What if we updated these cards?

Hi folks,

following the trend of certain underplayed cards recently getting subtle errata to be a bit better, which includes Quickness, Black Metamorphosis, or Tier of Souls, I was thinking about a few more cards I played myself, trying to make them work. Predictably, I failed

Horseshoes - make it 2 dmg on pot and 3 dmg on POT. Still with no stealth, this update could do two things - potentially forcing vampires unable to block to hunt a bit sooner and perhaps more importantly, dealing with a Shadow Court Satyr in one shot if you are lucky enough to resolve it - which might not be a lot but could bump the card's profile a bit.

Touch of Pain - reduce blood cost to 0 and/or bump the damage to 2 and 3 respectively. Even with both changes, I'm not sure if the card would be worthwhile as POT decks usually do not want to be this reactive to run Touch of Pain in any scenario... Still, the update could be enough for experimenters to reconsider the card, for example in a Parity shift-heavy vote deck

Loose Cannon - unlikely to get a reprint due to two non-V5 disciplines present, but I'm guessing that even reducing the blood cost to 0 and adding "More than one Discipline can be used to play this card." would not really help to "fix" the card. Hopefully, it could make it a bit more viable in a few corner cases. Anything in addition to that would feel like a redesign of the card to me though.


Other cards got nerfed, like Parity Shift or Pentex Subversion, by all accounts to positive effects.

In this category, I currently have Dreams of the Sphinx - this card is super efficient and by my observation is in the vast majority or both tournament and casual decks, more than Direct Intervention, Giant's Blood, or Wider View.

I mean is there a good reason not to have at least one Dreams in every deck? Other than being unable to afford that many copies... Due to its temporary effect, not even contesting seems to be a big deal. I saw multiple times players burning one Dreams for extra cards and playing the second one right away...

Dreams of the Sphinx - to tweak the Dreams in a minimalist way, I'd add the Retribution clause: "A Methuselah can play only 1 DotS in a game." Admittedly, this change could still potentially allow every deck to run the card, but I believe it would also make it less ubiquitous in general...



There are of course many other cards we could discuss but I'm curious if the changes proposed above would be in any way problematic as my experience with VTES is still fairly limited. Cheers.

EDIT: Just in case, any ideas to improve/update VTES cards I posted in this thread are free to take by anyone, especially folks affiliated with BCP, to potentially use them for testing and/or releasing new or updated cards. Hope this helps

Other cards got updated in the past as well, for example Forest of Shadows, originally costing 3 pool, later just one. While it did not quite do the trick to push the card into the spotlight, it was a sensible change and perhaps the cost of zero could be the right one.

In a similar way, I though of Banner of Neutrality:

Banner of Neutrality - Requires an Independent or Anarch vampire. Only usable if a non-Independent or non-Anarch vampire is bleeding you. Reduce the bleed amount by 3.

Once again, I don't think this change would do a lot but it could make the card marginally playable in certain metas.

One more card for this post:

Victim of Habit - [no changes to blood cost] +1 stealth action. Put this card in play and choose a card in your prey's ash heap by name. During any Methuselah's unlock phase, you may lock this card to remove three copies of a the chosen card in your prey's ash heap from the game to cause your prey to burn 1 pool.

Not exactly meant to fight Legionnaires but I guess it could work Also, this update could discourage decks that play around 20 copies of KRC, Governs, Earth Melds, Undue Influences, Kindred Spirits, etc. Or at least, provide some moderately-efficient counter-measure to them because the card would continue to work after you score a VP or could respond to two-card combos more easily..

What do you think? Would these changes make or break the cards?

I've been barking up this tree for years.


Victim is good enough.

Touch of pain us meh, but Street Cred should totally cost 0 though.

Horseshoes would need testing.


Seriously though, look through old threads with similar ideas.
My most recent one was a balance and logic argument around Brass Knuckles counting as a hand and melee strike, like Bhundi, and long explanation why mechanically and IRL it made sense.

What I believe is most important is to think up some of these things BEFORE they get reprints. That way they go through playtest and aren't just wallpaper still.

Edit:

Dreams is fine.

It's an ousting mechanism.

Haha, let's bark together then.

I did a cursory search at the forum on card updates and errata but did not see a lot of relevant threads that would be recent... In any case, my proposals are meant specifically for V5-VTES, for the upcoming products (including legacy ones) and indeed, I'd love it if more underplayed cards could be considered for reprints, testing, and updates, along with new cards.

Also, my benchmark for bringing up particular card update proposals here stem from my own testing and/or prominence in TWDA. Based on that, Victim of Habit does not appear to be good enough at all... I never saw anyone play it and everyone I asked about it thus far told me it is a terrible waste of blood and action...

As for the Dreams, I like them too as they are, I just find them really powerful as the price of 1 pool is really low compared to the combined effect. And just the fact that literally any deck can benefit from running them (even if just for contest-"bleeding") with little to no downside is telling me the card might be a bit too OP... just my $0.02.


More proposals:

Becoming of Ennoia - Gehenna. Do not replace until your next discard phase. Requires at least two other Gehenna cards controlled by other Methuselahs in play. During each Methuselah's unlock phase, he or she chooses a ready vampire he or she controls. The chosen vampire takes 1 unpreventable damage. Earth Meld cards cost 2 additional blood.

After playing against several decks with cca 20 Earth Melds, I was wondering what can be done about them and later was happy to find Becoming of Ennoia... except I read the card text wrong, realizing it is pretty much impossible to even get the card into play. Maybe it made sense in 2004 to have the [controlled by other Methuselahs] limitation when Gehennas were ubiquitous but in current metas, the card is no longer playable (as seen from TWDA as well). Not sure if the proposed change would somehow break the flavor or lore behind the card but even with the change, it would help only a handful of event-dedicated decks - therefore it appears this change is the least we could do to boost the card...

Secret Passage - compared to Secure Haven, I think making Secret Passage a trifle would balance out these two cards nicely. Being on the side of caution, it does not appear that this update would make Secret Passage widely playable all of a sudden, but it would make a bit better. Even flavor-wise, a trifle Secret Passage just feels right

Epiphany - as I've observed, by now, there are not very many vamps for whom Epiphany is even viable, i.e. when playing the base version in multiples makes more sense than the other way around + playing Legacy... Epiphany being the original merge card, it seems fair to me if it also had the burn option to enable more decks. Not sure if it was deliberate to leave Epiphany as it is when Legacy was introduced in 2016 but by now, it does not appear this little update would shake things up too much.
EDIT: per later discussion, the requirement for Epiphany would have to go as follows for the burn option to work as expected: Requires an unmerged base vampire for whom an advanced version exists.


In general, just adding the burn option or making a master card a trifle appears like a really elegant way to improve certain cards' profiles without breaking VTES rules, flavor, or WoD lore.

Once again, I would fix Rampage.
In addition to Army of Rats (which is fine) it is the only Discipline card with no superior. Besides Rampage's effect is really really bad ("Ⓓ Burn any location. If you control the location, this is a +1 stealth action")

My Change:

RAMPAGE
+1 Stealth
pot: Ⓓ Burn any location.
POT: Ⓓ Enter combat with a ready minion controlled by another Methuselah.

Thank you.


Street Cred - I haven't even tried to play Street Cred before but its TWDA record speaks clearly enough and I'd like to back ReverendRevolver's idea - having the card with no blood cost sounds perfectly reasonable.

As for Rampage, I agree that it should be updated if not redesigned. However, having any stealth on a POT card, named "Rampage" to boot, feels massively off-flavor. Even if you are rampaging through your own location, how could it be a stealthy action ?

But - several disciplines have a dedicated Enter Combat card, Celerity, Animalism, even Presence or Auspex. Did you know Potence does not have one (not counting Anarch cards)? That seems like a sizable gap to me.

At the same time, when you burn a location, you are likely destroying other resources along the way, no? Also, my guess is that you need to burn a location less frequently than enter combat...

Thus, what do you think of this version?

Rampage -
pot: Ⓓ Enter combat with a ready minion controlled by another Methuselah.
POT: Ⓓ Burn a location and burn 1 pool from its owner if the action succeeds.

Edit: I added "owner" above to make the effect even more unique and possibly worthwhile. Take that Powerbase: Montreal and The Rack - first I stole it then I burned it