New VTES tournament rules
Ok, the 2008 tournament rules for VTES just came out, and contained some (welcome) surprises. The changes contained two significant items:
The cards Edge Explosion, Memories of Mortality and Protect Thine Own are now banned in tournament play.
The way finals results are tallied has changed, now the top scorer of the final round (only) is the winner, all other finalists share second place. In addition, prize splitting is forbidden.
Now, this has already spawned a lot of talk both on the newsgroup and on a local mailing list. The overall reception has been very positive, with of course some dissent here and there.
So, what does this mean, and why was this done? Here are my views, in a nutshell.
First off, the banned cards.
Edge Explosion - I think the rules team correctly identified this as the problem card, causing the problems with overpowered Imbued decks. It let them largely ignore Conviction costs, and also let you largely ignore Virtues, letting you build optimal cryps mostly based on special abilities. Without this, Imbued decks will actually have to pay attention to Conviction as a resource, and also make a lot more (hard) choices in crypt construction. This is good. This would have been a hard card to errata without rewriting it completely, so I think a ban is justified.
Memories of Mortality - this has always been a stupidly powerful card, but with the Imbued it became a problem card. Total shutdown for combat decks, and near-impossible to get rid of (especially since most Imbued decks used Anthelios to cycle it back). I would have personally preferred an errata to this card, making it a lot less powerful, since this ban also hit some otherwise ok ally decks hard… but I’m ok with a ban, too. This card is too strong, whichever way you look at it.
Protect Thine Own - well, what can I say, except “goddamit, finally!”. This card has been a problem since forever, the effect is simply too strong, no easy way to rewrite it to reasonable levels without totally changing it. Ban is fine.
So, in effect: the Imbued get a (deserved) nerf, while still being totally playable and competitive. IMHO, of course, some people disagree on this. Also, an old problem card has finally been buried for good.
Then, for the tournament finals rules: the reason here is that lately, tournament finals have tended to be… well, not that fun. Too much careful table talk and wrangling, and weird deals made just so someone could become 3rd instead of 2nd. This change will hopefully force people to play to win in the finals, disregarding everything else. What will probably happen is lots of careful table talk and wrangling, but the moment anyone gets a VP everyone else goes all-out. We’ll see.
All in all, I’m very happy, these changes should result in better games all around. An overpowered deck type has been toned down a bit, and players in finals have been given new priorities.
My “hate list” is growing short, here, it now only contains Anthelios and Direct Intervention.
On a VTES-related note, Monger is still down, but Jussi Hattara’s excellent Secret Library provides a good replacement. I haven’t played around much with it yet, but what I’ve seen looks very cool and well-designed. […]
Rain, sleet, slush, snow
The weather is starting to hit freezing at night, and there are small patches of snow here and there in the morning – methinks summer is starting to be over. Our yard is finally clear of crud used by the workmen doing our roof insulation & wall paneling makeover, so there’s some hope of getting things into winter shape. I managed to scrounge up energy to rake up leaves into nice piles a few days ago, but by the time I finished it was so dark I didn’t feel like carting them off – and then it started to rain the next day. Oh well, at least they don’t form a soggy matress over everything, just a few soggy piles. Better than nothing.
Life’s been pretty quiet; work, some EVE Online and reading, nothing too hectic. I did attend a knife fighting workshop in Turku last weekend, though, so it hasn’t all been wombat mode. Said workshop was a lot of fun, learned quite a bit (more) about how to carry, draw and use sharps. I’m really liking my new toy.
The new VTES expansion looks solid, the “post-release” tournament was a lot of fun, with Antti Horelli claiming victory for Clan Assamite. I haven’t made any decks based on the new cards yet, but have a lot of ideas. Maybe this weekend I’ll sit down and put together a deck or two.
My four-wheel-transport situation is changing a bit, I’m getting my sister’s old Peugeot 306 convertible, which is 5 years and 100k km newer than my current car. It needs some fixing in the retractable roof department, but should otherwise be in good shape. Doing the papers on that on Monday. This leaves my trusty old ‘89 205 automatic a bit useless to me, so I’m giving it away if I can find someone who needs a car (for free). Details here (in Finnish). It’s old and has lots of “features”, but it still works.
My pile of 400+ USA/BM pictures are sitting on my hard drive, eyeing me balefully. Should do something about getting them processed and published. […]
Ropecon VTES tournament
Ok, the tournament report for Ropecon is now finally available. Sorry it took so long, but better late than never.
It’s still missing deck lists from Juha Nyholm and Tommi Hakumaa, I’ll add them if I get them.
Let me know if you spot any errors there. […]
Back in the default world
Boys, now the times are changing
The going could get rough
Boys, would that ever cross your mind?
Boys, are you contemplating moving out somewhere?
Boys, will you ever find the time?
Here we are stranded
Somehow it seems the same
Beware, here comes the quiet life again
– Japan, “Quiet Life”
We’re back. Actually, we landed on Saturday evening, with myself feeling like a stranger in a strange land. I guess it’s a sign that the trip was a good one, I feel like I’ve been gone much longer than the 2,5 weeks. Playa time.
Jetlag struck back on Sunday, we woke at 3.30pm thinking it was morning. Heh. I’m now more or less back in the normal Finnish sleep-wake cycle, and actually doing some of this “work” thing again. Strange stuff.
Burning Man was the same as ever, and also different. I guess that’s one of the points of the thing, and one that people complaining that “it’s not like it was in the early days!” tend to miss. Our camp was fun, and we met some new wonderful people and met up with some old friends (some in a really serendipitous manner).
I’ll write more about the trip later. I also have a ton of pictures, which I’ll publish when I process them – that’ll take a while, though.
I think it’ll be quiet life for us for some while now, if for no other reason than that our credit cards are feeling the strain of all this travel (and other things). Quiet life good, in moderation.
As a quick side note: the “post-release” tournament for the new VTES expansion, “Lords of the Night”, will be held on Sunday Sept 30th (12:00, Fantsu). I’ll add info about it on the VTES page, also ,soonish. […]
Ropecon con con...
Well, even though I’m on vacation somehow I haven’t had much rest or idle time. Part of that is due to my decision to start each day off with a 2km swim at the stadium, and then see what else I need to do… that cuts out a large chunk of the day. The weather had been great, so swimming outdoors is wonderful. No complaints.
Anyway, seems I haven’t gotten around to writing my EC impressions yet, and they will have to wait till after Ropecon (which starts today, with the big VTES tournament I’m running kicking off at 18:00). I’m starting to have everything ready now, but I continually have a feeling that I’ve forgotten something.
I do intend to write about EC, too. Until that point in time, Marko Saari has some pictures available from the trip.
Now off for a swim, then back home to do a last check on email and then off to Ropecon. I don’t expect to sleep much during the weekend, since I have the 03-07 (yes, AM) info shifts on both days, and the VTES tournament will run until 1-2am. Sleep is for the weak. […]
Tales from the crypt
Back from the EC tournament long weekend in Gothenburg, Sweden. Great trip, huge amount of fun. Not all that much sleep, though. More reports when I manage to rest and unwind. […]
Tampere By Day
Not much luck in the Tampere ECQ last Saturday, but it was a lot of fun. Got a grand total of 1.5 VPs, which surprisingly enough almost got me a qualification – as far as I know, I was just below the cutoff point for that. Surprising for such a low VP number, but of course we had a few already qualified people there and they also made it to the finals, bringing the qualification barrier down. Oh well, I guess my last chance to qualify is the aptly named Last Chance Qualifier at the EC.
Can’t really blame my deck this time, it’s working pretty well (though I do have a few small tweaks I still want to do, I need to add a bit more bleed power still). It was more a matter of game luck and how I played… I didn’t catch myself making many mistakes, but just didn’t get lucky enough – the first game gave me ridiculously few wakes and deflects in the beginning, and with a stealth Presence bleeder as my predator I was forced into defensive mode, letting my prey grow strong. Things would have worked a lot differently if my grandpredator had gotten his rush deck to work, but he didn’t. The second game had my prime vampire get torporized and diablerized early on, which seriously put a spanner in the works and lost me a significant amount of forward momentum. The third game actually (barely) got me a VP, plus half for timeout. In this game I finally managed to put real pressure on my prey, which made all the difference.
I was at a friend’s “polttarit” (would be “bachelor party”, but this was a girl so I’m not sure what term to use here) on Friday, that proved to be a lot more fun than I expected – my plan was just to drop in quickly, since I had the ECQ the next day. We had another friend as DJ and he did a really good job with a great playlist, I ended up dancing and socializing until pretty late… which resulted in me getting just 6+ hours of sleep before driving towards Tampere the next morning. Yawn. All that combined led to a Sunday spent in recovery – I didn’t do much except watch videos, plan Wednesday’s game a bit, made some lunch, and read a bit. Finally got around to watching the season end of Battlestar Galactica, which was very cool; some surprises there and I’m looking forward to seeing what direction they take things for the last season. Also watched some of the last episodes of Veronica Mars, which continues to entertain… it’s a real pity that this show didn’t get renewed, leaving the third season as the last one. Sigh. Why do all the good shows get cancelled, and the crap get s renewed? […]
Flu considered evil(ish)
While I guess I can thank my lucky… whatever that I’m generally pretty healthy and in ok shape (would be “good shape” if I did more regular exercise), but I do have one built-in health flaw: I attract flu germs like a magnet. Where other people get a slightly sore throat, I get a clogged-up one and some light fever to boot.
So yeah, guess what I’ve been hosting again this week. Sigh. Stayed home yesterday, today was at work but decided not to go to swords practice because I’m still feeling a bit shaky. Maybe tomorrow.
This week is once again bracketed by VTES games, it’s not hard to tell that the European Championships are approaching. Last Saturday we had a mini-qualifier at Fantsu; my Kiasyd deck did ok (2 VPs) but didn’t quite make it to the finals. It’s a pretty nice deck, though, I intend to tune it some more. The final victory went to Otso Turunen, playing a fairly stock Imbued deck which seemed to be tuned pretty well. Because this was a mini-qualifier, the only qualification of the day went to Otso.
This Saturday we’ll have the second “proper” ECQ in Finland, this time in Tampere. This will be my last chance to get a qualification before the EC’s “last chance” qualifier. We’ll see.
Other than game stuff, I’ve been reading a bit: the two first books of Charles Stross’ “Merchant” fantasy series (very good escapist adventure), Stross’ “Glasshouse” (excellent take on the posthumanist scifi genre), Greg Stolze’s “Reign” (wonderful new fantasy rpg engine and world) and “Manacle & Coin” (slavery, drug use and other fun stuff for Exalted). I currently seem to be reading half fiction, half rpg material. Works for me.
I also had to ugrade our Cat Alcatraz Feline Containment System (tm). Typhoon, the small fuzzy renegade, managed to find a hole under the fence and vanished for hours on end. I finally found him in the near-pitch-black woods nearby, after searching in the gathering dark for 1.5 hours. Not fun. So I added some more mink mesh… and what do you know, the little critter found out that he could climb a tree in our yard and jump to the top of the shed from there. Sigh. So next up is something to stop the cats climbing up the tree.
Cats. Never boring. […]
Vampires don't sleep
Still catching up, some words about last weekend. Teemu and Tuukka had arranged for a weekend of VTES mini-qualifiers at Teemu’s summer place in Pernaja, by the seashore. Much fun was had by all, though sleep proved to be a rare luxury. I got there Saturday around noon, with the first tournament starting around 1pm. Didn’t do well (I think I scored dead last among 14 or so players), but strangely enough I didn’t decide to dismantle my deck afterwards; I was playing a !Salubri rush affair which didn’t quite have enough “oomph” (and pool gain) to survive in the tournament, but otherwise worked nicely. I now have a tweaked version which works better, but it still needs some love.
Anyway, the “official” games ran until late in the evening on Saturday, I played a “for fun” game after those with a !Tremere anarch deck (which, to my no great surprise, sucked) and then went for sauna + swim in the sea. After sauna and some booze, we decided to play “just one more little game”… which might have been a mistake, since that game went on until close to 5am. I was playing my Anarch Daughters vote deck which was having problems with Marko’s gargoyle + War Ghouls horde, but Tuomas’ amazing Saulot & friends deck managed to survive double War Ghoul rush for something like 10+ consecutive rounds and keep me in the game with suitable Eagle’s Sights. Quite a feat, everyone was a bit hysterical near the end there. Very strange game.
Since it was already close to morning, I got my camera and went out to get some shots of a nearby anchored ship in the morning light, before curling up in my sleeping bag for a refreshing 4-5 hours of sleep. Then it was up and about, some breakfast, and another day of tournament.
Sunday went just as badly as Saturday for me, though it was also a lot of fun. I was playing a Synesios Temptation deck and had the misfortune to be the prey of a Black Annis rush deck twice (two different decks). Since the deck really can’t survive permarush, I was ousted pretty fast. The third game went a bit better and resulted in a timeout, but still… I’ve since dismantled that deck, it’s fun but it’s simply too slow and vulnerable. I’ll have to rethink the concept, this incarnation just doesn’t work efficiently enough. I still have hopes of getting the !Salubri deck into tournament shape at some point.
After that was over I was feeling pretty wiped out, so I headed back towards Helsinki, stopping by the airport to pick up Janka (who had just returned from a conference trip), and then home and a deep coma.
Some pictures from the weekend are available.
Thanks to Teemu and the guys for the weekend, was a lot of fun and a great idea generally.
Note: there is a miniqualifier in Fantasiapelit tomorrow Sat 7th starting at 11:00, if we get at least 12 players the highest non-qualified gets a qualification. You know the drill. Entry fee 2 euros so we can get some small prizes for the finalists. […]
Playa time
We didn’t intend to go this year, with the house purchase killing our finances and available vacation time being uncertain. Bu then… we started looking at vacations and thinking “hmm, I guess we could sqeeze in 2 weeks in there”, and “well, it’s not that expensive, all things considered”. And “we really need a proper vacation”. And…
So now we have flights to San Francisco booked, and are heading for the playa once more, along with two other co-conspirators. No huge detours this time: we fly to SF, rent a minivan or some such, shop around (in Sacramento, probably), and head for the desert. On the way back we’ll probably drop by Hot Creek (yay!), Death Valley and (perhaps fittingly) Disneyland. We’ll see. We have a car and several days to fill, no need to make binding plans.
We might be hooking up with the Group W / Math Camp guys this year round, looking forward to that – they were good folks. Also need to email other people we’ve met the last couple of times and see if we can manage to meet up again. It’s always a bit random trying to meet specific people among 35k+, but it usually seems to work out somehow. Serendipity.
This year I think I’ll be walking around quite a bit, with camera and monopod. Methinks this is the ideal workout for our newish 70-200 L-series IS zoom lens. Also want to take some early-morning walks with camera, you get some nice shots that way. Always time to sleep a bit later when the sun is in “deep fry” mode.
Otherwise, life goes on. This weekend I think we’ll start actual work on Operation Cat Alcatraz, stay tuned.
Was out playing VTES at Valtteri again last night. First game I had a new experimental deck out: Alicia Barrows and friends recruit Escaped Mental Patients & Muddles, and Alicia Inspires them to great deeds (4 aggravated / 6 first strike, in particular). Alicia also votes, and Sennadurek uses Emergency Rations (and Consume the Dead) to chow down dead allies and bloat. I actually won the game with that, though largely it was due to fortunate table position. A bit unexpected. Second game also resulted in game win with my Sebastian deck. It works pretty well, but still has trouble reliably getting intercept on the table (and pool gain is also a problem). Will need to tweak some more. Third game had me in a worst-case position, with my Temptation deck between two rush decks. Ouch. Managed to last a while due to table politics, but it was a losing proposition from the start. Good fun, though did get home a bit late (around 1.15am). Yawn. […]
