Balancing Ashur Tablets

After re-reading the whole topic, I'm sure everybody's NOT talking about the same thing. People don't seem to know exactly what they try to fix. They talk about problems but aren't clear. And once again, the topic has drifted towards MMPA problems.

- some people find Ashur "too strong" . But they don't explain exactly why. Recursion? Pool gain? When it is ok, and when does it start to become too strong?
- some people find Ashur too well-spread. It's not clear why, it looks like something very subjective, such as "50% of the decks I've played against contained Ashur Tablets". In fact, the percentage is far less (15-16%). Is it a lot? Is it temporary? Is Govern the Unaligned also too frequent? Anyway, I can see two explanations to this "feeling":
- these are the latest cards and people like to play with new toys, either Nana or Ashur Tablets. So maybe in some playgroups percentage is high
- there are many old players that quit the game for a while and discover now new cards and their first reaction is "it's too strong". Not long ago I recall Orpheus reading the card (so it must be quite new to him) and exclaiming "it's too strong". He looked a bit like a new player discovering Obedience or Psyche!

- some people find that recursion should only be given to certain clans/disciplines. It's maybe true from a RPG point of view, but the card game can be different. Game-wise, it's not a good reason, otherwise Dogs on bikes should be disallowed.

- some people are talking about MMPA decks that eventually use Ashur Tablets. Some times ago, it was MMPA + Anthelios that was a concern.
Fact: such games don't trust the tournaments since they represent 15% of the last 100 TWD.
Ashur Tablets + MMPA represent 13% of the last 100 decks (Anson 4, Nana 6, Cybele 2, Huitzi 1, Parthenon alone 0).
Out of the 15 last decks that use Ashur Tablets, 7 are 70-76 cards, 8 are 82-90 cards big, and 9 use more than 20 combat cards.

What can we tell from these figures? 1/ Of course, Ashur Tablets are easier to play with MMPA. But it's true for all masters. 2/ quarter the decks they're in don't use MMPA 3/ half the decks they're in a 70-76 cards big 4/ half the decks they're in are combat decks (and half of them are Anson, the other half Nana)

Question is: would the 70-76 cards deck as slim without Ashur Tablets? Would those combat deck be viable without them? I feel there's diversity here in the deckbuilding process.

- some people say it slows the game down. From my experience, not more than a Dreams of the Sphinx, when you have to discard down. Fast players stay fast (they plan ahead the cards they're going to pick) and slow players stay slow, whether they are playing Ashur Tablets or not. Lowering the number of cards would mean you have to choose more thoughtfully which cards you keep.

- some people think that playing 3 Ashur Tablets is a row is a problem (this brings us back to MMPA). Why? Is it easy to do it? Is it to strong?
- some people thing that Ashur + Liquidation is too strong. Why? In the end, you gain pool and slim your deck by not putting back cards you don't want at the expense of slots and MPA. Does it gain a lot more pool than other pooling strategies? Is the deck filtering better than using other techs (burn option, MDPA...)?

In short: being perfectly neutral::

- What does "a lot of decks" mean? 15% ? 25%? 50%?
- What does "broken" or "too strong mean"? Is Govern the Unaligned "broken" or "too strong"? Is 13 cards to many? Bringing back minion cards only would make the cards less effective, but does it solve any problem (if any)?

Once these question have been answered, then maybe it will be time to look for fixes, not the other way round.

I forgot to include the figures:

MMPA	Deck size	# Combat	# Ashur Tablets
-	90	0	6
-	74	3	8
4 Huitzilopochtly	75	4	6
-	75	8	6
-	75	8	9
5 Cybele	86	9	9
3 Anson	70	20	9
4 Anson	90	21	9
4 Anson	90	21	9
1 Nana 3 Cybele 4 Aksynia	75	22	9
1 Anson	90	23	7
4 Nana	90	28	7
4 Nana	82	33	10
4 Nana	76	35	9
2 Nana	90	38	3

FrançoisV wrote:

I find sad with Ashur Tablets is that even if it could be beneficial and enable a variety of card-intensive decks, it compels you to play with multiple masters (if only to be able to reduce the risk to get out-tabletted by another player or to out-tablet others more easily)

It's true for every non-unique masters: being able to play many Minion Taps in a row is better than only one. That's why Villein is so popular.
I understand that there's a slight difference with Ashur Tablets since its mecanics require to play multiple copies before it does something. Does that mean that "all decks (mmpa or not) [should be] on equal grounds for playing tablets"?
I've been playing Ashur Tablets for quite a while now, and never in MMPA decks. I've already been racing against MMPA decks to put the third tablet in play. Sometimes I won. I know the risk and accept to take it, and I don't find it so unbalanced.

I'm far more concerned by the Giant's Blood+Villein lottery that allows a random player to start at 40 pool instead of 30 (27% of the decks contain Villein + Giant's Blood, 46% of the decks contain Giant's Blood).

Orpheus wrote:

Wow, lots of input and reactions, that's good.

Apparently lots of people do believe that Ashur, at least in combo with some other cards, do pose problems.

I don't believe in appearance, I prefer facts.
It's not because 10 players express their opinion in a topic that it's "lots of people". Many forum users don't express themselves. And many players are not even on this forum.

If one finds a card broken, one must prove it by gaining tournaments with it in a way so outrageous the card needs some fix.

All the solutions that were proposed did power down Ashur, but what were they supposed to fix? An apparent unqualified brokeness. Recursion mecanisms in general is too good? Then it's a nonsense to try to fix Ashur Tablets because if it doesn't do recursion, what it is useful for? If it's a quantity of cards, why 13? Why 7? Does it solve anything?
Or bringing any type of cards? Give me a case where bringing back an event, a master card or a conviction is too good.

Saying "this card is too good and I propose this fix" is not constructive if one doesn't explain why it's too good (and from an impartial point of view: facts again!) and why the fix addresses the concern.

The only sensible argumentation I've read is FrancoisV's: limiting Ashur Tablets to one per turn would balance MMPA decks and non-MMPA decks.
It raises a lot of other questions then: is it a good thing? are MMPA decks so strong they need to be watered down? if it is the case, is Ashur Tablets the best angle?