Submission: Gangrel Card

Name: The Donkey's Jaw
Cardtype:
Cost: 2 blood
Clan:

+1 Stealth Action
Put this card into play. When you do, search your hand, library and ash heap for up to 5 combat cards, and put those cards under The Donkey's Jaw. If there are no cards under The Donkey's Jaw, burn The Donkey's Jaw and shuffle your library.

When a Gangrel or Gangrel antitribu you control plays a card with the same name as a card under The Donkey's Jaw, move that card from The Donkey's Jaw to the bottom of your library, and your prey loses 1 pool.

Flavor text:

Art notes: A big guy, a Gangrel, inflicting brutal violence on someone, preferably crushing their skull while they are prone or prostrate, an obviously excess. This is a cold, heartless act of murder; it is revenge, served cold, and reflects the violent nature of the Clan.

World of Darkness reference: Caine slew Abel with a donkey's jaw; this fabled act of violence (painted rather more ... sympathetically in the Book of Nod) is reflected here, showing the violent nature of the Kindred (or Cainines) as a race.

How does this card address a compelling game need?: Simply put, combat does not inflict pool damage, and that weakens the Gangrel and !Gangrel. This card doesn't shift the Clan's strengths - they still have to get in a fight and play combat cards - but allows their existing strength to more directly adversely affect their prey's pool.

Created by: Ben Kent

ThatGuyThere wrote:

+1 Stealth Action
Put this card into play. When you do, search your hand, library and ash heap for up to 5 combat cards, and put those cards under The Donkey's Jaw. If there are no cards under The Donkey's Jaw, burn The Donkey's Jaw and shuffle your library. When a Gangrel or Gangrel antitribu you control plays a card with the same name as a card under The Donkey's Jaw, move that card from The Donkey's Jaw to the bottom of your library, and your prey loses 1 pool.

I like the thrust, in that it's something quite different from the run of the mill, but it feels like it's misfiring. There's the core of something interesting, though.

Multi-functional cards like Rapid Change would prove awkward with this wording - they're combat cards when not being played, and you haven't restricted it to use as a combat card when the card is actually played. There are a few other options, but Rapid Change is probably the most irksome from the Gangrel disciplines. From the !Gangrel side, you might get into fun with, say, Swallowed by the Night. And it's not like there aren't quite a few Gangrel with other disciplines. If you moved it to "plays a combat card...", you probably stop most of the weirdnesses in that regard.

Also, it looks like you could have multiple of them in play, and presumably by default they'd stack. Two in play, rush my predator, weeeee, my prey loses 10 pool.

It's also not obvious to me that, say, Wynn playing DJ, then going into combat and splurging 4 Conquer the Beast followed by an Alpha Glint is the most pro-combat option I've seen, but it wouldn't surprise me to see people try it. Replace Conquer the Beast with any other trivially cycleable card. There are a few. Increased Strength is easy for that, too.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

It's also not obvious to me that, say, Wynn playing DJ, then going into combat...

Heck, you don't even have to be in combat with your prey (as written), so you can rush anywhere, or just get blocked and your poor prey suffers the injustice of 5 pool loss per DJ (assuming you have 5 easily cycled combat cards).

That's a heck of a lot of ouch. Maybe a limit of 1 counter getting burned per action?