What Not To Do ..

This is the summary of the thread "Tips on What Not To Do" from the VtES Usenet Newsgroup in 2004. The thread (or at least part of it when it took a detour on discussing the playability of "Form of Corruption") revolved around what player's shouldn't do in the first few turns in order to avoid scaring the whole table and/or drawing unwanted attention to one's deck.

• Play Parthenon and Anarch Revolt. Unless your deck is an Anarch Revolt deck (so people will get pissed eventually), doing this during your first turn means you'll spend the rest of the game telling people you aren't playing an Anarch Revolt deck. [Halcyan 2]


• Discard either Baltimore Purge or Protect Thine Own. Doing so makes people cringe. They might assume you're playing a Baltimore Purge deck or might do pre-emptive rushes to make sure you can't Protect Thine Own them. If you're really handjammed I guess you can discard one of these, but it's still not recommended early on. [Halcyan 2]


• Influence out Arika or Leandro first. Lots of decks do it (and I often do it for strategic reasons) but Arika/Leandro comes out with a giant target on the forehead, so don't be surprised if the reaction is very hostile. [Halcyan 2]


• Play/discard Smiling Jack. Not as serious but some people might assume you're playing a wall deck and act accordingly. [Halcyan 2]


• Play multiple Slaughterhouses early game. Even though it's totally counter-productive, I've seen people do everything in their power to foil someone that plays a milling deck. Something about it not being "fun"... Not like you need to play multiple Slaughterhouses anyways until the end of the game where they are useful to push ahead a Brinksmanship oust. [Aramis]


• Play Le Dihn Tho casually. Like Arika, influencing this vampire up is painting a big bullseye on your forehead. This is mainly because it means you're playing Giovanni S&B and you deserve the hate anyways, but still it's one of those abilities that screams "come kill me now". [Aramis]


• Play Coroner's Contact choosing The Baron, unless you are playing a combo-baron deck. Even then, good luck. [mgreen02]


• Start with Info Highway and throw up 4 panders, discarding a Legacy of Pander. [Frederik]


• Put a low cap vampire into play and bleed for 7 (with Govern the Unaligned + Command of the Beast + Conditioning) on your second or third turn (depending on starting influence). [Frederik]


• Say "shit I forgot to add wakes and/or intercept to this deck". [Frederik]


• Bringing out an Inner Circle followed by the words "I'm not to afraid of my prey's Beast I'll PTO him next turn". [Emile]


• Or saying to you're grand predator that he shouldn't bleed his S&B prey since you have no bounce left. [Emile]

(In brackets are the names of the original contributors).