Ash heap / Umbra related cards

A few proposal about ash heap related cards.

The core idea is to get some cards that could hinder, deter or compensate Ashur Tablets, Liquidation and Emerald Legionnaire top-tier mechanics.

Although the lore ideas used here might not be exactly V5 compatible at the moment, I suspected the upcoming Hecata and Wraith supplements could very well provide us with alternative names for similar cards and effects.

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Enoch, the Ghost City
Master: Location
Lock to remove one card from any ash heap from the game.

• Lore: The ghost city of Enoch is deep in the Umbra and supposedly the headquarters of the infamous "true black hand".
• Mechanics/reason: A decent deterrent against Legionnaire and Ashur. Using a master slot for such a specific counter seems high enough a cost to not add any other pool cost to it.

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Tal'mahe'Ra support
Master
Put 7 cards from your ash heap into your library

• Lore: The Tal'mahe'Ra is a secret group of immortal necromancers, infamous in VTM lore for being the oldest vampiric organisation and the origin of many Methusalah schemes.
• Mechanics/reason: A decent recursion device that can serve as an alternative to Ashur Tablets: it doesn't grant pool, only brings back 7 cards and puts nothing in hand (so no immediate gain), but having a decent recursion device available to all should mitigate the need to rely on Ashur every time a bit of recursion is desirable in a deck.

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The Sixth Great Maelstrom
Event, Gehenna
Do not replace until your next discard phase.
During your discard phase, remove 3 cards from your prey's ash heap from the game and
your prey takes control of The Sixth Great Maelstrom.

• Lore: The Sixth Great Maelstrom occurred during the Week of Nightmares and is a key event in the Gehenna.
• Mechanics/reason: A direct counter to Legionnaire and Ashur tech and an easy Gehenna event for the few builds that need easy access to them (Black Hand for the watchtower, any low cap build needing a starting point for more Gehenna).

We need less recursion in this game. Not more.

Any recursion that is added (not that I think any should be) should be highly interactive. Events, followed by Master cards are the least interactive elements in the game.

I think it would be easier to just ban Ashur Tablets and Events (or errata them to make them interactive).

I don't mind recursion, I'm not sure I see the issue with it. It's a great mechanic and it's aligned with everything necromancy / umbra related.

Recursion used the be very limited and thus the game encouraged building decks centered on solid ideas.

With the addition of rampant recursion the nature of the game changed. With recursion available both easily and en masse the game dynamics have changed so very much from something that might add a little bit of spice to select few decks to the main course to basically any type of deck.

I do not deny, naturally this change brought in powerful new deck ideas and types. But any change of such magnitude is certain to do so. Being able to cycle the same strong cards over and over again is super strong. And also rather repetitive and unimaginative.

Overall I think that the change was way too big and with it we lost some core feel to the game.

I'm not sure I totally agree with your assessment; since there's no card limit, nothing prevents you to build decks where you play the same 5 cards over and over again - it's not like Malk bleed or clown car needs recursion to work.

The ability to adapt your deck to the table during the course of the game is, at least to me, an interesting tactic. It's also fun, because the more versed you are in the game and the different builds, the better you get at tuning your recursion to adapt, so the recursion tech becomes that much stronger as your personal level grows.

It also opens the field to new game designs - for example, Bram's build for the Belgian NC where the deck starts off with Reckless Agitation and Information Highway but then adapts later on, getting rid of these cards as the game progresses to focus on Parity Shifts if they're relevant (or ditch them if they're not) and KRC for the kill. That's a beautiful mechanic and intricate build.

I won't argue that Ashur Tablets are strong, they are. Actually two of my proposals are about removing cards from ash heaps exactly to mitigate this. The third one with the recursion, sure, it's generic - but it is less powerful than Ashur I think: it does bring nothing in your hand, it's only about deck tinkering - and what if it becomes a staple? Sure, all good players might stuck a couple in their deck because it might be a good way to adapt your deck to the table in mid/late game: I would argue it can bring more fun and tactical skill impact to the game.