Villein hate, idea 9001

I have no problem with proxies at all. Actually I encourage new or newer players to play with stand-ins as they obviously have difficulties in getting needed cards. So saying Minion Taps (or Blood Dolls, Sermon of Caines, Life in the Cities etc.) are Villeins is fine by me. The problem are of course the tournaments.

Agreed. It is a very troubling aspect of Villein. Villein is already better than Minion Tap. Its negatives don't balance its trifleness.

New cards often replace old cards by being superior to them, but they don't actually make the old cards unplayable. For instance, Baseball Bat doesn't say "Bastard Swords and Meat Cleavers cost an additional pool".

I cannot even play Minion Tap in a casual environment, because it is too costly once there are more than one Villeins in play.

The Minion Tap-hosing text was very unfriendly to consumers, and now that the game has been discontinued, it is unfriendly to new players.

I agree with you Aaron, but only because Villein is so hard to get to new players.

Being Trifle helps the use of big cap vampires, because you can still use other master slots for whatever it is that your deck does. Minion Tap doesn't allow that.
Instead of Zillah's + Minion Tap, you can have Zillah's + Villein + something else on your deck.
Everything has pros and cons, but killing (or nerfing) Villein will help mid cap or weenie decks.

Baseball Bat was bad a metaphor because there was never a whining outcry about Bastard Swords or Meat Cleavers.
However, there was a huge one about Minion Tap + Voter Captivation, specially with or Grand Ball.
Villain helped tone that down. Even if you change those decks to use Villein, they still pay extra for the second Villein each vampire has.
Granted, it is not a perfect fix, but I don't see any better one.

In my friendly playgroup we don't have problems with proxies, but since we always try to test decks for tournaments, the idea kind of falls apart.

Cheers!
Tiago

Brum wrote:

I agree with you Aaron, but only because Villein is so hard to get to new players.

Villein is $6-8 and it's constantly on eBay. Sell them six of your extra Villein. they can either give you $40 or buy you a dinner or a few beers. If someone isn't willing to spend $40 to make their deck(s) 95% better than that is its own problem.

Brum wrote:

I agree with you Aaron, but only because Villein is so hard to get to new players.

...

In my friendly playgroup we don't have problems with proxies, but since we always try to test decks for tournaments, the idea kind of falls apart.

The idea doesn't have to fall apart for tournaments.

VEKN could put in place a policy for competitive play, allowing Minion Tap to be proxied for Villein, if they so desired. To avoid confusion, you would have to write VILLEIN in big letters on the card with a permanent marker, perhaps.

Or VEKN could host a PDF file, it doesn't have to be fancy, with the rules of Villein printed on it and some "recognized for official play by VEKN" blah blah. Print it out, cut it to the size of a VtES card, put it into a card sleeve on top of an Ascendance, and you're good.

BTW, Kevin, must be nice to play in an environment where all the old-timers have lots of "extra" Villein, and everyone is happy to spend as much on 6 cards as they'd spend on a booster box.

Brum wrote:

I agree with you Aaron, but only because Villein is so hard to get to new players.

Being Trifle helps the use of big cap vampires, because you can still use other master slots for whatever it is that your deck does. Minion Tap doesn't allow that.

Everything has pros and cons, but killing (or nerfing) Villein will help mid cap or weenie decks.

Baseball Bat was bad a metaphor because there was never a whining outcry about Bastard Swords or Meat Cleavers.
However, there was a huge one about Minion Tap + Voter Captivation, specially with or Grand Ball.
Villain helped tone that down. Even if you change those decks to use Villein, they still pay extra for the second Villein each vampire has.
Granted, it is not a perfect fix, but I don't see any better one.

So what you are saying is that Minion Tap needed to be killed, and that Villein was the correct way to do it. I would not be against Minion Tap costing 1 pool, because that is a completely reasonable cost for regaining all the pool you spent on a powerful vampire such as an IC member. More than 1 and it is not worth it. It's true that I have not seen many if any decks recently that have Villeined and Capped the same vampire multiple times. No, now they just use Lilliths Blessing and Wider View and bring out more and more huge vamps, which then get Villein'ed/Lillith'ed themselves.

If Villein were limited to a transfer of 5 blood as I have suggested, you could still recuperate half of the cost of a big vampire and still get another MPA. I don't believe that it is necessary to recuperate 10/11 blood off your IC member as a trifle in order to make the IC member worth playing.

I got back into VTES because I had the impression you could get cards cheaply and make good decks with them. That was an attraction of the game. Now my Minion Taps are not just sub-optimal, they are worthless.