Submission: At the gates

Ankha wrote:

So basically Cicatriz can shut down Enkidu every turn?

Sensory deprivation, anyone?

Making it younger only kills plenty of the flavor and utility. Even if it were as laid out at the moment id be surprised if it saw any play.

The idea is fair though, and I don't have ideas for it just now.

Bloodartist wrote:

Come on, give the midcaps some love.

As it stands with no restriction at all, I would be worried about a weenie Legacy of Pander deck with some Crusades thrown in. e.g. something a little like this: www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=2713 Many Pander, a bunch of Legacy of Pander, and some Crusades which further solidify vote lock. The addition of a couple of Private Audience is amusing. So while helping midbies might be fun, I think the proposed implementation has potential to help weenies more.

However, I would personally be tempted to go about balancing it a slightly different way. Rather than younger, I would be tempted to make it so that you can't keep locking the same vampire down, and have to give it some respite. e.g. make the card burn at a different time, and limiting a vampire/minion/whatever to only having one of them at once, so you can't keep playing it over and over. There could be other ways to limit it, so that the vampire gets to do some stuff occasionally, but that's the route I would personally consider heading.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

As it stands with no restriction at all, I would be worried about a weenie Legacy of Pander deck with some Crusades thrown in. e.g. something a little like this: www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=2713

Well, you had an idea about a sabbat vote deck, which is exactly what I was trying to accomplish

However, I'm not at all sure this card needs to be balanced further. In the case you describe, I feel that there are a lot moving parts for something that doesn't actually progress your win condition. Ie. I'm not sure its a good idea. You don't see IC vote decks run 10-15 banishments, do you? (and that card has a technically stronger effect). The key here is that the card doesn't actually make you win (burn pool), it merely sets it up or alters the game state to a more favorable position. I don't think its a good idea to spend too many cardslots for such a plan. It seems like a beginner idea. Especially since you need to be pushing this card through every turn to lock ONE vampire out. I don't really see it happening without something like Undele (who can't play the card himself).

Besides, if there were a horde of voting pander like you describe, they could just as well vote KRC to actually oust their prey instead of trying to achieve an some kind of lock, right? I'm not convinced that this card would make the deck too strong, even if it would definitely(hopefully?) be playable. In the example, its the horde of pander thats the scary thing, imo.

Maybe I'm wrong and I underestimate this, but this is my opinion.

My own ideas involved locking a vampire from hunting for couple turns while burning blood with something like deploy the hand, society of leopold, Impundulu etc. There are a lot of cards that could synergize with At the gates, which was my aim.

Ankha wrote:

So basically Cicatriz can shut down Enkidu every turn?

Well, there are already great many ways to lock a lone 'star vampire' down, but none of them are sabbat political cards... I should know since I like playing star vampire decks..

Besides there is always direct intervention, something all star vampire decks should run imo.

Bloodartist wrote:

However, I'm not at all sure this card needs to be balanced further. In the case you describe, I feel that there are a lot moving parts for something that doesn't actually progress your win condition. Ie. I'm not sure its a good idea. You don't see IC vote decks run 10-15 banishments, do you?

Generally, no. They may have other things to be doing, possibly more powerful things. The fact that the younger clause is on there makes it somewhat less attractive, because decks often have a range of vampires (even if quite big). It's uncommon to see people playing a deck that's just 11 caps - and even if they are, there's still the possibility of coming up against another 11 cap you can't hit with it. Also, people building Camarilla vote decks are often more focused on Princes and/or Justicars, because of the raw power of Parity Shift, Second Tradition, sometimes First Tradition etc., so Inner Circle are often not the central vampires in such decks.

When Banishment didn't say younger (which it didn't when first printed), you did see weenie decks taking out a lot of big vampires out, because being able to use a 2 cap with Presence to smack down a 10 cap was problematic - unbalanced, and unfun for the players on the receiving end. Learning from V:TES's mistakes may be helpful.

Bloodartist wrote:

Well, you had an idea about a sabbat vote deck, which is exactly what I was trying to accomplish

Sadly, I'm thinking about a weenie vote deck doing unbalanced things with inappropriately powerful cards.

Kraus wrote:

Ankha wrote:

So basically Cicatriz can shut down Enkidu every turn?

Sensory deprivation, anyone?

Making it younger only kills plenty of the flavor and utility. Even if it were as laid out at the moment id be surprised if it saw any play.

The idea is fair though, and I don't have ideas for it just now.

Ankha, is right. I have been doing some testing. It is way more powerful to deny D-actions. The card would either need a higher cost, limitations, a lesser effect, or some combination of those effects. Think about it this way. I Pentex Subversion one vampire and at the Gates the other. If you wanted to that with Banishment your vampire has to be older but you don't have that restriction with At the Gates.