Card submission: Dark Horse

Suoli wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Basically: if the card is basically wanted for turn one or two, I'd look at the copies you draw on turns six, eight and eleven too. Give it some sort of longevity, so you think "Oh yeah, that's not too bad if I draw it now." That may require slightly toning done its power for its "main" purpose.

Or you let Zillah's Valley be a dead card on turn six and give the deck builder a subtle problem with multiple (and hopefully interesting) possible solutions.

With relatively few master card slots in the majority of decks, the "subtle problem" is typically resolved by not playing it - just play a better master card, of which there are a lot. Or play only one copy. Neither of these gives you semi-reliable acceleration that can be used in the hope of making poor vampires better. And if a master card just isn't going to make the cut, why print it?

As I said, pretty much all the master cards played regularly in competitive decks either:

- perform well at any point in the game, so you can stuff a few in your deck or not as you choose
- perform well in the mid or late game, so you can have fewer of them in your deck.

I can't really think of any regularly deployed master cards that feature regularly in the TWDA which only perform well if pulled at the start of the game.

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Make the card go on the vampire.

Then make the vampire take X amount of damage when he becomes ready, where x is like capacity derived, to prevent uber bloat.

This ends up being very much like Tomb of Rameses, which sees (very) occasional play, even post-nerf.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

I can't really think of any regularly deployed master cards that feature regularly in the TWDA which only perform well if pulled at the start of the game.

Giant's Blood. Which only prove the point, but alas.

Lech wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

I can't really think of any regularly deployed master cards that feature regularly in the TWDA which only perform well if pulled at the start of the game.

Giant's Blood. Which only prove the point, but alas.

I've seen plenty of people refill a vampire in the mid or late game, then siphon some off with Blood Doll, Minion Tap, Villein, or what have you. Worked pretty well for them. Sure, the early game Villein + Giant's Blood combo is extremely neat, but a late game surge of blood and/or pool is still very solid.

And not every deck on the table is likely to be playing it, even for the value of exhausting its once per game mechanic. Sit down on a table with a weenie deck and an Imbued deck and you may well not see it from them, for example. Working backwards through Lasombra's TWDA page from October 2013, I count - I think - 9 of the last 20 decks including Giant's Blood. So it's entirely possible you could hit turn 6 in a game without having seen it played yet.

I can't really think of any regularly deployed master cards that feature regularly in the TWDA which only perform well if pulled at the start of the game.

I have counted 30 TWDs in Secret Library modified in 2013 using Zillah's Valley.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

With relatively few master card slots in the majority of decks, the "subtle problem" is typically resolved by not playing it - just play a better master card, of which there are a lot.

Zillah definitely affects the structure of your whole deck and imposes limits on card flow. It's still great and sometimes downright essential. You just have to somewhat build around it instead of thinking of it as a module.