Champions of Cagn Unbound!

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

And it was also designed by LSJ...

NSFtM is a brilliant card. Highly card efficient, no ongoing cost. Its downside is vulnerability to Block Fails and that because of it being permanent otherwise... it's a brilliant card. Of course you'd use it as a benchmark for cards.

A card for Magaji that would be more powerful than NSFtM would probably be broken. I'd be putting NSFtM at the top end of the power curve.

YMMV, naturally. I'm inclined to say that No Secrets is over the top. In tournament play, it might just be ok (I'm not of that opinion), but in casual games it's just stupidly wrecking games.

Of course, the perceived power level depends whether you are a Timmy, Johnny, whatever.

Thematically it fits from my reading of the relevant VtM book.
Raw-power Wise it is hard to beat.
Trick Deck wise? This isn't going to be a trick deck kind of card...

Of course casual games have different card power requirements. My playgroup keeps two different classes of decks purely to recognise that some decks and cards are about winning competitions against highly efficient killers. NSFtM of course will have issues around those decks that are highly efficient killers... but as I said before... it exists and I wouldn't trade the chance to have that card in my arsenal and instead gain a contestable title with no impressive cards for that title. As I said, the other cards have uses, mostly because they provide non-Wall Laibons with useful tools (and even the Wall-Laibons can get benefits that are not insignificant but not as strong).

NSFtM of course makes casual games a train-wreck. The ability to potentially block any of the 'default' actions and a number of carded setup actions is easily enough to completely destabilise a corner of the table.

johannes wrote:

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

NSFtM of course makes casual games a train-wreck. The ability to potentially block any of the 'default' actions and a number of carded setup actions is easily enough to completely destabilise a corner of the table.

I don´t understand where the big difference between casual and competitive games is? Does casual mean people play with Eyes of the Dead and Appolonius, just because it is "fun"? If your deck can´t muster +1 stealth or some hit back for being blocked or a Pentex or something against NSFtM it is either a deck that can´t oust anyone anyway (so you shouldn´t play it) or a deck that relies on weenies doing lots of things at 0/1 stealth, in this case you should be aware that this is a high-risk / high-yield strategy that is bound to fail miserably on a double digit percentage of the situations.

I guess that's the biggest disconnect in the whole VTES scene. There are competitive players and non-competitive players out there. The former are very likely to attend tournaments and use tier 1 or 1.5 decks all the time. The latter seldom go to tournaments and tend to find playing tier 1 and 1.5 decks obnoxious, because in their view they are not fun to play against.

E.g. I have a large and fractured playgroup, 20 to 25 players. A small circle is playing extremely competitive (Martin Weinmayer belongs to this group). Others sub-groups tend to play just for fun. They use sub-optimal decks (Tier 2, 3 or even 4). They enjoy plaing the game, no matter the outcome, if they can play their cards and have fun with them. To them, building a tier 1 deck, which constantly wins games, is unfun. They view that as power gaming. A lot of my players therefore do not attend any kind of tournament and like to play at home with like-minded players.

Based on my experience, I think there is a large portion of VTES players never attending tournaments. They form a sub-group that is not interacting with the tournament scene. Since the VEKN is focussing very strongly on the tournament scene, there is a natural disconnect.
I would fathom that most players here on this forum would see themselves in the tournament players' camp.

Sidenote: when the design process of DM started, it was general consensus in the DT, that each card in the set should be "tournament-level", in other words, people should want to include all those cards in their tournament decks.

Forgive me for being long-winded, but now I come back to one of my main issues with this very thread: I strongly believe that not all cards in a set should (and will) cater to all players. Champions of Cagn has lots of cards that seem weak to players who are not inclined to try out new not-so-strong stuff (and who don't want to forego GtU, Parity Shift, 2nd Tradition, Villein, Giants Blood, Pentex, Deflection, et.al when constructing decks).

Different types of players have different needs.

Amenophobis wrote:

Forgive me for being long-winded, but now I come back to one of my main issues with this very thread: I strongly believe that not all cards in a set should (and will) cater to all players. Champions of Cagn has lots of cards that seem weak to players who are not inclined to try out new not-so-strong stuff (and who don't want to forego GtU, Parity Shift, 2nd Tradition, Villein, Giants Blood, Pentex, Deflection, et.al when constructing decks).

Different types of players have different needs.

If this is intended to address some of the negative feedback on your set, I think it misses the mark. The general concern doesn't seem to be that the cards in the set are low powered or weak. It's that they're not well enough designed.

Deflecting critique by blaming some sort of divide between casual gamers who play for fun and fictional hardcore power gamers who play to make others cry is either an outright strawman or a personal misconception.

Amenophobis wrote:

Sidenote: when the design process of DM started, it was general consensus in the DT, that each card in the set should be "tournament-level", in other words, people should want to include all those cards in their tournament decks.

I think this is a misinterpretation of what was meant with "tournament-level", if that really was said. You give it a wrong connotation IMHO.
It's not people should want to include all those cards but the cards are strong enough to be played at tournaments. That doesn't mean every card should be a "I have to build it in my deck"-type but a "oh, I can try that one in the next tournament" without fearing a complete desaster because of its weakness or "cornercasement". And of course still have a winning chance.

If you look at the new set you really can't say every card is a must have in a deck. They are solid, but not groundshaking.

I second you in your analysis of sorts of players though. I often encountered players who shy away from tournaments and try to play some seldom played clans. When I know of those players before I choose decks which are not necessarily tier-high. OTOH all of my decks are built to win the table, because that's the goal of the game. Sometimes people forget about that and YMMV but I think VtES doesn't work if you don't like to win (and that is true for many if not all games)