Which is the problem: blood creation or recursion?

I don't find blood generation to be a problem.
I don't find blood recursion to be a problem.

What I do find problematic is the combination (or the ease) of it. With the current meta (big caps+villein+LB/GB), you have to ..:

• be able to remove tons of pool, or
• play tons of Sudden Reversal/Wash

(Removal of vampires is also an option, but that has problems of its own.)

Free high cap. vampires aren't good for the game.

extrala wrote:

What I do find problematic is the combination (or the ease) of it. With the current meta (big caps+villein+LB/GB), you have to ..:

• be able to remove tons of pool, or
• play tons of Sudden Reversal/Wash

I would add crypt acceleration to the lot. If people were alway needing 3 turns to make their big cap come, the whole thing would be a lot more in control.

Your observation that big cap are too cheap is true, but it's because both pool cost and time cost are lowered easily.

Maybe Zillah Valley limited to one per player per game may be enough. Attacking Zillah with wash is kind of efficient, but people just need to put more Zillah to ignore that.

Ohlmann wrote:

I would add crypt acceleration to the lot. If people were alway needing 3 turns to make their big cap come, the whole thing would be a lot more in control.

Your observation that big cap are too cheap is true, but it's because both pool cost and time cost are lowered easily.

Maybe Zillah Valley limited to one per player per game may be enough. Attacking Zillah with wash is kind of efficient, but people just need to put more Zillah to ignore that.

Zillah's Valley could easily be fixed with an increased cost like Sybil's Tongue. So it doesn't hurt you with your first big cap which you need to play your game, but is increasingly costly later on if you want to push out other big caps.

Voter Cap + Minion Tap is an old issue. Voter Cap rewards a deck (far better than any other card) for ousting their prey. Voter Cap + Minion Tap makes a minion at least free, potentially gaining their capacity in pool.

Voter Cap + Villein is similar, but the Villein will hurt cumulatively (or you just repeat it across multiple minions instead of just doing it repeatedly to one minion).

Giant's Blood + Villein seems to just be a MMPA version of the Voter Cap + Villein version. Probably because it is more difficult for other players to interfere with this tactic (the opportunity costs for other players is significantly higher).

Lilith's Blessing + Villein seems to be another MMPA version of the Tap & Cap trick spread across every minion. Reclaim the full cost of the minion and then refill them so the minion is free.

Renewed Vigor + Tap/Villein is also a tactic that seems to have the same results for gameplay as any of the others.

All of these have in common a problem of reclaiming blood for no effective additional actions. They all generate significant amounts of blood from nothing. Blood creation is obviously far more of a problem than recursion.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Blood creation is obviously far more of a problem than recursion.

As obvious as it appear, there is deck that put 30+ worth of transfer on play without playing any of them (because they didn't draw Lillith, I mean). They does not strike me as that much weaker than political versions.

Additionaly, blood creation is dangerous mainly it can be recycled onto others minions. Even simply as pool it would be far less dangerous, and the 30 pool everyone have at start is plenty enough to put 4 inner circle in play without any pool creation, simply by using 1-2 Zillah and 1 villein on each. Or abusing Information Highway, even if it's simplet to disrupt than Zillah.

I think they are fine, as it is now, but....if I have to name the biggest problem, then it's villein. The Trifle effect gives too much effectiveness, even without the option of MMP (like anson and so), any deck can pull of the GB or LB (LB also could be a problem, but making that unique can solve a few things) combo with it, with not too much option to intervene.
Not many decks have the space to include 5-8 sudden reversals, and Wash just even more cycles their hands many times. The other filling ups are connected to actions or modifiers, which can be blocked, DId or just negotiated, so far more interaction can be done against them.