[Submission] Repentance

jamesatzephyr wrote:

I'm also somewhat sceptical, in that my default assumption for almost everything like this is: "If you can get a vampire with the right abilities just from putting a different vampire in your crypt, probably do that, or live with it." Whatever it is - discipline cards, clan/sect changes, titles to some extent etc. It doesn't always apply, of course, it's just my default.

Mine too, but in addition to that, printing yet more ways to switch sects just seems like rocks in the gumball machine of a given set, and I definitely get the sense that BCP is trying to avoid that syndrome.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Mozambique Allure's option of pulling a vampire from the top of your crypt is also a decent bread-and-butter ability. I don't think that a similar card has to be a cookie-cutter copy, though.

Agreed. I assume that MA's alternate use has some kind of lore reason, or at least fits the name of the card ("Come to Mozambique, it's so alluring!"). I mentioned it mostly because its text provides the templating for your suggestion.

@James, @Kushiel: My opinion is that such cards would be worthwhile if there were more Sabbat only cards worth playing. Like in a new Sabbat set.

LivesByProxy wrote:

@James, @Kushiel: My opinion is that such cards would be worthwhile if there were more Sabbat only cards worth playing. Like in a new Sabbat set.

Such cards would make being Sabbat worthwhile. They wouldn't necessarily make changing to Sabbat worthwhile. In most cases, you would be behind the curve of a regular Sabbat deck that has just played a regular Sabbat vampire instead. Why? Obviously it will depend on the card, but there are a bunch of reasons:

- Flip out your first Sabbat vampire, and the next turn you can play a master card that requires a Sabbat vampire, or the relevant Sabbat clan. No jam waiting for you to play a clan/sect changer first.

- If your cool Sabbat tech means you can target members of the Sabbat (or a Sabbat clan, or similar) in your uncontrolled region - like cards like Art Museum, Bay and Howl, Recruiting Party, Thicker than Blood, Tend the Flock, etc. - then having the relevant clan/sect/trait natively is helpful.

- Other people on the table, and obviously your predator/prey in particular, can look at things like that and say "Oh, look, that's an important piece of tech you're using, because it sets up using Pentex(tm)pedition and Ignoblis Ritae, and getting all the cool benefits from Powerbase: Panama City." So that's a good action to block to cause the person playing it complications and stress - especially if they only have a few of the changer in their deck.


So much of the time, yes, people will look at the cool new cards that are really good and powerful and think "I want to use those!" But using them with vampires who can play them right off the bat is a much better deal, most of the time. You get all the cool stuff, and much less of the hassle.

I understand, and agree with your reasoning. However, we currently do not have the option for Cam to go Sabbat besides Into The Fire and Trophy: Chosen; the former I don't consider worth a card-slot, despite being easy to cycle. The latter is nice, I guess? But the opportunity cost seems really high unless you specifically build around it, and if you're building a deck to Red-List enemy minions, are you really going to want to fetch Trophy: Chosen???

Any sect-changing card, much like titles and other trait granting cards, simply don't have the power-level necessary to make the cut. We want to tool-up with them but it's probably better to just try bleeding for 3 or 4.

Take the Seraph political card for example. It's nice that it gives you 2 blood, but it's a trait-granting card that is a glorified hunt action. No inherent votes, no untap. Only access to cards that require Seraphs, the best of which are Tattoo Signal and Seraph's Second. I like Mustajib because it untaps my guy, making it action neutral? But I don't want to play Blooding to turn my guy Black Hand, because I don't think it's good enough: again, it's a glorified hunt action that grants a trait, but is it worth a card-slot? I don't think so.

I like your suggestion about the card having an alternative effect for Sabbat vamipres, so it's not useless and can be cycled, but that only serves to prove my point that the power-level of 80% of the game's cards is not high-enough. The goal with my suggestion was to have a sect-changing card that was worthy of a card-slot. It would seem that you guys were unimpressed, but I was purposefully trying not to go overboard. Apparently I should've made it stronger.

LivesByProxy wrote:

The goal with my suggestion was to have a sect-changing card that was worthy of a card-slot. It would seem that you guys were unimpressed, but I was purposefully trying not to go overboard. Apparently I should've made it stronger.

I can't speak for James, but IMO, that's not the issue with adding more sect-changing cards into the game. The issue is that regardless of how good* those sect-changing cards are, they're always going to be inferior to simply putting vampires of the sect you want in your crypt, because crypt draws are inherently much more predictable than library draws. James has already explained why this is the case.

*Assuming you're designing them realistically and not with text like "...and gain one VP" or something else ridiculous.

Or to say it differently: Anarch Convert exists for a reason.