On Villein. 1. "problematic card"

This is the first thread of the discussions about cards some people see as problematic. As this is a collection of arguments for keeping the card as it is (PRO card) or changing it in whatever way (CONTRA card). It would be most useful, if you could write above your entry, if your arguments are PRO or CONTRA the card as it is to attain best clarity of what speaks in favor of the card and what does not. After 7 days of discussion I will initialize a poll about that specific card, in which the alternatives can be found. Villein Cardtype: Master Master: trifle. Put this card on a vampire you control and move 2 or more blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire. CONTRA I now see the card as a problem, because its trifleness. It makes bloating easier as with Minion Tap because you can play two in a Masterphase or play Villein plus Lilith's Blessing or Giant's Blood, a perfect combo. Without its trifleness this wouldn't be possible. Even if you have two MPAs you would be greatly handicaped by a Sudden Reversal, a fact you wouldn't encounter if you get an extra-mpa because of the trifle effect. At the EC every final ended because of Timeout. I think this is because of the massive bloating decks can do. Just with Minion Taps I think this was not possible before in that huge amounts. I'd keep the Minion Tap hinderance. You can't recycle Villein with means like Anthelios like you can with Minion Tap. In addition you have to move 2 or more blood from a vampire (okay, just a minor drawback). To even that disadvantages compared to Minion Tap (after you take away its trifleness) you need the MT-hoser. So I'd vote for taking away the trifle function. Baron of Frankfurt

CONTRA Villein completely got rid of Minion Tap which hopefully wasn't the intention. To me it should be like a Vessel to a Blood Doll. Able to hinder the use of Blood Doll but with a drawback. Right now Villein has no drawback. A minimum of 2 blood can't be considered a drawback to be honest. Especially since you can play it on vampires who have less then 2 blood. The added trifle works well for Vessel since it has a drawback, if this would be the case for a Villein as well then the trifle is no issue. I therefor either vote for taking down the trifle function or to add a penalty to Villein. Something like an initial pool cost or a reduced effect like converting x-1 blood to pool.

PRO Before Villein it wasn't possible to play efectively lots of decks with Big Caps vampires cause they were really slow, and they needed to have lots of Minion Taps to be sure they will have one at the beginning, increasing the risk of handjamming in the middle end game with master cards in hand, and aldo people complains about decks with Minion Tap + Voter Captivation + Anthelios decks. For me it is fine like it is.

CONTRA I agree with all of acbishop's argument (who is PRO). Villein made many big-cap vampires more playable because all your MPA were no longer eaten by Minion Tap. However, I see some troubles with the Giant's Blood/Lilith's Blessing combos: - Giant's Blood. Previously a great card, it's "who plays it first" wasn't really a big issue before. Sure, if your plan was based on it to save your vampire, you could get screwed. Now it has become a "who gains 10 pool first" with Villein. - Lilith's Blessing. A difficult card to use, unless you use Villein. Even though 3 blood is not a lot to keep a vampire in life, it's still a 3-pool gain when played with Villein. I see also some trouble with a too easy pool gain. Villein is so easy to play that you get almost free vampires. Regaining 10 pool after having influenced out a 11-cap is too much (especially if you consider you'll probably gain some more with a potential Golconda / Ancient Influence / Political Stranglehold or a plain refill + Villein) We need Villein. But I would nerf it so you can't get more than 5 blood from the vampire. It's enough to survive when you play a big cap, avoids bad interactions. It becomes slightly worse than Minion Tap in pool gain (you can't gain 10 pool anymore) but is still a trifle, which is the main appeal (like Vessel). You can still play two in a row, but it requires 2 cards, 1 pool, and the second Villein doesn't provide its trifle MPA so you can't chain it with Lilith's Blessing / Giant's Blood (unless you have 2 MPAs, in which case nothing has changed: you could have played Minion Tap instead, just as before Villein was printed). I would leave the "Minion Tap hoser" effect because it doesn't have a big impact on the game and avoids too many changes on the card. Villein Cardtype: Master Master: trifle. Put this card on a vampire you control and move up to 5 blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

CONTRA All finals in Poland timed out, much of it due, i believe to the copious amount of villeins... I think that trifleness should stay, otherwise it is just wallpaper to minion tap. However, maybe a cap on how much blood can be moved can be instated (like max 5 blood)..? And i feel that the hose to Minion tap is too strong... I always look on the example of vessel vs blood doll, and i feel that vessel is excellently made, not wallpapering Blood doll, but certainly giving a choice.

PRO It allowed people to play big capacity vampires and have some other masters in the deck. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

Contra While this card makes big cap vampires easier to play, it is too easily abused for absurd amounts of pool. I would like to preserve a lot of the good elements of the card without it making bloat so prevelant or minion tap quite so hosed. The trifleness is a problem as it is currently constructed, so here are some options I see: -Instead of trifle the card could only give you an extra MPA if you do not control another villein. -The cost of villein could be the number of Villeins on vampires you control AND in your ash heap combined (i.e. one on your Arika, one from your Golconda'd vampire in your ash heap = 2 pool. -The card could read "a vampire may have only one villein" -The card could read "Put this card on a vampire you control, tap that vampire and move 2 or more blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire." We don't need to ban the card, but it is clearly a problem. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

CONTRA It's the root of most of the problems in the game at the moment. Too much easy bloat, and combos way too well with Giant's Blood and Lilith. Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword.

> Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword. > If you do that it's wallpaper. Simple as.

> Izaak wrote: > > > Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword. > > > If you do that it's wallpaper. Simple as. > Ok, granted. Still, the Trifle is what makes it broken together with Lilith and Giant's Blood. Maybe remove the Trifle and balance it in some other way vs Minion Tap. If the Trifle stays, it needs some *serious* extra restrictions.

Or you just get rid of Lilith's Blessing (which is an untested promo and shouldn't have been tournament legal in the first place) and Giant's Blood (I know it's ancient and all and it's fine in itself, but literally every deck plays one nowadays). Villein may be a problem, but the card is needed for, like, 80% of the 9+caps to be playable. Never before KoT have so many different vampires seen play. Never before has master diversity been what it is *because* you don't have to slot 7 as your 12 masters as Minion Tap. Never before has Sudden/Wash seen so much play. I'd argue that Villein is good for the game, but the combo with two other cards - that may well be fine on their own - is just broken. Since rewording existing cards is a mess, the far easier solution is just to ban Lilith's Blessing and Giant's Blood and be done with it.

Villein should only be able to take up to 5 blood off of a vampire. Nothing else needs to be done. A trifle should never have such a game-changing effect. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > A trifle should never have such a game-changing effect. > CON That's one of the biggest points against. "Full" Masters should be the ones making major effects. I can't think of any other trifle, other than maybe Wash, that has THAT kind of effect for a trifle. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

CON Totally against the card these days - especially since they made Lilith's tournament legal. I think that was stupid as hell, but let's not go there. Villein made Minion Tap redundant. While trying to restrict a 'strong' staple master, it just hosed it while being better at the same time. So stupid. The best options I see are either removing the trifleness (which wouldn't make it wallpaper anyways, since even then it would be better than Minion Tap - it requires only one player playing Villein to make Minion Taps just a pain in the ass to keep in your deck), or rewording the card to say 'up to 5 blood'. I don't know which would be better, though - probably the latter, since then we would have something different to Minion Tap. But yeah, these days I'm totally CON Villein. The Bloat machine's just horrible. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

PRO It allows for high-cap vampires and master slot diversity, which is good. It has strong synergy with some infamous cards but I don't think villein is were to do the changes. I would also like to note that all the hate against bloat is somewhat unjustified. It makes decks unable to bounce or wall up air tight able to survive a focused predator. If they would have to spend even more resources on not dying they will never be able to put pressure forward. Lidingö Scourge

PRO Pre-villein this deck could never have existed: www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k9archoninvestos I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of decks which were made viable since villein was released. I agree with Izaak, the problem is not Villein; it's the master you play after villein which makes the difference. If you play Zillah's Valley and bring out another minion you're not bloating and you're playing for your GW. If you're playing Golconda (removing the vampire) or using Lilith's Blessing (putting the vampire low enough on blood to be useless for the rest of the game), yeah, that makes you impossible to oust and you won't get your GW. As Tiago said yesterday; we need to learn to play with and against these new cards. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

> Xaddam wrote: > PRO > Pre-villein this deck could never have existed: > www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2k9archoninvestos > I'm sure there are plenty of other examples of decks which were made viable since villein was released. > That is something of a straw-man. Pre-villein this deck would have had: 2+ x Parthenon 2+ x Rumors of Gehenna That's it. The deck would have used the historical methods for gaining additional MPAs: Anson, Parthenon & Rumors of Gehenna. This deck would be just as viable by these additions, it has 16 cardslots spare and there would be limited impact by including around 4 cards to give you the additional MPAs. @Louhi The point is, if you are planning to bloat the blood back off your minions then you used to play Minion Taps. That was the deal. If you weren't going to bloat back the pool, then you didn't play Minion Taps. All Villein has done is move Minion Tap into a Trifle. That hasn't resulted in "Master Diversity" it's just resulted in Villein turning up in every deck, when Minion Tap used to turn up in some decks. It's not promoting diversity if everyone basically does it. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > That is something of a straw-man. > > Pre-villein this deck would have had: > 2+ x Parthenon > 2+ x Rumors of Gehenna > > That's it. The deck would have used the historical methods for gaining additional MPAs: Anson, Parthenon & Rumors of Gehenna. > > This deck would be just as viable by these additions, it has 16 cardslots spare and there would be limited impact by including around 4 cards to give you the additional MPAs. > Are we looking at the same deck? It has 14 cards too many and would be extremely sub-optimal with 4 parthenons in it. Let's try not to weigh tastes against each other here. My point was that big cap decks are more viable since the release of Villein, please argue with this point instead of discussing deck-building. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

I'm Team PRO. I've posted elsewhere: "Villein made it possible to use big caps, exactly by being Trifle. This is because it lets you use a Zillah's Valley in the same turn for another Vampire." Now we can have big cap decks that would never see the night if not for Villein. There is no problem with how the game is right now.

> Xaddam wrote: > Are we looking at the same deck? It has 14 cards too many and would be extremely sub-optimal with 4 parthenons in it. > > Let's try not to weigh tastes against each other here. My point was that big cap decks are more viable since the release of Villein, please argue with this point instead of discussing deck-building. > You brought up the deck and I made my position, using that deck, against it. It is a 16 card deck. By it not being 60 cards doesn't make it 'inefficient' just larger. I'm not weighing 'playstyle' here. Deciding that all decks with more than 60 card are 'sub-optimal' is a very narrow definition of 'optimal'. The big point is... There were ways to gain additional MPAs: Anson, Parthenon, Rumors. This meant that if you're playing a large cap deck you have a list of options to bloat back that pool you've spend: Votes (Con Boon, Political Strangelhold, Parity Shift, etc), Minion Taps (and then of course ways to refill the vampire) and Blood Dolls/Tribute to the Master or via Actions (e.g. GtU, Social Charm, Enchant Kindred, Legal Manipulation, etc). The deck you suggested COULD have existed, but it would have been a bit slower and would have probably used 2+ Parthenons & 2+ Rumors of Gehenna (to ensure one of the four cards came fairly early). Comments about "Villein increasing master diversity" is not a real diversity change. All that happens now, is you take an existing deck with its traditional spread of master cards and either: a) replace all Minion Taps with Villein b) add in 4-6 Villeins. That is not 'diversity'. Diversity would see other master cards entering the metagame in response to Villein, not merely people playing the same Master cards with Villeins. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

CONTRA As it is written now, Villein is too powerful to be a trifle. The ability to remove all blood on a vampire into your pool in one moment is itself VERY powerful. In my opinion, Minion Tap should have cost one pool. People here are arguing to ban or not ban Villein, but I don't think it should be banned; it should be changed to say "remove 5 blood to from a vampire to your pool". Not up to 5, exactly five. It is a TRIFLE and it nerfs Minion Tap, an important COMMON staple card. From a game source perspective, it should represent the removing of resources from a thrall vampire so quickly that there is no time to be careful about it, leading to the possibility of bleeding the vampire completely dry. I can buy the argument that Villein opens up the field to bigger vampires. I say let Villein let you recuperate SOME of the blood off your big vampire. How can you complain that you only got to take back 5 from your 11-cap instead of all 11 for the cost of a trifle? The 11-cap already is (or should be ) a great resource, and it is hard to understand how a TRIFLE should allow you to get it without paying pool. I play decks with big vampires that don't use Villein or Minion Taps. The truth is vampires in these decks are supported by smaller vampires. I disagree that 9+ caps aren't playable without Villein. I agree that having four or more 9+ caps out on the table at one time is not possible without Villain. I don't think the game was designed with the idea that players should be able to routinely influence out Cybele plus three or four Inner Circle members. Okay, such decks would be harder to pull off without Villein as written, but that might actually open the field to other kind of decks that are currently pushed out.

> Izaak wrote: > > > Best fix by far would be to take away the Trifle keyword. > > > If you do that it's wallpaper. Simple as. > Without trifle it is as good as Minion Tap if you don't play recursion and hurts MT, which would be played more often again. I don't think it'd be wallpaper. Baron of Frankfurt

> Xaddam wrote: > PRO > As Tiago said yesterday; we need to learn to play with and against these new cards. > There is no "learning to play with or without Villein." You either also pack Villeins like everyone else, leading to ridiculous bloat and timeouts. Or you pack a ton of Washes/Suddens (eating up a large part of your master slots). How is that good for the game?

PRO Villein is not a root of problems, the way it is played is. Even with Lilith's Blessing or Giant's Blood it's not a problem. Instead of making a target of self by villeining for all blood (even with Lil's blessing on table), you can villein for less and use Lil's blessing later when need be. Timing outs are due too slow playing, not because of bloat. If you bleed hard enough, even a deck with 8-10 villeins is unable to get out enough minions before you oust them. If anything would be done to Villein, Minion Tap dewallpaperizing could be removed. So, if you Villein a vampire all his blood, you'll be making yourself target and effectively making yourself more vulnerable position: Think of EC 2011 day 2 finals, where Izaak dealt 8 pool damage to Otso, who comboed Villein and Giant's blood. Having sudden reversals for Villein or washes for Giant's Blood/Lil's Blessing is just a nice idea. you can use that wash against Pentex Subversion, Week of Nightmares, Haven Uncovered as well. ---- Banging trashcans, breaking windows We'll wake you up tonight We like the good time, we scream and shout And that's what fun's about

CONTRA While I feel its trifle effect is needed, becouse thx to it we can see much more big caps on tournaments, it combos too well with Giant's Blood, Lilith's blessing and Golconda. If those cards are going to stay legal (especially Giant's Blood and lilith's blessing) villein should be altered in some way. I propose give it 1 pool cost (like it was done in case of vessel) and limit minion tap penalty only to the methuselah that has played villein. Or it's effect could be changed to something like "maximum x blood can be moved" as some people prosed (and limited minion tap penalty).

> Jussi wrote: > PRO > > So, if you Villein a vampire all his blood, you'll be making yourself target and effectively making yourself more vulnerable position: Think of EC 2011 day 2 finals, where Izaak dealt 8 pool damage to Otso, who comboed Villein and Giant's blood. > Oh, yeah, i remember that... And because of that move, Izaak won the table and Otso, who pulled off the combo didn't... Oh, wait... B)

PRO But I also like Vincent's suggestion to limit the effect of Villein. It might be worth considering not to allow to draw off ALL blood on a vampire (maybe up to 2 blood must remain): this would solve the "problematic" interaction of Villein with Lilith's Blessing. National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

> Jussi wrote: > If you bleed hard enough, even a deck with 8-10 villeins is unable to get out enough minions before you oust them. > So you have to play decks which can bleed hard enough on tournaments, because many players pack Villeins, right? That leads not to disversified decks like we all wish but to one road you have to take. I don't like that development of Metagame to be honest. Baron of Frankfurt

> Joscha wrote: > > > Jussi wrote: > > If you bleed hard enough, even a deck with 8-10 villeins is unable to get out enough minions before you oust them. > > > So you have to play decks which can bleed hard enough on tournaments, because many players pack Villeins, right? That leads not to disversified decks like we all wish but to one road you have to take. I don't like that development of Metagame to be honest. > That, or do combat. Axe them before they benefit from villein. Edit: And, yeah, there haven't been much powerbleeds in tournaments already? ---- Banging trashcans, breaking windows We'll wake you up tonight We like the good time, we scream and shout And that's what fun's about

> Jussi wrote: > > > Joscha wrote: > > > > > Jussi wrote: > > > If you bleed hard enough, even a deck with 8-10 villeins is unable to get out enough minions before you oust them. > > > > > So you have to play decks which can bleed hard enough on tournaments, because many players pack Villeins, right? That leads not to disversified decks like we all wish but to one road you have to take. I don't like that development of Metagame to be honest. > > > That, or do combat. > > Axe them before they benefit from villein. > > Edit: And, yeah, there haven't been much powerbleeds in tournaments already? > And this in turn requires you to pack a lot of Psyche, Telepathic Tracking or Immortal Grapple... Fair enough, there are plenty of options, but still some combat types can't really counter a Majesty - after which the Villein is just as annoying. Anyways, this discussion has way too many variables to be solved on any forums in any given time. At least that's what I think. That's why I won't really take further part in discussion 'how to counter Villein'. That's an endless pit of arguments. We all know there are plenty, and we all must agree not all clans have proper answers to the threat. Anyways, I'm for the Villein update: Up to 5 blood. Then rises the question if errata on cards is just too cumbersome, and all that, and how other players not in VEKN are going to react, etc. But then again, that's something we have to find out. No, really, I just think it would be good to make Villein 'up to 5 blood'. It's a trifle for F's sake. Minion Tap was supposed to be too powerful (the original intent of Villein was to make Minion Tap worse after all?), but now Villein is just a 2.3 version of it. And makes too nasty bloat combos with certain cards, like Giant's Blood and especially Lilith's. Just my 20c. Or let's make it 50c... "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

This discussions becomes really boring. Everybody are repeting the same arguments over and over again. It's my last time. CONTRA - Generally too powerful for a trifle - Ridiculously powerful in combination with several effects - Non available "basic" card NC Russia

I think Villein, Giant´s Blood and Lilith´s Blessing belong in the same thread. Separating them is like asking "Are you against guns or against ammo"? IF there is a problem, there is only a COMMON solution.

If you get rid of Villein, what will happen is that Parthenon, Nana, Cybele and Anson will see more play than they already do and idiotic poolgain will just be restricted to MMPA-decks again. I strongly believe having a trifle take blood off a vampire is a very much needed effect. If Villein wouldn't exist, 90% of the masters in my collection wouldn´t see play. Not because the cards are bad, but simply because I *HAVE* to devote half my MPA's to Minion Tap. I mean, I'd love to see it take a maximum of 5 blood (and have suggested exactly that the day the KoT spoilerlist was released), but that would mean rewording the card which is a bad idea without opportunity to reprint it. It should also SET the cost for Minion Tap to 1 instead of being cumulative, but that ship sailed a long time ago. That said, the vast majority of Villeins are done for 3-6 blood and those are not a problem. The problem is people taking off everything and then instantly refilling it through either Lilith's Blessing or the Giant's Blood lottery. The easiest fix is this: 1) Ban both Giant's Blood and Lilith's Blessing. 2) Undo the idiotic ruling that makes you able to play Villein for less than 2. There, no more free vampires.

In my opinion, the first question regarding Villein is: What do you want the card to be/should do? If it should provide poolgain as a trifle that does not immediately trigger Lilith's Blessing, it would be enough to say: You can take all but one (or two) blood from the vampire to your pool. (I believe this to be better than "take up to five blood", because then it would be the Up-to-5-Cap-Booster if combined with Lilith's Blessing ...) Thus, playing Minion Tap would be interesting again, because with (the non-trifle) Minion Tap you COULD (ab)use Lilith's Blessing, IF you have a second master phase ... (and THEN the -1 penalty provided by Villein against Minion Tap would be sensitive ... and so on ...) I agree with rewording a card without reprinting it is a problem, but I would -- if necessary at all -- highly prefer rewording in comparison with banning. Banning a card should be the very last option ... National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

> johannes wrote: > I think Villein, Giant´s Blood and Lilith´s Blessing belong in the same thread. Separating them is like asking "Are you against guns or against ammo"? > > IF there is a problem, there is only a COMMON solution. > Okay, what do you suggest IF there was a problem? I think the other cards are fine, if Villein is nerfed. You might say Villein is fine if the other cards are nerfed. In my opinion it is most ugly to alter cards. So change just one card, Villein, would let two others unchanged. And vice versa. What do you think is the better way and why? Baron of Frankfurt

@Hakuron: regarding Villein: You can take all but one (or two) blood from the vampire to your pool. great solution IMHO. and non-cumulative minion tap-hosing and we're done as far as i'm concerned. @Izaak: I wouldn't ban giant's blood, it's been around for too long. it was always intended as a lottery (equal chances for eveybody). lilith's blesing should be unique IMO instead of banned. see above. I totally agree with your point of view regarding: 2) Undo the idiotic ruling that makes you able to play Villein for less than 2.

You can solve villein problems without banning or errataing it. Just provide some cards which will use blood on minions for something better than pool. NC Russia

> Joscha wrote: > > > johannes wrote: > > I think Villein, Giant´s Blood and Lilith´s Blessing belong in the same thread. Separating them is like asking "Are you against guns or against ammo"? > > > > IF there is a problem, there is only a COMMON solution. > > > Okay, what do you suggest IF there was a problem? I think the other cards are fine, if Villein is nerfed. You might say Villein is fine if the other cards are nerfed. In my opinion it is most ugly to alter cards. So change just one card, Villein, would let two others unchanged. And vice versa. What do you think is the better way and why? > If I HAD to do something I would ban GB and LB. It would still allow the nice effect that Villein had, which was to enable a broad range of Big Cap Decks. A lot of Decks cannot exist without Villein. There is virtually no deck that cannot exist without LB and GB.

> @Izaak: > I wouldn't ban giant's blood, it's been around for too long. it was always intended as a lottery (equal chances for eveybody). lilith's blesing should be unique IMO instead of banned. see above. > Well... just it being around forever doesn't make it a good card. If it was truly always intended as a lottery, then it's badly designed from the get-go. I'd prefer to have as few cards banned if we can, but I also think at this point you need to either axe Villein or get rid of GB/LB. Since axing Villein is IMO not warranted simply because it makes 350 masters and 200 crypt cards playable in a competitive environment, moving GB/LB to the banlist is the only realistic alternative.

I admit that Villein is strong in its current incarnation. But, I find that decks that play Yo-Yo with Fame'd vampires have the possibilty to close that gap fairly quickly. Indeed as mentionned earlier, combat decks are best suited to reducing pool on the long run. How many times can you avoid aggro poke? How many times can you refuse to Golconda'd)(ok- Some people wish for that to occur..) I believe the game has been enriched by the fact that no single deck can win all games all the time. Strategizing about the best way to over come Villein on the table is in my opinion something that is fun and part of the game. Another point: When you have no vamps you cannot Villein..... That said, this will not stop me from using Villein in my decks. VTES is not for the faint of heart...especially when you don't have a enough blood. Prince Of Geneva

PRO: The card enables playing big caps decks. Before Villein you always had a rather small design space for master cards when building decks with big caps since you had to fit Minion Tap in. Eventually I would like to see a slight cardtext change though, i.e. which always forces you to take half the blood of the vampire (or something similarr) instead of the "2 blood" minimum clause.

> johannes wrote: > If I HAD to do something I would ban GB and LB. It would still allow the nice effect that Villein had, which was to enable a broad range of Big Cap Decks. A lot of Decks cannot exist without Villein. There is virtually no deck that cannot exist without LB and GB. > Well, a deck centered on Dan Murdoch's special wouldn't work any more. (And incidentally, you would also be affecting Dan Murdoch). And themed decks around the Bahari wouldn't be possible any more. I don't think this is solving the problem though. Sure, Lilith's Blessing and Giant's Blood are the most accessible blood gain mechanisms. But with Villein still around, you'll simply see people shift to slightly different blood gain mechanisms. Even with this proposed fix, it does nothing about the "Villein + Golconda" trick. Being able to double your pool expenditure (11 blood into pool from Villein, and then another 11 from Golconda) is exceedingly strong. Should we also ban Golconda while we're at it? Is Villein + Voter Cap going to be that much better? Temptation + Heidelberg? Renewed Vigor or Concert Tour? Sheepdog (superb with Baali) or Abactor? Things might calm down a little bit for the short term, but it would be only a matter of time before people figure out a new blood gain engine that is only slightly less efficient but which recreates the Villein problem all over again. > Izaak wrote: > Well... just it being around forever doesn't make it a good card. If it was truly always intended as a lottery, then it's badly designed from the get-go. > Many Unique and once per game cards rely on a similar mechanism. It's an inherent part of the game (not necessarily "bad design." > I'd prefer to have as few cards banned if we can, but I also think at this point you need to either axe Villein or get rid of GB/LB. Since axing Villein is IMO not warranted simply because it makes 350 masters and 200 crypt cards playable in a competitive environment, moving GB/LB to the banlist is the only realistic alternative. > If we want to ban as few cards as possible, then shouldn't you ban just the one rather than ban two cards (and possibly more like Golconda and others if people shift to other forms of massive blood gain, like maybe Voter Cap)? I think it's an extreme exaggeration to say that "350 masters and 200 crypt cards" are only playable due to Villein. What evidence do you have for that? Although I do own Villeins, I don't normally play with them. I'm perfectly happy playing big vampires *without* Villein. I did that before Keepers of Tradition, and I still do it after. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> echiang wrote: > Even with this proposed fix, it does nothing about the "Villein + Golconda" trick. Being able to double your pool expenditure (11 blood into pool from Villein, and then another 11 from Golconda) is exceedingly strong. Should we also ban Golconda while we're at it? > This is not a good trick because you end with no vampire, and have to re-influence out another one. Basically, you gain 11 pool but lose 2 or 3 turns, which is a bad trade-off IMHO. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> you gain 11 pool but lose 2 or 3 turns, which makes your prey win > Fixed

> Ankha wrote: > > > echiang wrote: > > Even with this proposed fix, it does nothing about the "Villein + Golconda" trick. Being able to double your pool expenditure (11 blood into pool from Villein, and then another 11 from Golconda) is exceedingly strong. Should we also ban Golconda while we're at it? > > > This is not a good trick because you end with no vampire, and have to re-influence out another one. Basically, you gain 11 pool but lose 2 or 3 turns, which is a bad trade-off IMHO. > Obviously, you wouldn't start doing this right from the start. But after your deck is already running pretty smoothly (say you already have 2 or 3 IC members out, or you have Aksinya out for defense) then you can afford to do something like this for extra pool gain. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Izaak wrote: > > > you gain 11 pool but lose 2 or 3 turns, which makes your prey win > > > Fixed > Not necessarily. Maybe this will make your prey appear to be the table threat. Maybe you are first seed and will win if you time out. Or you've already gotten 1 or 2 VP's and would be happy with a time out. So getting insane amounts of pool (say 22) helps ensure that you will survive until the time limit is reached. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

@Eric: There is no fix "needed" per se, but this slowing the game down with massive bloating does seem to take a lot of the thrill out of it. How do you propose to address that? Do you think that an idea will come up naturally? If Villein remains legal (especially if it is not errata'd) and there is no publisher, doesn't that necessitate reprints or proxies? Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> echiang wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > echiang wrote: > > > Even with this proposed fix, it does nothing about the "Villein + Golconda" trick. Being able to double your pool expenditure (11 blood into pool from Villein, and then another 11 from Golconda) is exceedingly strong. Should we also ban Golconda while we're at it? > > > > > This is not a good trick because you end with no vampire, and have to re-influence out another one. Basically, you gain 11 pool but lose 2 or 3 turns, which is a bad trade-off IMHO. > > > Obviously, you wouldn't start doing this right from the start. > > But after your deck is already running pretty smoothly (say you already have 2 or 3 IC members out, or you have Aksinya out for defense) then you can afford to do something like this for extra pool gain. > At that time, there are big chances that you have already played Villein earlier, that therefore you vampire isn't full and that you just play Golconda. Villein or Minion Tap would have been exactly the same in that case. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Hi guys, I've been a lurker for awhile so this is officially my first post on this forum. How about this very simple fix? > Villein > Master > Master: trifle. > Put this card on a vampire you control and move 2 blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire. > Notice the lack of "or more". This change would accomplish: * Reduce the bloat. * Balance the card without changing the card text too much. * Make Minion Tap viable again. * Heavily reduce the effect without making it too bad. 2 pool for a trifle is still playable in many decks.

> chaitan wrote: > Notice the lack of "or more". > > This change would accomplish: > 1) Reduce the bloat. > 2) Balance the card without changing the card text too much. > 3) Make Minion Tap viable again. > 4) Heavily reduce the effect without making it too bad. 2 pool for a trifle is still playable in many decks. > In my opinion: 1) yes. 2) as Adam wrote on "Giant's Blood": "balanced" is not a narrow focus ... 3) yes. (Still I do not understand, why it should be important, that Minion Tap is playable again. There are a lot of cards which have never been playable ... ^^) 4) yes, it would not be "too bad" and still be "playable", but it would become rather uninteresting. National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

> 3) yes. (Still I do not understand, why it should be important, that Minion Tap is playable again. There are a lot of cards which have never been playable ... ^^) > I have to admit I'm not with you on this one. Sure there are plenty of cards never played, but there are few cards made redundant by other, simply more powerful cards. The problem with Villein is its very low accessibility, and I definitely see the newsomers in my Domain struggle with that. Minion Taps are plenty to find around, as still available starters pack them. That is not the case with Villein. I for one would love to see Minion Tap made playable again. This is already discussed elsewhere, however, and I can remember the points in opposition: there're really no real newcomers around (which, I have to argue, is false ), others can just borrow villeins for tournaments, there's a counter to villein (which is not even scratching the availability problem), and so on... The history, standing, effect and availability of Minion Tap makes Villein hosing it a problem, especially for beginners. And I beg your pardon, those are to be found around. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

> Kraus wrote: > Sure there are plenty of cards never played, but there are few cards made redundant by other, simply more powerful cards. The problem with Villein is its very low accessibility, and I definitely see the newsomers in my Domain struggle with that. Minion Taps are plenty to find around, as still available starters pack them. That is not the case with Villein. > > I for one would love to see Minion Tap made playable again. This is already discussed elsewhere, however, and I can remember the points in opposition: there're really no real newcomers around (which, I have to argue, is false ), others can just borrow villeins for tournaments, there's a counter to villein (which is not even scratching the availability problem), and so on... > > The history, standing, effect and availability of Minion Tap makes Villein hosing it a problem, especially for beginners. And I beg your pardon, those are to be found around. > I have been curious about if somebody would touch the point of "accessibility". In my opinion, this is the "real problem": It is not the card itself, it is that it is not as common as Minion Tap. But, would everybody be happy again with Villein if it were to get "for free"? Or were there still problems to be solved then? (And, yes, it should always be the goal to attract new players!) National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

> I have been curious about if somebody would touch the point of "accessibility". In my opinion, this is the "real problem": It is not the card itself, it is that it is not as common as Minion Tap. > But, would everybody be happy again with Villein if it were to get "for free"? Or were there still problems to be solved then? > > (And, yes, it should always be the goal to attract new players!) > As a relatively new player with a lot of new player friends I'd like to add my 2 cents here. Yes, getting villeins is hard. I've managed to scrounge together 10 of them by scooping them up on ebay for ridiculous prices. But most of my playgroup don't really want to do that. There's been talk about doing proxying just because of this card. In the meantime, we all have plenty of minion taps - which don't get played because people more or less assume that I will be using my villeins (which I of course do because the card is just too good not to). I think that a large part of balancing villein should be to stop the hosing of minion tap. If new players are going to start playing this game and enjoy it minion tap is needed. Because villein just isn't that available, whereas there are enough minion taps around to wallpaper my office with them. Minion tap must become a worthwhile card to put in your deck again. The relation between villein and minion tap should be similiar to vessel/blood doll (both which are seeing plenty of play around here). I am very positive to the suggestions to only let villein take 5 blood or something similiar, they're absolutely a step in the right direction. But unless an easy way to get villeins (for new players) shows up we must also un-hose minion tap. Villein has become a staple card which is just too hard to reliably find without spending way too much money. Just check out ebay, currently all the "buy it now" hits I get for villein costs $10 a piece or more. That's not ok for a card that is present in pretty much all decks nowadays.

Well, thank you guys for your comments and the polite and calmed way you worded them. Now let's finish this point with a poll (of course you can go on posting on this subject as long as you like. I'd like to come to a conclusion, I hope you too). If I see it correct the options for the poll should be: a) Let the card alone. No change. b) Change trifleness. c) Change the amount you can pull off a vampire to X=<5 or to leave min. 2 blood on the vampire. d) Change the part that hoses Minon Tap. e) Change trifleness AND the part that hoses Minion Tap. f) Change the amount you can pull off a vampire AND the part that hoses Minion Tap. IIRC nobody likes it to be banned. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did I miss something? Baron of Frankfurt

I should be possible to choose more then one option. B) pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > I should be possible to choose more then one option. B) > I thought about that too. But the guys who wants no change would then have just one vote, others more. I dont't think this would lead to a significant result. What two options do you think I have to sum up and merge into one point? Baron of Frankfurt

> Joscha wrote: > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > I should be possible to choose more then one option. B) > > > I thought about that too. But the guys who wants no change would then have just one vote, others more. I dont't think this would lead to a significant result. What two options do you think I have to sum up and merge into one point? > IMO points c) and d). I strongly believe that the hosing should be reduced somewhat, and it should only give 6 pool max. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > IMO points c) and d). > I strongly believe that the hosing should be reduced somewhat, and it should only give 6 pool max. > c) should be seen in relation with f) ... If changing the card text, I highly recommend not (only) to say "up to 5", but (in addition) to say "at least 2 blood must remain on the vampire" ... Else midcamp vampire would benefit most from the change, and you exchanged only the problematic capacity ... National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

A), although it implies that it's ok to change other cards and I don't believe in that either. So... G) Change nothing. The game is balanced with the current set of legal card texts.

> Brum wrote: > A), although it implies that it's ok to change other cards and I don't believe in that either. > So... G) Change nothing. The game is balanced with the current set of legal card texts. > Having witnessed a lot of timeout at the EC, mostly due to Villeins, I strongly contest that. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > > > Brum wrote: > > A), although it implies that it's ok to change other cards and I don't believe in that either. > > So... G) Change nothing. The game is balanced with the current set of legal card texts. > > > Having witnessed a lot of timeout at the EC, mostly due to Villeins, I strongly contest that. > This implies a problem with the time limit, not Villein.

I wonder how many time outs there were at the EC in the years prior to Villein being printed? David Tatu V:EKN Scribe

Dave, get out of my head!

The other option, which is the one I'm inclined to side with is that we simply have to adapt. This game is incredibly hard, no player has complete understanding of anything in this game. If we give it time, I think we will learn to finish our games within 2 hours both playing against and playing with Villein. Adam Esbjörnsson, Prince of Örebro

@ Xaddam and Brum: I changed point a). I think you could vote for that statement now. Baron of Frankfurt

> Hakuron wrote: > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > IMO points c) and d). > > I strongly believe that the hosing should be reduced somewhat, and it should only give 6 pool max. > > > c) should be seen in relation with f) ... If changing the card text, I highly recommend not (only) to say "up to 5", but (in addition) to say "at least 2 blood must remain on the vampire" ... Else midcamp vampire would benefit most from the change, and you exchanged only the problematic capacity ... > I'm not sure how to add this option without making this poll most complicated. There are people saying yes to that suggestion but like to get rid of MT-hosing, want to keep the hosing, want to get rid of trifle and so on... Would it be okay if I'd just give your suggestion an extraoption without the hosing-point? Baron of Frankfurt

> Amenophobis wrote: > > > Brum wrote: > > A), although it implies that it's ok to change other cards and I don't believe in that either. > > So... G) Change nothing. The game is balanced with the current set of legal card texts. > > > Having witnessed a lot of timeout at the EC, mostly due to Villeins, I strongly contest that. > I wasn't in Poland. But for what people tell me there were many other factors to take into consideration: * Lots of vote decks canceling each other. * Wall decks that stop people from doing anything and don't oust very effectively. * Combat decks that really don't oust, just crush minions. * Lots of toolbox decks that aren't very effective, but make people help them so Predator doesn't sweep. * Many players complaining about a huge amount of table talk. All the big tournaments I've participated have been after Villein was released, so I haven't seen the Before. What I've seen is that Villein is not a direct cause for time outs. Other players choices in decks, play styles and attitudes, yes.

> Joscha wrote: > > > Hakuron wrote: > > > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > > IMO points c) and d). > > > I strongly believe that the hosing should be reduced somewhat, and it should only give 6 pool max. > > > > > c) should be seen in relation with f) ... If changing the card text, I highly recommend not (only) to say "up to 5", but (in addition) to say "at least 2 blood must remain on the vampire" ... Else midcamp vampire would benefit most from the change, and you exchanged only the problematic capacity ... > > > I'm not sure how to add this option without making this poll most complicated. There are people saying yes to that suggestion but like to get rid of MT-hosing, want to keep the hosing, want to get rid of trifle and so on... Would it be okay if I'd just give your suggestion an extraoption without the hosing-point? > I agree with that it would get complicated ... just "drop" the note somewhere in the poll, so that it will not get "lost" ... National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

> Brum wrote: > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > Having witnessed a lot of timeout at the EC, mostly due to Villeins, I strongly contest that. > > > I wasn't in Poland. > I was. > Brum wrote: > But for what people tell me there were many other factors to take into consideration: > * Lots of vote decks canceling each other. > A direct consequence of more high cap vampires. They tend to come with more votes out of the box. > Brum wrote: > * Wall decks that stop people from doing anything and don't oust very effectively. > I have seen some wall decks, all of them had good methods of ousting. > Brum wrote: > * Combat decks that really don't oust, just crush minions. > Can't say, saw none of those that don't oust. > Brum wrote: > * Lots of toolbox decks that aren't very effective, but make people help them so Predator doesn't sweep. > Lots? I saw none. > Brum wrote: > * Many players complaining about a huge amount of table talk. > That had to be me then. > Brum wrote: > What I've seen is that Villein is not a direct cause for time outs. Other players choices in decks, play styles and attitudes, yes. > What I have seen in my 9 games at the EC is that there were large numbers of Villeins played. Often, this resulted in thwarting an impending oust. Which in turn prolonged the games. VPs were extremely hard to get. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Izaak wrote: > 2) Undo the idiotic ruling that makes you able to play Villein for less than 2. > CONTRA This. My issue is not that one player can pull off a free vampire once via Giant's Blood but that it is ruled to function differently than how it is written. The ability to cycle it easily on zero blood vampires reduces the opportunity cost of stacking it in your deck. Aaron Archbishop Adelaide

I watched three finals in Warsaw and Villein didn't help any of them time out. Talking and trying to get impossible deals to survive did. When I am at it - PRO. Ban Giant's Blood and make Lilith's Blessing unique instead. www.lordoftheclog.blogspot.com

Villein: I would go with "at least 2 blood must remain on the vampire" (as Hakuron said earlier). Providing a restriction to only let you drain a max of 5 blood or at least 5 blood doesn't feel necessary as it would kill Villein's abaility to make Big Caps playable again. Regarding Giant's Blood: it's onyl once and including multiple copies hence doesn't help that much (your deck gets clogged on excess Giant's Bloods). Voter Cap is actually a lot crazier IMO because it could be played multiple times in a single turn, gaining both blood AND pool time and time again. Even dedicated actions to make a vampire gain blood such as Restoration/Fifth Trad/Abactor/Sheepdog on average only gain you 3-5 blood (exception: the 'scarce' Renewed Vigour), whereas Voter Cap might fill them up all the way, providing of course you have the votes (Gustav B., anyone?), and all this in addition to the actual vote! In the end Voter Cap seems a bigger problem to me than Villein (and of course their resp. problems are strongly connected). Setting a max. of 5 blood to be gained from Voter Cap could help solve multiple problems at once IMO.

CON "A vampire may have only 1 Villein". Not a huge fix. Simple. Clean. Yeah, doesn't save you from the "I started with 40 pool 'cause of Villein/GIant's Blood" issue, but if you can't stack Villeins on a single minion, there are only so many that are worth using in a deck, which means they come up less often. A small tweak. But probably a reasonable one.

> bakija wrote: > CON > > "A vampire may have only 1 Villein". > > Not a huge fix. Simple. Clean. Yeah, doesn't save you from the "I started with 40 pool 'cause of Villein/GIant's Blood" issue, but if you can't stack Villeins on a single minion, there are only so many that are worth using in a deck, which means they come up less often. A small tweak. But probably a reasonable one. > While this is possibly-good reasoning, I have never heard anyone say that they are running the quantities of Villein in their decks so that they can use multiples. They run the quantities of Villein in their decks so that they get to them. To me, "A vampire may have only 1 Villein" would change almost nothing except the icing on the cake. People should be play testing these Villein fixes on JOL... Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> KevinM wrote: > While this is possibly-good reasoning, I have never heard anyone say that they are running the quantities of Villein in their decks so that they can use multiples. They run the quantities of Villein in their decks so that they get to them. To me, "A vampire may have only 1 Villein" would change almost nothing except the icing on the cake. > > People should be play testing these Villein fixes on JOL... > Yeah, this is probably true.

PRO I learned playing V:tes after KoT came out. So IU didn't know a time without Villein. And I never missed a time without Villein. Villein may be one reason why more and more tables time out, but there are several more. Tend the Flock (which turns Baali decks into real Bloat machines)for example. Or maybe much more important is, that players tend to try different, less aggressive decks. Furthermre Villein is not card you can't cope with, since each player has access to one of the most beautiful anti-bloat card... Sudden Reversal. I can't really see the reason, that Villein is bad, cause it made Minion Tap unplayable. There were so many cards before that are unplayable in a comparible manner. Shall we start a petition to change the wording of all those cards? Guess not.

> Isanwayen wrote: > > I can't really see the reason, that Villein is bad, cause it made Minion Tap unplayable. There were so many cards before that are unplayable in a comparible manner. > That is not true at all. It is not like comparing Flak Jacket to Kevlar Vest or Meat Cleaver to Baseball Bat or Daring the Dawn to Day Operation. The latter is superior, but doesn't make the former unplayable. The presence of more than one Villein on a table makes Minion Tap so un-competitive as to be unplayable. There are very few cards that target other cards by name. Villein, Vessel, and Tarautas are three.

> Aaron wrote: > > > Isanwayen wrote: > > > > I can't really see the reason, that Villein is bad, cause it made Minion Tap unplayable. There were so many cards before that are unplayable in a comparible manner. > > > That is not true at all. > > It is not like comparing Flak Jacket to Kevlar Vest or Meat Cleaver to Baseball Bat or Daring the Dawn to Day Operation. The latter is superior, but doesn't make the former unplayable. The presence of more than one Villein on a table makes Minion Tap so un-competitive as to be unplayable. > > There are very few cards that target other cards by name. Villein, Vessel, and Tarautas are three. > There are more card that target by name, even in AH there were some. And to be fair,better cards that have the same opportunity to play make worse cards unplayable, like aforementioned meat cleaver and flak jacket and day operation are all wallpapers. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Aaron wrote: > Please give examples of cards making other named cards more expensive to play or that otherwise destroy or cancel cards by name. I'm curious. I know that in AH there was Anachronism that mentioned the Ivory Bow by name, but actually made it more playable. > Contracts cannot be played on Iliana (originally there was just a single Contract card, nowadays it's a trait of certain cards). Ecstasy, The Jones and XTC-Laced Blood cannot target Johann Matheson. Aleister Crowley can't be targeted by Frenzies, while Frenzies cost an additional pool when played against Lord Aaron Wesley Wilkshire. For "benefits": Bindusara specifically references Elder Library, Arcane Library, and Fragment (though as a benefit not a prohibition). Crusader Sword specifically references True Faith (as a potential requirement) Advanced Lambach references the Eye of Hazimel. Advanced Karsh reference the Blood Hunt card. Several vampires reference each other. Edith & Enid Blount. Humo & Greensleeves. Margaret Milliner references Francis, Aabbt Kindred reference Nefertiti, and Advanced Menele references Helena. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

I'm surprised you forgot Vassily Taltos, who can destroy a Blood Doll as action. I may be wrong, but I think that Aleister Crowley and Lord Aaron Wesley Wilkshire's texts refer to cards of the frenzy type, not just the library card "Frenzy". So there are a few crypt cards that have protection from types of cards. Iliana (when printed but not now), Tarautas, Johann Matheson, and Vassily Taltos mention specific cards by name, and only Tarautas has the effect of actually hosing Blood Doll and Minion Tap in such a way as to significantly interfere with pool management. And there can only be one Tarautas in play, whereas there can be multiple Villeins in play.

> Aaron wrote: > I'm surprised you forgot Vassily Taltos, who can destroy a Blood Doll as action. > Well, I was starting with vampires from older sets, but in hindsight it might have made more sense to look at the newer vampires. > I may be wrong, but I think that Aleister Crowley and Lord Aaron Wesley Wilkshire's texts refer to cards of the frenzy type, not just the library card "Frenzy". > Yes, but Frenzies are a narrow enough category I thought it would be appropriate. Similarly with Sean Rycek and his ability to burn Boons. Oh and Preternatural Strength prevents you from using Torn Signpost. And on the benefit side, you also have Ur-Shulgi and Tajdid. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

I count 10 different frenzy cards - hardly a narrow category. There are no cards that increase the cost of all frenzy cards, for example. I wasn't asking about cards that just mention other cards by name - I was trying to find cards that negatively affect other specifically named cards, and as you've shown there are very few of them apart from some rarely-played crypt cards.

Even if the poll is launched, there is three points that I would want to see considered with villein. * it's all but unavailable. It's very frustrating. Having a card with the same kind of effect on big caps in the next extension would be very useful. By "same kind of effect", I mean a trifle or something equally cheap that help recoup significantly the cost of a big vampire * it significantly change the way big caps are played. I mean, without villein / minion tap, big vampire are very resilient because they have a lot of blood. Villein make them much more like smallish vampire with better discipline selection. It's not problematic gameplay-wise, but it is fun-wise for me. * it allow too much big caps. Decks that intent to use multiple inner circle or 10-caps make me scringe. Once again it's a storytelling / fun issue and not a gameplay one In my opinion, I would change Villein to be more-grooming the protege like, I.E. the blood does not go in your pool but on a younger vampire. It would resolve the bloat problem by making it much more slow, it would also make hard to play a lot of very big caps vampires.

SOME DATA, NOT OPINION To see just how widely used Villein is, I checked the Lasombra's TWD. My criteria: Tournament must have 20+ players, starting most recent report and going backward. I hit 20 reports near the end of July, 2011. I thought for sure there would be more decks with Villeins, but I was surprised by what I found. Some facts and figures: 10 TWDs had Villeins 10 TWDs had no Villeins Breakdown by type with Villeins: 1. Lutz vote (8x) 2. Ventrue G45 (6x) 3. Lutz vote (8x) 4. Armin Brenner vote (4x) 5. Dmitra vote (6x) 6. Saulot bloat/steal (6x) 7. Akunanse (6x) 8. Nana / ANI (7x) 9. Marconius / Faerie Wards (5x) 10.Saulot wall (7x) Breakdown by type without Villeins: 1. Nana / ANI (144 players) 2. Imbued 3. Ahrimanes w Ashurs 4. Weenie AUS 5. Tupdog / Shamblers 6. Rock Cats 7. Setite Spell of Life 8. Tzimisce Rotschreck 9. Weenie AUS (90 players) 10.Ventrue G4/5 I see a lot of variety here. And look, NO GIRLS! To me, this sort of data proves that Villein is NOT a huge problem. If anything, it has facilitated these sorts of decks. It is undoubtedly the strongest Trifle in the game, but does that mean it should be nerfed? I don't think Villein meets any objective criteria for change. I actually find it odd to be in the position of defending a relatively strong card. I was very much on the ban Protect Thine Own bandwagon many years ago. I think that Pentex Subversion also ought to go the way of the dodo, possibly even Direct Intervention. Villein is a good card. It has made it possible to play large cap superstar decks which were otherwise not feasible. It has helped the metagame shift away from weenies because the risk of playing large vampires has been significantly reduced. Based recent entries into the TWD, it appears that there is still a wealth of diversity out there in the VTES world. I would be more worried about the negative impact of such a change (undoing what the card was originally intended to do, keeping track of errata), then the positive impact of any change I have seen from any proposals would be not hosing Minion Tap. For the record, I am PRO keeping Villein as is. It is not the problem. Nor are Giant's Blood and Lilith's Blessing. The biggest problem in the game is Pentex Subversion. Not to threadjack, but that card has zero interaction between minions and is currently the ultimate "I WIN." card for merely 2 pool. Back to your regularly schedule Villein debate. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > SOME DATA, NOT OPINION > > 10 TWDs had Villeins > 10 TWDs had no Villeins > > Breakdown by type with Villeins: > 1. Lutz vote (8x) > 2. Ventrue G45 (6x) > 3. Lutz vote (8x) > 4. Armin Brenner vote (4x) > 5. Dmitra vote (6x) > 6. Saulot bloat/steal (6x) > 7. Akunanse (6x) > 8. Nana / ANI (7x) > 9. Marconius / Faerie Wards (5x) > 10.Saulot wall (7x) > > Breakdown by type without Villeins: > 1. Nana / ANI (144 players) > 2. Imbued > 3. Ahrimanes w Ashurs > 4. Weenie AUS > 5. Tupdog / Shamblers > 6. Rock Cats > 7. Setite Spell of Life > 8. Tzimisce Rotschreck > 9. Weenie AUS (90 players) > 10.Ventrue G4/5 > What I see here is that to win you have to play villein or weenie. Exiting. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > What I see here is that to win you have to play villein or weenie. Exiting. > Your non-argument is invalid. I suppose you'd prefer to go back to the pre-Villein metagame. Go ahead. I dare you to check the TWDA for decks up through December 31, 2008. I know you won't, so here's what you'd find: Weenie AUS Weenie PRE Weenie DEM Mid-cap Giovanni Powerbleed and Shamblers Precious few large cap vote decks Almost none of those had vampires of capacity 9+. Villein has been a good thing and should stay as it is. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> elotar wrote: > What I see here is that to win you have to play villein or weenie. Exiting. > What? Did you even read the list Jeff provided? Breakdown by type without Villeins: 2. Imbued 3. Ahrimanes w Ashurs 7. Setite Spell of Life 8. Tzimisce Rotschreck 10.Ventrue G4/5 Half of the non-Villein decks weren't weenie decks, assuming that #8 isn't a weenie deck (non-War Ghoul Tzimisce decks usually aren't). Even if that one is a weenie deck, 40% of those non-Villein decks weren't weenie decks. That'a a very substantial middle for you to willfully exclude there. EDIT: I checked the Tzimisce deck, and its average crypt size was like 6.something. Not a weenie deck.

I guess it comes down to how you enjoy the game. I enjoy making balanced decks with various options and themes. Is it REALLY enjoyable to stack/spam a certain card to gain a specific benefit? I like the limit on Villein. Cap it at 5. That would give minion tap a reason to exist.

> Arthur wrote: > Is it REALLY enjoyable to stack/spam a certain card to gain a specific benefit? > You can be forced to be forced to stack villein for some decks. You can also be forced not to play thoses decks because they are too weak, and that's arguably worse. This is one of the possibles outcome if Villein is errated without a lot of playtesting. But you're right on that they should be more card that act like villein, I.E. that allow you to greatly recoup the cost of a big caps. I hope to see something to that effect on the upcoming VEKN extension.

Perhaps a new type of card which stays in play and enhances certain capabilities of vampires over a certain capacity. Similar to Gehenna cards. Lets the big guys duke it out with each other and take on swarms. Cards that give them sweeping reduction from Agg to normal, +1 hand damage, the ability to, once per combat to play from your deck a damage reduction card as if it were in your hand without discarding down. Crate a flow between hand and deck on rare occasions. IDEA: Stalwart Lineage or Just "Lineage" card type. It put's into play effects the entire table. Only one Lineage card may be in play at a time. When someone else puts one in play, it discards your Lineage and you gain 1 pool. off the top of my head.

> elotar wrote: > > > Jeff wrote: > > SOME DATA, NOT OPINION > > > > 10 TWDs had Villeins > > 10 TWDs had no Villeins > > > > Breakdown by type with Villeins: > > 1. Lutz vote (8x) > > 2. Ventrue G45 (6x) > > 3. Lutz vote (8x) > > 4. Armin Brenner vote (4x) > > 5. Dmitra vote (6x) > > 6. Saulot bloat/steal (6x) > > 7. Akunanse (6x) > > 8. Nana / ANI (7x) > > 9. Marconius / Faerie Wards (5x) > > 10.Saulot wall (7x) > > > > Breakdown by type without Villeins: > > 1. Nana / ANI (144 players) > > 2. Imbued > > 3. Ahrimanes w Ashurs > > 4. Weenie AUS > > 5. Tupdog / Shamblers > > 6. Rock Cats > > 7. Setite Spell of Life > > 8. Tzimisce Rotschreck > > 9. Weenie AUS (90 players) > > 10.Ventrue G4/5 > > > What I see here is that to win you have to play villein or weenie. Exiting. > And back in the days it was Minion Tap. That's just the way things are going. I am totally against banning cards. In my opinion even very strong cards like Memories of Mortality and PTO just needed a little card text update (Memories/Unique - PTO/once per game). Villein is fine as it is, same with Giants Blood. Seeing it being abused, i would agree with changing Liliths Blessing to Unique. But back to the topic. Since villein entered the stage you saw a lot more variety of decks. If you don't want your table to go into timeout just think what you can do against it. Play Sudden Reversal, rush, bleed hard. I am PRO Villein! Nothing against your personal opinion, just needed something to quote to.

Take it to the enemy. Don't give them time to regroup. Blitz. Smash. Steal. Pillage. destroy. What was there's is now yours. If you let them sit they'll bloat and be unstoppable. Force change with a Bang Nakh to the heart.

CON- I have spoken with a couple of playtesters of K.O.T. and neither of them playtested Villien in its printed form. I wonder if there are any playtesters here who have? From what I gathered it was meant to nerf voter cap. by crippling minion tap, thus the trifle function was added last minute as ~no one~ would play with out it. I do not know why the move 2+ blood was included, but I suspect it was intended that the vampire must have at least two blood to play it on. Wording and prior rules superseded intent, thou I could be wrong. Villien limits competitive deck choices for players without it, whether they be new or returning players. I can see no value in its nerfing of minion tap for the game now or in the future. I believe it has had no effect on the Tap&Cap mechanic other change its name to Villien&Cap. Giants Blood, Golconda and Lilith Blessing/Villien is a problem. As far as I know, none of which were playtested with the current printing of Villien, certainly not liliths blessing.

> Shard wrote: > CON- > > I have spoken with a couple of playtesters of K.O.T. and neither of them playtested Villien in its printed form. > > I wonder if there are any playtesters here who have? > Luckily for you, I'm having a very slow day at work. I've never known if the various playtest groups got differing sets of cards to test. I don't think so, because I don't remember ever seeing anything in a new set which we hadn't seen before, during playtest. That said, here is the card text of Villein during our fourth and final round of KoT playtesting: Master. Put this card on a vampire you control and move 1 or more blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire. Looking at the other three iterations of the card, the only changes to them were that sometimes it was "1 blood" and other times it was "2 blood." We never had any indication that it would be printed as a trifle, nor did we test it that way. I can't remember if we suggested that; I do remember that the general consensus in our group (which we sent to LSJ) was that Villein wouldn't be very likely to be played instead of Minion Tap.

Villein could be reigned in a bit if people who play villein exclusively have their vamps singled out for destruction. I'm putting together a Gangrel anti deck with this idea in mind. If you play Villein, I'll rush you and torp your vamp. I have plenty of cards to choose from that can get rid of vampires in torpor via diablerie, without diablerie and even take out vamps in their inactive region if the opportunity arises with memories fading glimpse. It couldn't even really be considered "ganging up" on a certain type of deck, because if I build my deck with minion tap in mind, your playing villein. You are gonna cost me and bloat the game to a slow pace. I mean to keep the game at a faster pace...so....eat some claw. I like the changes mentioned to villein that give it a 5 cap in blood transfer, but now, with no support for the game doing errata means everyone has to remember every errata OR it's understood that printing your own cards for play in tournaments, in the case of cards with errata, is fine. I could live with printed cards that will never see a re-print to show the change, but not altogether.(some of that belongs in another thread.)

> I'm putting together a Gangrel anti deck with this idea in mind. If you play Villein, I'll rush you and torp your vamp. I have plenty of cards to choose from that can get rid of vampires in torpor via diablerie, without diablerie and even take out vamps in their inactive region if the opportunity arises with memories fading glimpse. > And how will you win? (*) (*) Rhetorical

Boring the other player to death maybe ? Seriously, you want to actively destroy games because theirs decks don't suit you. It's pretty vindicative to say the least, and it will only help you to stop playing because nobody will want you at the table.

> Kushiel wrote: > I've never known if the various playtest groups got differing sets of cards to test. I don't think so, because I don't remember ever seeing anything in a new set which we hadn't seen before, during playtest. > Early in the process, we certainly got different sets of cards to test, but only in the sense of Group A got half the set and Group B got the other half of the set (i.e. during Bloodlines playtest, my group got Blood Brothers, Gargoyles, and Samedi, IIRC). I don't know for sure that different groups of playtesters got different versions of the same cards, but indications are that they didn't. > Master. > Put this card on a vampire you control and move 1 or more blood from that vampire to your pool. Minion Tap cards cost an additional pool. Villein costs an additional pool to play on this vampire. > Yeah, we got the same one. We never saw Villein as a trifle, but suggested it be a trifle many times (but also suggested it have a limit of, like, 2 or something to go with it being a trifle). I never saw the final version of Villein till it was printed. I'll also point out that Lillith's Blessing was a card that was in circulation during one of the playtest sets, but given that it was in playtest during a time when Villein was very scarce (if not in the same set as Villein), I suspect that it didn't get a lot of playtesting with Villein (yes, I realize that someone could have proxied Villeins during playtesting, but I suspect that as Villein was few and far between at that point, it didn't really occur to many people). > Looking at the other three iterations of the card, the only changes to them were that sometimes it was "1 blood" and other times it was "2 blood." We never had any indication that it would be printed as a trifle, nor did we test it that way. I can't remember if we suggested that; I do remember that the general consensus in our group (which we sent to LSJ) was that Villein wouldn't be very likely to be played instead of Minion Tap. > Oh, every playtest report we made indicated that Villein as presented (i.e. without being a trifle) was weak and unlikely to see play, as if it weren't hosing Minion Tap, it was just plain worse than Minion Tap, and it probably wasn't worth using just to hose Minion Tap. So we suggested it be a trifle. Every time. Except we also suggested it have other limits (I think the most common suggestion in our reports was "make it a trifle that takes exactly 2 blood" or possibly 3.)

> Ohlmann wrote: > Boring the other player to death maybe ? > What's wrong with playing a combat/rush deck? Plenty of viable ways of ousting nowadays... Graverob Fame Tension in the Ranks Dragonbound Anathema Codex of Edenic Groundkeepers just to name a few... People are whining about how insanely strong Lilith is and the nimute someone announces he'll put together a deck to counter the excessive use of Lilith everyone and their grandmother is accusing of him of making crappy/boring/non-winning deck. Right-o! Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > What's wrong with playing a combat/rush deck? > That were *not* the problem. The problem was "I play to punish Villein abuse and not to win". The deck he propose is not particulary strong against such abuses, so it's pretty much a bad idea. I have on following post said that combat does not oust. And it's true, like vote lock does nothing by itself combat does not kill your prey, bleed or votes do. All the goodies you propose are pretty slow, interesting because in endgame they can do a lot of good, but they are useless if you need to kill your prey on the spot because he's preparing something you can't control. No every prey will do that, maybe you can do combat deck that don't care about that, but since you can put 20 bleed card in a combat viable deck, the possibility should not be ignored.

CONTRA I do not play Villein often, really. I feel kinda dirty with it in my deck. Nerfing could balance it for sure, and my opinion is that you should do it with simple added sentence that goes: "This vampire cannot gain blood this turn; any blood he or she gains goes to the blood bank instead." Simple, no combos, and it makes target minion really vulnerable for one turn. Ignorance is bliss. Cypher, Matrix

> Ohlmann wrote: > That were *not* the problem. The problem was "I play to punish Villein abuse and not to win". The deck he propose is not particulary strong against such abuses, so it's pretty much a bad idea. > Getting into combat with pretty much empty vampires sounds like a sweet deal to me (unless you're wanting to fill your guy up with Taste of Vitae) > Ohlmann wrote: > I have on following post said that combat does not oust. And it's true, like vote lock does nothing by itself combat does not kill your prey, bleed or votes do. > Pretty darn hard to bleed/vote when you're in torpor/burned... > Ohlmann wrote: > All the goodies you propose are pretty slow > Not THAT many decks are quick. Besides being superquick usually earns you more tablehate than you actually want. Non-ultra quick decks sucking is just propaganda the Swedes like to spread > Ohlmann wrote: > but they are useless if you need to kill your prey on the spot because he's preparing something you can't control. > Neither can kill your prey on the spot with bleeds (bounce/intercept/reduction/action fail) or votes (intercept/reduction/action fail/Delaying Tactics and such). In case you didn't notice, this year's EC was won by a combat deck. Another one wa in teh finals. As well as a Rock Cat/Tupdog deck. But none of those are viable decks since they aren't quick... Finnish Politics!

Villein is great -- I wouldn't change it. But why does it need to hose Minion Tap? Was tap-and-cap too strong?

> Dorrinal wrote: > Villein is great -- I wouldn't change it. But why does it need to hose Minion Tap? Was tap-and-cap too strong? > I remember LSJ saying on the newsgroup that he was leaning toward thinking that Voter Cap was too good, rather a while before Villein was printed. I believe his argument was that it rewards vote decks for "doing what they want to do anyway."

I remember that discussion. Wonder why Voter Captivation never got nerfed. Edit: Why can't up to 2 of the blood you gain from Taste of Vitae go to your pool?

> Dorrinal wrote: > Edit: Why can't up to 2 of the blood you gain from Taste of Vitae go to your pool? > You must have Vampirism at superior

> Dorrinal wrote: > I remember that discussion. Wonder why Voter Captivation never got nerfed. > Yeah, printing Villein was a really roundabout way to nerf Voter Cap. Not sure why it wasn't just errata'd, since it could've easily been reprinted in the next base set (which was KoT, which introduced Villein...).

> Izaak wrote: > > > I'm putting together a Gangrel anti deck with this idea in mind. If you play Villein, I'll rush you and torp your vamp. I have plenty of cards to choose from that can get rid of vampires in torpor via diablerie, without diablerie and even take out vamps in their inactive region if the opportunity arises with memories fading glimpse. > > > And how will you win? (*) > > (*) Rhetorical > Plenty of cards which kill pool for vampires being in torpor. Put out the gehenna card which makes vampires have to hunt vampires. tension in the ranks. Fame. Ante awakening if you want. Anarch revolt. Go out there and kill kill kill. Fame works best though. Make sure you have pool gain set up and run around like a fireball upsetting everyone's play style. Chaos is on your side since you've already planned for it.

Sorry if you didn't get my question. I didn't ask "how do you oust your prey?" I asked "how will you win?". Winning generally involves getting 2 or more VP. Winning does not involve making your prey and predator miserable while you spend 6 turns getting rid of ~15 pool while someone else is winning.

> Arthur wrote: > Make sure you have pool gain set up and run around like a fireball upsetting everyone's play style. Chaos is on your side since you've already planned for it. > Has this worked for you in tournament-level play? I can't remember ever seeing someone doing this who then made it to the finals.

I'm also not strictly commenting on tournament style play. There are people who may have a certain meta in their casual play group. It probably wouldn't be my first choice of deck to run in an actual event that isn't casual play, but the more I think about it the more I want to make one. It's possible to balance your run around actions with forward motion and putting pressure on your prey. I do get a sick pleasure out of messing with peoples perfect designs and intentions. It's not about blocking everything your opponent's are playing. It's about choosing the precise point to cause the most chaos or damage.