CthuluKitty wrote:
> > I'm really quite amazed at the amount of bitching about things that
> > DON'T win in big tournaments, and the complete dearth of bitching about
> > things that DO win in big tournaments.
>
> If you're looking for a polite, well-reasoned response from people it's
> generally advised not to paint a wide range of possibly related
> activities and people with the same brush. Using the word "bitching"
> implies that people are complaining without any good reason, and
> without backing up their arguments, so of course that's a negative
> thing.
Firstly, "bitching" isn't always negative. For example, in the above,
I state my amazement that there isn't MORE bitching about a thing.
Obviously if it were something I was opposed to I wouldn't be asking
for more of it.
If you took the first part to be insulting, then I apologize, because
that's not how I meant it. The second part, however, bemoans a lack of
bitching about other things, implying that bitching can be useful.
Taken together, the opening paragraph was not supposed to paint all
comments against [x] as baseless, nor people concerned about [x] as
moronic, but rather all comments against [x] as not as important as
comments against [y] would be, which are conspicuously missing.
> If this were universally the case, you'd be right to criticize
> this kind of behavior. However, it's my impression that a fair number
> of players have given some fairly well thought out arguments for why
> they think certain things are bad for the game.
Well, good thing I'm not criticizing the behavior, then. Good thing
I'm wondering why there is quite a lot of one kind and very little of
another.
> When you start this topic by asking others "why are you
> bitching?", you assume/imply that they are just bitching. So try to be
> a little more polite.
I don't want to know why they are bitching. I want to know why SO MANY
are bitching. I bitched about Gehenna events once, and so did my whole
playgroup. We thought they were really scary and we all thought they
were a bad thing for the game--that is, in the first month of
playtesting. By the end, though, we were all convinced through play
that they weren't nearly as abusable as we had originally thought, and
that the ones that were abusive or disruptive had been sufficiently
reworded as to be acceptable. The sheer volume of people who, through
years of play, have failed to come to this conclusion leaves me
wondering, "Why is this still a big deal, when there are so many other
things that need concern?" It's like having more meth labs in your
county than anywhere else in America, and yet people want an increase
in traffic cops.
(That's in Washington, by the way.)
> > And yet, none of these decks are even close to being dominant in the
> > tournament scene. Since Gehenna was printed, there haven't been many
> > (any?) qualifier- or continental championship-level tournament winning
> > Gehenna decks. In major continental championships, I only know of one
> > PTO called in any of the four finals games in the last two years, and
> > only one weenie Auspex deck among the 20 decks involved.
>
> I don't know what universe you live in, but in the one I've been
> inhabiting weenie auspex (or midcap mono-AUS) is a very strong
> archetype. The primary reasons for the success of such a strategy, in
> my analysis, is the over-reliance on high-stealth, heavy-payload style
> decks at many tournaments. A metagame more geared towards combat is
> not especially friendly for the auspex wall decks.
And as I noted in the original post, weenie Auspex is quite good in
qualifiers for some reason. But later, when they are taken to higher
level games, people who can have 6 stealth on a vote using only 2 cards
(and then still fail a block if necessary) seem to beat them.
> > In the last two years, the finalist decks at the North American and
> > European championships (a combined 20 decks) breaks down as follows:
>
> You might think these statistics are meaningful, but I really don't.
I always thought the aim of bitching about a card was to eventually get
the card reworded or banned. If among the main criteria for rewording
or banning a card (or printing a counter to it, etc.) is its effect on
serious tournament play, then finding that that card has made few or no
appearances in serious tournaments is extremely meaningful.
Additionally, if there are other cards which consistently see more play
in championship finals than the cards in question, then perhaps those
other cards deserve consideration for rewording or banning first.
> You're looking at only 20 decks out of all the players at these events
> (some of which were quite large, and which in and of themselves hardly
> represent the entire range of competetive VTES), and assuming that they
> are a representative sample of what works. In large tournaments full
> off good players and good decks, luck is very important. If seating
> orders or deck shuffles had been different throughout the day the
> results could have been very different.
I'm going with what I have. If all the players who measurably
succeeded in an extremely large and serious tournament are not
representative of what succeeds in an extremely large and serious
tournament, then I'm not sure what else COULD be representative of
that.
About my data: I can only remember finals tables from 4 NACs and 2
ECs, because that is what I have attended. I decided not to include
things from more than two years ago, so as not to bore readers with
excessively long lists, and not to include cards which were obviously
instrumental in victory but subsequently changed or banned. I decided
not to include data from other continental championships because not
only would the data be difficult to acquire, but I understand other
continents to have much smaller championship events than North America
or Europe. Perhaps I am mistaken, but if I am not, then I think I have
excluded all non-extremely-high-level data from my list.
Therefore, I have included what is arguably all of the relevant
major-Championship-event-level data available.
> And again, as Peter says, the problem isn't decks that win. The
> problem is decks that break the table in an obnoxious way whether or
> not they win.
Well, that's an interesting concept, but can a card be banned simply
because it can be used by incompetent players?
> > Why no bitching about stealth vote? Forgotten Labyrinth is hugely
> > good, and there's no intercept card that matches it. Granted, people
> > bitch about Arika from time to time, but I think most of the Ventrue
> > with OBF decks would work fine with Marcus Vitel + Queen Anne +
> > Lucinde.
>
> I would characterize the level of complaints re: Arika to be much more
> than "from time to time".
Hmm. They have some regularity, but they have nothing like the
frequency or intensity of complaints that Anarch Revolt or Succubus
Club or table switching used to have. And, in fact, nothing like the
current level of complaints about PTO or Gehenna event decks. From
what I've seen.
> > I suppose I'm making this post for three reasons:
> > 1) I want to know what was played at the last 4 last-chance qualifiers
> > 2) I want to know why everyone's so mad about decks which aren't so
> > great
> > 3) I want to know whether something should be done about the decks
> > which are actually dominant
>
> Don't forget:
> 4) To indescrimantly make fun of a whole lot of people who spend a lot
> of time making suggestions they think would improve the game.
No, you can ascribe intent all you want, but I can assure you it never
helps either side understand anything.
> > And I suppose the last two answers are probably
> > 2) Cause they are dominant, in that playgroup
>
> I seriously doubt that this is a correct interpretation. I think a lot
> of peoples' complaining about certain decks, cards, or strategies is
> purely theoretical.
OK, I agree with this.
> Obviously, noone has seen their metagame destroyed
> by Imbued + Gehenna apocalypse yet. They're complaining because they
> analyze such a deck as being highly possible (and I agree with that
> view; you don't have to), and highly disruptive in the event that it
> does see play.
Gehenna Events + Imbued decks = "geid" for short
I think geid concerns are very similar to normal Gehenna deck concerns.
It appears that only those players who think Gehenna events ruin a
table are concerned that geid can win it. Players who think Gehenna
events are overrated (like me) don't care if you mix them with Imbued
or not, they're still not really that bad most of the time.
My point being that since "Gehenna events are too disruptive" is a
claim that's had plenty of time to be confirmed or refuted by actual
play by now, concerns that geid will be too disruptive fall into
exactly the same category. And if you're not concerned about victory,
only table disruption, how exactly would having Imbued make the Gehenna
events more disruptive?
> > I know if I were in charge, Week of Nightmares and Palla Grande would
> > only give +1 bleed to vampires of that clan with capacity >2, just to
> > get all masters that generate +20 bleed back down to something
> > reasonable.
>
> Stop bitching.
What is this, an invitation to a fight? Stop missing the point. The
first post wasn't made to start a flame war, it was made to understand
why, of two or more things, only those which are less powerful are
causing concern. This made itself apparent to at least some of the
other readers, judging from their responses.
> >But after writing this, I have to wonder whether that's
> > only a minor problem, and therefore not worth changing, given the
> > actual spread of deck types at the highest level of tournament play.
>
> Oh wait. You're making an argument. It's a good thing I can tell the
> difference, even if you can't.
I'm going to ignore this and continue to reply to your post, because
other than this insult, your post contains interesting points which
deserve responding to.
The Palla Grande/WoN statement wasn't an argument. An argument would
be a series of statements which support a conclusion, whereas the above
is more of a rhetorical question or a musing. Either way, I fail to
see how some good old-fashioned bitching is unable to form a very
important part of an argument. In fact, I'd say the bitching on THIS
VERY NEWSGROUP was likely influential in the changing of cards for
years now, in dozens of cases.
In conclusion, there's bitching about something you don't understand,
without fundament. There's bitching about something in the proper
forum (possibly this one) in order to discern other people's opinions
on the subject. And then there's looking at all the facts and going,
"when you look at it that way, it's kind of messed up", which is, when
presented to another with the facts, likely going to cause another
"yeah, that IS kind of messed up" response, which is how broke cards
get fixed. Which is what I was encouraging in the original post,
although I was attempting to redirect some of the existing bitching by
showing that there were better things to be bitching about.
-- Brian
>> Stay informed about: Finalist decks include--no Gehenna decks. 
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