What if?

I speak of the first times - Part 2

I continue quoting and commenting some passages from Richard Garfield’s chapter in “The Eternal Struggle – A Players Guide to the Jyhad”. If you missed part 1, read it first, over here.

“So this is the reason you are limited to attacking the person to your left, your prey. All the other players are your enemy, as must be the case, but your prey is a special enemy, someone whose removal gives you a special advantage. This may seem artificial, but in real life the relationships between groups of factions resemble neither teams, as portrayed in most games that simulate World War II, for example, nor complete anarchy. This artificial structure gives rise to a compromise between these extremes. The alliances which do evolve in Jyhad™ are a function of the players' individual positions rather than a consequence of the rules or players' whims.”

Yes, this often strikes me: the prey-predator relationship can seem very artificial. But on the other hand, as a seasoned Vampire: The Masquerade player, I know that the whole setting builds on century old grudges between Methuselahs, ancient creatures with strange psychological flaws and derangements, so why not? Sure “I” have a hang up on murdering my adversaries in a very special order!
     And of course this solution is elegant, as you are forced to forge alliances with your enemy´s enemy, but you must be cautious not to help that ally too much, because they indeed become your next prey or predator as soon as anybody is ousted. It´s very delicate, and it always appeals to people I introduce to the game. There can be only one!

“Some players complain that knocking out a person other than your prey should give you an advantage, such as a victory point or blood, or at least knowing that the predator of the victim will not be rewarded. This reminds me of the old roleplaying games where the person who deals the killing blow to the monster gets the experience points, and so a high-level character could knock a monster nearly dead, allowing a low-level character to exercise the coup dc grace and advance a level quickly. Blechh! If a player is inclined to remove a player other than her prey then she is either gaining some advantage from that move, and hence is being rewarded, or she should reconsider her strategy.”

God bless he didn´t take that route! Next Garfield kind of goes into that “fly under the radar”-strategy I mentioned earlier:

“You can use this structure to your advantage in many strategic ways. Underdeveloping your side intentionally can he strategically valuable if you can get away with it. You then look like less of a threat to your prey's prey, and may actually get help from them in destroying your prey. Of course, this will work best if your predator's predator is strong enough to keep your predator busy!”

“There is a massive tendency for a multi-player game in which conflict is mutually destructive, as it is in Jyhad™, to stagnate into a stalemate. There is little more boring than a game in which the optimum strategy for all players is to do nothing. This explains several elements in the game. The blood reward you get for knocking out your prey often compensates for losses taken in the fight. The Edge is a carrot to encourage players to bleed one another, and also serves to destabilize the game in stand-offs. If one player is getting blood from the Edge for any length of time, the others had better consider breaking the peace, or conceding the game.”

The Edge is another slick mechanic. Of course, just as Garfield says, it´s needed to prevent the game of going into stale-mate, but it´s also highly thematical, considering the compulsive Eternal Struggle of the elder vampires.

“The Beta version of Jyhad™ had few political cards relative to what was eventually published. The political cards were being tested to see if the flavor they added justified the complexity they added to the rules. I knew we had to have princes and Justicars, the only question was whether they added the depth of a political system or were just more of the same. The political cards were greatly loved and served to throw some curveballs in the two major strategies that were evolving: the combat monster strategy, and the sneak-and-bleed strategy.”

This is quite surprising – most V:TES-players I talk to state the political part of the game among their favorite parts, and highly thematical. Sure, it complicates the game, but surely not nowhere near as complex as for example the sub-game that is combat.

“The combat monster strategy was pretty straightforward: if your vampires were so deadly in combat that no one dared to block them, you could just waltz over to your prey and bleed him at will. Your predator, on the other hand, would think twice about sending a vampire to bleed you when she might have to face one of your servants in combat. The two major clans used for this purpose were the Gangrel and the well-armed Brujah, though the Tremere could give a run for the blood. The Gangrel had the edge in combat over the others, because of their claws and fortitude. After all, the Brujah do have Presence.”

… or maybe, it´s mainly cards created _after_ 1994 that complicates combat? Cards like Carrion Crows, Blood to Water and Thoughts Betrayed? I´m not sure. Many rather complex combat stuff is in Jyhad too, like Form of Mist, Psyche!, Rötschreck, Weather Control, Flesh of Marble and the mysterious First Strike-mechanic.

“The sneak-and-bleed strategy was built about the premise that if you can't catch my minions then I don't have to worry about giving them combat skills at all. Just needing stealth cards for this gives me plenty of room in my deck to devote to enhanced bleedings. This strategy was used most effectively with Malkavians who had Obfuscate for the stealth and Dominate for the bonus bleeds.

    After Gamma I was pretty sure that I wanted to equalize the pursuit of the combat monster, sneak-and-bleed, or political decks. Ideally the best decks would have elements of at least two of these pursuits. After all, a few enhanced bleed cards in a Brujah combat deck can really be an improvement.”

Yes, no really good decks do all three of bruise, bleed and vote. Sometimes I also add a general “defense” ability to that trio of factors.

“The political cards were even wilder than I anticipated. Sometimes they are nearly meaningless while other times you cannot win without political influence. The political deck has weird tricks and traps whereas the others are fairly straightforward, at least in their purest form. I fondly recall the time my predator attempted to play Kine Resources Contested, so it would cost me three blood and himself one. The other two players in the game liked that idea, so they voted in favor. Fortunately I had some hidden votes and was able to vote down the motion. Then the two other players both shrugged and played Political Backlash on my predator, which costs a player making a failed vote some blood, knocking HIM out of the game. So be aware that politics are dangerous to deal with.”

This is highly original. I´ve played the game since 1994, with a break about 1996-2000, and I´ve NEVER seen Political Backlash played.

“The effect of having unique cards, meaning that only one such card can be in play at a time, was striking. I nearly lost faith in the concept after people had noticed so many conflicts, and the effect of a contested card was so dramatic and often decisive to the game. Skaff Elias convinced me it was too good a tool to discard, because how can a player assemble an always-winning deck when she can't even rely on her vampires being hers when all the smoke clears?”

Contest is an excellent mechanic IMHO.

“The twilight of the Jyhad™ project was very painful. We always knew it was going to be, and I only agreed to a Gencon release with the understanding that there would be many all-night sessions editing and laying-out cards and rules. Matters were not helped by the fact that Beverly Marshall Saling, our Senior Editor, was laid up by a car accident. Because of this, editing fell into the hands of Bob Kruger, who was forced to start his tenure at Wizards of the Coast™ at a full run. It is amazingly difficult to edit a Deckmaster™ game to begin with, so this was taxing for everyone involved.”

Sure, I´ve worked as an editor myself for many years, and I understand how hard proofreading when stressed can be, but Jyhad had a bit too many errors. Nothing as bad as the 3^rd Edition flipped backs-thing, but yet a bit too many for a premium product with a large print run.

“There were nights when at about 3 a.m. I would wander away from those doing editing to hide and play computer games, unable to concentrate any longer on cardlists. Occasionally the others, needing my input, would page the entire building to find me.

    I would page back, "What?' as I was unwilling to yield my position.

    A page would come, "If you play two Ordeals on a Gangrel should their hand damage go up to 4?"

    I would page back, "No — you don't get +1 hand damage, you get 2 hand damage period."”

I guess he is referring to Ritual Challenge here, a really crappy card that IMHO maybe could have been +1 strength for each card and not limited to just one per minion. Or at least have a untap effect? The card is seldom played.

“In the end though, Jyhad™ weathered its frenzied birth well. It looks stunning. The number of mistakes on the cards and in the rules, while being more than I find acceptable, is not unreasonable for a first printing. The system is rich enough so that if demand warrants it, several colorful expansions are possible. Thank you, White Wolf, for providing such a compelling world setting and for your help with this project!”

Yepp, we have had no less than 24 or so expansions since this was written, and still I feel there are many game mechanical venues to explore, even while staying inside the original framework. The VEKN design team has a goal not to invent drastically new concepts in the VEKN pdf-sets, so let’s hope a real publisher turns up soon to take the game further. Maybe they might even ask Richard Garfield of his thoughts?

*** *** ***

That´s it folks. Here´s some links you might enjoy:

- An interview with Garfield, mainly about his designing style, but sadly without V:TES being discussed at all::
https://opinionatedgamers.com/2012/07/02/the-art-of-design-interviews-to-game-designers-20-richard-garfield/ 

- Garfield about Android Netrunner, just after that game was launched:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2012/7/13/tapping-the-source-code/

- Another fairly recent interview:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-05-25-richard-garfield-king-of-the-cards 

- ... and one more, also from 2014:
https://www.vice.com/read/an-interview-with-richard-garfield-creator-of-magic-the-gathering

I speak of the first times - Part 1

I dream of the first times
the longest memory
I speak of the first times
the oldest Father
I sing of the first times
and the dawn of Darkness …   
- The Book of Nod

I recently re-read “The Eternal Struggle: A Player´s Guide to the Jyhad” from 1995, and here I want to quote some from V:TES designer Richard Garfield´s chapter and comment on it. Of copyright reasons I won´t republish the whole text, but I try to pick some quotes that might help you understand some aspects of the original design.

Richard Garfield: “The second Deckmaster™ game — it had to be really different in order to demonstrate that trading card games are not an anomaly, but a new gaming vehicle, a new genre. It also had to be a good, lasting game to establish the line as more than just a series of sidenotes to Magic: The Gathering™. I hate weak sequels.

    In retrospect it was ambitious to set the game in the World of Darkness, since it not only had to be really new but also had to satisfy the existing fans by not betraying the atmosphere that drew the players to Vampire in the first place. No matter what the game ended up being, something was inevitably going to be left out.

    Trying to capture a roleplaying world within a card game, particularly a role playing world with depth and character, is like trying to create a single meal that captures the essence of European food. The more you include the weaker each piece will be individually, and there is no chance of capturing everything.

    The choice to center the game on the Jyhad, the ancient covert war that is the foundation of so much of Vampire, was not a hard one. The players would then get a chance to take the strategic view of the world, which would mesh nicely with the tactical view that one usually gets in a roleplaying game. Also, elements of intrigue and politics are well suited to a table game, as opposed to, say, elements of romance.”

Me: I´ve heard Garfield mention this a number of times – the original mission stated pretty strongly that Jyhad should reflect the World of Darkness and the essence of the RPG game Vampire the Masquerade. That is why I´m quite surprised he took on the challenge, because what was asked of him was something very different than his creations Magic the Gathering, Netrunner and Roborally. But I guess Garfield was more of a “staff member” on Wizards of the Coast back then – Magic hadn´t exploded yet and he wasn´t a multimillionaire. And we know by now that he likes new, exciting challenges, as he still today make new games and teach game design, even though he (according to CNN) earned over $100 000 000 back in 2000.

Richard Garfield.

“An early version of the game had a structure which was originally suggested by Mark Rein•Hagen. Many ideas were thrown around, and one in particular took my fancy. Two player's vampires were laid in a grid, initially uncontrolled. The object of the game was to make a chain of controlled vampires from your side to your opponents.

    The game was very different from Magic™ but didn't reflect the World of Darkness to my (or anyone else's) satisfaction. Andrew Greenberg commented that the vampires' Disciplines were too important to relegate to an occasional card.”

Interesting. One of the things that people not (yet) hooked on V:TES mention as a drawback of the game is that it cannot be played on only two players, duel style. Magic and Netrunner is distinct duel games.
  
“Lisa Stevens [WotC vice president at the time] told me that modern weapons were the great equalizer, allowing young, upstart vampires to challenge vampires that in the days of yore would have spanked said upstarts soundly. A member of the Seattle Camarilla observed that multiplayer play was really important since politics don't really exist unless you have more than two people.”

This is an important aspect that was very clear in the original game, but I haven´t heard much discussion about it. One might argue that elder vampires shouldn´t be able to use modern equipment such as machine guns and computers, but on the other hand: Elder vampires tend to be very smart.

“Another important task I undertook in designing Jyhad™ was distributing a net survey asking what sort of cards Vampire enthusiasts wanted to see in such a game. This sounds like a peculiar question (to me at least) considering that no details whatsoever were given about the mechanics of the game. In fact, the details of the mechanics were still pretty hazy at the time, but I found people already had many ideas of what they wanted to see.

    This exercise insured that the game would pass the fan test; that is, when the deck was fanned would the atmosphere meet people’s expectations? I received hundreds of entries in dozens of lists which included these suggestions:

Inquisition

vampire hunters

Amaranth

Fragment of the Book of Nod

Phosphorous Rounds

Pencils fired from Revolvers

Werewolves

Blood Puppy

Blood Feast

Sun lamps”

We haven´t yet seen any revolvers firing pencil (would be awesome, although silly) nor the Sun Lamp, the very powerful magical item from “The Chaos Factor” that could shoot real sunlight to destroy vampires. The design team have work to do!

“I spent several sessions on the phone with Andrew Greenberg sorting out some of the more obscure words, with Andrew finding the original source of the word when possible. Sometimes he did not have any idea either:

AG: Blood Puppy? Hmmm ... maybe it's a colloquial term for Blood Doll?

RG: No — the person lists Blood Doll also.

AG: Maybe in The Players Guide to the Sabbat?

<After lengthy pause> No, how about Clanbook: Malkavian? <Lengthy pause> No, not there either. Maybe The Vampire Canine Addendum? <Etcetera>”

“The next version of Jyhad™ was less ambitious than the first, looking a lot more like Magic™. It didn't take long to establish that the similarities were cosmetic while the game itself was substantially different. Returning to a more "Magic™-like" frame helped keep me from reinventing the wheel, and also gave rise to much more natural multiplayer versions of play.

    In fact, I decided that it was only proper that Jyhad™ be a multiplayer game from the start, rather than evolve multiplayer variants as Magic™ did. This version was the first one that looked anything like what was eventually published, and I called it Alpha. Beta and Gamma versions were developed before publication, but most of the changes in those games involved changes to cards and not changes to game mechanics.

    Your blood is your power in Jyhad™. You must use your blood to win, but using it depletes it, and so brings you closer to defeat. This is the paradox of the game. In Alpha I began to feel that something essential to the World of Darkness had been captured in the card game.”

The “pay your minions with your life”-mechanic is widely considered as one of the most brilliant parts of V:TES. It´s highly intuitive, an aspect of game design which I cannot praise enough. Especially Magic-players tend to love it – never any mana screw.

“There is a certain helpless despair that comes from being thrust into the blood arms race that exists in Jyhad™. Players spend blood to get themselves ahead of their opponents, which forces them, in turn, to spend blood, and so everyone ends up teetering on the brink of destruction. The game often had long periods of tense inactivity, punctuated by a quick flurry of cards in a decisive combat between key vampires. Politics laced with violence might adequately summarize the game that was evolving.”

Who can resist such a game?!!

“Reports on it varied. Many players instantly liked it, others saw the potential that was there. The most common complaint was over game length; many two-player games were running over two hours. My games always ran from twenty to forty minutes in length, so I was a bit perplexed over the reports.”

This is the one aspect that Garfield (and others) often mention as the big weakness in V:TES: the length of each game. Two hours is indeed the time limit in tournament play, and while some have tried shorter variant like Rapid Thought and Fast Hands, it seem to be the appropriate time span, for now. If the length very shortened, to let say 1,5 hours, the number of different deck archetypes viable for tournament play most likely would be more limited.

                            

“Some explanations for this difference were bandied about. Perhaps people were less familiar with the rules and cards than I was, and were therefore taking longer to play. Maybe one of my playtest group's decks was very powerful, so it was easier to win quickly. Jim Lin even hazarded a guess that I was actually spending two hours, and that it just seemed like half an hour because I was having so much fun (Jim really liked the game).

    In the end I decided it was because I played extremely aggressively, whereas the other groups tended to play cautiously. Jyhad™s rules were evolved to make it quicker even for the cautious players, though its present form still involves a long-ish playtime. It was fine that a five- or seven-player game lasted a few hours, as this is comparable to other multiplayer games and the game's interest easily holds for this length of time.”

And this is the heart of the matter: V:TES is a strategy game. It should be compared to playing poker for a couple of hours, or a classic board game like Risk or Diplomacy, not “normal” card games like Magic or Star Realms. This is very hard for some people to understand.

    Many casual players play without time limit, and that is of course a reason for the game taking longer. If invited for a casual game of V:TES, most persons don´t bring their aggressive, high stakes stealth-bleed-deck, because you want to stay in the game right? Not just watch it after you have been ousted, because you played a too ballsy deck right? (This is related to another obvious “deficiency” of V:TES: it´s a player elimination game. But this is also why it´s so exciting – you do NOT want to get ousted, so each action you take become more critical, because there´s no catch-up feature.)

    Some playgroups “solves” this by applying time limit and promoting those high stakes-decks, because they know that they can play several shorter games instead of just one longer, maybe in a small tournament-ish way.

    But again: V:TES is not a fast-paced duel CCG. It´s a social strategy game with a bring-your-own-deck-feature.

Finding decent mockup-artwork was obviously very hard!

“Making Jyhad™ a multiplayer game was an interesting task. It is easy to make a bad multiplayer game. I use the term bad in a somewhat personally defined sense, since it is really easy to have fun with just about any game, and with multi-player games in particular. You can even make an evening of Rock, Scissors, Paper enjoyable if your players are giddy enough (trust me on that one). So what makes a bad multiplayer game?

    If players can interact too freely with one another, then the winner becomes a matter of pure negotiation. You know the routine: "I'm not the threat, SHE's the threat!", or better yet, watching two ninnies argue over which one is the bigger threat. The game may be fun if you like these politics, but I believe all the games are the same once you learn how to really judge for yourself who the threat is. The game then becomes a vehicle for the omnipresent diplomacy. On the other hand, if players can't interact enough you have multiplayer solitaire on your hands, a game which may be fun, but which leaves the players dealing more with the system than each other.”

Very interesting, and also one thing many new players react to with V:TES: The game sometimes becomes all about pointing out someone else as a threat, and convincing others that you yourself is weak and not worth any attention. Sure, this can be very frustrating and unfun if you play with the wrong people, but it can also be VERY funny and exciting – the “fly under the radar”-tactic with a crappy deck, relying much on your strong table talk or general no-profile is one of my favorite tactics, even though I´m not very good at it :)

    And again, players that are not very good at table talk, or just don´t like that playing style, can instead choose a more heads on approach, playing a high-profile but very strong deck (often also a fast deck), like low/midcap stealth-weenie (for example G4-5 Kiasyd/Lasombra) or bigcap stealth-vote (for example various Unmada & Lutz-decks). These decks usually requires at least some amount of table talking at some point during a game, but you can take it even another notch further, to “combo decks”, often with Soul Gem of Etrius or Una. These decks allow it´s player to in like turn 3 or 4 go: “Do anyone have a counter to my combo? No? Sad for you, you are now all ousted! MOAHAHAH!!”

    Sure, I´ve been voicing my opinion that these decks should not be in the game at all, as they are one-trick-pony “solitaire decks” that really don´t fit in a social game like V:TES, but on the other hand I like diversity in viable decks, and diversity in players :)

    Anyway, back to Garfield, how did he solve this problem of diplomacy versus solitaire back in 1994?

For that - check out part 2 here!

What is good and bad in The Unaligned?

We bet you wonder what the Stockholmjyhad bloggers think of The Unaligned, the new official set from VEKN, allowed for tournament play 4 November. Below we grade the minion cards on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is Tortured Confession or Mummy´s Tounge or something like that, and 5 is Govern the Unaligned or Villein or something like that.

Note: This is our views a couple of weeks after the release. We will try to do a follow up on this in a year or so - it will be very interesting to see how our views have changed then!

Bear's Skin

Ashur: 2 “Fun, but I don´t really see a need for this.”

Tomas: 2

Myrdin: 2

Randyman: 3 “Nice but not broken. Surprisingly strong at inferior.”

Blight

Ashur: 2

Tomas: 2

Myrdin: 2

Randyman: 1 “Wallpaper IMHO.”

Dam the Heart's River

Ashur: 2

Tomas: 2

Myrdin: 2

Randyman: 2 “An ok card, but not what the assamites need.”

Ennoia's Theater

Ashur: 4

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 4 “Good, well-balanced. A barrens with a bonus.”

Focus the Blood                         

Ashur: 3 “Notice that it stays on the vamp if not used = way superior to Inner Essence.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 3 “A nice card, but hard to find card slots for.”

Funeral Wake

Ashur: 2 “Sure, nice to both rush and block with Shamblings, but I think it´s hard to find card slots in that type of deck.”

Tomas: 4 or 5

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 3 “Totally ok and well-balanced.”

Gianna di Canneto

Ashur: 4 “Just compare stats and cost to Felix Fix Hessian! And it´s ability is very useful for removing that annoying equipment. The other ability is just plain better than Neighborhood Watch Commander.”

Tomas: 4

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 3 “Strong!”

Gift of Proteus

Ashur: 1 “Ain´t nobody got time for that!

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 2 ”Protean decks seldom has the need to discard stealth or combat cards.”
Randyman: 3 “Ok, but hard to fit into a deck.”

Giulia Giovanni Abruzzina

Ashur: 3

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 3 “Strong.”

Hall of Mirrors

Ashur: 3 “Manuever is great, and you can both use it to avoid dangerous strikes and cancelling s:ce. This card is better than Deathseeker.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 2 “Weird card. We´ll see if this makes ravnos combat decks more popular.”

Illusory Resources

Ashur: 2 “Ain´t nobody got time for that! Maybe had been better as a master, although master slots are scarce.”

Tomas: 2

Myrdin: 2

Randyman: 2 “A bit good-bad. A nice way to make sure you don´t lose the Edge in a heads up.”

In Memory of the Two Lands

Ashur: 2 ”Master slots are scarce. Would have been more interesting if the set would have had a playable non-unique mummy ally, but that didn´t happen.”

Tomas: 2

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 2 ”I don´t see how any mummy decks will turn up in the meta.”

Nar-Sheptha

Ashur: 3

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 2 “This is somewhat what the assamites need – enhanced card flow and forcing opposed minion to be acting saves you blood and cards.”

Ophidian Gaze

Ashur: 2

Tomas: 2

Myrdin: 2 ”Bleed reduce is always worst than bleed bounce.”
Randyman: 3 “A rather well-balanced card.”

Priority Contract

Ashur: 3 “The trifleness makes this playable, but it being usable only forward is a BIG drawback.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 4 “Nice because it forces you to go forward.”

Rewilding

Ashur: 1 “The card sucks. As do Arson and Rampage. Cards like this needs more effects to be playable. Haunt is ok (if you have locations to protect), as is Conceal.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 1 ”I can´t see myself using this, not even as toilet paper.”

Saatet-ta

Ashur: 4

Tomas: 4

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 3 “Strong ally that will see play.”

Sanguine Entrapment

Ashur: 3 “Like Immortal Grapple some time, this card makes all Assmates prerange stuff playble, maybe even Thin Blood.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 3 “More combat, which isn´t needed.”

Serpent's Numbing Kiss

Ashur: 3

Tomas: 4

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 4 “Funny card. Nice at inferior becaused it´s free.”

Skaald

Ashur: 3 “Ain´t nobody got time for that!”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 1 “A weak card, because it´s only good when you are voting.”

Spiritual Guidance

Ashur: 2 “The problem is it sucks in the early part of the game, and I don´t think it´s good later either. Maybe with Liquidation.”

Tomas: 4

Myrdin: 2

Randyman: 3 “An ok complement, but it presupposes Giovanni combat, which is subpar.”

Suspension of Disbelief

Ashur: 2 “I guess that if you play a Ravnos bleed deck, without dominate and with no intention to rush/tap minions (with Deep Song), this is good.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 2 ”This doesn´t bleed hard enough for anyone to need to bounce it. It´s not a Govern.”

Randyman: 2 “Just slightly better than Computer hacking. It need´s an action modifier to motivate a bounce in the first place.”

Thing

Ashur: 4 ”I can´t really see this card becoming such a boring combo-nuisance as Reunion Kamut, as Gangrel don´t have cards equivalent to Recruitment Exercise and Watchtower: Wolves Feed. It´s rather like a nice crypt acceleration-THING that gives an incentive to mix smallcaps and bigcaps in the same deck.”

Tomas: 4

Myrdin: 3

Randyman: 3 ”An ok card that will see some play, but not much.”

Velvet Tongue

Ashur: 2

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 4

Randyman: 4 “One of my favourites in the set. It might have tough competing with Bewitching Oration, but I think I will try it to some tricky deck.”

Zephyr

Ashur: 3 “Act. Get blocked. Zephyr at inferior. Majesty. Act. Untap at end of turn = Fun. Although I don´t like playing cards that presupposes failure.”

Tomas: 3

Myrdin: 3 ”It´s like a Change of Target.”
Randyman: 4 “A good card that will see play. I like that it has an built-in motivation to play a lot of them as you have to fail your action to play it.”

So, according to the Stockholmjyhad jury, the best cards in The Unaligned are:

Saatet-ta: 15 of 20

Ennoia's Theater: 14 of 20

Serpent's Numbing Kiss: 14 of 20

Thing: 14 of 20

The worst cards are:

Blight: 7 of 20

Rewilding: 8 of 20

Illusory Resources: 8 of 20

Gift of Proteus: 8 of 20

Dam the Heart's River: 8 of 20

 

Myrdin: “I think more cards of this set will see play compared to Danse Macabre. The vampires are more measured when it comes to what other vampires they can be combined with. More of the the minion cards gives opportunity to new decks. Good work design team!”

Randyman: “Yes, it is clear that the design team now have more ‘kött på benen’ and has evolved in their work.”

Ashur: ”I would like to give extra credit to Damnans (Ginés) and the other artists. I think the artwork is very important, and I feel it´s on the same level as White Wolfs sets, if not better.”

The pdfs of all cards can be downloaded for free at vekn.net.