Expansion Update

Baaliprimogen wrote:

Or we could release Kuei-jin, that Disco_stu has been working on. Vekn could make it to an all new game. But make it work with the old Vtes.

Any thoughts?

This is an interesting proposition. It would be much like how Munchkin works. Expansions are base sets that work alone, or mixed into other base sets. Hmmm.

Mighty interesting. I will think on this.

number of tournament winning decks running at least 1 Minion Tap in 2011: 10/232
number of tournament winning decks running at least 1 Villein in 2011: 81/232

ebay price of Villein: $4 according to Kevin's anecdotal evidence, though the only recently sold listing I could find was $15. let's average these together to $9.
ebay price of latest MtG dual-lands: usually $2 to $3 if you buy a set of four together.

so to get this staple resource-management card to play one third of the game, you have to pay more money than Magic players do for their must-have rares. Yay.

I'm not necessarily for or against legalized proxies of all VTES cards, but I am convinced Villein by itself is fucking ridiculous.

The cards you call dual lands are not Dual Lands.
They suck, are cheap and are only used because the number of cards in that format is small.

Look for the real Duals that are used in the formats we can relate to VtES: Legacy and Vintage.
Cards like Underworld Sea, Taiga, Volcanic Island, etc.
Besides, even in Standard (T2) there are cards that go over 100$ easy.

Thank you for the Villein statistics. It's that kind if arguments (with actual numbers) that are useful. Not "just because" like we've seen here.
I'm sure that if we analyze the percentage of TWD with mid-to-high caps that use Villein, numbers would be even bigger.

Haze wrote:

number of tournament winning decks running at least 1 Minion Tap in 2011: 10/232
number of tournament winning decks running at least 1 Villein in 2011: 81/232

ebay price of Villein: $4 according to Kevin's anecdotal evidence, though the only recently sold listing I could find was $15. let's average these together to $9.
ebay price of latest MtG dual-lands: usually $2 to $3 if you buy a set of four together.

so to get this staple resource-management card to play one third of the game, you have to pay more money than Magic players do for their must-have rares. Yay.

I'm not necessarily for or against legalized proxies of all VTES cards, but I am convinced Villein by itself is fucking ridiculous.

And i answer to this : so what??? You want to play the game at the most competitive level, pay something to do it.

I am a student, with no regular income, AND living in a god-forsaken country where average wage is below 300 euros per month (yeah, that is right). By saving, and putting money aside, in 3 months i bought 8 villeins off auctions on ebay, paying between 6-8 dollars per card. I have put aside 20 euros monthly for my hobbies, and i got them. Why??? Because i wanted them. If i could do it, in these conditions, anybody can do it. It is not like villeins are enkil cog or Ur-Shulgi...

Haze wrote:

ebay price of Villein: $4 according to Kevin's anecdotal evidence, though the only recently sold listing I could find was $15. let's average these together to $9.

I'm a bit annoyed by that Villein-thing. If you like to get Villeins you have to pay attention at ebay and let ebay inform you if anybody sells some. I always have a look and find regularly Villeins for around 5-6 Dollars (which I don't buy, I have enough), which is absolutely no problem for most players to pay. Sure, you have to keep your eyes open for that card. But if you do you get it sooner or later. Isn't that thing part of our hobby? Maybe we should reprint Villein in the upcoming set to have the dispute settled.

Or Pascal, VEKN, or the players as a whole can agree to a text change to Villein that allows Minion Taps to be playable in a competitive environment.

That's really the issue. If you could still play Minion Taps, then paying too much for Villeins would be an option, not a necessity.

LSJ is gone. It should be okay to fix his mistakes.*

Villein
Master: trifle.
Put this card on a vampire you control and move 2 or more blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost one pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire.

*Everyone makes mistakes. Of course, forcing people to buy replacment cards for their Minion Taps isn't a mistake from a commercial perspective, but it is not good for players. Since the players are running things now(?), players can change things to make things good for themselves.