the bounce issue

What should be done about bounce? (0) Nothing. (1) Ban bounce. (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. (4) Make good bounce more widely available. (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, "Always play Dominate." I'm for a combination of (3) and (4). sketches for new cards: Credible Threats of Violence reaction Only usable when you are being bled. Not usable if a ready minion you control has attempted to block this action. [cel pot]: Choose an untapped minion controlled by a methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding the controller of the chosen minion, and the chosen minion gets +1 intercept and may ignore one card which would make him or her otherwise unable to block the action. [cel POT] or [CEL pot]: As [cel pot] above, and the acting minion gets +1 bleed and +1 stealth. [CEL POT]: Tap this reacting vampire. If the bleed is successful the acting minion takes X+1 unpreventable damage, where X is the amount of the successful bleed. Wolf Spirit Collusion reaction, cost 1 blood Only useable when you are being bled. Only usable by a tapped vampire. [ani nec] This vampire attempts to block as though untapped, with +1 intercept, usable even if the intercept is not yet needed. If the acting minion is controlled by a methuselah other than your predator, this blocking vampire gets an additional +2 intercept. [ani NEC] or [ANI nec] Burn an animal retainer or ally you control to cause the action to fail. [ANI NEC] Choose a methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that methuselah. Someone Else's Face reaction [chi vic]: Only useable when you are being bled by a methuselah other than your predator. The action fails, and a ready minion controlled by your predator burns one blood or life. [chi VIC] or [CHI vic]: As [tha vic] above, and your prey burns one pool. [CHI VIC]: Only usable when you are being bled. Choose another methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that methuselah. All Tomorow's Parties reaction, cost 1 blood Only playable when a bleed action targeting you is declared. Put this card on the acting minion if the bleed resolves successfully; you still control this card. Any vampire may burn this card as a (D) action; vampires with Obfuscate get -1 stealth on that action. [mel]: This vampire gets -1 bleed when bleeding you. [tem]: When this minion is bleeding you, you may burn this card and choose another methuselah other than the controller of this vampire; this vampire is then bleeding the chosen methuselah. [TEM]: As [tem] above, but you may burn one pool instead of burning this card. Righteous Wrath cost 1 blood Only one Righteous Wrath may be played each action. [obe] action modifier: Only usable by an untapped vampire other than the acting minion, when a minion you control is bleeding. Cancel a card that would change the target of the bleed as it is played. [val]: As [obe] above, but also usable by the acting minion. [VAL] reaction: Only usable when you are being bled by an ally or a younger vampire. Choose another methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that methuselah.

On 10 Sty, 04:01, Malone <kffos...@indiana.edu> wrote: > What should be done about bounce? > > (0) Nothing. > > (1) Ban bounce. > > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. > > (4) Make good bounce more widely available. > > (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, > "Always play Dominate." > > I'm for a combination of (3) and (4). LSJ prefer choice (3). Two wrongs, Narrow Mind, Touch of Clarity, Hide the Mind, Soul Decoration are prime examples. IMO it's a good choice. 0 - he try to do something about it. It's fact. So out of question. 1 is out of question. 2 - ask LSJ. 5 - well, he try [with a success] to make superior AUS or dom/DOM not required to be competetive.

I personally think Defelection should be banned. I'm opening up myself for being told I'm an f-ing retard here but here goes: It's my opinion Deflection might as well say: "for one blood, bleed any meth. This vampire can bleed again this turn" How broken is the card when you think about it like that.

On Jan 9, 7:01 pm, Malone <kffos...@indiana.edu> wrote: > What should be done about bounce? > > (0) Nothing. > > (1) Ban bounce. > > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. > > (4) Make good bounce more widely available. > > (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, > "Always play Dominate." > > I'm for a combination of (3) and (4). I agree, but the dual-discipline formula is a bit hard to support crypt-wise. There is Lost in Translation, but with it's high cost and capacity restriction, there needs to be more fatty support in order to make LiT viable. Dark Mirror of the Mind and Enkil Cog are both very good cards, as is Monestary of Shadows. Unfortunately for us, 2/3 of these are rares(one extra rare) and the other is an uncommon(and expensive). There are extreme decks out there that just bleed like mad. The best counter to these seems to be to just gang up. Bleed reduction isn't a bad option, especially with two new additions in the form of Steadfastness and Wrong and Crosswise. Brandon

Malone wrote: > What should be done about bounce? > > (0) Nothing. > > (1) Ban bounce. > > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. > > (4) Make good bounce more widely available. > > (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, > "Always play Dominate." > > I'm for a combination of (3) and (4). 0 is the way to go. Bleed is the fundamental base action in game, and the one that make to hurt pool directly with the least card cost usage. Preserving, ad it has been in 15 years of the game, the bounce cards (including deflection as it is) is fundamental keep the play balanced. I even stirred seeying a card as touch of clarity being printed, because it gives dem bleed decks a real power over bounce dem S&B didn't need at all (we know EC ended up with a s&b deck as winner, for example). I wonder how this hysteria about "ban deflection" could arise, actually. Unless we want to see metagame totally shifted on s&b/b&b decks alone, of course. To me, there's no bounce issue at all - we got just deflection not printed due some copyright issue, and so exluded in error among the potential cards to be reprinted in KoT with a new art. just my two cents Emiliano, NC Italy www.italybynight.org

On Jan 9, 10:01 pm, Malone <kffos...@indiana.edu> wrote: > What should be done about bounce? > > (0) Nothing. > > (1) Ban bounce. > > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. And BTW NONE of your example cards were viable anti-bounce tech. Consider instead things along THESE lines: Atrophied Responses. AM/Reaction. 2 Blood. Useable by a tapped vampire. If this minion has three or more disciplines at superior, it may not be canceled. *After a response is played, cancel that response. That minion may not play any more copies of that response for the rest of this turn. *Thn: As above, but at 1 less blood. There. Anti bounce (and intercept) love. Multiple uses, decently costed. More than a use outside of being bounced. LSJ has NOT printed viable bounce. All of the card he has made have such narrow applications they are only applicable if there is a strong presence of bouncing. They are such silver bullets at such marginal gain, that they are unplayable. BTW I vote for either 2) or 3) above. Rock on.

On Jan 10, 9:49 am, "Tetragrammaton" <n...@usa.com> wrote: > 0 is the way to go. > Bleed is the fundamental base action in game, and the > one that make to hurt pool directly with the least card cost usage. > Preserving, ad it has been in 15 years of the game, the bounce > cards (including deflection as it is) is fundamental keep the play balanced. > I even stirred seeying a card as touch of clarity being printed, because > it gives dem bleed decks a real power over bounce dem S&B didn't need > at all (we know EC ended up with a s&b deck as winner, for example). > I wonder how this hysteria about "ban deflection" could arise, actually. > Unless we want to see metagame totally shifted on s&b/b&b decks > alone, of course. It's not so much that deflection is too strong (although obviously way better than any other bounce card). It's more that dominate gives you the strongest offense and strongest defense in the game. Dementation has become more popular because with CE on, it's hard to get DOM/OBF on reasonable sized vampires. But with bleed being the primary offense in the game, and one discipline giving you both the best offense and the best defense to bleed, it's completely unbalanced. If Deflection had been, say, a Chimerstry card, I doubt there would be as much uproar over it (and don't think it's just started now, 15 years after printing - it's always been true and always been complained about). Now, the situation with DOM being the best discipline has definitely improved, because other disciplines have gotten some pretty good cards, and dominate has gotten almost nothing in recent sets (dating back years). Govern the Unaligned, while it still looks overpowered, no longer completely defines dominate. Quietus has Loss (though it doesn't have the bloat potential), Serpentis has Eternal Mask (though it's closer to Kine Dominance than to GtU), Camera Phone and Leverage have powered up disciplineless bleed, etc., etc... And Presence was always pretty close to Dominate in bleed, trading a little bleed potential for more bloat potential, and Public Trust and Dream World have brought them even closer. But DOM is still the best offense, and Deflection is still the best defense. I like the idea of a) making anti-bounce more accessible, but to odd disciplines or combinations of disciplines (I don't think Dem really needed it); and b) creating more non-Dom bounce.

In article <59c676e2-f88a-4580...@q30g2000prq.googlegroups.com>, Malone <kffo...@indiana.edu> wrote: > What should be done about bounce? > > (0) Nothing. Well, assuming that Deflection gets reprinted, that isn't horrible. > (1) Ban bounce. That's just silly. > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. Unlikely. > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. Always good (I like Narrow Minds), but too much anti-bounce tech just makes S+B, which is already still the best deck archetype, even betterer. > (4) Make good bounce more widely available. Good bounce is already widely available. As long as you have Dominate or Auspex. > (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, > "Always play Dominate." Well, they already get that card just for showing up. > I'm for a combination of (3) and (4). Yeah, I'd just like to see Deflection get reprinted and widely available, so new people can get it. Deflection is too powerful. There is no question about that. Being able to bounce and stay untapped for 1 blood is nuts. But it also makes S+B less good, which makes the game work better. Without bounce, S+B just runs roughshod all over every game (more so than it already does). Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" -Gaff

Bounce is an issue. Why is a bounce so effective? A. It reduces a bleed against you to zero. B. It gives you the opportunity to hurt your prey (other opponent) in someone others turn. C. Minimal risk. Lets start with A. When you for example are being bled for 6, then it becomes clear that it is a huge bleed reduction card, which (in general) doesn't cost that much more than a specialized bleed reduction card, but is more effective. Most bleed reduction cards just prevent 2 to 3 pool maximum. Compare it with that beautiful card "Keep it Simple" (why why why does that one cost 1 blood), bounces are much more effective. The main advantage bleed reducers have over bounce cards is when only two players are left. Advantage B. Not only does it reduce a bleed against you, but also you can hurt another player with that bleed. Instead of that 6 pool loss, I can take 6 pool from my prey. And it isn't even in my turn. At the moment the card to watch is Enkil Cog, which give you an extra action during the turn of someone else. Well a bounce does have similarities. Advantage C. The main risk is that you are left with two players and that the bounce cards became useless. However a lot of bounce cards do have a second function. Another risk is that it will be bounced back (but hey you have to bounce it in the first place). Furthermore there tend to be cards that target bounces, like "Two Wrongs" and "Narrow Mind" to name a few. But it is still pretty safe to use bounce. That is why a lot of my decks have a Dominate or Auspex module to be able to bounce. Vampires are added to the Crypt that have nothing in common with the main theme of the deck. Dominate and Auspex cards are added that can't be used by most vampires in your Crypt. I don't call that a good balance. Ironically a lot of cards that could replace bounce cards like intercept and bleed reducers are again Auspex cards. In most cases I will support the thought that the disciplines should keep their own characteristics. I was not happy with the KoT cards "Rego Motus" and "Old Friends" for example. But for bounce my personal view is different. There should be more disciplines with bounce abilities and there should also be more ways to prevent it. Maybe anti bounce tech should be a characteristic of some disciplines. A nice attempt was being made with "Lost in Translation", but it has to many disadvantages and therefore you will only find it once or so in the TWDA. You want to bounce bleeds as soon as possible. So you bring out weenies that can bounce. Weenies cannot use LiT very effectively. There should be more anti-bounce cards, but design them in such a way that they are still useful to some extend in case only two players are left. When such cards are available then there won't be any reason to ban cards like Deflection (by far the best bounce card). H

On Jan 10, 4:01 am, Malone <kffos...@indiana.edu> wrote: > What should be done about bounce? (0) Nothing. I'd say the game is balanced as it is. Kind regards, Marcus

On Jan 10, 6:23 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. > > Always good (I like Narrow Minds), but too much anti-bounce tech just > makes S+B, which is already still the best deck archetype, even betterer. You are perfectly right here! Kind regards, Marcus

herman...@xs4all.nl wrote: > Bounce is an issue. > > Why is a bounce so effective? > > A. It reduces a bleed against you to zero. > B. It gives you the opportunity to hurt your prey (other opponent) in > someone others turn. > C. Minimal risk. > > Lets start with A. When you for example are being bled for 6, then it > becomes clear that it is a huge bleed reduction card, which (in > general) doesn't cost that much more than a specialized bleed > reduction card, but is more effective. Most bleed reduction cards just > prevent 2 to 3 pool maximum. That has nothing to do with the would be (void) point that bounce should be an issue. that's, if even would be the case (and isn't) is just about bleed reduction cards being less efficient against the most efficient way of hurting pool in the game, that is: the bleed. > Advantage B. Not only does it reduce a bleed against you, but also you > can hurt another player with that bleed. Instead of that 6 pool loss, > I can take 6 pool from my prey. And it isn't even in my turn. At the > moment the card to watch is Enkil Cog, which give you an extra action > during the turn of someone else. Well a bounce does have similarities. > Enkil cog is unique and blatantly limited in his usage, doesn't make u to bleed being tapped. It needs a bigger cap to be used. No point here, sorry. > Advantage C. The main risk is that you are left with two players and > that the bounce cards became useless. However a lot of bounce cards do > have a second function. A lot ? For the core base set, we have only telepatic misdirection. Later on, we got murmur of the false will. Again, those do not make deflection / bounce an issue, at any level.

[ quoted text not captured ] Lol, thank you for realizing this after 15 years of the card being there. Deflection is deflection: a way to bounce the base and cheapest method for hurting pool in the game: the bleed. Nothing more, nothing less. Unless, of course, we want to end up seeing S&B swarms to win forever the game (shame, touch of clarity was as step into that direction.), deflection and all of the other bleed bouncers *must* stay in the game.

On 10 Sty, 21:31, "Tetragrammaton" <n...@usa.com> wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > In article > > <59c676e2-f88a-4580-bc07-43b078fef...@q30g2000prq.googlegroups.com>, [ quoted text not captured ] Or there will be some other mechanic. Touch of Pain was step in good direction. Retribution/Shemti/that new malk ...

In article <Ou7al.37699$J84....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, "Tetragrammaton" <no...@usa.com> wrote: > Lol, thank you for realizing this after 15 years of the card being there. Realizing what? That the card is too powerful? > Deflection is deflection: a way to bounce the base and cheapest method > for hurting pool in the game: the bleed. Yes, it is. Although it is too powerful. I'm beginning to think that John was right when he suggested that Deflection would be better if the superior cost an extra blood to stay untapped (i.e. 1 blood to bounce, or 2 blood to bounce and stay untapped). Not that I'm advocating changing Deflection at this point, but still. > Nothing more, nothing less. Nothing more or nothing less than what? > Unless, of course, we want to end up seeing S&B swarms to win forever the > game (shame, touch of clarity was as step into that direction.), S+B swarms do forever win the game. > deflection and all of the other bleed bouncers *must* stay in the game. I really don't think anyone is advocating the idea that bounce be removed from the game. Yes. The OP mentioned it. Primarily as a point of conversation. But it was just conversation. I don't think anyone would suggest with any amount of conviction that bounce should not be in the game. Still, that being said, Deflection is too good, and always has been too good. All the other bounce cards are vastly inferior to Deflection. Which doesn't mean that they are bad, it just means that Deflection is too good. If Deflection didn't exist, Redirection and Murmur would be fantastic. As it stands, because Deflection does exist, those cards are fairly meh (I like Murmur as a nice multi use card, but would never rely on just that for bleed bounce; both of them get put in decks only after I have 6-8 Deflections, and then think "Huh, I could mix it up some maybe..."). Which is a problem for the game, as designing new bounce cards is always going to run into the issue of "How is this going to be any better than putting dominate and some Deflections in my deck?", as it is really easy to sideline in dominate weenies into most decks that want the bounce. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <6fe70dcf-c024-4135...@e1g2000pra.googlegroups.com>, acheronni...@gmail.com wrote: > Or there will be some other mechanic. Touch of Pain was step in good > direction. Retribution/Shemti/that new malk ... While I agree with the sentiment, I honestly don't think the new anti-bleed mechanics (other than widespread bleed reduction. I like free, easy to get bleed reduction) like Touch of Pain are particularly good. Touch of Pain is kind of problematic in the long run for your predator, but in the short run, you are still being bled for 5 per action. [ quoted text not captured ]

At the moment bounce is not balanced because of the fact that only two disciplines can use it effectively (I do not consider LiT a viable alternative). Such a powerful game mechanic shouldn't be limited to only two disciplines. So, my main point is, (4) make good bounce more widely available. That way we do not have to include a Dominate or Auspex bounce module in a lot of decks. But when you have lots of bounce alternatives then there should also be anti-bounce tech. I also support (3) in this case. You seem to consider "Deflection" as the main defense against an S&B deck. Maybe there should be other alternatives in the future. > A lot ? For the core base set, we have only telepatic misdirection. > Later on, we got murmur of the false will. > Again, those do not make deflection / bounce an issue, at any level. You forgot "My Enemy's Enemy" and all of those are Dominate or Auspex cards. H

Peter D Bakija wrote: > In article <Ou7al.37699$J84....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, > "Tetragrammaton" <no...@usa.com> wrote: >> Lol, thank you for realizing this after 15 years of the card being >> there. > > Realizing what? That the card is too powerful? > >> Deflection is deflection: a way to bounce the base and cheapest >> method for hurting pool in the game: the bleed. > > Yes, it is. Although it is too powerful. I'm beginning to think that > John was right when he suggested that Deflection would be better if > the superior cost an extra blood to stay untapped (i.e. 1 blood to > bounce, or 2 blood to bounce and stay untapped). Not that I'm > advocating changing Deflection at this point, but still. > >> Nothing more, nothing less. > > Nothing more or nothing less than what? > Nothing more or less than a bleed bouncer, against the most direct way of hurting your pool. >> Unless, of course, we want to end up seeing S&B swarms to win >> forever the game (shame, touch of clarity was as step into that >> direction.), > > S+B swarms do forever win the game. > Then let's find methods (ie: new cards for different strategies) to give valid alternatives to those s&b deck archetypes, rather than considering methods of striving the game of cards as deflection, that actually *limits* the power of those s&b deck archetypes >> deflection and all of the other bleed bouncers *must* stay in the >> game. > > I really don't think anyone is advocating the idea that bounce be > removed from the game. Yes. The OP mentioned it. Primarily as a point > of conversation. But it was just conversation. I don't think anyone > would suggest with any amount of conviction that bounce should not be > in the game. I see the 3D name as "bounce issue". That's contradict somehwat with the general sense of what your're stating just above i think. > > Still, that being said, Deflection is too good, and always has been > too good. All the other bounce cards are vastly inferior to > Deflection. They have mixed usages and not a focused one, so they're not inferior, just different. Variety is good for any ccg game. > Which doesn't mean that they are bad, it just means that > Deflection is too good. Completely false, imho. >If Deflection didn't exist, Redirection and > Murmur would be fantastic. Are you seriously advocating that a focused (bounce) card as deflection needs to be banned (or changed) in the name of some other that has instead a clearly different design intent, namnely of mixed usage ? Let's improve redirection then. Murmur is good as it is, as telepatic misdirection. > Which is a problem for > the game, as designing new bounce cards is always going to run into > the issue of "How is this going to be any better than putting > dominate and some Deflections in my deck?" A card needs not to be better than deflection for bounce. It can be better for mixed usage, as telepatic misdirection or murmur. Redirection was a bit mistaken as design, so if you're uncofortable with the delfection comparison, then change redirection , not deflection. Bleed bouncers need not to be nerfed, at any level. > as it is really easy to > sideline in dominate weenies into most decks that want the bounce. Whatever design makes the bleed archetype to go for 5+ bleeds without on the other sides the fear of being bounced is bad. Game need variety - pumping up again the s&b deck with the nerf, say, of deflection would be very bad.

On 10 Jan, 15:49, "Tetragrammaton" <n...@usa.com> wrote: > Malone wrote: > > What should be done about bounce? > > > (0) Nothing. > > > (1) Ban bounce. > > > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. > > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. > > > (4) Make good bounce more widely available. > > > (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, > > "Always play Dominate." > > > I'm for a combination of (3) and (4). > > 0 is the way to go. > Bleed is the fundamental base action in game, and the > one that make to hurt pool directly with the least card cost usage. > Preserving, ad it has been in 15 years of the game, the bounce > cards (including deflection as it is) is fundamental keep the play balanced. > I even stirred seeying a card as touch of clarity being printed, because > it gives dem bleed decks a real power over bounce dem S&B didn't need > at all (we know EC ended up with a s&b deck as winner, for example). - and before that, we knew that Ahrimanes wall won and war ghouls and weenie auspex... hm, not really a pattern, is it? I agree with 0) anyway, I think the situation is pretty balanced (Libertas, Approximation of Loyalty etc.). In the UK Nationals final all players had lots of deflections, the result being that bleeds bounced left right and centre, leaving you back to square one, or even worse, with ousted cross-tables... which forces you to look at other ways to defend/push forwards than just dominate. Bounce is strong if you're the only one that has it, and your predator is a heavy bleeder... but if everybody has it, situation becomes unreliable and chaotic, and you might have been better of if you could rush/banish your predators vamps to prevent them from bleeding/deflecting to you. True that dominate is very strong and always the easy choice if you want to defend well/have a good chance of doing well in a tournament. But combat can beat it, and votes can beat it, so as long as there are tournament viable combat decks and vote decks, tournaments will remain interesting and diverse. I was glad to see some new Anarch combat cards last year...

In article <199al.37800$J84....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, "Tetragrammaton" <no...@usa.com> wrote: > Then let's find methods (ie: new cards for different strategies) > to give valid alternatives to those s&b deck archetypes, rather than > considering methods of striving the game of cards as deflection, that > actually *limits* the power of those s&b deck archetypes No one is trying to do anything to Deflection. > I see the 3D name as "bounce issue". > That's contradict somehwat with the general sense of what your're stating > just above i think. Yeah, see, here is the thing. I suspect that the language issue here is making it very difficult for us to communicate. Again, no one is actually suggesting that Deflection get changed. Or banned. This is just hypothetical discussion. > Are you seriously advocating that a focused (bounce) card as deflection > needs to be banned (or changed) in the name of some other that has instead a > clearly different design intent, namnely of mixed usage ? No. I have said that, like, 10 times already. I am not seriously advocating that Deflection needs to be banned or changed. I think in an absolute sense, Deflection is too powerful. And if the world was a perfect place, Deflection would be less good than it is (and a lot of other stuff would also be less good than it is), as it would make a lot of other things better. But again, no. I am not seriously advocating that Deflection needs to be banned or changed. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 10 Jan, 23:56, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article <199al.37800$J84.17...@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, > > "Tetragrammaton" <n...@usa.com> wrote: > > Then let's find methods (ie: new cards for different strategies) > > to give valid alternatives to those s&b deck archetypes, rather than > > considering methods of striving the game of cards as deflection, that > > actually *limits* the power of those s&b deck archetypes > > No one is trying to do anything to Deflection. > > > I see the 3D name as "bounce issue". > > That's contradict somehwat with the general sense of what your're stating > > just above i think. > > Yeah, see, here is the thing. I suspect that the language issue here is > making it very difficult for us to communicate. Again, no one is > actually suggesting that Deflection get changed. Or banned. This is just > hypothetical discussion. > > > Are you seriously advocating that a focused (bounce) card as deflection > > needs to be banned (or changed) in the name of some other that has instead a > > clearly different design intent, namnely of mixed usage ? > > No. I have said that, like, 10 times already. I am not seriously > advocating that Deflection needs to be banned or changed. I think in an > absolute sense, Deflection is too powerful. And if the world was a > perfect place, Deflection would be less good than it is (and a lot of > other stuff would also be less good than it is), as it would make a lot > of other things better. But again, no. I am not seriously advocating > that Deflection needs to be banned or changed. > > Peter D Bakija > p...@lightlink.comhttp://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html > > "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" > -Gaff I'm inclined to go with "near 0" as an option. There is one little change that I would make, so as to make Dominate bounce more interesting and that would be to allow Redirection to bounce allies while, at the same time, make Deflection "bounce vampires only". It ought to be a most interesting change. Subtle, yet positive. Other than that, I see bounce as a necessary evil to counterweigh S&B. Drain

I cant belive people want to keep bounce as primary bleed defence ... First, they bitch about how big capers need to have Auspex or Dominate, and second they want to keep status quo. Geez, that is sick. Remind me people that say 'meh, 10 cap without Fortitude - worthless', and then, they show holy anger when someone even mention 'maybe LSJ should consider disciplineless/other discipline than fortitude limited freak drive?'. I support: (3) More anti-bounce tech (6) Make alternative (non bounce) solution 'worth it' I dont want even more bounce. And bounce should not be about deflection level.

[ quoted text not captured ] How about bleed fails? Something like Can't Touch This Cost: 1 blood cel: Maneuver with an optional press. CEL: Only usable during a bleed against you. Tap this reacting vampire. The bleed fails. You Shouldn't Do That Cost: 1 blood pre: Strike: dodge. PRE: Only usable during a bleed against you. Tap this reacting vampire. The bleed fails. and so on.

herman...@xs4all.nl wrote: > At the moment bounce is not balanced because of the fact that only two > disciplines can use it effectively (I do not consider LiT a viable > alternative). Such a powerful game mechanic shouldn't be limited to > only two disciplines. In this regards, every set of clan, or clan combination discipline sets have their strength and weakness. Simply, you can't flat everything giving - bounce bleed -.bleed reduction - combat power - bleed power - political power -and so on. to any deck archetype. Clans, deck archetypes, single disciplines *must* have strength and weakness. The flatting of everything, be it clan dicpline combinations and / or single discipline, just make the game worse in variety and fun. As disciplineless bounce cards we have now lost in traslation and two wrongs. That's enough to compensate would be lack of bounce power in given deck archetypes i think. Unless you want, say, your potence swarm, presence weenie (and so on) decks the ability to not fear at all a bleed deck on their shoulder. Decks that usually can't bounce have lots of combat/rush power (ad weenie potence), or political power (say cam nossie princes with fortitude) to compensate. You can't just consider to flat everything.

On 11 Sty, 12:16, "Tetragrammaton" <n...@usa.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] you kinda missed the point. Dominate ALREADY have nice DISCIPLINELESS combat.

[ quoted text not captured ] As other disciplines do, as disciplineless combat has good cards on his side, even since the base set (trap, boxed in, lucky blow etc). What's the point then ?

On 11 Sty, 15:06, "Tetragrammaton" <n...@usa.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] There are disciplineless viable combat, but no disciplineless viable bleed defense [be it reduction or bounce - LiT was nice attempt, but have very high oportunity cost]. TBH, only nest of eagles reduce bleed by viable amount [3, but it's conditional] - and it's clan card. So, every discipline combination have combat power , but only few have defense against most common offense - bleed.

> > you kinda missed the point. > > Dominate ALREADY have nice DISCIPLINELESS combat.- Hide quoted text - > I generally find your logic a bit difficult to follow. But as for Dominate having good combat options (and yes, I'm not sure I understand why it has a dodge), if you start putting loads of combat into your S&B deck it will only lose focus. I considered bounce/reduce in a CEL/pro rush deck, but ended up going for all out rush, simply because you want to be acting when you have rush and combat cards in your deck rather than sitting and waiting for your predator to act so you can bounce (and putting in both wake and bounce takes too many slots). So I think the point was, if you play a deck type that doesnt have access to bounce, dont moan because you should then have other ways of dealing with e.g. S&B (and if you don't, you'll have all the more leverage to turn the table against your S&B predator). Sure, it means that you HAVE to have a way of dealing with S&B/bounce which narrows your choice when building a deck. It also means that not all the weird and whacky decks out there will be able to make it to a final (including my baleful doll/form of corruption deck), but thats what friendly games are for ... >How about bleed fails? Something like >Can't Touch This >Cost: 1 blood >cel: Maneuver with an optional press. >CEL: Only usable during a bleed against you. Tap this reacting >vampire. The bleed fails. I like it, interesting idea. I cant put my finger on it, but it seems a bit strong, perhaps add "Do not replace until your untap phase" if played at CEL?

[ quoted text not captured ] Or "Only usable when a bleed against you is announced". Not that I think it's too strong as it is. Bounce is strong because it's bleed defense and deterrent at the same time. A "bleed fails" card wouldn't really convince anyone not to bleed the same way an untapped Keith Moody does.

On Jan 11, 3:36 pm, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > > So, every discipline combination have combat power , but only few > have defense against most common offense - bleed. You forgot that bounce/reduction is not the only defense against bleed. You can also block bleed. Even withough disciplines you have tons of options to block even if tapped and to add intercept. I fully agree with Telegrammaton. Handing out bounce to every discipline or creating good disciplineless bounce would ruin the game. Different decks / archetypes have different strengths abilities. Ok, bleed decks are easy to play but by far not the only ones that win tournaments. A large part of the appeal of VTES comes from the great variety of viable decks. Not all decks need bounce! Kind regards, Marcus

In article <5a39babe-702d-4939...@r15g2000prh.googlegroups.com>, acheronni...@gmail.com wrote: > I cant belive people want to keep bounce as primary bleed defence ... Without bounce, S+B becomes simply unbearably powerful. Because other defenses against S+B generally aren't efficient enough (bleed reduction; -2 bleed per card is simply not effective enough of a defense against significant bleed offense) or viable to back up decks that can reliably win games (rush and intercept; both of which can be very good at stopping S+B, but to be good enough at that, you often aren't good enough at actually being able to oust anyone). Bounce means that bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth all the time has a drawback (you might oust someone other than your prey) as opposed to being a virtually certain path towards victory. As the game exists now, it needs bleed bounce to exist. This could have been circumvented from the beginning, but it wasn't, so here we are. The only way to do away with bounce all together is to invent some other kind of almost as certain bleed defense--maybe super bleed reduction (something along the lines of pay one blood to make a bleed action fail, except this sort of thing removes the risk associated with being bounced when bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth and is probably too safe, as when you bounce a bleed at someone, there is always the chance that they'll bounce it back at you) or whatever. The only problem with Deflection is that it is far and away more powerful than all the other bounce cards--Telepathic Misdirection, My Enemy's Enemy, Redirection, LiiT, Murmur all have significant complications attached to them. Telepathic is nice and flexible and can bounce anyone, but you need AUS which isn't hard in an AUS based deck (as AUS weenies are pretty easy to find) but difficult to slot in. MEE has the same issues as Telepathic, but then also bounces to someone you don't want to bounce too. Redirection requires you to bounce a younger vampire (and not ally) or have DOM and still tap anyway. LiiT has all sorts of drawbacks, and is really only suitable for decks that have huge vampires that don't have AUS or dom (which doesn't actually come up all that often if you want to work it out). Murmur is also nice and flexible, but even at DOM it is just like inferior Redirection. Deflection, as a bleed defense, is just far and away the best there is--no disadvantages, no limitations, can be played by any random 2 cap with dom and bounce that bleed of 7 from Arika. At superior, you don't tap (when *all* of the other bounce cards tap you for playing it) so you can keep playing them. Deflection is stupidly powerful. Is this horrible? No, not really--I'm ok with bleed defense being better than bleed. Except that the bleed defense that *is* better than bleed is incredibly narrow; it is just Deflection. Which makes all the other bleed defenses less attractive. And makes Dominate just too damn good. > First, they bitch about how big capers need to have Auspex or > Dominate, and second they want to keep status quo. Geez, that is sick. There isn't a way to fix the status quo. 'Cause the status is not, uh, quo. Without completely retooling the game. > I support: > > (3) More anti-bounce tech Which just makes S+B more powerful. S+B is *still* the most effective deck strategy. I'm totally ok with people being able to oust their prey reliably, but it is also good to be able to compete defensively. > (6) Make alternative (non bounce) solution 'worth it' With Deflection existing, there isn't really a way to do this. What kind of reliable bleed defense can you come up with that is a single card and costs 1 blood and can be played by an inferior discipline that is going to be competitive with Deflection *and* balanced? Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <aa160eff-e125-42ef...@z27g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, suolir...@gmail.com wrote: > How about bleed fails? Something like > > Can't Touch This > Cost: 1 blood > cel: Maneuver with an optional press. > CEL: Only usable during a bleed against you. Tap this reacting > vampire. The bleed fails. They don't make bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth risky. Which is one of the reasons that bounce succeeds as bleed defense. Yeah, bleed fails as a reliable defense will keep you alive for a while, but it doesn't make bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth problematic. You can just go nuts with the bleeds and eventually your prey runs out of bleed fails tech and they die. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com [ quoted text not captured ]

On 11 tammi, 18:53, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article > <aa160eff-e125-42ef-b313-19d892816...@z27g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, > > suoliruse...@gmail.com wrote: > > How about bleed fails? Something like > > > Can't Touch This > > Cost: 1 blood > > cel: Maneuver with an optional press. > > CEL: Only usable during a bleed against you. Tap this reacting > > vampire. The bleed fails. > > They don't make bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth risky. Which is one of the > reasons that bounce succeeds as bleed defense. Yeah, bleed fails as a > reliable defense will keep you alive for a while, but it doesn't make > bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth problematic. You can just go nuts with the > bleeds and eventually your prey runs out of bleed fails tech and they > die. That was intentional. Deflection isn't broken at the moment but giving it to archetypes that are currently successful without it might push them over the top. I figure a variation of a "bleed fails" card for all the major disciplines would make some underpowered strategies viable without making others too strong. It would take playtesting to be sure, of course.

>Deflection isn't broken at the moment but giving > it to archetypes that are currently successful without it might push > them over the top. Just to interject, can you list a few successful archtypes that don't have access to bleed bounce? Obviously weenies are one, but I can't seem to think of another. Can you help me out?

[ quoted text not captured ] TWDA is a good source for successful deck archetypes. Glad to be of service.

Maybe ya know, go archon investigation route, and actually BURN vampires who try to bleed for more than their capacity indicate [like 2 cap bleed for 5]? It is called 'risk'

In article <8a86198c-96f9-43ae...@v18g2000pro.googlegroups.com>, suolir...@gmail.com wrote: > That was intentional. Sure, but I suspect that if the game had both bounce like it does now *and* common "bleed fails" tech like the cards you presented, bleeding would cease to be a viable strategy at all. Which, as much as everyone hates being the first prey of a fast S+B deck, would be bad for the game. I'd *much* rather see more better bleed reduction, which the game has been moving in the direction of (see: Wrong and Crosswise, Steadfastness, Detect Authoritay, Nest of Eagles), but I think the bleed reduction cards have been kind of restrained a bit--if there were nice, flexible cards that were something generic at inferior and "reduce a bleed by 2" at superior for no blood, I suspect that would help things a lot (i.e. "obf: +1 stealth on a non bleed action; OBF: Reduce a bleed by 2" or whatever). It would provide more, reliable bleed defense for non bounce disciplines without going over the top. I don't think a free reduction of 2 at a superior discipline would be remotely too powerful, but I think the various reductions of 1 that are being thrown around and/or reduction of 2 for a blood aren't really good enough. > Deflection isn't broken at the moment but giving > it to archetypes that are currently successful without it might push > them over the top. Again, I don't think Deflection is something I'd call "broken" (where "broken" = "wildly stupidly overpowered and demolishing the game"). It is too good, which has the main effect of making the game more narrow than it probably should be (i.e. if you want good bleed defense, you use Deflection; if you want to try something else, you do so, but full well know you should probably just be using Deflection instead) and makes all the other bleed bounce (except *maybe* Telepathic Misdirection, but only 'cause it seems like they went out of their way to make AUS available on 3 and 4 cap vampires) seem less good than they actually should be. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Jan 11, 5:12 am, acheronnightstal...@gmail.com wrote: > I cant belive people want to keep bounce as primary bleed defence ... Whether people want to or not, it's a good idea. Bleed bounce doesn't reduce the amount of counters taken out of the game (by itself). Bleed reduction and the like do, slowing games down even more and discouraging people from trying to oust. The problem in the game is that's far too easy to bleed for large amounts. Ban Conditioning et al and the desirability of bounce is reduced to some degree. What I find hard to believe are all of the new ways to mess with bounce when bounce is what makes the game playable when there's a lack of similar controls on the ability to bleed for large amounts.

In article <9f945661-1b6d-4a26...@u18g2000pro.googlegroups.com>, Curevei <Cur...@aol.com> wrote: > Bleed reduction and the like do, slowing games down even more and > discouraging people from trying to oust. I don't think that bleed reduction discourages people from trying to oust; if someone has a lot of bounce, an aggressive bleed predator is going to be careful and slow, fearful of having a big bleed bounced into his grand prey. If someone has a lot of bleed reduction, the aggressive bleed predator just bleeds forward with wild abandon, trying to run them out of bleed reduction (unless they have both...). Bleed reduction slows the game down some, sure, but in the good way (i.e. you get to avoid getting ousted too quickly, as opposed to just being run over). I can't see in a million years how bleed reduction would discourage people from trying to oust. > The problem in the game is that's far too easy to bleed for large > amounts. Ban Conditioning et al and the desirability of bounce is > reduced to some degree. Oh, sure. But this is a whole other discussion. You rebuild the game from the ground up and make it difficult to bleed for more than 3 per action; remove *all* cards that let you bleed for +2 with an inferior discipline and rejigger from there. Give cards +2 bleed at a superior discipline (so the maximum hard hitting combo is, like, Intimidation and Threats at PRE, DOM for a bleed of 5) maximum. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com [ quoted text not captured ]

> >Deflection isn't broken at the moment but giving > > it to archetypes that are currently successful without it might push > > them over the top. > > Just to interject, can you list a few successful archtypes that don't > have access to bleed bounce? Obviously weenies are one, but I can't > seem to think of another. Can you help me out? Ahrimanes wall (EC winner), Nos Princes (also a tournament winner), many combat decks (celerity gun, weenie potence), sens dep decks >They don't make bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth risky. Which is one of the >reasons that bounce succeeds as bleed defense. Yeah, bleed fails as a >reliable defense will keep you alive for a while, but it doesn't make >bleeding for 5 at +4 stealth problematic. You can just go nuts with the >bleeds and eventually your prey runs out of bleed fails tech and they >die. hopefully making some of your predator's bleeds fail (after he has paid e.g. 2 blood for govern and conditioning AND used some of his seduction and stealth cards to get through) should give your deck the extra time and room it needs to do its thing, i.e. defend well and oust your prey. Deflection doesn't keep you alive forever either, and if your predator packs spying missions he can doesnt have to worry that much about pushing forward against deflection. And even if they're not as efficient as deflection, then thats just fine! if you're playing (still following the card suggested above) celerity, you have other ways of dealing with predator and prey which evens out the difference. > Sure, but I suspect that if the game had both bounce like it does now > *and* common "bleed fails" tech like the cards you presented, bleeding > would cease to be a viable strategy at all. Which, as much as everyone > hates being the first prey of a fast S+B deck, would be bad for the game. >I'd *much* rather see more better bleed reduction,> >S+B is *still* the most effective deck strategy. Taken out of context, I know, but you seem to contradict yourself a bit here. If S&B is very strong (I agree), it can take a bit of pounding. I think its gonna take a lot more than a bleed fails card for bleeding to "cease to be a viable strategy"... Even if more bounce cards were available, they still take up card slots in your deck, and packing enough bounce to justify including it in the deck will make you lose focus or weaken your defense against votes, or against combat... Also, you seem to prefer cards that reduce bleeds by 2-3(?) to cards that reduce bleeds by their entire amount (i.e. bleed fails). Why is this? I think there is plenty of room in the game for a bleed fails card, which should of course be balanced and playtested. I personally like the disciplineless reduction cards like Keep it Simple, which I felt gave decks like Gangrel and Ravnos a much needed defensive boost (2xraven spy and KIS becomes a pretty good card for its cost!). Perhaps a disciplineless bleed fails card targetting heavy bleeds would be an idea? "Public Inquiry Reaction Cost: 1 blood Only usable when you are being bled for more than 3. Tap this reacting vampire. The bleed fails." or, if you prefer the reduction avenue, something parallel to Flesh of Marble: "Limited Liability Reaction Cost: 1 blood Only usable if you are successfully bled for more than 2. Ignore the excess. This bleed cannot be further reduced."

In article <fb6b8c23-8d9a-43c3...@a12g2000pro.googlegroups.com>, cnislev <c.ni...@gmail.com> wrote: (You seem to be responding to two different people, of which only one is me, in this post. Which is confusing.) > And even if > they're not as efficient as deflection, then thats just fine! if > you're playing (still following the card suggested above) celerity, > you have other ways of dealing with predator and prey which evens out > the difference. My point is that if there is both bounce *and* the kind of "bleed fails" tech as presented in existence, Bleeding becomes a really ineffective option. Which isn't good either. > Taken out of context, I know, but you seem to contradict yourself a > bit here. If S&B is very strong (I agree), it can take a bit of > pounding. Sure. But it also need to still be an effective strategy. The game needs a fairly simple, effective strategy that is good at ousting folks. And bleeding at stealth is it. If S+B becomes *too* nerfed, the game as a whole becomes too obtuse and slow. Again, no one likes sitting down as the first prey of a brutal S+B deck, as it isn't any fun to get ousted in 4 actions. But it is important that S+B is a good strategy (which it still would be if it was really hard to bleed for more than 3 per action, but that is a pipe dream). It could certainly use a tweak down, still, but making too much absolute bleed defense would neuter it too much. > I think its gonna take a lot more than a bleed fails card > for bleeding to "cease to be a viable strategy"... Even if more bounce > cards were available, they still take up card slots in your deck, and > packing enough bounce to justify including it in the deck will make > you lose focus or weaken your defense against votes, or against > combat... Sure. But if *every* discipline (or even a significant chunk of them) had cards that said "bleed fails" and *then* there was also the same bounce we have? Bleeding would become a really unattractive strategy. Which is bad for the game. Being able to oust someone in 4 actions is *also* bad for the game, but going too far in the other direction isn't any better. Which is why I'd like to see more, viable, flexible bleed reduction cards. > Also, you seem to prefer cards that reduce bleeds by 2-3(?) to cards > that reduce bleeds by their entire amount (i.e. bleed fails). Why is > this? 'Cause they wouldn't make bleeding useless, but would help slow down heavy bleed decks. And if they were flexible (again, the good example is "obf: +1 stealth; OBF: Reduce a bleed by 2." or the like), they would see a lot of play. Which seems reasonable to me. The problem with S+B decks is that it is too easy to bleed for 4-5 per action. Which is too much. Bounce provides the double hit to big bleeds (it saves you *and* hurts your prey, making bleeding for a lot risky for the bleeder) which is a really strong defense and also discourages bleeding for too much. Which is good, as it provides natural disincentive to bleed for 5 too often, while "bleed fails" wouldn't. Nor would more bleed reduction, but at least more bleed reduction wouldn't completely nerf bleeds. Just slow them down to acceptable levels. > I personally like the disciplineless reduction cards like Keep it > Simple, which I felt gave decks like Gangrel and Ravnos a much needed > defensive boost (2xraven spy and KIS becomes a pretty good card for > its cost!). Yeah, see, I don't actually think it does. It costs a blood, so it only actually benefits you if you have intercept already. And if you have intercept already, you are generally better off just blocking in the first place--in the example you give, if you have 2x Raven Spies, most of the time, the Keep it Simple is going to be better as just more intercept, as against +2 permacept, all but the most dedicated stealth deck is going to run out pretty quickly. > "Public Inquiry > Reaction > Cost: 1 blood > Only usable when you are being bled for more than 3. Tap this reacting > vampire. The bleed fails." > > "Limited Liability > Reaction > Cost: 1 blood > Only usable if you are successfully bled for more than 2. Ignore the > excess. This bleed cannot be further reduced." These are both actually not at all bad in theory. But because they are very focused, they wouldn't see that much play. The first one is probably better off just being an Archon Investigation most of the time (and it is rare when a deck has more than 1 or 2 Archon Investigations) and the second one, while certainly handy when it works, will spend a lot of time being discarded 'cause you have a predator that only bleeds for 1-2 per action (if at all). [ quoted text not captured ]

Perhaps a disciplineless bleed fails card targetting heavy > bleeds would be an idea? > > "Public Inquiry > Reaction > Cost: 1 blood > Only usable when you are being bled for more than 3. Tap this reacting > vampire. The bleed fails." > > or, if you prefer the reduction avenue, something parallel to Flesh of > Marble: > > "Limited Liability > Reaction > Cost: 1 blood > Only usable if you are successfully bled for more than 2. Ignore the > excess. This bleed cannot be further reduced." Cards whose only function is bleed reduction have an opportunity cost that exceeds their value. Usable bleed reduction needs to be coupled with something with much lower opportunity cost, like [inf] press [SUP] reduce a bleed against you by half (round down) In place of press there could be any other thing that's appropriate to the discipline and likely to be actively useful (by which I mean useful for what you want to do rather than for preventing what someone else wants to do), and the precise nature of the bleed reduction could vary.

suolir...@gmail.com wrote: > > How about bleed fails? Something like > > Can't Touch This > Cost: 1 blood > cel: Maneuver with an optional press. > CEL: Only usable during a bleed against you. Tap this reacting > vampire. The bleed fails. Can't get the image of MC Hammer in his huge pants out of my head... best - chris

[ quoted text not captured ] Nos Princes Ahrimanes Off the top of my head. best - chris

[ quoted text not captured ] Of course thinking of it, I guess all decks have access to Lost in Translation. I was just thinkning of Tele Misd and the Dominate ones - Defl, Redir, and MotfW. best - chris

> > Just to interject, can you list a few successful archtypes that don't > > have access to bleed bounce? Obviously weenies are one, but I can't > > seem to think of another. Can you help me out? > > Nos Princes > Ahrimanes Soul Gem Turbo builds? (Baron, Cybele) Week of Nightmares? Although depending on the build, I guess you could class that as "weenies". As for the initial question, I'd vote for 0) - with the proviso that Deflection needs to be reprinted. Weakening bounce would logically lead to the strengthening of S/B, which I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't be wild about.

Try this. Announce to your playgroup that you want to try a ban on bounce cards. Tell me how the winning decks turn out after two weeks.

[ quoted text not captured ] How you distiguish between an archtype and a fluke in the TWDA?

On Jan 11, 11:06 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > XZealot wrote: > >> Deflection isn't broken at the moment but giving > >> it to archetypes that are currently successful without it might push > >> them over the top. > > > Just to interject, can you list a few successful archtypes that don't > > have access to bleed bounce? Obviously weenies are one, but I can't > > seem to think of another. Can you help me out? > > Nos Princes 2nd Traditions/Parity Shifts > Ahrimanes Intercept wall/Bruise/Bleed So primarily these archtypes have a signifigant defensive package with the option to go heavy combat as well as having access to extremely effective offense.

[ quoted text not captured ] I read tea leaves (my crystal ball fell on the floor :C).

[ quoted text not captured ] You could start with repetition of a theme, probably discounting (or weighting less heavily) multiple occurrences that have too similar a date and location. Certain deck styles will turn up that take a little time to counter and/or that are specific to a particular tournament environment. This will eliminate some potentially valid archetypes that have yet to establish themselves as serious archetypes, and possibly some that are valid but boring or unpopular for some other reason (so people don't choose to play them much). However, it should give you a variety of reasonable-quality data to play with. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Malone <kffo...@indiana.edu> wrote: >Cards whose only function is bleed reduction have an opportunity cost >that exceeds their value. Usable bleed reduction needs to be coupled >with something with much lower opportunity cost, like >[inf] press >[SUP] reduce a bleed against you by half (round down) > >In place of press there could be any other thing that's appropriate to >the discipline and likely to be actively useful (by which I mean >useful for what you want to do rather than for preventing what someone >else wants to do), and the precise nature of the bleed reduction could >vary. While tossing ideas round in my head, I was vaguely considering something like that. Shrouded Assets Obfuscate Reflex / Reaction [reflex] [obf] Cancel a card (including combat and master cards) that would destroy a piece of equipment on this vampire as it is played (no cost is paid). [OBF] Reduce a bleed against you by half (round down). Not that great if you already have Auspex or Dominate, but going through Obfuscate is potentially solid for the Samedi, !Gangrel, some of the (!)Nosferatu, the Baali, the (non-Dominate) Setites and so on. (I'm not bothering to try to balance the above card cost/effect-wise.) [ quoted text not captured ]

Malone schrieb: > What should be done about bounce? > > (0) Nothing. > > (1) Ban bounce. > > (2) Ban (or issue errata on) Deflection. > > (3) Make more viable anti-bounce tech. > > (4) Make good bounce more widely available. > > (5) Issue Deflection as a promo and give beginners a card that says, > "Always play Dominate." (6) only bleed for 1 at 0 stealth. 20 times per turn. :) -- If playing against Cock all you need to remember is: Don´t get caught by Cock.

On 11 Jan., 19:03, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > In article > <8a86198c-96f9-43ae-965b-5278ffc82...@v18g2000pro.googlegroups.com>, > I'd *much* rather see more better bleed reduction, which the game has > been moving in the direction of (see: Wrong and Crosswise, > Steadfastness, Detect Authoritay, Nest of Eagles), but I think the bleed > reduction cards have been kind of restrained a bit--if there were nice, > flexible cards that were something generic at inferior and "reduce a > bleed by 2" at superior for no blood, I suspect that would help things a > lot (i.e. "obf: +1 stealth on a non bleed action; OBF: Reduce a bleed by > 2" or whatever). It would provide more, reliable bleed defense for non > bounce disciplines without going over the top. I don't think a free > reduction of 2 at a superior discipline would be remotely too powerful, > but I think the various reductions of 1 that are being thrown around > and/or reduction of 2 for a blood aren't really good enough. I agree with the various kinds of week bleed reductions. I was thinking about the bleed fails tech, and it has some nice bonus: 1. The edge doesn't move, which could be strategically important. 2. The bleeder will have most likely invested a lot more cards than the defending player (I'm thinking here about stealth, block fails, anti-bounce and bleed-boost). How about something simple like [inf] reduce the bleed by one. [sup] as above, but you may take the edge instead of the acting Methuselah (even if the bleed is not successful). Messing with the edge can be quite effective. If you predator bleeds, you reduce it by 1 and gain 1 pool from the edge at the start of your turn. That seems like a nice twist to the "reduce bleed" theme. > Peter D Bakija > p...@lightlink.comhttp://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html

On Jan 12, 5:47 am, preache...@gmx.at wrote: > How about something simple like > [inf] reduce the bleed by one. > [sup] as above, but you may take the edge instead of the acting > Methuselah (even if the bleed is not successful). The problem with "reduce bleed by 1" is that it simply isn't worth it. Spending a card and having an untapped minion (or another card) to save 1 pool is a bad trade off. The general model across the board seems to be "gain 2 pool for a single, free card" (see: Art Scam, Enchant Kindred, Scouting Mission, Kahbar: Leadership or whatever, the new one where you gain 2 for being an 8 cap, etc.). Yeah, the ones that are actions have the cost of having to take an action. Which seems roughly equivalent, for my money, to the cost of having to be bled and be untapped. That all those numerous attempts at bleed reduction cards default to "reduce by 1" makes these cards generally not that useful. Reducing a bleed by 2 is almost worth it, so Telepathic Counter actually sees play once and a while--if bleed reduction cards had multiple uses, a bleed reduction of 2 would be good (as the reduction of opportunity cost would make up for the card generally not being as good as bounce). Looking at the currently viable bleed reduction cards: -Telepathic Counter: Completely useless if you aren't being bled, so has a reasonably high opportunity cost (like all the cards that only reduce bleeds). On the upside, if you have AUS, you can reduce bleeds by 2 over and over for free. On the downside, if you have AUS, you should probably be playing Telepathic Misdirection. Still, sees play occasionally. -Truth in Ink: A nice card as it reduces by 2 for free. Is also useless if you aren't being bled, but can be played by any BH vampire, so easy to use. It not being able to use it against another BH vampire comes up once and a while, but not enough to make the card useless (unless you are playing SoC draft...). Sees play occasionally. -Friend of Mine (for): It reduces by 2 at for, which is good, but costs a blood, which is bad. And you need to be an Anarch. So I suspect that it would be a good and reasonable card if it was free (see: Detect Authority). I use it a lot, but that is me. I rarely see anyone else ever use it (except for Darbo! Go Darbro!) -Detect Authority: Free and reduces by 2, so good! But as it comes from Tha, you probably have reliable AUS or dom, so you are probably using bounce instead. -Nest of Eagles: Can reduce a reasonable number of bleeds (allies and vamps 5 and smaller, which is a lot of them) by 3, so can be excellent. The rest of the time, only reduces bleeds by 1, which isn't good. But can be played by any Assamite, so easy to play. Useless if you aren't being bled. Not a bad card. Sees some amount of play. -Steadfastness: A weird card which is interesting in that it gives fortitude intercept and the ability to reduce a bleed by 1. I'd much rather have seen it reduce a bleed by 2, at which point it becomes a strong card, instead of a "might see play once and a while" card. -Ancestor's Insight: In theory, good, as it has the two uses (+1 bleed or reduce a bleed by 1). But as the reduce by 1 is inferior auspex, and the +1 bleed is superior, it isn't great for defense and isn't great for offense. If it had been +1 bleed at inferior and reduce by 2 at superior, it would be strong but not game breaking. As it is, the Laibons who can play it kind of blow most of the time, so dubious. There are a few others, but they are all generally worse that the above ones. Most of them kind of fall down in the "Actually useful" category, due to the opportunity cost and/or only reducing by 1 a lot of the time. If there were "inf: foo that is generally useful like press/+1 stealth/whatever; SUP: reduce bleed by 2.", in non Auspex/ Dominate disciplines, we'd see more bleed reduction, which would be good. Steadfastness is almost there. But the reduction of 1 just isn't worth including it for the reduction, so if you are including it, you generally want to try the Intercept, so the bleed reduction isn't likely to see much play. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] The thing that a lot of people miss about Telepathic Counter (and this applies to some of the other examples as well), is that while Telepathic Misdirection is far better against a single bleed, TC becomes more card-efficient the more bleeds you have to deal with. Most effective is when you have access to both kinds of defense. As the number of bleeds increases, the "cost" of having to leave a minion untapped to play reduction decreases (you only have to have one minion untapped to play a bunch of reduction cards). Effective defense when the bleeds are spread out uses fewer card slots and costs fewer blood than bounce. Better still, if you can see the last bleed coming, you can bounce that one and take advantage of the wild efficiency of bounce against a single bleed. You also get to take advantage of the psychology of making your predator feel like only a bleed of 3+ will actually land while you're prepping to bounce, making it even more effective, which is why you almost never see pure-TC decks, but you do see decks with TC + TM, sometimes with large numbers of TC, even though they own plenty of TM and bounce is "better" than reduction. -witness1

On Jan 12, 10:08 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > The thing that a lot of people miss about Telepathic Counter (and this > applies to some of the other examples as well), is that while > Telepathic Misdirection is far better against a single bleed, TC > becomes more card-efficient the more bleeds you have to deal with. Well, kind of. To be able to use Telepathic Misdirection multiple times, you need to have multiples in your hand. Which means you probably have to have a lot in your deck. Which means a lot of deck space is spent on cards that once and a while will be comeplely useless. And TC is only more efficient than Deflection if you are only being bled for 2 per action--if you are being bled for 3+ per action, you are still losing pool every time (unless you have another untapped guy and another TC, making it less efficient than a single bounce card). > Most effective is when you have access to both kinds of defense. > > As the number of bleeds increases, the "cost" of having to leave a > minion untapped to play reduction decreases (you only have to have one > minion untapped to play a bunch of reduction cards). Sure, but you also need to have a long string of bleed reduction cards in your hand as well. > but you do > see decks with TC + TM, sometimes with large numbers of TC, even > though they own plenty of TM and bounce is "better" than reduction. Maybe? I have seen very few Telepathic Counters used in actual play. I have seen a small handful of decks in the TWDA with a few Telepathic Counters (usually, as you note, mixed with TM). I had a deck that used a lot of them (10-12?) for a while, but primarily 'cause it was built around exploting Victoria and keeping the Edge (Eagle's Sight blocking and bleed reduction). It worked ok. But really, probably would have been better off just using Misdirection most of the time. -Peter

On Jan 12, 10:28 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 12, 10:08 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > The thing that a lot of people miss about Telepathic Counter (and this > > applies to some of the other examples as well), is that while > > Telepathic Misdirection is far better against a single bleed, TC > > becomes more card-efficient the more bleeds you have to deal with. > > Well, kind of. To be able to use Telepathic Misdirection multiple > times, you need to have multiples in your hand. Which means you > probably have to have a lot in your deck. Or use a bounce strategy most of the time, but have a TC backup, which is what most decks in the TWDA seem to do. There are some with as many TC as bounce, most of the time fewer. Because you can't know if you're going to be bled for one 20 times, or bled for 20 once until you sit down at the table and start playing. > Which means a lot of deck > space is spent on cards that once and a while will be comeplely > useless. And TC is only more efficient than Deflection if you are only > being bled for 2 per action--if you are being bled for 3+ per action, > you are still losing pool every time (unless you have another untapped > guy and another TC, making it less efficient than a single bounce > card). Sure, but now we're comparing DOM versus AUS, rather than AUS vs. AUS. > > Most effective is when you have access to both kinds of defense. > > > As the number of bleeds increases, the "cost" of having to leave a > > minion untapped to play reduction decreases (you only have to have one > > minion untapped to play a bunch of reduction cards). > > Sure, but you also need to have a long string of bleed reduction cards > in your hand as well. Even one TC at the start adds a lot of card efficiency - no wake to play TC, no wake to play the first TM, wakes only needed on 3rd+ bleed. > > but you do > > see decks with TC + TM, sometimes with large numbers of TC, even > > though they own plenty of TM and bounce is "better" than reduction. > > Maybe? I have seen very few Telepathic Counters used in actual play. I > have seen a small handful of decks in the TWDA with a few Telepathic > Counters (usually, as you note, mixed with TM). I had a deck that used > a lot of them (10-12?) for a while, but primarily 'cause it was built > around exploting Victoria and keeping the Edge (Eagle's Sight blocking > and bleed reduction). It worked ok. But really, probably would have > been better off just using Misdirection most of the time. Johannes wasn't wrong when he said the right answer to bounce was to bleed 20 times for 1 at zero stealth. The right answer against reduction is to bleed for 20 once. Deckbuilders have to make concessions at some point and can't put in enough to defend against everything without seriously compromising their offense. But the guys using TC and winning tournaments probably didn't think TM would be that much better in it's place. -witness1

[ quoted text not captured ] But what makes TM better to me isn't a question of bounce vs reduction. It's that TM also gives you +1 intercept, which can protect you from votes and other things that are not bleed. TC can't do that. best - chris

On Jan 12, 10:55 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > Sure, but now we're comparing DOM versus AUS, rather than AUS > vs. AUS. If you are comparing AUS vs AUS, again, TC is only more efficient if you are being bled in small amounts a lot, and you have a bunch of them in your hand. Having 1 TC will save you 2 pool. Having 1 TM will save you often much more. > But the guys > using TC and winning tournaments probably didn't think TM would be > that much better in it's place. Having just gone and combed the TWDA, I'm actually surprised by the number of decks Telepathic Counter shows up in. They don't usually show up much (2-5 per deck seems about the max), and only rarely show up when there aren't Telepathic Misdirections also (and usually there are more TMs then TCs). So clearly, they aren't making people lose. But I suspect that most of the time, the person playing the TC was like "Man, I'd be much better off if this was a Misdirection right about now..." (pure speculation). I know I would. -Peter

On Jan 12, 6:57 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > But I suspect that most of the time, the person playing the TC was > like "Man, I'd be much better off if this was a Misdirection right > about now..." (pure speculation). I know I would. > > -Peter Last night I was playing old school Obf Ven, my pred was Obf BH thuggees. his pred was Tsunda with his many stomachs. Tsunda player has 7 Rav out, drops WoN. The BH player reduces3 bleeds of 2 down 0,and 2 down to 1, for a total saving of 8. Awesome! Except I was on about 7 pool, and unable at that point to deal with any major bleeding. If he had flicked 3 of those bleeds, as opposed to reducing them, he would have ousted me and i would not have taken the table.

On Jan 12, 12:57 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 12, 10:55 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > Sure, but now we're comparing DOM versus AUS, rather than AUS > > vs. AUS. > > If you are comparing AUS vs AUS, again, TC is only more efficient if > you are being bled in small amounts a lot, and you have a bunch of > them in your hand. Having 1 TC will save you 2 pool. Having 1 TM will > save you often much more. Even if it's lots of bleeds for 3, TCs will start saving you 2 pool per card played, at no blood cost. TM will require you to play wakes and spend blood (which, with Dolls/Taps/Vessels/Villeins/Grooming, are essentially pool), and have both wakes and TMs in correct proportions. Which obviously happens a lot, being an AUS deck. But TC reduces the length of the string of cards you need to keep drawing into in order to continue defending. > > But the guys > > using TC and winning tournaments probably didn't think TM would be > > that much better in it's place. > > Having just gone and combed the TWDA, I'm actually surprised by the > number of decks Telepathic Counter shows up in. They don't usually > show up much (2-5 per deck seems about the max), and only rarely show > up when there aren't Telepathic Misdirections also (and usually there > are more TMs then TCs). So clearly, they aren't making people lose. > But I suspect that most of the time, the person playing the TC was > like "Man, I'd be much better off if this was a Misdirection right > about now..." (pure speculation). I know I would. TC + TM starts to pay off card-efficiency wise on the second bleed in a turn, even if the bleeds are for 3 each (compared to TM + Wake + TM). "Lead with the dingus" is a common enough phenomenon that it seems unlikely for a player to be upset about having one more often than not. Against bleeds consistently bigger than 3, the math gets hairier. So, at a guess, I'd suspect that you're metagame is heavy with greater-than-three bleeds (or you're underestimating the card efficiency). -witness1

On Jan 12, 1:54 pm, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > TC + TM starts to pay off card-efficiency wise on the second bleed in > a turn, even if the bleeds are for 3 each (compared to TM + Wake + > TM). "Lead with the dingus" is a common enough phenomenon that it > seems unlikely for a player to be upset about having one more often > than not. Against bleeds consistently bigger than 3, the math gets > hairier. So, at a guess, I'd suspect that you're metagame is heavy > with greater-than-three bleeds (or you're underestimating the card > efficiency). I don't think it is a meta game issue. Bleeds of more than 3 are common all over the place (well, based on things I've seen, things I've heard, and decks I've seen in the TWDA). Yeah, occasionally, someone will restrain themselves and only bleed for 3 per action, but usually bleeds tend to be: A) Frequent 2 bleeds (as it is easy to bleed for 2 for most decks). B) Infrequent bleeds of exactly 3 (as it is a big guy who you don't want to risk to AI) C) Frequent bleeds of 3+ (a S+B type deck that just bleeds a lot with small-midcap minions and says to hell with AI) Against (A), 2 point reductions would be fantastic and efficient. Except you need a lot of them, as you are probably being bled for 2 a lot. Against (B), you probably aren't getting bled that much in total, so they'll be fine, but bounce would probably be better. Against (C), the reduction of 2 is certainly helpful, but more bounce is likely to be better. I'm not trying to make reduction look bad (as noted, I'd like to see a lot more of it), but still, in comparison to bounce, it usually comes off (at least for my money) as less effective, especially as when you have the option for the best reduction card, you also have the option for bounce. What I'd like to see is good reduction cards (i.e. reduce 2 at a superior discipline, with a useful non reduction inferior for flexibility) moved into the non bounce disciplines. At which point reduction becomes awesome. And bounce likely seems less neccessary. -Peter

> So primarily these archtypes have a signifigant defensive package with > the option to go heavy combat as well as having access to extremely > effective offense. Well not necessarily. Turbo XXX and Week of Nightmares generally relies solely on extreme speed and abandons the notion of defense almost entirely. jase

[ quoted text not captured ] The point that I don't think you're addressing and I agree with is that Telepathic Counter uses a lot less in resources than Telepathic Misdirection. If you leave 1 guy untapped, then you can play N-1 TC's, and 1 TM, without requiring a Wake. Each Wake-type card that you would tend to use with TM has its drawbacks. Forced Awakening will make the bounce cost a second blood, WWEF won't be replaced until your untap phase, Filip is only once per bigger minion you have, and On the Qui Vive is once per time around the table. Eluding the Arms of Morpheus works similarly to Forced in this scenario, although it does require a block attempt, which would potentially be a bad thing, depending on the circumstance. Eyes of Argus is almost certainly the best card to use, though it's not useful as a Wake for inferior auspex minions (who, I admit, couldn't play TC to full effect or TM to bounce), and even decks with lots of Eyes might go with another backup Wake for instances when you want to use Eyes for intercept. Regardless of which cost you choose to go with for your Wake card, it still means that Telepathic Misdirection costs you a blood and an untapped minion. If you had but 1 untapped minion, then each TM after the first costs a blood and 2 cards instead of 1 card. I think that in a very real way, unless you are getting bled for at least 4 per action (which is not exactly rare, but isn't, IMHO, nearly as common as getting bled for 3 or less), then playing 2 or 3 TC's and 1 TM during your predator's turn tends to get you better results than playing 3 or 4 TM's and 2 or 3 Wakes. Saving a blood is almost (depending again on circumstance) as good as saving a pool.

On Jan 12, 2:38 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 12, 1:54 pm, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > TC + TM starts to pay off card-efficiency wise on the second bleed in > > a turn, even if the bleeds are for 3 each (compared to TM + Wake + > > TM). "Lead with the dingus" is a common enough phenomenon that it > > seems unlikely for a player to be upset about having one more often > > than not. Against bleeds consistently bigger than 3, the math gets > > hairier. So, at a guess, I'd suspect that you're metagame is heavy > > with greater-than-three bleeds (or you're underestimating the card > > efficiency). > > I don't think it is a meta game issue. Bleeds of more than 3 are > common all over the place (well, based on things I've seen, things > I've heard, and decks I've seen in the TWDA). Yeah, occasionally, > someone will restrain themselves and only bleed for 3 per action, but > usually bleeds tend to be: > > A) Frequent 2 bleeds (as it is easy to bleed for 2 for most decks). > B) Infrequent bleeds of exactly 3 (as it is a big guy who you don't > want to risk to AI) > C) Frequent bleeds of 3+ (a S+B type deck that just bleeds a lot with > small-midcap minions and says to hell with AI) > > Against (A), 2 point reductions would be fantastic and efficient. > Except you need a lot of them, as you are probably being bled for 2 a > lot. No, really, seriously, you only need as many of them as you'd need Telepathic Misdirections to mount the same defense. Seriously, Pete. That's all you'd need. Plus no wakes *at all*, and no blood cost. Which means, in total, to prevent the same amount of pool loss to yourself, you used just over *half* as many cards. And did I mention no blood cost? It is manifestly not the case that, compared to TM, defending against bleeds with TC is in any way card-intensive. This situation is certainly not the most common. It's certainly worth considering that the extra card (wake) and blood cost for TM gain you something in terms of offense compared to TC, especially when you face situations B) and C) instead of A). And, of course, it's always effective to replace the last TC in the chain with a TM. So it's a no- brainer to include TMs in a deck with TCs. And since A) isn't necessarily the most common situation, it makes perfect sense to have more TMs than TCs. -witness1

On Jan 12, 6:07 pm, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > The point that I don't think you're addressing and I agree with is > that Telepathic Counter uses a lot less in resources than Telepathic > Misdirection. Well, sure. It is free and leaves you untapped, which under optimal conditions is very handy. But being free and leaving you untapped seems like a bad trade off when you are being bled for 5. And in the long run, to save the same amount of pool that you generally will with bounce, you need more card slots devoted to Counter. > then playing 2 or 3 TC's and 1 TM > during your predator's turn tends to get you better results than > playing 3 or 4 TM's and 2 or 3 Wakes. Saving a blood is almost > (depending again on circumstance) as good as saving a pool. This is all solid math, but in reality, I find it rare in most situations for someone to have more than 2 (give or take) bleed defense cards available at any given time (unless the deck is wildly over bleed defense oriented, which is unusual). So given the choice between playing 2 Counters or 2 Misdirections on a given turn, one way or the other, the 2 Misdirections are far more likely to pay off. Like, if you have an endless supply of Counters to play on every action with the one untapped minion, then yeah, the Counters start to look really, really good. But I don't think that most of the time that is the case. -Peter

On Jan 12, 6:11 pm, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > No, really, seriously, you only need as many of them as you'd need > Telepathic Misdirections to mount the same defense. Seriously, Pete. > That's all you'd need. Plus no wakes *at all*, and no blood cost. > Which means, in total, to prevent the same amount of pool loss to > yourself, you used just over *half* as many cards. And did I mention > no blood cost? It is manifestly not the case that, compared to TM, > defending against bleeds with TC is in any way card-intensive. Oh, sure--like, at least a few decks in the TWDA had a clean split between Counters and Misdirections (like 4/4 or 5/5). In which case, if you have an optimal hand (i.e. both a Misdirection and a Counter or two in hand), your single untapped AUS guy is gold--you counter a bleed or two and then bounce the big one. But as I constantly assume that my deck is going to spite me, I'd figure that having a 4/4 split of Counters and Misdirections (which strikes me as actually kid of low as a bleed defense outfit, but anyway) would result in having a Counter and no Misdirection in hand when needed, and/or reliably having a Misdirection in hand, bouncing a bleed, tapping my guy, and drawing into a Counter. And I realize that this is standard pessimistic deck assumption, but experience tends to bear out my pessimistic world view :-) -Peter

On Jan 12, 6:42 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > I'd figure that having a 4/4 split > of Counters and Misdirections (which strikes me as actually kid of low > as a bleed defense outfit, but anyway) would result in having a > Counter and no Misdirection in hand when needed, and/or reliably > having a Misdirection in hand, bouncing a bleed, tapping my guy, and > drawing into a Counter. Is this in any significant way worse than playing TM and drawing into another TM? -witness1

In article <2b49a2ba-245d-492b...@z28g2000prd.googlegroups.com>, witness1 <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > Is this in any significant way worse than playing TM and drawing into > another TM? Not really. Except that if you play a Misdirection and then draw into another Misdirection, you have a new Misdirection in your hand, which is always going to be good to have. If you draw into a Counter, you are suddenly looking at the Counter and saying "Man. If this was in my hand the first time, I'd be awesome. Now it is just a card that I'd rather be a Misdirection..." In less colorful terms, the Counter is really only optimal if you have the Counter and the Misdirection in your hand at the same time, where the Misdirection is always optimal to have in your hand. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" -Gaff

On Jan 12, 9:22 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > optimal I do not think that word means what you think it means. -witness1

On Jan 13, 8:43 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > I do not think that word means what you think it means. It doesn't mean "best situation"? Go on... -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] It can't possibly be optimal to have TM in your hand when you can't play it. -witness1

On Jan 13, 8:52 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > It can't possibly be optimal to have TM in your hand when you can't > play it. The point is that if you can't play either, I'd rather have a Telepathic Misdirection. As it is a better card/investement for the future. If you are just dead, it doesn't matter. But if not, I'd be much happier drawing into a Misdirection than a Counter. Counter is only really good to have in your hand in lieu of a Misdirection if you also have a Misdirection, so you can play both in sequence. If you only have one in your hand, Misdirection is pretty much always going to be better. So if you are playing the odds of "what card am I going to draw when, and what am I likely to have in my hand at any given time", Misdirection comes out ahead the vast majority of the time. -Peter

On Jan 13, 9:05 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 13, 8:52 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > It can't possibly be optimal to have TM in your hand when you can't > > play it. > > The point is that if you can't play either, I'd rather have a > Telepathic Misdirection. As it is a better card/investement for the > future. If you are just dead, it doesn't matter. But if not, I'd be > much happier drawing into a Misdirection than a Counter. Except that next turn, TC is still optimal if you can draw into a TM, after cycling all the cards you play on your turn and the TC itself (and any further TCs you draw into in the meantime). And sometimes even if you don't. > Counter is only really good to have in your hand in lieu of a > Misdirection if you also have a Misdirection, so you can play both in > sequence. Until you account for the fact that TC + blocking the second bleed is still frequently better than TM on the first bleed and eating the rest of the bleeds. -witness1

On Jan 13, 9:17 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > Except that next turn, TC is still optimal if you can draw into a TM, > after cycling all the cards you play on your turn and the TC itself > (and any further TCs you draw into in the meantime). And sometimes > even if you don't. I'd still rather have a Misdirection in my hand most of the time. I suspect that most folks feel the same. > Until you account for the fact that TC + blocking the second bleed is > still frequently better than TM on the first bleed and eating the rest > of the bleeds. If you can block the bleeds, why are you worrying about reducing and/ or bouncing them? -Peter

On Jan 13, 10:21 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 13, 9:17 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > Except that next turn, TC is still optimal if you can draw into a TM, > > after cycling all the cards you play on your turn and the TC itself > > (and any further TCs you draw into in the meantime). And sometimes > > even if you don't. > > I'd still rather have a Misdirection in my hand most of the time. I > suspect that most folks feel the same. That I believe. > > Until you account for the fact that TC + blocking the second bleed is > > still frequently better than TM on the first bleed and eating the rest > > of the bleeds. > > If you can block the bleeds, why are you worrying about reducing and/ > or bouncing them? ... Never mind. -witness1

On Jan 13, 10:25 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > Never mind. Most decks can't do everything. Yeah, a weenie AUS deck or a serious wall deck can do things like plan on playing a Telepathic Counter on the first bleed, and then blocking the next bleed, and then bouncing a third big bleed. But decks that can do that are pretty few and far between. Most decks tend to pick and choose their defenses--they have enough room for their offense, and then they build in some sort of defense option. Which often will be a handful of bounce cards, a handful of wakes, and a couple Delaying Tactics or something. 'Cause more often than not, your offense takes up a lot of space, and spending too much space on defense keeps you alive and but makes you lose. So yeah, in an optimal situation where you are a weenie AUS deck and have tons of space alloctaed to defense, and can both block bleeds, reduce bleeds and bounce bleeds, then yeah, the Counter is going to look strong. But again, I don't think this is most decks. Most decks bleed defense is along the lines of 8-10 bounce cards and some wakes, as that is all their is realistically space for. In a deck like this (which strikes me as far more of an average than something that can bounce and reduce and block all at the same time), having, like, 4 Telepathic Counters and 4 Telepathic Misdirection is going to be better than just 8 Telepathic Misdirections rarely. And most of the time, it is just going to be worse. Sure. I can certainly see situations where having the mix of Counters and Misdirections are going to pay off and be great. But that isn't going to be "most of the time". It is going to be a "once in a while, in the occasional clever deck that can pull it off". -Peter

77 about this? My issue is not bounce, but I think it's rather imbalanced that Deflection is in dominate. Dominate should not be the best answer to itself. There is no paper rock scissors balance to it, there's no game theory aspect. I think Conditioning is a worse offender. It takes Dimple 3 actions to match 1 successful action from Samson? It's not the Stealth bleeder that is hurt by Deflection- bleed you sooner rather than later. It's the Bruise bleeder that has complaints. There are several ways of playing around Deflection: voting, bleeding for 1-2, Change of Target, torporize the deflector (Shambling Hordes strategy), plus now Narrow Minds. Ideally Deflection would be errata'd: either change the superior to: a) As above, and if this vampire's capacity is greater than the acting minion, this reacting vampire does not tap. (Screw you Ingrid Rossler) or b) Give Deflection Do not replace until your next minion phase. or c) As above, and this reacting vampire does not tap. This action cannot bleed the new target for more than 1 pool. If you look at the deck types that rely on Deflection- Ventrue Law Firm, Lasombra power bleed, Giovanni- well the two voters could simply bloat instead, just change those Deflections into ConBoons, while the Giovanni could make more Hordes and rush backwards. Lasombra and Giovanni have Potence that has done nothing for them competitively, ever. You can make the argument that Dominate has effectively reduced them to 2 discipline clans. Deflection can be frustrating if you are bleeding into a deck with 14+ copies of it.

jiazhou...@gmail.com wrote: > I think Conditioning is a worse offender. It takes Dimple 3 actions to > match 1 successful action from Samson? No. It would take Samson two actions. He'd have to hunt after in order to be back on equal footing with Dimple. Even then, it wouldn't be equal, since Samson played a card. With two actions and a card, Dimple could do the same (bleed for three and end with 2 blood). Computer Hacking.

On Jan 13, 10:52 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jan 13, 10:25 am, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > > Never mind. > > Most decks can't do everything. We had a lot of posts going about card-efficiency earlier. I don't think it's worthwhile to rehash those, which is what this will be if I respond further. (Yes, I realize that card efficiency isn't the sole determining factor of everything in the game.) -witness1

> My issue is not bounce, but I think it's rather imbalanced that > Deflection is in dominate. Dominate should not be the best answer to > itself. There is no paper rock scissors balance to it, there's no game > theory aspect. I think many people would agree with you here. In hindsight, it does seem strange that the best bleed discipline also provided the best bleed defense. But this has been a reality of the game since it began, and while the design team have introduced cards like LiT, they're also continuing the DOM bleed bounce trend with cards like Murmur of the False Will. So I'm guessing we won't see a change to this status quo anytime soon. > There are several ways of playing around Deflection: voting, bleeding > for 1-2, Change of Target, torporize the deflector (Shambling Hordes > strategy) I'm wondering why you refer to "Shambling Hordes strategy" here? Just curious, because the idea of dunking the potential bouncer has been around far longer than the Hordes archetype... > Lasombra and > Giovanni have Potence that has done nothing for them competitively, > ever. You can make the argument that Dominate has effectively reduced > them to 2 discipline clans. Well, this is not entirely true. TWDA contains several Gio decks that have a good chunk of potence, most recntly Ira Fay's "18 cards in your hand" decks - though it is more true of the Lasombra. But one could just as easily argue that is is due to to the relative rarity of low- mid cap Lasombra/Gios with POT and the inherint risks of mono POT combat with high caps, rather than the inherint power of Dominate. > Deflection can be frustrating if you are bleeding into a deck with 14+ > copies of it. It's frustrating indeed, if you didn't build a deck to deal with it. But given the popularity of Deflection, you can always count on seeing it and can build your decks accordingly, yeah? jase