[Card ban idea] List

Kraus wrote:

So, one question...

What have you guys been smoking?

As said above, it's okay to have good cards.

What cards should be considered good should change over time.

Is V:TES today a better ... balanced ... game than Jyhad? I think so.

Is it a more fun game? I don't know. I'm always surprised at how fast and free playing demo decks largely based on Jyhad era cards is in comparison to the modern game.

Would the game be more fun if Malk94 wasn't a viable deck anymore? If Parity Shift and/or Voter Cap didn't exist? Still don't know. And, we won't know because the resistance to substantially altering the cardpool through subtraction is so strong.

Sure, can make bad things better. That uncoasterizes some cards and coasterizes other cards. By removing the best cards from the pool, even if just temporarily, may have the effect of uncoasterizing a lot more cards. Good cards squeeze out bad. Master choices today leave out lots of cards that are either interesting or once saw play more often as decks continue to focus on the very best cards in the card pool.

I can understand Magic's early changes to the card pool annoying people where a large amount of older cards suddenly ceased being tournament legal in the most common format, but the idea of rotating cards in and out for stretches of time, e.g. Lightning Bolt legal for a couple of years not legal for four years, has a lot of benefits for increasing deck variety without making cards worthless to own and without just producing power creep.

V:TES has had power creep and that has been sustainable, in large part due to the multiplayer nature of the game but also because you can effectively just keep banning large amounts of card pools over time by obsoleting the competitive worth of cards. Now, some games do end up just becoming unpleasant to play because the power jumps become too large, but I'm less interested in reining in power levels than I am in changing what's considered the best in the game.

I don't find Govern/Conditioning that bothersome to be top level for a couple of years at a time. It's the never having it ever not be top level that's just boring. CCGs are about variety. While never an infinite variety experience, the more you feel like you can come up with something as good as what is common in tournament play, the more interest you get from people who like building decks with new ideas. Just having an Emerald Legionnaire here or an Eyes of Argus there is very different from not having Conditioning an an option.

Btw, if there's one thing I'm bewildered by with the suggestions for shaking the game up, it's the interest in making bounce worse. Bounce should have been far more common 15 years ago, not less common. Bounce makes the game playable and it being limited to two disciplines, a !Gangrel, a disciplineless card that should be far better, and Imbued has had a massive impact on what hasn't been good enough to impact tournament play.

ICL wrote:

What cards should be considered good should change over time.

This right here. If govern exists forever, it will forever be top tier. That's not exactly exciting or interesting.

About deflection why to not make an errata such as increasing the cost of 1 blood or to make a restraint such as "ally or younger vampire".

The duo immortal/s:ce is ousting many other options: non hand strikes at closebut when would it not be better to make a correction to rules in this case such as :
- combat ends applies after other strikes result
- if the strike fizzles due to immortal grapple or another restricting effect the strkining minion can pick another strike. (Ex: i use a thrown gate to maneuver and strike for 1, my opponent maneuvers to close...)

DJHedgehog wrote:

ICL wrote:

What cards should be considered good should change over time.

This right here. If govern exists forever, it will forever be top tier. That's not exactly exciting or interesting.

What is exciting or interesting is very subjective question. Somebody will say, that having M94 as a top deck forever is one of the strength of VtES for him - if he want variety he can play countless other CCG with rotation.

Lönkka wrote:

self wrote:

The sad thing for me is that I feel that distribution is always going to be a problem for the game unless some things get consolidated and/or streamlined going forward. **cough cough antitribu**

Having discussed this topic with fellow retailers in US already a decade ago, my understanding with the lack of VTES in the stores in US of A was the extremely cheap availability of the products from online discounters such as Potomac.

This totally killed the willingness of the stores to carry the product.
Obviously not ALL the store but the ones I've discussed this I think only one was selling VTES at that time while all othe others who were discussing the topis (dozen to 20?) had ditched the game due to online discounting.

All the resources have nominally dried up after being oop for so long.
Potomac had sent a list of "other products" to owners of a shop that had just opened in Newark Ohio 5 ish years back. For the record, this was the second gaming store within 2 mile radius, first store had more or less given up on the sealed product pipeline by then, but I digress.
So, they buy MtG from Potomac, get this list including sabbat era starter boxes, DS and AH boxes, and Jyhad boxes, along with EK boxes, Gehenna boxes, and LotN starters. They order lots of stuff. Jyhad, EK, Gehenna, and LotN starters arrive, they never actually receive the older stuff. Distributors concede the apparently cant find it. Shop sells through stuff. Pipeline goes dry.
Remember, this was after the spike in players we had experienced, and it still didn't last long with 14 ish person headcount at tournaments being the norm Instead of the 20 ish it was around 2010.
(Anyway, more brick and mortar stores can viablly support vtes if local playerbase exists in their establishments needing to impulsively buy it. Minimally, princes drum up topics of tournaments with local stores, and local players incessantly call and ask "do you guys sell vtes cards? I heard it was back in print..." . Unless you don't want to be able to buy cards locally.... )
If we are reprinting pre cam rd cards, I'm 100% in favor of erratta, but I'm the opposite of the OP view. If we suddenly have more cards suck less, we get more options, and BC could see additional sales as a result. I'm in favor of overhauling old crypt cards to modern standards. AlAshrad adv is the skinny of a then and now discipline spread to cost ratio I'm looking at.
If we aren't banning Arika, we are not banning 44 magnum.
In fact, nothing will be banned, because if a rules director looks deep into any part of this thread, most of it is unsupported claims, politically insensitive trolling, and that one part in the middle where I ramble as I do and two people chime in and agree with my assessment of the crying over 44 being broken.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

In fact, nothing will be banned, because if a rules director looks deep into any part of this thread, most of it is unsupported claims, politically insensitive trolling, and that one part in the middle where I ramble as I do and two people chime in and agree with my assessment of the crying over 44 being broken.

I've said it before, but I think it bears repeating: the current owners of the game are likely smart enough to do what's objectively best for the game and ignore all the noise going on in the forums. Judging from these forums, very few people, including me, know what's objectively the best thing to do. But if anybody does know, I'd bet it would be the people currently in charge.

I agree that threads like these won't be acted upon, let alone taken seriously. I mean, ban Govern, Deflection, and .44 Magnum, cards that have been staples since day 1, to "equalize" the card pool? C'mon...