Slaves

Instead of overruling the entirity of the slave trait, maybe the best course of action would be a support card, in form of a crypt card, like anarch convert, who absolves slaves from being incapable of acting without their masters, or a master or event card with similar wording?

We've seen one-card-wonders before, to make a given bloodline or clan or even a concept work. On general releasing a card is more complicated than errata-ing a trait, but removing a negative effect in itself should haven been compensated by the need of crypt or library spaces.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Klaital wrote: If you would do this then you would need to rebalance all slave gargoyles, because then slave would be purely strong beneficial trait and they would all need a point taken out from somewhere else.

In the situation where slave didn't require a master, I'm not sure that the benefits would ever really materialize, because people wouldn't play them together. Complicating your crypt with incompatible disciplines is usually a real pain in the ass.

I suspect that what you'd get in reality the majority of the time in the best performing Gargoyle decks is just some of the slaves being used alongside some of the non-slave vampires for their compatible disciplines and abilities. And yes, some of the slave Gargoyles would be a bit of a bargain, but not really on a worse scale than quite a few other clans have a few really tasty vampires who feel undercosted compared to their fellows.

By that logic, vampires shouldn't pay anything for out of clan discplines either since they will mostly be played with other vampires of the same clan and wouldn't use those out of clans anyway.

Ankha wrote:

GreyB wrote: The main reason this thread exists is because I tried to make a group 5-6 slave gargoyle deck tonight and saw the lame/expensive options I had in group 5-6 (!)tremeres. I was also dissapointed LoK gargoyle cards where mostly slave oriented and did not use the storyline where Gargoyles rebelled and became free.

So it's more a crypt issue with g5-6 Tremere/!Tremere. Since those groups are still missing vampires, it should improve.

I am not convinced by your arguments: some Gargoyles are slave, it's a restriction you have to take into account and that is part of the game. You can't just remove all restrictions to make decks easier to build.

I agree with this. I've recently seen a lot of people on these forums suggesting drastic alteration to game mechanics to make certain strategies more viable at the tournament level. It's like people forget that casual play is a thing and that a lot of non-tournament-viable strategies work fine (and are fun) in casual play (one example being the slave mechanic). Is everyone's playgroup so cutthroat that fun decks aren't an option, and now we have to resort to drastic changes to game mechanics so people can play different decks? I really don't get it.

I like the slave mechanic. I see on reason to practically remove it from the game with the topic suggestion. If groups 5-6 need more practical vampires to support the slaves, then lets introduce those. Don't have to make the keyword meaningless.

I love Gargoyles.

I've kept a non-slave Gargoyle deck built in some incarnation for more than 8 years. As of HttB, I gained AstheCrow, BrickbyBrick, and went from owning 1 rockcat to like 5. So from like mid February 2010 until 3months ago, Ferox, Erinyi , Obsidian and 1copy of Fidus sere always in a deck assembled.

It sucked. Terribly.

But I'm a fan, so it existed.

In June something happened; LK came out and with it 1 additional non-slave Gargoyle. Handsome Dan grouped with Alabastrom (who I'd picked up extras of outside of the costly In the States Anthology) and Malachai (I totally pulled at least 10 of him in heirs).

With those 3 and Andre Laroux and or Rusticus, multiple decks are possible. Gargoyles haven't WON anything recently, but they are gradually popping up in TWD reports in final tables as anarch gargoyle decks.

So, the problem isn't the slave rule; the problem is crypt options. Or lack of them. I was sad only Dan was non slave in LK. Frankly, a few library cards from LK /HttB(children of stone and Voices of the Castle) keep you from dying easy, and without anarch tech and retainers with either guns or P Strength, you're hosed.
Group 6 and 2 have 3 non slaves each. If Roccia got 2 buddies, there would be 3 different crypts to use.

Slave rule is whatever, Gargoyles need 2 more crypt cards (actually, they need ADV versions of some G2 slaves turned not slaves too...) and a card or 2 that gives perma-strength and a reaction that is an untap st vasic and +1 intercept against a non-flying minion at superior, and they're good.

With the metaplot events of V5, slave Gargoyles probably are rarer than Nagaraja at this point. (I'll be posting a metaplot rundown this upcoming week probably. )

I agree that non slave gargoyles need help and could be way better supported. I don't agree with your remedy, and a convert style fix could be ok.