Limit master cards?

@Jeff - Thanks for pulling that data, but it is skewed by time frame. The Tablet Decks didn't hit the scene as soon as KoT as released. A narrower time slice would probably show a higher incidence of Tablet use.

@Erik, if you're lurking - my complements on a series of elegant and effective deck designs.

@Others
I know some people haven't seen the best of these decks decks in action yet. Or they might have seen net-decked versions that might not be perfectly driven.

I would love to outline how a my friends new 27 Tablet example works, but I want to see it in the TWDA before discussing it openly. Helping him tweak that deck has reinforced (in my mind) that there's a problem here.

The only question is how should it be remedied. I believe we've already hit a historically applied solution that worked in a similar situation.

Imbued were tweaked. There were 2 issues.
- Non-interactive. Partially addressed by banning Memories of Mortality
- Excessive recursion of conviction. Addressed by banning Edge Explosion.

No rules changed, no card limits imposed, no additional silver bullets printed. Yet the problem was largely abated.

Fast forward to today. MMPA-Tablets are tweaked, and we (might?) need to minimize the problem. As James said, what's the root cause? Chicken, or egg?

MMPA existing long before Tablets. Pentex-through-Anthelios and Boomerang-Grand Ball are strong and can fit into a single powerful tournament archetype powered by MMPA. But I contend AAA wasn't winning as frequently and wasn't ever as frequently maligned as various MMPA-Tablets are. AAA is not nearly as robust, either in library construction or pool generation.

Seeing that as the primary non-Tablet example of "MMPA are intrinsically broken" leaves me unconvinced.

IMO, what really makes the MMPA-archetype broken is a familiar theme. Edge Explosion was troublesome because of wholesale recursion. Tablets are worse - they are non-specific in target. They require no minion actions - and so are even more non-interactive than Imbued were. Hmmmm....wholesale recursion.....non-interactive.....starting to sound like familiar themes to you too?

If we need to fix this, we have a historical precedent for an effective solution to these very problems.

Get rid of Tablets, you also get rid of the reason to use Liquidation in MMPA decks. That removes a lot of early-game pool creation and probably completely eliminates the troublesome archetype, with a single edict.

Villein-Lilith's still exists, but players should be able to do something about fatties running around with 3 blood........and the new MMPA-tablet decks don't even need that module anyway.

Among other options.

IMO printing silver bullets sucks like a Hoover.
- It's one more crap card that decks have to carry to plug a hole.
- Silver Bullets still rely on you finding the damned thing in your library to play it. It does no good unplayed, in a "too little too late" situation and when the controller is ousted.
- It necessitates additional cardflow to dump that chaff when not needed, or search for it when it is (dumping useful, core cards in the desparate search).

Changing the base rules is a huge hurdle - and I would hope a last resort..
- Card limits (either as a fixed number or fraction of a deck) stifle creativity - in a stagnant environment already largely dominated by Dominate.
- Limiting MMPA (either to a number per turn, or by DNR clauses) requires additional book-keeping. I still see people routine miss DNR clauses or have the wrong hand sizes - I really don't want to deal with another layer of complexity, especially if I ever have to teach new players.

All in all, the easiest solution seems clear - especially given that we've seen such a similar problem before. I hate banning.....but "least of evils" keeps ringing in my mind.

-D

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

MMPA existing long before Tablets. Pentex-through-Anthelios and Boomerang-Grand Ball are strong and can fit into a single powerful tournament archetype powered by MMPA. But I contend AAA wasn't winning as frequently and wasn't ever as frequently maligned as various MMPA-Tablets are. AAA is not nearly as robust, either in library construction or pool generation.

At least some of the frustration isn't about power per se, but more the fact that it's (sort of) playing a pretty different game to the rest of us. As others have said, that's a bit like the Imbued. Some of the frustration with the Imbued was that large swathes of your existing deck might well be unable to interact with them, because you'd foolishly made the assumption that decks would be playing vampires taking actions, and suddenly you can't use all this tech that says "vampire" on it to thwart them, and the more widely usable tech either: a) doesn't exist or b) is a bit rubbish.

The MMPA deck heads that way a little. Expecting to block actions? Bounce bleeds? Delay votes? All a wee bit harder. At which point, even if the MMPA deck isn't super-powerful in itself, it can be immensely frustrating having no reasonable tech to attack it with. And a decent deck that you can't interact with as easily as you would a 'normal' deck? May well benefit from that lack of interaction.

To my mind, there may well be better tech that people aren't currently exploiting, and which would promote interactivity - but it's quite possible that that may not be good enough anyway.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

@Jeff - Thanks for pulling that data, but it is skewed by time frame. The Tablet Decks didn't hit the scene as soon as KoT as released. A narrower time slice would probably show a higher incidence of Tablet use.

I re-sorted the Ashur Tablet search. The first TWD entry with Ashur Tablets was from March 25, 2009, created by yours truly. My deck's meager use of them wasn't even close to the abuse by Erik Torstensson/Teemu Sainomaa's Girls will find... deck which brought great upheaval to the World of V:TES a mere 3 days later.

So, yes, cutting the time frame by 3 months out of 41 would probably yield a slightly higher concentration of Tablet decks, but the underlying card use trends are probably still close enough.

James really hits it on the head (and others have mentioned it as well). Decks which rely on MMPAs are "playing a pretty different game to the rest of us." This frustration is quite apparent, but I still think players need to control what they can (their deck designs) to better anticipate what decks exist in their metagames.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

@Jeff - Thanks for pulling that data, but it is skewed by time frame. The Tablet Decks didn't hit the scene as soon as KoT as released. A narrower time slice would probably show a higher incidence of Tablet use.

@Erik, if you're lurking - my complements on a series of elegant and effective deck designs.

@Others
I know some people haven't seen the best of these decks decks in action yet. Or they might have seen net-decked versions that might not be perfectly driven.

I would love to outline how a my friends new 27 Tablet example works, but I want to see it in the TWDA before discussing it openly. Helping him tweak that deck has reinforced (in my mind) that there's a problem here.

You are correct on the time frame. I wonder though if some people aren't simply net decking the idea though at this point given it is still the newest concept out there that does well. And it also takes longer to get the necessary cards to run it. It is the most expensive deck type I know of.

Erik did indeed open a door that many have exploited.

I would love to see this 27 Ashur Tablet deck. Is it better or worse than what is out there? Seems to me you still have to oust at some point. Otherwise I might as well play Pander Boon, but at least I have swarm bleed with that and tossing in a mix of KRC does the trick. Mind you those decks die to intercept.

You suggest as well that some maybe haven't played a good version or played against a decent driver of the deck. I agree Ashur Tablets are good and maybe placing even a 9 card limit could curtail at least some abuse of the card, but I still usually don't find them holding up against decent intercept combat for the few actions they do take, and I wonder how they deal with predators who bleed big/often and rush combat as they are solid enough to hold them off for a bit, definitely not for the long run. And in my local environment we have plenty of combat type decks as well as a variety of other decks. I simply don't think it would do well here. That being said maybe I personally need to take it for a spin and if it can conquer my local environment then I might start to agree more on a card limit, but not banning the card.

So if I am to try one out is there one you recommend? I have all the cards to play any version of it. And once I build it I will try it out and let you know my experience in an environment that may drastically differ than most peoples. Also keep in mind this kind of deck has not done historically well State Side. We do play a little different than in most of Europe.

Ashur wrote:

What do you think? Please be gentle.

If you truly hate something and don't meta against it, it is no one's fault but yours. Minion denial is lethal against most master-heavy decks. I'm sorry Anson/Cybelle, did my potence weenie eat you? Hopefully the next copy can counter IG.

Many master heavy decks have a hard time with constant pressure. Add to that countering cards like Liquidation and Villein and they can be shut down. Weenieish DEM bleed with Sudden Reversals is good against many things, especially decks relying on large minions and masters.

*Edit: and don't forget to KS bleed cross-table into the Girls.

And then there's The Rising. Spin your wheels all you want, no pool for you!

brandonsantacruz wrote:

If you truly hate something and don't meta against it, it is no one's fault but yours. Minion denial is lethal against most master-heavy decks. I'm sorry Anson/Cybelle, did my potence weenie eat you? Hopefully the next copy can counter IG.

That's good and all. Now, let's take a simple situation.

You are A with a deck that can apply a lot of pressure, your prey B is potence rush, your grand prey C is MMA.

If you want the MMA deck to go down, you must not put pressure on your prey for long enough so that he destroy C, and maybe help him. So, you basically have to do nothing or spend ressource to help your prey, and let pass the opportunity for a quick VP without gaining significant advantage.

Even with a deck supposedly good against MMA, the presence of a MMA deck make you lose steam, and maybe have 0 VP. It does not look that good of an advice, especially when you could play MMA yourself.

Also, MMA does not alway mean bad at combat. Anson + Gun is less stable and combat-y than a pure rush potence deck (or a pure celegun deck), but it can and will sometime resist to every rush, just because celegun is very good at combat.