On Parity Shift 6. "problematic card".

This is the sixth thread of the discussions about cards some people see as problematic. This is a collection of arguments for keeping the card as it is (PRO card) or changing it in whatever way (CONTRA card). It would be most useful, if you could write above your entry, if your arguments are PRO or CONTRA the card as it is to attain best clarity of what speaks in favor of the card and what does not. After 7 days of discussion I will initialize a poll about that specific card, in which the alternatives can be found. Parity Shift [Jyhad:V, VTES:V, CE:U] Cardtype: Political Action prince or justicar. Choose a Methuselah who has more pool than you do. Allocate X of his or her pool between 1 or more of the other Methuselahs (including you), where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game. Successful referendum means the chosen Methuselah loses that pool, and it is allocated as you announced. PRO The best political action in the game indeed. It absolutely shines at the start of the game with five meths at the table. Most often though you have to buy votes with the pool of the target, so most often it is not a simple prey -5, me +5 as some people seem to believe. Sure if you have vote lock you can do what you want. But then you are in a very favourable situation anyway with a vote deck. In the lategame Parity Shift is not that good anymore, in a heads on you almost always wish it to be a Kine Resources Contested. Okay, -2/+2 is decent, but you have to have a lower pool and that is dangerous. Some people state it is unfair that the Camarilla vampires have such a good pol. action, independent clans have Reckless Agitation and only Sabbat has nothing. I'd say improve Sabbat vote and don't ban or change Parity Shift. But that's just me of course. Baron of Frankfurt

PRO There's nothing wrong with Parity Shift. It's not trivial to kill someone with it, unless you're yourself low on pool, which can be dangerous if blocked or delayed. It has some strong requirements (Prince/Justicar+ less pool). It has an interesting negociation part (how to divide pool). It is interesting for table control (give pool to your grand-prey to save her for example). It's stronger than Finding the Path, sure, but has nothing broken in it. You can see it coming miles away, so intercept/delaying will usually screw the deck counting too much on it. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

PRO Nothing wrong with it, to be honest. Holy cow it's powerful, but there're so many things to counter it with I can't really see it as that much of a problem. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

PRO For all the reasons Ankha said. He summed it up quite nicely

PRO My main beefs with this card is that it has low availability and that the sabbat has no vote which can rival it. Both of these two beefs can be fixed by instead giving sabbat a good vote card in the upcoming expansion. Id rather see that "fix" implemented.

CONTRA It's 10 pool swing in many cases. Reduce it by 1 point or ban outright. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Ankha wrote: > PRO > > There's nothing wrong with Parity Shift. > It's not trivial to kill someone with it, unless you're yourself low on pool, which can be dangerous if blocked or delayed. > It has some strong requirements (Prince/Justicar+ less pool). > It has an interesting negociation part (how to divide pool). > It is interesting for table control (give pool to your grand-prey to save her for example). > > It's stronger than Finding the Path, sure, but has nothing broken in it. You can see it coming miles away, so intercept/delaying will usually screw the deck counting too much on it. > PRO, ankha thinks exactly like me

PRO everything you guys said, plus it can be defended against with disciplineless delaying tactics, poison pill and obf based confusion of the eye.

CON Parity Shift is and always has been an incredibly overpowered card. A 10 pool swing (your prey loses 5, you gain 5) for what involves incredibly minimal set up effort ("Hmm. How do I get low on pool? I know! I'll bring out more powerful, huge vampires!") is ridiculous. And always has been. Along with it being insanely overpowered, it also is one of the cards that makes playing, well, most vote decks that aren't Camarilla/Parity Shift based completely pointless. 90% of all attempts to build vote decks end at the "Huh. But why aren't I using Camarilla and Parity Shifts to do this?" Yes. It requires a Prince/Justicar. Yes. It requires you to have less pool than your prey/target. Both of these conditions are incredibly minor conditions; Princes/Justicars are easy to get into play. Having less pool than your prey is easy to do either through shenanagins (Secret Horde; Gird Minions; Assault Rifles; whatever) or simply by getting big vampires out. Heck, if you have more pool than your prey, just steal 5 pool from someone else! Parity Shift was a horrible idea when it was printed. It is a horrible idea now. It is insanely overpowered. It makes an entire strategy branch neutered before it even starts if the attempt to start it involves using something other than Parity Shift. If Parity Shift didn't exist, *soooo* many other vote strategies would look so much more attractive and competitive. Killing it seems completely reasonable to me. It is one of the three cards I'm most invested in seeing something happen to (none of which are Villein, which while I'd like to see get a tweak, is less of a problem for the game as a whole than Parity Shift is, for my money). If it isn't going to get killed outright, reducing its power would be completely reasonable--make it steal X pool, where X is the number of players in the game, where X is no more than 3. Then it is doing the same damage as a KRC to one person, and you get an extra bonus of gaining 3 pool for the extra costs. Still incredibly powerful, but significantly less so.

PRO ... although I think the Sabbat should get a similar card. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

PRO It's fine. Lidingö Scourge

Because: > Ankha wrote: > PRO > > There's nothing wrong with Parity Shift. > It's not trivial to kill someone with it, unless you're yourself low on pool, which can be dangerous if blocked or delayed. > It has some strong requirements (Prince/Justicar+ less pool). > It has an interesting negociation part (how to divide pool). > It is interesting for table control (give pool to your grand-prey to save her for example). > > It's stronger than Finding the Path, sure, but has nothing broken in it. You can see it coming miles away, so intercept/delaying will usually screw the deck counting too much on it. >

> bakija wrote: > CON > > Parity Shift is and always has been an incredibly overpowered card. A 10 pool swing (your prey loses 5, you gain 5) for what involves incredibly minimal set up effort ("Hmm. How do I get low on pool? I know! I'll bring out more powerful, huge vampires!") is ridiculous. And always has been. > > Along with it being insanely overpowered, it also is one of the cards that makes playing, well, most vote decks that aren't Camarilla/Parity Shift based completely pointless. 90% of all attempts to build vote decks end at the "Huh. But why aren't I using Camarilla and Parity Shifts to do this?" > > Yes. It requires a Prince/Justicar. Yes. It requires you to have less pool than your prey/target. Both of these conditions are incredibly minor conditions; Princes/Justicars are easy to get into play. Having less pool than your prey is easy to do either through shenanagins (Secret Horde; Gird Minions; Assault Rifles; whatever) or simply by getting big vampires out. Heck, if you have more pool than your prey, just steal 5 pool from someone else! > > Parity Shift was a horrible idea when it was printed. It is a horrible idea now. It is insanely overpowered. It makes an entire strategy branch neutered before it even starts if the attempt to start it involves using something other than Parity Shift. If Parity Shift didn't exist, *soooo* many other vote strategies would look so much more attractive and competitive. > > Killing it seems completely reasonable to me. It is one of the three cards I'm most invested in seeing something happen to (none of which are Villein, which while I'd like to see get a tweak, is less of a problem for the game as a whole than Parity Shift is, for my money). If it isn't going to get killed outright, reducing its power would be completely reasonable--make it steal X pool, where X is the number of players in the game, where X is no more than 3. Then it is doing the same damage as a KRC to one person, and you get an extra bonus of gaining 3 pool for the extra costs. Still incredibly powerful, but significantly less so. > This analysis is the best that I've seen, and one of the things that Bakija and I agree on *exactly*. Really, the only possible non-ban fix that could ever be implemented to Parity Shift would be "One Per Methuselah". If you're going to leave the card on the playable list, nothing else is a reasonable fix, given how ridiculously powerful the card is. Note that even one per deck is still pretty strong, but it's within the power level of other cards like Govern, Conditioning, Banishment, etc etc, so it makes sense to make it OPM. (At the risk of being yelled at, OPM is the proper fix for Pentex Subversion and Direct Intervention, too.) Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> KevinM wrote: > (At the risk of being yelled at, OPM is the proper fix for Pentex Subversion and Direct Intervention, too.) > (I'll point out that the three cards that I think need to be fixed more than any others are Parity Shift, Pentex Subversion, and Direct Intervention. As they are both overpowered *and* negatively affect the game environment in ways that aren't specifically the result of just being too powerful--Parity Shift makes too many other deck strategies pointless; Pentex makes too many other deck strategies pointless; DI makes the game too much of a crap shoot as anyone at the table can foil your oust lunge at any time. Villein is too powerful, but mostly it just means you need to play Villein instead of Minion Tap.)

Agree with bakija; personally I would fix X at 2 or 3 and leave the card playable.

> Dorrinal wrote: > Agree with bakija; personally I would fix X at 2 or 3 and leave the card playable. > The reason that I don't like that solution is that it's too difficult to explain to players who are unaware of the card change. "[Card name] is 'once-per-methuselah' now" is simple, direct, and everyone knows what it means instantly, with no discussion required. You could make those three cards I spoke of "once per game" and that'd likely be fine, too. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> bakija wrote: > CON > Along with it being insanely overpowered, it also is one of the cards that makes playing, well, most vote decks that aren't Camarilla/Parity Shift based completely pointless. 90% of all attempts to build vote decks end at the "Huh. But why aren't I using Camarilla and Parity Shifts to do this?" > Any proof of this? During the EC, I've seen more Sabbat vote decks than Camarilla, which proves that non-Camarilla vote decks are perfectly functional. (See also R2 of my report where Jeff nearly won the game against a IC + Maris Lutz decks, only to die to a Tzimisce big cap deck). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ashur wrote: > ... although I think the Sabbat should get a similar card. > Really? Like all animals need to be equal? Sabbat has gazillion cards available for the, and even more if you count Black Hand. Should Camarilla have their own versions of these? Why not make PS for independents and Laibons while we're at it? Sheeesh! Finnish Politics!

PRO maybe minor tweak would be welcome, like making pool loss equal to X-1. As Ankha point out it's not true that PS makes other vote decks not worthy. And I totally agree with Lonkka. Each discipline/ clan/ sect should have it's own specificity. Making everything same would create most boring CCG ever.

> Lönkka wrote: > > > Ashur wrote: > > ... although I think the Sabbat should get a similar card. > > > Really? > Like all animals need to be equal? > Sabbat has gazillion cards available for the, and even more if you count Black Hand. Should Camarilla have their own versions of these? > > Why not make PS for independents and Laibons while we're at it? > > Sheeesh! > I think Parity Shift is much stronger than the vote cards now available for the Sabbat. The game would be better balanced if the Sabbat had a PS too, or a similar card, like the one Myrdin suggested in another thread. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Why not make PS for independents and Laibons while we're at it? > Independents has Reckless Agitation which is a _really_ nice vote. Might not be as awesome as PS when it goes through, but it's still a really powerful card. I'm not saying that Sabbat should get its own PS, but maybe a vote with a similiar level of awesomeness. Sure, it fits thematically that camarilla is the votey-votey's, but I do feel that it would do the game good if the sabbat got a -more powerful- sabbat-specific vote than the ones they currently have. It doesn't have to be as awesome as PS, but it would be nice to have something at least in the power-class of Reckless Agitation.

CONTRA 10 pool, WTF? NC Russia

> Ankha wrote: > Any proof of this? > About as much proof as you have: Anecdotal evidence. And experience. During a tournament I was at this past weekend, there were three vote decks. All three of them were Camarilla with PS (2x Toreador AAA decks; 1x Nosferatu breed/boon). I see far, far more Camarilla vote decks with PS than any other type of vote deck in competitive play. I haven't done the checking yet, but I'm sure the TWDA would bear out this experience. > During the EC, I've seen more Sabbat vote decks than Camarilla, which proves that non-Camarilla vote decks are perfectly functional. > What were they doing? And why couldn't they be doing the exact same thing as Camarilla versions of those decks, but also have Parity Shift?

PRO It is a strong card that requires a prince/justicar. Play some DI, DT or intercept and it should be too big of a problem to defend against. Sabbat need better votes, we know that. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> bakija wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > Any proof of this? > > > About as much proof as you have: Anecdotal evidence. And experience. > > During a tournament I was at this past weekend, there were three vote decks. All three of them were Camarilla with PS (2x Toreador AAA decks; 1x Nosferatu breed/boon). I see far, far more Camarilla vote decks with PS than any other type of vote deck in competitive play. I haven't done the checking yet, but I'm sure the TWDA would bear out this experience. > > > During the EC, I've seen more Sabbat vote decks than Camarilla, which proves that non-Camarilla vote decks are perfectly functional. > > > What were they doing? And why couldn't they be doing the exact same thing as Camarilla versions of those decks, but also have Parity Shift? > Because simply the crypt is not the same. It's hard to play Obtenebration when you're Camarilla. Cardinal don't contest their titles with other Cardinals as Justicar do. They play Private Audience. They play Fear of Mekhet. I didn't build those decks, so there are maybe other good reasons (Eternal Vigilance?) They don't play Parity Shift, because they don't need to, and take advantage of the Sabbat cards. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

We can see for example these 3 decks in the TWD in Spain, all tournements around 22 players, the first 2 decks are the same playing by the same player, mixing Camarilla and not Camarilla vampires and not playing Parity Shift, the last deck is the deck of the month in extrala website, playing Unexpected Coalition and winning with a Sabbat Vote deck, There are more examples of vote decks winning without Parity Shift, so it means that it isn't a card you must play for winning with a vote deck. I think this is a good reason for not touching Parity Shift, cause, there are lots of things for counter it (blocking, Delaying Tactics, not having vote lock, DI, etc...) with lot of requirements to be played. thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011npbdvs thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011tjavvs thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011btdbs

Not exactly an argument, but mostly I'm PRO. Parity Shift is, undeniably, a very strong card. And I don't especially have a problem with that. I'd rather see Parity Shift as the threshold for "You must be this powerful or less to ride the pirate ship V:TES." Even with Parity Shift being as good as it is, my gut instinct is that well-played stealth-bleed is usually better overall. Personally, my preference would be for other sects to get cards that are similarly good. Not necessarily votes, and not necessarily of the same sort, but when you play a Prince or Justicar-y vote-y deck, you really do have to think hard to justify not including a couple of Parity Shifts. I'd like to see a few other options pushing towards the edges of what's acceptable in the game.

> Ankha wrote: > Because simply the crypt is not the same. It's hard to play Obtenebration when you're Camarilla. Cardinal don't contest their titles with other Cardinals as Justicar do. They play Private Audience. They play Fear of Mekhet. > Camarilla can play Closed Session, which is exactly the same as Private Audience. But free. And they can play Fear of Mekhet as well. And then also have Parity Shift. Contesting things is an issue, yes, but a random and seldom issue. There are certainly angles that the Sabbat (or whatever) clans can take advantage of to make vote decks worth trying out. But the Camarilla ones with Parity Shift are always going to be generally better and more successful. And when building a non Camarilla, Parity Shiftless vote deck, the builder (if he/she is being level headed) is going to have to justify why this deck is worth building instead of a similar Camarilla one with Parity Shift in it. And most of the time, the answer will be "Well, it probably should just be a Camarilla deck with Parity Shift in it..." Yes. You *can* build and successfully play non Camarilla vote decks. People do it all the time. But they aren't doing it 'cause the non Camarilla vote decks are better than the Camarilla Vote decks. They are doing it for fun/grins/entertainment/whatever. And in pretty much every situation, they'd really just be better off playing a similar deck that was a Camarilla deck. Simply 'cause it could then also have Parity Shift.

> bakija wrote: > But the Camarilla ones with Parity Shift are always going to be generally better and more successful. > Without providing any factual evidence, it's not a very valid argument. "Anecdotal evidence. And experience" you said. I'll use the same to state that Sabbat vote have a very strong viability, even without Parity Shift-like cards. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > bakija wrote: > > But the Camarilla ones with Parity Shift are always going to be generally better and more successful. > > > Without providing any factual evidence, it's not a very valid argument. "Anecdotal evidence. And experience" you said. I'll use the same to state that Sabbat vote have a very strong viability, even without Parity Shift-like cards. > How many Sabbat based vote decks are in the TWDA? How many with Parity Shift?

> bakija wrote: > How many Sabbat based vote decks are in the TWDA? How many with Parity Shift? > Given that Bakija has been a proponent of the "TDWA-proof doesn't tell you much, really" theory, I find this a bit ironic. I think Bakija's core complaint is correct, though, that Parity Shift's swing is just too great. Look at the staple vote card -- KRC. 3 + 1, max swing of 3, 1 more here and there depending on other card text. It's the 'Govern' of the political cards -- 3 damage. Parity Shift can either have a swing of 10, 8, 6, or 4. So *in every case* it is better than KRC, if you can play it. (yes yes, You have to have fewer pool, I know, I know. If you're a good player, that's a meaningless qualifier.) Parity Shift *might* be fixable if the pool were forced to be split between two or more Methuselahs. It *might* be fixable if X=2 or X=3. It *might* be fixable if you could play no stealth cards with it. It *might* be fixable if it cost pool. But I just say make it "Once per Methuselah/game" and be done with the damn thing, so we can move on to making Direct Intervention and Pentex Subversion OPM/G. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> KevinM wrote: > Given that Bakija has been a proponent of the "TDWA-proof doesn't tell you much, really" theory, I find this a bit ironic. > Oh, don't worry--the Irony isn't lost on me. I'd never claim that things being in the TWDA are proof of anything. But they are certainly indicators. I did a quick perusal of the TWDA and found that, like, ~20% of the decks in 2011 included Parity Shift in them (about 40 out of 200 some odd decks). Which is an awful lot. I have no idea what would be a good way to check for decks that are vote decks and don't have Parity Shift in them. > Parity Shift *might* be fixable if the pool were forced to be split between two or more Methuselahs. It *might* be fixable if X=2 or X=3. It *might* be fixable if you could play no stealth cards with it. It *might* be fixable if it cost pool. But I just say make it "Once per Methuselah/game" and be done with the damn thing, so we can move on to making Direct Intervention and Pentex Subversion OPM/G. > That seems totally reasonable to me.

> bakija wrote: > > > KevinM wrote: > > Given that Bakija has been a proponent of the "TDWA-proof doesn't tell you much, really" theory, I find this a bit ironic. > > > Oh, don't worry--the Irony isn't lost on me. I'd never claim that things being in the TWDA are proof of anything. But they are certainly indicators. I did a quick perusal of the TWDA and found that, like, ~20% of the decks in 2011 included Parity Shift in them (about 40 out of 200 some odd decks). Which is an awful lot. I have no idea what would be a good way to check for decks that are vote decks and don't have Parity Shift in them. > I did a quick check earlier. There are 76 decks this year with political actions listed, 36 of those included Parity Shift (for comparison 46 included KRC, 41 included Banishment, only 4 included Reckless Agitation). Not all of those were vote decks as such. At least one deck contained a single PS and no other vote cards.

> bakija wrote: > > Oh, don't worry--the Irony isn't lost on me. I'd never claim that things being in the TWDA are proof of anything. But they are certainly indicators. I did a quick perusal of the TWDA and found that, like, ~20% of the decks in 2011 included Parity Shift in them (about 40 out of 200 some odd decks). Which is an awful lot. I have no idea what would be a good way to check for decks that are vote decks and don't have Parity Shift in them. > Check how many bleed decks has stealth cards in them.

> henrik wrote: > It just struck me that stealth might be a "problematic effect", if so it should probably have a thread and/or poll. > Dude. This entire forum is filled with discussions of cards that may or may not be overpowered. Don't, like, hassle *me* 'cause I'm in a discussion about a card that someone wanted to discuss the pros and cons of with random snark. If you don't like the discussion, don't freaking read it.

> Mael wrote: > I did a quick check earlier. There are 76 decks this year with political actions listed, 36 of those included Parity Shift (for comparison 46 included KRC, 41 included Banishment, only 4 included Reckless Agitation). > What I ended up with in 2011: -Decks that have Parity Shift in them: 35 -Decks that have Political Actions but can't possibly have Parity Shift in them: 27 -Decks that have Political Actions in them, and could, but don't, have Parity Shift in them: 10 This was in no way a scientific evaluation. I probably missed some decks one way or the other. There were multiple decks (included above) that have a very limited number of Political Actions (i.e. they aren't something that you could really call a Vote Deck); i.e. a deck that had just a couple votes in it. Many of those included Parity Shifts.

> henrik wrote: > It just struck me that stealth might be a "problematic effect", if so it should probably have a thread and/or poll. > Either you're going to create that thread yourself or you're being a jerk. If the former, I look forward to discussing it in your thread. If the latter, please stop. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

> bakija wrote: > > > Mael wrote: > > I did a quick check earlier. There are 76 decks this year with political actions listed, 36 of those included Parity Shift (for comparison 46 included KRC, 41 included Banishment, only 4 included Reckless Agitation). > > > What I ended up with in 2011: > > -Decks that have Parity Shift in them: 35 > > -Decks that have Political Actions but can't possibly have Parity Shift in them: 27 > > -Decks that have Political Actions in them, and could, but don't, have Parity Shift in them: 10 > > This was in no way a scientific evaluation. I probably missed some decks one way or the other. There were multiple decks (included above) that have a very limited number of Political Actions (i.e. they aren't something that you could really call a Vote Deck); i.e. a deck that had just a couple votes in it. Many of those included Parity Shifts. > And how many Parity Shift decks were based on the new KoT crypts? Because I've noticed that a lot of people like Dmitra, Mary-Anne and those cool princes/justicar from the last set. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Maybe Parity Shift could have an errata:- a 4 pool limit, and usable by Archbishops & a Cardinal (Only one Cardinal per player can call a Parity Shift). Read something like this:- Parity Shift:- Political Card - Worth 1 Vote. Called by any prince, justicar, Archbishop or Cardinal at +1 stealth. Choose a Methuselah who has more pool than you do. Allocate X of his or her pool between 1 or more of the other Methuselahs (including you), where X is the number of Methuselahs in the game (no more than a maximum of 4 pool can be taken from another Methuselah). Successful referendum means the chosen Methuselah loses that pool, and it is allocated as you announced.

Parity Shift Political Action Requires a prince, justicar, archbishop or prisci. Choose a Methuselah who has more pool than you do. Allocate X of his or her pool between 1 or more of the other Methuselahs (including you), where X is the number of other Methuselahs in the game. Successful referendum means the chosen Methuselah loses that pool, and it is allocated as you announced. This version require way less unnecessary text changes and also limit it to 4. Imo, it's way better. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

Both versions are the worst way to deal with Parity Shift. Not because of the limit to 4 (why not), but because it make Sabbat and Camarilla even more similar. Why not add Kholos to the mix while we're at it ? Anyway, the (supposed) weakness of sabbat-specific vote is another issue altogether. Especially since most people prefer to avoid errata if at all possible.

> Ohlmann wrote: > Both versions are the worst way to deal with Parity Shift. Not because of the limit to 4 (why not), but because it make Sabbat and Camarilla even more similar. Why not add Kholos to the mix while we're at it ? > Agreed. Why would be 4 pool acceptable anyway? I'd also be curious of knowing what have changed in the last few years that makes PS suddenly overpowered. Crypt accelerators? Info Highway and Zillah's Valley have been existing for a long time now. Push votes? Stealth? Nothing has changed. Some wrote that it is a "10 pool swing". Neonate breach can do up 16 pool damage. A Smiling Jack with 4 counters means 4+8+12+20=44 pool/blood has been burned. Should they be banned because the numbers seem too high? > KevinM wrote: > I think Bakija's core complaint is correct, though, that Parity Shift's swing is just too great. > Look at the staple vote card -- KRC. 3 + 1, max swing of 3, 1 more here and there depending on other card text. > You'd rather compare it to Conservative Agitation, since the power of both varies with the number of players. But then, it's the same as comparing a card without any prerequisite (Computer Hacking) to a card with a prerequisite (Intimidation). Sure, your crypt will be made up of Princes. But this is true also for a Presence crypt if you plan playing Intimidation. Does it mean that Intimidation is overpowered? Surely not, it's just better than its "generic" counterpart. Also, I've seen many games where the Parity Shift was useless because one had more pool than everyone else (which doesn't help at all, especially when trying to kill one's prey) or situations where the only minions untapped when drawing a Parity Shift were a non-prince support vampire. I mean, the prerequisites cannot be that easily dismissed. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

@Ankha I agree completely. IMO, Parity shift is a strong, but "jump through hoops" card that does not need fixing especially when there are several other powerful cards needing change.Without it, or with it nerfed down, Sabbath vote decks would have more toys than Camarilla, it's one thing that makes camarilla vote worth playing. And furthermore it's not a finisher card, it's survive early card. Shifting for 2 in the endgame is not worth the overhead. What's next, [sarcastic] changing Govern the Unaligned?? it's in many TWDA decks, very strong card with two strong uses, one of which is great bloat/accelerate function, gives "3 pool swing" and has practically no prerequisites...[/sarcastic]

> Ankha wrote: > And how many Parity Shift decks were based on the new KoT crypts? Because I've noticed that a lot of people like Dmitra, Mary-Anne and those cool princes/justicar from the last set. > A few of them? I'm not sure where you are going here.

> Ankha wrote: > I'd also be curious of knowing what have changed in the last few years that makes PS suddenly overpowered. > There is noting remotely sudden about it. Parity Shift has always been insanely overpowered. Since day 1. Lots of effort was put into retroactively making it less overpowered in many of the sets that came out in the last 10 years ("stronger" Sabbat and Independent political actions; cards that obliquely or directly hose Parity Shift). It hasn't really worked that well, as Parity Shift is still insanely overpowered. Yes, non Camarilla vote strategies are certainly better now than they were 10 years ago, such that people play them and they win occasionally. Parity Shift is sill insanely overpowered.

> Ankha wrote: > > > Ohlmann wrote: > > Both versions are the worst way to deal with Parity Shift. Not because of the limit to 4 (why not), but because it make Sabbat and Camarilla even more similar. Why not add Kholos to the mix while we're at it ? > > > Agreed. Why would be 4 pool acceptable anyway? I'd also be curious of knowing what have changed in the last few years that makes PS suddenly overpowered. Crypt accelerators? Info Highway and Zillah's Valley have been existing for a long time now. Push votes? Stealth? Nothing has changed. > Some wrote that it is a "10 pool swing". Neonate breach can do up 16 pool damage. A Smiling Jack with 4 counters means 4+8+12+20=44 pool/blood has been burned. Should they be banned because the numbers seem too high? > I think it's mostly because of WW/CCCP cancelling the production and VEKN "taking over". Lots of people hope/acts like/want/think this will lead to a complete change in how rules, errata, card design etc are done. Parity Shift has always been one of the strongest cards in the game, so it's no big surprise a lot of people wants it nerfed.

> bakija wrote: > Lots of effort was put into retroactively making it less overpowered [...] cards that obliquely or directly hose Parity Shift) > Could you be more precise ? I don't see what exactly have been done to obliquely or directly hose Parity Shift. And - but that may be because of the somehow low playing level of my playgroup - I have never felt Parity Shift as "insanely overpowered". Things like War ghoul, Dragon's Breath, Graverobbing, or in the "pool damage" compartiment, the good old Govern + conditionning seem a lot more powerful than a parity shift. Parity shift is best played early, since even 3-player parity Shift loose a lot of the impact, and need a lot of setup to actually kill someone as opposed to weakening a still strong opponent, and like every vote can be blocked or canceled by your predator rather easily. So, I believe that claims like "Parity Shift have alway been insanely overpowered" seem a bit of a stretch to me.

> Väinämöinen wrote: > [sarcastic] changing Govern the Unaligned?? it's in many TWDA decks, very strong card with two strong uses, one of which is great bloat/accelerate function, gives "3 pool swing" and has practically no prerequisites...[/sarcastic] > Bring it back to , where it belongs

> bakija wrote: > Lots of effort was put into retroactively making it less overpowered [...] cards that obliquely or directly hose Parity Shift) > > Ohlmann wrote: > Could you be more precise ? I don't see what exactly have been done to obliquely or directly hose Parity Shift. > REACTION TO HOSE POLITICAL ACTIONS REQUIRING A TITLE Confusion of the Eye REACTIONS TO HOSE POLITICAL ACTIONS Army of Apparitions Unexpected Coalition Covincraft Touch of Pain Wrong and Crosswise REACTION TO HOSE POOL CHANGING POLITICAL ACTIONS Poison Pill MASTERS TO HOSE POLITICAL ACTIONS Vox Domini Yawp Court Q: What is the strongest political action that doesn't require setup (RevCo) or a younger vampire (Banishment)? A: PARITY SHIFT I'd also argue Parity Shift is easily better than those two above, but some folks may trot out those examples. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Ohlmann wrote: > Could you be more precise ? I don't see what exactly have been done to obliquely or directly hose Parity Shift. > Poison Pill obliquely hoses Parity Shift. Confusion of the Eye directly hoses Parity Shift. > And - but that may be because of the somehow low playing level of my playgroup - I have never felt Parity Shift as "insanely overpowered". Things like War ghoul, Dragon's Breath, Graverobbing, or in the "pool damage" compartiment, the good old Govern + conditionning seem a lot more powerful than a parity shift. > Have you been run over by a speedy Nosferatu Parity Shift deck (i.e. T1: Zillah's out Selma the Repugnant. T2: Make her a Legendary Vampire. Parity shift for 5. Buy more minions. Spend pool. Lather, rinse, repeat.)? They are incredibly effective. Making your prey lose 5 pool and you gain 5 pool at the same time is very, very powerful. Yes. Govern+Conditioning is very powerful too. But due to the ubiquity and power of bleed bounce (i.e. it shows up in most decks, and me bleeding you for 5 at +3 stealth has a very significant chance of actually be me bleeding your prey for 5 at +3 stealth), that sort of thing is, while not actually totally reasonable, not as crazy as a Parity Shift. As with the Parity Shift, you are gaining 5 pool at the same time. > Parity shift is best played early, since even 3-player parity Shift loose a lot of the impact, > When the game is down to 3 players, you are still hitting someone for 3, just like a KRC. And gaining 3 pool at the same time. > and need a lot of setup to actually kill someone as opposed to weakening a still strong opponent, > Parity Shift someone 2 or 3 times and then kill them with KRC or some swarm bleeds. Not much set up. It is very easy to manipulate your own pool levels so that the Parity Shifts can hit when you want them to hit. > and like every vote can be blocked or canceled by your predator rather easily. So, I believe that claims like "Parity Shift have alway been insanely overpowered" seem a bit of a stretch to me. > Yes. It can be foiled. So can a Con Ag. But the Con Ag doesn't do 5 damage to one player and gain you 5 pool at the same time. With an added cost of "Play the vampires that you were playing anyway, and spend some pool." I don't think that anyone can justifiably argue that Parity Shift is not one of the most powerful cards in the game. I think it would be difficult for someone to argue that it isn't probably the most effective Political Action in the game. After that, the difference from "very powerful card" to "insanely overpowered" is just a matter of degree.

Thanks for the clarifications. > bakija wrote: > After that, the difference from "very powerful card" to "insanely overpowered" is just a matter of degree. > Well, I believe it's not only a matter of degree. "Insanely overpowered" would mean that every deck, every time would pack a very significant part I come from the magic crowd. Comparison between Parity shift and the power that overpowered magic card lead me to believe you overhype the power of parity shift. It does not kill deck archetypes outright. It does not replace all others damage votes. It does not lead to silly deck that oust in three turns or can onlty be beaten by packing half your library with confusion from the eye. That would be insane. With Parity Shift we have a pretty powerful card, but it's not a must-have in every deck unlike villein or giant blood. Even in vote deck, it does not replace every damage vote. And it's not the easier to play card. I believe the "insanely overpowered" opinion is to insist that you want to see it banned or errated, but I am not convinced. Given the condition, Parity Shift is "just" the govern + conditionning of vote deck, not an unholy unstoppable juggernaut.

> Ohlmann wrote: > I come from the magic crowd. Comparison between Parity shift and the power that overpowered magic card lead me to believe you overhype the power of parity shift. It does not kill deck archetypes outright. It does not replace all others damage votes. > But it does provide an unprecedented swing in relative pool (i.e. 10). And is more powerful than any other vote in the game in any reasonable situation, by a significant margin. And, generally speaking, probably *should* replace most other damaging votes. > With Parity Shift we have a pretty powerful card, but it's not a must-have in every deck unlike villein or giant blood. Even in vote deck, it does not replace every damage vote. And it's not the easier to play card. > What it is is an incredibly (over) powerful card that makes building other vote decks that don't have access to Parity Shift mostly futile. Which makes it a card that really needs fixing. > I believe the "insanely overpowered" opinion is to insist that you want to see it banned or errated, but I am not convinced. > I think you are spending too much thought trying to parse my specific phraseology. "Insanely overpowered" does not have a specific definition. It is an indication that I think it is excessively powerful. Which I do.

> bakija wrote: > But it does provide an unprecedented swing in relative pool (i.e. 10). And is more powerful than any other vote in the game in any reasonable situation, by a significant margin. And, generally speaking, probably *should* replace most other damaging votes. > I have a lot of objections : * the "pool swing" is a false concept. Parity shift does 5 pool damage and bloat 5 pool, two very distinct effects that only rarely can be compared. Both effects are very desireable, but it's pretty easy to see that a 10-pool damage vote would be much more powerful than parity shift, and a 10-pool gain vote, while very broken, would have an extremely different usage than parity shifts. The middle ground of Parity shift make it much worse than a 10-pool action. I admit that Parity shift can be a lot less powerful than a 10-pool damage action *and* be overpowered. But I want the whole '10-swing' nonsense put to an end. * You have not convinced me that Parity shift have made every non-parity shift deck futile. They are documented sabbats votes decks, and they are far from being unplayable. * even the bests vote deck does not play only parity shift. It may be a reason behind this, like the fact that Parity Shift is not alway the best option. * no deck have good reason to stop playing immediatly when they see a parity shift. While very powerful, it does not shut down decks completely, or have huge and unavoidable effects. That's why I believe Graverobbing is more powerful than Parity shift, because the effect can be much, much more drastic. To sum it up, I see a lot of strong words against Parity Shift, but not a lot of strong arguments.

Thanks Ohlmann for summing up nicely what I think. First Tradition is for me far worse than Parity Shift for instance (meaning I prefer to get shifted than seeing a First Trad hit the table). Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Jeff wrote: > Q: What is the strongest political action that doesn't require setup (RevCo) or a younger vampire (Banishment)? > > A: PARITY SHIFT > Not sure if this is some sort of irony, but here goes. Define "require setup" in a way where it includes having a baron and at least one other untapped anarch vampire but does not include having a prince/justicar and less pool than at least one other methusaleh. Or did I miss anything in your Q and A?

Con- 5 pool loss and 5 pool gain is to much for any vote without limitations. Only targeting a meth with more pool is easy to build around. The title requirement is laughable as those vampires have access some of the best "title required" cards in the game and the votes to pass it. Second Tradition Temptation of Greater Power Alastor 1st Tradition Progeny I recommend changing the requirement of Prince/Justicar to Primogen. This makes PS harder to pass (i.e. less votes) and removes synergistic cards.

> Shard wrote: > Second Tradition > Temptation of Greater Power > Alastor > 1st Tradition Progeny > In my opinion, the accumulation of thoses cards added to the fact that prince is a title is indeed much more of a problem than Parity Shift. If we compare thoses cards to the blacks hands card, the black hand card are equally powerful (more or less), much more difficult to play, and not by titled vampires. And the sabbats titled card aren't exactly up to speed, at least in my opinion. > > Shard wrote: > I recommend changing the requirement of Prince/Justicar to Primogen. > This makes PS harder to pass (i.e. less votes) and removes synergistic cards. > Gameplay-wise, maybe. But it make no lore sense at all. Thoses cards are important in the sense they do show that camarilla princes are indeed very powerful, where sabbat is a lot less centralized.

In our play group there is normally one (sometimes two) political deck packing Parity Shifts or a Reckless Agitation deck. Most of our players pack either confusions of the eye, delaying tactics, D.I and of course intercept. Prey of a parity shift decks are normally smart enough to try to keep their pool out of parity shift range if they can, however Reckless Agitation/voter cap seem do very well also (not over powered though). I think Parity Shift is a powerful card, however not excessively so.

Black Hand cards are not equally powerful, Seraph cards are equally powerful, and seraph trait is scarce AND they don't have good crypt AND seraph trait cost just as much as prince title despite not giving any votes. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Ohlmann wrote: > * the "pool swing" is a false concept. Parity shift does 5 pool damage and bloat 5 pool, two very distinct effects that only rarely can be compared. > And yet it is a single action that does both at the exact same time. So call it a false concept all you want, but it is the best way to sum up what is happening. My prey loses 5 pool. I gain 5 pool. With a single action. No other card can do that reliably (Ancient Influence can do that under circumstances over which you have no control). There are a few Political Action cards that can do 10 pool damage at once, one of which requires extensive set up and the tapping of 6 minions to do it. The other ones are all completely out of your control, in terms of how much damage you do (i.e. they are dependent on random factors involving your prey's number or size of minions). There are a couple Political Action cards that can gain you 10 pool, but they also require extensive set up (i.e. 10 minions in play, one way or the other). One vote makes your prey lose 5 pool and you gain 5 pool at the same time. Of all of these cards, the one that makes your prey lose 5 pool and you gain 5 pool at the same time is far and away the best one. > You have not convinced me that Parity shift have made every non-parity shift deck futile. They are documented sabbats votes decks, and they are far from being unplayable. > They are not unplayable. They are, however, generally best replaced with decks that use Parity Shift. I realize that people sometimes play decks that are not the absolute best decks for any number of reasons (entertainment/grins/stubbornness/experimentation/irrational clan love/whatever). There are plenty of decks that are far from unplayable yet still clearly not as good as the similar yet obviously better decks (People play stealth and bleed decks all the time that aren't weenie DEM stealth and bleed. But the weenie DEM stealth bleed deck is probably more effective than all of them). Yet if I were playing the optimal vote deck with the sole intention of winning? I'd be using Parity Shift. 'Cause it would be foolish not to. > even the bests vote deck does not play only parity shift. It may be a reason behind this, like the fact that Parity Shift is not alway the best option. > The best vote decks use a variety of votes. But Parity Shift is going to be among them. As it is the best Political Action in the game. Far and away. > no deck have good reason to stop playing immediatly when they see a parity shift. While very powerful, it does not shut down decks completely, or have huge and unavoidable effects. > Luckily, VTES mostly avoids this. So not an issue even remotely to consider. No card in the game is that powerful. That doesn't mean that some cards aren't overpowered. No decks have a good reason to stop playing immediately when they see a Villein or a Lilith's Blessing, and yet people are arguing that those cards are overpowered and need fixing as well. What are you gonna do? > That's why I believe Graverobbing is more powerful than Parity shift, because the effect can be much, much more drastic. > Well, then your view of the game is so far removed from my own that this is a mostly pointless discussion. Graverobbing is a strong card that is extremely conditional and either has an incredibly high likelihood of being a dead draw (as you can't torporize folks yourself) or is getting in the way of your ability to use it (i.e. you can torporize reliably, but Graverobbing doesn't help, and actively hinders you torporizing folks when you draw it). I have seen relatively few decks in existence that are both good at reliably playing Graverobbing *and* good at reliably winning. I have seen countless decks in existence that are both good at reliably playing Parity Shift *and* good at reliably winning.

> Tosh wrote: > In our play group there is normally one (sometimes two) political deck packing Parity Shifts or a Reckless Agitation deck. Most of our players pack either confusions of the eye, delaying tactics, D.I and of course intercept. > In our play group, there is normally one (sometimes two) bloat decks packing Villein or Giant's Blood. Most of our players pack either Sudden Reversal, Wash, and of course rush combat. Oh. Wait.

> Tosh wrote: > In our play group there is normally one (sometimes two) political deck packing Parity Shifts or a Reckless Agitation deck. Most of our players pack either confusions of the eye, delaying tactics, D.I and of course intercept. > > Prey of a parity shift decks are normally smart enough to try to keep their pool out of parity shift range if they can, however Reckless Agitation/voter cap seem do very well also (not over powered though). > > I think Parity Shift is a powerful card, however not excessively so. > Is there excessively powerful card in the game? Heart of N'Cheat'Us (too strong, rare and time consuming) Temptation of Greater Power (breaks the for two or more players) Anthellos the red star (easy master recursion is just wrong) What do you think out of Parity Shift range would be? 3-5 pool below the shifter is what I am comfortable with

> bakija wrote: > The best vote decks use a variety of votes. But Parity Shift is going to be among them. As it is the best Political Action in the game. Far and away. > Banishment is stronger IMHO. But we could argue over a few pages more, basing ourselves on our beliefs. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

No question, it is one of the strongest political cards around. But that's what it is. Just a political action. It can be blocked, DI'ed, voted down, also Poison Pill and Delaying Tactics do a good job. i even prefer Poison Pill because the player does not get his card back on hand. Most of the time the player is not in the position to gain the 5 pool. He needs vote push and has to give pool to his crosstable buddy. If you complain about not having any votes in your deck, or don't have the possibility to block or don't play Poison Pill/Delaying Tactis then you should have a look at your deck again and change something. The card is strong, but not overpowered. Just leave it as it is.

> bakija wrote: > And yet it is a single action that does both at the exact same time. So call it a false concept all you want, but it is the best way to sum up what is happening. My prey loses 5 pool. I gain 5 pool. > The point that you refuse to see is that the two effect are way too different to be added together. Pool gain help you against your predator, pool loss help you against your prey. But nobody ever use pool gain to oust his prey, and it's very risky to use pool damage against your predator. Adding both and talking about excessive pool swing mean nothing, and achieve only an overdramatization that tire me. The "10-pool swing" is a dead horse you should stop to beat ; nobody say that 5 pool damage and 5 pool recovery is bad, but it's not really equivalent to an hypothetical 10-pool damage or gain action. > > bakija wrote: > Graverobbing is a strong card that is extremely conditional and has an incredibly high likelihood of being a dead draw > But when the star align, a graverobbing can mean my prey loose 9+ pool (because I have graverobbed a full vampire), while I have 1 more action, and my prey 1 less. Or more than that with untap. Graverobbing *can* utterly destroy a player in turn 4 to the point he can't ever hope to regain the upper hand, and it's even one of the reason advanced against tupdog. I don't see a scenario where Parity shift is even remotely that powerful. You can argue that multiples parity shifts in a game are likely and one successfull graverobbing can only happen once a while. But parity shift still can't be spammed without a lot of risks. In fact, a predator ghat try to kill me by doing one parity shift per turn is a lot easier to stop than the same one trying to do a KRC every turn, because he has to let homself be very low in pool, so counter bleed/damage or rush are that much more deadly to him. Also, a Parity shift can more or less be replaced by two votes (like lily prelude and consanguineous boon) and the use of one additional vampire. It work toward two very different goal (one of the reason why the pool wing is not a good concept). That qualify for powerful, but it's not enough for game-breaking. In short, Parity shift give a powerful effect, not a game-changing one. I believe that card that give powerfuls effect should be banned only if they remove completely entires decks or thousands of cards, and a quick look to vote deck don't convince me at all of that. You add nothing to others points so I won't disgress.

Adding both and talking about excessive pool swing mean nothing, and achieve only an over dramatization that tire me. The "10-pool swing" is a dead horse you should stop to beat ; nobody say that 5 pool damage and 5 pool recovery is bad, but it's not really equivalent to an hypothetical 10-pool damage or gain action. You assume the 5 pool would be to the person who called it, when in fact that is the last place I would want it to go as the shifter unless that was the last one that round I was calling that round and I needed the pool. It could just as easily be take 5 from my prey and give it to my grandprey.

> Shard wrote: > You assume the 5 pool would be to the person who called it, when in fact that is the last place I would want it to go as the shifter unless that was the last one that round I was calling that round and I needed the pool. It could just as easily be take 5 from my prey and give it to my grandprey. > It's perfectly true, but all in all I don't really see a way the 5-pool gain is used to oust your prey. It's a defensive mecanism that happen to be doable on your ally, juste like you can use the same parity shift to do 5 damage to your predator if you need to force him to the defensive. Or have I misunderstood ?

> Ohlmann wrote: > The point that you refuse to see is that the two effect are way too different to be added together. > And yet the card adds them together. A single action that hits your prey for 5 and gains you 5. At the same time. With a single action. This is incredibly powerful. Arguably too powerful for a single card. It is one of the oldest cards in the game. And designed before anyone truly understood how that game was going to work. And as such, was made overpowered and undercosted likely due to just not realizing it. It probably should have been fixed at the same time as Banishment (which was also wildly overpowered when it was printed). Somehow, it dodged that at the time. I got no idea why. > Adding both and talking about excessive pool swing mean nothing, and achieve only an overdramatization that tire me. > As an aside, I'll point out that what does or does not tire you isn't relevant to the discussion. If you are growing tired of it, stop having it. > But when the star align, a graverobbing can mean my prey loose 9+ pool (because I have graverobbed a full vampire), while I have 1 more action, and my prey 1 less. Or more than that with untap. Graverobbing *can* utterly destroy a player in turn 4 to the point he can't ever hope to regain the upper hand, and it's even one of the reason advanced against tupdog. I don't see a scenario where Parity shift is even remotely that powerful. > And yet, again, Parity Shift is a consistently incredibly powerful card that you can rely on to oust folks and win games. Graverobbing can have a significant impact in a small, narrow number of situations. They aren't really comparable. One is an incredibly powerful, generally useful card that ousts people and wins games. The other is a very conditional, very difficult to use card that once and a while can be really handy, but a great deal of the time will be doing pretty very little, if anything. Which is most cards in the game. > In short, Parity shift give a powerful effect, not a game-changing one. I believe that card that give powerfuls effect should be banned only if they remove completely entires decks or thousands of cards, and a quick look to vote deck don't convince me at all of that. > Thankfully that is no cards at all. VTES isn't a game that does that. Villein doesn't do this either. Yet planet of folks think Villein is overpowered and needs a tweak. Cards don't need to be "instant win" to be overpowered and need changing. They just need to be too much over the power curve. Parity Shift is such a card. It is too powerful. It makes building other, non Camarilla based political decks sketchy (as they can't use Parity Shift). It is one of the most overpowered cards in the game at this point in time. If it were tweaked into something less dominant, the game would benefit.

> bakija wrote: > There are a few Political Action cards that can do 10 pool damage at once, one of which requires extensive set up and the tapping of 6 minions to do it. The other ones are all completely out of your control, in terms of how much damage you do (i.e. they are dependent on random factors involving your prey's number or size of minions). There are a couple Political Action cards that can gain you 10 pool, but they also require extensive set up (i.e. 10 minions in play, one way or the other). > On a pedantic point, the size of minions isn't totally out of your control. There's not much stopping you, say, influencing out Arika, Banishing your prey's Santaleous and calling Ancient Influence while Santaleous is out of play (with, say, a copy of Gideon Fontaine). If Ancient Influence wasn't once per game, I'm pretty sure decks would gear up for that a lot more. Ditto, Political Strangehold.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > On a pedantic point, the size of minions isn't totally out of your control. There's not much stopping you, say, influencing out Arika, Banishing your prey's Santaleous and calling Ancient Influence while Santaleous is out of play (with, say, a copy of Gideon Fontaine). > > If Ancient Influence wasn't once per game, I'm pretty sure decks would gear up for that a lot more. Ditto, Political Strangehold. > True, true. Luckily, however, these cards can only be played once per game. There should probably be more of that floating around...

It's perfectly true, but all in all I don't really see a way the 5-pool gain is used to oust your prey. It's a defensive mecanism that happen to be doable on your ally, juste like you can use the same parity shift to do 5 damage to your predator if you need to force him to the defensive. Or have I misunderstood ?[/quote] Is 5 pool damage insignificant?

To sum up the different suggestions to nerf the card I come up with this poll. Please tell me if something's missing. a) Card is fine as it is. b) Change X pool to X-1 pool (X=number of Meths). c) Set X to 3 (or less). d) Make it playable once per Meth. e) Make it playable once per game. f) Make it playable for Sabbat titles too (AB,CAR maybe PRIS). g) Ban the card, it is bad for the game. h) Make it playable by Primogens only or Justicars only. Baron of Frankfurt

You didn't like, change the requirement to primogen only? Laugh out loud How about no action modifiers can be played during the referendum of this vote.

> Shard wrote: > You didn't like, change the requirement to primogen only? > Alternatively, you could go the other direction and keep to to Justicars only. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

This one seem a lot better. A shame that Villon could not play it anymore, but "important" princes and "weak" prince is not a concept that exist in VtES.

What about X - the number of Parity Shifts in all players ash heap. (where X is # Methuselahs) Independent Futurist. Contrarian (titled, X votes where X is the number of votes as the acting minion.) Target Vitals is always the better combat card.

With enough setup (easier than say, the setup to use Parity Shift), I think Reckless Agitation is a far, far worse card. Ridiculous at times.

> echiang wrote: > > > Shard wrote: > > You didn't like, change the requirement to primogen only? > > > Alternatively, you could go the other direction and keep to to Justicars only. > I clearly have to say that it is irrelevant what I like or not. As a moderator of the polls I have to keep neutrality. Of course I vote in the polls because I'm a player too and have a opinion. But I have to make sure the options in the poll correctly reflect the discussion. I see a problem though if we have too many options, so I summed up these two points. Is that okay? Baron of Frankfurt

> Brum wrote: > With enough setup (easier than say, the setup to use Parity Shift), I think Reckless Agitation is a far, far worse card. Ridiculous at times. > fr.ex.: There are 10 decks with Parity Shift and 3 decks with Reckless Agitation in the TDWA... in the last THREE months. We could go on and on and on, but I think we know which card is more abused and has a greater pool shift total than almost anything else in the game. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

but that's just the flavour of the clans. take Parity Shift and you destroyed Camarilla vote decks. Let's ban something sabbath has over Camarilla like Abbot then, how many decks in the TWD have Abbot in it?

> Väinämöinen wrote: > but that's just the flavour of the clans. take Parity Shift and you destroyed Camarilla vote decks. > Well, no. If you take Parity Shift, then Camarilla Vote decks then have to be just kind of better than non Camarilla vote decks instead of crazily, over the top better. Without Parity Shift, Camarilla Vote decks still have all the rest of the incredibly handy Tradition cards (like 2nd, which is also insanely good), Closed Session (which is just plain better than Private Audience) and then all the rest of the vote cards that all those hamstrung non Camarilla vote decks have to settle for, like KRC, Con Ag, and Neonate Breach. And Banishment. And Con Boon. Man. That Camarilla Vote deck is going to be destroyed. > Let's ban something sabbath has over Camarilla like Abbot then, how many decks in the TWD have Abbot in it? > Really? Your argument hinges on comparing Abbot (a moderately useful action card) to Parity Shift (easily one of the best actions in the game?). Yeah. Ok. If Parity Shift was once per game (per player?), it would be almost a reasonable card. I mean, still wildly overpowered, but at least only wildly overpowered once per game. Which isn't that unreasonable.

Peter, sorry man, but in Europe Private Audience is way better than Closed Session. Besides those specifically for Politics, lots of deck archetypes these days have Camarilla Titles as a good side effect, just because. In fact, Law Firms have to have vote push in them. Even those that consistently put two or three Princes on the table. By lore, Camarilla is always better in most things. Bigger sect, more resources, etc. Sabbat can put up a fight with focused groups of vampires. Sometimes even endanger certain Camarilla areas / resources. But never, never are they in equal grounds. In some parts of the World, Sabbat has a footing and a strong one. To try to put the two sects in the same level at politics is not the way to go, imo. Back to the point: Parity Shift requires a set up that is harder and harder to pull through. You will see in TWD less and less decks that rely on Parity Shift. Too many things can go wrong. Too many moving parts in your deck and too many dependences on other people's plays. Unless, of course, something changes in the game. Killing some archetypes will always benefit others, and sometimes not in a good way.

> Brum wrote: > Peter, sorry man, but in Europe Private Audience is way better than Closed Session. > Neither Private Audience nor Closed Session are good cards in the current meta game. Villein has made it possible to play large vampires, frequently those with titles. With this proliferation comes more randomness. Closed Session and Private Audience shut out not only your enemies but also your potential friends. Vote push will always be more consistent because you can use your negotiating skills with those cross-table. CS and PA all too often end up hindering those efforts while cards like Bewitching Oration, Telepathic Vote Counting, and Scalpel Tongue can really target your problematic titled antagonists. Only two TWDA decks since 2008 have had either Private Audience or Closed Session. I think the numbers speak for themselves. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> Brum wrote: > Peter, sorry man, but in Europe Private Audience is way better than Closed Session. > They do the exact same thing. Except that one of them costs a blood. What titles are around is pure randomness. > But never, never are they in equal grounds. > In some parts of the World, Sabbat has a footing and a strong one. > To try to put the two sects in the same level at politics is not the way to go, imo. > I don't think it is either. But giving one sect a ridiculously overpowered political action isn't a way to embrace the lore. It is just a way to have a ridiculously overpowered political action in the game (which, to be fair, was put into the game at a point when no one really understood how overpowered it was. That it wasn't ever fixed when there was an opportunity to fix it is, however, a problem). > Back to the point: Parity Shift requires a set up that is harder and harder to pull through. > You will see in TWD less and less decks that rely on Parity Shift. > Well, except that we aren't. There are just as many incredibly effective Parity Shift decks as there ever were. As Parity Shift is insanely powerful. As previously noted, I was at a tournament a couple weeks ago. Not a huge tournament, or a high stakes tournament, but a collection of tournament decks. There were three of them that used PAs. All of them used Parity Shift. As Parity Shift is too strong not to use given the choice, and as you always have the choice, it is going to come up an awful lot.

> bakija wrote: > They do the exact same thing. Except that one of them costs a blood. What titles are around is pure randomness. > Well, if like you say Sabbat vote is pure inefficiency, then the sabbat card is more powerful, since more camarilla vote deck are around. In addition, Prince is a more useful trait than archbishop so prince are more used simply being prince, and (without stat) I believe Sabbat tend to be less titled than camarilla (most notably, because Black hand never have native vote). So, no, they does not the same thing. (no comment over the "parity shift is overpowered" jazz, since it's the very same unconvincing argument as ever, and I have no new argument to add)

> Ohlmann wrote: > > > bakija wrote: > > They do the exact same thing. Except that one of them costs a blood. What titles are around is pure randomness. > > > Well, if like you say Sabbat vote is pure inefficiency, then the sabbat card is more powerful, since more camarilla vote deck are around. In addition, Prince is a more useful trait than archbishop so prince are more used simply being prince, and (without stat) I believe Sabbat tend to be less titled than camarilla (most notably, because Black hand never have native vote). > > So, no, they does not the same thing. > > (no comment over the "parity shift is overpowered" jazz, since it's the very same unconvincing argument as ever, and I have no new argument to add) > Yes, there are more camaretard vote decks. It doesn't mean that there are more camarilla vampires with titles on the table. Some people use vampires with votes in non-political decks. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Lech wrote: > Yes, there are more camaretard vote decks. It doesn't mean that there are more camarilla vampires with titles on the table. Some people use vampires with votes in non-political decks. > *sight* Yes, but as I said, non-vote deck are less likely to play titled vampire, and sabbat vampite tend to be less titled anyway. Check Elimelech, or Enkidu, two of the 3 11-cap without vote. Also, as Bajika rightly said, Prince is associated with a lot of powerful card, like the traditions, while Archbishop only give title. So an average prince trump a good non-prince more easily than an average archbishop. Also, camarilla have much more '+2 bleed with 3-4 votes' template vampire. So, when you play big caps without clan consideration, you're more likely to play camarilla big caps. The Inner circle tend to be a lot more "all-purpose" vampire than the odder sabbat vampire. With the exception of Sha-Ennu, of course.

Non-vote decks are less likely to play titled vampires, but some of them do. Yeah, archbishop may have less powerful cards, but if someone play Horrid Form deck based on meshenka or 2-3 midcap bleed, or Zubeida he play those titled vampires anyway. It's lottery. There are no average prince or archbishop, each one is distinct and people don't play those only for cards - some decks do, some play them for their other rules. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> Lech wrote: > Non-vote decks are less likely to play titled vampires, but some of them do. > I agree that in some case you can be completely hosed despite, or even because, you're sabbat with closed session instead of being camarilla with private audience. Still, I believe that on average non-vote deck tend to play more camarilla title than sabbat title, for the reason I have exposed (I.E. black hand being untitled and prince trait being more often valuable than archbishop). Since, according to Bakija, it's pointless to play sabbat vote, you can reasonnably expect the sabbat version to be more often useful than the camarilla version. As alway, "identical" effect in JCC are seldom symetrical or identical.

It's pretty redundant to come up with arguments how "generic" Sabbat vote decks have anything over "generic" Camarilla vote decks. Both decktypes function exactly the same, except that Cammies get Parity Shift and 2nd Trad. It's as simple as that. A few years ago, a big argument would be that Sabbat vampires tended to get better disciplines and specials, but that went out of the window with KoT. Just look at John Dee, Mary-Ann Blaire and the new Brujah Crypt and you're just going to be amazed how good they are compared to, say, Emerson Bridges, that 9-cap tremere price without auspex (Montoya something?) and Don Cruz. It is, however, pointless is it to argue about how a "generic" vote deck that's Sabbat is always bad. A "generic" vote deck doesn't exist. People play all kinds of differently flavored vote decks for all kind of different reasons. Yes, !Tor breed/boon is a LOT better than Nos breed/boon, but Nos gets Parity Shift. Yes, Walter Nash can call Parity Shift, but Moncada/Polonia come with more tablevotes more tablebleed and a free untap. It's just crap that "every non-cammie deck with votes is better with princes because of Parity Shifts". They are different. All that said, I don't think Parity Shift is broken. Yes, it's insanely powerful and if you get it off for 5 early you'll end up being a target. Interestingly enough, you still "only" hurt your prey for 5, while if Keith Moody plays Govern Conditioning in turn 1, everyone is like "ye man, sucks to be you, but that happens".

> Ohlmann wrote: > Well, if like you say Sabbat vote is pure inefficiency, then the sabbat card is more powerful, since more camarilla vote deck are around. In addition, Prince is a more useful trait than archbishop so prince are more used simply being prince, and (without stat) I believe Sabbat tend to be less titled than camarilla (most notably, because Black hand never have native vote). > As noted previously, the usefulness of either Closed Session or Private Audience are both completely random--whether or not there are Camarilla votes or Sabbat Votes (or Independent votes) sitting on the table is a totally random factor. And there being random Priscus sitting on the table is just as likely as there being random Princes. In either case, as also previously noted, neither card is all that useful in the grand scheme. But that they are both functionally identical, and yet one of them costs blood while the other doesn't, is a kick in the teeth for no appreciable reason. > So, no, they does not the same thing. > Well, given that they do the same thing, yeah, they do. > (no comment over the "parity shift is overpowered" jazz, since it's the very same unconvincing argument as ever, and I have no new argument to add) > So why bring it up? If you have nothing to add, and the discussion bores you, stop having it.

> bakija wrote: > As noted previously, the usefulness of either Closed Session or Private Audience are both completely random > Well, let's take a game, I roll a 6-faced dice, you win on 5 or 6, I win otherwise. It's completely random, you can win 10 or more time in a row, and still I have better odds than you. It's the same thing here. If camarilla titled vampire appear more often, then the sabbat version is better. If sabbat tiled vampire appear more often, the reverse. While still in both case being an unreliable vote tech that can be useless. It's contradictory to say at the same time that princes and camarilla vote are at a large advantage and that both card have the same effect.

> Ohlmann wrote: > It's the same thing here. If camarilla titled vampire appear more often, then the sabbat version is better. If sabbat tiled vampire appear more often, the reverse. While still in both case being an unreliable vote tech that can be useless. > See, you seem to be basing this theory on the idea that there are multiple vote decks in every game. Which there aren't. Yes. If there *is* more than one vote deck at the table, odds are that Camarilla will be more prevalent (as Camarilla vote decks are just better than non Camarilla vote decks). What decks are sitting at a given table and happen to have vampires with votes when you want to use Closed Session or Private Audience is a completely random happenstance. Yes. Camarilla vote decks are better vote decks. But random Sabbat titles show up all the time. Random Laibon titles show up all the time. Random Independent titles show up all the time. In non vote themed decks. I see random Priscus titles in play constantly, as there are a lot of them on reasonably sized vampires that are good for things other than vote decks. Sometimes there are opposing Sabbat titled vampires when you are a Camarilla vote deck. Sometimes there are opposing Camarilla titled vampires when you are a Sabbat vote deck. The chances of this are essentially random. As that is how the game works. Sometimes you sit down with a vote deck, and there are no other decks with significant vote power on the table. Sometimes you sit down with a vote deck and there are 4 other votes with titles at the table. These things are random. And whether or not the titles are Camarilla or Sabbat is also random. Yes, again, Camarilla vote decks are better than Sabbat vote decks. But non vote decks show up with titles all the time too. > It's contradictory to say at the same time that princes and camarilla vote are at a large advantage and that both card have the same effect. > No, it isn't. As Camarilla vote decks are better than Sabbat vote decks. But Sabbat (and Laibon and Independent) titled vampires are at the table all the time. Even if they aren't being used to fuel a vote deck. Being able to shut off 3-5 random table votes when you are a Camarilla guy playing Private Audience is just as useful as being able to shut off 3-5 random table votes when you are a Sabbat guy playing the other one. Except the Sabbat one also costs a blood.

> bakija wrote: > No, it isn't. As Camarilla vote decks are better than Sabbat vote decks. But Sabbat (and Laibon and Independent) titled vampires are at the table all the time. Even if they aren't being used to fuel a vote deck. Being able to shut off 3-5 random table votes when you are a Camarilla guy playing Private Audience is just as useful as being able to shut off 3-5 random table votes when you are a Sabbat guy playing the other one. Except the Sabbat one also costs a blood. > Except that IF the Camarilla is better, it will be more frequently played. Therefore Private Audience will shut down votes more frequently. If you build your deck accordingly, you'll have an advantage more frequently than if playing Camarilla + Closed Session. Think about the Well when playing Rock-Paper-Scissors. The Well is stronger, but your opponent knows that and can play accordingly. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > Except that IF the Camarilla is better, it will be more frequently played. > "More frequently played as a vote deck" does not equal "Results in more titled vampires showing up in randomly seated games". Again, yes, Camarilla vote decks are better than non Camarilla Vote decks. Mostly 'cause of Parity Shift. But this doesn't mean that in any given, randomly seated game there will be more Camarilla titles at the table than non Camarilla titles. As titled vampires of all sects show up all the time, even when no Political Actions are used. Magaji show up all the time in non vote decks. 'Cause no Secrets from the Magaji is incredibly good. Cardinals and Arch Bishops show up all the time in blocky-decks, 'cause Eternal Vigilance is incredibly good. Prisci show up all the time, as Prisci tend to be moderately sized vampires with good disciplines anyway. People use titled vampires in non vote based decks all the time. As having some titled vampires on the table, even if you have no political actions whatsoever, is often a good idea. Saying "Camarilla vote decks are better than non Camarilla vote decks, so they will be at the table with your Sabbat vote deck which will then benefit from Private Audience (or whichever) more" is not something that holds in a game where decks and seating are essentially random. As you are probably more likely to sit at a table with zero vote decks as you are to sit at a table with multiple vote decks. As the decks that people are using and what is at a given table is, generally speaking, random.

Private Audience is strictly worse than Closed Session. Private Audience can be better than Closed Session in certain metagames. When you are anvil, be patient; when a hammer, strike. pckvtes.wordpress.com @pckvtes

> bakija wrote: > > > Ankha wrote: > > Except that IF the Camarilla is better, it will be more frequently played. > > > "More frequently played as a vote deck" does not equal "Results in more titled vampires showing up in randomly seated games". > > Again, yes, Camarilla vote decks are better than non Camarilla Vote decks. Mostly 'cause of Parity Shift. But this doesn't mean that in any given, randomly seated game there will be more Camarilla titles at the table than non Camarilla titles. As titled vampires of all sects show up all the time, even when no Political Actions are used. Magaji show up all the time in non vote decks. 'Cause no Secrets from the Magaji is incredibly good. Cardinals and Arch Bishops show up all the time in blocky-decks, 'cause Eternal Vigilance is incredibly good. Prisci show up all the time, as Prisci tend to be moderately sized vampires with good disciplines anyway. People use titled vampires in non vote based decks all the time. As having some titled vampires on the table, even if you have no political actions whatsoever, is often a good idea. > > Saying "Camarilla vote decks are better than non Camarilla vote decks, so they will be at the table with your Sabbat vote deck which will then benefit from Private Audience (or whichever) more" is not something that holds in a game where decks and seating are essentially random. As you are probably more likely to sit at a table with zero vote decks as you are to sit at a table with multiple vote decks. As the decks that people are using and what is at a given table is, generally speaking, random. > That's some funky kind of moon logic. Might as well say that I have equal chances of drawing the single copy of Giant's Blood and one of the 4 copies of Villein out of a 90-card deck because the deck is randomized.

> Suoli wrote: > That's some funky kind of moon logic. Might as well say that I have equal chances of drawing the single copy of Giant's Blood and one of the 4 copies of Villein out of a 90-card deck because the deck is randomized. > Not really. What decks you sit down at a table with is, essentially, random. If you are a Camarilla vote deck, you are just as likely to see non Camarilla titled vampires on the table as you are Camarilla titled vampires. 'Cause titled vampires show up in decks that aren't vote decks. All the time. Just because Camarilla vampires make better vote decks than non Camarilla vampires doesn't mean that, among all deck types, Camarilla titled vampires will show up more often. As not all decks are vote decks. And titled vampires frequently show up in non vote decks.

> bakija wrote: > > > Suoli wrote: > > That's some funky kind of moon logic. Might as well say that I have equal chances of drawing the single copy of Giant's Blood and one of the 4 copies of Villein out of a 90-card deck because the deck is randomized. > > > Not really. > > What decks you sit down at a table with is, essentially, random. If you are a Camarilla vote deck, you are just as likely to see non Camarilla titled vampires on the table as you are Camarilla titled vampires. 'Cause titled vampires show up in decks that aren't vote decks. All the time. > > Just because Camarilla vampires make better vote decks than non Camarilla vampires doesn't mean that, among all deck types, Camarilla titled vampires will show up more often. As not all decks are vote decks. And titled vampires frequently show up in non vote decks. > Random is not the same as perfectly even probability distribution. Random seating does not mean that you are equally likely to see deck A and deck B. Certain decks are more likely to show up than others. That's just a plain fact. This is why you've probably played against a Triple A deck a few times more often than an Eyes of the Dead deck.

> bakija wrote: > What decks you sit down at a table with is, essentially, random. If you are a Camarilla vote deck, you are just as likely to see non Camarilla titled vampires on the table as you are Camarilla titled vampires. > This is empirically untrue. One sees FAR more Camarilla titled vampires than non-Camarilla titled vampires. Even after a Sabbat set was printed, one always saw more Camarilla titled vampires showing up, partly because they have historically, if not still are, just better vampires from better clans and partly because of cards like 2nd Tradition and Parity Shift. Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas "Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier Please visit VTESville daily! vtesville.myminicity.com/ Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/129744447064017

And thus Private Audience is -on average- going to give you more mileage out of the card slot than Closed Session does. That still doesn't make either of them a good card tho

> Suoli wrote: > Random is not the same as perfectly even probability distribution. Random seating does not mean that you are equally likely to see deck A and deck B. Certain decks are more likely to show up than others. That's just a plain fact. This is why you've probably played against a Triple A deck a few times more often than an Eyes of the Dead deck. > I'm not claiming that there is perfectly equal distributions of all decks all the time. And yes, some decks are better than other decks. So they show up more. But not all decks are vote decks. Not even remotely. Many decks have no votes at all in them. Many decks have vampires with titles and yet no votes at all. If I sit down at a table with a Sabbat Vote deck that uses (Private Audience?), there might be a deck that has Camarilla titles. There might be a deck that has Sabbat titles. There might be a deck that has Laibon titles. There might be no other titled vampires at all. Camarilla titled vampires are no more likely to show up in a given game than any other vampires. 'Cause while they are more likely to show up in vote decks, most decks aren't vote decks. And titled vampires show up in non vote decks.

> bakija wrote: > And titled vampires show up in non vote decks. > For example it is kinda hard to build a No Secrets from the Magaji deck without having titles... Finnish Politics!

Or hunt red list to get trophies without titles. Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

> bakija wrote: > I'm not claiming that there is perfectly equal distributions of all decks all the time. And yes, some decks are better than other decks. So they show up more. But not all decks are vote decks. Not even remotely. Many decks have no votes at all in them. Many decks have vampires with titles and yet no votes at all. If I sit down at a table with a Sabbat Vote deck that uses (Private Audience?), there might be a deck that has Camarilla titles. There might be a deck that has Sabbat titles. There might be a deck that has Laibon titles. There might be no other titled vampires at all. Camarilla titled vampires are no more likely to show up in a given game than any other vampires. 'Cause while they are more likely to show up in vote decks, most decks aren't vote decks. And titled vampires show up in non vote decks. > Some decks are non-vote decks that don't care about titles. Let's assume that those decks play a pretty equal distribution of titled and non-titled vampires of each sect. Some decks are non-vote decks that care about titles. Let's again assume an even distribution of titled vampires from each sect, as they all have their own advantages. Some decks are vote decks. I think we can agree that most of these play more titled Camarilla vampires than titled vampires of any other given sect. Now, sum up the titled Camarilla vampires in the above deck groups. Would the incidence of titled Camarilla vampires be greater, smaller or the same if vote decks would play a more equal distribution of titled vampires?

Also, +2 bleed vampire are almost all camarilla Inner circle, and the whole tradition package allow non-vote deck to benefit greatly from prince.

> Suoli wrote: > Now, sum up the titled Camarilla vampires in the above deck groups. Would the incidence of titled Camarilla vampires be greater, smaller or the same if vote decks would play a more equal distribution of titled vampires? > Well, all I have to go on is theory and experience. Thinking of the last 10 person tournament, there were: 3x Vote decks with titled Camarilla vampires 3x Decks with Magaji (non vote) 1x Deck with titled Sabbat and Camarilla vampires (non vote) 3x Decks with no titled vampires at all Seems about a wash, in terms of running into decks that have titled vampires of given sects.

> bakija wrote: > Well, all I have to go on is theory and experience. Thinking of the last 10 person tournament, there were: > > 3x Vote decks with titled Camarilla vampires > 3x Decks with Magaji (non vote) > 1x Deck with titled Sabbat and Camarilla vampires (non vote) > 3x Decks with no titled vampires at all > > Seems about a wash, in terms of running into decks that have titled vampires of given sects. > That really isn't anywhere close to a useful sample size. Then again, this might not be the best thread for a lesson in statistical analysis and I'm definitely not the best teacher.

> Suoli wrote: > That really isn't anywhere close to a useful sample size. Then again, this might not be the best thread for a lesson in statistical analysis and I'm definitely not the best teacher. > Certainly true. Looking at the TWDA (which certainly doesn't represent all decks, but is at least a large list of decks in a mostly random order), in the first 105 decks (I was trying to count the first 100, but accidentally counted to 105 instead...) there are: 67 decks that have no significant number of titled vampires. 24 decks that have a significant number of Camarilla titled vampires. 14 decks that have a significant number of non Camarilla titled vampires. So using that as a sample, yeah, there are more Camarilla titled vampires showing up (in said sample) than non Camarilla titled vampires. But not quite twice as many. Fair enough.

I'm CON on this card Everyone knows it's ridiculously good. And while it may not quite be on the level of "RtI broken" I think it still warps the entire political aspect of the VTES too much to be healthy for the game. Some may compare it to dominate cards, but I don't think that's entirely fair. It's crazy how strong dominate is, but it's not because of any one card in particular. Govern comes the closest, bleed for 3 or gain 3 pool, but even then you have to choose which you want. Parity Shift gives you both pool damage and pool gain at the same time. It's also true you could get bled by one vampire for 6+, but that requires multiple cards to be played (not to mention the blood costs). Parity Shift... usually just one card. VTES should be about the card combinations, and not playing one single power card to handle everything. In this case, both offense and defense. Dominate may be too strong but it's still playing within the intent of the game. Rather, the reason Dominate is overpowered is not because of individual cards, but because it got almost ALL the good cards in one discipline, and usually the best version of each to boot. Some have said that you don't always have vote lock so you have to give pool away for votes. I don't think that's really much of a flaw. More like, it has bribery already built-in, so it has a better chance of passing! I've often seen people support the vote for only 1 or 2 pool, though I imagine others have different experiences. Even with the pool given away for votes, it's still doing a huge amount of pool damage, so it's seen as a fair deal for the player calling it. the Prince/Justicar requirement isn't that much of a hoop to jump through. Everyone knows you can build a crypt of 12 prince cards. But for evidence, I'd like to point out that of all the crypt cards, you can find 7 princes for 6 cap or less. That's not including Victor Pelletier, who's a wildcard (and helps you lose pool to play parity shift, dang). For similarly powered titles below 7 cap in other sects, there is only 1 archbishop, 1 priscus, no independents, and 2 magaji. For having such a strong vote card, they also have the best crypt selection! This isn't even considering how easy it is to turn any 1-cap weenie into a clan Justicar, with extra votes thrown in to help it pass. (For the same reason, to those who say Sabbat should get a similar card, I don't think it'll be very effective. It would still be easier to build around Camarilla princes since they're still cheaper, and still have better cards) I also dislike the design of the card for going, "You're losing? Well, now you're winning!" Rubber-banding is terrible for games. I know this is just my own bias, but I'd rather see someone win for managing their pool between offense and defense, and not having the game go, "aww, you have the lowest pool. here's a pity bonus to help you catch up!" even if you were never bled and had really spent it all on vampires and assault rifles. But really, all those reasons aside, the main reason I think Parity Shift needs changes is because getting rid of it will open up the voting field, adding more variety to the game. KRCs and Con Boons are really good by themselves. But people gravitate heavily towards Cam Princes because Parity Shift does the job of both KRC and Conboon together. It's a crutch, and I'd rather it were 1-per-methuselah or banned. Princes and Justicars would still have a lot of powerful toys to play with, such as the six tradition cards. I think other types of vote decks would become viable and played more often (maybe sabbat still needs a little boost though). This isn't like trying to balance disciplines, because Dominate has ALL the tools and it's hard to pick out one problem card to take away, so it's better to just boost all the other disciplines to be more competitive. With voting, Parity Shift IS the one problem card that warps the game around it.

a crazy hypothesis: since parity shift always seems to spawn the most table discussion when played, yet it doesn't really add or remove pool from the table but just moves it around, perhaps it is partly responsible for timed out tables? banning or limiting it might speed up the average game length! it's a trifle factor but I wonder if there's any truth to it

> Haze wrote: > a crazy hypothesis: > since parity shift always seems to spawn the most table discussion when played, yet it doesn't really add or remove pool from the table but just moves it around, perhaps it is partly responsible for timed out tables? banning or limiting it might speed up the average game length! > > it's a trifle factor but I wonder if there's any truth to it > Consanguineous Boon creates pool, which is worse. Ban Consanguineous Boon. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > Haze wrote: > > a crazy hypothesis: > > since parity shift always seems to spawn the most table discussion when played, yet it doesn't really add or remove pool from the table but just moves it around, perhaps it is partly responsible for timed out tables? banning or limiting it might speed up the average game length! > > > > it's a trifle factor but I wonder if there's any truth to it > > > Consanguineous Boon creates pool, which is worse. Ban Consanguineous Boon. > true, but there's rarely any discussion and nitpicky negotiation on the conboon's terms. they pick a clan, someone gets pool, which they'll soon squander anyway. Parity Shift doesn't change the total pool on the table but gets the most tabletalk ever! I could see some players actually taking this argument seriously. You know the types, the ones who see all other players as their prey and they MUST score the table sweep. they don't care who gets the Parity Shift pool because they want to oust everyone equally!

> Haze wrote: > true, but there's rarely any discussion and nitpicky negotiation on the conboon's terms. they pick a clan, someone gets pool, which they'll soon squander anyway. Parity Shift doesn't change the total pool on the table but gets the most tabletalk ever! > I guess you're kidding. Table talk happens everytime, Bum's Rush should be banned too? Silence of Death is a nice game format. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> Ankha wrote: > > > Haze wrote: > > true, but there's rarely any discussion and nitpicky negotiation on the conboon's terms. they pick a clan, someone gets pool, which they'll soon squander anyway. Parity Shift doesn't change the total pool on the table but gets the most tabletalk ever! > > > I guess you're kidding. Table talk happens everytime, Bum's Rush should be banned too? > > Silence of Death is a nice game format. > the joke here is that Con Boon and Bum's Rush makes stuff happen one way or another. Parity Shift just moves counters around so there's no real net effect on the table. That is the joke. *drum rimshot*