How do you play Temptation of Greater Power?

1. Good target?

As a famous Italian player, notorious for shoehorning the card into every single one of his decks once told me: "I never actually got better from using it on anyone but my prey, and everytime I try, I still end up losing".

Stealing vote vampires from accross the table is AWFUL advice. Stealing someone's first vampire is also AWFUL advice because in both cases you will NEVER win the auction anyway. "Pay 3 pool to screw someone over crosstable". If that's your gameplan you should probably play mindless smash-rush.

See, the vampire's owner will *always* bid for it and will always bid more than you are willing, or able to pay. As a result you make the game easier for somebody that is not you and thus less likely to win. If you happen to have more pool then them, they will just bid his pool +5 because you just made them lose crosstable.

You use ToGP on your prey. 99,99% of the time. And for the 0,01% you should use it elsewhere, if you're at that point where you can make that decision, you don't need a guide on how to play the card.

Prey. Always prey. Your goal is to oust him. If you are the one getting an extra vampire from ToGP, you are playing with goldfish.

(This all assumes you are not already totally dominating the table in the first place, because all ToGP does then, is speeds up the game, which might be nice to prevent a time-out, but the card doesn't really have any strategic value at that point any longer)

Izaak wrote:

Prey. Always prey. Your goal is to oust him. If you are the one getting an extra vampire from ToGP, you are playing with goldfish.

Not necessarily. You can afford to get your pool lower than anyone else on the table because you have a turn to follow to recoup some of it, whereas everyone else must account for their predator's turn that comes before theirs.

I still agree with your advice, though: always on someone you want ousted now, so usually your prey.

Izaak wrote:

As a famous Italian player, notorious for shoehorning the card into every single one of his decks once told me: "I never actually got better from using it on anyone but my prey, and everytime I try, I still end up losing".

I totally share the view of this unknown wise player

This kind of reminds me of bleeding with Kindred Spirits. The trick is to sell fear all over the table, forcing deals favourable to you. You want to play this on your prey, but have to be always on a lookout for alternative targets. When you are damaging someone else's prey, you better get something more significant than either making him loose pool, or paying a significant cost for a chump blocker with possibly neat special and lame ability spread.