Rules Team Rulings - 22-APR-2013

kombainas wrote:

Into thin air is not convoluted, nor stupid and solves the problem of 2 card combo generating unconditionless +4 stealth (AND conditional -1 intercept), which is too much from my point of view. Then again, maybe I am stupid, and same would not apply for braking Villein+LB combo. I'd have to remind that for comboing LB with Minion Tap would require an additional MPA, spending which IMHO would be balanced enough for LB effect. But then again, like most people around, I just sprout stupid ideas.

First part : I do believe that both Into Thin Air and Preternatural Strength are design fail, so there's that.

Second part, instead of saying "it could be done like ...", could you actually do it ? People can use them at different master phase without much problem. People can - and have - used Minion tap for the same thing without too much problem. And I will actually laugh if you propose to slap the Bahari trait to every vampire you play a Villein / Minion tap on.

Now, I don't care even one bit of the post count of anyone. I suppose people actually think their idea through at least a bit, which I believe is more than enough to see the problem of the idea here. Note that I didn't try to belittle the fact that he may have missed two years of discussion on the topic ; but they still exist and they are still evidences that it's not an autocratic idea taken without any kind of input.

What I find actually lacking from Pascal, is stating the exact problem with the LB, that is being solved by the ban and subsequent rewording. Without knowing that, there is, as you yourself stated, countless opinions about banning or not and most of them are well-backed and non-uniform. If Villein+LB were the problem, but not Minion Tap+LB, then doing explicit combobreaker might be ok way to fix it (if it is not considered bad design by Pascal), if it is (insert your scenario here), then (insert your solution) and so on. Not knowing the problem takes away possibility of constructive solution suggestions, which everyone is so eager to propose. Lack of a problem to solve is compensated by making the problems out or overexaggerating existing ones.

echiang wrote:

I agree that Lilith's Blessing is overpowered, but there are lots of overpowered cards (and plenty of cards more overpowered than Lilith's Blessing) and that doesn't necessarily justify banning.

One of the major issues is that Lilith's Blessing is banned when other more problematic cards are not.

For me, one of the issues is an underlying sense of "fairness" or "justice" (which may sound silly for a card game). But to illustrate with an analogy, think of crimes with varying degrees of culpability:

Except, this isn't how CCGs work. What is fun is far more important to the publishers than what is fair, as fun sells. For all that people bitch about power rares, for instance, people hate weak rares. And, so forth.

The more overpowered cards may not be touchable because people want to play with them more. Nevermind that the actual buying populace is different from people who post to forums, which produces some interesting disconnects on what is balanced and/or what is fun.

Then, while I'd happily ban a bunch of cards - Nights of Reckoning set, events, unique promos, 10th Anniversary only cards, and others - there are extremely anti-ban sentiments among CCG playerbases to where a lot of cards that should have been banned from day one will never get banned. See how much people want to talk about Lilith's Blessing for how much people dislike banning, even though the ban's effect on people is minor.

How hard do you think it would be to ban one of the "more overpowered" cards? Probably wouldn't happen, and so nothing would change, and we would still bitch about all of the same problem cards in the game.

I find LB to be fun, for me to play. Lilith is a babe. I'm all in favor of her blessings. I like grafting/forcing/upgrading disciplines as can be seen in a recent deck posted in the events subforum. But, is the game more fun with or without LB? Is it fun that the majority of my decks play LB, more than the number of decks that play Villein? Are the decks built around the card really more fun than the decks that become worse because they don't leverage the card as well or don't play the card at all?

People all of the time want to argue that such-and-such shouldn't be banned because it opens up possibilities that other cards don't. Sure. But, cards also close off possibilities by existing within card pools. The effect isn't direct, but it is prevalent, where a superior card or strategy makes other cards and strategies not worth playing. LB replaces a bunch of blood gain plays I have used. In fact, I was building a deck yesterday where not playing LB meant having to think about blood management differently and changed up master selection quite a bit.

Put another way, the recent complaints of staleness in the game are really complaints of lack of fun. You could print a million new cards, but if they had no impact on the environment because they all sucked, then the game would still be lacking in fun, even with greatly increased variety. That's not what would actually happen, but it points to the fact that staleness in CCGs also comes from having cards people like/play so much that other possibilities already available get squeezed out. Hmmm, kind of got off on a tangent for why banning has more benefit to CCGs than people give it credit for, which really isn't the topic here.

Wedge already brought up that it should be obvious how powerful the card is. And, I think some folks have brought up that it slows the game down, which may not be unfair, but is anti-fun, as the game is already too slow in many environments. I also find tracking Bahari is just another "accounting" aspect to the game, and I've become increasingly opposed to accounting in CCGs, as interaction should be the focus of games like this one (a reason to rein in masters and events, neither of which are interactive, by the way).

As for why V:TES managers may not want to publish comments about decisions, I think it has something to do with how little respect they are shown in comparison to managers of other CCGs when it comes to decisions, not because the playerbase doesn't respect the individuals (necessarily) but because the playerbase doesn't respect the authority level in the same way Magic players respect the authority of those who change the banned/restricted lists, etc.

Dear Ian,

Thank you for the informative post and thought-out response. I may not agree with everything that you said, but much of what you said makes a lot of sense (and even the stuff I disagree with makes sense) and provides a valuable perspective, especially given your wide expertise on so many CCG's. It is unique insights like these which made me greatly value your contributions when I consulted with you (back when I was IC Storyline Coordinator).

To briefly touch upon a few things:

ICL wrote:

Except, this isn't how CCGs work. What is fun is far more important to the publishers than what is fair, as fun sells.

Yes, fun is good and important. Though interestingly enough, that doesn't seem to prevent many publishers from printing non-fun cards. Not in the meaning of "boring" cards, but cards that are actually not fun to play against (NPE, or "negative play experience").

Then, while I'd happily ban a bunch of cards - Nights of Reckoning set, events, unique promos, 10th Anniversary only cards, and others - there are extremely anti-ban sentiments among CCG playerbases to where a lot of cards that should have been banned from day one will never get banned.

Of course for a lot of other CCG's, bannings are a lot less necessary due to natural set rotation. If you don't like a card and it isn't being banned, you often just need to wait a year or two and the card is gone anyway.

How hard do you think it would be to ban one of the "more overpowered" cards? Probably wouldn't happen, and so nothing would change, and we would still bitch about all of the same problem cards in the game.

Hard, but do-able. Just look at the case of Dramatic Upheaval and Kindred Restructure. (Yay for another point in relevancy! ).

Hypothetically, if Pascal were to ban Pentex and Anthelios, then yes there would be an initial uproar from some players. But it would eventually pass and many people would admit that it was a "good" decision.

I find LB to be fun, for me to play. Lilith is a babe. I'm all in favor of her blessings. I like grafting/forcing/upgrading disciplines as can be seen in a recent deck posted in the events subforum.

People all of the time want to argue that such-and-such shouldn't be banned because it opens up possibilities that other cards don't. Sure. But, cards also close off possibilities by existing within card pools. The effect isn't direct, but it is prevalent, where a superior card or strategy makes other cards and strategies not worth playing.

Yes, and many people argue that Pentex, Villein, Ashur Tablets, and Deflection also fit the bill.

LB replaces a bunch of blood gain plays I have used. In fact, I was building a deck yesterday where not playing LB meant having to think about blood management differently and changed up master selection quite a bit.

I agree that variety is good. As just one example, if LB were unique (say like Dreams) then that would affect its reliability and force you to restructure your deck differently.

Put another way, the recent complaints of staleness in the game are really complaints of lack of fun. You could print a million new cards, but if they had no impact on the environment because they all sucked, then the game would still be lacking in fun, even with greatly increased variety.

Well, there are people like you and me who see lots of underutilized cards from years of expansions and enjoy experimenting with them.

Plus, there are often hidden gems ("power combos") that exist and just haven't been exploited yet. (Archon NRA is the most memorable, and was completely missed by everyone for many, many years).

Thanks again for your valuable contributions in this thread ICL.

Ohlmann wrote:

Yes, it is. Just propose a wording, I need a laugh.

I realize you're just baiting me, but:

Blood on a Bahari vampire may not be moved to your pool.

Ohlmann wrote:

There were more than 100 totals pages of discussion on the topic of lillith, Villein, and other blood and pool creation cards.

I don't remember the hundred pages of unanimously agreement that LB was hopelessly broken and needed banned. Could you link me to that?

brm130 wrote:

Implying they were no discussion period seem curious in this regard.

Well, it don't seem curious if we suppose you're just hurt with the decision (which is debatable, and have been debated lengthy) and try to find any reason to negate it. But lack of consultation wasn't here ; it's just that the public consultation and the final decision didn't go the way you wanted.

There was a discussion, and many MANY reasonable alternatives to outright banning were proffered. It's a decision that hurts decks that don't exploit Villein. Hermanas and Discipline fetch both get gimped with this ban. Was fetching a discipline card too unbalancing? Were Mexico City Circle decks sweeping tabels? We don't know what was going on in the black box that dispensed the ban. If you want to pretend that discussion was framed as a legitimate conversation about the future of the card, that's on you.

e: clarity

There were alot of various discussions and polls on liliths blessing, and from what i recall, about half of the forum users contributing to the conversation said it needed changed, maybe 2-5 people said ban in, and an equal amount said it was fine as is. The restcof who answered seemed to have an opinion of some kind, but implied they could care less either way.
Of the people who wanted it changed, very few agreed on how it should be changed. This is a trend that carried over into debates on changing Ashur Tablets as well.

It probably is well over 100 pages of discussing and bickering, cumulatively, across all the threads and polls on LB, tablets, anthelios, villein, and pentex. Thats counting all the debates, on threads for it, and threads that were um... threadjacked, not unlike this thread was threadjacked by things unrelated to the rules or the ban.

But thats the nature of good cards anymore. You win a table or even dont get ousted at a few tables and everyone hates at leazt one card responsible for it.

As long as we dont ban any vamps, i think we are ok.

If we do ban vamps, may i request Van Buren? Ian Lee just won with Augustus, so that makes Josef Van Buren the worst 11 cap in the game statistically......

Liliths is gone for a few months, and while brm130 has the same issue i do with liliths being banned, the fact that people who dont play cheese decks justclost our discipline fetcher, there is at least the sentiment that Pascal and probably the DT is awarexof that issue, and plan on filling that niche with a replacement or an updated LB in the near future.

Thats more than any other banned card has gotten, even if banning it doesnt sit well with people(like myself) when the idea is to introduce a replacement effect in X amount of months.

So for now waiting is the only way to get the effect again.

Or adding anothef almost 100 pages about ow not problematic LB is to counger the 100 ish saying otherwise