Want to fix Weenies, then fix tapping to block

One of the main design flaws with VTES is that small cap vampires are better than large cap vampires. The reason for this is that you have to tap when you block. So basically if you have more minions you will tap out all the blockers. What if the rule was changed so that when blocking you only tapped if the vampire was the same age or older. You wouldn't tap for smaller vampires and you wouldn't tap for allies. What do you think?

[ quoted text not captured ] Minor Irritation Third:C, KoT:C/PT4 Reaction Only usable when this vampire successfully blocks an ally or a younger vampire (play before combat, if any). This vampire doesn't tap for successfully blocking.

[ quoted text not captured ] obviously not the same. if this were the case, not only your opponent has more vampires with less capacity than you, but he also has more cards in his deck that do something useful (bringing him closer to victory) than you do. if rule fix is too burdening to the game and I humbly think it is, maybe a widely available promo card, let's say, an event that allows all vampires not to tap when blocking a minion with capacity equal or less than 5 would also be very usable to alleviate some of weenie dominance and make game more enjoyable for other players. If this is too good, than maybe going with not tapping for blocking younger vampires with cap less than 5. PRE weenie, DEM weenie, DOM weenie, AUS weenie, CEL weenie, ANI weenie...there's one in almost every taste.

[ quoted text not captured ] I know. I know. Minor Irritation, Obedience, Atonement, etc.. are all cards that if you put them in your deck and if you have a predator/prey using small minons and if you actually draw the card at the right time then, yes, you can play them to prevent you from tapping. Unfortunantly, the functionality is much much lower than using On the Que Vie, which is much more useful as it provides an untap effect but is usable against any capacity vampire. If Minor Irritation read " Usable by a tapped vampire. Only usable when a younger vampire or ally is acting. This vampire may block and play reaction cards as though untapped. Untap this vampire at the end of this action, after combat if any." then it would be a good card because it would be twice as effective as a normal wake type card.

Life is cyclic we had the same conversation after Torino in 2006 on google groups, and it has last like during 200 messages many stuff have been said over there, did you read them? if yes, what did you think?

On Feb 13, 1:32 pm, "Ivan ." <ivanjel2...@gmail.com> wrote: > if rule fix is too burdening to the game and I humbly think it is, > maybe a widely available promo card, let's say, an event that allows... DISPARITY SHIFT Event Inconnu. Do not replace until this card is burned. Put this card in play. Vampires of capacity 8 or higher do not tap when blocking vampires of capacity 5 or lower. Burn this card immediately if there are no ready vampires of capacity 5 or less.

"XZealot" <xze...@cox.net> wrote in message news:082d3fd6-5b86-4b4d...@b7g2000yqd.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I think it is a sound idea, but : a) it solves part of the "situation", because weenies will be able to make actions that pass (with natural or added stealth, or rush actions that cost you a minion if he blocks, etc.), so really it adresses only the issue of the mass non-stealthed bleed decks, which aren't that numerous. b) not tapping for allies would be harsh against many, many allies (especially seeing as even a Tumninos wouldn't tap when blocking, say, 2 Nocturns...) c) a big part of the "problem" is that a 3-Cap with the right discipline or equipment or both can send to torpor a 10-cap without much imaginative effort. I really think that it is too late now to address this in the global design of things. My take in adapting the RPG would have been cards with levels of power, and you can play only a level equal or inferior to your capacity. But of course it's way too late for that. So we just have to trust the designers to compensate that "flaw" as well as they can... Orpheus

On Feb 13, 4:09 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] I think such a rule change is a bad idea. It would completely change the fabric of the game. I also think that weenies are better for other reasons, such as the fact that all vampires have a default bleed of 1, so your ratio of resources to potential offense is lower with weenies. Blocking is part of the picture, but not the main part. Second, life has been getting easier for mid caps and large caps incrementally. Target Vitals makes things harder for weenies. Tension, Dragonbound, Neonate Breech, and Anarchist Uprising turn them into liabilities. Sense the Savage Way and Forced March have improved things for mid and large caps. Banning PTO was a huge help. In my opinion, Pentex is the last real problem card that benefits weenies to the detriment of the game. It is becoming an automatic include for competitive decks, which is boring and bad for the game. The level of opportunistic combat which kills little minions keeps rising, and I think that is a better way to keep weenies in check than turning over the whole apple cart in the street. Changing a core rule like who needs to tap to block who seems incredibly disruptive to the game, and unwarranted. -dc

[ quoted text not captured ] Is there a link to the conversation? This is a constant conversation about a very substancial issue.

"XZealot" <xze...@cox.net> wrote in message news:082d3fd6-5b86-4b4d...@b7g2000yqd.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] I think: 1) You might have had a fair argument about weenies eight or ten years ago. I don't find them to be more than just one archetypal choice now - and one with distinct weaknesses as well as strengths. 2) Library cards and vampires have been designed around the blocking rule as written for many years. Changing it so drastically now would screw up the balance of the game. I'm really surprised anyone is still complaining about weenies. If the game has a flaw, it's more along the lines that some of the biggest vampires in the game don't have enough advantages to merit the cost of influencing them in. But then again, many actually do - so even that one's not such a horrible problem. Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] For me the real problem in Vtes is not really that a weenie taps you. The real problem is that a vampire of 2 or 3 capacity with inferior dominate can make a bleed of 5 pool, and I think this is far too much for a vampire of this capacity. Or a vampire of 5 with superior dominate can bleed for 6 or 7. I would like to limit this kind of bleeds introducing some bleed restriction rules. For example a vampire could not bleed for more than his capacity.

How about this for a card concept: Name: X Master out of turn, trifle Only usable if you control a ready vampire with a capacity greater than a minion attempting a bleed action against you. Cost: X pool Burn the actng minion where X is X-1 of the difference between the acting minions cost and the bleed amount (minimum of 1) What do you think? Sutekh_23

[ quoted text not captured ] I have thought of that before, but then a 5-cap can't bleed you for 6, only for 5, and the problem is not that different, because by the time your 10-cap is ready you have been bled for 15, plus your 10 to bring your big vampire, you have only 5 pool left and a turn or so, to minion tap/villein and hopefully stay alive, 2 more turns. A bit ago, on the Path of Blood, I posted that maybe it could be good if vampires couldn't bleed for more than half their capacity, rounded up, that way 5 caps could bleed for 3 at most. Not many liked the idea, though

[ quoted text not captured ] I don't think that weenie decks have recently started to dominate TWD so much to warrant anything more to be done against them. Although I haven't checked TWD so perhaps I'm wrong... If you have problem with weenies in your play environment there are already PLENTY of anti weenie cards that enable you to make the game EXTREMELY hard for them. Ancilla Enpowerment, Snipe Hunt, Obedience, Momentary Delay, Minor Irritation are just a few that come into mind of this crappy player. And never forget the perhaps best anti-weenie defence: Aranthebes, The Immortal. Justine, Elder of Dallas (Grp1 Tre) is also great. I certainly wouldn't want to change the rules in such major way as you suggest! Especially when in the last couple expansions fatties have been given some cards making them even more powerful. -Janne/Lönkka

On Feb 14, 11:36 am, Lönkka <lon...@fantasiapelit.fi> wrote: > > I don't think that weenie decks have recently started to dominate TWD > so much to warrant anything more to be done against them. Although I > haven't checked TWD so perhaps I'm wrong... > -Janne/Lönkka I don't think you're wrong Janne - anecdotal evidence from NAC and EC09 would suggest that fatties are doing absolutely fine. The arguments about a 5-cap bleeding for ridculous amounts is really down to the inherent awesomeness of dominate which is a separate non- issue. There may be an argument to suggest that the only fatties you see played a lot are those with mulit-act ability, ability to p.shift or some other cool tech (but even then multi-act doesn't save Appolonius : ( ). As for pentex - I actually think that needs to stay to encourage players not to build 1 man versus the world decks (and if nothing else is screws Una/Cardano and that makes the card golden) - but then i'm European so I love this card......

[ quoted text not captured ] I think we have all been crushed by a +bleed weenie swarm at some point in time. It has a tendency to be really frustrating but not uncontrolable. I don't think it is a huge issue as if you are seeing it often there are a slew of cards that can mittigate minion disadvantage. My personal favorite is Durga syn with an AK-47 and a gaggle of her own tumnimous.

squidalot wrote: > As for pentex - I actually think that needs to stay to encourage > players not to build 1 man versus the world decks (and if nothing > else is screws Una/Cardano and that makes the card golden) - > but then i'm European so I love this card...... "Cardano" ??? Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/ Please buy my cards! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html

Kevin M. <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > squidalot wrote: > > As for pentex - I actually think that needs to stay to encourage > > players not to build 1 man versus the world decks (and if nothing > > else is screws Una/Cardano and that makes the card golden) - > > but then i'm European so I love this card...... > "Cardano" ??? He's probably referring to Cardano + MotS + Ankara.

Fred Scott said : 1) You might have had a fair argument about weenies eight or ten years ago. I don't find them to be more than just one archetypal choice now - and one with distinct weaknesses as well as strengths. 2) Library cards and vampires have been designed around the blocking rule as written for many years. Changing it so drastically now would screw up the balance of the game. This is pretty much everything. Anyway, take a close look to the new cards and find out some weenie-impairing cards (ie Neonate Breach, Scourge of the Enochians, The Fourth Cycle. And are you going to unbalance a game that works fine just because you've lost to weenies last night? LSJ mentioned Minor irritation. I find it a bit uninteresting, however, Iook at what the game is. Even Dragon Breath Rounds weenies need something to work with.

On 13 fév, 22:09, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > One of the main design flaws with VTES is that small cap vampires are > better than large cap vampires. yes, but weenies usually are more vulnerable to damage and blood loss. Also, it's easier to recoup pool spend on larger vampires using minion taps, voter caps etc... without putting them in danger. > The reason for this is that you have to tap when you block. So > basically if you have more minions you will tap out all the blockers. yes, certainly, but larger vampires have acces to cards like No secrets for the magaji, Eternal vigilance, Attonement which are perfectly suitable to maintain a weenie horde at bay. Weenies are traditionnaly badly hurt with votes like ancilla, anarchist, and neonate. No need to block every action to be effective. There is another solution, which is rarely played : bleed reduction. It does not tap out the vampire playing it, and it's often enough to maintain the bleed agression to a tiny level. (I had this deck with greta kircher and 7 telepathic counter that could resist in most weenie bleed environment, i should build it again since Nocturns are becoming more and more popular in paris :) ) The solution exists : you just have to play the cards :) > What if the rule was changed so that when blocking you only tapped if > the vampire was the same age or older. You wouldn't tap for smaller > vampires and you wouldn't tap for allies. > > What do you think? With all due respect, I think this solution would be to complicated to incorporate in a system that's been working quite good for more than a decade. I'd say it would make no sense.

"Dr.Mafrune" <tristan...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dee7fe42-75d3-4509...@z17g2000yqh.googlegroups.com... > For me the real problem in Vtes is not really that a weenie taps you. > The real problem is that a vampire of 2 or 3 capacity with inferior > dominate can make a bleed of 5 pool, and I think this is far too much > for a vampire of this capacity. > Or a vampire of 5 with superior dominate can bleed for 6 or 7. > I would like to limit this kind of bleeds introducing some bleed > restriction rules. For example a vampire could not bleed for more than > his capacity. I think such a change would explicitly defeat the intent of some of the Anarch bleed mod cards and permanents intended to enhance Anarch bleeding. Again, I'm surprised at this complaint. I don't see a lot of 2 or 3 capacity weenies bleeding for 5. There is the odd weenie who has superior dominate but such vampires are deliberately scattered few and far between the groups - you can't generally but several of them on the board at the same time. So, yea, you might take a stealth-less bleed from Keith Moody for 5 but the game doesn't seem like it's rife with such problems to me. Fred

On Feb 14, 12:11 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Again, I'm surprised at this complaint. I don't see a lot of 2 or 3 > capacity weenies bleeding for 5. Not that I think that Norm's initial suggestion needs implementing (the short version is that there have been *plenty* of cards introduced into the game recently that power up mongo vampires and power down weenies, so I think the balance scale is getting a lot closer to balanced than it used to be), but any 3 cap with dom can bleed for 5--Govern+Conditioning, at inferior dominate, is a bleed of 5. You can make a whole crypt without duplicates of G2/3 vampires with dom that are capacity 2-3. Your deck is Governs, Conditionings, Misdirections, and Life in the Cities. Maybe some Deflections if you are worried, but probably unnecessary. Every action you take is potentially a bleed of 5. I mean, I agree that this sort of thing doesn't come up all that much in reality, as people are afraid of being beaten down with a sack full of doorknobs. But it certainly can. (and now I'm off to build a deck on JOL, where people can't hit me with a sack full of doorknobs!) -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] You mean i can hit that dude, that plays this goddamned crack smoking child abusing sack'o'shit weenie dom deck, every bloody week, with a bag of doorknobs???!?!?!!! AWESOME! /Blooded Sand is off to the hardware store.....

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Not that I think that Norm's initial suggestion needs implementing > (the short version is that there have been *plenty* of cards > introduced into the game recently that power up mongo vampires > and power down weenies, so I think the balance scale is getting > a lot closer to balanced than it used to be), [snip] While I agree with what you said above, the issue is that if you are playing large-cap vampires with these cards with the argument that you need them to balance out the small-cap advantage, you are being forced by the nature of large- and small-cap vampires to spend valuable card slots on cards which could instead be partially implemented by some kind of rules addition. For example, my personal dream-world rules change would be to reprint Freak Drive to be once per turn and then to implement a rule stating that vampires with capacity 8 or above may burn 1 blood to untap once during their minion phase. Clearly, small-cap vampires have an action-advantage that large-cap vampires have no base defense against. Large-cap vampires have no consistent bleed advantage, no consistent strength-advantage, no consistent intercept advantage, and a clear pool disadvantage. The only thing they really have going for them is that once you get them out you have more options. If you survive. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:648122c8-0802-4889...@o26g2000vbd.googlegroups.com... > On Feb 14, 12:11 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > Again, I'm surprised at this complaint. I don't see a lot of 2 or 3 > > capacity weenies bleeding for 5. > > Not that I think that Norm's initial suggestion needs implementing > (the short version is that there have been *plenty* of cards > introduced into the game recently that power up mongo vampires and > power down weenies, so I think the balance scale is getting a lot > closer to balanced than it used to be), but any 3 cap with dom can > bleed for 5--Govern+Conditioning, at inferior dominate, is a bleed of > 5. Well, OK. Yea, I'd forgotten that Govern plus inferior Conditioning added up to 5, I admit. Still, mono inferior dominate has next to no combat defense except discipline-less Fake Out, Dodge, and maybe Thoughts Betrayed if you're streching things. More importantly, spending one blood on the Govern and one on the Conditioning is impossible for a one cap and can't get done twice in a row only by two and three caps. So, still, you don't really see these decks in practice so my answer is the same: not a problem. > I mean, I agree that this sort of thing doesn't come up all that much > in reality, as people are afraid of being beaten down with a sack full > of doorknobs. But it certainly can. > > (and now I'm off to build a deck on JOL, where people can't hit me > with a sack full of doorknobs!) *bang!* Heh! Fred

On Feb 14, 2:15 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > While I agree with what you said above, the issue is that if you are > playing large-cap vampires with these cards with the argument that > you need them to balance out the small-cap advantage, you are being > forced by the nature of large- and small-cap vampires to spend > valuable card slots on cards which could instead be partially > implemented by some kind of rules addition. Well, they could be, sure, but big vampires have a lot of advantages in and of themselves (lots of options, votes, special abilities). I mean, don't get me wrong here--there is certainly a very concrete advantage to weenies over big guys (i.e. 10 pool spent on 1 guy is much less effective, generally speaking, than 10 pool spent on 10 guys). And most of the cards that upgrade the big guys aren't just narrow weenie hosers (i.e. I'm not thinking about Minor Irritation here :-); they tend to be strong in and of themselves--Enkil Cog, Sense the Savage Way, and Neonate Breach, for example, are good just to play all the time, not just when you expect weenies. And in recent history, big vampires have gotten a lot of very solid special abilities, making them a lot more worth the effort. > For example, my personal dream-world rules change would be to reprint > Freak Drive to be once per turn and then to implement a rule stating > that vampires with capacity 8 or above may burn 1 blood to untap once > during their minion phase. Well, yeah, Freak Drive certainly needs to be once per turn :-) I don't know that 8+ caps need to be able to free freak drive, however. Especially given the growing number of cards that do that for you anyway, and work better when you are large as opposed to small (Monster and Cavalier for example). > Clearly, small-cap vampires have an action-advantage that large-cap > vampires have no base defense against. Large-cap vampires have no > consistent bleed advantage, no consistent strength-advantage, > no consistent intercept advantage, and a clear pool disadvantage. All of this is very true. But still, recent additions to the game have gone a long way towards evening things up. I see *way* more big vampire decks doing well consistently these days than I did back in the day. -Peter

On Feb 14, 2:48 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Still, mono inferior dominate has next to no combat defense except > discipline-less Fake Out, Dodge, and maybe Thoughts Betrayed if you're > streching things. (Absorb the Mind--dom Dodge). Sure. It isn't, like, the best deck in the world or anything, but weenie mono discipline decks (Dom/Pre/Dem) tend to be incredibly fast, incredibly debilitating, and bleed for 4-5 an action. And while they don't show up constantly (mostly out of fear of physical abuse :-), they still show up. And do pretty well. They aren't going to sweep every table, no, but they are going to sweep some tables. > More importantly, spending one blood on the Govern > and one on the Conditioning is impossible for a one cap and can't get > done twice in a row only by two and three caps. So, still, you don't > really see these decks in practice so my answer is the same: not a > problem. Weenie Presence still sees play all the time. Bleeding for 3-5 per action with 2-3 caps is not at all uncommon. Same with weenie Dementation. Jackie and Midget bleed for 4 per action. At stealth even. Without spending any blood at all. And are 3 caps. Weenie Dom is certainly not the most optimal of the weenie bleedzookas due to the blood costs, but you get out a 3 cap, bleed your prey for 5, and then next turn, play Life in the City and do it again. You get this through 4 times, their game is done. And that isn't that hard to do. I mean, yeah, again, I don't think this justifies making up a new rule so that big guys don't tap when blocking little guys. But it is not at all out of the realm of reason to think that 3 caps bleeding for 4-5 per action is not that uncommon. Which goes back to the old "VTES Reset" plan that has been around for a hundred years now, where cards are modified/removed such that it is hard (if not impossible) to bleed for more than 3 with an inferior discipline. > *bang!* Heh! I certainly need to strongly consider if I want to put this together in reality and take for a spin. Someone will punch me :-) -Peter

Peter D Bakija wrote: > "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: >> While I agree with what you said above, the issue is that if you >> are playing large-cap vampires with these cards with the argument >> that you need them to balance out the small-cap advantage, you are >> being forced by the nature of large- and small-cap vampires >> to spend valuable card slots on cards which could instead be >> partially implemented by some kind of rules addition. > > Well, they could be, sure, but big vampires have a lot of advantages > in and of themselves (lots of options, votes, special abilities). There is no guarantee that a large-cap vampire has votes or text. >> For example, my personal dream-world rules change would be >> to reprint Freak Drive to be once per turn and then to implement >> a rule stating that vampires with capacity 8 or above may burn >> 1 blood to untap once during their minion phase. > > Well, yeah, Freak Drive certainly needs to be once per turn :-) > > I don't know that 8+ caps need to be able to free freak drive, > however. Especially given the growing number of cards that do that > for you anyway, and work better when you are large as opposed > to small (Monster and Cavalier for example). Which is why I wrote what I wrote about how large-cap vampires being forced to use card slots to deal with small-cap vampires isn't fair. >> Clearly, small-cap vampires have an action-advantage that large-cap >> vampires have no base defense against. Large-cap vampires have no >> consistent bleed advantage, no consistent strength-advantage, >> no consistent intercept advantage, and a clear pool disadvantage. > > All of this is very true. But still, recent additions to the game > have gone a long way towards evening things up. I see *way* more > big vampire decks doing well consistently these days than I did back > in the day. Sure, I agree. But once again you point to the fact that when using large-cap vampires you are forced to burn card slots. Isn't the large-cap disadvantage still unfair? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Feb 14, 3:48 pm, "Kevin M." <youw...@imaspammer.org> wrote: > There is no guarantee that a large-cap vampire has votes or text. This is true. But the good chunk of more recent big caps have votes or text that make them good relative to small vampires. I mean, yeah, Apolonius still blows. But all the big guys with good untap abilities and great titles and bleed bonuses and built in pool gain abilities make them worth using. > Which is why I wrote what I wrote about how large-cap vampires > being forced to use card slots to deal with small-cap vampires > isn't fair. Sure--but to be fair, the card slots being used to deal with small cap vampires are also just as good against non small cap vampires. Saulot taking 3 actions a turn is going to be just as good against non weenie decks as weenie decks, for example. Neonate Breach is going to hose weenie decks, sure, but also be a very strong offense against a generic prey most of the time anyway. > Sure, I agree. But once again you point to the fact that when using > large-cap vampires you are forced to burn card slots. Isn't the > large-cap disadvantage still unfair? If it were 1997, I'd totally agree with you. But with all the new stuff that makes big guys worth the effort from recent additions to the game, I think the balance is a lot closer to even now. I mean, yeah, still, if a Saulot deck sits in front of a weenie pre bleed deck, it is going to get wiped out before it does anything cool. But that is likely true of most decks in that position. -Peter

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:efff3990-6ffd-4d9d...@b2g2000yqi.googlegroups.com... > On Feb 14, 2:48 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > Still, mono inferior dominate has next to no combat defense except > > discipline-less Fake Out, Dodge, and maybe Thoughts Betrayed if you're > > streching things. > > (Absorb the Mind--dom Dodge). Ah, how 'bout that. There _is_ a free Dom dodge... > Sure. It isn't, like, the best deck in the world or anything, but > weenie mono discipline decks (Dom/Pre/Dem) tend to be incredibly fast, > incredibly debilitating, and bleed for 4-5 an action. And while they > don't show up constantly (mostly out of fear of physical abuse :-), > they still show up. And do pretty well. They aren't going to sweep > every table, no, but they are going to sweep some tables. > > > More importantly, spending one blood on the Govern > > and one on the Conditioning is impossible for a one cap and can't get > > done twice in a row only by two and three caps. So, still, you don't > > really see these decks in practice so my answer is the same: not a > > problem. > > Weenie Presence still sees play all the time. Bleeding for 3-5 per > action with 2-3 caps is not at all uncommon. I have actually never seen the dom weeny deck myself in a tournament. I've seen people play presence weenie from time to time. I'm pretty sure the difference is the availability of S:CE, which is a whole lot harder chew through for a combat deck. That is, you may get a couple guys in a hurry - but most combat decks will run through a lot of combat cards torping or burning minions from a deck with a fair amount of S:CE. I suspect the usual pattern is to run out of combat cards trying to do so. And inferior presense bleed for 5 has the same problem as the inferior dominate bleed for 5: the bleed card costs a blood and the bleed modifier costs a blood, meaning a 2 or 3 cap vampire is not going to do this twice in a row. In fact, unless you're Toreador, I'm not sure how to do a bleed for 5. You bleed for four every third turn. Even so, it's better than dom due to the S:CE thing. IMHO. > Same with weenie > Dementation. Jackie and Midget bleed for 4 per action. At stealth > even. Without spending any blood at all. And are 3 caps. Not sure who Jackie is. But you know the problem with Midget as you type that: you spend pool to make Midget act - that's worse than spending the blood. > Weenie Dom is > certainly not the most optimal of the weenie bleedzookas due to the > blood costs, but you get out a 3 cap, bleed your prey for 5, and then > next turn, play Life in the City and do it again. You get this through > 4 times, their game is done. And that isn't that hard to do. Well, actually, I'd dispute that it isn't hard to do. It looks pretty dicey to get four of them off to me, given their defenselessness and the blood they spend to do it even once. > I mean, yeah, again, I don't think this justifies making up a new rule > so that big guys don't tap when blocking little guys. But it is not at > all out of the realm of reason to think that 3 caps bleeding for 4-5 > per action is not that uncommon. In the places I play, it seems to be - and most likely for the drawbacks I've cited. Fred

Peter D Bakija wrote: > I certainly need to strongly consider if I want to put this > together in reality and take for a spin. Someone will punch me :-) I play it on JOL from time to time. Don't bother. It sucks just like it always did. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:02:06 -0700, Frederick Scott <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "XZealot" <xze...@cox.net> wrote in message >> What if the rule was changed so that when blocking you only tapped if >> the vampire was the same age or older. You wouldn't tap for smaller >> vampires and you wouldn't tap for allies. >> >> What do you think? > > I think: [snip] > I'm really surprised anyone is still complaining about weenies. > If the game has a flaw, it's more along the lines that some of > the biggest vampires in the game don't have enough advantages to > merit the cost of influencing them in. But then again, many > actually do - so even that one's not such a horrible problem. *card idea to further help bigger vampires in performing more actions* Entrenched Influence Action Modifier 1 blood You may play only one Entrenched Influence each turn. Requires a vampire with a Capacity of 6 or more. Only usable after a successful action. Untap this acting vampire. If this vampire is Capacity 8 or older, this card costs 1 less. If this vampire is Capacity 10 or older, and you haven't played a Entrenched Influence this turn yet, you may play an additional Entrenched Influence this turn. ...guess it ties back to two things... 1, cards giving extra benefit to older folks and 2, the primary importance of the number of actions you can take. -- Regards, Daneel

On Feb 14, 4:09 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Ah, how 'bout that. There _is_ a free Dom dodge... I know. It's crazy. I'm waiting for the dominate ag damage. > I have actually never seen the dom weeny deck myself in a tournament. > I've seen people play presence weenie from time to time. I'm pretty > sure the difference is the availability of S:CE, which is a whole lot > harder chew through for a combat deck. That is, you may get a couple > guys in a hurry - but most combat decks will run through a lot of > combat cards torping or burning minions from a deck with a fair amount > of S:CE. I suspect the usual pattern is to run out of combat cards > trying to do so. Oh, sure--weenie presence is both more common and probably better than weenie dom for exactly that reason; the S:CE. Remember the "I was hiding my proprietary deck tech from peering eyes by not putting it into the TWDA till after the championships!" discussion from a few months back? One of those was exactly a weenie pre bleed deck. > And inferior presense bleed for 5 has the same problem as the > inferior dominate bleed for 5: the bleed card costs a blood and the > bleed modifier costs a blood, meaning a 2 or 3 cap vampire is not > going to do this twice in a row. In fact, unless you're Toreador, I'm > not sure how to do a bleed for 5. You bleed for four every third > turn. Even so, it's better than dom due to the S:CE thing. IMHO. Yeah, you only get to bleed for 4 most of the time with weenie pre, and probably only 3 as the 1 blood for the Aire generally isn't worth it. But still, with weenie dom, even with the blood cost, you still get to hit twice with a 3 cap (assuming Life in the City in the mix. Which I'm assuming here. Ooh! and maybe even Gird Minions for a late game surge!). If a 3 cap bleeds for 10 and then vanishes? Probably worth it. > Not sure who Jackie is. But you know the problem with Midget as you > type that: you spend pool to make Midget act - that's worse than > spending the blood. Jackie is the 3 cap DEM (G4). I'm gathering that you don't see much weenie Dementation around your parts either. It is really good. I mean, yeah, you only bleed for 4 per action instead of 5, but you also get the stealth. And to gain a pool. Midget, infernal and all, is total gold in this sort of situation. > Well, actually, I'd dispute that it isn't hard to do. It looks pretty > dicey to get four of them off to me, given their defenselessness and > the blood they spend to do it even once. You bleed for 5 on T2 before your prey gets out a minion. Next turn, you tap their minion with Misdirection and bleed for 5 twice. I mean, not always going to happen. But not at all an unreasonable thing to consider. > In the places I play, it seems to be - and most likely for the drawbacks > I've cited. Weenies bleeding for 4-5 per action is rare, or weenie dominate is rare? I mean, yeah, as an exact deck, weenie dom isn't all that common exactly for the reasons to mention. But weenies bleeding for 4 per action is generally just as bad. And the DEM weenies get to do it for free. With stealth. -Peter

"Daneel" <dan...@eposta.hu> wrote in message news:opu7413o...@news.chello.hu... > On Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:02:06 -0700, Frederick Scott >> If the game has a flaw, it's more along the lines that some of >> the biggest vampires in the game don't have enough advantages to >> merit the cost of influencing them in. But then again, many >> actually do - so even that one's not such a horrible problem. > > *card idea to further help bigger vampires in performing more actions* > > Entrenched Influence > Action Modifier > 1 blood > You may play only one Entrenched Influence each turn. > Requires a vampire with a Capacity of 6 or more. > Only usable after a successful action. Untap this acting vampire. > If this vampire is Capacity 8 or older, this card costs 1 less. > If this vampire is Capacity 10 or older, and you haven't played > a Entrenched Influence this turn yet, you may play an additional > Entrenched Influence this turn. > > ...guess it ties back to two things... 1, cards giving extra benefit > to older folks and 2, the primary importance of the number of actions > you can take. AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGG!!!! AAAAAA-RICCCCCCCCKKKK-AAAAAAaaaaaaa AAAARRRGG!!! JANE, *STOP* *THIS* *CRAZ-ZEEEEEE* *THINGGgggggggggg....* Really, dude. If you pass that rule, can we say that Aricka doesn't contest. 'Cause *EVERYBODY* will be playing her... It'll be like 9-ball. The first guy who gets Aricka on the table should clear the whole table in his first turn. Then you reset the game and play again, seeing if that guy can clear the table again. Count how many times he clears the table before he gets bad luck and fails. Then the next guy gets his chance to clear tables with Aricka. Keep going around after each player fails. The one who cleared the most tables with Aricka in a single turn wins. Fred

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:75732ff5-a6f9-4077...@h2g2000yqj.googlegroups.com... On Feb 14, 4:09 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > And inferior presense bleed for 5 has the same problem as the > > inferior dominate bleed for 5: the bleed card costs a blood and the > > bleed modifier costs a blood, meaning a 2 or 3 cap vampire is not > > going to do this twice in a row. In fact, unless you're Toreador, I'm > > not sure how to do a bleed for 5. You bleed for four every third > > turn. Even so, it's better than dom due to the S:CE thing. IMHO. > > Yeah, you only get to bleed for 4 most of the time with weenie pre, > and probably only 3 as the 1 blood for the Aire generally isn't worth > it. But still, with weenie dom, even with the blood cost, you still > get to hit twice with a 3 cap (assuming Life in the City in the mix. > Which I'm assuming here. Ooh! and maybe even Gird Minions for a late > game surge!). If a 3 cap bleeds for 10 and then vanishes? Probably > worth it. I suppose. Except that the major formula for getting those bleeds through is by outnumbering the other guys on a given turn - which is hard to do if you get snot kicked out of the first guys who run into blockers the first turn you do it. Yea, you can get the extra bleed or two in early sometimes. And you can probably refill the odd pool on some guys with LitC or with a bit of Blood Doll push. But trying to keep enough guys on the board to get your stealthless bleeds through gets very hard very fast, especially if someone draws a mittful of Wakes early and got some combat to go with it. And even if it works on the first prey, I usually see the whole thing come to a grinding halt on the second prey, who's both had plenty of time to setup and very little pressure on him at all after the first prey stopped all forward motion once he realized who he was dealing with. Even weenie presense often suffers this fate. Weenie dominate would need a hell of a lot table luck to avoid it, I think. > > Not sure who Jackie is. But you know the problem with Midget as you > > type that: you spend pool to make Midget act - that's worse than > > spending the blood. > > Jackie is the 3 cap DEM (G4). Ah, yes. She's the Keith Moody of Dem. Sure, there's one. > I'm gathering that you don't see much > weenie Dementation around your parts either. It is really good. Weenie Dem is something different. Dementation has its own stealth. Usually, though, I think people just take a look at the Dementation cards that are out there and reason that the solution to 5-6 cap Dementation is the same solution as to weenie Dementation but the midcap stuff delivers the bleed much more reliably. Why bother sending weenies to get blocked and maybe torped when you can just waltz right past the blockers with _all_ your minions given a half decent draw? I think the point of both weenie Dem and weenie Dom is pretty hard to justify. The point of weenie presence, on the other hand, makes a lot more sense in that your initial bleeders who get blocked, often will survive with S:CE. (Plus there's probably fewer good presence/obfuscate bleeders than dom/obf or dem/obf.) > I mean, yeah, you only bleed for 4 per action instead of 5, but > you also get the stealth. And to gain a pool. Midget, infernal > and all, is total gold in this sort of situation. I say use Jackie and Midget with Persia, Uncle George, and Apache Jones. Hmmm. Maybe _I'll_ build that deck - just to be a pain. > > Well, actually, I'd dispute that it isn't hard to do. It looks pretty > > dicey to get four of them off to me, given their defenselessness and > > the blood they spend to do it even once. > > You bleed for 5 on T2 before your prey gets out a minion. Next turn, > you tap their minion with Misdirection and bleed for 5 twice. I mean, > not always going to happen. But not at all an unreasonable thing to > consider. ...and then often you'll draw that misdirection after your 1st 10 cards or so - when it won't do a lot of good. Personally, I like Anarch Troublemakers for this purpose instead of Misdirections. It's free, will tap two minions, and it keeps going around the table, which means you may get to use it again later (after all, you plan on tapping out all the time anyway) or you may get to contest it with your prey, which is cool either way. An Anarch Troublemaker, drawn at a bad time, can be laid down on the table, removed from the hand free of charge, and saved until a good time to set off. The one drawback is the turn of delay and advanced warning your predator gets. The former is unfortunate but still not a bad tradeoff for the card's benefits and the latter isn't that important. > > In the places I play, it seems to be - and most likely for the drawbacks > > I've cited. > > Weenies bleeding for 4-5 per action is rare, or weenie dominate is > rare? Both. (That is to say, both are rare.) I don't recall seeing a weenie domainate deck in a tournament. (But, of course, I have CRS - it's a terrible disease and it means you can't totally trust me on this.) Fred

[ quoted text not captured ] I wouldn't have assumed people to attribute so much to a hypothetical disciplineless (but otherwise limited) Freak Drive effect and bring the example of one of the minions who already has ample access to Freak Drive effects to illustrate... Sure this is the post you wanted to reply to? :) -- Regards, Daneel

On Feb 14, 1:48 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "Peter D Bakija" <p...@lightlink.com> wrote in messagenews:648122c8-0802-4889...@o26g2000vbd.googlegroups.com... > > > On Feb 14, 12:11 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > > Again, I'm surprised at this complaint. I don't see a lot of 2 or 3 > > > capacity weenies bleeding for 5. > > > Not that I think that Norm's initial suggestion needs implementing > > (the short version is that there have been *plenty* of cards > > introduced into the game recently that power up mongo vampires and > > power down weenies, so I think the balance scale is getting a lot > > closer to balanced than it used to be), but any 3 cap with dom can > > bleed for 5--Govern+Conditioning, at inferior dominate, is a bleed of > > 5. > > Well, OK. Yea, I'd forgotten that Govern plus inferior Conditioning > added up to 5, I admit. > > Still, mono inferior dominate has next to no combat defense except > discipline-less Fake Out, Dodge, and maybe Thoughts Betrayed if you're > streching things. More importantly, spending one blood on the Govern > and one on the Conditioning is impossible for a one cap and can't get > done twice in a row only by two and three caps. So, still, you don't > really see these decks in practice so my answer is the same: not a > problem. > Fred I do not want to force this either, but with Life in the City, a card that Peter mentions as some of the cards this type of deck include all the time, a 3-cap *can* bleed for 5 two times in a row. Even if this doesn't happen too often, it can happen. Maybe is not a problem all the time. Is not that you face weenie bleed decks all the time (well, maybe Blooded Sand is) but still the disadvantage relies on including too many cards to face weenies (or 5- caps, in case those were considered mid-caps) when those decks only include cards to oust you. That is the problem, not facing mono-dom weenie decks that do not pose a threat to you See Kevin's post above.

Wouldn't that idea make a tooled-up high cap blocker essentially into a one-man wall various decks could never (barring Pentex, Blind Spot, Seduction etc. like cards) ever even bring one bleed to be successful. Me likes the idea of Enkidu (with a fortitude skill card) sitting on some Raptors and prevent permanents while not tapping to block any of those dweebs that come over... Regardless that would be too fundamental a change. Also I don't think Weenies are completely out of balance. Some decks just cannot deal with them at all...

[ quoted text not captured ] That is one of the key factors of tournament play. You select a deck keeping in mind " hey, a vampire of three capacity comes on turn 1 in play can bleed for five " an that shifts the entire metagame. Look at TWDA which kind of decks won last European Championship. Lastly select decks that, either can bleed for more than capacity of the vampire or decks that can face this issue, because the primal strategy on this deck can combat this kind of decks... weenie auspex, animalism, warghouls, shamblings, nocturns, breeding decks.

> > That is one of the key factors of tournament play. You select a deck > keeping in mind " hey, a vampire of three capacity comes on turn 1 in > play can bleed for five " an that shifts the entire metagame. > Look at TWDA which kind of decks won last European Championship. > Lastly select decks that, either can bleed for more than capacity of > the vampire or decks that can face this issue, because the primal > strategy on this deck can combat this kind of decks... weenie auspex, > animalism, warghouls, shamblings, nocturns, breeding decks. Yep, it is always difficult to play a deck that cannot stand being agressed very early in the game by weenie bleed, or mid-early by stealth/bleed. Losing 10 before playing could be a direct death if things go wrong [understand, no villein in starting hand] or a life- staying casualty should things go well. and it is not surprising that those decks win less often as they will have at least 1 round per tournament flawed by such a predator TTC advices on any vtes topics: http://ttcmaster.blogspot.com cards at low price without paying ebay fees: coincoi...@hotmail.com

XZealot wrote: > One of the main design flaws with VTES is that small cap vampires are > better than large cap vampires. > > The reason for this is that you have to tap when you block. So > basically if you have more minions you will tap out all the blockers. > > What if the rule was changed so that when blocking you only tapped if > the vampire was the same age or older. You wouldn't tap for smaller > vampires and you wouldn't tap for allies. > > What do you think? I think if you skew the game towards the fatties like you are suggesting, we will have threads in the future bemoaning the wallpapering of 1/4 of the vampires who are weenies. best - chris

Also I thought the TWDA ratios picked up AAA, Arika etc as more than regular guest spots. I understand that there are less variations of AAA/Arika etc than there is of mono dom/pre/dem but still these bigfat scary decks win a lot because they're good and mono discpline decks have a habit of killing their prey and then being killed.