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I agree with lot of your points Izaak but I don't think it's so much players fault to bring combat decks that wrecks the whole table and makes games miserable. I see that as big design flaw in game. Combat should be way to make your minions drop your preys pool easier. Now it doesn't work like that so well or it works very slowly. Stealth with bleed is so much more efficient. It is like minion destruction and pool damage is too totally separate things and new players usually just focus on minions destruction.

I also understand excitement with combat for new players. Combat phase is very often the most applying phase. It is cool to punch things, throw cars and shoot guns. Combat is very interactive. It is boring to play 2 cards and make your prey to lose 6 counters. I feel casual vtes in here is about combat and many understand that there is difference between tournament and casual vtes. It is important to know what kind of metagame you are expecting. Problems arise when somebody brings full combat to tournament to mess tables or DEM weenies to full combat table and gets smacked totally after 1 VP.

Combat needs way to do pool damage and defend pool and I think we need new cards for that. Now only dominate is very good for defense and offence. Minion damage and pool damage shouldn't two different play styles. Bleed should still be the oust method for combat not instant pool damage by combat. I wouldn't mind see card like:

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Combat
Only playable after a combat when a minion opposing a ready vampire you control is no longer ready.
Put this card on the vampire you control. The next time this vampire successfully bleeds the minions controller, burn this card for +2 bleed.

Combat needs way to do pool damage and defend pool and I think we need new cards for that.

Defend pool, ye I agree.

Do pool damage, I disagree. If people can kill minions and *also* do pool damage with the same set of cards, the only deck option at competitive games will be to ALSO play combat simply because if you don't, your game will get ruined and you will ALSO get ousted. If anything there needs to be LESS incentive for people to just blow up stuff and MORE incentive to actually try and win.

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Combat
Only playable after a combat when a minion opposing a ready vampire you control is no longer ready.
Put this card on the vampire you control. The next time this vampire successfully bleeds the minions controller, burn this card for +2 bleed.

This is wallpaper. Any +2 bleed modifier is strictly better and most clans have some sort of discipline that gives the access to +bleed actions or modifiers.

I'd even argue Computer Hacking and Leverage are better than this.

Izaak wrote:

Defend pool, ye I agree.

Do pool damage, I disagree. If people can kill minions and *also* do pool damage with the same set of cards, the only deck option at competitive games will be to ALSO play combat simply because if you don't, your game will get ruined and you will ALSO get ousted. If anything there needs to be LESS incentive for people to just blow up stuff and MORE incentive to actually try and win.

It is better game to be ruined and ousted. I hate when combat doesn't allow me to play VTES. I have sit over hour many times as pool buffer in tournaments. That is case where I see self ousts too. Combat decks wreck his predator and he self ousts out of boredom. We need cards to defend combat decks pool which is not about destroying your predators minions. But if you are planning to cripple your preys vampires back rush is the best option for defense because you don't need extra cards for that.

I see best thing would be make combat a way to win also. There will be full combat decks in tournaments no matter what. Fact is that combat is just cool deck to play for majority. With some more focused oust cards they will at least win games and not make somebody else win.

Also I'm not so big fan of combat and how it is designed in vtes. I feel vampire: combat and normal vtes are almost different games. Combat phase is also the most complex thing in game but it doesn't add much to game at all as win condition. Combat is like minigame inside other game.

It is better game to be ruined and ousted.

Not really. At the moment it takes some effort, clever play and solid deck design to win with combat decks. Unfortunately only a few clans/discipline combo's allow the construction of such a deck.

Clever play and deck design do NOT include adding 60 assorted red cards to your library and whacking stuff into oblivion. If there would be a disciplineless Hell for Leather V:TES would be one big mess. I mean, sure, combat is poorly designed in V:TES and always has been . Fixing it, however, will just make everything else redundant.

I think Scott's design intent over the last few sets has been more and more "combat stealth" than "combat Conditioning". Ie, steering away from having combat kill pool and more towards using combat as a viable delivery system. Unfortunately, the problem that has always shoehorned people into just killing their predators remained: you just can't defend your pool.

In general I'd go as far and say that the game as a whole is lacking generic defensive options that are worth playing. That's not hurting rush decks specifically, but it's keeping the metegame stagnant. I'm convinced that, for example, if Lost in Translation didn't have the totally unneccesary "younger" clause on it, it'd actually see play and there would be a LOT more variety in what you meet at tournaments.