Abusing Leroux

I just came back from the french championship, and I must say that I saw numerous abuses with Andre Leroux's special.
Let's sum it up. Designer's intent is good : it's a 3 cap, with the useful ability to reduce a deflected bleed, then bleed himself for 2.

The problem lies not within the wording to use the special on himself (ok, fine with that even if it's the smallest capacity with a de facto built-in +1 bleed, but it's worth one point capacity)
The problem lies rather in the fact that it allows this vamp to bleed for 5 or 7 with no real reason -except wording flaw. I sincerely doubt it was designed to work like this, but feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

any thoughts from someone who saw him in action ?
Isn't it time to put him in the RTR list ?

thanks for your attention.

(( Andre LeRoux - Camarilla: When a vampire you control sucessfully bleeds, you may reduce the bleed amount by 1 to give Andre +2 bleed this turn. ))

The only problem with LeRoux as I see it, is that it can be kind of hard for players to realize how much he can actually do. I feel like it's more of a newbiesmasher than anything else.

He is a 3-cap with no stealth disciplines, bleed for 8 is nothing rare, his bleed is extremely predictable and it comes at the cost of other +bleed. All decks should survive anything LeRoux does, given that they know/understand what he can do.

Wow. I never noticed that he wasn't limited to one a turn. that's stupid good. and its hard to justify playing AI on a 3 cap.

I agree with the fact he do far more than what he was intended to do apparently. It's more or less the second best powerbleeder vampire I have seen after the +4 bleed 11 cap ...

But, the real question is, is he problematic ?

* it's a way to greatly improve your ousting capability with very few investisment (just have him in the crypt in a deck that can hope to have 3-4 minion is enough).

But I have not seen Leroux powerbleed deck, unlike for example Palla Grande breeding. ANd more ousting abilities, and a bit slow, seem to be good for the game.

* he is far stronger than any other 3-cap. But he is overly specialized and don't see to be put instead of more versatile minion ; I see it mainly played in decks that doesn't really care about what can play the sidekicks.

* for now, he is not played so much that Leroux contesting happen often and decide table winner

So, all in all, I believe Leroux may have been an error, but he is far less likely to cause trouble for now than other, non bugged, card. Still, maybe we just haven't found the real exploit for him.

If I were to see a tournament with 10+ Leroux in the decks of finalists, my opinion may change.

Reyda wrote:

any thoughts from someone who saw him in action ?

Consider: Is a deck based on him really worse than a Computer Hacking deck (which isn't that strong compared to other archetypes)? Or a Palla Grande deck? Or Week of Nightmares clown car build? Comparing the cases, every small minion bleeds for 2.

Andre does it without relying on cards, true. But the Andre decks require being uncontested, avoiding the single block, avoiding the single bounce, avoiding the Archon and dealing with the "target minion" complex on a 3 cap with no defensive disciplines. Seems like a lot of stuff to overcome.

That he can only be used with vampires' bleeds limits a number of deck archetypes. There won't be Arms Dealers bleeding for -1, then LeRoux bleeding for 30.

Where he does have an impact is a combat deck, using rush to clear a hole for him. Since those decks are pretty tough to use, red card intensive and possess few pool-damaging options, I like seeing Andre as a option to provide some meaningful follow-up to the rushes.

It's still slow and deals with all the disadvantages of the single-bleed syndrome. Codex of the Edenic Groundskeeper is less scalable (barring multiaction) but more flexible in use. I don't see Andre providing any function that can't be provided in other ways (not to say they can't be used together).

Brian did win a tournament here in Denver 2 weeks ago, using Andre as a 1-in-12 crypt inclusion with Shalmath. The problem there wasn't Andre, per se, it was the way the table allowed a Freakshow tool-up archtype too much latitude in the mid game.

D.

if FIda'i got nerfed due to print run "not agreeing with card intent," then nerf the hell out of this too.

PS: Screw the Camarilla and its toys.