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In message <1112887543.461857.292250@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
Screaming Vermillian <vermillian69@yahoo.com> writes:
>James Coupe wrote:
>> It's not that they need to be designed as base sets per se.
>Obviously,
>> base sets can be useful to draft from as they have lots of staple
>cards
>> available.
>
>Printing a set with lots of staples and calling it a base set. Printing
>a set with lots of staple and calling it an expansion.
No, that's the point. You don't have to have staple cards, just
playable ones.
That it might make decks which aren't comparable with a constructed
tournament (with a very different dynamic) is entirely beside the point.
If people want a constructed environment, just play that.
>Sure. But what are these strategies you're refering to? I mean, I can
>take a guess, but what are you recommending for the expansion/base set?
Whatever strategies that set happens to include. A Final Nights style
set, say, doesn't have to include that many staple cards for, say,
stealth bleed or vote (probably one OR the other, for some Setites, and
a little Obfuscate for Assamite/Setite use). You could have a fairly
reasonable smattering of combat - aggressive for the Giovanni and
Assamites, moderately aggressive/unusual for the Ravnos, corner-
case/defence for the Setite. An interesting grave-yard manipulation
(potentially useful in limited!) strand for the Giovanni. Possibly
Corruption for the Setites. Interesting vampire interaction for the
Ravnos, or card theft, or whatever craziness you want to give
Chimerstry. Add a smattering of, say, intercept/interaction cards in
order to stop the strategies getting out of hand.
What are you missing? Potentially lots of bleed stuff, and lots of
votes stuff - the constructed players can get that from another set.
Some stealth is in there, and a lot of weird strategies. Since the set
isn't intending to be a base set, the boosters don't need to have (say)
Blood Doll. And if you aren't going for a heavy bleed/damage oriented
set, you could end up with a slower pool drain. Without the Blood Doll
(or whatever), you lose the swing when people draw it. You might decide
that you want some interesting, new combat defence in the set which is
distinct from Majesty for Presence. Do that with a few interesting
possibilities and you provide new things for constructed, and an
interesting-but-different limited environment.
Depending on what masters you put in, you could be missing a lot of
"standard" things. Blood gain, hand cycling, master cancellation,
whatever you decide. Constructed players don't need it, they can buy
the sets with it in. The limited players don't need it, precisely
because it's not available to ANYONE. No-one has the advantage, since
everyone's missing it - whatever it might be.
The thing is, do you get a playable deck for that limited environment at
the end of the day, that's still fun? This is NOT the same as do you
get a playable deck that is like constructed but with a bit less focus.
A limited environment does not have to mimic a constructed environment
in that fashion.
>Reprints or new cards? For reprints the key cards for the key
>strategies goes a little like this:
>
>Fame, Haven Uncovered
>Lost in the Crowds, Computer Hack
>Spirit's Touch, Smiling Jack (or vampiric disease) (not very good I
>know)
>KRC, Bewitching Oration (or voter cap)
>Gun, Blur
>WWEF, Telepathic Counter
Depends if you represent those strategies in that set. Remember: you
don't HAVE to print a base set. (Your monomania about base sets
notwithstanding.)
If the strategies that are in the set interact in an interesting
fashion, you just have a different environment to work in. And we do
that anyway. Storyline tournaments give (potentially) very different
environments to standard constructed. Speed of Thought different again
(though it's not that popular). The deck construction for any given
storyline can be only slightly different or radically different (for the
Infernal storyline, say).
Additionally, this way has the possibility of making a set which is
attractive to constructed players (because it has interesting cards for
particular strategies) rather than putting them off by reprinting lots
of cards they've already got, or which don't do anything inventive or
innovative.
>and so on. Two to three cards should be around to be big game helpers
>in limited for each strategy and key thing that vampires like to do.
What is the need to try and make limited the same as constructed, just
with fewer cards available?
Certainly, it's one option. But it's far from the only option.
>> Sabbat War and Final Nights can, as a result, work okay-ish in a
>limited
>> environment, even though they're not technically base sets. (Though
>I
>> regard Sabbat War as being near as damnit.) They're not perfect and
>> there are some things missing, but you can attempt to put a coherent
>> deck together for various different clans. Then, when that fragments
>a
>> bit, you can put it together across the three clans you've headed for
>in
>> the draft, or whatever.
>
>Yeah, but we all know how great limited decks with three clans and 6
>disciplines are.
When you have a set of 100+ cards and players only get (say) 60 or 70 to
make a deck from, that's what happens.
It may be that your issue is with the restrictions limited environments
inherently create.
Even with only a few clans, you get some cards from each turning up, and
you simply can't focus properly. And if the clans are distinct enough
in the first place (so as to make the set attractive for a wide range of
constructed players), that's just going to happen. I don't and can't
get everything I want, and that's just how limited works. You always
have to make compromises, because you start drafting the Toreador and
the odd Brujah, and then suddenly they stop coming. What do I take from
this pack? Argh, nothing sensible to take. Go on for a few packs and
you have to rethink strategies on the fly based on what turns up,
because you suddenly find yourself in packs with Dominate, Lucky Blow
and Blood Puppy.
>> Additionally, there cam be issues when a set has lots of nods towards
>> former sets. For instance, drawing cards which refer to Gehenna
>events
>> is reasonable when you're playing in a Gehenna oriented draft. But
>it's
>> less reasonable in that Gehenna draft to be drawing cards like, say,
>> Black Hand Ritual, which are a nod back to the Black Hand set.
>(There
>> are two Black Hand vampires in the set.)
>
>Why would you include nods towards former sets within a set suitable to
>draft/limited then?
Erm, I'm afraid you have gone off at a tangent at a rapid speed, for no
reason. I did not say that you would have to include these cards in a
set that appeals to limited players! I was discussing why these would
be problematic, but that not all expansions have such cards.
The point was raised that you need a base set to draft from. I was
discussing the factors that can make a set difficult to draft, whether
it's an expansion set or not. The idea that only base sets or sets
based around the core concepts of V:TES are draftable, and whether this
idea is valid or not, was what I was discussing.
>> Outlandish sets are fine, so long as there's something useful to
>build a
>> deck with. It might well be a very different deck that gets built
>than
>> the normal stealth-bleed monsters, but if you can craft something fun
>> and playable out of it, I'm not sure that that's a problem.
>
>It does cause a problem when one tries to draft cards from set A which
>yeilds your traditional VTES strategies like SB, and then you also
>include boosters from set B which has weird strategies like, oh
Sure, if you mix and match sets in a stupid fashion without regard to
what's in the sets, you get stupid results. I'm not sure that this is a
problem, however, and is certainly no different to what can happen now
anyway.
If people pick pointless, random combinations without regard to the
consequences, no amount of good design will combat that.
--
James Coupe "Why do so many talented people turn out to be sexual
PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D deviants? Why can't they just be normal like me and
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 look at internet pictures of men's cocks all day?"
13D7E668C3695D623D5D -- www.livejournal.com/users/scarletdemon/
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