Discussion - non-silver-bullet way of disrupting MMPA decks without entirely killing them

So based on this idea I half sketched out over here , here's an idea for making a card that would hopefully be:

- useful for upsetting MMPA decks without nerfing them to the ground
- sufficiently useful that you'd consider using it

How much would you want to change the card to stop it being wallpaper? What nerfs would you make to stop it destroying the game? What cost should it have?

Points of note:

1) The term "special ability" is used to mirror Seeds of Corruption.

So this affects Anson, Nana, Huitzi etc. However, it also affects - say - Anneke, Arika, Lutz, Una etc. It's intentionally broad, so that you might include it in a deck and get a good chance to use it.

Note that "special ability" doesn't cover all the text on a vampire. Restrictions ("cannot hunt", say) are treated differently from things that are allowed - even if the thing allowed is bad for you.


2) That text about "play to the ash heap" is borrowed from Vox Senis. When played for the "put in play" version, it contests another copy that's already in play. When played to the ash heap, it doesn't. [LSJ 20031129] The Perfectionist bit is to hope to smooth out the power spikiness - so when you see Anson on the table, we can aim for the card being good, but it's hopefully not terrible when you face many more decks using generic minions. Obviously, some games it'll be crappy. The idea of "Burn a Perfectionist" is taken from Vessel, and you could tweak it however you wanted.


3) It's intentionally temporary. The hope is to upset the apple cart, not burn down the whole orchard. But it's also intentionally set up so that you can't play chain-play it to completely kill a vampire's special ability - they should get at least a turn off, and someone else on the table can play their copy.


4) As a master card, it's possibly less than ideal for dealing with MMPA, in the sense that the MMPA deck could play it right back at you. (That's one of the reasons I added the "Cannot be played..." clause.) Now, that might be reasonable - perhaps if they're choosing to include or play a few of these, that's tempering the deck a little anyway. Ditto if they choose to pack a few Washes or Suddens. But perhaps an alternative card type might be better?

As an event, it's only playable once per game. (You could override that rule, but I'd rather not.) At once per game, it probably needs more bang for its buck, but that feels like it becomes too powerful, too silver-bullety, too insta-death, and I'm trying to stay this side of that line!

Perhaps as a curse action/equipment/retainer card that can move round the table? Something like a Charnas the Imp or Derange, or maybe with a 'get rid of this card' method like Pulled Fangs? But perhaps the cost of taking the action in the first place (i.e. just an action taken by a vampire) is too cheap, and so the power of the card needs to be commensurately smaller. Capacity restriction on the acting vampire?

I feel like you are getting at the general problem for the brown-backed parts of the combo, but to stop the mmpa decks from doing what they do, and it not be something that can be di'd or suddened, id (again) look at the root of the issue:

Mmpa decks use several decent on thier own parts together for a stupidly too good whole. Gestalt psychology, in asense, a thing is greater than the sum of its parts.

In a mechanical sense, a part breaks, be it a cars alternator or the 6L6 power tube in a guitar amplifier, its not gonna work. Now, if you have the light telling you an amp is on, or you cars horn not working, you can still use the item in question, with some part not working as youd prefer it.

Thats what NEEDS to be done to mmpa decks, since all its parts had and have use outside spam garbage mmpa decks. Lets look at the parts:

Ashur tablets: greatly overpowered, but good for decks outside cheese that overuses them. If they only fetched minion cards, they would function as good for all decks, not as broken for mmpa decks.

Liquidation: never saw it used until tablets were printed, and then Anson decks used them in tandem. Tablets get changed, its not a problem. Or since its just for mmpa decks, ban it. Just let me sell mine first.

Anthelios: neat, and until mmpa was all the rage, we saw imbued reusing one DI seven times a game. Hard to errata cleanly. Maybe make the discarded carx removed from game? Id say ban, but its the easiest enabler for "requires other gehenna" cards.

Parthenon/Anson/Cybele/Nana/Buizablahblahcantremwmberhisname: make it a rule that you cannot gain an additional master phase from a non trifle source more than once a turn. Trifle->master->master isnt as broken as 3 masters with a trifle each.
Villein: we erratad. Its a problem, but it helps alot of decks, and frankly mmpa can use minion tap, so if we ban it, we need another reason.

Aksynia: love this vamp. Hate her in girls decks. Make her special remove discarded card from game?

Special text hosing is smart, but DI, sudden, and having too much pool to care are problems still.

Thoughts?

easy solution: remove the master phase from the game B-)

ReverendRevolver wrote:

Anthelios: neat, and until mmpa was all the rage, we saw imbued reusing one DI seven times a game. Hard to errata cleanly. Maybe make the discarded carx removed from game? Id say ban, but its the easiest enabler for "requires other gehenna" cards.

I've always felt like this card was the central core, and the easiest to abuse even if you only have 2 MPAs per turn. worded another way, it pretty much says spend a master phase action to draw 30+ master cards into your hand. wimpy little Dreams and Heart of Cheating give you only 2 or 3 extra cards per turn. but recursion turns your entire ash heap into a sideboard hand. the higher your master card ratio, the stronger Anthelios's potential becomes.


also Parthenon is one of the worst designed cards in the game, even if it's not the prime offender. it doesn't even come into play tapped! thanks, Wizards of the Coast.

Haze wrote:

easy solution: remove the master phase from the game B-)

That would be best solution for re-doing game from scratches. Along with removal of discard phase, and moving them to minion phase (leaving just two phases, minion and influence, as untap would be at the start of minion phase).

Obliterating the Master Phase is actually a terrible plan.

1) Anthelios should probably not function as it does. I'd agree with the RFG a master to get a Master idea. Something like "As a master phase action you may remove a master card in your hand from the game and redraw and then put a master card from your ashheap into your library and shuffle."

2) Ashur Tablets should only fish minion cards and not give pool.


For minion cards, because we should avoid the whole Vampire: The Master Phase...

Name
Action
Disciplines (maybe THN?)
Unique. action.
You may put this card in play on a vampire controlled by another Methuselah. A minion with this card cannot use any of their special abilities. Instead you may play this card to your ashheap and choose a non-location Master card on a vampire in play and burn that card.
"Lets not and say that we did..."

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

1) Anthelios should probably not function as it does.

Actually, I believe Anthelios only gets broken once you combine it with MMPA and I think on its own it is not that big a deal.

However, could I deal with it being banned - sure I could.

Ashur Tablets should only fish minion cards and not give pool.

Perhaps. Perhaps they should give pool but fish less cards than they do now (like 3-7) and, of course, they could only be minion cards.