Ongoing Storyline: "Stretched Resources" (aka Rolf's Endless Draft System)

As requested, here is my endless draft system.

It is meant to give everybody about the same power level, which is a lot less than that in a regular tournament. During and after each game, you loose some cards and gain more than you loose. In this way you will need to reinvent your deck(s) over and over again, because some combo's cannot be used anymore and new ones are. I have found that especially for new players, this is a good introduction to the game and keeps them coming for more (eager to get more cards after each game )

Setup
You will need a large amount of library and crypt cards. At least 2000, but more is advised when playing the system for a longer while. You can use cards from one person or everyone can chip in cards (either mark them or donate them permanently). Divide the cards in a Vampire stack and a Library stack. There are 3 ways to start (that I've tried so far):

1) Standard: Shuffle all cards and deal every player 250-300 library and 50 vampire cards. This is the most basic form, but also the most difficult to build a sensible deck. I really like this idea, because it is back to basic. Back to the days that every single booster was savored and 1 sports bike could save the day.
2) Clan Supremacy: Base all beginning decks on official starting decks and give every Methuselah 1 or 2 clans to begin with. You can build efficient decks, but it will take a long time before you can really play something different and in the beginning your deck(s) will only become weaker after each game.
3) Journey Through Time: take all Jyhad cards (or oldest set(s) that is available) and divide them amongst the Methuselah. There is a lot of randomness, but because all are from the same set it matches better. When staring with Jyhad, you will feel the nostalgia running through your veins!

The Game
When beginning the game, the predator cuts the library of his prey. Then draws 1 card for ante and 2 cards are removed from the game (and from that Methuselah's deck forever). When you oust your prey, the ante will go to the bottom of your library and is now yours.

Aftermath
1) When the game is finished, each Methuselah draws one vampire randomly from his predator's crypt and 1 vampire from his prey's "side" crypt. Note: when playing Journey Through Time, the vampire from the side crypt needs to be from the oldest set that the Methuselah has. This to make sure that group 1 will fade out first, then group 2, etc.
2) Every Methuselah draws 3 cards from the Vampire stack and 5 cards from the Library stack

Evening the Odds
To let everybody have a fair change of winning, there are some cards that every Methuselah is entitled to have a minimum of:
3 Blood Dolls
3 Minion Taps
4 Wake with Evening's Freshness

If someone drops below the minimum, he may refill it up to the minimum while drawing the same amount less cards from the Library stack.

We have found that when you've played for quite a long time, that players that win often also get more (good) cards from ante. This might unbalance the system in the long run. To even this out, you can draw more library cards afterwards or you can let the ante decrease the number of cards drawn afterwards (eg. draw 4 cards, then draw a 5th and let the player choose if he wants that 5th card or the ante)

Epilogue
This system was first used for MtG and later for V:tes and has attracted quite some old and new players (13 in total for V:tes) and kept most of them on board for 2 years now.
Please let me know what you think and I always would like to know if anybody has ideas to make it better.

Rolf

Oops, forgot to mention with the Journey Through Time variant that when you run out of cards from a set, you will start using the cards from the next set that came out.
(might be obvious from the conceptname, but just to be sure )

BaaliJusticar wrote:

As requested, here is my endless draft system.


Aftermath
1) When the game is finished, each Methuselah draws one vampire randomly from his predator's crypt and 1 vampire from his prey's "side" crypt.

Why do you take from your predator's crypt? That's pretty rough, to put together a limited crypt and be guaranteed to lose one to another player no matter who wins. Seems maybe better to take from the unused vampires of both your predator and prey?

Also, it seems like nothing would ever retire vampires permanently, they just get shuffled between people. Maybe to retire vampires, when you start a game, in addition to losing 2 cards from your library back to the shared card pool, you also lose one card from your crypt back to the shared card pool?

Also, do you use the grouping rules on crypts when playing?

I was afraid I wasn't clear enough.
The vamps you draw from your predator and prey are both removed from the game, they are not going to another player.
So after 1 game you have at least 2 more library (with possible ante wins) and 1 more vampire than you started with.
And yes, losing vamps from your crypt hurts BAD!

No, we skipped the grouping rules to compensate and draft effects can be used instead of the regular ones (to compensate). Although the grouping rules do not matter with Journey Through Time, because vamps are eliminated from the game before the becme conflicting