Card idea: Fiery Heart (pro+for grants blood to pay cards)

Ankha wrote:

Thoughts? Comments?

Though the mechanic is interesting in itself, I'm not sure it opens up that many interesting possibilities in terms of decks.

Mostly, Pro/For will already have access to reasonable blood gain and blood preservation, in the form of things like Restoration, Masochism and damage prevention. It often comes along with Animalism, and Crows+Taste is fairly solid. So while the mechanic has subtle pros and cons - it's not blood I can spend on healing damage, but equally my opponent can't take it off me etc. - I'm not sure it opens up any significantly interesting new strategies.


In terms of balance/abuses, I'd want to take a critical look at the Ravnos - there are half a dozen with various forms of Pro/For. I'd be concerned about possible Clown Car ramifications. At superior (Darius Styx, Lizette) it's two free weenies (even including two Freak Drives), plus whatever you're doing Ravnos Carnival etc. Not sure it's killer, but Clown Car is already very good.

Also, there are no Laibon who can natively play it at superior, but it might be interesting with the Eldest Command Undeath. (Two have pro/FOR, one has PRO/for.)

Speaking of Ravnos, it would also be a great enabler for blood intensive cards like Will-o'-the-Wisp. Which I like.

there needs to be for+pro cards that do things like this, but i'm not sure how much i like this. its alot like masochism, to be sure, but masochism combos great with various combat combos (flesh of marble+weather control+trap, theft every few rounds and you can play horrific countenance a few times with just rush counters, or non protean with signpost, grapple, punch for @ least 3, don't prevent, and just taste, so you get damage +1 rush counters for playing governs, freak drives, and deflections in ignazio/laz/hardestadt/punchy ventrue decks).

so, i've waited until i actually had time to test any of my pro/for combo ideas to post them, but i think having a permanent damage prevent (once a round or once each combat) is appropriate for those disciplines (i base this on canon abilities of both disciplines, along with vampire descriptions form source books {such as "...those who have actually touched Karsh's skin and lived to tell about it say he has hardened it to the consistency of diamonds..." and i also think that having 'free' beads to play cards (or, imo, even to use for "burn a blood to" effects on cards, such as superior rolling with the punches) is appropriate for the combo with large vamps (7-8 caps and higher).

obviously, Fiery Heart is going to be used to pay for freak drive more often than anything else, so aksnia becomes a hair better (but not really in girls decks. she is a better vamp than she's given credit for, and if she was printed as gangrel, she would be a staple to jacob fermor garou decks as an amazing way to mitigate pool loss) and so do vamps who need help like zayyat (paying blood for his govern and potentially for his stealth means he would love 6 free beads for earth control or freak drive).

the only problem i see with this card is it REALLY helps g2 dominate gangrel. slava gets villeined for 11, lillithed, and gets 6 FH beads, freak drives, and has enough beads to govern down, freak drive, bleed for 3, play earth control, conditioning, and still have a bead to wake and deflect without paying any blood.

i'm not sure if it's too good or not good enough, which probably means its balanced. good card, but i think pro+for needs more than just something like this if we get printed again soon.

What strategy this card is supposed to help ?

If it's blood-intensive non combat card (typically embrace or all the ravnos stuff, but other thing may be found like Monkey Wrench and co), then it's pretty fine. It may be a bit powerful, but franfly compared to, say, voter captivation or abactor it seem pretty on-spot.

If it's supposed to help combat, then the card miss the goal in my opinion. That's because a number of factor :
* it cost actions, which tend to be already in short supply for that kind of deck
* it does not work as hunt, which mean if you were just emptied and draw this card, bad luck
* it does not help card flow at all. Gangrel combat is overall dependant on a good card flow, so drawing an action is pretty bad, and it don't allow to cut on the number of other actions.
* it does not provide solutions against anti-protean combat, like prevention for 1, combat end, blood steal, ...
* Gangrel combat is not that blood extensive anyway, because you have prevent, flesh of marble, and such.

So, I am not too sure of the intent. It seem strange to create a card to help embracing or bleeding harder, and card with the same kind of effect do exist (with significantly lesser gain or greater drawbacks).

Still, the idea is exciting, because blood that can't be converted to pool open a lot of possibilities.