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  7. How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean

file How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean

02 Mar 2016 16:02 - 04 Mar 2016 12:09 #75658 by Ankha
How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean was created by Ankha
Welcome to the part 2 of my analysis of which cards I'd keep.

I'll focus now on two non-bleed disciplines, the first one being a "classical" discipline shared by many clans, the other a nearly clan-specific discipline.

Auspex
- intercept
- ignoring block restrictions
- seeing hand / increase hand size
- bouncing bleed

Kept as is
  • Anima Gathering: a very playable card that creates some strategies based on Auspex support vampires
  • Aura Reading: fits perfectly the see hand / increase hand size angle
  • Crocodile's Tongue: interesting card in blood denial decks. Gives an ersatz of stealth (action delivery).
  • Eagle's Sight: a signature card
  • Enhanced Senses: staple intercept card
  • Precognition: staple intercept card
  • Pulse of the Canaille: a costly card but that is totally playable and interesting
  • Revelations: an useful card, fits the "see hand" concept
  • Spirit's Touch: staple intercept card
  • Telepathic Misdirection: a signature card, balanced
  • Telepathic Tracking: an important card vs combat ends (in the rock-paper-scissors aspect of combat)

Modified

Not kept
  • Ancestor's Insight: not a bad card, but I'll keep Laibon card aside in the first place
  • Burnt Offering: weak card
  • Celestial Harmony: weak card
  • Ecstatic Agony: weak card
  • Eyes of Argus: a very good card, not necessary in the format
  • Fast Reaction: a weak combo card
  • Melange: an average card
  • My Enemy's Enemy: a good card, but redundant with Telepathic's Misdirection
  • Precognizant Mobility: wallpaper card
  • Primal Instincts: wallpaper card
  • Psychic Assault: weak card
  • Psychic Projection: weak card, redundant with Anima Gathering
  • Read Intentions: weak card
  • Scrying of Secrets: weak card
  • Sins of the Cauchemar: weak card
  • Soul Scan: interesting but weak card
  • Telepathic Counter: too weak
  • Telepathic Vote Counting: useless card

Protean
A support discipline that combines flexibility with cheap cards (and some aggravated damage!). Will be combined most of the time with Celerity, so all the crappy "do the same as Celerity but not as well" cards are not kept.
It's quite clear that the interesting cards are very few, leaving space for more new strategies. Loki's Gift could have been a strategy card for instance, unfortunately it's too weak and limited to be reliable.

Kept as is
  • Claws of the Dead: a staple card, polyvalent. The maneuver is always useful, declaring aggravated damage after strikes have been announced is quite efficient
  • Earth Control: doesn't fare as well as Lost in Crowds, but Protean is less specialized so it's fine. Provides action delivery
  • Earth Meld: staple card
  • Flesh of Marble: good combat card with limited weakness
  • Form of Mist: a staple card
  • Homunculus: good card with a unique effect
  • Rapid Change: good polyvalent support card, provides delivery

Modified
  • Eyes of the Beast: or keep as is?

Not kept
  • Adaptability: too weak
  • Body Flare: not a signature card, pretty weak
  • Body of Sun: same as Body Flare, too expensive
  • Bone Spur: lacks the flexibility of Claws of the Dead
  • Carrion Coffin: crappy card compared to Homunculus
  • Dissolution: too weak, inferior and superior effects are mismatched
  • Dual Form: crappy card
  • Form of the Ghost: crappy card, not the kind of support we'd expect from Protean
  • Gleam of Red Eyes: crappy card, not the kind of support we'd expect from Protean
  • Horrific Countenance: too expensive, weak card
  • Loki's Gift: interesting card, but too weak
  • Mantle of the Bestial Majesty: weak card
  • Movement of the Slow Body: crappy card
  • Mythic Form: crappy expensive card
  • Quick Meld: crappy card
  • Shadow of the Beast: weak card
  • Shadow of the Wolf: crappy expensive card
  • Shape Mastery: it's getting worse and worse, what the f*** did the designers think?
  • Sonar: weak card
  • Uncontrollable Rage: omg
  • Wolf Claws: ok but redundant with Claws of the Dead (a maneuver is far better than a press)
Prince of Paris, France
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Last edit: 04 Mar 2016 12:09 by Ankha. Reason: Removed Eyes of the Beast from the "not kept" list

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02 Mar 2016 18:24 #75663 by brettscho
Replied by brettscho on topic How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean
Personally, I'd like to see some changes, rather than just cutting bad cards. Something much more similar to what you did for DOM + PRE. But here are my thoughts:

Auspex:
  • Read Intentions: It is weak, but the question is, do you want any Auspex combat. Maybe the answer is no, but if you want something, then I'd leave this card. Pretty minor point...
  • Telepathic Vote Counting: Very surprised to see this on the list. If you want clans without presence to be able to use politics, you need to include some less useful vote gain (or vote cancellation) cards in other disciplines. I use this card all the time...

Protean:
VTES has never really figured out what Protean should do other than agg damage. I do like keeping that as the core of the discipline, but it needs something else. I'd also remove some of the S:CE from the discipline. At present, people only use it for defensive combat. The other thing is that if you want it to be toolboxy like Vicissitude, then you can't cut all the intercept cards - while they are strictly inferior to Auspex cards, that's ok. Sonar and Eyes of the Beast actually allow Gangrel to block things with the Aniimalism (they have two secondary intercept disciplines which is almost like having Auspex...). Anyway, this is a discipline that I think would require quite a bit of thought, and should be rebuilt from the ground up. Finally, I'll point out that Protean is combined with Celerity only rarely - only half (ish) of the Gangrel Antitribu have those two disciplines in clan, and I think there is a substantial argument to be made in getting rid of city/country Gangrel from the game. Point is, I'd keep a few of the maneuvers and presses if you want it to be a viable combat discipline.
Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS

I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

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02 Mar 2016 22:51 #75679 by Ankha
Replied by Ankha on topic How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean

Auspex:
  • Read Intentions: It is weak, but the question is, do you want any Auspex combat. Maybe the answer is no, but if you want something, then I'd leave this card. Pretty minor point...

I'm opened to combat cards in Auspex, but this card is too weak. The inferior should be switched to an unconditional Press, at least, which is not very useful. I prefer to remove it so new cards can be thought of.

  • Telepathic Vote Counting: Very surprised to see this on the list. If you want clans without presence to be able to use politics, you need to include some less useful vote gain (or vote cancellation) cards in other disciplines. I use this card all the time...

    • I've never seen it played. The inferior effect is really bad ("so you managed to call your vote without being intercepted, but you didn't count the votes before hand? or you play this card because you expect your vote to fail because someone plays a Dread Gaze, so you can start again next time for probably the same result?"). I see the point in the superior effect, but there are probably better cards such as Closed Session.

    Protean:
    VTES has never really figured out what Protean should do other than agg damage. I do like keeping that as the core of the discipline, but it needs something else. I'd also remove some of the S:CE from the discipline. At present, people only use it for defensive combat.

    Form of Mist allows you to continue your action, which is quite aggresive, and Earth Meld untaps you, which allows you to take another action. Both are great delivery cards.

    The other thing is that if you want it to be toolboxy like Vicissitude, then you can't cut all the intercept cards - while they are strictly inferior to Auspex cards, that's ok. Sonar and Eyes of the Beast actually allow Gangrel to block things with the Aniimalism (they have two secondary intercept disciplines which is almost like having Auspex...).

    Sonar and Eyes of the Beast are terrible cards. I'd rather play master intercept locations than those, or play more Animalism.
    If I were to design something, I'd think about a card that helps you play intercept cards from other disciplines rather than providing bad intercept.

    Anyway, this is a discipline that I think would require quite a bit of thought, and should be rebuilt from the ground up. Finally, I'll point out that Protean is combined with Celerity only rarely - only half (ish) of the Gangrel Antitribu have those two disciplines in clan, and I think there is a substantial argument to be made in getting rid of city/country Gangrel from the game. Point is, I'd keep a few of the maneuvers and presses if you want it to be a viable combat discipline.

    You're right, I'm playing Enkidu too often :)
    Prince of Paris, France
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    03 Mar 2016 14:52 #75695 by 2wayspeaker
    Replied by 2wayspeaker on topic How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean
    If you are filtering cards for a possible reprint
    1) Please pay equal attention to all disciplines. (Why does auspex get 11 cards, but protean only 7?)
    2) Keep in mind the essentials. (What does a new player really need? What cards really get played?)
    3) Be consistent with the guidelines you set out. (Auspex doesn't have offensive things on the list yet you select Pulse and Crocodile?)
    Auspex
    - intercept
    - ignoring block restrictions
    - seeing hand / increase hand size
    - bouncing bleed

    Kept as is
    • Aura Reading: Card efficiency
    • Eagle's Sight: Promotes interaction
    • Enhanced Senses: Staple intercept card
    • Eyes of Argus: Combo card (Wake OR Intercept) Card efficiency
    • Precognition: Seeing the blow coming is more thematic than maneuvering
    • Telepathic Misdirection: a signature card, balanced
    • Telepathic Tracking: an important card vs combat ends (in the rock-paper-scissors aspect of combat)

    That's 7 Cards for Auspex essentials that don't deviate from the core.

    I have no issue with your protean selection. Though I think you did Dual Form a bit short, there's potential in that card that'd see play if it wasn't a rare but an uncommon.

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    04 Mar 2016 02:19 - 04 Mar 2016 02:25 #75710 by Maddog
    Replied by Maddog on topic How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean
    As someone (like many of us) who played the world of darkness role play before vtes, I think Vtes demonstrates what Protean should do, the source material explains how versatile and flexible it is as a discipline (very much like many other disciplines, like Chemistry for example).

    We know Protean allows the vampire to manipulate/transform their physical form into something else, such as growing animal claws, change into a form of a wolf/bats, or transform into mist/meld into the earth and so on. There are great cards that demonstrate this in vtes, however I do agree with much on the “not kept” list as there is way too much “card spam” for this discipline and indeed most disciplines in Vtes, which often confuses/overwhelm the hell out of new/returning players.

    Only one card that does aggravated hand damage, maneuver, prevent, strike combat ends is really needed. As a multitude of these cards that do similar or the same thing is a waste of a printing slot and can be a little confusing for new players.

    I also think Sonar and Eyes of the Beast are good strong cards that I (and my meta) use all the time in protean heavy Gangrel decks, one example:-with Jacob Fermor, Gunnar, Calvin Cleaver’ Fergus Alexander, Lillian, Robert Price. And my Blood brother Kiev Circle deck. I also use intercept locations in these decks aswell. However often locations are stolen, contested, or arson’d ect. I use Sonar & Eyes of the Beast in my animalism/protean Gangrel Gather deck to guard (with animalism) against Gather and my pool being negatively effected.

    If a reprint of old card set and/or a new set was done for new/returning/existing players, cards that build a good foundation and are useful for players would be great. With less multiple cards that do the same effect would awesome.
    Last edit: 04 Mar 2016 02:25 by Maddog.

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    04 Mar 2016 10:07 - 04 Mar 2016 10:07 #75715 by Borrelstein
    Replied by Borrelstein on topic How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint) - Part 2 - Auspex and Protean
    Regarding Auspex, I think My Enemy's Enemy and Telepathic Counter deserve better.
    Given the restriction on not stacking the same reaction cards, MEE is important to have and also provides some additional intercept if needed.
    As for TC, there are not too many bleed reduction cards and it is not bad to have an alternative defense mechanism other than block or bounce that does not tap or cost blood.

    Regarding Protean, I think the discipline needs maneuvers to land that agro poke, so at least one of form of the ghost or quick meld should be kept if you want to prevent Protean combat to be hosed by a Magnum .44.
    Last edit: 04 Mar 2016 10:07 by Borrelstein. Reason: typo

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