What would you like to see in a new expansion?

aria wrote:

Thank you Izaak, to have searched this statistic about TWDA.

Seriouslly, tzimisce have 2 "competitive" decks : trap horrid and war ghoul ( speed and piper). They lack of pool, blood, defense, vote and make hardly more than 1GW5 in a tournament. An you name that "one of the most competitive clan"?

Maybe you're looking at a different TWDA than I am.

But among the 12 TWDA decks from 2010-2011, there was only one Horrid Form deck (with 13 Horrid Forms plus a pair of War Ghouls) and only one dedicated War Ghoul (with 6 copies, there were three additional decks with 2 copies, including that Horrid Form deck). So 2/3 of the TWDA Tzimisce decks had neither Horrid Forms or War Ghouls. So I'd hardly say that they only have two competitive decks. And you just confirmed that competitive decks don't necessarily show up too much in 2010-2011 TWDA archives (since neither Horrid Form or War Ghoul is very prevalent, yet you admit they are competitive).

They have 2 new cards I did not played with tzim and seem interesting : mind of the wild to stealth rushs and cancel combat ends, in combination with dabbled because it is easy to use 3 disciplines with a walish ( read the winds+breath^^) or combat ish( mind otw+breath) tzim.
But nothing to oust your prey!

Deep Song? (They already had Fiendish Tongue for the intercept variety, but Deep Song has a rush option for more aggressive combat, or lets you tap out minions for a bleed deck).

Eyes of Argus. Enough said. Or Sense the Savage Way if you want a little variety.

You mentioned Mind of the Wild (and the Tzimisce are the only clan inherently with so that card seems to be made specially for them).

Soul Scan and Underbridge Stray are underplayed, but can be quite useful in many decks.

And seriously +2 bleed in 2 cards... Think about it : dominate has 2 ways to do +3 bleed in 1 card!! Even anarchs can do better with no discipline : +3 bleed in 1 card!

I don't think Monkey Wrench is a good comparison. Anyway, by this logic, *every* discipline should have a +3 bleed in 1 card.

Now, try to make a good combat deck with lasombras... Crypts are awful

I seem to recall some decent, old-school decks (Lizette, Dr. Julius, Cameron, Banjoko, borrow a couple of mid-caps from other clans).

Or just go mono-Obtenebration. You have a good selection of mid-caps with . Arms of the Abyss + Entombment, followed by Amaranth (or a little Graverobbing). Pretty efficient and strong.

The crypt with animalism is nice : 4 guys with pot obt dom ani, and nice balance between superior disciplines. But they can't prevent nor multi act and they cost 9+8+6+4=27 pool!

The three biggest guys all have , so you'd actually expect to be getting most of them at a significant discount due to Governing down.

Every combat card in OBT cost 1 or more.

?

Arms of the Abyss (GREAT)
Call the Lamprey (crappy)
Darkling Trickery (crappy for )
Fae Contortion (decent)
Hell-for-Leather (anarch)
Shadow Step (good)

And you have no way to defend your path.

Eyes of the Night? Darksight? Nocturns blocking with Unmasking and FBI Special Affairs Division?

So the unique solution is marcus vittel path+drink the blood, multi rush...

Ah, thanks for reminding me about Drink the Blood of Ahriman (normally a crappy card, but great for Nocturns since you get to save lots of blood from it). You already have Drink + Path of Night, maybe Charisma. And now a guy with reduction as well?

echiang wrote:

!Gangrel, yes. But Tzimisce? They're one of the most competitive clans out there.

They can bleed reasonably well with Fiendish Tongue + Changeling, with some minor stealth. If you want they can also go the Pulse route. Or Living Manse, plus + bleed retainers.

You can play intercept wall with Smiling Jack. Or combat with Fame and Dragonbound. In combat, they have easy access to aggravated damage (both close and long range), S:CE, and a bunch of other useful effects (stacking Horrid Forms, along with maybe Kraken's Kiss, or Starvation of Marena, or basic Carrion Crows + Aid from Bats).

Sorry, but I don't see where the Tzimisce are really hurting. (It's true that their Group 4 is significantly "different" than Group 2 and isn't the traditional intercept/combat that many Tzimisce players seem used to, but I don't think they're necessarily bad either. Just different).

Entirely agreed. My G2 Tzimisce ANI/AUS deck is probably my most competitive, and it's also probably the most fun. (Hint: Deep Song + Mind of the Wilds + Bats + Crows is strong.) The !Gangrel, on the other hand, could use a leg up.

Do you think the Tzimisce are a "worse clan" than the Baali, and the Guruhi, and the Ahrimanes? Because based on your metric, that's what the TWDA says.

Yes, I do in fact. Guruhi have an ousting mechanism (presence), can defend as well as Tzims if you want because of No Secrets. Plus, animalism and auspex do not differ much when it comes to practical blocking. They also get acceleration and a bunch of useful specials on their vampires thanks to them being budgeted post-CE instead of pre-CE.

Baali are not a better clan per se, but they're not supposed to be played as a clan, with them being a bloodline and all. Most Baali decks in the TWDA are Cybele/Nergal kind of decks which are just as much a Baali deck as a Horatio Piper speedghoul or Lambach wall decks are Tzimisce decks. Also, Baali come bedgeted post-CE and get too many design points after Infernal got reworded so their vampires tend to be

This all opposed to pre-CE budgeted Sabbat Tzims.

Maybe you're looking at a different TWDA than I am.

I dunno, but from your posts (not just this one) it really feels that you're either playing a different game or the people you play with play really bad decks.

Yes, all of that *can* be done with those disciplines, IF THERE ACTUALLY WAS A PLAYABLE CRYPT. There isn't. It's expensive, cluttered with useless out of clan disciplines, cornercase specials and lacks any sort of synergy. Yes, Corine and Caliban are good vampires. Lolita has VIC which is cute for a 4-cap but VIC alone doesn't get anything done. She'd be better if she had AUS vic instead (such as Devin, who would in turn synergize better if (s)he had ani AUS VIC or ANI aus VIC).

Why on earth are you going around defending bad cards and bad clans and claiming they are just "hard to use" or "different". Just because you can find niche examples or think up card combo's that fit the disciplines that doesn't mean the clan's good. The game's 17 years old. The meta has been stagnant for 2 years. I'm fairly sure the collective minds of V:TES players have figured out by now what's good and what's not.

Izaak wrote:

Yes, I do in fact. Guruhi have an ousting mechanism (presence), can defend as well as Tzims if you want because of No Secrets. Plus, animalism and auspex do not differ much when it comes to practical blocking. They also get acceleration and a bunch of useful specials on their vampires thanks to them being budgeted post-CE instead of pre-CE.

Baali are not a better clan per se, but they're not supposed to be played as a clan, with them being a bloodline and all. Most Baali decks in the TWDA are Cybele/Nergal kind of decks which are just as much a Baali deck as a Horatio Piper speedghoul or Lambach wall decks are Tzimisce decks. Also, Baali come bedgeted post-CE and get too many design points after Infernal got reworded so their vampires tend to be

This all opposed to pre-CE budgeted Sabbat Tzims.

First off, I think it's a fallacy to simply compare pre-CE vs post-CE costing.

Sure, some of the larger Group 2 Tzimisce might have an extra point if they were designed nowadays, but the Group 4 Tzimisce benefit from the more generous point scheme yet those are the vampires you dislike.

In addition, it has been a gradual process of more generous costing (CE wasn't a magic turning point). For example, many Third Edition and Keepers of Tradition vampires tend to have more "points" than even CE, Anarchs, and Black Hand vampires.

You forget that the Sabbat edition had an extreme variance. Lots of overcosted vampires and a couple of vampires with way too many points.

Overall, the Tzimisce actually came out quite well, especially compared to the other Sabbat clans. Violet Tremaine is really the only wallpaper vampire. Stravinsky's a tad weak compared to modern day Archbishops, but he's at least usable (compared to some of his contemporaries like Imogen and Ethan Locke). The Tzimisce were spared from having a "4 for 5" vampire (5-caps with just four inferiors and that's it). And besides Violet Tremaine, they aren't saddled with vampires with random out-of-clans (Shane Grimald, Pieter, Blaise,
Ramiro, Josef, Lolita).

When it comes to Group 2 Tzimisce:

Dragos
Corine Marcon
Devin Bisley
Lolita Houston
Wendy Wade
Horatio

would be comparable to what you'd see today.

Lambach would still be stronger than most Cardinals or 10-caps you see nowadays.

Anton and Meshenka would probably get another discipline point (though likely an out-of-clan, so it wouldn't make them significantly better in the Tzimisce decks they're currently in). Stravinsky would get one or two more points, once again probably in out-of-clan disciplines.

Violet Tremaine has issues based on her discipline spread, so throwing her extra points probably wouldn't fix things too much (though a superior or two would be nice). I seem to recall rumors that she was supposed to be a 5-cap, which would explain a lot.

Maybe you're looking at a different TWDA than I am.

I dunno, but from your posts (not just this one) it really feels that you're either playing a different game or the people you play with play really bad decks.

If you took the time to look, you'd see that response was directed towards aria, who claimed that:

Seriouslly, tzimisce have 2 "competitive" decks : trap horrid and war ghoul ( speed and piper)

, which is inconsistent with the TWDA information that you yourself cited.

Yes, all of that *can* be done with those disciplines, IF THERE ACTUALLY WAS A PLAYABLE CRYPT. There isn't. It's expensive, cluttered with useless out of clan disciplines, cornercase specials and lacks any sort of synergy. Yes, Corine and Caliban are good vampires. Lolita has VIC which is cute for a 4-cap but VIC alone doesn't get anything done. She'd be better if she had AUS vic instead (such as Devin, who would in turn synergize better if (s)he had ani AUS VIC or ANI aus VIC).

Where are all these "useless out-of-clan disciplines" in Group 2? Ignoring Violet, you don't even have any out-of-clans at all at capacity less than 8 (which is extremely efficient). Meshenka has no out-of-clans. Stravinsky has one, inferior Potence.

Plus I think you're underestimating the strength of Vicissitude. Even inferior Vicissitude can be extremely scary. I recall many a tournament table that has been wrecked by a weenie Vicissitude deck (several of those by Brian Moritz, who I hardly consider someone who plays "really bad decks.").

Why on earth are you going around defending bad cards and bad clans and claiming they are just "hard to use" or "different".

Why on earth can't you accept that it's okay for different people to have different opinions on a particular issue? Sure, you might think a given card or clan is "bad" - that's your perspective. But other people can think differently. I'm sorry if the fact that I am not agreeing with you is frustrating you.

Just because you can find niche examples or think up card combo's that fit the disciplines that doesn't mean the clan's good. The game's 17 years old. The meta has been stagnant for 2 years. I'm fairly sure the collective minds of V:TES players have figured out by now what's good and what's not.

How long did it take for players to finally discover the old Archon-not-affected-by-NRA loophole? Why are players only now discovering some of the tricks with Outside the Hourglass (particularly with Disarm)? It took players years to learn that they were apparently playing Deflection wrong. Most of the parts for Girls decks have been around for quite some time (in fact, the TWDA even has one as early as 2007), so why have Girls decks only been super popular (and problematic) recently?

To state Tzimisce is a weak clan is strange in my opinion. They may have some difficulties with the regular use of Villein (and the resulting bloat without doing actions) in the newer Metagame. But Tzim.-decks are very strong by either block like hell and punish with aggr. damage or bleed and bruise/stealth. Sasha Vykos Advanced is a powerhouse, they have very good midcaps. Not every clan that lacks dom or pre is bad. Just think of the tremendous versatility of Vicissitude. The big eye (AUS) is mighty anyway. Ani is a nice add-on. I'm surprised that there are people who sneer at that clan.