Compromise on Villein

BeAst wrote:

I agree its not an unreasonable solution to errata text, (insert usual caveats about perfect knowledge) where it's clearly necessary.

A quick search on the TWDA reveals the last use of Minion Tap was Mike Zajac's win at An Anarch Manifesto, San Jose, California on December 20, 2010. a tournament with 14 players. Prior to that Cameron Goudie's Gateway 2010 Event 4, Los Angeles, California, September 5, 2010 (13 players). More extreme - Michael Courtois' win at Gateway 2010 - Event 2, with a deck with 15 minion taps.
In fact, I count 100 odd TWDs featuring Villein since the start of 2009 (Villein first appearing at the end of 2008, IIRC) BUT 40 odd TWDs with minion taps over the same period. This suggests that not only is Minion Tap still playable in a tournament environment, but it's still in regular use.

Even though Villein is now 2.5 times as prevalent as Minion Tap, I cannot agree that it needs banning, errataing, proxying, or that it has crippled decks using Minion Tap.

I'm not going to restart the Villein vs. Minion Tap debate in this thread but I will mention that those Minion Taps mostly seem to appear in small tournaments. That could well be a sign of an insular playgroup where many players just don't have enough Villeins.

Well, to be fair, your first post on this thread is: "how about we make Minion Tap more playable?". My contention is it's not any less playable.
Of the 40 I mentioned, you've got a Two National Championships, an ECQ, a NACQ, a continental Qualifier etc.
I agree that villein is better than minion tap (usually). I don't think that requires any remedial action. Both are still usable in nationally competitive environments, and small local tournaments.

To use an (admittedly very wooly) analogy you could argue that the group 4 Kiasyd are better than the group 2. They're easier to get hold of (date of print etc.) and seem to have largely supplanted them on the tournament scene. Group 4 Kiasyd have access to the same masters as group 2, and can contest them. Since they're "better" this would favour group 4 over group 2. Would you argue that the group 2 Kiasyd need to be made more "playable"?

Villein and Minion Tap serve the same purpose of tranferring pool invested in a vamp back to pool. Compared to Villein, Minion Tap has become just absolete.

The frequent use of Villein comes with a cost and a restriction - yes - but being trifle and making Minion Taps costly is mostly worth it. During the end game they are not so easy to cycle though.

BeAst wrote:

Well, to be fair, your first post on this thread is: "how about we make Minion Tap more playable?". My contention is it's not any less playable.

I could understand if you said that Minion Tap is playable. I can not understand how it is either as playable as Villein or as playable as it used to be before Villein.

Then either we have a different idea of the concept of playable, or we have a difference of opinion. We do not have a reason to change Villein.

Lönkka wrote:

elotar wrote:

Half of our playgroop actually, when the last seller of cards ran out of stock. People just are not used to buying from forein shops. Or they are remembering the Winter war

Well, my grandfather died during Winter War...
(& I wouldn't be surprised if some people at your playgroup also lost a relative during that conflict too)

Sorry for you grand. In Russia in every family there are somebody who died at WW2 or just at the stalin's times, we r not bothering to ask.

But anyway, there's not that many in stock anymore so they won't last forever. So if they want some, they better not tarry overtly much.

Here is the main reason for all this thread.