Name: Relentless Hunter
Cardtype: Action Modifier
Cost: 1
Capacity: n/a
Discipline:
Clan: n/a
Text:
Only usable after a successful bleed action.
Your prey burns a .
No other Relentless Hunter may be played this turn. For the remainder of the turn, whenever your prey loses a pool during a minion phase action, they lose an additional pool.
Flavor text:
“They sense it, can you?"
Art notes:
City Gangrel swarm surrounds a powerful vampire.
World of Darkness reference: n/a
How does this card address a compelling game need?:
This was meant to be an alternative breed and bleed mechanic for both and , instead of +bleed. It was left with two disciplines to make the cross clan crypt possibly easier. The inferior text was meant to provide another means to counter bleed reduction and bounce mechanics. The superior text was written in a way to make it flexible enough to work with other minion actions (even non bleed) but not master phase actions. I am fine if it triggers off Fame, but hoping it may open more deck concepts.
Bonus: I would like this card to work with Speed of Thought and Night Moves at both inferior and superior.
July 12th, Updated:
Relentless Hunter
1
Only usable after a successful action targeting your prey or a card they control. The action fails. A vampire can only play one Relentless Hunter each turn.
Your prey burns 2 .
Burn a from X (up to 3) other ready unlocked minions you control and your prey burns 2+X .
"They sense it, can you?"
July 22nd, Update
Relentless Hunter
1
Only usable after a successful action targeting your prey or a card they control. The action fails. A vampire can only play one Relentless Hunter each turn.
Your prey burns 2 .
Burn a from X (up to 3) other ready unlocked vampires you control and your prey burns 2+X .
"They sense it, can you?" - Luke Fellows
Notes: This is becoming one of my favorite card designs. It creates a new deck with cards that are normally considered "bad" and turns them into viable competitive deck.
I would point out two things about the wording:
First, the inferior version doesn't affect "bleed reduction", as a bleed of 0 is an unsucessful bleed (and so this card could not be played). It is cool against bounces, though.
Second, the wording on the superior part feels weird. You could refrase it as this:
"Put this card into play. Whenever your prey loses one or more pool, it loses an additional pool. Burn this card at the start of the next influence phase. Only one Relentless Hunter can be played at superior each turn."
This way, you are stopping unlock and master phases effects from triggering, as this could only be played during a minion phase, and would burn during the influence phase, stopping also any discard phase effects from triggering this. This also takes into account the possibility of this card being played during another player's turn. You could add a clause to be triggered only during actions, but I don't think it should be that relevant.
Still, I think this card has the potential to be pretty dangerous, as cards like Tension in the Ranks could be pretty damaging, Lutz could be a living nightmare with this, as would any version of a turbo deck (although that wouldn't be that problematic).
Also, I think (by doing a quick read of the rulebook) that the concept "losing" pool isn't considered, and instead all instances of "losing" are actually written with the word "burn", which is also used to pay costs. This means that you will need to either create a new concept (lose), use the word "burn" (affecting your prey paying for cards, like concealed+magnum), or changing the effect to "Whenever your prey burns pool because of the effect of an action", which could take out many interactions, like Tension in the Ranks or Lutz (as they are, as I understand them, not the effect of the action, but a reaction to the action).
Anyway, cool idea. Don't know if balanced, but cool.
> Ratadin wrote:
> I would point out two things about the wording:
> First, the inferior version doesn't affect "bleed reduction", as a bleed of 0 is an unsucessful bleed (and so this card could not be played). It is cool against bounces, though.
>
True, bleed reduction may not be a big issue. The bounce is definitely what I was thinking about.
> Second, the wording on the superior part feels weird. You could refrase it as this:
> "Put this card into play. Whenever your prey loses one or more pool, it loses an additional pool. Burn this card at the start of the next influence phase. Only one Relentless Hunter can be played at superior each turn."
>
I am open to suggestions on the wording. I realize this ability could open up new problems but really I am looking for a really potent effect that has oust potential that isn't telegraphed with an action card. One of the things I love about Celerity and Obfuscate is the surprise effect of both disciplines. I want to change the dynamic of so that it is threatening without or .
> You could add a clause to be triggered only during actions, but I don't think it should be that relevant.
>
At one point I thought about saying "pool burned
from minion phase actions" but it seemed like an unnecessary restriction.
> Still, I think this card has the potential to be pretty dangerous, as cards like Tension in the Ranks could be pretty damaging
>
Yeah, I would be okay with that... but I doubt it would be consistent enough.
> , Lutz could be a living nightmare with this, as would any version of a turbo deck (although that wouldn't be that problematic).
>
I thought about that.. and it totally did occur to me that this could make Gangrel Antitribu bleed/vote decks a thing. But Lutz bleeding seems more risky than calling a vote (so I doubt this would happen) and Turbo decks would choke on card cycling to "only one Relentless Hunter" per turn thing.
> Also, I think (by doing a quick read of the rulebook) that the concept "losing" pool isn't considered, and instead all instances of "losing" are actually written with the word "burn", which is also used to pay costs. This means that you will need to either create a new concept (lose), use the word "burn" (affecting your prey paying for cards, like concealed+magnum), or changing the effect to "Whenever your prey burns pool because of the effect of an action", which could take out many interactions, like Tension in the Ranks or Lutz (as they are, as I understand them, not the effect of the action, but a reaction to the action).
>
I agree, still working on the text but yeah you totally got the idea immediately. Pool burned from minion phase actions is what I considered but that really limits interactions with combat. Still thinking about it.
> Anyway, cool idea. Don't know if balanced, but cool.
>
Thanks, trying to find new interactions. Especially for clans and disciplines that are under represented.
> Ratadin wrote:
> Also, I think (by doing a quick read of the rulebook) that the concept "losing" pool isn't considered, and instead all instances of "losing" are actually written with the word "burn", which is also used to pay costs. This means that you will need to either create a new concept (lose), use the word "burn" (affecting your prey paying for cards, like concealed+magnum), or changing the effect to "Whenever your prey burns pool because of the effect of an action", which could take out many interactions, like Tension in the Ranks or Lutz (as they are, as I understand them, not the effect of the action, but a reaction to the action).
>
> Anyway, cool idea. Don't know if balanced, but cool.
>
At least Poison Pill uses lose pool wording, so there is precedent.
> jblacey wrote:
> I thought about that.. and it totally did occur to me that this could make Gangrel Antitribu bleed/vote decks a thing. But Lutz bleeding seems more risky than calling a vote (so I doubt this would happen) and Turbo decks would choke on card cycling to "only one Relentless Hunter" per turn thing.
>
I was thinking on luzt + 2-3 mid-caps playing KRC and burning 2 extra pools per political action, plus lutz bleeding, which could hurt.
And on the turbo part... your card can be used only once at superior, nothing is stopping a turbo deck from ciclying the card during their force of will bleed through the inferior level.
In fact... if I bleed you for 3 and then use this card at inferior while having used this card at superior before, would the superior level trigger from both the bleed (going from 3 to 4) and from the inferior level of the card (burning 2 pool instead of 1), meaning that your prey just lost 6 pools?
> Ratadin wrote:
> I was thinking on luzt + 2-3 mid-caps playing KRC and burning 2 extra pools per political action, plus lutz bleeding, which could hurt.
>
With the perfect setup you could do 4 - 6 pool, which is significant. That said this card isn't consistent enough for Lutz. You would be better off with more votes or stealth, especially since Lutz can't play this card himself. You would need another consistent vampire other than Lutz to pull the combo off.
Note: Did you know there is only one Malkavian in V:tES with both ?
> And on the turbo part... your card can be used only once at superior, nothing is stopping a turbo deck from ciclying the card during their force of will bleed through the inferior level.
>
It names the card. It doesn't say "played at superior" unless that is the assumption with all cards. A slight rewording could fix it if it is too ambiguous. Beyond the Turbo abuse, I worry that superior + inferior use of the same card would be too strong. I already thought of that interaction and was looking at preventing it.
I should explain the thought process of using "burn" vs "loss". "Burn" is everything including paying costs. The idea of "loss" is that it is a subset of pool burned which is not a part of the cost. This gets tricky with card effects where it isn't clear if it is meant to be a cost.
From a design perspective,
The inferior ability is meant to be a fair card (1 blood for 1 pool loss). It requires a condition "successful bleed action" and two basic disciplines but because it specifies "prey" it gets around bleed bounce. It can work as anothet trigger for blood loss effects but that is both a positive and a negative.
The superior ability is meant to be a powerful combo card. It has the same conditions as the basic but requires . It has an additional restriction that stops future copies of the card at both inferior and superior to prevent stacking abuse and disaude use in Turbo decks. The biggest advantage is that the card text is flexible enough to work with any pool loss as long as it occurs during the minion phase.
> Whisker wrote:
>
> > Ratadin wrote:
> > Also, I think (by doing a quick read of the rulebook) that the concept "losing" pool isn't considered, and instead all instances of "losing" are actually written with the word "burn", which is also used to pay costs. This means that you will need to either create a new concept (lose), use the word "burn" (affecting your prey paying for cards, like concealed+magnum), or changing the effect to "Whenever your prey burns pool because of the effect of an action", which could take out many interactions, like Tension in the Ranks or Lutz (as they are, as I understand them, not the effect of the action, but a reaction to the action).
> >
> > Anyway, cool idea. Don't know if balanced, but cool.
> >
> At least Poison Pill uses lose pool wording, so there is precedent.
>
The rulebook uses "loses" too. How did we manage to understand that notion without the whole concept of "loosing something" explained in the rulebook, I don't know.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
I gotta say that using the search function the only instances of "lose" on the rulebook are for "losing life", or for "losing pool" on the withdrawing section (and obviously in other instances like "losing titles").
Obviously we can understand the concept of lose, and it would not be a weird one, but I was just pointing out that "lose" is not usually used, and if it does not have a definitive meaning by the rules, or is not usually used along with certain effects, it could be related with other unintended uses.
For instance, in the rulebook, the bleed action is described as "burning pool from your prey", and paying costs is described as "burning pool" too. If we used "lose" without any previous definition, and we were implying that it does work on bleed, there is nothing there stopping people from understanding that it works with paying costs as well. If the rulebook were to use "your prey loses pool" on bleed, and "you burn pool" on cost, even if no explicit mention of the word "lose" and its meaning were to be made, we could understand what lose actually mean (being forced to burn). This is not the case.
Of course, we can just say "lose means X, period" without having to involve the rulebook here, and I'm completely OK with that. I was just pointing this out because it was a card submission, and this kind of clarifications tend to have repercussions (even if we don't know it yet).
Happy to see more submissions out of jblacey.
Now, as an obnoxious huge Malkavian fan, I can tell you that I personally have no fewer than 3 decks (either 100% assembled or partially assembled) that would make this card anger enough people to be banned within a year. (I also need no searches to tell you who has celerity in the [not antitribbu] Malkavian family)
Santaleous and some anarch buddies (partially assembled, used to be Santaleous and Asguresh anti girls deck) utilize a little bit of madness network in a celerity guns sho oi t wall, where you bleed at stealth and untap with with that one anarch 3way, and have the same combo on another anarch 3way to rush. And nose of hound. All the while using antoine and sometimes Lord Fionna, who you field train to big if possible, to help good old Santaleous do what have been doing for 24 years, and shoot the shot out of predators taking actions while slowly grinding at your prey. This deck could utilize both versions without changing playstyle, since basic combos with bleed and untap fine, and superior even more so. Use at end of predators turn, bleed heavy, then if they bleed you, bounce bleeds that will also be extra pool damage.
Second deck, which is better (and almost completely together) is adv Dancin Dana with field training on Victoria (best madness network support vamp ever) as well as zoe, didi, and I think I still run watenda..... anyway, madness network, celerity, guns, auspex, you get the idea. Also a few disruptive cards (constant revolution is obvious, since people rarely have enough actions to burn rev, jack, and steal monty) but runs a few border skirmishes to keep things interesting (left over from a more multibleed, less combat capable iteration)
Third deck (together, untested in this version) is "Quick Draw Mcginley" which is 80 card kindred spirits spam trading some stealth for a few rush and DBR guns nonsense, and also running ashurs, enabling dreams, specialization, and barrens to be worked hard to get what you need for maximum pool damage, be it clearing a path or bleeding. This deck would only ever use inferior version, but still people get pissed burning extra for a game or tension (which is a risky card for this deck) dunk.
Now,
I love much of the card, but it fits better with half of your target clan than the other.
!gangrel can piss off, they can (with ) rush, strik earth meld, psyche, strike then act, then untap with I transformation. If they can't figure out how to do anything with a "free" rush and potentially 2 other actions, they should just hang out with Matusuntha or Unnamed more often, because I can't help them.
Now, Assamites..... poor assamites.
They can win, but they're bad at it. Vtes is bad at doing justice to blood magic, but I feel Assamite Du an kah or whatever the hell it was called could be awesome as combo stuff. Super awesome. I'd have to close out of my current pdf to dig up something appropriately titled (or go get Kindred of the Eboby Kingdom from my basement) but I'm sure they have something thematically appropriate for this exact effect. I'd add a burn a blood to untap yo superior even.
Unnamed.
Nuff said.
If you want to do a !gangrel bleed card, it will need to have a !gangrel requirement i'm afraid.
"Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!"
-Nalia De-Arnise
garourimgazette.wordpress.com/
www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines
> ReverendRevolver wrote:
> Happy to see more submissions out of jblacey.
>
I am going to look at some targeted fixes. That said, this fix is a little on the loose side because I would like this card to enable several strategies.
> Now, as an obnoxious huge Malkavian fan, I can tell you that I personally have no fewer than 3 decks (either 100% assembled or partially assembled) that would make this card anger enough people to be banned within a year. (I also need no searches to tell you who has celerity in the [not antitribbu] Malkavian family)
>
I feel like we have talked about these decks previously. My first V:tES deck was a Zoe and Dancing Dancin Dana Zip Gun + Dragon's Breath rounds deck... yes, that was some time ago but this conversation seems very familiar.
> Santaleous and some anarch buddies (partially assembled, used to be Santaleous and Asguresh anti girls deck) utilize a little bit of madness network in a celerity guns sho oi t wall, where you bleed at stealth and untap with with that one anarch 3way, and have the same combo on another anarch 3way to rush. And nose of hound. All the while using antoine and sometimes Lord Fionna, who you field train to big if possible, to help good old Santaleous do what have been doing for 24 years, and shoot the shot out of predators taking actions while slowly grinding at your prey. This deck could utilize both versions without changing playstyle, since basic combos with bleed and untap fine, and superior even more so. Use at end of predators turn, bleed heavy, then if they bleed you, bounce bleeds that will also be extra pool damage.
>
Played it. Fun deck, imho it is average. You are mistakened how Relentless Hunter would work with Madness Network. You still need to take a bleed action. Madness Network is at the end of the minion phase and you would not be bouncing anyone at that time.
A better combo would be... play Relentless Hunter, steal your predator's minions to bleed your prey. It is easier to with Dream World but you get the point.
> Second deck, which is better (and almost completely together) is adv Dancin Dana with field training on Victoria (best madness network support vamp ever) as well as zoe, didi, and I think I still run watenda..... anyway, madness network, celerity, guns, auspex, you get the idea. Also a few disruptive cards (constant revolution is obvious, since people rarely have enough actions to burn rev, jack, and steal monty) but runs a few border skirmishes to keep things interesting (left over from a more multibleed, less combat capable iteration)
>
You could totally do this, but I would argue that Relentless Hunter doesn't enable anything in this deck that you can't already do right now.
> Third deck (together, untested in this version) is "Quick Draw Mcginley" which is 80 card kindred spirits spam trading some stealth for a few rush and DBR guns nonsense, and also running ashurs, enabling dreams, specialization, and barrens to be worked hard to get what you need for maximum pool damage, be it clearing a path or bleeding. This deck would only ever use inferior version, but still people get pissed burning extra for a game or tension (which is a risky card for this deck) dunk.
>
Bottomline, the inferior is effectively one blood for one pool damage on a successful bleed action, which is totally fair.
> I love much of the card, but it fits better with half of your target clan than the other.
> !gangrel can piss off, they can (with ) rush, strik earth meld, psyche, strike then act, then untap with I transformation. If they can't figure out how to do anything with a "free" rush and potentially 2 other actions, they should just hang out with Matusuntha or Unnamed more often, because I can't help them.
>
You could play both gangrel anti and assamites in the same crypt. Also... speaking of multiple rush decks Matusuntha, works really well with Relentless Hunter. Imho, that is probably the scariest deck that could use Relentless Hunter. I plan on testing it soon.
> Now, Assamites..... poor assamites.
>
Assamites have multiple issues, one of the biggest being that they have very few ways to burst pool damage. In fact, Assamites desperately need the pool damage from the inferior version. I have been turning them into Anarchs for that exact reason.
> Kraus wrote:
> Unnamed.
>
> Nuff said.
>
> If you want to do a !gangrel bleed card, it will need to have a !gangrel requirement i'm afraid.
>
Kraus,
I am so disappointed in you. The Unnamed has way better options than Relentless Hunter right now. This is not a bleed more card. In fact, I have been considering adding a restriction that while Relentless Hunter is in play, minions bleeding your prey cannot bleed for more than one.
Consider this: Night Moves and Relentless Hunter = 1 bleed, 2 pool loss.
Tell me if this addresses concerns.
Relentless Hunter
1
Only usable after a successful bleed action.
Your prey burns a .
No other Relentless Hunter cards may be played this turn. For the remainder of the turn, minions bleeding your prey cannot bleed for more than 1 and whenever your prey loses a during a minion phase action, they lose an additional .
"They sense it, can you?"
> jblacey wrote:
>
> > Kraus wrote:
> > Unnamed.
> >
> > Nuff said.
> >
> > If you want to do a !gangrel bleed card, it will need to have a !gangrel requirement i'm afraid.
> >
> Kraus,
>
> I am so disappointed in you. The Unnamed has way better options than Relentless Hunter right now. This is not a bleed more card. In fact, I have been considering adding a restriction that while Relentless Hunter is in play, minions bleeding your prey cannot bleed for more than one.
>
> Consider this: Night Moves and Relentless Hunter = 1 bleed, 2 pool loss.
>
Sorry mate, I must still be concussed by the recent threads here...
I'm having a hard time evaluating this here card, I'll have to admit. Giving !Gangrel more bleed options is all fine, but with CEL OBF it either is too weak or pushes Unnamed further still. Or so it would seem at first glance.
Night Moves and Relentless for 2 is cute, but I'm more worried about Enkil Cog + Public Trust + Aire of Elation + Relentless being 7 instead of 6. It's just a thing to be worried about.
I have no suggestions at the moment though, and will be in a hurry for quite some time. Sorry if I'm a part pooper. Your previous attempts at giving !Gangrel more stuff were more to the point though, I feel.
I'm finding that giving OBF CEL more bleed boosts and bleed synergies just aim to make Assamites and !Gangrel a worse S&B. We already have great S&B clans and disciplines. If you could make something unique, synergistic or weird with or instead of those bleeds, THAT would set these clans apart.
Krausedit\\ I do enjoy this being unbouncable, I'll give you that. Nice.
"Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!"
-Nalia De-Arnise
garourimgazette.wordpress.com/
www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines
The intention was to create a bleed alternative card, not an enhancement for bleeds. Gaining the edge and triggering (potentially stacking additional bleed effects) was not intended. It was a problem. Now this is an action modifier that causes a successful action to fail to do a different effect; this shutdowns most of the bleed abuse and creates an interesting space for cards where players can fail their actions to do an effect other than the text of the original action.
After some testing, the use of the trigger of "whenever" was extremely brutal with multiple triggers and needed to be removed. Multiple actions that triggered multiple times got out of hand. Also the requirement of a bleed action, specifically was more limiting than I realized and negated the surprise factor.
New version:
Relentless Hunter
1
Only usable after a successful action targeting your prey or a card they control. The action fails. A vampire can only play one Relentless Hunter each turn.
Your prey burns 2 .
Burn a from X (up to 3) other ready unlocked minions you control and your prey burns 2+X .
"They sense it, can you?"
The inferior was intended to be a fair bleed effect, equivalent to +1 bleed but an added advantage since the card requires two disciplines and a blood expenditure.
The superior was meant to be an effective burst card for an oust usable by Vampires that don't normally pack large bleed modifiers. The original version of the text was too loose (working with all pool loss), favoring multiple actions, and got out of control very fast with the correct setup. This version has a maximum effectiveness of 5 pool loss for 4 blood (spread across 4 vampires) and requires 2 specific superior disciplines on the acting vampire. This amount can be tuned in playtest but from some early testing seems very reasonable.
I like the card a lot, it seems pretty original. But I feel it can be pretty strong, although blood intensive.
What I like is that it is actually a bleed, but is a sensible bleed: it can be deflected and your meta-prey would only receive a bleed for 1, but if not deflected, your prey would receive a bleed for 5 (and they will).
Now, I don't know what to think about the interaction between this and Night Moves, because what you are doing is bleeding at 6 stealth, and then gaining +4 bleed without risking neither archon nor a bounce effect. Yes, this causes you to pay 4 blood, but again, you are "bleeding" for 5 at 6 stealth without being able to bounce.
I think the superior version should be playable only once per mathuselah each turn, while the inferior one could be played once per vampire.
Also, the superior part ask for burning blood from 3 other minons, which, Iif I understand correctly, means that you can burn blood from allies, which I don't know if that's intended or not.
> Ratadin wrote:
> I think the superior version should be playable only once per mathuselah each turn, while the inferior one could be played once per vampire.
>
Once per turn on the superior text could work.
> Also, the superior part ask for burning blood from 3 other minons, which, Iif I understand correctly, means that you can burn blood from allies, which I don't know if that's intended or not.
>
Usually allies can only burn life as if it was blood for specific effects or for healing damage. Specifying vampires for the card text, thematically makes more sense because it is effectively a swarm.
Relentless Hunter
1
Only usable after a successful action targeting your prey or a card they control. The action fails. A vampire can only play one Relentless Hunter each turn.
Your prey burns 2 .
Burn a from X (up to 3) other ready unlocked vampires you control and your prey burns 2+X .
"They sense it, can you?" - Luke Fellows
Note: Not sure once per turn is necessary on the superior text. Basically, the cost gets prohibative to play multiple times in a turn. Not only do you have to multiple vampires with but you have to have the blood on your vampires and they have to be unlocked. In fact, this card pretty much means you need a card like Hungry Coyote or multiple blood management cards just so you don't run out of blood. One of the interesting aspects to this card is that players have to choose between taking blood and adding it back into their own pool or burning blood on their vampires to cause pool loss for their prey. Also, going to point out something that I noticed in playtesting... a wall deck running Smiling Jack, devastated my playtest deck using this card.
> Non-existant user wrote:
> Terrible idea. One does not change an action without giving other players an opportunity to react.
>
I am thinking you missed the point that this can only played on a directed action that are successful and it has to target your prey or one of their cards. Reactions are always playable. In fact, there are several cards that stop this card. More so an entire deck archetype.
Further than that, if you are concerned about
an effect played after the fact that alters the board state, go read a card like Freak Drive or Cryptic Writer. Or if you are worried about card that mimics the effect of an action that can't be blocked... look at Disguised Weapon or Piper.