Open letter to Black Chantry Productions

To cut a long story short and say how I see the answers to your selfquestions:

Will the new contest rule shift the meta - Yes, because with the new rule, we will see only those same TWDs and nothing else, even in a casual play. Very bad thing for the game.

Will its create a huge negative consequences - Yes, see above. Also, seeing two or more same vamps on the table will be painfully boring in casual games.

Will it help new players - No, old players usually introduce new ones one by one. And old players rarely play preconstructed decks. If there are 4-5 new players, they are usually friends and they will all buy different decks, probably the whole one new set.

Will it improve player experience - No, The old players are already experienced, and they love the game as it is. To new players, the new rule means nothing, they are new and they don't even know about the old rule.

Is it good from mechanical point of view - No, it will only create new problems.

Is it good for VTES "rpg" feel - No.

I can see that you are reading a bit too much between the lines. I literally say in the text, that the best decks are always part of the meta. Also looking at TWDA results and saying there is no meta shifts is not totally valid.

I don't know about other areas, as I mainly play in Finland, besides the yearly ECs. From what I've seen, there is definitely a meta game that shifts occasionally in VTES. Lets look at the situation where the game was in my area during years 2017-2018. Meta here was dominated by ally decks, and the whole thing culminated in the release of Emerald Legionnaires. Obviously the deck was dominating the meta during that time, but this is totally normal, as new things enter the game, they are usually more heavily represented than they are going to be when the meta adjusts, but you have to realize that Allies were dominating the meta even before that, in the form of Nephandus decks. This lead to a situation where decks started to prepare to face allies, and started to play more ways of dealing with them. Like playing a lot of Entrancements or other effects that steal or negate allies. During this period, a huge influx of of Animalism decks emerged into the tournament scene, mainly lead by the decks build around Nana Buruku, with heavy Anarch modules. This lead to a meta shifting towards combat decks, which lead into Animalism kind of dropping out of the meta, because it doesn't really handle other combat decks that well. Also decks like Unnamed and different variations of Girls archetype started to become more prominent part of the meta, because of cards like Unleash Hell's Fury being very effective in defending against combat and the MMPA Strategy being extremely resilient.

However, there was always decks that could win, and won tournaments, that were not considered part of the "meta" or didn't really follow the general direction of other decks. And what comes to the star vampire decks, I think they will always be heavily represented, as from what I see and hear, they are kind of an "fan favourite" type of decks.

On the game being an Rock Paper Scissors game, that is something I agree on, and something I even said on the text. Although maybe a bit confusingly, I just said that the game doesn't feel too Rock Paper Scissors, but I didn't mean that the game isn't just that. It's just not as set in stone as in some other games, where the competitive options are way more limited. Having played a lot of games competitively, there are games like "Warmachines and Hordes" and "Guildball" that I quit because they were too much of Rock Paper Scissors, which made the games very heavy and straining to play in tournaments. Obviously those games are not card games at all, but it doesn't make it less true, that the games felt super boring and repetitive, because you could only play "the Rock, the Paper or the Scissors". Something that is not as apparent in V:TES.

Saying that contest rules don't affect competitive choices is both true and not true. It is true that it doesn't affect the power level of decks at all. What it does affect, is the choice that you are making when deciding what to play in a tournament. Which indirectly affects the meta game, and the "power level" of some decks. I honestly think that Unnamed based bleed decks are probably the best, or one of the best decks in the game at the moment. But you won't see half of the tournament scene playing those decks, because of the current contest rules. Which is a good thing for the game.

I understand the problems with new player experience, and problems with limited collections. I have been there myself, and I play in area where there is many new players. The situation is not easy one to solve, but it will get better, once there is more products to choose from, and it is totally OK to play with some house rules that make it easier for new players to learn the game. Although I do agree on that the contesting of crypt cards might need some tuning, as I said in the text. But as I said, I don't think that this is the right time for it yet.

Will the new contest rule shift the meta - Yes, because with the new rule, we will see only those same TWDs and nothing else, even in a casual play. Very bad thing for the game

As i said, we already do. 80 % of the decks are the same at core(in their archetype) and already most of the decks are based on TWDA only because it exists.

Also as i wrote contest is non existent in casual games if you have only means to avoid it. Because people will switch decks only to not do it. Issue is if you dont have the means to do it or its a turnament and you have no choice

Will its create a huge negative consequences - Yes, see above. Also, seeing two or more same vamps on the table will be painfully boring in casual games.

No it want be, it will allow player to play the game the way he what to it's not boring at all. It's like saying that playing the same archetype is boring,

Will it help new players - No, old players usually introduce new ones one by one. And old players rarely play preconstructed decks. If there are 4-5 new players, they are usually friends and they will all buy different decks, probably the whole one new set.

And what happen if two of this guys play one clan.

Will it improve player experience - No, The old players are already experienced, and they love the game as it is. To new players, the new rule means nothing, they are new and they don't even know about the old rule.

What lack of knowledge has to do with player experience. They will enjoy games more its has nothing to do with the rule history

Is it good from mechanical point of view - No, it will only create new problems.

ye it creates a problem that pepole can play thier decks as intended and don't have to play a cripple game because of random factor. /s

Tadori wrote:

Contest doesn't prevent from playing the "best" decks look what happened when legionners were released. TWDA is flooded with this deck in this time period.

Your example with legionnaires is actually a very good example. The explosion of decks with legionnaires happened precisely because the legionnaires are not unique. Virtually anyone could play them, regardless of the crypt.

Tadori wrote:

The best example is a first blood introduction for new players we made in our community, we had to remove contest rule to be even able to show the game to new players. People tend to forget that new players have a very limited resource to play with.

It is house rules, and it's ok. It is not necessary to implement this in tournament environments. In casual play, old players are very aware that new players have a limited pool of cards.

Tadori wrote:

And what happen if two of this guys play one clan.

This can go to infinity, so I'll stop here. But I have to ask you. When you play Risk! casualy, and you want to play with, say, red pieces, and your friend also wants red pieces. What are you going to do? Will you both play with the red pieces in the same game or will you agree on something else? For example, that he or you play the next game with red pieces. We're talking about casual game, remember.

Color of pcs does not impact the gameplay and contest dose so your argument is invalid

And we are talking about contes rule that finally will impact tournament play.