Making Aye and Orun Work

I think that perhaps more cards exploiting Orun/Aye might be a way to consider. And synergy should be the key there.

For example, Akunanse lack "anti-combat ends" tech. You can put 8-12 oruns and as many Supernatural Resistances for an action/strike canceling tech. You can replace some of your strikes with Invoke Poison Glands. So, essentially you spend like 20+ card slots for something what out of clan inferior potence can provide with half the number of cards. The problem here is not obtaining useful capabilities, but lack of synergy for them.

Take Guruhi for another example. You could use both potence and presence Orun power-cards, but how would you pass them even past even most casual intercept? Perhaps you could get stealth from anywhere (please note, that all Laibon clans lack reliable stealth)? Yeah, but from Aye only. Or then again, just use out of clan disciplines for freed-up card slots. Ok, can you beat anyone up with those 2 combatty in clan disciplines? Yes and no, lack of defensive combat would probably mean you reach torpor faster than you set up your Aye/Orun tech...

Well...
Making the assumption of ideal card flow and no other crypt acceleration... (which is a HUGE long shot).

1) To get 8 Aye/Orun requires at LEAST 4 Master Phases AND a minion to put them on.
2) To play 8 Aye/Orun requires an 8 cap vampire, which requires on average 2.75 to 2.6 turns to bring out (i.e. there is a 1 in 4 or 2 in 5 chance of you being in seats 1-3 on a table).

This makes this now Turn 7 or 8 before your minion can exploit their Aye/Orun cards. Most of the Aye/Orun actions result in losing Aye & Orun, so you get one action at this 'ideal' 8 Aye/Orun state and must continually play Aye/Orun to maintain it.

That is a huge cost in time. Especially if the minion can do very little before then.


This is the big speed problem, not so much drawing out Aye & Orun but how many you can load onto a minion and when.

So my next thought is...

Aye
Type: Master
Master: trifle.
Put this card on a Laibon. You may put any other Aye in your hand before drawing to replace this card on this minion as part of this Master Phase Action. 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 Laibon. You may put any other Orun in your hand before drawing to replace this card on this minion as part of this Master Phase Action.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.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

1) To get 8 Aye/Orun requires at LEAST 4 Master Phases AND a minion to put them on.....This makes this now Turn 7 or 8 before your minion can exploit their Aye/Orun cards.

Sorry, but I need to chime in here.

:::RANT ON:::

This timing is absurd.

First, if you're running large minions with perfect deck flow, no acceleration and no access to bounce, you're getting exactly what you deserve. Aye, Orun, Black Hand, Anarch, whatever, you're boned before seating if this is your design philosophy.

Second. You do not need 8 Orun to begin effectively using the card. 3 copies + Brutal Influence at is equivalent to Govern the Unaligned, which few would say is a bad card. It gets the same intrinsic +1 stealth as Govern and Majesty is as much an in-clan option for Guruhi as it is for Ventrue. Brutal does not burn Orun used at superior, so decay is not an issue.

Beyond 3 copies but well before the 8 you suggest is needed, Brutal Influence becomes grossly overpowered. I've personally had 2 copies of that card completely finance a free 9 cap minion in the 5th turn of play - in tournament play.

This doesn't even get into vampires accumulating Orun, going Anarch/Sabbat, then Brutal Influence bleeding without Orun decay (if you're not Laibon when you successfully bleed for 12, you don't burn Orun).

Clearly, this is one (the only?) example of how powerful these accumulated resource cards can be. But the potential is there if players can find ways to leverage them.

Third, the arguments don't even mention ancillary (but impactful) effects of Aye/Orun.
- I've personally accepted a mid-game Golconda worth 25 pool, in a tournament.
- I've had 2nd seeded finals opponents hold Reins an entire game knowing they can't use it unless I'm ousted, even though it would give them their first VP.
- Three Accumulated Aye is burn-option stealth + multiaction + card cycling, though only Wedge/Scythe have even bothered to try it. Other constructs are easier to balance, so people gravitate towards them instead.
- Heavily centralized Aye is very effective in (tournament unproven) Adv-Ceswayo designs, but I personally despised my version of that deck so much I ripped it apart after a single test game.

:::RANT OFF:::

This is not a clear argument that Aye/Orun are good, because in almost every other (non-Brutal) case the payoff is unlikely to be worth the huge overhead, implied risk and complex MMPA-based deck-building associated with centralized Aye/Orun.

But I will suggest that opening the throttle on this class of cards is not an approach I can support - it creates a huge swing in power, as we saw when Edge Explosion allowed easy access to accumulated resource cards (and yeah, I might have found ways to exploit that too).

Instead, I suggest that creating more interesting things to do with only a few copies of Aye/Orun is a more sound approach - and we just have to wait for the Design Team to hit a Laibon expansion for that to happen.

Regards.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

But I will suggest that opening the throttle on this class of cards is not an approach I can support - it creates a huge swing in power, as we saw when Edge Explosion allowed easy access to accumulated resource cards (and yeah, I might have found ways to exploit that too).

Instead, I suggest that creating more interesting things to do with only a few copies of Aye/Orun is a more sound approach - and we just have to wait for the Design Team to hit a Laibon expansion for that to happen.

Treating Aye and Orun less like a Conviction-esque resource and more like Malefica or Striga - essentially, a trait to be acquired - might well be a reasonable option, with the occasional bonus for having 'superior' (2, 3...) Orun/Aye. So fewer Dusk Work, High Aye and Neebi-type abilities, and a few more straightforward cards.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

...
Beyond 3 copies but well before the 8 you suggest is needed, Brutal Influence becomes grossly overpowered. I've personally had 2 copies of that card completely finance a free 9 cap minion in the 5th turn of play - in tournament play.

This doesn't even get into vampires accumulating Orun, going Anarch/Sabbat, then Brutal Influence bleeding without Orun decay (if you're not Laibon when you successfully bleed for 12, you don't burn Orun).

That's an amazing start, 5th turn free 9 cap by two Brutal Influences, and something I would see as an outlier experience. That'd require influencing out an older than 9 cap vampire in two turns (awesome draw of Zillah's Valley, etc) and pulling off on turn 3 either Orun + Static Virtue to start a brutal down for 4, or vomit of Oruns on turn 3 and 4 to Brutal down for 4 then 5 on turns 4 and 5 respectively. Very hard to do even with heavy deck dedication.

That said, pre-Ebony Kingdoms I used Ugadja and multiact to vomit forth an 8 cap with Founders + Ugajda special + Enchant down by turn 6, so... but nothing for me to insist Ugadja is the hotness.

That said, I learned something new about non-decaying Orun. Trading out capacity bump and extra votes for non-decay is interesting.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

Clearly, this is one (the only?) example of how powerful these accumulated resource cards can be. But the potential is there if players can find ways to leverage them.

- Three Accumulated Aye is burn-option stealth + multiaction + card cycling, though only Wedge/Scythe have even bothered to try it. Other constructs are easier to balance, so people gravitate towards them instead.

Already did that, too. That was post-EK Ugadja Aye. Tapping 3 Aye for Dusk Work really puts the brakes on what essentially is a free superior Freak Drive. Often that Aye standing wake effect was worth more.

And though High Aye is nice, the meta has been getting crazy high permacept in response to bounce-uber-alles. What once was nice for vote stealth I find easier to run weaker, more under the radar votes. And still it takes to around mid-game to even get into the swing of things with those support cards.

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

This is not a clear argument that Aye/Orun are good, because in almost every other (non-Brutal) case the payoff is unlikely to be worth the huge overhead, implied risk and complex MMPA-based deck-building associated with centralized Aye/Orun.

But I will suggest that opening the throttle on this class of cards is not an approach I can support - it creates a huge swing in power, as we saw when Edge Explosion allowed easy access to accumulated resource cards (and yeah, I might have found ways to exploit that too).

Instead, I suggest that creating more interesting things to do with only a few copies of Aye/Orun is a more sound approach - and we just have to wait for the Design Team to hit a Laibon expansion for that to happen.

Regards.

Yeah, the other options are not all that great. However here is where I differ on design. Instead of shrugging and abandoning that which was already made in print, and just moving to the next hotness, I prefer "un-wallpapering" the already existing cards.

I see it easier to ramp up the gas to get the mechanic and already made resources up to desired speed, then culling back problem cards. This opens a greater card pool than over-adjusting for suck in making new cards. Further, as people adjust for handicap, it becomes even easier to overshoot and create "teh broken"; seen this countless times in various CCGs over the years.

It is easier to raise the tide on all boats than specialize boats into a narrow range for the port. One retains breadth of play, which is the very lifeblood of CCGs (check L5R's recent flop-tastic efforts in Emperor edition, when the game stagnated into the same narrow band of competitiveness for each stronghold). The other just ramps up the sniper scopes with all-purpose rounds and golden bullets, if you will.