Official !Malkavian March 2002 Newsletter

Derek Ray wrote: > > In message <20020320214131.11884.00003636@mb-dh.aol.com>, > curtadams@aol.com (CurtAdams) mumbled something about: > > >lorimer@yahoo.com writes: > > > >>>But, Gift I see as a 6+ per deck card. Engling, I could see as a min 4 card > > > >>At 6+ per deck, you jam on them if your early equip actions are > >>successful -- once you have 3 Meat Hooks out, you're going to discard > >>the 4th. > > > >That's what discards are for. 3 discards in the length of a deck is > >not a problem. And you can use them for non-weapon equips - > > Card text: "Only usable when an action to equip with a weapon..." on > both inferior and superior. Yea...but...like what Curt said: "That's what discards are for." I'm missing your point. By the same logic, in any weapon deck once you have 3 Meat Hooks out, you're going to discard the 4th (Meat Hook). Does that mean it's a disaster if you succeed at equipping early? One of the ways my deckbuilding has changed over time is a willingness to accept and embrace redundancy in cards I really want to have come up but are only worthwhile in small numbers. If I have a Ravnos deck that needs stealth (and I do, BTW ;-) ), I REALLY want Fortune Teller Shop to come up. Used to be, I'd throw one in figuring it was unique and grouse a lot when it didn't show. Now, I throw in 3 or 4 (or 5 or 6) and discard the extras. (It also really pisses the shit out of someone who took the time and trouble to Arson the first one. Or even better, Sudden Reverse it when I'm holding another one in my hand.) I'd happily stick 6 Gift of Baloney into a deck wanting 3 to turn up. Actually, I might put 8 in. The others might never show up anyway unless I have one of those games I draw the whole deck. Fred

CurtAdams wrote: > > vtesrep@white-wolf.com writes: > > >I'd disagree with Gift of Bellona, esp. with "obviously" in there. > >Gift is an at-the-time-of-equipping card. Not a high-utility card. > >Which common cards is this impeding the function of? You can > >still equip without it. > > You can, but with Sword of Rightousness and Vengeance of Samiel > without potence, the !Sal obviously want melee weapons, and that > means equiping. Because GoB is relatively easy to dispose of at > outferior, I would want enough that I could usually have one with > every equip. Your personal preference, I understand. > >Engling Fury? > >Again, doesn't obviously require quantities. Doesn't restrict the > >functioning of common cards. > > EF at superior, is gain two blood with no disadvantage. Any > vampire with superior spiritus should use it once or twice > per game. Even inferior is free for interceptors - which is > also clearly in the Ahrimane toolbox. Should be common relative > to the Ahrimanes. Sorry, I'm still missing your previous point: which commons are hindered? > >Blessing of the Name is also not necessary in number. And certainly not > >"obviously" so. And again I don't see any common cards that depend > >on having quantities of it. > > Untap, +1 intercept, +1 damage - BotN makes those melee weapons > work *much* better. A !Sal deck with 4 BotN is going to be markedly > better than one without. Due to the 1/turn restriction (and it's low > early value) this should be uncommon, not common. I'm still missing the "necessary in number for proper functioning of common cards" link. -- LSJ (vtesrep@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

In message <3C998485.52F71EA6@removethis.com>, Frederick Scott <freds64_at_cox_dot_net@removethis.com> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: >> In message <20020320214131.11884.00003636@mb-dh.aol.com>, >> curtadams@aol.com (CurtAdams) mumbled something about: >> >That's what discards are for. 3 discards in the length of a deck is >> >not a problem. And you can use them for non-weapon equips - >> >> Card text: "Only usable when an action to equip with a weapon..." on >> both inferior and superior. > >Yea...but...like what Curt said: "That's what discards are for." I'm missing >your point. By the same logic, in any weapon deck once you have 3 Meat Hooks "And you can use them for non-weapon equips" was the reference. >One of the ways my deckbuilding has changed over time is a willingness to >accept and embrace redundancy in cards I really want to have come up but >are only worthwhile in small numbers. If I have a Ravnos deck that needs That's fine as far as cards that GOTTA BE THERE. But realistically, Gift of the Boner does not GOTTA BE THERE in the same way the melee weapons do. A Boner is a nice extra when you get the Poker or Meat Hook, so you can afford to not have one show up every time. -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

Derek Ray wrote: > > In message <3C998485.52F71EA6@removethis.com>, > Frederick Scott <freds64_at_cox_dot_net@removethis.com> mumbled > something about: > > >Derek Ray wrote: > >> In message <20020320214131.11884.00003636@mb-dh.aol.com>, > >> curtadams@aol.com (CurtAdams) mumbled something about: > >> >That's what discards are for. 3 discards in the length of a deck is > >> >not a problem. And you can use them for non-weapon equips - > >> > >> Card text: "Only usable when an action to equip with a weapon..." on > >> both inferior and superior. > > > >Yea...but...like what Curt said: "That's what discards are for." I'm missing > >your point. By the same logic, in any weapon deck once you have 3 Meat Hooks Ah. OK. > "And you can use them for non-weapon equips" was the reference. > > >One of the ways my deckbuilding has changed over time is a willingness to > >accept and embrace redundancy in cards I really want to have come up but > >are only worthwhile in small numbers. If I have a Ravnos deck that needs > > That's fine as far as cards that GOTTA BE THERE. But realistically, > Gift of the Boner does not GOTTA BE THERE in the same way the melee > weapons do. A Boner is a nice extra when you get the Poker or Meat > Hook, so you can afford to not have one show up every time. If I need the stupid thing because I have prey with a million intercept cards, they GOTTA BE THERE. (And yes, the superior I-got-the-weapon-anyway function is too critical!) I'm not putting the stupid thing in my deck to have it not show up when I need to equip with a weapon. Every single prey I ran into in 8 tournament games at Orccon was stocking at least 2nd traditions. Many of them (6 of the 8 if I recall correctly) were super-mondo never-run-out-of- intercept-cards type of prey. Bad luck partly (about the 7th game Sunday night, I really just about lost it) but clearly there's a lot of this stuff around. Especially with Read the Winds being the new darling card for the Tzimisce. Fred

>OK, I can now see that my numbers were pretty much all >wrong. My only point, though, was that 100 rares isn't >an unreasonable number for a large set, so I wouldn't >be shocked if the Camarilla set does have 100 R1s, like >Sabbat War did. :-) > > >Josh > >not easily shocked (today) Maybe you should stay away from power lines, electical appliances, and fuzzy sweaters and carpets just in case... =P Halcyan 2

"Derek Ray" <lorimer@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:l6ii9usuidphmllmgogcmum848355hl11e@4ax.com... > In message <Hj2m8.76042$Yv2.28468@rwcrnsc54>, > "Chris Berger" <arkayn@ugcs.caltech.edu> mumbled something about: > > >Darkling Trickery is a maneuver/press, not an anti-weapon card. (okay, it's > >both, but who cares about the superior?) > > The most common weaponry IS the stuff that does ranged damage, because > often that stuff comes with a free keep-your-guys-alive maneuver. I'd > use the inferior more than the superior, but it's not a bad "SURPRISE!" > card at all. > Yeah, yeah, no argument there. One of my best friends hasd a Ravnos Horrid Reality deck that he used to play all the time, so I've gotten to use Darkling Trickery at superior many times. Calling it an "anti-weapon" card, however, glosses over the most important use of the card. It's a Flash that's R1. You don't put it in a deck for the superior. Although you certainly don't hesitate to use it if it's there.

"Chris Berger" <arkayn@ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote in message news:Vypm8.86392$702.21307@sccrnsc02... > Calling it an "anti-weapon" card, however, > glosses over the most important use of the card. It's a Flash that's R1. You > don't put it in a deck for the superior. Although you certainly don't hesitate > to use it if it's there. Perhaps some of the cards are being set at certain rarities due to the "in-discipline-ness" of the effect. Mytherceria is not, at heart, a combat discipline, perhaps this is why Basilisk's Touch & Darkling Trickery, which provide combat offense, are more rare. Don't ask me about Coagulated Entity, though. (Though maybe that's because it's like the highest power available in the RPG or something?) Xian

vtesrep@white-wolf.com writes: >CurtAdams wrote: >> >> vtesrep@white-wolf.com writes: >> >> Because GoB is relatively easy to dispose of at >> outferior, I would want enough that I could usually have one with >> every equip. > >Your personal preference, I understand. Well, any time you site next to a deck with intercept, - 1/2 to 1/3 the time IME - you're not going to get out your weapons and your deck is just going to die unless you can cough up a GoB with almost every equip. It doesn't even need to be the intercept wall Fred is worried about - even with light intercept your opponent will have the sense to pick off your equips. If you don't have that problem, it's a *free* offensive untap. You can say it's just my preference that my deck isn't shut down 1/3 the time and that I use free offensive untaps - but if you can find somebody who prefers to have their deck shut down frequently and eshews free untaps, let me know where they live so I can play against them in a tournament. >> >Engling Fury? >Sorry, I'm still missing your previous point: which commons are >hindered? Directly, any Spiritus card which costs blood, which is most of them. Indirectly, every common Spiritus card as EF makes Ahrimannes much better and more playable. I'm curious why you value EF and Unwholesome Bond so differently. UB will, on average, generate more blood and can also generate pool, but it costs an action and lacks an outferior. UB is probably a little better, all things considered, but why such a huge difference in rarity? >> >Blessing of the Name >I'm still missing the "necessary in number for proper functioning >of common cards" link. Directly, Vengeance of Samiel and Sword of Righteousness - without BotN they are used later in the game, do less damage, and are harder to use (less intercept). Indirectly, every common Valeren card, as BotN makes the !Sal much better and more playable. IMO, without the semi-power rares, I don't think either the !Sal or the Ahrimanes are worth the considerable trouble consequent to their tightly limited crypts and difficult multiclan use. All the BL clans are hard to use; you need somebig payoff to make them worth it. In both cases, I think the semi-power rares would qualify, at least to the point of making a shot at it. Curt Adams (curtadams@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

vermillian69@yahoo.com writes: >> Oooohh, no way. Bloat is always good, especially for combat clans. >Yeah its good, but its not COMBAT. Its a combat clan, ergo combat >cards (most) should be common. Enter combat: common. Gain blood, no... >They've got fortitude anyhow! That's what restoration is for. Not so >great, but, hey! They're a COMBAT clan. Besides, thats what tastes are >for too. MT, enter combat, pound for 5, taste, refill. In the CCG, a clan is what its cards provide. If the brothers have a good bloat card, they're a beat-and-bloat clan, period. Making it rare just makes the clan played rarely. Besides, I'm frankly ecstatic that I can make a good POT combat deck that needn't have 6 Tastes. >Me too. But Hutziputz should be rare... and he is! I also think spirit >marionete should be rare, too... that's just me. Huitz should be rare since he's such a pain to use. But Spirit Marionette is one of the 3 cards that makes the Sal usable as a scarce clan with 3 vampires. It needs to be mondo common;sometimes it'll be the only Sal killer card you'll be able to use. The Sal rarities are pretty spot on IMO. Curt Adams (curtadams@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

Derek Ray thus spewt: > > In message <20020320192517.06111.00002702@mb-mf.aol.com>, > curevei@aol.com (Curevei) mumbled something about: > >Having played with a lot of Blessings in a deck, I can see two ways to go. > >Either, as Fred suggests, you try to always have one in play, negating the > >drawbacks while forwarding actions and getting the other benefits. The other > >is to surprise people with a flurry of actions, which is the only choice most > >folks have as I figure 20 in a deck is the reasonable number for trying to > >always have one in play. > > I agree. Going nuts with BN is an ill-advised option, I'm not sure that's exactly what Ian said. He just suggested there were two ways to use the card and it would take at least 20 in the deck to use it the way I was talking about. I don't think it's quite that high, myself. But then, he (and you?) may be assuming a 90-card deck, which (right offhand) probably wouldn't be the way I'd build it. 84 cards tops, possibly as few as 75 depending on how my combat system worked. For 90 cards, 20 Blessings still sounds a bit high to me. Mind you, I'm not utterly paranoid about the occasional turn without one. Ultimately, there's usually only so much my opponents can do in a single turn. I'm counting on not being so close to the edge that one turn of no Blessing is not usually going to oust me. And once it happens, you can wait and collect up a couple before starting in again, I suspect - unless you've been keeping a vote deck at bay with the intercept or something. > because it's just a +1 stealth action that someone will eventually decide to > block. If people start doing that to you, you blow through the cards faster. I think to make it work, you're going to have to have effective combat working, too. And if so, they won't block too many Blessings. If not, then you're probably in a losing position anyway. > I find that the surprise "All my guys untap and bleed or Rush, whatever > they didn't do earlier this turn" at key points is quite effective. It can be. Pulsing and Bleeding in the same turn is always strong. Fred

CurtAdams wrote: > vtesrep@white-wolf.com writes: > >Sorry, I'm still missing your previous point: which commons are > >hindered? > > Directly, any Spiritus card which costs blood, which is most of them. > Indirectly, every common Spiritus card as EF makes Ahrimannes much better and > more playable. > > I'm curious why you value EF and Unwholesome Bond so differently. > UB will, on average, generate more blood and can also generate pool, > but it costs an action and lacks an outferior. UB is probably a little > better, all things considered, but why such a huge difference in > rarity? > > >> >Blessing of the Name > >I'm still missing the "necessary in number for proper functioning > >of common cards" link. > > Directly, Vengeance of Samiel and Sword of Righteousness - without BotN they > are used later in the game, do less damage, and are harder to use (less > intercept). Indirectly, every common Valeren card, as BotN makes the !Sal much > better and more playable. Ah. OK then. We seem to be using different definitions for "proper functioning". The cards you cite "function properly" (IMD) without needing to resort to rares. -- LSJ (vtesrep@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

vtesrep@white-wolf.com: (re the importance of the power !Sal and Ahrimane rares to use of their commons) >Ah. OK then. >We seem to be using different definitions for "proper functioning". >The cards you cite "function properly" (IMD) without needing to >resort to rares. It's a semantic distinction whether the commons are "functioning properly" or not. But in any case, Gift of Bellona, Blessings of the Name, and Engling Fury are power rares (for their clans) in the same sense Freak Drive under NRA is - decks go much better with them than without them. Indeed, the per-card benefit within those clans is higher than Freak Drive's in almost any For deck. Unless the Freaked action is worth more than 2 blood - and most aren't - EF generates more benefit, for example I'm still curious about the valuation distinction between Unwholesome Bond and EF. Curt Adams (curtadams@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

>It's a semantic distinction whether the commons are "functioning >properly" or not. But in any case, Gift of Bellona, Blessings of >the Name, and Engling Fury are power rares (for their clans) >in the same sense Freak Drive under NRA is - decks go much >better with them than without them. Indeed, the per-card >benefit within those clans is higher than Freak Drive's in almost >any For deck. Unless the Freaked action is worth more than >2 blood - and most aren't - EF generates more benefit, for >example > >I'm still curious about the valuation distinction between >Unwholesome Bond and EF. I'm just curious as to which Spiritus and Valeren cards you think should have been rare... Halcyan 2

halcyan2@aol.com writes: >I'm just curious as to which Spiritus and Valeren cards you think >should have been rare... Spiritus: Chameleon's colors. I can't see any others. Valeren: Rayzeel's Song. No others there, either There didn't necessarily have to have been any, though. In general, (I've said this before), I think the current cards are too even in their effects for a steep rarity system. Most of the cards I look at seem like they'd be best at uncommon, although there are a lot of should-be-commons in the BL disciplines. Curt Adams (curtadams@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

>Spiritus: Chameleon's colors. I can't see any others. > >Valeren: Rayzeel's Song. No others there, either But...they suck! I mean, all the power cards shouldn't be rare, but then again, people complain when the rares suck also (Twisting the Knife, Up Yours). Halcyan 2

halcyan2@aol.com writes: >>Spiritus: Chameleon's colors. I can't see any others. > >>Valeren: Rayzeel's Song. No others there, either >But...they suck! I mean, all the power cards shouldn't be rare, but then again, >people complain when the rares suck also (Twisting the Knife, Up Yours). Sometimes But a lot don't. Personally, I can't begin to understand why anybody would rather have 10 Chameleon Colors and 1 Engling Fury than vice versa. They hate them so much they want 10 times as many? If you gotta have poor cards, rare is where they belong. And I suspect that in the right exotic deck, those could be good cards- they're not true wallpaper, just hard to use. Theoretically the best approach for WW would be for rares to be combinable to form different decks that still weren't any better than the common decks. An example might be trying to do something with that necromancy card that help wraiths and the wraiths themselves, which I think are all rare. Then you could have certain "cool" decks to incite people to buy mondo rares. For normal decks, the wraiths themselves would be low-value and the boosting card wallpaper, so the "low value to rares" rule holds. Balancing this is a real bear though. Curt Adams (curtadams@aol.com) "It is better to be wrong than to be vague" - Freeman Dyson

"vermillian" <vermillian69@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:f987c6cd.0203202213.391270e0@posting.google.com... > "Joshua Duffin" <jtduffin@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<a7a7p6$jk357$1@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de>... [on whether unwholesome bond would've been a better rare than coagulated entity] > > heh, I'd actually disagree here. The Blood Brothers vamps > > are expensive enough that Unwholesome Bond seems pretty > > important to making them usable, even if combat is what > > you want to do with them otherwise. > > Expensive? How so? They're discipline spread rocks! (Pot and For? > Hell... I would believe any vampire withsuch a discipline combo should > cost another half pool... if half pools existed... Course I feel the > same about Obf and Dom) Expensive in that even in the Chicago circle they all cost 5 pool (except Tom), and in Torrance they're 6 each. That's *really* expensive for a combat clan, especially one that can't use 2nd Tradition (or similar). Successful rush-combat decks (IME) use weenies, like no vampires over 4-cap and an average cap of no more than 3. You can't really make a Blood Bros deck that has an average cap any lower than 4.5, and 6 is gonna be more typical. So, if you don't use Unwholesome Bond, you're either gonna only get out 2-3 vampires per game (assuming that you're playing against competent players who will be putting enough effort into reducing your pool that you can't afford to spend more than 12-18 pool on vampires), or else you'll have to spend your deckspace on Blood Dolls and other ways to refill your vampires. (The other drawback of not using Unwholesome Bond is that your vampires come out quite slowly since they're all too large to be transferred out in a single turn (Tom again notwithstanding). That's why it's so good: it not only saves you pool, it also speeds you up so you can start doing stuff earlier on.) I'd also disagree that their discipline spread is *that* good - yeah, Potence and Fortitude sound great on paper, but they don't focus on those skills narrowly enough to make them some kind of uber-great Pot/For combat clan: only one of the ten Bros has POT/FOR; only one of the Chicago circle has superior of either, and she doesn't have *any* of the other (Terry, with POT/no fortitude); only two more of Torrance (besides POT/FOR Karl) have a superior of Potence or Fortitude. Basically, they spend a *lot* of their discipline points on Sanguinus, and ignoring that to just use their Potence and Fortitude looks to me like a seriously losing plan. > > So is > > Darkling Trickery at superior Myt, but at inferior it's > > general-purpose enough that it might make a better common > > than, say, Absorb the Mind. Or not, but its inferior > > definitely makes more sense at common than rare. :-) > > Whose inferior? Darkling or Absorb? Well, both, really, but I meant Darkling - maneuver or press is like Flash and a very useful effect for any combat discipline (which Mytherceria is, at least to some extent). Absorb the Mind's inf Myt level is also pretty general; steal one blood, ranged, isn't bad, and is the same as inferior Theft of Vitae. The superior only works if there's a discipline master to steal, but the inf is always usable which makes it (IMO) a pretty reasonable common card. Josh back from the frozen north

"Curevei" <curevei@aol.com> wrote in message news:20020320193854.06111.00002709@mb-mf.aol.com... [Chris Berger... or possibly somebody else... wrote] > >Unwholesome Bond is a better rare than Coagulated Entity given that the > >Blood Brothers are a combat orientated clan (given Potence and > >Fortitude) and should make far more use of an 'enter combat' card than a > >gain blood card. You certainly need fewer of them than Coagulated > >Entities for the majority (though not all) of Blood Brothers deck > >strategies. > > From everything I've seen involving BB decks that bother to use Sanguinus at > all (which has been all of them), Unwholesome is the engine that makes them > playable. > > I can't imagine considering Coagulated more useful to BB than Unwholesome. > > Anyone else want to chime in on the important or lack of it of Unwholesome? Sure. I totally agree. (Like, totally, man.) I'll admit that I haven't actually tried a non-Unwholesome- using Blood Brothers deck since I first tried to make a pure-rush deck with them and found that it did nothing but suck all day, and then at night, for a change of pace, it sucked some more. As far as I can tell, you just can't reasonable play a pure rush deck with such large vampires that have such weak combat disciplines (at least in terms of superiors) compared to their capacity. It might be a different story with an unlimited supply of Disarms and Coagulated Entities and Freak Drives. But, not having an infinite number of those things, Unwholesome Bond is what makes them go. (Plus it seems stupid to ignore Walk of Caine, and that's also (a) non-combat and (b) blood-intensive, which Unwholesome helps with.) Josh bloody brother

"Halcyan 2" <halcyan2@aol.com> wrote in message news:20020323020440.22346.00003044@mb-mi.aol.com... [somebody else wrote... probably Curt Adams...] > >Spiritus: Chameleon's colors. I can't see any others. > > > >Valeren: Rayzeel's Song. No others there, either > > > But...they suck! I mean, all the power cards shouldn't be rare, but then again, > people complain when the rares suck also (Twisting the Knife, Up Yours). I think we've been over this, but they complain because there are *some* rares that are really good, which is what makes it annoying when you get a rare that sucks. If *all* the rares sucked, and all the really good cards weren't rare, you'd just expect to always get a sucky rare and it'd be fine. That's just from a card-utility standpoint though, and as always ignores the revenue/profit side of things, which is not in fact ignorable. Josh make seven up yours too!