Card Idea: Send a message

Izaak wrote:

Decapitate, when played, always does exactly what you expect it will do when you put it in your deck.

Direct Intervention says otherwise

That means making cards that are playable, competitive

Exactly.

That's why I think it's too weak.

I respectfully disagree. You should expect a well designed, competitive deck to play one master card each turn, and make good use of that master phase action. Denying someone the opportunity to play a master card is competitive.

Ashur, that card is insane. I'm sorry but seeing that will make me play Beast & Theo Must Smash almost exclusively!

Prey, please lose 3 pool to Fame, 2 from Send a Message or you don't play Masters... that's nuts. Especially for a disciplineless, "As many times per combat", 1 blood card. I'm sorry but I'd be packing a SHEDLOAD of these into a deck just for that one time where I can catch a TGB deck with a Grapple and then dump 4 into play.

As a Combat Card
Send a Message
Combat
1 blood
Only playable after a combat where the opposing minion is not ready and this vampire is ready.
Put this card on your vampire. Minions controlled by the Methuselah of the opposing minion must burn 1 blood to attempt to block this vampire. Burn this card if this vampire leaves the ready region. A minion may not have more than of this card targeting the same Methuselah.

As a OoT Master
Send a Message
Master
Master: Out of Turn
Playable during your turn. Only playable after a combat where the opposing minion is not ready and your vampire is ready.
Put this card in the ready region of the Methuselah that controlled the opposing minion. You may not play Master cards while this card is in your ready region. Burn this card if it is in your ready region during your discard phase.

More masters to counter masters. Just what we need.

I can't see a reason from within the game to not make this a Master card. It is effectively an underling sending a message from one Methuselah to anotehr Methuselah. The direct actions of Methuselahs has always been done via Master Cards, why should this card be an exception.

So either:
Give up on the "counterspell cards"
or
Make it a master card

Trying to design the card to combat a metagame concept with the only reference being to the metagame seems to just be an elaborate waste of time. I can understand making a combat card to help combat, but making a combat card to counter masters is nuts; especially for a disciplineless non-once per combat, low-pool costing card that is 'in theory' supposed to be helping a combat deck defeat the prevalence of "Many MPA" Decks.

Stop aiming for the MPAs, start aiming for the Minions and the Pool... Most of those "Many MPA" decks require their large cap minions to be able to spawn so many MPAs. Hit the minions and you cripple the deck under its own Master-Cards. Yes, that means cards like Decapitate, it means cards like Sacrificial Lamb, it means cards like The Name Forgotten (I don't know why that isn't seeing more play to be honest as a response to those decks... I'm planning to put more than one copy into my recent Nephandus-based deck.)

Start genuinely thinking outside the box at the tools already available instead of stating "Combat needs new cards to oust the Many MPA decks...". Combat needs more reliable ways of ousting preys in general, Many MPA decks should just be another victim under the Combat bus.

Reminder: one of the biggest hurdles for a combat deck is to be able to reliably win combats and still have enough cards to survive and/or oust. The proposed card has a good theme but would take valuable deck space without helping win combats, survive a strong predator, or oust a weak prey. It would be great for kindling.