Card idea: Hideous Execution

Name: Hideous Execution Cardtype: Political Action Requires a ready archbishop, cardinal, priscus or regent. Choose a ready vampire controlled by another Methuselah. If the referendum is successful, put this card on that vampire. If that vampire is burned, his or her controller burns pool equal to the burned vampire's capacity. Burn this card if that vampire leaves play. A vampire may have only 1 Hideous Execution. Vaguely inspired from Sabbat Pressure "This card would allow a combat deck with a bit of politic to oust a bit more effectively its prey." Another try to give a flavorful referendum to the Sabbat. A hideous assassination is a good way to instill fear and disrupt a Methuselah's ressources. This ones combines vote and fight (a bit like Anathema). It can be removed by tricks such as Banishment, Descent into Darkness, etc. that removes you temporarily from the game without making you burn (Golconda works of course, but for other reasons ) Few players play cards such as Decapitate or Amaranth, even if burning vampires is a sure road to victory. But it's quite hard to pull off. It's a good card against "free" vampires, that is vampires influenced out and then Villeined. It results in no pool gain and a big loss of transfers. Possible applications: - a vote deck using Amaranth to burn the vampire. Requires some tricks like Disarm + Amaranth. - a prince / archbishop deck relying on Anathema + Savage Execution (requires different titles, two political actions and some combat cards to drop the target to 0 blood) - a Red List deck where you're going to burn vampires anyway. Possible abuses: played on a 11-cap vampire, it means a loss of 11 pool. But: - if you play a 11-cap, you'll probably have votes to counterbalance - burning a 11-cap is not that easy due to the number of cards they have access to, and the amount of blood they may have (if you don't play Obedience or ways to protect your 11-cap, that's a shame... Anamathema would have burned you much easily anyway). Thoughts? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I do not like that it is super effective against big vampires and quite useless against weenies* (I mean 3 pool damage is nice, but passing a vote and then burning the guy. Rather have Fame). So probably something like "burns 3 pool half of the capacity of the chosen vampire (round up)". Also I would add "if that vampire is burned [during combat]" else it becomes very abusable with other burn stuff (i.e Fear of Mekhet..). * big vampires being Villeined are quite prominent in the current meta. That doesn´t mean creating silver bullets against them will make good cards. The cards still need to be generally useful to make good decks.

> johannes wrote: > I do not like that it is super effective against big vampires and quite useless against weenies* (I mean 3 pool damage is nice, but passing a vote and then burning the guy. Rather have Fame). > If you're planning to hose weenies, use Neonate Breach instead. Super effective against weenies, much less effective against mid-caps and high-caps. > johannes wrote: > So probably something like "burns 3 pool half of the capacity of the chosen vampire (round up)". > Do you mean 3 pool plus... ? > johannes wrote: > Also I would add "if that vampire is burned [during combat]" else it becomes very abusable with other burn stuff (i.e Fear of Mekhet..). > I'd say "during an action" then. Because there's also Society of Leopold, but I want it to trigger on a diablerie action too. > * big vampires being Villeined are quite prominent in the current meta. That doesn´t mean creating silver bullets against them will make good cards. The cards still need to be generally useful to make good decks. > It's not the principal goal of the card, just a side-effect. In an average game, you'll play it on a 8-cap vampire and try to burn him. If your prey plays weenie, it's not very efficient indeed but still playable (just like Neonate Breach). I don't see the card as a silver bullet at all, but a way to do pool damage albeit a big effort. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

IMHO, the "during an action" clause is totally necessary. The burn pool effect could be "2 plus half of the burned vampire's capacity (rounded down)". That will make a pool burn from 2 (1 cap) to 7 (11 cap), that would balance the power of the pool burn effect. Cheers! ^.^

What is the point of the "Burn this card if that vampire leaves play" clause? Can't we just remove it to make the card text lighter?

> Non-existant user wrote: > What is the point of the "Burn this card if that vampire leaves play" clause? Can't we just remove it to make the card text lighter? > Yeah, it was to give an escape route to the vampire, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Name: Hideous Execution Cardtype: Political Action Requires a ready archbishop, cardinal, priscus or regent. Choose a ready vampire controlled by another Methuselah. If the referendum is successful, put this card on that vampire. If that vampire is burned during an action, his or her controller burns pool equal to 2 plus half the burned vampire's capacity (round down). A vampire may have only 1 Hideous Execution. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I like the card's concept, sort of like a reverse Anathema, only a fair bit trickier to pull off. I have to say it still feels somewhat overpowered to me, once you factor in how a dedicated vote deck with a combat angle (instead of the other way around) could possibly abuse the whole deal. Aggravated pokes with a follow-up amaranth/diablerie action are not that easy to accomplish but they do deny your prey a possibly irreplaceable minion... add to that a 4-5 pool loss and you're probably crossing the threshold. What I'm saying is that combat by itself is not supposed to generate huge pool losses, in this case comparable even to bleed - the pool loss main strategy - since it already generates minion removal and coupling such a powerful effect with more than trivial pool denial is not really desirable from a game balance standpoint. A possible way to balance the card might be to require that the vampire be empty first, making it easier for the defending player and more likely to require a non-trivial combat package from the part of the attacker. Drain

> Drain wrote: > I have to say it still feels somewhat overpowered to me, once you factor in how a dedicated vote deck with a combat angle (instead of the other way around) could possibly abuse the whole deal. > I think you just don't understand how tricky this vote is. You must pass it, then kill the damn vampire (most likely needing to win another vote or lose a minion), and at the end you make .... 7 pool damage. At most. Compare it to Lily Prelude, Parity Shift, or even Banishment and you will see that this card require a MASSIVE amount of additional work for a somewhat minor gain. In fact, an amaranth + this vote will usually do less damage than 2 KRC. And will cause you a lot more problems. This card is still pretty neat, and the psychological impact may help to make your prey panic or otherwise misplay, but really, it's not a specially efficient way to kill your prey. Don't be too fearful with card power. It may finish about as useful as finding the path if we pile up restrictions.

I think my 3 + 1/2 cap(round up) proposal would actually make the card stronger. Yes you do "only" 9 on an 11 cap but you do 5 instead of 2 on a 2-cap (where the vote will be easier to pass since the 2-cap has no votes and people won´t care that much). In a deck like this the card needs to take care of weenies as well, there will be no room for Neonate Breach since you night combat, vote and some stealth to even pass the vote action plus defense package. Alternate angel: introduce an inbuilt rush with the card but make it destroyable by a vote.

> johannes wrote: > I think my 3 + 1/2 cap(round up) proposal would actually make the card stronger. Yes you do "only" 9 on an 11 cap but you do 5 instead of 2 on a 2-cap (where the vote will be easier to pass since the 2-cap has no votes and people won´t care that much). In a deck like this the card needs to take care of weenies as well, there will be no room for Neonate Breach since you night combat, vote and some stealth to even pass the vote action plus defense package. > Adjustment is a always bit tricky. And it's not 5 but 4 pool against a 2 cap. Capacity2 + 1/2 cap (round down)3 + 1/2 cap (round up) 124 234 335 445 546 656 757 867 968 1078 1179 Your formula seems a bit overpowered against 1-cap. I'd rather make it 3+X/2 (round down). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director