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So...
You want to improve combat

- without improving its ability to kill minions
- by improving the way it stops other people playing their game
- but without stopping people playing their game
- and improve its defence without having to adopt the Path of the Salmon??

Make up your mind.

@Izaak: If I wanted to directly hit someone's pool without using combat... that's called a Bleed Deck or a Vote Deck... that's not a Combat Deck.



So to improve the survivability of Combat Decks (so that combat decks don't Path of the Salmon) they need to gain:

- ways to get intercept/defend against non-bleed actions
- ways to get untap
- ways to reduce bleed/reduce direct pool damage
- ways to get votes or cancel vote actions
- make bleeding by your predator more difficult
- ways to gain pool

while doing what they do (e.g. Combat).

At the moment, the only ways for a combat deck to win is to use the "3-Player Rule" which is to reduce the table to 3 players ASAP while surviving as long as possible and then obliterate the remaining vampires and bleed out the remaining two players (force them to concede). The easiest option for that is to Path of the Salmon your predator into a poolsack, then choose the deck you least want on the table at the end of the game (usually combat decks) and do what you can to facilitate them being ousted. Then in the final wrap up there is you and two other decks, so you destroy every minion on the table and win because nobody else has a ready minion.

Oh I've made up my mind quite readily.

I also think I've been pretty clear. For combat decks to become competitive, people need to stop putting 60 red cards in their deck and assume if they will just make everyone miserable they can somehow win. "Path of the Salmon" is just a cute term to justify an unreliable and game-ruining playstyle. Instead people should be able to devote cards and actions to ousting too. I refer to Eurobrujah here as a good combat deck because that deck usually only packs 30-ish combat cards. Of course that's all thanks to princes with dominate, so it just happens to work. Animalism tends to be competitive too, because animalism comes with assorted untap and intercept stuff, giving it some sort of defense.

*EVERY* other rush deck is just going to kill their predators minions and then hope the stars align. The problem is NOT people not being able to oust or kill minions. The problem is them SIMPLY DYING if they do anything but kill their predators guys.

Therefore, what combat needs is
a) More ways to not just fall over and die when their predators brings out Jackie
b) A way to stop their preys from gaining 11 billion pool

"Sending a Message" is a decent suggestion to address b), except that I still think it needs to be unique go into play and then provide an effect similar to Wash so you can get rid of that Villein or Lilith's Blessing. Any other way will make it strictly inferior to Bleeding the Vine and that cards basically never sees play.

To address a), there are plenty options. I can imagine a bounce card on, say, celerity that is only usable when one of your preys guys is in torpor. Or a reaction (potence?) that reduces a bleed for 2 for every combat card you discard (Look! A useful reduce card!). Be creative. Touch of Pain was a decent idea too, but because the inferior is just a bad version of the superior it ended up being a gimmicky card. It should have had "+1 bleed" at the inferior.

If you give combat/rush decks playable defense there will be less need to kill every minion and therefore less need to pack 60 red cards and thus more space for stuff that removes pool.

I don't think combat decks needs some special help. Last 2 years shows that such decks win a lot of tournaments. The only "problem" is that combat archetype is harder to play than f.e. stealth & bleed and at the same time is attractive for new players. As a result we have lot of not experienced players playing one of the more demanding archetypes. In hands of good player, combat decks are equally good (if not better, thanks to huge ability for table control) as other decks.

Generally Izaak, it sounds like you want to improve the "bruise" of a "bruise bleed" or a "bruise vote" deck. This is different to a combat deck. Eurobrujah work just perfectly without Theo Bell and by not really using anything other than Dominate and Prince titles. It's not really a combat deck.

A combat deck has combat as its primary method for ousting. That's why its a combat deck and NOT a Bruise-Bleed or a Bruise-Vote deck. So I don't understand the point of a); do you just mean Jackie Therman? Most combat decks should be able to deal with a single maneuver... if they can't then they are really quite badly built.

The few clans that are combat strong and defence weak are:

- Brujah/!Brujah
- Nosferatu/!Nosferatu
- Blood Brothers (with the exception of Gestalt)
- Assamites (who have a good lot of go-forward now they have Loss)
- City Gangrel
- Samedi

Brujah/!Brujah, Nosferatu/!Nosferatu and Blood Brothers could gain defence in Potence Cards, but these cards would need to be balanced against their other existing abilities. The Nos/!Nos do have Animalism which is one of the most versatile disciplines in the game and generally an excellent discipline.

Assamites have gained a fair amount of recent useful Qui cards, but Qui combat is unreliable, expensive and too dependent on the relatively weak mechanic of Contracts to make it any different from standard Rush combat.

Samedi have fairly inefficient combat and it has always been moderately disappointing, especially since the clan has 4 disciplines and tends to be difficult to build around (other than the Reanimated Corpse/Shambler type decks)

City Gangrel have three disciplines that directly feed into a number of clans with strong ousting and defence. Cel: Tor/!Tor, Osebo (they both need little additional defence). Obf: Malk/!Malk, Nos/!Nos (neither needs heaps of defence, other than !Nos). Pro: Gangrels don't generally need help via Protean since they get most of what they need from Animalism.


So, I'm not sure what you're trying to do here other than make cards that are not for "combat decks" but for "bleed/vote decks that use a lot of combat".

Generally Izaak, it sounds like you want to improve the "bruise" of a "bruise bleed" or a "bruise vote" deck. This is different to a combat deck. Eurobrujah work just perfectly without Theo Bell and by not really using anything other than Dominate and Prince titles. It's not really a combat deck.

Oh I see. a "combat" deck is, by your definition, a deck that does nothing but killing minions for your personal amusement and the fact that you destroy other people's enjoyment of the game is just collateral damage.

I thought most people had by now caught up on the fact that doing nothing but killing vampires doesn't make you win games similar to how most people are finally starting to realize that playing 50 reaction cards won't make you win games either.

A combat deck has combat as its primary method for ousting.

Yes and that's why it's utter shit. Combat doesn't kill pool other than the token Fame/Dragonbound. And it shouldn't. If killing minions was 50% as efficient pool damage as dropping KRCs or Conditionings, guess what V:TES would look like.

do you just mean Jackie Therman? Most combat decks should be able to deal with a single maneuver... if they can't then they are really quite badly built.

Jackie

I'm sure you can imagine the rest.

If you think a deck that has killing minions as its *only* gameplan needs to get better I guess we're done discussing. You are asking a decktype that fucks up tables and generally makes it a waste of two hours for at least 3 people at the table to become better. I'll pass for that.

So, I'm not sure what you're trying to do here other than make cards that are not for "combat decks" but for "bleed/vote decks that use a lot of combat".

I see. A "deck that uses a lot of combat cards" is not a combat deck. I guess a "deck that has a lot of bleed cards" is also not a bleed deck?

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

A combat deck has combat as its primary method for ousting. That's why its a combat deck and NOT a Bruise-Bleed or a Bruise-Vote deck.

Bunching all combat decks that don't oust with combat into the Bruise and Bleed category is misleading. Traditionally, B&B has been used to signify decks that are focused on bleeding/voting and fighting if blocked. This definition doesn't apply to decks that are focused on rushing and using bleeds for ousting.