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Contesting Changes That Didn't Happen

It's been more than 18-months since Black Chantry Productions attempted to test a rule change for vampire contesting.  Given that my NDA has expired regarding that test and we have a new format in open playtest, I wondered if it was time to talk about resurrecting the potential change. Proposed Change This text is from the rules test and not my invention.  The highlight section is the proposed change: At any time during this phase, if a vampire has at least as many blood counters as their capacity, you can move that vampire face up to the ready region, unlocked. The counters are kept on them to represent their blood.  Counters in excess of his capacity drain off immediately as usual. If the vampire grants additional transfers, those cannot be used on this turn because transfers are gained at the start of the influence phase. If the vampire would contest, you may choose to remove it from the game instead of moving it to the ready region and distribute the pool on it among ...
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A New Kind of Draft

It's always fun to crack open some packs and make something on the spot, but we have no more booster packs.  Enter the new Draft Kit.  Rumors of this magical draft cube have been floating around for a while and my friend Serge talked about it on his blog .  Black Chantry Productions is still in the final stages of testing and tweaking the Draft Kit, so this is a preview.  Also, note that as contents could change, cards and draft effects that I talk about may differ from the final Draft Kit. Montreal Cup Weekend Draft The North American Cup weekend in Montreal featured the Cup event on Saturday and a draft event on Sunday.  The attendance for the Cup event was great, but as we had a lot of travelers, only 9 folks returned for the draft on the following day.  That's actually plenty, as we had 2 tables each round, plus the final.  However, it did mean that we were drafting 8 packs each, which is quite a lot.  This was ...
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Customizing LackeyCCG

A lot of us use LackeyCCG to play Vampire: The Eternal Struggle online.  One of the most important things you can do to make the games run more smoothly is to customize your settings to improve your keyboard shortcuts.  In this quick post, I'll go over the keyboard shortcuts that I use and you can configure your Lackey to your own liking. Keyboard Preferences I'm sure most of you know that Lackey has keyboard preferences, but if not, they are available on the Preferences tab and the Key Bindings subtab. Lackey comes preconfigured with a variety of Key Bindings preset, but I don't actually like the default configuration.  I have eliminated several bindings and replaced many others.  If you'd like to update a key binding, simply put your cursor in the appropriate box and press whatever key combination you'd like to set it to.  Lackey will record that and display it as the selected key binding Avoid using Key Bindings that d...
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Thoughts on the 2024 Tournament Season Updates

BCP recently announced errata and changes for this years tournament rules to coincide with the Ravnos, Salubri, and Tzimisce starter release date.  The new cards and the changes will be tournament legal on February 2, 2024. The Errata We knew this was coming as Black Chantry announced that there would be an announcement.  I even stirred up some controversy by posting some changes I'd like to see now that these have been settled.  That being said, here's my initial thoughts regarding these changes. Ashur Tablets As much I would have preferred BCP to ban Ashur Tablets, this is the errata that I expected them to settle on.  I had considered this approach several years ago before BCP began testing changes.  It seems to be a solid middle ground that guts MMPA decks without necessarily gutting other decks that use Tablets.  The Ashur race is now much more of a race.  Gone are the days of 18+ Tablets decks.  I expect ...
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My Watchlist

We know the BCP has a watchlist for cards that are under review for banning/nerfing.  With the upcoming changes to Ashur Tablets and Emerald Legionnaires announced, but not detailed, I thought I take a few minutes to talk about some cards that I feel are problematic in the game.  I'll forego any talk about the upcoming changes. (I don't know what they are and any more talk about those cards at this point is just tilting at windmills.) My Watchlist This probably isn't my full list, but it's what is on my top of mind right now, which means they're important enough to remember that I have problems with them and important enough to think about what we need to do about it. Veil of Darkness A card that Black Chantry must be concerned about because it wasn't even reprinted in Echoes of Gehenna. The effect is powerful, a permanent chance to cancel cards.  There may be some problem with the effect, which is never going to be applied evenly.  Some decks run more Master ca...
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How Variants Improve Skill: Applying What We've Learned

Well, that was a lot of decklists and a lot of minutiae. So, we're going to take a step back and review deck variants from a higher level. Some Basic Tenets for Variants Honestly, most of these apply to building decks from scratch too. 1. Understand what the original deck is doing. It may be obvious, but you can't play the original or hope to create a workable variant without first understanding how the deck works.  How does it intend to oust?  How does it intend to survive being ousted? Breaking down the deck into categories, similar to the way I broke down the variant comparisons will help you gain this understanding if you're struggling to sort it out.  Notice how some decks have polyvalent cards and how those cards end up in different categories.  That provides flexibility at play time. 2. Understand how you want to alter the original deck. There are many possible ways to create deck variants.  Switching groupings, changin...
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