Proxies and the VEKN

Suoli wrote:

bakija wrote:

Suoli wrote:

Villein should be more widely available because not being able to use it places an unreasonable restriction on the number of decks one can play in tournaments.

I don't know that it does. Yes. Villein is a very good card. But it is very easy to make tournament contender decks that don't have Villein, and won't suffer due to a lack of Villein, and won't have troubles if other people have Villeins and you don't.

It's a deck diversity issue. It's very easy to make a tournament winning deck without Villeins but too many deck types are unplayable without Villein.

What "deck types" require Villeins, without which they are unplayable? As most things that I would call "deck types" existed prior to the first printing of Villein.

And I must say that I find it facinating that Villein is both available enough to make Minion Tap not an alternative and yet rare enough that it is one of your top choices for being made into a proxy.

Gargoylee wrote:

What "deck types" require Villeins, without which they are unplayable? As most things that I would call "deck types" existed prior to the first printing of Villein.

And I must say that I find it facinating that Villein is both available enough to make Minion Tap not an alternative and yet rare enough that it is one of your top choices for being made into a proxy.

You sound agitated. There's no need to take this so seriously.

If half of tournament players have enough Villeins to compete that is enough to make Minion Tap unplayable.

If half of tournament players don't have enough Villeins to compete Villeins need to be more available.

Perhaps the VEKN, with permission of cccp or whoever currently holds the rights, could provide tournamentplayers with promo versions of those sought-after cards ?

That's sort of the problem right there: No one currently holds all the necessary rights to publish cards legally. WotC owns the rules, WW owns the setting.

I think talk of actually printing proxies is fantasy. Let's drop that fantasy now, before too much more effort goes into it. Without clear title to the rights from WW, Wotc, and also the artist if that art wants to be reused, there's no point in even talking about printing proxies.

I think instead of printing proxies, we should just make a rule: All Twisting the Knife cards can also be used as Villeins; all Eyes of the Dead cards can be used as Ashur Tablets.

Wait, is that proxying?

chris
(against Proxies in official tournaments)

Gargoylee wrote:

What "deck types" require Villeins, without which they are unplayable? As most things that I would call "deck types" existed prior to the first printing of Villein.

And I must say that I find it facinating that Villein is both available enough to make Minion Tap not an alternative and yet rare enough that it is one of your top choices for being made into a proxy.

Every deck which have vampires with 5 capacity or more works better with Villeins. Especially when Lilith's Blessing + Villein combo works really nice. Look at www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm - last year 80% of winning decks contains Villein.

Dan
(reprint Villein as promo)

librarian wrote:

Perhaps the VEKN, with permission of cccp or whoever currently holds the rights, could provide tournamentplayers with promo versions of those sought-after cards ?

That's sort of the problem right there: No one currently holds all the necessary rights to publish cards legally. WotC owns the rules, WW owns the setting. [...] Without clear title to the rights from WW, Wotc, and also the artist if that art wants to be reused, there's no point in even talking about printing proxies.

Is it really that complicated ? I'm not in any way acquinted with US intellectual property law, but i am as regards to my own country, and i can imagine that there's a big difference between the scenarios of developing a new set with the intent to sell on the one hand, or simply reprinting individual cards without commercial intent on the other.

With regards to developing new set, indeed the problem is as you pose it, since the rights to the rules and the rights to the setting belong to different organisations, etc. etc.. So you're quite right there.
With regards to reprinting individual cards without commercial intent however though, i can imagine there's a difference: the individual card 'enkil cog' for example is printed with a copyright claim by CCCP only. Reprinting only an x number of cards as promos (non-commercial) would, methinks, only require the permission of CCCP and the artist, right?

And it could even be argued that such a permission would be in the interest of CCCP, since it would help in keeping interest in the game alive, thereby keeping the value in the rights to the game that they hold, instead of having those rights devaluate over time as the market for the game dries up (I'm not presenting this as a personal opinion, just as an argument that could be used and might be persuasive: little loss for them, much to gain).

Perhaps someone here with a US Law-degree and some experience in the IntProp-field could offer a better analysis, but still, i think the difference between developing a new set for commercial use on the one hand, and reprinting a limited number of individual cards for promotional use only is a valid one (in terms of law) and should be investigated...

At least, as far as i'm concerned, it's less a fantasy then the whole VEKN-sanctioned retailer-driven proxy idea.

-Th.
(against proxies in whatever form, but hopes reprints as promo are an achievable possibility).

CCP is not CCCP, incidentally.

One was a communist experiment that resulted in a corrupt regime, ending in coup d'état, collapse and an anarchy that in some ways persists to the present day.

The other was Soviet Russia.