[Card ban idea] List

Lech wrote:

Big vampires nowadays have more merits than just ability to play Govern the Unaligned, and if dominate clans will have to diversify their actions, it will be better for the game.

Have you seen the TWDA lately? Count how many big cap decks include Govern. It's a sorely needed crutch for big caps.

Problem with Grapple is that by default there is no counter.

This argument assumes the following do not exist: Direct intervention, Immense Size, Joumlon's Axe, and even Fortitude (for countering the payload Immortal Grapple is delivering).

Imagine if it reads:

Immortal Grapple
Only usable at close range before strikes are chosen. Grapple.
 :pot: Strikes that are not hand strikes may not be used this round (by either combatant), opposing vampire may discard two combat cards to cancel it.
:POT: As above, with an optional press to continue. If another round occurs, opposing minion must discard a combat card or skip determine range this round.

Now you have also extremely powerful combat card, but with build-in counter (which doesn't affect much matchup with political/bleed deck packing 8 s:ce as they just won't have enough resources to counter it, but it would enable some other combat deck to actually be viable.

This has the additional consequence of making potence an almost completely worthless discipline. Potence needs Immortal Grapple to stay as is for discipline balance reasons.

Why do you think that defense should be this more card efficient than offense ?

So that players using non-combat strategies don't end up with all their minions in torpor. Combat defense is more card efficient to enable non-combat strategies. This is how the game is balanced.

Normal s:ce aren't really that problematic, it's about how they:
- are not telegraphed (imagine that most s:ce read: Play at the start of round, you may strike: combat ends this round.
- do much more than just ending combat including (mostly) untaps. So not only out-of-jail card, but a card with benefit as well.
-are extremely cheap (1 or 0 blood)

"Problematic" is the wrong word. "Balanced" is more like it. S:CE needs to function this way to enable non-combat strategies. Because if S:CE worked less efficiently, lots of decks types would not see play because, again, the minions of those decks would be in torpor at a higher rate than currently. That's not a good thing.

Given how s:ce work, perhaps they should work as intended (s:CE isn't first first strike anymore, you take initial strike in your face as it was initially in jyhad)

Again, the minions of the non-combat decks taking the initial hit would be in torpor at a higher rate than currently. Again, that's not a good thing, and is precisely why S:CE works the way it does currently. It was not changed for the worse.

Don't bring this argument, he can still use most jyhad boxes even with pentex, .44, govern and deflection ban.

I am bringing this into the argument because cards in the Jyhad set are as competitive as those in newer sets. All sets subsequent to Jyhad took into account that Govern et al exist. Doing away with some older cards would weaken the Jyhad set, and the balance would be all out of whack.

This argument assumes the following do not exist: Direct intervention, Immense Size, Joumlon's Axe, and even Fortitude (for countering the payload Immortal Grapple is delivering).

Also: Groundfighting, Disengage, Charismatic Aura, and any number of manouvers.

Let's be real: nobody, or even their moms, never use Immense Size. Those other options are pretty spot on though.

Charismatic Aura is actually a pretty good offensive option as well if you're running or without . The ability to cancel a strike card is pretty powerful, and works against both S:CE and special strike cards like Breath of the Dragon.

Now you have also extremely powerful combat card, but with build-in counter (which doesn't affect much matchup with political/bleed deck packing 8 s:ce as they just won't have enough resources to counter it, but it would enable some other combat deck to actually be viable.

So, what is your meta like? I get it that Vtes is highly meta dependent. The most successful tournament level combat decks are Celerity guns and Weenie Animalism. Both play maneuvers. Protean's aggro hands is a thing as well. They care very little about Potence and IG. Why do you say other combat decks aren't viable?

In my experience Potence is actually one of the worse combat disciplines in action. IG isn't Potence's best card. Disarm is what makes Potence playable, plus some tricks that shred weenie Ani. Thrown Gate is actually a very good combat card, unless you go for Beast+Theo crater thing.

If this crazy theme was up again (new blood?) them I will publish my new idea "how to fix dominate":

Conditioning
Type: Action Modifier
Requires: Dominate
Cost: 1 blood
You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed amount.
[dom] +1(!) bleed.
[DOM] +3 bleed.

In the template of "Elder Impersonation" - "big" superior effect compensated by inferior basic. So it'll be still useful for mid/bigcaps, but weenies will lose an ability to bleed for 5.

elotar wrote:

If this crazy theme was up again (new blood?) them I will publish my new idea "how to fix dominate":

Conditioning
Type: Action Modifier
Requires: Dominate
Cost: 1 blood
You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed amount.
[dom] +1(!) bleed.
[DOM] +3 bleed.

In the template of "Elder Impersonation" - "big" superior effect compensated by inferior basic. So it'll be still useful for mid/bigcaps, but weenies will lose an ability to bleed for 5.

This is actually surprisingly fair.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Have you seen the TWDA lately? Count how many big cap decks include Govern. It's a sorely needed crutch for big caps.

Why shouldn't they use most efficient action anyway? Isn't it skewing results toward dominate fatties compared to non-dominate fatties ? Certainly it is! As shown by other results, decks without dominate can win too, but decks that pack dominate have unproportionally high win rate due to bloat power and extra transfer that doesn't hinder their hand when they want to bleed.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

This argument assumes the following do not exist: Direct intervention, Immense Size, Joumlon's Axe, and even Fortitude (for countering the payload Immortal Grapple is delivering).

I also assumed the person i'm talking to isn't retarded. Just because DI exist, there should be card 1 blood burn enemy vampire before strike are chosen at close range ? If no, leave DI out of equation.
Immense Size is joke, Axe is unique melee weapon, Fortitude is just one discipline. Funny enough, best counter is imo combo card, which speak volumes how scary IG (and inevitable Disarm) is.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

This has the additional consequence of making potence an almost completely worthless discipline. Potence needs Immortal Grapple to stay as is for discipline balance reasons.

No, Potence don't need current uncounterable IG to be fair. IG is blocking potence design space, and funny thing is, even a bit neutered IG is still far more balanced than current, and it's better in some cases (if you would reread it you'll know why).

TwoRazorReign wrote:

So that players using non-combat strategies don't end up with all their minions in torpor. Combat defense is more card efficient to enable non-combat strategies. This is how the game is balanced.

It surprise me how the same isn't said about bleed, politic and ally based strategies.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

"Problematic" is the wrong word. "Balanced" is more like it. S:CE needs to function this way to enable non-combat strategies. Because if S:CE worked less efficiently, lots of decks types would not see play because, again, the minions of those decks would be in torpor at a higher rate than currently. That's not a good thing.

No, current way on S:CE is far from balanced. You dedicate huge chunk of your cards to get some damage in combat, and afterwards enemy play single free combat card after you declare your strike and say: fuck you. It would be balanced if the information (that he will end the fuckin' combat) would be earlier over the course of combat, or would be somewhat counterable. But it isn't.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Again, the minions of the non-combat decks taking the initial hit would be in torpor at a higher rate than currently. Again, that's not a good thing, and is precisely why S:CE works the way it does currently. It was not changed for the worse.

Sure they would. And that's how it was meant to be done, changed last minute.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

I am bringing this into the argument because cards in the Jyhad set are as competitive as those in newer sets. All sets subsequent to Jyhad took into account that Govern et al exist. Doing away with some older cards would weaken the Jyhad set, and the balance would be all out of whack.

It's not an argument. Weaken the Jyhad set boo-hoo. Is that some kind of joke?

Kraus wrote:

So, what is your meta like? I get it that Vtes is highly meta dependent. The most successful tournament level combat decks are Celerity guns and Weenie Animalism. Both play maneuvers. Protean's aggro hands is a thing as well. They care very little about Potence and IG. Why do you say other combat decks aren't viable?

In my experience Potence is actually one of the worse combat disciplines in action. IG isn't Potence's best card. Disarm is what makes Potence playable, plus some tricks that shred weenie Ani. Thrown Gate is actually a very good combat card, unless you go for Beast+Theo crater thing.

Tournament competitive meta. The most successful tournament level combat decks are weenie/midcap animalism. The most successful in tearing vampires apart are deck with IG that earn about 0.5 vp on the table, but randomly screw everyone over like tupdogs, deck with beast/enkidu/weenie pot/pot dom. It's just damn annoying that there are always such a deck on the table, and it shut down anything that don't manoeuvrer/set long (guns, ani, snipers) and shut not only what it should shut down (s:ce decks) but also other close range decks that don't pack fortitude. Fortitude shouldn't be sole counter to pot decks, other close range strategies should work against those too.

All that is linked with how strong s:ce is in general and how poorly thought out it is.

I stress again, i'm not against one card solution to deal with enemy combat. I'm against instant speed out-of-jail-free-card that current s:ce offer and how broken and out of place they are compared to entire combat mechanic. I'll make a post about how they could look like in ideal world.

just to raise a point regarding cards from the Jyhad set:

I've been conducting an informal poll at some game stores about how a prospective new player would go about acquiring cards, and the majority of people said that they'd buy what's on the shelf first (presuming availability), followed by new product online. Buying an old edition that's had some major changes to it because it was cheaper only seemed to appeal to a few people. this was far from a good poll with sample size, so take it with a grain of salt. It does seem to me that this sort of thing is what people are getting at when I hear the cry of "But that'll confuse new players!"

As for older players returning with their Jyhad era decks, still being able to play in casual games is certainly cool. However, I've seen someone come to a Regional Qualifier tourney after not playing for 20 years on a lark, and ruined their grandprey's game by being an ineffective predator.

But the fact remains that we as a community should be encouraging people to support the game by buying Black Chantry products, because buying from the secondary market doesn't put money into the pocket of the company producing the game. Obviously. I get that finding cheap alternatives for new players gets them into the game right now, and I sincerely hope that Black Chantry is prioritizing a set that gives new players an entry point for playing the game so that we can put to bed the "just buy a few boxes of Jyhad boosters" thing.

The sad thing for me is that I feel that distribution is always going to be a problem for the game unless some things get consolidated and/or streamlined going forward. **cough cough antitribu**

On topic: maybe we wouldn't have to ban some cards like Govern that are useful in large numbers if we had card limits? No, it's okay... I'll see myself out.