Tournament rules for 2008

The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message news:4754AC77...@white-wolf.com... > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Quoting: "4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of Mortality, and Protect Thine Own." WOOT! The last two are exceedingly welcome, though I'm a bit surprised at the EE ban. Not the least bit sad, just surprised. :) Pat, known Imbued hater

I'll miss those 500 reply long PTO threads :p jj I like the fact that this game has very few banned cards, I hope it stays that way for as long as possible. That, and that there are no set restrictions for tournaments like other card games. It is why I chose to pour the money i used to spend on l5r into this game instead. ben

[ quoted text not captured ] This is the best VTES news in forever. Multiple Xmas wishes all come true: No more PTO!! (Especially good news for me, as 99% of my decks are Sabbat, and the other 1% are Indy). OHH YEAHH. No more Edge Explosion and Memories!! (bye-bye Imbued cheese) But wait there's more... no prize splitting in finals, and no stupid antics on finals tables over who can get 4th instead of 5th or whatever. Wait oh my god... people are going to actually try to WIN THE GAME on a finals table?? Amazing!! Awesome decisions all around. Santa has come!

In article <uKOdnWwwmdDTLsna...@comcast.com>, "Pat" <patrick.l...@NOSPAMcomcast.net> wrote: > Quoting: > "4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of > Mortality, and Protect Thine Own." Thank you, LSJ. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "Find hungry samurai." -The Old Man

i very much like the new rules for the finals and prize splitting. will make playing those tables a lot of fun as the emphasis is purely on getting the most VPs. simcof

On 3 dic, 22:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Thanks a lot. This will help vtes grow even more.

On 4 dic, 02:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Thank you LSJ, all good changes to te torunament rules. Maybe banning Edge Explosion is a bit too much, banning Memories of Mortality is enough IMHO.

On Dec 3, 8:25 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Obviously I'm pretty damned pleased with the announcement. My first thoughts are on how much voting has now shifted. Laibon have the only truly effective "burn a dude" vote, and the Indies have KRC on steroids. Kind of interesting that the Sabbat are now on the bottom rung of politics, but it at least jives with the backstory (I envision the Sabbat as being highly prone to messing with each other, internally, politically; when it comes to interacting with the outside world, though, it often comes in the form of a beat-down). Prize splitting I never liked in principle, but it never seemed to actually come up, either. I'm surprised it rose to the threshold of being addressed by the rules team, but I think the game is better for it. "Everybody comes in second" I'm still wrapping my brain around, but it seems brilliant. This is probably up there with the tweak to Anarch Revolt, maybe even better. Heck, what's left?!? Hey Scott, ban DI!!!!! I guess Wash fiddles with that knob sufficiently too, though; the most egregious uses of DI were cross-table at some tipping point, and Wash can cross the cross- table. -- David Cherryholmes

On Dec 4, 12:25 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Don't like the banned card-list growing, not needed IMO. The rest of the rules are good. Except for the changes to the Australian Qualification system, it still doesn't address the issue of placing for overseas events And Oscar said I'd be happy in the last email i got from him.... *sigh* --> J grail_pbem "at" hotmail.com

Banning cards. The lazy man's way of fixing cards.

On Dec 4, 3:41 pm, noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > Banning cards. > > The lazy man's way of fixing cards. for once Jason, I think we agree. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 3, 8:25 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules I spent a minute wondering why Edged Illusion needed baned. Then I figured it out. Fun times! Jay

On Dec 4, 3:41 pm, noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > Banning cards. > > The lazy man's way of fixing cards. It was unlikely that PTO was ever going to be "fixed" in an appropriate way. It was already a complicated cumbersome card with numerous requirements that was still insanely overpowered. Adding another set of errata to it was going to make everybody unhappy, both users and victims. Edge Explosion typefied the core two problems of the Imbued situation: overpowered Powers, and endlessly multiplying convictions (this gave them too much resiliency, and slowed the game down excessively). I can't think of a "fix" that would have been simple and solved the problem appropriately, apart from banning. Memories of Mortality could have possibly done with just turning it unique, I will admit, but errata is messy, and the fact that it can be recycled with Anthelios (the only card on my hate list that is still legal) / Parthenon meant that it might not have been a suitable fix. I can understand War Ghoul and Hordes decks players might be unhappy, since they usually packed a couple of memories and got some good use out of it, but them's the breaks. I don't see them vanishing, they will just have to make some minor adjustments. other ally decks (Nephandus, Reanimated Corpse, garous) don't make significant use out of memories, and have enough problems of their own anyway (with the exception of Antonio / Nephandus, which is quite strong atm).

> for once Jason, I think we agree. The apocalypse is nigh!! :)

> It was unlikely that PTO was ever going to be "fixed" in an > appropriate way. It was already a complicated cumbersome card with > numerous requirements that was still insanely overpowered. Adding > another set of errata to it was going to make everybody unhappy, both > users and victims. Protect Thine Own 1 pool Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any justicar or Inner Circle member at +1 stealth. Choose a non-Camarilla, non-titled vampire with a capacity below 6. If the acting vampire is a member of the Inner Circle, you may choose any non-Camarilla vampire instead. If this referendum is successful, burn that vampire. This acting vampire cannot gain blood during this referendum. 3 minor changes, but it could have done with the first 2. Make the vote cost a pool, not a blood. Make the vampire targeted need to be younger. Not a big change, but it means you can't nuke other players vote decks. And many big vamps have incidental titles. Make it impossible to voter cap. > Edge Explosion typefied the core two problems of the Imbued situation: > overpowered Powers, and endlessly multiplying convictions (this gave > them too much resiliency, and slowed the game down excessively). I > can't think of a "fix" that would have been simple and solved the > problem appropriately, apart from banning. Edge Explosion X Pool, where X is the number of other events in play. Gehenna. Requires at least one other gehenna card in play. Each Imbued can have (and use) one power card for which he or she doesn't meet the requirements. An imbued that performs a successful action may gain 1 conviction from his or her ash heap. An Imbued can only gain 1 conviction this way each turn. Another simple change, give it a cost. It will cost at least 1 pool, maybe more. Edge Explosion is a strong card, but it is not broken. > Memories of Mortality could have possibly done with just turning it > unique, I will admit, but errata is messy, and the fact that it can be > recycled with Anthelios (the only card on my hate list that is still > legal) / Parthenon meant that it might not have been a suitable fix. Memories of Mortality has had plenty of good arguments of how to modify it. I hate seeing cards banned, because it alienates players, especially those who have struggled and tradded their arse off to get some. One player in Newcastle has just finished getting 10 PTO's for a specific deck, and now he is effectively left out of pocket because of that. Just before Succubus Club went rare, I traded my arse off to get a couple copies, trading good cards away for it. So I got dudded their big time. Banning cards, especially Rare cards is not fair on the players who have busted their guts to get them. I can only expect how Rog is going to feel when I tell him, that Derange/PTO deck you've built - can't play it anymore dude. There is a chance, slight as it is, that he might just give up the game. And that would be a terrible shame. [ quoted text not captured ]

> It was unlikely that PTO was ever going to be "fixed" in an > appropriate way. It was already a complicated cumbersome card with > numerous requirements that was still insanely overpowered. Adding > another set of errata to it was going to make everybody unhappy, both > users and victims. What exactly was cumbersome or complicated about it? You call a vote, you burn a non-cam vamp if successful. Not exactly brain surgery. And what exactly has changed since the card's inception that made it necessary to ban it now? Because it's been kosher for about 10 years now. PTO was fine. It's not as though the Camarilla were ripping it up on the tourney scene. Sure it was a bummer to have your 10 pointer burned across table without much recourse. I'd say it's more of a bummer [and far more common] getting bled for 15 odd pool on the second turn of the game, but WW have done and continue to do bugger all about that. > Edge Explosion typefied the core two problems of the Imbued situation: > overpowered Powers, and endlessly multiplying convictions (this gave > them too much resiliency, and slowed the game down excessively). I > can't think of a "fix" that would have been simple and solved the > problem appropriately, apart from banning. The Imbued do not slow the game down. Bad players slow the game down. It takes all of two seconds to fish a burned conviction from your ash pile after a succesful action. If recouping convictions was leading to slowed down games, your Imbued players are bad. Sorry. Of all the complaints against the Imbued I ever ever saw, none of the were directed at Edge Explosion. This ban has come totally out of the blue. > Memories of Mortality could have possibly done with just turning it > unique, I will admit, but errata is messy, and the fact that it can be > recycled with Anthelios (the only card on my hate list that is still > legal) / Parthenon meant that it might not have been a suitable fix. We already play in a game where errata exist. The sky does not implode and the screaming legions of hell do not issue forth every time someone plays a Sabbat version of Mind Rape. It would not be asking the impossible for people to note that MoM had become unique. It's not that f*cking hard. I'm fortunate enough to have been playing this game long enough to have owned multiple copies of the cards WW have banned. But I really feel sorry for the guys who paid premium prices on ebay for cards that have now been rendered utterly useless. This was lazy. Plain and simple. We can't think of a good solution for the problems posed by these cards, so let's just nuke the site from orbit. Weak.

On Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:25:11 -0500, LSJ <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Thanks Scott, this is the best piece of VtES-related news I heared in a while! I absolutely love every letter of the rules changes! :) I'm curious what will happen to the "time's almost up, let's oust someone so we all go up in ranking..." type of discussions - nah, just kidding. It really seems like the best possible solution. Now everybody from 2nd seed on will be interested in playing the game instead of just maintaining the status quo. Brilliant move, Scott! No wonder you're the lead designer... ;P Oh, and imagine some flowers and a big cake for the ban list. Maybe two cakes. The only downside is that I'll need to throw away my "Ban PTO" shirt... :) -- Regards, Daneel

On Dec 3, 11:41 pm, noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > Banning cards. > > The lazy man's way of fixing cards. I would expect we'll see "properly balanced" versions of these cards in upcoming sets, much like Eldest Command Undeath is the "new" standard of costing for the PTO effect. It avoids errata, which I think is a good idea. No fix is going to be ideal, but the cards in question created non-ideal situations, too. You may call it lazy, but I consider it the most "user friendly", in that it creates the least confusion.

"Pat" <patrick.l...@NOSPAMcomcast.net> writes: > "LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message > news:4754AC77...@white-wolf.com... > > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > > Quoting: > "4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Was that necessary? Apparently, it was. I thought the main problem with the Imbued was... > Memories of Mortality, and Protect Thine Own." ... ..... ....... Words are not enough. Time to play the final movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony: o/` "Freude, schöner Götterfunken Tochter aus Elysium, Wir betreten feuertrunken, Himmlische, dein Heiligtum! o/` Deine Zauber binden wieder o/` Was die Mode streng geteilt; Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt." o/` (Thank you, thank you, thank you, rules team!) HG -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

[ quoted text not captured ] You mean Gehenna... oh, wait - that was a couple sets ago. Maybe apocalypse is right. ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

simcof wrote: > I'll miss those 500 reply long PTO threads :p jj and you think this thread won't rapidly become one of those? :) -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

nood...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > This was lazy. Plain and simple. We can't think of a good solution for > the problems posed by these cards, so let's just nuke the site from > orbit. > > Weak. I'm holding out hope that they're just being banned in the short term to stop them tearing up tournaments, while the cards wait for an appropriate set for them to be reprinted in with updated card text. After which, they get taken back off the banned list again. Seems reasonable to me. Right? I think there's even precedent. (Rowan ring?) [ quoted text not captured ]

Daneel wrote: > The only downside is that I'll need to throw away my > "Ban PTO" shirt... :) you could just print a big tick mark on the back of it. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Nice work - though i'm pretty uncertain if BANning those three cards altogether is a good solution - maybe a reword would have been better. More than anything else, banning at the same time memories of mortality AND edge explosion just makes imbued to be trashed - even though the NoR set is small, i'm not so happy to see a 60 cards set just wasted with two bans. But i'm pretty happy that the prize split issue in final has been fixed. best regards Emiliano, NC Italy

On Dec 4, 2:25 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Thanks Scott, great job as usual! Emiliano (wandering player)

On Dec 4, 2:11 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: > LSJ wrote: > > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are > > up: > >http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > Nice work - though i'm pretty uncertain if BANning those three cards > altogether > is a good solution - maybe a reword would have been better. > More than anything else, banning at the same time memories of mortality AND > edge > explosion just makes imbued to be trashed - even though the NoR set is > small, i'm not > so happy to see a 60 cards set just wasted with two bans. Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the removal of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

[ quoted text not captured ] I agree with Norman, I think the Imbued are far from unplayable even without Edge Explosion and Memories! On a separate issue, will the rating points be retroactively modified to reflect the new rule on tied finalists? Ciao, Emiliano

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important card for them regards Emiliano

LSJ wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > Finally! I was struggling for some of these things for months. And I'm really happy to see the most annoying things fixed. "Happy" isn't the right word, though. You've returned my faith in VTES. Thank you! Yours, Ector

> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the removal > of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? I don't think the removal of two cards will eliminate them, but it _will_ seriously affect them. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well it depends. I feel that a lot of players out there believe that Imbued should be on the lower end of the power scale. To them it is a matter of extremes, 1, the Imbued are broken and too powerful so 2, they should be weak because they aren't vampires. I still don't agree with the banning of cards, and Edge Explosion especially. [ quoted text not captured ]

Woah, didn't see this coming... but me likes, it's like an early Christmas present. :) Edge Explosion and PTO were, imho, totally overpowered and hard to change without rewriting them completely; I think the ban was a good solution. Memories... I would have preferred a rewrite (unique, can only be played on young vampires, whatever), but I guess this is ok too. Hits non-Imbued ally decks a bit hard, but them's the breaks. It *is* an overpowered card, any which way you look at it. The new final round scoring: excellent. Seems like a good way to try to get people to actually play instead of stall. We'll see how it works in practice. Overall, good job. I'm happy with this. ... now my hate list only consists of Anthelios and DI. :D //Petri

>> Edge Explosion typefied the core two problems of the Imbued situation: >> overpowered Powers, and endlessly multiplying convictions (this gave >> them too much resiliency, and slowed the game down excessively). I >> can't think of a "fix" that would have been simple and solved the >> problem appropriately, apart from banning. > Edge Explosion > X Pool, where X is the number of other events in play. > Gehenna. Requires at least one other gehenna card in play. Each Imbued > can have (and use) one power card for which he or she doesn't meet the > requirements. An imbued that performs a successful action may gain 1 > conviction from his or her ash heap. An Imbued can only gain 1 > conviction this way each turn. That would have been an acceptable fix. Imagine if Vampires started out with 1 blood instead and gained only 1 per turn. How much less useful would they be? A lot. Their ability to play cards that cost a blood is significantly reduced as they are at the mercy of the turns going by. This is essentially what the imbued have been reduced to. 11 of 14 powers have a conviction cost. 9 powers cost 1 conviction to use. 2 cost 2 conviction. 3 of those 11 are one use only. How would people feel if vampires were similarly limited in their abilities to use cards that cost blood? Even if that were the case, vampires at least have ways of getting extra blood onto them. What other way is there to get a conviction on an imbued? 1 per turn, that's it. Period. Ever. Banning EE was a horrible "fix". As I said previously, the imbued are now nigh unplayable. Sorrow

> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the removal > of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? MoM, no. EE, absolutely. See my previous posts. Sorrow

> Quoting: > "4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of > Mortality, and Protect Thine Own." > WOOT! > The last two are exceedingly welcome, though I'm a bit surprised at the EE > ban. Not the least bit sad, just surprised. :) There goes the competitiveness of the Imbued. I could care less about MoM but EE? Sorrow

> Edge Explosion typefied the core two problems of the Imbued situation: > overpowered Powers, and endlessly multiplying convictions (this gave > them too much resiliency, and slowed the game down excessively). I > can't think of a "fix" that would have been simple and solved the > problem appropriately, apart from banning. I'd be very interested to see just how viable the Imbued remain after the banning of EE. Gaining only 1 conviction per turn, especially when many of of the powers cost conviction, some multiple, will be detrimental. Additionally, w/o Jennie (who is a, really, THE prime target) it's going to be even more difficult to get imbued out of the incompacitated region. And with new anti-Imbued tech (e.g. Ambulance) the extra turns it would take almost ensure burning. I think banning MoM would have been enough. Now, the imbued are nigh unplayable. Sorrow

On 4 Dec, 02:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules I think (right not, upon little reflection and no experience), that these changes are good. Tobias

In message <7f1c74a0-bdd1-4025...@e23g2000prf.googlegroup s.com>, J <gra...@hotmail.com> writes: >On Dec 4, 3:41 pm, noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: >> Banning cards. >> >> The lazy man's way of fixing cards. > >for once Jason, I think we agree. Please bear in mind that had LSJ issued errata to the cards, there would be other people saying "Errata-ing cards. The lazy man's way to design the game right." and "Do we need YET MORE errata?" and so on. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

In message <47550549$1...@dnews.tpgi.com.au>, Salem <salem_ch...@hotmail.com> writes: >I'm holding out hope that they're just being banned in the short term >to stop them tearing up tournaments, while the cards wait for an >appropriate set for them to be reprinted in with updated card text. >After which, they get taken back off the banned list again. > >Seems reasonable to me. Right? > >I think there's even precedent. (Rowan ring?) Rowan Ring and the Jyhad Stake (the one that also said Paralyze) were both banned and brought back when an appropriate card text change could be found - the send to torpor strike for Rowan Ring, and the "This card is just Wooden Stake" fix for Stake. However, neither card was banned for being overly powerful (RtoI), subverting the game (Succubus Club, seat switchers), or inappropriate (Madness of the Bard). They were banned because they didn't work anymore, and WotC didn't errata them. There, so far, isn't precedent for a ban being reversed when the card was banned for power and balance reasons. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <3ad0c426-06d5-44ad...@w40g2000hsb.googlegroup s.com>, Fizeront <brigada...@gmail.com> writes: >On 4 dic, 02:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: >> >> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > >Thank you LSJ, all good changes to te torunament rules. >Maybe banning Edge Explosion is a bit too much, banning Memories of >Mortality is enough IMHO. Edge Explosion shows a potential problem of being able to create a pretty strong card and then have it turn up on every Imbued in a deck - Champion being an obvious example - which allows the deck to do something it wouldn't ordinarily be able to do. So power cards could lead to relatively homogenized decks - none of them are identical, but they often share a similar core. One positive flipside of this is that it might allow LSJ to create more Powers that are similarly good, but which are restricted to only the Imbued with the relevant Virtue. i.e. since it can only be played by a small number of Imbued in a group pair (assuming new Imbued are printed), there's less worry about being able to create a deck where all the Imbued can play it. This might let us see more varied Imbued decks, if more varied Powers come out. Such decks might stop being regarded as "Oh, it's an Imbued deck" and more "Oh, are you bringing your Martyrdom deck tonight? I want to see how my Nosferatu Royalty stand up to it." [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <Rz85j.15588$r62....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton <nos...@none.com> writes: >XZealot wrote: >> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the removal >> of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? >> >Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, >imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important >card for them It's certainly true that it would have been then. But go back to 7/7 and many big Ventrue decks relied on Return to Innocence and Soul Gem. Yet the Ventrue are far from unplayable without Return to Innocence. Certainly, Edge Explosion is a corner-stone of the Imbued now. It's a good card. There's very little reason *not* to use it. So everyone builds around it - and since it works globally (not just your vampires) it doesn't matter if someone else plays it first, unless they're ousted. That says little for the opportunities available to Imbued without it - because those have been largely unexplored. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 4, 11:13 am, "Sorrow" <jcbo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Now, the imbued are nigh unplayable. Oh, please. Banning EE just drops the Imbued down from overpowered cheese to a normal power level, they'll actually have to conserve their Convictions now (instead of regenerating them at a crazy rate). In other words, they'll maybe play a bit more like the original design goal was, and maybe now the whole table won't have to instantly gang up on the Imbued deck in order to have a chance. EE was grossly overpowered. I'm glad to see it go. I'm also glad to see Imbued brought down to the same power level as other decks. //Petri

> One positive flipside of this is that it might allow LSJ to create more > Powers that are similarly good, but which are restricted to only the > Imbued with the relevant Virtue. i.e. since it can only be played by a > small number of Imbued in a group pair (assuming new Imbued are > printed), there's less worry about being able to create a deck where all > the Imbued can play it. This might let us see more varied Imbued decks, > if more varied Powers come out. Such decks might stop being regarded as > "Oh, it's an Imbued deck" and more "Oh, are you bringing your Martyrdom > deck tonight? I want to see how my Nosferatu Royalty stand up to it." I don't see this as a bad thing, either. But this would require more Imbued be printed and at this point, it seems to me like that is so very incredibly unlikely. Additionally, this could have been achieved by errata and removing that part of EE's ability and keeping the part where imbued can gain convictions. This is my biggest problem about the ban. And if more imbued (by some miracle) are printed in the future, that would solve the issue w/r/t using powers for virtues an imbued does not posess. Sorrow

LSJ wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are > up: > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules One important question about the "all the finalist but first place tie for second place" rule: Because it seems there's no "play to maximize outcome" left (other than playing to get first) under the 2008 rulings for final round, that means that once a finalist can't reasonably play for first place, he/she can self-oust him/herself ? Basically: during a 2008 final, if a player reasonably tells he can't play for first place anymore, why that player should go on playing the final round ? thanks Emiliano, NC Italy

> EE was grossly overpowered. I'm glad to see it go. I'm also glad to > see Imbued brought down to the same power level as other decks. Same power level? Hardly. How much experience have you with playing Imbued? I have a lot. Without EE (giving convictions, not necessarily allowing powers, although that too), Imbued are now hardly playable. Try it yourself and see. Sorrow

James Coupe wrote: > In message > <7f1c74a0-bdd1-4025...@e23g2000prf.googlegroup s.com>, > J <gra...@hotmail.com> writes: >> On Dec 4, 3:41 pm, noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: >>> Banning cards. >>> >>> The lazy man's way of fixing cards. >> >> for once Jason, I think we agree. > > Please bear in mind that had LSJ issued errata to the cards, there > would be other people saying "Errata-ing cards. The lazy man's way > to design the game right." and "Do we need YET MORE errata?" and so > on. But, afaik, that has been always the approach with unbalaced cards (errata instead of BAN) - maybe it's the sudden change in dealing with the matter (BAN instead of reword, this time) that upsets players (including me at the moment) Emiliano

On Dec 4, 12:00 pm, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: > why that player should go on playing the final round ? Because they don't want to look like sad gits? Because there's *always* a chance? Because they actually like playing, and don't feel that just quitting is the sportsmanlike thing to do? I know, I know, that hasn't stopped people before. But it's a thought. //Petri

> Certainly, Edge Explosion is a corner-stone of the Imbued now. It's a > good card. There's very little reason *not* to use it. Because it's the lifeblood of an imbued deck. See my previous analogy of vampires gaining only 1 blood per turn to use to pay for the cards they play. 11 of the 14 printed powers cost at least 1 conviction. Not to mention their combat cards. So as an imbued player I can use either 1 power per turn OR 1 combat card per turn, etc. People complain about how slow imbued are now. How slow will they become when the player has to choose how she is going to spend the 1 measly conviction they get per turn for each imbued? Sorrow

James Coupe wrote: > In message <Rz85j.15588$r62....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, > Tetragrammaton <nos...@none.com> writes: >> XZealot wrote: >>> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the >>> removal of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? >>> >> Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, >> imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important >> card for them > > It's certainly true that it would have been then. But go back to 7/7 > and many big Ventrue decks relied on Return to Innocence and Soul Gem. > Yet the Ventrue are far from unplayable without Return to Innocence. > Yes - but we're speaking of a 40 library cards set against a clan that could rely on a wide variety of cards. Any Imbued deck is (was...) far more narrow-choiche with the cards at disposal than any clan of vampires. EE was actually one of the fundamental cards among that narrow choiche. > That says little for the opportunities available to Imbued without it > - because those have been largely unexplored. Actually, you can't explore that much with a base set of 40 cards (+20 crypt). IMHO, as rules and cards set stands now, it's pretty obvious that the imbued deck are wasted and will not be played anymore (in competitive games) in a couple of months or so (unless some new cards will be introduced for imbued, too) best E

On Dec 4, 12:07 pm, "Sorrow" <jcbo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > People complain about how slow imbued are now. People complain about how *slow* the Imbued are? *boggle* You must be playing VTES in some alternate bizarre version of reality. I've heard a lot of complaints about the Imbued, but "slow" is not on that list... //Petri

Petri Wessman wrote: > On Dec 4, 12:00 pm, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: >> why that player should go on playing the final round ? > > Because they don't want to look like sad gits? Because there's > *always* a chance? Because they actually like playing, and don't feel > that just quitting is the sportsmanlike thing to do? > Ok, but why the hell a player should go on in playing the final if he can't maximize his/her position anymore ? It's just the motivation behind the allowance rule of self - oust after all ("if you reasonably play for zero or less, then you can play for zero or less as you want, including self oust"). > I know, I know, that hasn't stopped people before. But it's a thought. I think that would not suffice for not seeing finals just given-up by players that can't resonably play for first place anymore. E

> Because they don't want to look like sad gits? Because there's > *always* a chance? Because they actually like playing, and don't feel > that just quitting is the sportsmanlike thing to do? > > I know, I know, that hasn't stopped people before. But it's a thought. In an situation like this, though it can also be due to not wanting to sit around and wasting time. You are playing a vote deck, your predator has vastly superior vote lock. His predator is unable to affect him, your prey feeling threatened early blocked and bashed you, but he has no rush. It's 1 hour into the game. Your predator is keeping you in the game only so that he doesn't have to face your prey who can block him, and is slowly eating the table. Sitting at the table, unable to act against your prey for fear of being blocked and beaten down, unable to call votes because your predator will shut down any that look like getting you a VP or enable you to get more votes on the table. You don't want to sit through the game until your predator finally decides to kill you. It's wasting your time, and not giving anyone else on the table a chance. So you choose to self oust. Saves you up to an hour of boredom, and gives other players a shot at a win because your prey now becomes your predators prey. Just a thought. [ quoted text not captured ]

> People complain about how *slow* the Imbued are? *boggle* > > You must be playing VTES in some alternate bizarre version of reality. > I've heard a lot of complaints about the Imbued, but "slow" is not on > that list... Well, Imbued are slow. They don't blitzkrieg their preys off the table normally. It takes time, they build up and then grind their prey off the table. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > > Quoting: > "4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of > Mortality, and Protect Thine Own." But LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL !!! - On the 4th of december, 00:51, I posted "Alex Elk's" L Santaklaus Wishes, among which ban PTO - the same night, at 02:25, LSJ complied !! Is that wishing power or what ?! ;-) More seriously, great job !! Will I miss those PTO threads ? Well... NO !!!! I'm a little surprised about Edge Explosion, would have expected Champion more, but yes, once it hit the table there was no stopping the Imbued, so... As for Memories, I'd have hoped for an errata, but if (or while) nothing satisfying has been found, this is good. Allies were just too strong recently... Are Imbued competitively dead ? Nope ! The last ones I saw play (and win) didn't even play Memories, and didn't need the Edge Explosion, they have many other advantages. But at least they don't have those anymore now. Everyone ties for second in the finals ? Well, a little frustrating for those who know they can't win, so I'm not really a great fan, but I can understand the logic behind it. Just a question : it's the rest of the _surviving_ finalists, isn't it ? Because I see absolutely no interest at all to give second rank to a "dead" finalist : it goes against what you want to establish, I think... Not authorizing prize splitting is good, this sisn't poker (and I hate that in a poker game). All in all : good job guys (I'm guessin LSJ isn't all-alone all-powerful, so I use plural) !!! :-) Now I can retire from the game happy (half kidding here, if my new job allows I might get back on the scene)... --------------------- Kolonel Vladimir Kuchmin, Rock 'n 'roll Manager.

On Dec 4, 2:00 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: > One important question about the "all the finalist but first place tie for second place" rule: > > Because it seems there's no "play to maximize outcome" > left (other than playing to get first) under the 2008 rulings for final > round, that means that once a finalist can't reasonably play for first place, > he/she can self-oust him/herself ? This is a good question. It seems like the new final game rules could lead to wild kingmaking without any consequence for the kingmaker, nor any incentive for the kingmaker to remain in the game. LSJ, could you discuss whether or not you anticipate kingmaking in the final to become more prevalent? I guess the thinking is that even if it's not perfect, it's an improvement over the current system. Overall, I wholeheartedly support the rules changes. I think they show great vision and listening skills on the part of the design team. It's a pleasure to play a game where the designers listen so closely to the players. Thank you! Ira

On Dec 4, 12:17 pm, J <grai...@hotmail.com> wrote: > In an situation like this, though it can also be due to not wanting to > sit around and wasting time. You are playing a vote deck, your > predator has vastly superior vote lock. His predator is unable to > affect him, your prey feeling threatened early blocked and bashed you, > but he has no rush. It's 1 hour into the game. Your predator is > keeping you in the game only so that he doesn't have to face your prey > who can block him, and is slowly eating the table. Sitting at the > table, unable to act against your prey for fear of being blocked and > beaten down, unable to call votes because your predator will shut down > any that look like getting you a VP or enable you to get more votes on > the table. You don't want to sit through the game until your predator > finally decides to kill you. It's wasting your time, and not giving > anyone else on the table a chance. So you choose to self oust. Saves > you up to an hour of boredom, and gives other players a shot at a win > because your prey now becomes your predators prey. > > Just a thought. Fair enough. Yeah, there are some situations where a self-oust would be reasonable I guess. I was just protesting against the mentality I've seen a bit too often, where someone says "I don't have any chance of winning here" and quits, where the actual situation was that they were in a weak position, but nowhere near an impossible one. I'd prefer to see games where people did their best until they *really* could not do any more. But I guess it's partially also a matter of taste. //Petri

Amazing work ! seriously ! Nizzam will be happy [he was burned by PTO in every single game] and Izhim too [he was burned too often too]

[ quoted text not captured ] Well, sure, if you compare to a weenie horde bleeder or some such then yes, Imbued are slow... but so is pretty much every other deck, too. Compared to most "normal" (non-weenie / powerbleed) decks, I really would not call the Imbued slow. They tool up *very* fast, and put out a constant multiminion bleed-for-2 pressue forward. By the time many decks are still setting up, Imbued tend to be in full swing -- largely because of their ultra-fast toolup time.

> Everyone ties for second in the finals ? Well, a little frustrating for > those who know they can't win, so I'm not really a great fan, but I can > understand the logic behind it. Just a question : it's the rest of the > _surviving_ finalists, isn't it ? Because I see absolutely no interest at > all to give second rank to a "dead" finalist : it goes against what you want > to establish, I think... 3.7.5. Final Round Scoring The player with the highest total of Victory Points from the final round only is the tournament winner. In the event of a tie, the players' rankings at the end of the preliminary rounds will be the deciding tiebreaker. The rest of the finalists tie for second, with no additional criteria considered to attempt to break that tie. No mention of surviving finalists. It explicitly states "The player with the highest total VP is the winner", "The rest of the finalists tie for 2nd". [ quoted text not captured ]

AcheronNi...@gmail.com a écrit : > Amazing work ! seriously ! Nizzam will be happy [he was burned by PTO > in every single game] and Izhim too [he was burned too often too] confusion of the eye you dummy

> confusion > of > the > eye > you > dummy Yoruba Shrine seems to work well also... :P [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] Then I challenge you (and/or any other player who shares this view) to build a viable Imbued deck (that actually uses imbued tech) that doesn't use EE and has even a hope of winning a game. The powers, combat cards and equipment that cost conviction are now significantly more difficult to use and this is going to be a major problem. Sorrow

[ quoted text not captured ] Yes, that's what I understood, but I'm surprised because it can provoke counteractive behaviours. "Ok, I have no chance to win on this table, and I'm second anyway, so I don't care if I die or not. I'll help my pal win, anyway, as I can lose the way I want to...". That is an extreme reaction but it can happen, and a less extreme one would just be a lack of will to win, which is just the opposite effect of the one we're looking for. Also, this makes all alliances useless, as there is nothing to deal except "let's not make that player win". If the "killed" players didn't tie for second position, it would be an incentive to "at least" try to survive, while the ones who can win would really try to, and could even make a deal like "you don't die and I win". Or maybe the spirit of the finals is "no deal no matter what" ? Tying for second in an improvement, I just believe that it would even be better if it didn't concern dead players. -- Valar morghulis, Orpheus

> Yes, that's what I understood, but I'm surprised because it can provoke > counteractive behaviours. > > "Ok, I have no chance to win on this table, and I'm second anyway, so I > don't care if I die or not. I'll help my pal win, anyway, as I can lose the > way I want to...". > > That is an extreme reaction but it can happen, and a less extreme one would > just be a lack of will to win, which is just the opposite effect of the one > we're looking for. Also, this makes all alliances useless, as there is > nothing to deal except "let's not make that player win". > > If the "killed" players didn't tie for second position, it would be an > incentive to "at least" try to survive, while the ones who can win would > really try to, and could even make a deal like "you don't die and I win". I agree to some extent, Human Nature being what it is, people are generally bastards. I can see people actively stopping players trying to get VP's. If player X looks like grabbing a VP, everyone will try to stop him so that he can't win. Once someone has that first VP however, the knives will come out IMO and everyone will clamber for the remaining ones. Just that first one falling that will be the real bugbear. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 4 joulu, 03:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Didn't have the energy to read all the posts and someone might have already posted the same things, but here are my two eurocents. 1) Banning PTO: good, although I think it could've been fixed with relatively small changes, like limiting the targets. 2) Banning Memories of Mortality: good, it could've been fixed but not without cumbersome errata. 3) Banning Edge Explosion: too much. I seriously think this card should've been downgraded rather than banned. Here's an example with changes in square brackets. Edge Explosion Cardtype: Event Gehenna. [Do not replace as long as this card is in play.] Requires at least one other Gehenna card in play. Each imbued can have (and use) one power card for which he or she doesn't meet the requirements. An imbued who performs a successful action may gain 1 conviction from his or her ash heap. [A Methuselah may retrieve only] 1 conviction this way each turn. 4) Tieing non-winning finalists and equalling their extra rating points: ok, although i liked the old system better. 5) Prohibiting price splitting: good.

> 5) Prohibiting price splitting: good. But some tournaments are expensive, and offsetting the cost by allowing players to split it could be good. Oh, typo... my bad! :P [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ skrev: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two cents. ________________________________________________________ * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the finals special and also trickier to play. * 4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of Mortality, and Protect Thine Own. Edge Explosion - A strong card but an ok card. MoM was the real problem. Memories of mortality - Why ban a card that you could balance with an errata? Making it unique would have been quite fun. also Johannes Walch introduced the idea of MoM costing 1+x where x is the number of MoM already in play that I found out that I liked. PTO - Well, I will miss it alittle. But still, it was quite overpowered. * 161 Splitting prizes is prohibited. I support this on principle. Play for rankings instead of play for prizes. I sure would have sold myself for those two German NC 1st place prizes though. * Ratings Each tied-for-second finalist receives the same number of Ratings Points: 30. (The winner still receives 90). Well, this is obvious if you're going to change 3.7.5 ________________________________________________________ That's all Regards Alex

Precursor: I completely feel for anyone that has had cards they relied on banned through this change. I'm sure we all own a few copies, and I agree with the earlier assessment that for those people putting time into obtaining them, this sucks a bit. Given time, I hope that LSJ has time to rethink them into more manageable forms, so that we can see them on the tables again, and perhaps they might make it off the card 'Red List'. Secondly, I know I'm a rabid Anti-Imbued. So please bear in mind, I know I'm biased. :) Protect Thine Own - Vaguely deserved. It was very powerful under the current wording, but might have been achieable with minimum errata. Memories of Mortality - Fine in it's original intent, only became broken due to the interaction of Imbued as 'Allies without a Recruitment'. Considering the choice was reword Imbued in general or the card, I'm fine with this change. Edge Explosion - I've no idea where the posts that say this was 'out of the blue' came from. This, to me, is THE card that makes them go broken. Just some extra tuppence chucked in, but good work LSJ. I just hope this signals and attempt to bring them back one day, rather than an outright permaban. - Shockwave

> Imagine if Vampires started out with 1 blood instead and gained only 1 per > turn. How much less useful would they be? A lot. Their ability to play > cards that cost a blood is significantly reduced as they are at the mercy > of the turns going by. Imagine if the following were true of vampires. 1) As above. Their blood costing cards cost counters instead and you gained only 1 per turn. 2) It required a discipline based card to rescue a vampire in torpor. Either that or you had to wait up to 3 turns to get it back. And don't bother bringing up Jennie. Very often she's the first Imbued targetted and burned. Additionally, cards like Chantry and Renewed Vigor have been around for a while and noone has been bitching about them. 3) When diablierizing a vampire in torpor, the diabolist only had to suffer damage (and didn't get any blood off the burnt vamp). Who in their right mind would eat Arika or Leandro or Gilbert or Mata Hari or... if damage was the only penalty. How would people feel about these changes? I would imagine they would be incredibly unwelcome. Yet people have no issue with these being the rule for Imbued? I will grant you that a few cards could use fixing. But the above are the over-arching rules in general governing the Imbued. With the banning of EE, it makes 1 and 2 even more problematic. Sorrow

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> writes: [ quoted text not captured ] The last time I played my favorite Imbued deck ("Twist With Conviction"), I tied for first place (3VPs out of 6). And I never managed to play my Edge Explosion, since my twister-tech was not working as designed. The key to my half-victory was *conserving* my convictions. Spending turns just defending, bloating and building up, *then* assaulting my prey when my minions were full of juicy conviction. The Imbued are perfectly playable without Edge Explosion. Just as Ravnos are playable without Week of Nightmares. Or Ventrue without Protect Thine Own. Try it yourself and see. >:-) HG -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

> > It was unlikely that PTO was ever going to be "fixed" in an > > appropriate way. It was already a complicated cumbersome card with > > numerous requirements that was still insanely overpowered. Adding > > another set of errata to it was going to make everybody unhappy, both > > users and victims. > > Protect Thine Own > 1 pool > Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any justicar or Inner Circle > member at +1 stealth. Choose a non-Camarilla, non-titled vampire with > a capacity below 6. If the acting vampire is a member of the Inner > Circle, you may choose any non-Camarilla vampire instead. If this > referendum is successful, burn that vampire. This acting vampire > cannot gain blood during this referendum. It still would be shit. > 3 minor changes, but it could have done with the first 2. > Make the vote cost a pool, not a blood. Great. Am I not ready to pay one pool to burn my prey's Monçada ? Sure I am !! > Make the vampire targeted need to be younger. Not a big change, but > it means you can't nuke other players vote decks. And many big vamps > have incidental titles. So ? If you're Inner Circle you're 11-Cap. There are very few playable 11-Caps non-Camarilla out there, so ok, Enkidu would be safe, but Monçada would still burn. Card would still be shit. > Make it impossible to voter cap. Sure, but not enough. The trouble didn't really come from the cost and consequences of the card on the playing minion, but simply from the effect on the affected player : lose a potentially key vampire of your deck !! I would have accepted other erratas, limiting the target more, but I'm perfectly ok with the ban (while I believe that Memories should have been errated). Anyway, I'm glad this "if you don't play Cama expect to burn" shit is over with. But maybe now Noodleboy will start some "Unban PTO" threads ? That would be fun. ;-) -- Orpheus --------- "It's been a hard day's night ! BRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS !!!" The Zombeatles, "A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead (http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=jP6nYs9Il7c)

Tetragrammaton wrote: > LSJ wrote: >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are >> up: >> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > One important question about the "all the finalist but first place tie for > second place" rule: > > Because it seems there's no "play to maximize outcome" > left (other than playing to get first) under the 2008 rulings for final > round, > that means that once a finalist can't reasonably play for first place, > he/she can > self-oust him/herself ? > Basically: during a 2008 final, if a player reasonably tells he can't play > for first place anymore, > why that player should go on playing the final round ? No. Just the opposite. With no risk assessment to fall back on, any chance for first place, no matter how slim, is better than self-ousting. That is, 0.001% * win + 99.999% * 2nd > 100% * 2nd, so PTW means you go for the 0.001% shot.

On Dec 4, 2:25 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > * 4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of Mortality, and Protect Thine Own. > * 161 Splitting prizes is prohibited. > * Ratings Each tied-for-second finalist receives the same number of Ratings Points: 30. (The winner still receives 90). Excellent news, Scott!!! -- Damnans http://www.almadrava.net/damnans http://www.vtes.net http://es.groups.yahoo.com/group/vteshispania/ http://iuturna.sorcery.net (IRC channel: #vtes)

[ quoted text not captured ] You can always split the prices in private after the tournament is over and no one can control it. It's just that now price splitting as an incentive of not playing to win is explicitly banned.

On Dec 4, 1:52 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > No. Just the opposite. > > With no risk assessment to fall back on, any chance for first place, no matter > how slim, is better than self-ousting. > > That is, 0.001% * win + 99.999% * 2nd > 100% * 2nd, so PTW means you go for the > 0.001% shot. LSJ, you're my hero, I feel all warm and fuzzy now :) Play the game, people. We might actually start to see that, now, in finals. Would be cool. //Petri

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> writes: [ quoted text not captured ] You're on. Unfortunately I have no idea when I'll have the spare time to make the deck, but I'll post it as soon as it's complete. (Most likely I'll make Twist With Conviction 2.0 - remove the Edge Explosion and the Memories of Mortality, rework the crypt and the powers - ta-daa!) [ quoted text not captured ]

Awkward... -PTO: Not a verry frequent card anyways, this decision wont really affect Vtes. In fact I dont even mind/care. -Edge Explosion: Seems a bit radical. Limiting the imbued is necessary but, due to the limited choice in imbued crypt cards baning EE just kills the general concept. I guess that's what you went for.... -Memories: Come on... this just makes so many existing and balanced allied decks unplayable. Poor choice as far as I am concerned.

Emiliano Imeroni schrieb: > On a separate issue, will the rating points be retroactively modified > to reflect the new rule on tied finalists? Certainly not since the rules are in effect 01 Jan 2008. So points are just calculated differently *from there on*. A point you have allready acquired is still a point, though ;-) -- Johannes Walch

Sorrow schrieb: >> Certainly, Edge Explosion is a corner-stone of the Imbued now. It's a >> good card. There's very little reason *not* to use it. > > Because it's the lifeblood of an imbued deck. See my previous analogy of > vampires gaining only 1 blood per turn to use to pay for the cards they > play. 11 of the 14 printed powers cost at least 1 conviction. Not to > mention their combat cards. So as an imbued player I can use either 1 power > per turn OR 1 combat card per turn, etc. People complain about how slow > imbued are now. How slow will they become when the player has to choose how > she is going to spend the 1 measly conviction they get per turn for each > imbued? So when Edge Explosion is the last card of your Deck you can´t win the game? This should have happened before in games. But as far as I can tell Edge Explosion was a good bonus but not necessary for winning. -- Johannes Walch

> Yes - but we're speaking of a 40 library cards set against a clan that could > rely > on a wide variety of cards. > Any Imbued deck is (was...) far more narrow-choiche with the cards > at disposal than any clan of vampires. > EE was actually one of the fundamental cards among that narrow choiche. Still I am hoping that we will see now Imbued decks that are not solely based on the very limited choice of cards used in the current most winning archetype (something similiar to this http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k7lcqfrenchchamp) -- Johannes Walch

On Dec 4, 2:18 pm, tomatec...@hotmail.com wrote: > -Edge Explosion: Seems a bit radical. Limiting the imbued is necessary > but, due to the limited choice in imbued crypt cards baning EE just > kills the general concept. I very much doubt this. It just means that you'll actually have to make choices based on the Virtues, instead of cherry-picking based on the best extra abilities. It has (up to now) been all too easy for Imbued to construct optimal crypts, pretty much ignoring the Virtues. I believe this will actually bring some variety to Imbued decks. > -Memories: Come on... this just makes so many existing and balanced > allied decks unplayable. Poor choice as far as I am concerned. If removing MoM changes an ally deck from "balanced" to "unplayable", that's a good sign that MoM was grossly overpowered (and that the ally deck in question maybe wasn't that hot to begin with). //Petri

On the whole I think this is good news. PTO and MoM I don't have too many issues with, sure they could be errata-ed and maybe they will be in future, but at present this is a good fix. There are decks that can win without PTO and likewise MoM. EE does seem harsh, the the card is powerful in its current form. Its the equivalent of a discipline card that affects all your vamps, and every successful action having a hunt (if we're using the conviction=blood in card cost analogy) on top with no costly disadvantage. The fact that its in every TWD that the imbued have (almost witout exception) illustrates its either a necessity, or too powerful, pick your side of the argument. (I love my mortals) I think time will tell, but I don't think this has crippled the imbued by any stretch of the imagination.

> > Certainly, Edge Explosion is a corner-stone of the Imbued now. It's a > > good card. There's very little reason *not* to use it. > > Because it's the lifeblood of an imbued deck. See my previous analogy of > vampires gaining only 1 blood per turn to use to pay for the cards they > play. Except that your analogy is jsut wrong. Convictions affect the way powers can be handled, sure, but they don't affect the lives of the minions. Also, no vampire comes into play with a card they can play, nor do they get another back every time they make a succesful action !! This analogy is just totally unvalid, you are comparing partially two very different systems. As you should well know, having played both. 11 of the 14 printed powers cost at least 1 conviction. Not to > mention their combat cards. So as an imbued player I can use either 1 power > per turn OR 1 combat card per turn, etc. People complain about how slow > imbued are now. How slow will they become when the player has to choose how > she is going to spend the 1 measly conviction they get per turn for each > imbued? Cry me an Imbued river. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 3, 8:53 pm, "Pat" <patrick.lusk.NOS...@NOSPAMcomcast.net> wrote: > "LSJ" <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote in message > > news:4754AC77...@white-wolf.com... > > > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > >http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > Quoting: > "4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of > Mortality, and Protect Thine Own." > > WOOT! > > The last two are exceedingly welcome, though I'm a bit surprised at the EE > ban. Not the least bit sad, just surprised. :) > > Pat, known Imbued hater I realize we shouldn't post "yeah!" posts, but, Hellz to the yes!!! All excellent banned cards, imo. Imbued still have the Unmasking and Champion and so walling up isn't changed, only their ability to bleed at "stealth" for 2 every turn...and Memories has needed to go for a long time. Overdue changes, imo. Lovely to see them made. -Merlin

On 4 joulu, 13:25, Alex Ek <a...@student.chalmers.se> wrote: > LSJ skrev: > > > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > >http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two > cents. > ________________________________________________________ > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > finals special and also trickier to play. > 2nd to 100th place is for losers. 101, you get a pony.

Alex Ek schrieb: > LSJ skrev: >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: >> >> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two > cents. > ________________________________________________________ > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > finals special and also trickier to play. I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in case of a lost cause. I think we should make this change optional and let tournament organisators decide which one to use for a while. > * 4.1 Added three cards to the banned list: Edge Explosion, Memories of > Mortality, and Protect Thine Own. > > Edge Explosion - A strong card but an ok card. MoM was the real problem. > Memories of mortality - Why ban a card that you could balance with an > errata? Making it unique would have been quite fun. also Johannes Walch > introduced the idea of MoM costing 1+x where x is the number of MoM > already in play that I found out that I liked. > PTO - Well, I will miss it alittle. But still, it was quite overpowered. I agree, but since making an errata without having an up-to-date version of the card in print is simply out of the question for me banning seems to be the best solution, given that printing new versions could have been only done in a wider timeframe. Note that there is always the possibility of unbanning cards when new card text exists. I am sure I can hear Olivier cry even from here :) hehehehe > * 161 Splitting prizes is prohibited. > > I support this on principle. Play for rankings instead of play for > prizes. I sure would have sold myself for those two German NC 1st place > prizes though. Hahaha :)

Johannes Walch wrote: > Alex Ek schrieb: >> * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. >> >> I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I >> think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the >> finals special and also trickier to play. > > I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of > chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as > pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in > case of a lost cause. No. As pointed out elsewhere, there is now none of that. Any player still in the game has a chance at 1st vs. 2nd (and nothing else), so must try for 1st.

In article <eda78fff-57fa-4669...@s36g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, nood...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > Banning cards. > > The lazy man's way of fixing cards. Well, or the efficient way of fixing problems. Which can then be followed by printing updated, more balanced versions of the cards in question if deemed necessary. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "Find hungry samurai." -The Old Man

LSJ schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] Theoretically yes. Practically hard to control by a judge. Let´s assume the not-so-unrealistic situation where a player has no ready minions but a Pentex Subversion in this hand and everybody is on low pool (I have been in that situation in a final at least once). Where does he put the Pentex? On his predator not allowing to oust him or on his prey not allowing to oust the predator? He can basically decide who will win and I don´t know what I have to tell him to do when I were the judge. What would be your judgement in the situation? -- Johannes Walch

In article <2Y2dnaApCfNtgsja...@comcast.com>, "Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> wrote: > I'd be very interested to see just how viable the Imbued remain after the > banning of EE. Gaining only 1 conviction per turn, especially when many of > of the powers cost conviction, some multiple, will be detrimental. I'm kind of not seeing how the Imbued are completely unplayable without Edge Explosion. If gaining only one conviction a turn was so incredibly detrimental to them, why design them that way? Why build them such that they are *only* playable when Edge Explosion is in play? Edge Explosion could very easily not ever show up in a given game and once and a while could be cancelled/destroyed. Yet I suspect that the Imbued still did reasonably well in such situations. > I think banning MoM would have been enough. Now, the imbued are nigh > unplayable. I suspect that is a serious overstatement. They have certainly taken a hit, yes. But it seems likely that they'll still be perfectly playable. And if it turns out that they are totally drowning, it seems likely a similar but less powerful patch card will be printed. [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <f272eef3-6e91-4e3f...@a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, nood...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > What exactly was cumbersome or complicated about it? You call a vote, > you burn a non-cam vamp if successful. Not exactly brain surgery. And > what exactly has changed since the card's inception that made it > necessary to ban it now? Because it's been kosher for about 10 years > now. What changed from the cards inception was: -When card printed: Like, 30 non Camarilla vampires. -Now: Like 700 non Camarilla vampires. [ quoted text not captured ]

Johannes Walch wrote: > LSJ schrieb: >> Johannes Walch wrote: >>> Alex Ek schrieb: >>>> * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. >>>> >>>> I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but >>>> I think the different standings was good fun. Something that made >>>> the finals special and also trickier to play. >>> >>> I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of >>> chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But >>> as pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random >>> kingmaking in case of a lost cause. >> >> No. As pointed out elsewhere, there is now none of that. Any player >> still in the game has a chance at 1st vs. 2nd (and nothing else), so >> must try for 1st. >> > > Theoretically yes. > Practically hard to control by a judge. If you say so. In any event, "random kingmaking" is lessened, not increased. > Let“s assume the not-so-unrealistic situation where a player has no > ready minions but a Pentex Subversion in this hand and everybody is on > low pool (I have been in that situation in a final at least once). Where > does he put the Pentex? On his predator not allowing to oust him or on > his prey not allowing to oust the predator? Who cares? He's all but dead. This is not a falling-sky example. > He can basically decide who will win and I don“t know what I have to > tell him to do when I were the judge. What would be your judgement in > the situation? That it doesn't matter and the sky is not falling.

Peter D Bakija wrote: > In article > <f272eef3-6e91-4e3f...@a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, > nood...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > >> What exactly was cumbersome or complicated about it? You call a vote, >> you burn a non-cam vamp if successful. Not exactly brain surgery. And >> what exactly has changed since the card's inception that made it >> necessary to ban it now? Because it's been kosher for about 10 years >> now. > > What changed from the cards inception was: > > -When card printed: Like, 30 non Camarilla vampires. > > -Now: Like 700 non Camarilla vampires. Meh. What changed to its power level was nothing. It is just as powerful as ever (except for being banned now).

[ quoted text not captured ] Scott, as much as I appreciate and share the philosophy, I don't completely understand the logic. In a normal round, I am allowed to self-oust when there is 0% expected probability for me to get more VPs than I currently have, i.e. I can "maximize my outcome" by losing in any way I see fit. In the final round under the new rules, there will be a situation where I have 0% probability of ending first. Can I then not choose to be second any way I want, including self-ousting? Not that I like this option, but I don't see the difference in logic... Thanks in advance for the clarification, Emiliano

On Dec 4, 9:09 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > In article > > <f272eef3-6e91-4e3f-9ee5-6981b92b9...@a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com>, > > noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > > >> What exactly was cumbersome or complicated about it? You call a vote, > >> you burn a non-cam vamp if successful. Not exactly brain surgery. And > >> what exactly has changed since the card's inception that made it > >> necessary to ban it now? Because it's been kosher for about 10 years > >> now. > > > What changed from the cards inception was: > > > -When card printed: Like, 30 non Camarilla vampires. > > > -Now: Like 700 non Camarilla vampires. > > Meh. What changed to its power level was nothing. It is just as powerful as ever > (except for being banned now).- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - The banning of cards is crap. Can I send these cards into WW in exchange for alternate cards from the set they came from? Sure, I can use them in friendly games, but not in anything sanctioned by WW. So, they sold me a product, then changed their mind on it's usability. Maybe in the future they will reprint similar cards that aren't banned, wow, how convenient. There were much better alternatives than making these cards useless pieces of cardboard.

On 4 dec, 02:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Hey Scott, what has made you decide to ban PTO? Is there a development that i missed, that changed the situation so drastically that it needed banning where it first didnt? With certain other cards (tomb of ramesses?) you decided to write errata for them, why didnt you for these cards? Obviously i am no fan of these changes, but the questions are not to give judgment or anything, i would just like to hear your reasoning behind the change of course, W

On Dec 4, 5:03 pm, Emiliano Imeroni <emiliano.imer...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Dec 4, 2:51 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > > > Johannes Walch wrote: > > > Alex Ek schrieb: > > > No. As pointed out elsewhere, there is now none of that. Any player still in the > > game has a chance at 1st vs. 2nd (and nothing else), so must try for 1st. > > Scott, as much as I appreciate and share the philosophy, I don't > completely > understand the logic. > > In a normal round, I am allowed to self-oust when there is 0% expected > probability for me to get more VPs than I currently have, i.e. I can > "maximize my outcome" by losing in any way I see fit. > > In the final round under the new rules, there will be a situation > where I > have 0% probability of ending first. Can I then not choose to be > second any way I want, including self-ousting? Not that I like this > option, but I don't see the difference in logic... > Such as, for example, being on low pool (1/2), having no minions out (all burnt/taken over/whatever), and acting as a block buffer for your voting predator, with a cross-table player who admits that there is 0 s/he can do to help you out of the situation. I think there are some really, really minor situations where something might come up like this, but I also think that it is impossible to have any set of rules where (at least) a very small minority of circumstances don't allow for some self-ousting, without really being unnecessary. I.E. Self-ousting should always be possible, but kept to a complete minimum. It should be a rare occurence when someone is justified to self-oust.

[ quoted text not captured ] 0 * 1st + 100% * 2nd = 100% * 2nd, so that's fine. It simply doesn't happen much in practice.

On Dec 4, 3:46 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > Alex Ek schrieb: > > > LSJ skrev: > >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > >>http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > > Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two > > cents. > > ________________________________________________________ > > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > > I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > > think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > > finals special and also trickier to play. > > I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of > chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as > pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in > case of a lost cause. > > I think we should make this change optional and let tournament > organisators decide which one to use for a while. The thing that disappoints me most about this, is the old 2nd Place winner who worked his ass off to get a VP to tie with 1st Place, but now is forced to share his title with everyone else on the table who didn't perform at all - including at least 2 other players who have been ousted. I agree that tying for 2nd place should happen in the situation where everyone is sitting on their hands and doing nothing, but there will be many, many situations where people will feel hard-done by because they worked to get a VP for nothing - and the difference between being ousted and not ousted on the final table will mean nothing if you are not first place. At least, the ousted players should be put in 3rd place. It may become a nightmare to make sure players don't oust themselves by playing badly (not self-oust) to make a friend win, because they will still be second place anyway, regardless if they are in the game or not. A pair of friends could take turns doing this at tournaments if they wanted to.

On Dec 4, 4:33 pm, The Name Forgotten <tex...@telkomsa.net> wrote: > On Dec 4, 3:46 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > > > > > Alex Ek schrieb: > > > > LSJ skrev: > > >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > > >>http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > > > Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two > > > cents. > > > ________________________________________________________ > > > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > > > I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > > > think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > > > finals special and also trickier to play. > > > I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of > > chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as > > pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in > > case of a lost cause. > > > I think we should make this change optional and let tournament > > organisators decide which one to use for a while. > > The thing that disappoints me most about this, is the old 2nd Place > winner who worked his ass off to get a VP to tie with 1st Place, but > now is forced to share his title with everyone else on the table who > didn't perform at all - including at least 2 other players who have > been ousted. > > I agree that tying for 2nd place should happen in the situation where > everyone is sitting on their hands and doing nothing, but there will > be many, many situations where people will feel hard-done by because > they worked to get a VP for nothing - and the difference between being > ousted and not ousted on the final table will mean nothing if you are > not first place. > > At least, the ousted players should be put in 3rd place. It may become > a nightmare to make sure players don't oust themselves by playing > badly (not self-oust) to make a friend win, because they will still be > second place anyway, regardless if they are in the game or not. A pair > of friends could take turns doing this at tournaments if they wanted > to. Well, if I understand correctly, there would still be a mini-reward for the players scoring VPs in finals with respect to the ones who don't - VPs are worth 4 rating points each, and that, as far as I know, has not changed. I agree it's not much, but still...:-)

> Because it's the lifeblood of an imbued deck. See my previous analogy of > vampires gaining only 1 blood per turn to use to pay for the cards they > play. Are you seriously inclining that the entire imbued playing style is build up on ONE card; Edge Explosion? That without this card, they are useless? If this is really what you believe, you should seriously reconsider playing something else, you obviously haven't got the concept off it. EE is a strong card in any Imbued deck, but it is far from a must have. The Imbueds would never been so successful if that was the case. Any goof can make an Imbued deck out of this card. (You can use any mortal without worrying about their skills). Imagine if vampires had a similar card? This card needed banning, and you "sorrow" are showing all of us how necessary that banning was. Way to many imbued players think like you and are locked in the thought that EE is the only way to play imbueds. I have no love for the Imbueds myself, but I actually think that this will make them more interesting, showing more strategies and new ideas of play. I've seen Imbueds doing wondrous things and being their annoying selfs without EE or MOM ever hitting the table. Thank you so much for these bannings!! Somebody pinch me... it's just too good to be true -E-

On Dec 3, 10:25 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Memories just needed to become unique. PTO just needed the restriction to be played once in a game. Edge explosion really needed to be banned.

On Dec 4, 5:08 am, "Sorrow" <jcbo...@yahoo.com> wrote: > >> Now, the imbued are nigh unplayable. > > Oh, please. > > Banning EE just drops the Imbued down from overpowered cheese to a > > normal power level, they'll actually have to conserve their > > Convictions now (instead of regenerating them at a crazy rate). In > > other words, they'll maybe play a bit more like the original design > > goal was, and maybe now the whole table won't have to instantly gang > > up on the Imbued deck in order to have a chance. > > EE was grossly overpowered. I'm glad to see it go. I'm also glad to > > see Imbued brought down to the same power level as other decks. > > Then I challenge you (and/or any other player who shares this view) to build > a viable Imbued deck (that actually uses imbued tech) that doesn't use EE > and has even a hope of winning a game. The powers, combat cards and > equipment that cost conviction are now significantly more difficult to use > and this is going to be a major problem. Okay. I count 10 imbued decks in the TWDA that have one and only one EE in them. I guarantee you those 10 decks did not get their single copy of EE into play in every game they won (especially the four that did not include Fortschritt.) Therefore, those decks are not only almost certainly viable without it, but have demonstrably more than 'even a hope' of winning a game. > Sorrow -John Flournoy

LSJ wrote: > Tetragrammaton wrote: >> LSJ wrote: >>> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are >>> up: >>> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules >> >> One important question about the "all the finalist but first place >> tie for second place" rule: >> >> Because it seems there's no "play to maximize outcome" >> left (other than playing to get first) under the 2008 rulings for >> final round, >> that means that once a finalist can't reasonably play for first >> place, he/she can >> self-oust him/herself ? >> Basically: during a 2008 final, if a player reasonably tells he >> can't play for first place anymore, >> why that player should go on playing the final round ? > > No. Just the opposite. > > With no risk assessment to fall back on, any chance for first place, > no matter how slim, is better than self-ousting. > > That is, 0.001% * win + 99.999% * 2nd > 100% * 2nd, so PTW means you > go for the 0.001% shot. I don't get the math parallel, honestly. Decisions are made by reasonable expectations, are they ? So, sooner or later, it's pretty obvious that one (or more) players will be no longer in the position of (reasonably) placing first - So the judge checks the game state and the motivations of the player annoucing he can't win anymore (thus, in the 2008 final no longer able to maximize his position), and if the judge agrees with the "losing" player, then that player can oust himself outright, because except for first place there's no other maximization left for that player in the actual game.

On 4 joulu, 03:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules I don't care much about EE or PTO banning, but banning MoM feels plain wrong. Sad day for most non imbued ally decks. Better switch playing more TUUT TUUT! (read stealth bleed) then :/ -guzmo

> Okay. I count 10 imbued decks in the TWDA that have one and only one > EE in them. > I guarantee you those 10 decks did not get their single copy of EE > into play in every game they won (especially the four that did not > Therefore, those decks are not only almost certainly viable without > it, but have demonstrably more than 'even a hope' of winning a game. > -John Flournoy Which just brings us back to the initial issue: then why ban it in the first place, if they're not central for these decks doing well? I like James' point that EE made many Imbued decks too alike and now there'll be room for new Powers that make players focus more on the Virtues the buggers have. Myself, I had a couple of Imbued decks where I didn't even bother to include it precisely because of that - I wanted to try my hand at a single Virtue or two, and to make the deck seem less of a threat due to a sudden boost where everyone's gaining Convictions and using all sorts of Powers. People tend to forget that you can't afford to throw in a lot of Powers that (most of) your minions can't play until an Event hits play (especially when it requires another event already on the table), and that to gain extra Convictions with EE you have to be able to pass actions - and if the Imbued deck is passing actions it's probably working well already regardless of the EE in the table. They just see the flow of cards getting back from the ash heap and panic, and I think it's good to avoid those panicked looks at me when I'm playing. That means unless James' point proves true in its due time with the release of new cards, I don't see a balance reason to ban EE. As demonstrated via the TWDA, it is nothing but a boost to a specific kind of deck, such as other cards left untouched so far - like, say, Week of Nightmares in a Ravnos bleed deck. But if we're talking strategy and new card design, then EE's ban is understandable. Let's see to which direction it goes. Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo

On Dec 4, 12:23 pm, "Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo" <fabio.soo...@gmail.com> wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] Yeah, my approval of getting rid of it is in large part due to it making the actual virtues printed on an individual imbued meaningless - imbued deck design rarely cared about that, looking foremost at what special ability each had and treating the other distinctions between the imued largely moot. > Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo -John Flournoy

[ quoted text not captured ] Edge Explosion was the single most powerful card in NoR. I don't think that banning it was necessarily the right thing to do, but powerful things sometimes get banned or nerfed, and we've all gotta live with that. The main problem with it, IMO, is that what appeared to have been intended as its secondary function (regain conviction) far outstripped the usefulness of the primary function (allow the 20 crypt cards for the imbued to combine in many interesting ways). I wish that the ban could have come alongside another 20 or so crypt cards for the imbued so that we could more reasonably make multi- virtue decks. Even single-virtue decks are going to be somewhat difficult for the more scarce virtues (Martyrdom has 5 crypt choices, for instance). I think that Judgment will still win games, splash Defense will still come in for Champion, and mostly the other virtues will fall (further) out of favor. I'd love to prove myself wrong, but decks which can use Jennie and/or Travis for more than just card text will have even more advantage than they already did (relative to other imbued decks). > Yeah, my approval of getting rid of it is in large part due to it > making the actual virtues printed on an individual imbued meaningless > - imbued deck design rarely cared about that, looking foremost at what > special ability each had and treating the other distinctions between > the imued largely moot. This sounds insane to me. The only deck I've managed to build where that was actually true was "Paralyze This!" - because it didn't use powers in the first place. EE had nothing to do with it. No matter how much you were relying on EE, you had to move cards out of your hand before you'd be able to see it. Because of this, your crypt choices needed to be able to play a fair chunk of your cards without it. Even when you did get it, each minion could only use one "off-clan" power - which was fine if he already had one of your "on- clan" virtues built-in, so he wasn't totally useless for half the game. And he still can't use the non-power cards that require a virtue (which are and were useless more because EE didn't apply to them than because they didn't have useful effects). witness1

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> writes: > > EE was grossly overpowered. I'm glad to see it go. I'm also glad to > > see Imbued brought down to the same power level as other decks. > > Same power level? Hardly. How much experience have you with playing > Imbued? I have a lot. Without EE (giving convictions, not necessarily > allowing powers, although that too), Imbued are now hardly playable. Try it > yourself and see. > > Sorrow As I have already declared, I have accepted your challenge, and will be posting several viable imbued decks. Here's the first one. I hastily modified my favorite imbued deck to conform to the 2008 tournament rules: no Edge Explosion, no Memories of Mortality. I had time to play it once at our regular casual pub game night. I gained 0 VP, because my prey backousted me. (I miscalculated the amount of stealth he had in hand. He had only one stealth card in his ash heap, but when I attempted to intercept and kill all his minions for the oust, it started raining Obfuscate. He played two KRCs, sent 6 damage my way, and my predator had easy pickings.) I explained the purpose of the deck challenge to my fellow players and asked them if this deck was a viable one, capable of game wins. They unanimously agreed it was a fine and dangerous deck. Twist With Conviction, version 2.0 Empty your library (and bloat) with Liquidations, fetch the cards you need with Waste Management Operation. CRYPT: (12 cards, all group 4) 2x François "Warden" Loehr imbued 3 cap jud targeting costs more 2x Jennie "Cassie 247" Orne imbued 5 cap jud cheaper hospital 2x John "Cop90" O'Malley imbued 4 cap jud rush Jack "Hannibal137" Harmon imbued 4 cap jud maneuver Marion "Teacher193" Perks imbued 4 cap jud press Alessandro Garcia !Bru 4 cap +1 str against Lasombra Jayne Jonestown !Bru 2 cap lots and lots Patrick !Bru 4 cap Smash !Bru 3 cap LIBRARY: (66 cards) Masters: (19 + 2 trifles = 21) Angel of Berlin Archon Investigation Channel 10 The Church of Vindicated Faith Direct Intervention Gang Territory KRCG News Radio 6x Liquidation Sudden Reversal Vessel Wash 4x Waste Management Operation WMRH Talk Radio Convictions: (17) 5x React with Conviction 6x Second Sight 6x Strike with Conviction Events: (2) Narrow Minds The Unmasking Powers: (7) 3x Discern 4x Vigilance Combat: (6) Boxed In Concealed Weapon Dodge Dragon's Breath Rounds Fake Out Glancing Blow Equipment: (8) .44 Magnum The Crusader Sword IR Goggles Ivory Bow Laptop Computer Nightstick Saturday-Night Special Sniper Rifle Allies: (3) Carlton van Wyk Gregory Winter Vagabond Mystic Reaction: (2) On the Qui Vive Poison Pill HG -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

On Dec 4, 2:49 pm, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) wrote: [ quoted text not captured ] What? No Henry Taylor? -witness1

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 04:13:23 -0500, Sorrow <jcb...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> Edge Explosion typefied the core two problems of the Imbued situation: >> overpowered Powers, and endlessly multiplying convictions (this gave >> them too much resiliency, and slowed the game down excessively). I >> can't think of a "fix" that would have been simple and solved the >> problem appropriately, apart from banning. > > I'd be very interested to see just how viable the Imbued remain after the > banning of EE. Gaining only 1 conviction per turn, especially when many > of > of the powers cost conviction, some multiple, will be detrimental. > Additionally, w/o Jennie (who is a, really, THE prime target) it's going > to > be even more difficult to get imbued out of the incompacitated region. > And > with new anti-Imbued tech (e.g. Ambulance) the extra turns it would take > almost ensure burning. > > I think banning MoM would have been enough. Now, the imbued are nigh > unplayable. In all honesty, I would have rather seen Memories and Edge Explosion not get banned... But instead Imbued get banned. Memories wasn't broken until the broken Imbued came around. Now if you don't want to ban the Imbued, you need to start by banning EE. Then you probably need to weigh the loss to regular ally decks versus keeping the Imbued inbalanced and make a tough decision to ban MoM. At least that's my take on things. -- Regards, Daneel

witness1 <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> writes: > On Dec 4, 2:49 pm, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) > wrote: > > > > Twist With Conviction, version 2.0 > > What? No Henry Taylor? That's a different deck. Here: http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k7sskennesaw And I just inspired that monstrosity, I didn't have a mind sick enough to concieve or create it... Besides, "Twist With Conviction" is meant to be a fun deck. Both to play *and* to play against. By the way, let's replace the Edge Explosion from that tournament winning deck with, say, Narrow Minds, Life in the City or Glancing Blow. There's your Sorrow Imbued Challenge deck #2 right there! [ quoted text not captured ]

LSJ wrote: > The Name Forgotten wrote: >> On Dec 4, 5:03 pm, Emiliano Imeroni <emiliano.imer...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >>> On Dec 4, 2:51 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Johannes Walch wrote: >>>>> Alex Ek schrieb: >>>> No. As pointed out elsewhere, there is now none of that. Any >>>> player still in the game has a chance at 1st vs. 2nd (and nothing >>>> else), so must try for 1st. >>> Scott, as much as I appreciate and share the philosophy, I don't >>> completely >>> understand the logic. >>> >>> In a normal round, I am allowed to self-oust when there is 0% >>> expected probability for me to get more VPs than I currently have, >>> i.e. I can "maximize my outcome" by losing in any way I see fit. >>> >>> In the final round under the new rules, there will be a situation >>> where I >>> have 0% probability of ending first. Can I then not choose to be >>> second any way I want, including self-ousting? Not that I like this >>> option, but I don't see the difference in logic... >>> >> >> Such as, for example, being on low pool (1/2), having no minions out >> (all burnt/taken over/whatever), and acting as a block buffer for >> your voting predator, with a cross-table player who admits that >> there is 0 s/he can do to help you out of the situation. >> >> I think there are some really, really minor situations where >> something might come up like this, but I also think that it is >> impossible to have any set of rules where (at least) a very small >> minority of circumstances don't allow for some self-ousting, without >> really being unnecessary. >> >> I.E. Self-ousting should always be possible, but kept to a complete >> minimum. It should be a rare occurence when someone is justified to >> self-oust. > > 0 * 1st + 100% * 2nd = 100% * 2nd, so that's fine. > > It simply doesn't happen much in practice. It doensn't happen what ? For a player to be, reasonably, in a "lost/non-longer-being-able-to-maximize" position ? Actually that happens so often in games, if not always. Problem ahead will be that with finals in 2008, apart "winning", players will not able to maximize their standing because all will tie for second place - so once a player has 0% chanche to reasonably get first, then that player will be in a totally "lost" position (=tying for second place). Question again: why a player should go on playing the final when, after some play, he sees to have not reasonable expectations to get first, and the judges agrees with him ? E

Howdy Scott, I like this rules change, and will be interested to see how it works in practice. > >> * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > >> I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > >> think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > >> finals special and also trickier to play. > > > I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of > > chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as > > pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in > > case of a lost cause. > > No. As pointed out elsewhere, there is now none of that. Any player still in the > game has a chance at 1st vs. 2nd (and nothing else), so must try for 1st. But the above is not true: A -> B -> C -> D -> E -> B (who was first seed) ousts C and D. A -> B(2) -> E -> A now ousts B. A(1) -> E -> E can no longer win the game, though she is still playing. If A ousts E, she will take first with 3 VP. If E ousts A, however, she will lose the two-way 2 VP tie with the already ousted B, who has better placement. In this case, E gets to choose who wins (well, sort of - clearly A is not interested in rolling over), but cannot win herself. There are presumably other, 1 VP, 'tiebreaker' cases. Alex

On Dec 4, 3:25 pm, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) wrote: > witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> writes: > > On Dec 4, 2:49 pm, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) > > wrote: > > > > Twist With Conviction, version 2.0 > > > What? No Henry Taylor? > > That's a different deck. Here: > > http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k7sskennesaw > > And I just inspired that monstrosity, I didn't have a mind sick enough to > concieve or create it... I know. That one's mine... > Besides, "Twist With Conviction" is meant to be a fun deck. Both to play > *and* to play against. > > By the way, let's replace the Edge Explosion from that tournament winning > deck with, say, Narrow Minds, Life in the City or Glancing Blow. > > There's your Sorrow Imbued Challenge deck #2 right there! I don't suspect that deck would win, but I'm not really willing to play it again anytime soon to find out. -witness1

witness1 <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> writes: > On Dec 4, 3:25 pm, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) > wrote: > > witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> writes: > > > On Dec 4, 2:49 pm, h...@iki.fi.remove.these.invalid (Janne Hägglund) > > > wrote: > > > > > > Twist With Conviction, version 2.0 > > > > > What? No Henry Taylor? > > > > That's a different deck. Here: > > > > http://www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k7sskennesaw > > > > And I just inspired that monstrosity, I didn't have a mind sick enough to > > concieve or create it... > > I know. That one's mine... Ah! Brain not functioning properly. Time to go to sleep... [ quoted text not captured ]

vis...@globo.com wrote: > On Dec 3, 10:25 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: >> >> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > Memories just needed to become unique. Maybe. Or other changes as suggested in other threads. Maybe it will be, when/if it gets reprinted. > PTO just needed the restriction to be played once in a game. ahahaha. Yup, because if my entire game is ruined only once per game, i'm ok with that. > Edge explosion really needed to be banned. (no opinion as i haven't seen enough Imbued decks) -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

On Dec 4, 3:53 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: > XZealot wrote: > > On Dec 4, 2:11 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: > >> LSJ wrote: > >>> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are > >>> up: > >>>http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > >> Nice work - though i'm pretty uncertain if BANning those three cards > >> altogether > >> is a good solution - maybe a reword would have been better. > >> More than anything else, banning at the same time memories of > >> mortality AND edge > >> explosion just makes imbued to be trashed - even though the NoR set > >> is small, i'm not > >> so happy to see a 60 cards set just wasted with two bans. > > > Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the removal > > of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? > > Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, > imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important > card for them > ....just like Return to Innocense was one of the most important cards in an Arika deck. Arika is far from wallpaper now. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 07:04:50 -0800 (PST), Rhavas wrote: >Can I send these cards into WW in >exchange for alternate cards from the set they came from? Not to White Wolf, no. You can send a postage paid envelope along with all of your banned cards to me and I will replace them with similarly valued cards from similar sets.

XZealot wrote: > On Dec 4, 3:53 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: >> XZealot wrote: >>> On Dec 4, 2:11 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: >>>> LSJ wrote: >>>>> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 >>>>> are up: >>>>> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules >> >>>> Nice work - though i'm pretty uncertain if BANning those three >>>> cards altogether >>>> is a good solution - maybe a reword would have been better. >>>> More than anything else, banning at the same time memories of >>>> mortality AND edge >>>> explosion just makes imbued to be trashed - even though the NoR set >>>> is small, i'm not >>>> so happy to see a 60 cards set just wasted with two bans. >> >>> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the >>> removal of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? >> >> Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, >> imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important >> card for them >> > > ....just like Return to Innocense was one of the most important cards > in an Arika deck. Arika is far from wallpaper now. > Time will tell - but i'm pretty sure that under the 2008 banned cards imbued decks will vanish from competitive play.

> Please bear in mind that had LSJ issued errata to the cards, there would > be other people saying "Errata-ing cards. The lazy man's way to design > the game right." Well, they would be right. But that's an issue for another thread. >and "Do we need YET MORE errata?" and so on. Almost everyone [bar the fingers in ears 'lalalala not listening" types] was in agreement that imbued needed to be fixed. Ask the people who paid 10 bucks each for an Edge Explosion or MoM. Hell, ask the poor bastard who paid US$81 on Ebay for 3 PTOs two months ago whether we needed more errata. I think he'll make quite an eloquent case as to why we did. Blanket banning is the cbf'ed solution. This game and this community deserve better than that.

> What changed from the cards inception was: > > -When card printed: Like, 30 non Camarilla vampires. > > -Now: Like 700 non Camarilla vampires. How does that make a difference? I'd argue that PTO was MORE powerful back in the days when Indi vamps were few and strats for them were far between, no indi clan had any reasonable chance to block PTO when it was called, and very few of them had any vote defense beyond DT.

> Well, or the efficient way of fixing problems. Which can then be > followed by printing updated, more balanced versions of the cards in > question if deemed necessary. Or you could errata them now, and print new versions with the updated text at the earliest opportunity. None of these cards were so broken they needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would have preferred a nerf to MoM rather than it's utter destruction. There have been dozens of very feasible fixes to MoM posted here over the last few months.

In message <yB95j.15652$r62....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton <nos...@none.com> writes: >James Coupe wrote: >> Please bear in mind that had LSJ issued errata to the cards, there >> would be other people saying "Errata-ing cards. The lazy man's way >> to design the game right." and "Do we need YET MORE errata?" and so >> on. > >But, afaik, that has been always the approach with unbalaced cards (errata >instead of BAN) No, that's not true. There had been long, long discussions of how unbalanced Succubus Club was and there were many suggestions for possible errata - I know, because I wrote several up, some as theoretical suggestions but others more plausible. Many of them would have made the card much less powerful by slowing it down, making it more expensive, more risky, harder to abuse, and so on. Outright ban. >- maybe it's the sudden change in dealing with the matter >(BAN instead of reword, this time) that upsets players (including me at the >moment) I'm not sure how LSJ is supposed to compensate for players getting upset about a perceived change in policy that comes several years after a change that was handled in the same way. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

In message <b07cb3b7-b178-4f1a...@b40g2000prf.googlegroup s.com>, Rhavas <Anthony...@gmail.com> writes: >The banning of cards is crap. Can I send these cards into WW in >exchange for alternate cards from the set they came from? Sure, I can >use them in friendly games, but not in anything sanctioned by WW. So, >they sold me a product, then changed their mind on it's usability. >Maybe in the future they will reprint similar cards that aren't >banned, wow, how convenient. You know, if White Wolf really were out to screw you like that, they're doing a spectacularly inept job of it. Examples: - they make really useful cards common - many sets have contained precisely zero reprints in the boosters - many powerful, rare cards have been reprinted as fixed cards in starters so that everyone can get them as easily as possible - steps have been taken to try to avoid power creep *without* using the cash cow mechanism that is set rotation (banning whole sets after a few years / new expansions) - grouping means that players from the Wizards of the Coast era can compete while having to buy almost zero new cards (because they don't need recent vampires to make a hyper-optimized crypt, and many library cards from that era are still extremely good). - the ban list is tiny - V:TES has no restricted list or similar, which means that extra copies of good cards you collect aren't wasted - you might well be able to use 5 of that rare in a deck, or 10 of that uncommon - a card exchange programme was run during the Black Hand, to compensate for an error Really, if they were out to screw you, these things wouldn't have been done. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <RJi5j.488$8j3...@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton <nos...@none.com> writes: >For a player to be, reasonably, in a >"lost/non-longer-being-able-to-maximize" position ? >Actually that happens so often in games, if not always. The point is that it doesn't matter if it's reasonable. In earlier games, you might choose to come a reasonable second instead of a risky first which will cause you to crash out if it goes wrong. So reasonable-ness comes into it. In the final, if you have *any* chance to come first, however tiny, you play for it. What's the worst that can happen? You come second. And if you're in a lost position, you come second anyway. If you deal with someone to withdraw and get a VP, you come second. If you self-oust, you come second. This isn't like the earlier rounds where these things can better your outcome. Unless you're in a totally lost position, *any* chance of coming first is better than coming second, because you'll come second anyway. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <uJ95j.15662$r62....@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton <nos...@none.com> writes: >Yes - but we're speaking of a 40 library cards set against a clan that could >rely >on a wide variety of cards. Ah, here's one problem you're having then. The Imbued can benefit from a wide variety of cards from many other sets. Equipment, disciplineless actions, many master cards, retainers, library allies, Events etc. Restricting your examinations to the 40 library cards in the Nights of Reckoning set is likely to be... unhelpful. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <f105e569-5e79-43b7...@e4g2000hsg.googlegroups .com>, Cooper <wouter...@gmail.com> writes: >Hey Scott, what has made you decide to ban PTO? >Is there a development that i missed, that changed the situation so >drastically that it needed banning where it first didnt? Couldn't it also be based on incremental observations? It may be that LSJ had been playtesting some ideas, or has seen even more data, or had hoped that a few new cards (Confusion of the Eye, say) might help. And so, with a resigned sigh, he might have decided that it hasn't worked and he'll ban it. I'm not sure why there needs to be some drastic thunderbolt that changes his mind. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 14:25:44 -0800 (PST), nood...@iprimus.com.au wrote: >In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would have >preferred a nerf to MoM rather than it's utter destruction. I don't think this means what you think it means. I am violently opposed to cards that do not do what they say they do. Banning is the correct solution. See also the 7-7-97 rules team rulings and all the hundreds of posts that resulted.

> There's your Sorrow Imbued Challenge deck #2 right there! Just posting an altered deck means exactly squat. Design it, build it, play it, *win* with it. It is that last part which is key to the challenge. And it should win against decks that are at least tier 1 or 2. At least, not some bizarro concept decks that wouldn't have much of a hope of winning themselves but were played just for fun. Sorrow

On Dec 4, 10:04 am, Rhavas <Anthony.Lun...@gmail.com> wrote: > The banning of cards is crap. So is having broken cards making the game suck. I'd generally side with "ban a few of them" > So, they sold me a product, then changed their mind on it's usability. Which, all things being equal, they should be commended for, as the cards in question were too powerful and contributing to the game sucking. And relatively speaking, VTES has a remarkable track record in terms of avoiding banning cards. There is now a grand total of 8 cards banned for play balance reason. In a game that has been around for 13 years and has cards in the multiple thousands. Not a bad track record at all. Especially considering how many similar games ban entire *sets* of cards at a time (set rotation). > Maybe in the future they will reprint similar cards that aren't > banned, wow, how convenient. It is convenient. If the cards in question are too powerful, and removing them hits the strategies that used them too hard, it can be fixed accordingly. Which is pretty convenient. -Peter

James Coupe wrote: > In message <RJi5j.488$8j3...@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton > <nos...@none.com> writes: >> For a player to be, reasonably, in a >> "lost/non-longer-being-able-to-maximize" position ? >> Actually that happens so often in games, if not always. > > The point is that it doesn't matter if it's reasonable. It does, per rules: because you can't self oust if you're in a non-lost position > > In earlier games, you might choose to come a reasonable second instead > of a risky first which will cause you to crash out if it goes wrong. > So reasonable-ness comes into it. As much as reasoanble-ness comes into finals, where players are supposed to play to maximize their outcome > > In the final, if you have *any* chance to come first, however tiny, > you play for it. What's the worst that can happen? You come second. > And if you're in a lost position, you come second anyway. This is pretty unaccurate, but you seem to miss the point. Players are expected to maximize their outcome, are they ? Now that there's no outcome in final but first place (all the rest tie for second) , once a player will be in a lost position, he can simply give up instead of trying to maximize the outcome. Before, giving up (self oust) would have result in non-maximizing a lost position (aming for 2,3,4 or place, or just securing the actual one), a thing that actually could have been done only if the player was actually in a total lost position (=can't maximize his/her outcome any better). In a final , a total non-maximizing position now will be attained as soon as a player will be (reasonably) no longer in the condition of finishing at first place. So, again: why he/she should go on playing the final round at that point ? E

> Well, if I understand correctly, there would still be a mini-reward > for the players scoring VPs in finals with respect to the ones who > don't - VPs are worth 4 rating points each, and that, as far as I > know, > has not changed. I agree it's not much, but still...:-) Irrelevant. Who really plays for rating points? I know I don't, and I know a lot of Australians don't. I couldn't even tell you how many I have, what my highest rank was or any of that Jazz. It is superfluous crap as far as I'm concerned. I don't play for rankings, rating points or any of that crap. --> J grail_pbem "at" hotmail.com

[ quoted text not captured ] Amen to that. The only other ccg to be as player friendly from a business standpoint is Shadowfist, and they seem pretty defunct at this point. best - chris -- Super Fun Cards http://stores.ebay.com/superfuncards/ auct...@superfuncards.com

In article <89e34664-9bdb-49d8...@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, nood...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > How does that make a difference? Opportunity cost. When PTO was printed, it only was useful against a minority fraction of the vampires in the set, and that minority fraction wasn't even that effective. Thus, the likelihood of a given PTO in your deck being playable was pretty low. You could include some, sure, but you were just as likely to get mileage out of any other narrow hoser of the time, like Cultivated Blood Shortage or Letter from Vienna. Most of the time, you weren't going to be sitting next to any non Camarilla vampires, as there weren't many in existence and playing them in the first place was unlikely to pay off much. Thus, the vast majority of the time, PTO was going to be a dead card. Jet ahead 13 years to when the majority of the vampires in the game are non Camarilla and non Camarilla vampires are incredibly competetive and, heck, newer players can't even buy Camarilla vampires on the retail level (virtually every vampire printed since Camarilla Edition has been non-Camarilla), and this opportunity cost drops to virtually nothing. These days, playing PTO is a virtual no brainer. Yeah, once and a while, you might not have a good target, but the vast majority of the time, you are going to be sitting next to a non Camarilla vampire. There is a huge difference in opportunity cost between when the card was printed and now. > back in the days when Indi vamps were few and strats for them were far > between, no indi clan had any reasonable chance to block PTO when it > was called, and very few of them had any vote defense beyond DT. And they also had very few winning strategies. So they didn't see much play. Making the PTOs in your deck most of the time, dead cards. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "Find hungry samurai." -The Old Man

In message <9Rl5j.697$8j3...@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton <nos...@none.com> writes: >James Coupe wrote: >> In earlier games, you might choose to come a reasonable second instead >> of a risky first which will cause you to crash out if it goes wrong. >> So reasonable-ness comes into it. > >As much as reasoanble-ness comes into finals, where players >are supposed to play to maximize their outcome Yes. They have two outcomes in the finals. 1) Come first. 2) Come second. This is not like the preliminary rounds where risky strategies have massive downsides. If the risks you take to come first don't work, you come second. Just like they would anyway. If there is even the tiniest chance of winning, the player should play for it in the final. What happens if it doesn't work? They come second. Just like when they self oust. So clearly, playing for the tiny chance is the maximized outcome. >> In the final, if you have *any* chance to come first, however tiny, >> you play for it. What's the worst that can happen? You come second. >> And if you're in a lost position, you come second anyway. > >This is pretty unaccurate, No it's not. Either you come first by shooting for a really stupid, unlikely option or, worst case scenario, you come second. Just like you would have done. You're not punished for trying to come first and failing. You just come second. Just like before. >but you seem to miss the point. No, I haven't. >Players are expected to maximize their outcome, are they ? Players must play to win. In the final, this means that if they have even the tiniest chance of winning, they play for it, because they *cannot* make their situation worse. Absolutely cannot. If chance of winning = 1% and they play for it, 1% of the time they win. If they self-oust, they come second. If they play for it and don't win, they come second. Thus, by the laws of not being an idiot, playing for the 1% chance is playing to win. It is the maximized outcome. >Now that there's no outcome in final but first place (all the rest tie for >second) , > once a player will be in a lost position, A lost position here would be absolutely *zero* chance of anything. *Very* few players end up in that situation. They often end up in unlikely situations, and in preliminary rounds they may then choose to play for a safe second, or make a deal to come second, or whatever. Not relevant here. If they have even the slightest chance of winning, play for it. Even if it's 0.0001%. Play for it. It CANNOT make your situation worse, because you'll come second no matter what. If it works, you come first. >Before, giving up (self oust) would have result in non-maximizing a lost >position (aming for 2,3,4 or place, or just securing the actual one), And giving up here means that you lose even the slimmest chance of winning the game. How is that playing to win? Can you win when you've self ousted? No. Have you got even the tiniest chance in the world to win? Play for it. If you hang on for two, three turns, is it possible you'll have a tiny chance then? Then stick around for that! Again, this isn't like the earlier rounds. You don't have anything to lose. There's no comfortable second place to lose by exploding and coming last on the table. You're going to come second come what may. Take *ANY* chance you have. You don't have to judge whether it's reasonable, likely, or plausible. If you stick around, you still have the tiniest chance of winning. In the old rules, all players in the final were assumed to be playing to win/best outcome (including prize splits etc.), so we've monkeyed around with assumptions in the final before. The monkeying around has changed. In the new rules, even the slightest chance of winning is better than not being in the final. >So, again: why he/she should go on playing the final round at that point ? Because trying for even the tiniest chance in the world of winning is better than not winning. By not being in the final, they can't win. By staying in the final, the faintest chance of winning will still exist and the situation can change. We must all have seen games where two players cross-table suddenly fuck up and someone crawls back from absolutely nowhere at all, and goes on to win. Unlikely, implausible, stupid things do happen. Taking an option that definitely leads to you coming second (and you cannot do worse than second) when sticking around means there's a tiny chance you might come first is clearly not playing to win. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] OTOH, the Indies were pretty useless any way, so most people were playing Camarilla, and therefore packing PTOs was mostly a waste of slots, except if there was a [insert indie clan here] fanatic in your playgroup. Also, at the time, non-Camarilla designated only indies, and as much as I hate the principle of burning a necromancer by decree, it stood to more logic than doing the same to influent sabbatics ! Anyway, this is over now. PTO is dead, and that's one dead thing I won't try to bring back. ;-) -- Orpheus --------- "It's been a hard day's night ! BRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS !!!" The Zombeatles, "A Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead (http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=jP6nYs9Il7c)

> Just posting an altered deck means exactly squat. Design it, build it, play > it, *win* with it. It is that last part which is key to the challenge. And > it should win against decks that are at least tier 1 or 2. At least, not > some _*bizarro*_ concept decks that wouldn't have much of a hope of winning > themselves but were played just for fun. Bizarro not like winning. Bizarro wants to not play for sad with decks without concepts. Bizarro is #1 of the worst from no planet.

> I like James' point that EE made many Imbued decks too alike and now > there'll be room for new Powers that make players focus more on the > Virtues the buggers have. Myself, I had a couple of Imbued decks where > I didn't even bother to include it precisely because of that - I > wanted to try my hand at a single Virtue or two, and to make the deck > seem less of a threat due to a sudden boost where everyone's gaining > Convictions and using all sorts of Powers. > > People tend to forget that you can't afford to throw in a lot of > Powers that (most of) your minions can't play until an Event hits play > (especially when it requires another event already on the table), and > that to gain extra Convictions with EE you have to be able to pass > actions - and if the Imbued deck is passing actions it's probably > working well already regardless of the EE in the table. They just see > the flow of cards getting back from the ash heap and panic, and I > think it's good to avoid those panicked looks at me when I'm playing. > > That means unless James' point proves true in its due time with the > release of new cards, I don't see a balance reason to ban EE. As > demonstrated via the TWDA, it is nothing but a boost to a specific > kind of deck, such as other cards left untouched so far - like, say, > Week of Nightmares in a Ravnos bleed deck. I just want to point out that this is a very bad comparison. There are Ravnos decks that could do well without WoN (I guess ?) and just add one for kicks, but many need it for the kill, and pack 2-3 in less than 90 cards because they'll need it when the right moment comes. -- Orpheus --------------- "When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift

In message <cdb7e619-816c-4d2e...@e6g2000prf.googlegroups .com>, nood...@iprimus.com.au writes: >Hell, ask the poor bastard who paid US$81 on Ebay for 3 PTOs two months >ago whether we needed more errata. I think he'll make quite an eloquent >case as to why we did. You're assuming that the cards would be left in a playable state following errata. Look at the history of significant fixes to cards and it's really not that simple. Tomb of Rameses III pre-errata? Great, great card. Post errata? Expensive crappy Ecoterrorists. Post revised errata? Still really not very good. Thoughts Betrayed? Really good card before errata. Post errata? Almost never seen. Someone paying 81 dollars and finding the card is in a shitty state afterwards is going to vent about that. Blah blah blah, I paid 81 dollars and now it's almost useless. I traded for 12 of them and I can only play one per game. Blah blah blah. They're not going to be there cheerleading that it wasn't banned. And anyone with even the slightest awareness of V:TES history knows that cards can be nerfed into oblivion and can be banned. You don't want to take that risk? Don't spend 81 dollars on three cards. >Blanket banning is the cbf'ed solution. This game and this community >deserve better than that. The community is quite varied, and quite a number of people in the community have *repeatedly* asked for bans instead of errata. What do they deserve? Why does your view override theirs? [ quoted text not captured ]

> I am violently opposed to cards that do not do what they say they do. So when you see an Old Fame, or Anarch Revolt or whatever, you fly into a rage ala The Hulk, throw your counters and decks around and destroy the nearest city block? Maybe Jeff is the secret monster from Cloverfield?? :P [ quoted text not captured ]

> > I think banning MoM would have been enough. Now, the imbued are nigh > > unplayable. > > In all honesty, I would have rather seen Memories and Edge Explosion not > get banned... But instead Imbued get banned. Memories wasn't broken until > the broken Imbued came around. Now if you don't want to ban the Imbued, > you need to start by banning EE. Then you probably need to weigh the loss > to regular ally decks versus keeping the Imbued inbalanced and make a > tough decision to ban MoM. > > At least that's my take on things. Allow me to disagree : MoM was too strong for all the good allies decks, mainly War Ghouls and Shamblers. Can you imagine 7 or more Shamblers on the day of the French Championship this year ? One of which was in the finals ? This is clearly a Tier1, and it will still be strong, but with MoM it was just... too strong !! Sure, I was glad to see so many Giovanni hit the tables, but... a victory with the Family should be well-deserved, not everyone is worthy of manipulating the dead !! As the link below sadly shows... ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

> >> Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, > >> imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important > >> card for them > >> > > > > ....just like Return to Innocense was one of the most important cards > > in an Arika deck. Arika is far from wallpaper now. > > > Time will tell - but i'm pretty sure that under the 2008 banned cards imbued > decks > will vanish from competitive play. I'm ready to bet a PTO against an Edge Illusion on the opposite. We'll talk again same date next year and see who gets a useless Power Rare ? ;-) -- Orpheus --------- "The morning air was dark with the smoke of burning gods" George R. R. Martin

> > ________________________________________________________ > > > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > > > I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > > think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > > finals special and also trickier to play. > > I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of > chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as > pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in > case of a lost cause. > > I think we should make this change optional and let tournament > organisators decide which one to use for a while. I really think that the best solution would be to tie for second all non-winning methuselahs still in the game after the Time Limit. The others would be ranked as they were before, it would give an incentive to survive (the incentive to make VPs is already there !!). -- Valar morghulis, Orpheus

> Players must play to win. In the final, this means that if they have > even the tiniest chance of winning, they play for it, because they > *cannot* make their situation worse. Absolutely cannot. Ok. So let me tell you briefly about my finals in Turin last year. I was a bleeder caught between two rushers (War Ghoul as pred, Shamblers as prey) with another shambling and Johannes's Black Hand deck (with Ghouls). My minions were all in torpor, I was all but screwed. Yet; we made an alliance where my two allies rescued me, I was able to help ousting whoever was needed, and I made second (lol). In the same situation, now, I'd be able to deal nothing, no one would care if I died or killed anyone else, and I certainly wouldn't want to give anyone a VP, and not care if I was the first to go either. Lost for lost, it's lost, period. So what was a very interesting and technical endgame would now be dull, waiting to get ousted, I might as well self-oust and go have a drink with my friends. I understand and like the spirit of this new rule, but something isn't quite right there (yet ?). -- Orpheus ---------------------------------------- "I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, ... but I'm not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant." --Robert McCloskey

James Coupe wrote: > In message <9Rl5j.697$8j3...@tornado.fastwebnet.it>, Tetragrammaton > <nos...@none.com> writes: >> James Coupe wrote: >>> In earlier games, you might choose to come a reasonable second >>> instead of a risky first which will cause you to crash out if it >>> goes wrong. So reasonable-ness comes into it. >> >> As much as reasoanble-ness comes into finals, where players >> are supposed to play to maximize their outcome > > Yes. They have two outcomes in the finals. > > 1) Come first. > 2) Come second. > Yes, this is an utter nonsense to me, given the fact that there are 5 positions in the finals (and overall X positions in the tournament, where X = number of players), so flatting the four last ones into the a "second" is just weird from a logical stand wievpoint. > This is not like the preliminary rounds where risky strategies have > massive downsides. If the risks you take to come first don't work, > you come second. Just like they would anyway. > I don't see what's the point with risk, honestly. Players should just get enough incentive in playin forward and, at same time, to *not* give up as soon as will be obvious for them that they can't win, and flattening the 2-3-4-5 placese IMHO just worsen the > If there is even the tiniest chance of winning, the player should play > for it in the final. What happens if it doesn't work? They come > second. Just like when they self oust. So clearly, playing for the > tiny chance is the maximized outcome. What's playing for "tiny chanche" ? Before, a player 2,3 or 4th place but in very bad shape and therefore in a *losing* position, could see a sense in striving to keep himself alive, just to keep his/her position, maybe with that little tiny chanche of maximizing it a step further (say, placing 3rd instead of 4th) - now the same player has no longer that incentive - a locked-up but lost position doesn't longer worth to be kept at this point. > >>> In the final, if you have *any* chance to come first, however tiny, >>> you play for it. What's the worst that can happen? You come >>> second. And if you're in a lost position, you come second anyway. >> >> This is pretty unaccurate, > > No it's not. Either you come first by shooting for a really stupid, > unlikely option or, worst case scenario, you come second. Just like > you would have done. You're not punished for trying to come first and > failing. You just come second. Just like before. But 5,4,3 seed (nor first, btw) were not second "just like before", by definition - And if seeds placement is still used as tie break, then the new "scoring" system seems even more pretty counter-intuitive as a whole to me. > If chance of winning = 1% and they play for it, 1% of the time they > win. If they self-oust, they come second. If they play for it and > don't win, they come second. > > Thus, by the laws of not being an idiot, playing for the 1% chance is > playing to win. It is the maximized outcome. > There are plenty of situations in which those chanche are 0% outright. As a note: we always referred to "reasonalbe expectations" to tell if a player can go for the win or not - shifting the argument to maths with % chanches consideration maybe could be a problem. >> Now that there's no outcome in final but first place (all the rest >> tie for second) , >> once a player will be in a lost position, > > A lost position here would be absolutely *zero* chance of anything. > *Very* few players end up in that situation Honestly, not in my experience: there are plenty of table lock-up situation in which a given player ends up with zero chanche of getting to victory. No ready minions, few pool, whatever. [ quoted text not captured ] IMHO there will be a notable amount of final rounds given up by players that at some point clearly can't try anymore to win the final table. Let's hope i'm wrong. E

> > Alex Ek schrieb: > > > > > LSJ skrev: > > >> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > > > >>http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules > > > > > Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two > > > cents. > > > ________________________________________________________ > > > > > * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. > > > > > I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I > > > think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the > > > finals special and also trickier to play. > > > > I think the change really propogates to go for the win instead of > > chickening for 2nd because of rating/prizes. I really like that. But as > > pointed out elsewhere there is now the problem of random kingmaking in > > case of a lost cause. > > > > I think we should make this change optional and let tournament > > organisators decide which one to use for a while. > > The thing that disappoints me most about this, is the old 2nd Place > winner who worked his ass off to get a VP to tie with 1st Place, but > now is forced to share his title with everyone else on the table who > didn't perform at all - including at least 2 other players who have > been ousted. > > I agree that tying for 2nd place should happen in the situation where > everyone is sitting on their hands and doing nothing, but there will > be many, many situations where people will feel hard-done by because > they worked to get a VP for nothing - and the difference between being > ousted and not ousted on the final table will mean nothing if you are > not first place. > > At least, the ousted players should be put in 3rd place. It may become > a nightmare to make sure players don't oust themselves by playing > badly (not self-oust) to make a friend win, because they will still be > second place anyway, regardless if they are in the game or not. A pair > of friends could take turns doing this at tournaments if they wanted > to. Yes, what about : 1st seed gets 90 pts 2nd seeds get 30 pts all ousted players are 3rd, 4rth or 5th seed (depending on how many they are : only one would be fifth, two would be 4th, 3 would be 3rd) and either a) get 10 pts each or b) 5th gets 5 pts, 4th gets 10, 3rd gets 20 ? There is the incentive to win, and there are incentives not to lose too ! -- Kolonel Vladimir Kuchmin, Rock 'n 'roll Manager.

On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 17:25:32 -0800 (PST), J <gra...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> I am violently opposed to cards that do not do what they say they do. >So when you see an Old Fame, or Anarch Revolt or whatever, you fly >into a rage ala The Hulk, throw your counters and decks around and >destroy the nearest city block? Yes. And then I go to Scott's house and torture cats outside all night long.

> Yes. > > And then I go to Scott's house and torture cats outside all night > long. Cool, if ever I manage to play in a game with you again, I'll make sure all my cards are old variants! :P [ quoted text not captured ]

The Lasombra wrote: > On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 14:25:44 -0800 (PST), nood...@iprimus.com.au > wrote: > >> In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would have >> preferred a nerf to MoM rather than it's utter destruction. > > I don't think this means what you think it means. > > I am violently opposed to cards that do not do what they say they do. > As am I. Except for the violently part. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> writes: > > There's your Sorrow Imbued Challenge deck #2 right there! > > Just posting an altered deck means exactly squat. Design it, build it, play > it, *win* with it. It is that last part which is key to the challenge. And > it should win against decks that are at least tier 1 or 2. This was your original challenge: >> EE was grossly overpowered. I'm glad to see it go. I'm also glad to >> see Imbued brought down to the same power level as other decks. > >Same power level? Hardly. How much experience have you with playing >Imbued? I have a lot. Without EE (giving convictions, not necessarily >allowing powers, although that too), Imbued are now hardly playable. Try it >yourself and see. I have already proven the imbued playable and powerful with deck #1. All the other players in my table agreed to that. In fact, I lost because my prey found me so scary he started throwing KRCs backwards. But never mind, I shall accept your modified challenge as well. If I keep playing that deck, it should only be a matter of time. HG -- hg@ "If you can't offend part of your audience, iki.fi there is no point in being an artist at all." -Hakim Bey

"Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> writes: > XZealot wrote: > > On Dec 4, 3:53 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: > >> XZealot wrote: > >>> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the > >>> removal of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? > >> > >> Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, > >> imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important > >> card for them > >> > > > > ....just like Return to Innocense was one of the most important cards > > in an Arika deck. Arika is far from wallpaper now. > > > Time will tell - but i'm pretty sure that under the 2008 banned cards imbued > decks > will vanish from competitive play. I'm wagering that the year 2008 will see at least one imbued deck hit the TWD archive. Shall we bet for something concrete, or just bragging rights? [ quoted text not captured ]

"Orpheus" <orphe...@DEADSPAMfree.fr> writes: > > >> Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued decks, > > >> imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most important > > >> card for them > > >> > > > > > > ....just like Return to Innocense was one of the most important cards > > > in an Arika deck. Arika is far from wallpaper now. > > > > > Time will tell - but i'm pretty sure that under the 2008 banned cards > imbued > > decks > > will vanish from competitive play. > > I'm ready to bet a PTO against an Edge Illusion on the opposite. We'll talk > again same date next year and see who gets a useless Power Rare ? ;-) Curses! You beat me to it. But oh, what a perfectly beautiful wager. :-) (I'm assuming you meant Edge Explosion, not Edged Illusion...) [ quoted text not captured ]

Howdy, > >>> In earlier games, you might choose to come a reasonable second > >>> instead of a risky first which will cause you to crash out if it > >>> goes wrong. So reasonable-ness comes into it. > > >> As much as reasoanble-ness comes into finals, where players > >> are supposed to play to maximize their outcome > > > Yes. They have two outcomes in the finals. > > > 1) Come first. > > 2) Come second. > > Yes, this is an utter nonsense to me, given the fact that there > are 5 positions in the finals (and overall X positions in the tournament, > where X = number of players), so flatting the four last ones into > the a "second" is just weird from a logical stand wievpoint. James has already done an admirable job of trying to explain the very straightforward mathematics of the risk analysis involved in the new finals scheme vs. the old; it's entirely unclear to me what part of his explanation you are missing, but still I'll try to add to it. The first time I had a multiple choice test in elementary school, I didn't answer some of the questions, because I didn't know the answer. When I showed the test to my father, he pointed out that this was not a good strategy - since there was no penalty for guessing, you should always pick some one of the choices, on the off chance that you get it right. (And if you can narrow down the choices, you increase your chances.) Not answering guarantees getting it wrong. So it will be with finals: you should never self-oust*, as you are guaranteeing that you will come in second, whereas if you stay in the game you will always have some chance, however small, of coming in first. *Unless you mathematically have 0% chance of winning, which is possible, as I demonstrated elsewhere in this thread. Possible, but presumably rare and unlikely. And even in the case I posited, the player with a 0% chance of winning still had influence over who won! Hope that helps, Alex

So just to get things clear on the second place rule. A -> B -> C -> D -> E Player B ousts player C earning him 1 VP Player A then takes the rest of the table earning him 4 VP Player A is off course declared winner of the tournament but player B isn't automatically declared second? Does player B still have to flip a coin and have a change to come out fifth? (Or third if after the coin flip, to decide second place, we will look at the tournament rating) This sounds odd, and I just hope I am wrong.

Orpheus wrote: >> Players must play to win. In the final, this means that if they have >> even the tiniest chance of winning, they play for it, because they >> *cannot* make their situation worse. Absolutely cannot. > > Ok. So let me tell you briefly about my finals in Turin last year. I was a > bleeder caught between two rushers (War Ghoul as pred, Shamblers as prey) > with another shambling and Johannes's Black Hand deck (with Ghouls). My > minions were all in torpor, I was all but screwed. Yet; we made an alliance > where my two allies rescued me, I was able to help ousting whoever was > needed, and I made second (lol). In the same situation, now, I'd be able to > deal nothing, no one would care if I died or killed anyone else, and I > certainly wouldn't want to give anyone a VP, and not care if I was the first > to go either. Lost for lost, it's lost, period. So what was a very > interesting and technical endgame would now be dull, waiting to get ousted, > I might as well self-oust and go have a drink with my friends. > > I understand and like the spirit of this new rule, but something isn't quite > right there (yet ?). no, that seems right to me. under the new rule, you could still help other people to get vps. so they might rescue you. you're happy for this, because while you offer to help them get vps, you might also be getting some. so you too have a chance for first. but if no one does help you, well, it seems reasonable to me that someone who'd been annihilated by his pred and prey should get ousted with nothing. then the pred is having a go for first, so the rest of the table plays out in a fun and interesting manner for all the methuselahs who hadn't been losing really badly up to that point. -- salem (replace 'hotmail' with 'yahoo' to email)

[ quoted text not captured ] Player A is declared the winner. B, C, D and E all come equal 2nd place. No one comes 3rd, 4th or 5th. B should have ousted more people if he wanted to do better than 2nd. [ quoted text not captured ]

[ quoted text not captured ] but now the person who was looking like getting 2nd place, say with 1vp, thinks getting more vps is risky, so they play very defensively to try and stay in and make sure they get that second place. the game is slower for their efforts. under our official 2008 rules, once they have that one vp, they need to keep running for more, unless they think they can stop everyone else from getting any... keeps the game moving forwards. hopefully towards a non-timeout result. [ quoted text not captured ]

Right, so only one winner and 4 other "losers". Now one more questions regarding price support. Winner takes it all? Or are we supposed to distribute the price support among all five players?

[ quoted text not captured ] Ok, so let's shift the definition to a "mathematical 0% chanche to win" instead of a "reasonable expectation to win" (as it has been until now). IMHO, there are plenty of would-be game situations in which a player will declare that he has 0% chanche to win (=place first) left, and if the judge agrees with him on that 0%, then that player will have no other motivation (placement maximization options) to *not* self-oust himself. E

[ quoted text not captured ] I would suppose that the distribution of the prizes is decided by the tournament organizer(s), as before. It could be winner-takes-all, it could be equals prizes for all 5 finalists (disregarding who won), it could be a big prize for the winner and smaller ones for the other 4, or whatever. //Petri

>> Just posting an altered deck means exactly squat. Design it, build it, >> play >> it, *win* with it. It is that last part which is key to the challenge. >> And >> it should win against decks that are at least tier 1 or 2. > This was your original challenge: I think you need to go re-read my original challenge. "Then I challenge you (and/or any other player who shares this view) to build a viable Imbued deck (_*that actually uses imbued tech*_) that doesn't use EE" I see what? 7 powers in your deck? That's like building a latest gen Assamite S&B deck, throwing 7 qui combat cards in and saying "Hey, look at me, I've actually built an Assamite combat deck that works!". > I have already proven the imbued playable and powerful with deck #1. See above. > All the other players in my table agreed to that. In fact, I lost because > my prey > found me so scary he started throwing KRCs backwards. Almost counts only in horseshoes, grenade tosses and sh!t fights. > But never mind, I shall accept your modified challenge as well. If I keep > playing that deck, it should only be a matter of time. "Modified challenge"? Huh? Methinks you need to go back and actually *read* my original post. Sorrow

<nood...@iprimus.com.au> wrote in message news:eda78fff-57fa-4669...@s36g2000prg.googlegroups.com... > > Banning cards. > > The lazy man's way of fixing cards. But maybe the better way nonetheless - as opposed to having cards in the game which don't do what's printed on the card. Bleh. I'm not all that opinionated. Just couldn't resist playing devil's advocate. It may be that two expansions from now, PTO will get resurrected in some reprint form with more restrictions or something. Fred

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:2Y2dnaEpCfNygsja...@comcast.com... > There goes the competitiveness of the Imbued. I could care less about MoM but EE? Those surprise changes are always interesting to speculate about. How about: a lot of work got put into the design of the different Imbued creeds and virtues and Edge Explosion was muddying that all up. So if Imbued are seen as needing to be reduced in power, why not do it in a way that will tend to make the various types of Imbued decks take up more personality? Fred

"Janne Hägglund" wrote: > "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> writes: > >> XZealot wrote: >>> On Dec 4, 3:53 am, "Tetragrammaton" <nos...@none.com> wrote: >>>> XZealot wrote: > >>>>> Do you really think that the Imbued set is so shallow that the >>>>> removal of this two cards eliminates them from competitive play? >>>> >>>> Yes - time will tell, sure, but having played a lot of imbued >>>> decks, imho it's granted the edge explosion was one of the most >>>> important card for them >>>> >>> >>> ....just like Return to Innocense was one of the most important >>> cards in an Arika deck. Arika is far from wallpaper now. >>> >> Time will tell - but i'm pretty sure that under the 2008 banned >> cards imbued decks >> will vanish from competitive play. > > > I'm wagering that the year 2008 will see at least one imbued deck hit > the TWD archive. > > Shall we bet for something concrete, or just bragging rights? > An imbued crypt set ? ;-)

>> There goes the competitiveness of the Imbued. I could care less about >> MoM but EE? > Those surprise changes are always interesting to speculate about. How > about: > a lot of work got put into the design of the different Imbued creeds and > virtues and Edge Explosion was muddying that all up. So if Imbued are > seen > as needing to be reduced in power, why not do it in a way that will tend > to > make the various types of Imbued decks take up more personality? Fine. Then do it in such a way that doesn't hamstring Imbued decks. I'm not as upset about losing the ability for an imbued to play powers for which he doesn't have a virtue but more upset about losing the ability to gain convictions. Sorrow

"Rhavas" <Anthony...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:b07cb3b7-b178-4f1a...@b40g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > The banning of cards is crap. Can I send these cards into WW in > exchange for alternate cards from the set they came from? Sure, I can > use them in friendly games, but not in anything sanctioned by WW. So, > they sold me a product, then changed their mind on it's usability. > Maybe in the future they will reprint similar cards that aren't > banned, wow, how convenient. > > There were much better alternatives than making these cards useless > pieces of cardboard. Decisions about errata and banning MUST be made. Failing to do so would allow a few mistake cards to marginalize all the worthwhile balance designed into the game. Dude, your PTO card - and all the rest of them - were only ever worth buying in the first place because someone banned Return To Innocence and nerfed Tomb of Ramses III a long time ago. I'm not saying I know these decisions were the right ones. But someone has to make the hard decisions like this. Other someones will not agree with them or like them but tough. Until you can suggest a better system for doing this, I think we need to stick with this one. Fred

"Sorrow" <jcb...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:2Y2dnaApCfNtgsja...@comcast.com... > Now, the imbued are nigh unplayable. Thank you. That statement - right there...you have OFFICIALLY boggled my mind.

"Johannes Walch" <johanne...@vekn.de> wrote in message news:fj3gns$u70$2...@news01.versatel.de... > Emiliano Imeroni schrieb: >> On a separate issue, will the rating points be retroactively modified >> to reflect the new rule on tied finalists? > > Certainly not since the rules are in effect 01 Jan 2008. So points are just calculated differently *from there on*. A point you > have allready acquired is still a point, though ;-) I think second through fifth places should be awarded the square root of negative two, three, four, and five points respectively. Use of imaginary numbers in the ratings system would be spectacularly appropriate. Fred

"Petri Wessman" <or...@orava.org> wrote in message news:05119d16-7d9c-4163...@t47g2000hsc.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 4, 12:07 pm, "Sorrow" <jcbo...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> People complain about how slow imbued are now. > > People complain about how *slow* the Imbued are? *boggle* > > You must be playing VTES in some alternate bizarre version of reality. > I've heard a lot of complaints about the Imbued, but "slow" is not on > that list... Huh?!? Five million permanents on the table? Not everyone who plays them is slow but yea, 'slow' would definitely make the list of things not to like about Imbued! I'm not sure why you don't see it. Fred

> I see what? 7 powers in your deck? That's like building a latest gen > Assamite S&B deck, throwing 7 qui combat cards in and saying "Hey, look at > me, I've actually built an Assamite combat deck that works!". Powers alone don't an Imbued deck make, likewise their absence doesn't mean it isn't an Imbued deck. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 5, 11:23 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "Petri Wessman" <or...@orava.org> wrote in messagenews:05119d16-7d9c-4163...@t47g2000hsc.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Umm, I think we're using different versions of the word "slow" here. I assumed Sorrow was talking about "slow" as in "slow to buildup", in the "power gained per turn of play" sense... and there I really don't see Imbued as "slow", in fact I usually see them tooling up very very fast compared to most decks. I think you're talking about "slow" as in "taking a lot of actual time to complete each turn", with which I agree. A lot of permanent effects does tend to equal slow turns, unless the player is very experienced with playing Imbued. //Petri

LSJ schrieb: >> Let愀 assume the not-so-unrealistic situation where a player has no >> ready minions but a Pentex Subversion in this hand and everybody is on >> low pool (I have been in that situation in a final at least once). >> Where does he put the Pentex? On his predator not allowing to oust him >> or on his prey not allowing to oust the predator? > > Who cares? He's all but dead. This is not a falling-sky example. I would say the player getting hit with the Pentex would care ;-) >> He can basically decide who will win and I don愒 know what I have to >> tell him to do when I were the judge. What would be your judgement in >> the situation? > > That it doesn't matter and the sky is not falling. Of course not. I agree with you that kingmaking is now lessened because there can be no in-game reward for it. I just wanted to contradict your "As pointed out elsewhere, there is now none of that." (referring to my theory about kingmaking). It will be less, still it can be done for out-of-game reasons (or by making a random decision). -- Johannes Walch

> It will be less, still it can be done for > out-of-game reasons (or by making a random decision). Or spite, don't forget spite - a powerful force that is. [ quoted text not captured ]

"LSJ" <vte...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message de news:4754AC77...@white-wolf.com... > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules The change related to finals is nice. Kingmaking will still be an issue, but I guess it's impossible to avoid in a 5-player game. Congrats for that, we'll hopefully no longer see those tedious and boring finals. The bans are just bad news. Not that I care about such card being banned, it's just that change happened because of a crowd that chose whining instead of thinking about adapting their deckbuilding and play styles. It's sooo easy to whine over PtO/EE/MoM rather than plan for slots dedicated to vote defense, negotiating cross-table rescues from torpor to get rid of a Memories, etc. The last ban was for Succubus Club, Kindred Restructure and Dramatic Upheaval. It was good, because those cards altered the game dynamics in a very significant manner, and I guess it also had to do with the EC in Heidelberg. There were good reasons to ban those cards. Now, we see that few reasons are needed to get some cards banned-just whine every once in a while and Santa Claus will reward you. The switching-seats votes were banned to make VtES a different game focusing on prey/pred relationship, the SC was banned because of the abuses when VP deals were involved, now this ? Ban some cards because some people are just too lazy to think about vote defense or because they're still in the "boo, I won't even read those Imbued rules, too many things to understand and learn" phase ? A shame, really. Stone

Stone wrote: > it's just that change happened because of a crowd that chose whining instead > of thinking about adapting their deckbuilding and play styles. Patently false.

On Dec 3, 7:25 pm, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules So will there be a new Archon forthcoming in the next 26 days that will reflect the new distribution of RPs? John P. Winnipeg

[ quoted text not captured ] Maybe, but moot. The Archon has never been used to calculate RPs.

Oko wrote: > On 4 joulu, 13:25, Alex Ek <a...@student.chalmers.se> wrote: >> LSJ skrev: >> >>> The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: >>> http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules >> Lots of praise in this thread. I'm not convinced though. Here's my two >> cents. >> ________________________________________________________ >> >> * 3.7.5 All non-winning finalists tie for 2nd place. >> >> I don't get this. Ofcourse ptw should be enforced in the finals but I >> think the different standings was good fun. Something that made the >> finals special and also trickier to play. >> > > 2nd to 100th place is for losers. 101, you get a pony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-prMb6BdNs best - chris -- Super Fun Cards http://stores.ebay.com/superfuncards/ auct...@superfuncards.com

"Petri Wessman" <or...@orava.org> wrote in message news:960e8b33-72d4-42fa...@j20g2000hsi.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 5, 11:23 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> "Petri Wessman" <or...@orava.org> wrote in messagenews:05119d16-7d9c-4163...@t47g2000hsc.googlegroups.com... >> > On Dec 4, 12:07 pm, "Sorrow" <jcbo...@yahoo.com> wrote: >> >> People complain about how slow imbued are now. >> >> > People complain about how *slow* the Imbued are? *boggle* >> >> > You must be playing VTES in some alternate bizarre version of reality. >> > I've heard a lot of complaints about the Imbued, but "slow" is not on >> > that list... >> >> Huh?!? Five million permanents on the table? Not everyone who plays >> them is slow but yea, 'slow' would definitely make the list of things >> not to like about Imbued! I'm not sure why you don't see it. > > Umm, I think we're using different versions of the word "slow" here. I > assumed Sorrow was talking about "slow" as in "slow to buildup", in > the "power gained per turn of play" sense... > > I think you're talking about "slow" as in "taking a lot of actual time > to complete each turn", with which I agree. You're right. I missed the nuance. Plus I didn't get that Sorrow was really concerned that Imbued were underpowered after the changes until reading through the thread a lot more. Fred

"Stone" <mc_judg...@yahoo.fr> wrote in message news:fj659r$1kbb$1...@io.uvsq.fr... > The switching-seats votes were banned to make VtES a different game focusing > on prey/pred relationship, the SC was banned because of the abuses when VP > deals were involved, now this ? Ban some cards because some people are just > too lazy to think about vote defense or because they're still in the "boo, I > won't even read those Imbued rules, too many things to understand and learn" > phase ? > A shame, really. Damn! You've penetrated my little game. I admit it: all those huge threads about how overpowered the Imbued are - they were all just me in my different Usenet personalities. At the height of my charade, I was generating over 200 posts a day. 'Cause it was EASIER than reading the rules about Imbued!!! Fred

LSJ schrieb: [ quoted text not captured ] Perhaps. The problem is, how can he know? You are not a man of many words and prefer to post new facts as short as possible without any hint to the reasoning behind the changes. No wonder people have their own assumptions. I think a little introduction to such changes could go a long way of not-frustrating some of the players. -- Johannes Walch

Johannes Walch wrote: > LSJ schrieb: >> Stone wrote: >>> it's just that change happened because of a crowd that chose whining >>> instead >>> of thinking about adapting their deckbuilding and play styles. >> >> Patently false. > > Perhaps. > > The problem is, how can he know? Well, for starters, he can read the above "false" declaration. > You are not a man of many words and > prefer to post new facts as short as possible without any hint to the > reasoning behind the changes. No wonder people have their own assumptions. There is plenty of evidence on this group and elsewhere that changes do not come about by mob rule. > I think a little introduction to such changes could go a long way of > not-frustrating some of the players. Perhaps. Or perhaps the discussions that occur in public serve as introductions.

LSJ schrieb: > Or perhaps the discussions that occur in public serve as introductions. I think the newsgroup, ww forum and IRC is a more closed user group than you imagine. For you english speakers it is quite easy, since that is your only public forum. But the europeans have to follow several local forums as well as the newsgroup so they can´t read/comment everything to the extent the native speakers can (also assuming that they have a harder time phrasing their thoughts). Further I think it is not very player-friendly to have to dig up the reasons and motivations in 300 post threads that consist a lot of trash talking and plain whining and flaming. -- Johannes Walch

[ quoted text not captured ] An Imbued can still gain one Conviction per turn. But now they might actually use them to power cards instead of having tons of free stealth and plus bleed. Also now we might actually see it happen than an Imbued gets stolen by an Entrancement. -- Johannes Walch

In article <fj659r$1kbb$1...@io.uvsq.fr>, "Stone" <mc_judg...@yahoo.fr> wrote: > The bans are just bad news. Not that I care about such card being banned, > it's just that change happened because of a crowd that chose whining instead > of thinking about adapting their deckbuilding and play styles. Yes. That's right. The endless, endless discussion about, say, PTO, being overpowered and negatively impacting play by countless intelligent, good players (and mind you, I'm not counting myself in there...) for years and years was the result of folks not thinking about adapting their deckbuilding and play styles. Yep. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "Find hungry samurai." -The Old Man

On Dec 5, 4:10 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote: > Sorrow wrote: > >>> There goes the competitiveness of the Imbued. I could care less about > >>> MoM but EE? > >> Those surprise changes are always interesting to speculate about. How > >> about: > >> a lot of work got put into the design of the different Imbued creeds and > >> virtues and Edge Explosion was muddying that all up. So if Imbued are > >> seen > >> as needing to be reduced in power, why not do it in a way that will tend > >> to > >> make the various types of Imbued decks take up more personality? > > > Fine. Then do it in such a way that doesn't hamstring Imbued decks. I'm > > not as upset about losing the ability for an imbued to play powers for which > > he doesn't have a virtue but more upset about losing the ability to gain > > convictions. > > An Imbued can still gain one Conviction per turn. > > But now they might actually use them to power cards instead of having > tons of free stealth and plus bleed. Unlikely. Cards that cost conviction were mostly not worth it when I was swimming in conviction thanks to Edge Explosion. Now they're even less worth it. Meanwhile, stealth and +bleed continue to be game-winning effects. > Also now we might actually see it happen than an Imbued gets stolen by > an Entrancement. More likely, we'll see imbued decks played more defensively so that this doesn't happen.

"Stone" <mc_judg...@yahoo.fr> wrote in news:fj659r$1kbb$1...@io.uvsq.fr: > The last ban was for Succubus Club, Kindred Restructure and Dramatic > Upheaval. It was good, because those cards altered the game dynamics > in a very significant manner, and I guess it also had to do with the > EC in Heidelberg. There were good reasons to ban those cards. Now, we > see that few reasons are needed to get some cards banned-just whine > every once in a while and Santa Claus will reward you. > The switching-seats votes were banned to make VtES a different game > focusing on prey/pred relationship, the SC was banned because of the > abuses when VP deals were involved, now this ? Ban some cards because > some people are just too lazy to think about vote defense or because > they're still in the "boo, I won't even read those Imbued rules, too > many things to understand and learn" phase ? > A shame, really. > Stone I think the real irony in this post was that, ultimately, the Succubus Club ban was done due to the input on its impact upon play within a relatively small region of the EU, and here you express appreciation for the reasons for its banning because you apparently saw its effect first-hand. Even within regions where SC wasn't a problem (most ofthe US), players could appreciate the reasons why ic could become a problem, and generally supported the ban. Then, in the very next sentence, you warp the _exact same circumstance_ for a card (PTO) that was a persistent problem within a different part of the world, and call the banning a consequence of 'whining'. Irony, much? Pull the blinders off, Stone, and try to see the arguments from the perspective of those who expressed some good reasons for a change, and were actively trying to cope with the problem in real game play. After all, we were able to do it for you with your SC "problem"... Your group (even the whole of the EU) isn't the be-all, end-all of VTES, and there's a good chance that someone elsewhere in the world _might_ just also know what they're talking about, even if it wasn't a prevalent issue in your area. DaveZ (but hey, LSJ can make a Stone weep... ;-)

On Dec 4, 1:25 am, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Imbued decks die and so has the Inner Circles ones... The first because they won too much and gave too little chance for interesting decks, and the second because many people wanted to have lots of PTO but never got that possibility and made a lot of noise here. Game environnment gets more balanced. Ditto.

On 6 Dez., 14:51, atomweaver <atomwea...@hotmail.com> wrote: > [...] > (but hey, LSJ can make a Stone weep... ;-) Hence the name of the card "Weeping Stone" ... now all you need is an Assamite to destroy it. Regards, Ralf =================== http://extrala.blogspot.com

On Dec 5, 3:09 am, PaulWigg...@gmail.com wrote: > Right, so only one winner and 4 other "losers". Now one more questions > regarding price support. Winner takes it all? Or are we supposed to > distribute the price support among all five players? There is nothing in these additions to the tournament rules about prize support. The tournament organizer can distribute it as he sees fit. Give it all to the winner. Give most of it to the winner, and then something to each of the finalists. Give it all to the guy who came in last place or was wearing the funniest shirt. Whatever. The new tournament rules have no impact at all on prize support. -Peter

On 5 Dez., 13:30, "Stone" <mc_judge_st...@yahoo.fr> wrote: > "LSJ" <vtes...@white-wolf.com> a écrit dans le message denews:4754AC77...@white-wolf.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Thank you, Stone. That kind of post I intended to write. But I did so many times before and am thankful, that you did ;o).

On Dec 4, 5:25 pm, noodle...@iprimus.com.au wrote: > In fact, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who would have > preferred a nerf to MoM rather than it's utter destruction. There have > been dozens of very feasible fixes to MoM posted here over the last > few months. I've publicly called for its banning for years. I guess it's all in the mileage, but I have much more personal experience with old-time players getting the itch again and getting pissed off that cards don't do what they say they did, whereas "these 5 (8) cards are banned" didn't rate a blink. -- David Cherryholmes

In message <56f96612-9d95-4b7a...@l16g2000hsf.googlegroup s.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >There is nothing in these additions to the tournament rules about >prize support. The tournament organizer can distribute it as he sees >fit. Give it all to the winner. Give most of it to the winner, and >then something to each of the finalists. Give it all to the guy who >came in last place or was wearing the funniest shirt. Whatever. The >new tournament rules have no impact at all on prize support. In practice, however, it would likely be counter-productive to do anything but treat all four non-winners identically, as that would re- institute the differential "non-winning" status that the rules change prevents. (Obviously, if you're also running a "Funniest Deck" or "Most Creative Use of Talbot's Chainsaw" prize on the day too, there's no problem with that being awarded to one of the non-winners.) -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

On Dec 5, 3:49 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > So if Imbued are seen > as needing to be reduced in power, why not do it in a way that will tend to > make the various types of Imbued decks take up more personality? I've been mulling this over, and at the risk of getting into a huge argument (again), I just don't get this line of reasoning. I could understand it if there were as many cards available to each virtue and creed as there are to each discipline and clan, even bloodlines disciplines and clans. The reality is that there aren't, though, so I'm not sure how being mono- or dual-virtue or -creed is going to give an imbued deck more personality than a deck with more options available to it. How many different decks can you make if you can only use half a dozen different cards in each one? I'm not hugely sad to see EE banned, honestly, but I don't understand the argument (raised here and elsewhere in this thread) that banning a card which allows you to play a bigger variety of other cards is somehow going to increase the variety of cards played, rather than reduce it, given that the available card pool for virtues and creeds is so tiny. John Eno

"Kushiel" <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:4e3b0b33-188d-47f3...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 5, 3:49 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> So if Imbued are seen >> as needing to be reduced in power, why not do it in a way that will tend to >> make the various types of Imbued decks take up more personality? > > I've been mulling this over, and at the risk of getting into a huge > argument (again), I just don't get this line of reasoning. > > I could understand it if there were as many cards available to each > virtue and creed as there are to each discipline and clan, even > bloodlines disciplines and clans. The reality is that there aren't, > though, so I'm not sure how being mono- or dual-virtue or -creed is > going to give an imbued deck more personality than a deck with more > options available to it. How many different decks can you make if you > can only use half a dozen different cards in each one? Now, you're confusing me, in turn. I'm guessing the disconnect is semantic: either a difference in what each of means by "personality" or perhaps that I'm talking about deck archetypes (in truth) where you're talking the personality of each player's individual implementation of an Imbued deck. Take Champion, for example. It is a power card requiring the virtue of Defense. Under the current rules, which allow Edge Explosion, Champion can potentially be played on any Imbued. And since almost all Imbued decks will include an Edge Explosion, chances are that decks using Champion will use a number of Imbued who do not have defense, selected for their individual power (card text, such as Jennifer Orne's critical change to the rules applying to Imbued leaving the incapacitated region) or higher degree of conformance to a more critical/immediately needed virtue in the deck. Arbitrary combinations of cards requiring various virtues are much easier. Since such arbitrary combinations of virtues are much more possible given the use of Edge Explosion, it's true that individual decks will tend to have much more "personality". But the massed effect of not requiring players to make hard decisions such as the need to choose more Imbued for their possession of the Defense virtue is to muddy the whole field of Imbued decks. That is, there aren't distinct *types* of decks which emerge based on things like a dearth of good Imbued which contain two particular virtues that players might otherwise like to combine. Jennifer Orne may not be in every Imbued deck because some players, trying to do some very distinct thing with virtues, will find there's no room for her in their crypt. This, hopefully, will give rise to more distinctly discernable Imbued deck archetypes. > I'm not hugely sad to see EE banned, honestly, but I don't understand > the argument (raised here and elsewhere in this thread) that banning a > card which allows you to play a bigger variety of other cards is > somehow going to increase the variety of cards played, I didn't say it was going to increase the variety of cards played. If a deck or deck type were so powerful that people felt they had to play them to be competitive, that might decrease the variety of cards played since it would decrease the variety in viable decks. In that sense, Edge Explosion might increase the variety in cards played because people will feel freer to play something else besides Imbued, animalism intercept/combat, and the few other things that have a reasonable chance at ousting Imbued decks. But that's a whole other argument and I wasn't talking about it. I actually just said it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and classifiable due to having to specialize more. Fred

On Dec 6, 3:51 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Now, you're confusing me, in turn. I'm guessing the disconnect is > semantic: either a difference in what each of means by "personality" > or perhaps that I'm talking about deck archetypes (in truth) where > you're talking the personality of each player's individual implementation > of an Imbued deck. No, I meant deck types. [snip your argument] I apparently did understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's true. Banning EE isn't going to give us a greater variety of imbued decks, because it's not really possible to build, say, a mono-Vengeance deck that's substantially different from a mono-Vision deck. There just aren't enough cards available to each virtue to make a huge difference possible (even setting aside the issue of the many imbued cards which just aren't worth playing, which is a very real issue). What we'll get instead is imbued decks which are mostly the same as each other but with a few variations based on available virtues. As a thought experiment, consider four hypothetical vampire clans which each only have access to eight different discipline cards. How different are monoclan decks based around those clans going to be from each other? Not very, since the bulk of their library will be based mainly on disciplineless cards, which have the same availability to all those clans. > I didn't say it was going to increase the variety of cards played. Yeah, I misspoke there. That wasn't exactly what I meant either. > I actually just said > it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant > one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and > classifiable due to having to specialize more. I think we're going to see imbued decks based even more around the specials on the crypt cards than we used to, which will lead to even more homogeneity among imbued decks. I'd be very happy to be proven wrong about this, and even happier if more imbued cards were printed (which would lead to less of that homogeneity). John Eno

On Dec 6, 3:51 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "Kushiel" <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote in message [ quoted text not captured ] I suspect that Jennie Orne will still be in every imbued deck that expects to face any kind of serious combat. She's a 5-pool cost drain that's pretty much always going to get paid, even if you aren't using any of her virtues, because otherwise the cost of leaving incap is too harsh. Likewise Travis starts turning a pool profit on his third action, so he's likely to see play in any deck that can protect him. > > I'm not hugely sad to see EE banned, honestly, but I don't understand > > the argument (raised here and elsewhere in this thread) that banning a > > card which allows you to play a bigger variety of other cards is > > somehow going to increase the variety of cards played, > > I didn't say it was going to increase the variety of cards played. > If a deck or deck type were so powerful that people felt they had > to play them to be competitive, that might decrease the variety > of cards played since it would decrease the variety in viable decks. > In that sense, Edge Explosion might increase the variety in cards > played because people will feel freer to play something else besides > Imbued, animalism intercept/combat, and the few other things that > have a reasonable chance at ousting Imbued decks. But that's a whole > other argument and I wasn't talking about it. I actually just said > it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant > one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and > classifiable due to having to specialize more. A bit, perhaps, but not a lot (unless we see more cards for the imbued): No more than 2 imbued share any pair of virtues. No single virtue has more than 4 cards. None of those cards besides Vigilance is worth basing a deck around (Donate was, when you could use EE to fuel the conviction cost - now it needs more crypt options to even be worth considering, and maybe not even then). I guess Abjure's probably worth looking into as well. So we'll still see enough Darby Dance decks around, I'm betting. And "powerless" decks will work much as they did before. And a bunch of "fun" decks that aren't likely to make it terribly far. Not seeing how it will make for much more variety than there was before. -witness1

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in news:H4F+ 05tGJF...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk: > In message <56f96612-9d95-4b7a...@l16g2000hsf.googlegroup > s.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >>There is nothing in these additions to the tournament rules about >>prize support. The tournament organizer can distribute it as he sees >>fit. Give it all to the winner. Give most of it to the winner, and >>then something to each of the finalists. Give it all to the guy who >>came in last place or was wearing the funniest shirt. Whatever. The >>new tournament rules have no impact at all on prize support. > > In practice, however, it would likely be counter-productive to do > anything but treat all four non-winners identically, as that would re- > institute the differential "non-winning" status that the rules change > prevents. > Or, have prize distribution follow the goals of the game. Leave unique prizes to the winner, allocate prizes which are allocate-able by victory points, have a token gift for each finalist. Example, you're at a big regional tournament. The total prizes are a piece of artwork and 50 boosters, four art prints, and the usual bevvy of promo cards Each finalist gets a print, 5 boosters and extra promos. Each VP is awarded with 5 boosters The winner gets and the original artwork (and presumably the lion's share of the boosters; normally 15-25 of them, in addition to his original 5). A player who gets VPs without the win gets something more in terms of prizes than the rest. Adjust to taste... DZ AW

On Dec 4, 7:59 pm, librarian <aucti...@superfuncards.com> wrote: > The only other ccg to be as player friendly from a business standpoint > is Shadowfist, and they seem pretty defunct at this point. Sorry for the detour, but Shadowfist is not at all defunct! The most recent expansion, Critical Shift, was released this past August, and the next set, Empire of Evil, is due in '08. Please visit www.shadowfist.com to learn more about the best multiplayer CCG that's not VTES. And now back to VTES, ~ Aby

[ quoted text not captured ] I stand corrected. Thanks Aby. And one note in 'Fist's favor is that it plays quite well as a duel too (IIRC). [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 4, 8:50 pm, "Orpheus" <orpheus...@DEADSPAMfree.fr> wrote: > Valar morghulis, Nice. -- David Cherryholmes

On Dec 6, 2:49 pm, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In practice, however, it would likely be counter-productive to do > anything but treat all four non-winners identically, as that would re- > institute the differential "non-winning" status that the rules change > prevents. Oh, I totally agree. I was simply pointing out that the new tournament rules had no stipulations as to how prizes are handed out. And the person I was responding to seemed to think that they did. -Peter

In message <Xns99FEAC5E38...@207.115.33.102>, atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes: >Each VP is awarded with 5 boosters >The winner gets and the original artwork (and presumably the lion's share >of the boosters; normally 15-25 of them, in addition to his original 5). A >player who gets VPs without the win gets something more in terms of prizes >than the rest. This re-institutes playing for a poor second place in order to get a cut of the boosters by, effectively, instituting prize-splitting (now banned) automatically at the rules level. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 4 Dec, 02:25, LSJ <vtes...@white-wolf.com> wrote: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules PTO: Yay! Gangrels, Enkidu, Saulot, you can come out again! Edge Explosion: Probably necessary. I sure won't miss it. Memories of Mortality: I have to join the errata club for this one, but done is done. No price splitting: Great. Play the game is the shit. Overall, nice rules changes.

"Kushiel" <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:a46ff6d6-8cb0-4957...@d27g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 6, 3:51 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Banning EE isn't going to give us a greater variety of imbued decks, > because it's not really possible to build, say, a mono-Vengeance deck > that's substantially different from a mono-Vision deck. There just > aren't enough cards available to each virtue to make a huge difference > possible (even setting aside the issue of the many imbued cards which > just aren't worth playing, which is a very real issue). Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. As long as there are different & useful cards available, that will create the increased distinctness in different kinds of Imbued decks. Again, returning to the example of Champions. In 2008, you'll be much less able to just throw some Champions into any 'ol Imbued deck as is generally done now and expect Edge Explosion to cover you even if you chose few Imbued with Defense. You'll have to think about which Imbued you use in your crypt and how many Champions that crypt can support. If you find you can't support many or even any Champions, you'll have to look at how the relative lessening of your defensive capabilities might need to be covered. By throwing in more reaction cards? More bloat to cover the pool you expect to lose because you're blocking fewer bleeds? Whatever it is, it will become distinctly associated with the type of deck you're building. The days of having so many ways to cover everything with precisely the Imbued you want in your deck are gone. Options are narrowed and deckbuilders will have to rely more on disciplined choices, which in turn will create distinct definition in terms of cards and crypt members chosen for separate types of Imbued decks. I'm not sure why you think it takes a lot card types for a given virtue to create that distinction. It doesn't take a lot of different Thaumaturgy cards to create a Cryptic Mission deck and it's one of the most distinctive decks out there. > What we'll get > instead is imbued decks which are mostly the same as each other but > with a few variations based on available virtues. It sounds like you anticipate Imbued decks powered almost completely through use of their conviction cards using the conviction card text functions and non-Imbued decks and not using their power cards hardly at all. Maybe, but I doubt it. Power cards are just too powerful to ignore just because you won't have the opportunity to put any power card you want on any Imbued you want. I think Power cards will still make up the core of most Imbued decks and the virtue specialization that will now be forced on Imbued players will insure distinctiveness. > As a thought experiment, consider four hypothetical vampire clans > which each only have access to eight different discipline cards. How > different are monoclan decks based around those clans going to be from > each other? Not very, since the bulk of their library will be based > mainly on disciplineless cards, which have the same availability to > all those clans. Here again, your proximate conclusion about the predominance of disciplineless cards is not the one I'd come to, hence I don't come to the same final conclusion. I think the monoclan decks would be quite different from one another - but it depends on which discipline cards the various clans were left with. If they were relatively narrow and/or ineffective cards, you'd be right. I don't think Imbued power cards are either. >> I actually just said >> it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant >> one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and >> classifiable due to having to specialize more. > > I think we're going to see imbued decks based even more around the > specials on the crypt cards than we used to, which will lead to even > more homogeneity among imbued decks. I'd be very happy to be proven > wrong about this, and even happier if more imbued cards were printed > (which would lead to less of that homogeneity). I think if you get proven right about the former, the latter may well happen. If that proves to be the case, although I'd be sorry that Imbued would have to suffer a kind of interregnum of boring ineffectiveness and irrelevance before being made interesting again, I still think it's better than the existing state of affairs. And it would allow the designers to put more thought into what role Imbued should actually play in this game with the hindsight of some real experience. I might even come to enjoy their contribution to the game some day. Fred

"witness1" <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:8a6f9447-eb1d-44e4...@a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > I suspect that Jennie Orne will still be in every imbued deck that > expects to face any kind of serious combat. She's a 5-pool cost drain > that's pretty much always going to get paid, even if you aren't using > any of her virtues, because otherwise the cost of leaving incap is too > harsh. True enough. Although there are other ways to experience increased specialization than completely ditching a specialist like Jennie - e.g. not adding as many copies of her to the crypt now that it becomes more crucial to draw crypt members who contain the virtues you're trying to use. Change happens around the margins as well as in the heart of a deck. >> I actually just said >> it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant >> one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and >> classifiable due to having to specialize more. > > A bit, perhaps, but not a lot (unless we see more cards for the > imbued): No more than 2 imbued share any pair of virtues. That just means the individual Imbued have to specialize to some extent (some are there for defense, some for bloat, some for other things, etc.) and aren't the multifunction things they are now - once EE gets on the board. And you maybe look for three or four virtues to use and the Imbued which can supply two of them become mainstays of your crypt. You look to depend more on non-Imbued cards which provide useful interactions with the virtue-based cards and which cover for the virtues you no longer have access to. I would think it would be more than "a bit". > No single virtue has more than 4 cards. I don't think that disproves what I'm saying. I agree, a wider range of virtue cards would make it more possible but it's not necessary. > None of those cards besides Vigilance is worth basing a deck > around (Donate was, when you could use EE to fuel the conviction > cost - now it needs more crypt options to even be worth > considering, and maybe not even then). I guess Abjure's probably worth > looking into as well. > > So we'll still see enough Darby Dance decks around, I'm betting. And > "powerless" decks will work much as they did before. And a bunch of > "fun" decks that aren't likely to make it terribly far. I'm actually wondering what players will come up with they're forced to look a lot harder. Before, it wasn't very hard to create something effective so I imagine players poured a little of this and a little of that to taste, depending on their playstyle. Now that it's going to be a lot harder to cover all the bases, deckbuilders will be forced to become innovative. Of course, "fun decks" are what you get when people searching for answers just aren't finding them, either because they haven't looked hard enough for the answers or the answers just aren't out there (could be either thing). You may be right in the end - in which case one would expect stuff to eventually get re-added back in, perhaps the reappearance of scaled back Edge Explosion, MoM, or perhaps new cards or who knows? But I wouldn't be surprised if you were wrong. Fred

This is an amalgam of responses to Fred's last 2 posts, so continuity is not present, just pulled short bits that I felt a need to respond to. It's long, and editing is totally optional. Sorry for any unremoved bunk. On Dec 7, 2:11 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. > As long as there are different & useful cards available, that will > create the increased distinctness in different kinds of Imbued decks. > Because...lots of different cards available increases the variety of deck types that can be built? Which is what it sounds like you like to happen. How can you want a variety of decks, but wave away the problem that...whoops! not to many cards to work from in the first place? My money is on the EE ban not increasing distinctiveness of imbued decks, because frankly I can't name a lot of the other supposedly wonderful Virtue-requiring imbued cards. The Good Stuff: Vigilance Determine Inspire Donate (Enough Martydom dudes cost 6, one's Shaka, damn. Travis has better things to be doing...damn. Maybe not.) That's four...maybe 5 or 6 if you want to include Champion and ...Rejuvinate? Out of ~28 Virtue-requiring cards? Meh, not a great ratio to me. > > No single virtue has more than 4 cards. > > I don't think that disproves what I'm saying. I agree, a wider > range of virtue cards would make it more possible but it's not > necessary. > I think if all those 4 virtue cards per virtue were worth playing, then you may have something. Otherwise I find your bizarre juxtaposition of wanting variety but refusing to acknowledge that the pool of viable, variety creating cards is really very shallow a bit jarring. I'm sorry Fred, it doesn't make much sense to me at all. People need lots of *Good* options to make decks that are functional and have a decent chance of success (It's no fun to lose all the time!). They don't have any less (or more) options of worthwhile cards of Virtue-needing variety (Because EE didn't stop people from thinking Smite was icky). They have less options only in their selection of Imbued to put in their crypt. Virtue requiring cards do the same things they did before. The ones that suck, still suck. The ones that are good, still good. I can think of 1 example of a card changing usefulness after EE. I'd say Donate is the one that may go down in usefulness with EE's ban. The changes EE's ban makes (as far as I can see) is limiting the variety of Imbued you can put in a deck that wants to highlight a specific Virtue and makes Virtue-requiring cards that cost Conviction even *more* unappealing. I fail to see how taking away options to mix it up creates.....variety. If any change in usefulness of a card occurs it will probably only be to go from "Well this wasn't so bad." to "Meh, I don't think so." Since witness1 has established that few contiguous virtue pairs exist between hunters, mono-virtue is certainly the safer way to go....so people will stick with virtues that have cards that don't suck. (Hello, Judgement!) You'll have a little splash (Hello, Vision/ Defense!), but that's about it I think. And those are good virtues only because of 1 (maybe 2, if lucky) cards in those 3 virtues I mentioned! However, am I going to see a Vengeance deck now? No. Because Vengeance has got zipdoodles in terms of awesome. EE leaving doesn't make Vengeance good all of a sudden. > I'm not sure why you think it takes a lot card types for a given > virtue to create that distinction. It doesn't take a lot of different > Thaumaturgy cards to create a Cryptic Mission deck and it's one of the > most distinctive decks out there. > Cryptic Mission is a neat, worthwhile card. Can you name an Imbued card that can work 'like' Cryptic Mission in that you can throw a whole pile in a deck and it's functional, successful and neat? (Convictions! Wait, that require a virtue. Uhh) I can think of Donate as the only one. It's important to remember this mono-virtue thing in comparison to vampires, I think. Vampires have 3 disciplines (in theory) to pull from within groups of vampires of the same clan. Lots of options exist, creating variety! Many Vampires and many cards from many disciplines makes many permutations of deckiness. Imbued have what NoR gave them and whatever disciplineless stuff everyone had on the table already. > It sounds like you anticipate Imbued decks powered almost completely > through use of their conviction cards using the conviction card text > functions and non-Imbued decks and not using their power cards hardly at > all. Maybe, but I doubt it. Power cards are just too powerful to > ignore just because you won't have the opportunity to put any power > card you want on any Imbued you want. I think Power cards will still > make up the core of most Imbued decks and the virtue specialization > that will now be forced on Imbued players will insure distinctiveness. > Of course that's what he says, because that was how Imbued decks work now, I thought. You seem to be under a misunderstanding over the Imbued on some level. I know you'd like to think Powers are where it's at, they're Powers right? Power should be there in the Power cards of Powerfulness! Certainly! But you'd be incorrect. Convictions are the core of any Imbued deck. They steal the show, they do the heavy lifting, they give you the effects that help you win the game. Bleed. Stealth. Intercept. Holy Shit Don't Steal Me. The delicious, meaty effects that make so very many decks get their job done. There are often 20 or so Convictions in any imbued deck. Often less time is given to powers. And most of the powers are ...Vigilance! (Or Donate if it was a Donate Deck) There's some Champion, Rejuv, Discern, etc floating around depending on the deck in question. But if you want to say Vigilance makes up the core of an imbued deck, you may be closer. It's certainly an important pillar of an imbued deck. Since they lack any worthwhile, reusable wake (Out of Turn master or no using that minion next turn. Fantastic!). Blahdiddy blah blah. Done now. President of the Association of Sarcastic Speakers. Because it makes a great acronymn. -D

On Dec 7, 2:11 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "witness1" <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message > > news:8a6f9447-eb1d-44e4...@a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > > > I suspect that Jennie Orne will still be in every imbued deck that > > expects to face any kind of serious combat. She's a 5-pool cost drain > > that's pretty much always going to get paid, even if you aren't using > > any of her virtues, because otherwise the cost of leaving incap is too > > harsh. > > True enough. Although there are other ways to experience increased > specialization than completely ditching a specialist like Jennie - e.g. > not adding as many copies of her to the crypt now that it becomes > more crucial to draw crypt members who contain the virtues you're trying > to use. Change happens around the margins as well as in the heart of a > deck. More likely, you'll just play a deck that use Jennie's virtues (or no virtues at all), instead of paying a 5-pool tax in a deck that's trying to do something different. > >> I actually just said > >> it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant > >> one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and > >> classifiable due to having to specialize more. > > > A bit, perhaps, but not a lot (unless we see more cards for the > > imbued): No more than 2 imbued share any pair of virtues. > > That just means the individual Imbued have to specialize to some > extent (some are there for defense, some for bloat, some for other > things, etc.) and aren't the multifunction things they are now - once > EE gets on the board. And you maybe look for three or four virtues How frequently do you build vampire decks with 3+ disciplines in an environment where at most one of them has access to all 3 disciplines? If there were more crypt cards available, this would be reasonable. They aren't, and it isn't (yet). EE was a proxy for that - allowing a minion who had 2 virtues you wanted to act like he had 3 (for one power card only), or a minion with 1 to act like he had 2. It was never worth using to make a minion who had 0 of the virtues you were using able to use 1, though, so it was actually damn near impossible to pick a crypt based entirely on specials - the real "tragedy" is that the minions with the best specials also have good virtues. > to use and the Imbued which can supply two of them become mainstays > of your crypt. You look to depend more on non-Imbued cards which > provide useful interactions with the virtue-based cards and which > cover for the virtues you no longer have access to. I would think > it would be more than "a bit". You can do these things. Or you can build a better deck that uses no virtues at all. > > No single virtue has more than 4 cards. > > I don't think that disproves what I'm saying. I agree, a wider > range of virtue cards would make it more possible but it's not > necessary. How frequently do you play imbued? > > None of those cards besides Vigilance is worth basing a deck > > around (Donate was, when you could use EE to fuel the conviction > > cost - now it needs more crypt options to even be worth > > considering, and maybe not even then). I guess Abjure's probably worth > > looking into as well. > > > So we'll still see enough Darby Dance decks around, I'm betting. And > > "powerless" decks will work much as they did before. And a bunch of > > "fun" decks that aren't likely to make it terribly far. > > I'm actually wondering what players will come up with they're forced > to look a lot harder. They'll find that Vigilance is still the best power in the game, by a huge margin. > Before, it wasn't very hard to create something > effective How frequently have you done it? > so I imagine players poured a little of this and a little of > that to taste, depending on their playstyle. Now that it's going to be > a lot harder to cover all the bases, There aren't very many bases to cover. >deckbuilders will be forced to > become innovative. Of course, "fun decks" are what you get when people > searching for answers just aren't finding them, either because they > haven't looked hard enough for the answers or the answers just aren't > out there (could be either thing). You may be right in the end - in > which case one would expect stuff to eventually get re-added back in, > perhaps the reappearance of scaled back Edge Explosion, MoM, or perhaps > new cards or who knows? But I wouldn't be surprised if you were wrong. I would love to be wrong. But I don't think I am (wall of text warning): There are 6 minions in the game with Defense. Judgment is shared by two of them. There are 3 cards that require defense (Rejuvenate, Champion, and Lock), and one that requires a defender (Vigil). Vigil is okay, but it can only give intercept to one of three Defenders. Rejuvenate and Champion are decent, but only because they untap you when you get them. Lock is decent, when you back it up with a bucket full of table hate - by which I mean Society of Leopold, Vampiric Disease, and Gehenna Events. You can splash some Vigilance or Discern - and you'll need to. Chances are good that after playing this deck, you'll decide that Vigilance is the best card in it, break it down, and make a Judgment deck that splashes Defense instead. There are 8 (!) minions with Innocence. One of them is Beatrice, who may or may not fit into your deck. Of these, 2 have judgment, 2 have redemption, and 2 have vision. Innocents have access to Inspire, Illuminate, Hide, and Bond. Bond isn't great, especially given that Jennie's got innocence, so you've got your leave-incapacited route halfway covered already. Illuminate is wallpapered by The Unmasking. Hide is great for keeping Jennie from being rushed, but not so much for anything else. Inspire is good enough to build a deck around. And you can even splash Judgment, Vision, or Redemption. Judgment and/or Vision likely win, because a) Jennie has both of them, and she's worth including multiple copies of anyway, and b) Redemption largely sucks. Alternatively, you can keep splashing to a minimum and just try to put your entire crypt into play. Innocence probably does fine, IF the EE ban reduces general anti-imbued table hate enough. Because putting 5+ minions in play attracts enough hate when they aren't imbued. Note that I built decks like this pre-ban, and thought they were fine, but never played them because they're swarm-breed decks, and vampires can typically do it better (also, Inspire is rare). There are 7 minions with Judgment. One of them is Earl Deams, who burns a conviction each turn if you have more than 2 imbued, but he also gets +1 stealth, so he's worth it at least sometimes. Of the 7, 2 have defense, 2 have innocence, and 2 have vision (Earl is one of the ones with Vision, though, so it's hard to splash anything worthwhile - he won't have the conviction to pay for it). Vigilance and Discern are awesome. Imprison costs too much conviction to ever be played and Antithesis has to many target restrictions to be worth packing more than a prayer copy or two. You get to use Darby Dance tech. You can splash some Champion, which is probably necessary. And you're good to go. There are 5 minions with Martyrdom. Two of them have vision. One of them is Earl Deams, who burns a conviction every turn. Two of them (Anna Suljic and Earl Deams) cost 6 pool each. Martyrdom has access to Inflict, Donate, Project, and Expiate. Expiate and Inflict are junk. Earl will be deadweight in this deck because everything costs conviction. So you have 4 crypt choices available. Donate's pretty solid, when you have the conviction to pay for it, which was already somewhat difficult to manage with EE refueling it every turn, and will now be even harder. You can't afford to splash vision, because Earl is one of the two minions you have with Vision, and he's dead weight. No other virtue is shared by even 2 of your crypt choices. You have no access to untap outside of Angel of Berlin and There are 5 minions with Redemption. 2 of these have innocence, and 2 have vision. One of these is Anna Suljic, who costs 6 pool. The cards available to redemption are Respire, Shame, Punish, and Abjure. Respire's target restriction and lack of stealth makes it weak without Wormwood and a ton of Gehenna events to back it up. Shame's target restrictions and high conviction cost make it weak. Punish is just weak. Abjure is interesting in a post-EE world, because it's another way to reliably gain conviction. However, it only gains conviction for a minion with Redemption, so I'm not convinced it's worthwhile. You can splash vision for Determine if you want, or Innocence for Inspire. When you're done, you're still going to have a ridiculously hard time going forward because you've got no true wake-up ability. There are 6 minions with Vengeance. None of these minions share any other virtues. One of these minions is Beatrice Tremblay, who is bad news in a vengeance deck. Vengeance has access to Muse of Flame, Cleave, Smite, and Surge. Muse of Flame's only real uses came from the fact that it is at +2 stealth and therefore unlikely to get blocked. Once upon a time, this could trigger both conviction gain from EE and untap via Vigilance for multi-rush. The first is now impossible, and the second is only usable by John O'Malley. Cleave is a poor substitute for Increased Strength (inferior) and Smite is an overcosted Taste of Death. Surge is nice, but one of the key minions in a Vengeance deck, Jennifer Vidisania, has -1 stealth and is therefore unlikely to ever be able to get it. Avengers have access to Living Wood Staff, which is nice, but you're usually better off just using more Weighted Walking Sticks instead. The only thing Vengeance really has going for it is that you can play Tension and Dragonbound without them coming back to bite you. However, you don't have access to many of the kinds of cards like Taste and Grapple that, as Peter Bakija has repeatedly put it, make combat decks go. Vengeance is a lot like Quietus-lite, and not worth pursuing seriously. There are 6 minions with Vision. 2 each have Innocence, Judgment, Martyrdom, and Redemption. One of these minions is Earl Deams. Another is Anna Suljic. Vision has access to Augur, Foresee, and Determine. Visionaries have access to Unity. Unity is good for recycling Determine, but costs pool to use and Visionaries aren't good at recouping that pool. Augur is decent because it untaps you, but costs a conviction and you don't have much to back it up with. Foresee isn't very good - if you want to end combat, use a Flash Grenade, if you want to look at someone's hand, use Augur. Vision doesn't let you splash much in the way of Martyrdom, because of Earl's Drawback. Judgment splashes okay for some Vigilance and/or Discern, because Jennie's always good, and Earl's drawback is outweight by the fact that he gets either power at an extra +1 stealth. Redemption might be worth splashing for Abjure, both to protect Jennie and to recoup some conviction. Innocence can splash some Inspire as usual. If you don't own an Unmasking, you can also recycle Illuminate with Unity to get a similar, though much more expensive effect. You can, of course, do more than splashing two virtues - you can split your crypt. But one of the virtues is nearly always going to have to be Judgment, unless you're going with Innocence as your primary, because you either need the untap from Vigilance or the Swarm/Bloat tech if you're going to have a chance of surviving while you go forward. If you're using Judgment anyway, you're typically going to be better off switching to mainly Judgment and splashing some other stuff so that you can make better use of Darby Dance tech. The other option is to use Flash Grenades to limit your need for untap and Travis to cover your bloat angle, going (nearly) powerless. Once you've made that decision, you're better off just forgoing the powers entirely and packing more Flash Grenades, and now we actually _are_ picking our minions just for their specials and not for their virtues. -witness1

On Dec 7, 1:47 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Again, returning to the example of Champions. In 2008, you'll be > much less able to just throw some Champions into any 'ol Imbued deck > as is generally done now and expect Edge Explosion to cover you even > if you chose few Imbued with Defense. You'll have to think about > which Imbued you use in your crypt and how many Champions that crypt > can support. Wow, I have no idea how to even begin responding to that. Do you think that's actually how anyone builds a decent Imbued deck in 2007? 'Cause it smells like a straw man to me - it's certainly not something I'd have done, or saw done. Edge Explosion just didn't allow the sort of willy-nilly "toss it in" add-ons you're implying it did. Had you said Vigilance, you *might* have had a point - that's a card worth getting on any and every Imbued you can, and thus, at least for me, was the one I assumed my Edge Explosion would help me wedge onto the support Imbued I was running that didn't have Judgment to begin with. But even then, the deck had to function before EE came out, so I wasn't relying on it to let me play one of the few powers worth mentioning. Edge Explosion was all about the Convictions, which as others have said is really the most important facet of an Imbued deck - see all the Scrounging/Liquidation/Specialization tech that goes into decks to get them in the discard pile fast and at a profit. Edge Explosion was in my decks almost solely because it allowed faster recovery of convictions, so that I could do something more often than once every third or so turn, and so that the powers, reactions, and other cards that cost conviction were worth using. Inspire is barely worthwhile at 1 conviction for 1 bloat down, and it means that particular Innocent is basically just an Ecoterrorists that can be blocked, 'cause she's not doing anything else when every turn's conviction powers the Inspire and that's all. If I've got to blow a Second Sight to get an Inspire action through (which, typically, is a decent plan), that means it's costing 2 conviction, effectively, which means it's not quite worth it. Recovering those conviction with EE, so that you could make progress rather than maintain state if nothing went wrong, was fairly critical. I'll grant that it was Edge Explosion that made Champion viable as a defense mechanism, but it wasn't because it let you put it on anyone willy-nilly. It was because it let you regain the hefty two conviction cost most turns, provided you had a vigilance to end up untapped with and a successful action to take to get that second one back and untap... - D.J.

"Seirhune" <seir...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:775dc35f-8616-4928...@e23g2000prf.googlegroups.com... > This is an amalgam of responses to Fred's last 2 posts, so continuity > is not present, just pulled short bits that I felt a need to respond > to. It's long, and editing is totally optional. Sorry for any > unremoved bunk. > > On Dec 7, 2:11 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> >> Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. >> As long as there are different & useful cards available, that will >> create the increased distinctness in different kinds of Imbued decks. >> > > Because...lots of different cards available increases the variety of > deck types that can be built? You removed the quote I was responding to when I wrote that. The person I was responding to was suggesting that any one deck type wouldn't have a lot of different cards to draw from. But the variety available to a given deck type doesn't change the number of deck types. It doesn't matter how many cards each virtue allows you to play. The point is that players have to build decks only to play only the power cards available to that virtue. They can't combine all of them the way they've been doing so far. >> > No single virtue has more than 4 cards. >> >> I don't think that disproves what I'm saying. I agree, a wider >> range of virtue cards would make it more possible but it's not >> necessary. >> > > I think if all those 4 virtue cards per virtue were worth playing, > then you may have something. Otherwise I find your bizarre > juxtaposition of wanting variety but refusing to acknowledge that the > pool of viable, variety creating cards is really very shallow a bit > jarring. I'm sorry Fred, it doesn't make much sense to me at all. That's because you're missing the point. When all Imbued decks can use any Power card in the game, they all start to look like one another because all deckbuilders will choose to use more or less the same combination of the best power cards. But when that ability is removed, one would expect the reverse effect to happen: each deckbuilder will be constrained to use ONLY the power cards available to the crypt choices he's made. How does that not increase variety? > People need lots of *Good* options to make decks that are functional > and have a decent chance of success (It's no fun to lose all the > time!). True. But I think you assume the reduction in options is going to make them lose all the time. But Imbued were starting from a very advantageous position so the removal of the ability to use all the best power cards in all Imbued decks doesn't strike me as being the kiss of death. > They don't have any less (or more) options of worthwhile > cards of Virtue-needing variety (Because EE didn't stop people from > thinking Smite was icky). Actually it *caused* them to think Smite was icky - by allowing them all the other choices regardless of the virtues their Imbued actually possessed. We might find Smite is now less icky, which is exactly my point. > Virtue requiring cards do the same things they did before. The ones > that suck, still suck. Yea - but now - those are the ones you can use. So use 'em and see what you can do with them. There's a lot of cards in the game that don't look so bad given who has to use them. Intercept reaction cards for animalism vampires are really not that good compared to auspex reaction cards but if you have Gangrel, you use a few of them anyway. If all you're telling me is, "It's not as good any more so I quit - I'm not even going to try", then of course you'll get less variety. Because you're not trying. If you _do_ try, I claim the overall effect is more variety in decks. > Since witness1 has established that few contiguous virtue pairs exist > between hunters, mono-virtue is certainly the safer way to go....so > people will stick with virtues that have cards that don't suck. Well, that may be if the advantages of the various virtues are that unequal. What you're forgetting is the attractions of each virtue depend on the overall deck you can create, not just the attractions of the best power card offered by the virtue. If a virtue allows one really good power card but the vampires with it can't really do much else, we may find people passing on that virtue more often than you'd think. But, yea, if the virtues just aren't very balanced overall, you're right - or at least, you're right to the extent they aren't. In theory, the various vampire disciplines enforce distinctiveness of vampire decks, too. But if a discipline (such as Necromancy or Chimestry when they were first introduced in Dark Soveriegns) overall just isn't very good, then people won't use them and you won't get deck variety that way, I agree. I just think you're being very premature in coming to that conclusion. You're comparing the new strict enforcement of virtues with the old situation where a lot of slop was allowed in order to come to your conclusions. Such a comparison is natural under the circumstances but irrelevent. >> It sounds like you anticipate Imbued decks powered almost completely >> through use of their conviction cards using the conviction card text >> functions and non-Imbued decks and not using their power cards hardly at >> all. Maybe, but I doubt it. Power cards are just too powerful to >> ignore just because you won't have the opportunity to put any power >> card you want on any Imbued you want. I think Power cards will still >> make up the core of most Imbued decks and the virtue specialization >> that will now be forced on Imbued players will insure distinctiveness. > > Of course that's what he says, because that was how Imbued decks work > now, I thought. You seem to be under a misunderstanding over the > Imbued on some level. I know you'd like to think Powers are where > it's at, they're Powers right? Power should be there in the Power > cards of Powerfulness! Certainly! > > But you'd be incorrect. Convictions are the core of any Imbued deck. > They steal the show, they do the heavy lifting, they give you the > effects that help you win the game. Bleed. Stealth. Intercept. > Holy Shit Don't Steal Me. The delicious, meaty effects that make so > very many decks get their job done. I'll just say I disagree. I mean, clearly they're important. But if they were as important as you seem to think, then the formula for stopping Imbued wouldn't be intercept, intercept, intercept as it seems to be now. Why do predator and prey of an Imbued deck need intercept to have a chance against them? To stop the buildup of permanents being played on an Imbued - mainly power cards. But I guess we can't resolve this. If we disagree about this then we can't really talk this through to arrive at a conclusion. We just have to say that our alternative conclusions about Edge Explosion have to do with differing estimates of the value of conviction cards vs. power cards. Fred

On Dec 7, 1:09 pm, witness1 <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote: > > "witness1" <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message > I would love to be wrong. But I don't think I am (wall of text > warning): Thank you: this served both as a comprehensive guide of the Virtues *and* as a fantastic argument on how banning EE won't make Imbued players build different decks (especially if they weren't so inclined in the first place). At least not until we do get a few more cards for each Virtue, especially those that aren't Judgment and Innocence. To the record, I've tried to make a Vengeance and a Defense deck before. I can back up the assumption that a pure Defense deck ends up 'asking' for a splash of Judgment, and once you go that route, it's hard not to notice (before or after playing the thing) that it should be the other way 'round, since Vigilance and Discern are more integral to this pair of Virtues. And the Vengeance deck only worked because it relied a lot on MoM to be combat-effective and two Vengeance-enabled minions get +1 bleed - more often than not, it turned into a pure bleed deck when I faced heavy combat or the necessary cards didn't show up. Now I'm going to build *one more* JUD/DEF-based deck around vampires not being able to gain blood and see the whole table moan about it. Just to say 'that's what you get with EE and MoM banned. Satisfied now?' Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo

On Dec 7, 10:48 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > But I guess we can't resolve this. If we disagree about this then we > can't really talk this through to arrive at a conclusion. We just have > to say that our alternative conclusions about Edge Explosion have to > do with differing estimates of the value of conviction cards vs. power > cards. I'd have to say that the alternative conclusions have to come from the fact that you don't play imbued frequently. -witness1

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in news:pTvFe7zs...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk: > In message <Xns99FEAC5E38...@207.115.33.102>, atomweaver > <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes: >>Each VP is awarded with 5 boosters >>The winner gets and the original artwork (and presumably the lion's >>share of the boosters; normally 15-25 of them, in addition to his >>original 5). A player who gets VPs without the win gets something >>more in terms of prizes than the rest. > > This re-institutes playing for a poor second place in order to get a > cut of the boosters by, effectively, instituting prize-splitting (now > banned) automatically at the rules level. > Pish. For what you say to be true, 5 or 10 boosters would have to be sufficient motivation in itself to not play for first place, as no ratings motivator exists anymore for anything other than the winner. For whom is that true? If you feel 5 boosters is sufficent to motivate players into taking losing deals, the do as the part you snipped said; alter the numbers as appropriate. Make boosters/VP equal two (or one, or zero), and re-allocate excess boosters either to the winner's prize package, or the standard prize given each finalist, or both. DZ

"witness1" <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:b5037540-621f-4b98...@v4g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 7, 2:11 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> "witness1" <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message >> >> news:8a6f9447-eb1d-44e4...@a35g2000prf.googlegroups.com... >> >> > I suspect that Jennie Orne will still be in every imbued deck that >> > expects to face any kind of serious combat. She's a 5-pool cost drain >> > that's pretty much always going to get paid, even if you aren't using >> > any of her virtues, because otherwise the cost of leaving incap is too >> > harsh. >> >> True enough. Although there are other ways to experience increased >> specialization than completely ditching a specialist like Jennie - e.g. >> not adding as many copies of her to the crypt now that it becomes >> more crucial to draw crypt members who contain the virtues you're trying >> to use. Change happens around the margins as well as in the heart of a >> deck. > > More likely, you'll just play a deck that use Jennie's virtues (or no > virtues at all), instead of paying a 5-pool tax in a deck that's > trying to do something different. How about both? Some decks do the one, some the other. Or are you asserting that Jennie is so important you can't have an Imbued deck without her ability? >> >> I actually just said >> >> it would increase the personality of Imbued decks - by which I meant >> >> one should see Imbued deck archetypes becoming more distinct and >> >> classifiable due to having to specialize more. >> >> > A bit, perhaps, but not a lot (unless we see more cards for the >> > imbued): No more than 2 imbued share any pair of virtues. >> >> That just means the individual Imbued have to specialize to some >> extent (some are there for defense, some for bloat, some for other >> things, etc.) and aren't the multifunction things they are now - once >> EE gets on the board. And you maybe look for three or four virtues > > How frequently do you build vampire decks with 3+ disciplines in an > environment where at most one of them has access to all 3 disciplines? Irrelevent because you don't have to. When comparing the vampire/ discipline situation with Imbued/virtues, you have to be very careful about your analogies because there are so many differences in the two situations. Vampires don't have conviction cards or anything like power cards in their disciplines (which untap and give them great permanent abilities), have many more disciplines and many more cards available through their disciplines. So while I appreciate what you're saying, it's really impossible to take much from that. It may be that use of a third or fourth virtue can make a viable deck. > It was never worth using to make a minion who had 0 of the virtues you > were using able to use 1, though, so it was actually damn near > impossible to pick a crypt based entirely on specials - the real > "tragedy" is that the minions with the best specials also have good > virtues. If that turns out to be true, then I'd concede you're right. As I wrote elsewhere, if the Imbued virtues are really unbalanced, then the effect of removing Edge Explosion won't be as I predicted - but only because the original design was so unbalanced, not because the idea is bad. >> to use and the Imbued which can supply two of them become mainstays >> of your crypt. You look to depend more on non-Imbued cards which >> provide useful interactions with the virtue-based cards and which >> cover for the virtues you no longer have access to. I would think >> it would be more than "a bit". > > You can do these things. Or you can build a better deck that uses no > virtues at all. Again, that gets back to the dispute over whether the strength of Imbued is in powers or conviction cards and other innate Imbued abilities or virtue-less cards. There's no way to resolve such a dispute here. > How frequently do you play imbued? Irrelevent unless you're bent on initiating an ad hominen attack: "Your reason in bad because you haven't played them enough." My reasoning is the same either way; stick to arguing about the reasoning and it doesn't matter. Otherwise, I'll ask you how frequently you've played Imbued without Edge Explosions. >> I'm actually wondering what players will come up with they're forced >> to look a lot harder. > > They'll find that Vigilance is still the best power in the game, by a > huge margin. That may be. Even so, really good cards get left out of a lot decks because deckbuilders aren't using whatever discipline/clan is required for them yet there's still variety. If what you're saying is that you can't build a good Imbued deck without Vigilance, then we're done right there. I have no counterargument to such a bald assertion. If it's right, then I'm wrong. If balance between virtues doesn't exist, then my argument falls flat on its face for that reason and that reason alone. As I've said elsewhere, to me such a conclusion seems premature. > I would love to be wrong. But I don't think I am (wall of text > warning): (long analysis ellided...) Cool. You may be right that powers need Edge Explosion to be useful enough to bother with other than, say, just concentrating on Judgement and splashing Defense. Still, attempting to play the real game in the real world may uncover more ways of using specific _other_ powers with non-power cards and that would encourage distinctiveness in decks over what we have now. If not, then the problem is total lameness is some of the virtues - which I wasn't accounting for when I made the claim. Fred

On Dec 7, 10:48 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: Sorry to respond to your response to someone else's post, but this jumped out at me: > Yea - but now - those are the ones you can use. So use 'em and see > what you can do with them. There's a lot of cards in the game that > don't look so bad given who has to use them. Intercept reaction > cards for animalism vampires are really not that good compared to > auspex reaction cards but if you have Gangrel, you use a few of them > anyway. If all you're telling me is, "It's not as good any more so > I quit - I'm not even going to try", then of course you'll get less > variety. Because you're not trying. If you _do_ try, I claim the > overall effect is more variety in decks. I just now figured this out: You've been assuming that many imbued decks looked the same because EE allowed people to ignore cards they didn't think they'd like, and that many of the imbued cards had simply never been tested by the player base. You've been assuming that the dismissal of the usefulness of many of the imbued cards is based on theory rather than practice. I can speak from experience that the imbued decks I played and saw being played in my playgroup *did* try all the imbued cards in actual play. (Well, except Expiate.) The consensus after many people built and played and tuned various imbued decks was that many of those cards just weren't worth playing. EE being banned isn't going to make them worth playing, so they're still not going to be played, which is what's going to lead to more homogeneity amongst imbued decks. John Eno

On Dec 7, 2:24 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Even so, really good cards get left out of a lot decks > because deckbuilders aren't using whatever discipline/clan is required > for them yet there's still variety. This is true to vampire-based decks because no matter how good a card such as, say, Freak Drive is, there are tons of other good cards that require other Disciplines and clans and titles and such. The Imbued simply don't have that. That's why numbers are important here - not because a limited pool of cards strangle creativity *in principle*, but because *in this particular case* the pool is *too* small. 14 Powers, 3 creed-requiring cards and 4 cards any Imbued can use (not taking EE into account anymore). Even if all of them were as good as, say, Freak Drive, it would be hard to come up with more than a few deck archetypes out of them. You simply don't have anywhere to run unless you treat an Imbued deck as an Ally Deck With Convictions and forget the Powers. Sure, this sounds like it's doable since there are so many ally decks around - except that these allies usually are supported by vampires, a thing that seems difficult to do with the Imbued since they don't interact that well unless you're using one or two lone Imbued in a vampire- based deck for their specials. Just check the NoR cards. There's Respire and Rejuvenate, which give a vampire or ally a whooping 1 blood/life, costing 1 conviction. There's Anna Suljic's and Mama Boumba's specials, which are neat for a vampire-based deck but nothing that vampire-based cards can't do (and better, depending on the clan/ disciplines you're using). You can always use a Vision-enabled Imbued to give Determine to a clan-based deck with no readily available bounce, but then again you could do it with few dom weenies and some DIs, and maybe even get some Discipline synergy in the process. And most of the Discipline- or clan-based cards that help allies either don't work with the Imbued or do not offer any effect that, say, Respire or Rejuvenate or a Jacket won't do, and then you don't run the risk of clogging your hand with cards your Imbued can't play. What else? We need to wait to see how things go in the long run, but for what I've seen it still seems we'll see less Imbued deck archetypes, not more. At least not competitive ones, and at least not until we get a few more Powers that combo well with the less used ones already released. A few players will try to get the most out of 3 or 4 Powers/ Imbued cards they never used before, but that'll have minimal impact. My prediction for now is that Imbued wall decks based on Vigilance and Imbued swarm based on Flash Grenade will boom. Making a (probably bad) analogy, imagine how well the Ravnos would do just after Dark Sovereigns was released if, say, Sensory Deprivation or Fata Morgana had been banned then. I'd guess it wouldn't make people start to create new deck archetypes based on that clan just because one viable card was wiped out, at least not until Final Nights came by. It would just kill one of the few (more or less) viable deck archetypes for the Ravnos at the time. And in this hypothetical situation, at least some Ravnos had Discipline synergy with other clans, mainly the Gangrel. The Imbued simply don't. They're on their own. > Cool. You may be right that powers need Edge Explosion to be useful > enough to bother with other than, say, just concentrating on Judgement > and splashing Defense. Still, attempting to play the real game in > the real world may uncover more ways of using specific _other_ powers > with non-power cards and that would encourage distinctiveness in decks > over what we have now. I'd love to see that happen. Except that it seems unlikely right now - some Imbued players have tried it before, and usually what you'll see is new equipments being incorporated, maybe one or other disciplineless combat cards or a new Master such as Therbold Realty or King's Rising and that's all. Even then they're iffy - no one would ever use them casually in a vampire-based deck since there are better options - and none of those cards are really prone to combo with the Powers in any integral way. When I got away from the game for a while, earlier this year, this was one of the issues that were bugging me about the Imbued. I wanted to make Imbued-based decks with a splash of something else, something unexpected, made out of a couple vampires added to the crypt and/or a combo with old, regular cards, and see how it goes. It was difficult. One of the few ideas I had that *seemed* viable enough to give it a try was to use merged Alan Sovereign in a Defense/Judgment wall deck with guns - so to get mileage out of Investments, pay less for the guns and splash in a few Deflections. Didn't work as well as the pure Imbued deck using virtually the same tech; the Alan-based module simply hampered the deck's flow too much. > If not, then the problem is total lameness is > some of the virtues - which I wasn't accounting for when I made the > claim. > Fred I wouldn't say total lameness is to blame, though some Virtues do merit that designation. It's more like... How the Imbued don't mesh well with vampires and vampire-based cards, including most 'normal' allies. Of course, the overall theme of NoR lends naturally to this, but in terms of variety, this limits the deckbuilding options, EE/MoM banned or not. So far, it seems getting EE banned doesn't really diminishes overall power level equally across the Imbued field, just eliminates a number of deck possibilities and leaves a void to be filled later. Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo

On Dec 7, 1:47 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. Okay. Try building some decks using only cards from Sword of Caine, and no other sets. See how many competitive deck archetypes you can come up with that are substantially different from each other. > Again, returning to the example of Champions. In 2008, you'll be > much less able to just throw some Champions into any 'ol Imbued deck > as is generally done now and expect Edge Explosion to cover you even > if you chose few Imbued with Defense. You couldn't do that before EE was banned and expect the Champion to be anything other than a prayer card, though. > You'll have to think about > which Imbued you use in your crypt and how many Champions that crypt > can support. If you find you can't support many or even any Champions, > you'll have to look at how the relative lessening of your defensive > capabilities might need to be covered. By throwing in more reaction > cards? Which specific reactions would those be, which weren't already in in the decks built before EE was banned? > More bloat to cover the pool you expect to lose because you're > blocking fewer bleeds? Which specific bloat tech would that be, which wasn't already in in the decks built before EE was banned? > I'm not sure why you think it takes a lot card types for a given > virtue to create that distinction. It doesn't take a lot of different > Thaumaturgy cards to create a Cryptic Mission deck and it's one of the > most distinctive decks out there. Faulty analogy. It would be a viable analogy if 1) There were only three other discipline-based cards ever printed for Thaumaturgy, and 2) Vampires who could play Thaumaturgy cards could not play cards requiring any other discipline. In that case, how many different Thaumaturgy-based deck archetypes would there be besides the Cryptic Mission deck? > Power cards are just too powerful to > ignore just because you won't have the opportunity to put any power > card you want on any Imbued you want. Which specific power cards are so powerful that they're worth building decks around? > Here again, your proximate conclusion about the predominance of > disciplineless cards is not the one I'd come to, hence I don't come to > the same final conclusion. I think the monoclan decks would be quite > different from one another - but it depends on which discipline cards > the various clans were left with. If they were relatively narrow and/or > ineffective cards, you'd be right. I don't think Imbued power cards are > either. Pretend that the following cards were the only ones that were printed for the following disciplines: Auspex: Aura Reading, Eagle's Sight, Revelations, Enhanced Senses Dominate: Govern, Deflection, Far Mastery, Thoughts Betrayed Obfuscate: Behind You, Lost in Crowds, Faceless Night, Confusion of the Eye Pretend that the following vampires were the only ones that were printed for the Malkavian clan: Normal, Dancin' Dana, Gilbert Duane, Roland Bishop Pretend that the only Malkavian clan card ever printed was Forest of Shadows. How many effective, distinctly different monoclan Malkavian decks could you build, if you weren't allowed to use any disciplineless cards that cost blood or any master cards that targeted your own vampires? John Eno

In article <0b923c85-0527-4e3f...@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, Kushiel <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote: > Pretend that the following cards were the only ones that were printed > for the following disciplines: > Auspex: Aura Reading, Eagle's Sight, Revelations, Enhanced Senses > Dominate: Govern, Deflection, Far Mastery, Thoughts Betrayed Dominate would still be the best discipline in the game? (ducks...) Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html "Find hungry samurai." -The Old Man

>> More likely, you'll just play a deck that use Jennie's virtues (or no >> virtues at all), instead of paying a 5-pool tax in a deck that's >> trying to do something different. > How about both? Some decks do the one, some the other. Or are you > asserting that Jennie is so important you can't have an Imbued deck > without her ability? You really can't. Because otherwise you need a ton of Bond in your deck or sit there and try to hold off the rest of the table for up to 3 turns from trying to pillowface her. And because the penalty for pillowfacing is incredibly negligable, there really is no reason not to if the imbued deck is your predator or prey. And because Imbued cause so much table hate, you usually have the x-table players trying to jump in, too. Sorrow

"Kushiel" <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:0b923c85-0527-4e3f...@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 7, 1:47 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. > > Okay. Try building some decks using only cards from Sword of Caine, > and no other sets. See how many competitive deck archetypes you can > come up with that are substantially different from each other. We are seriously misunderstanding one another if you think that suggestion makes any sense in response to what I just said. Of course, when you remove all the context like that, you make think your response was sane but I assure you, I was not trying to claim an Imbued deck needs to be limited to a small number of *total* types of cards. Just that it doesn't necessarily require a large number different types of virtue-based cards to be viable. It depends on the virtue-based cards which are available. >> Again, returning to the example of Champions. In 2008, you'll be >> much less able to just throw some Champions into any 'ol Imbued deck >> as is generally done now and expect Edge Explosion to cover you even >> if you chose few Imbued with Defense. > > You couldn't do that before EE was banned and expect the Champion to > be anything other than a prayer card, though. Huh? Sure you could. An Imbued deck with a single Edge Explosion and no Imbued with Defense could throw in one or two Champions - assuming the possibility of getting into combat in some circumstances made sense, of course. Throw in any significant number of Imbued with defense and it could support more. And the crypt choices being what they are, I suspect it's almost hard NOT to throw in a few. >> You'll have to think about >> which Imbued you use in your crypt and how many Champions that crypt >> can support. If you find you can't support many or even any Champions, >> you'll have to look at how the relative lessening of your defensive >> capabilities might need to be covered. By throwing in more reaction >> cards? > > Which specific reactions would those be, which weren't already in in > the decks built before EE was banned? > >> More bloat to cover the pool you expect to lose because you're >> blocking fewer bleeds? > > Which specific bloat tech would that be, which wasn't already in in > the decks built before EE was banned? I'm not getting sucked into blow-by-blow deckbuilding arguments. It's not the point anyway. The point is that it forces deckbuilders to make such decisions. >> I'm not sure why you think it takes a lot card types for a given >> virtue to create that distinction. It doesn't take a lot of different >> Thaumaturgy cards to create a Cryptic Mission deck and it's one of the >> most distinctive decks out there. > > Faulty analogy. It would be a viable analogy if Never mind. I think it's a good enough analogy if you wanted to take the point. If want to resist it, you can throw any amount of argumentation in the way. There's no analogy in existance which can be objectively proved to be "viable". They all involve differences; that's why they're analogies. If you want to insist the differences invalidates the analogy, I can't help that. I'm just saying it doesn't necessarily take a lot of discipline or, in this case, virtue cards to make a viable deck in some cases. > In that case, how many different Thaumaturgy-based deck archetypes > would there be besides the Cryptic Mission deck? Who cares? The point was to suggest there might be different Imbued decks based around different virtues, not that there might be different Imbued decks based around the *same* virtue. >> Power cards are just too powerful to >> ignore just because you won't have the opportunity to put any power >> card you want on any Imbued you want. > > Which specific power cards are so powerful that they're worth building > decks around? It seems your friends think only Vigilance and I won't argue with it. If you can't build decks around a single virtue then screw it, my statement was wrong. I'm not going to try to defend the point against people who are apparently despondent about it. If there aren't, then I guess you'll just have to wait until they print enough new ones to build decks around virtues. >> Here again, your proximate conclusion about the predominance of >> disciplineless cards is not the one I'd come to, hence I don't come to >> the same final conclusion. I think the monoclan decks would be quite >> different from one another - but it depends on which discipline cards >> the various clans were left with. If they were relatively narrow and/or >> ineffective cards, you'd be right. I don't think Imbued power cards are >> either. > > Pretend that the following cards were the only ones that were printed > for the following disciplines: > Auspex: Aura Reading, Eagle's Sight, Revelations, Enhanced Senses > Dominate: Govern, Deflection, Far Mastery, Thoughts Betrayed > Obfuscate: Behind You, Lost in Crowds, Faceless Night, Confusion of > the Eye > > Pretend that the following vampires were the only ones that were > printed for the Malkavian clan: Normal, Dancin' Dana, Gilbert Duane, > Roland Bishop > > Pretend that the only Malkavian clan card ever printed was Forest of > Shadows. > > How many effective, distinctly different monoclan Malkavian decks > could you build, if you weren't allowed to use any disciplineless > cards that cost blood or any master cards that targeted your own > vampires? Again, you're changing the challenge. The appropriate comparison to different virtues would be with a different monoclan deck containing a like small number of discipline cards that were different than the ones available to the Malkavian deck. You were claiming that the lack of useful virtue (and analogously discipline) cards to a deck based on any one virtue would force it to depend on Conviction and other virtue-less cards. Analogously, a Malkavian deck relying on, say, dementation cards would look different than a Brujah deck relying on potence cards and would the number of disciplineless cards like Computer Hacking wind up making both decks look essentially the identical (or at least not memorably different) in the end? I think the answer would be no. But, as with witness1, I will not argue about whether the different virtues can actually be built around. I don't claim to know that they can. And if few or none can, then I concede the point - at least until that got fixed. Fred

"Kushiel" <invisibl...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:7812fbba-9d6d-4b20...@w56g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > You've been assuming that many imbued > decks looked the same because EE allowed people to ignore cards they > didn't think they'd like, and that many of the imbued cards had simply > never been tested by the player base. Not so much that they hadn't been tested. Just, why use a less effective card if you can use a more effective card? Edge Explosion allows you to pick and choose the best ones. Ergo, it seems fair to assume only the best ones have really gotten much road testing. > You've been assuming that the > dismissal of the usefulness of many of the imbued cards is based on > theory rather than practice. > > I can speak from experience that the imbued decks I played and saw > being played in my playgroup *did* try all the imbued cards in actual > play. (Well, except Expiate.) The consensus after many people built > and played and tuned various imbued decks was that many of those cards > just weren't worth playing. EE being banned isn't going to make them > worth playing, so they're still not going to be played, which is > what's going to lead to more homogeneity amongst imbued decks. Well, I mean, fair enough. I'm not going to tell anyone, and certainly not someone in a part of the world I've never visited, that he hasn't tested cards when he tells me he has. I'm just saying that if you're given the job of building a deck, you're normally going to substitute cards that work better for cards that don't work as well if you're allowed to do so. So it seems logical to me that the less effective power cards may not have been tested as, erm, rigorously as that might have been to date. But that's just me scratching my head and supposing... Fred

On Dec 7, 4:43 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Dominate would still be the best discipline in the game? > > (ducks...) Heh. As usual, Bakija Gambit FTW. :) John Eno

On Dec 8, 2:58 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: If you find you can't support many or even any Champions, > >> you'll have to look at how the relative lessening of your defensive > >> capabilities might need to be covered. By throwing in more reaction > >> cards? > > > Which specific reactions would those be, which weren't already in in > > the decks built before EE was banned? > > >> More bloat to cover the pool you expect to lose because you're > >> blocking fewer bleeds? > > > Which specific bloat tech would that be, which wasn't already in in > > the decks built before EE was banned? > > I'm not getting sucked into blow-by-blow deckbuilding arguments. It's > not the point anyway. The point is that it forces deckbuilders to make > such decisions. > Seriously, Fred. The Imbued just do not have the diversity to make such decisions. Imbued untap comes in three forms: Vigilance (amazing) Angel of Berlin (all right) On the Qui Vive (rubbish - you're basically mortgaging your future) Admittedly, Champion gets you an extra defence, but at two Conviction a pop its primary use is against heavy stealth bleed. As an anti-swarm device, it's questionable at best. Imbued intercept consists of the following: The Unmasking Second Sight Discern Sports Bike Donate Intercept Locations Imbued special defences: Determine Champion Imbued bloat comes from three cards, along with some questionable Master cards like Brothers Grimm and Instability: Travis Miller Church of Vindicated Faith Inspire You'll note that the pool gain per turn from those cards is capped at 2 pool, unless you have an Info Highway in which case it's 3 pool. (Alas, Ingrid Rossler is Group 2.) That's it. Those are your defensive and bloat cards. In each case, the best cards are at the top, and you work your way down. (You can argue about the relative placement of Discern and Second Sight if you want). But in any case they all comes from only four Virtues. Jennie Orme has two of those Virtues. Travis Miller has the other two, which is irrelevant because he's the best bloat card the Imbued have and post-banning, he won't have the Conviction to play Donate or Champion. Neither is going to leave Imbued decks any time ever. Kevin Walsh

In message <Xns99FF72A2BC...@207.115.17.102>, atomweaver <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes: >James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in >news:pTvFe7zs...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk: >> This re-institutes playing for a poor second place in order to get a >> cut of the boosters by, effectively, instituting prize-splitting (now >> banned) automatically at the rules level. >> > >Pish. No. >For what you say to be true, 5 or 10 boosters would have to be >sufficient motivation in itself to not play for first place, Not especially. Two players - let's say, you and me - are sat on a table. I'm in a really shitty position. I'm obviously going to play to win, but things are really bad for some reason. I don't have a great deal of likelihood of going anywhere without some help. You, on the other hand, can probably get a VP or maybe two, but if you can keep me on the table, you think you can get the win. Now, assume we're playing on a preliminary table - normal rules, game wins, VPs matter etc. I might be able to hang on for 0.5VP, I might get ousted, it's pretty seriously unlikely I'll get a VP on my own. You say "Hey, I've got this really neat idea. How about we..." and you come up with a VP split deal. Do I take it or don't I? Maybe I don't think it's good enough, maybe I don't think it will work, maybe I don't like VP split deals, maybe you pissed me off in an earlier round by burning Saulot and I hate you for it. But, suppose I take it. Is it in my interests? Yes, if it works. And we (you, me, the table, the judge etc.) judge it to be a good risk if someone quibbles. Is it a good deal for you? Sure it is! You've gone from 1 or 2 VPs to a pretty good chance of a table-win. Now repeat in the final. I'm pretty certain that I can't go anywhere too well. Under the new rules, I'm still going to play for first because it can't hurt me. Let's say that the prize is something like 10 boosters each for the second place people, and more boosters, a trophy, a piece of artwork, and bragging rights for the winner - you've just become the LSJLand Continental Champion, after all. Specifically, in the new rules, I have no reason to help you secure a game win. Short term deals? Absolutely. I'll rescue your Nergal to stop him being eaten if you lend me some votes with Ferraile, for example. Medium term deals? Probably. Man, it's some cocktastic Legacy of Pander deck that's going to roll the table. Kill it. Then we'll fight it out like men. Long-term VP split deals? Not in my interest really. I have no interest (from the game) in helping you win. I mean, you might be my mate, and we can't do a lot about that in the rules structure, but you can't give me your prizes, you can't bribe me with stuff, you're the one with the bragging rights and your name on the trophy. I have no incentive not to try to win myself. I'll get 10 boosters anyway. But go back to the preliminary stages, and think "Why would I give up my chance to win to come second?" Well, it's a better outcome for me than I reasonably expected otherwise. So I was happy with the 2 VP you let me have, and you were happy with the table win you secured. Now, the final. I will get 10 boosters anyway. Reasonably, I don't think I can do massively better than joint 2nd. Someone else is just too good for me, the nemesis to my deck, whatever. Now, using exactly the same deal as we used above in the preliminary round, I don't think I stand a reasonable chance of winning. Very unlikely, sure. But if I think that I'm going to get 10 boosters and go home, or I could play for the reasonable chance of 20 boosters (10 + 2*5, say), you're going to have players who are willing to do that. In the old (current) version, we already had players who were willing to negotiate to get second place, if it meant that they did better than they thought they would. And there would be many people who might make that deal from your side, too - you get 3VP, a game win, 25 boosters (10+5*3), bragging rights, trophy, artwork. Yeah, 35 boosters would be hot, but this way you secure the game win. And you needed my help to do that in a reasonable way. So you get all the cool stuff, I get 20 boosters, everyone else gets 10. There will be many players who'd make such a deal, if they thought they were going to go home with less. Would you? Would I? Maybe, maybe not. Would other people? I'd be willing to bet money on it that it would happen. > If you feel 5 boosters is sufficent to motivate players into taking >losing deals, the do as the part you snipped said; alter the numbers as >appropriate. Make boosters/VP equal two (or one, or zero), and re-allocate >excess boosters either to the winner's prize package, or the standard prize >given each finalist, or both. If I think I have a one in a million shot at winning, because if you don't help me *right now* the chances of me not getting ousted next turn are next to impossible, why would I not accept your offer a losing deal? [ quoted text not captured ]

On Dec 7, 9:58 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "Kushiel" <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:0b923c85-0527-4e3f...@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... > > On Dec 7, 1:47 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > >> Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. > > > Okay. Try building some decks using only cards from Sword of Caine, > > and no other sets. See how many competitive deck archetypes you can > > come up with that are substantially different from each other. > > We are seriously misunderstanding one another if you think that > suggestion makes any sense in response to what I just said. Of course, > when you remove all the context like that, you make think your > response was sane but I assure you, I was not trying to claim > an Imbued deck needs to be limited to a small number of *total* > types of cards. Just that it doesn't necessarily require a large > number different types of virtue-based cards to be viable. It > depends on the virtue-based cards which are available. > Maybe a slight misunderstanding. Imbued aren't strictly forced to just NoR cards when deckbuilding, they have other sets to pull from with respect to disciplineless cards. But it's not disciplineless cards we're talking about, is it? We've been couching this discussion in terms of Virtue-requiring cards for a while. So being restricted to NoR is proper, hence Mr. Eno's replacement of SoC in his little deckbuilding challenge. It doesn't require a large number of virtue cards to make a number of different viable decks. This is in THEORY true. It does depend on what virtue-based cards are available. Now go read and play all the virtue based cards available and leave deep-theory for a moment, because abstract VTES theory that ignores cards that exist and their viability really doesn't help this discussion at all. > >> Again, returning to the example of Champions. In 2008, you'll be > >> much less able to just throw some Champions into any 'ol Imbued deck > >> as is generally done now and expect Edge Explosion to cover you even > >> if you chose few Imbued with Defense. > > > You couldn't do that before EE was banned and expect the Champion to > > be anything other than a prayer card, though. > > Huh? Sure you could. An Imbued deck with a single Edge Explosion and > no Imbued with Defense could throw in one or two Champions - assuming > the possibility of getting into combat in some circumstances made > sense, of course. Throw in any significant number of Imbued with > defense and it could support more. And the crypt choices being what > they are, I suspect it's almost hard NOT to throw in a few. > You could. You have to get EE before you can play those champions. Oh, also hope you got them before the S&B guy swallowed your pool whole. *That's* what makes it a prayer card. If you aren't putting enough in your deck to *rely* on it coming out swiftly at need, then it is a prayer. Yes, EE allows everyone to play it, that doesn't make tossing in 2 Champions to any deck less prayer like. If you throw in more imbued with defense it moves farther away from "prayer" card. But if you have no imbued with Defense built in, you need more than a bit of set up. Hence the assertion of it's prayerful qualities in your setup. > >> You'll have to think about > >> which Imbued you use in your crypt and how many Champions that crypt > >> can support. If you find you can't support many or even any Champions, > >> you'll have to look at how the relative lessening of your defensive > >> capabilities might need to be covered. By throwing in more reaction > >> cards? > > > Which specific reactions would those be, which weren't already in in > > the decks built before EE was banned? > > >> More bloat to cover the pool you expect to lose because you're > >> blocking fewer bleeds? > > > Which specific bloat tech would that be, which wasn't already in in > > the decks built before EE was banned? > > I'm not getting sucked into blow-by-blow deckbuilding arguments. It's > not the point anyway. The point is that it forces deckbuilders to make > such decisions. > We are getting sucked into blow-by-blow deckbuilding discussion because we're talking about how people build decks with imbued, with the cards they are given. You can't make assertions about how people should/could/would/do build decks and not expect people to respond with nitty-gritty responses about cards and tech and viability. You have to expect us to reference things that exist, because we can't build pretend decks with cards that don't exist. Well, we could, but that doesn't help, does it? They had those decisions already and chose what they felt was the best. I don't know how you can't realize that. Maybe I'm reading your posts incorrectly, but your phrasing does seem to indicate that you think people haven't played these cards, or tried to use them in different ways. You do this when you say "Well now your *forced* to make a decision." No, we're not forced. We weren't forced before. We looked at the cards NoR offers, tried, and made decisions based on how useful they were! Why do you think the decision tree is magically larger now that EE is banned? Do you really think all of us have blinders on? That we can't try things or leave the beaten path? That's what it sounds like and it's frankly a little insulting. > >> I'm not sure why you think it takes a lot card types for a given > >> virtue to create that distinction. It doesn't take a lot of different > >> Thaumaturgy cards to create a Cryptic Mission deck and it's one of the > >> most distinctive decks out there. > > > Faulty analogy. It would be a viable analogy if > > Never mind. I think it's a good enough analogy if you wanted to take > the point. If want to resist it, you can throw any amount of > argumentation in the way. There's no analogy in existance which can > be objectively proved to be "viable". They all involve differences; > that's why they're analogies. If you want to insist the differences > invalidates the analogy, I can't help that. I'm just saying it doesn't > necessarily take a lot of discipline or, in this case, virtue cards to > make a viable deck in some cases. > Well, an analogy far removed from the reality of what you are making the analogy about does become a little....unhelpful. Again, in theory quantity doesn't mater. I've left Theory Land, come join me in Reality Land. The cards that exist, now, for reals, are inadequate for building a variety of decks based on all the virtues. You get 3, maybe 4 virtues that are good as printed, right now. In theory, you are right. But we're not talking in abstractions. I am saying that EE didn't change this, except to reduce your crypt options if you want to play the few virtues that actually provide worthwhile tech. People want to win games, therefore they will adhere more narrowly in crypt so that good imbued cards can be employed. People have already tried things, they have discounted them as uncompetitive from a deckbuilding standpoint. So they didn't play these cards. They will not decide to play them now that it is harder to do so. > > In that case, how many different Thaumaturgy-based deck archetypes > > would there be besides the Cryptic Mission deck? > > Who cares? The point was to suggest there might be different Imbued > decks based around different virtues, not that there might be > different Imbued decks based around the *same* virtue. > > >> Power cards are just too powerful to > >> ignore just because you won't have the opportunity to put any power > >> card you want on any Imbued you want. > > > Which specific power cards are so powerful that they're worth building > > decks around? > > It seems your friends think only Vigilance and I won't argue with it. > If you can't build decks around a single virtue then screw it, my > statement was wrong. I'm not going to try to defend the point against > people who are apparently despondent about it. If there aren't, then > I guess you'll just have to wait until they print enough new ones to > build decks around virtues. I'm actually not overly despondent about it. I more am trying to teach you why EE isn't going to result in a sudden flourishing of new and interesting decktypes. Because people always had the option to try everything, and people then came to a understanding of what works, and what doesn't. Viability was then attained. [ quoted text not captured ] I think he is defining the challenge so that it more closely reflects the imbued/virtue situation on the ground. Howling at the Moon -D

"Seirhune" <seir...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:5d551c66-6aaf-40c6...@d61g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 7, 9:58 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> "Kushiel" <invisibleking...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:0b923c85-0527-4e3f...@y5g2000hsf.googlegroups.com... >> > On Dec 7, 1:47 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> >> Why do we need lots of different cards available? I don't get that. >> >> > Okay. Try building some decks using only cards from Sword of Caine, >> > and no other sets. See how many competitive deck archetypes you can >> > come up with that are substantially different from each other. >> >> We are seriously misunderstanding one another if you think that >> suggestion makes any sense in response to what I just said. Of course, >> when you remove all the context like that, you make think your >> response was sane but I assure you, I was not trying to claim >> an Imbued deck needs to be limited to a small number of *total* >> types of cards. Just that it doesn't necessarily require a large >> number different types of virtue-based cards to be viable. It >> depends on the virtue-based cards which are available. > > Maybe a slight misunderstanding. Imbued aren't strictly forced to > just NoR cards when deckbuilding, they have other sets to pull from > with respect to disciplineless cards. But it's not disciplineless > cards we're talking about, is it? It depends on what you mean "talking about". There's no reason Imbued can't use disciplineless cards. Just please be aware that disciplineless cards are entering the conversation in a second way here. If you take away EE and that leaves Imbued decks using almost entirely disciplineless cards, then they'll still look as indistinct from one another as they did before or quite possibly worse (not my expectation). On the other hand, if Imbued decks are based mainly on virtues and there are enough different virtues which would allow different solid decks to be built around them, then you'd see more distinctiveness on account of Edge Explosion going away because deckbuilders could no longer just pick all the best virtue-based powers for all decks as they used to be able to do - and, one would assume - they did. However, when I suggested this, I didn't anticipate being told you couldn't base decks around a single virtue or a mixed crypt of two or three virtues. On this point, I plead nolo contredere. > We've been couching this discussion > in terms of Virtue-requiring cards for a while. So being restricted > to NoR is proper, hence Mr. Eno's replacement of SoC in his little > deckbuilding challenge. Virtue-requiring cards would need to be strongly present in a Imbued decks to make them vary from one another but there's no reason they'd need to be sole source of cards. Some disciplineless cards may very well work better with certain powers than other powers and thus contribute to, rather than detract from, the distinctiveness of a deck. > It doesn't require a large number of virtue cards to make a number of > different viable decks. This is in THEORY true. It does depend on > what virtue-based cards are available. Now go read and play all the > virtue based cards available and leave deep-theory for a moment, > because abstract VTES theory that ignores cards that exist and their > viability really doesn't help this discussion at all. Sure. I get it. I do think there's a point to be made here but I acknowledge that it may not be one that matters right now. >> An Imbued deck with a single Edge Explosion and >> no Imbued with Defense could throw in one or two Champions - assuming >> the possibility of getting into combat in some circumstances made >> sense, of course. Throw in any significant number of Imbued with >> defense and it could support more. And the crypt choices being what >> they are, I suspect it's almost hard NOT to throw in a few. > > You could. You have to get EE before you can play those champions. > Oh, also hope you got them before the S&B guy swallowed your pool > whole. *That's* what makes it a prayer card. If you aren't putting > enough in your deck to *rely* on it coming out swiftly at need, then > it is a prayer. It doesn't matter exactly as it seems like more semantics but I don't consider that to be a "prayer card". You have one or two copies of a permanent that need to be played after another permanent that you will certainly want to play the moment you draw it. This is not the same situation as, say, a Dread Gaze which is only useful when all sorts of things line up (the opponents using votes, the untapped vampire with presense, the ability to actually change the result of a vote you care above, etc.) The only things that have to line up here is just drawing the one card after the other card or the desire to hold onto the former until necessary and then have some situation where you'd want to use it occur after that. In fact, you could use potentially use it multiple times given that it's a permanent. You might even get usage out of it without using it if your opponents are constrained from doing things they'd otherwise try - which is quite a real possibility with Champion, given its certain chance of stopping any action directed at you. This is *much* better than most toolbox situations or things I'd refer to as "prayer cards". I only point it out because use of the word "prayer" really seems a bit disingenuous, trying to pretend this kind of thing is whole lot more useless than I believe it is in truth. > Yes, EE allows everyone to play it, that doesn't make > tossing in 2 Champions to any deck less prayer like. If you throw in > more imbued with defense it moves farther away from "prayer" card. > But if you have no imbued with Defense built in, you need more than a > bit of set up. Hence the assertion of it's prayerful qualities in > your setup. No, I disagree. This is one situation where it's fair to say you only need a "bit" of setup - no more. And "prayer" is a poor word to use. >> > Which specific bloat tech would that be, which wasn't already in in >> > the decks built before EE was banned? >> >> I'm not getting sucked into blow-by-blow deckbuilding arguments. It's >> not the point anyway. The point is that it forces deckbuilders to make >> such decisions. > > We are getting sucked into blow-by-blow deckbuilding discussion > because we're talking about how people build decks with imbued, with > the cards they are given. You can't make assertions about how people > should/could/would/do build decks and not expect people to respond > with nitty-gritty responses about cards and tech and viability. You > have to expect us to reference things that exist, because we can't > build pretend decks with cards that don't exist. Well, we could, but > that doesn't help, does it? OK, I acknowledge that. > They had those decisions already and chose what they felt was the > best. I don't know how you can't realize that. Sure. In fact, that is *precisely* what I would expect and is the genesis of the original comment. > Maybe I'm reading > your posts incorrectly, but your phrasing does seem to indicate that > you think people haven't played these cards, or tried to use them in > different ways. You do this when you say "Well now your *forced* to > make a decision." No, we're not forced. We weren't forced before. OK, here is where you need to look a little harder at what I'm saying. Your comments seem to indicate that you're missing my point or deliberately ignoring it or some such. You do have to accept a few obvious assumptions and one of them is admittedly attackable in the current environment: that one could build a solid deck from a single vampire's virtues. If you accepted that for the sake of argument, you should be able to understand why removing Edge Explosion - which everyone would normally mindlessly always throw in all Imbued decks, I think (extreme corner case situations notwithstanding) - would force Imbued deckbuilders to make decisions that hadn't been forced to make before. Before you could have your Champions AND your Vigilances. Now you have to decide which of the two you want or alternative if you want to make a stab at creating an awkward deck which uses both, albeit usually not on the same Imbued. The requirement that deckbuilders be forced to make such decisions between various paths to victory is a good thing and certainly one of the charms of collectible card games. And it may be a reality of Imbued decks in the future if it isn't now. > We looked at the cards NoR offers, tried, and made decisions based on > how useful they were! Why do you think the decision tree is magically > larger now that EE is banned? It's hard to say. Perhaps not but that's beside the point. You speak as if a decision tree cannot become larger as a result of the removal of a card and this is certainly not true. Consider some overpowered card requiring an 11-cap Ravnos to play it as an action which almost always led the player who played it to victory. Because it's so overpowered and easy to play, decks including the card and whatever is needed to successfully play it (e.g. Hazimel or Ezmerelda plus supporting 10-caps with discipline cards, action modifiers which make actions unblockable) and probably throwing in things which would prevent others from successfully playing it (e.g. Direct Interventions, Rewind Time) would dominate. The decision tree would become very small. Remove the card and the decision tree magically becomes larger. > Do you really think all of us have > blinders on? That we can't try things or leave the beaten path? > That's what it sounds like and it's frankly a little insulting. I don't know why you think it's insulting. Sure, you can try crazy things like sticking to a single virtue in the power cards you choose and basing decks around the single virtue - but why would you as long as there's Edge Explosion? So pardon me if I suspect that although you may have tried something more or less like this, you may not have tried it very hard because there was no reason to. It may be fair to say it's not _worth_ trying given what you can see is out there. But whatever the case, allow me a few doubts that people may not have tried it all that exhaustively prior to this banning. > I've left Theory Land, come > join me in Reality Land. The cards that exist, now, for reals, are > inadequate for building a variety of decks based on all the virtues. > You get 3, maybe 4 virtues that are good as printed, right now. In > theory, you are right. But we're not talking in abstractions. All right, fair enough. But don't forget, theory land may also become future land at some point - with more cards. Fred

Hello, Just my little point of view. 1/ MoM Very good to ban this card. Allies were far too strong. Errata is always complicated. Banning this card offers new options to the designers of the game. They can create a card that will stop a vampire from blocking allies, and another one that can stop vampires from dealing dommage to allies, but those cards should be really easy to take out or to cancel. I think a lot of ideas of limitation have been given in all the previous discussions on MoM. 2/ Edge explosion I still need to work on it to have an opinion. But I hope it will not kill the imbued concept. 3/ PTO good I have always said this card is not good and should be replaced by Banishment. now I won't have to give my usual speech about it. New rule for the final. Let me kneel before you LSJ Fantastic, it's just great. i love it, It will make final harder will motivate players to use agressive decks instead of intercept decks

> New rule for the final. > Let me kneel before you LSJ So LSJ changes some rules and then gets lucky. Hmmmmm ;-) --> J grail_pbem "at" hotmail.com

On Dec 8, 6:17 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > You speak > as if a decision tree cannot become larger as a result of the removal > of a card and this is certainly not true. Consider some overpowered card > requiring an 11-cap Ravnos to play it as an action which almost always > led the player who played it to victory. Because it's so overpowered and > easy to play, decks including the card and whatever is needed to > successfully play it (e.g. Hazimel or Ezmerelda plus supporting 10-caps > with discipline cards, action modifiers which make actions unblockable) > and probably throwing in things which would prevent others from > successfully playing it (e.g. Direct Interventions, Rewind Time) would > dominate. The decision tree would become very small. Remove the card > and the decision tree magically becomes larger. This is generally true, but the problem I see in your assertion from the very beginning is that EE doesn't really qualify for that comparison because it wasn't really the cause for that situation to form in certain playgroups. The Imbued - and how they easily fit with playing many Events - *as a whole* may qualify, but EE played no real part in it, not specifically. I mean, EE is neither the main reason why people play Imbued nor the main target for anti-Imbued tech, like it would happen with your theoretical overpowered card requiring Ezmerelda/Hazimel. I'll insist on it: what can the Imbued players can 'focus on' now that they can't use EE? Really, where are the ideas? Where are the new branches of the decision tree - or rather, to which direction can these branches really grow? All EE did was to accelerate the regaining of Convictions and let deckbuilders include a couple or so crypt choices they wouldn't otherwise, and even then such deckbuilders would add a bit of setup to make it work properly (Forttschrit Library or whatever). Even then the card wasn't being used in multiples for the very obvious reason that it's an event. Having to get rid of those 2-4 library cards that comprise the 'EE module', or to swap a couple or so crypt choices, won't change the decks people make, or the reactions the non-Imbued players will have to those decks. Most, if not all, such decks will just keep on doing what they already did, just with two more copies of, say, certain Convictions or Powers they already had, or a couple disciplineless Dodges/maneuvers, and swapping Travis for one more copy of other Imbued the crypt already featured. Some decks will even keep Jennie around, no matter if she can't play Champion or whatever anymore in the mid/late game under EE - she's still worth it even if you use only one of her Virtues in the deck. And the vampire-based deck builders will still pack anti-Event and anti-ally tech as normal to deal with the Imbued, which will still be played. Not enough of a ripple effect to produce 'more distinct' decks. They'll be the same at their cores. At most they'll become a lot more focused, as spare copies of cards such as, say, Inflict (cost: 2 convictions) will be tossed out for extra copies of whatever is essential to that deck using Martyrdom (namely, Donate) since now these spare cards became too expensive to use even as prayer cards. There's no real alternative to replacing those spare cards that will make them more distinct, no matter how many disciplineless cards we have in the game - since most of them aren't usable by allies anyway. This will make good Imbued deck archetypes even more 'annoying', because they'll be more thorough at what they do, just with a little slower build-up. Just wait and see. It's not like decks using a couple of copies of, say, Hungry Coyote and Infernal Familiar (and maybe Spirit Summoning Chamber to get the Familiar quicker) are that overpowered to the point everyone is playing !Tremere and/or packing extra Sudden Reversal, Wash or retainer-killing effects. On one thing you're right: this has much more to do with how a number of Powers and Imbued-based cards are crappy, and how some Virtues have virtually nothing to offer (and I'd include some crypt specials too). But it still means banning EE won't change the usual deckbuilding parameters for those using Imbued, at least not until we get more cards for the Imbued, if ever. Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in news:y8fzVPPs...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk: > In message <Xns99FF72A2BC...@207.115.17.102>, atomweaver > <atomw...@hotmail.com> writes: >>James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in >>news:pTvFe7zs...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk: >>> This re-institutes playing for a poor second place in order to get a >>> cut of the boosters by, effectively, instituting prize-splitting >>> (now banned) automatically at the rules level. >>> >> >>Pish. > > No. > >>For what you say to be true, 5 or 10 boosters would have to be >>sufficient motivation in itself to not play for first place, > > Not especially. > snip "Slideshow boring.... Losing consciousness!!!" - The Tick > Now, the final. I will get 10 boosters anyway. Reasonably, I don't > think I can do massively better than joint 2nd. Someone else is just > too good for me, the nemesis to my deck, whatever. Now, using exactly > the same deal as we used above in the preliminary round, I don't think > I stand a reasonable chance of winning. Very unlikely, sure. But if > I think that I'm going to get 10 boosters and go home, or I could play > for the reasonable chance of 20 boosters (10 + 2*5, say), you're going > to have players who are willing to do that. > So, for what you say to be true, 5 or 10 boosters would have to be sufficient motivation in itself to not play for first place. What was the point of that long, windy post, then James? Your ultimate point here is that you think ten boosters is enough motivation to not play for first place. > In the old (current) version, we already had players who were willing > to negotiate to get second place, if it meant that they did better > than they thought they would. And there would be many people who > might make that deal from your side, too - you get 3VP, a game win, 25 > boosters (10+5*3), bragging rights, trophy, artwork. Yeah, 35 > boosters would be hot, but this way you secure the game win. And you > needed my help to do that in a reasonable way. So you get all the > cool stuff, I get 20 boosters, everyone else gets 10. > So, for what you say to be true, 10 boosters would have to be sufficient motivation in itself to not play for first place. > There will be many players who'd make such a deal, if they thought > they were going to go home with less. I cannot think of a single one who would, myself. > Would you? Nope. >Would I? Maybe, maybe not. > Would other people? I'd be willing to bet money on it > that it would happen. > 'K. DaveZ

"Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo" <fabio....@gmail.com> wrote in message news:37700681-ab0d-4621...@j20g2000hsi.googlegroups.com... > On Dec 8, 6:17 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> You speak >> as if a decision tree cannot become larger as a result of the removal >> of a card and this is certainly not true. Consider some overpowered card ... (example remove for brevity) ... >> The decision tree would become very small. Remove the card >> and the decision tree magically becomes larger. > > This is generally true, but the problem I see in your assertion from > the very beginning is that EE doesn't really qualify for that > comparison because it wasn't really the cause for that situation to > form in certain playgroups. The Imbued - and how they easily fit with > playing many Events - *as a whole* may qualify, but EE played no real > part in it, not specifically. I mean, EE is neither the main reason > why people play Imbued nor the main target for anti-Imbued tech, like > it would happen with your theoretical overpowered card requiring > Ezmerelda/Hazimel. This last sentence is neither here nor there unless I'm missing some aspect of it. I don't know that the concept of Edge Explosion by itself being the reason or not the reason "why people play Imbued" even has any meaning I can discern. People play whole decks, not single cards, and Edge Explosion undoubtably figured into the equation somewhere. It doesn't strike me as a separable thing. And it can't be a target of anti-Imbued tech because of the practicalities of the thing, event cards not being easy to cancel or remove from the game, once played. But again, why does it even matter? In 2006 and 2007, Edge Explosion COULD be played, Imbued players had every reason to play it, and its play has certain effects, one of which is to obviate concern over which virtues of Imbued one needed to select, at least to a large degree. When that effect is no longer part of the game, the conern about that decision returns - or at least, it would if it mattered, possible power cards available to choose being totally lame notwithstanding. > I'll insist on it: what can the Imbued players can 'focus on' now that > they can't use EE? Really, where are the ideas? Where are the new > branches of the decision tree - or rather, to which direction can > these branches really grow? > > All EE did was to accelerate the regaining of Convictions and let > deckbuilders include a couple or so crypt choices they wouldn't > otherwise, and even then such deckbuilders would add a bit of setup to > make it work properly (Forttschrit Library or whatever). ... > Not enough of a ripple effect to produce 'more distinct' decks. > They'll be the same at their cores. At most they'll become a lot more > focused, as spare copies of cards such as, say, Inflict (cost: 2 > convictions) will be tossed out for extra copies of whatever is > essential to that deck using Martyrdom (namely, Donate) since now > these spare cards became too expensive to use even as prayer cards. In my mind, I think you minimize the value of Edge Explosion allowing players to play powers in the order they came up rather than holding them in their hands or tossing them because they hadn't brought out the right Imbued (yet...). And, of course, back to this sloppy use of the term "prayer", as if waiting for a single desired, easy to play permanent which is greatly desired in own right really qualified as a prayers. > It's not like decks using a couple of copies of, say, Hungry Coyote > and Infernal Familiar (and maybe Spirit Summoning Chamber to get the > Familiar quicker) are that overpowered to the point everyone is > playing !Tremere and/or packing extra Sudden Reversal, Wash or > retainer-killing effects. As we keep finding out, the Imbued/Vampire analogies are really treacherous because the two crypt card types have so many inherent differences in what you can do with them. But to take it for what it's worth, what I just heard you say is that Edge Explosion isn't very important to Imbued decks at all. I'm not sure that's what you meant but that's what the analogy parses down to. If EE isn't that important, then by extension, Imbued players shouldn't be affected by it that much or miss the card very much. Really? Whatever the case, the flip side of your point - about players playing SR, Wash, or Retainer-killing effects out of respect for the power of Infernal Familiars - ignores the inherent difficulty in preventing or removing events. Although one could theorectically play Not To Be as the analogous Out-of-turn Master to Sudden Reveral or Wash, we both know the relative rarity of the use of Events precludes it in practice so there's no use pretending about this line of argument. Ditto the means of removing Events once played: the easiest way by far is to remove the player who played them. I'm not sure why we care about any of this but it needed to be pointed out. You can't make anything out of people's desire - or lack of desire - to cancel an individual card without taking into account how hard that card is to cancel. > On one thing you're right: this has much more to do with how a number > of Powers and Imbued-based cards are crappy, and how some Virtues have > virtually nothing to offer (and I'd include some crypt specials too). > But it still means banning EE won't change the usual deckbuilding > parameters for those using Imbued, at least not until we get more > cards for the Imbued, if ever. I'm not sure whether you're trying to resist an obvious point or simply restating what John was hammering on. If the latter, I will restate the essence of my response: yes, I get it, if basing decks largely on what can be done with the Imbued's virtues doesn't work then removing Edge Explosion will not result in forcing players to make distinct choices in terms of virtues. Instead, it will simply cause players to fall back on Conviction cards, non-discipline cards, the Imbued's inherent advantages like immunity to ag damage, and players will use virtues only sporadically and opportunistically. And thus their use will not become a high profile identifying trait of their particular decks. In which case, my point may have to wait for some future cards to get printed to become functional. Fred

Stone wrote: > The last ban was for Succubus Club, Kindred Restructure and Dramatic > Upheaval. It was good, because those cards altered the game dynamics in a > very significant manner, and I guess it also had to do with the EC in > Heidelberg. There was a lot of evidence to ban those cards prior to the Heidelberg EC. I honestly don't know if that EC directly led to the bannings, but I would expect that it was already in the works. For what it's worth, I think Ruben Vidana-Ramos won that EC fair and square, and the finals themselves were played fairly. - Ben Peal

I suspect that this has come to a point where a circular debate is unavoidable until something new is brought into the equation - not an argument, but new input/data from the TWDA or whatever, or future cards being printed. We'll probably have to wait. On Dec 10, 1:28 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > > I mean, EE is neither the main reason > > why people play Imbued nor the main target for anti-Imbued tech, like > > it would happen with your theoretical overpowered card requiring > > Ezmerelda/Hazimel. > This last sentence is neither here nor there unless I'm missing some > aspect of it. I don't know that the concept of Edge Explosion by itself > being the reason or not the reason "why people play Imbued" even has > any meaning I can discern. People play whole decks, not single cards, > and Edge Explosion undoubtably figured into the equation somewhere. > It doesn't strike me as a separable thing. And it can't be a target > of anti-Imbued tech because of the practicalities of the thing, event > cards not being easy to cancel or remove from the game, once played. > But again, why does it even matter? In my understanding, it seemed to matter given the situation presented - the overpowered card requiring a 11-cap Ravnos situation. It seemed like it was *just* the inclusion of that theoretical card that made Ravnos players stray away from other deck possibilities and opponent players to include tech against it being played. Given the situation, I tried to visualize a similar one where EE was the sole offending card and I couldn't. Ravnos players have competitive options, and if they're not playing them because the theoretical card it's *so powerful* then banning it will work to increase diversity. Imbued players do not have much options that work in the first place, they're already playing those options no matter if a couple of copies of EE are in their decks, and then banning itwon't change a thing in the diversity field. > In my mind, I think you minimize the value of Edge Explosion allowing > players to play powers in the order they came up rather than holding > them in their hands or tossing them because they hadn't brought out > the right Imbued (yet...). Which is probably the core of our disagreement: I think you *overestimate* the value of that allowance, or even that it's really viable as an integral part of an Imbued deck. In my experience - and I admit it's not an indication on how things go around the world, but I've seen no indication otherwise considering decks posted in this board and in the TWDA - no single Imbued deck really invested too much in making sure EE is in play before the midgame, so to 'play powers in the order they come up'. Usually, it was just better to keep it as a side module (2-3 EEs, 2 Fortschritt at most) so to make it even more worthwhile to throw Travis or Jennie into a crypt thanks to their specials (which will continue to be true, it's just that you can't toss one or two EEs and make them even *better* for the deck at some point, even if it only near the endgame). Other decks just had one or two EE to make the deck fare even better by gaining extra Convictions at some point in the game - it simply didn't hurt. This whole idea that people *could* just choose whenever Imbued they feel like, ignore the Virtues for the most part, and toss in Champions, Vigilances, Donates and EEs is, pardon the bluntness, *alien* to me. Never seen it, and doesn't sound like an even remotely good plan. Sounds like taking the smallest !Tremere around no matter the Disciplines, tossing in 3x Infernal Pacts and playing, say, 4x Govern the Unaligned, 4x Lost in Crowds, 4x Call of the Hungry Dead and 4x Freak Drive thinking you're going to play all those latter 16 cards in the order they come. Not really feasible. I know it's one more analogy with vampires, but the essential thing to notice here is this: people already chose the Virtues they wanted when building crypts, no matter the existence of EE, and still used the same parameters vampire decks use - you need enough cards in the crypt that possess the requirements to play the cards the library has, or your hand will clog all the time, EE or not EE. EE just compensated for the fact that there are way less crypt cards that fulfill the requirement than usual (even less then bloodlines had at their time of inception, in certain Virtue cases), so you could round up the crypt with a couple more Imbued and expect them to do at least one thing besides spending Convictions and activating their specials. Removing EE will change nothing in the bigger picture where diversity is concerned because of this. The only thing it will accomplish is to make Travis or Jenni be slightly less used and the decks to concentrate in an even smaller pool of worthwhile Powers, therefore turning them even more alike. > As we keep finding out, the Imbued/Vampire analogies are really > treacherous because the two crypt card types have so many inherent > differences in what you can do with them. True, but then, when you outline a situation such as the 11-cap Ravnos card, you're falling on the same trap. It's hard to avoid. But there's a thing to consider: almost any regular, vampire-requiring card in the game, no matter how *bad* it is, can shine if used in the right moment and in the right combo because it *can* be combined with virtually everything in the game. It may need an insane (and not really that worthwhile) setup, but it can be done. Convictions and Powers aren't really that flexible where combining is concerned (Convictions and a couple of Powers, like Donate, are flexible on their own, of course). They stand on their own for the most part, and when they combine with something, it's with a fraction of the disciplineless library cards (mainly masters, equipments and combat cards that have no requirements or blood cost). So if you remove from a given deck a card that allows playing a couple or so extra Powers but doesn't give more options (either new Powers or disciplineless cards) to fill that void, how do you achieve more diversity in deckbuilding using Virtues? You don't. Because no one's is letting this or that Power, or this or that disciplineless Dodge, or this or that master out of the deck because of EE. Removing EE from the equation doesn't make, say, Backstep or Haymaker a better choice to Imbued decks. But to take it for what it's > worth, what I just heard you say is that Edge Explosion isn't very > important to Imbued decks at all. I'm not sure that's what you meant > but that's what the analogy parses down to. If EE isn't that important, > then by extension, Imbued players shouldn't be affected by it that much > or miss the card very much. Really? Right now I'm limiting myself here to the issue at hand, which is deckbuilding diversity and how banning EE relates to it. I have 3 copies of EE and never used more than 2 in the same deck, and that was only once. I played Imbued for months before I even *had* a single copy of it, and my decks neither changed much after that nor started to win more games. I do think EE is not important to the *power levels* the Imbued can achieve. I do think, though, that removing it will do nothing to increase diversity. > Whatever the case, the flip side of your point - about players playing > SR, Wash, or Retainer-killing effects out of respect for the power of > Infernal Familiars - ignores the inherent difficulty in preventing or > removing events. Although one could theorectically play Not To Be as > the analogous Out-of-turn Master to Sudden Reveral or Wash, we both > know the relative rarity of the use of Events precludes it in practice > so there's no use pretending about this line of argument. Ditto the > means of removing Events once played: the easiest way by far is to > remove the player who played them. I'm not sure why we care about any > of this but it needed to be pointed out. In fact, it's not that the point ignores the fact that Events are inherently difficult to prevent or remove - that fact is indeed an integral part of the point. The ban on EE is like dealing with a gallon of dirty water by removing a pint of its contents and putting it into a water-cleaning machine. You can drink the pint of water now that it's clean, but the gallon is still infected and will remain so. You can slow down a few Imbued decks by removing EE out of the equation, but people will still build very similar decks since EE wasn't integral to almost all of them, and the reaction will still be generally the same, and things won't really change. If anything, it's even one more reason to substitute EE for, say, another event such as Recalled to the Founder or Anthelios or Thirst or whatever. > I'm not sure whether you're trying to resist an obvious point or simply > restating what John was hammering on. If the latter, I will restate > the essence of my response: yes, I get it, if basing decks largely > on what can be done with the Imbued's virtues doesn't work then removing > Edge Explosion will not result in forcing players to make distinct choices > in terms of virtues. Instead, it will simply cause players to fall back > on Conviction cards, non-discipline cards, the Imbued's inherent advantages > like immunity to ag damage, and players will use virtues only sporadically > and opportunistically. And thus their use will not become a high profile > identifying trait of their particular decks. In which case, my point may > have to wait for some future cards to get printed to become functional. > Fred That is precisely my point (and I'd like to point out that I've also included some 'at least until we don't get new cards' warning). So maybe it's not that much of a disagreement as it seems. Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo

LSJ skrev: > The new tournament rules which go into effect on January 1, 2008 are up: > > http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/index.php?line=veknRules Good call overall. MoM and PTO leaves me neutral. Banning is fine and so would errata be. Unique and once per game comes to my mind, but arguably the latter feels moot when you unblockably PTO my beefed up Enkidu. EE, thank all deities that one vanished. This finally makes arguments for strengthening the Imbued valid again. If the player really need to focus on groups of virtues then it should be easier to print new cards, both crypt as well as library cards using the virtues. In the long run, given new prints, this should have us see a wider variety of Imbued decks. All but the winner ties for second. GREAT! No more table splitting in the finals, just grab the win. No prize-splitting. YES, YES, YES! This has been an old complaint of mine, and thus I'm very happy to see it happen. Happy, happy, merry Christmas to me ;) Sten During -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo" <fabio....@gmail.com> wrote in message news:30006b8e-a52c-48ee...@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com... >I suspect that this has come to a point where a circular debate is > unavoidable until something new is brought into the equation - not an > argument, but new input/data from the TWDA or whatever, or future > cards being printed. We'll probably have to wait. Well, believe it or not, I am really trying to get what you're telling me. If I haven't gotten it to this point, I realize it may be because there's something else about building Imbued decks I don't yet know. Or maybe we're just misunderstanding each other, not sure. > On Dec 10, 1:28 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: >> > I mean, EE is neither the main reason >> > why people play Imbued nor the main target for anti-Imbued tech, like >> > it would happen with your theoretical overpowered card requiring >> > Ezmerelda/Hazimel. > >> This last sentence is neither here nor there unless I'm missing some >> aspect of it. I don't know that the concept of Edge Explosion by itself >> being the reason or not the reason "why people play Imbued" even has >> any meaning I can discern. People play whole decks, not single cards, >> and Edge Explosion undoubtably figured into the equation somewhere. >> It doesn't strike me as a separable thing. And it can't be a target >> of anti-Imbued tech because of the practicalities of the thing, event >> cards not being easy to cancel or remove from the game, once played. >> But again, why does it even matter? > > In my understanding, it seemed to matter given the situation presented > - the overpowered card requiring a 11-cap Ravnos situation. It seemed > like it was *just* the inclusion of that theoretical card that made > Ravnos players stray away from other deck possibilities and opponent > players to include tech against it being played. My example was geared to simply show that a massively overpowered deck, fueled by a single massively overpowered card, decreases effective choice in building any type of deck, not just Ravnos decks. In the example, I was intending readers to take the inference that all deck- building choices, be they Malkavian S+B, Brujah Rush, animalism combat/ intercept, Ventrue vote, yadda, yadda, yadda (choose any archetype in the entire game) would become poor choices because this overpowered requires-an-11-cap-Ravnos thing would become the best deck, bar none. So if it clarifies anything, please understand that the example was intended to be even broader than just constraining Ravnos players to a single choice. > Given the situation, > I tried to visualize a similar one where EE was the sole offending > card and I couldn't. Ravnos players have competitive options, and if > they're not playing them because the theoretical card it's *so > powerful* then banning it will work to increase diversity. Imbued > players do not have much options that work in the first place, they're > already playing those options no matter if a couple of copies of EE > are in their decks, and then banning itwon't change a thing in the > diversity field. I think you're missing the point. The point is not to suggest Imbued players can now play something else instead of EE because EE was precluding other options. The point is that EE allows players to "cheat" on the virtue selections due to its provision for allowing each Imbued to have a power their virtues don't qualify for. Why choose between the virtues when you can choose *all* the virtues? I wasn't trying to draw an analogy that the 11-cap-Ravnos action being a win game card was, in that sense, analogous to Edge Explosion. I was just trying to demonstrate, simply and bluntly, how adding a card can reduce choice and thus how removing a card can increase choice. (It may be John understood the point anyway; it wasn't clear, just that he made a comment which made me wonder.) So I think you may have taken some meaning from that piece which was never intended. >> In my mind, I think you minimize the value of Edge Explosion allowing >> players to play powers in the order they came up rather than holding >> them in their hands or tossing them because they hadn't brought out >> the right Imbued (yet...). > > Which is probably the core of our disagreement: I think you > *overestimate* the value of that allowance, or even that it's really > viable as an integral part of an Imbued deck. Perhaps. It sure looks pretty important to me, especially in keeping Imbued players alive long enough to allow their buildup of permanents to begin taking its toll, because it looks like it covers for the inabity to draw Imbued in your crypt which can use the powers in your hand if you can get a fairly early EE. Of course, it's not perfect - nothing ever is. But playing against Imbued players it sure looks like it's responsible for smoothing out a fair degree of cardflow and Imbued players being able to plop down an early Champion or Vigilence or something else that's key to turning their game around sooner. It looks like an incredibly useful thing from the perspective of being outside looking in. I've also played an Imbued deck at least once or twice in a game and my experience playing it sure seemed to match my dead reckoning from when I'm the opponent. > In my experience - and I admit it's not an indication on how things go > around the world, but I've seen no indication otherwise considering > decks posted in this board and in the TWDA - no single Imbued deck > really invested too much in making sure EE is in play before the > midgame, so to 'play powers in the order they come up'. Usually, it > was just better to keep it as a side module (2-3 EEs, 2 Fortschritt at > most) so to make it even more worthwhile to throw Travis or Jennie > into a crypt thanks to their specials (which will continue to be true, > it's just that you can't toss one or two EEs and make them even > *better* for the deck at some point, even if it only near the > endgame). Other decks just had one or two EE to make the deck fare > even better by gaining extra Convictions at some point in the game - > it simply didn't hurt. > > This whole idea that people *could* just choose whenever Imbued they > feel like, ignore the Virtues for the most part, and toss in > Champions, Vigilances, Donates and EEs is, pardon the bluntness, > *alien* to me. Never seen it, and doesn't sound like an even remotely > good plan. You sound as if the two decisions - pay totally strict attention to the relationship between Imbued virtues and the powers you want to play vs. ignore them altogether - is some sort of binary choice. But it's not. Possessing Edge Explosion allows you to pay less attention to that relationship which allows you a freer hand in choosing to throw in powers you might use even though your Imbued wouldn't otherwise support them and/or choosing Imbued which have tremendous specials but not the virtues you want. Or they allow you to combine use of powers in ways that the crypt offerings wouldn't otherwise support. Whatever, it's silly to pretend this doesn't matter. No one's telling you Edge Explosion allows you to forget about the relationship. Only that it allows you a great deal more freedom than you'd otherwise have. And that freedom can be cashed in for power, I think. > Sounds like taking the smallest !Tremere around no matter > the Disciplines, tossing in 3x Infernal Pacts and playing, say, 4x > Govern the Unaligned, 4x Lost in Crowds, 4x Call of the Hungry Dead > and 4x Freak Drive thinking you're going to play all those latter 16 > cards in the order they come. Not really feasible. > > I know it's one more analogy with vampires, ...and hence I can point out a few really key differences: 1) Infernal Pacts don't work like Edge Explosion. 2) Actions and action modifiers don't work like powers. 3) Imbued don't work like Vampires. All these things make the Edge Explosion/Virtue relationship a whole lot less clunky than the example you just gave. I'm not sure if you were really intending to demonstrate clunkyness to the point of absolute worthlessness as you did in this example, but just pointing it out... > but the essential thing to > notice here is this: people already chose the Virtues they wanted when > building crypts, no matter the existence of EE, and still used the > same parameters vampire decks use - you need enough cards in the crypt > that possess the requirements to play the cards the library has, or > your hand will clog all the time, EE or not EE. Sure. But Edge Explosion alters the equation significantly. And the exact _way_ it alters the equation is necessarily going to tend towards making the various Imbued decks look a lot more alike to one another. Er, assuming there can be "various" Imbued decks - as in "Imbued decks which attempt to use differing kinds of powers to win the game" - in the game, post-Edge-Explosion. > EE just compensated > for the fact that there are way less crypt cards that fulfill the > requirement than usual (even less then bloodlines had at their time of > inception, in certain Virtue cases), so you could round up the crypt > with a couple more Imbued and expect them to do at least one thing > besides spending Convictions and activating their specials. Sure, it does that. *AND* - in doing so - it also does what I said above: allows them a greater degree of flexibility in terms of choosing powers for their Imbued and Imbued for their powers. > Removing > EE will change nothing in the bigger picture where diversity is > concerned because of this. The only thing it will accomplish is to > make Travis or Jenni be slightly less used and the decks to > concentrate in an even smaller pool of worthwhile Powers, therefore > turning them even more alike. That's only because the pool of worthwhile powers are too small to go separate directions with it - assuming that's true. Remove that point and it could very well have an effect on diversity. >> As we keep finding out, the Imbued/Vampire analogies are really >> treacherous because the two crypt card types have so many inherent >> differences in what you can do with them. > > True, but then, when you outline a situation such as the 11-cap Ravnos > card, you're falling on the same trap. It's hard to avoid. But there's > a thing to consider: almost any regular, vampire-requiring card in the > game, no matter how *bad* it is, can shine if used in the right moment > and in the right combo because it *can* be combined with virtually > everything in the game. It may need an insane (and not really that > worthwhile) setup, but it can be done. Convictions and Powers aren't > really that flexible where combining is concerned (Convictions and a > couple of Powers, like Donate, are flexible on their own, of course). > They stand on their own for the most part, and when they combine with > something, it's with a fraction of the disciplineless library cards > (mainly masters, equipments and combat cards that have no requirements > or blood cost). Combining with disciplineless library cards is a perfectly valid consideration. If you're using a power like Champion that would tend to get you into a lot of combats, you're probably a lot more interested in disciplineless cards which help your combat (e.g. Ivory Bow or Crusader Sword, Dodge, Fake Out, Glancing Blow, etc.) than you would be if you were using a power that helped you stealth bleeds through (e.g. Laptop, Camera Phone, Computer Hacking). Not saying you might not use either sort of card in either deck but my point is, specialization in non- discipline cards chosen can be driven from specialization in the disciplines (or virtues) chosen. If you don't see it happening now, that may be because the useful/usable powers don't vary enough (there are no stealth-bleeds-through power as yet) but it may also be because the powers being used don't vary much because they don't have to because Edge Explosion could be used. Add more varied useful powers and eliminate the first thing and then the second thing should come into better focus. > Right now I'm limiting myself here to the issue at hand, which is > deckbuilding diversity and how banning EE relates to it. > > I have 3 copies of EE and never used more than 2 in the same deck, and > that was only once. I played Imbued for months before I even *had* a > single copy of it, and my decks neither changed much after that nor > started to win more games. Interesting. One of the guys I played against who was quite successful with his Imbued deck here in Arizona basically said the same thing. He didn't believe losing Edge Explosion was going to make a great deal of difference either. I'll be interested to see if that's true. >> I'm not sure whether you're trying to resist an obvious point or simply >> restating what John was hammering on. If the latter, I will restate >> the essence of my response: yes, I get it, if basing decks largely >> on what can be done with the Imbued's virtues doesn't work then removing >> Edge Explosion will not result in forcing players to make distinct choices >> in terms of virtues. Instead, it will simply cause players to fall back >> on Conviction cards, non-discipline cards, the Imbued's inherent advantages >> like immunity to ag damage, and players will use virtues only sporadically >> and opportunistically. And thus their use will not become a high profile >> identifying trait of their particular decks. In which case, my point may >> have to wait for some future cards to get printed to become functional. > > That is precisely my point (and I'd like to point out that I've also > included some 'at least until we don't get new cards' warning). So > maybe it's not that much of a disagreement as it seems. Maybe not. I must say, I find your view of the importance of Edge Explosion overall to Imbued decks to be quite different than some of the other posters, e.g. Sorrow who seemed rather despondent about Imbued decks ever winning again (at least until Imbued get some new stuff). Fred

On Dec 10, 4:09 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo" <fabio.soo...@gmail.com> wrote in messagenews:30006b8e-a52c-48ee...@s19g2000prg.googlegroups.com... <snippage> > > Given the situation, > > I tried to visualize a similar one where EE was the sole offending > > card and I couldn't. Ravnos players have competitive options, and if > > they're not playing them because the theoretical card it's *so > > powerful* then banning it will work to increase diversity. Imbued > > players do not have much options that work in the first place, they're > > already playing those options no matter if a couple of copies of EE > > are in their decks, and then banning itwon't change a thing in the > > diversity field. > > I think you're missing the point. The point is not to suggest Imbued > players can now play something else instead of EE because EE was > precluding other options. The point is that EE allows players to > "cheat" on the virtue selections due to its provision for allowing > each Imbued to have a power their virtues don't qualify for. I'm pretty sure we get the point. The thing is, there are two serious limitations on the cards that currently exist: some of the virtues don't have cards solid enough to build around (Redemption), and some of the virtues that do have good cards, don't have the crypt support to back them up (Martyrdom). EE, in this environment, alleviates both sides, by enabling you to use the first set of virtues as support virtues while building primarily around something else, and expanding your crypt options when building around the second set of virtues. So some distinctive decks die out with an EE ban, but none are really created. Yes, all this falls by the wayside if (enough) more cards get printed for the imbued. If that's the plan, the ban of EE is probably necessary to open up the design space to give each virtue a little something special. > Why > choose between the virtues when you can choose *all* the virtues? A) Because you can't (EE only allows each minion to get one extra power of a virtue he doesn't have) and B) because it's generally not worth the cost to your deck. See below. <snip a lot of discussion> > >> In my mind, I think you minimize the value of Edge Explosion allowing > >> players to play powers in the order they came up rather than holding > >> them in their hands or tossing them because they hadn't brought out > >> the right Imbued (yet...). > > > Which is probably the core of our disagreement: I think you > > *overestimate* the value of that allowance, or even that it's really > > viable as an integral part of an Imbued deck. > > Perhaps. It sure looks pretty important to me, especially in keeping > Imbued players alive long enough to allow their buildup of permanents > to begin taking its toll, because it looks like it covers for the > inabity to draw Imbued in your crypt which can use the powers in your > hand if you can get a fairly early EE. Of course, it's not perfect - > nothing ever is. But playing against Imbued players it sure looks > like it's responsible for smoothing out a fair degree of cardflow and > Imbued players being able to plop down an early Champion or Vigilence > or something else that's key to turning their game around sooner. It > looks like an incredibly useful thing from the perspective of being > outside looking in. I've also played an Imbued deck at least once or > twice in a game and my experience playing it sure seemed to match my > dead reckoning from when I'm the opponent. By far the more important factor in EE is the conviction gain. Generally speaking, you need the powers, equipment, masters, etc. to fall out of your hand ASAP so that you cycle into more conviction, The Unmasking, and Edge Explosion (in that order of priority). In turn, the Conviction flows out of your hand during untap, refilling your hand with more powers, etc. It of course does help to get an early EE (a lot), but it helps even more, IME, to build your deck such that you don't need it to get the ball rolling. [ quoted text not captured ] In general, if the special is all that tremendous, you'll pick them anyway. Looking through the ITWDA, in most of the decks, less than 25% of the cards require any virtue/creed at all, and not all of them are powers (and thus subject to EE). Even though we could theoretically throw in any of those powers we wanted, they are never worth it if 9 times out of 10 you have to draw EE (and another Gehenna event) first. > Or they allow > you to combine use of powers in ways that the crypt offerings > wouldn't otherwise support. Whatever, it's silly to pretend this > doesn't matter. No one's telling you Edge Explosion allows you > to forget about the relationship. Only that it allows you a > great deal more freedom than you'd otherwise have. And that > freedom can be cashed in for power, I think. Sure. See also any Donate deck ever made - EE is largely what made it go (boy it was fun to see Jake Washington bleed for 5). But even with EE those decks are harder to win with than a good Darby Dance deck, which really doesn't need any off-virtue powers at all. Primarily because, in the Darby Dance deck, nearly all of your minions can play nearly all of your powers without needing EE at all. Powers, in general are weak. This is largely a good thing, IMO, because they're permanents acquired at +1 stealth that untap you after acquisition. But it also makes your points about EE largely moot, because whenever the crypt options support it, it's better (for a variety of reasons) to make use minions that already have the virtues even when you're trying to play the strong powers. In short: If the purpose of the EE ban was to make imbued decks weaker, it succeeds. If the purpose of the EE ban was to make people bitch less about the imbued on the newsgroup, by God I hope it succeeds, and will count it as a moral VP. If the purpose of the EE ban was to open up the design space for future imbued supplements, it's probably necessary. If the purpose of the EE ban was to make new and interesting imbued decks pop out of the woodwork (without, at a minimum, some chunk of additional crypt options): Epic Fail. witness1 -beware the red bride

"witness1" <jwnew...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:65a8d001-2734-4be3...@d61g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... (a bunch of stuff that sounded pretty reasonable...and then...) > Powers, in general are weak. This is largely a good thing, IMO, > because they're permanents acquired at +1 stealth that untap you after > acquisition. But it also makes your points about EE largely moot, > because whenever the crypt options support it, it's better (for a > variety of reasons) to make use minions that already have the virtues > even when you're trying to play the strong powers. Boy, I don't know if I agree with this. The reason this interested me is that I'd really _like_ to see different kinds of Imbued decks based on their virtues - which at this time means the powers they can play. Then and again, creeds and virtues and don't have to be limited to just appearing in powers. They can just as well be on all the traditional cards: actions, action modifiers, reactions, combat, equipment, allies, and retainers. Even on masters. How's this for something wild: a conviction card which requires a certain creed and which does something whiz bang neat but which also self-limited itself to one in play on any Imbued, or alternatively one in play on any of the player's Imbued, or alternatively one in play in the game (imagine two players trying to use it in the same game). Players would have to consider when to spend it for its function, whether to grab it out of their deck when the appropriate Imbued comes into play vs. grabbing the traditional React With Conviction which will prevent it from being stolen. I think that could result in some real interesting play that Imbued just don't have at the minute. I agree with you that part of the fix is to provide other useful Imbued but not just so we can have a few more names on the list of superstars in every $&^@! deck - alongside Jennie Orne and Travis Miller. Hell, I think the next Imbued with a fabulous special in his card text should also include the drawback, "If controlled simultaneously with Jennie Orne or Travis Miller, he is immediate removed from the game...and torn up." Forcing players to make decisions is a good thing in my book. Fred

On Dec 10, 11:39 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > "witness1" <jwnewqu...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message > > news:65a8d001-2734-4be3...@d61g2000hsa.googlegroups.com... > > (a bunch of stuff that sounded pretty reasonable...and then...) > > > Powers, in general are weak. This is largely a good thing, IMO, > > because they're permanents acquired at +1 stealth that untap you after > > acquisition. But it also makes your points about EE largely moot, > > because whenever the crypt options support it, it's better (for a > > variety of reasons) to make use minions that already have the virtues > > even when you're trying to play the strong powers. > > Boy, I don't know if I agree with this. The reason this interested me > is that I'd really _like_ to see different kinds of Imbued decks based > on their virtues - which at this time means the powers they can play. Not as necessarily. See also Determine, Lock, and Cleave - all solid cards, if you can back them up. It's the backing them up that's difficult. > Then and again, creeds and virtues and don't have to be limited to just > appearing in powers. They can just as well be on all the traditional > cards: actions, action modifiers, reactions, combat, equipment, allies, > and retainers. Even on masters. How's this for something wild: a > conviction card which requires a certain creed and which does something > whiz bang neat but which also self-limited itself to one in play on any > Imbued, or alternatively one in play on any of the player's Imbued, or > alternatively one in play in the game (imagine two players trying to > use it in the same game). Players would have to consider when to > spend it for its function, whether to grab it out of their deck when > the appropriate Imbued comes into play vs. grabbing the traditional > React With Conviction which will prevent it from being stolen. I think > that could result in some real interesting play that Imbued just don't > have at the minute. I've had some ideas along that line. There is a creed of imbued not yet represented in the game (Wayward) who, in the RPG, have constantly active Second Sight. Making them a scarce creed in the game, and giving them a new conviction to represent that Sight (with text indicating it doesn't stack with itself or Second Sight), would be cool, IMO. > I agree with you that part of the fix is to provide other useful Imbued > but not just so we can have a few more names on the list of superstars > in every $&^@! deck - alongside Jennie Orne and Travis Miller. Hell, > I think the next Imbued with a fabulous special in his card text should > also include the drawback, "If controlled simultaneously with Jennie Orne > or Travis Miller, he is immediate removed from the game...and torn up." > Forcing players to make decisions is a good thing in my book. It's possible to create library cards such that Jennie could be dropped in favor of someone who matched your virtue choices (say, a Chantry-like card for the imbued) - and if they were there, she most likely would be dropped when appropriate (she'd still show up in a lot of decks, because she has 3 good virtues). It's probably harder to do that with Travis, because who doesn't need more minions? witness1

I think we both made ourselves very clear now, and the amount of disagreement actually proved to be quite slim. So I'll cut a number of things and address what the points of content remain: Frederick Scott escreveu: > My example was geared to simply show that a massively overpowered deck, > fueled by a single massively overpowered card, decreases effective > choice in building any type of deck, not just Ravnos decks. Oh, that clears things up somewhat. But still, I suppose the core of the disagreement is actually this: > The point is that EE allows players to > "cheat" on the virtue selections due to its provision for allowing > each Imbued to have a power their virtues don't qualify for. This I don't dispute, what I do dispute is something else... > Why > choose between the virtues when you can choose *all* the virtues? > Perhaps. It sure looks pretty important to me, especially in keeping > Imbued players alive long enough to allow their buildup of permanents > to begin taking its toll, because it looks like it covers for the > inabity to draw Imbued in your crypt which can use the powers in your > hand if you can get a fairly early EE. Of course, it's not perfect - > nothing ever is. ... which is this. In my experience (and again, I know it's hardly an absolute, just a comment) it isn't just 'not perfect', but also not efficient. In theory, EE lets you choose all the virtues and boost the ability to survive while building up. In practice, when I got a hold of a couple of copies of EE, I tried to change crypt choices to accommodate certain Imbued for their specials and hoped for EE to cover for that, and this gimmick simply made previously successful decks to *play slower* (which isn't always good, since some of the decks in question relied on at least some speed). Then I got back to the previous crypts, or limited the amount of 'odd' crypt choices to two or three cards out of 12 at the very most (usually Travis OR Jennie). I'll admit, though, that maybe this is due to not having more than 1x Champion. > Whatever, it's silly to pretend this > doesn't matter. No one's telling you Edge Explosion allows you > to forget about the relationship. Only that it allows you a > great deal more freedom than you'd otherwise have. And that > freedom can be cashed in for power, I think. Again, I do acknowledge it grants some freedom on Virtue choosing; the card's effect is, in principle, worrisome. What I do believe is that the room this freedom provides, at least while we don't get new Powers, is very minimal, to the point sometimes it's as worth it to make the deck more focused instead of reserving 5-8 card slots for EE and event-enablers. Just like sometimes you can play Ventrue Headquarters in a more toolboxy Ventrue deck or let it out in another Ventrue deck which needs all the master slots it can spare for some sort of one-trick pony or whatever. Just for the record, it doesn't mean I'm not aware that the existence of EE makes it harder to design new Powers. I am just considering deckbuilding choices right now. In the long run, if new Powers (and Convictions, maybe) do get released, I'll be the first to remember and point out how the banning proved to be a good thing. I just don't think it will make for more varied Imbued-based decks in the short/ medium run. > All these things make the Edge Explosion/Virtue relationship a whole > lot less clunky than the example you just gave. I'm not sure if you were > really intending to demonstrate clunkyness to the point of absolute > worthlessness as you did in this example, but just pointing it out... Not to the point of absolute worthlessness, no, but an exaggeration sometimes demonstrates what is the core disagreement - which is, I don't see the whole idea of *relying* on EE as 'not perfect', as previously said, but as 'clunky' (thanks for the right word, it's hard not to be a native sometimes). Throwing in a couple of EE and Fortschritt, sure, it doesn't hurt and doesn't clog your hand at the worst moment, but it doesn't make for a lot of freedom in crypt and library choices either since most of the time the card will hit play in the midgame at the very best. Doing more than that with EE makes the deck clunky, unless we're talking about some tech I didn't test or noticed (I've seen that someone made a twister deck out of the Imbued, and maybe this is a serious factor to consider since it probably speeds up the playing of EE considerably). > Sure. But Edge Explosion alters the equation significantly. And the > exact _way_ it alters the equation is necessarily going to tend towards > making the various Imbued decks look a lot more alike to one another. > Er, assuming there can be "various" Imbued decks - as in "Imbued decks > which attempt to use differing kinds of powers to win the game" - in > the game, post-Edge-Explosion. The 'significantly' part, I think, has already been established as the part I'm not really willing to subscribe to, but... I guess we'll need to wait and see. Powers that (help a lot to) win the game? Vigilance, Donate (whose worth dropped a little post-EE, since it became a tad more expensive to use very often), Discern, Champion. Maybe Hide. That's it. It was like this before EE, and post-EE one of those powers will be less used while the non-listed ones still remain worthless. > That's only because the pool of worthwhile powers are too small to > go separate directions with it - assuming that's true. Remove that > point and it could very well have an effect on diversity. This we don't dispute - it's just that I'm thinking about the here and now, besides supporting the point that worthwhile Powers are few. I'm totally in favor of new Powers alongside banning EE, seems like the best solution to me. > > I have 3 copies of EE and never used more than 2 in the same deck, and > > that was only once. I played Imbued for months before I even *had* a > > single copy of it, and my decks neither changed much after that nor > > started to win more games. > > Interesting. One of the guys I played against who was quite successful > with his Imbued deck here in Arizona basically said the same thing. > He didn't believe losing Edge Explosion was going to make a great > deal of difference either. I'll be interested to see if that's true. That's my guess. Of course, I can be very wrong - especially considering I'm not known for coming up with new amazing combos or deckbuilding ideas or whatever. But right now, I see no indication of this changing in the near future (that is, before new cards are released). > > That is precisely my point (and I'd like to point out that I've also > > included some 'at least until we don't get new cards' warning). So > > maybe it's not that much of a disagreement as it seems. > > Maybe not. I must say, I find your view of the importance of Edge > Explosion overall to Imbued decks to be quite different than some of the > other posters, e.g. Sorrow who seemed rather despondent about Imbued decks > ever winning again (at least until Imbued get some new stuff). > Fred I know. Suffice to say I don't really share Sorrow's opinion on that particular point. I'm more worried about EE making certain powers and cards with a per-use cost, like Donate, or some that cost more than 1 Conviction, like Imprison, a little more worthwhile in the long run (that is, considering the whole course of a game) since you'll get spent Convictions back faster at some point (assuming you survive in the table while EE doesn't come by). It was worth it to put some extra Donates on a deck with enough Martyrdom around and not use most of them until EE was out. Removing EE makes it less probable and efficient. I couldn't care much about the extra Power effect, and making Donate a little less playable won't make for more diversity, I think, just less flexibility for the Imbued. Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo

On Dec 10, 11:39 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@no.spam.dot.com> wrote: > Then and again, creeds and virtues and don't have to be limited to just > appearing in powers. They can just as well be on all the traditional > cards: actions, action modifiers, reactions, combat, equipment, allies, > and retainers. Even on masters. You're aware that the "traditional cards" (ie, cardtypes not new to NoR) requiring either a Creed or a Virtue (15 total) already outnumber the powers (14 total), right? If not, well... - D.J.

"Meej" <dj...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:24822e8c-7281-46df...@s8g2000prg.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Yes, I was, for the record. Well, OK, I hadn't made a count and realized the they outnumbered powers. Memory had told me, "Well, maybe 2 or 3...". My memory is a viscious, low-life, dog-barfing LIAR unfortunately. So I was thinking it wasn't done very often and pointing out that it could be. Fred