[LSJ] Michael Luther fixing suggestion

Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call him broken: Capacity: 4 Discipline: aus pre Camarilla: You may tap Michael during a referendum to change the votes of a Camarilla vampire to votes of your choice. When Michael enters combat, you may draw 1 card. Discard down to your hand size afterward. A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was untapped. Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, and even if I'd manage to torporize him, this wouldn't change much, as he can use his ability even in torpor! If this isn't enough to call him broken, let's check his point cost. Normal 4-cap vampire should have 3 points... so, BOTH his abilities cost just ONE point? It's too generous for a small vampire. I suggest changing his first ability to "change the votes of any Prince or Primogen to votes of your choice". Michael will still remain very powerful, but not as broken as he is now. At least, voting decks with Justicars and Inner Circle members would have some chances against this terrifying weenie. Yours, Ector

Ector wrote: > Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call > him broken: I can't quite tell if you're taking the piss, or not. Assuming you're serious: > A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with > two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael > Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was > untapped. He can only _change_ the votes. Call the vote, have both princes vote "for", reserve the Inner Circle vote. Michael can then change one of the princes to vote "against". If he does so, the Inner Circle can then vote "for" (Vote passes 6-2 plus whatever other votes are at the table). If he doesn't change a prince vote, then the Inner Circle doesn't vote (Vote passes 4-0 plus whatever other votes are at the table). Alternatively, finesse the order that you call referendum in, so that he taps on the "wrong" referendum. You could also appeal to, or bribe, the rest of the table to vote for you. -- * lehrbuch (lehr...@gmail.com)

> Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call him broken i heard vote is dead anyway, since DU is banned and the Bowl of Convergence is here, so why bother?

Ingrid Russo & Kindred Coersion are worse. And she doesn't even have to tap. Ingrid Russo, !Ventrue, 4-cap, for DOM Kindred Coercion Reaction Dominate X blood Only usable during a referendum. [dom] Cancel the votes of X vampires. The affected vampires cannot be older than this reacting vampire. [DOM] As above, but change the votes of the affected vampires to votes of your choice. "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote in message news:1108336106.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ]

> Ingrid Russo & Kindred Coersion are worse. And she doesn't even have to tap. > > Ingrid Russo, !Ventrue, 4-cap, for DOM > > Kindred Coercion > Reaction > Dominate > X blood > Only usable during a referendum. [dom] Cancel the votes of X vampires. The > affected vampires cannot be older than this reacting vampire. [DOM] As > above, but change the votes of the affected vampires to votes of your > choice. Except for that entire "cannot be older" clause, of course... It's an evil card, particularly when Arika chats with her Elder Kindred Network. As for the ability being too potent, I'm not sure, as was mentioned it can only change a vote, not make a vampire vote. It is quite strong, though. Derek Rawlings

lehrbuch wrote: > Ector wrote: > > Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call > > him broken: > > I can't quite tell if you're taking the piss, or not. Assuming you're > serious: I'm quite serious. I have to be really serious in this situation. > > A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with > > two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael > > Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was > > untapped. > > He can only _change_ the votes. Call the vote, have both princes vote > "for", reserve the Inner Circle vote. Michael can then change one of > the princes to vote "against". If he does so, the Inner Circle can then > vote "for" (Vote passes 6-2 plus whatever other votes are at the table). > If he doesn't change a prince vote, then the Inner Circle doesn't vote > (Vote passes 4-0 plus whatever other votes are at the table). Thanks for your advice... I just lack the experience needed to play voting decks. But I still have just +4 votes, so Michael "steals" 4 votes from me - isn't it too good for a 4-cap vampire? > Alternatively, finesse the order that you call referendum in, so that he > taps on the "wrong" referendum. Great! So, I should waste an action and a card JUST to make a 4-cap weenie tapped? Why don't you suggest Mind Numb or similar cards? If I need to waste an action of 8-cap Prince and a card just to tap a 4-cap vampire, it should be obvious that the weenie is broken. > You could also appeal to, or bribe, the rest of the table to vote for you. What if I cannot? After all, I'm playing a deck that should have a lot of votes, and I pay a good price for them. If anyone can pay just 4 pool to ruin my game, it's very bad for the game. Ector

[ quoted text not captured ] I don't know where you could hear it... personally I NEVER said anything like that. At least if you play voting deck with Obfuscate, Forgotten Labyrinth allows you to easily get past the Bowl, and even Lost in Crowds would be enough. Ector

Derek Rawlings wrote: > > Ingrid Russo & Kindred Coersion are worse. And she > doesn't even have to tap. Even if Kindred Coercion WOULD allow changing the votes of older vampires, this "combo" would still be worse than Michael Luther's ability. Firstly, this requires a card... how many Coercions you are going to put? Secondly, this requires some blood. But it doesn't work anyway, so let's forget about it :) > As for the ability being too potent, I'm not sure, as was mentioned it can only > change a vote, not make a vampire vote. It is quite strong, though. You're not sure? Shall I make a few examples to make you sure? Here you are: 1). Michael Luther + Presence skill card in an intercept/voting deck. He can use his Auspex to block the first political action (in case someone tried to "force him to tap", for instance), play Majesty and UNTAP. 2). Michael Luther + Alexandra. You play a political action, tap your Luther to push it, then untap him with Alexandra, and push the second political action! Ector

> > As for the ability being too potent, I'm not sure, as was mentioned it > can only > > change a vote, not make a vampire vote. It is quite strong, though. > > You're not sure? Shall I make a few examples to make you sure? Here you > are: > > 1). Michael Luther + Presence skill card in an intercept/voting deck. > He can use his Auspex to block the first political action (in case > someone tried to "force him to tap", for instance), play Majesty and > UNTAP. "Firstly, this requires a card..." Three, actually, (Presence, Auspex Intercept, Majesty) and a MPA... and intercepting vote actions is a generally effective way of stopping vote decks, and doesn't make Michael any stronger than say... Brazil, or if you want the Majesty effect then Barth. > 2). Michael Luther + Alexandra. You play a political action, tap your > Luther to push it, then untap him with Alexandra, and push the second > political action! Which can never be better than a Bewitching Oration, though his ongoing ability to do it is rather effective. Keep in mind though that unlike a comperable Ventrue Headquarters, Michael is far more difficult to protect, being easily rushable, and with the caveat that you haven't had to use him to block something. Yes, he makes a great addition to a vote deck, and can seriously cripple a vote deck's ability to do what it wants, but broken? I don't think so. Had I been playtesting him I would have said that both his abilities together were too strong, and his ability is exceptional when compared to say Katherine Stoddard (though she is also Black Hand). Besides, if he's really causing you too much trouble, make a deal with a cross table combat deck and have him dumped. Derek Rawlings

Ector wrote: > Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call > him broken: > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. > A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with > two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael > Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was > untapped. Not true. You had 8, reduceable to 0 if his ability were used on your IC. Which is once per turn. After which, you would again have 8 for subsequent votes. You don't mention the rest of the table, nor any card play. If this is the sum total of anti-vote tech at the table (and you can nearly counter every other cardplay with your own, you are a vote deck remember), then you can still pass every vote you call. That PA card is worth 1 vote remember? > Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, Banishment should be fairly effective. Coupled with might of the camarilla even. Heck, play him in your own deck and contest him already! > I suggest changing his first ability to I suggest adapting your play. He's not broken, but he is powerful...if you vote, and if only once per turn. G

talonz wrote: > Ector wrote: >>Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call >>him broken: >> > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. Correct. Before searching for fixes, first show that it is broken. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

On 13 Feb 2005 22:52:30 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: >Thanks for your advice... I just lack the experience needed to play >voting decks. But I still have just +4 votes, so Michael "steals" 4 >votes from me - isn't it too good for a 4-cap vampire? That's why you have to tap him. Don't underestimate that cost - it's 4 pool one has to invest in a way to "steal" votes. Sure, its cost can be retrieved back... But Michael Luther's controller has to prepare to defend him also. It has its disadvantages depending on metagame issues. He's a vampire, not a master card, so if one is using him just for vote defense, it's 4 pool invested on a vampire who won't bleed, won't hunt, won't do anything but sit there pretending to be a master card. Not to mention that there must be votes for him to steal in the first place - otherwise he's just a crappy 4-cap Toreador. In a table where votes are more sparse, like many Princes/Archbishops/Bishops/Barons/Primogens scattered, he won't make a huge difference. A Ventrue Headquarters (which costs only 1 pool and requires specific location-affecting cards to deal with) would be a better investment if you want votes. >> Alternatively, finesse the order that you call referendum in, so that >he >> taps on the "wrong" referendum. >Great! So, I should waste an action and a card JUST to make a 4-cap >weenie tapped? Why don't you suggest Mind Numb or similar cards? >If I need to waste an action of 8-cap Prince and a card just to tap a >4-cap vampire, it should be obvious that the weenie is broken. I don't get it. You would need to do the same if, say, your predator controls an intercept location (assuming you don't have stealth available) and a mere 1-cap Caitiff. So what's the difference? Most decks have to deal with it all the time. "Bait" actions are a given - for a multitude of reasons. Why vote decks shouldn't need to prepare for that? >> You could also appeal to, or bribe, the rest of the table to vote for >you. >What if I cannot? After all, I'm playing a deck that should have a lot >of votes, and I pay a good price for them. If anyone can pay just 4 >pool to ruin my game, it's very bad for the game. >Ector It's just a situation where you should look again at your deck and see how to adapt it to the Michael Luther possibility - the same a player would do when upgrading his vote deck to cope with, say, a Tzimisce wall player regularly showing up, or a sudden increase of rush decks in a playgroup, or even a Lasombra vote deck using lots of Kindred Coercions. Michael Luther is not broken, he's just one more factor to deal with. best, Fabio "Sooner" Macedo V:EKN National Coordinator for Brazil -------------------------------------- Now a "luminary", whatever it means: http://www.thelasombra.com/WhosWho/fabiomacedo.htm

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ector wrote: | Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call | him broken: Remember, kids, Ector doesn't play in a normal environment, has no conception of a 'normal' metagame, and has admitted this himself. It's wisest not to take whines like this seriously, although this one is so obviously a whine that it shouldn't need a warning. | Capacity: 4 | Discipline: aus pre | Camarilla: You may tap Michael during a referendum to change the votes | of a Camarilla vampire to votes of your choice. When Michael enters | combat, you may draw 1 card. Discard down to your hand size afterward. If you're playing vote decks that only call one vote per turn, don't blame Michael; your deck sucks. | A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with | two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael | Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was | untapped. Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, and even if | I'd manage to torporize him, this wouldn't change much, as he can use | his ability even in torpor! | If this isn't enough to call him broken, let's check his point cost. | Normal 4-cap vampire should have 3 points... so, BOTH his abilities | cost just ONE point? It's too generous for a small vampire. HA! You got owned. Face it kid, sometimes you lose. Others have shown you how you could have avoided losing in this situation. But really, sometimes you just lose. Pack alternatives next time, grow up, and STFU. - -- Derek insert clever quotation here -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCEKWktQZlu3o7QpERAnTDAKDhqGL/PjQKb8tDfZaZXas3gKTv6wCgiBU+ gQFaj0PgIvRw81H4xC7WI9U= =fQ4H -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

talonz wrote: > Ector wrote: > > Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily > call > > him broken: > > > > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. > > > > A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with > > two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael > > Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was > > untapped. > > Not true. You had 8, reduceable to 0 if his ability were used on your > IC. Which is once per turn. After which, you would again have 8 for > subsequent votes. > > You don't mention the rest of the table, nor any card play. If this is > the sum total of anti-vote tech at the table (and you can nearly > counter every other cardplay with your own, you are a vote deck > remember), then you can still pass every vote you call. That PA card > is worth 1 vote remember? Or use Telepathic Vote Counting to cancel your own votes after Michael Luther changes them. John

Ector wrote: [lehrbuch] > > He can only _change_ the votes... > Thanks for your advice... I just lack the experience needed to > play voting decks. But I still have just +4 votes, so Michael > "steals" 4 votes from me - isn't it too good for a 4-cap > vampire? Not especially. Of course, he's quite good, but only in the case when someone else happens to be playing Camarilla voting vampires. It's just one of the (many) risks of concentrating large numbers of votes (or anything else) on a single vampire - the votes are vulnerable to being screwed with by a single effect. At least Michael Luther's not likely to send your Inner Circle member to torpor. Anyway, passing by 4 votes is still a referendum that passes. Slightly less exciting from a Voter Captivation point of view, maybe, but you can still get your 2 pool. > > ...finesse the order that you call referendum in... > Great! So, I should waste an action and a card JUST to make a 4-cap > weenie tapped? No. You should spend an action to increase the chances that another action is successful, that's not a waste if the second action is worthwhile. Calling the "wasted" referendum might also draw out intercept and other vote interference effects. Also, Michael Luther's controller has to make a decision about whether to tap on the first referendum, or not. If he saves Michael anticipating a second referendum, then don't call it - bleed or do something instead. No actions wasted. > What if I cannot [bribe the table]? You have the wrong cards in your deck, then. Put in some "Bribes", "Consanguineous Boon", "Disputed Territory", "Parity Shift", "Anathema" etc. Players can usually be convinced to vote for something else, in return for such benefits. > After all, I'm playing a deck that should have a lot > of votes, and I pay a good price for them. If anyone can pay just 4 > pool to ruin my game, it's very bad for the game. Clearly, your deck can't actually pass referendum when there is a trivial amount of opposition. This could well be a issue of deck design rather than game design. -- * lehrbuch (lehr...@gmail.com)

Ector wrote: >Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call him >broken: Uhh, no. Really. He is a handy vampire. But for him to work: -He needs to be untapped (i.e. not doing anything). -He needs to be sitting next to you, otherwise, why does he care? -You need to not have a vote action modifier in your hand -You need to not be able to garner any political help from someone across the table. In the situation you mentioned (you have 2 Princes and an IC Member, you predator has Michael Luther), barring any other input from the table, you pass any vote you want: -Call a vote. Have one Prince vote for it. If Michael changes the vote, have the IC member vote for it. Boom. You win. Or -Call a vote. Have all of your vampires vote for it. ML changes your IC vote to "No". You win 'cause you have the +1 vote from the PA card. Or you play a Bewitching from your hand on one of the vampires that didn't have their vote changed. Or whatever. ML is handy anti-vote tech, sure. But he only works on one vote per turn, has to not be taking actions to do so, is easy to get around with action mods or careful distributing of votes, and can be worked around simply by getting help (which is both one of the strengths and weaknesses ot political decks). Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "How does this end?" "In fire." Emperor Turhan and Kosh

In message <1108336106.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call >him broken: A word of advice. Given how people have reacted to your other protestations of doom, gloom and how things are, when you are tempted to post "<X> is broken", I would suggest writing a post which is, instead, called "I'm having trouble with <X>. Any help?" And then write an appropriate post for that title. Asking for, and critically engaging with, assistance is likely to get you far more respect and useful responses. Then, if you find that there is no useful advice, move on to issues of overpowered or broken. >Capacity: 4 >Discipline: aus pre >Camarilla: You may tap Michael during a referendum to change the votes >of a Camarilla vampire to votes of your choice. When Michael enters >combat, you may draw 1 card. Discard down to your hand size afterward. > >A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with >two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael >Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was >untapped. Why weren't you including other sources of vote in your deck? Vote cancellation isn't unheard of. Other people also voting isn't unheard of. With a Vox Senis on a table, say, that and the odd political card is enough to cramp your style early on. Having other methods of vote push is useful++. Even then, if you have two vote cards in your hand, which is he going to act on? Call a Consanguineous Boon. Is he going to stop that, or wait for the damage vote he thinks you're holding? But wait, with that Con Boon and a Voter Captivation, you could get 5 pool (say). Does he want to stop that? Then on the damage vote you play the Voter Captivation and get a couple of pool or two and do him three damage. >Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, and even if >I'd manage to torporize him, this wouldn't change much, as he can use >his ability even in torpor! Erm, with 8 votes, you're probably going to survive a Blood Hunt. So you get him into torpor and then diablerise him. Additionally, playing a voting deck doesn't mean you *only* have to include votes! It's perfectly acceptable, indeed sensible, to include (say) pool gain which you use for a Sub Machine Gun, or capitalise on your buffer of pool with a tasty ally, or whatever. If there's one thing a Camarilla vote deck should be able to do well, it's gain pool. Not only have you got good Presence, you've got good mono-clan options (should you choose) for Consanguineous Boon and, with two Princes, you have one of the best cards in the game - Parity Shift. If the options above don't appeal for spending your pool, what clan are you playing? Ventrue? Well then, let's drag out a Hostile Takeover. You can afford the pool - you're *planning* for it. How much pool are they willing to spend to keep him? You should be either able to extort pool or steal him. A good result both ways. Not playing Ventrue? What are your Justicar options like? Temptation of Greater Power. This is not the game destroying card it once was, culling soul of vampires everywhere. But if you have the opportunity to include it in a deck with pool gain, it's a significantly strong card. Don't like the above? 5 of the Inner Circle have Presence. Leandro, Alexandra, Gwendolyn and Arika have PRE, Harrod has pre. The others are Nosferatu (Harrod) and Tremere (Etrius). Yes, you could be including either of them in an unconventional vote-y deck. But you have 5 options with PRE/pre. And your other vampires may well have Presence too. Want a good card? Mind Numb. Tap them now AND next turn. Want another option? Even if you don't have Presence? That old Jyhad stalwart, Misdirection. Tap 1 vampire, 1 pool. And you can generate the pool. Hell, just play Bribes. You don't even have to win the vote, you get a pool! Are these specific defences against a single vampire? No. Vote push, pool gain and/or secondary threads to your deck (allies, equipment, theft of vampires, whatever) are generally useful. Methods of tapping vampires are generally useful. Want to get a bleed through? Tap the vampire first. Worried about Delaying Tactics? Tap the vampire first. At least that way they waste a Wake too (if they have one). A vote deck has the potential for *huge* amounts of pool, if it's trying. You should be strong at manipulating other people's resources, and your own. The vote deck, of course, has the option of Banishment. Not so great on a small vampire, but if you could (as you suggested) get him in torpor, he was losing blood. You call a vote and send him to torpor. Do I bring him back out? That's another pool, or two, or three. Sure, you probably wouldn't include it just for him - which is good - but if the opportunity comes up, it's worth considering. And if you're playing an Inner Circle vote deck, Banishment is always on your "consider" list. You're playing big vampires and have lots of votes. These things work *well*. >If this isn't enough to call him broken, let's check his point cost. >Normal 4-cap vampire should have 3 points... so, BOTH his abilities >cost just ONE point? It's too generous for a small vampire. "Tap to" for any ability is a big cost. He can't act. If his Methuselah is calling votes, he's paying four pool to cancel your votes, and not acting with it. A good use of pool? Well, maybe. Questionable. Why not just include some free vote push instead? Sure, it might work out well this way, but... Is he using him to cancel your votes? Well, for a start, he doesn't know if you're going to be playing a vote deck, or with Camarilla vampires. That's a risk. Sure, he gets an okay vampire at the end of it, but for 4 pool (if no-one else is playing a vote deck), he's probably underpowered. Look at Mariel, for instance. In Jyhad, 7s got 7 points (pretty much) and Mariel's ability is "tap to". It's a good ability, but it's expensive. Draw a card on entering combat isn't that great. It's good, but he's not that great a vampire to use it effectively - if it was on a combat monster, say, it would be huge. With aus/pre, you don't generally want combat. You probably want cel to make offensive combat a realistic possibility. So you're either bleeding (and defending) or blocking (and defending). Oh look. Blocking taps you. Bleeding taps you. The two abilities aren't mutually exclusive - you could be rushed, say - but it's hard to use both effectively. Even if you go for PRE, anti- S:CE tech is hardly unheard of (especially in your combat heavy playgroup, perhaps). And if he *is* seriously good, anyone with resource manipulation tactics could try and take him out. Banish him, rush him, whatever. Vampires with good abilities have a "KILL ME NOW" sign lit above their head. Your deck doesn't have any way to manipulate vampires and only plays straightforward votes damage votes with a little pool gain and nothing else? Too bad. Thankfully, there are other decks that can be done better. -- James Coupe "Why do so many talented people turn out to be sexual PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D deviants? Why can't they just be normal like me and EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 look at internet pictures of men's cocks all day?" 13D7E668C3695D623D5D -- www.livejournal.com/users/scarletdemon/

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Ector wrote: > > >Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call him > >broken: > > Uhh, no. Really. Agreed. Except: > In the situation you mentioned (you have 2 Princes and an IC Member, you > predator has Michael Luther), barring any other input from the table, you > pass any vote you want: > > -Call a vote. Have all of your vampires vote for it. ML changes your IC vote > to "No". You win 'cause you have the +1 vote from the PA card. Or you play a > Bewitching from your hand on one of the vampires that didn't have their vote > changed. Except that ONLY the acting minion can play the Bewitching, so 'one of the vampires that didn't have their vote changed' is not always legal. > Or whatever. ML is handy anti-vote tech, sure. But he only works on one vote > per turn, has to not be taking actions to do so, is easy to get around with > action mods or careful distributing of votes, and can be worked around > simply by getting help (which is both one of the strengths and weaknesses ot > political decks). Again, agreed. Ector's suggested that you could do the following with Michael: > 1). Michael Luther + Presence skill card in an intercept/voting deck. > He can use his Auspex to block the first political action (in case > someone tried to "force him to tap", for instance), play Majesty and > UNTAP. Assuming he has the blood to play Majesty and is actually facing a voting deck; if your opponent has a combat deck, especially one that gets around S:CE with something commonly played like IG or Psyche, Michael is usually NEVER going to block anything for fear of being smeared along the ground like floor wax. And also: > 2). Michael Luther + Alexandra. You play a political action, tap your > Luther to push it, then untap him with Alexandra, and push the second > political action! Which fails should people at your table have non-Camarilla votes. Not that anybody plays with big Sabbat or Independent vampires, eh? And it's not like Toreador have had problems pushing votes without Michael either. Admittedly the Alexandra trick is a pretty good one, and is a pretty nice example of optimizing a limited-use power. > Peter D Bakija -John Flournoy

Fabio "Sooner" Macedo wrote: > On 13 Feb 2005 22:52:30 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: > >Thanks for your advice... I just lack the experience needed to play > >voting decks. But I still have just +4 votes, so Michael "steals" 4 > >votes from me - isn't it too good for a 4-cap vampire? > > That's why you have to tap him. Don't underestimate that cost - it's 4 > pool one has to invest in a way to "steal" votes. Sure, its cost can > be retrieved back... But Michael Luther's controller has to prepare to > defend him also. First: not only his cost can be retrieved back, but he also can bleed, hunt, resque from torpor, etc. etc. Even without ANY other Camarilla vampires on the table he's worth at least 3 pool, but he still has 4 blood, not 3, and his second ability also worth something. And you should bother of defending him only if a Camarilla voting deck would make a deal with a Rush deck, as voting decks generally cannot rush, and Rush decks generally don't play politics, so they would prefer to Rush older vampires. > It has its disadvantages depending on metagame > issues. He's a vampire, not a master card, so if one is using him just > for vote defense, it's 4 pool invested on a vampire who won't bleed, > won't hunt, won't do anything but sit there pretending to be a master > card. He's a vampire that CAN bleed and hunt if there wouldn't be any votes to change. > Not to mention that there must be votes for him to steal in the first > place - otherwise he's just a crappy 4-cap Toreador. In a table where > votes are more sparse, like many > Princes/Archbishops/Bishops/Barons/Primogens scattered, he won't make > a huge difference. A Ventrue Headquarters (which costs only 1 pool and > requires specific location-affecting cards to deal with) would be a > better investment if you want votes. Ventrue are considered to be masters of the politics. Ventrue HQ is good, but another voting deck has a chance of stealing it with Disputed Territory. Almost all kind of decks can handle locations, but only Rush decks can "handle" vampires. Needless to say, Camarilla vampires with votes are very popular. If you play Camarilla, you will generally have at least one Prince on the table, and that's enough to use Luther. > > >> Alternatively, finesse the order that you call referendum in, so that > >he > >> taps on the "wrong" referendum. > >Great! So, I should waste an action and a card JUST to make a 4-cap > >weenie tapped? Why don't you suggest Mind Numb or similar cards? > >If I need to waste an action of 8-cap Prince and a card just to tap a > >4-cap vampire, it should be obvious that the weenie is broken. > > I don't get it. You would need to do the same if, say, your predator > controls an intercept location (assuming you don't have stealth > available) and a mere 1-cap Caitiff. So what's the difference? OK, I really HAVE stealth. And I can steal the intercept location, but I cannot do anything with Michael Luther except for contesting him. > Most decks have to deal with it all the time. "Bait" actions are a > given - for a multitude of reasons. Why vote decks shouldn't need to > prepare for that? Again, it would be fair if I was forced to waste an action of 7-8 cap Prince to tap a vampire of equal capacity (say, Carna). But if I'm forced to "exchange" a large vampire for Michael, this isn't fair. > It's just a situation where you should look again at your deck and see > how to adapt it to the Michael Luther possibility - the same a player > would do when upgrading his vote deck to cope with, say, a Tzimisce > wall player regularly showing up, or a sudden increase of rush decks > in a playgroup, or even a Lasombra vote deck using lots of Kindred > Coercions. Michael Luther is not broken, he's just one more factor to > deal with. I have some tools against Tzimisce... PTO is very good against them, especially with Elder Impersonations. Kindred Coercion is harsh, but it requires a large vampire, not just a 4-cap! When I lose a political action to Kindred Coercion, we just "exchange" one card to another. But I really can't do anything with Michael Luther without adding a lot of cards ESPECIALLY against him (Mind Numbs and so on). And these cards would definitely spoil my deck. Ector

John Flournoy wrote: > Except that ONLY the acting minion can play the Bewitching, so 'one of > the vampires that didn't have their vote changed' is not always legal. Well, yeah, that. Unless you are, umm, playing a Daughters vote deck! Who have that "gain votes if you aren't the acting minion" modifier! Take *that* Michael Luther! [ quoted text not captured ]

> I have some tools against Tzimisce... PTO is very good against them, > especially with Elder Impersonations. Kindred Coercion is harsh, but it > requires a large vampire, not just a 4-cap! When I lose a political > action to Kindred Coercion, we just "exchange" one card to another. But > I really can't do anything with Michael Luther without adding a lot of > cards ESPECIALLY against him (Mind Numbs and so on). And these cards > would definitely spoil my deck. > > Ector Except that you CAN do A LOT of things against Michael Luther, MANY of which have been expanded on in this thread. 1) Order the casting of your votes carefully. 2) Banishment. 3) Anathema to convince combat players to burn him for 4 pool. 4) Hostile Takeover (if Ventrue) 5) Wait for him to change your votes, then use Telepathic vote counting to cancel the votes of the changed vampire. 6) Play with him yourself (Democritus' special is nice if you end up contesting) 7) Use Telepathic vote counting to retrieve the vote after Michael Luther taps. All of these are useful cards in many vote decks in their own right - they shouldn't be "spoiling your deck".

> Well, yeah, that. Unless you are, umm, playing a Daughters vote deck! > Who have that "gain votes if you aren't the acting minion" modifier! > Take *that* Michael Luther! In which case Michael Luther probably can't use his special anyway, since they aren't generally going to get Camarilla titles. Take *THAT* Michael Luther! Ankur

lehrbuch wrote: > Ector wrote: > [lehrbuch] > > > He can only _change_ the votes... > > > Thanks for your advice... I just lack the experience needed to > > play voting decks. But I still have just +4 votes, so Michael > > "steals" 4 votes from me - isn't it too good for a 4-cap > > vampire? > > Not especially. Of course, he's quite good, but only in the case when > someone else happens to be playing Camarilla voting vampires. Looks like NOBODY is playing Camarilla now? There are multitude of good titled vampires, so the chances of meeting they are rather high. > It's just > one of the (many) risks of concentrating large numbers of votes (or > anything else) on a single vampire - the votes are vulnerable to being > screwed with by a single effect. At least Michael Luther's not likely > to send your Inner Circle member to torpor. Imagine I had only two Princes... the same effect, -4 votes for me. The same for three Princes, so the votes don't have to be on a single vampire. > Anyway, passing by 4 votes is still a referendum that passes. Slightly > less exciting from a Voter Captivation point of view, maybe, but you can > still get your 2 pool. But the other players may also have votes! I have to pay at least 11 pool to get these 4 votes, and a tiny 4-cap weenie can steal them each turn... and you still consider it fair? > > > ...finesse the order that you call referendum in... > > Great! So, I should waste an action and a card JUST to make a 4-cap > > weenie tapped? > > No. You should spend an action to increase the chances that another > action is successful, that's not a waste if the second action is > worthwhile. Calling the "wasted" referendum might also draw out > intercept and other vote interference effects. > > Also, Michael Luther's controller has to make a decision about whether > to tap on the first referendum, or not. If he saves Michael > anticipating a second referendum, then don't call it - bleed or do > something instead. No actions wasted. What if he ALWAYS uses Michael? Should I play two actions each turn just to get the second one passed? What if he would use Michael to make the first referendum fail, then another player will just block the second one? > > What if I cannot [bribe the table]? > > You have the wrong cards in your deck, then. Put in some "Bribes", > "Consanguineous Boon", "Disputed Territory", "Parity Shift", "Anathema" > etc. Players can usually be convinced to vote for something else, in > return for such benefits. If you are going to oust your prey, at least two players (your prey and your predator) would be against you. They may allow Consangineous Boon or even Disputed Territory if you give them the location, but not Kine Resources Contested or Reins of Power. You and your allies may have more votes, but Michael Luther is very likely to shift the balance to their side. So, you will be unable to win. > > After all, I'm playing a deck that should have a lot > > of votes, and I pay a good price for them. If anyone can pay just 4 > > pool to ruin my game, it's very bad for the game. > > Clearly, your deck can't actually pass referendum when there is a > trivial amount of opposition. This could well be a issue of deck design > rather than game design. What do you call "trivial amount of opposition"? Michael Luther plus combined 5 votes of my predator and prey against my 8 votes? The opposition would be really trivial if Michael wouldn't be so broken. Ector

> > A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with > > two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael > > Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was > > untapped. > > Not true. You had 8, reduceable to 0 if his ability were used on your > IC. Which is once per turn. After which, you would again have 8 for > subsequent votes. > > You don't mention the rest of the table, nor any card play. If this is > the sum total of anti-vote tech at the table (and you can nearly > counter every other cardplay with your own, you are a vote deck > remember), then you can still pass every vote you call. That PA card > is worth 1 vote remember? > > > Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, > > Banishment should be fairly effective. Coupled with might of the > camarilla even. Heck, play him in your own deck and contest him > already! If the guy is giving you problems consistently the obvious answer is to include a few copies of him in your own deck. Contesting him would certainly stop him and he could be very useful even if your opponents doesn't play him - now YOU steal the votes of Leandro (or whomever). Alternatively, there is a nifty 6 cap primogen with superior presence.... Victoria Ash (Toreador Primogen, Capacity 6, Group. 2) Disciplines: aus cel dom PRE Ability: Victoria can tap a younger ready vampire as a +1 stealth (D) action She isn't Arika, but she could go into a Ventrue deck fairly easily. Paid for by just one Voter Captivation and a Minion Tap. Just a thought. Heck Alexandra can be used to tap any toreador. But she might be a bit on the expensive side - especially as a potential contested vampire :) IMO Michael Luther is below Voter Captivation on the political power curve (I am not saying that VC is too powerful - but actually ML is one of the things keeping VC in check). Frede

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Ector wrote: > > >Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call him > >broken: > > Uhh, no. Really. > > He is a handy vampire. But for him to work: > > -He needs to be untapped (i.e. not doing anything). Not a big deal for a weenie. > -He needs to be sitting next to you, otherwise, why does he care? Your grandprey may wish to deny your KRC or Reins of Power if you are ousting your prey. But nevertheless, most cards are working against you only in hands of your predator or your prey. > -You need to not have a vote action modifier in your hand As John Flournoy said, Michael is likely to change votes of the acting vampire, if there are no better targets. But playing Daughters of Cacophony is an interesting idea... thanks a lot for it. Doesn't make Luther less broken, though. > -You need to not be able to garner any political help from someone across > the table. Or the help may be insufficient. Your predator and prey may also have their votes. > In the situation you mentioned (you have 2 Princes and an IC Member, you > predator has Michael Luther), barring any other input from the table, you > pass any vote you want: > > -Call a vote. Have one Prince vote for it. If Michael changes the vote, have > the IC member vote for it. Boom. You win. Only if having 4 votes would be enough. Don't you agree that "Tap: you have -4 votes for this referendum" ability is too strong for a 4-cap vampire with two disciplines? > Or > > -Call a vote. Have all of your vampires vote for it. ML changes your IC vote > to "No". You win 'cause you have the +1 vote from the PA card. Or you play a > Bewitching from your hand on one of the vampires that didn't have their vote > changed. > > Or whatever. ML is handy anti-vote tech, sure. But he only works on one vote > per turn, has to not be taking actions to do so, is easy to get around with > action mods or careful distributing of votes, and can be worked around > simply by getting help (which is both one of the strengths and weaknesses ot > political decks). I guess I should admit that my current deck isn't a "true voting deck". It's a DOM/OBF stealth-bleed deck with some political actions (usually not more than 10). Generally I have Arika and Gilbert Duane, sometimes accompanied with Greger Anderssen. Now imagine that I have all three mentioned vampires, my prey has 3 votes (one Priscus), and my predator has one Prince and the dreaded Michael Luther. Now what? I simply cannot push Parity Shift, Reins of Power, Banishment or PTO... anything! I simply have no "extra" political actions to tap Luther, and I have no Bewitching Orations, as most vampires have no Presence. So, I'm forced to discard my political actions... and then my predator can use Luther to push HIS political actions. You may call my deck stupid (I admit that it's too aggressive), but I managed to win a lot of games with it. Unfortunately, Michael Luther actually makes me lose 4 votes, which is definitely too good for a weenie. Ector

Ector wrote: > There are multitude of good titled vampires, so the > chances of meeting [Camarilla voters] are rather high. No kidding. Michael Luther's ability is quite good. No question about that. It's not *always* going to be useful, however. > Imagine I had only two Princes... the same effect, > -4 votes for me. Nope. He "gains" the votes of one prince (only two votes). > The same for three Princes, so the votes don't have to be > on a single vampire. Yes, they do. If you have three princes the worst that can happen (due to Michael Luther) is that he steals 2 votes. You have four on the other two princes. > But the other players may also have votes! Really! So your problem, then, isn't Michael Luther, but not having more votes than the table. > I have to pay at least 11 pool to get these 4 votes, > and a tiny 4-cap weenie can steal them each turn... Can steal them, for a single referendum, by tapping. That's not quite the same thing. > and you still consider it fair? Yes. > What if he ALWAYS uses Michael? Should I play two actions > each turn just to get the second one passed? If you need to. Why not? Of course you could try and remove Michael Luther, but you don't seem to want to try that. > What if he would use Michael to make the first referendum > fail, then another player will just block the second one? Sucks to be you. What if, like, one player blocked your first referendum and then *another* player blocked your second referendum! OMG! Intercept is broken! > If you are going to oust your prey, at least two players (your prey and > your predator) would be against you... Of course, other players are unlikely to be very keen on votes that give you ousts, but surely they might vote for intermediate KRCs and the like. Afterall, KRC comes with a built in bribe option (distribute the damage according to whom you want to vote). > What do you call "trivial amount of opposition"? Michael Luther plus > combined 5 votes of my predator and prey against my 8 votes? Ah. You weren't talking about 5 votes controlled by your predator/prey before. That's different. Your predator/prey have invested considerably more than 4 pool and one minion, for a start. -- * lehrbuch (lehr...@gmail.com)

On 14 Feb 2005 14:33:45 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: >Fabio "Sooner" Macedo wrote: >> On 13 Feb 2005 22:52:30 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: >> >Thanks for your advice... I just lack the experience needed to play >> >voting decks. But I still have just +4 votes, so Michael "steals" 4 >> >votes from me - isn't it too good for a 4-cap vampire? >> >> That's why you have to tap him. Don't underestimate that cost - it's >4 >> pool one has to invest in a way to "steal" votes. Sure, its cost can >> be retrieved back... But Michael Luther's controller has to prepare >to >> defend him also. >First: not only his cost can be retrieved back, but he also can bleed, >hunt, resque from torpor, etc. etc. Even without ANY other Camarilla >vampires on the table he's worth at least 3 pool, but he still has 4 >blood, not 3, and his second ability also worth something. As cleverly pointed out before, his second ability is not that useful. It would be if he was suited for combat, and he isn't. If you're thinking of "but I can always be lucky to get him im combat with no S:CE in hand and draw one due to his ability"... I guess we have a problem. I do not usually count on luck unless I have no better choice, like being not able toi ntercept a rush against him. And you >should bother of defending him only if a Camarilla voting deck would >make a deal with a Rush deck, as voting decks generally cannot rush, >and Rush decks generally don't play politics, so they would prefer to >Rush older vampires. Well, that's not my experience. In 90% of the time I've seen Michael Luther rushed as soon as his ability is used, if not just after he's influenced out. The reasons are simple. - He's a perfect target for Fame/Dump/Rescue/Dump again combat decks. - His ability is usable during any referendum, so a lot of combat decks that use Camarilla vampires with a few votes can be seriously harmed by not being able to diablerize because of him. There are a multitude of Tremere, Nosferatu, Brujah and even group 1 Gangrel decks that can be able to diablerize with impunity given the right circumstances, and Michael is far threatening to them - since they can't use vote-enhancing modifiers - than he is for vote decks. - If he's being used to actively gain votes for his controller, who happens to be playing damaging votes, he's way more of a target for a rush predator or prey. To add to that, evey vampire you really intend to use fully and can not actively deal with combat must be defended. Otherwise you're just wasting pool with him, or you influence him out just to take a few actions, get most or all of his blood back and forget him. I don't think Michael applies. There are cheaper, better cannon fodders than him if you're not using his special, and if you're using, that's silly to not defend him. > A Ventrue Headquarters (which costs only 1 pool >and >> requires specific location-affecting cards to deal with) would be a >> better investment if you want votes. >Ventrue are considered to be masters of the politics. Ventrue HQ is >good, but another voting deck has a chance of stealing it with Disputed >Territory. Almost all kind of decks can handle locations, but only Rush >decks can "handle" vampires. I guess that's why V HQ costs 1 and Michael used as a Master Card costs 4. The point is not that if he is easier or worse to get rid of. The point is that his cost is a little high if you don't take actions with him. Sure, no big deal if one plays him and is capable of good poolgain, but still, he's not a powerhouse on his own right, he needs a setup to be put to good use. As any other handy tool a vote (or anti-vote) deck could use. >Needless to say, Camarilla vampires with votes are very popular. If you >play Camarilla, you will generally have at least one Prince on the >table, and that's enough to use Luther. But not enough to actually prevent a god vote deck to pass the votes it needs. For him to make that difference, one needs to pack more anti-vote tech, or votes of his own. Setup is the key. >> I don't get it. You would need to do the same if, say, your predator >> controls an intercept location (assuming you don't have stealth >> available) and a mere 1-cap Caitiff. So what's the difference? >OK, I really HAVE stealth. And I can steal the intercept location, but >I cannot do anything with Michael Luther except for contesting him. I suspected that you should have stealth. About dealing with locations, you just can't deal with *all* of them, as much as Michael cannot deal with *all* the votes on the table. Seems fair to me. About dealing with Luther, I don't need to repeat the numerous possibilities already listed on this thread, for various types of vote decks. >> Most decks have to deal with it all the time. "Bait" actions are a >> given - for a multitude of reasons. Why vote decks shouldn't need to >> prepare for that? >Again, it would be fair if I was forced to waste an action of 7-8 cap >Prince to tap a vampire of equal capacity (say, Carna). But if I'm >forced to "exchange" a large vampire for Michael, this isn't fair. On that route, it isn't "fair" if Devin Beasly (5-cap) is able to torporize Arika. Devin sure have ways to do that. If you're struck that she would need too many cards, consider the poor, "weak" Dre against Alexandra. If Alexandra's player is out of maneuvers, Dre can torporize her with a IG, a Brass Knuckles on him and a Disarm. Is it "fair"? Everything needs setup and have its costs. Vicissitude cards costs blood. Defending Alexandra should cost more slots than just a few Majesties. Dre in the aforementioned scenario needs to waste an action to get the Knuckles (note how innefective this strategy is, but can handle a bg cap out of luck) and use two cards. Michael has to tap and be defended. Seems reasonable to me. >> It's just a situation where you should look again at your deck and >see >> how to adapt it to the Michael Luther possibility - the same a player >> would do when upgrading his vote deck to cope with, say, a Tzimisce >> wall player regularly showing up, or a sudden increase of rush decks >> in a playgroup, or even a Lasombra vote deck using lots of Kindred >> Coercions. Michael Luther is not broken, he's just one more factor to >> deal with. >I have some tools against Tzimisce... PTO is very good against them, >especially with Elder Impersonations. Don't doubt it, but that means you had to change your deck to cope with wall decks, including FL and EI, not to mention some PTOs to get rid of these bad, bad Sabbat guys. Again, setup. If you can setup for this, you can setup for that; just make a choice. It isn't a "fair" game in the sense your good, well-built and usually competitive deck won't get crippled whatever you must face. It is a game of strategy and cunning, not of "this-can-handle-everything" deckbuilding. Michael Luther strikes me as one more vampire that can cripple another one's strategy, like Arika can if her prey needs some random location to be effective. Even if she's a 11-cap and he's not, it wouldn't do any good to design a solid anti-vote tech around a vampire if he wasn't small. Who would use if if he was a 10-cap? Or even a 7-cap? What I think you're failing to see is that vote decks are not supposed to win automatically just because the player amassed 8 votes. I've lost many games with more than 12 votes at hand, distributed between Barons, Ventrue and Daughters locations, and I bet I've invested less pool to get this votes than most Princes/Justicar/ICs decks. Sometimes you're prepared, sometimes you're not. >Kindred Coercion is harsh, but it >requires a large vampire, not just a 4-cap! When I lose a political >action to Kindred Coercion, we just "exchange" one card to another. But >I really can't do anything with Michael Luther without adding a lot of >cards ESPECIALLY against him (Mind Numbs and so on). And these cards >would definitely spoil my deck. >Ector There are plenty of things to do if Michael is out. Bleed, for one. Save the votes and wait for the right time to call them. There are a lot of decks played who can't deal with a Tzimisce wall predator and require immediate discarding of undirected actions and switch to bleed mode. I often do this. You'd need to do it often whenever you don't get a FL and/or an EI in hand. Why not when Michael is out? I still just don't get it. It still seems that you built a very dedicated vote deck, kept improving it to deal with the opposition it usually faced, and are just surprised and annoying to discover there's something new to cope with. Welcome to the revolving possibilities of the Jyhad... It always happens. Especially to decks highly dependent on one single strategy to grab the win. best, Fabio "Sooner" Macedo V:TES National Coordinator for Brazil Giovanni Newsletter Editor ----------------------------------------------------- V:tES Brasil Site (only in Portuguese for now) http://planeta.terra.com.br/lazer/vtesbrasil/

In message <BE36919A.1D58A%pd...@lightlink.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >John Flournoy wrote: > >> Except that ONLY the acting minion can play the Bewitching, so 'one of >> the vampires that didn't have their vote changed' is not always legal. > >Well, yeah, that. Unless you are, umm, playing a Daughters vote deck! Who >have that "gain votes if you aren't the acting minion" modifier! Take *that* >Michael Luther! Though your suggestion, given the deck, is perfectly reasonable if you just call the crucial votes with your Princes early on in the turn. Change the Prince's votes? Screwed, it passes 6-2. 7-2, with the political action card. Change the IC? Then Bewitching the Prince. And if he's still not tapped ML by the time you run out of princes, do something else with the IC if you're still worried. [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek Rawlings wrote: > > > As for the ability being too potent, I'm not sure, as was mentioned it > > can only > > > change a vote, not make a vampire vote. It is quite strong, though. > > > > You're not sure? Shall I make a few examples to make you sure? Here you > > are: > > > > 1). Michael Luther + Presence skill card in an intercept/voting deck. > > He can use his Auspex to block the first political action (in case > > someone tried to "force him to tap", for instance), play Majesty and > > UNTAP. > > "Firstly, this requires a card..." > > Three, actually, (Presence, Auspex Intercept, Majesty) and a MPA... and > intercepting vote actions is a generally effective way of stopping vote > decks, and doesn't make Michael any stronger than say... Brazil, or if you > want the Majesty effect then Barth. OK, this really requires three cards. But if you're playing an intercept deck (Toreadors can built rather good intercept decks, you know), you have a lot of Auspex intercept cards. And you may have a bunch of Majesties (10 or even more) just to tap blockers and untap or handle the cases your Magnums cannot handle. Thus, the only "rare" card here is a Presence skill card. And Michael isn't the only good vampire that could benefit from it, so you can have several copies... Remilliard, Mercy, Ira Rivers and Yitzak are the best examples. Now have a look at Kindred Coercion. How many of them can you put in a deck? Not more than 3, I guess, unless you are playing in a metagame filled with voting decks. Intercepting is generally an effective way of stopping political actions UNLESS the voting deck has Obfuscate. Forgotten Labyrinths, Elder Impersonations and Lost in Crowds generally allow to pass the action. But even a voting deck with Obfuscate cannot do anything with Michael Luther without spending a lot of card slots. > > 2). Michael Luther + Alexandra. You play a political action, tap your > > Luther to push it, then untap him with Alexandra, and push the second > > political action! > > Which can never be better than a Bewitching Oration, though his ongoing > ability to do it is rather effective. Keep in mind though that unlike a > comperable Ventrue Headquarters, Michael is far more difficult to protect, > being easily rushable, and with the caveat that you haven't had to use him > to block something. This is MUCH better than Bewitching Oration, as Orations usually tend to run out or clog in your hand. After all, nothing prevents you from playing both Luther and Bewitching Oration to ensure you good Voter Captivations. Ventrue HQ is good, but it's a location, so it can be stolen or destroyed in various ways. But Luther can only be Rushed, and Rush decks usually don't play a lot of politics, so they don't feel his threat and prefer to Rush larger vampires. > Yes, he makes a great addition to a vote deck, and can seriously cripple a > vote deck's ability to do what it wants, but broken? I don't think so. > Had I been playtesting him I would have said that both his abilities > together were too strong, and his ability is exceptional when compared to > say Katherine Stoddard (though she is also Black Hand). Katherine Stoddard is nothing compared to Michael. Her Black Hand status is useless, as most Black Hand decks play Obfuscate or Auspex, and she has only dom and for. Her ability requires a deck with a lot of Auspex cards, but she has no Auspex herself! I'd say that Katherine is well-balanced. Speaking about Luther... I've seen him in action, and he's obviously overpowered. Most 4-cap weenies perform only "maintenance service" - they can bleed, hunt, resque, sometimes even block or Rush, but not Luther. > Besides, if he's really causing you too much trouble, make a deal with a > cross table combat deck and have him dumped. What if there are no cross table combat decks? Moreover, the Toreador players usually block Rushes on Michael Luther, as he is low on blood, but still performs a task suitable for a 6-7 capacity vampire. Ector

In message <1108423630.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >Only if having 4 votes would be enough. Don't you agree that "Tap: you >have -4 votes for this referendum" ability is too strong for a 4-cap >vampire with two disciplines? He doesn't say that, though. There's an inherent risk factor in his design. He doesn't give -4 votes, he picks a vampire. He doesn't pick any vampire, he picks a Camarilla vampire. He doesn't get to pick where he sits, or if his ability will be useful. Taking the effect he has in your specific situation and generalising that to all situations to prove that something is broken is indicative of faulty logic. You made bad choices and someone else screwed you over. That doesn't mean a card is broken. In the right situation, vast swathes of abilities are "broken" in that they can give you a huge, huge boost. The key point here is "in the right situation". Would a vampire that said "Torporize a vampire every turn" be broken? Well, that's what a lot of inherent rush vampires really say, in the right situation. >I guess I should admit that my current deck isn't a "true voting deck". >It's a DOM/OBF stealth-bleed deck with some political actions (usually >not more than 10). Generally I have Arika and Gilbert Duane, sometimes >accompanied with Greger Anderssen. From your earlier post: >Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, and even if >I'd manage to torporize him, this wouldn't change much, as he can use >his ability even in torpor! In a DOM/OBF deck, you play Graverobbing. No need to diablerize. Oh, or Sacrifical Lamb if you don't think you'll survive the Blood Hunt. [ quoted text not captured ]

talonz wrote: > Ector wrote: > > Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily > call > > him broken: > > > > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. Surely. But I'm doing my best to defend my point of view. > > > A few days ago I was playing my voting deck and had Inner Circle with > > two Princes in play (8 votes total). But my predator has Michael > > Luther, so I effectively had NO votes while this little bugger was > > untapped. > > Not true. You had 8, reduceable to 0 if his ability were used on your > IC. Which is once per turn. After which, you would again have 8 for > subsequent votes. > > You don't mention the rest of the table, nor any card play. If this is > the sum total of anti-vote tech at the table (and you can nearly > counter every other cardplay with your own, you are a vote deck > remember), then you can still pass every vote you call. That PA card > is worth 1 vote remember? Yes, yes, I just made a mistake, but Michael STILL makes me to lose 4 votes, which is far too good for a 4-cap vamp. You may notice that I lose at least 4 votes in these configurations: two Princes, one IC, or IC + one Prince. Yes, I remember that PA card is worth 1 vote. Still, having -4 votes can make the referendum fail. And sometimes Michael's ability is worth much more than 4 votes. Imagine you and your cross-table ally both have IC members - would they vote when the little devil is untapped? Thus, your faction has -8 votes. Still not enough to call Michael broken? > > Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, > > Banishment should be fairly effective. Coupled with might of the > camarilla even. Heck, play him in your own deck and contest him > already! Banishment would never be effective against a 4-cap vampire that is full most of the time. Might of the Camarilla? What if his controller has another vampire in his uncontrolled region? Finally, you suggest to contest him. If I'd be forced to do this, would you agree that he is broken? > > > I suggest changing his first ability to > > I suggest adapting your play. He's not broken, but he is powerful...if > you vote, and if only once per turn. OK, I really vote once per turn. Do you think that "casual voting" decks should die? Why? I have a lot of good permament votes, I pay a good price for them, then someone pays just 4 pool to cancel at least 4 of my votes. That looks like a definition of "brokenness" :) Ector

Ector wrote: > Forgotten Labyrinths,Elder Impersonations and Lost in Crowds generally allow to pass the > action. To quote you, not if the intercept deck has Bowl of Convergence, which absolutely totally screws every deck using stealth. ;) Speaking of which, this discussion is Bowl of Convergence all over again. As has been pointed out, there are a gazillion ways to get around Michael's special or even to get rid of him completely (some, if not most of which are also viable for a votey deck). If he's such an impossible pain in the ass for you, then your metagame must be even more twisted than previously thought possible. --CV

FC wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Look, if I'm forced to contest a 4-cap vampire or include a 6-cap Victoria Ash to tap him, doesn't this itself mean that the vampire is overpowered? To my mind, fledglings like Michael Luther should stay away from politics... don't even mentioning changing the votes of Inner Circle members :) Ector

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:00:35 -0300, "Fabio \"Sooner\"" <fabio_...@NOSPAMterra.com.br> wrote: >If Alexandra's player is out of maneuvers, Dre can >torporize her with a IG, a Brass Knuckles on him and a Disarm. Is it >"fair"? No, it isn't fair. It is clearly cheating. When an Immortal Grapple has been played, neither play may use equipment for their strike. Torn Signpost, Immortal Grapple, Disarm is quite fair. Carpe noctem. Lasombra http://www.TheLasombra.com Your best online source for information about V:TES. Now also featuring individual card sales and sales of booster and starter box displays.

LSJ wrote: > talonz wrote: > > Ector wrote: > >>Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call > >>him broken: > >> > > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. > > Correct. > > Before searching for fixes, first show that it is broken. Well, I'll try: Please look at the situation: in a four-player game I and my cross-table ally both have an IC member. My predator has a Prince and untapped Michael Luther. Both me and my ally cannot push any political actions while Luther is untapped, though we have 8 votes against two. If at least one IC member votes, Luther would change his votes, so he effectively "steals" our 8 votes. If you don't agree that this is too good for a 4-capacity vampire, please tell me what do you call "broken". Yours, Ector

James Coupe wrote: > In message <1108336106.9...@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, > Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: > >Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily call > >him broken: > > A word of advice. Given how people have reacted to your other > protestations of doom, gloom and how things are, when you are tempted to > post "<X> is broken", I would suggest writing a post which is, instead, > called "I'm having trouble with <X>. Any help?" And then write an > appropriate post for that title. > > Asking for, and critically engaging with, assistance is likely to get > you far more respect and useful responses. Then, if you find that there > is no useful advice, move on to issues of overpowered or broken. I really appreciate your attitude. And I really know that I shouldn't even try to do LSJ's job :) But I really don't see anything especially bad right now; moreover, I win in any case - if people convince me that I'm wrong, I'll get precious knowledge, if not, the game may become better. And I really don't see any point of "I'm having trouble with Michael Luther" topic. Yes, I know that I can tap him, and I can convince a Rush deck to kill him, etc. etc. But I really wonder, why the 4-cap is so overpowered that I should use special card module against him? And I really can't find any answer. > Why weren't you including other sources of vote in your deck? Vote > cancellation isn't unheard of. Other people also voting isn't unheard > of. With a Vox Senis on a table, say, that and the odd political card > is enough to cramp your style early on. Having other methods of vote > push is useful++. Well, I lied (just tried to make things clear but shame on my head nevertheless...) My deck wasn't a "regular" voting deck, it was a DOM/OBF S&B deck with a voting module. So, I almost never have a second voting card in my hand, and I have no Bewitching Orations. But I usually have at least 6 permanent votes (or even 8), plus one from the PA card and plus one for the Edge, if necessary, so I generally can push my referendums... but Michael Luther really destroys my voting. > >Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, and even if > >I'd manage to torporize him, this wouldn't change much, as he can use > >his ability even in torpor! > > Erm, with 8 votes, you're probably going to survive a Blood Hunt. So > you get him into torpor and then diablerise him. If I only could torporize him... Yes, I know that I should convince a Rush deck to do this for me, but this isn't always possible. > Additionally, playing a voting deck doesn't mean you *only* have to > include votes! It's perfectly acceptable, indeed sensible, to include > (say) pool gain which you use for a Sub Machine Gun, or capitalise on > your buffer of pool with a tasty ally, or whatever. If there's one > thing a Camarilla vote deck should be able to do well, it's gain pool. > Not only have you got good Presence, you've got good mono-clan options > (should you choose) for Consanguineous Boon and, with two Princes, you > have one of the best cards in the game - Parity Shift. As I said, my deck was primary S&B, with Arika, Gilbert Duane and Greger Anderssen. It has Parity Shifts, as well as few PTOs, some Banishments, Disputed Territory and Reins of Power. Consangineous boons aren't especially good for me, as my vampires belong to different clans, and Presence is a problem. Nevertheless, without Luther I usually can play most of my political actions. > If the options above don't appeal for spending your pool, what clan are > you playing? Ventrue? Well then, let's drag out a Hostile Takeover. > You can afford the pool - you're *planning* for it. How much pool are > they willing to spend to keep him? You should be either able to extort > pool or steal him. A good result both ways. What a GREAT advice!!! I will look for this card. > Not playing Ventrue? What are your Justicar options like? Temptation > of Greater Power. This is not the game destroying card it once was, > culling soul of vampires everywhere. But if you have the opportunity to > include it in a deck with pool gain, it's a significantly strong card. Again, I'll try to find it, though it would be very painful to play it for a 4-cap vampire. > > Don't like the above? 5 of the Inner Circle have Presence. Leandro, > Alexandra, Gwendolyn and Arika have PRE, Harrod has pre. The others are > Nosferatu (Harrod) and Tremere (Etrius). Yes, you could be including > either of them in an unconventional vote-y deck. But you have 5 options > with PRE/pre. And your other vampires may well have Presence too. Want > a good card? Mind Numb. Tap them now AND next turn. Unfortunately, only Arika can play it in my deck, and wasting her action for it isn't good enough. > Want another option? Even if you don't have Presence? That old Jyhad > stalwart, Misdirection. Tap 1 vampire, 1 pool. And you can generate > the pool. Hell, just play Bribes. You don't even have to win the vote, > you get a pool! Tap him for a one turn for a pool and master phase action? Seems not very good to me. Unfortunately, Bribes aren't suitable to my deck, as I don't have a lot of politics. > Are these specific defences against a single vampire? No. Vote push, > pool gain and/or secondary threads to your deck (allies, equipment, > theft of vampires, whatever) are generally useful. Methods of tapping > vampires are generally useful. Want to get a bleed through? Tap the > vampire first. Worried about Delaying Tactics? Tap the vampire first. > At least that way they waste a Wake too (if they have one) Well, I can bleed at stealth even without tapping them :) Anyway, I cannot play Mind Numb, and Misdirection is too expensive for a one-turn solution. > The vote deck, of course, has the option of Banishment. Not so great on > a small vampire, but if you could (as you suggested) get him in torpor, > he was losing blood. You call a vote and send him to torpor. Do I > bring him back out? That's another pool, or two, or three. Sure, you > probably wouldn't include it just for him - which is good - but if the > opportunity comes up, it's worth considering. And if you're playing an > Inner Circle vote deck, Banishment is always on your "consider" list. > You're playing big vampires and have lots of votes. These things work > *well*. Oh, I really like Banishment, and I have them. But Michael is almost always full, so even if I manage to Banish him, he will return on the next turn. > > > >If this isn't enough to call him broken, let's check his point cost. > >Normal 4-cap vampire should have 3 points... so, BOTH his abilities > >cost just ONE point? It's too generous for a small vampire. > > "Tap to" for any ability is a big cost. He can't act. If his > Methuselah is calling votes, he's paying four pool to cancel your votes, > and not acting with it. A good use of pool? Well, maybe. > Questionable. Why not just include some free vote push instead? Sure, > it might work out well this way, but... Well, what would be the fair price for a LOCATION that could tap to change votes of a Camarilla vampire? At least 2 pool, IMHO. Now add two disciplines, ability to hunt, bleed, resque, block, etc. etc. and "draw card in combat" ability.. I simply can't understand how all this combined can cost 4 pool. And Michael Luther CAN act, if you don't need his ability. This may easily happen if you with your allies have more votes or if nobody plays Camarilla. "Free vote push" can appear in your hand when you don't need it and disappear when needed, and your Luther is always with you. Moreover, what prevents you from using BOTH Luther and vote pushing? At least this allows to play a lot of Voter Captivations. > Is he using him to cancel your votes? Well, for a start, he doesn't > know if you're going to be playing a vote deck, or with Camarilla > vampires. That's a risk. Sure, he gets an okay vampire at the end of > it, but for 4 pool (if no-one else is playing a vote deck), he's > probably underpowered. The maximum risk is 1 pool for him, as Michael's disciplines alone are worth 3 pool. He also has 4 blood (not 3) and an interesting combat ability, so I'd say that you lose almost nothing even if nobody plays Camarilla. > Look at Mariel, for instance. In Jyhad, 7s got 7 points (pretty much) > and Mariel's ability is "tap to". It's a good ability, but it's > expensive. The difference is clear: an action of 7-cap vampire (that you lose to tap Mariel) is much more expensive than an action of 4-cap weenie. After all, Mariel's ability is defensive, and it alone won't allow you to win. Michael's ability can be used to push your politics, so it's much more powerful. > > Draw a card on entering combat isn't that great. It's good, but he's > not that great a vampire to use it effectively - if it was on a combat > monster, say, it would be huge. With aus/pre, you don't generally want > combat. You probably want cel to make offensive combat a realistic > possibility. So you're either bleeding (and defending) or blocking (and > defending). Oh look. Blocking taps you. Bleeding taps you. Surely, THIS ability isn't great... but it still worth something. If Luther's primary ability is useless, you may gain an advantage from the second one. Play Presence skill card on him and play Majesty. Oh look... combat ends AND UNTAP! Yes, I know this isn't very realistic, but it can work. > The two abilities aren't mutually exclusive - you could be rushed, say - > but it's hard to use both effectively. Even if you go for PRE, anti- > S:CE tech is hardly unheard of (especially in your combat heavy > playgroup, perhaps). God thanks that it's hard to use both of the abilities! Luther is broken enough even now. > And if he *is* seriously good, anyone with resource manipulation tactics > could try and take him out. Banish him, rush him, whatever. Vampires > with good abilities have a "KILL ME NOW" sign lit above their head. > Your deck doesn't have any way to manipulate vampires and only plays > straightforward votes damage votes with a little pool gain and nothing > else? Too bad. Thankfully, there are other decks that can be done > better. Michael Luther is dangerous only for the voting decks (or in the voting deck). He's not Jost Werner or Arika. Thus, a voting deck needs a really good reason to make a Rush deck to rush him. All that said: don't you think that my suggestion would make the game better? After all, it's simply unrealistic to have a 4-cap vamp that is able to regularly change the votes of IC members. How could he do that? Yours, Ector

Ector wrote: > LSJ wrote: >>Before searching for fixes, first show that it is broken. > > Well, I'll try: > > Please look at the situation: in a four-player game I and my > cross-table ally both have an IC member. My predator has a Prince and > untapped Michael Luther. Both me and my ally cannot push any political > actions while Luther is untapped, though we have 8 votes against two. > If at least one IC member votes, Luther would change his votes, so he > effectively "steals" our 8 votes. Igo is just as broken, then. In his "dream" set-up scenario, he can also have an effect on the outcome of the game. Claws vs. Arika, for example. OR simply diablerize Arika as a (D) action after someone else sent her to torpor. In your set-up, though, you still have options: 1) You and your cross-table ally call a referendum each. One passes 5-4 and the other passes 9-0. How is that "cannot push any PAs"? 2) You and your ally's IC guys bleed for 3 each. Then Freak. Then call referendums as above. 3) You burn PA from hand to support your ally as he does for you (6-4 and 10-0, resp.) 4) Banish Michael when he taps. If he never taps, then go on about your usual business of the game as if he weren't there. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Ector, I know that it really must irk you to have to tweak your strategy, but it is all what V:TES is about. There are lots of solid deck ideas around, but none win every time. Other than luck, Jyhad is a game where small changes (in strategy, card ratios, etc.) can make a big difference. Check out the tournament reports - it is not unfrequent that decks such as yours (I'm currently using a vote/Obf deck myself, with limited success due to the abundance of combat decks in my metagame) have to change gears - "wow, my votes are not working because of Demonstration, Telepathic Vote Counting, lots of delaying tactics, lots of poison pill, Michael Luther or plainly lots of votes in the table. Big vamps should be versatile or you lose your investment: Arika can easily stealth bleed for three every turn! Add freak drives, blood gain, minion taps, etc. Use her to steal allies. Use her to steal locations. She can do lots of things! Not being able to push votes rampantly should NOT render a big cap vampire useless. Metagame is very important. You might have had the "top" deck in your group, but it is hard to stay that way. Even moreso without constant adjusting. One of my friends used to terrorize the table with a Tzimisce deck (it is really hard to PTO something with +7 intercept). He wasn't happy when another guy got sick of having his princes torporized and played a weenie potence deck. How fair is it to have Lambach torporized by Hector Sosa using Burning Wrath? I believe this is why this game has lived for so long - it is hard to design a deck that wins every time, since just clumping together a bunch of rares won't get you very far.

In message <1108427042.1...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >Imagine you and your cross-table ally both have IC members - would they >vote when the little devil is untapped? Thus, your faction has -8 >votes. Still not enough to call Michael broken? Still not enough. Two people playing poorly and not exploiting the numerous ways around his ability does not make him broken. You appear to think that "broken" means "good" and "I'd have to put in effort to do something about this." Aw, shucks. You mean other people have the opportunity to cause you trouble and your deck won't work exactly as intended? Well! That's just not cricket. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > Ector wrote: > > LSJ wrote: > >>Before searching for fixes, first show that it is broken. > > > > Well, I'll try: > > > > Please look at the situation: in a four-player game I and my > > cross-table ally both have an IC member. My predator has a Prince and > > untapped Michael Luther. Both me and my ally cannot push any political > > actions while Luther is untapped, though we have 8 votes against two. > > If at least one IC member votes, Luther would change his votes, so he > > effectively "steals" our 8 votes. > > Igo is just as broken, then. In his "dream" set-up scenario, he can also > have an effect on the outcome of the game. Claws vs. Arika, for example. > OR simply diablerize Arika as a (D) action after someone else sent > her to torpor. To make this happen, Igo needs at least two cards: Rush action to attack Arika and the Claws. Michael Luther needs no cards at all. And someone can block Igo... nobody can "block" Michael Luther. And the most important thing: Igo can do this only once, with a good luck, while Luther can use his ability each turn. The difference is clear, IMHO. > In your set-up, though, you still have options: > > 1) You and your cross-table ally call a referendum each. One passes > 5-4 and the other passes 9-0. How is that "cannot push any PAs"? Please read my post prior to answering. It wasn't too long... I'm really trying not to waste your time. First, in my scenario Toreador player had a Prince, so the first action DON'T pass (5-6) unless your ally also discard a PA card and you burn an edge. And I wrote "cannot push any political actions while Luther is untapped". Surely, he works only once per turn, but don't you think that "-8 votes" is too good for him? And why do you call this a "dream scenario", as though it isn't realistic? People still play IC, aren't they? Even if you think about Justicars, "-6 votes" is still too good for a 4-cap vampire. > 2) You and your ally's IC guys bleed for 3 each. Then Freak. Then call > referendums as above. I really can't understand why are you talking about bleed and Freaks. Surely, Muchael doesn't make IC completely useless. But would you pay 11 pool for a vampire with just +2 bleed and without votes? > 3) You burn PA from hand to support your ally as he does for you > (6-4 and 10-0, resp.) 6-6 and 10-2, in my scenario, so you can push your first PA only if you have an Edge as well. > 4) Banish Michael when he taps. If he never taps, then go on about > your usual business of the game as if he weren't there. Banish a 4-cap? He would return on the next turn. Well, I can understand that issuing an errata is always painful. But please, just imagine that you're about to create a NEW vampire and tell me, honestly, which one is more balanced and less likely to spoil the game? Michael No1 Capacity: 4 Discipline: aus pre Camarilla: You may tap Michael during a referendum to change the votes of a Camarilla vampire to votes of your choice. or Michael No2 Capacity: 4 Discipline: aus pre Camarilla: You may tap Michael during a referendum to change the votes of any Prince or Primogen to votes of your choice.

Ector wrote: > > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. > Surely. But I'm doing my best to defend my point of view. > > Your 'best' consists largely of "I'm perfectly setup to vote unless card X interferes with me, boohoo". That does not serve to demonstrate that a card is broken, just that you were not prepared to deal with such a situation. > Yes, yes, I just made a mistake, but Michael STILL makes me to lose 4 > votes, which is far too good for a 4-cap vamp. IC members still get 4 votes, +2 bleed, access to 'burn any non-cam vamp' cards AND quite often decent or incredibly powerful specials on top of that for 11 pool, and the fact this one vamp puts a crimp in that makes him broken? Give your head a shake! Next you'll be saying Fear of Mekhet is broken too. > You may notice that I > lose at least 4 votes in these configurations: two Princes, one IC, or > IC + one Prince. Intersting that IC vamps keep coming up in your arguments. I put to you that you are relying too much on their built in IC titles. These guys are prone to Luther's messing about (by design I would say) and therefore you are playing right into his hand. With no counter prepared, you deserve what you get. For petes sake if you can't design around him, go play a Lasombra vote deck. He'll never bother you then unless you play Vitel v1 or Gingleazwhatzizname. > Imagine you and your cross-table ally both have IC members - would they > vote when the little devil is untapped? Thus, your faction has -8 > votes. Still not enough to call Michael broken? > Nope. You'd have as a 'faction' 5-4. Sounds like a passed vote to me. Tabletalk, a wonderful thing. Assuming the vote count was closer, pass some relatively harmless vote and watch luther squirm. Does he mess with this vote and have no response when the other IC votes before his untap? C'mon man, think. > Banishment would never be effective against a 4-cap vampire that is > full most of the time. You'er playing IC or at least princes. Banishment will be effective everytime versus a 4cap. Might not last long of course, but push throught that banishment and who knows what happens in the meantime? > Might of the Camarilla? What if his controller > has another vampire in his uncontrolled region? What if he doesn't? Learn to time your cardplay appropriately. > Finally, you suggest to contest him. If I'd be forced to do this, would > you agree that he is broken? > No. I'd agree that it is one way of many to deal with such an issue. > OK, I really vote once per turn. Do you think that "casual voting" > decks should die? Casual camarilla IC vote decks forced to adapt and work at getting a vote through you mean? lol! Man this just stinks of "I love Arika and can't let go of my crutch" Ector. Try making an Indy 11cap vote deck work and THEN see how much work it is. I've done it. G

Ector wrote and wrote and wrote: > > Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: > > >Michael Luther is currently so overpowered that anyone can easily > call > > >him broken: honestly, with all netiquette available to me: you are an idiot. only idiot can play with Arika and dare to complain about brokenness of other vampires :) but go on, it´s amusing. If you plan to stay with the 4-caps, I suggest Jimmy Dunn, Ingrid Russo, Gloria Giovanni, Bobby Lemon or Marianna Gilbert :) if you plan to stay with the Toreador, babble about Anson, Anneke or Ira Rivers.. btw, in my opinion the broken king is Piotr Andreikov. fix him, pleaaaase!

Ector wrote: > Michael Luther needs no cards at all. > Please read my post prior to answering. It wasn't too long... I'm > really trying not to waste your time. First, in my scenario Toreador > player had a Prince, so the first action DON'T pass (5-6) unless your I thought you said he needs no cards at all. Now he needs a prince. Which is it? > ally also discard a PA card and you burn an edge. And I wrote "cannot > push any political > actions while Luther is untapped". Surely, he works only once per turn, > but don't you think that "-8 votes" is too good for him? No, I don't, since it's highly conditional. How many votes does he get when you have two archbishops instead of one IC member? I hear IC members are pretty good. Perhaps your "broken" is in fact an element of "balance" for them. > And why do you call this a "dream scenario", as though it isn't > realistic? People still play IC, aren't they? Even if you think about > Justicars, "-6 votes" is still too good for a 4-cap vampire. Realistic, but not under the control of Michael Luther's Methuselah -- he cannot control what or how you play. See also Malkavian Dementia (which can also result in a dramatic shift in the number of votes, as Leandro goes to diablerize Igo and then votes to burn himself). [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:45:13 -0500, The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> wrote: >On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 22:00:35 -0300, "Fabio \"Sooner\"" ><fabio_...@NOSPAMterra.com.br> wrote: > >>If Alexandra's player is out of maneuvers, Dre can >>torporize her with a IG, a Brass Knuckles on him and a Disarm. Is it >>"fair"? > >No, it isn't fair. >It is clearly cheating. >When an Immortal Grapple has been played, neither play may use >equipment for their strike. >Torn Signpost, Immortal Grapple, Disarm is quite fair. Of course. Please forget about the obvious distraction. I just wanted to get a variaton of the old, proven combo that seemed pretty silly to illustrate the point that many unusual things can happen. >Carpe noctem. >Lasombra >http://www.TheLasombra.com >Your best online source for information about V:TES. >Now also featuring individual card sales and sales >of booster and starter box displays. best, Fabio "Sooner" Macedo V:EKN National Coordinator for Brazil -------------------------------------- Now a "luminary", whatever it means: http://www.thelasombra.com/WhosWho/fabiomacedo.htm

Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: > James Coupe wrote: > > A word of advice. Given how people have reacted to your other > > protestations of doom, gloom and how things are, when you are tempted to > > post "<X> is broken", I would suggest writing a post which is, instead, > > called "I'm having trouble with <X>. Any help?" And then write an > > appropriate post for that title. > > > > Asking for, and critically engaging with, assistance is likely to get > > you far more respect and useful responses. Then, if you find that there > > is no useful advice, move on to issues of overpowered or broken. > > I really appreciate your attitude. And I really know that I shouldn't > even try to do LSJ's job :) But I really don't see anything especially > bad right now; moreover, I win in any case - if people convince me that > I'm wrong, I'll get precious knowledge, if not, the game may become > better. Then let me point it out to you. The bad thing is that you're making yourself look like a twerp. If every time you post something, it is to cry murder over some supposedly broken card, people will start ignoring you. There's a number of very experienced players on this group, and if you'd like their help, wouldn't it be better to be nice about it, in stead of going on a rant? > Well, I lied (just tried to make things clear but shame on my head > nevertheless...) My deck wasn't a "regular" voting deck, it was a > DOM/OBF S&B deck with a voting module. So, I almost never have a second > voting card in my hand, and I have no Bewitching Orations. But I > usually have at least 6 permanent votes (or even 8), plus one from the > PA card and plus one for the Edge, if necessary, so I generally can > push my referendums... but Michael Luther really destroys my voting. So you only have a voting *module*, not even a vote deck, and you're complaining that a little vote defence stops it. Of course it does! If you don't play a dedicated vote deck, you're bound to run into trouble once in a while. But on the other hand, since you're not completely devoted to voting, you still have the S&B part of your deck to work with. Just adapt to the situation. You can discard a PA or two, and see if he wants to keep his 4 cap tapped for nothing. He has one less minion to block or act with, since if Michael *does* tap, you can then pass all the votes you like. So he loses a minion, and all you lose is a discard phase now and then, to get rid of redundant PA's (which you don't have many of anyway). Rogar

James Coupe wrote: > In message <1108423630.5...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, > Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: > >Only if having 4 votes would be enough. Don't you agree that "Tap: you > >have -4 votes for this referendum" ability is too strong for a 4-cap > >vampire with two disciplines? > > He doesn't say that, though. There's an inherent risk factor in his > design. He doesn't give -4 votes, he picks a vampire. He doesn't pick > any vampire, he picks a Camarilla vampire. He doesn't get to pick where > he sits, or if his ability will be useful. > > Taking the effect he has in your specific situation and generalising > that to all situations to prove that something is broken is indicative > of faulty logic. You made bad choices and someone else screwed you > over. That doesn't mean a card is broken. Michael Luther "steals" at least 4 votes if your predator or prey has at least a Prince. Even if your grandpredator has them, the game flow may make him your predator, so you'll get a chance to use Martin. Is it a "specific situation"? AFAIK, Princes are quite popular. And again, even if you won't have a chance to use his ability he's still almost worth his 4 pool. > In the right situation, vast swathes of abilities are "broken" in that > they can give you a huge, huge boost. The key point here is "in the > right situation". Would a vampire that said "Torporize a vampire every > turn" be broken? Well, that's what a lot of inherent rush vampires > really say, in the right situation. Vampires with inherent rush still need some cards to torporize. There are no vampires that could Rush and torporize without cards. Michael doesn't need anything. In any case, most decks need some combat protection anyway, as Rush and Intercept-combat are popular for a certain degree. But being forced to include cards against Michael Luther? > >I guess I should admit that my current deck isn't a "true voting deck". > >It's a DOM/OBF stealth-bleed deck with some political actions (usually > >not more than 10). Generally I have Arika and Gilbert Duane, sometimes > >accompanied with Greger Anderssen. > > From your earlier post: > > >Playing a voting deck, I couldn't get rid of him, and even if > >I'd manage to torporize him, this wouldn't change much, as he can use > >his ability even in torpor! > > In a DOM/OBF deck, you play Graverobbing. No need to diablerize. > > Oh, or Sacrifical Lamb if you don't think you'll survive the Blood Hunt. Yes, I have one Graverobbing... can't put more, as my deck rarely torporizes. It's much better than Sacrificial Lamb. Unfortunately, first I need a Rush deck willing to torporize Michael, and most Rush decks here prefer to torporize my vampires instead. Ector

[ quoted text not captured ] Honestly, with my usual manners: I don't know you, but your message clearly shows that you just avoid thinking. If you really wish to argue that any vampire is broken, you are welcome. Usually, I just ignore messages like yours since they are useless. Ector

On 14 Feb 2005 16:24:02 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: >OK, I really vote once per turn. Do you think that "casual voting" >decks should die? Not exactly, I guess. Just keep in mind that decks that are not focused run that risk. You bleed and vote, and sometimes the table is not favorable for you to vote, so you start bleeding all along. Or you run into a wall deck, you cycle to get PTO and Elder Impersionation to cause trouble and start bleeding again. Or your prey has bounce, so you cycle the bleed cards to draw votes... and so on. That's why most people play "toolboxy" decks, I'm sure. Excuse me, but you already said that the deck has an amount of bleed, has stealth, block failing ability, PTO... So it has many ways to get ousts. Michael Luther shouldn't be a concern. Why? I have a lot of good permament votes, I pay a >good price for them, then someone pays just 4 pool to cancel at least 4 >of my votes. That looks like a definition of "brokenness" :) >Ector No. The definition of brokenness isn't "I payed for X and someone payed for X-5 for the same effect". This happens a lot in the game; otherwise no one would play Free States Rant Setites, since the overall crypt size is way bigger than the old Ventrue Law Firm and they don't have a vote location. Or nobody would use Kali's Fang because the Tzimisce get the same effect with Femur of Toomler for 1 less pool. Or nobody would play Lasombra since Power Structure because Bastille Opera House has a better variation of the same effect (it gives the votes to YOU, not to the vampires) and can still grant you 1 vote if all your Daughters were torporized. And so on. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 15 Feb 2005 00:51:39 -0800, "talonz" <talo...@yahoo.ca> wrote: >Try making an Indy 11cap vote deck work and THEN see how much work it >is. I've done it. >G Now I'm curious. Have some decklist? Insights? best, [ quoted text not captured ]

The Cadaverous Verger wrote: > Ector wrote: > > > Forgotten Labyrinths,Elder Impersonations and Lost in Crowds generally allow to pass the > > action. > > To quote you, not if the intercept deck has Bowl of Convergence, which > absolutely totally screws every deck using stealth. ;) Well... it was just an exaggeration :) Later, I said that DOM/OBF decks can survive since they have both Elder Impersonation and Seduction. Voting decks with Obfuscate can have inherent +1 stealth on their PA and can use Forgotten Labyrinths, so they can get past the Bowl. > Speaking of which, this discussion is Bowl of Convergence all over > again. As has been pointed out, there are a gazillion ways to get around > Michael's special or even to get rid of him completely (some, if not > most of which are also viable for a votey deck). If he's such an > impossible pain in the ass for you, then your metagame must be even more > twisted than previously thought possible. A gazillion ways? I must be blind...what ways? Banish him? Helps just for one turn... if you MANAGE to Banish him. Tap him? Helps for two turns max. The only ways of destroying Michael are convincing a Rush deck to kill him or contest him. Both aren't very easy. Ector

Ector wrote: > I guess I should admit that my current deck isn't a "true voting deck". > It's a DOM/OBF stealth-bleed deck with some political actions (usually > not more than 10). Generally I have Arika and Gilbert Duane, sometimes > accompanied with Greger Anderssen. > Now imagine that I have all three mentioned vampires, my prey has 3 > votes (one Priscus), and my predator has one Prince and the dreaded > Michael Luther. Now what? I simply cannot push Parity Shift, Reins of > Power, Banishment or PTO... anything! I simply have no "extra" > political actions to tap Luther, and I have no Bewitching Orations, as > most vampires have no Presence. * Bleed with your DOM/OBF * Call a vote (PTO or Banish Priscus) * Cast 5 votes in favor (Prince, Prince, Card) * Opponents cast 5 votes against (Priscus, Prince) * Toss the edge for * Michael Luther taps to change a Princes' votes - vote is 4 to 7 * Cast 4 more in favor - vote is now 8 to 7 * Chuckle as vote passes, or sigh as vote is tossed against * Bleed again. > So, I'm forced to discard my political actions... and then my predator > can use Luther to push HIS political actions. "Why can't my non-vote deck pass votes when there's a vote deck at the table?"

On 14 Feb 2005 16:40:52 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: >Look, if I'm forced to contest a 4-cap vampire or include a 6-cap >Victoria Ash to tap him, doesn't this itself mean that the vampire is >overpowered? >To my mind, fledglings like Michael Luther should stay away from >politics... don't even mentioning changing the votes of Inner Circle >members :) >Ector There are 5-cap Princes in the game, so 4-caps dealing with politics is not quite that strange. About the vote-changing ability, I guess that has something to do with his background (if we're taking that route). I recall Michael appeared in some novel. Someone who read it would care to explain? Now I'm curious, myself. [ quoted text not captured ]

tych...@yahoo.com wrote: > Ector, I know that it really must irk you to have to tweak your > strategy, but it is all what V:TES is about. There are lots of solid > deck ideas around, but none win every time. Other than luck, Jyhad is a > game where small changes (in strategy, card ratios, etc.) can make a > big difference. I'm constantly tweaking my strategy and sometimes I change it completely. > Check out the tournament reports - it is not unfrequent that decks such > as yours (I'm currently using a vote/Obf deck myself, with limited > success due to the abundance of combat decks in my metagame) have to > change gears - "wow, my votes are not working because of Demonstration, > Telepathic Vote Counting, lots of delaying tactics, lots of poison > pill, Michael Luther or plainly lots of votes in the table. Big vamps > should be versatile or you lose your investment: Arika can easily > stealth bleed for three every turn! Add freak drives, blood gain, > minion taps, etc. Use her to steal allies. Use her to steal locations. > She can do lots of things! Not being able to push votes rampantly > should NOT render a big cap vampire useless. Who says it does? Look, I'm not a child. Actually, I'm 33, and I play card games for seven years. When a Rush deck torporizes my Arika, I don't complain, since I know that this require a whole lot of resources, cards and special deck. When someone plays Telepathic Vote Counting, this is "fair", since he has to have an untapped vampire with superior Auspex (or play Wake), and he loses his card to cancel my PA. But when a 4-cap Michael Luther, that requires NO support cards can CONSTANTLY spoil my votes, this is too good and unbalanced. I'm not complaining about my losses - just want to make the game better. > Metagame is very important. You might have had the "top" deck in your > group, but it is hard to stay that way. Even moreso without constant > adjusting. One of my friends used to terrorize the table with a > Tzimisce deck (it is really hard to PTO something with +7 intercept). > He wasn't happy when another guy got sick of having his princes > torporized and played a weenie potence deck. How fair is it to have > Lambach torporized by Hector Sosa using Burning Wrath? It's pretty fair. Burning Wrath is a "fear card" that works SOMETIMES. If Hector Sosa could, say, remove Lambach's votes for a tap each turn, he would be overpowered. > I believe this is why this game has lived for so long - it is hard to > design a deck that wins every time, since just clumping together a > bunch of rares won't get you very far. This is really good... and I don't play "a bunch of rares". And Michael Luther isn't rare, so I don't understand why you wrote this. Ector

On 15 Feb 2005 04:12:44 -0800, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: > Who says it does? Look, I'm not a child. Actually, I'm 33, and I play > card games for seven years. When a Rush deck torporizes my Arika, I > don't complain, since I know that this require a whole lot of > resources, cards and special deck. When someone plays Telepathic Vote > Counting, this is "fair", since he has to have an untapped vampire with > superior Auspex (or play Wake), and he loses his card to cancel my PA. > But when a 4-cap Michael Luther, that requires NO support cards can > CONSTANTLY spoil my votes, this is too good and unbalanced. I'm not > complaining about my losses - just want to make the game better. Dear sir, Michael Luther is indeed a very powerful vampire. Noone doubts that. I dare say that he is probably among the most powerful conditionally useful vampires. There are a number of factors to consider, though, when assessing his potential. #1. He hoses camarilla vampires, and his ability is most useful against larger chunks of votes. Comparing him to Marianna Gilbert for anti vote-tech: a vampire with superior Presence can, in most cases, gain 4 votes for a card without tapping. So if Michael changes the votes of a Prince (effectively gaining 4 votes), he is trading one tapping for one card. Whether it is worth it is up to you. His power rises if there are any Justicars (or better yet, Inner Circle members) on the table. Most Justicars or IC members that see play are quite powerful to begin with, so the fact that his ability primarily hoses them is not a sign of brokenness; he is more like a balancing factor. #2. Michael Luther can, in most cases, well be integrated into a regular Inner Circle voting deck. He does not have OBF, but then neither does he need it (he won't take actions). He is there to ensure that you don't get hosed by him, and to support your political supremacy (Closed Session with Martin Luther is almost certain vote lock if you control IC members). #3. Michael Luther adds an interesting new dimension to the game. You need to think when an opponent has him; it is not just straight vote-counting and voter-capping anymore. With whom do you vote, whom do you abstain, which votes do you call first? Lots of interesting effects that make the game that much more enjoyable. #4. The game is not too long. It lasts about 12-14 full turns on the average. If you play cleverly (and you should, given the abundance of vote hoser cards), even an early Michael Luther will not be able to spoil more than a few votes for you. If you play your cards right, those will be important (but not crucial) votes. And not like Michael even remotely compares to PTO. Now that card is unfair. Michael is nowhere from that. Michael may cost you a political action each turn at worst - but you still have the minion you call those actions with. And Michael is completely occupied by this. On the other hand, PTO will completely kill your vampire (and not just possibly prevent a single vote each turn the burned vampire could have called), and it costs only an action and a card (though the minion taking the action must indeed be highly qualified). Hope that shed some new light on the matters, -- Bye, Daneel

> About the vote-changing ability, I guess that has something to do with > his background (if we're taking that route). I recall Michael appeared > in some novel. Someone who read it would care to explain? Now I'm > curious, myself. Predator and Prey: Vampire. His Prince (and no one else in the city) knew that he had the power of Aura Sight, so he would give the Prince subtle signals when people were lying in testimony. At the end of the book he abuses his power to get another vampire destroyed. John

Ector wrote: When someone plays Telepathic Vote > Counting, this is "fair", since he has to have an untapped vampire with > superior Auspex (or play Wake), and he loses his card to cancel my PA. Actually, since Telepathic Vote Counting is an action modifier, this is "cheating". John

Ector wrote: >My predator has a Prince and untapped Michael Luther. Ok. >Both me and my ally cannot push any political actions while Luther is untapped, though >we have 8 votes against two. Ok. In the worst situation, Luther makes one vote fail one time around the table. How is this any different than being in a situation where your opponents have almost enough votes to stop you and, like, Ventrue HQ in play? One time around the table, one vote fails ('cause then the VHQ becomes tapped, just like Luther). In the situation you propose: -Your predator has Luther and a Prince. -You have an IC member. -You cross table pal has an IC member. Your predator takes a turn. Leaves Luther untapped. Good. You take a turn. Your predator can foil your first vote. At which point any other vote you call passes. Then any vote your cross table pal calls passes. Or your predator doesn't foil your first vote ('cause he wants to defend against his predators KRC's, or whatever), and you call whatever you want. Look. Sometimes, vote decks can't just pass every vote they call. This is called "risk". Voting is a very powerful strategy--it is inherrently stealthy, if you do have vote lock, you can do incredibly damaging things with impunity. Sometimes, however, you don't have vote lock. This could be 'cause your predator has more vvotes than you. Or 'cause he has Ventrue HQ in play. Or 'cause he is randomly playing Dread Gaze in his deck. Sometimes, this is the case. That is one of the risks of playing a vote strategy. Luther is good anti-vote tech, but: -He only works on Camarilla vamires. -He only works one time around the table. -He needs to be untapped. -He needs to be in play. His ability is *highly* conditional. And easily foiled by just killing him. Or stealing him (you are a Camarilla vote deck. Play Temptation of Greater Power.) Or contesting him (you are a Camarilla vote deck. Why aren't you using him too?). And in the absolute *worst* situation, he makes one vote fail a turn. Which can happen in any number of other ways (already described above). >If you don't agree that this is too good for a 4-capacity vampire, >please tell me what do you call "broken". Not that. The ability is highly conditional (in many games, it will have zero effect at all. In many games, it will have a negligible effect. Occasionally, it will really pay off). It isn't any more powerful than, say, again, Ventrue HQ (which only costs 1 pool). Or, ya know, a Delaying Tactics (which often stops *every* vote you call that turn, 'cause someone only has KRCs in their hand and the first one id DTed). Really. It isn't a big deal. -Peter

Ector wrote: > A gazillion ways? I must be blind...what ways? Maybe, oh, some of the ones that have been suggested here: just call your votes differently, make your vampires cast their votes so that he needs to change a prince rather than the IC, use Bewitching, convince a rusher to slap his neonate ass to torpor, call Anathema or Banishment on him after he has tapped to screw your KRC or whatever, Mind Numb or Rape him, Misdirection on the turns you absolutely need to pass a critical vote, use Ventrue HQ, use Hostile Takeover, throw in a Sabbat Cardinal or Priscus, or hell, even Seeds of Corruption or Tragic Love Affair will keep him in check at least for a while. Yeah, he's a great vampire, but he's also soft and crunchy. And there are really numerous ways to get around his special. --CV

talonz wrote: > Ector wrote: > > > > You can easily call any card broken..it doesn't make it so. > > Surely. But I'm doing my best to defend my point of view. > > > > > Your 'best' consists largely of "I'm perfectly setup to vote unless > card X interferes with me, boohoo". > > That does not serve to demonstrate that a card is broken, just that you > were not prepared to deal with such a situation. Nobody can prepare to any situation. Anyway, I simply cannot "prepare my deck to" Michael Luther except for contesting him. > > Yes, yes, I just made a mistake, but Michael STILL makes me to lose 4 > > votes, which is far too good for a 4-cap vamp. > > IC members still get 4 votes, +2 bleed, access to 'burn any non-cam > vamp' cards AND quite often decent or incredibly powerful specials on > top of that for 11 pool, and the fact this one vamp puts a crimp in > that makes him broken? Give your head a shake! In other words, you are saying that IC members are overpowered, and they really DESERVE to be hosed by Michael? Am I right? > Next you'll be saying Fear of Mekhet is broken too. Never going to say that. It's an extremely cornercase card that can be played against IC and Justicars if they become too powerful. > > You may notice that I > > lose at least 4 votes in these configurations: two Princes, one IC, > or > > IC + one Prince. > > Intersting that IC vamps keep coming up in your arguments. > I put to you that you are relying too much on their built in IC titles. > These guys are prone to Luther's messing about (by design I would say) > and therefore you are playing right into his hand. With no counter > prepared, you deserve what you get. You might notice that I suggested to limit Michael with Princes and Primogens. I use IC in my examples just to illustrate his brokenness. > For petes sake if you can't design around him, go play a Lasombra vote > deck. He'll never bother you then unless you play Vitel v1 or > Gingleazwhatzizname. I'm already working in this way. By the way, don't you think that being a puppets of 4-cap weenie is a shame for IC and Justicars? I guess that if some Sabbat weenie even THOUGHT about manipulating Lasombra or Tzimisce elders, they'd destroyed the very memory of him :) Thus, Michael Luther spoils the role-playing part of the game as well. > > > Imagine you and your cross-table ally both have IC members - would > they > > vote when the little devil is untapped? Thus, your faction has -8 > > votes. Still not enough to call Michael broken? > > > > Nope. You'd have as a 'faction' 5-4. Sounds like a passed vote to me. UNLESS they have some votes, too. > Tabletalk, a wonderful thing. Assuming the vote count was closer, > pass some relatively harmless vote and watch luther squirm. Does he > mess with this vote and have no response when the other IC votes before > his untap? C'mon man, think. I always think a lot, thanks. And Martin's controller is also thinking... so he can just allow you to play your harmless vote. > > > Banishment would never be effective against a 4-cap vampire that is > > full most of the time. > > You'er playing IC or at least princes. Banishment will be effective > everytime versus a 4cap. Might not last long of course, but push > throught that banishment and who knows what happens in the meantime? This would be just a desperate action. You will win just one turn (part of the turn, as you'll spend one action to play Banishment), so it isn't especially effective. > > Might of the Camarilla? What if his controller > > has another vampire in his uncontrolled region? > > What if he doesn't? Learn to time your cardplay appropriately. Even if he doesn't, you'll have to play both Banishment and Might of the Camarilla on the same turn. You may spend a whole game collecting them. > > Finally, you suggest to contest him. If I'd be forced to do this, > would > > you agree that he is broken? > > > No. I'd agree that it is one way of many to deal with such an issue. For now, it's the only reliable way. IMHO, if players need to contest a unique card, this means that the card is broken. > > > OK, I really vote once per turn. Do you think that "casual voting" > > decks should die? > > Casual camarilla IC vote decks forced to adapt and work at getting a > vote through you mean? lol! Man this just stinks of "I love Arika and > can't let go of my crutch" Ector. Forced to adapt? If you mean "forced to include some Michael Luthers of their own", I'd agree, though it would definitely spoil the game. And you may safely leave Arika (and myself) alone, as the same problem would arise for any player and any Inner Circle member. Just try to play any deck with IC against Michael and you will share my feelings. > Try making an Indy 11cap vote deck work and THEN see how much work it > is. I've done it. I'd like to have a look at it, if you don't mind. Making a Sabbat voting deck would be much easier... did you built the Indy deck just as an exercise? Ector

In message <fWkQd.41013$Th1....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> writes: >See also Malkavian Dementia (which can also result in a >dramatic shift in the number of votes, as Leandro goes to >diablerize Igo and then votes to burn himself). I've yet to see that one happen, but it sounds wonderful. Die, Leandro, die. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <fWkQd.41013$Th1....@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>, > LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> writes: > >See also Malkavian Dementia (which can also result in a > >dramatic shift in the number of votes, as Leandro goes to > >diablerize Igo and then votes to burn himself). > > I've yet to see that one happen, but it sounds wonderful. > > Die, Leandro, die. Temptation on any big voter could do similar. John

In message <1108452790....@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: <snip - The suggestions from LSJ that Igo could be 'broken' if he diablerised Arika, or clawed her into torpor, based on 'broken' == 'dream scenario'. LSJ is at >> level, later in the post> >To make this happen, Igo needs at least two cards: Rush action to >attack Arika and the Claws. Doesn't need Rush if she blocks. Is she going to block? That's as hard to say as if someone else on the table is going to have Camarilla voters. >Michael Luther needs no cards at all. Sure he does. They're just not your cards. He needs Camarilla voters doing things he cares about. If they're voting his way already, he can't really do much about them! >And >someone can block Igo... nobody can "block" Michael Luther. He needs to be untapped. There are lots of ways of tapping vampires. >And the >most important thing: Igo can do this only once, with a good luck, >while Luther can use his ability each turn. The difference is clear, >IMHO. Igo can plan to repeatedly claw other decks quite easily. Michael can't plan to use his ability anywhere near as much, because it's reactive to what's on the table. Also, Igo can be acting and cycling cards for you and - if blocked - clawing people. Michael's anti-vote ability requires him to be untapped, which is a harder cost to meet. >Please read my post prior to answering. It wasn't too long... I'm >really trying not to waste your time. First, in my scenario Toreador >player had a Prince, so the first action DON'T pass (5-6) unless your >ally also discard a PA card and you burn an edge. Which is perfectly reasonable. If the two of you are being screwed, the two of you should play around it. >And I wrote "cannot >push any political >actions while Luther is untapped". Tap him. It's not hard. Or do something to him. Is he going into combat with you, to use his other ability? Well, that's a fine time to do uncontrolled nastiness to him. >Surely, he works only once per turn, >but don't you think that "-8 votes" is too good for him? He doesn't say "=8 votes", though. Repeatedly lying about what his ability is won't make it the truth! >And why do you call this a "dream scenario", as though it isn't >realistic? People still play IC, aren't they? Even if you think about >Justicars, "-6 votes" is still too good for a 4-cap vampire. People still play Camarilla vote decks, sure. If you're planning for this, you have a HUGE in built risk factor, though. What sort of Camarilla vote deck will it be? Will it be next to me? Will it be doing things that annoy me? If you don't get a good setup (which you can't control), aus/pre for a 4 cap is expensive, even with a minor cycling ability. >> 2) You and your ally's IC guys bleed for 3 each. Then Freak. Then >call >> referendums as above. >I really can't understand why are you talking about bleed and Freaks. >Surely, Muchael doesn't make IC completely useless. But would you pay >11 pool for a vampire with just +2 bleed and without votes? You're not, though. In this instance, you are playing a bleed and using Fortitude to Freak Drive. If people are leaving vampires untapped for purpose <A>, you use the flexibility of your deck to make sure that purpose <A> doesn't happen right now - if what they're going to do bothers you. So, you bleed and untap. (There are options other than Freak, of course, but Freak is a good one.) Has Michael blocked you? Well, there's all these other vampires you have who can also call votes. Is it a problem for you that he's got a Prince who can tip the balance? And you can't easily affect Michael Luther? Well then, you're concentrating on the wrong thing. Aside: When Temptation of Greater Power existed in its former incarnation, many people shrieked. "What can I do about that? I need a Sudden RIGHT NOW!" So, don't go for the 'obvious' problem. Go for the other problems. Banish the Prince. Command of the Harpies him, if you have a heavy political game. Cancel his votes. If you're playing Malkavian, Telepathic Vote Counting is great here. So, that's four against, four in favour, 1 from the political card in favour, and his Prince abstaining. You win. TVC is a superb card for anyone with Auspex flexibility, especially if Presence isn't so plentiful. >> 3) You burn PA from hand to support your ally as he does for you >> (6-4 and 10-0, resp.) >6-6 and 10-2, in my scenario, so you can push your first PA only if you >have an Edge as well. > >> 4) Banish Michael when he taps. If he never taps, then go on about >> your usual business of the game as if he weren't there. >Banish a 4-cap? He would return on the next turn. Several pool down for that Methuselah, potentially. And he can't use Michael to push votes on his own turn, or benefit from him in a Con Boon, or whatever he might be doing. If that Methuselah is your predator or prey, this isn't bad for you in general - screwing him over is good. (Painting with a very broad brush here.) If they're cross-table, the fact that you're willing to cause him grief may prove sufficient to make him more... negotiable. What's he getting for cancelling/changing your votes? Maybe losing his toys on a regular basis is a problem for him. >Well, I can understand that issuing an errata is always painful. But >please, just imagine that you're about to create a NEW vampire and tell >me, honestly, which one is more balanced and less likely to spoil the >game? Why is either of them likely to spoil the game? That's a very loaded question. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1108484567.4...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >Nobody can prepare to any situation. Anyway, I simply cannot "prepare >my deck to" Michael Luther except for contesting him. The point is, there are lots and lots and lots of common strategies that would cause him pain. You don't have to prepare for him. You have to use good strategies, and play intelligently to meet the needs of the game you find yourself in. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1108428051.9...@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >Look, if I'm forced to contest a 4-cap vampire or include a 6-cap >Victoria Ash to tap him, doesn't this itself mean that the vampire is >overpowered? You're not forced to, though. Sure, those are perfectly valid strategies (if you choose to go for them), but they're far from the only ones open to you. >To my mind, fledglings like Michael Luther should stay away from >politics... don't even mentioning changing the votes of Inner Circle >members :) If, as many players do, you equate capacity with a rough approximation of WoD generation, generation doesn't affect how deeply established a vampire can be in politics. Sure, a lot of deeply entrenched politicos have a low generation (and hence a high capacity), but they don't have to. A strong relationship with a Prince, sufficient (and sufficiently well protected) dirt on a Justicar, being in the right place at the right time... these can give you an edge. Nor is vampiric generation a reliable measure of vampiric age. Not all vampires diablerise other vampires. And you can get up to level 5 disciplines whilst still being a high generation, which is often enough to give you a fair old range of abilities. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <emr311ddfg8oe8453...@4ax.com>, "Fabio \"Sooner\" Macedo" <fabio_...@NOSPAMyahoo.com.br> writes: >On 14 Feb 2005 16:24:02 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: >>Why? I have a lot of good permament votes, I pay a >>good price for them, then someone pays just 4 pool to cancel at least 4 >>of my votes. That looks like a definition of "brokenness" :) >>Ector > >No. The definition of brokenness isn't "I payed for X and someone >payed for X-5 for the same effect". This happens a lot in the game; >otherwise no one would play Free States Rant Setites, since the >overall crypt size is way bigger than the old Ventrue Law Firm and >they don't have a vote location. Or nobody would use Kali's Fang >because the Tzimisce get the same effect with Femur of Toomler for 1 >less pool. Or nobody would play Lasombra since Power Structure because >Bastille Opera House has a better variation of the same effect (it >gives the votes to YOU, not to the vampires) and can still grant you 1 >vote if all your Daughters were torporized. And so on. Further, this is hardly new. Astrid Thomas can cancel as many votes as you care to put on the table, if they're Tremere. Quentin can cancel one vampire's votes per political action, for a blood. He doesn't even need to tap! Dominique can get rid of your locations. All of them! And so on. Lots of vampires have powerful, cute abilities. One "definition" of broken is such that you either need to be: - playing the "broken" card in its optimum strategy - preparing for that "broken" card in its optimum strategy or you die. The textbook example of this is Return to Innocence, once a gaming circle has caught on to it (in its printed, not errata-ed, form). [ quoted text not captured ]

Ector wrote: > Never going to say that. It's an extremely cornercase card that can be > played against IC and Justicars if they become too powerful. JUST LIKE MICHAEL LUTHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahem. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "How does this end?" "In fire." Emperor Turhan and Kosh

Ector wrote: > Your grandprey may wish to deny your KRC or Reins of Power if you are > ousting your prey. But nevertheless, most cards are working against you > only in hands of your predator or your prey. And in situations where there is no Luther, your grandprey might have the same potential and same desire. Sometimes vote decks don't have vote lock. So then you have to work for your meal. > As John Flournoy said, Michael is likely to change votes of the acting > vampire, if there are no better targets. But playing Daughters of > Cacophony is an interesting idea... thanks a lot for it. Doesn't make > Luther less broken, though. He isn't broken. Really. He has a handy, farily restricted ability, that sometimes will be huge and will make you not be able to pass one vote a turn. But the same can be said for Ventrue HQ. Or your predator having an IC member too. > Or the help may be insufficient. Your predator and prey may also have > their votes. Yes. That is true. Again. Vote decks don't always have vote lock. If they always had vote lock, they wouldn't be "political", now would they? Voting is powerful. The balance is that there is significant inherrent risk in trying to pass votes, as you might be in a situation where you don't have vote lock. Luther might make you not be able to pass one vote per turn. There are lots of ways to deal with this if you are really worried about it, but those have been described at length elsewhere. > Only if having 4 votes would be enough. Don't you agree that "Tap: you > have -4 votes for this referendum" ability is too strong for a 4-cap > vampire with two disciplines? No. I do not. 'Cause Ventrue Headquarters says "Tap: you have -3 votes for this referendum" and only costs 1 pool. And Demonstration says "Tap: you have -X votes this referendum, where X = the vampire with the most votes" and I think costs nothing. It isn't that big of a deal. Luther has been in circulation for, what, 2 years now? There have been *countless* tournaments, including multiple national championships. This is the first time I have ever heard anyone even mention the vampire in public, let alone outcry over his power. > I guess I should admit that my current deck isn't a "true voting deck". > It's a DOM/OBF stealth-bleed deck with some political actions (usually > not more than 10). Generally I have Arika and Gilbert Duane, sometimes > accompanied with Greger Anderssen. If you are only calling one vote a turn, then, ok, Luther might make your deck not work so well. That is what we like to call a strategic weakness. But if your deck is only calling one vote a turn, you should be ousting like crazy with OBF/DOM. What the hell are you complaining about? Like, you have a OBF/DOM deck with freaking Arika that is slowed down 'cause it can't call a vote per turn due to you being in a bad vote situation? Dude. Just bleed for 16 per action and discard the freaking political action cards. > Now imagine that I have all three mentioned vampires, my prey has 3 > votes (one Priscus), and my predator has one Prince and the dreaded > Michael Luther. Now what? I'm simply not going to help you justify your mostly unfounded fears by also imagining corner case situations that illustrate your point. [ quoted text not captured ]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ector wrote: | I don't know you, but your message clearly shows that you just avoid | thinking. If you really wish to argue that any vampire is broken, you | are welcome. Usually, I just ignore messages like yours since they are | useless. I believe it's possible and appropriate to say the same thing about your own messages. You are whining because you simply did not think about the problem; instead you came running to the newsgroup in tears demanding that Michael Luther (a cornercase inclusion in most crypts) be fixed because your deck got owned. I repeat, SOMETIMES YOU LOSE. One of two things happened: - -- You built your deck poorly - -- You didn't figure out how to play around Michael's ability That's it. That's all. He's not broken; you just suck. Hey, I got an idea. You're using Arika + some other guys with PRE and FOR, right? What about this: MIND NUMB HIM, AND THEN FREAK DRIVE. Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick, how hard can it be? Mind Numb is great even when Michael isn't around; just Numb your prey's blocker, Freak Drive, bleed for 3, Freak Drive, KRC for 3, Voter Cap. It's super easy to do with the Ventrue. I don't want to hear any crying about "it won't work", either. Go put some Mind Numbs and Freak Drives in that deck, son, and get back to us. ~ While you're at it, learn to play, you tool. - -- Derek insert clever quotation here -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCEpSUtQZlu3o7QpERAm1hAKCTyl0MvR8aAZ+TUT0eI8aLYH2JYQCgtkbG BHkE+sQ5fJeLhJtQk6nF6mY= =SHGu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

LSJ wrote: > Ector wrote: > > Michael Luther needs no cards at all. > > > Please read my post prior to answering. It wasn't too long... I'm > > really trying not to waste your time. First, in my scenario Toreador > > player had a Prince, so the first action DON'T pass (5-6) unless your > > I thought you said he needs no cards at all. > Now he needs a prince. > Which is it? He needs no cards to use his ability. There are a lot of powerful cards that could be played even by small vampires, but you have to find these cards first, and you generally cannot play them each turn. Michael can use his ability each turn without any cards. > > ally also discard a PA card and you burn an edge. And I wrote "cannot > > push any political > > actions while Luther is untapped". Surely, he works only once per turn, > > but don't you think that "-8 votes" is too good for him? > > No, I don't, since it's highly conditional. OK. But if you make the proposed fix, he would NEVER meet a condition when his ability would be overpowered. Stealing 4 votes for a Prince is good, but stealing 6 or 8 is too good. > How many votes does he get when you have two archbishops instead of > one IC member? I hear IC members are pretty good. Perhaps your > "broken" is in fact an element of "balance" for them. So, you think that IC members really need such "balance"? This would be a good theme for a new topic, as I'm completely disagree with this. Arika is very good, Alexandra too, but the rest aren't so outstanding, and Michael makes them crappy. IMHO, this really spoils a game. > > And why do you call this a "dream scenario", as though it isn't > > realistic? People still play IC, aren't they? Even if you think about > > Justicars, "-6 votes" is still too good for a 4-cap vampire. > > Realistic, but not under the control of Michael Luther's > Methuselah -- he cannot control what or how you play. In the worst case (no Camarilla titles to change) Michael is just a slightly underpowered weenie. If he can change votes of a Prince (stealing 4 votes), this is very good. But if he steals 6-8 votes, this is too good. So, let's fix him, and the "too good" scenario would never happen! Honestly, I don't think that Camarilla IC and Justicars are too overpowered, and they don't need a fix in a form of Michael. Voting decks already took a hit when DU and KR were banned. What do you think? > See also Malkavian Dementia (which can also result in a > dramatic shift in the number of votes, as Leandro goes to > diablerize Igo and then votes to burn himself). Firsty, this card works against a single clan, while Michael works against the whole sect. Secondly, Michael can do something even if nobody plays Camarilla, while this card is completely useless without Malks. Ector

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 19:32:20 -0500, Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> scrawled: >He's not broken; you just suck. i think i may just have to make this into a tshirt or something... ah, dear... *wipes tears of mirth from corner of eye* salem http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/VtES/index.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<dM2dnTZYopY...@giganews.com>... > > Hey, I got an idea. You're using Arika + some other guys with PRE and > FOR, right? What about this: > > MIND NUMB HIM, AND THEN FREAK DRIVE. > > Jesus H. Christ on a popsicle stick, how hard can it be? > > Mind Numb is great even when Michael isn't around; just Numb your prey's > blocker, Freak Drive, bleed for 3, Freak Drive, KRC for 3, Voter Cap. > It's super easy to do with the Ventrue. > > I don't want to hear any crying about "it won't work", either. Go put > some Mind Numbs and Freak Drives in that deck, son, and get back to us. > ~ While you're at it, learn to play, you tool. > > - -- > Derek Go Derek! Hehehe! Anyway, just in case you(Ector) are gonna whine about the rarity of Freak Drive then just let the other minions with presence and obfuscate do the mind numbing. It's reeeaaaalllyyy that simple. A lot of people already gave their views about the situation and so far you're the only one who has been bitch-whining about a weenie with a "good" (and not necessarily the "best") ability.

Ector wrote: > When someone plays Telepathic Vote > Counting, this is "fair", since he has to have an untapped vampire with > superior Auspex (or play Wake), and he loses his card to cancel my PA. What game are you playing now? TVC is an action modifer, not a reaction card. > But when a 4-cap Michael Luther, that requires NO support cards can > CONSTANTLY spoil my votes, this is too good and unbalanced. I'm not > complaining about my losses - just want to make the game better. > Well when an 11cap that requires no support cards can constantly spoil my locations, my pool, and my ability to vote significantly... C'mon Arika is far worse of a perpetrator on game balance than Michael ever will be. G

Fabio "Sooner" Macedo wrote: > On 15 Feb 2005 00:51:39 -0800, "talonz" <talo...@yahoo.ca> wrote: > > >Try making an Indy 11cap vote deck work and THEN see how much work it > >is. I've done it. > >G > > Now I'm curious. Have some decklist? Insights? > http://members.w-link.net/%7Esound/webpvtesdecklist05230410.html Essentially; 11cap with PRE, charming lobby/FSR/BO/Vcap/FD/sens dep is the ideal chain, followed by a daughter with some autopass vote. It was great fun when it worked, but was prone to all sorts of downfalls. G

Ector wrote: > > That does not serve to demonstrate that a card is broken, just that > you > > were not prepared to deal with such a situation. > Nobody can prepare to any situation. And how about *This* situation Ector? The one you seem so concerned about. Can you prepare for that or not? We say you can, yet you insist on blubbering on about how broken this vamp must be because you refuse to prepare for it.... > > IC members still get 4 votes, +2 bleed, access to 'burn any non-cam > > vamp' cards AND quite often decent or incredibly powerful specials on > > top of that for 11 pool, and the fact this one vamp puts a crimp in > > that makes him broken? Give your head a shake! > > In other words, I beleive what I said is clear. > > Next you'll be saying Fear of Mekhet is broken too. > Never going to say that. It's an extremely cornercase card that can be > played against IC and Justicars if they become too powerful. > Oh that's rich. I believe we have a classic 'forest for the trees' here. Or to put it another way, they both accomplish what you describe above. > You might notice that I suggested to limit Michael with Princes and > Primogens. I use IC in my examples just to illustrate his brokenness. > If you cannot see the errors in your logic above, there is no further discussion needed. > I'm already working in this way. By the way, don't you think that being > a puppets of 4-cap weenie is a shame for IC and Justicars? I'd call it more like delicious irony myself. > > > > Nope. You'd have as a 'faction' 5-4. Sounds like a passed vote to > me. > UNLESS they have some votes, too. > *sigh* I used your own game-example. For every card they play, it can be countered by other cardplay. Stop altering your examples mid-discussion attempt to further portray your situation as hopelessly lost. > I always think a lot, thanks. And Martin's controller is also > thinking... so he can just allow you to play your harmless vote. > Bingo! Cryptic rider time. Voter cap/minion tap. Charming lobby. Malk rider clause. > This would be just a desperate action. You will win just one turn (part > of the turn, as you'll spend one action to play Banishment), so it > isn't especially effective. > It is a temporary solution yes. Look at it as if Banishment read "force Michael Luther to lose his ability until his controller's next influence phase", is that so bad? > > > Might of the Camarilla? > > > Even if he doesn't, you'll have to play both Banishment and Might of > the Camarilla on the same turn. You may spend a whole game collecting > them. > So? You're playing ICs after all, stack the deck. If not, stick with banishment or any of a myriad other solutions. Few are going to be the magic bullets you appear to want. Deal with it. > > No. I'd agree that it is one way of many to deal with such an issue. > > For now, it's the only reliable way. IMHO, if players need to contest a > unique card, this means that the card is broken. > No. I'd agree that it is one way of many to deal with such an issue. > > > > > OK, I really vote once per turn. Do you think that "casual voting" > > > decks should die? > > > > Casual camarilla IC vote decks forced to adapt and work at getting a > > vote through you mean? lol! Man this just stinks of "I love Arika > and > > can't let go of my crutch" Ector. > Forced to adapt? If you mean "forced to include some Michael Luthers of > their own", I'd agree, though it would definitely spoil the game. No. I'd agree that it is one way of many to deal with such an issue. > And you may safely leave Arika (and myself) alone, as the same problem > would arise for any player and any Inner Circle member. Just try to > play any deck with IC against Michael and you will share my feelings. > No. I'd agree that it is one counter of many to deal with when fielding such a deck. (don't take it too hard Ector, you sound like me about 4 years ago, just accept that the card exists and learn to deal with it, because it isn't broken.) G

Ladies and gentlemen! I'm forced to ask you to cease discussing my decks, my humble person and, especially, the ways to deal with Michael Luther (most of these ways aren't very effective or require too large investments anyway). Please, just cast your votes "for" or "against" changing the words "change the votes of a Camarilla vampire" to "change the votes of any Prince or Primogen" in Michael Luther's ability, and provide your arguments and counterarguments. Here are my arguments "for" the change: 1). Michael Luther is just too overpowered. Being a 4-cap vampire, he should have 3 "vampire points". He has two clan disciplines and two abilities that, IMHO, are worth at least 2 points. Thus, he has at least 4 points (+33%), which threatens the game balance. (I'm not going to say that each vampire should be perfectly balanced, but +33% is way too much). Making him weaker will restore the balance. 2). When Michael changes the votes of a Justicar, he effectively gains 6 votes for that referendum, and changing the votes of Inner Circle member brings 8 votes. This is just too powerful ability for a 4-cap vampire, even though it requires him to tap. Changing votes of a Prince brings 4 votes, which is powerful enough, but not overpowered. 3). The whole concept of politics in V:tES is tied to vampire age. Votes are the most important advantage of the elders. Playing a huge vampire usually means taking a great risk compared to playing several smaller ones, as he can be rushed, his precious action can be blocked, and his bleed can be bounced. Having a 4-cap vampire able to change the votes of Justicars and Inner Circle members makes them much less playable. And the game loses much of its flavor without them. 4). Michael Luther terribly hoses Camarilla voting decks, especially deck using Justicars and IC members. The voting decks already took a major hit when DU and KR were banned, and Michael seriouly lowers their chances (losing one political action per turn just to make him tap doesn't look like a way to victory). The proposed fix will make the deck archetype much more playable, which is good for the game. 5). V:tES is supposed to be based on World of Darkness. In terms of WOD, Michael's ability is completely "unrealistic". How can a fledgling REGULARLY manipulate ALL Justicars and Inner Circle members? Maybe, he is just a disguised Methuselah? Or even Antediluvian? In fact, his ability is the most unrealistic I'm aware of, and it's definitely bad.

Daneel wrote: >Michael Luther is indeed a very powerful vampire. Noone doubts that. I > dare say that he is probably among the most powerful conditionally > useful vampires. There are a number of factors to consider, though, > when assessing his potential. > > >#1. He hoses camarilla vampires, and his ability is most useful against > larger chunks of votes. Comparing him to Marianna Gilbert for anti > vote-tech: a vampire with superior Presence can, in most cases, gain > 4 votes for a card without tapping. So if Michael changes the votes > of a Prince (effectively gaining 4 votes), he is trading one tapping > for one card. Whether it is worth it is up to you. His power rises if > there are any Justicars (or better yet, Inner Circle members) on the > table. Most Justicars or IC members that see play are quite powerful > to begin with, so the fact that his ability primarily hoses them is > not a sign of brokenness; he is more like a balancing factor. I don't agree that Justicars and Inner Circle members need to be "balanced". The only IC member I've heard complains about is Arika. And Michael Luther's "balancing" would make the majority of them much less playable or even unplayable. >#2. Michael Luther can, in most cases, well be integrated into a > regular Inner Circle voting deck. He does not have OBF, but then > neither does he need it (he won't take actions). He is there to > ensure that you don't get hosed by him, and to support your > political supremacy (Closed Session with Martin Luther is almost > certain vote lock if you control IC members). Contesting him or even making him work for you is effective, but if a vampire is so unbalanced that it should be contested, why not make him balanced? > >#3. Michael Luther adds an interesting new dimension to the game. You > need to think when an opponent has him; it is not just straight > vote-counting and voter-capping anymore. With whom do you vote, whom > do you abstain, which votes do you call first? Lots of interesting > effects that make the game that much more enjoyable. I'd enjoy this too if the effect wasn't so powerful. If it stated "Tap Michael to choose a vampire and flip a coin. If heads, you may change votes of the chosen vampire", for instance. In tournament play, I'm trying to play for win, not for fun. > >#4. The game is not too long. It lasts about 12-14 full turns on the > average. If you play cleverly (and you should, given the abundance > of vote hoser cards), even an early Michael Luther will not be able > to spoil more than a few votes for you. If you play your cards right, > those will be important (but not crucial) votes. If I would play cleverly, I would wait a lot - just to find needed cards to get around Michael, and most of these 12-14 turns would pass wihout me :) And don't forget that sometimes nothing depends on my play... What can you do if Michael's controller just torporized your vampire and he's going to diablerize, having enough votes with Michael's assistance? What can you do if Michael is used proactively to push the votes of his controller? Just imagine that Ira Rivers is playing Kine Resources Contested, using Michael to push it, then Alexandra untaps Michael and plays Reins of Power? Yours, Ector

[ quoted text not captured ] I completely realized my mistake... I shouldn't use the word "broken" and I should use the formal style for this topic. Now I'm trying to fix this mistake - look at the last branch of messages in the tree. Please look at my answer there. > And not like Michael even remotely compares to PTO. Now that card is > unfair. Michael is nowhere from that. Michael may cost you a political > action each turn at worst - but you still have the minion you call > those actions with. And Michael is completely occupied by this. On > the other hand, PTO will completely kill your vampire (and not just > possibly prevent a single vote each turn the burned vampire could > have called), and it costs only an action and a card (though the > minion taking the action must indeed be highly qualified). Well, since I've recognized the mistake I made using the word "broken", it would be silly of me to be engaged in the discussion about "what card is MORE broken" :) If you really want to discuss PTO or want to suggest fixing it, let's discuss this card in another thread. Yours, Ector

Ector wrote: >I'm forced to ask you to cease discussing my decks, my humble person >and, especially, the ways to deal with Michael Luther (most of these >ways aren't very effective or require too large investments anyway). Uhh, yeah. Sadly, the internet just doesn't work this way. You opened the can of worms. Now you have worms. -Peter

Ector also wrote: >1). Michael Luther is just too overpowered. Being a 4-cap vampire, he >should have 3 "vampire points". He has two clan disciplines and two >abilities that, IMHO, are worth at least 2 points. Except, again, that Ventrue HQ costs 1 pool and gives you 3 votes all the time. Luther's vote gaining ability is highly conditional, and sometimes gives you nothing. >2). When Michael changes the votes of a Justicar, he effectively gains >6 votes for that referendum But when he changes a Cardinal's votes...oh, wait, he can't. 'Cause his ability is conditional. >4). Michael Luther terribly hoses Camarilla voting decks, especially >deck using Justicars and IC members. Lots of things do that. >5). V:tES is supposed to be based on World of Darkness. Any argument that tries to change VTES mechanics based on the WoD automatically fails. 'Cause they are different games. -Peter

"Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote in message news:1108554479....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > 5). V:tES is supposed to be based on World of Darkness. In terms of > WOD, Michael's ability is completely "unrealistic". How can a fledgling > REGULARLY manipulate ALL Justicars and Inner Circle members? Maybe, he > is just a disguised Methuselah? Or even Antediluvian? In fact, his > ability is > the most unrealistic I'm aware of, and it's definitely bad. As pdb6 already noted, this is Moot(tm). But also: Incorrect. This "fledging" [sic, he's a 4-cap, not a fledging 2-cap] can only manipulate ONE Justicar or Inner Circle member between his untaps. This is realistic. In fact, it's exactly what this "fledging" did in the WoD. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. V:TES homepage: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/ Though effective, appear to be ineffective -- Sun Tzu

In article <1108554479....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>, Ector wrote: > Ladies and gentlemen! > > I'm forced to ask you to cease discussing my decks, my humble person > and, especially, the ways to deal with Michael Luther (most of these > ways aren't very effective or require too large investments anyway). > Please, just cast your votes "for" or "against" changing the words > > 2). When Michael changes the votes of a Justicar, he effectively gains > 6 votes for that referendum, and changing the votes of Inner Circle > member brings 8 votes. This is just too powerful ability for a 4-cap > vampire, even though it requires him to tap. Changing votes of a Prince > brings 4 votes, which is powerful enough, but not overpowered. > Camarilla voting is powerfull enough to have more hosers than it currently has. Luther just has inbuild "awe+cap" or Dread gaze equivalent. As stated many times before in this ng, there are many ways to plan against luther. An most of those are much more broadly usable than repairing to play against (imnsho fairly balanced) PTO. Other than that, luther is really expensive. > 3). The whole concept of politics in V:tES is tied to vampire age. > Votes are the most important advantage of the elders. Playing a huge > vampire usually means taking a great risk compared to playing several > smaller ones, as he can be rushed, his precious action can be blocked, > and his bleed can be bounced. Having a 4-cap vampire able to change the > votes of Justicars and Inner Circle members makes them much less > playable. And the game loses much of its flavor without them. > The concept of voting is heavily tied with "political influence" of a metuselah. The fact that high cap vampires tend to have more *starting* votes, does not mean that the concept of politics would be tied to vampire age. By a view presented in V:tM Vampires of the camarilla are ignorant weaklings, who can easilly be manipulated by cunning plans and looming threads like "WMD". > 4). Michael Luther terribly hoses Camarilla voting decks, especially > deck using Justicars and IC members. The voting decks already took a > major hit when DU and KR were banned, and Michael seriouly lowers their > chances (losing one political action per turn just to make him tap > doesn't look like a way to victory). The proposed fix will make the > deck archetype much more playable, which is good for the game. > [DOM]The fix of removing DU and KR was neccessary to fix the game.[/DOM] And by the way, imnsho vote decks relying on use of DU or KR were lame from the beginning. A good vote deck (even after the 7/7 or whatever) in my book is made from weenies or fighters. > 5). V:tES is supposed to be based on World of Darkness. In terms of > WOD, Michael's ability is completely "unrealistic". How can a fledgling > REGULARLY manipulate ALL Justicars and Inner Circle members? Maybe, he > is just a disguised Methuselah? Or even Antediluvian? In fact, his > ability is > the most unrealistic I'm aware of, and it's definitely bad. > I completely disagree. The most muchkin you can get in V:tM is to use all your freebies on backgrounds and play camarilla. Lets see what I thing we could find from michale luthers background sheet Status 5 (comparable to IC) Umm, was that all.. that would leave 15 freebies to buy more backgrounds. Like Military influence (elders or *pretenders* only, and this luther guy just looks like a pretender to me) Like... like... Military influence 5 (I controll NATO) that was cool... now we seem to have still 10 points left (backrounds are 1 freebie each)... how about... About... generation 8 (8th), so no one can dominate me... and... and... ad nauseum. -- Sator Ukko 333=11 Occu Rotas

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Ector wrote: | Ladies and gentlemen! | | I'm forced to ask you to cease discussing my decks, my humble person | and, especially, the ways to deal with Michael Luther (most of these | ways aren't very effective or require too large investments anyway). | Please, just cast your votes "for" or "against" changing the words No, dude, you don't get it. You have no experience. Your decks suck. You're a fool. And there are plenty of ways to deal with Michael Luther, most of which are VERY effective. But they will force you to adapt your decks and your playstyle when he is on the table. You don't get to just play your deck your way and always win. The game doesn't work like that. Better go back to Yu-Gi-Oh if you think it does. You have no right to call any sort of "vote", because your premises are all invalid. No, really. They're all invalid. That means they're all junk. Worthless. You haven't even shown that Michael is broken; he's not, as anyone with a brain who's played against him or used him could tell you. In fact, a number of people with brains HAVE told you; but you still sit there with your fingers in your ears shouting "lalalala". You can't just say "No, wait, stop refuting my arguments and just say yes or no". It doesn't work that way. You have to bring up real logic and real arguments, not just arbitrary claims based on the opinion of one inexperienced, weak player who doesn't play in anything resembling a typical environment. Face it, most of us have been playing a lot longer than you, and in a lot more varied environments. Experience counts for a lot, and you have a whole LOT of experience lined up against you on this one saying "He just ain't broken, man; he's easy to work around". You are NOT smarter than us; you are NOT a better player and we just don't know it yet. You claim to be 33, but you are acting like a spoiled 15-year old. Most 33-year olds I know are capable of putting forth reasoned arguments and actually listening to opposing voices. Now go back, take your meds, and try to understand why you're being spanked so badly every time you spout off like this. Maybe you wouldn't get so hurt when everyone calls you out on it in the future. - -- Derek insert clever quotation here -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.5 (MingW32) iD8DBQFCE1BLtQZlu3o7QpERAjkbAJ9LcnNbjtVGDRvp7jwwbPQngL6dQACgxf9B jsyrJ1AazYMt4JU+F+JgnOw= =QTbU -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Ector wrote: > Please, just cast your votes "for" or "against" changing the words > > "change the votes of a Camarilla vampire" > to > "change the votes of any Prince or Primogen" > > in Michael Luther's ability, and provide your arguments and > counterarguments. Against. You've already heard a slew of arguments, so rather than rehash them, I'd like to suggest you build a deck that uses Michael Luther and try playing with him rather than against him. That way you'll see his strengths and weaknesses for yourself, and will be able to make a more objective assessment of whether or not he is too broken. In other words, playtest him. That's what I would do before I ever approached the newsgroup, or even my playgroup, with the notion that a card is broken. Try a deck with Luther, some cheap Princes, and Closed Session. Good luck!

Ector wrote: >I don't agree that Justicars and Inner Circle members need to be >"balanced". The only IC member I've heard complains about is Arika. And >Michael Luther's "balancing" would make the majority of them much less >playable or even unplayable. That is just ridiculous. People have been playing with IC members for the entire time that Luther has been in play. Again, while it is certainly possible that you have noticed something that everyone else in the world has missed, it isn't *that* likely. I've never heard anyone discuss Luther as being even particularly useful, let alone over powered, in this forum, till now. Again, maybe you are right (well, really, I don't think you are, but I'm fair minded). That the card has been in circulation for 2 years and no one has ever brought this up before (in my experience) indicates *something*. Like, say, Succubus Club got banned, but only after years and years of endless discussion about it being inappropriate to competetive play. DU/KR at least, were a constant source of discussion of how to deal with it, if not outright being called inappropriate. Luther has been here for 1-2 years. People use IC members all the time. I just won a tournament with a deck based on stinking Harrod, the lamest of all IC members. People use them constantly, and never once has anyone said "Hey! I can't play my IC deck anymore! Luther totally hoses me!" Again, it is possible that no one has been paying attention. But the amount of complaint about something is usually linked to an actual reason. There has been no complaint to this point. And no one seems to be agreeing with you. Do you accept that it is possible that everyone else is right? >Contesting him or even making him work for you is effective, but if a >vampire is so unbalanced that it should be contested, why not make him >balanced? He isn't unbalanced. You don't *need* to contest him. If you have a deck that relies on the voting power of a single IC member and only calls one vote per turn, then yeah, Luther totally hoses you. Sometimes you get hosed. This isn't a problem with Luther, though. It is a weakness of your deck. But as you aren't that likely to run into Luther in play (I'm yet to see him in play ever. And I play VTES a lot), it isn't a big deal that it is a weakness of that deck--every deck has weaknessess, and sometimes you just get hosed. >I'd enjoy this too if the effect wasn't so powerful. If it stated "Tap >Michael to choose a vampire and flip a coin. If heads, you may change >votes of the chosen vampire", for instance. In tournament play, I'm >trying to play for win, not for fun. It isn't so powerful. It doesn't work on sabbat or independant votes. It doesn't work if people don't vote at all. It only works one time around the table. You can work around it by managing your votes correctly--only use ones that you need if he is on the table and untapped, and keep the votes of the acting vampire in reserve till either you pass the vote or Luther is used (i.e. you have 2 princes on the table. One calls a vote. The other says "2 in favor" you now have 3 votes for that PA. Even if your predator has a prince too, you are still passing the vote. If he steals the vote with Luther, you have the acting prince throw his 2 in and then play Bewitching or something. You pass the vote, Luther is tapped, and the second prince can call anything he wants.). You can deal with it by using utilitarian cards that aren't bad to have anyway. Or you can deal with it simply by calling more than 1 vote per turn. -Peter

Ector wrote: > Ladies and gentlemen! > > I'm forced to ask you to cease discussing my decks, my humble person > and, especially, the ways to deal with Michael Luther (most of these > ways aren't very effective or require too large investments anyway). > Please, just cast your votes "for" or "against" changing the words > > "change the votes of a Camarilla vampire" > to > "change the votes of any Prince or Primogen" > > in Michael Luther's ability, and provide your arguments and > counterarguments. Allow me to save you, and everyone else, the trouble. The current tally is: In favor of changing it: Ector. Not in favor of changing it: EVERY OTHER PERSON THAT HAS POSTED TO THIS THREAD. Ector, _nobody but you_ has posted in this thread that Michael needs changing. You've gotten absolutely zero support all week, as well as many arguments both polite and rude (Hi, Derek!) about why you are overreacting and that Michael is conditionally-powerful-but-not-broken. There is no point to 'putting it to a vote' when so far the count is 'everybody-to-1'. However, I'll rebut your specific arguments (again) as follows: 1) Game balance: Michael may be a little overpowered. So what? He's a freaking 4-cap. His conditional ability does not "threaten the game balance", as you put it. If one vampire being miscosted threatens the game balance, why aren't you equally arguing about fixing the dozens of vampires that are undercosted, or any of the others that are a point overcosted? One vampire with maybe a single extra point of conditional specials is not going to ruin the game - and that's _assuming_ you value the specials as highly as you value Michael's. 2) The power is too much for a small-cap: Lots of small vampires have conditional powers that are VERY strong against specific decks. Look at Barth, for instance, and imagine having certain weenie decks behind him. 3) Politics is tied to age ("Having a 4-cap vampire able to change the votes of Justicars and Inner Circle members makes them much less playable.") Politics is generally tied to age, but not exclusively; even a 2 or 3-cap vampire is capable of playing Awe/Bewitching/etc, and even a 1-capacity vampire is a legal target for a Clan Justicar vote. Any capacity vampire can cancel or delay votes via a variety of cards; age is not a requirement to be involved in politics. And if politics is tied to age, why haven't you argued about how weenie praxis-seizure decks are so broken? Unlike Michael Luther, people regularly win tournaments with decks built around small-cap politics; shouldn't that indicate that this style of deck is more broken than Michael? 4) "Michael Luther terribly hoses Camarilla voting decks": No, he doesnt. Michael Luther terribly hoses SOME Camarilla voting decks: only those that are Camarilla, are based around a single vampire with lots of votes, and cannot get other help around the table and cannot get rid of a single vampire. Camarilla voting decks based not around IC members but around hordes of princes, such as a weenie-Praxis Seizure deck or the classic 'Ventrue Law Firm', find Michael a mild irritant at best. Camarilla voting decks are MUCH more hosed by having one of the vampires with AUS and +1 inherent intercept sitting beside them. 5) "V:tES is supposed to be based on World of Darkness. In terms of WOD, Michael's ability is completely "unrealistic".": As noted by LSJ, Michael's ability is based on his World of Darkness history and character; instead of being 'completely unrealistic' as you declare, it's actually trying to follow canon. -John Flournoy

imagine deck with Luther, Quentin and Demonstration. that is obscene. forntunately you can´t add Bruce de Guy (group 4),because with him such a deck would be a doomsday device for whole V:TES. and now, please can we switch the topic to Piotr Andreikov? my prey gained 10 pool through Kamut with him during one game. that´s unrealistic for a 2-cap.

"Alias" <ransom...@seznam.cz> wrote in message news:1108569751.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... > and now, please can we switch the topic to Piotr Andreikov? my prey > gained 10 pool through Kamut with him during one game. that愀 > unrealistic for a 2-cap. Like Carter doing an Art Scam, one method of stopping him is to block the action. [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > "Alias" <ransom...@seznam.cz> wrote in message news:1108569751.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com... > > and now, please can we switch the topic to Piotr Andreikov? my prey > > gained 10 pool through Kamut with him during one game. that´s > > unrealistic for a 2-cap. > > > Like Carter doing an Art Scam, one method of stopping him is to > block the action. > > -- > LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. There it is! LSJ admits that intercept is over-powered!! :) Jeff

Alias wrote: > imagine deck with Luther, Quentin and Demonstration. that is obscene. > forntunately you can´t add Bruce de Guy (group 4),because with him > such a deck would be a doomsday device for whole V:TES. Uh, such a deck would be _considerably_ less than a doomsday device against decks that don't call any votes, and that's a HUGE amount of decks. I've played entire tournament games where nobody at the table called a single vote. (It also fails to be that impressive when there are multiple voters at a table, because Demonstration/Luther can't be used readily on a succession of votes between your turns.) -John Flournoy

On 16 Feb 2005 03:47:59 -0800, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: > Ladies and gentlemen! > > I'm forced to ask you to cease discussing my decks, my humble person > and, especially, the ways to deal with Michael Luther (most of these > ways aren't very effective or require too large investments anyway). > Please, just cast your votes "for" or "against" changing the words I vote for the card to remain the way it is (that is, change the votes of any Camarilla vampire). My reasons: [ quoted text not captured ] And not like Michael even remotely compares to PTO. Now that card is unfair. Michael is nowhere from that. Michael may cost you a political action each turn at worst - but you still have the minion you call those actions with. And Michael is completely occupied by this. On the other hand, PTO will completely kill your vampire (and not just possibly prevent a single vote each turn the burned vampire could have called), and it costs only an action and a card (though the minion taking the action must indeed be highly qualified). Hope that shed some new light on the matters, -- Bye, Daneel

Alias wrote: > imagine deck with Luther, Quentin and Demonstration. that is obscene. > forntunately you can´t add Bruce de Guy (group 4),because with him > such a deck would be a doomsday device for whole V:TES. So imagning. How is this any different than a deck with, like, 15 Dread Gaze? > and now, please can we switch the topic to Piotr Andreikov? my prey > gained 10 pool through Kamut with him during one game. that´s > unrealistic for a 2-cap. See, due to the lack of non text clues, I have no idea if this is a gag or not. But assuming it is not... -Block him. He has aus. He can't generate stealth. -Rush him. He has aus. He can't generate combat defense. -Do the exact same thing with Carter and Art Scam. [ quoted text not captured ]

Ector wrote: > Ladies and gentlemen! > > I'm forced to ask you to.. I vote you deal with it. Adapt or die. I couldn't care less either way at this point. And I can't resist mentioning that all Luther does is duplicate a very similar yet reduced library card effect. Which a ton of other vampires do as well. I guess they're all broken or unbalanced too and they should all have their text changed too eh? Yeah. Choke on your own logic. G

Emmit Svenson wrote: I'd like to suggest you build a deck that uses Michael > Luther and try playing with him rather than against him. That way > you'll see his strengths and weaknesses for yourself, and will be able > to make a more objective assessment of whether or not he is too broken. > ... > > Try a deck with Luther, some cheap Princes, and Closed Session. Good > luck! Don't do that. Play Luther the way he is supposed to be played. In an Anarch deck with lots of Firebrands. You'll want to use Galaric's Legacy to make him an Anarch because he doesn't have built in stealth. Don't forget Powerbase: LA so you can use him on your prey's turn as well as several times during your own. I don't think Michael Luther is broken, because sadly he isn't a Daughter of Cacophony, and furthermore he isn't 5 cap and thus needs a Discipline card to become a Baron, but he is seriously good. Kevin Walsh.

Fabio "Sooner" Macedo wrote: Or nobody would play Lasombra since Power Structure because > Bastille Opera House has a better variation of the same effect (it > gives the votes to YOU, not to the vampires) and can still grant you 1 > vote if all your Daughters were torporized. And so on. > Bastille Opera House is considerably worse than Power Structure. Firstly, it only gives votes to you, so you can't use it with Madrigal to gain lots of blood. Secondly, it only gives you votes equal to the number of ready Daughters of Cacophony you control. Thirdly, it's a location, so it can be burned, stolen with Disputed Territory/Dominate Kine etc., and because of its own card text can be burned to gain a vote against the Disputed Territory to steal it back. Kevin Walsh.

On 16 Feb 2005 14:16:38 -0800, "Kevin Walsh" <hja...@redbrick.dcu.ie> wrote: > >Fabio "Sooner" Macedo wrote: >Or nobody would play Lasombra since Power Structure because >> Bastille Opera House has a better variation of the same effect (it >> gives the votes to YOU, not to the vampires) and can still grant you >1 >> vote if all your Daughters were torporized. And so on. >> >Bastille Opera House is considerably worse than Power Structure. I'd not say "considerably", but you point out some cornercase situations there are definitely worth the mention. >Firstly, it only gives votes to you, so you can't use it with Madrigal >to gain lots of blood. It's another way to see things, but I generally prefer to have votes on me than to have on vampires. These are prone to be changed, stealed, cancelled and so on. There are plenty of cards/effects to do this. Secondly, it only gives you votes equal to the >number of ready Daughters of Cacophony you control. Power Structure does the same, the difference being that it gives the extra votes to the vampires. I'll concede that it is easier to amass a 5+ Lasombras than it is with the Daughters ;-), though. Thirdly, it's a >location, so it can be burned, stolen with Disputed Territory/Dominate >Kine etc., This true. I often forget that PS is not a location. Many vote-related ones are. and because of its own card text can be burned to gain a >vote against the Disputed Territory to steal it back. >Kevin Walsh. Good point. I can just guess this is a minor effect that won't take too much weight when comparing the two. Anyway, putting these differences in place kind of support the original point - that are lots of reasons to play this card and not another. so it's difficult to assume something overpowered based only on direct factors - cost, requirement etc. best, Fabio "Sooner" Macedo V:TES National Coordinator for Brazil Giovanni Clan Newsletter Editor ----------------------------------------------------- V:tES Brasil Site (only in Portuguese for now) http://planeta.terra.com.br/lazer/vtesbrasil/

In message <1108592198....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Kevin Walsh <hja...@redbrick.dcu.ie> writes: >Bastille Opera House is considerably worse than Power Structure. >Firstly, it only gives votes to you, so you can't use it with Madrigal >to gain lots of blood. But... the Daughters/Lasombra Opera House Power Structure crossover deck of doom would be pretty cool, mind. -- James Coupe "Why do so many talented people turn out to be sexual PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D deviants? Why can't they just be normal like me and EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 look at internet pictures of men's cocks all day?" 13D7E668C3695D623D5D -- www.livejournal.com/users/scarletdemon/

> He can only _change_ the votes. Call the vote, have both princes vote > "for", reserve the Inner Circle vote. Michael can then change one of > the princes to vote "against". If he does so, the Inner Circle can then > vote "for" (Vote passes 6-2 plus whatever other votes are at the table). > If he doesn't change a prince vote, then the Inner Circle doesn't vote > (Vote passes 4-0 plus whatever other votes are at the table). "Reserve" a vote?!?! Huh? Where in the rules is reserving a vote? Besides, his ability is a reaction situation. All the player has to do is ask the person calling the votes is how is Arika voting, and when/if the person says he's "reserving" her vote, the player just has to say, "well, I'm reserving tapping Luther until you decide how she votes", and that's it. Also, he can straight out just change the votes! He changes her vote from Abstaining (it is a viable decision in the rules, unlike "Reserve") to voting for or against. Aye, it's EXTREMELY hard to get around Luther, but it's the same with the !Ventrue, Quentin. And the arguement about whether or not Luther is reactionary is all dependant upon who is acting or reacting. Whose ever turn it is, is acting, who ever isn't, is reacting. > Alternatively, finesse the order that you call referendum in, so that he > taps on the "wrong" referendum. > You could also appeal to, or bribe, the rest of the table to vote for you. These are under-handed, corrupt and ill-moral ways to do it. In other words, COMPLETELY LEGAL! :) Try these instead as "reserving" holds no wate.r Adios and yer welcome, Jamie Caldwell Seppo Prince of Gawler

The Seppo wrote: >>He can only _change_ the votes. Call the vote, have both princes > > vote > >>"for", reserve the Inner Circle vote. Michael can then change one of >>the princes to vote "against". If he does so, the Inner Circle can > > then > >>vote "for" (Vote passes 6-2 plus whatever other votes are at the > > table). > >> If he doesn't change a prince vote, then the Inner Circle doesn't > > vote > >>(Vote passes 4-0 plus whatever other votes are at the table). > > > "Reserve" a vote?!?! > Huh? Where in the rules is reserving a vote? Besides, his ability is > a reaction situation. All the player has to do is ask the person > calling the votes is how is Arika voting, and when/if the person says > he's "reserving" her vote, the player just has to say, "well, I'm > reserving tapping Luther until you decide how she votes", and that's > it. Also, he can straight out just change the votes! He changes her > vote from Abstaining (it is a viable decision in the rules, unlike > "Reserve") to voting for or against. I think it's in the same place as "abstaining" - neither are terms used in the rules explicitly. But there's no obligation to vote [6.3.2], and if votes aren't cast they can't very well be changed. Choosing not to vote is not "voting", nor is it "abstaining." Luther's owner can of course wait until Arika casts her votes to tap, but with 2 princes voting in favor Arika doesn't need to be used.

On 16 Feb 2005 04:22:05 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> scrawled: > If you really want to discuss PTO or want to >suggest fixing it, let's discuss this card in another thread. no. no. nonononono. and.......no. please? salem http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/VtES/index.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

On 16 Feb 2005 04:15:48 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> scrawled: >I don't agree that Justicars and Inner Circle members need to be >"balanced". The only IC member I've heard complains about is Arika. And feel free to consider this comment a complaint about some IC other than Arika: I hate Leandro. his ability is mean. salem http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/VtES/index.htm (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email)

salem <salem_ch...@hotmail.com> wrote: : On 16 Feb 2005 04:22:05 -0800, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> scrawled: :> If you really want to discuss PTO or want to :>suggest fixing it, let's discuss this card in another thread. : no. no. nonononono. : and.......no. please? It's not broken. //T

On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 17:09:55 -0500, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> scrawled: >> and now, please can we switch the topic to Piotr Andreikov? my prey >> gained 10 pool through Kamut with him during one game. that愀 >> unrealistic for a 2-cap. > >See, due to the lack of non text clues, I have no idea if this is a gag or >not. But assuming it is not... > >-Block him. He has aus. He can't generate stealth. >-Rush him. He has aus. He can't generate combat defense. >-Do the exact same thing with Carter and Art Scam. you know, Piotr could block Carter doing the Art Scam. Piotr has aus. or could play Ministry. see, even more proof that he's broken! :D [ quoted text not captured ]

salem wrote: > On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 17:09:55 -0500, Peter D Bakija > <pd...@lightlink.com> scrawled: > > >> and now, please can we switch the topic to Piotr Andreikov? my prey > >> gained 10 pool through Kamut with him during one game. that´s > >> unrealistic for a 2-cap. > > > >See, due to the lack of non text clues, I have no idea if this is a gag or > >not. But assuming it is not... > > > >-Block him. He has aus. He can't generate stealth. > >-Rush him. He has aus. He can't generate combat defense. > >-Do the exact same thing with Carter and Art Scam. > > you know, Piotr could block Carter doing the Art Scam. Piotr has aus. > or could play Ministry. see, even more proof that he's broken! > :D > > salem > http://www.users.tpg.com.au/adsltqna/VtES/index.htm > (replace "hotmail" with "yahoo" to email) and Nicholas Chang, after doing the Art Scam, can wake and block Piotr Andreikov doing the Reunion Kamut. Sorry guys, I´m probably not very good at jokes, especially in english. I´ll add :-) next time.

In message <1108613277....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, The Seppo <moon...@hotkey.net.au> writes: >Also, he can straight out just change the votes! He changes her >vote from Abstaining (it is a viable decision in the rules, unlike >"Reserve") to voting for or against. No, he can't. From a post by LSJ in response to Morgan Vening: *** > I guess the crux here is, is there a difference between a vampire who > hasn't yet voted, and a vampire who has, for Michael Luther's special > ability? Can he 'change' a vote of someone who hasn't yet made one? If Yes and no. He can change the vampire's disposition, but he can't make the vampire cast his votes. That is, he can restrict the way the vampire's votes can be cast if they are ever cast. *** [LSJ 20041208] http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/msg/56 67704cadcbedf0 Located with the very difficult search terms of "author:LSJ michael luther abstain". -- James Coupe "Why do so many talented people turn out to be sexual PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D deviants? Why can't they just be normal like me and EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 look at internet pictures of men's cocks all day?" 13D7E668C3695D623D5D -- www.livejournal.com/users/scarletdemon/

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes it is. Duh. -- Bye, Daneel

In message <1108431599....@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >I really appreciate your attitude. And I really know that I shouldn't >even try to do LSJ's job :) But I really don't see anything especially >bad right now; moreover, I win in any case - if people convince me that >I'm wrong, I'll get precious knowledge, if not, the game may become >better. Sadly, no. If you keep posting "The sky is falling, the sky is falling", you will be regarded as a whiny, illogical, unhelpful poster who lies about the abilities that a card offers. If that's all right with you, by all means, post your over-hyped protestations of doom without actually putting in any effort. Just don't expect anyone to read them. That means you don't get precious knowledge, because everyone knows that you post nonsense. >Well, I lied See now? That's a stupid thing to do. "Michael Luther provided another deck with good vote defense against my casually slung in votes" is a very different matter from your protestations of broken. You lie about situations, you lie about the abilities cards offer. Grow up. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1108568128.1...@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, pd...@lightlink.com writes: >Luther has been here for 1-2 years. People use IC members all the time. >I just won a tournament with a deck based on stinking Harrod, the >lamest of all IC members. People use them constantly, and never once >has anyone said "Hey! I can't play my IC deck anymore! Luther totally >hoses me!" I dislike Gwendolyn more than Harrod. There's a decent [1/2] Nosferatu voting crypt out there, and even if Harrod can't play the Prince/Justicar cards, he's still a borderline inclusion - 4 votes, lack of self-contestation (reduced odds, at least). It's less great post the Fifth Tradition downgrade, but it's still kinda cool. I just can't get excited about Gwendolyn at all. Nor Etrius, though I don't think that's because Etrius is bad per se. That's more a long and tortured set of memories about how much the Tremere suck and, regardless of advances in the game since, it's hard to shake that. :) I still can't figure out how people play the Tzimisce, either. I mean, I see people do well with them. I just don't get how you play them. Meh, one of those things. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <slrnd16hhf...@sirppi.helsinki.fi>, Sator Ukko <Sator@Remove_Me.room33.com.invalid> writes: >Camarilla voting is powerfull enough to have more hosers than it >currently has. Luther just has inbuild "awe+cap" or Dread gaze >equivalent. As stated many times before in this ng, there are many ways >to plan against luther. An most of those are much more broadly usable >than repairing to play against (imnsho fairly balanced) PTO. I've argued, here and elsewhere, for more interesting and varied means of vote defence. It's annoying that Delaying Tactics is still generally the best vote defence in the game. I'd like to see a more varied playing field. But, crypt based defences are good. Typically, I like to include titles (where it makes sense to). But anti vote tech is good too. Not that I think there should be one for every deck, of course, but they provide an interesting curve ball that decks can pitch every now and then. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote in message news:1108554479....@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com... > Ladies and gentlemen! > in Michael Luther's ability, and provide your arguments and > counterarguments. > > Here are my arguments "for" the change: > 5). V:tES is supposed to be based on World of Darkness. In terms of > WOD, Michael's ability is completely "unrealistic". How can a fledgling > REGULARLY manipulate ALL Justicars and Inner Circle members? Maybe, he > is just a disguised Methuselah? Or even Antediluvian? In fact, his > ability is > the most unrealistic I'm aware of, and it's definitely bad. It can only be said to be regularly manipulation is ML can use his effect for every vote. This is NOT the case. Raille

James Coupe wrote: > I dislike Gwendolyn more than Harrod. There's a decent [1/2] Nosferatu > voting crypt out there, and even if Harrod can't play the > Prince/Justicar cards, he's still a borderline inclusion - 4 votes, lack > of self-contestation (reduced odds, at least). It's less great post the > Fifth Tradition downgrade, but it's still kinda cool. Harrod has POT/pre going for him. Harrod, Ellison, Amadeo, Sundown, and Tock make a smashing stealth vote deck. Gwendolyn has 2 (well, 1 and a half) things going for her: -Hotness. -At the time when she came out, she was the only vampire in the game with POT/FOR. Sadly, no longer the case, so all she really has going for her is the hotness. > I still can't figure out how people play the Tzimisce, either. I mean, > I see people do well with them. I just don't get how you play them. The hotness. I have a moderately (if not fairly) good Tzimisce kind of fighty S+B deck using VIC/PRE (relying on 3 each of The Rose and Creamy Jade, backed up by Hugo, the Blount sister, and some vic weenies). It relies entierly on being hot. And bleeding with Social Charm at stealth... Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6 "How does this end?" "In fire." Emperor Turhan and Kosh

James Coupe wrote: > I still can't figure out how people play the Tzimisce, either. I > mean, I see people do well with them. I just don't get how you play > them. I think the Tzimisce look very attractive in a number of ways: They have massive card efficiency. Personally, I couldn't see building a Tzi deck that did not include healthy doses of both Fiendish Tongue and Read the Winds. It's fairly accepted that Tzi block well, and for a long time people thought their best strategy was as a wall deck. With these two recent cards, it seems easy to at least launch actions (setting aside how they resolve) and still have plenty of untap. Then there's access to highly efficient combat. Chirpotrean Marauder and Breath of the Dragon. Two cards. You've got maneuver, agg poke, and ranged agg. Sprinkle in Rotshreck. You've just eaten up.... what? 20 cards? And people will rightly fear fighting you. So, Fiendish forward with Changeling and Plasmic Form (also a dodge for the defense), bully with your agg if you need to, get untapped, block with Read the Winds and Telepathic Misdirection. Perform some side actions like getting Raven Spies, Tier of Souls, and Army of Rats, maybe Eternal Vigilance if your crypt is right. Drop a Rotshreck or two just to keep the fear on. And at the end of the day, you've got a pretty good intercept deck even if your forward motion is poop, and dumb luck will drop a table into your lap often as not just by the sheer act of surviving to the end game. Doesn't seem that hard. -- David Cherryholmes david.che...@gmail.com "OK. So be it. It's not my view, but whatever makes you happy, right? I'm all about making you happy, Dave. :-)" -- LSJ, V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc.

In message <380q9cF...@individual.net>, David Cherryholmes <david.che...@duke.edu> writes: <snip - Tzimisce tips> >Doesn't seem that hard. Oh, I see the cards. It's just, hmm, I watch other people playing with them and they seem to be able to blend this bizarre War Ghoul, pool machine, bleed modifier, intercept, combat nastiness together, and I never seem to be able to put the deck together that well or with that level of smoothness. Possibly they're cheating. That must be it. [ quoted text not captured ]