On Giant's Blood 4. "problematic card"

KevinM wrote:

henrik wrote:

KevinM wrote:

Blood Doll was so stupidly good for 15 years that if you didn't include it, you were shooting yourself in the foot, whether you needed it or not, but that didn't define Blood Doll as a card that had a power level that was over the top..

This is where the comparison fails. How did you shoot yourself in the foot by not including Blood Doll in decks where it wasn't needed? In the Giant's Blood case that's clear, since playing Giant's Blood on any vampire removes the possible blood gain for the other players, Blood Doll has no similar effect.

Blood Doll doesn't have the exact same effect as Giant's Blood, no, but that isn't needed for a direct comparison.

Before Vessel and Villein were printed, Blood Doll's "transfer blood into pool" effect was on a similar -- if not greater -- power level than Giant's Blood's effect. So, for 15 years, if you didn't play BD in almost every deck then you were hindering your own progress.

Because of this fact, I am able to make the direct and relevant comparisons that I do, given the statements that are being presented.

You're still totally missing the point of why "EVERYONE" plays Giant's Blood these days. It's even good to include it in Imbued decks just to chose where and when it's played. Or Pentex Subversion that's good to include even if your deck doesn't benefit that much from the effect, since it can be very good just to contest it for a turn if someone plays it on you.
Blood Doll was a staple card for many years, but it's not at all the same as Giant's Blood. People don't just play Giant's Blood for the blood gain, which is what some here are trying to point out. In most games I play the effect of Giant's Blood is to gain something around 2-4 blood, since it usually gets played as soon as someone draws it. If you wait a turn or two it'll most likely be too late and you have a dead card in your hand. This is why some speak of it as a "lottery" and wants it changed/banned.

And that's the difference between Blood Doll (and other staple cards) and Giant's Blood. Now, I'm not saying this is a reason to ban/change Giant's Blood or anything, but comparing it to other cards that people play/ed a lot is kinda stupid. Hope you understand the difference this time.

Izaak wrote:

The biggest difference is, of course, that if I play a Blood Doll, everyone else still can do the same and reap the same benefits.

The comparison is totally wrong. It would make sense if Giant's Blood was once per Meth per game, but it's not.

It's a stupid lottery and has always been.

On the flip-side, the 'lottery' aspect was - in my view - intended to make the card hard to seriously abuse, in the sense that it becomes self-limiting. If everyone plays them, sometimes people will think "Nah, I'll use the card slot for something else instead", and it can wax and wane a little in popularity. If one player includes a metric assload of them in their deck, it's self-limiting there too. So there is - or, at least, should be - an incentive to think not only "How many of these do I include?" but also "Do I bother at all when it might not work? Or should I include it in my weenie Pander deck, just to screw other players?" etc.

When printed, it was relatively hard to abuse Giant's Blood. Now, yes, you could get more than one master phase action with Rumors of Gehenna or Anson (and later, the Parthenon). But it meant something of a lead time before you could do Minion Tap+Giant's Blood in one turn - a whole turn round the table when Anson first came out, similarly for Rumors, similarly for the Parthenon. (I guess with Rumors you could pass the vote on a Madness Network action, but again, more setup.)

So, you either had to do some reasonably specific build up for the card. Or you could whittle a vampire of your own down using a series of cards with a blood cost, and then top yourself back up. Both expose you to some sort of meddling potential - maybe not enough, but I don't think Giant's Blood was considered that problematic back in the day.

Today, the issue seems much more to be that you can extract a large amount of blood from a vampire and turn it into pool just by playing Villein + Giant's Blood. No required setup, just two cards.

So, if that is the issue, is the "right" fix to add text like:

KevinM wrote:

Notice that this is the EXACT same discussion that came about regarding Freak Drive, after Una was printed. FD was never a problem card, just highly-powered, and a vampire that should have never been printed took Freak Drive over the top and made it broken. In the same way, Giant's Blood was never a problem card, just highly-powered, and a library card that should have never been printed took GB over the top and made it broken.

Personally, I still don't think either Villein or Giant's Blood is broken, though both are very strong. Yes, they facilitate an "arms race" to see who can abuse it first, but approximately half of all large (20+ players) tournament winning decks these days feature no Villeins, and nearly 2 in 5 feature no Giant's Blood. The thing to do is for players to use Sudden Reversal and Wash more frequently. Those are the EASY solutions.

But to your point about Una, the vampire which facilitates brokenness more than any other these days is Aksinya Daclau. Her ability to burn a master card for bounce is ridiculous. Given that bounce is the best overall defense a deck can have, she doesn't even need to spend blood, tap, or play minion cards for her special. This means it is possible to stack your library with master cards that do not interact with other methuselah's minions, except uber broken Pentex Subversion. Master cards allow you to bloat (probably too well), but Aksinya allows you to ditch excess ones for a super strong ability.

It seems to me that Girls decks are going out of fashion these past couple months, at least with respect to winning big. People know to expect them and the metagame is turning against them a bit. But Villein facilitates large-capacity decks which normally wouldn't be able to function. Giant's Blood is more the icing on the cake, but playing with it involves some slight risk (that you won't be first).

The existence of Villein/Giant's Blood as a "combo" means that Parity Shift is also on a downswing. Large caps mean more titles which means it is harder to pass votes. When you play large caps, you are likely to play Villein which means you will frequently have more pool than your predator or prey which makes Parity Shift less attractive.

This is a good thing!

So yeah, Giant's Blood is *not* the problem.

If you're tired of the Giant's Blood lottery why not pack enough Suddens in your deck?