Back in the Saddle Again

I have come to grips with the fact that I'll never write day-by-day NAC summaries. There are too many friends to see, games to be played, beer to be guzzled and sleep to be slept.

I had a great time in Columbus this year. The organizers did a great job - I'll offer my thanks to those folks once again.

It rough at the tables, though.  Several of us commented on the meta being completely unreadable. Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock has always been huge part of the game. I believe I created a previously unknown "ripe manure" gesture. I'll leave it to readers to create the appropriate mental image for how that interacts with "rock", but the take-home message is that my overall performance was lackluster.

There were a few of amusing highlights:

• Hugh Angseesing "reduced my Blood Brothers bleed" with Archon Investigation.....on 2 of their first 3 attempts.  He bounced the other with......wait for it.....Lost in Translation.
• I used Drop Point Network to create an oust. I'm astonished that this card is not yet included in the TWDA.
• I set a new personal record for losing unique vampires: 11 in NAC Day 1.

This WoN/NAC reinforced a few points in my mind.

• I'm devoted to shaving decks to smaller and smaller size. I ran out of cards only twice with 60 card decks: once with a Imbued deck expressly intended to put cards in the Ash Heap, the other in a very unusual Legacy of Pander situation (a game I ultimately won because of a once-per-game card finally floating into hand).
• The Uncoiling is a mandatory inclusion in any serious deck that doesn't run its own Events. Anthelios and the Unmasking are simply too strong to leave in the end game. 

Lastly, thanks to those who took the time to say they liked the blog. Hearing that you enjoy spending a little time with me is inspiring.

Imperfect Persistence, A Combat Flaw.

One of the conclusions from the last post is

Combat is a tactically superior function,

but suffers from strategic inferiority when used as an ousting strategy.  

This isn't a surprise, Garfield's original vision didn't feature combat as a central offensive function (source needs to be found, I think it was the intro to the original Strategy Guide).  The thinking was that most decks would take unsuccessful actions or block others' actions.  Combat would result.  Therefore, most decks would benefit from having some combat functions for the inevitable result of failed actions.  

Of course, we've seen that is patently untrue.  Large card collections and more stealth options allow players to completely avoid combat within their turns.  But silly us, we saw this tactical function and a few cards intended to enable it - so we built decks around it.  Now, we have to grapple its shortcomings as a viable strategic design (or stop playing combat).

In the "Enkidu SMASH!" case study, part of the endgame combat package I played was "Mantle of the Bestial Majesty."  I like thiscard in a multiaction decks because it's such an efficient way to create aggravated damage across a whole turn.  Playing that card when I did highlighted a problem (not just the strategic one). My combat that lacked persistence.  I sent vampires to torpor with blood.  Counteracting my progress cost cross-table players only actions, nothing else - most of the blood cost was paid by the minions in torpor. 

To play combat decks in competitive environments, 

it must be more difficult to "undo combat" with rescues.

First, we should discount aggravated damage as a stand-alone function for a rush combat deck.  Vampires sitting in torpor with blood is bad.  Progress can be reversed with minimal overhead cost, vampires can self-rescue and we don't prevent our prey's blood-to-pool conversion.  The resulting situation is terrible for an active combat deck - repetitive rushes with no concrete outcome.   For the same reason, we shouldn't be looking at hands-prevent-Disarm as a stand-alone combat design.


That isn't to say aggravated damage is bad - it shines in defensive combat decks.  The card-efficient nature of aggravated damage minimizes hand-jam when we need freely-flowing intercept.  If resulting combats are meaningful, the acting player spends an additional actions rescuing.  Creating a free "null" action effectively doubles the block/action ratio we might otherwise require, even when we don't interfere with the rescue.  That's all good - it's meant to cause delay and deplete the value of assets, not be a complete removal of them.

But we're talking about active (not reactive) combat decks in this blog. When we strip all the blood from opposing minions in combat, at least we're making rescuers spend their own blood.  The rescued minion will be likely be hunting next turn.  We increase the cost of rescuing, which seems good.


It comes with a hidden downside.  Remember when we said combat decks had to fight the clock for game wins?  Combat alone is time-intensive enough.  Now consider:

Every time an empty vampire is rescued cross-table, 
the game is lengthened by 2-3 actions.

Whoa, that's not what we wanted.  Our rush was intended to remove a minion from the ready region.  At least part of the effect was nullified with the rescue.  We might have knocked several beads off the minion and they won't find their way back into a players pool, so the effort had some payoff.  

• But that minion is still active and we haven't gained an numerical advantage in play space - we'll end up rushing it again.  We can count either the first rush or the second as the lost action - either way, its two functions where we intended one to suffice.
• The rescue action itself could have been productive offense - a lost opportunity cost.  It's fairly certain the rescuing player didn't really intend to take that action when he constructed his deck, so it's a second effect lost.
• Even the rescued vampire is a potentially null minion.  It might be lost in hunting next turn or it might block a subsequent rush (either way, a 3rd action lost).  

Obviously, we have to go further in discouraging rescues, simply because we can accept neither unproductive use of our assets nor games lengthed by so many actions.  The question is "How?"

Threaten

I've come to realize that threatening rescuers with rushes is counterproductive - despite the fact that it is the one actionable option we have.  Cross table rescues are often motivated by this very fear of being rushed, making a threat only makes the fear more justifiable.  It creates a downward spiral of endless rescues and unproductive turns.  

Punish

Revenge feels good, but is clearly a bad choice in the 5-player game.  It reinforces someone else's position using our assets and resources, but does nothing to strengthen our position in the process. Even hunting is usually a better option in terms of creating a beneficial outcome (and that's a very low bar).

Discourage (by Increasing Cost)

Hmmm, maybe this is a viable option.  It's kinda of subtle and still allows some choices, but makes other players think twice instead of reflexively rescuing.  And if rescues to ensure, they will be fewer since they require expending more blood.


We've already sworn off aggropoke, because of its minimal opportunity cost.  Extending that logic, how can we make rescuing even more costly? 

• Carver's Meat Packing Plant:  We only include 1 copy and it isn't universally beneficial.   So it is unreliable, squared - but still almost required for serious combat.
• That one copy is our contingency against the Breed-Boon vs Combat whack-a-mole contest, a fight we cannot win unless we thin the herd.  
• It limits the number of chump blockers throwing themselves on grenades for their elder brethren

• Torpid Blood:  While this feels like a viable inclusion, it's really not.  
• The -1 hand size (even if temporary) is a significant downside, especially given our deck's near-certain use of Dragonbound as an end-game ousting mechanism (an additional -1 hand size, permanently).  Put simply, trying to run a 5-card rush combat hand usually leads to either hand jam or decking yourself though the insane card flow it requires. 

• Pulled Fangs:   Why don't we see more use of this card?   
• It's accessible by any minion and provides synergistic combat damage  
• It effectively triples the overhead associated with rescuing - 3 actions should be a serious disincentive
• It shines in the large capacity meta-game, where Blood Doll and Vessel are seen less often. .  
• This card is now completely restricted to close range (recent errata).  So it's usable by ranged archetypes like [CEL] guns, but they have to be prepared to accept a close-range return strike (or dodge/additional strike).
• It's important for any deck using this card to also include cards to destroy locations - specifically Hunting Grounds and Heidleburg Castle.  

Eliminate

Aha, not so subtle, but effective.  It tends to raise eyebrows - players might not see torpor as a terrible threat, but they really hate to lose minions for good.  There are a few ways to achieve this, though not all can be applied in typical pure combat decks.

• Theft:  
• Graverobbing and Raw Recruit creates a huge, favorable swings in power.  Depriving another player of assets while gaining your own is a game-changing event.  
• Since these decks have [dom], they have alternate pool damage and defensive options - moving them outside the realm of pure combat into hybrid designs, and different overall requirements result..

• Diablerie (including Amaranth) and Pillowfacing:  
• Diablerie is risky for any vampire not immune to blood hunts, which clearly restricts deck parameters.  Pure combat constructs frequent influence 1-2 capacity sidekicks explicitly for this purpose - we trade resources, but hope to net a gain.  
• Pillowfacing Imbued is relatively risk-free.  With the banning of Edge Explosion, Conviction accumulates so slowly that using them for anything but their text functions (or return from the incapacitated region) is poor play.

• "Burn" Text: 
• Gregory Winter is the prototypical culprit, though other options (like Nephandus) exist.  Since Gregory's card text effect is synergistic with combat blood removal, the only obstacles to his inclusion are the pool cost and recruitment action he consumes.   
• Anathema has a significant overhead - We have to be running a titled Camarilla vote/combat deck, passing votes most people won't want to see successful.  Ugh, near cornercase.  I have been discussing a viable use of this card with a friend - I hope to see the deck at the NAC next week..  
• Sacrificial Lamb suffers from being associated with [POT][OBF] decks.  Since [POT] tends to empty vampires in the course of sending them to torpor, this card's unrefunded blood cost and extra action requirement seem prohibitive.
• Vulnerability seems useful, but isn't.  Since we have to wait until our next MPA to use it, we still encounter all the risk of cross-table rescues, the very thing we are trying to eliminate. It is an interesting option for intercept combat wanting to create extra breathing room.  

• Finishing Moves:  
• Unhealed aggravated damage.  Working the combination of aggravated and normal damage to ensure that a minion is in torpor for the agg damage can be very challenging.  Generating large chunks of aggravated damage may be even more difficult and/or blood intensive.  Both are "star minion" moves and combat with a star minion is risk intolerant.
• Decapitate is another card I don't see played enough.  Yes, it is moderately expensive and there is no refund of blood - but this is usually quite playable before/after a reasonably large Taste of Vitae and doesn't require a follow-up action.  It's also usable at long range, which opens the door use in "Flung Junk" decks (ranged [POT] strikes with Increased Strength).  

Survive

Most of the previously posted combat-and-egg analogy was predicated on a single, near-fatal flaw of combat decks.  They usually enter the 3 player game with no VP and must crush the resulting 3 player table to get a game win.

There are a silver linings in the cloud of doom. 

Having reached the 3 player end game,

the incentive for cross-table rescuing is immediately diminished.

Not many people rescue their predator's minions.  If they do undertake a campaign of upstream rescues, they tend to create less offensive pressure.  It's never optimal for a combat deck to see rescues, but at least it is contributing to blood attrition our both our left and right.  The reduced incoming pool damage creates breathing room for us to continue generating pressure and in the long run, this should all be to our benefit.  


Likewise, it's fairly rare for the general populace to rescue their prey's minions in the late game.  Wily players do this in an attempt to "feed their predator to their prey" then win the end game duel, but it's a fairly unusual play.  It requires a specific VP distributions to even consider, tends to create a war of attrition and works best when the combat decks resources are in short supply.


Either way, our combat deck is now in a position where cross-table rescues are the exception, rather than the rule.  This is clearly an improvement - our egg shape is starting to get more circular and our tactical tool is becoming increasingly well-suited as a path to victory.

The changes implied in the 3 player game is a topic for a follow-up post, both in managing the players or positions we see in that sub-game and how the end game is played.  

Combat and Eggs, the Breakfast of Champions.

Case Study: Enkidu SMASH!

The other day, I was testing a dedicated rush deck. It's a recycled "proof of concept" deck using a heavy pre-range card module, built to reinforce Enkidu against his innate weaknesses.  I'm very comfortable with the current combat module.  I was testing new sidekicks intended to improved bleed-based ousting power.

The mid-game hit, still with 5 players (maybe turn 5-6).  That's way too early for a combat deck to make big moves, but I really wanted to test those new components. So I fired part of my endgame-level combat package, despite knowing it was an overall strategic mistake.

Enkidu rampaged, my predator's and prey's ready regions emptied.  I was 3 turns from ousting my prey assuming I used all my actions, every turn, solely for bleed.....much longer if I had to take any non-bleed actions.  It's seemingly an eternity at this stage of the game.

By the time my next turn rolled around, all 5 minions I had sent to torpor were back in the ready region.  My grandprey rescued minions for both players.  My grandpredator rescued my prey's vampires.  In my opinion, most of these rescues were strategic mistakes almost as large as mine, but the message here is clear.

Only combat decks play a game permitting card-less interference from all four other seats.
Even relentlessly left-looking combat decks suffer from this weakness.

The Symmetry of Egg Shaped Objects.

Presumably, the mechanics of rush combat are balanced:

A rush deck can enter combat another vampire anywhere on the table.
So........a vampire should be able to rescue another vampire anywhere on the table.  

Symmetry exists inside that mechanic - on tactical level, when we are talking about short-term objectives, the individual assets in combat and rescuing.  Fair enough.

An imbalance occurs an a different axis - in comparing ousting methods, in a strategic view the game as a whole, in reaching the 3-player endgame, in winning it.  It's difficult to describe this imbalance without a ton of extra writing, but I'll try to summarize the thinking without all the proof.

FACT: Two VPs are needed to win any game, 

so "getting a game win" implies having played in the 3-player endgame.

MAXIM: When pure combat survives to the 3 player endgame, 
it usually has no VP.

Pure combat decks seldom oust their first prey quickly.  Some fraction of its available actions are dedicated to survival through back-rushing.  Scattered 1-bleed actions are almost worthless in the early going.  If the deck is tooling up bleed retainers/equipment, it won't even generate 1-bleeds.  All that conspires to making the first oust a time-consuming process.

Here's the ugly truth of reaching a 3 player game with no VP.

• In a 0-2-0 endgame, a sweep of the remaining table is needed to achieve a 3-2 game win.
• In a 0-1-1 endgame, getting the minimum 2 VP for a win is a de facto sweep of the remaining table, we get the third VP as last man standing for a 3-1-1 win.

It's important to note that it doesn't matter how the split of those first 2 VP occurs, assuming we don't get one.  Any scenario leaves us needing to clear the table in the 3 player endgame.  Of course, that doesn't take finals seeding into account, but lets get to the finals as the first order of business, OK?  

FACT: Any deck reaching the 3-player stage without a VP 
needs to achieve a sweep of that mini-game to garner a game win. 


FACT: Any deck reaching the 3 player stage without a VP 

cannot win a game reaching the time limit (because it does not sweep the endgame).


MAXIM: Pure combat decks will therefore usually need to sweep the 3 player end game.

Holy High Hurdle, Batman!  

Robin laid an egg?

We have to survive into the 3 player game QUICKLY, then sweep before time expires without our predator self-ousting while we peck at our prey.  Very few deck designs suffer from this weakness.  

All this points to combat being tactically balanced (rush/rescue), but strategically inferior.

Combat is symmetrical on one axis, but not the other - like an egg.  We'll definitely be looking at the ramifications of this in later posts.

Pool Management Part 4: Indirect Pool Generation

This blog entry focuses on the last of the "major" pool generation techniques.  Where the direct tools focus on survival, the indirect tools primarily focus on building the ready region.  Here, we hit a real power play among the tools.

INDIRECT POOL GENERATION (IPG)

Introduction

Definition: The movement of counters from the blood bank to an uncontrolled minion's blood.
Crypt-based Examples:  Malgorzata, Mary Anne Blair, Travis "Travis72" Miller
Library-based Examples: Arcane Library, Govern the Unaligned, Enchant Kindred, Fourth Tradition, Belonging Grants Protection
Limitations:  IPG usually affects younger minions in the uncontrolled region, so the oldest available vampire must be influenced first (and sometimes is subject to combat risk).  If a player needs pool instead of speed and growth in the ready region, they are limited by their available influence-phase transfers, seldom yielding more than 3 pool per turn.

Scaling

We'll continue to use dimensions of scale that are consistent with earlier use.

• Horizontal:  it depends on the number of minions meeting the relevant criteria, usually granting 1 blood per uncontrolled minion (e.g., Honor the Elders, Unwholesome Bond, Little Mountain Cemetary).
• Vertical: as before, return is based on some other attribute related to a single minion (e.g., Brutal Influence).  
• Fixed: the output is independent of any scaling parameter and consistent for each application (e.g.,  Govern the Unaligned, Scouting Mission, Enchant Kindred, Fourth Tradition, Belonging Grants Protection).

IPG vs Hybrid Functions

I'll freely admit it.  I "copped out" and modified my presentation of this content for the reader's sake.   IPG cards which cost blood were going to be introduced as a "hybrid techniques" and I still think about them that way.  

By rule and text, they move X blood from the blood bank and cost Y blood.  But conceptually, the effect is indirect pool generation (creating X-Y blood) and indirect blood conversion (moving the Y blood paid). We do this unconsciously in playing cards like Govern, taking the 1 blood cost, holding it in hand, grabbing 2 more from the bank and dropping them on the uncontrolled minion.  

As I wrote this blog, it became apparent that covering card functions from Enchant Kindred (create 2, no cost) without discussing Govern (create 3, pay 1) would likely lead to immediate confusion and a chorus of comments.  I just didn't want to deal with it.   And lumping the cards together does ensure proper rules adherence for things like the Tomb of Ramses.

Integrating Direct Blood Conversion and Indirect Pool Generation

This combination is the holy grail for tournament play using large capacity minions, 

though in reality the ousting power is mostly derived from IPG.

Minion-based IPG amounts to additional free influence at the cost of an action.  That opportunity cost is offset by the creation of more action in the future (another minion), who is put into play at a without influencing its entire capacity.  The overall effect (entire game time frame) is a net increase in actions at a reduced pool cost.

Earlier, in the DPG discussion, we covered how the bloat actions are actually counterproductive.  Each one taken requires the remaining offensive actions be larger, to make up for the action lost performing the DPG.  This is not the case for IPG actions, since the entire objective is to quickly introduce another minion to replace the lost action without facing the bottleneck of 4 transfers in the influence phase.

This is the heart and sole of why IPG is widely superior to DPG.

The action implies no lost offensive opportunity.

During this activity, DBC grants survivability and minimizes pool investment risk.  When used on partially financed minions (financed with IPG actions), it can represent true pool gain. The biggest difficulty in this integration is accurately forecasting the future blood requirements when using vertically scaling DPG (see part 1 of the series.)

Design Considerations

If a crypt can broadly leverage a permanent Master that 

puts counters from the blood bank on uncontrolled minions

that card should be included in the library.

There aren't a lot of these cards, only about a half dozen.  All of them I'm suggesting to use are clan or sect-based (not Powerbase: Montreal) and I suggest including a only single copies.  Costing 2-3 pool, drawing them within in first 4-5 turns both create acceleration and represents a modest pool creation asset for the late game.  Drawn later, they are often discards.  But the two-part upside is too good to pass up.

If a crypt has broad access to an undirected IPG action with attached bleed function, 
excluding that card from the library is unwise.

I really believe it.  We're really only talking about 7 cards across 2 disciplines here - but they're the big payload disciplines: Dominate and Presence.  


I might suggest that opening statement could read "if a crypt's star minion has acccess to...."  Even dedicated [PRE]-based vote decks can benefit from including Enchant Kindred either leading or follow-up for Majesty S:CE.   By now, everyone knew Govern the Unaligned was good, right? 




In my opinion, the undirected trait is an important aspect of the card type's robustness.  Comparing undirected IPG with directed actions having an IPG kicker (e.g., Public Trust), the independent action

• creates more blood per action,
• starts at increased (+1) stealth,
• is less likely to encounter a block (people block actions more frequently when the actions result in them immediately losing pool)

This class of actions is made even more powerful when stacking multiple IPG actions within the same turn, either in series (one multi-acting minion Governing down, untapping and Scouting down) or more commonly in parallel (2 minions both Governing down).  

These actions beget more actions as more freely financed minions move to the controlled region - creating an increasing advantage in speed and efficiency (capacity per pool) over decks that rely only on transfers for influence.

Contrarian View:

There are specific deck designs which benefit from leveraging directed IPG over undirected IPG, though the components are usually layered for robustness.

I played against Undue Influence decks before the development of Anarch Convert.  It's strange\that this design hasn't been explored more, since the Convert significantly reduces the overhead associated with the entire Anarch mechanic.

This design leverages +1 stealth directed actions for early IPG with offense, but might also layer undirected [PRE] Enchant Kindred for use after blocks.  The entire package can be make free of blood cost with Change of Target, though I would include several copies of Majesty for rush defense and to tap persistent intercept blockers for repetitive Undue Influence.


Now, back to the general concept of IPG

IPG actions with non-bleed ancillary functions 

are still so good that they fit in most decks 

(though in smaller numbers than the bleed + IPG functions.)  

I was openly critical of DPG actions in the last section, especially fixed scale DPG.  IPG is simply that much better.  I'll reiterate:

• Fixed-scaling DPG actions usually return 2 pool.  
• Even the worst undirected IPG effectively yields 2 pool (in blood on uncontrolled minions) AND 2 transfers.  

That's half a turn's transfers per action better - in effect circumventing an asset generation constraint..  And there's still some type of potentially useful function for the late game, despite not being efficiently repeatable.

Belonging Grants Protection has an "untap other" parallel function - rarely useful unless a deck is actually designed to leverage it, but it remains an option,.  The parallel text for Inspire (an IPG action for Imbued) is grossly underused, either facilitating conviction-based bleed or to enabling return from the incapacitated region.

These options are just more powerful and flexible than most DPG options..

Even those IPG actions with no other functions 
(e.g., Reunion Kamut, the Call) 

are usually worth including, but they require care in handling.

The worst part is that they can be dead cards in the end game.  With no uncontrolled miinions, they're literally unplayable.  Even with an uncontrolled minion, potential pool gain is limited.  Drawing a mid-lunge copy of the Call is disheartening at best and game-ending at worst.

This leads to another inevitable conclusion:

The more I see parallel functions that I don't want to play after turn 7, 

the more I need to devise immediate discard options for my IPG.

I was careful to use a couple of phrases in that sentence.  I used "discard options" instead of "card flow."  They're often used in the same way (including my me), but I wanted to be very specific in getting the dead card out of hand.  For instance, I might imply simply play cards "around" the dead card in my hand,and still have "good flow" of what is effectively a 6 card hand.  Good for the short term.

But inevitably, longer time frames and uneven distribution in the library will accumulate the dead IPG cards and lead to stagnant play.  If the parallel function isn't bleed, that card will usually need to get out my hand to ensure late game robustness, and often in numbers greater than the 1 per turn allowed by discard actions.

The other part of that conclusion with which I was careful was including the word "immediate."  If I draw that IPG card replacing a played Master, it can interrupt an entire turn, from start to finish.  It needs to be replaced as soon as possible, not at the end of the turn.

I don't want to drift too far into other topics (specifically card flow), but having only 1 discard phase action is a clear constraint and it's placement at the end of a turn interferes with applying offensive pressure during my turn.

The real hidden risk is the almost unavoidable temptation to flow cards by playing IPG in the late game, as "pool gain" and to "cycle the card."  But in this end-game situation, its even worse than DPG.

• It's limited in horizontal scale (by the number of transfers) - I can play only 1 "profitably."
• It incurs the same DPG deficit - all my remaining actions need to generate more offense (or be more numerous) to counteract the lost action.
• The minion whose action I sacrifice is likely a large minion, the one I should be counting on to generate the most offense.  

The real irony here is that ousting my prey is worth as much pool as 2 of these extraneous actions and 3 turns of transfers to recoup to pool.  If I expect I can survive one more turn, it's often better to create offense (despite forcing my prey into defensive postures).

It's tough for me to put a survival expectation into concrete terms and it's probably a deep enough subject for a whole blog entry.  It's apparent the different players have different baseline risk-acceptance criteria.  I will tell you my risk-reward ratio is more tolerant of failure than many peoples'.  It depends on the time remaining, my knowledge of the players, how the game has progressed, if I already have victory points and even likelihood of reaching the finals based on results in this game.  But in the end, I don't play for mere survival.

Note: we'll discuss the intrinsic strategic conflict of a global play to win rule with a finals-based tournament structure at a later date.  The existing rules system is flawed because it sometimes forces players into behavior that loses them seats at the finals.

Predator/Prey Viewpoint

Here's the rub......people don't want to block actions like Govern down in the early going.  IPG seems to fire off left and right, all at the default 1 stealth.  I'll tell you what, there are few things more worth blocking in the early going, if you can stop it.

Blocking an IPG action in the first few turns

is more than making just that single block.

We're covered, over and over, that IPG is intended to generate a full ready region.  Blocking IPG stops the current action and it prevents some fraction of future actions from uncontrolled minions.

In effect, you are constraining that players influence over new minions.   In the case of Govern, you're pushing a player from the 7 influences he wanted to get, back down to the 4 given him by the rules.  That's right - almost half his planned influence for the turn, crushed.  It's a huge amount of control for a single block.  Imminently worth doing in the early going, every time you can.

If my predator is getting his IPG and I'm not (or its not in my deck), I very definitely feel exposed until I get whatever mojo I have flowing.  I'm always hurrying to find other ways to keep up with my predator's development (or crush his), quickly.

If there's no IPG in my deck, I expect I'll be behind and that makes me include more Wake effects to get a 1-to-many relationship for my blockers (if any).  It's uncomfortable and risky to be down 2:1 when turn 6 hits, so I consciously try to avoid that situation in most decks.

Closing

IPG is the king of speed and perhaps the most versatile tool I can find, at least as it applies in the early game

It's not strictly necessary in a competitive deck, but if you aren't running some kind of IPG, you absolutely need to have a very solid risk mitigation plan (usually redirecting bleeds frequently) because your predator and prey are very likely building faster than you are - and often with bleed disciplines.