Contesting *brainstorm*

I was triggered by hugh on a FB reply to start a contest fix brainstorm.
I have an idea to change vampire contesting:

Step 1 the new incomming vampire becomes burned to start contesting the first vampire.
Step 2 the first vampire becomes uncontrolled.
Step 3 a methuselah contesting a vampire must burn 1 pool during his or her untap or yield contesting.
Step 4 if contesting is payed paid, take control of the vampire untill you discard phase and untap the vampire as normal.
Step 5 if a vampire is no longer contested, control is handed to the player who did not yield.

Contested vampires cannot gain blood. If you control a contested vampire you cannot play mastercards on it.

Just a thought.
Greetz Jeroen

General question: This is "only" about contesting crypt cards, rights?

Next question ...

Oortje wrote:

[...]

Step 1 the new incomming vampire becomes burned to start contesting the first vampire.
Step 2 the first vampire becomes uncontrolled.
[...]

Maybe I get your thoughts / words wrong, but if the new / second copy is burned how is there still a contest?

Thanks in advance!

Firstly, I do not think contesting is problematic.

Secondly, all of these 'fix contesting' posts should probably start with stating what problems the suggestions are specifically trying to fix. The opinions vary on what even are problems.

Thirdly, I think the only real 'problem' I can see with contesting (vampires) is that the player is robbed of many turns of play, which in this fast paced meta might be certain death. My fix to this would be moving all blood counters on a contested vampire being yielded returning to the controlling Methuselah's Pool.

I would never want to see two same vampires being controlled at the same time, since it breaks the immersion. Contesting should be rough, and playing the same vampire punishable. It is a bit too harsh at the moment, since players might not be able to return to the game to pick a supporting vampire if their star gets contested in turn 2. With my fix players will have the pool to invest to their support vampires, even if with a delay.

Furthermore, to allow for early game reactivity in possible contest situations, I would make the change of buying a new Crypt card cost 1 Pool and ALL of available Transfers instead of 4 to allow for first, second or third turn Cyrpt draws.

Kraus wrote:

Secondly, all of these 'fix contesting' posts should probably start with stating what problems the suggestions are specifically trying to fix. The opinions vary on what even are problems.

Typically a combination of:

- players like making use of star vampires

- players don't like having their deck killed in a random fashion

- to the extent that the player-side issue can be 'solved' by not playing popular vampires, that only makes it less likely: you may (quite reasonably) think Lucita is less likely to be contested than Arika, but it's still possible

- but why would a player contest my vampire when it's going to kill us both? Some players make bad choices during a game.

- the knock-on effects to the rest of the table can be considerable, because assuming it's your first fattie being contested who was planning to reek havoc on the rest of the table, your predator and prey now have a much freer ride than they were expecting

- having these things happen in a game that takes 20 minutes to play and then you get another round is a vastly different player experience than having got to do very little in a game before getting ousted, then waiting 1h40 for the next round to start

Kraus wrote:

Thirdly, I think the only real 'problem' I can see with contesting (vampires) is that the player is robbed of many turns of play, which in this fast paced meta might be certain death. My fix to this would be moving all blood counters on a contested vampire being yielded returning to the controlling Methuselah's Pool.

That fixes (to some extent) the pool issue, but not the turns of play issue. If you've just flipped out Arika, then your grand-prey contests her, you may still be three turns away from flipping out Queen Anne. If you were able to optionally reallocate the pool to your uncontrolled region, that might be semi-decent.

This doesn't solve issues for decks that are super-heavily focused on one vampire.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

That fixes (to some extent) the pool issue, but not the turns of play issue. If you've just flipped out Arika, then your grand-prey contests her, you may still be three turns away from flipping out Queen Anne. If you were able to optionally reallocate the pool to your uncontrolled region, that might be semi-decent.

True that turns are lost, but false that time isn't gained: if you would lose the pool invested, or are forced to drag with the contest while bringing up another vampire, getting ousted happens sooner (as is basic maths). With the pool returned, you will use the turns for transfers, but will live longer with the extra pool that wasn't lost to the contest.

Ergo, you gain time to recalibrate your game.

Semantics, sure, but a help nonetheless.

A player with 30 pool to spend on 5 turns of transfers has more time to play than a player with 20 pool to spend on 5 turns (let's say you yield a 10cap star).

This doesn't solve issues for decks that are super-heavily focused on one vampire.

This is an example of what I personally don't think is a problem to begin with. With careful and intelligent deck building most star vampires have decent proxies that can at least play the same game as the intended star, if not as efficiently. Matasuntha and Lizette are fine proxies for Enkidu stars for example.

Contesting is not unproblematic in any iteration. Then again, it's there as a rule to make things problematic in the first place. For a reason, I'd argue.

I think Oortje's fix suggestion is the best one I've seen so far.

Not sure if we NEED to fix contesting Crypt cards though...