Balancing Ashur Tablets

Lönkka wrote:

Orpheus wrote:

Why did you play it ? In which type of deck ?

I used it in a deck that had Necromancy and some Auspex to boot.

It is a +1/+2 bleed modifier that doesn't cost blood. Which by itself is nice. What makes it golden is that is nicely usable against the recursion decks, but we all knew that. (and everything else I said in thsi message).

I cut in sargon fragment with a Santaleous CEL guns deck. It was a solid Aus Cel shooty wall, but was by nature built as an anti girls deck. Tasting and palatial, also hunting ground and Rack helped him stay full. Fragment let me pick cards back up, and also play trochomancy with Santaleous or a supporter, while Asguresh could play it without Sargon.

Trochomancy is good against decks everybody hates, Imbued and Girls being the biggest table annoyers.

It involves shitty ass necromancy, thats its drawback. But its still decent.

All that said, Girls decks are slow and ponderous contraptions that time out tables and sit unoustable for like ever. Trochomancy just lets you eat away at thier resources, not oust them. Not gaining the pool matters alot.

Bannomg lilliths didnt fix the issue, and Id said LB and Ashurs need errattad before that ban.

Its not just an attractive card like TV or perfectionist, where theres no reason to play similar card X when this card is better, it works well with other cards to be a problem. Problem is solved by adding in one word to change its interaction with other cards while still staying good.

Jeff, I havent seen ashurs auctions close that high, but i dont pay that close attention either. I know some BL rares are still high but stay in one range (sirens lure, beast meld) some drop slightly (coagulated entity, nuetral gaurd) some drop alot (armer of terra) and some go up(engling fury)
Tablets go all over the place, and im not buying a tablet for the cost of several freak drives or deep somgs, or egen an eyes of argus, since all of those go in more decks so i can have more built to play with more of those.

But i do notice Ashurs not going down to a $10 rare as mmpa decks lose popularity, so i expect them to only to up.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Orpheus wrote:

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Scarcety is a huge problem, and hopefully Steve Weick helps with that

How ?

He is (again) negotiating to print.

That's great news !

If it does get printed, what form would it take ? I can imagine mostly starter sets, or LCG format where you could still play all the old cards...

I agree that I hat e this card too, only because it slows the game down... 13 cards is way too much... sure it is Lucky 13 and sounds cool and all, realistically should still be playable with even two or three cards fetched, no?

A fair question:

Woould you still play it with lower amount of cards fetched? I'm not sure how to make a poll.... but sounds like an interesting one 2? 3? 6? cards

Merci kinedly

Orpheus wrote:

Lönkka wrote:

Orpheus wrote:

Nearly 1 in 5 is still a LOT !!

Actually 16% is almost exactly one in six, not five...

Point still stands.

Orpheus wrote:

How often do you see Trochomancy played ?!

Saw some played in last Sunday's tournament.

Lönkka wrote:

Use if quite often myself too.

Why did you play it ? In which type of deck ?

Doubling down on false assertions does not a reasonable argument make.

a lot of interesting points were made above.

TWDA
we all know TWDA does not have complete and exact results as there are too many missing records. on the other hand is fact that many players do not play ashur deck on tournaments being afraid of already described screw up when two of them meet.
16% in TWDA means every sixth tournament was WON by ashur deck not that there was 16% of decks containing ashurs!!! when you can compare it to whole used game mechanics it's similar to amount of COMBAT decks that won a tournament.
are we really ok that ashur deck is becoming simply a 'strategy' same as combat or politics are? yes it's true that you can't win the game by simply playing ashurs, but as game mechanism they are used way too often and role ashurs can (and usually) play in game results are too high.
it's true that several interesting decks would not exist without ashurs, but it's sad true that most of decks are simply better with them.
per my experience since ashurs show up i see them on every tournament and usually in finals as well. maybe one tournament without ashurs deck(s) in finals occurred in last 2-3 years here.

MPAs
unfortunately this failed out of discussion too quickly.
personally for me biggest problem is that decks are able to pull out 'complete' set of ashurs out of nowhere. all you need is proper vampire and Parthenon on table. i have seen this effect to completely change the game more than once.
Sudden reversal and wash is not an answer for ashur tablet decks, they do play anthelios to dig it back and/or play too many of them to be stoped.

cards recursion:
this is not huge problem, options for recursion were there in past. yes this one bring it out of regular clans, but it does not change anything. biggest concern i see in that 1 cards is placed into hand. this 'cheat' hand operations won too many games and many times before game was over as deciding moment occurred in round 7 from 13 for example.

ashur card terms:
many do concern that recycling master cards is powerful, but this is not the option. if you play ashur tablet trigger them and use second MPA for card returned to hand it's same as you would have used anthelios but it did cost you 4 MPAs not 2. bonus? of course you get another 12 cards and 3 pools.
choosing [up to 13] cards may be the problem. change wording that you had to have at least 13 cards in asheap and this will block few times ability to play 'third ashur'

we have tested 'changed' version of ashurs for one play weekend. ashurs were triggered by 3 on table not 3 controlled by one player. every other aspect worked. players gain 1 pool and returned 4 cards to library per ashur tablet they controlled and player who played 'last' one gets 'bonus card to hand' effect.
worked fine. while controled all by 1 player no problem occurs 13 cards are digged back as usual. no blockages for tablets controled by various players and most important amount of tablets used in one deck in game cannot be so easily predicted. seen Cybele deck screep up 2 sets of ashurs to Nana Buruku deck and then die, ending for nana with 5 ashurs in desk not able to run 2 sets anymore. he still got his 16 cards and 4 pool for tablets played, but at the end 2 of them were in his deck for nothing.

there were several other suggestions we considered and i tried to 'play test' some of them:
solution: to resolve MPAs problem try to increase amount of tablet's required to trigger whole combo to 4. keep all other terms unchanged.
+ it's almost impossible to run them in 1 round now so there need to be at least some table at the table to predict it w(c)ould come.
- const one more MPA is forcing to definitively play more trifles and serious drop on other master cards. completely forced me to stop using Minion Taps with ashurs.

to resolve card recursion problems:
suggestion: make ashurs to trigger (when in proper amount on table) in discard phase instead of resolving them right away.
+ you get the whole combo for minimal card change, but delayed for next turn, not usable for probably most feared return of pentex.
- part of combo is gone and we all cry for return of pentex, oh wait there is still Anthelion, there is a light at the end of the tunnel...
suggestion 2: make ashurs to trigger when in proper amount on table as discard phase action. when so triggered remove your 3 copies, but keep others (even you own) in play.
+ you do not loose you tablets when there are other players, but still need to spend 3 MPAs to gain effect and as an addition you pay with your discard phase (with this model you can say that by triggering this you return a card to you hand as discard... and some aditional cards goes into library...)
- same as above and you can't screew other's people tablets.
suggestion 3: allow player to cycle on 1 set of ashurs per game
+ endless recursion is gone, 13 cards do help you and still may make a huge difference at the end game. as need for amount of tablets per player will definitively drop with this there might be help on other (40 EURO) problems with ashurs as well.
- some decks will simply stop to work.

ashur card terms:
suggestion: change wording that you had to have at least 14 cards in asheap and this will block few times ability to play 'third ashur'
+ can't trigger them with half empty asheap.
- can result in holding last ashur in hand for 2-3 turns, while somebody else can trigger them and screw you.