On Parity Shift

I see Peter's point about Parity Shift creating a wild swing that he doesn't like.

Personally I think that there are going to be some very powerful cards in the game, and I'm not against Parity Shift. Perhaps that's just because I don't see a lot of decks using it around LA nowadays. It has been a very long time since I lost 5 to Parity Shift.

I agree more with Peter's objection that Parity Shift makes non-Prince/Justicar vote decks less attractive. Princes & Justicars got insane amounts of goodies from Jyhad. Obviously Primogen were ignored, and Sabbat did not give anything close as good to Sabbat-titled vampires. It does make the environment more boring, since you see Prince and Justicar crypt cards so often, and that would be my main objection to Parity Shift.

The reason I don't see it as a major problem in today's environment is the proliferation of titles on the table and the weakness of weenie vote. One thing the Sabbat did was greatly up the number of potential "passive" votes on the table with the introduction of the Priscus title. Then Villein encouraged the playing of big-cap vampires, who usually have 2 or more votes. I think Darby Keeney has an article about this on his blog. It's just not that easy to pass votes anymore.

And I rarely see weenie vote decks anymore that might use Parity Shift, probably because of the threat of No Secrets from the Magaji and the popularity of combat/wall decks, which of course also discourage voting.

So, I like Parity Shift, but when added to the Traditions, it gives too much to Princes/Justicars, thus making the environment less interesting (I voted to give it to Primogen). But I don't see it abused much because of the general difficulties of voting in general.

Aaron wrote:

It does make the environment more boring, since you see Prince and Justicar crypt cards so often, and that would be my main objection to Parity Shift.

I would also add that Inner circle have no sabbat equivalent and may contribute to the phenomen. They represent a lot of votes, are +1 or +2 bleed (alway pretty useful) and especially the Jyhad one have powerful passives traits that does not need much setup to be useful (for example, Arika or Leandro vs Elimelech or Enkidu)

There will always be a "most powerful" political action. Currently, Parity Shift holds that title.

The Prince/Justicar restriction should be viewed as a restriction, rather than an enabling ability for those titles. Inner Circle members can't use it, but their inherent votes lead to more predictability, especially for a badass like Lutz.

Go ahead and fight the good fight for change if you still want to. It's kind of moot right now since the new rulings were released. Maybe next October to November it will be time to fan the flames of insurrection again.

Jeff wrote:

Go ahead and fight the good fight for change if you still want to. It's kind of moot right now since the new rulings were released. Maybe next October to November it will be time to fan the flames of insurrection again.

Note that the result of theses consultation can lead to ad hoc card in the upcoming expansion. For example, if the conclusion of the parity shift is that Parity shift should be allowed to sabbat, a vote of similar power may be introduced in the expansion instead of errating the card.

Aaron wrote:

Perhaps that's just because I don't see a lot of decks using it around LA nowadays. It has been a very long time since I lost 5 to Parity Shift.

David Litwin won a tournament in L.A. with a ridiculous Parity Shift deck in September: www.thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011fitblac

Ah, I only played in one of those four tournaments, and never (thankfully*) against Mr. Litwin.

*He's scary