Well, that was a lot of decklists and a lot of minutiae. So, we're going to take
a step back and review deck variants from a higher level.
Some Basic Tenets for Variants
Honestly, most of these apply to building decks from scratch too.
1. Understand what the original deck is doing.
It may be obvious, but you can't play the original or hope to create a
workable variant without first understanding how the deck works. How
does it intend to oust? How does it intend to survive being ousted?
Breaking down the deck into categories, similar to the way I broke down the
variant comparisons will help you gain this understanding if you're struggling
to sort it out. Notice how some decks have polyvalent cards and how
those cards end up in different categories. That provides flexibility at
play time.
2. Understand how you want to alter the original deck.
There are many possible ways to create deck variants. Switching
groupings, changing clans, V5-only, etc. What goal to you have? Do
you have a favorite clan and would like to figure out how to make deck X work
with it?
3. Create a rough draft and compare.
The comparison chart that I created for this series on variants is by no means
complete, nor it is the only way to break down decks for comparison.
Find a comparison method that works for you and apply it to both the original
and the rough draft.
Where are the decks similar? You'll notice that my Death Star variants
ended up with similar, but slightly different vote packages. This was
mainly because new votes, like
Eat the Rich, had an important place role to
play. However, in general the packages were on par in expected damage.
Where are the decks equivalent? The original Death Star design had a lot of
transient stealth. I cut those stealth numbers in every design to focus
on more permanent stealth options. The net result is something close,
but the lower transient stealth count means that the variants are much weaker
in the stealth department until a permanent stealth option hits the table.
Where are the decks completely different? Think about how the Daughters
of Cacophony version used Conductor +
Madrigal to refill the vampires that were
making babies. I needed ways to power the creation of more expensive
childer. The Ravnos version has a very solid bleed component because of
the Week of Nightmares. That angle could
be leveraged more than it was.
4. Play and tweak.
Something that you should do with every deck that you design is to test it in
play and adapt to the difficulties you encounter. Your variant also
needs to match your meta. If the deck has too much stealth because you
don't see much intercept or have the opposite problem, you have to adjust
it. Not enough vote power to push through your aims? Make tweaks.
Ultimately, you may just decide that the original and your variant may not
work in the environment that you play in. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
is a world-wide game and is played very differently in some parts of the world
versus others.
Even if you end up abandoning a design, you've gained knowledge and experience
analyzing and building decks. And that is what makes great deckbuilders:
understanding, adapting, and constantly creating deck designs.
Homework
I thought I might end this series with a small homework assignment. Take
a deck that you like from the TWDA and create one or more variants of
it. Play with each variant (including the original) that you build and
notice how the decks play slightly differently. Most of all have fun
with it.
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