Rules Team Rulings 02-DEC-11

johannes wrote:

chaitan wrote:

]

Still wallpaper but atleast now you can use it in:

1. Deck with low amount of master phase actions.
and/or
2. Lack of Villeins and you don't play in a tournament.

A card that was a staple in the TWDA for years is certainly not wallpaper. It was for a while when the ever present Villein hosed it, but now it has been restored to exactly what it was before. I am sure we are going to see it played a lot now again and also you don't need certain cards to win. Look at Matt Morgan, he can win with everything, because he just plays a lot better than you. Stop complaining and start learning.

That issue aside, the V:EKN is working hard to keep this game well and alive and this was a big step to help the players. Yet there are people who don't appreciate anything, and that makes me angry.

It is interesting how one misinterpreted line can cause so much anger. I do appreciate the change. VEKN did a great job. The change to villein was one of the best out of all possible. It accomplished several things with the addition of a single word and all the other changes was just made so much sense it wasn't worth commenting.

I do agree that was I a bit liberal with the word wallpaper since I did state that there was a few scenarios it was usable in. Just like how On the Qui Vie replaced Forced/Wake they still find their way into some decks where the drawback of On the Que Vie can't be ignored. Just like Minion Tap will.

Although it is better than it was before just doesn't mean it is a perfect change. Villein is above any beyond a better card than Minion Tap.

With that said,

Why are you using a bunch of logical fallacies to prove your point?

If card X exist in 1000 tournament winning decks and after that card Y is printed which is better than card X in every possible way. That just mean card X had a glorious past but the future is card Y.

Also, player skill has nothing to do with card viability. I don't doubt Matt Morgan can beat anybody with a hand full of Twisting the Knife but that doesn't mean it is a competative card.

chaitan wrote:

If card X exist in 1000 tournament winning decks and after that card Y is printed which is better than card X in every possible way. That just mean card X had a glorious past but the future is card Y.

You know, I hate to get anal about this but it is not a correct thing to say about Minion Tap ("card X") and Villein ("card Y"). Villein was not "better" than Minion Tap in every possible way or it would not have been printed. Minion Tap is still better for any kind of design that requires reaping blood from the same minion over and over. An example would be some kind of deck that employed exactly one minion to play the role of "fatty" while another minion possessed superior Obeah and employed Renewed Vigor on the fatty over and over. And while it's true that Villein is a trifle, this may not matter if the Minion Tap/Villein choice are the only master cards being employed by the deck. And the hosing nature of the Villeins only matter when someone else at the table is using Villeins - which, with Blood Dolls, Vessels, Tributes, Boons, and Voter Caps in the game as other means of blood management, is not the case very frequently.

I'm not necessarily criticizing the change, here. The attraction of the two cards clearly isn't equal and I understand why people didn't like this. Still, the argument that Minion Tap had been completely hosed in the past is overstated. And the statement that Villein was better in every possible way is just plain wrong.

fredsct wrote:

You know, I hate to get anal about this but it is not a correct thing to say about Minion Tap ("card X") and Villein ("card Y"). Villein was not "better" than Minion Tap in every possible way or it would not have been printed.

Nor did I claim it was. That is why I created a generic argument to prove a point about error in logic.

chaitan wrote:

fredsct wrote:

You know, I hate to get anal about this but it is not a correct thing to say about Minion Tap ("card X") and Villein ("card Y"). Villein was not "better" than Minion Tap in every possible way or it would not have been printed.

Nor did I claim it was. That is why I created a generic argument to prove a point about error in logic.

You'll have to forgive people for misunderstanding you. One would assume you were making the "generic argument" as a direct allegory to Minion Tap and Villein - which would be the common reason to employ such a rhetorical device. Even if the specifics do not apply in every detail, the usual sense of such argument is that they apply well enough to make your point. But they don't.

Johannes was saying that Minion Tap - used heavily in tournament winning decks for many years until Villien came along - cannot possibly be wallpaper now that Villien no longer affects it. Post change, we are now so far from the status of Villein being "better than Minion Tap" in any way, throwing such a statement around in this thread is completely irrelevant to the point he was made. The only thing Villein has over Minion Tap now is trifleness. Trifleness is a pretty significant thing but it doesn't turn Minion Tap into wallpaper.

fredsct wrote:

chaitan wrote:

fredsct wrote:

You know, I hate to get anal about this but it is not a correct thing to say about Minion Tap ("card X") and Villein ("card Y"). Villein was not "better" than Minion Tap in every possible way or it would not have been printed.

Nor did I claim it was. That is why I created a generic argument to prove a point about error in logic.

You'll have to forgive people for misunderstanding you. One would assume you were making the "generic argument" as a direct allegory to Minion Tap and Villein - which would be the common reason to employ such a rhetorical device. Even if the specifics do not apply in every detail, the usual sense of such argument is that they apply well enough to make your point. But they don't.

Johannes was saying that Minion Tap - used heavily in tournament winning decks for many years until Villien came along - cannot possibly be wallpaper now that Villien no longer affects it. Post change, we are now so far from the status of Villein being "better than Minion Tap" in any way, throwing such a statement around in this thread is completely irrelevant to the point he was made. The only thing Villein has over Minion Tap now is trifleness. Trifleness is a pretty significant thing but it doesn't turn Minion Tap into wallpaper.

Well said.


The word wallpaper is poorly defined. No card is truly so useless that will absolutely never ever see play (except maybe Becoming of Ennoia). When I say wallpaper I mean there are better alternatives regardless of the strength of the card.

Minion Tap is a strong card, no doubt about it. Even pre-nerf villein (where the general opinion said that MT was wallpaper) you could still take great advantage of it and possibly win assuming the metagame didn't cripple you too hard (but isn't that true for all decks?

Granted, Villein can not replace MT in a star vampire voter deck (or any deck that can repeatedly refill one or two star vampires) and as I first pointed out, if you have very few master cards then you can easily switch to MT instead of villein. I'm sure there are a few other niche decks it can fit into also that I didn't think of.

But that does not mean Villein isn't a stronger card if you look at them competitively. The synergy with cards such as Giants Blood, Lilith's Blessing and especially ANY other master phase action in hand or play is a much more likely consideration when you build a deck.