Card Idea: Ill-gotten Gains

Ill-Gotten Gains 1 blood Only usable when a minion will leave the ready region. Put this card in play with counters equal to the cost of the ally or half the capacity of the vampire which is leaving the ready region. You may burn counters on this card to give an acting minion you control +1 bleed. You may also burn X counters from this card to reduce a bleed against you by X. If there is an Ill-Gotten Gains in play, when you play this card add the counters you could gain from this card to the card already in play. "Well look guvna, it just fell off the back of the lorry..." Just realised I'd put in disciplines and then thought later it shouldn't have disciplines. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

First of all, I think the card as you stated does too much with few restrictions. Go one way or the other, bleed or bleed reduction. Personally, I say go with the +bleed option. You want to make combat decks have more ousting power, not more survivability. Also, If you dunk one minion, and have some +bleed on the table, you are more likely to ruin your prey's day by bleeding them out rather than dunking the rest of their minions. Some restrictions I recommend: 1) Only usable against a minion controlled by your prey. 2) May be burned as a directed action. 3) Unique. 4) You may only have one in play. Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

I am personally of the opinion that combat specifically needs more survivability. There is plenty of ways for them to do pool damage already, as most combat clans can already bleed for 3 or more easily.

I'd like to have Combat have either the steroids to smash-then-kill... or the ability to dunk 1 of your predator's minions to then protect yourself from any follow-up bleeds. So, giving it some versatility is deliberate. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Descent into Darkness + Ill-Gotten Gains = probably too good. [edit: typo]

> Chaitan wrote: > Descent into Darkness + Ill-Gotten Gains = probably a too good. > Yeah should probably be 'Only usable when a minion another methuselah controls leaves the ready region'.

@Chaitan Seems like a valid call. Amended Version Ill-Gotten Gains 1 blood Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah will leave the ready region. Put this card in play with counters equal to the cost of the ally or half the capacity of the vampire which is leaving the ready region. You may burn counters on this card to give an acting minion you control +1 bleed. You may also burn X counters from this card to reduce a bleed against you by X. If there is an Ill-Gotten Gains in play, when you play this card add the counters you could gain from this card to the card already in play. "Well look guvna, it just fell off the back of the lorry..." Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Fixed typo, changed text to be more in line with cards that use similar text and removed the stacking part with tap to use mechanics. Ill-Gotten Gains 1 blood Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah leaves the ready region. Put this card in play with gain counters equal to the cost of the ally or half the capacity (round up) of the vampire which is leaving the ready region. You may tap this card and burn a counter to give an acting minion you control +1 bleed when the action is announced. You may tap this card and burn X gain counters from this card to reduce a bleed against you by X. Burn this card when it has no more gain counters. "Well look guvna, it just fell off the back of the lorry..."

IMO it's seriously overpowered and gives more benefits for something that's alredy very good (minions control)

> Chaitan wrote: > Fixed typo, changed text to be more in line with cards that use similar text and removed the stacking part with tap to use mechanics. > > Ill-Gotten Gains > 1 blood > > Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah leaves the ready region. > > Put this card in play with gain counters equal to the cost of the ally or half the capacity (round up) of the vampire which is leaving the ready region. You may tap this card and burn a counter to give an acting minion you control +1 bleed when the action is announced. You may tap this card and burn X gain counters from this card to reduce a bleed against you by X. Burn this card when it has no more gain counters. > > "Well look guvna, it just fell off the back of the lorry..." > I would remove the ally part (doesn't fit thematically) and also "gain" in "gain counters" (just use counters like 99% of the cards.) Then, I'll make the +bleed or -bleed only work against the methuselah whose minion has been dunked. It's already polyvalent, either you go backwards to survive, or forward to oust (but not forward to survive, it may be too easy). Name: Ill-Gotten Gains Cost: 1 blood Cardtype: Combat/Action modifier Only usable when a vampire controlled by another Methuselah leaves the ready region. Put this card in play with counters equal to half the capacity of that vampire (round up). You may tap this card and burn a counter to give an acting minion you control +1 bleed against that vampire's controller. You may tap this card and burn X counters to reduce a bleed against you performed by a minion controlled by that vampire's controller by X. Burn this card when it has no counters. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Name: Ill-Gotten Gains > Cost: 1 blood > Cardtype: Combat/Action modifier > > Only usable when a vampire controlled by another Methuselah leaves the ready region. > Put this card in play with counters equal to half the capacity of that vampire (round up). You may tap this card and burn a counter to give an acting minion you control +1 bleed against that vampire's controller. You may tap this card and burn X counters to reduce a bleed against you performed by a minion controlled by that vampire's controller by X. Burn this card when it has no counters. > This needs an "Only one can be played per action" or "Only one can be played per burned vampire" clause.

@Ankha: The entire point was to give versatility to a more combat oriented deck. The biggest complaints people have with combat decks is: - You bleed them for more than about 3 over 3 turns and they come up-river hard until the predator is ousted. - If they obliterate a players minions, they can't seal the deal and oust. Plenty of others have said that for more dedicated combat to become viable they need: - Non-rush defence - Benefits for rushing forwards So to help this card was intended to give you additional bleed or bleed reduce for taking out minions from the ready region. No incentive for eating, incentives for taking out potential support minions (e.g. Carlton, Mylan, Jake Washington) as well as vampires. No tapping requirement on using the card (since that would then limit you to either lunge or defence each time) and no additional paperwork of 'which counters came from whom'... just a pile of Ill-Gotten Loot to be expended when needed. I can see the argument for "Once per combat" or "Once per minion". I was also thinking of allowing them all to be in play at once, but I thought it may open the floor to other possible abuses. I'm not trying to make Combat decks the all-singing all-dancing golden-gods... but since putting minions in torpor is already difficult, this would address the issues that many have brought up about the viability of combat as a primary mechanic (instead of -stealth delivery mechanism). @Chaitan: The actual typo was that it didn't say "You may burn X counters to give an acting minion +X bleed". I don't mind encouraging people to take their minion's safety into their own hands by taunting the Archons. ***** If people feel the cost is too low for this card, then increasing it to a few blood or even 1 pool would increase the variety of decks found in tournaments as well. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Ill-Gotten Gains > 1 blood > Is this intended to be a combat card that can only be played by an acting minion? Or is it an either/or situation, like Ritual of the Bitter Rose? (Both ways have potential hiccups. But clarifying text would be useful.)

@James: It is meant to be like RotBR. If you bin them in combat, you get the chance. If you bin them via other means (e.g. Horseshoes) then you'd also get the chance. I understand some fringey decks (i.e. FoS w/ POT) would be able to capitalise on this and there is definately a chance that some of the more combat-ey Nos Princes and Bru Princes decks could gain another boost, but their overall prevalence seems kind of low anyway. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > It is meant to be like RotBR. If you bin them in combat, you get the chance. If you bin them via other means (e.g. Horseshoes) then you'd also get the chance. > Banishment just pooed its pants with glee. GLEE. It is so gleeful it'll break out into a song-and-dance routine with Kurt and Blaine any moment now. (Reality somewhat less so.)

Perhaps change: Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah leaves the ready region. to: Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah enters the torpor region. or: Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah is about to enter the torpor region.

> Chaitan wrote: > Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah enters the torpor region. > > or: > Only usable when a minion controlled by another Methuselah is about to enter the torpor region. > Both ignore the incapacitated region, which would exacerbate some of the problems certain combat decks have with their tech not working reliably against the Imbued. You can get around this. Harder to get around is an outright burning (agg damage), which is hard to manage. Still, maybe getting +X bleed instead of burning would be a tempting offer - and not burning a minion outright might be less un-fun for the target. Diablerie is in a similar bucket.

I'm still not quite convinced that we need cards that add incentive to play bad decks that do nothing but make other people unable to play. In the end, pure rush decks that reliably torp minions left and right will *have* to be bad decks. Because when they aren't, there is no reason to do anything *but* kill vampires left and right. I'd like to play VTES instead of Rage.

> Izaak wrote: > I'm still not quite convinced that we need cards that add incentive to play bad decks that do nothing but make other people unable to play. > This is a very weak argument because it suppose that combat must alway somehow incapacitate all vampire, while the entire point of the card is to make combat useful for something else than torporizing. It try to move away from "combat = definitive destruction" to be more like "combat = temporary advantage". It may not be enough and / or have side effect, but the intent is the exact opposite of what you dislike.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > It is meant to be like RotBR. If you bin them in combat, you get the chance. If you bin them via other means (e.g. Horseshoes) then you'd also get the chance. > > > Banishment just pooed its pants with glee. GLEE. It is so gleeful it'll break out into a song-and-dance routine with Kurt and Blaine any moment now. > > (Reality somewhat less so.) > Yeah, probably a pain in the ass on that front then. I'd probably need to add another "Only usable when..." to the front which would clog up more text. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Wha? The suggested card (and many more combat-related suggestions) all require the opposing minion to be not ready. Like, this card is in the end not much more than a delayed Fame that requires additional actions. Therefore, the general train of thought seems to be "torping minions doesn't make you win, so let's make up cards that make you more likely to win if you torp minions". I don't think that's a good idea. > It try to move away from "combat = definitive destruction" to be more like "combat = temporary advantage". It may not be enough and / or have side effect, but the intent is the exact opposite of what you dislike. > Then the intent should either be made clear or the proposed cards should actually support that intent. Before trying to solve any problems with combat it is important to first identify the actual problems. As has been stated numerous times, the major problem is the grandprey and grandpredator having a free game. This problem is a result of people building and playing their rush decks bad and cannot be solved with combat/related cards. So instead of creating more stuff that works with combat, we should be thinking about cards that require combat disciplines that are actually useful. Touch of Pain, for example, should have read: pot,reaction - as POT now (2 damage) POT, action modifier - +1 bleed Basically strengthening and supporting the bruise aspect of rush, instead of just adding more tools that only help when you kill minions off entirely.

@Izaak: Actually read what the card tells you and analyse it in an in-game situation. If I rushed a minion and dunked a 6cap, I would gain 3 counters. I could use those counters to reduce bleed (increasing my defence against any OTHER minions of my predator) after rushing just 1 minion. This would mean I won't need to turn around and rush my predator off the table to have any chance of surviving. Dunking a single minion can slow them down for a turn or two and save me 3 pool + any pool saved from bleed actions taken in the meantime. Or if instead my predator will be unlikely to bleed me (e.g. a Vote deck) I can instead try clear a bit of space in front of me (by taking out the 6cap) and then back it up by an additional 3 points of bleed. This addresses two of your stated problems with 'pure combat'. Those problems you listed were: 1) A rush deck must obliterate their predator to survive. Which ruins the predator's game. 2) A rush deck must obliterate their prey's minions. Which ruins the prey's game since they are inable to do anything, are left with a pile of pool and have no reasonable decisions to make. So, this card would give the player of the combat deck some potentially useful decisions. 1) To rush a cross-table minion that may be too hard to handle later and convert it into a mix of defence and forward pressure. 2) To rush a predator minion and convert it into forward pressure. 3) To rush a predator minion and convert it into defence against bleed. 4) To rush a prey minion and convert it into forward pressure. 5) (This would actually be my least preferred choice, but still a choice that could be made) To rush a prey minion and convert it into defence against bleed. There is actually much more incentive with this card in my deck to let your minion out on its own and even rescue it myself. Teamed up with the usual Fame-Yoyo type tricks you could turn a 6 cap into +6 pool swing towards the combat deck. (+3 Fame damage, +3 on this card, ignoring +1 from Fame in Untap and other sources of pool loss of the prey). This momentum swing should be enough to make the game become more alive for the player who has a Rush predator or Rush prey. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

No, you're not getting the point of what I'm saying, really. > 1) A rush deck must obliterate their predator to survive. Which ruins the predator's game. > > 2) A rush deck must obliterate their prey's minions. Which ruins the prey's game since they are inable to do anything, are left with a pile of pool and have no reasonable decisions to make. > I listed neither of those problems as being a problem in itself, but more the consequence of people playing bad decks. As I have also stated numerous times, killing minions and ruining people's games should never ever be encouraged nor rewarded more than it already is. The absolute KEY to winning V:TES games is to allow OTHER players at the table *including your prey* to actually play the game. Unfortunately not many people understand this, which is probably why out of maybe thousands of (ex)-players only a couple of dozen actually win tournaments somewhat regularly. Rush decks do the EXACT opposite of letting other people play the game and don't win a lot of games as a result. What the card currently proposed does, is give people MORE incentive to just stick to playing poor decks and nuking minions into oblivion, instead of making them re-evaluate their decklists and approach of the game. When I play Bleed + a Stealth card, the reward of me playing stealth is that they take the pool damage. When I play Bleed+combat, the reward of me playing the combat is a) that the blocking minion won't be so inclined to block next time (or can't bounce by virtue of being in torpor) so that my next bleed actually works b) that the blocking minion has less blood and that blood cannot be recuperated by Blood Dolls or Villeins (which is pool damage in a way) c) that the acting minion can actually GAIN the blood lost (which is pool gain in a way) Stacking "oh and I get to bleed for 3 extra or get 3 extra pool in bleed reduce" on top of that would make it MORE attractive to just play crater decks instead of actually trying to build a good deck. Again, I want to play VTES and not Rage.

> Izaak wrote: > When I play Bleed+combat, the reward of me playing the combat is > a) that the blocking minion won't be so inclined to block next time (or can't bounce by virtue of being in torpor) so that my next bleed actually works > b) that the blocking minion has less blood and that blood cannot be recuperated by Blood Dolls or Villeins (which is pool damage in a way) > c) that the acting minion can actually GAIN the blood lost (which is pool gain in a way) > All of that don't happen with combat usually to be honest. It does happen, and is effective, with for example Shattering Crescendo or Horseshoe. (except for c)) Until you actually happen to torporize someone, combat is useless. The game have all the tool you need to avoid long-term torpor (S:CE, prevention, dodge, etc... Nothing work against everything, like bounce don't work against vote), and even worse a single toon with dominate will twart your bleed almost as easily as 3 minions. In other word, combat don't work until you have officialy broken the back of your prey. That's why the intend is to add a card that give you a short-term benefit to combat, to not make mandatory to dunk every minion or none at all. This way, it would be a lot easier to actually play with combat card and being efficient, without giving to combat the tool to alway destroy vampires.

> Until you actually happen to torporize someone, combat is useless. > Ye see the problem is exactly this mindset. > All of that don't happen with combat usually to be honest. It does happen, and is effective, with for example Shattering Crescendo or Horseshoe. (except for c)) > Shattering Crescendo and Horseshoes work because people don't stack their entire deck with them, but instead use them as a support for their main strategy and/or as tactical nukes to take out an ally or a key voter. > That's why the intend is to add a card that give you a short-term benefit to combat, to not make mandatory to dunk every minion or none at all. > Dozens of these cards already exist. They just don't happen to be red. Again, stop trying to design cards that give people that want to play decks with 50+ red cards a bonus for doing so.

Izaak take a look at the card I suggested in another thread, that is specifically intended to give benefits for combat when you don't smash the opposing minion.

> Izaak wrote: > Ye see the problem is exactly this mindset. > It's not a mindset but the reality, at least for now. Have Lutz with 4 blood instead of 8 ? What exactly does that hamper you ? He will able to play only 4 telepathic misdirection ? And, outside the fact that shattering crecendo deck do play a LOT of shattering crescendo, you look at the consequence, not the cause. The cause is that winning a combat with anything but torpor is useless, and also that you need a combo that basically is half your hand size at best (i.e. bum rush + a combat chain, which will do at least 3 card if you're not on animalism). The consequence is to make real sure that the deck alway have an hand full of red card, because it absolutely need it. (note that you are right on one point : forcing the player to torporize or kill a minion is way too much of a requirement, since if he can do this reliably then we have a problem)

> Ohlmann wrote: > The cause is that winning a combat with anything but torpor is useless, and also that you need a combo that basically is half your hand size at best (i.e. bum rush + a combat chain, which will do at least 3 card if you're not on animalism). The consequence is to make real sure that the deck alway have an hand full of red card, because it absolutely need it. > > (note that you are right on one point : forcing the player to torporize or kill a minion is way too much of a requirement, since if he can do this reliably then we have a problem) > This. And despite being an ocasional transgressor of the precepts that Izaak defends while designing cards I can very much agree with him on this. Drain

> note that you are right on one point : forcing the player to torporize or kill a minion is way too much of a requirement, since if he can do this reliably then we have a problem > Funny as it is, I agree with this for a different reason. Nuking minions should NOT be made attractive or more rewarding than it already is. Ever. Because every time you do this, VTES becomes more about combat and how to kill/survive and less about intrigue, politics and clever strategies. What *should* be rewarded more is weakening minions. Street Cred was a step in the right direction, except that it should have been free and not have the younger clause, but it's at least something. Painful memories 1 blood, combat card Only usable in combat with a minion controlled by your predator. Only usable at the end of a round of combat in which this vampire successfully inflicted more damage at close range than the opposing vampire. Not usable by a vampire being burned or going into torpor. Put this card on the opposing minion with X counters on it where X is the amount of blood lost by the opposing vampire (round up). When the vampire with this card is bleeding you, you may burn this card to reduce the bleed by X.

So rather than instead "Declare GtU for three, oh you blocked... here become a crater"... I'm proposing that you rush, make ONE crater, then get your GtU-style bleed. Look at the sequencing point. Rather than making crater after crater after crater, you don't need to make anywhere near as many to increase the pressure on your prey to oust them. I've been playing for a while, and I realise this game isn't a table-top war game with cards. What I'm trying to actually do is give additional meaningful options for a combat-oriented deck. This is to potentially take things away from the "take a 5 bleed, or lose an 8 cap" but "lose a 4 cap, and i might be following this up with a 3 bleed or i might just bring out another minion to bleed or reduce the pressure on me before i go forwards". It's intended to reduce the need to play Vampire: The Armageddon and have 2 people sitting around twiddling their fingers. I have had enough jerk predators who obliterate all my minions and then wonder why I turn myself into a pool sack in front of them. If you can't see how this would allow an alternative to either a) being stuck in a crappy game where you are being bled to death 1 pool at a time by two minions or b) feeling that every time you don't pack Dominate flick you need to obliterate every minion of your predator, then maybe you don't understand what is being said to you. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

I could write a lot about combat in vtes but Izaak already mentioned majority of it so I will just second him in all his post on this topic. Combat is not supposed to do pool damage and it's very good. Its minion control factor is very powerfull and should not be strenghten by adding pool damage. The main problem is that a lot of inexperienced players thinks that combat deck build like f.e. stelath&bleed deck (so only combat cards with some masters) should be as good in ousting as dementation bleed. IT SHOULD NOT! If you want to oust with combat you have to add non combat cards that increase your ousting power. It's so simple. If it would be not like this we would be playing only combat decks which would be boring.

And by doing things the way you have suggested merely leads to another boring proposition... the current situation where people play S&B or Vote and barely anything else at a Qualifier and almost every deck contains a minimum of Telepathic Misdirection as flick defence (but usually grafted-on Dominate). That's as boring as bat-crap as it is. Sorry, but if playing the "who can draw their S&B combos fastest" is your idea of a great day of VTES then I don't want to play much with your group. As I've said many times, this is not about turning VTES into "Vampire: The Minion Obliterating" and instead help keep it "Vampire: The Game which Involves Minion Interaction". I also dislike the idea of "Vampire: The Master Card" and "Vampire: The Infinite Loop Combo"... It's one of the reasons why I dislike the "Una Equips the Library Deck" because if you can't smash Una immediately then kiss goodbye to most of your game because it is designed to be overly trumpy of all standard combat and most common defences. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Then start making up cards that can be used in conjunction with combat so that combat can function as a delivery system. Forced Entrance, action modifier 1 blood Only usable when the action is announced pot: After playing this card, you cannot play another action modifier to further increase the bleed for this action. +1 bleed POT: As above, and if this acting vampire is blocked and successfully inflicts more damage than the opposing vampire in the first round of combat, combat ends and the action continues as if unblocked. At the moment all you do is make up cards that give players all sorts of extra rewards for smashing minions into oblivion. Which is bad. It is bad, because the reward is already there - the smashed minion cannot hurt you nor can it defend against you. How about we make an action modifier for dominate that deals 2 unpreventable damage on a minion controlled by your prey or predator after a successfull bleed? That'd be just as silly.

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > So rather than instead "Declare GtU for three, oh you blocked... here become a crater"... I'm proposing that you rush, make ONE crater, then get your GtU-style bleed. Look at the sequencing point. Rather than making crater after crater after crater, you don't need to make anywhere near as many to increase the pressure on your prey to oust them. > That's not clear to me from the proposed implementations. The plus-to-bleed option is not going to help much if: a) your prey has untapped vampires willing and able to block b) ... or flick c) ... or wake and block d) ... or wake and flick. In many of those cases, I'm still potentially going to think "Well, let's just kill all their vampires - then use the Ill-Gotten Gains I've played." That is, "CRATER CRATER CRATER bleed bleed oust" is probably going to be more successful for me than "CRATER bleed block bleed flick aargh".

> And by doing things the way you have suggested merely leads to another boring proposition... the current situation where people play S&B or Vote and barely anything else at a Qualifier > I can't see why it should leads to it. Combat decks with added ousting mechanism are good at table control while being able to oust comparing to "only combat cards" decks which are great at minion control and able to oust. I can't speak out for the tournaments in your country but in Poland and generally in Europe (basing on EC championships) there is very healthy meta with all major archetypes present in fair numbers. > > As I've said many times, this is not about turning VTES into "Vampire: The Minion Obliterating" and instead help keep it "Vampire: The Game which Involves Minion Interaction" > Hard not to agree with you on this one > > I also dislike the idea of "Vampire: The Master Card" and "Vampire: The Infinite Loop Combo"... > Also agree strongly on this one just I don't feel that strenghtening combat is a good way to go.

@James: And here we get to the point where Dominate flick has obscenely pervasive power in VTES. Far more than combat. People will graft in Dominate; few people bother with anything more than the most token combat defence in a Qualifier unless it is Weenie-ANI or Weenie Cel-Sticks/Guns. So while it's not going to be functionally that different in its final effect to a Conditioning or a Telepathic Counter... it does provide that function to clans such as: Nosferatu, Nosferatu Antis, Assamites (w/ Contracts), Gangrel Antis, Brujah Antis (Brujah proper get Princes), Salubri Antis and so on that have been either lacking in the oust or lacking in the defence or both. @Alek: The most obvious result of minion interaction IS combat. Otherwise it becomes "Vampire: The Avoidance" or "Vampire: Your attempt fails". That's only half the story of minion interaction. Yes, I do want your average paint-by-numbers bleed deck to have to consider a more than token combat module when playing a qualifier. It actually varies up the metagame. I'd point to you the deck types seen around Qualifiers in Australia. I doubt they are much different around the world. You see S&B (Las, Malk, Malk94, FoS, etc), Powerbleed (Kia, Las, Gio), Vote (Prince Decks, Tor Voters, Weenie-Vote-Breed, etc) and maybe one or two rogue outsiders who bring either a pure combat rusher (Weenie-Ani or Weenie Cel-Sticks/Guns) or their only deck which is great for social but dies in the ass in qualifier tournaments. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

You are basing your entire logic off of the assumption that decks that contain combat are bad by definition. Everyone here is trying to tell you that it is not if you don't try to nuke every minion and oust by using red cards. If you'd take a quick glance at the final tables of the last couple of EC's and NAC's, you'd quickly see that vote, bleed and decks with some sort of combat are all well represented the last couple of years. You'd also notice that the majority of those decks are actually only sporting about 20-30 combat cards and have a different gameplan for the rest part. These decks use their ability to rush to place tactical nukes in the endgame, when pooltotals are low. Much like your praised Horseshoes and Shattering Crescendo decks do. What they don't do is make a crater around them because all they have is a few Fames and 50 red cards. They bloat, bleed, block and build like every other deck, except that instead of dropping another Govern + stealth, they suddenly Fame-torp a minion to oust a prey that hadn't quite counted in that Fame. They bide their time and make other people do their job for them, because basically, they are good decks. All in all, I'd say combat, when well-designed and well-played is actually in very good shape at the moment, to the point where Fortitude and Majesty have been making a huge comeback as serious deckspace contenders. If your argument is that it's "only" animalism, eurotrash, celerity, weenie pot, sticks+fortitude, assorted allies and forms of thaumaturgy bruise/bleed actually winning games, then I'll point out that there isn't exactly a lot of variety in tier 1 vote decks (Parity, KRC, Cap) either. Or in bleed decks (Govern, KS the occasional presence-based deck) for that matter. Simply put - at this point in time combat does NOT need a generic buff because overall, it's doing quite fine at the highest level of play. Maybe potence needs a little something not related to combat outside of Donall and Constanza so that potence combat is actually worth looking at. Maybe the smash-y side of Protean needs a little something so that Protean is more than Earth Meld and expensive stealth. What we don't need is random bonuses for doing things you shouldn't be doing in the first place. It's that simple, really.

And yet you still miss the majority of my points. Combat is not considered a primary device in a Tier 1 Deck. The main decks appearing in Tier 1 are: - Vote - Bleed - (And apparently the EC Meta contains a plethora of Girls Will XYZ but they have had minimal representation in the Australian Meta) I'm not discounting those decks containing a combat module, but as you have also said, they are primarily another kind of deck (e.g. Many of the Girls Will XYZ decks contain a fairly strong Animalism module, many of the Prince Decks contain Majesty when applicable, many of the Vote decks also pack a number of Majesty and Charismatic Aura). So please listen when I say to you: this card is designed for decks primarily interested in combat to make them better at surviving/ousting. This is not about helping Bruise & XYZ decks to be better; those deck types are fairly strong as it is and nearly all of the bruise & XYZ clans have either Animalism, Auspex or Dominate already (e.g. Las, Gio, Ose, Gur, Tor/!Tor say using Cel-Gun). Might this card help them? I'd say not more than another Deflection or Telepathic Misdirection. Those cards already take a bleed action on you, convert it into a 0-bleed and then waste your prey's resources to defend against you. The card proposed would have limited benefit to those sorts of decks; it might pack in 2 for opportunistic purposes so that they can mitigate a poor card draw by sitting on the possible counters on Ill-Gotten Gains until the moment is needed. It is unlikely to do much more than speed up those primarily combat decks that make appearances at qualifiers (e.g. Weenie ANI, Weenie Cel-Sticks/Guns) because those decks can already compete well in the Tier 1 environment (but are potentially not to the taste of a the majority of players). So it may be placed into those decks more, but Deep Song has already improved the power of a Weenie ANI deck. Cel-Sticks/Guns can often rely on their secondary disciplines (commonly Presence) to gain the ousting power. Warning: Spoiler! I make no comments about Tha decks, they are not common in my meta and have not been for a long time. While one of my own playgroup has been playing an Uta Kovacs rush deck, he drives it poorly; if he got to the point of playing that deck with considerably more skill it would be much more dangerous. This card would add to the viability of more combat oriented decks usually in the middle-to-larger capacity end of things, able to protect themselves without having to either graft-on-dominate or graft-on-auspex. Some of these decks would be: - Non-Prince Nosferatu and Brujah decks (which are very rare) - Nosferatu Antitribu decks (which excluding Beast decks are again rare and even then rarely win) - Brujah Antitribu decks (which rarely seem to win) - Gangrel Antitribu decks (As if we ever see one that isn't centred on Una or Askinya) - Salubri Antitribu (who usually suffer from very low forward momentum despite Auspex) I don't know about your opinion of the life of VTES, but having all of the major clans (and semi-major clans) making regular appearances in the metagame is much more desirable than having a metagame worldwide which is predominantly S&B, Vote and some B&B usually using Princes. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Nah, it seems you are missing the point I'm making all along. > Combat is not considered a primary device in a Tier 1 Deck. > Which is should not be. Ever. Like stealth is not the primary device in a tier 1 deck, or block denial is not the primaty device in tier 1 decks or the same way vote push is not the primary device in vote decks. Combat IS NOT and SHOULD NOT be an ousting strategy. Because, again, if it is, there is no reason to do anything BUT use that ousting strategy. Combat is a delivery mechanic, like stealth and block denial are. Combat being a less reliable delivery system is a result of combat offering ADDITIONAL benefits aside from being the delivery system. I don't travel to a tournament with 50 obfuscate action modifier and expect to win. I have to pack payload and defense as well. Likewise you should not travel to a tournament with 50 red cards and expect to win. You have to pack payload and defense as well. It seems you're unwilling to do so, which is why you lose games and come here moaning we need a card that helps combat oust and defend without having to rethink their decks. After all, if you can reliably smash people's stuff in torpor and waste 2 hours of their time, you should be thrown a gamewin at you, right? > I don't know about your opinion of the life of VTES, but having all of the major clans (and semi-major clans) making regular appearances in the metagame is much more desirable than having a metagame worldwide which is predominantly S&B, Vote and some B&B usually using Princes. > Most of the (semi)-major clans DO make appearances. The "worldwide" meta that you claim is stale, is actually quite varied. Sure, most people don't play bad decks but it's not as if more combat-rewarding cards will suddenly make !Nos or !Gangrel better. Since you've never played a tournament ouside Australia, maybe it's worth to consider that it's actually YOUR tournament meta that is warped and uncreative?

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > And by doing things the way you have suggested merely leads to another boring proposition... the current situation where people play S&B or Vote and barely anything else at a Qualifier and almost every deck contains a minimum of Telepathic Misdirection as flick defence (but usually grafted-on Dominate). That's as boring as bat-crap as it is. Sorry, but if playing the "who can draw their S&B combos fastest" is your idea of a great day of VTES then I don't want to play much with your group. > This is argument I hear very often and might be metagame thing. In Europe and my country the S&B/Vote decks don't win tournaments usually. Izaak said it well that decks that let others players play their game usually wins. Waiting for right option to lunge and trying to let other players to do work for you is very exciting. That kind of playstyle just requires lot of understanding of game. Also important question is what game styles are fun for other players. Pure rush combat is the most no fun style for other players and it not should be encouraged. Combat works good as minion control. Decks packed full of ousting power don't usually have strong minion control so those decks can't adapt well to different changes within game. You have to balance your deck with control/survive and ousting power. Giving pure minion control decks like rush decks more ousting power doesn't make sense. It would be like giving pure ousting power decks +bleed card with inbuild damage to minions. But combat needs more cool cards to work better and there has already been some good suggestions in this thread but crater style decks should not get stronger. Deck with 50 red cards should be always a bad deck (and deck with just full of ousting cards can be a bad deck also which it is because it doesn't usually let your prey weaken the grand prey and table gets unbalanced).

Izaak, I do read the TWDA. I don't need to be in Europe to read the decks that are winning major tournaments there; I don't need to be there to see the results of that Metagame; I don't need to be there to hear and remember the endless whinging about Multi-MPA decks dominating the meta and 'requiring some kind of fix'. I do notice that many of them are not Bruise & Bleed. There are very few Salubri Anti decks. There are very few Nos decks. There are very few Nos Anti decks. There are very few Brujah Anti decks. There are very few decks that are Gangrel Anti which are NOT Una or Askinya (as part of a Girls Will XYZ). These decks do not see play since their disciplines are uniquely suited to combat and NOT large bleeds at regular stealth plus being able to redirect predator pressure onto their prey. Some may have the ability to do one (e.g. Salubri Antis who can flick). Some may have the ability to do some bleeding (Brujah Anti). Some may have the ability to defend themselves (Nos/!Nos Ani Wall, Country Gang Anti Ani Walls). But they all lack the 'complete' option. So, please, again, read what this card is intending to remedy. It is intended to help these clans, and any future crypts/clans, that may lack these abilities (i.e. Don't come with Dominate for starters...). Stealth and Block Denial are part of Primary Device of those decks. Few bleed decks do not also contain stealth or block denial otherwise they would not oust and vanish into the mists of time. Without the stealth, there is no bleed. All you have ever advocated for, is "Potence Stealth" (i.e. the Status Quo). Consequently if a "combat stealth" was a genuine option, why would it not see much more play and much more representation in TWDAs? Combat as a delivery mechanism is a furphy, a paper tiger paraded to warn us all of the 'evils of wanting to play combat'. Minion control is vanishingly insignificant in the face of being drastically outnumbered by predator or prey. This is also why the Weenie Combat Decks are the successful ones, they possess both Minion Numbers and the ability to expend as many actions as required to eliminate any minion defence of their prey. There are decks that attempt to create combat stealth by bleeding out their prey's ability to block. This basically works out to be a variation of block denial, it's to multiact until they have no ability to stop your actions. @Surreal: The number of times I hear that a deck should contain soem kind of flick is its own depressing reality. There is little reason to choose a clan without Dominate. Those few that do tend to be Princes, to exploit the widely known advantages provided by those titles (apparently another sore-spot amongst players around the world). Pure Rush can be played smart. Just like any player going like a maniac with Dom-Obf bleed can destroy a table. There is no 'deck type' which is immediately a 'smart' choice. There are easy decks to play, and harder decks to play. There are good decisions, and bad ones. S&B tends to provide few decisions. Powerbleed is again, decision light. Combat decks SHOULD be able to win, but should require more decision making to allow people to play their game AND die at your whim. If you have people who play combat like the game is "Vampire: The Armageddon" then how about you help them to play combat decks smarter? Playing with "Combat Annihilator Jerks" is no fun, but I have nothing but admiration for those who play a PURE COMBAT DECK WITH SKILL. All I want to do with this card is open the field to Primarily Combat Decks w/out Dominate and Auspex. It should lead to greater diversity amongst the decks as represented in the TWDAs, which would be an evidence in a change of the Metagame to allow Combat to become a competitive equal to Vote and Bleed. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > There are very few Salubri Anti decks. There are very few Nos decks. There are very few Nos Anti decks. There are very few Brujah Anti decks. There are very few decks that are Gangrel Anti which are NOT Una or Askinya (as part of a Girls Will XYZ). These decks do not see play since their disciplines are uniquely suited to combat and NOT large bleeds at regular stealth plus being able to redirect predator pressure onto their prey. Some may have the ability to do one (e.g. Salubri Antis who can flick). Some may have the ability to do some bleeding (Brujah Anti). Some may have the ability to defend themselves (Nos/!Nos Ani Wall, Country Gang Anti Ani Walls). But they all lack the 'complete' option. So, please, again, read what this card is intending to remedy. It is intended to help these clans, and any future crypts/clans, that may lack these abilities (i.e. Don't come with Dominate for starters...). > I agree with that. Of course it would be cool to make more decks playable and nobody is gonna be against that. I just don't see how that proposed card is helping anything with that. Universal combat card which helps easily every rush combat decks to oust while doing dunking also is not going to suddenly make Gangrel anti or Brujah anti better. It will just make already good eurobrujah and animalism decks even better. Those decks you mentioned in your post will still be bad compared to other decks. Also that proposed card will also make crater style play better and more desirable which is a bad card design. The most entertaining part about game is playing the damn game and making easy oust cards for 50 card red card decks is doing the exactly opposite thing. There needs to be better offensive/defensive cards for some discplines like pot, pro and maybe even obf. Touch of Pain and Street Cred should had been stronger and maybe more multi-use with defense and offense packed in same card. Those cards are examples of failed playtesting and design in my opinion (and I feel there is some amount of that in Vtes). I agree combat decks should win and those decks already win many tournaments. Rush combat deck with 40-50 red cards is just a poor deck and should remain like that. There are other kind of combat decks also. Decks are rarely just pure combat, bleed or vote. It is not so simple. Just sacrificing ousting power and adding Mind Rapes or Mind Numbs to a deck makes it feel different. I also agree that bounce has somewhat too important role. That is different discussion and topic and doesn't have to do so much about that card desgin.

> Surreal wrote: > Touch of Pain and Street Cred should had been stronger and maybe more multi-use with defense and offense packed in same card. > As a side note, I believe that they need more versatility. Both can be obscenely powerful once in a blue moon, and a touch of pain that would do 2/4 damage would be downright broken, for example. A touch of pain with something as cliche as : [pot] [action] bleed at +1 bleed [POT] [reaction] Play after the acting minion successfully bleed or pass a vote. Do 2 damage to the acting minion. would already be much, much better.

@Ohlmann: The problem with Touch of Pain is that the action must be successful. If you have 0 pool, it doesn't matter if that Touch of Pain would send your predator to torpor. Unless your decks only defence is to soak up the bleed and then try to ping for 2 blood backwards... you'll probably dead before you make any significant dent in the 6-8caps that are most likely to be doing it. It would need to be a proactive defence, not a reactive defence, to make it more viable. @Surreal: Bounce is a major part of this problem. The biggest problem is 'being the end of the flick chain' at a tournament. Invariably the end of the flick chains are trick decks and combat decks (sometimes they are non-defensive bleeders such as FoS). Maybe also, people are thinking of different sorts of combat decks to myself as well. The "40-50 cards of red" decks are usually not viable purely through the joys of probability. But it should include: Cel-Guns (not just Weenie versions), Mass Reality Decks, Beast/Theo/Tariq/Muaziz/Ariadne Eats the World, Tzi Agg (either Wall or Rush), Combat Variations of Eurobrujah, Nos Rush (Beast + Others) and so on. When they are played right, they do not need to lead to the "Smoking Crater" phenomenon. More often than not I've seen Smoking Craters happen because a predator will basically bleed to the point of nearly ousting them while the combat deck might have out its second minion. Then the Smoking Crate begins. I've been left in many more 'Smoking Craters' by bleedzooka type decks than combat. I recently played a JOL game where I influenced one minion, took one action and then was basically able to do nothing (First Trads + Dom-Bleed)... that was much less engaging and entertaining than having a rush-predator. On the same score, I've had some people who have turned around and obliterated every minion I have. Which means that playing primary combat is a more subtle/difficult art than playing any other method. I'm not trying to discount the ability of a deck to instigate a tactical rush, but there is little difference between that and Pentex Subversion; it's basically Pentex by Red Cards. Street Cred had far too many restrictions on it to make it useful and a fairly small benefit. Touch of Pain has the problem of needing a successful action (so you have to take the bleed first). I suspect that the reason the cards are this way is because of the entrenched opinion of players, like Izaak, who believe that damage-based defences shouldn't be strong (either as Reactions, Actions or Rush-Combat) because they lead to 'unfun games' by leaving a player in a 'I have nothing I can do' state. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

I was for cards that reward actual combat, but not anymore (I was talked out of it; call it weak mind if you will) and I read this thread with some thought. Someone said, that combat without torporizing minions is useless. In this I disagree: Combat is useful by consuming your opponents' secondary resources - blood on a vampires. It's not always useful to axe them outright. With that in mind, you need to give some thought who you attack and how. That depends on the situation: Stealth Bleeder needs to go down if you don't have bounce, for example. Other than that, you just need to play smart enough not to be ousted, allow your prey to play their game and not take crap for anyone (because you don't need to). If you pack 50+ combat cards in your deck and begin your endless rampage, you'll be ousted by no time - think of Una Freakshow: all the players will begin to play against you and you will have hard time to get victory points. Same goes with Theo+Beast rushers if you play carelessly. That said, I don't think that there is a pure rush deck that can actually win. There are decks that focus on combat (like wheenie ANI, CEL/POT, CEL/gun, ANI/POT), but most of them need more than Fame+Dragonbound to oust people: usually bleed. What combat is useful for is to control minion presence on the table. But like all decks, combat needs to be played with thought. There are bad combat decks and there are good combat decks. There are also other basic archetypes that are good or bad. But what's most important, winning with any deck depends on us - players. ---- 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