First Strike vs. Strike: Combat Ends

I believe some problems could be solved by changing S:CE rules to add that it is by definition an additional strike.

This is a quick and dirty idea, but whatever deck uses S:CE, has access to dodges and/or maneuvers as well and does not need additional strikes. This would also somewhat empower combat decks as every other deck (almost) would get diluted.

Ofc, this does not solve First Strike idea, but I'd like to stress, that it seems as it was supposed to be an assasin type of strike: you would benefit from it only if you one-hit your opponent. S:CE problem would get solved with the suggestion above and one-hitting is for the deckbuilder to handle, which is easy with more than one discipline at hand.

@Chaitan: exactly. There is no need for a special timing for S:CE. There was never any. If you want S:CE to resolve before normal strikes, then there is already a timing for that in the rules: first strike. Just make all S:CE first strikes and be done with it. I don't think it really matters whether first strike should trump S:CE or not, but the current strike resolution is overly complicated.

Non-existant user wrote:

I don't think it really matters whether first strike should trump S:CE or not, but the current strike resolution is overly complicated.

Well, if S:CE resolve at the same time as first strike strike, then by definition first strike will trump S:CE. Or, you will have to add that S:CE double as dodge, which will eat away any simplification gained.

As a side note, anything that make S:CE more trumpable make Obedience, Mirror walk, and Stone Travel (and non-strike anti combat in general) more powerful. Since thoses card already are pretty powerful ...

Also, it could be imagined to make combat less avoidable but less deadly. For example, and with a lot of oversimplification, if you needed 2 damage to make the opposing vampire burn 1 blood, avoiding combat would be less vital, so having S:CE less powerful would be alright. Of course, it would remove combat as main strategy, but it would be one of the valid way to restrict action of your opponent.

It would be a lot better than throwing around anti-SCE and anti-anti-SCE. It would also require so much adjustement, erratas and change that at best it will be a dream.

Izaak wrote:

In the world we have First Strike is pretty useless, but I'm not too sure if making it beat Combat Ends would actually help a lot. It would probably phase out Combat Ends as combat defense, which in turn makes for less variety, not more, as people would just flock to fortitude (again, I might add) instead of relying on poor (ie, non-presence) S:CE to survive.

Grapple and Psyche are currently more available for viable fighters than Silence of Death or Shadow Feint. Maybe we'd see a couple more Assamite or !Gangrel aggrapokers but there's nothing new about S:CE hosers and those decks would probably still suck. It's definitely not something that would impact my combat defense choices. The only problem is that I could see Muddled Vampire Hunter and Elimelech being too strong.

Grapple and Psyche are currently more available for viable fighters than Silence of Death or Shadow Feint.

Ye, sure I suppose that's true. But there's also Quick Jab to consider which basically gives Tzim and Gangrel easy access to first strike aggropoke. Both those clans sport animalism which is already an amazing discipline to start with. Animalism is traditionally weak to S:CE while being good at dealing with fortitude. First strike beating S:CE will make them trump basically everything.

I mean, it may not break the game or anything, but playing with all your guys in torpor is not too fun. Ye, I too have gotten gamewins on tables where I did like 1 or 2 actions all game, but that's not exactly the standard. During EC2011 Day 2 in Warsaw I spent 3 out of 4 tables twiddling my thumbs because there were Tupdogs seated next to me. Ye, sure I won one of those, eventually making it into the finals, but the only fun game that day was the one where I got to play cards, tap minions and play the actual game.

To make matters worse, smahing stuff doesn't make the smasher win (see: Tupdog), it just makes someone crosstable win. Since I think combat is already too efficient at what it shouldn't be doing in the first place, anything that makes combat stronger is bad in my book.

Sometimes I wish VTES had 15-card sideboards so you could hate out degenerate archtypes like this. Incidentally this would also allow hating out MMPA and you could actually sideboard in cards to fit the meta inbetween games. As icing on the cake, this would add an actual level of skill to the deckbuilding part of the game because you can't just copy a popular, successfull decklist because you're going to end up being hated out.

Izaak wrote:

To make matters worse, smahing stuff doesn't make the smasher win (see: Tupdog), it just makes someone crosstable win. Since I think combat is already too efficient at what it shouldn't be doing in the first place, anything that makes combat stronger is bad in my book.

Wouldn't say too efficient but certainly efficient enough as it is. I guess my point was that Firstest Strike wouldn't make combat stronger in any but the lowest tiers. Some decks might get bumped from terrible to not very good, if that. I mean, Quick Jab + Claws/Marauder? A rush, two cards and a blood to make someone lose two blood and a rescue action? That just doesn't begin to cut it.