Balancing Ashur Tablets

Pascal wrote:

Zoroh wrote:

I think it´s a good solution.But then again I ask you Pascal: wich problem exactly we're trying to fix? what's wrong, especifically, with AT?

My issue with AT: It takes forever(*) to resolve 3.
And some tables resolve 9.

(*) forever = more than 10 seconds. From what I've seen, between 1 and 2 minutes.

Then the solution you propose seems to fix it alright. Any chance it will see day light anytime soon? Or it sits in the 'not broken' mechanics that will wait printing?

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Edit: Self Biased, were you playing with 40k Chaos Rhino-rush, Fantasy "Hero-Hammer" or the later"I have 6 Hydras" darkelves/"I kill you, ressurrect you, you amd I kill you" VC? I once got the Nigjt goblin initiative check vortex dropped on Saurus. Yea, initiative 2. Lotsa dead lizards. I dont think me taking 6 Salamanders compares to someone stalling out or just being disrespectfully slow about resolving tablets. Una is a perfect example of "blame players v. Designers" debates though. Maybe girls decks in general as well......

i was thinking about the 3.5 dual lash Prince/thousand sons fiasco, where allessio allegedly uttered that phrase followed by "but that's not what I meant!"

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Asnek wrote:

how did you get to 4 cards provided for methuselah in reinforcment? using same math as you used for ashurs you would gain ONLY 2 cards not 4. returning 3 cards at cost of 1 card.
ashurs do have slightly better results when you count that they do return 13 card for cost of 3.5 cards.
yes in fact it's 3.5 card and not a whole card as you have suggested. many times you simply drop duplicity from your hand or card you know would not be needed around the table. in such cases you are in card benefit and not in card lose!!!

another fact you definitively need to take in acount is that Reinforcment is an action not master. any moron around the table might be able to simply throw away telepatic misdirection (that is played in like 1/3-1/4 of decks) and screw whole your gain. how many deck do intentonaly play suddens and/or washes? i believe it would be much lower number.

Apologies, I had it in mind that Reinforcments returned 4 cards... which just means that it is worse than before with the comparison and pushes Ashur Tablets further above the 'general card recursion point'.

Ashur Tablets makes you discard a card by over-sizing your hand. The card chosen might be less valuable at that time due to other factors, but the simplest cost is "1 card". Attempting to put a more elegant cost on a card requires the kind of modelling and actuarial work I couldn't be bothered doing concretely. If there is an actuary out there who feels like they want to put actuarial coefficients on the various possible card discards after drawing the "one card" of Ashur Tablets... I'm all for it. While you are at it, please give approximate pool and blood costs of all minion actions at all points in the game. It's about the same level of complexity and work required.

I never claimed Reinforcements couldn't be stopped, in fact I've usually said it is far easier to stop and provides only marginally better benefits from its required setup (i.e. title, majority referendum, not being blocked) than other action-based recursion. Again, Ashur Tablets is a less interactive master card play and is more likely to be achieved; its 'setback cost' of the triggering event is made less of an issue due to card scarcity, but it is also not a particularly strong penalty for what would appear to be easier to accomplish than 4 unblocked referendums by a titled vampire.

Asnek wrote:

hey judge it takes him 2 minutes to choose 13th card [...]recepie for hot water PLEASE

Or you could just say "Judge can you stop the clock for our table, this guy seems to be wasting time making a decision."

Asnek wrote:

you can't separate these two as you are trying to suggest. time loss is equal to quantity of cards you need to find and fact you are searching for more cards does not help.[...] you might be able to play can be more time consuming than any ashurs we have ever seen.

Duh, playing 3 MotS takes more time than playing 1 MotS. Eating 3 sandwiches takes more time than eating one. But in the end, MotS limits you to one equipment card... so that means you can ignore any non-equipment card in your library AND you are probably doing this action with the item of equipment already in mind.

My claim on time loss is that time lost is increased by the number of cards chosen AND the number of cards which are valid choices AND it's probably not a straight multiplier of those two factors (i.e. choosing 2 cards from 4 cards is probably going to be longer than twice the time of choosing 1 card from 4 cards). I am saying that MotS will have a shorter search time than for instance Spirit Summoning Chamber (burn a blood to search for a THA card). I am also saying that the search Alastor will have a similar time than MotS because Alastor has the same choice limits AND like the MotS case you have probably already got a shorter list of choices out of the possible choices (i.e. you are choosing between Helicopter and Assault Rifle for your Alastor but ignoring the Sports Bikes, Ankara Citadel and Palatial Estates).

What makes playing Ashur Tablets far longer is that you must first choose 13 cards and then choose 1 to go to your hand. Because there are two sets of choices and both of them are made on reasonably large numbers of cards.

If you have the problem that you telegraph to your opponents that you are planning to play your 3rd Ashur Tablets by looking at your ashheap, then look at it more often so they can't tell when you are playing it. That's just bad tactics on your part.

Asnek wrote:

simple scenario description. who did not see it before?
player puts 3rd ashur on the table. next 15-30 seconds he is explaining to whole table what will happen. then he chose 7-9 cards right away in another 30 seconds, but choice for remaining 4-5 cards takes another 3-5 minutes as he is checking card counts and deck situation and his hand few more times.

That is my point about the decisions being more complex and taking more time the greater the size of the groups and number of choices to be made.

It certainly should not take five minutes to choose 4-5 cards after you have chosen most of your cards.

But, in competitive play, there are other distractions - your prey may "harass" you with talking, or your cross table "buddies" may give "friendly" advice.

Everything depends on how the game is evolving and what position you are in. Since stalling in general in unsportsmanshiplike (is that a real word), you can either choose or not choose to play your game fast or not. For example, if I had 3 vps already, and there is just about 5 minutes left to play, and my last opponent has a good chance to oust me, how fast I should choose 13 cards after playing 3rd ashur tablets? If I haste, I might make a bad decision and my opponent ousts me, I might not get in to finals. If I choose well, I might have a chance to oust my opponent and win 5 victory points and even get to finals with first seed.

There are lots of things to consider when playing Ashur Tablets, but there are lots of other things to consider when playing V:tES as well.

If Ashur Tablets are such a problem, they should be banned. If they are not banned, then they are considered fine and you just need to live with them.

If it takes a lot of time to for someone to play Ashur Tablets, consider this: Does that player play slowly in general, if yes, does that player win games more than you, if yes, then maybe you should think more and rant less so you might win games as well.

I didnt deal much with tablets this year at the NAC to give a picture of how tablets are being playes globally, but the only player in Ohio I recall taking excessively long to decide tablets uptake (who no longer plays) was an infamous net-decker who barely grasp how to play a girls deck (still won with them, because those decks are that stupid-strong) and seriously re-read half his ash heap.

If we base time required upon players who win or dont, we end up with variants of "the Angseesing Clock" where of you take 5 or more seconds longer than Hugh, you are doing it wrong. So, maybe the problem is some players overthinking the game upsets players who are internally screaming "pick up the F@#%@ing DI and shuffle!" When its plainly what to do, but some folks pretend to overthink just to stall, since girls mmpa do nothing but gain pool and not die, and of course gain that 2 hour single vp.

Its not a playstyle issue, as Ive seen, its a lack of preperation. Yes, another player may play a single card and reshape what yoi plan on doing, but tablets should take no longer than backing up and refiguring a turn if you already have any part of a plan.

I agree, that playing tablets is a playing style issue, but everything else is that in v:yes as well. It's unfortunate that one person literally delays the game by being ill prepared. On the other hand I don't think girls deck is so strong that one can win with it without studying it... Well, perhaps a stealth & bleed variant.

Regardless, perhaps those who play with this kind of person and know what they are playing need to think their own play style - and just cruelly oust them.