Cards Bans 2016 (Anthelios, the red star, Seeds of corruption,Temptation of Greater Power)

I agree that it would be nice to have somebody from the Rules team post a little about why each card was banned (it would be interesting!). But I'm a little confused about your position.

I take it that the card you are most upset by is Anthelios. So, may I ask - do you think that decks like "Girls will find xyz" or Anson star vampire are appropriately balanced? If so, then I understand why you think that banning or issuing errata on any cards in said decks to be unnecessary. If you do think that decks that use multiple master phases are stronger than they should be, what is you proposed solution? The only suggestion I've seen from you has been to add a rule to the rule book that says you may have a maximum of 4 master phase actions in a turn. Do you really think that it is wise to add yet another rule in the rulebook that can be found no where on the cards themselves? And do you think that such a restriction actually helps to decrease the power of these types of decks?

I'm honestly asking here - I'm just not sure what your ideal scenario is. Thanks for your passion for the game!

Sorry Mauro, but once the decision to ban comes down it is not time for a vote. If you are playing in tournaments you have to accept the decisions and move on. Complaining? Sure, that's what forums are for, just don't expect anything to change after cards get banned. Frankly there are many other cards that could/should be banned. The two of the three cards that were banned seem to have the following characteristics:

1) they are not necessary to any type of deck, but they compliment some decks well

2) They do something not easily duplicated

3) The cards have really swingy effects when they go off.

Temptation of Greater Power:
1) have parity shift? Justicars? Why not steal a dude and/or set yourself up for a vp?
2&3) Hostile takeover is the closest substitute and the highest capacity vampire you can steal is a 6. That's pretty strong, but stealing a freshly minted Arika is game breaking.

Anthelios:
1) Playing multiple masters in a turn is good, but getting to recycle them into your hand makes cards like wash and sudden nearly worthless in that situation.
2) No other single master card has this effect. Ashur tablets do when you collect all three, but that isn't a constant effect. Banning Anthelios actually helps balance Ashur Tablets by removing a complimentary effect.
3) See 1, 2

Seeds of Corruption:
This card, while strong in some occasions (i.e. remove prey's IC title and +2 bleed), it causes problems with the rules. What is a "special ability"? As a judge I don't want to be called over any time this card gets played to make my own judgement. "Do I lose my -1 strength vs malkavians?" "Can older toreador still change my votes?" "Do combat cards still cost me an additional blood?" I'm sure this is why Seeds was banned.

So the answer to whinning is more whinning. I'll leave this thread as it is not seeking grown-up conversation in the matter. Good luck and such.

For what it's worth (arguably, not much ), I think these bans were a good move.

ToGP: this card is just overpowered, and can totally swing the game balance in one go. You lose a vampire (usually, an important one) and someone else (usually, your prey/predator) gets control of it. That's "game over, man!" in many situations.

Anthelios: here I'll just quite Pascal, from another thread:

"Anthelios, The Red Star : This card uses a mechanism that also exists with other cards. Ashur's Tablets, Sudario Refraction, Gear Up, .. also allow recursion. To answer what was asked several times : no, there is absolutely no plan on changing or banning any of these.
The motivation for the Anthelios ban is triple :
a/ Anthelios is a non-interactive card. You can't block someone using Anthelios - which you can do with all other recursion cards : there is the Ashur's "race", you can block Sudario Refraction or any action that triggers this mechanism.
b/ (and this is double) When also using Parthenon / Anson / Cybele / Huitzilopochtli (/ ..), Anthelios becomes a free tutor for an immediate Master card. By "free" I mean that it costs no pool to use it, and it costs no card to use it (as in : your decksize remains the same). And by "immediate", I mean that the master card you've just fetched is very likely the one you'll be playing as your next master phase action, usually during the same master phase.
Now, should any of these points (realistic ways of burning events, cost to swap the cards, or usage during another phase) be changed in the future, I will gladly welcome back Anthelios in the game."

You can still use other forms of recursion (Ashurs, for example) in "Girls" decks, but you won't get immediate, no-risk infinite recursion. This is good.

Seeds: this was apparently done because of rules problems, not power level: the "loses special abilities" portion was undefined in meaning and the cause of infinite tournament judge headaches (and also, new questions every time a new set is released). Apparently the current Rules Team is not font of card text rewrites, so a ban here is reasonable. I would maybe personally have preferred a rewrite (just get rid of the "loses special abilities" part, maybe make it a normal action that you could put on anyone), but that's not my call.

No, not everyone will agree with the above. One local player already threw a temper tantrum over the bans. But you cannot go by who screams loudest -- it doesn't work when raising children, and it doesn't work here

In Portuguese the word for "card" and "letter" are the same: "carta".
Hence my colleague's confusion.

By the way, in Portugal these bans are also being questioned.
There must be many communities like ours that either have new players or old players that stayed cocooned in the 20th century, thus lack the experience to understand why ToGP needed to be banned, many, many years after its release.

I don't think explaining will be very useful because people will just complain about the reasons explained.
However, I think it was a BIG mistake to release the new expansion at the same time as the bans.
It deviates attention from the super awesome work people did and undermines the interest and discussion about it.