Which is the problem: blood creation or recursion?

@ICL:
The recent AUNZ Continental Champs had quite a prevalence of combat weenies. Noticably:

• Nec-Shamblers
• Ani-Rush
• Pot-Rush (one which made the finals of the LCQ and placed well on the Championship day as well) which IIRC had two different styles appear (Pot-Hug and Increased Strength-Thrown Junk)

It seems like I don't play the same game as you guys are.
Games you are talking about with everyone going big caps + villein + giant's blood actually didnt happened to me last EC, neither last nationals in France.

Concerning my tables:

In 9 rounds in Budapest, I saw one Villein+Liquidation+Ashur deck. Well, I don't count me playing Council of Doom day 2
In french nationals, 6 rounds + 1 final, I didnt saw any kind of those decks.
The 2 decks that won french LCQ and nationals were not playing villein neither ashur tablets.

I don't know what tables you guys are playing when you play Jyhad - but certainly not the one I'm used to.

I will just put my two cents here.

Voter Cap + Minion Tap is an old issue. Voter Cap rewards a deck (far better than any other card) for ousting their prey. Voter Cap + Minion Tap makes a minion at least free, potentially gaining their capacity in pool.

Voter Cap + Villein is similar, but the Villein will hurt cumulatively (or you just repeat it across multiple minions instead of just doing it repeatedly to one minion).

Giant's Blood + Villein seems to just be a MMPA version of the Voter Cap + Villein version. Probably because it is more difficult for other players to interfere with this tactic (the opportunity costs for other players is significantly higher).

Lilith's Blessing + Villein seems to be another MMPA version of the Tap & Cap trick spread across every minion. Reclaim the full cost of the minion and then refill them so the minion is free.

Renewed Vigor + Tap/Villein is also a tactic that seems to have the same results for gameplay as any of the others.

All of these have in common a problem of reclaiming blood for no effective additional actions. They all generate significant amounts of blood from nothing. Blood creation is obviously far more of a problem than recursion.

All the above are true.

I agree to a point.
I played the game when it first came out. Pool gaining was powerful, but still defeat able. Today with so many different ways to reclaiming blood / pool for little or no cost.
I think what really change the game, is the rock, paper, scissors interactions that was very well balance that keep everything in check. Now I think that part of the interaction is out of "gamut”.

How to fix that part the interaction? I am not sure.

Ankha wrote:

What I know, is that mostly of the time when there's a IC deck on the table, the table times out if the IC deck doesn't make the GW. The IC deck may die, but it takes so much time that his predator won't have time or resources for another VP.

I disagree with this fact you are exposing, for instance during the EC I had 5 games with Inner circles, no GW for the IC deck, and only one time out, the rest GW for other guy not playing IC.

I disagree. Gaining blood is fine, if the blood is used to play cards, not to gain pool. Draining 1 pool per turn using a Blood Doll is slow and acceptable. Gaining 8 pool or more with a trifle master is fast.

The necessity to do so is all derived from the fact that 2-caps can still bleed for 5 in this game. If fast Eddy wouldn't be hitting your pool for 4 starting with turn 2 and is then joined by two more buddies that can do the same, there would be less need to get silly amounts of pool back from your 10-caps *fast*.

This issue has been brought up since 1994 and instead of implementing the extremely easy to remember, suggested since 1994, totally sensible rule that a vampire can't bleed for more than its capacity, there have been various efforts throughtout the game's lifespan to make more (if not all) midcaps and fatties at least playable. Most efforts have failed (barring a few archtypes) until Villein got printed.

If Villein/Minion Tap were banned (for example), Voter Captivation, Lilith's Blessing, Abactor... won't be issues. You have blood, you can play more cards, more combat etc. You also have to be more careful and can't bring out 30+ influence on the table.

If Villein/MT were banned, the game would evolve to the point where you play midcaps with 10 deflections or weenie dom, weenie dem or weenie aus. Between all the poolgain people are STILL winning tables and/or tournaments with weenie dementation. I don't want to know what would happen without MT/Villein.

Or you ban blood gaining cards (far more numerous and complicated!), meaning you play with free vampires that have no blood, with 0-cost cards because you can't afford to pay blood, which would lead to a more boring game (imho) and more tiemout since everyone gains pool easily.

Or, you start with banning GB and Liliths (and maybe limit master cards to 2 per turn, including trifle and OoT) and see how the game evolves from there?