The Guardtower Monthly
Issue # 5 • Decaffinated Edition • May 2003
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VTES: BEGINNING STRATEGY
By Alexander James


Vampire the Eternal Struggle (VTES) was a Deckmaster game
based on the Vampire the Eternal Struggle RPG, released by 
Wizards of the Coast (WotC) way back in the early 90’s, 
right after the success of Magic the Gathering (MTG). 
It was originally known as Jyhad, but for mysterious reasons, 
changed its name in 1995. As a result, you may occasionally 
see cards with backs that say’“Jyhad” mixed with backs that 
say “Vampire: The Eternal Struggle”.  VTES has gone through 
nine sets of cards, with their tenth (Anarchs) due in May, 
and has since switched company hands to White Wolf.

The game is built to be played with more than two people, four
or five being ideal. In the game you represent an ancient Methuselah
(that’s a really old strong vampire), bent on controlling / defeating 
/ annoying other ancient Methuselah. You influence younger vampires 
to do your bidding, throw them (rhetorically) at other Methuselah’s 
minions or resources, and laugh maniacally while they proceed 
to wipe the floor with you. I won’t go into explaining the rules 
to you… that is why we have rulebooks. I will instead talk about 
some strategy that beginning Methuselah may wish to employ.

Get the (relatively common) must have cards.
These cards include, but are not limited to, Blood Doll, 
Minion Tap, Wake with Evenings Freshness (WWEF) and Forced Awakening (FA). 
These 4 cards make it into about 75% of all decks (keepin mind that 86% 
of all statistics are made up on the spot). Buy a few boosters or 
a starter, see if you get any. If not, ask around on Wednesdays 
(The group meets every week - Rex) to trade.

Here are a few quick notes on their importance. Blood Dolls and 
Minion Taps allow you to generate more pool at the expense of 
blood off of your vampires. Getting blood for your minions is 
easier than generating pool for you. WWEF and FA will allow you 
to act with (potentially) all of your minions and still have 
defenses against anyone trying to wreck you. This aggressive 
play leads to my second point.

Do stuff! (but do so intelligently)
This game rewards action. Because you get to replace (most of 
the time) any library cards you play, right after you play them, 
it makes sense to DO STUFF. If you’re packing WWEF or FA in your 
deck, take those actions. Bleed, equip, Go Anarch, take an action 
to burn a card that’s in play that’s been bugging your for the 
past three turns; whatever it is that your deck does, do it.
Do be careful not to do things to the wrong people. Do NOT destroy 
every single one of your predator’s minions. Remember, this is a 
multi-player game, and by really hurting your predator, this 
only means you’re helping his predator win, and get closer to 
killing you. There’s a phrase often used in this game: 
“Look left”. The person to your left (clockwise) is your prey. 
You’re here to kill your prey (generally speaking). Similarly, 
please don’t go at-tacking your predator’s predator (grandpredator). 
This is known as going "across table".  Focus your resources 
on ousting your prey and slowing down your predator.

Also be careful not to be TOO aggressive. Sometimes if you’re 
looking too strong, the entire table will turn on you 
(contrary to my above advice), because they know that once 
it’s their turn to be attacked by you, they won’t stand a chance. 
Furthermore, sometimes being too aggressive means that you just 
cripple your prey,but never KILL them. This just means that your 
prey’s prey has NO PRESSURE and will, if they’re playing it right, 
kill their prey. I hope you followed that...

Have a theme (that tries to win)
My tongue deck is comical, and as annoyingly fun as looking 
right (always) can be, you should have a deck, themed, to win. 
Some common types of decks are listed below (in no particular order).

Clan Based: These are decks that grab twelve vampires of one
particular clan. They sprinkle in some cards based on their clan
disciplines, and then do whatever it is that that clan does. 
These decks are different depending on what that particular clan 
does, and also tend to do a bit of everything (this is known as being “ToolBoxy”).

Tool Box: They try to do everything (or a lot) and try to win
through small victories. Block a little, bleed a little, vote 
a little, fight a little (diddle doo). Its very tricky to play 
such a deck, but when done correctly, feels very rewarding. 
Almost any clan can Tool Box, but I’ve found I like it with 
Ravnos and Gangrel.

Stealth Bleed: They bleed, for a lot, at stealth. They have close
to no combat defense, can’t block anything their predator does and
either sweeps the table (kills everyone) or cripples their prey 
and lets their grand prey win the game. Good deck for beginners, 
as its easy to build, and depressingly successful. 
Abbreviated S&B. Malkavian’s are good at this, but you can do 
it with Followers of Set too.

Bruise and Bleed: This is like an S&B, but without the stealth.
If your big bleeds are blocked, you just beat the crap out of 
the blocker. Often enough, you don’t even need to have that many 
combat cards, just the threat of combat cards is often enough to 
get your big bleeds through. Brujah and Giovanni are good for this.

Vote and Bloat: This relies on passing really damaging votes 
(Parity Shift, Kine Resource Contested), by a lot of votes in your
favor (using cards like Bewitching Oration and Awe) and then 
playing Voter Cap to fill your vampire back up and gain two pool 
(with Voter Captivation). Then you Minion Tap that vampire and 
start over. Ventrue can do this well, although sometimes it’s done 
with Toreador.

The Wall: You block every action on the table, maybe you fight them 
and maybe you block your prey’s actions. It has very little forward 
momentum, but sometimes, when the stars align just right, your prey 
is taking very few forward actions too, and you can screw his game 
over more than your predators and let cards like Anarch Revolt and 
Smiling Jack: the Anarch take care of their pool. This is a favorite 
strategy for Tzimisce, but you’ll see Tremere do it sometimes too..

Combat: There are many types of combat decks, but they all feature 
beating up everyone’s minions, prey specifically. They use cards like 
Fame and Tension in the Ranks to cause pool loss when their prey’s 
minions hit torpor. Brujah are good at this, but I’ve seen Blood 
Brothers, Gargoyles, Nosferatu, Tzimisce do it also.
Theoretically, any clan can do it.

That’s it for now. Join me next time when I talk about a few of
the specifics of each discipline, and talk about making decks with
this in mind.