Power creep and/or inflation

skunkworks wrote:

So, will V:EKN ban Villein? Or tweak it somehow?

Already tweaked it recently. Minion tap now can be used again, which was the main point. They won't ban Villein, and banning cards, it has to be the last option.

Ohlmann wrote:

Problem is, people love to play 11-cap, and something is needed to make them worthwhile. (Minion tap and blood doll can be enough, of course, but 10-11 pool & transfer for one action per turn is way too expensive and dangerous)

How about 4 votes, 3 bleed, 5+ superior disciplines and incredibly valuable special abilities? Arika, Alexandra, Stanislava, Lutz von Hohenzollern, Mistress Fanchion, Saulot: they're not worthwhile enough to play unless Villein is available?

It's fine if you're a fan of Villein, but I don't buy the argument that large vampires are unplayable without Villein. I don't buy that they are unplayable without Minion Tap.

Since the V:EKN try to issue errata and ban on a very conservative basis, they are unlikely to ban it if tournament does not became truly ridiculous - which is not the case.

I gave above an example from a tournament that I consider relevant. A player influenced out these vampires in one game:
Nana Buruku (8-cap)
Undele (9-cap)
Hardestadt (11-cap)
Saulot the Wanderer (11-cap)
Mistress Fanchion (11-cap)
Lucian the Perfect (11-cap)
61 points of capacity influenced in one game, without even ousting his first prey!!!

That IS truly ridiculous. All the vampires had 1-2 Villeins. He won the game and the tournament.

AaronC wrote:

It's fine if you're a fan of Villein, but I don't buy the argument that large vampires are unplayable without Villein. I don't buy that they are unplayable without Minion Tap.

It's also fine to read what I actually write. Which is that 11 cap need way to recoup their cost (blood doll, minion tap, villein).

Try doing a Lutz deck without any of thoses card. Good luck in not dying randomly before doing anything worthwile. The ones with multiaction and/or Fortitude may prove a bit more playable, but you will still try to stay away as much as possible from thoses expensives vampires.



About your example, I would only say one thing : I never see a tournament with 4 or 5 players that play with 30+ worth of pool each. I don't see that kind of deck winning more than half the tournaments. It's why I believe the situation is not out of control enough to warrant bans.

How about 4 votes, 3 bleed, 5+ superior disciplines and incredibly valuable special abilities? Arika, Alexandra, Stanislava, Lutz von Hohenzollern, Mistress Fanchion, Saulot: they're not worthwhile enough to play unless Villein is available?

Which is not what was said. It was said they are unplayable without a way to recoup their cost, which is true. Awesome special abilities are useless if you die before you get your thrid action of the game.

One could argue that trifleness was a bit too much (which is probably true), but all that really does in reality is make more masters playable. All those amazing and cool masters that were never played because 50% of a player's MPAs were taken by Minion Taps now see play. I don't know about you, but I love playing a larger variety of masters to support my strategy as opposed to sticking in 8 Minion Taps just to not die.

Also, coming up with a random example how a deck can have 60 pool worth of vampires out doesn't make Villein too good. That deck could function just fine without it by slotting in a couple extra Parthenons and play Minion Taps instead. Which can (unlike Villeins) be recycled and net more pool after the first.

The enablers are Lilith's Blessing (and to a lesser extent Giant's Blood) and Voter Captivation. While the latter is fairly meta dependant in that one game you get 20 blood/pool for free and the next one you can't even split a crosstable KRC, Lilith's Blessing is just a stupidly broken card and should never even have been tournament legal. It's a storyline card and it should have stayed there.

The only reason this deck won (not to take away from Kelly) is the metagame. No combat, or wall decks. The meta was filled with active decks. The closest deck was Brian's bruise & vote to a combat deck. The deck and Kelly exploited the meta as much as he did. Is that bad? No. This deck fails miserably against rush, wall, even against a grinder? Probably. A very good deck, in an active meta, but that's it. The best thing it can do in a passive or combatish meta is draining its vamps to have a big cushion.
This deck's success not proving anything new, or groundbreaking about villein.

Locally it's common for a player to bring up a large cap and have little or no counters on it before the next master phase.

Combat will set you free brothers!