Nerfing Giant's blood

The trick isn't to change the cards - but to change the rules.

Change the rules on how the game handles unique cards, and contesting. Currently, they are the worst rules in the game. It is these rules that make the game a lottery, not the card(s).

Something like:

A Unique card that is played to the ash heap is limited to one per Methuselah during the game. The cost of such a card is increased by 1 pool for each copy played by any other Methuselah.

A Unique card that is played to the controlled region is limited to one per Methuselah. The cost of such a card is increased by 1 pool for each copy in play and controlled by any other Methuselah. If the control of a unique card changes play, it is burned if a copy of that Unique card is already controlled by the Methuselah gaining control of the unique card.

A Unique Minion that is brought into play that is currently controlled by another Methuselah enters into a contested state as does the all other currently controlled copies. A contested Minion is considered out of play in all Methuselah's turns. A Methuselah who has a contested Minion may pay x pool during their untap phase to gain control of their copy for the duration of their turn where x is the number of other contested copies of the Unique Minion.

Well, something like that - but worded better, and worked out more tightly.

Giant blood is not unique, and your "proposition" are worse than bad. No, I don't want to see 5 Pentex or 5 ivory bow on a table, thank you very much.

worse than bad? No. Not even close. You don't want to see 5 Pentex and 5 Ivory Bow on a table? Well as I said, "something like that". Personally, it's the rules on unique cards and contesting that turns games into a lottery a lot of the time, especially when it comes to minions.

Grail wrote:

worse than bad? No. Not even close.

My opinion is that it is.

There is no logical reason to allow for multiple unique card in play, and it mainly promote two things :
* easier use of the better minion, also called "don't we see Anson enough already ?"
* longer game, since non-vampire unique card are most often defensive card (Jake Washington, Carlton), bloat card (Giant blood if we change his text to make it unique under your idea), or card that may very well lock tables down (I don't want to see what happen with multiples Pentex on a table)

Both effect of this incoherent change are undesirable. It does not even fix the original Giant Blood problem. Because of that, this idea is extremely bad, worse than bad even, and should be forgotten.

If you have problem with a card people keep on contesting you, just play another one instead. That's both simpler, more sane, healthier for the game, and it does not require any change in a pretty good rule.

Ohlmann, your opinion should have ended at the end of the second paragraph. Why the need to add condescending (and honestly half insulting) stuff ? He suggested something silly, so what ? You demonstrated why it is a bad suggestion, end of story.

The current rules for unique minion/master cards are actually pretty good. It prevents powerful cards such as Ivory Bow, Heart of Cheat and Pentext from running rampant. The contesting mechanic is really clever in my opinion and does a lot of good for the game.

Now, for crypt card it kinda stinks if you play Anson and your prey flips him first, but that's what you get for playing popular vampires. I wouldn't mind the contesting rule for crypt cards to be changed so that you, like, get to use Anson during your turn, but he's considered out of game during the other 4 player's turns. You still pay the 1 pool upkeep but at least you don't auto-lose when it happens.

Giant's Blood is a stupid lottery and should just be banned. I have been arguing why I believe this should be done and why now instead of in 1994 when it got printed in this and numerous other threads so I don't think repeating it here will add much to the thread.

Fixing the VTES meta is actually quite simple:

1) Ban Giant's Blood
2) Make it mandatory to fetch a skillcard with Lilith's Blessing
3) Ban Anthelios.

There. You fixed:

1) The lottery
2) Free vampires (well, technically you can still do it at the cost of crippling your deck's consistency)
3) MMPA (*)

(*) Note that I don't believe MMPA in general needs actual fixing at the moment, but the extra power they get from having an Anthelios in play is so ridiculous that I believe it needs to go until we have better ways to deal with event cards.