[Submission] Scolding the Harbinger (Event-Related Political Card)

Name: Scolding the Harbinger
Cardtype:
Requires a titled vampire.

Select another Methuselah and any number of Gehenna Events not controlled by that Methuselah. Successful referendum means the chosen Methuselah takes control of the selected Gehenna Events (breaking any non-replacement clauses) and burns a pool for each Gehenna Event under his control.


Game development:
- Weaponizes events in a new and innovative way that struck me as interesting from multiple angles, given that it allows for uses as both pro and anti-event tech:

a) Event decks might be interested in breaking their harsh NDR clauses and to assign their events to a strong deck on the board, ensuring their safe permanency in play, with some pool damage on the side.

b) As anti-event tech it can be used to saddle a table's worth of nasty events on a weak prey/deck, in order to ensure the swift removal of both through ousting.

Though I didn't mandate by design an obligation to target the prey in order to preserve the flexibility of the card it might be desirable to do so.

I mostly wanted the card to be playable, something pure hosers are usually not. I considered that a vote card, with its inherent "pitch for 1 vote" clause, proves a desirable (and currently overlooked) venue for some form of event-interaction design space.

- Makes Becoming of Ennoia playable, though this is mostly an unintended side-effect.

Flavor:
- Trumping up charges to assign the blame for unleashing the end of the world. Somewhat inspired by my lurking of the "Fixing Events" thread, though the card is in no way a tongue-in-cheek design.

Balance:
- Given enough events on the board, this card can have some pretty swingy effects though it includes a sort of auto-regulatory system where if the card is doing too much pool damage to a player and ousts him, then the events are gone for good too.

Ultimately, I'm way too out of the loop to pass judgment... you tell me if this is fun and enabling or anti-fun and will probably lead to horrible decks being designed.

Competitiveness:
- Couldn't say. Breaking nasty NDR clauses is strong and so is exposing the events to an easy oust. Despite the typical tournament table not seeing more than a couple of the most popular events on any given game, this could still end up being a solid play, since it's a card that produces forward motion.


Drain

It's not really clear what you're trying to achieve, or whether the implementation achieves anything useful anyway.

From the point of view of "breaking harsh DNR clauses" for myself, the only person I seriously want to do pool damage to is my prey. And I want to oust them next. So I'm unlikely to want to give them Anthelios, Wormwood, Veil of Darkness and Rise of the Nephtali, because then they go away. Except if I transfer the Events to my grand-prey just before oust, which you can do. And that sort of thing suggests that I - as the Event player - should be playing more Gehenna events. Drop three Events into play, call Scolding, move them to my prey. Call Scolding again, move 0 events to my prey (0 is "any number"), burn pool again. Put some more into play. Repeat.


For the point of view of breaking DNR clauses cross-table, you're the event deck with the nasty tech I hate. You can already cope with the Event itself (you designed your deck to do so, we assume), and now I'm giving you help. Not so fun. Here, I might want to give them to my prey, but that's quite tenuous - it might well be my prey who's playing them to start with, and why do I want to give him cards back? He's already expecting to have the Events in play, and should be expecting that - say - a KRC deck might be his predator, so it's not like there's any curveball action going on there.

Pitching a vote for 1 vote has almost never made other weak votes worth playing. A hoser on a political action is still a hoser, even if you can pitch it for one vote. I can pitch Parity Shift for one vote too, and if I draw Parity Shift instead of a hoser, I have the option of playing the Parity Shift.

It does facilitate spiteful play for the Event Methuselah too. "Oh, hi, you're going to come and cross-table Kindred Spirits bleed me because you don't like Absimiliard's Army? Well, with my dying breath, I move all my events onto someone else. How'd you like them apples?"

Yea, not feeling this is a solution, or even a beneficial thing in general.

Now, some sort of Seraph-called vote to burn a gehenna event and 4 pool from its controller may be neat, and fits theme, but im not feeling this one.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Now, some sort of Seraph-called vote to burn a gehenna event and 4 pool from its controller may be neat, and fits theme, but im not feeling this one.

I suggested something along those lines over here:
www.vekn.net/forum/41-card-balance-a-strategy-discussion/49875-please-ban-the-unmasking?limit=10&start=50#50046

On reflection, I'd probably make it "Gehenna Event", or perhaps do something (e.g. a blood cost) if it's a non-Gehenna event.

My aims were roughly:

- short, because cards that are bursting with card text tend to be complicated, get overlooked etc.

- reasonably versatile, which is why I added the location element

- not outright better than any other vote, so this burns (rather than stealing) a location (compare Disputed Territory), and does less pool damage than KRC or an early-mid ConAg, and can't be used to target a player who has neither locations nor events (no legal target for "Choose a location or event")


I'd be wary of 4 pool, especially when Black Hand and Seraphs (in your implementation) can play Art of Memory to retrieve the action card , making it moderately doable to hit a deck really quite hard in one go.


And while I have no problem with giving Seraphs a decent amount of fun stuff to do, I'd be wary of giving tech only to Seraphs. Yes, it might fit better with WoD theme, but it's pretty narrow. That doesn't mean every card has to be playable by a wide cross-section of decks - you might add two or three cards, covering different bases. But like Red List in V:TES works with multiple sects, I wouldn't want to see solid event-meddling tech being restricted to quite narrow deck types (Black Hand and Anarchs).


Also also, Black Hand already have the playable-but-not-awesome Black Hand Ritual.

Could make them pay 2 pool for any events they wanted to keep and burn the rest, or one for locations.

Now, im not on the anti-event bandwagon, in fact i think more events need done (Technocracy intervention: gehenna, requires at least one other gehnna card. During your untap phase, burn this card and inflict 2 unpreventable agg on the oldest vampire controlled by each methuselah. If you control any imbued, tap them during you master phase see, theres room)

But, if MY meta was crawling with weenies (and one player went through a weenie deck phase) id run neonate breaches (i did).

Events, id run 4th cycle, or a card punishing events.

Id even make a vote (if just for seraphs) that did something neat for bh, and also had the effect of a methuselah controlling 2 or more events burn one of your choosing and 3 pool, and pay 2 pool to keep any remaning.