Control Hand & Deck Mechanic Masters

[gozer]

I started Malifaux with 2nd Edition and my first Master was Jakob Lynch - a choice borne of a love of Lovecraftian Horror and hand/deck manipulation.

Now, with M3E, I'm wanting to do a return to form. However, besides wanting to play something new, Lynch has turned into a summoner - a mechanic I don't enjoy at all!

So, I went looking for a master that messes with the hand/deck in interesting ways and was as monstrous or horrifying as possible.

I think I found exactly what I was looking for: Euripides!

However, before I take the plunge and spend over $100 on that Old Ways giant, his cyclopean pals and a fistful of ice pillar markers (how many will I need!?!) are there any other masters out there with heavy deck/card manipulation and (preferrably) a monstrous theme?

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

The Dreamer.

[theamazingmrg]

Well, he's not really a summoner, same as Sonnia isn't really a summoner.  He can summon, but his main thing is Rig the Deck (control hand/top of deck manipulation) and using Brilliance to buff.

 

Youko Hamasaki might work for you though.  No monstrous theme there though.

4 minutes ago, thatlatinspeakingguy said:

The Dreamer.

The Dreamer is also a summoner, so might get disqualified on those grounds, but yes, definitely has card manipulation nonsense.

[thatlatinspeakingguy]

Molly has no card manipulation per se, but can draw a lot of cards, her crew discards them for multiple purposes, plus you can hire a Nurse for even more draw and put Whisper on something for some deck manipulation. Jack Daw's crew has insane discard mechanic, and they can also draw you some cards. A cherry on the top: neither of them is a summoner!

[CD1248]

Lynch is not a summoner per se. He has one ability that happens to summon a model, but it's largely incidental to what he's actually doing on a turn-by-turn basis.

[Kharnage]

7 minutes ago, CD1248 said:

Lynch is not a summoner per se. He has one ability that happens to summon a model, but it's largely incidental to what he's actually doing on a turn-by-turn basis.

Most summoners have one ability that happens to summon a model I think the big distinction is that it's a reward for brilliance-expunging a target rather than just AFK model summoning in the back like most summoners do. If he's looking for a card manipulately monster theme, might I recommend...
GOD EMPRESS NEKIMA!
Her defensive trigger sees you draw cards whenever a foe cheats to hit you, which when you're Nekima, is all the time! Also, Lelu(s) and Lilitu(s) both have card generation mechanics based on Blood for Blood and Sadistic Glee, respectively. And Nephilim are certainly monstrous. 
If that doesn't work for you... then perhaps the Elites/Mimics are more your speed. Better card manipulation and there is a subtle horror theme going on within mimicking humanity and living among them. 

[gozer]

23 hours ago, theamazingmrg said:

Well, he's not really a summoner, same as Sonnia isn't really a summoner. 

I appreciate the distinction between those masters who are primarily summoners and those who summon on occasion.

To clarify, my issue with summoning isn't the mechanic itself - it's the meta logistics of requiring a plethora of various additional models to take advantage of the summoning, should it occur.

For example: Lynch can summon any Honepot Minion up to cost 5. This means in addition to whatever crew I field I need 1+ depleted and beckoner. Ideally I'd want 2 or 3 of each - potentially more than my initial crew!

I know it's not a requirement to prep summon models like this but in order to take full advantage of summoning, that's what the game calls for...and I HATE it!

Rest of the core rules rock!

[CD1248]

32 minutes ago, gozer said:

I appreciate the distinction between those masters who are primarily summoners and those who summon on occasion.

To clarify, my issue with summoning isn't the mechanic itself - it's the meta logistics of requiring a plethora of various additional models to take advantage of the summoning, should it occur.

For example: Lynch can summon any Honepot Minion up to cost 5. This means in addition to whatever crew I field I need 1+ depleted, beckoned and illuminated. Ideally I'd want 2 or 3 of each - potentially more than my initial crew!

I know it's not a requirement to prep summon models like this but in order to take full advantage of summoning, that's what the game calls for...and I HATE it!

Rest of the core rules rock!

I'm really unclear how that is distinct from the game in general which calls for having extra models prepared to deal with specific s/s or faction/crew matchups. And in this case the "extra" models are minions you would have on hand anyway just from owning the keyword, not something extra you have to buy.

[gozer]

7 hours ago, CD1248 said:

I'm really unclear how that is distinct from the game in general which calls for having extra models prepared to deal with specific s/s or faction/crew matchups. And in this case the "extra" models are minions you would have on hand anyway just from owning the keyword, not something extra you have to buy.

Hmmm. There is one big assumption being made here: The crew in question is being played around keyword models.

Let's imagine my preferred "go to" Lynch crew includes an Emissary, Samurai, Geisha and a couple Tanuki - mostly non-Honey Pot models. 

Now, in order for me to play that preferred crew to its fullest, I also need a full set of keyword models if I want to make full use of Lynch.

Ideally - and money, time and effort not withstanding  - we would all have a full complement of every concievable model combination eligible to our faction/master combination. However most of us don't.

The crux of the issue is this: if I want to utilize Lynch as a master to his fullest capability as a model, I NEED to have all his eligible summons ready to go.

That requisite doesn't necessarily exist with non-summoners. It CAN but it doesn't have to.

Hopefully that makes more sense?

[CD1248]

If you want to get technical, that requisite exists for every single master that has any ability that requires a specific keyword or model type. 

I could play Ironsides with nothing but versatile non-M&SU models, and now she has two dead abilities her card. 

[theamazingmrg]

10 hours ago, gozer said:

I appreciate the distinction between those masters who are primarily summoners and those who summon on occasion.

To clarify, my issue with summoning isn't the mechanic itself - it's the meta logistics of requiring a plethora of various additional models to take advantage of the summoning, should it occur.

For example: Lynch can summon any Honepot Minion up to cost 5. This means in addition to whatever crew I field I need 1+ depleted, beckoned and illuminated. Ideally I'd want 2 or 3 of each - potentially more than my initial crew!

I know it's not a requirement to prep summon models like this but in order to take full advantage of summoning, that's what the game calls for...and I HATE it!

Rest of the core rules rock!

I get that, but I do think its possibly less of an issue with Lynch than anyone else.  I'd say you probably only need Depleted and Beckoners (Illuminated cost 7 and require a lot of setup to summon, and Depleted generally aren't worth considering for the starting crew (imo) but they make great models to summon in during play.  So whether or not you play with a lot of Honeypot models doesn't really matter.  Just have a few Depleted set to one side in case the opportunity to summon arises.  But they're probably the only ones that are needed.

[gozer]

8 hours ago, CD1248 said:

If you want to get technical, that requisite exists for every single master that has any ability that requires a specific keyword or model type. 

I could play Ironsides with nothing but versatile non-M&SU models, and now she has two dead abilities her card. 

That's right! I dislike Ironsides for exactly the reason you described.

I don't care for models/abilities that "pigeon-hole" the player into taking specific models. Keywords are fine because they are recommendations - you are encouraged to take them, but your crew can be just as effective without any keyword models. I absolutely adore the versatile keyword for this reason.

Abilities like those you mentioned on Ironsides and summoning are straight up "You Better Own These Models!" commandments because if you want to take full advantage of a models said ability/summon, you NEED to have whatever models that ability/summon requires. That sucks to me because it limits my agency as a player.

I get that Wyrd does this as way to limit summoning and those model-specific abilities because they are so powerful. However, as a matter of personal preference, I'd rather just avoid those limitations entirely and not play with models who suffer them.

[WUWU]

19 hours ago, gozer said:

I appreciate the distinction between those masters who are primarily summoners and those who summon on occasion.

To clarify, my issue with summoning isn't the mechanic itself - it's the meta logistics of requiring a plethora of various additional models to take advantage of the summoning, should it occur.

For example: Lynch can summon any Honepot Minion up to cost 5. This means in addition to whatever crew I field I need 1+ depleted, beckoned and illuminated. Ideally I'd want 2 or 3 of each - potentially more than my initial crew!

I know it's not a requirement to prep summon models like this but in order to take full advantage of summoning, that's what the game calls for...and I HATE it!

Rest of the core rules rock!

Just to clarify, you do understand in M3E that you cannot summon any models beyond their model limit, right?  The way you've worded this post makes me think you may have missed this rule.  It's page 32 of the core rule book, it says:

Players cannot use Summon or Replace effects to add a model that is already in their Crew to their Crew. The only exception to this are models that have a number noted after their station Characteristic (i.e. Minion (3)).

If a Summoning or Replace effect would add a model that would take a player over this limit, the model is simply not added to the game

[gozer]

1 hour ago, WUWU said:

Just to clarify, you do understand in M3E that you cannot summon any models beyond their model limit, right?  The way you've worded this post makes me think you may have missed this rule.  It's page 32 of the core rule book, it says:

Players cannot use Summon or Replace effects to add a model that is already in their Crew to their Crew. The only exception to this are models that have a number noted after their station Characteristic (i.e. Minion (3)).

If a Summoning or Replace effect would add a model that would take a player over this limit, the model is simply not added to the game

Thank you for the reiteration. I do understand this rule. My concern was if I had a crew deployed that was not using those models Lynch summons, I would then need to make sure I buy them in addition to what I'm playing with. That's what I don't really care for.

[tmod]

2 hours ago, gozer said:

Thank you for the reiteration. I do understand this rule. My concern was if I had a crew deployed that was not using those models Lynch summons, I would then need to make sure I buy them in addition to what I'm playing with. That's what I don't really care for.

I dunno, It's kinda hard to get what your getting at here. If it is disqualifying for a Master to depend on one or more in-theme model to use her abilities to the fullest extent, aren't you just arguing against any kind of theme based synergy rather than summoning? I get that some masters (Kirai from M2e which couldn't legally be fielded without investing in several other boxes) may rely so heavily on theme that you feel that you don't get to buy the models you like. And the theme-based hiring in M3e have certainly amplified this to a certain extent. But by having fewer summonable options for most masters, isn't this effect lessened?

So, if you use Lynch you'd want to have Illuminated (included in the box) and Depleted if you want to get the most effect out of his card. That's one additional box. Hardly deciding everything you need to buy! The rest of his card is supposed to synergize with the other Darkened models, so you'd probably want everything interacting with Brilliance. And Rasputina will want stuff that synergize with the ice stuff. And Kaeris the fire stuff. Etc, etc.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I don't understand how an ability that might occasionally bring forth a summon is more guilty of pidgeon holing you than all the abilities on every master out there that gives synergy with other names models or subset or models...

[gozer]

1 hour ago, tmod said:

I dunno, It's kinda hard to get what your getting at here. If it is disqualifying for a Master to depend on one or more in-theme model to use her abilities to the fullest extent, aren't you just arguing against any kind of theme based synergy rather than summoning? I get that some masters (Kirai from M2e which couldn't legally be fielded without investing in several other boxes) may rely so heavily on theme that you feel that you don't get to buy the models you like. And the theme-based hiring in M3e have certainly amplified this to a certain extent. But by having fewer summonable options for most masters, isn't this effect lessened?

So, if you use Lynch you'd want to have Illuminated (included in the box) and Depleted if you want to get the most effect out of his card. That's one additional box. Hardly deciding everything you need to buy! The rest of his card is supposed to synergize with the other Darkened models, so you'd probably want everything interacting with Brilliance. And Rasputina will want stuff that synergize with the ice stuff. And Kaeris the fire stuff. Etc, etc.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I don't understand how an ability that might occasionally bring forth a summon is more guilty of pidgeon holing you than all the abilities on every master out there that gives synergy with other names models or subset or models...

I detailed that in reply to a very similar question above. In short: I don't like any models that *require* other specific models to use their ability(ies). Synergies are great! Keywords are okay! What I don't enjoy are models who are literally only partially functional without owning/having additional specific model(s).

[tmod]

1 minute ago, gozer said:

I detailed that in reply to a very similar question above. In short: I don't like any models that *require* other specific models to use their ability(ies). Synergies are great! Keywords are okay! What I don't enjoy are models who are literally only partially functional without owning/having additional specific model(s).

But doesn't this mean you dislike almost literally every model in the game? In my experience, most masters have been either keyword dependent or just having a weak keyword from day one. Sure, some crews in M2e where not really dependent on just in-theme models (Neverborn all stars with a few masters spring to mind), but most seemed to depend on certain models to work at their best. As an occasional Lynch player since he was first released I've always felt he has a pretty tight theme, where you'd need to stack up on Brilliance models to get the most of him. I know several players have ignored his theme and used other models with him, but then they have ignored a big part of his card (brilliance manipulation) in favour of exclusively focusing on another (card/deck manipulation). It might be strong, but that doesn't change the fact that for example a Lynch+Huggy+All-stars list would not utilize his card to the fullest. How is not using Darkened models to spread Brilliance and thus not being able to take advantage of Lynch's brilliance tricks fundamentally different from not having summonable Darkened models and not be able to use his incidental summoning?

Compare to Sonnia's summoning of stalkers in M2e. It was nice when it happened, but I've never experienced a game that was decided by whether the Sonnia player had stalkers available to summon. I have experienced games decided on whether the Sonnia player had hired stalkers to set things on fire for Sonnia and Samael. I just don't get why the summoning pidgeon holes players, whereas as the (mostly) much more important crew synergies is somehow leaving players with more choice.

Maybe I'm just being dense, but I'm struggling to understand the problem...

[Adran]

If I really wanted to argue the point, I could probably argue that every master in Malifaux is going to fall slightly short of what you want. But that's not really going to help anyone.

I'll suggest a few masters and my reasoning for them. You may well find that there are reasons for not using them, but I'll try and justify a few that you probably won't like at first glance.

 

Lynch - The whole core crew has the ability to "rig the deck". Because much of the crew is using and providing Brilliance tokens, you are likely to want to use several models from his keyword. His box contains Illuminated, so you are likely to have a model to summon in if you do sucomb to darkness. You might feel that you "need" to buy a box of depleted to make the most of the abilty (because you won't always have the 7 tokens on the target when you kill it to summon an illuminated).  If you played Jacob in M2e you probably have depleted and beckoners already, so you don't actually have to go any buy anything to have "maximum" succomb power, so I would suggest trying the crew out.

Dreamer - Lucid dreams is the ultimate deck manipulator, he literally removes cards from your deck from the game. He is a summoner, but everything he summonis is something that helps remove cards from the deck, so if that is the aspect of the crew you wanted to focus on, you would probably be buying those models anyway. The crew is certainly Lovecraftian horror in appearance.

Lucius - He has a strong card draw set up in that a large amount of his thematic crew will be drawing cards when they take actions outside of their activation. The crew is filled with models that aren't  quite human but trying to be.

Zoraida - Her crew has the potential to empty an opponents hand very fast with their penetrating stench. she has some card draw, although it is "symmetrical".

Europidies - As you've seen a lot of deck manipulation

Youko is certainly a deck manipulation and card control master, but no horror

 

In the end, you should play what you enjoy, and if you don't think you'll enjoy anything with the word summon or replace, then you're right to not use them. I

 

[gozer]

18 hours ago, tmod said:

But doesn't this mean you dislike almost literally every model in the game? In my experience, most masters have been either keyword dependent or just having a weak keyword from day one.

Out of personal curiosity, I decided to look at the M3E masters to see which ones DO NOT require another model with their keyword in order to use all of their abilities:

Cornelius Basse, Nellie Cochrane, Reva Cortinas, Euripides, Titania, Zoraida, Rasputina, Kaeris, Mei Feng, Captain Zipp, Youko Hamasaki, Lucas McCabe, Brewmaster, Mah Tuckett. 

I don't know if this list will surprise you, but I was impressed there are FOURTEEN masters can use all of their abilities without requiring their keyword.

I should also clarify that I don't necessary dislike models that have actions that only affect models of their keyword - merely that I dislike that specific mechanic and would prefer not to be limited by it.

18 hours ago, tmod said:

 Sure, some crews in M2e where not really dependent on just in-theme models (Neverborn all stars with a few masters spring to mind), but most seemed to depend on certain models to work at their best. 

Anecdotally, my most played crew combo in M2E was: Tara, Killjoy, Bete Noire, Death Marshall.

Ironically, in M3E, none of those models can play together in any combination. Also, none of those models required any other specific models to be effective. However, they are 100% thematic due to the bury synergy.

My point is, there were a lot more opportunities to construct your own interpretation of a theme in M2E and a big part of that reason was because many models (and masters) were empowered by the options they could take, not limited by them.

18 hours ago, tmod said:

Compare to Sonnia's summoning of stalkers in M2e. It was nice when it happened, but I've never experienced a game that was decided by whether the Sonnia player had stalkers available to summon. I have experienced games decided on whether the Sonnia player had hired stalkers to set things on fire for Sonnia and Samael. I just don't get why the summoning pidgeon holes players, whereas as the (mostly) much more important crew synergies is somehow leaving players with more choice.

This is a PERFECT example of my concern. Sonnia's summons in M2E was completely optional because it was on an upgrade with an associated cost. In M3E her summons is bundled up into her base kit.

In M2E, instead of spending SS on her summons upgrade you could potentially hire another model or have a bigger SS pool to start. You could run a Sonnia with ZERO Witchling Stalkers in M2E and she could use ALL of her abilities.

In M3E, Sonnia is a summoner. You don't get to make the choice for her not to be a summoner. If you want to use ALL of her abilities to her fullest you MUST have Witchling Stalkers (in addition to ALL other possible Witchling models she might want to summon).

I don't like being required to bring in specific models in order to take full advantage of everything a model offers. I'm not saying I'd never play Sonnia or she isn't fun, but I dislike that meta change in M3E.

You might also be surprised to know I appreciate almost all the other M3E changes. This is one of the very few that I don't like.

[theamazingmrg]

Actually, for Sonnia to use all her abilities you only need to include her totem (whihc is going to be included anyway when she's Leader because you'd be daft not to include a free model).  It's a Witchling model that exists to spread Burining, die and be resummoned.  You don't need to have ALL options to use all the abilities on a master.

 

Now, you obviously seem to prefer a world where you can take any Master and build a crew around it with a theme of your own making, but that doesn't really make sense for a narrative game like Malifaux.  Personally I would rather have a Master with all the abilities available to them, and then build my list to take advantage of the rules I want to use.  I'm not sure why a situation where you have to choose Upgrade A or Upgrade B for a type of list is somehow better than a situation where you have to say "Well, I'll take X of this model because it supports my objective". 

[gozer]

41 minutes ago, theamazingmrg said:

Actually, for Sonnia to use all her abilities you only need to include her totem (whihc is going to be included anyway when she's Leader because you'd be daft not to include a free model).  It's a Witchling model that exists to spread Burining, die and be resummoned.  You don't need to have ALL options to use all the abilities on a master. 

Hey,  I didn't notice that! Pretty cool. Yeah that's a little better then. I agree with you in general, you don't need to have ALL options to use all abilities. However, in the case of Lynch in order to use all of his abilities you do NEED to take at least 1 Honey Pot minion. However, I want to build a Lynch crew without Honey Pot minions (which is perfectly legal and thematic in M3E), I lose access to one of his abilities. This sucks.

46 minutes ago, theamazingmrg said:

Now, you obviously seem to prefer a world where you can take any Master and build a crew around it with a theme of your own making, but that doesn't really make sense for a narrative game like Malifaux. 

Nope, I don't prefer this at all. Nor do I think I implied it in any way. I'm sorry I wasn't more transparent. Let me use the Tara example above. Tara's "gimmick", if you will, is burying. Narratively speaking, buried models are interacting with the place the tyrant Obliteration has been imprisoned. I would prefer a Malifaux where I'd be able to grab Tara and ANY model that can bury and build a crew around that gimmick.

The keyword system kind of does this, but - in my opinion - doesn't go far enough. More models need more keywords. Whatever our personal opinions, there are many fewer thematic (or even "narrative") combinations of masters and models than there were in M2E. However, that's another discussion entirely.

56 minutes ago, theamazingmrg said:

 I'm not sure why a situation where you have to choose Upgrade A or Upgrade B for a type of list is somehow better than a situation where you have to say "Well, I'll take X of this model because it supports my objective". 

It's better because of how bundling and costs work. Sonnia in M3E is balanced AROUND having summoning. In M2E that balance was offloaded onto her upgrade. If M3E Sonnia did NOT have summoning, some stat or combination of stats would be stronger or she might have another ability. You are paying for that summons when you choose her as your leader, whether you take advantage of that ability or not.

[Adran]

1 hour ago, gozer said:

Out of personal curiosity, I decided to look at the M3E masters to see which ones DO NOT require another model with their keyword in order to use all of their abilities:

Cornelius Basse, Nellie Cochrane, Reva Cortinas, Euripides, Titania, Zoraida, Rasputina, Kaeris, Mei Feng, Captain Zipp, Youko Hamasaki, Lucas McCabe, Brewmaster, Mah Tuckett. 

I don't know if this list will surprise you, but I was impressed there are FOURTEEN masters can use all of their abilities without requiring their keyword.

You are strictly correct. But I think you get more use out of succumb without a model to summon than you would out of home on the range on just your master and totem. Likewise ride the rails can be used with just mei and her totem, but you would probably find there are very few opportunities to use it ( almost certainly fewer than the Times you'll kill someone with succumb). 

[gozer]

3 hours ago, Adran said:

Dreamer - Lucid dreams is the ultimate deck manipulator, he literally removes cards from your deck from the game. He is a summoner, but everything he summons is something that helps remove cards from the deck, so if that is the aspect of the crew you wanted to focus on, you would probably be buying those models anyway. The crew is certainly Lovecraftian horror in appearance.

I had previously dismissed this one out of hand because of the summoning, but the models are great looking and the deck control sounds intriguing. I'll take another look, thanks!

 

31 minutes ago, Adran said:

You are strictly correct. But I think you get more use out of succumb without a model to summon than you would out of home on the range on just your master and totem. Likewise ride the rails can be used with just mei and her totem, but you would probably find there are very few opportunities to use it ( almost certainly fewer than the Times you'll kill someone with succumb). 

I don't disagree with any of those points. The purpose of the exercise was to identify whether Wyrd has engineered some masters to be relatively "complete" regardless of whether they have keyword models with them. There are a significant number who would perform perfectly well with a full crew of non-keyword models (i.e. in faction/versatile)

[solkan]

 

18 hours ago, gozer said:

I don't disagree with any of those points. The purpose of the exercise was to identify whether Wyrd has engineered some masters to be relatively "complete" regardless of whether they have keyword models with them. There are a significant number who would perform perfectly well with a full crew of non-keyword models (i.e. in faction/versatile)

If by “perform well” you just completely ignore how much better masters work with their supporting models.

For instance, you have Basse in your list, in spite of the fact that having other models in the crew using Kick Up Dust is necessary to reasonably get the second half of Basse’s defensive trigger to work.  And Home on the Range only benefits Frontier models (they’re the only ones with it).

And putting Rasputina on that list is even worse.  Rasputina’s effectiveness (and durability) depends a lot on Ice Pillars.  Without other models to drop or move the ice pillars around, Rasputina is likely to just sit down in one spot on the board and not go anywhere or contribute enough to justify her presence.

That sort of illustrates the problem, I think.

The keyword models usually have ways that make you benefit from taking them, either making it easier or actually feasible to use various abilities.  If that wasn’t the case, why would you want to take them over the versatile models?  If you take model with keyword X, the other models with keyword X are beneficial to hire.  But so are the versatile models, usually, depending on the situation.

The nature of the game is that you’re going to be left wondering “I chose these models in this situation.  If I had chosen those other models (which I could have, because of how the game is structured), would I have done better?”

But it’s easy to confuse the idea “if I had these models, I would have done better with that approach” with the idea “If I don’t have those other models, I won’t do better.”