The other metagame

Ben Swainbank wrote in that "house rule banned list" thread: >I advocated for banning/changing some staple cards in this post, >a few years back: > >http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_f... > >My interest then was, not in creating local banned list, but in the >evolution of the game. > >Since then, we haven't seen core card banned or changed. But we >have seen a number of new "silver bullet" type cards. Vessle and >Villein have changed the roll of Blood Doll and Minion Tap. Scourge >of the Enochians is a powerful counter to breed/boon strategies. Dark >Influences vs Direct Intervention etc... > >The evolution is occurring, but via introduction of new cards that >target the old ones rather than changing or banning existing cards. >Overall, I think this is a clever strategy. Changing the dynamic via >clever design and introduction is preferable to errata and banning. > >The trick is getting the "silver bullet" to hit the target just right. >Make the new cards too weak (Dark Influences?) and the new card >doesn't change anything. Make it too strong (Villein?) and you've just >replaced one strong card with a stronger card (actually, I think >Villein is quite well designed. I just wish it was easier to get.). > >So, no, I haven't played with a local banned list. Nor do I recommend >one. But the changes I advocated for are occurring. Slowly. And by >targeted design. The problem I see right now with V:TES is that this "evolution" you talk about is actually creating a class of cards that exist merely for the sake of countering each other. It's created a game layer on top of V:TES that ends being its own minigame. Oh, you want to hose those weenie decks? Play Scourge, 4th Cycle, Anarchist Uprising, and Ancilla Empowerment. You're a weenie deck and don't want to die to the anti-weenie cards? Play The Uncoiling, Delaying Tactics, and Direct Intervention. You're running into a lot of big vampire and/or star-player decks? Play Pentex Subversion and/or Fear of Mekhet. You're a star player deck and don't want to die to Pentex? Play Wash, Sudden Reversal, and your own copy of Pentex. You want to hose those voting decks? Play DT and DI. You're a voter and don't want to be hosed by DT and DI? Cryptic Rider, Dark Influences, etc. This doesn't feel like V:TES to me. It just feels like a mini-game of magic bullets and magic bullet counters. I understand that there's always going be an "A" and "Counter-A" aspect to the game (ex. stealth vs. intercept), but it's the degree of it that's the difference here. Stealth vs. Intercept and Damage vs. Prevention and such are mechanics with a broad range of cards, as opposed to the extremely narrow scope of Scourge vs. Uncoiling or Pentex vs. Wash. I don't like the silver bullet mini-game we have, and I don't like the continued silver bullet direction in which we're headed. I'd rather play V:TES. - Ben Peal

In article <958d74d2-93ac-42a5...@s21g2000vbb.googlegroups.com>, ben...@gmail.com wrote: > The problem I see right now with V:TES is that this "evolution" you > talk about is actually creating a class of cards that exist merely for > the sake of countering each other. It's created a game layer on top > of V:TES that ends being its own minigame. To be fair, on one hand, I completely agree with you--I dislike "silver bullets", and don't think that they actually do what they are designed to do that well (Dominate is *still* too good, even with AI and Touch of Clarity not withstanding?). But on the other hand, what other options are there? A) Ban some cards: I'm not opposed to this, but an awful lot of folks would be real cranky if, like, we suddenly banned Givern/Conditioning/Deflection/Parity Shift/whatever. And there would be an endless argument over what should be banned. And once things got banned, there would be an endless argument over what *else* should be banned. B) Reboot the game from ground zero. This would be catastrophic, from a consumer point of view. And would likely end the game. I don't think either of these are great options (although I'd certainly much rather see some laser guided bannings than a total reboot). And if you want do do things like "make Dominate less good than everything else" and "make weenies less dominant and powerful", that leaves "making silver bullets", and while "silver bullet" game design is never an optimal plan, VTES has done a *much* better job than, like, the Star Trek CCG (that had, literally, the silver bullet that said "If your opponent has played card X, Y, or Z in the current game, they instantly lose the game."). And, ya know, things like Scourge of the Enochians has traumatized me enough at this early point that I have changed virtually *all* my decks to not have 1-2 caps in them. So that is something. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" -Gaff

[ quoted text not captured ] > - Ben Peal- Not exactly to your point, but: CCGs put out initial sets. Those initial sets have balance problems for obvious reasons. Sometimes, those problems are considered features. "Natural" fixes arise. People metagame against what's strong. In multiplayer CCGs, it's often possible to gang up on someone who takes too big a lead. Some CCG players believe all ills are fixed by such natural fixes to where there's nothing truly broken. Some more realize that there are a few things that are truly broken and need to be errataed/banned/whatever, but that natural fixes will deal with almost everything. It's not an unreasonable view if the interest is primarily in a clean, highly competitive game where tech and new sets can rapidly reshape the metagame. Moving to the other end of the spectrum, some people clamor for rewriting games to fix root problems. Close to that is mass bannings or changing basic rules of the game. Moving towards the middle some and you get mass errata and targeted bannings. But, some people despise bannings and/or errata. They want games corrected with "artificial" fixes but be able to play with their cards. Hosers serve as artificial fixes that avoid the problems associated with errata/ bannings/rules changes. But, of course, hosers come with their own problems. In general, they fail. I've seen it with a number of CCGs, but it was particularly obvious with Babylon 5, which always had a hoser mentality to fixing the game. What I always hope for is the publishing of new strategies or improvements to existing strategies that naturally correct errors in previous releases. One may ask how printing something new that encourages something is really all that different from printing something new that punishes something. Sometimes, it's not so clear the difference, but usually it is. As you say, hosers are narrow. They produce chaotic environments where when they do their job, which they rarely do, they randomly annihilate someone. Having new strategies bubble to the top of the metagame is less likely to have such a severe impact. The reason one rarely sees the more organic approach to realigning game balance is that's it's really hard to deal with big problems with subtle answers. It's ludicrously easy to make hoser cards. I used to come up with card designs on a regular basis and I'd accidentally create a bunch of hosers frequently. By being narrow, you can worry less about unintended consequences, though, the reality is that hosers have unintended consequences all of the time as well. It drives me nuts that we get cards like Vessel, Villein, DI2, Two Wrongs, Narrow Minds, and the like because I see it as a lazy approach that isn't going to make the game any better while other, better options exist. In fact, those options have been used, and I think they've helped. Don't like weenie decks? Well, make more cards that specify capacity requirements of 5+ or whatever. Make more multidiscipline cards. But, it's going to usually be the case that making weenie hosers will only make games more annoying. For instance, as an example of unintended consequences, there's a big difference between a weenie deck and a deck that plays some weenies. Weenie hosers are likely to hit both decks as hard, but the former deck is likely to be far stronger and able to absorb the hoser where the latter deck falls apart. Rather than getting rid of weenie decks, you squeeze out decks that needed a few chumps to support a more fair strategy, which can very easily lead to moving into some other unfair strategy. Anyway, yes, there's more and more counter, counter-counter, counter- counter-counter creeping into the game and I don't see it doing the game much service. On the other hand, CCGs also become horribly bloated over time and it's not really possible to not have more of everything creep into a game unless you reboot or restrict card pools.

On Jun 3, 6:50 pm, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > Ben Swainbank wrote in that "house rule banned list" thread: > > >I advocated for banning/changing some staple cards > >a few years back: > >My interest then was, not in creating local banned list, but in the > >evolution of the game. > > >Since then, we haven't seen core card banned or changed. But we > >have seen a number of new "silver bullet" type cards. > > The problem I see right now with V:TES is that this "evolution" you > talk about is actually creating a class of cards that exist merely for > the sake of countering each other. It's created a game layer on top > of V:TES that ends being its own minigame. > > This doesn't feel like V:TES to me. It just feels like a mini-game > of magic bullets and magic bullet counters. I can see how it could be over-done, and be pretty annoying. But I don't think it has been over-done, or is going to be. Really, only Vessel/Blood Doll and DI/DI2 seem to qualify as meta- magic-bullet-mini games. I've never seen Dark Influences actually played. So I don't think it has big impact on the game either way. I like the influence Vessel has had. I don't think it's very good. But, because Vessel exists (and is played), Blood Doll is somewhat less good, and thus not as obvious choice for pool gain as it once was. And, there are some who say we shouldn't be influenced by Vessel at all. There may be more magic bullet-type cards in the works. I would be surprised if we see a flood of them. Other cards like Uncoiling, or Scourge of the Enochians, are strong, and may move the meta-game, but aren't really narrow enough to be magic bullets. Strong cards that impact that game seem like a desirable and natural by-product of printing new sets. -Ben Swainbank

Creating cards that counter strategies are just fine as long as they impact but not singularly defeat them. Vessel impacts Blood Doll but as has been discussed hardly defeats it. Villein is another story. Not only is it a better card that Minion Tap (in every way possible), but it then turns around and hoses people who don’t have enough Villeins to play them instead of their Minion Taps.

On Jun 3, 8:47 pm, bswainb...@hotmail.com wrote: > I can see how it could be over-done, and be pretty annoying. But I > don't think it has been over-done, or is going to be. I agree. In particular, cards that mention other cards by name should be kept to a minimum. > Really, only Vessel/Blood Doll and DI/DI2 seem to qualify as meta- > magic-bullet-mini games. Yeah, Villein/Minion Tap isn't really a mini-game... it's a flat out trump once you can swing the Villeins. I think a key thing to note is that Blood Doll and Minion Tap were so good at doing their job that they make it very hard to add new variants for the job... so its not surprising that Vessel and Villein carve their niche by taking a chunk out of their competition. > Other cards like Uncoiling, or Scourge of the Enochians, are strong, > and may move the meta-game, but aren't really narrow enough to be > magic bullets. Strong cards that impact that game seem like a > desirable and natural by-product of printing new sets. Yeah, any good card that actively effects what other players decks are doing is going to qualify for a "use" against certain types of decks. The only way to avoid that is to add more passive responses like Protected Resources. Which isn't a bad thing, but if it was the dominant thing the game becomes more like multiplayer solitare (a critism of some German style boardgames)... where everyone builds themselves up but are very limited in how they can respond to what others are doing. On the other side, when active "take-that" effects are dominant things become more chaotic... leading to situations where the win comes to the player lucky enough to slip through the crack when everyone else runs out of ways to screw the leader (a typical complaint about the more chaotic American style games). Fortunately, VtES is still well away from those extremes. Brent Ross

These are some of the primary issues I've had with this game for a while now. It's an entertaining game (mostly) that offers a diverse range of approaches to the problem of getting rid of a prey, which is one of the elements that I really like about the game a lot. You can explore a bunch of different strategies and it takes a fair amount of time to do so (some would argue that it could take forever). However, this presumes that everyone is, as Ben Peal put it, "playing VtES." The problem is when the game starts getting a little too much like the *game* MtG (as opposed to the organized play, distribution, rating system, or anything else surrounding MtG). The analogy is intended to point out that in MtG, there's no reason to do anything but employ the most efficient means possible to get rid of your opponent. There aren't really thematic reasons not to do so and being less than optimally efficient doesn't enhance game play by allowing the employment of different and/or innovative strategies. Tournament VtES has become very much akin to MtG for me. This is the reason, I think, that some of the "silver bullets" have been printed....to slow the game down a bit and allow everyone, regardless of the manner in which they go about approaching the game, to enjoy it...i.e to "play VtES." So the question becomes, how does one rectify the situation? The "silver bullet" approach makes the game more akin to throwing dice in my opinion. Did you roll a six? You win!! Did you have the Scourge of the Enochians for my weenie deck? You win!! That doesn't make for the most entertaining of games...you can do that and make more money at the craps table. I think Peter probably outlined the most reasonable options for improving the game significantly, but more importantly he also succinctly pointed out the huge issues with implementing them. I would love to see a reboot of the game...I suspect that a lot has been learned over the years about what could be done differently to make the game as a whole better if you could start over with a clean slate. Unfortunately, I also agree with the sentiment that it would utterly crush the game beyond any hope of it returning from torpor. Apart from those suggestions, it's possible that a rotating set restriction (similar in nature MtG's standard format) might solve some of the problems by excluding cards that many find so objectionable. Deflection and Govern haven't been printed in a while, so perhaps allowing only library cards from like, Anarchs forward (just picking a set off the top of my head...I don't want to spawn a conversation about that exact set) could solve some of the perceived problems with the game. However, I strongly suspect that the lynch mobs would rapidly start forming if this kind of talk ever got any serious consideration because it's a lot like banning cards. I really don't know what the solution is, but I do have to applaud a refreshing exchange of reasonable ideas on the subject.

[ quoted text not captured ] [insert $0.02] You start having "rolling legal sets" or similar... then I for one will not be interested in anything close to "tournament" VTES. The one massive item of nearly unbridled hatred is the "3 Expansions + Core Set" restriction on MtG Tournament. If you want your playerbase to feel like a cow's udder getting milked for every last drop as an EXPENSE-ion gets released every 6 months wallpapering 400 other cards you own... go right ahead. I understand why the Silver Bullets exist. I don't think they're maybe the best fix, but given option 1) kill the patient and cure the disease and 2) put the patient on a permanent blood transfusion to cure haemophilia... I'll take the one that is happening. If you go to a Type 1 MtG tournament, you do usually play craps... the luck of the dice are two things: #1 Do you get to go first? #2 Do I have the cards I need to win in my hand?... answer "yes" to both of these and congratulations on your 15min glorious ebay-based victory! Type 2 MtG is basically "Who has googled the super-leet-killer- efficient <3 turn kill deck and bought the cards?" VTES isn't there yet. Sure when you go to a Tournament you expect to see a certain amount of cheese-bleeding... but in Sydney we saw that stop because one year everyone was SO paranoid about it happening that every deck at a table had 2+ Archon Investigations. 7 vampires were Archoned in a single tournament, excluding the final, amongst about 20-25 players. It is possible that "silver bullets" now exist because people have not found a suitably efficient way to bring decks like the Tap'n'Caps (AAA, or TGB Vote of Power) or Swarm Bleed of Cheese back to a non-runaway level. Everyone has sat down and seen a super- bleeder on their back and been slammed out of the game without getting the chair warm... it happens because there is more at stake in a Tournament than a game for the fun of a game. While there are tournaments, there will be "cheese kill deck" players who will do everything in their power to make sure they get the best Tournament result their credit cards can afford. The rest of us will sit down at our local playgroup and play VTES while LSJ and the Cards Team work to make new cards and try to find a way to subtly balance out the power imbalances.

Yeah, tournaments and casual play are different and, of course, we can have fun just playing with our regular playgroup, but a tournament, I thought, was a place to take advantage of a big reunion of players to meet different strategies and test your deck, luckily, against other four different playstyles at every table, other four different decks. But that doesn't happen that much, is just S&B, S&B, weenie horde, wall, S&B, then next game wall, S&B, weenie horde, S&B and S&B. And yes, we can play at our local store or something while we wait for things to change but I don't know if it's moving in the right direction and that's the problem. Scourge is a problem for weenie decks, as well as AI for bleed decks. But if your not drawing them within the first 3 turns then you're likely going to lose. One of the final decks at the last tournament here in Mexico, got AI'ed on the first action Philippe Rigaud took. Then another Philippe got out and still got his VP. I mean, yes, those cards are a risk to a certain strategy, but regularly you cannot beat the odds of drawing it when you need it: almost always with decks that oust really fast, at the beginning. Usually people think: "I take my chances, if my vampire gets burned is after I collected my first VP, so I don't care, or when I have 4 minions and every single one of them can bleed for 7, so I don't care, or I got screwed, but in three tables, how many times is that going to happen to me? even with two copies of those cards in every 90-card deck, what are the odds? How many silver bullets we include in order to draw it early, and how to deal with the counter silver bullets.

> Villein is another story. Not only is it a better card that Minion > Tap (in every way possible), but it then turns around and hoses > people who don�t have enough Villeins to play them instead of their > Minion Taps. How is villein better than Minion Tap ??? It is more restrictive, costs when accumulated on a minion... It might be better in the "better for the game" sense, but not better in itself, by far. Orpheus

ben...@gmail.com schrieb: [snip] > This doesn't feel like V:TES to me. It just feels like a mini-game > of magic bullets and magic bullet counters. [snip] > I'd rather play V:TES. > > > - Ben Peal Could you give a good definition of what "playing V:TES" means for you? This is not meant sarcastic or something, I am really interested, because I think the expectations to what V:TES is and should be are vastly different among the player base.

Ben Swainbank wrote: > I can see how it could be over-done, and be pretty annoying. But I > don't think it has been over-done, or is going to be. > > Really, only Vessel/Blood Doll and DI/DI2 seem to qualify as meta- > magic-bullet-mini games. If you're trying to build a competitive big vampire/star player deck, the first question you have to ask yourself is, "How am I going to deal with Pentex?" Then you put in your anti-Pentex cards, aka Wash, Sudden, or your own Pentex. If you're trying to build a competitve weenie deck, the first question you have to ask yourself is, "How am I going to deal with Anarchist Uprising, Ancilla Empowerment, and Scourge?" Then you put in the respective counter cards, aka DI, DT, and Uncoiling. The first questions you're asking yourself aren't things like, "What will be my answer, if any, to an intercept-combat deck?" or "What is my defensive strategy against a bleed deck?" You're asking yourself, "What very specific cards are going to make me lose the game if I don't put in a very specific counter card?" It isn't about the general mechanics of the game, but about specific cards that can/will have a catastrophic effect on your game. Vessel vs. Blood Doll doesn't even factor into this, as far as I'm concerned, because the Vessel vs. Blood Doll interaction/metagame doesn't approach the level of significance of the cards in the magic bullet mini-game I'm talking about. You're not saying to yourself, "I will lose the game if someone blows up my Blood Doll with a Vessel", but you're definitely saying, "I will lose the game if someone plays Anarchist Uprising." > There may be more magic bullet-type cards in the works. I would be > surprised if we see a flood of them. I don't think we've seen a flood of them, and perhaps the mini-game is a by-product of 15 years of expansions. > Other cards like Uncoiling, or Scourge of the Enochians, are strong, > and may move the meta-game, but aren't really narrow enough to be > magic bullets. How on earth is Scourge of the Enochians not a magic bullet? As for The Uncoiling, c'mon, the text of the card is, "All this card does is blow up events." It might even be translated as, "All this card does is blow up The Unmasking, Anthelios, and Scourge." > Strong cards that impact that game seem like a desirable and natural by-product of printing new sets. Well, duh. However, there are good approaches and bad approaches. For example, I very much agree with Ian Lee's comment that the game would be better served by making large vampires better via more (and good) multi-discipline cards and cards that require large vampires rather than making cards specifically to hose weenie decks. - Ben Peal

Johannes Walch schrieb: > Ben Peal schrieb: > [snip] > > > This doesn't feel like V:TES to me. It just feels like a mini-game > > of magic bullets and magic bullet counters. > > [snip] > > > I'd rather play V:TES. > > > - Ben Peal > > Could you give a good definition of what "playing V:TES" means for you? Um...er...that whole stealth, intercept, damage, prevent, press, maneuver, gain votes thing. Not the Pentex, DI, DT, Scourge, Uncoiling, Anarchist Uprising, Ancilla Empowerment, Wash, Sudden thing. > This is not meant sarcastic or something, I am really interested, > because I think the expectations to what V:TES is and should be are > vastly different among the player base. Likewise. I'll try to be more lucid about it, but right now work calls. :( - Ben Peal

[ quoted text not captured ] But, Ben, almost all of those cards have been around since Dark Sovereigns (which was a horribly unbalanced set that has caused problems ever since, but I digress). The game has always had hoser cards and anti-hoser cards. I remember the first several tournaments I went to, Malkavian Demetia was considered almost a must-have. Wash and DI2 are pretty new, but they're just subtle variations on SR and DI1, so those shouldn't be that big of a deal. So unless your dislike of where the game is headed has been slowly building for 10+ years, it seems like the only *new* cards to upset you are Scourge of the Enochians and perhaps the 4th Cycle. While I don't like 4th Cycle, and think it would be super annoying if I were playing the 1 or 2 decks that are totally hosed by it - it's not very good because of the pre-conditions, and I don't see why many people would ever put it into a deck. Scourge is certainly a card with less opportunity cost, and I know people are playing it, but it only hoses the cheesy super-weenie decks. If your deck is all 1- and 2- caps, then yeah, Scourge is BS. You'll hate it. But how often do you play those? Even my one true weenie deck that I have put together right now is only about half 1- and 2- caps. So, it'd suck if Scourge came out, and I'd probably throw in an Uncoiling (and Anthelios) if I were trying to play it in a tournament, but it can still survive. And I've been slowly removing the 1 caps in favor of 3- and 4- caps... not because of Scourge, but because 1- and 2-caps are weak and don't have disciplines. I guess my point is, decks will all weenies are cheesy and ignore a lot of the game - you can certainly win without using a lot of them even in a weenie deck... but then your deck might actually be more robust and likely to survive, rather than always be in balance between a sweep or a quick exit. People like cheese. If you only have a couple of weenie support vamps, Scourge really doesn't hurt you as much as a previous poster said. Otherwise, I don't see that V:TES is becoming any *more* of a hoser/ anti-hoser game than it's always been. Sure, there are more hoser cards than before, because there are more hosers. I don't think there's a higher *ratio* of hoser cards being printed...

On Jun 4, 8:44 am, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > > If you're trying to build a competitive big vampire/star player > deck, the first question you have to ask yourself is, "How am I going > to deal with Pentex?" ... How on earth is Scourge of the Enochians not a magic bullet? I think I see what you're driving at. How about we constrain the topic (or a least I'll constrain this post) to hard to stop cards, that can go into any deck, and where a single card can kill a certain deck types. Specifically I'm thinking of: Archon Investation, Pentex Subversion, Scourge of the Enochians I don't think these are intrinsically bad. Do they endanger deck types we want to see endangered? My thoughts... Archon Investgation: Good. Discourages mega-bleed decks, but hasn't eliminated them. And discouraging mega-bleed is a good thing. Pentex Subversion: Bad. Kills superstar, mono-vampire decks, that already have plenty of problems, and don't need to be constrained. I don't even bother with superstar decks any more. I know how that story ends. Makes my 2009 card hit list. Scourge of the Enochians: Too soon to tell? I don't mind seeing a new counter to swarm strategies and I expect it to push the megagame in what I would consider a positive direction. I expect it'll have a similar effect to Archon Investiation. Sometimes it kills you. Often it won't show up, or will show up too late, or the effect will be too slow to have decisive impact. Of these, of course, only Scourge is new. And Pentex probably wasn't deliberate. But, yeah, this kind of decktype-destroyer card design should be used sparingly, carefully, and deliberately. -Ben Swainbank

On Jun 4, 10:30 am, bswainb...@hotmail.com wrote: > Archon Investgation: Good. Discourages mega-bleed decks, but hasn't > eliminated them. And discouraging mega-bleed is a good thing. For my money, I'm totally ok with AI. I mean, I would have rather it not be needed in the first place ('cause it was a lot harder to bleed for 4+ somehow), but as it stands, it works out ok--it tends to discourage bleedzookas, unless they are bleedzookas that exist to circumvent AI (i.e. by looking at your prey's hand before you bleed). I don't know that it is wildly effective in slowing down big bleeds, but it has some effect. > Pentex Subversion: Bad. Kills superstar, mono-vampire decks, that > already have plenty of problems, and don't need to be constrained. I > don't even bother with superstar decks any more. I know how that story > ends. Makes my 2009 card hit list. Yeah, this one was made long ago, and likely before the idea of the Super Star Deck was even something anyone thought about. And it does tend to kill them. Especially ones without obf. It is often a farily brutal card play. I don't know that I'm real fond of the card. But not 'cause it hoses specific strategies. Mostly 'cause it is often a kiss of death in a single card, regardless of the stratety involved. > Scourge of the Enochians: Too soon to tell? I don't mind seeing a new > counter to swarm strategies and I expect it to push the megagame in > what I would consider a positive direction. I expect it'll have a > similar effect to Archon Investiation. Sometimes it kills you. Often > it won't show up, or will show up too late, or the effect will be too > slow to have decisive impact. When it does show up, it is often complely game destroying. And I have been traumatized by it enough already. And in our KoT draft, a couple people got them, and Sackett drafted an all 1-2 cap deck. And in both preliminary rounds, Scourge hit the table, and removed Sackett from play. Which sucked. The end result is that I no longer include 1-2 caps in my decks (I round up to 3 caps now, figuring the 1 extra pool is a resonable cost to pay to not have my whole game destroyed once and a while). But it also makes Hermana Menor decks complete wallpaper. As I don't know if you can include enough Uncoilings to be worth the risk. -Peter

Ben Peal wrote: > The problem I see right now with V:TES is that this "evolution" you > talk about is actually creating a class of cards that exist merely for > the sake of countering each other. It's created a game layer on top > of V:TES that ends being its own minigame. I can see what you're saying here, though it's not quite clear whether or not you consider this a new problem. With the exception of the events, all the cards you mention (or their close analogs) have been with us for a very long time, even going back to Jyhad. It may be the case that the reason you're observing this now is that 15 years in, competitive players have identified most of the effective strategies and the most effective and card-efficient counters to them. Luckily, it seems to me that this mini-game you identify takes up a relatively small portion of deck space, leaving most of the game to work the way it should. As for specific cards, I'd say that the votes are fine as they are. Voting is its own strategy, and often one that's hard to pull off. I don't see anyone packing Anarchist Uprising into non-vote decks as anti-weenie tech, probably because it just wouldn't work. The most successful swarm decks also seem to be breed-boon, which can be quite tricky to pass votes against. Most of the other cards can easily slot into just about any deck, which could be seen as a problem. Dark Influence has clearly failed to hose DI, so the option of banning the latter could be brought up once more. Pentex Subversion would also be a completely reasonable target for banning, if you ask me. The anti- weenie events are a little much, but it really does seem that certain weenie strategies do need to be reined in by fairly extreme means. Making these effects events seems to be a good idea though. Since they require a DPA to play, events are the hardest type of card to cycle, pretty much by definition. Drawing into an event when you already need to discard stuff can result in a severely cramped hand. Also, events tend to be univeral in effect, so when you play one that cripples weenies, you are very possibly helping another player much more than yourself. Both of these factors limit the obviousness of hoser events as an automatic inclusion in every deck, which seems to be Ben's major concern. Jesse

On Jun 4, 9:45 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: (Pentex Subversion) > > Yeah, this one was made long ago, and likely before the idea of the > Super Star Deck was even something anyone thought about. And it does > tend to kill them. Especially ones without obf. It is often a farily > brutal card play. I don't know that I'm real fond of the card. But not > 'cause it hoses specific strategies. Mostly 'cause it is often a kiss > of death in a single card, regardless of the stratety involved. > It's funny, but when DS came out, my playgroup tended to think of Pentex Subversion as wallpaper. Why spend 2 pool and a master phase action just to make them take a single action to get rid of it? It seemed like it was only good if you got it first turn, and then it pretty much just saved you a bleed for 1 that turn and then made them take an action to get rid of it the next turn. As far as I can tell, though I don't play a lot of tournaments, and took a pretty long hiatus from the game after CE, Pentex Subversion wasn't very prevalent in competitive decks for quite a while there. It's interesting that a card that came out more than 10 years ago has suddenly become "broken" within the past 2-3 years or so. I'm not saying it's not nasty (I wouldn't say "broken", but close), I just think it's funny it took so long to *become* nasty... Meanwhile, back when Sabbat came out, some lunatic was ranting on the newsgroup about Fleshcraft and Reform the Body being part of making the Tzimisce broken (and Lasombra were underpowered?)... http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad/browse_thread/thread/2dca70044c1a08ea/3c5f929670327648?lnk=gst&q=sabbat+formerly+known+as+jyhad#3c5f929670327648 Also, I said above: "Sure, there are more hoser cards than before, because there are more hosers. I don't think there's a higher *ratio* of hoser cards being printed... " Obviously that should be "there are more hoser cards than before, because there are more *cards*."

The ideal situation in a ccg is to have strategy counter strategy, not card counter card. As games fundamentally dependent on luck, when you rely on cards to counter cards, you make the game more random and less based on skill... even going as so far as to betting on the metagame by designing a deck not so much to be good, but to be good against the field that day. The general way to do this is to make the action of a single card quite limited in scope. When a card has far reaching consequences, it must comes with extremely high play cost or some other major detriment, or it comes to dominate the strategy. You can see this distinction in the Villein/Minion Tap. Minion Tap is limited in scope. Villein affects the entire game state continuously, a very far reaching and powerful effect. Despite these things, it is a virtual impossibility to do anything meaningful about these situations. To date, no developer of any type of these games has ever determined a solution that will allow the design space to change while still allowing all cards ever printed to be legal. In short, set restriction is the only known technology for keeping the strategy space fresh and dynamic. And it doesn't sound like the community will ever accept set restriction. Thus, to get a feel for why the game is what it is today and understand what the future looks like, you should consider looking at what the Vintage tournament scene looks like in Magic: The Gathering. It is remarkably similar to what this game appears to be like now - well established, dominant strategies are commonplace and very rarely someone innovates something different. The strategy space is very fixed. Isn't that the essential complaint here?

On Jun 4, 8:16 am, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > On Jun 4, 9:45 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > (Pentex Subversion) > > > > > Yeah, this one was made long ago, and likely before the idea of the > > Super Star Deck was even something anyone thought about. And it does > > tend to kill them. Especially ones without obf. It is often a farily > > brutal card play. I don't know that I'm real fond of the card. But not > > 'cause it hoses specific strategies. Mostly 'cause it is often a kiss > > of death in a single card, regardless of the stratety involved. > > It's funny, but when DS came out, my playgroup tended to think of > Pentex Subversion as wallpaper. Why spend 2 pool and a master phase > action just to make them take a single action to get rid of it? It > seemed like it was only good if you got it first turn, and then it > pretty much just saved you a bleed for 1 that turn and then made them > take an action to get rid of it the next turn. > > As far as I can tell, though I don't play a lot of tournaments, and > took a pretty long hiatus from the game after CE, Pentex Subversion > wasn't very prevalent in competitive decks for quite a while there. > It's interesting that a card that came out more than 10 years ago has > suddenly become "broken" within the past 2-3 years or so. I'm not > saying it's not nasty (I wouldn't say "broken", but close), I just > think it's funny it took so long to *become* nasty... There are many more good large cap vampires with good disciplines and specials worth playing these days...besides Arika.Villein has also made fatties more attractive since you can recoup your pool investment more easily. Intercept decks have also gotten very strong. As a result, Pentex Subversion has become even more worthwhile to pack in an offensive deck's arsenal. And one of the best counters to Pentex Subversion is contestation, so that also increases its prevalance. Would be nice if it had a built-in counter to it like Golconda (pay 2 pool to cancel this card and meth gets their 2 pool back). Jeff

In article <411b259f-478c-4003...@l28g2000vba.googlegroups.com>, > As far as I can tell, though I don't play a lot of tournaments, and > took a pretty long hiatus from the game after CE, Pentex Subversion > wasn't very prevalent in competitive decks for quite a while there. > It's interesting that a card that came out more than 10 years ago has > suddenly become "broken" within the past 2-3 years or so. Oh, I don't know that is remotely "broken", but in terms of single cards that hose a whole strategy, Pentex Subversion is a pretty brutal hoser for Superstar Decks. And a mean one, at that, as often it is a single card play that ends someone's game, and early at that. But in a general sense, I don't think Pentex Subversion is anything other than a pretty strong, utilitarian card. [ quoted text not captured ]

> Oh, I don't know that is remotely "broken", but in terms of single cards > that hose a whole strategy, Pentex Subversion is a pretty brutal hoser > for Superstar Decks. And a mean one, at that, as often it is a single > card play that ends someone's game, and early at that. But in a general > sense, I don't think Pentex Subversion is anything other than a pretty > strong, utilitarian card. > > Peter D Bakija > p...@lightlink.comhttp://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html > > "It's too bad she won't live! But then again, who does?" > -Gaff Pentex is gaining more use... Yes. Is Pentex better than it used to be? Sort of. Why is Pentex seeing more play/appearing to be better? Wall Decks got better. [points finger at KoT Toreador Starter & Eyes of Argus] A lot of people would have traded their children to potentially get 2+ Sniper Rifles, now you shell out AUD$20 and get more than enough for a deck or two guaranteed... plus a Bowl of Convergence & some other random faff (the rest of the cards in the Toreador Starter). Toss in Eyes of Argus and you have a seriously powerful wall deck coming along. Quicken Sight + Eyes of Argus + the Bowl (+ Eagle Sight) I mean we had a Blanche Hill deck at our group with 5 static intercept... it's not rare to see "You don't act unless I say so" Wall Decks without Anneke around. As wall-deck tech improved, Pentex went from "interesting side-trick" to "Way to permanently take Vamp X out of the game for me". Since a lot of Anti-Wall tech is either Rush or Unblockable Actions, having a Pentex on a key rush minion (say Hektor) with a Wall Deck on one side of the Rusher is a certain recipe to ensure that minion never acts again. Each card works to enhance one strategy or groups of strategies and out of that comes tangential ways of using cards... Pentex is no longer a "powered up" Misdirection, it is locks down a minion. It's a byproduct of the other improvements to strategies to combat other strategies. If you want stronger wall decks to stop the strong S&B "Bleed for 9 at 5 stealth" decks.... then a byproduct of that is that Pentex shuts down a Rambo Deck (Superstar Rush) and consequently any other Superstar Deck

In article <065e5123-837b-4f51...@h28g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, Juggernaut1981 <brassc...@gmail.com> wrote: > Pentex is gaining more use... Yes. I don't know that this is the case--Pentex has always been (well, at least in my experience) a pretty common staple card that goes in lots and lots of decks. It has always been a powerful finisher card. And a great card for getting around a tooled up blocker, superstar or no. > Is Pentex better than it used to be? Sort of. I don't think it is--it has always been a good card and a serious Super Star deck hoser. Which is a drag. But I don't know that it is any better than it used to be, or that it is anything other than a reasonably strong card. It is just a Super Star hoser in the same way that, say, Anarchist Uprising is a serious weenie hoser. I don't think Anarchist Uprising is too powerful either. > Why is Pentex seeing more play/appearing to be better? Wall Decks got > better. > [points finger at KoT Toreador Starter & Eyes of Argus] I dunno--wall decks have always been good at stopping things. But they are yet to significantly improve at ousting folks. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com [ quoted text not captured ]

> > Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Pentex is gaining more use... Yes. > > I don't know that this is the case--Pentex has always been (well, at > least in my experience) a pretty common staple card that goes in lots > and lots of decks. It has always been a powerful finisher card. And a > great card for getting around a tooled up blocker, superstar or no. I did some digging a little while ago in the TWDA and Pentex is definitely showing up more often, at least in tournament winning decks. "It appears in 25 of the last 50 TWDs whereas a random sample of 50 TWDs from 2004 show only 5" - Oct 24 2008 So between 2004 and 2008 it went from showing up in 10% of twds to 50% of twds. Chris.

Chris Berger wrote: > On Jun 4, 9:45 am, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > (Pentex Subversion) >> Yeah, this one was made long ago, and likely before the idea of the >> Super Star Deck was even something anyone thought about. And it does >> tend to kill them. Especially ones without obf. It is often a farily >> brutal card play. I don't know that I'm real fond of the card. But not >> 'cause it hoses specific strategies. Mostly 'cause it is often a kiss >> of death in a single card, regardless of the stratety involved. >> > > It's funny, but when DS came out, my playgroup tended to think of > Pentex Subversion as wallpaper. Why spend 2 pool and a master phase > action just to make them take a single action to get rid of it? It > seemed like it was only good if you got it first turn, and then it > pretty much just saved you a bleed for 1 that turn and then made them > take an action to get rid of it the next turn. > > As far as I can tell, though I don't play a lot of tournaments, and > took a pretty long hiatus from the game after CE, Pentex Subversion > wasn't very prevalent in competitive decks for quite a while there. > It's interesting that a card that came out more than 10 years ago has > suddenly become "broken" within the past 2-3 years or so. I'm not > saying it's not nasty (I wouldn't say "broken", but close), I just > think it's funny it took so long to *become* nasty... Maybe it's a factor of the convergence of two developments: Larger vamps are becoming "better". There are more vamps. The effect of this: more large vamps for more varied options for superstar decks. Also, there are more weenies to support those superstar vamps too. best - chris

On 5 kesä, 03:41, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > I dunno--wall decks have always been good at stopping things. But they > are yet to significantly improve at ousting folks. Sorry about the following nitpicking but wall decks have gained many direct and indirect improvements on just that. The innate abilities of vampires like Elimelech, Neighbor John and Andrew Leroux, just to name a few, greatly enhance the card efficiency of a wall deck. So do Abbot, Eyes of Argus, Enkil Cog and No Secrets on the library side. If you can do a wall deck with half the number of cards it used to take without losing performance level you can use the rest of the slots on ousting mechanisms.

On Jun 5, 9:24 am, aleksinu...@gmail.com wrote: > Sorry about the following nitpicking but wall decks have gained many > direct and indirect improvements on just that. The innate abilities of > vampires like Elimelech, Neighbor John and Andrew Leroux, just to name > a few, greatly enhance the card efficiency of a wall deck. So do > Abbot, Eyes of Argus, Enkil Cog and No Secrets on the library side. Sure, but in a wall deck, what is the delivery system for ousting? Smiling Jack has always been a possibility, and isn't any more or less effective now than before. You can graft in a bleed option, but unless you also get stealth in ther somehow, you are just doing what the ! Ventrue have always been doing. And yeah, certainly some new good cards for block strategies, but I'm not really seeing them as opening up huge new windows of ousting effectivness--Abbot is good, but just replaces other permacept options that were already in use. Eyes of Argus is awesome. But really, just replaces the Wakes that were already in the deck, and doesn't eliminate the need for other intercept cards (as you can't Eyes to be able to block and also play it foe intercept. And the intercept only works on D actions anyway.) If you have a whole lot of stuff invested in being able to reliably block, new efficient cards or no, you still have a difficult time ousting folks. As that is and always has been a problem with wall decks. > If > you can do a wall deck with half the number of cards it used to take > without losing performance level you can use the rest of the slots on > ousting mechanisms. I'm unconvinced that you can do this with half the number of cards it used to take to be a good block deck. The cards are all slightly better than they used to be in a lot of cases, but you still need a lot of cards dedicated to blocking to be able to reliably block. -Peter

On 5 kesä, 17:22, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jun 5, 9:24 am, aleksinu...@gmail.com wrote: > > > Sorry about the following nitpicking but wall decks have gained many > > direct and indirect improvements on just that. The innate abilities of > > vampires like Elimelech, Neighbor John and Andrew Leroux, just to name > > a few, greatly enhance the card efficiency of a wall deck. So do > > Abbot, Eyes of Argus, Enkil Cog and No Secrets on the library side. > > Sure, but in a wall deck, what is the delivery system for ousting? > Smiling Jack has always been a possibility, and isn't any more or less > effective now than before. You can graft in a bleed option, but unless > you also get stealth in ther somehow, you are just doing what the ! > Ventrue have always been doing. Swallowed By The Night, Deny, Swiftness of The Stag, Random Patterns and Resist The Earth's Grasp are all awesome cards. Most of these are not new but there should be more room for them now. > And yeah, certainly some new good cards for block strategies, but I'm > not really seeing them as opening up huge new windows of ousting > effectivness--Abbot is good, but just replaces other permacept options > that were already in use. Eyes of Argus is awesome. But really, just > replaces the Wakes that were already in the deck, and doesn't > eliminate the need for other intercept cards (as you can't Eyes to be > able to block and also play it foe intercept. And the intercept only > works on D actions anyway.) Nobody is suggesting a wall deck with nothing but 12x Eyes of Argus for reactions. But I'm sure we can both agree that it reduces the amount of reactions necessary in a wall deck. > If you have a whole lot of stuff invested in being able to reliably > block, new efficient cards or no, you still have a difficult time > ousting folks. As that is and always has been a problem with wall > decks. New efficient cards mean that you don't need a whole lot of stuff to reliably block. > > If > > you can do a wall deck with half the number of cards it used to take > > without losing performance level you can use the rest of the slots on > > ousting mechanisms. > > I'm unconvinced that you can do this with half the number of cards it > used to take to be a good block deck. Yeah, "half" is pure hyperbole for most decks (and an underestimation for others). Nonetheless, you don't need as many reactions to block reliably as you used to. > The cards are all slightly > better than they used to be in a lot of cases, but you still need a > lot of cards dedicated to blocking to be able to reliably block. > > -Peter But you don't need nearly as many. I'd also like to restate the importance of special abilities on vampires. A good special will shave off anything between 5 and 20 cards from a deck.

[ quoted text not captured ] > chris- Masquer le texte des messages précédents - > > - Afficher le texte des messages précédents - Another point is that Pentex Subversion has always been a card very spread in Europe and not much played in the US. Some years ago, only few European decks were posted on google groups; Now they are all here, which also explains the increasing % of pentex played

Eric Jome schrieb: > Thus, to get a feel for why the game is what it is today > and understand what the future looks like, you should consider looking > at what the Vintage tournament scene looks like in Magic: The > Gathering. It is remarkably similar to what this game appears to be > like now - well established, dominant strategies are commonplace and > very rarely someone innovates something different. The strategy space > is very fixed. I don�t know, certainly VERY basic strategies (like bleed) are always the same, but that cant change w/o introducing shady other win options. Apart from that I would say there is a nice flow of new (sometimes drastic, sometimes subtle) strategies to be observed at the tournament level and certainly even more so at the local level (unless people dont bother with making new decks, but what can you do against that). Actually the mix of 94-style decks with none to few new cards being in the same final as decks with mostly new cards and new strategies is one of the major strong points of the game to me. And with thousands of available cards and none going away the strategy space in only expanding. For example often new crypt choices put a good use to rarely used old cards (or the other way round).

ben...@gmail.com schrieb: > Johannes Walch schrieb: >> Ben Peal schrieb: >> [snip] >> >>> This doesn't feel like V:TES to me. It just feels like a mini-game >>> of magic bullets and magic bullet counters. >> [snip] >> >>> I'd rather play V:TES. >>> - Ben Peal >> Could you give a good definition of what "playing V:TES" means for you? > > Um...er...that whole stealth, intercept, damage, prevent, press, > maneuver, gain votes thing. It is basically gambling vs. strategy game. I guess the "Poker/Blackjack" V:TES players love to take their shot on that silver bullet chances and the "Chess" V:TES players want to plan out nicely the stealth/intercept interaction for the next 10 turns (no real comparison of games intended here, btw). From what I can tell the game is pretty nicely balanced in the middle of both, luck, gambling, excitement and tactics/strategy. I think moving it in either direction would not attract more people from that direction than you loose from the other one. I dont think the percentage of silver bullets from the total number of cards has increased. So there have always been silver bullets and you have always included none to few in a deck. > Not the Pentex, DI, DT, Scourge, Uncoiling, Anarchist Uprising, > Ancilla Empowerment, Wash, Sudden thing. That IS an interesting mix of cards you name here. What is wrong with Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment? Those are not magic bullets they are useful in most of the games. Apparently you also seem not to like (generic) cards with cancel effects ? Why is that? Pentex? It costs 2 pool and can be removed. Come on, thats not a good card :-) The only two real silver bullets there is Scourge. I have my doubts about that card as well.

On Jun 9, 5:18 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > Apparently you also seem not to like (generic) cards with cancel effects > ? Why is that? I'd guess it is because it interrupts his game. This is a very common feeling among many people. When we get together to play cards, I would like to play my cards. I would like to see my deck do the thing I meant for it to do. I don't necessarily have to win. But I do have to play. When your deck of cards (and this is hardly limited to VTES) is full of things that stop me from playing cards at all - you cancel my actions, tap my minions before I act, freeze, lock, counter - then I am not playing cards with you anymore. I am watching you go through the motions while I am forced to do nothing. This is Not Fun (tm). Is it a great way for you to win? Sure. Is it a completely legitimate way to play? Sure. But it ruins the game time for me... and I am unlikely to come back and play the game with you anymore. And soon no one is ever playing the game. Years ago, Magic had a card/strategy like this called Stasis. It was very quickly and very permanently rotated out... and the entire spell countering culture was largely removed from the game. Exactly for this reason. It is not fun to play against this kind of strategy. Eric Jome

On Jun 9, 5:18 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > > Apparently you also seem not to like (generic) cards with cancel effects > ? Why is that? > Dude, counterspells SUCK. It's even worse when you think that there are a million cards that person *could* have put in that would have helped *their* strategy, instead of the SR/DI that just ruins yours. Considering that V:TES is a 5 player game, hosing myself to hose one other person is rarely productive (though it can be, if the one other person is your prey). That's not to say that I never play SR/DI. I play DI's in the decks that need DI (specifically, No Secrets From Cesewayo has no other way to stop "block fails"), and I'll play SR or Wash in decks where I don't have a lot of other master cards to play and I specifically need to stop certain masters (pool gain, most likely). I even have a Santaleous deck that mostly works on the principle of keeping Santa full up so he can cancel stuff, with 4 Washes as backup (though I call it the most annoying deck in the world, the fact that it at least doesn't cancel minion cards and the fact that the cancelling is right there on the table with no surprises tones the dickishness down a little - I mainly built it for Imperator play, because I was afraid of playing a Malkav deck that couldn't do anything about Malkavian Dementia). So, I'm not saying that you can't or shouldn't play counterspells. But it *is* extremely annoying to get your carefully planned strategy snatched out from under you with a single counterspell. And I hate when people just pack them in every deck without thinking, or when they play like 6 SRs in a deck and just end up playing them all over the place "to cycle". > Pentex? It costs 2 pool and can be removed. Come on, thats not a good > card :-) > If you can defend it, it's a game breaker. Seriously, Pentex Subversion used to be considered a bad card, but I don't know if it's a change in the metagame, a prevelance of intercept, or just people figuring it out, but it's very strong.

[ quoted text not captured ] There are "anti-decktype" cards that have been out there for ages, mostly to counterbalance different strategies. Most of them seem to be votes such as the ones below: Ancient Influence [BigCap], Political Stranglehold [BigCap], Autarkis Persecution [Weenie Horde], Ancilla Empowerment [Anti-weenie Horde], Snipe Hunt [Anti-weenie Horde] (one of my favourites actually despite its apparent 'weakness'), Justicar Retribution [Anti BigCap/ICs], Wormwood [Anti-BigCap]... Most of the decks I have seen using Pentex lately have been Wall Decks or Vote Decks that don't have Obf. Both deck formats seem to use it to negate the Superstar or Major Blocker of the Prey/Pred (more commonly the Prey). RE: Wall Deck ousting. Wasn't it the usual method to grind down your prey's pool by putting their minions into torpor at less than break-neck speed (unlike say Pot-Rush which is snap everything at break-neck speed)??? The wall sits there, blocks the hunt, blocks the undirected action and then waits for a new minion to block while you chip away with some forward actions. The walls that seem to oust have things like Pulse of the Canaille or Life in the City or Laptops for the "B Team" minions to use for bleeding prey. Tossing a Pentex on a key minion (either forward or backward) generally frees up a minion of your's to do something more productive. It can also help accelerate pressure around the table by freeing up other minions (say increasing pressure from the relevant player onto Pred or Grand Pred).

Johannes Walch <johanne...@vekn.de> wrote: >It is basically gambling vs. strategy game. I guess the >"Poker/Blackjack" V:TES players love to take their shot on that silver >bullet chances and the "Chess" V:TES players want to plan out nicely >the stealth/intercept interaction for the next 10 turns (no real >comparison of games intended here, btw). > >From what I can tell the game is pretty nicely balanced in the middle >of both, luck, gambling, excitement and tactics/strategy. I think >moving it in either direction would not attract more people from that >direction than you loose from the other one. > >I dont think the percentage of silver bullets from the total number of >cards has increased. So there have always been silver bullets and you >have always included none to few in a deck. There has been a move towards cards that can cause significant problems for particular decks - anything from aggravation to near destruction. There have, of course, always been hosers, but most of the early hosers are - relatively speaking - not that bad. Even the powerful ones are only really powerful if you can pull them off at the right time. Like, Malkavian Dementia is one of the better hosers, but it's only *really* good if you play it at the right time. Now, go back and look at the Gehenna expansion. There are a number of Gehenna events that can just shut down certain deck styles. If someone plays Fall of the Camarilla, your Prince / Justicar deck is just dead in the water. When it came out, if you couldn't counter it at exactly the time it was played, poof. It's not even like Fall of the Sabbat which, at least, offers you the option of playing Black Hand. So what do you do? If someone plays it, the deck just dies. You can plan for all sorts of other things - I've got this much combat defence / avoidance, I can try to get Secure Haven quickly for Queen Anne (or whoever), I can use Perfect Paragon instead of Bewitching Oration to get a bit more "stealth" in my Law Firm... and then someone plays Fall of the Camarilla and all my deck thoughts go away. Now, I can play Uncoiling, but that's not perfect, and if I pull it early (before the Fall comes out), it's easy to burn it. So I might have to hold it for quite a while, block my hand, see if someone is playing Gehenna events, hope it works, and still possibly die in a heap just because someone played Fall of the Camarilla. Scourge of the Enochians is in a similar category. I can make a set of careful decisions about my breed boon deck. I choose to play this much stealth. I choose this many Embraces. I choose this much combat defence. I play the deck in this way, I make my move at this time and then... poof, Scourge of the Enochians is in my face. This isn't like a well-timed rush. I could block a well-timed rush with a chump blocker. I can easily interact with the deck that makes a well- timed rush. I have many options for combat defence - chumps, Obedience, maneuvers, combat ends, damage prevention... When I call my Boon votes, you can block, you can vote against, you can Delaying Tactics - and you can pre-emptively try to take out my voters. With Scourge of the Enochians, you just play it - there's almost no interaction at that point. With Fourth Cycle, you just play it. With Fall of the Camarilla, you can just play it. And when it happens, it can just totally destroy my game. Silver bullets like Direct Intervention, I don't mind so much. Yes, they cause problems for toolbox decks (I only have one bleed modifier to hand, the focused deck has many). I might lose a critical play at a critical time, but I can still respond and try my best. I can even think "Okay, I'll assume that one of these cards gets cancelled..." When someone plays one of the newer, "Play the game of guessing what hosers my opponent has packed" cards, it's often pretty difficult to predict or plan anything at all. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

> Scourge of the Enochians is in a similar category. I can make a set of > careful decisions about my breed boon deck. I choose to play this much > stealth. I choose this many Embraces. I choose this much combat > defence. I play the deck in this way, I make my move at this time and > then... poof, Scourge of the Enochians is in my face. > > This isn't like a well-timed rush. I could block a well-timed rush with > a chump blocker. I can easily interact with the deck that makes a well- > timed rush. I have many options for combat defence - chumps, Obedience, > maneuvers, combat ends, damage prevention... When I call my Boon votes, > you can block, you can vote against, you can Delaying Tactics - and you > can pre-emptively try to take out my voters. Honestly breed decks are so powerful that if one gets just 1 or 2 embraces into play it can generate so many actions that it simply overloads and decks defenses until they just fail. Case in point, I was playing in the Providence, RI qualifier with one of my best rush decks. My prey was playing Nossie Breed/Boon. I convinced the whole table to help me oust it. I burnt 7, count that, SEVEN vampires in combat. The game timed out. The Nossie deck won every single of its other games. Breed decks break the paradim of "I have 30 pool to purchase my minions". I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are actually HEALTHY for the game.

On 10 kesä, 02:29, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > Now, I can play Uncoiling, but that's not perfect, and if I pull it > early (before the Fall comes out), it's easy to burn it. So I might > have to hold it for quite a while, block my hand, see if someone is > playing Gehenna events, hope it works, and still possibly die in a heap > just because someone played Fall of the Camarilla. That's why hosers are made. They force decks that are considered to be in need of balancing to include some bad cards or possibly die in a heap. I'd wager that most of those decks are competitive even with a handicap of -1 hand size from holding a counter to a counter.

Eric Jome wrote: > On Jun 9, 5:18 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > >> Apparently you also seem not to like (generic) cards with cancel effects >> ? Why is that? > > I'd guess it is because it interrupts his game. This is a very common > feeling among many people. > > When we get together to play cards, I would like to play my cards. I > would like to see my deck do the thing I meant for it to do. I don't > necessarily have to win. But I do have to play. > > When your deck of cards (and this is hardly limited to VTES) is full > of things that stop me from playing cards at all - you cancel my > actions, tap my minions before I act, freeze, lock, counter - then I > am not playing cards with you anymore. I am watching you go through > the motions while I am forced to do nothing. > > This is Not Fun (tm). Is it a great way for you to win? Sure. Is it > a completely legitimate way to play? Sure. But it ruins the game > time for me... and I am unlikely to come back and play the game with > you anymore. And soon no one is ever playing the game. > > Pokemon has no interrupt effects. Not said as a dis, but merely to mention a game that has no interrupts. The final sentence in what I have left of your post seems like an exaggeration. But it also has echoes of a nice mantra from a year or two back... Play.The.Game. best - chris

jcrossn...@gmail.com schrieb: > Dark > Influence has clearly failed to hose DI, so the option of banning the > latter could be brought up once more. I have not seen many DiIn played in the games since the release of KoT, therefore playing DaIn as a hoser card does not seem to be interesting. On the other hand DaIn could be really powerful for itself, people seem to miss the "cannot play again this turn clause". This card can, in the right situation, save your ass much better than DiIn. So I am not sure it was intended as a DiIn hoser in the first place. For me today�s main purpose of DiIn is to prevent your allies getting stolen. Fair enough I would say ;-)

Johannes Walch wrote: > > Not the Pentex, DI, DT, Scourge, Uncoiling, Anarchist Uprising, > > Ancilla Empowerment, Wash, Sudden thing. > > That IS an interesting mix of cards you name here. > > What is wrong with Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment? Those are not > magic bullets they are useful in most of the games. You put AU/AE into a deck because you want to blow up weenies. Weenie decks must include anti-AU/AE cards to avoid being one- shotted. It's clearly silver bullet. > Apparently you also seem not to like (generic) cards with cancel effects > ? Why is that? Here's an example that I think does a great job of illustrating the "silver bullet mini-game" problem: Suppose you wanted to build a Brinksmanship deck for a tournament. Yeah, Brinksmanship isn't that good, but maybe you figured out a way to make it work really well. However, you've noticed that every time you've seen a Brinksmanship deck get played, people would see the Slaughterhouses hit the table and then sit on a Direct Intervention, waiting for Brinksmanship. You know that one possible counter-tactic is to wait until you have 2 Brinksmanships in your hand, but you're still twitchy about 2 of your 4 opponents having a DI in their hand. Oh, there's this new card called Dark Influences, which you can use to foil DI... So, unless you opt to play the silver bullet mini-game, you can't build a tournament deck around Brinksmanship - or any card like Brinksmanship. You're not even thinking, "How can I get past an intercept wall?" or, "How can I get the vote to pass?" You're thinking, "How can I get past Direct Intervention?" Very specifically that card, and not any general strategy or mechanic. One specific card. It's lazy design on the part of the developer, and it results in needlessly hindering other strategies. > Pentex? It costs 2 pool and can be removed. Come on, thats not a good > card :-) Huh? You're already expecting it to burn the moment your prey is ousted. ;) > The only two real silver bullets there is Scourge. I have my doubts > about that card as well. Scourge means that weenie decks pack extra copies of Uncoiling. Whee. - Ben Peal

Walch vs. Peal: > > What is wrong with Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment? Those are not > > magic bullets they are useful in most of the games. > > You put AU/AE into a deck because you want to blow up weenies. > Weenie decks must include anti-AU/AE cards to avoid being one- > shotted. It's clearly silver bullet. I don't know about that, man. AU and AE both have the effect of instantly damaging every player's pool, whether or not they're playing weenies. Generally speaking, if you include them in your deck you're expecting that it will hurt most others than it hurts you, because you're expecting to have fairly few minions. There are plenty of good reasons to want that effect, even if you don't expect to see a weenie horde. [snip stuff about DI vs. Brinkmanship] Without turning this thread into another "ban DI" thread, it does seem to me that that is the most logical fix to this situation. It's annoying that DI2 was added to the game, just because I'd prefer that those effects didn't exist at all. However, it's unlikely that the latter will ever attain the prominence of the former, whether or not we see a ban. Jesse

Jesse Cross-Nickerson wrote: > Walch vs. Peal: > > > What is wrong with Anarchist Uprising/Ancilla Empowerment? Those are not > > > magic bullets they are useful in most of the games. > > > You put AU/AE into a deck because you want to blow up weenies. > > Weenie decks must include anti-AU/AE cards to avoid being one- > > shotted. It's clearly silver bullet. > > I don't know about that, man. AU and AE both have the effect of > instantly damaging every player's pool, whether or not they're playing > weenies. Generally speaking, if you include them in your deck you're > expecting that it will hurt most others than it hurts you, because > you're expecting to have fairly few minions. There are plenty of good > reasons to want that effect, even if you don't expect to see a weenie > horde. While that's certainly a use for AU/AE, I disagree that there are plenty of good reasons to want that. I'm of the opinion that such a use is very limited in scope, mainly limited by not wanting to hit the wrong guy and not wanting to unnecessarily make enemies in a multiplayer game. (insert discussions of table balance vs. letting people die) Far more often than not, you're putting in AU/AE for its one-shot kill effect against breed. - Ben Peal

Norm wrote: > Breed decks break the paradim of "I have 30 pool to purchase my > minions". I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are > actually HEALTHY for the game. I'm of the opinion that the answer isn't to make silver bullets to counter breed decks, but to make better cards for large-caps and non- bleed mid-cap strategies. - Ben Peal

[ quoted text not captured ] These cards make large caps and mid-caps better by their very existance. Also they don't require a narrow range game play to occur prior to being put into play (i.e. malkavian dementia requires another player to actually play malkavians). This makes they quite good. Also they are thematically appropriate.....

Norm wrote: > Ben wrote: > > Norm wrote: > > > Breed decks break the paradim of "I have 30 pool to purchase my > > > minions". I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are > > > actually HEALTHY for the game. > > > I'm of the opinion that the answer isn't to make silver bullets to > > counter breed decks, but to make better cards for large-caps and non- > > bleed mid-cap strategies. > > These cards make large caps and mid-caps better by their very > existance. Well, in a way, but is it in the right way? So, someone puts a Scourge in their deck, so the breed guy puts a few copies of The Uncoiling to counter it. So now we just have a Scourge vs. Uncoiling game instead of a game of V:TES. It doesn't really change the power level of the weenies, but rather just adds this silver bullet mini- game they have to play in addition to V:TES. I think it would be preferable to make the larger cap vampires more capable, so that the silver bullet game can be avoided. - Ben Peal

On Jun 10, 3:55 pm, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > Norm wrote: > > Ben wrote: > > > Norm wrote: > > > > Breed decks break the paradim of "I have 30 pool to purchase my > > > > minions". I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are > > > > actually HEALTHY for the game. > > > > I'm of the opinion that the answer isn't to make silver bullets to > > > counter breed decks, but to make better cards for large-caps and non- > > > bleed mid-cap strategies. > > > These cards make large caps and mid-caps better by their very > > existance. > > Well, in a way, but is it in the right way? So, someone puts a > Scourge in their deck, so the breed guy puts a few copies of The > Uncoiling to counter it. I don't think he was talking about Scourge. AU and AE make larger vamps better in comparison to small ones by increasing the effective cost of all minions. So now we just have a Scourge vs. Uncoiling > game instead of a game of V:TES. It doesn't really change the power > level of the weenies, but rather just adds this silver bullet mini- > game they have to play in addition to V:TES. I think it would be > preferable to make the larger cap vampires more capable, so that the > silver bullet game can be avoided. The Con Boon/Tribute vs. Anarchist Uprising/Domain Challenge game is definitely the one I'd prefer. -witness1

On Jun 10, 2:10 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: (re: 4th Cycle and Scourge of the Enochians) > These cards make large caps and mid-caps better by their very > existance. No they don't; they make weenies worse, which has a similar effect, but not the same. Especially since they only make weenies worse if they show up, are not countered, and are applicable. Sure, they've got to be considered when you're deciding on weenie vs. large/mid strategy, but it's by no means the same as improving the game for large/mid caps. Dragging whatever's in front back to a lower level (sometimes) is emphatically not the same things as boosting whatever's behind up to the same level. - D.J.

John "I drink the Vessel kool aid" Newquist wrote: > I don't think he was talking about Scourge. Norm said, "I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are actually HEALTHY for the game." > AU and AE make larger vamps better in comparison to small ones by increasing the effective > cost of all minions. I see what you're getting at, but really, AU and AE are mass kill cards rather than cost-increasing cards. >> So now we just have a Scourge vs. Uncoiling game instead of a game of V:TES. > > The Con Boon/Tribute vs. Anarchist Uprising/Domain Challenge game is > definitely the one I'd prefer. Yeah, on an abstract level, I agree with this. Right now, that particular game is AU/DC vs. DI/DT, which is a game I don't like. With respect to breed cards in general, do they cost too little? i.e. should The Embrace cost 3 blood? Should 3rd Trad/Creation Rites/ Waters/Bamba cost 2 blood? - Ben Peal

[ quoted text not captured ] This would be the time for that discussion. I come down firmly on the side of letting people die, and I suspect Jesse does as well. Anarchist Uprising sees play in our group all the time, and Breed decks don't crop up that often. I'm going to argue that this is because doing a massive amount of pool damage to the table is useful, and in no way limited to hosing weenie decks. In the endgame, doing 3+ pool damage to every player can be very desireable. It can set up a turn with multiple victory points. These cards also saw play before breed boon rose to prominence. Maybe this is a metagame thing, but making enemies isn't that much of a concern here. The instability that results from "hitting the wrong guy" is often exploitable, and at any rate prevents time outs. If someone is loading up their deck with multiple copies of AU/AE, then I guess they might be hunting for Breed Boon, but I don't think it is in the same category as Pentex Subversion or Scourge, principally because it is a vote card and not an Event or a Master. The defenses against votes are more varied. I would be sad to see AU/ AE get banned, though it wouldn't break my heart. Breed Boon is a pretty linear deck type. The fact that it is vulnerable to AU/AE doesn't strike me as unbalanced, at least not in the same way that the vulnerability to Scourge strikes me as unbalanced, or the vulnerability of superstar decks to Pentex Subversion strikes me as unbalanced. The situation with Pentex for rock star decks is frequently "have Sudden Reversal or die". Scourge is "Play the Uncoiling or die." AE/AU "have a Delaying Tactics, or enough votes, or enough pool, or intercept, or convince someone else with intercept or votes to help out." It isn't a Silver Bullet. Also, if you aren't facing weenies, Scourge is useless. AU/AE isn't; it is more a general purpose bullet than silver. I agree with your main point about silver bullet cards, though. I'm not opposed to them being banned outright. -dc

On Jun 10, 4:23 pm, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > John "I drink the Vessel kool aid" Newquist wrote: > > > I don't think he was talking about Scourge. > > Norm said, "I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are > actually HEALTHY for the game." Fair enough. > > AU and AE make larger vamps better in comparison to small ones by increasing the effective > > cost of all minions. > > I see what you're getting at, but really, AU and AE are mass kill > cards rather than cost-increasing cards. It doesn't really matter whether you put the pool loss before or after the minion enters play; it's still an added cost for playing so many. > >> So now we just have a Scourge vs. Uncoiling game instead of a game of V:TES. > > > The Con Boon/Tribute vs. Anarchist Uprising/Domain Challenge game is > > definitely the one I'd prefer. > > Yeah, on an abstract level, I agree with this. Right now, that > particular game is AU/DC vs. DI/DT, which is a game I don't like. Suddening a tribute or DI'ing a con boon is as good as playing AU/DC. So the decks ought to be interacting on multiple levels. (Also, you left out Poison Pill). -witness1

On Jun 10, 4:02 pm, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > No they don't; they make weenies worse, which has a similar effect, > but not the same. Especially since they only make weenies worse if > they show up, are not countered, and are applicable. Sure, they've > got to be considered when you're deciding on weenie vs. large/mid > strategy, but it's by no means the same as improving the game for > large/mid caps. Well, kinda--as noted, I have been traumatized enough times by Enochians already that I have changed all my decks that used to be fraught with 1 and 2 caps to bottom out at 3 caps. Which means I have fewer minions for the same pool. Which helps big vampires keep up. I mean, yeah, lots of folks are just going to say "Hell with Enochians! I'm playing all 1 caps anyway and if it hits the table, I'll probably die, but what are the chances of that!", just like how a lot of folks just ignore the existance of AI. But if enough people respond like me (which remains to be seen, but time will tell), Enochians (for example) *does* make bigger guys better. -Peter

On Jun 10, 12:45 pm, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > Scourge means that weenie decks pack extra copies of Uncoiling. > Whee. I've considered that. A lot. And really, can't see it as a better solution than just bottoming out at 3 caps. I expect that Enochains will show up *a lot* in competition (it certainly does on JOL), and relying on Uncoiling seems risky--how many are in your deck? And even if you have 6 in your deck, and an Enochians hits the table early, losing even 2 or 3 guys before you draw into Uncoiling is likely ending you. -Peter

On Jun 10, 3:02 pm, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > On Jun 10, 2:10 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > (re: 4th Cycle and Scourge of the Enochians) > > > These cards make large caps and mid-caps better by their very > > existance. > > No they don't; they make weenies worse, which has a similar effect, > but not the same. Since all things are relative and not absolute in a CCG by default making one thing worse is the equivalent to making all other things better. > Especially since they only make weenies worse if > they show up, are not countered, and are applicable. If they don't show up then it is irrelavent. > Sure, they've > got to be considered when you're deciding on weenie vs. large/mid > strategy, but it's by no means the same as improving the game for > large/mid caps. See above, making one think worse makes everything else relatively better. > Dragging whatever's in front back to a lower level (sometimes) is > emphatically not the same things as boosting whatever's behind up to > the same level. Actually it is, but in a vastly different way.

On Jun 10, 2:55 pm, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > Norm wrote: > > Ben wrote: > > > Norm wrote: > > > > Breed decks break the paradim of "I have 30 pool to purchase my > > > > minions". I welcome cards like 4th Cycle and Sourge as they are > > > > actually HEALTHY for the game. > > > > I'm of the opinion that the answer isn't to make silver bullets to > > > counter breed decks, but to make better cards for large-caps and non- > > > bleed mid-cap strategies. > > > These cards make large caps and mid-caps better by their very > > existance. > > Well, in a way, but is it in the right way? Apparently, it is, as no other methods have worked so far. >So, someone puts a > Scourge in their deck, so the breed guy puts a few copies of The > Uncoiling to counter it. So now we just have a Scourge vs. Uncoiling > game instead of a game of V:TES. It doesn't really change the power > level of the weenies, but rather just adds this silver bullet mini- > game they have to play in addition to V:TES. The problem is that breed is so overly powerful that it is almost a "must include" card in any deck that doesn't play weenies. > I think it would be > preferable to make the larger cap vampires more capable, so that the > silver bullet game can be avoided. The problem is that you have a serious mechanical issue where weenies are just better in almost every way no matter how good that you make large caps.

On Jun 10, 4:53 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > Since all things are relative and not absolute in a CCG by default > making one thing worse is the equivalent to making all other things > better. That's only true if those things show up in every game. As you know, that's not the case with VTES deck strategies. > > Especially since they only make weenies worse if > > they show up, are not countered, and are applicable. > > If they don't show up then it is irrelavent. Yeah, that's DJ's point. Weenie hosers are only relevant if there are weenies around. If you make midcaps/large-caps better with cards that benefit midcaps/ large-caps, then midcaps and large-caps are better whether or not there are weenies and/or weenie hosers at a given table. If you make anti-weenie cards in an attempt to make midcaps/large-caps better, those only make midcaps and large-caps better if there are weenies and the anti-weenie cards at a given table. See the difference? John Eno

Peter Bakija wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Depends on the kind of weenie deck. I've been rocking with breed- boon for years now, and it still amazes me how resilient it is. I've had games where I haven't drawn a breed card for the first few turns and it still end up winning. An early Scourge seems like much the same thing. If you put in 4 copies of Uncoiling, the odds of you drawing your Uncoiling before their Scourge are very good, and the damage done by an early Scourge is likely minimal. I have to field- test this theory, but I'm currently of the opinion that Scourge will end up being mostly a silver bullet mini-game inducing irritant to a breed deck. Just add it to the pre-existing DI + DT box of pills. Not sure how it'll play out for the weenie rush type decks, but losing guys means losing badly needed momentum for them. Alas, mid- cap rush still sucks, despite Norm's assertion that it'll be better 'cause weenies get kicked in the jimmy by Scourge. - Ben Peal

On Jun 10, 5:25 pm, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 10, 4:53 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > Especially since they only make weenies worse if > > > they show up, are not countered, and are applicable. > > > If they don't show up then it is irrelavent. > > Yeah, that's DJ's point. Weenie hosers are only relevant if there are > weenies around. Well, I think I meant if the hosers show up. If the hoser doesn't hit play, or gets DI'd or whatever, it hasn't actually made the weenies any worse, whether it was in your deck or not. (Or, to address what Norm said a little more directly: if they don't show up and aren't relevant, the hosers haven't made weenies worse at all. - D.J.

On Jun 10, 4:53 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] No, it's not at all the same thing - playing magic-bullet-the-leader is only effective situationally and sometimes and is exactly the problem Ben's bringing up, whereas playing boost-the-straggler is a strategy of empowerment that actually evens the playing field. To put it other ways: If you can invest in either rocket-shoes or a handgun to win a race against a fast sprinter, rocket shoes always work if you bring 'em. A handgun only works if you hit the guy in front with the bullet. "Separate but equal is inherently unequal." "The same thing but in a vastly different way" is bull. The way is part of what it does. - D.J.

On Jun 10, 5:39 pm, benp...@gmail.com wrote: > Depends on the kind of weenie deck. I've been rocking with breed- > boon for years now, and it still amazes me how resilient it is. I've > had games where I haven't drawn a breed card for the first few turns > and it still end up winning. Oh, I know--it is one of my solid tournament winners. So I'm with you. And my current version includes Uncoiling, but I'm waffling on playing it in the upcoming tournament season specifically for this very reason, Uncoilings or no. > Not sure how it'll play out for the weenie rush type decks, but > losing guys means losing badly needed momentum for them. Yeah. Lemme tell you--it sucks :-) One of my JOL tournament games ended badly for me when two of my 2 caps got Enochianed to death. And then my Carleton Van Wyck got stolen by my prey as soon as he hit the table. But I digress. In any case, I have changed all my weenie combat decks (Pot rush and/or Ani block) to bottom out at 3 cap. I haven't seen them in serious action yet, but they are doing ok when I play them. But they are slower and have fewer minions. Although a certain 3 cap with POT definitely helps :-) -Peter

On Jun 10, 4:25 pm, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 10, 4:53 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > Since all things are relative and not absolute in a CCG by default > > making one thing worse is the equivalent to making all other things > > better. > > That's only true if those things show up in every game. As you know, > that's not the case with VTES deck strategies. > > > > Especially since they only make weenies worse if > > > they show up, are not countered, and are applicable. > > > If they don't show up then it is irrelavent. > > Yeah, that's DJ's point. Weenie hosers are only relevant if there are > weenies around. This is a non-issue. > If you make midcaps/large-caps better with cards that benefit midcaps/ > large-caps, then midcaps and large-caps are better whether or not > there are weenies and/or weenie hosers at a given table. "better" is a comparitive by definition. If there is nothing to compare it to then it is not better. It is the same. If there are no weenies then there is no effect AT ALL. Simliarly, in a void, if you have two points that are 4 inches apart, and you move 1 point 2 inches farther away, then they are now 6 inches apart. Because they are in a void, it is irrelevant which point was moved. There are no absolutes in game design. There for to make one thing worse is the exact same as making all other things better. > If you make anti-weenie cards in an attempt to make midcaps/large-caps > better, those only make midcaps and large-caps better if there are > weenies and the anti-weenie cards at a given table. > > See the difference? No there is no difference because there are no absolutes in the game design of VTES.

On Jun 10, 4:57 pm, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > On Jun 10, 4:53 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > On Jun 10, 3:02 pm, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > Dragging whatever's in front back to a lower level (sometimes) is > > > emphatically not the same things as boosting whatever's behind up to > > > the same level. > > > Actually it is, but in a vastly different way. > > No, it's not at all the same thing - playing magic-bullet-the-leader > is only effective situationally and sometimes and is exactly the > problem Ben's bringing up, whereas playing boost-the-straggler is a > strategy of empowerment that actually evens the playing field. If there are only two people in the race then there is no difference. > To put it other ways: > If you can invest in either rocket-shoes or a handgun to win a race > against a fast sprinter, rocket shoes always work if you bring 'em. A > handgun only works if you hit the guy in front with the bullet. > "Separate but equal is inherently unequal." "The same thing but in a > vastly different way" is bull. The way is part of what it does. You're mistaken. When you are comparing two groups of things: weenies and non-weenies, making one group worse is exactly the same as making the other better. Such is the nature of comparisons.

[ quoted text not captured ] Do many of you guys actually sit down and have that dialogue in your minds about the "Silver Bullet Metagame"? Maybe it's just me that sits down and thinks "This is what I want my deck to do, so I'll build it towards that end with some generic defences or some kind of failsafe if something surreal happens..." The closest I've come to playing the "Silver Bullet" game is including 2 copies of Snipe Hunt in a Nos Royalty deck. If I've got a "swarm of billions" predator or prey then I will not think twice about calling a Snipe Hunt because most often the entire table will be happy to see the Weenie Deck deck tapped out for two turns. It doesn't oust the weenie deck (so even the weenie deck isn't too stressed unless they're on crap all pool) but it is all about buying time to do what you planned to do earlier. And the only other deck with a kind of "failsafe" is my Ishtarri Rising Sun Bandanna deck (it has no pool defence other than bleeding with Social Charm/Ubende+Ganhuru and using Enchant Kindred down) that utilises a handful of Poison Pills and Delaying Tactics. In my more weenie swarm decks (Like the Paul Forrest deck v3) I would honestly consider Irregular Protocols and other sideways angles, but those are about covering a weakness (no vote power AT ALL otherwise) rather than playing some kind of "Silver Bullet" game. *Shrug* If you want to, and think others are, playing the Silver Bullet Metagame... then maybe its time to find a way to work around those or stop using tactics that are so narrowly focussed that a single card will thrash your entire deck.

On Jun 10, 7:13 pm, Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: > *Shrug* If you want to, and think others are, playing the Silver > Bullet Metagame... then maybe its time to find a way to work around > those or stop using tactics that are so narrowly focussed that a > single card will thrash your entire deck. The point is not that people are specifically playing a "silver bullet meta game". It is that it is happening without people necessarily realizing it. The obvious example (that Ben brought up) is Enochians (if you hate weenies) vs Uncoiling (if you are weenies). There is a *lot* of that these days. -Peter

On Jun 11, 12:41 am, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > On Jun 10, 4:57 pm, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > On Jun 10, 4:53 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > > On Jun 10, 3:02 pm, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > > Dragging whatever's in front back to a lower level (sometimes) is > > > > emphatically not the same things as boosting whatever's behind up to > > > > the same level. > > > > Actually it is, but in a vastly different way. > > > No, it's not at all the same thing - playing magic-bullet-the-leader > > is only effective situationally and sometimes and is exactly the > > problem Ben's bringing up, whereas playing boost-the-straggler is a > > strategy of empowerment that actually evens the playing field. > > If there are only two people in the race then there is no difference. But there are not only two people in the race. There are multiples. One of which happens to be weenies. Hosing that racer only hurts that racer, it does not help the other racers if weenies are not there. In fact it hurts the others, as the precious deck space allocated to weenie hosing is now dead space, because there are no weenies. > > > To put it other ways: > > If you can invest in either rocket-shoes or a handgun to win a race > > against a fast sprinter, rocket shoes always work if you bring 'em. A > > handgun only works if you hit the guy in front with the bullet. > > "Separate but equal is inherently unequal." "The same thing but in a > > vastly different way" is bull. The way is part of what it does. > > You're mistaken. > > When you are comparing two groups of things: weenies and non-weenies, > making one group worse is exactly the same as making the other better. > > Such is the nature of comparisons. Norm, look at the wider scope here. Do you see weenies in every single game you play? If yes, then I can begin to see your point of view. However, there are metas where weenies are not seen in every single game. In those metas having big cap boosting cards would be better than weenie hosers, as not having weenies on the table means you have deck space including weenie hosers, which could have been used to include the big cap boosters.

On Jun 10, 6:41 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > You're mistaken. > > When you are comparing two groups of things: weenies and non-weenies, > making one group worse is exactly the same as making the other better. > > Such is the nature of comparisons. Umm... Y'know what, I'd forgotten how head-in-the-sand obstinate you can get sometimes in discussions, Norm. If you can't actually recognize basic definitions of phrases like "exactly the same", and can't recognize that while the end comparative result may occasionally turn out the same that doesn't mean the effect on the game is the same, and can't admit that the two philosophies about how it's done have radically different impacts on how the game is played and how much of a "roulette wheel" feel things get... then I think I'm done talking about this with you, and I think I've just got to hope that others recognized the point I was making. Thanks anyhow. It was worth a try. - D.J.

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes > If yes, then I can begin to see your point of view. > However, there are metas where weenies are not seen in every single > game. In those metas having big cap boosting cards would be better > than weenie hosers, as not having weenies on the table means you have > deck space including weenie hosers, which could have been used to > include the big cap boosters. Now you are moving the goal posts. I am talking about weenie hosers versus non-weenie enhancers. The terminology in this thread has been midcap/highcap which is the same as non-weenie. You are now further specifying "big cap enhancer" which is not what I am talking about. I am not talking about deck design but rather game/card design.

On Jun 10, 6:36 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > "better" is a comparitive by definition. If there is nothing to > compare it to then it is not better. It is the same. Okay...? The midcap/large-cap strategies are better compared to how good they used to be, if you make cards that make them better. As opposed to cards that make other strategies worse, which don't make the midcap/large-cap strategies better unless they encounter the other strategies (and there's no guarantee that they will). > There are no absolutes in game design. There for to make one thing > worse is the exact same as making all other things better. Again, in a game where X, Y, and Z are present in every game, your statement is correct. However, VTES is a game where there's no mechanical guarantee that any given strategy will be at a given table, so hosing X doesn't actually make Y or Z better if nobody plays X. (As Blooded Sand points out, it actually makes Y and Z worse if nobody plays X, since they now have useless or unplayable cards in their decks.) Conversely, making Y and Z better by giving it performance- enhancing cards that don't have anything directly to do with X makes Y and Z better regardless of which other strategies are present at a given table. If it makes Y and Z better enough that it's now on par power-wise with X, that's far preferable to making hosers for X because it means that there's a level playing field for the differing strategies, rather than a playing field tilted in one strategy's favor but with some Hail Mary bombs at the other end of the field. > No there is no difference because there are no absolutes in the game > design of VTES. If there are no absolutes, how can you make the claim that hosing weenies absolutely makes non-weenie strategies better, which you've said multiple times in this thread? John Eno

On Jun 11, 10:06 am, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 10, 6:36 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > "better" is a comparitive by definition. If there is nothing to > > compare it to then it is not better. It is the same. > > Okay...? The midcap/large-cap strategies are better compared to how > good they used to be, if you make cards that make them better. When compared historically against itself, I agree. >As > opposed to cards that make other strategies worse, which don't make > the midcap/large-cap strategies better unless they encounter the other > strategies (and there's no guarantee that they will). You are using a historical comparison versus a group comparison. The historical comparison is irrelevant in VTES. > > There are no absolutes in game design. There for to make one thing > > worse is the exact same as making all other things better. > > Again, in a game where X, Y, and Z are present in every game, your > statement is correct. However, VTES is a game where there's no > mechanical guarantee that any given strategy will be at a given table, > so hosing X doesn't actually make Y or Z better if nobody plays X. (As > Blooded Sand points out, it actually makes Y and Z worse if nobody > plays X, since they now have useless or unplayable cards in their > decks.) This is a false dilemma. The new cards that are anti-weenie are neither useless nor unplayable. You put them into play or you discard them all with the same mechanism, the discard phase. It is just like any other card that you don't want to use right now. >Conversely, making Y and Z better by giving it performance- > enhancing cards that don't have anything directly to do with X makes Y > and Z better regardless of which other strategies are present at a > given table. If it makes Y and Z better enough that it's now on par > power-wise with X, that's far preferable to making hosers for X > because it means that there's a level playing field for the differing > strategies, rather than a playing field tilted in one strategy's favor > but with some Hail Mary bombs at the other end of the field. If you make Y and Z equally better relative to X then it is irrelavent when X doesn't show up, as Y and Z are still relatively equal to each other. Mathematically speaking if X + Y + Z = 0 and X = 0 then Y=Z Simlarly if you double both Y and Z such that X +2Y + 2Z = 0 and x= 0 then Y=Z and your outcomes are the same. This is the same as if you half X such that X/2 + Y + Z = 0 and x = 0 then Y=Z and again your outcome is the same. > > No there is no difference because there are no absolutes in the game > > design of VTES. > > If there are no absolutes, how can you make the claim that hosing > weenies absolutely makes non-weenie strategies better, which you've > said multiple times in this thread? See the above math.

On Jun 11, 11:29 am, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > You are using a historical comparison versus a group comparison. The > historical comparison is irrelevant in VTES. Okay. > This is a false dilemma. The new cards that are anti-weenie are > neither useless nor unplayable. You put them into play or you discard > them all with the same mechanism, the discard phase. It is just like > any other card that you don't want to use right now. In the situation where you don't want to use those silver bullets, if you had built your deck with cards to bolster your own strategy rather than with silver bullets that don't have a use in a given game (either because their targets aren't present or aren't players whose position you want to harm), you'd do better in that game. You can see that, right? This isn't a new dilemma. The reason people don't often use lots and lots of Sudden Reversals is because they think that bolstering their own strategies is a better way to use their MPAs than clipping the wings of other peoples' strategies. Sound like anything we're talking about in this thread? > If you make Y and Z equally better relative to X then it is irrelavent > when X doesn't show up, as Y and Z are still relatively equal to each > other. Bingo! And by doing so, you avoid the need for the silver bullet arms race that Peal is saying drags the game down. > Mathematically speaking...[snip math] Even at the individual card level, VTES design isn't mathematically sound, so I don't see the relevance of trying to apply mathematical formulas at the strategic level. John Eno

On Jun 11, 11:58 am, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 11, 11:29 am, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > You are using a historical comparison versus a group comparison. The > > historical comparison is irrelevant in VTES. > > Okay. > > > This is a false dilemma. The new cards that are anti-weenie are > > neither useless nor unplayable. You put them into play or you discard > > them all with the same mechanism, the discard phase. It is just like > > any other card that you don't want to use right now. > > In the situation where you don't want to use those silver bullets, if > you had built your deck with cards to bolster your own strategy rather > than with silver bullets that don't have a use in a given game (either > because their targets aren't present or aren't players whose position > you want to harm), you'd do better in that game. You can see that, > right? Yes, I agree that having cards that you use effectively against your opponents will improve your performance. I think that leads to power creep. I think it is better for the game and life in general that if you see a problem (such as a leaky pipe) that it is better to fix the problem rather than change the environment to minimize the problem (such as turning the room with the leaky pipe into a swimming pool). Weenies are a problem. Why are they a problem? 1) They cost too little 2) they are resilient to damage 3) they can play most of the cards in the game. Solution: 1) Eliminate 50% of the weenies. Seems elegant to me. > This isn't a new dilemma. The reason people don't often use lots and > lots of Sudden Reversals is because they think that bolstering their > own strategies is a better way to use their MPAs than clipping the > wings of other peoples' strategies. Sound like anything we're talking > about in this thread? > > > If you make Y and Z equally better relative to X then it is irrelavent > > when X doesn't show up, as Y and Z are still relatively equal to each > > other. > > Bingo! And by doing so, you avoid the need for the silver bullet arms > race that Peal is saying drags the game down. I don't agree with the premise that it drags the game down. I see weenies and breeding as a HUGE, HUGE problem for the game as a whole. I believe and I think that many, many players will agree that weenies have such a huge advantage in the game that it is driving new players away from the game. Also, breed is so good and most of the breed cards are rares that it is, in fact, the chase rare portion of VTES that we proclaim doesn't exist, when in fact it does.

[ quoted text not captured ] *Drags out Maths Degree & Teaching Degree* If, X + Y + Z = 0 then there are an infinite number of solutions... If X = 0, then your statement is pointless and you might as well have said Y = - Z, because Z+Y=0 means either Y = Z = 0 or Y = -Z and neither =0. I think the points people are trying to make are this: XZealot = No matter what you do to a third strategy, if the first to are approximately equally successful... they will remain equal. John Eno = Helping X can be done by either: a) reducing the power of Y & Z (punitive/negative assistance) or b) improving the power of X (affirmative/positive assistance). "Silver Bullets" are a punitive assistance. They are designed to punish a certain strategy or card or trick. They are used by strategy Y & Z to harm X's strategy rather than push Y & Zs strategy to be competitive. Ben Peal is saying he wants the arms race to be a "positive" race instead of a "punitive" race... "how can I improve my strategies so that all strategies are as effective as each other?" rather than "how can we punish the effective strategies so that they are as ineffective as each other?" The biggest issue then becomes... if Weenies are enough of a problem that Silver Bullets are proposed... how do you improve Non-Weenie decks without also helping weenie decks? So yes, I agree that we need to power-up strategies other than weenies. But the most common ways to do that are to create cards like Freak Drive and No Secrets from the Magaji (to give either more actions or more opportunities to block). And since Freak Drive is commonly listed as a probably broken card... we hit a deadlock...

[ quoted text not captured ] Enkil Cog, Sense the Savage Way, etc have all be made strickly for the upper echelons, but it just isn't enough when compared to weenie embrace which simply overloads its prey's defenses.

[ quoted text not captured ] > embrace which simply overloads its prey's defenses.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - But massively multi-acting superstars have almost the same effect. The core technique of a weenie deck is to have so many actions going on that your prey has no capability to stop all of them. Isn't this also the core effect of a Turbo-(Insert Name) deck? Isn't this also the core effect of a Venture FREAKS deck? People's eyes do drop out of their skulls when you have a minion take 3 or 4 actions in a single turn and then your other minions start to act... The thing to be careful of is this: having big minions untapping and acting multiple times in a single minion phase is often just as dangerous as multiple minions acting once. The large minion will have more disciplines, will have more ability to handle itself in a combat, will have more ability to avoid the combat itself and so on and so on. I would be distinctly more worried if Arika et al gained enough cards to perform 8 actions in a turn and a significant number causing pool damage... Sure I've got to "only take down one minion" but what if that job is harder than taking down the horde? (Secure Haven being a good way to keep a Superstar "rush free") Given the prospect of trying to take down 5 weenies with my three minions, or one well protected fatty with the same three... I'd probably prefer the weenies, because my hit-rate will be higher.

On Jun 11, 12:37 pm, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > Bingo! And by doing so, you avoid the need for the silver bullet arms > > race that Peal is saying drags the game down. > > I don't agree with the premise that it drags the game down. I see > weenies and breeding as a HUGE, HUGE problem for the game as a whole. > > I believe and I think that many, many players will agree that weenies > have such a huge advantage in the game that it is driving new players > away from the game. Also, breed is so good and most of the breed > cards are rares that it is, in fact, the chase rare portion of VTES > that we proclaim doesn't exist, when in fact it does. I agree with Norm that weenies are too powerful. I also agree that they need to be nerfed rather than other strategies improved. If you bring other strategies up to the level of weenies the game will last 6 turns. If all your mid-caps and fatties could each act 2-3 times a turn and each bleed twice a turn and vote twice a turn it will make for a very fast game of VTES. I'd like the game a little faster than 2 hours, but the back and forth working towards a slow win is a big aspect of the game to me. Traditionally this game has worked very hard to avoid power creep. If you don't allow for power creep you have to get out a nerf bat. Later, ~Rehlow

On Jun 12, 3:57 am, XZealot <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > Enkil Cog, Sense the Savage Way, etc have all be made strickly for the > upper echelons, but it just isn't enough when compared to weenie > embrace which simply overloads its prey's defenses. How about implementing something simple, like, as a theoretical, hypothetical example, vampires do not tap for blocking minions less than half their capacity?

On Jun 11, 7:24 pm, Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: > John Eno = Helping X can be done by either: a) reducing the power of Y > & Z (punitive/negative assistance) or b) improving the power of X > (affirmative/positive assistance). You got it. My main horse in this race is that I take issue with Norm's assertion that the existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle make midcap and large-cap decks better automatically, as that statement is only true at the abstract level of surveying the card pool, not the nitty grit of in-the-trenches actual play. And it's the latter that I'm concerned with. (I now wonder if Norm and I were talking past each other, which we were if he was actually framing his argument with respect to the former.) John Eno

On Jun 12, 12:45 am, Rehlow <newsgr...@rehlow.com> wrote: > I agree with Norm that weenies are too powerful. I also agree that > they need to be nerfed rather than other strategies improved. If you > bring other strategies up to the level of weenies the game will last 6 > turns. If all your mid-caps and fatties could each act 2-3 times a > turn and each bleed twice a turn and vote twice a turn it will make > for a very fast game of VTES. Strawman. Nobody said anything about enabling non-weenie decks to take twice as many actions per turn. (Which I'm not convinced would make the game go any faster, actually, as that would just make players' turns take much longer to complete...but that's a digression that's got nothing to do with the current discussion.) > Traditionally this game has worked very hard to avoid power creep. If > you don't allow for power creep you have to get out a nerf bat. Just to clarify: You're saying that the silver bullet arms race doesn't bother you, and that you think it's a good thing? Or that there should be some other kind of weenie nerfage? John Eno

On Jun 12, 12:58 pm, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > Strawman. Nobody said anything about enabling non-weenie decks to take > twice as many actions per turn. (Which I'm not convinced would make > the game go any faster, actually, as that would just make players' > turns take much longer to complete...but that's a digression that's > got nothing to do with the current discussion.) Heh. Okay, Juggernaut1981 did mention this, but not by framing it as a desirable thing to see happen. Sorry, I didn't see his post until after I'd made the one above. John Eno

On Jun 12, 11:58 am, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 12, 12:45 am, Rehlow <newsgr...@rehlow.com> wrote: > > > I agree with Norm that weenies are too powerful. I also agree that > > they need to be nerfed rather than other strategies improved. If you > > bring other strategies up to the level of weenies the game will last 6 > > turns. If all your mid-caps and fatties could each act 2-3 times a > > turn and each bleed twice a turn and vote twice a turn it will make > > for a very fast game of VTES. > > Strawman. Nobody said anything about enabling non-weenie decks to take > twice as many actions per turn. (Which I'm not convinced would make > the game go any faster, actually, as that would just make players' > turns take much longer to complete...but that's a digression that's > got nothing to do with the current discussion.) > A lot of the strength in weenies is the large number of actions the Methuselah can take in a turn. Fatties somewhat make up for this in quality of actions, however weenies can easily come close or match this quality. An embrace isn't going to bleed for 5 or 6, but it doesn't take many disciplines to do so. An embrace can still call a KRC or Con Ag as well as any fattie provided it has enough votes to push it through (the various each vampire of this clan gains a vote cards make this fairly trivial). If you won't nerf weenies, then you need to allow fatties to act more often or further increase the quality of their actions. I don't think we want to see larger bleeds, but maybe a new vote like Ancient KRC, divide 3 points of pool damage among 2 or more Methuselahs, if this vampire is cap >8 divide 6 points instead, would be a possibility. However, I think more actions for fatties or more damage output from fatties is going to result in a game where you try to catch your prey with a bad hand and get them in a single moment of weakness. > > Traditionally this game has worked very hard to avoid power creep. If > > you don't allow for power creep you have to get out a nerf bat. > > Just to clarify: You're saying that the silver bullet arms race > doesn't bother you, and that you think it's a good thing? Or that > there should be some other kind of weenie nerfage? Actually I would prefer that weenie decks didn't have any defense against the silver bullets. Their "defense" should be that they are overpowered when silver bullets are not in play and still able to manage with a couple silver bullets attacking them. FYI - I have yet to see a Scourge of the Enochians hammer away at a weenie deck. I would think the weenie deck could stay par with the damage it is doing (replace weenies as fast as they are losing them). Maybe I am underestimating how devastating it is. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to play too much lately and for various reasons Scourge doesn't show up in that many decks locally. Later, ~Rehlow

John "Crescent Fresh" Eno wrote: > My main horse in this race is that I take issue with Norm's assertion > that the existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle make midcap and > large-cap decks better automatically, as that statement is only true > at the abstract level of surveying the card pool, not the nitty grit of > in-the-trenches actual play. And it's the latter that I'm concerned > with. Yeah, those cards only bring down the power level of weenies (and thereby increasing the power level of mid- and large-caps) if and only if people put them in their decks. If they do not, the power level of weenies remains the same. It's as though you're making an errata card to be included in all decks. Again, that leads to the dumb silver bullet mini-game, which isn't about V:TES but is instead about (in this case) Scourge vs. Uncoiling. It isn't strategy A vs. strategy B. It's about Card A vs. Card B. You might as well just say, "You must include these cards in your deck for no other reason than to counter each other." Suppose we did create a world where fatties were better than weenies. Then we'd get into the equally stupid game of Pentex vs. Wash/Sudden/contested-Pentex. Oh wait, fatties already have to deal with that. Regarding Juggernaut1981's suggestion that we stop building decks that are susceptible to one card totally trashing our game, well, um, er, are we supposed to just play mid-cap decks from now on? We can't play weenies or fatties unless we want to play the silver bullet mini- game. So that leaves mid-caps, with the super-amazing selection of stealth-bleed, power-bleed, and tap 'n bleed. Mid-cap rush sucks. Mid-cap vote sucks. Mid-cap wall sucks (Hugh keeps telling me it's good, but still hasn't explained how it ousts anyone). And, um, why should weenie and fatties not be viable? Why shouldn't I build a Cesewayo-advanced deck with these new spiffy cards I just bought? As for the how-to-depower-weenies and how-to-improve-fatties discussions...I think a lot of the problem is the desire to allow people to continue playing with the cards they purchased. Maybe 1- to 3-caps should never have been made. Maybe Embrace, 3rd Trad, Waters, Bamba, etc, should have cost an additional blood to play. However, CCP isn't going to ban 1- to 3- caps and isn't going to reprint breed cards with increased cost updates. That leaves either the silver bullet mini-game (yuck) or increasing the power of mid- and large- caps. While I understand the concern about power creep and not wanting mondo bleedzooka or orbital vote strike decks, I'm of the opinion that mid- and large-caps can have their power increased without unbalancing the game - the goal is to balance it, right? So what if there is power creep if the mid- and large-cap specific cards weren't good in the first place? It doesn't have to involve crazy multi-acting. It doesn't have to involve megableeds and megavotes. It certainly doesn't have to mean that games will only last 6 turns - where did you get that idea from, Rehlow? I don't recall weenie decks resulting in 6-turn games. Here's one step for improving fatties: ban Pentex. Yay. Now I can play Cesewayo. - Ben Peal

YMGBen wrote: > John "Crescent Fresh" Eno wrote: >> My main horse in this race is that I take issue with Norm's assertion >> that the existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle make midcap and >> large-cap decks better automatically, as that statement is only true >> at the abstract level of surveying the card pool, not the nitty grit of >> in-the-trenches actual play. And it's the latter that I'm concerned >> with. > > Yeah, those cards only bring down the power level of weenies (and > thereby increasing the power level of mid- and large-caps) if and only > if people put them in their decks. If they do not, the power level of > weenies remains the same. Not quite. See Archon Investigation.

[ quoted text not captured ] Um, huh? Not getting you here Scott. What does AI'ing a 2 cap with dom have to do with anything?

[ quoted text not captured ] "Those cards only bring down the power level of <affected decks> if and only if people put them in their decks". AI has had an effect on decks even when nobody at the table actually put one in their decks. The existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle has reportedly[PDB6] had a similar result: affecting people's weenie decks by their existence, whether or not anyone at a given table actually put one in their decks.

On Jun 12, 2:54 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > "Those cards only bring down the power level of <affected decks> if and only if > people put them in their decks". > > AI has had an effect on decks even when nobody at the table actually put one in > their decks. While that's true, it's definitely part of the metagame-countermeasure level thinking Ben's talking about and not enjoying. If folks decide that AI makes bleeding for more than three too risky, and thus the metagame shifts to having bleeds at 3 or less (and/or including Monocle of Clarity in decks specifically to ask about AI/bounce), then any AI you put into your deck becomes wasted space. Once that's the case, all it takes is someone to say "Hmm... AI's rare enough that it's worth the risk. Hell with it, I'm bleeding for 9." And the game turns back to the roulette level of "do they have the magic bullet to counter my strategy." - D.J.

D.J. wrote: > On Jun 12, 2:54 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > >> "Those cards only bring down the power level of <affected decks> if and only if >> people put them in their decks". >> >> AI has had an effect on decks even when nobody at the table actually put one in >> their decks. > > While that's true, it's definitely part of the metagame-countermeasure > level thinking Ben's talking about and not enjoying. Um. Sure. I was just addressing the "if and only if" assertion.

[ quoted text not captured ] Fair enough. Except that to a degree, for a deck to be an "affected deck" at the level Ben's talking about, it has to actually *be* bleeding for 4+; otherwise, it's a different deck. Therefore, AI does nothing to counter a deck bleeding for 4+ unless the AI is put in a deck (and drawn, etc). What it does, is create different decks that don't tend to do that. - D.J.

On 12 kesä, 22:05, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > While that's true, it's definitely part of the metagame-countermeasure > level thinking Ben's talking about and not enjoying. If folks decide > that AI makes bleeding for more than three too risky, and thus the > metagame shifts to having bleeds at 3 or less (and/or including > Monocle of Clarity in decks specifically to ask about AI/bounce), then > any AI you put into your deck becomes wasted space. Once that's the > case, all it takes is someone to say "Hmm... AI's rare enough that > it's worth the risk. Hell with it, I'm bleeding for 9." And the > game turns back to the roulette level of "do they have the magic > bullet to counter my strategy." > > - D.J. That's unlikely. We don't see any huge swings in stealth vs. intercept, combat defense vs. combat etc. Why would we see it in AI vs. big bleed?

On 12 kesä, 22:30, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > Therefore, AI does > nothing to counter a deck bleeding for 4+ unless the AI is put in a > deck (and drawn, etc). I don't know about that. If I'm bleeding a deck with no access to bounce Conditioning tends to get played at inferior.

LSJ wrote: > "Those cards only bring down the power level of <affected decks> if and only if > people put them in their decks". > > AI has had an effect on decks even when nobody at the table actually put one in > their decks. Ok, sure, I see your point about "if and only if". However, if there was a viable card to counter AI, then perhaps we'd see a rise in bleedzookas. > The existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle has reportedly[PDB6] had a similar > result: affecting people's weenie decks by their existence, whether or not > anyone at a given table actually put one in their decks. If you opt to only look at one data point. Or you could go with DirkAdvanced's alternate strategy - putting in 4x Uncoiling. - Ben Peal

On Jun 12, 3:36 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 12 kesä, 22:05, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > While that's true, it's definitely part of the metagame-countermeasure > > level thinking Ben's talking about and not enjoying. If folks decide > > that AI makes bleeding for more than three too risky, and thus the > > metagame shifts to having bleeds at 3 or less (and/or including > > Monocle of Clarity in decks specifically to ask about AI/bounce), then > > any AI you put into your deck becomes wasted space. Once that's the > > case, all it takes is someone to say "Hmm... AI's rare enough that > > it's worth the risk. Hell with it, I'm bleeding for 9." And the > > game turns back to the roulette level of "do they have the magic > > bullet to counter my strategy." > That's unlikely. We don't see any huge swings in stealth vs. > intercept, combat defense vs. combat etc. Why would we see it in AI > vs. big bleed? Sorry if it sounded like I was talking big swings; that wasn't what I meant to imply. What I was trying to address was the fact that outliers demonstrate that the "existence depowers target" theory isn't really valid, all in all. If bleed decks are scared enough of AI that nobody feels they need to play the AI (since they never get to *play* the AI in a given game 90% of the time), then when someone decides "heck with AI, I never see it anyhow" it hasn't lowered their power level at all. It might make them a lot less frequent, but that's only because there's a "magic bullet" strategy at work. (*ESPECIALLY* in the case of cards like AI, which in the absence of a big bleed are dead cards. The "count-the-minions-and-slap-everyone" votes are not quite to that level, since they have other uses.) I'd much prefer a game where such big bleeds were difficult or expensive enough that they were their own control, rather than rely on a magic-bullet card to keep them in line. Similarly, I'd rather weenie decks were self-balancing rather than relying on the other players' potentially playing a given card. But at this point, those aren't really options, so we make do. - D.J.

[ quoted text not captured ] Exactly my point. Changing the composition of a deck will certainly affect that deck. The existence of AI affects power bleed decks (by players altering their composition). In the same way, the existence of the weenie hosers affects weenie decks. The existence of aggravated damage also affects close-range combat decks (by affecting their construction), even if no aggravated-dealing cards are played. And so on. If a card is made whose very existence means that everyone suddenly stops playing any vampires of capacity less than 8 will certainly "affect weenie decks", even though (or rather, "in exactly that") no weenie deck is ever played again. The current weenie hosers affect weenie decks to a lesser extent. For example, rather than replacing every weenie in the crypt with an 8-cap, PDB6 simply replaced the 1- and 2- caps with 3-caps. That change affects the weenie deck.

Ben Peal wrote: > LSJ wrote: >> The existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle has reportedly[PDB6] had a similar >> result: affecting people's weenie decks by their existence, whether or not >> anyone at a given table actually put one in their decks. > > If you opt to only look at one data point. Or you could go with > DirkAdvanced's alternate strategy - putting in 4x Uncoiling. Excellent: two data points. Putting in 4x Uncoiling also affects the deck.

On Jun 12, 3:54 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > If a card is made whose very existence means that everyone suddenly stops > playing any vampires of capacity less than 8 will certainly "affect weenie > decks", even though (or rather, "in exactly that") no weenie deck is ever played > again. At which point, why would anyone waste the space in their deck on that card? - D.J.

On Jun 12, 2:54 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle has reportedly[PDB6] had a similar > result: affecting people's weenie decks by their existence, whether or not > anyone at a given table actually put one in their decks. Correct. Much like AI (which has the effect of making people bleed for more than 3 less often and occasionally makes people design decks to not even be able to bleed for more than 3, regardless of whether or not they see one in play in a given game), Scourge seems likely to make people not use 1-2 caps. I mean, not all the time, sure. But I certainly changed a large number of my decks to bottom out with 3 caps after getting traumatized/hosed by Scourge in a few games. I could also play the silver bullet game of Uncoiling, but in a lot of decks, just making all the 2 caps into 3 caps seems like a much better plan (and then including Scourge instead of Uncoiling :-) Again, is this going to affect everyone like this? No, of course not. But some (many) people will react to Scourge like they react to AI-- they default to building their decks to avoid these hazards. Sure, some people will still play all 1 caps and say "Scourge be damned!", much like some folks still bleed for 7 and say "Well, maybe I'll get AIed. I can deal." But in the grand scheme, I suspect that the very existence of Scourge will result in fewer 1-2 caps seeing play in general. -Peter

On 12 kesä, 22:47, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > Sorry if it sounded like I was talking big swings; that wasn't what I > meant to imply. What I was trying to address was the fact that > outliers demonstrate that the "existence depowers target" theory isn't > really valid, all in all. If bleed decks are scared enough of AI that > nobody feels they need to play the AI (since they never get to *play* > the AI in a given game 90% of the time), then when someone decides > "heck with AI, I never see it anyhow" it hasn't lowered their power > level at all. It might make them a lot less frequent, but that's only > because there's a "magic bullet" strategy at work. This is exactly what I meant. "Heck with X, I never see it anyhow" should be as true to any other counterparts like stealth vs. intercept as it is for AI vs. big bleed. In reality the trend is somewhere between the two extremes of "heck with X" and "X will kill me if I play this", mostly dictated by the efficiency of those counterparts.

On Jun 12, 3:46 pm, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote: > If you opt to only look at one data point. Or you could go with > DirkAdvanced's alternate strategy - putting in 4x Uncoiling. That is certainly a viable plan for certain decks--breed/boon decks, for example that don't start the game with weenies in play and also *can't* replace their kids with 3 caps. Such a deck has no choice but to play with Uncoiling. Which makes the deck less good (as you need to replace a handful of good cards with Uncoilings, which often will just be dead draws). If the intention of Scourge was to make decks that rely on weenie vampires (like breed/boon decks) less good, making them include a handful of Uncoilings certainly does that. I mean, yeah, I totally see your point of the silver bullet game being sub-optimal. But in terms of "Does Scourge reduce the effectiveness of weenie decks even if it doesn't see play?", I think it does, either by compelling you to turn all your 1-2 caps into 3 caps or by including a bunch of Uncoilings. In either case, the deck is less good, even if Scourge doesn't see play in a particular game. (My biggest beef, however, with Scourge is that it makes poor Hermana Menor total wallpaper, and they were fun, funny, and rarely overly effective. Now we really need some sort of trifle skill card for Blood Brothers to save them...) -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] Because they know that every time the pendulum swings it will swing back slightly less, eventually reaching a point of stability.

On Jun 12, 4:23 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 12 kesä, 23:07, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > On Jun 12, 3:54 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > > If a card is made whose very existence means that everyone suddenly stops > > > playing any vampires of capacity less than 8 will certainly "affect weenie > > > decks", even though (or rather, "in exactly that") no weenie deck is ever played > > > again. > > > At which point, why would anyone waste the space in their deck on that > > card? > > Because they know that every time the pendulum swings it will swing > back slightly less, eventually reaching a point of stability. LSJ's purported result was that no weenie deck is ever played again. I don't see how that's possible. Given the pendulum theory (which in principle I agree with), once it's fairly stable at the "well, nobody plays weenies anymore" level, advantage goes to the players who decide "In that case, I can take this junk out." And once everyone starts following suit, advantage then swings to "Oh, looks like I can play blitzkrieg weenies again." Yes, the pendulum keeps stabilizing (no argument there) a little quicker each time, and gets a little less extreme, but there's *ALWAYS* a magic-bullet dynamic left in there, which is arguably the problem. - D.J.

[ quoted text not captured ] Stealth vs. intercept *does* do that, at least around here, as does combat vs. defense, votes vs. anti-vote, etc. - doesn't it for you? I wouldn't say "big swings" on most of them, but there's a gradual pendulum factor in the metagame as a whole. I think we're talking different sides of the same point, though, all in all - it's a case of whether the thinking is that magic-bullet effects (which have a more dramatic pendulum possibility due to single- cardness instead of strategy-wide implications) are too blunt an instrument due to their inherent poor stabilization, or a good thing because they're so potentially effective if they work that they create a psychological shift. - D.J.

On Jun 12, 4:21 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > (My biggest beef, however, with Scourge is that it makes poor Hermana > Menor total wallpaper, and they were fun, funny, and rarely overly > effective. This is one of my personal issues with the silver bullets - they often end up hitting background targets that they weren't aimed at, and which didn't need to be depowered any more than they already were naturally. Scourge, for instance, not only harms (theoretically at least) breed/boon and 1-cap Hack decks, but also superstar multirush decks that relied on 1-cap dorks to bleed out a prey whose ready region had been neutered by the superstar. Again, in theory if not in practice, Improving other strategies and levelling the playing field eliminates this kind of unwanted collateral damage rather than accidentally nerfing already subpar deck types. John Eno

On Jun 12, 4:54 pm, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is one of my personal issues with the silver bullets - they often > end up hitting background targets that they weren't aimed at, and > which didn't need to be depowered any more than they already were > naturally. Oh, sure. The same with AI--yeah, it slows down the "I bleed for 5 with all my minions every action!" some, but it also totally hoses the "I bide my time and eventually lunge for 7 with my one good minion" strategy, which *didn't* need hosing. > Scourge, for instance, not only harms (theoretically at > least) breed/boon and 1-cap Hack decks, but also superstar multirush > decks that relied on 1-cap dorks to bleed out a prey whose ready > region had been neutered by the superstar. Well, sure, but the 1 cap dorks can probably be 3 cap dorks and still be ok--each 1 cap dork really costs 2 anyway (well, after the first one, as you probably have to fish for them), so just making them 3 caps isn't going to put that big of a hole in that kind of deck. But Hermana Menors? Yeah, you got nothing. But the 5-6 Uncoilings you need. Which makes an already sketchy deck even sketchier. -Peter

On 12 kesä, 23:54, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > This is one of my personal issues with the silver bullets - they often > end up hitting background targets that they weren't aimed at, and > which didn't need to be depowered any more than they already were > naturally. That's an issue of specific silver bullets aimed badly rather than silver bullets in general being unworkable. > Scourge, for instance, not only harms (theoretically at > least) breed/boon and 1-cap Hack decks, but also superstar multirush > decks that relied on 1-cap dorks to bleed out a prey whose ready > region had been neutered by the superstar. Most people like having a couple of levels of useful disciplines in the supporting cast so <3 caps are not that common. It's not like a superstar crypt supports getting more than four minions out anyway. > Again, in theory if not in practice, Improving other strategies and > levelling the playing field eliminates this kind of unwanted > collateral damage rather than accidentally nerfing already subpar deck > types. > > John Eno Boosting every other strategy an equal amount leaves a lot more room for accidents than nerfing a single strategy.

LSJ wrote: > Ben Peal wrote: > > LSJ wrote: > >> The existence of Scourge and Fourth Cycle has reportedly[PDB6] had a similar > >> result: affecting people's weenie decks by their existence, whether or not > >> anyone at a given table actually put one in their decks. > > > If you opt to only look at one data point. Or you could go with > > DirkAdvanced's alternate strategy - putting in 4x Uncoiling. > > Excellent: two data points. Putting in 4x Uncoiling also affects the deck. There's a huge difference between "shying away from a strategy entirely" and "putting in a silver bullet counter card in order to continue using the strategy". - Ben Peal

John Eno wrote: > Peter Bakfjiojf wrote: > > > (My biggest beef, however, with Scourge is that it makes poor Hermana > > Menor total wallpaper, and they were fun, funny, and rarely overly > > effective. > > This is one of my personal issues with the silver bullets - they often > end up hitting background targets that they weren't aimed at, and > which didn't need to be depowered any more than they already were > naturally. Scourge, for instance, not only harms (theoretically at > least) breed/boon and 1-cap Hack decks, but also superstar multirush > decks that relied on 1-cap dorks to bleed out a prey whose ready > region had been neutered by the superstar. zomg that's exactly what I was talking about earlier with respect to Brinksmanship decks. If you do want to try out such a strategy, you get to play the dumb silver bullet mini-game. Wanna do a super star rush deck with weenies? Well, you gotta put in some Uncoilings or Not To Be so Scourge doesn't get you. Want to play Brinksmanship? Gotta put in some Dark Influences to counter Direct Intervention. Want to play a Choir deck? Put in Uncoilings _and_ Dark Influences. Yay. - Ben Peal

On Jun 12, 5:48 pm, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote: > There's a huge difference between "shying away from a strategy > entirely" and "putting in a silver bullet counter card in order to > continue using the strategy". Oh, sure, but I think his point was "putting 4+ Uncoilings in your deck makes it less good than it was before you put 4+ Uncoilings in it. Consequently, Scourge makes the decks it exists to make worse, worse, even if it doesn't show up in a game, and even if your response is just to use Uncoilings". I mean, yeah, having 4+ Uncoilings in a breed/boon deck doesn't make it hugely worse or anything, but it does take up 4+ slots that would have been something good. Which makes the deck less good. Again--I totally sympathize with the idea that "silver bullets are a sub-optimal answer to complex game design issues", but at least on some level, things like Scourge are affecting decks it means to affect, even outside of the silver bullet game. -Peter

D.J. wrote: > LSJ's purported result was that no weenie deck is ever played again. > I don't see how that's possible. LSJ's purported result is that the card has an effect, whether it is put into decks or not. A point which the OP has acknowledged. That is all.

On Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00:37 -0700 (PDT), Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote: > On Jun 12, 5:48ￜpm, Ben Peal <benp...@gmail.com> wrote: >> ￜ There's a huge difference between "shying away from a strategy [ quoted text not captured ] On a tangential note, I find myself adding 1-2 Uncoilings to every deck I make (regardless of average crypt size). Not only because Anthelios and Unmasking are immensely strong in the right decks; but also because there is a score of deck-hoser Gehenna cards out there that get played every now and then. Now I may be over-reacting to metagame shifts, but the alternative interpretation is that there is a whole new level of the silver bullet discussion - the level where you need to include silver bullets (or silver bullet counters) in your average deck. I've lost games by biding my time, holding a high opportunity cost, high yield card, waiting for the perfect moment, and then getting that card cancelled by DI / Sudden / etc. So more often than I would like to, I find myself thinking during deck construction, whether it is really worth it to include a couple of high opportunity cost, high yield cards, or whether is it simply more efficient and less prone to cancellation to include a 7th set of my winning combo trifecta? -- Regards, Daneel

On Jun 12, 4:02 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > > Scourge, for instance, not only harms (theoretically at > > least) breed/boon and 1-cap Hack decks, but also superstar multirush > > decks that relied on 1-cap dorks to bleed out a prey whose ready > > region had been neutered by the superstar. > > Well, sure, but the 1 cap dorks can probably be 3 cap dorks and still > be ok--each 1 cap dork really costs 2 anyway (well, after the first > one, as you probably have to fish for them), so just making them 3 > caps isn't going to put that big of a hole in that kind of deck. > > But Hermana Menors? Yeah, you got nothing. But the 5-6 Uncoilings you > need. Which makes an already sketchy deck even sketchier. > Yeah, see, it's been my experience that the Hermana Menor deck is way better and less sketchy than just a 1-cap Hack deck. Even before Scourge of the Enochians, 1-cap Hack decks were fundamentally unstable. They, IME at least, tend to top out in power around turn 4... if they are not well on their way to ousting their first prey at that point, then they are not going to win. If they *are* able to oust a prey by turn 5 or 6 or 7, then that greatly increases their chances of winning the table, but it by no means guarantees it, because they tend to lose steam quickly as their 1-cap 0-stealth bleeds are blocked. There are several "all-or-nothing" deck archetypes, of which the 1-cap Hack and 1-cap vote deck are simply the most well-known examples. It's debatable whether they win more than their fair share of VP's on average, but in any given game, they are more likely than most to be just totally hosed and have no hope of ever getting a VP. Of course, when they work, they work spectacularly, and the first prey feels like he never had any chance at all in that game. The Hermana deck, on the other hand, tends to build up almost as quickly - it's just as hard to keep them down with wack-a-mole as your average weenie deck - but they have bloat and they also have bleed for +X at +X stealth... pretty good. Add in Hungry Coyote, which is a borderline-overpowered card anyway and absolutely fantastic in a low- cap multi-minion deck with all Sabbat... and I personally think it's a much more *robust* deck than 1-cap Hack or vote. It may take more thought than the 1-cap deck, and I'm not 100% sure that it gets more VP's on average than the 1-cap decks, but it definitely has a much better chance of surviving in the type of situations that send the 1- cap deck out for an early cigarette break. And that's why I feel the weenie-hate is a little bit stronger than is warranted. I don't think Scourge is over the top, but I also don't think it's quite the kiss of death for weenies that you guys say. The weenie deck has to expect to get completely hosed over like 50% of the time. They just hope to get multiple VP's the rest of the time to compensate. When Scourge gets out early and you either don't play Uncoiling or don't draw it - well, you *might* be hosed that time, but also remember that it kills a max of one guy per time around the table. Your prey should be blocking and killing at least that many per round anyway if he's got any combat. So you chalk the Scourge hosage up to one of the times that you get screwed and you either hope to make up enough VP's in the other games, or else you adjust. On the other hand, I certainly don't think that weenies need any *more* hosage than what we've seen lately. They shouldn't be *completely* unplayable...

suolir...@gmail.com wrote: >On 10 kes�, 02:29, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> Now, I can play Uncoiling, but that's not perfect, and if I pull it >> early (before the Fall comes out), it's easy to burn it. �So I might >> have to hold it for quite a while, block my hand, see if someone is >> playing Gehenna events, hope it works, and still possibly die in a heap >> just because someone played Fall of the Camarilla. > >That's why hosers are made. They force decks that are considered to be >in need of balancing to include some bad cards or possibly die in a >heap. I'd wager that most of those decks are competitive even with a >handicap of -1 hand size from holding a counter to a counter. The wider point I was making wasn't about wanting all hosers out of the game for all time, but rather questions of the newer hosers having very little interactivity with the rest of the game. Having interactivity with the wider game is good, because you can then adapt your assets to the game you find yourself with, and the best players will adapt better than the rest of us. For example, the game allows you to have intercept as a generic defence. You don't have to have "intercept vs political actions" and "intercept vs allies" and "intercept vs equipment". You have a nice, generic defence. It's not insurmountable and it's not perfect, but it gives you a very strong core, potentially. Worried about Shamblers and want to stop them coming out? Well, you can put in intercept in your deck and try that, but when you find yourself without Shamblers, you can use it to stop an Imbued deck discovering Powers, or a Ventrue Law Firm deck calling votes. On the flip-side, the Shamblers deck can include a variety of cards to try to nullify your intercept - Seduction, say, or Call of the Hungry Dead. It's unlikely to be perfect either, and you may well be able to get in and eat a few vampires with your intercept. And they'll not just have to worry about your Osebo wall with its intercept when crafting their offences - that Seduction could be used against weenie Animalism, too. The cards are multi-functional and interact with each other. Overly specialised cards that kill quite specific strategies and are less interactive are less fun. Now, clearly there is a continuum of cards here and everyone will differ over where there is a line to be drawn. But let's take an old card: Millicent Smith, Puritan Vampire Hunter Type: Master -- Cost: None -- Text: Unique master. Put this card in play. If any of your vampires are blocked, burn Millicent and your acting vampire (without combat). During your discard phase, your predator takes control of Millicent. This is an interesting card, because you can use it in a lot of different situations. The player affected by the card can attempt to work around it using stealth, other delivery mechanism cards, or just not taking actions. If they choose to ignore this, they might get burned. It's not trivial to get burned. The player might be able to get you into a situation where you're forced to hunt first, but that's a lot more conditional than, say: Recalled to the Founder -- Type: Event -- Cost: None -- Text: Gehenna. Do not replace as long as this card is in play. Requires at least two other Gehenna cards in play. During each Methuselah's untap phase, if he or she controls more than two vampires of the same clan, he or she burns one such vampire. If that vampire's capacity is above 5, this Methuselah becomes immune to the effects of this card for the remainder of the game. Poof, wave goodbye to your vampires. Use stealth? No, can't. Choose not to act? Won't help here! Play vampires of multiple different clans? Well, yes, but that's a virtually irrelevant consideration for the rest of the game. So now I get to start trying to outguess people, and the answer may destroy my deck. But unlike a great many other things that might destroy my deck, the answer isn't generic. Those Shamblers that might destroy me, so I put in some Strike: Combat Ends? I can use those against other decks too. Choosing to play 12 different clans won't help me against 99% of other decks, and will potentially hurt me (fewer clan toys), but if I get the answer wrong, my deck might well be eaten, with very little interactivity. I'm not sure why I shouldn't be able to play a Renegade Garou deck with multiple small Gangrel to bring out werewolves, but Recalled to the Founder can deny me that when it's played. Millicent waits for my turn, and I can try to cycle cards - playing a master or two, for example, or pushing blood back onto a vampire with Blood Doll. Recalled to the Founder eats me during my untap phase. I don't have a chance to play Uncoiling when it's in play, and if I play it earlier, the cost to get rid of it is cheap - and there can only be one Uncoiling per game. The choices I do or don't make here can utterly destroy me when they do occur, but have zero impact on the rest of the game. With so many other, older cards, the choices I make can utterly destroy me still, but I can interact with many of the cards involved. Note: - I essentially couldn't interact with your Tomb of Rameses before it had made you a profit. This was a problem, and was removed. - Even with Return to Innocence in its neutered form, I probably couldn't interact with you *enough* to allow for that level of destruction. So it was removed from the game. - Thoughts Betrayed prevented me from interacting with you in combat. Offensive combat was hampered, because it couldn't play all the cards it wanted (and permanent-based combat was poor). All my defence was basically wasted. Interactivity, nil. Change to prevent that, large. Scourge of the Enochians can eat multiple vampires with almost zero interactivity. The Fourth Cycle can set an Imbued deck back four or five turns with almost zero interactivity. And the Fourth Cycle can piss on my Independent deck's desire to play Rise of the Nephtali, with almost zero interactivity - unlike a card like Guarded Rubrics, where it being an equipment card on a minion can make a significant difference. Burn the minion, steal the minion, steal the equipment, Banish the minion etc. All perfectly ordinary plays. And many other powerful cards in the past have had built-in burn clauses on them. Smiling Jack, the Anarch, is a good example here. It can do a lot of damage to tables. Winning decks can be constructed to incorporate it. But it has a built-in burn clause. What does the burn clause require? Ah, those things I need in essentially all decks when it was printed - vampires who can take actions. And until it's been round the table at least once (to put a counter on it during my untap phase), it can't cause any damage at all. In its first turn round the table, Scourge of the Enochians can burn two vampires outright (the player's turn, and the player's predator's turn) - the first of them virtually instantly, because it goes off during the discard phase, when it's played. Madness Network, a card that enables some extremely strong strategies and subverts some common defences (e.g. AI because it's your turn I'm bleeding in, Deflection because I can DI it), but it has a built-in burn action that anyone can take. Where are the burn clauses on cards that are just as powerful as these? In fact, it's the Uncoiling, which can only burn one event per go round the table, that has the burn clause. Not Recalled to the Founder, which can eat multiple vampires in that very first cycle. Not Scourge of the Enochians, which can do the same. Not Fall of the Camarilla, which can fundamentrally destroy my ability to play Parity Shift, Second Tradition and pass my votes in my Nosferatu Royalty deck. It's Uncoiling, the defensive card, that's hamstrung. Pushing cards that can essentially destroy decks into areas of the game that have little interactivity with the rest of the game is, really, a bad thing. Because there's so little overlap with the rest of the game, you can't stuff your deck with defences for them, and you can't use your other assets to move in on that area. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

> Boosting every other strategy an equal amount leaves a lot more room > for accidents than nerfing a single strategy. From a gameplay perspective, having your deck destroyed from a random hoser is less desirable than finding new strategies to build around. > And many other powerful cards in the past have had built-in burn clauses > on them. Smiling Jack, the Anarch, is a good example here. It can do a > lot of damage to tables. Winning decks can be constructed to > incorporate it. But it has a built-in burn clause. What does the burn > clause require? Ah, those things I need in essentially all decks when > it was printed - vampires who can take actions. And until it's been > round the table at least once (to put a counter on it during my untap > phase), it can't cause any damage at all. In its first turn round the > table, Scourge of the Enochians can burn two vampires outright (the > player's turn, and the player's predator's turn) - the first of them > virtually instantly, because it goes off during the discard phase, when > it's played. Tying into my answer above, new balanced strategies are fun to use and interactive. Scourge is powerful and serves a purpose, but is especially difficult to deal with. The card has no requirements except for a discard phase action and no drawback (unless the same player is also playing weenies). If the card had three counters and every time a minion is burned by Scourge, a counter is removed, and if the card was burned when it was out of counters, at least that is something. Or if you could call a political action to burn it. Or a D action, etc. If you take a card like Brinksmanship, it introduced a new ousting mechanism that is often hard to use, but it's one more thing for the arsenal. Brandon

On 13 kesä, 18:04, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > Pushing cards that can essentially destroy decks into areas of the game > that have little interactivity with the rest of the game is, really, a > bad thing. Because there's so little overlap with the rest of the game, > you can't stuff your deck with defences for them, and you can't use your > other assets to move in on that area. Eexactly. If a weenie deck could counter Scourge of the Enochians with a card that doubled as stealth or whatever you would normally find useful that would make it a poor hoser. Now they have to take a risk or include cards that they have no other use for. This is how Scourge of the Enochians nerfs weenies.

On 13 kesä, 20:40, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: > > Boosting every other strategy an equal amount leaves a lot more room > > for accidents than nerfing a single strategy. > > From a gameplay perspective, having your deck destroyed from a random > hoser is less desirable than finding new strategies to build around. Maybe the design team saw the necessity to build new strategies around the threat of weenies as undesirable. Scourge opens up new strategies that used to simply sink against a horde of bleeders.

[ quoted text not captured ] You mean I can play my Black Cat melee weapon deck now?

On 13 kesä, 23:09, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] You have my Broadsword. And Carna's Ivory Bow.

On Jun 13, 5:36 am, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 12 kesä, 22:05, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > While that's true, it's definitely part of the metagame-countermeasure > > level thinking Ben's talking about and not enjoying. If folks decide > > that AI makes bleeding for more than three too risky, and thus the > > metagame shifts to having bleeds at 3 or less (and/or including > > Monocle of Clarity in decks specifically to ask about AI/bounce), then > > any AI you put into your deck becomes wasted space. Once that's the > > case, all it takes is someone to say "Hmm... AI's rare enough that > > it's worth the risk. Hell with it, I'm bleeding for 9." And the > > game turns back to the roulette level of "do they have the magic > > bullet to counter my strategy." > > > - D.J. > > That's unlikely. We don't see any huge swings in stealth vs. > intercept, combat defense vs. combat etc. Why would we see it in AI > vs. big bleed? Responding to "Can the existance or sudden use of a card change the metagame?" From experience: YES I think it was the 2006 Sydney Qualifier. 7 vampires suffered AI in ONE DAY. 2 vampires were burned by the PREDATOR of the acting vampire using AI. 5 or so were burned in the ONE GAME. After that, I would say that the Sydney playgroups seem to have avoided Bleed-zooka decks (even at Qualifiers you rarely see a big number of bleed-tastic decks). That event spooked everyone and even though most people don't pack AIs commonly... there are rarely "Bleedzooka for 9 at 5+ stealth" floating around. There are a significant number of "bleed for 3 to 5 and a moderate stealth". Players almost openly promote the concept of "every action bleeds for 3" rather than going for Bleedzooka.

On Jun 13, 6:54 am, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 12, 4:21 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > > > (My biggest beef, however, with Scourge is that it makes poor Hermana > > Menor total wallpaper, and they were fun, funny, and rarely overly > > effective. > > This is one of my personal issues with the silver bullets - they often > end up hitting background targets that they weren't aimed at, and > which didn't need to be depowered any more than they already were > naturally. Scourge, for instance, not only harms (theoretically at > least) breed/boon and 1-cap Hack decks, but also superstar multirush > decks that relied on 1-cap dorks to bleed out a prey whose ready > region had been neutered by the superstar. > > Again, in theory if not in practice, Improving other strategies and > levelling the playing field eliminates this kind of unwanted > collateral damage rather than accidentally nerfing already subpar deck > types. > > John Eno The catch about powering up fatties would be that you need to power them up in one of three ways to nerf weenies: 1) Allow them to block more (No Secrets, Eternal Vigilance, etc) 2) Allow them to act more (Nakhtor-cheese anybody? Eze the Demon Cheese? Freak Drive) 3) Make their actions more effective/powerful (but Fatties can always cheese bleed or cheese vote...) These options exist, and while there needs to be that level of power... I still see the value of Pentex against vampires like Nakhtor- cheese and against the classic "Toreador Grand Fundraiser" vote deck...

On Jun 13, 3:17 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > Scourge opens up new strategies > that used to simply sink against a horde of bleeders. Such as? John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] Are you asking me what kinds of decks have trouble against weenies or trying to suggest something?

[ quoted text not captured ] I think that he's getting at what I was trying to get at in a round- about way: What strategies can you play now that you couldn't before Scourge was introduced? The answer, in my opinion, is that it didn't change much overall. Unless you run a lot of copies of the card so that you are sure to have it in/around your opening draw, it is no better than not having it in most cases. Weenie hacking or voting is still going to destroy you, unless you are lucky enough to get the card at the right moment. What the card does is it randomly hoses people at your table who are playing some/all weenies. Maybe your deck is all about burning vampires (Khazar's Diary, Shell Break, etc), then it could gain from Scourge because they aren't depending on it for defense. As a defense, it is not standard enough to actually offer much protection. As offense, you don't know what your opponents will be playing before the game starts(or shouldn't). So, the question is "what can you play now with Scourge that you couldn't before?" You mention bleeders. Isn't bounce, AI, and reduce good against them? Protected Resources? Justine, the Elder of Dallas + Anima Gathering? Brandon

suoli <suolir...@gmail.com> wrote: >On 13 kes�, 18:04, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> Pushing cards that can essentially destroy decks into areas of the game >> that have little interactivity with the rest of the game is, really, a >> bad thing. �Because there's so little overlap with the rest of the game, >> you can't stuff your deck with defences for them, and you can't use your >> other assets to move in on that area. > >Eexactly. Not really. >If a weenie deck could counter Scourge of the Enochians with >a card that doubled as stealth or whatever you would normally find >useful that would make it a poor hoser. Now they have to take a risk >or include cards that they have no other use for. This is how Scourge >of the Enochians nerfs weenies. Counters don't have to be quite so simplistic! Aranthebes is, for example, one interesting card in this arena. The card can be countered, and countered quite straight-forwardly, but this can't be done in an easy fashion by the decks it's designed to hamper. But you can take a variety of choices - diversifying your deck (such as in a superstar+fans deck), negotiating with another player, bleeding more aggressively (so that you can get beyond the -1 bleed penalty), taking a scary action that your prey wants to block and so uses the negative stealth option instead (which might or might not be a decoy!), and so on. And you can take some steps before it becomes a problem, such as blocking the action. Aranthebes isn't trivially countered by a weenie deck, but it's quite capable of fucking with them while also interacting with the rest of the game in a quite straightforward fashion. If Scourge of the Enochians was, for example, a unique piece of equipment or a unique master card that went on a minion, though with similar effect, there would be similar destructive potential but with better interaction. The weenie swarm bleed for a bajillion deck might not be able to interact, and the weenie politics deck can't really banish the possessor (though could possibly offer pool to others for it). The weenie rush deck, which isn't exactly the strongest archetype in the game, wouldn't be hosed as badly because it might well be able to dunk the vampire. The breed-boon deck might well have a potential target for, say, Banishment - which is a perfectly ordinary card to include - but would also mean that the big-ish breeder was a big target for the AlternateScourge deck. Like Aranthebes, those without options themselves might well be able to negotiate with someone else appropriately - or not, depending on the table. Really, assuming that interacting with the rest of the game has to be some simplistic option is silly. The game's never really been that simple. Nerfing weenies by making them hope they can draw prayer cards when they encounter silver bullets isn't fun and doesn't test player skill - it just increases randomness. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 14 kesä, 22:10, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jun 14, 1:00 am, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Are you asking me what kinds of decks have trouble against weenies or > > trying to suggest something? > > I think that he's getting at what I was trying to get at in a round- > about way: What strategies can you play now that you couldn't before > Scourge was introduced? I think he should say so instead of insinuating. > The answer, in my opinion, is that it didn't change much overall. A bit like this, thanks. Scourge isn't only useful if you happen to draw it. I believe Scourge of the Enochians changes the metagame. The risk of seeing weenies at all should be significantly lower now that every possible deck has access to a good weenie hoser. > You mention bleeders. Isn't bounce, AI, and reduce > good against them? Protected Resources? Justine, the Elder of Dallas + > Anima Gathering? > > Brandon More specifically horde bleeders, against which bounce, AI, reduce or Protected Resources aren't an answer. Not that I'm arguing against the existence of strong anti-weenie cards. It's just that they have thus far been too restricted and rare to really impact the meta.

On 14 kesä, 22:15, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > Nerfing weenies by making them hope they can draw prayer cards when they > encounter silver bullets isn't fun and doesn't test player skill - it > just increases randomness. Okay, you've convinced me that Scourge doesn't make seeing weenies more fun for anyone. At least it makes them less numerous.

Aleksi Nuora <aleks...@gmail.com> wrote: >On 14 kes�, 22:10, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> >wrote: >> On Jun 14, 1:00�am, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > Are you asking me what kinds of decks have trouble against weenies or >> > trying to suggest something? >> >> I think that he's getting at what I was trying to get at in a round- >> about way: What strategies can you play now that you couldn't before >> Scourge was introduced? > >I think he should say so instead of insinuating. "Such as?" isn't insinuating. It's a straightforward question, asking for examples in response to claim that new strategies had been opened up. So it's asking for example of those new strategies that have been opened up. It's about as straightforward as it gets. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 15 kesä, 00:56, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > "Such as?" isn't insinuating. It's a straightforward question, asking > for examples in response to claim that new strategies had been opened > up. So it's asking for example of those new strategies that have been > opened up. > > It's about as straightforward as it gets. Sure. I doubt that John Eno doesn't know of any decks that have trouble against weenies and needs me to point them out.

[ quoted text not captured ] Agreed. however, you stated that new deck strategies have been enabled by Scourge, and he asked such as. To clarify, such as what deck strategies have been enabled by Scourge? (a question I would also like to hear answered. :)

On 15 kesä, 01:16, Blooded Sand <sandm...@gmail.com> wrote: > To clarify, such as what deck > strategies have been enabled by Scourge? (a question I would also like > to hear answered. :) Strategies that have trouble against weenies but are viable if the number of weenie decks in the meta is below it's pain threshold.

On Jun 14, 6:09 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > I doubt that John Eno doesn't know of any decks that have trouble > against weenies and needs me to point them out. That's not what I was asking. I was asking which decks used to have trouble against weenies but now don't, due to Scourge. (Your claim was that such strategies exist, and I can't think of any, so I was wondering what you've got in mind.) I'm not sure how I could have been more direct in my question. Sorry. John Eno

[ quoted text not captured ] Is it safe to assume that you know of decks that have trouble against weenies but would be viable in the absence of weenies?

suoli <suolir...@gmail.com> wrote: >On 15 kes�, 01:28, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: >> That's not what I was asking. I was asking which decks used to have >> trouble against weenies but now don't, due to Scourge. (Your claim was >> that such strategies exist, and I can't think of any, so I was >> wondering what you've got in mind.) >> >> I'm not sure how I could have been more direct in my question. Sorry. > >Is it safe to assume that you know of decks that have trouble against >weenies but would be viable in the absence of weenies? You're being asked one question (which strategies have been enabled) and are trying to substitute another (can you think of strategies that would work in the complete absence of weenies). Please provide an answer to the question you're being asked, and stop ducking it with your attempts to change the question. [ quoted text not captured ]

Suoli> Please post a decklist for a deck that would be likely to be highly unsuccessful without Scourge of the Enochians. Tell us how it would oust and explain the way it would be played. That should silence the calls for you to show a strategy that is now able to be played because of Scourge of the Enochians.

On 15 kesä, 02:00, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > Please provide an answer to the question you're being asked, and stop > ducking it with your attempts to change the question. I politely decline that request.

[ quoted text not captured ] If you disagree with something I have said or have some other point to make you should say so and I will give you a proper, straightforward reply.

On Jun 14, 6:00 pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > >On 15 kesä, 01:28, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> That's not what I was asking. I was asking which decks used to have > >> trouble against weenies but now don't, due to Scourge. (Your claim was > >> that such strategies exist, and I can't think of any, so I was > >> wondering what you've got in mind.) > > >> I'm not sure how I could have been more direct in my question. Sorry. > > >Is it safe to assume that you know of decks that have trouble against > >weenies but would be viable in the absence of weenies? > > You're being asked one question (which strategies have been enabled) and > are trying to substitute another (can you think of strategies that would > work in the complete absence of weenies). > > Please provide an answer to the question you're being asked, and stop > ducking it with your attempts to change the question. > Or perhaps instead, stop asking silly unanswerable questions. Perhaps saying that existence of Scourge facilitates new strategies was incorrect, but that doesn't negate the entire argument that the existence of Scourge of the Enochians doesn't suddenly send the game into a downward spiral of silver bullet vs. counter... Perhaps instead of seizing on one statement that suoliruse made, you could accept his explanation of what he meant... Scourge of the Enochians may not specifically enable one particular archetype that was impossible to play before (because there are precious few cards which enable entire new strategies all by themselves), but the fact of its existence tends to reduce the prevalence of weenies, and thus makes it more attractive to play decks which would be steamrolled by weenies. One example being the "Lucian the Perfect bleeds for 13" deck - it cannot exist if it's impossible to survive the first 5 turns without being ousted, and anything which makes weenie decks slightly weaker, whether it be through a particular play or through metagame issues, makes any deck more likely to survive 5 turns without being ousted, because the most reliable way of getting a 5 or 6 turn oust is with weenies.

[ quoted text not captured ] > with weenies.- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - Chris> You're not going to hear me contradict that idea that the existence and/or a sudden increase in the number of times a card is played won't affect the metagame. AI has seen Bleed-zooka bleeders vanish from Sydney because there have been plenty of people who advocated in the past that any deck going to a Nats Qualifier or the actual Nationals should try squeeze in 2 of them, to use on the bleed- zookas. I'm just wanting to see a deck that would be greatly enabled by Scourge of the Enochians. In my own mind, the "fear of Scourge of the Enochians" is probably as useful as the card itself. Really even if the card is used for 6 months with high frequency until everyone shifts their crypts to make them "less Enochian Vulnerable" and then NEVER sees play again, it will have done its job. Sure, people can play the "silver bullet war" where they try to shoot a silver bullet with another silver bullet... have fun with that. I'd prefer to play a deck that avoids the bullet in the first place... there are just as many strategies available that way and it gives me another challenge/factor in my deck building. When people find more effective ways of utilising a card, it will see more play. If there are "card bogeymen" (e.g. Scourge of the Enochians) out there, then they will in turn affect the "effectiveness" of strategies. You calculate the level of impact, see if your deck is still effective and then decide to play it or not. On to the next "game breaking crisis"...

On Jun 14, 11:15 pm, Chris Berger <ark...@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote: > Perhaps > saying that existence of Scourge facilitates new strategies was > incorrect, but that doesn't negate the entire argument that the > existence of Scourge of the Enochians doesn't suddenly send the game > into a downward spiral of silver bullet vs. counter... I'm not actually trying to argue anything at this point. I was just curious as to what suoli had in mind when he made the statement about Scourge enabling decks that wouldn't have worked before it was printed, because I honestly can't think of any such decks, and I'm always on the lookout for new types of decks to build and ways to improve decks I have built. > Perhaps instead of seizing on one statement that suoliruse made, you > could accept his explanation of what he meant... Scourge of the > Enochians may not specifically enable one particular archetype that > was impossible to play before (because there are precious few cards > which enable entire new strategies all by themselves), but the fact of > its existence tends to reduce the prevalence of weenies, and thus > makes it more attractive to play decks which would be steamrolled by > weenies. Sure, that makes sense, if that's what he meant. I got the impression that he had more specific deck types in mind, though maybe I was just misreading his message. We are communicating through the tubes here - there's always a lot of noise in the channel, so it's entirely possible that I misread what he meant. John Eno

On Jun 14, 6:35 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > Is it safe to assume that you know of decks that have trouble against > weenies but would be viable in the absence of weenies? If you mean speedy weenie decks, sure. (Not trying to be pedantic, just making sure we're on the same page, because "weenie bleed" and "weenie Auspex" are both weenie decks, but they're foils for very different kinds of other decks.) Were you just speaking generally in terms of how Scourge affects people before they build decks, like Chris Berger thought, or did you have specific deck types in mind that Scourge helps make viable during actual play, like I thought? John Eno

Johann von Doom <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Jun 14, 6:35�pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Is it safe to assume that you know of decks that have trouble against >> weenies but would be viable in the absence of weenies? > >If you mean speedy weenie decks, sure. (Not trying to be pedantic, >just making sure we're on the same page, because "weenie bleed" and >"weenie Auspex" are both weenie decks, but they're foils for very >different kinds of other decks.) And it may well be worth noting that speed weenies may well not be touched as much by Scourge, because they're going for fast ousts right out of the gate. Unless you're packing a large number of Scourge, you may well not see one early - by which time you might be ousted, or the speed weenies might well have got into a dominant position. Scourge will typically hit slower paced weenie decks harder, because there's more opportunity. One of the first examples we have of someone changing their deck? Peter Bakija, playing weenie rush. Compared to weenie Dominate (for example), weenie rush is MUCH slower. First, you have to smash people. Then you have to bleed people out for less than the speed deck can manage (maybe +1 from a Computer Hack or a Camera Phone, rather than +2 from a Govern). More time taken, more opportunity to get and then exploit Scourge. It's not the slower paced weenies that you tend to worry about when building decks. Weenie-rush isn't significantly more disruptive than multi-rush (in as much as I can still get eaten four times in one turn). Weenie Auspex is a pain in the ass, but so are other wall decks. Being bled (or voted) for 12 in a single turn, with no help from AI? That's a bigger problem for me. Actually here, it's Dark Influences that's a potentially good play (weenie vote can't KRC me 4 times this turn? Woohoo! weenie bleed can't play the same action/modifier? Score!), but one which can be handled by the player by switching their aim or having diversity to start with. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 15 kesä, 07:11, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > Were you just speaking generally in terms of how Scourge affects > people before they build decks, like Chris Berger thought? More or less, yes. Thank you for being direct.

On Jun 12, 6:43 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > D.J. wrote: > > LSJ's purported result was that no weenie deck is ever played again. > > I don't see how that's possible. > > LSJ's purported result is that the card has an effect, whether it is put into > decks or not. A point which the OP has acknowledged. That is all. I realize my statement was a little unclear. I recognize the point you were trying to make. I was speaking about the purported result of your hypothetical card. The conversation this came from was: On Jun 12, 4:23 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 12 kesä, 23:07, "D.J." <dj...@comcast.net> wrote: > > On Jun 12, 3:54 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > > If a card is made whose very existence means that everyone suddenly stops > > > playing any vampires of capacity less than 8 will certainly "affect weenie > > > decks", even though (or rather, "in exactly that") no weenie deck is ever played > > > again. > > > At which point, why would anyone waste the space in their deck on that > > card? > > Because they know that every time the pendulum swings it will swing > back slightly less, eventually reaching a point of stability. Suoli's valid point about pendulums notwithstanding (the existence of said pendulum was the point I was trying to point toward, actually), your hypothetical that started the thread was a card whose very existence meant that everyone stopped playing weenies to the point that no weenie deck was ever played again. The likely result of "no weenie decks being played" for ages (rather than again) would be that eventually, the card is dead space in decks. At which point, there's a competitive edge to removing it from yours. Once enough folks do so, there's a competitive edge to risking playing weenie decks again, making the base assertion that a card could be printed that causes weenie decks to never be played again kind of facetious. Sorry for taking a page from you and attempting the "leading questions" style of argument... For the record, I do recognize that a card's existence has an effect on deck construction choices, whether or not it is put into decks. That is, after all, the root of this whole argument, and exactly what Ben seemed, to me, to be objecting to - the fact that certain strategies are essentially forced to put in their own meta-bullets with the goal of shooting the silver bullets that would cripple them, which is independent of whether or not those silver bullets actually show up against them. What's under discussion, I'd thought, wasn't that fact, but whether the effect of how that's been showing up are a positive or not. I've also been disputing that creating a different deck because of those metachoices means the original deck was de-powered; it wasn't, IMO, it was simply de-optimized as a choice because it became more of a glass cannon. Which means the original deck's power is unaffected by the card - it's just more destabilizing because there's a more significant roshambo effect than otherwise exists. - D.J.

On Jun 13, 3:17 pm, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 13 kesä, 20:40, brandonsantacruz <brandonsantac...@yahoo.com> > wrote: > > > > Boosting every other strategy an equal amount leaves a lot more room > > > for accidents than nerfing a single strategy. > > > From a gameplay perspective, having your deck destroyed from a random > > hoser is less desirable than finding new strategies to build around. > > Maybe the design team saw the necessity to build new strategies around > the threat of weenies as undesirable. Scourge opens up new strategies > that used to simply sink against a horde of bleeders. But they'll still sink unless the Scourge gets drawn early, or unless so many Scourges get played that folks stop playing weenie horde decks. - D.J.

On 15 kesä, 11:52, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > And it may well be worth noting that speed weenies may well not be > touched as much by Scourge, because they're going for fast ousts right > out of the gate. Unless you're packing a large number of Scourge, you > may well not see one early - by which time you might be ousted, or the > speed weenies might well have got into a dominant position. Yes, being the prey of a weenie deck pretty much always means you're doomed unless you get really lucky and draw that Scourge. No big change in that aspect. But now that the whole table has access to a weenie hoser it becomes much more likely for someone to draw it somewhere between his first and second prey. So now the weenie hacker is guaranteed one vp but is (more) unlikely to get another one as opposed to guaranteed one vp and a decent chance to get more. That should be a pretty good deterrent.

On Jun 14, 11:52 pm, Juggernaut1981 <brasscompo...@gmail.com> wrote: > In my own mind, the "fear of Scourge of the Enochians" is probably as > useful as the card itself. Really even if the card is used for 6 > months with high frequency until everyone shifts their crypts to make > them "less Enochian Vulnerable" and then NEVER sees play again, it > will have done its job. And as soon as that happens - it starts disappearing from decks because the metagame shifted - won't any sensible metagame start shifting back? After all, if all that was keeping the weenies down was Scourge Fear, once it's noticed that they aren't there, why wouldn't weenies come back? (Yes, pendulum blah blah, not to the level they were, blah blah, but not gone, and job not complete.) The AI example, by the way, leaves out the fact that bleedzooka decks have an additional problem - bounce - that is enough more flexible that it isn't just a silver bullet and therefore is a lot more prevalent. The presence/absence/past use of AI isn't the only factor at work. - D.J.

On Jun 15, 10:03 am, suoli <suoliruse...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 15 kesä, 07:11, Johann von Doom <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Were you just speaking generally in terms of how Scourge affects > > people before they build decks, like Chris Berger thought? > > More or less, yes. Okay. I've seen no evidence that such is actually happening to the point that people are abandoning strategies that they otherwise think are strong due to the presence of hosers. They're instead packing counter-bullets, which has led to the arms race that Ben is talking about being detrimental to the game. But it's entirely possible that these are just metagame differences, or that people haven't caught on to the power of the hosers or something. John Eno

suoli <suolir...@gmail.com> wrote: >On 15 kes�, 11:52, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> And it may well be worth noting that speed weenies may well not be >> touched as much by Scourge, because they're going for fast ousts right >> out of the gate. �Unless you're packing a large number of Scourge, you >> may well not see one early - by which time you might be ousted, or the >> speed weenies might well have got into a dominant position. > >Yes, being the prey of a weenie deck pretty much always means you're >doomed unless you get really lucky and draw that Scourge. No big >change in that aspect. Library-based ways of doing this pretty much all suffer from this problem, unless they're multi-functional enough that you can stack your deck with enough of them to draw them early on (say, 6 to 8 copies). Way back when, there was a big hoo-haa (all pretty good natured) about the Create-A-Card competition, where one option on offer was a card that would provide negative transfers for each minion you controlled. Except for when you could play it first turn or *maybe* second, it wouldn't touch most weenie decks all that much. Same problem here. Idly, I wonder if it's worth considering some crypt-based options for this. Not of the "Bill Giovanni does not tap to block weenies" special ability variety, but perhaps something very off the wall. Say: Hired Goon Caitiff, 1 capacity, Group -ANY- Independent. Non-unique. When you influence Hired Goon into play, draw a card from your crypt and select a vampire of 3 capacity or less controlled by your predator; this Hired Goon contests that vampire (even if it is not unique). If you control this card during your untap phase, remove it from the game. Now, I've literally come up with that card in the last five minutes so I think there are huge holes you could shoot right through it - just I don't see them now - but would such an avenue be productive? It strikes me that there's some mileage in some crypt-based option. > But now that the whole table has access to a >weenie hoser it becomes much more likely for someone to draw it >somewhere between his first and second prey. So now the weenie hacker >is guaranteed one vp but is (more) unlikely to get another one as >opposed to guaranteed one vp and a decent chance to get more. That >should be a pretty good deterrent. Not necessarily. Many decks have some sort of counter that will upset them, but players play the deck anyway and just take the bad luck with the good. If a deck can win on 2 tables out of 3 in a 3+F tournament, that's typically good enough to make the finals in all but the largest tournaments. I'd posit, for example, that the existence of AI and Protected Resources has not stopped bleedzooka decks, which do still exist (Australia's frustrations excepted). Gines, for example, has a really very good Nergal bleedzooka, and some bleedzookas can ratchet up the pain once they've established their footing - okay, I'm only hitting you with J.S. Simmons right now because I haven't got a feel for what you're packing, but next turn I'm going to play Revelations and then smack you with everything I've got. Such decks die badly in some areas - I remember a spectacularly painful episode involving a Day Operation / Daring the Dawn bleed deck that ran up against Imbued - but often people will figure that it's a chance worth taking. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Jun 16, 7:49 am, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > > Hired Goon > Caitiff, 1 capacity, Group -ANY- > Independent. Non-unique. > When you influence Hired Goon into play, draw a card from your crypt > and select a vampire of 3 capacity or less controlled by your > predator; this Hired Goon contests that vampire (even if it is not > unique). If you control this card during your untap phase, remove > it from the game. > There may be scope for other "weenie active cards" that are library cards... these are all just thoughts for how you could add interesting new deck mechanics that cause penalties for either weenies or other "you die because i have 4,000 actions" decks (i.e. Super-Turbo-Star decks) Pandemic Confusion Action 1 blood [dem] Choose two vampires of capacity 4 or less. If this action is successful tap those vampires and put this card on the acting vampire. This vampire may choose to burn a blood instead of untapping and if so the vampires chosen by this card also remain tapped unless they burn 1 blood. If this vampire untaps, burn this card. [DEM] As above but you may burn X blood to choose an additional 2X vampires of capacity 4 or less. Aura of Command Action 1 pool [pre] Choose 2 younger vampires or minions controlled by the same Methuselah and put this card on the acting vampire. While this vampire is untapped and ready, those minions must burn 1 blood or life when declaring a (D) action targeting this Methuselah. [PRE] As above but instead of chosing 2 younger vampires or minions, choose a Methuselah. All of their minions are affected by this card. Moving Target Action 2 blood [cel] Put this card on the acting vampire and untap them when this action is successful. Minions without [cel] must burn 1 blood or life when declaring a (D) action targeting this vampire. [CEL] As above, but minions without [CEL] must burn 1 blood or life instead. Endless Illusions Action 1 pool [chi] or [myt] Put this card in play. Any minion with [chi] or [myt] may burn X blood to reduce the stealth on a (D) action targeting this Methuselah by X. [CHI] or [MYT] Put this card in play. Any minion with [CHI] or [MYT] may burn X+1 blood to reduce a bleed targeting you by X.