Submission: Alvusia

Name: Alvusia
Type: Master
Cost: 2
Clan:
Card Text:
Unique Master.
When a non-slave Gargoyle you control burns an ally, add 1 blood from the blood bank to a Gargoyle in your uncontrolled region. Tap Alvusia during your influence phase and burn 1 pool to add 2 pool from the blood bank to a Gargoyle in your uncontrolled region.

Art notes: A huge Gargoyle crouching in a dark cavity barely visible in a cave. A pile of corpses and skeletons nearby, someone has been feeding it.

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
Thematic pool gain and minion acceleration for Gargoyles.

Created by: Ben Gerrissen

It seemed odd to me to turn Alvusia into a vampire, would it gain +5 strength? -5 stealth? Cannot act? etc... It's a huge monstrosity. Keeping it hidden in a dark cave system and utilise it seemed the best idea. Perhaps add a "burn a vampire of at least capacity 6 to burn this card" clause, after all, you're trying to burn a gigantic monster, it would be a suicide mission and requires skill.

Changes:
V2 - Changed text and reordered sentences:
Tap Alvusia when a Gargoyle you control sends a vampire to torpor or burns a minion to add 1 pool from the blood bank to a Vampire in your uncontrolled region.When a Gargoyle you control burns a minion, add 1 blood from the blood bank to a Gargoyle in your uncontrolled region.

V3 - Changed text:
When a Gargoyle you control burns a minion
to
When a non-slave Gargoyle you control burns an ally

The card lacks synergy with itself, even though one effect is Gargoyle specific and the other isn't. I would never have this untapped on another turn to use the second ability in a pure Gargoyle deck, leaving that only something I would do on my turn, yet I get the exact same effect 95% of the time from using the first effect. In a Tupdog deck, sure, the first ability is lame, but the second ability would get used way too often.

Seems like going for more something that is "During your influence phase move one blood from the blood bank to a unique Gargoyle in your uncontrolled region. When you nuke some fool, tap this to move a blood from the blood bank to a unique vampire in your uncontrolled region.

Changed text to:

When a Gargoyle you control burns a minion, add 1 blood from the blood bank to a Gargoyle in your uncontrolled region. Tap Alvusia during your influence phase and burn 1 pool to add 2 pool from the blood bank to a Gargoyle in your uncontrolled region.

Reasoning:
Indeed, the dual tap effects did not have good synergy and basically boiled down to the same thing and might be too powerful in combination with tupdogs. (ignoring the generic "Vampire" target instead of intended "Gargoyle" target). Remove the "send to torpor" requirement and now simply adds a blood from blood bank when you burn a minion. So it now has a tap effect and a passive effect.

Still helps Tupdog decks far more than anything else. Tupdog1 burns dude, get free Tupdog2. Also, burn in combat, burn by D action, or what?

I would never encourage Tupdog decks. Easy enough to insert unique any place you use "Gargoyle", but I'm just not that clear what sort of deck you expect to use this to its full capacity besides a Tupdog deck.

It's also pretty annoying to have effects that only trigger off of burning as it leads to even more extreme results - a deck that is focused on burning will probably run more combat cards than one that just torps or one that just hits for more than it receives, which means it's more vulnerable when it doesn't succeed in combat.

Because it uses burn, it becomes weird in that you may vastly prefer playing against ally decks.

ICL wrote:

Still helps Tupdog decks far more than anything else. Tupdog1 burns dude, get free Tupdog2. Also, burn in combat, burn by D action, or what?

Fixed.

ICL wrote:

It's also pretty annoying to have effects that only trigger off of burning as it leads to even more extreme results - a deck that is focused on burning will probably run more combat cards than one that just torps or one that just hits for more than it receives, which means it's more vulnerable when it doesn't succeed in combat.

Because it uses burn, it becomes weird in that you may vastly prefer playing against ally decks.

It's indeed a nice to have against allies and not efficient as a main strategy. Pondering turning the passive effect to work when allies are burned to discourage inefficient burn combat (it will work once, twice maybe, but then ground to a halt due to hand jams).

Actually... would be a nice combo with Absimilliard's Army, hehe.

In any case, a nice small reward and incentive to actually bother with dodgy allies (Carlton, Mylan, etc) or a minor compensation against FBI.