First Strike vs. Strike: Combat Ends

Robert Scythe wrote: However, you seem to be stating that animalism will SUFFER more. I don't believe that First Strike trumping S:CE will effect animalism enough to make them change anything in their deck design except, maybe, to throw in an additional Canine Hordes or two. One can always "ignore their Carrion" with S:CE in the first place so who really is troubled by someone having to play additional cards to gain the same effect?

Animalism deck will be mostly unaffected, true.

But they will be more combat decks, since they will more easily trump anti-combat. And Animalism is often weak against them, and even weaker if they risk to be torpored before even doing one damage.

Animalism does not fear aggro poke now because their opponent lose 4 blood total while they lose 2 and an action. If instead it's 1 blood vs 2 and one action, they are considerably weaker. Ditto to a lesser extent for other combat type : Animalism will lose its hitback ability in at least some case. And that's the hitback that allow Animalism to not be eaten alive by other combats.

Lech wrote: And yeah, there is good -non-s:ce - counter to crows and bats. It's called hidden strength.

That's your answer? To make up for S:CE (a widely spread out strike amongst disciplines) against a 2 card combo is one card from one discipline that will still cost 2 blood? Why not also mention Alpha Glint, Bloodform, Ex Nihilo, Soak, Flesh of Marble, Anesthetic Touch with manuever, Apparition and so on and so forth.

Ohlmann wrote:
Animalism deck will be mostly unaffected, true.

But they will be more combat decks, since they will more easily trump anti-combat. And Animalism is often weak against them, and even weaker if they risk to be torpored before even doing one damage.

"Often weak against them" do not believe that I can agree with that. They need a maneuver and a way to deal with 3 damage as well as having enough of their own to hurt the animalism using vamp.

"More combat decks" maybe, but ultimately not a bad thing when considering the more tactical vs strategical thought that will be put into deck designs.

Robert Scythe wrote: "Often weak against them" do not believe that I can agree with that. They need a maneuver and a way to deal with 3 damage as well as having enough of their own to hurt the animalism using vamp.

Animalism is easy to outmaneuver, if needed. They have no way to have more than one maneuver easily by itself.

Three damage ain't that scary either, especially with (your pick) Flesh of marble, Armor of Vitality, Hidden Strength, Theft of Vitae, etc... About anything other combat type can do far worse to your vampire ; if you get into combat not thinking people can hit back, you have problem against animalism, but against anything else combaty too.

The strength of animalism is that it's easy to put in place and it have a good card flow. It also strive on the fact that anti combat card are the fifth wheel in a lot of decks. Shutting down Animalism combat completely isn't hard at all ; what is hard is shutting it down while having a good card flow, solution to S:CE, way to kill your opponent, etc ... First strike make it so you have a good solution against S:CE, a good solution against most combat type, and a decent solution against Carrion Crow. Providing you can do something decisive with your strike, of course

Well Ohlmann, I have a suggestion for people defending animalism combat : build a real deck with real vamps ? Tossing together all the ANI weenies under 5 cap under the sole pretext that carrion+ aid looks good with deep song sounds like another epitome of lazy deckbuilding.
Why not use Fortitude, Protean, Vicissitude, all kind of disciplines coming with means of preventing agg damage on decent vampires ? Animalism itself has also song of serenity... But Zomg, that means I have to build deck in accordance to a metagame ?!

The more I read Vekn.net, the more I am puzzled.
What has v:tes become ?
" If nobody ever rush me, my political deck is perfect"
" If nobody hit back, my combat deck is genius "
" If my prey has no intercept, my multi ally deck will rule the world"

Tournaments are so boring those days... (yeah, I know, local meta, blahblah)