7/7 - The Ultimate Farce

I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to be played 'unlimited'. This is ridiculous. Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance necessary to achieve this! Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... 1. The No-Repeat rulings: Let's call them what they really are... No repeat BLEED rulings! Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. 2. The incredible 7/7 edits: Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO POWERFUL??? Yeah. Right. With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing sales 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that advantage in tournament play I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card limit could ever be! I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, if you're in the industry please admit it. Jyhad is NOT played by morons. Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position can be defended, or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for our better enjoyment of the game. If there's support I want this to be a starting place to challenge the international tournament rules. In an attempt to stave off claims I'm some whining brat here's a little background... My job is travel. I've played Jyhad in cities & towns dotted around Australasia. In the last 5 years I've run 17 weekend tournaments, the biggest involved 34 players I've got a modest collection of about 30000 cards The card limited games I've played range from 4x-6x My preference is 5x (Vamps & uniques too, encourages theme decks) The above comments are on the basis of thousands of card-limited games against rabid Jyhad nutters. Peace, Mung Beans, and an appropriately violent game of Jyhad

On 28 Aug 1998, Dog wrote: > I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. > The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. > > The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to > be played 'unlimited'. > This is ridiculous. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! So you are saying playing Jyhad without card limits cannot be achieved? I think all the people who play without card limits would tend to disagree with you. Perhaps you should revise your claim to something more moderate, like "I think card limits are better." Many will disagree with you, but at least you will not sound insane. > Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been > necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... > > 1. The No-Repeat rulings: These are optional, and are only mandatory in tournament play. > Let's call them what they really are... > No repeat BLEED rulings! You could call them that, but you would be wrong, and you would mislead anyone unfortunate enough to presume you knew what you were talking about. > Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. No he cannot. Calling a vote is an "action type" as defined in the rulebook. Thus, a single minion cannot call more than one in a turn if you are playing under NRA (No Repeat Actions). > But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. Correct. > i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't They are both an action type. Action types are as follows: - Hunt - Rectruit ally - Employ retainer - Call a vote - Bleed - Leave torpor - Diablerize vampire in torpor - Rescue vampire from torpor - Equip - Transfer Equipment > It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) You are right. This is not in the rulebook. No-one has ever pretended it was. These are tournament-only rules that many people play as house rules. > It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. Repeat bleeding, which you seem to concede is a problem, is not a problem that can be solved by card limits. There are too many different varieties of bleed cards. And it is the Ventrue (the guys with Freak Drive and Majesty Untap) who have access to the greatest variety of bleed-boost cards: Threats, Conditioning, Bonding, Aire of Elation, Computer Hacking, Govern the Unalighned, Social Charm, Legal Manipulations...to name about half of them. > Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which > hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. What experience showed you that? I will agree with you partially, and say that I think it is somewhat of a shame that the ruling limits Equipment, Retainer, and Ally based decks, since these do not need limiting. However, it does not limit them much, especially as permanent resource decks can combine Equipment, Retainrs and Allies so as to make maximum use of repeat actions. Since the rule limits vote and bleed decks MORE, then the overall effect of the rule is to benefit these decks. > 2. The incredible 7/7 edits: > Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? > We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO > POWERFUL??? > Yeah. > Right. Well, yeah. I mean, the card is not so powerful as to make the game unplayable, but it does show up with nauseating frequency in combat decks, such that the variety of the game is hurt. This would be true even with 5 card limit. Now that the card is fixed, and no longer undeniably better than other combat cards and strategies, we may see more variety in competitive play. > With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. Would you include RTI in this? > It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: > 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing > sales I don't make money off the industry. Neither, however, do I want to see the game die, as I love the game. > 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that > advantage in tournament play Yes, I admit that I am the type of person who likes to make wierd decks like my "Bring out the Clan" nosferatu deck, which contains 11 copies of Kindred Intelligence and 8 copies of 4th tradition. Or my Blood Doll/Baby Factory/Cryptic Mission deck, which contains about 25 copies of Cryptic Mission, 8 copies of Embrace, and 10 Thaumaturgy skill cards. Or my Deep Stealth Pure Obfuscate Bleed deck, with 10 copies each of Night Moves and Spying Mission. Sometimes, however, I like to construct "Surprise" decks, with only one of any single card so my opponents never know what to expect. I like having all these options. However, I don't like using multiples of those cards that everyone likes to abuse, since this is boring for me, and makes me feel less deserving of victory. Even 5 of an overpowered card in my deck can give me an unfair advantage over someone who has less than 5 of any particular power rare. I do not even play with Wakes that much, because I am so tired of seeing everyone else do it. I would prefer that cards be balanced, so that a greater variety of cards from the set see regular play. It does not seem nearly as unfair that having alot of cards gives me a greater variety strategic options in deck design than those with fewer cards, as long as their (less numerous) options are competitive and viable. As long as reasonable balance of card power is maintained, this will generally be the situation. > I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must > result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card > limit could ever be! You must be joking. Even if the "fixed" cards were banned completely you would still have about a thousand different card types to choose from when you construct your decks. We are talking a small handful of cards out of a huge variety of cards available. I am guessing that you must play with these cards constantly if you are under the delusion that they are the only ones that exist. > I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, > if you're in the industry please admit it. I admit I am not in the industry. I own a large collection of Jyhad cards, because they are cheapest, but from the other sets I do not have too many. I do not have many broken cards at all, because they come mainly from the later sets. > Jyhad is NOT played by morons. I agree wholeheartedly, but I am wondering why you are trying to make a fool of yourself with this unreasoned post. > Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position > can be defended, or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for > our better enjoyment of the game. Nobody is stopping any player from making their own decisions. I've made mine, and, though it may be delusion :), I do not feel I have been brainwashed by WOTC. > If there's support I want this to be a starting place to challenge the > international tournament rules. I'm sorry, but you won't get my support on this. > In an attempt to stave off claims I'm some whining brat here's a little > background... > > My job is travel. I've played Jyhad in cities & towns dotted around > Australasia. > In the last 5 years I've run 17 weekend tournaments, the biggest involved > 34 players > I've got a modest collection of about 30000 cards That's enough cards that many creative options will be limited by the 5 card limit, (since you will have far more than 5 of most commons) while you still have far less than a full complement of power rares. > The card limited games I've played range from 4x-6x > My preference is 5x (Vamps & uniques too, encourages theme decks) This would allow 5 Tombs and 5 RTIs in a 60 card deck. Does not seem like much of a restriction to me. With Tombs and RTI's running at $15 a pop, it would still be card lords and big spenders who are most likely to win tournaments. Or, at least, it was this way before recent fixes which balanced such cards. I feel that the changes promote a game that rewards creativity and skill more than wallet size. Lupus Australis ____ ____ \ \----/ / |()__()| __\ __ /__ / __\()/__ \ |/ \==/ \| | || |

In article <01bdd256$8c12baa0$0100a8c0@lurch>, "Dog" <warp...@biosys.net> wrote: My background first. I've played OL (the ownership limit where all of us were just starting and so we didn't have more than four of anything anyway) for a year, 4CL for a year with the Vienna group, 6CL for 1.5 years with a group back in the States, and currently NL with my newest group for about 3 months. Bear in mind that these times include hiatuses once in a while as I've been playing since Nov 94. > I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. > The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. It takes a stake through the heart to immobilize a vampire, and beheading, fire, or sunlight to kill it. > The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to > be played 'unlimited'. Hey James, have you got that section of the FAQ done yet? > This is ridiculous. No kidding. Someone comes onto the newsgroup and starts arguing for card limits with what would appear to be no prior knowledge of the debates that have gone on before. Errrr, sorry, you were referring to the claim that the game was designed as NL. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! The original set is very balanced. It's only the expansions that introduce any kind of unbalance. And even this unbalance is limited to a very small number of cards. > Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been > necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... Money-grubbing? With NL, you can go out and buy boxes of Jyhad boosters ($10 each) to get all the Majesties, Earth Melds, and a few Freak Drives as you could ever want. In terms of repeat actions, I'd hardly call NL a money grubbing move. > 1. The No-Repeat rulings: > Let's call them what they really are... > No repeat BLEED rulings! It's not a ruling for one thing. It's part of the DCI Tournament floor rules for Jyhad. And it prevents the repeating of a lot more actions than just bleeding which you apparently misunderstood. > Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. My reading of the clarification of the NRA rule would indicate that he cannot. A political action is defined in the rulebook as a type of action. Therefore, it cannot be repeated. This is the second bullet on the web page below. http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net/madness_tourney_format.html > But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. > i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't > It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) A political action is a type of action just as Employing a Retainer, Bleeding, Hunting, or Recruiting an Ally. Therefore, you cannot repeat them. > It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. > Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which > hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. And a CL hurts many more good decks. > 2. The incredible 7/7 edits: > Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? > We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO > POWERFUL??? > Yeah. > Right. When you have a change of administration from a group of people that rarely play the game and don't care much about it to a group of people that play the game often and care a lot about it, this sort of "fixing" is going to happen. > With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. O contrare, mon fraire. (yeah, I know, I butchered that.) Just because you don't draw it more often doesn't make it any less screwed up. > It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: > 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing > sales I have yet to know a person that uses NL and is in the industry. Heck, many of them are on very limited funds. > 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that > advantage in tournament play This is the problem with impressions; they often are wrong. There are far more players who never play in tournaments than those that do. And a CL is more of a disadvantage to a person with fewer cards. I'll explain below. > I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must > result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card > limit could ever be! So by your argument, you'd rather remove a whole strategy from the game (Setite Corruption) than fix only the problem cards? > I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, > if you're in the industry please admit it. I'm not in the industry. I don't even support the industry because I haven't bought anything more than a booster pack in over a year. You are apparently not aware of the significant portions of old NL vs CL discussions. http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/index.html > Jyhad is NOT played by morons. No, it's not. That's why we can have reasonable discussions. > Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position > can be defended, or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for > our better enjoyment of the game. It is quite defensible as you'll see on the above web site. > If there's support I want this to be a starting place to challenge the > international tournament rules. There will always be people who play with CL. But their numbers are in the minority. By how much, I don't know. > In the last 5 years I've run 17 weekend tournaments, the biggest involved > 34 players I'm guessing you mistyped this since Jyhad has only been around since 1994. > I've got a modest collection of about 30000 cards 30,000 cards? Yeesh. That's hardly modest. I'd approximate my collection at 5,000 maximum. I've got fully 1/6 the number of cards you do, and I advocate NL. > The card limited games I've played range from 4x-6x > My preference is 5x (Vamps & uniques too, encourages theme decks) And NL encourages even more theme decks. > The above comments are on the basis of thousands of card-limited games > against rabid Jyhad nutters. So you are saying that you've never played NL? I've played several ways with NL being the shortest time span. I've based my comments on experience as well. You can theorize all you want, but it's this kind of experience that proves the point. I've seen many more theme decks that were as competitive as a good S&B deck under NL. I've played under CL quite a bit, and I definitely cannot say the same for it. Under NL, I've seen Setite Corruption, Lasombra Stealth/Rush/Vote/Bleed, Ravnos Steal-blood-from-vampires-in- uncontrolled-region, a Milicent Smith/Reversal of Fortune/Eagle's Sight, and any number of other weird discipline combinations. With a CL, constructing these decks is sometimes absolutely impossible. A Setite Corruption deck is only going to be able to steal a 4 capacity vampire, assuming it draws all 4 of its Corruptions. A Ravnos Trick of Danya deck is only going to be able to do its special 4 times. As you know, commons are the most useful cards in Jyhad. By limiting people to only a given number of them, you are requiring them to own more cards in order to make the kind of deck they want. How is this possible, you ask? Well, rather than being able to use 8 Majesties for combat defense, you have to use 4 Majesties and 4 Catatonic Fear. You can't get both cards in the same kind of booster, and Catatnoic Fear is Uncommon instead of Common like Majesty. A combat deck that needs to fight S:CE has only 4 Immortal Grapples and 4 Psyches while a Presence using S:CE defense could have 4 Catatonic Fear, 4 Majesty, 4 Mercy for the Weak, and 4 Staredown. Now with that knowledge that commons are the most useful, what could you do with those 30,000 cards? You could give those commons that you have so many of to the players that don't want to buy their own boxes of Jyhad. I do that with vampires as I only keep 2 of most. And meanwhile, you've still got your 4 Tomb of Ramses III while the player with only a handful of cards might have 1. Read the archive at Mark Langsdorf's page above, and you'll see more arguments for NL with 2 articles for CL. Now I'm not saying that CL sucks or trying to tell you how to play your game. But if you want to argue for one or the other, at least come prepared and don't use old arguments that have already been shown to be without merit. Although the NL being a scheme to get people to buy more cards is a new one, but it is amusing at best. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP - Prince of Urbana-Champaign Rules Survey - http://www.shout.net/~mbohlman/vekn/ -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum

Dog (warp...@biosys.net) wrote: : I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. : The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. That's a strange thing to say now, considering that the rules team hasn't supported card limits for quite a long time. (In fact, I don't think the Rules Team ever actually supported card limits; there was briefly a set of tournament rules that included limits on certain cards.) : The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to : be played 'unlimited'. : This is ridiculous. : Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance : necessary to achieve this! *Jyhad* was designed with *exactly* that much care and balance. Did you see any mention of card limits in the Jyhad rulebook? Shouldn't they have been there if the designers intended them, considering that Magic had had a card limit for something like a year by then? (The later expansions did have some balance troubles, but card limits still weren't a good answer.) : Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been : necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... : 1. The No-Repeat rulings: : Let's call them what they really are... : No repeat BLEED rulings! As my estimable colleague pointed out, this is not true. The no-repeat- actions rule applies to all classes of actions, including 'political action', 'hunt', 'equip', etc. (Anson is not allowed to call KRC and then call Conservative Agitation on the same turn.) : 2. The incredible 7/7 edits: : Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? : We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO : POWERFUL??? : Yeah. : Right. : With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. Tomb of Rameses III sure is. Return to Innocence sure is. If you haven't found them to be broken, either you have a very different definition of broken or you haven't tried to break them. There are certainly some changes that aren't *necessary* for balancing the game, Pulled Fangs among them. But they are *beneficial* to game balance, because the cards in question (PF especially) are overpowered. : It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: : 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing : sales : 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that : advantage in tournament play I'm not in the industry. In fact, I don't think anyone makes much money from Jyhad anymore. It just doesn't sell enough. I have a large collection relative to someone new to the game, but not relative to (for example) you. ;-) I probably have somewhere in the realm of two thousand to four thousand cards. It's also been my experience that card limits enhance the usefulness of spending lots of money on cards more than no-limits does. This is because in card-limit games, it is more useful to have the maximum number of the good rares available to use, whereas in no-limit games commons will often do just as well. (ex: someone with a small collection is more likely to be able to get 10 Undead Strength than 5 Undead Strength and 5 Fists of Death.) : I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must : result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card : limit could ever be! Well, that's not true. You could play with a card limit *and* all the 7/7 modifications to the cards. ;-) : I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, : if you're in the industry please admit it. : Jyhad is NOT played by morons. : Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position : can be defended, or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for : our better enjoyment of the game. Well, of course. Every player *can* decide this for himself. He can play however he wants in the privacy of his own home. He just can't run a DCI-sanctioned tournament with card limits. Frankly, I don't know how you can see it as a marketing ploy, considering that WotC hasn't been promoting this game for years now. : If there's support I want this to be a starting place to challenge the : international tournament rules. But why? A lot of people like them. If your group doesn't like them, there's nothing forcing you to use them. You can perfectly well run tournaments using card limits; they just won't be sanctioned by the DCI. If you haven't looked at the card limit debate archives on Mark and Judith's web page, you might consider checking it out. There are some good arguments put forth there, which I would just as soon not rehash on the newsgroup if it can be avoided. (address: www.io.com/~mlangsdo/ RPGs/Jyhad/index.html#4-CARD) : In an attempt to stave off claims I'm some whining brat here's a little : background... : My job is travel. I've played Jyhad in cities & towns dotted around : Australasia. : In the last 5 years I've run 17 weekend tournaments, the biggest involved : 34 players : I've got a modest collection of about 30000 cards : The card limited games I've played range from 4x-6x : My preference is 5x (Vamps & uniques too, encourages theme decks) : The above comments are on the basis of thousands of card-limited games : against rabid Jyhad nutters. I used to play with a 4-card limit. I and my playgroup were eventually shown the light by the discussions on this newsgroup, tried no limits, and never went back. Josh ran a tournament once or twice

Dog wrote: "The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to be played 'unlimited'. This is ridiculous." The game designers made Jyhad to be played with no card limits. Period. This fact is not at issue. The game is very well balanced to do this, barring a few errors that have been fixed by errata and rulings over the years. When designing Jyhad, Garfield examined the faults in Magic and attempted to improve upon them. Designing the game to work without card limits was one of these major improvements. I will grant that a handful of players _like_ to play with some sort of card limits for various reasons (they like not having to deal with highly focused decks, they like the diversity it promotes, whatever), and that is fine, but Jyhad in no way _needs_ a card limit to be balanced "Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance necessary to achieve this!" Again, barring a few minor tweaks, and the repair of some poorly designed expansion cards, it really was. "2. The incredible 7/7 edits: Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken?" Most of the edited cards were either poorly designed expansion cards (RTI, Thoughts Betrayed, Rutor's Hand, etc.), or cards that became a bit confused in the conversion from Jyhad to VTES and needed to be straightend out a touch. "We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO POWERFUL???" Yup. When it was designed, it was a bit too powerful, but with the old Aggro rules, it could never, ever, burn anyone. With the change over to VTES aggro rules, Pulled Fangs became obscenely over powered, as it would result in a burned vampire pretty much everytime it was played (if not, you weren't trying hard enough). In my pretty effective Rush decks, everytime I played Pulled Fangs, someone vanished, with no extra cost to me. This was simply too effective, card limits or no (I was only using 4 in my deck, mind you. All that meant was that I was only capable of burning 4 IC members per game...) "With a card-limit none of these cards is broken." Incorrect. A card that is too powerful is still too powerful regardless of how many are in a deck. Having only 4 (pre 7/7) Return to Innocence in your deck doesn't make them any less overpowered, just less likely to come up. However, when they do come up, they are just as damaging to the game. "It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing sales" Nope. The cards that you mostly need lots of are the common ones, and any CCG player tends to have more commons than they know what to do with. How hard is it to get, like, 10 of a common card in a group of Jyhad players? Not at all. There are a few exceptions to this (like Immortal Grapple), but for the most part, the cards that you tend to need more than 4 of are the common ones, not the Rare ones. "I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card limit could ever be!" Any possible problem that a card limit fixes is vastly overwhelmed by the problems caused by the card limits. For example, using a CL hamstrings to the point of unplayability pretty much any combat deck you would card to make. As a result of combat decks being ineffective, Stealth and Bleed decks become _way_ too powerful and tend to dominate play, until someone decides that it is "lame, cheezy, and unimaginitve" to play a S+B deck, and shames all of the S+B players out of using their favored strategy. This is more effective at balancing the game than simply playing the way it was designed? Please, before this thread continues, I implore you to go and read all the various articles on card limits at Mark Langsdorfs Jyhad web page (search for Jyhad+Langsdorf--I never manage to know the URL when ever I reference his page...). All pertinent CL arguments are archived there. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "The Bomb, Dimitri. The Hydrogen Bomb." -The President

> I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. > The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. > Of course not. Why trust a person (and/or set of persons) who not only knows the game backwards and forwards but also gets paid to make rulings? Oh wait, were you actually being serious? > The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to > be played 'unlimited'. > This is ridiculous. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! > Jyhad had very near the care and balance necessary to achieve balance. Playing with card limits doesn't create balance. > 1. The No-Repeat rulings: > Let's call them what they really are... > No repeat BLEED rulings! > Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. > But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. > i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't > It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) > It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. > Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which > hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. > NRA has been played for many many years. It has proven to be a good rule. You will never ever convince anyone that NRA is bad. > 2. The incredible 7/7 edits: > Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? > We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO > POWERFUL??? > Yeah. > Right. > With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. > If you actually read Pulled Fangs and compare it to other cards that do aggravated damage, it's readily obvious that it's broken. Go ahead, take a look... > It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: > 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing > sales > 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that > advantage in tournament play > I'd really rather not explain this *yet again* to another person who starts reading USENET and decides that everyone else needs to hear his "revolutionary" arguments in favour of card-limits. Card-limits benefit people with large collections. If I have a limited collection, is it more likely that I'll have 10 Torn Signposts or 4 Fists of Death, 4 Increased Strength, 4 Fire in the Blood? And which are more people likely to just give you? Card-limits require playing with rares, No-limits play allows you to construct decks out of just commons. > I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must > result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card > limit could ever be! > No. > I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, > if you're in the industry please admit it. > Jyhad is NOT played by morons. > Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position > can be defended, or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for > our better enjoyment of the game. We have decided. Go look at Mark and Judith's Jyhad Page (I can't remember the URL, either look for one of Mark's posts, or do an altavista search). The arguments have been rehashed over and over, and it's been made obvious that NL holds the high ground. > I've got a modest collection of about 30000 cards > The card limited games I've played range from 4x-6x > My preference is 5x (Vamps & uniques too, encourages theme decks) > No wonder you can stand to play with card limits. When you have plenty of cards, there's no problem. I don't have that kind of luxury. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

Dog wrote: > The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to > be played 'unlimited'. > This is ridiculous. The claim is true. If you find that truth ridiculous, that's OK. Richard Garfield (and WotC in general) learned a lesson from Magic: the Gathering. That lesson was that card availability (which they had relied on in the first few releases of MtG) was not the hindereance they thought it would be. They had not expected players (individually) to buy hundreds (indeed, thousands) of dollars worth of cards. But the players did. And the concept of using rarity (card availability) to balance cards was abandoned. For MtG, it was too late to re-create all of the cards, so a card limit was introduced to (somewhat) simulate the environement that the designers had intended. That was well before Jyhad. When designing Jyhad, Garfield knew that card availability couldn't be used in the balancing equations, so all of the cards (commons and rares alike) were *designed* to be balanced with each other. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! The design goal was not met in a few cases in Jyhad (see Chainsaw and Sawed-Off Shotgun), but overall, it achieved its goal. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! > > Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been > necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... > > 1. The No-Repeat rulings: > Let's call them what they really are... > No repeat BLEED rulings! > Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. > But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. > i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't Yes, they are. Anson cannot call CA and then KRC in the same turn, since both are political actions. That's why it's called the No Repeat Actions instead of the No Repeat Bleed rule. > It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) Because it's not in the rulebook. Not even for bleeds. It's a restriction added by the DCI in response to a development of (in particular) Majestic Bleed decks and Gangrel Infinite Loop decks. Neither of which were uncovered during playtest, I pressume. It is still not a part of the standard (non-tournament) rules. -- L. Scott Johnson (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Searchable database of official card text, errata, and rulings: http://deckserver.net/cgi-deckserver/rulemonger.cgi/powersearch

"Dog" <warp...@biosys.net> wrote: > I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. > The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. > The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to > be played 'unlimited'. What do you mean by this? > This is ridiculous. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! Try giving us a definition to work with here. "...to achieve _this_"??? > Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been > necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... > 1. The No-Repeat rulings: > Let's call them what they really are... > No repeat BLEED rulings! > Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. Actually, no he can't. Illegal according to NRA clause... > But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. > i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't You are wrong. Perhaps some research is in order for you to find out more on the topic you are discussing. > It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) > It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. > Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which > hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. And experience, numerous articles, and much debate has already shown that CL has far more problems associated with it than are necessary, without really solving the fundamental issues associated with those problems they attempt to solve. Again, perhaps some research is in order. Go to Judith and Mark's Hyhad Page for archived CardLimit/No Card Limit debates. Currently, the score card has been in the No Card Limit side for about 4 years now. You are certainly welcome to attempt some refutations (might I recommend starting a different thread for this). > 2. The incredible 7/7 edits:[sic] > Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? > We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO > POWERFUL??? Actually, you've been playing Pulled Fang as it reviously was for less than half that time (when did VtES come out). > Yeah. > Right. > With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. If this is something you believe, you don't understand the concept of a broken card. It would be appropriate to attempt to argue that with card-limits the game is not a broken one, but it is wholly inappropriate to argue that the cards themselves are not broken. > It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: > 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing > sales Really? Card limits encourages people to have to buy rares to supplement the limited common cards that they have (when one runs out of Undead Strength, you have to move up the ladder to the next Potence card in that particular style of deck). > 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that > advantage in tournament play Not especially. A single box of cards is enough to support a small playgroup (4-6 players). Nowadays, that box goes for ~$10. > I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card > limit could ever be! The irony here is amusing... > I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, > if you're in the industry please admit it. There you go... "In the industry"? I neither buy-nor sell cards for a living, but I am a semi-profesionall CCG player... Does that count? --- @#$ Adrian Sullivan $#@ Game Theorist Coffee Addict Hedonist @#$ Cabal Rogue Team Rogue $#@ Opinionated Gynophile Eccentric Geek @#$ V:EKN Prince of Madison $#@ heterotranshomotransexual - got that? @#$ The Corrupter $#@ GAT/WS C(+++)$ N++ PS++@+ R+++*$ z++**? [ quoted text not captured ]

Dog wrote in message <01bdd256$8c12baa0$0100a8c0@lurch>... >The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to >be played 'unlimited'. This "claim" being based on Richard Garfield's own writings, oddly enough. >This is ridiculous. >Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance >necessary to achieve this! In general it has. And it certainly hasn't been designed with the care and balance necessary for card limit play. >2. The incredible 7/7 edits: >Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? >We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO >POWERFUL??? No, it's always been broken. LSJ was just the first member of the RT to decide to do something about it. >With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. No, you just see less of them. >It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: >2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that >advantage in tournament play 4CL hurts people with small collections more than people with large ones. As has been discussed previously. >I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must >result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card >limit could ever be! And they're better balanced, too. >I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, >if you're in the industry please admit it. I'm in the silicon industry, does that count? I could just point you to my web site (and I will, http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/ ) but I'm going to summarize the NL arguments. You can respond reasonably to them. There's a $40 stake for a reasonable rebuttal that actually addresses these points. Reasons why there shouldn't be a card limit in Jyhad: (Most of these comments are cribbed from arguments by Curt Adams and Alan Kwan. I miss Curt!) Permanents, Transients, and Ephemerals Cards can be roughly classified by how long their effects last. Permanent cards (like guns) hang around for the rest of the game, and you need roughly 1-2 per minion. Transient cards (action or action modifiers) get used once per action, and while you need plenty of them, too many will choke a deck. Ephemeral cards are cards that are used more than once per action, like most combat cards. A 4CL is hardly a limit on Permanent cards, because most people don't put much than 4 of any permanent card in their deck, anyway. It hurts on transient cards, but if there's enough duplication in the card set, you can (to some extent) get around it. It cripples Ephemerals. So the 1st problem with CL play is that it has differing effects on different strategies. If you play with a lot of permanents (bleed decks, maybe) then it doesn't hurt you too much. If you play with a lot of transients (vote decks, certainly) than you begin to have problems. If you play with a lot of ephemerals (combat, combat, combat!) then you've been hosed. Unequal Effects on Disciplines and Strategies Some disciplines have a lot of overlap in their card effects: for example, Obfuscate and Dominate, where there are lots of cards with similar abilities. Other disciplines have very diverse effects (Animalism, Chimestry) that aren't duplicated. What other card works like Drawing Out the Beast? How does Presence vote work with only 4 Bewitching Orations? The 2nd problem with a CL is that some disciplines are mostly unaffected (because they use transients and have a lot of overlap) and that others are almost entirely unusable (because they have little overlap and use ephemerals). Domination of Certain Archetypes The first two problems combine into a big third problem. Since the bleed strategy is less affected by card limits than others, and dominate and obfuscate are less affected than others, Malkavian S&B is still fairly playable under a CL. (Boring, maybe, but playable). On the other hand, other deck archetypes (Brujah Rush, Settite Corruption) are fairly to completely hosed. So Jyhad becomes a question of "Did two people bring a Malk deck?" instead of deck construction and play skill. People either play Malk S&B (or one of its cousins, like Lasombra S&B) or a defense against Malk S&B (Malk or Tremere bleed bounce or intercept). Death of Deck Variety A CL also makes it impossible to play certain kinds of decks. There is 1 Potence anti-S:CE (Immortal Grapple), there are about 12 different S:CEs. A lot of potence combats will get cut short, with no fear for the minion playing S:CE. Potence pitch (throw stuff) decks also have a problem: 4 Gates, 4 Lids, 4 Sacraments, and... well, nothing. Settite Corruption is impossible. Offensive Intercept (using Eagle's Sight to block your prey's bleed actions) is impossible. Princely Intercept (using 2nd Tradition: Domain to block actions) becomes impossible. And so. So the 4th problem with a CL is that it makes large numbers of interesting and non-abusive decks non-viable. (Granted, it makes a few decks that aren't viable under NL viable. But you're losing more than you're gaining). Mr. Suitcase and the Industry Card limits are supposed to even the playing field for new players, since people with lots of cards can't use all those rares unfairly against the new players. Unfortunately, since Jyhad is a game of commons, the CL works the other way. Dominate Kine is a rare card that lets a minion bleed at +2 bleed and +2 stealth - it's roughly the equivalent of a Govern the Unaligned and a Lost in Crowds. In NL play, if a new player wants to build a bleed deck, she can trade her 1 DK to Mr. Suitcase for a fistful of Governs and Losts and build a bleed deck. In 4CL play, she can put in 4 Governs and 4 Lost in Crowds - while Mr. Suitcase can do the same _and_ put in 4 DKs. The 5th problem with a CL is that it punishes people with smaller collections, who can't get multiple couples of the rare cards with similar effects to the common cards. In order to play competively, players have to buy additional boxes to get more cards. Infrequently Broken is Still Broken Finally, a card limit is supposed to cure the abusiveness of certain cards, such as Return to Innocence or Tomb of Ramses III. But whether I play 1 ToR3 or 5 in a game, the fact is, I get more from the Tomb than I paid for it, and I didn't have to risk anything to get it out or to make a profit from it. The single RtI I get off in a game still ousts my prey, even though he was sitting pretty at 10 blood. The cards are still broken, Nothing was fixed. The 6th problem with a CL is that it doesn't fix broken cards - it just makes the abuses less frequent. 6 logical, reasonable, and cool-blooded arguments against a card limit and for no-limit play. Rebuttal to you, sir. Mark Langsdorf Jyhad Archivist http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad PS - Mike Bohlman's article appeared while I was typing this. He's got some good points, too.

Dog wrote: > I'm afraid the 7/7 rulings are the final nail in the coffin. > The rules-team can't be trusted to make rulings. > > The claim which has ultimately led us here is that the game was designed to > be played 'unlimited'. > This is ridiculous. > Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance > necessary to achieve this! > > Let's take a look at just 2 of the stunning rulings which have been > necessitated by this money-grubbing farce... > > 1. The No-Repeat rulings: > Let's call them what they really are... > No repeat BLEED rulings! > Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. > But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. > i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't > It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) > It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. > Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which > hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. > > 2. The incredible 7/7 edits: > Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? > We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO > POWERFUL??? > Yeah. > Right. > With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. > > It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: > 1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing > sales > 2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that > advantage in tournament play > > I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must > result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card > limit could ever be! > > I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, > if you're in the industry please admit it. > Jyhad is NOT played by morons. > Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position > can be defended, or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for > our better enjoyment of the game. > If there's support I want this to be a starting place to challenge the > international tournament rules. > > In an attempt to stave off claims I'm some whining brat here's a little > background... > > My job is travel. I've played Jyhad in cities & towns dotted around > Australasia. > In the last 5 years I've run 17 weekend tournaments, the biggest involved > 34 players > I've got a modest collection of about 30000 cards > The card limited games I've played range from 4x-6x > My preference is 5x (Vamps & uniques too, encourages theme decks) > > The above comments are on the basis of thousands of card-limited games > against rabid Jyhad nutters. > > Peace, Mung Beans, and an appropriately violent game of Jyhad First let me give you an idea of how my play group handles some things (after having tried the standard options card limits and all that) No card limits, No deck limits (within reason), ct bleeding is fine so I obviously agree with you when I say that I dont like *any* limits upon the game. As long as you play wth a group of responsible people who understand the game; "limits" of any kind usually artifically stiffle a players creativity. First point, you cannot rely specifically upon game design and rulings to "tell" you what to do you must have a little common sense and apply it to the concepts associated with the game. Law is the beginning of reason ..... .I do not intend this as an insult. I have no real problem with the no repeat rulings they don't hamper my ability to use tactics. If I build a pure bleed deck I can bleed someone out in no time. If I build an effective vote deck that simply removes pool I can usually vote soemone out of existance in a short order. Mind you I find both of those "pure" decks boring so I don't usually build them. I don't see how this is a major coupe. I completely agree with you on the concept of changing cards that have been around for a long time and in use (they are not broken and never have been). I do not believe that card limits are a proper solution. They're are so many arguements relating to this issue that I don't think I could say anything that hasn't already been said in a more eloquent manner. Addressing your points 1. I don't make money form Jyhad 2. I don't play in tournaments -Chris

In article <01bdd256$8c12baa0$0100a8c0@lurch>, Dog <warp...@biosys.net> writes >1. The No-Repeat rulings: Which is a long standing piece of the Sensible Players Tournament Rules, I seem to recall, which were the best and most widely praised set of "unofficial" tournament rules available. They have also been in the official tournament rules for a long time also. >Let's call them what they really are... >No repeat BLEED rulings! LSJ, Friday 5th December 1997 Message-ID: <34886D...@wizards.com> Subject: The Compleat NRA (Re: LSJ:? Numerous Questions) *** First, a quote from the DCI rules (July 1, 1997): 1. Repeat Action rule: No single vampire can repeat an action in a turn. This refers to the particular action type. For example, a vampire which successfully bleeds its prey via Computer Hacking, then untaps via Freak Drive, cannot perform any bleeding action again whatsoever that turn, regardless of whether or not it is a Computer Hacking action. Note: the word "vampire" in the first sentence should be "minion". Implementation is complicated by two things: timing (only really interesting in cases like Mask of a Thousand faces where the acting minion changes) and figuring out what constitutes the same "type of action". The easy one first: Timing. Implementation of NRA can be viewed as a restriction the acting minion receives. The restriction is applied when the action resolves (that is, when it ends, either successful or not). Only the acting minion at that time gets the restriction (not any prior acting minion, in the case that the action was taken over by some new minion playing Mask of a Thousand Faces). The second one is addressed by simply defining what the different types of actions are: 1) Action types defined in the rulebook (6.4, 7, and 19) These are: * Bleed * Hunt * Employ (Retainer) * Recruit (Ally) * Equip * Transfer Equipment * Call a vote * Leave Torpor * Rescue (from Torpor) * Diablerize (in Torpor) 2) Actions allowed by action cards that are not covered above. Every action card is of the "type" of its card name. Examples: Bum's Rush, Army of Rats (putting into play), Far Mastery. 3) Actions allowed by cards in play that are not covered by 1). Each of these is a distinct type per card in play. So each Haven Uncovered provides a unique action type (to attack the target vampire), even though the cards have the same name. *** >Anson can call conservative agitation, then kine resources contested. Only if you're not playing by the rules. >But he can't bleed with legal manipulations, then with computer hacking. So, you're playing a bastardised variant of the rules where bleed actions are a type of action but votes aren't? >i.e. 'Bleed actions' are a class, but politicals aren't Yes, you are playing a bastardised variant of the rules. I suggest you read the above answer from LSJ. It's also how it works. Votes are a type of action. >It's can't be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie) Who says it can be inferred from the rulebook? Nobody. But then, neither can tournament rules, neither can errata to cards in many instances. >It's purely because the unlimited game is unbalanced by repeat-bleeding. So what's your point? The official rulings apply to the official game which is the game as it is required to be played under DCI rules. NO OTHER GAME ENVIRONMENT HAS TO PLAY THE OFFICIAL RULES. Therefore, the official rules apply to the no card limit environment. >Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which >hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. *sigh* So, this post isn't really about the NRA ruling, it's just an excuse to say card limits are good. BTW, card limits CANNOT be inferred from the rulebook (unless you're a Malkie). It's purely because some players want to limit the number of each card you can have in a deck. Experience shows that playing without card limits allows many cards to become much more useful since you can have meaningful numbers of them in a deck, and that you can play decks the way you want to - not the way an arbitrary card limit requires you to. > >2. The incredible 7/7 edits: >Surely ALL of these cards can't be broken? Why not? If you are simply arguing based on number of cards, you are wrong. There is no reason why there couldn't have been created 20 too powerful cards, 100 too powerful cards etc. >We've been playing pulled fangs for half a decade, AND NOW IT'S TOO >POWERFUL??? >Yeah. >Right. *sigh* No-one is saying that suddenly, overnight, sometime last week, Pulled Fangs just became too powerful. It has been too powerful for a long time. Just because previous Rules Teams decided, in their infinite lack of wisdom, to not fix it, doesn't mean it didn't/doesn't need fixing. Under the Jyhad Rules, it was not possible to burn a vampire with Pulled Fangs because of the packetting rules. This meant that Pulled Fangs became an effective way to send someone to torpor, but needed backing up with political muscle for diablerie. The V:TES rules changed the way in which aggravated damage works, making it possible to burn a vampire with Pulled Fangs. It is this change that people dislike and which has been removed with the ruling. It is now harder to use it to send vampires to torpor, but it still has the potent effect of limiting hunting. >With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. *sigh* With a card limit, these cards simply turn up less often. Also, any card may not be broken in any one playgroup because of how that playgroup plays. But if it can be shown that the card is easily abusable (even if your playgroup doesn't abuse it), then it could be considered broken. > >It's my impression that advocates of no-limit most often: >1. Make money from the industry, and are thus only interested in increasing >sales *sigh* Please _name_ these people. You really think anyone out here is making substantial money from the V:TES industry? If people were, WotC would be making new expansions. The only people in a position to make any significant money from V:TES are Wizards of the Coast (who implement card limits in other games of theirs, but have chosen not to do so in V:TES) and Mark Korshavn (who I haven't seen argue for No Limits) >2. Have a large collection, and wish to increase the benefit of that >advantage in tournament play *sigh* You seem to be of the mistaken belief that just because I *can* put thirty copies of one card in a deck, I do. There are very few decks which benefit from having vast numbers of cards of one type (name) in them. Some of the best decks I have seen need between 6 and 8 copies of most of their cards, going down to prayer cards for some of them. However, how do I play Corruption in a deck effectively without large numbers of them? > >I dislike *any* kind of limit on our game, but the rulings which must >result from unlimited decks are vastly more restrictive than a simple card >limit could ever be! *sigh* Have you ever considered how to build a deck designed for No Limits under Card Limits. Some people on the group have tried to "reconstruct" some No Limits decks under card limits. Hmmm.... that Immortal Grapple will have to go so I'll throw in a Hidden Lurker to stop them striking. Hmm... run out of Dead End Alleys so I'll throw in Boxed In etc. You have to start using cards which aren't the same as the cards you want. It gives the deck a significantly different flavour. Why should I be forced to use Rapid Thought instead of Flash? I want the ability to maneuver AND press together. I don't want to use Pursuit - I need the flexibility for presses. Why should I be forced to use Lightning Reflexes instead of Blur? I don't want to pay three blood for two additional strikes from one card when I can pay one. Why can't I have a lot of Backstab cards in my Toreador intercept deck? I want to be able to hit you first so I can aggravated damage to you before you hit me. Why can't I do that? Why can't I have a lot of Bewitching Oration cards in my deck? I want to pass my votes using Presence. I don't want to give other people pool with Bribes because I want to be weakening them, not giving them pool. Why do I have to stop using Skin of Steel to prevent your strikes? Why should I have to use Skin of Rock instead when I might need several of them? I want to set aside some room for stealth in my deck - say, 20 cards. And I want them from Obfuscate too. I don't have any other stealth disciplines in my deck. The decisions that I, as an NL player, have to make are far more complicated than the decisions that a CL player has to make. Do I want to go for 8 of one stealth card? The superiors can make that difference if I want to fail your blocking attempts, tap you regardless, get more stealth, maneuver or whatever. > >I'd really appreciate reasoned responses from any advocates of no-limits, >if you're in the industry please admit it. No-one who posts regularly on this group is working for WotC (in a financial sense), even LSJ, as far as I know. A few WotC employees post from time to time (Matt Green of Wizards UK, say) but rarely get caught up in arguments - they don't have the time, usually. No-one on this group benefits financially from V:TES directly, except in the fringe area of maybe selling people their cards if they can't come up with a trade or whatever. >Jyhad is NOT played by morons. You what? You think that just because someone plays Jyhad they are not a moron? Sorry to disillusion you mate, there are dingbats out there who play Jyhad too. >Players should be able to decide for themselves if the unlimited position >can be defended, It can. It stands up for itself quite nicely all the time. If it didn't, it wouldn't be the official way to play the game. The official way to play the game is now NOT set by a company getting money from the game. It is now set by a player consulting with other players as to the best way to play the game. I would suggest you look for the Judith and Mark Jyhad page (the URL escapes me but you can search for that in Yahoo et al). Plenty of arguments for NL there which you might like to peruse. For me, the driving parts of the argument for NL are: 1) Choice - why should an arbitrary limit dictate how I build my decks to me? If I want a deck with 35 copies of Cryptic Mission in it (ackn. Robert Goudie), why shouldn't I be allowed to have them? 2) Utility - some cards AREN'T useful if I can only have x of them - where x is between 4 and 6. Corruption is a good example. Bewitching Oration is another - Awe isn't a replacement for BewOra, it's an alternative which has different requirements and abilities. 3) Inherent restrictions - you can't play more than one of a named action modifier on action with one minion, similar with reactions. You're limited as to how many action cards you can feasibly have in a deck by the number of minions you're likely going to have to play them. You're limited by expensive pool costs which take away from your pool, taking you closer to a striking distance for your opponent to hit you and you keel over. You're limited as to the number of master cards you can feasibly have in a deck by the number you can play in a turn. 4) Similar Cards - There are almost no cards in Jyhad which are an exact copy of another - none, as far as I know. There is no way, with a Card Limit, to get another card which does an exact copy of what I want it to. Take the cards Claws of the Dead, Wolf Claws and Bone Spur. All three are identical at inferior I believe, but at superior, *I* start making choices. What do I value more? Do I value the ability to maneuver more than press? Would I prefer the remainder of the combat? In my taste, I prefer Claws of the Dead. I prefer the ability to be able to maneuver in a pinch - even if it does cost me a blood. So if I wanted to put 15 claw cards in a deck (a not unreasonable number), I would probably put 10 Claws of the Dead and 5 Wolf Claws. I don't like Bone Spur's superior - it simply wouldn't be useful in my deck. Under xCL, though, to get 15 claws, I'd have to start putting them all in - even if I didn't want them. If it was 4CL, I wouldn't necessarily be able to get 15 claw cards in the deck! > or if it's a marketing ploy and should be discarded for >our better enjoyment of the game. Did you ever do any Business Studies? If you did, you'd know that if No Limits was intended as a marketing ploy, it was stunningly unsuccessful. Jyhad is a small game, with dedicated players. It is not making vast amounts of money for WotC. If it was, we'd be getting new expansions all the time. Enjoyment of the game is a very subjective term. In your own games, play however you want. If you preferred flicking the cards at each other and trying to give each other long range paper cuts, that'd be fine - but just because you enjoyed it wouldn't necessarily make it suitable for tournament rules. The only problems I've ever found with NL are that broken cards may turn up more often. If you don't have the broken cards, any environment benefits if you work on the premise that broken cards are bad for the game - which I do. >If there's support I want this to be a starting place to challenge the >international tournament rules. This is the place where the tournament rules are challenged. Basically always has been, because it's been the place to liaise with netreps, and now, the official rules setter. Please, just because *you* play Card Limits, it doesn't mean the rest of us have to. In your own games, you can play whatever you want. No-one will stop you. It's your game to play however you want in your house. If you want to play DCI, you have to play the official rules. The official rules are based *now* on several things: 1) The original intent of the game/cards being preserved if possible 2) The original intent of the game/cards being thrown out of the window if it busts the game 3) Rules/errata/clarifications being introduced to stop the game being bust if it becomes a problem NCL is not a problem. It does not bust the game. If you believe it does, you haven't played it enough. >The above comments are on the basis of thousands of card-limited games >against rabid Jyhad nutters. *sigh* Based on lots of card limited games. How many NCL games have you played? NCL is perfectly fine in and of itself. Plenty of players from many different groups who will attest to that on this newsgroup if you want. If you agree that a ruling/errata/clarification for a card would be needed under NCL, then it is very difficult to argue for its dropping under xCL. Okay, let's take hypothetical card X. Now, X is a very powerful card *somehow* so the errata/clarifications/whatever alter the way in which it works to something acceptable, okay? This is fine. A few people will argue "But that's how I want the card" or "You've devalued a card I went out and bought" or whatever. But the card was generally agreed to be bust and so was toned down to an acceptable level. In NCL, I could put quite a few of Card X in my deck. It meant that I drew it regularly, and so could abuse it more times. In xCl, I could put x of Card X in my deck. It meant that I drew it less regularly, but it didn't stop it being bust when I drew it. I could still abuse Card X to my heart's content, I just had it a smaller amount of times. Why does having fewer of a card in a deck stop the card being broken? Is there something about having more of a card in a deck that suddenly makes it become broken? Does it suddenly become more powerful by magic, because there are more of it in a deck? No, a card is broken because it is broken. The number you have in a deck is irrelevant, it's still broken. I've had decks where I've had one copy of Return to Innocence in them. The rest of the deck was a fairly weird Protean-Dominate deck - bit of bleed, bit of stealth, bit of claw, bit of GraveRob. However, in the first game, I drew Return to Innocence. Ousted my prey within about 20 minutes, because I stealthed the bleed past (he was playing Assamites). And I only had one copy of the card in my deck. I believe RtoI to be bust. Just because I had one copy of it in my deck didn't make it any less bust. If there are cards that you believe to be bust under NL, I will argue that there are just as bust under xCL, you just don't pull them as often. I only need one copy of RtoI in my hand, what does it matter if there are another 4 copies of it in the deck or another 10? -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia) Change nospam to obeah to reply Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Thanks for the reply, it's appreciated. >> Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance >> necessary to achieve this! > So you are saying playing Jyhad without card limits cannot be achieved? You're trying to put words in my mouth :-o I said it hasn't been *designed* to be played unlimited. Fact: Numerous rule changes have been (and continue to be) made to compensate for imbalances which cripple unlimited Jyhad Conclusion: Lack of appropriate design You could play baseball with a brick. But it'd detract from the game. >>No-Repeat rulings: >"action type" as defined in the rulebook. Incidentally I don't really care about the classifications, I'm much more interested in the underlying reason for the No Repeat rule. I do wish to note that people refer to the list of Action Types in the Rule Book without actually referencing it. I'd appreciate it if you'd be so kind as to do so. Meanwhile I'll quote from page 10 "Action Cards describe specific actions your minions may take. There are *other* minion phase actions a minion can take without playing an action card." Implying that cardless actions are a different class from carded ones. i.e. a natural bleed is a separate class of action from a computer hacking. Nowhere is there any indication to the contrary. I'm not saying the action list NEEDS to be supported by the rulebook, I'm just saying it ISN'T thus supported. >This is not in the rulebook. No-one has ever pretended it was. Your answer seems slightly off-target, I've caused some confusion... I was referring to the *action list* not appearing in the rulebook, not the no-repeat rule. People *do* call on the rulebook to support the action-list, in fact you do so above :-) >Repeat bleeding, which you seem to concede is a problem, is not a problem >that can be solved by card limits. As you say, there are too many bleed cards to impact on. Despite this the problem *is* solved by card limit... In a 5x game the Ventrue deck you listed only gets 10 freak drives / majestys! >> Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which >> hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. > What experience showed you that? As I mentioned, many games under limited deck conditions. (estimate 2000) Here's one example of a wonderful deck which is destroyed by No Repeat: Big Brujah-Pleb Giovanni: Based on the crimson sentinel (the aim was to make it *really* sharp). It revolved around vast wealth. The essential was getting the weapon early, and as the deck had no stealth, majesty was important. By burning lots of celerity you could generally get to the next majesty if you were blocked. Re Pulled fangs: >the card is not so powerful as to make the game unplayable 1. Agreed, it's a powerful card, there others more powerful 2. The reversion to Jyhad aggravated rules undermines it 3. It's hard to win a tournament with a combat deck 4. It's now worthless Here's another example of the 7/7 fiasco: Did Evening's Freshness really need disemboweling? >>With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. >Would you include RTI in this? There were *lots* of ways to handle RTI, now there are 2 fewer! Archon Investigation & Protected Resources no longer work. What's more I can now bleed my prey with RTI, then vote myself adjacent to the most powerful player at the table and destroy them immediately! Unbelievably these fools have INCREASED RTI's power to a truly sickening degree :-( Do these people actually play Jyhad? >I don't like using multiples of those cards that everyone likes >to abuse, since this is boring for me, and makes me feel less deserving of victory. Good stuff, but I'd note that... Skilled players quickly identify powerful decks, then seek to manipulate the whole game Thus powerful decks meet appropriate resistance Thus clever decks are as good as powerful ones Some say this effect is a spoiler I say it's part of the diplomacy of any good 3+ player game, and our greatest asset The threat of cross-table bleeding is part of this Respected decks are powerful, imaginative and enjoyable to oppose >Even if the "fixed" cards were banned completely you >would still have about a thousand different card types to choose from Global rulings affect huge groups of cards. e.g. the 'Repeat Action' rule directly affects most cards in the game e.g. the 'Vote Replenishment' rule affects all political-related cards In addition to the above I believe that ridiculous or unnecessary rulings have been made about other cards e.g. From the basic set: Form of Mist, Bonding, Cryptic Mission, Wake, Pulled Fangs >I would prefer that cards be balanced Agreed, does that mean we must rewrite them? Few cards are overpowerful by themselves. It's the combinations which make the game interesting, and combination abuse which makes the game unbalanced. Card limits both force and empower *more imaginative* combinations. MTG bans certain cards, and limits others, it rarely rewrites text. Was our game been designed with less care? No (Magic designers are much worse) Is our game conceptually inferior? No We've simply had inadequate balance methods forced on tournament play by a self-serving industry Penny for your thoughts? Dog

In article <01bdd324$172dc1c0$0100a8c0@lurch>, Dog <warp...@biosys.net> writes >Thanks for the reply, it's appreciated. > >>> Jyhad hasn't been designed with **anywhere near** the care and balance >>> necessary to achieve this! >> So you are saying playing Jyhad without card limits cannot be achieved? > >You're trying to put words in my mouth :-o >I said it hasn't been *designed* to be played unlimited. > >Fact: Numerous rule changes have been (and continue to be) made to >compensate for imbalances which cripple unlimited Jyhad >Conclusion: Lack of appropriate design > >You could play baseball with a brick. >But it'd detract from the game. > Fact: Magic is now designed for a card limit and they still have to ban/change cards. Jyhad was designed for no limits, but playtesting doesn't catch everything. You would seek to impose a card limit on a game that wasn't designed for one and don't expect problems? > >>>No-Repeat rulings: >>"action type" as defined in the rulebook. > >Incidentally I don't really care about the classifications, I'm much more >interested in the underlying reason for the No Repeat rule. >I'm not saying the action list NEEDS to be supported by the rulebook, I'm >just saying it ISN'T thus supported. I wouldn't expect a rule that was introduced after the game was created to be supported in the rule book. > > >>Repeat bleeding, which you seem to concede is a problem, is not a problem >>that can be solved by card limits. > >As you say, there are too many bleed cards to impact on. >Despite this the problem *is* solved by card limit... >In a 5x game the Ventrue deck you listed only gets 10 freak drives / >majestys! > Your argument is based on the fact that if something that is broken happens less often that it is not broken. I do not believe that just because Ventrue can repeat bleed only 10 times in a game that repeat bleeds are any less in need of prohibiting. The same with repeat votes etc. >>> Experience shows that with a card limit this indefensible ruling (which >>> hurts many good decks) is unnecessary. >> What experience showed you that? >As I mentioned, many games under limited deck conditions. (estimate 2000) > Play under NL. Try it. >Here's one example of a wonderful deck which is destroyed by No Repeat: >Big Brujah-Pleb Giovanni: Based on the crimson sentinel (the aim was to >make it *really* sharp). It revolved around vast wealth. The essential >was getting the weapon early, Under card limits, though, you can only have x of each. Makes it real easy to pull it. > and as the deck had no stealth, majesty was >important. By burning lots of celerity you could generally get to the next >majesty if you were blocked. So what's your point? I can quite easily make a deck which gets and guarantees a Crimson Sentinel. It's not hard. And I could build one a hell of a lot better than that one. > > >Re Pulled fangs: >>the card is not so powerful as to make the game unplayable >1. Agreed, it's a powerful card, there others more powerful >2. The reversion to Jyhad aggravated rules undermines it You do not understand the new aggravated rules if you believe they are the old Jyhad rules. >3. It's hard to win a tournament with a combat deck So? Does that mean we should make it easier to abuse a disciplineless card? >4. It's now worthless No, it isn't. It still stops you hunting, still sends you to torpor if you can't, forces you to "waste" two actions to get rid of it. It piles on the damage, even if it isn't aggravated. > >Here's another example of the 7/7 fiasco: >Did Evening's Freshness really need disemboweling? > Plenty of people have argued that it did. If you didn't think so, you should have argued at the time. A case of "shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted" methinks. > >>>With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. >>Would you include RTI in this? > >There were *lots* of ways to handle RTI, now there are 2 fewer! >Archon Investigation & Protected Resources no longer work. >What's more I can now bleed my prey with RTI, then vote myself adjacent to >the most powerful player at the table and destroy them immediately! >Unbelievably these fools have INCREASED RTI's power to a truly sickening >degree :-( So what's your problem then? You want powerful cards in the game. If you disagree with the fix, that is different from arguing that there shouldn't have been one. Please, make your mind up. >Do these people actually play Jyhad? Yes, they do. LSJ is a noted player of the game. > > >>I don't like using multiples of those cards that everyone likes >>to abuse, since this is boring for me, and makes me feel less deserving of >victory. > >Good stuff, but I'd note that... >Skilled players quickly identify powerful decks, then seek to manipulate >the whole game >Thus powerful decks meet appropriate resistance >Thus clever decks are as good as powerful ones No. A powerful deck can still win. A deck so fine tuned as to be only capable of stopping powerful decks cannot advance its own ends. >Some say this effect is a spoiler >I say it's part of the diplomacy of any good 3+ player game, and our >greatest asset You believe that having to counter a powerful deck with a "clever" one is a good way to play? I have to build a clever deck specifically to counter powerful ones? That's good? >>Even if the "fixed" cards were banned completely you >>would still have about a thousand different card types to choose from >Global rulings affect huge groups of cards. >e.g. the 'Repeat Action' rule directly affects most cards in the game >e.g. the 'Vote Replenishment' rule affects all political-related cards >In addition to the above I believe that ridiculous or unnecessary rulings >have been made about other cards >e.g. From the basic set: Form of Mist, Bonding, Cryptic Mission, Wake, >Pulled Fangs Please actually make a case for these cards rather than just mindlessly listing them. > > >>I would prefer that cards be balanced >Agreed, does that mean we must rewrite them? >Few cards are overpowerful by themselves. >It's the combinations which make the game interesting, and combination >abuse which makes the game unbalanced. Card limits both force and empower >*more imaginative* combinations. *sigh* By more imaginative, you mean "Oh, I'll use this card as a substandard substitute for another card" or "I'll be forced to use a card I don't want instead of one I do". > >MTG bans certain cards, and limits others, it rarely rewrites text. Having fewer cards in a deck doesn't make the cards less bust. Black Lotus is still overpowered, even if I can only have one in a deck. Jet Mox is still overpowered even if I can only have one in a deck. >Was our game been designed with less care? >No (Magic designers are much worse) >Is our game conceptually inferior? >No >We've simply had inadequate balance methods forced on tournament play by a >self-serving industry Not at all. The rulings are not imposed by the industry but by a group of players with one player with authority. > > >Penny for your thoughts? Now, please take into account the following: 1) No-one is making much money from the Jyhad industry 2) Less Often <> Less Broken 3) Fewer of each card <> More imaginative [ quoted text not captured ]

Part 1 of response Dog wrote: "You're trying to put words in my mouth :-o I said it hasn't been *designed* to be played unlimited." Again, this is so far from correct that the light from correct will take a billion years to reach it. From the beginning, Jyhad was designed specifically and intentionally to be played with no card limits. Magic was designed to be played where card rarity and availablitily was a _severe_ game environment condition. This turned out to be a complete failure (in that the game became far more popular than the designers could have possibly imagined), and as a result, artificial means of imposing this environment had to be implimented-card limits. In light of this, Jyhad was designed in such a way that the game would work with no card limits, so that card availiblity and rarity were not taken into consideration as a balancing point, and players could actually benefit from having 10 of each rare (as opposed to Magic, where commons possessed over the needed 4 are regularly thrown away to make space for more cards). "Fact: Numerous rule changes have been (and continue to be) made to compensate for imbalances which cripple unlimited Jyhad Conclusion: Lack of appropriate design" This is completely wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The only two rules that have been imposed to repair basic flaws with the game of Jyhad are: 1) No vote pushing-The "throw all the votes you want to pass a vote" rule was damaging to the play environment, as it made WVP decks way too effective. It is arguable that the rules were originally designed to play the way they currently do, and that the unrestricted vote push rules were, in fact, an error, and as such the 7/7 rules exist to restore the game to where it should have been from the get go. As such, this is not a "rules change made to compensate for imbalances that cripple unlimited Jyhad." 2. No repeat actions. Repeat actions were an unforseen flaw in the game. Ok. I'll accept that. NRA, however, aren't even an official general rule, only required for tournament play. All other rules changes and errata are minor tweaks of cards that became a bit confused between Jyhad and VTES, or were designed poorly (Magic does this all the time, sometimes by errata, usually by reprinting fixed versions of the cards. Lighting bolt and Shock? Shatter and Shattering Pulse?) "You could play baseball with a brick. But it'd detract from the game." I assure you that playing Jyhad with card limits has a _far_ greater deletrious effect on the game as a whole than any possible rules tweaking. "Incidentally I don't really care about the classifications, I'm much more interested in the underlying reason for the No Repeat rule." You are correct. The basis for the No Repeat Actions rule is not in the rulebook by any stretch of the imagination, any more than "Classic" and "Restricted" deck types have a basis in the rule book in Magic. This does not make the NRA rules any less valid as a balancing point, however. [ quoted text not captured ]

Part 2 of response Dog wrote: "Re Pulled fangs: "1. Agreed, it's a powerful card, there others more powerful" Yes, but for an appropriate cost. Pulled Fangs was too powerful _FOR ITS COST_, especially when the VTES aggro rules were implimented. Do you deny that when the VTES aggro rules were implimented, Pulled Fangs became _far_ more poweful than when originaly designed?. That is why it was changed. "2. The reversion to Jyhad aggravated rules undermines it" The new aggro rules are significantly different than the Jyhad rules. "3. It's hard to win a tournament with a combat deck" This is correct. It does not, however, justify allowing combat decks to abuse broken cards. "4. It's now worthless" It is still a useful card that has an effect justified by its cost. "Here's another example of the 7/7 fiasco: Did Evening's Freshness really need disemboweling?" Many people have argued it has for years now. "Do these people actually play Jyhad?" The fact that you ask this indicates that you really should do some research before you start making baseless statements. "Card limits both force and empower *more imaginative* combinations." Ok. Please. Please. Please. Go to Mark and Judiths Jyhad web page (search for Jyhad+Langsdorf). Please. Read _all_ of the archived articles there on Card Limits (archived from the very inception of the game). Please. Understand what arguments have been made, refuted, and defended. Then come back. I accept that some people like playing Jyhad with card limits. Fine. They like the random aspect of the game. They like seeing lots of different cards. They like not having to make very focused decks. They like the diversity in individual decks it requires. Fine. Card limits, however, by no stretch of the imagination, fixes the game, makes it more balanced, or makes broken cards any less broken. "MTG bans certain cards, and limits others, it rarely rewrites text." Again, this is so, so wrong. It re-writes text by reprinting cards. Lightning Bolt and Shock. Shatter and Shattering Pulse. Black Lotus and Lotus Petal. Yotian Soldier and Standing Troops. I could do this forever. Jyhad does not have this option, so this is done by releasing erratta. [ quoted text not captured ]

I wrote: "and players could actually benefit from having 10 of each rare (as opposed to Magic, where commons possessed over the needed 4 are regularly thrown away to make space for more cards)." I of course meant to write "10 of each common" in this scentence. Damn lack of editing. [ quoted text not captured ]

Dog wrote: > >>With a card-limit none of these cards is broken. > >Would you include RTI in this? > > There were *lots* of ways to handle RTI, now there are 2 fewer! > Archon Investigation & Protected Resources no longer work. > What's more I can now bleed my prey with RTI, then vote myself adjacent to > the most powerful player at the table and destroy them immediately! > Unbelievably these fools have INCREASED RTI's power to a truly sickening > degree :-( Two common bleed defenses, reduction and rush, now have the ability to stop RtI cold (in addition to blocking and bouncing, which were available before and are still). If a few corner cases (like using a vote to rearrange the table) are made available to aid RtI and a few rare/uncommon point-defense cards are weakened in addition to strengthening two common defenses, this is hardly "sickening". [ quoted text not captured ]