Q3 2023: The Erlik affaire

Oh! A storm is threatening
my very life today
If I don´t get some shelter
I´m gonna fade away

Hello, visitor.

Welcome to the Thessalian scrolls. Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.

If you have reached this place by chance, please find out what this is all about here. If you came willingly, take a sit and allow me to share some information that can be useful or, at least, entertaining.

It´s been quite a while. As I said in my last entry, I would report for Q3 in this one. But I did not expect that it would take so long, and I am truly sorry for that. Being a small part of the Big Machine, there have been lots of issues that have delayed my work. For my own good, I hope I can use more time to keep working on these scrolls, and in the near future be able to share some more information, and some pointless digression about the never-ending war of the Kindred.

So, this is the third stage on my 2023 accumulated reports. Here you will find a build-up of the data from January to September, shown either by aggregation, or by a view on their evolution (and sometimes both).

As you can see in the title, this time I will be highlighting the Harbingers of Skulls, as the most successful clan in the third quarter. The biggest event where they performed was in the town of Novy Rychnov, in the Czech Republic, and I could not resist the temptation to feature the old and beautiful capital city of that country.

Old Prague has been a staple in the World of Darkness from the beginning

SCOPE.

So, let´s see the nature of the data I will be showing. I am gathering information of Tournament Winning Decks from tournaments reported in the VEKN, and building a series of charts featuring different aspects of the game. There are a number of events and decks that happened in the period, that are not being counted. as I can only include in my records those events for which I do have access to that deck. Let´s see the first chart:

In this chart, events are the number of tournaments I am counting (they are in the VEKN and I could acccess the TWD), players in scope means the number of players participating in those events. Players out of scope are the those who participated in events I could not account (probably not being able to access the winner deck list). And then we have the % players out and % players in scope, reflecting the percentage of player participations that are measured in this report. This % evolution can be seen here:

As you can see, after a very good second quarter (in terms of TWD publication and information sharing), Q3 has gone down a little. A lot of people are working to share these data with the community: The VEKN managers, Princes all around, other event organizers and also some players that add more details. I feel quite thankful for their efforts, and encourage them to keep on performing these deeds that, in my opinion, make the community (and the game), expand and be richer.

Based on the same data, please see below the evolution of the player count of the methuselahs participating in events:

In green you can see the total number of players counted in events registered in the VEKN. In orange, participants in events I could include in my scope, as I had access to the TWD.

And also, see a display of the events accounted and the average number of players of each month:

Green shows the number of events counted, and orange the average participants per event. The global average number of players per event is 20. Quite a good number for a tournament of this game.

ZONES.

Each time I work with these data, I love to see the diversity and colour of the different communities. Imagining how the WoD features adapted to different locations of the planet (mainly centered around the different cities), was one of my favorite staples for enjoying this lore. I think this is quite well represented in the VTES competitive scene, as the details of the different remarkable events usually is linked to the particular city where they take place. For the sake of simplicity, I have grouped the events in regional communities, and you can see them, ordered according to the accumulated number of participants in the first three quarters of 2023:

WINNERS.

These are the tournament winners this year. Jaddou is still at the top, and we will see if some other of the great players in the scene can win over more participants. The amount of players that should be listed here is huge, and the resolution of the site does not allow me to share it complete. So, I will show you the first 30:

Explanation:

V: Number of victories achieved by a player

%V: percentage of victories of that player over the total of games counted

P: Players participating in tournaments won by a player

%P: percentage of players in the won events over the total of methuselahs

Please note that this is a list of the tournament winners, and it does not include the big tournament in march (Sevilla). If you want a more precise look to the roster of the best players of this game, I suggest going to the VEKN player registry/ranking, where not only the tournnament wins are counted, but all recent performances achieved by them.

CLANS.

Lets begin with the data about the decks played. The first feature counts the clans that composed most of the deck in a particular TWD. This gives us the first look on the kind of decks that are winning. Let´s see the chart of the most successful clans in these three quarters:

Here you can see the total victories achieved by each clan (V), the percentage over the total (%V), and also the number of players on those events (P), along with the % over the total players of the given period (%P). You can see the rating accumulated in each quarter Finally, in green, you find the accumulated total Rating of each clan.

Let me highlight some data calling my attention this season:

Gangrel retakes the lead in the accumulated, after a Q3 that was not easy for their main competitor, Tremere. Harbingers of Skulls have been the clan of the season, and they grow in the accumulated rate from 5th to 3th. Will they keep on their ascendancy? Which one will be the clan of the year? 

We can see that the five clans are the top are the same as in Q2: Gangrel, Tremere, Harbingers of skulls, Ministry and Banu Haqim. Three of them enjoyed the publication of a 5th edition decks. And the fourth in that bundle was Brujah, which is placed 6th in the 2023 ranking of TWDs. This gives us an idea of the reception of that particular bundle (and the reinforcement received later).

Let´s see their evolution from another perspective:

Banu Haqim, and Ministry show a more or less consolidated presence. Among the other three, we can see an evolution in Q3 that has deeply hurt Tremere, allowing the growth of Harbinger and Gangrel. I am eager to consolidate the data of the final quarter of the year, and proclaim a winner.  

But again, balance seems to be a staple in the metagame. 32 clans are represented (out of 39), and we can see a bunch of clans having higher success than others, but by no means any abuse, nor even a clear supremacy. These are wonderful times for a wonderful game. 

PLAYSTYLE.

Now let´s see what kind of strategies have been able to triumph. If you know may previous entries, you may know that I classify the different approaches in four types:

Those decks that go more or less straightway towards the pool of their prey, are nominated as Active decks.

Those that play a lot of reactions and mostly try to disrupt the actions of their foes, are classified as Reactive.

Control decks are those that mainly defend themselves by attacking and neutralizing other´s minions.

And finally, toolbox decks, able to do probably two (or even all) of those things reasonably well.

Allow me to show you the accumulated data of this feature in a chart:

If we compare this accumulated with the previous one (Q2), we see there is little change on it, Just an adjustment of 2% of rating lost by control decks (was 12% in Q2 accumulated) and earned by reactive ones (was 21%). The consistency of this chart during the quarters give us an idea of the status of the game, in what comes to strategy. Soon enough, we will be able to see the global view when the year is complete.

Below we can see the evolution of the styles month by month. Things change in a particular month (active decks peaked at August), but the global remains stable.

According to certain classification (which includes personal choice), toolbox remain the most used:

Bleeders, Bleed&vote, Bruise&bleed and Political are the active decks. Blockers and Block&bruise are the reactive ones, being Bruisers the Control masters, and the mixed strategies represented by Toolbox decks. No misteries revealed here, but the chart adds more detail.

DISCIPLINES.

Now that three quarters of 2023 are being counted, we can guess what are going to be the top disciplines among TWDs this year. Auspex, Obfuscate, Dominate, Presence are staples in the top 5.  Celerity and Fortitude are going in and out of that group. Let´s see the Q3 accumulated:

Q3 has been quite well for Obfuscate, going up to 2nd place. Dominate and Fortitude also performed well, and Auspex keeps constantly good. 

And let´s look at the evolution of the six most used disciplines. I have chosen to feature these six, as they all have been in the 5 most played in at least one quarter:

ARQUETYPES.

All this is ok but, what are the decks that win the most tournaments? At the end, this is what I would like to know.

Let´s see the accumulated chart. In Q1 the top archetype was the Modern Gangrel Anarch, and in Q2 it was the Tremere Toolbox. There is a new deck in the block, now. When Q4 is complete, we will be able to determine which one has been the Deck of the Year. This chart is huge, but it has to be.

Explanation:

V: Number of victories achieved by an archetype.

%V: percentage of victories of that archetype over the total of games counted

P: Players participating in tournaments won by an archetype.

%P: percentage of players in the won events over the total of methuselahs

CARDS.

Let´s take a look at the cards that are played. Below you can see an accumulated total of each card, and the % they mean over the total cards played. Also an average per deck of that particular type.

And a chart showing the proportions (adding Political, equipment, allies, events and retainers in one group: other).

FEATURE: REDIRECTION.

The second quarter of the year showed an increase in the number of TWDs that did not rely in redirections as a defense, but the tendency changed in Q3, with a higher amount of decks that packed some amount of bouncing cards.

Now let´s see a chart showing the average number of redirections per deck. Green line shows the evolution of the average number of redirections among the decks that pack them. Orange line features the total average  among all decks. 

The yearly average among the bounce-capable decks is 6,59 per deck. The global average is 4,67 per deck. 

FEATURE: ASHUR TABLETS.

As you may know, I have been monitorizing the use of the Tablets among TWDs, as the eye of the community seemed to be set on them. Let´s see how this evolved:

The trend that we could see in the second quarter is continued in the Q3, and it is reducing. The average of the monthly rating so far this year went down to 19% (it was 21% after Q2). As usual, I am rating the decks according to the number of players in the events they won. 

I will keep monitoring this feature, hoping to add some interesting numbers to the debate.

DECK SIZE.

In Winter, decks showed a tendency to grow thinner, but Spring balanced things with a slight increase. Q3 keeps the increase. Global average was at 83 cards per deck after Q2, and now grows to 84. See the evolution:

You can see it more accurately in the next chart, where I show the compared evolution of three kind of decks: 90-card decks, those that pack 80-89 cards, and those with less than 80 cards. The data are applied considering the number of players defeated, as usual. 90 card decks are still the most frequent, and the global average is 58%. TWDs with 80 to 89 cards are 20%, and the other 22% of the decks packed less than 80 cards.

CRYPT CAPACITY.

The average crypt capacity is the average of the cost of all vampires played among the TWDs, and is somehow constant (global average 6,1):

 

When we look at the maximum capacity vampires on each TWD crypt, we can see that the Q3 is evolving towards younger vampires, and there are fewer decks that are including big caps. The yearly rate of decks relying in big caps has fallen from the 48% in June, to a 43% in September:

Definitely, big caps had earned some spotlight in the second season. But the tendency changed during the summer.

Inspired by this fact, I felt I could add a view on the performance of the most iconic big cap vampires: Inner Circles (Or any other equivalent 11-cap). The facts are consistent, and their performance has diminished in the last three months. In this chart we see the rating of decks that include 11 cap vampires:

The Rating is again calculated attending to player counts in the tournaments won by these decks. 

And that´s all I got for this special issue. I hope you obtained some useful information, or at least some oddities that brought you some joy. As usual, I am open to suggestion, comments or bleeds, that can make this place more useful. I always will try to make the next entry a step forward.

Until then, I thank you for reading this far, and wish you a nice wake with the evening´s freshness.

Pritoos.