Pentex Subversion poll and discussion

Like it or not, pentex is needed in vtes.

It is needed to get through that Lazverinus with eternal vigilance, bowl and abbot your prey just set up.

It is needed to lock that Enkidu behind you for a turn , so you can go forward a little...

the whole table needs it when that turbo decks starts to loop its cycle.

As harsh, and powerfull, and universally available it is, it is actually , IMHO, essential for table balance, and overall game balance.

That is how i see it, of course, your mileage may vary...

Maybe putting a counter each turn and burning the subversion at 3/5 counter ?

It would be enough to lunge your prey to death or win you some turns, but it would not shutdown completely a star deck - while still being a silver bullet for it.

Whenever I give just one example I now right away that people willjust argue about that one example and limit discussion down to it.

So some more stuff to say about Pentex:

1. In like ~80% of the times I see a Pentex played that just means the guy playing it gets a vp and saves tons of resources.

2. Many, many times a late game Pentex = Game Win. Firts dude to draw Pentex wins.

3. With many decks, not only the 11 cap ones, a Pentex on your first vampire will just cipple your deck and game so much that it is often hard to recover.

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.

Actually I am not a fan of changing card texts at all. Best would be to leave the Pentex alone and just agree to with your playgroup that you stop playing with it in casuals.

But I wouldn't drop a single tear if it got banned though.

Ankha wrote:

Why aren't you (Mephistopheles) aware that playing a super-star deck is dangerous? You say "there is a problem with the card". I think it's more "I have a problem with the card".
Well, of course, you know it, and since you like to play super-star decks, you'd like any threat on this kind of deck to be removed. I don't think it's a good reason.

Sad to see this same old ad hominem again :/ It detracts from the actual meat of your argument, to which I respond that super-star decks should have a weakness but Pentex in it's current form is a terrible implementation. The pro-active super-star decks have enough weaknesses as it is.

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.