Timeouts in tournaments

In general people should be looking to the right more, but the core issue here is that only decks with dom/DOM or AUS can really do so. Every other deck HAS to consider cards and actions to otherwise survive. This can be by going to the right, which is not always the best idea, or by bloating tons which tends to slow down games.

Lost in Translation would really have been a great card to make games go faster in general if only it wouldn't have the crippling 'younger' clause.

Izaak wrote:

Lost in Translation would really have been a great card to make games go faster in general if only it wouldn't have the crippling 'younger' clause.

How do you support that statement?
A bounce card essentially prevents people from getting bled, thus prolonging the life of the bouncing player. When the target of an offensive action is changed, the result is often that the acting player doesnt follow through like:
Bleed for 3->Block->1 Stealth->No Block->Bounce->Grandprey produces 1 intercept->No more stealth->Hands for 1.
In general combat as a result of an offensive action between two adjacent players speeds up the game because often a lot of blood gets destroyed in the
process. Combat between non-adjacent players is often just a maneuver, combat ends or hands for 1, thus making it very unimportant for the advancement of the game

Exactly as I said?

Playing bounce means you don't have to bloat or go backwards, thus you can design your deck to go forward and thus oust people. Not having access to bounce forces you to either go backwards or play excessive bloat, both of which slow down games.

Wouldn't moderate block also work ? Or doesblock require too much card in your opinion to allow easy forward move ?

Oh sure, block works too, but when you block, you also need to back it up with something other than "hands for 1". Also, the only discipline that can really block reliably enough to withstand standard Kindred Spirits bleed without devoting an entire deck it is Auspex, which also comes with bounce anyway.

I don't know how you guys go about building tournament capable decks, but my baseline when evaluating a decklist for a tournaments I ask myself:

1) Can I survive Dementation bleed?
2) Can I survive a Lawfirm
3) Can I win if my prey plays more than 1 Villein?

If the answer to either of those questions is "no" then it's time to re-evaluate the deck.

That said, I like to bloat a lot, because it opens up so many interesting deck strategies that otherwise hinge on not having a bleed predator. Since bloat ousts superslow, I play fairly fast and nudge people at my tables forward all the time. As a result, I don't see *that* many timeouts.

That, of course, doesn't mean it's still a big problem.

Izaak wrote:

Exactly as I said?

Playing bounce means you don't have to bloat or go backwards, thus you can design your deck to go forward and thus oust people. Not having access to bounce forces you to either go backwards or play excessive bloat, both of which slow down games.

I agree about the bloat part but not with the "go backwards"part.
If by deck design you are forced to go backwards that means your predator
has two players taking offensive actions against him which often overwhelms
the defensive capacity of their deck thus getting them ousted quicker, which
results in fewer people in the game and less chance of timing out.
On that note whenever I play a wall deck (like my Tzimi Block/Bruise I almost
always try to get my predator ousted because it reduces the number of players at the table and gives a vp to a player who will in all likelyhood
not get a second one.