Cards Bans 2016 (Anthelios, the red star, Seeds of corruption,Temptation of Greater Power)

General increasing discussion about the banishment of letters Anthelios, The Red Star Temptation of Greater Power Seeds of Corruption Well, knowing that these cards are banned from Vken tournaments, many do not agree with their banishments, I think a simple change in the rules of the same, would bring a balance to the game, some say Anthelios is being abused with combos as Anson(Toreador), the it would be to "DI", "Pentex" among other masters who would benefit from being played several times, however if we see on the one hand a deck can have 3 DI in their hands that they get a good B & S mounted as anger predator lead bleed anyway, since the Seeds of Corruption would be unbalanced in relation to the current game Meta, lastly Temptation of greater Power being banned for simply being a strong letter. I would like the idea to be re-evaluated with the query of the world VTES community, as many players have found such bans a bit heavy for a game that has survived with the help of "devices", so if we look at the cards on the one hand, we see she can receive some modifications, but ban them in tournaments would be a heavy punishment too. perhaps a vote resolves the question. Grateful.

petition to assist in who is against bans start in 18/01/2016 www.change.org/p/vekn-against-the-banishment-of-old-cards

On a serious note, if you are really looking to see how the community feels, I suggest you make a poll, rather than a petition. Remember that this isn't about forcing the community to adopt your view, but rather is about finding out what the community wants and seeing if there is a way to align that with what the design team is thinking. Also, I'm starting to get a feel for exactly how much complaining would occur if Govern the Unaligned was banned (which I've argued for on a number of occasions), so I guess that is something. Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

Card bannings are a Rules Team decision, not a Design Team decision.

I stand corrected. Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

exactly friend , I'm just taking the issue to see if the community really wants to willingly accept that bans situation, but by chance wrong? to post here ? this group ? the topic is in the wrong place ? If not, wish it were just presented arguments for the due bans the cards , nothing fairer than that, a good explanation and coherent . The petition is just to show that some really do not agree with the current situation, remembering and EMPHASIZING that the new expansion is very good. Just waiting to be dealt with this situation here in the VTES BRAZIL community with several players who are not very accepted these bans , and I hope that this situation should be reassessed and that it is to everyone's liking .

> Mauro wrote: > Well, knowing that these cards are banned from Vken tournaments, many do not agree with their banishments, I think a simple change in the rules of the same, would bring a balance to the game, some say Anthelios is being abused with combos as Arson, the it would be to "DI", "Pentex" among other masters who would benefit from being played several times, however if we see on the one hand a deck can have 3 DI in their hands that they get a good B & S mounted as anger predator lead bleed anyway, since the Seeds of Corruption would be unbalanced in relation to the current game Meta, lastly Temptation of greater Power being banned for simply being a strong letter. > Honestly, none of what you're saying makes sense. I don't mean "You are making a bad argument", I mean "You are stringing words together in a way that doesn't make sense in English." "some say Anthelios is being abused with combos as Arson"? What? What does Arson have to do with anything? What combos with Arson? What? Who are these people who are saying Anthelios is being abused with Arson? Since Arson only affects locations, and most locations are relatively permanent and not the key cards being frequently recycled, what does that have to do with Anthelios? "Temptation of greater Power being banned for simply being a strong letter." What is a letter? What is a strong letter? Why is Temptation of Greater Power a strong letter? "however if we see on the one hand a deck can have 3 DI in their hands that they get a good B & S mounted as anger predator lead bleed anyway" Very few decks want to have 3 DIs in their hand (on a regular basis, anyway), since you can only play one Out of Turn master between turns, irrespective of master phase actions you might or might not have. So are you talking about someone making a bad deck? Someone recycling cards weirdly? Is this an argument for or against... something? I think you're saying a stealth and bleed deck could bleed you - but it can bleed any deck whether that deck is the most super powerful in the world or not, so I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Why would you cycle three DI into your hand against a stealth bleed predator, when you can only DI one action or modifier?

First sorry for my English, I was never good with it, well I was wrong to put "arson" "I was talking about the toreador" Camarilla Prince of Seattle "Anson". His ability is very good use with Anthelios, however when I referred to bleeds, meant that Anthelios would not be a letter of impact size, if such letters as "DI" or "Pentex" could be repeated, as in any deck facing this strategy would not be stopped by a combo with Anthelios, what I mean is that Anthelios is a good letter, however require a specific deck to enjoy your maximum advantage. Already ashur for example, comes in almost all strategies, however an expensive and difficult letter to acquire. Combos with Anthelios are only effective when certain masters cards come into play, nothing that the other players aware of the deck strategy can not stop. I believe a reassessment of masters cards being played in combo with Anthelios can solve the problem, therefore the ban would not be necessary.

Girls is winning too much and it has been doing it for far too long, I guess that without errata, the easiest way was to ban anthelios so in that regard it is ok to ban it and to explain it. But about seeds, it doesn't make sense. No one is exploiting it, it has been troublesome for a long time, yes, but it comes out of nowhere. I suppose an official racionale behind the bans would help the stuation but it is good to see people caring about vtes even if I disagree with them.

No need for ban, nor errata. ToGP and Anthelios have been fine for 15 years or so. Such a move is just going to discourage people from playing altogether, which is incredibly stupid in a context of a dying community and completely undermines the work done on new expansion. Making new cards is good. Banning old cards, because some people whine they can't cope with Parthelios or because their darling star vampire got stolen, it's bad - and really unintelligent in a context where you barely get 15 players in a national championship. words of one of those who voted in the petition , said Tran Van Pieere of France . I don't understand why, after all this time, someone wants to ban three cards that aren't unbalanced. I really don't get it. Instead Ban: Ashur Tablets. said Hugo Nunes of Portugal. And Just the Beginning .

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > "some say Anthelios is being abused with combos as Arson"? What? What does Arson have to do with anything? What combos with Arson? What? Who are these people who are saying Anthelios is being abused with Arson? Since Arson only affects locations, and most locations are relatively permanent and not the key cards being frequently recycled, what does that have to do with Anthelios? > hello, I don't know if you are drunk or trying to be smart, but I think anybody could have understand that he was referring to Anson not Arson in the sentence "Anthelios is abused with Arson" If I tell you "I burnt his Parthenon with Anson" will you make an argument that Anson is a vampire toreador with no ability to burn location and as such cannot burn a Parthenon and blablabla And saying he does not make sense in English while he clearly repeated he was Brazilian… is… wow… how can I find the right word since I am just french, english being not my native language… well it's shameful? Make an effort next time to be able to talk about the contents instead of being the smart guy talking about the syntax mistakes. I am so pissed at your post , everything in it is so disrespectful of the original poster that just tried to explain in a foreign language how he felt about the current changes. IC Organized play coordinator Please contact me with any OP query using the mail in my profile

Thank you for free friend, really it is very difficult to talk in a language that is not my native . But still hope to act a very plausible explanation for the bans , and I look forward to it . The vken has always been and will be a respected organization , I am eternally grateful , to keep the game at a high level , even after they have stopped producing the game, but would love to hear the explanations of the bans .

I agree that it would be nice to have somebody from the Rules team post a little about why each card was banned (it would be interesting!). But I'm a little confused about your position. I take it that the card you are most upset by is Anthelios. So, may I ask - do you think that decks like "Girls will find xyz" or Anson star vampire are appropriately balanced? If so, then I understand why you think that banning or issuing errata on any cards in said decks to be unnecessary. If you do think that decks that use multiple master phases are stronger than they should be, what is you proposed solution? The only suggestion I've seen from you has been to add a rule to the rule book that says you may have a maximum of 4 master phase actions in a turn. Do you really think that it is wise to add yet another rule in the rulebook that can be found no where on the cards themselves? And do you think that such a restriction actually helps to decrease the power of these types of decks? I'm honestly asking here - I'm just not sure what your ideal scenario is. Thanks for your passion for the game! Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

Sorry Mauro, but once the decision to ban comes down it is not time for a vote. If you are playing in tournaments you have to accept the decisions and move on. Complaining? Sure, that's what forums are for, just don't expect anything to change after cards get banned. Frankly there are many other cards that could/should be banned. The two of the three cards that were banned seem to have the following characteristics: 1) they are not necessary to any type of deck, but they compliment some decks well 2) They do something not easily duplicated 3) The cards have really swingy effects when they go off. Temptation of Greater Power: 1) have parity shift? Justicars? Why not steal a dude and/or set yourself up for a vp? 2&3) Hostile takeover is the closest substitute and the highest capacity vampire you can steal is a 6. That's pretty strong, but stealing a freshly minted Arika is game breaking. Anthelios: 1) Playing multiple masters in a turn is good, but getting to recycle them into your hand makes cards like wash and sudden nearly worthless in that situation. 2) No other single master card has this effect. Ashur tablets do when you collect all three, but that isn't a constant effect. Banning Anthelios actually helps balance Ashur Tablets by removing a complimentary effect. 3) See 1, 2 Seeds of Corruption: This card, while strong in some occasions (i.e. remove prey's IC title and +2 bleed), it causes problems with the rules. What is a "special ability"? As a judge I don't want to be called over any time this card gets played to make my own judgement. "Do I lose my -1 strength vs malkavians?" "Can older toreador still change my votes?" "Do combat cards still cost me an additional blood?" I'm sure this is why Seeds was banned. Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

So the answer to whinning is more whinning. I'll leave this thread as it is not seeking grown-up conversation in the matter. Good luck and such.

For what it's worth (arguably, not much ), I think these bans were a good move. ToGP: this card is just overpowered, and can totally swing the game balance in one go. You lose a vampire (usually, an important one) and someone else (usually, your prey/predator) gets control of it. That's "game over, man!" in many situations. Anthelios: here I'll just quite Pascal, from another thread: "Anthelios, The Red Star : This card uses a mechanism that also exists with other cards. Ashur's Tablets, Sudario Refraction, Gear Up, .. also allow recursion. To answer what was asked several times : no, there is absolutely no plan on changing or banning any of these. The motivation for the Anthelios ban is triple : a/ Anthelios is a non-interactive card. You can't block someone using Anthelios - which you can do with all other recursion cards : there is the Ashur's "race", you can block Sudario Refraction or any action that triggers this mechanism. b/ (and this is double) When also using Parthenon / Anson / Cybele / Huitzilopochtli (/ ..), Anthelios becomes a free tutor for an immediate Master card. By "free" I mean that it costs no pool to use it, and it costs no card to use it (as in : your decksize remains the same). And by "immediate", I mean that the master card you've just fetched is very likely the one you'll be playing as your next master phase action, usually during the same master phase. Now, should any of these points (realistic ways of burning events, cost to swap the cards, or usage during another phase) be changed in the future, I will gladly welcome back Anthelios in the game." You can still use other forms of recursion (Ashurs, for example) in "Girls" decks, but you won't get immediate, no-risk infinite recursion. This is good. Seeds: this was apparently done because of rules problems, not power level: the "loses special abilities" portion was undefined in meaning and the cause of infinite tournament judge headaches (and also, new questions every time a new set is released). Apparently the current Rules Team is not font of card text rewrites, so a ban here is reasonable. I would maybe personally have preferred a rewrite (just get rid of the "loses special abilities" part, maybe make it a normal action that you could put on anyone), but that's not my call. No, not everyone will agree with the above. One local player already threw a temper tantrum over the bans. But you cannot go by who screams loudest -- it doesn't work when raising children, and it doesn't work here

> TapeTaChatte wrote: > > > jamesatzephyr wrote: > > "some say Anthelios is being abused with combos as Arson"? What? What does Arson have to do with anything? What combos with Arson? What? Who are these people who are saying Anthelios is being abused with Arson? Since Arson only affects locations, and most locations are relatively permanent and not the key cards being frequently recycled, what does that have to do with Anthelios? > > > hello, I don't know if you are drunk or trying to be smart, but I think anybody could have understand that he was referring to Anson not Arson in the sentence "Anthelios is abused with Arson" > > And saying he does not make sense in English while he clearly repeated he was Brazilian… is… wow… how can I find the right word since I am just french, english being not my native language… well it's shameful? Make an effort next time to be able to talk about the contents instead of being the smart guy talking about the syntax mistakes. > It's not shameful, but I don't understand a single argument neither, which is a problem when people want to discuss a suject First, what is a "letter"? I suspect it's used for another word that would give more sense, but I can't find which. EDIT: apparently it would mean "card", but "card" was also correctly used in the same subject so I got doubts. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

In Portuguese the word for "card" and "letter" are the same: "carta". Hence my colleague's confusion. By the way, in Portugal these bans are also being questioned. There must be many communities like ours that either have new players or old players that stayed cocooned in the 20th century, thus lack the experience to understand why ToGP needed to be banned, many, many years after its release. I don't think explaining will be very useful because people will just complain about the reasons explained. However, I think it was a BIG mistake to release the new expansion at the same time as the bans. It deviates attention from the super awesome work people did and undermines the interest and discussion about it.

First of all, I globally agree with the bans. However: > BenPeal wrote: > Card bannings are a Rules Team decision, not a Design Team decision. > That is a bit worrisome. Seeds is a rule issue, but the bans of Anthelios and ToGP are very much design decisions: the game can work with or without them at the same level of complexity, therefore the decision that it would be better without is a design decision. Even if different people are involved, they should at least have a common vision to share. > Brum wrote: > However, I think it was a BIG mistake to release the new expansion at the same time as the bans. > It deviates attention from the super awesome work people did and undermines the interest and discussion about it. > Amen. Nothing that could not have waited a couple more months.

Dear all, As this forum looks international I would like to thanks Orian aka TTC first of all and then apologize for my all post Then, as far as I understand people is not crying but just asking for a short explaination of those 3 bans. I think it should not be really complicated to create a new forum anouncement and lock that thread if moderators fear a useless debate since, as I've read on this one, it is too late to discuss the pro/against of that decision. In a short sentence: Could it be possible to get a short "official" explaination from the relevant VEKN.NET team, please? (Thanks to Pascal, it will arrive soon) vekn.net/forum/news-and-announcements/74630-anarchs-unbound-released?start=36#75011 Best Regards, Rémi. I am Rémi Cavaillé (), Barcelona (Spain). I was the Prince of Lyon (France) around 2003. I am now Official Judge and the 5th Prince of Barcelona. Enjoy VTES, Marvel Champions, L5R and more gaming activities in Khan Jugar: sites.google.com/view/khanjugar/

This bans are good. NC Russia

> TapeTaChatte wrote: > And saying he does not make sense in English while he clearly repeated he was Brazilian… is… wow… how can I find the right word since I am just french, english being not my native language… well it's shameful? Make an effort next time to be able to talk about the contents instead of being the smart guy talking about the syntax mistakes. > But... he doesn't make sense in English. His arguments make no sense, because they do not make sense in English. I still have no idea what a strong letter is. We get further on into: "however when I referred to bleeds, meant that Anthelios would not be a letter of impact size" I have literally no idea what this means. Literally none at all. Bleeds, letters, impact size, and Anthelios? I have literally no idea. "f such letters as "DI" or "Pentex" could be repeated, as in any deck facing this strategy would not be stopped by a combo with Anthelios," DI isn't a letter. It's a card. It's a master. It's a card canceller. It's a good card. It's a strong defensive card. It's a versatile card. It's a popular card. It's an easily played card. Which of these does "letter" mean? Does "letter" mean any of those? I have no clue. Since I have no clue what the things he is saying mean, I cannot engage with his arguments - whether to support them, refine them, oppose them, tweak them, expand them, or anything else. So, I point out that I have absolutely no clue what the words he is typing mean, so that he can clarify them, or get a native speaker to help him, or perhaps explain them in some other way, or, well, anything that might help people understand what he means. And no, I didn't think he meant Anson until after i'd gone to bed. Why? Because it's hard to fill in the gaps when nothing else makes sense. Apparently there's something to do with 3 DIs around stealth and bleed, which is apparently some argument to do with Anthelios, because a bleeder will bleed you, so bans are wrong and letters are strong, or something.

It was clarified by Brum in a previous post that card and letter have the same meaning in Portuguese... the author of the original post is a Brazilian, so, just replace letter with card... I don't really like bans, But unless you have a better solution for now...

> wesile wrote: > It was clarified by Brum in a previous post that card and letter have the same meaning in Portuguese... the author of the original post is a Brazilian, so, just replace letter with card... > Which still doesn't help, because I have no idea what bleeding has to do with Anthelios. When referring to bleeds, Anthelios won't be a card of large impact size? Nope, no idea. You can bleed people who have Anthelios in their deck. You can bleed people who don't have Anthelios in their deck. You can bleed people who have Anthelios in their deck but haven't played it yet. You can bleed people who have Succubus Club in their deck (or in play), but that got banned even though people could be bled by a predator. Still no clue what this argument is about. Or why having 3 DIs in hand is apparently relevant to something at some point somehow involving bleed, or possibly Anthelios. Or, over here, why anyone would want 10 Pentex in their hand . Which would be an utterly pointless thing to have in your hand, because it's unique, and a card that people play relatively sparingly - often as a card to lunge with, because it's relatively easily removed. A Toreador MMPA deck could plausibly defend it - titles, Auspex - but Girls, not as easily. So... why would anyone want 10 Pentex in their hand, or even in their deck? Not explained, or why it's relevant. Misguided people can build terrifyingly awful decks with 10 Pentexes and 20 DIs and make bad play decisions, so Anthelios shouldn't be banned?

First of all, I'm in general against any ban, because I think the VEKN is not qualified to decide for cards released by other entities. IMO, the VEKN has the legitimacy to adress existing problems by the release of new sets, but I never agreed with the fact of banning or errating cards they are not the producers (unless all legal problems are solved). I was firmly against the ban even of Lilith's Blessing, although it gave a clear advantage to some archetypes. Despite this disagreement, I fully support the VEKN in their committment to the support of the game, but I must say that I'm really disappointed. A new release should be something cool, but it seems more like drama than something exciting... Since I read the news I don't feel like playing anymore. I haven't even taken a look at the cards, I don't feel interested. ANTHELIOS I'm sorry to disagree, but I will expose my point of view (as someone that has played at least 15 different decks with Ashur/Anthelios/Parthenon I think I know the subject pretty well): Of course Anthelios is necessary for a type of deck: MMPA decks. And not only this kind of decks. Other archetypes need this card to trigger some useful mechanics: Khazar, TGB AAA, Brujah Debate etc. MMPA decks are not really an archetype itself, at least initially, but they have found a place in the actual metagame (cloning other existing archetypes in their own way). Thinking that the fact of playing Ashur, Anthelios and MMPAs makes you simply win the game or a HUGE advantage, just reflects that you haven't played this type of decks enough. MMPA decks have it's pro's and con's. Pro's: -You're flexible to lots of situations (depending on the silver bullets you choose for the type of deck you're playing). -You have decent pool game (other archetypes have even bigger pool gain). -The overall crypt choice gives you a nice spread and cool possibilities (I won't list the possibilities, but only with Anson you can play vote, bleed, rush and intercept, quite cool). -The deck is slimmer, so easily to predict if you like statistics. -[SUBJECTIVE] It's HUUGE fun to play, because all the possibilities. Con's: -You contest a lot of times Parthenon (you NEED it). -If another player plays Anthelios and is ousted, it turns more difficult to play your game normally (you NEED it). -If you get your star MMPA vampire contested, you will probably lose the game. -Your deck is slow, if you get big presure you're probably managing to do only 0,5 VPs. -If you get a lot of masters at the wrong time, you can do nothing. -Ashur Tablet race (in metagames where people play Ashur Tablets, it's an important factor). If the ban was really a matter of the card's power, why not ban other cards like Deflection or Govern the Unaligned? They are far more popular, and more present in the TWDA. I just did some research, to take some numbers out, with the number of TWDs by card: Anthelios 336 Govern the Unaligned 800 Deflection 1089 Uncoiling 117 Fourth Cycle 31 Not to Be 26 Freak Drive 478 Govern + Lost in Crowds 130 This said, it doesn't seem to me that Anthelios si so overrepresented, given that a lot of decks make good use of it (and most of them can get Parthenon contested): Nephandus Khazar Shamblings Black Hand TGB AAA Council of Doom Girls S/B Girls ANI Girls ANI/POT Anson Gunz Anson Grooming Imbued Madness Reversal Destructo Brujah Debate Nana ANI tablets Cybele Maleficia Piper War Ghoul LoP !Toreador swarm As you see the spread is pretty wide. You just have screwed a lot of nice archetypes for no real reason... And anyway, there are hoser-cards that do the job of removing Anthelios (Not to Be, Uncoiling and Fourth Cycle) if it's so unbalanced. Cool to make stealth&bleed decks better. No brainer VTES. PD: More about the other two cards in another post, probably.

I think that with the current state of the game we should not ban cards, but rather "tweak" them in some sensible way. I can imagine that there would be less opposition to seeds of corruption if it could be removed as only one + 1 stealth action instead two etc., you can make some max capacity cap for vampire that can be affected by temptation of higher power, and you could maybe allow the exchange of masters using anthelios only once in one game or something like that

> cordovader wrote: > > As you see the spread is pretty wide. You just have screwed a lot of nice archetypes for no real reason... And anyway, there are hoser-cards that do the job of removing Anthelios (Not to Be, Uncoiling and Fourth Cycle) if it's so unbalanced. > The deck archetypes you listed are not suddenly unplayable just because Anthelios has been banned. Anthelios should be banned. This is a game with random card draws and limited resource choices. Effects that go against that, such as Magic of the Smith, Sudario Refraction, or Ashur's Tablets, are one-time effects that can be blocked or interfered with. Anthelios/MMA means that you have an enormous additional resource of effects at your disposal, namely all the masters in your ash heap. It subverts that basic premise of the game. MMA decks will still do just fine without it, I'll bet.

> cordovader wrote: > First of all, I'm in general against any ban, because I think the VEKN is not qualified to decide for cards released by other entities. > The VEKN has been responsible for tournament rules for a long time — including the banned cards list. So it's definitely qualified to decide tournament legal cards. Amaranth Deck Building Tool : VTES NZ : VTES ANZ Facebook

> AaronC wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > > > As you see the spread is pretty wide. You just have screwed a lot of nice archetypes for no real reason... And anyway, there are hoser-cards that do the job of removing Anthelios (Not to Be, Uncoiling and Fourth Cycle) if it's so unbalanced. > > > The deck archetypes you listed are not suddenly unplayable just because Anthelios has been banned. > > Anthelios should be banned. This is a game with random card draws and limited resource choices. Effects that go against that, such as Magic of the Smith, Sudario Refraction, or Ashur's Tablets, are one-time effects that can be blocked or interfered with. Anthelios/MMA means that you have an enormous additional resource of effects at your disposal, namely all the masters in your ash heap. It subverts that basic premise of the game. > > MMA decks will still do just fine without it, I'll bet. > Why should your point of view of what the game should be have an impact? I haven't read your statements in the rulebook. If you don't like to play Anthelios, you can always choose to don't play it. You can always play Not to Be/Uncoiling/Fourth Cycle if you feel that disturbed about it... Why should you avoid others from having fun? Statistics from the TWDA say that decks with Anthelios are far away from being a dominant archetype by itself. The case is not even close to ToGP (and I'm not saying I'm for the ban, I think ToGP should stay), where despite the fact all the limitations the card has, it has a HUGE impact on the table. Anthelios has the same impact as any other event or card affecting the whole table. Of course, the controller of Anthelios gets a bigger advantage, since he builds this deck around this mechanic, in the same way a deck that plays Dragonbound or Narrow Minds sets it's strategy around this events mechanics. Anthelios: played by decks profiting form master re-use. Dragonbound: played by decks profiting from vampires in torpor (hehe, usually in combination with Carver's, what a combo huh?) Narrow Minds: played by decks profiting wanting to bleed and not deflecting. What's your problem with Anthelios?

Cordvader, First you say you shouldn't care about what Aaron says, then you ignore his argument, then you ask him what his problem with Anthelios is. So I'll ask you, "why should your point of view of what the game should be have an impact?" when you are not engaging with other points of view? Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > Cordvader, > First you say you shouldn't care about what Aaron says, then you ignore his argument, then you ask him what his problem with Anthelios is. > > So I'll ask you, "why should your point of view of what the game should be have an impact?" when you are not engaging with other points of view? > Because it's a point of view based on opinions like "Anthelios allows MMPA decks to abuse from certain mechanics", "mechanics abused by MMPA decks are too strong", "the game should not be like this". Let's go statement by statement : 1. First of all it's not abusing, this statement is false. If a normal deck is able of using Anthelios each 2 turns, an MMPA deck it's able of using it every turn. Everyone that has played this kind of decks knows that it's a nice possibility, but you dont use it every turn (normally 2-3 times per game at most). 2. How do you mesure the strength of a card? There are no tools actually to mesure this, except logical thinking (which is going to be something controversial) or facts. Since facts (% of TWDs) say it's not true, this is also a false statement. 3. Again only an opinion, not based on facts, so false argument. If you want we can base the decissions to ban or not a card on opinion. In that case the community's feedback is necessary and there should be a channel to be able to ban cards. Is this what you guys want? Not me. In the other hand, if we base balance in facts, I'm sorry, but I see no way you're going to be able to make your point.

> cordovader wrote: > Anthelios has the same impact as any other event or card affecting the whole table. > NO. This is NOT true. It´s impact depends on what you can do with the card. Is this very hard to grasp? Pascal explained why the card was banned here, and I agree: www.vekn.net/forum/news-and-announcements/74630-anarchs-unbound-released?start=36#75011 "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

Exactly. Anthelios on the table, the effect for a "normal" deck is very small: having to spend their only master card action for the card swap is iffy. For a deck designed to use it, with 3+ MPAs? It's broken, allowing for unlimited, unblockable card recursion every single turn. We've all seen it. We know how broken that is. This is not a hard thing to grasp. Without Anthelios, multiple-MPA decks will now need to use means of recursion which are one-offs and which can be countered more reasonably (Ashurs, Sudario, etc etc). This is good for the game.

Also don't be folled by number of times the cards appears in TWDA. You've listed basic cards in comparision to anthelios. Following this way of thinking we can assume that cards like: blood doll (1147 times in TWDA), wake with evening freshness (721), lost in crowds (661) and many other are much more overpowered than every power card in VTES.

> alek wrote: > Also don't be folled by number of times the cards appears in TWDA. You've listed basic cards in comparision to anthelios. Following this way of thinking we can assume that cards like: > blood doll (1147 times in TWDA), wake with evening freshness (721), lost in crowds (661) and many other are much more overpowered than every power card in VTES. > > PetriWessman wrote: > Exactly. Anthelios on the table, the effect for a "normal" deck is very small: having to spend their only master card action for the card swap is iffy. For a deck designed to use it, with 3+ MPAs? It's broken, allowing for unlimited, unblockable card recursion every single turn. We've all seen it. We know how broken that is. > > This is not a hard thing to grasp. > > Without Anthelios, multiple-MPA decks will now need to use means of recursion which are one-offs and which can be countered more reasonably (Ashurs, Sudario, etc etc). This is good for the game. > Very small is unprecise. The correct statement is 50% if the effect on a MMPA deck, since you can only fetch 1 card per turn. There are limited turns in the game, so it's not unlimited. Anthelios can also be easily countered via Not to Be, Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle. So Anthelios can be countered both as it is played and when in play. The fact that a mechanic is "unblockable" during it's execution has never been problematic: Dreams, Vessel, Mbare Market etc. Note that this 3 are exclusive to it's controller. So again, false statements. Anthelios bothers you? Play hosers against it. > Ashur wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > Anthelios has the same impact as any other event or card affecting the whole table. > > > NO. This is NOT true. It´s impact depends on what you can do with the card. Is this very hard to grasp? Pascal explained why the card was banned here, and I agree: www.vekn.net/forum/news-and-announcements/74630-anarchs-unbound-released?start=36#75011 > And I have the right to don't agree with his explanation. I have reasons and facts. Not a single one of the ban defenders have supported their reasons with facts, because you have no facts. You have been crying in the forums for months, without even knowing what is the source of your frustration. The fact that the Rules Team banned the card doesn't justify it by itself.

Soon we'll be discussing the definition of the english word "fact". Regardless: Anthelios falls into the category of cards that allows someone to play without many of the drawbacks of VtES, while all the other players still have those drawbacks. That is unfair. Some of them: -Having multiple copies of unique masters are no longer a problem. In fact, it is so twisted that it becomes a benefit. -You have less randomness of hand than your opponents. -You spend less library to do the same things than your opponents do. Couple that with the above point and it gets ridiculous. -You take less time to do the same things your opponents do. You use Anthelios AND get to use the master in the same turn. Join that with the two previous points and it gets over 9000. The last two National tournaments I played, I used Nephandus with LiquidAshurs and 5 Parthenons (obviously). I won 7 out of 8 of those games. 4 or 5 of those wins were because of Anthelios. The card is strong and unfair. Oh, I have many decks that will suffer as well. And the argument of "if you don't like it, go around it or learn to deal with it" can go right back at you. Change and learn to play with your decks without it. I will try.

MMPA decks are known to use Anthelios every turn (Girls will find... decks, Malkavian dementia decks etc. where a main throughput component or similar is from masters). Not just 2-3 times a game. Considering game length (10-12 turns) I would hazard a average use of about 5-8 times. Having the optimal mastercard available 60-70% of the turns is extremly strong, also reusing the same master each turn is silly, the recursion drawback is almost totally ignored. If you want a measurement the increase in recursion capability is increased in MMPA deck by 100% and seeing as you approach maximum usage from half usage the net gain is insane. The ban is understandable from my point of view. Ivan - Maybe this?

Hello everybody It’s happening again! The same thing that happened with Lilith’s Blessing. We are once again going around and scratching the surface of a problem, instead of attacking its core. Indeed, Anthelios provides resource recycling in such a particular way that makes it very hard for other players to counter. Besides, even though the card is in play for everyone to use, opponents that didn’t optimize their decks for it will take little or no benefit at all from it. As it was mentioned, it also makes it much easier to build and play a Multi Master deck, because it allows you to put more copies of setup cards to make sure they will come in hand in the early game, without worrying about they stack and congest your hand in the late game, since they will be traded for other needed cards through Anthelios. I guess those were the basic allegations in favor of banishing Anthelios. Forgive me if I forgot any other. I understand those statements and I will not disagree with then. Indeed, Anthelios does all of those things. But this is just the surface, not the core problem! I invite everyone participating in this topic to make an effort to forecast what will be the consequences of the banishment of Anthelios. I will do this effort for one specific deck archetype, which is the only Multi Master Anthelios abuser deck I play: the D&D, Derange and Dementia deck. In terms of deck building, I will have to redistribute proportions, removing some copies of setup cards (such as Parthenon, Heidelberg Castle and Secure Heaven) and adding copies of the cards that make the core strategy (Malkavian Dementia + Villein + Golconda or Social Ladder). This is no ordinary task! It took me 3 years and 9 versions to reach a balanced, competitive, viable version I’m comfortable playing with. The way I see it, I have 3 options: a) I can give up this deck and use the good, rare, expensive cards in other decks (which I will not do after so much investment); b) I can invest another year in the deck in order to find new working balance (which is probably what I’ll do); or c) since my deck is a short, 60 library cards, version of this archetype, I can add 3 Ashur Tablets, 3 Dreams of the Sphinx and 10 to 15 other cards, without modifying proportions, hopping the additional Tablets will give the necessary amount of recycling and that the additional Dreams will help balance both the increased size of the library and the risk of stacking setup cards in the late game (which is the easy way out I think most people will adopt in their own Multi Master decks). In terms of playing, I will no longer be able to play multiple retaliation Golcondas on a minion who just kicked my Lutz’s ass out to the ash reap while I influence another one, because I’ll have to retain that Golconda to play when I take control of that minion, in around 4 turns. And maybe I’ll discover other setbacks of not having Anthelios in the following year… My point is: my D&D deck will still be a contender in every table I play and, I guess, so will be every Girls or TGB AAA or Guillaume or any other Multi Master decks, for the very simple reason that the core strength of those decks come from the Multi Master mechanism, in which Anthelios is just a shiny polish on the surface. The banishment of Anthelios will not irreversibly cripple and change those decks; it will only slow then down for a few months. Just as the banishment of Lilith’s Blessing did to decks like Girls and Mono Dominate. Once again, we are just scratching the surface. If we want to see less Multi Master decks in our tables and in the TWDA; if we want the actions of the vampires to be the protagonists of the game, instead of the actions of the Methuselah; if we think those decks are abusively overpowered and we want bring then down to balance; if we want all this, we must attack the core: we must limit the Multi Master mechanics. To do so, we don’t have to make any radical changes. We already have that solution!!! The text “you get two master phase actions (instead of one)” that cards like Anson, Nana Buruku and Rumors of Gehenna already have. We can’t stack multiple master phase actions with this text. With this text, we can make up to 1 trifle and 2 regular master phase actions. It is the text “you get an additional master phase action” and close variations that cards like Cybele, Huitzilopochtli, Isanwayen and Parthenon have that allow us the obscenity of performing 4 or 5 master phase actions in a single turn, that makes the core strength of Multi Master decks. This is the text we must change if we believe those decks are truly unbalancing and overpowered. If I get limited to the maximum of 2 or 3 master phase actions, I will be forced to make a very different and radical change in my D&D deck: I will have to modify the proportions between master cards and every other kind of library cards on my deck. Today it has 30 master cards and 30 other library cards. If I keep the same proportion of master cards making just half of the master actions those cards will stack and hand jam. Besides, without the possibility of making 4 or 5 master phase actions, it will have be a completely different deck. I’ll have to lower the overall capacity of my crypt, so I can influence more vampires and have more minion actions to make up for absence of those extra master actions. I will have to put more valuable actions and reactions in the library for those extra minions to perform. This will slow down the speed to spread deranges around the table and the frequency to convert other players vampires into my pool. And since I won’t be able to make that much pool that fast, I will have add resources to defend my pool more effectively. The deck still will be a D&D, but will have to be something more than that in order to survive. It will lost some of the focus on masters in favor to minion actions. It will more like a regular deck. I guess the same thing will happen to other Multi Master decks. The limit of possible master phase actions per turn will force a radical change. They still will be Multi Master decks, but the amount of power granted by the Multi Master mechanics will be significantly reduced. But the most important question is: why would we want that? I don’t want to play with or against weaker decks. I want to play with and against the strongest possible decks. I want to play against the faster stealthy bleeder, the blood thirstier rusher, the unflinching entrenched wall, the stronger politician, the most consistent turbo, the creepier bringer of the Gehenna and, why not, the trickier multi master. I want to face then all and be better. Those are all strong decks that scare the opponents to the point of making every one cooperate to oust then, or at least consider the possibility. But all of those decks have weaknesses. None of them are invincible. I don’t want to cripple my opponent’s Multi Master decks. I don’t think this is necessary. I don’t think they are strong enough to justify that. I’ve learned the strengths and weaknesses of most of them. I’ve learned my way around most of them. We all did! We all can list the weakness of those archetypes listed throughout this topic. And this is also true to all of the tier 1 decks. I’m not always playing a deck capable surviving the strength or exploring the weakness of those great proven decks, but what the hell? Shit happens… I don’t want to cripple any of the tier 1 decks. I want to beat them as strong as they can be. To stick with the Multi Master decks, they all have something in common: they all make the significant sacrifice of being Methuselah oriented decks instead of minion oriented decks. They sacrifice minion cards in order to make room for master cards. Some of them give up actions, some of them have few or no reactions and some of them are weak to combat. Even a Multi Master deck depends on some vital actions or reaction from their minions; if you deprive them from those, they won’t win. Most Multi Master decks depend on some level of setup and, therefore, are vulnerable to large amounts of pool damage in the early game. And so on… We all know those things. We all know how to beat them. I read a lot of complaining against the “Girls” decks. Back in 2009, a friend started to play one of those and won a lot of games. But in a month or two, we learned how to beat him: we just beat the hell out of those girls; we burned them before their owner could play Golconda and influence them back to play. Since I rarely play with combat decks, I would cooperate with the player who was playing with a combat deck until the girls were no longer a threat. If I can't hurt them, I cooperate with someone who can for as long as it is convenient. I guess this is how you win against every tier 1 deck. I’m sure this is how you win every game of VTES. It’s a multiplayer game… you have to play with the circumstances of every particular table. A tier 1 deck is one of those circumstances. I don’t want to change that. I want to adapt to that. I see some archetypes of decks making a lot of success in a cyclical basis. Back in 2014 we observed a hype over the Tupdog + Nephandus deck here in Brazil. In 2015 I hosted the National Championship and among the promos and boosters given to every player in attendance there was 1 copy of Gran Madre di Dio. I wanted to enable people to fight back, to terminate one cycle so that other could rise. We can do that against the "Girls" and other Multi Master decks without having to banish such na iconic card. So, to return to the main topic and wrap everything I said until now: 1 - I don’t believe there is any need to underpower Multi Master deck in such an extreme way as to banish a card. 2 - If there is the need to underpower Multi Master decks, it should be done by putting some sort of limit to the Multi Master mechanics itself. The change of text from “gets an additional MPA” to “gets two MPAs instead of one” is a viable and simple solution. 3 - As far as I can foresee, the banishment of Anthelios will not achieve success in underpowering the Multi Master decks; they will adapt and remain strong. 4 - If the purpose behind the banishment of Anthelios was to limit or to offer a counter to the possibility of recycling and using a master card in the same turn, it should be done by changing the mechanism of Anthelios itself, possibly by transforming it in a minion action instead of a master action. 5 - We just had a new series released! Since the rules team already stated that they will not make changes in the texts of existing cards, they should have joined the design team in an effort to create a new card that could limit Multi Master or limit Anthelios. 6 - Banishing a card should be a last resort reserved only to the worst unfixable case scenario. I apologize for such a long text and I’m looking forward to continuing this debate in a constructive way. Best regards Daniel Malk Archbishop of Belo Horizonte – Brazil.

> Brum wrote: > Soon we'll be discussing the definition of the english word "fact". > Regardless: > > Anthelios falls into the category of cards that allows someone to play without many of the drawbacks of VtES, while all the other players still have those drawbacks. > That is unfair. > Some of them: > -Having multiple copies of unique masters are no longer a problem. In fact, it is so twisted that it becomes a benefit. > -You have less randomness of hand than your opponents. > -You spend less library to do the same things than your opponents do. Couple that with the above point and it gets ridiculous. > -You take less time to do the same things your opponents do. You use Anthelios AND get to use the master in the same turn. Join that with the two previous points and it gets over 9000. > > The last two National tournaments I played, I used Nephandus with LiquidAshurs and 5 Parthenons (obviously). > I won 7 out of 8 of those games. > 4 or 5 of those wins were because of Anthelios. The card is strong and unfair. > > Oh, I have many decks that will suffer as well. > And the argument of "if you don't like it, go around it or learn to deal with it" can go right back at you. > Change and learn to play with your decks without it. > I will try. > Unfairness is a subjective judgement, it's not something you can mesure (unless you set arbitrary indicators to mesure "unfairness") and anyway, life is not fair. So it's not a valid argument. -You have less randomness of minion cards in hand (that means they are most likely the same cards all the time), not master cards. In fact, when you already are around 1/3 of your library in master cards, it happens often that you only have master cards in hand, or that you have so many that you have to spend one turn doing nothing. Not knowing this means that you have probably seen MMPA decks played, but you haven't played them yourself. -You spend less library to do the same thing your oponents do by using Ashur Tablets, not Anthelios. Using Ashur Tablets it's a deckbuilding choice with it's drawbacks. -You don't get less time to do what other people need to do. Having, for example, 2 MPAs allows you to play 2 masters in a turn. Having Anthelios and using it only allows you to play 1 master card per turn. Your statement is not correct. > Myrdin wrote: > MMPA decks are known to use Anthelios every turn (Girls will find... decks, Malkavian dementia decks etc. where a main throughput component or similar is from masters). Not just 2-3 times a game. Considering game length (10-12 turns) I would hazard a average use of about 5-8 times. Having the optimal mastercard available 60-70% of the turns is extremly strong, also reusing the same master each turn is silly, the recursion drawback is almost totally ignored. If you want a measurement the increase in recursion capability is increased in MMPA deck by 100% and seeing as you approach maximum usage from half usage the net gain is insane. > > The ban is understandable from my point of view. > As you say, it's your point of view, but many of your statements are false. When you play an MMPA deck you don't use Anthelios every turn. It's as simple as you need either Parthenon, Rumors of Gehenna or a vampire that gives you an extra MPA to be able to use Anthelios every turn AND play a master card. From turn 1 it's not possible, being only possible from turn 2 IF you have Anthelios in your departing hand and at least an additional MPA on turn 2. A lot of conditions to fulfill your statement. If you're saying that Girls or Malkavian Demetia decks use Anthelios every turn means that you haven't seen them played a lot and you haven't played them yourself. Can you answer me what are the odds of having Anthelios turn 1 if you have 1 copy in a 75 card deck? And in the first 3 turns? This doesn't happen a lot, so no, you do not use Anthelios an average of 5-8 times per game, it's more likely to be 3-4 times at most during a game. It's also funny that you say that a game lasts around 12 turns, when it's usually at most. Games tend to last between 7-14 turns (depending on the decks being played and the amount of talk on the table). Just check the verbatims of played tournaments. You're also stating that you are able to reuse the master card you want 60-70% of the time. To do so you need to: -Have more than 1 MPA -Have the chosen card in your ash heap -Anthelios in play on the table So tell me, please, what are the odds of having a card you own in 1 copy in your deck in your ash heap + Anthelios on the table, given that usually you will play 1 copy of Anthelios yourself, at most 2 copies or 1 copy + 1 Fortschritt Library? Another question: what is this overpowered master card that you want to search each turn? Of course, there are master cards that are strong with recursion (mainly out-of-turn masters and Pentex). Can you afford to play during a game 5-8 times Pentex (10-16 pool)? That means you're in hell of a good situation. In this case, it's not the deck that it's overpowered, it's your table seating... > alek wrote: > Also don't be folled by number of times the cards appears in TWDA. You've listed basic cards in comparision to anthelios. Following this way of thinking we can assume that cards like: > blood doll (1147 times in TWDA), wake with evening freshness (721), lost in crowds (661) and many other are much more overpowered than every power card in VTES. > OK, let's do a more close comparaison with the TWDA (secretlibrary stats): -Unmasking (event, being ONLY profitable by someone playing allies) 328 -Anthelios 336 Anthelios is overpowered and you're the new Messiah. None of this statements is true.

Just to be sure you get my point. IN MY OPINION (yes, it's subjective, it's a sort of cosmovision), there are some reasons to ban a card: -It's problematic for the rules -It unbalances the game -It includes "ante" wording, not legal in tournaments -It doesn't fit in the Desing Team's wishes (and this can be discussed, because it should be better to edit one or more new cards that adress that solve the situation than to ban a card, at least IMO) OK, I'm not going to speak about ToGP (unbalancing during a game if not able to be countered), nor about Seeds of Corruption (cumbersome in terms of ruling). Why was Anthelios banned then? -It's not problematic for the rules -It visibly doesn't unbalance the game (it's difficult to do it, since VTES has contest mechanics), but in case it did so, we would see it reflected in the TWDA and it's not the case -It doesn't include the word ante So, in my logic the only reasonable explanation is: the Design Team has it's vision about the game, the Rules Team bans the card, end of the story. In this case at least you should have said: "in our vision of the game, Anthelios has no place, since it's mechanics go against what we expect of the game". Just don't fool the community searching for fancy explanations about the mechanics of the card. I hope I am right and it's not just a decission to keep all the MMPA/Ashur/Anthelios-ban groupies happy, because that would be really disappointing. At least the first option would show that you have a clear vision of the game and guts to take difficult decissions...

Cordovar: War is peace, freedom is slavery. Any other nonsense you want to share? Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> brandonsantacruz wrote: > Cordovar: War is peace, freedom is slavery. > > Any other nonsense you want to share? > With this you are proving you are a really intelligent. I'm sure you're a better person.

> cordovader wrote: > Anthelios can also be easily countered via Not to Be, Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle. > Is this one of your "facts"? Do you actually think these 3 cards you mention is "easy" to play? "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> cordovader wrote: > If you're saying that Girls or Malkavian Demetia decks use Anthelios every turn means that you haven't seen them played a lot and you haven't played them yourself. > I know Myrdin, so I know this is not true. Why are you being an asshole like this cordovader? On the contrary, I guess it is YOU that haven´t played/played against these decks alot, as you don´t seem to understand Anthelios strenght. Anyhow, the card is banned so you might as well get over it, at least until the game is back in print again. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> cordovader wrote: > Anthelios can also be easily countered via Not to Be, Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle. > Ok, now it's clear you either have no idea of what you are talking about, are are intentionally being dense. No, Anthelios cannot be "easily" countered by any of those. Been there, tried that. It's obvious you haven't. It's like claiming that multi-MPA decks can "easily" be countered by packing a lot of Wash/SR. Nope, doesn't work either. Not To Be: huge opportunity cost, rarely useful in real games due to that Uncoiling: kills your own Events too, and depends on cooperation with rest of table to get rid of drawback. Useful card, but not an easy general solution. Fourth Cycle: needs setup (i.e. other Gehenna cards of your own). Nice card, but very situational. All this is beside the point, though. Anthelios has been banned, and most players seem to agree with the ban and the reasoning behind it. Your whining is not going to change that, so grow up and deal with it. I would normally be bit more polite, but your previous assertions about how the Rules Team not being competent to do rules/ban decisions and about how other (experienced) player opinions on this do not matter -- only yours does -- does not make me inclined to be charitable here.

I'm not sure the masses, or even a slight to large majority AGREE wish the bans, but I think most players understand and at least accept the bans of seeds and anthelios. Togp is the card with least reason to be allowed to stay. Many players, myself included, seem to either be OK with losing lilliths, anthelios, and seeds for now or possibly permanently, but understand the basis for ban>erratta is waiting to be in print for erratta. The problem with girls decks stays. Its fixed when the cards (5 crypt 2libray) can be reprinted stating 2mpas instead of one instead of "additional". Then debates can resume for Lilith's and anthelios. Seeds needs reminder text stating the vampire loses its text box and is the default sect of the clan, no infernal, flight, etc either. The argument of decrease in randomness by recursion is only partially valid. Recursion is all anthelios does. It doesnt , on its own, oust, make you live, screw the table, etc. So its a card you can include in your deck (or was) like all the rest, that you chose over other cards for a slight advantage it had over other cards to give you an advantage at the table. As stated, "fair" is weak sauce argument on both sides. I play (circle or roll?) In basic g2 gargoyles. It says DNR until after combat, I can pick it up instead of drawing. It recurs. It also sucks. Henry Taylor is in one of my most annoying wall decks. He keeps earth melds coming. Still recursion, combat is less crazy than masters, but its,recursion. We accept some cards have it as an advantage, and others "have to go" with small reasons for one or the other. In summary, wait for us to get printed, then complain again.....

Not to be.... the uncoiling and the 4th cycle as good strategies against the red star... Why I don't catch preys with smart strategies like this in the tournaments... Anthelious is to strong and a fix is clearly needed... I will miss the ToGP... could also be fixed... The vekn team are all seated in a "huge" pile of money that they make working for us at no cost... and in the end they even have to read less polite posts regarding their decisions... So, instead of ranting why don't you start a topic with possible tweaks for this cards?

> PetriWessman wrote: > > All this is beside the point, though. Anthelios has been banned, and most players seem to agree with the ban and the reasoning behind it. Your whining is not going to change that, so grow up and deal with it. > Sorry, but it's not true or prove that most players are agree with the anthelios ban. A lot of players, I know, including me, said they won't go to tournaments anymore, if the ban is effective. I took a long time time to build my favorites decks with anthelios, I'm not very active for the game anymore, but i was still coming to tournaments, picking one of my favorite deck the morning. i don't want to spend time to rebuild them, so I 'm really thinking about stopping the game. I hardly wanted proxies to have begginers able to play, the project was stopped after the survey said "players want proxies", I was really dissapointed by that. Now we are making old players that likes to play Anthelios, leaving the community. Sorry, but i really think if the errata is effective in february, the game will die.... Even if the game reasons of the ban were good, the community can't support that. I hope Pascal we'll find another option. I think a new event saying: During your turn, the first mpa you use make you gain one pool, the additional ones cost 2 pools" was a far better "solution" for thoses who find mmpa decks painful.

> Ashur wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > Anthelios can also be easily countered via Not to Be, Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle. > > > Is this one of your "facts"? Do you actually think these 3 cards you mention is "easy" to play? > Well, this is going to be funny. I have been playing for 5 years, these are my 5 TWDs: www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=20845 -> Anthelios and Fourth Cycle (just to break all events) www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=14033 -> Fourth Cycle (just to break Anthelios, Dragonbound and Unmasking) www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=16435 -> An original Girls deck version www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=21433 -> A redux Girls S/B deck www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=9514 -> Weenie DEM, so no need for Anthelios, nor hosers I agree Not To Be is difficult tu play, but because of my own experience, I can tell you Fourth Cycle works just fine. Enjoy! > Ashur wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > If you're saying that Girls or Malkavian Demetia decks use Anthelios every turn means that you haven't seen them played a lot and you haven't played them yourself. > > > I know Myrdin, so I know this is not true. Why are you being an asshole like this cordovader? On the contrary, I guess it is YOU that haven´t played/played against these decks alot, as you don´t seem to understand Anthelios strenght. > > Anyhow, the card is banned so you might as well get over it, at least until the game is back in print again. > > PetriWessman wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > Anthelios can also be easily countered via Not to Be, Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle. > > > Ok, now it's clear you either have no idea of what you are talking about, are are intentionally being dense. > > No, Anthelios cannot be "easily" countered by any of those. Been there, tried that. It's obvious you haven't. > > It's like claiming that multi-MPA decks can "easily" be countered by packing a lot of Wash/SR. Nope, doesn't work either. > Not To Be: huge opportunity cost, rarely useful in real games due to that Uncoiling: kills your own Events too, and depends on cooperation with rest of table to get rid of drawback. Useful card, but not an easy general solution. Fourth Cycle: needs setup (i.e. other Gehenna cards of your own). Nice card, but very situational. > All this is beside the point, though. Anthelios has been banned, and most players seem to agree with the ban and the reasoning behind it. Your whining is not going to change that, so grow up and deal with it. > > I would normally be bit more polite, but your previous assertions about how the Rules Team not being competent to do rules/ban decisions and about how other (experienced) player opinions on this do not matter -- only yours does -- does not make me inclined to be charitable here. > > wesile wrote: > Not to be.... the uncoiling and the 4th cycle as good strategies against the red star... > > Why I don't catch preys with smart strategies like this in the tournaments... > > Anthelious is to strong and a fix is clearly needed... > > I will miss the ToGP... could also be fixed... > > The vekn team are all seated in a "huge" pile of money that they make working for us at no cost... and in the end they even have to read less polite posts regarding their decisions... > > So, instead of ranting why don't you start a topic with possible tweaks for this cards? > I guess my next post can be adressed to the 3 previous posters: Insults, great argument. Just read the previous post, you may enjoy. As we say in Spain: you're more handsome with your mouth shut. I already got over it, but since you and your groupies have been crying in this forum with no clear objective (Anthelios, Ashur Tablets, rulebook etc.) for around 4 years, I think I have the right to express my frustration at least a 10% of this time. So enjoy the following 4-5 months. PD: Missing ToGP, Anthelios is broken... Yes, I guess you're really right and full of arguments. Most important, great persons.

> zkopiosy wrote: > I hope Pascal we'll find another option. > I think a new event saying: During your turn, the first mpa you use make you gain one pool, the additional ones cost 2 pools" was a far better "solution" for thoses who find mmpa decks painful. > It's not clear why someone playing Vessel and The Barrens in one turn is doing anything that, in any way, warrants them paying extra pool. Similarly, Life in the City + Villein, or Priority Contract + Giant's Blood, or Aye + Aye, or Orun + Orun, or Wider View + Dreams of the Sphinx, or Corporal Reservoir + Visit from the Capuchin, or Abombwe + Jungle Hunting Ground, or Cadet + Pentex(tm) Loves You. It's intentional that Trifles allow you to play more than master card per turn, with the Trifle being (generally) weaker than the full master - with Villein being one obvious exception, but that's not a problem with Trifles so much as a problem with Villein. A great many "simple" suggestions of how to fix what-some-people-perceive-as-abusive MMPA decks using a vampire's special plus the Parthenon(*) plus some Trifles have a lot of collateral damage implications for people using Trifles in an innocuous fashion. It could have a disastrous impact on anyone playing to use Aye or Orun - and those are pretty rubbish right now, but I'd hope that a future V:EKN expansion might zazz up Aye and Orun tech, which is really hard if a card such as the one you propose has hurt them a lot. This is not an argument for or against banning Anthelios, but apparently simple solutions such as the one you propose have the capacity to cause more problems than they solve. (*) Not all MMPA decks have multiple copies of the Parthenon - plenty don't - but in a LiquidAshur + vampire + Anthelios setup, you can probably cycle to your one Parthenon fairly easily, if you want it.

For me it was easier to reverse to Anson's original card text ! And the same goes for all MMPA enablers... (I know the rule "no erratas until reprint" but as I said elsewhere : accept proxies and TADAAA ! Problem solved !!!) My first reaction after those bans was remembering how I felt when PTO was banned : very sad and with no clues about he Why ? There was no topic about TOGP problems (except Ankha's one)... But then I thought : Okayyy, so next to go are Pentex Subversion and Parity Shift then... As I already said in our french forum : this decision is another nail in VtES coffin !!! When we didn't proceed on accepting proxies (I thought the survey showed players wanted them) we didn't encourage new players to come, now with these banned cards we are losing old players... Sad, very sad indeed... Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

And the saddest part is : some players didn't even look at the great Anarch set we got !!! (( Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> Vlad wrote: > > My first reaction after those bans was remembering how I felt when PTO was banned : very sad and with no clues about he Why ? > I will give you an answer: I also wrote elsewhere that as a new player with my first deck (black hand anti malks starters mix) I got a PTO from Arika targeting my freshly influenced Hannibal. I was astonished. The power that could wipe my 10cap before I could say quidditch... As an experienced MtG player with reasonable insight as to what an overpowered card means, this really got me... And then I was curious and found out that there was NOTHING similar for sabbat vampires to destroy camarilla. What a shock! As I was glad that PTO was banned, I agree with these new bans. I would prefer errata, but vekn policy is clear in this. Thus, ban is about to enter tournament life, get used to it. Another thing I do not quite understand, is the "I´m gonna stop playing" approach. VtES, as far as I am concerned, offers the highest amount of possibiliies, how to build a deck, competitive strategies are out there and this is the chance to come with something new again. For me personally, ideas and creating of new decks have always been at least the same level of fun as playing them later with/against my friends....

> Ylly wrote: > Another thing I do not quite understand, is the "I´m gonna stop playing" approach. VtES, as far as I am concerned, offers the highest amount of possibiliies, how to build a deck, competitive strategies are out there and this is the chance to come with something new again. For me personally, ideas and creating of new decks have always been at least the same level of fun as playing them later with/against my friends.... > Of course it's fun, I didn't say it's not, but many players like me, spend less time to build/play vtes now, than by the past. Thoses players, are the ones that don't want to spend time rebuild and balance theirs decks.

> Ylly wrote: > > > Vlad wrote: > > > > My first reaction after those bans was remembering how I felt when PTO was banned : very sad and with no clues about he Why ? > > > I will give you an answer: I also wrote elsewhere that as a new player with my first deck (black hand anti malks starters mix) I got a PTO from Arika targeting my freshly influenced Hannibal. I was astonished. The power that could wipe my 10cap before I could say quidditch... As an experienced MtG player with reasonable insight as to what an overpowered card means, this really got me... And then I was curious and found out that there was NOTHING similar for sabbat vampires to destroy camarilla. What a shock! > > As I was glad that PTO was banned, I agree with these new bans. I would prefer errata, but vekn policy is clear in this. Thus, ban is about to enter tournament life, get used to it. > PTO was only banned because Independent players whined about it ! I thought we were passed that era... I was wrong... I got used to the banned cards, when the reason is understandable : switching places vote for example... Now i wonder why after so long years do we ban those 2 cards (I don't consider Seeds) ? And still there are no answers... Only a partial one about Anthelios, but I stand for that : the problem is MMPA abusers, not Anthelios. Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> zkopiosy wrote: > > > Ylly wrote: > > Another thing I do not quite understand, is the "I´m gonna stop playing" approach. VtES, as far as I am concerned, offers the highest amount of possibiliies, how to build a deck, competitive strategies are out there and this is the chance to come with something new again. For me personally, ideas and creating of new decks have always been at least the same level of fun as playing them later with/against my friends.... > > > Of course it's fun, I didn't say it's not, but many players like me, spend less time to build/play vtes now, than by the past. > Thoses players, are the ones that don't want to spend time rebuild and balance theirs decks. > +1 And for me there is an other reason : I moved due to work and got from a big house to a small flat so I sold my cards and only kept 5 decks... Two of them I can now (almost) throw away ! But that didn't impeach me to teach my daughter (11 y o this year) how to play one of the remaining ones and she definitely wants to try it at my next tournament ! So please don't be judgmental and try to place yourself in someone else's shoes Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

O, we still got people, defending PtO! NC Russia

Also, is it the same person saying that we are not fighting with the root of the problem and that two of his decks has became unplayable without A? NC Russia

Lets see, Anthelios: - Play 5+ pentex in a single game (if you need to) - Fish back Archon Investigation (when you have a bleeder in your back) - Fish back ashur's after a liquidation - Fish back fame and haven uncovered for your ashurs animalism deck - Fish back any essential master that had been suddened - Fish back direct intervention/sudden reversal/wash (when needed most) - Fish back Jake Washington for your Khazar's Diary - Anything else I didn't think up of just now. Only effort is getting Anthelios into play and nearly all the points I listed become available to you in a single deck. And you're basically set for any situation without having to put tons of copies of each card into your deck. I can see why people are upset a little, sounds like a great deck to play with!! I wouldn't even have to muck about with table politics and for sure my prey has a terrible game while my predator just sees my pool grow! And there's not much they can do about it but stack Not To Be, The Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle into their decks... If I had those cards, I'd be foaming mad as well... B) B) B) B) -1 Strength

> Mauro wrote: > Just waiting to be dealt with this situation here in the VTES BRAZIL community with several players who are not very accepted these bans , and I hope that this situation should be reassessed and that it is to everyone's liking . > Of course when you ban some cards some people will be annoyed by it. Luckily VTES has very few (around ten or so) banned cards so this isn't really a big deal. If you think about the big picture. Finnish Politics!

GreyB, do you realize that it's not realistic to do all that in the same game? And i do not say that for playing a khazar animalism mmpa rush deck You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? When you play anthelios, your deck is built with a lot masters in only one examplary, so you aren't always in a situation where your pentex or you archon is in the discard pile... Or maybe you haven't got your anthelios, or maybe no master in hand..... If you hope on your recursive archon to deal with heavy bleeder as predator, you will be dead before got the setup in place, and the bleeder will stp to bleed you for 4 or more You are telling that the card is too powerfull, in giving us perct setup, sorry but that's not realistic.

> elotar wrote: > Also, is it the same person saying that we are not fighting with the root of the problem and that two of his decks has became unplayable without A? > Hmmm... Did I write almost throw away ? Indeed !!! So please read before attacking me Btw I wasn't defending PTO... As judges in other ccg say : RTFC !!! Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> zkopiosy wrote: > Of course it's fun, I didn't say it's not, but many players like me, spend less time to build/play vtes now, than by the past. > Thoses players, are the ones that don't want to spend time rebuild and balance theirs decks. > You're not really being consistent here. In this post , you propose a card that you think would fix the problem, along the lines of "During your turn, the first mpa you use make you gain one pool, the additional ones cost 2 pools." Whether it would or not is a different discussion - but let's assume it does fix the problem. If the existence of such a card would fix MMPA decks, you would still have to rebuild and rebalance your deck. You would need to think about extra pool gain, for the turns where you use three or four MPAs (costing 3 or 5 pool). You would need to think about how you cope with card flow, when you choose only to play one master, not the three you would have done otherwise. You would need to think about how to go about drawing/recycling Not To Be early on, to stop the card screwing you up, and tweaking your deck to include Not To Be in the first place. (Currently, not many do.) You might consider whether Uncoiling or Fourth Cycle can help you - both have considerable drawbacks for a deck relying on Anthelios, and with Fourth Cycle there's no guarantee a newly printed event would be a Gehenna event. The proposed effect feels maybe more like a Government effect to me, but you could probably design it all sorts of ways. Alternatively, you might consider tweaking the deck to make it easier to oust cross-table, or back-oust your predator, to get the card off the table double-quick. Nana decks often have some decent bleed options - Deep Song, Presence, sometimes Brutal Influence - but very little direct pool damage against a cross-table deck, in the way that a political deck or Dementation deck might have. Deep Song lets you rush, obviously, so maybe you want to think about tweaking your combat package to make that a little more reliable - some such decks have lots of combat, others less so. Analogous - but obviously slightly different - considerations would apply if you're going the Anson route. Plentiful Auspex and blocking tech gives you a different way of possibly screwing up someone playing this new card, and you might be going with Eagle's Sight to screw up your grand-prey or grand-predator when he's unhelpful enough to play this. So.... If the card you propose fixes the problem, you're going to have rebuild and rebalance your deck. It you don't have to rebuild and rebalance your deck, it probably doesn't fix the problem.

> cordovader wrote: > So, in my logic the only reasonable explanation is: the Design Team has it's vision about the game, the Rules Team bans the card, end of the story. > There appears to be a persistent misperception about the roles of the Design Team and the Rules Team. The Design Team designs cards and Storyline events. The Rules Team interprets the rules of the game, issues rulings, updates and improves the rules of the game, and updates and improves the rules for sanctioned tournaments (which includes the banned list). A typical interaction between the Design Team and the Rules Team looks something like this: Design Team: We have this idea for a card that does X, but also like Y. Rules Team: If your design intent is A, then this is the wording to use. If your design intent is B, use this wording instead. Playtest Team: AHAHAHAHA!!!! *smashsmashstompsmash* Design Team: An interaction between the Design Team and the Rules Team is never like this: Design Team: We have a glorious vision for V:TES, but Dartmoor: England must be banned to clear a path for its genius. Rules Team: As you wish. Except for this one time when it was like this: Design Team: We would like to napalm every Quietus card from Final Nights. Rules Team: No.

> zkopiosy wrote: > GreyB, > > do you realize that it's not realistic to do all that in the same game? And i do not say that for playing a khazar animalism mmpa rush deck > > You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? > > When you play anthelios, your deck is built with a lot masters in only one examplary, so you aren't always in a situation where your pentex or you archon is in the discard pile... Or maybe you haven't got your anthelios, or maybe no master in hand..... > > If you hope on your recursive archon to deal with heavy bleeder as predator, you will be dead before got the setup in place, and the bleeder will stp to bleed you for 4 or more > > You are telling that the card is too powerfull, in giving us perct setup, sorry but that's not realistic. > . Basics: Liquidation, ashur's and anthelios, the cards you need will be in the discard pile in no time, you can cycle like crazy and fish back what you need... Add vamps like anson and/or Parthenon so you can play multiple masters obviously! Add flavour: - Khazars+jake or animalism rush or whatever, pick one (not all obviously ), the basics empowers nearly every archetype. Don't worry about: - Wash/Sudden Reversal, other players usually don't play a bunch of masters they can discard easily nor do they have loads of wash's stacked in their deck, so big chance they haven't drawn one yet. - Not To Be, Fourth Cycle or Uncoiling, chances are you will not see one played 3 out of 4 games if even that and if it does, take your loss and move on to the next game. Man... Banning Anthelios really breaks that up, a real shame Still possible though but harder since other players can now block card recovery, but seems less fun since now your vamps must work on card recycling + oust strategy instead of just oust strategy. I think people can still tweak their decks a bit to make it work, just a teensy bit less powerful. Just play some table politics and you're golden I think -1 Strength

> elotar wrote: > O, we still got people, defending PtO! > I've waited for this time to also demand than Madness of the bard and Cunctator Motion be unbanned. Root is mmpa sources. Not Lilith's, anthelios, Ashurs, liquidation, DI, Pentex, TGB, Golconda, Mythic Form , Aksynia or Alexandra. Here's what we do: 1.get printed. 2. Play test and issue erratta on reprints. 3. Ban eyes of the dead. (Why not?)

> GreyB wrote: > > > zkopiosy wrote: > > GreyB, > > > > do you realize that it's not realistic to do all that in the same game? And i do not say that for playing a khazar animalism mmpa rush deck > > > > You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? > > > > When you play anthelios, your deck is built with a lot masters in only one examplary, so you aren't always in a situation where your pentex or you archon is in the discard pile... Or maybe you haven't got your anthelios, or maybe no master in hand..... > > > > If you hope on your recursive archon to deal with heavy bleeder as predator, you will be dead before got the setup in place, and the bleeder will stp to bleed you for 4 or more > > > > You are telling that the card is too powerfull, in giving us perct setup, sorry but that's not realistic. > > > . > > Basics: > Liquidation, ashur's and anthelios, the cards you need will be in the discard pile in no time, you can cycle like crazy and fish back what you need... Add vamps like anson and/or Parthenon so you can play multiple masters obviously! > > Add flavour: > - Khazars+jake or animalism rush or whatever, pick one (not all obviously ), the basics empowers nearly every archetype. > > Don't worry about: > - Wash/Sudden Reversal, other players usually don't play a bunch of masters they can discard easily nor do they have loads of wash's stacked in their deck, so big chance they haven't drawn one yet. > - Not To Be, Fourth Cycle or Uncoiling, chances are you will not see one played 3 out of 4 games if even that and if it does, take your loss and move on to the next game. > > Man... Banning Anthelios really breaks that up, a real shame Still possible though but harder since other players can now block card recovery, but seems less fun since now your vamps must work on card recycling + oust strategy instead of just oust strategy. > > I think people can still tweak their decks a bit to make it work, just a teensy bit less powerful. Just play some table politics and you're golden I think > Your reasoning is not at all sustained by the TWDA. Did you know that in the TWDA you have 98 decks using Anthelios + Liquidation between more than 300 using Anthelios without Liquidation? If your statement was right, why do we see that few TWDs that use that combination in comparaison to the total? Either the combination is not that broken as you state, either the MMPA plague is not that exagerated as people on this forum state or a little of both. And anyway, if both this statements were true, this decks wouldnt win because of contesting and Ashur race In fact in metagames were quite a lot of people play this decks (10-20% of the playerbase) the best thing is to play hosers and dont play an MMPA deck (I say this by personal experience).

> Lönkka wrote: > Of course when you ban some cards some people will be annoyed by it. > > Luckily VTES has very few (around ten or so) banned cards so this isn't really a big deal. If you think about the big picture. > This. The game has a gazillion cards (gazillion defined as multiple thousands). Someone said "I'm not really playing anymore and only own a few decks, and now some of those don't work anymore". In a way I understand that, but look: you're saying that the game should not be improved because of you (who doesn't even play anymore). That doesn't work. After the dust settles, the people who actually play the game will have filled up those Anthelios slots in their decks with something else, and have retooled their decks to deal with the loss of infinite, easy recursion. The game will be better as a whole, on the tournament level. "Girls" decks will still be viable. And if anyone actually does leave because of the ban of one card (out of thousands), I for one won't miss them.

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > Root is mmpa sources > Maybe. But imagine the wailing, screaming and gnashing of teeth if the Rules Team had decided to ban Anson, Nana, Cybele and the rest of that gang B)

> PetriWessman wrote: > > > ReverendRevolver wrote: > > Root is mmpa sources > > > Maybe. But imagine the wailing, screaming and gnashing of teeth if the Rules Team had decided to ban Anson, Nana, Cybele and the rest of that gang B) > No need to ban them : simply limit MMPAs to 2 as Anson original text Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> cordovader wrote: > > > GreyB wrote: > > > > > zkopiosy wrote: > > > GreyB, > > > > > > do you realize that it's not realistic to do all that in the same game? And i do not say that for playing a khazar animalism mmpa rush deck > > > > > > You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? > > > > > > When you play anthelios, your deck is built with a lot masters in only one examplary, so you aren't always in a situation where your pentex or you archon is in the discard pile... Or maybe you haven't got your anthelios, or maybe no master in hand..... > > > > > > If you hope on your recursive archon to deal with heavy bleeder as predator, you will be dead before got the setup in place, and the bleeder will stp to bleed you for 4 or more > > > > > > You are telling that the card is too powerfull, in giving us perct setup, sorry but that's not realistic. > > > > > . > > > > Basics: > > Liquidation, ashur's and anthelios, the cards you need will be in the discard pile in no time, you can cycle like crazy and fish back what you need... Add vamps like anson and/or Parthenon so you can play multiple masters obviously! > > > > Add flavour: > > - Khazars+jake or animalism rush or whatever, pick one (not all obviously ), the basics empowers nearly every archetype. > > > > Don't worry about: > > - Wash/Sudden Reversal, other players usually don't play a bunch of masters they can discard easily nor do they have loads of wash's stacked in their deck, so big chance they haven't drawn one yet. > > - Not To Be, Fourth Cycle or Uncoiling, chances are you will not see one played 3 out of 4 games if even that and if it does, take your loss and move on to the next game. > > > > Man... Banning Anthelios really breaks that up, a real shame Still possible though but harder since other players can now block card recovery, but seems less fun since now your vamps must work on card recycling + oust strategy instead of just oust strategy. > > > > I think people can still tweak their decks a bit to make it work, just a teensy bit less powerful. Just play some table politics and you're golden I think > > > Your reasoning is not at all sustained by the TWDA. > What reasoning would that be? I just listed a killer recipy that gets enhanced even more with Anthelios. > cordovader wrote: > Did you know that in the TWDA you have 98 decks using Anthelios + Liquidation between more than 300 using Anthelios without Liquidation? > > If your statement was right, why do we see that few TWDs that use that combination in comparaison to the total? > I don't see how my statement has anything todo with TWDA... I just listed a killer recipy that utilized Anthelios... Obviously you could use Anthelios in other meaningful ways... > cordovader wrote: > Either the combination is not that broken as you state, either the MMPA plague is not that exagerated as people on this forum state or a little of both. > The killer combination is broken, since Anthelios is banned. You can still use it with other cards, but takes some effort. I have not mentioned anything about a MMPA plague, so not sure why you bring it up... > cordovader wrote: > And anyway, if both this statements were true, this decks wouldnt win because of contesting and Ashur race > What statements? I just listed a killer recipy that utilized Anthelios... Haven't seen any Ashur race in the last 3 years, so you're golden on playing Ashur's -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > > > > GreyB wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > zkopiosy wrote: > > > > GreyB, > > > > > > > > do you realize that it's not realistic to do all that in the same game? And i do not say that for playing a khazar animalism mmpa rush deck > > > > > > > > You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? > > > > > > > > When you play anthelios, your deck is built with a lot masters in only one examplary, so you aren't always in a situation where your pentex or you archon is in the discard pile... Or maybe you haven't got your anthelios, or maybe no master in hand..... > > > > > > > > If you hope on your recursive archon to deal with heavy bleeder as predator, you will be dead before got the setup in place, and the bleeder will stp to bleed you for 4 or more > > > > > > > > You are telling that the card is too powerfull, in giving us perct setup, sorry but that's not realistic. > > > > > > > . > > > > > > Basics: > > > Liquidation, ashur's and anthelios, the cards you need will be in the discard pile in no time, you can cycle like crazy and fish back what you need... Add vamps like anson and/or Parthenon so you can play multiple masters obviously! > > > > > > Add flavour: > > > - Khazars+jake or animalism rush or whatever, pick one (not all obviously ), the basics empowers nearly every archetype. > > > > > > Don't worry about: > > > - Wash/Sudden Reversal, other players usually don't play a bunch of masters they can discard easily nor do they have loads of wash's stacked in their deck, so big chance they haven't drawn one yet. > > > - Not To Be, Fourth Cycle or Uncoiling, chances are you will not see one played 3 out of 4 games if even that and if it does, take your loss and move on to the next game. > > > > > > Man... Banning Anthelios really breaks that up, a real shame Still possible though but harder since other players can now block card recovery, but seems less fun since now your vamps must work on card recycling + oust strategy instead of just oust strategy. > > > > > > I think people can still tweak their decks a bit to make it work, just a teensy bit less powerful. Just play some table politics and you're golden I think > > > > > > > > Your reasoning is not at all sustained by the TWDA. > > > What reasoning would that be? I just listed a killer recipy that gets enhanced even more with Anthelios. > > > cordovader wrote: > > Did you know that in the TWDA you have 98 decks using Anthelios + Liquidation between more than 300 using Anthelios without Liquidation? > > > > If your statement was right, why do we see that few TWDs that use that combination in comparaison to the total? > > > I don't see how my statement has anything todo with TWDA... I just listed a killer recipy that utilized Anthelios... Obviously you could use Anthelios in other meaningful ways... > > > cordovader wrote: > > Either the combination is not that broken as you state, either the MMPA plague is not that exagerated as people on this forum state or a little of both. > > > The killer combination is broken, since Anthelios is banned. You can still use it with other cards, but takes some effort. I have not mentioned anything about a MMPA plague, so not sure why you bring it up... > > > cordovader wrote: > > And anyway, if both this statements were true, this decks wouldnt win because of contesting and Ashur race > > > What statements? I just listed a killer recipy that utilized Anthelios... Haven't seen any Ashur race in the last 3 years, so you're golden on playing Ashur's > I can make a killer recipe with any combination of cards, but this is not mental Jyhad. For example: Ayo Igoli + Anarch Convert + Fee Stake + Chameleon + Forced March. Turn 4 you can steal any 9 or less cap on the table (and make him Baron directly!). With Brunhilde ADV you could even do it turn 3 with 7 cap or less. Is it poweful? Yes. Is it broken? No. In real life, your killer recipe doesn't even work even the 50% of the time. Not a single of the ban defenders has been able to answer what are the odds of being able to fully setup (this means having all the cards you want in the ash heap + Anthelios + at least 2 MPAs) and in which turn. Anyway, this is the easiest case to analyze and btw, having only 2 MPAs and using Anthelios each turn means that you will surely jam your hand with masters.

> PetriWessman wrote: > > > Lönkka wrote: > > Of course when you ban some cards some people will be annoyed by it. > > > > Luckily VTES has very few (around ten or so) banned cards so this isn't really a big deal. If you think about the big picture. > > > This. The game has a gazillion cards (gazillion defined as multiple thousands). > > Someone said "I'm not really playing anymore and only own a few decks, and now some of those don't work anymore". In a way I understand that, but look: you're saying that the game should not be improved because of you (who doesn't even play anymore). That doesn't work. > . > Either you don't understand what I wrote or you are transforming it to suit your goal !!! So I repeat : I kept 5 decks (2 of them I will have to modify) but I still play 3 to 5 tournaments per year. And I even taught my daughter FYI I play for more than 20 years and organize tournaments for 15 years. I created two different playgroups and was a part of the official French vekn association. So I don't think I deserve lessons or lectures from anyone... I never said I'll quit but some players on our forum are discouraged and either will stop or simply take a break... You say you won't miss them ?!? Sorry to tell you that is a stupid statement (not you, but your sentence) because we don't have new players (because of proxies... Bla-bla-bla...) and now some old players are leaving... As Stone said : when you'll be playing BIG tournaments with 15 players, remember your arrogance !!! Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> Vlad wrote: > I never said I'll quit but some players on our forum are discouraged and either will stop or simply take a break... You say you won't miss them ?!? > Thing is, leave aside bans. Leave aside power cards / possibly broken cards. If V:EKN (or DriveThruCCG, or Paradox, or whoever) create new expansions, they can perturb the game a lot. The fearsome new Trophy Hunter tech in the 2017 expansion "Mistaken Identity"(*) provides a whole range of fearsome opponents, and a couple of the abilities provided by new Trophy cards really punch a hole in your deck. Trophy: Snitch really undermines some bleed decks, by giving the bearer a new, solid option against stealth-bleed or weenie bleed or something like that. Trophy: Unity is a once-per-game Trophy that can only be awarded to a vampire who already had at least three Trophies at the start of this turn, and when awarded it allows that vampire's controller to remove an Event from the game. Turns out that one of the players in your playgroup loves the new tech, and is really pumped he has a hot new combat deck he can play. And so now consider the player whose favourite deck is their DEM weenie deck with a bunch of Gehenna Event tech thrown in to screw people - which is now somewhat perturbed by Trophy: Snitch undermining weenie bleed, and Trophy: Unity meaning that the Trophy Hunter can take out that nasty "Fall of the Camarilla" event the DEM weenie deck loves playing. End result: the DEM weenie deck player is probably upset. Do they think about taking a pause? Thing is, this is pretty much inevitable in a CCG that prints new cards. New cards can and often will seriously undermine the assumptions your deck used to be able to make - perhaps you could seriously mess around with bleed bounce with some carefully chosen cards, maybe an Orb of Ulain, maybe a Perfect Clarity or three, maybe Libertas, maybe Narrow Minds, maybe some other cards. And then in the 2018 expansion "Prophecies of Midnight", something happens such as one or more of: a decently balanced but very playable bleed bounce card is given to a discipline that is not Dominate, making some of the tech relying on anti-Dominate a little more tricky a bleed defence card that is an Out of Turn Trifle is printed, and while it's maybe not as good as bounce, your deck is going to be annoyed by a prey / successive preys who can play several of these a game an Anarch Convert like vampire is printed who can be used to trigger bleed bounce(**), which circumvents the "minion card" requirement on Narrow Minds Thinking about it, your deck won't be so good afterwards. So, you build and adapt and tweak and rebalance. If the goal is that existing decks cannot be perturbed lest people decide they want to do something else, you basically can't print expansions with decent cards in them that have an impact on the game - because that impact on the game will perturb existing decks, exploiting their holes, undermining their assumptions, changing the dynamics of the playgroup so now you don't see many political decks so those 6 Delaying Tactics are dead weight etc. (*) For the avoidance of doubt, this is all clearly hypothetical, and the cards are made up. (**) "Stoolie. Independent. Do not bring Stoolie into play during your influence phase, regardless of counters. If you are being bled and Stoolie has counters at least equal to his capacity on him (in the uncontrolled region), reveal Stoolie to all players and remove him from the game. Choose another Methuselah other than the controller of the acting minion. The acting minion is now bleeding that Methuselah." Bonus fun - leave a vampire with X pool on in your uncontrolled region, to make people think you have a Stoolie, even if it's just your duplicate copy of Vidal Jarbeaux that you can't bring out.

Except that you're talking about new strategies coming from new cards which is good to keep the game alive (or undead ) Banned cards kill strategies... But I still wait for the explanations Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > > So.... > > If the card you propose fixes the problem, you're going to have rebuild and rebalance your deck. It you don't have to rebuild and rebalance your deck, it probably doesn't fix the problem. > Sorry, but I will go to tournaments with the same exactly same deck, and I will lose maybe, but I wil be here. If Anthelios is ban, I won't come anymore.

> Vlad wrote: > Except that you're talking about new strategies coming from new cards which is good to keep the game alive (or undead ) > > Banned cards kill strategies... > > But I still wait for the explanations > Explanations where already given, perhaps they should move them to a sticky. -1 Strength

> GreyB wrote: > > > Vlad wrote: > > Except that you're talking about new strategies coming from new cards which is good to keep the game alive (or undead ) > > > > Banned cards kill strategies... > > > > But I still wait for the explanations > > > Explanations where already given, perhaps they should move them to a sticky. > Maybe people do not agree with the explanations that were given.

> GreyB wrote: > > > Vlad wrote: > > Except that you're talking about new strategies coming from new cards which is good to keep the game alive (or undead ) > > > > Banned cards kill strategies... > > > > But I still wait for the explanations > > > Explanations where already given, perhaps they should move them to a sticky. > I only read the explanation for Anthelios Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> Banned cards kill strategies... > It depends what you're banning. Ban of Mind Rape whould surely kill every Mind Rape deck out there. Ban of Anthelios whould make MMPA decks weaker. They are fully playable without Anthelios and I'm sure they are still very good stategies to follow in tournaments. And very often bans create new possibilities for deck bulding by removing obstacle that make some decks suboptimal in tournaments, f.e. playing big caps non-camarilla vampires when PTO was still legal wasn't the best idea. So, I would say: In most cases, bans create new strategies (or at least makes them viable).

> zkopiosy wrote: > You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? > How many Wash do you play in your decks? "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Ashur wrote: > > > zkopiosy wrote: > > You forgot that if you predator has a wash, he also can wash you the picked master every turn? > > > How many Wash do you play in your decks? > I guess more than copies of Anthelios

You saying "I only own 5 decks" and "some players are leaving the game" are NOT very strong arguments for not banning Anthelios. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> Vlad wrote: > ,Banned cards kill strategies... > Not really. Banning Anthelios doesn´t destroy the current Tier 1 MMPA-based decks, as they are not totally dependent on Anthelios, it just makes them a bit too strong, the Rules Director thinks. So I have no idea why you keep on whining. Get over it. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> cordovader wrote: > Maybe people do not agree with the explanations that were given. > Maybe they would agree if they only bothered to understand. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

I have read many opinions and a lot of arguing for a while now, and now I would appreciate to read about new decks, played games and won tournaments again. Thank you! National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

> Ashur wrote: > > > Vlad wrote: > > ,Banned cards kill strategies... > > > Not really. Banning Anthelios doesn´t destroy the current Tier 1 MMPA-based decks, as they are not totally dependent on Anthelios, it just makes them a bit too strong, the Rules Director thinks. So I have no idea why you keep on whining. Get over it. > Are you playing the troll ? Truly stupid ? Or only rude ??? Where did I whine ? When did I ask for Anthelios or TOGP return ??? I am simply explaining what's happening in France and asking for an explanation of these ruling choices ! I don't think Vekn has become a dictatorship and you certainly are not entitled to force me to do anything !!! Pentex Board of Directors Prince of Oye Plage Alastor Grand Nord

> Vlad wrote: > I don't think Vekn has become a dictatorship and you certainly are not entitled to force me to do anything !!! > I´m not trying to force you to do anything, I was just suggesting that you to get over this issue now, move on, maybe build new decks and just play the game. "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

This has become overly ridiculous. Ban or errata any 3 or more cards from this game, with any good or shitty reason (though I haven't encountered a shitty one yet), and I'll deal with it and re-tune or change entirely or just scrap and create new decks. Anthelios was bent, though Dennis Lien created a very cool original deck that pretty much needed it in play so that he could use a hard-to-find-a-place-for vampire (Sonja Blue). Great idea www.secretlibrary.info/index.php?deck=view&id=3066 it even used ToGP. That deck is done but so what? If Temptation were errata'd to not be targetable on a vampire you control, I'd be rather annoyed since I self-tempt a lot (may have been one of the earliest players to exploit that) but then I'll just find something else to do. I wasn't happy about Memories Of Mortality being banned but was less satisfied with the printing of the Imbued so, even though I had a couple of decks that utilized it, I flowed with it. The worst thing about banning a card is the problem of how hard it was to acquire without compensation for, not it's effect on the game. Bans and erratas do not screw with existing decks anymore than newer cards that can mess with current strategies making them less optimal. Just because a card was printed doesn't mean it needs to be in the game (Govern, Conditioning, Giant's Blood, current text for Pentex, et al). Chess took a while to perfect it's state, American rules football changes penalties and rulings over time, V:TES is working on it.

> Ashur wrote: > > > cordovader wrote: > > Maybe people do not agree with the explanations that were given. > > > Maybe they would agree if they only bothered to understand. > Maybe we don't agree because we don't agree with the reasons that were given. Maybe it's you that needs to understand other people's point of view, because you have given NO SINGLE TRUE REASON to justify your point of view. The only arguments you use to "defend" your opinion are quoting Pascal and saying "Anthelios is already banned so get over it". If it's a matter of "how the game should be" and the VEKN decides it so, OK, nothing to discuss in terms of the reasons given (anyway in that case I think they would be exceeding their role, but that's a personal opinion). As far as I recall I have never voted the attributions the VEKN should have and neither have you. I repeat (for the narrow-minded), as I said in my first post in this thread: I value the work the VEKN is doing and if it was not for the volunteers the game would already be dead. Anyway, I think their job should be open to critics. All this debate around "Anthelios was banned because MMPA decks are overpowered" is false and doesn't help the community (and this last is a personal opinion). What does "overpowered" mean? Do cards have a power equivalency and just being above the average makes a card overpowered? If this is the case, most of the cards making part of the TWDA should probably disapear. The debate around "Anthelios was banned because it's abused by a certain type of decks, making it non-profatible for the rest of the players in a table" it's dangerous because it puts in the same scope a lot of cards: Dragonbound, Unmasking, Narrow Minds, Mbare Market Harare, Fame... I have deliberatively chosen cards that cannot be [in-built] stolen or [in-built] burnt for logical reasons. Do you agree in banning all cards that share this same principle? My question: if Anthelios was that bad (and some people agree that events are bad for the game ; not me) and the VEKN is releasing new sets, why not release a card to make available burning events (or making it unable to play more events or Gehenna)?

> zkopiosy wrote: > Sorry, but I will go to tournaments with the same exactly same deck, and I will lose maybe, but I wil be here. > So, even if the game is changed by new tech so that your deck massively underperforms, can't cope with new strategies, is undermined by three opponents packing new cards that deliberately thwart your deck, and is based on assumptions that no longer hold, you'll spend 6 hours sitting around in a tournament knowing you'll lose? It wouldn't take much new tech to make MMPA or recursion tech vastly less attractive. Some sort of in-play effect (event, master, referendum, whatever) that makes recursion expensive in some fashion - tap lots of stuff, use up blood or life, discard stuff, cancel effects, or whatever - and, assuming you make it reasonably playable, Anthelios and LiquidAshur could be horribly mangled. A little more tech along the lines of Trochomancy (that is, me messing with your ash heap) could upset a LiquidAshur based - I could see something like that working for the Nos, !Nos and Samedi - well, the Samedi can technically already play Trochomancy anyway, I guess. Some better anti-Event tech than Not To Be, perhaps a much more widely available variant of Black Hand Ritual or something like that. Some freaky Malkavian card that swaps the order of master and minion phases, making everything a whole lot weirder.

> Vlad wrote: > Except that you're talking about new strategies coming from new cards which is good to keep the game alive (or undead ) > > Banned cards kill strategies... > But new strategies can also extinguish old strategies, because the new strategy works better, is more robust, is easier to play, is more fun, being explicitly designed to counter it, or whatever else. Apparently, the right thing to do is to print cards that make strategies unfeasible, such as making MMPA massively more expensive to use. If you do that, sure, someone can turn up and sit in a tournament as a useless bag of pool and a free VP for their predators, but that would be a silly thing for a player to do. When your deck just simply isn't tenable anymore, why would you sit in a tournament for four or six hours playing it, when you could just punch yourself in the nuts in the comfort of your own home?

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > If you do that, sure, someone can turn up and sit in a tournament as a useless bag of pool and a free VP for their predators, but that would be a silly thing for a player to do. > This is what most players do anyway. What problem is there to be a bag of pool with Anthelios?

> cordovader wrote: > Maybe we don't agree because we don't agree with the reasons that were given. Maybe it's you that needs to understand other people's point of view, because you have given NO SINGLE TRUE REASON to justify your point of view. The only arguments you use to "defend" your opinion are quoting Pascal and saying "Anthelios is already banned so get over it". > I haven´t given much own arguements because I agree with what Pascal wrote. I´ve stated several times earlier that I don´t like MMPA-decks as they don´t interact alot with the table with minion actions, but that´s not the point here. > cordovader wrote: > If it's a matter of "how the game should be" and the VEKN decides it so, OK, nothing to discuss in terms of the reasons given (anyway in that case I think they would be exceeding their role, but that's a personal opinion). As far as I recall I have never voted the attributions the VEKN should have and neither have you. I repeat (for the narrow-minded), as I said in my first post in this thread: I value the work the VEKN is doing and if it was not for the volunteers the game would already be dead. Anyway, I think their job should be open to critics. > In my experience having this type of discussion AFTER a ruling/banning has been made has never resulted in a change of the ruling/banning. That´s just the way VEKN works, I have no idea why, but there is not much debate about that bit. > cordovader wrote: > All this debate around "Anthelios was banned because MMPA decks are overpowered" is false and doesn't help the community (and this last is a personal opinion). What does "overpowered" mean? Do cards have a power equivalency and just being above the average makes a card overpowered? If this is the case, most of the cards making part of the TWDA should probably disapear. > "Overpowered" usually means "too good for the game" when you talk about games. > cordovader wrote: > The debate around "Anthelios was banned because it's abused by a certain type of decks, making it non-profatible for the rest of the players in a table" it's dangerous because it puts in the same scope a lot of cards: Dragonbound, Unmasking, Narrow Minds, Mbare Market Harare, Fame... I have deliberatively chosen cards that cannot be [in-built] stolen or [in-built] burnt for logical reasons. Do you agree in banning all cards that share this same principle? > If one wants to ban Anthelios because of the card text on Anthelios, it has nothing to do with these other cards, because they are not Anthelios. Your argumentation is similiar to "Anthelios starts with an A, so we have to ban all cards that starts with an A." I´m sure you understand this. > cordovader wrote: > My question: if Anthelios was that bad (and some people agree that events are bad for the game ; not me) and the VEKN is releasing new sets, why not release a card to make available burning events (or making it unable to play more events or Gehenna)? > No, because we don´t want to hose other events, just Anthelios. Got it? "My strategy? Luck is my strategy, of course."

> cordovader wrote: > My question: if Anthelios was that bad (and some people agree that events are bad for the game ; not me) and the VEKN is releasing new sets, why not release a card to make available burning events (or making it unable to play more events or Gehenna)? > Because in a competition, the one with and active winning strategy will most likely win over a counter-strategy. If you try to win an Anthelios deck with a deck designed to hose Events/Anthelios you are not very likely to get that many VPs. While the Anthelios deck will just keep on truckin and accumulating those VPs and GWs. Finnish Politics!