Make Big-Caps Better

AaronC wrote:

Is the issue that you like the vampire and would like to be able to use it effectively? Since he has , a wall deck may be the way to go, and unfortunately, I think it is the only way with him and some other large caps. If you can't multi-act, you can multi-block, which in this game is very close to the same thing.

Great point. Apparently poor discipline spreads force people to innovate if they want to use a particular vampire, which is good for the game. I don't want to be obliged to put Freak Drive into every single deck that features a high cap vampire.

Well, you can do Enkil Cog shenanigan with Von Bauren, since he can play Sense the Savage way and you can untap him with, say, Metro Underground. And he have to make thoses bleed count, in addition to be successful with stealth.

DeathInABottle wrote:

Apparently poor discipline spreads force people to innovate if they want to use a particular vampire, which is good for the game. I don't want to be obliged to put Freak Drive into every single deck that features a high cap vampire.

As it stands, I have never even tried to use Van Bauren. With his sucktastic special (You may use a discard phase action to discard a card at random from your predator or prey's hand) and bad discipline spread, I am not sure I ever will (except as a Spell of Life mummy, I suppose). He's just not good enough.

brandonsantacruz wrote:

As it stands, I have never even tried to use Van Bauren. With his sucktastic special (You may use a discard phase action to discard a card at random from your predator or prey's hand) and bad discipline spread, I am not sure I ever will (except as a Spell of Life mummy, I suppose). He's just not good enough.

Let's agree that his discipline spread is horrible (even of one may argue that they are way worse offender, like Elimelech which sorely need or even simply ).

Do it mean he should be playable simply because he is 11-cap ?

If you agree that bad 11-cap can exist, the question is whether "reasonable" 10-cap and 11-cap need help. I am not sure of that ; after all, Cailean is pretty useable, as are a lot of high cap princes.

brandonsantacruz wrote:

DeathInABottle wrote:

Apparently poor discipline spreads force people to innovate if they want to use a particular vampire, which is good for the game. I don't want to be obliged to put Freak Drive into every single deck that features a high cap vampire.

As it stands, I have never even tried to use Van Bauren. With his sucktastic special (You may use a discard phase action to discard a card at random from your predator or prey's hand) and bad discipline spread, I am not sure I ever will (except as a Spell of Life mummy, I suppose). He's just not good enough.

Fair enough, and in this case, I agree with you: Van Bauren's terrible, and there's nothing in his discipline spread or special that makes him worth playing. (Adding DEM to a clan that already has OBF doesn't make for an interesting vampire. The generic +1 bleed/+1 stealth isn't enticing either.) He's just badly designed. But in other cases an interesting special + an unconventional discipline spread should be able to entice me to build a deck around a vampire who otherwise can't multi-act or bounce (Adana, Cybele, Yong-Sun, etc). It's an interesting challenge.

brandonsantacruz wrote:

As it stands, I have never even tried to use Van Bauren. With his sucktastic special (You may use a discard phase action to discard a card at random from your predator or prey's hand) and bad discipline spread, I am not sure I ever will (except as a Spell of Life mummy, I suppose). He's just not good enough.

At one time or another, I've had every 11 cap in the game in play. I'm fairly sure that can't be said for every other capacity.

That there is a problem with high caps that aren't worth the cost is something I can agree with. But, that's also a problem with non-high caps. Vampires are just not balanced. A lot of that has to do with disciplines - whether a vampire has Dominate or not, for instance. Because of diminishing returns with additional disciplines, high caps are often unbalanced due to other features, like titles that aren't remotely balanced or special abilities that get increasingly unusual.

Singling out Josef seems odd, just as many other arguments based on a single example are problematic. But, the greater issue with blanket increases in power is that they affect things that shouldn't be powered up. This is a key issue when designing cards, by the way. Intentions might be good in powering up underplayed cards or strategies, but unintentional consequences lead to powering up better cards and strategies to where nothing was gained in terms of adding value to what was intended. Similarly, hosers run into this problem all of the time going the other way - try to hose something annoying and end up hitting a bunch of stuff that doesn't deserve being hosed.

One way to power up the weak without benefiting the strong is to give the weak something all of the strong already have. Not that all of the strong necessarily have the same abilities, so it's not that straightforward, nevermind that if everybody can do the same things, the variety in the game is lessened.