Two questions that recently came up

I have a sort-of-related question: How does this timming work with Sonja Blue. I remember there was a deck based on the technicality of "vampires who contest don't enter play so
second Sonja Blue is not removed". Perhaps it's not even the same case but I always wondered about what was the secuence in that case.

Many thanks in advance

Here is actual ruling:

When contesting Sonja Blue, the new copy provides 4 pool (for being played), then the old copy is removed from the game (for leaving play to be contested, by its own card text), and the new copy remains face down, out-of-play (it hasn't yet been in play), ready to be turned face up during her next untap phase, when the contest is won

Sonja Blue

Independent: Gain 4 pool when Sonja is moved to the ready region in your influence phase. Sonja may remove a vampire's title as a action. She may block as an ally (but remains a vampire in combat). During your prey's discard phase, your predator may burn 1 pool to move Sonja to his or her ready region. If Sonja leaves play, remove her from the game.

Ankha wrote:

This would be a replacement effect, but "instead of playing X, you may do Y" are very odd with the current system.

Can you elaborate how would it be odd and in what context?
Replacement effects are in my opinion a good way of doing things since its usually easy to figure out intuitively what is happening. Its either this or that. People are not left wondering which comes first. The question whether or not anarch convert would contest when coming into play before you are allowed to use its ability still occasionally comes up in our weekly games. And these are experienced players that forget the ruling because VTES simply has way too many rules to keep track of, and the card wordings themselves are not very intuitive.

I think there is bit too much emphasis in the rules for creating an ordered sequence of events. There are many situations where it isn't really necessary and will just create obtuse card wordings or confusing situations. Complexity that doesn't add to gameplay depth should be avoided, as has been a topic of discussion in the past.

Here I want to note the relative similarity of wordings
"as X enters play" and
"as the card is played"
It is very difficult for a beginner to tell what is the difference between these without referring to the rulebook(without looking I bet it isn't clarified there because lol rulebook). These kind of wordings or at the very least the artificial difference between them should be avoided in my opinion. We want a game where players can look at the cards and intuitively play them in the correct way with only a shallow understanding of the basic rules.

Also, I have to remind you that changing "When this minion enters play" to "Instead of playing this minions" would change other effects that trigger "after a minion enters play", for instance, Hackerspace.

If we were to follow other game's wording, when should be uses as an "Interruption" for the entering in play: the minion enters, but quickly dissappears by an effect. After should be used for a reacton for the entering in play: the minon has entered, and is still in play, therefore I can react to it by gaining a counter on my hackerspace. By following this, the current wording of Anarch Convert wouldn't interact with Hackerspace. But, at the same time, having 2 different wordings playing in the same time doesn't make any sense: either when is before after, or we use the same wording for both. The same problem arouses with the "As X enter play", because "As" and "When" are interchangeable here, although it makes sense to use "As" if we are setting for a concrete wording.

Now, if we were to set "As" as the wording to go here, we have to answer two questions:
1º Do "After X happens" resolves at the same time that "As X happens"?
2º Do "After X happens" resolves even if a "As X happens" changed X status, making it contradict the "After X happens"?

If the answer to the first question is yes, we have a problem, as it is confusing.
If the answer to the second question is yes, it can be a little confusing as it doesn't serve much purpose except for certain timing purposes (like on the actual Anarch Convert + Hackerspace interaction), so it could be one of those things that "just are that way".

IMO, I think that there should be 2 different timings, As and After, with As happening at the same time that the trigger, and not stopping other As effects for triggering even if the condition changed; with After happening after all the As have been resolved, and being affected by them (probably stopping it from triggering); After should all happening simmultaneously and not affecting each other triggers (if effect X gains 1 pool after Y(playing a minion), and effect Z burns the minion after Y, effect Z doesn't stops effect X from giving you 1 pool); and finally, Contesting is an "After" effect, it is forced, but as it doesn't affect either "As" nor "After" resolving before or during its window, it could be considered that is resolved at the end of the "After" window.

This means that "As the Anarch Convert" enter play, it hits the ground, triggering all the As, then dissapears by its own trigger, stopping any "After" effect, including the contesting and the hackerspace.

The casual understanding of this is "I played the Anarch Convert, so as it enter play I do X. Does it contest another anarch convert? No, because contest is after playing the anarch, and the anarch is no more".

Just my two cent.