Is it time to introduce a card limit?

Perhaps it's time to limit individual cards to 4 each library/crypt.

Cons
- Lots of decks need to be revised, but still fixable.
- Wrecks certain decks (tupdogs(some will judge this as a pro ), Orun/Aye)
- Eliminates a rule that kinda made Vtes special.
- Wrecks the super Animalism combat combo (Aid of Bats + Carrion Crows).
- Makes combat decks a lot more challenging.

Pro's
- No need to ban power cards.
- Tones down Imbueds (don't know this actually, I don't know imbueds)
- Tones down Turbo decks (the ones that rely on just freak drive).
- Tones down power cards such as Conditioning, Govern the unaligned, Immortal Grapple.
- Tones down pool bloating (slightly)
- Easier to balance (Mister Peal?)
- Everyone suddenly has a lot of spare cards, opening a potential card pool to new players.
- Easier for new players to build competitive decks as they don't need 10+ of super card X.
- More card diversity in decks.

Special notes
- Does not solve bounce card issues.

You can still play nearly all decks in revised form, there are plenty of alternative cards (though weaker) available to replace the power cards. Some decks need to be more creative (sticks) and thus less boring

Decks utilising Anarch Converts now have to use some other turn anarch cards, plenty out there tbh.

Some design ideas that really required a lot of copies of card X can be solved or rethought through card design in future sets. Or simply state on a card that you can have max 10 of this card in a deck, but I think everyone agrees this is an ugly design idea.

*hands over topic to community*

GreyB wrote:

Cons
- Lots of decks need to be revised, but still fixable.
- Wrecks certain decks (tupdogs(some will judge this as a pro ), Orun/Aye)
- Eliminates a rule that kinda made Vtes special.
- Wrecks the super Animalism combat combo (Aid of Bats + Carrion Crows).
- Makes combat decks a lot more challenging.

Overpowering stealth-bleed to the point that it destroys games and players have to be pressured socially not to play it, because stealth-bleed is in no essential way impeded by 4CL while dozens of other strategies are torpedoed into oblivion. Decks with an option for light, consistent stealth from their one available card, which they could play 6-8 copies of, don't have an option to replace it. Decks with a key action card that was designed knowing it could be used many times don't have an option to replace it.

I invite you to research the history of the fundamentally hideous 4CL proposal, every time it's been discussed and proposed. It wrecks V:TES.

This topic was discussed like 100 times already. It generally will dumb the game down, when you switch in most straightforward deck concepts (stealth-bleed) some cards for it's alternatives and drop most interesting concepts.

And in general it's kind of not cool, when you are putting the cards in the deck not because they belong there, but because you've reached limit on better ones. MTG don't work without it, cause power level of it's cards is all over the place, but VtES is mostly fine in this regard.

Also, it helps as a commercial tool, both to players and manufacturers - if the player only needs 3-4 cards to complete play set, then you'll need to move all playable cards to rare/ultrarare slots, or you'll not make any sales.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

GreyB wrote:

Perhaps it's time to restrict individual cards to max 4 each in a library/crypt.

Look, just no. 4CL is a fundamentally awful idea, because it empowers stealth-bleed (which has a plethora of alternatives), while hurting dozens of other strategies because they don't have alternatives, have been designed without alternatives, and have been intended to work without alternatives.

Bloodline disciplines with restricted card sets were designed knowing that their actions, modifiers, reactions etc. can be stacked up in decks. Anarch three-ways were designed knowing the same. The Red Question, clearly designed to make Anarchs much more playable, was designed knowing that you could toss a load into a deck to kick start the deck if you wanted. Camarilla vote decks get 4 extra copies of Parity Shift in a deck for pool destruction, and non-Camarilla vote decks don't get to compensate for that by playing more copies of Kine Resources Contested. Dominate based decks have the option of Deflection, Redirection, and Murmur, while Auspex decks can only play Telepathic Misdirection.

It has been a terrible idea every time it's been suggested since 1994, and will continue to be so.

GreyB wrote:

Stuff that breaks with a card limit like Orun/Aye and suchlike just need to be designed away in new sets.

Since the game has been getting roughly 20-25 library cards a year, it would take an inordinate amount of time to fix all the problems that are introduced. Of course, since stealth-bleed dominating the game is the result that's happened in more or less any group that's played 4CL - except where they then exert social pressure on people to not play strong decks! - it's likely the game wouldn't last long enough to fix the swathes of problems introduced.

It really is a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible idea.

I get what you're saying, I just don't think "the bad situation" you sketch is that bad.

Concerning bounce cards, yes, Dominate will for sure gain a huge card availability advantage over other disciplines, but I don't think it matters much compared to the situation we have now. Bounce cards still need to be addressed in my opinion, a card limit won't fix that. It will however fix a lot of other issues.

A card limit will certainly be a game changer, but I don't think that's a bad thing and I don't think it will make any cards or disciplines more powerful than they are now, if anything, the more powerful disciplines will get toned down.

I can also think up of a lot of issues with a card limit and current cards and I have some personal dislikes towards the idea as well, nothing though that can't be designed away and it would only require 2 cards. It would solve a lot of hard to fix issues in a grander scheme though and that's what I am after. Break down problems to more manageable chunks and a card limit would achieve that.

Yes it was a bad (a really really bad) idea back in 94, but 1500+ cards later it could actually work, just have to look at it from a bigger perspective. Give it some more thought and try not to focus too much on individual cases (unless you see a real problem that's not already a problem right now).

New deckbuilding tendance:

4x Misdirection
4x Vessel
2x Anarch Troublemaker
3x Pentex
1x Bleeding the Vine
2x Sudden Reversal

4x Public Trust
4x Legal Manipulations
4x Entrancement
4x Intimidation
4x Mind Numb

4x Aire of Elation
4x Leverage

4x Majesty
4x Force of Personality

4x Telepathic Misdirection
4x Eyes of Argus
4x My Enemy's Enemy

GreyB wrote:

I get what you're saying, I just don't think "the bad situation" you sketch is that bad.

That you didn't even address it in your proposal - despite the fact that it has come up in every single discussion of 4CL ever - suggests that you shouldn't be anywhere near as casual about rejecting the problem that has been encountered when it's been tried.

GreyB wrote:

Concerning bounce cards, yes, Dominate will for sure gain a huge card availability advantage over other disciplines, but I don't think it matters much compared to the situation we have now.

Because letting stealth-bleed run rampant over everyone and everything is exactly the situation we have now? Stealth-bleed is playable right now, but it is beatable - which is what the situation should be. Why is it beatable? Because other decks still work. The outcome with 4CL is that almost every deck strategy is hurt in a potentially significant way, but the troubles that stealth bleed faces are almost entirely inconsequential in comparison. Sometimes it bleeds for 4 or 5 instead of 6, whoop-de-doo. By comparison, other deck styles just simply cannot function because you've just said they can't include the cards they're supposed to include, that the designers intended they include, and that they've included for years.

GreyB wrote:

A card limit will certainly be a game changer,

Well, I guess destroying the game is one form of changing it.

GreyB wrote:

but I don't think that's a bad thing and I don't think it will make any cards or disciplines more powerful than they are now, if anything, the more powerful disciplines will get toned down.

You are wildly, wildly, wildly wrong. Dominate under 4CL doesn't have a hard time bleeding the shit out of everyone. Pretty much every other strategy is much worse than it is now.

Your proposal is bad. It will remain bad even if you pretend that somehow 4CL makes Dominate worse, even when all the evidence when people have tried it is that it makes Dominate wildly better. It doesn't tone Dominate down, even remotely. That's why it's a bad a proposal.

GreyB wrote:

Yes it was a bad (a really really bad) idea back in 94, but 1500+ cards later it could actually work, just have to look at it from a bigger perspective.

I am looking at it from the bigger perspective. Those 1500+ cards were designed for this environment. Those 1500+ cards expect to be able to be used on their own in multiiple copies, or in small quantities, or in a mix of the two. Whole strategies have been designed, in this bigger picture, knowing that that can happen. In the bigger picture, any strategy with a usable tool on one or two cards can build an offensive or defensive strategy around it - which is completely intentional, in the bigger picture - which 4CL completely destroys.

The bigger picture shows that the 4CL proposal remains horrifyingly awful garbage.

GreyB wrote:

Give it some more thought and try not to focus too much on individual cases (unless you see a real problem that's not already a problem right now).

Making stealth-bleed run rampant is a real problem that's not a problem right now. This isn't "Dominate is good" (which it is), this is "stealth-bleed can up-end tables like it's 1994, and all the counter options have just been hosed".

Games are played with individual cases. They are not played with bullshit nonsense about somehow making stealth-bleed worse when you've done nothing to hamstring stealth-bleed and everything to hamstring everyone else.



4CL is bad for the game. It's bad for the game in the bigger picture. It's bad for the game in individual cases. You are proposing something bad, hand-waving away the horrifying problems you introduce, and pretending it is isn't bad. It's just awful.