Anthology set previews: April 3

Welcome to the first week of previews of the Anthology set! We'll take the opportunity each week to present you new cards as well as a few changes.

The set contains 48 crypt cards (including 10 new cards) and 52 library cards (including 2 new cards).

Eyes of Argus	Hamid Mansour	Laura Goldman

RULES UPDATE

First of all, in order to revive the game on a sound basis, White Wolf had to change two major features of VTES:

1/ Card backs changes
The back of the cards will no longer have the Deckmaster logo. We have already experienced this kind of change, first when the Jyhad logo was changed to V:TES, then when the card backs were printed upside-down in Third Edition.

The tournament rule 4.1 Cards Allowed has been changed accordingly (changes in red).
If cards with distinct backs are used in the same deck (e.g., Jyhad and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle cards, or upside-down 3rd Edition cards and right-side up cards, or mis-cut cards, or cards without the deckmaster logo) are used, in order to prevent a significant advantage, all cards from the different sets, printings, etc. must be of sufficiently mixed card type, unless they are all sleeved with opaque sleeves (recommended).


2/ Replacement of the tap/untap keywords by lock/unlock
The tap/untap keywords could no longer be used and had to be changed. It was a tough and very inconvenient decision, but a necessary one. All the Inner Circle board worked on propositions to replace those keywords, and the final decision was validated by White Wolf.
We had more than 20 options, but in the end we decided that their replacement had to meet the following criteria:

the words had to be regular verbs with a simple past form (like "tapped") and a continuous form (like "tapping")
the words had to be usable transitively (as in "tap this vampire") and intransitively (as in "this vampire taps")
the words had to be usable on minions and non-minions cards
the root word (replacing tap) should ideally be one-syllable long
the opposite word (replacing untap) should ideally be constructed with the un- prefix.

Many interesting proposal finally didn't make the cut (exhaust/refresh, twist/untwist, set/unset, bind/unbind), and a consensus was found with lock/unlock.

The rulebook as well as all card references has been updated this way.

New wording

Wake
Many reaction cards allow vampires to "play reaction cards and attempt to block even though locked until the current action is concluded."
These cards have a special place in the game as they are the only cards that can be played in the "as a card is played" window without that explicit wording (in order to play reaction cards that can be played legitimately in that window). These cards have always been referred to as "wake" cards by players. By adding the "wake" keyword, the effect will be easier to reference and to learn for new players (in order to mark the difference with a real "unlock" effect for instance). As a reminder, the description of the "wake" effect is left between parenthesis on cards such as Eyes of Argus.

Singular "they"
The card texts have often been cluttered with "he or she", "his or her", or "him or her" forms. As well as being inelegant, this reference to gender has nothing to do with game mechanics and doesn't fit the gender-fluid background of the World of Darkness.
Therefore it was decided to enforce the usage of the singular "they". Extra care will be taken during migration of the card texts to avoid any confusion between a plural "they" (that is almost never used in the current card texts) and a singular "they".
Singular "they" is very common in informal English; if you're not familiar with it, you can read some articles: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they

The reprint of Eyes of Argus uses this wording: "Only usable by a locked vampire. This vampire wakes (they can play reaction cards and attempt to block even though locked until the current action is concluded)."

"They" is referring to "This vampire" without any ambiguity.

CHECKLIST (without reprints)
Crypt

Clan
Aisha az-Zahra Toreador
Alabástrom Gargoyle
André the Manipulator Gangrel
Anne-Marie Bourgeois, Inconnu Recruiter Toreador
Apolonia Czarnecki Malkavian
Hamid Mansour Ventrue
Joseph Fischer Gangrel antitribu
Laura Goldman Brujah
Styles Margs Gangrel antitribu
Weirich Waldburg Ventrue

Library

Type
Line, The Master
Vivienne Géroux Ally


A full checklist is available here: www.worldofdarkness.berlin/vtes