Tariq and merging

theEmperor wrote:

How is my statement faulty? I said I can't think of a single tournament winning deck that uses it.
I never claimed there were none my point was that there are very few successful uses of the mechanic.

I just did a search for "adv" in the TWDA. I got 228 hits. After filtering out "advice", "advantage", and tournaments named after Advanced vampires, there are still well over 100 decks in the TWDA that do one of the following:

- use an Advanced version of a vampire but not its base
- use a base version and an Advanced version of a vampire for casual merging
- use a base or Advanced vampire as a star vampire, with the opposite version for merging

There is also a wide variety of Advanced vampires represented, including Ramona and Tusk the Talebearer.

I don't know what your version of "successful" is, but I'm seeing quite a lot of players getting use out of a lot of Advanced vampires.

BenPeal wrote:

I just did a search for "adv" in the TWDA. I got 228 hits. After filtering out "advice", "advantage", and tournaments named after Advanced vampires, there are still well over 100 decks in the TWDA that do one of the following:

- use an Advanced version of a vampire but not its base
- use a base version and an Advanced version of a vampire for casual merging
- use a base or Advanced vampire as a star vampire, with the opposite version for merging

There is also a wide variety of Advanced vampires represented, including Ramona and Tusk the Talebearer.

I don't know what your version of "successful" is, but I'm seeing quite a lot of players getting use out of a lot of Advanced vampires.

I'm talking about the mechanic as a way to win not the advanced versions of a vampire or even the splashing of bas and advanced versions for casual use of the mechanic.
In my opinion there are plenty of vampires that would be worth advancing of the mechanic was a little easier to use as plenty of people have pointed out right now its only useful or superstar decks (Tariq with atonement is fun for instance) or if the base and advanced version are about equally useful in the deck.

BenPeal wrote:

That's a potential option, though my job is to design cards, not change the rules. I'm strongly disinclined to change the rules with the game out of print, as I want existing players (both active and lapsed) to be confident in knowing that the rules remain as they know them.
...
Yeah, I agree that "casual merging" for vamps like Ramona could use some help.

So, I've had this rattling round in my head a little. I'm not totally averse to rules changes or rules additions, because - for example - I'd be potentially totally fine with a rules tweak that was needed for a new expansion, for a new title or keyword etc. So, I was thinking something along the lines of:

Note that the existing merge rule stays completely in tact.

The idea would be that somewhere in the mid-game, a vampire could take an action, two turns, and two pool to advance itself. (One pool to flip the vampire out of your crypt. The second pool to merge.) Only one vampire can do this per game, per Methuselah.

As written, if the action is blocked, it's gone forever - though that's obviously tweakable. Including a few good library based merge cards might therefore still be good as a backup, or for decks with minimal access to stealth/delivery, or if you have more than one mergeable minion in your deck (unlikely now, but possibly less unlikely in such a setup).

No new rules for Baal's sake!

jamesatzephyr wrote:

I'm not totally averse to rules changes or rules additions, because - for example - I'd be potentially totally fine with a rules tweak that was needed for a new expansion, for a new title or keyword etc.

I'm going to need a few weeks to process this sentence fully.

In the meantime... What have you done with James? Why are you aliens impersonating James? Are you a secret double agent from Hasbro?!?!

BenPeal wrote:

I don't know what your version of "successful" is, but I'm seeing quite a lot of players getting use out of a lot of Advanced vampires.

Ben, you have been making a lot of sense so far, but arguing that having adv or base vampires CAPABLE of merging in a TWDA deck indicates that the MECHANIC of merging is fine, is a strawman.

Getting use out of advanced vampires is one thing, getting use out of merging vampires is something completely else.