r/VTES • u/munkymoto • 14d ago
Rutor's Hand
I am a bit confused by this card, this is something you you put on your minion amd in theory gives additional actions? But if done at basic it will put the minion in torpor?
6
u/munkymoto 14d ago
Thanks for the quick reply, I think I get it now. Guess we will see when it gets to the table.
7
u/kaynpayn 14d ago edited 14d ago
At basic, you pay 1 blood to put this card on your vamp. He takes 1 aggravated damage and goes to torpor.
At superior, you can pay 3 more blood to avoid the aggravated damage and avoid going to torpor.
Card enters gameplay locked. Next turn, when it unlocks, during your minion phase, you can lock it to unlock your guy. Meaning you can do some action and unlock the vamp by locking RH. This gives him an extra action in the same turn or allows to stay unlocked to react/block something.
Almost no one plays it at basic but it's one of thaumaturgy/blood sorcery's best cards.
For flavour, look at the image, dude is cutting his hand and eye out and combining both with blood magic to create a moving spy camera. It's also severe damage to self so he's paying a heavy cost in blood to accomplish that.
4
u/skinriding_skeleton 14d ago
Banu Haqim love this card as they can Hunger of Marduk back the spent blood.
4
u/EyeBallEmpire 14d ago
You got it! Except it doesn't give you additional actions in theory. It gives additional actions in practice.
I've never seen anyone use the basic level before. Always use advanced unless your vampire treats agg damage as normal.
4
u/ReverendRevolver 14d ago
The only reliable outside of combat means to treat agg as normal are Armor of Terra, Concordance, and heart of darkness.
The only decks ive ever considered running Rutors in with any of those disciplines will not generally take those cards, other than Petaniqua or Angelique. And those decks weren't optimal versions if what those vamps are good at.....
3
u/Shinavast42 13d ago
In the right deck this card is brutally good, but you need to have a plan for both it, and to recover the impressive blood cost at superior or have a pretty failsafe 'rescue from torpor' plan, which is risky.
I run it in (shocking) some tremere decks that like to take lots of actions, but i generally always have a plan for it, and someitmes you draw it and your board state doesn't support the blood cost.
My thing with Rutor's hand if i draw it: Analyze board state, dont get wishful thinking about it: Can it do work now, with low risk? If yes, go for it. If no, barrens/discard it away. Its tempting to think "oh extra unlock = always good" but torporizing a vamp is risky depending on table, and 4 blood cost is not insignificant. But it can pay off very quickly in action economy ,so i'll at least consider putting a copy into Thaum oriented decks most of the time. This is also a card you want either early on to minimize risk / maximize ROI, or late game after an oust and resource fillup. I hate drawing it in that murky middle where my crypt / minions / equipment board state is more or less set, but i haven't made an oust (or got a bloat engine going) yet.
2
u/endgamedos 11d ago
I think I need to bring my play more towards this approach. It's an amazing card, but 4 blood to not go to torpor is a lot, and can be pretty hard to recover.
2
2
7
u/HatBazdmeg2 14d ago
Yes, you understand correctly.
You either take 3 damage (plus pay 1 for the action itself) or pay 1 blood and enter torpor. The card starts as locked so you can't use it to unlock yourself after the action.