Disciplineless anti-bleed card suggestion (NOT a bounce)

Here's a simple card that would be great to play: Name: Restless Guard Type: Reaction Cost: X blood Only usable when a minion is attempting to bleed you for X or more. Tap this reacting vampire. The acting minion takes X unpreventable damage. If the acting minion will not be ready after that, the action ends. Looks like the card isn't overpowered (you are paying X blood to deal X damage), and it really helps against heavy careless bleed. Currently your prey may play Archon Investigation if you bleed for 4 or more, but who can use lots of them? After the first one your predator is likely to bleed with care, but even a bleed for 3 is very painful, especially when repeated 3-4 times per turn. Restless Guard is much less expensive than AI, and you can play several copies. You may cycle it easily - when the last minion of your predator bleeds for 1. Paying a lot of blood is also painful enough, but if your predator is reckless, he could play Govern + Conditioning for 2 blood, leaving just 1-2 blood on the vampire, so - voila! - you prevent that bleed and punish the aggressor for just 2-3 blood. This card favors large vampires, who can spend blood more easily, which is definitely good. This card punishes weenie bleed decks, which is extremely good. Finally, this cards boosts blood-denial decks, which is also good AFAIK. What do you think? Yours, Ector

[ quoted text not captured ] Nah, we need disciplineless bounce. ;) And we also need that Archon Investigation which any Meth can play on any acting vampire. While the card above would probably find uses, I worry about cards which provide effects which are best "contained" in other arenas (e.g. PTO burning vampires is bad). Most damaging cards are fairly combat oriented, and this one has unlimited potential to do that. I don't think that *every* bit of action in a game needs to be vampire to vampire related. Meths do need to go at it from time to time and total bleed reduction is not the best answer. Jeff

On Feb 19, 7:35 am, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > Here's a simple card that would be great to play: > > Name: Restless Guard > Type: Reaction > Cost: X blood > Only usable when a minion is attempting to bleed you for X or more. > Tap this reacting vampire. The acting minion takes X unpreventable > damage. If the acting minion will not be ready after that, the action > ends. I'm not sure I like the idea of punishing a vampire for taking a bleed action. Bleeding is part of the game, and in all but rare cases, inevitable. That being said, irresponsible bleeding needs to be curtailed, as the ease with which one can pile on cheap mods and stealth is still game- wrecking due to the learning curve - some players apparently NEVER catch on that Deflection and Tel Mis exist. While RG gives adequate and balanced means to punish the irresponsible, it is also very easy to cycle on and punish the sane. I'd rather see something that thwarted riduculousness but couldn't be used to avoid blocking bleeds altogether. RG showing up in Tap&Cap Voter decks gives them another combat out - "I can torporize your vampires on your turn without combat? Sweet." I like Keep It Simple. Along the same theme, but different: Spam Filter Reaction Only usable when a bleed is declared against you by a younger vampire. Action modifiers cost the acting vampire an additional blood. If the bleed resolves successfully for more than two pool, the acting vampire takes 1 unpreventable damage.

In message <1171928257....@l53g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, Wookie813 <veknp...@yahoo.com> writes: >I'm not sure I like the idea of punishing a vampire for taking a bleed >action. Bleeding is part of the game, and in all but rare cases, >inevitable. We already do - Retribution and Archon Investigation being the two most obvious versions. In theory, Vendetta would if it was, you know, useful, as would The Treatment. Aversion is probably playable, though the weakness of the !Salubri generally makes it hard to say. Burnt Offerings punishes the Methuselah, Sins of the Cauchemar gives you a semi-permanent intercept when someone's bleeding you. Ecstasy isn't awful, though not a hugely powerful, either - and possibly the most comparable card to a disciplineless punishment reaction of the nature suggested, which may or may not inform criticism of such a tactic. This is, of course, entirely distinct from whether such a card would be warranted as a disciplineless card or at all. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D YOU ARE IN ERROR. EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 NO-ONE IS SCREAMING. 13D7E668C3695D623D5D THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Jeff Kuta: > Nah, we need disciplineless bounce. ;) I hope this is a joke. A playable disciplineless bounce would completely destroy the game balance. Probably the only reason of the fact we aren't overcrowded with OBF/PRE S&B decks and Tumnimos decks is the lack of disciplineless bounce. > And we also need that Archon Investigation which any Meth can play on > any acting vampire. Good idea, but this card wouldn't change much. How many copies of it would you use in your deck? The master slots are limited, and you cannot be sure that you meet a heavy bleed. > While the card above would probably find uses, I worry about cards > which provide effects which are best "contained" in other arenas (e.g. > PTO burning vampires is bad). Most damaging cards are fairly combat > oriented, and this one has unlimited potential to do that. Firstly, there are lot of noncombat damaging and blood-draining effects in the game, and as far as I can catch the current trend, designers are constantly trying to enforce building decks around this theme (look at Young Bloods, for instance). Secondly, any anti-bleed card should bounce bleed, reduce bleed. I don't like the idea of disciplineless bounce, and bleed reduction is good only in weenie decks, where you can use them in multiples. Punishment is the only remaining option. And since I prefer the reaction card to the new master, the card cannot burn a vampire as AI does. Damage is the most logical here. > I don't think that *every* bit of action in a game needs to be vampire > to vampire related. Meths do need to go at it from time to time and > total bleed reduction is not the best answer. I disagree here. Master card should be extremely efficient to be playable. "Counter-like" out-of turn masters should be widely usable to be playable. Wash and SR can cancel any master card - everyone has master cards. DI can cancel any minion card - everyone plays them. A master card that needs a heavy bleed to work will never be as popular as these cards: what if nobody uses heavy bleeds on the table? A reaction card has much better chances to become playable. Yours, Ector

Wookie813: > > I'm not sure I like the idea of punishing a vampire for taking a bleed > action. Bleeding is part of the game, and in all but rare cases, > inevitable. If a vampire bleeds for 1, RG will just deal 1 damage for 1 blood (and tap the reacting vampire). I'd say this is a cycling, not a punishment. But if you think this is too much, let RG deal X-1 damage instead. Then it won't damage for 1-bleeds, but you will still be able to cycle them easily. > While RG gives adequate and balanced means to punish the > irresponsible, it is also very easy to cycle on and punish the sane. > I'd rather see something that thwarted riduculousness but couldn't be > used to avoid blocking bleeds altogether. RG showing up in Tap&Cap > Voter decks gives them another combat out - "I can torporize your > vampires on your turn without combat? Sweet." "I can torporize your vampires on your turn without combat" - only if you are bleeding me. And if you're bleeding me for 1, I will need a whole hand of RGs to torporize at least one vampire. Again, let's weaken RG to deal X-1 damage, and nobody will use it "offensively". >I like Keep It Simple. I don't. You need intercept to get a serious bleed reduction, and if you're playing intercept, you may prefer just another intercept card (for free, not for 1 blood). Keep It Simple can work for the decks with a lot of permacept (Raven Spy and so on), but the majority of decks without Auspex or Dominate won't use it. > Along the same theme, but different: > > Spam Filter > Reaction > Only usable when a bleed is declared against you by a younger vampire. > Action modifiers cost the acting vampire an additional blood. If the > bleed resolves successfully for more than two pool, the acting vampire > takes 1 unpreventable damage. Unfortunately, this will never be played. When somebody is bleeding you with inferior Govern, how Spam Filter will help you? Yes, it will deal 1 damage, so what? Even if your predator will add Conditioning (for 2 blood), and the pending 1 damage will torporize the acting vampire, you will still catch a heavy bleed. RG, on the other side, will SAVE you from the bleed - that's really crucial. Yours, Ector

Hi. No, but I would like to see something like Reaction Only usable if you are being bled for more than 2 blood. Cancel that action. This reacting vampire enters combat with the bleeding minion. (Not sure about the wording though, and there should be some cost/ discipline/drawback etc.)

as...@hotmail.com: [ quoted text not captured ] This card is very, very strong. I fear it will be too much. This card can kill most modern S&B decks, as they're usually bleeding for 2-4. Stealth and Secure Haven will become irrelevant with this card in hand. New S&B decks will be forced to play Revelations, Le Dinh Tho and other discarding cards, which may be good. Another potential drawback I see here is possible boosting the weenie bleeding decks (Computer Hacking and the like). When S&B will disappear, people will play less bounce - and that would be an ideal time for the Computer Hacking decks that I really can't stand :( Don't you think that a reacting vampire must be tapped after playing this card? Also, it should cost at least 1 blood, IMHO. Yours, Ector

On 20 Feb., 11:53, a...@hotmail.com wrote: > Hi. No, but I would like to see something like > > Reaction > Only usable if you are being bled for more than 2 blood. Cancel that > action. This reacting vampire enters combat with the bleeding minion. I like this idea, though it's too powerful as is. Let's try it that way: [insert cool name] Reaction Cost: 1 blood. Requires a vampire with capacity above 4. "Only usable if you are being bled by a younger vampire or an ally for more than 2 pool. Usable by a tapped vampire. Enter combat with the acting minion. If the acting minion is still ready at the end of this combat or any consecutive combat, the action continues and this reacting vampire burns 1 blood." Any similarities to Yawp Court are intended. :)

On 19 Feb., 13:35, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > Here's a simple card that would be great to play: > > Name: Restless Guard > Type: Reaction > Cost: X blood > Only usable when a minion is attempting to bleed you for X or more. > Tap this reacting vampire. The acting minion takes X unpreventable > damage. If the acting minion will not be ready after that, the action > ends. Here is another go at a disciplineless bleed-defense card. Master Cost: 1 pool Burn Option. Requires a vampire with capacity above 4. Put this card in play. Pool you lose by bleeds is put on this card instead of into the blood bank. During your next untap phase burn this card and move all counters on it to your pool. If there are no counters on this card when you burn it, discard a card at random from your hand (draw back to your handsize afterwards). I think this could be an interesting way to defend against heavy bleeders...

In message <1171961498.5...@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: > >Jeff Kuta: > >> Nah, we need disciplineless bounce. ;) >I hope this is a joke. A playable disciplineless bounce would >completely destroy the game balance. An unbalanced card could destroy game balance. A balanced card need not do so. Disciplineless does not mean costless. You could add many restrictions and many costs to such a card and still leave it disciplineless and clanless - items such as pool costs, tapping or otherwise affecting ready vampires/minions, using some other resource, or whatever. >Probably the only reason of the >fact we aren't overcrowded with OBF/PRE S&B decks and Tumnimos decks >is the lack of disciplineless bounce. Ah, the sky is falling. Strong argument. [ quoted text not captured ]

> >Ector wrote: > >Probably the only reason of the > >fact we aren't overcrowded with OBF/PRE S&B decks and Tumnimos decks > >is the lack of disciplineless bounce. > > Ah, the sky is falling. > Strong argument. > James Coupe I think I've lost something here. Does this mean that if we had a disciplineless bounce card, we'd be overcrowded by OBF/PRE S&B and Tumnimos decks? What these two particular archetypes have that circumvent discliplineless bounce but don't work against the already existing bounce cards? What decks can get around bounce cards now and wouldn't be able to function if we had a disciplineless bounce cards? I'm lost. Sure, Tumnimos have the support of numbers (the whole "it's better to bleed for 2 with 5 minions than to bleed for 5 with 2minions" issue). But these decks have already been used to "circumvent" bounce or any type, and for quite a while. If you're playing the "bigger bleeds with less minions per turn" variety, having more bounce available is hardly your main concern; defending these fatties against other things is more important. Fabio "Sooner" Macedo

On 21 фев, 00:04, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <1171961498.528563.276...@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, > > Ector <E...@mail.ru> writes: > > >Jeff Kuta: > > >> Nah, we need disciplineless bounce. ;) > >I hope this is a joke. A playable disciplineless bounce would > >completely destroy the game balance. > > An unbalanced card could destroy game balance. A balanced card need not > do so. > Disciplineless does not mean costless. You could add many restrictions > and many costs to such a card and still leave it disciplineless and > clanless - items such as pool costs, tapping or otherwise affecting > ready vampires/minions, using some other resource, or whatever. Note that I'm talking about the PLAYABLE card - not about the card that cost 5 pool, for instance. But it would be very difficult (nearly impossible) to create a playable disciplineless bounce card that wouldn't completely change the metagame. At 3 pool, for instance, such card could be rather popular - if your predator is bleeding you for 3 or more, it's better to lose 3 pool AND make your prey to lose 3+ pool than just lose 3+ pool yourself. Please realize that there are many playable (and very competitive) decks that cannot bounce bleeds now. If these deck will get a possibility to bounce, this will completely change the metagame (or "destroy the current game balance"). > >Probably the only reason of the > >fact we aren't overcrowded with OBF/PRE S&B decks and Tumnimos decks > >is the lack of disciplineless bounce. > > Ah, the sky is falling. > > Strong argument. > I guess I should be more specific on this. We currently have three major S&B archetypes with Obfuscate: a). DOM/OBF. Strongest bleeds, great acceleration/bleed (Governs) and bounce. Can bleed only prey, no pool gain when bleeding, very limited combat defense. b). DEM/OBF. Moderate bleeds, usually can bounce with Telepathic Misdirections, but this require the third Discipline at superior. Usually no acceleration, since The Call cannot be used to bleed.Can bleed anyone, gains pool when bleeding (Kindred Spirits), very limited combat defense. c). PRE/OBF. Moderate bleeds, moderate acceleration/bleed (Enchant Kindred), usually CANNOT bounce (there are no clans with AUS/PRE/OBF or DOM/PRE/OBF, so it's rather difficult to find a midcap vampires with the needed disciplines, if possible at all). Can bleed only prey, gains pool when bleeding, wonderful combat defense (Magesty, Staredown). As you see, the only thing PRE/OBF is lacking to become the superior archetype is bounce. Bounce is extremely important for any S&B deck, since you not only avoid the pool loss yourself, but also apply the additional pressure on your prey. Should PRE/OBF have the playable bounce, there would be no reason of playing DOM/OBF, and the only reason to play Kindred Spirits would be the possibility to bleed anyone. The same could be said about the Tumnimos/Week of Nightmares decks. They already are very strong, usually field an army of minions, have versatile cards that combine stealth, bleed and combat protection, and the only thing they're lacking is bounce. Give them bounce, and you'll have to print a bunch of new cards to stop them! Yours, Ector

In message <1172220717.6...@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >On 21 фев, 00:04, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: >> Disciplineless does not mean costless. You could add many restrictions >> and many costs to such a card and still leave it disciplineless and >> clanless - items such as pool costs, tapping or otherwise affecting >> ready vampires/minions, using some other resource, or whatever. > >Note that I'm talking about the PLAYABLE card - not about the card >that cost 5 pool, for instance. Note that I'm talking about a variety of costs, both direct and indirect, and not about a card that costs 5 pool, for instance. >But it would be very difficult (nearly >impossible) to create a playable disciplineless bounce card that >wouldn't completely change the metagame. Would it? Disciplineless doesn't mean costless, and different costs would not lend themselves well to certain decks. >At 3 pool, for instance, such >card could be rather popular That rather depends on the rest of what the card says. You appear to have written the card text without telling the rest of us what it says. If you think that every bounce card has to simply say "Choose another Methuselah. The acting vampire is now bleeding that Methuselah.", you are wrong. >Please realize that there are many playable (and very competitive) >decks that cannot bounce bleeds now. If these deck will get a >possibility to bounce, this will completely change the metagame (or >"destroy the current game balance"). Please realize that the way *you* would create such a card is not the only way such a card could be created. >As you see, the only thing PRE/OBF is lacking to become the superior >archetype is bounce. Bounce is extremely important for any S&B deck, >since you not only avoid the pool loss yourself, but also apply the >additional pressure on your prey. Should PRE/OBF have the playable >bounce, there would be no reason of playing DOM/OBF, and the only >reason to play Kindred Spirits would be the possibility to bleed >anyone. It would be possible to craft a disciplineless card that wasn't attractive to PRE/OBF stealth-bleed decks. Example: how about a bounce card that stayed on a vampire and destroyed their own ability to bleed? Or their own ability to stealth? Or something else? Example: how about a card that was *denied* to a particular discipline? "Vampires with Obfuscate cannot play this card." Example: how about picking an interesting sect? Still disciplineless, but if the card is available primarily to the Sabbat or the Laibon or..., it's a rather different kettle of fish. Example: if the card is a Master: Out of Turn rather than a reaction, the card becomes somewhat more expensive. >The same could be said about the Tumnimos/Week of Nightmares decks. >They already are very strong, usually field an army of minions, have >versatile cards that combine stealth, bleed and combat protection, and >the only thing they're lacking is bounce. Give them bounce, and you'll >have to print a bunch of new cards to stop them! Again, you've written some card text in your head and have assumed that all disciplineless bounce cards would look the same. I can think of a half-dozen ways of writing one that was different to each of the other cards in interesting and subtle ways in a heartbeat. A capacity restriction, for example, would keep it out of the way of Tumnimos. Alternatively, a requirement for a unique vampire - Tumnimos, The Embrace et al are non-unique. Just because you lack the necessary imagination to think about difficult subjects in ways that aren't blindingly obvious doesn't mean that everyone else does. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Feb 23, 9:46 pm, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <1172220717.623762.287...@a75g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>, > > Ector <E...@mail.ru> writes: > Note that I'm talking about a variety of costs, both direct and > indirect, and not about a card that costs 5 pool, for instance. Now I'm waiting for your example of a playable disciplineless bounce that could be played by the Rush decks, for instance, but could not be played by PRE/OBF and Tumnimos decks. This task seems nearly impossible for me, so I hope that a person much more creative and enlightened than humble myself should demonstrate it. Empty words "it's possible" cost almost nothing. > > >At 3 pool, for instance, such > >card could be rather popular > > That rather depends on the rest of what the card says. You appear to > have written the card text without telling the rest of us what it says. > > If you think that every bounce card has to simply say "Choose another > Methuselah. The acting vampire is now bleeding that Methuselah.", you > are wrong. Yes, I assume that a playable bounce card should allow bouncing to your prey. If you are going to create another My Enemy's Enemy, don't expect it to be widely used. Would you like to be bled by your prey just because your grandprey cannot bounce to his prey? You may be happy if you play an intercept deck, but does everybody plays intercept? Or maybe you suggest to bleed somebody crosstable, oh creative one? What a wonderful effect would be "bleed a Methuselah with maximum pool instead", right? :) > > Please realize that the way *you* would create such a card is not the > only way such a card could be created. I'm ready to appreciate *your* creations, then. > It would be possible to craft a disciplineless card that wasn't > attractive to PRE/OBF stealth-bleed decks. > > Example: how about a bounce card that stayed on a vampire and destroyed > their own ability to bleed? Or their own ability to stealth? > Or something else? Destroy their ability to bleed? OK, that Ankh-sen-Sutekh wouldn't bleed next turn. She would play Enticement instead :) Or Waters of Duat. If you suggest to COMPLETELY remove the ability to bleed, this would hit not only S&B. Bleed is the most basic action. The same about stealth - not only S&B decks use stealth. > Example: how about a card that was *denied* to a particular discipline? > "Vampires with Obfuscate cannot play this card." Oh really? Vampires with Obfuscate, Chimerstry, Protean or Obtenebration, actually. This will hit most decks that need such card. And after all, Setites will create Waters of Duat to defend against rushes and play your bounce. I you won't restrict the capacity too, of course. > Example: how about picking an interesting sect? Still disciplineless, > but if the card is available primarily to the Sabbat or the > Laibon or..., it's a rather different kettle of fish. There are Setites of all sects. Ezekiel is Sabbat, Ankh-sen-Sutekh is Independent, Zhenga is Laibon, Amenophobis is Camarilla, and ALL can be used in one crypt. There are Ravnos of all sects as well: Tsunda, Paul Forrest, Gharston Roland and Tatiana Stepanova. And Mata Hari can play cards of all sects. > Example: if the card is a Master: Out of Turn rather than a reaction, > the card becomes somewhat more expensive. Sure, but this will only prohibit it in Rush decks that cannot have a lot of masters. S&B would still use it happily. > > Again, you've written some card text in your head and have assumed that > all disciplineless bounce cards would look the same. I can think of a > half-dozen ways of writing one that was different to each of the other > cards in interesting and subtle ways in a heartbeat. If you can think of them, please think twice and then let the other people know the results. I would be very happy to learn something new, as usual. > A capacity restriction, for example, would keep it out of the way of > Tumnimos. Alternatively, a requirement for a unique vampire - Tumnimos, > The Embrace et al are non-unique. Tumnimos decks have larger vampires to play Tumnimos. > Just because you lack the necessary imagination to think about difficult > subjects in ways that aren't blindingly obvious doesn't mean that > everyone else does. There is absolutely no point of writing such things without the examples of cards that YOU'd like to create. Yours, Ector

On Feb 24, 4:44 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > Yes, I assume that a playable bounce card should allow bouncing to > your prey. If you are going to create another My Enemy's Enemy, don't > expect it to be widely used. Would you like to be bled by your prey > just because your grandprey cannot bounce to his prey? You may be > happy if you play an intercept deck, but does everybody plays > intercept? Or maybe you suggest to bleed somebody crosstable, oh > creative one? What a wonderful effect would be "bleed a Methuselah > with maximum pool instead", right? :) You seem to be missing another major deterrent to decks playing My Enemy's Enemy instead of Telepathic Misdirection. Target exemption is an issue, yes. But the main reason why TM is preferred is because you can't play MEE if you are bled by someone else other than your predator. Considering how often we see bounce in competitive play, MEE has a way bigger chance of being useless when you most need (i.e., escape from being ousted by a big bleed) it than TM. That's why it's used sparingly, if ever. Bounce is better when you can get your predator to do the work for you, yeah. But the main use of it is to avoid losing pool, which ousts you. > > Example: how about a bounce card that stayed on a vampire and destroyed > > their own ability to bleed? Or their own ability to stealth? > > Or something else? > > Destroy their ability to bleed? OK, that Ankh-sen-Sutekh wouldn't > bleed next turn. She would play Enticement instead :) Or Waters of > Duat. Which, as far as I recall, means it's not an OBF/PRE deck anymore. It's either a breed deck, or a Enticement deck. So your original point doesn't apply to such a card. > If you suggest to COMPLETELY remove the ability to bleed, this > would hit not only S&B. Bleed is the most basic action. The same about > stealth - not only S&B decks use stealth. Which seems a fair trade to limit disciplineless bounce to decks that most need it now, such as combat decks. That's the point. Combat decks hardly win by bleeding for 1, and having a minion or two with that ability removed would rarely hamper those decks' efforts to win. Just play it on the rushers and use wakes. Myself, I'd be wary to hamper stealth because good combat decks sometimes can spare some slots to stealth cards, so they can rush the right target (weaker vampires or vampires with Fame). But removing the ability to bleed seems nice. > > Example: how about a card that was *denied* to a particular discipline? > > "Vampires with Obfuscate cannot play this card." > > Oh really? Vampires with Obfuscate, Chimerstry, Protean or > Obtenebration, actually. This will hit most decks that need such card. > And after all, Setites will create Waters of Duat to defend against > rushes and play your bounce. I you won't restrict the capacity too, of > course. All Obtenebration-enabled clans already have Dominate to make such a card ever playable at all to them. The others could be included in the wording, yeah. But in any case, I'd like to point out that Waters of Duat allows the player to get a skill card from the library. Nothing stops anyone from including Dominate to give the critters. In fact, I've seen a couple of Corruption-based decks that do exactly that, so they can concentrate the "real" minions into going forward while the weenies block and bounce. And this didn't make any such deck become more prevalent in the tournament scene than any other Setite deck. :D (let me anticipate you on the whole "but it costs a blood and they have to hunt first and!..." So make the disciplineless bounce card cost a blood too. That's the easy part to fix.) > There are Setites of all sects. Ezekiel is Sabbat, Ankh-sen-Sutekh is > Independent, Zhenga is Laibon, Amenophobis is Camarilla, and ALL can > be used in one crypt. There are Ravnos of all sects as well: Tsunda, > Paul Forrest, Gharston Roland and Tatiana Stepanova. Which means your crypt has to be designed around having a member of a certain sect around. It is a significant cost. Try this for any reason (say, a fairly common Setite deck archetype such as Enticement or pure stealth bleed with the crypt changed to accomodate 4x copies of Amenophobis so he can play whatever Camarilla card you may) and tell us how well it goes when compared to the more focused version of the deck. > And Mata Hari can > play cards of all sects. Mata Hari is still Red List, you know. If Mata Hari is the only vampire able to bounce in your deck, it will be even a bigger target than she already is. > > Example: if the card is a Master: Out of Turn rather than a reaction, > > the card becomes somewhat more expensive. > > Sure, but this will only prohibit it in Rush decks that cannot have a > lot of masters. S&B would still use it happily. That's why I don't like this solution, also. But it still tends towards James' point way more than yours. There are a lot of costs that can be applied, and some will appeal more to some decks than others. Your generic "the sky is falling and decks X and Y will dominate [no matter the costs]" argument doesn't hold weight under that consideration. > If you can think of them, please think twice and then let the other > people know the results. I would be very happy to learn something new, > as usual. As I see it, some interesting examples were already been given. So let's take the "sky is falling" argument aside and start looking at the options. > > A capacity restriction, for example, would keep it out of the way of > > Tumnimos. Alternatively, a requirement for a unique vampire - Tumnimos, > > The Embrace et al are non-unique. > > Tumnimos decks have larger vampires to play Tumnimos. Which will, most probably, be tapped since they are there to play Tumnimos. Other option would be to require tapping to bounce - not as in Telepathic Misdirection, but as in Determine, "tap to bounce" instead of "bounce. tap this reacting vampire". Then these decks would need to make room not only for the bounce card but to untap cards also, such as Freak Drive or whatever. That would make the deck compromise significant slots, to the point of making its forward momentum suffer some. I've played Tumnimos decks that both try to bloat via Tribute to the Master + Patshiv or forget it to concentrate on going forward quickly (oust before being ousted), and I can safely say that given the situation, the latter is way more effective than the former. Swap the TttM+Patshiv module with a Freak Drive+[disciplineless bounce] one and you have the same problem, with the added deterrence of reaction cards having a greater chance to clog your hand than an action, such as Patshiv. > There is absolutely no point of writing such things without the > examples of cards that YOU'd like to create. Which reads, basically, "my argument is right period no matter if I had no clear grounds on why it is so". Fact is, your assertion doesn't take into account a lot of things and so it's your assertion that needs to address them in the first place. Some general guidelines have been given anyway, in the light of meaningful debate. Now show us how decks X and Y will benefit greatly no matter the cost of the card. Fabio "Sooner" Macedo

Forget the last message, please. It got out before proper editing. On Feb 24, 4:44 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > Yes, I assume that a playable bounce card should allow bouncing to > your prey. If you are going to create another My Enemy's Enemy, don't > expect it to be widely used. Would you like to be bled by your prey > just because your grandprey cannot bounce to his prey? You may be > happy if you play an intercept deck, but does everybody plays > intercept? Or maybe you suggest to bleed somebody crosstable, oh > creative one? What a wonderful effect would be "bleed a Methuselah > with maximum pool instead", right? :) You seem to be missing another major deterrent to decks playing My Enemy's Enemy instead of Telepathic Misdirection. Target exemption is an issue, yes. But the main reason why TM is preferred is because you can't play MEE if you are being bled by someone else other than your predator. Considering how often we see bounce in competitive play, MEE has a way bigger chance of being useless when you most need it (i.e., escape from being ousted by a big bleed) than TM. That's why it's used sparingly, if ever. Bounce is better when you can get your predator to do the work for you, yeah. But the main use of it is to avoid losing pool, which ousts you. Any card that does this is usable, even if it bleeds crosstable, especially by decks that can't bounce or bloat easily any other way. The costs should only address the fact that such a card can't be easily played by every other deck, so not to turn the present bounce cards obsolete or turn the game into a bounce fest. > > Example: how about a bounce card that stayed on a vampire and destroyed > > their own ability to bleed? Or their own ability to stealth? > > Or something else? > > Destroy their ability to bleed? OK, that Ankh-sen-Sutekh wouldn't > bleed next turn. She would play Enticement instead :) Or Waters of > Duat. Which, as far as I recall, means it's not an OBF/PRE deck anymore. It's either a breed deck, or an Enticement deck. So your original point doesn't apply to such a card. > If you suggest to COMPLETELY remove the ability to bleed, this > would hit not only S&B. Bleed is the most basic action. The same about > stealth - not only S&B decks use stealth. Which seems a fair trade to limit disciplineless bounce to decks that most need it now, such as combat decks. That's the point. Combat decks hardly win by bleeding for 1, and having a minion or two with that ability removed would rarely hamper those decks' efforts to win. Just play it on the rushers and use wakes on them to bounce. That in itself would make the card handy but hardly a staple, so no deck would suddenly start to dominate the scene. Myself, I'd be wary to hamper stealth because good combat decks sometimes can spare some slots to stealth cards, so they can rush the "right" target (weaker vampires, specifically problematic vampires in that given game, or vampires with Fame). But removing the ability to bleed seems a nice option. > > Example: how about a card that was *denied* to a particular discipline? > > "Vampires with Obfuscate cannot play this card." > > Oh really? Vampires with Obfuscate, Chimerstry, Protean or > Obtenebration, actually. This will hit most decks that need such card. > And after all, Setites will create Waters of Duat to defend against > rushes and play your bounce. I you won't restrict the capacity too, of > course. All Obtenebration-enabled clans already have Dominate to make such a card ever playable at all to them. The others could be included in the wording, yeah. But in any case, I'd like to point out that Waters of Duat allows the player to get a skill card from the library, and Dominate is a fairly common out-of- clan discipline to the Setites (Black Lotus has it at superior with capacity 5 only, and is also able to play Waters). Nothing stops anyone from including Dominate to give the critters. In fact, I've seen a couple of Corruption-based decks that do exactly that, so they can concentrate the "real" minions into going forward while the weenies block and bounce. And this didn't make any such deck become more prevalent in the tournament scene than any other Setite deck. :D (let me anticipate you on the whole "but it costs a blood and they have to hunt first and!..." So make the disciplineless bounce card cost a blood too. That's the easy part to fix.) > There are Setites of all sects. Ezekiel is Sabbat, Ankh-sen-Sutekh is > Independent, Zhenga is Laibon, Amenophobis is Camarilla, and ALL can > be used in one crypt. There are Ravnos of all sects as well: Tsunda, > Paul Forrest, Gharston Roland and Tatiana Stepanova. Which means your crypt has to be designed around having a member of a certain sect around. It is a significant cost. Try this for any reason (say, build a fairly common Setite deck archetype such as Enticement or pure stealth bleed with 80 cards and then change the crypt to accommodate 4x copies of Amenophobis and 10 copies of any Camarilla card you may) and tell us how well it goes when compared to the more focused version of the deck. Good luck. > And Mata Hari can > play cards of all sects. Mata Hari is still Red List, you know. If Mata Hari is the only vampire able to bounce in your deck, it will be even a bigger target than she already is. That, and she's just one vampire. Alone, she won't make Ravnos Tumnimos decks dominate the scene just because she can now play a sect- based bounce card. > > Example: if the card is a Master: Out of Turn rather than a reaction, > > the card becomes somewhat more expensive. > > Sure, but this will only prohibit it in Rush decks that cannot have a > lot of masters. S&B would still use it happily. That's why I don't like this solution, also. But it still tends towards James' point way more than yours. There are a lot of costs that can be applied, and some will appeal more to some decks than others, some won't. Your generic "make a disciplineless bounce card and decks X and Y will dominate [no matter the costs]" argument doesn't hold weight under that consideration. > If you can think of them, please think twice and then let the other > people know the results. I would be very happy to learn something new, > as usual. As I see it, some interesting examples were already been given. So let's take the "sky is falling" argument aside and start looking at the options. > > A capacity restriction, for example, would keep it out of the way of > > Tumnimos. Alternatively, a requirement for a unique vampire - Tumnimos, > > The Embrace et al are non-unique. > > Tumnimos decks have larger vampires to play Tumnimos. Which will, most probably, be tapped since they are there to play Tumnimos. Other option would be to require tapping to bounce - not as in Telepathic Misdirection, but as in Determine, "tap to bounce" instead of "bounce. tap this reacting vampire". Then these decks would need to make room not only for the bounce card but to untap cards also, such as Freak Drive or whatever. That would make the deck compromise significant slots, to the point of making its forward momentum suffer somewhat. I've played Tumnimos decks that both try to bloat via Tribute to the Master + Patshiv as a defense mechanism (since they don't get bounce) or forget it all to concentrate on going forward quickly (oust before being ousted), and I can safely say that depending on the situation, the latter is way more effective than the former. Swap the TttM+Patshiv module with a Freak Drive+[disciplineless bounce] one and you have the same problem, with the added deterrence of reaction cards having a greater chance to clog your hand than an action, such as Patshiv. That means a disciplineless bounce card would still only help me in some situations but not in others, so it won't be a no-brainer inclusion in such a deck. Thus no "dominating the scene". > There is absolutely no point of writing such things without the > examples of cards that YOU'd like to create. Which reads, basically, "my argument is right period no matter if I offered no clear grounds on why it is so". Fact is, your assertion doesn't take into account an awful lot of [ quoted text not captured ]

On 26 feb, 15:21, "Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo" <fabio.soo...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Feb 24, 4:44 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > > > Yes, I assume that a playable bounce card should allow bouncing to > > your prey. If you are going to create another My Enemy's Enemy, don't > > expect it to be widely used. Would you like to be bled by your prey > > just because your grandprey cannot bounce to his prey? You may be > > happy if you play an intercept deck, but does everybody plays > > intercept? Or maybe you suggest to bleed somebody crosstable, oh > > creative one? What a wonderful effect would be "bleed a Methuselah > > with maximum pool instead", right? :) > > You seem to be missing another major deterrent to decks playing My > Enemy's Enemy instead of Telepathic Misdirection. > Target exemption is an issue, yes. But the main reason why TM is > preferred is because you can't play MEE if you are bled by someone > else other than your predator. > Considering how often we see bounce in competitive play, MEE has a way > bigger chance of being useless when you most need (i.e., escape from > being ousted by a big bleed) it than TM. That's why it's used > sparingly, if ever. Sparingly, I'll grant you that. But most Auspex decks will use a couple of them. Why? 1. They are free, and therefore easily cyclable for the +1 intercept, both during play and when there are only 2 players left. 2. for wall decks, the 3-player endgame is a VERY important step toward a GW. And in the 3 player game MEE isn't really that bad. 3. in a DI heavy environment they allow a minion to bounce even after a DI'd Telepathic Misdirection.

> Sparingly, I'll grant you that. But most Auspex decks will use a > couple of them. > Why? > 1. They are free, and therefore easily cyclable for the +1 intercept, > both during play and when there are only 2 players left. > 2. for wall decks, the 3-player endgame is a VERY important step > toward a GW. And in the 3 player game MEE isn't really that bad. > 3. in a DI heavy environment they allow a minion to bounce even after > a DI'd Telepathic Misdirection. Sure. That's why I usually make AUS decks with [X] copies of Telepathic Misdirection as needed, and then swap 1-2 of them for MEE according to its availability in my card pool. What I was trying to point out was that the implied idea that a disciplineless bounce card with target exemption would be too bad to even use was built around MEE's example. That's bull, MEE has a completely different issues to deal with when using it. Fabio "Sooner" Macedo

In message <1172502322.4...@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo <fabio....@gmail.com> writes: >What I was trying to point out was that the implied idea that a >disciplineless bounce card with target exemption would be too bad to >even use was built around MEE's example. That's bull, MEE has a >completely different issues to deal with when using it. I'm not sure that target exemption would be a huge problem, or a forced target. I mean, some decks want to bounce cross-table when they need to (e.g. to piss off the Arika deck by making it deal with a bleed for 4), so a limited selection of targets would be possible. Making it only your prey wouldn't hurt too much, and if people wanted the added flexibility of pissing off the Arika deck, they could go for a disciplined bounce. Alternatively, you could make certain targets more expensive, in some fashion. This is, of course, separate to whether disciplineless bounce is a good idea, in the round. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1172499663....@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo <fabio....@gmail.com> writes: >On Feb 24, 4:44 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: >> If you suggest to COMPLETELY remove the ability to bleed, this >> would hit not only S&B. Bleed is the most basic action. The same about >> stealth - not only S&B decks use stealth. > >Which seems a fair trade to limit disciplineless bounce to decks that >most need it now, such as combat decks. >That's the point. > >Combat decks hardly win by bleeding for 1, and having a minion or two >with that ability removed would rarely hamper those decks' efforts to >win. Just play it on the rushers and use wakes. You could figure it in different ways, too. For example, as you say, a combat deck is most often bleeding for one or, perhaps, two - Computer Hacking in weenie combat decks, for example. Whereas the feared OBF/PRE bleed deck (OF DOOM) is bleeding for more. So one feasible way of screwing things up would be to cap the bleed at a certain level, such as making it impossible to bleed for more than 2, or more than 1, depending on how you do things. This is sort of like Protected Resources, in reverse. Nor does the destruction have to be completely permanent. For example, if you put a certain number of counters on the in-play card that count down over time (a turn? several turns? burn blood to get rid of them? burn the Edge to get rid of them?), it can piss off the bleed deck using it while not hampering a combat deck using it - the combat deck can carry on fighting, whereas the bleed deck doesn't have much else to do. >Myself, I'd be wary to hamper stealth because good combat decks >sometimes can spare some slots to stealth cards, so they can rush the >right target (weaker vampires or vampires with Fame). But removing the >ability to bleed seems nice. Hampering stealth can be targeted, though. For example, make it impossible to get stealth on actions you don't want them to, but leave it in tact on others. For example, we might stretch quite far and get: Foo Reaction, Requires a vampire Only usable when you are being bled. The acting minion is now bleeding your prey instead. Put this card on this vampire. This vampire's bleed actions, political actions, and actions to put a vampire in play are always at zero stealth (ignore the excess); effects that add stealth to this minion cannot be used. There could certainly be other costs on such a card. This is merely dealing with the basic mechanic of hampering a vampire without over- hampering them. Now, this has some difficulties, such as whether you want to give it to, for example, intercept walls that don't act a whole lot. For example, the Guruhi and (non-Dominate) currently lack consistent access to bounce, but can both potentially try to put together decent Animalism walls. >> > Example: if the card is a Master: Out of Turn rather than a reaction, >> > the card becomes somewhat more expensive. >> >> Sure, but this will only prohibit it in Rush decks that cannot have a >> lot of masters. S&B would still use it happily. > >That's why I don't like this solution, also. There's also another consideration. Disciplineless means it is *available* to many decks. It doesn't mean it's *suitable* for every deck. For example, Elder Intervention isn't suitable for every deck, though it's disciplineless and so available to them. (Things like allies and hunters excepted, obviously.) If you wanted to expand the range of bleed bounce available AND you decided that you wanted to do it a disciplineless fashion, there's not much problem with it not being perfect for every deck. Indeed, it would probably be difficult to make it so. You could have a disciplineless bleed bounce, however it work, that was suitable for some of the decks that currently don't have access to it, and create some other card that might expand the ranges of bleed defence in a different way for other decks. No disciplineless card has to be perfect for every deck. >> > A capacity restriction, for example, would keep it out of the way of >> > Tumnimos. Alternatively, a requirement for a unique vampire - Tumnimos, >> > The Embrace et al are non-unique. >> >> Tumnimos decks have larger vampires to play Tumnimos. > >Which will, most probably, be tapped since they are there to play >Tumnimos. Not only that, but using up blood counters by making the bleed bounce cost blood would slow down the Tumnimos. Of course, it doesn't have to be a capacity restriction per se. You could make it a bonus to the card. For example, any vampire could play it, but if the bleed was for X, their capacity would need to be 2X. So 2 caps can bounce a bleed for 1, 4 caps can bounce a bleed for 2, and so on. (This is just an example, of course.) >> There is absolutely no point of writing such things without the >> examples of cards that YOU'd like to create. > >Which reads, basically, "my argument is right period no matter if I >had no clear grounds on why it is so". Pretty much. Ector is like that. Remember: - Rotschreck is broken, and he doesn't know why you burn Madness Network - Bowl of Convergence has ruined stealth bleed - Michael Luther is broken - he doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type - !Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat decks at once without putting any combat defence in It's just how he is, really. An unfortunate problem, but one that he can solve if he puts some effort in to not being quite so close-minded. Of course, if you do give examples, the next thing that happens is "But that example doesn't work in this other deck it's not designed to address", as Ector drags the goalposts around. Which is pretty silly, but he does that too. No-one really knows why. It doesn't actually help him do much, except look like a muppet. [ quoted text not captured ]

Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo: > On Feb 24, 4:44 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > > Yes, I assume that a playable bounce card should allow bouncing to > > your prey. If you are going to create another My Enemy's Enemy, don't > > expect it to be widely used. Would you like to be bled by your prey > > just because your grandprey cannot bounce to his prey? You may be > > happy if you play an intercept deck, but does everybody plays > > intercept? Or maybe you suggest to bleed somebody crosstable, oh > > creative one? What a wonderful effect would be "bleed a Methuselah > > with maximum pool instead", right? :) > > You seem to be missing another major deterrent to decks playing My > Enemy's Enemy instead of Telepathic Misdirection. > Target exemption is an issue, yes. But the main reason why TM is > preferred is because you can't play MEE if you are bled by someone > else other than your predator. > Considering how often we see bounce in competitive play, MEE has a way > bigger chance of being useless when you most need (i.e., escape from > being ousted by a big bleed) it than TM. That's why it's used > sparingly, if ever. According to your logic, the main goal is avoiding the bleed. Do you think that if MEE would allow you to bounce any bleed, to any other player except for the bleeder and your prey, it would be MORE playable? Actually, that card would be horrible, since one of the best features of MEE is that it allows bouncing to your prey when there are only three players left. We are talking about bleed bounce, not bleed reduction. If a bleeder is sure that you cannot bounce to your prey (so that he isn't going to help you to oust your prey and get 6 pool), he can pump his bleed to the sky. Random bounce like "I don't want to take this bleed, so you will take it" is horrible. We had a novice Tzimisce player that had 6 MEE in his deck just to save blood of his vampires. Guess how often his grandpredator helped his predator to oust him? :) > Bounce is better when you can get your predator to do the work for > you, yeah. But the main use of it is to avoid losing pool, which ousts > you. If the main use is avoid losing pool for you, let's talk about the disciplineless bleed reduction instead of bounce :) Or look at my Restless Guard suggestion at start of this topic - it helps you to avoid losing pool. Bounce is much more powerful, it isn't just a defense, but an offense, too. > > > > Destroy their ability to bleed? OK, that Ankh-sen-Sutekh wouldn't > > bleed next turn. She would play Enticement instead :) Or Waters of > > Duat. > > Which, as far as I recall, means it's not an OBF/PRE deck anymore. > It's either a breed deck, or a Enticement deck. > So your original point doesn't apply to such a card. Huh? Why a deck that plays Enticements is "not an OBF/PRE deck anymore"? You need to play only one Enticement per turn, so you need just one vampire with Serpentis. I had an OBF/PRE deck with 5 Enticements, it's just a good "bleed for 3" that cannot be bounced or reduced. > > > If you suggest to COMPLETELY remove the ability to bleed, this > > would hit not only S&B. Bleed is the most basic action. The same about > > stealth - not only S&B decks use stealth. > > Which seems a fair trade to limit disciplineless bounce to decks that > most need it now, such as combat decks. > That's the point. > > Combat decks hardly win by bleeding for 1, and having a minion or two > with that ability removed would rarely hamper those decks' efforts to > win. Just play it on the rushers and use wakes. AFAIK, combat decks bleed quite regularly. Tier of Souls is a good card, and Animalism clans need the card most (Nosferatu, Gangrels, Akunanse all have no disciplines for bounce). Besides, even if you remove the bleed ability of one vampire, this alone won't prevent S&B decks from using the card: that vampire would just be assigned to "bleed and block duty". What about something like this: Name: Guarding the Base Type: Reaction Cost: 1 pool Only usable when you are being bled. Tap this reacting minion. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now attempting to bleed that Methuselah. Your minions cannot bleed next turn. The last restriction should really prevent using this card in S&B decks, but won't hurt other deck types much. > > > > Example: how about a card that was *denied* to a particular discipline? > > > "Vampires with Obfuscate cannot play this card." > > > > Oh really? Vampires with Obfuscate, Chimerstry, Protean or > > Obtenebration, actually. This will hit most decks that need such card. > > And after all, Setites will create Waters of Duat to defend against > > rushes and play your bounce. I you won't restrict the capacity too, of > > course. > > All Obtenebration-enabled clans already have Dominate to make such a > card ever playable at all to them. Sure. I just tried to note that creating a disciplineless bleed card is very dangerous, and it would be nearly impossible to avoid strengthening the already strong decks without clunky restrictions. You can replace "Obtenebration" with "Dementation", for instance, as it's possible to get some stealth with Dementation even without Obfuscate. > The others could be included in the wording, yeah. But in any case, > I'd like to point out that Waters of Duat allows the player to get a > skill card from the library. Nothing stops anyone from including > Dominate to give the critters. In fact, I've seen a couple of > Corruption-based decks that do exactly that, so they can concentrate > the "real" minions into going forward while the weenies block and > bounce. > > And this didn't make any such deck become more prevalent in the > tournament scene than any other Setite deck. :D > > (let me anticipate you on the whole "but it costs a blood and they > have to hunt first and!..." So make the disciplineless bounce card > cost a blood too. That's the easy part to fix.) I really can't understand why do you anticipate weak and flawed arguments from me. I'm always trying to wager a civilized discussion - and that should mean, IMHO, that all participants are willing to respect other opinions, they are happy to learn something new and ready to admit when they're wrong. Thanks for the Waters of Duat/Dominate idea - I've missed it someway. Surely, the blood cost of Waters and hunt doesn't matter here. I think that the most likely reason is the opportunity cost. So you're going to put 5-6 Deflections that playable only by Waters (Black Lotus doesn't have Presence, so she isn't appropriate for this deck). How many Waters are you going to play, then? And how many Dominate skill cards? If you play Dominate on some vampire, you'll need to leave him untapped or put Wakes (OBF/PRE decks usually have no Wakes since they cannot block or bounce). The opportunity cost is too high. A disciplineless bounce would easily justify adding Wakes, without a significant opportunity cost. Besides, Deflection costs a blood, and if you have only one Waters with Dominate, it would have to hunt after Deflection and it wouldn't be able to play another Deflection next turn without Wake. This usually demonstrates that you are defenseless. > > > There are Setites of all sects. Ezekiel is Sabbat, Ankh-sen-Sutekh is > > Independent, Zhenga is Laibon, Amenophobis is Camarilla, and ALL can > > be used in one crypt. There are Ravnos of all sects as well: Tsunda, > > Paul Forrest, Gharston Roland and Tatiana Stepanova. > > Which means your crypt has to be designed around having a member of a > certain sect around. It is a significant cost. > Try this for any reason (say, a fairly common Setite deck archetype > such as Enticement or pure stealth bleed with the crypt changed to > accomodate 4x copies of Amenophobis so he can play whatever Camarilla > card you may) and tell us how well it goes when compared to the more > focused version of the deck. I can use two copies plus some Summon the Serpents. Summon the Serpent is a decent acceleration, and it's good even if you already have Amenophobis. As well as some Effective Managements - sometimes it's good to have extra minions or generate pool with Enchant Kindred. And I could use Into the Fire/Out of the Frying Pan to get a needed sect if I could play a card like Deflection, but requiring a sect instead of Dominate. At least, they are trifles, unlike Dominate skill cards. I'd say that such deck would be stronger that the "more focused version". > > > And Mata Hari can > > play cards of all sects. > > Mata Hari is still Red List, you know. > If Mata Hari is the only vampire able to bounce in your deck, it will > be even a bigger target than she already is. Probably so. But Ravnos have Combat Ends and dodges in large quantities, as they are combined with stealth. So Mata Hari can survive long enough to fetch Secure Haven or Priority Shift (for Tsunda) with Sibyl's Tongue. > But it still tends towards James' point way more than yours. There are > a lot of costs that can be applied, and some will appeal more to some > decks than others. Your generic "the sky is falling and decks X and Y > will dominate [no matter the costs]" argument doesn't hold weight > under that consideration. "The sky is falling" is a courtesy of Mr. Coupe - so you should address to him about it. I just said that making already very strong decks even stronger would be a disaster that any sane designer should avoid at all costs. Actually, OBF/PRE and Tumnimos are just EXAMPLES of the strong decks that could use the new disciplineless bounce. Yes, it's possible to create a card that will be unusable in these decks (Guarding the Base, proposed above, is one of such cards), but I cannot guarantee that no strong deck would become too strong with it. What about a midcap Obf/ Pre voting deck, for instance? A good designer should be cautious. That's why I prefer bleed defense without bounce, like my Restless Guard. It's relatively safe, and it isn't going to "break" any deck, but it's still very playable. > > > If you can think of them, please think twice and then let the other > > people know the results. I would be very happy to learn something new, > > as usual. > > As I see it, some interesting examples were already been given. > So let's take the "sky is falling" argument aside and start looking at > the options. Once again, "the sky is falling" aren't my words at all. "The sky CAN fall" would be closer to my opinion. I assume that nobody here is willing to completely change the metagame (in case you're brave enough, cheers to you and let's finish this discussion, since I don't want that to happen). Bounce is defense combined with offense, and chances of unpredicted changes of the metagame after creating the new bounce card are 100 times larger than the chances for the pure defensive card. That's why I prefer creating purely defensive card to a disciplineless bounce. If you're talking about "a disciplineless bounce for the Rush decks", I happily agree that it's needed. I really like the idea of Trophy:Bounce (sorry for forgetting the author's name). A combat card like "Only usable when opposing vampire goes to torpor. Put this card on the opposing vampire. You may burn it to bounce a bleed" would be nice. But we were talking about the generic bounce card, which would be too dangerous, IMHO. > > > There is absolutely no point of writing such things without the > > examples of cards that YOU'd like to create. > > Which reads, basically, "my argument is right period no matter if I > had no clear grounds on why it is so". Absolutely not. This reads "There is no point of accusing me in lack of creativity without demonstrating your superior creativity first". Doesn't it sounds logical to you? I don't know why do you anticipate a weak arguments from me, but, unfortunately, I can safely anticipate harassment or even personal insults from Mr.Coupe, and I'm tired of that. Mr. Coupe knows that suggesting cards that could "break" some decks would be silly, so he avoids that. I know that as well, so I'm also trying to avoid suggesting such cards. Is there any reason for accusing me of lack of creativity? I could create million of disciplineless bounce cards, but I prefer not to do this. And yes, I cannot create a disciplineless bounce card without a special trigger like Trophy or "whenever this vampire torporizes another vampire" and be sure that it won't break anything. In fact, I don't even think that such card is needed at all. Yours, Ector

Here is a nice one for ya. If it would been released nobody would play it. Cheap Television Loan Reaction Reduce a bleed by X. Put this card in play with X dept counters. Each discard phase a dept counter is removed and you lose 2 pool. Any minion can remove a counter as an action. Burn this card when the last counter is removed. Greetz, Oortje

On Mar 4, 11:38 am, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <1172499663.247801.33...@h3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, Fabio > 'Sooner' Macedo <fabio.soo...@gmail.com> writes: > >Which reads, basically, "my argument is right period no matter if I > >had no clear grounds on why it is so". > > Pretty much. Ector is like that. Remember: > > - Rotschreck is broken, and he doesn't know why you burn Madness Network > - Bowl of Convergence has ruined stealth bleed > - Michael Luther is broken > - he doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type > - !Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat > decks at once without putting any combat defence in Hmm. I almost forgot those. Seems like a progression. Considering this, I wonder why even bother with reasoning. It's astounding how we have to jump from "decks X and Y will dominate the scene" to "decks X and Y are just examples" according to the need to validate this month's V:tES prophecy of doom. Fabio "Sooner" Macedo

On Mar 5, 7:58 am, "Oortje" <internetoor...@hotmail.com> wrote: > Cheap Television Loan > Reaction > Reduce a bleed by X. Put this card in play with X dept counters. Each > discard phase a dept counter is removed and you lose 2 pool. Any > minion can remove a counter as an action. Burn this card when the last > counter is removed. I'd just like to jump in here and use this as an opportunity to again agitate for nice, utilitarian, non auspex bleed reduction, rather than all sorts of crazy, complicated master cards and counters and whatever. This has come up before, and really, I can't see how it could possibly hurt to create flexible, non Auspex bleed reduction cards. For example: Obfuscate Reduction: (mod/react) obf: +1 stealth. OBF: Reduce a bleed by 2. Celerity Reduction: (com/react) cel: press or manuver. CEL: Reduce a bleed by 2. Presence Reduction: (act/react) pre: (D) bleed at +1. PRE: Reduce a bleed by 2. And so on. Yes, this would devalue the currency of Telepathic Counter. But Telepathic Counter is already pretty low on the useful ladder, and it could easily be replaced by more useful cards (say a card like aus: +1 intercept/AUS reduce a bleed by 1 and/or a card that costs a blood and is aus reduce a bleed by 2/AUS bounce a bleed). Bleed reduction is a wildly under utilized mechanic that *could* be useful and common, but up till now has been underpowered (Telepathic Counter, generally speaking) or just garbage (pretty much all the other bleed reduction cards that are highly conditional and reduce a bleed by 1). To date, a couple new reduction cards have been printed that are actually moderately useful, both from Legacies of Blood (Ancestor's Insight and Terra Incongnita) and the primary reason for their usefulness is their flexibility (Ancestors doubles as +1 bleed and Terra Incognita saves you from being bounced to), but due to the Laibon only cost, they are not going to see much use in the long run. But they are an interesting, and potentially good, step into the pool that I think should be utilized. -Peter

Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo: > > - Rotschreck is broken, and he doesn't know why you burn Madness Network > > - Bowl of Convergence has ruined stealth bleed > > - Michael Luther is broken > > - he doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type > > - !Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat > > decks at once without putting any combat defence in > > Hmm. I almost forgot those. Oh really, so I'm insane, right? Aren't you too quick to judge? > > - Rotschreck is broken, and he doesn't know why you burn Madness Network I've never said that Rotschreck is broken - only its combination with Madness Network. MN is The Easiest Way to Deceive Newbies (TM), because it's rather difficult to understand why they should burn it, especially if the newbie isn't predator or prey of Madness Network player. I have a lot of newbies and casual players here. Yes, MN + Rotschreck actually isn't broken, but I still think that restricting Rotschreck to acting vampires only would be better for the game. This would increase chances of "one-man show" decks (that one man would be immune to MN+Rot combo) and remove the need of determining who has the priority to play Rotshcreck first. > > - Bowl of Convergence has ruined stealth bleed Yes, it was my mistake. No excuse here... I had only 6 months of game experience at the moment. > > - Michael Luther is broken Yet another mistake, alas. Just didn't realize that players doesn't have to cast all available votes at once. > > - he doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type I don't understand this? False. A weenie DEM can be a playable deck, but not with average capacity 3.6. Using 2-3 groups, you can build a deck with 3.0 average (double Eddie and Midget), that can be playable. I just think that if you cannot lower the average capacity, Dem/Obf deck would be much better, so there's no reason of building the DEM- only deck - except for Valerius Major (adv), of course. > > - !Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat > > decks at once without putting any combat defence in I've never told such silly things even when I had just few months of game experience. Just asked for an effective combat defense for !Malks - definitely not effective enough to survive 4 combat decks, and even not as good as Combat Ends. Unfortunately, I've missed the best available defense - the inferior Gemini's Mirror. ----------------------------- Maybe, I should also collect "sins of James Coupe" and list them in the newsgroup? It would be quite easy: * Regularly insulted the opponent, tried to make him shut up and so on (dozens of examples are very easy to find). * Regularly behaved like a "superior being" ("you are wrong, but I won't waste words on you" and similar). * Spreaded blatant lies about people he doesn't like (see above). Fortunately, I'm not going to collect such things because I'm not interested in personal battles. Good to know that I'm better than Mr. Coupe at least in this :) > Seems like a progression. Considering this, I wonder why even bother > with reasoning. It's astounding how we have to jump from "decks X and > Y will dominate the scene" to "decks X and Y are just examples" > according to the need to validate this month's V:tES prophecy of doom. What is "astounding" here? The most basic fact that any designer should check whether some deck would become too powerful with the new card he's going to create? Isn't it obvious? Are you going to say that no decks could possibly become overpowered with the new disciplineless bounce card? Yes, I started with two types of decks that seemed the most likely of becoming overpowered, but there could be others. After all, you are creating a powerful card usable almost in every deck! Yes, it's much easier to quote things Mr. Coupe posted about my humble person and just dismiss me as an opponent than think. It was very "clever" of you, and very "civilized", indeed. But it won't mask your lack of arguments. Yours, Ector

On Mar 5, 11:23 am, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > I don't understand this? False. A weenie DEM can be a playable deck, > but not with average capacity 3.6. Using 2-3 groups, you can build a > deck with 3.0 average (double Eddie and Midget), that can be playable. > I just think that if you cannot lower the average capacity, Dem/Obf > deck would be much better, so there's no reason of building the DEM- > only deck - except for Valerius Major (adv), of course. Really. It is a pretty good deck. I was playing the G2/3 version, and when 3rd came out, I switched up to the G3/4 version (just for Jackie). It is a pretty good deck. Really. You should give it a try. Think of it as a weenie Dominate deck with more stealth and no bounce. Your masters are mostly Dementation skill cards (5-6), Misdirections (4-5), Blood Dolls and Effective Managements. Maybe an Anarch Troublemaker. The reason to use dementation only is to not worry about having to cycle Obfuscate cards. -Peter

Something that might be very good as a bounce card would be. There's a Sale at J.C. Penny's (picture of Jake and Elwood Blues driving through the mall with the police in pursuit) Cost Free Usable by a tapped minon. Only usable if you control a location and are currently being bled. Choose another methuselah other than the bleeding minions controller. Burn the location you control. Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr XZealot Archon of the Swamp

Howdy, On Mar 5, 1:36 pm, "XZealot" <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > Something that might be very good as a bounce card would be. > > There's a Sale at J.C. Penny's > > (picture of Jake and Elwood Blues driving through the mall with the > police in pursuit) > > Cost Free > Usable by a tapped minon. > Only usable if you control a location and are currently being bled. > Choose another methuselah other than the bleeding minions controller. > Burn the location you control. I must be missing something... I'm being bled, so I make things worse for myself by burning one of my locations too? Or is there a clause missing from this card? Perhaps something to do with the Methuselah it asks me to choose? Wonderin', Alex

On Mar 5, 4:47 pm, "wumpus" <wump...@comcast.net> wrote: > Howdy, > > On Mar 5, 1:36 pm, "XZealot" <xzea...@cox.net> wrote: > > > Something that might be very good as a bounce card would be. > > > There's a Sale at J.C. Penny's > > > (picture of Jake and Elwood Blues driving through the mall with the > > police in pursuit) > > > Cost Free > > Usable by a tapped minon. > > Only usable if you control a location and are currently being bled. > > Choose another methuselah other than the bleeding minions controller THAT MINION IS NOW BLEEDING THE METHUSELAH OF YOUR CHOICE. > > Burn the location you control. > > I must be missing something... I'm being bled, so I make things worse > for myself by burning one of my locations too? > > Or is there a clause missing from this card? Perhaps something to do > with the Methuselah it asks me to choose? > > Wonderin', > Alex Good call, although since they didn't reprint Mascochism this is my little contribution to "I want more pain" club. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija: [ quoted text not captured ] Hmm... Looks like I've underestimated this kind of a deck. Thanks a lot for describing all this, and especially for your patience! :) This deck is surely *playable*, but I still think that a regular DEM/Obf should be much better. Since I'll have to write a newsletter about Jackie (and, naturally, about the DEM-weenie where he shines), let's discuss this deck in a separate thread, right? Thanks again for your invaluable help! Yours, Ector

[ quoted text not captured ] > Ector- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text - The keys to the DEM deck are the DEM stealth cards, Mind Tricks, Deny and of course Confusion. Chimerstry is almost as good, but Fata Morgana costs, and well, there's just nothing like Kindred Spirits.

In message <1173111825.3...@64g2000cwx.googlegroups.com>, Ector <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: >Oh really, so I'm insane, right? Aren't you too quick to judge? Pretty much. You declare imminent doom. People disagree with you. You still cry and wail and pant and piss and moan and weep and shriek about imminent doom. The imminent doom never arrives. So it seems likely that there is no imminent doom, and that you don't understand enough about the game to declare imminent doom. >> > - Rotschreck is broken, and he doesn't know why you burn Madness Network >I've never said that Rotschreck is broken - only its combination with >Madness Network. MN is The Easiest Way to Deceive Newbies (TM), Such as yourself. You didn't understand the answer was to burn the Madness Network or why until it was explained, repeatedly, at length. >because it's rather difficult to understand why they should burn it, >especially if the newbie isn't predator or prey of Madness Network >player. I have a lot of newbies and casual players here. So the game has cards and strategies that aren't immediately obvious to newbies. The reverse of that is having a game that has little depth for long-term players. >> > - Bowl of Convergence has ruined stealth bleed >Yes, it was my mistake. No excuse here... I had only 6 months of game >experience at the moment. Another mistake, because you don't understand what you're talking about. >> > - Michael Luther is broken >Yet another mistake, alas. Just didn't realize that players doesn't >have to cast all available votes at once. Wow. *Another* mistake because you don't understand what you're talking about. Is there a pattern here yet? >> > - he doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type >I don't understand this? False. Crap. As displayed by your volte-face further to Peter's response, you *clearly* didn't understand how playable such a deck could be. Oh look, *another* mistake because you don't understand what you're talking about! >> > - !Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat >> > decks at once without putting any combat defence in >I've never told such silly things even when I had just few months of >game experience. Just asked for an effective combat defense for !Malks Which you were supplied with, in *spades*. You just refused to listen or, you know, do anything about it. >Maybe, I should also collect "sins of James Coupe" and list them in >the newsgroup? It would be quite easy: > >* Regularly insulted the opponent, tried to make him shut up and so on >(dozens of examples are very easy to find). When someone on the newsgroup posts shit, they can expect to be treated as though they've posted shit. You regularly post ignorant crap and, even when people explain that it's crap in infinitesimal detail, you keep posting it. >* Regularly behaved like a "superior being" ("you are wrong, but I >won't waste words on you" and similar). In fact, I've wasted many, many words on you. See hundreds, thousands of words that have been posted with you screaming, pissing and crying that everything is broken, on a variety of subjects. >* Spreaded blatant lies about people he doesn't like (see above). Which of them were lies? You confessed to pretty much all of them. >> Seems like a progression. Considering this, I wonder why even bother >> with reasoning. It's astounding how we have to jump from "decks X and >> Y will dominate the scene" to "decks X and Y are just examples" >> according to the need to validate this month's V:tES prophecy of doom. >What is "astounding" here? Your behaviour. You post "OMG DECK OF DOOM IS GOING TO DESTROY THE GAME." Several months later, you claim this was because you made a mistake and didn't understand enough about the game. Strangely, the fact that you have had to make this claim each time you post about DECK OF DOOM doesn't enter into your head. People post and say "Uh, look, DECK OF DOOM isn't anywhere near as DOOM- laden as you think, and here's why." You sit there shrieking that it *is* DOOM-laden, and that it's going to stop all the casuals and newbies playing. The prophesied doom and death of casuals and newbies never arrives. At the same time, while people are pointing out that your claimed situations of DOOM are just not feasible, you keep dragging the goalposts around by making it a very different situation indeed. Oh look, OBF/PRE will DOOM Jyhad to failure if we do X. So we write an X (a rule, a card, whatever) where OBF/PRE decks aren't helped. OMG BUT IF THAT DECK PLAYS *COMPLETELY DIFFERENT* CARDS, IT'S A DECK OF DOOM. Strangely, the newly prophesied DOOM turns out to be lacking in DOOM, just lack the previous DECK OF DOOM lacked DOOM. That you keep doing this without being even slightly aware of your behaviour is quite, quite astonishing. >The most basic fact that any designer >should check whether some deck would become too powerful with the new >card he's going to create? This has nothing to do with what was claimed to be astonishing. What was claimed to be astonishing was what *you* do, not what a designer may or may not do. Why do you not read what people write? >Yes, it's much easier to quote things Mr. Coupe posted about my humble >person and just dismiss me as an opponent than think. It was very >"clever" of you, and very "civilized", indeed. But it won't mask your >lack of arguments. Actually, I post against your arguments as well. It is just worth pointing out your progression of behaviour as well. You do the same thing each time, shriek, wail, cry, scream... and then post some time later saying "Oh, I didn't understand the game well enough." See discussions about Bowl of Convergence. See discussions about Madness Network/Rotschreck. See discussions about Michael Luther. See discussions about !Malkavian combat defence. See *this* thread, where I've provided examples of how a disciplineless bounce could be handled in ways that avoid your DECK OF DOOM scenarios. What lack of arguments is there? There are *plenty* of points being made, by a variety of people, including me. But as displayed by your complete mis-reading of "astonishing" as applying to *designers* and not you, you simply don't read what people write, until they thrust it in your face again, and again, and again, and again, and again, at which point something seeps through like Chinese water torture. Really, it would really help if before you made every post, you stopped, took a deep breath, and thought "Hey, I've been wrong before. Perhaps I should ask questions and lead the discussion from there, rather than claiming that something will dominate the game and cause it to die." For some reason, you don't do that. So every time you post about a DECK OF DOOM, it looks increasingly silly. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <1173130573....@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, XZealot <xze...@cox.net> writes: >Something that might be very good as a bounce card would be. > >There's a Sale at J.C. Penny's Actually, over the last few days, this thread has merged in my head with the Create-A-Trophy thread. I don't quite know how I'd balance it, but it's something like a Trophy: Indemnity that lets you bounce a bleed at some point in the future. Which might be an interesting way of enlivening trophies and providing disciplineless bleed bounce, all at once. In my head, it would be temporary (perhaps one or two bleeds, perhaps something dependent on the size of the Red List critter you pounded, or similar). Possibly Unique/one per Methuselah at once, possibly restricted against who it can be bounced to - if it's a gift from another Methuselah for your burning a vampire, maybe it's harder to bounce to that Methuselah using it, or something, so another Trophy deck could cause you mild problems. Possibly removed from the game on use, so to play it repeatedly, you have to load your deck with it (unlike Trophy: Diablerie recycling for ever and ever and ever). It could also provide interest by making it sort of worthwhile leaving a big bleeder out, and going after a weenie to get the bounce, rather than just going for the big bleeder - you *want* a bleed to come get you, so you can bounce it along. Which seems a nice trade-off of strategies, and leaves a player still able to play their game for just a little bit longer if you do opt for that option, which seems positive for the game. And if you don't get a big bleeder near you, well, you just pull Trophy: Progeny or whatever else you were playing instead. The idea isn't terribly well fleshed out in my head, but it's something I was thinking about. It partly followed on from some other thoughts about bounce in plain sight, which I'd been thinking over when writing suggestions in this thread. Pre-emptive, visible bounce as a way of making disciplineless bounce less of a clone of existing bounce - you have to play a master card in advance, you have to equip with the bounce card and burn it later, you have to recruit an ally who does the bounce for you before exploding (but who will explode anyway, at some point), a political action even. Which of those (if any) would be appropriate, I'm not sure, but it's thinking about doing it in non-obvious that might lead to a quirky card with solid potential that isn't just Deflection with a bit of different text. The bleed deck might well be able to plan around that, or convince someone else to help it out ("Aw, can't you banish the guy with the Insta-Bounce-O-Matic 5000?"), or similar. And at least some costs would have to be paid up front (taking an action+tapping a vampire, using up a master phase slot, pool/blood costs etc.), whether you got to use it or not. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Mar 5, 1:23 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: > Fabio 'Sooner' Macedo: > > Hmm. I almost forgot those. > > Oh really, so I'm insane, right? Aren't you too quick to judge? Not insane. You just exaggerate things a little. And, I'm not quick to judge. In fact, I believe everyone does judge his/her peers all the time, even when they don't mean to, and it's foolish to pretend this does not happen, because it does. What is not normal is to be offensive based on such judgments, which I believe I haven't been. There's just no need to. Now, it doesn't preclude me from sharing my opinions to those statements with anyone else, especially with someone who I recognize agrees with my particular view on those statements. That's just how living in society is, I'm afraid. > > Seems like a progression. Considering this, I wonder why even bother > > with reasoning. It's astounding how we have to jump from "decks X and > > Y will dominate the scene" to "decks X and Y are just examples" > > according to the need to validate this month's V:tES prophecy of doom. > > What is "astounding" here? The complete dissociation between analysis and theory-validation. They're not the same thing. You don't get to build a theory and then try to validate it using examples. You analyze the situation first, and then the examples naturally follow. Which often includes direct experimentation and assessment of a good number of the variables involved, which has never come to light in this thread until the theory ("disciplineless bounce would break the game towards certain archetypical bleed decks") showed up. Even then, it's natural do make hypothesis based on instincts because, sometimes, they can - and this also does happen - prove to be accurate. But to that effect, experimentation/assessment is still needed. Ruling out all possibilities (which, in this case, take the form of costs and limitations on the hypothetical card) and then trying to find out reasons for them to not work is absolutely contrary to any form of design, scientific advancement or anything else that requires reasoning to function. The most basic fact that any designer > should check whether some deck would become too powerful with the new > card he's going to create? Isn't it obvious? It is so painfully obvious that it hurts to see an exercise in card design being fiercely ruled out from the very first moment because one doesn't want to check every possibility first, yeah. :) > Yes, I started with two types of decks that seemed the > most likely of becoming overpowered, but there could be others. After > all, you are creating a powerful card usable almost in every deck! See, that's where "the sky is falling" appears and ends up attached to your way of thinking in certain cases. You say "powerful card". You're assuming that the card will be automatically powerful and usable in almost every deck just because 1. it is a bounce card 2. it's disciplineless. That's an hypothesis treated as a "proved" theory before the object of study even exists, in any capacity (say, in a playtest). It simply doesn't work that way. > Yes, it's much easier to quote things Mr. Coupe posted about my humble > person Humble is a question of perception. In any case, it doesn't matter. > and just dismiss me as an opponent than think. It was very > "clever" of you, and very "civilized", indeed. But it won't mask your > lack of arguments. > Yours, > Ector See, that's why I wonder why I even bother. There was plenty of arguments around - and worse, no one claimed one wants to get a "very powerful card usable in almost any deck". In fact, everyone engaged in that part of the debate is trying to find solutions for such a card to *not* turn into a "very powerful card usable in almost any deck". All the while, you're throwing in counter-arguments to validate your hypothesis-turned-proved-theory and dismiss the whole exercise from the start. So you can think this or that poster, me or James, or anyone else, as just a bully lacking arguments all the way. It doesn't really matter, because it doesn't contribute to the exercise, and we shouldn't spend time trying to counter-counter your hypothesis when we're interested in continue with the exercise (namely, "which disciplineless bounce card could we get without unbalancing the game?"). That's what I mean by "why I even bother?" There's simply no point in trying to bring someone who hates soccer to a soccer game. Now, if you want to actually contribute and find solutions that can be field-tested - note that no one wants to have solutions directly implemented without serious experimentation first, which means playtesting - be my guest. You can rest assured no one will throw witty or detrimental remarks on you if you do so. best, Fabio "Sooner" Macedo

James Coupe: > In message <1173111825.3...@64g2000cwx.googlegroups.com>, Ector > <Ec...@mail.ru> writes: > >Oh really, so I'm insane, right? Aren't you too quick to judge? > > Pretty much. > > You declare imminent doom. People disagree with you. You still cry and > wail and pant and piss and moan and weep and shriek about imminent doom. > > The imminent doom never arrives. > > So it seems likely that there is no imminent doom, and that you don't > understand enough about the game to declare imminent doom. I didn't declare any doom, imminent or not. I tried to explain why I prefer creating a purely defensive card to a disciplineless bounce card, and why this thread has "NOT a bounce" in its title. A bounce card CAN completely change the metagame or make some decks overpowered, a purely defensive card (my Restless Guard, a disciplineless bleed reduction etc.) cannot. Unfortunately, I don't know ALL playable decks well enough to suggest a "safe", but playable disciplineless bounce card. And I suspect that even an old and uber- experienced player like you can miss something. Besides, everyone agrees that decks without Aus and Dom need some protection against heavy bleeds, but why that protection should include offense as well? Does anybody have any arguments proving this? Avoid losing pool from a heavy bleed - certainly. Punishing the bleeder for a heavy bleed - good idea. But punishing another player? Is it really necessary, and why? I don't think it is needed at all. Restless Guard or similar card would be enough. Afler all, a disciplineless bounce card is going to have harsh limitations to avoid any possible danger, and pure defensive card could end up being BETTER. I guess I should patiently explain all this instead of posting obvious arguments about the danger of "breaking" some decks with disciplineless bounce. I assumed that "disciplineless bounce" is a card that allows bouncing to your prey (it would be hardly playable otherwise) and has no other significant requirements. If anyone wanted to talk about a card limited to a certain clan or strategy (Rush comes to mind) - he'd say about that, right? And that would be a theme for another discussion, IMHO. I assumed that somebody is proposing a disciplineless bounce card that could be used in the majority of decks, if not all decks. Probably, this assumption was wrong, but nothing demonstrated this at the time. > >> > - Rotschreck is broken, and he doesn't know why you burn Madness Network > >I've never said that Rotschreck is broken - only its combination with > >Madness Network. MN is The Easiest Way to Deceive Newbies (TM), > > Such as yourself. You didn't understand the answer was to burn the > Madness Network or why until it was explained, repeatedly, at length. I understood that immediately. The thing I cannot understand is: does the game really need a card that should be immediately burned at all costs? IMHO, the ultimate necessity of immediate burning the card is the most clear sign of "brokenness". When you have just one turn to destroy MN or lose your best vampire, this is too much for me. Limiting Rotshcreck to acting vampires would remove the danger and make the game better. This, of course, is just my opinion that can be wrong. > >because it's rather difficult to understand why they should burn it, > >especially if the newbie isn't predator or prey of Madness Network > >player. I have a lot of newbies and casual players here. > > So the game has cards and strategies that aren't immediately obvious to > newbies. The reverse of that is having a game that has little depth for > long-term players. Did I say "immediately obvious"? No, I didn't. Look, I'm a judge, a recruiter, a guide and so on - you name it, I do it here. Just imagine a table with an experienced MN player and few newbies/casuals. MN comes into play, and the text in described. Does it impress newbies? Not very much. What's the difference between acting on your own turn and on the other player's turn? OK, they see that MN player can regularly gain pool for the Edge. So what? This should bother only his predator, right? Newbies love fatties and frequently play "one-man shows". We have Enkidu decks, Hektor decks, Saulot decks, and many others. When players with such decks catch MN+Rot combo, *** ALL *** of them consider it broken. They ask me how they could defend against it, and I have to suggest Psyche!, TT and some other cards that they don't always have or that aren't always appropriate in their decks. Quite often the only solution is burning MN on sight. When everyone will understand that, MN decks will disappear. Wouldn't it be better to remove MN+ Rot combo than forcing players to burn MN on sight? > Wow. *Another* mistake because you don't understand what you're talking > about. > > Is there a pattern here yet? What do you mean by "don't understand what I'm talking about"? Yes, there were things I didn't know. Yes, I was stubborn and didn't give up easily. Yes, there were many people who knew much more than me, and they "won" that discussions, but I've learned something. Everyone did get something, and the discussions weren't useless. The only thing I cannot understand is what makes you fall to the personal level, then? Don't you like a good discussion? Did you ever act as a "devil's advocate"? > > >> > - he doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type > >I don't understand this? False. > > Crap. As displayed by your volte-face further to Peter's response, you > *clearly* didn't understand how playable such a deck could be. > > Oh look, *another* mistake because you don't understand what you're > talking about! You succeed to lure me into the word "playable". Congrats. Without delving into the definition of "playability", DEM-weenie is surely "playable". When we had a discussion with XZealot about 2-3 groups DEM- weenie several months ago, he already proved that the deck is "playable". If you trace my initial response to the first Peter's post about DEM- weenie, you'll see that I just consider DEM-weenie inferior to the DEM/ obf decks, especially with such little difference in capacity. My "voulte-face" post to Peter was just an attempt to "undo" the word "unplayable" which is obviously false. Sorry for that, I was typing in a hurry and thought about different things, as you can easily guess. But as long as you're more interested in bashing me than in discussing things with me, I can only congrat you. Now you can point at me and accuse me even better than before! > >> > - !Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat > >> > decks at once without putting any combat defence in > >I've never told such silly things even when I had just few months of > >game experience. Just asked for an effective combat defense for !Malks > > Which you were supplied with, in *spades*. You just refused to listen > or, you know, do anything about it. Actually, I was asking for two things: a). Combat defense at least of Gemini's Mirror level (yes, it was my fault that I didn't read its inferior text well) and b). Some !Malks with combat disciplines/ abilities for non-bleeding decks. The first need is easily answered with Gemini's Mirror, the second was answered by LSJ in the form of Louhi and various !Malks from the following sets. Note that you are talking about my November 2004 and December 2004 newsletters. I had only 3-4 months of gaming experience at that time. Compare this to the time that passed till nowadays (more than 2 years). Does your dad still slap you for the candies that you stole when you were a child? I guess he does. This would at least explain your behaviour :) > >Maybe, I should also collect "sins of James Coupe" and list them in > >the newsgroup? It would be quite easy: > > > >* Regularly insulted the opponent, tried to make him shut up and so on > >(dozens of examples are very easy to find). > > When someone on the newsgroup posts shit, they can expect to be treated > as though they've posted shit. > > You regularly post ignorant crap and, even when people explain that it's > crap in infinitesimal detail, you keep posting it. If you don't have patience to wager a civilized discussion, it's ALWAYS better to avoid it at all than falling to a personal level. If somebody doesn't understand that he's posting things that YOU consider as "shit" (and you may be wrong, too!), you may want to explain or just don't bother. Personal insults and attempts to make somebody shut up will never bring anything good, neither to you nor to the other people. > > >* Regularly behaved like a "superior being" ("you are wrong, but I > >won't waste words on you" and similar). > > In fact, I've wasted many, many words on you. See hundreds, thousands > of words that have been posted with you screaming, pissing and crying > that everything is broken, on a variety of subjects. Sometimes your words weren't actually wasted. Believe it or not. But if I don't give up easily, it isn't an excuse for rude behaviour. > > >* Spreaded blatant lies about people he doesn't like (see above). > > Which of them were lies? You confessed to pretty much all of them. * "He doesn't understand that weenie DEM can be a playable deck type" - technically, it was a lie when you posted it, since I didn't say anything about "playability" at that time. I said: "I don't believe in Dem-weenie effectiveness at all.", later "The difference in capacity isn't large enough to go without Obfuscate. Should you build a deck having at least 3.0, it could be reasonable", and finally "It may have some chances, but it's much worse than a regular Dem/Obf S&B." Yes, I still think that DEM-weenie is generally worse than a low-cap DEM/obf deck, but I'm not as stupid as you're trying to demonstrate. * "Rotschreck is broken" - I've never said that. A pure lie. * "!Malkavian stealth bleed decks have to be able to stand up to 4 combat decks at once without putting any combat defence in" - a big blatant lie that I even don't need to comment. Enough? > > >> Seems like a progression. Considering this, I wonder why even bother > >> with reasoning. It's astounding how we have to jump from "decks X and > >> Y will dominate the scene" to "decks X and Y are just examples" > >> according to the need to validate this month's V:tES prophecy of doom. > >What is "astounding" here? > > Your behaviour. > > You post "OMG DECK OF DOOM IS GOING TO DESTROY THE GAME." Several > months later, you claim this was because you made a mistake and didn't > understand enough about the game. Strangely, the fact that you have had > to make this claim each time you post about DECK OF DOOM doesn't enter > into your head. I'm always trying to bring the most vivid and obvious arguments. Yes, you could accuse me in lazyness, since I should patiently write all reasons why do I prefer purely defensive card to a bounce card. But I didn't write about "decks of doom" at least this time. It's just your imagination, probably based on my past behaviour, and TOO vivid arguments. I wanted to say that creating disciplineless bounce card is much more dangerous designer-wise than creating a defensive card, so the latter would be the better. Absolutely nothing else was meant. Then we started to argue, but seems like we argued about the different things. You tried to prove that it's POSSIBLE to create a bounce card that won't break anything. I tried to prove that creating a bleed defense without bounce is BETTER. With a bounce card, you'll have to scan all possible decks (whether they become broken or not), to apply serious limitations, and finally you may end up with a card that would be *weaker* than Restless Guard or a similar card. This won't be the worst possible case, though, since you may overlook something and actually create an overpowered deck. I guess this misunderstanding would be easily fixed without moving to the personal level. > People post and say "Uh, look, DECK OF DOOM isn't anywhere near as DOOM- > laden as you think, and here's why." You sit there shrieking that it > *is* DOOM-laden, and that it's going to stop all the casuals and newbies > playing. > > The prophesied doom and death of casuals and newbies never arrives. Oh really? Does the game have as much newbies as it should have? How many newbies did you recruit for the past two years? I score at least ten, though some of them are only casual players at the time. Actually, this game could be much, I mean, MUCH more friendly to the newbies than it currently is. IMHO, if some rule is absolutely impossible to understand for newbies, something should be changed. If some good card is nearly impossible to get for the newbies, it should be reprinted. And if some card or combo regularly brings complete disappointment to the newbies (like PTO or MN + Rot burning a key vampire), that's enough to fix something in my eyes. Newbies are the only hope of the game. So how do you know that "death of casual and newbies" didn't arrive yet? Such players never leave the game with trumpets. They just start to play less, to play something else, and so on. > At the same time, while people are pointing out that your claimed > situations of DOOM are just not feasible, you keep dragging the > goalposts around by making it a very different situation indeed. Oh > look, OBF/PRE will DOOM Jyhad to failure if we do X. So we write an X > (a rule, a card, whatever) where OBF/PRE decks aren't helped. OMG BUT > IF THAT DECK PLAYS *COMPLETELY DIFFERENT* CARDS, IT'S A DECK OF DOOM. > > Strangely, the newly prophesied DOOM turns out to be lacking in DOOM, > just lack the previous DECK OF DOOM lacked DOOM. You were so busy struggling with the "prophecy of DOOM" you imagined that you didn't notice that it was just an argument in a discussion, not the theme of a discussion itself. You tried to beat that argument, I tried to defend it, but nobody even bother to settle a theme of discussion right. > >The most basic fact that any designer > >should check whether some deck would become too powerful with the new > >card he's going to create? > > This has nothing to do with what was claimed to be astonishing. What > was claimed to be astonishing was what *you* do, not what a designer may > or may not do. > > Why do you not read what people write? I didn't miss a single bit. Why do you accuse me of that? I may fail to completely understand your opinion, but you may too. > >Yes, it's much easier to quote things Mr. Coupe posted about my humble > >person and just dismiss me as an opponent than think. It was very > >"clever" of you, and very "civilized", indeed. But it won't mask your > >lack of arguments. > > Actually, I post against your arguments as well. It is just worth > pointing out your progression of behaviour as well. You do the same > thing each time, shriek, wail, cry, scream... and then post some time > later saying "Oh, I didn't understand the game well enough." Yes, you did. And I did post counter-arguments against your arguments. Though an example of OBF/PRE and Tumnimos decks was just one of my arguments, I never give up until I'm forced to. Do you think I was forced to? Why? And yes, I CAN be wrong, and I CAN lack some knowledge about the game. Really. If you prefer talking to the godlike beings that CANNOT be wrong, please stop wasting time on my humble person. > See discussions about Bowl of Convergence. See discussions about > Madness Network/Rotschreck. See discussions about Michael Luther. See > discussions about !Malkavian combat defence. See *this* thread, where > I've provided examples of how a disciplineless bounce could be handled > in ways that avoid your DECK OF DOOM scenarios. I still didn't see any example of a bounce card that was GUARANTEED not to break anything. You suggested several ways of creating disciplineless bounce cards, right, but I still didn't see a way of disabling new card in the S&B decks. I was trying to get an example from you, but you refused. Actually, I was trying to make you understand on your own creations that making a playable disciplineless bounce card that wouldn't break anything is much more difficult than making a purely defensive card, if possible at all. Should you succeed, we'd get a wonderful suggestion for LSJ, should you fail, we'd get a good answer to the people asking for disciplineless bounce - but we didn't get anything except for the silly personal insults. Yes, I was going to play "devil's advocate". Burn me for that! Didn't I tell you that I'm not interested in things like "who is the winner of the discussion"? Only constructive things really matter for me. And, please, don't expect that I'm going to mourn my past mistakes and devote the rest of my life to the atonement. If I was wrong, I have to admit that, but that won't prevent me from discussing different things. > > Really, it would really help if before you made every post, you stopped, > took a deep breath, and thought "Hey, I've been wrong before. Perhaps I > should ask questions and lead the discussion from there, rather than > claiming that something will dominate the game and cause it to die." > I should avoid categorical statements, right. I'd say that I should think a lot to find a best way of presenting my actual opinion to avoid any misunderstandings. But the fact that I was wrong in the past isn't going to stop me from arguing. Yes, I can be wrong once more. So what? Do you know any way of learning that I'm wrong better than a good discussion? I don't. Yours, Ector

In article <1173267833....@v33g2000cwv.googlegroups.com>, "Ector" <Ec...@mail.ru> wrote: > I understood that immediately. The thing I cannot understand is: does > the game really need a card that should be immediately burned at all > costs? See, this here is where you are getting yourself into trouble, with this sort of overstatement of the case. Does Madness Network need to get immediately burned at all costs? Hardly. Most of the time a Madness network hits play, it is going to do little more than let the Malkavians set up a more defensive position (i.e. play Madness Network, keep all their guys untapped to block, bounce, and save the Madness Network, and then right before it is their turn, they'll go and bleed their prey with whoever is left untapped by then). And maybe generate some extra pool with Victoria. In a rare occasion, it'll be used for some Out of Turn Rotschreck Rush deck, which, really, isn't even that big of a deal. Once per turn, someone can possibly play a super trumpy combat combo, assuming: -They have access to aggrivated damage. -They have a Rotschreck in hand. -They don't want to play another important master card that turn. -Their OOT rush isn't chump blocked. -Their opponent can't avoid the Rotschreck by manuvering away from Zebulon's Claws of the Dead or Immortally Grappling/Drawing out the Beast/Skin of Nighting/whatever the Ivory Bow. Or play Psyche/Telepathic Tracking. And in the worst case scenario, where the OOT Rotschreck Rush does work, how is it any worse, really, than just getting Rushed by regular trumpy combat? > IMHO, the ultimate necessity of immediate burning the card is > the most clear sign of "brokenness". There is no ultimate necessity to burn it. > When you have just one turn to > destroy MN or lose your best vampire, this is too much for me. How is this any different than someone rushing you with Enkidu who is going to Draw out your Beast, Immortally Grapple you, punch you, prevent all of your damage, Disarm and decapitate you? You can't avoid that by burning a Master card. > Limiting Rotshcreck to acting vampires would remove the danger and > make the game better. This, of course, is just my opinion that can be > wrong. I'm assuming you mean reacting vampires, just for clarities sake. This isn't really necessary. Rotschreck OOT Rush is such an incredibly fringe strategy it is simply not worth the effort to worry about it. And even when you do run into it, it is really no more effective than regular trumpy combat, but only works once around the table. And is fragile. > Newbies love fatties and frequently play "one-man shows". They should learn that it isn't always such a good idea to put all their eggs in one basket. And not just 'cause of Rotschreck. There are *countless* cards that hose All Star Decks (Sensory Dep, Pentex Subversion, Elder Impersonation, PTO, etc.) > We have > Enkidu decks, Hektor decks, Saulot decks, and many others. All of those seem like they should be pretty trumpy in combat in and of themselves... > When > players with such decks catch MN+Rot combo, *** ALL *** of them > consider it broken. What do they do when they are Sensory Deprived? Or Pentex Subverted? > They ask me how they could defend against it, and > I have to suggest Psyche!, TT and some other cards that they don't > always have or that aren't always appropriate in their decks. Quite > often the only solution is burning MN on sight. How often are people seeing these decks? Like, I play a lot of VTES. And have for a long time. And still, I have *never* seen a MN/Rotschreck/OOT Rush deck in play. Ever. Like, if you have a small group (which you might), and someone put one of these decks together and likes to terrorize the group with it, why isn't everyone simply building decks to foil it? Use DotB if the ag damage comes from a weapon. Use Skin of Night. Use Psyche or Telepathic Tracking. Or simply destroy the MN. If you see the deck coming, it is really easy to shut down. > When everyone will > understand that, MN decks will disappear. Wouldn't it be better to > remove MN+ Rot combo than forcing players to burn MN on sight? No. 'Cause you aren't actually forced to burn the MN on sight. You are only forced to burn the MN on sight if: A) You are relying heavily on a single important vampire. B) You have no other way to deal with the Rotschreck. If you fit under both these conditions, then you have an out--kill the MN on sight. If you don't fit under both these conditions, you have an obvious out--just don't worry about it. Peter D Bakija pd...@lightlink.com http://www.lightlink.com/pdb6/vtes.html

On Mar 7, 12:43 pm, "Ector" <E...@mail.ru> wrote: -snip the usual twaddle- *runs off into the next room, shouts out loudly "Hey guys, Ector just posted again, wanna come have a laugh?"* Sorry if thats rude, but does anyboy not get annoyed by this guys inability to stick to a single argument, ability to never learn anything, immense capacity to irritate the snot out of everyone (and i'm a pretty irritating person, so when i tell you someone is irritating, you better believe it baby!) and seemingly endless supply of rockheaded ideas? "Oooh, madness network, if i do not burn, i will die for my decks cannot cope against malk combat! Oooooooooh! Wail, tear hair out, run!!!" "Malks need combt defence": are you stupid? "Weenie DEM does not work": wtf? did you grow up near a chemical waste disposal plant? "DOOM is coming": Sweet, can i have the metal face mask, think it will be extremely usefull as a pot for my plants! Ector, in short, if you cannot respond to replies in a way that is not immature (and hey, i am in no way saying my response was mature), rational (again, i think i failed that test) or interesting (think i might just scrape a pass on that one), sit down, take a deep breath, engage your remaining embttled neurons, and think before another stream of utter nonsense passes your lips. and remember, drugs are bad, m'kay?

In article <1173305796....@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com>, "Blooded Sand" <sand...@gmail.com> wrote: > Sorry if thats rude, but does anyboy not get annoyed by this guys > inability to stick to a single argument, ability to never learn > anything, immense capacity to irritate the snot out of everyone (and > i'm a pretty irritating person, so when i tell you someone is > irritating, you better believe it baby!) and seemingly endless supply > of rockheaded ideas? I don't get annoyed. I mean, like, yeah, sometimes he comes across as a tad muddleheaded (but then, don't we all...), but Ector is always civil and worth responding to. So I'd think that fewer folks would give him a hard time. I mean, like, if you disagree with him (which I do all the time): A) Explain why, or B) Ignore him if he is making you crazy. Why the need to hassle him? [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > In article <1173305796....@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com>, > "Blooded Sand" <sand...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Sorry if thats rude, but does anyboy not get annoyed by this guys >> inability to stick to a single argument, ability to never learn >> anything, immense capacity to irritate the snot out of everyone (and >> i'm a pretty irritating person, so when i tell you someone is >> irritating, you better believe it baby!) and seemingly endless supply >> of rockheaded ideas? > > I don't get annoyed. I mean, like, yeah, sometimes he comes across as a > tad muddleheaded (but then, don't we all...), but Ector is always civil > and worth responding to. So I'd think that fewer folks would give him a > hard time. I mean, like, if you disagree with him (which I do all the > time): > > A) Explain why, or > B) Ignore him if he is making you crazy. Correct. Thanks for the typing, Peter. We can always use more civility.

LSJ wrote: > Peter D Bakija wrote: >> In article <1173305796....@j27g2000cwj.googlegroups.com>, >> "Blooded Sand" <sand...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Sorry if thats rude, but does anyboy not get annoyed by this guys ... >> So I'd think that fewer folks would >> give him a hard time. I mean, like, if you disagree with him (which I >> do all the time): >> >> A) Explain why, or >> B) Ignore him if he is making you crazy. > > Correct. Thanks for the typing, Peter. > > We can always use more civility. Thunderbird lets me set it up so that posts from selected users are automatically marked as 'read'. So I don't lose any posts, but its nice and easy to skip over ones that most of the time could cause you some consternation. But they're still there if I read a response someone else posts and I want to read the original. -- salem

On 7 mrt, 22:56, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > Use DotB if the ag damage comes from a weapon. Use Skin of > Night. Use Psyche or Telepathic Tracking. Or simply destroy the MN. If > you see the deck coming, it is really easy to shut down. While I agree with almost everything you said: how does skin of night prevent Rötschreck?

In message <pdb6-09301E.1...@news-server.stny.rr.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >No. 'Cause you aren't actually forced to burn the MN on sight. You are >only forced to burn the MN on sight if: > >A) You are relying heavily on a single important vampire. >B) You have no other way to deal with the Rotschreck. I'd disagree, to an extent. Clearly, against a Rotschreck deck where you have no other way of dealing with it, burning the MN is a top priority. (Watch out for block/Rotschreck on that action...) But Madness Network in the hands of a good player is rarely a card you want to see - if nothing else, you don't want to get bled at the end of your grand-predator's turn, have your predator untap knowing that you've run out of bleed defence, and do it again. Most decks only have to deal with one turn being taken against it around the table, whereas the MN deck can have the joy of two at once. Pretty much every mistake I've seen made with Madness Network (including a number I've made myself) has been focusing on the actions or the vampires taking them, and not burning the MN. "Oh, but he's not taking any actions he couldn't have taken without it." Yeah, but it completely screws normal expectations. Now, if you were a super-experienced player against MN, you could probably cope with that by modifying all your expectations appropriately. But pretty much all of us aren't, as we only see it once in a while. Thus, when you next have a spare action, burning the MN is almost always a good thing. Obviously, you may have: - more important things to do, like picking your vampires out of torpor before they get eaten - a Madness Network deck being played by someone who isn't exploiting it very well in which case, do whatever you want, obviously. But in a general, tournament-wide sense, I can't think of any games I've seen where leaving Madness Network on the table with a halfway decent Methuselah was the right strategic option. Note that because Rotschreck is a master card, any time you can burn the Madness Network is a master phase that has to be used to replace it. So even if you get Rotschrecked if/when the MN player blocks[0], if you burn it on the next action, the player can't replace it that turn because they've used up their master phase. Of course, they can try for the Parthenon or even Rumors of Gehenna, but the card flow is much more precarious here anyway. And the Parthenon is subject to its own problems, such as Arson. >They should learn that it isn't always such a good idea to put all >their >eggs in one basket. And not just 'cause of Rotschreck. There are >*countless* cards that hose All Star Decks (Sensory Dep, Pentex >Subversion, Elder Impersonation, PTO, etc.) Yes, this is a common problem with fatties full-stop. And Madness Network/Rotschreck is pretty damn hot when it works, but it's so rickety that there are lots of ways of taking it apart. For my money, it's somewhat like the old situation with Temptation of Greater Power, before it was downgraded. Focusing on the play of ToGP does have places you could work - playing Sudden Reversal, for example. Ditto Rotschreck, you can play TT, Psyche!, Tranquility, or whatever. Instead, you can focus on the enabling pieces - such as taking out the Justicar or, here, stopping the OOT rush being viable. Now, I guess going against what I said above, if you have a deck-full of TT and Psyche! (or similar), you can leave the Madness Network alone and focus on defending against the Rotschreck with those. Although you won't like not untapping... But yeah, you have those cards against that deck, you could probably leave the MN alone a bit - though watch out for the deck deciding to bleed you for 3 then 3 again instead. If you've chosen not to use all the versatile tech that's available to deal with this sort of thing, then your solid remaining choice is to burn the MN. So it doesn't have to be burned quickly, but if you haven't brought the toys with you that allow that resilience against it, you prioritize taking it out. [0] Thinking of one of the popular incarnations from years back, by Rob Treasure and Legbiter - different enough to be distinct, but similar motivations. Malkavian Princes turned up, for 2nd Tradition untap/block, for good defensive card efficiency. [ quoted text not captured ]

What's pissing me off is the fact that this thread, and more importantly, this group, is being used as a forum for mudslinging. I read these threads to read stuff about VTES, not peoples opinion of each other and most certainly not juvenile insults that contribute NOTHING to the subject the thread was about. It's obvious that some of us don't see eye to eye. If after a couple of traded posts you still can't agree. Move on. Agree to disagree and leave it at that. I don't know how this group is regulated, but If I had the ability, I'd punish you both for making me waste my time wading through your bs, just to try to find the pertinent information in the thread. Exchange contact information with each other and work out your differences elsewhere. /my $.02

[ quoted text not captured ] it doesn't. but it does help against all the other times in a turn when he's using agg against you, after that first time when he played Rotschreck. -- salem

[ quoted text not captured ] Kk, i apologise, i just got fed up rereading the same stuff again. in the same manner that the same stuff has been explained an unusually large numbet of times. again. to the same person, yet again. So ector, i apologise for the personal atack.

On Mar 8, 3:02 am, "Jeroen" <joen_...@hotmail.com> wrote: > While I agree with almost everything you said: how does skin of night > prevent Rötschreck? I might mis-understand Rotschreck, but doesn't Skin of Night mean you treat aggrivated damage as regular damage, so the aggrivated damage doesn't trigger the Rotschreck? -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] No. Rötschreck doesn't care how you'll treat the damage.

On Mar 8, 3:36 am, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > I'd disagree, to an extent. Clearly, against a Rotschreck deck where > you have no other way of dealing with it, burning the MN is a top > priority. (Watch out for block/Rotschreck on that action...) > > But Madness Network in the hands of a good player is rarely a card you > want to see Oh, sure--Madness Network is rarely going to be a good idea to leave on the table, but in most situations, if you can't get rid of it for whatever reason, it is going to be a minor inconvinience, and is unlikely to, like, end your game or anything. It is always a good idea to kill it, but if it isn't being used for Rotschreck shenanagins, while it certainly isn't going to help your cause to leave it in play, it is unlikely to be completely game destroying for anyone. -Peter

[ quoted text not captured ] No. because you Rötschreck only requires you to 'attempt to to aggravated damage'.

On Mar 8, 9:30 am, "Jeroen" <joen_...@hotmail.com> wrote: > No. because you Rötschreck only requires you to 'attempt to to > aggravated damage'. Fair enough. Although I don't really understand how this jibes with the "Claws at range don't set off Rotschreck" rule--these two cases seem similar enough to operate in the same way. And if Skin of Night doesn't foil Rotschreck, do Armor of Terra, Concordance, and Heart of Darkness? I'd assume not, but that doesn't make sense to me either. But then, I'm always confused by Rotschreck :-) -Peter

Peter D Bakija wrote: > On Mar 8, 9:30 am, "Jeroen" <joen_...@hotmail.com> wrote: >> No. because you Rötschreck only requires you to 'attempt to to >> aggravated damage'. > > Fair enough. Although I don't really understand how this jibes with > the "Claws at range don't set off Rotschreck" rule--these two cases > seem similar enough to operate in the same way. Claws at range runs afoul of Rötscreck's "against a vampire" criteria. Claws at range are not an attempt to do agg to a vampire. They're just doing agg to nothing (to the air out there). > And if Skin of Night > doesn't foil Rotschreck, do Armor of Terra, Concordance, and Heart of > Darkness? I'd assume not, but that doesn't make sense to me either. No. Nor does Skin of Rock, Leather Jacket, or any other prevention, immunity, or other handling of the incoming agg. All it takes is incoming agg.

[ quoted text not captured ] The seminal example here being burst of sunlight, agg at range, u will be taking it, and rothschreck does not care about prevent, dodge, immunity, invuklnerablity or anything simialr. Once the (generally speaking) blocking minion declares ag as strike, Rot becomes playable, AS LONG AS that strike would connect with the opposing vampire

On Mar 7, 4:56 pm, Peter D Bakija <p...@lightlink.com> wrote: > See, this here is where you are getting yourself into trouble, with this > sort of overstatement of the case. Does Madness Network need to get > immediately burned at all costs? Hardly. Most of the time a Madness > network hits play, it is going to do little more than let the Malkavians > set up a more defensive position (i.e. play Madness Network, keep all > their guys untapped to block, bounce, and save the Madness Network, and > then right before it is their turn, they'll go and bleed their prey with > whoever is left untapped by then). And maybe generate some extra pool > with Victoria. In a rare occasion, it'll be used for some Out of Turn > Rotschreck Rush deck, which, really, isn't even that big of a deal. The most dangerous use of Madness Network is in a Malkavian political deck that makes frequent use of Reversal of Fortunes to completely dominate the flow of the game. But that's talking crazy. I don't know anybody that pulled that off. ;-) Regards, Noal

In message <1173361727....@30g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >Oh, sure--Madness Network is rarely going to be a good idea to leave >on the table, but in most situations, if you can't get rid of it for >whatever reason, it is going to be a minor inconvinience, and is >unlikely to, like, end your game or anything. It is always a good idea >to kill it, but if it isn't being used for Rotschreck shenanagins, >while it certainly isn't going to help your cause to leave it in play, >it is unlikely to be completely game destroying for anyone. I'd disagree for all but the best players. I've seen too many games where a Madness Network came and ate someone's face. To me, this is much like leaving Smiling Jack around for the first turn or two before it's been built up, but now the controlling Methuselah has intercept and combat to make you cry. Similarly, back before Anarch Revolt was downgraded, too many people would leave them around until they became a problem, at which point you couldn't often get rid of them. Unless you're *very* close to an oust (and they're just dropping the MN to cycle cards, mostly), burning it has struck me as the right thing to do on pretty much every table I've seen it played. [ quoted text not captured ]

On 8 mrt, 22:09, "Noal McDonald" <dharz...@my-deja.com> wrote: > The most dangerous use of Madness Network is in a Malkavian political > deck that makes frequent use of Reversal of Fortunes to completely > dominate the flow of the game. > > But that's talking crazy. I don't know anybody that pulled that > off. ;-) To be fair, the much feared Lucian steals your turn deck were stronger when the seat changers where still allowed. Still... :-)

James Coupe: > I've seen too many games where a Madness Network came and ate someone's > face. To me, this is much like leaving Smiling Jack around for the > first turn or two before it's been built up, but now the controlling > Methuselah has intercept and combat to make you cry. Similarly, back > before Anarch Revolt was downgraded, too many people would leave them > around until they became a problem, at which point you couldn't often > get rid of them. Unless you're *very* close to an oust (and they're > just dropping the MN to cycle cards, mostly), burning it has struck me > as the right thing to do on pretty much every table I've seen it played. > You are absolutely right here. But please, everybody, let's discuss this in a separate thread that I've just created! It would be really great to have a chance of discussing disciplineless antibleed cards here. Seems that I found some new arguments... Let's look at my latest creation (based on the advice of James Coupe, of course): Name: Guarding the Base Type: Reaction Cost: 1 pool Only usable when you are being bled. Tap this reacting minion. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now attempting to bleed that Methuselah. Your minions cannot bleed next turn. Would you like to play this card? I would. It's simple, it's powerful, and it can be played even by the allies. S&B isn't going to use this card, thanks to the last restriction, but, unfortunately, voting decks still remain. If we add "Requires a vampire with capacity above 4" here, the card will be disabled for weenie vote, but not for the midcap stealth-vote. I don't think that stealth-vote needs such a boost, but let's leave the card as is for now and discuss whether we really need a BOUNCE card or not. A bounce card has the following features: A). You avoid losing pool for the bleed. B). You can force your prey to lose pool or at least to spend some resources (Wakes, intercept, bounce etc) C). You can punish your bleeding predator (by ousting your prey with his help and getting 6 pool). D). You can allow your intercepting ally to block the action and torporize the acting vampire. Actually, features B and C are precious only if you can defend against bleeds good enough (a Wall deck, for instance) or you can oust your prey fast enough. Both types of decks need a new bleed bounce card much less than the decks that CANNOT defend against bleeds good enough and cannot out their prey quickly - Rush decks, for instance. Moreover, we were trying to create a card that would be unusable in the fast-killing decks! Let's look at the B and C features from the Rush player's perspective. If that player would bounce bleed to his prey, his S&B predator would thank him for his help in ousting the next prey. The slow-killing deck won't be able to oust his prey before his fast-killing predator ousts him. Thus, the bounce is no "punishment" here, and S&B can bleed without any fear. Now please look at my Restless Guard: Name: Restless Guard Type: Reaction Cost: X blood Only usable when a minion is attempting to bleed you for X or more. Tap this reacting vampire. The acting minion takes X unpreventable damage. If the acting minion will not be ready after that, the action ends. This card has three effects: avoiding pool loss (A), punishing the bleeder (C) and further slowing the bleeder (let's call it E), since he will be forced to resque the bleeding vampire, hunt, and so on. As we just saw, the most popular bounce effect (B) is not especially good for the slow-ousting decks that cannot handle being ousted themselves. Thus, any attempts of creating cards with this effect aren't going to help much the decks that need the help most of all. If I would play a Rush deck, I would definitely prefer Restless Guard to Guarding the Base. The only effect left is D, which can potentially result in a very interesting cards. What about this: Name: Hired Guard Type: Reaction Cost: 1 blood Only usable when a minion is attempting to bleed you for 3 or more. Choose a Methuselah other than you and the controller of an acting minion. That Methuselah can tap any untapped minion he controls to enter combat with the acting minion. If the acting minion will not be ready after that combat, the action ends; otherwise, the chosen Methuselah burns 1 pool. This is surely a good "bounce" card! Two combat-heavy decks will stop the S&B quite easily, if they deal. Another option, certainly, is creation of a bounce card specifically for the Rush decks (Trophy and the like). Here we can make a STRONGER card than the traditional bounce, since the requirements are going to be quite harsh. What do you think about it? Yours, Ector

On Mar 9, 2:08 am, James Coupe <j...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > I've seen too many games where a Madness Network came and ate someone's > face. To me, this is much like leaving Smiling Jack around for the > first turn or two before it's been built up, but now the controlling > Methuselah has intercept and combat to make you cry. Similarly, back > before Anarch Revolt was downgraded, too many people would leave them > around until they became a problem, at which point you couldn't often > get rid of them. Unless you're *very* close to an oust (and they're > just dropping the MN to cycle cards, mostly), burning it has struck me > as the right thing to do on pretty much every table I've seen it played. Again, I'm not, like, saying it is a good idea in a general sense to simply ignore Madness Network (heck, the last MN I saw in play, I Washed cross table just on sheer principle) when it hits the table. But really, most of the time, it isn't going to eat your face. Sometimes? Sure. But mostly? Meh. But if you are really concerned about it, you can, in fact, just go kill it. -Peter

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:1173449235.0...@t69g2000cwt.googlegroups.com... > Again, I'm not, like, saying it is a good idea in a general sense to > simply ignore Madness Network (heck, the last MN I saw in play, I > Washed cross table just on sheer principle) when it hits the table. Random tangent: You can't Wash cross-table. Wash is only usable if your predator or prey is playing a master card... Josh on principle or off!

On Mar 9, 10:04 am, "Joshua Duffin" <joshduffin...@gmail.dot.com> wrote: > Random tangent: You can't Wash cross-table. Wash is only usable if your > predator or prey is playing a master card... Man. I'm all sorts of trouble in these discussions. It probably wasn't cross table then :-) -Peter

"Peter D Bakija" <pd...@lightlink.com> wrote in message news:1173454135.1...@64g2000cwx.googlegroups.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Heh! You're a troublemaker, you are. The problem I always have with Wash is not replacing it till my next untap phase. Such a long time to wait! :-) Josh all washed up

In message <1173449235.0...@t69g2000cwt.googlegroups.com>, Peter D Bakija <pd...@lightlink.com> writes: >Again, I'm not, like, saying it is a good idea in a general sense to >simply ignore Madness Network (heck, the last MN I saw in play, I >Washed cross table just on sheer principle) when it hits the table. >But really, most of the time, it isn't going to eat your face. Re: face-eating. The difficulty I've seen in play goes much like this: - Against any "normal" deck, a player may do something like leave a vampire untapped, leave a Wake in hand, and hold a Deflection. Obviously, the specifics will vary from deck to deck. Three actions taken against you, you decide how to deal with them. If you're *really* lucky, you can maybe bounce the first bleed and stay untapped, block, and Wake, and do something to all three. Realistically, you might be able to choose to do something to two actions, though. - Against Madness Network, if you hold the same thing, you can hit maybe two actions. Then they untap, and do it again. And you haven't had a turn to recover. And if they're pretty confident that you're out of defence, they can throw caution to the wind and drop a few more bleed modifiers, happy that you're not going to bounce. In the turn to recover, you'd have been able to cycle your own cards - even just tapping The Barrens again - but to defend against six actions, how much stuff do you need to be holding in your hand? So either you have to hold a lot more defence, or accept the pile of damage done to you. Now, if the MN deck isn't playing Rotschreck and isn't playing a trick deck like Reversal of Fortunes, what with them being Malkavians, it's pretty likely they'll have decent bleed on hand. So a turn that might have been: one bleed getting through, one being bounced, Waking and trying to do something to the third turns into 6 actions, of which 4 get through. And these being Malkavians, how big are those bleeds? Kindred Spirits for 2, with Eyes of Chaos for 3, or maybe 4? Govern the Unaligned for 3? That's a lot of pool damage to take at once, and I don't think the vast majority of players would really know what to do in that situation. (Hence, take the setup apart before it happens.) [ quoted text not captured ]

In article <7UNx$LLJZQ...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>, James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > That's a lot of pool damage to take at once, and I don't think > the vast majority of players would really know what to do in > that situation. (Hence, take the setup apart before it > happens.) Sure, but the Malkavian is mortgaging their future to do it (well, really, mortgaging their present...). Their 3 minions get to bleed you effectively, 6 times in a row at their end of your grand predator's turn and during their turn, but at the expense of not bleeding you those 3 times on their previous turn. Yeah, the not getting to have a turn after the first run could be problematic, but you still have the possibility of holding the defense that you would have played on their first turn of attack anyway. Yeah, having the Malkavians attack you twice in a row without taking a turn in between is certainly not going to *help* you, but it isn't necessarily going to hurt you more so than not. [ quoted text not captured ]