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

agzocgud wrote:

Speaking of trifles, how about villein? I see that as a major part of the MPA-decks "problem".

No. Not major. Ban villein completely, without doing anything else, mmpa decks run minion tap and life goes on, only non mmpa decks having to feel the impact of gillein vanishing.

Mmpa decks dump thier deck to ash heap, then cherrypick relevant cards back with anthelios and tablets. The bloat is how the decks cockroach around, but missing out on a trifle vs non trifle bloat card is not huge for the problem being discussed.

Im glad people are on this again though. Ive said the SAME THINGS for ages, but the fad hasnt really ended on mmpa decks. If you can get at the most a trifle phase, and 2 master phases, these decks are sill playable, as are more minion friendly mmpa decks we have seen for awhile.

Tablets has to just find minion cards. That needs to happen. The pool gain is minimal to mmpa decks, but helpful to otherdecks, so it could stay.

I pointed out all the problems, and offered the simplest solutions i had, and im especially behind tablets errata.

But the case still has to be made that mmpa decks in thier current common form are still common, and bad for vtes, which the latter is easy to prove.

Didn't read the whole thread but I would consider something like a vote that all or chosen Meths discard their masters.. a-la Cull the herd? Does something of this nature exist?


Cull the Herd
Action

+1 stealth action.
Look at another Methuselah's hand. That Methuselah discards all ally or retainer cards in his or her hand. The acting vampire gains 1 blood from the blood bank for each card discarded in this way.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

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?

How about if it is an event that gets x number of counters when played and goes away when the last counter is removed.

Event.
Add X counters on this card when it's played. All Vampires and Imbued lose their special abilities. Remove one counter during your influence phase from this card, burn this card when the last counter is removed.

Or maybe you could pay pool during your untap for every vampire/imbued you want to be immune for this event for a round.

Event.
All Vampires and Imbued lose their special abilities. Methuselah can pay one pool during his or hers untap phase for a minion to regain his or hers special abilities until next his or hers next untap phase.

Or everyone could move one pool to the card during their untap and when it has x amount of counters on it it would burn.

Event.
All Vampires and Imbued lose their special abilities. Any Methuselah can move one pool to this card during his or hers influence phase. Burn this card when it has X counters.

Or if the MMPA is the real problem you could change use any of the above but instead of removing special abilities it could restrict playing of master cards.

Event.
A Methuselah can play only one master card during his or hers master phase. Any Methuselah can move one pool to this card during his or hers influence phase. Burn this card when it has X counters.

How I would change that initial card posted would be to make it burn an archetype rather than just perfectionist, no point to single that one out, and instead of it automatically burning, just let the minion it is on to burn it as a d action (possibly with +1 stealth).

Kiddo wrote:

I see nothing wrong with the card.
Sinple and elegant design.

I believe that Haze was implying that Parthenon should not be able to provide additional MPA the turn it comes into play, thus negating its downside of actually spending MPA in order to play it. (which I agree with, but with somewhat less zeal).

that's one part of it. there's similar cards where you pay one action to get +1 action per turn, such as Helicopter and Rutors and Clotho's Gift, and all of them are designed to not work on the same turn.

another problem is that Parthenon is so very undercosted. 2 pool also buys you an Art Museum or Hunting Ground. 1 blood per turn = 1 extra master per turn?! even Helicopter costs 3 pool, and it's not nearly as powerful as an extra MPA. Rutor's Hand usually costs 4 blood, and Clotho's Gift has a steady pricing plan. it's hard to tell how much Parthenon should really cost.

but imho, the main sin is that it's a master card to gain more masters, which should never be done. it requires nothing else, just a master phase, even on the first turn. Rumors of Gehenna is well-made because it requires a political action + vote to pass, and Anson requires influencing an 8-cap vampire who could get knocked into torpor and munched on. to be fair, Anson is undercosted with his bonus prince title, and the metagame has always been unfair to combat decks, but he's still a vampire.

but while the minion phase is full of interaction possibilities, the master phase has almost no interaction at all. you can play counterspells (wash or sudden) and that's it. Masters have to be designed much more carefully than minion actions because by their very nature they're powerful, it's more difficult and costly to stop them from triggering. if you have no sudden, you sit there while they double their tempo -- the tempo of the very same phase you can't easily interact with, no less! it's very similar to why Gehenna events are generally hated, there's no interaction with cards played during the Discard phase outside of the silver-bullet counterspells. and everyone knows there's no interaction with Turbo Una's shopping spree.

(yeah, you can interact with master locations after they're played by playing certain minion cards. the problem is that most of these cards are so specialized that they're considered silver-bullets themselves, so the cycle continues)


Parthenon just breaks so many unwritten design rules at the same time, but each to a small degree to not appear omg-broken. and maybe it's not really broken anymore, thanks to the power creep of cards like villein. But I do think it's ugly design because of the "pay X to get X" aspect. the only way you can balance that kind of card is by fiddling with the cost, which has never gotten errata after all these years.

delangen wrote:

Didn't read the whole thread but I would consider something like a vote that all or chosen Meths discard their masters.. a-la Cull the herd? Does something of this nature exist?


Cull the Herd
Action

+1 stealth action.
Look at another Methuselah's hand. That Methuselah discards all ally or retainer cards in his or her hand. The acting vampire gains 1 blood from the blood bank for each card discarded in this way.

not a bad idea, but as long as the recursion cards exist, those decks won't really care too much. they'll discard their masters and draw a new bunch. a few turns of Anthelios or Ashur Tablets later, and the important stuff will come right back to hand!