Name: Pentex Intrusion
Cardtype: Master
Cost: 1 pool
Master: trifle.
Put this card into play. When blood moves from a minion to a Methuselah's pool, half the blood (round down) goes to the blood bank. You may burn this card during your influence phase to gain 1 transfer.
(This isn't meant to be cumulative. Multiple copies of the card states the same thing: that you get only half the pool. Like stating multiple times (with multiple Torn Signpost) that a vampire's strength is set to 3.)
Flavor text: "Big Brother is Watching You." George Orwell, 1984
Art notes: A Ventrue in an office room, pulling from the wall a hidden wire that runs vertically to some hidden spying device. Some plaster is torn from the wall in the process. The Ventrue seems extremely upset.
World of Darkness reference: A Guide to Pentex
How does this card address a compelling game need?: Without affecting Blood Doll or Vessel, the card is meant to counter the Villen abuse that gives you 11-cap vampires for free. Pool management is now too easy and leads to massive pool gain that leads to time-limits. Inspired also by Extrala's post: vtesone.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/fattie-deck-building-template-modern-style/
Created by: Ankha
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
I do like the idea, but the current card is next to costless. It's a good thing for me, but it may be argued it should be an errata to game rule or to thoses card more than anything else.
(as an aside, the post that inspired you is both sarcastic and so very true)
Eh, it also hoses Minion Taps (I've seen them being used again lately), and this game does not need that. It also hoses two Blood Dolls or two Vessels on the same vamp...
> Kiddo wrote:
> Eh, it also hoses Minion Taps (I've seen them being used again lately) and this game does not need that.
>
Quite frankly, hosing just villein would be stupid, so nerfing minion tap along is more or less mandatory. It may be argued that there is the good minion tap/villein usage and the bad minion tap/villein spam, which this card does not distinguish.
Maybe "blood over 4" instead of "half" ?
> Kiddo wrote:
> It also hoses two Blood Dolls or two Vessels on the same vamp...
>
I don't think so, because two transfer of one still net you 2 blood.
Just a word of caution: the general design principal for VEKN released cardss is to create enablers not hosers. If something is broken it needs banning, not hosing through silver bullets
A way to make the card more interesting may be to rewrite it this way :
Name: Pentex Intrusion
Cardtype: Master
Cost: 1 pool
Master: trifle.
Put this card into play. When blood moves from a minion to a Methuselah's pool, for each blood the methuselah must remove the top card from its ash heap from play or burn 1 pool. You may burn this card during your influence phase to gain 1 transfer.
So, "regular" blood cycling should have all the card it need to power its blood recycling, and people who try to put 4 inner circle in play with the same 11 pool will have to actually play a lot of card to retrieve all that blood.
"top card" to avoid the card needing too much time for every villein.
It will impact a bit Ashur Tablet, but if you play Ashur tablet and are not greedy about pool cycling, it should be doable.
(of course, it's still a bit of a silver bullet. But it's a silver bullet that can be used to promote agressive play - after all, the best way to fill your ash heap is to play card - and the agression it generate can help the player manipulate the table the way he need it)
> Ohlmann wrote:
> "top card" to avoid the card needing too much time for every villein.
>
Ash heap isn't ordered (you are free to shuffle your ash heap at any time or do whatever you want with it, basically).
> johannes wrote:
> Just a word of caution: the general design principal for VEKN released cardss is to create enablers not hosers. If something is broken it needs banning, not hosing through silver bullets
>
I don't think you can realistically ban Villein or Minion Tap without creating big trouble in the community. Nerfing them is not really a solution (we don't want card text that differs from what is printed).
And "general design" is general, but there can always be exceptions.
Last but not least, it's not a hoser in fact, it's a card that provides you an extra transfer with a drawback
> Ohlmann wrote:
>
> > Kiddo wrote:
> > It also hoses two Blood Dolls or two Vessels on the same vamp...
> >
> I don't think so, because two transfer of one still net you 2 blood.
>
Exactly. Two Blood Dolls are two separate effects.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> johannes wrote:
> Just a word of caution: the general design principal for VEKN released cardss is to create enablers not hosers. If something is broken it needs banning, not hosing through silver bullets
>
So then, when will the VEKN axe Lilith's and GB?
> Izaak wrote:
> So then, when will the VEKN axe Lilith's and GB?
>
It won't be complete without also axing Voter cap, the third card that create way too much blood for the effort spent.
Without Villein (and Minion Tap), Liith's Blessing and GB wouldn't be a problem at all.
And I'm more and more convinced that the game dynamics should be strongly oriented towards decrease of the resources, meaning that ways of gaining massive pool (such as Villein) should be nerfed/banned.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Ye well, except that Villein enables so many cards/vampires that it's done more good than bad for the game. The problem (if any) is the combo with GB/Lilith. Killing that seems fairly simple, with the bonus effect that you also get rid of two universal, easy to play cards that create beads out of thin air. The idea of Villein creating a buffer for slower decks to set up is a very healthy one, it's just that if the buffer comes for basically no cost at the moment.
I mean, I would have been perfectly happy with a non-MT hosing trifle Villein that would always take exactly 3 or 4, but that ship sailed long ago when WW in its infinite wisdom chose to ignore that particular suggestion.
Regarding voter cap, I'm not sure if that needs a change. Yes, it also created beads out of thin air, but this is done by a sequence of non-trivial actions to succeed. Sure, I've also been at tables where someone passes votercapped votes every turn and ends up with 80 pool of guys on the table, but that's not exactly the standard, plus it's easy to shut down and/or meta against.
> Izaak wrote:
> Ye well, except that Villein enables so many cards/vampires
>
I don't think it's that much true. Could you give any example?
Personally, I play decks with 10/11 cap star vampire with no Villein with them that win tournaments or make the finals.
Give me an example of a vampire that wouldn't be played if Villein was banned.
> Izaak wrote:
> Regarding voter cap, I'm not sure if that needs a change. Yes, it also created beads out of thin air, but this is done by a sequence of non-trivial actions to succeed. Sure, I've also been at tables where someone passes votercapped votes every turn and ends up with 80 pool of guys on the table, but that's not exactly the standard, plus it's easy to shut down and/or meta against.
>
I agree. Furthermore, the pool gain from Voter Captivation during a game is far lower than the pool gain provided by Villeins.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
Suggestion :
Giant's blood
Event (Inconnu), Transient
Forfeit your next master phase. burn this card and choose a ready vampire : this vampire gains enough blood from the blood bank to reach full capacity.
Imagination is our only weapon in the war against reality -Jules de Gaultier
> Ankha wrote:
> Give me an example of a vampire that wouldn't be played if Villein was banned.
>
My guess would be Rafael de Corazon. He's not good enough for a star 11-cap, and is playable because he really cost more along the line of 3-5 pool.
> Ankha wrote:
> Furthermore, the pool gain from Voter Captivation during a game is far lower than the pool gain provided by Villeins.
>
The 2 pools from Voter captivation is indeed not the problem. The 8 other pool gained with a subsequent villein / Minion tap may be.
But then again, I do believe it's inaccurate to say that blood creation is the main problem that lead to people having 3+ 10cap or 11 cap on table. It's a combination of three things :
* pool cycling with Villein and Minion tap
* blood creation, via Lillith, Giant Blood, and Voter cap, that give additional inventive to the whole pool cycling
* Zillah Valley and Information Highway that authorize to use this pool to put other 11 cap in play in due time
Blood creation is not the main problem because a Zillah Valley and a Villein to 2 will still net you an Inner Circle for about 5 pool (maybe less). It just make thing worse.
> I don't think it's that much true. Could you give any example?
> Personally, I play decks with 10/11 cap star vampire with no Villein with them that win tournaments or make the finals.
> Give me an example of a vampire that wouldn't be played if Villein was banned.
>
Surely crypts would evolve and less efficient vampires or those that enable cornercase master-requiring strategies would disappear, but nothing would be unplayable.
So I can't give an example because what would happen is that people would just flock back to Minion Tap, with the consequence that master variety goes down the drain again. Just as in the old day.
The last 3 years I've played more different masters than I ever did in the 15 years before that, simply because I can create my poolbuffer with trifle masters instead of being forced to use half of my MPA's on Minion Taps. The issue we are facing is that in a lot of circumstances the bonus master phase is used to simply undo the effects of the Villein instead of playing a different, exciting master.
The reality is, if you play anything bigger than, say, 6 caps, you NEED some way to get the pool back off of your vampires because otherwise you are just going to get ousted by dementation or Vignes. It's simply not optional and will never be as long as 2-caps can bleed for 5.
This can be done (and was done for years) by using Minion Tap, with extremely limited master selection as a result, leading to fairly boring deckbuilding in the green card section. Then Villein came along and dozens of master cards that were always nice and useful suddenly got a slot because people had master phases to spare! Rejoice!
Then some dumbfuck decided to make Lilith's Blessing tournament legal with the stupid state of VTES we have now as a result. Giant's Blood has always been a stupid card, but it was reasonable in the time where master slots were important for decks with fatties. Now it's just a lottery who gets to play with 10 extra pool. It's retarded, cannot be meta'd against and is *entirely* luck based. Once per game makes it even MORE retarded, not more balanced.
I wholehearteldly agree with the fact that anything over cap 6 need seem blood recoup, because a 11-cap action will not on the long run be worth 2 or 3 small cap action.
> Izaak wrote:
> Then some dumbfuck decided to make Lilith's Blessing tournament legal with the stupid state of VTES we have now as a result. Giant's Blood has always been a stupid card, but it was reasonable in the time where master slots were important for decks with fatties. Now it's just a lottery who gets to play with 10 extra pool. It's retarded, cannot be meta'd against and is *entirely* luck based. Once per game makes it even MORE retarded, not more balanced.
>
I believe you put too much emphasis on Lillith Blessing and Giant Blood. I have seen girls deck work pretty well without Lillith neither Giant Blood.
Villein is significantly more the problem than what you believe, because using villein + Zillah Valley to churn out multiple inner circle (or other big cap, of course) need a lot less MPA, so it can be faster and more consistent. It also make MPA-giving vampire that much less important to do that.
The conundrum is, making a card that prevent people from using Villein to put 30+ or 40+ worth of transfer on the table, while not affecting people that just want to put, say, a Priscus and Armin on the table, or do a Fakir wall deck, or other thing like that.
Which of course, lead to the fact that the difference between the "good" villein user and the "bad" villein abuser is not all that clear.
So to counter a Silver-Bullet... you want to make another Silver Bullet? This is going to turn into Vampire: the Master Phase.
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
> Izaak wrote:
> Giant's Blood has always been a stupid card, but it was reasonable in the time where master slots were important for decks with fatties. Now it's just a lottery who gets to play with 10 extra pool. It's retarded, cannot be meta'd against and is *entirely* luck based. Once per game makes it even MORE retarded, not more balanced.
>
I agree with the rest of your post, but not this: "cannot be meta'd against"? Really? Wash and Sudden Reversal are pretty damn useful counters.
> Juggernaut1981 wrote:
> This is going to turn into Vampire: the Master Phase.
>
May I suggest to unban Madness of the bard, so that we can all play the master faster?
www.facebook.com/groups/vtes.belgium/
> Izaak wrote:
>
> I mean, I would have been perfectly happy with a non-MT hosing trifle Villein that would always take exactly 3 or 4, but that ship sailed long ago when WW in its infinite wisdom chose to ignore that particular suggestion.
>
The ship may have set sail long ago, but it could return to port.
In case you haven't noticed, VEKN continues to create errata to the text of existing cards, errata that we all seem to accept.
I suggest that no card needs a new nerf card. If a card warps the play environment so much that people start dreaming up nerf cards, the best solution is to change the offending card itself. As I've already mentioned, we have quite a few new errata that aren't even nerfs - Psyche timing, ballots. Those are administrative changes.
Villein could be changed to move an exact amount of blood to a pool, probably 4. "Good" Villein users will be able to get back a casual pool buffer after playing a large-cap vampire (a vampire, who, apparently, could not possibly be worth the cost otherwise). Your 10-caps would cost 6, your 11-caps 7 - that's fair, isn't it? "Bad" Villein users will not be able to bring out as many IC members plus MMPA vamps in one game.
No extra nerf card for Villein is required to fill up valuable card slots in our libraries.
> AaronC wrote:
> Villein could be changed to move an exact amount of blood to a pool, probably 4. "Good" Villein users will be able to get back a casual pool buffer after playing a large-cap vampire (a vampire, who, apparently, could not possibly be worth the cost otherwise). Your 10-caps would cost 6, your 11-caps 7 - that's fair, isn't it? "Bad" Villein users will not be able to bring out as many IC members plus MMPA vamps in one game.
>
> No extra nerf card for Villein is required to fill up valuable card slots in our libraries.
>
My only request would be to force Villein to only be playable by a minion that has 'enough blood' as well as your change. (i.e. if 'New Villein' removes 4 blood it can only be played on a minion which has 4+ blood)
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
> Juggernaut1981 wrote:
> My only request would be to force Villein to only be playable by a minion that has 'enough blood' as well as your change. (i.e. if 'New Villein' removes 4 blood it can only be played on a minion which has 4+ blood)
>
Why? If I want to drain my low-blood guy dry, as a Methuselah that's my perogative.
If you say "Lillith's Blessing", I would say that Lillith's Blessing is the card with the design problem.
> AaronC wrote:
> The ship may have set sail long ago, but it could return to port.
>
Love those gentlemen discussion
Imagination is our only weapon in the war against reality -Jules de Gaultier
@AaronC:
Because I really object to the ruling on "move" made by LSJ regarding Villein. The words "Move", "Steal" and "Transfer" are not used consistently on minion cards.
The idea behind Villein seems to be to have the Methuselah remove 2+ blood. So why should the minion be allowed to have less than 2 blood?
Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418
> Juggernaut1981 wrote:
> @AaronC:
> Because I really object to the ruling on "move" made by LSJ regarding Villein. The words "Move", "Steal" and "Transfer" are not used consistently on minion cards.
>
> The idea behind Villein seems to be to have the Methuselah remove 2+ blood. So why should the minion be allowed to have less than 2 blood?
>
I would change it to "Move 4 (or 5, whatever) blood from this vampire to your pool", not "up to 4 blood". This is a trifle representing an elder vampire sucking down some younger blood quickly - you shouldn't get to choose how much you take.
If you must move 4 (or whatever), then there's no reason to stick with an "at least 2" concept. Obviously if you try to move 4 and the vampire has less than 4, you can only move as many counters as the vampire has. I think it's okay to suck the vampire dry or even fail to get any off the vampire at all. The modified effect isn't as good as normal Villein, so it shouldn't be hard to cycle.
> Ohlmann wrote:
>
> > Ankha wrote:
> > Give me an example of a vampire that wouldn't be played if Villein was banned.
> >
> My guess would be Rafael de Corazon. He's not good enough for a star 11-cap, and is playable because he really cost more along the line of 3-5 pool.
>
If you play a gr4-5 toreador deck and you need an ic, he's ok. Alexandra is better but they're not the same group.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
> Izaak wrote:
> The reality is, if you play anything bigger than, say, 6 caps, you NEED some way to get the pool back off of your vampires because otherwise you are just going to get ousted by dementation or Vignes. It's simply not optional and will never be as long as 2-caps can bleed for 5. .
>
Sure, but there are other options:
- Govern down (like in my Stanislava deck) /EK/ Founders
- blood doll/vessel
- grooming the protege
Minion Tap and Villein are not required, except if you plan to play a crypt full of 10+ cap which is what I want to avoid
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director