Submission: Thanatos' Touch

Card Submission

Name: Thanatos' Touch
Cardtype: Reaction
Cost: none
Capacity: n/a
Discipline: Auspex & Necromancy
Clan: n/a

Card text:
: Only usable during a action against you. The acting minion's controller discards a card at random from his or her hand or the action fails. That card is not replaced until the end of the action.
: Only usable when a minion is bleeding you, after blocks are declined. The acting minion's controller discards 2 cards at random from his or her hand or this reacting vampire taps to choose another Methuselah other than the acting minion's controller. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah.

(I am really not sure about the appropriate "cost" for the bounce. Having to be able to tap seems to be enough. It could instead read "burns a blood and taps".)


Flavour text: "The memory of pain is pain still." (Lord Byron)

Art notes: A physically strong vampire withering in action, e.g. entering a fight.

World of Darkness reference: no idea

(V:tES reference: This card adopts the "dicard X to prevent Y" theme of the aim combat cards. Causing an enemy Methuselah to lose cards is maybe the major theme of the clan Harbingers of Skull, the clan with the most vampires having Auspex and Necromancy.)

How does this card address a compelling game need?:
Giving a special reaction card to vampires with Auspex AND Necromancy.

(I have to admit that this card is a wall of text, but I pretty much like the idea behind it.)

Created by: Rudolf Garski

Hakuron wrote:

(I have to admit that this card is a wall of text, but I pretty much like the idea behind it.)

Experience from playing Border Skirmish and playtest reports from an early version of Count Jocalo strongly indicate that random discard effects make players want to stab you in the face.

BenPeal wrote:

Hakuron wrote:

(I have to admit that this card is a wall of text, but I pretty much like the idea behind it.)

Experience from playing Border Skirmish and playtest reports from an early version of Count Jocalo strongly indicate that random discard effects make players want to stab you in the face.

Couldn't agree more.

The funny thing is that they may want to stab you in the face, but they will just pay the "cost" and you will die because the cost is virtually meaningless. I guess the only actual use of this card due to its encouragement to hate you even more than normal is ... well, two uses are ... inferior - encourage people to rush you even more so that you can blow them up with your concealed Grenades, superior - bleed you a ton to wipe you off the table where you play a bunch of real bounce cards to murder your prey.

I'm forced to agree with ICL - if I could cancel Deflections and Telepathic Misdirections by discarding two cards, I would nearly every time. My hand would have to be pretty special to make me pause.

I was thinking about what the threshold for someone actually caring about discard was. Has to be at least 4 cards. The question is whether it should be 4 cards or 5 cards.

Still, this sort of "do what I want or get punished in some other way, your choice" style of card is known as a punisher card in Magic and they tend to be awful. The opponent picks whatever is best for them at any given time, so you always get the worst effect. It's not impossible to make both effects so punitive that someone will still give you something you desire, but it has just not worked well in practice to do this sort of thing.

What I liked for some cards is self-milling as a cost ... some cards in other games. Totally off topic, but an example would be "Remove the top 3 cards of your library from the game to reduce a bleed against you by 1. You may repeat this effect any number of times." Again, just an example of what I've seen work better, if still really badly in most cases, not an attempt to introduce a different card idea in the thread.