TWD - Ita Qualifier tour 2011, 2nd stage - Genova

Mephistopheles wrote:

Kushiel wrote:

jhattara wrote:

Quietus doesn't suck. Quietus combat sucks.

What good cards does Quietus have? By my estimation, the only ones that are even worth playing are Black Sunrise, Foul Blood, Loss and Principia Discordia, and none of those are better than "okay."

Disagreed. The only good cards:

1. Black Sunrise. Obvious.
2. Loss. Agreed.

The rest is suboptimal, imo.

First, a *hefty* disclaimer: I've never played Quietus or Assamites in my life and don't even see myself doing it anytime soon.

With that out of the way, maybe I'm just a tad less demanding when assessing card value, but my perspective still includes a couple other cards as worthy of play, in my view, and starting with what was already mentioned:

Loss - This needing superior QUI is more than just a minor drag but in the context of the in-clan disciplines it really lends itself well to an S&B strategy/splash. Doubling as equipment-kill is nice. Costing blood is not so nice.

Black Sunrise - Being strictly superior to a regular Wake means this is good. Not being any miles beyond a regular wake means it is just that: good.

Deed the Heart's Desire - Denying block and reactions from a given vampire minion is nothing if not good. Age requirements and blood cost means it is inferior to the industry benchmark, Seduction. The overlap with OBF also kills value but, at the end of the day, the card can't really seem to be called less than good.

Selective Silence - Already in a category apart, due to combat cards rarely being comparable to the rest in terms of value, how valuable can it be to set the range in a first round, even if we're just looking at it as support to Gun or other Discipline combat? I know most maneuvers these days tend to come with secondary (or primary!) effects to suplement it, but can this card really not be called good?

Taste of Death/Blood Sweat - The perennial QUI combat staples. Ensuring long range is not difficult and the effects do good as advertised. These strikes may require a specific card build to truly be of use and are not exactly self-contained cards, but they do look good.

Thin Blood - As I've stated before, the best combat card QUI has to offer. Messing with people's blood totals inpromptu can win combats. Of course, it costs blood, doesn't do squat against allies and requires the oh-so-unsynergistic close range, but in conjunction with other discipline builds or stick combat, I can see this being of use.

Anarch cards I look at separately, seeing how they require some additional setup:

Principia Discordia - The same effect as Jar the Soul for inf. QUI is solid. No dispute.

Steely Tenacity - I just love the principle behind this card. Such card economy this one promises! I truly think of this as being a good card.

Here are my arguments why Taste of Death/Selective Silence/Blood Sweat/Thin Blood aren't good:

S:CE

The obvious fact about quietus is that itself has no response to s:ce, so you need to add Psyche! to deck(at superior). Narrows down the crypt choice. Of course you can go without a solution to s:ce I'll come to this back later.

Damage output

Taste of Death makes 2R agg damage, which is ok. But it's restricted to long range only and costs a blood. Suboptimal. You can't really get blood back, since diablerie is hard to achieve and Taste of Vitae isn't worth playing. Blood Sweat isn't really good either. Cost 1 causes 3 = 2 different amd the opposing vampire can hurt you too. You gain no advantage. Compare to Thrown Sewer Lid, Earthswords, or just a Carrion Crows. Even Concealed/Magnum, is a zillion time better.

Resources

None of the quietus strike cards provide you with either a maneuver or press. You need to play extra cards to get any of these effects. Most likely celerity, so we need a 2nd discipline again. Let's say we play a maneuver a strike card and the opposing minion playes s:ce. We play Psche!, need the maneuver again, play a strike card again. Lets say this time we are successful. We needed 5 cards to cazse 2 agg or 3 normal damage (and had to pay for 2 strike cards)!

Compare to Carrion Crows + Aid from Bats (2 cards, maneuver, press + 5 damage altogether), or Potence combat (TSP, Slam, Immortal means maneuver, press, 5 damage, no s:ce, only 1 blood). Even Kyasid is better (an all Darkling Trickery + Earthswords combat package is even more efficient).

Animalsim has no answer to s:ce either, but there is a difference: weenies!!! A Stick, Beetleman, or even a Lisa Noble with a skill card are way better and more efficient. You don't need to worry about s:ce since you have many cheap minions that will just rush you a thousand time and just need 2 combat cards, basically.

Bottom Line

There is a basic human attitude to defend things rather to criticize. But lets be honest here: any random crap in v:tes has to potential to be more efficient in combat than the Assamites. Guys!!! Do you realize the irony that people try to find arguments to defend Quietus combat?

No matter how much you want to defend this discipline (for combat): basically anything beats it in comparison. Even non-combat disciplines.

I feel like this post really doesn't belong to this thread. So sorry for posting despite this. The reason is that the discussion came up here, so it's linked more to the people bringing it up than it would be in a new thread. Again sorry, if you feel different.

Drain wrote:

Black Sunrise - Being strictly superior to a regular Wake means this is good.

Sadly, it's not even superior to disciplineless wake tech. At inferior, it's almost always worse, and even at superior, it's only better if you're building a deck that plans on attempting to block. Decks relying on bleed bounce or reduction are still better off using vanilla wakes, making Black Sunrise yet another Quietus card which is often worse than similar disciplineless cards.

I used Black Sunrise with some success in a Thucimia bleed deck with Mental Maze and Enkil Cog.
It's also damn good with Amaravati + Deflection and Obedience.
Untap from a reaction card is also always good to defend against the Change of Target trick played by tap and bleed decks. So I think BS is a solid card.

Mephistopheles wrote:

I used Black Sunrise with some success in a Thucimia bleed deck with Mental Maze and Enkil Cog.
It's also damn good with Amaravati + Deflection and Obedience.
Untap from a reaction card is also always good to defend against the Change of Target trick played by tap and bleed decks. So I think BS is a solid card.

I'm glad you've had success with the card. Like I wrote above, I don't think it's bad, I merely think that it's bad for the game that BS isn't necessarily better than disciplineless wakes. (I agree that it's situationally good, like in the situations you cite.) I'd much rather if all discipline-based cards were better than their disciplineless counterparts, as that would lead to more differentiation between disciplines/clans and thereby decks. Given that BS needs to be played at superior to be even as good as a number of disciplineless cards, it was an unfortunate design whiff. That it's still one of the better Quietus cards out there is even more unfortunate.

Kushiel wrote:

I'm glad you've had success with the card. Like I wrote above, I don't think it's bad, I merely think that it's bad for the game that BS isn't necessarily better than disciplineless wakes. (I agree that it's situationally good, like in the situations you cite.) I'd much rather if all discipline-based cards were better than their disciplineless counterparts, as that would lead to more differentiation between disciplines/clans and thereby decks. Given that BS needs to be played at superior to be even as good as a number of disciplineless cards, it was an unfortunate design whiff. That it's still one of the better Quietus cards out there is even more unfortunate.

When you're right, you're right.