Ban of Conditioning

We still got no indepth archetype analisys from ec 2016 but my general feeling is that ban of anthelious really made MMA decks much less annoying, but left them still quite playable.

So I think the way of "small bans" - removing not the "main part of the problem" and collaterally destroying several archetypes and meta, but removing supporting elements of "annoyance" is a workable way to go at the present state of the game.

Comes the 22 year old problem of "dominate is too good".

As was stated earlier, real tournament statistics does not show that it's "broken" (there are quite a lot powerful deck archetipes without dom), but it still is clearly the best discipline.

Problem for the game, as I see it, lies not in the status of "best" by itself - some discipline will be best anyway, but that it is best in both bleed and bleed defence.

There is suggestion flying around to solve this problem by giving bounce to everybody, but I don't think it's a good idea.

Alternative idea is to remove the card, which, I think, moves dom bleeds over the top - said conditioning.

It looks like very small change while we still got govern and deflection running (and threats), but by it we will reduce "bleed level" of action+modifier to 4/5 (dom/DOM) which by now can be achived with many other disciplines or discipline combinations.

So at deckbuilding stage dom will obviously be the first peak if we will need bounce or govern superior, but if we got other plans for a game, than we will not be pressed to still include it as a best possible offence.

Also lovering "max incoming bleed" (outside of obviously quite limited toreadors) for a 1 will be, as I think, good for the game in general - bloating/bleed reduction is presented as alternative way of defence and it will make it more viable, because now, as I think, it works not so good.

What do you think?

No.

Conditioning is badly needed as the only +2 bleed that does not require a superior discipline. The last thing the game needs is fewer ways to oust.

Non-existant user wrote:

Conditioning is badly needed as the only +2 bleed that does not require a superior discipline.

Govern, Mind Rape, Slautering the herd, Legal manipulations, Media Influence, Public Trust, Madman's Quil, Loss, Monkey Wrench...

elotar wrote:

As was stated earlier, real tournament statistics does not show that it's "broken" (there are quite a lot powerful deck archetipes without dom), but it still is clearly the best discipline.

I agree that tournament statistics don't tell us anything, and the reason why is that the statistics don't factor in player behavior. There's no real stakes to winning a tournament other than bragging rights and player rankings, and winning without dominate is more "prestigious" among players than wining with. Thus, the non-dominate archetypes become more competitive because people intentionally bring decks to tournaments without the dominate "crutch." Now, if a tournament had a $1 million USD cash prize, everybody would play dominate. I'm convinced that any questionable strategy with a dominate module can compete with any decent strategy without dominate.

Problem for the game, as I see it, lies not in the status of "best" by itself - some discipline will be best anyway, but that it is best in both bleed and bleed defence.

There is suggestion flying around to solve this problem by giving bounce to everybody, but I don't think it's a good idea.

Alternative idea is to remove the card, which, I think, moves dom bleeds over the top - said conditioning.

It looks like very small change while we still got govern and deflection running (and threats), but by it we will reduce "bleed level" of action+modifier to 4/5 (dom/DOM) which by now can be achived with many other disciplines or discipline combinations.

So at deckbuilding stage dom will obviously be the first peak if we will need bounce or govern superior, but if we got other plans for a game, than we will not be pressed to still include it as a best possible offence.

Also lovering "max incoming bleed" (outside of obviously quite limited toreadors) for a 1 will be, as I think, good for the game in general - bloating/bleed reduction is presented as alternative way of defence and it will make it more viable, because now, as I think, it works not so good.

What do you think?

I think that any move in a direction where the ability to remove pool is weakened will have the unintended effect of lengthening the game. And lengthening the game, I feel, is a bad idea. That's why I would favor introducing disciplineless bounce--perhaps also a bad idea for different reasons--over something like banning Conditioning.

Conditioning is not the problem, it's Govern the unaligned and deflection that makes Dominate superior to every other discipline. If you remove Govern, I think you will see a lot less dominate decks.

In my opinion Govern the unaligned is the best card in the game, it's so versatile. Its offensive, its defensive and it's crypt acceleration, what more do you need from one card.

If any dominate card has to go its Govern.