Fortitude reaction card

Klaital wrote:

I don't really see why fortitude would need more defense. Pretty much every clan that has fortitude has good enough defenses from their other discplines/clan cards already. Lets take a look...

Akunanse: Intercept from Animalism
Blood Brothers: Bloat with Sanguinus
Daughters of Cacophony: Bloat from votes and Presence
Gangrel: Intercept from Animalism
Gargoyles: Intercept from clan cards and Visceratika, bleed reduction from Visceratika, usually played with tremere who have bounce from Dominate.
Harbingers: Intercept and bounce from Auspex
Ravnos: Intercept from Animalism and Chimerstry
Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex, bloat from Obeah (namely renewed vigor + villeins)
!Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex
Samedi: Bloat from clan cards (Little Mountain Cemetery and Off-Kilter)
Ventrue: Bloat from votes and Presence, bounce from Dominate.
!Ventrue: Bounce and intercept from Auspex, bounce from Dominate.

Did I forget anything? As you see, every clan with fortitude has defensive options, not everyone needs the exact same ones.

What I see is the problem with the decks that dont use dominte or auspex have a tendency to make defence or bloat the sole or large purpose of the decks and that in itself limits its offensive capabilities. Creating a card that allows a deck to use "fast" defence in the form of say a larger reduce I think is what is needed to "up" decks that dont use dom or aus.

I also have discussed the for reduce with Adam and Isak and i think that this version should be considderd

Mind of Steel (name stolen from Adam)
Reaction
1 blood
[for] Reduce a bleed against you by X, where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Tap this reacting vampire.
[FOR] As above, but do not tap this vampire. And if you reduce the bleed by 4 or more your prey burns one pool.

The biggest strength with deflects is that its offensive and defensive. And I think that prey burning one pool is not to powerful...

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@Dorrinal
I expect to see all of your decks as Weenie decks, Malk '94, Lasombra/Kiasyd/Gio Powerbleed and maybe even mix it up with a Kindred Spirits deck... since apparently everything else in an inferior card and not worth playing.

I meant in the context of this thread. There are certainly cards that are weaker than Deflection, yet are played often in successful decks. None of the suggestions in this thread are even that good.

I basically agree with Klaital. I think when building a deck using high-capacity minions without / then you need to figure out how to defend your pool from giant bleeds without bounce. And for you direwolves and juggernauts out there who like variety, think about it: Deflection is boring! It's so strong you just put 7 in and call it good! Why do you want another discipline to have a similar card? Do you want every deck's reactions to look the same?

What makes Eurobrujah good? 2 combat disiplines, Princes and Dominate
What makes Lasombra/Kiasyd bleed good? Stealth and Dominate
What makes Giovanni bleed good? Block fails and Dominate
What makes Malk 94 good? Stealth and Dominate
What makes Kindred Spirits Bleed good? Stealth and Bloat-by-bleeding


Many of the 'stable frequently winning' decks have far-more-often-than-not used Dominate. While I don't think that we should create "Flick for Potence" I do think that options should be created to counter specifically the obvious over-powered nature of Dominate.

As a point, people rarely 'graft in' Animalism, Auspex, Celerity or almost any other discipline. They might want to put a few discipline masters/Sanguine Instructions into a deck to make the core mechanic of the deck work. But I have more than once seen people put in Dominate masters so they can play 6-8 Deflections.

Dorrinal wrote:

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

@Dorrinal
I expect to see all of your decks as Weenie decks, Malk '94, Lasombra/Kiasyd/Gio Powerbleed and maybe even mix it up with a Kindred Spirits deck... since apparently everything else in an inferior card and not worth playing.

I meant in the context of this thread. There are certainly cards that are weaker than Deflection, yet are played often in successful decks. None of the suggestions in this thread are even that good.

I basically agree with Klaital. I think when building a deck using high-capacity minions without / then you need to figure out how to defend your pool from giant bleeds without bounce. And for you direwolves and juggernauts out there who like variety, think about it: Deflection is boring! It's so strong you just put 7 in and call it good! Why do you want another discipline to have a similar card? Do you want every deck's reactions to look the same?

Is this what you're agreeing with?

Klaital wrote:

I don't really see why fortitude would need more defense. Pretty much every clan that has fortitude has good enough defenses from their other discplines/clan cards already. Lets take a look...

Akunanse: Intercept from Animalism
Blood Brothers: Bloat with Sanguinus
Daughters of Cacophony: Bloat from votes and Presence
Gangrel: Intercept from Animalism
Gargoyles: Intercept from clan cards and Visceratika, bleed reduction from Visceratika, usually played with tremere who have bounce from Dominate.
Harbingers: Intercept and bounce from Auspex
Ravnos: Intercept from Animalism and Chimerstry
Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex, bloat from Obeah (namely renewed vigor + villeins)
!Salubri: Intercept and bounce from Auspex
Samedi: Bloat from clan cards (Little Mountain Cemetery and Off-Kilter)
Ventrue: Bloat from votes and Presence, bounce from Dominate.
!Ventrue: Bounce and intercept from Auspex, bounce from Dominate.

Did I forget anything? As you see, every clan with fortitude has defensive options, not everyone needs the exact same ones.

For the AUS and DOM clans I'm sure we can all agree that they are fine with bleed defense. For the other clans you argue that either bloat (Con. Boon for Daughters and the Clan actions for Samedi) or intercept will keep them alive. I can't but agree. Well, I could disagree, since dominate and obfuscate will chew threw them in no time in my experience. But this could be a point of contention, so I'll stick to another argument.

Namely that a deck which can survive with these clans or the disciplines will be an utterly useless deck. Bloat actions and intercept require so much of it to actually guarantee your survival, your deck will be left totally toothless. I realized this when I tried playing an animalism block deck a few years back. A full-on wall deck which' only strategic point was to block people and put them in torpor. Yeah, now that I am a much wiser V:TES player this sounds ludicrous. Whether or not this deck managed to survive doesn't even matter because it can't win a game within 2 hours. The story is the same for many a deck. As I always say "Any moron can build a deck which cannot die". For these clans the only way to make them widely competitive is to give them a card-efficient way of surviving bleeds. What you're proposing is not card-efficient. It gives the decks in question no room for creativity or strategy.

Paranoic Vigilance
[reaction]
Only usable by a tapped vampire.
[for] Reduce bleed by 1. -- defence
[FOR] As above, and put this card on reacting vampire. He can burn this card to untap. -- defence+offence