[Classic] Strength of Air

Another instant classic, this time from a post to the Alderac L5R forum.

* * *

I started responding on the thread about Mirumoto Bushi when I realized I would have just been threadjacking, so here goes my concern.

So far, I feel like every school (even shugenja) is an Air school in 4e play. I’m not entirely sure why 4e feels so Air heavy, but it may be due to:

1. Inversion of wound chart, making even low Earth characters unlikely to be in wound penalties.

2. Lower attack bonuses (Free Raises, static) combined with higher base ATNs making it harder to hit, not only reducing damage which the lower Earth characters enjoy but also leading to high Reflexes making hitting much, much harder than in 3e (3e being when missing was never expected).

3. Less reason to buy up skills, leading to more points devoted to traits with the best bang for the buck with skill use being Awareness. Increased Void cost of 4e can siphon off points, but that still doesn’t encourage Earth above 3, Water, or even Fire (as important as Agility generally is, see 4. for more on Reflexes) for bushi and courtiers.

4. Far more tactical movement use, leading to combats that start further away, leading to more ranged combat.

5. Three key Awareness skills, generating increased value out of Awareness increases.

6. Agility no longer mattering for dueling.

All of this can be undermined, of course. Magic and special attacks are a great way to ignore ATN and make Willpower more relevant. Successful Fear is incredibly harsh. Cover or restricted combat setups and forcing characters to string bows (which I wouldn’t as it’s just annoying and shafts Tsuruchi, et al) would reduce the value of bows. Making Investigation, Hunting, Intelligence skills more essential to success reduces focus on Awareness skills.

But, still, given that the Awareness skills can’t just be ignored and Reflexes didn’t lose anything from 3e to 4e, while my sense is that Earth did and Agility has a harder time keeping up with Reflexes while losing dueling relevance, I’m weary of how important I see the Air Ring being. Only likely to be exacerbated when The Book of Air comes out.

* * *

While I probably disdain the Water Ring the most, I’m fond of Perception.  I just find the Air Ring a bore and try to ignore it when my characters aren’t forced into it.  This is quite detrimental, of course.  Putting aside how important Awareness is for dealing with people, by ignoring Reflexes, I’m hurting initiative, which was essential in 3e, the game of whoever strikes first wins, and Armor TN, essential in 4e, the game of grinding away where someone might actually miss with an attack.

I had a 3e character who sucked, hard, relative to the 3e standard.  But, I enjoyed him for his unkillability.  He could hit people, especially with Full Attack stance, which he could survive due to Earth 4.

I have a somewhat similar build with 4e and it’s obnoxious how dependent he is upon armor (for not getting hit and reducing damage).  Sure, I see all 4e bushi being largely screwed when not allowed to use armor, but at least a Reflexes character can dodge attack after attack and still isn’t that likely to be in wound penalties if someone rolls unusually well.  At least initiative is not as important as it used to be, though that does depend upon not facing a bunch of spellcasters who can make a mess of combat before you act.  On the flip side, those spellcasters do ignore ATN, so at least Reflexes doesn’t help as much defensively.

Maybe, it’s just that I play in less investigative adventures and more social + combat adventures where Intelligence and Perception become less relevant.

[Classic] Weekend Assignment

Continuing with finding old posts to the Wheel of Time CCG playtest list, in the Summer or 2000, the playtesters were given an assignment to try out various errata for cards identified as being problematic.  Not a very common playtesting request, in my experience.

“Weekend Assignment”  [July 31, 2000]

Dark CotL v. Dragon
Pattern: 1/7/12
LB totals: 6/31

This game was played using the discard to use for Lines and with one Decrees per challenge, though no Decrees were played because only one was drawn and B&A was in play.  Light wins by 29.

Same
Pattern: 0/6/14
LB totals: 34 dice to 88 dice

Lines banned. One decrees played for 22 support on top of whatever would have been rolled.  We were already sick of these decks to bother rolling.

Dark Illian v. same Dragon
0/8/12
37/30

Lines banned.  Decrees played for 14. Light 3 damage away from all of its characters dying (ignoring using Pattern for damage prevention).  Light won by 5 … with Decrees (14 point).

Same
0/11/11
32/37

Same match up with Lines back in deck.  Decrees for 22.  Light wins by 38, 16 without Decrees.  First turn Genocide by Shadow important.

In the last two days, the Light has *averaged* 12 Pattern during the LB.  The Shadow has averaged ZERO.  Thought I’d mention this before taking an interlude to comment on the seven cards *we* considered errata for.

Decrees – 1 support/opposition per target, once per challenge.  Or, this has got to go.

Lines – Mixed.  I’m still concerned about selective use of the discard to use version.  That option certainly changes my deck.  Enough that I’d probably pull it for some other way to draw cards.  Not having Lines in that deck at all was an incredibly important change.  Lines allowed for searching for the important characters – Elyas, Prophet – who search for most of the troops.  Without it, the deck had a lot of problems achieving critical character mass.  Good.  Means that I’d have to find some other way to exploit Pull openings.  Wasn’t like a deck built around the card lost or anything without it.

Elayne – General dislike for removing text, removal is considered counterintuitive.  Couldn’t really agree.  Not the first change we’d make with DP cards as trying to test the proposed errata is virtually impossible as it completely changes the opening hand and tends to mean building a completely different deck.

Pull – In anticipating future replacements based on Pattern, we didn’t have a problem with reducing the blow up ability to either search or reduce – the prepostplaytest version.

PwP – Shouldn’t go get itself.  Couldn’t agree beyond that.  Bill’s feeling was no card should be able to search for itself.  He finds Rahvin for Rahvin as annoying.  Suggests a blanket rules change to that effect.  A card we could use more time looking at.

Genocide – Where to begin?  How about that Genocide may be the Shadow’s only chance.  That it is better for the Shadow out of the opening hand.  Though, Decrees gives the Light the ability to shoot down midgame Genocides, which is interesting.  Suggestion that we could live with:  remove from game after it resolves.  A complete thematic failure no matter what is done with it in my mind, but limiting it to the Shadow may help the current game and Bill thought it was more thematic.  In its favor, Genocide’s effects give a strong reason for both sides to participate in the same challenge.

Invasion – Remove from game once it finishes resolving seemed to be the most popular fix.  Other suggestion called for reducing the third ability to 1 card to prevent infinite Invasion combos.  But, remove from game seems more elegant.

As a result of our discussions on the state of the game, we concluded that a good idea for a card would be a starting Forsaken that reduced Pattern requirements by 2, to give Shaidar a chance to see play, to give some reason to play Draghkars, etc.  Another idea was an event that temporarily reduced Pattern requirements.

I liked Bill’s Dark Illian deck a lot.  Opening hand of Sammael, Genocide, Brend, King.  I’ve commented before how I felt Illian was too midgamish.  He fills out the deck with Forsaken for long term punch.  In the early game, Genocide slows the Light.  City of Illian in combination with Invasions and Genocides is a bitch to deal with.  “Oh no, you put all that effort into stopping my Genocide and all I did was win the Pattern and pull back an Invasion which I’ll use to get back the Genocide.”  Pretty good synergy on a number of levels between Forsaken and Illian.

We are all trying to figure out how far Genocide/Invasion goes towards giving the Shadow a chance.  We have yet to build the Light G/I deck.

The no Lines Illian v. Dragon game was incredibly interactive [note:  wrong game, corrected in a later post].  Tough decisions had to be made and challenges were incredibly important.  That the Shadow had 0 Pattern, though, is still rather ridiculous.

I think I’ll post my Dragon deck soon, just to give an idea of what we were using for the vast majority of the games.

[Classic] Perpetuity

I was reading my posts to the Wheel of Time CCG playtest list, which still exists amazingly enough.  On the one hand, by this point, I knew how to playtest.  On the other, wow, I was incredibly arrogant at times; plus, I had a vast number of opinions on the flavor of cards, suggesting that, *sigh*, I really was/am a fan of the Wheel of Time series.  Anyway, this was the first that I found that seemed to be interesting in a “this is what CCG playtesting is like” way.  Some of the others, especially from playtest days where we played a bunch of games, are likely more interesting, but unless the group (and my saved sent e-mails) go away, I’m going to try to post more of these.  I enjoy reading them, at least.

Perpetuity [June 29, 2000]

This was a great deal trickier.  I had a sense before playing the card that Perpetual Conflict had the potential for breaking the game (broken in the true sense) as its mechanic allows for different deck designs.

The deck I built was just one of the possible uses for PC (which should probably change titles so that not every challenge is abbreviated PC).  This concept was to initiate anything and everything to slow or cripple the opponent out of the gate.

The deck list …

Sammael
Liandrin
Perpetual *
Into the Fight

A reasonable combination of threat and support to push PC through.  Originally Be’lal, but decided that the one combat wasn’t all that important, whereas bringing C&T out when drawn was.

Battle Hardened x3
Aura of Death x3
The Art x3
Momentum

BH is more for the characters, whom I expect to take damage.

Draw Him Out x2
Genocide x2
Incite Rebellion *
Political Prisoner x2
Prolonged Campaign
Rallying Cry
Rampage x3
Skirmish x2

This probably isn’t the optimal choice of challenges.  I did tinker around with them after rediscovering Assassination Attempt is useless and the like.  Also, playing them in the right order is not a skill I’ve mastered yet.  Generally, I like to get Incite Rebellion in play first to stop card drawing.  Rallying Cry frees up my characters. But, the Light usually isn’t *that* slow.  The most effective was Political Prisoner by far.  DHO didn’t work in killing off Thom like I hoped, though a bunch of these are just good for keeping the Light in the battleground (Genocide, which never won).

Darkhound x2
Eyeless x3
Barthanes
Shaidar x2

Eyeless – good synergy with strategy.

Decisive Tactics
Guarded by Fate x3
Healing x3
Into the Fight x2
Personal Growth x3
Portal Stone x3

Figure Sam and Liandrin will usually be in, so they need all the protection they can get.

Fist x2
Footmen x3
Horde
Raiders x3
War Band x3

How to win, eventually.

So, we got into a disagreement as to what caused my opponent to concede half way in.  I contended that it was the unrelenting pressure (ha ha) of perpetual conflict.  Bill thought Eyeless were ridiculous (got two in play).  As the game played out, the Light had a bit of an edge in recruiting (Aes Sedai), but Thom and eventually Moiraine both got imprisoned.  The game played the way the deck was designed – attack the opponent’s resources, especially the ability to recruit and draw cards, while eventually bringing greater force into play, except I never found out if I was going to bring greater force into play.

This is definitely a rough draft, I wanted to post this to try and give some ideas for something better.  Not having DP cards in front of me in card/proxy form also makes building the best decks difficult.  Anyway, even the concept may not be optimal as it may be preferable to just use PC to go get elite challenges.  A Light version would also be interesting.

I would like to restate that PC in its current version makes any restriction on challenges in the opening hand – Rampage?, Find That Which Is Hidden – meaningless.  The other deck I’ve begun to sketch out has Lanfear, PC, Liandrin, Into the Fight as its opening hand with the idea of using PC to get the 3 Finds.  Given a choice between which challenge I’d bar from the opening hand, I’d choose PC over Find (obviously).

Also, PC will only go away when there aren’t any challenges left.  Five turns of not playing a CBC, when you are playing PC, is not realistic.  Much better would be something like “If you don’t initiate a CBC this turn, discard PC.”  It requires, then, for someone to think about how they will use it. Not that you will consider this as I believe the intent was to get people to play CBCs, which this certainly does in its current (I consider possibly broken) form.

Ah, but with the other hand, something is taken away.  Though hardly a game breaker type card, Incite Rebellion does seem to go way too far as a hoser.  My Premier Dragon/Mercenary deck would have no chance against any sort of real deck if IR hits the table early on.  It’s mostly built around Taking Advantage, the card that is supposed to be fixed.  Two Pattern may be trivial to some decks, but I think this card mainly hurts the decks that can’t easily gain Pattern.  Might consider an additional or a different mechanic for getting rid of it.

[Classic] Bannings, Errata, Oh My!

Some background on this post:  First of all, it’s weird to call something classic that I just posted.  I’m using the classic tag to denote comments elsewhere that are copied here.  In truth, I’ve pretty much said all of the things below at one time or another.  Then, this V:EKN.net post was in a thread on bannings vs. errata that arose due to there being a perceived lack of ongoing management of V:TES.

If you want to call Magic’s rotation system massive bannings, I guess no one can stop you, but it’s not particularly accurate and not terribly relevant to CCGs such as this one that don’t support set-restricted formats.

Here is a link for Magic’s banned lists, btw, Magic Banned Lists.

Sure, block constructed has banned cards, unlike Standard and Extended.  Sure, like V:TES, Vintage bans ante cards, and then goes crazy with the bannings by banning a card that creates subgames (and that can be used to create infinite subgames) and a card that requires throwing a card into the air.  Legacy is a format defined by cards being banned that are restricted in Vintage.

Anyway, not that I see much point in reiterating these sorts of comments since they get ignored all the time, but errata and banning are both tools that can be used to improve games.  To think that CCGs, some of the most complex competitive games in existence are somehow lacking in flaws is a view I can’t comprehend.  The reality is that most of the cards for a given CCG at a given time are essentially banned from competitive play due to being obviously inferior to other cards.  Sure, can always play a card as a joke, but a deck gets strictly better by not playing the card.  In V:TES, this isn’t as important since the multiplayer nature serves to mitigate strength and weakness, especially in V:TES unlike, say, Babylon 5, a CCG where there was no requirement to interact with opponents.

Banning a card may, for all intents and purposes, “unban” a lot more cards that weren’t worth playing because of the banned card.  That’s probably a good thing.

Is it desirable that cards exist that can’t be played?  Nope.  Is it desirable to have to remember that the text on a card isn’t how the card plays?  Nope.

It’s also not desirable to have cards that so warp the play environment that too many strategies are nonviable.  What is too many?  Judgment call.

It’s also not desirable for a CCG to have an unfun environment.  What is an unfun environment?  Judgment call.  How do CCG managers make these judgment calls?  Player feedback.  Hopefully, good feedback, not the tirades that a tiny minority of people make on forums that most players pay no attention to.

Want to argue that no such thing as an unfun environment exists in CCGs?  I’m sure thousands more would dispute such a belief.  Want to argue no such thing exists in V:TES?  Well, I can see that argument being a lot easier.  I would argue that there are plenty of unfun things about V:TES at this moment, from Imbued to Events to the increased hoser mentality to ubiquity of far too many cards printed in the game’s earliest days, but YMMV.

Yes, a CCG, especially a multiplayer one can deal with cards that are too powerful, cards that cripple strategies, cards that do incredibly stupid things.  Metagaming is prevalent.  That doesn’t mean the game is more fun because such cards exist.  Note that we are only talking about tournament play.  People who play in tournaments should be aware of banned lists, restricted lists, and card errata.  Sure, tournament players will typically adapt their casual games to tournament rules, but they don’t actually have to if they don’t want.

[Classic] Pinnacle – Each Set

From presence.vekn.org, we get this thread (one of the few I actually started for reasons best gone into some other time) – http://presence.vekn.org/viewtopic.php?t=1520&highlight=

For quite a long time, something would get me to thinking about what the best cards in recent sets were. I decided to take the time to try to come up with my thoughts on the best crypt and library cards added to the game from every set (well, except 10th). Anyway, since I bothered, I figured I’d share, with a few comments.

Jyhad/Vampire – Anson; Blood Doll

Once upon a time I would have said WWEF

Dark Sovereigns – Arika; Heidelberg Castle, Germany

Quite the drop in library quality from the base set.

Ancient Hearts – Muaziz, Archon of Ulugh Beg; Dreams of the Sphinx

Even after some major errata, there are still a number of juicy library cards. Vampires aren’t nearly as exciting.

Sabbat – Meshenka; Direct Intervention

Sabbat War – Lucita; Chiropteran Marauder

Don’t feel that strongly about Lucita with the Dolphin Blacks, Calibans, and Omayas of the world.

Final Nights – Gabrin; Week of Nightmares

Bloodlines – Matthias; Shroud of Absence

Camarilla Edition – Rachel Brandywine; Baltimore Purge

I wish I could say someone else, but my sense of results produces Rachel.

Anarchs – Nadima; Aranthebes, The Immortal

Bunch of underplayed cards from this set. On the library side, Gambit Accepted is likely the most underplayed.

Black Hand – Owain Evans, The Wanderer; Iron Glare

When I first looked at the set, I thought Specialization. Still think it gets underplayed, but Iron Glare seems to win out over some narrower cards.

Gehenna – Una; Perfectionist

This hurts. There are a number of vampires that seem to get overlooked, like the Giangaleazzos of the world. Though I put Seal of Veddartha in the top three (uh, four? when the Heart got printed) equipment in the game, Perfectionist is in the set.

10th – Carlton Van Wyk

Kindred Most Wanted – Mata Hari; Tumnimos

Seem to see a lot more vamps from this set than Gehenna, though Gehenna’s are much stronger. Another set where strong cards seem to get underplayed, like Dual Form and From a Sinking Ship.

Legacies of Blood – Tupdog; Tangle Atropos’ Hand

Nights of Reckoning – Travis Miller; Edge Explosion

Maybe not really worth trying to make choices from this set as cards are so interrelated.

3rd Edition – Keith Moody; On the Qui Vive

Sword of Caine – Hagar Stone; Veil the Legions

From a hard decision, to an easy one.

Commentary:

Feeling kind of lazy to study every pick, so just some focus on obvious(?) mistakes.

Meshenka better than Jost Werner?  Jost shows up in a lot more decks, and I’d hazard without looking a lot more TWDs.  Meshenka falls into the camp of being more impressive in isolation, which so many high caps fall into, leading to, IMO, their constant overrating.

Lucita hasn’t stood the test of time.  But, then, none of the SW first-timers have stood out that much. There’s only 27, but a fair number of good ones.  Dolphin Black would probably be it.  As for Chiropteran Marauder, if one were to take the quantities played into account, I can still see it winning over Powerbase: Montreal and The Coven.

Rachel or Carna, The Princess Witch?  Eh, maybe Carna.  Good 10 caps in Camarilla Edition in general.  What about Maris Streck, the most obnoxious vampire of them all?  Still would tend toward Carna, who is more essential to a number of decks than the other two.  Baltimore Purge doesn’t see much play … I think that has more to do with rarity and obnoxiousness and that BP decks are surprisingly hard to build than how any of the other cards are better.

It’s interesting how rare Aranthebes is, but it’s obvious that it hasn’t stood the test of time.  Lot of Anarchs set cards are much better now as anarchdom has proliferated, but the obvious card here is Life in the City.

Banjoko better than Owain?  Banjoko has gotten key help, but I can still see an argument for Owain.

Is there an argument for The Unmasking being better than Perfectionist?  Classic battle between magnitude of effect and variety of uses.  Both are gamechangers if one more obviously so than the other.

As unexciting as the crypt choice may be on power level for KMW, man, some of the library cards are sick.  Sudario Refraction is broken and has no close substitutes like Tumnimos, Web of Knives, and Waters of Duat have.

Tangle of Atropos’ Hand has not stood up, and it’s interesting just how little play it does see.  I own a good amount and I usually end up removing them from decks as they’ve proved to be more complex that you would think to attain value from.  No Secrets From the Magaji should be the obvious choice, nowadays.

Keith Moody was a case of my being quite wrong.  It was the choice with the most criticism I received.  My detractors could feel vindicated; I do find that he sneaks into decklists, though.  Again, maybe it’s a bias or maybe it’s how I measure value, but I go for versatility over magnitude of strength.  I thought Keith would be like Gideon Fontaine, who was arguably the best vampire in the game at one point.  Seriously, the only other vampire I saw played in as many different decks in my Jyhad days was … nobody, not even Anson.  Still, Anson is Anson and time has left Gideon behind in many cases.  Better than Keith?  Stick!!  Antonio d’Erlette.  Ermenegildo.  Neighbor John.  Stavros.  Arguably, Paul Cordwood.  Aksinya!!  And, yes, I’d probably argue Malgorzata.  Who is the best?  Antonio d’Erlette would be my choice.  Neighbor John is the most efficient and Aksinya also has game altering text, but Antonio alters the game in a crazy way.

Hagar is the wrong choice, but only because all of the SoC vampires are kind of blah or sucky.  Lubomira probably is the correct choice, but it’s hard to pick any of them.  As much as Veil is the best card, Nocturn has proved to be ridiculous and more key to its decks, and some of the other cards have shown more gravitas, such as Guarded Rubrics or The Uncoiling (though I’ve never seen this card do anything, people play it a lot), than one might have thought.   I hate SoC, a small set with narrow mechanics and dull vampires, but there are cards in it that matter, even if I do play Epiphany far less than I used to.

An obvious follow up to this is to look at the newer sets.  However, one of the things this revisit has stirred within me is the desire to study one particular set in more depth, a set like KMW, for instance.  I think far too many cards have been underplayed and underexamined in this game’s history.  I’m as much to blame as others for not really playing some of these sets out in a vigorous manner.  I keep talking about trying stuff and then build lots of similar decks because those are easy.

There’s something else I discovered when looking back at my old Presence posts.  The nature of my posts in different forums seemed to vary, and I believe I know why.  As I don’t see this being worth its own blog post, though I could bring in all of the other games’ forums I used to inhabit to stretch things out to my usual 1000+ words, I think it suffices to say that my Presence presence was much more antagonistic than in some other places, in part because I had grown tired of a few things.  One being that people would post decks, solicit advice, then criticize the advice without any sort of rational argument as to what was wrong with the advice.  Another was that new posts were almost always decklists, often with no commentary or even clarity on whether someone sought suggestions, when my preference is for more general strategic thought.  In contrast, the UK forum, where general strategy is more common, even if posts in general are less common, saw a much more thoughtful tone.

[Classic] Group 1 Advanced

[posted at Presence.vekn.org, September 9th, 2007]

While probably not the best time to start a thread like this as people are more concerned with real cards, the lack of certain things becomes more obvious when a new set is coming out.

Something I would love to see is advanced group 1′s as a promotional set (2 copies of each vampire per tin/box/whatever) to reward longtime players. As well, I’d like to see fleshing out of group 1 with all of the stuff they missed out on: Sabbat, indies, bloodlines, Laibon. As well, group 2 could use some Laibon. Now, is this realistic? Well something has to fill out that promotional set, right? It seems kind of silly to have reprinted all of those 1′s in the 10th Set without supporting them with something (would have vastly preferred that 10th put in some advanced 1′s so that we didn’t just get vampires a lot of us already have).

Anyway, I took a shot at advanced versions of many of the less often seen or most horrendously designed group 1′s. When I thought about it, I tried to give them some crossover potential with group 2′s or hoped for new 1/2′s. I tried to do exactly 3 per clan, but I failed.

Bianca (Advanced)
G = 1
Brujah
C = 7
CEL, DAI, pot, pre
Camarilla. Infernal.
Bianca treats aggravated damage as normal damage. <merge> At the end of combat, if Bianca is ready and the opposing minion is not, Bianca untaps.

Miranda Sanova (Advanced)
G = 1
Brujah
C = 8
CEL, PRE, aus, obf, pot
Independent. Anarch. Baron of Portland, Oregon.
When Miranda is moved from your uncontrolled region to your ready region, you may search your library for a Master: Discipline card and move it to her at no cost. <merge> Miranda may play any card that requires more than one discipline at the basic levels.

Appolonius (Advanced)
G = 1
Brujah
C = 10
AUS, CEL, FOR, PRE, pot
Laibon. Magaji.
Appolonius gains +1 intercept for each Ishtarri you control. <merge> Any minion attempting to block Appolonius burns 2 blood or 2 life.

Zack North (Advanced)
G = 1
Gangrel
C = 6
ani, for, pot, pro
Camarilla.
Minions opposing Zack in combat cannot dodge as a strike. <merge> Minions opposing Zack in combat cannot end combat as a strike.

Gunther, Beast Lord (Advanced)
G = 1
Gangrel
C = 7
ANI, AUS, for, pro, vic
Independent.
Animal retainers Gunther employs have an additional life. <merge> Gunther does not have to burn blood to pay the cost of cards requiring Animalism that he plays.

Quinton, McDonnell (Advanced)
G = 1
Gangrel
C = 8
CEL, FOR, ani, obf, pro
Camarilla. Prince of Cincinnati.
Quinton has one optional maneuver and press per combat. <merge> While Quinton is ready, location cards you play cost one less pool.

Dancin’ Dana (Advanced)
G = 1
Malkavian
C = 6
AUS, CEL, obf
Camarilla.
Dancin’ Dana may dodge as a strike. <merge> Dancin’ Dana gets an optional additional strike during the first round of combat.

Sylvester Simms (Advanced)
G = 1
Malkavian
C = 8
AUS, OBF, ani, dom, for, pre
Camarilla. Primogen.
Rescuing Sylvester from torpor costs 2 less blood. <merge> Sylvester pays 2 less blood for the leave torpor action and this action cannot be blocked.

Dr. Jest (Advanced)
G = 1
Malkavian
C = 8
DEM, OBF, aus, dom, for, pre
Camarilla. Primogen.
While Dr. Jest is ready and untapped, cards discarded from hand by your prey are removed from the game. <merge> If Dr. Jest successfully bleeds your prey, untap him at the end of your turn.

Sebastian Marley (Advanced)
G = 1
Nosferatu
C = 7
ANI, POT, aus, obf
Camarilla.
Sebastian gets +1 stealth on directed actions. <merge> Primogen. Sebastian has 2 additional votes.

Chester DuBois (Advanced)
G = 1
Nosferatu
C = 7
ANI, POT, for, obf, ser
Camarilla. Primogen.
Chester can burn a vampire in torpor to gain blood equal to the burned vampire’s capacity as a (D) action. This action is not considered diablerie. <merge> Chester may send a younger vampire to torpor or burn an ally as a strike.

Ebanezer Roush (Advanced)
G = 1
Nosferatu
C = 8
ANI, OBF, POT, nec, pro
Camarilla.
Once each combat, Ebanezer may burn a blood to gain +1 strength until the end of combat. <merge> When Ebanezer burns a vampire in combat, that vampire’s controller loses 2 pool.

Marty Lechtansi (Advanced)
G = 1
Nosferatu
C = 9
DOM, OBF, POT, ani, for
Camarilla. Primogen.
+2 bleed when bleeding a Methuselah who controls an ally. <merge> Each round after the first round of combat, minions opposing Marty take 2 damage at the beginning of the round.

Kallista, Master Sculptor (Advanced)
G = 1
Toreador
C = 6
AUS, CEL, pre, pro
Camarilla.
<merge> Kallista may play an Aim card from your ash heap. If she uses this ability, remove the Aim card from the game instead of burning it.

Adrianne (Advanced)
G = 1
Toreador
C = 6
aus, cel, obt, pot, pre, qui
Independent.
Adrianne may gain 1 level of any discipline another of your ready vampires has at superior as a +2 stealth action. <merge> Anarch.

Eliott Sinclair, Virtuoso Thespian (Advanced)
G = 1
Toreador
C = 7
CHI, PRE, aus, cel
Camarilla. Primogen.
If Eliott is ready at the end of a round of combat and has successfully inflicted damage on an opposing vampire during the round, he gains 1 blood. <merge> Once each turn, Eliott may pay 1 less blood when playing an action modifier card.

Sabine Lafitte (Advanced)
G = 1
Tremere
C = 5
aus, dom, pot, tha
Camarilla.
When Sabine successfully hunts, she gains 1 additional blood. <merge> Sabine’s capacity is increased by 2 while she is in play.

Thomas Thorne (Advanced)
G = 1
Tremere
C = 6
DOM, ani, aus, cel, tha
Independent. Anarch.
<merge> Each time a vampire becomes an anarch, Thomas gains 1 blood from the blood bank.

Lydia Van Cuelen (Advanced)
G = 1
Tremere
C = 6
aus, dom, pre, ser, tha
Camarilla.
Lydia gets +1 stealth on political actions. <merge> When Lydia is merged choose a discipline she has at basic, she gains 1 level of that discipline.

Cassandra, Magus Prime (Advanced)
G = 1
Tremere
C = 10
AUS, DOM, PRE, THA, cel
Camarilla. Primogen.
Combat cards that require Thaumaturgy cost Cassandra one less blood to play. <merge> When Cassandra is attempting an action that requires Thaumaturgy, younger vampires and allies cannot block and the action costs 2 less blood or pool.

Melissa Barton (Advanced)
G = 1
Ventrue
C = 5
cel, dom, for, pre
Camarilla.
When Melissa’s controller gain the Edge, Melissa gains +1 bleed until end of turn. <merge> If the Edge is uncontrolled, Melissa has +1 stealth.

Lucia Paciola (Advanced)
G = 1
Ventrue
C = 6
DOM, for, mel, pre
Camarilla.
Lucia gets one optional press each combat. Her hand strikes cannot be dodged. <merge> Lucia may tap a ready minion controlled by another Methuselah as a +1 stealth (D) action.

Helena Casimir (Advanced)
G = 1
Ventrue
C = 9
DOM, POT, PRE, cel, for
Camarilla. Primogen.
Helena may enter combat with an Independent vampire as a +1 stealth (D) action. <merge> Damage from Helena’s hand strikes is aggravated. +1 strength.

A fun waste of a few hours, at any rate.

p.s.  I haven’t researched old material nearly as much as I expected to use for [classic] posts.  But, every time someone talks about doing advanced versions of group 1 vampires, I am reminded of this.  Not that I ever got a sense that these designs were thought much about, but it’s probably the case that the merged versions need to be powerful to justify playing with base versions, and I’m sure some of these don’t rise to that level.

[Classic] Durga Syn

I’ve posted a lot in a lot of CCG forums over the years.  One of the reasons I was motivated to do a blog was to consolidate my more verbose thoughts.  I’m currently looking through the UK V:TES forum – http://www.anarchfreepress.com/vtesuk - for my favorite posts.  Here’s the first “classic” post.

In response to Shroudfilm‘s post about the preview of Durga Syn …

“Yeah LSJ,why hasn’t she got votes?!? Or Necromancy?!?!? Or Flight?!?!?!?! Why isn’t she 12-cap?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Why can’t she have an ability which wins me the game in one turn?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? I hate VTES now, this one card means the game is doomed!!!!!!1111one!!”

… http://www.anarchfreepress.com/vtesuk/viewtopic.php?p=1729&highlight=#1729 …

I imagine the discussion went something like this:

[LSJ.1] Why don’t you give Durga some votes?

[LSJ.2] Too hard to become an anarch which would waste all of those disciplines. I’d piss off millions of anarch lovers.

[LSJ.1] You could make Orpheus happier if you gave Durga Necromancy.

[LSJ.2] Then he might notice how good Chimerstry is when you don’t pay full cost for it and would want highly flexible Necromancy cards … with no cost.

[LSJ.1] Durga seems to be lacking flight.

[LSJ.2] Does anybody even remember what any of the flight cards do anymore?

[LSJ.1] She could be a 12 cap.

[LSJ.2] Without PRE? Are you insane? Uh, don’t answer that.

[LSJ.1] Durga is a good choice for one of those win in one turn decks. You know, turbo, et al. You should give her FOR, a capacity increase when she’s in play, and NEC. And, the ability to play Baali cards.

[LSJ.2] What makes you think she can’t win in one turn? Besides, the text box font would be so small that no one would know that she would combo with every card in the game.

[LSJ.1] Aren’t people going to hate the game because of cards like this? Won’t Durga doom the game?

[LSJ.2] I keep trying, but they keep playing.

[LSJ.1] Local 1111?

[LSJ.2] Should be played by !Trem with Rutor’s Hands to see if it doesn’t suck. But, Eric Chiang keeps travelling.