Which is the problem: blood creation or recursion?

Ankha wrote:

Am I the only player that have decks featuring 7+ caps without any MT or Villein? I hope not. Anyway, it's certainly not mandatory. Just an easy and effective way (some may say 'no-brainer').

It depend on the vampire you are considering.

If you play some specifics vampires, like the True Brujah 10 cap that untap every turn, or the good old Enkidu, you may not need MT or Villein.

If you try to play Raphael de Corazon, for an example of the numerous non-multiacting big cap, then it's either a pure wall deck or a pure suicide.

Ankha wrote:

Being able to play more master cards because Villein is a trifle is a bit weird. It's like saying master should be free (=>paid with the pool villein gives) and don't require a MPA to be playable (=> MPA provided by Villein). Master are becoming too easy to play nowadays, but it's just my point of view.

It's not all that weird. You have limited non-trifle master slot, until pain of choking on them. Minion tap is so important if your vampires are a tad big that it block all thoses slots.

Ankha wrote:

Being able to play more master cards because Villein is a trifle is a bit weird. It's like saying master should be free (=>paid with the pool villein gives) and don't require a MPA to be playable (=> MPA provided by Villein). Master are becoming too easy to play nowadays, but it's just my point of view.

very good argument actually.
Would you play Monastery of shadows without Villein ?

Izaak wrote:

Even before Villein, who played bleed reduce? Right, nobody did because it's ineffective at what it's supposed to do.

It is not so much bleed reduce that sucks but the bleed reduce cards printed until Sword of Caine: reduce by 1 only unless you have , but then you have access to bounce. Cards like Truth in Ink, Wrong and Crosswise or Hide the Heart are solid.

Non-existant user wrote:

It is not so much bleed reduce that sucks but the bleed reduce cards printed until Sword of Caine: reduce by 1 only unless you have , but then you have access to bounce. Cards like Truth in Ink, Wrong and Crosswise or Hide the Heart are solid.

I never seen Truth in ink played by other people, and my try were horribles failures. Wrong and Crosswise is solid because it work as vote defence. In the same way, Hide the heart is versatile, and good because of that. Confusion of the eye is on the same boat.

The card I have seen used succesfully a bit were Banner of Neutrality, I don't know why. Also the Salubri that reduce bleed by two.

Reyda wrote:

Ankha wrote:

Being able to play more master cards because Villein is a trifle is a bit weird. It's like saying master should be free (=>paid with the pool villein gives) and don't require a MPA to be playable (=> MPA provided by Villein). Master are becoming too easy to play nowadays, but it's just my point of view.

very good argument actually.
Would you play Monastery of shadows without Villein ?

Probably not.

Which boils down to the same argument again. I'm saying it's a good thing that Villein allows more (different) masters to make it into decks. I like the fact that Jake, Monastery, Visit, Troublemaker and dozens of other masters now actually are put on the table. The retarded "I gain 300 pool and never oust someone" decks are an unfortunate side-effect, but I take that over a couple of thousand cards in my boxes that won't even come under consideration for a deck.

What I'm also saying that it's bad that half the vampire pool is useless trash without a way to get them for about half the cost which is more an issue with the way the game is designed than anything else. We can all make up specific examples all day long, but the reality is just that you can't really play mid/big caps without a way to get your investment back. In that aspect, MT/Villein just is a bit of a workaround the core design flaw of the game: a 5-cap can do almost as much as an 11-cap so you'd better have a damn good reason to play said 11-cap. Having access to MT/Villein just means you have some room to work with.

Maybe the same can be accomplished by having everyone start at 45 pool and 5 uncontrolled cards instead of 30 and 4 (and then ban MT/Villein/decrypting cards). Maybe there is some other solution that nobody have thought of as of yet, but it's 2012. The game's 18 years old. It's also dying, so I don't think a change like that will happen.

So ye, I'll settle for Villein and a banning of Lilith/GB to get rid of the REALLY stupid poolgain / free vampires shit that's been all over the place the last year and a half and then let the meta fix itself.

Ohlmann wrote:

Non-existant user wrote:

It is not so much bleed reduce that sucks but the bleed reduce cards printed until Sword of Caine: reduce by 1 only unless you have , but then you have access to bounce. Cards like Truth in Ink, Wrong and Crosswise or Hide the Heart are solid.

I never seen Truth in ink played by other people, and my try were horribles failures. Wrong and Crosswise is solid because it work as vote defence. In the same way, Hide the heart is versatile, and good because of that. Confusion of the eye is on the same boat.

The card I have seen used succesfully a bit were Banner of Neutrality, I don't know why. Also the Salubri that reduce bleed by two.

Being black hand is a difficult trait to support for bleed reduce. Decks that are already black hand can make some use of it, depending on their disciplines (i.e. obf dom black hand don't need or want it). Banner of Neutrality is an ok card for weenie independent decks like Assamites because they already have Nest of Eagles and they can work together. That Salubri is just crazy good. I realize I'm off topic now, but is there anything else to say?