[card idea] Shiv

Ratadin wrote: The second problem is that melee weapons cannot be used against Immortal Grapple, as well as ranged weapons, yes, but then again the ranged weapon makes you, by default, harder to grapple. Now, if we keep this like it is, we gotta figure out what melee weapons should do to either overcome this problem (not ideal), or be so valuable that using melee weapons were a benefit on itself.

The current meta seems to have fixed that problem. When's the last time you saw an IG deck on the finals table of a tournament?

Kraus wrote: If you replace those tutorable cards from the tutor, you can't fetch them from your hand.

?

Do you mean that, ot the two versions that I suggested, you prefer the "less text" version ?

Name: "Abandoned Cottage"
Cardtype: Master: Trifle. Unique Location
Cost: 0
Search your library for a Weighted Walking Stick, Wooden Stake or Poker, and and move it to your hand. Shuffle and discard afterward.
If you control an Anarch, you may burn this location to shuffle 2 combat cards from your ash heap into your library.

hollowboy wrote:

Kraus wrote: If you replace those tutorable cards from the tutor, you can't fetch them from your hand.

?

Do you mean that, ot the two versions that I suggested, you prefer the "less text" version ?

Name: "Abandoned Cottage"
Cardtype: Master: Trifle. Unique Location
Cost: 0
Search your library for a Weighted Walking Stick, Wooden Stake or Poker, and and move it to your hand. Shuffle and discard afterward.
If you control an Anarch, you may burn this location to shuffle 2 combat cards from your ash heap into your library.

No no, but rather I'm a fan of adding 'to the hand' to the fetch clause in cases where you're making an enabler for something. In practice: "--move X number of Y to Z from Library and/or hand". See how Creation Rites handles it for the Discipline master, or how killing a Red List earns you the Trophies.

There's an added layer for power of the card when you don't only fetch the cards from the Library, but get to cycle them off of your hand as well. That way poor draws won't clutter your flow. That's the purpose of this enabler, isn't it?

I hope I'm making myself clear.

hollowboy wrote:

Ratadin wrote: The second problem is that melee weapons cannot be used against Immortal Grapple, as well as ranged weapons, yes, but then again the ranged weapon makes you, by default, harder to grapple. Now, if we keep this like it is, we gotta figure out what melee weapons should do to either overcome this problem (not ideal), or be so valuable that using melee weapons were a benefit on itself.

The current meta seems to have fixed that problem. When's the last time you saw an IG deck on the finals table of a tournament?

Well, I have to say that I haven't been following tournaments that much, but again, VTES is really meta depending, and each meta depends on where you live, so no IG on most tournaments doesn't mean no IG on your local tournaments.

Still, that doesn't nullify the point: a Magnun is way safer than a melee weapon, both against the regular 1 damage from non-combat vampires (which on the long run it adds up), against IG (which you only need to face 1 on a bad position to completely ruin your game), and, as a friend of mine pointed out yesterday, things like Warghouls.

And I understand making your deck around your local meta, but still, you cannot be completely defenseless against something out of meta, because those things always pop up on a tournament. Neither can you design cards by expecting the meta to solve your problems.

Isn't this the reason why there are plenty of options to counter Grapple? The melee weapon specialists, !Salubri, just got another tool for it (Blessed Blade), and there are plenty of options: Fortitude for survivability, Groundfighting and Bollix for anarch, Charismatic Aura and Disengage.

I wouldn't worry about Grapple that much. In high level tournaments they aren't prevalent, and local metas aren't such a strong argument if there are plenty of answers to them.

Surely gun combat fares better against grapples, but that's their strength. You listed many others, all correct. If the strengths and place in the design space was reinvented to make them worth the while despite their glaring weaknesses, then the shifting metas would probably take care of the rest.

IG being a trump against the damage of melee weapons is fine. Give them other uses, and strong uses, than dealing damage, and you're good to go. It's fine to have it there.

I think some of the ideas proposed above got the right idea. I'm especially fond of Bonecrusher. We've been thinking of a similar card (I think I suggested that a year ago or something) for Potence, but as a strike card. Spiked Chain is interesting, but could use some tweaking in the wording/effect. But yeah, they have it right.

ps. Comparing to Bonecrusher, we already have Spike Thrower, but it's sparsely used. Make it unique and at most 1 and we're good. The idea's right - keep the creative juices flowing.

Krausedit\\ People have been obsessing over IG for some months now on these forums. For the life of me I can't understand why. Potence is an atrociously bad discipline, and IG is practically nowhere in competitive play. Just saying. Let them have IG. Potence sucks.

Yeah, I find the wording of spiked chain very poor, too, but english is not my main language and I wasn't actually submitting cards per se, but creating examples.

But, to fix it, what I meant was:
Strike: Strength+2 Damage, or Strike: Strength damage, and during this strike resolution at close range, cancel the opposing minion's weapon strike (if any). If a strike was cancelled this way, the opposing minion cannot use the striking weapon for the rest of the round.

My intention is that you either declares doing more damage, or doing damage and blocking a weapon during your strike declaration. Then, if the enemy uses any weapon, you cancel that strike (and they cannot choose a new one), and they cannot do any additional strikes with that weapon.

Regarding the IG, I don't have that much experience, and on my local group there are a lot of POT fans. Still, that wasn't being the biggest issue here, but the maneuver which is allowing ranged weapons to ignore the constant wear down of every single combat, plus some nasty hitters like Warghouls and the like. And, as I pointed out, I don't think melee weapons should be able to neither ignore grapples, nor prevent damage constantly (although a "Once per combat" prevention is very valuable).