On Villein. 1. "problematic card"

You can solve villein problems without banning or errataing it.

Just provide some cards which will use blood on minions for something better than pool.

@Izaak:
I wouldn't ban giant's blood, it's been around for too long. it was always intended as a lottery (equal chances for eveybody). lilith's blesing should be unique IMO instead of banned. see above.

Well... just it being around forever doesn't make it a good card. If it was truly always intended as a lottery, then it's badly designed from the get-go.

I'd prefer to have as few cards banned if we can, but I also think at this point you need to either axe Villein or get rid of GB/LB. Since axing Villein is IMO not warranted simply because it makes 350 masters and 200 crypt cards playable in a competitive environment, moving GB/LB to the banlist is the only realistic alternative.

I admit that Villein is strong in its current incarnation.

But, I find that decks that play Yo-Yo with Fame'd vampires have the possibilty to close that gap fairly quickly.

Indeed as mentionned earlier, combat decks are best suited to reducing pool on the long run. How many times can you avoid aggro poke? How many times can you refuse to Golconda'd)(ok- Some people wish for that to occur..)
I believe the game has been enriched by the fact that no single deck can win all games all the time.

Strategizing about the best way to over come Villein on the table is in my opinion something that is fun and part of the game.

Another point: When you have no vamps you cannot Villein.....

That said, this will not stop me from using Villein in my decks.

PRO: The card enables playing big caps decks. Before Villein you always had a rather small design space for master cards when building decks with big caps since you had to fit Minion Tap in.

Eventually I would like to see a slight cardtext change though, i.e. which always forces you to take half the blood of the vampire (or something similarr) instead of the "2 blood" minimum clause.

johannes wrote:

If I HAD to do something I would ban GB and LB. It would still allow the nice effect that Villein had, which was to enable a broad range of Big Cap Decks. A lot of Decks cannot exist without Villein. There is virtually no deck that cannot exist without LB and GB.

Well, a deck centered on Dan Murdoch's special wouldn't work any more. (And incidentally, you would also be affecting Dan Murdoch). And themed decks around the Bahari wouldn't be possible any more.

I don't think this is solving the problem though. Sure, Lilith's Blessing and Giant's Blood are the most accessible blood gain mechanisms. But with Villein still around, you'll simply see people shift to slightly different blood gain mechanisms.

Even with this proposed fix, it does nothing about the "Villein + Golconda" trick. Being able to double your pool expenditure (11 blood into pool from Villein, and then another 11 from Golconda) is exceedingly strong. Should we also ban Golconda while we're at it?

Is Villein + Voter Cap going to be that much better? Temptation + Heidelberg? Renewed Vigor or Concert Tour? Sheepdog (superb with Baali) or Abactor?

Things might calm down a little bit for the short term, but it would be only a matter of time before people figure out a new blood gain engine that is only slightly less efficient but which recreates the Villein problem all over again.

Izaak wrote:

Well... just it being around forever doesn't make it a good card. If it was truly always intended as a lottery, then it's badly designed from the get-go.

Many Unique and once per game cards rely on a similar mechanism. It's an inherent part of the game (not necessarily "bad design."

I'd prefer to have as few cards banned if we can, but I also think at this point you need to either axe Villein or get rid of GB/LB. Since axing Villein is IMO not warranted simply because it makes 350 masters and 200 crypt cards playable in a competitive environment, moving GB/LB to the banlist is the only realistic alternative.

If we want to ban as few cards as possible, then shouldn't you ban just the one rather than ban two cards (and possibly more like Golconda and others if people shift to other forms of massive blood gain, like maybe Voter Cap)?

I think it's an extreme exaggeration to say that "350 masters and 200 crypt cards" are only playable due to Villein. What evidence do you have for that?

Although I do own Villeins, I don't normally play with them. I'm perfectly happy playing big vampires *without* Villein. I did that before Keepers of Tradition, and I still do it after.