Balancing Ashur Tablets

M.Schumacher wrote:

If MMPA-Decks seem to be such a Problem, why not add a Card somewhat like this:

Incompetent Leadership
Unique Master.
Cost: 1 Pool
Only one Incompetent Leadership can be played in a game.
Put this Card in play. While you control this Card you may Play no more than one Master Card during your master Phase.
Tap this Card to cancel a non-out-of.turn
Master Card as it is played (No cost is paid).
If you tap this Card, put a Counter on it and your Predator takes control of it.
Burn this Card when it has 5 Counters.

If the table feels a MMPA Deck is harassing the table, it adds 4 Sudden Reversals
to the Table. It doesnt shut down MMPA per se, but helps to Keep it in Balance.
Not being able to Play more than 1 master Card while you control this Card prevents the MMPA deck to Play it and just Keep it all game.

Silver bullets are never an answer.

We can do one of three things:

Nothing, and see what happens.

Change the next strong card in a problem deck, which is now ashurs, in a way that makes it playable by non problem decks, and less broken in the problem.

Or

Change game rules or 2 library and 5 crypt cards to say you cannot gain any more master phases after you use the one provided by (anson, cybele, isanowyn, huitzilblahblahblah,nana,parthenon, or year of fortune).

Game rules wpuld be "you can onoy gain an additional mpa from one non trifle source a turn"

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Silver bullets are never an answer.

I feel its not a silver bullet. Its viable even if there are no MMMPA decks at the table. I would play it in a dem s&b deck since mpa tend to increase pool rather then reduce it. That way, fewer pool gain by all players lead to less time outs. It beeing useable to contain MMPA decks is merely a nice side effect.

This is a nercopost of a proper augment opposing ashurs. It is more salient any position I could take.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

Izaak wrote:

I have never actually seen a proper argument why they [Ashur Tablets] are broken.

Then I offer this for your consideration. It's lengthy, but you asked for a "proper argument."

There are 2 related aspects of library recursion that suggest brokenness.

First, V:tES is a card game. Intimately tied to the definition are common threads: the random draw of objects from a face-down, predefined set and the imperfect knowledge that results from that action.

Second, V:tES is structured for each player using 3 basic resources for play.

- pool as the global resource,
- crypt-based minions to act in one's playspace and
- library cards to connect resources and manipulate the playspace.

Its time to look at how Ashur Tablets can violate both of those fundamental design properties.

Ashur Tablets accesses a fourth resource, the Ash Heap. This resource is not innately available to every player. It seems reasonable to conclude that any player who accesses additional (valuable) resources might gain a strategic advantage.

This 4th resource either develops naturally or can be profitably grown. Beyond the cards used to access this resource, there is no opportunity cost in using it. Arguably, even that cost is offset by the 3 pool gain realized triggering a set of Ashur Tablets.

So far, we're up to free access to a resource not every player has. But since we haven't proven that resources is valuable, it is best to continue.

Some might suggest the Ash Heap is not an independent resource, but is completely redundant with the library. True in definition, not in practice. If Ashur Tablets read "shuffle your Ash Heap. Put 13 randoms cards from your Ash Heap into your Library," then it would be a truely redundant resource and I wouldn't be writing this post.

Selecting 13 tactically appropriate cards to return is a different matter. It significantly reconstructs a deck at point of use. We're using perfect knowledge of cards in the Ash Heap and reliable information about other player's minions and and his Ash Heap to rebuild a deck at point of use.

Ooops. Perfect knowledge (and solid inferences) in a game of imperfect knowledge. That seems like a strategic advantage in the hands of any capable player.

Large-scale recursion impacts card drawing probability. As fewer cards reside in the library, the probability of drawing desired cards (the situationally useful ones recurred) grows. Now we have further optimized the deck to any task immediately at hand.

That's messing with the random nature of drawing from a predefined set. Its not really pre-defined anymore. We're starting to stack the odds in our favor as the library empties.

Even when a deck is perfectly designed for the tasks at hand, variability in draws can affect its ability to perform. either immediately or some point in the future. We call it "clumping." Recursion can smooth variability in past card draws. Hit too many of card "X" in the first 1/4 of the deck......recur as needed to re-balance the set of available objects again.

Wait, isn't that counteracting risk of unfavorable permutations in drawing from a predefined set? And it creates a new set of a more favorable options for subsequent draws? Seems like a double whammy on the whole randomness aspect of the game.

The way I see it, we just ripped the fundamental fabric the game. Two for two now.

In short, hand-selected recursion undermines the reliance on one's library as one of the three primary resources, can smooth variability in draws. In extreme cases, it can transfer the focus of card flow into to "working the Ash Heap."

As an analogy, imagine playing poker and being able to draw your cards from a face-up muck¹. Immediately, you transform the probability of "hitting your draw" into a simple function of your ability to reach into the muck.

As the ease of recursion increases, the mechanic becomes increasingly broken. Nothing is easier than Imbued recurring Conviction. Second on the list is Ashur Tablets (MPA only, no clan or discipline requirement).

-Darby.

¹ The muck is the agglomeration of discards and folded hands in a game of poker.

Ankha: To counter some of your analysis of Darby.

Ankha wrote:

In fact, much of Darby's (argument) could be true with continuous recursion cards such as WMO. Not with one-shot Ashur Tablets.

Actually, for WMO to return 13 cards to the library requires at least 13 turns after a !Brujah has reached the ready region. That means it is at least a 14-turn proposition to recycle 13 cards to your library with WMO.

Darby's definitions of "VTES Resources" (as can be seen from other posts) are: Library Cards, Hand Cards, Minions, Pool, Blood/Life. In general Ashheap cards are not resources because once they reach that location, there are comparatively few interactions possible and most commonly it is to remove them from the ashheap out of the game. Allowing people to reuse ashheap cards converts the ashheap into a resource by allowing you to reinvest cards. This is part of the strength in the Liquidation + Ashur Tablets combination, because your cards 'lost' to Liquidation are actually only temporary losses (mostly losses of opportunity).

Ankha wrote:

The fact that 3 Ashur Tablets are required is a cost that is omitted here. ... You could put it the other way: the 3 pool would offset the 3 cards and MPA spent, leaving the "opportunity cost" un-offset.

The resource Darby is speaking of is ashheap cards. There is no opportunity cost in ashheap cards because in general they will remain there for the rest of the game and form part of the game's perfect knowledge source (i.e. you have perfect knowledge of the number of Card X in your ashheap). The opportunity costs all rest with Ashur Tablets, which is true of any other Master card that may be at risk because of others MPA choices.

Ankha wrote:

It starts becoming wrong. What does "free access" mean, since you need cards to access it? And what's wrong in the fact that only the player that plays that cards has access to it?

Free as in 'not locked away' rather than Free as in 'no price'. Darby is suggesting that Ashur Tablets allows us to access a resource that did not previously exist in the game (freeing the resource) and not that Ashur Tablets create a resource without cost.

So your connection with titled vampires is a non sequitur because all players must choose to have crypt cards in their crypt. The power and composition of those crypt cards is not a 'resource' Darby is using for this argument.

Ankha wrote:

"Rebuilding a deck" seems a bit excessive. In a 75-cards deck, supposing you've used already 30 cards, you'll put 12 back in the deck of 45 cards. ... (Maybe a Lost in Crowds I put back because my prey is playing intercept. Or an Ashur Tablets that will cripple my hand until the next master phase.)

When you build a deck you have created a set of probability ratios with a specific mix (i.e. there is X chance of drawing "Combat Card X" in my opening hand). This mix changes by necessity during a game, but that is while the deck is in play, not while the deck is being built. You are turning theoretical chances into measured chances as you play. Ashur Tablets allows you to redraw the probability set while you are also converting your theoretical chances to measured chances; in effect you can build the remainder of the deck to favour certain outcomes while you are playing the deck. This is 'rebuilding the deck'.

When most players test a deck for tournaments, they have a rough version that they play and adjust in and out cards until the deck suits the probabilities and events that appear most commonly. This happens between multiple games and effectively involves changing the probability set for the deck between games. Ashur Tablets allows deck testing changes to be made to a deck while you are playing the deck in a game.

The Perfect Knowledge Darby is speaking of is the composition of your own ashheap, the cards you could put back into your library with Ashur Tablets and how many other copies exist in your Library. The Inferences are the approximate number of copies of cards in an opponents deck based on their ashheap. "A game of imperfect knowledge" is just that... most of the time in VTES you don't know exactly what cards are in someone's hand, someone's library and so on.

Ankha wrote:

While the first sentence is true (though I disagree on the "large-scale" adjective), putting back cards in the library doesn't change the "random nature of drawing from a predefined set". The set has changed (but so does it when you play cards), but it's still random.

See above about adjusting internal probability during play. When another player uses Agaitas, Slaughterhouses, Le Din Tho/Revelations/Precision they are not editing the composition of the deck as it was when you sat down. They are depleting your resources (in all these cases card resources). They are not altering the mix of cards in your library but making those cards unavailable to you. If for instance there was a card which was "Choose a player and remove all copies of a named card from their Library" then that would be one which altered the pre-defined mix of cards.

Ankha wrote:

For something approaching perfect knowledge...

You mean you couldn't count your library cards face down, count how many copies of Majesty/Wash/Sudden Reversal/Immortal Grapple/Voter Captivation/KRC you were putting into the deck and then come up with at least approximate odds for drawing one off the top? You aren't also choosing those cards because you want them to appear more often?



So let's go for counter-tactics and alternative plots with things like Ashur Tablets and other 'continuous recycle' cards. Anthelios.

Anthelios lets me trade a resource in hand for a known resource in my ash-heap. Let's not choose one of the 'screamingly big ticket targets' and instead choose Golconda. Without assuming that I have MMPA...

If I can draw a master, in 2 turns I can play Golconda even if that is the only copy of Golconda in the deck.

If I draw Golconda early and I have Anthelios in the deck, then I can easily discard Golconda knowing that later I will be able to return it to my hand for something else I will find to be a dead card (i.e. Zillah's Valley, Villein, Fear of Mekhet, Fame, etc). My Golconda is in a known location (knowledge of it is perfect) AND I have a known mechanism to gain that resource back at the cost of 1 MPA and a dead master card I would have thrown out in my discard phase. My ashheap Golconda is a useful resource.

If I play multiple Golconda cards in my deck, and I find out that my prey is playing less-than-8-caps, then I can trade my 'dead Golcondas' for something more useful against my prey (Fame, Haven Uncovered, ToGP, etc, etc, etc). Then my Golconda cards are again, a resource instead of a dead card.

If I play cards such as Giant's Blood or Week of Nightmares, that are only playable once per game, I can discard an early copy of the card, intending to bring it back with Anthelios OR instead I can play the card knowing that later in the game I will be able to bring back other useful Masters from my ashheap with the extra Giant's Blood/WoN/etc I put in the deck to mitigate not drawing one early enough in the game. Either path gives me Perfect Knowledge of some sort (I will be able to XYZ...).


Another core component of VTES is resource depletion. You usually deplete your library into your ashheap with few ways to bring it back. Ashur Tablets breaks that aspect of the game quite thoroughly. So does Anthelios but to a lesser extent. If WMO's constant recursion was as powerful as claimed, it seems depressingly absent from TWDA.