Rewording of Parity Shift & Pentex Subversion

Pentex Subversion w/ pre-2019 cardtext.

Inside the announcement of the contents of the upcoming VTES 25th anniversary set, is the information “hidden”, that both the card text of Parity Shift and Pentex Subversion is changed! Big news indeed, since both cards have quite powerful effects and are therefore staple cards in many decks. Unfortunately the announcement does not contain the exact new card text, but only the general information about what the change is about.

The card changes according to the announcement are:

• Parity Shift does no longer takes a variable amount pool (1-5) from the target of the vote, but rather a fixed amount of pool, namely 3 (three) pool regardless of the number of players at the table. This makes the card considerably weaker in early to mid-game.
• Pentex Subversion no longer prevents a vampire from being able to block and act, but rather only prevents a vampire from blocking actions.

Both changes have quite considerable impact for future (tournament) deck building, but I think that these changes are reasonable considering that a single Pentex Subversion could shut down certain decks completely, and early Parity Shifts a huge pool swing of ten pool towards the player playing the Parity Shift. Both cards are still viable for both casual and tournament deck buildings in my humble opinion.Alongside with these two changes are three other card changes that have a lesser impact on (most) tournament deck building:

• Una‘s special ability has changed, so that only Fortitude combat cards cost her one less blood. (This is basically the death of Una Freakshow decks!)
• The cost reduction provided by Ankara Citadel no longer applies to action modifiers.
• The Black Metamorphosis action now has +1 stealth.

Some explanation about these card changes and the reasoning behind it are given in the announcement by Black Chantry (see link above).

Rules Team Rulings — RTR 19/07/2018

The VEKN continues its course of cleaning up and clarifying existing VTES rules. The latest result are the new Rules Team Rulings of July 18th 2018. The RTR 19/07/18 consists of three parts, that is

• Rule change #1: Cold iron vulnerability is removed, weapons with cold iron vulnerability now cause aggravated damage to Kiasyd.
• Rule change #2: The scarce penalty is now based only on the number of scarce vampires of the same clan already in play you control.
• Rule clarification: Locking the blocking minion and entering combat happen simultaneously and are identified as the “block resolution”.

There are also some card text changes implied by these changes which are also listed in the RTR.

You can read the full text of the RTR down below as well as in the Black Chantry website. The discussion on VEKN.net of these changes are in the corresponding Rules Team Rulings – RTR 19/07/2018 thread.

Rules Team Rulings — RTR 11/05/2018

A bit surprisingly after the recent Rules Team Rulings of March 3rd, 2018, another RTR has been released on May 11th, 2018 (along with preview of the Gargoyles card for the Lost Kindred expansion). In fact, the RTR 11/05/18 contains of three parts, that is

• Rule change #1: Anarch is a sect.
• Rule change #2: Hunt
• Rule change #3: Limited effects

While the last two are merely clarifications/cleanup of existing effects, the first change is certainly the one with the biggest impact. Being Anarch is no longer a trait (like Black Hand), but Anarch is now a sect like Camarilla or Sabbat. In the past, belonging to the Independent sect was a prerequisite, now Anarchs and Independent are strictly separated, because a vampire can only belong to one sect at a given time.

You can read the full text of the RTR down below as well as in the VEKN.net forum (with the accompanying discussion).

Rules Team Rulings — RTR 03/03/2018

Two weeks ago the Rules Director of the VEKN (Ankha) as posted the latest Rules Team Rulings which contains some updates to the VTES rules. In fact the RTR 03/03/18 contains of three parts, that is

• Rule change #1: Timing during the Influence phase
• Rule change #2: Recruiting allies
• Rule change #3: Caitiff as a clan

You can read the full text down below as well as in the VEKN.net forum (with the accompanying discussion).

Preview of the VTES Anthology Set

Today the VEKN has started (the albeit short) preview of the upcoming VTES Anthology set. The expansion consists mostly of reprints of existing cards, but has a few new cards as well (10 new crypt cards and 2 new library cards). The set will be released on May 11th, 2017 on the occasion of the World Of Darkness Berlin convention alongside with the VTES European Championship 2017.

With the expansion, two significant changes come along, mostly (I think) because WotC is no longer involved in VTES, and their intellectual property had to be respected. First of all, the backside of the cards will change, because the “Deckmaster” logo/text had to be dropped. This will typically require the players to play with sleeved decks during tournaments when using decks with different cardbacks.

Also the keywords tap/untap were dropped, and they have been replaced by the keywords lock/unlock, while the function remains the same.

Check the preview page on VEKN net of the Anthology set.

Rules Team Rulings — RTR 07/07/2016

Really big news today, the VEKN has released a new Rules Team Ruling, which basically allows the proxy cards in VTES tournaments. There are few caveats, but right now proxies are .. legal for tournament play.

Dear everyone,
As you’ve probably heard today, we have some news from Paradox.

Tournament Rules Change
After several years of suggestion from players, discussion, debating amongst the NCs and Inner Circle, we have submitted a rule change to Paradox, and we are happy to report their support on the following points :

“As long as the game is not under production, the organizer of an event can choose to allow proxy cards in his or her event. For events where proxy cards are allowed, several points apply:

– there are no limit to the number of proxy cards a deck can have
– every proxy card must be a color-copy of the original card, on standard paper
– the quality of the print must allow the reading of the illustrator’s name
– the organizer must mark the event as ‘allowing proxy cards’ on the VEKN calendar”
As for VEKN-issued cards, proxy-cards would have to be inserted in an opaque sleeve (along the rest of the crypt and/or library), before a regular VTES card.

This change in the Tournament Rules will not apply to National Championships and Continental Championships.

This RTR will be effective for events created for August 6th 2016 and later (this includes events held on August 6th, 2016).

As we just received their answer, the implementation of the checkbox on the Event Module Creation isn’t fully complete, and we kindly ask for your patience before creating Proxy-allowing events (it shouldn’t take long).

Did you know, that … (Part 134)

.. when you’re playing Shattering Crescendo, you already need the second copy of Shattering Crescendo in your hand and you cannot rely on drawing a second copy of the card as replacement for the initial Shattering Crescendo? The reason is, that you need to be able to pay the “cost” of the card when announcing the action. This comparable to not being able to play an action card that costs two blood when you only have one and/or having the weapon in your hand when you’re playing Concealed Weapon.

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Reference: [LSJ 2010-08-02]