Life Boon Debate

Quick Summary of points as I see them: From the "Something needs to be done about Life Boon" camp: 1. It's a master card that arbitraily reassigns victory points in the game. Counterpoint: So? You don't have to like it. You're not going to win the tournament by removing yourself from it. 2. Pool Swing from self oust aspect is unbalancing. (Saved methuselah has at least 6 pool, usually 10+) Counterpoint: A robust tournament winning deck should be able to overcome a prey with more than 30 pool, or perhaps some decks will have counters for this so it won't matter. 3. Sign of abused card: Included in most tournament "winning" decks. (at least in the Southeast US) Counterpoint: Small sample size, why isn't it included in winning decks all over the world? 4. Can be abused universally in all deck types. Counterpoint: Master slots too valuable to seriously consider adding LB to all decks, particularly combat decks. From the "There isn't a solid reason to change Life Boon" camp: 1. There are better master cards to use out there. Counterpoint: Like what? Even Minion Tap doesn't necessarily give you a VP. You should include at least a couple in your deck. 2. 1VP at a time is not a method to win tournaments. Counterpoint: True, but an _extra_ VP every other game can nudge a deck into the finals, where an extra VP can usually mean at least second place. 3. You have to wait for the situation to arise, I mean, you actively try to oust your prey, but your grandpredator has to be strong for your predator to be ousted. Counterpoint: The situation arises more often than not. It's really not that hard to pull off. 4. Maybe it _is_ cheesy and boring, but the same has been said about Majesty. Counterpoint: Well, at least you admit there is a problem. (This isn't really a debatable point, either the person is debating the other points or you hear this) ------------ Well, I'm sure this list isn't all inclusive, but it should keep the debate rolling, feel free to add or subtract from the list. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Rob Grau wrote: > [Snip] > > 3. Sign of abused card: Included in most tournament "winning" decks. (at > least in the Southeast US) > Counterpoint: Small sample size, why isn't it included in winning decks > all over the world? I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in SoCal, Life Boon is anathema (uh, not the card, the word... I mean the meaning, er, it sucks). In Anarch Revolt LA a couple weeks ago, a limited format (Rochester Draft) tourney, Life Boon was used 3 times! Did it affect the final VP spread - I don't remember. We are running a league right now wherein Life Boon has moved a meth into 5th place. He has used LB for over 50% of his VPs... Chris -- Tammy Martin 5'7" Alexander Shorb 2'10" Chris Shorb 5'11" Shameless plug: <http://www.graphicnovels.com/>

I don't know what I think about Life Boon overall but I felt the need to respond to a couple of things. Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: >2. Pool Swing from self oust aspect is unbalancing. (Saved methuselah >has at least 6 pool, usually 10+) >Counterpoint: A robust tournament winning deck should be able to >overcome a prey with more than 30 pool, or perhaps some decks will have >counters for this so it won't matter. That one is a pretty lame counter. I mean, you're right, they should be able to handle pool gain decks. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing to support a tactic that capriciously hands an arbitrarily chosen player 10+ pool just for being in the right place at the right time. In fact, it's not even entirely being in the right place at the right time but also a matter of being *ineffective* at protecting yourself from your preditor which contributes to your sudden windfall. >3. Sign of abused card: Included in most tournament "winning" decks. (at >least in the Southeast US) >Counterpoint: Small sample size, why isn't it included in winning decks >all over the world? The answer to that is that not everyone really knows about it just yet, I think. In Magic, it took something like 2 years for everyone to understand how abusive Balance was and it's an *obscene* card. Fred

I think Frederick has a point here. We had a tournament this Sunday. In that tourney I used a life boon to selfoust in the final. I didn't save my predator but it still gave me a Vp that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. Most players in Stockholm argued that I couldn't selfoust with life boon and when we finally decided I could almost everyone agreed that it was too good a card. Conclusion: not many players knew you could selfoust with life boon. Result: now that they do I bet we'll see a lot of life boons :( Robert Prince of Stockholm [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Rob Grau wrote: > 3. Sign of abused card: Included in most tournament "winning" decks. (at > least in the Southeast US) > Counterpoint: Small sample size, why isn't it included in winning decks > all over the world? Indeed. I've heard many, many groans when it's played in the UK, but never seen anyone even begin to think about doing anything remotely like abuse with it. And I have used it in situations without the self-oust, and would object to seeing it removed from the card pool. -- James Coupe

On 2 Feb 2000, Frederick Scott wrote: > The answer to that is that not everyone really knows about it just yet, > I think. In Magic, it took something like 2 years for everyone to > understand how abusive Balance was and it's an *obscene* card. We have John Eagles, Legbiter, Anam and Ian, Steve Wright, Mike Nudd and Rob Treasure on this group a lot, as well as myself. All regular UK players, and Steve and Rob are probably arguably the two best players in the UK. Neither of them have 'abused' the card to any extent, to the best of my knowledge, but it would be difficult to say they don't know of the self oust trick. It's definitely been used, by myself, at least a couple of times (twice that I recall, once at GenCon 98, and once in a Portsmouth game when I just couldn't get passed a roadblock deck) in tournaments. The 'abuse' just isn't happening. Why it should happen in the US, and in a small portion thereof, is a mystery to me. -- James Coupe

On Tue, 1 Feb 2000, Chris Shorb & Tammy Martin wrote: > now wherein Life Boon has moved a meth into 5th place. He has used LB > for over 50% of his VPs... *shrug* Jyhad is a social game. If people choose not to do anything about that, that's their fault. I've often seen tables just split and start saying "Okay, everyone - can we just get rid of him and then go back to playing normally?" to stop a deck being abusive. That your's do not do this is perhaps something your League participants should consider. -- James Coupe

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Robert Ekvall wrote: > Conclusion: not many players knew you could selfoust with life boon. > Result: now that they do I bet we'll see a lot of life boons :( As I stated elsewhere, it's been known, for similar reasons, in the UK for at least 18 months. Total number of life boons I've seen in that time - oh, about 5, maximum. Most of them mine, probably. -- James Coupe

> Indeed. I've heard many, many groans when it's played in the UK, but > never seen anyone even begin to think about doing anything remotely like > abuse with it. > > And I have used it in situations without the self-oust, and would object > to seeing it removed from the card pool. > > -- > > James Coupe If you have used it in situations without the self-oust, kudos to you. That is the way the card was intended to be played. I am not in favor of banning the card, but merely removing the possibility of collecting a victory point from self oust from the range of play. I favor errata that would make such a move improbable( yet not impossible) by adding errata to the card that "The methuselah playing this card may not reduce themselves below 1 pool." This will still keep the card within its intended purpose yet not allow an immediate self oust to occur. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown Jr. X_Zealot Archon of the Swamp Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

Personally, I don't see a problem with the card. You are taking yourself out of the game preventing the accumulation of any other victory points. True, it is a way to get an early out and potentially win the game but, you will have already had to win victory points (and sufficient number) to win the game. I have heard more bitching from friends about misdirections and force of will. The only way to stop misdirection is with a sudden reversal (ignoring a wake, cause stealth becomes an issue, and additional predator vamps can get past a one wake already used up), and that could be a game winner as well, almost always giving a victory point if well-played and timed. Force of Will (one of my favorite cards) can be used after you force your prey to tap out due to other bleeds, and if no wake is available, is usually always successful. Sure, you go to torpor, but it is a small price to gain two actions, 6 pool, and a VP. Cheese is in the eye of the beholder, and any card can be annoying if performed enough times, be it Force, misdirection, combat ends (especially with untap), any minion with +1 stealth to all actions... > From the "Something needs to be done about Life Boon" camp: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Richard Conrad Zink Department of Biostatistics University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill W: (919) 966-0370 H: (919) 933-6019 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frederick Scott wrote: > Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: > > >2. Pool Swing from self oust aspect is unbalancing. (Saved methuselah > >has at least 6 pool, usually 10+) > >Counterpoint: A robust tournament winning deck should be able to > >overcome a prey with more than 30 pool, or perhaps some decks will have > >counters for this so it won't matter. > > That one is a pretty lame counter. In an attempt to compile a neutral list of points, I may have unintentionally weakened the argument by saying "or blah, blah, blah." But I think this is a more reasonable line of debate than the "So?" counterpoint I proposed. > I mean, you're right, they should be > able to handle pool gain decks. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing > to support a tactic that capriciously hands an arbitrarily chosen player > 10+ pool just for being in the right place at the right time. A good thing(TM) and unbalancing are different ideas. I think the Direct Intervention debate made a clear distinction between the two. > In fact, > it's not even entirely being in the right place at the right time but > also a matter of being *ineffective* at protecting yourself from your > preditor which contributes to your sudden windfall. Ineffective deck type or not, the fact remains that you gain pool as if you had ousted two methuselahs. The argument I proposed does not agrue if the life boon beneficiary deserves the pool but rather what happens when the power shift occurs. It is a valid argument to say that "it is not unreasonable to expect a deck to gain 12 pool in a game, therefore a good deck should be able to deal with it" The part about the deck being ineffective may work against the case for changing Life Boon because a bad deck will not be gaining pool otherwise. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: >Frederick Scott wrote: > >> Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: >> >> >2. Pool Swing from self oust aspect is unbalancing. (Saved methuselah >> >has at least 6 pool, usually 10+) >> >Counterpoint: A robust tournament winning deck should be able to >> >overcome a prey with more than 30 pool, or perhaps some decks will have >> >counters for this so it won't matter. >> >> That one is a pretty lame counter. > >In an attempt to compile a neutral list of points, I may have unintentionally >weakened the argument by saying "or blah, blah, blah." But I think this is a >more reasonable line of debate than the "So?" counterpoint I proposed. Sure. >> I mean, you're right, they should be >> able to handle pool gain decks. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing >> to support a tactic that capriciously hands an arbitrarily chosen player >> 10+ pool just for being in the right place at the right time. > >A good thing(TM) and unbalancing are different ideas. I think the Direct >Intervention debate made a clear distinction between the two. I guess you're going to have to clarify what definition you're using for the term "unbalancing". I've heard it used for cards which were not adequately play-balance but that sure didn't sound like how you used it in the text I quoted above. It _sounded_ like you meant that the effect of the card unbalanced the game it was used in - i.e., granted one Methuselah an arbitrary advantage over another. This it certainly does. And if the counterpoint you gave was intended to communicate that such "imbalance" was not automatically a "bad thing" - which is the idea suggested by the original point - it failed to do so. I don't see how it can be disputed that large random, capricious windfalls to players who haven't done anything at all to deserve them can be seen as anything *but* a "bad thing". The only question is whether it's a bad enough thing to worry about and/or whether the card does anything "good" to merit retaining it in its current form. (Granted that just the additional card variety and the lack of one more piece of errata or another card banning are somewhat good in and of themselves.) Fred

Richard Conrad Zink wrote: > Force of Will (one of my favorite cards) can be used after you force your > prey to tap out due to other bleeds, A vampire who bleeds (to tap out a prey) cannot use Force of Will to bleed again. That would be a violation of the No Repeat Actions rule. > and if no wake is available, is > usually always successful. Any action is "usually always" successful when directed at a tapped out player who has no wake. That isn't a "problem" that Force of Will has a corner on. > Sure, you go to torpor, but it is a small price > to gain two actions, 6 pool, and a VP. You only gain one action, not two. The pool and VP "gains" are not inherent in the Force of Will action. -- 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

Frederick Scott wrote: > I guess you're going to have to clarify what definition you're using > for the term "unbalancing". I've heard it used for cards which were not > adequately play-balance This definition is fine. > but that sure didn't sound like how you used it > in the text I quoted above. It _sounded_ like you meant that the effect > of the card unbalanced the game it was used in - i.e., granted one > Methuselah an arbitrary advantage over another. If you meant "arbitrary" advantage to be unfair advantage or exceedingly large advantage, then yes, this example fits the definition of unbalanced play. > This it certainly does. > And if the counterpoint you gave was intended to communicate that such > "imbalance" was not automatically a "bad thing" - which is the idea > suggested by the original point - it failed to do so. I meant that a "bad thing" did not automatically mean "unbalanced", but certainly if something is unbalanced, that is a "bad thing". To rephrase in terms of the Life Boon debate, I gave a counter point to the pool gain aspect, to which you said: > I mean, you're right, they should be > able to handle pool gain decks. But that doesn't mean it's a good thing > to support a tactic that capriciously hands an arbitrarily chosen player > 10+ pool just for being in the right place at the right time. It may not be a good thing to have an effect that seems to be something other than was orginally intended. That doesn't mean it has to be changed. (persumably something that is unbalancing in the play environment does have to be changed) To phrase in terms of a debate that is dead: It may not be a good thing to have a redundant concealed weapon, but that doesn't mean it should be changed? Do you see my distinction? I was trying to defend my "pretty lame counter" as a "valid counter argument that you are allowed to find fault with" Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

Rob Grau wrote in message <38979C44...@eos.ncsu.edu>... >Quick Summary of points as I see them: > >From the "Something needs to be done about Life Boon" camp: > >1. >2. >3. >4. snipped I'd add one more. During the course of normal play, a person ousting their prey has _no_ option for countering the effect of LBSO, not even Sudden Reversal. Regards, R. David Zopf Atom Weaver V:EKN Prince of Charlotte, NC

i think it's nice that we're having a debate about life boon and i hope this is not just a bit of window-dressing prior to an already-decided- upon RT ruling. Overall i'm with my esteemed colleague the hated Coupe [beneath whose Iron Heel the Kindred of Central England Nightly Groan] on this. However, i want to comment separately on some theoretical issues [but only briefly, because i am a methuselah of very little brain], on what the card actually does for the game [positive aspects if you like], and to offer an opinion about why it seems to be a problem in SE USA, and not elsewhere. THEORETICAL STUFF i think it's dangerous territory to state that Life Boon is bad because it arbitrarily gives people something for nothing. That argument would lead to fixes/bans for Malkavian Game and Prank and Game of Malkav, and for that matter the whole concept of shuffling one's deck. GOOD STUFF Life Boon makes combat decks viable at tournament level, because a combat deck can use it to get a VP out of the normal tactic of shafting its predator. And Life Boon IS used by thoughtful and judicious players like James Coupe to control the table, and by creative but crazy players like Philippe Richer to contrive mad schemes of winning by sequentially ousting their predators. OPINIONATED STUFF Ultra-fast bleed decks [Boo!] and combat decks [Hoorah!] seem to be much more common in the colonies than over here. i must admit that in such an environment pretty much any deck would need a life boon. Here ultra-fast bleed is somewhat in abeyance because we have a lot of massive bleed/ vote/runaway decks and a lot of really fierce multi-action combat decks too. If we were theoretically-minded over here we might be groaning about how broken Minion Tap, Golconda, Dramatic Upheaval and Kindred Restructure are, but we aren't, twice. EMOLLIENT COMPROMISING STUFF AT THE END Can i suggest a prize for the top 20 or so players in the VEKN ratings that wouldn't cost anybody anything to buy or post and would probably be reasonably popular with everyone? Couldn't they have a vote on any proposed fix to a card in future? i suggest that LSJ is ex officio Inner Circle Member, Robert Goudie Justicar, whoever comes top is Prince and everybody else is a primogen. Line that will probably get deleted when i post this. Kisses from Legbiter, just in case it doesn't. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 03 Feb 2000 13:58:37 GMT, legb...@my-deja.com wrote: >i think it's nice that we're having a debate about life boon and i hope >this is not just a bit of window-dressing prior to an already-decided- >upon RT ruling. Overall i'm with my esteemed colleague the hated Coupe ...Which is what we're hoping too. =) >[beneath whose Iron Heel the Kindred of Central England Nightly Groan] on >this. However, i want to comment separately on some theoretical issues >[but only briefly, because i am a methuselah of very little brain], on We shall call you Poohbiter henceforth. >what the card actually does for the game [positive aspects if you like], >and to offer an opinion about why it seems to be a problem in SE USA, and >not elsewhere. > >THEORETICAL STUFF >i think it's dangerous territory to state that Life Boon is bad because >it arbitrarily gives people something for nothing. That argument would >lead to fixes/bans for Malkavian Game and Prank and Game of Malkav, and >for that matter the whole concept of shuffling one's deck. well, it's more that the effect Life Boon produces is disproportionate to its cost. Game of Malkav produces a more or less random effect. Life Boon produces a much more specific effect. I agree, basing it on "something for nothing" is bad - i mean... Ascendance. =) >OPINIONATED STUFF >Ultra-fast bleed decks [Boo!] and combat decks [Hoorah!] seem to be much >more common in the colonies than over here. i must admit that in such an >environment pretty much any deck would need a life boon. Here ultra-fast from an unfortunately pragmatic reflex which involves thinking to oneself "Well, let's see. I know there will be at least three extremely fast decks. Do I want to make something to hose extremely fast decks, something extremely fast (and hopefully somewhat creative) myself, or something totally off-the-wall and wack that still has a good chance against these decks?" Hence the wide, wacky variety we see - but ESPECIALLY when you're playing something slightly wack, you want a life boon, because your deck may totally fail to 'go'. =) >bleed is somewhat in abeyance because we have a lot of massive bleed/ >vote/runaway decks and a lot of really fierce multi-action combat decks >too. If we were theoretically-minded over here we might be groaning about >how broken Minion Tap, Golconda, Dramatic Upheaval and Kindred >Restructure are, but we aren't, twice. Minion Tap gains much pool rapidly, but leaves you with a small, foolish-looking vampire with much vulnerability. Golconda is no biggie unless you get into the Anson deck (minion tap/golconda), and then it's hideous pool gain complemented by, well, hideous pool gain. dramatic upheaval and kindred restructure are two extremely useful cards that I don't see played -that- often - for some reason it seems most people are focussed on ousting their OWN prey, and either tend to not want to hop away from their previous work, or just don't want to get in front of that same predator-type. =) i don't think they're so terribly broken as all that - i mean, you have to call it, giving it the same weakness as any vote. Then you have to DO something once you've restructured yourself into position - which has its own difficulties. Ick. More handy as a "get me out from in front of hiiiiim" card, but doesn't automatically gain a VP while doing so. >EMOLLIENT COMPROMISING STUFF AT THE END >Can i suggest a prize for the top 20 or so players in the VEKN ratings >that wouldn't cost anybody anything to buy or post and would probably be >reasonably popular with everyone? Couldn't they have a vote on any >proposed fix to a card in future? i suggest that LSJ is ex officio Inner >Circle Member, Robert Goudie Justicar, whoever comes top is Prince and >everybody else is a primogen. > >Line that will probably get deleted when i post this. >Kisses from Legbiter, just in case it doesn't. <raising hand> Pass the "Lysol"? -- Derek Deafness never kept composers from hearing the music. It only stopped them hearing the distractions.

legbiter wrote: > THEORETICAL STUFF > i think it's dangerous territory to state that Life Boon is bad > because it arbitrarily gives people something for nothing. That > argument would lead to fixes/bans for Malkavian Game and Prank and > Game of Malkav, and for that matter the whole concept of shuffling > one's deck. None of the aforementioned examples grant a victory point. > GOOD STUFF > Life Boon makes combat decks viable at tournament level, because a > combat deck can use it to get a VP out of the normal tactic of > shafting its predator. Discussions of strategies for combat decks aside, Life Boon can enhance the potential of _every_ deck style. > OPINIONATED STUFF > If we were theoretically-minded over here we might be groaning > about how broken Minion Tap, Golconda, Dramatic Upheaval and > Kindred Restructure are, but we aren't, twice. Feel free to enlighten us... > EMOLLIENT COMPROMISING STUFF AT THE END > Can i suggest a prize for the top 20 or so players in the VEKN ratings > that wouldn't cost anybody anything to buy or post and would probably > be reasonably popular with everyone? Couldn't they have a vote on any > proposed fix to a card in future? i suggest that LSJ is ex officio > Inner Circle Member, Robert Goudie Justicar, whoever comes top is > Prince and everybody else is a primogen. I think our own discussions on card fixes are more than enough example why the current rules team should continue to handle things. :) > Line that will probably get deleted when i post this. Ha. So there. :) - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

>> The answer to that is that not everyone really knows about it just yet, >> I think. In Magic, it took something like 2 years for everyone to >> understand how abusive Balance was and it's an *obscene* card. > >We have John Eagles, Legbiter, Anam and Ian, Steve Wright, Mike Nudd and >Rob Treasure on this group a lot, as well as myself. All regular UK >players, and Steve and Rob are probably arguably the two best players in >the UK. Neither of them have 'abused' the card to any extent, to the best >of my knowledge, but it would be difficult to say they don't know of the >self oust trick. It's definitely been used, by myself, at least a couple >of times (twice that I recall, once at GenCon 98, and once in a Portsmouth >game when I just couldn't get passed a roadblock deck) in tournaments. > >The 'abuse' just isn't happening. Further to this point, I have to say that in all the time I have been playing Jyhad/VtES I have *never* seen a self-oust via a Life-Boon to gain a VP. Hell, I've only ever seen a normal withdrawal for a VP twice ever. Regarding abuse, I have to say that the environment in which the game is played here in the UK it just doesn't work. The people I play with in Essex, in London and in Portsmouth, are all great, friendly people, and few of them ever set out to abuse the game or the cards in any way. We are all interested in having fun, testing our skills, and trying out creative new decks. The guy I have ever heard people grumble about is Mr. Suitcase from GenCon UK '99... The only problems I've ever really encountered were in encouraging the die-hard old players from home into playing with the erratas, rulings etc. that WotC have published on their web-site... Mike Nudd mi...@vekn.org.uk Probationary VEKN Prince of London

> of play. I favor errata that would make such a move improbable( yet > not impossible) by adding errata to the card that "The methuselah > playing this card may not reduce themselves below 1 pool." This will > still keep the card within its intended purpose yet not allow an > immediate self oust to occur. What will this accomplish? I'm not in favor of doing anyting to this card, but just to play devils advocate to my own position, with the errata your propose above, I can still give all - 1 of my pool to my predator upon his/her almost oust and just let him/her oust me on his/her next turn and viola!, I still get the VP. The only thing the proposed errata does is cost the predator a minion action... Sorrow

<legb...@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:87c1ib$ag9$1...@nnrp1.deja.com... > GOOD STUFF > Life Boon makes combat decks viable at tournament level, because a combat > deck can use it to get a VP out of the normal tactic of shafting its > predator. And Life Boon IS used by thoughtful and judicious players like > James Coupe to control the table, and by creative but crazy players like > Philippe Richer to contrive mad schemes of winning by sequentially > ousting their predators. Yah. Life Boon is vital to my ongoing pursuit of an Intercept deck that does more than tie up the table and slink off with 2 VP. Never seen the self-oust thing in my playgroups, but that's probably group politics more than anything else. Weird notion for a possible fix: "Life Boon may not be played on your predator." Simple, elegant, preserves the essential function of the card, but prevents the cheap VP. My very rare two cents, Mark ShaneWood, Ancilla of the Domain of Minneapolis

Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> writes: >Frederick Scott wrote: >> I mean, you're right, they should be able to handle pool gain decks. But >> that doesn't mean it's a good thing to support a tactic that capriciously >> hands an arbitrarily chosen player 10+ pool just for being in the right >> place at the right time. > >It may not be a good thing to have an effect that seems to be something >other than was orginally intended. That doesn't mean it has to be changed. >(persumably something that is unbalancing in the play environment does >have to be changed) I'm not sure if we disagree or not. An element to the game that is strongly and capriciously random is certainly a fine candidate for fixing or banning even if it's not overpowered/undercosted. I'm not sure whether you're saying this isn't so or you're just pointing out that Life Boon isn't overpowered/undercosted (which I would tend to agree with). One of major reasons for banning cards like "Channel" in Magic is that it's too luck oriented. Not that it's overpowered. This isn't to say such a card should automatically should be banned or fixed. That's a matter for judgement, I suppose. Obviously, the game has plenty of effects already which are random and capricious. The question is whether this cards adds enough good to warrant keeping. And whether it's bad enough at whatever it's bad at (in this case adding too much luck) to warrant the downside of errata or a banning. Fred

In article <31rm4.324$ax....@dfw-read.news.verio.net>, [ quoted text not captured ] You are correct. It was a simple fix an errata for a card that apparently is broken. My fix does only temporarily delay the problem of self-oust, but it allows the card to function in all manners virtually identically to the original function, but on second thought I think I like the errata "you may not Life Boon your predator" better. So I will support that. Thanks for the Thoughts Norman S. Brown Jr. X_Zealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <dDrm4.1186$8p3.1...@ptah.visi.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] I think that is a very reasonable errata. Excellent thoughts, [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > identically to the original function, but on second thought I think I > like the errata "you may not Life Boon your predator" better. So I will > support that. *IF* the problem that other people are citing is one which needs to be fixed, the only suggestion I have seen that would be worth it is that one. The "cannot oust yourself" one doesn't really do much for anything. -- James Coupe

On Thu, 3 Feb 2000, Mike Nudd wrote: > The guy I have ever heard people > grumble about is Mr. Suitcase from GenCon UK '99... ITYM "Mr. Briefcase", so named because of his tendency to reach for the copy of Darkness Unveiled for the third time after having the exact same judgement given to him by the judge (Matt Green, Gencon 97 and 98) each previous time. He didn't seem to get that we were playing a DCI tournament with DCI rules, pooh-poohing the idea that Wake didn't get replaced till your untap, but quite happy to exploit the uses of things like 2nd Tradition in their re-written form. -- James Coupe

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, R. David Zopf wrote: > I'd add one more. During the course of normal play, a person ousting their > prey has _no_ option for countering the effect of LBSO, not even Sudden > Reversal. Do it via a Madness Network. -- James Coupe

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 19:02:25 +0000, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] We've had a wording in the suggestion bin for a bit now that stated "You may not gain the VP earned for your own oust in this fashion." So you can do what you want with it, but if you LB your predator, you can't ever get the point for it. Of course, if you get Kindred Restructured around that could change. Even if you threw one cross-table. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Ah, there's a solution. We'll just put Malkavians and Madness Networks in our decks and everything will be better. Whatever. - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: >> identically to the original function, but on second thought I think I >> like the errata "you may not Life Boon your predator" better. So I will >> support that. > >*IF* the problem that other people are citing is one which needs to be >fixed, the only suggestion I have seen that would be worth it is that one. >The "cannot oust yourself" one doesn't really do much for anything. I tend to agree. This one has the desired effect, and is also pleasing since it "makes sense" that you shouldn't get anything out of sparing your predator. An elegant fix like this is definitely better than banning. -- /\ Jasper Phillips /VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV|~"~"~"~"~"~"----------........____ jaz j^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^\/"~"~"~"~-----------........._____ ~"~--. * http://www.engr.orst.edu/~philljas/ "~"~'--`

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, R. David Zopf wrote: >> I'd add one more. During the course of normal play, a person ousting their >> prey has _no_ option for countering the effect of LBSO, not even Sudden >> Reversal. > >Do it via a Madness Network. Which doesn't exactly happen during the course of normal play, is very vulnerable, and of quite limited availability. It would admitedly work, but it doesn't really counter David's point. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote in message ... >On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, R. David Zopf wrote: >> I'd add one more. During the course of normal play, a person ousting their >> prey has _no_ option for countering the effect of LBSO, not even Sudden >> Reversal. > >Do it via a Madness Network. > "Normal" play is the term I chose to exclude out-of-turn ousting, be it by MadNet, Anarch Revolt, Army of Rats, etc... You're niche examples and "what iffing" on this thread is particularly heavy...they really don't do anything for this debate, except to say that there are exceptions. Of course there are exceptions... one of them happened in the finals of the tournament I ran. I thought that part of the idea behind balance through (minimal) errata was to allow for a wider variety of tactics. If I'm to expect to get a VP for ousting, am I required now to use one of the out-of-turn ousting techniques to secure it? Obviously only if there is an LB on the table, but that's becoming the norm for every tournament deck in this region now. I suppose this stems from the lack of LBSO in your playgroup. I really don't take the "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" counter argument as being terribly useful. For all the thousands of games that have been played by the participants in this thread, alone, there is still a whole lot about this game that hasn't been fully explored yet, and by comparison to say, Monopoly or chess, this game is an infant. So we're the first to experience it here in the Southeast... so what? That's really not terribly relevant either way, except where it inhibits people considering what we're describing. I find LBSO interferes with the dynamics of tournament play sifficiently enough to warrant consideration for errata. I have seen it used, often and recently, to manipulate the tournament method of vp distribution in a way that doesn't coincide with what I understand the original intent of the card to be (specifically, to sustain another, failing player to help further your own cause), and its use in this fashion leaves a mess behind at the playing table once used (heavy net pool swing without sufficient cost to the responsible player, and without adequate recourse for the victim player). While not an adequate tactic in itself for a winning deck, I believe that it skews determination of which players actually performed well in a tournament, and which did not. For casual play, there is nothing that needs be done about this card... In tournament play, though, it goes a long way towards misrepresenting who the most successful players with the best decks and strategies were. That, moreso than anything else, is where my dislike for LBSO stems from... [ quoted text not captured ]

X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > I think I like the errata "you may not Life Boon your predator" better. > So I will support that. I think we should consider the mechanics of such a restriction. You could also support the errata "you may not play Life Boon." That is simple and elegant too, but most people dislike banning cards. Consider how the solution is similar to banning. Currently, the reasons to Life Boon your prey are small. If you choose to reduce your prey to zero pool, why would you life boon them? That does not make sense. I can see another effect ousting your prey, and there are bound to be a very small number of good reasons to LB your prey. The errata "you may not play Life Boon on your predator" eliminates another target. Likewise, there should be a set of reasons to LB your predator that does not involve the self oust VP, (or a variant of the "self oust": I have one pool, you'll kill me soon!) This means that LB has little utility in a game with less than 4 methuselahs. What happens with 3 players when you need to LB your predator to keep your prey from getting six pool, and the victory point to go with it? Why is it fair to say that you can use this effect when there are 4 people in the game but not 3? I think this significantly alters the original intent of Life Boon. This fix also does not address Ben Peal's objection that it gives the methuselah too much power in the game, it just tries to limit the situations in which it occurs. Since I object to the errata, I'll propose a different fix: "You may give up to half of your current pool (round down) to the Methuselah with zero pool." This prevents a self oust situation, and limits abuses by giving away 90% of your pool. If you only had two pool to start with, I would argue that your position was not very strong anyway. This is a fairly simple fix, like the others proposed. This works to limit the unbalancing effect of giving a lot of pool to any methuselah and letting the game take a significantly new course. It does not solve this problem. If you are running a bloat deck and have 15 pool (30 or more total) to give away, then that's more a product of the bloat deck more than the life boon. Using Succubus Club would lead to an equally bad situation with that much pool. A caveat: I haven't even playtested this. It might have some real pitfalls. I just think it addresses the issues better than "don't play on your predator." Thanks, Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

On 4 Feb 2000, Jasper Phillips wrote: > Which doesn't exactly happen during the course of normal play, is very > vulnerable, and of quite limited availability. It would admitedly work, > but it doesn't really counter David's point. I wasn't presenting it as a counter, but as a potential way round for the ever-paranoid Methuselah. -- James Coupe

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, R. David Zopf wrote: > "Normal" play is the term I chose to exclude out-of-turn ousting, be it by > MadNet, Anarch Revolt, Army of Rats, etc... You're niche examples and "what > iffing" on this thread is particularly heavy...they really don't do anything > for this debate, except to say that there are exceptions. I was trying to provide ways roudn for people who wanted them. If such ways round become heavily used, Life Boon gets cycled out of decks as not worth the card slots. I *wasn't* presenting them as anything other than slightly limited exceptions. Of course they are. But they are useful exceptions, if you're so worried about it. And until/unless errata is issued, if you are having a problem with such things, surely ways round are both useful and needed? -- James Coupe

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > Ah, there's a solution. We'll just put Malkavians and Madness > Networks in our decks and everything will be better. Whatever. *sigh* I'm not so stupid as to believe one card is an "answer" to your problems, and your suggestion that I would is somewhat belittling. I think I've shown a great deal more understanding of the interplay of cards than many Jyhad players. One card does not make a deck. One card does not break a deck. The only exception ever was RtoI - other cards were severely overpowered when abused in decks, RtoI barely needed a deck to abuse it. Most, if not all, decks now gain their power from skil in deck building and play, not from one card. Many decks are screwed by bad deck building and play. I know these things. I was presenting a *way round*, not the answer to any of your perceived problems. If you are having problems, you need ways round. The most efficient way is Madness Network, because you can do heavy pool-loss out of turn (unlike, for example, Smiling Jack, which takes a lot of time to get up to that). If you don't want such ways round, well, to borrow your word "whatever". As I've said, until/unless errata is issued, you have to live with Life Boon as it is. If you are having problems with it, to whatever degree, perhaps a way to deal with it might be useful? If it is, I think I was presenting the most effective way. If it isn't useful, there is no need to whine about Life Boon... -- James Coupe

R. David Zopf <guenh...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:87fjmc$ufj$1...@nntp1.atl.mindspring.net... > I suppose this stems from the lack of LBSO in your playgroup. I really > don't take the "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" counter argument as being > terribly useful. For all the thousands of games that have been played by > the participants in this thread, alone, there is still a whole lot about > this game that hasn't been fully explored yet, and by comparison to say, > Monopoly or chess, this game is an infant. So we're the first to experience > it here in the Southeast... so what? That's really not terribly relevant > either way, except where it inhibits people considering what we're > describing. I agree. "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" or "we do not abuse that card here" is not a valid argument against a overpowered/broken card. If a can be abused, then it can be abused. A = A. It dose not matter if you abuse it or not. Once it can be shown that a card is overpowered then it is and should be subject to a rules team ruling. I may not agree with so many card text changes, but in a limited card environment (i.e. a backlisted CCG) every card counts. If we were getting new expansions every two months then new correctly worded cards could be issued, but even so some cards are just to powerful and should be banned. Because Jyhad as with all CCGs is a very compacted game with new ideas and strategies being discovered over time some ruling body needs to police it. Because a card looks good and balanced during creation does not mean that someone will not find a way to prove otherwise. Every tournament deck should not have to have 15 deflections because of RTI/Day Op. In the long run the RT is making more deck types playable. You group may not use or abuse a card now, but it will in the future. -- Conor Prince of Raleigh

On Fri, 4 Feb 2000, Rob Grau wrote: > If you only had two pool to start with, I would argue that your > position was not very strong anyway. > > This is a fairly simple fix, like the others proposed. But if the problem is the shift, you probably want to stop people using it in such situations. (Note, repeatedly *if* - however, *if* an errata is to be issued, I'd like to see a good one issued.) Consider something like "Only usable if you have more than X pool" (where X is an arbitrary large number e.g. 10, argue about as necessary). "You may not finish with less pool than the Methuselah you Life Boon." (It does the 50% thing, but removes the maths for it.) -- James Coupe

On Sat, 5 Feb 2000, Celt wrote: > I agree. "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" or "we do not abuse that card > here" is not a valid argument against a overpowered/broken card. You seem to have not been following the entire thread. There have been many cries of "But now they know about it, *everyone* will be doing it." This is an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one which I should have thought obviously so. -- James Coupe

> You seem to have not been following the entire thread. There have been Yes I have. > many cries of "But now they know about it, *everyone* will be doing it." There been just as many cries of "we would never abuse that card in our group". Here are three statements from you in this thread. "The 'abuse' just isn't happening." "Why it should happen in the US, and in a small portion thereof, is a mystery to me." "Indeed. I've heard many, many groans when it's played in the UK, but never seen anyone even begin to think about doing anything remotely like abuse with it." > This is an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one > which I should have thought obviously so. It is not a different matter. A card has to be proven to be power/overpower/broken before it can be fixed. Just because your group dose not abuse a card does not mean the card is not abuseable. And was your last statement ment to belittle me? Why are you on the attack? I just stated my thoughts, as you have done meny times. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 4 Feb 2000 19:52:50 GMT, phil...@flop.ENGR.ORST.EDU (Jasper Phillips) wrote: >In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>, >James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >>On Fri, 4 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: >>> identically to the original function, but on second thought I think I >>> like the errata "you may not Life Boon your predator" better. So I will >>> support that. >> >>*IF* the problem that other people are citing is one which needs to be >>fixed, the only suggestion I have seen that would be worth it is that one. >>The "cannot oust yourself" one doesn't really do much for anything. > >I tend to agree. This one has the desired effect, and is also pleasing >since it "makes sense" that you shouldn't get anything out of sparing >your predator. An elegant fix like this is definitely better than banning. Small objection: sometimes it makes sense to Life Boon your predator. If your deck has 1 VP already, a defenseless prey at 2 pool, and a predator who is totally ineffective against your deck, it makes a LOT of sense to ensure that your predator stays in the game as long as possible. =) [ quoted text not captured ]

Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote in message news:389BA4AD...@eos.ncsu.edu... (regarding my proposed "May not Life Boon your predator" errata: > Consider how the solution is similar to banning. Currently, the reasons to > Life Boon your prey are small. If you choose to reduce your prey to zero > pool, why would you life boon them? That does not make sense. I can see > another effect ousting your prey, and there are bound to be a very small > number of good reasons to LB your prey. The errata "you may not play Life > Boon on your predator" eliminates another target. Likewise, there should be > a set of reasons to LB your predator that does not involve the self oust VP, There are valid reasons to LB your predator. There are also valid reasons to Brainwash your predator's uncontrolled vamps, and that's not okay... for play balance reasons. Not much of an argument. I agree that you'll seldom want to LB your prey, but you _will_ often want to LB cross-table, particularly in intercept decks, Dramatic Upheaval decks, or bizarre table-control decks. You might also want to keep your grand-predator strong to mess up a bothersome predator. I think there are still a variety of uses for LB without the ability to use it on your predator. > This means that LB has little utility in a game with less than 4 > methuselahs So does Conservative Agitation. So does Slave Auction. Timing and deck proportion is important. > Since I object to the errata, I'll propose a different fix: "You may give up > > to half of your current pool (round down) to the Methuselah with zero pool." > Addresses the pool swing problem (for non-bloat decks, as you noted), but doesn't really help the cheap VP problem all that much, in my opinion. It merely increases the opportunity cost of the card... especially for what I see as the more sensible use of LB as a "table control" card. To play LB (and get a VP out of it) with the Grau errata cross-table or on your prey (in my view, the more "legit" use of the card), you need the following conditions: (1) a valid crosstable target (a Meth at 0 blood who you think could oust his prey if he stayed in the game a while more). Cost change - none. (2) TWICE as much blood in your Pool as you think that meth would need to get said VP. Cost change - large increase. (3) LB in your hand, etc... no change, except you may have hold the card slot longer waiting for your shot because of the increased rarity of the window of opportunity. To play it on your predator with the Grau errata: (1) An ousted predator. No change... happens reasonably often. (2) LITTLE ENOUGH blood in your pool that it is reasonably likely your predator can oust you in one or two turns if you halve that pool. Cost change - slight increase (you could guarantee the oust with current LB text), but the increase in cost drops as the game progresses and your pool gets smaller. It seems to me that this proposed errata moderates the problems of LBSO for cheap VPs, but at the cost of discouraging the interesting uses of LB and actually encouraging the use against your predator for a near-certain VP. Just a data point, Mark ShaneWood Ancilla of Minneapolis

Mark & Kathy ShaneWood wrote: > There are valid reasons to LB your predator. There are also valid reasons > to Brainwash your predator's uncontrolled vamps, and that's not okay... for > play balance reasons. Not much of an argument. You're not addressing thte argument by talking about a card that doesn't pertain to the Life Boon issue. I'm surprised you feel that there aren't any reasons to LB your predator, since you cite "intercept decks, Dramatic Upheaval decks, or bizarre table-control decks" as reasons to Life Boon cross table. Why should these decks not be allowed to LB their predator? > I agree that you'll seldom > want to LB your prey, but you _will_ often want to LB cross-table, > particularly in intercept decks, Dramatic Upheaval decks, or bizarre > table-control decks. You might also want to keep your grand-predator strong > to mess up a bothersome predator. I think there are still a variety of uses > for LB without the ability to use it on your predator. and I agree that there are a lot of uses for life boon that do not involve your predator. I tried to compare the "no predator" errata fix to banning the card because the fix didn't address the differences between legitimate and abusive uses, instead broadly preventing people from playing the card. (In a more limited sense than banning because other uses exist.) > > This means that LB has little utility in a game with less than 4 > > methuselahs > > So does Conservative Agitation. So does Slave Auction. Timing and deck > proportion is important. Conservative Agitation and Slave Auction were designed to be more effective proportionally to the number of players. Life Boon was not. (at least, not that I can tell.) The posts in favor of the "no predator" solution have yet to address "timing and deck proportion," thus I assume it was a byproduct of the fix not an intended game mechanic. Anyone with evidence to the contrary? <--snip 50% of pool fix--> > Addresses the pool swing problem (for non-bloat decks, as you noted), but > doesn't really help the cheap VP problem all that much, in my opinion. It > merely increases the opportunity cost of the card... especially for what I > see as the more sensible use of LB as a "table control" card. It should increase the opportunity cost for all situations equally. The "no predator" errata hurts Life Boon as a "table control" card. (Unless you didn't really want to control the whole table) > To play LB (and get a VP out of it) with the Grau errata cross-table or on > your prey (in my view, the more "legit" use of the card), you need the > following conditions: You need not gain a VP from the card to have played Life Boon effectively and as a "legit" use, but I'll go on. > (1) a valid crosstable target (a Meth at 0 blood who you think could oust > his prey if he stayed in the game a while more). Cost change - none. > (2) TWICE as much blood in your Pool as you think that meth would need to > get said VP. Cost change - large increase. Increase, but arguably not large. You have to have pool to stay in the game with. 4 or 5 pool is generally a good number to keep people in the game. You'll also need 4 or 5. If you only have 6 pool, giving away 4 and keeping 2 is not very safe. (You still can give 3 away and keep 3, however) Let's say that your opinion differs on how much pool the other Methuselah needs, and we pick 10 pool as the number he/she needs. You still need 4 or 5 to stay in the game, so you would not give away 10 unless you had 14 or 15 pool. The 50% rule would let you give 7 away, still a sizable amount. The increase to give 10 away would be 5 or 6 pool to a total of 20. You can plan a deck to have more pool on hand if you find yourself regularly getting into situations where 7 is not enough, but 10 is plenty. Yes, I acknowledge the difference. The errata is intended to make LB less powerful, and that it does. > (3) LB in your hand, etc... no change, except you may have hold the card > slot longer waiting for your shot because of the increased rarity of the > window of opportunity. You have the same window of opportuntity. If a Methuselah has zero pool, and you have not used an OOT Master, you may play Life Boon. The situation will not come up less frequently because of the 50% rule. It will come up less frequently if you cannot play it on your predator. > To play it on your predator with the Grau errata: > (1) An ousted predator. No change... happens reasonably often. > (2) LITTLE ENOUGH blood in your pool that it is reasonably likely your > predator can oust you in one or two turns if you halve that pool. Cost > change - slight increase (you could guarantee the oust with current LB > text), but the increase in cost drops as the game progresses and your pool > gets smaller. You may still play LB on your predator if you have a lot of pool. Why is it not good strategy to prevent your grand-predator (who might be your prey) from getting 6 pool and a VP when that 6 pool and a VP could be yours? If you have little pool and are determined to oust yourself, you still can. This is an unrelated matter to anything LB. No amount of card/rules text changes will prevent someone from playing LB and ousting themselves with any amount of pool. The "no predator" solution also needs to prevent the table from being rearranged if you want to be Life Boon Self Oust free. The point of the fix was to moderate the insane pool swings that occur with Life Boon (10+ or so), and it works toward that. I think most pool swings would be 10 or less, which isn't bad since you get 6 from an oust anyway. If 10- still bothers you, you could ask to have it banned or push for it to be rewritten into an expensive clanless version of ecoterrorists. :) > It seems to me that this proposed errata moderates the problems of LBSO for > cheap VPs, but at the cost of discouraging the interesting uses of LB It doesn't discourage the interesting uses. It makes the card less powerful, yes, but you could never say that any amount of pool you give someone will be "enough" and I don't see how giving away 75% of your pool is the only interesting use. Let's say that I'm wrong about those last two points, however. You now know how much pool the cross table person really needs to oust their prey and you are free to give as much pool away as you want. (Like the current card text allows.) Since you meet these conditions, give the cross-table guy all of your pool. You are now ousted, and since you know you are getting a VP this situation is arguably the same as the LBSO except that it's not your predator getting a ton of pool. The "no predator" fix does not address this. > and actually encouraging the use against your predator for a near-certain VP. The fix does not encourage self ousting more than the current version does, either. Currently the VP is certain, with the fix it the VP is not. How does that encourage someone? The "50% fix" and the "no predator" fixes don't have to be the only proposed fixes. Please think of something creative, like Norman did by proposing a non-self oust clause. I'd like to see more of these sort of things. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu

On Sun, 06 Feb 2000 10:22:24 -0500, Rob Grau <rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu> wrote: >The fix does not encourage self ousting more than the current version does, >either. Currently the VP is certain, with the fix it the VP is not. How does >that encourage someone? It'll still be tried. And when your predator is Booned, what is he supposed to do? Not oust you in spite? Nah, he'll go for it and hope he gets the next person down as well. This is a moderate fix, but does more harm to the card than it does help. The card isn't currently overpowered, it just has a single loophole. >The "50% fix" and the "no predator" fixes don't have to be the only proposed >fixes. Please think of something creative, like Norman did by proposing a >non-self oust clause. I'd like to see more of these sort of things. well, there's the one we've scattered across the newsgroup a few times, "You may not gain the VP awarded for your own oust in this fashion." :P [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 5 Feb 2000, Celt wrote: > > many cries of "But now they know about it, *everyone* will be doing it." > There been just as many cries of "we would never abuse that card in our > group". Here are three statements from you in this thread. You appear to think that these statements are equivalent to "we *would* never". They are not. What my statement was about was the fact that, supposedly, once a play group knows about this "abuse" of Life Boon (and it's really rather interesting to consider how else Life Boon would have been played in the beginning - Richard Garfield's notes tend to indicate 3 player games) that they will therefore automagically abuse it. This is an incorrect assumption. > "The 'abuse' just isn't happening." This is correct. It isn't. And we have players capable of being very, very abusive with cards cf Legacy of Pander. > "Why it should happen in the US, and in a small portion thereof, is a > mystery to me." This is a statement of fact. It (the problem) appears to be coming from a small area of the US. It is a mystery to me why there should be so many cries of problems from there, and so few elsewhere. This is fact. > "Indeed. I've heard many, many groans when it's played in the UK, but > never seen anyone even begin to think about doing anything remotely like > abuse with it." This is again a fact. This isn't that people won't abuse it, or that people don't abuse it, or whatever else you seem to think it says. It's that people don't think it's abusive. Boring, yes. Cheesy, yes. Annoying, yes. But then so is stealth bleed. I've never heard someone refer to it (LB) as broken, to the best of my knowledge. And if you think that the UK hasn't got players who are capable of seeing and exploiting the loopholes of cards to the very, very limit, you're wrong. > > This is an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one > > which I should have thought obviously so. > It is not a different matter. This appears to be coming from the fact that you don't understand what I'm saying. I think it was one of the Swedish players on the group who said something like "And now they've seen it, I bet they'll all use it/it will be very common/something." I am countering *this*, not its power/overpower status - I have known lots of groups of people for whom it has never been a problem, despite knowing exactly how it can be used, and having it used by some players. > A card has to be proven to be > power/overpower/broken before it can be fixed. Just because your group dose > not abuse a card does not mean the card is not abuseable. *sigh* I've never, ever said that. I'm not that stupid. I am well aware that if my group, say, plays politics, it will never be able to abuse, say, a combat card (assuming there was one which you thought was abusive) because we don't play with it. I'm not saying "My group doesn't abuse it, therefore it is not abusable." I am following two different threads, at least: 1) The cries of "Now they know about it, EVERYONE will be using it" are not born out by my experience. 2) I do not think the card is broken in and of itself - separate from 1. >And was your last > statement ment to belittle me? You might think so. However, you seem incapable of distinguishing what two entirely separate things mean e.g. the 3 "examples" of mine you quote, which don't say anything like what you think they say. I would suggest, therefore, that it seems you tend to read anything you like into what I say, based not on what I say, but on what you think I say. As such, I would tend to suggest that the answer to your question is "No". *shrug* -- James Coupe

In article <820A85FBC28851FF.92D887A4...@lp.airnews.net>, lor...@yahoo.com (Derek Ray) wrote: > We've had a wording in the suggestion bin for a bit now that stated > "You may not gain the VP earned for your own oust in this fashion." > So you can do what you want with it, but if you LB your predator, you > can't ever get the point for it. Derek, this is not technically true. IF your predator already has at least one vp before you self-oust with Life Boon, then you will steal your predator's "first" vp, not the one he gains for ousting you. The end result is still a stolen vp from your predator. David [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, [ quoted text not captured ] FYI, That small area of the United States is bigger than your entire country . > > "Indeed. I've heard many, many groans when it's played in the UK, but > > never seen anyone even begin to think about doing anything remotely like > > abuse with it." > > This is again a fact. This isn't that people won't abuse it, or that > people don't abuse it, or whatever else you seem to think it says. It's > that people don't think it's abusive. Boring, yes. Cheesy, yes. > Annoying, yes. But then so is stealth bleed. I've never heard someone > refer to it (LB) as broken, to the best of my knowledge. And if you think > that the UK hasn't got players who are capable of seeing and exploiting > the loopholes of cards to the very, very limit, you're wrong. Once again you compare a deck strategy to a card. You are comparing apples to oranges to make your arguement. This is not valid. > > > This is an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one > > > which I should have thought obviously so. > > It is not a different matter. > > This appears to be coming from the fact that you don't understand what I'm > saying. > > I think it was one of the Swedish players on the group who said something > like "And now they've seen it, I bet they'll all use it/it will be very > common/something." I am countering *this*, not its power/overpower status > - I have known lots of groups of people for whom it has never been a > problem, despite knowing exactly how it can be used, and having it used by > some players. Actually, it doesn't require a whole lot of strategy to use this card. You build a deck according to your favorite strategy of 89 cards, then add Life Boon. You have included a strategy with an exit strategy. hence, the whole reason we are having this discussion. > > > A card has to be proven to be > > power/overpower/broken before it can be fixed. Just because your group dose > > not abuse a card does not mean the card is not abuseable. > > *sigh* > > I've never, ever said that. I'm not that stupid. I am well aware that if > my group, say, plays politics, it will never be able to abuse, say, a > combat card (assuming there was one which you thought was abusive) because > we don't play with it. > > I'm not saying "My group doesn't abuse it, therefore it is not abusable." > I am following two different threads, at least: > > 1) The cries of "Now they know about it, EVERYONE will be using it" are > not born out by my experience. Coming from that "small" region of the U.S. as you so like to say. It is quite an effective exit strategy in a game that normally does not have one (beyond withdrawal which is the most difficult thing to pull off in Jyhad that I have seen). That is why it is broken. > > 2) I do not think the card is broken in and of itself - separate from 1. Hence the discussion, This card allows a player to receive a victory point for self oust, this card encapsulates a withdrawal from the game and receiving a victory point which is why it is broken to allow self-oust. <snip petty bickering> Thank you for your attention, Norman S. Brown Jr. X_Zealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <87mmje$kks$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] Thank you for putting it into print, David. This is the situation that is actually making the errata difficult to word. Sincerely, [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > I think I've shown a great deal more understanding of the interplay > of cards than many Jyhad players. The only one making claims about the knowledge of other Jyhad players is you. > I was presenting a *way round*, not the answer to any of your > perceived problems. If you are having problems, you need ways > round. The most efficient way is Madness Network, because you > can do heavy pool-loss out of turn A highly specialized "way round" that does nothing to discredit Dave Zopf's assertion that Life Boon is effectively uncounterable by the player trying to oust his prey. > As I've said, until/unless errata is issued, you have to live with > Life Boon as it is. If you are having problems with it, to whatever > degree, perhaps a way to deal with it might be useful? If it is, > I think I was presenting the most effective way. If it isn't useful, > there is no need to whine about Life Boon... Well, it's not useful, and the rest of us don't feel that we should just suck it up and deal. - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 2 Feb 2000 15:21:07 +0000, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >On 2 Feb 2000, Frederick Scott wrote: >> The answer to that is that not everyone really knows about it just yet, >> I think. In Magic, it took something like 2 years for everyone to >> understand how abusive Balance was and it's an *obscene* card. > >We have John Eagles, Legbiter, Anam and Ian, Steve Wright, Mike Nudd and >Rob Treasure on this group a lot, as well as myself. All regular UK >players, and Steve and Rob are probably arguably the two best players in >the UK. Neither of them have 'abused' the card to any extent, to the best >of my knowledge, but it would be difficult to say they don't know of the >self oust trick. It's definitely been used, by myself, at least a couple >of times (twice that I recall, once at GenCon 98, and once in a Portsmouth >game when I just couldn't get passed a roadblock deck) in tournaments. > >The 'abuse' just isn't happening. > >Why it should happen in the US, and in a small portion thereof, is a >mystery to me. > >-- > >James Coupe >To all, Although life boon isn't widely used the UK it is known about, it is just that UK players generally play a little closer to the rules, that is a lot less sleaze comes from most players.(with alot of sleaze coming from relativley few players :) ) I am not saying that the UK are less devious it is just a sense of fair play. In all the tournaments I have been to or played or heard about in the UK I have only seen life boon played twice, both times on me and both times the person was crushed under the iron boot of sleaze, but I do think it is possibly the most annoying card someone else can play but that alone is not enough to ban it. Of course I have seen the extent it is being used to in the world and I think perhaps Princes should be asking their players what they think of the card and its place in tournaments. Points of view to the above address. Regards, > Ste...@doughty-engineering.co.uk

On Mon, 07 Feb 2000 14:58:56 GMT, davea...@my-deja.com wrote: >In article ><820A85FBC28851FF.92D887A4...@lp.airnews.net>, > lor...@yahoo.com (Derek Ray) wrote: >> We've had a wording in the suggestion bin for a bit now that stated >> "You may not gain the VP earned for your own oust in this fashion." >> So you can do what you want with it, but if you LB your predator, you >> can't ever get the point for it. > >Derek, this is not technically true. IF your predator already has at >least one vp before you self-oust with Life Boon, then you will steal >your predator's "first" vp, not the one he gains for ousting you. The >end result is still a stolen vp from your predator. Hmpf. true. OK, change "the VP" to "any VP". then it would be interpretable as "if your own oust would cause you to gain a VP from this card, ... you don't." and readable as "You may not gain ANY VP earned for your own oust in this fashion." Hm. That may still be a bit vague, but ... [ quoted text not captured ]

davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article > <820A85FBC28851FF.92D887A4...@lp.airnews.net>, > lor...@yahoo.com (Derek Ray) wrote: > > We've had a wording in the suggestion bin for a bit now that stated > > "You may not gain the VP earned for your own oust in this fashion." > > So you can do what you want with it, but if you LB your predator, you > > can't ever get the point for it. > > Derek, this is not technically true. IF your predator already has at > least one vp before you self-oust with Life Boon, then you will steal > your predator's "first" vp, not the one he gains for ousting you. The > end result is still a stolen vp from your predator. No, Life Boon reserves the "first" VP that the Methuselah "wins", not one that he has already won. Here "first" means "next". (Lovely language, English, eh?) (cf. Vast Wealth and Horrid Reality - both of which operate on the "first" weapon you find in your library without retroactively affecting the first weapon you found in your library). Answer to a question regarding successive Life Boons: each time a player is saved by Life Boon, that claims the next ante/victory point in line. [TOM 24-SEP-1995] -- 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

In article <389EF2DF...@wizards.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] LSJ, correct me if I misunderstand what you are saying. you are saying that Life Boon may not be used retroactively to gain a victory point that your predator has already been gained. If this is true then the Life Boon Self Oust for a victory point is an illegal move. If Life Boon gives you the next victory point that that Methuselah wins then the Victory Point that you give him by ousting yourself is not availible to the Self Oust Methuselah. A Methuselah gains a victory point and six pool the moment his/her prey is ousted. If you self oust yourself with Life Boon, then your predator has gained 6 pool and a victory point before the time you have finished playing Life Boon. Therefore, you are not eligible to collect this victory point because your predator received it prior to Life Boon being completed. [ quoted text not captured ]

Hi everyone, What do you think about this "errata": The first victory point (and ante) that the Methuselah wins is given to you (unless you are ousted by then). This Life Boon is then burned. This would eliminate self-oust, seems more appropriate in the context of the game world, still lets you hits your predator and spend "enough" pool, and has the advantage that it isn't errata per se, but a reversal of a clarification. Any thoughts? Bye, Cy Myers

My original post was about the validity of the argument "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" or "we do not abuse that card here". I pointed out that once a card is proven to be overpowered, no matter where its proven, that card should be subject to the RT. You may also read into my statement some overall approval of the RT in general. This is true. Your response was: "You seem to have not been following the entire thread. There have been many cries of "But now they know about it, *everyone* will be doing it." This is an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one which I should have thought obviously so." I just pointed out with your own words that the thread did indeed discuss issues like "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" or "we do not abuse that card here". So one more time. You said: "The 'abuse' just isn't happening." > > This is correct. It isn't. And we have players capable of being very, > very abusive with cards cf Legacy of Pander. > You do not see any issues with LB. If you played Jyhad here you would have seen the abuse. This is my point. Just because someone has not seen the abuse does not mean it does not happen. I in no way said that UK players are sub-par. On the contrary, percentage wise, the UK boosts more competitive and vocal players than any, and you would be hard pressed to find more/better creative deck ideas than Legbiters. And anyone that can stand up to Tatu is good in my book. > > > > This is an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one > > > which I should have thought obviously so. > > It is not a different matter. > > This appears to be coming from the fact that you don't understand what I'm > saying. > Correct I do not know what you are saying. You said I was not following the entire thread. And that my post was an entirely different matter to power/overpower/broken, and one which you thought obviously so. I have been following the entire thread and my post was relevant and timely because the venerable Atomweaver had just stated his thoughts on this very subject. > You might think so. However, you seem incapable of distinguishing what > two entirely separate things mean e.g. the 3 "examples" of mine you quote, > which don't say anything like what you think they say. I would suggest, > therefore, that it seems you tend to read anything you like into what > I say, based not on what I say, but on what you think I say. As such, I > would tend to suggest that the answer to your question is "No". Once again you have insulted me. Thats twice! Conor Prince of Raleigh

On 7 Feb 2000 19:08:46 GMT, cym...@ecst.csuchico.edu (Cy H. Myers) wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] except that it IS errata, since "even if by then you are ousted" appears on original card text. :/ And it does weaken the cross-table use of the card, since if you Boon your grandprey, hoping to oust your prey, you are opening yourself up for a possible oust yourself - if this happens you will gain NO benefit from the card. You should at least have the hope that the "save" will help you in some fashion... it's the immediate "Gain 1 VP, withdraw from game" that we all are objecting to, and the table swing it produces upon leaving. [ quoted text not captured ]

This LB argument is meant only from a tourney point of view. In regular games with no time limits, it is not that an issue. Keep this in mind. Jeff Prince of Cleveland

[ quoted text not captured ] > that your predator has already [gained]. Right. > If this is true then the Life Boon Self Oust for a victory point is an > illegal move. If Life Boon gives you the next victory point that that > Methuselah wins then the Victory Point that you give him by ousting > yourself is not availible to the Self Oust Methuselah. A Methuselah > gains a victory point and six pool the moment his/her prey is ousted. > If you self oust yourself with Life Boon, then your predator has gained > 6 pool and a victory point before the time you have finished playing > Life Boon. Therefore, you are not eligible to collect this victory point > because your predator received it prior to Life Boon being completed. No, you play Life Boon before you are ousted. And ousted Methuselah cannot play Life Boon. The effect of Life Boon occurs (pool moves from here to there, Life Boon is put into play), and then you find yourself with no pool and are ousted. Similarly, a player with 2 pool who plays Unnatural Disaster will still cause the "target" location to be burned, even though he ousts himself in the process of paying the cost of the card. (Not an exact parallel, since Life Boon has no "cost" of pool, but you get the idea). [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <389EF2DF...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > Derek, this is not technically true. IF your predator already has at > > least one vp before you self-oust with Life Boon, then you will steal > > your predator's "first" vp, not the one he gains for ousting you. The > > end result is still a stolen vp from your predator. > > No, Life Boon reserves the "first" VP that the Methuselah "wins", not > one that he has already won. Here "first" means "next". (Lovely > language, English, eh?) > > (cf. Vast Wealth and Horrid Reality - both of which operate on the > "first" weapon you find in your library without retroactively > affecting the first weapon you found in your library). I agree that this is one way to interpret the card text, but I do not think that Life Boon is similar in any way to either Vast Wealth or Horrid Reality. For both of those cards there is a very specific, action-oriented context in which the term "first" has an obvious, non-ambiguous meaning. That is, both cards direct the player to search his library and select the first weapon they come across. In this case the term "first" is completely unambiguous. For Life Boon, I would suggest that an alternate way to read the text implies that "wins" means over the course of the game, and not simply from the point the Life Boon is played onward. I see no reason to prefer one over the other, but comparing Life Boon to Horrid Reality and Vast Wealth does not make this situation clearer simply because Life Boon does not share the same sort of context. If "first" is supposed to mean "next" then errata should be issued to make misinterpretation impossible. Alternately, errata could be issued that clarifies the scope of the term "wins" - namely, that is means over the course of a game. This is just a recommendation for consideration by the Rules Team if a fix for Life Boon is going to be found. David [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > FYI, That small area of the United States is bigger than your entire > country . *sigh* My country's bigger than your country. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Insert load of unnecessary crap to taste. I'm really not interested in how big your country is. Please, leave international debates out of the group. You have missed the point that with pretty much every problem I've seen with broken cards, or not, the abuse of them has been far more wide-spread. Return to Innocence was being abused everywhere, ditto Tomb, ditto Thoughts Betrayed. It wasn't geographically located anywhere as this problem appears to be. Such makes me wonder as to *why* this is the case. It is quite possibly (or possibly not) a facet of the style of game that has developed in such an area, because of the interaction of groups and tournament scenes leading to this problem. That I do not see other groups finding this problem makes me regard the card in a different light to, say, Return to Innocence. It actually, when banned, wasn't a problem in my group. People had been pressured out of playing it as sleazy. What I wonder is *why* is it so geograhically located? What facet is it that means that this is the case? Is it purely luck (this is possible)? Has the scene gone more towards fast bleed decks, say, or weenie stealth bleed decks, or political decks? Are cards like Sudden Reversal no longer a threat of any kind in the area? Is it that other players aren't exploiting the chances they get 'properly'? I don't know which of these questions even begins to get close to the real answer, if any of them do. I'm not interested in how big your country is or isn't. > Once again you compare a deck strategy to a card. You are comparing > apples to oranges to make your arguement. This is not valid. > *shrug* You disregard the rest of the point made. I may compare apples with oranges. You throw out the baby with the bath water. > Actually, it doesn't require a whole lot of strategy to use this card. I never said it did. To *abuse* it, I would contend, is a different matter. > You build a deck according to your favorite strategy of 89 cards, then > add Life Boon. Lots of people do that with a lot of cards. > You have included a strategy with an exit strategy. > hence, the whole reason we are having this discussion. The issue here is 'exit strategy', as I see it. Prayer cards, as I believe Chris Berger once dubbed them (i.e. cards which you put in on the off chance - that one copy of Arson, say, or a couple of Surprise Influences, or a Sudden Reversal, whatever it happens to be in your group), have formed a part of a deck since time immemorial. Are there any other cards which allow an exit strategy, of any description? The only other *card* I can think of which allows you to oust yourself (without the benefit that LB gives you) is one of the ante cards. High Stakes, I think. Obviously, since this is banned in tournament play, and I do not recall any groups I know of playing for ante, this is not an issue. On an entirely different level - remove Life Boon from the equation - if you had all the same mechanics for V:TES that exist now, but no cards, and you were designing the card set from scratch, would you put any card in which allowed you to oust yourself, by any means? Would you oppose merely the mechanic of ousting yourself, even if it was deemed to be an entirely appropriate card balance-wise etc.? > Coming from that "small" region of the U.S. as you so like to say. Oh for God's sake. I am not taking pops at your god-damn country, or whatever else you think I'm doing. I am merely trying to point out that the region is geographically restricted in comparison with the rest of the Jyhad playing world. > It > is quite an effective exit strategy in a game that normally does not > have one (beyond withdrawal which is the most difficult thing to pull > off in Jyhad that I have seen). An *effective* one. I note the use of the word carefully. > That is why it is broken. But there are many cards which effectively allow you to do something which is not allowable within the rest of the game. Corruption and Graverobbing allow you to form an effective "magpie" strategy in a game that normally does not have one. Granting an effective way to work outside the basic rules does not, in and of itself, make a card broken. > > > > 2) I do not think the card is broken in and of itself - separate from > 1. > > Hence the discussion, This card allows a player to receive a victory > point for self oust, It is interesting that when I first read the card, ages and ages ago, my thoughts went: 1) I give someone pool as part of the card's resolution 2) I get ousted 3) The card goes with me (I control it) and the rest of the resolution never gets a chance to happen, because when I get ousted, I get ousted, I get ousted. I don't wait until the end of a phase to get ousted (a la Magic), it just happens. So, when the bit of the card saying "You get victory points etc." would resolve, I'm already gone and so is the card. I'd be interested to know, from LSJ, why this isn't the case, beyond any rulings to the contrary - within the mechanics of the game, that is. -- James Coupe

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > Derek, this is not technically true. IF your predator already has at > > least one vp before you self-oust with Life Boon, then you will steal > > your predator's "first" vp, not the one he gains for ousting you. The > > end result is still a stolen vp from your predator. > > > > Thank you for putting it into print, David. This is the situation that > is actually making the errata difficult to word. I had never heard that you got a victory point from them if they already had it. I was under the impression that you only got victory points won after the playing of Life Boon. -- James Coupe

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > > As I've said, until/unless errata is issued, you have to live with > > Life Boon as it is. If you are having problems with it, to whatever > > degree, perhaps a way to deal with it might be useful? If it is, > > I think I was presenting the most effective way. If it isn't useful, > > there is no need to whine about Life Boon... > > Well, it's not useful, and the rest of us don't feel that we > should just suck it up and deal. I never said you had to. If Life Boon is broken, feel free to campaign against it. However, until a ruling is issued, you have to live with it, if a ruling ever is issued. I'm not saying you have to live with it. I'm saying that, for the present, that's how it is. If you're having big problems with it *now* (not how it might be altered to in the future) you might want to, in the short term, alter your deck strategy to deal with it. Return to Innocence was bust, yes. Until it was errata-ed and then banned, people either had to live with the knowledge their deck couldn't cope, or put Archons, Deflections or whatever in to deal with it. This is the situation you are in now. You find Life Boon too effective. If it is, in the Rules Team's opinion, it will be dealt with. That doesn't help you *now*. Sitting there saying you don't want to "suck it up and deal" doesn't mean you don't have to *now*. If Life Boon is broken *now*, you have to deal with it *now*. If you don't want to do that, that's your choice. I am trying to present choices for those who want them. IMO, an OOT bleed deck would stand the best chance of being able to do a lot of pool damage out of turn, such that it would stand the best chance of being competitive and being able to SR an LB if it so chose. -- James Coupe

On 7 Feb 2000, Cy H. Myers wrote: > This would eliminate self-oust, seems more appropriate in the context of the > game world, still lets you hits your predator and spend "enough" pool, and > has the advantage that it isn't errata per se, but a reversal of a > clarification. Any thoughts? changing the word "even" to "unless" (by card text) would require errata. -- James Coupe

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Celt wrote: > I just pointed out with your own words that the thread did indeed discuss > issues like "it doesn't happen in _my_ group" or "we do not abuse that card > here". So one more time. > *shrug* You *still* don't get it. Forget power. Forget over-power. Forget broken. Simple fact: It was stated that once a group knew about the use of Life Boon that it was going to use it. I stated that I knew many groups where that *didn't* happen. That is an entirely, entirely separate issue to "This card is broken". All that was said was that people would likely use the "loophole" if it became known to them it existed. I contend that this is very, very dependent on the group. That isn't "LB isn't broken" or "LB isn't broken in my group" because that wasn't the argument of that point. Assume the question was, as it might well have been had it been posed as a question, "Have other groups found that, once the LB Self Oust trick is known about, people start using it?" That's *not* a question about power or over-power. My answer to that question was, effectively, "I have seen many groups where that hasn't happened." That really is a separate issue. > > This appears to be coming from the fact that you don't understand what I'm > > saying. > > > > Correct I do not know what you are saying. Thank you for acknowledging such. > > You might think so. However, you seem incapable of distinguishing what > > two entirely separate things mean e.g. the 3 "examples" of mine you quote, > > which don't say anything like what you think they say. I would suggest, > > therefore, that it seems you tend to read anything you like into what > > I say, based not on what I say, but on what you think I say. As such, I > > would tend to suggest that the answer to your question is "No". > > Once again you have insulted me. Thats twice! You might think so. I couldn't possibly comment. (Though I would note the use of "No" as the final word of mine quoted, which you appear to have thought means "Yes" (else I am at a loss to explain your use of the word "twice"). Perhaps that proves the point that you read what you want to read, not what is written. *shrug*) -- James Coupe

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > No, you play Life Boon before you are ousted. > And ousted Methuselah cannot play Life Boon. > The effect of Life Boon occurs (pool moves from here to there, Why aren't you ousted here, when you find yourself with no pool? (Forgetting parallels with UnnatDisas, which I wouldn't have thought of as necessarily legal myself....) > Life Boon > is put into play), and then you find yourself with no pool and are ousted. -- James Coupe

davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article <389EF2DF...@wizards.com>, > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > > > Derek, this is not technically true. IF your predator already has at > > > least one vp before you self-oust with Life Boon, then you will > steal > > > your predator's "first" vp, not the one he gains for ousting you. > The > > > end result is still a stolen vp from your predator. > > > > No, Life Boon reserves the "first" VP that the Methuselah "wins", not > > one that he has already won. Here "first" means "next". (Lovely > > language, English, eh?) > > > > (cf. Vast Wealth and Horrid Reality - both of which operate on the > > "first" weapon you find in your library without retroactively > > affecting the first weapon you found in your library). > > I agree that this is one way to interpret the card text, but I do not > think that Life Boon is similar in any way to either Vast Wealth or > Horrid Reality. For both of those cards there is a very specific, > action-oriented context in which the term "first" has an obvious, > non-ambiguous meaning. That is, both cards direct the player to search > his library and select the first weapon they come across. In this case > the term "first" is completely unambiguous. Right - the first one she finds. Not the first one she (ever) found in her library. > For Life Boon, I would suggest that an alternate way to read the text > implies that "wins" means over the course of the game, and not simply > from the point the Life Boon is played onward. I see no reason to prefer > one over the other, but comparing Life Boon to Horrid Reality and Vast > Wealth does not make this situation clearer simply because Life Boon > does not share the same sort of context. Nah - "wins" means "wins". It doesn't mean "wins or has won". > If "first" is supposed to mean "next" then errata should be issued to > make misinterpretation impossible. Alternately, errata could be issued That would be a clarification, but OK. > that clarifies the scope of the term "wins" - namely, that is means over Errata that alters (not clarifies) the scope of "wins" to include "have won", which is not necessary or desirable. > the course of a game. This is just a recommendation for consideration by > the Rules Team if a fix for Life Boon is going to be found. ? Increasing the scope of the card is not going to fix any abusability of the card. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > It is interesting that when I first read the card, ages and ages ago, my > thoughts went: > > 1) I give someone pool as part of the card's resolution > > 2) I get ousted > > 3) The card goes with me (I control it) and the rest of the resolution > never gets a chance to happen, because when I get ousted, I get ousted, I > get ousted. I don't wait until the end of a phase to get ousted (a la > Magic), it just happens. So, when the bit of the card saying "You get > victory points etc." would resolve, I'm already gone and so is the card. > > I'd be interested to know, from LSJ, why this isn't the case, beyond any > rulings to the contrary - within the mechanics of the game, that is. There is no "rest of the resolution" - either it resolved or it didn't. Once it resolves, then it is in play (and your pool is moves to another player). Now it could be ruled that, as a card in play, it would have no effect once it was burned (when you are ousted, for instance). This "ruling" would preclude the "(even if you are ousted by then)" statement on the card, since if you *are* ousted by then, then the Life Boon will have been burned. Sure it follows from card text but it violates the clear intention of the card designer, like the current ruling on Sleeping Mind does. Such a counter-intent ruling was not implemented for Life Boon because Life Boon wasn't being abused. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > > On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > No, you play Life Boon before you are ousted. > > And ousted Methuselah cannot play Life Boon. > > The effect of Life Boon occurs (pool moves from here to there, > > Why aren't you ousted here, when you find yourself with no pool? You are. And LB is in play. > > Life Boon > > is put into play), and then you find yourself with no pool and are ousted. Before Life Boon, you have pool <=> you are not ousted After Life Boon, you have no pool <=> you are ousted The effect of Life Boon is: move pool from here to there and put LB into play. It is not: move pool from here to there, then put LB into play. Nor is it: move pool from here to there and if you still have some pool put LB into play. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 8 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > The effect of Life Boon is: move pool from here to there and put LB into play. That all depends on how you read a semi-colon: Give pool to a Methuselah with no pool to keep him or her in the game; put this card in play. During each of his or her untap phases, you can collect 1 pool from that Methuselah. The first victory point (and ante) that the Methuselah wins is given to you (even if you are ousted by then). This Life Boon is then burned. I was not aware that a semi-colon implied concurrency. -- James Coupe

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote in message news:Pine.SOL.4.10a.100020...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk... > > *shrug* > > You *still* don't get it. > I get it now. You read my entire first post and latched on to the last sentience. You totally disregarded the main point. You then responded that I had not been following the thread and that my post was entirely different from the matter of power/overpower/broken. If you were only referring to my last sentience then you should have added it to your rebuttal. Instead you added my first two sentences. Neither one of which refers to "cries of "But now they know about it, *everyone* will be doing it."" Be more specific when you post and this will not happen. > You might think so. I couldn't possibly comment. (Though I would note > the use of "No" as the final word of mine quoted, which you appear to have > thought means "Yes" (else I am at a loss to explain your use of the word > "twice"). Perhaps that proves the point that you read what you want to > read, not what is written. *shrug*) It seems you could comment. Conor Prince of Raleigh

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 7 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > > Well, it's not useful, and the rest of us don't feel that we > > should just suck it up and deal. > > I never said you had to. If Life Boon is broken, feel free to > campaign against it. However, until a ruling is issued, you have to > live with it, if a ruling ever is issued. Thank you for stating the obvious. > IMO, an OOT bleed deck would stand the best chance of being able to > do a lot of pool damage out of turn, such that it would stand the > best chance of being competitive and being able to SR an LB if it > so chose. That really isn't saying much, given that Madness Network is the only way you'll be able to oust your prey via bleeds and still be able to SR an LB. A non-clan-specific approach would be an Anarch Revolt-based deck. Even still, you're looking at some highly specialized ways to defeat a card that can go in any deck. - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 7 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > FYI, That small area of the United States is bigger than your entire > > country . > > *sigh* My country's bigger than your country. Blah blah blah blah > blah blah. > > Insert load of unnecessary crap to taste. I'm really not interested > in how big your country is. Please, leave international debates out > of the group. Dude, get a grip. Nobody's getting nationalistic fever here. X_Zealot's statement was a counter to yours that referred to the southeastern US as being a "small region". It's a geographically large region with a very substantial population, from which comes a very large and very talented group of Jyhad players. Dismissing their comments about the tournament in North Carolina as the rantings of a small group of people is really doing them a disservice. > That I do not see other groups finding this problem makes me regard > the card in a different light to, say, Return to Innocence. It > actually, when banned, wasn't a problem in my group. People had > been pressured out of playing it as sleazy. In a tournament environment, you can't rely on peer pressure to maintain game balance. > What I wonder is *why* is it so geograhically located? What facet > is it that means that this is the case? Is it purely luck (this is > possible)? Has the scene gone more towards fast bleed decks, say, > or weenie stealth bleed decks, or political decks? Are cards like > Sudden Reversal no longer a threat of any kind in the area? Is it > that other players aren't exploiting the chances they get > 'properly'? I don't know which of these questions even begins to > get close to the real answer, if any of them do. Maybe (*gasp*) they were the first groups of people to consistently and collectively use it in a tournament environment. This game isn't played anywhere nearly as extensively as Magic, L5R, and Pokemon, and a lot of the card dynamics are still being discovered, especially when they pertain to a tournament environment. > Are there any other cards which allow an exit strategy, of any > description? The only other *card* I can think of which allows you to > oust yourself (without the benefit that LB gives you) is one of the > ante cards. High Stakes, I think. Obviously, since this is banned > in tournament play, and I do not recall any groups I know of playing > for ante, this is not an issue. The other card I can think of is one you referred to earlier in the thread - Succubus Club. > On an entirely different level - remove Life Boon from the equation - > if you had all the same mechanics for V:TES that exist now, but no > cards, and you were designing the card set from scratch, would you > put any card in which allowed you to oust yourself, by any means? > Would you oppose merely the mechanic of ousting yourself, even if it > was deemed to be an entirely appropriate card balance-wise etc.? Yes, because I want to see people playing the damn game, rather than trying to find ways to avoid it. > It is interesting that when I first read the card, ages and ages ago, > my thoughts went: > > 1) I give someone pool as part of the card's resolution > > 2) I get ousted > > 3) The card goes with me (I control it) and the rest of the > resolution never gets a chance to happen, because when I get ousted, > I get ousted, I get ousted. I don't wait until the end of a phase > to get ousted (a la Magic), it just happens. So, when the bit of > the card saying "You get victory points etc." would resolve, I'm > already gone and so is the card. > > I'd be interested to know, from LSJ, why this isn't the case, beyond > any rulings to the contrary - within the mechanics of the game, that > is. I'm obviously not LSJ, but I _think_ it because #3 happens before #2. That is to say, you resolve the effects of the card before checking to see if you are ousted. You play the card, you give the target player your pool, you control the card, and after all that is done, you are ousted. [ quoted text not captured ]

How about this errata (which I think someone a while back proposed something similar to): "If you are ousted before your next untap, any VP earned from this Life Boon is returned to the Life Booned meth." It would pretty much kill the abuse I think. --- Eric Pettersen pett "at" cgl "dot" ucsf "dot" edu (NeXTmail capable)

[ quoted text not captured ] I was not aware it implied sequencing. I thought it was used between closely related clauses (instead of a period), or as a list separator if the list elements contained commas. Without anything to imply sequencing, the effect is not sequenced. See the use of semi-colon on Political Seizure. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 09 Feb 2000 01:34:22 GMT, fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: >James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: >> What I wonder is *why* is it so geograhically located? What facet >> is it that means that this is the case? Is it purely luck (this is >> possible)? Has the scene gone more towards fast bleed decks, say, >> or weenie stealth bleed decks, or political decks? Are cards like >> Sudden Reversal no longer a threat of any kind in the area? Is it >> that other players aren't exploiting the chances they get >> 'properly'? I don't know which of these questions even begins to >> get close to the real answer, if any of them do. > > Maybe (*gasp*) they were the first groups of people to consistently > and collectively use it in a tournament environment. This game > isn't played anywhere nearly as extensively as Magic, L5R, and > Pokemon, and a lot of the card dynamics are still being discovered, > especially when they pertain to a tournament environment. I can answer that to some degree... Each of us has, at some point in time or other (and in some cases, some of us have done SEVERAL times), brought a well-tuned, good deck to a tournament, and sat directly behind the one deck in the tournament that will totally screw us up. Often, it's also been a deck that never actually went anywhere on its own - but it's left us finishing just short of the finals. IMLE, the top two finalists usually have runaway decks - they've pulled off a couple sweeps and have LOTS more VPs than the next three people. The fifth finalist is almost never more than half a VP ahead of the sixth person - and frequently has squeaked in on tourney points. This makes a one-VP swing out of a bad position HUGE. So when we read Life Boon closely and realized the potential for LBSO, we immediately latched onto it as one of the best "prayer" cards available - and started testing it out some on each other. After only a couple weeks of playing with it, we realized that yes, the opportunity to use it shows up a LOT, and we started hauling it to tournaments. And then we discovered that it worked just as well in the tournaments, and it began to spread - usually to anyone who had their VP stolen by one of us. =) >> On an entirely different level - remove Life Boon from the equation - >> if you had all the same mechanics for V:TES that exist now, but no >> cards, and you were designing the card set from scratch, would you >> put any card in which allowed you to oust yourself, by any means? >> Would you oppose merely the mechanic of ousting yourself, even if it >> was deemed to be an entirely appropriate card balance-wise etc.? > > Yes, because I want to see people playing the damn game, rather > than trying to find ways to avoid it. I wouldn't move against Life Boon if I were designing the set - I'd look, and say "well, you could oust yourself, that'd be dumb and only gain you 1 VP." Since the DCI tournament formats didn't exist yet and 1 VP isn't enough to win, it wouldn't bother me at all. It's when it's applied to the cumulative-VP structure of the DCI tournaments that it becomes overpowered. As far as ousting yourself... you can transfer yourself out as well, but it wouldn't do much - there are a number of methods to oust yourself in the game. You can even Business Pressure yourself out. as far as the sequence goes... it only makes sense that you're not ousted until the completion of the current effect. for example, you can modify a Govern with a Threats if you wanted, even though you only needed to bleed your prey for 3 to oust. silly, maybe, but if you want to cycle a card... [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <38A07A9F...@wizards.com>, LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > I agree that this is one way to interpret the card text, but I do not > > think that Life Boon is similar in any way to either Vast Wealth or > > Horrid Reality. For both of those cards there is a very specific, > > action-oriented context in which the term "first" has an obvious, > > non-ambiguous meaning. That is, both cards direct the player to search > > his library and select the first weapon they come across. In this case > > the term "first" is completely unambiguous. > > Right - the first one she finds. Not the first one she (ever) found > in her library. But there is no way that you could ever (mis)interpret the meaning of the word "first" in that context, right? Why would anyone ever try to read the text on Vast Wealth or Horrid Reality to mean the first weapon ever found in the game? The specific context of the card strictly prohibits such an interpretation. > > For Life Boon, I would suggest that an alternate way to read the text > > implies that "wins" means over the course of the game, and not simply > > from the point the Life Boon is played onward. I see no reason to prefer > > one over the other, but comparing Life Boon to Horrid Reality and Vast > > Wealth does not make this situation clearer simply because Life Boon > > does not share the same sort of context. > > Nah - "wins" means "wins". It doesn't mean "wins or has won". We just have to disagree here. If "wins" means from this point onward then additional text should be supplied to clarify that interpretation. > > that clarifies the scope of the term "wins" - namely, that is means over > > Errata that alters (not clarifies) the scope of "wins" to include "have won", > which is not necessary or desirable. Don't get me wrong here. I am not arguing for one interpretation over another. I am simply suggesting that the card text is not as clear as it could be. It would be a simple matter to add a few words of clarification to make misinterpretation highly unlikely. And, this is all off point anyway. We are trying to come up with a way to fix the Life Boon Self Oust problem. Presumably any such fix that comes from the Rules Team will avoid verbal ambiguity. Thanks, David [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 9 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > A non-clan-specific approach would be an Anarch Revolt-based deck. Blurgh. I don't have much time for Anarch Revolt as a card for real concerted use in a deck, because of its omni-directionability. (Which is the down side to what is a reasonably potent card.) -- James Coupe

On Wed, 9 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > > That I do not see other groups finding this problem makes me regard > > the card in a different light to, say, Return to Innocence. It > > actually, when banned, wasn't a problem in my group. People had > > been pressured out of playing it as sleazy. > > In a tournament environment, you can't rely on peer pressure to > maintain game balance. No, I know that (though, in regular tournaments, you'd be surprised). However, it wasn't a problem *for me* at the time, yet I still supported it. I am very, very conscious of the fact that "Not broken here" != "Not broken". My posting history around the time of 7/7 demonstrates that. > Maybe (*gasp*) they were the first groups of people to consistently > and collectively use it in a tournament environment. A possibility, perhaps. Yet it has often happened that potential "abuses" or creatively original uses of cards happen all over the place. Things like the Madness Network OOT Rush deck originated in at least three places independently (Legbiter's own special world, Australia, Southampton (UK)) at once. The LBSO trick has been known for a very, very long time. Yet it spontaneously created itself only in one area. I would be expecting a much greater polygenesis (i.e. creation in several places independently, rather than spreading from one to the next to the next) of the problem. > This game > isn't played anywhere nearly as extensively as Magic, L5R, and > Pokemon, and a lot of the card dynamics are still being discovered, > especially when they pertain to a tournament environment. True, true. Cards like Betrayer and Madness Network, for instance. LBSO, though, is *not* a new discovery. It has been around for at least two years, that I can think of, consciously, in people's minds, that have had to have LSJ clarify the position. The possibilities have been explored in tournament areas before. It seems odd that it is only in one specific area, rather than many, that this problem is showing. > > Are there any other cards which allow an exit strategy, of any > > description? The only other *card* I can think of which allows you to > > oust yourself (without the benefit that LB gives you) is one of the > > ante cards. High Stakes, I think. Obviously, since this is banned > > in tournament play, and I do not recall any groups I know of playing > > for ante, this is not an issue. > > The other card I can think of is one you referred to earlier in > the thread - Succubus Club. Ah, yes. Of course, it is possible to oust yourself via pool transfer to vampires, too, so I wasn't looking for that. I don't think there are any others. > > Would you oppose merely the mechanic of ousting yourself, even if it > > was deemed to be an entirely appropriate card balance-wise etc.? > > Yes, because I want to see people playing the damn game, rather > than trying to find ways to avoid it. Would you remove the option for withdrawl from the game, then, assuming, that is, that you could change that mechanic (slighty altering the question)? I've seen decks exploit the maneuver before. Couldn't an exit strategy be viewed as playing the game - just in a different way? > I'm obviously not LSJ, but I _think_ it because #3 happens before > #2. That is to say, you resolve the effects of the card before > checking to see if you are ousted. Which goes against various things he has said before about never waiting to see if you are ousted - just that if you are, you are, no waiting for the end of a phase. It does make me wonder, at least. -- James Coupe

On 9 Feb 2000, Eric Pettersen wrote: > "If you are ousted before your next untap, any VP earned from this Life > Boon is returned to the Life Booned meth." Perhaps, more easily, "Delay the putting of this card into play until your next untap phase" if that's what you want to do. -- James Coupe

On Tue, 8 Feb 2000, Celt wrote: > I get it now. You read my entire first post and latched on to the last > sentience. You totally disregarded the main point. Welcome to Usenet. Enjoy your stay. Your entire post is up for critique. Anything you put in a post may be referenced. > Be more specific when you post and this will not happen. > Conversely, pay attention and this will not happen. *shrug* > > You might think so. I couldn't possibly comment. (Though I would note > > the use of "No" as the final word of mine quoted, which you appear to have > > thought means "Yes" (else I am at a loss to explain your use of the word > > "twice"). Perhaps that proves the point that you read what you want to > > read, not what is written. *shrug*) > > It seems you could comment. The point of quoting (i.e. from works of literature, television programmes, films etc.) seems lost on you. ("You might think so, but I couldn't possibly comment" is such a quote.) -- James Coupe

On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > I was not aware that a semi-colon implied concurrency. > > I was not aware it implied sequencing. I thought it was used between > closely related clauses (instead of a period), Indeed. Would a period imply sequencing? Essentially, that is all a semi-colon is, except that there is usually a much closer relationship between the two sentences/clauses. > See the use of semi-colon on Political Seizure. The situation is not entirely comparable. Political Seizure has already gone into play at this point. As a master card, the yielding of another copy of the location could not be done until whichever Methuselah's untap phase. At that point, the card has already resolved. With LB, the card is still resolving when the oust occurs. -- James Coupe

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > We just have to disagree here. If "wins" means from this point onward > then additional text should be supplied to clarify that interpretation. All that would be necessary is a clarification - no extra card text needed. -- James Coupe

James Coupe wrote: > > On Wed, 9 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > > I was not aware that a semi-colon implied concurrency. > > > > I was not aware it implied sequencing. I thought it was used between > > closely related clauses (instead of a period), > > Indeed. Would a period imply sequencing? No. The use of "to" or "then" (not present on LB) would imply sequencing. Clauses that depended one on the other, such as to be meaningful only when sequenced, would imply sequencing. Clauses have to come in some order. The fact that clauses come in some order doesn't mean that they aren't describing simultaneous events. > Essentially, that is all a > semi-colon is, except that there is usually a much closer relationship > between the two sentences/clauses. Indeed. > > See the use of semi-colon on Political Seizure. > > The situation is not entirely comparable. > > Political Seizure has already gone into play at this point. As a master > card, the yielding of another copy of the location could not be done until > whichever Methuselah's untap phase. At that point, the card has already > resolved. The semi-colon doesn't appear in the part addressing how to play the card or how to put it into play. It appears between the "burn this card" clause and the "get control of the other card" clause. These two clauses describe simultanous events by inspection (that these simultaneous events occur during an untap phase and not at the time the card is played is not relevant). The semi-colon separates clauses describing two simultanous events. Hence the comparison. > With LB, the card is still resolving when the oust occurs. ? It is the resolution of the LB that causes the oust. The same resolution that causes LB to be put into play. Since the "put the card into play" effect is simultaneous with the "move pool" effect, you are not ousted before the card is in play. Once the card is in play and you are ousted, then you get the VP that your predator "wins" for ousting you. There is nothing else to be said. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > > I'm obviously not LSJ, but I _think_ it because #3 happens before > > #2. That is to say, you resolve the effects of the card before > > checking to see if you are ousted. > > Which goes against various things he has said before about never waiting > to see if you are ousted - just that if you are, you are, no waiting for > the end of a phase. It does make me wonder, at least. You don't wait until the end of the phase for Life Boon SO, either. You do have to wait until you are ousted, however, before you are ousted. By that time, LB is in play. You don't interrupt or undo the effect so that you can be ousted. Before LB: you are not ousted. During LB: Life Boon is resolving. It resolves when it is played (barring a Sudden Reversal), as all Master cards do by default. As a result of LB: you are ousted and LB is in play. (You don't wait until the end of the phase.) LB (in play) gives you the VP that your predator "wins" for you being ousted. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Welcome to Usenet. Enjoy your stay. > > Your entire post is up for critique. Anything you put in a post may be > referenced. You broke netiquette not me. See my last post. I will stand on my previous posts. If your follow up post does not contain subject matter relating to this thread (i.e. a new point), I will remove myself from this portion of this thread. >the point of quoting (i.e. from works of literature, television > programmes, films etc.) seems lost on you. ("You might think so, but I > couldn't possibly comment" is such a quote.) You have insulted me in each of your posts. Every post says or implies that I know less than you, or that I read what I wont to not what is written! -- Conor Prince of Raleigh

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Wed, 9 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > No, I know that (though, in regular tournaments, you'd be surprised). > However, it wasn't a problem *for me* at the time, yet I still > supported it. I am very, very conscious of the fact that "Not broken > here" != "Not broken". My posting history around the time of 7/7 > demonstrates that. How many more different ways of saying "<insert card here> wasn't a problem for me or my group" can you come up with? ;) > > Maybe (*gasp*) they were the first groups of people to > > consistently and collectively use it in a tournament > > environment. > > A possibility, perhaps. Yet it has often happened that > potential "abuses" or creatively original uses of cards happen > all over the place. That doesn't preclude the possibility of it occuring in a single area. > The LBSO trick has been known for a very, very long time. Yet it > spontaneously created itself only in one area. I would be > expecting a much greater polygenesis (i.e. creation in several places > independently, rather than spreading from one to the next to the > next) of the problem. It actually didn't occur spontaneously. When I was at DragonCon in Atlanta last year, the groups from Charlotte, Raleigh/Durham, and Atlanta were all mentioning how good Life Boon was, and how they thought there was no reason not to put it in a tournament deck. Since I've been back in Boston, I've been wondering about that idea...and then we get the report from North Carolina that it wound up greatly affecting the tournament. However, we do have to keep in mind that the tournament used only 4-player tables, and as such, Life Boon's impact becomes much greater. As for mono- or polygenesis...I'm more inclined to assume that a given innovation will occur in one area first, and propagate from there. That isn't to say that polygenesis can't occur (empirical evidence proves the contrary). > LBSO, though, is *not* a new discovery. It has been around for at > least two years, that I can think of, consciously, in people's minds, > that have had to have LSJ clarify the position. The possibilities > have been explored in tournament areas before. It seems odd that it > is only in one specific area, rather than many, that this problem is > showing. In those other tournament areas where Life Boon was experimented with, did the majority of players put it in their decks? I think that was the case at the tournament in North Carolina. > Would you remove the option for withdrawl from the game, then, > assuming, that is, that you could change that mechanic (slighty > altering the question)? I've seen decks exploit the maneuver before. As it stands, I think the present mechanics for withdrawal are just fine, because in order to withdraw you have to participate in a substantial amount of the game. > Couldn't an exit strategy be viewed as playing the game - just in a > different way? Well, you're certainly not attempting to achieve the object of the game. (though, admittedly, I've found withdrawal decks to be a riot...) - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Wed, 9 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > > A non-clan-specific approach would be an Anarch Revolt-based deck. > > Blurgh. I don't have much time for Anarch Revolt as a card for real > concerted use in a deck, because of its omni-directionability. > (Which is the down side to what is a reasonably potent card.) *shrug* My Anarch Revolt deck won at DragonCon last year... I found that the only real drawback to the collateral damage was that _everyone_ wanted to get rid of them. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.100021...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > The point of quoting (i.e. from works of literature, television > programmes, films etc.) seems lost on you. ("You might think so, but > I couldn't possibly comment" is such a quote.) Okay. I'll ask. Where on earth did this quote come from? It's not exactly John 3:16. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <87vdgn$t2$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>, fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > On Wed, 9 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] > - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston > fu...@mindstorm.com > It is good to hear from Mr. Peal. I witnessed his victory at Dragon Con as he went head to head with our local Prince of New Orleans, Sorrow, in the finals. Mr. Coupe the reason for this thread is that in tournaments everyone packs a Life Boon for self oust. It is not a spontaneous thing that everyone will see as useful, but in a tournament rich environment such as the Southeastern U.S., it is becoming annoyingly common. The east coast in fact has alot of tournaments. You see a great deal of movement among the playgroups when a tourney is announced that happens to be within a six hour drive of any playgroup as players mobilize to make it to the tournament. LBSO only is useful in tournaments as it may give you that extra boost to get you into the finals. Therefore the reason you don't see it in England as much as you do here in the U.S. is because there are more tournaments in the U.S. (the Southeast U.S. hosting alot of them)then say in England. If you had missed the finals of some tournament say 4 weeks ago because someone Life Booned an extra victory point and got ahead of you in the standings, then that is fresh in your memory, and you are not going to let that happen to you again. So, you put a Life Boon in my deck just so you can do that to someone else. It's like leprosy. You really don't see it when only one person has it, but it spreads. Sooner or Later everyone is doing it. Comments Welcome Norman S. Brown Jr. X_Zealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <38A2EBFD...@wizards.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] > -- > 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 Actually Scott, I believe there is alot more to be said about this card. It seems to me that order of resolution is contrived at best. Since you receive a victory point from your predator that you saved from ousting by playing Life Boon; in turn ousting yourself and giving your predator a victory point and then receiving that victory point back instantaneously from the Life Boon that you just played and ousted yourself with. You said that ousting happens the moment you reach zero pool. Yet in this example it happens during the play of the card that ousts you and gives the victory point to your predator which you then burn to gain that same victory point. It is the frozen dinner of victory points: bland, tasteless and leaving everyone unsatisfied. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>, [ quoted text not captured ] Yes, of course. I should have been clearer. I agree that a simple addition the the growing list of CLARIFICATIONS would be needed. Thanks, David [ quoted text not captured ]

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > With LB, the card is still resolving when the oust occurs. > > ? Political Seizure has already entirely resolved when it is in play. Some parts of it didn't take effect when it came into play, but the entire thing is already in play. With LB, I assert that the oust occurs during the resolution of the card - not all of the card has taken effect yet. -- James Coupe

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000, Celt wrote: > You have insulted me in each of your posts. Every post says or implies that > I know less than you, or that I read what I wont to not what is written! You may infer such. What the posts imply is up to me, as the author of them. I would assert, however, that based on your assertions with my posts - where you have clearly not read what was written - that you *do* read what you want to. Consider that you asserted three times - with quotes - that something I said said something else, which it quite clearly did not. -- James Coupe

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > > Couldn't an exit strategy be viewed as playing the game - just in a > > different way? > > Well, you're certainly not attempting to achieve the object of the > game. (though, admittedly, I've found withdrawal decks to be a > riot...) Ah, but games with exit strategies could view the exit strategy as one object of the game (especially when it gives you VPs, as with withdrawl). -- James Coupe

On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 fu...@mindstorm.com wrote: > *shrug* My Anarch Revolt deck won at DragonCon last year... Oh, I know it can be powerful, and useful. It just seems to need a fair amount of luck to have people fall in the right order. If my grand-prey goes first, then my prey gets pool, and other people fall before he does. Erk. -- James Coupe

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu wrote: > Okay. I'll ask. Where on earth did this quote come from? A set of political novels, turned into TV films. I think this one specifically comes from "House of Cards". The author escapes my mind currently, which is annoying because I picked up a copy of the books on cassette (i.e. talking books) for a friend recently. It is also a not uncommon thing to come across on Usenet, sometimes even in abbreviation form. (YMTTBICPC, for example) > It's not > exactly John 3:16. It's just another work of fiction, though. </TROLL> And anyway, quotes do not always come from great works of literature, or religious texts, and those which do are not always readily identifiable as such anyway. I think the (translation) of one such quote goes "And that is how the game of Badger in the Bag was first played." It comes from a quite influential piece of literature, yet most would not even begin to recognise it as such. Also consider the number of people who place quotes from, say, Seinfeld, The Simpsons (the very common use of Doh, or D'oh) and so forth. They're hardly the Bible either.... -- James Coupe

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.100020...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Mon, 7 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > FYI, That small area of the United States is bigger than your entire > > country . > > *sigh* My country's bigger than your country. Blah blah blah blah blah blah. > Insert load of unnecessary crap to taste. I'm really not interested in > how big your country is. Please, leave international debates out of the > group. Actually, I could care less that England is about the size of Maryland, but the point of my comment was that what you refer to as "a small portion there of" is actuall quite a large area with a large amount of players that host a large amount of tournaments. > You have missed the point that with pretty much every problem I've seen > with broken cards, or not, the abuse of them has been far more > wide-spread. Return to Innocence was being abused everywhere, ditto Tomb, > ditto Thoughts Betrayed. It wasn't geographically located anywhere as > this problem appears to be. Such makes me wonder as to *why* this is the > case. It is quite possibly (or possibly not) a facet of the style of game > that has developed in such an area, because of the interaction of groups > and tournament scenes leading to this problem. That I do not see other > groups finding this problem makes me regard the card in a different light > to, say, Return to Innocence. It actually, when banned, wasn't a problem > in my group. People had been pressured out of playing it as sleazy. > > What I wonder is *why* is it so geograhically located? What facet is it > that means that this is the case? Is it purely luck (this is possible)? > Has the scene gone more towards fast bleed decks, say, or weenie stealth > bleed decks, or political decks? Are cards like Sudden Reversal no longer > a threat of any kind in the area? Is it that other players aren't > exploiting the chances they get 'properly'? I don't know which of these > questions even begins to get close to the real answer, if any of them do. Once again, you don't see the abuse because it appears to me that you don't attend that many tournaments, compared to the players in the Southeast U.S. who have a tournament going about every 3 or 4 weeks and sometimes two or more in that time. This abuse of Life Boon only occurs in tournaments. > I'm not interested in how big your country is or isn't. You should be. We have alot of players here, and we really enjoy Jyhad. > > Once again you compare a deck strategy to a card. You are comparing > > apples to oranges to make your arguement. This is not valid. > > <snip> > > I never said it did. To *abuse* it, I would contend, is a different > matter. The abuse only occurs in tournaments. If you don't play in alot of tournaments you really don't have the opportunity to abuse it > > You build a deck according to your favorite strategy of 89 cards, then > > add Life Boon. > > Lots of people do that with a lot of cards. > > > You have included a strategy with an exit strategy. > > hence, the whole reason we are having this discussion. > > The issue here is 'exit strategy', as I see it. Prayer cards, as I > believe Chris Berger once dubbed them (i.e. cards which you put in on the > off chance - that one copy of Arson, say, or a couple of Surprise > Influences, or a Sudden Reversal, whatever it happens to be in your > group), have formed a part of a deck since time immemorial. This exit strategy has a massive (think armaggedon sized asteroid hitting the earth) impact on tournament point swing. What it does is allow a player to gain a victory point by doing nothing. > Are there any other cards which allow an exit strategy, of any > description? The only other *card* I can think of which allows you to > oust yourself (without the benefit that LB gives you) is one of the ante > cards. High Stakes, I think. Obviously, since this is banned in > tournament play, and I do not recall any groups I know of playing for > ante, this is not an issue. > > On an entirely different level - remove Life Boon from the equation - if > you had all the same mechanics for V:TES that exist now, but no cards, and > you were designing the card set from scratch, would you put any card in > which allowed you to oust yourself, by any means? Would you oppose merely > the mechanic of ousting yourself, even if it was deemed to be an entirely > appropriate card balance-wise etc.? > > > Coming from that "small" region of the U.S. as you so like to say. > > Oh for God's sake. I am not taking pops at your god-damn country, or > whatever else you think I'm doing. I am merely trying to point out that > the region is geographically restricted in comparison with the rest of the > Jyhad playing world. Actually it contains alot of players, and some of them make it to the Southwest tournaments in Dallas and Austin and the Northeast tournaments in New Jersey and New York. So for you to say it is geographically restricted is just not true. > > It > > is quite an effective exit strategy in a game that normally does not > > have one (beyond withdrawal which is the most difficult thing to pull > > off in Jyhad that I have seen). > > An *effective* one. I note the use of the word carefully. > > > That is why it is broken. > > But there are many cards which effectively allow you to do something which > is not allowable within the rest of the game. Corruption and Graverobbing > allow you to form an effective "magpie" strategy in a game that normally > does not have one. > > Granting an effective way to work outside the basic rules does not, in and > of itself, make a card broken. Until you have seen it repeatedly used in tournaments as a hoser card to gain a victory point to put you that much closer to the finals, I guess you would not. It is spreading like a cancer, Slowly, insidiously, permanently. > > > > > > 2) I do not think the card is broken in and of itself - separate from > > 1. > > > > Hence the discussion, This card allows a player to receive a victory > > point for self oust, > > It is interesting that when I first read the card, ages and ages ago, my > thoughts went: > > 1) I give someone pool as part of the card's resolution > > 2) I get ousted > > 3) The card goes with me (I control it) and the rest of the resolution > never gets a chance to happen, because when I get ousted, I get ousted, I > get ousted. I don't wait until the end of a phase to get ousted (a la > Magic), it just happens. So, when the bit of the card saying "You get > victory points etc." would resolve, I'm already gone and so is the card. > > I'd be interested to know, from LSJ, why this isn't the case, beyond any > rulings to the contrary - within the mechanics of the game, that is. On your above points James, I couldn't agree with you more. I believe it is contrived to allow a victory point for LBSO. Thanks for your intrest in Southern Culture Norman S. Brown Jr. X_Zealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, [ quoted text not captured ] I agree fully with James's point. Rock On! [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > With LB, I assert that the oust occurs during the resolution of the card - > not all of the card has taken effect yet. If you'd like to back up your assertion with something tangible, that would be great. As it stands, LB resolves when played, as is the default for Master Cards. [ quoted text not captured ]

X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > LSJ <vte...@wizards.com> wrote: > > It is the resolution of the LB that causes the oust. > > The same resolution that causes LB to be put into play. > > > > Since the "put the card into play" effect is simultaneous with > > the "move pool" effect, you are not ousted before the card is > > in play. > > > > Once the card is in play and you are ousted, then you get the > > VP that your predator "wins" for ousting you. > > > > There is nothing else to be said. > > Actually Scott, I believe there is alot more to be said about this card. > It seems to me that order of resolution is contrived at best. Since you > receive a victory point from your predator that you saved from ousting > by playing Life Boon; in turn ousting yourself and giving your predator > a victory point and then receiving that victory point back > instantaneously from the Life Boon that you just played and ousted > yourself with. > > You said that ousting happens the moment you reach zero pool. > Yet in this example it happens during the play of the card that ousts > you and gives the victory point to your predator which you then burn to > gain that same victory point. This is true. You are ousted the moment you reach zero pool. Which is when Life Boon resolves (assuming you give away all of your pool) - when Life Boon is in play (when it resolves). > It is the frozen dinner of victory > points: bland, tasteless and leaving everyone unsatisfied. That some don't like the way it can be used is clear. The "nothing else" was referring to the actual mechanics of the card as printed. -- 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

davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > In article > <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@orange.csi.cam.ac.uk>, > James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > > On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 davea...@my-deja.com wrote: > > > > > We just have to disagree here. If "wins" means from this point > onward > > > then additional text should be supplied to clarify that > interpretation. > > > > All that would be necessary is a clarification - no extra card text > > needed. > > Yes, of course. I should have been clearer. I agree that a simple > addition the the growing list of CLARIFICATIONS would be needed. It seems that everyone has been playing it correctly. Only recently (with the distaste for the "correct" play of the card growing) have players tried to create new interpretations for the card text. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > Therefore the reason you don't see it in England as much as you do here > in the U.S. is because there are more tournaments in the U.S. I can empirically cite England, being from here. However, the groups in Australia, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, other parts of America and so forth, seem to have had no problems either. I agree, in contrast to the number held in parts of America, the number in the UK is smaller (about 20 a year, tops). However, in contrast to the rest of the world, the number is a different matter. > standings, then that is fresh in your memory, and you are not going to > let that happen to you again. So, you put a Life Boon in my deck just > so you can do that to someone else. It's a very big assumption that a player will fight fire with fire. Soem players have other concerns about their playing style. > It's like leprosy. You really > don't see it when only one person has it, but it spreads. Sooner or > Later everyone is doing it. I can see that this has happened in America. The suggestion, in its general form as you put it, isn't valid, however - it's only happened in the once place you cite. -- James Coupe

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > Once again, you don't see the abuse because it appears to me that you > don't attend that many tournaments, Unsubstantiated rubbish. > compared to the players in the > Southeast U.S. who have a tournament going about every 3 or 4 weeks and > sometimes two or more in that time. Going monthly to Portsmouth tournaments clearly doesn't count then (baring a few hiccups every now and then). > This abuse of Life Boon only occurs > in tournaments. I never suggested otherwise. > > > I'm not interested in how big your country is or isn't. > > You should be. We have alot of players here, and we really enjoy Jyhad. > *snort* I'll let you in on one of the basic facts of life. Size isn't everything. *giggle* > The abuse only occurs in tournaments. If you don't play in alot of > tournaments you really don't have the opportunity to abuse it Again, you talk based on something you clearly know nothing about. > This exit strategy has a massive (think armaggedon sized asteroid > hitting the earth) impact on tournament point swing. Tournament points are only used for tie-breaking victory points. > What it does is > allow a player to gain a victory point by doing nothing. They have to have been able to stay in the game that long, for a start. If they get ousted first, their LBs go to waste. > Actually it contains alot of players, and some of them make it to the > Southwest tournaments in Dallas and Austin and the Northeast tournaments > in New Jersey and New York. So for you to say it is geographically > restricted is just not true. It is restricted in geographical terms i.e. it does not cover the whole Jyhad playing planet. The size isn't the issue. > Until you have seen it repeatedly used in tournaments as a hoser card to > gain a victory point to put you that much closer to the finals, I guess > you would not. It is spreading like a cancer, Slowly, insidiously, > permanently. I've seen that happen in circles with, to quote a deck strategy, stealth and bleed. One person played it. Then it became five or six out of a 20 player tournament, and decks with the capability to bleed at stealth as another string to their bow happened also. > On your above points James, I couldn't agree with you more. I believe it > is contrived to allow a victory point for LBSO. Contrived, no. Only one possible interpretation, yes. -- James Coupe

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 15:43:57 GMT, X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > >On your above points James, I couldn't agree with you more. I believe it >is contrived to allow a victory point for LBSO. Actually, on the "contrived" subject, LSJ has had more reason than anyone to rule that LBSO is illegal - he's been hosed by it numerous times in the past few tournaments. IMO, that's a pretty good indicator that he's ruling straight up on the card as opposed to his personal views. =) -- Derek Deafness never kept composers from hearing the music. It only stopped them hearing the distractions.

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > If you'd like to back up your assertion with something tangible, that > would be great. The oust occurs at the end of the semi-coloned sentence. The rest of the card has not resolved. > As it stands, LB resolves when played, as is the default for Master Cards. Indeed. I do not believe that the wording on master cards requires everything to resolve simultaneously, however. -- James Coupe

James Coupe wrote: > > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > If you'd like to back up your assertion with something tangible, that > > would be great. > > The oust occurs at the end of the semi-coloned sentence. The rest of the > card has not resolved. We've been over this. There is nothing on the card to indicate that the part before the semi-colon happens before the part after. > > As it stands, LB resolves when played, as is the default for Master Cards. > > Indeed. I do not believe that the wording on master cards requires > everything to resolve simultaneously, however. Indeed. It is not a requirement, just a default. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > > > If you'd like to back up your assertion with something tangible, that > > > would be great. > > > > The oust occurs at the end of the semi-coloned sentence. The rest of the > > card has not resolved. > > We've been over this. There is nothing on the card to indicate > that the part before the semi-colon happens before the part after. And after the full-stop? *That* hasn't resolved yet. The effects of the card being in play are not known when you are ousted. -- James Coupe

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu wrote: > > Okay. I'll ask. Where on earth did this quote come from? > > A set of political novels, turned into TV films. I think this one > specifically comes from "House of Cards". The author escapes my mind > currently, which is annoying because I picked up a copy of the books > on cassette (i.e. talking books) for a friend recently. Thank you. > Also consider the number of people who place quotes from, say, Seinfeld, > The Simpsons (the very common use of Doh, or D'oh) and so forth. They're > hardly the Bible either.... > For clarification only, because this is off topic: My point was not that it mattered where the quote came from, or anything about content, but that it was recognized as a quote. You cited the "House of Cards" quote, and I did not recognize it. I cited John 3:16 and you recognized it. That was the point. Rob Grau rfg...@eos.ncsu.edu Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.10002111708230.19399- 100...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > Therefore the reason you don't see it in England as much as you do here > > in the U.S. is because there are more tournaments in the U.S. > > I can empirically cite England, being from here. However, the groups in > Australia, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, other parts of America and so forth, > seem to have had no problems either. As a regular attendee of tournaments in Australia, I can vouch for the fact that there has been no abuse of Life Boon here. It does get played occasionally in decks that use Anarch Revolts, or in political decks, but not for the purpose of self-ousting that has been mentioned. Most people here tend to play a more pro-active version of the game that doesn't depend on ousting oneself to gain victory points. Justicar. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.SOL.4.10a.100021...@red.csi.cam.ac.uk>, James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > On Fri, 11 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > > Once again, you don't see the abuse because it appears to me that you > > don't attend that many tournaments, > > Unsubstantiated rubbish. > > > compared to the players in the > > Southeast U.S. who have a tournament going about every 3 or 4 weeks and > > sometimes two or more in that time. > > Going monthly to Portsmouth tournaments clearly doesn't count then (baring > a few hiccups every now and then). > > > This abuse of Life Boon only occurs > > in tournaments. > > I never suggested otherwise. > > > > > > I'm not interested in how big your country is or isn't. > > > > You should be. We have alot of players here, and we really enjoy Jyhad. > > > > *snort* > > I'll let you in on one of the basic facts of life. Size isn't everything. > *giggle* ha, ha, statistically speaking you are wrong. The size of the population pool that you draw your sample set from definantly has impirical bearings on the validity of your arguement <snip> > > > What it does is > > allow a player to gain a victory point by doing nothing. > > They have to have been able to stay in the game that long, for a start. > If they get ousted first, their LBs go to waste. You are correct, but they are as at risk of being ousted first as their predator so it is worth putting the one card in your deck. I believe we have already addressed this point in the arguement. > > Actually it contains alot of players, and some of them make it to the > > Southwest tournaments in Dallas and Austin and the Northeast tournaments > > in New Jersey and New York. So for you to say it is geographically > > restricted is just not true. > > It is restricted in geographical terms i.e. it does not cover the whole > Jyhad playing planet. The size isn't the issue. Did someone not tell me, or are you implying that Portsmith is the Jyhad Mecca of the World. Do all things that affect the jyhad community have to happen at Portsmith? Size is an issue, as the more players who are exposed to this trick pick it up and pass it along to the next tournament they play, the more of a problem this is LBSO is going to be. > > Until you have seen it repeatedly used in tournaments as a hoser card to > > gain a victory point to put you that much closer to the finals, I guess > > you would not. It is spreading like a cancer, Slowly, insidiously, > > permanently. > > I've seen that happen in circles with, to quote a deck strategy, stealth > and bleed. One person played it. Then it became five or six out of a 20 > player tournament, and decks with the capability to bleed at stealth as > another string to their bow happened also. the fact that once again you list a deck strategy versus a card amazes me, but just to address your point there are quite a few ways to stop a stealth bleed deck, but there are only two ways to stop LBSO: Sudden Reversal and another Life Boon neither of which you can play on your prey who you have just ousted and consequently was life booned. <snip> Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown Jr. X_Zealot Archon of the Swamp [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 12 Feb 2000 X_Ze...@email.msn.com wrote: > Did someone not tell me, or are you implying that Portsmith is the Jyhad > Mecca of the World. Do all things that affect the jyhad community have > to happen at Portsmith? No. But thus far they haven't (by any report) happened in Australia (we've had reports that it specifically *hasn't* happened), Vienna, Portugal, other parts of America and so forth. (Also, it's Portsmouth.) > Size is an issue, as the more players who are > exposed to this trick pick it up and pass it along to the next > tournament they play, the more of a problem this is LBSO is going to be. And we've had statements from Australia and England that this *isn't* happening there. Why is it happening in America? > the fact that once again you list a deck strategy versus a card amazes > me, Why? A deck abusing LBSO, if such is possible, is a perfectly valid definition of a strategy. There are many decks built around one trick pony cards. > but just to address your point there are quite a few ways to stop a > stealth bleed deck, but there are only two ways to stop LBSO: Sudden > Reversal and another Life Boon neither of which you can play on your > prey who you have just ousted and consequently was life booned. There have been examples of situations whereby you *can* play Sudden Reversal - if they die from a pool-loss on their turn, via, say, Antediluvian Awakening. A further possibility would be, at the end of your grand-prey's turn, a Madness Networked bleed, such that *they* can't play an LB (and no-one else, in this instance, can LBSO for a victory point), or at the end of any other person's turn such that you *can* play SR. Also, since LB is an OOT, there may be times when your grand-prey has already played an OOT master, which you could capitalise on (a Direct Intervention or Sudden Reversal is not entirely unknown). A further, though entirely unworkable, possibility might involve some fun with a Raptor deck. It would be fun to see it pulled off, at least. :) -- James Coupe

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > And we've had statements from Australia and England that this *isn't* > happening there. Why is it happening in America? The players in the southeastern US made a concerted effort to use Life Boon in their tournament decks. I have yet to see any evidence that any other region has done the same. > Why? A deck abusing LBSO, if such is possible, is a perfectly valid > definition of a strategy. There are many decks built around one trick > pony cards. Nobody is building a deck around Life Boon. They are building their usual decks and dropping a Life Boon into it. If the situation arises, they play the card and leave the game with an extra victory point. According to the players in the southeastern US, this situation is not uncommon. - Ben Peal, Prince of Boston fu...@mindstorm.com [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <jr...@cam.ac.uk> wrote: > I can see that this has happened in America. The suggestion, in its > general form as you put it, isn't valid, however - it's only happened > in the once place you cite. Has it even been a month since the tournament in North Carolina? Let's see how the upcoming wave of Praxis Seizures go. I can already tell you that the Boston area will be experimenting with Life Boon in our weekly games, and we may very well do the same in upcoming tournaments. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] ? (I hope you're just playing Devil's Advocate now). Sure they are - one just has to read the card text. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2000, LSJ wrote: > ? (I hope you're just playing Devil's Advocate now). (Yes.) > Sure they are - one just has to read the card text. The point is, they haven't resolved. The first sentence has. At the end of the first sentence, you have fulfilled the conditions to be ousted. Why continue? -- James Coupe

[ quoted text not captured ] Because the card is in play, and ahs an effect on what happens when the target gets a VP (as she would if she is your predator and you are ousted). [ quoted text not captured ]