Attempt to Fix (not ban) Events

Part of me feels bad because there's a lot of Gehenna ideas I was toying with, like Torpid Blood to slow down casual cross table rescue, or Thirst as a grind against weenies (but Scourge just nukes 'em, so...). Or things like Slow Withering for anarchs and 3-ways, or study table collapse in the face of Restricted Vitae + Blood Trade.

Yet several powerful cards get all the "lovin'" with event spam following close behind. There's some ideas in the rest of the pool that I'd like to see before we scrap it because of difficulty of interaction. That's personally why this isn't another "let's ban it already" topic.

Just about every deck will have Master and Minion cards, thus golden bullets like Sudden and DI will routinely have metagame value. Not everyone plays events (nor should they feel they have to, but...), however that raises its golden bullets -- Not to Be, Uncoiling -- opportunity cost. And if a golden bullet has trouble making the deck cut (even Suddens have trouble making the cut at times) any silver bullet card we dream up really isn't going to do much besides kill more trees, IME&O.

I don't see any reasons to fix/ ban events.

Perhaps you are looking at a point which events do not break. From my point of view, events are good enough if used sparingly. If they go in multitudes just for having a Gehenna event in play or something, they have a ridiculously disrupting influence on the game.

Combat is quite similar in terms of table effect. It just stops you from playing. However, you do not enter combat with all table at once and disable them in one turn and one card. Events do that (not all though). They are broken in terms of "fun", not power level.

Zenedar wrote:

We need Unmasking for the game imho. Ally decks are unplayable to me without it.

Is that because you only want to build ally decks that block?

You're certainly welcome to your opinion, but I'm on the other side of the fence. I believe that if a deck can use a card, then finds it almost MUST, that card is probably too good.

When they're including 3-4 copies of a single unique card to access the effect, warning bells ring.

When other players almost start actually playing tech designed remove said near-mandatory card (without any other benefit to them), then something really is wrong - it's too good.

Unmasking fits in that category.

It's so strong that people can (and often do) actually forego intended deck function in favor of what the Unmasking offers. War Ghouls and Garou are strong acting allies. Ever seen 3 of them sit untapped on sentinel duty with the Unmasking in play? Blocking really isn't supposed to be their things, I've seen world-class players force-fit the ally into a unfamiliar (but effective) role when the intercept effect is present.

I get that the Gehenna is supposed to be disruptive, global, persistent and maybe even annoying. It's Gehenna, after all. But none of the other events spawned a whole series "suddenly viable" decks (that were viable, but less good, before).

alek wrote:

I don't see any reasons to fix/ ban events. They are making game richer and there are currently no decks based on events that are winning 80% (or similar portion) of tournaments.

Perhaps there's a difference between "decks with events" and "event decks." Perhaps the TWDA isn't the only relevant metric. Perhaps I'm completely clueless. All are possible.

Decks that play Unmasking/Anethelios for a tactical advantage are "decks with events" and they tend to reach finsls with regularity (depending on meta). Some folks' issues with these cards are that they are in the upper registers of power, yet very difficult to stop or remove.

Decks that play Wormwood are "event decks" and they lose, often horribly, but in a painful process. These are usually the ones people hate - it's difficult to handle on a bookkeeping level and the events tend to restrict peoples' ability to play (and therefore, to have fun).

I wonder if you see some of the first type, but none of the second, in your metagame.

As to which ban "fixed" the Imbued.....you guessed it, the event.

Without Unmasking it's just too easy to steal your allies from you. Around here it's hard to play allies even with Unmasking as people really love to take them from you

Zenedar wrote:

Without Unmasking it's just too easy to steal your allies from you. Around here it's hard to play allies even with Unmasking as people really love to take them from you

A fair point, and one that forced me to start lobotomizing War Ghouls in tournament use.

I wonder if seeing that much more ally theft is egg, or chicken? More Unmasking = more allies = more stealing? In the days before Unmasking was printed, I saw a LOT fewer ally stealing cards used in decks.

It could be that we were less refined players at that time, or it could be the 10th Anniversary Carlton also tends to be worth stealing (and show up at every table at least once).

But your point is well taken - thanks for mentioning it.