Concerning lilith's blessing, ashur tablets and liquidation

Brum wrote:

....

All this still sounds to me like some players not wanting to build decks with silly cards like Suddens, Washes, Arsons or even Haven Uncovereds, or not wanting to change their playstyle just because a deck requires you to, and asking Pascal to solve the problem for them.
Well, sorry. I thing it's your job to do that, not his.

Cheers!
Tiago, the guy that uses Dan Murdock (also because when he goes to torpor I scream MACGUYVEEEEEERRRrrrrr...)

You've said several times in this forum that you feel that the game is fine the way it is. I can't believe that every design decision made in the last ten years was correctly balanced and remained so with the release of every set and promo.

Are you saying that nothing CAN be improved or that nothing SHOULD be improved? If you're saying that nothing CAN be improved, I'm pretty sure you're wrong. All design decisions were made arbitrarily by a person or people with incomplete knowledge of the future. The designers made decisions that we as players have every privilege to judge and measure.

You say it is not Pascal's job to alter the game to allow more decks to be playable or competitive. Whatver Pascal's mandate may be, it certainly COULD be VEKN's job to allow more decks to be playable. Allowing more decks to be playable, such as the standard deck that Pendargon likes, is good for players like Pendargon, and VTES is now player-run.

There have been good statements for Villein, Lilith's, Ashurs and Liquidation. I agree with all of them.

If you think that Vil+Lil's combo is too strong, you are wrong. Combo, when used on big cap puts target on your face and leaves you with a minion that is vulnerable to many things: Fear of Mekhet, Retribution, Muddled Vampire Hunter etc. and your pool can be targeted with Parity Shift etc. If you are playing mid cap, there is Banishment.

Like XAddam stated, Lilith's and Ashurs need either more MPAs or you don't actually put any other masters in your deck.

There is nothing wrong with the cards that are discussed here - you just need to learn how to play against them if you don't like them.


If something would be changed, Villein's Minion Tap nerfing could be removed.

I disagree with the point, that moving blood to pool provides no resource gain. In my experience the correct “exchange rate” of blood/pool is something like 2/1 (by comparing pool and blood gaining cards). It’s not universal rule – in decks which can use blood for significant gain (mostly new minions) the ratio is closer to 1/1 and the last blood on vampire costs even more than 1 pool.

But mostly when you are transferring blood to pool you are really gaining resources. So when your are transferring 6 blood the real text of villein is “trifle: gain 3 pool” (or 5 pool with fatty and Lilith or GB). If you think it’s not overpowered, than nothing can save us.

Lilith without villein is quite fine.

The problem with ashurs/liquidation is not a power level. Surely you can get much pool, but you need to spend significant resources for it and it can be spoiled by clever play of the opponents. The main problem is that additional MPA ability isn’t correctly priced on vampires, you can switch 6A2L module for 8 ascendances, and Nana deck will not lose so much. But ashurs mechanics is also just slow to play and the time is now one of the real weaknesses of vtes on both casual and competitive level.

Lech wrote:

It's Lilith's Blessing and Jake Washington and Giant's Blood and Golconda and Taste of Vitae and Voter Captivation that are problem, not card that convert blood into pool. Villein is more or less fine, it don't create blood out of thin air.

You forget to differentiate the varies blood creation cards here.

* Jake Washington requires a very specific condition to trigger in *your untap*. That means either you have a Vessel on the vampire and it has one blood, or you leave it empty at the end of your turn. It's harder than you think to make a Jake trigger and you can't really use it for poolgain. Also, Jake doubles as a chump blocker, stays in play, is unique and can be contested before you get benefit.

* Taste of Vitae requires you to first be low on blood, then enter combat with a vampire that has a lot of blood, then play various combat cards and then play the Taste. This isn't actually too trivial and completely loses value in endgame where vampires simply don't have a lot of blood.

* Voter Cap is certainly strong, but requires you to be low on blood first, then take a political action that can be blocked, then pass the vote with enough votes to benefit from voter captivation, then hope your vote doesn't get Delayed after playing your votepush and then hope your Voter Cap doesn't get Touch of Clarity'd (something that is happening more and more).

* Golconda blows up a vampire and refunds you the pool. Ye, sure you can use it as a stay alive mechanism (it's actually used a lot like this in the various Girls... iterations) but it isn't making you win and just gives your prey time.

Giant's Blood and Lilith's Blessing create blood out of nowhere, with nothing you can do about it *immediately* after emptying the vampire (something you can't do in the case of Cap and Taste). Yeh, sure people can play Suddens and in fact are doing more and more nowadays but you can only play one each passing and it messes with your own master phase in the process. In a world where trifle+master is the standard instead of the exception this puts real pressure on your cardflow.

Dorrinal wrote:

echiang wrote:

Or just use your normal assortment of Master cards, and Villein is far easier to fit in due to Trifle (as opposed to Minion Tap).

This is one of the best arguments in favor of Villein. When Minion Tap eats up half your normal master phase actions, there is little room for variety in the master card selection. Now you can play as many Villeins as you used to play Minion Tap, but still get a few other master cards in at the same time. Same thing for Blood Doll except Vessel isn't strong enough so we still have many decks playing 3-6 Blood Dolls.

Isn't that the exact point of Villein vs Minion Tap. If you want to be bloating pool frequently using Minion Tap, you won't have a diversity of other Masters. That's a deckmaking decision. At the present, almost any deck can choose its master at will and then throw in some copies of Villein just because they'd like to take a few pool back.


Regarding the effect of Villein/Minion Tap: You basically get free minions. Vampires are usually between 50% and 66.666% of your pool 'losses' (e.g. most players spend between 15 and 20 pool on minions). Getting one 8-cap for free basically means that players are then spending between 7 (just under 20%) and 12 (40%) on minions net. This is without the idea of refilling the vampire (even assuming that 1 blood = 1 pool) .

So even though this thread is supposed to be about Lillith's Blessing, Ashur Tablets and/or Liquidation it comes down to those cards being used together with Villein.
To me that sounds like Villein is the problem, not the other cards. By being trifle it allows players to play Villein AND the other cool masters without loosing to much card flow. It also trumps Minion Taps and it is ruled that you can use it on a vampire with less then 2 blood. All of this with no initial penalty.

Why didn't it get a penalty like getting 1 less pool then blood (ie. move 3 blood off, get 2 pool), cost a pool (like vessel) or lose the trifle. Right now their is no reason to play Minion Tap while there still is a reason to play Blood Doll even though there is a Vessel.