Submission - Mental Instability

snegiem wrote:

Hi all,

Mental instability:
master.trifle.
cost 0
playable only on a malkavian or malkavian antitribe or a vampire with dementation.
Cards redirecting this vampire bleeding actions cost one more blood.
When this vampire is bleeding a methuselah, this methuselah can spend x pools to redirect the bleed to another methuselah other that the vampire controller, where x is the current amount of the bleed.

so this idea is multiple:
- exploit greed: it gives a bouncing option to any methuselah but the cost is high
"would you prey burn 3 pools to redirect your bleed of 3 to his own prey ?"
- it can create bouncing negociation even with theorically non bouncing decks
- table speed up if multiple players pay pool to redirect consequitevely the bleed
- to give the malkavian (and demented vampires) a little bit more of madness

Pretty darn useless strategically..
1. Master card, master slots are tight, even if this is a trifle
2. Requires specific clan, this would only be usable by the bleeder itself.
3. Bleeder itself doesn't want to help their prey get an oust by letting them bounce your bleed without cards. This is frankly a ridiculous idea. You want to preserve your grandpreys pool, not waste it. The card says: this vampire bleeds your prey and grandprey an equal amount. Stupid.

Non-existant user wrote:

It is not enabling flick as a defence, only adding attrition to the rest of the table.

Which is what you DON'T want, since the rest of the table are your allies. You don't want them to lose pool.

Bloodartist wrote:

snegiem wrote:

1. Master card, master slots are tight, even if this is a trifle
2. Requires specific clan, this would only be usable by the bleeder itself.
3. Bleeder itself doesn't want to help their prey get an oust by letting them bounce your bleed without cards.

Non-existant user wrote:

It is not enabling flick as a defence, only adding attrition to the rest of the table.

Which is what you DON'T want, since the rest of the table are your allies. You don't want them to lose pool.

i wrote intentionnally "playable on" and not "require" . So you may play it on your vampires or on another vampire you do not control.

For the other points, it makes the vampire controller in the same.situation than knowing the prey has bounces : you have to adapt: you can do so by waiting to increase your bleeds (ex: bleeding for one instead of 3 with govern)... Or you can decide a more "terrorist" way thinking that your grandprey must have a way to react or if not the game will turn to 4 plyers and goes quicker giving you more opportunities to make big bleeds... Or you can stock spying mission just in case...

For making other players lose pools, look at anarchist uprising or anarch revolt: they are also possibky making your grandprey loses pool but they are still regularly played.

I for one see the applications for this card, and feel that it is actually pretty strong. The extra cost for all flick (except Determinnation) alone is really good.

The extra condition of paying pool for an extra bounce has really nice synergies with Spying Mission, Tangle Atropos' Hand and even Change of Target.

I genuinely think this is cool. It might be even too strong though. Would definitely need a lot of play testing.

narpassword wrote:

im sorry Boris, could you explain what you mean?

Bounce is so strong because it combines 2 effects in one:
1) You don't lose any pool from the bleed
2) Your prey is now a target.

This card would not have effect 1 since the pool cost equals the bleed amount. It does nothing to defend your prey. Besides, since the bounce costs pool and does not reduce the bleed, it has the next net effect of removing more pool from the table, i.e. attrition.

Which is what you DON'T want, since the rest of the table are your allies. You don't want them to lose pool.

That ship has sailed the moment you turn Apache Jones. You don't have cross-table buddies as a Malkavian, only future preys. OTOH, the biggest problem of the weenie is to score his second and third VPs, and this would be a major boost to them.

Non-existant user wrote:

That ship has sailed the moment you turn Apache Jones. You don't have cross-table buddies as a Malkavian, only future preys. OTOH, the biggest problem of the weenie is to score his second and third VPs, and this would be a major boost to them.

Absolutely.

There's also a very interesting sequencing minigame with this. You should, as the bleeder, think about when you'll play your bleed modifiers. The blocker may choose to use the extra flick before you play your bleed modifiers (only 1 without Kindred Spirits for example), and if you smack in that Eyes of Chaos on Lutz before blocks are announced to play around that, the blocker has more leeway with choosing their blocks or Deflections.

This all because the suggested card does not say that the pool-costing flick effect has to be done after blocks are declined, which is a major restricting clause in bleed redirection cards.

Personally I enjoy this design quite a bit.