Wishlists or plausible card additions?

Just now I noticed yet another suggestion for a new card to deal with some other threat in VEKN. This time it was a political action to deal with allies. Let's see what we were suggested:

Name: Trust no One
Cardtype: Political Action
Successful referendum means each Methuselah burns 2 pool for each ally he or she controls.

It is like a mix of Kindred Segregation (each ally is burned unless their owner repays their pool costs) and Anarchist Uprising (each metuselah burns a pool for each minion they control), out of which Anarchist Uprising already hurts ally decks loads. In a conventional ally deck you would most likely see one or two support allies (like Vagabond Mystic or Mylan Horseed) and from two to five main allies to do combat or bleed, supporting about three vampires. That's around six minions already, and at least later in the game suddenly losing six pool to a vote hurts. Rather a lot. In fact I lost a face-off this year in Ropecon to Ventrue princes with my Baron's Zombie Sickness, mainly because of that card. I could have taken a Parity Shift, but Anarchist Uprising (nine pool damage if I remember correctly) was a tad too much.

The most feared allies around seem to be Ossian, War Ghouls, Nephandi and Shambling Hordes. All of them for a reason, to be sure, but when we take a look at how Kindred Segregation deals with them we should see that there is really little need for a new anti-ally vote. A Nephandus deck aims to bring out three or four nephandi in addition to the vampires. If you want to keep them after Kindred Segregation you'll have to pay up six or eight pool. Once again quite a handful. The same goes for War Ghouls and their hefty cost of four pool. Kindred Segregation will not deal as much pool damage as Trust No One potentially would, but it does offer others the choice of burning their allies, or paying for them. This adds to the verstaility of VtES, which in my opinion is one of its credits. You won't just instantly and surprisingly kill off people, like you probably would in Magic the Gathering. Instead in Vampire you should be given options, and often plenty of them, of which the best (or the least horrible) one should be chosen.

It is true that Kindred Segregation will not affect Shambling Hordes or Reanimated Corpses, or other blood cost based allies, but then again Anarchist Uprising does - that is, IF we really need to turn to votes for anti ally techs. The obvious deals put aside, in which Entrancement, Far Mastery and Restructure are prime examples, how should we then learn to deal with combat allies? Arguably Nephandi can be included here.

Combat is obviously a choice, but it is hardly used in tournament decks these days. If allies feel problematic, however, most disciplines should have something to deal with them that could be used against vampires as well. Celerity and guns work wonders, obviously. Guns without Celerity should be alright as defence also. Guns cost pool to be fair, and against stealth and bleed, stealth and vote, or stealth and whatever the tournament decks throw at you just plain gun combat will not do you much good. Guns should be easy to discard, though. Viscissitude has Horrid Forms, Potence should be rather clear, Thaumaturgy has plenty of techs in combat, as does Animalism, and many disciplines have Strike: Combat Ends. Those should be included in most tournament decks anyways, at least in small amounts.

The main argument against this will most likely be that tournaments do not favour combat techs these days. If an odd ally deck happens to put decent pressure on an average tournament deck tells something about the tournament scene as is, and that hardly warrants for extra techs to deal with them - especially outside combat, if there is already a decent tech to deal with them! Allies are very fragile, even those Neppers, and once they're dead, they're dead. Even if I saw an ally deck actually winning a major tournament I would cheer more to something new than an old and dusty Kiasyd. Asking for extra defense (or, as in this case, offense) against allies is hardly warranted, and easily is interpreted as a wishlist - against something that really is not much of a threat in the first place, to be sure!

There are already votes to deal with allies. Even if votes are not your cup of tea, try beating them to ground for once. It's not like they're going to come back. A combat card or two should not wreck your bleed deck's synergy that bad. And, if you ask me, if it does, then you're just asking for it. Going a wee bit toolboxy will not hurt anyone, at least in the grander scheme of the game.

As for ideas for new cards: really think through if the game really lacks something. It is far easier to invent clan spesific cards, or vampires and balance them.

Embrace of a Blog

First steps are always first steps. I was always horrible with steps to begin with, let alone first ones.

The horrible thing about steps is that the first ones usually aren't even the worst ones. If I had problems with those, I sure as hell suck horribly with later steps. It's okay when you learn to walk, but after the treshold after which you actually need to work with something further after the first few stumbling efforts - that's where the problems start.

The same was with this blog. I created the account in June, I believe. It is a good half way through August now that I actually get to try out what an actual post looks like.

So here it is. Blogger seems like an easy tool to do stuff (like blogs), but there are still loads of tools and attributes to tinker with it will most likely take plenty of time before I learn which of those I need or want to use.

Anyways, we came here for a reason, and that is VtES; or Vampire the Eternal Struggle, the one game that has struggled with survival plenty of times, and for a good while this time. I hope some issues (which I hope to address in this blog too) would be easier to solve through communal efforts, and that my musings would in turn contribute to that community. First I have a community of my own to address, however, and that is the gaming group (or the remains of which) of my home town.

Then again, measures in the favor of survival have already been taken - and, to be honest, successful ones.