On Villein. 1. "problematic card"

I'm Team PRO.

I've posted elsewhere:
"Villein made it possible to use big caps, exactly by being Trifle. This is because it lets you use a Zillah's Valley in the same turn for another Vampire."
Now we can have big cap decks that would never see the night if not for Villein.

There is no problem with how the game is right now.

Xaddam wrote:

Are we looking at the same deck? It has 14 cards too many and would be extremely sub-optimal with 4 parthenons in it.

Let's try not to weigh tastes against each other here. My point was that big cap decks are more viable since the release of Villein, please argue with this point instead of discussing deck-building.

You brought up the deck and I made my position, using that deck, against it.
It is a 16 card deck. By it not being 60 cards doesn't make it 'inefficient' just larger. I'm not weighing 'playstyle' here. Deciding that all decks with more than 60 card are 'sub-optimal' is a very narrow definition of 'optimal'.

The big point is...
There were ways to gain additional MPAs: Anson, Parthenon, Rumors.
This meant that if you're playing a large cap deck you have a list of options to bloat back that pool you've spend: Votes (Con Boon, Political Strangelhold, Parity Shift, etc), Minion Taps (and then of course ways to refill the vampire) and Blood Dolls/Tribute to the Master or via Actions (e.g. GtU, Social Charm, Enchant Kindred, Legal Manipulation, etc).
The deck you suggested COULD have existed, but it would have been a bit slower and would have probably used 2+ Parthenons & 2+ Rumors of Gehenna (to ensure one of the four cards came fairly early).

Comments about "Villein increasing master diversity" is not a real diversity change. All that happens now, is you take an existing deck with its traditional spread of master cards and either:
a) replace all Minion Taps with Villein
b) add in 4-6 Villeins.

That is not 'diversity'. Diversity would see other master cards entering the metagame in response to Villein, not merely people playing the same Master cards with Villeins.

CONTRA

As it is written now, Villein is too powerful to be a trifle. The ability to remove all blood on a vampire into your pool in one moment is itself VERY powerful. In my opinion, Minion Tap should have cost one pool.

People here are arguing to ban or not ban Villein, but I don't think it should be banned; it should be changed to say "remove 5 blood to from a vampire to your pool". Not up to 5, exactly five. It is a TRIFLE and it nerfs Minion Tap, an important COMMON staple card. From a game source perspective, it should represent the removing of resources from a thrall vampire so quickly that there is no time to be careful about it, leading to the possibility of bleeding the vampire completely dry.

I can buy the argument that Villein opens up the field to bigger vampires. I say let Villein let you recuperate SOME of the blood off your big vampire. How can you complain that you only got to take back 5 from your 11-cap instead of all 11 for the cost of a trifle? The 11-cap already is (or should be ) a great resource, and it is hard to understand how a TRIFLE should allow you to get it without paying pool.

I play decks with big vampires that don't use Villein or Minion Taps. The truth is vampires in these decks are supported by smaller vampires. I disagree that 9+ caps aren't playable without Villein. I agree that having four or more 9+ caps out on the table at one time is not possible without Villain. I don't think the game was designed with the idea that players should be able to routinely influence out Cybele plus three or four Inner Circle members. Okay, such decks would be harder to pull off without Villein as written, but that might actually open the field to other kind of decks that are currently pushed out.

Izaak wrote:

Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword.

If you do that it's wallpaper. Simple as.

Without trifle it is as good as Minion Tap if you don't play recursion and hurts MT, which would be played more often again. I don't think it'd be wallpaper.

Xaddam wrote:

PRO
As Tiago said yesterday; we need to learn to play with and against these new cards.

There is no "learning to play with or without Villein." You either also pack Villeins like everyone else, leading to ridiculous bloat and timeouts. Or you pack a ton of Washes/Suddens (eating up a large part of your master slots).

How is that good for the game?

PRO

Villein is not a root of problems, the way it is played is. Even with Lilith's Blessing or Giant's Blood it's not a problem. Instead of making a target of self by villeining for all blood (even with Lil's blessing on table), you can villein for less and use Lil's blessing later when need be.

Timing outs are due too slow playing, not because of bloat.

If you bleed hard enough, even a deck with 8-10 villeins is unable to get out enough minions before you oust them.

If anything would be done to Villein, Minion Tap dewallpaperizing could be removed.

So, if you Villein a vampire all his blood, you'll be making yourself target and effectively making yourself more vulnerable position: Think of EC 2011 day 2 finals, where Izaak dealt 8 pool damage to Otso, who comboed Villein and Giant's blood.

Having sudden reversals for Villein or washes for Giant's Blood/Lil's Blessing is just a nice idea. you can use that wash against Pentex Subversion, Week of Nightmares, Haven Uncovered as well.