Is Retribution a good card?

I see Archon Investigation in a lot of decks online. Yet, I never see anyone using Retribution, it seems like a nice card to me if one is playing a deck that wants to damage minions in general. It's free (unlike the rather expensive AI) and has a decent chance of torporing a vamp as a free Master phase action. How come it's not as popular as AI? Does anyone else use it? And if not, why?

if Touch of Pain had been free or just a better card with two different effects (one at each level), that would have influenced the playability of Retribution a lot. as it stands, it's not very good IMO. Master slots are just too rare to be used for semi-useful cards that have too much chance of ending up dead in hand. Even sending a vampire off to torpor doesn't mean it won't just come back next turn either (AI shines in this regard .
but: good luck finding a way to play and win with it anyway! Shemti and Crocodile Temple could come to mind, though it's still not easy by any means...

I have tried Retribution in a couple of decks, but it hasn't worked out. Sitting around waiting to be bled for 2+ is usually not a good strategy. AI, while costly, reduces those big bleeds to three and removes a minion. AI also has the advantage of causing fear in your predator, whether you are actually playing it or not. Retribution does not have a similar association.

Archon Investigation has no pool cost, assuming you were going to be taking the bleed anyway.

There's no guarantee Retribution will stop the bleeding minion from continuing to bleed on later turns. Even if you torp a minion, it can be rescued and given blood in a host of ways.

There's no pool saving effect to Retribution, like there is with Archon Investigation. If you have 5 pool and you get bled for 5, Retribution will never see play, where Archon Investigation keeps you in the game.

Taking those two together, AI early will save you much more pool over the course of the game. AI late may keep you in the game where Retribution won't. AI has a far greater effect on the game, if both are playable.

Now, can argue that neither is worth taking up slots on, but given a choice between Retribution and masters I'm likely to play, I don't see the justification for Retribution.

Hannu used it in his deck for this week's casual games.

A Daughters deck with Maris Streck that played Shattering Crescendos.

CalibanX wrote:

I see Archon Investigation in a lot of decks online. Yet, I never see anyone using Retribution, it seems like a nice card to me if one is playing a deck that wants to damage minions in general. It's free (unlike the rather expensive AI) and has a decent chance of torporing a vamp as a free Master phase action. How come it's not as popular as AI? Does anyone else use it? And if not, why?

It's not a terrible card, but it's less reliable, costs the same number of MPAs, and not quite as sexy. And while technically AI has a cost, the fact you were about to take that much in bleed makes it - for many practical purposes - cost the same. Yeah, you can play Retribution will on 1 or 2 pool, but you get the idea. Possibly interesting for certain types of damaging deck, such as Cryptic Mission (though many of those might prefer to draw Society of Leopold instead), or if you see a lot of low bleed grindy decks in your environment.

And so it falls into the category of cards that just don't generally make the cut because you have 14-18 master card slots in most decks, and it's not as sexy as Villein or Dreams or DI or Pentex Subversion or Blood Doll or Ventrue HQ.