The 'Metaban' Project - A rolling ban project for VTES Tournaments

kombainas wrote:

Some or even most of those cards can be replaced by other cards, unless you are abusing the card. The very point is to play those cards, you would otherwise not.

If the intention is just to make people swap one card for a substitute but otherwise play exactly the same deck with few ill effects, why bother? (I'm talking here about the intention, not the actual result.) Oh look, you're bleeding me with this card instead of that one. Err, yay?

If the actual intention is to increase diversity in the range of decks, bans hurt Tier 1 decks, but they also hurt the lower level decks - possibly more so.

kombainas wrote:

Freak Drive - Forced March (play with a different crypt)

That does one of two things:

1) Makes the deck close to unplayable. Not every clan or discipline combo has ready access to Celerity. Harbingers have two vampires, not in a compatible group. Harbingers are not exactly a tier 1 instant-win clan. Meta-banning Freak Drive (which to me seems like the sort of card that would come high up in a poll which essentially asks "Which cards make you go NnnngGHG when you see them?") would make it much harder to use for them. Somewhat less so for the Ventrue, who have a fair smattering of Celerity on playable vampires. Only one Salubri has Celerity. Seems like an odd direction to head in.

2) Makes the crypt more expensive. Getting an extra discipline will probably force you to play more expensive vampires. Does this start tipping the game towards weenies? The counter-tactic of banning bleed inreasing cards regularly exploited by weenie bleed may hurt, say, bruise-and-bleed just as much, if not more. (I've killed your vampires, but now I can't lunge.)

This is a common problem - bans do not just hit the strategies that are incredibly popular and, to some, dull.

kombainas wrote:

Deflection - 2 other DOM bounce cards are still there (again, adapt the crypt)

Discussed elsewhere, but neither are suitable vs Imbued, for example. (Redirection and Murmur of the False Will both require an acting vampire.) Having to go to DOM (for older vamps in Redirection, or at all in Murmur) also has similar effects to those discussed in Forced March:

1) Some weaker decks graft in Dominate to help themselves survive. Grafting in superior Dominate is typically going to be non-trivial. Superior Dominate is commonly found in Tier 1 and Tier 1.5 decks, though. (That's part of why they're good decks.) So have I just mortally wounded Domi-Ravnos bleed bounce defence, while having little impact on a Stanislava Dominate/Protean deck, or an Arika deck? Not seeing the real benefit here. Both strong decks and weaker decks are weakened, but it seems like the existing weaker decks took a whole lot more of a beating.

2) Again, the increased vampire cost for the extra disciplines, while weenies can still do a hell of a lot of bleed without increased costs.

kombainas wrote:

Villein - Minion Tap

Potentially quite a lot slower than Villein. (It does have some upsides, of course.)

kombainas wrote:

Any PA - shitloads of other PAs, but not that cheesy

Really? There are only a small number of solid damage votes in the entire game.

The most obvious are Parity Shift, Kine Resources Contested, Conservative Agitation. KRC is often considered better than Con Ag because of its stronger performance in the end game, though both are playable. Reckless Agitation, Revolutionary Council and Lily Prelude are good, but neither could serve to let any deck with Sabbat or Camarilla titles work. (And believe it or not, some people like to play particular clans because they enjoy that clan.)

There are a bunch of others that do pool damage, of course, but they're much more fringe - Domain Challenge, Anarchist Uprising. Ancient Influence called at a critical time can hurt people, but it's pretty hard to rely on it hurting the right people. Perpetual Care is a totally different deck.

To my mind, losing KRC - which is put in loads and loads of political decks, and is therefore a candidate for "make people consider different cards for once!" would cause a world of pain.

kombainas wrote:

Delaying Tactics - Poison Pill or intercept

Damage votes aren't the only votes that people play (though they are very common, obviously). Poison Pill cares not at all for Banishment, for example.

Plenty of decks don't have good access to intercept. Do we force more people towards Auspex walls? (AUS would give them Telepathic Misdirection, if that hasn't been banned.) Several grinding Auspex walls are already pretty successful - they also don't have that many lynchpin cards that you could easily ban to unseat the whole archetype.

Do I have to spend more pool on bigger vampires? On equipment? On media locations? Doesn't that make me more vulnerable to a fast-ousting deck such as weenie stealth bleed?

kombainas wrote:

That is the very point - to think of alternatives, not abuse known tricks. If few archetypes get nerfed, is this such a bad thing?

The potential for significant collateral damage is extremely high.

kombainas wrote:

Can it be nobody can build a new deck anymore?.. If so, there is no need for any new cards - the decks are perfect and god forbid something makes them less so.

Total non-sequitur. You could build new decks, and in the metaban environment you could build decks too. The question is whether the resulting environment would be remotely balanced, interesting or fun. Whether it would have a diverse, interesting range of decks that players wanted to try.

Banning cards that fuel Tier 1 decks does not hit solely Tier 1 decks and in a number of cases, existing Tier 1 decks stand to come out of it much better than existing weaker decks. And stealth-bleed, with its plethora of identikit switchable components, will take very little damage. So we end up with an environment where fewer deck types are viable, because they have to stand up to relatively-more-powerful stealth-bleed, without the tools that have been helping them gain an even footing.

As you have perfectly stated, changes like these do change metagame . And change is what is needed. Or are you advocating status quo?

kombainas wrote:

As you have perfectly stated, changes like these do change metagame . And change is what is needed. Or are you advocating status quo?

I dont think hes against change, just this idea. Most points he made are valid.

As i see it, metaban garbage will just be a worse version of tbe game, not better. We ban freak drive, govern, eyes of argus, deflection, mind rape, grave rob, lost in crowds, kindred spirits, enchant kindred, majesty, grapple, psyche, and ivory bow.

Now walls and multi act decks are a joke compated to what they should be, and combat ends, having more cards than negates sce, becomes stupid easy. So, we either use death seeker, charismatic aura, dog pack, or the jones to cancel sce, so tberes no real combat. Majesty is out, but theres earth meld, staredown, no trace, force of personality, and everytbing else to avoid combat.
We take awY practical bounce, and parity shift and govern and even multiacting to bloat, so we get everyone tryong to slow bkoat or play the only thing not screwed: stealthbleed.
Make no mistake, theres no way to ban enough cards to not make sb viable. Presence bleeds at +2 an action plus who carez whaf else and combat ends with obfuscate. Bounce doeznt matteing nearlh as much witbout deflection, and blocking isnt a real answer 5 times a turn if you cant multiact with big vamps and ban discipline reliant wake or intercept carxs.

Just wait for the new set. Or ban vamps.

If i can play shuhailah and shes viable then we are playing more thoughtfully than before. Until then, real vtes or a storylines just fine.

Why in the world would anyone suggest banning Immortal Grapple? I don't think anyone has, right?

I realize that one poster is writing treatises just to convince everyone how terrible this idea is. I don't personally like the idea, but I think it could be constructively developed. I am disappointed that the OP is not willing to give a sample list of bans for others to consider as an example.

I personally favor the idea of card blocks or alternate tournament formats like they do in MtG. For instance, one might do a "Monomancy" format in which all crypts may only contain Sabbat vampires. Another thread, I guess.

Anyway, this "Rolling Ban" idea might work better if each "ban block" were carefully themed.

For instance:
1. A banned list consisting of stealth cards, leaving only one or two meaningful stealth cards per discipline.
2. A banned list consisting of cards commonly found in MMPA decks and huge fatty decks: The Parthenon, Anthelios, Villein, Golconda, Lilith's Blessing
3. A banned list consisting of common allies and their associated cards: The Unmasking, War Ghoul, Shambling Hordes, Ossian, Carlton
4. A banned list consisting of S:CE and dodge cards.
5. A banned list consisting of Animalism cards.
6. A banned list consisting of cards requiring Princes and Justicars.
7. A banned list consisting of Fame and cards that grant the ability to enter combat.
8. A banned list consisting of popular ranged weapons.
9. A banned list consisting of Smiling Jack the Anarch, Auspex bounce, Enhanced Senses, and cards that give permanent intercept.
10. A banned list consisting of "Wake"-type reaction cards.

I mean, the list could go on and on. Just discouraging certain kinds of decks doesn't necessarily give the tournament a specific flavor as doing a block or limited format would.

sounds fun. i would give it a try.

at the very least it would give some experimental data on the relative power of deck archetypes.

AaronC wrote:

I realize that one poster is writing treatises just to convince everyone how terrible this idea is. I don't personally like the idea, but I think it could be constructively developed. I am disappointed that the OP is not willing to give a sample list of bans for others to consider as an example.


Anyway, this "Rolling Ban" idea might work better if each "ban block" were carefully themed.

<Some suggestions>

Sorry, as I said, I very specifically wouldn't look to be drawn into proposing a list of cards, precisely because it turns the debate away from the proposal, and more into an argument of 'what cards would you choose'. It's just too slippery a slope, to my mind when at the start of merely proposing the idea.

I actually really quite like the idea of them holding a 'theme', a could of blocks could be selected, and voting could poll for the block chosen. As long as it's carefully considered, this is quite a good idea.

As for the posts of our resident Paddington Bear: I understand James' dislike of the proposal, hell, I agree with a lot of his points, I just don't agree it'd necessarily cause the negative outcomes he describes. I'm very keen to avoid (because it suffers there from the same flaw as the 'card limits' argument, of in a very odd way making Stealth Bleed better) the issue of 'ban Lost in Crowds', and that was exactly why I think the idea could use the most development around the concept of these 'blocks', and how they're selected.