Please Ban The Unmasking

I think it's all the fault of the Event card type having such inelegant design.

Ohlmann wrote:

I believe intercept, specialy of the permanent type, is a bit out of control here and now. But I don't think banning *only* Unmasking will only displace the problem.

I believe that the whole package would be :
* ban unmasking
* ban the bowl
* make 2nd tradition as either +2 intercept against D action, or burn one blood to untap, not both, and not on everything.
* make No Secret allow only one block tapped per turn
* limit to one intercept retainer per vampire
* and maybe something for abbot like a blood cost or untap at end of turn instead of immediatly.

This way, actions would be much more successful on average, and more importantly complete deck shutdown by intercept would be much more difficult.

Maybe the Unmasking is not broken and/or uber powerful. But it can be extremely irrating to see your prey intercepting stealthy, undirected action without needing card. It's more or less the same problem as tupdog torporing each vampire the turn you influence them : maybe it don't make your predator win, but it make you miserable.

(also, 2nd trad mean that being a prince is better for intercept than having auspex. No wonder why eurobrujah or nosferatu work with prince and not archbishop)

LoL

Sure, sure, lemme just wipe that dust off my Malk '94 there with all those "balanced" changes you propose B-)

Pendargon wrote:

LoL

Sure, sure, lemme just wipe that dust off my Malk '94 there with all those "balanced" changes you propose B-)

I'd better *also* change stealths cards than the current state.

Lots of minions with +1 intercept != lots of intercept. or do not care about the Unmasking. Combat that can get through the allies does not care either. Both of them also work against all kinds of walls. If you are planning on stealth-bleeding with Mirror Walk as your only stealth card, then you have a problem, but that does not mean Unmasking is broken. It just means you built a deck that is vulnerable to it.

In the deck clinic, maybe we should add the question: "How do you expect to make your actions succeed?"

Allies don't have an answer to Form of Mist/Earth Meld/Shadow Body/SC:E and Unmasking fortunately doesn't change that. It's not a balanced card, it lacks some kind of drawback, but i sure wouldn't ban it personally. It doesn't break the game and you can meta against it.

Enter: Stanislava, Lord Fianna, Kamiri [base] with an added ambulance, Xeper (Juniper), Secret must be kept, Kindred Segregation, Heavy Combat (TM), Power of One, Shattering (demented Anarch Ravnos could really make use of this card), Recurring contemplation on top of the usual Entrancements or just bring your own allies to the table ('collaborating' is one of the better options here)... or bring Scourge of the Enochians to nuke Horatio/Piotr preferably BEFORE they can get the Warghouls in play. Not even the 'collaborating part unbalances the game as a whole or makes it less rich in its possibillities.

Non-existant user wrote:

Lots of minions with +1 intercept != lots of intercept. or do not care about the Unmasking. Combat that can get through the allies does not care either.?"

I disagree with both of these statements. Any standing intercept will end up hurting a stealth bleed deck. These decks start to have trouble when every bleed action requires +2 stealth and every undirected action needs +1 stealth. Also take into account that Carlton + Unmasking increases it to +3 stealth per bleed. Plus you have to deal with the rushing allies, meaning that if you only pack stealth + and no combat defense, you may have a problem. TorranceCircle is correct that Carlton appears at every game in LA.

"Combat that can get through the allies" Hmm. Interesting concept. Many combat packages are not efficient against allies. And even after you've burned the ally, you may not have any combat cards left to deal with the actual vampires. Underbridge Stray, Vagabond Mystic and other effects make allies very resilient. The Unmasking + allies + Pentex Subversion vs. combat superstar = defeat of combat superstar deck as smaller vampires are unable to remove Pentex guarded by resilient or expendable allies.

Yeah - The Unmasking makes everything worse.