On Wed, 2 Feb 2000 tetragr...@my-deja.com wrote:
> I still think that without (card) limit a player can abuse of a single
> cards or pair of cards,
No, they can't. There are many ways in which plaing of cards is limited,
such that getting to abusive levels is very, very difficult, if not
impossible.
If "abusing" master cards, you have to fight for master phase actions -
Anson, Rumors, Parthenon - or just play 1 per turn.
If abusing action cards, you can only play one per minion, or need to be
able to untap via one or two cards like Freak Drive or Alexandra.
If abusing action modifiers, you can only play 1 of a named action
modifier per minion per action (meaning you can't just go in and throw
down 25 threats and win).
If abusing stealth, you can't play excess stealth to what is needed via
multiple sources.
If abusing reaction cards, each minion can only play one named reaction
per action.
If abusing intercept, you can't play excess intercept to what is needed
via multiple sources.
If abusing equipment, you have cards like Drawing out the Beast, Immortal
Grapple and Frenzy (the latter of which could be mildly interesting, since
it stops equipment, rather than weapon strikes).
If abusing votes, they can only play 1 vote card (i.e. political action
card) per vote, including the one they use to call it (so they can throw
one from their hand if calling to burn the Elysium, but not if they are
calling Kine Resources Contested).
If abusing retainers, you can fire from long range at them, and they have
to die then.
If abusing allies, they just die easily.
If abusing non-vampires, use Camarilla Segregation, or for equipment,
Peace Treaty.
If abusing vampires, contest them, brainwash them, Trick of Danya,
Banishment - whatever.
*Each* facet in the game is so tightly honed by the rules that you can't
'abuse' them in the fashion yo usuggest.
> unbalancing the game, not in the ways he will
> automatically win most of the rounds, but in the ways that he will make
> (un)life impossible, or at last very nasty, for one or more Methuselahs
> at the table.
Including himself.
*However*, do you ever go into a game thinking that you won't need pool?
Everyone expects to lose pool somehow. If they don't, they're very, very,
very stupid. You can't block everything, you can't deflect everything,
you can't beat every vote. You're going to lose pool. If you don't have
some pool gain in your deck, you're dead. And that's all you need to
neuter Anarch Revolt long enough to kill it.
> We could imagine that the so "I-crush-my-prey with-20-Brainwashes"
> players will soon shunned by the rest of "good" players, but in a
> no "legal" way.("Brainwash" is just an example, i know that it is by no
> means risolutive).
No, because you can only play 1 per turn. If you can play more than one
per turn, through whatever means, you have missed the first couple of
turns to be able to do that anyway.
If you don't have small enough vampires in your deck, you're going to have
to watch out for such things anyway. The Trick of Danya and Cairo Int'l
Airport, whilst uncommon, are not unknown by any means. If you do have
small enough vampires in your deck, you can bring one of them out in one
turn.
Also, once you've played four (let us imagine) on my vampires, you're
stuck. You have 20 cards in your deck, and are pulling them and they're
jamming your hand. V:TES doesn't have a constant replace mechanism - you
have to play or discard first, which is very slow in the situation you're
in.
> "No legal" because, after all, with no card limit any player has the
> full right to rely heavily on just (very) few card.
Indeed. V:TES was *designed* for that. In Magic, there was no set of
rules like "You may only play 1 of each named Instant per turn" or "You
may not play more than one of the same interrupt in a batch" or "You can
only cast one Creature card per turn". Nothing like that. So Magic went
for a card limit to *try* and balance it (whether it succeeded is a very,
very different argument).
V:TES, seeing that, was built from the ground up with all the restrictions
on playing cards - you can only play 1 strike, you can't endlessly cycle
maneuvers, since you can't cancel your own, same with presses, only one
source of additional strikes per round, all the bleed modifiers (save 1)
have "no more bleed mods" on them (action modifiers, that is). And so on.
They had already seen what would happen in No Limits environments and
consciously coded the game to suit that. I can't just storm a vote by
throwing down 27 Bewitching Orations. I can't play that many per action.
> Even if are
> not "kill you now" cards in Vtes,
The only one of that nature was, eventually, banned in DCI tournaments -
Return to Innocence.
> it's like to play poker with a deck
> made only of Aces and Kings.
Everyone has the same options. And there are very few strategies which
cannot be countered with *common* cards. At worst, uncommon. I cannot
think, off the top of my head, of any strategies requiring rare cards to
counter them.
e.g. rush decks - I use plenty of maneuvers to get away so you can't
immortally grapple. Bleed decks, I use plenty of deflections or
intercept. Vote decks, I use dread gaze, Surprise Influence, Political
Action cards, intercept. Anarch Revolt, I use Sudden Reversal, or votes
in my deck.
> Maybe someone else can come out with deck
> made only of Straights, but i don't call it a very fair game.
You're missing a very important point.
Let us say we are playing poker, both of us with different decks (to
simulate Jyhad). I bring my deck along, and can only play Full Houses,
say. You bring along your deck and can only play Two Pairs.
Fine. My deck beats yours. That's to be expected.
Jyhad is not Poker, to state the blindingly obvious. Let us assume that I
have the best, best, best bleed deck in the world. I can cause huge
amounts of pool loss very, very quickly. Great! It's like a deck of Full
Houses.
Now, you're playing your Two Pair deck. But, since you haven't gone so
hell for leather on one strategy, you could play Two Pair, One Pair -
maybe the odd three of a kind. Maybe someone turns up to your game and
says "Okay, let's play Low Hand as a variant". Then, I'm going to trash
you.
So, let's put that into V:TES. I come along with my 27 Anarch Revolt deck
- my Full House deck, let's say. You come along with your Two Pair deck.
I can only play Anarch Revolts. Now, you can do a lot of things - none of
them to quite such a level as me, but you're not so focussed. You can
rush me into combat. I don't have a defence against that. You can bleed
me. I don't have a defence against that. You can call votes. Now, I do
have a defence against that - but I'm hoping to use them to protect the
Anarch Revolt. Which is more important, stopping your Consanguineous
Boon, or stopping your "Destroy Anarch Revolt" vote? You have lots of
pool gain. I can't do anything about that. You stand still, and the
Anarchs don't do anything. You play Corruption, I have no defence against
that. You play the Betrayer deck, I have no defence against that. I play
an Out of Turn Malkavian Rush deck - you can't play Sudden Reversal to
stop the Rotschreck, nor do you have enough of a defence in other ways
(Obedience, maneuvers, whatever).
So, if I hit you in the right places, I win. You forgot to think about
any other strategy.
One of the best players in the UK is Rob Treasure. One of his best decks
is the Legacy of Pander deck. With only 8 copies of a card maximum, that
I recall, a card limit isn't going to touch the deck.
Deck available at:
http://x37.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/
getdoc.xp?AN=526050809&CONTEXT=949579456.1339883553&hitnum=1
It's one of the strongest decks I've seen. And it doesn't use 20 of any
card. Those decks which *do* use 20 of any card tend to be very, very
fragile. Any concerted thought will get around them.
> Don't misunderstand me, no limit card is by no means equal to cheating
> for me!!
No one ever implied it was.
I am mystified as to why playing by the rules could ever be considered
cheating.
> I think too that, to says: "Well, other (good) decks can counterbalance
> the unbalancing of your deck" is no too good,
Rubbish. Jyhad is a game of strategy vs counter strategy. It is not a
race to see which person can get their deck to work first. It is game of
interaction.
> because to counterbalance
> a deck that relies on 30 Master card, we need (in most cases) a
> 20 Sudden Reversal card deck.
No we don't. No we don't at all.
Provide an *unbalancing* 30 master card deck that can *only* be overcome
by 20 Sudden Reversals. Don't just talk out of your hat. Provide a cast
iron example of a deck that needs 20 Sudden Reversals to counter it.
Many master cards of a 'powerful' nature are tempered by burn clauses,
expense and so forth. And they are *all* tempered by the number of master
phase actions you have.
>(this is just another example).
> That means, in the end, "unbalancing deck X" VS "unbalancing deck Y".
Try reading a tournament report every now and then. It means nothing of
the sort.
> Of course this is speculation, the truth still comes from the many
> games we play at Vtes with the corrent rules.
With the "correct" rules? What, you play with no card limits? Those are
the correct rules. No rules set for the game gives a card limit. Your
uses of words like "correct" and "'official'" suggests you don't
understand what the actual state is.
--
James Coupe