Council of Elrond

In the case of tournaments, you can expect a well-run deck to call in four turns.

In such a time scale, the loss of 2-3 MPs is huge, because the point margins are smaller and there is no time to replay the item.

It's for those reasons I feel the MP loss function of the card is strong enough; losing an MP type introduces too large of a swing with doubling.

NSANSP stops FW decks that store the Sapling of the White Tree (and play The White Tree with Wizard's Trove) as their only item MPs. Such decks were quite popular/successful for some time until NSANSP found it's way in almost every sideboard. With a proposed erratum that NSANSP gives item MPs those decks would become more frequent again.

Just for your consideration...

Now NSANSP sounds more like NSDAP...

Shapeshifter wrote: ↑Fri May 11, 2018 8:10 pm NSANSP stops FW decks that store the Sapling of the White Tree (and play The White Tree with Wizard's Trove) as their only item MPs. Such decks were quite popular/successful for some time until NSANSP found it's way in almost every sideboard. With a proposed erratum that NSANSP gives item MPs those decks would become more frequent again.

Just for your consideration...

Isn't The White Tree Miscellaneous MP, not Item MP? Sapling stays stored for FW when White Tree is played (Wizard's Trove does not require Sapling to be discarded). So Sapling would be your 1 Item MP.

I don't think punishing decks that are low on item points is necessary, any more than we should punish decks that are low on ally, character, or faction points.

Bandobras Took wrote: ↑Thu May 10, 2018 2:21 am In the case of tournaments, you can expect a well-run deck to call in four turns.

In such a time scale, the loss of 2-3 MPs is huge, because the point margins are smaller and there is no time to replay the item.

It's for those reasons I feel the MP loss function of the card is strong enough; losing an MP type introduces too large of a swing with doubling.

One note, that I come across is that, there usually are no consideration for DC rules being actively affected by General Rules Changes. Meaning with this it makes perfect sense that this is in the Kill-MPs. That way they won't get DOUBLED!!

I mean double misc MPs, if your opponent doesn't have any is strange, that's the WHOLE POINT of BEING MISC, I am against double misc MPs anyway but whatever NOT enough experience to voice my opinion yet... maybe when DC rules get voted on someday.

ROCK - stuck - HARD PLACE

In the case of tournaments, you can expect a well-run deck to call in four turns....in such a time scale, the loss of 2-3 MPs is huge.

This is contradictory though. Neither so Ancient does not feature in many tournament-deck sideboards, as there generally is not enough time between pulling it and the moment of storing/ final turn. Of course it is useful, but so are many other cards, and space is limited. Perhaps in the earlier days Palantir-storing was big, now it isn't, and Neither so Ancient doesn't cover enough items to make it important.

So you do not play this for MP reduction, as much as a cool way to play an item yourself if opponent has it (you must force him to store it first, try Fealty under Trial), or indeed a way to punish a (stupid) opponent for having only a single stored item.

The discussion seems rather moot, one could argue the card represents another item (hence Item MP's), or represents the action of re-manufacturing (by Saruman; hence the Misc. MP's). Kill MP's is thematically least plausible, but that is simply how non-creature hazard MP's are defined
Miscellaneous and Item MP's are categories for resource play.

Most of the things that have been put up for vote aren't featured prominently in every tournament deck. That isn't the question. The question is how much power the card should have in its particular niche.

And in that niche, being able to get rid of a stored item for a reduction in MPs is strong enough in itself. The possibility of MP doubling would be over the top.

But what niche is that then, the niche of people playing single-item 4 turn non-tournament one-deck games?

Sure tournament results aren't the only standard, but neither can one view cards outside of context, stating a potential MP doubling would be over the top. If one Muster Disperses a faction and doubles faction MP's, should we alter the card to give 1 faction MP to opponent?

I've played plenty GO's, and my assessment is, Neither so Ancient does not have much power. On the 5 point ranking scale that Nicolai tried to introduce some time ago, I'd rank it a 2. If one day it would actually be used in an elaborate scheme to double item MP's, so much the cooler. That's definitely a niche: cool memorable games. And I won't mind being on the receiving end, after all, we're not talking about tournament games anyway

Muster Disperses is not automatic.

Storing items is not obligatory.

What has that got to do with it? Playing Factions is not obligatory, either.



Neither So Ancient cannot be stopped. Muster Disperses can fail on the roll, and that roll can be modified by paying attention to influence. The hazards are not functionally the same.

To me it has something to do with the discussion because of the impact on points, because of claiming that the potential to also remove all item points is too powerful.

If someone doesn't play any factions, they KNOW their opponent's faction points will be doubled. If someone doesn't choose to store an item they still get some item points. So if they are at risk of losing all of their item points by storing they can choose not to. Factions allow no such avoidance of threat while still preventing doubling (other than, as mentioned, keeping general influence open). The threat of NSANSP removing all item points then costs the player possibly 2 and maybe at most 4 (Book of Mazarbul and... Mithril?) points---as well as some additional threat of possibly losing the item by losing the controlling character---until they get another source of item points. This has a similar feeling to me as giving up 2 or 4 character MP to have enough free general influence to protect against Muster Disperses etc. So while NSANSP is rather obnoxious for sparse-item resource strategies that only have a couple Palantir, it doesn't seem overpowered to me in general.


Thematically, I don't think a counterfeit Palantir or Sapling should have any value as items. A plain Glass Sphere can't even be used as a doorstop because it would just roll away. A White-washed Sapling will probably die in a few weeks from asphyxiation, and it hasn't yet grown big enough to even use the wood for much. This justifies NOT giving item points in my mind. Kill points are at least sensible in terms of being able to tell the story of how you caught/defeated the Enemy of counterfeiting when the item you stored turns out to be trash.

I never took it as talking about counterfeits:

"And it it is said that more subtle and clear was the green gem that he made than that of Enerdhil, but yet its light had less power. For whereas that of Enerdhil was lit by the sun in its youth, already many years had passed before Celebrimbor began his work, and nowhere in Middle-earth was the light as clear as it had been (. . .) Wielding the Elessar all things grew fair about Galadriel, until the coming of the Shadow to the Forest."

Unfinished Tales, "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn"

After all, just because something isn't as ancient or as potent doesn't mean it's completely new and impotent.

Neither So Ancient cannot be stopped

Can it not be Marvelled/Voiced before it resolves?
Of course the hazards are not functionally the same, barely anything is...
The point is, if you only have 1 item in play and you fear NsANsP, don't store the item. Seems easier than defending against Muster Disperses.

NsANsP has virtually no threat as an item doubler, so I would not bring that aspect into the discussion about changing its type to Item or Misc. MP.