Recruitment Exercise - Good for the Black Hand?

For various definitions of good. From my perspective, good cards help minions that can play them do interesting and relevant things toward victory within the framework of the overall game design. Recruitment Exercise +1 stealth action. Requires a Black Hand vampire. Show the top card of your crypt to all Methuselahs and move it to your uncontrolled region. Add 1 blood from the blood bank to it if it is a Black Hand vampire. > ReverendRevolver wrote: > Unintended consequences? > > Next time, mayne they get disciplineless combat, so they do what they always shoulda. > > Also, BH needs more goodstuff, and i LOVE combat, but makimg the weak bh guys good @ combat doesnt fix issues with disciplines lining up or make combat with a fee bh cards and vamps with little else in common viable > > So, mesu/infonetwork action for bh is whatever. > > But, this card is meh. > > Other uses are out there, this is the most logical "win n stuff " build. > I think these points are all well taken, and they actually point out some of the unintended consequences. If the goal was to "make the weak bh guys good", then this card really fails to do that. All it does is turn every Black Hand deck into a crypt machine, especially coupled with Reunion Kamut. You mention three issues with the Black Hand: Disciplines lining up, improve Black Hand combat, make vamps with little else in common more viable. Looking just at the card text, does Recruitment Exercise address any of these three? Maybe a bit on the third one, but uyet another Dom/Obf crypt machine is not what V:tES needs. Recruitment Exercise doesn't even come close to addressing the first two. I can't help but think about Jay Kristoff's comments in the notes to his Gangrel antitribu TWD called July Bell: Worst to First : "I heard some talk at Origins 2011 that the Gangrel-antitribu are the worst clan. I built this deck to display some of their strengths." The strengths that Jay sarcastically refers to are Leathery Hide and a couple of boring Master cards to create a baby-maker swarm bleed deck. He is trying to make the point that Cel/Obf/Pro doesn't oust well. I think that Recruitment Exercise does the same for the Black Hand. It does nothing flavorful or canonical, and just makes more minions with disciplines which still don't line up and still have poor combat, but which bleed for 1 really well (/sarcasm). Is this the mundane fate of the mighty Black Hand? > ReverendRevolver wrote: > We COULD easily reflect this in sets. But its alot of work. > To that point: Do Recruitment Exercise and Shakar: the Hunt represent the culmination of the past year of work to improve the Black Hand? Two TWDs in barely the first month that this library card has been around tells me that this card is already having too much of an impact. And by this I mean that Black Hand strategies may have been permanently skewed toward swarm bleed decks. One could argue that this is all they really were already. But why focus on that instead of on other victory conditions? Yeah, I am thinking critically, and publicly, about this particular card. I hope others will do the same. It has been eerily silent on the VEKN forums about specific cards from Danse Macabre, other than slaps on the back for a job well done (the artwork is pretty darn good). When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

I rate it, it serves a purpose and is in keeping with a lot of blackhand decks. It frees up space for other masters, is balanced due to blackhand limitation and perhaps most importantly: it's not wallpaper. I reached a final a couple of weeks ago using blackhand tech, different deck compared to the other twds — but most definitely one that recruitment excecise enabled to the point of being tournament worthy. It was the little push very much needed. Amaranth Deck Building Tool : VTES NZ : VTES ANZ Facebook

> Jeff wrote: > ... but which bleed for 1 really well (/sarcasm). Is this the mundane fate of the mighty Black Hand? > ... > Where do you see Black Hands bleeding for one? They go like this: - equip with Guarded Rubrics - untap with black hand tech - bleed with Guarded Rubrics So I think it is good advice to replace the [/sarcasm] with [/good card] > Jeff wrote: > Yeah, I am thinking critically, and publicly, about this particular card. I hope others will do the same. It has been eerily silent on the VEKN forums about specific cards from Danse Macabre, other than slaps on the back for a job well done (the artwork is pretty darn good). > I'm sorry for not posting decks here. I was too busy building decks with the new cards and playing them. On #vtes there has been lively discussion about Spoils of War, Public Vilification, Inside Dirt (probably more, but I'm not always online there). There was a whole thread on these forums about Spoils of War: - a deck - the card itself www.facebook.com/groups/vtes.belgium/

Black Hand vampires interestingly enough have their most prevalent discipline as AUSPEX. You can make a reasonable deck using that. Plus with the new DM guy you can potentially get a sizable horde of BH vampires 'the slow way' as well. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

I personally don't really see recruitment exercise as that good because black hand already has kamut, which is better, so why would you need this card, unless you are making some kind of multiact thingy that aims to do both with same minion in a turn, because outside of that, I would pretty much always want kamut over this card.

> Jeff wrote: > To that point: Do Recruitment Exercise and Shakar: the Hunt represent the culmination of the past year of work to improve the Black Hand? > > Two TWDs in barely the first month that this library card has been around tells me that this card is already having too much of an impact. And by this I mean that Black Hand strategies may have been permanently skewed toward swarm bleed decks. One could argue that this is all they really were already. But why focus on that instead of on other victory conditions? > > Yeah, I am thinking critically, and publicly, about this particular card. I hope others will do the same. It has been eerily silent on the VEKN forums about specific cards from Danse Macabre, other than slaps on the back for a job well done (the artwork is pretty darn good). > As a critical commentary on your sampling methods upon which you base your statistical claims... 1) The European Championship was in early October. The AUSNZ Championship was on the same day. DM was not valid for those tournaments. 2) Because of something similar to organiser fatigue... there have been very few tournaments. Therefore your statements about only two TWDA entries is flawed statistics. Your sample is arbitrarily small and unlikely to be representative. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

What identity did BH have before DM? Art of Memory is recursion. Black Hand Ritual fends off Gehenna. Corporal Reservoir mostly got played with Descent into Darkness. Guarded Rubrics is significant bleed. Marijava Thuggee an Obfuscating, pingy ally. Ministry for intercept, though I've barely seen this played more than the virtually never seen Watch Commander. Reunion Kamut for uncontrolled action. Truth in Ink. Watchtower: The Wolves Feed for stealth bleed and annoyance combat. And, of course, a bunch of untappiness. Where's the coherency there? Sure, Guarded Rubrics works well with untapping, and it's a lot better to get bleeds through than not, so many successful BH decks already did stealth bleed with multiact uncontrolled stuff. What would I see being BHy? Ministry seems BHy. The untap stuff is fine. Truth in Ink also has a touch of the togetherness I feel is thematic of BHness. Recruitment Exercise is reasonable "togetherness". Could it have been something else? Sure. But, the call for doing more with combat runs into the fact that combat is such a bad way to win, which is not remotely BH specific, anymore than it's Assamite specific to where most successful Ass decks play up Obfuscate and bleeding to put counters on Alamut. There are plenty of examples of deck elements not getting cards that help them do thematic things in a competitive environment. I'm not going to be bothered by this card, at least not to the level that I wonder where the relatively human friendly Camarilla keeps its ally cards or whatever. Traveller Card Game

I think it is a good card for black hand in that it makes me more likely to play them. Black hand can always use more utility cards. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > > Jeff wrote: > > To that point: Do Recruitment Exercise and Shakar: the Hunt represent the culmination of the past year of work to improve the Black Hand? > > > > Two TWDs in barely the first month that this library card has been around tells me that this card is already having too much of an impact. And by this I mean that Black Hand strategies may have been permanently skewed toward swarm bleed decks. One could argue that this is all they really were already. But why focus on that instead of on other victory conditions? > > > > Yeah, I am thinking critically, and publicly, about this particular card. I hope others will do the same. It has been eerily silent on the VEKN forums about specific cards from Danse Macabre, other than slaps on the back for a job well done (the artwork is pretty darn good). > > > As a critical commentary on your sampling methods upon which you base your statistical claims... > > 1) The European Championship was in early October. The AUSNZ Championship was on the same day. DM was not valid for those tournaments. > > 2) Because of something similar to organiser fatigue... there have been very few tournaments. > > Therefore your statements about only two TWDA entries is flawed statistics. Your sample is arbitrarily small and unlikely to be representative. > In addition, players always like to play with the newest toys, especially when nothing new has come out in the past 3 (nearly 4) years. It was only two months after the tournament-legality of KoT cards that similar KoT cards appeared in the TWD (Emily Carson, Lodin and Graham Gotesdam). They're not exceptionnal vampires, but they were new at that time. Not to mention the size of the KoT set nor the fact that Twilight Rebellion was still fresh. In a small set such as Danse Macabre, there's a high probability that players have spotted Recruitment Exercise and thought "Let's try to build a Black Hand deck with it." Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I personally think that Lodin is quite an exceptional vampire. But the other two are fairly average sure.

Pure BlackHand crypt + Reunion Kamut/Recruitment Exercise means -when your vampires aren't torporized on the first few turns- that you won't need ANY disciplines at all (except for some inferior perhaps. See M. Schumacher's BH-deck that won the Belgian NC a few weeks ago. www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=14494 you just rely on WT: the Wolves Feed (+1 stealth & 2R damage for BH-vampires) and the respective specials of the Vampires (Nicodemus's new hand, Sennadurek for the occasional untap+Deflection (the only discipline card in the entire deck!!!!) and the fact that RK & RE both lack 'younger' in their card text to move one or two blood to an uncontrolled -younger- vampire. 5-cap Banjoko as a Seraph is key on all levels. it's not really a fun deck to play against, trust me. three of four turns in the game (no more than 15 minutes in the game), you know you've either crushed the deck or it will crush everyone else with a much higher than normal degree of certainty. it's one of the most meta-game-changing decks of the last few years IMO (even on par with Girls) and we'll be seeing a lot more of it in the future even though the room for improvement is currently almost ridiculously small due to grouping/crypt limitations. some Anti-BH-tech or specials would seem appropriate to be designed right about now .

> porphyrion wrote: > some Anti-BH-tech or specials would seem appropriate to be designed right about now . > Yeah, beacuase mid-high capacity black hand clan/discipline decks are soooooo powerful. NOT. But back to the opening question, when i first seen the card i was thinking about how good it will be in nearly disciplineless black hand decks starring banjoko. And how unplayable it will be in say Black Hand lasombra starring Apius or BH Assamites g4-g5, as those don't really plan so many vampires in play in first place (especially if they want to do some combat). Current black hand cards force meths to build mostly black hand crypts (with the exception of black hand emissary, with isn't good card to start with). If game devs want to make black hand better for mixed black hand/regular sabbat crypts, there need to be incentive to do so. No other black hand (ok, i've heard you musta-useless-jib) even care if your other dudes are sabbat. They can be anything, even camarilla. Example of such card is: Black Hand Wake Only usable by black hand vampire. Usual wake-effect for reacting bh OR give wake-effect to target other sabbat vampire. It isn't card that bh need, just a template how a card can benefit mixed bh/regular sabbat crypts (mono bh crypts too, but not only). Another template is BH/Sabbat helper Only usable by bh or sabbat vampire. Do stuff. Do more stuff if played by bh (or if you control bh or whatever). Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Jeff wrote: > If the goal was to "make the weak bh guys good", then this card really fails to do that. All it does is turn every Black Hand deck into a crypt machine, especially coupled with Reunion Kamut. > I am curious as to how you believe that's the goal of the card. Since it can be played by any Black Hand vampire, if it's worth playing, you can play it with a good one. If it's not worth playing and you're playing with a weak BH guy, then, uh, it's not worth playing and you're playing it with a weak BH guy. There are, of course, ways that you can exclude cards from being played by vampires who are already solid (e.g. picking weird disciplines or clans or traits, adding weird restrictions), but that's not the case here.

Some points: One piece of Unique Equipment (e.g. Guarded Rubrics) and the reliance on untap, even if permanent like Tattoo Signal, does not make for good bleed tech, even with multiple copies of the unique card. I will point out that Martin Schumacher's deck only had a single copy of Guarded Rubrics in the deck list, and not a single Heidelberg Castle. Bleeding for 1 with 6 or 7 minions at +1 stealth due to Watchtower: The Wolves Feed is pretty strong, and that is clearly the objective of Martin's deck most of the time. I suspect that was also the case with Guilhem's deck in practice, though he did have more bleed modifiers available. Klaital opines that Reunion Kamut is better. I think that Recruitment Exercise is too similar to Reunion Kamut. I think it interesting that when Martin won, he had already nearly won a tournament with the deck while using Effective Management to draw more vampires from his crypt. Clearly Recruitment Exercise dramatically increased the power of this type of crypt machine. Leave it to Juggernaut to intentionally (?) miss the point of my post entirely and focus on something else. Clearly, meaningful statistics can't be determined, but the anecdotal evidence is critical. There have been only six tournaments since DM was tourney legal and two of them have Recruitment Exercise! Sure, it's not 50 tournaments, but the explosion of this new card onto the tournament scene needs to be closely watched, if it doesn't already suggest that the card was a bad idea from the start. Keep in mind that Recruitment Exercise is a *library* card and not a crypt card. One of the easiest things for players to do when a new set comes out is to simply use a new crypt with their existing libraries, and maybe change a handful of cards. The disciplines generally match for a given clan across groupings, so when Lodin shows up in a bunch of decks quickly, that's not a big surprise. Besides, individual vampires, with the possible exception of Una, don't really make a huge impact on the game, mainly due to contesting and Pentex Subversion. Library cards have significant, immediate and unpredictable impacts on the game. Maybe the Black Hand crypt machine was expected, but I don't see this as being a good thing for V:tES. Regarding the identify of Black Hand: I just hope that Recruitment Exercise/Reunion Kamut/swarm bleed doesn't subsume all other possible identities. It's not just about swarm bleeding either. I've heard many people out there, especially some members of the VEKN Inner Circle and Design team, say that bloating is bad for the game. It slows down games, leads to table timeouts, causes all sorts of problems. Guilhem's deck could gain 46 pool and 40 transfers (actually 10 decrypts outside the influence phase, which is probably even better than 4 transfers) from RE/RK alone. Martin's deck could gain 60 pool and 40 transfers! Compare that to Better Gents with Sticks which gains 39 pool and 39 transfers with Govern the Unaligned at a cost of 13 blood (scale it up to ~45 pool/45 transfers if a 90 card deck costing 15 blood). Did someone on the VEKN design team do this kind of analysis with the cards? Seriously, did someone do this kind of analysis of the cards? PCK does. As for the goal of the card being "make the weak bh guys good", I was just quoting Reverend Revolver. But the effect of the card is exactly what a crypt machine wants: draw a new vamp and put blood on that vampire. It's an action so the machine keeps feeding itself--there is almost no need for the master phase or influence phase at all, except to bring out the new vampires which might already be full. As an analogy, why would a Dominate deck play with anything other than the best toys it has? There are so many unused Dominate cards and strategies because the best ones are just so overwhelmingly good. Recruitment Exercise just did that for the Black Hand. I see them all becoming crypt machine bleed swarms with almost no disciplines. Maybe Ke will prove otherwise with his new deck. Recruitment Exercise is not just an evolution, it's a revolution. I don't see that as good for the game. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > Did someone on the VEKN design team do this kind of analysis with the cards? Seriously, did someone do this kind of analysis of the cards? PCK does. > Given that you entirely failed to notice that Fiendish Tongue interacts with Sabbat Intrigue to make disciplineless stealth bleed much more efficient than it already was, I submit that it doesn't matter what the PCK thinks it does - it's really, really bad at it.

Your extensive analytical methods seem to be flawed. I cite my own comment about your statistic and your own comment about preference for anecdotal (and thereby scientifically unreliable) evidence over waiting for real statistics/evidence. Here is another persons's reasoning for why your anecdotal evidence is useless 1) James' Fiendish Tongue argument 2) The first published edition of Blessings of Cagn foiled one of its own mechanics. Apparently it passed your analysis and playtesting and proofreading before it was fixed. 3) The suite of Skin of the King cards require setups to trot out the benefits of other cards that always exist. 4) The suite of cards between the Inquisitor Set and the Laibon Set from PCK which mimic Computer Hacking or Camera Phone as a "utility option". If you would like some help from someone who is fairly strong at the basics of statistical analysis, I'd be happy to help you refine your techniques to the point where they provide scientifically reliable and scientifically valid results. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Jeff wrote: > Some points: > > I think it interesting that when Martin won, he had already nearly won a tournament with the deck while using Effective Management to draw more vampires from his crypt. Clearly Recruitment Exercise dramatically increased the power of this type of crypt machine. > Just my 2 cents: I did win the Belgian NC pre-DM with the deck when it played 6 effective management and 4 clothos gift. It didnt get into the TWDA because we were 9 players. Also i played 2GW and 7 in the Dutch NC and lost in the finals due to 2 daring the dawn bleeds in 1 round. So yes, recruitment exercise does help the deck in the sense that it makes room for about 5 additional cards, which i used to add seraph second. Before DM i played 30 Reunions, 6 Effective Managments and 4 Clothos gift Now i play 25 Reunions, 10 RE and 6 Seraph Second, and i dont have to play obf anymore. And btw, back then Liliths Blessing was legal, which was a monster in this deck. So i think RE is a good card, it helps the deck, but it is in no way necessary to play the deck. It was a good deck 1 year ago but just stayed below the radar of the tournement scene. Very often when cards come out, they are either regarded as wall paper (everyone bitches about them) or they are very strong (lots of people bitch about them). DM had to have some impact on the game, otherwise it would have been a complete waste of time. So in summary ithink its a well balanced card, and nowhere near the power level of, lets say, govern or parity shift

So if you don't use any obfuscate it in anymore, does it mean that you are now just relying on getting everything through with 1 stealth?

> Klaital wrote: > So if you don't use any obfuscate it in anymore, does it mean that you are now just relying on getting everything through with 1 stealth? > Well, with a watchtower, all undirected actions are at 2 stealth, and once u get a seraph/seraphs second and a tatoo signal, the amount of actions u can take will overwhelm most blocking capabilities. ALso, i play change of target, so if reunion is blocked, u untap and play RE instead. But yes, neighbor john or carna on turn 2 will ruin my day.

Reunion Kamut is already the backbone of Black Hand decks. I share the concern that adding Recruitment Exercise may have reinforced that backbone so much that there is little point playing any other way. Let me think out loud and play devil's advocate here. There are so many clans and sects and disciplines already; is it actually so bad if one subsect has exactly one shtick? Maybe not. Is bloat too effective now? Well, bleeding for 18 in a turn has been a thing since 1994 and you can't bounce them all.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > Given that you entirely failed to notice that Fiendish Tongue interacts with Sabbat Intrigue to make disciplineless stealth bleed much more efficient than it already was, I submit that it doesn't matter what the PCK thinks it does - it's really, really bad at it. > Really, James? I always thought your comments were much more careful than this. You are trying to insinuate that my "Point taken" response means something completely different. Go read the comments and context again. I was acknowledging your point, and I immediately explained why "In our final analyses, with weenie decks factored in, these cards provided a reasonable incremental change for the better." And then you take your unfounded comments and go ad hominem on PCK. If that's really your debate style (and from your interactions with AaronC, I am beginning to wonder), then so be it. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > I cite my own comment about your statistic and your own comment about preference for anecdotal (and thereby scientifically unreliable) evidence over waiting for real statistics/evidence. > Nice try at putting words in my mouth. I did not say anything of the sort. The evidence we have is anecdotal. It may not be statistically significant, but that doesn't mean it should be discarded out of hand. I suppose we could wait for six or nine months before there are 50 instances in the TWDA with DM cards and then bother to take note of the changes to the metagame. But that would be folly in itself. > If you would like some help from someone who is fairly strong at the basics of statistical analysis, I'd be happy to help you refine your techniques to the point where they provide scientifically reliable and scientifically valid results. > Yep. Again, you have no real argument and must reduce yourself to weak ad hominem attacks. I'll take my applied mathematics degree and decades of data analysis against whatever you can muster any day. Either of you care to actually talk about the points I raised regarding Recruitment Exercise? Didn't think so... When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> M.Schumacher wrote: > Just my 2 cents... > Thanks for the additional background about your version of this deck. > M.Schumacher wrote: > Very often when cards come out, they are either > regarded as wall paper (everyone bitches about them) or they are very strong (lots of people bitch about them). DM had to have some impact on the game, > otherwise it would have been a complete waste of time. So in summary ithink its a well balanced card, and nowhere near the power level of, lets say, govern or parity shift > "DM had to have some impact on the game, otherwise it would have been a complete waste of time." If Johannes had his way, every single card from DM would be showing up in TWDs in very short order. He basically stated the goal "Make cards that will immediately have an impact on tournaments." I thought this strategy was very reckless from my time on the Design Team. Such a goal is contrary to "Make cards that are good for V:tES" and will have long term deleterious effects. Johannes' above stated design goal for this set was really just a good marketing ploy. Make some power cards and please people immediately, at whatever long term cost. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > > > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > > I cite my own comment about your statistic and your own comment about preference for anecdotal (and thereby scientifically unreliable) evidence over waiting for real statistics/evidence. > > > Nice try at putting words in my mouth. I did not say anything of the sort. The evidence we have is anecdotal. It may not be statistically significant, but that doesn't mean it should be discarded out of hand. > If you had read my comments, and watched the fairly entertaining video of Neill deGrasse Tyson, you would have understood that I was discarding it out of hand. Discarding it because it is almost worthless as scientific evidence and more worthless as statistical evidence. I would also note that you didn't address my four points which were in addition to James' comment that your cards enables disciplineless stealth-bleed. In your response to James' comments are, in summary, "Our analysis says you thoughts are not relevant and we included weenie decks in our analysis." Considering the flawed sampling methods for your analysis and the terrible methods you seem to use for statistics I call into question PCK's analytical methods. Based on their cards and their responses, your analysis is terrible. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

I plainly recall having like 3 feet of text in me origional comment on this subjuect(on the twd thread) I feel ive been misquoted in part. I dont see a particular need to keep harping on this same topic, i mean, if the horse is dead, has been dead several months, and furthermore is not buried in a mystical pet semetary, why the hell are we still beating the dead horse? Open quoting yours truly, have like 3 half validish points, then it spins into "vekn didnt guess right, this arxhetype will ruin the game...." and insinuating, im sorry, stating, that every card in the set was intended to do so at the onset of developement? I get pissed when my ideas get passed over too. But come on, cant we just talk about vtes without this bitterness of old buisness? Be pissy because some asshat ousted you intentionally crosstable with a malkacian prank(and i'll admit to having done that ) not because of something long done and over. The cards not pto reprinted for any titled vamp with capacity above 2. Its a playable card, thats really it. Why start fights over it? What agenda can that possibly be helping? And mathmatically, no proof exists that this card will crush the global meta, or that vekn tests things in a manner less optimally than pck. You have a weenie swarm bleed enabler. You blew off(i just read tbat thread 10 minutes ago) people saying something about it. Its not a real set, so its not going to matter in twds, so we will never have statistical proof that pck testing one way trumps vekn testing another. Just the assumption that vekn killed too strong of cards. Ive seen one good opinion against this card, and the rest dont see a problem. And honestly, i play too many Anatole/Matthias/neighbor john/mordechai bennun style decks to honestly see a deck reliant upon no fluid stealth ruining my vtes experience longer than one game.

Taking in that Recruitment Exercise is only slightly better than Clotho's gift (mainly in that it doesn't require minions with obfuscate) it doesn't really do much that couldn't have been done almost as good already.

> Jeff wrote: > Some points: > > One piece of Unique Equipment (e.g. Guarded Rubrics) and the reliance on untap, even if permanent like Tattoo Signal, does not make for good bleed tech, even with multiple copies of the unique card. I will point out that Martin Schumacher's deck only had a single copy of Guarded Rubrics in the deck list, and not a single Heidelberg Castle. Bleeding for 1 with 6 or 7 minions at +1 stealth due to Watchtower: The Wolves Feed is pretty strong, and that is clearly the objective of Martin's deck most of the time. I suspect that was also the case with Guilhem's deck in practice, though he did have more bleed modifiers available. > Bleeding few times for 1 isn't that weak, but guarded rubrics will come eventually, and at the start all you do is RE and RK bloat anyway (and Thugges, if you play the crypt with them). THEN you lunge bleed for a lot. > Jeff wrote: > Klaital opines that Reunion Kamut is better. I think that Recruitment Exercise is too similar to Reunion Kamut. I think it interesting that when Martin won, he had already nearly won a tournament with the deck while using Effective Management to draw more vampires from his crypt. Clearly Recruitment Exercise dramatically increased the power of this type of crypt machine. > Martin was using clotho's gift outferior to get the crypt to uncontrolled before, no wonder that he use card that is free, less restricted in his crypt and give that vampire a blood. Is it worse than Kamut ? A bit in raw power, but it's great when you can do both (signal/second), and it's required if you want to influence entire crypt. > Jeff wrote: > Leave it to Juggernaut to intentionally (?) miss the point of my post entirely and focus on something else. Clearly, meaningful statistics can't be determined, but the anecdotal evidence is critical. There have been only six tournaments since DM was tourney legal and two of them have Recruitment Exercise! Sure, it's not 50 tournaments, but the explosion of this new card onto the tournament scene needs to be closely watched, if it doesn't already suggest that the card was a bad idea from the start. > The archetype (near disciplineless bh) was good even without recruitment excercise. Now it's just improved. For me, as a black hand fan, it's not what the sub-sect need (i don't really like weenie strategies), but it's not that bad either. > Jeff wrote: > Keep in mind that Recruitment Exercise is a *library* card and not a crypt card. One of the easiest things for players to do when a new set comes out is to simply use a new crypt with their existing libraries, and maybe change a handful of cards. The disciplines generally match for a given clan across groupings, so when Lodin shows up in a bunch of decks quickly, that's not a big surprise. Besides, individual vampires, with the possible exception of Una, don't really make a huge impact on the game, mainly due to contesting and Pentex Subversion. Library cards have significant, immediate and unpredictable impacts on the game. Maybe the Black Hand crypt machine was expected, but I don't see this as being a good thing for V:tES. > The Deck of Martin was already build, and known to be good, before the new set release. Changing Effective Manegement and Clotho's Gifts for new card was no brainer. It was expected. > Jeff wrote: > Regarding the identify of Black Hand: I just hope that Recruitment Exercise/Reunion Kamut/swarm bleed doesn't subsume all other possible identities. It's not just about swarm bleeding either. I've heard many people out there, especially some members of the VEKN Inner Circle and Design team, say that bloating is bad for the game. It slows down games, leads to table timeouts, causes all sorts of problems. Guilhem's deck could gain 46 pool and 40 transfers (actually 10 decrypts outside the influence phase, which is probably even better than 4 transfers) from RE/RK alone. Martin's deck could gain 60 pool and 40 transfers! Compare that to Better Gents with Sticks which gains 39 pool and 39 transfers with Govern the Unaligned at a cost of 13 blood (scale it up to ~45 pool/45 transfers if a 90 card deck costing 15 blood). > Who was playing with all haquim's law: leadership deck, i can't remember. > Jeff wrote: > Did someone on the VEKN design team do this kind of analysis with the cards? Seriously, did someone do this kind of analysis of the cards? PCK does. > > As for the goal of the card being "make the weak bh guys good", I was just quoting Reverend Revolver. But the effect of the card is exactly what a crypt machine wants: draw a new vamp and put blood on that vampire. It's an action so the machine keeps feeding itself--there is almost no need for the master phase or influence phase at all, except to bring out the new vampires which might already be full. > Yes, thats what crypt machine wants. There is still need for master phase for other things than influencing out new vampires. Which leaves it for interesting things, like black hand masters. > Jeff wrote: > As an analogy, why would a Dominate deck play with anything other than the best toys it has? There are so many unused Dominate cards and strategies because the best ones are just so overwhelmingly good. Recruitment Exercise just did that for the Black Hand. I see them all becoming crypt machine bleed swarms with almost no disciplines. Maybe Ke will prove otherwise with his new deck. > I think that there is still some space for mono-clan black hand decks, like assamites. Those decks are bit weaker, as is weak, but still okayish. > Recruitment Exercise is not just an evolution, it's a revolution. I don't see that as good for the game. > It's evolution imo. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Jeff wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > Given that you entirely failed to notice that Fiendish Tongue interacts with Sabbat Intrigue to make disciplineless stealth bleed much more efficient than it already was, I submit that it doesn't matter what the PCK thinks it does - it's really, really bad at it. > > > And then you take your unfounded comments and go ad hominem on PCK. > Jeff, when PCK showed that they put a card into a production set without understanding how it interacted with another card, and are then criticized on that issue, PCK doesn't get to say THAT'S AN AD HOMINEM ATTACK BLEARG!!! Because it isn't. The critique is well-reasoned. If you can't deal with that except by performing your own ad hominem, then I suggest you batten down the hatches over there at PCK Enterprises and don't let crap like this slip by. LSJ got rightly pooped on when he made Tyler and the decks that came from her abusing Anathema. If you can't take the designer heat, stay out of the designed kitchen. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> Jeff wrote: > Yep. Again, you have no real argument and must reduce yourself to weak ad hominem attacks. I'll take my applied mathematics degree and decades of data analysis against whatever you can muster any day. > > Either of you care to actually talk about the points I raised regarding Recruitment Exercise? Didn't think so... > Jeff, I'll take on your applied mathematics degree. I have a degree in Pure Mathematics and in Physical-Theoretical Chemistry. A large amount of my chemistry major is based entirely on statistical analysis of large cross sections of data to come up with meaningful trends. My Pure mathematics, while not directly related to this, did include a mandatory statistics course including the various standard hypothesis testing methods via T- and Z- score methods. My argument, as you have dodged in your reply, is not an 'ad hominem' (#1) attack. I have introduced NO premises about you. I have responded to premises you have made yourself; namely that PCK utilises some form of analysis when creating/playtesting their cards and the implication that the Design Team does not. Instead, I have attacked your claim to use analysis. I have attacked it on three fronts (none of which you have addressed except by an appeal to authority) namely: 1) The evidence you accept in your analysis. 2) The skill with which you apply your analysis to data (especially in light of the flawed data sampling) 3) The results of your analysis are flawed and presumably so is the analysis. Since you brought up your qualifications and experience. Based on the observable details (i.e. PCKs card publications), your analytical methods and expertise are flawed. This is not ad hominem, purely because you brought this premise into the debate. References: #1 Taxonomy of Fallacies www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Jeff wrote: > And then you take your unfounded comments and go ad hominem on PCK. > Okay, so let's pretend that you did do the analysis, you did spot it, and you made totally, totally the wrong decision. Why does weenie disciplineless stealth bleed need to be made better? It doesn't, but your careful analytical process produced that end result. Yes, flopping out four one cap Panders on turn one, bleeding for 2 each at +1 stealth, awesome. Why did your analytical process produce this result? Since it produced this result, why is it a model anyone else should copy? If you make truly awful calls, all the analysis in the world won't save you from your own ineptitude. See also: the Dunning Kruger effect.

Well, if you asume Puasson statistics, you get a square root of a number of your samples as your error. Strictly speaking, statistics are not reliable here and is hardly anything but a hint what is meaningful and what is not. Even if you had 10 TWDs out of 100, this would be still consistent with 0 TWDs out of 100. My point is, less showing off with fancy degrees, more common sense (finding what is common is a part of it). Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Since you brought up your qualifications and experience. Based on the observable details (i.e. PCKs card publications), your analytical methods and expertise are flawed. This is not ad hominem, purely because you brought this premise into the debate. > > References: > #1 Taxonomy of Fallacies > www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html > Correct. When someone points out the superiority of their own process, pointing out its obvious failures is not ad hominem - it's squarely addressing the point they raised. Ad homimen is attacking the person to discredit the argument, when the argument is completely separate from that. When the argument they are making is that their process is better, showing that the allegedly better process is actually incredibly shoddy is entirely appropriate.

> Jeff wrote: > One piece of Unique Equipment (e.g. Guarded Rubrics) and the reliance on untap > You just described how a good BH deck works... (there are other ways too, probably) www.facebook.com/groups/vtes.belgium/

> Jeff wrote: > "DM had to have some impact on the game, otherwise it would have been a complete waste of time." > > If Johannes had his way, every single card from DM would be showing up in TWDs in very short order. He basically stated the goal "Make cards that will immediately have an impact on tournaments." I thought this strategy was very reckless from my time on the Design Team. Such a goal is contrary to "Make cards that are good for V:tES" and will have long term deleterious effects. > > Johannes' above stated design goal for this set was really just a good marketing ploy. Make some power cards and please people immediately, at whatever long term cost. > I don't get this. Are you complaining that actual good cards have been made? When it was pointed out that the PCK seat switcher is a crappy card, the counter argument was that 'it was not such a good card anyway'. People telling that you cards are crap are not attacking ad hominem, they are doing you a favor by provding hones - albeit sometimes harsh- feedback. You are just taking a dump on anyone that doesn't like your cards. Instead, you might consider taking the feedback and make actual better cards (note that this does not necessarily mean game breaking cards, just good is good enough - see Spoils of War). www.facebook.com/groups/vtes.belgium/

> D-dennis wrote: > Instead, you might consider taking the feedback and make actual better cards (note that this does not necessarily mean game breaking cards, just good is good enough - see Spoils of War). > Indeed, some of the cards that LSJ created early on that were best received were quite bread-and-butter cards, but filling in holes that existed. For example, there is a fair amount of theme-relevant dreck newly introduced in Sabbat War, but also a number of really solid cards that players really liked, some of which still see play today - Chiropteran Marauder, Telepathic Tracking, several "Path of..." cards, and a clutch of vampires that turned out to be pretty decent. Some are less popular these days, or have better alternatives now, or are less relevant generally due to gaming shifts. Solid gap fillers to enhance dull group pairs, underused mechanics, floundering strategies, or to help counter dominant strategies (in a non-silver-bullet way) are generally the things that actually change the game long term. One flashy problem card (say, RtoI) is one flashy problem card (and still needs to be addressed), but actually a lot of people like playing other decks, even if they're not the Tier 1 Must Win the NAC strategy that other gamers would use in order to win bragging rights.

> Jeff wrote: > If Johannes had his way, every single card from DM would be showing up in TWDs in very short order. He basically stated the goal "Make cards that will immediately have an impact on tournaments." I thought this strategy was very reckless from my time on the Design Team. Such a goal is contrary to "Make cards that are good for V:tES" and will have long term deleterious effects. > Johannes' above stated design goal for this set was really just a good marketing ploy. Make some power cards and please people immediately, at whatever long term cost. > Just to get the facts straight, the design goal in regards to power level was : do not make wallpaper cards, every card needs to be playable in a tournament environment. I am not sure what "having an impact" is supposed to mean (since I never said it), but the design goal was not to make a set of cards that immediately generate a number of winning decks to please people. I think the set is a job very well done in that regard, naturally quite a number of TWDA decks will surface using the new cards because people are eager to play them.

> Jeff wrote: > I suppose we could wait for six or nine months before there are 50 instances in the TWDA with DM cards and then bother to take note of the changes to the metagame. But that would be folly in itself. > Huh? What do you suggest? Changing/banning the card? I think that waiting and seeing the effect it has over six to nine months is a lot better strategy. Do you disagree?

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > Okay, so let's pretend that you did do the analysis, you did spot it, and you made totally, totally the wrong decision. Why does weenie disciplineless stealth bleed need to be made better? It doesn't, but your careful analytical process produced that end result. Yes, flopping out four one cap Panders on turn one, bleeding for 2 each at +1 stealth, awesome. Why did your analytical process produce this result? Since it produced this result, why is it a model anyone else should copy? > Your comments above presuppose that "weenie disciplineless stealth bleed" is a bad thing to be avoided. Tell me, when was the last time such a deck ever won a tournament? The answer is "Never." Feel free to hypothesize that such a deck should never exist because it is bad for the game. Then go out and test that hypothesis and report back. All I have ever claimed is that Fiendish Tongue/Sabbat Intrigue was not shown to be problematic with our playtesting. I suppose I need to post the relevant sections here too: > jamesatzephyr wrote: > Was there an aim of "make disciplineless weenie stealth-bleed really quite awesome"? > > Jeff wrote: > No. In our final analyses, with weenie decks factored in, these cards provided a reasonable incremental change for the better. > By my reading of "really quite awesome", your comments were fairly snarky and sarcastic. By my reading of my response, it was neutral, factual, and portrayed that our playtesting did not find that combination to be a problem. If you are interpreting some sort of personal affront to yourself from my comments, then that's kind of on you. I will note that you haven't commented on that thread again, so why would I have ever assumed that there was a communication problem needing clarification? > See also: the Dunning Kruger effect. > Yeah, the person that trots this one out first always makes the other side look bad. Good on you for using that tactic. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

This conversation is quite silly. Can we talk about something more productive? Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Lech wrote: > The Deck of Martin was already build, and known to be good, before the new set release. Changing Effective Manegement and Clotho's Gifts for new card was no brainer. It was expected. > Yes, Martin is a very good player and deck-builder. As he said, his deck was "under the radar of the tournament scene", but still doing very well. His skills (and Guilhem's) have now shown the general V:tES community the way to use Recruitment Exercise to its best extent. The immediate anecdotal evidence we have says (to me) much more than Recruitment Exercise was just the small bump needed. It's a "no brainer" that can help any Black Hand deck, especially the swarm bleed type which is it created by virtue of card text, win big with some skillful play. Perhaps the return of weenie Auspex is imminent as it frequently happens during these inflection points when new sets enter the tournament scene. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > This conversation is quite silly. Can we talk about something more productive? > Brandon, I fully agree. I wish the conversation would turn back toward the card and not be sidetracked by meta discussions. However, I face a bit of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. Some people will always interpret my comments as polarizing. Others scream out that I need to engage them in a conversation, even as they insult me. Do I ignore them and then get called out for not arguing with them? Or do I respond as tactfully as possible and then deal with additional vehement rhetoric, or worse? Just because others turn up the heat, doesn't mean they will make me leave the kitchen. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > > Brandon, I fully agree. I wish the conversation would turn back toward the card and not be sidetracked by meta discussions. > > However, I face a bit of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. Some people will always interpret my comments as polarizing. Others scream out that I need to engage them in a conversation, even as they insult me. Do I ignore them and then get called out for not arguing with them? Or do I respond as tactfully as possible and then deal with additional vehement rhetoric, or worse? > > Just because others turn up the heat, doesn't mean they will make me leave the kitchen. > May I remind you that you turned up the heat yourself, the day you decided to send that C&D-letter. Until PCK answers for that, you will be looked at with much dubio from a large part of this community. That was an unnecessary douchebag move. I don't mind if you design crappy cards. I don't mind if you make much fuss about that. It's perfectly possibly to design bad stuff and be a nice person. It is not pobbible to be a nice person AND not be a douchebag. Being a good designer is something that you can learn. Being a nice person is something that you decide to be or not. And it is never too late to become a good person. > brandonsantacruz wrote: > This conversation is quite silly. Can we talk about something more productive? > True. Sorry for derailing. I sometimes get carried away. I like Recruitment Exercise. It is definitely a good card. Time will tell if it is broken. I have played against it, and it did not feel as if that one card was totally screwing up my game. So my gaming exerience was relatively unaffected by the card. I still managed to play and I still enjoyed the game. It's nog unlikely that only the obvious use cases of RE have surfaced now. Look at Aksinya Daclau in the girl's deck. That only became common place a few years after 3rd Ed was released. I would be very disappointed if the vtes-players of the world woudl only use cards in the way the designer intended. Sure, the extremities will probably be handled by the designer(s), but there is a whole field in between that is left open to exploration. The card is published, so now it's up to us to make something of it. For RE, the first part of that exploration is already done (some might call it 'ehrmagehrd, ernerther swerm blerd dèck'). www.facebook.com/groups/vtes.belgium/

> D-dennis wrote: > I would be very disappointed if the vtes-players of the world woudl only use cards in the way the designer intended. Sure, the extremities will probably be handled by the designer(s), but there is a whole field in between that is left open to exploration. The card is published, so now it's up to us to make something of it. For RE, the first part of that exploration is already done (some might call it 'ehrmagehrd, ernerther swerm blerd dèck'). > you won't be the only one! Anyway we went through 4 rounds of playtesting on Recruitment Exercise [the first round begin a bust as all the inquisitor cards needed a magnifying glass to read] and this added contributions to the original design and intent. The card wasn't designed in isolation of the community it was designed with the community Jeff. Perhaps a lesson there. This doesn't mean the card is perfect but it's the best we can do pre-throwing the card out for everyone to use. Feedback will continue once cards are live and I daresay if a card slips through that is fundamentally flawed Pascal will work with the design team to change or remove cards as necessary.

> Jeff wrote: > > > brandonsantacruz wrote: > > This conversation is quite silly. Can we talk about something more productive? > > > Brandon, I fully agree. I wish the conversation would turn back toward the card and not be sidetracked by meta discussions. > > However, I face a bit of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario. Some people will always interpret my comments as polarizing. Others scream out that I need to engage them in a conversation, even as they insult me. Do I ignore them and then get called out for not arguing with them? Or do I respond as tactfully as possible and then deal with additional vehement rhetoric, or worse? > > Just because others turn up the heat, doesn't mean they will make me leave the kitchen. > Saying that this card is broken is an incendiary comment, especially because of your public break with the design team. I think that it is too soon to say whether this card does all that much to VTES games across the world. Having some big argument about it (which is not entirely your doing) isn't proving anything. The proof is in the pudding. Let's let this thing play out. If you really want to bolster your case, then start making decks that exploit the card to the fullest. Post how games went with those decks. Play them at tournaments, like at Andy's house December 28th (shameless plug). Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Jeff wrote: > By my reading of "really quite awesome", your comments were fairly snarky and sarcastic. > > By my reading of my response, it was neutral, factual, and portrayed that our playtesting did not find that combination to be a problem. > Then your much-vaunted process is wrong. Just like it's wrong with the seat switchers. Just like it's wrong with, as has been pointed out, creating cards that don't actually work. > Jeff wrote: > If you are interpreting some sort of personal affront to yourself from my comments, then that's kind of on you. I will note that you haven't commented on that thread again, so why would I have ever assumed that there was a communication problem needing clarification? > There wasn't a communication problem. You've communicated, apparently accurately, that you think flopping out 4 Pander bleeding for 2 at +1 stealth on turn one is a positive move for the game. Why the game needs to be dragged back into a world where weenies can make life very, very unpleasant for their initial prey irrespective of whether they get the GW or not when incrementally work has been done to stop weenie decks causing that sort of devestation, I have no idea. But since you're claiming the PCK think this is a positive move, it demonstrates that your design process is wrong. > Jeff wrote: > > > See also: the Dunning Kruger effect. > > > Yeah, the person that trots this one out first always makes the other side look bad. Good on you for using that tactic. > Look, I can't help if you're shouting from the rooftops about how much more awesome the PCK is, when it's doing fundamentally awful things - from reintroducing seat switchers through to sending cease-and-desist letters.

> Jeff wrote: > Perhaps the return of weenie Auspex is imminent as it frequently happens during these inflection points when new sets enter the tournament scene. > Weenie auspex is pretty alive and kicking. There was a weenie auspex (+ Goratrix) in the EC final, in case you missed it.

> johannes wrote: > > > Jeff wrote: > > Perhaps the return of weenie Auspex is imminent as it frequently happens during these inflection points when new sets enter the tournament scene. > > > Weenie auspex is pretty alive and kicking. There was a weenie auspex (+ Goratrix) in the EC final, in case you missed it. > While not strictly weenie Auspex, there are more than a few decks that are weenie-to-midcap Auspex, with a lot of reaction cards in them. Some straddle between something like weenie Auspex and the !Ven stick-men grinder (which often, but not always, strays into higher capacities), or similar sorts of decks from other clans. There's a pretty awesome looking one from the Australian Open 2013, Saulot plus a raft of Auspex helpers. For strictly weenie, mono-Auspex, having tried it in the distant past, there's no doubting it can have strong table control. But it was just a little dull for my tastes.

> Jeff wrote: > > > Lech wrote: > > The Deck of Martin was already build, and known to be good, before the new set release. Changing Effective Manegement and Clotho's Gifts for new card was no brainer. It was expected. > > > Yes, Martin is a very good player and deck-builder. As he said, his deck was "under the radar of the tournament scene", but still doing very well. His skills (and Guilhem's) have now shown the general V:tES community the way to use Recruitment Exercise to its best extent. > > The immediate anecdotal evidence we have says (to me) much more than Recruitment Exercise was just the small bump needed. It's a "no brainer" that can help any Black Hand deck, especially the swarm bleed type which is it created by virtue of card text, win big with some skillful play. Perhaps the return of weenie Auspex is imminent as it frequently happens during these inflection points when new sets enter the tournament scene. > Just to clarify, i don't think it's no-brainer in any clan-related bh deck. It's no-brainer in bh, bh, bh, bh, but not in Assamite bh, not in Lasombra bh, not in Elimeleh wall, not in !gangrel bh. It do fit where you want to have 5+ minions, but don't if you plan to use 3-4. Yes, it's nice enabler for Martin's deck, a bump which made it more efficient and reliable. Weenie is as good as ever. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

I would like to open with how ironic it is that I find you all to be derailed, and thus discussing logical fallacies, in a constructive topic created by Jeff Kuta. Second, I would like to remind you all; Jeff Kuta does not know how to play the game. How have you all forgotten? Finally, I would like to make this public comment to you, Juggernaut1981. Get off the forums. Your constant attempts to slander, belittle and berate Jeff Kuta are seriously fucking annoying. We get it, you don't like him, nor anything he has done( Perhaps not even exclusively towards this game). If you were ever to talk to Jeff, maybe you would learn he just wants to make VeTS a better experience for all players; those who get 0 VPs, those interested as new players, and those who had the loss the moment they took their seat. If you really dislike him as much as you've lead us all to believe, please, ask the moderators to make a hidden board do discuss said personal hatred. The public does not need to see this. Leave the nasty talk out of his attempts to make a positive constructive conversation. "If you have nothing nice to say, say dont say anything at all." The above, I guess, should be applicable to all. Those of you who still bring up, and discuss negatively about the PCK split from the rest of the design team are those who are only hurting this game. Forgive and forget. I for one, would prefer no new content than to see constructive discussion of this new content always return to: "I DONT LIKE YOU, OR PCK BECAUSE OF (bleh" or the obvious of "PCK CARD IN THEIR SET WAS ALL (bleh" > brandonsantacruz wrote: > This conversation is quite silly. Can we talk about something more productive? > Thank you Brandon. I for one, look forward to Jeff building a RK/RE deck for someone to play with in Berkeley, CA or perhaps in Brandon's tournament next month? Because as you may have all clearly forgotten, he obviously does not know how to play.

> Shodan wrote: > Forgive and forget. > There will be a public post/letter/announcement/excuses/whatever from PCK about the C&D-letter before that will be forgotten by me. (edit: in case that has already happened: my apologies and please provide a link) > Shodan wrote: > Because as you may have all clearly forgotten, he obviously does not know how to play. > I don't think anyone stated that in this thread. Thank you for your comments on Recruitment Exercise. www.facebook.com/groups/vtes.belgium/

@Shodan: If I ever met Jeff Kuta, I'd have the same debate with him in person. I don't dislike the guy, I just think he's made a lot of poor choices. I don't attack him, just his claims and arguments. If he, or you, are willing to make claims in public spaces then he, and you, should be willing and prepared to support them. And to support them with more than "I said so", because that didn't work on us when our parents said it... I have not slandered Jeff Kuta. I may have called into doubt a number of things about him, including his experience, skills, ability to create cards and so on. But I am making those judgements based on things I have seen him do and things I he has said/written. I didn't bring up the PCK split in this thread. I've had some fairly forthright conversations with James (jamesatzephyr), Kevin Mergen, Hugh (Squidalot) and a number of others about the place about cards, rulings, the CRR and countless other things. I will no doubt continue to have strong debates about VTES. @Jeff: I am still waiting for your response. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Shodan wrote: > The above, I guess, should be applicable to all. Those of you who still bring up, and discuss negatively about the PCK split from the rest of the design team are those who are only hurting this game. Forgive and forget. > Except the PCK are the ones actively trying to split the playerbase. Now, the PCK will say "Hey guys, if you want to officially adopt our cards into competitive play, that's just fine!" Except, the PCK will spit its dummy and start sending cease-and-desist letters at the drop of a hat. So no-one with even half-a-brain would adopt such cards into an official environment when they will send lawyers after you if you're mean to them. Possibly the PCK should reflect on how its actions, and how the people running it, are actively hindering any chance of acceptance in the V:TES community. Except, we'll just get told to forget. Because threats of legal action are exactly the sort of thing people are going to forget, right?

> Shodan wrote: > I would like to open with how ironic it is that I find you all to be derailed, and thus discussing logical fallacies, in a constructive topic created by Jeff Kuta. > Did you read all of the thread? Because it was indeed a constructive discussion about the card and also about sampling methods, logical coherence and related topics. However Jeff was the one who first decided it was time to derail and take personal stabs at me, read comment #56930. Which, how ironic, is based on a lie, I clarified on the truth within the thread. I get that Jeff is a nice person and helps new player who get zero VPs in you local games and tournaments. But his actions in this forum reflect otherwise, he can´t abstain from taking personal stabs at me, Ben Peal or whoever is the big bad V:TES dictator of the day.

> Shodan wrote: > I for one, look forward to Jeff building a RK/RE deck for someone to play with in Berkeley, CA or perhaps in Brandon's tournament next month? > I suggest you come up with some cards to cope with that deck-type and don't just sit and watch it win and then say "I knew this will happen, the card is broken". Adapting to the metagame is one of the interesting things of the game. Enjoy. And back on topic. RE is a good card for Black Hand (and thus good for it), but it is Reunion Kamut what makes it shine. Baron of Frankfurt

> johannes wrote: > I get that Jeff is a nice person and helps new player who get zero VPs in you local games and tournaments. > Johannes, Have you ever considered that fault extends beyond Jeff Kuta? While I certainly support their efforts in making new cards, they've clearly crossed several lines, and acted rashly and counter-productively. However, your reactions and that of the VKEN have been extremely unprofessional and childish. This situation could have been handled if you had actually addressed Jeff's original complaint (lack of development on the set and then the designer throwing out the work done while absent) in even a slightly appropriate manner. Instead, the VKEN has doubled-down, and you and your buddies have made sneered and howled at any mention of Kuta, PCK, or even the slightest criticism of the VKEN organization. The above quote is a perfect example of this. When anyone disagrees, you attack not just them, but an entire play group associated with them, just for daring to speak up. As the supposed official mouthpiece of this dead CCG, you should seek to further interest in the game rather than lashing out at the perceived outsiders, and making this game you own little fiefdom. Your glib dismissal of the Shodan is symptomatic of this dysfunctional organization that has refused to engage in any productive discussion of the direction of the game, and instead continues to pander to the old boys club. I want this game to have a successfully afterlife, but continuing this vendetta is childish. If Jeff Kuta complains about the card design, let him, address him politely, and then ignore him. That's all it takes. If he makes it personal, then warn him of the rules. If he persists, lock or delete the post. That's all it takes. I would like to see the VKEN take careful steps towards professionalization and legitimization of this organization. The first step is to stop treating it as a clubhouse and treat it like a fucking job. The next step I would like to see is some actual modding and rule for this forum. Delete posts with personal attacks, lock flame wars, and let some actual discussion take place. This is no way for an organization to function. This forum could be an enormously valuable tool, but instead of actual discussion, you've let petty squabbles root out anything of value. Now, is it my turn to attacked for being young, not winning tournaments, and being outside the boys club? Baron of Berkeley

> Count wrote: > This situation could have been handled if you had actually addressed Jeff's original complaint (lack of development on the set and then the designer throwing out the work done while absent) in even a slightly appropriate manner. > What exactly do you call addressing? As far as I, as a player, am concerned, problems were addressed. Had they not been, the PCK set would be called Danse Macabre, and it is precisely to avoid this that measures were taken. If you want to manage a successful project: 1) you don't validate a defective product, even if the guys who made it are really nice guys who put a lot of effort into it. This is not about assigning blame to anyone, this is about focusing on the one thing that matters: the final result. 2) you don't give the boss hat to someone with a previous track record of making poor choices when left on his own. There are certainly plenty of things that went wrong with the design process, and Jeff was right to raise awareness, however the bottom line remains: PCK made bad cards (I don't recall reading them myself, but I will trust Hugh on the subject, and the 2 released PCK sets are hints enough), and the solution to any problem was certainly NOT to give them free reign to make more bad cards.

> Count wrote: > When anyone disagrees, you attack not just them, but an entire play group associated with them, just for daring to speak up. As the supposed official mouthpiece of this dead CCG, you should seek to further interest in the game rather than lashing out at the perceived outsiders, and making this game you own little fiefdom. Your glib dismissal of the Shodan is symptomatic of this dysfunctional organization that has refused to engage in any productive discussion of the direction of the game, and instead continues to pander to the old boys club. > If you read the whole thread, Shodan's post was just factually incorrect. I don't think there was anything else to say about it. Johannes never publically attacked anyone, during or after his chairmanship, even in retaliation. I don't know where someone could get a different idea. > Now, is it my turn to attacked for being young, not winning tournaments, and being outside the boys club? > I don't know where this is coming from. Do you feel like VEKN doesn't accept new players? Is that feeling caused by certain members or by the community as a whole?

> johannes wrote: > Just to get the facts straight, the design goal in regards to power level was : do not make wallpaper cards, every card needs to be playable in a tournament environment. I am not sure what "having an impact" is supposed to mean (since I never said it), but the design goal was not to make a set of cards that immediately generate a number of winning decks to please people. I think the set is a job very well done in that regard, naturally quite a number of TWDA decks will surface using the new cards because people are eager to play them. > Johannes, Those are the facts as you believe them to be true. Unfortunately, I can't comb the several threads on the Design Team forum to see exactly what was said. Nor did I keep an exact transcript of the now infamous phone call I had with Ben Peal. Perhaps this is where Ben said as such to me regarding tournament level cards during our two hour conversation. I don't believe he will ever want to publicly discuss that conversation because of the extremely poor outcome afterward for which he shares a significant portion of the blame. I asked him no less than three times if he and I could come up with some positive takeaway--*any* positive takeaway--of the call to share with the rest of those involved. He was unable to do so. But that's neither here nor there now. The project drifted from being a free "labor of love" by volunteers to one that some people might profit from. This was not communicated at all to the people doing the actual work. Perhaps it was even kept from those who were putting in the time, perhaps until the work was completed. Anyway, it should be no surprise that the most productive 3 of the 5 Design Team members left as their contributions were marginalized in favor of those who were in the know (or at least that is how things seemed). So, I stand by my comments about your ulterior motives regarding having high powered cards being good marketing for a potential business model. Noble as those motives may be, and worthy as it is to try and get V:TES restarted, the secrecy and ill communication from Spring 2012 is still very much part of the backstory of what is going on. Specifically, you and Ben were unable or unwilling to keep the Design Team together, and that precipitated any "split" in the player base. Say what you want on the public forms about the truth and the facts, but I think everyone here knows that there are always at least two sides to every story. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > There wasn't a communication problem. You've communicated, apparently accurately, that you think flopping out 4 Pander bleeding for 2 at +1 stealth on turn one is a positive move for the game. Why the game needs to be dragged back into a world where weenies can make life very, very unpleasant for their initial prey irrespective of whether they get the GW or not when incrementally work has been done to stop weenie decks causing that sort of devestation, I have no idea. > > But since you're claiming the PCK think this is a positive move, it demonstrates that your design process is wrong. > That is your opinion. You are entitled to it. Can anyone think of a two-card combo usable by a certain class of vampire which shuts down infinite bleeds for 2 at 1 stealth by 1-cap vampires? When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

As I would hope you recognise Jeff, quantity is no measure for quality and productivity measures can include times required to make sub-optimal products into saleable products. From the public comments made, I suspect that the former VEKN Board decided that the productivity of those three (as measured by the amount of quality product produced) was not up to their expectations. You have still not addressed any of my comments regarding your methods. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > Saying that this card is broken is an incendiary comment, especially because of your public break with the design team. I think that it is too soon to say whether this card does all that much to VTES games across the world. Having some big argument about it (which is not entirely your doing) isn't proving anything. The proof is in the pudding. Let's let this thing play out. If you really want to bolster your case, then start making decks that exploit the card to the fullest. Post how games went with those decks. Play them at tournaments, like at Andy's house December 28th (shameless plug). > I didn't say the card was broken. I said that Martin and Guilhem showed how strong Recruitment Exercise was in conjunction with Reunion Kamut by winning 2 of the first 6 tournaments with it since it became tournament legal. I further posited that this combination of cards is so strong that it will overwhelm the other much weaker strategies. BH Assamites are excepted from this due to the preponderance of them in G4/5 coupled with reasonable bleeding with Loss. !Gangrel suffer from the City/Country discipline split and (even still after Danse Macabre) weak ousting power. I also said that Recruitment Exercise doesn't really address some of the problems of the Black Hand: poor discipline synergy since they are cross-clan, weak combat (such that improving combat should be prioritized). All it does it make more vampires so they can swarm bleed. Personally, I think that is boring. I also think Recruitment Exercise is contrary to the commonly held opinion by VEKN posters that the game times out too much and has too much bloat. Yeah, I never said Recruitment Exercise was broken, but I certainly question whether it is "good" for the Black Hand. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > So, I stand by my comments about your ulterior motives regarding having high powered cards being good marketing for a potential business model. > Some clearly broken cards, some excessively high powered cards and some wall paper cards were submitted for playtesting. None of them made it through. What was left were cards that the playtesters wanted to play with and against, both on the tournament level and the weekly casual pub game level. For a theoretical POD model, that makes more business sense than making the game less fun by introducing broken cards. As a side note, that was Jeff Kuta directly attacking Johannes, unprovoked and out of context, instead of earnestly discussing Recruitment Exercise.

> Jeff wrote: > I didn't say the card was broken. I said that Martin and Guilhem showed how strong Recruitment Exercise was in conjunction with Reunion Kamut by winning 2 of the first 6 tournaments with it since it became tournament legal. > Martin and Guilhem have shown that they have won tournaments with Recruitment Exercise. Nothing else can be said about the power level of Recruitment Exercise at this point with any kind of certainty. > I further posited that this combination of cards is so strong that it will overwhelm the other much weaker strategies. > You can say "I told you so" when they do. Before that, this is conjecture based on nothing concrete at all. > I also think Recruitment Exercise is contrary to the commonly held opinion by VEKN posters that the game times out too much and has too much bloat. > If I had faith in your desire to have an honest discussion about Recruitment Exercise with no ulterior motives involved, I would argue that there's a huge difference between gaining pool and gaining counters on uncontrolled vampires.

> Jeff wrote: > I also think Recruitment Exercise is contrary to the commonly held opinion by VEKN posters that the game times out too much and has too much bloat. > I don't think so. By itself the action only generates 1 pool, which is not a great return. It provides fresh targets for Reunion Kamut (the real bloat card) but you're still limited by transfers. How do you time out a game by having a small army of minions, who may have +1 stealth, while only gaining 2 or 3 pool per turn? How is that bloat?

> Jeff wrote: > > I didn't say the card was broken. I said that Martin and Guilhem showed how strong Recruitment Exercise was in conjunction with Reunion Kamut by winning 2 of the first 6 tournaments with it since it became tournament legal. > Just for clarify, Ghilhem did not win the tournament, it was Medhi Mazni the winner playing Ghilhem's deck

> Jeff wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > There wasn't a communication problem. You've communicated, apparently accurately, that you think flopping out 4 Pander bleeding for 2 at +1 stealth on turn one is a positive move for the game. Why the game needs to be dragged back into a world where weenies can make life very, very unpleasant for their initial prey irrespective of whether they get the GW or not when incrementally work has been done to stop weenie decks causing that sort of devestation, I have no idea. > > > > But since you're claiming the PCK think this is a positive move, it demonstrates that your design process is wrong. > > > That is your opinion. You are entitled to it. > > Can anyone think of a two-card combo usable by a certain class of vampire which shuts down infinite bleeds for 2 at 1 stealth by 1-cap vampires? > Having to defend the combo by reference to being able to take specific counter-measures to counter a wildly aggressive deck type is one of the things that should be setting off warning signals in your design process. This has been a common marker for many problem cards over the years.

> Jeff wrote: > "...the secrecy and ill communication from Spring 2012 is still very much part of the backstory of what is going on. Specifically, you and Ben were unable or unwilling to keep the Design Team together, and that precipitated any "split" in the player base. > Why, Jeff, why do you keep ripping this scab off this wound? It's been shown time and again that you come onto vekn.net with the honorable goal of discussing a reasonable issue and then YOU choose to sabotage yourself by using hit-and-run tactics to discuss Johannes, your firing, the current Design Team, or some other issue other than the one you came to discuss. If I were a psychologist, I'd say that you WANT to bring this upon yourself so that you continue to get attention from those who no longer want or need you, and the more disgusted with your behavior those people get, you sabotage yourself in even more obvious ways. Jeff, you getting fired by your boss after you threatened him, saying that Inquisitors-based cards must stay or "bad things would happen", and then you and your other two partners creating "PCK" cards and then PCK sending a Ceae-and-Desist order to your former boss and his organization was the cause of the split. You know it, I know it, and the VTES community knows it, since it was all completely public; there are no sources other than the public messages themselves. So why can't you OWN it? Please tell me why, Jeff, PCK can't just apologize to the VEKN and the community at-large for what they've done, publicly rescind your C&D order, and come back to us as friends and colleagues? Think about all that you've invested in your bitterness, lies and paranoia. It's been YEARS that you've invested in this crap, Jeff. YEARS. I continue to hope, and as with any addict I wish the best for you, but it now appears that you've invested too much of yourself into this fairy tale and that coming away from it will damage you enough that you are fearful of tearing yourself away from it. You can choose otherwise, if you want to. I'll help you. I'll forgive you. I'll stand up for you afterwards. But not until you stop living in the darkness and seek out light and Truth. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> Jeff wrote: > > > johannes wrote: > > Just to get the facts straight, the design goal in regards to power level was : do not make wallpaper cards, every card needs to be playable in a tournament environment. > > I am not sure what "having an impact" is supposed to mean (since I never said it), but the design goal was not to make a set of cards that immediately generate a number of winning decks to please people. > > I think the set is a job very well done in that regard, naturally quite a number of TWDA decks will surface using the new cards because people are eager to play them. > > > Those are the facts as you believe them to be true. > Unfortunately, I can't comb the several threads on the Design Team forum to see exactly what was said. > Nor did I keep an exact transcript of the now infamous phone call I had with Ben Peal. > Perhaps this is where Ben said as such to me regarding tournament level cards during our two hour conversation. > I don't believe he will ever want to publicly discuss that conversation because of the extremely poor outcome afterward for which he shares a significant portion of the blame. > I asked him no less than three times if he and I could come up with some positive takeaway--*any* positive takeaway--of the call to share with the rest of those involved. > He was unable to do so. But that's neither here nor there now. > I would usually give my memory of what I said the higher benefit of a doubt over your second hand memory of what I have said. If you need to comb forums or maybe remember if it was Ben and not me who said that then you shouldn´t probably post this on public forums. The only thing I wanted to do is clarify on the actual design goals of the set, which is very much on topic as opposed to 80% of your post. See what Kevin wrote, it is a good summary of the issue.

> Count wrote: > However, your reactions and that of the VKEN have been extremely unprofessional and childish. This situation could have been handled if you had actually addressed Jeff's original complaint (lack of development on the set and then the designer throwing out the work done while absent) in even a slightly appropriate manner. > so off topic - but Jeff was fired/left [depending on your perspective of constructive dismissal] because he couldn't accept that Inquisitor cards could not be made to work Here are some notes from the playtest report [21 groups indicated cards in R1 were too long or much too long with no groups disagreeing]: "A large amount of feedback was written by playtesters indicating that they all believed the set contained too much text or much too much text and this was often a symptom of cards doing ‘too many things’ and being complex. Playtesters have suggested a number of rewordings but the worst offenders are the Inquisitor Cards which have a number of functions and these are harder to reword. A number of playtest groups have reported struggling to read through all of the card text on certain cards citing both length of text and size of text. This is likely to result in issues with printing and playing these cards. It was noted that not all playtesters or players have English as a first language and card complexity and text is a barrier to entry to the game. Here are the notes on the Inquisition concept - all the playtester comments were open text for the design team to read but this is the summarised view: Playtesters had mixed feedback on the Inquisition Concept. The largest portion of voting groups thought the concept was interesting but should not be used in the first set. The cards are hard to effectively test due to the inherent issues in becoming Inquisitor (one vote, 3 playtest vampires), card text and complexity has been off putting for others. However a number of groups have successfully built Inquisitor decks and tested them around key Inquisitor modules. Key comments include (from different groups): • The three 'Inquisitor' vampires and the six Inquisitor-based library cards strike me as a neat, fun idea that has no place in the first VEKN set, a set which was publicly-stated -- correct me if I'm wrong, here -- to be filling gaps and shoring up clans and disciplines that were missing needed lynchpins. • The Inquisitors don't add as many deck possibilities as they could. Their cards are like strong, global buffs but they don't inspire you to pursue any particular path. They feel like an attempt to make toolbox-type decks more playable, which is fine, but the fun part of making toolboxes is figuring out the small-but-efficient card modules and fitting them into one deck. With Inquisitors, you pick the cards that say Inquisitor and let the star vampire's special and disciplines dictate the rest of the deck list. It feels slightly too generic or prepackaged. To address this, we'd like to either see better ways to make Inquisitors or give them an incentive and tools to specialize more. Otherwise, all Inquisitor decks might look too similar. • I always felt that one of the weak points in v:tes is that many ideas see release that are left unfinished. Instead of making such a new idea playable or just adding some variety to it new unfinished ideas see release. Therefore my reaction was: "what the hell is this?". I don't think we need another unfinished idea, especially one that only few vampire can play. The most euphemistic thing I can say is that this Inquisition stuff is premature, regardless if they are balanced cards or not. • A number of cards target heretics very strongly. While I understand it fits the theme, I'm not generally in favour of effects that do nothing and then suddenly hurt a particular clan (Baali making up the majority of heretics) really badly so I'd like to see the anti-heretic aspect used more sparingly. When have inquisitors ever limited themselves to questioning (and torturing) the bad guys? In summary the cards look interesting, focus too much on heretics (so either have no impact or too much impact), but add nothing to the Sabbat in general or the majority of decks and players. It was also noted that there is some crossover of the Spanish Inquisition with the Sabbat Inquisition on these cards e.g. ‘Grand Inquisitor (or Grande Inquisidor in Spanish) and ‘Holy Inquisitorial Crusade’, this may not be appropriate and there may be some concerns given that original name of the game was ‘Jyhad’. Jeff couldn't accept the playtester feedback and after PCK tried to fix the cards hurriedly but had failed it was decided to drop inquisitors as a concept at least for now. Then he er left the design team. If he wants to use Johannes/Ben/Spaghetti monster as his crutch sure - but I've read what he wrote and seen how he reacted to 20 playtester groups saying too much text, too difficult to read and too complex right now Count Orlock you should know this being a playtester, even if you don't accept it

Ah for those struggling to understand "Heretic" the Design Team initially were adding a new keyword which include demon/infernal/baali as it's target. The concept being to have an anti-lilith's blessing card or two....

> Squidalot wrote: > Ah for those struggling to understand "Heretic" the Design Team initially were adding a new keyword which include demon/infernal/baali as it's target. > The concept being to have an anti-lilith's blessing card or two.... > Email from squidalot: One item to note there is a new key term: Heretic An heretic is a Bahari, Baali, Infernal or Demon minion.

> Squidalot wrote: > It was also noted that there is some crossover of the Spanish Inquisition with the Sabbat Inquisition on these cards > Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. > Jeff wrote: > Can anyone think of a two-card combo usable by a certain class of vampire which shuts down infinite bleeds for 2 at 1 stealth by 1-cap vampires? > What I can think of are several one-card combos that completely shut down decks based on a two-card combo usable by a certain class of vampires, said 2-card combo shutting down (until one of my 1-card combos is brought up) infinite-bleeds-for-2-at-1-stealth-by-1-cap-vampire-decks. And I can also think of a 1-card combo that destroys my 1-card combos. Dang. This seems to be endless. Existence of card (resp. combo, ruling, meta, ...) that would make your deck bad when facing it doesn't make your deck bad, unless that card (resp. combo, ruling, meta, ..) is faced. Let's say at least once a game is a good idea of how often I consider this as a trouble.

Sorry, I don´t have time to read the whole thread. > porphyrion wrote: > you know you've either crushed the deck or it will crush everyone else > This is true for alot of decks, right? Una freakshow and various other solitaire-style combo-decks, which I have suggested to be broken, but nobody agreed? Recruitment exercise is not broken. That deck might be boring as hell and very strong if nobody blooks/rushes/otherwise handle it, but I know PLENTY of decks that are very strong if not blocked/rushed/otherwise handled. Also: PCK, stop believing what you do is better than what the Design Team and all the playtesters do. It´s stupid. Just stupid. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> KevinM wrote: > If I were a psychologist... > I'm glad you're not a psychologist. If I were one, I'd say you're projecting a bit too much. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Squidalot wrote: > Jeff couldn't accept the playtester feedback and after PCK tried to fix the cards hurriedly but had failed it was decided to drop inquisitors as a concept at least for now. Then he er left the design team. If he wants to use Johannes/Ben/Spaghetti monster as his crutch sure - but I've read what he wrote and seen how he reacted to 20 playtester groups saying too much text, too difficult to read and too complex right now > The VEKN is actually using the Inquisitor excuse as a crutch. The trope has become that we couldn't handle the internal criticism of our cards and then left the team in response. Go ahead and believe that. It's a great talking point for the VEKN to explain away why it took the Design Team two years to put together a small fan set, 18 months of which was spent after Carl and Eric were gone! Then go back and read the public posts. I am pretty sure that the Inquisitor topic was never even discussed or hinted at. I'll also mention that Eric and Carl resigned from the VEKN Design Team months after the Inquisitor concept had been culled from Round 2 of playtesting. Sometimes events are catalysts for change because they reveal true underlying problems. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Jeff wrote: > > The VEKN is actually using the Inquisitor excuse as a crutch. The trope has become that we couldn't handle the internal criticism of our cards and then left the team in response. Go ahead and believe that. It's a great talking point for the VEKN to explain away why it took the Design Team two years to put together a small fan set, 18 months of which was spent after Carl and Eric were gone! > That delay was explained by the VEKN. They didn't want to hinder the Print by Demand possibility. They were asked by the people negotiating that not to launch Dance Macabre, as it could actually be the first expansion to be printed. I'm sure you can find a way to criticize that. BtW, could you explain projection for the players that are not from English speaking countries?

> Brum wrote: > BtW, could you explain projection for the players that are not from English speaking countries? > bit.ly/1eIA0za pckvtes.wordpress.com

@Jeff Kuta: It took 18 months for it to be published. I think I remember in that time there was this ongoing POD project... you might remember that. IIRC playtesting was finished at least 9 months before it was published. However, I also remember (which means the finer points of these details may be out but not their general intent) from the playtesting that it became significantly easier to playtest after Round 1, which is when all of the Inquisitor cards vanished. My players who were testing generally stated that they were glad those cards were removed. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> Jeff wrote: > The VEKN is actually using the Inquisitor excuse as a crutch. The trope has become that we couldn't handle the internal criticism of our cards and then left the team in response. Go ahead and believe that. It's a great talking point for the VEKN to explain away why it took the Design Team two years to put together a small fan set, 18 months of which was spent after Carl and Eric were gone! > You know that time period when - as was publicly stated - nothing could be done because negotiations were proceeding with several third parties about PoD, DriveThruCCG etc? And again, given that many of your cards are terrible, your design process is re-introducing problems that are solved, and your lawyering means that no-one with any brains will adopt your cards into any official system, the fact that you can create dozens of cards in six months is nothing to boast about. Quite the reverse. Your playtesting process is so good, and yet your cards just don't work? How embarrassing.

> Jeff wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > If I were a psychologist... > > > I'm glad you're not a psychologist. If I were one, I'd say you're projecting a bit too much. > What am I projecting about, Jeff? Do you even know what the term means, since you're using it incorrectly? This reminds me of the scene in Return Of The Jedi where Jeff Kuta says, "You don't know the power of PCK! I *must* obey my PCK master!" I've come part of the way and said that some of your cards were good. Why don't you come part of the way and say that Inquisitors weren't liked? (true) Or that you didn't quit, you were fired? (true) Or that the reason that you were fired is because you threatened that "bad things would happen"? (true) Or that you burned years worth of friendship-bridges with dozens of people who actually LIKED you for your two co-conspirators and permanent ostracision? (true) Why keep lying about all of this that everyone knows to be true? Other than a couple of people in your local playgroup, you have absolutely zero defenders, none whatsoever. Trading truth and friendship for falsehoods and egotism appears to be a very lonely choice. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> Amenophobis wrote: > > > Brum wrote: > > BtW, could you explain projection for the players that are not from English speaking countries? > > > bit.ly/1eIA0za > My bad. I wanted Jeff to explain in what way does that word relate to what Kevin said. BTW, Black Hand needs help the same way Gangrel need help. The problem is that some of them have Dominate, so you end up helping Dominate instead of the clans in question.

> Brum wrote: > BTW, Black Hand needs help the same way Gangrel need help. > The problem is that some of them have Dominate, so you end up helping Dominate instead of the clans in question. > There are some ways round that. For example, cards like Choir and Inside Dirt are interesting in their different ways of giving a viable ousting strategy where stacking with Dominate isn't the first thing that comes to mind. Obviously, you can still play cards like Seduction on them, but you're not thinking about it as the first option because it doesn't just trivially stack with Conditioning. Similarly, they provide a minor way of avoiding bounce. (Yes, you can potentially multi-act and do them both, but that's a somewhat different issue to just "Dominate is good".) Similarly, you can go for annoying restrictions. LSJ experimented with that sort of thing a couple of times, notably on Eldest Command Undeath, there principally to stop Voter Captivation being a panacea to all blood cost issues. It's not impossible to imagine a card that says something like "Dominate cards cost an additional blood for the duration of this action" - which would affect someone else's bounce, but also discourage your use of Conditioning or Seduction or whatever. The obvious other alternative is to implement additions in ways that don't stack. Instead, encourage diversity of strategy. For example, if you added a Black Hand[0] Bounce card (for example) that was strictly worse than Deflection but still decent, you probably wouldn't find the Black Hand Dominate users clawing for it - why bother, they have Deflection? But it might encourage that Black Hand dude with cel/vic/SAN to play it, because it's good enough to use. So the guy currently not playing that deck can try it, because its viability rises. Now, obviously, one way of doing this is picking an existing ability, cloning it, tweaking it a bit and going from there. That's totally fine, totally obvious, and has been going on probably since games were invented - certainly CCGs. The more subtle one is to invalidate the existing strategy you don't want to help, for the purposes of this card. Make the play of one card prevent the play of the other card, but not in a "You cannot play this card" card text way. For example, you don't want to stack with Dominate bleed, make the card trigger off "If this bleed resolves for 1..." If you don't want it to improve bounce, then make it share a timing window with bounce and have the one invalidate the other, or make it only playable when a bleed resolves against you so you don't want to bounce. And, of course, make it Good Enough so that people think about switching to it. For example... perhaps when a bleed resolves against you, you can play a reaction that disables the minion (temporarily) in a gruesome fashion that means maybe you don't have to defend against the action next turn. Or maybe a reverse Crocodile's Tongue that makes the action more expensive, making the minion unable to pay for it, unable to play another one next turn (empty), or decide to back out of it (offered by card text, say). That sort of thing. [0] It doesn't have to be Black Hand, obviously. You can try similar things with more or less any clan or trait - the !Gangrel bleed modifier, the Baron vote-push, the Magaji bounce, or whatever. Clearly, specifics will vary based on the availability of the trait and the power of the card.

on the original discussion, I do agree with Kuta that it's a boring and cheesy card. the entire black hand concept is one of the most uninteresting concepts ever added to the game, one tier above the nigh useless redlists and trophies. they have a few strong cards, but they don't do anything especially cool or unique to form an identity. woo it's just like Mesu Bedshet without the Spell of Life to follow up. but I disagree that it's anything earth-shattering or revolutionary. Reunion Kamut already existed, crypt-drawing already existed. this one popped up a few times in tournaments, probably because of a combination of 1) new and shiny cards, and 2) people tend to underestimate unusual decks until they suddenly remember an expansion added new tech to it (well, sorta new) now, as for the MORE INTERESTING DISCUSSION GOING ON hey everyone, appoint me for the next design team. i plan to put ponies on all the cards. i can't promise that my cards will be unpopular with the playtesters, but i do promise to cause drama one way or another. at least things won't get boring, right? > Brum wrote: > > > Amenophobis wrote: > > > > > Brum wrote: > > > BtW, could you explain projection for the players that are not from English speaking countries? > > > > > > > > bit.ly/1eIA0za > > > My bad. I wanted Jeff to explain in what way does that word relate to what Kevin said. > the original definition doesn't matter; on the internet it means "I know you are, but what am I?"

> Haze wrote: > the original definition doesn't matter; on the internet it means "I know you are, but what am I?" > You lost me here (sorry, non-native speaker). Can you elaborate a bit? pckvtes.wordpress.com

> Amenophobis wrote: > > > Haze wrote: > > the original definition doesn't matter; on the internet it means "I know you are, but what am I?" > > > You lost me here (sorry, non-native speaker). Can you elaborate a bit? > "Projection" is a complex psychological term. See, for example, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection On the Internet, accusing someone of projecting typically actually means "You called me a poopyhead because you're a poopyhead. POOPYHEAD."

> Haze wrote: > the entire black hand concept is one of the most uninteresting concepts ever added to the game, one tier above the nigh useless redlists and trophies. > Here I absolutely disagree, buddy. I like the concept of Black Hand. I like the Watchtowers, the Seraph based cards, the cards that interact with Sabbat-Vampires. Maybe the concept isn't earthshaking strong, but it is NOT uninteresting. And how can you call the trophy concept boring and useless? It is hard to make a tournament winning deck out of it, but it is fun trying to build a good trophy deck. I love to play my Hardestadt-Trophy-Deck and it is feared in our playgroup. So IMHO these concepts wouldn't have been chosen as a theme for the first VEKN-made expansion for sure, but still they are nice add-ons to an already great game. Baron of Frankfurt

> Joscha wrote: > And how can you call the trophy concept boring and useless? It is hard to make a tournament winning deck out of it, but it is fun trying to build a good trophy deck. I love to play my Hardestadt-Trophy-Deck and it is feared in our playgroup. > Boring = Too many moving parts to make work so I can't be bothered. The difficulty of the challenge makes it not worth attempting ergo "boring". Useless = Unlikely to win me a tournament ergo "useless". I don't love the Trophy Mechanic. I love the IDEA of the Redlist-Trophy Mechanic but it has always felt like a card that would make for a fantastic set of Storyline-type ideas (even as a way to add new 'non-canon' vampires into the game). But considering that the few "Trophy Decks" that I see winning anything tend to either be Walls or the Anson Trophy Breeder... suggests that the setup for a Trophy is far less valuable in VTES than it is in VtM. (Having a HG would be Golden... getting given a small domain would be equally golden... getting a whole clan who will just 'let you be' equally golden... but in VTES they're not spectacular) Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Thematically, it strikes me as odd that some vamps are redlist. Ok, really one, Qawayayayablah, the g5 !salubri with +2 strength. Its funny that combat heavyweights lime Enkidu amd Germaine are, but i have the book, they are in there. But i dont see redlist as a drawback for someone too scary to rush. I mean, Enkidu only has little fortitude, so my playgroup doeant fear him, but yoi get the idea. The problem is as mentioned, the moving parts. Hardestadt is one of the strongest vamps for the archetype, but ive seen other justicar level vamps run the action, especially with muaziz. Combat in a vaccuum having toys for burning minions would help them, but the additin of the action by a titled fatty slows it down. Really, i would like to do more with trophies, but its a chore. It at least gives combat something to do early game, i guess..... Bh is simpler, and its biggest priblem is wallpaper from both BH sets. How many copies of remover or the bloodingo other meh commons will you run? One to two remover, normally. They could have planned support vamps around the seraphs of eaxh grouping, making Jalaan have good combat , banjoko bh weenies with dom, more small assamites in g5 for bh, etc, but the closest is eleiemelech havimg marge, lily, and hagar in his grouping, and later nicomedes. Crypt support is key for bh if you dont just spam the kamut and untaps. Then, you have a good deck WITH kamut, untap, maybe shakar and or remover. Thats why watchtowers get used, filling in for disciplines mattering in decks. Still, less troublesome that anarch or research degelopement though.....