Errata vs. Banning

While VTES is out of print, if the card needs Errata, then in my opinion it deserves to be banned. Being unplayable in its current form is the base problem, so we can create 'mystery rules' or we can remove the card from tournaments and add it back in when we can print an updated version.

Comparison of effects banning/errata on tournament environment:

Banning
1) A printed card is no longer legal for play.

Errata
1) A printed card is no longer legal for play.
2) A proxy card is allowed.
3) New text that is not on any card is required knowledge for all players in the game, as the players in the game can't simply read the card to find the answer.

I am of the opinion that there aren't any cards that need adjustment at this time.

Lost_Heretic wrote:

Wholesale banning like in Magic is pretty awful.

No one is talking about wholesale banning swaths of cards. And I realize that people who are opposed to banning always fall back on the "Slippery Slope" argument ("But if you ban Pentex, what is to stop you from banning Villein? And then Deflection? And then we'll only have Tortured Confessions to play with!"), but really, removing a few cards from the environment now and then tend to help things. Not a lot of cards. A couple. That are wildly over the power curve.

Off hand, the only two cards that exist at this point in that game that, for my money, could use banning are:

1) Pentex Subversion. For reasons that have been expounded upon at length elsewhere (the short version is that Pentex Subversion single handedly makes playing a huge swath of decks completely futile in competitive play--if you are considering playing either a superstar deck or a tooled up minion deck at a tournament? Just don't bother. Pentex will end your game.)

2) Parity Shift. The most powerful vote in the game. But a huge margin. And singlehandedly makes trying to build a Sabbat vote deck generally futile and pointless. And hasn't been reprinted for a really, really long time, and is too powerful and utilitarian a card to be that hard for newish players to not have access to it.

That's it. You ban those two at this point, and the game becomes, for my money, a lot more fun and varied. But that's me.

Adonai wrote:

I am of the opinion that there aren't any cards that need adjustment at this time.

Yep, that is my opinion too.

bakija wrote:

Lost_Heretic wrote:

Wholesale banning like in Magic is pretty awful.

No one is talking about wholesale banning swaths of cards. And I realize that people who are opposed to banning always fall back on the "Slippery Slope" argument ("But if you ban Pentex, what is to stop you from banning Villein? And then Deflection? And then we'll only have Tortured Confessions to play with!"), but really, removing a few cards from the environment now and then tend to help things. Not a lot of cards. A couple. That are wildly over the power curve.

Off hand, the only two cards that exist at this point in that game that, for my money, could use banning are:

1) Pentex Subversion. For reasons that have been expounded upon at length elsewhere (the short version is that Pentex Subversion single handedly makes playing a huge swath of decks completely futile in competitive play--if you are considering playing either a superstar deck or a tooled up minion deck at a tournament? Just don't bother. Pentex will end your game.)

2) Parity Shift. The most powerful vote in the game. But a huge margin. And singlehandedly makes trying to build a Sabbat vote deck generally futile and pointless. And hasn't been reprinted for a really, really long time, and is too powerful and utilitarian a card to be that hard for newish players to not have access to it.

That's it. You ban those two at this point, and the game becomes, for my money, a lot more fun and varied. But that's me.

I Don't Agree.
Well, that me playing my dear Malkavian Antitribu Deck:
Cross-table play a Pentex on my Kite..
Me "-How dare you, I'll bleed you to death"

Cross-table call Parity Shift on me..
Me "-How dare you, I'll kindred spirit you to death and gain my pool back"

If you want to call Magic's rotation system massive bannings, I guess no one can stop you, but it's not particularly accurate and not terribly relevant to CCGs such as this one that don't support set-restricted formats.

Here is a link for Magic's banned lists, btw, Magic Banned Lists .

Sure, block constructed has banned cards, unlike Standard and Extended. Sure, like V:TES, Vintage bans ante cards, and then goes crazy with the bannings by banning a card that creates subgames (and that can be used to create infinite subgames) and a card that requires throwing a card into the air. Legacy is a format defined by cards being banned that are restricted in Vintage.

Anyway, not that I see much point in reiterating these sorts of comments since they get ignored all the time, but errata and banning are both tools that can be used to improve games. To think that CCGs, some of the most complex competitive games in existence are somehow lacking in flaws is a view I can't comprehend. The reality is that most of the cards for a given CCG at a given time are essentially banned from competitive play due to being obviously inferior to other cards. Sure, can always play a card as a joke, but a deck gets strictly better by not playing the card. In V:TES, this isn't as important since the multiplayer nature serves to mitigate strength and weakness, especially in V:TES unlike, say, Babylon 5, a CCG where there was no requirement to interact with opponents.

Banning a card may, for all intents and purposes, "unban" a lot more cards that weren't worth playing because of the banned card. That's probably a good thing.

Is it desirable that cards exist that can't be played? Nope. Is it desirable to have to remember that the text on a card isn't how the card plays? Nope.

It's also not desirable to have cards that so warp the play environment that too many strategies are nonviable. What is too many? Judgment call.

It's also not desirable for a CCG to have an unfun environment. What is an unfun environment? Judgment call. How do CCG managers make these judgment calls? Player feedback. Hopefully, good feedback, not the tirades that a tiny minority of people make on forums that most players pay no attention to.

Want to argue that no such thing as an unfun environment exists in CCGs? I'm sure thousands more would dispute such a belief. Want to argue no such thing exists in V:TES? Well, I can see that argument being a lot easier. I would argue that there are plenty of unfun things about V:TES at this moment, from Imbued to Events to the increased hoser mentality to ubiquity of far too many cards printed in the game's earliest days, but YMMV.

Yes, a CCG, especially a multiplayer one can deal with cards that are too powerful, cards that cripple strategies, cards that do incredibly stupid things. Metagaming is prevalent. That doesn't mean the game is more fun because such cards exist. Note that we are only talking about tournament play. People who play in tournaments should be aware of banned lists, restricted lists, and card errata. Sure, tournament players will typically adapt their casual games to tournament rules, but they don't actually have to if they don't want.