How can one churn excess or duplicate Master cards (beneficially)?

You want to draw certain masters very early, like Info Highway & Zillah’s Valley, so you put multiple copies in your deck. Problem: you’ll jam on the copies you draw later in the game. Solution (1): add lube to the library (e.g. inferior Aura Reading, inferior Flurry of Action). Solution (2) : add lube to the crypt (e.g. Aisata Swanou and Uchenna or BlackHorse Tanner). These solutions have costs: card slots and wasted phases / actions. Solution (3): it would be better to burn these master cards to gain some benefit, or overcome a requirement. Library cards: - Path of the Void - Nightmares upon Nightmares There are conditional and unique. Are there good library cards that work (better / more easily) than these? I'd rather do it with crypt cards. I like 'star' vampires and interesting specials: Pariah (discard 1 master per turn) Talbot (burn a master card for a rush) Aksinya Daclau (discard 1 master / turn to redirect a bleed) Angelica, the Canonicus (burn X masters to gain X intercept) Are there any others? It looks like Angelica / Nahir / 20 copies of Zillah’s Valley would be quite playable.

> hollowboy wrote: > It looks like Angelica / Nahir / 20 copies of Zillah’s Valley would be quite playable. > Well, Stefan Karlsson´s deck "Ban Giant´s Blood" works very well: www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=14813 Personally I´d like the game to move more from focus on master cards to focus on minion actions, but crypt acceleration with masters is of course often very crucial if you play bigcaps. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

Thanks for the link, it is a lot dirtier (the title idea + more Dominate) than my concept, and has several tricks that I hadn't considered. > > Ashur wrote: > Personally I´d like the game to move more from focus on master cards to focus on minion actions, but crypt acceleration with masters is of course often very crucial if you play bigcaps. > I agree to a point - I'd certainly like to see fewer degenerate masters (Dreams in every deck, Villein in every deck). I'd also like to see more varied big caps, not just the ones with Dominate.

Just to name a few cards that help you get rid of unwanted cards one way or another. Since the cards cycle, these also help you get the cards you want. Dreams of the Sphinx Heart of Nizchetus The Barrens Fragment of the Book of Nod Infernal Pursuit (CEL) Finnish Politics!

The Barrens etc are cards I lump under 'solution 1' - yes they work, but it is adding moving parts to patch a defect. I was hoping to discover other methods (like the Angelica deck), where the excess masters feed some other process that is actually useful. An option I just thought of: Anna Dictatrix11 Suljic with Absimiliard's Army (and maybe Liquidation). It has decent synergy, for example. if an excess Info Highway is the 2nd card that Anna revealed, you could simply play a conviction from your hand, thereby moving Highway to the top of your library, then AA could turn the Highway into a ghoul ally.

Somebody should make a Shock Troops deck! NC Russia

Gear up Delaying tactics (higher opportunity cost) Powerbase LA Lackeyname: Kris

> Ashur wrote: > Personally I´d like the game to move more from focus on master cards to focus on minion actions, but crypt acceleration with masters is of course often very crucial if you play bigcaps. > There are several reasons why master cards are so crucial. - Acceleration when you are playing big caps is one. - Minion actions can be blocked, way more easily and more commonly than you can cancel a master card. Using a master card for such an action is thus "safer". If you base your deck on minion actions (imagine for example an anarch vote deck that uses actions to become a baron and field training to gain disciplines), a dedicated wall deck can shut such a deck down in its infancy. - In many of my decks, especially combat decks, I have to spend several master card slots for blood economy. Using master cards to gain blood is so safe and effective, in comparison to other options. Especially when considering how easily actions can be blocked. Hunting is such a weak action, and having your hunt action blocked when you are empty is devastating. Many alternate minion action options for gaining blood are also quite ineffective: Palatial estate costs 2 blood and gains you 1 blood per turn. Thus it takes THREE turns (counting the one you use to get estate) JUST to reach parity (same amount of blood you had before you acquired p.estate. Same for procurer. I wonder who invented these cards.. I think we should look into introducing new, more efficient minion action card options for gaining blood, or gaining a hunting ground as a minion action. Currently its just too effective to use master cards for this. - Often a master card is a time-efficient method of achieving something, and synergizes with your normal minion actions. For example decks running effective management to gain a horde of minions and then using tribute to the master to reclaim pool. These master cards are either something that no minion card can achieve, or are simply more effective in what they do compared to minion cards. If we want to move more into minion actions in game design, we need to introduce minion actions that are of comparable power level. Otherwise its just all talk. > Ashur wrote: > Well, Stefan Karlsson´s deck "Ban Giant´s Blood" works very well: www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=14813 > Nerf to villein hits this deck. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> hollowboy wrote: > You want to draw certain masters very early, like Info Highway & Zillah’s Valley, so you put multiple copies in your deck. > > Problem: you’ll jam on the copies you draw later in the game. > I am not quite sure about the premise. People do not typically play Zillah's Valley in star decks with a single big cap, but in all big-cap decks that have robust pool gain to influence their minions, Those decks can use Zillah's Valley all game long.

Its Important to note that zillahs valley as well as Tomb of ramses have waxed and waned in popularity over the years, boiling down to aggressive weenie/midcap popularity and of course just changing playstyle trends. Girls style decks were successful not because they could get out the 2+ fatties fast, but because they pulled them out, villeined them, then liliths blessing added blood. So, the cost of Aksynia and Cybele and Nana was 0 each, and while the deck do additional stuff to gain way too much pool, other fatty decks copied that tactic. Lots of decks did. Anyway, Ziilahs is just one more example of how you have to decide what not to include in your deck if you have to draw something else over it. Gotta balance the master package. Or just play setites and run eternals, that way it's more pool efficient and its ascendance later on I've had more luck with not running Zillahs that with running it. Without lillths and villein for 11, my deck with Hardestadt, saulot, fakir, and eleimelech will not be happening again, but I'm ok with that. My most successful decks yo run with 3 ready minions every game who are 7+ caps is always fortitude and and cards that give beads to uncontrolled minions. In fluff I'm not a ventrue fan, but govern, enchant, scouting and freak drive are a nice way to 7 free beads on a 9 cap in your uncontrolled region. Other crypt accelerators I'm a huge fan of are Nicolas Vermilion (moves his blood to uncontrolled Nos) Mary Anne Blair (built in scouting mission action) grooming the protege (move 3 beads to younger vamp of same clan) Tend the flock (3 free beads to uncontrolled baali) power powerbase Montreal, and even Dreams of the sphinx. Anyways, how to churn from hand is Specialization, Aksynia, heart of cheating, any draw extra mechanic, Thucimia, storage annex... it's better to either use Aksynia or have responsible numbers of zillahs.

> elotar wrote: > Somebody should make a Shock Troops deck! > What is the point of shock troops though? Haven Uncovered and then rush with Shock Troops? Also, it's just too expensive. X pool and requires Master:Discipline cards? Maybe if they could bleed, maybe. > Bloodartist wrote: > > > Ashur wrote: > > Personally I´d like the game to move more from focus on master cards to focus on minion actions, but crypt acceleration with masters is of course often very crucial if you play bigcaps. > > > - Minion actions can be blocked, way more easily and more commonly than you can cancel a master card. > > If we want to move more into minion actions in game design, we need to introduce minion actions that are of comparable power level. Otherwise its just all talk. > IMO, minion actions can be blocked so easily because the stealth/intercept aspect of the game is poorly balanced and little explored and very boringly executed on. So many cards give +stealth or +intercept without any sort of conditional or requirement to be fulfilled. Cards like Eyes of the Dead have the right idea: give +stealth/+intercept outside of Obfuscate/Auspex in an interesting way. Unfortunately, "+intercept if a minion you control is being diablerized" is a bit too narrow, but imagine if it were "+intercept if you have a minion in torpor." Better right? Do you know of any cards that grant +stealth "only on hunt actions"? I know of Abiku, but I can't find any library cards. Hag's Wrinkles is the only card that grants +stealth on equip actions (for some odd reason...) If we gave +stealth/+intercept bonuses for different actions, then maybe the stealth/intercept aspect of the game would be more interesting and fun. Also, to any VEKN Design Team people reading this, can we please give every action get a default of 1 stealth, so you don't have to print "+1 stealth action" on every action card, and so I don't have to explain to new players that every action gets +1 stealth except for bleeding and that action cards don't have a default of 1 stealth plus "+1 stealth" for a total of 2 stealth. Consistency is a good thing and aid new players. Gangrel. Noddist. Camarilla. Once each turn, LivesByProxy may burn 1 blood to lose Protean until the end of the turn and gain your choice of superior Auspex , Obfuscate , or Potence for the current action.

> LivesByProxy wrote: > What is the point of shock troops though? Haven Uncovered and then rush with Shock Troops? Also, it's just too expensive. X pool and requires Master:Discipline cards? > Obviously you should go with combat. Which one I do not know - you need something which works bot with basic and superior level of discipline. Then you should add Becoming's, bunch of discipline skill cards, something to gain blood for sabbat, War Parties maybe. Shock Troops you are using when you are choked. NC Russia

> Non-existant user wrote: > I am not quite sure about the premise. People do not typically play Zillah's Valley in star decks with a single big cap, but in all big-cap decks that have robust pool gain to influence their minions, Those decks can use Zillah's Valley all game long. > The premise is not exclusive. It would apply to any excess masters. For example, I used to run a a Follower of Set ally deck where half the crypt was Dedefra. I'd burn my minions out with high cost cards (Shambling Hordes, Summon the Serpent) then send them to Khobar Towers, and repeat. In that deck, I really want to draw Heidelberg Castle and Khobar Towers early, so a lot of my discards in the mid and late game were excess copies of these cards. I could, of course, add Dreams or whatever to help lube that deck - but that's NOT what I'm asking about. I'm asking if there are other useful things to do with these excess master cards, similar to feeding them to Angelica the Canonicus.

Brothers Grimm, sorta kinda.

> Bloodartist wrote: > Same for procurer. I wonder who invented these cards.. I think we should look into introducing new, more efficient minion action card options for gaining blood, or gaining a hunting ground as a minion action. Currently its just too effective to use master cards for this. > I use Procurer fairly often, e.g: -Get procurer with a chump 3-cap, to feed the star vampire(s). -Get Procurer with someone else's vampire (when playing Temptation). -Get Procurer, then explode the Procurer (when playing Khobar Towers). -Get procurer with Danielle Diron to make her special kick in faster. ...and they also work fine as chump blockers.

Procurer is fine - he got other uses except giving blood, so you should pay for flexibility. Palatial Estate, thou, should cost less or even just be free. -1 pool to hunting grounds costs also will be fine. NC Russia

> hollowboy wrote: > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > Same for procurer. I wonder who invented these cards.. I think we should look into introducing new, more efficient minion action card options for gaining blood, or gaining a hunting ground as a minion action. Currently its just too effective to use master cards for this. > > > I use Procurer fairly often, e.g: > -Get procurer with a chump 3-cap, to feed the star vampire(s). > -Get Procurer with someone else's vampire (when playing Temptation). > -Get Procurer, then explode the Procurer (when playing Khobar Towers). > -Get procurer with Danielle Diron to make her special kick in faster. > ...and they also work fine as chump blockers. > Not sure if you got my meaning. I'm not saying procurer and palatial estate are 'useless', I'm saying they are weaker and less efficient (since especially procurer already cost multiple actions) than master card options for blood economy, and thus, there is little space for them in my opinion. Procurer as a chump blocker makes no sense. It costs 2 blood and has 1 life, no way to survive combat, no permanent intercept. You might as well block with the vampire who would recruit procurer in the first place, and take the default one damage. It would cost you less blood and less actions. Math is simply not on procurers side. There may be place for procurer in an ally horde deck with a way to reduce recruiting costs and unmasking, but as a basic blood economy card it sucks. I'd rather play vessel. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

The most efficient blood gain card is voter cap. Because of this, other cards that just gain blood as the action aren't as good. If you were already voting Instead of bleeding, you were already calling a vote, already needing to pass the vote, and probably had enough vote push to get it past another vote deck. So, you play Awe, Perfect Paragon, BO, etc anyway, what's one more action modifier in the mix. And it gains you 2 pool, and refills your vamp alot? So, Abactor is the strongest action card that gains blood, but is only used if you can outvote blood hung ot ot can't be called anyway. Protean has cool blood gain.... if you're in torpor. Basically, voter cap is too good to recreate for other situations and give blood and pool. So, if the less than stellar blood gain cards were action modifiers, blood gain would work better: Restoration Only usable during the resolution of a successful action against a minion controlled by your predator or prey. the acting vampire gains 2 blood the acting vampire gains 3 blood. So, this is the same text from the card but changed into a modifier and made quite limited. But, you can use it on any action. It's still not voter cap level good, but it's more useful. It makes your sense deps free, gives blood for rushing, makes tier of souls quite the fill up, etc. Because of this, its arguably too good. Even though voter cap also gets you blood for what you were already doing (and more of it) and let's you ignore cost of your modifiers (Awe and perfect paragon) and cost of the action (reckless agitation, lily prelude, etc). And it gains pool. So, blood management in decks not voting with presence is by default not using the optimal tools. So, blood management is sticky, since helping fix the current state makes cards that clearly look too broken or unplayable. I thought this thread was about masters? Talbot let's you chuck those to rush. I was going to do Talbot and Aksynia after KoT came out, but then I didn't, and girls decks became a thing, and I would have quickly gotten tired of contesting half the combo... Villein seems in my mind to be the biggest helper of big caps. I like the new LK harbinger that lets you put half his beads on uncontrolled harbingers, I feel the Grooming the protege style design space has options to explore. Even as a vanilla action or master OoT. Plans for grandkids: Master or +1 stealth action Put this card into play. When a vampire of capacity 9 or greater comes into play from your uncontrolled region, you may burn this card move 5 blood from that vampire to any uncontrolled vampire(s) of the same clan. Mandating 5 blood and non unique seem balancing. Also, it's super good if its master and action, but is more playable as a master. It would need to cost 1-2 pool to be trifled.

I would love to see master combo cards Something like Ascendance Master Gain 1 pool Action Modifier Usable only after a successful action: Gain 1 pool Archbishop of Itaocara Prince ID #510

Play Bribes. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Bloodartist wrote: > > > hollowboy wrote: > > > > > Bloodartist wrote: > > > Same for procurer. I wonder who invented these cards.. I think we should look into introducing new, more efficient minion action card options for gaining blood, or gaining a hunting ground as a minion action. Currently its just too effective to use master cards for this. > > > > > I use Procurer fairly often, e.g: > > -Get procurer with a chump 3-cap, to feed the star vampire(s). > > -Get Procurer with someone else's vampire (when playing Temptation). > > -Get Procurer, then explode the Procurer (when playing Khobar Towers). > > -Get procurer with Danielle Diron to make her special kick in faster. > > ...and they also work fine as chump blockers. > > > Not sure if you got my meaning. I'm not saying procurer and palatial estate are 'useless', I'm saying they are weaker and less efficient (since especially procurer already cost multiple actions) than master card options for blood economy, and thus, there is little space for them in my opinion. > How does procurer 'cost' multiple actions? I don't see how it is worse blood economy than cards like Vessel. They simply work differently. You can't move blood between vampires with a single Vessel. You can't borrow a vampire (Temptation) and drain 2 blood off it with Vessel. > Bloodartist wrote: > Procurer as a chump blocker makes no sense. It costs 2 blood and has 1 life, no way to survive combat, no permanent intercept. You might as well block with the vampire who would recruit procurer in the first place, and take the default one damage. It would cost you less blood and less actions. Math is simply not on procurers side. > By 'chump blocker', I mean 'blocker who is a chump', not blocker of chumps. I never intend to block with the Procurers, but in one of my FoS decks, I often did use them as emergency blockers. e.g. Dedefra is Famous. Beast rushes her. I throw Procurer in the way. Next turn, Dedefra is still ready, so can go to Khobar Towers. That's +9 pool, relative to Dedefra being in torpor. > Bloodartist wrote: > There may be place for procurer in an ally horde deck with a way to reduce recruiting costs and unmasking, but as a basic blood economy card it sucks. I'd rather play vessel. > ?? It depends on the need. If you have a star vampire who you need to pump blood onto, you could play a Vessel on the star, and a Vessel on a supporting 3-cap. That costs 2 pool, and the little vampire will have to spend most of the game hunting. Those are wasted actions. Procurer does this more cheaply in actions and pool. I just put together a Legacy deck, which stars Danielle Diron and Ramona. I put both Vessel and Procurer in there, and if you look at their special abilities, the reason should be obvious. With Danielle, Khobar Towers, Golconda, maybe others, smashing all the blood off a vampire is good to do.

Grimm is the best (on topic) suggestion in this thread! Thanks.

> hollowboy wrote: > How does procurer 'cost' multiple actions? > 1. turn Procurer is recruited. Blood cost is 2 (-2) 2. turn Procurer adds 1 blood on the vampire (-1) 3. turn Procurer adds 1 blood on the vampire (0), now at same that the vampire was before recruiting procurer 4. turn Procurer adds 1 blood on the vampire (+1) You have finally GAINED something. Addition is apparently hard. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > > > hollowboy wrote: > > How does procurer 'cost' multiple actions? > > > 1. turn Procurer is recruited. Blood cost is 2 (-2) > 2. turn Procurer adds 1 blood on the vampire (-1) > 3. turn Procurer adds 1 blood on the vampire (0), now at same that the vampire was before recruiting procurer > 4. turn Procurer adds 1 blood on the vampire (+1) You have finally GAINED something. > that sequence only cost your original minion one action. So 'procurer already cost multiple actions' doesn't really make sense. I think a better phrasing is that it is slow to recoup - if using Procurer with just 'the' (singular) vampire, and no support cards / abilities. So don't use it that way. If you use Procurer to pump blood from one vampire to another, it recoups much more quickly: 1. turn Procurer is recruited by vampire A. 2. turn Procurer adds 1 blood to vampire B. It gets better - if Vampire A is special somehow (e.g. has been borrowed from your predator via Temptation, or will soon be removed from play) - if churning allies is intrinsically useful to your deck (e.g. in combo with Shambling Hordes and/or Khobar Towers) Because there are several scenarios where procurer is substantially better than using a Master card (you can't turn a spare Vessel into a Shambling Horde or War Ghoul, and it would be silly to put Vessel on a vampire that you want to Golconda next turn), I think I've given a valid response to your original question 'I wonder who invented these cards [...] Currently its just too effective to use master cards'. > Bloodartist wrote: > Addition is apparently hard. > Why the insult? What are you hoping to gain? If you had communicated more clearly, I wouldn't have needed to ask the question.

> hollowboy wrote: > Grimm is the best (on topic) suggestion in this thread! Thanks. > The downsides to it are that it usually takes four turns before it might start giving you the opportunity to ditch masters (IME people don't start trying to grab it until it's nearly full), and that opportunity is based on other players' decisions rather than your own. BG was good in twister decks that used masters for their burn option cards; not sure how well it'll suit your needs here, but maybe...?

> LivesByProxy wrote: > Also, to any VEKN Design Team people reading this, can we please give every action get a default of 1 stealth, so you don't have to print "+1 stealth action" on every action card, and so I don't have to explain to new players that every action gets +1 stealth except for bleeding and that action cards don't have a default of 1 stealth plus "+1 stealth" for a total of 2 stealth. Consistency is a good thing and aid new players. > A simple explanative formula that I use to teach new players about actions: 1. ALL actions are at default 0 stealth/no stealth 2. explain cardless actions -ALL actions are at default 0 stealth/no stealth 3. Explain the difference between Directed and Undirected actions -ALL actions are at default 0 stealth/no stealth 4.The ONLY exception to the default 0 stealth are cardless undirected actions which give a bonus +1 stealth. ONLY exception. 5. Explain that there are card driven actions -ALL actions are at default 0 stealth/no stealth 6. Action cards may print +stealth to their action which you add to the default 0 stealth. They should get that fairly quick and you can go on with the more intricate details of this very complex game.

Marrakesh Codex helps me big time to get the cards that I want. Together with Blackhorse Tanner and parthenon I get the cards that I want really fast. Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615