[Submission] Cannibal (Nagaraja ghoul)

Name: Cannibal Clan: Nagaraja Cardtype: Ally Cost: 1 blood Ghoul with 2 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed. When a vampire would go to torpor, you can tap the Cannibal and burn that vampire instead to put a soul counter on the Cannibal. Cannibal gets +1 bleed for each soul counter on him. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Sounds reasonable and interesting (especially for Asguresh) until i suddenly thought of Baltimore Purge. that would take it over the top, i feel. Baltimore Purge. Requires a ready vampire. If this vampire is Ravnos, this action is at +1 stealth. Put this card on the acting vampire. During your untap phase, burn this card, and each other Methuselah chooses a ready vampire he or she controls who is not older than this vampire. If you control a ready Lasombra, you choose the vampires instead. This vampire and the chosen vampires go to torpor.

Asguresh, strike: Breath of Thanatos, cancel your defense card, you burn. Veejay + Shalmath: 2 aggravated before range, you burn. That is probably too strong. He could burn vampires in torpor as a +1 stealth action. That would much more balanced, and already much stronger than anything else in the game since similar allies do not have stealth on their action.

Logically, he should be a retainer which can burn vampire sent to torpor by his master. No reason for an ally to alway be a the good spot to eat someone. It also remove a lot of the power problems. Asguresh is still very powerful with this card, but Breath of Thanatos ain't so good by itself.

Needs to be unique, needs to cost pool (I'd say 2 at least) if you are even considering being serious about burning a vampire without an action. Giving it permanent bleed on top of it seems really strong too, if you make a combat oriented deck you can easily have a 4 point bleeder while removing most of your prey's potential blockers.

> Franz wrote: > if you make a combat oriented deck you can easily have a 4 point bleeder while removing most of your prey's potential blockers. > Is it stronger than playing Fame and rescuing/torporizing the vampire? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > Franz wrote: > > if you make a combat oriented deck you can easily have a 4 point bleeder while removing most of your prey's potential blockers. > > > Is it stronger than playing Fame and rescuing/torporizing the vampire? > That's a question ? Fame + rescue/torpor is 2 actions for 3 pool damage and 2 blood (which admitelly can be from the rescued). It's just above bleeding for 1 in efficiency. This card not only quickly do better than that, but it can be used to oust someone without having to torporize a minion first.

> Ankha wrote: > > > Franz wrote: > > if you make a combat oriented deck you can easily have a 4 point bleeder while removing most of your prey's potential blockers. > > > Is it stronger than playing Fame and rescuing/torporizing the vampire? > Potentially, yes. The ally is non-unique, so you can put quite a few in your deck. It doesn't compete for a master slot. It persists between Methuselahs (when I oust you, Fame does not pop to my grand-prey). If an opponent goes to torpor empty, I would have to pay blood to rescue them - on a table with vampires on low-medium blood in the mid-game, you might well find yourself torporising vampires with zero or one blood left. If I play Fame on Arika, you might block my rush with Rufina Soledad. If you send Arika to torpor with Fame, I do not immediately have her go poof - diablerie or outright burning both generally require reasonably significant extra risk (the bloodhunt) or effort.

> Ohlmann wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > Franz wrote: > > > if you make a combat oriented deck you can easily have a 4 point bleeder while removing most of your prey's potential blockers. > > > > > Is it stronger than playing Fame and rescuing/torporizing the vampire? > > > That's a question ? Fame + rescue/torpor is 2 actions for 3 pool damage and 2 blood (which admitelly can be from the rescued). > You can't simply stop there and count 2 actions. Either you rush once and do 3 pool damage, or you rush once, rescue once and rush a second time for 6 pool damage. Otherwise, you could throw in a few usless hunt actions to say "hey, it requires 6 actions to do a 3 pool damage!". > Ohlmann wrote: > It's just above bleeding for 1 in efficiency. This card not only quickly do better than that, but it can be used to oust someone without having to torporize a minion first. > I think you overrate it. Dealing 3 damage requires 3 turns = 3 bleed actions from a Ghoul that can't stealth and has only 2 life and 1 strength. No, the real strong part is being able to burn a vampire without taking any action (like Carlton, but his requirement is a bit more complicated as it involves the victim to do a diablerie first). I'm more concerned by Baltimore Purge. It could be tweaked to something like: Name: Cannibal Clan: Nagaraja Cardtype: Ally Cost: 1 blood Ghoul with 2 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed. When a vampire with no blood would go to torpor, you can tap the Cannibal and burn that vampire instead to put a soul counter on the Cannibal. Cannibal gets +1 bleed for each soul counter on him. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > The ally is non-unique, so you can put quite a few in your deck. > Yes, why not (even though only one Cannibal can get the bleed bonus each time a vampire would go to torpor). > jamesatzephyr wrote: > It doesn't compete for a master slot. > Sure, but it requires an action that can be blocked. Veejay could do it, but he's not a great fighter, and Asguresh would spoil an action which is quite a cost in a combat deck (considering that you constantly need to rush people to survive). > jamesatzephyr wrote: > It persists between Methuselahs (when I oust you, Fame does not pop to my grand-prey). If an opponent goes to torpor empty, I would have to pay blood to rescue them - on a table with vampires on low-medium blood in the mid-game, you might well find yourself torporising vampires with zero or one blood left. If I play Fame on Arika, you might block my rush with Rufina Soledad. If you send Arika to torpor with Fame, I do not immediately have her go poof - diablerie or outright burning both generally require reasonably significant extra risk (the bloodhunt) or effort. > Vulnerability? Crematorium? Or more reasonabily an Archon (Theo Bell, Muaziz) or a Nephandus, or Urban Jungle already exist. Fame is still a 4-pool damage (considering the extra damage during untap) that is generic. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > Franz wrote: > > if you make a combat oriented deck you can easily have a 4 point bleeder while removing most of your prey's potential blockers. > > > Is it stronger than playing Fame and rescuing/torporizing the vampire? > Yes, it's way stronger as other pointed out. The more I think about it, the more insanely overpowered this card seems to me. Most of the cards that let you burn a vampire with blood in torpor come with heavy opportunity cost (e.g. amaranth, needs to be in combat and there is a blood hunt afterwards) or need an action in order to do it (Gregory, Tye Cooper). Keep in mind if you ping an Arika full of blood for 1 agg, cancel her defense card (via Asguresh as people have already mentioned) and then use this ally you just cost another metusellah 11 pool for the cost of gaining +1 bleed on your ally. Yeah, I'm call retardelly overpowered on this one. Not that I don't like the idea of a non-action way to deal with torporized minions, but you gotta balance it some

> Ankha wrote: > You can't simply stop there and count 2 actions. Either you rush once and do 3 pool damage, or you rush once, rescue once and rush a second time for 6 pool damage. > Otherwise, you could throw in a few usless hunt actions to say "hey, it requires 6 actions to do a 3 pool damage!". > You can still play fame with cannibal. The value of fame is 3 pool damage in 1 master phase action, not the ping pong. The ping pong is strictly 2 actions for 3 pools. The first 3 damage is done regardless of cannibal or not > Ankha wrote: > No, the real strong part is being able to burn a vampire without taking any action (like Carlton, but his requirement is a bit more complicated as it involves the victim to do a diablerie first). I'm more concerned by Baltimore Purge. > Well, an ally that bleed for 2/3 for 1 blood is quite a bargain. It's certainly far superior to Fame ping pong. > Ankha wrote: > It could be tweaked to something like: > > Name: Cannibal > Clan: Nagaraja > Cardtype: Ally > Cost: 1 blood > Ghoul with 2 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed. > When a vampire with no blood would go to torpor, you can tap the Cannibal and burn that vampire instead to put a soul counter on the Cannibal. Cannibal gets +1 bleed for each soul counter on him. > Better, but too much crematorium-like for my taste. I rest on the idea that it should be a retainer that can be tapped when its employer send a vampire in torpor in combat.

You could also do Bamba/Embrace type shennanigans with it to do a really twisted version of an Al-Muntaqim Caitiff chewer. All you need to do is spam out the babies, get them punched down (which isn't that hard, it is usually harder to keep them alive) and then mill them into the Cannibal who you can then use as a lunge-bleeder. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > You could also do Bamba/Embrace type shennanigans with it to do a really twisted version of an Al-Muntaqim Caitiff chewer. All you need to do is spam out the babies, get them punched down (which isn't that hard, it is usually harder to keep them alive) and then mill them into the Cannibal who you can then use as a lunge-bleeder. > That's a good idea (a bit difficult to put in place, but funny). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > The ally is non-unique, so you can put quite a few in your deck. > > > Yes, why not (even though only one Cannibal can get the bleed bonus each time a vampire would go to torpor). > Sure, but that makes it quite a different card to evaluate compared to Fame, which is unique, and so therefore quite limited. Since it requires you to tap, it also means you can pick up multiple per cycle of the table, if you torporise multiple minions. > Ankha wrote: > Vulnerability? > A one-off card, only usable in your master phase, with a pool cost. So it's entirely possible that the rest of the table might be able to rescue my prey's vampire, or whatever. (Different when it's your predator's last action or similar, of course.) Not a card that's permanently in play. > Ankha wrote: > Crematorium? > Again, master phase, pool cost. Single point of agg won't do it. > Ankha wrote: > Or more reasonabily an Archon (Theo Bell, Muaziz) > This is the sort of extra effort I was talking about. > Ankha wrote: > or a Nephandus, > Blockable, not instant. > Ankha wrote: > or Urban Jungle already exist. > Extra effort, still possible to lose the referendum. (2 votes is good, but not overwhelming.)

Well the obvious options would be to look at the baby-makers: Settites Assamites Ravnos Laibons The Becoming The Embrace Brothers in Arms Creation Rites Thin-Blooded Seer Crazy Tricks: Spirit Marionette + DtD/Force of Will + Cannibal Temptation + Daring the Dawn + Cannibal Mata Hari + Cannibal + Tumnimos** Summon History + Cannibal + OtH-agg-weather-control-trick **This could be allow for an interesting variation I've thought about nicknamed Mother Hamster where Mata Hari makes Tumnimos you specifically chainsaw with a Talbot's Chainsaw into a Carver's Meat Packing. You could also use the Tumnimos in the later game by harvesting them into the Cannibals for the kill-bleeds. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Well the obvious options would be to look at the baby-makers: > Why would the obvious option be to take expensive actions that serve only to fuel the +bleed, rather than just bleeding yourself in the first place? A midbie vampire capable of making Setite babies, for example, is very likely in a solid place to just bleed you at stealth for a fair amount. So why not do that? The major issue with Cannibal is giving combat free perma-bleed while making your opponents' vampires vanish.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > The major issue with Cannibal is giving combat free perma-bleed while making your opponents' vampires vanish. > How is that an issue ? (It is supposed to be the attended goal of the card). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > The major issue with Cannibal is giving combat free perma-bleed while making your opponents' vampires vanish. > > > How is that an issue ? (It is supposed to be the attended goal of the card). > The goal may be the issue. It do both very, very effectively. For example, the ousting power of Return to innocence was the issue even thought it was the intended goal. Now, it's clearly not as broken as RtI, but it may still be a bit much. My main problem is that you can recruit a cannibal and let, say, Hektor do the dirty job. I can see this card balanced if you need to use a nagaraja to put people in torpor, since even Asguresh is not a terror.

Or the ability could be used once in a game, per ally to get 2-3 bleed, and, perhaps, making it unique. You would still get a blood-hunt-free Amaranth with low opportunity cost, an action cost, a chump blocker and at a ridiculously low cost. Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> Ankha wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > The major issue with Cannibal is giving combat free perma-bleed while making your opponents' vampires vanish. > > > How is that an issue ? (It is supposed to be the attended goal of the card). > Why is Return to Innocence an issue? It accomplishes its goal of massive bleed. (That is "I hit my design goal!" is in no way a useful justification of a card.) Having vampires just go poof for a tiny amount of extra effort for a combat deck makes combat less interactive. Combat already has the issue of making the game Not Fun for an opponent by removing their ability to act. (For most decks, the ability to act is pretty crucial.) So blam, poof, *littlepileofcinders*, and I don't even get to call a Bloodhunt on you, or try to block the diablerie. It's also a problem that it still combos with a variety of non-combat methods of slicing up vampires such as, as others have already pointed out, Baltimore Purge. Even when they get to choose their own vampire, you might easily find yourself with at least one player on a five player table having, say, a vampire with zero blood and a vampire with three blood, or something like that. Do I send the zero one to torpor, who you might immediately eat with Cannibal, or do I send the other vampire to torpor, who you might then wander over and eat anyway? This is a massively unfun choice. See also annoyance with, say, Fourth Cycle.

Now checking Anathema... > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > The major issue with Cannibal is giving combat free perma-bleed while making your opponents' vampires vanish. > > > > > How is that an issue ? (It is supposed to be the attended goal of the card). > > > Having vampires just go poof for a tiny amount of extra effort for a combat deck makes combat less interactive. > Check. > jamesatzephyr wrote: > Combat already has the issue of making the game Not Fun for an opponent by removing their ability to act. (For most decks, the ability to act is pretty crucial.) So blam, poof, *littlepileofcinders*, and I don't even get to call a Bloodhunt on you, or try to block the diablerie. > Check. > jamesatzephyr wrote: > It's also a problem that it still combos with a variety of non-combat methods of slicing up vampires such as, as others have already pointed out, Baltimore Purge. Even when they get to choose their own vampire, you might easily find yourself with at least one player on a five player table having, say, a vampire with zero blood and a vampire with three blood, or something like that. Do I send the zero one to torpor, who you might immediately eat with Cannibal, > Check. I suppose you think Anathema should be banned then, right? If you don't, we compare the pro and con of each cards. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Anathema burn 1 vampire, with additional hoops of putting him to 0 blood, and work only in combat. Also, recruiting is easier than passing a vote. Lastly, adding one small nagaraja is less of a restriction than adding justicar or princes. You already have said to add the 0 bood requirement, but not the other one. So, your first check is already false. It's quite an effort to put up Anathema - or Dog of War - in a combat deck. If the cannibal could eat only one vampire per game (while gaining more than 1 bleed to keep him useful on this regard), a comparison could be done. Edit : Anathema does not make you gain action (you make Anathema action instead of diablerie). Cannibal is, even if you only eat one vampire, because you then gain bleed for 1 actions. And maybe some other option, like sacrificial block with Unmasking. Re-edit : by the way, Cannibal can eat any torporized at 0 blood vampire on the table, while it's you who gain the benefit. So not only you have an easier time at burning, but you can steal the benefit of other people.

> Non-existant user wrote: > Asguresh, strike: Breath of Thanatos, cancel your defense card, you burn. > Veejay + Shalmath: 2 aggravated before range, you burn. > Or, you know, just Summon History. I would play the hell out of this card in a Hourglass + Disarm deck. Surprised nobody mentioned the obvious one: classic Speed Shamblers with a few more duplicates of Le Dinh Tho than usual.

> Ohlmann wrote: > Anathema burn 1 vampire, with additional hoops of putting him to 0 blood, and work only in combat. Also, recruiting is easier than passing a vote. Lastly, adding one small nagaraja is less of a restriction than adding justicar or princes. You already have said to add the 0 bood requirement, but not the other one. > > So, your first check is already false. It's quite an effort to put up Anathema - or Dog of War - in a combat deck. > > If the cannibal could eat only one vampire per game (while gaining more than 1 bleed to keep him useful on this regard), a comparison could be done. > > Edit : Anathema does not make you gain action (you make Anathema action instead of diablerie). Cannibal is, even if you only eat one vampire, because you then gain bleed for 1 actions. And maybe some other option, like sacrificial block with Unmasking. > > Re-edit : by the way, Cannibal can eat any torporized at 0 blood vampire on the table, while it's you who gain the benefit. So not only you have an easier time at burning, but you can steal the benefit of other people. > Anathema requirements are higher than Cannibal, but I think the reward is much bigger too (gaining an avg. 6 pool vs. a fragile ally gaining +1 bleed ). If think that the ability of anyone gaining pool thanks to your Anathema is the major drawback of the card. Do we have to fall in the same pitfall? So the issue seems the ability of burning more than one vampire per game per Cannibal. Fine. What about Name: Cannibal Clan: Nagaraja Cardtype: Ally Cost: 1 blood Ghoul with 2 life. 1 strength, 0 bleed. Once per game, when a vampire with no blood would go to torpor, you can tap the Cannibal and burn that vampire instead to give the Cannibal +1 bleed until the end of the game. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Suoli wrote: > > > Non-existant user wrote: > > Asguresh, strike: Breath of Thanatos, cancel your defense card, you burn. > > Veejay + Shalmath: 2 aggravated before range, you burn. > > > Or, you know, just Summon History. I would play the hell out of this card in a Hourglass + Disarm deck. > This has been already addressed by requiring the vampire to have no blood. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I would agree that this version seem much more balanced. It could even be 2 bleed, or 1 bleed 1 strength 1 life. Even if it's still reasonably easily graftable by a non-nagaraja deck. (after all, adding a 3 to 5 cap who can bounce bleed don't seem too hard)

This last version seems more like a cool card. Yes there is good thing to do with it but it will not break the game. (no more than decapitate or anything similar). And yes, shambler with le dinh to and asguresh deck will want to play some copy of it. Even Shalmath decapitate but it is better to design cards with some use I think ^^

> Ankha wrote: > I suppose you think Anathema should be banned then, right? > You appear to have gone from "I don't think I'd want this card added to the game as is" to "OMG BAN SHIT JUST BAN EVERYTHING OMG BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN LET'S GO MENTAL AND BAN ANYTHING THAT'S EVEN SLIGHTLY LIKE MY CARD BECAUSE OMG MY CARD IS AWESOME SO IF YOU HATE IT YOU HATE ME AND THE GAME AND OMG BAN BAN BAN BAN BAN". For a start, you're not even beginning to address that running a deck that combines good vote-push with good combat is tricky. They can be excellent decks when they work well, but they are very difficult to get right becauase of - for example - delicate card flow issues. Cannibal does not have delicate card flow issues. Having a vote to pass increases interactivity rather than reducing it. You can block the vote (as you could block the recruit). You could play Delaying Tactics. Your opponent might have significant political power of their own, and it may be in at least one other Methuselah's interests to stop you gaining 6, 8, 10 pool. (For example, you may be Anathema-ing your prey's vampire, but your predator doesn't want you to have that pool. Or you Anathema a predator's vampire, but your prey would rather you didn't suddenly have 10 extra pool to bring out minions or whatever to stomp him with.) Delaying Tactics is often rather popular. None of this applies to Cannibal. Anathema goes on one vampire: "put this card on that vampire." So it may be possible for me to block the rush of that vampire, throw cannon fodder in the way, that sort of thing. So yeah, you might get to blow up Ryder if you can rush him, but between an untapped Robert Price, a Wake, and a lucky redraw of another Wake, I thwart you for a while. You have to hurt the Anathema-ed vampire. Cannibal doesn't, any vampire dying is fair game for it. Anathema applies only in combat: "is reduced to zero blood in combat". Cannibal doesn't. Really, if you wanted to pick a card that I absolutely must want to ban, I'm not sure you could have picked a worse comparison than Anathema, with all its interesting tentacles. > Ankha wrote: > If you don't, we compare the pro and con of each cards. > Or rather, we don't present other people's concerns as being bizarre, hyperbolic strawmen with no relation to the opinion they're actually presenting.