[Card ban idea] List

Lech wrote:

Why not discuss some other card that stop timeouts and resolve tables and is actually fair?

You would be surprised if I tell you how many games I think i've won with a well timed anarch troublemaker...

Sensory Deprivation is obviously a worse Pentex Subversion that tries to reach a compromise by functioning as it does (non-unique, minion action, 3 blood vs 2 pool, can't unlock vs can't act or block, etc. etc.)

This is false. Sensory Deprivation is in fact much better than Pentex; it costs blood instead of pool, can be reduced in cost, is much, much harder to remove and denies playing reaction cards (such as bounce) in a very different way than Pentex. That it isn't unique is a huge boon to Sensory Deprivation.

The whole discussion about Pentex being bad/good seems to have reached a stalemate anyways. It seems like there are no new arguments to or against. I think it is absolutely necessary and one of the most finely balanced cards in the game, and cannot understand the hate against it, but to each their own I guess.

I mean, it's a card that people slot in their decks in copies of 1 or 2 out of 60-90 cards. It does not make deck building stale. I think it is absolutely fine to have a few cards in the game that are slotted into most decks, and some think it is bad design. That's that, it seems to me.

A big tournament season is starting soon, and we'll get much more data from there about the prevalence of which cards. There has even been a new set to shake things up.

Let's see what happens.

Kraus wrote:

The whole discussion about Pentex being bad/good seems to have reached a stalemate anyways. It seems like there are no new arguments to or against. I think it is absolutely necessary and one of the most finely balanced cards in the game, and cannot understand the hate against it, but to each their own I guess.

I mean, it's a card that people slot in their decks in copies of 1 or 2 out of 60-90 cards. It does not make deck building stale. I think it is absolutely fine to have a few cards in the game that are slotted into most decks, and some think it is bad design. That's that, it seems to me.

If Pentex cost 3 would you still play it? Would most people?

If removing pentex was a +1 stealth action, would you still play it?

The effect may be necessary, but in it's current state it's just a little too good. I definitely don't hate it. I hate that it's so good you don't have to think before putting 1-2 in your deck. I think if it cost 3, you may hesitate. If the action to remove was at +1 stealth, it stops going in every deck.

In my oppinion giving the removing action +1 Stealth doesn't solve much, as most of the time people play pentex on their decks not to "stunlock" a minion but to bypass a blocking one during that turn that you need to burst your prey.

Pentex also allows for some kind of table conversation: as soon as 1 pentex is dropped, people will start talking about it "Should I leave it up and let that mathuselah die?" "Should I remove it so that their predator gets a little more preassure?". Pentex is an stabilizing factor, sometimes being even thrown out from the other side of the table to stop a snowballing Mathuselah on their feet.

Pentex help acting decks. Pentex help blocking decks. Pentex help culling awful single-vampire decks, forcing them to pack extra minions to stop pentex from ruining their game.

Pentex is packed on most decks for the same reason that is govern, telepathic misdirection and on the qui vive: because the card pool isn't restricted and is 20 years old. If you print a good asset, it won't stop being seen unless you print something extremely similar or something better, or what it's accomplishing stop being neccesary.

Ratadin wrote:

In my oppinion giving the removing action +1 Stealth doesn't solve much, as most of the time people play pentex on their decks not to "stunlock" a minion but to bypass a blocking one during that turn that you need to burst your prey.

What I'm hearing is "I would still play it", which answers the question I'm asking. I think it will make people who can't generate intercept think twice before adding a 2 pool cost card that stunlocks a vamp. That's a decision instead

Ratadin wrote:

Pentex help acting decks. Pentex help blocking decks. Pentex help culling awful single-vampire decks, forcing them to pack extra minions to stop pentex from ruining their game.

This is like using the word when trying to define that word. Pentex is flexible, so much so that it fills the gaps caused by at least 3 different needs that happen regularly in the game.

Which is good, because otherwise we would have to include multiples different cards to patch all those problems. Right now, you pack 1 or 2 pentex and still have 10-14 master slots to fill.

Again, making the action +1 stealth doesn't punish those without intercept that much, as they probably weren't planning on defending the pentex anyway. The card isn't that problematic, because what it harms deserves to be harmed (mono-vampire decks), and we cannot go and faq every single powerful/used card in the game. VTES is confusing enough with having tons of cards changed from early expansions to new ones to now add fixes to a 20 year old pool with, in the case of some players, more than 10k cards.