Limit master cards?

Ankha wrote:

IMHO, combat deck is the worse deck to include Ashur Tablets in. It screws your card flow.

I beg to disagree, looking at rushdecks that have won tournaments since Oct 1 2011 (sample taken from twda from decks with >3 rush actions or with permanent rushes):
Anson Guns with ashur 6
Shalmath rush with Ashur 1
Howler rush with Ashur 1
Nana Buruku weenie Ani with Ashur 3
Nana Nangila rush Wish Ashur 2
Girls will find aids (ashur) 1
----
total 16

Ally rush 2
Gerald freakshow 1
(Deep Earth 1)
Ani-Aus rush 1
AUS FOR NEC ANI 1
Hermanas 1
Eurobrujah 1
AAA-Alastor 1
Lucian, the perfect rush 1
----
total 10

Out of the 10 without Ashur Deep earth is not a dedicated rush deck since it uses deep son to tap minions and the Hermanas deck was commented in the twd forum that it ran out of cards fairly often which kind of confirms my suspicions that rush decks have a hard time to consistently win tables without Ashur tablets to help distill and recycle the deck.

Myrdin wrote:

My main problem though is how combat is becoming less and less valid without an Ashur package, that worries me.

Combat decks without Ashur Tablets are exactly the same now as they were before. If they suck now, they already sucked before. Ashur Tablets did not make comabt without it weaker, it made combat as a whole stronger. It is exactly what the card was designed for and combat badly needed it.

The problems are more that:
1) Ashur are hard to get.
2) They make Anson and Nana too strong.
3) (Corollary of 2) It is almost impossible to play casual Ashur Tablets because you will eventually meet an Anson/Nana that will beat you to the Ashur race.

3) is the most problematic for me because it takes the card away from its intended purpose. I don't like the OP proposal, though: VTES should remain without card limits. Someone else proposed a very simple rule fix: a methuselah can never get more than 2 MPAs per turn. The wording might need to be polished not to allow a Wash + 2 MPAs, but you get the idea.

Ashur wrote:

What about limiting master cards in decks? 20 % maybe?

It's quite possible for a deck to have a disproportionate number of master cards without being one of the decks you don't like.

For example, there are a number of decks using discipline masters for created weenies that aren't stacking AAA type tech (Anson, Parthenon, Rumors, Huitz, or whatever else), and where it would seem harsh to force those decks to change.

Similarly, there are a few using quite high numbers of Aye or Orun. The TWDA entry from Matt Wedge (September 4, 2010) ends up with 25 masters out of 90, 14 Aye, which is heading for 30%. (It's 27.7...%) From, Matthew Strehlow (June 27, 2010), it's 27 out of 80, of which 12 are Aye.



I think it would be more useful to determine where the crunch point is. Is it just lots of masters? Is it recursion? If so, is it selective recursion directly to your hand (Anthelios) or to your library generally (Ashur)? Could we tweak those - a rules change, errata, or a new card that interacts with them?

Is it that the tech to thwart such decks might exist, but exists in the 'wrong' place? For example, maybe taking out the key vampires is important - but is most of that at a minion card level which could easily be DI-ed (Banishment, rush, Seeds of Corruption...)? Would a master or event be better? Just looking at some recent heavy-master decks, they don't tend to have Sudden or Wash (but do tend to be packing DI). Perhaps there's a Pentex-like master that could be formulated to take a vampire's special out, amongst other things. Is Secure Haven (which is played quite a bit in such decks) too hard to remove?

Is the problem that the tech to thwart such decks does exist, but isn't useful except against those decks?

Is the problem that people are hitting the wrong place in the deck? Aargh, the masters are overpowering me, and I can't Sudden them all. But perhaps my time would be better spent Arson-ing (or Disputing) the Parthenon - should many more decks include 3-4 location screwers?

Defeat master decks. I agree that Sudden doesn't get the job done, though if everybody played more Sudden a master deck could find itself suddened multiple times per turn and then it starts to hurt. But of course you can't count on other players to help you oust your prey.

You have really two routes to go then. You either have to remove the source of extra master phase actions or you have to have sufficient payload to get past the bloat.

Removing the source of extra master phase actions usually means combat. There are good combat decks. I don't think they absolutely need Ashur, that's just the trend right now. You could also simply Banish Anson/Nana repeatedly or contest/Disputed Territory/Arson the Parthenon.

And of course you must play The Uncoiling!

If you want to go the payload route, pick a deck that sets up fast or starts killing right out of the gate. Many weenie bleed decks fit the bill as does the Vignes deck. Anarch Troublemaker is your friend as the master deck probably won't play wakes (at least not many).

Be sure to make good use of your own master phases. A well-tuned deck plays a master card every turn. Master cards are the most powerful in the game by design.

Master decks are good, but their main strength is to exploit the way people play. They work best in environments where you have a bit of a honeymoon phase where everybody is sort of allowed to set up and the killing is done after dark (to mix metaphors a bit). Break the rules and the master deck is left wondering what happened.