Villein

Hey! I am new to the game and I was wondering if someone can explain to me what villein is used for and why exactly it's so powerful? I have been searching for info on the card and all I can find are heated debates, and I am not grasping the card text apparently. Thanks!

To get control of a vampire, you must spend your own pool. Previously a card called Minion Tap was a way of converting that spent pool (now on the vampire) back into your pool to either be spent on a second vampire (while you keep the first) OR to use for other things.

Villein does a very similar thing to Minion Tap. It takes the pool you have spent on a vampire and recycles it back into your pool. The biggest difference is that it does it 'faster' because of its Trifle nature. In addition, people commonly playing Villein have a few ways to replace the counters on the vampire without taking them back out of your pool (Giant's Blood, Voter Captivation and some other tricks being the most popular) and instead from the Blood Bank.

So, from a game point of view, you can effectively get a powerful vampire for limited cost or possibly no cost.

In VTES which is, in many ways, a game of constantly losing resources you gain a very big advantage to get anything for free and powerful vampires is a massive advantage.

What happens to the vampire on which you use villein?

It acquires a card stating xards called minion tap and villein cost an additinal pool if played on that vampire.

But thats the drawback. The useful effect is raking beads from that vampire into you pool. Vampires can gain blood alot easier than players can gain pool, so its optimal to convert blood into pool.

Now, villein says pick a number that is 2 or more, and move that many beads or as many as there are if theres less, to your pool. This means you can say you villein a 2cap for four billion, seven hundred thousand, and ninety six pool, but you just take whats there, as you cant take something that isnt there. Similarly, you can villein an empty vamp, you just have to state a target number and you of course fail to get anytbing.

If you are new, you probably dont need villein over miniin tap, and simce i think minion tap is valued aroumd 20-50 cents a card, its easy to get several. Villein is a trifle, meaning you may play an additinal master card after it, thats why its good, strong, and argued about.

Minion tap you play, scoop beads from the vamp to your pool, the minion tap goes in the ash heap, and thats that.

So, other than losing beads and gainimg a card, nothing "happens" to the vampire. They stay the same other than those two things.

Nathan

A significant piece of the power argument was that players using Villein would have another tool in place. It was called Lilith's Blessing, and it allowed players to spend a Master Phase Action to put 3 blood on a empty minion.

They would Villein for all the blood they spent influencing the vampire into play, moving it from the minion (back) to their pool. In effect they paid nothing for the vampire at that point. The trifle effect gives that player another Master Phase Action. They would activate Lilith's Blessing to add 3 blood to it with that extra Master action.

Net result, large minions that cost absolutely nothing and still can function well inside the game. Since this game is supposed to be a balance of spending and protecting your pool, getting these huge resources for free was very powerful.

Lilith's Blessing was banned to force players to either leave some of their resources on the vampires, or spend time (also a resource) getting blood back on the minion.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the help! Much appreciated!

For background: I used to play VTES alot about 7 or 8 years ago, and a friend persuaded me to get back into it. I bought all the starter decks and boosters my local comic book store had left, and on of which was the Lasombra/Kiasyd starter deck, which contained two Villeins. I was confused about the card and googled it so here I am.