WwEF: game balance and other cards (long)

I have included excrepts of an earlier seller's post (I was NOT the poster of that one) at the end of this post, for the purpose of supporting data. One way, I think, of looking at game balance is like this: if a popular, hot card is modified by raising its cost, would people still be using it the same? Think about WwEF. Some people use more than 10. If the card costs 1 blood to play, would people still use it? I think they'll still use 4 or 5. If it costs 2 blood, would people still use it? Some may put 1 or 2 in the deck, but the card is not too terrific at 2 blood. But if someone would still use 1 or 2 (I'd use 1) if the cost is raised by 2, then it is quite likely that the card is currently too cheap. Raising its cost by 1 would be quite reasonable, IMO. On a side note, I think in Revised the card should only be useable if you are playing another reaction or are actually blocking (a blockable action at enough intercept). In other words, no dumping the card on a bleed across the table or on a stealthed action without risking combat. In the commercial quoted below, WwEF is the only common card which is sold out! The demand for this card seems to be much higher than some useful commons, such as Lucky Blow and Computer Hacking, and the Animalism untaps. The cost of "Do not Replace until end of Combat" for a /reaction/ (not combat) card simply outweights the requirement of a discipline (WwEF is also more flexible than the Animalism untaps). Another one is Misdirection. If it costs 1+X, people will no doubt still use it. If it costs 2+X, some people may still use it, but some will be taking it out of their decks, If it costs 2X, then I bet people will shake their heads and take it out. So 2X is no doubt too expensive, but X is simply too cheap. Because there are Dominate bleeds and the like, 2+X is not entirely unreasonable. A card less often talked about is Majesty. Depending on deck strategy, some players put 12 or more in their decks. A Strike: Combat Ends is many things in one. It counters all strikes, all additional strikes, and all presses. And if that is not enough, the Superior version allows you to pay 1 blood to untap. Imagine that the card costs 1 blood to play. There are so many combat situations in which the Combat Ends is easily worth /more than/ the 1 blood: the .44, a Brujah with Blur and 3 Undead Strengths, etc., etc. And even if the card costs 1 blood, those people who now use 12 would most likely use at least 6. They're not going to replace them all with Open Crate's and/or Dodges: they're never the same. I'd say that making Majesty cost 1 blood to play (and 1 more to untap if Superior) is at all reasonable. Opponent used 1 action to Bum's Rush you, so you have to spend 1 blood to counter it. Remember that opponent has to build an entire combat deck to support it (unlike WwEF, which just goes in about any deck); you only need a fraction of your deck for those Majesty's. Many combat cards cost blood; I'm surprised why such a useful card as Majesty doesn't. Making it cost 1 blood is not going to screw the Ventrue's voting deck with Majesty: it just helps to balance the cards out. (Please, no flames against an argument on restricting Majesty. That is not the argument here. I'm not talking about restricting Majesty, I'm talking about making it cost 1 blood.) Majesty is also one of those highly-demanded cards. Cards that give a /lot/ of blood, especially those that can give a lot of pool in combos, tend to be in great demand. Some ways should be thought of to limit the use of these cards. Another post of mine contained some examples, such as making Minion Tap cost 1 pool (in the least), limiting Giant's Blood to giving 3 blood, and making Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would equate Blood Doll with a Powerbase. The Blood Doll as it is, is equivalent to 2 Powerbases without a cost to play it.) Think about making a big vampire, and then Minion Tap half of its blood (the absolutely most mundane use of the card). This usage alone is almost equivalent to playing /many/ skill cards on a small vampire. No wonder the card is so much sought after. It's quite clear that the Ivory Bow's capabilities should well cost 2 pool (compare with Flamethrower), but it is designed to be a rare unique card that motivitates players to buy a lot of cards to get one, so I won't argue too much about the case here. Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, which can easily be neutralized, there is no good counter for Charnas: the Tremere pays 1 blood, and the victim is pretty doomed. IMO either the action to get Charnas should be more blockable, such as (D) at +0 stealth, or Charnas should cost 2 or 3 blood. Even if it costs 3 blood, a lot of people are still going to use it (because it's very difficult to get rid of, once hooked). The most of all, Fame. Can easily make your prey lose 3 blood, sometimes repeatedly, without a cost to play the card. -------Beginning of quote------------------- (Wait! Oops, I lost the original poster. Someone else posted it a while ago. Please don't sue me.) This is a sale of Jyhad cards. ... RARES Aaron's Feeding Razor R 4.00 out Al's Army Apparatus R 3.00 8 [...](lots of lines deleted here and there) Day Operation R 5.00 out Freak Drive R 4.00 5 Ivory Bow R 6.00 out XTC Laced Blood R 5.00 out UNCOMMONS - all 1.00 or less! Bastard Sword U 0.50 16 Blood Bond U 1.00 10 Bloodhunt U 1.00 11 [...] Fame U 1.00 out Flame Thrower U 1.00 8 Pulse of the Canaille U 1.00 9 Rampage U 0.50 19 The 5th Tradition:Hospitality U 1.00 out COMMONS - all .10 each! Acrobatics C 0.10 35 Aid from Bats C 0.10 35 Ancient Influence C 0.10 34 [...] Blood Doll C 0.10 18 Cat's Guidance C 0.10 27 Majesty C 0.10 16 Minion Tap C 0.10 12 Rat's Warning C 0.10 30 Wake with Evenings Freshness C 0.10 out ---------End of Quote-------------------- -- "Live Life with Heart." Alan Kwan kw...@cs.cornell.edu

(deleted extremely long "unbalanced" argument.) Why not simply play a better game of Jyhad instead of limiting your opponents to your level of play? Jyhad is a game based on resources. I do not mean having the money to buy lots of cards, but rather the resources of the Meth. you are pretending to be. The Meth. has spent considerable time and effort to build the powerbase that they have, and most have done it differently than their peers. Don't work so hard to dissolve an opponent's ideas, but instead improve your own. (Not a flame, but take it as such if you must.) Remy leb...@u.washington.edu | It's not my fault! Gambit at the U.W. | Laugh it up fuzzball! | - Han Solo "I don't want the world, I just want your half." "Life is like a riddle, and I'm really stumped."

In article <3j2ko9$b...@NNTP.MsState.Edu> cr...@Ra.MsState.Edu (Charles Richard Robb) writes: >But with Misdirection, Sudden Reversal stops it. Also WwEF will waken >vamps to block as will Rats Warning, and then you can play Cat's Guidance >to untap after blocking. I have stopped a Misdirection with one minion. > [...] Sudden Reversal stops any master at no extra benefit to the player who played SR; its existence does not lead to the conclusion that "ANY master card is balanced because it can be countered". Animalism untaps can render Misdirection ineffective, but that doesn't automatically mean that Misdirection should be cheap. Canine Horde's render Flamethrowers and .44's totally useless; would you mind if WotC publish /very rare/ .42's and "Nitro-flamers" which do the same thing, but cost 1 pool each? I'd quit the game. I'd consider quitting the game even if WotC just publish the Jyhad equivalent of Multi-lands, the rare multi-skill card. >Alan Kwan (kw...@cs.cornell.edu) wrote: >: ... making >: Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs >: 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would >: equate Blood Doll with a Powerbase. The >: Blood Doll as it is, is equivalent to >: 2 Powerbases without a cost to play it.) > >If you don't like the blood dolls being used, Sudden Reversal them... It is easy to prove /mathematically/ it doesn't pay to put Sudden Reversal's in your deck just for the purpose of general hosers, such as Misdirection and Blood Dolls. The obvious strategy for everyone is to put those powerful cards in their decks. Sudden Reversal'ing a card does not give me any real advantage over the person who used the card, unlike Canine Horde'ing a weapon, which costed pool and an action. >: Think about making a big vampire, and then Minion >: Tap half of its blood (the absolutely most >: mundane use of the card). This usage alone >: is almost equivalent to playing /many/ skill cards >: on a small vampire. No wonder the card is so >: much sought after. > >Even better yet. Minion tap to 1. Then play 5th Tradition to max him back out. I was highlighting the problem of the /minimal/ use of the card already being too good for its cost (which is 0 blood). Everybody already knows about those combos, including me, if I didn't make that obvious in my original post, and it is partly because Minion Tap has gross combos that I'm protesting about the balance of the game. > >: Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also >: IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, >: which can easily be neutralized, there is no >: good counter for Charnas: the Tremere pays 1 blood, >: and the victim is pretty doomed. IMO either the action >: to get Charnas should be more blockable, such >: as (D) at +0 stealth, or Charnas should cost 2 or 3 >: blood. Even if it costs 3 blood, a lot of >: people are still going to use it (because >: it's very difficult to get rid of, once hooked). > >That's why there's intercept. To stop Charnas from coming out., Sorry, you can't stop him even with all the intercept in the world if it's someone across the table playing it, because it is an undirected action, which only prey and predator can block. Burn your own vampire. Anyway, when I come to think about it, Charnas isn't too bad, because it matches a Hunting Ground. Except that it costs much less to put out Charnas than a Hunting Ground, and a Hunting Ground is easier to get rid of. But Charnas should cost more to put out. [ quoted text not captured ]

Alan Kwan (kw...@cs.cornell.edu) wrote: : I have included excrepts of an earlier seller's post (I was [ quoted text not captured ] But with Misdirection, Sudden Reversal stops it. Also WwEF will waken vamps to block as will Rats Warning, and then you can play Cat's Guidance to untap after blocking. I have stopped a Misdirection with one minion. I played Rat's Warning, blocked, Cat's Guidance, blocked, Earth Meld [superior],untapped, blocked, Cat's Guidance, and then blocked again. We were down to 2 players from a 5 player game and my successful blocks cost my prey 5 blood as the game. : A card less often talked about is Majesty. [ quoted text not captured ] If you don;t like the blood dolls being used, Sudden Reversal them... : Think about making a big vampire, and then Minion : Tap half of its blood (the absolutely most : mundane use of the card). This usage alone : is almost equivalent to playing /many/ skill cards : on a small vampire. No wonder the card is so : much sought after. Even better yet. Minion tap to 1. Then play 5th Tradition to max him back out. : It's quite clear that the Ivory Bow's capabilities : should well cost 2 pool (compare with Flamethrower), : but it is designed to be a rare unique card that : motivitates players to buy a lot of cards to : get one, so I won't argue too much about : the case here. That's why there's intercept. To stop Charnas from coming out., : Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also [ quoted text not captured ]

>Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also >IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, >which can easily be neutralized, there is no >good counter for Charnas: the Tremere pays 1 blood, >and the victim is pretty doomed. If you can attack your own vampires (which is very logical, given the context of the game, although I understand the current ruling is that you can't), it's fairly easy to toast Charnas. You can also get into a combat with a methuseleh relatively favorable to you. Your suggestions and comments are excellent. Has WotC seen all this? Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <1995Mar2.0...@cs.cornell.edu>, Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: // A collectable trading-card game can either be based // on card-resources (as MtG is), or based heavily on // some other game resources (as Jyhad tends to be). // Having some cards powerfully outweighting others // would shift a game towards the former. Such a // game would certainly sell like rabbits, because // players /have to/ fish out $$$ so as to "build" // their resources ... Yes, but most of the cards you've set out as spoilers are _common_ cards. This makes them much easier to get. In magic, most of the common cards are unusable in favour of uncommon or rare cards. // The problem with over-powerful cards is exactly that everyone // is putting those cards in their decks (if they have them) // regardless of their overall deck strategy. Any deck // without a Minion Tap or 2 (or 4) would not do as well ... Very poor example. Most people I've seen around here with successful decks occasionally have maybe 1 minion tap (never mind the accepted local maximum of 2 of any). Blood dolls tend to be a more sound choice, but you have to decide depending on the deck if you want the quick grab, or a slow grab that can also be used to heal the vampire (Mariel really appreciates it from time-to-time). More sound examples are wwef, KRCG, or sport bikes. However, saying a deck wouldn't do as well without 2 (or especially 4) minion taps is silly, I'd have to remove a more useful blood card like a short term, or worse yet thin out my deck theme cards -- and for a card that gives me a one shot suck! I'll play my current set a blood cards which has blood dolls which can suck blood to me from all kinds of continuous blood sources instead, it may be slow, but I've see 5 blood easily syphoned in a turn without a minion tap... -- Brent Ross // "Skuld is nicer than // "Skuld is nicer than bwr...@uwaterloo.ca // Medea." -- mlvanbie // mead." -- mtompset

In article <D4v1L...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> bwr...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Brent Ross) writes: >In article <1995Mar2.0...@cs.cornell.edu>, >Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: > >Yes, but most of the cards you've set out as spoilers are _common_ cards. >This makes them much easier to get. In magic, most of the common cards >are unusable in favour of uncommon or rare cards. This is true. But having cards that are overly powerful and requiring everyone to put them in their deck IMO makes the game less "colorful", regardless of whether those cards ar common or rare. Of course, as you tried to say, if those cards are common, it is not that "evil" (in a business $$$ sense) as the case when the cards are rare. >// The problem with over-powerful cards is exactly that everyone >// is putting those cards in their decks (if they have them) >// regardless of their overall deck strategy. Any deck >// without a Minion Tap or 2 (or 4) would not do as well ... > >Very poor example. Most people I've seen around here with successful >decks occasionally have maybe 1 minion tap (never mind the accepted local >maximum of 2 of any). The max of 2 change things a lot. Permanent Intercept become much more important because neither Auspex/Intercept nor Obfuscate-Stealth is as effective. It's harder to build a concentrated deck based on vampire disciplines, so you don't really need those medium to large vampires. In that case, players tend to use smaller vampires, and the number of vampires is more important than their age, or how many skills they have. Therefore, Minion Tap is not as effective, and WwEF becomes very important (because it's hard to build the "I don't wanna block him" combat deck). See argument below for how Minion Tap can be used effectively. Even if you're not aware of it, a global 2-card limit changes the game a lot. I personally don't prefer any global 2-card or 4-card or any number limit. If your group dislikes spoilers, make a list of them and restrict those cards; it doesn't make sense, IMO, to restrict "Dodge", "Social Charm", "Thrown Sewer Lid", or "Skin of Rock". That would just prohibit some interesting decks and further yet force everybody to use spoilers. Discipline cards usually work better if you have a fair porportion of them in the deck, unlike spoilers which usually work well on its own. Since my discussions were based on no deck limits other than those in the basic rules, our opinions had to differ at times. >Blood dolls tend to be a more sound choice, >but you have to decide depending on the deck if you want the quick >grab, or a slow grab that can also be used to heal the vampire Yes, Blood Doll is also on my "I want it changed" list. >More sound examples >are wwef, KRCG, or sport bikes. Yes, WwEF is too cheap. Permanent intercept is very handy, but they cost blood. More specifically, they cost pool. Auspex-intercept does not cost pool, nor does Obfuscate-stealth, which counters permanent intercept easily. However, neither can be used effectively under a 2-card limit. Someone suggested using Raven Spy's instead of Sports Bikes; however, if the deck is limited to 2 Raven Spies, then we'll still need Sports Bikes. The 2-card global limit not only restricts spoilers, it prohibits many perfectly innocent strategies and decks from being used. >However, saying a deck wouldn't do >as well without 2 (or especially 4) minion taps is silly, I'd have >to remove a more useful blood card like a short term, or worse >yet thin out my deck theme cards -- and for a card that gives >me a one shot suck! Minion Taps are most useful in decks concentrated in 2 to 4 skills. You bring out a 6 blood vampire, Minion Tap it for 4, and the result is the equivalent of a 2 blood vampire with 4 skill cards on it. To build a deck around Minion Taps (innocent, non-combo use), find the 6-8 blood vampires with the skills you want, put a lot of them in your crypt, bring them out, Minion Tap them and bring out another one. The advantage of this is that you don't need to use the Master Skill cards any more. You can take out all the skill cards, substitute some for Minion taps, and the rest for the gain blood cards that you mentioned. Of course, an Information Highway would be really helpful for this strategy. Such a deck, ideally, will beat a weenie deck trying to use skill cards, and also a less concentrated /or/ less balanced deck because its vampires has got better skills than everybody else. In a 2-card limit situation where you often got the skill on your vampire but don't have the right cards in your hand to use the skill effectively, this strategy has lost its purpose. Also, this strategy, limited to 2 Minion Taps in the deck, cannot be used reliably, as are many other strategies, under such restriction. Investment Cards (such as Short Term) are more favored in less concentrated decks where cards are sometimes unplayable and cards cycle slowly. In a Brujah combat deck where combat cards drop like flies, if you use the same proportion of Master cards (the /must have/ spoilers), you'll end up with more master cards in your hand than you can play, and you don't really want to sacrifice 4 master phases to gain 2 pool. >I'll play my current set a blood cards which >has blood dolls which can suck blood to me from all kinds of >continuous blood sources instead, it may be slow, but I've see >5 blood easily syphoned in a turn without a minion tap... It is also harder to counter spoilers effectively under a 2-card limit. No Bum's Rush+Haven Uncovered combat deck to Torporize the Blood Doll, and also only 2 Arsons in the deck to take out locations ... [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <Pine.A32.3.91c.95030...@homer04.u.washington.edu> James Bowes <leb...@u.washington.edu> writes: > (deleted extremely long "unbalanced" argument.) > > Why not simply play a better game of Jyhad instead of limiting your >opponents to your level of play? Yes, I have to apologize openly for trying to bring everyone (?) down to my level of play FROM their level which is closer to MtG. >Jyhad is a game based on resources. I do >not mean having the money to buy lots of cards, but rather the resources >of the Meth. you are pretending to be. The Meth. has spent considerable >time and effort to build the powerbase that they have, ... I think I must be slow in catching on here. What "resources" you're referring to here other than the very $$$ to buy lots of cards? Ah, I got it. Here's the analogy (from another game "based on resources"): look at the resources of the MAGE you're pretending to be. The Mage has spent considerable time and effort (reflected by the /player's/ $$$), weeks and months of studying and practicing in lonely libraries and basement laboratories to learn the spells that he has ... A collectable trading-card game can either be based on card-resources (as MtG is), or based heavily on some other game resources (as Jyhad tends to be). Having some cards powerfully outweighting others would shift a game towards the former. Such a game would certainly sell like rabbits, because players /have to/ fish out $$$ so as to "build" their resources ... >and most have done >it differently than their peers. The problem with over-powerful cards is exactly that everyone is putting those cards in their decks (if they have them) regardless of their overall deck strategy. Any deck without a Minion Tap or 2 (or 4) would not do as well ... -- [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <D4v70...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca> you write: >In article <1995Mar1.0...@cs.cornell.edu>, >Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: >// Think about WwEF. Some people use more than 10. > >Ah, I see what your problem is... the people you play with are on >serious drugs. :) Really, you should just get together and agree >on some reasonable house rules (around here 2 of any card, elsewhere >it seems to be 4... Misdirection is baned from friendly now, other >cards like Monicle just give you a bad rep). If someone refuses >to play within the house rules, don't play with them. No. Nobody is on drugs. I'm trying to suggest ways of modifying the game (possibly for Revised) so that we do not have to play under the restriction of a 2-card (or 4-card, or n-card) limit, have all the freedom of building our decks and our strategy, and yet still have a balanced game. The reason that your group have to use a 2-card limit house rule is exactly because the game as it stands can become very unbalanced (without the house rule), and this is exactly the problem I'm exposing and hoping for a fix. I like problems fixed at its roots (balance the cards, adjust the card costs), rather than trimming away at the leaves (deck restrictions) or whatever. >// A card less often talked about is Majesty. >// Depending on deck strategy, some players >// put 12 or more in their decks. > >I've already mentioned that this type of serious drugs is bad, real >bad. :) Don't let me start talking about what I could do with 12 >conditionings in a deck. I can tell you, if it's Malks. you're talking about: you can do absolutely nothing, because against a good intercept combat or Bum's Rush combat deck (which does not obey any deck restrictions), all your vampires will soon end up in torpor, and vampires in torpor can't play Conditioning. When you have only a few, Bleed modifiers (Conditioning) are far better than Bleed action cards (Legal Manipulations), for obvious reasons. But if you use a whole bunch of them, the difference begins to close - believe it or not. It doesn't matter so much whether it is a Conditioning or a Legal Manipulations if you /always/ have one in your hand ... On the contrary, you can just toss a Legal Manipulations on every Bleed action, if you have a spare in your hand, but unplayed Conditioning may start to crowd up your hand (it costs 1 blood to ditch it against a blocked bleed). >// A Strike: >// Combat Ends is many things in one. It counters >// all strikes, all additional strikes, and all >// presses. > >It only actually "counters" a few presses (things like trap), and >never actually counters additional strikes unless both players >have them, or the celerity player is an idiot and plays his >blurs to soon. What I mean is, against a very powerful celerity deck, a strike: combat ends counters an entire deck strategy with one card. Against an effective combat deck, this single card can very often (too often) make the difference between escaping unscatched and Torpor. If you can't strike: combat ends, to escape from Torpor from a Celerity-rich enemy, you'll need a Dodge, a lot of Open Crate's, and would still take up to 8 damage from 2 additional strikes in the first round, which you can't Dodge without an additional strike yourself. I know, when you have a 2-card limit, cards such as Blur may become a precious resource; but here my discussion has always been no card limits, so what strike: combat ends is countering is not the actual Blur card, but the /Sequence of Play/ opportunity to play the Blur. In a deck with 9 or more Blur cards, it's not the card that matters, but the Seq. of Play /opportunity/ to play that card and send your opponent to Torpor. >// And if that is not enough, the >// Superior version allows you to pay 1 blood >// to untap. > >One blood seems fairly standard for an untap (notice that wwef doesn't >untap and is free). Yes, this is powerful, but animalism also has >untaps on common cards, and Rat's Warning has it at both skill levels >(which is fine since it can only be used defensively). I agree that 1 blood to untap is okay, but putting such an opportunity on a card that is already too good (even without it) just worsens the problem I'm addressing (and calls for even stricter card limits). > >// Imagine that the card costs 1 blood to play. >// There are so many combat situations in which >// the Combat Ends is easily worth /more than/ the 1 blood: >// the .44, a Brujah with Blur and 3 Undead Strengths, > >(1) the .44 -- bringing out your own is better in general a Majesty > is a one shot, a .44 allows you to ping vampires > without long range attack capability without taking > damage many times... not to mention returning firepower > against other guns. Majesty is better when your really > concerned about what your opponent is going to do to > your vampire. Not without a 2-card limit. A deck with 16 .44's will stand absolutely /no chance/ against a well-constructed Brujah or Gangrel combat deck; a deck with 16 Majesty may escape unscatched. As I mentioned again and again, a 2-card limit puts the emphasis of the game resource on cards (which I believe is contrary to the original intent of the design) and makes "permanents" much more valuable. if you can have as many as one type of cards as you want, it's not the card themselves, but other game resources (blood, ready minions, Sequence of Play) that becomes the main constraint of what you can or cannot do, the cards being supplementary rather than the center of the constraint (cf. MtG). >(2) the Brujah -- if he drops all 4 cards on the table at once and plays > them he deserves to lose the damage. You should > always wait to see your opponent's strike before > adding additional strikes or using things like > Wolf Claws. That way the worst this Brujah should > lose is 1 Undead Strength from declaring his strike. > Next time he'll probably be happy knowing that the > opponent has already used a majesty and he'll > be able to to the pumped hand/blur combo. Don't > rush through Jyhad combats, always get the order > down... this is much more important here than in > Magic. Wait here. It is /illegal/ to play additional strike cards, the strike cards for the additional strikes, and Press cards if your opponent plays a Majesty. The Brujah is making an /illegal/ play if he tries to put down 4 cards at once. He should be stopped, and his illegally played cards should be put back into his hand. He /cannot/ draw new cards to replace them. In games with well-constructed concentrated decks (without any card restrictions), what the Brujah is worrying about is /not/ the combat cards that he's spending, but the precious opportunity of getting his opponent into a fight with him, which almost always means torporization of his poor opponent, barring a Majesty. One very fundamental difference between Jyhad and MtG is that, in Jyhad, (library) cards are replaced as soon as they are played, and are not drawn unless cards have been played or discarded. This means that, basically, playing cards (except rare ones) does not really use up a player's resources; the cards function more as opportunities that allow the player to more fully utilize the other game resources (blood, ready minions, Sequence of Play), which are not replenished as readily as a played card. Deck restrictions tend to thwart this fundamental concept, hence I don't suggest playing with them (at least, not playing with a global limit, which restricts non-spoilers necessary for many strategies). >// reasonable. Opponent used 1 action to Bum's >// Rush you, so you have to spend 1 blood >// to counter it. Remember that opponent has >// to build an entire combat deck to support it >// (unlike WwEF, which just goes in about any deck); >// you only need a fraction of your deck for >// those Majesty's. > >Yes, but Bum's Rush doesn't require _any_ disipline. Arguing that >the defense should cost as much as the offense is absurd, it's well >shown in many games already that if defense is cheaper people will >actually: (a) play it and not build grossly offensive heavy decks >(sounds a lot like Magic, eh?), (b) have more fun since a solid >defense is more fun to try and take down than just running wild >all over your opponent. Bum's Rush /itself/ doesn't require any discipline, but the Bum's Rush /that is really scarry/ certainly requires more than a single discipline. A single Bum's Rush card thrown randomly against a well-constructed combat deck is nothing but suicide, pointless suicide. (a) is exactly what your group is doing, isn't it? A 2-card limit puts emphasis of game resources on the library cards, and makes the game play like Magic. (b) is invalid (because of irrelevance) in this case. I don't think it's fun to play or play against "a soild defense" which just drops a Majesty at every combat. If Malks have got Presence on them, and can just End every Combat, they would be the perfect unstoppable offence. Combat is /the/ defence against Stealth-and- Bleed decks. How do you block a bleed? You block him, and the two of you enter combat. If you are weak in combat, your vampire may be in some real trouble. In Jyhad, bleed action is the offense, and combat ability is necessary for defense. Therefore, Majesty, which neutralizes combat ability, can be an offensive ability. > >// Many combat cards cost blood; I'm surprised >// why such a useful card as Majesty doesn't. > >Many is an overstatement... "some" is a better word. Most additional strikes cards, most Thamataurgy strikes - (the opportunity to play) any number of which (plus a large number of others, which doesn't cost blood) can be countered (shut out) by a single Majesty card. OTOH, there are only a few existing cards which can counter Majesty (prevent it from being played), and some of them are not common. BTW, I guess your group don't use those combat cards heavily, do they? >// Making it cost 1 blood is not going to screw >// the Ventrue's voting deck with Majesty: >// it just helps to balance the cards out. > >Yes, but this card doesn't need to be fixed, it's not broke. It's not broke if you are limited to only 2 in your deck - but such a game is not really Jyhad. The game's entire structure and emphasis has been changed. With a 2-card limit, neither can Majesty be relied upon (it's not always in your hand, since you don't have 15 in your deck), nor do we commonly see those critical battles where a Brujah (with 60%+ combat cards in his deck) or a Gangrel (with 18+ Claws cards in his deck) totally flattens his poor opponent in a single combat - the kind of combat where a Majesty makes all the difference. Of course Majesty is not a major concern in 2-card limit games. >// (Please, no flames against an argument >// on restricting Majesty. That is not the >// argument here. I'm not talking about restricting >// Majesty, I'm talking about making it cost 1 blood.) > >No flames intended, just pointing out that this isn't needed. Of course this isn't needed, because not only did you already restricted it, you also restricted the decks which Majesty (unfairly, IMO) works against from being built. I'm not flaming you, but I have to point out that, what we're talking about here are two very different games - two games with different concepts, emphasis, and of course balance. Two different games indeed. > >// Majesty is also one of those highly-demanded cards. > >Not a really good method of finding cards that are unbalanced (but >perhaps a good filter to see which ones to look at). Possibly, but when I look at real life examples, this is very true ... >// those that can give a lot of pool in combos, >// tend to be in great demand. Some ways should be >// thought of to limit the use of these cards. > >Of course, then you wind up not being able to heal yourself at >all. That is not necessarily the case; what I want to see is that more game resources (such as Master Phases, cf. Investments) rather than just a few random library cards being expanded to get the pool. >Besides, once you limit all cards to a maximum of 2 each >you find that these combos don't come up much [...] ... and some of the most basic, yet interesting, strategies shut out. If you think the game need house rules, you are right. If you think a card limit would work, limit the spoilers, and leave the non-spoilers alone. If you think 12 Conditioning in a deck will beat anything, wait until you see a /real/ combat deck ... >// Another post of mine contained some examples, >// such as making Minion Tap cost 1 pool (in the least), >// limiting Giant's Blood to giving 3 blood, and making > >Giant's Blood already has a decent limitation... it can only be >used once in a game. So you have to get one and play it before your >opponent does. I typically use mine early on non-optimal situations. >This gives me less blood, but if I beat my opponent to it he won't >be able to use it at all. I know, but I just feel that the "Giant's Blood competition" is a bit too much random element for this game. > >// Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs >// 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would >// equate Blood Doll with a Powerbase. The >// Blood Doll as it is, is equivalent to >// 2 Powerbases without a cost to play it.) > >Not quite 2 Powerbases (ie. subtle difference -- this blood comes from >your vampires) It can be a 2-blood vampire. A powerbase costs 1 pool to play. I think it is usually easier to steal the blood from a powerbase than to block the vampire when she hunts, but I'm not sure. >but the steal-ability given to power bases is enough >to counter the fact that your vampire gets weaker so I'll give you some >credit on the blood doll, No, that's not what I mean. You set aside 2 pool to play 2 powerbases, or you (theoretically) set aside 2 or 3 pool to bring a 2-blood vampire out for a Blood Doll. It seems to me that you don't see pool as a very real resource constraint, do you? Come on, this is Jyhad, not Magic - in Magic, Creatures come from summoning spells, and spells come from Library cards. In Jyhad, ready Vampires come from pool, and the blood cost for a powerbase comes from pool. >hey, if I can put two blood on a vampire for >one pool (the reverse) this card is still reasonably cool. It's still >not terriblily game wrecking the way it is though. No, not the reverse. I won't suggest that. My suggestion: 2 vampire blood -> 1 pool 1 pool -> 1 vampire blood "realistically" simulating the complications of trying to "extract" a minion's resources for "the common purpose" ... >Basically, >there is quite a good argument for the 2nd agg. damage being worth the >3 (besides even at 2 the ivory bow is still easily concealed and if >they remove the disipline symbol off the Conceal Weapon card... you're >going to see Mudded Vampire Hunters with it regardless of the upped >cost). You have a point here, and Ivory Bow is not a mojor concern for me anyway, but as I mentioned, if you increase the cost and people will still be using it (in preference to another similar card; not in a monopoly), then it may be a sign that the card is too cheap. But it's a Unique rare, so it isn't too much problem. >// Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also >// IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, >// which can easily be neutralized, there is no >// good counter for Charnas: the Tremere pays 1 blood, >// and the victim is pretty doomed. IMO either the action >// to get Charnas should be more blockable, such >// as (D) at +0 stealth, or Charnas should cost 2 or 3 >// blood. Even if it costs 3 blood, a lot of >// people are still going to use it (because >// it's very difficult to get rid of, once hooked). > >There are a few ways to deal with Charnas. If you're playing Tremere >you can contest (his key limitation is he's unique... so you can only >have one out at a time (this is good)). The only way this can work, according to the official ruling, is to put the second Charnas on yourself. I don't know if you are allowed to yield both together; if you can't, then you're still stuck with one (the one you /own/, which mean that it won't leave the game simply because someone else is ousted). >Another nasty way is to Fame >that vampire, get the little bastard to work for you. If your prey put >it on the vampire, he's more than ready to shoot it now (I know I >was). Yes. Fight a minor spoiler with a major spoiler. > >// The most of all, Fame. Can easily make your >// prey lose 3 blood, sometimes repeatedly, without >// a cost to play the card. > >Fame is a spoiler. It needs some serious fixing. ... >Probably, fame would be better if >it allowed a +1 stealth directed action to "De-fame" the vampire. This >would allow the prey to get rid of it without having to have a sudden >reversal in hand the moment it was played. With this modification it >can probably keep the 3 pool loss bit. The problem is, against an intercept deck, you'll be fighting the very vampire you're trying to de-fame. If this solution is to be used, it has to specifically state "action to de-fame cannot be blocked by /any/ famous vampire". [ quoted text not captured ]

Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: >Anyway, when I come to think about it, Charnas isn't >too bad, because it matches a Hunting Ground. >Except that it costs much less to put out Charnas >than a Hunting Ground, and a Hunting Ground is >easier to get rid of. But Charnas should cost >more to put out. Charnas - 1 vamp blood, 1 vamp action. hard to get rid of. But can be blocked. victim loses 1 blood each time it untaps. HG - 2 pool. 1 master phase easier to get rid of. sudden reversal is only way to block. beneficary gets 1 blood/turn, regardless. Looks fair to me. Alec -- Alec Habig, Indiana University High Energy Astrophysics aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu http://astrowww.astro.indiana.edu/personnel/ahabig/ Ted Kennedy's car has killed more people than my guns.

In article <1995Mar1.0...@cs.cornell.edu>, Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: // Think about WwEF. Some people use more than 10. Ah, I see what your problem is... the people you play with are on serious drugs. :) Really, you should just get together and agree on some reasonable house rules (around here 2 of any card, elsewhere it seems to be 4... Misdirection is baned from friendly now, other cards like Monicle just give you a bad rep). If someone refuses to play within the house rules, don't play with them. // [talk of raising wwef's cost] // On a side note, I think in Revised the card should // only be useable if you are playing another reaction or // are actually blocking (a blockable action at // enough intercept). In other words, no dumping // the card on a bleed across the table or on a // stealthed action without risking combat. Once you limit the number of wwef's you can have in a deck, anyone who wastes a wwef like this will be considered an idiot. Wwef is the best card in the game, I personally don't mind an uping of the cost to 1, but I would really like it left just the way it is (ie. I don't find in unbalancing, it's a _common_, _defensive_ card not a _club my opponent over the head for nothing_ card). The reason I like wwef is that because its a nice free card, any tapped vampire can use it. This means that the game actually moves at a faster pace... because people can do more actions in a turn and leave fewer untapped blockers. Some of the most interesting strategy is trying to get your opponents to waste wwef's on items you aren't concerned about. Once someone has played all wwef's in their deck, they lose a good about of their ability to bluff having them (which is the best part of the game -- seeing how far you can bluff your opponents). // and the Animalism untaps. The cost of "Do not // Replace until end of Combat" for a /reaction/ // (not combat) card simply outweights the // requirement of a discipline (WwEF is also // more flexible than the Animalism untaps). Don't forget it doesn't untap the vampire! If you use one and the opponent slips through with obfuscate, your card is gone, part of your bluff is gone, you've effectivly gained nothing, and your prey might decide you probably don't have another and jump down your throat (which may or may not be a problem depending on if you have other surprises). // Another one is Misdirection. If it costs 1+X, // people will no doubt still use it. If it costs // 2+X, some people may still use it, but some will // be taking it out of their decks, If it costs // 2X, then I bet people will shake their heads and // take it out. So 2X is no doubt too expensive, // but X is simply too cheap. Because there are // Dominate bleeds and the like, 2+X is not // entirely unreasonable. Misdirection should probably be removed as a spoiler, it adds no stategic elements to the game and creates coin-flip type wins more times than not. Making it 2+X is not good enough in my books, you can still tap 4 minions and kill your opponent before you actually have to _pay_ for the victory point. 2X is starting to become a reasonable card. The basic problem with misdirection is that it is far too similar to berzerk as a spoiler (ie. no one should be forced to take multiple 4+ bleeds just because they don't have a handful of wwefs or a sudden reversal -- basically the game balance problem is that multi-card combos are fairly balanced by deck construction rules since it takes work and luck to put them together, however a one card spoiler which requires the opponent to effectivly "combo" it to survive is really gross). The biggest problem is that where wwef can speed a game up, having misdirections really slows it down. People start playing really conservativly, keeping more blood in their pool, not using their vampires... all because of an insane fear that if my predetor has a misdirection and I make it easy, I'll be plowed out of the game. // A card less often talked about is Majesty. // Depending on deck strategy, some players // put 12 or more in their decks. I've already mentioned that this type of serious drugs is bad, real bad. :) Don't let me start talking about what I could do with 12 conditionings in a deck. // A Strike: // Combat Ends is many things in one. It counters // all strikes, all additional strikes, and all // presses. It only actually "counters" a few presses (things like trap), and never actually counters additional strikes unless both players have them, or the celerity player is an idiot and plays his blurs to soon. // And if that is not enough, the // Superior version allows you to pay 1 blood // to untap. One blood seems fairly standard for an untap (notice that wwef doesn't untap and is free). Yes, this is powerful, but animalism also has untaps on common cards, and Rat's Warning has it at both skill levels (which is fine since it can only be used defensively). // Imagine that the card costs 1 blood to play. // There are so many combat situations in which // the Combat Ends is easily worth /more than/ the 1 blood: // the .44, a Brujah with Blur and 3 Undead Strengths, (1) the .44 -- bringing out your own is better in general a Majesty is a one shot, a .44 allows you to ping vampires without long range attack capability without taking damage many times... not to mention returning firepower against other guns. Majesty is better when your really concerned about what your opponent is going to do to your vampire. (2) the Brujah -- if he drops all 4 cards on the table at once and plays them he deserves to lose the damage. You should always wait to see your opponent's strike before adding additional strikes or using things like Wolf Claws. That way the worst this Brujah should lose is 1 Undead Strength from declaring his strike. Next time he'll probably be happy knowing that the opponent has already used a majesty and he'll be able to to the pumped hand/blur combo. Don't rush through Jyhad combats, always get the order down... this is much more important here than in Magic. // reasonable. Opponent used 1 action to Bum's // Rush you, so you have to spend 1 blood // to counter it. Remember that opponent has // to build an entire combat deck to support it // (unlike WwEF, which just goes in about any deck); // you only need a fraction of your deck for // those Majesty's. Yes, but Bum's Rush doesn't require _any_ disipline. Arguing that the defense should cost as much as the offense is absurd, it's well shown in many games already that if defense is cheaper people will actually: (a) play it and not build grossly offensive heavy decks (sounds a lot like Magic, eh?), (b) have more fun since a solid defense is more fun to try and take down than just running wild all over your opponent. // Many combat cards cost blood; I'm surprised // why such a useful card as Majesty doesn't. Many is an overstatement... "some" is a better word. // Making it cost 1 blood is not going to screw // the Ventrue's voting deck with Majesty: // it just helps to balance the cards out. Yes, but this card doesn't need to be fixed, it's not broke. // (Please, no flames against an argument // on restricting Majesty. That is not the // argument here. I'm not talking about restricting // Majesty, I'm talking about making it cost 1 blood.) No flames intended, just pointing out that this isn't needed. // Majesty is also one of those highly-demanded cards. Not a really good method of finding cards that are unbalanced (but perhaps a good filter to see which ones to look at). // those that can give a lot of pool in combos, // tend to be in great demand. Some ways should be // thought of to limit the use of these cards. Of course, then you wind up not being able to heal yourself at all. Besides, once you limit all cards to a maximum of 2 each you find that these combos don't come up much (if you want combos you have to cut your deck close to 40 cards and then your deck runs short of cards that do anything else... or just runs out of cards in larger games). // Another post of mine contained some examples, // such as making Minion Tap cost 1 pool (in the least), // limiting Giant's Blood to giving 3 blood, and making Giant's Blood already has a decent limitation... it can only be used once in a game. So you have to get one and play it before your opponent does. I typically use mine early on non-optimal situations. This gives me less blood, but if I beat my opponent to it he won't be able to use it at all. // Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs // 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would // equate Blood Doll with a Powerbase. The // Blood Doll as it is, is equivalent to // 2 Powerbases without a cost to play it.) Not quite 2 Powerbases (ie. subtle difference -- this blood comes from your vampires) , but the steal-ability given to power bases is enough to counter the fact that your vampire gets weaker so I'll give you some credit on the blood doll, hey, if I can put two blood on a vampire for one pool (the reverse) this card is still reasonably cool. It's still not terriblily game wrecking the way it is though. // It's quite clear that the Ivory Bow's capabilities // should well cost 2 pool (compare with Flamethrower), // but it is designed to be a rare unique card that // motivitates players to buy a lot of cards to // get one, so I won't argue too much about // the case here. Comparing with the Flamethrower I see that a second point of aggravated damage on a more common card is worth 3 pool. Both weapons cannot be pumped to do more damage. The really important fact here is that the ivory bow will never remove a blood from the opponent, it only sends them to torpor. Now the Flamethrower, it always removes one blood from the vampire, and when you've got KRCG and you start interfering with vampires who are hunting with no blood, you get dead vampires. Not undead... _real_ dead... these guys don't bounce back. Basically, there is quite a good argument for the 2nd agg. damage being worth the 3 (besides even at 2 the ivory bow is still easily concealed and if they remove the disipline symbol off the Conceal Weapon card... you're going to see Mudded Vampire Hunters with it regardless of the upped cost). // Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also // IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, // which can easily be neutralized, there is no // good counter for Charnas: the Tremere pays 1 blood, // and the victim is pretty doomed. IMO either the action // to get Charnas should be more blockable, such // as (D) at +0 stealth, or Charnas should cost 2 or 3 // blood. Even if it costs 3 blood, a lot of // people are still going to use it (because // it's very difficult to get rid of, once hooked). There are a few ways to deal with Charnas. If you're playing Tremere you can contest (his key limitation is he's unique... so you can only have one out at a time (this is good)). Another nasty way is to Fame that vampire, get the little bastard to work for you. If your prey put it on the vampire, he's more than ready to shoot it now (I know I was). // The most of all, Fame. Can easily make your // prey lose 3 blood, sometimes repeatedly, without // a cost to play the card. Fame is a spoiler. It needs some serious fixing. I hope they have/will re-reverse the fame cummulative ruling back to "nope, it's not... just like Army of Rats". Removing the 3 pool loss from the current would make it much more reasonable, but probably far too weak to be a resonable card. I've seen Fame kill people both intentionally, and not intentionally (well, less direct (predator doesn't really want it, but someone else decides it's required)... a Famed vampire really doesn't "not intentionally" go to torpor) far too many times for it to be considered a well balanced card. Probably, fame would be better if it allowed a +1 stealth directed action to "De-fame" the vampire. This would allow the prey to get rid of it without having to have a sudden reversal in hand the moment it was played. With this modification it can probably keep the 3 pool loss bit. Well, that's enough of a commentary... please forgive the spelling/grammer errors in the above, I'm terriblily tired and need to grab a few hours sleep before this afternoon. [ quoted text not captured ]

bwr...@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca (Brent Ross) writes: >Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: >// Think about WwEF. Some people use more than 10. >Ah, I see what your problem is... the people you play with are on >serious drugs. :) Really, you should just get together and agree >on some reasonable house rules (around here 2 of any card, elsewhere >it seems to be 4... With such an incredibly tight limit, theme decks become basically impossible. No player can have more than 8 Obfuscate stealth cards, for example. Celerity combat? Don't make me laugh. Sacrificing theme decks seems a high price for contolling a few spoilers. Any card limit creates peculiar balance issues. For example, Protean has two cards to cause aggravated damage (Claws of the Dead and Wolf Claws). Celerity has one card that will (usually) stop them - Sideslip. Without card limits, Brujah can handle aggravated damage, if the deck is designed for it. With card limits, Brujah are nearly helpless before Gangrel (or any other) aggravated damage. (Ooh you've used all 4 of your Sideslips. (evil grin)) >// A card less often talked about is Majesty. >// Depending on deck strategy, some players >// put 12 or more in their decks. >Misdirection should probably be removed as a spoiler, I think that's consensus. Anybody defending Misdirection? >I've already mentioned that this type of serious drugs is bad, real >bad. :) Don't let me start talking about what I could do with 12 >conditionings in a deck. 12 Conditionings - no problem. I'll just play Tremere combat-intercept with 15 Wakes and a touch of equipment. The conditionings will back up unused in your hand, and you'll even have to spend 1 blood each to ditch the things. (Assuming you even have vampires left after Burst - of - Sunlight Merrill gets through with them.) 12 Majesties - big problem. In combination with bleed boosters (Pulse of the Canaille, or conditioning) or with gain blood (5th Tradition) you can get a lot done. Every vampire gets a killer action each turn. The killer is that you can not only get stuff done, but you become nearly immune to combat to boot. Hence the prey can never really stop such a deck, only slow it a bit. (What sunlight, Merrill?) Even that requires a specially tuned deck. >// And if that is not enough, the >// Superior version allows you to pay 1 blood >// to untap. >One blood seems fairly standard for an untap (notice that wwef doesn't >untap and is free). It doesn't just untap, it ends combat too. If it read "Strike: Vampire untaps" we could deal with it. Peripherally, the Protean untaps have similar problems, limited only by the fact that Gangrels have a hard time doing any really nasty actions. No 8-point bleeds here, folks. >Fame is a spoiler. It needs some serious fixing. How about burning the card after the first rescue? I do like Fame as a defense against really nasty combat decks, but it is completely out of control. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

"James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >I believe that that is the way the rules are supposed to be interpreted >as they stand. I do not believe that someone with a hand of WwEF, let's >say five, could use one to attempt to block an action I take, then, once >I have increased the acting vampire's stealth, just use the other four >to "wake" four other minions, even though NONE of them have a chance to >intercept (none play a plus intercept card). Because you are able to >instantly replace any cards, Jyhad has to have a rule that says you just >can't throw cards away with no purpose. I believe that useless "waking" >is included. Except that you can't replace the wakes until the current action is over.

kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > Think about WwEF. Some people use more than 10. > If the card costs 1 blood to play, would people still > use it? I think they'll still use 4 or 5. If Peace Alan, I agree (shock!!) that WwEF should probably cost 1 blood to bring it into alignment with the other untap cards. > On a side note, I think in Revised the card should > only be useable if you are playing another reaction or > are actually blocking (a blockable action at > enough intercept). In other words, no dumping > the card on a bleed across the table or on a > stealthed action without risking combat. I believe that that is the way the rules are supposed to be interpreted as they stand. I do not believe that someone with a hand of WwEF, let's say five, could use one to attempt to block an action I take, then, once I have increased the acting vampire's stealth, just use the other four to "wake" four other minions, even though NONE of them have a chance to intercept (none play a plus intercept card). Because you are able to instantly replace any cards, Jyhad has to have a rule that says you just can't throw cards away with no purpose. I believe that useless "waking" is included. > Another one is Misdirection. If it costs 1+X, > people will no doubt still use it. If it costs > 2+X, some people may still use it, but some will > be taking it out of their decks, If it costs > 2X, then I bet people will shake their heads and > take it out. So 2X is no doubt too expensive, > but X is simply too cheap. Because there are > Dominate bleeds and the like, 2+X is not > entirely unreasonable. Yes, Misdirection is quite nasty and 1+x may be a more reasonable cost, but you often have to draw Misdirection early in a game to be able to use it. > A card less often talked about is Majesty. [long post about how unbalanced Majesty is deleted] > Majesty, I'm talking about making it cost 1 blood.) There are other cards which have similar effects to Majesty and don't cost blood either. For example: Form of Mist (superior) "Strike: End Combat. Acting minion may continue action at +1 Stealth" {paraphrase} This is a very nasty card, too. It costs zero blood. Do you think that it is unbalanced? > Cards that give a /lot/ of blood, especially > those that can give a lot of pool in combos, > tend to be in great demand. Some ways should be Gee, people will seek out cards that make effective combos. I don't see how that is unbalancing or requires that those cards be limited. > thought of to limit the use of these cards. > Another post of mine contained some examples, > such as making Minion Tap cost 1 pool (in the least), Disagree. Minion Tapping does take a master phase, your vampire has to remain intact for one full turn, and drawing too much blood from a vampire will make it an ineffective blocker (unless he/she is looking forward to spending some time in torpor) and target for directed attacks like Bum's Rush & Mud Vamp Hunt. > limiting Giant's Blood to giving 3 blood, and making Giant's Blood is "unique," which has a balancing effect in and of itself. Yes, the first person to play Giant's Blood successfully has an advantage, but so does a person who plays Information Highway and doesn't get contested. Yes, there is a luck factor, but that holds true for ALL rare cards (unless you like loading you deck with twelve Sengir Daggers and discarding the other eleven). > Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs > 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would I've responded previously, but again, taking blood from a minion weakens them, they can be selectively targetted, if they're hunting all the time you have one less minion to use (act/react). Often, I can't afford to put one of my minions on eternal hunting, the games I play are that close. What if your Blood Doll hunter gets intercepted? > Think about making a big vampire, and then Minion > Tap half of its blood (the absolutely most > mundane use of the card). This usage alone > is almost equivalent to playing /many/ skill cards > on a small vampire. No wonder the card is so > much sought after. If its common and everybody can do it, how does that make Minion Tap un- balancing? Yes, you posted something about 'Elasic Arms' or some such. But I don't see how that applies here. If I have all the advantages and disadvantages that you have from playing a card and I have the same access to that card that you do (common card), what is so bad about it? If every- one in a game Minion Taps their vampires to bring other vamps in, what has really changed? Nearly nothing. If we all have three vampires, that's almost the same as if we all have six vampires. Actually, you should like more minions as it limits the Misdirection ploy. I just don't see the scenario happening like you are saying, Alan, and I play every weekend with four to six other players. > It's quite clear that the Ivory Bow's capabilities > should well cost 2 pool (compare with Flamethrower), > but it is designed to be a rare unique card that > motivitates players to buy a lot of cards to > get one, so I won't argue too much about > the case here. Sit down, Alan, WE AGREE AGAIN! (don't faint on me). Ivory Bow should cost two pool, plain & simple. > Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also > IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, [Charnas spiel deleted] Just think of Charnas as the ultimate counter to Blood Doll. > The most of all, Fame. Can easily make your > prey lose 3 blood, sometimes repeatedly, without > a cost to play the card. Yes, Fame is broken. (EEK! I agreed with Alan three times in the same post! What's the world coming to?) It should be changed to "When this vampire goes to torpor IT'S CONTROLLER loses three pool, etc." Yes, you'll still be able to combo with this card (Bum's Rush it, etc.) but it will be more balanced this way and people will quit trying to get around the rule about not being in combat with yourself. Nil carborundum illigitimi, James R. McClure Jr. The OS/2 Apostle <insert disclaimer here>

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: > >>Misdirection should probably be removed as a spoiler, > >I think that's consensus. Anybody defending Misdirection? Me me! Think about it. Take two players who are evenly balanced. Say we each have 5 vampires. I spend 5 blood (and my master phase) to tap out your 5 vampires. I then bleed with all of mine (leaving myself open for getting creamed by my predator). If neither of us has any cards to play (+bleeds on my part, or untap cards on your side), then we've each lost 5 blood, have all our vampires tapped, and I wasted my master phase. Misdirection's best use is to tap the one vampire that you really don't want blocking your action, or as a coup-de-grace card when me taking a boatload of damage to do you a boatload of damage is a good deal. In the first use, it's hardly abusive. In the second, it's only hastening the inevitable. in any event, the card serves one vital purpose : it breaks stalemates. It allows for situation when everyone has about the same strength, and is just sitting there, to be broken. Once someone's vampires start tapping, then his predator starts to do things, then his predator's predator can afford to do things, etc. [ quoted text not captured ]

aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) writes: (re: Misdirection) >If neither of us has any cards to play (+bleeds on my part) ...it's hardly >abusive What if the Bleeder has 2 Govern the Unalign, 1 Condition, 1 Bonding, 1 Social Charm, and 1 Legal Manipulations? (I've SEEN it) That's 16 Bleed! (Assuming he doesn't draw any more). The bleedee is toast unless playing a Wake deck, and if you have card limits (4 Wakes) he's doomed period. (Animalism untap MIGHT survive, if lucky). The situation of a Misdirection card with a hand full of bleed boost is not uncommon for serious bleed decks. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <3jfeij$p...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > > >I believe that that is the way the rules are supposed to be interpreted >as they stand. Peace James, Yes, we all agree on things when it is obvious. >> A card less often talked about is Majesty. >[long post about how unbalanced Majesty is deleted] > >There are other cards which have similar effects to Majesty and don't >cost blood either. For example: Form of Mist (superior) "Strike: End >Combat. Acting minion may continue action at +1 Stealth" {paraphrase} >This is a very nasty card, too. It costs zero blood. Do you think that >it is unbalanced? Of course I do. The only reason I didn't list it is because I have never seen the card. If this card can only be used when you are blocked, then its use is more limited than Majesty; but its effect is gross. I don't have a problem with cards with gross effects, just that there should be an (appropriate) cost to play it. > >> Cards that give a /lot/ of blood, especially >> those that can give a lot of pool in combos, >> tend to be in great demand. Some ways should be > >Gee, people will seek out cards that make effective combos. I don't >see how that is unbalancing or requires that those cards be limited. Because the balance of those cards had been designed without seriously taking into consideration those combos. If players begin to use those combos commonly, the game reduces to a competition of who can luckily draw and play those combos. > >Disagree. Minion Tapping does take a master phase, your vampire has to >remain intact for one full turn, and drawing too much blood from a vampire >will make it an ineffective blocker (unless he/she is looking forward to >spending some time in torpor) and target for directed attacks like Bum's >Rush & Mud Vamp Hunt. The argument about weakening the vampire had been answered before. Even if you torporize my vampire, it doesn't matter too much to me because I've already recovered most of the blood I spent on it. It's harder to torporize a 8-blood vampire which had been tapped for 5, than a straight 3-blood vampire because of the extra skills. > >> limiting Giant's Blood to giving 3 blood, and making > >Giant's Blood is "unique," which has a balancing effect in and of >itself. Yes, the first person to play Giant's Blood successfully has an >advantage, but so does a person who plays Information Highway and doesn't >get contested. Yes, there is a luck factor, but that holds true for ALL >rare cards (unless you like loading you deck with twelve Sengir Daggers >and discarding the other eleven). I don't have the card description in front of me; how much pool does info highway cost? A 0-blood card will certainly be trivially contested; I won't mind intentionally contesting a 1-blood card with my prey. If info highway costs 2 pool, it isn't unbalanced (compare with Effective Management). > >> Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs >> 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would > >I've responded previously, but again, taking blood from a minion weakens >them, they can be selectively targetted, if they're hunting all the time >you have one less minion to use (act/react). Often, I can't afford to >put one of my minions on eternal hunting, the games I play are that close. >What if your Blood Doll hunter gets intercepted? A Blood Doll does not /have to/ hunt, unless it has got XTC laced blood on it. If my Blood Doll gets intercepted, the blocking minion is tapped, and my other minions can take actions more freely. It doesn't cost anything less to block a blood doll than to block a vampire that is not one. > >> Think about making a big vampire, and then Minion >> Tap half of its blood (the absolutely most >> mundane use of the card). This usage alone >> is almost equivalent to playing /many/ skill cards >> on a small vampire. No wonder the card is so >> much sought after. > >If its common and everybody can do it, how does that make Minion Tap un- >balancing? Yes, you posted something about 'Elasic Arms' or some such. >But I don't see how that applies here. If I have all the advantages and >disadvantages that you have from playing a card and I have the same access >to that card that you do (common card), what is so bad about it? If every- >one in a game Minion Taps their vampires to bring other vamps in, what has >really changed? Nearly nothing. Thanks for reminding me; the "Elastic Iron Arms" argument does apply here. If the EIA is common, and everybody has access to it, what is so bad about it? If everybody is playing Potence and has 30 EIA's in his deck, what was really changed? The problem with cards that are "too good" is that everybody has to use that card. This reduces the variability, or "colorfulness", of the game and 1. causes everyone to be using part of the same strategy; 2. rules out lots of otherwise reasonable strategies as inferior, reducing the player's freedom in choosing his strategy for the game. >I just don't see >the scenario happening like you are saying, Alan, and I play every weekend >with four to six other players. That's because what I named was the most innocent, mundane use of Minion Tap. It's still a lame strategy when compared to Blood Dolls or other combos. If you ban Blood Doll and Golconda, you'll see lots of Minion Taps being used in various ways (most more "fierce" than the one I cited). >> Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also >> IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, >[Charnas spiel deleted] > >Just think of Charnas as the ultimate counter to Blood Doll. Only to a certain degree: he withdraws all blood (or all but 1 blood) from the vampire and make a new one, and then another Blood Doll ... >... and people will quit trying to get >around the rule about not being in combat with yourself. I think that when they designed the game, they made the assumption (although clearly invalidated by the cards they later came up with) that one would never "want to" get in combat with oneself. That's why there is such a huge loophole in the rules. A few extra sentences in the rules would have clarified this neatly. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Peace Curt, That's all seven of his/her cards and a minimum of four vampires (two with superior Dominate. Yes, it is possible, but I wouldn't think that it is that likely either. I agree, though, that Misdirection may be a _little_ too cheap (needs to be 1+x, maybe). [ quoted text not captured ]

James R. McClure Jr. writes: >curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) wrote: >> aha...@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Alec Habig) writes: >>> (re: Misdirection) >> >If neither of us has any cards to play (+bleeds on my part) ...it's >>> hardly abusive > >> What if the Bleeder has 2 Govern the Unalign, 1 Condition, 1 Bonding, 1 >> Social Charm, and 1 Legal Manipulations? (I've SEEN it) That's 16 Bleed! >> (Assuming he doesn't draw any more). The bleedee is toast unless playing >> a Wake deck, and if you have card limits (4 Wakes) he's doomed period. >> (Animalism untap MIGHT survive, if lucky). The situation of a >> Misdirection card with a hand full of bleed boost is not uncommon for >> serious bleed decks. >That's all seven of his/her cards and a minimum of four vampires (two with >superior Dominate. Yes, it is possible, but I wouldn't think that it is that >likely either. I agree, though, that Misdirection may be a _little_ too cheap >(needs to be 1+x, maybe). As I've said, I've seen it. It was actually used against 2 successive players, ousting both in one turn. Malk or Ventrue super bleed decks can indeed pull off such combos. Besides, 16 pool is more than needed. 5 to 8 will usually decide the game. That's typically available to super bleed decks almost every turn. Remember, many decks are left completely helpless after an all-out Misdirect. I think Misdirect needs to be limited as to the number of tappees - no more than 2 or some such, plus some additional cost. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

alan, i really don't mean anything by this, but i honestly don't agree with you on most all of your points (all deleted- if you're not following the arguement, don't bother). i know you are a self proclaimed newbie, and i understand where you are coming from, beacuse i felt the same a while back. i agree with you that fame is unbalanced, and i partially agree with you about majesty- but i don't think it's unbalanced, just abused in a degenerate deck. basically, i've seen stratagies come and go while playing all the time. the more i play jyhad, the more i think it's balanced. i noticed you thought that minion taps were a little unbalanced (i think a while back- could be wrong), well tonight, i only got one of four off, the rest were sudden reversaled- read: countered! basically, my point is, that there is alot to the game i think you haven't seen. i have "form of the mist" cards up my ass, i have so many- yet you've never seen one. this is not flame, i'm just pointing out that i think you just haven't been playing enough to really to have seen the potential of jyhad or to get into these super deep conversations/ debates. you have every right to believe what you believe, and i think you've made some good points, i just think you should give things more of a chance: the game is pretty balanced- but then again that's my view, and we play with a 4 card/ 1 unique limit, so i don't see the cheap degenerate decks. basically, if well played and executed, most strategies work pretty well for their own purpose, and there is a counter for everything else. harpua

[ quoted text not captured ] Note that I said _neither_ of us has any cards to play. What if the tappee has WwEF, Rat's Warning, 2nd Domain, etc? One of these, then some deflection, telepathic counter/misdirection, Majesty, Obedience, whatever will stop all those monster bleeds. You only need one untapped vampire and some reaction cards to stop a _lot_ of bleeds. Note that the example you gave above is another point in favor of ditching card limits. There are a lot of +bleed cards, making it trivial to stack your deck with them even under card limits, while there are simply fewer counters. I was just trying to point out that at the most basic level, without card combinations, Misdirection is not a problem. If you want to start adding in cards to make it nastier, I can always add in cards that make it moot. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <3jn51f$d...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >rho...@hamilton.edu (Harpua ) wrote: > >> while back. i agree with you that fame is unbalanced, and i partially >> agree with you about majesty- but i don't think it's unbalanced, just > >Peace Harpua, > >This really isn't directed at you, but more of an observation. Why do >people gripe about Majesty when Protean has _two_ similar cards Earth >Meld (identical but CHEAPER) and Form of Mist? Because this poor newbie who has been griping all the time hasn't seen one. Form of Mist is (a bit) uncommon, and I don't know for what reason I haven't seen an Earth Meld. I'm not saying that strike: Combat Ends is a bad idea, but it should be costly to put one out. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >This really isn't directed at you, but more of an observation. Why do >people gripe about Majesty when Protean has _two_ similar cards Earth >Meld (identical but CHEAPER) and Form of Mist? The primary reason is that Majesty is accessible to Ventrue, who have the grossest bleed boosting power in the game (Presence AND Dominate). In addition, combat is supposed to be a weakness for them. For a Ventrue, Majesty avoids their greatest weakness and sets them up for killer bleeds. Gangrel, on the other hand, can't bleed worth toot. With Form of Mist, they avoid their strength for their weakness. It can be used to avoid intercept, but they have stealth as well (unlike Ventrue), so again, it ain't too useful. So the answer to your question is the the vampires who can Majesty can use it to much better effect than vampire who Earth Meld, even though Earth Meld is cheaper. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

CurtAdams <curt...@aol.com> wrote: >"James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: > >>This really isn't directed at you, but more of an observation. Why do >>people gripe about Majesty when Protean has _two_ similar cards Earth >>Meld (identical but CHEAPER) and Form of Mist? > >The primary reason is that Majesty is accessible to Ventrue, who have the >grossest bleed boosting power in the game (Presence AND Dominate). In >addition, combat is supposed to be a weakness for them. For a Ventrue, >Majesty avoids their greatest weakness and sets them up for killer bleeds. Huh? Ventrue are weak in combat _offensively_, but mosnters _defensively_. With all that fortitude, combat doesn't really hurt them much. Majesty is simply one more way (of many) for them to avoid being hurt in combat. The 1 blood to untap bit is nice, but hardly out of line with all the other disciplines' untap cards. [ quoted text not captured ]

>>The primary reason is that Majesty is accessible to Ventrue, who have the >>grossest bleed boosting power in the game (Presence AND Dominate). In >>addition, combat is supposed to be a weakness for them. For a Ventrue, >>Majesty avoids their greatest weakness and sets them up for killer bleeds. >Huh? Ventrue are weak in combat _offensively_, but mosnters _defensively_. >With all that fortitude, combat doesn't really hurt them much. Majesty is >simply one more way (of many) for them to avoid being hurt in combat. The 1 >blood to untap bit is nice, but hardly out of line with all the other >disciplines' untap cards. No clan is helpless in combat, but Ventrue are at the bottom of the barrel. Even Malks fight better (ha ha! you thought it was a cigaretter lighter! it's really the pilot light for a FLAMETHROWER! BWAHAHAHAHA!) Yes, Ventrue escaping combat isn't that much of a deal. But the untap is scary, because they use repeated actions better than anyone in the game, especially since enough Majesties make them immune to combat. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <3jsvar$7...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: > >>Huh? Ventrue are weak in combat _offensively_, but mosnters >_defensively_. >>With all that fortitude, combat doesn't really hurt them much. Majesty >is >>simply one more way (of many) for them to avoid being hurt in combat. No. Majesty is /the/ way. If my vampires have presence, I won't bother putting Fortitude in my deck (except 1 or 2, against HL and FA). Who bothers with Fortitude cards. Play a Majesty, untap and do whatever you want. >>The 1 >>blood to untap bit is nice, but hardly out of line with all the other >>disciplines' untap cards. >No clan is helpless in combat, but Ventrue are at the bottom of the >barrel. Even Malks fight better (ha ha! you thought it was a cigaretter >lighter! it's really the pilot light for a FLAMETHROWER! BWAHAHAHAHA!) Protean combat end are powerful, but Protean is a combat discipline and using combat end nullifies its purpose. Animalism is just miscallaneous stuff; untap is about the only thing it does well. Presence is good for voting and bleeds too. Giving it free Combat Ends in additional to that is rude. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >rho...@hamilton.edu (Harpua ) wrote: >> while back. i agree with you that fame is unbalanced, and i partially >> agree with you about majesty- but i don't think it's unbalanced, just >Peace Harpua, >This really isn't directed at you, but more of an observation. Why do >people gripe about Majesty when Protean has _two_ similar cards Earth >Meld (identical but CHEAPER) and Form of Mist? > Nil carborundum illigitimi, > James R. McClure Jr. > The OS/2 Apostle ><insert disclaimer here> I don't even see where Fame is so unbalanced... Sure, it sucks, but not unbalanced. Majesty, Form of Mist and Earth Meld are fine. All you've got to do with any of these "unbalanced cards" is find a way around them. This is what makes Jyhad so great... There is a counter for every card. There is always something you can do, you just have to figure out what it is... chris Fame is easy to get around by the way... Amaranth. Usually most people are so glad to see the Famed vamp go that they won't even vote against you on the Bloodhunt...

rhodesc@medicine (Chris Rhodes) wrote: > I don't even see where Fame is so unbalanced... Peace Chris, You are one of the minority then. > Sure, it sucks, but not unbalanced. Majesty, Form of Mist and Earth Meld > are fine. All you've got to do with any of these "unbalanced cards" is > find a way around them. This is what makes Jyhad so great... There is a > counter for every card. There is always something you can do, you just > have to figure out what it is... I agree that most of the 'unbalanced combos' do have resonable defenses, but Fame + Day Op/Talbot's Chainsaw/any other way to send one of your own vampires to torpor is nearly impossible to stop and, in the case of Talbot's Chainsaw, repeatable over several turns. > Fame is easy to get around by the way... Amaranth. Usually most people > are so glad to see the Famed vamp go that they won't even vote against > you on the Bloodhunt... Yes, you could Amaranth, IF you are in combat. The problem with Fame is you could lose 3 pool and never have a chance to interfer. That's why I believe Fame is broken. [its just a one word fix though 8^)] [ quoted text not captured ]

kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > > In article <3jfeij$p...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: > >kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > > > > > >I believe that that is the way the rules are supposed to be interpreted > >as they stand. > > Peace James, Peace Alan, > Yes, we all agree on things when it is obvious. If only that were true. (see posts about Monacle of Clarity) > >> A card less often talked about is Majesty. > >[long post about how unbalanced Majesty is deleted] > > > >There are other cards which have similar effects to Majesty and don't > >cost blood either. For example: Form of Mist (superior) "Strike: End > >Combat. Acting minion may continue action at +1 Stealth" {paraphrase} > >This is a very nasty card, too. It costs zero blood. Do you think that > >it is unbalanced? > > Of course I do. The only reason I didn't list it is because I have > never seen the card. If this card can only be used when you > are blocked, then its use is more limited than Majesty; > but its effect is gross. I don't have a problem with > cards with gross effects, just that there should be an > (appropriate) cost to play it. Earth Meld doesn't have a cost to pay, which compared to Majesty makes it very powerful. > >> Cards that give a /lot/ of blood, especially > >> those that can give a lot of pool in combos, > >> tend to be in great demand. Some ways should be > > > >Gee, people will seek out cards that make effective combos. I don't > >see how that is unbalancing or requires that those cards be limited. > > Because the balance of those cards had been designed without > seriously taking into consideration those combos. If players > begin to use those combos commonly, the game reduces to > a competition of who can luckily draw and play those combos. You don't have much faith in WotC do you, Alan? Luck of the draw will always play a part in any card game. Players will always search for efficient combinations of cards. Those factors cannot be removed. In the end, it /is/ a competition to see who draws better sooner. > >Disagree. Minion Tapping does take a master phase, your vampire has to > >remain intact for one full turn, and drawing too much blood from a vampire > >will make it an ineffective blocker (unless he/she is looking forward to > >spending some time in torpor) and target for directed attacks like Bum's > >Rush & Mud Vamp Hunt. > > The argument about weakening the vampire had been answered before. > Even if you torporize my vampire, it doesn't matter too much > to me because I've already recovered most of the blood I > spent on it. It's harder to torporize a 8-blood vampire > which had been tapped for 5, than a straight 3-blood vampire > because of the extra skills. If I am repeatedly torporizing your Minion Tapped vamps, then I /am/ gaining something and you /are/ losing something. Time. You may regain much/most of the initial blood investment on that vampire, but you still lost some and you have little of nothing to show for that lost investment. Unless another of your minions can rescue the torpored vampire(s), you'll eventually be left open for anything your predator wants to do. Also, it took you at least two Influence Phases to bring that Minion Tapped vamp into play, now you'll have to spend two more just to have a ready minion (which may need to rescue the MT vampire). > >> limiting Giant's Blood to giving 3 blood, and making > > > >Giant's Blood is "unique," which has a balancing effect in and of > >itself. Yes, the first person to play Giant's Blood successfully has an > >advantage, but so does a person who plays Information Highway and doesn't > >get contested. Yes, there is a luck factor, but that holds true for ALL > >rare cards (unless you like loading you deck with twelve Sengir Daggers > >and discarding the other eleven). > > I don't have the card description in front of me; how much > pool does info highway cost? A 0-blood card will certainly > be trivially contested; I won't mind intentionally > contesting a 1-blood card with my prey. If info highway > costs 2 pool, it isn't unbalanced (compare with > Effective Management). Yes, you can do that, but what if no one else draws IH initially? Happened to me yesterday (not to me personally, I'm not that lucky). That player had a 50% advantage in ready vampires from the word 'go.' Yes, you should contest locations like that, but what if you can't? are they then considered unbalanced? > >> Blood Doll cost nothing to play, but costs > >> 2 vampire blood to get 1 pool. (This would > > > >I've responded previously, but again, taking blood from a minion weakens > >them, they can be selectively targetted, if they're hunting all the time > >you have one less minion to use (act/react). Often, I can't afford to > >put one of my minions on eternal hunting, the games I play are that close. > >What if your Blood Doll hunter gets intercepted? > > A Blood Doll does not /have to/ hunt, unless it has got > XTC laced blood on it. If my Blood Doll gets intercepted, > the blocking minion is tapped, and my other minions can > take actions more freely. It doesn't cost anything > less to block a blood doll than to block a vampire > that is not one. It will have to hunt eventually, if you are continually drawing blood from it. If your BD is intercepted several of the blood that you were counting on won't be around. It only takes one of your predator's (s/h/it has more motivation to block) minions to break up that cycle. > >> Think about making a big vampire, and then Minion > >> Tap half of its blood (the absolutely most > >> mundane use of the card). This usage alone > >> is almost equivalent to playing /many/ skill cards > >> on a small vampire. No wonder the card is so > >> much sought after. > > > >If its common and everybody can do it, how does that make Minion Tap un- > >balancing? Yes, you posted something about 'Elasic Arms' or some such. > >But I don't see how that applies here. If I have all the advantages and > >disadvantages that you have from playing a card and I have the same access > >to that card that you do (common card), what is so bad about it? If every- > >one in a game Minion Taps their vampires to bring other vamps in, what has > >really changed? Nearly nothing. > > Thanks for reminding me; the "Elastic Iron Arms" argument does > apply here. If the EIA is common, and everybody has access to > it, what is so bad about it? If everybody is playing Potence > and has 30 EIA's in his deck, what was really changed? Nothing. All players are equal. > The problem with cards that are "too good" is that everybody > has to use that card. This reduces the variability, or "colorfulness", > of the game and 1. causes everyone to be using part of the > same strategy; 2. rules out lots of otherwise reasonable > strategies as inferior, reducing the player's freedom > in choosing his strategy for the game. I'll agree in part, but what are those Magic-minded players doing playing Jyhad in the first place (its too long - its boring = common Magic player whines about Jyhad). > >I just don't see > >the scenario happening like you are saying, Alan, and I play every weekend > >with four to six other players. > > That's because what I named was the most innocent, mundane > use of Minion Tap. It's still a lame strategy when > compared to Blood Dolls or other combos. If you ban > Blood Doll and Golconda, you'll see lots of Minion > Taps being used in various ways (most more "fierce" > than the one I cited). We ban nothing. Maybe we are more mature than the 'average' player (yea, that is /really/ likely [sarcasm alert for the sarcasm impared]). Except for a few minor errors [and the ex-Magic-players who distort Monacle of Clarity] I have previously posted (and most everyone here seems to agree with) Jyhad is incredibly balanced. > >> Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also > >> IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, > >[Charnas spiel deleted] > > > >Just think of Charnas as the ultimate counter to Blood Doll. > > Only to a certain degree: he withdraws all blood (or all > but 1 blood) from the vampire and make a new one, > and then another Blood Doll ... You still lost use of that vampire, the original BD, indefinitely and two turns worth of Influence Phases bringing in a replacement and a Master phase. Good job, Charnas! > >... and people will quit trying to get > >around the rule about not being in combat with yourself. > > I think that when they designed the game, they made the > assumption (although clearly invalidated by the cards > they later came up with) that one would never "want to" > get in combat with oneself. That's why there is such > a huge loophole in the rules. A few extra sentences > in the rules would have clarified this neatly. Arrgh! We agree on something. [ quoted text not captured ]

:In article <3jj02t$8...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>, curt...@aol.com (CurtAdams) writes: [ quoted text not captured ] I have to disagree. 4 Wakes should be enough for everyone, considering that the opponent is limited to 4 Misdirections as well. In a pinch, one can also start to rely on Sudden Reversals to stop the Misdirection. I am not impressed by decks full of Wakes, because they don't seem able to do much else. Would rather face a bleed deck with only 4 Wakes, or a degenerate deck with 48 Kine Resources Contesteds in it? In any case, my group has started playing with a card limit of 6 cards so far... Wakes are NOT all powerful. They don't worry combat decks, and they don't worry Fame decks much... Another Wake is one less combat card after all.

740926...@omega.ntu.ac.sg writes > 4 Wakes should be enough for everyone, considering that the >opponent is limited to 4 Misdirections as well. !!!!!! If the predator has four minions, each Misdirect requires 4 Wakes to stop. With Dominate, if ANYBODY gets through, it's at least 4 each, and often more. The real killer is that with 4 Wakes and a 60-card deck, you've only about a 25% chance of having any Wakes at all when the Misdirection hits you. >In a pinch, one can also start to rely on Sudden Reversals to stop the >Misdirection. Sudden Reversal is not an acceptable counter. Its play costs you more than the Misdirector, and in any case you both lose to other players. Even with 4 Wakes AND 4 Suddens you've less than a 50% chance of being able to do ANYTHING. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <3k1n9i$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > >Earth Meld doesn't have a cost to pay, which compared to Majesty makes >it very powerful. There is a catch: using Earth Meld nullifies one big aspect of the Protean skill (claws). Using Majesty would nullify the same big aspect of the Protean skill, but what Majesty requires is Presence. If there is a Majesty equivalent for Obfuscate or Dominate, the game need to be played no more. >> >Gee, people will seek out cards that make effective combos. I don't >> >see how that is unbalancing or requires that those cards be limited. >> >> Because the balance of those cards had been designed without >> seriously taking into consideration those combos. If players >> begin to use those combos commonly, the game reduces to >> a competition of who can luckily draw and play those combos. >You don't have much faith in WotC do you, Alan? Frankly speaking, I don't: MtG, the (D)-bleed mis-rule and countless other mis-rules. Garfield is very brilliant and designs great game systems, but it seems that he is too busy to be availiable to support existing products. The problem with gross combos is that it rules out lots of other `normal' strategies as inferior, and greatly limits freedom of the player to create his own strategy. It also makes careful planning and playing unnecessary; all it takes to win now is luck to draw, play and counter those combos. I have no problem with the Claws -> Amaranth combo, because there are so many drawbacks and restrictions, and normal ways to counter it. I do have problem with Fame combos and Minion Tap -> Hospitality combos. These combos have little to do with the rest of the game system (unlike Claws, which is tied into combat), are not based on a deck theme (as Claws is), and takes much more specific measures to counter. >Luck of the draw will >always play a part in any card game. Players will always search for efficient >combinations of cards. Those factors cannot be removed. In the end, it /is/ >a competition to see who draws better sooner. But, personally, I can `feel' the difference between a Brujah Potence/Celerity `combo' deck, and a Fame/Day Op. `combo' deck. Maybe it's just me. Also, as stated in my article, a lot of Jyhad is on allocating deck proportions. MtG "/is/ a competition to see who draws better sooner"; Jyhad is more on allocating deck proportions. With a `good' deck, you /don't/ need too much luck to get the cards you want. If you want a WwEF in your hand all the time, put 12 or 15 in your deck. It takes a lot of careful calculations and evaluations to balance out the proportions of each card in a `good' deck; it doesn't take much, other than 6th grade intellience and in some cases $$$, to build a deck loaded with annoying combos (ever beaten by a $$$ rich 13-yr-old in MtG?) . To illustrate the former point, consider the degenerate Majesty-bleed Ventrue deck I posted. There are players who, based on their misconceptions, thought that I should not have put any "Threats" card in the deck. But the fact is, at that proportion of Dominate bleeders in the deck, "Conditioning" cards may jam the hand, and in /that/ deck "Threats" have its place. Even with a degenerate deck, there are some delicate issues that must be taken care of concerning the delicate balance of similar cards in the deck. However, with some of the gross combos, their use is much more obvious than the use of "Threats" in my degenerate deck. And, up to this day, no one has pointed out to me that, for /that/ deck, its effectiveness can be slightly improved by replacing yet some "Conditioning" with "Legal Manipulations". Since you burn Presence cards on every bleed action but burn Dominate cards only on unblocked ones, it follows that you need more Presence bleed cards than Dominate for maximum bleed effectiveness, with /that/ proportion of bleed cards in the deck. Also, that deck is more centered on Presence than on Dominate to begin with. >> >Disagree. Minion Tapping does take a master phase, your vampire has to >> >remain intact for one full turn, and drawing too much blood from a vampire >> >will make it an ineffective blocker (unless he/she is looking forward to >> >spending some time in torpor) and target for directed attacks like Bum's >> >Rush & Mud Vamp Hunt. > >If I am repeatedly torporizing your Minion Tapped vamps, then I /am/ gaining >something and you /are/ losing something. ... The lost transfers is a problem, but other than that, a Minion Tapped big vampire is in every way no worse than a small vampire. If you could `easily' Torporize my MT'ed vampire, you could have similarly torporized any smaller vampire I would have brought out in its stead (with blood capacity equal to the blood left on my MT'ed vampire), had I not used the MT strategy and used smaller vampires instead. In practice, it is not so easy to torporize a MT'ed vampire, because of the added skills. If your group doesn't know how to build decks centered on disciplines, that's your problem. You have a good argument about torporizing MT'ed vampires, but the same argument applies to torporizing /any/ vampire, be it a MT'ed big vampire or a small one to begin with, except for the point about the transfers required to bring it out. But trasnfers are not a big deal once the mid-game stage has been reached. >Yes, you can do that, but what if no one else draws IH initially? Happened >to me yesterday (not to me personally, I'm not that lucky). That player had >a 50% advantage in ready vampires from the word 'go.' Yes, you should >contest locations like that, but what if you can't? are they then considered >unbalanced? You should have as many copies of a card in your library as how important you think it is. You can put in less, but if you don't draw it, it's because you didn't put in more, not because of bad luck. Feel free to disagree. >> A Blood Doll does not /have to/ hunt, unless it has got >> XTC laced blood on it. If my Blood Doll gets intercepted, >> the blocking minion is tapped, and my other minions can >> take actions more freely. It doesn't cost anything >> less to block a blood doll than to block a vampire >> that is not one. > >It will have to hunt eventually, if you are continually drawing blood from >it. If your BD is intercepted several of the blood that you were counting >on won't be around. It only takes one of your predator's (s/h/it has more >motivation to block) minions to break up that cycle. And if that happens, all I lost is just a Master phase. Big deal. Keep in mind that, except for rares and sometimes uncommons, there is no such thing as a `valuable' card in Jyhad. If there is one, you should (ideally) have as many copies of it in your deck as appropriate, so you don't worry having any number of /cards/ `countered'. Anyway, now I'm no longer feeling as much about the balance of Blood Dolls as I was before. It's not because of any `counters' of that card, it's that I'm speculating that players over-rate Blood Dolls because they play slow games. Also, in tight, fast-paced games centered more on combat, minion blood /is/ important. >> [...] the "Elastic Iron Arms" argument does >> apply here. If the EIA is common, and everybody has access to >> it, what is so bad about it? If everybody is playing Potence >> and has 30 EIA's in his deck, what was really changed? > >Nothing. All players are equal. What about "Ultimate Disaster"? What about just giving each card an integer value, have all the high-valued cards common, and `simplify' the game by simply shuffle, everyone draws 10 cards and the one who draws the highest sum for the 10 cards wins? According to your argument, nothing `was really changed', was it? What about playing revised-commons-only Magic? According to your argument, that would be as good a game as Jyhad, isn't it? Make that one multi-player free-for-all for maximum `interaction', then all players are still equal, and the game is `nothing changed', i.e. just the same as Jyhad, isn't it? Richard Garfield had indicated that for games with Diplomacy-style interaction, "all the games are the same ...". Since it seems that players who like games with such interaction cannot understand this, they can't really tell whether there are any similarities nor differences between games? (Because they have been playing games which are in a sense `all the same' but they thought that they were different.) >> The problem with cards that are "too good" is that everybody >> has to use that card. This reduces the variability, or "colorfulness", >> of the game and 1. causes everyone to be using part of the >> same strategy; 2. rules out lots of otherwise reasonable >> strategies as inferior, reducing the player's freedom >> in choosing his strategy for the game. > >I'll agree in part, but what are those Magic-minded players doing >playing Jyhad in the first place (its too long - its boring = common >Magic player whines about Jyhad). It is not (entirely) the players' problem that Magic players have that mindset. It is the nature of MtG, the game itself, that results in it being in the state it is now. Jyhad would become the same thing if it is not balanced out. There are some good points about the design of MtG; there are also some inherent problems with the design, and it is those `problems' that cause the game to be what it is now. I see that some of those very same problems are in Jyhad right now. I'm not complaining about Jyhad being long and boring: points 1. and 2. have nothing to do with that. I probably never would. Please maintain the relevance of your arguments. >We ban nothing. Maybe we are more mature than the 'average' player (yea, that >is /really/ likely [sarcasm alert for the sarcasm impared]). Except for a few >minor errors [and the ex-Magic-players who distort Monacle of Clarity] I have >previously posted (and most everyone here seems to agree with) Jyhad is >incredibly balanced. Oh, the other day you just mailed (posted?) to me calling my Ventrue Majesty-bleed deck `degenerate' (which I agree with, and I knew that already). In my opinion, such a thing as a `degenerate' deck should not work in an "incredibly balanced" game. Since many of the feedback I get for that deck is `that's rude', it seems that Jyhad is not that "incredibly balanced" after all. Jyhad is balanced for a lot of its components, but it doesn't take too many unbalanced components to topple a game over. >> >> Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also >> >> IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, >> >[Charnas spiel deleted] >> > >> >Just think of Charnas as the ultimate counter to Blood Doll. >> >> Only to a certain degree: ... > >You still lost use of that vampire, the original BD, indefinitely and >two turns worth of Influence Phases bringing in a replacement and a >Master phase. Good job, Charnas! If that is the case, since there is no restriction that Charnas can only hose Blood Dolls, Charnas itself would be a `spoiler' ... [ quoted text not captured ]

<snip> Various people said... >>Misdirection should probably be removed as a spoiler, >I think that's consensus. Anybody defending Misdirection? Yes, partially. Misdirection is good but is nowhere near a spoiler. The point is that whilst Misdirection taps things it doesn't prevent them untapping to act. Since Misdirection also costs pool ( which I view as fairly priceless stuff ) it isn't unfair. Of course if WwEF was altered or limited ( I believe it should be made into a Thaumaturgy card ) then Misdirection might become a problem in a big way. Until then... go ahead, misdirect me punk ! Dom. >Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > > In article <3k1n9i$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: > >kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > >> >Gee, people will seek out cards that make effective combos. I don't > >> >see how that is unbalancing or requires that those cards be limited. > >> > >> Because the balance of those cards had been designed without > >> seriously taking into consideration those combos. If players > >> begin to use those combos commonly, the game reduces to > >> a competition of who can luckily draw and play those combos. > > >You don't have much faith in WotC do you, Alan? > > Frankly speaking, I don't: MtG, the (D)-bleed mis-rule > and countless other mis-rules. Garfield is very brilliant > and designs great game systems, but it seems that he is too > busy to be availiable to support existing products. Peace Alan, We will forever differ on WotC desire to make good games then. MtG was a good game, it got out of hand. (D) bleed is only a misruling to you. Countless others? Why do you even waste your time playing, then? It's obviously hopeless, WotC will just fuck it up, no matter what you do. [the above is heavy sarcasm, since some cannot recognize it] > The problem with gross combos is that it rules out lots of > other `normal' strategies as inferior, and greatly limits > freedom of the player to create his own strategy. It also > makes careful planning and playing unnecessary; all it takes > to win now is luck to draw, play and counter those combos. I'll agree with you there, Alan. Luck of the draw is one of the things that drove me from Magic. But I still say that, with a few exception that almost everyone agrees are broken, there aren't that many "gross combos." Almost all have some sort of counter, some don't have common counters, but they are still counterable. > I have no problem with the Claws -> Amaranth combo, because > there are so many drawbacks and restrictions, and normal ways > to counter it. I do have problem with Fame combos and > Minion Tap -> Hospitality combos. These combos have little > to do with the rest of the game system (unlike Claws, which > is tied into combat), are not based on a deck theme > (as Claws is), and takes much more specific measures to counter. Hospitality requires a Prince/Justicar and can easily be intercepted. > >Luck of the draw will > >always play a part in any card game. Players will always search for efficient > >combinations of cards. Those factors cannot be removed. In the end, it /is/ > >a competition to see who draws better sooner. > > But, personally, I can `feel' the difference between a Brujah > Potence/Celerity `combo' deck, and a Fame/Day Op. `combo' deck. > Maybe it's just me. Also, as stated in my article, a lot of > Jyhad is on allocating deck proportions. MtG "/is/ a competition > to see who draws better sooner"; Jyhad is more on allocating > deck proportions. With a `good' deck, you /don't/ need > too much luck to get the cards you want. If you want a > WwEF in your hand all the time, put 12 or 15 in your deck. I'll agree with you that decks have 'feel,' but luck still plays a part of any card game. I'm sure we've all had those days where we just couldn;t seem to draw a certain card out of our libraries, even though we know there are six of them in there! > >> >Disagree. Minion Tapping does take a master phase, your vampire has to > >> >remain intact for one full turn, and drawing too much blood from a vampire > >> >will make it an ineffective blocker (unless he/she is looking forward to > >> >spending some time in torpor) and target for directed attacks like Bum's > >> >Rush & Mud Vamp Hunt. > > > >If I am repeatedly torporizing your Minion Tapped vamps, then I /am/ gaining > >something and you /are/ losing something. ... > > The lost transfers is a problem, but other than that, > a Minion Tapped big vampire is in every way no worse > than a small vampire. If you could `easily' > Torporize my MT'ed vampire, you could have similarly > torporized any smaller vampire I would have brought > out in its stead (with blood > capacity equal to the blood left on my MT'ed vampire), > had I not used the MT strategy and used smaller vampires > instead. Yes, a half-full 8 is worth more than a full 4, but I have much more motivation to torp your half an 8 (it has a title/special powers and has better disciplins). By torp'g an 8, I have cost you two turns worth of transfers to bring in a replacement. If you had brought in two 4s vs. one 8, you would have a vampire left over. I've effectively torp'd twice as many vamps. > In practice, it is not so easy to torporize a MT'ed > vampire, because of the added skills. If your group > doesn't know how to build decks centered on > disciplines, that's your problem. Not a deck construction problem, but if you don't Strike: Combat Ends, you are pretty much guarenteed to torporize. > You have a good argument about torporizing MT'ed vampires, > but the same argument applies to torporizing /any/ > vampire, be it a MT'ed big vampire or a small one > to begin with, except for the point about the > transfers required to bring it out. But trasnfers > are not a big deal once the mid-game stage has > been reached. No, Alan, you've also lost the title/powers and the time to bring in another large vamp. Time is very important, IME. Taking two turns away from you is a serious blow. > >Yes, you can do that, but what if no one else draws IH initially? Happened > >to me yesterday (not to me personally, I'm not that lucky). That player had > >a 50% advantage in ready vampires from the word 'go.' Yes, you should > >contest locations like that, but what if you can't? are they then considered > >unbalanced? > > You should have as many copies of a card in your library > as how important you think it is. You can put in less, > but if you don't draw it, it's because you didn't > put in more, not because of bad luck. Feel free to > disagree. I'll agree that you put more of a card in your deck because you feel that it is more important, but I, personally, don't put more than two of any unique card into my decks. And I do disagree, luck still plays a part (unless your whole deck is fourty IHs). > >> A Blood Doll does not /have to/ hunt, unless it has got > >> XTC laced blood on it. If my Blood Doll gets intercepted, > >> the blocking minion is tapped, and my other minions can > >> take actions more freely. It doesn't cost anything > >> less to block a blood doll than to block a vampire > >> that is not one. > > > >It will have to hunt eventually, if you are continually drawing blood from > >it. If your BD is intercepted several of the blood that you were counting > >on won't be around. It only takes one of your predator's (s/h/it has more > >motivation to block) minions to break up that cycle. > > And if that happens, all I lost is just a Master phase. > Big deal. And that minion, and the blood you would have gotten in the future. It is a big deal. > >> [...] the "Elastic Iron Arms" argument does > >> apply here. If the EIA is common, and everybody has access to > >> it, what is so bad about it? If everybody is playing Potence > >> and has 30 EIA's in his deck, what was really changed? > > > >Nothing. All players are equal. > > What about "Ultimate Disaster"? What about just giving > each card an integer value, have all the high-valued > cards common, and `simplify' the game by simply > shuffle, everyone draws 10 cards and the one who > draws the highest sum for the 10 cards wins? > According to your argument, nothing `was really > changed', was it? In the most general sense, Nothing. But you aren't playing Jyhad anymore, you're playing Alyhad. Your argument is non-sequitur. Almost all of the cards have costs that balance their usefulness (Renegade Garou vs. Loyal Street Gang). I have named the handful of exceptions that I believe need to be changed and I assume (from the defening silence) that people agree with me. Given what other cards cost, your card would cost about 10 blood. Then it would be balanced, regardless of commonness. > What about playing revised-commons-only Magic? According This might work, but I'm not playing Magic anymore. > to your argument, that would be as good a game as Jyhad, > isn't it? Make that one multi-player free-for-all for No, it wouldn't. Jyhad's "the stronger you are in play, the weaker you are personally" way of doing things makes it relatively unique. > maximum `interaction', then all players are still > equal, and the game is `nothing changed', i.e. > just the same as Jyhad, isn't it? Blah, blah, blah, yackety, smackety. 8^) > Richard Garfield had indicated that for games with Diplomacy-style > interaction, "all the games are the same ...". Since it Garfield is WRONG! (sacrilege) That's just his opinion and he has the right to be wrong. (this /is/ America, afterall) All games with player interaction are not the same, but Richard is entitled to his opinion. > >> The problem with cards that are "too good" is that everybody > >> has to use that card. This reduces the variability, or "colorfulness", > >> of the game and 1. causes everyone to be using part of the > >> same strategy; 2. rules out lots of otherwise reasonable > >> strategies as inferior, reducing the player's freedom > >> in choosing his strategy for the game. > > > >I'll agree in part, but what are those Magic-minded players doing > >playing Jyhad in the first place (its too long - its boring = common > >Magic player whines about Jyhad). > > It is not (entirely) the players' problem that Magic players > have that mindset. It is the nature of MtG, the game itself, that > results in it being in the state it is now. Jyhad would > become the same thing if it is not balanced out. It is very close to being balanced now, I think we agree on this, Alan. Its just a few cards or a few words short of being "perfect." > There are some good points about the design of MtG; > there are also some inherent problems with the design, > and it is those `problems' that cause the game to be > what it is now. I see that some of those very same > problems are in Jyhad right now. Please, site examples of problems with Magic that are problems with Jyhad. Please, limit yourself to the game system/card text. Rarity of the cards or problems that all CCGs share don't count. > I'm not complaining about Jyhad being long and boring: > points 1. and 2. have nothing to do with that. I probably > never would. Please maintain the relevance of your arguments. IME, points 1&2 are player related, not game related. People get stuck one one strategy and don't deviate from it. What do you think is THE winning strategy, Alan. I don't see one. > >We ban nothing. Maybe we are more mature than the 'average' player (yea, that > >is /really/ likely [sarcasm alert for the sarcasm impared]). Except for a few > >minor errors [and the ex-Magic-players who distort Monacle of Clarity] I have > >previously posted (and most everyone here seems to agree with) Jyhad is > >incredibly balanced. > > Oh, the other day you just mailed (posted?) to me calling > my Ventrue Majesty-bleed deck `degenerate' (which I agree with, > and I knew that already). In my opinion, such a thing as a > `degenerate' deck should not work in an "incredibly balanced" game. > Since many of the feedback I get for that deck is > `that's rude', it seems that Jyhad is not that "incredibly > balanced" after all. You can't make a CCG degeneracy proof. I still say that that deck you posted would get walked on in most circles. (most players hate degenerate decks and kill them on sight). Yes, that deck was 'degenerate' by the dictionary definition: having fallen to a state below what is held to be normal or desirable, esp. in mental or moral qualities. End running the game system like that is, to a life-long gamer (like me), 'morally' wrong. That deck is below the state considered normal or desirable. These are very personal observations and somewhere there may be Jyhad players where 26 Majesties are normal. Degeneracy is a player problem, NOT a game problem. The player choses to degenerate. The game chooses nothing, it is but a tool. Just because you can show that a degenerate deck exists does not make the game unbalanced. It mearly shows that most players understand what "the norm" is for a deck. I doubt that too many people would play that deck, Alan. Those that would are playing the wrong game (Magic, anyone?) > Jyhad is balanced for a lot of its components, but > it doesn't take too many unbalanced components to > topple a game over. A degenerate player will find wholes in any game. > >> >> Some general hosers such as Charnas the Imp is also > >> >> IMO a bit cheesy. Unlike Muddled Vampire Hunter, > >> >[Charnas spiel deleted] > >> > > >> >Just think of Charnas as the ultimate counter to Blood Doll. > >> > >> Only to a certain degree: ... > > > >You still lost use of that vampire, the original BD, indefinitely and > >two turns worth of Influence Phases bringing in a replacement and a > >Master phase. Good job, Charnas! > > If that is the case, since there is no restriction that > Charnas can only hose Blood Dolls, Charnas itself > would be a `spoiler' ... Charnas is a spoiler? I don't follow you. He's a retainer (can be blocked), you have to have a ready Tremere to bring him in, someone else could shoot him to help that player (oh, I forgot, we don't get to interact with other players like this), if your minion is burned you can throw Charnas back on the Tremere player. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <1995Mar15.2...@cs.cornell.edu>, Alan Kwan <kw...@cs.cornell.edu> wrote: >Frankly speaking, I don't: MtG, the (D)-bleed mis-rule >and countless other mis-rules. Garfield is very brilliant >and designs great game systems, but it seems that he is too >busy to be availiable to support existing products. I have 134 rulings from the design team on file. Of these, perhaps 10 are reversals of previous rulings. Out of these 120 rulings (or so), you have serious problems with how many? Fame and (D) bleed, maybe one or two others? That's a pretty good success rate. And the (D) bleed rule cannot be called a mis-ruling. Even if it is wrong, there are some people who believe that it is correct. At the worst, call it a contested ruling. They are closer to the source than we are. RG may not be available to answer every last question (although at one point I do believe that he was on the DT), but they have an open channel of communication to him that we do not. | If you've got a hot lead on a new | *--Joe--* | PC game, call the announce line at | js...@vt.edu | ** csi...@discus.ise.vt.edu ** | +-------------------------------------+---------------------------------- "Carnivores, oy!" -- Timon, TLK

domini...@ccc.ox.ac.uk (DOMINIC CAMUS) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 13:27:39 Message-ID: <dominic.camu...@ccc.ox.ac.uk> writes: > Misdirection is good but is nowhere near a spoiler. >The point is that whilst Misdirection taps things it doesn't prevent >them untapping to act. Since Misdirection also costs pool ( which I >view as fairly priceless stuff ) it isn't unfair. Yes you can stop Misdirection by stuffing your library with untaps. But that creates problems of its own. (like the Wake shortage) The best solution is to increase the cost of both Misdirection and the untap cards. Curt Adams (curt...@aol.com)

In article <3k9ngg$r...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: >> >> In article <3k1n9i$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >I'll agree with you there, Alan. Luck of the draw is one of the >things that drove me from Magic. But I still say that, with a few >exception that almost everyone agrees are broken, there aren't that >many "gross combos." Almost all have some sort of counter, some don't >have common counters, but they are still counterable. Yeah. Even if they print "Ultimate Disaster" in Revised, it won't hurt because it can be Sudden Reversal'ed. >Hospitality requires a Prince/Justicar and can easily be intercepted. Intercepting an action does not help if someone plays 15% Hospitality in his deck. Intercepting can also be harmful to yourself if that Prince/Justicar is very good at combat. Intercepting is hard to work if opponent is stealthy. Question: is below card `balanced'? ---------------------------------- Zeroth Tradition: Blood Bank Action, 4 vampire blood Prince/Justicar If action is successful, for the remainder of the game, any blood that goes to the Blood Bank goes to your pool instead. Once one "Zeroth Tradition: Blood Bank" succeeds in a game, no other can be played. ---------------------------------- Sure, it requires Prince/Justicar, and it "can easily be intercepted". Why did you say that Ivory Bow is unbalanced? It similarly "can easily be intercepted". >> You should have as many copies of a card in your library >> as how important you think it is. You can put in less, >> but if you don't draw it, it's because you didn't >> put in more, not because of bad luck. Feel free to >> disagree. > >I'll agree that you put more of a card in your deck because you feel that it >is more important, but I, personally, don't put more than two of any unique >card into my decks. And I do disagree, luck still plays a part (unless your >whole deck is fourty IHs). Luck always play a part, but to varying degrees. For example, luck plays a heavier part in "Snake and Ladders" than in "Backgammon". My complaint is that outrageous combos put more emphasis of the game on luck than necessary. I don't have much experience with IH (nobody seems to use it around here), but if you feel that the card is `too much luck', that is probably the sign of an under-priced card. >> And if that happens, all I lost is just a Master phase. >> Big deal. > >And that minion, and the blood you would have gotten in the future. It >is a big deal. I'll lose the minion if you block any of his actions, regardless of whether he's a blood doll or not. I won't get `the blood in the future' if I didn't use the Blood Doll to begin with, so I'm not losing it `because I used the Blood Doll'. All I lost is the Master Phase, as I said. We're talking about whether to use a Blood Doll, not about whether to counter one. It's always good to use a Blood Doll because the effects are great and the cost is small; it's always good to try to counter a Blood Doll because you countered some powerful stuff. Similar to Fame, but to a lesser extent. >Your argument is non-sequitur. >Almost all of the cards have costs that balance their usefulness >(Renegade Garou vs. Loyal Street Gang). I have named the handful >of exceptions that I believe need to be changed and I assume >(from the defening silence) that people agree with me. Given what >other cards cost, your card would cost about 10 blood. Then it would >be balanced, regardless of commonness. This is what we have been talking about - card cost vs. card effects. But you always bring out the `it can be countered so it's balanced' argument (you even just used it earlier in /this/ post), so I had to give an example to show that the existence of counter not = balanced. It's YOUR fallacy. You also always bring out the `everybody's got it, so it's a fair game and it's fine' argument, so I had to give another example to show that this is not the case. Again, it's YOUR fallacy to begin with. Thanks for admitting it. >> Richard Garfield had indicated that for games with Diplomacy-style >> interaction, "all the games are the same ...". Since it > >Garfield is WRONG! (sacrilege) That's just his opinion and he has >the right to be wrong. (this /is/ America, afterall) All games with >player interaction are not the same, but Richard is entitled to his >opinion. Garfield is right. Have you ever taken a college course in game theory? There is a mathematical basis to his claim, and I agree with him. >> It is not (entirely) the players' problem that Magic players >> have that mindset. It is the nature of MtG, the game itself, that >> results in it being in the state it is now. Jyhad would >> become the same thing if it is not balanced out. > >It is very close to being balanced now, I think we agree on this, Alan. >Its just a few cards or a few words short of being "perfect." Yes, I do agree. If it's grossly unbalanced, I won't bother talking here. But I know that a `small' problem in a game may ruin it in a `big' way. Take Majesty for example. You've seen my deck. I know that there are no `spoilers' in there except one. One is enough. Our group here started using card limits because someone used a weenie-Blood Doll deck, while I was away. >> There are some good points about the design of MtG; >> there are also some inherent problems with the design, >> and it is those `problems' that cause the game to be >> what it is now. I see that some of those very same >> problems are in Jyhad right now. > >Please, site examples of problems with Magic that are problems with Jyhad. Under-priced cards, that force winning decks to be monotonous. Under-priced cards, that rule out a bunch of other cards from ever being used. Gross `combos' overlooked in the design, that channelizes the player's strategy (Malk. Dementia preventing Malks from using equipment) and shifts the emphasis of the game to random luck (as opposed to /calculated/ `luck', i.e. deck proportions and probabilities). Cards reacting `outside' the core of the game system, which is just like stone-scissors-paper guessing and is mathematically nothing but random luck. We see people here crying out /for/ card limits; we know that even more people are using it. Tell me why. Unbalanced cards. What else. >IME, points 1&2 are player related, not game related. People get stuck one >one strategy and don't deviate from it. What do you think is THE winning >strategy, Alan. I don't see one. If the game is balancd out, the player who took more care in deck-building and allocating the exact number of each card would have an advantage (that's one of the reasons I'm against card limits - card limits take this out /completely/), regardless of which `strategy mainstream' he's using. If the game has lots of spoilers, the winner is primarily dependent on lady luck. Most decks can be specifically tuned against. But there are ways to build a deck that is `generally' better, as we know it. If there are lots of (or even a few) spoilers, much of the significance of that work would be taken out. >> >Except for a few >> >minor errors [...] I have >> >previously posted (and most everyone here seems to agree with) Jyhad is >> >incredibly balanced. >> >> Oh, the other day you just mailed (posted?) to me calling >> my Ventrue Majesty-bleed deck `degenerate' (which I agree with, >> and I knew that already). In my opinion, such a thing as a >> `degenerate' deck should not work in an "incredibly balanced" game. >> Since many of the feedback I get for that deck is >> `that's rude', it seems that Jyhad is not that "incredibly >> balanced" after all. > >You can't make a CCG degeneracy proof. I still say that that deck you posted >would get walked on in most circles. (most players hate degenerate decks >and kill them on sight). Yes, that deck was 'degenerate' by the dictionary >definition: having fallen to a state below what is held to be normal or >desirable, esp. in mental or moral qualities. End running the game system ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >like that is, to a life-long gamer (like me), 'morally' wrong. That deck ^^^^^^^ >is below the state considered normal or desirable. These are very personal >observations and somewhere there may be Jyhad players where 26 Majesties >are normal. Degeneracy is a player problem, NOT a game problem. The player >choses to degenerate. The game chooses nothing, it is but a tool. Just >because you can show that a degenerate deck exists does not make the game >unbalanced. It mearly shows that most players understand what "the norm" is >for a deck. I doubt that too many people would play that deck, Alan. Those >that would are playing the wrong game (Magic, anyone?) I don't want to play that deck, either. But my opinions differ. "Degeneracy", as you call it, is a problem of the design of the game. If the game allows a "morally wrong" deck to win easily, the game should be fixed. Sid Meier did that with his computer game, "Civilization", to stop the "Barbarian Horde" strategy. I know of many games that are "degeneracy proof". I know, in my heart, that you can make a CCG as close to "degeneracy proof" as possible. Jyhad is pretty close, but isn't quite making it yet. But it seems to me that nobody is doing anything, or wants to. 26 Majesties would be perfectly normal, in anybody's definition, if the card costs 3 blood to play (I'm not advocating a cost of 3 - that's too steep - I'm just using it as an example). Such a deck can hardly win any more, though, not any more than a deck with 30 "Brainwash"es. The game is created by people. The people who created the game `chose' to make the game in the form it is in. If there are problems, and they stay there, it's because people `choose' to not fix the problems and let them stay. The problems of a game cannot be blamed on the players. >> Jyhad is balanced for a lot of its components, but >> it doesn't take too many unbalanced components to >> topple a game over. > >A degenerate player will find holes in any game. I haven't found any holes in Bridge, or Backgammon, or many other games. That's why Bridge and Backgammon survived for so many years. I predict that Abalone will die, because of a huge hole. I'm not looking for holes to exploit it; I'm looking for holes so that they can be repaired and no longer be exploited. I don't consider myself a `degenerate' player, just a more `calculating' one. A game with holes will be exploited by "degenerate" players, sooner or later. Calling names won't stop that. >>> [...] >> If that is the case, since there is no restriction that >> Charnas can only hose Blood Dolls, Charnas itself >> would be a `spoiler' ... > >Charnas is a spoiler? I don't follow you. He's a retainer (can be blocked), Here again. >you have to have a ready Tremere to bring him in, as if Tremeres aren't good enough. >someone else could shoot >him to help that player (oh, I forgot, we don't get to interact with other >players like this), Well, this is a good point, but somehow leave me feeling uneasy ... >if your minion is burned you can throw Charnas back >on the Tremere player. Yes, but how? Diabolorize is vulnerable to Bloodhunts. So must everyone be playing with Golconda's? Anyway, if Charnas is a spoiler, he's a small one. It's not a big problem (yet). [ quoted text not captured ]

kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > > In article <3k9ngg$r...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: > >kw...@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan) wrote: > >> > >> In article <3k1n9i$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: > > >I'll agree with you there, Alan. Luck of the draw is one of the > >things that drove me from Magic. But I still say that, with a few > >exception that almost everyone agrees are broken, there aren't that > >many "gross combos." Almost all have some sort of counter, some don't > >have common counters, but they are still counterable. > > Yeah. Even if they print "Ultimate Disaster" in Revised, > it won't hurt because it can be Sudden Reversal'ed. Peace Alan, You are missing the point. If they balance your card (cost of like 10 pool), then I wouldn't care if they printed it. > >Hospitality requires a Prince/Justicar and can easily be intercepted. > > Intercepting an action does not help if someone plays > 15% Hospitality in his deck. Intercepting can also > be harmful to yourself if that Prince/Justicar is > very good at combat. Intercepting is hard to work > if opponent is stealthy. If, if, if. I still don't see a problem. > Question: is below card `balanced'? > > ---------------------------------- > Zeroth Tradition: Blood Bank > Action, 4 vampire blood > Prince/Justicar > > If action is successful, for the remainder of > the game, any blood that goes to the Blood Bank > goes to your pool instead. Once one "Zeroth Tradition: > Blood Bank" succeeds in a game, no other can be played. > ---------------------------------- Well, since there is no way to put blood on the Blood Bank card, it is very balanced. No, a cost of four blood is not balanced, so the card is not. > Sure, it requires Prince/Justicar, and it "can > easily be intercepted". > > Why did you say that Ivory Bow is unbalanced? It similarly > "can easily be intercepted". It's cost to create is disproportional to other weapons. I didn't say it was unbalanced, "broken" maybe, but not unbalanced. Make the card cost two pool, like it should and I have no problem with it. > >> You should have as many copies of a card in your library > >> as how important you think it is. You can put in less, > >> but if you don't draw it, it's because you didn't > >> put in more, not because of bad luck. Feel free to > >> disagree. > > > >I'll agree that you put more of a card in your deck because you feel that it > >is more important, but I, personally, don't put more than two of any unique > >card into my decks. And I do disagree, luck still plays a part (unless your > >whole deck is fourty IHs). > > Luck always play a part, but to varying degrees. For example, > luck plays a heavier part in "Snake and Ladders" than > in "Backgammon". My complaint is that outrageous combos > put more emphasis of the game on luck than necessary. > I don't have much experience with IH (nobody seems to > use it around here), but if you feel that the card is > `too much luck', that is probably the sign of an > under-priced card. IH can be a tremendous advantage early, but it is relatively worthless in the late-middle and late stages of the game. Yes, there are varying "levels" of luck, but as a player who drew only two land out of a seventy- six card deck, that was forty percent land, in twenty-two draws(!) [approximately 0.005% chance], I assure you there IS luck in any card game. > >> And if that happens, all I lost is just a Master phase. > >> Big deal. > > > >And that minion, and the blood you would have gotten in the future. It > >is a big deal. > > I'll lose the minion if you block any of his actions, regardless > of whether he's a blood doll or not. I won't get `the > blood in the future' if I didn't use the Blood Doll to > begin with, so I'm not losing it `because I used the > Blood Doll'. All I lost is the Master Phase, as I said. And I was responding to your scenario, which was putting BD on a vamp and repeatedly hunting, then drawing blood off the BD. In THAT case, you have lost all I said. > We're talking about whether to use a Blood Doll, not > about whether to counter one. It's always good to > use a Blood Doll because the effects are great and the > cost is small; it's always good to try to counter a > Blood Doll because you countered some powerful stuff. > Similar to Fame, but to a lesser extent. Yes, most cards are better to have than not to have. Yes, stopping things your neighbors try is good. We agree. > >Your argument is non-sequitur. > >Almost all of the cards have costs that balance their usefulness > >(Renegade Garou vs. Loyal Street Gang). I have named the handful > >of exceptions that I believe need to be changed and I assume > >(from the defening silence) that people agree with me. Given what > >other cards cost, your card would cost about 10 blood. Then it would > >be balanced, regardless of commonness. > > This is what we have been talking about - card cost vs. card > effects. But you always bring out the `it can be countered so > it's balanced' argument (you even just used it earlier in > /this/ post), so I had to give an example to show that > the existence of counter not = balanced. It's YOUR fallacy. > You also always bring out the `everybody's got it, so > it's a fair game and it's fine' argument, so I had to give > another example to show that this is not the case. > Again, it's YOUR fallacy to begin with. Thanks for > admitting it. Let's see, I said: > >I'll agree with you there, Alan. Luck of the draw is one of the > >things that drove me from Magic. But I still say that, with a few > >exception that almost everyone agrees are broken, there aren't that > >many "gross combos." Almost all have some sort of counter, some don't > >have common counters, but they are still counterable. Looks pretty clear to me. I did not say "it can be countered so its balanced," I did say that there are few gross combos (not including the cards that almost everyone agrees are broken) and that even those combos have counters, mostly common counters. I'll still say that "if everyone has equal access to a card, then that is fair." If the card itself is broken, that card needs to be fixed. That does not make my argument fallacious. > >> Richard Garfield had indicated that for games with Diplomacy-style > >> interaction, "all the games are the same ...". Since it > > > >Garfield is WRONG! (sacrilege) That's just his opinion and he has > >the right to be wrong. (this /is/ America, afterall) All games with > >player interaction are not the same, but Richard is entitled to his > >opinion. > > Garfield is right. Have you ever taken a college course in > game theory? There is a mathematical basis to his claim, > and I agree with him. No, I've just spent my life playing wargames and consider myself an authority on the subject of gaming. I say he's wrong. I doubt we'll ever come to agreement, so I'll pursue this no longer. > >> It is not (entirely) the players' problem that Magic players > >> have that mindset. It is the nature of MtG, the game itself, that > >> results in it being in the state it is now. Jyhad would > >> become the same thing if it is not balanced out. > > > >It is very close to being balanced now, I think we agree on this, Alan. > >Its just a few cards or a few words short of being "perfect." > > Yes, I do agree. If it's grossly unbalanced, I won't bother > talking here. But I know that a `small' problem in > a game may ruin it in a `big' way. Take Majesty > for example. You've seen my deck. I know that there > are no `spoilers' in there except one. One is enough. Like I said, a degenerate player will find a degenerate play method in any system. Some may take longer to find, but they will be found. No game system is completely bullet-proof. > Our group here started using card limits because someone > used a weenie-Blood Doll deck, while I was away. I scoff at weenie decks. I feel for you. It would be very annoying to be shackled with card limits. Maybe you need to boot your degenerate players to the head (and one for Jenny and the wimp). > >> There are some good points about the design of MtG; > >> there are also some inherent problems with the design, > >> and it is those `problems' that cause the game to be > >> what it is now. I see that some of those very same > >> problems are in Jyhad right now. > > > >Please, site examples of problems with Magic that are problems with Jyhad. > > Under-priced cards, that force winning decks to be monotonous. For example. > Under-priced cards, that rule out a bunch of other cards from > ever being used. Gross `combos' overlooked in the design, > that channelizes the player's strategy (Malk. Dementia > preventing Malks from using equipment) and shifts the > emphasis of the game to random luck (as opposed to /calculated/ > `luck', i.e. deck proportions and probabilities). Cards > reacting `outside' the core of the game system, which > is just like stone-scissors-paper guessing and is > mathematically nothing but random luck. Please, "site examples." > We see people here crying out /for/ card limits; we know > that even more people are using it. Tell me why. > Unbalanced cards. What else. Ex-Magic players, degenerate players, foolish players, unimmaginative (sp) players. > >IME, points 1&2 are player related, not game related. People get stuck one > >one strategy and don't deviate from it. What do you think is THE winning > >strategy, Alan. I don't see one. > > If the game is balancd out, the player who took more care > in deck-building and allocating the exact number of each > card would have an advantage (that's one of the reasons > I'm against card limits - card limits take this out > /completely/), regardless of which `strategy mainstream' > he's using. If the game has lots of spoilers, > the winner is primarily dependent on lady luck. I'll agree that if the game is full of spoilers it becomes more of a "luck of the draw" thing. I still don't see a "single winning strategy" though. > Most decks can be specifically tuned against. But there > are ways to build a deck that is `generally' better, > as we know it. If there are lots of (or even a few) > spoilers, much of the significance of that work > would be taken out. Agreed. [ quoted text not captured ] No, as I said before, no games system is degeneracy proof. Some are more resistant. I believe that Jyhad is the least degenerate CCG. Civ is a computer game (and a poorly programmed one at that). You can still horde in Civ. I've beaten the game dozens of times on Emporer (even with its rediculous cheating). Civ is not degenerate proof. Please, list these degeneracy proof games. What do you mean "nobody is doing anything?" What is all this electonic noise that we're tossing back and forth? WotC listens and the DTR does correct their errors (if very slowly). > 26 Majesties would be perfectly normal, in anybody's definition, > if the card costs 3 blood to play (I'm not advocating a > cost of 3 - that's too steep - I'm just using it > as an example). Such a deck can hardly win any more, > though, not any more than a deck with 30 "Brainwash"es. No, Majesty would be wallpaper at that cost. A deck with 30 Brainwashes is a waste. > The game is created by people. The people who created the > game `chose' to make the game in the form it is in. > If there are problems, and they stay there, it's because > people `choose' to not fix the problems and let them > stay. The problems of a game cannot be blamed on > the players. Yes, degenerate players ("my deck is better than your deck, nyyahh!") will always degenerate to the lowest level they can. Winning is absolutely everything to them and common sense, fair play, balance, etc. mean NOTHING to a degenerate player, only winning is important and, to them, the end justifies the means. > >> Jyhad is balanced for a lot of its components, but > >> it doesn't take too many unbalanced components to > >> topple a game over. > > > >A degenerate player will find holes in any game. > > I haven't found any holes in Bridge, or Backgammon, > or many other games. That's why Bridge and Backgammon > survived for so many years. I predict that Abalone > will die, because of a huge hole. I'm not looking > for holes to exploit it; I'm looking for holes so > that they can be repaired and no longer be exploited. > I don't consider myself a `degenerate' player, just > a more `calculating' one. Backgammon and bridge are fundamentally luck. I've seen people cheat at bridge (the supreme degeneracy). > A game with holes will be exploited by "degenerate" > players, sooner or later. Calling names won't > stop that. Yes, we agree. Also, no game system is completely bullet proof. If you feel that I have intentionally insulted you, Alan, then, before my net.peers: ========================================================= I, JAMES R. MCCLURE JR., FORMALLY APOLOGIZE TO ALAN KWAN. ========================================================= Insulting you was never my intention. It would accomplish nothing. I do believe that we are both trying to make Jyhad a better game, just from different view points. > >you have to have a ready Tremere to bring him in, > > as if Tremeres aren't good enough. Not as good as Malkavian, aparently (sp). Don't forget the dreaded Letter from Vienna. > >someone else could shoot > >him to help that player (oh, I forgot, we don't get to interact with other > >players like this), > > Well, this is a good point, but somehow leave me feeling uneasy ... I'm uneasy with the idea of not being able to play vote cards to strengthen my own votes, but if Tom says that that is what the rules are, I'll learn to live with it. > >if your minion is burned you can throw Charnas back > >on the Tremere player. > > Yes, but how? Diabolorize is vulnerable to Bloodhunts. > So must everyone be playing with Golconda's? No, someone else could diablerize your vampire. You could put yourself in combat with some other Tremere/Gangrel/Flame Thrower. > Anyway, if Charnas is a spoiler, he's a small one. It's > not a big problem (yet). He's not. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <3k1m1j$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >From: "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> >Subject: Re: game balance and other cards >Date: 13 Mar 1995 14:49:23 GMT >rhodesc@medicine (Chris Rhodes) wrote: >> I don't even see where Fame is so unbalanced... >Peace Chris, >You are one of the minority then. Are you sure about that? I think that it may seem like a majority feel it is unbalanced by the posts here, but if you think about it, the people (like me) who don't feel that it is so unbalanced don't feel so strongly about it -- we're not posting so much. It's just another card -- another tool I can use or challenge I may face, that makes the game interesting. But just because I haven't been posting till now doesn't mean I agree with the posts here. I really think the majority think Fame is okay.

In article <S291.3....@nmu.edu>, Dave Andrews <S2...@nmu.edu> wrote: >In article <3k1m1j$e...@hermes.louisville.edu> "James R. McClure Jr." <jrmc...@ulkyvm.louisville.edu> writes: >>rhodesc@medicine (Chris Rhodes) wrote: >>> I don't even see where Fame is so unbalanced... >>You are one of the minority then. > >Are you sure about that? I think that it may seem like a majority feel it is >unbalanced by the posts here, but if you think about it, the people (like me) >who don't feel that it is so unbalanced don't feel so strongly about it -- >we're not posting so much. It's just another card -- another tool I can use >or challenge I may face, that makes the game interesting. But just because I >haven't been posting till now doesn't mean I agree with the posts here. I >really think the majority think Fame is okay. Well, aside from the people posting on the net, everyone I've talked to thinks fame is "cheesy" (the word applied to any card that should be on Magic's banned list). From the discussions on the net, I feel that the people active in this group have all put a lot of thought into the game, and have seriously looked at what makes a card unbalanced. If so many feel that it is unbalanced, it probably is. F'rinstance, I don't feel the Monocle is a bad card, but I can see where people would want to ban it. From a game design point of view, it's generally a bad idea to have a card that can hurt someone without directly interacting with them. Fame can do that far too easily. And finally, there are probably also people who agree with the idea that fame is broken, but haven't posted. The opinions expressed on the net are often a good representative of how the total population feels, whether you believe it or not. [ quoted text not captured ]