Submission: Alluring Distraction

Another "alternative bounce" card. I had been thinking corruption counters would be a great Serpentis trick, and jamesatzephyr's thoughts sparked this.

Name: Alluring Distraction
Cardtype: Combo
Cost: 1 blood
Burn one of your corruption counters on a minion to burn 2 pool from the target minion's controller.
Only usable when you are being bled by an ally or younger vampire, after blocks have been declined. Lock this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion and a minion controlled by the chosen Methuselah. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. If the bleed against the chosen Methuselah is successful, instead burning pool, place X corruption counters on the chosen minion where X is half the bleed amount (rounded down).

I think I really hate figuring out inferior effects for these cards, they template more like Telepathic Misdirection that Deflection, where the inferior is unrelated to the "bounce" effect. I think the inferior on this is a nice combo with the superior, essentially turning your predator's forward bleed into your "bleed." Nothing on this card allows the corruption counter to take control of a minion, so at least one other card must be played to do that.

Game balance-wise Serpentis the inferior stacks more like Inside Dirt than Enticement with corruption counters harder to come by than the Edge. For the superior, a standard Govern + Conditioning would put 3 counters on the target minion if the bleed succeeds. The seems about right to me for the conversion of resources.

I'm... actually really enjoying this!

'Lock' instead of 'tap' though in this time and age.

The inferior is fine, but should probably burn one of 'your' corruption counters, isn't that right?

This card would really make G2-3 Setite voters an anti-meta choice that plays strictly against the overall 'good' cards, mainly dominate. They don't have to super speed up with bounce, but can rather survive with reduce and bloat. They don't have to rely on bleeds, but rather this, votes and Enticement. This is an offensive strategy that mostly denies bounce as a survival tool. I'm really, really enjoying this direction of design, if it ever becomes reality.

There are plenty of clauses to tweak for balance if someone decides to take this through play testing: bounce effect restrictions, blood cost, 'lock to' vs. just 'lock', round the corruption counters up instead of down, all that jazz...

Out of curiosity, what combinations do you like? Or is action/reaction the only one that doesn't make the cut?

Kraus wrote:

This is an offensive strategy that mostly denies bounce as a survival tool.

I like things that can do that. I had a pretty neat little Inside Dirt deck that I made a finals with. It can be very effective by creating "dead cards" in your prey's hand, making their deck less effective.

Kraus wrote:

There are plenty of clauses to tweak for balance if someone decides to take this through play testing: bounce effect restrictions, blood cost, 'lock to' vs. just 'lock', round the corruption counters up instead of down, all that jazz...

No doubt. I'm hoping to get at least one or two more in the "alternative bounce" style. I think it's useful to explore these concepts and maybe give the design team some ideas to work with. I doubt any would make it in as is.

Unfortunately, my playgroup is non-existent; I have to travel ~3 hours to play in tournaments every few months. So, if someone wants to proxy this up and give it a whirl, feedback is welcome.