jyhad rulings LOAD OF $&!%

I've played Jyhad since 95' and I've been in torpor for awhile. I have to disagree on a few points the "rule gods " have to say on a few things. Annoying Magic players have been trying to water down this game by applying limits on EVERYTHING. This is a mean game, not for nice little nerd wimps. OK? STAND UP AND PROTEST THE MIGHTY WOTC LOL! 1 Wake with evening freshness. This card is not that powerful that it needs to be replaced on your next untap. Replacing it after combat is fine, sheesh. 2. Card limits- NO WAY!! Those losers trying to push 4 card limits <cough> MAGIC > makes the game boring by making stealth the dominate winning deck. With no limits, bizarre and interesting new combinations will always be created. If someone wants to use 6 or more of a certain card. let them. It will probably slow him down in other areas. 3. Voting Procedure Vote pushing is fine. Now there are a 1 political card burned limits. BOLLOCKS. And you can't replace the original vote until its over??? Here is my argument: The terms are NOT I repeat NOT set as soon as the card is laid. The prey and predator both have a chance to intercept before the terms( ex. who will become justicar or who will lose blood from their pools etc) are stated. Why can't I draw back to 7 for more stealth to counter their intercept? YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO!! Then ......if not blocked and all intercept and stealth are done, no cards can be replaced. This is how originally we play and still do. Oh, action modifiers and reactions played after terms are set should not be replaced. This seems fair. We don't cry if a vote is toppled because the other players throw in vote cards, the caller should have planned the vote better. 3. Return to Innocence and Archon Investigation.- If someone wants to suicide thier vampires and bleed you for 10, oh well you should have blocked or deflected them. Here is your hanky, Mr. I wanna limit the Game. And what Malkavian would care if Archons are out to kill him? Hey you don't have to use the +3 on conditioning, there is a +2 on there as well LOL. 4. Lastly , No Repeat Actions. Another rule thats come out in the recent years. Why not? I know those gangrels untapping and going back in again is VERY annoying ,Majesty too. Vote these jerks out or bleed them. Don't cry about it and limit the game. Please respond to these topics and let me know what you think about them. Thanks

In article <26226-38...@storefull-143.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, [ quoted text not captured ] Hello Jeffrey, Prior to my move to Germany, I had played Jyhad/V:TES in Omaha upon it's inital release. When I did finally arrive in Germany, I was tasked to locate and build a new gaming group within the area. Still building and locating, but have succeeded in forming a group. Wanting to set the group here on the right track insofar as playing I started my investigation of the new Errata and Rulings that had cropped up during my removal from the game (6 to 7 months). It too was a shock to see the new Errata that had been set down. But in order to participate within the Tournaments located throughout Europe I am placed into a position of having to accept the rulings to allow the players within my group a fighting chance within the V:TES community at large. To start, I do agree with you on the Wake with Evening's Freshness (WwEF). However, I have already been around the bend on this and the approach you are taking is bound to start a "Flame War" with some of the more respected voices here within the Newsgroup... Peter Bakija, James Coupe, Carl Pilhatsch, LSJ, just to name a few. The WwEF ruling was determined to be viable change after the release of Forced Awakening (Sabbat) which has a blood cost attached if the minion being so awakened does not block the action. This in turn gave the WwEF card too much capability for free. (The ability to cycle a card for nothing except the loss of the Wake.) Card limits has not been identified as the norm within the V:TES community. The game was initially exempt from card limits and still retains this ruling. This does not preclude the use of House Rules that impose card limits, however. Talk of getting some tournaments sanctioned by the DCI with card limits has been initiated and from my understanding still being discussed. So do not worry about the card limit issue. On Voting, when a vote is initially played that card (the vote action) may be replaced as the both predator and prey now have the option of blocking the action. After the conditions of the vote are set down and actual votes being tallied, no cards can be replaced. Additionally, only one (1) political action card can be used by any Methuselah to use in the vote. The inital political card used by the acting Methuselah is only political action card that Methuselah can play. This does not preclude the use of Action Modifers or Reaction cards being played, just the political action cards. On the issue of Return to Innocence, the card is banned with in DCI tournaments and therefore a mute point. If you really wish to continue using the card in it's printed capacity, do so. I personally do not see anything wrong with the card. It is strong, yes, but constructed deck tournaments tend to have a larger number of Deflections and Telepathic Misdirections built in the decks than what I am use to seeing. So I am not entirely sure as to why the card received errata in the first place. But as I stated before, it is banned in DCI tournaments. The Archon Investigation still works as advertised, the last time I looked. So, I am unsure as to where your complaint is on this card. The No Repeat Action rule is something I have never investigated. I currently work under the rule to better prepare my group for tournaments. It was a welcome relief from the S:CE decks and repeat bleed offenders. For local rules within your community, play as you wish. But if you ever want to play in the tournaments that are steadily increasing around the world :) swallowing your pride and trying the new rulings is the only way to do it. There are rulings that I do not agree with and my method of lobbying has altered so the Newsgroups do not have to suffer with me. Find out who are the Princes. Find out who are the dominate voices. And make your inquiries with direct e-mail messages to help keep the wars down. Sincerely, Michael Eichler Prince of Ramstein Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

In article <26226-38...@storefull-143.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, Trut...@webtv.net (Jeffrey Moore) wrote: > I've played Jyhad since 95' and I've been in torpor for awhile. I have > to disagree on a few points the "rule gods " have to say on a few > things. Annoying Magic players have been trying to water down this game > by applying limits on EVERYTHING. This is a mean game, not for nice > little nerd wimps. OK? STAND UP AND PROTEST THE MIGHTY WOTC LOL! Sit down, shut up, and take notes, you muppet. > 1 Wake with evening freshness. This card is not that powerful that it > needs to be replaced on your next untap. Replacing it after combat is > fine, sheesh. Yes it was. It's one of these 'no downside' situations where there was no reason to look at the other wake cards. Check Deja news circa 7/7 1998 for the whole arguement. > 2. Card limits- NO WAY!! Those losers trying to push 4 card limits > <cough> MAGIC > makes the game boring by making stealth the dominate > winning deck. With no limits, bizarre and interesting new combinations will always be created. If someone wants to use 6 or more of a certain card. let them. It will probably slow him down in other areas. Most people on this group would agree, which you would know had you taken the time to read it before posting, troll-boy. *note* further posts dealing with this section should be ignored by all future posters. I repeat, do not respond to this arguement. > 3. Voting Procedure > Vote pushing is fine. Now there are a 1 political card burned limits. > BOLLOCKS. And you can't replace the original vote until its over??? > Here is my argument: > The terms are NOT I repeat NOT set as soon as the card is laid. > The prey and predator both have a chance to intercept before the terms( > ex. who will become justicar or who will lose blood from their pools > etc) are stated. Why can't I draw back to 7 for more stealth to > counter their intercept? YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO!! Then ......if not > blocked and all intercept and stealth are done, no cards can be > replaced. This is how originally we play and still do. Oh, action > modifiers and reactions played after terms are set should not be > replaced. This seems fair. We don't cry if a vote is toppled because > the other players throw in vote cards, the caller should have planned > the vote better. Do you actually smoke crack? Have the voices in your head told you to post this? At christmas too, shame on you. Crux of arguement: My weenie stealth vote-push deck should be able to win every tournament i enter, and forget all those people who are not playing vote-push or dedicated intercept. Incidently have you played V:TES recently? under the new rulings? It is a very happy and diverse place thanks very much, tournament attendances are up and deck creativity is running at an all time high. We're in our happy place- are you? > 3. Return to Innocence and Archon Investigation.- If someone wants to > suicide thier vampires and bleed you for 10, oh well you should have > blocked or deflected them. Here is your hanky, Mr. I wanna limit the > Game. And what Malkavian would care if Archons are out to kill him? > Hey you don't have to use the +3 on conditioning, there is a +2 on there as well LOL. not all people like playing with deflections? sounds kooky i know, but hey there are people who enjoy playing the game with clans other than Ventrue/Malkavian or assorted weenies (as most pre-7/7 tournament games were). Failure to play with deflections should not warrant an 11 point bleed. 4. Lastly , No Repeat Actions. Another rule thats come > out in the recent years. Why not? I know those gangrels untapping and > going back in again is VERY annoying ,Majesty too. Vote these jerks out > or bleed them. Don't cry about it and limit the game. That's it. one step too far. Pro vote-push is one thing but this is randomness of the highest order. A cycling Gangrel deck is more than a little annoying, it's essentially mastubation. HA-HA!! I crush you little kid! see my vampires flash in and out of torpor. Out of interest, why not go the whole entropic hog and revert the errata on Fame and Tomb? Hell they weren't overpowered at all were they? Why have you decided to pick and choose your rules beef troll-kid? > Please respond to these topics and let me know what you think > about them. Thanks > You love causing trouble don't you troll-wonder, I bet you're there slapping your flange at all the outrage you've caused. On the off chance that you are for real, please take the comments in the spirit they were meant, and i hope you have calmed down a little since the posted. Read some of the achives for this group and catch up on the arguements for and against the points you have raised. I think this is probably the wrong place to air these sorts of views as i think you will get more abuse than you bargained for. matt Team Spike (yep M:TG player too) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <26226-38...@storefull-143.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, Jeffrey Moore <Trut...@webtv.net> wrote: >1 Wake with evening freshness. This card is not that powerful that it >needs to be replaced on your next untap. Replacing it after combat is >fine, sheesh. Yes, it is. (You did not provide any other justification as to why it was not that powerful, so I will not provide any other justification as to why it is not. Much justification exists in Deja News if you wish to read it.) >2. Card limits- NO WAY!! This is nothing to do with the rules, and not fitting in a rant of this nature. >3. Voting Procedure >Why can't I draw back to 7 for more stealth to >counter their intercept? YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO!! Then ......if not >blocked and all intercept and stealth are done, no cards can be >replaced. This is how originally we play and still do. Oh, action >modifiers and reactions played after terms are set should not be >replaced. This seems fair. We don't cry if a vote is toppled because >the other players throw in vote cards, the caller should have planned >the vote better. They could plan their stealth better, too, and not need to replace. >3. Return to Innocence and Archon Investigation.- If someone wants to >suicide thier vampires and bleed you for 10, oh well you should have >blocked or deflected them. Here is your hanky, Mr. I wanna limit the >Game. I would suggest you go and read the plays recounted on DejaNews. Many, many problems exist with the card Return to Innocence. Not everyone is playing decks which can bounce or intercept. Bounce is only for auspex and dominate - so the Assamites, Brujah, Brujah Antitribu, Caitiff, Gangrel, Gangrel Antitribu, Nosferatu, Nosferatu Antitribu, Ravnos, and Followers of Set all get screwed. And anyone playing it would have "planned the <action> better", as you noted with the votes, so that they have plentiful ways to stop you blocking it - lots of stealth, unblockable actions, Concoction of Vitality, tapping you out first with decoy actions, Misdirection (so any previous actions you take require some of the Wakes I'm hoarding to block, and have none for the RtoI), Seduction, Blood Bond, Incriminating Video Tape, the Nosferatu blackmail card (the name escapes me) and so forth. And then you recycle the vampire with Possession. Get some reward with Redeem the Lost Soul. Keep them alive with Soul Gem. Yay! > 4. Lastly , No Repeat Actions. Another rule thats come >out in the recent years. Why not? I know those gangrels untapping and >going back in again is VERY annoying ,Majesty too. Yes, next? Once they pull it off *once*, they keep going. You do not get to have any actions to vote them out of the game. Also, not exactly a recent ruling, but one which has been part of the rules set for tournaments for quite some time. -- James Coupe

It figures a Magic weenie would respond, it's always these nerds trying to ruin it cause their game is so boring and predictable. The wake argument is SO valid because you can't replace it until after combat, Gnoll (d&d gamer too? lol). The forced awakening gives you the option of waking and replacing, but at a cost of 1 blood if you fail. It's not that hard to understand, really. Jeff Prince of Cleveland

In article <10877-38...@storefull-146.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, Jeffrey Moore <Trut...@webtv.net> wrote: >It figures a Magic weenie would respond Confucius Say: Before making fool of yourself, find out who you are calling "Magic weenie". Hint: Matt Green may play Magic but he's done far more for V:TES than most of us will ever be able to do. -- James Coupe

James Coupe wrote: > Hint: Matt Green may play Magic but he's done far more for V:TES than > most of us will ever be able to do. I guess I'm ignorant, but who is Matt Green and just what has he done? Raille.

Jeffrey Moore wrote in message <10877-38...@storefull-146.iap.bryant.webtv.net>... >It figures a Magic weenie would respond, it's always these nerds trying >to ruin it cause their game is so boring and predictable. Now we all know _you_ don't know who you are responding to :-) >The wake >argument is SO valid because you can't replace it until after combat, Which isn't a sufficient drawback to prevent free cycling of the card... Most common example: Include high number of WWEF, when a +1 stealth action is called (say a vote), drop as many as you need, refusing to block, and replace when action is complete. Lather, rinse, repeat... waiting for relevant actions to block. The point is that WWEF had one of the lowest opportunity costs, making other wake type cards (along with disciplineless cards in general) non-competitive by comparison. It was suffficiently imbalacing to deck construction as to warrant errata, by WotC standards... Regards, R. David Zopf Atom Weaver V:EKN Prince of Charlotte, NC

Screw the card rewritings, 1. Wake - worthless fix, not every card has to have a downside. You're right don't use the other wake cards. If you want that many wakes in your hand as to be ridiculous well then, you'll wake and then what (no room for other cards, but you are waking like a champ). 2. Card limits - This subject has been beaten to death 3. Vote push - Push all you want, shame on you for playing a weenie vote push deck. This is also what max deck size is for. Exactly how was deck creativity measured? 4. RTI and AI - Intercept / deflect / reduce the bleed or die (no problems). Why, shouldn't you be bled for 11? Keep you pool high, rush your predators big guns, make a deal with someone to bash his 10 point vampire, play with the ravnos and reduce that stealth on the bleed and or do the afore mentioned deflections, etc. Creativity is at an all time high ....... hmmm. 5. No repeat actions - repeat until you pass out. Same point as before, stacking a deck as to become too specialized makes the deck weak in other areas -- that's the trade off. Too much rush not enough intercept, I'm sorry (thanks for playing), to much defense not enough attack, I'm sorry no victory points for you (thanks for playing) ..... etc, etc This is the perfect place to air these views, that is what this board is for ... someone doesn't like the point, who cares. What abuse? A differing opinion? ..... that is why I post. -Chris PS Never had a problem with Fame and or the Tomb in its original writing. They both work fine (and I have read the arguments, simply don't agree). This game is meant to be a bit more social than magic .... not every problem has to be conquered predator to prey, use the table and the other players to your advantage. Any concept can be bent as far as to seem broken, that's not a card issue it's the player. This is a strategy game, not a lawyers exercise on rule interpretation, bending and exploitation. Flame away. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <3867A679...@id4.telecom.fedex.com>, Christopher Chew <c...@id4.telecom.fedex.com> wrote: >5. No repeat actions - repeat until you pass out. Same point as before, >stacking a deck as to become too specialized makes the deck weak in other >areas -- that's the trade off. How about the non-trade off of "Pull off one bleed action, pull off 20", as the Gangrel loop decks did? -- James Coupe

In article <386757...@mich.com>, Raille <rai...@mich.com> wrote: >I guess I'm ignorant, but who is Matt Green and just what has he done? A great deal within Wizards of the Coast for the profile of V:TES when he worked for them, keeping it alive at EuroGenCon 97 and 98, providing prize support to those who needed it and so forth, when no-one else in the UK branch of WotC really even knows what it is. Kind of like people like Eric and Jennifer, within WotC US. -- James Coupe

James Coupe wrote: > > In article <3867A679...@id4.telecom.fedex.com>, Christopher Chew > <c...@id4.telecom.fedex.com> wrote: > >5. No repeat actions - repeat until you pass out. Same point as before, > >stacking a deck as to become too specialized makes the deck weak in other > >areas -- that's the trade off. > > How about the non-trade off of "Pull off one bleed action, pull off 20", > as the Gangrel loop decks did? > > -- > James Coupe I really have to agree with James on this. Having the opportunity to take a single turn, before my gangrel opponent went through his deck and ousted the remaining 3 players. Raille. Hey I want a turn!

Christopher Chew wrote in message <3867A679...@id4.telecom.fedex.com>... >Screw the card rewritings, > >1. Wake - worthless fix, not every card has to have a downside. True, not every card has to have a down side, but every card should have some opportunity cost. Wkae lacked one pre-errata. >3. Vote push - Push all you want, shame on you for playing a weenie vote >push deck. This is also what max deck size is for. Exactly how was deck >creativity measured? > By observing the increase in diversity of tactics used to win tournaments, for one. "Shame on you" is not a viable tactic in tournament play ;-) nor is it at all relevant to arguments here... >4. RTI and AI - Intercept / deflect / reduce the bleed or die (no >problems). Why, shouldn't you be bled for 11? No one said that you shouldn't.. It should just cost you _something_... again, this goes back to opportunity cost. It was ridiculously easy to have Arika bleed unblockably for 16 after being MT'ed for minimum cost. Lather, rinse, repeat, yawn... game over four iterations later. >Keep you pool high, rush >your predators big guns, make a deal with someone to bash his 10 point >vampire, play with the ravnos and reduce that stealth on the bleed and or do >the afore mentioned deflections, etc. Creativity is at an all time high >....... hmmm. None of these address the singular imbalancing impact of RTI on table dynamic... > >5. No repeat actions - repeat until you pass out. Same point as before, >stacking a deck as to become too specialized makes the deck weak in other >areas -- that's the trade off. Too much rush not enough intercept, I'm >sorry (thanks for playing), to much defense not enough attack, I'm sorry no >victory points for you (thanks for playing) ..... etc, etc > Ever play against a Gangrel Loop deck? It was actually worse than a Ventrue RTI deck, in that ousting two or three players a turn, each at 10-20 pool wasn't uncommon in my old play group (pre NRA)... Your defocused deck suggestions have some merit... Asoften as not, though, a deck like this succeeds in doing not much against a variety of tactics, and not doing any single thing well enough to win against focused decks. Your local play group may allow for that sort of strategy, but most others don't... >This is the perfect place to air these views, that is what this board is for >... someone doesn't like the point, who cares. What abuse? A differing >opinion? ..... that is why I post. > Abuse is when the poster rants, as the originator did, apparently without reviewing archives of old arguments, and offers nothing new but his own particular....idiom, to those old arguments. Differing opinions are fine, so long as they aren't dripping with flame bait, and followed up by insults responding to insults. The original post was obviously meant to be inflammatory by its wording, and there's where the abuse lies... >-Chris > >PS Never had a problem with Fame and or the Tomb in its original writing. >They both work fine (and I have read the arguments, simply don't agree). Personally, I agree with you on the ToRIII, but didn't like Fame in its execution (place on one of your own and Yoyo into torpor and back...) >This game is meant to be a bit more social than magic .... not every problem >has to be conquered predator to prey, use the table and the other players to >your advantage. > Too much of that, though, and you might as well play Diplomacy :-) >Any concept can be bent as far as to seem broken, that's not a card issue >it's the player. If that were true, it'd be as easy to abuse Concealed Weapon as it is Return to Innocence.... [ quoted text not captured ]

James: >>How about the non-trade off of "Pull off one bleed action, pull off 20", as the Gangrel loop decks did?<< For the uninitiated, how did the Gangrel untap so as to pull off 20 bleeds? How did they gather the permanent stealth so as to pull of 20 bleeds? Enquiring minds want to know. Thanks, Madman -- Free audio & video emails, greeting cards and forums Talkway - http://www.talkway.com - Talk more ways (sm)

In article <3867B4...@mich.com>, Raille <rai...@mich.com> wrote: >Having the opportunity to take a single turn, before my gangrel opponent >went through his deck and ousted the remaining 3 players. I've had similarly awkward situations with Precognisant Mobility thrown in for fun aswell. One vamp who can bleed for *huge* amounts, and a couple of AUS weenies. -- James Coupe

In article <TFO94.20048$Mg.3...@c01read03-admin.service.talkway.com>, Madman2001 <Mad...@madman.com> wrote: >For the uninitiated, how did the Gangrel untap so as to pull off 20 >bleeds? How did they gather the permanent stealth so as to pull of 20 >bleeds? > >Enquiring minds want to know. I suggest checking a few deck archives for Gangrel loop decks. -- James Coupe

On Mon, 27 Dec 1999 11:48:44 -0600, Christopher Chew <c...@id4.telecom.fedex.com> wrote: >Screw the card rewritings, > >1. Wake - worthless fix, not every card has to have a downside. You're The only card with no downside is Ascendance. One pool = one slot in your deck = one master action. Even that's not quite accurate - in practice, Ascendance has nothing BUT downsides. It's just that every other master card's downsides are larger, but more specific, so you build a deck to work around those downsides and take advantage of the increased benefits. (Hunting Ground - costs two pool, but will eventually gain more than Ascendance. True cost is time.) >right don't use the other wake cards. If you want that many wakes in your >hand as to be ridiculous well then, you'll wake and then what (no room for >other cards, but you are waking like a champ). This actually isn't true - if you have 25 wakes in your deck, you have 65 empty slots - PLENTY of room for other cards, and a lot of them can be actions. Since you have 25 wakes, you have lots of actions available to acquire things like intercept permanents, bleed permanents, etc. Since you can freely cycle wakes, if you're screwed at the end of your grandpredator's turn, you can Wake all your vampires at once for his last action, fail to use Eagle's Sight and block, reload your hand like a champ, and then deal with the NEXT action with your handful of newly useful cards. >2. Card limits - This subject has been beaten to death Yes. >3. Vote push - Push all you want, shame on you for playing a weenie vote >push deck. This is also what max deck size is for. Exactly how was deck >creativity measured? Easy, all sorts of crazy shit has been either winning tournaments and/or getting to the finals. I had an intercept deck in the finals of the last tournament, and basically got hosed by seating position - the two decks I didn't want to sit next to sat down before me, and the two decks i *did* want to sit next to both deliberately sat away from me. Shit happens, but when was the last time an intercept deck did even THAT well? Rush decks have been consistently getting to the finals in tournaments, and THAT is reasonably rare. "Shame on you" is not a functional solution for tournaments. Some people don't care. It's not REALLY functional for playgroups either (decreases the size of the playgroup), but some people will anyway. Max deck size? 90 cards? You only have to push 5 or 6 at a time for the first few votes - after that you HAVE all the table votes you need, and you only push votes when you run out of damage votes in your hand. Too, TOO, too easy. >4. RTI and AI - Intercept / deflect / reduce the bleed or die (no >problems). Why, shouldn't you be bled for 11? Keep you pool high, rush >your predators big guns, make a deal with someone to bash his 10 point >vampire, play with the ravnos and reduce that stealth on the bleed and or do >the afore mentioned deflections, etc. Creativity is at an all time high >....... hmmm. Intercept is worthless against Day Op. Reduce the bleed is worthless against a bleed of 16. (Arika's cap and +2 bleed and a +3 Conditioning.) Keep your pool high is worthless against a bleed of 16. Rush is worthless against Arika - Obedience owns you HARD, or Skin of Steel if you like - she has both. Make a deal is worthless because Rush is worthless. Ravnos have only one vampire who can deflect, and there is no stealth on a Day Opped bleed. This leaves: 10 Deflections, 10 Telepathic Misdirections, or Archon Investigation. This means I have to play with Dominate, SUPERIOR Auspex, or 6 empty master card slots - since I must make sure I have at least ONE by the fourth or fifth turn, when the Big Kaboom goes off. I also need Wakes for Deflection or TM, since you can bet Misdirection will be used. Creativity is at an all time high *because* we no longer have to fear a Day Opped bleed of 16 coming down the pipe. The intercept deck I used contained zero Deflections and zero TM's - I was slightly afraid of unblockables, but I figured I would always have enough pool to survive one or two direct hits of 6 or so - and I knew that no vampire who Day Opped themselves could get out of torpor again if I were still alive. As it turned out, no deck ever Day Opped against me. One deck generated +6 stealth on a +1 bleed action (against my +5 intercept), but it was only a bleed for 2. I was REGULARLY stopping inferior Night Moves. >5. No repeat actions - repeat until you pass out. Same point as before, >stacking a deck as to become too specialized makes the deck weak in other >areas -- that's the trade off. Too much rush not enough intercept, I'm >sorry (thanks for playing), to much defense not enough attack, I'm sorry no >victory points for you (thanks for playing) ..... etc, etc You obviously have never seen a Gangrel Loop deck. Computer Hack, Force of Will, Freak Drive, Rapid Healing. Repeat until you win, add just enough Earth Controls and Earth Meld/Form of Mists so that if anyone blocks you, you either get past or just untap and do again. With Sabbat, now you can use Regeneration and an extra Freak Drive when your vampire gets low. And look, Camille Deveraux has all the necessarily skills you need. Twelve of her in the deck... presto. >PS Never had a problem with Fame and or the Tomb in its original writing. >They both work fine (and I have read the arguments, simply don't agree). >This game is meant to be a bit more social than magic .... not every problem >has to be conquered predator to prey, use the table and the other players to >your advantage. Gangrel loop deck again, except put Fame on your own vampire. Bleed for 3 with Force of will, Day Op/Form of Mist/Earth Meld it, and get an additional bleed of 3 for the Fame. Freak Drive, Rapid Heal yourself, Force of Will *again* since the Rapid Healing action taps you. Bleed of 6. Repeat until you have ousted everyone or until your vampire runs low on blood - now take a Restoration action, or take a Regeneration action sometime while you're in torpor. >Any concept can be bent as far as to seem broken, that's not a card issue >it's the player. This is a strategy game, not a lawyers exercise on rule >interpretation, bending and exploitation. If you leave broken concepts in the game, you will have no players. I certainly don't want to play against someone who uses broken shit over and over again just because they can. Shaming them may work in your local playgroup, but when you have a tournament with actual prizes, it's ridiculous to expect that someone will be too embarrassed to play this sort of thing. -- Derek Deafness never kept composers from hearing the music. It only stopped them hearing the distractions.

ja...@obeah.demon.co.uk (James Coupe) wrote in <nXfixrB7...@moodog.demon.co.uk>: [ quoted text not captured ] A shaynem dank dir im pupik -- Gary J. Weiner webm...@hatrack.net

Christopher Chew <c...@id4.telecom.fedex.com> writes: >2. Card limits - This subject has been beaten to death > >3. Vote push - Push all you want, shame on you for playing a weenie vote >push deck. I think the concept of enforcing play-balance by crying "shame on you" has been beaten to death as well. Shame on you for thinking "shame on you" is an argument. That and $2.75 will buy you a Vente Mocha at Starbucks. >This is also what max deck size is for. Deck size? Doesn't matter if you've inevitably won the game before you run out of deck. Fred

In article <848d01$246$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>, "R. David Zopf" <guenh...@mindspring.com> wrote: > > Christopher Chew wrote in message > <3867A679...@id4.telecom.fedex.com>... > >Screw the card rewritings, > > > >1. Wake - worthless fix, not every card has to have a downside. > True, not every card has to have a down side, but every card should have > some opportunity cost. Wkae lacked one pre-errata. [snip] > Regards, > R. David Zopf > Atom Weaver > V:EKN Prince of Charlotte, NC I've always disliked this ruling on WWEF. It came out unexpected and without discussion. The main reason I dislike it? Newbies with only Jyhad boosters are very much impaired. Instead of "fixing" the card to only be replaced at the acting players end of turn, it was crippled to be almost unusable. For the rest of us, we can answer with the Sabbat's Forced Awakenings. For the newbies, they're hosed beyond belief. [See other posts on the rarity of Sabbat boosters.] In my games, I always have a house rule that WWEFs can be proxies to FAs, but that's ruled out in tournaments. BTW, I also agree that not every card must have a bad effect. If you put 20 WWEFs in your deck, how will be that much of a advantage? That's 20 card slots that could've gone to offensive instead of defense. Note that this aspect was only debated after the ruling, never before. I remember it well because my jaw dropped with disbelief. On the bright side, I have more wallpaper now..... (For what it's worth, I'm ignoring the rest of the original post on purpose.) -- Best regards, Merlisk V:EKN Prince of Dallas [ quoted text not captured ]

Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> writes: >I've always disliked this ruling on WWEF. It came out unexpected and >without discussion. > >The main reason I dislike it? Newbies with only Jyhad boosters are >very much impaired. Instead of "fixing" the card to only be replaced >at the acting players end of turn, it was crippled to be almost >unusable. For the rest of us, we can answer with the Sabbat's Forced >Awakenings. For the newbies, they're hosed beyond belief. [See other >posts on the rarity of Sabbat boosters.] Man, this seems like an overstatement about the ruling. "Hosed beyond belief"?!? Just because you have to wait until untap phase to redraw it? Hardly - IMHO, of course. I understand peoples' complaints about the need (or lack thereof) for certain errata and the damage they feel does to the game. But if the game could be reprinted from the ground up, the errata on Wakeys are pretty much exactly how I'd redo the card. It's well-balanced with Forced Awakenings now - to the point that I deliberately used WWeF in some decks and FAs in others, depending on the type of deck. This is exactly what you want. I've found that in decks which don't have a lot of intercept in them and don't stock a lot of combat cards, Wakeys are better than Forced Awakenings. Your hand just doesn't miss the redraws before your next turn anyway. (In such decks, most of the cards are used during *my* turn.) And you don't want to wind up paying the extra blood if you fail to intercept or if you're trying to do something besides intercept (e.g. Telepathic Counter or Telepathic Misdirection). If you have intercept and combat, then yes, the advantages of Forced Awakening start to become (somewhat) important and its disadvantage disappears almost completely. >BTW, I also agree that not every card must have a bad effect. If you >put 20 WWEFs in your deck, how will be that much of a advantage? >That's 20 card slots that could've gone to offensive instead of >defense. Actually, WWeF is more of an offensive card as long as your whole deck isn't WWeF. This is because you're much freer to tap out and do something to advance your position if you're holding one or two of them. Since there's almost no drawback to the card *except* opportunity cost, I think it's reasonable to make sure the opportunity cost lasts longer than to the end of combat. Or even the end of an opponent's turn. Fred

Frederick Scott wrote: > > Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> writes: > > >I've always disliked this ruling on WWEF. It came out unexpected and > >without discussion. > > > >The main reason I dislike it? Newbies with only Jyhad boosters are > >very much impaired. Instead of "fixing" the card to only be replaced > >at the acting players end of turn, it was crippled to be almost > >unusable. For the rest of us, we can answer with the Sabbat's Forced > >Awakenings. For the newbies, they're hosed beyond belief. [See other > >posts on the rarity of Sabbat boosters.] > > Man, this seems like an overstatement about the ruling. "Hosed beyond > belief"?!? Just because you have to wait until untap phase to redraw > it? Hardly - IMHO, of course. I understand peoples' complaints about > the need (or lack thereof) for certain errata and the damage they feel > does to the game. But if the game could be reprinted from the ground up, > the errata on Wakeys are pretty much exactly how I'd redo the card. It's > well-balanced with Forced Awakenings now - to the point that I deliberately > used WWeF in some decks and FAs in others, depending on the type of deck. > This is exactly what you want. Yes, and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon. Look, if everyone could get as many FAs as they need, then this wouldn't be such a big deal. But FA is a sabbat card and, especially if you're a new player, sabbat can be hard to come by. But the TPTB have decided that, since they have as many FAs as *they* need, everyone else can just go pound sand. And yes, I would say that WWEF is "hosed beyond belief", because you can't really use it to block anyone except your predator, otherwise you're just sitting out there for a turn or two with six or five card in your hand. I left the game when the rulings that included the WWEF change came out, because it seemed to me that some people decided that the house rules they liked to play with were just peachy and heck, shouldn't everyone play with them. I never saw any complaints about WWEF before those rulings came down the pike. If the intent was to clamp down on rampant WWEF card cycling, they could have thought of a better way to do it that kept the basic utility of the card intact. I'm back in the game now, because it's just too much fun to stay away from, but I'm still pretty unhappy about the way things turned out. -- Gary J. Weiner - webm...@hatrack.net http://www.hatrack.net HatRack Web Design & Hosting - Hang your web with us ----- "And so he says I don't like the cut of your jib. And I go I says, IT'S THE ONLY JIB I GOT, BABY!" - The Evil Midnite Bomber what bombs at Midnite

Gary Weiner <webm...@hatrack.net> writes: >Frederick Scott wrote: >> >> Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> writes: >> >> >I've always disliked this ruling on WWEF. It came out unexpected and >> >without discussion. >> > >> >The main reason I dislike it? Newbies with only Jyhad boosters are >> >very much impaired. Instead of "fixing" the card to only be replaced >> >at the acting players end of turn, it was crippled to be almost >> >unusable. For the rest of us, we can answer with the Sabbat's Forced >> >Awakenings. For the newbies, they're hosed beyond belief. [See other >> >posts on the rarity of Sabbat boosters.] >> >> Man, this seems like an overstatement about the ruling. "Hosed beyond >> belief"?!? Just because you have to wait until untap phase to redraw >> it? Hardly - IMHO, of course. I understand peoples' complaints about >> the need (or lack thereof) for certain errata and the damage they feel >> does to the game. But if the game could be reprinted from the ground up, >> the errata on Wakeys are pretty much exactly how I'd redo the card. It's >> well-balanced with Forced Awakenings now - to the point that I deliberately >> used WWeF in some decks and FAs in others, depending on the type of deck. >> This is exactly what you want. > >Yes, and if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a wagon. The point is: it's *balanced*. >Look, if everyone could get as many FAs as they need, then this wouldn't >be such a big deal. But FA is a sabbat card and, especially if you're a >new player, sabbat can be hard to come by. But the TPTB have decided >that, since they have as many FAs as *they* need, everyone else can just >go pound sand. There's no way to fix the problem of getting the cards you need. Sorry, V:tES is just out of print and that affects a whole lot of other cards besides Forced Awakening a whole lot worse. Being able to get a card or not has absolutely nothing to do with whether that or any other card is balanced. >And yes, I would say that WWEF is "hosed beyond belief", because you >can't really use it to block anyone except your predator, otherwise >you're just sitting out there for a turn or two with six or five card in >your hand. So here's my brilliant solution to that problem: Sit out there for a turn or two with six or five cards in your hand. Really. It's not that hard. I do it all the time in games. (Granted, I don't play many combat decks.) I can't fathom why you're making such a big deal out of this. >I never saw any complaints about WWEF before those rulings came down the >pike. Well, I'd say you weren't looking very hard. The question of whether Wakeys were overpowered or not has been debated on r.g.t-c.jyhad since day 1. Fred

Wow... heated debate here. The issue on the Wake with Evening's Freshness (WwEF) has been discussed previously. I can recount the time I came back into the game after my down time for moving. I too issued a statement on the Wakes and Immortal Grapples. I received a reception much the same as this subject has developed. I do play combat decks a lot, as it is a personal issue for me to try and bring combat decks into the winner's circle at tournaments. The change in how Wakes and grapples are handled forced me to reorganize all my combat-related decks to compensate. The change to the Wake can make a difference in your current style of play. However, if you and your play group sit down and work the ruling into your area then eventually the change will be adjusted through all your decks. The ability to use the Wake as a cycling method can still be applied as it was in the original text, just be sure to use it during your predator's turn on the last minion being used (or what you think is the last minion to perform an action). At your untap, you cycle the cards. Here the adjustment comes down to discipline on your part. My 2 pool. Michael Eichler [ quoted text not captured ]

Frederick Scott wrote: > There's no way to fix the problem of getting the cards you need. Sorry, > V:tES is just out of print and that affects a whole lot of other cards > besides Forced Awakening a whole lot worse. Being able to get a card or > not has absolutely nothing to do with whether that or any other card is > balanced. So what you are saying is that forced rarity, or the rarity of cards in general, has no bearing on the balanced of a card. > >And yes, I would say that WWEF is "hosed beyond belief", because you > >can't really use it to block anyone except your predator, otherwise > >you're just sitting out there for a turn or two with six or five card in > >your hand. > > So here's my brilliant solution to that problem: Sit out there for a turn > or two with six or five cards in your hand. Really. It's not that hard. > I do it all the time in games. (Granted, I don't play many combat decks.) > I can't fathom why you're making such a big deal out of this. > > >I never saw any complaints about WWEF before those rulings came down the > >pike. > > Well, I'd say you weren't looking very hard. The question of whether > Wakeys were overpowered or not has been debated on r.g.t-c.jyhad since > day 1. > > Fred Day 1, long time ago, when few people really knew how to play. I remember them well. Question, like "Do I get pool for ousting my prey.?" "Do I have to draw replacement cards immediantly?" etc etc. The wake debate basically died years ago after the bulk of the players figured out how to play. Pull out that old NG arguement make your case weak. Don't you have anything current, other than the resent errata. Raille.

ramst...@my-deja.com wrote: > The ability to use the Wake as a cycling method can still be applied as > it was in the original text, just be sure to use it during your > predator's turn on the last minion being used (or what you think is the > last minion to perform an action). At your untap, you cycle the > cards. Here the adjustment comes down to discipline on your part. > Thanks Mike. This is a viable addaption, not quite the same, but does help those trying to addapt the new rules into their play. Raille.

In article <84q356$2nv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, ramst...@my-deja.com wrote: [snip good stuff] > > The ability to use the Wake as a cycling method can still be applied as > it was in the original text, just be sure to use it during your > predator's turn on the last minion being used (or what you think is the > last minion to perform an action). At your untap, you cycle the > cards. Here the adjustment comes down to discipline on your part. I understand what you're saying. WWEF hasn't been totally eliminated from the useful cards, but its opportunity vs. usefulness ratio is near zero with this ruling. Since I started this debate, I'd like to summarize my opinions on why I believe WWEF is "hosed beyond belief." (If I'm allowed to quote myself. :) 1) Forced Awakenings are only available in the Sabbat set which are mostly unavailable to newbies, who usually only have access to the Jyhad set. (Correct me if I'm wrong here. My cards are at home. :) 2) Proxies of FA are not allowed in tournament play. 3) Rather than being banned, WWEF was drastically altered. This causes confusion when teaching newbies. (Me teaching a newbie: "Forget about what it says. It really does this.") 3.5) Side note: since I was here (online and actively gaming), I hereby do attest that indeed virtually no discussion on this topic on this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Feel free to check out DejanNews to contradict me. 4) For decks relying of card refresh, WWEF is fairly useless as it really should only be played during your predator's turn. A case in particular is combat decks - reducing your hand size *drastically* decreases your ability to respond to or pose a threat. 5) If played as is, or the modification "can't be replaced until end of acting player's turn", the opportunity cost will balance its effectiveness. I was somewhat surprised to see a previous post belittle the "opportunity cost" aspect of the game. It's my opinion that the majority of the game *IS* the opportunity cost of cards - with the remaining being a player's sequence of events and the metagame. > > My 2 pool. > > Michael Eichler Thank you for your thoughtful reply. These opinions in this post are just that - opinions by me. -- Best regards, Merlisk V:EKN Prince of Dallas [ quoted text not captured ]

rai...@mich.com writes: >Frederick Scott wrote: >> There's no way to fix the problem of getting the cards you need. Sorry, >> V:tES is just out of print and that affects a whole lot of other cards >> besides Forced Awakening a whole lot worse. Being able to get a card or >> not has absolutely nothing to do with whether that or any other card is >> balanced. > >So what you are saying is that forced rarity, or the rarity of cards in >general, has no bearing on the balanced of a card. That's what I'm saying, yes. In practice this may or may not be true, but since it's impossible to quantify (for instance, it can change on a moments notice in your local area if a dozen "Mr. Suitcases" suddenly move into town) so why bother? Play the game with all proxies (or on the net, using JOL or whatever) to decide how balanced a card. Otherwise, trying to talk to anyone else about it will just cause disputes over perception-based differences. >> >I never saw any complaints about WWEF before those rulings came down the >> >pike. >> >> Well, I'd say you weren't looking very hard. The question of whether >> Wakeys were overpowered or not has been debated on r.g.t-c.jyhad since >> day 1. > >Day 1, long time ago, when few people really knew how to play. I >remember them well. Question, like "Do I get pool for ousting my >prey.?" "Do I have to draw replacement cards immediantly?" etc etc. > >The wake debate basically died years ago after the bulk of the players >figured out how to play. Pull out that old NG arguement make your case >weak. Hey, I never said there was any consensus that Wake was overpowered, even at the start. And I agree, people seemed to make there peace with it over time. But to suggest it hasn't been at least controversial is just wrong. Fred

In article <38709C...@mich.com>, Raille <rai...@mich.com> writes >The wake debate basically died years ago after the bulk of the players >figured out how to play. Pull out that old NG arguement make your case >weak. Don't you have anything current, other than the resent errata. Many people have argued the reasons why the Wake errata is balanced since the recent errata. Even if LSJ were to retract it, seeing that there were no arguments in favour of it just prior to its issue, he could then re-issue it with those arguments, if the recentness of the arguments is your only concern. -- James Coupe (Prince of Mercia, England) Vampire: Elder Kindred Network http://madnessnetwork.hexagon.net http://www.obeah.demon.co.uk

> Old style: > Thinks "Ok, he's going to bleed me this turn with so-and-so, most > likely. I need to get a good card for Agatha to hit him with then. > Okay, so on that forced hunting there, Dimple will throw a wake. Now I > pick up a new card. Now I get to pound him when I block the bleed." > New style: > ".... so on that forced hunting there, Dimple will throw a wake. D'oh, I > can't pick up a new card." > The card cycling, as you note, if you just want to ditch the card from > your hand before your go, is still there. However, if you need to get > cards mid flow, that ability is neutered. Old .v New has been hotly debated around the time of 7/7 and do not want to go more into that. > The rightness or wrongness of its being neutered is another matter. I agree with the point that said this card is now really only useful on your predator's turn and that has been my problem with the errata since day 1 (other than the fact I didn't really see that it needed to be errata'd, but that's another issue). If you want to be able to react to your prey, you either leave a minion untapped or go an entire *turn* around the table with one fewer cards in your hand. But if you want to react to your predator, while you have the same option of leaving a minion untapped, if you do use the Wake, you have much shorter time for having a reduced hand than you had using it on your prey's turn. And this amount of time gets reduced as play goes around the table. Why is it that the card should have heavier cost at one end of the table yet have a far greater reduced (to almost nothing if used at the very last action of the pred's turn) cost at the other end of the table? For the *exact same opportunity*?!? That seems wholely unfair and I can't see that there is any other card that has this kind of cost. And this has been my issue with is since day 1. If the card *needed* to be errata'd (and again, I do not feel that it did, but that's another issue), I think it would have been far fairer to change it to: "Do not replace until the end of current turn" to match the template for the referendum's which say Do not replace until after voting or somesuch. Not being able to replace until your next untap is overly severe a cost, IMO. Sorrow --- I don't want to be alone | I hurt, therefore I am anymore |-------------------------------- I don't want to be anyone | "What are you looking at...? anymore | you never seen anyone try to I don't need a reason to kill myself | commit suicide before?" - Anon ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <84q356$2nv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, ramst...@my-deja.com writes >The ability to use the Wake as a cycling method can still be applied as >it was in the original text, just be sure to use it during your >predator's turn on the last minion being used (or what you think is the >last minion to perform an action). However, that is not quite the same as it was in the original text. One of the benefits of the previous text was the ability to chuck additional cards during *any* action, and replace. Old style: Thinks "Ok, he's going to bleed me this turn with so-and-so, most likely. I need to get a good card for Agatha to hit him with then. Okay, so on that forced hunting there, Dimple will throw a wake. Now I pick up a new card. Now I get to pound him when I block the bleed." New style: ".... so on that forced hunting there, Dimple will throw a wake. D'oh, I can't pick up a new card." The card cycling, as you note, if you just want to ditch the card from your hand before your go, is still there. However, if you need to get cards mid flow, that ability is neutered. The rightness or wrongness of its being neutered is another matter. My personal opinion is one of "It's definitely now balanced, no questions asked. There were cards though, in my opinion, more deserving of errata that Wake may not have been top of my priority list, and it is another piece of errata. However, as an erratum, it is a good one." [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <84r4mf$r97$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> writes > 3.5) Side note: since I was here (online and actively gaming), I >hereby do attest that indeed virtually no discussion on this topic on >this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Define your time-scale. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <8zcc4.3638$Jy4....@dfw-read.news.verio.net>, Sorrow <cbo...@apdi.net> writes >Old .v New has been hotly debated around the time of 7/7 and >do not want to go more into that. I was not debating it, merely clarifying what could be mis-interpreted. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 21:35:12 GMT, Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: >In article <84q356$2nv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, > ramst...@my-deja.com wrote: >[snip good stuff] >> >> The ability to use the Wake as a cycling method can still be applied >as >> it was in the original text, just be sure to use it during your >> predator's turn on the last minion being used (or what you think is >the >> last minion to perform an action). At your untap, you cycle the >> cards. Here the adjustment comes down to discipline on your part. > >I understand what you're saying. WWEF hasn't been totally eliminated >from the useful cards, but its opportunity vs. usefulness ratio is near >zero with this ruling. Wake/Deflection. Nuff said. You do NOT use Forced Awakening with this combination, and it's one of THE most common reasons to Wake in the game. Opportunity v. usefulness? Not HARDLY zero. >Since I started this debate, I'd like to summarize my opinions on why I >believe WWEF is "hosed beyond belief." (If I'm allowed to quote >myself. :) > >1) Forced Awakenings are only available in the Sabbat set which are >mostly unavailable to newbies, who usually only have access to the >Jyhad set. (Correct me if I'm wrong here. My cards are at home. :) Accurate, but FA is not better than Wake - only different. >2) Proxies of FA are not allowed in tournament play. Accurate. >3) Rather than being banned, WWEF was drastically altered. This >causes confusion when teaching newbies. (Me teaching a newbie: "Forget >about what it says. It really does this.") Not drastically, since only the "when you replace" was altered. "next untap" and "end of combat" do not alter the PRIMARY purpose of the card - to allow a tapped vampire to react as if untapped. > 3.5) Side note: since I was here (online and actively gaming), I >hereby do attest that indeed virtually no discussion on this topic on >this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Feel free to check out >DejanNews to contradict me. > >4) For decks relying of card refresh, WWEF is fairly useless as it >really should only be played during your predator's turn. A case in >particular is combat decks - reducing your hand size *drastically* >decreases your ability to respond to or pose a threat. Combat decks typically play with no Wakes and no FA's, as their ability to survive depends directly on being pro-active. A combat deck with enough intercept to block +2 stealth actions (one bleed + a Lost in Crowds) probably hasn't got enough combat to kill things. A combat deck with some Wakes thrown in can't stop anything at +1 stealth. The obvious solution is pack more Bum's Rush and quit pretending that Wake, in ANY form, is useful in a combat deck. Ashes take no actions. In other situations, WWEF is hardly useless. Assuming it may only be played during your predator's turn (not true, but)... this is a problem why? 80% of the actions you wish to react to are going to take place during your predator's turn. Using a FA instead of a Wake may let you redraw, but you're still burning your untap-card like crazy in the process. And that's assuming you successfully block and don't cost yourself a blood. >5) If played as is, or the modification "can't be replaced until end >of acting player's turn", the opportunity cost will balance its >effectiveness. I have twenty-five Wakes in my deck, and through crappy draw, i have five in my hand. On my grand-predator's turn, I pick an action at random and spend four Wakes, one per vampire I possess, to find some useful shit in my deck. What opportunity cost? ZERO! that's right, ZERO. I just had to pick an action I couldn't block, which was anything my grand-predator did. And I'm left with one Wakey and probably five, maybe six useful cards. No no no no no no NO! Broken. >I was somewhat surprised to see a previous post belittle the >"opportunity cost" aspect of the game. It's my opinion that the >majority of the game *IS* the opportunity cost of cards - with the >remaining being a player's sequence of events and the metagame. Correct. Wake, unerrata'd, has no opportunity cost. [ quoted text not captured ]

Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: > 3.5) Side note: since I was here (online and actively gaming), I > hereby do attest that indeed virtually no discussion on this topic on > this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Feel free to check out > DejanNews to contradict me. The topic was debated and exhaustively analyzed by the likes of Curt Adams, Corrupter, et. al. DejaNews doesn't have all of the articles, unfortunately, since its archives do not go back far enough. Most of the "major" article are not archived (the debate was near its end around the time that the DejaNews archives begin). But here are some of the later articles that are in the archives which show that the issue had been discussed significantly before: http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=171113148 (Thomas Doehne, 30 Jul 1996) http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=134721092 (Corrupter, 10 Jan 1996) http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=109501678 (Curt Adams, 05 Sep 1995) http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=101532199 (Shane Travis, 26 Apr 1995) -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | "Better shake off the http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson | picnic blanket," Tom Graphics Specialist and V:TES Rulemonger | said flippantly. [ quoted text not captured ]

Wow, I guess it never hurts to have some activity in here but, talk about flogging a dead horse. For those of you that really hate Wakes now please send them to me I still need about 20 of them for decks. :) I guess when people "Occasionally" check this group to see if people still play this game, topics like this let them know that Vampire is alive and well. Maybe if there was even more activity by a wider range of people Wizards would wake up and take action like start playtesting the new set. I guess we will find out how much support we will gain when the new brand manager takes Vampire over in mid-January. Mike Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:84ge4b$2np$1...@nnrp1.deja.com... > In article <848d01$246$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>, > "R. David Zopf" <guenh...@mindspring.com> wrote: > > > > Christopher Chew wrote in message > > <3867A679...@id4.telecom.fedex.com>... > > >Screw the card rewritings, > > > > > >1. Wake - worthless fix, not every card has to have a downside. > > True, not every card has to have a down side, but every card should > have > > some opportunity cost. Wkae lacked one pre-errata. > > [snip] > > > Regards, > > R. David Zopf > > Atom Weaver > > V:EKN Prince of Charlotte, NC > > I've always disliked this ruling on WWEF. It came out unexpected and > without discussion. > > The main reason I dislike it? Newbies with only Jyhad boosters are > very much impaired. Instead of "fixing" the card to only be replaced > at the acting players end of turn, it was crippled to be almost > unusable. For the rest of us, we can answer with the Sabbat's Forced > Awakenings. For the newbies, they're hosed beyond belief. [See other > posts on the rarity of Sabbat boosters.] > > In my games, I always have a house rule that WWEFs can be proxies to > FAs, but that's ruled out in tournaments. > > BTW, I also agree that not every card must have a bad effect. If you > put 20 WWEFs in your deck, how will be that much of a advantage? > That's 20 card slots that could've gone to offensive instead of > defense. Note that this aspect was only debated after the ruling, > never before. I remember it well because my jaw dropped with disbelief. > > On the bright side, I have more wallpaper now..... > > (For what it's worth, I'm ignoring the rest of the original post on > purpose.) > > -- > Best regards, > Merlisk > V:EKN Prince of Dallas > > [ quoted text not captured ]

L. Scott Johnson wrote: > > Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: > > 3.5) Side note: since I was here (online and actively gaming), I > > hereby do attest that indeed virtually no discussion on this topic on > > this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Feel free to check out > > DejanNews to contradict me. > > The topic was debated and exhaustively analyzed by the likes > of Curt Adams, Corrupter, et. al. > > DejaNews doesn't have all of the articles, unfortunately, since its > archives do not go back far enough. Most of the "major" article are > not archived (the debate was near its end around the time that > the DejaNews archives begin). But here are some of the later > articles that are in the archives which show that the issue had > been discussed significantly before: > > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=171113148 (Thomas Doehne, 30 Jul 1996) > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=134721092 (Corrupter, 10 Jan 1996) > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=109501678 (Curt Adams, 05 Sep 1995) > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=101532199 (Shane Travis, 26 Apr 1995) > And this is precisly what he meant. The earliest article prior to the ruling was 3 years. I do this that qualifies for not being discussed prior to issuing a ruling. In that three years the game dynamics had changes dramatically and the people involved in the NG and game had changed. As a result the discussion should of been reopened. With a new body of involved people the results of that discussion could have been 100% different. Raille.

James Coupe wrote: > could then re-issue it with those arguments, if the recentness of the > arguments is your only concern. > For me. Yes. exactly. Raille

In article <38733C...@mich.com>, Raille <rai...@mich.com> writes >For me. Yes. exactly. Then you have no problems. There have been many articles since the implementation of the errata supporting it, such that it could be re- implemented easily with "recent" comment. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <38733B...@mich.com>, Raille <rai...@mich.com> writes >And this is precisly what he meant. The earliest article prior to the >ruling was 3 years. And? Just because the previous Rules Teams never implemented something doesn't mean that it shouldn't be implemented. [ quoted text not captured ]

This kinda reminds me of Stalin, Hitler or Castro IMHO. Rise up from your parents basements and revolt!!!!! Take it as you will... Jeff Prince of Cleveland

God, don't you ever shut up? Ever hear that Minor Threat song, "small man, big mouth?" Reminds me of you. Jeff Prince of Cleveland

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!! Sheep. It's a dictatorship and you like it fine it seems. Sad. Jeff Prince of Cleveland

In article <15225-38...@storefull-146.iap.bryant.webtv.net>, Jeffrey Moore <Trut...@webtv.net> writes >This kinda reminds me of Stalin, Hitler or Castro IMHO. I invoke Godwin's Law. You lose any participation you have in the rest of this discussion for the first gratuitous use of comparisons with Hitler. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <38733B...@mich.com>, rai...@mich.com wrote: > L. Scott Johnson wrote: > > > > Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > 3.5) Side note: since I was here (online and actively gaming), I > > > hereby do attest that indeed virtually no discussion on this topic on > > > this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Feel free to check out > > > DejanNews to contradict me. > > > > The topic was debated and exhaustively analyzed by the likes > > of Curt Adams, Corrupter, et. al. > > > > DejaNews doesn't have all of the articles, unfortunately, since its > > archives do not go back far enough. Most of the "major" article are > > not archived (the debate was near its end around the time that > > the DejaNews archives begin). But here are some of the later > > articles that are in the archives which show that the issue had > > been discussed significantly before: > > > > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=171113148 (Thomas Doehne, 30 Jul 1996) > > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=134721092 (Corrupter, 10 Jan 1996) > > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=109501678 (Curt Adams, 05 Sep 1995) > > http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=101532199 (Shane Travis, 26 Apr 1995) > > > > And this is precisly what he meant. The earliest article prior to the > ruling was 3 years. > > I do this that qualifies for not being discussed prior to issuing a > ruling. > > In that three years the game dynamics had changes dramatically and the > people involved in the NG and game had changed. As a result the > discussion should of been reopened. With a new body of involved people > the results of that discussion could have been 100% different. > > Raille. I agree here. For about 3 years there has been no discussion or I must have missed it. In these years, the game has undergone some changes, and it's not the same as at the time the discussion started. And then suddenly, with no warning prior the errata to wake came. Nobody said, hey it might be changed, it will be looked at by the RT, nothing! Yes, there has been a discussion, years ago, and *after* the errata, not recently before the issue of the errata. [ quoted text not captured ]

carlos_...@my-deja.com wrote: > rai...@mich.com wrote: > > L. Scott Johnson wrote: > > > Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: > > > > virtually no discussion on this topic [Wakey] on > > > > this newsgroup took place *before* the ruling. Feel free to > > > > check out DejanNews to contradict me. > > > > > > The topic was debated and exhaustively analyzed by the likes > > > of Curt Adams, Corrupter, et. al. > > > > > > DejaNews doesn't have all of the articles, unfortunately, since > > > its archives do not go back far enough. Most of the "major" > > > article are not archived (the debate was near its end around > > > the time that the DejaNews archives begin). But here are > > > some of the later articles that are in the archives which > > > show that the issue had been discussed significantly before: > > > > > > www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=171113148 (Thomas Doehne, 30 Jul 1996) > > > www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=134721092 (Corrupter, 10 Jan 1996) > > > www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=109501678 (Curt Adams, 05 Sep 1995) > > > www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=101532199 (Shane Travis, 26 Apr 1995) > > > > > > > And this is precisly what he meant. > > The earliest article prior to the ruling was 3 years. > > > > I do [think] that qualifies for not being discussed prior > > to issuing a ruling. (The fact that it was discussed 3 years ago doesn't imply that it wasn't discussed more recently - I'm not sure how that leap was made) Merlisk posited that "virtually no discussion ... took place *before* the ruling." He invited evidence to refute that claim. I gave that evidence. He did not ask for examples of discussion *immediately* preceding the errata - but rather of discussion at all prior to the errata. 3 years prior to the ruling *is* prior to the ruling. > > In that three years the game dynamics had changes > > dramatically and the people involved in the NG and > > game had changed. As a result the discussion should > > of been reopened. With a new body of involved people > > the results of that discussion could have been 100% > > different. > > I agree here. For about 3 years there has been no discussion > or I must have missed it. "For 3 years or you must've missed it"? Even with the assumption that the list I gave above is exhaustive, that statement is already refuted. > In these years, the game has undergone some changes, > and it's not the same as at the time the discussion started. And then > suddenly, with no warning prior the errata to wake came. Nobody said, > hey it might be changed, it will be looked at by the RT, nothing! > Yes, there has been a discussion, years ago, and *after* the errata, > not recently before the issue of the errata. Untrue. The list above is not exhaustive, it just reflects a time when most of the points on the subject were made. Like the CL debate, once the points had been made, further posts on the subject were not that numerous, although they still occasionally surfaced. Problems with waking in general were discussed (on this newsgroup) in the month preceding the errata was issued, for example. Even with all the points that have gone before, no one is prohibited from discussing it again, with or without the errata. A constructive discussion would be preferred to a simple "this sucks" discussion, but this is a free forum. (Just as with Card Limits - the floor is always open). -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and DCI (tournament) rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/rules.asp [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] My two cents is that the current errata seems to work fine and once newbies learn it, it becomes a accepted game mechanism. There is another cards which allow you to repeatedly block with the same minion: Cat's Guidence. So if you really wanted to block with the same vamp all the time use animalism. But, WWEF is a great card and any vampire can use it, which is at the heart of this arguement. Just how much should a methuselah be able to use it without it being subjectively abusive? I think that if you put 20 of these in your deck that there should be a rather expensive opportunity cost to use them, hense I tend to agree with current errata. How abusive is it to use it to untap constantly? [ quoted text not captured ]

X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > If the card *needed* to be errata'd (and again, I do not feel > > that it did, but that's another issue), I think it would have been > > far fairer to change it to: > > > > "Do not replace until the end of current turn" > > > > to match the template for the referendum's which say Do not > > replace until after voting or somesuch. Not being able to > > replace until your next untap is overly severe a cost, IMO. > > My two cents is that the current errata seems to work fine and once > newbies learn it, it becomes a accepted game mechanism. There is > another cards which allow you to repeatedly block with the same minion: > Cat's Guidence. So if you really wanted to block with the same vamp all > the time use animalism. But, WWEF is a great card and any vampire can > use it, which is at the heart of this arguement. Just how much should a > methuselah be able to use it without it being subjectively abusive? I > think that if you put 20 of these in your deck that there should be a > rather expensive opportunity cost to use them, hense I tend to agree > with current errata. How abusive is it to use it to untap constantly? > I've been thinking about this the last day or so. While I can acknowledge that the replace after combat is weak and needed to be fixed, the Replace at your next turn goes to far. The replace at end of current turn, still allows virtually unlimted card dumping. Although, I must admit the card dumping only occurs occasionally in play and only when the player feels letting the wake go is cost effective to getting a new card. So What we have is a card that needs something inbetween, and within the game constrains, there is no easy solution. However, the though can to me that WWEF could simply be errata'd to the same text as Forced Awakening. This allows the people with out access to FA to play on an even board. The changes of errata and such is that this change could be viewed as rather minor, when compared to some of the other wholesale card text changes seen in the past. Comments and suggestions encouraged. Raille.

On Fri, 07 Jan 2000 12:25:09 -0500, Raille <rai...@mich.com> wrote: >I've been thinking about this the last day or so. > >While I can acknowledge that the replace after combat is weak and needed >to be fixed, the Replace at your next turn goes to far. It does make Wake significantly trickier to play with, but read on. >The replace at end of current turn, still allows virtually unlimted card >dumping. Although, I must admit the card dumping only occurs >occasionally in play and only when the player feels letting the wake go >is cost effective to getting a new card. Right. When I play with Wake, I don't USUALLY put that many in a deck - seeing one in my hand is a Good Thing, since it permits me to appear defenseless while actually having a defense. (Or just to take more actions, even if only "bleed for 1".) If I end up with two, I start tapping out completely (taking stupid actions if necessary), hoping to burn one as a reaction and move my hand some. If I end up with three, I start waking multiple vampires for the same action just to get them gone. But there is a cost for this - I don't get it back 'til my turn starts. So the current errata is functional, at least - I can't just toss too many Wakes in and get away with it. >So What we have is a card that needs something inbetween, and within the >game constrains, there is no easy solution. > >However, the though can to me that WWEF could simply be errata'd to the >same text as Forced Awakening. This allows the people with out access >to FA to play on an even board. What do you do about Wake/Deflect, which under your proposed errata costs 2 blood? And all the other reaction cards that don't involve a block? (There are approximately 20-25 of those - i just went and took a rough count via ELDB.) These cards now all effectively cost 1 extra blood each, because of FA's no-block clause. Also, Forced Awakening is NOT that good a card, unless you both (a) intend to block and (b) intend to be CAPABLE of blocking. When I build decks with only light ('opportunistic') intercept (a few Sports Bikes, a KRCG, and a Rumor Mill), I prefer to use Wake instead of FA, because one Forgotten Labyrinth on an equip action or vote will totally smother anything but a dedicated intercept deck - and while I'd like to be able to intercept some things, I certainly don't want to have to burn a blood just for trying and failing. So Wake serves me better here. >The changes of errata and such is that this change could be viewed as >rather minor, when compared to some of the other wholesale card text >changes seen in the past. It isn't exactly a minor change, since the text is not very similar at all (Wake mentions nothing about 'burn blood for failing'). If a group doesn't have any FA's they may not realize why the card was altered. Whereas the current errata changes "after combat" to "your next untap phase", and that's only four words. >Comments and suggestions encouraged. ...And please redirect all mindless flames to /dev/null. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

Derek S. Ray wrote: > >The changes of errata and such is that this change could be viewed as > >rather minor, when compared to some of the other wholesale card text > >changes seen in the past. > > It isn't exactly a minor change, since the text is not very similar at > all (Wake mentions nothing about 'burn blood for failing'). If a > group doesn't have any FA's they may not realize why the card was > altered. Whereas the current errata changes "after combat" to "your > next untap phase", and that's only four words. Thats partly true. The cost for failing is only paid after you fail to block. A vampire with 1 blood can use FW, deflect, the ignore the burn blood cost of FW. With FW, you can wake as many times as you wish, even with a vampire with 0 blood and keep cycling the cards out of your hand. If I have 7 FWs in may hand due to bad luck, I can wake the same 0 blood vampire repeatedly and get them all gone, redraw and carry one. Cost is zero. With Wake the cost is hand reduction to zero, until play returns back to you. So compare these. Wake reduces your hand size, FW will reduce your vampires blood by 1, and if you have any small vamps, or 0 blood vamps the cost is simply zero. Raille. more later I'm sure

On Fri, 07 Jan 2000 21:38:41 -0500, Raille <rai...@mich.com> wrote: >Derek S. Ray wrote: >> It isn't exactly a minor change, since the text is not very similar at >> all (Wake mentions nothing about 'burn blood for failing'). If a >> group doesn't have any FA's they may not realize why the card was >> altered. Whereas the current errata changes "after combat" to "your >> next untap phase", and that's only four words. > >Thats partly true. The cost for failing is only paid after you fail to >block. A vampire with 1 blood can use FW, deflect, the ignore the burn >blood cost of FW. (Not sure how the burn-blood loophole at 1 blood makes the statement above "partly true", since I was dealing with card text. no biggie.) I don't know about you, but I keep my vampires ABOVE 1 blood if I can help it. =) One of my vamps with only 1 blood is fast approaching the "disposable" classification, unless he's got a way to get blood back on him quickly in some form or other. Once they start the take-an-action-for-1, hunt, take-an-action-for-1 sequence, I usually assume they're going to be intercept targets, and plan my strategy around the other vamps accordingly. >With FW, you can wake as many times as you wish, even with a vampire >with 0 blood and keep cycling the cards out of your hand. Once per action per vampire, though. You better have a lot of vamps with 0 blood or a lot of actions to toss 'em on. >If I have 7 FWs in may hand due to bad luck, I can wake the same 0 blood >vampire repeatedly and get them all gone, redraw and carry one. Cost is >zero. Again, you need 7 actions *and* a 0 blood vampire to do that with. Not directly a problem for the 7 actions since you can assume that, at a 4 player table, 3 other people will take at least 7 actions, but what if you block your predator's first action and draw up multiple FAs? You may only have 2 of his actions left to burn three or four of the cards on... And if you have no 0 blood vampires, d'oh! >With Wake the cost is hand reduction to zero, until play returns back to >you. Right. Encouraging people to not just stuff decksful of Wake, since you can't go card-dumping and IMMEDIATELY help yourself. You can card-dump and help yourself next turn, of course, but it's a turn in which you mostly sit and look amusing. >So compare these. Wake reduces your hand size, FW will reduce your >vampires blood by 1, and if you have any small vamps, or 0 blood vamps >the cost is simply zero. Only 0 blood vamps. If you have small vamps, FA/Delaying Tactics will still cost them a blood. This is a good reason to Wake/DT. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6E6E642C10583995.818CF796...@lp.airnews.net>, lor...@yahoo.com (Derek S. Ray) wrote: > On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 21:35:12 GMT, Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: > [snip] > >4) For decks relying of card refresh, WWEF is fairly useless as it > >really should only be played during your predator's turn. A case in > >particular is combat decks - reducing your hand size *drastically* > >decreases your ability to respond to or pose a threat. > > Combat decks typically play with no Wakes and no FA's, as their > ability to survive depends directly on being pro-active. A combat > deck with enough intercept to block +2 stealth actions (one bleed + a > Lost in Crowds) probably hasn't got enough combat to kill things. A > combat deck with some Wakes thrown in can't stop anything at +1 > stealth. The obvious solution is pack more Bum's Rush and quit > pretending that Wake, in ANY form, is useful in a combat deck. Ashes > take no actions. Hmm....I guess I've been playing combat decks wrong all these years. I was under the impression that a combat deck that can Wake and intercept its prey's hunt is extrememly useful. Or, perhaps, Wake and intercept a rescue from torpor. Thanks for your enlightenment and in such a gentle tone. [snip] > >5) If played as is, or the modification "can't be replaced until end > >of acting player's turn", the opportunity cost will balance its > >effectiveness. > > I have twenty-five Wakes in my deck, and through crappy draw, i have > five in my hand. On my grand-predator's turn, I pick an action at > random and spend four Wakes, one per vampire I possess, to find some > useful shit in my deck. What opportunity cost? ZERO! that's right, > ZERO. I just had to pick an action I couldn't block, which was > anything my grand-predator did. And I'm left with one Wakey and > probably five, maybe six useful cards. No no no no no no NO! Broken. > > >I was somewhat surprised to see a previous post belittle the > >"opportunity cost" aspect of the game. It's my opinion that the > >majority of the game *IS* the opportunity cost of cards - with the > >remaining being a player's sequence of events and the metagame. > > Correct. Wake, unerrata'd, has no opportunity cost. Wrong. The opportunity cost is the slot in your deck and the "hole" left in your hand until the acting person's turn is over. Honestly, listen to your logic: I have 7 cards and 5 are Wakes. I get to throw away 5. Wow! Uh...doesn't that mean you only have 2 useful cards left in your hand that are playable? In addition, you're unable to draw to replace the 5 so that further actions by the acting player are only met with 2 cards? Suppose your predator deflects/misdirects your grandpredator's bleed. Wouldn't those 25 slots been better put to use on an appropriate reaction? (Assuming you're not playing one of your combat-without-any-intercept decks.) I was under the impression that the skill in creating a deck was balancing useful cards vs. card slots. Of course, you seem to think that I know nothing of deck creation, so I'll leave you to your logic. Perhaps, despite your condescending tone, I can give you the benefit of the doubt and think that you meant to say that the opportunity cost of taking a card place in a deck and leaving a hole in your hand for 1 turn isn't enough. Well, that would be have been a more useful debate. I'd still disagreed with it, but at least you would've added to the debate. > -- Derek -- Best regards, Merlisk V:EKN Prince of Dallas [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <854oro$l0v$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, sjoh...@math.sc.edu (L. Scott Johnson) wrote: [snip] > Even with all the points that have gone before, no one is prohibited > from discussing it again, with or without the errata. A constructive > discussion would be preferred to a simple "this sucks" discussion, > but this is a free forum. (Just as with Card Limits - the floor is > always open). > > -- > LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) VTES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Thank you LSJ. You should know by now that I think you've a great job taking over for WOTC when support for our game was at low spot. I simply disagree with this particular ruling. I hope I've done so with an intelligent discussion of my opinions without an irrational tone as displayed by some who've responded. Keep up the good work. (BTW, for the record, I'm usually in the "ban a card" camp vs. "word change" camp.) [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 10 Jan 2000 21:33:01 GMT, Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: >In article ><6E6E642C10583995.818CF796...@lp.airnews.net>, > lor...@yahoo.com (Derek S. Ray) wrote: >> On Mon, 03 Jan 2000 21:35:12 GMT, Merlisk <mer...@my-deja.com> wrote: >> >> Combat decks typically play with no Wakes and no FA's, as their >> ability to survive depends directly on being pro-active. A combat >> deck with enough intercept to block +2 stealth actions (one bleed + a >> Lost in Crowds) probably hasn't got enough combat to kill things. A >> combat deck with some Wakes thrown in can't stop anything at +1 >> stealth. The obvious solution is pack more Bum's Rush and quit >> pretending that Wake, in ANY form, is useful in a combat deck. Ashes >> take no actions. > >Hmm....I guess I've been playing combat decks wrong all these years. I >was under the impression that a combat deck that can Wake and intercept >its prey's hunt is extrememly useful. Or, perhaps, Wake and intercept >a rescue from torpor. But even more useful is a combat deck that has vaporized all its prey's minions before they can take any actions - meaning that nobody is hunting, and nobody is rescuing from torpor. This lets you include more Rush actions and beat-things-up cards, and less Wake and intercept in your combat deck, increasing the chance that you'll have what you need when you need it, as opposed to a handful of Wake and +1 intercept when the OBF deck is hunting and fishing its guys out of torpor. >Thanks for your enlightenment and in such a gentle tone. That *is* gentle, for me. :P >> >5) If played as is, or the modification "can't be replaced until end >> >of acting player's turn", the opportunity cost will balance its >> >effectiveness. >> >> I have twenty-five Wakes in my deck, and through crappy draw, i have >> five in my hand. On my grand-predator's turn, I pick an action at >> random and spend four Wakes, one per vampire I possess, to find some >> useful shit in my deck. What opportunity cost? ZERO! that's right, >> ZERO. I just had to pick an action I couldn't block, which was >> anything my grand-predator did. And I'm left with one Wakey and >> probably five, maybe six useful cards. No no no no no no NO! Broken. >> >> >I was somewhat surprised to see a previous post belittle the >> >"opportunity cost" aspect of the game. It's my opinion that the >> >majority of the game *IS* the opportunity cost of cards - with the >> >remaining being a player's sequence of events and the metagame. >> >> Correct. Wake, unerrata'd, has no opportunity cost. > >Wrong. The opportunity cost is the slot in your deck and the "hole" >left in your hand until the acting person's turn is over. Wrong. Unerrata'd, it is "don't replace til after combat", and since there is no combat, it is effectively "replace immediately", which is zero opportunity cost - very bad. Your proposal involves alternate errata, "don't replace 'til end of acting player's turn", which is not what I was referring to - most of the ranting has been about leaving it totally unerrata'd. >Honestly, listen to your logic: I have 7 cards and 5 are Wakes. I get >to throw away 5. Wow! Uh...doesn't that mean you only have 2 useful >cards left in your hand that are playable? In addition, you're unable And how many cards exactly did you have in your hand that were useful BEFORE you threw away the 5? Sitting on useless crud does not make it any less useless, and under your errata burning Wakes against harmless actions by your predator is worthless - you would not get to replace 'til your OWN untap. >to draw to replace the 5 so that further actions by the acting player >are only met with 2 cards? Suppose your predator deflects/misdirects >your grandpredator's bleed. Wouldn't those 25 slots been better put to These things happen. It's a win/win situation for your predator if he deflects anyway - he gets a Wake out of your hand with minimal effort to him, and still gets to take his turn against you. My point is, if you have a hand that will be no good against what your predator will do, dumping multiple cards and replacing on your predator's untap is a MINIMAL risk compared to what you could GAIN, considering your grandpredator is not going to intentionally do anything to harm you until you are actually his prey. >use on an appropriate reaction? (Assuming you're not playing one of >your combat-without-any-intercept decks.) I was under the impression If you're playing a 25-wake deck, I assume the deck has plenty of reaction cards anyway - specifically, at least 25. Just lobbing 25 wakes into a deck would be a total waste of time. >that the skill in creating a deck was balancing useful cards vs. card >slots. Of course, you seem to think that I know nothing of deck >creation, so I'll leave you to your logic. Rampant hyperbole. But it seems to be your style. =) >Perhaps, despite your condescending tone, I can give you the benefit of >the doubt and think that you meant to say that the opportunity cost of >taking a card place in a deck and leaving a hole in your hand for 1 >turn isn't enough. Well, that would be have been a more useful debate. >I'd still disagreed with it, but at least you would've added to the >debate. Oh, get off your high horse. It's as if nobody ever disagreed with you before - sheesh. I was merely trying to provide an EXAMPLE, which provides some substance to debate over, as opposed to just shouting "WAKE WAS FINE THE WAY IT WAS", as some others have done. My point remains: leaving a hole in your hand 'til the end of the acting player's turn is insufficient, as it's only required to cycle everything on one of your grandpredator's actions, at minimal cost to yourself (except that you're down a few Wakes in your deck. Most 90 card decks do not run out of their libraries during a normal game). [ quoted text not captured ]

Merlisk wrote: >>Hmm....I guess I've been playing combat decks wrong all these years. I was under the impression that a combat deck that can Wake and intercept its prey's hunt is extrememly useful. Or, perhaps, Wake and intercept a rescue from torpor. Thanks for your enlightenment and in such a gentle tone.>> While I can't speak for Derek's tone (which seemed perfectly friendly to me...), he is pretty much correct--if you want to get anywhere with a rush deck, you really want to be leaving the WWEF out of the deck for the following reasons: A. Clogs your deck. A viable Rush deck is incredibly card intensive, using 4-8 cards per action, on average (Bum's Rush, Torn Signpost, IG, Undead Strength at very minimum; add manuvers, Tastes, presses, additional strikes to taste). Drawing a Wake does not help you in combat, and does not help you kill someone. Thus, it is pretty much dead weight. B. You can't intercept anyone anyway. As a good Rush deck is incredibly card intensive, there really isn't any room for intercept (for the same reasons mentioned above), so having the ability to Wake and block zero stealth actions will get you nowhere. At all. Sure, every once and a while, having a few Wakes and a few intercept cards in a given Rush deck *might* be a helpful surprise now and then, but more often than not, it'll clog your hand and get you nowhere. As the Rush deck lives and dies by its ability to pre-emptively kill stuff, you are better off just leaving out Wakes and intercept, and focusing on killing better. You don't have to intercept your prey's "rescue from torpor" actions if all of his vampires are in torpor... >>Honestly, listen to your logic: I have 7 cards and 5 are Wakes. I get to throw away 5. Wow! Uh...doesn't that mean you only have 2 useful cards left in your hand that are playable? In addition, you're unable to draw to replace the 5 so that further actions by the acting player are only met with 2 cards?>> Just in response to this point--Assuming an un-errattaed Wake (replace after combat). You have 5 Wakes in your hand. You want to get rid of them. You wait until your Prey (or grand prey or anyone at the table) performs an action that you can't legally block or are incapable of blocking (Hunting? Calling a vote? Equipping? Bum's Rushing their prey? Taking a directed action at someone other than you?). You then Wake every vampire you own, neglect to block or react. There is no combat. You redraw every Wake you played pretty much immideately. Zero cost, except for the deck space (which may or may not be significant). >>Suppose your predator deflects/misdirects your grandpredator's bleed. Wouldn't those 25 slots been better put to use on an appropriate reaction? (Assuming you're not playing one of your combat-without-any-intercept decks.) I was under the impression that the skill in creating a deck was balancing useful cards vs. card slots. Of course, you seem to think that I know nothing of deck creation, so I'll leave you to your logic.>>> Assming you are building a deck,and you are under the impresison that having Wakes are important, you could put in as many as you want (pre-errata) without having to worry about hand jamming on them, unlike *every other card in the game*. They flow like water. Yeah, 25 is probably excessive, but 12 is a perfectly reasonable number of Wakes for a deck that needs Wakes. Pre errata, the opportunity cost of the Wake was nothing--if you didn't need them (say your predator is playing an intercept deck), you can toss them freely, unlike every other card in the game, which has a play requirement (being in combat, needing intercept/stealth, calling a vote, taking an action, whatever). Wake cycled absolutely freely, if you needed to do so. Not good. Thus, errata. Peter D Bakija PD...@aol.com "You said that love's never kind. I memorize these lines, practice them every night." -Sleater/Kinney

> >What if I want to use vamps that don't have animalsm? Just > >don't expect to block? > You could always leave someone untapped, that is what > most people do This is true. And for the most part, you do usually leave one vamp untapped. However, you still have to have some sort of defense going on because unless you leave all your vamps untapped, you won't be able to fully defend against your pred. This secondary defense is usually in the form of some kind of untap/wake ability. > Thanks for the sarcasm, it actually brghtens my day, but I try. You know it makes me feel all warm and gushy inside when I do. > I will address your point. If you think that a card slot is that big of a > deal( especially how you like high combat decks), I'm talking about in general, for any kind of deck. > then you should either not use WWEF to block your prey when > your prey is using non-directed actions. Either not use WWEF or do what? You didn't complete your point. > I actually agree with what you are saying, but the difference between > one blood and a card slot is a signifigant difference and you should build > your strategy around it. That is what you have to do. I'm not arguing strategy. At all. Period. I full well realize that with the current errata, if you are using an Intercept Block deck, it is much better to use FA to Wake. What I'm arguing is the cost differences and the unfairness of the errata to Wake when compared to the card that it was meant to brought in line with - FA. > I, personally, would choose WWEF to use with smaller vamps, because of > the no blood cost, and use FA with the bigger ones, just in case there was > stealth involved. This is what you are *forced* to do right now with the current errata. I am making the argument that it is unfair and am pointing out why. > >> > Why is it that the card should have heavier cost at one end of > >> > the table yet have a far greater reduced (to almost nothing if > >> > used at the very last action of the pred's turn) cost at > >> > the other > >> > end of the table? For the *exact same opportunity*?!? > They reason it should have a higher cost at one end of the > table rather than the other is that it is the only cost you pay for > using the card. It is disciplineless, therefore you do not have to > specialize with a specific discipline(i.e. Fortitude, Animalism, Auspex, > etc.). It doesn't cost any blood (i.e. Forced Awakening or Freak > Drive) It does not require a untapped vampire( i.e. Telepathic > Counter, Telepathic Misdirection, Deflection, etc.). It is a great > card that is useful for giving you extra action (in that you do not have > to leave as many minions untapped) but it costs nothing. The errata > gives it a weighted cost. It is extremely inexpensive if you use it to > defend against your predator, but very expensive to attack your prey > by blocking an action. You know, I thought about this for a while. And I *almost* thought that you were right. However, one thing doesn't wash and it's the thing you didn't take into consideration - Forced Awakening. It does the exact same thing that Wake does - allow your vamp to block as if untapped and is disciplineless. However, it doesn't have the same kind of revolving cost as Wake now does. It doesn't cost you 2 blood (or more) to attempt block your prey and fail. It costs you one blood no matter what. So this whole argument that it should cost you more to block your prey than your pred is bull. > As above, it should cost more to do proactive blocks that > help your position on the table, rather than reactive blocks > that defend your current position. This makes no sense. Blocking either your predator or your prey helps your position. So you are saying that it helps your position more to, say, block your prey from Hunting or from performing the 5thTrad than it does from blocking your pred from bleeding you for X? > Blocking across the table is difficult under the best of > circumstances. Only two cards allow you to do it so to > include that here is an extreme corner case. Not the point. If you can and do, Waking costs you less for this than it does against your prey. That's the point. > See above about predator vs. prey and pro-active vs. reactive > blocking See my point that this argument isn't valid. > Exactly, why it should cost more. It helps you to block your prey by > denying him/her actions that benifit them, this weakens your prey and > helps you: therefore it should cost more. Then why doesn't FA cost more to block your prey? Your point is bogus. > >I'm sorry, but all of the above does not equal 1 blood on a vampire > >by *any* stretch of the imagination. No other card in the game has > >this kind of "revolving" cost. And please don't point out that in my > >above examples, you should use FA instead of Wake. My point is > >that the cost of Wake does not equal the cost of FA (and is in fact > >significantly more expensive), which Wake was errata'd to bring more > >in line with. > Actually depending on how you intend to use it the costs are > roughly the same. In fact, judicious use of WWEF will cost you virtually > nothing, which is the reason for the errata. I still don't agree with this. It costs you a card slot, just like any other card in your deck. Any card you put in your deck, you are putting it in there because you can and want to use it. If you just throw away the Wake on nothing, it's a waste of a card slot. But this has been debated and argued for an eternity and don't really want to dredge it up again.

> Assming you are building a deck,and you are under the impresison that having > Wakes are important, you could put in as many as you want (pre-errata) without > having to worry about hand jamming on them, unlike *every other card in the > game*. They flow like water. Yeah, 25 is probably excessive, but 12 is a > perfectly reasonable number of Wakes for a deck that needs Wakes. Pre errata, > the opportunity cost of the Wake was nothing--if you didn't need them (say your > predator is playing an intercept deck), you can toss them freely, unlike every > other card in the game, which has a play requirement (being in combat, needing > intercept/stealth, calling a vote, taking an action, whatever). Wake cycled > absolutely freely, if you needed to do so. Not good. Thus, errata. Quick point here: you can do the exact same thing with FA. Got a weenie and need to dump your hand really quicky? Use the weenie to FA actions you cannot block. When the weenie gets to 0 blood, you don't have to burn anything and can still use (and dump) FA. You just got to dump your entire hand for the cost of a couple of blood. If you have a HG in play, you don't even have to hunt with that Weenie. Playing a 5th Trad deck and need one? Dump all your FAs and pull that 5th you really need. So you can "abuse" FA just as easily as you could pre-errata Wake for only a *marginal* cost (and one that isn't even that marginal if you already have a vamp at 0 blood). Because of this loophole, do you feel that FA should be errata'd, too? Other cards have been errata'd because of loopholes, why not this one too? Sorrow --- I told the priest - don't count on any second coming. God got his ass kicked the first time he came down here slumming. He had the balls to come, the gall to die and then forgive us. No, I don't wonder why, I wonder what he thought it would get us -- Concrete Blonde

Sorrow wrote: > What I'm arguing is > the cost differences and the unfairness of the errata to Wake when compared > to the card that it was meant to brought in line with - FA. It was meant to balance the cost of Wakey with its own effect, FA notwithstanding. Most of the "fixes" that did this (that were being used/tested as house rules before FA was printed) truly turned WwEF into wallpaper once FA was finally added to the mix. For instance, the first proposed fix for WwEF was: "costs 1 blood" (in addition to the printed Do Not Replace text) [Curt Adams]. While that may have brought WwEF's cost into line with its effect, it was obviously not a workable solution after FA was printed. So a lesser cost (do not replace until your next untap, initially proposed by the Corruptor) was adopted by the RT. While it didn't restrict the WwEF as much as the one blood cost did, the strengthened WwEF didn't seem overly strong (unbalanced). > > I, personally, would choose WWEF to use with smaller vamps, because of > > the no blood cost, and use FA with the bigger ones, just in case there was > > stealth involved. > > This is what you are *forced* to do right now with the current errata. I am > making the argument that it is unfair and am pointing out why. You are not forced to used WwEF on the smaller vamps, nor are you forced to use FA with the larger ones. Both are very strong cards (for their costs), so a question about "fairness" should be asking why they aren't more restricted than they are now. > > >> > Why is it that the card should have heavier cost at one end of > > >> > the table yet have a far greater reduced (to almost nothing if > > >> > used at the very last action of the pred's turn) cost at > > >> > the other end of the table? For the *exact same opportunity*?!? > [huge snip] > Waking costs you less for [use against your predator] than it does > against your prey. That's the point. The "Do not replace until the end of the turn" alternative that some have proposed would have a similar "problem": a heavier cost at the start of a player's minion phase (her first action) than at the end (her last action). Which would be the "*exact same opportunity*" by the above usage. Why should *that* be? (Answer: because it's a card game, and the "ideal world of darkness" sometimes has to give way to the mechanics/abstractions of the game) As an alternative, since the card is already higher on the effect/cost scale than the average, a more "balanced" solution that doesn't suffer from the "predator-prey sliding scale cost" that some players apparently find distasteful would be "Do Not Replace Until the Acting Minion's Controller's Next Untap Phase". But, while possibly more balanced, such a solution is more difficult to remember - which probably outweighs the gain in balance. [snip] -- LSJ (vte...@wizards.com) V:TES Net.Rep for Wizards of the Coast. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.wizards.com/VTES/rules.asp

Sorrow wrote: >>Quick point here: you can do the exact same thing with FA. Got a weenie and need to dump your hand really quicky? Use the weenie to FA actions you cannot block. When the weenie gets to 0 blood, you don't have to burn anything and can still use (and dump) FA.>> People keep bringing this up, and I really don't think it is all that significant a loophole. You need to be willing to have a vampire at zero blood--if you don't have a vampire at zero blood, you need to burn the blood off of him until he reaches zero, which is a significant cost. Yeah, after you burn off the blood he has, you can cycle the FA freely, but you need either to have a vampire at zero blood (which takes effort of some sort) to react with, or burn some blood off of one of them, which very well could be blood you are putting into your pool instead (via something like Blood Doll). Thus, there is a cost, even if it is a minimal one. Pretty similar to the current Wake. A cost. >>You just got to dump your entire hand for the cost of a couple of blood.>> Yes. This is a cost. Those couple points of blood you burn off is significant--that blood could instead be pulled off your vamp and moved to your pool, or used to deflect someone, or something. Instead, you are burning it to cycle some cards out of your hand. A reasonable cost. >>If you have a HG in play, you don't even have to hunt with that Weenie. Playing a 5th Trad deck and need one? Dump all your FAs and pull that 5th you really need.>> And the blood you burned looking for that 5th could have been better utilized in your pool via a minion tap. A cost is a cost. >>So you can "abuse" FA just as easily as you could pre-errata Wake for only a *marginal* cost (and one that isn't even that marginal if you already have a vamp at 0 blood).>> A marginal cost is a cost. And the cost is only marginal if you build a deck to make the cost marginal. If you are playing a deck that uses mid-sized (and consequently fewer) vampires, having one of them at zero blood is significant. WWEF was not "abused" in its original form. It was a card that had no significant cost, unlike every other card in the game. As Jyhad is a game of cost/effect and resource management, this is not acceptable. The current version of WWEF has a reasonable cost that justifies its powerful effect. Many would argue that the current Wake is wallpaper when compared to FA. I would not. >>Because of this loophole, do you feel that FA should be errata'd, too? Other cards have been errata'd because of loopholes, why not this one too?>> I do not believe that FA has a significant "loophole" effect. The card, as printed, has a significant cost--burn a blood if you do not block an action. This means you need to be willing (and able) to A) Block an action B) Burn a blood to use it for a reaction card (which when combined with Deflection becomes a *very* significant cost) or C) Have a vampire with zero blood, who is tapped, lying around doing nothing so you can cycle the card for "free" (you'll note my use of sarcastic quote marks...). This is a legitimate and significant cost. Pre errata Wake had no such costs. Nada. Nothing. You had it in your hand you either used it for something good, or tossed it for free with no restriction. The only other cards that had such unrestricted cycleability were pre rules change vote cards--and they errataed that rule too. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > >>Because of this loophole, do you feel that FA should be errata'd, too? Other > cards have been errata'd because of loopholes, why not this one too?>> Yes. Perhaps addition of: If cost cannot be paid reacting vampire goes to torpor. > I do not believe that FA has a significant "loophole" effect. The card, as > printed, has a significant cost--burn a blood if you do not block an action. This means you need to be willing (and able) to A) Block an action B) Burn a blood to use it for a reaction card (which when combined with Deflection becomes a *very* significant cost) or C) Have a vampire with zero blood, who is > tapped, lying around doing nothing so you can cycle the card for "free" (you'll > note my use of sarcastic quote marks...). This is a legitimate and significant > cost. What I have found in play. Yes I really do play. Is that both Wake and FA don't get dumped unless the player has a defined reason to do so. Usually they either need a card to ousted their prey for the next turn or they need to stop a bleed with will oust them. It is during these situation when the rapid card cycling comes into play. If I have a vampire with any amount of blood, it will be sacraficed via FA to draw a deflect or intercept card. Any amount! Its burn the vampire blood or die, what will you do. With Wake there is no longer a hope to draw a card to deflct or block, with FA their is a heavy cost in terms of blood. With Wake, you can only cycle as many cards as you have in your hand, and you better to is at the end of your predators turn or your S.O.L (and thats not Serpents of Light.) :) Now it is rare that a player needs to cycle that many FA or wakes. What I have found is while this is annoying to watch a player dump some cards then pull his a** out of the fire at the last second, these same players have 100% of the time have had poorly designed decks. With one of two playings they end up taking extra wake/FA out of their deck. > Pre errata Wake had no such costs. Nada. Nothing. You had it in your hand you > either used it for something good, or tossed it for free with no restriction. > The only other cards that had such unrestricted cycleability were pre rules > change vote cards--and they errataed that rule too. I guess the card to add now is deal with the Devil. Toss in a few dozen of those into a crappily designed deck so you can cycle an extra 7 cards at the begining of your turn. Better write up some errata for that too. Vote cards. Uhm, wrong conversation. Don't want to start that argument here. > Peter D Bakija > PD...@aol.com Raille

Raille wrote: <<Yes. Perhaps addition of: If cost cannot be paid reacting vampire goes to torpor.>> (Dave, this is a response to something Sorow wrote, not me--I wasn't stating that FA should be errataed in any way, shape, or form :-) <<What I have found in play. Yes I really do play. Is that both Wake and FA don't get dumped unless the player has a defined reason to do so. Usually they either need a card to ousted their prey for the next turn or they need to stop a bleed with will oust them.>> Ok. <<It is during these situation when the rapid card cycling comes into play. If I have a vampire with any amount of blood, it will be sacraficed via FA to draw a deflect or intercept card. Any amount! Its burn the vampire blood or die, what will you do.>> Yup. To cycle the FA, it costs blood. I have no issue with the fact that you can cycle FA. It has a cost to do so. My issue was with pre-errata Wake, which had a very powerful effect (untap a vampire--giving you extra actions) and zero cost. The free cycling aspect of pre-errata Wake was a side effect of its lack of cost. FA has a cost--burn a blood if you don't block. This means that if you want to cycle it without blocking, you need to play a blood. This is a significant cost. <<With Wake there is no longer a hope to draw a card to deflct or block, with FA their is a heavy cost in terms of blood.>> Yes, a significant cost. If you want to toss a Wake, it costs you a card slot. If you want to toss a FA, it costs you a blood. I would claim that it is a compareable cost. <<I guess the card to add now is deal with the Devil. Toss in a few dozen of those into a crappily designed deck so you can cycle an extra 7 cards at the begining of your turn. Better write up some errata for that too.>> That is so not the point. Wake needed errata because it had a very significant effect (it gave you extra actions) and had *zero* cost. Unlike every other card in the game. As a result of its complete lack of cost, it could be cycled like water--this was bad, but a result of its lack of cost. The only reason that the free cycling was a problem was because Wake was a powerful card in and of itself--it is always useful to be able to untap, but as opposed to all other powerful but conditional use cards, it would never clog your hand, as you could cycle it freely if you didn't need it, as it had no cost. If Wake had no other function (like Deal with the Devil), who would care? If Wake's card text was "Discard Wake to draw a new card", and it had no other use or cost, it would be perfectly fine, although a complete coaster (unless 40 cards was too many for a particular deck you have in mind...). That was not Wake's effect, however. It had a very powerful effect, zero cost, and never clogged up your hand if you didn't need it. Thus, too good. Please compare pre errata Wake to Surprise Influence. Both are no discipline reaction cards with no blood cost. Wake has a very commonly useful, powerful effect. Surprise Influence has a occasionally useful, minimal effect. Logically, Wake should be harder to use (i.e. have a higher cost) than SI, due to the disparity in their effects for a similar card type. This is not the case--Wake can be used and cycled freely, where SI has a very high conditional cost (there needs to be a vote that someone else has called). This disparity of cost indicates that something was wrong with Wake. As to Deal with the Devil, DwtD has a perfectly reasonable cost (a master phase *and* your entire hand) and its only effect is to allow you to redraw your hand. It doesn't do anything else. It doesn't allow you to surgically cycle your hand during your opponents turn as a side effect of its lack of cost. Wake had a very useful effect, no cost, *and* the ability to be cycled for free. Just too much. Hand cycling was not the problem with pre-errata Wake. It was the complete lack of cost for a card with a powerful effect. The free hand cycling was an added benefit and a symptom of somthing being amiss. >>Vote cards. Uhm, wrong conversation. Don't want to start that argument here.>> Not that different of a conversation. Both effects were changed due to lack of appropriate cost. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > That is so not the point. Wake needed errata because it had a very significant > effect (it gave you extra actions) and had *zero* cost. Unlike every other card > in the game. As a result of its complete lack of cost, it could be cycled like > water--this was bad, but a result of its lack of cost. The only reason that the > free cycling was a problem was because Wake was a powerful card in and of > itself--it is always useful to be able to untap, but as opposed to all other > powerful but conditional use cards, it would never clog your hand, as you could > cycle it freely if you didn't need it, as it had no cost. If Wake had no other > function (like Deal with the Devil), who would care? If Wake's card text was > "Discard Wake to draw a new card", and it had no other use or cost, it would be > perfectly fine, although a complete coaster (unless 40 cards was too many for a > particular deck you have in mind...). That was not Wake's effect, however. It > had a very powerful effect, zero cost, and never clogged up your hand if you > didn't need it. Thus, too good. the cost was insignificant. But the errata cost is too much. This is what most of us who argue against this will agree on. The current loss of the card slot for a full cycle of the table is too great. I currently use Zero wakes in any of my decks. The decks I have do not depend on vampire blood to win the game. The loss of a card out of my hand is critical, and even with an average deck that card slot can be the make of break of a game. Since I cannot come up with a intermediant cost for wake, I prefer to error on the side of caution and am happy to let it lie with out errata. Pre errata = too weak cost Post errata = too great a cost. Until something else is devized I suspect that this conversation will keep cropping up, like dandelions. It just doesn't look as pretty. Maybe I should start in on Pulled fangs again. :) Raille

On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Merlisk wrote: > > Combat decks typically play with no Wakes and no FA's, as their > > ability to survive depends directly on being pro-active. A combat > > deck with enough intercept to block +2 stealth actions (one bleed + a > > Lost in Crowds) probably hasn't got enough combat to kill things. A > > combat deck with some Wakes thrown in can't stop anything at +1 > > stealth. The obvious solution is pack more Bum's Rush and quit > > pretending that Wake, in ANY form, is useful in a combat deck. Ashes > > take no actions. > > Hmm....I guess I've been playing combat decks wrong all these years. I > was under the impression that a combat deck that can Wake and intercept > its prey's hunt is extrememly useful. Or, perhaps, Wake and intercept > a rescue from torpor. Note the use of the word "typically". Also note that one strongly held theory with combat decks is to pro-actively stop all actions - you cannot hunt if you're dead, you cannot rescue if you're dead, you cannot come out of torpor if you're dead (no blood, or preferably burned). -- James Coupe

Raille wrote: >>the cost was insignificant. But the errata cost is too much. This is what most of us who argue against this will agree on.>> I'll accept that, but then just as many people agree that the current cost is not too steep. >>The current loss of the card slot for a full cycle of the table is too great. I currently use Zero wakes in any of my decks. The decks I have do not depend on vampire blood to win the game. The loss of a card out of my hand is critical, and even with an average deck that card slot can be the make of break of a game.>> I have simply not found the cost of the eratted Wake to be all that significant--I currently have two decks that use untapping cards. One uses a lot of deflections and Delaying tactics. It uses 9 Wakes and no FA, because I don't want to spend the blood. It is a very effective deck (it is an all DOM bonding deck--unless it is sitting next to a dedicated intercept deck, it tends to do *very* well). The other is a weenie Pro deck with light intercept, lots of Earth Melds (allowing untap after a block), and reaction cards, and also 9 Wakes. It is also a very effective deck (it was the leader going into the finals in the second Origins tourney this past summer). Neither deck uses FA, as I don't want to spend the blood, and react just as often as I attempt to block. Both decks are very effective. Neither deck finds the current cost of Wake too much to handle. >>Since I cannot come up with a intermediant cost for wake, I prefer to error on the side of caution and am happy to let it lie with out errata.>> Which is understandable if you belive that the current cost is too high. I do not. >>Maybe I should start in on Pulled fangs again. :)>> Post errata Pulled Fangs: KoKo torporizes all of your vampires. Pre errata Pulled Fangs. KoKo burns all your vampires. You do the math :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Nice loophole. Praise the old ways, except Fame!!! Jeff Prince of Cleveland

Peter D Bakija wrote: > >>Maybe I should start in on Pulled fangs again. :)>> > > Post errata Pulled Fangs: KoKo torporizes all of your vampires. > Pre errata Pulled Fangs. KoKo burns all your vampires. > > You do the math :-) > > Peter D Bakija > PD...@aol.com What about a real solution. Pull Fangs. Only one playable per combat. Leave it as agravated rules. This means that a Pot deck can still burn you, but what the hay, errata to PFs never stopped that any how. This will Stop Julius the catiff from burning his opponents, and that enough for me. Raille

[ quoted text not captured ] Actually, I have a hell of a difficult time making a POT deck that *burns* vampires, because I only have two Decapitates. Burning Wrath is funny on the face of it, and making POT/pro is a lot trickier than it sounds. Do you really want to bring Lucky Blow/PF/Amaranth back, though? =) [ quoted text not captured ]

Raille wrote: >>What about a real solution.>> I don't really understand that statement--if you are going to errata it, you are going to errata it. The fix you have suggested requires just as much verbiage as the current one, is errata (as opposed to not errata), and still leaves the card too powerful. >>Pull Fangs. Only one playable per combat. Leave it as agravated rules.>> Still allows potence decks to burn opponents with impunity and for nothing. Still leaves non combat clans with a *very* powerful combat card that costs almost nothing. "Look! I have Fortitude! You go to Torpor!"; "Look! I have Lucky Blow! You go to Torpor!" >>This means that a Pot deck can still burn you, but what the hay, errata to PFs never stopped that any how.>> Wha? Before the errata, every PF played by a Potence deck resulted in a burnt vampire, with no blood cost and no need for superior potence. Now, PF does not burn anyone. If you mean because of Decapitate, I can tell you that Decapitate isn't all that easy to use--it takes superior Potence (requiring bigger vampires than you would like or skill cards), two blood (requiring damage prevention or lots of tastes), and the inferior version is pretty much worthless. As it isn't that easy to play, it is a bad idea to have more than 4 or 5 in a deck. With 4 or 5, it doesn't come up that often. As PF was always playable and by any vampire, you could easily have, like, 10 in a Rush deck and never notice a problem. >>This will Stop Julius the catiff from burning his opponents, and that enough for me.>> I'll accept that it is enough for you, but I assure you--Pulled Fangs that did aggro damage was simply too powerful. It was a zero discipline card with no blood cost that did aggrivated damage. What else did aggro damage in the original set: -Wolf Claws/CotD: Required a discipline. Cost a blood. -Walk of Flame: Required a Discipline. Only worked second round. -Burst of Sunlight: Required a Discipline. Did damage to you as well. -Ivory Bow: Weapon. Fragile. Unique. Cost a pool. Required an action to equip. Could be stolen/acquired. -Sengir Dagger: Same as above, but cost 2 pool. -Flame Thrower: Same as above. Cost 4 pool, but not unique. -Dragon's Breath Rounds: Required a gun (see above). Destroyed that gun. Was too good with Zip Gun. Thus, Zip Gun errataed. -Body of Sun: Sucks plain and simple. These are the cards that PF was built to be in line with. Even with the 1st edition Aggro rules, it was too powerful when compared to these (and other similar cost) cards. PF was printed when a single point of aggrivated damage *could not burn a vampire, ever*. When PF was printed, playing 8 of them on one vampire had almost no greater effect than 1 (you still just went to Torpor--you just had to grow back your fangs 8 times...). When the aggro rules changed, PF suddenly became an unholy nightmare of a card, and far, far more powerful than originally intended or designed. It needed to be fixed. Saying you could only play one of them at a time simply does not fix the card. It is still too powerful. What possible justification can you come up with for a zero discipline, zero cost card with low opportunity cost for being that powerful? Lucky Blow is also a zero discipline, zero cost combat card. As is Dodge. The "Don't Redraw" and "Do more damage" aspects of PF and Lucky Blow are a wash (and according to many in the recent thread discussion, a single card slot is *very* valuable, making the disadvantage of Lucky Blow an arguably more severe cost than the minimal opportunity cost of PF...). What can possibly justify the fact that pre errata PF is that much more powerful than Lucky Blow? That it is rare? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 15 Jan 2000, Derek S. Ray wrote: > Do you really want to bring Lucky Blow/PF/Amaranth back, though? =) ITYM "Ventrue Steam-roller deck of Skin of Steel/PF/Amaranth" That's the scary one, when it comes to it being abused, I find. -- James Coupe

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, yeah, THAT one is just ugly. but i was actually thinking more "first turn, I bring out Nik, Igo, Antoinette, and Smudge. Next turn, Smudge rushes you, plays Lucky Blow, pulls your fangs, and Amaranth. Darn... Smudge gets burned too. He could've done it without the LB next time." [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > What possible justification can you come up with for a zero discipline, zero > cost card with low opportunity cost for being that powerful? Lucky Blow is also > a zero discipline, zero cost combat card. As is Dodge. The "Don't Redraw" and > "Do more damage" aspects of PF and Lucky Blow are a wash (and according to many > in the recent thread discussion, a single card slot is *very* valuable, making > the disadvantage of Lucky Blow an arguably more severe cost than the minimal > opportunity cost of PF...). What can possibly justify the fact that pre errata > PF is that much more powerful than Lucky Blow? That it is rare? > > Peter D Bakija > PD...@aol.com Very good argument. I can offer no justification for a zero cost disciplineless cost. And for that reason, I cannot continue this thread further. Suffice it to say, that I do not favor adding errate to the game in most cases. Including this one. I however to do not have the vestided power to change this, and even if I did, I like LSJ would have to submit to the players. Raille.