pre Toreador:3
1x Victoria Ash 6 aus cel dom PRE Toreador:2
1x Yvette, The Hopeless 3 aus cel Toreador:3

Library (77 cards)
=====================
Equipment (6 cards)
3x .44 Magnum
1x IR Goggles
1x Leather Jacket
1x Saturday-Night Special

Action Modifier (16 cards)
3x Aire of Elation
1x Awe
4x Bewitching Oration
2x Bribes
1x Disarming Presence
2x Scorn of Adonis
1x Telepathic Vote Counting
2x Voter Captivation

Political Action (15 cards)
2x Ancilla Empowerment
1x Banishment
1x Command of the Harpies
3x Consanguineous Boon
4x Conservative Agitation
1x Kindred Segregation
2x Kine Resources Contested
1x Lextalionis

Master (7 cards)
2x Blood Doll
1x Elysium: The Palace of Versailles
1x Life Boon
1x Louvre, Paris, The
1x Society Hunting Ground
1x Vast Wealth

Combat (14 cards)
1x Catatonic Fear
1x Concealed Weapon
1x Dragon's Breath Rounds
3x Flash
4x Pursuit
1x Riposte
1x Side Strike
1x Sideslip
1x Trap

Action (7 cards)
1x Charming Lobby
1x Distraction
2x Enchant Kindred
3x Social Charm

Reaction (11 cards)
1x Enhanced Senses
2x Precognition
1x Second Tradition: Domain
4x Spirit's Touch
3x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Retainer (1 cards)
1x Marijava Ghoul

Created with Secret Library v0.9.4b. (Dec 14, 2013 18:25:34)

Shapeshifter878 wrote:

Hi,
Another fellow beginner here. I've been playing a few games on Lackey with the Toreador CE preconstructed deck which I find fun to play(casually). My question is, now that I'm a little more familiar with the cards in the deck, how can I improve it to make it better? To have all these cards to choose from feel a a bit overwhelming, to say the least. Should I add more political cards? I usually have a hard time against stealth bleed, so more intercept, maybe? Outmaneuvering your opponent in combat and use those guns are fun, so I'll keep those

Step 1: Think about the people you play with, and where you're going to play the deck. What sort of things do they play? How competitive are they? Do you face 4 ruthless stealth-bleed decks on a table? Do people play a lot of combat? Do people like slow, table-controlling decks? Are you playing in tournaments?

Step 2: What do you enjoy playing? There is little point honing a super-duper deck if you'll have the dullest time of your life playing it - not because the deck is inherently dull or boring or bad, but because you don't like that particular type of deck. For example, some people love playing intercept decks ("wall" decks) and they can be very powerful in the right hands. Other people find them dull and too passive. Do you want to survive combat through defence? Or fight back with guns? You can include a bit of both, but most decks tend to go more one way or the other.

The deck as it stands is very toolboxy (as quite a few pre-cons are). It has a bit of several strategies, rather than being good at any one thing. That's a viable play option in itself, but perhaps you prefer more politics, or more bleed, or more something else.

Step 3: The deck's pool gain is relatively limited.



The deck also includes a number of cards that are pretty terrible, or at least not very useful outside fairly specialised circumstances.

1x Command of the Harpies Unless you see a lot of Prince decks such that one of them will be your prey, this is bad. Remember: if you happen to see a Prince deck on your table and you draw this, you don't just want to call it. It might be early in the game and your grand-predator is playing a Euro-Brujah prince deck, and can be your ally. Why screw him? So this is usually very poor.

1x Lextalionis For similar reasons. It's too conditional, too time dependent, and you might not want to hurt that Methuselah anyway. Usually a dead card.

1x Life Boon Not unusuable, but typically requires a skilled player these days. (A decade ago, it work differently so was quite popular.) I wouldn't recommend it to new players.

1x Disarming Presence Very rarely useful. There is one copy in the Tournament Winning Deck Archive, though. It's not that useful, and can be quite scattergun in its effect. Your idiot grand-predator who tries to vote you down and is then tapped out and unable to defend? Probably not so helpful. Yes, it might be awesome if it was your prey voting you down and he had a lot of untapped minions for some reason, but not so likely.

1x Charming Lobby Not unplayable, but at inferior it's fairly poor. Just use a Cryptic Rider instead. At superior, it's not awful, but you lack the surprise factor.

1x Riposte It's not usable on the first round of any combat, so is really very poor. If you find yourself wanting to end combat on the second round, you probably wanted to do it on the first anyway - and a good opponent has probably already hit you. Catatonic Fear, Staredown and Majesty are all better, in their own way.

1x Kindred Segregation If you see a lot of War Ghoul or Renegade Garou decks, this is playable (though again, be wary of hurting the wrong player). This isn't typically great. And it doesn't affect Imbued - they don't have a recruitment cost, since they're influenced into play.


Cards that can be useful, but you might consider swapping out anyway:

1x IR Goggles Not the worst piece of equipment in the world, but if you're going for guns, might as well include another if you can afford it.

1x Saturday-Night Special For guns, .44 Magnum is the best default option. Saturday Night Special usally doesn't cut it.

2x Scorn of Adonis Probably not as bad as Disarming Presence, but not that useful.

2x Ancilla Empowerment Not a useless card, but people tend to focus on the better, more controlled damage votes - Kine Resources Contested being the default, Conservative Agitation being decent but probably less popular, and Parity Shift being excellent for Camarilla Prince/Justicar decks. May also hurt you more.

1x Louvre, Paris, The If you're planning to control the Prince of Paris, this isn't useless. Without the Prince of Paris, it's pretty bad - so many different clans in the game, the chance of a Toreador being someone useful on the table for you to tap is low. Unfortunately for the Toreador, Francois Villon is a bit expensive for what he is. Alexandra, Anneke and Anson 1x Alexandra , Anneke , and Anson tend to be the goto titles in Group 1/2. Fleurdumal ,
Ira Rivers and Madame Guil are pretty decent in Group 3. (Fleur and Ira probably more than Madame Guil.)

1x Concealed Weapon With only four guns in the deck, you're unlikely to hold one at the right time. If you wait, this is clogging up your hand. Usually only found in decks that pack quite a few of them (6-8) and quite a few weapons (usually guns).

1x Dragon's Breath Rounds DBR is hellishly good fun, but with relatively little pool gain in the deck and only four guns, it's tough to use.

1x Trap Decent card in the right deck, but that's usually something like weenie Fortitude (which takes many rounds of combat to kill a vampire, while surviving itself with an unimportant weenie vampire playing damage prevention/Undead Persistence). More likely to backfire on you, if you're not careful.

1x Marijava Ghoul Not terrible in the right deck, but it costs a lot.



Genuinely excellent cards in the deck:

3x .44 Magnum A stalwart of wall/gun decks, that block a lot. Taking an action to equip equipment is fairly expensive, but in a wall deck with wake cards (On the Qui Vive, Wake with Evening's Freshness, Forced Awakening etc.), it's less difficult because you're blocking more anyway.

1x Awe
4x Bewitching Oration Together, the two best vote-passing cards in the game, pretty much. Awe is expensive, but you have...

2x Voter Captivation ... which is one of the best blood and pool gain cards in the game. Pass a vote, refill your vampire, and gain two pool. Awesome. (Watch out for Delaying Tactics!)

1x Banishment Very good, though it depends on the relative size of vampires, obviously.

2x Kine Resources Contested Probably the most popular damage vote in the game. Conservative Agitation isn't bad either, but KRC is very reliable - you don't have to worry about it changing value in the mid and late game, as players get ousted.

2x Blood Doll It's been eclipsed more recently by Villein, but Blood Doll is still good. Watch out if you see someone playing a lot of Vessels, though.

3x Wake with Evening's Freshness A very good card. On the Qui Vive might be better for light use. If you go for more of a blocking angle, Forced Awakening might be better. If you have one vampire who might want to play a lot of reactions (e.g. bleed bounce), possibly more than once per turn, WwEF is still excellent.

1x Second Tradition: Domain Perhaps more popular the Euro-Brujah (the group 2 Brujah with Dominate and/or titles) than the Toreador, but this is an extremely strong card.

3x Aire of Elation Most of the time, decks go for Dominate for Conditioning or Threats. Aire of Elation is expensive compared to them - unless you're Toreador.


Cards you don't have here that you might want to think about:

1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion Two excellent master cards. One or two copies of each are found in a lot of decks. If you don't include them, have a good reason!

1x Villein An excellent pool gain card now. Found a lot in decks now, because you get a lot of pool back at once, while being able to play another master card (because it's a Trifle).

1x Parity Shift You need to be careful with this. It's easy as a newbie to stick 10 of them in a deck and find yourself unable to play them at the right time, because you don't have the right pool total. It's important to have ways to manipulate your own pool total, whether that's a few expensive cards (guns, Last Stand) or just transferring cards out. But a voting deck that's planning to bring out several Princes should probably include a few of these together with a few Kine Resources Contested.

1x Eagle's Sight If you go more for a blocking/wall deck, this is excellent as a way of involving yourself with other players on the table. That deck cross-table from you that's about to call a vote? Threaten to block it and negotiate better terms! This can backfire, and players can double-cross you, but it's a very solid card for wall decks. Be careful that - because of the timing and the requirement to block with Second Tradition - a tapped Prince or Justicar can't use this together with Second Tradition to block cross-table. (You have to attempt to block with Second Tradition, and if you can't block. you can't play it.) If you're untapped already, you can play the Eagle's Sight first.

1x Forced Awakening
1x On the Qui Vive Excellent alternatives to Wake with Evening's Freshness.

1x Telepathic Misdirection Bleed bounce is excellent. Most decks play Deflection for it, but if you have a lot of superior Auspex instead, this is probably the way to go.

1x Majesty
1x Staredown If you go more for combat defence, these can both be good alternatives.

Elaborating,

More simplified, but remember everything jamesatzephyr said as its 100% ish true(second tradition is always good and seen with torries more than trite euro bru lately):

The cam edition decks arent good. They have LOADS of good parts, but arent as playable out of the box as kot and httb starters. Id know, i started with the cam ed malk starter, and half the crypt i still use alot.

Going with an idea then building the deck is prudent. You can fight with guns, and block, but youll need princes, second trads, pursuits, blurs, psyches, taste of vitae, and more 44s with concealed weapons.
AAA builds are cool, and anson and anneke are easily findable, if you want that.

Voting and bleeding are also doable, good cards for both are perfect paragon, resist earths grasp, and aching beuty

To bleed, add presence bleed actions with aire of elation, to vote, add krc, parity shift, con boon, voter caps, bewotching oration, etc.

Either build should also pack majesty to answer combat.

Hopefully, you have an idea of the direction you want.

Thanks for the advice, especially the information about the cards and their usefulness.

OK common mistakes for new players are often to do with blocking, i.e. what do I need to block? New players often think they have to block every undirected action that their prey takes, if they are able to do so. This isn’t the case. If your prey is getting a Sports Bike or a Raven Spy (these give them permanent intercept), and your deck will struggle to get actions past that intercept, then you should block it! But say your prey is getting an expensive ally or bleed equipment, you usually should allow it. Often your prey is getting cards that they want to use against THEIR prey. You often should let these actions through, especially if they cost your prey a lot of pool. Think of it as a free bleed! However, that’s not always the case. If that card could give them enough power to easily get through their prey and get a VP and 6 pool, you might want to block to slow them down. But not always; sometimes its good to give your prey some power and hurt their prey, if you think you can do a big lunge and take them out at the right time (ideally you can get both your prey and your new prey in one turn!). This is a tough decision and takes a lot of experience to make correctly, but I’m just trying to point out the kinds of decisions you need to start thinking about, rather than just “well if I’m able to block something, I should always block it!”. Often your prey will do plenty of damage to themselves by bringing out expensive vampires and expensive toys. You should usually encourage this, it makes your job easier!

Another common blocking mistake is blocking a rescue versus blocking a hunt. Say your prey has two vampires A and B, and B is in torpor with no blood. Vampire A tries to rescue vampire B. Should you block it? A lot of new players will, but it’s often better to let the rescue through, and then block when B goes to hunt! If you block the rescue, your prey spends an action and no blood, but if you allow A to rescue and then B must hunt, it’s nice to block B hunting, because then your prey has spent an action and two blood, and vampire B is now in combat with zero blood, which is a very dangerous and unhappy place for them to be - you only need to punch them for 1 to put them back in the bin, and they can’t play any combat defense cards that cost a blood, like Majesty or Skin of Steel (both popular choices). However, this isn’t always the case (sorry there are no hard and fast rules, that’s why this game is so great!). For example, if vampire A is a 2 cap with basic dominate, and vampire B is a 10 cap with +1 strength and 5 disciplines at super, it might be better to block A doing a rescue! (he could stealth through the hunt, or hurt you badly in combat, etc.)