Most Versatile Discipline?

Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is the most versatile, and why? I was considering some options when I realized that this probably depended alot on meta-game. If your super-combat oriented, maybe protean is your bag. If your meta game is vote/bleed heavy, maybe dominate will do it for ya. Whatcha think?

What?!?!?! NO THAUMATURGY!! That poll sucks -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v88r4i6...@corp.supernews.com>... > What?!?!?! NO THAUMATURGY!! Why is thaumaturgy the most versatile discipline? (because of the Norm module doesn't count) > > That poll sucks That's why I made the thread. I was wondering who thought what disciplines are the most versatile, and why.

>Why is thaumaturgy the most versatile discipline? >(because of the Norm module doesn't count) Maybe it was mentioned because it's the most versatile discipline in the RPG? Halcyan 2

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v88r4i6...@corp.supernews.com>... > What?!?!?! NO THAUMATURGY!! > > That poll sucks Ahhh, you just show your ignorance. While good at what it does, everyone knows that Thaumaturgy isn't versatile.....;-) -------------------------------- Ethan Burrow - Bane of the Swamp http://texas.vekn.org/ http://monger.vekn.org/

>Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is >the most versatile, and why? In my mind, a versatile discipline is likely to be one that can stand on its own in terms of not needing another discipline to make a deck work and give options for what sort of deck to build. So, here's a list of disciplines that would seem to fit: Animalism Chimerstry Dementation Dominate Mytherceria Necromancy Obeah Obfuscate Obtenebration Presence Protean Spiritus Vicissitude I see the bloodline disciplines as being a bit different, being limited by the number of vampires able to use them. Takes me down to 10 by eliminating them. Presence has few combat options, no stealth and no intercept. Between Protean and Vicissitude, I'd take the latter. Obfuscate is limited in actions (among other problems). I'd take Dominate over Dementation. Take Chimerstry over Animalism. Chimerstry Dominate Necromancy Obtenebration Vicissitude Chimerstry has an interesting issue in whether the high cost of cards makes the discipline less versatile and, then, whether being able to fairly easily work around that with Gabrin/Path removes the issue. Regardless, I'll take it over Necromancy due to far more combat options, greater number of useful actions, plus bleed, etc. I think I'd give the edge to Obtenebration over Vicissitude due primarily to Obtenebration having intercept. With more actions and more varied combat, I'd take Chimerstry over Obtenebration. Dominate has got action variety out the wazoo and bounce, but Chimerstry isn't short on actions, has real stealth, faux intercept, variety of combat options. At least if you ignore the cost of Chimerstry and possibly if you don't, it wins my vote.

"Ethan Burrow" <saa...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:fad0b3bc.03032...@posting.google.com... > "XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v88r4i6...@corp.supernews.com>... > > What?!?!?! NO THAUMATURGY!! > > > > That poll sucks > > Ahhh, you just show your ignorance. > > While good at what it does, everyone knows that Thaumaturgy isn't versatile.....;-) That's crap and you know it. You're just bitter because you haven't got the creative firepower to make a PAAD Thaumaturgy. :) Fancy beer is for pansies. ;) [ quoted text not captured ]

>Maybe it was mentioned because it's the most versatile discipline in the RPG? I'd like to see some of the RPG's versatility translated. Thaum has too much combat with too much of the combat being similar. Course, I'd like Celerity and Potence to become at least somewhat versatile.

[ quoted text not captured ] My vote is Necromancy... Why? All the other disciplines can be done by other disciplines... Necromancy is truely unique... The versatile isn't from the discipline itself, but rather what cards you can have in your hand... All other discipline depends on what cards they have in their hand... Necromancy can regularly go into their ash heap and recall card they need at that moment... Stealth and intercept in 1 card... You fail to block, s:ce, to shambling hoards... They are the most versatile because their ash heap is an asset -- Direct access to this group with http://web2news.com http://web2news.com/?rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad

feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Auspex. It's the best. Intercept [obviously] Bounce [superior Telepathic misdirecton] Bleed [Superior Pulse] Combat [Aura reading, Telepathic tracking, other stuff] Vote [Telepathic vote counting] Stealth [erm, ok, no stealth] Weird stuff [information, reaction]. Auspex NEARLY does it ALL!!!!

[ quoted text not captured ] I think, much to my dismay, that the discipline providing most versatility is Obtenebration. With obte you can : add stealth, add intercept, maneuver, dodge, strike combat ends, strike combat ends and continue the action, steal blood, ranged damage, gain additional strikes, burn or send opposing minion to torpor. I can imagine decks relying on this discipline alone =)

feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Vissisitude. Agg, ranged agg, stealing blood, strength pluses, damage prevention, blood gain, stealth, intercept, ending combat, bleed pluses and dodging. The next best thing is necromancy, but it lacks bleed mods. And its combat sucks. ~SV

"vermillian" <vermil...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:f987c6cd.03033...@posting.google.com... > feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... > > Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is > > the most versatile, and why? > > > > I was considering some options when I realized that this probably > > depended alot on meta-game. If your super-combat oriented, maybe > > protean is your bag. If your meta game is vote/bleed heavy, maybe > > dominate will do it for ya. > > > > Whatcha think? > > Vissisitude. Agg, ranged agg, stealing blood, strength pluses, damage > prevention, blood gain, stealth, intercept, ending combat, bleed > pluses and dodging. Where does Vissitude have intercept? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Devin" <feedmeast...@yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message de news: 9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] SPIRITUS... of course : Untap/intercept Intercept/eagle's sight-like Maneuver/press/stealth Stealth/maneuver or press maneuver with press/S:CE ..action continues as if unblocked +X Strength/ + X Strength with press ... Nose of The Hound !!! Engling Fury Muricia's Call ..O_o .. ouch '

<snip> > SPIRITUS... of course > : > > Untap/intercept > Intercept/eagle's sight-like > Maneuver/press/stealth > Stealth/maneuver or press > maneuver with press/S:CE ..action continues as if unblocked > +X Strength/ + X Strength with press > ... > Nose of The Hound !!! > Engling Fury > Muricia's Call > > ..O_o > > .. ouch ' Engling fury is pretty cool, and spiritus has alot of versatility. Now consider these disciplines as a stand alone... Mono-discipline decks, IMHO, really show versatility. If a discipline can function on its own in a number of different environments (vote, combat, bleed) it can surely be considered versatile. I mean, if you can take one discipline, put it in a game where another deck is utilizing 3, and the mono-deck is still competitive, then it is in my eyes performing as well as the 3 discipline spread. It may not have more "absolute" versatility, being able to handle a multitude of situations, but it can handle up well on its own in most environments... Which brings us to another subject entirely. If you may humor me for one more discipline topic, what would everyone consider to be the best *support* discipline. I'm sure alot can be said about what a "support" discipline can be considered, but for the sake of discussion, lets go with "This discipline can not, in a mono discipline deck, perform at top tournament level with consistency". Basically, pick some discipline you would love to match up with dominate or presence, or whatever, and explain your bid for it being a superior support discipline. Appreciate your responses, --Devin Villegas **note: alot of the previous responses have answered this question, like the spiritus mentioned above. I would appreciate, now that I have proposed a proper question, any more responses people might have had in mind.**

feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Off that poll, undoubtably Obtenebration. Overall I'd argue Chimestry at the moment. Actions: Powerful, game changing actions. Reality - "The Banishment you don't have to pass!" Sensory Dep - "Screwing your vampires since 1996" Sleight of Hand - "Making your Ivory Bow MY Ivory Bow" whilst also checking out your prey's hand. Mass Reality - Huge potential with Starshell Grenade Launchers. Trick of Danya - Not used as much as it should be. But very cool with Reality Sensory Overload - A cool stopgap solution Nightmare Curse - worse than Sensory dep as it's cheaper! Combat: The wackiest way to beat someone into submission... and Survive! Illusions of the Kindred - VERY powerful and fairly offbeat. Horrid Reality - very cool with Mass Reality in play Amira - A "Behind You" you can use more of the time. Far Faatus - Thrown gate with no comback! Appirition - blood for blood one of the best prevention cards in the game. Stealth: Useful, reliable stealth Fata Morgana - Also adding extra bleed, in a "Better than Bonding" way. Mirror Image - Form of mist as it should have been (and probably will be post Anarchs) Red Herring - A superior Change of Target. Intercept: Bizarrely, the most powerful intecept card in the game, in a way... Draba - Nuke the 7 stealth Leandro has been carefully hording... all the way from accross the table too! Ignus Faatus / Veiled Seight - Also handy ways of messing up someone's day. Then there are the wacky cards that no-one has worked out yet: Shumilo Deception - A backwards Mask of 1k Faces Unlike Leggy's bid for Auspex (below), there is more power per card here than with Auspex. And there is more card effeciency (Draba can be as good as 4 auspex intercept cards). The other tip is that they blend well with the otehr prime 2 disciplines taht come with their key clan. DH

> Mirror Image - Form of mist as it should have been (and probably will > be post Anarchs) <holds head in hands and sobs> Rob [ quoted text not captured ]

Mirror Image - Form of mist as it should have been (and probably will be post Anarchs) Any information you base this on? Just wondering, and i seriously hope it isn't true. -Bram Vink

> > I think, much to my dismay, that the discipline providing most versatility > is Obtenebration. > With obte you can : add stealth, add intercept, maneuver, dodge, strike > combat ends, strike combat ends and continue the action, steal blood, ranged > damage, gain additional strikes, burn or send opposing minion to torpor. > I can imagine decks relying on this discipline alone =) (This will probably get me flamed) Most Versatile discipline - SERPENTIS Why? I want to beat a vampire up - steal another vampire and do it with that I want to bleed heavily without fear of Archon Investigation on my own vampire - steal another vampire and do it with that I want to avoid combat with other vampires - steal them first I want to Stealth past vampires - steal them first I want to block/intercept other vampires - steal another vampire and do it with that I want to be an annoying bastard - steal another Methuselah's vampires, Heidelburg Castle off everything and give it back I want everyone to hate me - steal a big vampire, Heidelburg Castle off everything and then Golconda it whilst you own it. I want to be someone's friend - you can't, just steal a vampire and be done with it Cheers Andy Andy "Slytherin" Brown VEKN Setite Ruler of Cambridge SET awakens, watch out all non-believers

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v8h95uk...@corp.supernews.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Up my ass aparantly... ~SV

"hamdamcwa" <dave...@hotmail.com> wrote > > Combat: The wackiest way to beat someone into submission... and > Survive! > > Illusions of the Kindred - VERY powerful and fairly offbeat. > Horrid Reality - very cool with Mass Reality in play > Amira - A "Behind You" you can use more of the time. > Far Faatus - Thrown gate with no comback! > Appirition - blood for blood one of the best prevention cards in the > game. I notice that you did not mention Imposing Phantasm. I've been using this card with Illusions of the Kindred (with liberal amounts of Carrion Crows) to great effect. It is actually really funny when someone rushes Gabrin and then ends up fighting an illusion of Gabrin who promptly torpors the rushing minion. Anyway, I don't hear people mentioning this card very often... but I think it's pretty nifty. Cheers, WES

vermil...@yahoo.com (vermillian) wrote in message news:<f987c6cd.03033...@posting.google.com>... > feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... > > Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is > > the most versatile, and why? > > > > I was considering some options when I realized that this probably > > depended alot on meta-game. If your super-combat oriented, maybe > > protean is your bag. If your meta game is vote/bleed heavy, maybe > > dominate will do it for ya. > > > > Whatcha think? > > Vissisitude. Agg, ranged agg, stealing blood, strength pluses, damage > prevention, blood gain, stealth, intercept, ending combat, bleed > pluses and dodging. as much as i would love for Vicissitude to be the most versatile discipline as a whole, i don't think it's true. Most of yr examples above relate to combat. I suppose we could add equipment tutoring with Bauble and ally help with Lobotomy (:P) and Malleable Visage...Still the meat and potatoes of vicissitude is combat, its versatility comes from the double-use of certain cards, usually saving some precious card slots, e.g. Plasmic Form (stealth/dodge) or Chiropteran Marauder (maneuver/agg) allowing the Tzimisces to deal with a vast array of situations without spliting their card resources between different modules :) And as for the intercept, *ahem* ...lemme think... well Fleshcraft does give -1/2 stealth so technically it could be considered intercept (i'm grasping there...) TPOTH Koldun --hey how about a preview of that storyline card?!

Most versatile, protean, it does everything but intercepting and bleeding, both can be easily solved with some n-discipline cards, blled: c hancking (too many prot weenies that can bleed ansiouxly and kill effectively) and block: bikes, wintrop and that... But well then you have vicissitude which does almost the same as protean but in a more light mode, less stealth, les agg cards, worse combat ends but it can bleed by itself. About chimestry it haqs a real great problem the card 's blood cost, to costy each card, solved by path and gabrin but some times not enough. Then we have the one that I think is the best discipline ever and the perfect sinergy between all other disciplines in the game the FORTITUDE, maybe because it just have the best card ever printed FREAK DRIVE. If talking about the best pack of disciplines actually out is IMO the ventrue one: pre/dom/for, and if I had to choose a fourth discipline for 'em it 'd be protean. Greetings, Iñaki, Prince of Barcelona

> >TPOTH Koldun >--hey how about a preview of that storyline card?! Damn Tzimisce! What a loser-ass clan of posers and wannabes! Grrrr... Halcyan 2

inaki.pu...@estudiant.upc.es (Ego_Sum) wrote in message news:<3ca8580b.03040...@posting.google.com>... > Most versatile, protean, it does everything but intercepting and > bleeding, Errr... what definition of "versitile" are you going off? Versatile means "can do many things". Protean can do Stealth and Combat. It can also do a couple of corner case actions (Movement of the Slow Body, recruit Homunculous, Shadow of the Beast) but that's it. It cannot: 1) Increase votes 2) Increase Bleed 3) Intercept 4) Do anything damaging to your prey outside of combat: E.g. Mind Rape To be honest, even in combat it's not great: It can end combat very well, it can do claws damage easily, and it can do limited "Wacky stuff" (Shadow of the Wolf, Body of Sun), but most of this is done equally well or better with Viscissitude. The stand out thing the Protean does is Flesh of Marble. That's it. both can be easily solved with some n-discipline cards, > blled: c hancking (too many prot weenies that can bleed ansiouxly and > kill effectively) and block: bikes, wintrop and that... Yes, so by your own admission, Protean ISN'T versitile. However, the vampire clan that has it in spades is pretty good and arguably broken (see Raven / Camille, Badger, Chandler Hungerford, etc etc) But well then > you have vicissitude which does almost the same as protean but in a > more light mode, less stealth, les agg cards, worse combat ends but it > can bleed by itself. However, it is a lot cheaper to run (Breath of Dragon vs Body Flare, Chiropterean Madauder vs Claws of the Dead) and can give you REALLY USEFUL things like increased hand damage (Horrid Form), free blood (Inner Essence) and Super threats (Blood of Acid - "You hit me, you die too!"). About chimestry it haqs a real great problem the > card 's blood cost, to costy each card, solved by path and gabrin but > some times not enough. Not the question asked. We are looking at the most versatile discipline, not cheapest. Each Chimestry card is pretty powerful. This is offset by a slightly high cost. Again, not tragic if managed correctly (Restoration, Patshiv, etc) and unlike the Gangrel approach to a game, most Chimestry actions can effect the whole table in one move. Then we have the one that I think is the best > discipline ever and the perfect sinergy between all other disciplines > in the game the FORTITUDE, maybe because it just have the best card > ever printed FREAK DRIVE. No. Freak Drive is a useful support card, but it will not win you the game. Freak Drive does not let you bleed twice. Freak Drive does not mean you will have an action to play. Rutors Hand, once up, is 4x more powerful. But the best card in the game is surely something like Blood Doll or Wake or even Govern. > If talking about the best pack of disciplines actually out is IMO the > ventrue one: pre/dom/for, and if I had to choose a fourth discipline > for 'em it 'd be protean. I agree with the Dom/Pre/For combo. VERY powerful. Protean, however, is a highly focussed discipline and not at all versitile. I would argue it is underdeveloped, much like Celerity and to a lesser extent Obfuscate. Which might go some way to explain why the Assamite and !Gangrel suffer in tourney play... DH

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:<b6d0q...@enews2.newsguy.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Fair enough. I sketched out the main bit in a tea break, so i's far from exhaustive. There's also another rare Final Nights combat card that fits in the "Wacky, but barely worth it" category: Fata Amira. Considering how rare it is, you'd barely want to consider it for anything special. I do like Imposing Phantasm. Cool with Song of Serenity, Apparition, and Trap! DH

jja....@hccnet.nl (Darky) wrote in message news:<93148a54.03040...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] No evidence, other than the fact that DomiGangrel is the most powerful deck archetype still around - Govern, Kiss of Ra. Govern, Form of Mist, Conditioning. Obedience, Earth Meld, or claws. It's a package of horror! Protean hasn't been touched by any major card changes yet due to it being out of scope for Cam Ed and last seen in Sabbat War (that's over 2 years ago, kids!). So you can bet your bottom dollar that Earth Meld will cost a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) one blood. DH

On 2 Apr 2003, hamdamcwa wrote: > No evidence, other than the fact that DomiGangrel is the most powerful > deck archetype still around - Govern, Kiss of Ra. Govern, Form of > Mist, Conditioning. Obedience, Earth Meld, or claws. It's a package of > horror! Your talking about an eleven, a nine, and what? Two sevens? Maybe a five if you toss in Zebulon? Don't get me wrong, I'm on the recieving end of Pro/Dom quite regularly, and it is strong. But it isn't anywhere near strong enough to be called "the most powerful deck archetype around", mostly due to considerations of capacity. > Protean hasn't been touched by any major card changes yet due to it > being out of scope for Cam Ed and last seen in Sabbat War (that's over > 2 years ago, kids!). So you can bet your bottom dollar that Earth Meld > will cost a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) > one blood. I guess we'll see. My bet is that they will stay the same. David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

"hamdamcwa" <dave...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:9e10847c.0304...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] One problem with your comparison between Earth Meld and majesty is that majesty's untap ALWAYS cost 1 blood, whereas Earth Meld has ALWAYS been free. There are a LOT worse things protean can do in combat other than end the combat. If someone playing protean plays Earth Meld at superior or inferior, I'm usually quite happy it wasn't a claws of the dead or a body flare. Just my 2 cents on the matter. My estimation is that Form of Mist will have some errata associated with it (or not...who cares if it doesn't? Not THAT hard to defeat) or blood cost as well as Flesh of Marble.

"hamdamcwa" <dave...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:9e10847c.0304...@posting.google.com... [ quoted text not captured ] The only problem I have with IP is that the opposing minion gets all the blood they lost from damage in the combat BACK if they don't go to torpor. Granted, they are probably going to go to torpor in any deck that would utilize this card efficiently, but still...tis a bit risky. "Wow...I did 9 points of damage to a 10 cap vampire who just drew into combat ends. Now they get all that blood back. Great..."

"Jon Stahler" <sta...@ilir.uiuc.edu> wrote in message news:E9Hia.5581$_i4....@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu... [ quoted text not captured ] It's great for free blood. Rush a cross table ally with a fattie. IP punch a bunch, taste of vitae, and everyone gets blood. Isn't it grand? -- Oscar Garza Prince of College Station, Tx The Crazy Aggie > >

>I notice that you did not mention Imposing Phantasm. I've been using this >card with Illusions of the Kindred (with liberal amounts of Carrion Crows) >to great effect. It is actually really funny when someone rushes Gabrin and >then ends up fighting an illusion of Gabrin who promptly torpors the rushing >minion. > >Anyway, I don't hear people mentioning this card very often... but I think >it's pretty nifty. I've played an Imposing Phantasm deck more times than I play most decks. But, I'm still iffy on the reliability of the card. Deck could have just gone with Trapparition/Crows and been hardly any different. If you drop Crows, the opponent is still going to want to get out of combat and, if not possible, eats a bunch of damage. If you drop Crows and IP, any survivability play on your opponent's part = no damage done while you are using up additional card slots. More simply, if you don't reliably put minions down when you play an IP, you are wasting cards and blood (if not an illusion). If you play a small number of them, then it's a crap shoot whether it helps put a minion down, again, unlike Crows. If you play lots, well, you end up playing lots, which may not have been the goal. Does however produce the only way I know of that can result in both minions gaining blood from combat (that doesn't involve "outside" effects like Blood Tears) when both vamps Taste, which I believe happened once when I played my deck.

Hamdamcwa wrote: > No evidence, other than the fact that DomiGangrel is the > most powerful > deck archetype still around Oh come on man, that's a pile of crap and what's worse is you know it is. Massive vamps, sketchy access to intercept, totally falls flat to medium amounts of Deflection which funnily enough are quite common. Don't get me wrong i'm not saying its not a strong archetype but stop throwing around gross generalisations and 'broken this broken that' dude. > Protean hasn't been touched by any major card changes yet due to it > being out of scope for Cam Ed and last seen in Sabbat War > (that's over > 2 years ago, kids!). And why the heck should it have? I say again if it isn't broke don't fix it. > So you can bet your bottom dollar > that Earth Meld > will cost a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) > one blood. This would be a HUGE travesty. I really am very surprised that you think this.... [ quoted text not captured ]

robtreasure <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote: > Hamdamcwa wrote: >> So you can bet your bottom dollar that Earth Meld will cost >> a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) >> one blood. > > This would be a HUGE travesty. I really am very surprised that you > think this.... Rob, you've GOT to be kidding. I mean, after how CE changed Majesty, Catatonic Fear, The Embrace, Day Operation, and 5th Tradition, you *really* are very suprised that people would think that? I sincerely *hope* Earth Meld and Form of Mist get changed to have costs. I don't want it to happen, but if it doesn't, there will be ZERO consistency in what LSJ (and the playtesters) are doing with the cards & rules. > > Rob Kevin M. "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

Kevin M wrote: >>> So you can bet your bottom dollar that Earth Meld will cost >>> a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) >>> one blood. >> >> This would be a HUGE travesty. I really am very surprised that you >> think this.... > > Rob, you've GOT to be kidding. No, I could not be more serious. > I mean, after how CE changed Majesty, Catatonic Fear, The > Embrace, Day > Operation, and 5th Tradition, you *really* are very > suprised that people > would think that? I am really surprised that 'Dave' thinks that. Popular opinion is a total (and increasingly disappointing) mystery to me these days. > I sincerely *hope* Earth Meld and Form of Mist get changed to have > costs. I don't want it to happen, but if it doesn't, > there will be ZERO > consistency in what LSJ (and the playtesters) are doing > with the cards & > rules. Oh dear, this is the very problem I think. This consistency absolutely has to be objectively tempered by the very real aspect of the cards in relation to the available minions and their respective disciplines AND even more importantly, the impact on the game as a whole. The rumoured change to Form of Mist and Earth Meld goes to the very heart of the game we know. If they are costed or changed for the worse, it will ONLY be to 'bring them in line' with other similar effects available to TOTALLY DIFFERENT disciplines. Sorry but I totally don't see Earth Meld and Form of Mist dominating any current game and/or forcing metagame changes by their existence / level of play alone which hopefully is the other major criterion by which these changes are being made. Apologies for all the shouting Kevin but I feel very very strongly about this. [ quoted text not captured ]

<SNIP> > > Oh dear, this is the very problem I think. This > consistency absolutely > has to be objectively tempered by the very real aspect of > the cards in > relation to the available minions and their respective > disciplines AND > even more importantly, the impact on the game as a whole. > The rumoured > change to Form of Mist and Earth Meld goes to the very > heart of the game > we know. If they are costed or changed for the worse, it > will ONLY be to > 'bring them in line' with other similar effects available to TOTALLY > DIFFERENT disciplines. Sorry but I totally don't see Earth > Meld and Form > of Mist dominating any current game and/or forcing > metagame changes by > their existence / level of play alone which hopefully is > the other major > criterion by which these changes are being made. > I totally agree with all this (as you know already Rob). It was fairly evident in most games that Presence, and specifically Majesty were considered very powerful by all and sundry. Weenie presence decks were a dime a dozen at tourneys, and the changes made to Majesty went a long way into making these quite as easy to throw together. How many Weenie Protean bleed decks do you see, and more specifically, see WINNING at tourneys? Two clans have access to Protean, whereas 10(!) have Presence as one of their clan disciplines... All this should be taken into account when deciding on what cards to decimate and what should be left alone. Yes, Earth Meld and Form of Mist are potent, no, they are in no way broken or game shaking though. And this is the difference. Marty [ quoted text not captured ]

<SNIP > Yes, so by your own admission, Protean ISN'T versitile. However, the > vampire clan that has it in spades is pretty good and arguably broken > (see Raven / Camille, Badger, Chandler Hungerford, etc etc) There you go again Dave.... Careless use of the word 'broken' when really there's no need for it... Here's hoping not everyones word is taken into account when/if card changes are made. [ quoted text not captured ]

"robtreasure" <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2274...@web2news.com>... > Hamdamcwa wrote: > > No evidence, other than the fact that DomiGangrel is the > > most powerful > > deck archetype still around > > Oh come on man, that's a pile of crap and what's worse is you know it > is. > > Massive vamps, sketchy access to intercept, totally falls flat to medium > amounts of Deflection which funnily enough are quite common. Don't get > me wrong i'm not saying its not a strong archetype but stop throwing > around gross generalisations and 'broken this broken that' dude. Got your attention though :) I seriously believe DomiGangrel is very strong. I may have missed out the "...one of..." prefix (and I have winced since writing it - I didn't mean "THE most" which is how it came out) but there is no hiding it is kickass. Maybe the fact that there are only about half a dozen vamprires you can use straight off the bat is a pain, but you can "rouge up" the number of small to mid caps with PRO to make a nasty attacking force. I don't shout "broken this / that" around that much do I? Once a week, at best. ;) > > Protean hasn't been touched by any major card changes yet due to it > > being out of scope for Cam Ed and last seen in Sabbat War > > (that's over > > 2 years ago, kids!). > > And why the heck should it have? I say again if it isn't broke don't fix > it. > > > So you can bet your bottom dollar > > that Earth Meld > > will cost a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) > > one blood. > > This would be a HUGE travesty. I really am very surprised that you think > this.... It's a consistency thing. You agreed yourself the other day that it is likely to happen. This is purely down to the fact that there are now 2 types of S:CE combat cards: 1) Basic = Strike: Dodge, Superior = S:CE. Cost - Free (e.g. Staredown, Spiritual Intervention) 2) Basic = S:CE, Superior = S:CE + something else. Cost - 1 blood (or more). (E.g. Majesty, Catatonic Fear, Shadow Body, Obliette). This is now the case across the board except for Protean. This is most likely due to the fact that it has been out of scope for any set so far. It's a reasonable expectation. I don't like it, I don't want it, but I can see the justification. And don't forget, I have bug all say in this. DH

"MartyPorkington" <martinc.ne...@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2278...@web2news.com>... > <SNIP > > Yes, so by your own admission, Protean ISN'T versitile. However, the > > vampire clan that has it in spades is pretty good and arguably broken > > (see Raven / Camille, Badger, Chandler Hungerford, etc etc) > > There you go again Dave.... Careless use of the word 'broken' when > really there's no need for it... Here's hoping not everyones word is > taken into account when/if card changes are made. "Arguably broken". And I would argue that all of them are very strong vampires that fall just within the bounds of reasonable construction. All right, a bit late, but for the rest of Lent I won't use the word "Broken" again. Happy now? Cheez DH

>> I mean, after how CE changed Majesty, Catatonic Fear, The >> Embrace, Day >> Operation, and 5th Tradition, you *really* are very >> suprised that people >> would think that? > >I am really surprised that 'Dave' thinks that. Popular opinion is a >total (and increasingly disappointing) mystery to me these days. > >> I sincerely *hope* Earth Meld and Form of Mist get changed to have >> costs. I don't want it to happen, but if it doesn't, >> there will be ZERO >> consistency in what LSJ (and the playtesters) are doing >> with the cards & >> rules. > >Oh dear, this is the very problem I think. This consistency absolutely >has to be objectively tempered by the very real aspect of the cards in >relation to the available minions and their respective disciplines AND >even more importantly, the impact on the game as a whole. The rumoured >change to Form of Mist and Earth Meld goes to the very heart of the game >we know. If they are costed or changed for the worse, it will ONLY be to >'bring them in line' with other similar effects available to TOTALLY >DIFFERENT disciplines. Sorry but I totally don't see Earth Meld and Form >of Mist dominating any current game and/or forcing metagame changes by >their existence / level of play alone which hopefully is the other major >criterion by which these changes are being made. I hadn't noticed Weather Control dominating or forcing metagame changes. Nor The Embrace, unless you want to argue for its abuse in decks that still use it - Power Structure, Palla Grande. Then, there's all of the worthless cards made less worthless. Changes keep being made because there's a sense that something is wrong even if it isn't clearly presenting a problem. >Apologies for all the shouting Kevin but I feel very very strongly about >this. As much as I think the game has a variety of problems, as most if not all CCGs do, I realized one day a while back that the game is moving away from at least some of them. I think it's clear that LSJ et al have been trying to evolve the game as a whole towards a more ... balanced? ... interesting? ... environment. Whether by skill or luck, the movement has been happening without upheaval. CE might have caused an upheaval, but IMO that was due to layout changes rather than card effects with the change in Concealed Weapon having the greatest effect on the game. There's always an issue with irritating the players by changing cards, especially when changing cards that aren't obviously screwing up the game. The question for people who care more about quality play than about having to remember what cards do is: is the game better now than it was due to such changes? As for Earth Meld and Form of Mist, combat ends has always been way overpowered and weakening these two would continue a trend towards pulling some of its teeth. I can't decide for myself whether it's likely one or both will get changed. If EM got changed, I'd think it might end up like old Majesty, which would leave it as a free combat ends at inferior. But, the number of decks that splash Protean for at least this effect might be a bit higher than desired, so that might not be a good change. I would think it's a bit more likely FoM would get a change as it's the more offensive card, but I'm not sure there's a simple change that would make it worth it. Removing the plus stealth would be conceptually simple, but the change in play/mechanics might make it too different.

Kevin M. wrote: > I sincerely *hope* Earth Meld and Form of Mist get changed to have > costs. I don't want it to happen, but if it doesn't, there will be ZERO > consistency in what LSJ (and the playtesters) are doing with the cards & > rules. I'm not really seeing it--Presence S:CE got a cost 'cause, well, Presence is primarily not a combat discipline--it gives you bleed and votes, and, like, 1 combat ability which is S:CE, and should cost a blood. Protean is a combat discipline. It is all about the fighting or lack therof. S:CE is just another aspect of its combat arsenal. I'd expect a Protean bleed card to have a blood cost, just as it is reasonable to have Presence combat cards have a blood cost. Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine but the left wing's broken and the right's insane" -Bowie

hamdamcwa wrote: > It's a consistency thing. You agreed yourself the other day that it is > likely to happen. This is purely down to the fact that there are now 2 > types of S:CE combat cards: > > 1) Basic = Strike: Dodge, Superior = S:CE. Cost - Free (e.g. > Staredown, Spiritual Intervention) > > 2) Basic = S:CE, Superior = S:CE + something else. Cost - 1 blood (or > more). (E.g. Majesty, Catatonic Fear, Shadow Body, Obliette). Well, except for Meld With the Land, which is S:CE at inferior with no blood cost. Earth Meld is a powerful S:CE card, but it is Protean, which is combat heavy, so it makes sense that it gives you potent combat abilities. Form of Mist is very poweful, but with the Action Mod errtata, it is certainly reasonable, considering the context in which protean lives (i.e. not that much you can do with the other disciplines). Yes, Protean/Dominate is pretty potent, but the vampire selection is limited--making it reasonable. If there was a whole clan of Pro/Dom vamps then, sure, FoM would probably need to be changed. But as it stands, seems unecessary. Sure, if EM and FoM get saddled with a blood cost, I will neither be surprised or outraged, but I can easily see them being left alone. > > This is now the case across the board except for Protean. This is most > likely due to the fact that it has been out of scope for any set so > far. Well, that, or that it is unecessary. [ quoted text not captured ]

"robtreasure" <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote in message news:2278...@web2news.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I'm with Rob on this one too. It is as Peter says in another thread: " I'm not really seeing it--Presence S:CE got a cost 'cause, well, Presence is primarily not a combat discipline--it gives you bleed and votes, and, like, 1 combat ability which is S:CE, and should cost a blood." Protean is a combat discipline. A lot of its combat cards already cost (Wolf Claws, Claws of the Dead, Uncontrollable Rage (combat ish), Bone Spur, Body of Sun, Body Flare, Shadow of the Wolf), so to make more Protean cards cost would be a travesty. JB --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.463 / Virus Database: 262 - Release Date: 18/03/2003

In message <BAB216EF.DA9B%PD...@bigplanet.com>, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> mumbled something about: >hamdamcwa wrote: > >> It's a consistency thing. You agreed yourself the other day that it is >> likely to happen. This is purely down to the fact that there are now 2 >> types of S:CE combat cards: >> >> 1) Basic = Strike: Dodge, Superior = S:CE. Cost - Free (e.g. >> Staredown, Spiritual Intervention) >> >> 2) Basic = S:CE, Superior = S:CE + something else. Cost - 1 blood (or >> more). (E.g. Majesty, Catatonic Fear, Shadow Body, Obliette). > >Well, except for Meld With the Land, which is S:CE at inferior with no blood >cost. Meld with the Land is also, notably, in a heavy combat discipline. >Earth Meld is a powerful S:CE card, but it is Protean, which is combat >heavy, so it makes sense that it gives you potent combat abilities. Yes. Frankly, Protean has so many options in combat that it only makes sense for Earth Meld to remain free at both levels. There is a lot worse you can do to people with Protean than run away from them. Sure, you can splash Protean into your happy friendly bleed deck, and the PRO/dom archetype definitely doesn't suck, especially with newer vamps like Sebastian Goulet. But the PRO/dom archetype also only has 6 vampires who can make effective use of it "out of the box" -- and it's no small trick to go grafting skill cards on. If it were that trivial, then the Dragos-gets-Potence archetype would ALSO be broken, and we all know better, right? =) RIGHT? I'm talking to you, Talonz. >Form of Mist is very poweful, but with the Action Mod errtata, it is >certainly reasonable, considering the context in which protean lives (i.e. >not that much you can do with the other disciplines). Yes, Protean/Dominate >is pretty potent, but the vampire selection is limited--making it >reasonable. If there was a whole clan of Pro/Dom vamps then, sure, FoM would >probably need to be changed. But as it stands, seems unecessary. Form of Mist costing a blood is a wholly different animal, however. It provides a significant range of effects (continue the action, +1 stealth) which are not typically available in ANY discipline for free. All other continue-the-action cards cost blood; leaving out the one which adds stealth would be silly. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

Curevei wrote : > I hadn't noticed Weather Control dominating or forcing > metagame changes. Nor > The Embrace, unless you want to argue for its abuse in > decks that still use it > - Power Structure, Palla Grande. See I think that is a poor comparison. Weather Control was starting to make serious inroads into the 'unbeatable combat deck' arena with 30 odd copies and a load of Bloodforms in the right deck the opposing vampire could not S:CE, prevent, go to range, or do pretty much anything to prevent going in the bin. Not to mention the incredibly easy cycling of masses of cards as well. See DotB for comparison. I can totally understand why Weather Control was changed. The Embrace is a difficult one. I know that it was seeing a lot of use in Dom, Pre and Obf weenie decks which, if you ask me is why it was changed not because of these clan specific effects. I personally don't think the change was needed as you can produce a very similar effect still with weenie Dom or Pre and the same things that can rub out a 'standard' weenie deck have a very similar effect on a weenie Embrace deck. I think the 2 cost and mandatory hunt was enough to balance the speed it allows. Having 2 chances to block (the action itself and the resultant hunt) is also often enough to halt these decks. Often even casual intercept can hamstring a weenie embrace deck. > Then, there's all of the worthless cards made less > worthless. > Changes keep > being made because there's a sense that something is wrong > even if it isn't > clearly presenting a problem Basing these and future changes on the 'sense' of one or a few individuals or a is not a great way of making changes. That's all I'm really trying to get across here. >>Apologies for all the shouting Kevin but I feel very very >> strongly about >>this. > > As much as I think the game has a variety of problems, as > most if not all CCGs > do, I realized one day a while back that the game is > moving away from at least > some of them. And into others :o) > I think it's clear that LSJ et al have been > trying to evolve the > game as a whole towards a more ... balanced? ... > interesting? ... environment. Agreed and I have the utmost respect for that but there has / is going to be some serious casualties along the way which, as I said a week or so ago will turn the game into something quite different in time. > Whether by skill or luck, the movement has been happening > without upheaval. CE > might have caused an upheaval, but IMO that was due to > layout changes rather > than card effects with the change in Concealed Weapon > having the greatest > effect on the game. I think this upheaval is not a quick thing to be realised. I prefer to look at a sets impact (what a cool name for a card :o) further down the line than most, I don't think we have seen half of the ramifications from the CE come to fruition yet. > There's always an issue with irritating the players by > changing cards, > especially when changing cards that aren't obviously > screwing up the game. The > question for people who care more about quality play than > about having to > remember what cards do is: is the game better now than it > was due to such > changes? > > As for Earth Meld and Form of Mist, combat ends has always > been way overpowered Hmmmmm YMMV but (solid) combat seems to be the natural defence against this essential of the game. > I can't decide for myself whether it's likely one or both > will get changed. > > I would think it's a bit more > likely FoM would get > a change as it's the more offensive card, but I'm not sure > there's a simple > change that would make it worth it. Removing the plus > stealth would be > conceptually simple, but the change in play/mechanics > might make it too > different. I think that unfortunately it may see a change to a multi use card in that the superior may *only* be useable as an action modifier. This would not be toooooo bad :o) Giving it a cost or removing the stealth is way too clumsy. [ quoted text not captured ]

robtreasure <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote: > Curevei wrote : >> I hadn't noticed Weather Control dominating or forcing >> metagame changes. Nor The Embrace, unless you want >> to argue for its abuse in decks that still use it >> - Power Structure, Palla Grande. > > See I think that is a poor comparison. Weather Control was starting to > make serious inroads into the 'unbeatable combat deck' arena with 30 > odd copies and a load of Bloodforms in the right deck the opposing > vampire could not S:CE, prevent, go to range, or do pretty much > anything to prevent going in the bin. Not to mention the incredibly > easy cycling of masses of cards as well. See DotB for comparison. I > can totally understand why Weather Control was changed. Can we see this WeatherControl-Bloodform deck, Rob? The reason I ask is that I can't for the life of me imagine this deck getting more than 1-2 VPs at a table, which for you might mean it's making "serious inroads into the 'unbeatable combat deck' arena", but for me it's just another Weenie-ComputerHacking deck. Which means: I don't see the persuasion in your argument. > The Embrace is a difficult one. I know that it was seeing a lot of use > in Dom, Pre and Obf weenie decks which, if you ask me is why it was > changed not because of these clan specific effects. I personally don't > think the change was needed as you can produce a very similar effect > still with weenie Dom or Pre and the same things that can rub out a > 'standard' weenie deck have a very similar effect on a weenie Embrace > deck. I think the 2 cost and mandatory hunt was enough to balance the > speed it allows. Having 2 chances to block (the action itself and the > resultant hunt) is also often enough to halt these decks. Often even > casual intercept can hamstring a weenie embrace deck. Agreed. Of all the reasons to change Embrace, I can't think of one that *justified* the change. >> I would think it's a bit more likely FoM would get >> a change as it's the more offensive card, but I'm not sure >> there's a simple change that would make it worth it. >> Removing the plus stealth would be conceptually simple, >> but the change in play/mechanics might make it too >> different. > > I think that unfortunately it may see a change to a multi use card in > that the superior may *only* be useable as an action modifier. This > would not be toooooo bad :o) Giving it a cost or removing the stealth > is way too clumsy. How *else* would you 'fix' it, if you were *forced* to do so? It sounds like you believe that giving Majesty a cost was a 'clumsy' fix, then? How else would you have 'fixed' it, if you were forced to do so? > > Rob p.s. I didn't think you were shouting. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Well, except for Meld With the Land, which is S:CE at inferior with no blood > cost. Meld With the land is not "just" S:CE at inferior - it untaps the opposing minion. See also Mummify for a "S:CE at inferior with no blood cost". -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

On Fri, 4 Apr 2003 05:07:12 -0800, "Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >Agreed. Of all the reasons to change Embrace, I can't think of one that >*justified* the change. I had a pretty strong Ravnos Embrace deck that I should have played at GenCon last year (instead of my table-locking Anneke/ToGP deck). Not that I'm claiming that my deck broke Embrace or something, but it certainly made my playgroup breathe a sigh of relief when the realized they wouldn't have to face it anymore in that form. Ravnos Cache/Carnival (whichever) Embrace a bunch (at reduced cost), throw CHI skillcards on them Week of Nightmares everyone Computer Hacks & Fata Morgana I think that Dave Cherryholmes convinced me I shouldn't play it. Or maybe Josh and I decided against it on the theory that "any deck with Anneke is good." :) Xian could post a decklist, but it's probably not worth it...

On Fri, 4 Apr 2003, Xian wrote: > I think that Dave Cherryholmes convinced me I shouldn't play it. Or > maybe Josh and I decided against it on the theory that "any deck with > Anneke is good." :) How did I *not* see that deck with all the games we played. Although, come to think of it, you and I didn't play against each other too often in the bar, did we? Anyway, if I said a word against playing that deck, it would have been from the weenie angle. Somebody else dropping the Week on the table would've been nothing but good for me, and god knows it would've been better than sitting next to ".5 x 3"! ;) Take'r easy. I'll be getting that Signal and Report album soon. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kevin M." wrote: > > robtreasure <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote: > > Hamdamcwa wrote: > >> So you can bet your bottom dollar that Earth Meld will cost > >> a blood (see Majesty) and Form of Mist will cost (at least) > >> one blood. > > > > This would be a HUGE travesty. I really am very surprised that you > > think this.... > > Rob, you've GOT to be kidding. > > I mean, after how CE changed Majesty, Catatonic Fear, The Embrace, Day > Operation, and 5th Tradition, you *really* are very suprised that people > would think that? > > I sincerely *hope* Earth Meld and Form of Mist get changed to have > costs. I don't want it to happen, but if it doesn't, there will be ZERO > consistency in what LSJ (and the playtesters) are doing with the cards & > rules. Really? I wonder why you think that? I'm honestly confused. Just because they changed Presence S:CE, they have to have to change Protean S:CE? Could you back up and give your reasoning about this? To me, none of these things have anything to do with Earth Meld or FoM. Presence is a different discipline with different powers than Protean and while the concept that Protean S:CE is overpowered in the current environment (I don't buy it for a minute myself but it's not an outrageous argument), it can't be justified merely because Presence S:CE got trimmed back a bit. It's quite reasonable, for instance, to assume that the bleeding, vote augmentation, and a few of the other powers one gets with Presence made it necessary to eliminate the free S:CE. I don't understand the reference to the other cards at all. What has Day OOPS and 5th Tradition to do with Earth Meld? An the change to The Embrace was just a complete mistake from day one. Fred

>I think this upheaval is not a quick thing to be realised. I prefer to >look at a sets impact (what a cool name for a card :o) further down the >line than most, I don't think we have seen half of the ramifications >from the CE come to fruition yet. This has a similar problem to designers trying to put the beginnings of a mechanic into one set, leaving it useless, and making it viable in a later set though sort of the other way around. In your case, the next set changes the state of the game in unknown ways. In the design foresight case, the evolution of play by the players and unseen combos (which always happen) change the game to where the development of the mechanic won't work as planned. Gratuitous ranting about something not currently being talked about, but, anyway, restating the relevant point, won't the next set produce more ramifications than subtle ones from the last?

>See I think that is a poor comparison. Weather Control was starting to >make serious inroads into the 'unbeatable combat deck' arena with 30 odd >copies and a load of Bloodforms in the right deck the opposing vampire >could not S:CE, prevent, go to range, or do pretty much anything to >prevent going in the bin. Not to mention the incredibly easy cycling of >masses of cards as well. See DotB for comparison. I can totally >understand why Weather Control was changed. Starting to get far afield thus the subject change. But, anyway, besides thinking the Bloodform/WC combo helped make the card interesting, the deck seems limited by basically eating up massive cards slots to do its thing. Sure, there's a combat trump aspect to the deck, but combat is hardly the be all and end all of the game and there might be an argument that Illusion combat functions similarly. The WC change bothers me because it makes the card really dull, relegating it to what people have done with it except killing the weenie explosion deck. The Embrace change bothers me because I realized that the primary effect is to make the best clans relatively better. A strong clan can do other things. The weaker clans, however, might have no better competitive option than to drop a bunch of Kennies. But, it's a bit late now to punish the dead horses for their wicked ways.

legb...@mailandnews.com (legbiter) wrote in message news:<22fea992.03032...@posting.google.com>... > Auspex. <snip> > Intercept [obviously] > Bounce [superior Telepathic misdirecton] > Bleed [Superior Pulse] > Combat [Aura reading, Telepathic tracking, other stuff] > Vote [Telepathic vote counting] > Stealth [erm, ok, no stealth] > Weird stuff [information, reaction]. I agree...Specifically, auspex has bounce and vote, which chimerstry doesn't have, iirc. As for more specific auspex effects, I'd add: Combat Defense (Precognition) Upstream pressure (Burnt Offerings) Combat Offense (Ecstatic Agony) Combat Tactics (Fast Reaction) Lockdown (Nightmare curse, w/ chi) Pool Gain (The Call, w/ dem) I'm purposely not counting necromancy (card cycling) and thaumaturgy (infernal familiar), because I consider a discipline's "versatility" to be limited to effects that require the discipline.

Curevei wrote: > Starting to get far afield thus the subject change. But, anyway, besides > thinking the Bloodform/WC combo helped make the card interesting, the deck > seems limited by basically eating up massive cards slots to do its thing. > Sure, there's a combat trump aspect to the deck, but combat is hardly the be > all and end all of the game and there might be an argument that Illusion > combat > functions similarly. Illusions has a very powerful combat trump effect, but Illusions is expensive (3 blood?), and thus requires fairly large vampires and significant back up (i.e. significant blood gain for the vampires relying on it). Weather Control, pre-CE, required only tiny vampires and minimal support--a crypt full of 2's and 3's with tha could take out any vampire in the game, really--Roreca Quaid rushes Lucian, plays N+1 WC, and torporizes him. Roreca gets out of torpor free, effectively, next turn due to the wonders of the Chantry. Or she doesn't, which is mostly irrelevant, due to her being a 2. WC was *really* trumpy, where Illuisons is much less so, due to cost and upkeep requirements. > > The WC change bothers me because it makes the card really dull, relegating it > to what people have done with it except killing the weenie explosion deck. It is still handy back up--a couple extra free points of damage (like Carion Crows, which is incredibly popular), and it kills off irritating retainers. It is now a reasonable combat sideline card, rather than the key to a trick trump engine. > > The Embrace change bothers me because I realized that the primary effect is to > make the best clans relatively better. Not really seeing it. The Embrace is still a perfectly reasonable card--weenie vampires can still make weenie vampires (Kids having kids. I hate that stuff...). An effectively free 1 point vampire, even with no discipline, is still very solid, and can still get a skill card later on. If you are playing an Embrace heavy deck, use lots of skill cards. If the Embracling is just a lark, you get a free action every turn for things like calling votes or diablere. Third is better, sure, but the cost is much higher. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray wrote: > Form of Mist costing a blood is a wholly different animal, however. It > provides a significant range of effects (continue the action, +1 > stealth) which are not typically available in ANY discipline for free. > All other continue-the-action cards cost blood; leaving out the one > which adds stealth would be silly. Certainly a reasonable argument--I would be much less surprised to see FoM get a cost of 1 blood than Earth Meld, and might even support giving FoM a blood cost of 1. But then I would also not be surprised if FoM stays exactly as it currently is. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Meld With the land is not "just" S:CE at inferior - it untaps the opposing > minion. Well sure, but it doesn't cost a blood. It has an additional cost that may or may not be less significant than a blood, but the lack of a blood cost is certainly a very significant difference. > > See also Mummify for a "S:CE at inferior with no blood cost". Oh yeah. Mumify... [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > Curevei wrote: (re: the Weather Control/Bloodform deck) > > Sure, there's a combat trump aspect to the deck, but combat is hardly the be > > all and end all of the game and there might be an argument that Illusion > > combat > > functions similarly. > > Illusions has a very powerful combat trump effect, but Illusions is > expensive (3 blood?), and thus requires fairly large vampires and > significant back up (i.e. significant blood gain for the vampires relying on > it). Actually, my Ravnos/stealth/Sensory Dep deck ran vampires from two to six caps, averaging around four. I used some Chimerstry discipline cards, but only to get the Sensory Deps at superior. Inferior Illusions works fine, it costs two and that can be reduced to one if you can manage to keep a Path on the board by some means. (My preference was to just stick seven or eight Paths in the deck.) I found Illusions to be quite usable by weenie Ravnos with only the occasional blood problem. Not too bad at all considering what I had invested in each individual vampire. I agree with Curevei. Though I only saw in a tournament once and it did have its merits, it was hardly an unstoppable force. About the only real complaint with it that I can think of is that it requires dozens of uncommons and a number of new-in-Sabbat-War rare cards. Therefore, it's kind of a hard deck for the masses to build. Fred

Howdy, > Weather Control, pre-CE, required only tiny vampires and minimal support--a > crypt full of 2's and 3's with tha could take out any vampire in the game, > really--Roreca Quaid rushes Lucian, plays N+1 WC, and torporizes him. Roreca > gets out of torpor free, effectively, next turn due to the wonders of the > Chantry. Or she doesn't, which is mostly irrelevant, due to her being a 2. That's the theory, yes. In practice, though, you need to have approximately 50% of your library invested in Weather Control to do this even vaguely reliably. Lucian's a 10-cap, so if he's full you're going to need to drop 11 WC to down him. Assuming you've got a 7 card hand, even if you start out looking at 7 WC, you're going to need to draw into 4 more, which will be tricky if you only have, say, 30 in 90 cards. If you do pull it off, chances are you have very few WC left in your hand, and it may be difficult to cycle back into them, especially once your opponents figure out that you're in a WC drought. And Chantry just doesn't work that well when you go to torpor on your own turn. Everyone gets a chance to snack, and you're playing voteless weenies. Then there's the fact that Lucian is a 10-cap with DOM; in many decks he would just tell Roreca to sit down (Obedience), thus wasting one of the precious rush cards in the deck. > WC was *really* trumpy, where Illuisons is much less so, due to cost and > upkeep requirements. I've heard of a couple of decks that apparently made good use of WC, but never seen one in operation. My experience suggested that it was pretty fragile. I sometimes managed to take down someone with significant blood on them, but rarely more than once per game. Of course, my deck used both WC and The Embrace, so it is doubly dead, as is the !Tory Embrace and Majesty deck... It seems to me that with Majesty and WC 'fixed' the Embrace fix was kind of redundant. OTOH, I never had much incentive to use Thirds or Creation Rites previously, and so I kind of agree with the Embrace's retool. And the Majesy retool. But I just didn't see a real case for hosing Weather Control. (And no, it's not completely hosed - it's still just as usable for the old for/tha bruise bleeder.) And I really, really can't figure out why Burst of Sunlight needed to be mangled in the way it is now: used by a vampire, it will damage allies; used by an ally, it will burn him?!? Another amusing corner-case tha deck concept down the drain, why? Still, I have to agree with the earlier poster who said that it wasn't really the card changes that caused the big controversy in CE; it was the ill-advised layout change. Alex

>I've heard of a couple of decks that apparently made good use of WC, >but never seen one in operation. My experience suggested that it was >pretty fragile. I sometimes managed to take down someone with >significant blood on them, but rarely more than once per game. We had a couple of decks locally that were big vampire, WC (sans Bloodform). Obviously killed by the change or I wouldn't complain about it. *Lucian* (among others) WCing the weenies and getting 5thed back (5th wouldn't be as good with CE, but Taste would be better). Then, there was the "this has a great crypt because Gwendolyn is useful" deck that was "don't block my votes or I'll nuke you but if you don't I'll Voter Cap back up". Did sort of work in spite of its premise. >OTOH, I >never had much incentive to use Thirds or Creation Rites previously, >and so I kind of agree with the Embrace's retool. If you could play Thirds or Rites reliably, you would. Thirds force you to play a Cam title deck, which isn't too hard but prevents doing other things by eating up deck space. Rites is a pain as a titled Sabbat deck that cares about putting out babies is far more effort. Independents and clans that can't title up readily can't do either. And, no, it's not worth putting a lot of skill cards in to play on the new Embraces. Far too slow, waste of master slots, waste of deck space, if you need the discipline they probably die before you can give it to them.

Curevei wrote: > And, no, it's not worth putting a lot of skill cards in to play on the new > Embraces. Far too slow, waste of master slots, waste of deck space, if you > need the discipline they probably die before you can give it to them. If you are building a deck out of Embraces, and they need disciplines, your option is to put in lots of skill cards or, well, nothing. Thus, you either accept that you'll needs lots of skill cards, or you don't worry about it. I'm still not seeing the problem with the Neo-Embrace. For 2 blood, you get a vampire. Vampires, skills or no, can take actions, which are always in high demand. An essentially free vampire, even without disciplines, is good. Is the new Embrace as good as the old Embrace? Of course not, but it is still a useful card (where the previous Embrace was, arguably, too good)--almost totally free vampires that can call votes, bleed, diablerize, rescue from torpor, block, recruit, generate pool through Blood Dolls, Tributes, or Con Boon. All of these are good. Lack of discipline? Sure, problematic, but not so much, considering the very low cost of the vampire in question. And you can still give them skills with Masters or Sanguineous. If you want hordes of spawn with disciplines, use 3rd. Sure, a higher cost (need for Princes), but what are you gonna do? [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > I'm still not seeing the problem with the Neo-Embrace. For 2 blood, you get > a vampire. Vampires, skills or no, can take actions, which are always in > high demand. An essentially free vampire, even without disciplines, is good. Uhhhh, let's take a look at that logic. You _assume_ "an essential free vampire, even without disciplines, is good." But what proof do you offer? Logically, if you make a change in a card that obviously hurts the card, then it's either it's less useful or the change wasn't really meaningful in the context of how the card is used. Could be either, I suppose, depending on the deck. But I used a bunch of different Embrace decks and none of them were all that good. Granted, I never got around to trying them with the stealth disciplines and in retrospect I probably should have. But it was pretty clear to me that the weeny decks everyone *hated* were decks that recruited weenies, not decks that embraced them to create them. Embrace decks were too slow and (stealth not withstanding) Embraces often just got blocked and then the deck couldn't do anything else. And once you did spend all that time creating Embraces, you tended to just make a target out of yourself for having so many vampires. Anyway, the upshot is: why should The Embrace get changed, all the existing Embrace cards become obsolesced (that is, they become yet more cards that don't actually do what their card text says it does), and the card made less useful if as it *was*, it wasn't overpowered to begin with? And clearly it wasn't. That's just shooting yourself in the foot. Arguably, even the above average "good cards" shouldn't get modified unless they're quite a bit above average because of all the downsides to rewriting cards (causing unnecessary confusion and annoying people). The Embrace was *not* an above average card as it was. I place it as essentially equal to Third Tradition, which is certainly a better card if you can use it but has a higher use requirement. > Is the new Embrace as good as the old Embrace? Of course not, but it is > still a useful card Doubt it. You can still use it in certain contexts, I think. But it's *really* narrow now. There aren't going to be many decks that can make much use out of it without the free discipline card. > If you want hordes of spawn with disciplines, use 3rd. Sure, a higher cost > (need for Princes), but what are you gonna do? Implore the card designers to return to sanity. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > Logically, if you make a change in a card that obviously hurts the card, then > it's either it's less useful or the change wasn't really meaningful in the > context of how the card is used. The Embrace is clearly less useful now than it was. That isn't an issue. The issue is whether the card as it is now is useful at all. Some would claim not. I think it is still a valid card for the appropriate deck. > Anyway, the upshot is: why should The Embrace get changed, all the existing > Embrace cards become obsolesced (that is, they become yet more cards that > don't actually do what their card text says it does), and the card made less > useful if as it *was*, it wasn't overpowered to begin with? The Embraced was arguably better than Third before it was changed: -Embraced: An action to create a 2 cap vampire with a discipline. That vampire could hunt immediately. Cost 2 blood. -Third: An action to create a 2 cap vampire with a discipline. That vampire can't act this turn. Cost 1 blood, or 2 blood if you want the vampire to act next turn (instead of hunting). Acting minion needs to be a Prince/Justicar. They were both actions and cards. A wash. Embrace cost 2 blood, made an empty vampire, but that vamp could hunt this turn. Third costs 1 blood, made an empty vampire that couldn't hunt this turn, so you have to pay an extra blood so that the Third vamp can act on the next turn. All of this is a wash. But then Third has the very significant cost of needing a Prince/Justicar. When this was factored in, Embrace was functionally better than Third--functionally identical but with a significantly lower cost (no need of P/J). Assuming that Third is a balanced card, if Embraced was effectively better when it was supposed to be worse, it makes perfect sense that it got hacked back. > And clearly > it wasn't. That's just shooting yourself in the foot. Was Embrace a "broken" card? Unlikely, but it was better than an equivelant card that it was supposed to be worse than (Third). Thus it was fixed to put it in line. Very much like the Banishment-Peace of Khetemon situation. >The Embrace was *not* an > above average card as it was. It may or may not have been an above average card, but it was better than Third. If Third was "balanced", and Embrace was better, it makes sense that it gets changed. > I place it as essentially equal to Third > Tradition, which is certainly a better card if you can use it but has a > higher use requirement. Third wasn't a better card though. Yes, Third cost 1 blood but made an empty vampire that couldn't hunt. To maintain parity with Embraced, Third cost the acting vampire 2 blood (the same as Embraced). Then it *also* had the very significant P/J clause. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > Frederick Scott wrote: > > > Logically, if you make a change in a card that obviously hurts the card, > > then it's either it's less useful or the change wasn't really meaningful > > in the context of how the card is used. > > The Embrace is clearly less useful now than it was. That isn't an issue. The > issue is whether the card as it is now is useful at all. No. The issue is whether it was too useful before - in order to justify the downside of changing the card. I think that's very hard to argue. > > Anyway, the upshot is: why should The Embrace get changed, all the existing > > Embrace cards become obsolesced (that is, they become yet more cards that > > don't actually do what their card text says it does), and the card made less > > useful if as it *was*, it wasn't overpowered to begin with? > > The Embraced was arguably better than Third before it was changed: > > -Embraced: An action to create a 2 cap vampire with a discipline. That > vampire could hunt immediately. Cost 2 blood. > > -Third: An action to create a 2 cap vampire with a discipline. That vampire > can't act this turn. Cost 1 blood, or 2 blood if you want the vampire to act > next turn (instead of hunting). Acting minion needs to be a Prince/Justicar. Yes, but you're ignoring the capability of blocking without a wake in the interim. Absent the requirement, Third is definitely the superior card. With the requirement, it's arguable. You certainly don't bother to play with Princes just to use Thirds, I agree. But it worked out that if you had a deck that used enough Princes and needed to make babies, you'd automatically choose Third Traditions. Otherwise, you'd use Embraces. > Assuming that Third is a balanced card, if Embraced was effectively better > when it was supposed to be worse, it makes perfect sense that it got hacked > back. Bad logic. It depends on one's estimation of how important the Prince requirement is. But regardless of how you feel about that, either The Embrace was not very much better than Third Tradition or Third Tradition totally sucks. If the former, than the "hacking" of The Embrace went much *much* too far in crippling the card. If the latter, then they should have made Third Tradition better, not cut The Embrace down. > > And clearly it wasn't. That's just shooting yourself in the foot. > > Was Embrace a "broken" card? Unlikely, but it was better than an equivelant > card that it was supposed to be worse than (Third). Thus it was fixed to put > it in line. Very much like the Banishment-Peace of Khetemon situation. I'm not sure what the latter was (and I don't feel like pulling out up the requisite web pages to find out), but no, that's not a good reason to change a card. If the difference is slight, ignore it. The cost is not worth the benefit. If the difference is major and the greater of the cards is not overpowered, then either ignore and accept that the lesser card is wallpaper (again, it's not worth the benefit) or else reprint the lesser card with some kind of an improvement. You don't take an ax to a balanced or even arguably UNDERpowered card and turn it into near wallpaper. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > No. The issue is whether it was too useful before - in order to justify > the downside of changing the card. I think that's very hard to argue. It was useful before. It is less so now. In my mind that it is now less useful than the significantly more costly Third is a reasonable thing. It may or may not have been too useful before. Regardless, it was arguably better than Third. Or at the very least, Embrace was just as good as Third, but without the significant P/J cost. As it was equal to or better than a similar, yet (arguably) more expensive card makes hamstringing it logical to me. > Yes, but you're ignoring the capability of blocking without a wake in the > interim. Absent the requirement, Third is definitely the superior card. Without the P/J requirement, I'm not convinced that Third was superior to Embrace. Yeah, for the same blood cost, a Third kid can block right away as opposed to an Embracling, which might be significant. But the advantage that comes from being able to attempt to block strikes me as not a good trade off for the very increased cost. > Bad logic. It depends on one's estimation of how important the Prince > requirement is. Important in what sense? The Prince requirement is a steep cost, compared to the 1 extra blood of the Embrace. > But regardless of how you feel about that, either The > Embrace was not very much better than Third Tradition or Third Tradition > totally sucks. Embrace was better as it was much easier to use. Given that either was useful, Third was and is a balanced card. Embrace was too good (relative to Third). Now it is slightly underpowered, sure, but still useable. > If the former, than the "hacking" of The Embrace went > much *much* too far in crippling the card. If the latter, then they should > have made Third Tradition better, not cut The Embrace down. Also certainly arguable. But again, given that Third is "balanced", i.e. a card that is seen as a card with an appropriate ratio of cost to effect, making Third better isn't so much an option. Thus, Embrace gets pushed down. Was it pushed down too much? Possibly, but again, Embrace still strikes me as a viable card--it makes virtually free vampires, which is always a good thing. > I'm not sure what the latter was (and I don't feel like pulling out up the > requisite web pages to find out), Banishment (pre CE) and Peace of Khetemon did the exact same thing (send a vampire into the inactive zone), but Peace only worked on vampires in Torpor where Banishment worked on any vampire. Assuming that Peace was at the appropriate level of power, then it made sense that Banishment was toned down (which it was--only younger vampires now). Granted, Banishment is still better than Peace (and Peace is mostly a coaster), but the analogy seems sound. > but no, that's not a good reason to change > a card. If the difference is slight, ignore it. Apparently the design team thought differently. > You don't take an ax to a balanced > or even arguably UNDERpowered card and turn it into near wallpaper. I'm not seeing Embrace as near wallpaper. But that is me. The best card ever? Not so much, but certainly playable in the appropriate deck. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > Frederick Scott wrote: > > > No. The issue is whether it was too useful before - in order to justify > > the downside of changing the card. I think that's very hard to argue. > > It was useful before. It is less so now. In my mind that it is now less > useful than the significantly more costly Third is a reasonable thing. No. It is not reasonable thing. I agree that two cards that have approximately the same function ought to have comparable ability/cost tradeoffs. However, you are making the matter *WAY* more important than it needs to be. They took a card that was in middle of the pack or worse and neutered it to near wallpaperness. That's just bad, no matter how you slice it. If Third was "way more" costly" than The Embrace, then Third was near wallpaper, too - which, considering how rarely one ever saw a Third Tradition used, is actually not a bad statement. > > But regardless of how you feel about that, either The > > Embrace was not very much better than Third Tradition or Third Tradition > > totally sucks. > > Embrace was better as it was much easier to use. Given that either was > useful, Third was and is a balanced card. Makes no sense. Either one was too useful and the other was balanced, or one was balanced and the other was wallpaper, or both were balanced. If both were balanced, then one cannot be significantly more useful than the other such that any changes need to be made. Make up your mind. This needle cannot be thread. The problem is, I think you're basically agreeing with what I said in my previous post: Third Tradition was useful and got used *IF* someone had enough Princes in their crypt for other reason and also happened to want to use a card that creates childer. If that's good enough for you to say that Third Tradition is a balanced card, then your estimation of the Prince cost isn't particularly high, which belies your previous statement about it being "significantly more costly" than The Embrace. If it's not, then admit Third Tradition really isn't useful. Your refusal to resolve the contradiction is what's leading you to the logical insanity that suggests it's OK to neuter a card that wasn't overpowered in the first place. > Thus, Embrace gets pushed down. > Was it pushed down too much? Possibly, but again, Embrace still strikes me > as a viable card--it makes virtually free vampires, which is always a good > thing. That all *sounds* well and good. But I think it's a rather glib statement that doesn't bear up to the years of experience we've already had childer- creating cards. (Do you ever use them? Do you play much against someone who does?) As I pointed out before, creating childer is one of the slowest developing strategies in the game - and one of the most of the most obvious. And the difference between a single-discipline vampire vs. a disciplineless one is huge! You can build a deck that gives baby vampires something worthwhile to do if they have a discipline. If they don't, there isn't too much for them to do (bleed for one, call a vote, Computer Hack - though I've never been very impressed with Computer Hack, maybe be a Blood Doll) and they're nearly as tough as balsa wood. Nearly. I think their main power now is their clan designation, which can be used for Con Boons and Lasombra Power Structures and not too much else. If I were new to the game, you could possibly convince me of this. But I've spent too much time trying to scare people with The Embrace and it mostly didn't work. Occasionally in casual play but almost never in a competitive tournament. (Actually, Daniel Poppe won a 10-player tournament in Phoenix with an interesting vote deck. But he never once had a predator or prey with much intercept to speak of and I think if he had, his deck would have melted down pretty quickly.) > Banishment (pre CE) and Peace of Khetemon did the exact same thing (send a > vampire into the inactive zone), but Peace only worked on vampires in Torpor > where Banishment worked on any vampire. Assuming that Peace was at the > appropriate level of power, then it made sense that Banishment was toned > down (which it was--only younger vampires now). Granted, Banishment is still > better than Peace (and Peace is mostly a coaster), but the analogy seems > sound. > > > but no, that's not a good reason to change > > a card. If the difference is slight, ignore it. > > Apparently the design team thought differently. I think you're misinterpreting the whole scenario. Never mind Peace of Khetemon; it's beside the point. Merely note that Banishment was considered too powerful *in general* - and got toned down. Had that not been true (more or less), then I'd think the change was also unnecessary. Fred

dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote in message news:<9e10847c.03040...@posting.google.com>... > "robtreasure" <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2274...@web2news.com>... > > Hamdamcwa wrote: > > > No evidence, other than the fact that DomiGangrel is the > > > most powerful > > > deck archetype still around > > > > Oh come on man, that's a pile of crap and what's worse is you know it > > is. > > > > Massive vamps, sketchy access to intercept, totally falls flat to medium > > amounts of Deflection which funnily enough are quite common. Don't get > > me wrong i'm not saying its not a strong archetype but stop throwing > > around gross generalisations and 'broken this broken that' dude. Stupid co-incidence that doesn't really support the above arguement but is pretty funny and almost ironic: We (Rob and I) both attended a tournament in Bath yesterday. Rob (as usual) did a lot better than I did and got into the final, where the winner was a relatively new player... ...using a DomiGangrel deck. DH

Frederick Scott wrote: > No. It is not reasonable thing. I agree that two cards that have > approximately the same function ought to have comparable ability/cost > tradeoffs. However, you are making the matter *WAY* more important > than it needs to be. They took a card that was in middle of the pack > or worse and neutered it to near wallpaperness. That's just bad, no > matter how you slice it. See, I'm not seeing Embrace as near wallpaper. I'm seeing it as a not particularly potent card that could be perfectly handy in the appropriate deck, and throwing one or two in any deck is not going to hurt it and often might be very useful. > If Third was "way more" costly" than The Embrace, then Third was near > wallpaper, too - which, considering how rarely one ever saw a Third > Tradition used, is actually not a bad statement. I see Third used all the time. I saw Embrace, pre-CE, used occasionally. Both were useful. > Makes no sense. Oh, yeah. One of those paragraphs I wrote made no sense at all--I went beck and read it this morning and I was like "What the hell was I talking about there?" Yeah. Something about writing quickly late at night. I retract whatever that paragraph was about. We'll just ignore all discussion that has anything to do with that one... > If it's not, then admit Third Tradition really isn't useful. To restate: Third is a reasonably priced, useful card. Embrace was, previous to CE, functionally identical, yet effectively cheaper (2 blood cost but no Prince cost). If you were going to use Third, pre CE, there was little reason to do so, if you could use Embraced instead--the lack of Prince cost, even in a deck that is Prince heavy, is very significant. The main reason to use Third over Embraced (pre CE) was that Embraced was rare, and thus hard to get in numbers, compared to Third. > That all *sounds* well and good. But I think it's a rather glib statement > that doesn't bear up to the years of experience we've already had childer- > creating cards. (Do you ever use them? Do you play much against someone > who does?) I use Third all the time. I used Third pre CE all the time also, but mostly 'cause I never had many, if any Embraced (it being rare as opposed to uncommon). Mostly in Con Boon decks, and the spawn plan worked just fine. > And the difference between a single-discipline vampire vs. a disciplineless > one is huge! You can build a deck that gives baby vampires something > worthwhile to do if they have a discipline. If they don't, there isn't > too much for them to do (bleed for one, call a vote, Computer Hack - though > I've never been very impressed with Computer Hack, maybe be a Blood Doll) > and they're nearly as tough as balsa wood. Nearly. I think their main > power now is their clan designation, which can be used for Con Boons and > Lasombra Power Structures and not too much else. A vampire, any vampire, discipline or no, is useful. Especially a cheap one. Bleeding for 1, calling a vote, or becoming a hunting blood doll is often all a single cheap minion needs to do to be handy. I'm not saying Embraced is currently a fantastic card. It isn't. But it is a reasonable card and far from useless. Throwing one in a deck that has actions to spare will often be handy (as handy as any other conditionally useful card in a deck). Building a deck around them seems like it could work reasonably well (off the top of my head--small vampires with OBF, The Rack, cloak, computer hacking, Embraced). An acceptable card. Third is now clearly better, but it is significantly more expensive, as it always was. > If I were new to the game, you could possibly convince me of this. But > I've spent too much time trying to scare people with The Embrace and it > mostly didn't work. I've seen multiple useful Embrace decks, pre CE (I remember a very effecitve Assamite Embraced bleed deck James Hamblin had for a while, I saw a pretty good Embraced Cryptic deck). I have and still constantly tinker with and use Third/Con Boon decks that do reasonably well. But that's me. > I think you're misinterpreting the whole scenario. Never mind Peace > of Khetemon; it's beside the point. Merely note that Banishment was > considered too powerful *in general* - and got toned down. Had that not > been true (more or less), then I'd think the change was also unnecessary. But one of the reasons Banishment could be considered too powerful was because there was in existance, a card that was similar but more expensive to compare it to. Given the existance of the comparison, one could say "Hmm. Which of these cards seems appropriate?" and then change the other. Previous to CE, Embrace was just as useful as Third, but cheaper. It makes sense that it was changed, either to be more expensive (didn't happen) or less effective (did happen). Was this particularly necessary? Probably not, but I understand and accept the logic. [ quoted text not captured ]

> dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote in message > Stupid co-incidence that doesn't really support the above arguement > but is pretty funny and almost ironic: > > We (Rob and I) both attended a tournament in Bath yesterday. Rob (as > usual) did a lot better than I did and got into the final, where the > winner was a relatively new player... > > ...using a DomiGangrel deck. As you well know Mr Hammond there was 'one or two' more considerations to that ridiculous final than what Hugh was playing :o) TBH it would not have made a jot of difference if he had played stock Malk S+B. Top day for all and decent blokes as well I thought. I have never seen so much of one deck type in a tourney though. TOTALLY misjudged the game there. Gah. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > Frederick Scott wrote: > > If Third was "way more" costly" than The Embrace, then Third was near > > wallpaper, too - which, considering how rarely one ever saw a Third > > Tradition used, is actually not a bad statement. > > I see Third used all the time. I saw Embrace, pre-CE, used occasionally. > Both were useful. Then clearly, there was no need to reduced the utility of The Embrace. A post or two ago, you were claiming that the "cost" of Third Tradition was much greater the The Embrace. Were that true, no one would bother using Third Tradition because The Embrace was available. You keep trying to thread your argument between mutually contradictory positions. > The main reason to > use Third over Embraced (pre CE) was that Embraced was rare, and thus hard > to get in numbers, compared to Third. I see. THEN, we have a problem with rarity levels not matching utility levels. This was very similar to Freak Drive - and the correct thing to do was what they did with Freak Drive: make it an uncommon. Probably, Third Tradition really should have been the rare since I would still argue that if you're using Princes, you should still prefer Third Tradition over The Embrace. > > And the difference between a single-discipline vampire vs. a disciplineless > > one is huge! You can build a deck that gives baby vampires something > > worthwhile to do if they have a discipline. If they don't, there isn't > > too much for them to do (bleed for one, call a vote, Computer Hack - though > > I've never been very impressed with Computer Hack, maybe be a Blood Doll) > > and they're nearly as tough as balsa wood. Nearly. I think their main > > power now is their clan designation, which can be used for Con Boons and > > Lasombra Power Structures and not too much else. > > A vampire, any vampire, discipline or no, is useful. Especially a cheap one. > Bleeding for 1, calling a vote, or becoming a hunting blood doll is often > all a single cheap minion needs to do to be handy. It's not worth it. You don't get the chance for the free bleed often enough for the threat of the bleed-for-one to be worth the action, the two blood, and the deck space for the card. It can't do anything at all to make its actions effective, not stealth, not S:CE or other combat tricks, not enhancing bleeds, nothing. It's just a helpless little bug waiting to be squashed with intercept or rush if it happens to get irritating and if the opponent even wants to bother with it. And the original Embrace was a tremendously slow-to-repay investment. > I'm not saying Embraced is currently a fantastic card. It isn't. But it is a > reasonable card and far from useless. Throwing one in a deck that has > actions to spare will often be handy (as handy as any other conditionally > useful card in a deck). Building a deck around them seems like it could work > reasonably well (off the top of my head--small vampires with OBF, The Rack, > cloak, computer hacking, Embraced). Were that true, then the original Embrace would have worked FANTASTICALLY well for these purposes. And such decks would have been extremely popular. I don't understand the arguments people construct asserting how great cards are in the face of proven tournament history to the contrary. You can see how useful cards were or were not just by going to Jeff Thompson's Tournament Winning Deck archive and looking. Not to mention just hanging around this newsgroup and seeing what people spend their time talking about. There are some Embraced sprinkled here and there in a few of the decks. Last time I looked, I saw one deck that had 16 of them but that was the only one that seemed to use it as a main deck strategy. > > If I were new to the game, you could possibly convince me of this. But > > I've spent too much time trying to scare people with The Embrace and it > > mostly didn't work. > > I've seen multiple useful Embrace decks, pre CE (I remember a very effecitve > Assamite Embraced bleed deck James Hamblin had for a while, I saw a pretty > good Embraced Cryptic deck). I have and still constantly tinker with and use > Third/Con Boon decks that do reasonably well. But that's me. Reasonably well is fine. But can you get anywhere in a tournament with it? As I said, I had some success with Embrace decks in casual play. But when I got to tournaments, they'd fall flat on their face. People just block the the Embrace action and all the other stuff you stick in to take advantage of your numbers turns into garbage. There's too much intercept in tournaments to make it work well. That's why I said in retrospect I should have played around with stealthy Embracing strategies. I don't think they'd have become unstoppable decks but they might held their own a lot better. > > I think you're misinterpreting the whole scenario. Never mind Peace > > of Khetemon; it's beside the point. Merely note that Banishment was > > considered too powerful *in general* - and got toned down. Had that not > > been true (more or less), then I'd think the change was also unnecessary. > > But one of the reasons Banishment could be considered too powerful was > because there was in existance, a card that was similar but more expensive > to compare it to. Given the existance of the comparison, one could say "Hmm. > Which of these cards seems appropriate?" and then change the other. This usually only works if one of the two is overpowered or one of the two is basically wallpaper. The exception is if you have some basic function that's intended to be part of the game and can't be ignored (e.g. Blood Doll) and one card does the function much better than the other or they're very similar but one has a modest advantage over the other and no comparative disadvantage whatsoever. Banishment hardly falls in that category. Banishment is a pretty specialized kind of thing that needs to be roughly as useful as the general population of cards failing which it would be termed overpowered or underpowered by itself. So, again, never mind comparing it to Peace of Khetemon. If it was badly balanced, you should be able to see it vs. all the other cards. If it was OK, then Peace of Khetemon was the card that needed changing. Same with The Embrace/Third Tradition comparison. These cards do not live in a vacuum. Maybe the way to demonstrate this is to point out that between the printing of Dark Sovereigns and Ancient Hearts, Banishment existed but PoK did not. So, you're claiming that during this period, Banishment was fine. But as soon as Ancient Hearts came out, the printing of Peace of Khetemon implied that Banishment required errata? Seems ludicrous to me. The *real* answer is to print a PoK that wasn't wallpaper to begin with. (Though in fact, I would concede Banishment was a suspiciously powerful card that isn't hurting much for being trimmed back slightly. I don't think we'll be seeing anyone start to use PoK on this account, however.) Likewise, had the Third Tradition never been printed, I'd wouldn't think you'd see any reason to reduce the power of The Embrace. So it likewise seems ludicrous to claim that printing a new card should be the sole cause for an old card to get changed. Just make sure there are reasonable tradeoffs between the two before you print the new card - and make sure both are balanced against the general population. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > Then clearly, there was no need to reduced the utility of The Embrace. A > post or two ago, you were claiming that the "cost" of Third Tradition was > much greater the The Embrace. I still claim that. Pre CE, and currently, the cost of Third is considerably greater than that of Embrace. 2 blood for an empty vampire that hunts is a considerably lower cost than 1 blood and a Prince for an empty vampire that can't hunt (or 2 blood and Prince for an untapped vampire with 1 blood). Third is more expensive than Embrace, in practice. Embrace is cheap. When they did the same thing, Embrace did too much for what it cost, relative to Third. Now, Embrace is still cheaper than Third, but Embrace is less effective. This is reasonable. I accept that Embrace may now be *too* less effective, but the logic is sound. > Were that true, no one would bother using > Third Tradition because The Embrace was available. When Embrace and Third both did the same thing, Embrace was a better card to use than Third was, in most situations. Third showed up more often, however, as it was easier to get a hold of. > You keep trying to > thread your argument between mutually contradictory positions. I don't think I do. Barring the deeply confused, crack induced paragraph that confused us both, my position is pretty non contradictory: -Pre CE, Third and Embrace did essentially the same thing, but Embrace was effectively "cheaper" to play. -Assuming that Third is balanced and useful, then it makes sense that Embrace, which pre CE did the same thing yet was effectively cheaper, became less effective than Third. One could certainly argue that Third *isn't* balanced or useful, and making Embrace less effective than Third is simply wallpapering it (which is what I think you are mostly arguing), but for my purposes, this isn't really relevant. I dwell in a world where Third is a balanced, useful card. This is a given in my argument: "Third Tradition is a balanced and useful card". This is the basis of my entire point. I accept that some would disagree, however. Given this basis, that Embrace did essentially the same thing for a significantly less severe cost, it is logical that Embrace has become less effective. > I see. THEN, we have a problem with rarity levels not matching utility > levels. This was very similar to Freak Drive - and the correct thing to > do was what they did with Freak Drive: make it an uncommon. Probably, > Third Tradition really should have been the rare since I would still argue > that if you're using Princes, you should still prefer Third Tradition > over The Embrace. The rarity issue was certainly a factor in the Third/Embrace disparity. But making Embrace into an uncommon (rather than making less effective) would have simply obsoteted Third. Making Embrace weaker than Third was a logical option. Sure, if you were using an all Prince deck (pre CE), than Third was generally better than Embrace (especially if you could take advantage of the untapped nature of the new Third kids, like by having intercept or bounce in the deck), but then you have a crypt that is large and expensive. If you are using some princes, but still want lots of kids, Embrace was superior, but harder to get a lot of. > It's not worth it. You don't get the chance for the free bleed often enough > for the threat of the bleed-for-one to be worth the action, the two blood, > and the deck space for the card. Some decks will. I never said Neo-Embrace was *always* going to be useful. An Independant clan vote deck (maybe Settite Pre/Obf vote?) could use them effectively. A weenie horde OBF deck could use them effectively. > Were that true, then the original Embrace would have worked FANTASTICALLY > well for these purposes. And such decks would have been extremely popular. Again--not saying that Embrace was too powerful. Or even amazingly effective. Just it was reasonably useful, and was handy for less cost than the very similar Third, which it should not have been. > I don't understand the arguments people construct asserting how great cards > are in the face of proven tournament history to the contrary. I'm not asserting that Embraced was particularly great. Never have. It was useful. It was reasonable. It was too good, relative to the more expensive Third, which, according to the given assumption of my argument, is a balanced and useful card. That it was better than the more expensive Third indicates that it should have been reduced in effectiveness. It was. I'm not, nor have I ever been, saying that Embrace needed a functional change due to being too good, in an overall sense. Only in a "too good relative to Third" sense. > Reasonably well is fine. But can you get anywhere in a tournament with it? Probably. At the NE quallifier, a guy using an obfuscate/Third deck did pretty well, coming in, like, 6th out of about 40 or something, with a table win and a handfull of other VPs. Not fantastic, but reasonable. > That's why I said in retrospect I should > have played around with stealthy Embracing strategies. I don't think they'd > have become unstoppable decks but they might held their own a lot better. Mind you, all of my experience with Third Tradition decks is based on cheap Nosferatu Princes and spawn with Obfuscate... > Maybe the way to demonstrate this is to point out that between the printing > of Dark Sovereigns and Ancient Hearts, Banishment existed but PoK did not. > So, you're claiming that during this period, Banishment was fine. No. I'm claiming that PoK was part of the comparison material that made it evident that Banishment needed a fixing. Assuming that PoK was at the appropriate level of power (may or may not actually be), Banishment was clearly over that appropriate level of power. Banishment was overpowered from the get go. It is possible that it was necessary for PoK to be printed so that the designers could be convinced of it. > Likewise, had the Third Tradition never been printed, I'd wouldn't think > you'd see any reason to reduce the power of The Embrace. Correct. > Just make sure there are reasonable tradeoffs > between the two before you print the new card - and make sure both are > balanced against the general population. That would be nice, but it doesn't always work. Embrace was too good *relative to Third Tradition*. If Third was at the appropriate level of power, than Embrace should be less effective. Now it is. Possibly too less effective, but certainly less effective. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Frederick Scott wrote: > > >>Then clearly, there was no need to reduced the utility of The Embrace. A >>post or two ago, you were claiming that the "cost" of Third Tradition was >>much greater the The Embrace. > > > I still claim that. Pre CE, and currently, the cost of Third is considerably > greater than that of Embrace. 2 blood for an empty vampire that hunts is a > considerably lower cost than 1 blood and a Prince for an empty vampire that > can't hunt (or 2 blood and Prince for an untapped vampire with 1 blood). ...who doesn't have to hunt. I never thought of The Third Tradition as an action costing only 1 blood, because that would be ignoring the advantage it does have over The Embrace. The fact that you can chose is an advantage in itself. >> Were that true, no one would bother using >>Third Tradition because The Embrace was available. > > > When Embrace and Third both did the same thing, Embrace was a better card to > use than Third was, in most situations. Third showed up more often, however, > as it was easier to get a hold of. Then adjusting rarity should be enough. See Depravity vs The Art of Pain, for example. >> You keep trying to >>thread your argument between mutually contradictory positions. > > > I don't think I do. Barring the deeply confused, crack induced paragraph > that confused us both, my position is pretty non contradictory: > > -Pre CE, Third and Embrace did essentially the same thing, but Embrace was > effectively "cheaper" to play. I object to the statement that they did essentially the same thing. I always saw The Third Tradition as the better of the two, because an empty weenie hunting is just asking to get intercepted. The difference between the two is much larger than you make it to be. > -Assuming that Third is balanced and useful, then it makes sense that > Embrace, which pre CE did the same thing yet was effectively cheaper, became > less effective than Third. If they did the same thing, yes. But they didn't, so that argument is moot. Though you could argue that the increased functionality was disproportionate to the increase in cost, and then I'd argue that the current situation is certainly no better, but reversed. :) >>I see. THEN, we have a problem with rarity levels not matching utility >>levels. This was very similar to Freak Drive - and the correct thing to >>do was what they did with Freak Drive: make it an uncommon. Probably, >>Third Tradition really should have been the rare since I would still argue >>that if you're using Princes, you should still prefer Third Tradition >>over The Embrace. > > The rarity issue was certainly a factor in the Third/Embrace disparity. But > making Embrace into an uncommon (rather than making less effective) would > have simply obsoteted Third. Making Embrace weaker than Third was a logical > option. > > Sure, if you were using an all Prince deck (pre CE), than Third was > generally better than Embrace (especially if you could take advantage of the > untapped nature of the new Third kids, like by having intercept or bounce in > the deck), but then you have a crypt that is large and expensive. If you are > using some princes, but still want lots of kids, Embrace was superior, but > harder to get a lot of. Here I can put forward my own experience: Some time ago (Pre-CE) I decided to make a Prince Childer deck, using some Nosferatu Princes and some weenies, with Obf as the main discipline. That's pretty much the situation you describe, where the Embrace would be superior. I was then shocked at finding that, contrary to the law of probabilities, I owned a greater number of Embraces than Third Traditions, despite never having traded either card. So, I built the deck with what I had. But, if I had a greater number of Third Traditions, I would have used them, because I believed its advantages outweighted the costs for that deck. That belief was confirmed in pratice, since often I had to discharge large amounts of stealth cards to get my Embraces to hunt (and survive), instead of saving that stealth for more worthwhile actions, such as bleeding. Therefore, I cannot believe that the Third Tradition would be made obsolete if the rarities were switched. >>That's why I said in retrospect I should >>have played around with stealthy Embracing strategies. I don't think they'd >>have become unstoppable decks but they might held their own a lot better. > > > Mind you, all of my experience with Third Tradition decks is based on cheap > Nosferatu Princes and spawn with Obfuscate... Considering we have similar experiences, it's interesting to see we're at opposite sides of this discussion. :) >>Maybe the way to demonstrate this is to point out that between the printing >>of Dark Sovereigns and Ancient Hearts, Banishment existed but PoK did not. >>So, you're claiming that during this period, Banishment was fine. > > > No. I'm claiming that PoK was part of the comparison material that made it > evident that Banishment needed a fixing. > > Assuming that PoK was at the appropriate level of power (may or may not > actually be), Banishment was clearly over that appropriate level of power. > > Banishment was overpowered from the get go. It is possible that it was > necessary for PoK to be printed so that the designers could be convinced of > it. If PoK was far behind the power curve (as it appears to be), it shouldn't convince anyone. That's like saying that Majesty could only be seen as overpowered once Mercy for the Weak and Mummify were printed. >>Likewise, had the Third Tradition never been printed, I'd wouldn't think >>you'd see any reason to reduce the power of The Embrace. > > Correct. > >>Just make sure there are reasonable tradeoffs >>between the two before you print the new card - and make sure both are >>balanced against the general population. > > That would be nice, but it doesn't always work. Embrace was too good > *relative to Third Tradition*. If Third was at the appropriate level of > power, than Embrace should be less effective. Now it is. Then why not make The Third Tradition more effective, bringing it up to the level of The Embrace? If both were independently balanced before, why look at the Embrace as 'too good relative to Third Tradition', instead of looking at Third Tradition as 'too weak relative to The Embrace'? Either way, I still think that alone is no reason to change a card, and certainly not to nuke it. Flux

In message <b6q9iq$7m47m$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, Flux <fl...@netc.pt> mumbled something about: >Then why not make The Third Tradition more effective, bringing it up to the >level of The Embrace? Because the Embrace weenified the game, and the designers are clearly making an effort to move the game away from weenies. >If both were independently balanced before, why look at the Embrace as 'too >good relative to Third Tradition', instead of looking at Third Tradition as >'too weak relative to The Embrace'? See above. >Either way, I still think that alone is no reason to change a card, and >certainly not to nuke it. I've been following this thread with open astonishment. Has nobody seen weenie OBF Embrace/Night Moves/Spying Mission/Tribute? Did that deck just not get made near you? It's not viable anymore because the Embrace doesn't get a skill card. That's a good thing. It was a fucking brutal deck. You HAD to mob it to stop it. You can't block the actions with any degree of consistency -- Cloak, Lost in Crowds, and Faceless Night (as well as the Spying Mission itself) give far too many options. Chasing down Night Moves at 6 stealth is a task best left to the Ravnos, who probably have the best chance of stopping this deck with multiple Draba/ANI retainers/ANI untaps. Marked Path is an incredibly effective card here, providing stealth that just sits around if the vampire ever needs it -- that, oh, by the way, stacks on Cloak and Crowds. You'd think it would move slowly, but two 4-caps with superior Obfuscate make it go just fine -- they can make two Embraces each, and it pretty much rolls forward on its own from there. The crypt, of course, is the smallest obf you can find -- don't waste time going above 4 for superior OBF, you've got 12 skill cards in the deck and you will slowly be putting them on your Embraces so they can Night Moves at +6 stealth. Figure turn 2, you have a 4-cap. Turn 3, you have the other 4-cap and one Embrace. Turn 4, you have two 4-caps, a weenie from your crypt, and three Embraces. That's six minions. Good luck blocking them all, if you don't blow all your intercept failing to catch the first one. And they'll be happily making more minions as they go -- a couple hunts, some blood from the Hunting Grounds (Nosferatu *and* Assamite *and* Malkavian; yes, you put all three in), hey, look, 2 blood, enough for another Embrace. Anytime you feel like pool gain, just go ahead and Tribute. Oh, by the way, Embraces can create their own Embraces. Miss that one? Nice. You really think you can waste time blocking the Embrace's hunt? How about the rescue action? Yeah, Embraces can be rescued, too. How many times can you block a stealth deck, anyway? Would this deck win every game? No, of course not -- you Rush it early on and it dies. Was it omnipresent? Yes. It was played at least once every tournament in the Southeast. I know for a fact that it was seen frequently in Los Angeles. I'm sure others can chime in with memories of it. I'm not surprised that Peter hasn't seen it, because Peter would've just thumped each minion into torpor as it came out. No room for combat defense, see. I also know for a fact that Jeff Thompson made INCREDIBLY heavy use of it in multiple Lasombra decks, because when you get an Obtenebration or Dominate skill card, it makes that Power Structure deck so much easier to run -- leave the DOM Embrace untapped to Deflect one bleed, move on from there. Did 3rd Tradition get played before the Embrace was changed? Almost never. Why do you think that is? Because anything you could do with 3rd, you could do better with the Embrace, because you didn't have to get a Prince to do it. Anyway. My point is that it wasn't whether the Embrace was broken -- it was clearly a change made to move the game AWAY from weenies. Big vamps simply aren't viable in the face of 6-10 minions bleeding at +3/+6 stealth each turn. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

-Snip other points, background on why Embrace was always crap. >the upshot is: why should The Embrace get changed, all the existing > Embrace cards become obsolesced (that is, they become yet more cards that > don't actually do what their card text says it does), and the card made less > useful if as it *was*, it wasn't overpowered to begin with? And clearly > it wasn't. Remember how quite a lot of Ravnos decks did well in the storyline tournaments? I suspect that Embrace + Week of Nightmares was a big part of that. Having a predator who quickly gets 6-8 vampires with chimestry, all with +1 bleed and strength, is deeply disturbing. They bleed with Computer Hack / Fata Morgana for 3-4, and if you catch one, it drops trapparition to roll over the blocker. With half a dozen Paths in the deck, it can always play these for free. The local version of this deck sweept every table I saw it on, save one time, where it got crunched pretty early, by players who had too much fear of it to let it get started. So, yes, the right stuff can stop it. But it was a pretty hardcore deck, for the period between the release of FN and the release of the newly wallpapered Embrace. I used embrace myself, pre Sabbat War, in a Malk/Nossie Obf/Dom deck. It was heavy on OBF and Cloaks and Mask of 1000 faces. The Dom cards were all Deflection / Conditioning, for a little bit more oomf, laid on top of every computer hack I owned (22). If I was Dominate-light in my opening crypt, I would switch the bleeder about with Mask just to cycle them, then make dom babies and Cloak their bleeds, which would let me cycle the Conditionings. If I was Dom-heavy, or facing decent intercept, I would make obf babies, or just chuck the Embrace out. But they were usually pretty useful - I could get three weenies, two Embraces and a Muddles out pretty quickly, and then roll around the table, bleeding for 2 to 4 with each vampire in my swarm, occasionally taking the time to pop out another baby. And the more minions I had, the easier Mask was to cycle (at either level), to always have the right stealth-to-bleed ratio. There were other tricks, but basically embrace *was* very cool to make a rude deck even more so.

"robtreasure" <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2332...@web2news.com>... > > dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote in message > > > Stupid co-incidence that doesn't really support the above arguement > > but is pretty funny and almost ironic: > > > > We (Rob and I) both attended a tournament in Bath yesterday. Rob (as > > usual) did a lot better than I did and got into the final, where the > > winner was a relatively new player... > > > > ...using a DomiGangrel deck. > > As you well know Mr Hammond there was 'one or two' more considerations > to that ridiculous final than what Hugh was playing :o) TBH it would not > have made a jot of difference if he had played stock Malk S+B. Yes I am more than aware. Sounded a rough ride, and it was a real shame all things considered as it slightly marred the day. > Top day for all and decent blokes as well I thought. I have never seen > so much of one deck type in a tourney though. TOTALLY misjudged the game > there. Gah. Yep. It's totally cool that the Bath guys have complete and utter mastery over that element of the game. Nobody is going to say that they don't understand the bleed dynamic. Stealth is also a popular aspect going on down there. I so should've played my Tzimisce deck... Oh, and I owe you 1 bag of sweets, Rob. ;) DH

>>> dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote in message >>> >>> We (Rob and I) both attended a tournament in Bath >>> yesterday. Rob (as >>> usual) did a lot better than I did and got into the >>> final, where the >>> winner was a relatively new player... Oh I forgot, he has been playing since the game began but was his first tourney - well done! >>> ...using a DomiGangrel deck. >> >> As you well know Mr Hammond there was 'one or two' more >> considerations >> to that ridiculous final than what Hugh was playing :o) >> TBH it would not >> have made a jot of difference if he had played stock Malk S+B. > > Yes I am more than aware. Sounded a rough ride, and it was a real > shame all things considered as it slightly marred the day. Maybe a teeny bit but not much. That said it would have been a much better game if the table would have been a *shade* more balanced. >> Top day for all and decent blokes as well I thought. I >> have never seen >> so much of one deck type in a tourney though. TOTALLY >> misjudged the game >> there. Gah. > > Yep. It's totally cool that the Bath guys have complete and utter > mastery over that element of the game. Nobody is going to say that > they don't understand the bleed dynamic. Stealth is also a popular > aspect going on down there. Was certainly the quickest full tourney I have ever played. Other than the second round.... naughty Mikey :o) > I so should've played my Tzimisce deck... Any kind of goodcombatTM would have razed hell. both of my other close considerations would have done better than the one I played... you? > Oh, and I owe you 1 bag of sweets, Rob. ;) YEAH, you tubby bitch. [ quoted text not captured ]

"robtreasure" <robtreasure....@web2news.net> wrote in message news:<2336...@web2news.com>... > >>> dave...@hotmail.com (hamdamcwa) wrote in message > >>> > >>> We (Rob and I) both attended a tournament in Bath > >>> yesterday. Rob (as > >>> usual) did a lot better than I did and got into the > >>> final, where the > >>> winner was a relatively new player... > > Oh I forgot, he has been playing since the game began but was his first > tourney - well done! I could tell, due to his judicious use of Movement of the Slow Body. When do you EVER see that card used nowadays? > >>> ...using a DomiGangrel deck. > >> > >> As you well know Mr Hammond there was 'one or two' more > >> considerations > >> to that ridiculous final than what Hugh was playing :o) > >> TBH it would not > >> have made a jot of difference if he had played stock Malk S+B. > > > > Yes I am more than aware. Sounded a rough ride, and it was a real > > shame all things considered as it slightly marred the day. > > Maybe a teeny bit but not much. That said it would have been a much > better game if the table would have been a *shade* more balanced. I don't really know what you mean - it seemed pretty balanced. 5x Stealth Bleeders has a certain... harmony to it. ;) > >> Top day for all and decent blokes as well I thought. I > >> have never seen > >> so much of one deck type in a tourney though. TOTALLY > >> misjudged the game > >> there. Gah. > > > > Yep. It's totally cool that the Bath guys have complete and utter > > mastery over that element of the game. Nobody is going to say that > > they don't understand the bleed dynamic. Stealth is also a popular > > aspect going on down there. > > Was certainly the quickest full tourney I have ever played. Other than > the second round.... naughty Mikey :o) I was out in 10 mins in round one, 20 mins in round 2 and 15 mins in round 3. > > I so should've played my Tzimisce deck... > > Any kind of goodcombatTM would have razed hell. both of my other close > considerations would have done better than the one I played... you? Sure. I played my good old Tzimisce deck in a pick up and hoovered up. I wouldn't have fancied my chances vs your Tyler deck, but what can you do? Smile on! DH

On Sun, 6 Apr 2003, Frederick Scott wrote: > But I used a bunch of different Embrace decks and none of them > were all that good. Granted, I never got around to trying them with the > stealth disciplines and in retrospect I probably should have. But it was Fred, you have some good points, but I think this is a serious hole in your argument. You invoke personal experience at several points to support your belief that the Embrace was fine as it was, yet you admit you've never used them in the best way they can be used; it seems analogous to saying "I never do very well with combat, but I haven't tried using any combat disciplines." I can say that my experience differs. There were several obfuscate-based weenie embracers that did very, very well in my local playgroup. I wouldn't say that they steamrolled tables every single time, but no deck ever does, and the pool-to-minion ratios were so obscene that they were almost impossible to kill. Another similiar, very successful deck, was built around Sabbat obfuscate and Hungy Coyote. IIRC, Jay Kristoff's "Can I Wear this Jacket, Too" relied heavily on the embrace (and used Protean as a stealth discipline). I was unlucky enough to be his first prey in round two of the nationals last year; the deck took off like a rocket, and I never had a chance. That's OK, I just offer it up as an example of one of these Embrace decks that's very, very good, that you never seem to see. David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

Derek Ray wrote: > In message <b6q9iq$7m47m$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, > Flux <fl...@netc.pt> mumbled something about: > > >>Then why not make The Third Tradition more effective, bringing it up to the >>level of The Embrace? > > > Because the Embrace weenified the game, and the designers are clearly > making an effort to move the game away from weenies. Peter has been stating that The Embrace was reasonable by itself, I was arguing on that basis. If the purpose is to move away from weenies, increasing the blood cost of the card would probably be a better fix. The current fix nukes the card, making it useless for most high-cap decks. And AFAIK, only a relatively small number of weenie decks used The Embrace, and many of those can keep using it in its current form. > I've been following this thread with open astonishment. > > Has nobody seen weenie OBF Embrace/Night Moves/Spying Mission/Tribute? > > Did that deck just not get made near you? It's not viable anymore > because the Embrace doesn't get a skill card. That's a good thing. A number of other changes could be made that would prevent this deck from dominating the game. But I don't even see it as all that 'dominating' anyway. > Would this deck win every game? No, of course not -- you Rush it early > on and it dies. Was it omnipresent? Yes. It was played at least once > every tournament in the Southeast. It wasn't omnipresent around here, unlike Malk S&B or weenie DOM (and those also happen to have a better tournament record AFAIK). > I know for a fact that it was seen > frequently in Los Angeles. I'm sure others can chime in with memories > of it. I'm not surprised that Peter hasn't seen it, because Peter > would've just thumped each minion into torpor as it came out. No room > for combat defense, see. > > I also know for a fact that Jeff Thompson made INCREDIBLY heavy use of > it in multiple Lasombra decks, because when you get an Obtenebration or > Dominate skill card, it makes that Power Structure deck so much easier > to run -- leave the DOM Embrace untapped to Deflect one bleed, move on > from there. One vampire with a Sport Bike/Mr Winthrop/Attonement will make you spend 2-3 stealth cards per Embrace, just to get them to the state where they're tapped at 1 blood. If they fail and you want to rescue them from torpor later, that's an additional 2 blood, and then he can get intercepted on the hunt again. If they don't fail, you're likely burning through so many stealth cards that you'll either jam soon or run out of library before getting through your second prey. That's just one possibility, in addition to other options like Rush, Anarchist Uprising, etc. It's a scary deck, but not any more unstoppable than many other tournament decks. A look through the TWDA comes up with more Embraces using Presence or Protean than Obfuscate (Presence use has fallen since CE, of course). Many decks using large numbers of The Embrace are not weenie decks, most often the average capacity of the crypt is above 5, including the only deck that also uses large numbers of Night Moves (Thomas Kuster's deck, with an average crypt of 6.83). The only real Weenie Obfuscate Embrace deck in the archive is Ben Peal's 'Wonderwall' (shows up twice), that also uses Aupex and has lots more Embraces than master discipline cards. So the TWDA provides no evidence that the chosen fix would be necessary, or even effective in reducing the strength of weenie decks relative to high cap decks. > Did 3rd Tradition get played before the Embrace was changed? Almost > never. Why do you think that is? Because anything you could do with > 3rd, you could do better with the Embrace, because you didn't have to > get a Prince to do it. There are quite a few decks at TWDA that use it. The Third Tradition: 6 The Embrace: 15 Creation Rites: 1 TE + TTT: 2 TE + CR: 2 Yes, the Embrace is used more often, but Third Tradition is not made obsolete by The Embrace. > Anyway. My point is that it wasn't whether the Embrace was broken -- it > was clearly a change made to move the game AWAY from weenies. Then they should turn to Computer Hacking before The Embrace. Most non-DOM/PRE weenie bleed decks use it. It's a costless no-discipline card providing an inf-discipline effect. It's 'too good, relative to' several other cards (Social Charm, Scouting Mission, etc). A 1 blood cost or a 4-cap-or-higher requirement would be appropriate, and it would do more for turning the game away from weenies than any change to The Embrace. Going back to the TWDA, there are 23 decks using Computer Hacking, most of them with <5 average cap. > Big vamps simply aren't viable in the face of 6-10 minions bleeding at > +3/+6 stealth each turn. Big vamps aren't viable in the face of a lot of things (DOM weenies, POT weenies, Brainwash decks, Malk S&B, Turbo-something-or-other, etc...) IMO The Embrace was not among the major problems for Big Vamps, and in fact it would help quite a few of those Big Vamps decks just as much as weenies. Flux

On Mon, 07 Apr 2003 16:36:54 +0100, Flux <fl...@netc.pt> wrote: (snip re:weenie embrace night moves / spying mission) >It's a scary deck, but not any more unstoppable than many other tournament >decks. >A look through the TWDA comes up with more Embraces using Presence or >Protean than Obfuscate (Presence use has fallen since CE, of course). >Many decks using large numbers of The Embrace are not weenie decks, most >often the average capacity of the crypt is above 5, including the only deck >that also uses large numbers of Night Moves (Thomas Kuster's deck, with an >average crypt of 6.83). The only real Weenie Obfuscate Embrace deck in the >archive is Ben Peal's 'Wonderwall' (shows up twice), that also uses Aupex >and has lots more Embraces than master discipline cards. >So the TWDA provides no evidence that the chosen fix would be necessary, or >even effective in reducing the strength of weenie decks relative to high cap >decks. The TWDA isn't desgined to provide such proof. In March of 2003, there were 88 sanctioned tournaments. Only 21 of those events had winning decks posted to this newsgroup or to the White Wolf Forums. The TWDA has very little reflection on the entirety of what is winning, nor should it be used to determine what cards are used in abundance in all environments. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com/decks/twd.htm

Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:<3E8E0853...@removethis.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] The last Chicago tournament was won by an Illusions of the Kindred deck using Gabrin as the main vamp, thus reducing the cost to 2 - the illusions being sizable vamps (Goratrix, various Tzimisce) throwing out Thoughts Betrayed/Trap/Carrion Crows/Drawing out the Beast and Amaranthing with regularity. Very few decks proved capable of going toe-to-toe with it. (The winning deck's in the usual archives and was posted to the newsgroup.) > Fred -John Flournoy

David C. wrote: > IIRC, Jay Kristoff's "Can >I Wear this Jacket, Too" relied heavily on the embrace (and used Protean >as a stealth discipline). I was unlucky enough to be his first prey in >round two of the nationals last year; the deck took off like a rocket, and >I never had a chance. That's OK, I just offer it up as an example of one >of these Embrace decks that's very, very good, that you never seem to see. David, I'm glad that you were so impressed by the deck, but it may not be the one to mention in this debate. "Can I wear this Jacket, Too?" (www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k2origins2 ) has 4x The Embrace, but no Protean skill cards (even back then). I omitted skill cards because I was already heavy on masters, the Embraces were going to be calling +1 stealth votes, and even if they got torped they would still count toward my Consag. Boons. I especially liked it when someone would generate the one intercept to block my Embrace from voting; forcing me to tap the Backways! :) I am especially interested in what happens to Earth Meld and Form of Mist. I can understand both sides of the argument for changing those cards. Even so, all of this seems poorly timed. The Anarchs set is already being printed, and Cam is nine months old. Is the "the changes were dumb" camp pushing for errata to switch the cards in question back to the old text? Jay

On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Flux wrote: > If the purpose is to move away from weenies, increasing the blood cost of > the card would probably be a better fix. The current fix nukes the card, > making it useless for most high-cap decks. That the card is nuked is a matter of opinion. I think its supporters were just used to the free skill card, and so it seems nuked to them. I'd say you already have a good advantage playing weenies. Suck it up and play with skill cards. Yes, I understand what that does to deck contruction, but even after taking that hit, you're still far, far ahead of anyone trying to do anything else (extreme language deliberately chosen). > A number of other changes could be made that would prevent this deck from > dominating the game. But I don't even see it as all that 'dominating' anyway. But honestly, how often have you played against it? To be clear, we're talking about a weenie obfuscate deck with piles of NM, piles of stealth, and I'd guess about twelve to sixteen embraces? I played against that deck *all the time*. It seemed maddeningly good to me. > It wasn't omnipresent around here, unlike Malk S&B or weenie DOM (and those > also happen to have a better tournament record AFAIK). Then this would be a good lesson that one shouldn't extrapolate too heavily from one's own metagame (myself included). > One vampire with a Sport Bike/Mr Winthrop/Attonement will make you spend > 2-3 stealth cards per Embrace, just to get them to the state where they're > tapped at 1 blood. If they fail and you want to rescue them from torpor > later, that's an additional 2 blood, and then he can get intercepted on the > hunt again. If they don't fail, you're likely burning through so many > stealth cards that you'll either jam soon or run out of library before > getting through your second prey. Again, have you actually tried this? I'm no expert on the game, but I actually do get to try different things out against weenie decks, week after week, for the past several years. They've got the weenies. They *are* going to see them. What's your counter? How many slots are you going to devote to it? That's the problem with all these "obvious" weenie strategies. You are comparing what will likely be a small portion of your deck to the totality of another deck, and assuming you will have yours as often as they have theirs. That's crap. That's "Damnan's Syndrome" (Hi Damnan's! Love ya' lots! Keep up the good artwork!). Some games you'll get lucky; most games you die. In your specific example above, the Atonement just gets nuked IME (against Obfuscate weenies; against some others it's possible to keep it, but never, ever likely). > That's just one possibility, in addition to other options like Rush, > Anarchist Uprising, etc. Rush doesn't work; too many targets. Obviously, a weenie rush deck is a different story, but irrelevant to this discussion. > It's a scary deck, but not any more unstoppable than many other tournament > decks. Not true. Cluster your firepower in two or three bins that take four turns or so to really get rolling, and it's a whole different story. > Then they should turn to Computer Hacking before The Embrace. That would be neglecting the total impact of a card change. Lots of other decks that aren't a problem would be screwed into oblivion. Whole clans would be affected. > Most non-DOM/PRE weenie bleed decks use it. It's a costless no-discipline > card providing an inf-discipline effect. It's 'too good, relative to' > several other cards (Social Charm, Scouting Mission, etc). A 1 blood cost > or a 4-cap-or-higher requirement would be appropriate, and it would do more > for turning the game away from weenies than any change to The Embrace. That, however, is a damn interesting counter to the benchmark style of card analysis. It just shows to me that benchmarking is not the end all, be all, of card analysis, though. > Big vamps aren't viable in the face of a lot of things (DOM weenies, POT > weenies, Brainwash decks, Malk S&B, Turbo-something-or-other, etc...) Two of your examples are weenies decks themselves, so I wouldn't take that as much of a point. Granted, they don't necessarily use embraces, but part of the argument against the embrace is that it adds insult to injury. From peronal experience, I find that I'm *much* more likely to live against a pure S+B predator a la "Malk 1994" than I am against various weenie decks, and I tend to play big, Superfriends-ey type of decks. YMMV. [ quoted text not captured ]

[quoted from Derek Ray] [ quoted text not captured ] Wasn't planning on quoting that much. Anyway, non-rhetorical question: isn't it possible to do the same thing (before or now) using Effective Managements rather than Embraces? The EMs take up the slots normally devoted to skill cards. You lose "take an action to make a vampire" but reduce the chance of choking on such nonbleeding actions and free up minion slots. I could see an argument for the Embrace version being more explosive, but to be sure, someone should do a detailed comparison of the decks.

>>So the TWDA provides no evidence that the chosen fix would be necessary, or >>even effective in reducing the strength of weenie decks relative to high cap > >>decks. > >The TWDA isn't desgined to provide such proof. > >In March of 2003, there were 88 sanctioned tournaments. >Only 21 of those events had winning decks posted to this newsgroup or >to the White Wolf Forums. > >The TWDA has very little reflection on the entirety of what is >winning, nor should it be used to determine what cards are used in >abundance in all environments. Sure, it's flawed to use it as *the* data, but what else do we have? Is it better to just argue "I think you're wrong because there's no evidence that I'm ever wrong"? Or, is it better to just give up trying to determine what's good/better?

On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Jay Kristoff wrote: > David, I'm glad that you were so impressed by the deck, but it may not be > the one to mention in this debate. "Can I wear this Jacket, Too?" > (www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k2origins2 ) has 4x The Embrace, but no > Protean skill cards (even back then). I omitted skill cards because I was > already heavy on masters, the Embraces were going to be calling +1 stealth > votes, and even if they got torped they would still count toward my Consag. > Boons. I especially liked it when someone would generate the one intercept > to block my Embrace from voting; forcing me to tap the Backways! :) OK, my bad. You definitely gave the impression of having a lot more, though; guess a fair chunk floated to the top. Were I to have survived into the midgame, maybe I would have noticed that you stopped playing them. ;) <snip Jay's attempt to veer a weenie rant back OT> Give it up, buddy. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] I'm not claiming that the TWDA proves my point, just that it supports it and doesn't prove anything against it. :) As Curevei already stated, it's really the only data we can turn to, other than personal experience. I would note that my experience is consistent with what can be gleaned from the TWDA in this case, but I'm well aware I have no access to a large part of the tournament (or other) data that could disprove my own experience. Flux

Howdy, > > But I used a bunch of different Embrace decks and none of them > > were all that good. Granted, I never got around to trying them with the > > stealth disciplines and in retrospect I probably should have. There've been plenty of testimonials to the power of Embrace + stealth now. Another borderline broken approach, which I mentioned earlier, was Embrace + presence. I'm sure other people must have played similar things, but I never really looked into it. The concept was !Tory with PRE and (aus/AUS), Embraces, shedloads of Majesty, some intercept/bounce for defense, Hungry Coyote, Media Influence, and Tributes. You block the Embrace? OK, then I Majesty, untap, and bleed instead. You block the Embrace's hunt? OK, then it Majesties out of combat and tries again next time. Even fairly small amounts of Embraces made for ridiculous amounts of actions very quickly. Then there was always Misdirection and Patronage to make the mismatch even greater. And, of course, sooner or later I'd hit one of the few Palla Grande. There were defenses against it, of course: anti-S:CE (in quantity) hosed off the Majesty part; anti-weenie could hose off the whole deck, depending on which anti-weenie tactic we're talking about. But it abused two weak points very successfully - weenies and S:CE. Of course, you could've probably make a similar deck without Embraces, given the amount of presence weenies - but the !Toriness of the Embraces added lots of additional synergy. The deck is now completely hosed, though. Either fix (Majesty, Embrace) would have done it in. I still don't see why Weather Control got 'fixed' too, though. Weenie Weather Control just wasn't that powerful/abusive. The !Tory deck (title: Minor Threat) was. Hope that helps, Alex

David Cherryholmes wrote: > On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Flux wrote: > > >>If the purpose is to move away from weenies, increasing the blood cost of >>the card would probably be a better fix. The current fix nukes the card, >>making it useless for most high-cap decks. > > > That the card is nuked is a matter of opinion. I think its supporters > were just used to the free skill card, and so it seems nuked to them. The skill card made the Embrace worth it for me, unless you're playing a weenie crypt anyway and don't care about disciplines. If you're playing large vamps, why should you bother taking an action that costs two blood, when anyone with +1 intercept could easily block his hunt and throw him into torpor with minimal cost or risk? Will you bother rescuing an empty vampire from torpor if you know he has little to no chance of surviving till your next turn or even being at all useful? > I'd say you already have a good advantage playing weenies. Read again, what I claim is that the ones most affected by this change are not pure weenie decks, but those using mid/high caps in their crypt. The Embrace was a good way for large vampires to catch up to weenie decks, now it's mostly useless in that role. >>A number of other changes could be made that would prevent this deck from >>dominating the game. But I don't even see it as all that 'dominating' anyway. > > > But honestly, how often have you played against it? To be clear, we're > talking about a weenie obfuscate deck with piles of NM, piles of stealth, > and I'd guess about twelve to sixteen embraces? I played against that > deck *all the time*. It seemed maddeningly good to me. I'll admit I've never played against twelve to sixteen Embraces AFAIK, but I have played against similar decks with not-as-high-numbers of Embraces, and played a similar version myself a few times. Going back to the TWDA again, there are only two decks with more than 12 Embraces listed there either: Ben Peal's 'Wonderwall' and a Presence 'Breed Bleed' deck. >>It wasn't omnipresent around here, unlike Malk S&B or weenie DOM (and those >>also happen to have a better tournament record AFAIK). > > > Then this would be a good lesson that one shouldn't extrapolate too > heavily from one's own metagame (myself included). My point exactly. :) >>One vampire with a Sport Bike/Mr Winthrop/Attonement will make you spend >>2-3 stealth cards per Embrace, just to get them to the state where they're >>tapped at 1 blood. If they fail and you want to rescue them from torpor >>later, that's an additional 2 blood, and then he can get intercepted on the >>hunt again. If they don't fail, you're likely burning through so many >>stealth cards that you'll either jam soon or run out of library before >>getting through your second prey. > > > Again, have you actually tried this? I'm no expert on the game, but I > actually do get to try different things out against weenie decks, week > after week, for the past several years. They've got the weenies. They > *are* going to see them. What's your counter? How many slots are you > going to devote to it? That's the problem with all these "obvious" weenie > strategies. You are comparing what will likely be a small portion of your > deck to the totality of another deck, and assuming you will have yours as > often as they have theirs. Actually, I gave examples of some things that will be highly effective even if they're not the focus of your deck. A few Anarchist Uprising will hurt the weenie deck dearly, you don't need to clutter your deck with them to be effective (just enough to have one when you need it, it can be part of your strategy anyway). One action to get that Sport Bike and the weenie deck will have to expend that much greater effort into all further actions, and/or lose at least one of his minions each turn. Rush is going to take most of your deck to be effective anyway, so not a big stretch there either. >>That's just one possibility, in addition to other options like Rush, >>Anarchist Uprising, etc. > > > Rush doesn't work; too many targets. Obviously, a weenie rush deck is a > different story, but irrelevant to this discussion. IME rush will work, if done right and soon enough. Sometimes it doesn't even have to be that soon. You can't kill all its minions, but that is not necessary - just the ones with more than 1 blood on them will do just fine. >>Then they should turn to Computer Hacking before The Embrace. > > > That would be neglecting the total impact of a card change. Lots of other > decks that aren't a problem would be screwed into oblivion. Whole clans > would be affected. But that is very much my point with The Embrace change: lots of other decks that aren't a problem got screwed, and whole clans were affected. If Computer Hacking required a 4-cap-or-higher, how many non-weenie decks would be affected? And if it costed 1 blood? >>Big vamps aren't viable in the face of a lot of things (DOM weenies, POT >>weenies, Brainwash decks, Malk S&B, Turbo-something-or-other, etc...) > > > Two of your examples are weenies decks themselves, so I wouldn't take that > as much of a point. Granted, they don't necessarily use embraces, but part > of the argument against the embrace is that it adds insult to > injury. From peronal experience, I find that I'm *much* more likely to > live against a pure S+B predator a la "Malk 1994" than I am against > various weenie decks, and I tend to play big, Superfriends-ey type of > decks. YMMV. But that is the nature of the game, isn't it? If you play big vampires, your biggest vulnerability will be weenie decks, and not Malk S&B. That doesn't mean that weenie decks are generally better than S&B. If you played an Animalism wall deck it would likely be the other way around. Flux

Flux wrote: > Peter has been stating that The Embrace was reasonable by itself, I was > arguing on that basis. In a design sense, Embrace was too good compared to Third. If there was no Third, however, and the designers thought that Embrace was a balanced and useful card, there would be no need to change it, no. But the reality was that there was a Third, and that was the one that was determined to be the balanced useful one, and Embrace was toned down. But then Derek brought up a very good point which I had not considered--the goal of de-weeniefying the game, which is not one that I have not thought about in my previous arguments. If one of the goals of the current design team in the CE release was to attempt to move the game away from weenieness (which it seems to be, with the almost total lack of 1 point vampires [are there any in th CE?] and various other changes to reduce the power of weenie vampires, like the increase in cost to Majesty), then hamstringing Embrace also helps accomplish this--you can still use Embrace when appropriate, but large hordes of Embraclings having Embraclings and so on is a much less effective (or attractive) strategy now that they don't get access to a skill card. Sure, Third creates weenies, but you need to have Princes to make them, greatly reducing the weenie horde aspect of such a deck. > If the purpose is to move away from weenies, increasing the blood cost of > the card would probably be a better fix. The current fix nukes the card, > making it useless for most high-cap decks. But the current version does just as well. But then, I also don't think the current version is so much "nuked" as either specialized or conditional. > And AFAIK, only a relatively small number of weenie decks used The Embrace, > and many of those can keep using it in its current form. I don't have the data to refute this. > One vampire with a Sport Bike/Mr Winthrop/Attonement will make you spend > 2-3 stealth cards per Embrace, just to get them to the state where they're > tapped at 1 blood. 2 to 3 stealth cards? 'Cause one vampire has +1 intercept? Or 'cause 1 vampire has +3 intercept due to having Sport Bike and Winthrop and Atonement all at once? If that is the situation you present, that is a highly questionable argument, as I have *never* seen a single vampire with all three of these at once. Ever. I accept that it is a possibility, but not one that I am going to worry about. > Yes, the Embrace is used more often, but Third Tradition is not made > obsolete by The Embrace. Third Tradition was not made obsolete by Embrace--in a small number of decks, Third was mostly better. In the vast majority of decks, however, Embrace was *much* easier to use (i.e. any deck that didn't have 8+ Princes in the crypt) and did essentially the same thing for less cost. > Most non-DOM/PRE weenie bleed decks use it. It's a costless no-discipline > card providing an inf-discipline effect. It's 'too good, relative to' > several other cards (Social Charm, Scouting Mission, etc). A 1 blood cost > or a 4-cap-or-higher requirement would be appropriate, and it would do more > for turning the game away from weenies than any change to The Embrace. Possibly the case. They didn't do that, however. [ quoted text not captured ]

hamdamcwa wrote: > I could tell, due to his judicious use of Movement of the Slow Body. > When do you EVER see that card used nowadays? In Gangrel Force of Will/Daring the Dawn/MotSB/Rapid Heal/Freak decks. Which are effective. And MotSB are good for making them effective. [ quoted text not captured ]

> It's a scary deck, but not any more unstoppable than many other tournament > decks. Our ex-prince had a brutal hungry coyote/embrace/sabbat 2caps using various disciplines (he tried obf, vic and maybe pre?) to keep the bleeds coming and you not blocking. The only way we ever killed it was to all gang up against it and overcome it as a table. Even gangrel atonemnet/untap didn't stop the damn thing 100% of the time. Weenie obf embrace is only slightly slower. But with hungry coyote the minions reproduce nearly geometrically. Why wasn't it a tournement deck? It's dull, boring, and scares the bejesus out of a table, and good players will kill it until it's dead. Going through old decks, I've realized that all of them (weenie pot combat included) had 2-3 anarchist uprisings to deal with the thing. honestly weenie swarm was awful, and nothing was worse than kids making kids. Cameron

>I'm sure other people must have played similar things, but I never >really looked into it. The concept was !Tory with PRE and (aus/AUS), >Embraces, shedloads of Majesty, some intercept/bounce for defense, >Hungry Coyote, Media Influence, and Tributes. > >You block the Embrace? OK, then I Majesty, untap, and bleed instead. >You block the Embrace's hunt? OK, then it Majesties out of combat and >tries again next time. Even fairly small amounts of Embraces made for >ridiculous amounts of actions very quickly. Then there was always >Misdirection and Patronage to make the mismatch even greater. And, of >course, sooner or later I'd hit one of the few Palla Grande. > >There were defenses against it, of course: anti-S:CE (in quantity) >hosed off the Majesty part; anti-weenie could hose off the whole deck, >depending on which anti-weenie tactic we're talking about. But it >abused two weak points very successfully - weenies and S:CE. > >Of course, you could've probably make a similar deck without Embraces, >given the amount of presence weenies - but the !Toriness of the >Embraces added lots of additional synergy. > >The deck is now completely hosed, though. Either fix (Majesty, >Embrace) would have done it in. I still don't see why Weather Control >got 'fixed' too, though. Weenie Weather Control just wasn't that >powerful/abusive. The !Tory deck (title: Minor Threat) was. Can't pull up the TWDA at the moment, so I can't check on something. But, my recollection is that there were a couple of Palla Grande Embrace decks posted (with maybe one being a winning deck) not long after CE. Palla Grande, Power Structure, and other "keys off of lots of members of a clan" strategies are the ones *least* affected by the change to The Embrace. These decks are the niche that The Embrace fits into now. Previously, could go in all sorts of decks that didn't mind having or needed extra vamps with only one discipline. I'm not bothered by the change because it turned an okay card into a conditional card. I don't think the old Embrace was this okay card Fred and Peter have been debating about. I think it was an exceptional card. Nor am I bothered by curbing a nonbroken but near the top of the power curve card under the theory that taking out the top cards only moves other cards to the top. That theory is fine when the number of cards moved up is about the same as the number of cards that are downgraded. Doesn't hold when downgrading some cards makes many more playable. What bothers me, to be more specific than I have been, is that there's an inequity in the clans due to discipline complements and to a much lesser degree other stuff like clan specific cards, titles, etc. and that The Embrace helped to level the playing field by giving weaker clans options for either a weenie horde strategy or for splashing an out of clan discipline due to The Embrace's ability to search out the skill card. The strongest clans don't need The Embrace to be strong. Therefore, they don't lose as much as weaker clans from the change. If more effort was put into rotating which clans were best, I'd be less concerned, though it would still be useful to whoever is weakest at a certain point to have more options. While I've seen efforts to elevate weak clans to a viable level, haven't seen much in the way of toppling the best of the best. As for the focus on clan which some may scoff at, it's a simple (and obvious) way to group vampires for comparison.

In article <20030407141537...@mb-cp.aol.com>, cur...@aol.commetal says... > Wasn't planning on quoting that much. Anyway, non-rhetorical question: isn't > it possible to do the same thing (before or now) using Effective Managements > rather than Embraces? > > The EMs take up the slots normally devoted to skill cards. You lose "take an > action to make a vampire" but reduce the chance of choking on such nonbleeding > actions and free up minion slots. 2 issues with the above that should be considered: 1. Pre-CE Embrace issue: You lose the deck thinning of the Embrace (every embrace action stripped another master card out of your deck). 2. Embrace costs no pool. -- -Snapcase

In message <20030407141537...@mb-cp.aol.com>, cur...@aol.commetal (Curevei) mumbled something about: >[quoted from Derek Ray] >>I've been following this thread with open astonishment. >> >>Has nobody seen weenie OBF Embrace/Night Moves/Spying Mission/Tribute? > >Wasn't planning on quoting that much. Anyway, non-rhetorical question: isn't >it possible to do the same thing (before or now) using Effective Managements >rather than Embraces? Somewhat. Embraces cost 2 blood, however; minions from your crypt will cost you 2 or more pool. >The EMs take up the slots normally devoted to skill cards. You lose "take an >action to make a vampire" but reduce the chance of choking on such nonbleeding >actions and free up minion slots. The skill cards were there to be, at least partially, discarded, as the Embraces used to allow you to get them from the ash heap. Sometimes you would use them to give one of your inferior guys better OBF, but realistically, you were going to have two guys with OBF in the first place. The Embrace card itself helped out against hand jam -- simply drop the skill card from your hand, and you were in better shape. It was never a problem "jamming" on Embraces. You simply played them. If you didn't have stealth in hand (rare), then you played them with a small, disposable minion, preferably an Embrace. >I could see an argument for the Embrace version being more explosive, but to be >sure, someone should do a detailed comparison of the decks. The biggie is that Embraces cost 2 blood. In the previous example, by the time you got up to 6 minions, it had only cost you 11 pool, it was turn 4, and all your minions had obf (with two OBF). If you try to do this with Effective Management, there are 15 minions who have obf and are a 3-cap or under, but only 2 of them are 2-caps and one solitary 1-cap. To get the same skillset of minions, it'll cost you 16 pool AND you don't have your Master slots free to drop superior Obfuscate on the little guys, or to play Tribute to the Master. Plus, you do actually risk contesting, though that's slight. The Effective Management version was, well, effective. The Embrace version is stronger, due to the diminishing pool cost of your minions (after a certain point, it's no longer worth it to transfer guys out; you just keep one or two ready as replacement in case you lose one or two minions, or if you need to start accelerating again). [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<86c19voa9o7be1gq4...@4ax.com>... > In message <b6q9iq$7m47m$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, > Flux <fl...@netc.pt> mumbled something about: > >Either way, I still think that alone is no reason to change a card, and > >certainly not to nuke it. > > I've been following this thread with open astonishment. > > Has nobody seen weenie OBF Embrace/Night Moves/Spying Mission/Tribute? > > Did that deck just not get made near you? It's not viable anymore > because the Embrace doesn't get a skill card. That's a good thing. > Just because I bled through your +9 aggressive intercept Tzimisce deck with 10 or 12 obf/OBF weenies, after ousting two other meths, doesn't make weenie embrace skill cards broken. Honest! :) And just because Jeff gained 1.4e27 pool in a tournament once, doesn't mean embraces shouldn't get skill cards, either. :D

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<86c19voa9o7be1gq4...@4ax.com>... > In message <b6q9iq$7m47m$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, > Flux <fl...@netc.pt> mumbled something about: > >Either way, I still think that alone is no reason to change a card, and > >certainly not to nuke it. > > I've been following this thread with open astonishment. > > Has nobody seen weenie OBF Embrace/Night Moves/Spying Mission/Tribute? > > Did that deck just not get made near you? It's not viable anymore > because the Embrace doesn't get a skill card. That's a good thing. > Just because I bled through your +9 aggressive intercept Tzimisce deck [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Flux wrote: > The skill card made the Embrace worth it for me, unless you're playing a > weenie crypt anyway and don't care about disciplines. If you're playing > large vamps, why should you bother taking an action that costs two blood, > when anyone with +1 intercept could easily block his hunt and throw him into > torpor with minimal cost or risk? I'm not following you. The only weenie crypt I know of that doesn't care about disciplines is the One Cap Hack (perhaps Pander Vote, but that got nuked). One caps can't embrace anyway, so that leaves.... what? Weenies care about disciplines. If you are playing large (we haven't really defined that term for the discussion, but I assume you mean LARGE, as opposed to just not being a runt) vampires, then you've also got elements in the deck that get your actions through, so you can't just write it off as a +1 stealth action that will get blocked. But the real clincher to me is that I can always find something better to do with a large vampire than embrace; I'd much rather Govern/Fourth/Enchant to a real vampire than Embrace, even with the skill card (I'm sure there are exceptions, but that'd be my general rule). > Will you bother rescuing an empty vampire from torpor if you know he has > little to no chance of surviving till your next turn or even being at all > useful? I might. A deck archetype I'm fond of is one big, horkin' monster with a few chummers flanking him. Disposable minions come in handy all sorts of ways. And, IME, there's a good chance *I* won't be the one rescuing him; that's what bridge partners are for. But generally, no, unless I had nothing better to do. > Read again, what I claim is that the ones most affected by this change are > not pure weenie decks, but those using mid/high caps in their crypt. The > Embrace was a good way for large vampires to catch up to weenie decks, now > it's mostly useless in that role. I read it, I just don't agree with it. What I saw coming from the Embrace was babies makin' babies. Big guys don't win by trying to beat a weenie deck at its own game. More minions is an intrinsicly good thing, of course, but they win by being able to pull off table-rocking moves that weenie decks can't. > I'll admit I've never played against twelve to sixteen Embraces AFAIK, but I > have played against similar decks with not-as-high-numbers of Embraces, and > played a similar version myself a few times. I'm just guessing at the numbers, really. It may have only been eight, but I'd bet not much less than that. > Actually, I gave examples of some things that will be highly effective even > if they're not the focus of your deck. A few Anarchist Uprising will hurt > the weenie deck dearly, you don't need to clutter your deck with them to be > effective (just enough to have one when you need it, it can be part of your > strategy anyway). One action to get that Sport Bike and the weenie deck will > have to expend that much greater effort into all further actions, and/or > lose at least one of his minions each turn. Rush is going to take most of > your deck to be effective anyway, so not a big stretch there either. It's not that they are bad cards, and you'll probably always want to play them as you get them. But it's that "as you get them" I was referring to. While you're fishing for a splash of this and a splash of that, the deck we are discussing is going "bleed for one. bleed for one. bleed for one. bleed for....". You just get dead before you get any defenses in place, or are so weakened by the time you get the weenie shield up that you just die to someone else. And *that* is probably the suckiest facet of the decks we're talking about: flinging their first prey into auto-upstream, where they probably stay until they are dead. Whoo hooo, let me dump ten hours a week into *that*. > IME rush will work, if done right and soon enough. Sometimes it doesn't even > have to be that soon. > You can't kill all its minions, but that is not necessary - just the ones > with more than 1 blood on them will do just fine. Then your experience is VASTLY different from mine. We *are* both talking about a deck that generates minions geometrically until it doesn't need to anymore, right? If you've got a rush deck that can handle that, then I dub thee The God of Rush, and humbly request you post this monster (unless you're talkiing about weenie cel or weenie pot, of course). > But that is very much my point with The Embrace change: lots of other decks > that aren't a problem got screwed, and whole clans were affected. Some were. I liked my version of the Assamite Embrace deck, but it was worth it to get rid of the degenerate weenie decks the card made possible. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <cf597231.0304...@posting.google.com>, evilp...@yahoo.com (evil_poot_cat) mumbled something about: >Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<86c19voa9o7be1gq4...@4ax.com>... >> In message <b6q9iq$7m47m$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, >> Flux <fl...@netc.pt> mumbled something about: >> >Either way, I still think that alone is no reason to change a card, and >> >certainly not to nuke it. >> >> I've been following this thread with open astonishment. >> >> Has nobody seen weenie OBF Embrace/Night Moves/Spying Mission/Tribute? >> >> Did that deck just not get made near you? It's not viable anymore >> because the Embrace doesn't get a skill card. That's a good thing. > >Just because I bled through your +9 aggressive intercept Tzimisce deck >with 10 or 12 obf/OBF weenies, after ousting two other meths, doesn't >make weenie embrace skill cards broken. Honest! :) There's something about routinely stopping inferior Night Moves, killing the vampire, and getting ousted ANYWAY that's just irritating. =) >And just because Jeff gained 1.4e27 pool in a tournament once, doesn't >mean embraces shouldn't get skill cards, either. :D *snort* 70 pool at the end? =) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 8 Apr 2003, David Cherryholmes wrote: > I'm not following you. The only weenie crypt I know of that doesn't care Never mind. Got a few cups of coffee in me now and I see that you were talking about the Embrace hunting. I gotta stop playing during the week..... [ quoted text not captured ]

David Cherryholmes wrote: > On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, Flux wrote: > > It's not that they are bad cards, and you'll probably always want to play > them as you get them. But it's that "as you get them" I was referring > to. While you're fishing for a splash of this and a splash of that, the > deck we are discussing is going "bleed for one. bleed for one. bleed for > one. bleed for....". Luck will always be involved in these cases, certainly. But if you know there's a fair chance of getting one of these decks as your predator, there's no reason you can't take adequate precautions and make sure the odds are good enough for your survival. If you play in a combat heavy metagame, won't you put a few more combat cards (or Obediences) in your political deck? If there's a Malk S&B deck around, won't you drop a couple more deflections in? You can't expect to survive an aggressive rush deck with only 2 Majesties, and neither should you expect to survive a weenie deck with 2 Anarchist Uprisings. > You just get dead before you get any defenses in > place, or are so weakened by the time you get the weenie shield up that > you just die to someone else. And *that* is probably the suckiest facet > of the decks we're talking about: flinging their first prey into > auto-upstream, where they probably stay until they are dead. Whoo hooo, > let me dump ten hours a week into *that*. There are plenty decks capable of doing that, from Brainwash to Slaughterhouse and many other types of weenie decks other than Embracing ones. >>IME rush will work, if done right and soon enough. Sometimes it doesn't even >>have to be that soon. >>You can't kill all its minions, but that is not necessary - just the ones >>with more than 1 blood on them will do just fine. > > > Then your experience is VASTLY different from mine. We *are* both > talking about a deck that generates minions geometrically until it doesn't > need to anymore, right? If you've got a rush deck that can handle that, > then I dub thee The God of Rush, and humbly request you post this monster > (unless you're talkiing about weenie cel or weenie pot, of course). You can't Embrace with only 1 blood, so taking out those vamps who have 2 or more will prevent the geometrical generation of minions. I can't claim to be an expert in rush decks using this tactic, but I've seen it enough times to know it can work. >>But that is very much my point with The Embrace change: lots of other decks >>that aren't a problem got screwed, and whole clans were affected. > > > Some were. I liked my version of the Assamite Embrace deck, but it was > worth it to get rid of the degenerate weenie decks the card made possible. I think we can both agree that the main purpose of the change was probably to prevent Embraces from creating other Embraces, so there is no more geometrical production of minions. And even if I don't think those decks are truly 'broken', I don't really mind seeing them go. What I don't like is the way chosen to do it, because it affects a number of other decks. A more subtle/precise solution could be used: for example, making the Embrace Sterile, or making the action cost 3 blood. Flux

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote in message news:20030407184613...@mb-fz.aol.com... [re The Embrace] > As for the focus on clan which some may scoff at, it's a simple (and obvious) > way to group vampires for comparison. I see your point. As you say, though, it's only really relevant if you start from the "clan based" point of view. Which is, sure, a reasonable way to consider the game. But I suspect that it's not the primary way the rules team looks at things to decide whether they should or shouldn't be changed. Discipline-based decks seem to me at least as common, and, especially in the "weenie" variety, at least as "winning", as clan-based decks. So The Embrace was probably seen as too strong (for the cost?) in discipline-reliant decks (again probably weenie decks) which led to the change. It might've been a better fix to leave the skill card and make it cost 3 blood or something like that. It'd probably still be playable at 3 blood, but significantly (I'd imagine) less weenie- usable. Josh never hated the embrace as much as protect thine own

feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... > Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is > the most versatile, and why? I'm trying to create a checklist of all the things a discipline could do in an attempt to help create some criteria for determining the most versatile discipline. The following list shows my first attempt. I have also included my analysis of Dominate. In general, you receive 1 point for being able to do it at all and 2 points for being able to do it really well. The two points doesn't exactly indicate versatility but I think it would be interesting to see what disciplines also do lots of things really well. Actions (includes Retainers + Allies) Tap Minions: Perm Tap Minions: Untap minions: Perm untap minions: Bleed Bonus: Perm Bleed Bonus: Stealth Bonus: Perm Stealth Bonus: Intercept Bonus: Perm Intercept Bonus: Vote Bonus: Perm Vote Bonus: Combat Bonus: Perm Combat Bonus: Gain Pool Perm Gain Pool Gain Blood Perm Gain Blood Enter Combat Bleed Backwards Screw other minions Capture other minions Screw other Vampires Capture other Vampires Screw other Methuselah Action modifiers Bleed Modifier Vote Modifier Block Prevention Stealth Reduce Intercept Combat Maneuver Press Additional Strike Damage Increase Ranged Damage Aggravated Damage Strike: Torporize Strike: Dodge Strike: Combat ends Continue Combat Damage prevention Combat Avoidance Reaction Intercept Reduce Stealth untap Bleed reduce Bleed bounce Gain Votes Cancel votes Analysis of Dominate Tap Minions: 1 (Steal the mind) Perm Tap Minions: Untap minions: Perm untap minions: Bleed Bonus: 2 (obvious) Perm Bleed Bonus: Stealth Bonus: Perm Stealth Bonus: Intercept Bonus: Perm Intercept Bonus: Vote Bonus: Perm Vote Bonus: Combat Bonus: Perm Combat Bonus: Gain Pool: 2 (obvious) Perm Gain Pool: Gain Blood: Perm Gain Blood: Enter Combat: Bleed Backwards: Screw other minions: Capture other minions: 1 - Far Mastery Screw other Vampires: 1 - Slaughtering the Heard Capture other Vampires: 1 - Mind Rape, Grave Robbing Screw other Methuselah: 1 - Clios, TftD, Dominate Kine Action modifiers Bleed Modifier: 2 (obvious) Vote Modifier: Block Prevention: 1 (seduction, Sleeping Mind) Stealth: 1/2 (bonding is pretty corner case) Reduce Intercept: Combat Maneuver Press Additional Strike Damage Increase Ranged Damage Aggravated Damage Strike: Torporize Strike: Dodge: 1 - Absorb the mind Strike: Combat ends Continue Combat Damage prevention Combat Avoidance: 1 - Obediance Reaction Intercept: Reduce Stealth: untap: Bleed reduce: Bleed bounce: 1 Gain Votes: Cancel votes: 1 Total: 16 1/2 How does your favorite discipline stack up?

>It might've been a better fix to leave the skill card and make it >cost 3 blood or something like that. It'd probably still be >playable at 3 blood, but significantly (I'd imagine) less weenie- >usable. Yeah, that way it would be much harder for The Embraces to play an Embrace of their own (they'd need an additional skill card and blood on top of all that!). Halcyan 2

Warpath wrote: > feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... > >>Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is >>the most versatile, and why? > > > I'm trying to create a checklist of all the things a discipline could > do in an attempt to help create some criteria for determining the most > versatile discipline. The following list shows my first attempt. I > have also included my analysis of Dominate. In general, you receive 1 > point for being able to do it at all and 2 points for being able to do > it really well. The two points doesn't exactly indicate versatility > but I think it would be interesting to see what disciplines also do > lots of things really well. <snip> Big list. It would be much easier and more accurate to make a few broad categories, and then rate each category for effectiveness. And avoid tying those categories to card type - for example, Fear of the Void Below superior should be 'Screw other Methuselah', but since it's not an action card, it has nowhere to be rated at. Also, getting a bleed bonus through an action card or through an action modifier is very similar, and a discipline should not be rated twice for doing both. > Analysis of Dominate ... > Bleed bounce: 1 ?!?!?!? Dominate is by far the best bounce discipline, why only 1 point? Flux

Flux <fl...@netc.pt> wrote in message news:<b729qj$adpua$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>... > Warpath wrote: > > feedmeast...@yahoo.com (Devin) wrote in message news:<9e9e04f8.03032...@posting.google.com>... > > > >>Based off of a poll on texas.vekn.org, What discipline(s) do think is > >>the most versatile, and why? > > > > > > I'm trying to create a checklist of all the things a discipline could > > do in an attempt to help create some criteria for determining the most > > versatile discipline. > > It would be much easier and more accurate to make a few broad categories, > Yep. Good point. I've revised the list below. Tap Minions: Untap minions: Increase Bleeds: Reduce Bleeds: Deflect Bleeds: Increase Stealth: Decrease Stealth: Increase Intercept: Decrease Intercept Increase Votes: decrease/cancel Votes: Enter Combat Avoid Combat Increase Combat Damage: Aggrevate damage: Strike: Combat Ends: Prevent Combat Damage: Gain Pool: Gain Blood: Screw other minions: Capture other minions: Screw other Vampires: Capture other Vampires: Screw other Methuselah: