Meta-Shift: How about "Capacity Limits Bleed Maximum"?

TapeTaChatte wrote:

What if we had vampire capacity be its bleed maximum (any overage is ignored)?

To be frank, in top tournaments, I don't think I have seen any vampire not respect that that I can think about, there are occasionnally some weenie bleed decks with weenie dem and weenie dom, but they are not dominating as you seem to think they are.

So for me, it would pretty much not change anything

Mathematically speaking, dominate powerbleed decks and malk 94 are the ones most likely to bleed for 7, and it's a 5 to 7 cap doing it, because of how much blood you spend by the time you draw command of the beast in most decks and that you want (in malk 94) to be able to spying mission it if need be.
Keith Moody can of course get sent in on a bleed of 7, but is prone to being blocked.
Otherwise, dementation bleeds for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 with basic quill

DJHedgehog wrote:

I like this idea. It gives power to larger vampires who desperately need it, and it limits the power of swarm decks.

There are probably some unforeseen consequences of this change that I'm not considering.

Some X and Bleed decks, particularly Bruise and Bleed decks, may well lose out, as they're often the sort of decks that like to get one or two big bleeds through occasionally, rather than a smattering of smaller bleeds. That might also include some versions of grinders and intercept walls too, which may like to lunge occasionally with a combination of action+action modifier with a weenie-to-midbie helper.

Swarm decks tend not to get hurt by things like this - they can adapt to a play of Protected Resources fairly easily, in most circumstances, which is functionally very similar for them. They can certainly do so if Protected Resources is prevalent in an environment and so they can adjust their deck to compensate. Bleeding for 2 with 6 minions is still bleeding for 12 a turn. Maybe less impressive than stacking up heavy bleed mods onto a weenie, but still very powerful - and sometimes actually more sustainable, as blood management can be greatly simplified.

So the meta seems unshifted by this. As the issue seems to be the same mid-caps power bleeding through the same basic dom cards in the TWDA, and the only real defense that is fast enough (or frequent enough) is an available minion with basic dom Deflection to counter it, also in the TWDA.

Got it. Same story, new decade. Game is frozen until it democratizes bounce into other basic disciplines equal to the power of Deflection. Thanks for the confirmation guys!

Except that isn't even remotely true. It is true that Dominate is very powerful, but it for sure isn't the end-all discipline. The Ropecon 2018 finals had Ventrue Sticks (Dominate, but with a combat package), Nephandi (Dominate only for bounce, basically), Emerald Legionnaire (no Dominate), Goratrix wall (no Dominate - the support minions don't even have it) and Huitzi (Dominate for bounce and Mind Rape).

None were mid-caps power bleed.

The same goes for 2017 EC - no Dominate power bleed. Otherwise super strong decks of course though.

I would urge you guys to stop painting devils on the walls. Dominate is strong, but it is not problematic. The meta diversity, seems to me, has never been healthier than at the moment.

Of course Warsaw will prove me either wrong or right, and that's very, very soon.

~psyched!!

Krausedit\\ Just wanted to add, that Dominate is the "easy switch", or "easy mode" or VtES, alongside with the most one-dimensional Dementation bleed. That doesn't make it automatically the winner. It's up to you, as players and deck builders, to figure out how to deal with Dominate. And "more Dominate" for sure isn't the only, or even the best, answer.

Kraus wrote:

I would urge you guys to stop painting devils on the walls. Dominate is strong, but it is not problematic. The meta diversity, seems to me, has never been healthier than at the moment.

Of course Warsaw will prove me either wrong or right, and that's very, very soon.

~psyched!!

Krausedit\\ Just wanted to add, that Dominate is the "easy switch", or "easy mode" or VtES, alongside with the most one-dimensional Dementation bleed. That doesn't make it automatically the winner. It's up to you, as players and deck builders, to figure out how to deal with Dominate. And "more Dominate" for sure isn't the only, or even the best, answer.

The global meta is in a state where Harbingers of skulls can win tournaments. If that doesn't speak volumes to diversity of viable decks I'm not sure what could, other than a 3 way contest of Ferox (Alabastrom is so good Ferox is barely playable in his niche now... )

"Everything is better with Dominate " is the old saying. Ways to penalize use of dominate will be captivating design space for later sets.

It's hard to say what access people have to cards. If people are playing with mostly the old sets, Dominate will seem more bloated than it is.Again, there is a reason that people only go for the +2 Conditioning and not the +3. The danger of Archon Investigation being played by anyone that happens to be feeling bored at the table is very real and stepping into that danger zone without the ability to cancel it isn't worth that extra +1.

Straight Dom bleed is also unimaginative. Sort of like Kine Resources Contested spam decks. They are stepping stone designs that hopefully most people grow out of.