Card Idea: Old Tricks

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Choose a card in your predator's ashheap. Remove X copies from the game out of their ashheap and burn X-1 blood.

One problem with this is that some of the most powerful strategies can be the most diverse - the Malkavians/!Malkavians can play a dozen different stealth cards. By contrast, a deck with a stealth component for a non-Obfuscate clan may find itself having fewer stealth cards in a deck in total, but focused around one or two cards.

Similarly, the strongest bleed decks (Dom, Dem in particular, maybe Pre) have many options for pushing bleed. Other clans/disciplines may find themselves focused on one or two bleed modifiers/actions.

Vote push is in a slightly different situation in that there isn't all that much diversity in a lot of decks - Presence does slightly better in terms of number of sources, and massively better in terms of number of votes, but it's not usually on the same scale of diversity as Obfuscate stealth.


And, while it might be thematically appropriate to be able to smack a Vicissitude stealth-er around more easily than an Obfuscate stealth-er, or a Samedi using Trochomancy getting screwed up more than a Ventrue Dominate user, it doesn't seem good for the game. For me, the problem is that this seems to potentially hit Tier 2 decks much harder than a similarly purposed Tier 1 deck that has more options.

I'm thinking that the decks it will hit hardest are:

Weenie Dem Bleed
Low-to-Mid Kindred Spirits
Weenie Pre Voters
Low-to-Mid Dom Bleed

and the more 'narrow' card selection decks.

I think it's awful.

The X-1 bloodcost is just horrific and makes the card unplayable in multiples, which is the entire point. Playing it for only 1 card is weak at best, which I suppose it set off by its versatility, but why aren't you just playing 2nd trad and/or animalism intercept or ani/obf vote stuff. That's free, more reliable as well as stronger.

Also, it potentially introduces a negative anount of votes.

And, as always, the question is: "what deck would I play this in?" Given the context of Nosferatu decks in general, I really think this is a card on the level of Stealth Ritus. Reasonable idea, useless execution making it wallpaper.

I can see you not wanting to make a card too strong, but realize it has to compete with cards like 2nd Trad / Cat's Guidance /Sense the Savage Way among other commonly seen reaction cards in Nosferatu based decks.

Izaak wrote:

Also, it potentially introduces a negative anount of votes

That already exists in the game. Fabrizia Contreraza (has a title and potentially 0 votes), during a Free States Rant. Stack Beyond Reproach. Stack Rastacourere.

It's not a problem. Fewer than zero votes is just "zero votes" when actually tallied. This is in the same way that reducing a bleed for one by two is tracked to -1 (for when the minion plays a bleed mod), but if it resolves for -1, it doesn't actually give the target pool.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

I'm thinking that the decks it will hit hardest are:

Low-to-Mid Kindred Spirits
Low-to-Mid Dom Bleed

Both of whom have many more options - and thus potentially many fewer duplicates - than:

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

the more 'narrow' card selection decks.

They can, and often do, include a diverse range of mid-cap stealth, in order that they can stack it. Typically, it's better to have Lost in Crowds, Cloak the Gathering and Faceless Night in hand so you can play all three when necessary, rather than three of one. Similarly, when your Conditioning gets DI-ed, it's nice to have Threats as a good backup which you can play.

In many cases, the more narrow selection is being employed by decks that are already having a hard time - because that's all they have available.


When the Tier 1.5/2 deck comes through from being my grand-predator, it has a lot of the same card in its ash heap. So I can potentially nuke its moderate bleeds easily, and when it tries to lunge with a large bleed, I can nuke that. When the tier 1 Obf+Dom/Dem deck does the same, it's bleeding for way more (typically) and it can have many fewer duplicates in its ash heap, if constructed by a thoughtful Methuselah. So when it finally lunges for 10 (Govern + Conditioning + Foreshadowing + Pentex Loves You or whatever), I might be able to burn 3-4 blood and get rid of all three-to-four prior copies of Conditioning from the ash heap. When the weaker deck lunges for less, I'll be able to kill it more.


Weenie decks (Dem/Dom especially, obviously) are slightly different, but can still often manage to be more diverse than a much weaker discipline - just because their disciplines are so strong.



If you want to cause potential grief for big boring bleeders and Presence voters, that's cool. (Well, it could be.) But I think a more targeted approach would be better.

Though record keeping could be annoying, you could look at repetition within one turn - so it's not just "playing one card quite a few times in a deck" but "playing it quite frequently". So when your grand-predator swoops in with a deck that's calling one vote a turn (so as 6 or 7 Bewitching Orations in its ash heap), you can't shut its votes down so easily. But when your predator kicks off with weenie Presence and calls 3 in one turn, you can. Similarly, the grindy wall deck that bleeds once or twice a turn for a moderate amount is less likely to get smacked around than the Malkavian deck bleeding for 6 each action.


Could hit a weenie deck playing mucho, mucho Threats. Similarly, Bewitching Oration. Similarly, Una Freak Drive, or some other multi-acting monstrosity that just takes over the entire table's play time. Less likely to hit the wall that pushes a mid-range bleed through once a turn. Maybe. (Costs and other restrictions not really bothered with - say, "ally or younger vampire" or a blood cost or whatever - since I'm more interested in the purpose than the balance right now.)