A returning player's comments on the new rulings...

I am an old Jyhad player who has recently returned to the game, just in time, it seems, for a major upheaval in the game environment. I started playing Jyhad before I ever played that other card game, and grew to think of it as the intellectual game of choice for card floppers. What I loved about it was the variety of strategies that could be employed, just the fact that sometimes a political deck could survive to trounce a combat deck made my day! I didn't always win, nor did I want to. I was there because it was fun. Every game I played was different, and that was the true allure of Jyhad. I stopped playing it when I became interested in being competitive. Quite frankly I never saw Jyhad as being a serious tournament game, competitive players were usually the first to be ousted. Magic filled the competitive void for me, Jyhad was the game I fell back on when I got sick of playing the same old deck types in Magic, and just wanted something more inventive and interactive. I have been following this newsgroup for awhile now, and reading the posts here are what prompted me to get back into this game. This week I went out and spent $200 on the expansion sets after reading about all those wonderful power cards that you simply must have. Again, I wasn't interested in being competitive, I just liked the idea of new and powerful combinations. I was ecstatic after being able to come up with two Tomb of Ramses and a Return to Innocence! Not to mention that I would get to try all those other great cards I had heard about. Last night, I played my first Jyhad game in 3 years, and I loved it! The local group had their own house rules which were easy to follow and made the game fun. I can't wait to go back next Thursday. But today I got an unexpected shock. The rules team has just turned my $200 re-investment and delight, into a pile of near worthless cards and discontent! I realize that maybe I haven't been around recently to observe the abusive combinations in action, but I can't believe that things were EVER this bad! They have actually re-written the card text on these cards to the point that it makes no sense to play them, lest I have to carry around an extensive rules listing with which to refer to every five minutes. How is this supposed to lure anyone into this game? Well, a solution hit me after reading through the fifty or so complaints against the rulings, something so simple as to be overlooked: don't use 'em. People, we are the ones who decide whether or not we wish to spend our money and time on this game, and we should be the ones to keep the game fun. As I have said before, I do not wish to make this a competitive venture, I only want it to be fun. Binders of errata and rules changes are NOT fun. In my new group, they do not subscribe to this or any other newsgroup, but we have a great way of keeping abusive card combos to minimum; we restrict the number of them in a deck. It is the simplest and most effective way of doing what the rules team is attempting. It has always been my experience that in this game everything has a counter, it's just a mixture of luck and deck building skill as to whether or not you have that counter. So, for me and mine, we will continue to play the cards as they are written. I choose not to except their rules. The game was fun before and it can be again, just use common sense and police your own play group. Do as a true methuselah would and hold a vote. Remember, it is YOU who have the power to decide whether or not to accept the changes. Hey, you know what? Suddenly those Tomb of Ramses don't look so bad anymore! Maybe these cards aren't worthless after all. Dave

In article <35A6E6B1...@odsy.net>, David and Carlene Elliott <ell...@odsy.net> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] This should be pinned up on everyone's wall. And welcome back, compadre! The only thing I'd add to this is that for the poor deluded souls like me who ENJOY tournaments we DO need tournament rules. These should be administered centrally, otherwise there is no point. IMO, the central administrator might legitimately decide to ban cards about which there is major discontent. But s/he should NOT rewrite them.

I agree with you whole heartedly on every word in your message. I feel as long as Wizards of the Coast is not planning to make any more expansions, thus making an attempt to support the game, they shouldn't be making any concrete rulings on card text and card bannings. That should left up to the individual groups and tournament runners. But, this is just my opinion off the top of my head. As I've said before in this group, I think the game has at least two or three more expansions in its future before the game would have run out of card varieties and ideas. I just wish they'd get off their butt and create them. They wouldn't have to be a huge expansions, 70 or 80 cards each, and Wizards could limit the total print run so they could be assured of selling all the cases printed. A profit would be made. Not a huge profit, but a profit none the less. [ quoted text not captured ]

bryan nelson wrote: > > I agree with you whole heartedly on every word in your message. > I feel as long as Wizards of the Coast is not planning to make any more > expansions, thus making an attempt to support the game, they shouldn't be > making any concrete rulings on card text and card bannings. That should left > up to the individual groups and tournament runners. You seem to feel, however, as most do, that _some_ changes need to be made. But leaving those changes up to the individual group makes it nigh-impossible to have a consistent tournament environment. You have fifty different groups playing the game fifty different ways, and when they want to get together for a tournament, how would you decide what rules to use? There need to be changes made which affect the entire community. I for one do not agree with every single one of the new rules, but I am willing to play with them, as I agree that they solve the problems this game had. This is not to say that I don't think there are better ways to solve these problems, or that there are not still problems to be solved (Direct Intervention, Hostile Takeover, etc.). [new expansion] > A profit would be made. > Not a huge profit, but a profit none the less. But that profit would be nowhere near the profit from a new Magic or L5R expansion, so they most likely won't bother. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu

That's it, you got it right. I will have th esame problem I think. I plan to revive Jyhad around here and dig out my old decks. But if the other guys will buy new cards than they will have cards with the same name and but other rules, or some of them will find all this shit about the rulings here at the IN and I see long discussions. But we will also play the cards as they were written, and it will be fun. There are no tourneys around here (bavaria, germany - most gamers haven't even heard of Jyhad here :-) so there's no reason of starting with this competition things. And with my old card swith other texting (which might be more powerfull): It's like in the game, I have an older sorce of power (ancient :-) so I can do things the other players can't :-) That's my reward for giving that game a chance when other were not willing to do it. :-) Sounds good, eh.... JNK David and Carlene Elliott schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35A6E6B1...@odsy.net>, David and Carlene Elliott <ell...@odsy.net> wrote: > I am an old Jyhad player who has recently returned to the game, just > in time, it seems, for a major upheaval in the game environment. > > Dave > > I agree with you. Though I never paused to play V:TES (or Jyhad as it was called back in the old days), I just play for the sheer fun of it. If a group doesn't like the new rules, they shouldn't use them!! After all, we play the game 'cause we like it, not to win massive prizes, then we'd be better off with Magic. If you managed to come back, other players could do as well!! -Carl PS: I think a group should have net-access if possible, just to know what's going on with the game. If there are rules the group doesn't like, the group decides to use them or not, not the net!!! -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- http://www.dejanews.com/rg_mkgrp.xp Create Your Own Free Member Forum

In article <35A9C8CB...@new-wen.baynet.de>, James Kowalske <j...@new-wen.baynet.de> wrote: > That's it, you got it right. I will have th esame problem I think. I > plan to revive Jyhad around here and dig out my old decks. But if the > other guys will buy new cards than they will have cards with the same > name and but other rules, or some of them will find all this shit about > the rulings here at the IN and I see long discussions. But we will also > play the cards as they were written, and it will be fun. There are no > tourneys around here (bavaria, germany - most gamers haven't even heard > of Jyhad here :-) so there's no reason of starting with this competition > things. And with my old card swith other texting (which might be more > powerfull): It's like in the game, I have an older sorce of power > (ancient :-) so I can do things the other players can't :-) That's my > reward for giving that game a chance when other were not willing to do > it. :-) Sounds good, eh.... > JNK > James, Cool to know that you try to revive V:TES (Jyhad) in Bayern (bavaria in English)! Where are you from exactly? Did you know that there are groups of V:TES players all over Germany? Especially Braunschweig and Berlin, but others as well. Look it up on the registry on the WotC-V:TES homepage. I myself am from Vienna, and if you like you could pay the headquarters of the Tremere a visit. We have a large gaming community here, and are even organizing tournaments quite regularly (mind you: most of us are solely playing for fun!). There is also a small (6 players) communitiy in Salzburg Stadt. If you want I can give you the contacts. -Carl PS: Waere echt toll wenn wir gemeinsam etwas auf die Beine stellen koennten. Im November zum Beispiel gibts in Wien ein richtig grosses V:TES Turnier (mit internationaler Beteiligung). Es wird ein echt toller event, also komm ganz einfach vorbei. Ich habe Deine e-mail adresse, ich werde mit Dir irgendwann in den naechsten Tagen (Wochen) Kontakt aufnehmen. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > > PS: Waere echt toll wenn wir gemeinsam etwas auf die Beine stellen > koennten. Im November zum Beispiel gibts in Wien ein richtig grosses > V:TES Turnier (mit internationaler Beteiligung). Es wird ein echt > toller event, also komm ganz einfach vorbei. Ich habe Deine e-mail > adresse, ich werde mit Dir irgendwann in den naechsten Tagen (Wochen) > Kontakt aufnehmen. > o! Ich Auch! Meine echte email ist james.m...@portsmouth.ac.uk Aber ich hat' ganz kleine Deutsch [mein mutter ist von Osterreich - sie komt in england wan sie hat sechs jahre, auf anschluss-zeit]. Kan ich in englische spreche auf diese turnier?

In article <not.available-1...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, [ quoted text not captured ] Of course you can, James, as you know, V:TES is in English, so all players have to speak at least a bit English. The tournament will be an international one, on 20th to 22nd November 1998 in Vienna. All who like to come are invited to do so. Language will be no problem (English, German, a bit Spanish will be spoken by the judges). A formal announcement of this very special tournament will be made as soon as we (the organizers) have green light. Already groups from all over Europe have expressed their intention to participate. We would like to have you and your group, too! Stay on the lookout for more info. -Carl PS: Von wo genau ist Deine Mutter? Ich finde es toll dass Du eine Fremdsprache beherrschts. Gar nicht so schlecht! Wirklich! [ quoted text not captured ]

I think you're totally right. I think the same way as you do. Me and my friends are still going to play it as we always played before. .- Luis....@ip.pt David and Carlene Elliott wrote in message <35A6E6B1...@odsy.net>... > I am an old Jyhad player who has recently returned to the game, just >in time, it seems, for a major upheaval in the game environment. I >started playing Jyhad before I ever played that other card game, and >grew to think of it as the intellectual game of choice for card > (...)

Exactly. Instead of arguing about how bad and destructive these rules are, just ignore them. Play IG the way it was meant to be played, same with Fame and Tomb and all those other cards. Is there someone at every Jyhad game who is going to force me to put fame on my opponents vamp instead of my own? No, there is not. As a result, I can play Jyhad the way I like to, the same way I played about a year ago. No complicated rulings, no having to say "no, the card does not work like that, it was changed on a newsgroup. Yes, I know what the card says, but they changed it. I don't know why..." My local group has virtually no net access (due to time, apathy etc...) so we are playing basically the original rules, and the games are fun. "Broken" combos get real old real fast, so they are discarded in favour of newer, funner ideas. Just because one "official wotc" person says the game is so, doesn't mean that your group of six players must change to the new rules. Wotc abandoned this game long ago to the players, and it is therefore the players who can make the rules decisions for their own group. Anyways, thats just my thoughts on the issue; I have no opinion on the "official tournament" rules situation, and I honestly don't care. I have never ever seen an official jyhad tournament and never plan to go looking for one (I detest wotc, and most things related to them; yet I play the games because they are fun and I play in local, fun games, even in that other game). Again, I am rambling, so I will return to lurk mode. -Sam Hillier Sa...@Brew-Meister.com David and Carlene Elliott wrote: > I am an old Jyhad player who has recently returned to the game, just > in time, it seems, for a major upheaval in the game environment. I > started playing Jyhad before I ever played that other card game, and > grew to think of it as the intellectual game of choice for card [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35AC3FE3...@connect.ab.ca>, Sa...@Brew-Meister.com wrote: > Exactly. Instead of arguing about how bad and destructive these rules are, > just ignore them. Play IG the way it was meant to be played, same with Fame > and Tomb and all those other cards. Is there someone at every Jyhad game > who is going to force me to put fame on my opponents vamp instead of my > own? No, there is not. As a result, I can play Jyhad the way I like to, > the same way I played about a year ago. No complicated rulings, no having > to say "no, the card does not work like that, it was changed on a > newsgroup. Yes, I know what the card says, but they changed it. I don't > know why..." My local group has virtually no net access (due to time, > apathy etc...) so we are playing basically the original rules, and the games > are fun. "Broken" combos get real old real fast, so they are discarded in > favour of newer, funner ideas. Just because one "official wotc" person says > the game is so, doesn't mean that your group of six players must change to > the new rules. Wotc abandoned this game long ago to the players, and it is > therefore the players who can make the rules decisions for their own group. > Anyways, thats just my thoughts on the issue; I have no opinion on the > "official tournament" rules situation, and I honestly don't care. I have > never ever seen an official jyhad tournament and never plan to go looking > for one (I detest wotc, and most things related to them; yet I play the > games because they are fun and I play in local, fun games, even in that > other game). Again, I am rambling, so I will return to lurk mode. > > -Sam Hillier > Sa...@Brew-Meister.com > I think it's perfectly right to play housrules with friends. I do it myself. But I think different on the tournament-issue. I believe that tournaments are very important for a CCG, especially for V:TES. And therefore it's important for players at tourneys that they play with a common set of rules, be they whatever they are. The point is: if everyone plays with the same rules, then everyone has the same "disadvantage" with rulings on certain cards. Don't you find this a solid basis to begin with? Let's take a closer look on tournaments. What are they good for? I think they give a sign that a game isn't dead. A tournament is a visible thing, for players, spectators, and the company which hopefully supports/sanctions it. Of course, nobody wants to play tournaments every day, but once every month or every two month, people are eager to meet on a competitive basis. That said, in Vienna (Europe), people like to play sealed-deck tourneys. In fact we had only one "standard" tourney so far, as players don't like to play NL. Whereas with sealed deck they still play NL, but it is more fun. We played Sabbat (4 or 5 booster), Sabbat draft, V:TES-sealed (2 starters) and even "expansion-mixes". Sealed tournaments serve two purposes: firstly, players get the thrill from the tourney without broken combos. (If a broken card shows up, it is not likely to come in a combo!) Our people like it that way (and we have a _large_ V:TES community). Secondly, players get new cards in a pleasant manner, and the retailer can sell his stock (which is the most important thing at all: if the retailer re-orders, that's a sign to the company). I urge every group to try sealed-deck tournaments, you'll see how much fun that is. Next, if you feel a bit adventurous, you can try a thing we often do: a number of players in our group buys a fixed number of boosters and starters (usually we buy 2 starters or 1 Starter and 3-4 boosters) construct decks out of this limited pool of cards and start playing against each other in what order they like (e.g. 6 players participate, but only 4 meet on a regular basis, whereas the other two meet regular with 2 of the former 4). The important thing is: they play for ante, to get some thrill. (Sadly, I lost Giants Blood and Pulled Fangs on one evening, but it was fun nevertheless.) After a few weeks this "campaign" ends when the group feels one player has too good cards or it gets boring. Try it! This helps our beloved game! Sam, you shouldn't detest WotC. It's not worth it, believe me. If you want the game prosper, then go out and advertise it, as we do. It's a pity you do not contribute to this list often (if at all). But "lurking" and knowing what's going on is better than ignoring the developments in the game. Btw, do receive mailings of the VTES-l list? There are some postings that don't show up in this newsgroup. -Carl [ quoted text not captured ]

CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at wrote: > Btw, do [we] receive mailings of the VTES-l list? There are some postings [there] > that don't show up in this newsgroup. No. The VTES-L mailing list and this newsgroup are separate. The posts to one do not reach the other. I occasionally post messages to both simultaneously, when the content of the message warrants, but I don't know any other players who do so. -- 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

In article <35AC9A...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at wrote: > > Btw, do [we] receive mailings of the VTES-l list? There are some postings [there] > > that don't show up in this newsgroup. > > No. The VTES-L mailing list and this newsgroup are separate. > The posts to one do not reach the other. > > I occasionally post messages to both simultaneously, when > the content of the message warrants, but I don't know any > other players who do so. > It seems that the VTES-L contains the most interesting postings from this list. (I think that's called "digests"??) [ quoted text not captured ]

CPilh...@bhak12.ac.at wrote: > It seems that the VTES-L contains the most interesting postings > from this list. (I think that's called "digests"??) It may seem that way, but the "digests" are merely the set of all the posts made (to the list) during a given day. Rather than sending each message individually to each list subscriber, the default behavoir is to send just a single message "digest" containing all the messages. [ quoted text not captured ]

Note: I had wanted to respond to the Elliott post for a while and just got around to it; sadly my newsreader (stupid Netscape) can't find the original message. badger wrote: > > David and Carlene Elliott wrote: > > > Quite frankly I never saw > > Jyhad as being a serious tournament game, competitive players were > > usually the first to be ousted. It seems to me that if this was your environment, the players were trying to artificially enforce "fun" by encouraging players _not_ to be competitive. Don't get me wrong, this is done by many groups, but isn't really a good official policy for the game to have, since you simply _can't_ enforce fun among people who are not your friends. > > This week I > > went out and spent $200 on the expansion sets after reading about > > all those wonderful power cards that you simply must have. Again, I > > wasn't interested in being competitive, I just liked the idea of new > > and powerful combinations. But, don't you see that "powerful combinations" that make people have to go spend $200 on the game is _bad_ for the game? > > The local group had their own house rules which were easy to follow > > and made the game fun. But why did they have house rules? Most likely, because they recognized that there are some slight card-specific problems with the game that were not sufficiently addressed prior to these new rulings. I think most people are upset because LSJ didn't choose "their" house rules, and some stranger's house rules are being imposed on them. This is perfectly understandable. Everyone wants to play the game the way they think is best. But it's best to have one consistent, balanced way to play the game. LSJ's rules make the game balanced. Not everyone agrees with his methods, but I don't think that anyone strongly objects to the rulings on the basis that the game is _still_ broken under them. > > They have actually re-written the card text > > on these cards to the point that it makes no sense to play them, > > lest I have to carry around an extensive rules listing with which to > > refer to every five minutes. Except that after a while you will remember them, or someone else will. Cards with extensive changes are rare; I think there were less than a dozen. And now that they're not totally broken anymore, you won't see them every five minutes. There will always be someone (and it may eventually be you!) who knows all of the rulings by heart. It's the nature of things that some people like to be rules lawyers. And I would say that only the new Tomb, RtI, and Mind Rape wordings are hard to remember. > > Well, a solution hit me after reading through the fifty or so > > complaints against the rulings, something so simple as to be > > overlooked: don't use 'em. People, we are the ones who decide > > whether or not we wish to spend our money and time on this game, > > and we should be the ones to keep the game fun. How are you going to keep the game fun? How are you going to prevent abuses of Tomb, RtI, Fame, etc.? With your own house rules? Why are yours better than LSJ's? I'm not trying to be combative here, but it doesn't make any sense to me. > > Binders of errata and > > rules changes are NOT fun. Except that LSJ's recent additions are what? Two or three pages of text? Hardly _binders_ worth. > > In my new group, they do not subscribe to > > this or any other newsgroup, but we have a great way of keeping > > abusive card combos to minimum; we restrict the number of them in a > > deck. It is the simplest and most effective way of doing what the > > rules team is attempting. Restricting broken cards doesn't make them any less broken. You just don't see them as often. > > It has always been my experience that in this game > > everything has a counter, it's just a mixture of luck and deck > > building skill as to whether or not you have that counter. If a card is so powerful that you have to go out of your way to build your deck to stop that card, then that card is too powerful. How do I deal with Return to Innocence? Put in bleed bounce? But what if I wanted to build a deck without Dominate or Auspex? I guess I'm just out of luck. > > So, for me and mine, we will continue to play the cards as they are > > written. I choose not to except their rules. The game was fun before > > and it can be again, just use common sense and police your own play > > group. Then for every play group in the world there is a different game being played. Tournaments with significant numbers of people are hence impossible, and every time someone wants to go from one group to another, they have to change their decks and deck-building philosophy to deal with the new rules. ["badger" wrote:] > If > someone keeps using a powerful card combo to wipe you out, then come > up with a defense. OK, here's a combo that keeps killing me: Return to Innocence. What should I use as my defense? Bleed bounce? But I'm not playing with a discipline that lets me do that. Now what? > And as far as banning cards goes...what the hell > is wrong with you people? Gee, sorry. Just trying to make the game a little bit more balanced. If most of the players agree a fix is necessary, then banning is at least a fix that would be highly acceptable, as opposed to a controversial text-change. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu PS: Sorry about the dual-response nature of this post. Hopefully people can make sense of it.

James Hamblin wrote: only the new Tomb, RtI, and Mind Rape wordings are hard to > remember. > > > > In my new group, they do not subscribe to > > > this or any other newsgroup, but we have a great way of keeping > > > abusive card combos to minimum; we restrict the number of them in a > > > deck. It is the simplest and most effective way of doing what the > > > rules team is attempting. > > Restricting broken cards doesn't make them any less broken. You just > don't see them as often. But in other card games they don't rewrite broken cards, which these cards aren't, rather they restrict or ban cards. Like you said so you don't see them as often. So it is a lot harder to do combos with the cards. So people don't have to figure out what is the new text, just know that they can only have one of the cards in their deck. Restricting is better than rewritting. Restrict, don't rewrit. > > > > It has always been my experience that in this game > > > everything has a counter, it's just a mixture of luck and deck > > > building skill as to whether or not you have that counter. > > If a card is so powerful that you have to go out of your way to build > your deck to stop that card, then that card is too powerful. How do I > deal with Return to Innocence? Put in bleed bounce? But what if I > wanted to build a deck without Dominate or Auspex? I guess I'm just out > of luck. Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the bleed action any stealth. Block it if you don't want to take the bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to avoid bleed attempts. Return to Innocence is easy to block or bleed bounce. It is not broken. It is powerful. And I enjoyed learning some new combos with this card. i can see why there is some aggravation, but don't rewrite it. Restrict it. It is a lot harder to do combos if you only have one (or two?) Return to Innocences in your 60-90 card deck. > > If > > someone keeps using a powerful card combo to wipe you out, then come > > up with a defense. > > OK, here's a combo that keeps killing me: Return to Innocence. What > should I use as my defense? Bleed bounce? But I'm not playing with a > discipline that lets me do that. Now what? It is not a combo. It is a simple non-stealth action. Block it if you can't avoid it. Geez. > > > And as far as banning cards goes...what the hell > > is wrong with you people? > > Gee, sorry. Just trying to make the game a little bit more balanced. > If most of the players agree a fix is necessary, then banning is at > least a fix that would be highly acceptable, as opposed to a > controversial text-change. Banning as WotC could tell you is extreme. First try restricting the card. Look at magic- they restricted the power 9. They didn't rewrite or ban them. Even though everyone knows these are the most abusive cards in the game. Restrict, don't rewrit.

Forrest Nielsen wrote: > > James Hamblin wrote: > only the new Tomb, RtI, and Mind Rape wordings are hard to > > remember. > > > Restricting broken cards doesn't make them any less broken. You just > > don't see them as often. > > But in other card games they don't rewrite broken cards, which these > cards aren't, rather they restrict or ban cards. Like you said so you > don't see them as often. So it is a lot harder to do combos with the > cards. Here's a combo: Return to Innocence, Day Operation. You may restrict the RtI, but are you going to restrict Day Op, too? How about the other make-this-action-unblockable cards? > > If a card is so powerful that you have to go out of your way to build > > your deck to stop that card, then that card is too powerful. How do I > > deal with Return to Innocence? Put in bleed bounce? But what if I > > wanted to build a deck without Dominate or Auspex? I guess I'm just out > > of luck. > > Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the > bleed action any stealth. It is really easy to either add lots of stealth to this action or to simply make it unblockable. If my deck does not have intercept or bleed bounce (which are only readily available from expensive permanents or disciplines which I may not be using), then the card kills me. > Block it if you don't want to take the > bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, > I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to > avoid bleed attempts. Sorry, but not every deck has intercept in it. Nor should every deck have to. > Return to Innocence is easy to block or bleed bounce. It is not > broken. It is powerful. And I enjoyed learning some new combos with > this card. i can see why there is some aggravation, but don't rewrite > it. Getting bled for 15 unblockably is more than aggravating. It makes you lose the game. > Restrict it. It is a lot harder to do combos if you only have one > (or two?) Return to Innocences in your 60-90 card deck. It only has to happen to you once for it to kill you. > > OK, here's a combo that keeps killing me: Return to Innocence. What > > should I use as my defense? Bleed bounce? But I'm not playing with a > > discipline that lets me do that. Now what? > > It is not a combo. It is a simple non-stealth action. Block it if you > can't avoid it. Geez. It's a really powerful one-card combo. And they won't play it if you can block it. "Geez." > > Gee, sorry. Just trying to make the game a little bit more balanced. > > If most of the players agree a fix is necessary, then banning is at > > least a fix that would be highly acceptable, as opposed to a > > controversial text-change. > > Banning as WotC could tell you is extreme. First try restricting the > card. Look at magic- they restricted the power 9. They didn't rewrite > or ban them. They didn't even try to rewrite them, since that would have pissed off their precious collectors. And even though they're restricted, the only reason someone would not play with it is because they don't own it. Here's another one: Thoughts Betrayed. What's my defense there? Weapons? Why should I put costly weapons in my deck that will only really do me any good _if_ I'm up against a TB deck? And if the TB's are being used by someone who can also prevent you from using weapons (with Drawing out the Beast, Immortal Grapple, those Tha cards, etc.) then you're really screwed. What now? _Strategies_ have defenses. Specific cards should not. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <35B8FF...@du.edu>, Forrest Nielsen <fnie...@du.edu> wrote: >Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the >bleed action any stealth. Block it if you don't want to take the >bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, >I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to >avoid bleed attempts. Mr Nielsen: Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: Assamite Brujah Followers of Set Gangrel Nosferatu Ravnos Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? gomi

In article <35B8FF...@du.edu>, Forrest Nielsen <fnie...@du.edu> wrote: >James Hamblin wrote: >> If a card is so powerful that you have to go out of your way to build >> your deck to stop that card, then that card is too powerful. How do I >> deal with Return to Innocence? Put in bleed bounce? But what if I >> wanted to build a deck without Dominate or Auspex? I guess I'm just out >> of luck. > >Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the >bleed action any stealth. Block it if you don't want to take the >bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, >I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to >avoid bleed attempts. >Return to Innocence is easy to block or bleed bounce. It is not >broken. It is powerful. And I enjoyed learning some new combos with >this card. i can see why there is some aggravation, but don't rewrite >it. Restrict it. It is a lot harder to do combos if you only have one >(or two?) Return to Innocences in your 60-90 card deck. Heh, you apparently having been following this discussion for long, or you'd realize the number of ways that _will_ be used to make RtI unblockable. James merely made the assumption that this was a given, and that people could follow along. >> > And as far as banning cards goes...what the hell >> > is wrong with you people? >> >> Gee, sorry. Just trying to make the game a little bit more balanced. >> If most of the players agree a fix is necessary, then banning is at >> least a fix that would be highly acceptable, as opposed to a >> controversial text-change. > >Banning as WotC could tell you is extreme. First try restricting the >card. Look at magic- they restricted the power 9. They didn't rewrite >or ban them. Even though everyone knows these are the most abusive >cards in the game. Restrict, don't rewrit. Using magic as an example for how to balance a game won't get you far here I suspect, since the local opinion of magic is quite low. One could easily argue that restricting power cards in magic didn't solve the problem, just lessened it. Also, I would point out that you are flat out _wrong_ about WotC not banning cards -- they have _always_ done so, and in Type 2 tournaments now do so _wholesale_, banning all sets past a certain age. I will agree that outright banning broken cards (a common houserule) does indeed solve balance problems, but many players find it distastefull. Restricting power cards simply just doesn't cut it, since then you're effectively forced to use them to compete, which isn't interesting. -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

(TO REPLY VIA E-MAIL, STRIP 'XYXYX' FROM THE ADDRESS) fnie...@du.edu writes: >> Restricting broken cards doesn't make them any less broken. You just >> don't see them as often. > >But in other card games they don't rewrite broken cards, which these >cards aren't, rather they restrict or ban cards. I've always regard restriction as just as insane in Magic as it is in Jyhad. I've always argued against it for exactly the reason stated above and thank god, they finally got rid of it and just went to outright banning. Except in Classic (originally known as type I) which is the silliest Magic constructed format, anyway. >Banning as WotC could tell you is extreme. First try restricting the >card. WotC does not restrict cards deemed overpowered. They ban or they don't touch, so far as I know. At least that's true in Classic Restricted (popularly known as type I.5), Extended, and Standard (originally known as type II). Classic was left out because it's only raison d'etre is to cater to the few people who prefer playing the first version of the tournmanet game and who self-admittedly don't give a rat's ass about playing a balanced game. WotC found it was easier just create other, more reasonable formats and leave them their format (and just ignore it) than endure the screams that would arise no matter how good the reasons for changing it brought forth were. >Look at magic- they restricted the power 9. They didn't rewrite >or ban them. You are in error. That banned the power 9 in every format but Classic. Fred

> > Mr Nielsen: > > Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following > clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a > Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, > Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: Well, i'm not Forrest but this would be my advice: > > Assamite Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. > Brujah Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. > Followers of Set Put Pentex Subversion on the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Then corrupt him. > Gangrel Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Stick him in torpor, then diablarize him. > Nosferatu Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. > Ravnos Rush the big guy with your Mass reality'd weapons. Kill him. May i just add that I don't think this response to Forrest is altogether fair. And IMO this arises from a lack of clarity about the problem [as you guys see it], which is NOT the card ... it is COMBOS INVOLVING the card. A point i have made repeatedly, and that has never been answered, is that if you ban a card because you don't like a combo in which it is involved, then someone will invent a new combo involving different cards that kicks ass. Then you will get fed up about that, and you will want to ban another card, and so on until we all end up playing Uno. Doesn't this seem a somewhat futile exercise to you? Don't you think it might be fun to accept that there are clever chaps and chappesses out there who WILL come up with spiffy combos, and instead of trying to sabotage their efforts by changing the rules, try to beat them at their own game by inventing better combos?

Legbiter wrote: > [snip: "rush the big guy" as defense against RtI] This works occasionally, but it is in no way a _defense_ against RtI. I doesn't affect the action itself, it just tries to indirectly affect the minion who might be taking the action sometime later. The mere existence of the card, then, forces you to concentrate all of your rushing efforts on the big vampires your predator has. You will most likely kill them all, but then (a) you haven't hurt your prey and (2) your predator's predator will quickly become another threat to you. > May i just add that I don't think this response to Forrest is > altogether fair. And IMO this arises from a lack of clarity about the > problem [as you guys see it], which is NOT the card ... it is COMBOS > INVOLVING the card. Tomb of Ramses III doesn't need a combo to be broken. RtI doesn't need a combo to be broken either, it just needs a combo to be 100% effective. > A point i have made repeatedly, and that has never > been answered, is that if you ban a card because you don't like a > combo in which it is involved, > then someone will invent a new combo involving different cards that > kicks ass. You seem to think that the people espousing these changes are people who have been killed by powerful combos, whined about it, and now are happy about the changes. This is for the most part, not the case. The game had problems and problem cards; very few people disagree with this, though I think you are one of them. > Then you will get fed up about that, and you will want to > ban another card, and so on until we all end up playing Uno. No, this has been answered a great number of times. The overwhelming majority of Jyhad cards are balanced with respect to each other. The overpowered cards which needed to be changed have been changed, with the possible exception of a couple others (like DI) which are currently being discussed. That you seem to think that _no_ changes were necessary leads me to believe that no one in your play group has made a concerted effort to break these cards to their fullest extent, or you are _all_ doing so, neither of which is really a good thing. > instead of trying to sabotage > their efforts by changing > the rules, try to beat them at their own game by inventing better > combos? ...combos which would force me to also play with broken cards, just to compete? No, thanks. [ quoted text not captured ]

Legbiter wrote in message ... > >> >> Mr Nielsen: >> >> Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following >> clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a >> Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, >> Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: > >Well, i'm not Forrest but this would be my advice: >> >> Assamite >Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. >> Brujah >Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. >> Followers of Set >Put Pentex Subversion on the big guy before he has a chance to take his >action. Then corrupt him. >> Gangrel >Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Stick him in >torpor, then diablarize him. >> Nosferatu >Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. >> Ravnos >Rush the big guy with your Mass reality'd weapons. Kill him. Rush is generally a valid tactic. But hey, maybe you figured that your predator only had Roy (what's that Sabbat Pander with dominate on him?) with one blood out, and you didn't need to rush him, because you wanted to concentrate on your prey. He was tapped anyway. And then your grand-predator RTI's with Gwendolyn on a Day Op, Roy Wakes and Misdirects, and then what do you do? Rush every vampire on the table? >May i just add that I don't think this response to Forrest is altogether >fair. And IMO this arises from a lack of clarity about the problem [as you >guys see it], which is NOT the card ... it is COMBOS INVOLVING the card. A Well, actually, it's the combo of the broken cards that's are the problems. I'd like to fix Day Op. I insist on fixing RtI, because RtI makes a moderately annoying combo (Govern the Unaligned, Day Op, Conditioning) and turns it into cheese. >point i have made repeatedly, and that has never been answered, is that if >you ban a card because you don't like a combo in which it is involved, >then someone will invent a new combo involving different cards that kicks >ass. Then you will get fed up about that, and you will want to ban another Well, no, not really. We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 borderline abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive combo. It's a standard combo, sure, and powerful (potential burning a vampire!) but there are common tactics to get around it, and those tactics can be used against other combos. I don't build my Ventrue decks to avoid "Tremere Theft/Walk decks", I build them to avoid "Combat" decks. Do you see the difference? -Mark Langsdorf Jyhad Archivist http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/

In article <6pgu4n$g62$1...@cgl.ucsf.edu>, Eric Pettersen <ЯЯЯЯ Яpe...@cgl.ucsf.edu.delete.this.except.junk.emailers> wrote: >go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: >>Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following >>clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a >>Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, >>Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: >>Assamite >>Brujah >>Followers of Set >>Gangrel >>Nosferatu >>Ravnos >>Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, >>is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? >Hi Paul! >Whether or not you favor RtI (I'm undecided), you can't ignore that >non-bounce counters to RtI exist. Whether you _like_ these counters >is another matter, but they are there: > Direct Intervention > Archon Investigation > Major Boon True, yet the first two are on many people's lists of Narsty Icky Cards, and Majorbooning one's predator can be difficult to pull off -- certainly not something I'd like to rely on. >Now most of the clans above feature Rush Combat, so they can deal with >RtI that way as well. On top of that, the above clans aren't noted for >heavy bleeding, so if the deck is using a non-bleed strategy (rush, >vote, corruption), then there is also: Well, the issue with Rush as a defence (as has been noted elsewhere) is that it's no help when an upstream RtI gets bounced to you. One cannot rush every largish vampire on the table -- at least not reliably. > Protected Resources I'm really of two minds on PR. There's absolutely no way for a bleed deck to deal with it, and to my mind it hurts Bruise&Bleed (which gets fewer actions through, and hence needs to make each one count) more than Stealth Bleed (which can afford to bleed at stealth for 2 reliably). If PR were a Location, I'd have no trouble with it. Or at least a much smaller beef. gomi

go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: >Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following >clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a >Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, >Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: > >Assamite >Brujah >Followers of Set >Gangrel >Nosferatu >Ravnos > >Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, >is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? Hi Paul! Whether or not you favor RtI (I'm undecided), you can't ignore that non-bounce counters to RtI exist. Whether you _like_ these counters is another matter, but they are there: Direct Intervention Archon Investigation Major Boon Now most of the clans above feature Rush Combat, so they can deal with RtI that way as well. On top of that, the above clans aren't noted for heavy bleeding, so if the deck is using a non-bleed strategy (rush, vote, corruption), then there is also: Protected Resources --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu

badger wrote: > > > > David and Carlene Elliott wrote: > > > I am an old Jyhad player who has recently returned to the game, > > just > > in time, it seems, for a major upheaval in the game environment. I > > started playing Jyhad before I ever played that other card game, and > > > > grew to think of it as the intellectual game of choice for card > > floppers. What I loved about it was the variety of strategies that > > could > > be employed, just the fact that sometimes a political deck could > > survive > > to trounce a combat deck made my day! I didn't always win, nor did I > > > > want to. I was there because it was fun. Every game I played was > > different, and that was the true allure of Jyhad. I stopped playing > > it > > when I became interested in being competitive. Quite frankly I never > > saw > > Jyhad as being a serious tournament game, competitive players were > > usually the first to be ousted. Magic filled the competitive void > > for > > me, Jyhad was the game I fell back on when I got sick of playing the > > > > same old deck types in Magic, and just wanted something more > > inventive > > and interactive. > > I have been following this newsgroup for awhile now, and reading > > the > > posts here are what prompted me to get back into this game. This > > week I > > went out and spent $200 on the expansion sets after reading about > > all > > those wonderful power cards that you simply must have. Again, I > > wasn't > > interested in being competitive, I just liked the idea of new and > > powerful combinations. I was ecstatic after being able to come up > > with > > two Tomb of Ramses and a Return to Innocence! Not to mention that I > > would get to try all those other great cards I had heard about. Last > > > > night, I played my first Jyhad game in 3 years, and I loved it! The > > local group had their own house rules which were easy to follow and > > made > > the game fun. I can't wait to go back next Thursday. > > But today I got an unexpected shock. The rules team has just > > turned my > > $200 re-investment and delight, into a pile of near worthless cards > > and > > discontent! I realize that maybe I haven't been around recently to > > observe the abusive combinations in action, but I can't believe that > > > > things were EVER this bad! They have actually re-written the card > > text > > on these cards to the point that it makes no sense to play them, > > lest I > > have to carry around an extensive rules listing with which to refer > > to > > every five minutes. How is this supposed to lure anyone into this > > game? > > Well, a solution hit me after reading through the fifty or so > > complaints against the rulings, something so simple as to be > > overlooked: > > don't use 'em. People, we are the ones who decide whether or not we > > wish > > to spend our money and time on this game, and we should be the ones > > to > > keep the game fun. As I have said before, I do not wish to make this > > a > > competitive venture, I only want it to be fun. Binders of errata and > > > > rules changes are NOT fun. In my new group, they do not subscribe to > > > > this or any other newsgroup, but we have a great way of keeping > > abusive > > card combos to minimum; we restrict the number of them in a deck. It > > is > > the simplest and most effective way of doing what the rules team is > > attempting. It has always been my experience that in this game > > everything has a counter, it's just a mixture of luck and deck > > building > > skill as to whether or not you have that counter. > > So, for me and mine, we will continue to play the cards as they > > are > > written. I choose not to except their rules. The game was fun before > > and > > it can be again, just use common sense and police your own play > > group. > > Do as a true methuselah would and hold a vote. Remember, it is YOU > > who > > have the power to decide whether or not to accept the changes. > > Hey, you know what? Suddenly those Tomb of Ramses don't look so > > bad > > anymore! Maybe these cards aren't worthless after all. > > > > Dave > > AMEN! I couldn't agree more - although I would suggest you look at > the errata section of the new rulings as it clarifies misprinted cards > (ie Blood Rage is a Thaumaturgy card not Fortitude). In my opinion, > there's no such thing as a "broken" card, only broken defenses. If > someone keeps using a powerful card combo to wipe you out, then come > up with a defense. There's a defense against everything! That's the > beauty of the game. And as far as banning cards goes...what the hell > is wrong with you people? Are you that scared of a card that you'd > rather tear it up than find a way to defeat it? And LSJ, your > solution is no better. Errata yes. Clarify yes. Rewrite NO! > > Badger Clap! Clap! Clap! But I fear that your well penned words will be abused. -- Jeff Endres

Gomi no Sensei wrote: > > In article <35B8FF...@du.edu>, Forrest Nielsen <fnie...@du.edu> wrote: > > >Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the > >bleed action any stealth. Block it if you don't want to take the > >bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, > >I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to > >avoid bleed attempts. > > Mr Nielsen: > > Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following > clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a > Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, > Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: > > Assamite > Brujah > Followers of Set > Gangrel > Nosferatu > Ravnos > > Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, > is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? > > gomi Protected Resources, Direct Intervention, Beat the stuffing out of your predator. Oops I forgot, both these cards are broken. Damn!

Jeff Endres <jen...@axs.com.au> writes: > > Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, > > is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? > > > > gomi > > Protected Resources, Direct Intervention, Beat the stuffing out of your > predator. > > Oops I forgot, both these cards are broken. Damn! ...Protected Resources broken? Please explain, that's a new one to me. //Petri

Here is a generic Newsgroup argument as i see it: pdb6, James H, Mark L or someone: "Card a is broken and i hate it for the following highly logical reasons .... and believe it should be changed in the following ingenious way ....." Chris Chew, Badger, Legbiter or Jason: "I don't think the card should be changed, because i don't agree with the concept of brokenness" pdb6, James H, Mark L or someone: "the card is broken because it violates the design principles of Jyhad in the following way .... and is undercosted because when you compare it to card b it is better ..... and here is a set of circumstances in which the card is even more horrible than i implied in my previous post ......" Chris Chew, Badger, Legbiter or Jason: "I don't think the card should be changed, because i don't agree with the concept of brokenness" pdb6, James H, Mark L or someone: Is too Chris Chew, Badger, Legbiter or Jason: Is not pdb6, James H, Mark L or someone: Is too Chris Chew, Badger, Legbiter or Jason: Is not pdb6, James H, Mark L or someone: Is too Chris Chew, Badger, Legbiter or Jason: Is not pdb6, James H, Mark L or someone: Is too Chris Chew, Badger, Legbiter or Jason: Is not [iterate until one party gives up]. Now i can't speak for the other guys in the complacent and slow-minded club, but i do know the problem I personally have with brokenness. For me, brokenness is an abstract concept, only eluctable from a set of assumptions about what constitutes correct balance and costing of cards. Personally I do not think Jyhad WAS designed like that ..... a much more intuitive process seems to me to have been involved. Maybe this point of view reflects the field in which i work [i'm a molecular biologist]; we deal with a hellishly complex system every day, and we find that any attempt to draw out deep principles almost invariably fails. What DOES work in my field is data collection. This shows patterns which are often embarassingly different from those predicted by theory. To try to get out of the "is/is not" loop i have started to collect real data about winning Jyhad decks at various levels of play. For me, the important level is the local playgroup, because that is where the most fun is had and the most games are played. But i am also collecting tournament data. My preliminary impression is that Dominate and Fortitude may be over-represented among winning decks, but this is far, at this stage, from being a scientific judgement.

We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > borderline > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > combo. Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end up top ..... > It's a standard combo, sure, and powerful (potential burning a vampire!) but > there > are common tactics to get around it, and those tactics can be used against > other combos. I don't build my Ventrue decks to avoid "Tremere Theft/Walk > decks", > I build them to avoid "Combat" decks. Do you see the difference? > Sure. In the same way, I build my decks to pre-empt, counter or deflect big bleeds, to destroy or purloin locations, and to intercept, over-vote or cancel political actions. Coincidentally or not, they are effective against RtI's. The last time I saw one in a tournament, my predator was discarding it.

In article <35BC46DD...@axs.com.au>, Jeff Endres <jen...@axs.com.au> wrote: [ RTI defenses ] > Protected Resources, Don't have any, and don't need any more of the cards that come in a display box. Mark Korshavn has them listed for $20 each (when he has them). Explain to me why I have to spend $20 to defend against a single card? Mind you, I'd probably need to spend $40 or $60 because just having one isn't going to be enough to make sure I have one when I need it. > Direct Intervention, Have a few, but apart from RTI, I have absolutely no need to dilute my non-deflecting decks with them apart from defending against RTI. > Beat the stuffing out of your predator. And what happens if he Mind Rapes one of my vampires or the vampire of someone else? Or what if it's a deflected bleed from my Grand Predator? Am I supposed to rush every vampire on the table and count on zero help from my Grand Predator? > Oops I forgot, both these cards are broken. Damn! Broken or not, none of these prospects is that viable. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP "Sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here." [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> wrote: >Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a >sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently >around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power >ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most >expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end >up top ..... This, I think, is another fundamental philosophical difference. The 'no- broken' camp (of which you are the most [dare i say the only] articulate, generally sensible member), has this 'slippery slope' view of a progressive downward spiral of hosing the most powerful card *at the moment*. I, and I suspect others, disagree. *Because* the cost/power ratios of cards are compared, one sees that once egregious excursions like the Infamous Four (RtI, TB, ToRIII, MR) are dealt with, the cardset is largely *in* balance. Case in point: No-one's been arguing for the next round of 'overpowerful' cards so far. The recurring joke in the M*g*c newsfroups, lo these years agone, was 'BAN THE PEARLED UNICORN!!!' It was a joke then, and more so now. I don't think anyone's going to make noises to ban plain brown Dodge, or even Force of Will now that Fame's been fixed. That being said, I think giving Fortitude bleed is like giving Potence intercept -- it's weird and it tastes funny. But the card is printed, and I don't have a problem with its power level. >Sure. In the same way, I build my decks to pre-empt, counter or deflect >big bleeds, to destroy or purloin locations, and to intercept, over-vote >or cancel political actions. Coincidentally or not, they are effective >against RtI's. The last time I saw one in a tournament, my predator was >discarding it. The difference, I think, is that one's defence structure can usually be allowed to fail once in the mid-game without catastrophic consequence, while RtI allows catastrophic consequence to occur significantly earlier in the game than other cards. In conjunction with cards that ameliorate or eliminate the admittedly large cost (Mind Rape, Possession), the risk/reward ratio is thrown out of proportion. Different cards have different power levels; hence their different costs. Return to Innocence, however, has a power level exceeding the game's ability to impose a reasonable cost in vampire blood -- thus it imposes an additional cost that is readily avoided, and winds up being undercosted. gomi

Petri Wessman wrote: > > Jeff Endres <jen...@axs.com.au> writes: > > > > Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, > > > is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? > > > > > > gomi > > > > Protected Resources, Direct Intervention, Beat the stuffing out of your > > predator. > > > > Oops I forgot, both these cards are broken. Damn! > > ...Protected Resources broken? Please explain, that's a new one to me. Well, for starters it really hoses a major strategy, which is always bad. And if you're playing a damaging-vote deck, you never need to bleed, and so it's "disadvatage" is hardly that. [ quoted text not captured ]

> We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > > borderline > > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > > combo. > > Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > up top ..... > Wow! Since you're precognizant, will you tell me who's going to win the next World Series? (Why is called the *World* Series anyway? It's just barely the United States & Canada series.) If your arguments against fixing broken cards are based entirely on your knowledge of what *I'm* going to do in the future, then I'm afraid it just doesn't hold water. We are discussing what cards are overpowered *now.* Sure, we may miss a few and need to fix them later, but that doesn't change the discussion at hand. Overpowerful cards need to be fixed and apocalyptic predictions of every card being errata'd to be Ascendance will not change that fact. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: > In article <6pgu4n$g62$1...@cgl.ucsf.edu>, > Eric Pettersen wrote: > >Now most of the clans above feature Rush Combat, so they can deal with > >RtI that way as well. On top of that, the above clans aren't noted for > >heavy bleeding, so if the deck is using a non-bleed strategy (rush, > >vote, corruption), then there is also: > > Well, the issue with Rush as a defence (as has been noted elsewhere) is that > it's no help when an upstream RtI gets bounced to you. One cannot rush > every largish vampire on the table -- at least not reliably. Well, Rush is going to have trouble with any large bleed that is deflected at stealth; not just unblockable RtIs. This not really a RtI-specific objection. --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu (NeXTmail capable)

[ quoted text not captured ] No. That's quite true, and very much parallels the arguments of the "yes-there-are-broken-cards-and-we-need-to-fix-them" group (i.e. ToRIII is not balanced by the existance of SR, Arson, contesting, etc...). The problem here, is that Return to Innocence enables a bleed for 10 or more, whereas any other single bleed card cannot give you a bleed for more than 3 by itself. Ever notice that there are no (D)Bleed at +3 cards? This is because once you get past +2, things get nasty. RtI is way over the line. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> wrote: >We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 >> borderline >> abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take >> 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. >> No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive >> combo. > >Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a >sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently >around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power >ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most >expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end >up top ..... No, I don't see that. When you chop off the salient problem cards, new ones don't automatically pop up. One can very easily have a whole forest of cards with power levels close to "3", and a few with power levels "4", or "5". If you weaken/ban all the 4s and 5s, the remaining 3s are fine -- "broken" doesn't mean most powerfull, just too powerfull. IMNO this is how Jyhad is now, a bunch of power "3" cards. On a different tangent, you've argued repeatedly that there's some sort of endless cycle of fixing/banning once you start. I haven't seen it. Most of the discussion about changes now doesn't revolve around cards people think are too powerfull (at least not with any sort of consensus), but rather cards that people simply don't like: generally trump cards like DI, AI, PR, etc. Fixing cards that people don't like may indeed be a vicious cycle, but that is entirely distinct from fixing cards that are _logically broken_. If there really is another round of similar fixes coming, perhaps you can predict which cards will be in it? I predict you can't because there won't be one. I know that I (and all the others I know of that advocated fixing this small crop of cards) don't feel the need to play with house rules anymore. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6pigra$9uj$1...@cgl.ucsf.edu>, Eric Pettersen <pe...@cgl.ucsf.edu.delete.this.unless.youre.a.junk.emailer> wrote: >go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: >> In article <6pgu4n$g62$1...@cgl.ucsf.edu>, >> it's no help when an upstream RtI gets bounced to you. One cannot rush >> every largish vampire on the table -- at least not reliably. > >Well, Rush is going to have trouble with any large bleed that is deflected >at stealth; not just unblockable RtIs. This not really a RtI-specific >objection. >--- Yes, it is. It's not very often that a bleed of more than 3 or 4 will get deflected your way (and for a rush deck the amount of stealth is irrelevent, since all it's vamps will generally be tapped), without some sort of collusion, serious bluffing, etc. Now when I play serious rush, I generally try to keep roughly half of my original pool as a buffer, and while 3 or 4 will hurt, it won't oust me. There is a very large difference between 3 or 4, and 14+ [ quoted text not captured ]

Legbiter wrote: > > We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > > borderline > > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > > combo. > > Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > around". While you may be correct that some unenlightened people will call the "most powerful card/combo currently around" broken, that doesn't mean those cards or combos will receive errata. > You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > up top ..... The majority of the cards are in balance. This becomes the baseline. There are some that are above this baseline in power. There were some that were way over the baseline and those were the targets for the errata. I'm told there are no plans to errata the slightly overpowered cards. Robert Goudie rrgo...@earthlink.net http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Eric Pettersen wrote: > > > Yes, it is. It's not very often that a bleed of more than 3 or 4 will > > get deflected your way (and for a rush deck the amount of stealth > > is irrelevent, since all it's vamps will generally be tapped), without > > some sort of collusion, serious bluffing, etc. > > Well, if we're talking about about an RtI'ed bleed of 14+, clearly some > serious bluffing occured. What? I come to kill you with my RtI. You deflect me? Oh, well, I guess I'm sending this ten points of bleed somewhere else. > An RtI bleed of 14+ is pretty clearly an IC. An IC can fairly easily > bleed for 8 (GtU/Conditioning). Still pretty bad. Nonetheless, either > problem can be avoided by rushing all your predator's vampires that have > superior Dominate or Auspex. Oh, that's all. Guess what? Sometimes that doesn't work. If they've got Fortitude and you're the Brujah, you'll have a hard time sending everyone to torpor. And if someone lives, they'll kill you. No one is going to play RtI unless it's actually going to oust you, so it might as well be "(D) oust your prey". A one-card-kill is so totally out of the scope of all that is Jyhad that it's light-years away. [ quoted text not captured ]

phil...@tx.ENGR.ORST.EDU (Jasper Phillips) wrote: > Eric Pettersen wrote: > >go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: > >> In article <6pgu4n$g62$1...@cgl.ucsf.edu>, > >> it's no help when an upstream RtI gets bounced to you. One cannot > >> rush every largish vampire on the table -- at least not reliably. > > > >Well, Rush is going to have trouble with any large bleed that is > >deflected at stealth; not just unblockable RtIs. This not really a > >RtI-specific objection. > > Yes, it is. It's not very often that a bleed of more than 3 or 4 will > get deflected your way (and for a rush deck the amount of stealth > is irrelevent, since all it's vamps will generally be tapped), without > some sort of collusion, serious bluffing, etc. Well, if we're talking about about an RtI'ed bleed of 14+, clearly some serious bluffing occured. > > Now when I play serious rush, I generally try to keep roughly half of > my original pool as a buffer, and while 3 or 4 will hurt, it won't oust > me. There is a very large difference between 3 or 4, and 14+ An RtI bleed of 14+ is pretty clearly an IC. An IC can fairly easily bleed for 8 (GtU/Conditioning). Still pretty bad. Nonetheless, either problem can be avoided by rushing all your predator's vampires that have superior Dominate or Auspex. [ quoted text not captured ]

Eric Pettersen wrote: > An RtI bleed of 14+ is pretty clearly an IC. An IC can fairly easily > bleed for 8 (GtU/Conditioning). Still pretty bad. Nonetheless, either > problem can be avoided by rushing all your predator's vampires that have > superior Dominate or Auspex. Duh, _any_ Dominate or superior Auspex. You normally want to rush any predator vamps with Dominate anyway. :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> writes: > > > Protected Resources, Direct Intervention, Beat the stuffing out of your > > > predator. > > > > > > Oops I forgot, both these cards are broken. Damn! > > > > ...Protected Resources broken? Please explain, that's a new one to me. > > Well, for starters it really hoses a major strategy, which is always > bad. And if you're playing a damaging-vote deck, you never need to > bleed, and so it's "disadvatage" is hardly that. Yes, it can be effective (especially in a deck that never bleeds), but consider: it costs 2 pool, and it only hoses single bleeds that are over 2. It does absolutely nothing about multiple minions each bleeding you for 2 each round. Yes, it slows a stealth bleeder down, but that's the whole point of the card. IMHO it in no way "hoses a major strategy"... no meth can stand up against multiple bleeds for 2 for very long. It's a good card for specific situations, but no trump card. //Petri

In article <6piqp1$9kn$1...@news.NERO.NET>, phil...@tx.ENGR.ORST.EDU (Jasper Phillips) wrote: > In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, > Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> wrote: > >We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > >> borderline > >> abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > >> 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > >> No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > >> combo. > > > >Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > >sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > >around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > >ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > >expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > >up top ..... > > No, I don't see that. When you chop off the salient problem cards, > new ones don't automatically pop up. One can very easily have a whole > forest of cards with power levels close to "3", and a few with power > levels "4", or "5". If you weaken/ban all the 4s and 5s, the > remaining 3s are fine -- "broken" doesn't mean most powerfull, just > too powerfull. > > IMNO this is how Jyhad is now, a bunch of power "3" cards. > > On a different tangent, you've argued repeatedly that there's some > sort of endless cycle of fixing/banning once you start. I haven't seen > it. Most of the discussion about changes now doesn't revolve around > cards people think are too powerfull (at least not with any sort > of consensus), but rather cards that people simply don't like: > generally trump cards like DI, AI, PR, etc. Fixing cards that people > don't like may indeed be a vicious cycle, but that is entirely > distinct from fixing cards that are _logically broken_. > > If there really is another round of similar fixes coming, perhaps you > can predict which cards will be in it? I predict you can't because > there won't be one. I know that I (and all the others I know of that > advocated fixing this small crop of cards) don't feel the need to > play with house rules anymore. > Hmmm, futurology ..... ok, the Legbiter crystal ball says Mind of a Child will be next. Better than Thoughts Betrayed, really - almost like a cross between TB and Pentex Subversion. Also I think betrayer/recruitment is going to cause a bit of a stir, when salem christ and i finally get our decks going .....

In article <6pikmj$9is$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, ber...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > > > borderline > > > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > > > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > > > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > > > combo. > > > > Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > > sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > > around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > > ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > > expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > > up top ..... > > > > Wow! Since you're precognizant, will you tell me who's going to win the next > World Series? (Why is called the *World* Series anyway? It's just barely the > United States & Canada series.) If your arguments against fixing broken > cards are based entirely on your knowledge of what *I'm* going to do in the > future, then I'm afraid it just doesn't hold water. We are discussing what > cards are overpowered *now.* Sure, we may miss a few and need to fix them > later, but that doesn't change the discussion at hand. Overpowerful cards > need to be fixed and apocalyptic predictions of every card being errata'd to > be Ascendance will not change that fact. > > -Chris > ?Sorry, i don't follow the reasoning here. Are you saying that broken is a concept definable OTHER than by reference to the existing legal card set? If it is definable only by reference to the other cards, then my point is pure logic, not soothsaying ... UNLESS AND UNTIL all cards are EQUAL, it will be possible to make a case that the MOST POWERFUL ones are broken, ON THAT DEFINITION. YOU might not make that case. But SOMEONE will, and it will be difficult to argue against them. O, and the richest team will win the World Series. If there is any kind of reasonable odds on that team, i'd put your money on it.

In article <35BD3B2A...@earthlink.net>, Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > Legbiter wrote: > > > > We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > > > borderline > > > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > > > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > > > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > > > combo. > > > > Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > > sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > > around". > > While you may be correct that some unenlightened people will call the > "most powerful card/combo currently around" broken, that doesn't mean > those cards or combos will receive errata. > > > You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > > ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > > expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > > up top ..... > > The majority of the cards are in balance. This becomes the baseline. > There are some that are above this baseline in power. There were some > that were way over the baseline and those were the targets for the > errata. I'm told there are no plans to errata the slightly overpowered > cards. > Well, i do hope you are right. But i fear that the fixing of TB is just going to elevate Mind of a Child to the same level of controversy. So that line will take a bit of holding, in which you can count on my UNWAVERING support. For what it's worth, and as a COMMITTED non-fixer, I DO believe that dom and for are overpowered relative to the other disciplines. For me, that "problem" was fixed in Sabbat by bringing in two other spunky disciplines [dem and obt] and a number of weak-but-flexible cards [all the vis cards, DI and Tier of Souls]. I've never seen the problem with RtI - it is just another big bleed, and it takes quite a bit of finesse and preparation to bring it off as a game-winning card. Anyone alert can spot an RtI coming a MILE off, and any deck that has an effective defensive strategy against generic big bleeds or votes should be able to deal with it. Romantics like James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. Anyway, sorry to ramble on here ... i think maybe we should revisist this topic when i've accumulated a bit more data on whether there really ARE winning cards in my area, if possible comparing it to other people's experience.

In article <35BD5835...@math.wisc.edu>, James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > Eric Pettersen wrote: > > > > > Yes, it is. It's not very often that a bleed of more than 3 or 4 will > > > get deflected your way (and for a rush deck the amount of stealth > > > is irrelevent, since all it's vamps will generally be tapped), without > > > some sort of collusion, serious bluffing, etc. > > > > Well, if we're talking about about an RtI'ed bleed of 14+, clearly some > > serious bluffing occured. > > What? I come to kill you with my RtI. You deflect me? Oh, well, I > guess I'm sending this ten points of bleed somewhere else. > > > An RtI bleed of 14+ is pretty clearly an IC. An IC can fairly easily > > bleed for 8 (GtU/Conditioning). Still pretty bad. Nonetheless, either > > problem can be avoided by rushing all your predator's vampires that have > > superior Dominate or Auspex. > > Oh, that's all. Guess what? Sometimes that doesn't work. If they've > got Fortitude and you're the Brujah, you'll have a hard time sending > everyone to torpor. And if someone lives, they'll kill you. No one is > going to play RtI unless it's actually going to oust you, so it might as > well be "(D) oust your prey". A one-card-kill is so totally out of the > scope of all that is Jyhad that it's light-years away. > > James > -- O dear, got out of our coffin on the wrong side this evening did we? Anyway, I'm sorry you're feeling so crotchety, and i'd just like to gently point out that if you misdirect someone else's RtI then that person has lost a really powerful vampire [and all the pool they invested in it, minus any reclaims] and they've got LESS THAT NOTHING out of it - because they've just strengthened their prey [most probably]. RtI is a risky card, and IMO it's just another bleed .. if your deck can't defend against big stealthed-or-unblockable bleeds, you're in trouble whether or not someone packs an RtI. And may i add that when you are NOT feeling cross your posts are really quite interesting, because you really make an effort to reveal your underlying assumptions. I guess the central one that i disagree with is that Jyhad is ABOUT balance, but i certainly see that if that is your starting assumption then the rest of your position logically follows. But my dear old chap, please don't look for perfection in anything, not even a game ... because it just ain't gonna be there!

[ quoted text not captured ] Hmmm, I don't have a problem with any of those cards, and have never even heard of anyone having troubles with them before. Actually, I don't even think really effective at all. Amusing perhaps, but hardly broken. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6pi620$huk$1...@shell3.ba.best.com>, go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: > In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, > Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> wrote: > > >Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > >sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > >around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > >ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > >expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > >up top ..... > > This, I think, is another fundamental philosophical difference. The 'no- > broken' camp (of which you are the most [dare i say the only] articulate, > generally sensible member), OI!!! I hope i'm just as unreasonable as the next complacent and slow-minded Methuselah! Whaddya wanna do, expose me as [gasp!] SANE?????? has this 'slippery slope' view of a progressive > downward spiral of hosing the most powerful card *at the moment*. Succinctly put, and correct. I, > and I suspect others, disagree. *Because* the cost/power ratios of cards > are compared, one sees that once egregious excursions like the Infamous > Four (RtI, TB, ToRIII, MR) are dealt with, the cardset is largely *in* > balance. > > Case in point: No-one's been arguing for the next round of 'overpowerful' > cards so far. The recurring joke in the M*g*c newsfroups, lo these years > agone, was 'BAN THE PEARLED UNICORN!!!' It was a joke then, and more so now. > I don't think anyone's going to make noises to ban plain brown Dodge, > or even Force of Will now that Fame's been fixed. Hmmm, i think if TB is fixed we are going to see a LOT of people using Mind of a Child to gain a similar effect. Almost as effective as Pentex Subversion, and not unique. I do hope people won't argue the card is broken, but i fear they may ...... > > That being said, I think giving Fortitude bleed is like giving Potence > intercept -- it's weird and it tastes funny. But the card is printed, and > I don't have a problem with its power level. Yep. I fully agree with the sentiment that the cards OUGHT to be true to the game world, and that one or two are not. It just doesn't bother me THAT much. > > >Sure. In the same way, I build my decks to pre-empt, counter or deflect > >big bleeds, to destroy or purloin locations, and to intercept, over-vote > >or cancel political actions. Coincidentally or not, they are effective > >against RtI's. The last time I saw one in a tournament, my predator was > >discarding it. > > The difference, I think, is that one's defence structure can usually be > allowed to fail once in the mid-game without catastrophic consequence, while > RtI allows catastrophic consequence to occur significantly earlier in the game > than other cards. In conjunction with cards that ameliorate or eliminate > the admittedly large cost (Mind Rape, Possession), the risk/reward > ratio is thrown out of proportion. > > Different cards have different power levels; hence their different > costs. Return to Innocence, however, has a power level exceeding the > game's ability to impose a reasonable cost in vampire blood -- thus > it imposes an additional cost that is readily avoided, and winds up > being undercosted. > Of course, this is a very ingenious combo, or rather set of combos, and hence difficult to actually implement. I think a deck that specialised in trying to pull this off would be intensely vulnerable to ANY rush-combat deck. It just couldn't simultaneously have the cards to work the combo AND the strike;CEs to stay alive for long enough to get away with it.

In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > generic big bleeds or votes should be able to deal with it. Romantics like > James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just > need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for > bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. > Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. (Side Note: "Generic" big bleeds require big bleeders and a combination of cards, not just one card. Also, the cost of RTI, unfortunately, can be gotten around by borrowing someone else's vampire.) You just did the same thing that a lot of anti-7/7 people are claiming is being done to them: telling the rest of us how we should play the game. Many anti-7/7 people are calling the RTR someone's version of house rules that are being imposed on them. They instead say that the pro-7/7 people should play with guns (anti-TB), Auspex/Dominate (anti-RTI), Rampage/Arson/SR (anti-TOR). You know, I looked at Protected Resources as an RTI defense in my rush decks, but at $20 a pop, there's no way I can afford to (and there's many other, more useful cards I could buy for that much). When you consider that a tournament prize might be a box of boosters (about $40 to $70 depending on card set), you could actually LOSE money buying Protected Resources in an attempt to make your Rush deck tournament viable. Are all the anti-7/7 people claiming that that's the way it should be? > Anyway, sorry to ramble on here ... i think maybe we should revisist this > topic when i've accumulated a bit more data on whether there really ARE > winning cards in my area, if possible comparing it to other people's > experience. And meanwhile, as no one is capable of showing you repeatedly in your area that the broken cards are broken, you continue to play with house rules and espouse the new rulings. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP "Sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here." -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

Petri Wessman wrote in message <7xvhoin...@termiitti.akumiitti.fi>... >James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> writes: > >> > > Protected Resources, Direct Intervention, Beat the stuffing out of your >> > > predator. >> > > >> > > Oops I forgot, both these cards are broken. Damn! >> > >> > ...Protected Resources broken? Please explain, that's a new one to me. >Yes, it can be effective (especially in a deck that never bleeds), but >consider: it costs 2 pool, and it only hoses single bleeds that are >over 2. It does absolutely nothing about multiple minions each >bleeding you for 2 each round. Yes, it slows a stealth bleeder down, >but that's the whole point of the card. IMHO it in no way "hoses a >major strategy"... no meth can stand up against multiple bleeds for 2 Well, it makes Bruise & Bleed and Tap & Bleed even less effective than normal, which is pretty bad. Like you point out, it doesn't do much to Stealth & Bleed, even though it is supposed to be a Stealth and Bleed defense. My problem with Protected Resources is that I don't I've ever seen more than 1 played - not many people in my playgroup own enough V:tES (as opposed to Jyhad) cards to have access to it. -Mark Langsdorf Jyhad Archivist http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/

Legbiter wrote in message ... >In article <6pi620$huk$1...@shell3.ba.best.com>, go...@best.com (Gomi no >Sensei) wrote: > >> In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, >> Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> wrote: >> >> and I suspect others, disagree. *Because* the cost/power ratios of cards >> are compared, one sees that once egregious excursions like the Infamous >> Four (RtI, TB, ToRIII, MR) are dealt with, the cardset is largely *in* >> balance. >> >> Case in point: No-one's been arguing for the next round of 'overpowerful' >> cards so far. The recurring joke in the M*g*c newsfroups, lo these years Oh, I've got a huge list of cards, that in "Mark's World of Perfect Jyhad" would be modified. But this isn't my perfect world and I can live with most of them as they are, if it means I get the top 5-10 majorly broken cards fixed. >> The difference, I think, is that one's defence structure can usually be >> allowed to fail once in the mid-game without catastrophic consequence, while >> RtI allows catastrophic consequence to occur significantly earlier in the game Robert Goudie wrote an article about trump cards (www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/Broken/trumps.html) where he says that one aspect of brokeness is "swing effect": how much playing that one card changes the table position. Realistically, an RtI bleed (successful, unsuccessful, or bounced) has a huge swing effect: someone loses a vampire, someone is ousted or near enough. The game shouldn't depend on a single action being successful or unsuccessful, but on a pattern of actions. >> Different cards have different power levels; hence their different >> costs. Return to Innocence, however, has a power level exceeding the >> game's ability to impose a reasonable cost in vampire blood -- thus >> it imposes an additional cost that is readily avoided, and winds up >> being undercosted. >> >Of course, this is a very ingenious combo, or rather set of combos, and >hence difficult to actually implement. I think a deck that specialised in >trying to pull this off would be intensely vulnerable to ANY rush-combat >deck. It just couldn't simultaneously have the cards to work the combo AND >the strike;CEs to stay alive for long enough to get away with it. RtI is disciplineless, Mind Rape requires Dominate, Obediance requires Dominate, Seduction requires Dominate, Thoughts Betrayed requires Dominate, and then you need some stealth to get the Mind Rape through. Let's see, clans with Dominate and reliable stealth: Malkavians, Lasombra. Clans with Dominate and semi-reliable stealth: Ventrue, Giovanni, (Gangrels with Dominate). 4-5 clans that can routinely pull off a Mind Rape/RtI combo, and will have good combat defenses to boot. I don't see a difficulty. [ quoted text not captured ]

Legbiter wrote in message ... >In article <35BD3B2A...@earthlink.net>, Robert Goudie ><rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote: > >> Legbiter wrote: >>>Mark Langsdorf wrote: >> > >> > >We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 >> > > borderline >> > > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take >> > > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. >> > > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an >> > > abusive >> > > combo. >> > >> > Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a >> > sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently >> > around". The reasonable fixers and the "nofixers" will band together and use the Iron Fist (tm) to keep the enemy down. Worry not. >> The majority of the cards are in balance. This becomes the baseline. >> There are some that are above this baseline in power. There were some >> that were way over the baseline and those were the targets for the >> errata. I'm told there are no plans to errata the slightly overpowered >> cards. >> >Well, i do hope you are right. But i fear that the fixing of TB is just >going to elevate Mind of a Child to the same level of controversy. So that >line will take a bit of holding, in which you can count on my UNWAVERING >support. Nah. Mind of a Child is no-stealth action and burnable and expensive. I get to see it coming. TB used to be, "I rush Gilbert Duane. Oh, he plays TB. I'll go get a Coke, anyone want a drink?" and you hoped you still had a vampire when you got back. >Romantics like >James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just >need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for >bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. >Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. NO. If every deck has to have bleed-bounce as a bleed defense, then deck variety goes through the floor. I can't believe you're honestly suggesting that. (Not to mention there are lots of deck archetypes that fail miserably if you broaden their focus just a little - and sticking auspex into a Nosferatu rush deck is broadening the focus a lot). -Mark Langsdorf Jyhad Archivist and Iron Principled Romantic http://www.io.com/~mlangsdo/RPGs/Jyhad/

> > > Nah. Mind of a Child is no-stealth action and burnable and expensive. > I get to see it coming. But the burning action is only +1 stealth. And TB is expensive, too - not much use against weenie fighters. > >Romantics like > >James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just > >need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for > >bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. > >Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. > > > NO. > If every deck has to have bleed-bounce as a bleed defense, then deck > variety goes through the floor. I can't believe you're honestly suggesting > that. (Not to mention there are lots of deck archetypes that fail miserably > if you broaden their focus just a little - and sticking auspex into a > Nosferatu rush deck is broadening the focus a lot). > Whoa, i think you overstate your case just a little there, brother! A Nossie deck with a smidgen of defensive aus or dom is still a nossie deck. And these are not the only defenses available to a nossie rush deck, just the cheapest ones. Actually i'd back a nossie rush deck against the hypothetical RtI/Obedience thing you posted in response to the other comment i made in this thread, just because i think it would be lucky to get away with the number of obediences it would need to survive the rush. Slightly off-topic, i think you guys are trying to have your vitae and drink it. If the only reason for playing Jyhad is to win, why not use the available cards to get there? The power-players aren't going to be stopped by 7/7, y'know - there are still MASSIVE bleeds that you can do without RtI, and HORRID combat strategies that will burn your beautiful vamps. If making a fun deck and playing as well as you can with it is enough, why are you so worried about losing to brutal power-players? "Purity" and "truth to the clan concept" are nice in a fun deck, no dah, but It seems to me you want to win with your fun decks more than you can reasonably expect to!

Legbiter wrote: > > O dear, got out of our coffin on the wrong side this evening did we? Rrrr... :) > Anyway, I'm sorry you're feeling so crotchety, and i'd just like to gently > point out that if you misdirect someone else's RtI then that person has > lost a really powerful vampire [and all the pool they invested in it, > minus any reclaims] and they've got LESS THAT NOTHING out of it - because > they've just strengthened their prey [most probably]. RtI is a risky card, But the person with the RtI isn't going to play it unless they know it's going to succeed. Despite what you seem to think should be the case, not everyone plays with Dominate or Auspex. It's pretty easy to get a bleed through against a deck like that. I should not be forced to play with particular cards or with a particular kind of deck, just to defend myself against one or two killer cards. > and IMO it's just another bleed .. if your deck can't defend against big > stealthed-or-unblockable bleeds, you're in trouble whether or not someone > packs an RtI. But _without_ the (also broken) bleed-hoser cards, it's a "big bleed" that will almost certainly oust someone. A bleed for 5 and a bleed for 12 are very different things. > underlying assumptions. I guess the central one that i disagree with is > that Jyhad is ABOUT balance, Well, yes. Different from almost every other card game, Jyhad has a well-designed, balanced play environment for the most part. The game does not _need_ broken cards, and shouldn't have them. James -- James Hamblin ham...@math.wisc.edu ...maybe not so cross today...

Jeff Endres wrote: > > > But the person with the RtI isn't going to play it unless they know > > it's going to succeed. OK, let me reword this: the person with the RtI isn't going to play it unless they know it's not going to catastrophically fail. An example of a catastrophic failure: you accidentally get bounced and oust your prey's prey. A non-catastrophic failure: you get blocked or DI'ed. > If people are playing strong bleed decks you put in effective bleed > defense... Simple. Don't just complain about their decks. Every deck should have bleed defense. But no bleed defense is going be 100% effective. Especially in a Rush deck, where if your prey is a bleed deck, you _are_ going to take some bleeds, since it takes time to kill all of their vampires. In the meantime, before you kill everyone, you might take some hits. One of those hits being a double-digit bleed is something I have a problem with. And, it's the _same_ problem that was, in part, curbed by the NRA rule. Now, at least, you can't get bled for 5, they untap, you're bled for 5, untap, etc. But you can still take a devastating (and likely ousting) bleed for 16. The most effective way to deal with that is with bleed bounce. I just don't want to be practically _forced_ to play with bleed bounce just because I want to remain in the game. Besides which, the metagame doesn't exist in a tournament setting. If everyone's playing with unblockable RtI's, I don't have time to change my deck and come back "next time". I'm just dead. > [*] Well that _was_ the case. The recent vote pushing rules make calling a > vote, a lot more predictable. > > If Sum(opponentVotes)+numVoteDecks < Sum(callersVotes) Then > PoliticalAction_Success() > Else > PoliticalAction_Failure() > End If As opposed to previously: If TRUE PoliticalAction_Success() Besides which, your little formula doesn't take into account Presence, Bribes, Cryptic Riders, and all the other ways there are to pass votes without vote pushing. [ quoted text not captured ]

>> Nah. Mind of a Child is no-stealth action and burnable and expensive. >> I get to see it coming. > >But the burning action is only +1 stealth. And TB is expensive, too - not >much use against weenie fighters. Yes, original-TB had it's weaknesses. Which were minor. Mind of a Child has major weaknesses, and just isn't that powerful a card. You can't use it defensively when you get into a fight. The target can burn it relatively trivially (sure, you Mind-Child'd Beast. Are you going to block Anvil when he takes Beast back to school? I didn't think so). You are the only person so far who has complained about Mind of Child. I don't see it as an issue. >> >Romantics like >> >James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just >> >need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for >> >bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. >> >Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. >> >> NO. >> If every deck has to have bleed-bounce as a bleed defense, then deck >> variety goes through the floor. I can't believe you're honestly suggesting >> that. (Not to mention there are lots of deck archetypes that fail miserably >> if you broaden their focus just a little - and sticking auspex into a >> Nosferatu rush deck is broadening the focus a lot). >> >Whoa, i think you overstate your case just a little there, brother! A No, I don't. >Nossie deck with a smidgen of defensive aus or dom is still a nossie deck. No, it's not. It's a dead deck, because Nossies don't have any cheap Dom/Aus people in the first place (Judas is the cheapest at 6, and he's got inferior dominate - and don't suggest I add Master Skills to add Disciplines my vamps don't even have - hand jam city!). >And these are not the only defenses available to a nossie rush deck, just >the cheapest ones. Actually i'd back a nossie rush deck against the >hypothetical RtI/Obedience thing you posted in response to the other >comment i made in this thread, just because i think it would be lucky to >get away with the number of obediences it would need to survive the rush. You only need as many Obediances as I have minions - generally 2-3 a turn. Okay, maybe I get a combat through irregularly. Great. What of it? Unless I get the combat through *and* annihilate your vamp, you can RtI me to death. I have to get the right sequence repeatedly to wear you down. You have to get it once. >Slightly off-topic, i think you guys are trying to have your vitae and >drink it. If the only reason for playing Jyhad is to win, why not use the >available cards to get there? The power-players aren't going to be stopped >by 7/7, y'know - there are still MASSIVE bleeds that you can do without >RtI, and HORRID combat strategies that will burn your beautiful vamps. If >making a fun deck and playing as well as you can with it is enough, why >are you so worried about losing to brutal power-players? "Purity" and >"truth to the clan concept" are nice in a fun deck, no dah, but It seems >to me you want to win with your fun decks more than you can reasonably >expect to! I am trying to win. I'm just trying to be honorable in my victories and not use the broken cards. (Yeah, I'm handicapping myself here, but I don't feel very good about Mind Rape/RtI/Day Op. What's the point?) The deck I took to "I Think Therefore I Con" was a pretty standard Brujah rush deck. No broken cards in it, though. Jeff was playing what he admits were abusive combos. I never had a chance. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > If there really is another round of similar fixes coming, perhaps you > > can predict which cards will be in it? I predict you can't because > > there won't be one. I know that I (and all the others I know of that > > advocated fixing this small crop of cards) don't feel the need to > > play with house rules anymore. > > > Hmmm, futurology ..... ok, the Legbiter crystal ball says Mind of a Child > will be next. Better than Thoughts Betrayed, really - almost like a cross > between TB and Pentex Subversion. Also I think betrayer/recruitment is > going to cause a bit of a stir, when salem christ and i finally get our > decks going ..... > Well, I'm impressed that you didn't choose the obvious ones, like Dreams of the Sphinx (which, IMHO, will not be touched because its advantage over STI, while obvious, is pretty minor). Mind of a Child... a near useless card. The cost, and the fact that it is at no inherent stealth mean that it looks awesome, but has a considerably lower effect on the game. I'm not saying you can't use it, because I do sometimes, but a Derange/Paranoia combo works a lot better for the cost (a minion action and a master action). Betrayer/Recruitment... While I see the potential for a damn fun deck with these, I think you're being (what's the word I'm looking for? obsequious?)... well, not serious here. If you get the deck to work well, I'll applaud you. If you beat me with it, I'll laugh, applaud you, then beat your head in. Banning or errata-ing either card will not happen, though. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > Eric Pettersen wrote: > > > > > Yes, it is. It's not very often that a bleed of more than 3 or 4 > > > will get deflected your way (and for a rush deck the amount of > > > stealth is irrelevent, since all it's vamps will generally be tapped), > > > without some sort of collusion, serious bluffing, etc. > > > > Well, if we're talking about about an RtI'ed bleed of 14+, clearly > > some serious bluffing occured. > > What? I come to kill you with my RtI. You deflect me? Oh, well, I > guess I'm sending this ten points of bleed somewhere else. I don't understand your point here. > > An RtI bleed of 14+ is pretty clearly an IC. An IC can fairly easily > > bleed for 8 (GtU/Conditioning). Still pretty bad. Nonetheless, either > > problem can be avoided by rushing all your predator's vampires that have > > superior Dominate or Auspex. > > Oh, that's all. Guess what? Sometimes that doesn't work. If they've > got Fortitude and you're the Brujah, you'll have a hard time sending > everyone to torpor. And if someone lives, they'll kill you. No one is > going to play RtI unless it's actually going to oust you, so it might as > well be "(D) oust your prey". A one-card-kill is so totally out of the > scope of all that is Jyhad that it's light-years away. I have no particular interest in defending RtI. In my playgroup it doesn't get abused, but that doesn't mean that it isn't abusable (_particularly_ before Mind Rape got fixed). I entered this thread when it was asserted that non-Auspex/Dominate clans had no recourse to RtI. I listed 4 cards that these clans could use to combat RtI. Clearly, also effective Rush will stop RtI. I think you have to concede that non-Dom/Aus clans do indeed have ways to stop RtI. Whether or not you _like_ the countermeasures is another matter entirely. For example, I feel that Archon Investigation is a completely wrong card and should be fixed or banned. [ quoted text not captured ]

Eric Pettersen wrote: > > > > Well, if we're talking about about an RtI'ed bleed of 14+, clearly > > > some serious bluffing occured. > > > > What? I come to kill you with my RtI. You deflect me? Oh, well, I > > guess I'm sending this ten points of bleed somewhere else. > > I don't understand your point here. You tell me: where's the bluffing? > I have no particular interest in defending RtI. In my playgroup it doesn't > get abused, but that doesn't mean that it isn't abusable (_particularly_ > before Mind Rape got fixed). I entered this thread when it was asserted > that non-Auspex/Dominate clans had no recourse to RtI. I listed 4 cards > that these clans could use to combat RtI. I don't clearly recall the list, but Archon Investigation, Protected Resources and Direct Intervention are all trump cards and are all borderline broken. If we ever get Jyhad started back up in Madison, we may very well ban these cards. And I shouldn't have to play with a trump card to deal with a card unless that card is broken. > Clearly, also effective Rush > will stop RtI. This is simply not the case in general. I know from experience. > I think you have to concede that non-Dom/Aus clans do > indeed have ways to stop RtI. I must do nothing of the sort. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin wrote: > > Legbiter wrote: > > > > O dear, got out of our coffin on the wrong side this evening did we? > > Rrrr... :) > > > Anyway, I'm sorry you're feeling so crotchety, and i'd just like to gently > > point out that if you misdirect someone else's RtI then that person has > > lost a really powerful vampire [and all the pool they invested in it, > > minus any reclaims] and they've got LESS THAT NOTHING out of it - because > > they've just strengthened their prey [most probably]. RtI is a risky card, > > But the person with the RtI isn't going to play it unless they know it's > going to succeed. Then _no-one_ would play it. There is never any certainty in Jyhad[*]. Your opponent might have an Archon Investigation saved up just for your RTI. Or maybe your predator plays a Direct Intervention to prevent you from becoming to powerful... > Despite what you seem to think should be the case, > not everyone plays with Dominate or Auspex. It's pretty easy to get a > bleed through against a deck like that. I should not be forced to play > with particular cards or with a particular kind of deck, just to defend > myself against one or two killer cards. If people are playing strong bleed decks you put in effective bleed defense... Simple. Don't just complain about their decks. > > and IMO it's just another bleed .. if your deck can't defend against big > > stealthed-or-unblockable bleeds, you're in trouble whether or not someone > > packs an RtI. > > But _without_ the (also broken) bleed-hoser cards, it's a "big bleed" > that will almost certainly oust someone. A bleed for 5 and a bleed for > 12 are very different things. > > > underlying assumptions. I guess the central one that i disagree with is > > that Jyhad is ABOUT balance, > > Well, yes. Different from almost every other card game, Jyhad has a > well-designed, balanced play environment for the most part. The game > does not _need_ broken cards, and shouldn't have them. > > James [*] Well that _was_ the case. The recent vote pushing rules make calling a vote, a lot more predictable. If Sum(opponentVotes)+numVoteDecks < Sum(callersVotes) Then PoliticalAction_Success() Else PoliticalAction_Failure() End If Now that is sad...(Tooo much VB for me! Damn you Bill!) -- Jeff

> > Betrayer/Recruitment... While I see the potential for a damn fun deck with > these, I think you're being (what's the word I'm looking for? > obsequious?)... I think it's FACETIOUS well, not serious here. If you get the deck to work well, > I'll applaud you. If you beat me with it, I'll laugh, applaud you, then beat > your head in. Banning or errata-ing either card will not happen, though. > > -Chris Wow, NOW who's being omniscient????? :-)

In article <6pbjj7$4u1$1...@shell3.ba.best.com>, go...@best.com (Gomi no Sensei) wrote: > In article <35B8FF...@du.edu>, Forrest Nielsen <fnie...@du.edu> wrote: > > >Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the > >bleed action any stealth. Block it if you don't want to take the > >bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, > >I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to > >avoid bleed attempts. > > Mr Nielsen: > > Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following > clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a > Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, > Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: > > Assamite > Brujah > Followers of Set > Gangrel > Nosferatu > Ravnos > > Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, > is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? > > gomi Also how do you stop the RTI when your down to a two player table? Raille [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6pl4le$deb$1...@amdint.amd.com>, "Mark Langsdorf" <mark.la...@amd.com> wrote: > >> Nah. Mind of a Child is no-stealth action and burnable and > expensive. > >> I get to see it coming. > > > >But the burning action is only +1 stealth. And TB is expensive, too - not > >much use against weenie fighters. > > > Yes, original-TB had it's weaknesses. Which were minor. > Mind of a Child has major weaknesses, and just isn't that powerful a > card. > You can't use it defensively when you get into a fight. The target can burn > it relatively trivially (sure, you Mind-Child'd Beast. Are you going to > block > Anvil when he takes Beast back to school? I didn't think so). > You are the only person so far who has complained about Mind of Child. > I don't see it as an issue. I'm NOT COMPLAINING. i NEVER argue for fixing cards, and i NEVER complain about them. I only supported bans because i think they are the less-objectionable of the options. I am pointing out that if you fix TB, MoC goes up in value because it does a lot of the same stuff. And yes, I would block Anvil because when he came out he would have had an MoC flopped on him quick as a wink. > > >> >Romantics like > >> >James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards > just > >> >need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex > for > >> >bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. > >> >Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. > >> > >> NO. > >> If every deck has to have bleed-bounce as a bleed defense, then deck > >> variety goes through the floor. I can't believe you're honestly > suggesting > >> that. (Not to mention there are lots of deck archetypes that fail > miserably > >> if you broaden their focus just a little - and sticking auspex into a > >> Nosferatu rush deck is broadening the focus a lot). > >> > >Whoa, i think you overstate your case just a little there, brother! A > > No, I don't. > > >Nossie deck with a smidgen of defensive aus or dom is still a nossie deck. > > > No, it's not. It's a dead deck, because Nossies don't have any cheap > Dom/Aus people in the first place (Judas is the cheapest at 6, and he's got > inferior dominate - and don't suggest I add Master Skills to add Disciplines > my vamps don't even have - hand jam city!). I was thinking more in terms of an off-clan defensive minion or two. The AUS tha Tremere lassie for 3 from DS is the one i would pick. > > >And these are not the only defenses available to a nossie rush deck, just > >the cheapest ones. Actually i'd back a nossie rush deck against the > >hypothetical RtI/Obedience thing you posted in response to the other > >comment i made in this thread, just because i think it would be lucky to > >get away with the number of obediences it would need to survive the rush. > > > You only need as many Obediances as I have minions - generally 2-3 a > turn. Okay, maybe I get a combat through irregularly. Great. What of it? > Unless I get the combat through *and* annihilate your vamp, you can > RtI me to death. I have to get the right sequence repeatedly to wear > you down. You have to get it once. A nossie deck ought to be able to kill its victim with one attack. That makes it equal. Peter Bakija, i am right about this aren't i? Anyway, now you seem to be implying that Nossie decks are just dead, period, because they have no strategy for dealing with big stealth-bleeds from dom decks. I am sure you don't really believe that! > > >Slightly off-topic, i think you guys are trying to have your vitae and > >drink it. If the only reason for playing Jyhad is to win, why not use the > >available cards to get there? The power-players aren't going to be stopped > >by 7/7, y'know - there are still MASSIVE bleeds that you can do without > >RtI, and HORRID combat strategies that will burn your beautiful vamps. If > >making a fun deck and playing as well as you can with it is enough, why > >are you so worried about losing to brutal power-players? "Purity" and > >"truth to the clan concept" are nice in a fun deck, no dah, but It seems > >to me you want to win with your fun decks more than you can reasonably > >expect to! > > I am trying to win. I'm just trying to be honorable in my victories and > not > use the broken cards. (Yeah, I'm handicapping myself here, but I don't > feel very good about Mind Rape/RtI/Day Op. What's the point?) > The deck I took to "I Think Therefore I Con" was a pretty standard > Brujah > rush deck. No broken cards in it, though. Jeff was playing what he admits > were abusive combos. I never had a chance. > "And when the eternal scorer comes To reckon up the game He writes not whether you won or lost But how you played the Game" I agree with you. I try to win "honourably", too. The difference is that i ACCEPT that there is a legal way to win "DISHONOURABLY", AND THERE ALWAYS WILL BE. All you do by fixing cards is force the power-players to invent new combos to whip your honourable ass [which they will do] and create a barrier [in the form of proliferating errata] against new players. I think this is a TRAGIC mistake.

In article <6pkl1m$o0k$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, > not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > > > generic big bleeds or votes should be able to deal with it. Romantics like > > James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just > > need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for > > bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. > > Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. > > (Side Note: "Generic" big bleeds require big bleeders and a combination of > cards, not just one card. Also, the cost of RTI, unfortunately, can be > gotten around by borrowing someone else's vampire.) > > You just did the same thing that a lot of anti-7/7 people are claiming is > being done to them: telling the rest of us how we should play the game. Oops, sorry. Did I? Did you? > Many anti-7/7 people are calling the RTR someone's version of house rules > that are being imposed on them. They instead say that the pro-7/7 people > should play with guns (anti-TB), Auspex/Dominate (anti-RTI), Rampage/Arson/SR > (anti-TOR). > > You know, I looked at Protected Resources as an RTI defense in my rush > decks, but at $20 a pop, there's no way I can afford to (and there's many > other, more useful cards I could buy for that much). When you consider that > a tournament prize might be a box of boosters (about $40 to $70 depending on > card set), you could actually LOSE money buying Protected Resources in an > attempt to make your Rush deck tournament viable. > > Are all the anti-7/7 people claiming that that's the way it should be? O dear, this is all getting too much for this little brain. Is winning really that important to you? Are you actually suggesting that the rules should be changed to make it easier for people with cheap decks to win tournaments? > > > Anyway, sorry to ramble on here ... i think maybe we should revisist this > > topic when i've accumulated a bit more data on whether there really ARE > > winning cards in my area, if possible comparing it to other people's > > experience. > > And meanwhile, as no one is capable of showing you repeatedly in your area > that the broken cards are broken, you continue to play with house rules and > espouse the new rulings. > Espouse ... don't you mean eschew? If i espouse something, i accept it. My first reaction was to write something equally snide and rude in response to this, but i won't. I'll just point out the objective fact that my area contains some dam' fine players, including Rob Treasure, who is European champion. Everyone plays with similar card pools down here. Rob usually wins in competitive play. We play with the current rulings, though sometimes we do so with an inner sigh. We play in real space about 3-4 times a week. I play online every day. I've been playing Jyhad since it first came out. So i do know how these cards work, believe me, and i also know how devastating they can be in the hands of a good player. And you know what? It doesn't bother me. I'm not a games theorist but i am a real, live, games player, and i'm convinced that i am articulating the common view of real, live game players in my area at least, and probably most of Europe, too. IMO, what is wrong with this argument is that you guys have constructed this concept of "brokenness" which actually has no objective reality. It is a mental construct deduced from certain assumptions about what the correct cost of a card should be, in relation to its benefit [also assessed subjectively]. WE DO NOT BUY YOUR ASSUMPTIONS. Thus, we do not accept that the concept of brokenness applies to Jyhad as it currently exists. And before someone trots out the "Oust your prey" card again, THIS DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T SEE THAT CARDS >COULD< BE RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOWERED. I REALLY think we have to get away from this absolute impasse of an argument. And, in my view and in Robert Goudie's view and in gomi no sensei's view, a good way to do this is might be to collect data. Let us see what the winning strategies actually ARE. If it turns out that one deck type or set of disciplines is winning consistently at tournament level, that's a bit boring. Maybe there might be a case for handicapping that deck-type. But PLEASE, let's do this on the basis of factual data, and not on the basis of a priori reasoning from unverifiable assumptions!!!!

Legbiter wrote in message ... >In article <6pl4le$deb$1...@amdint.amd.com>, "Mark Langsdorf" ><mark.la...@amd.com> wrote: > >> Yes, original-TB had it's weaknesses. Which were minor. >> Mind of a Child has major weaknesses, and just isn't that powerful a >> card. >> You can't use it defensively when you get into a fight. The target can burn >> it relatively trivially (sure, you Mind-Child'd Beast. Are you going to >> block Anvil when he takes Beast back to school? I didn't think so). >> You are the only person so far who has complained about Mind of Child. >> I don't see it as an issue. > >I'm NOT COMPLAINING. i NEVER argue for fixing cards, and i NEVER complain >about them. I only supported bans because i think they are the >less-objectionable of the options. Okay, you're forseeing our (the banners/fixers) complaint. But I still don't think we're going to complain about it. >I am pointing out that if you fix TB, MoC goes up in value because it does >a lot of the same stuff. And yes, I would block Anvil because when he came >out he would have had an MoC flopped on him quick as a wink. Maybe. I can see a fast MoC deck throwing stuff out like that, I suppose. You're still spending 3 blood for each MoC, you have to have a very delicate balance of cards (enough MoC for each important minion of predator and prey, some stealth to get a 0 stealth action through, and some intercept to block the minions trying to remove the MoC), and you aren't any closer to burning my vampires or ousting me. If you can post a deck that you think will be abusive, I'll see if I can get Jeff to build it and let me play it. I'll even tweak it in an attempt to make it more dangerous. [ quoted text not captured ] Blythe was errated to be THA aus, actually. So I need to put a couple of cheap weenies in my crypt to support disciplines I don't have normally in order to get my defenses going? Yeah, right. If I don't draw them in the initial crypt, I hand jam on my defenses. If I draw nothing but them in my initial crypt, I hand jam on my offense. And it still screws deck variety to say that every non-Dom/non-Aus clan needs to include Dom and Aus weenies to get bleed defense. >> You only need as many Obediances as I have minions - generally 2-3 a >> turn. Okay, maybe I get a combat through irregularly. Great. What of it? >> Unless I get the combat through *and* annihilate your vamp, you can >> RtI me to death. I have to get the right sequence repeatedly to wear >> you down. You have to get it once. > >A nossie deck ought to be able to kill its victim with one attack. That >makes it equal. Peter Bakija, i am right about this aren't i? Anyway, now >you seem to be implying that Nossie decks are just dead, period, because >they have no strategy for dealing with big stealth-bleeds from dom decks. >I am sure you don't really believe that! No, I don't. What I'm saying is that RtI has a *huge* swing effect, much greater than a GtU/Conditioning from an IC. Let's take a pretty standard example. I've brought out 2-4 minions and I'm down to 10-11 pool. You've brought out your IC member and a pair of weenies. Without RtI, if I rush the IC member and fail to kill it, you can bleed me for about 8 - painful as hell, yes, but I can live and if I can stop the weenies, I might be able to kill the IC member during my turn. At any rate, you have to be lucky at least twice, maybe three times, to get the oust. That's not quite luck, that's a pattern of superior playing. With RtI, I had a hand-jam for one turn. Oops! I'm ousted. You were lucky. Therefore you win? >> >> I am trying to win. I'm just trying to be honorable in my victories and not >> use the broken cards. (Yeah, I'm handicapping myself here, but I don't >> feel very good about Mind Rape/RtI/Day Op. What's the point?) >> The deck I took to "I Think Therefore I Con" was a pretty standard Brujah >> rush deck. No broken cards in it, though. Jeff was playing what he admits >> were abusive combos. I never had a chance. >I agree with you. I try to win "honourably", too. The difference is that i >ACCEPT that there is a legal way to win "DISHONOURABLY", AND THERE >ALWAYS WILL BE. All you do by fixing cards is force the power-players to invent Nope. Near perfection is attainable. Jyhad, 1st edition, under the Golden Tenets, was a very balanced game, with almost no trump cards that had a huge swing effect. You could be as abusive a power player as you wanted, and you still couldn't break the game. [ quoted text not captured ]

In a drunken fit of folly Legbiter's evil twin Toesucker wrote: > 4 Royce, 8 Nossies. Most of the time that will work. It will fail .33.... > to the power 4 times [once every twelve games] to give you a decent > defense in your starting crypt. It will fail the same proportion of times > to give you a decent offense. Oops, pardon my arithmetical incompetence. The true figure is that it will fail 2/3 to the power four times ..... 16/81, or slightly less than 1/4, to give you both a defense and an offence in your starting crypt. Not perfect, but cheap. And the point about Royce being a pinch-bleeder in a combat deck is still valid.

I've taken the liberty of snipping here and there where i think the remaining disagreement is marginal. > Okay, you're forseeing our (the banners/fixers) complaint. But I still > don't > think we're going to complain about it. Good. > > >I am pointing out that if you fix TB, MoC goes up in value because it does > >a lot of the same stuff. And yes, I would block Anvil because when he came > >out he would have had an MoC flopped on him quick as a wink. > > > Maybe. I can see a fast MoC deck throwing stuff out like that, I > suppose. > You're still spending 3 blood for each MoC, you have to have a very delicate > balance of cards (enough MoC for each important minion of predator and > prey, some stealth to get a 0 stealth action through, and some intercept to > block the minions trying to remove the MoC), and you aren't any closer to > burning my vampires or ousting me. > If you can post a deck that you think will be abusive, I'll see if I can > get > Jeff to build it and let me play it. I'll even tweak it in an attempt to > make it > more dangerous. A kind offer, but it isn't possible for me to build a deck that i consider abusive, because i don't accept the validity of the concept. > > > Blythe was errated to be THA aus, actually. K, thanks for the correction. > So I need to put a couple of cheap weenies in my crypt to support > disciplines > I don't have normally in order to get my defenses going? Yeah, right. If I > don't draw them in the initial crypt, I hand jam on my defenses. If I draw > nothing but them in my initial crypt, I hand jam on my offense. 4 Royce, 8 Nossies. Most of the time that will work. It will fail .33.... to the power 4 times [once every twelve games] to give you a decent defense in your starting crypt. It will fail the same proportion of times to give you a decent offense. Actually the odds are slightly better than this, because Royce could double as a pinch-hitter in this deck .. lay in a little dom-based offense for those happy moments when your valiant nossies have torporised all the competition ...... > And it still screws deck variety to say that every non-Dom/non-Aus clan > needs to include Dom and Aus weenies to get bleed defense. "Needs" is too strong. All i'm saying is that if you want a MONETARILY CHEAP, reliable, defense against big bleeds, this is one way to go. > > What I'm saying is that RtI has a *huge* swing effect, much greater than > a GtU/Conditioning from an IC. I agree with this. It is a risky, do-or-die card. A consistently successful Methuselah is therefore unlikely to rely on it. > >> > >> I am trying to win. I'm just trying to be honorable in my victories > and not > >> use the broken cards. (Yeah, I'm handicapping myself here, but I don't > >> feel very good about Mind Rape/RtI/Day Op. What's the point?) > >> The deck I took to "I Think Therefore I Con" was a pretty standard > Brujah > >> rush deck. No broken cards in it, though. Jeff was playing what he > admits > >> were abusive combos. I never had a chance. > > > >I agree with you. I try to win "honourably", too. The difference is that i > >ACCEPT that there is a legal way to win "DISHONOURABLY", AND THERE >ALWAYS > WILL BE. All you do by fixing cards is force the power-players to invent > > > Nope. Near perfection is attainable. Jyhad, 1st edition, under the > Golden > Tenets, was a very balanced game, with almost no trump cards that had a huge > swing effect. You could be as abusive a power player as you wanted, and you > still couldn't break the game. > Except using non-unique Fame, Day Ops/Recruit a retainer, Movement of the Slow Body, Rapid Healing, Day Ops/Recruit an ally, get rescued, Day Ops/Hunt. Then doing it again with your next famous vampire. O, and dedicated dom/obf stealth-bleed. But actually, I do agree with you that original Jyhad was better than what we have now. And to the extent that the rulings move us back that way, i like em.

one card archon investigation. if you don't have the 3 pool to pay for it, why is your preadtor using return instead of some less costly bleed card?? [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, not.av...@your.security.clearance (Legbiter) wrote: > In article <6pkl1m$o0k$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>, mboh...@my-dejanews.com wrote: > > You just did the same thing that a lot of anti-7/7 people are claiming is > > being done to them: telling the rest of us how we should play the game. > > Oops, sorry. Did I? Did you? Personally, people can use house rules for the local group as much as they want. But when I come to a tournament, I expect to play with the official rules, whatever those may be. And they've been pretty lame before. > O dear, this is all getting too much for this little brain. Is winning > really that important to you? In my local group, no, it's not important. I play to have fun, and winning has only a small part of having fun for me (maybe 5% of the total equation for fun). In a tournament, the mix of fun and winning goes to something more like 60% win and 40% fun. I'm not going to bitter and mean if I lose, it's just part of the game. But it will take away from my fun. Make sense? > Are you actually suggesting that the rules > should be changed to make it easier for people with cheap decks to win > tournaments? Yes. It's a game with a prize. Why shouldn't everyone have the same starting chance at the prize where deckbuilding and game play are a bigger factor than money to spend on cards. > > And meanwhile, as no one is capable of showing you repeatedly in your area > > that the broken cards are broken, you continue to play with house rules and > > espouse the new rulings. > > > Espouse ... don't you mean eschew? If i espouse something, i accept it. Yeah, my bad, sorry. > My first reaction was to write something equally snide and rude in > response to this, but i won't. Generally, I try to be polite as possible, but after reading numerous posts saying that because I think RTI needs fixing, I must have no imagination, rudeness is going to slip in. > know what? It doesn't bother me. I'm not a games theorist but i am a real, > live, games player, and i'm convinced that i am articulating the common > view of real, live game players in my area at least, and probably most of > Europe, too. The point the pro-fix people are advocating is that in a tournament, everyone can now have a fair shake at winning without having to either prepare specifically for decks using cards like TB and RTI or use them themselves. Most of the players I know, too, won't give a crap about the new rulings when it comes to our local games. They aren't going to use them. Nor is anyone trying to force them, too. However, I'm sure that the majority of them would agree that if played in a tournament, they'd love the new rulings because they don't have a lot of RTI, TB, AI, PR, TORIII, etc. > IMO, what is wrong with this argument is that you guys have constructed > this concept of "brokenness" which actually has no objective reality. In a game of pseudo-abstract concepts like V:tES, an objective analysis is nearly impossible. Btw, I have yet to see anyone reply to my Lasombra Thoughts Betrayed deck about how they would defend against it. > It > is a mental construct deduced from certain assumptions about what the > correct cost of a card should be, in relation to its benefit [also > assessed subjectively]. WE DO NOT BUY YOUR ASSUMPTIONS. What about TORIII where there is no assumption that has to be made. It is simply much better than anything comparable out there. > I REALLY think we have to get away from this absolute impasse of an > argument. And, in my view and in Robert Goudie's view and in gomi no > sensei's view, a good way to do this is might be to collect data. Let us > see what the winning strategies actually ARE. I think it would also be good to include data on what cards proved to be absolutely pivotal to changing the table situation. For example, there are three players in the game remaining. Two of them have 1 pool, and the third has 10 pool and is obviously going to win. However, one of the 1-pool players does an unblockable RTI on his prey after a Mind Rape, the 10-pool player, and ousts him (no deflecting disciplines, rush deck). > But PLEASE, let's do this on the basis of factual data, > and not on the basis of a priori reasoning from unverifiable > assumptions!!!! The problem is that you are also assuming that LSJ doesn't have any data of his own. He is not obligated by any means to reveal if he does or not. I'm not trying to be mean, but it is a possiblity, however remote. Mike -- Mike Bohlmann, MAIP "Sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here." -----== Posted via Deja News, The Leader in Internet Discussion ==----- [ quoted text not captured ]

Legbiter wrote: > > 4 Royce, 8 Nossies. Most of the time that will work. Except that every time I get a Royce I will wish it was a "real" vampire that I could use to kill someone. And if I want to get the next vampire from my crypt, I have to delay my development for a turn, or further dilute my deck with lots of Effective Management or Recruitment. This would make any deck a lot less successful. See also Peter Bakija's Deck that Only Works When he Gets Out Marty Lechthansi. He also had dominate for deflections, and his solution was to use huge vampires that had dominate as _well_ as the useful skills. But he realized that it's much more successful to use smaller vampires and take a bleed hit every now and then... barring the occasional RtI. > I agree with this. It is a risky, do-or-die card. A consistently > successful Methuselah is therefore unlikely to rely on it. Sure, you don't rely on it. But you can use it often to devastating effect. > > Nope. Near perfection is attainable. Jyhad, 1st edition, under the > > Golden Tenets, was a very balanced game, with almost no trump cards that > > had a huge swing effect. You could be as abusive a power player as you > > wanted, and you still couldn't break the game. > > > Except using non-unique Fame, Day Ops/Recruit a retainer, Movement of the > Slow Body, Rapid Healing, Day Ops/Recruit an ally, get rescued, Day > Ops/Hunt. Then doing it again with your next famous vampire. I think that Fame is one of the few cards where he has to say "almost". > O, and dedicated dom/obf stealth-bleed. Huh? Only under card limits. [ quoted text not captured ]

Legbiter (not.av...@your.security.clearance) wrote: : IMO, what is wrong with this argument is that you guys have constructed : this concept of "brokenness" which actually has no objective reality. It : is a mental construct deduced from certain assumptions about what the : correct cost of a card should be, in relation to its benefit [also : assessed subjectively]. WE DO NOT BUY YOUR ASSUMPTIONS. Thus, we do not : accept that the concept of brokenness applies to Jyhad as it currently : exists. And before someone trots out the "Oust your prey" card again, THIS : DOESN'T MEAN WE CAN'T SEE THAT CARDS >COULD< BE RIDICULOUSLY OVERPOWERED. : I REALLY think we have to get away from this absolute impasse of an : argument. And, in my view and in Robert Goudie's view and in gomi no : sensei's view, a good way to do this is might be to collect data. Let us : see what the winning strategies actually ARE. If it turns out that one : deck type or set of disciplines is winning consistently at tournament : level, that's a bit boring. Maybe there might be a case for handicapping : that deck-type. But PLEASE, let's do this on the basis of factual data, : and not on the basis of a priori reasoning from unverifiable : assumptions!!!! I agree that the argument is an impasse. This is what I see as why (and I'm probably mostly just restating your position above): You (and some others) don't like the new rulings, or don't like having rulings designed to 'balance' the game, because you don't see 'balance' as a desirable quality in Jyhad. I, and some others, believe that 'balance' is the coolest quality Jyhad has as a game. The cardset was (and could now be again) such that the relative power levels of cards was very even for the most part; there were (should be, in our opinion) no cards that are lots better than other comparable cards; no cards that break the appropriate-cost-for-appropriate- effect model that seemed to govern Jyhad. The result of this was a game where any number of different focused decktypes could be very successful, because the cards they used as building blocks, and the strategies that could be built out of those cards, were essentially balanced with regards to each other. You seem to feel that it's not really important whether or not it's possible to 'abuse' the rules, to construct 'dishonorable' decks that win a lot by using overpowered cards, because it's only a game. To some of us, what makes it an *enjoyable* game is the balanced quality it has (or should have). Because we don't really agree on what it is that makes Jyhad good in the first place, we naturally end up disagreeing on how (and whether) to balance the rules and the cards. And that's why we see increasingly heated arguments on this newsgroup: because people start yelling at each other because they don't understand why their opponents can't see the points they're trying to make. From our point of view, there *are* a priori considerations at work in card design and relative costing. Because of that, it's reasonable to make arguments about the cards based solely on logical analysis, as well as based on empirical results. It's because we're starting from different assumptions. It shouldn't be surprising that they lead us to different conclusions. But if you're interested in seeing some empirical data, that's all good too, since we 'theory-oriented balance' types are generally interested in facts too, at least sometimes. ;-) Josh and that's my tirade for the day

I still don't see how RtI is overly powerful. IMHO, in order to use it effectively in a multi-player game, the Meth would need to 1) bring out a large vampire (2 to 3 turns), 2) Minion Tap it (first card + another turn, if the card is present), 3) bleed another Meth (assuming he can afford to loose this vampire because a blocker is now gone), 4) use RtI (second card), 5) and then modify it with Day Ops or similar card to make it unblockable (third card). I think that most well-designed Stealth and Bleed decks are worse than this. Just my $0.02 Gomi no Sensei wrote: > In article <35B8FF...@du.edu>, Forrest Nielsen <fnie...@du.edu> wrote: > > >Have you ever heard of blocking? Return to Innocence does not give the > >bleed action any stealth. Block it if you don't want to take the > >bleed. And if you tell me that your opponent makes it a stealth action, > >I'd say you are foolish if you don't have intercept or other means to > >avoid bleed attempts. > > Mr Nielsen: > > Please succinctly and unemotionally inform us of how the following > clans, lacking as they are in bleed redirection, are to deal with a > Return to Innocence action modified with Day Operation, Daring the Dawn, > Concoction of Vitality, or Horrific Countenance: > > Assamite > Brujah > Followers of Set > Gangrel > Nosferatu > Ravnos > > Are these clans effectively barred from competitive play? And, if so, > is this, in your view, just and necessary, to wax briefly Catholic? > > gomi Merlisk V:EKN Prince of Dallas http://www.netcom.com/~merlisk/Links/jyhad.html SMAPMENO...@ix.netcom.com ------> Remove SMAPMENOT from my address before replying. <-----

On 27 Jul 1998, Jasper Phillips wrote: > In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, > Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> wrote: > > > >Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. "Broken" is a > >sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > >around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > >ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > >expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > >up top ..... > > No, I don't see that. When you chop off the salient problem cards, > new ones don't automatically pop up. One can very easily have a whole > forest of cards with power levels close to "3", and a few with power > levels "4", or "5". If you weaken/ban all the 4s and 5s, the > remaining 3s are fine -- "broken" doesn't mean most powerfull, just > too powerfull. > > IMNO this is how Jyhad is now, a bunch of power "3" cards. While I agree with you in general, I think you overstate your case. There remains a significant amount of power variation in V:tES. Some cards will have more effect on the game than others, and this is not necessarily a bad thing. I might, for instance, arbitrarily create the following power scale: 1: These cards are complete wallpaper. Even if you design a deck specifically to make use of them, you can always improve the deck by taking them out and putting in something else. Unlike broken cards, they are not a problem, as they can safely be ignored. They are merely a design mistake that affects the game only by reducing your number of available card choices by one. 2: These cards are significantly less powerful than average, and do not see play very often. However, they are occasionally useful in very specialized decks. 3: Average power. Useful in some decks, not in others. 4: A popular card of above average power. Seen in more than the average number of decks and often useful in multiples. Its popularity has a discernible effect on the metagame, with cards that counter it becoming increasingly popular as well, until its power is checked. It is not, however, useful in all competitive deck designs, and not all decks will be make more competitive by its inclusion. 5: Broken Card. This card will make most decks more competitive with few exeptions, and give those decks such a strong edge that strategies that cannot use the card become significantly less competitive by comparison. It is so discernibly better than many "Power 3" cards, that it can improve almost deck by replacing a power 3 card. Too many such "broken" cards reduce game variety by turning "2"s and "3"s into wallpaper by comparison, such that most cards printed are excluded from consideration when designing a deck. While perfect balance would be ideal, it is not attainable, and Legbiter is right that there will always be a few cards that are most powerful. But there are degrees of balance, and the more game balance you have, the greater is game variety and player design choice. The ultimate broken card imaginable would be one so powerful that one could put 80 of them in your library and be guaranteed to win against anyone who did not adopt the same strategy (essetially reducing variety to nil). Ultimate balance would be where all of the aproximately 1000 printed cards see game play with equal frequency. I do not expect ultimate balance. I expect a few cards to be wallpaper, though hopefully not many. I would like the game to be sufficiently balanced that an enormous variety of strategies are competitive, and the vast majority of printed cards see some play (though not necessarily with the same frequency). The danger of overpowered and broken cards is that they will dominate the game to the extent that most cards become wallpaper by comparison, and he who designs a competitive deck will have only, say, the most powerful 10% of cards printed to choose from. He must, in other words, not be choosing from 1000 cards, but from the 100 best cards. Thus the viable card set is reduced by 90%. It is acceptable that cards have slightly different power levels (say from 2 to 4 on the above scale), provided only that the power levels are not so different that the 2s never see play in comparison to the 4s. A card is "broken" when its presence actually reduces player design options. Once these are gotten rid of, you still will have variable power levels, but be at a point where banning the new "top cards" actually reduces variety rather than increasing it. It is at this point that the banning/fixing should stop. I hope this rambling message is comprehensible. Lupus Australis ____ ____ \ \----/ / |()__()| __\ __ /__ / __\()/__ \ |/ \==/ \| | || |

In article <Pine.SUN.3.96.980729234333.23889C-100000@amanda>, Lupus Australis <jbwh...@dorsai.org> wrote: >On 27 Jul 1998, Jasper Phillips wrote: [snip] >> IMNO this is how Jyhad is now, a bunch of power "3" cards. > >While I agree with you in general, I think you overstate your case. There >remains a significant amount of power variation in V:tES. Some cards will >have more effect on the game than others, and this is not necessarily a >bad thing. I might, for instance, arbitrarily create the following power >scale: [detailed disection snipped] Basically I agree, although I don't think that the most powerfull remaining cards are that far off of 3 compared to cards like the former RtI at 5, etc. What you say about wallpaper cards is true, but in my estimation wallpaper cards don't really affect the game, since they don't get played, and may as well not exist as far as game balance is concerned. Broken cards, as you point out, have an entirely different effect. -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

A more disturbing use of RtI (pre 7/7) is the 3 card combo: Mind Rape: Any large vampire on the table, preferably one of your prey's that has dom or AUS and thus might be able to deflect. Then RtI/Day Op with the Mind Raped Vampire. This can be acompliched in one turn and the cost is 2 blood and an action for Mind Rape. TG [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <not.available-2...@sm1-132.hs.port.ac.uk>, Legbiter <not.av...@your.security.clearance> writes >Hmmm, futurology ..... ok, the Legbiter crystal ball says Mind of a Child >will be next. Better than Thoughts Betrayed, really - almost like a cross >between TB and Pentex Subversion. However, it requires Dementation and isn't, therefore, available to a clan with kick-ass combat capabilities as Dominate can be - Euro-Brujah, Lasombra, Giovanni and Tremere are all bloody good at combat with the help of a friendly TB and they don't have the problem with getting either Dominate or a combat discipline. It's also an action (thus giving it a possibility of being blocked), costs a lot of blood (3) and has a built in burn clause. All of which adds up to making it a little more shaky than TB-Pentex. And it still allows the use of a lot of cards like Dodge!, Fake Out, Boxed In and, if your group allows it, Concealed Weapon to hit back. -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia) Change nospam to obeah to reply Vampire: Elder Kindred Network madnessnetwork.hexagon.net

Legbiter wrote in message ... >I've taken the liberty of snipping here and there where i think the >remaining disagreement is marginal. Fair enough. >> Maybe. I can see a fast MoC deck throwing stuff out like that, I suppose. >> You're still spending 3 blood for each MoC, you have to have a very delicate >> balance of cards (enough MoC for each important minion of predator and >> prey, some stealth to get a 0 stealth action through, and some intercept to >> block the minions trying to remove the MoC), and you aren't any closer to >> burning my vampires or ousting me. >> If you can post a deck that you think will be abusive, I'll see if I can get >> Jeff to build it and let me play it. I'll even tweak it in an attempt to make it >> more dangerous. > >A kind offer, but it isn't possible for me to build a deck that i consider >abusive, because i don't accept the validity of the concept. Excuse me while I pound my head into a wall. Okay, I grasp that you don't believe in abusive decks. Do you grasp that I believe in abusive decks? Yes? You are arguing that someone will build a deck that will cause me to say, "Mind of a Child is a broken card." I'm saying there is no such deck (I can't think of one) but I'm willing to be the test case to prove I'm wrong. Since you're the one who thinks such a deck can exist, would you please do me the favor of posting such a deck so I can get some empirical evidence? I'm willing to be reasonable. Us fixers might be going overboard on some issues. I'd like some data, though, whether or not it agrees with my assumptions. >> So I need to put a couple of cheap weenies in my crypt to support disciplines >> I don't have normally in order to get my defenses going? Yeah, right. If I >> don't draw them in the initial crypt, I hand jam on my defenses. If I draw >> nothing but them in my initial crypt, I hand jam on my offense. > >4 Royce, 8 Nossies. Most of the time that will work. It will fail .33.... >to the power 4 times [once every twelve games] to give you a decent >defense in your starting crypt. It will fail the same proportion of times >to give you a decent offense. Actually the odds are slightly better than >this, because Royce could double as a pinch-hitter in this deck .. lay in >a little dom-based offense for those happy moments when your valiant >nossies have torporised all the competition ...... <shrug> Bruise&Bleed is hard to do with a dominate clan. I'm not sure that doing it with a non-dominate clan is a good idea at all. >> And it still screws deck variety to say that every non-Dom/non-Aus clan >> needs to include Dom and Aus weenies to get bleed defense. > >"Needs" is too strong. All i'm saying is that if you want a MONETARILY >CHEAP, reliable, defense against big bleeds, this is one way to go. > >> What I'm saying is that RtI has a *huge* swing effect, much greater than >> a GtU/Conditioning from an IC. > >I agree with this. It is a risky, do-or-die card. A consistently >successful Methuselah is therefore unlikely to rely on it. Actually, no. I don't think it's a hugely risky card for the acting Methuselah - if the time isn't right, don't play it. If the time is right, play it. The defending Methuselah, though, doesn't have the option of choosing when the RtI is going to hit. Maybe you have a Wake and a Deflect in your hand... maybe not. You don't get to choose. But to a large extent, the active Methuselah gets to wait until he's Mind-Raped one of your vampires and you seem to be out of untaps. And yes, the active Methuselah gets to choose when to make a GtU/Conditioned bleed. But the difference is, a GtU/Conditioned bleed won't oust me when I'm at 10 pool. (And if its done using one of my own Mind-Raped vampires, it won't cost me a vampire even if I live). >> >I agree with you. I try to win "honourably", too. The difference is that i >> >ACCEPT that there is a legal way to win "DISHONOURABLY", AND THERE >>ALWAYS WILL BE. All you do by fixing cards is force the power-players to invent >> >> >> Nope. Near perfection is attainable. Jyhad, 1st edition, under the Golden >> Tenets, was a very balanced game, with almost no trump cards that had a huge >> swing effect. You could be as abusive a power player as you wanted, and you >> still couldn't break the game. >> >Except using non-unique Fame, Day Ops/Recruit a retainer, Movement of the >Slow Body, Rapid Healing, Day Ops/Recruit an ally, get rescued, Day >Ops/Hunt. Then doing it again with your next famous vampire. You forgot the Freak Drives. And that hunt should be a Restoration. =) Yeah, that deck is a problem. Sorry, I include Unique Fame as part of the GT, even though it isn't. >O, and dedicated dom/obf stealth-bleed. Dedicated dom/obf stealth-bleed was a very vulnerable deck archetype. A dedicated deflection deck laughed at it (Attempting to block, failing, waiting for the Conditioning, and then sending a +5 bleed at +2 stealth to its prey). A dedicated rush deck ate it because dedicated S&B can't include defenses. A dedicated intercept deck could match it. Not at all abusive. And hey, I thought you didn't believe in abusive players! >But actually, I do agree with you that original Jyhad was better than what >we have now. And to the extent that the rulings move us back that way, i >like em. But you think the cost (barrier to new players entering) is too high for the gains (old players get balanced decks)? [ quoted text not captured ]

> The danger of overpowered and broken cards is that they will dominate the > game to the extent that most cards become wallpaper by comparison, and he > who designs a competitive deck will have only, say, the most powerful 10% > of cards printed to choose from. He must, in other words, not be choosing > from 1000 cards, but from the 100 best cards. Thus the viable card set is > reduced by 90%. > > It is acceptable that cards have slightly different power levels (say from > 2 to 4 on the above scale), provided only that the power levels are not so > different that the 2s never see play in comparison to the 4s. > > A card is "broken" when its presence actually reduces player design > options. Once these are gotten rid of, you still will have variable > power levels, but be at a point where banning the new "top cards" actually > reduces variety rather than increasing it. It is at this point that the > banning/fixing should stop. > > I hope this rambling message is comprehensible. > Quite comprehensible, and well said. I think that states my position rather nicely. I don't mind Betrayer being a bad card, nor do I mind Dreams of the Sphinx being a good card. I do, however, mind RtI, ToRIII, etc. being super-powered cards. It's like having someone bet on Superman or Don Knotts in a fight. Who would *you* bet on? Well, I'd bet on the guy packing the RtI and stuff. And as for wallpaper... oh well, it sucks that they exist, but only because they take up room in my boxes. It just means that (say) 900 cards can be chosen from instead of 1000. I think this is better than forcing someone to choose from 10 cards. -Chris [ quoted text not captured ]

James Hamblin <ham...@math.wisc.edu> wrote: > Eric Pettersen wrote: > > > > > > Well, if we're talking about about an RtI'ed bleed of 14+, clearly > > > > some serious bluffing occured. > > > > > > What? I come to kill you with my RtI. You deflect me? Oh, well, I > > > guess I'm sending this ten points of bleed somewhere else. > > > > I don't understand your point here. > > You tell me: where's the bluffing? Look, were talking about a deflected IC RtI here. With the Mind Rape and Soul Gem "loopholes" closed, nobody but a drooling moron is going to RtI their IC member into a prey that's ready and capable of bouncing the bleed. If that's the kind of RtI play you're seeing, you need to find some friends with higher IQs. Given that we _are_ discussing a deflected IC RtI, and given that we're _not_ talking about drooling morons, then the Meth that played the RtI must have thought there was a good chance of success (and was wrong); i.e. he tapped out all his prey's bounce-capable minions and recently drew out some Wakes and/or deflections with other bleeds or actions. The element of bluff is the prey possibly "playing possum" to draw out the RtI bleed while stll being able to deflect. That's the "serious bluffing". > > > I have no particular interest in defending RtI. In my playgroup it > > doesn't get abused, but that doesn't mean that it isn't abusable > > (_particularly_ before Mind Rape got fixed). I entered this thread > > when it was asserted that non-Auspex/Dominate clans had no recourse > > to RtI. I listed 4 cards that these clans could use to combat RtI. > > I don't clearly recall the list, but Archon Investigation, Protected > Resources and Direct Intervention are all trump cards and are all > borderline broken. If we ever get Jyhad started back up in Madison, we > may very well ban these cards. And I shouldn't have to play with a trump > card to deal with a card unless that card is broken. As I said before, you may not like the counters (I don't like AI or PR either), but you can't declare that RtI forces all clans to have bleed bounce as if these counters didn't exist. They do exist. They haven't been banned or errataed. > > > Clearly, also effective Rush > > will stop RtI. > > This is simply not the case in general. I know from experience. I did use the qualifier "effective". Rush clearly _can_ stop RtI. It's not 100% effective. I don't know that any counter should be 100% effective to anything, but that's a different argument. At any rate, Rush is another tool in the arsenal to use against RtI, along with the other methods mentioned. > > > I think you have to concede that non-Dom/Aus clans do > > indeed have ways to stop RtI. > > I must do nothing of the sort. Your arguments for the most part have merit. They would be even stronger if they didn't ignore obvious facts such as: AI is legally playable in VTES under current rulings. AI will stop RtI every time. Non-Aus/Dom clans can play AI. Non-Aus/Dom clans can stop RtI. Your argument, I believe, is actually: Non-Aus/Dom clans can't stop RtI without resorting to broken cards. That's a defendable proposition (though I personally don't completely agree). [ quoted text not captured ]

Eric Pettersen wrote: > > Your argument, I believe, is actually: > Non-Aus/Dom clans can't stop RtI without resorting to broken cards. That about sums it up. Having one broken card that stops another broken card doesn't make either of them not broken. Just like in Magic, the existence of "counterspell" doesn't make "time walk" any less broken. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 25 Jul 1998, Legbiter wrote: [On How various clans deal with RtI, without Bounce] > > Assamite [And Brujah and Gangrel and Nosferatu and Ravnos (with slight text change for solution)] > Rush the big guy before he has a chance to take his action. Kill him. The problem with this theory is simple: The moment that a combat fails to stop a minion a standard "big bleeder" can certainly be damaging. The moment that a combat fails to stop a RtI deck's minion can mean the ousting of that player. > > Followers of Set > Put Pentex Subversion on the big guy before he has a chance to take his > action. Then corrupt him. This means, then, that you have to make sure that you have an equal number of Pentex Subversions to his big minions, that you stop his attempts to remove all of them, and you get the Corruption counters on him? This can work, yes, but not consistently enough to be considered a valid defense against RtI. One could say that you should put vampiric disease on all of his minions, have multiple Strained Blood Supply, XTC lace blood all of his minions, and Cryptic Mission him clean... (heeh.. I had a deck that did that... was actually viable with a nice SPTR banned list. I love this game.), and would that be a defense against RtI? Not really. The problem with RtI is that it can do the work of multiple cards all by itself, and do it with absolutely no hint that it was going to do so... A Bruise and Bleed, a Combat deck, a Stealth and bleed... Any of these can suddenly just kill you and it is over. You can't expect to have defenses for this card successful on any particular predator, whether or not they have a hint of playing the card, and have it ready at all times, just because the card exists. The only real defenses for this card are all in the "broken" camp: Direct Intervention Archon Investigation Protected Resources If you don't feel these cards are broken, then stop now. Start a new thread. Let's debate it. But, given that they are (my starting premises), that means your only real consistent answers are other broken cards (or Bounce). [Re: Feeling that the Problem others have is not the Card but Combos with the Card] > a > point i have made repeatedly, and that has never been answered, is that if > you ban a card because you don't like a combo in which it is involved, > then someone will invent a new combo involving different cards that kicks > ass. RtI does more than just "kick ass". It literally forces an opponent to have dedicated cards to it. OTOH, let's say we have a combo deck (RL example: a friends Ravnos Trap/Drawing Out The Beast/ Fortitude deck)... In combats, this deck could regularly torporize nearly any combat deck that it faces... With Rush, and Bruise n Bleed tactics, it was able to get into combats, and light intercept, it could block the hunters trying to recover. It would get into combat with its "KickAss" combo. Some of the newer players would constantly complain about the deck and its over-effectiveness. Did it have to be banned, or some part of it banned? No. Standard combat defenses were fine against the deck. The deck would tend to trump Weapon or Brujah combat, but lose worse to S:CE and other Fortitude combat than other combat decks. You see, the banning of these few singular cards, or the rewriting of them, wil NOT cause mass bannings because combos themselves aren't the problem. The problem are cards that SCREAM: Deal With Me. RtI is such a card. > Then you will get fed up about that, and you will want to ban another > card, and so on until we all end up playing Uno. Doesn't this seem a > somewhat futile exercise to you? Don't you think it might be fun to accept > that there are clever chaps and chappesses out there who WILL come up with > spiffy combos, and instead of trying to sabotage their efforts by changing > the rules, try to beat them at their own game by inventing better combos? The problem with an imbalanced card set is that it actually LIMITs the number of viable combos. Since deck space needs to be dedicated to these cards, the removal of these cards frees up deck space. Some combos simply cannot compete with the overpowered nature of these broken cards as well, and their removal clears up space for other combos. To use an example from another game, Magic: The existence of Power Cards at the ProTourLA98 (Cursed Scroll) limited the number of viable decks to roughly 4. Pros and players everywhere called for the banning of the card previous to the tourney, and testing from all over the world (there was ambiguity if it would be legal or not, and thus decks were tested in both environments) showed that the number of viable decks more than TRIPLED with the banning of one card. Currently for ProTour Rome Qualifiers, that card is banned, and the number of viable deck types seems extremely large. Broken cards limit the number of viable options, not increase them. @#$ 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++**?

The Corrupter <sull...@cslab.uwlax.edu> wrote: > Not really. The problem with RtI is that it can do the work of multiple > cards all by itself, and do it with absolutely no hint that it was going > to do so... A Bruise and Bleed, a Combat deck, a Stealth and bleed... Any > of these can suddenly just kill you and it is over. You can't expect to > have defenses for this card successful on any particular predator, > whether or not they have a hint of playing the card, and have it ready at > all times, just because the card exists. > > The only real defenses for this card are all in the "broken" camp: > > Direct Intervention > Archon Investigation > Protected Resources I don't personally agree about DI, but even positing DI as "broken" you are ignoring Major Boon as a countermeasure. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Legbiter wrote: > We want to fix the combos that take 2 or 3 > > borderline > > abusive cards and turn them into one massive abuse. The combos that take > > 2-3 normal cards and turn them into a nice effect are quite okay. > > No one is going to say "Trap-Theft of Vitae-Walk of Flame" is an abusive > > combo. > Hmmm, i wish i had your faith in inhuman nature, brother. If you follow the history of this newsgroup, you'll find the same cards called for again and again when the question of balance came up. You'll find issues that were solves with the Golden Tenets of Jyhad (NRA, No Vote Push). You'll find that that is it. There is no reason to believe more will happen. >"Broken" is a > sliding concept that actually means "most powerful card/combo currently > around". You do see that, don't you? If you define a card's cost/power > ratio with respect to all other cards, then when you lop off the most > expensive one the others all go up in price, and someone is going to end > up top ..... In a balanced game like Jyhad, while certain cards may be universally viewed as more powerful, that doesn't mean they will mystically become broken when the current broken cards are removed. Broken has been defined elsewhere as not the "most powerful". See my earlier post on the subject. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 28 Jul 1998, Legbiter wrote: > I've never seen the problem with RtI - it is just > another big bleed, and it takes quite a bit of finesse and preparation to > bring it off as a game-winning card. Anyone alert can spot an RtI coming a > MILE off, and any deck that has an effective defensive strategy against > generic big bleeds or votes should be able to deal with it. Romantics like > James H who want to win with an all-clan deck and no expensive cards just > need to bend their iron principles a little - stick in a bit of auspex for > bleed-bounce and Fast reaction, using the cheap aus/AUS guys 'n' gals. > Wotsername the fat Tremere lassie works well here. Hmm. Here's the issue. Pretend, for a moment that RTI didn't exist. The number of viable deck types would greatly increases. This, combined with the fact that the power (in terms of swing effect) of RTI is that of SEVERAL bleed cards, is clanless, and whose blood cost (given the effect) is minimal make RTI worth removing. In an RTI-free environment, "Romantics" like Hamblin wouldn't have to seriously kill _every_ single vampire their prey put into play, with 100% acuracy before that vampire can act. They could afford to occasionally fail and not get ousted. "Romantics" could play decks as they would desire to design them, rather than include cards whose existence in their deck is solely to deal with a single card. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 1 Aug 1998, Eric Pettersen wrote: > The Corrupter <sull...@cslab.uwlax.edu> wrote: [Regarding RtI] > > The only real defenses for this card are all in the "broken" camp: > > Direct Intervention > > Archon Investigation > > Protected Resources > I don't personally agree about DI, but even positing DI as "broken" you > are ignoring Major Boon as a countermeasure. <ASIDE> Eric, I have to say I generally enjoy your posts. You tend towards the analytical (which is great), your disagreement is usually something that is pliable (I've seen you willing to listen to opposing viewpoints, etc.), and beyond that, you're a NeXT user. </ASIDE> (Just had to mention it. I've enjoyed your posts for a few years...) Regarding your actual post here, I have to get back on track, after all... Major Boon is a defense against Bleed in general. As such, like Bleed all bleed defense, it has faults. In the case of a hard-line threat like pre-7/7 RtI, Boon requires too many factors to be acceptable: a bleeder grandpredator (if you want to punish your prey), a predator who won't try to milk it out of hand, a non-ousted Boon recipient..., etc. Too many factors are simply out of your control with Major Boon to consider it a "good" RtI defense. [ quoted text not captured ]