file Submission: Till the Grave

14 Sep 2016 23:10 - 09 Oct 2016 12:45 #78278 by self biased
Name: Till the Grave
Cardtype: Action
Cost: one blood.
Discipline: Thanatosis
+1 stealth Action.
:thn: (d) Target a younger vampire in your prey's uncontrolled region, return one to four blood on that vampire to that methuselah's pool.
:THN: as above, but your prey burns one pool as well.

Created by: Chris Malec
Last edit: 09 Oct 2016 12:45 by self biased.
The following user(s) said Thank You: chrisn101

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15 Sep 2016 07:16 #78287 by chrisn101
Replied by chrisn101 on topic Submission: Tillthe Grave
Interesting. How would you know your prey's uncontrolled vampire was younger though? Maybe not specify that and require a capacity 8 vampire or similar? What about controlled, torpored vampires? I'm just speaking from my local game experience because very occasionally you end up with vamps in torpor with a few blood on them, and that would make a tempting target as it'll take the prey longer to get them back out (and the younger vampire bit makes more sense then).

Also, "return one to four blood" means that there has to be at least one blood on the uncontrolled vampire, doesn't it? Apart from occasional use of the Tradition/Dominate/Presence cards that allow you to transfer blood bank counters to younger vampires - which is rather rare in my playgroup - planning for such a target is difficult and would result in hand jam. Would "Up to four blood" at basic make the card overpowered? Then you could still make your prey burn one pool if successful as long as they had a uncontrolled vampire.

Or would swapping the powers over be better? so at advanced you'd burn one of your prey's pool AND remove one to four blood from an uncontrolled or younger torpored vampire should one or more be available. Effectively, bleeding for one at one stealth as a card that can't be pumped isn't particularly powerful, but if would allow you to play the card in any game condition.

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15 Sep 2016 09:30 #78289 by BenPeal
Replied by BenPeal on topic Submission: Tillthe Grave
Oof...Zillah's Valley to get out a big Samedi and then your prey might never get the chance to play.

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15 Sep 2016 09:31 #78290 by jamesatzephyr

Name: Till the Grave
Cardtype: Action
Cost: one blood.
Discipline: Thanatosis
+1 stealth Action.
:thn: (d) Target a younger vampire in your prey's uncontrolled region, return one to four blood on that vampire to that methuselah's pool.
:THN: as above, but your prey burns one pool as well.


Not wild about it at all.

As Chris points out, "younger" is an awkward concept when it's targeted at a vampire you can't see. Best avoided.

In a general Samedi / Thanatosis deck, at inferior it's largely pot luck. Do you draw it in the first few turns when there's stuff there to hit? If so, it might at least delay someone a bit - although to get superior, you already have to have a vampire with superior Thanatosis out yourself, which will have taken you a turn or two yourself. Do you get it when your prey has just had an influx of pool (e.g. ousted his prey), so is flipping another vampire out mid-game? That happens, but possibly not frequently enough to justify in a run-of-the-mill game. And then it's just a fairly rubbish card that gives you a "bleed" for 1 at +1 stealth at the cost of a superior Bloodlines discipline - and one thing the Samedi don't lack is access to stealth.

So then you start thinking about trick decks where you might make use of it fairly frequently, such as in some sort of Banishment / Brainwash deck. The Samedi don't have a great set of political options, so you're probably going to need to be playing some sort of star vampire deck with Thanatosis support. It's hard for that star vampire to be a Samedi, because you have exactly two Samedi with Presence, and both only have inferior - Josette and Reg Driscoll. So Awe, Voter Cap, Bewitching Oration etc. are all under-performing for a big vampire, compared to what might be going on with a PRE Prince or Archbishop. Probably not impossible, though - though that's tempered by the fact that Banishment also requires younger vampires as targets, and at 8 capacity they're big but not huge. So you might be looking at some sort of non-Samedi star, maybe.

And it's relatively slow for you all round in terms of the actual ousting, because your prey is getting their pool back - so even though there might be fewer vampires to defend against you (fewer blocks, fewer bounces, fewer reduces), there's still potentially more pool to chew through. Of course, they don't get to do their own pool gain, but taking a vampire out and emptying it is probably giving them quite a bit of pool back in one go anyway.

...

But, let's assume there's a working deck at the end of it. Is it the sort of deck that would be positive for the game? My hunch is no. Minion denial is pretty horrifying for the Methuselah who gets hit by it. Hi, could you sit there doing nothing and not being able to cycle your deck at all, as a convenient pool sack? Thanks! Yeah, I know you could get a vampire out, but when you do, I'm going to pop it back into the uncontrolled region and undo all your work before you even get the chance to bring out a Bowl of Convergence. Do you need two turns of transfers to get Howler out? Oh. Well. Sucks to be you, I guess?

And minion denial also sucks hard for the rest of the table, because the grand-prey gets a free ride. (This is a problem many naive combat decks face - tunnel-focus on demolishing the prey, and the grand-prey can make out like a bandit.) Really annoying for table balance.

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15 Sep 2016 11:09 - 15 Sep 2016 11:14 #78293 by snegiem
Replied by snegiem on topic Submission: Tillthe Grave
When reading your card, 2 existing cards come to my mind immediately:
Trick of the danya
cost 1 blood
+1 stealth action.
Chi: Move 1 blood from an uncontrolled minion in your prey's uncontrolled region to your pool or to a vampire in your uncontrolled region

memory fading glimpse
cost 3 bloods
Obf: (D) move a vampire from your prey uncontrolled region to the bottom of his or her crypt. Move all the blood on it to your prey pool
OBF as above but you may move 1 blood from it to the acting vampire

so my question would be different from james the memory fading glimpse seems to me much more stronger than the tilthe grave... and all samedi group 4 can use it...
and still even fading memory glimpse has all inconvenients mentioned: you have to get early in game or its interest is very limited, even if you succeed to make it it would make your grand prey almost a free game....
so to have an added value, i would advise you to change as follow:

Till the grave
obf: action modifier. +1 stealth. Only usable on a directed action
thn (D) +1 stealth action. If this action is successful, this vampire can spend x bloods to move x bloods from a vampire in a methuselah uncontrolled region to this methuselah pool.
THN: (d) hunt action. Move a blood from a vampire in a methuselah uncontrolled region to this vampire.

it would allow to make pop up the jester side of the samedis and would multiply their interactions cross table...
Last edit: 15 Sep 2016 11:14 by snegiem.

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15 Sep 2016 18:00 - 15 Sep 2016 18:03 #78298 by chrisn101
Replied by chrisn101 on topic Submission: Tillthe Grave
Just to chime back in on the positives, I do like the idea of the Samedi having a card that, at +1 stealth, causes the prey to lose a pool (and as it's not an actual 'bleed', it can't be bounced or reduced). It's got a kind of synergy with Off Kilter , and Samedi bleed payload must have been discussed on these forums at least a hundred times :-).

So a an variant/alternative to Snegiems suggestion below - just trying to keep it aligned with the original idea - I guess it might be something like:

Name: Till the Grave
Cardtype: Action
Cost: One blood.
Discipline: Thanatosis
+1 stealth Action.
:thn: (d) If this action is successful, your prey burns a pool. This is not a bleed action.
:THN: As above, and you may either gain the Edge or this acting minion may steal a blood from a younger vampire controlled by your prey.

Or:

Name: Till the Grave
Cardtype: Action
Cost: One blood.
Discipline: Thanatosis
+1 stealth Action.
:thn: (d) If this action is successful, your prey burns a pool. This is not a bleed action.
:THN: As above, but gain a pool.

(Regarding the second variant, bear in mind Kindred Spirits by comparison allows you to bleed for two minimum, but doesn't cost a blood, doesn't offer stealth, and the payload can be reduced/bounced)
Last edit: 15 Sep 2016 18:03 by chrisn101.

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