Pentex Subversion Poll #2 and Discussion

If you're worried about your IC getting Pentexed, don't play one.
Maybe there's a reason putting 1/3 of your pool into one guy is considered a risk.

I could just as easily rush and aggropoke your 11 pool into the ash heap.

2 midcaps with any kind of stealth makes Pentex Subversion a waste of 2 pool. Plus, a Pentexed vamp can still cast votes, still reduce bleeds and still bounce.

I'm more worried about your 11 cap bleeding at stealth for 10 every turn.

Pentex is prevalent because it reduces variability. Playing a Pentex negates a minion from blocking which, if it doesn't have Dominate or Auspex, means that bleed actions will go through if you can bypass the other minions.

It seems to be rarely used to lock down a rush combat deck and usually used by:
1) Bleed decks lunging at a wall
2) Wall decks lunging
3) People trying to shut down a Star Deck.

I do think that its effect is too strong and maybe it should be either that you can't act or you can't block. People seem to use it more to prevent blocking than acting, so if any editing was made I'd be tempted to make it prevent blocks and actions other than the action to remove the Pentex. That way the minion can potentially do some useful things for you without totally nerfing Pentex. Yes, it won't stop a Vote Deck.

Ankha wrote:

johannes wrote: I wanted to stress the fact that I am not worried at all about the hoser effect of Pentex. I am worried about the fact that it seems to dominate a lot of metas. Any thoughts about that?

If it dominates a lot of metas, it means a lot of meta are dominated by high cap vampires and/or star vampires (because Pentex is mostly effective against those minions).
Removing Pentex would only strenghten that kind of decks in that case.

It wouldn't strengthen those kinds of decks, it would make them equal with all the other decks that don't have easy hosers.

Some decks have easy and readily available hosers, and some do not. I like playing high-cap bruise and bleed from time to time, but Pentex radically cuts down on the number of viable decks. Putting 3 Pentexes in your deck in anticipation is just so tedious. And remember, having 3 in your deck as protection tech does NOT guarantee that you'll draw it at any point in the game! I guess the answer is to only use the decks and cards that can't be easily hosed. Let's see, where did I put those Kiasyds?