Timeouting as increasing trend

FWIW:
www.vekn.net/index.php/forum/9-event-reports-and-twd/7361

Based on empiric experience I'd be inclined to agree with Mika.

Am not sure what has caused the increase though.
Prime candidates could be Villein & Lilith's Blessing?

a tear in the time-space continuum has caused all clocks to run slightly faster than before

I agree with mika, too.

I am not very fond of blaming Villein & Lilith's Blessing "alone" and "by default" (but, of course, these cards have a significant impact on the game).

Nowadays, it seems to be easier to have a "good" deck, plus more players have a better knowlegde of the game (but since I started playing 2007, I cannot recall "old times"). And maybe the level of "awareness" of what is going on during the game has risen.

If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out.

How they can make games not time out has been discussed at length before so I will not repeat it here.

Lönkka wrote:

Am not sure what has caused the increase though.
Prime candidates could be Villein & Lilith's Blessing?

Most likely, it is Villein being a prime contributor.

A couple of years ago (say, before HttB starters), Villein was more scarce. More people were playing small minions with more Blood Doll / Vessel at that time. The "big cap metagame" wasn't as universal.

These "horizontal" pool management cards can't convert blood at the same rate that Villein does in today's game. Blood Doll on a 5 cap might might net 4 pool from 4 blood over 4 turns, Vessel nets 3 pool from 4 blood over 5 turns the same minion.

So minions influenced at turn 5 might still be "hanging onto" a large part of the initial investment that you want in your pool, right up to the point where you get ousted in turn 8-9.

Contrast that to everyone and their brothers playing Villein and netting all the recursion that intend to receive from that minion in a single turn.

In effect, we're both having to bleed though more recurred pool, and facing more emergency blood conversion than was ever seen before Villein.

Then multiply the blood conversion by however many times you get minions partially refilled (true gain after exceeding the minions capacity in pool return). All in a single turn, instead of trickling it too little too late with Vessel.

Lilith's Blessing might contribute by allowing deeper Villeins, but there are plenty of other ways to get from 1 blood to 3 (or full) quickly, so it really only amounts to a few pool in the overall scheme and only if its drawn early in the game. Honestly, I don't like LB, but its not really the problem actor in this situation.

KevinM wrote:

If players and decks are better, and players have a better knowledge and awareness of the game, they should be PLAYING BETTER and not letting games time out.

As for players playing better or building better decks, bleed offense hasn't scaled up. Ever. There are more options, but the the gold standard for scale is still 1994's Govern+Conditioning. Pool recursion has improved since 1994. Simple mathematics suggest a net longer time-to-oust.

Of course, this isn't meant to suggest everyone should just play Malk '94 or Vignes Tap-n-Bleed.