Pentex Subversion poll and discussion

Giving +1 stealth to remove it won't change anything. Wall deck will still defend it, aggressive decks will still oust you the turn its played.

So a wall deck protecting one of its resources is a bad thing for the game?

If an agressive deck ousts you because one minion is locked up then you took that risk when you made the deck, and likely won other games because your one minion blocked every action in the game even remotely threatening.(I'm looking at you Cesewayo.)

And giving the action +1 stealth would make a significant number of removal attempts succeed that don't because of Jake or other random, non +intercepting, minions block. It doesn't change the initial impact but not every play of a Pentex results in an oust or everyone would play 15 of them.

Instead of changing Pentex what if a new master was added.

I Hate Pentex
Type: Master
Cost: 2 pool
Master: trifle.
Burn a card you control or one played on a minion you control. A Methuselah may only play one I Hate Pentex each game.

Sudden stops an ousting turn lunge and this would stop a scenario where your game is locked up because your one minion is stuck and you didn't have a Sudden in hand when it was played. It also has other uses and likely needs to be once/game to stop some Bauble/Serpentis shennanigans from happening much easier than they already do.

Removing Pentex from the game is nothing but bad for it as we should remove all cards that result in players being ousted then and spend 2 hours discarding Eyes of the Dead every turn as we all get .5VPs.

enough with the retarded ad hominem arguments about deck building skills, go over to this forum if you want that.

the point about bigcaps/superstars is a valid one. if your vampires are expensive, then you get harmed by Pentex a lot more than a midcap deck, and a weenie deck really doesn't care about losing 1 minion. this means that bigcap decks are weaker than weenie decks, especially due to how often Pentex appears in tournaments! (hint: it's very very common)

you have to back away from the issue, this isn't a matter of "how do I win a tournament" but "how do we balance VTES"

I still believe that the "no acting" clause of Pentex is the real problem, while shutting down a blocker is fine. losing a strong blocker sucks, but the same result is possible by Seduction or Block Fails, so it's still fair. On the other hand, losing a good portion of your acting power on your own turn completely ruins the game for bigcap decks, and they have fewer actions to begin with! from what's pretty much an unblockable Sensory Deprivation. and then they get fewer actions to attempt to remove Pentex as well. it's completely stacked against them, yet barely even irritates a weenie deck. the weenie decks still have a huge advantage here.

Minion Tap needed to be un-nerfed to allow players to even build bigcap decks. now Pentex needs to be nerfed to give them a competitive chance.

For some reason people seem to not bring up the fact that anyone at a table can burn Pentex as well, not just the player who had their minion Pentex'd. Conservatively I'd say I see Pentex burned by a cross-table ally at least half the time. Only the most staunch wall deck can defend the card from several players.

Pagan wrote:

Giving +1 stealth to remove it won't change anything. Wall deck will still defend it, aggressive decks will still oust you the turn its played.

So a wall deck protecting one of its resources is a bad thing for the game?

Removing Pentex from the game is nothing but bad for it as we should remove all cards that result in players being ousted then and spend 2 hours discarding Eyes of the Dead every turn as we all get .5VPs.

I think the +1 stealth option doesn't give that much to it that it's worth retexting the card. Errata is always bad, even if it has to be done. People don't like if a card does something else than written on it.

I'd rather have something like: "can not be played if the target vampires controler has no other vampire in his ready region". Most big cap decks won't give a damn since they have either tons of stealth, block denial, Grandballs or unblockable stuff to get rid of it if they have a second vampire to do it.

Please note that I never suggested to ban Pentex. I just wouldn't drop a single tear.

Bell wrote:

For some reason people seem to not bring up the fact that anyone at a table can burn Pentex as well, not just the player who had their minion Pentex'd. Conservatively I'd say I see Pentex burned by a cross-table ally at least half the time. Only the most staunch wall deck can defend the card from several players.

Around here Pentex is rarely burned cross-table because people don't have those kinds of actions to spare, or the vampire that's Pentexed is so scary they prefer the situation as is. Believe me when my assault-gun wielding Assamite got Pentexed twice in a game, no one offered to remove Pentex.

The minion who's Pentexed should at least have the right to try to remove it himself, so the Methuselah who played it has to deal with that vampire's stealth or combat. If a Big Brother corporation has closed my accounts, shut down my phone, and placed goons outside my haven, I should have a chance to get out myself, either by sneaking or fighting the goons. I imagine removing Pentex to be similar to the plot of the Sandra Bullock movie The Net.

From a source material perspective, I can see how the Pentex Corporation could paralyze the minion so much he can neither continue with his normal activities nor help protect his master, but I don't see how it could completely take away his ability to act.