chi dem card idea

Molloy wrote:

The action to burn the card shouldn't be directed without some rewording, since the card will be controlled by the methuselah whose minion it's on.

I'm not sure you really made the inferior stronger. Probably you did, but the possibility of triggering the pool loss the same turn as the placing of the Fixations was worth something.

Well, it needs to be so that a minion controlled by another Methuselah can burn the Fixation for you. Actions you take at your own minions become undirected by rule.

Do you mean that in a deck that has 4 or 8 of these they'd be better replaced with Kindred Spirits and Confusion, or that a straight up DEM bleed deck (which wouldn't bother with mid- or high- cap Ravnos) will be a better deck than one built to use this?

The former. I think DEM is very strong and it is hard to justify including anything other than Kindred Spirits and Confusion in such a deck. This says more about the strength of KS as opposed to Fixation. Perhaps if the card were a bit more useful still...

Fixation

1
+1 stealth action
: Put this card on an ally or younger vampire controlled by your predator or prey and tap that minion. The minion with this card must burn 1 blood or life to attempt to block. Any minion may burn this card as a action that costs 1 blood. A minion may have only one Fixation.
: Tap all minions with Fixation. Any minion with a Fixation may attempt to block this action. Each Methuselah burns one pool for each minion they control tapped in this way.

Made it cost 1 blood to burn Fixation. Allowed it to be put on your predator's minions and also gave them the chance to take some pool damage.

Made me look up some other Dementation cards which don't often see play. The superior for Total Insanity is pretty darn strong--can't play action cards for 3 turns!! Considering that a typical deck uses between 12-25 action cards, that is quite significant. Almost completely hoses politics.

Jeff wrote:

Well, it needs to be so that a minion controlled by another Methuselah can burn the Fixation for you. Actions you take at your own minions become undirected by rule.

You have the directed action rules backwards. The presence or absence of on a card determines nothing, allows nothing and prohibits nothing.

The terms of the action state who can take it - "any minion", "another Methuselah's minion", "this vampire", "another minion you control", "any ready Malkavian". The terms of the action define the target(s). At that point, you can then determine whether the action is directed or not (and therefore who is eligible to block by default).

The presence or absence of the "" typically indicates whether LSJ (or whoever) thought the default use of the card was likely to be against yourself or others. This can cause some unexpected outcomes - the symbol on Temptation can lull people into thinking it's only an offensive card, when its use on your own minions is potentially just as strong. (And though its creation predates LSJ, it's been left on it through multiple reprints.)



Additionally, "Actions you take at your own minions become undirected by rule" is somewhat overbroad. If you - for example - play Wave of Insanity (superior) while you control an ally and I control an ally, the action is directed at me - even though it also targets your own minions.

Jeff wrote:

Made me look up some other Dementation cards which don't often see play. The superior for Total Insanity is pretty darn strong--can't play action cards for 3 turns!! Considering that a typical deck uses between 12-25 action cards, that is quite significant. Almost completely hoses politics.

It's cool, but it's only effective against younger vampires. That's a pretty serious limitation for this sort of card. Still, with multi-acting, it might be worth playing...