While he made time going through my extras and his to put the deck together I spent some quality time sorting and putting away lots of cards I acquired a few years back and never officially sorted and put them in their place.
It is hard to believe that this game has been around since 1994!!! I still remember buying my first starter Jyhad deck.... Man, time has flown by! Here it is 2017.... 21 years later..... damn.... And, I might add... for a game that has officially been discontinued from White Wolf.... it has remained strong with a decent cult following, transcending a few generations and is actually getting very popular in Europe now! The Berlin tournament had over 400 participants....
I have to say... I am a CCG nut... my favorite 2 games have been LotR CCG by I.C.E. and VTES from White Wolf. I have played all of the others... yes, including Magic the Gathering.... when I sold off my Magic cards, it paid for one full semester of college.... and that isn't a cheap date... the really sad part though... had I kept my Magic cards, today, they could have paid for a year or more of school!!! Don't get me started on the value of dual lands!!! I had, at one point.... 4 of each to play, plus one of each in my sets!!!
I digress...
Anyway, My interest in the VTES has never waned, but one cannot play by oneself... my play time has been limited to the waxing and waning interest of my friends.... I have to say.... I have acquired a huge amount of cards over the years and have even sold off many. My collection would not be what it is now were it not for a good friend who "gifted" me his whole collection on my 40th birthday.... I was speechless.... I in turn did gift out a lot of cards to share the wealth, but since then I have also picked up other friends collections and have made occasional orders from Rick's VTES shop online.....
So, years later and 25 expansions in, both official and fan made.... my collection has grown in value and sheer size. I can boast about having almost 30k cards and pretty much complete sets from each expansion...
The picture above is about 2/3 of my "extra" cards.... it doesn't include any of the sets, etc.... I am sure there will be more posts on them at some point too.
I currently have 7 ready made decks.... not necessarily my favorite clans, but what I have made now.... Someday I am hoping to create an actual playable True Brujah deck....
Last night saw me traveling into town to play my Followers of Set.... I want to thank the guys for calling their first game and starting another for me to jump into... if you play the game, you know how long it can take.... the one game we got in took up until the last few minutes before the hobby store closed... we were playing at Game Corps in Wesleyville, Erie PA.... The game was great fun! Originally I planned to play my Imbued... the DOA Hunters expansion for VTES.... as much as I love it... I am torn about what folks think about it.... more on that later at some point. Well.. I started looking at the cards and quickly realized.... I couldn't do it.. I had forgotten all of the special rules, etc.... so I asked the guys if I could switch and when they said yes, I decided upon the Followers of Set.
Above are a couple of shots during the game... as I mentioned.. it was a lot of fun. My deck is based upon corruption and corruption enhanced bleeds... with lots of combat ends... it is not a fight deck. I will make a Settite fight deck someday... The game went well enough, I was able to oust my prey.. a Gangrel player who, like me, was having a rough time getting the deck mechanics in motion.. once he did however, he was quickly becoming a force to reckon with... had he gotten another turn, he would have ousted his prey... My predator was playing Tczimice and I am not sure of his deck concept, but I was deathly afraid to get into combat with him.... my enemy's enemies were playing Tremere and a Catiff vote deck... both played well.... and I had forgotten how well the swarm Catiff vote deck worked... he was actually close to winning the game at one point. The Tremere wound up ousting him and then there were three.... I did my fair share to try and win... having a decent 6 blood bleed in my last turn, but bloated from the 6 pool win of ousting his prey, it didn't do enough to oust my new Tremere prey... he quickly regrouped... took out my Tczimice predator and then me....
I quickly re-learned the weaknesses of my deck and what it means to have a bad shuffle.... all in all.. it was fun and a good time was had by all. I look forward to doing it again soon... schedule allowing.
