How would you answer the following post?
http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/t/19160.aspx
----------------------------
Is it just me, or is Vessel one of those cards that wrecks the game?
It does everything a Blood Doll does, is a trifle, AND it destroys an
existing Blood Doll. It's better in every way then Blood Doll, except
for the cost of one pool. Which, frankly, the cost of one pool is
well worth everything extra it does. There's really no reason to use
Blood Doll anymore. Every copy of a card printed since Jyhad is now
obsolete.
Again, I can only comment on my play group, but when a Vessel is
played, if there is a Blood Doll anywhere on the table, it isn't safe.
I agree it isn't entirely logical, but there is also logic in the idea
that not destroying a Blood Doll, even if it fails to benefit you
directly, is wasting half the card.
Given that logic, the idea that only your predator will destroy your
Blood Dolls, and thus the math for how much pool you will gain off a
given Blood Doll, becomes flawed, because you need to consider when
any player at the table, not just you predator, will have a Vessel to
play.
In other words, if you are the only deck at the table with Blood Doll,
and every other deck has Vessel, and every other player will destroy
your Blood Dolls with their Vessels, Blood Doll gets destroyed at
three times the rate (approximately) as if only your predator were
concerned.
I can certainly see what your saying, and given those terms, Blood
Doll does seem to be viable (if it is true that not all decks use
Blood Doll/Vessel, and not all decks playing Vessel will be interested
in destroying Blood Dolls not belonging to their prey, the odds of you
sitting downstream of a Vessel deck become more remote.) However,
this does not hold true in all play groups.
At this point, I'm considering this a problem with my local metagame.
. . a significant percentage of decks use Vessel instead of Blood
Doll, and will destroy any Blood Doll on the table if able.
I would be interested to hear what one of the players of these
tournament-winning Blood Doll decks would do entering this play
environment.
----------------------------
[ quoted text not captured ]
At worst, Blood Doll is marginally worse than Ascendance (BD at worst
converts 1 blood to 1 pool for 1 MPA). And that assumes someone plays
Vessel immediately after your BD. Plus, the delay cost on Vessel is
higher...
The Lasombra wrote:
> How would you answer the following post?
>
> http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/t/19160.aspx
>
> ----------------------------
>
> Is it just me, or is Vessel one of those cards that wrecks the game?
[snip]
BEN!!!! BEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNN!!!!!
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
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To Poster upset by Vessel
Have you played Vessel? it has several disadvantages over blood doll,
I play both often and here is what I say:
Blood Doll
Pros: I can use it immediately, I can put blood on my minion and use
him instead of hunting, often in order to oust or seriously affect the
game. It is free, can't emphasize that enough, no pool. Often I run
several blood dolls, if I lose one, no biggy.
Cons: it can be burned by vessel, not a triffle, still not a big deal
in my mind.
Vessel:
Pros: it gives you a 2nd master phase.
Cons: It takes 3 turns to profit, 1st turn spend a pool, next turn
take a pool, 3rd turn take a pool and profit. I think Vessel is great
for weenies, bad for fatties.
Play the card, they comment further.
On Sun, 3 Jan 2010 17:28:56 -0800 (PST), Wilsoros wrote:
>To Poster upset by Vessel>Play the card, then comment further.
I think you need to re-read his complaint.
His Blood Doll decks are being destroyed by Vessel players (i.e. the
other 4 players at the table).
On Jan 4, 9:39 am, The Lasombra <TheLasom...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> His Blood Doll decks are being destroyed by Vessel players (i.e. the
> other 4 players at the table).
A good way to get around this problem is to play a mix of both blood
dolls and vessels.
If your deck is masters (non-trifle) heavy, then obviously playing
only vessels will be a better choice.
Remember that vessel's effect can only be used during the untap phase,
so there will be no clear benefit until the player's next turn, at the
very least.
However, a lot lies on your local metagame and the way you, as a
player, play your deck.
If anyone but your predator burns your blood doll (with no significant
advantage) then it may just be a need for your local players to use
every effect of a card regardless of reason, which IMO is not really
good play. Next time someone randomly burns your blood doll, ask them
if they would really like to help your predator get 1vp. Seems a bit
strange for anyone to want to do that.
On the other hand, if you are throwing down your blood dolls early in
the game when you don't really need it (assuming you have other MPAs
to take), then you will just have to be prepared for it to get burnt.
Try thinking of at least some of your blood dolls as a flexible life
in the city/ascendence that may potentially help you win vps.
- YY
> In other words, if you are the only deck at the table with Blood Doll,
> and every other deck has Vessel, and every other player will destroy
> your Blood Dolls with their Vessels, Blood Doll gets destroyed at
> three times the rate (approximately) as if only your predator were
> concerned.
One approach you could take would be to play a combination of Blood
Doll and Wash. Depending on the timing and announcement requirements
of Vessel, which I would be curious to know, you may be able to demand
the person playing Vessel announce if they are burning a blood doll
and which one. If they select yours, Wash the Vessel. Wash is a good
card anyway, so why not? If someone wants to cross-table burn your
blood doll, warn them that their interference has consequences, such
as your allowing their prey to gain pool, making it harder for them to
win. Or vote against their referendums. Or bounce bleeds back to them.
Turn-about is fair play.
Brandon
[ quoted text not captured ]
Another thing he could do, is develop decks that emphasize the
strength of Blood Doll.
Take for example the benefit of being able to use a Blood Doll to
prevent an empty vampire from hunting. So maybe he could make some
sort of blood denial deck (Free States Rant, Foul Blood, Cryptic
Mission, Shadow Twin, Shattering, focus on Gabrielle or Nostoket or
Kamiri, Thirst). Make it so that the other players (who like Vessel)
consistently end up with empty vampires who are forced to hunt at
inconvenient times. (And each time this happens, point out that a
Blood Doll could have helped but a Vessel wouldn't have). Nothing
quite as irritating as needing that one extra action for the oust (but
instead the stupid empty vampire has to hunt instead).
brandonsantacruz wrote:
>> In other words, if you are the only deck at the table with Blood Doll,
>> and every other deck has Vessel, and every other player will destroy
>> your Blood Dolls with their Vessels, Blood Doll gets destroyed at
>> three times the rate (approximately) as if only your predator were
>> concerned.>
> One approach you could take would be to play a combination of Blood
> Doll and Wash. Depending on the timing and announcement requirements
> of Vessel, which I would be curious to know, you may be able to demand
> the person playing Vessel announce if they are burning a blood doll
> and which one.
You must announce the entirety of an effect, unless you
don't know the entirety (ie, Magic of the Smith, Vast
Wealth). So when you play the Vessel, you have to state
which Blood Doll you are going to burn - even before you
replace the Vessel. Then others have the opportunity to
respond to that play (with Wash, SR, Power of All, etc).
best -
chris
On Jan 3, 7:50 pm, The Lasombra <TheLasom...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> How would you answer the following post?
>
> http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/t/19160.aspx
<snip>
> I would be interested to hear what one of the players of these
> tournament-winning Blood Doll decks would do entering this play
> environment.
Stop playing Blood Dolls (for now), but don't switch to Vessel (yet).
Vessel is best when you can destroy a Blood Doll. Blood Doll is best
when not everyone is playing Vessel. In the play environment you
describe, neither is an ideal choice.
brandonsantacruz <brandons...@yahoo.com> writes:
[ quoted text not captured ]
Wash [Third:U, LotN:PS, KoT:U]
Type: Master
Master: out-of-turn. Trifle. Do not replace until your next untap phase.
Cancel a master card played by your predator or prey as it is played
(no cost is paid). That Methuselah gains a master phase action (if the
canceled card is an out-of-turn master, the master phase action is
gained during that Methuselah's next master phase).
The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com> writes:
> How would you answer the following post?
[snip]
> ... but there is also logic in the idea that not destroying a Blood> Doll, even if it fails to benefit you directly, is wasting half the
> card.
wtf
[snip]
> I can certainly see what your saying, and given those terms, Blood
> Doll does seem to be viable (if it is true that not all decks use
> Blood Doll/Vessel, and not all decks playing Vessel will be interested
> in destroying Blood Dolls not belonging to their prey, the odds of you
> sitting downstream of a Vessel deck become more remote.) However,
> this does not hold true in all play groups.
>
> At this point, I'm considering this a problem with my local metagame.
Yes. Find a new playgroup.
cheers!
-jakob
On 4 jan, 02:28, Wilsoros <davewilso...@gmail.com> wrote:
> To Poster upset by Vessel
>> Blood Doll
> Pros: I can use it immediately, I can put blood on my minion and use
> him instead of hunting, often in order to oust or seriously affect the
> game. It is free, can't emphasize that enough, no pool. Often I run
> several blood dolls, if I lose one, no biggy.
> Cons: it can be burned by vessel, not a triffle, still not a big deal
> in my mind.
>
> Vessel:
> Pros: it gives you a 2nd master phase.
> Cons: It takes 3 turns to profit, 1st turn spend a pool, next turn
> take a pool, 3rd turn take a pool and profit. I think Vessel is great
> for weenies, bad for fatties.
>
Nothing to add, I use either Blood Dolls or Vessels depending on the
deck.
Though, if I'd play in the small group of players where everyone else
relies heavily on Vessels, I'd rather play Vessels systematically, but
only because of the metagame.
[ quoted text not captured ]
and you should Sudden their Vessel, not Wash it.
They then end up with no Vessel, and no additional master phase action
from the trifleness of Vessel, because it was suddened (with Wash,
they'll get another master phase action, and you don't want that).
Make sure to only Sudden Vessels played by people cross-table, to really
emphasise that they shouldn't be burning your blood dolls just so
they're not 'wasting half the card'.
Then Kine Resources Contested them for 3 pool (just to make sure you're
not 'wasting three quarters of the card').
But then, maybe obsoleting Blood Dolls was what was intended from Vessel
being printed, anyway. So perhaps the only REAL choice is to start
playing Vessels.
--
salem
(replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)
[ quoted text not captured ]
I'm not sure I understand his problem really. Blood doll decks? Blood
doll is not a valid strategy to win a VtES game. It wasn't back in the
day and it definitely isn't since the printing of vessel. My first
suggestion would be for this player to review his strategies and ideas
in regard on how to get the GW. I'm sure that he'd find that playing
blood doll most likely won't be a part of it.
Vessel is a really lousy bloat card and for some playgroups it took a
while to figure that out (mine included). So another suggestion I
would have is for him to ride out the storm. And in that time he
should play more aggressive decks proving to his fellow players that
waiting 3 turns (almost 1/4 of a VtES game) to gain 1 pool from vessel
isn't viable. And I'm guessing the vessels he face (since they are
numerous enough to affect his blood dolls) are used primarily as a
bloat substitution for BD.
Regards
Alex
Swedish NC
With all due respect to each one's opinion, I find this discution as
important as discussing the sex of the angels...
In my opinion:
- there will always be good and bad players who burn all blood dolls
they can when playing vessels, regardless others opinions
- there will always be players who think they are the ones playing
right
- there will always be vessels and blood dolls
- there will always be minion taps and villeins
- there will always be washs and suddens
- there will always be game situations or pool values or any other
variable in which one card is better than the other
- there will always be a random factor and the doubt regarding the
usage of one of these cards, in the final outcame, do i have a bigger
chance of winning if i played X card or Y card?
Players need to learn and understand when is a good time to play any
of them, but stating someone is wrong just because he does not play as
we would have, is simply a bad reason.
Ricardo Marta
Prince of Lisboa
Portugal
On Mon, 4 Jan 2010, _angst_ wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand his problem really. Blood doll decks? Blood
> doll is not a valid strategy to win a VtES game. It wasn't back in the
> day and it definitely isn't since the printing of vessel.
I disagree with you there. Used to play with a guy who would play lots of
weenies and run so many Blood Dolls that he'd play one almost every turn
(often having 10+ by the time the game ended). Anyway, it worked a lot of
the time.
This guy should try something like that. Let the table spend 14 pool to
burn his Blood Dolls. If that doesn't put him over the top, then I don't
know what would. The Cryptic Mission idea is also a good one.
Considering you have to pull a blood off a guy just to break even with
crappy Vessel, all these Vesselers should be low on blood.
Vessel is a bad card and Blood Doll is still quite viable.
On Sun, 03 Jan 2010 19:50:21 -0500, The Lasombra <TheLa...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
> How would you answer the following post?
>
> http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/t/19160.aspx
>
> ----------------------------
>
> Is it just me, or is Vessel one of those cards that wrecks the game?
Yes it is. Not in the sense the QP means, though. Vessel isn't a very
good card but now that it is around neither is Blood Doll anymore
(which used to be a solid, reliable card).
> It does everything a Blood Doll does, is a trifle, AND it destroys an
> existing Blood Doll. It's better in every way then Blood Doll, except
> for the cost of one pool. Which, frankly, the cost of one pool is
> well worth everything extra it does. There's really no reason to use
> Blood Doll anymore. Every copy of a card printed since Jyhad is now
> obsolete.
[snip]
As already pointed out by others, while Vessel does trump Blood Doll,
that doesn't meant it is actually a better card. That was the designer
intent I guess - to force the decision to go with a safe, but sub-par
option (Vessel) or an unreliable but superior one (Doll). The result:
people who previously thought starting deck construction with 4 x Blood
Doll was a no-brainer now mostly go with Vessel. Those who are adept in
the ways of the Jedi (or Sith) still use Blood Doll and employ mind
tricks to persuade their opponents not to remove them. Some folks
experiment with alternative solutions to blood management and find it
remarkable that you don't actually *need* Doll-type effects to play
V:tES (although the generic nature of the effect goes very well with
the multi-opponent aspect of the game, facilitating lunges / come-backs).
My opinion, of course.
--
Regards,
Daneel
[ quoted text not captured ]
Well then thats a completely different problem - it is expected that
your predator and prey burn your blood dolls with vessels, but your
grand-predator and grand-prey should not do so (unless it benefits
them, which it will only do in certain circumstances). Making you
stronger should increase their chances of ousting their prey/defending
against their predator, respectively.
There are a number of cards with which your grandpredator/grandprey
can potentially damage you when played (vessel, Malkavian prank). To
not get smacked by them cross-table, employ table-talk - and if you
can't talk your way out of it, then that would be because your
grandpredator/grandprey has a valid reason for damaging you, and then
you had it coming anyway. But that doesnt make blood dolls in
particular a worse card.
[ quoted text not captured ]> (replace 'hotmail' with 'gmail' to email)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
As soon as I find out when this playgroup gets together I'm going to
head up there and show them what happens to people who crosstable for
no good reason. I have plenty of political decks and rush decks to do
so with.
[ quoted text not captured ]
I have found that the argument of "Tariq has Rowan ring and Ghoul
retainer, small pot and grapples. You really wanna cross table me?"
usually does wonders
> I have found that the argument of "Tariq has Rowan ring and Ghoul
> retainer, small pot and grapples. You really wanna cross table me?"> usually does wonders- Hide quoted text -
A ghoul with a Rowan ring sounds deliciously evil. Does that work the
way I think it works?
[ quoted text not captured ]
Of course its more fun to do something similar with Theo Bell + Chump
Prince (Rake/Volker) cause you can back it up with the Amaranth...
On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:02:35 -0800 (PST), Juggernaut1981 wrote:
>> > > I have found that the argument of "Tariq has Rowan ring and Ghoul>> > > retainer, small pot and grapples..>Of course its more fun to do something similar with Theo Bell + Chump
>Prince (Rake/Volker) cause you can back it up with the Amaranth...
You did understand that Tariq is immune to blood hunts?
The Amaranth is implied by the vampire used in the example.
9 pool for Tariq + Ghoul Retainer is a better choice than 9 pool +
prince....
[ quoted text not captured ]
Especially seeing as it is MUCH easier for Tariq to get CEL then Theo
as there so many more targets in range 4-11 than 8-11...
And Tariq just rocks, also...
Merging him and doing the abactor dance is always fun too.
Blooded Sand, long standing member of the TRBB fan club