The culprit:


Typically a magic-like card that has no big impact on the game and can serve in some few decks:
- a Milicent Smith deck
- a Barrenness / Scourge of the Enochians deck
- ...

But of course, it's not really what I want to talk about.

The big problem (IMHO) is Madness / Reversal* decks. It's a very technical deck to build and play but that disrupts the whole game to its very core.
Either it works and 3 players sit down doing nothing while the deck wins;
Either it works but the player has no choice to propose some king making to his prey because otherwise the Madness/Reversal would lose;
Or it doesn't work and it's a free VP for his predator as the whole table teams up against it.

Playing alone with no interaction from the other players is not the spirit of VTES. (You could add Turbo Una to the list, but it's worth another topic.)
As a side note, it's very difficult to play and usually doesn't win tournaments. But it shows up from times to times and cripples the game experience.

Some possible suggestions:
- ban the card.
- limit it to "twice per game" (rather than "once per game", to cover the 0.0001% possibility that two players plays it. "Twice" would give the possibility to switch back to the normal order.)

Please share your opinions.

*for those who don't know what I'm talking about: http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k9battlefrenzypf
Basically, with some Malkavians under Madness Network, call Reversal of Fortune during your turn and your prey (or predator's) turn so only 2 players play. Accumulate some counters on the Smiling Jack, then stop calling the votes when you have enough counters to watch the table die.

I don't really think its big enough problem to need anything done, its just a silly gimmick deck that loses more than wins. Frankly, during the ten or so years I have played the game, I have never seen that card played.

I also think it is just a silly gimmick. But problem comes when player tries to build deck focused on that card. You can't force players not to use bad and lame decks. Usually it doesn't matter when players play bad deck but it is different thing with Reversal of Fortunes. I would just ban it because it messes the basics of the game. It is only used bad decks that can disturb the whole game anyway so it is not big loss.

EDIT
Reversal of Fortunes usually loses totally most of time so that is not the point. Problem is it can mess the whole table and I feel Reversal of Fortunes deck is against what kind of game Vtes should be like.

Ankha wrote:

That is not different from any turbo deck, and as you said it performs much worse than Una. I don't think it requires any change.

And free VPs happen. The only other option is to ban bad players from tournaments, and I for sure don't want to be banned from tournaments

Only played once against it, when it won the table. Embarassing, and easy to let it accidentaly slip out of control (especially in big-cap heavy meta), and then it usually wins the table. I hate the deck, but definitely against banning because of the rare appearance.

The card breaks the game. Ban is ok with me.

i never actually seen it win. It did annoy people, but much less than , in my experience, Una freakshow does, or any soul gem deck...

Pendargon wrote:


I tend to agree. We begin by banning Reversal of Fortune, then Tupdog, then every fun-but-exploitable card.

I also agree that multi acting with "infinite" freak show is a problem. But it hard to say that putting a limit of, say, 3 action per minion per turn, would worth the hassle, or broad enough to stop the playing alone deck.

Neither Reversal of Fortune nor Tupdog qualify as a "fun" card by any sort of standards.

Both cards are only capable of making games unfun for someone or everyone else.



No, the solution is to make bad, but game-destroying decks even worse so that even bad players recognize that they should not play those bad decks, which would make them play other decks which will inevitably make them better players.

On top of that cards that require several pages and threads of clarifications and rulings should be banned too. Mask of a Thousand Faces springs to mind. Rötschrek does as well. I'm sure there's a few more (Groundfighting... lol!)

And then there is also Direct Intervention and its modernized equivalent Dark Influences whose sole existance makes high-stakes games an endless repetition of "DI?" "DI?" "DI?" "DI?" "DI?" on EVERY GODFORSAKEN CARD that's being played.

There's a lot more stuff that needs fixing if National Championship level games and up are ever going to be somewhat more interesting and -omg- FUN TO PLAY. Unfortunately our new rulemonger seems rather conservative in his decisions.

compare to the Rachel Brandywine decks where she gets Madness Network and Homunculus and bleeds for 10+ per turn cycle.

the real problem card with these combos is the Madness Network, not Reversal of Fortunes or Homunculus.