Reasonably Priced Decks: Toreador antitribu

The following deck based on the Toreador antitribu clan is the fourth deck in the Reasonably Priced Decks series, which I have outlined in a previous blog post.

The deck is a basic bleed and vote deck based on the Toreador antitribu clan. Contrary to the previously posted decks this deck contains some vampires with a higher capacity, mostly to gain access to some permanent titles. The Toreador antitribu profits from a number of very strong clan cards, mostly notably Palla Grande, Foundation Exhibit and Art Scam. Unfortunately all of the aforementioned cards are rare cards .. but nonetheless the resulting deck (with only one of those rares) is still rather reliable and sturdy.

Reasonably Priced Decks: Lasombra

The following deck based on the Lasombra clan is the third deck in the Reasonably Priced Decks series, which I have outlined in a previous blog post.

The deck is in its essence a stealth bleed deck based on the Dominate and Obtenebration clan disciplines supported by a number by allies, i.e. a couple of Nocturns.

Reasonably Priced Decks: Brujah antitribu

The following deck based on the Brujah antitribu clan is the second deck in the Reasonably Priced Decks series, which I have outlined in a previous blog post.

The deck is vote (& rush) deck based on the Kine Resources Contested and Conservative Agitation votes flavoured with some combat. Essentially it's a stripped down version of the Unexpected Coalition deck by David Wittmann.

Reasonably Priced Decks: Tzimisce

The following deck based on the Tzimisce clan is the first deck in the Reasonably Priced Decks series, which I have outlined in a previous blog post.

In its core it's a plain, simple Bleed deck with some diversions in combat and intercept .. and the diversions are what makes your opponent guess how much combat and intercept you actually have in your deck. Which, of course, makes it difficult for him to (re)act accordingly.

Reasonably Priced Decks

After buying a rather large VtES collection (something about 14,000 cards) at the end of last year, I had (and still have) a large surplus of common and uncommon cards. So the question came up, what to with the cards.

• Throw away the cards. -- Ugh. Not really my thing to throw away something useful/valuable to others.
• Donate it to the local card pool. -- Maybe, but there's no local card pool, or more important, local new players.
• Sell them in bulk on EBay. -- Less work, but also less profitable (and fun).
• Sell them individually on EBay. -- More profitable (perhaps), but also much more work.
• Sell them on demand/request by fellow players. -- Also takes some time, but over a much longer period of time.

What I did was something different (at least I am a starting with that). Similar to the Barbed Wire Project for VtES or comparable the Pauper/Peasant formats (in MtG), I have tried to put a number of decks together, which are both cheap, sturdy, but still able to win games (or be able to make VPs at least). Since the bulk of the surplus are the mid- to late-expansions (like Black Hand, KMW, Third Edition and Sword of Caine) I am starting with the Sabbat clans, and maybe extending the deck building to the four independent clans from Lords of the Nights. Eventually I am planning to sell those decks, at whatever opportunity arises, from local tournaments to fellow players (in Germany).

When building a deck, it always starts with looking at the disciplines a clan has reasonable access to (also known as "clan disciplines), and looking up which are the commons (and uncommons) I have for these disciplines. This defines the basic stock of that deck, and most likely the direction the deck is gonna take (bleed, vote, combat, ally, ..). These cards are complemented by a few cards requiring the clan in question (i.e. a Hunting Ground). Then I add master and minion cards which have no requirements, but are useful in general or for the deck's direction.

At last, I am looking at the crypt. The vampires are taken from group 3-4 or group 4-5, since these are the expansions I have in surplus. I almost exclusively go for the low- to mid-cap vampires, because for a beginner's decks I think it's important that a player has access to a lot of actions, and is not just sitting around with 1 or 2 vampires, of which only one will act, since the second would often only be kept for blocking purposes then. With three or even four vampires at hand, you can act with two or three vampires depending on the situation at the table.

Then I start actually building the deck(s), making slight adjustments if I don't have the proper number of cards in my surplus stock (both for crypt and library) for 3 to 4 copies of the deck. The next step is to take playtest the deck. First in the casual rounds and after a game or two I play them in our (bi-)weekly league rounds. During this I try to optimize the deck (within the same limits as before) and come to a version which I am content with.

Of course, these decks could be even better if I would allow myself to add more rare cards to it, but that's not really the point of the exercise. And of course, these decks cannot be considered tier 1 (or even maybe tier-2), but against other casual decks (with or without rare cards) they can hold their ground, and score a victory point or two and an occasional gamewin should be possible, too.

In the following weeks, I will present these decks here on the blog, starting with a Tzimisce Bleed deck tomorrow.

Barbed Wire Project

The Barbed Wire Project (BWP) was an initiative started by Preston Poulter in 2005 to provide beginners with a number of decks which are somewhat cheap (consisting mostly commons), but still playable and sturdy. The name Barbed Wire Project derived from an early advertising slogan for barbed wire in the late 19th century, which cited as barbed wire as

"Light as air.
Stronger than whiskey.
Cheaper than dirt."

With the help of the community on VtES Newsgroup he came up a number of (more or less) ingenious decks. From time to time Preston sold (and still) sells these decks on eBay. The deck consist of 60 library and 12 crypt cards, examples look like this:

• Brujah deck
• Gangrel deck
• Malkavian deck
• Nosferatu deck
• Toreador deck
• Tremere deck
• Ventrue deck

Please take that there no definitive deck lists for each of these decks, since they can vary in the crypt and/or library composition.
Preston also has made some nice videos (although the sound is awfully silent) on YouTube where he's playing some of these decks against each other:

• Barbed Wire 1
• Barbed Wire 2
• Barbed Wire 3
• Barbed Wire 4

Reference: VtES Usenet Newsgroup

Cutting down a .. VtES deck

In the White Wolf VtES forum a player asked how one would cut down a 90 card VtES deck to smaller size more suitable for tournaments or competitive games in general.

When I start building decks I usually start with 90 card version. With this initial draft I then play a couple of league or casual games, to see which parts are working or not. Between these games I often remove cards that didn't work in this deck. Sometimes I replace them with more suitable cards, or if I have the impression, that the card doesn't fit into the concept at all, I just throw them out, e.g. when I have too many master cards in the deck, I remove those which are not essential to the deck. So this is already the first step of reducing the deck size.

Before trimming down the deck to a tournament size between 60 and 80 cards, I first ask myself, if this is necessary at all? How much cards were left in the library in a typical game and did I came close to decking myself? E.g. when playing a combat deck with a high throughput of cards or a deck with many Liquidations, it's often not advisable to reduce the card count below 80 to 90.

When I have decided to reduce the deck size, I usually aim to reduce the deck to 75 cards. Sometime ago in the french VtES forum Sabbat in France one of the forum members came up with the following classification with regards to deck size:

• 60 cards -- fast or combo decks
• 70 cards -- fast deck with extras
• 75 cards -- normal deck
• 80 cards -- combat decks
• 90 cards -- bad decks

Although it's slight exaggeration at the lower end of the list, it shows the a good guideline for which deck size to aim. The faster or the more combo-dependent the deck is, the smaller the deck should be.

Usually when trimming down a deck, I follow these principles:

1. Try to retain card ratios where possible, e.g. try to keep the same ratio of master cards to combat cards to action cards, etc. This is important to avoid handjams with certain types of cards.
2. Eliminate cards that are not essential to your deck, but nice-to-have and/or corner case.
3. Eliminate cards with higher number of copies (5 to 10) in your deck by one or two copies.

For example, if this would be my DOM bleed deck with 24 cards, ..

Master Cards (7): [29.2%]
5x Blood Doll
1x Pentex Subversion
1x Retribution

Action/Action Modifier Cards (11): [45.8%]
6x Govern the Unaligned
4x Conditioning
1x Graverobbing

Reaction Cards (6): [25%]
6x Deflection

.. I can reduce it to the following deck with 18 cards (removing 1/4 of the deck):

Master Cards (5): [27%]
4x Blood Doll
1x Pentex Subversion

Action Cards/Action Modifier (8): [44.4%]
5x Govern the Unaligned
3x Conditioning

Reaction Cards (5): [27.8%]
5x Deflection

I have removed the Graverobbing and the Retribution, because they are kind of useful in some cases and nice for casual games, but not necessary for the deck to work in general. Then I removed one copy each of Govern the Unaligned and Blood Doll, and as a consequence one copy of Conditioning to retain card ratios between the different card groups. This is of course a simplified example, but it shows the general principal.

Anatomy of a VtES Crypt Card

VtES cards, as cards from other trading card games, are the living proof, how much information you can cram onto a rather small piece of cardboard.

There are generally two types of VtES cards, library and crypt cards. Crypt cards can be identified by the amber marble card backs (in contrast to the green marble of the library cards). At the start of the game you have crypt (card stack) consisting of at least 12 crypt cards. After the start of your game you immediately put the top four cards of your crypt into your uncontrolled region (face down). Once you put more or equal blood counters than the vampires capacity (usually from your pool) to a crypt crypt , he is moved face up into the ready region (during the influence phase). In general, a crypt card represents a vampire (or in some cases an Imbued, a mortal vampire hunter), which the Methusalem (the player) can use to attack other player's resources and defend his own resources.

A VtES crypt card usually consists of the following elements:

• Card Name -- the name of the vampire (or the Imbued).
• Clan -- the name of the clan the vampire belongs to. Like the disciplines some cards require a vampire belonging to a certain clan. The card background is also clan-specific.
  
• Disciplines -- each vampire has a set of disciplines which allow him to play cards that require one (or more) of these disciplines.
• Group -- technically you're only allowed to have vampires in your crypt from two consecutive groups. During an ongoing game there are no further effects of the group number.
• Card Text -- this is description of the vampire extra abilities, e.g. the sect the vampire belongs to, the title of the vampire (if any) and additional abilities (if any).
• Capacity -- the number stands for the capacity of the vampire. The higher the capacity is the more powerful the vampire generally is, but at the same time you need to put more blood counters on him before you can move him to the ready region.
• Card Image -- in the oval central area the depiction of the vampire can be found.
• Expansion Symbol -- this shows the VtES expansion this card is from. The symbol has no actual meaning in the game.
• Copyright -- the copyright statement of White Wolf/CCP.
• Artist -- the name of artist.

In the example shown above, you see the vampire Alsonso Petrodon (card name) from the clan Nosferatu (clan). This crypt card is from the expansion "Keepers of Tradition" (expansion). The vampre has the disciplines Fortitude and Thaumaturgy on inferior level, and Animalism, Dominate, Obfuscate, Potence at superior level (disciplines). Alsonso Petrodon has a rather high capacity of 10 (capacity). He belongs to the group 5 vampires (group), and therefore and only be combined with either vampires from group 4 and 5 or alternatively from group 5 and 6. He's a member of the Camarilla sect, and he's the Justicar of the clan Nosferatu. Additionally when he bleeds successfully, each anarch controlled by the target takes 1 unpreventable damage. He also has an inherent +1 bleed modifier. The artist who made the card picture in the oval area is Tony Shasteen (artist). The card was printed in 2009 by CCP (copyright).

Anatomy of a VtES Library Card

VtES cards, as cards from other trading card games, are the living proof, how much information you can cram onto a rather small piece of cardboard.

There are generally two types of VtES cards, library and crypt cards. Library cards can be identified by the green marble card backs (in contrast to the amber marble of the crypt cards). Library cards make up the bulk of your VtES deck (betweeen 60 and 90 in tournaments), and at the start of your game, they are in the library (drawing card stack). Immediately after the start of your game you are dealing the top seven library cards to yourself to form your hand. From there on you play your library cards from your hand, they represent the things you or your minions can do or use, when you play them.

A library card usually consists of the following elements:

• Card Name -- the name of card.
• Type -- the symbols show the card (sub-)type. If there's no symbol the card is a master card, other card types are action, political action, action modifier, reaction, combat, equipment, ally, retainer and events cards.
• Requirements (Clan / Discipline) -- this symbol shows the requirement of the cards. Usually this is a clan or one (or more) discipline(s).
• Cost -- the cost of the card. If the cost is in the form of a red blood drop, it is the blood cost to be paid by the minion who uses it. If the cost is in the form of white diamond, it is the pool cost the player has to pay.
• Card Text -- the actual effects of the card are described here. If the card text is preceded by discipline symbols (as shown in the picture), the card usually has two effects. The first text is the inferior version with the discipline symbol as a square. The second text is the superior version with the discipline symbol as a diamond.
• Draft Text -- this text with the grey background can only be used in a draft game. Take note, that the requirements on the left side of the card do not apply for the draft, unless explicitly named in the draft text.
• Expansion Symbol -- this shows the VtES expansion this card is from. The symbol has no actual meaning in the game (as the other items following as well).
  
• Card Image -- in the rectangular central area the artist's depiction of the card can be found.
• Flavour Text -- some cards have a flavour text. The text does not have any actual meaning, but provide some flavour from the World of Darkness background or real world references.
• Copyright Notice -- the copyright statement of White Wolf/CCP.
• Artist -- the name of artist.

In the example shown above, you see the combat card (type) "Blur" (card name) from the 3rd Edition (expansion). The card requires Celerity (discipline) and costs the minion one blood to play (cost). On inferior Celerity the card grants the minion who played it an additional strike, while on superior Celerity even two additional strikes (card text). In a draft game, the card can be used in combat for gaining a maneuver without any requirements (draft text). The text at the bottom of the card is from a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson named "Prudence" (flavour text). The artist who made the card picture in the rectangular is Ken Meyer Jr. (artist). The card was printed in 2006 by White Wolf Publishing (copyright).

Bloodlines Disciplines

After having posted the discipline summary for the major VtES clans, here's the summary for the bloodline clans:

• Abomination -- (none)
  
• Ahrimanes -- Animalism, Presence, Spiritus
  
• Baali -- Daimonium, Obfuscate, Presence
  
• Blood Brothers -- Fortitude, Potence, Sanguinis
  
• Daughter's of Cacophony -- Fortitude, Melpominee, Presence
  
• Gargoyle -- Fortitude, Potence, Visceratika
  
• Kyasid -- Mytherceria, Dominate, Obtenebration
  
• Nagaraja -- Auspex, Dominate, Necromancy
  
• Salubri -- Auspex, Fortitude, Obeah
  
• Salubri Antitribu -- Auspex, Fortitude, Valeren
  
• Samedi -- Fortitude, Necromancy, Obfuscate, Thanatosis
  
• True Brujah -- Potence, Presence, Temporis

Clan Disciplines Overview

Although technically in Vampire: the Eternal Struggle (VtES) (in contrast to Vampire: the Masquerade) there are no clan disciplines, you can see a statistical increase of certain disciplines for each clan. Here are the de-facto clan disciplines for the major clans in VtES (clans are grouped by sect).

Camarilla

• Brujah -- Celerity, Potence, Presence
• Gangrel -- Animalism, Fortitude, Protean
• Nosferatu -- Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence
• Malkavian -- Auxpex, Dementation, Obfuscate
• Toreador -- Auxpex, Celerity, Presence
• Tremere -- Auxpex, Dominate, Thaumaturgy
• Ventrue -- Dominate, Fortitude, Presence
• Caitiff -- none

Remarks:

• The clan disciplines for the Malkavians until Camarilla expansion (2002) were Auxpex, Dominate, Obfuscate .
• Since the Camarilla expansion (2002) the Gangrel are an independent clan.
• Technically the Caitiff represent not a clan (e.g. for Consanguineous Boon).

Sabbat

• Brujah Antitribu -- Celerity, Potence, Presence
• Gangrel Antitribu (country gangrel) -- Animalism, Fortitude, Protean
• Gangrel Antitribu (city gangrel) -- Celerity, Obfuscate, Protean
• Lasombra -- Dominate, Obtenebration, Potence
• Nosferatu Antitribu -- Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence
• Malkavian Antitribu -- Auxpex, Dementation, Obfuscate
• Toreador Antitribu -- Auxpex, Celerity, Presence
• Tremere Antitribu -- Auxpex, Dominate, Thaumaturgy
• Tzimisce -- Animalism, Auxpex, Vicissitude
• Ventrue Antitribu -- Auxpex, Dominate, Fortitude
• Pander -- none

Remarks:

• The Gangrel antitribu, divided into city and country Gangrel, de-facto have two different sets of clan disciplines, although in VtES they are treated as one clan.

Independent

• Assamites -- Celerity, Obfuscate, Quietus
• Followers of Set -- Obfuscate, Presence, Serpentis
• Giovanni -- Dominate, Necromancy, Potence
• Ravnos -- Animalism, Chimerstry, Fortitude

Laibon

• Akunanse -- Abombwe, Animalism, Fortitude
• Guruhi -- Animalism, Potence, Presence
• Osebo -- Auxpex, Celerity, Potence
• Ishtarri -- Celerity, Fortitude, Presence

A VtES Tournament Primer

This is a primer for those VtES players planning to attend their first VtES tournament. The article describes what you can expect, how to prepare for a tournament and what are the do's and dont's during the tournament,

So you are going to attend a VtES tournament, and you are nervous at hell. Then then first thing you need to do is relax. I mean it. The people you are going to play with (or against) are a bunch of nice people (usually) and VtES tournaments are handled way more relaxed than in most other trading card games.

VtES tournaments are the organized form of a multi-round games. That means each players participates in two or three games (rounds). Each game consist of four or five players which are randomly assigned to these games. There is no arrangement of tables during these initial rounds based on the player's performance of the previous rounds. After the two or three preliminary rounds the player's scores from the previous rounds are added up, and the top 5 players are advancing to the final round. In this final round the winner of the tournament is determined, the winner of the final is also the winner of the tournament. (The other players at the final table are all automatically placed on the second place).

Your first tournament should be a small(er) tournaments. I wouldn't really recommend that your first tournament is a Continental Qualifier or a National Championship.

Preparations
You need a VEKN membership number to participate in tournament. VEKN is the abbreviation for "Vampire Elder Kindred Network" and is the official VtES players' organization. But don't worry, becoming a member of the VEKN is both free and easy to obtain. You can either register yourself on the White Wolf website and then generate a new VEKN number for you, or (much easier), let the tournament organizer assign a VEKN number for you. When you arrive at the tournament you just tell the tournament organizer that you are (not yet) a member of the VEKN, and he will grant you prelimenary membership in the VEKN, and register you as official member after the tournament.

Make sure your deck complies all current rules. In particular make sure:

• Your deck shouldn't contain any banned cards. Therefore check the list of banned cards.
• Your library has at least 60 cards and at most 90 cards.
• Your crypt contains 12 or more vampires/Imbued. Also check if your crypt complies with the grouping rule (only vampires/imbued from one group or two adjacent groups).

You also need some blood counters. Depending on your deck you need at least 30 blood counters (usually 40 are better). Do not use dice as counters, they are easily toppled over and then nobody knows your pool or the blood on your vampires. The blood counters should be easily recognizable/visable and neither too large or too small. They do not have to be glass beads. Other players use counters from other games like "Risk", poker chips, coins, or even bullet casings.

Card sleeves for your deck are not required in VtES Tournaments, unless the VtES cards backs can be considered as marked e.g. they are worn or have otherwise distinctive markings. Because the original "Jyhad" cards are still valid and the "3rd Edition" cards have their back illustration "flipped", card sleeves should also be used unless number of cards between are somewhat equally distributed.

Some VtES tournaments, usually only the larger ones like National Championships, Continental Qualifiers or Continental Champhionships, require a deck list. A deck list is a piece of paper with the cards (and their number of copies) of both your crypt and library. The deck list can be printout from one of the deck building utilities like FELDB or ARDB, but it can also be handwritten. In either case make sure it's readable and correct! If a deck list is required, the tournament organizer will announce this, and request the deck list upon your registration before the actual tournament starts.

Please cbserve that contrary to other card games there is no card limit in VtES. That is you can put an arbitary number of an individual cards into your deck. Also as with other trading cards games proxy cards are not allowed, i.e. all cards in your decks must be genuine White Wolf cards.

Most of the above information can also be found in the official VEKN tournament rules. Although you need not to be familiar with all the details of the tournament rules, it doesn't hurt to have read them once. The same applies to the current rulings and errata list, if you are not sure how one of your cards actually work in a complex situation, you should consult the compiled list of rulings and errata.

During tournaments you can often trade cards with other players. So it's a good idea to bring along your own cards you can spare, and make up your mind, what you might need.

Travel
When traveling to a VtES tournament, you should inform yourself where and when the tournament actually takes place. Avoid the stress and arrive in time by

• starting somewhat earlier if you don't know the exact location or expect traffic on the way.
• getting a map to the location, especially of the immediate vicinity of the location. You'll probably won't need that if you travel by car and have a navigation system.
• getting the telephone number of the organizer if possible, so you can call him if your late somehow. This usually work unless it's a big tournament.

You do not have to be there very early, since usually registration is opened only 30 to 60 minutes before the actual tournament.

In the tournament announcement there is often an email adress or website where you can pre-register. Pre-registration is usually only intented for informing the tournament organizer how many players he can roughly expect. Also if you're too late for the tournament, the tournament organizers at smaller tournament will often wait for you to arrive (though it helps if you call him on phone as well).

Registration and Tournament Organization
When you arrive at the tournament, one of the first things to do (perhaps beside a visit to the restroom) is to register. Registering just means that you'll give the tournament organizer your name and VEKN membership number (see above). He will also determine the seating order, which be announced after all participants of the tournament have arrived and registration is closed. Often there is a registration fee (from $0-$5 or 0€ to 5€) from which the tournament organization finances the prize support and promotional cards. Good thing is you'll usually get a bunch of "promotional cards for your entry fee as well.

Your Deck
Aside from the limitations described above (deck size/group rule/banned cards), I'd like to give you the following advice:

• Play a deck that you played before, and that you know how to play with it. E.g. it's not fun for you and the other players when you start playing a political deck for the first time during a tournament.
• Know your cards. Nothing infuriates other players more than if you starting reading your cards and if you ask other players how the cards you're playing actually work. On the other hand it's nothing wrong about asking other players what a particular card does they are playing. Nobody expects you to know each and every VtES card ever released. There are several thousands of library and vampires cards out there and only very,very few people know all the card texts exactly. If you don't know a card another player is using and it's seems important to you ask another player for its effect. If in doubt, let you give the card, so you can read it. Also do not be shy about asking other players what special abilities a vampires, they are moving to the controlled region, has.

Before the game
After the tournament organizer has announced the table seating for a given round, you should move to the table at which you will be playing the next round. Do this in a timely fashin, since there are a couple of things to do before the actual game starts like shuffling your deck, counting your pool, etc. Make sure you are at the right table (they are numbered), and that you have the correct seating position. Í have seen a couple of times that players (even experienced ones) haven't read the seating order closely and two players with the same first name have switched.

When you arrive at your game table for the next round, you should introduce yourself to the other players. Not only it's polite, it also helps communication during the game if you (and your opponents) can refer to each other by name.

Before the game starts, shuffle your deck throughly. How this is done (rifle shuffle, overhand shuffle, etc.) is up to you, only make sure that your deck is sufficiently randomized. Also make sure

Before the game starts your asked to cut and/or shuffle the crypt and library of your prey. Your predator will do the same with your crypt and library. So before dealing the cards to yourself, you should ask your predator if he wants to cut your crypt and library or not.

During The Game

• Observe the order of play. If in doubt take the rulesbook and place it face down on the table so you can look up the turn sequence during your turn.
• Observe the rules. Expect from other players that they observe the rules closely, and they expect it from you in turn. The other players may be to be lenient toward you, because you're new to tournaments, but do not take it for granted. Players are not looking kindly upon forgetting to take pool for the Edge or reversing the order to discard and influence phases. Suck it up, and learn from your error(s).
• Calling a judge. When you have serious doubt about a particular situation or a rules question, do not hesitate to call a judge. I am not encouraging you to call a judge all the time, just if you have serious doubt about a given situation and/or the outcome of the game is decided upon the situation. In smaller tournaments a so-called "multi-judge" system is used. That is before the tournament six judges are selected (usually by the tournament organizer). All of the judges are also players, but with six judges in the tournament, there is always a judge who does not actively participates in a particular game and he can be called to decide on rules questions and the like.

Table Talk and Deals
There is usually much table talk in a VtES tournament, since it's a very social multiplayer game. Do not be intimidated by the amount or type of table talk. Some people like to trash talk, others try to sweet talk you into doing something that may be not in your best interest.

When another player tries to talk you into doing something, blocking, taking an action, playing a "Sudden Reversal" , etc., he may have good arguments, but always ask yourself, what is in your best interest, what is he gaining when you do the deed he's asking for. Especially veteran players try to convince less experienced players into performing actions, that they could do themselves, but they want to save their resources. Talk is cheap, taking actions or spending pool is not.

VtES is to some extent a game of making (and sometimes breaking) deals. There are small deals like "If you help my with my vote, I'll rescue your vampire" as well larger deals like "We'll help each other in ousting our respective preys, and then fight it out like men".

• Before doing anyone a small or big favour (attacking vampires crosstable, or rescuing your predator's vampires from torpor, etc..), always ask for a return. Even if the action is in your best interest also.
• Always ask yourself: "What is best for me?"
• Do not make one-sided deals. If you're deal partner is offering a huge favour for partically nothing in return, it is quite likely that is not gonna keep the deal.
• If in doubt about a particular deal (e.g. if your "partner" will keep the deal or if the deal is not to your advantage), politely decline the deal, but decline it! Your not obliged to accept any deal offered.

After and between games
If you're ousted, you can leave the table or you can watch how the game progresses/ends. After you have been ousted, you're considered a spectator, that means you're no longer allowed to comment the game or make suggestions to other players still involved in the game. To quote the VEKN Tournament Rules:

All spectators are expected to remain silent during the course of a game and are not permitted to communicate with players in any way while a game is in progress.

Unless explicitely forbidden by tournament organizer (e.g. to prevent interference of spectators with the game or reduce the noise level in the room), you can wander around see what decks are played at the other tables. This is informally known as "scouting" and may help you to assess your opponents more easily in the following rounds.

When discussing with other spectators please keep your voices down or (better) leave the playing area, where you do not disturb the other players still active in the game.

The start of the next round is named by the tournament, so you can take your time visting the restroom, eating some food, or talking to other players which also have been ousted. Also between the rounds 1&2 and 2&3, the tournament organizer may announce intermediate standings, but this is usually not the case.

Closing words
This was a lot of information and advice. I tried to cover most aspects that might interest a VtES player new to the tournament scene, but at the core you'll just need a deck, and 30 blood counters, and most important is the following advice: Have fun!

References

• Your First Tournament -- article for beginners attending their first "Magic: the Gathering" tournament.