On Villein. 1. "problematic card"

Contra

While this card makes big cap vampires easier to play, it is too easily abused for absurd amounts of pool. I would like to preserve a lot of the good elements of the card without it making bloat so prevelant or minion tap quite so hosed. The trifleness is a problem as it is currently constructed, so here are some options I see:

-Instead of trifle the card could only give you an extra MPA if you do not control another villein.
-The cost of villein could be the number of Villeins on vampires you control AND in your ash heap combined (i.e. one on your Arika, one from your Golconda'd vampire in your ash heap = 2 pool.
-The card could read "a vampire may have only one villein"
-The card could read "Put this card on a vampire you control, tap that vampire and move 2 or more blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire."

We don't need to ban the card, but it is clearly a problem.

CONTRA

It's the root of most of the problems in the game at the moment. Too much easy bloat, and combos way too well with Giant's Blood and Lilith.

Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword.

Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword.

If you do that it's wallpaper. Simple as.

Izaak wrote:

Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword.

If you do that it's wallpaper. Simple as.

Ok, granted. Still, the Trifle is what makes it broken together with Lilith and Giant's Blood. Maybe remove the Trifle and balance it in some other way vs Minion Tap.

If the Trifle stays, it needs some *serious* extra restrictions.

Or you just get rid of Lilith's Blessing (which is an untested promo and shouldn't have been tournament legal in the first place) and Giant's Blood (I know it's ancient and all and it's fine in itself, but literally every deck plays one nowadays).

Villein may be a problem, but the card is needed for, like, 80% of the 9+caps to be playable. Never before KoT have so many different vampires seen play. Never before has master diversity been what it is *because* you don't have to slot 7 as your 12 masters as Minion Tap. Never before has Sudden/Wash seen so much play. I'd argue that Villein is good for the game, but the combo with two other cards - that may well be fine on their own - is just broken.

Since rewording existing cards is a mess, the far easier solution is just to ban Lilith's Blessing and Giant's Blood and be done with it.

Villein should only be able to take up to 5 blood off of a vampire. Nothing else needs to be done.
A trifle should never have such a game-changing effect.