Champions of Cagn Unbound!

kombainas wrote:

Some of those were designed to make Aye/Orun techs more viable, so it seems absurd considering using/fetching those a fatal flaw by itself.

I've played Aye and Orun decks. I've tried to do my best to make one of the only truly obviously viable Orun-type cards work: Brutal Influence. To get minions of the right size and then play enough Oruns to make the tech advantageous requires most of the turns in an average game (many people have said that VTES games in tournaments seems to have approximately 12 turns). Fetching Oruns/Ayes isn't going to contract that time particularly. About the ONLY way I can see of improving the fetching time of Oruns would be to make them playable on Uncontrolled Laibons. That way they stop being deadweight. To play large numbers you need to load the deck, then once the deck is loaded you usually sit with a glut of them in your hand AND in your library until you get a minion. Then when you're playing a turn you will almost always hit a handjam on them. But you can't afford to discard many of them because they drive your main mechanics.

So, all of these Orun/Aye cards are basically flogging a dead horse. About the ONLY option that would improve them would be to errata them to say:

Aye
Type: Master
Master: trifle.
Put this card on a ready or uncontrolled Laibon. This Laibon may tap this card to cancel a Frenzy card played on him or her as it is played. This Laibon may burn a blood and tap three of his or her Aye to be able to play reaction cards and attempt to block as if untapped for the current action. If this Laibon burns a minion, equipment, or location in play, he or she burns one Aye. Burn this card if this Laibon has more Orun and Aye than his or her capacity.

Orun
Type: Master
Master: trifle.
Put this card on a ready or uncontrolled Laibon. For non-Orun cards played by Methuselahs other than this Laibon's controller, this Laibon is considered to have 2 additional capacity. A Laibon gets an additional vote for every three Orun he or she has. If this Laibon successfully bleeds for more than 2 or successfully performs a action against a non-mortal minion, he or she burns one Orun. Burn this card if this Laibon has more Orun and Aye than his or her capacity.

Seat switchers are a horrible idea since they change a basic foundation of the game, the predator-prey relationship.

And let's not forget the physical aspect of seat switching and the time involved.

[img size=tiny]www.temporis.us/pics/albums/origins_nac2013/IMG_20130613_225219.jpg[/img]

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Lambach wrote:

What are the other awful cards?

List of awful cards
1. Seat Switcher
2. 2 Quantum Entangled Camera Phones
3. Diamond Mine
4. Kilimanjaro
5. Inviolate Land
6. Ties that Bind
7. Pledge Sword (You want the Laibon Salubri-antis to have an undodgable melee weapon??? Now that Death Seeker is around to cancel S:CE?)
8. Skin of the King: XYZ - All of them are terrible
9. Subjugate is just another Finding the Path and without an interesting kicker.
10. Power of Knowledge wastes 7 lines of text that is useless
11. Because Street Cred is being played constantly... It's worse than Unholy Penance by a LONG way.
12. Soul Washer - Why do I want a little Chump Blocker with +1i for a clan with ANI & PRE????
13. Raiment of Ishtar
14. Jungle Hunt - Haven Hunting isn't exactly tearing things up... and Osebo do have access to Psyche...
15. Secrets of the Dark Continent - Mozambique Allure as an Event
16. Devil-Channel: Head - I Frenzy and am able to block more? Going into a horrible rage of feral instinctive fury makes me better at intercepting my enemies plans??
17. Taking the Skin Cannibal: Just graft on [tha] and use Thefts.
18. Free the Beast Within (See Devil-Channel: Head)
19. Spirit Channel: Telepathic Counter and Lost in Crowds on the one card??? OH for 3 ORUNS... There's the crap part.
20. Flower of Death: Blur but for melee combat only... Or I could pack Blur just so I can have a few guns around if I want.
21. Flick: Everybody needs a tap your prey card... apparently.
22. Absent Sway: Because we should hate Lawfirms more. Especially Daughters, they should hate Lawfirms and Princes the most...
23. Claw Immunity: Skin of Steel + Fuck you Carrion Crows... Silver bullet??
24. Feral Imbuing: After you decline to flick I get to kill my birds to oust you...
25. Accursed Rage: Taunt the Caged Beast + some stuff...
26. Unassailable Parry: Sideslip the Wind Dance version
27. Pulse of Undeath: Enhanced Senses, Precognition, Spirit's Touch...
28. Lunge: A range-less grapple only playable before range that doesn't set range.
29. Blessings of Cagn: An attempt to allow people to play a 60 card deck + 12 Oruns as a 60 Card Deck...
30. Spiritual Journey: Maybe if we make enough random ways for people to fish out Orun and Aye they'll love one of them.
31. Guiding Spirit: See Spiritual Journey
32. Spirit of Cagn: Worse than Leverage, all of the dominate cards, about Aire of Elation at

, worse than the Auspex one that Laibon have access to.

33. Magnificence of Cagn: Everyones been using those High Aye and High Orun and that other one that uses 3 Aye and 3 Orun...

34. Orchestrating Ashe: See Magnificence of Cagn

35. Obayifo: A bad Nephandus

36. Dream Sensation: Movement of the Slow Body... with a big card opportunity cost

37. Things Fall Apart: If you don't pick the right card, then you're screwed and it prevents you from then... flicking for instance.

38. The Centre Cannot Hold: Things Fall Apart is bad, at least other minions might be able to do something to help you.  The Centre Cannot Hold is astoundingly worse than that... since nobody else can push the bleed up or the votes or Voter Cap or... or... or...



Should I go on to of the vampires now?

1. All of the Magajis who become Kholos when Merged.  Awful. You lose No Secrets from the Magaji, you lose a non-unique title to gain... *waits for the awesome*... a contestable 2 vote title and maybe a kicker text.

2. Most of the rest of the vampires are as uninspiring as mashed cardboard.





[Edit]

I just noticed that as I began, I was just listing... then as it went on my serious dislike of how awful these cards are began to build and so did the comments.

I appreciate your taking the time to write all this out, though I mostly disagree with you. Lets go through the awfulness

1) Seat switcher: well already been through this. I think it's actually too restrictive to be of much use.
2) Ere Ibeji: Camera phones are good for vamps w/o bleed disciplines. Getting it on 2 vamps for 1 action seems pretty good. The "quantum entanglement" thing is strictly thematic (they're mystically linked twin statues). I like the fact that PCK has integrated folklore and WoD lore in their card designs to the same degree as past expansions.
3) Diamond Mine: I don't much like this card
4) Kilimanjaro: Master cards that give stealth are strong. It's really easy with the tech in this set to get the A/O quickly (getting one is laughably easy). it's usable by any Laibon even those in clans without easy access to stealth.
5) Inviolate Land: I love how this card encourages violence on a massive scale. It feels very Laibony "us vs. them". Costly to get rid of so it should stick around a while
6) Ties that bind: This is one good reason why you want Kholos. cards that impair your prey's ability to bounce are strong.
7) Pledge Sword: Death Seeker has been around a while now and !Sal melee weapon decks aren't ruling tables. Death Seeker can counter dodge just as easily as s:ce. It's a good melee weapon, but still just a melee weapon.
8) Skin of the king: cheap or free, non-unique equipment that can give you +2 bleed(!) intercept stealth etc. Seems strong. Even 1 A/O gives a nice benefit so its not like the stuff is useless until you get 3 and when you do it's amazing. Getting A/O quickly and easily was never really an issue for decks that used these cards.
9) Subjugate: Way better than finding the path in almost every case because you'll be gaining more pool (up to 4) while inflicing 3 damage to your prey
10) Power of knowledge: Use those Ties that Bind that your Kholo's been playing to bleed your prey even harder. Not useless. Reaction version is super strong. Govern + Conditioning? I'll just take zero.
11) Sparing the Weak: I think it could be fun to try in a pot weenie deck. Unlike Unholy Penance it is free and requires 2 actions to remove.
12) Soul Washer: Why not use this guy? He's cheap and good for 3 blocks potentially. Maybe your Guruhi don't like to fight.
13) Raiment of Ishtar: Making people burn blood more than one to block you is strong. Multiples of this quickly make blocking the possessor impossible. Thematically, I like the super powerful effect for controlling all 7 raiment of Ishtar.
14) Jungle Hunt: Yes Osebo can Psyche, but permanents are better than transients almost always. Some of these and you won't need so many Psyches. Save card slots.
15) Secrets of the Dark Continent: Yeah it lets anyone become Laibon and can help put A/O on your guys. Not sure why this is so awful.
16) Devil Channel Head: I don't know WoD lore well enough to know what this is supposed to represent. Maybe someone who does know can explain. It's a solid card though. ABO really needed ways to deal with s:ce
17) Taking the Skin Cannibal: No don't graft on tha. Use the ABO that you already have. Steal em down to zero and burn with your aggie hands.
18) Free the Beast Within: Don't know the lore on this power either, but the card is good for ANI high caps.
19) Spirit Travel: inferior version requirs zero Oruns. Getting A/O is not really a problem betwern Perfect Dreams Spiritual Vessels Blessings of Cagn etc.
20) Flower of Death: You're right guns are better than melee weapons. If you were crazy enough to try a CEL melee weapons deck you'd want this instead of blur (I made an Ishtarri Warlords deck that used melees and this card. It was fun). It would be nice if there were more parity between weapon types and this is a small step in that direction.
21) Flick: Meh
22) Absent Sway: Not sure what your point is here. Seems like there's potential to abuse this card in a fun way.
23) Claw Immunity: It's versatile and useful at basic. Yeah it's great against bats/crows at superior. That's not a bad thing
24) Feral Imbuing: Basic version is just good. Superior version seems pretty costly but the ability to bleed for 6 or 7 at a critical moment could yield a VP.
25) Aura of Accursed Rage: Basic version is fun. Spread the violence all around. Superior seems a little weak with the younger requirement.
27) Pukse of UndeathL It seems like this card should exist if Quicken Sight exists. It's definitely a useful card.
28) Lunge: It does seem a little weird as far as what is actually happening in the combat but this happens sometimes in v:tes. It's a good card though.
29) Blessing of Cagn: Or why not play with a 60 card library including the A/O and get it down even tighter? Have all your A/O's waiting for you every master phase. You'll be using the really powerful effects pretty quick. Awful.
30) Spiritual Journey: Yes accelerating A/O flow is a good thing. This card should really let you pull from your library too though.
31) Guiding Spirit: Yes get that A/O out of your library and onto your vamps where they belong.
32) Spirit of Cagn: Seems good for decks that use the Skins alot
33) Magnificence of Cagn: Nobody's been playing those cards because the A/O was way too cumbersome. It's not anymore.
34) Orchestrating Ashe: I like Magnificence of Cagn better
35) Obiyifo: Not very much like a Nephandus at all. Doesn't just burn blood, moves it to your guys to be slurped away.
36) Dream Sensation: Nope it's either a Engling Fury or a Movement of the slow body (sort of) depending on your needs.
37) Things Fall Apart: Get some permacept and cancel the Lost in Crowds or Elder Impersonation. You are right why would anybody want to do anything to a bleed other than bounce it? And yet people do.
38) Centre Cannot Hold: Bleed and cancel the bounce. The same guy can't play the same reaction and now none of his guys can block. Tap em out first and your prey will need 2 wakes and 2 bounces to bounce you. Play your conditioning when you announce the action. Awful.

As far as the vamps, if you want to use No Secrets than don't merge those 3 guys. A bleedy deck that doesn't want to fight would much rather have The Ties that Bind and Power of Knowledge than No Secrets.

I disagree with your general assertion about the other vamps. I think there are some cool ones and I like how they fit with existing vamps in the same groupings with their discipline spreads.

Basically I think calling the set AWFUL is pretty silly. Not every card in the set is stunningly awesome it's true, but as ICL pointed out, this is pretty much the case with every expansion ever released for any ccg. I think you're strongly overstating the bad and turning a blind eye to the good.

Most of my complaints are simple.
They don't improve the flaws of Aye/Orun Tech. The biggest flaw is speed.

Most of these are baits for you to go after a 8 cap and Aye/Orun tech so you can get bled out while you're in your setup phase because of how you have built your deck. None of them get around the problem that you spend 2 turns getting a vampire, 2 turns or more putting Aye/Orun ON the vampires and THEN using your tech. 4 turns of complete setup for ONE minion to be ready to go. To have 2 or 3 minions ready to use the Aye/Orun tech you're looking at a setup phase finishing in turn 7 or 8... out of an average 12 turn game at the tournament level. 2/3 of your game in setup phase. That's why these cards are overwhelming bad cards. They don't address the problem of speed.


Very few of these vampires actually give the Laibons their own angles. They are an odd assortment of outcast vampires from other clans. They are Assamite Scholars without Obfuscate, or Ravnos without Animalism and so on. Across the board, they are not interesting LAIBONS they are refugees from other clans covered up with some Ebony Kingdom Paint and passed off as 'innovative' or 'revolutionary'.

I'm not blindly ignoring the good. I just genuinely identify there to be so little of it in this set that what good might be there is a rare, distant faint light past the murky fog of bad design.

IF this is what PCK were ejected for presenting to the VEKN Board or VEKN Design Team Leader... Let me please add my two votes as a Prince in favour of naming them Anathema and Red List.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

IF this is what PCK were ejected for presenting to the VEKN Board or VEKN Design Team Leader... Let me please add my two votes as a Prince in favour of naming them Anathema and Red List.

From what I gathered of their own communication they weren't eject. They quit.
And the problems didn't start because their cards were deemed bad.
They started because they forced their ideas on the rest of the team or else.

After leaving, they "forbid" VEKN to use any of their work, without their written permission. I find this to be a serious offence on us all.
That and mud slinging in the direction of the likes of Robyn Tatu.

Not sure why you feel the big caps are "baited" here. You get to put less on your blessing of cagn I suppose but even putting 3 or 4 cards on it helps a lot. You could have 4 Aye or Orun on a guy for his first minion phase with these cards or 3 plus a Blessing of Cagn to tool up tour next guy (assuming one MPA). That's zero extra turns of setup beyond transferring. Realistically it will probably take at least 1 extra turn of setup to get 3 on a guy. Then again there's only 8 cards here (not counting skins) that produce effects requiring 3 Aye or Orun (2 require both). 2 of those cards (and all of the skins) have useful effects that only require zero or 1 so it's not like you're dead in the water until you get 3 on all your guys.

Disagree about the vamps but whatever. You're entitled to your opinion.