Card idea: Fiery Heart (pro+for grants blood to pay cards)

Name: Fiery Heart Cardtype: Action Discipline: Protean & Fortitude +1 stealth action. [pro][for] Put this card on the acting vampire with 4 counters on it. This vampire can use these counters to pay some or all of the blood cost of cards he or she plays. Burn this card when it has no counters. A vampire may have only one Fiery Heart. [PRO][FOR] As above, but with 6 counters. A mix between Masochism and Restoration. Since no blood is gain, it can't be abused with Villein. There are two problematic vampires that can use them: Aksynia Daclau: doesn't change anything to he special and Girls deck have very few cards that cost blood. Other vampires of such decks don't have pro. Una: since she already doesn't pay Freak Drive, it won't change much (except maybe those 1 or 2 Hidden Strength) because she can hunt for free and recover blood this way. Thoughts? Comments? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > Thoughts? Comments? > Though the mechanic is interesting in itself, I'm not sure it opens up that many interesting possibilities in terms of decks. Mostly, Pro/For will already have access to reasonable blood gain and blood preservation, in the form of things like Restoration, Masochism and damage prevention. It often comes along with Animalism, and Crows+Taste is fairly solid. So while the mechanic has subtle pros and cons - it's not blood I can spend on healing damage, but equally my opponent can't take it off me etc. - I'm not sure it opens up any significantly interesting new strategies. In terms of balance/abuses, I'd want to take a critical look at the Ravnos - there are half a dozen with various forms of Pro/For. I'd be concerned about possible Clown Car ramifications. At superior (Darius Styx, Lizette) it's two free weenies (even including two Freak Drives), plus whatever you're doing Ravnos Carnival etc. Not sure it's killer, but Clown Car is already very good. Also, there are no Laibon who can natively play it at superior, but it might be interesting with the Eldest Command Undeath. (Two have pro/FOR, one has PRO/for.)

Speaking of Ravnos, it would also be a great enabler for blood intensive cards like Will-o'-the-Wisp. Which I like.

@jamesatzephyr: I hadn't thought at the Ravnos Carnival embrace deck. On the other hand, Darius et Lizette are not currently played in those decks... Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

there needs to be for+pro cards that do things like this, but i'm not sure how much i like this. its alot like masochism, to be sure, but masochism combos great with various combat combos (flesh of marble+weather control+trap, theft every few rounds and you can play horrific countenance a few times with just rush counters, or non protean with signpost, grapple, punch for @ least 3, don't prevent, and just taste, so you get damage +1 rush counters for playing governs, freak drives, and deflections in ignazio/laz/hardestadt/punchy ventrue decks). so, i've waited until i actually had time to test any of my pro/for combo ideas to post them, but i think having a permanent damage prevent (once a round or once each combat) is appropriate for those disciplines (i base this on canon abilities of both disciplines, along with vampire descriptions form source books {such as "...those who have actually touched Karsh's skin and lived to tell about it say he has hardened it to the consistency of diamonds..." and i also think that having 'free' beads to play cards (or, imo, even to use for "burn a blood to" effects on cards, such as superior rolling with the punches) is appropriate for the combo with large vamps (7-8 caps and higher). obviously, Fiery Heart is going to be used to pay for freak drive more often than anything else, so aksnia becomes a hair better (but not really in girls decks. she is a better vamp than she's given credit for, and if she was printed as gangrel, she would be a staple to jacob fermor garou decks as an amazing way to mitigate pool loss) and so do vamps who need help like zayyat (paying blood for his govern and potentially for his stealth means he would love 6 free beads for earth control or freak drive). the only problem i see with this card is it REALLY helps g2 dominate gangrel. slava gets villeined for 11, lillithed, and gets 6 FH beads, freak drives, and has enough beads to govern down, freak drive, bleed for 3, play earth control, conditioning, and still have a bead to wake and deflect without paying any blood. i'm not sure if it's too good or not good enough, which probably means its balanced. good card, but i think pro+for needs more than just something like this if we get printed again soon.

What strategy this card is supposed to help ? If it's blood-intensive non combat card (typically embrace or all the ravnos stuff, but other thing may be found like Monkey Wrench and co), then it's pretty fine. It may be a bit powerful, but franfly compared to, say, voter captivation or abactor it seem pretty on-spot. If it's supposed to help combat, then the card miss the goal in my opinion. That's because a number of factor : * it cost actions, which tend to be already in short supply for that kind of deck * it does not work as hunt, which mean if you were just emptied and draw this card, bad luck * it does not help card flow at all. Gangrel combat is overall dependant on a good card flow, so drawing an action is pretty bad, and it don't allow to cut on the number of other actions. * it does not provide solutions against anti-protean combat, like prevention for 1, combat end, blood steal, ... * Gangrel combat is not that blood extensive anyway, because you have prevent, flesh of marble, and such. So, I am not too sure of the intent. It seem strange to create a card to help embracing or bleeding harder, and card with the same kind of effect do exist (with significantly lesser gain or greater drawbacks). Still, the idea is exciting, because blood that can't be converted to pool open a lot of possibilities.

I kind of like this card idea. If you are trying to do Protean combat, the blood cost is a problem. If you play Skin of Marble plus aggravated hands, you will lose at least two blood each time. The same if you play Skin of Steel plus aggravated hands. Gangrel antitribu have access to the Path of the Feral Heart, but the Gangrel do not. I agree that the fact that this is an action is tough for many decks, especially for combat-oriented decks. I also agree that letting large vampires get 6 free Freak Drives/Deflections/whatever is a bit much. Maybe: Name: Fiery Heart Cardtype: Action / Combat Discipline: Protean & Fortitude [pro][for] +1 stealth action. Put this card on the acting vampire with 4 counters on it. This vampire can use these counters to pay some or all of the blood cost of cards he or she plays. Burn this card when it has no counters. A vampire may have only one Fiery Heart. [PRO][FOR] Only usable before range is determined. Once this round, this vampire may reduce the cost of a combat card by 4 blood. A vampire can play only one Fiery Heart each round.

> AaronC wrote: > Name: Fiery Heart > Cardtype: Action / Combat > Discipline: Protean & Fortitude > [pro][for] +1 stealth action. Put this card on the acting vampire with 4 counters on it. This vampire can use these counters to pay some or all of the blood cost of cards he or she plays. Burn this card when it has no counters. A vampire may have only one Fiery Heart. > [PRO][FOR] Only usable before range is determined. Once this round, this vampire may reduce the cost of a combat card by 4 blood. A vampire can play only one Fiery Heart each round. > Only one combat card? No sir! Make it so that the vampire may pay costs of cards during that combat from counters on this card. That seems more appropriate somehow. Or, how many combat cards that cost 4 blood do you even know, or see play for that matter? Otherwise I really like the mechanic here. It's cool! Krausedit\\ Oh, and make it that one one Fiery Heart is usable each combat so that it's not abused. It could even cost a blood on superior and still be playable... "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

> Kraus wrote: > It could even cost a blood on superior and still be playable... > Well, it could also be weak. The superior would be usually about as strong as Inner Essence, which is not the most played card in the world. In my humble opinion, blood management card like this one are usually ditched in combat deck because it is the least of your trouble, you already have too much to put in the deck. If I were to do adjustement on the card, I would do an outferior as a hunt at +2 stealth or any other small advantage on protean, a :end: level that give 4 token usable as blood for the combat, and a :END: that rush and give the inferior effect. (of course it's supposing it's supposed to help country gangrel in combat. If it's supposed to help pay non combat costly card, the original text is pretty fine) (thanks AaronC)

> Kraus wrote: > Only one combat card? No sir! Make it so that the vampire may pay costs of cards during that combat from counters on this card. That seems more appropriate somehow. Or, how many combat cards that cost 4 blood do you even know, or see play for that matter? > > Otherwise I really like the mechanic here. It's cool! > > Krausedit\\ Oh, and make it that one one Fiery Heart is usable each combat so that it's not abused. It could even cost a blood on superior and still be playable... > The philosophy behind my version is that the card be easily cyclable at superior. If the same vampire also had the basic version attached to himself, he could still use the counters on the basic version for multiple cards in combat. The superior version could be used for Body of Sun and Hidden Strength (or Burning Wrath, etc.) to good effect. I would prefer for the vampire to be able to use "my" superior on multiple cards, but I can't think of a clean way to do it without using counters, and the basic already uses counters. Ohlmann: gestion = management

It smells more like a variation of Fatuus Mastery than Masochism. seems to be aiming to try help Gangrel. Most of the cards which have high costs from Gangrel are the Animalism retainers, Protean Stealth and not much else really... It also means you can nearly always afford to take extra blood off with a Blood Doll/Vessel/MT/Villein because you've got a 'ghost 4 blood' to spend on cards (which will prevent the damage you're possibly going to be taking). Gangrel and !Gangrel need help, usually in the oust. So we should look at either helping their traditional ousting methods (e.g. Gangrel's w/ , Ani Wall, Deep Song Bleed, Earth Melders, Form of Mist Bleed) or carefully choose one of their disciplines (or the clan as a whole) and give them a card to increase pressure on their prey. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Like many of the cards suggested in this forum the question is "what deck would I use this in?" The answer, for me at least, is - none. Well, maybe you can come up with an obscure deck that would use it, but generally speaking, would this card see play? You're using an action to create ghost blood that can then be used to pay for cards. I suppose the first card to be played after this will invariably be a Freak Drive because I cannot possibly imagine this being worth a minion's entire minion phase. At this point it's not strictly superior to just Restoration+Freak Drive because that is a lot easier to play and gives actual blood that can be blood dolled off etc (even though it's only 2 blood instead of 3/5 after paying the Freak Drive). So the first change I'd like to see is make it give, like, 2/4 counters and include the untap or make it 4/4 and add the untap at superior to make it at least somewhat card efficient. And then... you still have to find useful ways to spend your blood. Fatuus Mastery sees play because Chimestry is expensive and Ravnos using Fatuus Mastery tend to play Embraces and stuff too. Neither Protean nor Fortitude really have this problem. Other than Freak Drive fortitude is either free or makes you lose less blood than you would have otherwise. Protean can get costly if you really go out of you way with Stealth/Quick Meld/Claws combat but really... this card wouldn't make that awful variant of combat any less awful.

Just because a card isn't absolutely necessary isn't a reason to kill it. If it could be useful in some kinds of decks, then there is no reason not to consider it. If the kind of decks it would help are considered "terrible", then that's an even better reason to consider it. I don't think that this card was proposed as a means to address the Gangrel's supposed lack of offense, either. I see this card as addressing the considerable blood use of Protean-heavy decks that rely on aggro-poke or Protean stealth. The classic Protean aggro-poke cards (Claws of the Dead, Wolf Claws, Bone Spur) would be a lot better if they didn't cost a blood. It's an unreliable combat option and spending blood on aggro-poke just grinds you down while maybe or maybe not grinding down your opponent. Not spending blood on Earth Control and Animalism retainers would also be very helpful. This card makes the very expensive Protean cards such as Body of Sun, Body Flare, Shadow of the Wolf, and Mythic Form possible options.

> Ankha wrote: > A mix between Masochism and Restoration. Since no blood is gain, it can't be abused with Villein. > > Thoughts? Comments? > It makes me think of a mix between Fatuus Mastery and Cooler. I am not sure if it could not be abused by villein or minion tap. It creates a sort of fake blood to play cards as if you had blood. If I minion tap a vampire I usually leave enough blood to play some cards. For example, I might MT a 10-cap down to 4 blood usually with a plan to blood back up somehow. This card would make it easier to tap for 9 (or even ten) knowing I have enough fake blood to pay for stealth or combat. Overall, I think the idea is interesting. I have at least two decks I can think of that I would try it in right now.

what if..? Name: Fiery Heart Cardtype: Action / Combat Discipline: Protean & Fortitude ... [PRO][FOR] Only usable before range is determined. For the reminder of this round, this vampire may gain a blood from a blood bank for each blood he burned this round. No more than 4 blood may be gained this way each combat. How about implementing this kind of mechanic? This way it can be used to play "burn blood to .." combat cards, such as Form of Mist and Lightning Reflexes.

> AaronC wrote: > I see this card as addressing the considerable blood use of Protean-heavy decks that rely on aggro-poke or Protean stealth. The classic Protean aggro-poke cards (Claws of the Dead, Wolf Claws, Bone Spur) would be a lot better if they didn't cost a blood. > I believe this is more wishful thinking than anything else (for the original card), simply because the combat mechanic won't like having this moving part in addition to all the other existing moving part. The modified card add an inner essence-like function, which may still be unused but is more likely to be. > AaronC wrote: > This card makes the very expensive Protean cards such as Body of Sun, Body Flare, Shadow of the Wolf, and Mythic Form possible options. > People play Sensory deprivation not because they can afford it blood-wise. They play it because nothing match the raw power of a sensory deprivation. All the card you're talking about are not worth their buck anyway. If they were, you would see them about as often as decapitate, which is actually played from time to time. In short, protean combat card are not that good anyway, except for Flesh of Marble and Claw of the Dead.

Thanks for all the feedback. The fact that it requires protean (and fortitude) doesn't mean you'll pay only protean cards. The best example may be Stanislava of course who may spend lots of blood on bleed cards. No, I had more in mind to pay action and action modifier cards rather than combat (though it's still usefull to pay a Skin of Steel with the counters): Dual Form, Raven Spy, Raptor, Horrific Countenance (!), Freak Drive of course, even Shambling (with Talbot)... are cards that may benefit from it. Many times I've thought that I could play Restoration in blood-intensive decks but the blood gain is so weak they don't make the cut in the end. Making it a better blood gain can be tricky (because of Villein), therefore this kind of card. Making it playable as a combat card is an option to help combat decks. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director