Submission - Delusions of Grandeur (anti-villein vote moves back pool to vampires)

Kiddo wrote:

Kraus wrote:

The next question, however, is if it's better than Kine Resources Contested.

I'd say it's not even close to KRC, as it is now.

With all those requirements (playable by a titled vamp (which I don't mind), only playable on a titled vamp (which i think is too restricting)) and considering that it is at max a 5 pool loss, which can be retrieved...i like the card, but truth be told, I'd just rather play even more KRCs instead of this one. Don't make another Auto-da-Fe card - nice concept, not worth it.

Yeah, I thought so too after I last typed in the target restriction... A picture of a KRC flashed through my eyes, and I felt a bit numb. A KRC would be just better. Sad.

Ankha wrote:

But I want to trump a Circle of Doom deck, not a 11-star deck

Why? What makes you think that Augustus Giovanni deserves to be hit for full but not Enkidu? Why Anson but not Nana? Why Zayyat the Sandstorm but not the Girls or Huitzilopchtli? With your tiled requirement, you leave aside some of the worst Villein abusers and you still hit a lot a of terrible vampires.

There are good vampires and there are bad vampires.
There are good big cap vampires and there are bad big cap vampires.
There are good titled big cap vampires and there are bad titled big cap vampires.
There are good untitled big cap vampires and there are bad untitled big cap vampires.

Your card is not the place to fix such unbalances: bad vampires will not suddenly become good just because they are not affected. But even if it was, you would not fix anything unless you list the targets by names. Don't add a random requirement that is just making things more complicated.

Non-existant user wrote:

Why? What makes you think that Augustus Giovanni deserves to be hit for full but not Enkidu? Why Anson but not Nana? Why Zayyat the Sandstorm but not the Girls or Huitzilopchtli? With your tiled requirement, you leave aside some of the worst Villein abusers and you still hit a lot a of terrible vampires.

Oh, because it's well known that the main target are not the titled one. Stop the hypocrisie one moment : the worse one are almost all titled, and the Inner Circle are significantly worse on average. Yes, it may also hit bad titled vampires. Too bad for them.

Ohlmann wrote:

Azel wrote:

Low and mid caps don't need any more reasons to be better. Let the pool slough off into the blood bank.

Concerning mid cap, I am of the opposite opinion completely. That's linked to metagame and personnal taste, but it does color opinions.

That's nice, but my Anarch experience finds most of them are generally solid and even w/o Anarch-ness they help round out crypts. Large caps either have outstanding members or members that stand outside of decks; far more hit or miss for construction. Besides, as game directions go, slowing the game down from weenie spam is a direction I'm OK with.

Azel wrote:

Personally I'd like more minion card ways to gain/regain pool.

Well, pool gain is more out of control (and too stacked on narrow strategy) than too weak for me. A bit is fine, because 11 cap are near impossible to play if you pay them 11 pool.

You're talking about its current metagame strength with cards that are questionable for the environment as it stands. I'm talking about democratizing out the mechanic into Minion cards so as to liberate the outrageous competition for Master slots.

We likely agree on the same few problem cards for pool gain/regain. And I think a ban hammer would help bring some clarity and diversity to the field. I'm namely looking at recursion abuse, as I suspect you are as well. But that's another topic that could drown out this one. Besides, VTES community screeches like a stuck pig on any little change; if you're going to remove one favorite pacifier (gross recursive poolgainers) you better be able to offer a consolation prize -- and still prepare for the whinging whirlwind.

Azel wrote:

And something within discipline for votes would be nice, so as the PRE stranglehold can eventually be loosened. If you keep this "Gird Minion" direction make it an act mod or reaction and throw it into an aggro discipline.

The only presence card that really is lacked by non presence voter is Voter Captivation (and the presence combo card like Scalpel tongue, but they are less needed). Nerfing (to 4 blood for example) or banning it would be way easier and less risky.

You have far more optimism about VEKN making clean metagame decisions like that than I do. When LSJ introduced more bounce, within the same primo bounce discipline no less, I knew the ban hammer on the WotC bounce 4 (Deflect, TM, Redirect, MEE) was no longer in the works. Not that it'd have made for a better game given the prolific availability of big bleed, but whatever.

Voter Cap seems here to stay. Might as well offer alternative viability until the design team picks a direction. Besides, this is all theoretical, not much of this stuff ends up in print. Just look at the existence of Pallid, Mundane, The Oath, etc. for design slots tossed aside instead of digging through community creativity. Yes, I'm very jaded.

Also, your example does not help at all voter without presence ; it's more a discipline anti-voter, something that already exist in a lot of discipline (Confusion of the eye spring to mind).

This was on purpose. I'm trying to keep to the main topic about using a forced "Gird Minions" effect to hamper bloat exploitation. Though I have a tangential argument, messing with someone else's topic is not my place to make that argument. I just would personally find that rude is all.

Azel wrote:

Death Threats
Reaction
pot: If this referendum will effect you or cards you control, the acting minion's methuselah must move two blood onto their own minions from their pool otherwise this referendum fails. Each methuselah may only play one Death Threats per referendum.
POT: As above, but the acting minion's methuselah must move five blood from their pool to their own minions otherwise this referendum fails. Only one Death Threats at superior may be played during a referendum.

The card seem fine (maybe weak even, but it need test), but I am not too sure of what the theme is supposed to be.

Again, the theme relates back to the topic of moving pool back onto vampires, as per main topic. As Gird Minions is there to protect controlled assets through reinvestment, Death Threats would test a methuselah's attachment to said assets during a vote: if you want to continue your referendum, be prepared to shore up your agents. Basically it's a contribution to design topic instead of threadcrap or topic drift.

It works best on full minions, of course, as excess goes to the blood bank. However a combat deck (or deck with potence threat) would like to move pool onto minions during an antagonists minion phase. And more than one meth can get in on the fun, like Poison Pill, making the vote not worth it.

Also since it must resolve in order for the referendum to pass it fills up other vampires before any successful referendum and post-referendum effects go off. This can make it too deadly to continue with end game votes. Also Voter Cap goes after so this partly undoes bloating like Villein, there's a net wash if there's only one vampire Tap Cap (er, now Villein Cap) bloating.

The most immediate improvement I'd make would narrow the target to only move pool onto the acting minion. But that might be too strong against other vote decks and favor Voter Cap decks even more.