Misdirections

mirddes wrote:

is misdirections, in its original form, not an ideal weenie counter?

Not really, no. In fact, you would often see it played by weenie decks, in order to get rid of potential blockers. Or, at least, force them to use Wakes, which amounts to more or less the same thing - instead of staying untapped and blocking twice (once untapped, once with Wake), they only block once. Then the weenie deck comes in and bleeds you for a crap-load. This meant that the weenie deck could, roughly speaking, include a lot of 'payload' - bleed actions, bleed modifiers - and less stealth. (A common tactic back then against decks with lots of stealth was to not block. Since stealth can only be played when necessary, you would hope they'd choke on it by having a hand full of it, and run out of Threats and Govern the Unaligned and Computer Hacking and whatever else they were using.) A small clutch of old-style Misdirections is much easier to play for effect and cycle (play it for 0!), so you can adjust your stealth ratio down.

Weenie decks would reasonably often use Blood Doll and have some of its minions hunt when necessary. If it could oust fast enough, it wouldn't need to hunt that much - 6 pool every other turn is quite a lot. In either case, it would be taking many actions - ousting really, really fast, or hunting a bit. Probably the most formidable weenie deck of that time was the Legacy of Pander deck (back when Legacy of Pander stacked). I quite like this version: www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#ennjsc It includes a couple of Tribute to the Master (a usable alternative to Blood Doll here), and several copies of Consanguineous Boon. Lots of pool available.

Most weenie decks - with the specific exception of weenie Auspex - often aren't blocking that much at all. You can stealth by them with even a little stealth - the +1 stealth from a vote card is often enough, or +1 stealth from Bonding. And they're often close to tapped out anyway, in order to maximize their speed against their prey. If they can go faster than their predator, they can survive. Weenie Dominate would, of course, play some bounce.

One of the strategies people would often employ in the heat of a game against a weenie deck was to try to survive until the weenie deck's predator could oust it (if at all). In that case, the typical mix of Wake cards in a deck would be insufficient, so the prey of the weenie deck would also often be staying untapped where possible. Except one card from the weenie deck could just nuke all those resources.


Back in the day, the best way to get rid of a weenie deck was generally to be even more ruthless than it was. Legacy of Pander weenies and Arika+Return to Innocence were probably the two best ways - oh look, I've just bled you for 17, and I'm going to do it again.

Note that all three of those decks - weenie swarms with Misdirection, Return to Innocence abuses and Legacy of Pander - have been heavily nerfed. Misdirection is for 1. Legacy of Pander doesn't stack. Return to Innocence was fairly heavily nuked, then eventually banned. (Return to Innocence huge vampire decks were also messed with by the changes to Tomb of Rameses III. Thoughts Betrayed also got smashed, which just shut down so many combat options.) The game being forced into horrible, horrible "You must either play these three strategies OR be able to counter these three strategies" was horrifically, horrifically bad for the game.

mirddes wrote:

do my proposed changes, or the current version, water down it's potential more?

It doesn't help against run of the mill weenies - they just play to oust far faster than you can. (Except for most weenie combat decks, which are typically just bad.) Weenie vote, weenie Dem, weenie Dom, some potential for weenie Pre. Weenie Fortitude is pretty horrid. Weenie Animalism too. Almost all played by going forward hard. They're not - typically - leaving three, four, five, six vampires untapped. Why not oust? Why not hunt for blood? One or two, sure - but that's then within the range of Misdirection and Anarch Troublemaker.

Against weenie Auspex decks, they already have a mountain of blocking tech, including wakes. Your Misdirection will annoy them a little, but not massively - they're aiming to block anything they choose anyway.

what is KRC?

do blood doll and vessel stack? can a minion have 3 of each?

mirddes wrote:

do blood doll and vessel stack? can a minion have 3 of each?

Yep. Nothing to prevent that!

mirddes wrote:

do blood doll and vessel stack? can a minion have 3 of each?

Yes, though it's generally a poor option. You aren't generally in a position to regularly pull back 4-6 pool from a single minion on a regular basis. 2-3 isn't impossible, particularly with vampires with Hesha and abilities provided by cards like Harvest Rites, but much more than that is usually unnecessary. It can also be counter-productive - vampires with a lot of good stuff on them often become popular targets for Banishment, rush combat etc.


It can happen in play, of course - you lose one or two of your vampires, so this third one is the only one you can play things on. But typically it would be a poor option to plan for.


You might get some mileage out of it with either Concert Tour or Renewed Vigor, but the slow ramp-up time of playing those cards (Dolls/Vessels) would probably mean Villein or Minion Tap made an appearance. With Parthenon or similar master-phase-action-granting tech, it would be less annoying - but would potentially descend into being a deck devoted to that trick. Voter Captivation too, though it often likes having at least some of the blood around to pay for the next Awe it wants to play, so 4-6 Dolls/Vessels would be quite a lot to have on one vampire.