Toreador Grand Ball/Mask of 1000 Faces

Squidalot wrote:

Easier to just remove Mark from the game.

Removing a card from Tournament play doesn't mean it can't be clarified.

I'll come up with an answer before Tuesday.

you've seen the clarification on return to innocence right?

While it might not be easy/possible to clarify the card for it ruleswise, I think that the 2nd minion should be able to use all effect (such as TGB) the 1st minion did.

Would be way clearer to play the card as you'd only need to remember to check if the 2nd minion was able to play everything the 1st one did. Not "needs to be able to play disciplines and then the 2nd one can weasel its way around the ability to play A and B, but not C or D..."

You might be able to find some kind of reasonable way to write the card if "effects" that come were associated were assigned action modifier or reactions designations.

For example:

Pentex(TM) Loves You! card text

: You may tap this card and choose a Sabbat vampire. Once during the current action, the chosen vampire may burn 1 blood to get +1 bleed.

or Greta Kirchner card text:

: Once each action, if Greta is ready and you are being bled by an ally or a younger vampire, Greta may burn a blood to reduce the bleed amount by one.

Instead of fumbling around and talking about effects, an undefined term, every effect would have a designation belonging to a card-type. You could just talk about action modifiers and reactions in the text of Mo1KF, and it would include "effects" from cards in play, like those I mentioned above.

My suggestion for a re-write:

Only usable by a ready, untapped vampire other than the acting minion. Untap the acting minion and tap this vampire instead. This vampire is now the acting minion. Any action modifiers played by the previous acting minion or minions during this action are applied to this vampire instead. Any reactions or effects that have targeted the previous acting minion or minions during this action are applied to this vampire instead. Not playable by a vampire who does not meet the requirements of the action and any previously played action modifiers.
As above, with +1 stealth.

This rewrite is saying that the vampire has to meet the requirements for the action chosen and the action modifiers played. "Meeting a requirement" is defined in the rulebook. It's also saying that any reactions or "effects" stay in place, regardless of whether the new vampire would have been a legal target (such as the Sabbat requirement for Pentex Loves You or the age requirement for Greta Kirchner). This might elicit some abuses, but it simplifies matters since you can objectively check for a requirement, but there is no game definition for "could have been used".

From a source perspective this makes sense: the previous acting minion was the new vampire acting under a disguise. The vampire couldn't use abilities it didn't have, but outside forces "saw" the vampire as the illusion and thus targeted it accordingly with regards to reactions or in-game card effects.

My wording specifically addresses a problem the original card text has: the original text tacitly attributes action modifiers and effects (apparently including reactions) to the action, not the vampire. But actions don't have stealth or bleed - minions do. "+1 stealth action" is a shorthand.

The card is probably not going to get rewritten, but I suggest that "capable of performing the action" mean "meets the requirements of the action" and that the action not have come from the inherent text of a minion or card on a minion. I suggest that "any action modifiers or other effects have been used that could not have been used if this vampire were the acting vampire" mean "meets the requirement" of any played action modifiers and the previous acting minion not have used any of the cards on him or her, like equipment.

Kushiel wrote:

Ankha wrote:

Could you list the conflicting rulings so that they can be corrected (if needed)? I'm not aware of them.

The conflicting rulings I referred to are old LSJ rulings from the newsgroup - no way to change them.

But here's the one that I found, from 2008, in which LSJ explicitly says that you can't Mask a the action of a vampire who's acting unblockably under a TGB. Interestingly, given Floppy citing Nakhthorheb, LSJ also explicitly says that you can't mask Nakhthorheb if he's using his ability to be unblockable.

groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/vtes-rules/conversations/messages/283

REVERSAL : I am reversing the ruling you mention here.

If a vampire chosen to be unblockable during non-bleed actions declares an action, another vampire controlled by the same Methuselah can play Mask of a Thousand Faces (after the "As announced" step, and before the resolution of the action).

As long as we can't produce new cards, the VEKN has decided not to update cardtexts (unless extreme necessity is noticed).