Remove vampire contesting

Pascal wrote:

Surreal wrote:

For me it is hard to take Vtes tournament and meta seriously because the game could be decided just because somebody is playing same vampires as you do.

?

The meta is precisely what other people play. If you don't take it into account, you might end up involuntarily contesting vampires.
If you take it into account, you might en up voluntarily contesting vampires - I remember Kamel Senni had a copy of Beast in his Palla Grande, some time ago, in an EC. At that moment, Beast was popular.

For me contesting is way too rare to plan your crypt on (like putting 1x Beast in the crypt, players don't really do this at all). I can't see contesting a method of strategy or something which helps metagame planning. I see it only a disadvantage which sometimes randomly ruins some tables. Contesting is too rare to really plan/meta your deck but way too big thing when it sometimes happens. I just can't see the benefit.

Lemminkäinen wrote:

Pendargon wrote:

No. Contesting is important and vital part of the game. It stops people playing Ansons all the time

Does it? Does someone really decide not to use an Anson deck because they are afraid of him getting contested?

Also note that having a balancing mechanic that works over multiple games by making some of them extremely difficult as opposed to making all the games balanced is kinda dubious, IMO.

Oh yeah. I'd never come to any tournament with Anson or Cybele, just 'cause there's a high chance I'll contest. I know that a friend of mine plays G2 Kiasyd in tournaments mainly because Arcadian gets contested that much.

Contesting is a vital, important and highly interesting part of the game, and it's unique and promotes variety. I'd never remove it.

I have seen one or two long threads on this subject in the recent past.

I agree with the OP's assertion that contesting is not a good game feature. At least, I agree that contesting vampires is not a good game feature. The contesting of vampires creates a wild card element that I do not consider to be a reasonable parameter to have to consider in deck building. Vampires are too basic to game play and deckbuilding and too expensive to have them randomly lost to contestation.

Contestation hurts both superstar and non-superstar decks. At NAC, day 1, game 3, my prey contested my Agrippina. He could afford the contest, and I couldn't. My deck needed four minions to function well, but my next choice was Normal, who would also have been contested. I lost 4+ pool to the random contest and loads of actions. I did not experience contestation again at the NAC.

And to say that superstar decks are so good that contestation is an appropriate balance is a real stretch. Pentex Subversion is an effective counter to superstar decks because everyone can play Pentex Subversion. The possibility that another deck might be playing Nana Buruku is not an effective counter to a Nana Buruku superstar deck.

That said, uniqueness is a fundamental concept of the game. The internal logic of the game system requires that a unique minion cannot be in physical combat with itself. I agree with that premise. Contestation is not going away.

Although it's been discussed ad nauseum and will not change because of the community's inherent conservatism, it seems as though the mechanism of contestation might be revisited.

AaronC wrote:

And to say that superstar decks are so good that contestation is an appropriate balance is a real stretch. Pentex Subversion is an effective counter to superstar decks because everyone can play Pentex Subversion. The possibility that another deck might be playing Nana Buruku is not an effective counter to a Nana Buruku superstar deck.

If my post were letting believe that, I should correct myself.

The anti-contest movement is a natural extension of the general pro-star deck movement. Vampire contest is something that can lead your 1-vampire mechanism to grip, and because it's partly random people are naturally inclined to say that it is bad and should be removed (ignoring the fact that there is a lot of way more important source of randomness in VtES !).

that does not mean that contest are the only, or the most important, balance for the newer big cap power* . It's one of the element of this. If you play superstar deck, you have a very weak link called your superstar, which can be torporised, pentexed, or contested. Your deck building ability should deal with it or choose another mechanism rather than trying to make superstar without any default.

Also, saying that deck that sport multiple vampires are hit just as hard seem a big stretch. It's like pentex in this regard : it can hit any deck hard, but superstar deck are hit way harder than other deck.

* because as a general trend, gr4-5-6 big cap tend in average to be better star than older group. I am not trying to deny Anson or Arika power, but admit that with only gr1-2 vampire you will have far less superstar potential vampire than with newer group.

My personal choice for a change is this:

When a player influences a vampire that is already in play (not meaning his own), the copy that is already in play is "banished" - sent face down to the uncontrolled region with any cards and counters still attached.

This allows scenarios that are more dynamic (and perhaps fairer) than the current contestation mechanic:

- The player with the first copy of the vampire could retrieve the blood counters from his "contested" vampire using transfers. A player in a weaker position could at least recuperate his investment to try for another vampire.

- The two players could trade control of the vampire in question back and forth. In this case they could at least react with the "contested" vampire until the other player's influence phase. The cost of this "contest" would be different than that of the current rules. The vampire in question would have to constantly be influenced to full capacity, and a game of attrition would ensue. This dynamic would be interesting since it would involve finding ways to remove blood from an opponent's vampire so that it is harder and harder for him to "contest" it by influencing it out fully, or indeed, waiting for the player to remove the blood himself.

I've never seen Lutz contested. I've seen him played a lot (heck - I've played him a lot) yet I've never seen him contested. Same goes for a lot of powerful vampires. Actually, during the hundreds of games I've played, I've seen someone important like Arcadian, Nana, or Anson contested maybe twice each. Yet I've seen Hazimel, Yseult, and innumerable other vampires who definitely don't need the "balance" of contesting getting contested and this deciding tables.

I don't see how having two copies of a unique minion in combat would break the system other than it being silly but then again so is Rico Loco giving bombs to Ambrosius the Ferryman who Bum's rushes people in a Helicopter.

That said, I very much like the Banishment idea and I can see the argument for changing the vampire contesting mechanic being probably better than outright removal.

Another possibility would be to allow the contester to change the vampire into someone else in his crypt whilst retaining the counters on it. That would still keep the balancing effect over superstar decks (even though I disagree that the balancing is real or that it even answers a real need) but allows for random contesting to be fixed with some inconvenience.