Q: Villein and the extra cost for Minion Tap cards
walkert...@hotmail.com
Quick question.
Is the 1 pool cost for "Minion Tap" Cards by the text on "Villein"
accumilative?
I.e. if there are 2 Villein cards on minions the extra cost for
playing "Minion Tap" is 2 pool?
Daniel Eriksson
Sweden
floppyzedolfin
Yes. All cost-affecters (increasers and decreasers) are cumulative.
Jozxyqk
More generally, all cards' effects are cumulative unless card text
says otherwise.
Ruben Feldman
Yes, unfortunately, now minion tap is only useful as a proxy for
villein - pity, another dead card :(
Izaak
>Yes, unfortunately, now minion tap is only useful as a proxy for
>villein - pity, another dead card :(
Aye, it's a shame Villein exists, really. It's basically a better version of
Minion Tap that manages to completely wallpaper Minion Tap in the process.
On the positive side, we do get to see a LOT of fattie decks these days.
Ruben Feldman
Except that villein is a much better improvement for midcaps. Minion
tap was a better card for most big vamps and so I think Villein has
made fatty decks weaker overall...
Generally though, a card that completely wallpapers another sucks for
the game.
James Cass
But it doesn't completely wallpaper Minion Tap. Minion Tap still has
its place in decks that revolve around constantly refilling and
tapping the same 1-2 vampires.
John Whelan
> But it doesn't completely wallpaper Minion Tap. Minion Tap still has
> its place in decks that revolve around constantly refilling and
> tapping the same 1-2 vampires.
If you have 10 villeins in your deck, and you plan on running through
80% of your crypt, tapping the same 2 minions 4 times each, then the
average cost of villein, in that deck, is 1.5 pool. From that cost,
you must deduct the added value of trifleness.
Is Minion Tap really better? What is the average cost of Minion Tap,
in todays play environment?
TWDA entries since March suggest that decks contain on average 1.5
villeins per deck. If this is representative, then it means that if
you sit down at a 5-player, you can expect, on average, that your
opponents will have 6 villeins between them in their decks. I would
guesstimate that the average cost of playing Minion Tap in this
environment is about 2 pool, and you don't get the trifleness benefit.
Juggernaut1981
But you can repeatedly play them. Repeatability for no in-built
additional cost is the remaining benefit of Minion Tap.
James Cass
Interesting analysis.
Sorry to bother you but:
How many of the TWDA entries since March contained zero Villeins?
Then what was the average number of Villeins among the decks that
actually contained Villiens?
Or alternatively how do you conduct searches on the TWDA? Just
curious because over two thirds of the recent - post March 2010, decks
addes to the Secret Library's database haven't bothered to include
Villiens.
John Whelan
> Sorry to bother you but:
>
> How many of the TWDA entries since March contained zero Villeins?
74/106 = 70% with no villeins
32/106 = 30% with villeins
> Then what was the average number of Villeins among the decks that
> actually contained Villiens?
165 villeins in 32 decks = 5.15 villeins per deck, on average.
> Or alternatively how do you conduct searches on the TWDA?
I just search down the TWDA page, using my browser's search function.
> Just
> curious because over two thirds of the recent - post March 2010, decks
> addes to the Secret Library's database haven't bothered to include
> Villiens.
Right.
Interestingly, Minion Tap just made two appearances in the TWDA since
mid-July (after an 8-month hiatus). But apparently this was just
because the designer had no Villeins. From the design of the decks,
Villein would clearly have been the better option.
John Whelan
> But you can repeatedly play them. Repeatability for no in-built
> additional cost is the remaining benefit of Minion Tap.
Already averaged in.
The cost of Minion Tap will also tend to increase with time. But
there will be more variety: Your second minion tap, on the same
minion, might cost the same as the last one (if you get lucky), or it
might cost 4 more than the last one (if you get unlucky).
James Cass
You assumed that out of the 4 other people at the table there is an
average of 1.5 Villiens per deck. But really, only 1.2 other players
(30% of the 4 remaining players) at the table will even be running
with Villiens and will be running with 5.15 of them. (Or would it be
1.5 players?)
If that 1.2 person is elimiated first... would not Minion Tap have
been a better choice?
Even if they are the last other player(s) at the table, if you have 10
Minion Taps and your opponent(s) only have 5-6, assuming an equal
number of cards played and an equal distribution, would Minion Tap not
have been a better choice?
John Whelan
> You assumed that out of the 4 other people at the table there is an
> average of 1.5 Villiens per deck.
I did not assume. I showed you the TWDA data. 163 villeins divided
by 106 decks equals 1.5377 villeins per deck, on average.
> But really, only 1.2 other players
> (30% of the 4 remaining players) at the table will even be running
> with Villiens and will be running with 5.15 of them. (Or would it be
> 1.5 players?)
1.2 x 5.13 = 6.15.
6.15 / 4 = 1.5375.
What's the problem?
> If that 1.2 person is elimiated first... would not Minion Tap have
> been a better choice?
Why should the 1.2 person be eliminated first? And how can I know
this when choosing between Villein & Minion Tap -- which occurs at the
deck design stage?
> Even if they are the last other player(s) at the table, if you have 10
> Minion Taps and your opponent(s) only have 5-6, assuming an equal
> number of cards played and an equal distribution, would Minion Tap not
> have been a better choice?
I don't understand the question.
John Whelan
Wait. I think I get it.
Hypothetical game. You plan to play 10 minion taps all on the same
single minion. Your opponents are (collectively) playing 5 villeins.
In this case, your minion taps will typically cost you
0,1,1,2,2,3,3,4,4,5, whereas your villeins will cost you
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 minus the value of trifleness.
Well, I say show me a minion tap deck from the TWDA which is designed
to do this.
James Cass
> Well, I say show me a minion tap deck from the TWDA which is designed
> to do this.
Reindoctrination
Atlanta, Georgia
September 29, 2009
12 players
2R + F
Darby Keeney's Tournament Winning Deck with 3VPs in the finals
DECK NAME
"Hey Mike"
COMMENTS
Based on Mike Courtois' deck running a similar Vigorous Tapping
engine, assembled following some newsgroup discussion that there were
no competitive decks in which Minion Tap would not be best replaced by
Villein.
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 6 max: 11 average: 8.66667
------------------------------------------------------------
6x Arika 11 DOM FOR OBF PRE aus cel inner circle Ventrue:2
4x Blanche Hill 6 FOR OBE aus Salubri:2
2x Matthias 7 AUS FOR OBE nec Salubri:2
Library [80 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Action [22]
2x Blithe Acceptance
6x Govern the Unaligned
5x Mind Rape
6x Renewed Vigor
3x Spirit Marionette
Action Modifier [42]
4x Cloak the Gathering
5x Conditioning
3x Daring the Dawn
4x Elder Impersonation
1x Enkil Cog
3x Faceless Night
11x Freak Drive
4x Lost in Crowds
4x Repulsion
3x Veil the Legions
Action Modifier/Reaction [3]
3x Murmur of the False Will
Master [11]
1x Giant's Blood
2x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
8x Minion Tap
Political Action [2]
1x Ancient Influence
1x Reins of Power
There is also a 2007 Renewed Vigor Minion Tap deck using Cybele,
Nergel and Great Beast which won the 26 player First Belorussian
Nationals.
Ruben Feldman
If Villein did not affect minion tap, minion tap would be better in
most big vamp decks. This is because it is free to play repeatedly and
can be cycled through anthelios.
With villein in existence, playing Minion tap is a joke.
Juggernaut1981
Actually most times Minion Tap is always intended to be played on the
same small group of vampires. Consider the usual Presence Cap'n'Tap
technique. Mid-to-Large vampire enters, next master phase is Tapped
for the majority of blood (usually leaving 1 or 2 behind), takes a
political action, pushes votes, Voter Caps to full capacity, next
minion phase (where possible) Minion Tap the minion down to 2 blood
again.
It is/was a key mechanic in most of the larger-cap Toreador & Ventrue
Voters. Think AAA and Old School Law Firms.
John Whelan
> Actually most times Minion Tap is always intended to be played on the
> same small group of vampires.
Yes, but you have moved the goalpost. A small group of minions is not
a problem for Villein, competitively speaking. If you play 8 Villeins
twice each on the same two minions, then the average cost of your
Villeins is 1.5 pool, minus the value of trifleness. It looks as
though you can expect your Minion Taps to cost about the same -- or
more -- and they don't get the trifle benefit.
James Cass
Hopefully this isn't a double post but:
If you play 4 Villeins each on 2 minions you are costing yourself 12
pool - the same as ousting 2 prey - GUARANTEED.
If you play Minion Taps, you might not cost yourself any pool.
IMO, it depends on your deck building strategy. Do you build to win
or build to not loose?
If you use Villeins, you are limiting the chances of your opponents
disrupting your deck's strategy - at the cost of 12 pool. If you
build your deck using Minion Taps, you could or could not get hosed by
your opponents, but at least you aren't costing yourself 12 pool.
John Whelan
> Hopefully this isn't a double post but:
>
> If you play 4 Villeins each on 2 minions you are costing yourself 12
> pool - the same as ousting 2 prey - GUARANTEED.
>
> If you play Minion Taps, you might not cost yourself any pool.
Or you might cost yourself 24 pool. But it appears that on average,
the cost will be about the same.
It is not necessary for me to argue that either version of the deck
will be competitive in the current play environment.
> IMO, it depends on your deck building strategy. Do you build to win
> or build to not loose?
Either way, you would use Villeins and not Minion Taps, and you would
not use either of them in a deck designed to slurp the same minion 4
times each. You would design a deck that plays to the strengths of
Villein, and not its weaknesses.
> If you use Villeins, you are limiting the chances of your opponents
> disrupting your deck's strategy - at the cost of 12 pool.
No. Because nothing forces me to mindlessly replace Minion Taps with
Villeins in an otherwise unaltered deck from 2 years ago. I can use
it more intelligently.
Tristan Eliston
Tap is not.
Frederick Scott
> TWDA entries since March suggest that decks contain on average 1.5
> villeins per deck. If this is representative, then it means that if
> you sit down at a 5-player, you can expect, on average, that your
> opponents will have 6 villeins between them in their decks. I would
> guesstimate that the average cost of playing Minion Tap in this
> environment is about 2 pool, and you don't get the trifleness benefit.
Sigh. That guess is totally absurd. There's a huge difference between
having cards in your deck and having them on the table. At the start
of a game, there are zero Villeins on the table. If, by some insane
freakish occurrence, all players on a five player table managed not to
be ousted long enough to get all of their Villeins on non-burnt,
unbanished Vampires, the average Villein would cost 6 pool in a
5-player game. Believe me - the average extra cost of playing Minion
Taps is *NOT* 2 pool. For that to be true, the average number of
Villeins on a table would need to be two- when in the most insanely
unlikely freakish case suggested by the TWDA above would indicate six
Villiens maximum on the table in the average 5-player game.
That's CRAZY talk there...
Fred
John Whelan
> On 8/31/2010 11:42 AM, John Whelan wrote:
>
> > TWDA entries since March suggest that decks contain on average 1.5
> > villeins per deck. If this is representative, then it means that if
> > you sit down at a 5-player, you can expect, on average, that your
> > opponents will have 6 villeins between them in their decks. I would
> > guesstimate that the average cost of playing Minion Tap in this
> > environment is about 2 pool, and you don't get the trifleness benefit.
>
> Sigh. That guess is totally absurd. There's a huge difference between
> having cards in your deck and having them on the table.
There is also a huge difference between 2 and 6. So obviously, I am
not assuming that cards in your deck is the same as cards on the
table.
> Believe me - the average extra cost of playing Minion
> Taps is *NOT* 2 pool.
Fine. Lets bring the guesstimate down to 1.5 then. Villein still
wins.
> For that to be true, the average number of
> Villeins on a table would need to be two- when in the most insanely
> unlikely freakish case suggested by the TWDA above would indicate six
> Villiens maximum on the table in the average 5-player game.
If the minimum is 0 and the maximum is 6 (at the time you draw your
minion tap and have an opportunity to play it), why cannot the average
be 2? (Or 1.5?)
Frederick Scott
> On Sep 10, 8:12 pm, Frederick Scott<no...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>> On 8/31/2010 11:42 AM, John Whelan wrote:
>>
>>> TWDA entries since March suggest that decks contain on average 1.5
>>> villeins per deck. If this is representative, then it means that if
>>> you sit down at a 5-player, you can expect, on average, that your
>>> opponents will have 6 villeins between them in their decks. I would
>>> guesstimate that the average cost of playing Minion Tap in this
>>> environment is about 2 pool, and you don't get the trifleness benefit.
>>
>> Sigh. That guess is totally absurd. There's a huge difference between
>> having cards in your deck and having them on the table.
>
> There is also a huge difference between 2 and 6. So obviously, I am
> not assuming that cards in your deck is the same as cards on the
> table.
>
>> Believe me - the average extra cost of playing Minion
>> Taps is *NOT* 2 pool.
>
> Fine. Lets bring the guesstimate down to 1.5 then. Villein still
> wins.
Let's bring it down a lot more than that. I don't think it's possible
to make a very good guess from the knowledge of how many Villiens are
used in each deck on average but I believe anything over 0.5 is
absurd. And it's probably a lot lower than that.
To have any clue, you'd have to know how many cards the average deck
held, was there any positive or negative correlation between Villien
count and the count of cards in a deck, how many cards were played
on average before ousting or the end of the end, and perhaps any
correlation between usage of Villiens and the play of cards. I
think there could probably be a lot more factors, too.
The point is that in the vast majority of cases, players don't have
very much of the deck out on the table during the game - especially
after they're ousted, at which time none of their deck is on the
table except for cards controlled by other players when they're
ousted. Supposing 1.5 would be the average appears to be a hideous
overestimate to me.
> If the minimum is 0 and the maximum is 6 (at the time you draw your
> minion tap and have an opportunity to play it), why cannot the average
> be 2? (Or 1.5?)
Because very little of a deck is on the table at any given point of
a game. You seem to be of the opinion that a significant portion of
a deck would be played (and thus, if permanents, on the table) at
any given moment during a game. That is not the case.
Fred
John Whelan
> I don't think it's possible to make a very good guess
I don't think it is possible to make a "very good guess" either. But
I think it is possible to make a tentative "guesstimate". And that's
what I did.
> [...] I believe anything over 0.5 is
> absurd. And it's probably a lot lower than that.
If you're right, the virtual disappearance of Minion Tap from the TWDA
is hard to explain. Perhaps the top players are all fools.
> To have any clue, you'd have to know how many cards the average deck
> held, [...]
60 to 90 seems adequate for guesstimate purposes.
> [...] was there any positive or negative correlation between Villien
> count and the count of cards in a deck, [...]
Negative, I imagine. But since you're the one sticking out your chest
and calling my guestimate absurd, I'll leave it to you to prove
otherwise.
> [...] how many cards were played
> on average before ousting or the end of the end, and perhaps any
> correlation between usage of Villiens and the play of cards. I
> think there could probably be a lot more factors, too.
The guestimate of "2" merely assumed that the average deck runs
through 66% of its cards, and that 33% is the average mark. The
guesstimate of "1.5" merely assumed that the average deck runs through
50% of its cards, and that 25% is the average mark. If I reduce that
guestimate, I must also reduce the average cost of playing multiple
villeins in a one-or-two minion deck. So its all the same to me,
really.
> The point is that in the vast majority of cases, players don't have
> very much of the deck out on the table during the game
You may be right. Now apply that logic to the average cost of playing
Villeins.
Petri Wessman
that Villein has totally wallpapered Minion Tap, especially with the
introduction of Lilith's Blessing (why oh why did that card get
printed?). I don't remember when I last saw a Minion Tap. Villeins?
Tons, in every single game.
Villein is just a bit too good, in comparison.
On the other hand, the situation of Vessel vs Blood Doll is a *lot*
less easy to define. At first people switched to Vessels everywhere,
but lately people have started going back to Dolls or playing a mix.
There I'd say the balance is ok. With Villein / Minion Tap, it's a
complete wash. :(
We *do* see a lot more fattie decks nowadays, though.
-Petri
James Cass
And in my play group, Villeins is wallpaper. I think I have seen 2
hit the table since it was printed.
Frederick Scott
> On Sep 13, 5:48 pm, Frederick Scott<no...@nowhere.com> wrote:
>> I don't think it's possible to make a very good guess
>
> I don't think it is possible to make a "very good guess" either. But
> I think it is possible to make a tentative "guesstimate". And that's
> what I did.
>
>> [...] I believe anything over 0.5 is
>> absurd. And it's probably a lot lower than that.
>
> If you're right, the virtual disappearance of Minion Tap from the TWDA
> is hard to explain. Perhaps the top players are all fools.
It's not hard to explain. I think the trifle-ness of the card is far
more important than the added cost to Minion Taps - now that I've
started to build decks with Villiens and used them. (I seem to recall
arguing with you about importance of its trifleness before. I don't
recall my opinion was at the time. If I've just changed my position
about that, then...oh, well. Sometimes I do.)
...
>> The point is that in the vast majority of cases, players don't have
>> very much of the deck out on the table during the game
>
> You may be right. Now apply that logic to the average cost of playing
> Villeins.
Eh? I don't think it makes much difference to Villiens. It's not
exactly the same calculation but it's probably still fairly negligible -
especially if you have separate vampires on which to play them.
Fred