How I would relaunch V:TES (card reprint)

There is another topic about card template , this is not the subject here. If V:TES were to be reprinted, this would be the cards I'd keep, change or leave aside. It's close to the "cube" idea for drafts, but for standard play. This is mainly based on my personal experience as a player and deckbuilder, so it's highly subjective. I have no idea at all about what Paradox will do (reprint, new game? go and vote quickly for your prefered option ), so don't speculate about it I'll start with two main disciplines, Presence and Dominate. I won't consider the dual discipline cards, nor the anarch three-ways cards right now. Presence I see it as a discipline for: - votes - aggresive bleed (meaning you get +2 bleed actions at inferior) - strike: combat ends It doesn't have access to stealth (but keep in mind that many vampires have access to Obfuscate and Presence), whereas Dominate will have access to Bonding and Seduction. Kept as is Bewitching Oration: presence is THE vote discipline, so keeping a push vote such as Bewitching Oration is pretty obvious. It helps you to pass your votes when you don't have the vote lock Catatonic Fear: combat ends is a clear characteristic of combat cards in Presence. The aggressive aspect of this combat ends is interesting. Enchant Kindred: with the absence of Govern the Unaligned (see below), this underused card would get its staple status back Entrancement: a polyvalent card that fills the "steal ally" niche perfectly Force of Personality: another combat ends that makes vampires predominant against allies Intimidation: Presence is also a bleed discipline. Intimidation costs no blood, making it an interesting options in decks that try to save as much blood as possible, at the cost of flexibility Legal Manipulations: The other bleed cards trades blood for pool, and fills the inferior Presence bleed niche Majesty: a signature card for Presence Mind Numb: a very interesting card that can be played offensively, defensively, or cross-table for deals Staredown: the last combat ends, cost free Voter Captivation: I know that the card is subject to debate, but voting should be something Presence does well, and get something extra for it Changed Aire of Elation: drop the Toreador specific part, drop the cost to 0 blood (= make it similar to Threats) to enforce the "bleed for cheap" component Summoning, The: at superior, should also employ retainers Not kept Approximation of Loyalty: most of the time, the opportunity cost is too high Awe: redundant with Bewitching Oration Bloodlust: weak card, any rush card is better Business Pressure: redundant with Bewitching Oration Charming Lobby: redundant with Bewitching Oration. The automatic vote passing is not a good idea design-wise. Disarming Presence: not useful Dread Gaze: wallpapered by Scalpel Tongue, even though that's two disciplines. Most of the time, Delaying Tactics is far better anyway. Dream World: wallpaper Enrage: same as Bloodlust Exile: redundant with Mind Numb Heart of the City: wallpaper Mask Empathy: wallpaper, opportunity cost too high Media Influence: redundant with other bleed cards, superior effect is weak Perfect Paragon: redundant with Bewitching Oration (even though it's an interesting card) Propaganda: redundant with other bleed cards Public Trust: redundant with other bleed cards Social Charm: redundant with other bleed cards. Legal Manipulations is prefered in that pool-gain niche Treachery: wallpaper Unholy Penance: redundant with other strike: combat ends (Catatonic Fear was chosen over Unholy Penance) Dominate Currently, dominate is a step ahead because it's a discipline for: - pool gain (Govern the Unaligned) - heavy bleed (Govern + Conditioning) - pool defense (Deflection) - combat defense (Obedience) This discipline does too many things, especially in the pool damage / pool saving domain, and better than any other discipline. I'd like to restrict the discipline to: - more aggressive bleeds than Presence, but more costly - "take control" discipline against location or vampires (eg. Graverobbing) - pool defense I voluntarily dropped a few cards that make other cards (even in other disciplines) weak in comparison: - Govern the Unaligned (shadows completely Scouting Mission and Enchant Kindred) - Deflection (cheesy) - Obedience (find another way of protect your vampires) You'll find more explanations in the details below Kept as is Bonding: Trades bleed power for a bit stealth Conditioning: Still the better bleed modifier, fits in the "aggressive bleed that costs blood" Dominate Kine: Fits the "take control" and "bleed" categories Empowering the Puppet King: fits in some decks, costs blood, gives bleed, it's fine Far Mastery: not as good as Entrancement, but fits the "take control" niche Graverobbing: Fits the "take control". Makes Dominates an interesting side-kick discipline for combat Mind Rape: Fits the "take control" and "bleed" categories Redirection: A bounce card that is more restrictive that Deflection, making the superior level important (avoiding the "I play Dominate skill cards so I can play Deflection)" Seduction: Adds flexibility to the discipline Slaughtering the Herd: fits in the "aggressive bleed that costs blood" category Changed Not kept Autonomic Mastery: crappy card Chain of Command: crappy card Command: too silver bullet Command of the Beast: not useful Command the Legion: crappy card Deflection: turns every vampire with at least inferior dominate into big stars compared to vampires without dominate. Deflection is one of the main reason why half of the crypts of the TWDA have dominate in them, even if it's an off-clan discipline (Gangrel dominate, Eurobrujah, Gabrin as a star, Bima dominate etc.) Foreshadowing Destruction: I like this card very much, but it's not required in the reprint cube Govern the Unaligned: A card that totally shadows other bleed cards or bloat cards, leaving little space for design Kindred Coercion: crappy card Mesmerize: crappy card Mouthpiece: crappy card Murmur of the False Will: slightly weak card Obedience: A fine card, but that gives too many options to Dominate Pulling Strings: crappy card Scouting Mission: not kept to shut down the bloat aspect of Dominate completely Sleeping Mind, The: crappy card Still the Mortal Flesh: crappy card Thanks for the Donation: crappy card Thoughts Betrayed: interesting card, but that isn't played and doesn't fit well Threats: removed to leave place to costly bleed such as Conditioning. See Presence for costless bleed. Tranquility: crappy card I'd be happy to hear your reactions as long as they are constructive. I'm aware that some people will disagree with my judgements about "crappy cards" but the real question is: even if the card is not that bad, is it played? what does it bring to the game? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Without Deflection, the million different types o bleed decks will become much more prevalent. And walls too as a counter measure. I agree with trimming the fat, but I still think that there's nothing wrong with the game in the cards themselves (just in the way the cards are written, not what they are supposed to do). Ban Govern? Dreams of the Sphinx as well? It kills too many decks.

> Brum wrote: > Without Deflection, the million different types o bleed decks will become much more prevalent. > There aren't minion of different bleed decks. You have mainly dominate (that benefit themselves from the Deflection): Ventrue Grinder, weenie dominate, Giovanni powerbleed, Kyasid or Lasombra bleed stealth, and Dementation decks. Let's add some presence bleed deck for the sake of it, but they are quite rare. Other decks will bleed for 2 at most, which almost any deck can handle without using some bleed bounce. That being said, there's still Redirection in the Dominate card list, meaning you can still bounce bleeds. You won't be able to bounce 3 bleeds with one guy untapped, sure, so you'd have to pack some more wakes presumably. > Brum wrote: > I agree with trimming the fat, but I still think that there's nothing wrong with the game in the cards themselves (just in the way the cards are written, not what they are supposed to do). > > Ban Govern? Dreams of the Sphinx as well? > It kills too many decks. > I don't know why you're talking about Dreams of the Sphinx. What is the link? As "banning" Govern (though it's not question of banning cards), it's a deliberate choice to leave more space for alternatives. As I said, no card competes with Govern as for bloating and bleeding. And the card is available in a discipline that does powerful thing (such as bleeding and bouncing bleed) better than any other discipline. It's a real designer pain to create new cards. Sure, all decks using Govern the Unaligned would have to change, but that's an obvious statement. Other decks will fill the niche. Now people would be able to bleed with Loss instead of thinking "wait, I'd better change my crypt so I can play Govern instead". Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I disagree. There's no need to slow down the game. I read often that people prefer the game to be tense but end, with a winner. Slowing down dominate is not to the benefit of vtes. You should speed up all other disciplines and speed them up with unique strategies (Harmony, 419, Shatter the Gate,...) When I play vtes I enjoy feeling as if the table is about to tip over at any time. Having a deck on the table that bloats to 40 pool yet does nothing of note is really really boring. Having a deck that uses 8 turns to equip with various obscure weapons only to face SCE is also not enticing. Each deck that meets the table should have an inherent threat stemming from it. You see a small toreador antitibru that plays an embrace, while a seemingly innocent turn 2 action you know it will spiral into a threat real quickly. I suggest we create more of those threats. In a game where the meta has evolved to be able to take a hit (bleeds for 6, parity shift for 5) bringing out a card like illegalism "bleed 2 and untap" that requires you to become anarch first isn't very interesting. It's also not very effective. The person in front plays villein + voter cap and gains about 10 pool each turn? The game needs to finish, and it needs to do so while having all players attempt to balance and unbalance the table in their favour. Cards like sudden reversal, pentex, eagle's sight, kindred spirits, votes,... cards that provide interaction. The weenie auspex that's slowing the whole table to a halt while sitting on Jack is for example great: it interacts with the whole table, yet the only stealth deck capable of removing jack might actually want to leave it in play because it's currently still helpful. So players would need to convince the stealth deck to waste his resources on getting rid of jack while they still have a chance. It adds tension to the table, everyone knows they need to get rid of it, no one wants to sacrifice the action to do it. Acceleration like zillah and information highway, dreams and other card cycling mechanisms, combo cards (fae contortion), card searches(magic of the smith) and card recursion (anthelios, ercyes fragment, ashurs) should become more prevalent. Not systems like Heart of Nizchetus that slow the table 3 minutes extra every round, I mean acceleration in terms of time and card efficiency. Players need to be able to do something useful at all times without it slowing down their turn to more than 3 minutes. Tldr: Don't slow down dominate; speed up everything else alongside it so it becomes viable. The more ousting methods that do not bleed the less dominate and bleed bounce will be a problem.

1/ Where did you read that Dominate would be slowed down? It still has access to bleed for 6 (Slaughtering the Herd or Mind Rape + Conditioning). You're a little vague here, because I don't see how removing Pulling the String would slow down Dominate. So I suppose you're talking about Govern the Unaligned, which leads to point 2: 2/ Bloating with Govern the Unaligned creates pool and slows down the game. You don't like bloating it seems, so why Govern would be fine? 3/ Last but not least, how is it incompatible with "speeding up" other strategies? Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

1) No, govern is an accelerator. 3 extra influence of which 2 come from the blood bank. I have the same issue with you choosing Legal Manipulations over Public Trust. The card you should want to have in the game is Public Trust because it accelerates the game. (Turns blood on a vampire into a transfer/influence) Dropping Govern from the list for dominate slows down the deck. 2) Govern is fine, that's 2 pool a turn. That's not slowing down any decent predator. Weenie auspex wall with 6 blood dolls hunting is far worse. Voter cap on it's own is fine, but 3 minions playing voter cap and combined with Villein (2+2+2+6) is broken, especially if the vote is a con boon. (2+3+2+3+2+3+6) No one can abuse bloating with govern. It's limited to 2(3) pool a turn, if you can't get past that you should seriously consider if your strategy is even worth it at all. 3) Your selection of cards slows down the 2 disciplines you made the selection for and you are arguing for placing govern as the high end for what a card should be. Deflection and Obedience aren't cheesy, they keep the game fast, avoiding long combat sequences that will end in SCE anyways. Cutting Approximation of loyalty is another stupid move, it's one of the few cards that can cancel a bounce. Don't slow down the disciplines and put effort into smoothing cardflow, (combo cards, searches, draw power) additional ousting techniques (for example army of rats that stacks but you get 1 additional stealth for each card to remove all of them in an action that costs a pool)

> Ankha wrote: > Force of Personality: another combat ends that makes vampires predominant against allies > I would probably drop this. It's not terrible, but I'd much rather see Perfect Paragon, I think. You note it's "redundant with Bewitching Oration". The negative intercept at superior is rather decent, though - Ventrue Law Firm gets a bit of 'stealth', Toreadors can equip guns or call votes with a bit of 'stealth etc. And while Obfuscate will almost certainly come out on top in any stealth cube, it would be nice to see a little bit of evasion from other disciplines too. > Ankha wrote: > Aire of Elation: drop the Toreador specific part, drop the cost to 0 blood (= make it similar to Threats) to enforce the "bleed for cheap" component > I'd rather not change existing cards unless there's a compelling reason to do so. (Broken cards, rewrites required by a rules change or whatever.) There's nothing saying you can't create a Threats-equivalent, though. Bear in mind that Sabbat War, for example, was mostly a reprint set but included a scattering of new cards - making it a good way for new players to join the game, as well as an incentive for old players to buy a bit (and/or buy singles or trade). So I'd personally be perfectly happy to see one or two cards to reinforce a particular theme, stimulate something new, or whatever.

> Brum wrote: > Without Deflection, the million different types o bleed decks will become much more prevalent. > Personally, rather than accepting that Deflection is necessary in the game, I'd rather see good bleed defence - including bounce - spread to other disciplines (or sects/titles etc.) so you can still create a solid deck but without having to think "And how do I work Dominate into this deck?" I think I've used the example of Serpentis-bounce in the past. Instead of thinking "How do I work Dominate into this Setite deck?", you might have a Serpentis card (or a Ser+Obf or Ser+Pre card) that gave you bounce. And it might be weaker than Deflection or Telepathic Misdirection, or slightly different, in terms of raw power. But it might actually work better for you because you can have a more diverse crypt, or use vampires who you'd ordinarily overlook in the hunt for Dominate. So you might have a card like: Card Name Reaction Serpentis Play this card after blocks are declined. [ser] Reduce a bleed against you by 1 blood. [SER] As [ser] above, and tap this reacting vampire. This vampire burns a blood to choose another Methuselah other than the acting minion's controller. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah (and the blocking window re-opens). So, probably worse than Deflection in terms of raw power (you bounce a bleed, but it's reduced by 1), but possibly still worthwhile overall. Given Ophidian Gaze, I possibly wouldn't print a card like this now, it's just the sort of idea I've had lurking in my brain in the past. You wouldn't necessarily have to restrict it to disciplines - other traits might be a good target. Say, a Black Hand bleed defence card - give a Black Hand vampire +1 intercept against a bleed action, and an alternate use for a Black Hand Seraph as a bounce (who could take the +1 intercept instead if they chose). You get the idea, anyway. You'd want to think carefully about where you targetted the bounce, and how you tweaked it or didn't tweak it, so different decks still keep different flavour. And you might want to think about other good bleed defences anyway that aren't bounce too. But I think the game as a whole could be much more interesting if, say, Brujah weren't constantly tempted towards vampires with out-of-clan Dominate etc.

For example yes. As long as it is tied to a discipline or trait. Vtes needs to be that puzzle that never fits. It's an important part of the deck building. I agree with the other comment that with Target Vitals there's little value in playing stuff like torn signpost or starvation of Marena when you can equip with a zip gun and throw target vitals continuously.

> 2wayspeaker wrote: > 1) No, govern is an accelerator. > > 3 extra influence of which 2 come from the blood bank. > > I have the same issue with you choosing Legal Manipulations over Public Trust. The card you should want to have in the game is Public Trust because it accelerates the game. (Turns blood on a vampire into a transfer/influence) > > Dropping Govern from the list for dominate slows down the deck. > > 2) Govern is fine, that's 2 pool a turn. That's not slowing down any decent predator. Weenie auspex wall with 6 blood dolls hunting is far worse. Voter cap on it's own is fine, but 3 minions playing voter cap and combined with Villein (2+2+2+6) is broken, especially if the vote is a con boon. (2+3+2+3+2+3+6) > > No one can abuse bloating with govern. It's limited to 2(3) pool a turn, if you can't get past that you should seriously consider if your strategy is even worth it at all. > I see it differently. You say it's an accelerator. Indeed, but an accelerator of you bringing out vampires, not an accelerator of the game. You'll have more minions for which you pay less pool. Consider a game where each player controls 10 minions. Is it faster than a game where each player has 2 minions? No. If you manage for instance to play 5 Govern at superior in a game (which is more reasonable than a turn where 3 vampires would play vote and Voter Captivation), it's a gain of 15 pool you don't spend on vampires. That means you have more pool, more minions, making the game slower. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Some nice thoughts, although I notice that most of what you are doing is "trimming the fat" so to speak - discarding cards that see almost no play. I'm much more interested when you talk about staple cards that need to be modified or discarded. My biggest disagreement is Voter Captivation. Any effect without an upper limit is a problem, and this single card just produces too many tokens at once. And remember that it's the very definition of a win-more card. Bewitching Oration helps you pass votes, Voter Captivation says "Are you already winning (passing votes)? Well, here's something extra." It's also perplexing to me that players would be ok with an action modifer that is equally as good as the standard pool gain cards like Dark Mirror of the Mind and Art Scam. Don't want to take an action to gain pool? That's ok, we've created an action modifier that lets you do the same thing and gain blood too! Now I do agree that Presence should be the king of politics, but surely they don't need this hugely broken insanely powerful bloating card to make it worth their while. You could provide them stealth and/or intercept for political actions, powerful cards to block votes (delaying tactics should likely be a Presence card, and Poison Pill should be the disciplineless vote defense). If a card like Voter Cap really needs to be in the game, it should be limited, perhaps like this: Play after a successful referendum <inf> This vampire gains 2 blood. <sup> You gain 1 pool. I also think that Bewitching Oration should be changed to be an action modifier or reaction. Gaining temporary votes is a very interesting defense against politics, and it's sad that it never sees any play. Last few comments: Heart of the City: I'm very surprised to see you discard it. Not only is it not wall paper, it fits your ethos of agressive bleeding. I'd reconsider this card. Empowering the Puppet King: I'm very surprised to see this, as I've never seen it played. Given that it's only a tiny bit better than Leverage, I think this card needs to be free in order to see play. Maybe if you shifted the +1 bleed for another minion to superior you could get rid of the blood cost. Perhaps make it like Cloak the Gathering - inferior for the minion using it, superior for any minion? I didn't even include this deck when I made a mummy bleed deck with dominate minions.... Mind Rape: I'm very surprised to see such an abusive and universally hated card on your list. I'd highly advise against any effect that steals vampires, even temporarily. They create an unfun situation that should be avoided by a game. Otherwise, interesting thoughts. Looking forward to what else you have to say! Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > But I think the game as a whole could be much more interesting if, say, Brujah weren't constantly tempted towards vampires with out-of-clan Dominate etc. > My thoughts exactly. Thanks for articulating this. Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

I think that there is a much better fix for the govern than ban. Simply add "only usable once per turn at superior" - problem solved. (Also I think that the argument with bloating is not fully valid. It is actually very easy to block govern, just for some reason people dont do it, like it was some unwritten rule, seriously if you and your grand prey let govern pass unblocked at superior 5 times (as to get 15 additional pool as you mentioned) you are not doing something right in my opinion). When it comes to deflection, I think a much better solution is to extend bounce to other disciplines. Some argue that this would kill diversity, but I think not, especially if it would not be node with non-discipline cards, but diverse discipline cards. Consider somethink like this: "Sellout": serpentis. Inferior, Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. Superior: As above, but add one corrupiton counter on the bleeding vampire. "counterstrike" potence. inferior: strike: hand strike +2 superior: Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. "lost in the forest: animalism (or protean) inferior: Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. superior: as above but bleeding minion takes 1 unpreventable damage. Etc... you get the idea. Cards like these keep diversity while allowing other decks to bounce which would nerf a bit bleeding decks which are arguabley overprevalent. Moreover, I think that Keepers of Tradition was so succesfull expansion, because it did lot of stuff like this, enabling other clans to do what they could not before, and makeing them more poverfull instead of bringing some decks down (with cards like torrent which is good for clans that dont have access to stealth).

> brettscho wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > But I think the game as a whole could be much more interesting if, say, Brujah weren't constantly tempted towards vampires with out-of-clan Dominate etc. > > > My thoughts exactly. Thanks for articulating this. > Thats because pure combat is farther from the winning condition of the game, than Bleed or Politics, per example. I have a whole post about that ready to be released soon in a blog near you. I try to make the case that combat in out of itself was not very well playtested in Jyhad and was given much more relevance than it should. Somebody thought that just giving the option of combat to some clans would be good enough. It clearly was not.

I feel for empowering other disciplines/clans to compensate for the lack of a Govern or Deflection over banning as well. But don't feel there should be copy/paste cards with a twist, there are other options: Alternatives for Deflection: - poison pill for bleed actions - more cards like Touch of Pain - I liked the idea of spreading a bleed over multiple players - Yawp Court for bleed (or Directed) actions. Alternatives for Govern: - A better Street Cred, add rush effect perhaps, remove younger vamp clause. - Rush and burn 2 pool when rushed minion burns/torpors (perhaps with a "you cannot bleed this turn" clause). Don't copy/paste what we deem powerful, empower other strategies Otherwise we can just reduce all clans to 1 and only put 3 disciplines and nothing else into the game... -1 Strength

> brettscho wrote: > My biggest disagreement is Voter Captivation. Any effect without an upper limit is a problem, and this single card just produces too many tokens at once. And remember that it's the very definition of a win-more card. Bewitching Oration helps you pass votes, Voter Captivation says "Are you already winning (passing votes)? Well, here's something extra." It's also perplexing to me that players would be ok with an action modifer that is equally as good as the standard pool gain cards like Dark Mirror of the Mind and Art Scam. Don't want to take an action to gain pool? That's ok, we've created an action modifier that lets you do the same thing and gain blood too! > It's because it requires a *long* chain of events. You need to call a vote unblocked, have it passed, and have a lot of votes in favor. In the meantime, many things can go wrong: you have a Voter Captivation but no vote to call (how many times this happened to me!). You finally manage to call your vote, but you're not the only one having votes, so people will probably vote against so it passes by 1 or 2 only. Or you have a Bewitching in hand, but that's so many moving parts (1 vote, some stealth, 1 Bewitching, 1 Voter Cap) that your hand has been crippled for 2 turns. Did I mention that your vampire was already full blood, so you basically gain 2 pool "only"? Sometimes, everything will work as a charm. But most of time, something will go wrong. It's just like a turbo deck, works perfectly on the paper. Oh, I didn't see that Delaying Tactics coming by the way... > brettscho wrote: > Last few comments: Heart of the City: I'm very surprised to see you discard it. Not only is it not wall paper, it fits your ethos of agressive bleeding. I'd reconsider this card. > It's barely more effective than a Tasha Morgan. You need a vampire with superior Presence, 2 blood, the kind of vampire who cannot afford losing one turn for such an action. Pulse of the Canaille is very different as it gives extra bleed to Auspex which is poor in bleed bonuses. Plus the inferior effect is pretty strong too, contrary to Heart of the City. > brettscho wrote: > Empowering the Puppet King: I'm very surprised to see this, as I've never seen it played. Given that it's only a tiny bit better than Leverage, I think this card needs to be free in order to see play. Maybe if you shifted the +1 bleed for another minion to superior you could get rid of the blood cost. Perhaps make it like Cloak the Gathering - inferior for the minion using it, superior for any minion? I didn't even include this deck when I made a mummy bleed deck with dominate minions.... > It's played in swarm decks with a slight Dominate angle, such as Nephandus, Nocturn or Shambling Hordes to a lesser extend... Not the best card, but it fits the aggressive theme. > brettscho wrote: > Mind Rape: I'm very surprised to see such an abusive and universally hated card on your list. I'd highly advise against any effect that steals vampires, even temporarily. They create an unfun situation that should be avoided by a game. > This card is largely overrated in my opinion. Sure, if you manage to play Heidelberg Castle you may be able to steal some blood, but it rarely goes any further. Sometimes you'll manage to burn the vampire if you have the vote lock and someone happens to be in torpor (or you play Abactor) but if it were that easy, we'd see it more often. I think it's more a psychologic fear than a real problem. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Brum wrote: > > > brettscho wrote: > > > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > But I think the game as a whole could be much more interesting if, say, Brujah weren't constantly tempted towards vampires with out-of-clan Dominate etc. > > > > > > > > My thoughts exactly. Thanks for articulating this. > > > Thats because pure combat is farther from the winning condition of the game, than Bleed or Politics, per example. > Not really the point I'm addressing - I could have picked pretty much any non-Dominate clan. Brujah don't have to play pure combat. Presence and their titles provide some good political options and bleed options, and Second Tradition provides a decent walling option. And yes you're probably going to toss some combat in - anything from some flung junk or some opportunistic Torn Signpost/Disarms, right through to 40+ red cards. And yet the Euro-Brujah (Constanza, Donal, Theo, Volker etc.) are still super-tempting, because of the Dominate. It would be nice if Dominate-less Brujah were similarly capable of crafting a solid deck like that, whether it uses 15 red cards or 50. See also, for example, Domi-Ravnos (not super-combaty, normally), a bunch of star vampire decks that surround themselves with Dominate weenies rather than any other weenies etc. It's not just combat-y decks that try to work out how to crowbar Dominate in there. And even to the extent that it is combat decks doing it (I won't deny that some of them try really hard), I still think there would be positives for the game if you could build much the same combat deck but without having to find the Dominate, instead finding something vaguely similar from in-clan discplines, in-clan cards, in-sect tech or whatever else. So you can put together that Big Fat Gangrel deck without Stanislava and Ingrid Rossler being quite so central for Domi-Protean.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > Brum wrote: > > > > > brettscho wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > > But I think the game as a whole could be much more interesting if, say, Brujah weren't constantly tempted towards vampires with out-of-clan Dominate etc. > > > > > > > > > > > My thoughts exactly. Thanks for articulating this. > > > > > > > > Thats because pure combat is farther from the winning condition of the game, than Bleed or Politics, per example. > > > Not really the point I'm addressing - I could have picked pretty much any non-Dominate clan. > > Brujah don't have to play pure combat. Presence and their titles provide some good political options and bleed options, and Second Tradition provides a decent walling option. And yes you're probably going to toss some combat in - anything from some flung junk or some opportunistic Torn Signpost/Disarms, right through to 40+ red cards. And yet the Euro-Brujah (Constanza, Donal, Theo, Volker etc.) are still super-tempting, because of the Dominate. It would be nice if Dominate-less Brujah were similarly capable of crafting a solid deck like that, whether it uses 15 red cards or 50. > > See also, for example, Domi-Ravnos (not super-combaty, normally), a bunch of star vampire decks that surround themselves with Dominate weenies rather than any other weenies etc. It's not just combat-y decks that try to work out how to crowbar Dominate in there. > > And even to the extent that it is combat decks doing it (I won't deny that some of them try really hard), I still think there would be positives for the game if you could build much the same combat deck but without having to find the Dominate, instead finding something vaguely similar from in-clan discplines, in-clan cards, in-sect tech or whatever else. So you can put together that Big Fat Gangrel deck without Stanislava and Ingrid Rossler being quite so central for Domi-Protean. > My point is that Brujah tend to go for Dominate to compensate for how bad pure combat really is, both on offence and defense. Just using in clan disciplines is tricky, because politics needs either Deflections or Stealth (or both) to work. Bruise-Bleed is... playing in constant wishful thinking. Allot of things that you don't control need to happen in order for you to win the table. Big fat Gangrel without Dominate exist now. I think their lack of TWD exposure has nothing to do with not having Dominate. Not many people are trying new things. I think the deck is stronger than Nosferoyalties, actually.

My selection of 7 cards essentia to Presence and Dominate Presence - votes - aggresive bleed (meaning you get +2 bleed actions at inferior) - strike: combat ends Bewitching Oration: New Combo card version: Action Mod +2/+4 Reaction +1/+2 Entrancement: Combo card that fills the "steal ally" niche perfectly Public Trust: Crypt Accelerator, Heavy bleed Summoning, The: Search Card; Should also employ retainers Majesty: a signature card for Presence Mind Numb: Can be played offensively, defensively, or cross-table for deals Voter Captivation / Aire of Elation on spot 7. Dominate - heavy bleed (Govern + Conditioning) - pool defense (Deflection) - combat defense (Obedience) Kept as is Bonding: Conditioning: Deflection Dominate Kine: Fits the "take control" and "bleed" categories Govern the Unaligned Mind Rape: Fits the "take control" and "bleed" categories Seduction If you neglect to put Govern and Deflection as a reprint old players will smoke new players. If you start a new format, excluding all cards not in the reprint, you will end up losing more players than you gain. Last thing Vtes needs is a split card gaming community. We need to give new players the tools they need to play VTES.

I believe the spirit of the thing is what is not reprinted will no longer be legal. So old players will not have card advantage over new players.

> Brum wrote: > I believe the spirit of the thing is what is not reprinted will no longer be legal. > So old players will not have card advantage over new players. > Great way to alienate old players Publisher: Hey you know that game you played and supported for 20 or so years? Player: Yeah, I love that game! Publisher: Cool, here you have a new set, now throw away 90% of the cards you own. Player: ... Think it through... -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > > Brum wrote: > > I believe the spirit of the thing is what is not reprinted will no longer be legal. > > So old players will not have card advantage over new players. > > > Great way to alienate old players > > Publisher: Hey you know that game you played and supported for 20 or so years? > Player: Yeah, I love that game! > Publisher: Cool, here you have a new set, now throw away 90% of the cards you own. > Player: ... > > Think it through... > I did. And discussed it with many players, old and new, neonates and Inner Circles. You did not read my post on this matter (my proposal). I strive to actually keep as much of the old game as possible. But VtES has many systematic issues. VtES has more mechanics, complications and qwerks than it should. You are only inflaming the conversation if you claim I propose 90% of the old cards to be banned. I never said that. What I said (and continue to argue for) is a Jyhad or 3rd edition like Main Set (five clans (+ caitiffs) and their disciplines - no mono clan disciplines) to re-launch the game and two competitive formats. The new expansions would have new cards and reprints of old (20%-80%, 30%-70%, 50%-50%,... whatever). Standard and legendary (or whatever names they want). Standard has only the new editions. Old versions of reprinted cards are legal. Legendary has everything, old and new. A full reprint of all the cards is not desirable at this point. We need embraces and a trimmed down version of the game could help, while we keep a format for the old players as well.

If the possible new release model included Print on Demand, having access to old cards would become irrelevant. Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > If the possible new release model included Print on Demand, having access to old cards would become irrelevant. > The problem I have with "print on demand" is, that it's only good for old players or players introduced to the game. We'd miss all the possible new players that pick up a starter in a store to see what it is... New players introduced to the game might even find it too much of an effort to go online and order "print on demand" cards. -1 Strength

Generally I`m against big changes in card pool, but for the sake of... majesty must be left out - untap effect got nothing to do in presence. Summoning too - tutors are bad (slow). Dominate and presence bleed must be differentiated - for example actions only in pre and modifiers only in dom. NC Russia

> GreyB wrote: > > > Lönkka wrote: > > If the possible new release model included Print on Demand, having access to old cards would become irrelevant. > > > The problem I have with "print on demand" is, that it's only good for old players or players introduced to the game. We'd miss all the possible new players that pick up a starter in a store to see what it is... New players introduced to the game might even find it too much of an effort to go online and order "print on demand" cards. > But VEKN (with OneBookshelf AFAIK) DID have the idea of also publishing a set of five starters in addition to going PoD... Technically you're very true, but biggest problem with it is the fact that it has been very rare for game stores to stock VTES. At least when I've discussed in retailer forums often (=so very close to always) especially US retailers say that they do not carry the game. Basically due to the online discounters (mainly Potomac). Finnish Politics!

I like the way your thinken Ankara. - Govern the Unaligned (shadows completely Scouting Mission and Enchant Kindred) I agree, although I like Vtes to be a rewarding game for active players instead of reactive players. It can be fixed instead of banning it. Change the superior version from 3 to blood on an uncotrolled vampire. On second hand a ban would be good too. We are talking ofcourse about a reboot of the game. And in a reboot of the game you can push back the powerlevel to a lower standard, which makes lower standerd cards better. Have a cold long night, Jeroen van Oort Dutch National Coördinator

Govern might trump Scouting and Enchant, but with two Freak Drives, say, Arika could use all three of them at superior on the same turn which mean very cheap vampire coming up... Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > Govern might trump Scouting and Enchant, but with two Freak Drives, say, Arika could use all three of them at superior on the same turn which mean very cheap vampire coming up... > Swap Enchant Kindred for Thing (no presence) -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > > Lönkka wrote: > > Govern might trump Scouting and Enchant, but with two Freak Drives, say, Arika could use all three of them at superior on the same turn which mean very cheap vampire coming up... > > > Swap Enchant Kindred for Thing (no presence) > Huh? You mean for ones that do not have Superior Presence (like Arika, whom I gave as example, does)? But yeah, Thing would work for, say, Stanislava, Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > > > GreyB wrote: > > > > > Lönkka wrote: > > > Govern might trump Scouting and Enchant, but with two Freak Drives, say, Arika could use all three of them at superior on the same turn which mean very cheap vampire coming up... > > > > > > > > Swap Enchant Kindred for Thing (no presence) > > > Huh? > You mean for ones that do not have Superior Presence (like Arika, whom I gave as example, does)? > > But yeah, Thing would work for, say, Stanislava, > It's a good place to propose removal of all vampires bigger than 9 cap from the new VtES. NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > It's a good place to propose removal of all vampires bigger than 9 cap from the new VtES. > I actually think removing vamps bigger than 8 from the game might be a good idea, because of the current Zillahs+Villein-shenanigans. Maybe replace them with cards like this (Well, maybe not EXACTLY like this, but you get the idea): "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Ashur wrote: > ... replace them with cards like this... > Cool idea! NC Russia

> Ashur wrote: > Maybe replace them with cards like this (Well, maybe not EXACTLY like this, but you get the idea) > I like the way you think outside the box even if I'm not really sure if that would help to alleviate the problem. Finnish Politics!

I am definitely on the "Democratize Bounce, Already!" train. (And no, Lost in Translation doesn't cut it — a lost opportunity to very conservative design. At least one of its 3 big cost/restrictions gotta go: age, 2 blood, only one per action. Now that I have used it more, I agree with ICL's logic and favor removing "one per action." Removing counters from the table speeds up the game, and opening up bounce makes more surprise responses to bleeding interesting. Simple errata solution in my view.) I also believe more bounce is healthy because it helps deck construction and covers clans that really need something more useful to do with their Reaction time. (Which Reactions is the biggest part of one's play time by default, and interaction is the name of the game...) The big "chuck 5 down the pipe and see where it lands" needs a robust, affordable response — so as to save slots for other blocks, combats, and forward pressure — and bounce is it. Now first thing, Deflection cannot be king of the hill anymore. Any design here has to at least equal or best basic dom Deflection, or don't bother. It's been over twenty years, enough already, time to take a fair appraisal and stop wasting time. However, achieving parity does not preclude lateral design development; discipline cards usually do come with two levels of play, basic & superior. At one point I thought Obfuscate and Fortitude were a hot space to cover several clans. But on retrospect Obfuscate is a strong discipline with lots of fun things to do. Fortitude is the Freak Drive discipline, but i can see it getting more fun toys, possibly more bleed reduce. Nowadays I think Celerity and Potence covers a wider range of clans that could really use bounce help while diversifying these way too focused disciplines. There will be some redundancy, but such is the nature of so many clans and discipline overlap. So my big priorities would be Celerity and Potence bounce first and then Obfuscate and Fortitude bounce/reduce later. Reaction cards is a design space that should be diverse and lush; it's the majority of playtime and player interaction. Pushing bleed defense further into Masters, Actions, and Act Mods is just stressing diversity while ignoring a card pool vacuum that's been in the game too long. By freeing up defense from "everlasting wall of intercept" and "backrush" you let players interact more without feeling as compelled to lockdown predators/g-preds to stay in the game. That smaller defense module package, "democratized bounce," should help alleviate deck build pressure and open up several more slots for card diversity. It might even help open deck space for specialized meta responses, like poking combo decks in their lynchpin.

> Lönkka wrote: > Govern might trump Scouting and Enchant, but with two Freak Drives, say, Arika could use all three of them at superior on the same turn which mean very cheap vampire coming up... > Reminds me when I had Ugadja influence out Sobayifa. Use Ugadja's special previous round so as to not attract too much attention. Then next round Enchant Kindred down, Dusk Work tap 3 Aye, & Founders of the Ebony Kingdom. Left 3 Aye still up for a wake later. Could've done it all at once, but who wants to attract that much attention...? Besides, save a Dusk Work for later! Yeah, Ugadja has basic fortitude, but it felt like a moral victory to get a free Sobayifa without it. Yes, it still attracted a pinch of table hate. But why, they're just Guruhi without Nana Buruku?! Just let me keep passing along my Ghoul Messenger to my vampires in peace.

Adding bounce to new Disciplines/Clans would be too fundamentally changing what has been going on for 20+ years now. The only variation we've seen is Lost in Translation. Not all Clans /Disciplines are equal and that is just fine. Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > Adding bounce to new Disciplines/Clans would be too fundamentally changing what has been going on for 20+ years now. The only variation we've seen is Lost in Translation. > There are a lot of bad things that have been going on in V:TES for 20+ years now. I'm of the opinion that if we're going to relaunch the game, we should give it a serious foundation-level overhaul. I would get rid of rules, mechanics, concepts, cards, etc. that ended up not working out for whatever reason, and re-expand into those design spaces with a solid foundation for getting them to work. For the Design Team's work, our approach is different. We design cards for the game as it is right now. We're not designing with an eye towards taking a flamethrower to the card base, regardless of how much I'd love to do that. That said, as much as I think there's a lot wrong with V:TES, I also think there's much, much more that's right with it.

> Azel wrote: > Nowadays I think Celerity and Potence covers a wider range of clans that could really use bounce help while diversifying these way too focused disciplines. There will be some redundancy, but such is the nature of so many clans and discipline overlap. > Potence bounce would make my skin crawl a bit, just from the thematic point of view. It just feels a bit... off. Celerity, though, I'd be very interested in seeing something in this sort of area - in part, because Celerity has got progressively less exciting over time because other disciplines/strategies don't need additional strikes or maneuvers etc. from Celerity, because they got extra damage or their own maneuvers (and the Target cards). Whereas Potence still has some real killer options from IG and Disarm. I'd also personally be happy to see: - cards in other disciplines/traits where bleed bounce was only one level, like Murmur of the False Will - several more specific bleed bounce options (e.g. requires two disciplines, requires sect+title, requires anarch+discipline), rather than just one or two in central disciplines, so you could perhaps go for Obf+Ani to help the Nosferatu without giving it to everyone with Obfuscate, or whatever - bleed bounce that wasn't quite as good as Deflection, but was still very good. So perhaps: Bait and Switch [cel] [action] Bleed with +1 bleed. [CEL] [reaction] Play when you are being bled by a minion whose controller is not your prey, after blocks are declined. This reacting vampire burns a blood to cause that minion to bleed your prey. Urgency 1 blood [cel] [combat] Gain 1 additional strike. [CEL] [reaction] Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah with -1 stealth. Neither of them tap you (like superior Deflection, since they require a superior discipline), but Bait and Switch is slightly more restricted (prey only) and Urgency has the stealth penalty. Similarly, the Serpentis bounce which reduces the bleed I vaguely outlined earlier in the thread . What's my thinking? Two-fold: 1) I'd like to see other options that make things better for weaker strategies, but without pushing the very top of the power curve further 2) I like it when different decks, different disciplines, different strategies feel different. It'd be nice that an Assamite deck using the Qui+Cel bounce option feels very different to the Anarch deck using the three-way bounce. Say, the three-way bounce is quite poor to start with, but combines in a Keystone-Kine-like-way to become quite decent (Nec = don't tap, For = cheaper cost etc.), so it's pretty different in feel.

> Azel wrote: > I am definitely on the "Democratize Bounce, Already!" train. > > (And no, Lost in Translation doesn't cut it — a lost opportunity to very conservative design. At least one of its 3 big cost/restrictions gotta go: age, 2 blood, only one per action. Now that I have used it more, I agree with ICL's logic and favor removing "one per action." Removing counters from the table speeds up the game, and opening up bounce makes more surprise responses to bleeding interesting. Simple errata solution in my view.) > > I also believe more bounce is healthy because it helps deck construction and covers clans that really need something more useful to do with their Reaction time. (Which Reactions is the biggest part of one's play time by default, and interaction is the name of the game...) The big "chuck 5 down the pipe and see where it lands" needs a robust, affordable response — so as to save slots for other blocks, combats, and forward pressure — and bounce is it. > 100% agree. I think a Lost in Translation-type card with a 1 blood cost and age restriction as the only costs should exist. I'd like to hear arguments against introducing a card like this because I can't see any downside. > Now first thing, Deflection cannot be king of the hill anymore. Any design here has to at least equal or best basic dom Deflection, or don't bother. It's been over twenty years, enough already, time to take a fair appraisal and stop wasting time. However, achieving parity does not preclude lateral design development; discipline cards usually do come with two levels of play, basic & superior. > > At one point I thought Obfuscate and Fortitude were a hot space to cover several clans. But on retrospect Obfuscate is a strong discipline with lots of fun things to do. Fortitude is the Freak Drive discipline, but i can see it getting more fun toys, possibly more bleed reduce. Nowadays I think Celerity and Potence covers a wider range of clans that could really use bounce help while diversifying these way too focused disciplines. There will be some redundancy, but such is the nature of so many clans and discipline overlap. > > So my big priorities would be Celerity and Potence bounce first and then Obfuscate and Fortitude bounce/reduce later. Reaction cards is a design space that should be diverse and lush; it's the majority of playtime and player interaction. Pushing bleed defense further into Masters, Actions, and Act Mods is just stressing diversity while ignoring a card pool vacuum that's been in the game too long. > Here's where I disagree. Dominate and Auspex need to be the number 1 and 1A bounce disciplines. It's been this way since Jyhad, and their spot on top of the mountain should not change. But I think introducing a disciplineless bounce card that is a touch inferior to Deflection/Telepathic Misdirection, but is not as restrictive as Lost in Translation, is the best way to handle introducing more defense via bounce. I just don't see a downside to this. > By freeing up defense from "everlasting wall of intercept" and "backrush" you let players interact more without feeling as compelled to lockdown predators/g-preds to stay in the game. That smaller defense module package, "democratized bounce," should help alleviate deck build pressure and open up several more slots for card diversity. It might even help open deck space for specialized meta responses, like poking combo decks in their lynchpin. > I agree 100% with this part too.

Tradition is a terrible way to progress design in a large legacy. Go big or go home. Too many other games dying taught me the problem of letting a static power vacuum fester. VTES is already dead for all intents and purposes — sorry, second torpor — so might as well shake things up. The bounce has to be in a discipline's basic level, and still usable by low caps, or nothing changes. It has to equal Deflection at basic to even be relevant, period. There is no getting around this. It's the primary logic of all power gaming: use that which is the best and has no equal. When grafting and its small offense/defense package is this easy, in all its bolted on forms, anything less is laughably naïve. Time's up! Let's stop being naïve. Game's indefinitely retired! Might as well duplicate and diversify the apex cards with equals. As for Celerity, I can easily see it being a bounce card. Franticly phoning in defensive measures is an obvious thematic point, and it can easily split from there. I cannot imagine Methuselahs not having defensive instructions already in place, it's more a matter of enacting them all in time and maintaining masquerade discretion. Frantic Phone Tree Reaction 1 blood Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. As above, and reduce the bleed by 1. Potence is a thematic challenge, but I could easily see a The Mole level form of bleed defense. And instead of getting into combat as a means to trigger other effects, it could just be a warning kneecap or broken leg, something unlikely to kill someone outright. Then instead of being Wake dependent bounce — which is already strong — it can laterally support further untapping reactions development, like Eluding the Arms of Morpheus and the like. Warning Kneecap Reaction 1 blood Only usable when you are being bled. Tap this vampire to cause the action to fail. As above, and if the acting minion is a vampire, it burns 1 blood. We already dealt with and weenies & fatties running defense against big bleeds. The issue was about stressing their blood and wake/untap supply — and this involved the give and take of opportunity windows. That is more interaction than the imperative to shutting down your predator's ability to play almost completely in order to survive. These two follow in the same bleed defense vein (ha ha, vein! ) while being easy to read, incorporate, and yet different enough for lateral design development.

I think there should be different kind of bleed bounce, like one where two meths are bleed at once (and half rounded up is targeting chosen meth). It can be something one celerity or presence or fortidude. 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.

> Lech wrote: > I think there should be different kind of bleed bounce, like one where two meths are bleed at once (and half rounded up is targeting chosen meth). > Would open a big can of worms blocking-wise. Just sayin'... Finnish Politics!

> Lönkka wrote: > > > Lech wrote: > > I think there should be different kind of bleed bounce, like one where two meths are bleed at once (and half rounded up is targeting chosen meth). > > > Would open a big can of worms blocking-wise. > > Just sayin'... > It would send the Rules Team into psychotherapy.

Actually, that is pretty easy to make work: resolve the bleed against the bouncing player, then the action continues against the new target. Besides, that opens new design space since one can play on both the bleed reduction and bounced amount to tune the power level and give different flavours to different disciplines. There is something fundamentally unbalanced with bounce as it is currently implemented: the strongest possible bleed defense should not be coupled with one of the only offensive effects one can take out of turn, when both effects would be strong enough to warrant their own separate cards.

> Non-existant user wrote: > Actually, that is pretty easy to make work: resolve the bleed against the bouncing player, then the action continues against the new target. > Well, that opens up an even bigger can of worms. The two Methuselahs being bled (A and B, let's say): can either of them bounce the bleed? Can they bounce the bleed to each other? Deflection says: "Choose another Methuselah" - meaning you can't self-target redundantly - but if B is also being bled, can A choose them as "another" Methuselah? When can A play her bounce? Is there a gap 'after blocks are declined' when A declines to block before the action "continues" to B? The game already supports actions that target multiple Methuselahs - why is this a better option? If the action is successful against B, is A still 'being bled'? (The action apparently continued against B, so it's not clear how this works.) For example, can Methuselah C (neither acting nor being bled) play Major Boon to target A? Does C play it after A declines to block, or when B declines to block also? Do vampires with conditional bleed bonuses stack if both target Methuselahs meet the requirements? If Cat Burglary is bounced in this way ("If more than 1 pool is bled with this action, ignore the excess."), who decides which Methuselah gets bled at all? Various cards reduce bleeds "against you". Do they reduce the whole amount, or just the amount against you?

> Azel wrote: > Frantic Phone Tree > Reaction > 1 blood > Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. > As above, and reduce the bleed by 1. > The [CEL] version seems... unlikely. Why would you want your prey to take 1 less pool damage? Why not just play it at [cel]? The circumstances in which you'd volunteer to harm the new target less seem pretty rare, short-changing the vampire with [CEL] somewhat.

> The two Methuselahs being bled (A and B, let's say): can either of them bounce the bleed? Can they bounce the bleed to each other? > That is precisely that my wording avoids: at no point in time are A and B bled simultaneously. It's A first, then B. Then standard rules apply at all times, and there is no problem with B bouncing back to A. Same applies to all your questions after. > > When can A play her bounce? > After A declines to block to follow the current timing, but that can be changed if one wants to (the current timing would prevent A from bouncing part of the bleed, then blocking his own part). > > Is there a gap 'after blocks are declined' when A declines to block before the action "continues" to B? > You must have missed the most important word in my first post: resolve the bleed against the bouncing player, then the action continues against the new target. That "gap" is the first action resolution: A burns pool, the active methuselah gets the edge, then we move on to B. That is why A and B are never both targets at the same time. > > The game already supports actions that target multiple Methuselahs - why is this a better option? > Says the guy who just raised a heap of problems that would only happen if A and B are both targets at the same time > > If the action is successful against B, is A still 'being bled'? (The action apparently continued against B, so it's not clear how this works.) > If Blood Brother 1 enters combat and Blood Brother 2 plays Coordinate Attacks, is Blood Brother 1 still part of the second combat? > > Various cards reduce bleeds "against you". Do they reduce the whole amount, or just the amount against you? > There is no "whole amount" anymore once the bounce is played, there is the current bleed against A, and there is a continuation against B that does not exist yet. If someone wants to reduce the bleed against B, they have to wait until B is actually bled to play it. Back to the blood brothers: playing Coordinate Attacks does not make 2 part of the combat right away, so for example the opponent cannot play Taste of Vitae to gain the blood that 2 lost to Brother's blood. You have to wait for a continuation to trigger before you can act on it.

> Non-existant user wrote: > You must have missed the most important word in my first post: > resolve the bleed against the bouncing player, then the action continues against the new target. > So, now you get to deal with an action being successful, twice, and all the things that can trigger off that. Or an action being successful and unsuccessful, in either order, and then having to decide whether effects that trigger off either condition are allowed. Which is a whole new can of worms, freshly dug up. Please, keep digging.

> Lech wrote: > I think there should be different kind of bleed bounce, like one where two meths are bleed at once (and half rounded up is targeting chosen meth). It can be something one celerity or presence or fortidude. > It would introduce over-complicated situations for what? Dividing a bleed? Then just say "Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. If that Methuselah is bled successfully, you burn half the pool of the bleed (round down) and that Methuselah burns the other half." Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> So, now you get to deal with an action being successful, twice, and all the things that can trigger off that. Or an action being successful and unsuccessful, in either order, and then having to decide whether effects that trigger off either condition are allowed. > Not a problem: actions resolving multiple times are already part of the game since Momentary Delay. > Ankha wrote: > It would introduce over-complicated situations for what? Dividing a bleed? Then just say "Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. If that Methuselah is bled successfully, you burn half the pool of the bleed (round down) and that Methuselah burns the other half." > This breaks one of the golden rules: if one is affected by an action, then one should be a target and be able react / block. For example, the acting minion can still increase the bleed against A after the bounce but A cannot reduce it with Telepathic Counter anymore. Of course one could also make bounce cards cost pool, but then that pool loss does not count as a successful bleed for the acting player, which seems unfair to him.

> Non-existant user wrote: > > > So, now you get to deal with an action being successful, twice, and all the things that can trigger off that. Or an action being successful and unsuccessful, in either order, and then having to decide whether effects that trigger off either condition are allowed. > > > Not a problem: actions resolving multiple times are already part of the game since Momentary Delay. > > > Ankha wrote: > > It would introduce over-complicated situations for what? Dividing a bleed? Then just say "Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. If that Methuselah is bled successfully, you burn half the pool of the bleed (round down) and that Methuselah burns the other half." > > > This breaks one of the golden rules: if one is affected by an action, then one should be a target and be able react / block. > That's exactly what's happening, I suppose you misread my proposition. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

There is other way - just remove bleed bounce from the game B) NC Russia

> elotar wrote: > There is other way - just remove bleed bounce from the game B) > Well that´s actually not a totally stupid idea - that mechanic has always felt a bit broken. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Ankha wrote: > That's exactly what's happening, I suppose you misread my proposition. > Then the wording should be adapted to something like "The acting minion is now also bleeding that Methuselah." For balance reasons, I am not a fan of B blocking A's bleed, though.

am I the only one profoundly confused by like... the last fifteen posts? I know we're all about not doing anything to change the status quo, but i'd be all for changing the fact that Dominate gets most of the nice things. Let's let Dominate be better at bounce, fine, whatever. Generic Bounce Card Reaction do not replace until your next untap phase. standard bounce text, but targets player's prey. if the bleed is successful, only one pool is burned. boom. everyone can bounce, but it's way less effective. want to make it weirder? remove the replacement restriction, but have it cost a pool.

Even that would probably be too strong: it still avoids all pool damage from the bleed.

reduces bleed against the original Methuselah? is that your concern? have the bounce card cost a pool.

> Non-existant user wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > That's exactly what's happening, I suppose you misread my proposition. > > > Then the wording should be adapted to something like "The acting minion is now also bleeding that Methuselah." For balance reasons, I am not a fan of B blocking A's bleed, though. > The purpose was to avoid creating two blocks for the same action which is bad rule-wise, but also for the extra time it takes. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> self wrote: > Generic Bounce Card > Reaction > do not replace until your next untap phase. standard bounce text, but targets player's prey. if the bleed is successful, only one pool is burned. > This is likely to slow the game down by a fair bit, because instead of three, four, five counters being removed from the table, only one is - and (intentionally) pretty much every deck can play it. Bleed reduction is potentially a decent choice for a deck (in design terms), though in V:TES (in practical terms), bounce is just better than most sources of bleed reduction - not helped by the fact that if you can play Telepathic Counter, you can play Telepathic Misdirection. But it's probably best as a choice. Here, basically any deck based around boosting bloods is really screwed, and unlike Archon Investigation (which is itself mildly controversial), you can play it on pretty much every bleed - and unlike Protected Resources, it's not unique with a significant debilitating effect. Overall, it seems pretty horrible.

> Ankha wrote: > The purpose was to avoid creating two blocks for the same action which is bad rule-wise, but also for the extra time it takes. > With the timing you wrote, there are still two blocks, same as currently: A has an opportunity to block before the bounce, then both A and B can try again after the bounce (although A is probably not interested). The only thing that can change that is to make bounce playable before blocks are declared, which could also be a good idea independently of the exact bounce effect..

Ankha I liked your disecting of cardpool read. Can you do the rest of the original disciplines as well? I expect you to have a clear point of view about it. It would be nice to have a "modern" set as opposed to the current "legacy" set. I would like to explore the possibilities. Maybe create a lotal of 150-200 cards. Preferably without errata. Have a cold long night, Jeroen van Oort Dutch National Coördinator

> Oortje wrote: > Maybe create a lotal of 150-200 cards. > I was playing with this idea for a while in some other thread here. Obviously 150-200 cards will not work because of the part, everybody forgets about - crypt. You got ~39 clans, even by combining sabbat and camarilla and dropping something you'll still are in need of several hundred slots for it. I was suggesting 1500 cards total (this was the number sounded by FFG for a "healthy game") with 600 crypt / 900 library. NC Russia

> Oortje wrote: > Ankha I liked your disecting of cardpool read. Can you do the rest of the original disciplines as well? I expect you to have a clear point of view about it. > It would be nice to have a "modern" set as opposed to the current "legacy" set. I would like to explore the possibilities. > Maybe create a lotal of 150-200 cards. Preferably without errata. > Sure, when I have time to do it (which is scarce these days) Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

The thing is you useually start small and then expand. Trying to include 39 clans in a reboot is rediculous. I think I understand you dont want to exclude anything cool, but in my opinion it is wiser to start with just rebooting camarilla. @ankha: you are very right. time is precious. Have a cold long night, Jeroen van Oort Dutch National Coördinator

I agree, a reboot of just Camarilla clans makes sense. Some of the 32 other clans could be included as allies. That would open a lot of ideas for library cards.

> Oortje wrote: > Trying to include 39 clans in a reboot is rediculous. > Why? It was true "in the past", when in was financially impossible to launch a game with big card pool because of publishing expenses. As was already stated by now it's not the problem - print on demand system allows to publish and distribute individual cards cheaply and in any amounts. It's especially true for VtES, where we already got design of all cards. So by launching the game with small card pool you are achieving nothing except "loosing cool". Yea, obviously (for me) present card pool is just too big as well as some individual cards (and rules) are troublesome, but all this can be solved without destroying the game as is. Actually for a while I'm proposing to VtES to take the matter in their hands and start to move the game to the "rebotable" state by gradually banning and errataing cards as well as fixing rules. NC Russia

Auspex I see it as a discipline for: - intercept - bounce - "see the future" (combat, hand manipulation, new round etc.) Kept as is Anima Gathering: a balanced card that give alternative to transient intercept. The +bleed effect is counter-balanced by the fact that a vampire is "locked" Aura Reading: gives good options to Auspex combat decks and fits the "I see what's going to happen" theme Crocodile's Tongue: the closest card to stealth that Auspex can get. Fits well in an attrition deck (Tremere steal blood or cryptic mission) Eagle's Sight: one of Auspex' signature cards. Slows down the game a bit though but adds interaction between players Enhanced Senses: a staple card for Auspex Melange: not a fantastic card, but is required to offer enough variety in Auspex' intercept reaction cards Precognition: a staple card Pulse of the Canaille: gives bleed options to Auspex (at a price!) or a very interesting spying effect. Maybe one of the only 3-blood cards that is played Read Intentions: an ok-card for Auspex combat Revelations: a very interesting card in control decks Soul Scan: fits the theme, adds options to decks that rely on a peculiar vampire to work Spirit's Touch: a staple card Telepathic Misdirection: it's fine to have Auspex, a defensive discipline, to have a bounce card Telepathic Tracking: one of a few counter-combat ends. Auspex is available to enough vampires to make it playable in plenty of different decks Changed Not kept Ancestor's Insight: I'm not a big fan of cards mixing discipline and sect requirement. This card does too little to be interesting for only a small amount of vampires Burnt Offerings: costs blood for intercept, or an effect that doesn't go in the direction of the game Celestial Harmony: fits the theme, but gives incomplete information, that's probably why it's never played Ecstatic Agony: cards that rely on the previous round don't usually work well, even with Telepathic Tracking. If your opponent plays steal blood, combat ends, or ranged combat, the card is useless Eyes of Argus: even if you can't play Eyes of Argus alone (or you'll have troubles), the card is a little bit too strong compared to discipline-less wakes. Fast Reaction: a fun card, but a weak card My Enemy's Enemy: a great card because it costs 0, but a redundant card with Telepathic Misdirection. Having your grand-predator being bled doesn't really go in the direction of the game at 4 or 5 players. Precognizant Mobility: a rare effect but that is too unreliable and costly (an action and 1 blood) Primal Instincts: costs a blood for an effect that is rarely useful Psychic Assault: doesn't fit the theme Psychic Projection: not as interesting as Anima Gathering Scrying of Secrets: could be a good card, but it doesn't work. Removing any type of card could have maybe been useful. Sins of the Cauchemar: doesn't bring useful options compared to permanent intercept Telepathic Counter: the card is too weak as is, and Telepathic Misdirection is far better Telepathic Vote Counting: the inferior effect is crap, the superior is weaker than Scalpel Tongue (see Dread Gaze) Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Obfuscate I see it as a discipline for: - stealth - concealing (vampires/items can't be targeted, defensive combat) - "surprise" (disguise weapon) Kept as is Behind You!: a polyvalent card that is accessible to plenty of vampires Cloak the Gathering: a staple card Conceal: an ok-card, fits the "hide" them Disguised Weapon: a good card for weapon decks Elder Impersonation: a staple card, gives the edge to offense against defense Faceless Night: a staple card Hidden Lurker: contrary to Fast Reaction, Hidden Lurker is more playable Into Thin Air: contrary to Elder Impersonation, doesn't stack with Lost in Crowds and serves a different crypt and deck style Lost in Crowds: a staple card Sleep Unseen: fits the "hide" theme, can be countered by Auspex, balanced Spying Mission: gives the option of "responsible" bleed Swallowed by the Night: a staple card Veil the Legions: a good card, more interesting than Psychic Veil Changed Not kept Blackmail: a weak card with an effect that can be found elsewhere Blithe Acceptance: permanent stealth is a delicate thing, but the realisation could be better Confusion of the Eye: was an option when Protect thine Own was around, now a card that is too situational Fade from View: not a required card Forgotten Labyrinth: a good card, but not required and a little . Gemini's Mirror: an unreliable card that costs blood Hidden Pathways: crappy card, overshadowed by Psychic Veil Hide the Mind: gives the edge to Obfuscate over Auspex (bounce mainly), but too close to a silver bullet Marked Path: a worse card than plain transient stealth Mask of a Thousand Faces: a good idea, but with too many complications Memory's Fading Glimpse: crappy card Mental Maze: not in the theme, rarely as good as a simple combat ends Night Moves: not a bad card, but fits a niche too small No Trace: doesn't fit the theme Old Friends: doesn't fit the theme Psychic Veil: a good card, but really fits only turbo decks. Otherwise, the niche is taken by Veil the Legions Quick Exit: counter-press is crappy compared to maneuver (Behind You!) Sacrificial Lamb: too situational and costly Vanish from the Mind's Eye: a crappy card like Quick Exit Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I think this article belongs here: magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-1-2016-05-30 it helps to know the basics of ccg design NC Russia

Parts 2 and 3 are here: magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-2-2016-06-06 magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-3-2016-06-13 Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Dang, I killed a "fun" card (Fast Reaction). The real problem is that the concept is fun but only works when acting (Hidden Lurker). So Hidden Lurker was saved and Fast Reaction was trashed. (I hope I haven't killed other fun cards by idnavertence) Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

It's kind of a hard work in itself to find, which cards are fun for different types of players. Fast reaction can be trashed OK, I think. It really is bad. NC Russia

Protean Protean is a great delivery discipline. It does little by itself, but works in synergy with other disciplines. Protean has some big issues: - it's not well-spread - it's usually found with Animalism and Fortitude that aren't ousting disciplines. Animalism works better alone. The big pros are: - cards all very cheap in blood - they are very polyvalent Kept as is Body Flare: not a great card, but it has a cool wow effect when played Carrion Coffin: a staple card in Protean combat Dual Form: a bad card in my opinion, but that is fun to play (until you realize it's really bad) Earth Control: a great delivery card Earth Meld: a staple card Flesh of Marble: a staple card Form of Mist: a staple card Form of the Ghost: not a staple card, but a simple, useful card Homunculus: a great card for star vampires Loki's Gift: a fun card Mantle of the Bestial Majesty: not a great card, but is played Rapid Change: a good, polyvalent card Changed Shadow of the Beast: should be a +1 stealth action Not kept Adaptability: the card is very situational because you need your opponent to deal aggravated damage. Skin of Night is far better when the vampire has also access to Fortitude (that is: most of the time) Body of Sun: has a wow effect like Body Flare, but probably because people are laughing at you (before playing their S:CE) Bone Spur: not a bad card, but a bit redundant with Claws of the Dead that is more useful Carrion Coffin: a weak copy of Homunculus Dissolution: like a Flash, but costs 1 blood. There is always a better card than that one if you need a press or maneuver Eyes of the Beast: not worth a slot, if you really need intercept, there are better Animalism cards Gleam of Red Eyes: slightly redundant with Form of the Ghost. Maneuvers are more useful than presses anyway. Horrific Countenance: the cost is too high Movement of the Slow Body: the card isn't played Mythic Form: the card isn't played Quick Meld: the card isn't played Shadow of the Wolf: a weak, expensive card with a unnatural effect (before range, will give an additional and a strength bonus on that additional, but not on the first pair of strikes?) Shape Mastery: a terrible silver-bullet card against rare disciplines Sonar: same as Eyes of the Beast Uncontrollable Rage: costly card with a weak effect that is redundant with better cards such as Claws of the Dead Wolf Claws: redundant with Claws of the Dead Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Celerity A combat discipline with some minor effects related (thematically) with speed. It's hard to sort combat cards because usually they ALL can be useful, so I expect people not to agree with some of my choices - additional - maneuver / press / restart combat - "go fast" (can be untap, ditching cards, getting light intercept or stealth) Kept as is Blur: a staple card Fast Hands: a cool card Flash: a polyvalent, free card Flash: a useful rush-at-stealth card Flurry of Action: a polyvalent card that fits the theme Infernal Pursuit: a combat card that fits the "go fast" theme Psyche!: a staple card Pursuit: a staple card Quickness: not much played, but fun in some decks Resist Earth's Grasp: a good, polyvalent card Rooftop Shadow: fun card Side Strike: not a great card, but played Sideslip: a staple card Stutter-Step: a good, useful card Torrent: not a great card, but fits a niche Zephyr: a nice card in some decks, fits a niche Changed Not kept Acrobatics: not a bad card, but if you really want to dodge + strike, it's better to play 2 cards that can do other things, or play cards that have a similar effect such as Stutter-Step or Dust up Alacrity: too expensive, replaced by Resist Earth's Grasp for its costs and polyvalence Backstab: crappy card Cat Burglary: a weak card with a useless superior effect Distraction: only usable in turbo decks, redundant with Infernal Pursuit and Flurry of Action if you really need to cycle Lightning Reflexes: too expensive compared to Blur, and rather unintuitive (pay 1 then X more to get X additionals) Mercury's Arrow: a bad mimic of Thrown Gate / Thrown Sewer Lid Nimble Feet: never played, redundant with Pursuit Precision: crappy card Preternatural Evasion: never played Projectile: bad card Rapid Thought: crappy card Riposte: "not usable on the first round", crappy Sanguinary Wind: crappy card Savannah Runner: I'm not a big fan of sect requirement for cards that already require a Discipline. Not useful. Speed of Thought: weak card Vampiric Speed: crappy card Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > Protean > Protean is a great delivery discipline. It does little by itself, but works in synergy with other disciplines. > Protean has some big issues: > - it's not well-spread > - it's usually found with Animalism and Fortitude that aren't ousting disciplines. Animalism works better alone. > The big pros are: > - cards all very cheap in blood > - they are very polyvalent > > Kept as is Body Flare: not a great card, but it has a cool wow effect when played Carrion Coffin: a staple card in Protean combat Dual Form: a bad card in my opinion, but that is fun to play (until you realize it's really bad) Earth Control: a great delivery card Earth Meld: a staple card Flesh of Marble: a staple card Form of Mist: a staple card Form of the Ghost: not a staple card, but a simple, useful card Homunculus: a great card for star vampires Loki's Gift: a fun card Mantle of the Bestial Majesty: not a great card, but is played Rapid Change: a good, polyvalent card > Changed Shadow of the Beast: should be a +1 stealth action > Not kept Adaptability: the card is very situational because you need your opponent to deal aggravated damage. Skin of Night is far better when the vampire has also access to Fortitude (that is: most of the time) Body of Sun: has a wow effect like Body Flare, but probably because people are laughing at you (before playing their S:CE) Bone Spur: not a bad card, but a bit redundant with Claws of the Dead that is more useful Carrion Coffin: a weak copy of Homunculus Dissolution: like a Flash, but costs 1 blood. There is always a better card than that one if you need a press or maneuver Eyes of the Beast: not worth a slot, if you really need intercept, there are better Animalism cards Gleam of Red Eyes: slightly redundant with Form of the Ghost. Maneuvers are more useful than presses anyway. Horrific Countenance: the cost is too high Movement of the Slow Body: the card isn't played Mythic Form: the card isn't played Quick Meld: the card isn't played Shadow of the Wolf: a weak, expensive card with a unnatural effect (before range, will give an additional and a strength bonus on that additional, but not on the first pair of strikes?) Shape Mastery: a terrible silver-bullet card against rare disciplines Sonar: same as Eyes of the Beast Uncontrollable Rage: costly card with a weak effect that is redundant with better cards such as Claws of the Dead Wolf Claws: redundant with Claws of the Dead > Protean as a delivery discipline is not very useful because, as you say, Animalism and Fortitude are not ousting disciplines. Protean should give combat, stealth, and *intercept* to fully complement the Gangrel's other disciplines. In the Jyhad set, Richard Garfield lost an opportunity to make the Gangrel the premium intercept/combat class. Cards like Sonar and Eyes of the Beast aren't great, but such cards should always have been part of the Gangrel package. Gleam of Red Eyes is the Level 1 Protean ability in the RPG and by concept it should have been an intercept card. If you relaunch VTES, consider how the Gangrel class can be as good as the other classes. Protean should be designed to complement Animalism's intercept options so that the Gangrel's combat can have a strong impact on the table.

> AaronC wrote: > Protean as a delivery discipline is not very useful because, as you say, Animalism and Fortitude are not ousting disciplines. Protean should give combat, stealth, and *intercept* to fully complement the Gangrel's other disciplines. > > In the Jyhad set, Richard Garfield lost an opportunity to make the Gangrel the premium intercept/combat class. Cards like Sonar and Eyes of the Beast aren't great, but such cards should always have been part of the Gangrel package. Gleam of Red Eyes is the Level 1 Protean ability in the RPG and by concept it should have been an intercept card. > > If you relaunch VTES, consider how the Gangrel class can be as good as the other classes. Protean should be designed to complement Animalism's intercept options so that the Gangrel's combat can have a strong impact on the table. > Another option I was thinking of when freeing slots for new Protean cards was to give them something different, something unique, rather than something they already have access to (intercept for instance). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I believe your first mention of Carrion Coffin was supposed to be Claws of the Dead Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > > > Azel wrote: > > Frantic Phone Tree > > Reaction > > 1 blood > > Only usable when you are being bled, after blocks are declined. Tap this reacting vampire. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah. > > As above, and reduce the bleed by 1. > > > The [CEL] version seems... unlikely. Why would you want your prey to take 1 less pool damage? Why not just play it at [cel]? The circumstances in which you'd volunteer to harm the new target less seem pretty rare, short-changing the vampire with [CEL] somewhat. > It's ultimately very situational, such as Kindred Spirits deck trying to bleed upstream and the like. But, in the end does the [CEL] superior really even matter? The point of the card is to have [cel] basic equal [dom] basic -- and yet still have the card be "objectively" weaker than the dominate card so people's sacred cows can be safe. There's literally no excuse a card like this hasn't been vying for Deflection's basic parity for twenty years now. The superior can freely explore lateral power dimension as designers see fit. (And given their exceedingly cautious history, I'm gonna assume it'll be something more situational and weaker.) It's an overdue progression to the game. So, good point, but don't read into it more "oomph!" than necessary.

Animalism A combat/intercept discipline, with many animal allies or retainers. Also the discipline of the "inner beast" inside each vampire. Kept as is Aid from Bats: the staple combat card for Animalism. Has its downside (you won't maneuver more than once) but a strong synergy with Carrion Crows. Army of Rats: an interesting card Canine Horde: a staple card Carrion Crows: a staple card Cats' Guidance: intercept or untap, a staple card Deep Song: A tad too strong, completely outshines Bum's Rush Drawing Out the Beast: I'm not a big fan, but some players like it. Fits the theme anyway. Guard Dogs: good, but never as good as a plain wake Murder of Crows: not a fantastic card, but fits the theme Owl Companion: a great card Pack Alpha: goes well with the animal retainer theme Raven Spy: a staple card Sense the Savage Way: a good card Terror Frenzy: different enough from Drawing Out the Beast to keep both Tier of Souls: a nice card Underbridge Stray: woof waf wuf wuf Not kept: Bestial Vengeance: it's cumulative with a Carrion Crows, but requires a Laibon and a retainer. It's still redundant. Flesh Bond: doesn't fit the theme Raptor: a boring, time-consuming card Rat's Warning: see Guard Dogs. A press is less useful than a maneuver. Scorpion Sting: pretty useless Instinctive Reaction: a weak card Shepherd's Innocence: could be fun, but it's rarely useful, and if it does, it's completely unbalanced Song in the Dark: bad execution Song of Serenity: crappy card Tainted Spring: like Forger's Hammer, it's too complicated to make it work (it would be better if you could play it any time during the action). Taunt the Caged Beast: more balanced than deep song, but the superior is pretty useless Trainer: useless card Wolf Companion: a useless card Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > Deep Song: A tad too strong, completely outshines Bum's Rush > Uh, yeah. Bum's rush doesn't require a discipline, so Deep Song should outshine it. Not sure how this makes Deep Song too strong. Are you speaking in the specific context of making animalism combat too strong? If yes, then I submit to you the myriad frenzy card cancellation or immunity effects that exist to foil this extremely common combat archetype that's usually paired with Deep Song.

Deep Song and Bum's Rush are not comparable cards. Bum's Rush doesn't offer an option to bleed, nevermind an option to bleed for +1. Would be an interesting card, though, to have a disciplineless, modest requirement, completely outclassed by Deep Song Deep Song. Aggravated Assault Action Requires a vampire of Capacity 5 or higher. Do not replace until after this action. Enter combat with a ready minion controlled by another Methuselah. <or> Bleed. Probably a multirush deck card, but it does mean you can run a vast quantity and choke somewhat less. Traveller Card Game

Love this idea. It has the added bonus of teaching new players how to win in VTES. A card like Bum's Rush does nothing to stop new players from attacking the "wrong" minions and helping another player win. The unspoken great thing about Deep Song (and the proposed disciplineless card) is that, with inclusion of an alternate bleed effect, the new player might just use that alternate effect and learn that ousting your prey is better than helping somebody else win.

In my opinion, Deep Song should have had a "do not replace" clause, or the "enter combat" effect should have been kept to minimal (no tapping, no "you declare strikes first" effect). It's still a frenzy card, and works only on vampires, but unless you're playing against Abombwe, the first drawback is not really relevant, and rushing allies is quite cornercase. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Rushing allies is not cornercase, rushing allies is a bad strategy. Rush decks die to ally decks because Taste of Vitae doesn't work, therefore Rush decks don't rush allies because they will lose. A rush deck based on Deep Song is doubly screwed when facing ally decks, and there are many common archetypes that feature allies. Deep song is quite balanced.

I think that if the game comes back to print there should also be a new expansion or two for Imbued so new kinds of deck archetypes could be developed. At the moment a big problem for Imbued is that because Edge Explosion is banned, there is no way for imbued to gain access to virtues that they don't already have. This limits usage of many imbueds which you'd like to use in a deck but because they don't have a virtue you would like them to have, they are often left out. This results in same imbued being seen in many games. So unless Edge Explosion is going to get a ruling errata then what imbued would highly need would be a card similar to Field Training or Sanguine Instruction in order to allow for wider variety of virtue combinations to be used. Prince of Tikkurila, known as Teemu P in Lackey CCG

> TwoRazorReign wrote: > Rushing allies is not cornercase, rushing allies is a bad strategy. Rush decks die to ally decks because Taste of Vitae doesn't work, therefore Rush decks don't rush allies because they will lose. A rush deck based on Deep Song is doubly screwed when facing ally decks, and there are many common archetypes that feature allies. Deep song is quite balanced. > Rushing Carlton or Jake can be a good strategy, but it's cornercase. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Sure. But you're not accounting for ally decks, which are a common archetype. If your prey and/or predator is playing a deck that casually throws into the mix one or two allies, yeah, it's corner case to rush those allies because the option exists to rush the vampires that deck is built around. But if your prey and/or predator is playing an ally deck (and are able to put those allies in play), it's no longer corner case to rush allies. You have no other option. And you're totally fucked if playing a rush deck using Deep Song.

> Khalid1988 wrote: > I think that if the game comes back to print there should also be a new expansion or two for Imbued so new kinds of deck archetypes could be developed. > One other option is NOT giving the Imbued a new expansion "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Ashur wrote: > One other option is NOT giving the Imbued a new expansion > Did you even read my post? I tried to address an actual problem and sincerely rather than making an errata to Edge Explosion new action cards (like Field Training and Sanguine Instruction) or new Master cards which would allow a bigger variety of virtues to be played would be better because then the new decks wouldn't all simply be silver bulleted by a single Uncoiling. If new cards allowing use of bigger variety of virtues aren't an option, then new set of imbueds should be released so new crypt combinations could be made available. Prince of Tikkurila, known as Teemu P in Lackey CCG

> Ankha wrote: > Trainer: useless card > So did I think until Jarkko used it in his deck as an anti-Animalism measure (obviously at superior) and it worked awesomely well. Especially against ani weenies. I strongly disagree with the statement that maneuver is superior to press. Could be in some instances, but often you want to have extra presses. Also, "useless card" statements are not absolutely true. I rather have a game with hundreds of such "useless cards" that add deckbuilding potential and variance to the games instead of just seeing if you can draw Govern and Lost in Crowds in the right order. Granted, when thinking about core set's cards for relaunch it is indeed a different matter altogether as you want to include most usable and used cards not more cornercase cards. Finnish Politics!

I also agree somewhat with Khalid about the Imbued cards, but they do not warrant a full expansion or more. In order to give more variance to them so that players wouldn't need to face the same old few imbued cards over and over again,would be to add an Imbued card (= 1 card) to more or less every expansion. This rate shouldn't ruin anyone's day (or night...) and we'd slowly get more variance to the imbued. Finnish Politics!

I agree with Lönnka about the "useless cards" posting. I think there are only a few of them. Par example "Twisting the Knife" or "Letter from Vienna" which I´ve both not seen in a deck in the last 15 years, if I remember correct.

> ur_vampire wrote: > I agree with Lönnka about the "useless cards" posting. I think there are only a few of them. > Par example "Twisting the Knife" or "Letter from Vienna" which I´ve both not seen in a deck in the last 15 years, if I remember correct. > Ok, replace "useless" by "crappy, almost never played card" Trainer is relatively comparable to Nosferatu Putrescence. Nosferatu Putrescence is strong is you play always against the same Nosferatu prevent + Disarm deck. Is it a useful card, generally speaking? I doubt it. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director