VTES Philosophy

Really dig the music analogy. 7 years back, my drummer had issues retaining tempo. I didnt. It was me on guitar, a singer, and a drummer, so i had to keep everything intime.

I had bitched about thexslowness of a few covers and a pair of origionals, and couldnt get the drummer onboard(worth noting, simger wrote everythimg, i rewrote the non-lyric parts for everythimg)
Anyway, id upped the tempo anyway at a practice, and the drummer griped about extra work.

So i did it again at a gig, and we even re-added the bridge origionally cut that hadnt been practiced in months. I yelled "bridge!" And they went with it. Drummeer admitted it sounded better that way.

Anyway, ability to pull something out of yoir ass on the fly is a valuable thing in life and vtes.

I run like 3 commamd of the beast in my malk94 deck, because 6is expected bleed size, not 7. Ive thougjt on adding leverage to Kindred spirits for the same reason.

Not being read and not being predicted right are huge in vtes.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I think that general tactic I would called "Screwing with others Arithmetic".

This.

there's several famous short poems written about the 3 most famous warlords of the Japanese warring states period, to summarize their very different styles of management and diplomacy.

Oda Nobunaga - "If a bird doesn't sing, kill it."
Toyotomi Hideyoshi - "If a bird doesn't sing, make it want to sing."
Ieyasu Tokugawa - "If a bird doesn't sing, wait for it to sing."

they were each very successful, so there's no right or wrong answer here. everyone who studies this part of history tends to have their own favorite. I think it's fun to apply this to VTES. when you're stuck in a terrible table situation where another player won't cooperate with you, how do you handle it? Which conqueror do you become?

and of course, there's a big difference between, for example, waiting because you don't know what to do, and waiting because you know your opportunity will come later. always helps to know yourself, and know why you're doing such.

I won't give away which type I am just yet, though I'm sure the regulars in my playgroup already have me figured out. They're too used to my tricks.

"If the bird won't sing, trick it into thinking you want it to stay quiet so it sings to spite you"

tap, i rescue this thread from torpor

(.... the thread will pay the 2 blood)

so here's a little rule i've been using in deckbuilding over the past few years. it's kinda summed up as, "It's okay if everybody benefits, as long as I get the most!" like most common sense, I'm sure everyone uses it in some way already without realizing it.

the opposite to this is, "it's okay if everybody suffers, as long as I suffer the least." and everybody knows these kinds of cards: Smiling Jack, Anarch Revolt, Shatter the Gates, all those Gehenna events. but when other players have their game hindered, they immediately look towards whoever is causing that pain. they're not going to let this continue if they can help it.

but when you give out free favors to the table, it's very common that they'll turn a blind eye so they can focus on their preys. there's some exceptions, but for the most part it flies under the radar. the main exception is usually "I hate my prey so much that I'll cross-table oust you if you give him one iota of assistance, even if you're helping me at the same time." these players are tunnel-vision assholes and I make sure to cross-table oust them first (kill the bird)

I'm bad at explaining this so I'll just list some examples.

* Rumors of Gehenna - the terms are I CHOOSE EVERYONE! everybody loves to have a 2nd MPA! however, most decks aren't built to take advantage of it. so they'll cycle some extra masters for 1 turn, maybe 2. soon after that it dries up and they're playing 0 masters every turn. but they shouldn't vote Rumors away, just in case they get handjammed on masters later, right? meanwhile, I'm playing master combos every turn and getting away with it, simply because I don't have Anson or Cybele.

* Diversity / Exclusion Principle - I've used these to great effect. people's first reaction is probably, "it's not parity shift or con boon? cool, I get a free pool." it doesn't seem like a huge threat until they notice I'm stockpiling tons of pool with these cards. and maybe one other player coincidentally has a deck to get a big reward too, but they're not prepared to spend that pool the same way my deck is. (e.g. I'm preparing for Revolutionary Council, so I can quickly & easily blast my way through any pool surplus I had given them earlier in the game)

* Powerbase Montreal - this one's a bit more subtle. everyone knows you play The Rack if you can protect it. Montreal is different; you get the same benefits as long as you can reliably get it back every turn, in which case it's fine if someone "borrows" it. having surplus actions from weenies or freak drives means you're spending a lower percentage of your turn to get Montreal back. people will notice that Montreal is providing more pool to the table and making the game drag on, but they usually fail to notice who is working relatively less than the others to farm it.

* The Coven & House of Sorrow - unlike Montreal, I don't care which decks can take advantage of minion blood or whatever. using House of Sorrow means gaining 4 blood from Coven while everybody else gets 2, so why not? people DO notice this trick, but it's hard to get rid of The Coven so they can't do much about it anyway. nobody ever plays Arson to burn down the House, and even if they have Dominate Kine they usually would rather steal something else..... probably because they don't NEED to gain 4 blood, but my deck does.

* Bribes - hey, this card's awesome. it's hard to resist 1 pool.


when I play outside of my group, these things I do tend to go completely under the radar. but within my playgroup, everyone's gotten so used to my tricks that alarm bells go off in their heads, "oh HELL no, we can't let this Diversity go through."
and now YOU know how to shut me down too!!

Both stances are solid, bribes is a testament to everyone loving free pool and letting you do crazy stuff.

Running ancient influence with tupdogs is solid philosophy on thexinverse too. "I need less beads off the table early. Im ok losing a deck slot and 4 pool to get 5 from eeveryone else, and my deck still does fine." Its fine strategy. I recently made a very aggro dominate deck and included: antideluvian awakening, anarch revolt, and giants blood. First 2 because my prey should lose more pool than anyone, so ill add to that. GB becaise if i play it on a 2 cap, my prey cant use it to keep alive, etc.

Purge decks running oitferior renewed vigor deals with purge more than other players, andprobably lets you graverob then diablerize if you want.

Hurting everyone and coping better is preferred to the other, imo, since it leads to timeoits less.