Tournament experiences

Dorrinal wrote:

Joscha: sorry, we don't have to follow your original intent for this thread. Bug someone for moderator status.

Of course you are right . But it would be kind of you if you could support my intentions and help to settle those annoying quarrels. If you'd comment in the relevant threads your arguments will surely be looked upon more often. It's in your interest too.

No Secrets from the Magajii

In the distant past of VTES, rules teams made changes to many cards that were either too strong or too weak, thus improving gameplay. We should be open to such revisions. My list:

1. Carlton van Wyck. He appears in every game I play. He is too cheap for what he does. He absorbs vampires' actions, usually with impunity. Most of my decks must spent significant resources to burn him in combat, usually 2 or 3 cards if they can do it at all. It should also not be possible to burn a diablerist by surprise by recruiting Carlton after the fact. Diablerie is already risky. I recently had two vampires burned by Carlton in the same game when he was brought back through Necromancy recursion. Suggested revision: 3 blood cost (minimum), and "During any Methusaleh's discard phase, you may burn Carlton to burn a vampire who has committed diablerie this turn."

2. Villein. According to reports, it was not playtested in its current form. Hoses Minion Tap while being better than Minion Tap. Day 1 Final of the EC timed out because of extensive Villein-related pool recursion - check out the tournament report on this site. Too powerful for a trifle. If I could go back and have input on the design, I would change the first sentence to "Put this card on a vampire you control and move 5 blood from that vampire to your pool." At the very least it should not hose Minion Tap so badly (which admittedly needed a bit of hosing).

3. Bounce cards. So you're being bled heavily by Malkavians, Toreadors, and/or any vampires with Dominate. Now you're also being bled heavily by other Methusalehs' vampires. I guess you should have played bounce yourself! Bounce is too cheap for what it can do. All bounce cards should reduce the redirected bleed by 1.

4. Target Vitals. This card has no requirements and no cost, but its effect is that of a card requiring a superior discipline, and a very good superior at that since it can affect ANY damage-dealing strike. Hands, weapons, thaumaturgy, bats: anything. Compare it to Potence strikes that CAN'T be used on guns or bats and that still allow an opponent to press, and that, say, require to get +2 damage. Two damage is a lot, and it is often impossible or very costly to avoid the effect. Remove the "cannot press this round" clause at least. Since when do the undead have "vitals" anyway?

5. Lilith's Blessing. A storyline card that was not playtested, AFAIK. The combination with Villein is too stupid. At the least, Bahari should be a sect, causing the new Bahari to lose titles and anarch status.

6. Liquidation. A storyline card that was not playtested, AFAIK. 3 pool for free and you get to put cards in your ash heap to be recursed with copious tech? Really? At least remove the cards from the game.

7, 8. Heart of Nizchetus and Giant's Blood should cost at least one more pool than they do.

9. Parity Shift. I don't have a huge problem with it, but I think it should require a Primogen instead of a Prince or Justicar. This is an idea from Matt Wedge. This would immensely balance the power of Prince/Justicar decks with other decks, political and otherwise, and add welcome value to the primogen title. The idea also fits the source material as politically the Primogeniture maintainted the balance of power.

Wow, that rant felt good!

I wasn't at the EC this year (meh ), but judging by what I've seen on the local scene over here:

1) Villein + Lilith's Blessing combo. Pretty much *every* deck packs this, and it's a bit ridiculous. Much better compact pool gain than anything else, with no requirements

2) Villein by itself. Something to make Minion Taps less good was warranted, but Villein went totally overboard. The number of Villeins in decks nowadays is... silly. Plus the lottery of who is able to do Villein + Giant's Blood first in the game (and get a huge advantage) is too random for my taste.

3) Ashur Tablets. Very good recursion with no requirements isn't something that the game needed.

4) Target Vitals. It's just too good. It's better than many discipline-based combat options, and it absolutely overshadows the other Target cards. It needs a nerf. Being able to cancel it with just one combat card might be a decent fix.

5) *Maybe* Lilith's Blessing by itself. It's very strong, and it should probably have been made a Unique. The main problem is the combo with Villein, though.

Other stuff I don't really see as a problem. Yes, Parity Shift is extremely strong, but it's a vote and there are multiple ways of dealing with those. Plus it requires a title, so you can see it coming. Yes, Maris Streck and the Heart of Cheating can slow down a game -- but there are tons of cards that can do that, it's not an isolated problem and imho doesn't make those cards into a problem.

1) Tupdog - the most underpriced vampire in the game. Some combat stars like Beast, Leatherface of Detroit looks pale compared to him. Add graverobbing/ raw recruit to the picture and you have a deck that causes majority of others to not be able to do even single action during a game.
2) Villein - insanely powerfull. Minion Tap was a lot more balanced. With Giant's blood and lilith's blessing it's just stupid. Without Villein Giant's blood and lilith's blessing are fine.
3) Ashur tablets - makes liquidation broken. It adds too much "solitaire type of playing" to the game. Makes pool gain to easy, recursion too available (should be restricted to necromancy clans) and last, but not least, cause too many timeouts