The Becoming

You can't compare Becoming to 3rd tradition, which is by default superior since it requires a title. Comparing Becoming to Embrace is what you should do as those have same cost and requirements. Originally Embrace let you get a discpline card also, but that was too good so it was changed to not get one, and Becoming was made to give a more balanced version of 'anyone can do' breed action that gets discplines.

Klaital wrote:

You can't compare Becoming to 3rd tradition, which is by default superior since it requires a title. Comparing Becoming to Embrace is what you should do as those have same cost and requirements. Originally Embrace let you get a discpline card also, but that was too good so it was changed to not get one, and Becoming was made to give a more balanced version of 'anyone can do' breed action that gets discplines.

I'm aware that Becoming is not strictly comparable to 3rd Tradition. The increased cost seems to factor that in.

However, The Becoming is not "a more balanced version of 'anyone can do' breed action that gets disciplines". 3rd Tradition, Creation Rites, Water of Duat, Tumnimos, etc. are all similar, that you can fetch a discipline card from hand, library or ash heap.

The Becoming is a poorly designed card from the start, because of its opportunity cost. You have to have a Master:discipline in hand, or The Becoming burns.
As I have already lined out, the opportunity cost could have been made a bit less significant with a little tweaking. The powers that have been at that point deemed another wallpaper card not a big problem.

Amenophobis wrote:

The Becoming is, from a design-viewpoint, a failure.

I don't know that that is true. It is costed reasonably and has an advantage over similar cards. I mean, yeah, it isn't the best card in the world or anything, and is kind of corner case, but from a design perspective, it makes sense.

What is it supposed to be? A replacement for The Embrace and 3rd Tradition? If yes, it is clearly inferior to those.

A replacement? No. Just a different version that you would use under different circumstances.

The Embrace you can play with anyone, but it doesn't get any disciplines or blood from the acting minion.

3rd Tradition is very strong, but requires a Prince/Justicar.

The Becoming can be played by anyone, can come into play with a discipline, and can get a blood so it doesn't have to hunt. Yeah, it isn't going to go in a lot of decks, but if your plan is to make a few of these with a single discipline on them? They'll probably work pretty well.

The Becoming has a BIG opportunity cost, because you have to have at lease 1 discipline card in hand when you play it. How many Master: Discipline cards do you want to play in a non-specialised deck?

Not that many. So you use The Becoming in specialized decks.

The Embrace and 3rd Tradition are more generally useful. And as such, we didn't need any cards that were better than them. But there is certainly room for cards that are narrower in focus, which The Becoming is. Yeah, not going to go in a lot of decks. But some decks can use them effectively. Which describes an awful lot of cards in VTES.

The Becoming is poorly balanced, and was probably poorly playtested.

It strikes me as completely reasonably balanced. Narrow. And not particularly useful in a general sense, but will work fine in a narrow field of decks that are designed to use it.

Who in their right minds plays Shock Troops?

I've seen interesting, not ineffective decks that use Shock Troops. Are they going to compete with weenie dementation S+B? No, of course not. But not all decks aim to do that. Shock Troops is hard to use effectively, but a lot of people like cards that aren't obvious tier 1 cards, as they make the game interesting. Not all cards need to be Kindred Spirits.

Having cards in the set that have such glaringly huge opportunity costs is bad set design and bad card design.

The Becoming only has a high opportunity cost if you put it in a deck that isn't designed to use it. If you make, say, a weenie Obfuscate deck with a dozen Obf cards and 8x Becomings, you'll get a lot of weenies with obf/OBF really quick. Make a lot of your other master cards into trifles (Life in the City?) and the rest of the deck stealth and computer hackings and whatever. I suspect such a deck wouldn't do that bad.

It is a card that isn't designed to *replace* the already obvious, good cards that make new vampires. It is designed to be a card that has a much narrower focus than that card and a more limited use, but benefits that someone might want to take advantage of and build a deck to use in.

bakija wrote:

I've seen interesting, not ineffective decks that use Shock Troops. Are they going to compete with weenie dementation S+B? No, of course not. But not all decks aim to do that. Shock Troops is hard to use effectively, but a lot of people like cards that aren't obvious tier 1 cards, as they make the game interesting.

Dude. I'll give you 20 Shock Troops if you promise to make a serious deck with them and play it at least 6 times IRL. hehee

KevinM wrote:

Dude. I'll give you 20 Shock Troops if you promise to make a serious deck with them and play it at least 6 times IRL. hehee

Heh heh. My buddy Asif made a reasonably effective deck that is a preposterous combination of Guillaume Giovanni making a billion locations, having a hand size of 30, using Fabrizia to make Shock Troops that all become Anarchs, and then firing off the Death Star Canon for, like, 20.

It doesn't win a lot, but when it does, it is quite entertaining. And uses shock troops effectively

Kevin, would you like me to play a Troops deck at the WoN?

I have a Frontal Assault + Perpetual Care template designed using [pot] troops, discipliness combat cards and disarm. It's got a few rough edges, like dealing with [ANI] and it's not assembled yet. But I think I have enough unused Disarms lying around.

I bet you a pizza I can take at least a few VP with it.