I really don't like ashur tablets

The bonuses could be a once per game effect.

Change "If you have three copies in play, remove all copies in play" to "If there are three copies in play, remove all copies in play".

Just a few more options to cripple this card.

Deffinite improvement but I still don't want to play ashurs just to stop others playing them

wastaz wrote:

Ohlmann wrote:

DeathInABottle wrote: They open up strategies that would be otherwise impossible, like quickly collecting permanents, exhausting the deck, and then picking transient cards back up for the end game.

That's exactly why I believe they should be banned, by the way. It remove the fundamental friction in VtES deck building, namely the deck composition that allow you to have enough of what you need without choking on it.

Yes, I am with you on this. Imho vtes is a game about the transient effects. That's part of what makes building a good deck so hard (at least for me ). I do agree to 100% that tablets enable strategies that would otherwise be impossible - but the important follow-up question here is "Are these strategies actually something that belongs in the game?"

Let me give you two examples of AT-enabled decks I've built. The first works by quickly collecting a Cog and then bleeding over and over for small amounts (2-3). The second works by putting essential master cards into play quickly. They only work by virtue of AT.

Deck Name: The Unnamed Flurry Bleeder

Crypt (Capacity min=3 max=10 avg=5.92; 12 cards)
===================================================
7x Horde, The 3 dai obf pre Baali:6
5x unnamed, The 10 CEL DAI OBF PRE PRO Baali:6

Library (65 cards)
=====================
Master (14 cards)
3x Ashur Tablets
1x House of Sorrow
1x Monastery of Shadows
1x Perfectionist
1x Ruins of Charizel
6x Tend the Flock
1x Wider View

Event (1 cards)
1x Narrow Minds

Action (11 cards)
11x Flurry of Action

Equipment (2 cards)
1x Ambulance
1x Leather Jacket

Ally (3 cards)
1x Infernal Servitor
1x Mylan Horseed (Goblin)
1x Veneficti (Mage)

Action Modifier (20 cards)
2x Cloak the Gathering
1x Elder Impersonation
2x Enkil Cog
1x I am Legion
1x Lost in Crowds
2x Psychomachia
2x Spying Mission
9x True Love's Face

Combat (12 cards)
3x Fear of the Void Below
1x Flesh of Marble
5x Form of Mist
3x Quick Meld

Combo (2 cards)
2x Swallowed by the Night

---

Deck Name: Ysador's Advantage

Crypt (Capacity min=1 max=10 avg=5.38; 13 cards)
===================================================
1x Alu 2 obf Assamite:5
1x Bloodfeud 2 obf !Malkavian:4
1x César Holfield 1 obf Caitiff:4
1x Denette Stensen 2 obf !Gangrel:4
1x Florentina Lengauer 4 aus OBF Malkavian:4
1x Jeffrey Mullins 4 cel OBF !Gangrel:4
1x Lubomira Hradok 3 OBF !Nosferatu:5
1x Old Neddacka 2 obf !Nosferatu:4
5x Ysador the Foul 10 obt ANI DEM FOR OBF POT !Nosferatu:4

Library (60 cards)
=====================
Master (13 cards)
3x Ashur Tablets
6x Using the Advantage
2x Villein
2x Wider View

Action (16 cards)
16x Night Moves

Equipment (3 cards)
2x IR Goggles
1x Leather Jacket

Action Modifier (6 cards)
2x Enkil Cog
2x Freak Drive
2x Lost in Crowds

Reaction (11 cards)
2x Confusion of the Eye
3x Mental Maze
6x Sense the Savage Way

Combat (5 cards)
1x Behind You!
4x No Trace

Combo (6 cards)
6x Swallowed by the Night

---

The first deck's more effective than the second, of course, but the second was fun to design. It's a trick I wouldn't have bothered trying without AT. Both decks are a lot of fun to play. I also have a Shalmath deck that piles on permanents and then bleeds unblockably using Vaticination and Cheat the Fates. It only also only works thanks to AT.

These aren't broken decks by any means. They're probably not even tier 1. Still, they're fun and interesting, and I do think that they add something to the game. I wouldn't want to see them eliminated just because Nana and Anson and Cybele are out there abusing AT.

This is why I find the best first-draft errata to AT that it can only fetch minion cards. It's a simple errata with a single word change. I'm also a bit worried by the fact that you can take one card back to hand (why?) and the extra pool. It's a powerful card even with just the deck recursion. Maybe just make it fetch only minion cards and give pool, not the hand thing?

DeathInABottle wrote: These aren't broken decks by any means. They're probably not even tier 1. Still, they're fun and interesting, and I do think that they add something to the game. I wouldn't want to see them eliminated just because Nana and Anson and Cybele are out there abusing AT.

I don't care that you broke the fundamental rules of vtes to make a fun deck or an extra-powerful one. Both show that Ashur tablet should be banned as an explicit design error.

(I would like to recall that I am well aware that Ashur deck are not 50% of TWDA anyhow. It's just that they allow way too powerful fine deck manipulation ; the usual fare is to tailor your deck to the table, removing the whole polyvalency vs power part of the game ; DeathInABottle show that, in addition to that, it can be used as a super-uber Magic of the smith)

Ohlmann wrote:

DeathInABottle wrote: These aren't broken decks by any means. They're probably not even tier 1. Still, they're fun and interesting, and I do think that they add something to the game. I wouldn't want to see them eliminated just because Nana and Anson and Cybele are out there abusing AT.

I don't care that you broke the fundamental rules of vtes to make a fun deck or an extra-powerful one. Both show that Ashur tablet should be banned as an explicit design error.

I don't know what you mean. What are the fundamental rules of VTES, and why do these decks illustrate a design error?