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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489496
Today:
Memory Wipe
Palor Toff - Alien Trader

If you don't want to reload the original post, here's today's additions:

[Evt] Memory Wipe

The errata team summed this up nicely when it was banned just a few months ago:
Memory Wipe ban notice wrote:This card, when played in multiple, can lock an opponent out of all but a few space missions. Cards like Parallax Arguers and Obsession can exacerbate this effect. As the card only seems to be used in such a manner, it is a good candidate for removal.
The proximate cause for banning Memory Wipe now was a bunch of high-level players petitioning for the ban prior to this year's major summer events. This was because a number of players had figured out decks which used Obsession + Memory Wipes to achieve some very tough lockouts, and the belief (which seemed credible) was that the majors would end up being dominated by those decks (or by decks which specifically tech'd against them).

I suggested that, since this was still just theorycraft (albeit clever theorycraft), it should be tested after the fact to see if the card really needed to stay banned. To my knowledge, that hasn't happened, but Playtesting has been totally swamped by the (very large) Project G'Kar file all summer and fall, so it's understandable.

Interestingly, I believe Memory Wipe is the only card to get banned twice. It was also banned in September 2010. This was the official reason:
This card is used in a lockout deck where a player’s cards all become [NA], preventing that player from solving his or her missions.
...so, basically the same reason as why it was banned in 2019. (The post nominating Memory Wipe for a ban simply said, "Are they [Memory Wipe and Subspace Schism] still plaguing your tournaments? Mine are.")

There was also an internal notion at the time that Memory Wipe should be banned because it was targeted by a [Ref] card, Intruder Alert!. However, this seems to have been a misguided argument, and did not factor into the final decision. (The story there is complicated; Wambundu explains it here.)

Either way, though, the original ban didn't stick; it was unbanned just over a year later, in November 2011. Whoever made the decision to unban it didn't talk about it on the forums, though! I can find literally zero discussion of unbanning Memory Wipe prior to the announcement, so I don't know why it was unbanned the first time.

[Int] Palor Toff - Alien Trader

As MSD wrote in 2011: "This card has proven too strong as it acts as a wild card for any card in your discard pile." This is a big part of the story, and we can see that it's always been considered overpowered from the fact that Decipher released three separate counters to it over several years (Countermanda, Kivas Fajo, and 47th Rule... and I thought there was one more, hm).

But the other big part of the story was that Palor Toff was an absolutely key part of The Holy Hexany. The very first thing on most internal versions of the ban list was every single card involved in hexany.

One interesting thing I noticed is that there have been a ton of fairly simple, reasonable suggestions for fixing Palor Toff over the years: limit to once each turn, limit to twice per game, limit to non-Interrupts, play in place of a card draw, add a 0 point box, add a -5 box box, make it play on your turn then add a "draw no cards this turn" restriction, and a few other options. Of course, all ban list cards have some fix suggestions out there, but I was struck by the sheer number of fix suggestions I combed through while trying to find why it was banned.

Until next time!
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European OP Coordinator
 - European OP Coordinator
 -  
#489559
It's still my opinion that the problem with Memory Wipe is only in combination with Obsession. Memory Wipe by itself could be nasty and annoying BUT you Need your Card Play for that.

With Obsession you can Play it for free AND Play two of them easily every round.

Obsession needs errata, not Memory Wipe. The Event free Play part of Obsession is clearly designed to make your own ships stronger against Self Controlling ships and not to use it as an offensive strategy against opponent's ships. Just add "for free on your ship", and we'll be fine...
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489566
i agree. banning memory wipe instead of obsession was both laziness and irresponsibility on the part of the designers and the ban team.

laziness: treating the symptom and not the root cause
irresponsibility: not owning up to the fact that there newest card was not fully tested and was the problem, instead blaming it on the older card that had worked just fine for nearly a decade.

its a dirty hack and doesnt fix the actual problem, just the current most obvious manifestatino of the problem.

the errata to obsession is really simple, really obvious, and keeps the theme of the card. its a travesty that it hasnt been done yet.
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489575
<historian hat off / opinionated player hat on>

As I said back at the time Memory Wipe was banned: when a new problematic interaction is found, you shouldn't automatically ban the newest card in the interaction. The goal of a ban should always be to stabilize the environment while having the least possible effect on it. Banning Obsession would wipe out a huge number of interactions and deeply compromise a key new decktype. Banning Memory Wipe affected a tiny handful of lockout decks that arguably shouldn't be in the game anyway. (The 1E Department of September 2010 thought they shouldn't; the 1E Department of November 2011 thought they should.) Even though Obsession was "to blame" (because it pushed Memory Wipe's power level higher than it should have been), banning Memory Wipe rather than Obsession was the right call.

Of course, I would love to see more cards come off the ban list, including Memory Wipe. It seems to me very likely that Obsession will ultimately get the errata that will allow Memory Wipe to come back into the game. (Just because Wipe is banned doesn't mean it has to be the card that gets errata; see also Tox Uthat.) The reason this hasn't happened is that there haven't been enough testers working on Errata. As I've mentioned above, Project G'Kar was huge and occupied 100% of testers' limited time pretty much going back to June of this year. It's only started to ease up in the past couple of weeks.

Errata has no shortage of ideas for how to fix cards. But it can't release fixes -- even seemingly obvious ones -- until multiple testing teams have validated them.

So this is my monthly exhortation: if you want to get more cards off the banlist, you can do it in three easy steps: (1) join playtesting, (2) prioritize errata testing over new-release testing, and (3) explain your test data to Errata in the playtesting forum.

Tomorrow, back to historian-mode.
User avatar
 
By Orbin (James Monsebroten)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#489580
Re: Memory Wipe and Obsession.

I was the lead designer on The Cage and I have no issues admitting that the interaction of Obsession as it is currently worded and Memory Wipe did not get adequate testing.

I can say that we had every intention to allow Obsession to work with cards like Warp Core Breach and Baryon Buildup on your opponent's ships. The first version of the card that was presented to testers in our Version A file only allowed you to play events for free during a space battle, and this stayed that way until Version E when it was changed to allow you to play an event for free during your play card phase. Those two versions would have interacted with Memory Wipe in a much different way.

During the release of The Cage the community found the interaction and we had to make a decision on what to do. We recommended banning Memory Wipe instead of Obsession and instead of issuing an change to obsession; this move was not a widely applauded.

If you are passionate that this is the wrong move and about changing it, I would suggest that you raise a question in the POR for the Director of First Edition asking about it. This doesn't guarantee that a change is going to happen, but it seems like a good place to re-initiate the conversation.

One last thing, our testers to a lot of good work, but even then it's possible to miss things. The more people we have verifying things in the design phase the less likely we are to miss negative interactions. I encourage anyone who has time and willingness to playtest to sign up!

- James M
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489588
BCSWowbagger wrote: As I said back at the time Memory Wipe was banned: when a new problematic interaction is found, you shouldn't automatically ban the newest card in the interaction.
you do if the newest card in the interaction was just released.
The goal of a ban should always be to stabilize the environment while having the least possible effect on it.
the introduction of obsession was what destabilized the environment. or arguably no environment is stable right after the release of a new set due to the introduction of new cards anyhow, so the safest way to see if stability will return to a equilibrium is to remove the new offendor that is preventing it.
Banning Obsession would wipe out a huge number of interactions and deeply compromise a key new decktype.
key word there is new. also the huge number of interactions are all new interactions, arguably not proven to be stable anyhow, so putting them on ice temporarily isn't that bad anyhow.
Banning Memory Wipe affected a tiny handful of lockout decks that arguably shouldn't be in the game anyway. (The 1E Department of September 2010 thought they shouldn't; the 1E Department of November 2011 thought they should.)
well if your going to use that math then also the 1e department of december 2011 thought they should and the 1e department of january 2012 thought they should and the 1e department of february 2012 thought they should and the 1e dpeartment of march 2012 thought they should and you get the point.

seven and a half years of stability and departmental consensus is a lot to throw out.
The reason this hasn't happened is that there haven't been enough testers working on Errata. As I've mentioned above, Project G'Kar was huge and occupied 100% of testers' limited time pretty much going back to June of this year.
and thats why i mention irresponsibility. when i was a kid i learned not to start new projects until i finished cleaning up the mess from my last project, otherwise nothing ever gets cleaned up.

as this thread shows, there are multiple cards that probably have easy fixes or dont even need fixing anymore, but the designers like moving on and playing with new toys instead of fixing the old toys or the toys they never quite finished.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489589
orbin, interesing that you want the events to play on opponents ships as part of intention.

i wonder if limiting each free play to one per card title would work, kind of like the vulcan spaceline pollution cards?
User avatar
 
By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#489619
Orbin wrote:Re: Memory Wipe and Obsession.

I was the lead designer on The Cage and I have no issues admitting that the interaction of Obsession as it is currently worded and Memory Wipe did not get adequate testing.

I can say that we had every intention to allow Obsession to work with cards like Warp Core Breach and Baryon Buildup on your opponent's ships. The first version of the card that was presented to testers in our Version A file only allowed you to play events for free during a space battle, and this stayed that way until Version E when it was changed to allow you to play an event for free during your play card phase. Those two versions would have interacted with Memory Wipe in a much different way.

During the release of The Cage the community found the interaction and we had to make a decision on what to do. We recommended banning Memory Wipe instead of Obsession and instead of issuing an change to obsession; this move was not a widely applauded.

If you are passionate that this is the wrong move and about changing it, I would suggest that you raise a question in the POR for the Director of First Edition asking about it. This doesn't guarantee that a change is going to happen, but it seems like a good place to re-initiate the conversation.

One last thing, our testers to a lot of good work, but even then it's possible to miss things. The more people we have verifying things in the design phase the less likely we are to miss negative interactions. I encourage anyone who has time and willingness to playtest to sign up!

- James M
I'll also chime in here.

I DID do testing for Memory Wipe + Obsession? Why? Because I had previously had tested Memory Wipe in my deck for a Masters event earlier in the year. It has some weaknesses and I wondered if Obsession would change that.

To date the issue is ONLY theory craft. It is very simple to 'reset' your away team by moving away the ship that has been targeted OR beaming aboard a different ship. Solo ship decks would be hurt but then again when aren't they hurt by aggressive decks?

I never brought it up during Playtesting because it was a non issue and I ask if anyone has a deck that can actually abuse this combo to please step forward with a deck list and I will personally run it through my playtesting group and see how it fairs.
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489620
^ At first blush, I think that once-per-game-per-card-title idea has real merit. And it's not one that I've heard before.

I gotta build a deck today, so won't be able to do much work on this thread. In the meantime, please enjoy this really good article Iron Prime sent me on a related subject: the anatomy of the Transformers TCG banlist.
User avatar
 
By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#489621
BCSWowbagger wrote:^ At first blush, I think that once-per-game-per-card-title idea has real merit. And it's not one that I've heard before.

I gotta build a deck today, so won't be able to do much work on this thread. In the meantime, please enjoy this really good article Iron Prime sent me on a related subject: the anatomy of the Transformers TCG banlist.
Love Transformers TCG :). Now if only WOTC would put more muscle behind it...
User avatar
First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489877
Today:

Persistent Individuality
Q's Planet
Quantum Incursions
Raise the Stakes
[Evt] Persistent Individuality

In March 2019, a new version of the Organized Play Guide was circulated to me for revisions, because Kris knows I love revising rules documents. (It's a weakness!) There are dozens, maybe hundreds of changes, major and minor. One thing I noticed was that the paragraph about promo cards had been revised:
Promo cards distributed by the Continuing Committee in prize kits are legal for play as soon as they have been won. This includes White-Border Preview cards (those bearing a “P” rarity) that have not yet been released in a virtual expansion.
At the time, the only 1E white-border preview card in the wild was Centurion Kirk, and there were no more in the pipeline, to my knowledge. (I had seen Persistent Individuality but had not been informed it was a WB Preview.) I verbally confirmed with Kris that this seemed okay to me as long as white-border preview cards continued to be low-powered personnel who didn't work very well outside their chosen factions. Kris agreed. He wasn't aware of Persistent Individuality, either. He circulated the information about WB previews to various departments, including 1E and Shipping.

Charlie was aware of Persistent Individuality and the WB change but didn't connect the dots. I know somebody else in 1E was aware of both things, but I'm not sure whether he didn't connect the dots or if he thought it was a good idea.

So the updated OPG goes up in late March as planned, with changes to white-border playability across all games. This is not much noticed, because there are lots of other changes in the OPG and very few players read updated rules documents anyway. A few months after that, Persistent Individuality goes out in promo packs. This isn't a low-powered personnel tied to a specific more-or-less unplayable faction; it's a pretty strong anti-Borg dilemma that a ton of decks would like to get their hands on.

I don't actually have any idea when PI reached players and became technically legal, but Dan Hamman teased it in September, sparking concerns about unknowable and inaccessible cards in the environment. A thread started shortly after on the topic. The idea of legal WB previews was controversial, with supporters and opponents, but the idea of a strong anti-Borg dilemma existing as a legal WB preview nobody else could was quite unpopular.

At the infamous September Board Meeting, where nobody could hear each other and the recording was lost, P.I. was on the agenda, but I don't know that it was discussed. The minutes for October mention it obliquely, and I didn't find much about it in the recording -- seemed like the decision had already been made.

My impression is that the 1E Department wanted Organized Play to change the white-border preview rule back to what it was in order to "fix" P.I.. Organized Play, however, tries to do only annual updates of the OPG, and, like, hey, y'all had plenty of warning and signed off on this and we're not going to change the whole OPG for three games because of one card you could just ban. So, come November, 1E finally pulled the trigger and banned the card to get it out of the environment. Centurion Kirk, the other WB preview, remains legal.

It's not clear right now what the future will be on the overall issue. In the meeting, 1E reported that they may limit future WB previews to more restricted personnel, and OP signaled that it will reconsider whether to revert this change next April, during the OPG's regular pre-regionals update window.

But the future of Persistent Individuality is very clear: it will remained banned until it is released as a regular black-border card in a real set, and then it will be released without changes. It's kind of a pseudo-ban, because it seems nobody expected it to be legal right now anyway. It could be released tomorrow; it could be released in five years. But Errata and Playtesting aren't looking at it and won't need to sign off on changes, which is good news for PI. It's banned strictly for accessibility reasons, not power-level reasons.

[P] Q's Planet - Not much on this one. Q's Planet was considered disruptive enough that Decipher pseudo-banned it with Strategema. It went onto the banlist without much discussion, as did every other card named on Strategema.

I... wasn't really around back in the day, as I've noted before, so I don't know what the deal was with Q's Planet. To my eyes now, it looks so obviously broken that I can't believe there weren't more counters against it much earlier, but... I dunno! Hopefully Rachmaninoff (or somebody else) will write another post explaining the history here.

[Door] Quantum Incursions - I actually can't explain this better than Charlie did the day it was banned. Read his article. (Then read the thread linked to the article if you want even more.)

It was controversial: a public poll shortly before the ban showed and exact 50/50 split in the community (with 58 votes!) between banning and keeping it. The split within the 1E department was nearly identical.

But, as that poll showed, even half of the people who wanted to keep QI agreed it needed changes, and the 1E Department had tried and failed for over two years (by that point) to come up with workable changes that would make most people happy. So it's banned until Errata comes up with a better idea than any ideas Design had.

[Evt] Raise The Stakes - This is banned because all cards named in the "Special Cards" section of the Premiere Rulebook are banned.

Nah, just kidding. This is the only card that is banned in both OTF and Open. It is the only card Decipher banned. It's banned for the same reason Magic The Gathering's ante mechanic is banned: first, players had strong reactions to the possibility that they would lose some of their very valuable cards just for losing; second, ante mechanics arguably (in the opinion of Decipher and Wizards of the Coast lawyers, anyway) count as gambling, creating all manner of legal hassles for players, venues, and manufacturers. Is that true? I suspect so, but it never really mattered, because DECIPHER thought it was true, and they're the ones who counted.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489901
i think qs planet is a neat mechanism to get an artifact, which is an especially in an environment where artifacts arent used anymore.

i guess i dont really see the issue with it.
User avatar
 
By Orbin (James Monsebroten)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#489903
Discovery rox wrote:i think qs planet is a neat mechanism to get an artifact, which is an especially in an environment where artifacts arent used anymore.

i guess i dont really see the issue with it.
I believe in OTF if I play Q's Planet you can't attempt it. So I could play a point loss strategy on you and Q's Planet (with no intention to solve it) to make you need an additional 40 points on top of all the point loss. Yes I would need an additional 40 points, but I can easily plan for that.

- James M
User avatar
European OP Coordinator
 - European OP Coordinator
 -  
#489904
Orbin wrote:
One last thing, our testers to a lot of good work, but even then it's possible to miss things. The more people we have verifying things in the design phase the less likely we are to miss negative interactions. I encourage anyone who has time and willingness to playtest to sign up!

- James M
Already told this in another Topic: I've already volunteered several times for playtesting BOTH Editions (being ignored, no idea why), now I'm in the 2E playtesting Group and still love to be in the 1E Group as well - just sign me up...
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