Imbued vs Xeper

Hi all, as a big fan of playing ally based decks (yeah, I know this game is about vampires, not humans;)) - I was really upset when came to conclusion that there is one single vampire, which renders lots of ally decks useless. Especially if we are talking about imbued decks. Have I missed something or dealing with Xeper (his ability) is possible only by killing, blocking or pentexing him before he steals all your imbueds? thank you a lot for you valuable input!

You somewhat explained the ways yourself. In general, there always is a strategy to trump your deck, whatever it is. Do not expect to always come out on top, adapt That is the beauty of the game. I'd be more worried if anyone in your playgroup would find out about Entrancement. That card is good enough at inferior to be added "just in case". If your imbued are notorious in your playgroup, I'd expect people adding lots of them just to discourage you from playing imbued. That is how the metagame works As presence if far more common than a certain infernal vampire, I'd advice people to use Entrancement against you > Entrancement > [Action] > [Presence] > > Bleed with +1 bleed. > +1 stealth action. Take control of an ally controlled by another Methuselah. > Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

React with Conviction deals with Entrancement or all (or at least all I can remember) cards, which steal allies. Xeper is a different story though

React with Conviction works against Xeper et al. as well. Read more here . My point is the imbued are often hated so much, that the best strategy to win with them is to take them out for a spin only rarely. No deckbuilding wonder will help you if you make all table your enemy at the moment you influence your first minion. Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> kombainas wrote: > React with Conviction works against Xeper et al. as well. Read more here . > Im' not sure what you mean by "work[ing] against Xeper", but to be clear: Xeper will be able to take the action again during the same turn. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

don't forget Juniper and Sebastian Goulet (merged) can steal your allies too. and Quincy the Trapper can blow them up. the Imbued do have a lot of ways to get intercept, and some powers to fail directed actions such as Champion and Hide. and there's literally ten million cards (true fact) that only work on vampires and not allies, so they get no sympathy from me.

Champion and Hide are good advices! thanks - don't believe I missed them:)

Please also note that since all the vamps yhat can steal imbued (juniper, adv ghoulet, xeper, etc) cost more than normal imbued, and typically cant be unblockable (excepting horrific countenance) to do it. If one imbued being stolen killed the archetype, entrancement would make them hard to play. But, its typically easier to graverob a vamp than steal a,well tooled imbued. Play them and youll see the table more than those vamps are your problems. Other ally decks get less hate than imbued. Honestly, running beatrice trmeble with other allies is safe imbued playing.

You can't win against everything. Xeper is not so bad as a blind spot: as a 7-cap Baali with only, there are not enough viable decks with him to be a real danger. Baali vote is fun, but Lutz does voting better in every way.

How can Xeper (or anyone with PRE) steal an imbued without strange alignment of the stars is beyond me. Happened maybe once in all this years, and never in tournaments. React with Conviction Type: Conviction When an effect that would change control of this imbued is played or announced, you may burn this card to cancel that effect. Burn this card to cancel either a action against this imbued that requires Chimerstry [chi], Dementation [dem], Dominate [dom], Presence , or Serpentis [ser] or a strike card that requires any of those Disciplines played by a minion opposing this imbued as it is announced. No cost is paid. edit - read now the explanation of LSJ about canceling all the action (and not only the effect) and not triggering NRA... this obviously changes all!!!

Both Xeper and Sebastian have superior obfuscate so good luck blocking them with imbued. Champion obviously works, as long as you got the spare convictions to keep using it.

IMHO a reversal is needed... otherwise, bye bye to imbued @tournaments (at least for me).

> Drugo wrote: > IMHO a reversal is needed... otherwise, bye bye to imbued @tournaments (at least for me). > ...and good riddance. The game is named Vampire, not Vampire Hunters. Never have I understood why the imbued and the whole set was published...

> Drugo wrote: > IMHO a reversal is needed... otherwise, bye bye to imbued @tournaments (at least for me). > Given that there doesn't appear to have been a spate of Imbued decks being crushed left, right and centre by the relevant vampires, why would they suddenly go bye-bye now? This isn't new. Do you also not play weenie vampires because your prey might play Durga Syn or Justine, Elder of Dallas? Further, I'm confused as to why people's only reaction to the vampires is to look only at how to block or fail the action, when there are a variety of options to screw the relevant vampire up in advance.

The whole concept of the game is rock-paper-scissors. I don't see why imbued should be spared from that. Even further, their special rules are that far from the general play, that means "oh hi, just so you know, *I* wanted to play imbued so *you* have to memorise some more rules, which won't be relevant until *I* decide to play again with them). It's not that bad as I wrote down, but somewhere along the lines Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> Drugo wrote: > IMHO a reversal is needed... otherwise, bye bye to imbued @tournaments (at least for me). > Eh those vampires aren't exactly common in tournaments, I have never seen Juniper in play, Sebastian not in many years, Xeper occasionally but not that often. Thats like saying that you can't play big caps because pentex subversion exists (which is btw a lot more common card in tournaments than any of the anti-ally vampires).

admittedly, I haven't seen many of these vampires in tourmaments, so maybe the sky is not falling! On the other hand, I'd love to see more "rock/paper/scissors" un-counterable responses like vampires (or imbued!) with passive abilities like "vampires can only play 1 freak drive per turn" or "methuselahs may play only 1 master card per turn" (just to mess with Una and Girls decks too). ps - Pentex on a only-superior-obfuscate Baali group vampire? it will last for sure! Better be his slave and beg for 2 point while handing him the table.

> Drugo wrote: > On the other hand, I'd love to see more "rock/paper/scissors" un-counterable responses like vampires (or imbued!) with passive abilities like "vampires can only play 1 freak drive per turn" or "methuselahs may play only 1 master card per turn" (just to mess with Una and Girls decks too). > Err... could you clarify why a vampire who has to take actions to steal an Imbued requires an immediate reversal, but a vampire with a passive ability that screws whole deck types is to be encouraged?

> Err... could you clarify why a vampire who has to take actions to steal an Imbued requires an immediate reversal, but a vampire with a passive ability that screws whole deck types is to be encouraged? > Personal preference, I guess, nothing more. We all have them. Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> kombainas wrote: > > > Err... could you clarify why a vampire who has to take actions to steal an Imbued requires an immediate reversal, but a vampire with a passive ability that screws whole deck types is to be encouraged? > > > Personal preference, I guess, nothing more. We all have them. > Ah, you mean "I play this deck, so reversals are needed right now, but feel free to screw other people at random - including anyone who happens to be trying to play Trifles in a deck" ? Good to know.

Don't forget that the Imbued can screw with all vampire decks by spamming Gehenna cards. (I don't spam Gehenna - my Imbued are harmless, don't crush them. ) And the game is full of vampires that can totally screw their prey's strategy just by being influenced out. Think Arika vs. a location intensive deck.

So... a vampire who can steal all my minions does not "screw my whole deck type" (imbued)? Please note that I can do absolutely nothing about it (besides losing 1 minion/turn).

you can do all the usual stuff - killing vampire, rendering him incapable of actions, outrunning his deck and even contesting him if this specific vampire really gets your nerves. Hide and Champion both look like viable alternative though. (same as Secure Heaven and Secret passage) rest of the options would require some vampire help I believe

> Drugo wrote: > So... a vampire who can steal all my minions does not "screw my whole deck type" (imbued)? Please note that I can do absolutely nothing about it (besides losing 1 minion/turn). > As well as all the things Corvis suggests - which are obvious with even a moment's thought - there's the fact that a passive effect that screws anyone having the temerity to play Trifles and not MMPA affects the whole table. Your grand-predator brings out that vampire? Problem occurs immediately. For example, the fact that stealing the ally requires an action means it doesn't happen immediately, so you will usually have at least a turn to do something - whether that's hurriedly throwing out a couple of new Powers you were maybe considering putting on your third Imbued who maybe you won't bring out now, conserving some Conviction, rushing the vampire, Pentexing them, playing your own copy of Secure Haven (goes on a minion, not just vampires, despite the name), or whatever. That it requires an action means that it's optional on the part of the controlling Methuselah. Perhaps your predator would rather you used that Imbued to continue to put pressure on your prey for now. Your grand-prey has no particular incentive to screw you up right now, so his copy of Xipe Totec doesn't attempt to steal any of your Imbued at all - he'd much rather you continued to put pressure on your prey, so that she has to defend against you, so that she can't go full-frontal on him. That it requires an action means that you can negotiate with the relevant Methuselah - anything from offers of help in exchange for being left alone to threats of unleashing hell if anything happens. That it requires an action means that the relevant Methuselah may have something better to do, because their predator is about to come and kick seven shades of crap out of them. Further, a special ability that says - as described - "Methuselahs may play only 1 master card per turn" operates even if the vampire is in torpor. (This is the default for special abilities.) So yes, obviously, if you just sit on your hands and sulk, there's absolutely nothing you can do to upset Sebastian, Xipe or Xeper. Nothing whatsoever. If you actually think for even a minute, there are a variety of things you could be doing. But the question was how can you on the one hand demand immediate reversals for Xeper because the decks go bye-bye while simultaneously demanding exactly the same treatment (only potentially much worse, with significantly more collateral damage, such as screwing up anyone who has the temerity to want to play Coven + Blood Doll) for other decks. Put more simply: the requests are completely contradictory - why? Unlike your description, "Methuselahs may play only 1 master card per turn" wouldn't be "just to mess with [Una and] Girls decks too". Why not? Because you made it hit every single deck on the damn table that thought about using Vessel + Ventrue HQ in one turn.

I'd put it that way. In general, whenever a deck is very OPed, whole table tries to bring it down., because very being of it alive, means not winning for any. Given that is how table balance works, is it really that much problem to convince that a particular vampire is a table threat? Enkidu, Arika, Saulot... perhaps yes, these few, who steal allies? Highly doubtful. Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> kombainas wrote: > I'd put it that way. In general, whenever a deck is very OPed, whole table tries to bring it down., because very being of it alive, means not winning for any. Given that is how table balance works, is it really that much problem to convince that a particular vampire is a table threat? Enkidu, Arika, Saulot... perhaps yes, these few, who steal allies? Highly doubtful. > Err, what are you responding to? No-one has so far suggested "Make the whole table see it's like Turbo-Arika and they all have to oust it now" as being a necessary (or even likely) counter-strategy, so you appear to be arguing against a strawman of your own invention. You might be able to get some assistance from a cross-table Methuselah, in exchange for whatever - but that's just normal. "I'll rescue your vampire if you can throw some of that ConAg at my predator", "I'll Eagle Sight this Garou recruitment if you'll burn the Madness Network", all that sort of thing that happens - potentially - on any table.

It is not an argument, just an unexplored element of the original problem, which was a certain vampire making someone's play impossible. Perhaps it was not considered, that you can play on another level, to counter those annoying vampires. Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> But the question was how can you on the one hand demand immediate reversals for Xeper because the decks go bye-bye while simultaneously demanding exactly the same treatment (only potentially much worse, with significantly more collateral damage, such as screwing up anyone who has the temerity to want to play Coven + Blood Doll) for other decks. Put more simply: the requests are completely contradictory - why? > Is not an actual request, but if the rule has to stay that way, I'd be happy if some things which can potentially shake the meta in the same way are created (sorry for my bad english, is not my default language). A master-light deck which hoses common T1 powerhouses (Girls & Anson-Volker-Ashur come to my mind) in an effective way like through a passive vampire ability could not positively refresh the meta? Please stop arguing about trifles, if you have a normal number of master cards in your deck (15~18), you are almost untouched by the limitations of playing max 1 per turn. We can have Gran Madre di Dio for Tupdogs, this ruling for imbued and absolutely no check for Girls? Come on! If we have to employ silver bullets (or hard counters, or whatever they are called) to balance things, I think could be perfectly reasonable. So, to hopefully better explain my point of view, I prefer not to have said "hard counters", but if they are employed, all "extreme decks" (imbued, tupdogs, master-heavy) should suffer.

Stealing allies does not "shake" meta. It is only a single concept! Ally-deck, and even then, all but imbued ally decks have vampires as well. I'd add Smiling Jack to ban list as well, since allies cannot remove it and decks include it for other reasons, but it can completely kill off your imbued deck... Also there are anti-clan cards for almost every clan with effects ranging from instant burning to doing other nasty things. They CAN break concepts, but do they really break the meta? Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> Drugo wrote: > A master-light deck which hoses common T1 powerhouses (Girls & Anson-Volker-Ashur come to my mind) in an effective way like through a passive vampire ability could not positively refresh the meta? > Given that your suggested special ability does way more than hose common powerhouses, no, it wouldn't be positive. > Drugo wrote: > Please stop arguing about trifles, > No. Your suggested special ability causes significant collateral damage to trifles, so I'll continue to talk about them, thank you very much! > Drugo wrote: > if you have a normal number of master cards in your deck (15~18), you are almost untouched by the limitations of playing max 1 per turn. > The whole point of trifles is that you can play more than one master card per turn. You often build a deck with trifles expecting to play more than one master card per turn (a trifle plus a normal master, or two trifles). You build your deck to exploit that fact! Every turn, maybe not, but quite commonly, yes. Browse through the TWDA - there are lots of decks with significantly more than 15 masters, using Trifles, not using MMPA. The rule of thumb of 15-18 cards was invented before trifles were created. When you can play more than one master card per phase - such as is often done with cards like Vessel, Villein, Coven, Life in the City - you put more of them in your deck. A deck playing Vessel + Ventrue HQ in the same turn isn't abusive by any normal standard of the game. Then you come on to cards like Aye and Orun, which are already pretty hard to use, even though they're Trifles, and you want to make it harder by implementing a special ability that has significant collateral damage and then tell people to stop, you know, actually critically analysing the damage you want to do to the game? > Drugo wrote: > We can have Gran Madre di Dio for Tupdogs, this ruling for imbued > This is not a "ruling for Imbued". Cancelling actions outright works like that all over the place - see also, for example, Veil of Darkness cancelling an action card, or Direct Intervention cancelling an action card. This is not a "ruling for Imbued", it affects the entire game and has existed for far, far longer than the Imbued. The NRA taint taking effect at resolution exists for everything. Mask of a Thousand Faces a bleed off Vampire A to Vampire B and Vampire A is not tainted - because it never reached resolution. And, in much the same way, with DI-ing a copy of Govern the Unaligned. > Drugo wrote: > So, to hopefully better explain my point of view, I prefer not to have said "hard counters", but if they are employed, all "extreme decks" (imbued, tupdogs, master-heavy) should suffer. > You explained that you wanted to shut down critical analysis of the enormous amount of collateral damage you're doing, because you think - entirely wrongly - that it's a silver bullet. Silver bullets hurt the thing they need to hurt and nothing else. Your proposed ability causes a mushroom cloud the size of Australia.

> kombainas wrote: > Stealing allies does not "shake" meta. It is only a single concept! Ally-deck, and even then, all but imbued ally decks have vampires as well. > when you nerf a consolidated strong deck yes, you shake the meta (more or less is not the point here). > kombainas wrote: > I'd add Smiling Jack to ban list as well, since allies cannot remove it and decks include it for other reasons, but it can completely kill off your imbued deck... > I have Smiling Jack in all my imbued decks, precisely to contest it (or exploit it, like in this deck www.veknfrance.com/decks/twd.htm#2k8goilucca ), but SJ is that sort of weakness i recognize as acceptable and workable around it. > kombainas wrote: > Also there are anti-clan cards for almost every clan with effects ranging from instant burning to doing other nasty things. They CAN break concepts, but do they really break the meta? > you seriously think these cards are used in competitive play (bar Malkavian Dementia) or considered when building a deck as potential threats?

> you seriously think these cards are used in competitive play (bar Malkavian Dementia) or considered when building a deck as potential threats? > No, because there is no need to. However, cards like Uncoiling for vampire-based decks, and Fall of the Sabbat/Camarilla do the exact same thing. They do not advance your strategy, they screw other's strategy. The very fact, that you do not even consider a silver bullet for !Brujah, but add at least few for imbued just emphasizes that the sole purpose of existence of those cards is to give options in case some archetype gets to become unplayable against. This whole game is based on a balance of strategies and counter-strategies. I do understand, why people would like to have tools to defend against certain archetypes, but I fail to see why would anyone want to take those tools away, but for the sake of power-gaming. Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > The whole point of trifles is that you can play more than one master card per turn. You often build a deck with trifles expecting to play more than one master card per turn (a trifle plus a normal master, or two trifles). You build your deck to exploit that fact! Every turn, maybe not, but quite commonly, yes. Browse through the TWDA - there are lots of decks with significantly more than 15 masters, using Trifles, not using MMPA. > > The rule of thumb of 15-18 cards was invented before trifles were created. When you can play more than one master card per phase - such as is often done with cards like Vessel, Villein, Coven, Life in the City - you put more of them in your deck. A deck playing Vessel + Ventrue HQ in the same turn isn't abusive by any normal standard of the game. > you have to play Vessel and Ventrue HQ in 2 different turns. I lose all my minions (maybe bar one if a 1/80 card comes up first and is not countered) in 3~4 turns. I feel sorry for you.

> kombainas wrote: > No, because there is no need to. However, cards like Uncoiling for vampire-based decks, and Fall of the Sabbat/Camarilla do the exact same thing. They do not advance your strategy, they screw other's strategy. The very fact, that you do not even consider a silver bullet for !Brujah, but add at least few for imbued just emphasizes that the sole purpose of existence of those cards is to give options in case some archetype gets to become unplayable against. This whole game is based on a balance of strategies and counter-strategies. I do understand, why people would like to have tools to defend against certain archetypes, but I fail to see why would anyone want to take those tools away, but for the sake of power-gaming. > Is because I think these tools already exist (Smiling Jack, Break the Code, Fourth Cycle, plus the many cards which require a vampire to be used). You really think depriving me of all my minions without me able to do nothing to stop it is fair? I'm obliged running only imbued with Innocence and hoping a Hide or Champion shows up first (and Champion is only postponing the problem since costs 2 convictions and I have 1 per turn)? I'm required to run combat to obliterate the offending vampire? so, let's make three or four vampires of different groupings, at least two with superior OBF, and with the ability of stealing younger vampires with dementation... following your reasoning, they are perfectly acceptable, right?

I have run Imbued quite a lot, and a few times at tournaments. My experience is rather that other non-imbued decks are usually more screwed by an Imbued showing up at the table than the other way around (unmasking, Millicent Smith etc). As stated before by others, there will always be decks and cards that mess up some decks, that is not something specific to imbued. The risks that can mess up your particular deck should always be considered when building it, and take appropriate actions according to this. If you are that afraid of xeper et al., the simplest is probably to have more block in the deck but there are more ways of course, maybe you should consider Lock

> Drugo wrote: > > > kombainas wrote: > > No, because there is no need to. However, cards like Uncoiling for vampire-based decks, and Fall of the Sabbat/Camarilla do the exact same thing. They do not advance your strategy, they screw other's strategy. The very fact, that you do not even consider a silver bullet for !Brujah, but add at least few for imbued just emphasizes that the sole purpose of existence of those cards is to give options in case some archetype gets to become unplayable against. This whole game is based on a balance of strategies and counter-strategies. I do understand, why people would like to have tools to defend against certain archetypes, but I fail to see why would anyone want to take those tools away, but for the sake of power-gaming. > > > Is because I think these tools already exist (Smiling Jack, Break the Code, Fourth Cycle, plus the many cards which require a vampire to be used). > > You really think depriving me of all my minions without me able to do nothing to stop it is fair? I'm obliged running only imbued with Innocence and hoping a Hide or Champion shows up first (and Champion is only postponing the problem since costs 2 convictions and I have 1 per turn)? I'm required to run combat to obliterate the offending vampire? > > so, let's make three or four vampires of different groupings, at least two with superior OBF, and with the ability of stealing younger vampires with dementation... following your reasoning, they are perfectly acceptable, right? > Live with it. There is bazillion of cards that do not affect imbued in an way. Should i bemoan : " Aaaaaaaaaaaaah nooooooooo, my taste of death does not send little yellow dude to torpor!!! Injustice" or : " Noooo, i cannot taste the vitae of little yellow dude" or: " My Banisment does not do anything to the little yellow dude" etc, etc... Deal with it. Adjust to meta. Tabletalk. Learn. or consider chess, there it is all balanced.

> Drugo wrote: > you have to play Vessel and Ventrue HQ in 2 different turns. > But you told us that this would have no impact on decks because they only play one master a turn! At least you can now admit it has an impact! > Drugo wrote: > I lose all my minions (maybe bar one if a 1/80 card comes up first and is not countered) in 3~4 turns. I feel sorry for you. > First, more than a few excellent TWDA Imbued decks are lower than 80 cards. If you're worried about reaching for prayer cards, you can go lower. But also Secure Haven, Champion, and Hide are typically not 1/80 cards. (Secure Haven, maybe. But even if you have one of each, that's 3/80. And playing only one Champion is surprising.) You don't have to counter only the first one - you could counter the second or third one, postponing the issue. You could block the action - Imbued aren't altogether short of intercept, and decks, even Obfuscate decks, don't have infinite stealth. DI-ing a key play of Lost in Crowds or Forgotten Labyrinth may well put you in range of a block. Blood Weakens is one of the more obnoxious Gehenna Events, but can also make blocking such actions much simpler - they can only play the disciplined stealth that's in their hand at the start of the action, unless they can totally empty their hand which isn't impossible, of course, but relatively unlikely, since you'd probably expect to have a Majesty or a Blood Doll or something like that in hand too. Ditto Slow Withering, which is annoying as all hell, but can meddle with cards like Forgotten Labyrinth, Lost in Crowds and Into Thin Air, or whatever else Xeper might be playing. Rush the vampire, torporize it, maybe burn it. This might not be an actual rush - though you can do that too, John O'Malley is pretty decent. because Champion can let you enter combat extremely handily. Champion + Angel of Berlin/Concealed Weapon + weapon + Target Vitals is potentially pretty tasty. The Imbued can put together some fairly resilient combat strategies, being pretty decent with equipment. Surge isn't especially popular, but can help in a combative environment. (There are a couple of reports in the TWDA that indicate things like "didn't use" or "no combat".) The Darby Dance is an interesting trick too - spreading things out using a repeated shift of Leather Jacket to untap everyone, even if it's moved on. Pretty decent strategy. Why you're painting this as needing a 1/80 card or your whole deck crumbles, I have no idea. But it's simply not true.

ok.

Try Malk '94 deck and see that more often than not, all your minions go to torpor just for being around and your inclan disciplines can offer very little to avoid that. And quite often, they go to torpor not in 4 turns, but all at once Sabbat. If this vampire's bleed is successful, he laughs manicly and untaps.

Id be about as worried about the secret must be kept or worse, kindred segregation, if in an imbued heavy meta. I have a Ghoulet and Henry Taylor infinite earth meld deck. Its not easy stealing imbued. If you want a silver bullet, maybe we can make something else to hurt Baali for imbued or minioms with true faith (you know, since true faith sees play to use crusader sword....... ) But una and girls woulda been nerfed a lomg time ago if not for the fact that its not worth kilking so much of the game to stop them. Trifles being worded differwntly in the rules would help. But freak,drive cant be changed in rules, and shouldnt be. Stop una solitaire with DI2. Stop it with killer combat. When she comes out, seeds of corruption/mind of a child/prison of the mind her (yea, noone plays,those...) or sense dep her then jar her soul. Imbued are so stupidly strong that i dont feel bad aboit ally stealers. Block them. Xeper may be hader than most to block, but shy of horrific countenace,(he has,protean, rigjt?) Im sure it can be done. Between locations and cards for intercept, its hard to consistantly get enough stealth often, and honestly hes Baali, probably cany block good rushes, and the scariest friemd he has in the deck is the unnamed, who shoots agg at imbued. Scary, i know. I cant feel sorry for imbued. War ghouls id feel sorry for. Table pays for Baali getting those things. But, if they steal one, tap it and burn a location, preferably the ruins,that let Baali soften bleeds. Run a,convert with imbued, so you can torp Xeper and eat him. I throw these ideas aroumd because everyone has to play around imbued if the hit the table, meaning my 8 deep songs arent real rushes for them, cant taste, no predators,xommunion, etc, and then the gehenna spam starts .so, imbued can play arond something like this. Bow/sword and flamethrowed should do the trick with or without rotshrechk. Or run Callirus (5cap g4 ravnos with CHI) and sense,dep Xeper after you flash grenade him. Lilliths being currently banned ruinex some of my good dexks for NAC last year, but i made due. If one guu keeps,stealing your imbued and you dont want to build around it, apparently yiu can build more decks. I did. I qualified, played, etc. Imbued are broken still, my sympathy is reserved for HoS and Gangrel. Imbued got memories,of mortality banned, hurting other ally decks. No reason to make them remove more cards or rules from the game. Not until we all play imbued or imbued stealers for 6 months or more.

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > Id be about as worried about the secret must be kept or worse, kindred segregation, if in an imbued heavy meta. > Kindred Segregation doesn't screw Imbued, and never has. [LSJ 20060409] > > LSJ wrote: > > 2. Kindred Segregation doesnot affect imbued, because they have no > > recruitment cost, right ? > > Correct. > Note that the official release date of Nights of Reckoning was April 10th, though the preview was up for a while before that, as normal.

Ah, that makes more sense. I guess the secret must be kept with a magagi is better anyway, getting to pick and whatnot. Still, even less sympathy for the imbued. I havent dealt with them on a more than once very 12 games basis since like 2009-10, but but back then even, playing was better than building to hurt them. And there was a fad of the fourth cycle in alot of decks for like a year in Ohio. But minion stealers getting imbued is an oh well thing. Stickmen cant stop dying to war ghouls midgame with little blood, nearly no presses, and just prevent when the ghouls play traps. Imbued can always try blocking or rushing Xeper and company. Its the rockpaperscissors, but in this case its not even a complete inevitable, soul crushing defeat, like would be lets say getting bled out by nocturns in 6 turns or less while your deck cant ven get setup beyond one vamp before dying.

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > But una and girls woulda been nerfed a lomg time ago if not for the fact that its not worth kilking so much of the game to stop them. Trifles being worded differwntly in the rules would help. > It's certainly possible to do something to do something to affect such decks without the collateral damage of hitting every deck ever. Many suggestions have been made in the Card Ideas forum, some of which have potential. It would, for example, be possible to do something like: - selectively disabling a vampire's special ability, a sort of bastard hybrid of Pentex Subversion and Seeds of Corruption - some sort of card (Event? Vote? Vampire special?(*)) that prevents minions from granting extra master phase actions, so impinging on Anson, Nana or Huitzilopochtli, without bothering Trifles or The Parthenon (which, as a location, is already somewhat vulnerable). You can change "prevents" into any sort of downside you want - increased cost, tapping, whatever. ( (*) Aside: There's no inherent harm in allowing vampires to have cool special abilities like this, but it's a problem if you make it the only way of accessing it, because a vampire in Group 5, for example, is totally inaccessible to a Group 2 Choir deck, or whatever. A special that's contingent on being ready is decent. Along similar lines, I have a mild fondness for cards that go on your own vampires e.g. equipment, that provide abilities while the vampire is ready, since you can potentially screw up the vampire.) And many variations. However, the problems are two-fold: 1) You typically want to create interesting table dynamics, and true silver bullet cards may lack interest. 2) You want the card to be useful for its own sake, so that players think to include it. A card that is super, super excellent at hosing Anson MMPA, Girls, or whatever may only be useful on a small number of tables, so the player packing the hoser actually loses out and the benefit is accrued by another player on the table who doesn't have to face MMPA and hasn't filled their deck with anti-MMPA tech. So what you really want to find is a happy medium that's playable for its own sake, interesting for its own sake. Something like a more generally available Seeds of Corruption (with appropriate costs, burn clauses etc., relative to its power) might be one way to go for that, because you could often find an annoying minion you want to disable even if it's not Nana. Yeah, being able to smack Arika around or neuter Lutz a little... maybe it's worth including? But design here is tricky. What you don't want to do is end up with the game turning into a roll of the dice of who included which 5 silver bullets that turned out to be super important this time. You sometimes see elements of that in, say, competitive Magic, where - in some rotation blocks - a lot of luck and skill has more been in the sideboarding so that you could nullify particular strategies. > ReverendRevolver wrote: > But freak,drive cant be changed in rules, and shouldnt be. > Well, "shouldn't be" is a different question, but it's certainly possible that you could address this in the rules. A suggestion that comes up from time-to-time is along the lines of a rule that says: "A vampire cannot untap more times in your minion phase than his capacity." Or something like that. These days, you might tweak it to include Imbued, or all allies, or something. It's actually relatively neat in addressing the Una issue, without hitting the ordinary user of Forced March, Rutor's Hand, Dual Form (inferior), Truth of a Thousand Lies, Instantaneous Transformation - or even Freak Drive itself, supposing that you're not untapping 6 times in one turn with Catherine du Bois. Depending on the wording, you might run into some issues with an Imbued tooling up with Powers in the first turn or two after coming out, especially with the little ones. You could maybe get around that by simply providing a hard number - "cannot untap more than 5 times", say. There are two issues: 1) A rule that's basically there to affect one vampire seems a bit overkill. 2) It's hard to affect turbo decks, because the new vampire is usually considered entirely fresh.