Re: [un]Official Clan lasombra newsletter

> > Nothing "apparant"about it. I scorn it. In my experience, if you play
> > "block me and die", your grandprey will win more often than you do. If
> > you fight upstream, downstream and across the table, you will lose a
> > hell of a lot more than you win.
> 
> But you also admit you play with people who've managed not to clue in to
> the fact that Path's are lynchpin cards.  Your anecdotes will need to be
> twice as detailed as before, for me to find them persuasive.  

Leaving my playgroup aside for a moment, do you honestly subscribe to
the theory that you can fight your prey, your predator and the guy
across the table with a Rush deck, and still have any realistic chance
of winning?

> IMO, in an environment peopled with *good* players who are playing to win, they will 
> rightly decide many times that a bleed for two or three just isn't
> worth the consequences of stopping.  

Correct. I've said that previously. However, we [original poster and
I] were talking about graverobbings in regards to the "block me and
die" mentality. I orginally asked How the poster intended to get the
GR through without stealth. He answered [and I am paraphrasing here]
by knocking anyone who tried to block into torpor. Hence, the
conversation [d]evolved into the consequences of what happens when you
play with that kind of "destroy all" mentality - at least in my
experience.

> If you have to spread your cards
> around everybody's big schlong that they've whipped out on the table,
> then maybe bully-bleed isn't such a good strategy.  Lots of strategies
> fall over when your opponents decide winning is secondary.
> 
> And yeah, that's a slam on your metagame, but c'mon man.....
> *paths*???!??  

I've played in many metagames all over this country, and still find it
a truism. I can't really explain it. I realise it's illogical, even
though I sometimes find myself ignoring a Path in favour of an action
i see as more critical. Best example I can give of the top of my head
was at the Adelaide qualifier this year, where I was playing a
Baltimore Purge deck [archived on Salem's site if you want a gander].
It was incredibly pricey in terms of the Obten stealth, so Paths were
a neccesity. I pulled one out very early in the final, and both my
prey and predator spent the rest of the game arguing about who was
going to burn it. My prey felt he had better things to do [ie, oust
his prey. He was playing a Malk S/B deck] and my predator tried maybe
twice to do it [playing Tzimisce] before going back to tooling up and
building his wall - I suppose he saw his Intercept permanents as more
important to the overall game, ie, blocking my Purges was more
important than burning my Path.

It seems to me that in high stress games like tourneys, where every
action seems to count for more, people almost always have "something
better to do" than burn a Path. This may be an oddity in other games.
However, it's true in the three Oz metagames that i've played in.
[shrug] Path of Evil Revalations aside of course. ;)

> I still don't get why you have to knock *all* your prey's vampires into
> torpor.  

See above. His plan, not mine.

> And why bleeds for one?  Haven't we established that there's Dominate
> going on here?  Seriously, I've only kept a lazy eye on this thread. 
> Have I missed something?

Dom bleed wasn't mentioned as part of the plan. Methinks a solid 7agg
combat deck with graverobbings would have a hard time fitting any
decent amount of Dom bleed into the mix too, but granted, I haven't
built the deck.

> Well, the Thau/Qui part is easy to get.  Mainly due to your potence
> lament, I've been thinking more about skill cards lately, and how they
> aren't so bad.  Maybe I'll give that deck a go.

Let me know how it flies, and whether Henri makes the final cut and
contributes anything other than ballast.

I have *sincere* doubts considering his lack of thau, but hey, prove
me wrong.

noods