Balancing Ashur Tablets

Jeff wrote:

It is debatable whether master phase actions are to be considered outside of or separate from the natural gameflow.

Depends on what "natural game flow" is. To me it's what you and others do with their minions and cards that affect them. This flow is the heart of VTES and one should not diverge much from it (imo).

Villein, vessel and suchlike affect game flow directly, you gain pool but leave your vamp more vulnerable. There's a (theoretical) tradeoff.

AT and Liquidation are odd design wise, they don't interact with minions. Hence I view them to be outside of the natural game flow. In a game where the nitty gritty revolves around minions, cards like these can easily offset balance.

This is all academic mumbo jumbo however... Cards like AT are in the game and I agree that they should not be banned or errata-ed. Which leaves mitigation by adding cards that reduce their playability as originally designed. If a card has no direct interaction with minions, there should be direct interaction with other methuselahs, which means in the case of AT a race to get 3 on the table first.

Ashur wrote:

You can´t be serious? Do you think numerology should be taken into account when designing balanced cards for a a card game? What also, Jahve and chemtrails?

When appropriate, why not? You can design from a desired cost or a desired effect, one of which can be a target number that has some significance in the World of Darkness.

GreyB wrote:

Jeff wrote:

It is debatable whether master phase actions are to be considered outside of or separate from the natural gameflow.

Depends on what "natural game flow" is. To me it's what you and others do with their minions and cards that affect them. This flow is the heart of VTES and one should not diverge much from it (imo).

Villein, vessel and suchlike affect game flow directly, you gain pool but leave your vamp more vulnerable. There's a (theoretical) tradeoff.

AT and Liquidation are odd design wise, they don't interact with minions. Hence I view them to be outside of the natural game flow. In a game where the nitty gritty revolves around minions, cards like these can easily offset balance.

This is all academic mumbo jumbo however... Cards like AT are in the game and I agree that they should not be banned or errata-ed. Which leaves mitigation by adding cards that reduce their playability as originally designed. If a card has no direct interaction with minions, there should be direct interaction with other methuselahs, which means in the case of AT a race to get 3 on the table first.

Not all master cards interact with minions, that's why they are called "master" cards.

Ascendance is just one of many examples.

i see a lot of arguments and suggestions. but as i see most common concern is for 'almost endless recycling' and 'endless while in game adjusted' library.

keep liquidation as it is. it's needed for a quite more deck than just one or two Cybele versions.

Adjust the Ashur tablets - simply let triggered ashurs remove all cards in the asheap except of those magic 13 cards. and them with 15 cards gone and 13 returned you might not be a complete winner.

Asnek wrote:

i see a lot of arguments and suggestions. but as i see most common concern is for 'almost endless recycling' and 'endless while in game adjusted' library.

keep liquidation as it is. it's needed for a quite more deck than just one or two Cybele versions.

Adjust the Ashur tablets - simply let triggered ashurs remove all cards in the asheap except of those magic 13 cards. and them with 15 cards gone and 13 returned you might not be a complete winner.

Spot on about arguments, but......

Earlier (675 pages ago?) This thread, I weeded through the TWDA for non-ashurs decks using liquidation. There were a few shabmbler decks, a few sudario decks, some that used both in concert, a big IC vote deck and one gangrel deck with one copy.

Comparatively, there were about 14 billion ashurs decks using it. Its an Ashur enabler, but Ashurs are more broken, for sure. The same logic proving its only broken with ashurs prove its only broken with ashurs.

So, Ashurs recurring masters is a problem. Id kinda support it nuking ashheaps, but they still recur stuff like masters and events. Killimg whole heap helps some, but not completely.

To stop saying the same thing over and over again, maybe tablets either atay at 3 and dissallow playing more for that methuselah, or when one person hits 3, remove all other copies from play, leave the 3, and if you have 3 you cant play more (so, if someone else pops 3, yours burn and you can play more).

Just an idea.