Limit master cards?

Also, 98 sudden for 119 Ashur, which seem not to have impacted it too much. If you want to counter MMA deck should you play 6 sudden in your deck ?

Metagames shift. In my most recent tournament final, I was thwarted as three Sudden Reversals/Washes stopped my Maleficia deck cold.

If all Methuselahs cared enough to consider MMPA a problem, they would try to metagame against it, meaning include more SR/W. Others have suggested rush combat as a strategy against MMPA decks. If the vampires which provide extra MPAs are not ready, then the deck stalls.

Jeff wrote:

If all Methuselahs cared enough to consider MMPA a problem, they would try to metagame against it, meaning include more SR/W. Others have suggested rush combat as a strategy against MMPA decks. If the vampires which provide extra MPAs are not ready, then the deck stalls.

That there are solution is likely. Fact is :
* if a deck able to win against a MMA deck without sacrificing too much ability to beat something else exist, he is not well known. Partly because with master recursion AND Ashur you can have a solution against about everything in the long term (like blind spot against redirect, majesty cycliung for combat, etc).

* and more importantly, saying that people should just play more Sudden is ridiculous. It's not even a very good card against MMA decks.

Combat have more or less the same problem - if it's not your prey, you may have to either rush cross table (not like you had to rush your predator and prey already ...) or risk that when you will have him as pred / prey he will have cycled enough Majesty or put enough Inner so that you won't be able to stop him.

Peoples also talk about using quicker deck. It's just that a quick oust is regulary a bad idea to win the GW, in addition to the fact that if the aforementioned MMA deck survive long enough (say he is your grandprey and you took a bit of time to kill him), then again he will steamroll you because his long term plan is so much better.

In short, yes they may be metagame solutions. No, they are not exactly simple to find, or even really known.

I have played against these Master decks and I don't believe they need to be put under any sort of rules change, cards banned, or anything of the like.

Imbued was pointed out as a problem once. They were a problem due to two cards that made the decks broken. They were banned. The masters decks typically feature Ashur Tablets as it main staple card. Anthelios and Parthenon are close seconds. The difference is on their own these cards are fine and often are good put to different uses. So banning any of these cards is a bad idea. And you want to know why? Because there is a lot more to it than two or three cards. The Masters decks are an idea themselves. Which puts the only way to curb them is to come up with a new Master card that is a super sudden reversal and then hoses decks that don't abuses master cards (which again is a bad idea and won't happen). Or alternatively you make a percentage rule as noted. And that in and of itself could backfire as there are decks that use plenty of Master slots that don't involve the modern Masters deck. For instance using Slaughterhouse in multiples for it's burn option.

And if it were a problem due to thematics and how it effects the flow of the game then Imbued should have never been introduced due to the interaction with several cards. That is the most obvious themed issue in years past. Oh, don't forget we don't have all the disciplines right on all the vampires according to the World of Darkness. Once you start thinking about it you might as well invent a new game if it is something that really bothers you on a thematic level. So to me it is something where we take the best we can in regards to thematics and deal with the rest as the majority seems decent.

Like someone pointed out there is always some threat of a deck archetype or card people get up in arms about. I remember not too long ago people thought Parity Shift needed banned as turbo Parity was viewed as a large problem. You don't hear a lot about that now do you? People got used to it and how to deal with it. Here is another one that bothers people. Pentex Subversion. I love the card and think it needs to stay to keep things balanced. But, there will be whiners about that card too. If you take it all the way back to the beginning the first thing people historically whined about was Malk 94. Well dominate is strong and Govern and Conditioning are great cards as seen in the TWDA cards reference a few posts above. They are still a great threat to be honest as they are a good deck, but I don't advocate any rules changes.

I get tired of all these posts of people up in arms about various cards or deck archetypes. In time things will change and while I fully expect Masters to stick, I do expect it to level out. Besides, you won't convince people on changing the percent of the masters. You might convince people to limit Ahurs to 6 in a deck maybe. That might discourage to a degree the level of focus on that card as it is the corner stone. But, master cards have always been good and considering you would have to deal with not only several cards, but also the vampires that make them good; Aksinya Daclaue, Anson, Cybele, Huitzi, Nana, etc.

Bringing this back to my personal experience with them is they need a few things to do well and generally the vamps are expensive and required to be ready as well. Thus they also villein often in most cases. In my local environment combat hoses them pretty well. And a decent wall deck will shore them up as well. And anything extremely aggressive (stealth bleed, rush, big vote) will generally topple the deck without too much issue, esp. if it is fast from the get go. Notice they hardly bleed a lot and you could easily bounce something if you have the discipline to do so. And if you are not managing your pool well then you are begging for an issue as well.

Master cards don't kill people. Bleeding, voting, and combat effects such as dragonbound/fame kill people.

One more thing. This is a card game. I don't know a single CCG that is perfectly balanced. And there will always be better cards, combos, or deck type that evolves out of the lot of cards that can be used. Some systems strive to limit that as much as possible where others embrace it and give everyone access to "broken" cards. With VTES the strongest method we balance things out is at the table as there are 4-5 players in a game and if someone is agreed to be a threat or a problem needs dealt with then that often is attempted to be dealt with.

Given that VTES is a CCG and that it is near impossible to perfectly balance an asymmetrical game such as VTES, there will be people exploiting the best way to win the game. And that starts with a deck that has the best chance to bring you that GW. Player Skill of course helps as well.

RoddimusPrime wrote:

One more thing. This is a card game. I don't know a single CCG that is perfectly balanced.

Yeah, but no-one is asking for that. Just one that isn't - in some people's opinions - extremely lopsided.

So saying that perfect balance is impossible? Not a reason not to make the game better if warranted.