On Anthelios 8. "problematic card"

This discussion is about Anthelios, the eigth problematic card and the last in this year (at least from me). You might wonder why the heck now Anthelios? In the past days I got talked to some people who mentioned Anthelios is the reason that we have such a biased metagame towards master cards. I'm very interested what the VEKN-members participating in this forum are thinking about that matter. So the question is as usual: Is Anthelios a problematic card for VtES? Anthelios, The Red Star [Promo-20040411] Cardtype: Event Gehenna. Once each master phase, a Methuselah can use a master phase action to exchange a master card in his or her hand for one in his or her ash heap. Please write PRO or CON over your entry that the users can search more easily for related arguments. It's easier then to come to a opinion about this card and I'd like to have a poll again to get a clear picture of what the people here think about it. I'm very condident that the arbitrative people will look upon our statements and take them into consideration if thinking about the design of new cards. If you're tired of people who want to talk about cards and you want to keep the game as it is please don't be annoyed. Just state your opinion in a short sentence, in applauding a statement or just checking the right point in the poll. This is NOT to diss a card. It is about exchanging opinions and ideas. Baron of Frankfurt

CON. In term of power level, it is a very powerful card that allow too much master recursion. Recursive card abuse is a problem, and Anthelios is the most powerful tool for that : recurse the most powerful card type, no clan or discipline restriction, somewhat difficult or at least specific to destroy, and work well with Parthenon and other multiple master phase action card. In term of metagame, its very presence play down the value of Necromancy and Giovanni card by quite a bit, and it tend to slow down the game, both by the choice at every master phase and the fact that master recursion tend to autorize bloating. Since Villein hose Minion tap no more, I strongly believe that Anthelios must be either banned or errated. Errata proposition : once per master card per methuselah maximum ? (I.E. if you already retrived a Golconda via Anthelios you can't retrieve any Golconda). But I would better see a ban.

CON It's just broken. Recursion of DI/Jake Washington or any other good master in situation multiple times is just too good. I understand one time recursion, but you can do it over and over for the same master. It would be way better if it would remove this master card from the game and/or all master cards in ash heap from the game. 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.

CON Once [Card X] is in your Ash Heap, if you have 2MPAs it might as well be in your hand. While 2MPAs is not 'common' it is not hard to get if you've got a mind to do it (Cybele, Nana Buruku, Anson, Rumors of Gehenna, Parthenon). Anthelios, the Red Star Event. Gehenna. Put this card in play. You may use a master phase action to discard a Master card from your hand and play a different master card from your ash heap (you cannot choose the card you discard). The master card you play from your ashheap is removed from the game. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

CON pretty damn broken. like Hugh said in his interview, you can't really interact with it once it's in play. recursion is strong but most of the time there's some cost or restriction, or it's a minion action that can be blocked. the only counter is to pack a silver bullet like Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle, and then hope the master-abuse deck isn't packing a silver bullet against THAT i.e. Not To Be (and they usually are, because they're a master deck!) you can't practically depend on Not To Be yourself, because it's a matter of drawing it before they draw Anthelios. these decks usually have 2 copies, plus a Fortschritt Library, so the odds of them drawing it first are stacked in their favor.

> Ohlmann wrote: > Since Villein hose Minion tap no more, I strongly believe that Anthelios must be either banned or errated. > Hmm. Over in the Parity Shift thread, you wrote: "In short, Parity shift give a powerful effect, not a game-changing one. I believe that card that give powerfuls effect should be banned only if they remove completely entires decks or thousands of cards, and a quick look to vote deck don't convince me at all of that." If we change "Parity Shift" to "Anthelios" and "vote deck" to "master recursion deck", I think you'll find that you have talked yourself out of your own point...

PRO Anthelios is strong, probably overly strong, but not worth banning or errata. The main issue is Events in general, Gehenna events in particular. Now that the whiners don't have to buck up for Villeins, they can go spend that money on Ashur Tablets, then STFU and PTG. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

CON- recursion is strong and time consuming. This card gives recursion to all Meth. but only the MMPA's will really benefit. It was the first event, so it could not have a Gehenna requirement, it does not reduce your hand size for any period of time, and is the most powerful event i.e. the cards it effects are the most powerful in the game. I know the game is perfect, suck it up and play the game. Should we really think of that as a valid argument? Why don't we lift all ban's and play all original cards text. army of rats stacks, immortal grapple lasts the whole combat, mind rape is forever, pulled fangs agg, sit switching, PTO Cams only etc..etc..etc.. There are allot of master cards that people think are over powered, Anthelios allows them to be played more. For the most part its the perpetual wash/sudden/DI I think is the problem. How do you build to combat that?

PRO The card has been around for a long time, is very strong, but not broken. I hear/read people who are always in favor of variety/creativity in decks and this card allows certain decks to do so. That being said, right now there seems to be somewhat of a backlash against Master-heavy decks. That discussion has been going on all over for a while now, but that's a different topic. For this card I think the problem is more with Events in general - that there are so few ways to get rid of the Event (Uncoiling, Not to Be, etc) or they just don't see play for whatever reason. Anthelios (and Events in general) can only be played once per game and this card's power level is certainly not on par with Edge Explosion. I'd keep the card as is, but perhaps down the road make burning Events more attractive/easier.

From my point of view it should be easier to destroy events, however in return people should be allowed to play them more than once. It would also remove the problem where you build a deck around certain events and if someone else plays them first and dies you are screwed ...

> johannes wrote: > From my point of view it should be easier to destroy events, however in return people should be allowed to play them more than once. It would also remove the problem where you build a deck around certain events and if someone else plays them first and dies you are screwed ... > The rules regarding events would have to be rewritten, if you want to achieve this. pckvtes.wordpress.com

> johannes wrote: > It would also remove the problem where you build a deck around certain events and if someone else plays them first and dies you are screwed ... > Which particular event are you thinking about? Most of them affect the whole table, so it does not matter who plays them. EDIT: Nevermind, I just missed the "and dies" part.

CON. This event effectively makes masters permanents without a built-in counter or removal option. Together with liquidation, tablets and multi-master vampires, this is clearly broken or at least severely warps the metagame. Ban it! Baron of Berkeley

> johannes wrote: > From my point of view it should be easier to destroy events, however in return people should be allowed to play them more than once. It would also remove the problem where you build a deck around certain events and if someone else plays them first and dies you are screwed ... > It should be easier to kill events, which would make Anthelios much more reasonable--currently, you *can* kill events, just people seem to not plan on doing that much. Granted, most of the Event killing cards kind of blow: -Not to Be: Costs a pool, you need to have it in your hand when the event hits the table. -Emergency Preparations: Also costs a pool, also requires you to have it in hand when the event is played. -Shattering: Requires you to be an Anarch with dementation (although it is at +2 stealth). -Black Hand Ritual: Requires you to be Black Hand. Although it can be cycled if no events are in play for a minorly useful effect. -The Uncoiling: Probably the best one, but is random (if there are multiple events, it might miss) and might permanently reduce your hand size. Given that folks feel that Anthelios is as overpowered as it is, and that those Cybelle/Aksina decks with Anthelios seem to be all the rage, I'd imagine that people would be using the Uncoiling in every deck; it kills Anthelios, The Unmaskening, and Dargonboned, all of which show up all the time and are very dangerous. I would like to see it be easier to kill Events, still, however. A master card that could kill an event after the fact would be nice. Or some more generally useful actions that do that too. I have no huge need to see them be playable more than once, even if they become easier to kill; very few decks really *need* an event to work; Unmaskening is pretty key to ally decks, but they can generally live without it. Dragonbound is often more of a bad idea than not. No deck *needs* Anthelios to be playable.

There is also Watchtower that kills events. 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.

> Lech wrote: > There is also Watchtower that kills events. > Well, yes, but that requires an event in play to even put it into play. So you have already probably played Anthelios just to get the Watchtower on the table...

> bakija wrote: > If we change "Parity Shift" to "Anthelios" and "vote deck" to "master recursion deck", I think you'll find that you have talked yourself out of your own point... > Not at all. There is two key difference (that I have highlighted already with Parity shift) : * Parity shift does the work of availables card (2 - 3 standards vote in one). Anthelios have an unique effect*. Being an unique effect is neither a requirement nor a proof of problematic card, but is still a good indicator of being potentially broken. * Parity shift can be countered, delayed or made less efficient by everything that hose votes (and some other things in some circumstances). Anti-event card are very scarce and a lot less easy to use. Anthelios have a cool and unique effect in theory, but in practice I believe it does not really work out.

some more problems I see with trying to introduce silver bullets against events... minion cards like Black Hand Ritual aren't very reliable, because it's common for an Anthelios deck to keep a Direct Intervention in hand. then they use Anthelios to swap DI back in their hand next turn. to be fair it's not guaranteed to happen like that every time, but.... basically, Anthelios helps you counter anything that could counter Anthelios. that's not game balance! people forget that Uncoiling will only ever burn one random event on the table. If someone's deck relies heavily on events to play their game (or ruin everyone else's) then they will definitely pay the pool to burn Uncoiling before it activates a second time. it's too bad that Events just don't seem to play nicely with the rest of the game structure. or maybe the bad thing is that the Gehenna cards were too powerful, while other events are perfectly fine and don't deserve to be lumped together with them (e.g. NRA PAC, Bitter and Sweet Story)

> Haze wrote: > basically, Anthelios helps you counter anything that could counter Anthelios. that's not game balance! > And a lot of master are not balanced to be played every turn. To be fair, it's not too much most of the time, but frankly an opponent that can ensure having things like a direct intervention, a wash, a Pentex Subversion, an Archon Investigation, or the combo Golconda / Minion tap as needed is both boring and hard to counter.

CON I don't think the card should be banned. I think the ability to pick and choose master cards is interesting, and it makes playing some of the more corner case masters feasible, but, at it's current cost only 1 MPA and 1 master from your hand to exchange a card, it is too cheap, especially when combined with multiple MPA's. I think something like: > > Anthelios wrote: > By forgoing all master phase actions this turn, a Methuselah can exchange a master card in his or her hand for one in his or her ash heap . Not usable if the Methuselah has played an out of turn master since his or her last turn. > would be better balanced - still a powerful effect, but slower to abuse, and less of an automatic include in decks with lots of MPA's. -- National Coordinator South Africa

> Ohlmann wrote: > Not at all. There is two key difference (that I have highlighted already with Parity shift) : > More the point was that you apparently believe that cards that give powerful effects should only be banned if they remove entire decks or thousands of cards. Anthelios does neither of those. > * Parity shift can be countered, delayed or made less efficient by everything that hose votes (and some other things in some circumstances). Anti-event card are very scarce and a lot less easy to use. > Every deck in the game can use Uncoiling. It has no play requirements. You don't need a minion to use it. It costs nothing. It works after Anthelios is already in play, so you don't need it in your hand when the Anthelios is played. Yes. Most of the anti-event cards blow. But Uncoiling? Can go in every single deck in the game and be played by anyone with zero cost. Yeah, it is random, but how often is there more than 1 event in the game that matters? Once and a while, there will be Anthelios and Unmaskening. Rarely there will be some event apocalypse deck that has 5, in which case, the Uncoiling is gonna be gold anyway. If Anthelios is as powerful and game demolishing as it is, I'd imagine that every deck would pack an Uncoiling all the time.

Hosing the source of the multiple MPAs is also an option. In the game I meant, by arsoning Parthenon for example. Lackeyname: Kris

> bakija wrote: > More the point was that you apparently believe that cards that give powerful effects should only be banned if they remove entire decks or thousands of cards. Anthelios does neither of those. > But then again, Parity shift is powerful where Anthelios is broken (for all the reason I have given, like the fact it's hard to destroy, or the). You forgot the context to compare the arguments. You may argue that for you P.S is broken, but I don't think so, and the exact list arguments for both of us are already on the other thread. Also, Anthelios put other cards retrieving to a lot more shame than Parity Shift. using KRC or Consanguinous Boon to replace Parity shift is a lot less of a sacrifice than using, let's say, Ashur Tablet, Potchli or Sundario, or other necromancy or giovanni card retrieving tech. > bakija wrote: > Every deck in the game can use Uncoiling. It has no play requirements. > It has play requirement (like not using event), does not work very well (as have been already said), and is extremely costly to use. Delaying tactic or Confusion or the eye or a lot of vote are not exactly that hard to add to a deck in comparison.

> Haze wrote: > basically, Anthelios helps you counter anything that could counter Anthelios. that's not game balance! > You can't DI The Uncoiling. You can't sudden the Uncoiling. All you can stop the Uncoiling with is Not to Be or Emergency Preparations. I suspect very few of those Cybele/Aksina decks have Not to Be or Emergency Preparations in them. And even if they do, they need to have it in hand when the Uncoiling is played. > people forget that Uncoiling will only ever burn one random event on the table. > Who has forgotten that? I have mentioned it in every post I have mentioned the Uncoiling in. How often will there be more than 1 important event in play? Occasionally there will be 2. Reasonable odds. Seldomly, there will be many events in play. In which case, you really want the Uncoiling anyway. > If someone's deck relies heavily on events to play their game (or ruin everyone else's) then they will definitely pay the pool to burn Uncoiling before it activates a second time. > None of the decks that really abuse Anthelios (Cybele/Aksina decks) use 1 event (Anthelios) or occasionally 2 (possibly Dragonbound). It isn't generally that hard to kill Anthelios with Uncoiling. Don't get me wrong here--Anthelios certainly might be too powerful. But it seems as if the best way to deal with it (The Uncoiling) is just being handwaved away, when I'd imagine that every deck that was being played in any serious tournament would be packing one. Or two. Along with a Pentex Subversion and a Giant's Blood. Especially in an environment where those Cybelle/Aksina decks (or Anson/Whatever decks) are winning all the time.

> Ohlmann wrote: > But then again, Parity shift is powerful where Anthelios is broken (for all the reason I have given, like the fact it's hard to destroy, or the). You forgot the context to compare the arguments. > Hmm. Clearly, you are missing my point. You shot down the Parity Shift argument with a broad, sweeping generalization setting an impossibly high bar for what makes a card overpowered to the point that something needs to be done about it (as it was a convenient way for you to dismiss the Parity Shift argument). But everything you said in that broad, sweeping generalization to dismiss the Parity Shift argument can be used to dismiss your own Anthelios argument. Perhaps you should consider that before making broad, sweeping generalizations to dismiss arguments. > It has play requirement (like not using event), does not work very well (as have been already said), and is extremely costly to use. > It's cost is "Hey--predator of that Anthelios deck. If I play the Uncoiling and kill the Anthelios, you'll use a discard phase action to get rid of it, yes?" and getting a card out of your hand. Yeah, it makes using your own events dubious, but if you are using events, you are probably using Anthelios anyway (and not much else--the Unmaskening shows up, Narrow Minds shows up, Dragonbound shows up, Bitter Sweet Story shows up). Uncoiling is a very easy to use, general solution to Anthelios. And yet no one seems to want to use it. > Delaying tactic or Confusion or the eye or a lot of vote are not exactly that hard to add to a deck in comparison. > It is not exactly hard to add an Uncoiling to a deck, either. And you don't even need to have an untapped vampire to use. You just drop it into play when appropriate, and possibly flip a coin.

> bakija wrote: > But it seems as if the best way to deal with it (The Uncoiling) is just being handwaved away, when I'd imagine that every deck that was being played in any serious tournament would be packing one. Or two. > No, the best way to counter some way too frequently used cards is not packing a counter (as it hinders YOUR own deck since you don't want any extra toolboxy cards in it) but instead bitching about how owerpowered it is and campaign to get it banned/errataed. Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > No, the best way to counter some way too frequently used cards is not packing a counter (as it hinders YOUR own deck since you don't want any extra toolboxy cards in it) but instead bitching about how owerpowered it is and campaign to get it banned/errataed. > Full well realizing that this is what we like to call "irony", I'll respond anyway. Once and a while, there are cards that are, in fact, just too powerful. They affect the game too much. They warp the play environment, or make the game less fun or too narrow or too much of a crap shoot. These cards have existed. They currently exist. The game would improve as a whole if they were addressed. This is why people discuss them on the internet and argue that they are too strong and argue that they get fixed. I also realize that a lot of people are afraid of the Slippery Slope--"Villein is fixed, so what to target next?", and that makes folks cranky. But that doesn't mean that there aren't still cards that could use a fixing (I still stand by the statement that the three cards that need fixing/removing most are DI, Parity Shift, and Pentext Subversion, but that is neither here nor there in this discussion). Again, I'm not arguing that Anthelios isn't overpowered. It might very well be (as I haven't set an impossibly high bar for what makes a card broken and need fixing...). But there *is* an easy, generally useful, flexible solution to Anthelios (i.e. The Uncoiling) that I'd think would show up in decks all the time; if you have a deck that doesn't rely on events (which is probably the majority of decks in the game), put in The Uncoiling--Anthelios shows up, The Unmaskening shows up, Dragonbound shows up, Narrow Minds shows up. Rarely, some Imbued apocalypse nightmare shows up. If The Uncoiling was as commonly seen as, say, Pentex Subversion or DI or Giant's Blood (which there is no reason that it shouldn't), Anthelios would seem a *lot* less effective. As it would blow up on a regular basis. That isn't to say that it isn't overpowered; it might be. But simply handwaving away the best, most obvious solution seems silly.

Hey, I'm with YOU on this mate... Finnish Politics!

> bakija wrote: > If The Uncoiling was as commonly seen as, say, Pentex Subversion or DI or Giant's Blood (which there is no reason that it shouldn't), Anthelios would seem a *lot* less effective. As it would blow up on a regular basis. That isn't to say that it isn't overpowered; it might be. But simply handwaving away the best, most obvious solution seems silly. > You're right, Peter. But some folks just plain don't and won't include defensive cards in their decks. The Uncoiling is reactive and has a not insignificant drawback of permanent hand size reduction. But it is a great silver bullet and anyone who worries about Events in their metagame should use it instead of whining. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

Uncoiling is a great card and I play it a lot. The sole problem with it is that it randomly targets and event and in my games often multiple events are on the table (unmasking. Dragon bound ...). So you have a one in 1-4 chance usually and then the evil MPA guy will blow up uncoiling even if it costs him a couple of pool. So while it is a good silver bullet it is a bit too random for my taste as a sole counter vs Anthelios. I think Anthelios per se is fine. However recurring Pentex and Sudden are a problem. There is really nothing you can do against having one guy permanently locked down or not having a master phase at all. Recurring DI is not as bad I think since you can play more copies of the card. Hasn't been bothering me not nearly as much as the other two.

> Lönkka wrote: > No, the best way to counter some way too frequently used cards is not packing a counter (as it hinders YOUR own deck since you don't want any extra toolboxy cards in it) but instead bitching about how owerpowered it is and campaign to get it banned/errataed. > It may not have been your intent, but I find a little impolite to say that anybody that say they don't like Anthelios at all are bitching whiner that won't pack one card in their deck. I do pack Uncoiling in some deck. It's not too effective and it's a lot more taxing than what I need to keep safe from vote or combat. The other card are in my opinion far too difficult to use to be useful, except mayve the anarch one (I don't play anarch and I have never seen it played, so I don't know) Less than half a dozen card (because Uncoiling can also help against Unmasking and certainly other powerful event) require me, at best, to pack an event, draw it at the right moment, hope nobody else play event, may permanently lower my hand size, and is useless against anything else. And you may very well have to pack 2 or 3 to have it at the right moment. Vote, in opposition, need at worst the same number of delaying tactics, that help against comparatively a lot of card, and work reliably when you have them at the right timing. Other votes solutions can be even more polyvalent or recyclable (like using inferior Confusion of the eye to cycle, or simply having enough votes to cause problems). In short, Anthelios, for me, have : * a lot of power * few way to be dealt with, that are pretty costly * make a lot of card retrieving card look bad * prevent to find solutions for other master (for example, washing a Pentex Sub against an Anthelios-powered deck is not too useful) * create deck that I don't like to play against. (not unlike Henry Taylor deck being boring - note that I don't say that Henry Taylor should be banned or anything) I don't say that one of thoses reason alone would be enough, or that every body should scorn Anthelios, but I am for a ban or an errata. (@Bakija : I believe there is a big incomprehension of either what I said in Parity shift or what you say here. I prefer not to respond at least for now, because the whole "broad sweeping generalization" coming from someone that I believe have said that's it's useless to play non-parity shift vote deck is a little puzzling, and it seem better for me to re-read everything before concluding anything)

> Ohlmann wrote: > It may not have been your intent, but I find a little impolite to say that anybody that say they don't like Anthelios at all are bitching whiner that won't pack one card in their deck. > Wssn't directed solely at contra Anthelios guys, but contra any guys. Adding counter cards makes your deck lose focus and some people hate that. It seems to me that instead of using the countermeasure cards that already exist and are viably sueable these people like to advocate banning/changing the card that aggravates them. I'm not saying that one should include tens of different counter cards to your deck but if you your deck has a problem with a card or two, packing a cuntermeasure for these is a good idea. Same goes for a card that is heavily used in the meta. Finnish Politics!

> johannes wrote: > Uncoiling is a great card and I play it a lot. The sole problem with it is that it randomly targets and event and in my games often multiple events are on the table (unmasking. Dragon bound ...). > Gadzooks. If you see games that have multiple events in play on a regular basis, why aren't you using The Uncoiling all the time? > So you have a one in 1-4 chance usually and then the evil MPA guy will blow up uncoiling even if it costs him a couple of pool. So while it is a good silver bullet it is a bit too random for my taste as a sole counter vs Anthelios. > It isn't a sole counter to Anthelios. It is a sole counter to events. Of which a few are very powerful and show up a lot (i.e. Anthelios, Unmaskening, Dragonbound), and a few are less powerful, but still show up periodically (Narrow Minds, Scourge, Bitter Sweet Story). And once and a while, there are large numbers of them on the table, at which point you probably desperately want to kill some anyway. Yeah, once and a while, you'll have a 50% or 25% chance of killing the Anthelios. A lot of the time, however, you'll have a 100% chance of killing the one event that is sitting on the table that someone else is benefitting from more than you (i.e. Anthelios or Unmaskening or Dragonbound). Given that those three events tend to be incredibly effective in the decks that use them, I'd think that it would be worth using Uncoiling simply 'cause you can. As killing the sole Anthelios or Unmaskening on the table is going to generally help you and hinder someone else. A lot. And if people were doing this (i.e. including The Uncoiling in all of their decks that didn't rely on events of their own), cards like Anthelios would seem a lot less insane.

> Ohlmann wrote: > I do pack Uncoiling in some deck. It's not too effective and it's a lot more taxing than what I need to keep safe from vote or combat. > How is it not too effective? It will kill another event on the table 100% of the time. Often, there will be only one other event on the table. You drop Uncoiling in play, and that event is destroyed. You can probably get someone else to then blow it up for you (i.e. your cross table buddy who is probably perfectly happy that you killed that event). The more events that are in play, the more likely it is that you want to kill them; yeah, it won't always get exactly the worst of those events, but it will get at least one of them, and those events are helping someone else far more than you. And if it doesn't get more than one of those events, someone has paid pool to kill your Uncoiling, at which point, it has no negatives at all. If you aren't relying on your own events? You should have the Uncoiling in your deck. As if someone else has Anthelios or Unmaskening in play, you probably want it dead. > (@Bakija : I believe there is a big incomprehension of either what I said in Parity shift or what you say here. I prefer not to respond at least for now, because the whole "broad sweeping generalization" coming from someone that I believe have said that's it's useless to play non-parity shift vote deck is a little puzzling, and it seem better for me to re-read everything before concluding anything) > To clarify, you wrote this, in regards to the discussion on Parity Shift being overpowered: "I believe that card that give powerfuls effect should be banned only if they remove completely entires decks or thousands of cards, and a quick look to vote deck don't convince me at all of that." Saying that a card that gives a powerful effect should only be banned only if they remove entire decks or thousands of cards is a sweeping generalization that completely nullifies your own entire argument about Anthelios, as it is a card that gives a powerful effect that you are arguing should be banned (or changed, presumably, as I was about Parity Shift) but does not remove entire decks or thousands of cards. You made a sweeping generalization. As it was convenient at the time for dismissing my argument. And I'm simply pointing out that it is now biting you in the ass. As I like irony. Argue that Anthelios is overpowered all you want. I don't necessarily even disagree with you. And support your want to argue that it is overpowered. But if you are going to attack other people's similar arguments with broad sweeping generalizations that invalidate your own arguments in other areas, you might want to reconsider your debate tactics.

> johannes wrote: > Uncoiling is a great card and I play it a lot. The sole problem with it is that it randomly targets and event and in my games often multiple events are on the table (unmasking. Dragon bound ...). So you have a one in 1-4 chance usually and then the evil MPA guy will blow up uncoiling even if it costs him a couple of pool. So while it is a good silver bullet it is a bit too random for my taste as a sole counter vs Anthelios. > I agree about Uncoiling. It's good but imprecise. In addition, if lots of players start using Uncoiling, the Anthelios deck simply needs to include a few extra Gehenna events in *his* deck to provide alternative targets to Uncoiling. All he has to do is survive the first time Uncoiling triggers, and then pay the pool cost (probably recouped via Liquidation or Villein) and discard cost to get rid of Uncoiling for good. It should be easy enough to include a couple of easily "replaced" Gehenna events that aren't too debilitating: Blood Trade Break the Code Nightmares Upon Nightmares Thirst pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> echiang wrote: > > > johannes wrote: > > Uncoiling is a great card and I play it a lot. The sole problem with it is that it randomly targets and event and in my games often multiple events are on the table (unmasking. Dragon bound ...). So you have a one in 1-4 chance usually and then the evil MPA guy will blow up uncoiling even if it costs him a couple of pool. So while it is a good silver bullet it is a bit too random for my taste as a sole counter vs Anthelios. > > > I agree about Uncoiling. It's good but imprecise. > > In addition, if lots of players start using Uncoiling, the Anthelios deck simply needs to include a few extra Gehenna events in *his* deck to provide alternative targets to Uncoiling. All he has to do is survive the first time Uncoiling triggers, and then pay the pool cost (probably recouped via Liquidation or Villein) and discard cost to get rid of Uncoiling for good. > > It should be easy enough to include a couple of easily "replaced" Gehenna events that aren't too debilitating: > > Blood Trade > Break the Code > Nightmares Upon Nightmares > Thirst > Or the player just include more copies of Anthelios in his deck, making it hit the table faster in the first place.

> johannes wrote: > Uncoiling is a great card and I play it a lot. The sole problem with it is that it randomly targets and event and in my games often multiple events are on the table (unmasking. Dragon bound ...). So you have a one in 1-4 chance usually and then the evil MPA guy will blow up uncoiling even if it costs him a couple of pool. So while it is a good silver bullet it is a bit too random for my taste as a sole counter vs Anthelios. > Try Uncoiling + Fourth Cycle. It resolves most situations. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > Try Uncoiling + Fourth Cycle. It resolves most situations. > Totally. That is a completely carpet bombing of any event based strategy in 2 cards. Fourth Cycle demolishes the Imbued and any deck that uses 2+ events. Uncoiling gets the single event decks. I'd think these would show up more, especially if events are tearing up a metagame environment.

Uncoiling sees a lot of play in my experience. I think Fourth Cycle should see more play, but there really aren't that many mainstream Gehenna event-based decks in the current metagame. I mean, sure Anthelios and Unmasking see a LOT of play, but most tables won't have both. Dragonbound is very rarely played and the event that do see regular play (other than Unmasking and Anthelios) aren't Gehenna.

I played break the code and fourth cycle, you cannot go wrong with hosing imbued. 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.