Please Ban The Unmasking

brandonsantacruz wrote:

As for playing the Uncoiling, I've tried that, too. It works OK, but it mostly just sits in your hand until something maybe would really hose you or it gets discarded.

Okay, you tried to cope with it. And you found sth. that works at least okay (and that even works against other bad events). YMMV but in my book that is enough to not ban it.

Jeff wrote:

Should events be as powerful as The Unmasking? That's the question to answer.

You're focusing on the wrong thing.

The Unmasking happens to work well in a variety of fun decks. (Plus Imbued.) Who doesn't like War Ghouls, Shamblers, or Renegade Garou? Well, the guy getting his face eaten by them, but even so. So it's relatively popular.

When Events first burst onto the scene, some of them attracted a lot of table hate. They indiscriminately punch everyone in the nuts. Some of them can, with relatively little effort, destroy whole deck types. Yes, obviously some of them require a certain number of other events in play already, but that's not the most difficult thing in the world to accomplish. Fall of the Camarilla can destroy a deck based around, say, Second Tradition/Parity Shift/Carthage Remembered. (One might reasonably make an argument that those sorts of decks are very good and some toning down would be okay. But just destroying the deck isn't that!)

The massive, massive table hate generated meant that quite a lot of people backed off. Maybe they didn't win, but they were ruining other decks, so other decks just turned round and got them off the table ASAP. (You saw similar reactions to Anarch Revolt decks, pre-errata.)

The main two events that see a lot of active play are The Unmasking and Anthelios. They're not table melting in themselves, and they're the two you can plan to use - the scattershot approach of some events makes them much less reliable, oops, oh no, I've just ousted my grand-prey. Other events do see play, like Uncoiling (defensive/reactive), Scourge of the Enochians (similar), and a bit of Dragonbound.

But if someone brings a Gehenna-stacked deck, they can still melt a table or two. And there's still not a great deal you can do about that. And a ban to Unmasking won't do much about that. (Nor would errata.)

A better option, to my mind, would be a greater variety of options for interacting with Events. Put it out of play, increase their cost, burn them, shuffle them back into your deck, delay it for a turn, give it an upkeep cost, maybe a kooky Malkavian "Play a game of Jenga and toss a coin to see if you can play it" card. Does that give you a tool to use against Unmasking? Yes. And potentially against other events? Hopefully too.

Options might be:

• a more expensive Anarch Convert like (groupless) card that can destroy an event (2 pool, 3 pool, 4 pool?)
• some sort of collective effort by other Methuselahs - say, a "referendum" in which each Methuselah has one vote only (and no other votes)
• something involving Mages altering the fabric of reality, maybe a card that requires a mage (and some better mages), which might suppress the event or give it an upkeep cost
• an event that makes other events more expensive to play

And some of this would be multifunctional - a superior level on a card, an alternative level on a card, an option on a referendum. Say:

Super, super great? No, but a potentially interesting alternative to Disputed Territory that also includes pool damage, and possible Event-smiting.

I'm a big fan of allies, if not so much the ones mentioned, and I hate The Unmasking. I don't like winnie decks (not to be confused with babymaker decks), but I hate Scourge of the Enochians.

Making something more powerful does not equate to making it more fun, and making a class of things more powerful tends to make the weaker things in that class weaker ... because people react to power and put in ways to deal with the more powerful things in a class that typically also mess with weaker things in a class.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Eminent Domain
Political Action
Requires a titled vampire
Choose a location or event controlled by another Methuselah. Successful referendum means that the chosen card is burned, and its controller burns 2 pool.

I like it. Especially the idea that it works against more than just events and it delivers pooldamage too. Maybe it is too much damage, but that is sth. for playtesting.

Is this thread for real or just a joke?

yeah, let's effin' start banning the cards in the order of their power. Sooner or later we won't have anything else to play with than Julius and Up Yours!

Lönkka wrote:

Is this thread for real or just a joke?

yeah, let's effin' start banning the cards in the order of their power. Sooner or later we won't have anything else to play with than Julius and Up Yours!

Banning cards in order of their power is the only way to do it, when necessary. Why ban something that's weaker than the most powerful card?

Sarcasm's fine when backed up with logic.

Lönkka wrote:

Is this thread for real or just a joke?

With most "please ban..." posts, start from the principle that the person is saying "This card/deck-type is really bloody powerful and I can't deal with it." Happens a lot.

There are then a variety of responses, including:

- you're reading the card wrong, it doesn't work like that (so it's a lot less powerful)
- you're missing some really obvious defence
- if you change your strategy a little, you can survive way better (like "Burn the Madness Network whenever it hits the table, don't wait to survive the OOT combat!")
- well, every deck type has some foils, and you're just doing the equivalent of playing zero combat defence and getting creamed by a powerful combat deck
- actually, there are quite a lot of decks that do badly against it, maybe it warrants errata, or a better selection of defensive cards
- oh wow, it's way too bloody powerful, kill it with fire (Return to Innocence)


Events - and particularly powerful Events - are probably part way down that list, for me.

Also, ban is not for the most powerful card only. Some have been banned because they were annoying (Madness of the Bard mainly, and that's basically the reason for the call to ban imbued too).

ANother interesting example are the table swicher. They certainly aren't the most powerful card on themselves, since they don't actually oust anyone, but they improve too much some kind of decks. In addition to be annoying, that is.

Ohlmann wrote:

Also, ban is not for the most powerful card only. Some have been banned because they were annoying (Madness of the Bard mainly, and that's basically the reason for the call to ban imbued too).

ANother interesting example are the table swicher. They certainly aren't the most powerful card on themselves, since they don't actually oust anyone, but they improve too much some kind of decks. In addition to be annoying, that is.

Seat switchers also were taking like 6 years discussion in tournaments before goimg to referendum, i was led to believe thats why the ban. Just like pto would be legal still if not for the IC part of its text.....

Madness of the bard is not a good card for a game where everyone must have a grasp on english, but many players only speqk it, making things painfully unfair to folks who only have the basics, as rules require.

Imbued are a different kind of annoying.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Seat switchers also were taking like 6 years discussion in tournaments before goimg to referendum, i was led to believe thats why the ban.

They could cause very, very, very long discussions, yes. (I can think of one example that took something 90 minutes.)

But LSJ's publicly stated reasoning for the ban was simpler - it gives a player two predators at the same time, their real predator and the guy who's going to jump right in there. Which is pretty unfair. Richard Garfield's original design was fairly careful to avoid two players having the same incentives (e.g. he expressly didn't include "Whoever ousts the Methuselah gets the VP" and went for the circle of death format), except where the third player is being egregiously horrible to the table so everyone wants rid of him. A key skill in V:TES is being able to do your thing while staying under the radar - or at least being regarded as Just Doing Normal Stuff, rather than ravaging the table with 75 Gehenna Events, 300 Anarch Revolts and a squillion Baltimore Purge.