If Govern was 2 blood (analysis)

Kraus wrote:

Which power problems will it solve though?

- It will demand 3 cap min to bleed for 5
- It will make other actions comparable
- it will make other pool gain actions comparable
- it will hit with 5-8 blood tax bunch of most powerful archetypes in a game which will left them still quite playable but more in line with others
- it will make combining or even 1 blood +2 bleed cards and for deflection/conditioning superior in some way to mono bleed (as I've written earlier - VtES should aim to encourage combinations of disciplines)

And all of this without really any downsides.

Having played Giovanni power bleed long enough, you're always counting your blood. This would totally kill the deck. It wouldn't kill the big caps versions, though.

The most elegant errata I found was to add a line : no Conditionning can be played on this action.

This was, you might see some Threats and / or Scouting Mission be played again, and the max bleed with either combo would be 5, not 6 (Foreshadowing is more conditionnal, no pun intended).

And if you want to bleed for 6, well, you can go back to Slaughtering or Mind Rape, which cost 1 more blood. So, more diversity either way !

Most likely this would force people to mix in some scouting mission into their dominate decks or some other form of blood management.

The game has kind of painted itself into a corner by not addressing some significant internal consistency issues for 25 years. Could we rebalance/ban govern? Sure, but this wouldn't really get us very far as cards have already been added to (ineffectively) address these problems and are now creating negative consequences.

In my opinion the only real way to fix what is wrong is to look at basic principles and root out all the cards that are pushing the game away from them. I really doubt this would ever happen. People have enough fun spamming dominate and pentex once every few months and knowing they have a chance to win.

Oh, such an old post. In hindsight though, I think I wrote it well.

To be honest however, since Govern wasn't touched in BCP starters, the topic is effectively void.

Mewcat wrote:

Most likely this would force people to mix in some scouting mission into their dominate decks or some other form of blood management.

This is the main conclusion I drew from the analysis initially, actually. I think I should've been even clearer in that I don't think Govern is a bad card for the game. I never claim this, or that the effect is too strong. The only problem in Govern I find is the balance within . Other cards are clearly overshadowed by it.

As a whole within the game it's great. The reason it's over used and we don't see anything else is that it's stronger than fellow actions within .

Could we rebalance/ban govern? Sure, but this wouldn't really get us very far as cards have already been added to (ineffectively) address these problems and are now creating negative consequences.

Which are these cards, what are the problems, and could you elaborate on "negative consequences"? I don't know what you're talking about.

The only hate would be, in my opinion, Libertas and Narrow Minds, and neither touch Govern. There's Touch of Clarity of course, but Govern is rarely the ideal target for it anyways.

Well, anyways, BCP never errated Govern, so in my opinion this particular thesis lost it's relevance.

Sure. The silly bleed number you can crank out with dom and to a lesser extent pre have been driving the game forever. To combat this bloat has been added:

liquidation
Villein (95% a strickly better minion tap, already rebalanced)
thing
assamite bloat
black hand bloat
anything I forget

Now we have 2 consequences - 1) its practically impossible to oust with out dom or pre, 2) decks interact only so far as to make their pool go up and prey pool go down. Decks are so filled with pool gain to deal with silly bleeds and silly bleeds to oust all the pool gain that no body does much of anything else.

Of course I am generalizing but the experience I remember from before I quit maybe 12 to 15 years ago was sadly better than it is now. This is what happens when you don't address the root problem directly. Does anyone think that 6 bleeds make any sense? Why are they still a thing?

Mewcat wrote:

Sure. The silly bleed number you can crank out with dom and to a lesser extent pre have been driving the game forever. To combat this bloat has been added:

Are Thing and similar "2 for action" cards really only added because big bleeds are a thing? Why do you say that? In all honesty to me it's been more to reinforce the horde-esque play style of those clans or traits, and to make them more unique. Gangrel was horrible before Thing. Now they have something.

I mean you might be right, but those cards give a lot more character to the clans/traits besides making for at least some kind of a pool buffer. Villein was stupid from the start, so I don't even know what to say about that. It's fine now.

Now we have 2 consequences - 1) its practically impossible to oust with out dom or pre, 2) decks interact only so far as to make their pool go up and prey pool go down. Decks are so filled with pool gain to deal with silly bleeds and silly bleeds to oust all the pool gain that no body does much of anything else.

Of course I am generalizing--

Yes you are, and going so far that I don't think it helps the case.

I mean I get why people get frustrated with the discipline that packs mostly everything, but it's a stretch to say you can't oust without or . A steady stream of IC voters, KRC decks, combat decks, hordes and walls beg to differ. Even Gangrel have stuff going to them, and I've seen pretty darn effective multi action star decks that trade a set of 3 or more bleed plus retainers and equipment among the vampires and get their stuff done with Protean's awesome delivery.

We knew these existed, so... why generalize that much?

Dominate does do 6 per action whereas others do roughly 3, so there's that, but come on. It's not the only thing.

That said I'd love to see more ways to deal pool damage introduced, but I'm pretty confident in saying that everyone would love new innovative cards.

--but the experience I remember from before I quit maybe 12 to 15 years ago--

Not that it matters much, but I thought you still play, don't you? Did I misunderstand?

Does anyone think that 6 bleeds make any sense?

Let's say that I think that it's slightly too easy to pull off, by a bit too many a vampire. If you invest 11 pool into an Inner Circle I think it's fine that they have the ability to slam a player with 8 pool damage for an action once in a while.

2 blood (Govern + Conditioning) for an effect a mid-cap could do might be too cheap. It's debatable. That said, I wouldn't have minded if Govern was made 2 blood. It wasn't.

(If a mid-cap power bleed would've been "killed" by that change, it would've been fine by me. If you can't handle changing to Scouting Mission or from Conditioning to Threats (you should be playing Foreshadowing Destruction anyways) for 5 bleeds instead of 6, I don't know what to tell you. Or add another copy or two of Life in the City. It's a trifle, you can still play Misdirection after. It would've been a slap to the face, sure, but still manageable.)