[Submission] Head Hunter (trophy fetch)

Ankha wrote:

Name: Head Hunter
Cardtype: Action modifier/Combat
Only usable when this minion burns a Red List minion in combat or as a action.
Put this card on this minion. Each time this minion burns a Red List minion in combat or as a action (including during this action), you can search your ash heap, hand or library (shuffle afterwards) for a trophy and put it on this minion. A minion can have only one Head Hunter.

As a one-per-minion card, it's hard to put many in a deck, especially if your Trophy hunters are fairly big minions. But if you can use a lot more Trophies, you probably want to put more Trophies in the deck. So some games, you draw this early and you can pull and thin out the Trophies. In other games, you draw this late and you've probably been clumping on any extra trophies you've slotted into the deck. Or, alternatively, you keep the overall number of Trophies roughly the same in your deck as you would play normally (i.e. prior to this card), and in some games you get them all out quite early, and some games not so much. Either way, it seems potentially a bit swingy - sometimes really quite good, sometimes buttnumbingly annoying, and I think Trophy decks would benefit from something a little more consistent.

I'd consider switching it to being a Trophy itself(*), so that on your first burn/diablerie you can pull it straight out of your library, if you want to. Perhaps "Trophy: Renown" or "Trophy: Glory". That changes the dynamics somewhat - you don't get the usual free 'proper' Trophy on that first action, for a start - so you'd probably want to tweak it, but I think overall that heading in that sort of direction it would be a more stable card.

Alternatively, sticking with the minion card, I'd consider giving it a weak-but-usable alternate use. Probably something still restricted to Red List minions, but more transient. Say:

Or:

So it's somewhat easier to have a substantial number in the deck, so one of them gets pulled relatively early.





(*) Flavour text: Yo dawg, I heard you like Trophies so I put a Trophy in your Trophy so you can Trophy while you Trophy.

What do trophy-mechanics need to be stronger? It's a weird kind of deck because they have access to everything(handsize, permanent untapping, blood, more bleed, pool to recruit and so on) and yet they still don't quite work. Is is that putting red list on someone is too hard? Is it that they need to be combat decks and that, being a combat deck is always something that makes a deck hard to play? Is it that it needs big minions and that the combination of big minions and a complex master-set building troublesome in itself?

safehouse/operation base/alastor-place
master (cost here, I'm very bad at balancing costs)

You can tap (this) to put a master: trophy from your hand in play.
You can tap (this) to select a red list minion. all your minions can enter combat with it at +1 stealth that costs 1 blood. (Red list vampires can burn this as a direct action, if you feel it needs nerfing)


I know it's overpowered but it tries to cover many mechanical aspects: hand resources(master jam), better rewards and MPA.

Why not make it a trophy? ie.

Trophy: Head Hunter
Type: Master
Master. Trophy.

When the minion with this card burns a red list minion or claims this trophy, you may tap this card to place another trophy (from your hand, ash heap or library) on this minion.

This would also stack.

I think "Red listing" a minion is the major problem with the red list / trophy mechanic. I would like to see a combination rush / red list card like this:

Action
Enter combat with a {insert restriction here} minion, for the duration of this action the chosen minion is considered red list.