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James' missive appears in this color.

Anything James is responding to appears in this color.

Any comments by me appear in this color.

Following is an edited version of what I thought was a very well-thought out response by James Coupe to a long ramble about how the more recent DCI rulings have crippled play of Jyhad.

If you want to block with Wakes etc. means that you want to block. Hence you will be getting into combat, so the other cards start affecting you, so use of Wakes can lead to use of other cards, or cycling. While using Wake with the new rules requires a sustained period of hand size reduction, in other cases, players:

• risk their vampires (to combat, Kiss of Ra and so forth)
• spend their pool (e.g. Direct Intervention)
• spend blood (e.g. Telepathic Misdirection)
• use (up) equipment (e.g. Grenade)
• tap a vampire
• tap a location
• play a card that may be more useful later
• ...and so forth....

All cards involve asking the players to do something. That's how the cards have costs, and what attempts to make them "balanced."

I would argue that Forced Awakening is probably the "balanced" card in this situation. You replace the card immediately but may end up having to burn one blood if you do not block, but you won't if you don't have any blood anyway (it's an effect, not a cost).

Wake, on the other hand, was replaced slightly later, most likely at the end of the action you were reacting to. It doesn't "cost" any blood, and you are not in any way encouraged to block by using it - you can Dread Gaze, Treachery, Telepathic Misdirection, Pull Strings or whatever. So Wake is much more versatile in that you are not encouraged to do anything specific with it. However, it doesn't encourage you to do anything at all. So it can just be chucked, unlike Forced Awakening which encourages you to block, and punishes you if you don't.

So, the thing is, Wake is more powerful than Forced Awakening. Nine times out of ten, I'll be going on what's already in my hand regarding how I'm going to go in combat anyway. Okay, if I play Forced Awakening, I might draw that Claw card I've been waiting for, but if I draw the Earth Control instead, I'm not getting any benefit anyway. So the difference there is much suppressed. I can only guarantee what's in my hand, and anything I might draw is only theoretically possible (unless you're in the position of knowing that you've only got X cards left, so it has to be that card).

So the fact that you don't replace Wake often doesn't turn out to be a great hindrance, IMHO and IME. So, it's current way of writing isn't working vis a vis Forced. So, now you have the decision - what to do.

When errata is issued, it is good if it is intuitive or easy to remember, great if both. Doing such things as providing extensive re- writes isn't usually a good idea, and the errata should generally be kept short. There are exceptions to this, because I don't feel that, short of banning, it was possible to limit, say, RtoI to a level where it was at a sensible power level without an extensive re-write.

But there is also a problem known colloquially as SLS - Seven Line Syndrome. The theory goes: "If a player sees a card with Seven Lines of text on it, they will often dismiss it as overly complicated and move on." It works for errata too. The errata for any given card should be, as far as is humanly possible, quick and easy, so that you can tell someone it in a moment, and not have to explain its nuances. Changing: "Do not replace until after combat" to "Do not replace until your next untap phase." To change something to a huge 9 line "Well, you can do it if you're using it "properly"" is a Bad Idea ^TM.

I do not agree with the assertion that the temporary reduction in hand size is all that restrictive. I have often played against people who don't like the DNR (Do Not Replace) type cards. I don't give two hoots about them really. If I am forced to rank paying blood, pool and hand size for a card, I would virtually always put hand size last. I've seen decks that really, really don't like losing hand size - the various incarnations of "Hey, hey, it's Marty Lechtansi", for instance, need large hand sizes (though in this case it is largely pro-active rather than re-active). But there are a lot of other decks out there which don't. The extent of their reacting tends to be a Deflection or a Telepathic Counter - with maybe a Wake, if they have to. An intercept deck which was drawing wakes (generic terms), intercept, combat and so forth would probably prefer a Forced to a WWEF, so they see more cards now (but only 1 more), so they have the choice.

Hand size is, for me, mainly a triviality. Yes, I need cards in my hand to have a clue what I'm going to be able to play, but I'm going to cycle through my cards and draw them into my hand anyway. Okay, so I have 6 instead of 7 - it doesn't stop me sifting through my other cards, it merely means that I see 6 rather than 7.

Of course, other people's priorities are their own. I don't value hand size highly. You may. I play WWEF. You may play Forced Awakening. Maybe someone is "right" and the other "wrong". We get to play different cards for subtly different effects, and if we get it "wrong," well, that's our own fault.

There is a school of thought, you may like to read rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad (try www.deja.com if nowhere else) that states that pro-active play is better for your health than reactionary blocking. It is not a standard to which I would necessarily totally adhere, but there are times when it is a good idea. For instance, against stealth bleed decks, why bother even attempting to block, giving them chance to cycle their stealth cards so they get to even more bleed cards? One of the oldest methods of defence against S&B has been "don't block". I get more mileage out of my actions, since I choose not to leave all my vampires untapped to block, and so get closer to my winning, and I clog up their hand. The same holds true, to some extent, to any deck relying around stealth, though S&B is the classic.

But regardless of the merits and flaws of such a school of thought, one cannot deny that such exists. If you are intent on stopping weenie hordes rampaging over you, and it's difficult to stop, without the "right" deck. So why try? It can be best to just go on the offensive yourself and let them come at you. The example deck you give has, you claim (I have never seen it in action, so cannot verify such), say, 6 or 7 vampires in 3 turns - first turn 2, say, second turn 2 more (initial crypt gone, but opportunity for 2 Effective Managements to have been played), third turn 2 more. That's six bleeds already. Fourth turn, total of 12 bleeds. Can you, in a mid range capacity deck, block that many? You may only have one or two vampires out. Will those Wakes be enough? Will you draw 12 Wakes in the first two turns? Come to think of it, have you even put 12 Wakes in your deck? The most seen tends to be around 8. The likelihood of all of those being in the top, say, 15 cards of your deck is slim.

There is no such thing as a certainty in Jyhad, because even if there was one "killer" deck, what happens if you contest it?

The fact is, different people play different ways and different styles. The errata is not there to only cater to one style, school of thought or whatever. It is there for all schools of thought. Some people have chosen to reject it - a move I feel is regrettable - but the errata is there to try and make everyone have the same playing field. Now, your playing field may be skewed away from the possible abuses available, or the alternatives available, but they are still open to you.

During the debate surrounding the changes made to RtoI et al, there were several cries of "But they're not broken! I've never seen anyone break them." The only needed answer to that is "But it is possible to break them."

Similarly, a cry of "But now I can't defend against weenie hordes with Wakes!" can be heard. Wake has been changed to bring it in-line, cost and effect wise, with other cards. The answer is "But you can still defend against weenie hordes."

Consider the change that was made to Animalism's Army of Rats to make it non-cumulative (as, we are led to believe, it was intended). You could have cried then, "But now I can't cause (any real) pool loss with Animalism." But you could still cause pool loss in other ways. The hideous cumulative Animalism decks faded away, but hideous pool destruction was still possible, and expanded upon (Anarch Revolt, my Auntie and so forth).

The change to wake doesn't stop you defending against weenie hordes. It does shift the focus away from 20 Wakes being an effective defence against weenie hordes, but it doesn't stop you defending against weenie hordes.

Every deck, as noted, has its own strengths and weaknesses. I cannot defend against everything, I cannot do everything. If I try, my deck falls over in a heap. It's how the game works, due to the constraints of the deck size (40-90 cards, or 60-90 in tournaments). I can choose to defend against, say, vote decks. I can choose to defend against combat. I can choose to defend against bleed. I can choose to limit pool gain opportunities. I can choose to stop all sorts of things. I can't do it all. Wake no longer allows you to effectively defend against weenie decks, perhaps (I am not sure if this is entirely true, but I will run with it as a "given"). You can still choose to defend against weenie decks. A few Anarchist Uprising votes in your vote deck will hurt them hard, for instance. A Dramatic Upheaval provides a formidable defence against them. I still have options to hurt weenie decks, I just don't have necessarily the same options.

The game was not irrevocably killed by limiting Animalism's pool destruction capabilities. The game has not been irrevocably killed by limiting Wake's capacity to stop weenie decks.

To play solely pro-actively is one way to play. It is a very successful way to play in the right circumstances, but it is not the only way to play. If you find that the change to Wake shifts your playing style, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Jyhad is not supposed to be a game based on three/four/five/whatever people sitting around just repeating the same tired old maneuvers. It is not supposed to be:
"Oh, Jon has brought his bleed deck."
"Oh, I've brought my Wake deck."
"Oh, he's brought a Corruption deck."
and then see how they interact, for the umpteenth time. It is supposed to be a game representing the Jyhad of the ancient Methuselah - the subtle plotting and scheming. If the change to Wake stops you regurgitating the same old way of getting round Weenie decks, it has done you a favour, albeit tacitly and possibly not one you like. If you get too set in your ways with deck styles, you lose. Take Rob Treasure's post in rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad. He is, in my opinion, one of the most formidable Jyhad players you will come across. Why? Because he innovates. He is talking about going back to the basics, and re-inventing decks from the ground up, a highly commendable move. He regularly plays decks that no-one else I know has thought of - the hideous Legacy of Pander deck was all his creation, and the Malkavian OOT deck was constructed by him without net access (hence that was also his own work, though it duplicated the work of other persons). Lazverinus's All Stars deck is evil and subtly crafted. His decks don't stay the same. They shift, they evolve, they meld into one another and out of one another. If your decks now have to do that, if only a little, it is a Good Thing.

Most of my deck building, for serious decks, goes like this:
1) How do I do my strategy? - bleed, vote, corrupt or whatever.
2) Which strategies do I need to defend against? Which do I feel will be common enough to turn up? Which do I feel would hurt me if they came up?
Point 1 is easy. Point 1 is your deck, essentially. Point 2 is more difficult and can, in part, be dealt with by use of reaction cards, though it does not need to be. But I have to consider what I want to stop. Do I want to stop bleed, combat or whatever? Do I want to stop anything? How do I want to do it?

A strong, fast combat deck doesn't need to include any reaction cards. How does it stop votes? Kill the vampires the turn they are influenced. How does it stop bleed? Kill the vampires the turn they are influenced. How does it stop...? etc. It doesn't use reactions but it still provides the flexibility to meet with both common and unknown threats.

But let us assume that I am now considering weenie horde as a viable deck style that I may well face. How do I stop it?

Well, combat can try and work as above. Votes have myriad options available to them - Domain Challenge, Kindred Restructure, Dramatic Upheaval, KRC, Con Agi and so forth will all work well to seriously affect a weenie horde deck. I can get out of the way, I can kill their pool etc. There are other options available too, though these cards work well because you can include them and they will work against many decks, rather than just weenie. Ancient Influence will work well against a weenie deck, but not if you're also playing a weenie deck, say. Political Flux will remove their incentive to get the first ousting, if they are not confident of getting every ousting on the table, but it may also affect how you do, so could be awkward for you then. A bleed deck can work on speed. I have three vampires out, you have six, say. But every one of my vampires is doing five in an action (Govern the Unaligned and Bonding and Computers and things) and you're only doing one. Net result, I oust people better than you do.

And you also have to consider the speed of your deck in 1 and 2. Is my deck fast? Is it going to take a while to set up any defence? Well, if that's the case, it might be worth considering throwing caution to the wind. I might not be able to defend against a weenie deck predator initially, but could do so later in the game. As with any deck style, success depends partially on the other decks on the table. A deck stuffed with enough Wakes to deal with massive weenie hordes will get absolutely hammered by a deck with other things in it - simply because it cannot act pro-actively.

Another problem with Wake With Evenings Freshness is that it was a "No brainer". I just include it in my decks, and if it comes up I use it, if it (i.e. an opportunity to play it usefully) doesn't, just chuck it.

And you could help initiate defensive combinations anyway, without Wake. Forced Awakening is just as good if all you want to do is block, if not better, since it does give you that slight advantage of the re-draw (something I do not highly prize, nor would rely on, but acknowledge is a slight advantage nonetheless). But just think - what am I going to defend against? Would Forced be an acceptable substitute to the Wakes I would have always used? If yes, go with it. If no, consider alternatives. There is no deck style that cannot be defended against in some manner, and there is no deck style that requires umpteen wakes to counter. Umpteen Wakes would have countered quite a few deck styles, by no means all, but it would have countered quite a few - it still counters some of those. But you can still counter those deck styles.

If you were using Wake against myriad strategies, and it was stopping many different deck styles, do you not consider that to be also a good reason for changing it? A lot of people don't like such cards as Sudden Reversal and Direct Intervention because they can "neuter" multiple deck styles. I do not feel them to be abusive myself, annoying as hell, but not abusive, due to their opportunity cost and the lack of frequency with which they can be played, but they mirror, in a manner of speaking, Wake.

If I play Surprise Influence in my deck, I can have my say in votes. If I play The Deadliest Sin, I can defend against diablerie. If I play Delaying Tactics, I can cancel votes. And so on. If you were finding that Wake could defend against many styles, that is also a case for change, since why should other cards be targeted against one strategy and Wake against many, with similar costs?

You, as a player, may not wish to see an action get through, and thus use Wake to defend against it. The resultant reduction in hand size reduces the chance of getting a useful combination of cards. But if this is a problem, why include Wake in your deck? If it's going to be a problem for your deck, don't include it. It's often not a problem in my decks, so I can. I don't suffer any ill effects - my last deck with 5 Wakes and no Forced Awakenings came 2nd with 7 victory points overall in Portsmouth last month (April/May '99) - because my deck style isn't influenced by the minor loss in hand size. If I were playing a block intensive reactionary combat deck, a Wake might be replaced with a Forced Awakening, seeing that the limitation on it would be almost meaningless.

If I play a deck where I'm going to react and not block (e.g. bounce, reduce, vote etc.) to include Forced Awakening is silly. If I do play a deck where I'm going to block, I will never have to worry about Forced Awakenings restriction, but the restriction is still there. If I play a deck where I'm not going to be bothered about a temporary loss in hand size, I will never have to worry about the Wake clause, yet it is still there.

It is a case of horses for causes. Wake is not the card it was in some cases, and is in others. Trying to push the newly chiselled octagonal brick (nipped and tucked at the corners version of the old square brick) through the old hole won't necessarily work. It will miss old things, and be capable of doing slightly different things - more restricted, possible entirely new things, depending on the change made.

You can still deal with weenie hordes, you just can't necessarily do so in the same way. ANY errata does this. A change to ANY card slightly alters my dependence on it because I can't use it in the "old" way. It doesn't mean I can't necessarily get round it, though. The re-write to RtoI (prior to banning), say, meant that I couldn't get round it with Archon Investigation, but I could still get round it - reduce and bounce etc., in new ways that I couldn't do before.

It is true that every deck has weak links, and now weenie decks have to have to account for a slightly different strategy to get round them. They may choose to include it (if it's feasible for their deck) or they may not. That's up to them. Options are still on the table. It's just up to them if they want to use them or not.

It seems senseless to oppose every errata because it changes the playing field Every single errata changes the playing field. Wake changes it now. If you acknowledge that one can still get round weenie decks, even though Wakes power versus such has been curtailed, so why the problem? Would you also argue for the removal of the "non- cumulative" cause from Army of Rats because it stops you building an Animalism pool destruction deck? You can still cause pool destruction though. The change to Wake stops you building a Wake based weenie hosing deck. You can still build weenie hosing decks, though. Where's the difference? No deck can defend against everything effectively, nor should it be able to.

The Predator-Prey dynamic does not solely exist to give direction to the table. If you have read the writings of Richard Garfield, you will know his aversion to games such as Diplomacy. When played properly, they can be subtle games of nip and tuck strategy. When played badly, they become ninnying surrounding "I'm not the threat, he's the threat." The use of the predator-prey dynamic restricts cross-table interaction, ganging up and "ninnying" to a large degree, and that is one of the fundamental points relating to it's creation. It does not solely give direction to the table, else why would the person behind you be able to block, say?

When the set direction of play is disrupted, different seats gain advantage. If you are lucky enough, skilful enough or just in the way when it happens, that's how it goes. I can create decks specifically to take advantage of seating - decks based around Dramatic Upheaval and moving yourself in the way of an impending death to execute it yourself have been long available.

Just because you don't play a specific deck style, you cannot just expect the Rules Team to be blind to it. The Rules Team has to be playgroup blind in that they cannot code for certain playgroups. They have to code for every playgroup. "For players who wish to incorporate a defence capability into their deck..." they still have the option to go round with Forced and 2nd Tradition etc. For other players, the changed Wake is available.

There are many different strategies available to avoid actions or opposing decks that may unduly affect yours. S&B can often just go hell for leather to oust its prey to get more pool so your bleeds don't affect it. Combat will often back rush to stop your doing anything to it. Political decks will move out of the way. All decks could block if they chose to, or Wake if they chose that.

Nor do they have to restrict themselves to that particular deck strategy. They still have Forced Awakening available, which has never had any hand-limiting possibilities at all, unlike Wake which has always had some. Leaving vampires untapped is always another option. Guard Dogs etc. is another, and a Cat's Guidance to untap at the end is possible. Say, I throw down one Wake to block you once with my tapped minion, and then I remain untapped with my vampires for the rest of your turn by using Cat's Guidance. Very possible, and quite neat.

Old wake worked one way. New wake works differently. Building the same deck with new wake will leave you with a different deck. If you expect a different deck to play the same, well, it just won't.

However, the new deck has an intrinsic defence combination capability built right into it. The "dwindling hand size" does not interfere with anything, because that was built right into the deck along with it. The change to Wake itself altered the defence combination capability of the deck, but since you're constructing a deck with the new Wake rules, you construct a deck which understands the implications of the dwindling hand size.

Old wake decks won't necessarily work due to the changes. The old "Army of Rats" deck won't necessarily work due to its changes. Things move on, though.

PDB6's Nosferatu rush deck is provided as an example of what is plainly obvious. Wake is not the be all and end all of stopping weenies. Combat can do it, vote can do it, blood gain can do it, Temptation can do it, Atonement can do it. You still have many deck styles left open to you. One no longer works. In any change, someone's fingers get burnt, but they can just brush it off, adapt and survive.

Newer copies are available within rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad and newer, updated versions get posted all the time. Searching at deja.com for pdb6@aol.com in r.g.t-c.jyhad will get you some, though he is a prolific poster. Other posters to search for are James Hamblin and Josh Duffin.

Older versions of his rush decks are available at Mark Langsdorf's page, in the Not the Jyhad Deck Archive, although the "weenie" decks now created are not shown so well there.

I would offer from the Clan Brujah newsletter this month (May/June '99), the following:

Crypt

1x Hasina Kesi
1x Lupo
1x Jacob Bragg
2x Dre
1x Hector Sosa
1x Agatha
2x Jimmy Dunn
1x Sela
1x Gaspare Giovanni
1x Anvil
12 vampires (average 3.75, worst 21)

Library

4x Potence
4x Haven Uncovered
4x Blood Doll
1x Fragment of the Book of Nod
1x The Barrens
12x Bum's Rush
2x Rampage
12x Immortal Grapple
10x Torn Signpost
10x Undead Strength
10x Pulled Fangs
9x Taste of Vitae
7x Flash
4x Blur
90 cards (14 master, 14 action, 62 combat)

It's not a Bakija deck, but it's very close, the idea being rush fast and rush hard. Message-ID: make this visible is its original incarnation.

I would also commend to you using Dejanews to search for the following Message-IDs:

Message-ID: <6v9hmh$ear$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Message-ID: <778ivg$pp$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>
Two Xian decks, very much in the weenie rush style.

Message-ID: <19990110154331.09767.00001490@ng126.aol.com> Slightly bigger

Message-ID: <79b036$76$1@news.NERO.NET> Jasper's Pro/Ani

Message-ID: <7ffseo$ocu$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>

All such decks provide fairly compact rush decks, which can often kill three vampires a turn, so it's not difficult to have a good go at weenie horde. And whilst they're dead, its predator comes in and kicks it. Bye bye weenie horde.

A brief overview of some other cards that mimic Forced Awakening and Wake With Evening's Freshness.

Metro Underground - Though it is unique and contestable, not every player is going to want to be to use a tapped vampire in such a way. Other people have defences not based around reactions.

Homunculus - The requirement of having protean, requires that you have to put some thought into a deck design. It happens.

Alexandra - Although expensive to influence into play, it only takes two turns with a Tomb, three without.

2nd Tradition - A DAMN good card, if you know the errata. The requirement of having a Prince is not a hindrance, since any deck wanting to use it would be designed around it. Of course, that requires you to play such a deck, but it provides yet another non-Wake option. It's proved in Portsmouth to be astoundingly effective at dealing with any form of action taking deck.

Animalism wakes (Rat's Warning and Guard Dogs, as well as Cat's Guidance) - These cards are disciplined and are more focused than Wake, which is disciplineless. Wake should have a hefty down side to make up for its flexibility when faced with these other cards which are more restricted.

Justine (Elder of Dallas) - The requirement that a deck be largely Tremere (or Malkavian) is again not a problem. If I build a Tremere deck, put her in it. It won't hurt you, most likely. It provides another way around it without requiring you to use Wakes. Hell, you could almost think that there were lots of ways around Weenie decks that didn't give two hoots about the change to Wake, meaning that Weenie defence is perfectly viable and only one card has had its effect changed.

Carrion Coffin - See Homunculus.

Atonement - If you're planning to do any serious blocking, Atonement is a good card to consider for the permanent intercept, the (D) action to get them coming at you, and the weenie hosing aspect of it.

Beyond that, you will often need to bring out more vampires. However, this should not be seen as "bleeding yourself," as the age old adage about a Flamethrower being a "bleed for four" works based on the fact that you get no use out of it, in most people's experience, since equipment, and especially expensive equipment, is often frowned upon as being ineffectual and over-costed.

Bringing out a vampire is not the same as being bled, in that sense. You bring out a vampire, you have something that you can use for many different purposes in order to fulfil your goals. Unlike the flamethrower, you can get some use out of them, if nothing else, a bleed for 1.

As well, blood lost from a vampire is readily apparent - you have to remove a counter from the blood stored on it (or however else you choose to represent it). If other people choose not to interpret the loss of blood on a vampire in an appropriate manner, that is their business.

Not every deck out there needs blood at all. They merely need the minions. One of the more effective forms of weenie bleed I've seen has no cards which cost a blood in it. The only use for blood, therefore, is in soaking up damage. The weenie obfuscate deck you note, Spying Mission, Night Moves and Computer Hacking, could conceivably need no blood either - just use free cards.

Of course, there are other decks that do need to spend a lot of blood. Ravnos decks, say, often need a lot of blood to pay for such things as Illusions of the Kindred, Horrid Reality and so forth. There, using Forced Awakening might be awkward (you may not have so much Animalism intercept available due to the necessity of Chimerstry), making Wake the lesser of two evils. They now have a readily available choice to make during deck construction. Unlike under xCL, especially 4CL, where you might be required to "max out" on both, with no choice in the matter if you wanted wake capability, you now have to make a considered choice. Wake and Forced are clearly separated by the disadvantages built into them which, as disciplineless cards allowing you to "break" the rules (one vampire doing the job of two - acting and then blocking), they need to have.

And that is a Good Thing. Up until the change to Wake, Wake had been a no brainer. It still can be in some respects - I get to your last action and just chuck a few - but if I ever intend to use Wake constructively (which, putting it in a deck, I would hope I did), it's unlikely to be so. If I do use it on a block, I have to carefully balance what I'm doing - are the cards in my hand sufficient for the block? Can I survive with them? Would having the redraw be better? Could I afford the blood of Forced Awakening if I couldn't block (or am I already on 0 blood so I will ignore the burn blood effect)?

There should be no card in the game such that you don't have to make any decisions on including it or playing it. Action cards have always had the inherent restriction that you can only play 1 of them per vampire (more with Freak Drive, but the point stands). Action modifiers too, can only be played 1 per named modifier per action. Master cards have 1 per phase restrictions. Equipment takes time and costs pool (in most instances) or is free, but one-shot or "weak." And so on. Reactions, too, have their built in restrictions. Taking merely disciplineless reactions:

• Delaying Tactics - Cancels a political action, but can only be played during a political action. Considerations when putting it in a deck revolve around the likelihood of competing against such a deck, and whether cancelling one or two votes is going to be enough to constitute a viable vote defence, depending on your environment. Inclusion of it in your deck can be scuppered by the lack of a vote environment, leading to slow discards.
• Elder Intervention - Of course, this also applies to Pack Tactics (same effect, but change of name for flavour considerations). It's a very powerful card, in its own way. It's +2 intercept for the cost of 1 blood and, as such, is one of the most powerful sources of intercept in the game. 2nd Tradition requires Princes, Enhanced Senses requires AUS and so on. But it's heavily restricted. It can only be used against bleed actions against you. Now, bleed is a very viable deck style, but it is not the only deck style, and weenie horde bleed is very viable where this card would be redundant. But if it gets sat next to a vote predator, a combat predator, a blood gain predator or whatever, the use of the card is scuppered.
• Political Backlash - A highly powerful card. One disciplineless reaction that can cause 2 pool loss. The cost of opportunity here, though, is high. Not only does a vote have to be called, the vote has to be lost AND it has to be by a Methuselah to whom you wish to cause a pool loss (doing such to an ally is probably a bad idea). If no-one plays votes, there's no point. If a vote lock is established, there's no point. It's only useful in highly untenable voting environments, where voting swings one way or the other on deals, diplomacy, new resources and so forth.
• Surprise Influence - A temporary prince for a vote. Again, you have the considerations regarding the utility of votes. With only 2 votes are you going to have enough say? Most vote decks can easily quash a pithy two votes, so what's the environment going to be like? Do most Methuselahs include enough votes that your extra 2 will be useless? Or are there a lot of Methuselahs including votes such that your 2 votes could be the "casting vote" (or "swing" vote)? Will there be any vote decks at all?
• Conflict of Interests - Again, votes. Is cancelling a vote of vampire going to be better than cancelling the vote outright (Delaying Tactics) or having your say too (Surprise Influence)? It could cancel the votes of Arika, but only if you're Ventrue. The clan requirement makes it highly unlikely that you're going to get much a go with it, since there are now 20-odd clans. And against a weenie Caitiff vote deck, it's never going to have any effect at all, them not being a clan, and hence completely unaffected by this card.
• Forced Awakening - The "other" Wake, and how, if I were designing V:TES from the ground up with hindsight, I would design a Wake card today - at least, more similar. Are you going to be sitting next to intercept? Well, this card is going to be mostly useless then. You can't block them, really, since they won't take many actions. If you attempt to just cycle it, it'll cost you a blood. Are you going to be sitting next to heavy stealth? You wouldn't want to cycle this card against Night Moves unless you had to. If you did, the price for cycling is the burning of the blood. You could chuck it against anybody's actions, but the burning of blood applies since you can't block their actions, most likely. Also, you can't use it to bounce or reduce without spending the blood, since it means you don't block. But if you can block, it means you can see that one extra card, which could be useful, though it is hard to guarantee it will be.
• OLD Wake - I can use it against any action, without any incentive to do anything. I can throw it against any action taken anywhere on the table, and redraw after that action is concluded. It doesn't matter what anyone else is doing really, if I find my Wake isn't useful, I can just chuck it anyway. Unlike Surprise Influence, say, it isn't scuppered by any other considerations. But consider that Surprise Influence takes up the same card resources as this, and requires an untapped vampire (a fairly hefty consideration) and can only be used against vote decks, and is very slow to cycle if not. OLD Wake requires a deck slot, a tapped vampire and can be used against any deck, and cycled if I can't play it as merrily as I please. There is no incentive to block, since there is no burn blood effect, or bounce or anything.
• NEW Wake - I can use it against any action, but I have an incentive to do something because it has a tangible cost to it - the loss of hand size. If I just start chucking Wakes around, my hand size becomes lower which could be an important consideration in my deck. It might not be (in which case Wake is fine) but if it is, I lose out. It's a simple errata to learn, too.

ANY card errata will do force players to change strategies based around the cards affected. Shall we go back and remove every card errata that stopped a particular trick working? Army of Rats is my favourite, because without it the card is abusive. But still, the errata forces players to use strategies that either use those disciplines, minions or masters.

But anyway, the change to Wake does not force anyone to do anything. You can still play Wake if you feel it is appropriate and useful in your deck, and for many people it still is (myself included). If I feel that Wake has been scuppered in such a way as to make it not useful for my deck, I still have the option of Forced Awakening, which doesn't require any change in disciplines, minions or masters.

And even if I do have to change to disciplines, minions or masters, that's what they're there for. The disciplineless cards are not supposed to be good all round cards. They are supposed to provide decks with a way of doing something simple that is otherwise the providence of a discipline (e.g. Computer Hacking is a replacement for Dominate bleed in a non-Dominate deck), but they are supposed to be vastly inferior to them. Disciplines are a vampire's power. A discipline should be able to do anything you want it to do far better than doing it yourself.

But let's go through the card errata anyway:

• Archon - Causes a vampire to lose blood, and not your pool. Now, of course, there are other ways to cause me to lose pool, but "they force players to use strategies that either use those disciplines, minions or masters." (There goes that sarcasm again...)
• Bloodhunt (action) - Cannot target an Inner Circle member. Now, of course, there are other ways to enter combat with an Inner Circle member, but they force players to use strategies that use different cards. (Hmm...)
• Blood Rage - Doesn't work for Fortitude, but Thaumaturgy instead. Now, there are other ways to hurt a vampire, but they force players to use strategies that either use those disciplines, minions or masters.
• Cardinal Sin: Failure of Mission - Requires an action to enter combat with them, meaning that I have to waste my actions when before I could just enter combat with them again and again.
• Dreams of the Sphinx - My hand size gets smaller at the end of the current turn, not at the end of my turn. Now, if I want a bigger hand I will have to use other masters (Elder Library), minion cards (Aura Reading) or vampires (Cassandra).
• Hidden Lurker - Is now an action modifier. I can't block it, as I could originally, meaning that I have to use other methods to get round it.

Get the idea? Any, and I mean any, card change will alter someone's deck somewhere.

Yet why not disagree with the changes to Return to Innocence as well? Let us look at some of the arguments put forward for Wake.

"It forces people to use other minions, master cards or disciplines." I can no longer do big disciplineless bleed (barring the Prince of Athens, which is a very specific case), so I have to use Dominate, say.

"Something I never classified as an abuse as it was open to everyone to perform." RtoI, by that logic, is not an abuse, since everyone could play it. I would not argue that RtoI was balanced, but the logic of "anyone could do it" would allow me to do so.

"Restricting hand size until your next turn untap is a big issue." Losing a vampire, even if only temporarily (the ousting gets you another vampire's cost), is a big issue.

Many of these arguments for leaving Wake unchanged can work for RtoI though. One must do a lot better than rehashing old arguments badly to change the Rules Teams' mind.

In related matters, Jyhad has never been about justifying the over-poweredness of a card simply by saying "Oooh, let's make it rare." The couple of times they tried such - RtoI, Tomb, Mind Rape - players reacted badly to it (mostly). Rarity is not a balance issue in Jyhad, it only makes you less likely to find the card in a booster.

And it does give Potence combat decks too powerful an edge. When people are putting 12 of them in a deck (sufficient to allow you to "guarantee" drawing one, whilst limiting the likelihood of hand jam is most players' experience of this number), old IG was too powerful. That's why it was changed. RtoI was changed because it gave other decks too powerful an edge, even though it was rare.

The change to Immortal Grapple affects more than just one clan. It impacts the Brujah, the Nosferatu, the Brujah Antitribu and the Nosferatu Antitribu.

Hardly any one clan. It also impacts anyone else using potence, which happens. Weenie mono-potence decks have been known. There is a potence-thaumaturgy deck currently doing the rounds (in an attempt to allow Thaumaturgy to have a go in the second round whilst not being S:CE-ed in the first round).

The change in IG does not detract from a clan, and it does not move towards imbalance. It moves towards balance for any player using potence from what was an unbalanced position.

Would you agree that Thoughts Betrayed is over-balanced in its original state? It cuts off access, for the entire combat, to the other players' ability to defend himself using transient cards. Only a very few things can save them.

IG worked in a similar way. Whilst it did not cut off all access to all cards, it effectively cut off access for the entire combat to any strike cards which weren't "Strike: strength +x" (strength being the currently used term for base hand damage). That's a fair few cards only in the first round - S:CE, Dodge, first round Thaumaturgy, (Flesh|Bone)craft, melee weapons, guns, potence pitch (gates, which can be used at close range too, unlike their friends the lids) and so on. So that's quite powerful anyway.

Now, if we go to a second round, there're even more cards we cut off, because it's automatically close range, with nothing I can do about it - Well-Aimed Cars, the Thamaturgy strikes again, and so on.

It really, really kills Thaumaturgy. Thaumaturgy has only recently had the ability to do anything remotely resembling maneuver, and neither Auspex nor Dominate were helpful in that respect. In the "grand scheme" for V:TES, it shouldn't have had to, because it should have been able to get to the second round and kill you then. It rarely got to the second round (even though it could dodge from Auspex's Read Intentions etc.) and even when it did, it was faced with stiff problems of still no strikes and close range.

Now, under the new IG, Thaumaturgy still faces a tough time. It can still be killed first round (as most decks are), but when it does survive, it has a much better chance of killing you back in the second round. Just ask Xian, the new IG positively helps his Thaumaturgy deck, because he combines it with potence to stop him having problems with S:CE in the first round, but it doesn't stop him using his thaumaturgy in the second round - a new, innovative deck style that is only playable as a result of the change, and one which I applaud and would not like to see killed as a result of allowing IG go back to how abusive it was before.

Search Dejanews if you need evidence of the necessity to change the card. The entire set of posts following the 6/23 and 7/7 changes (and all of the changes, really) were followed up with long debates. Some people felt that the changes were wrong simply because they were. I have yet to be convinced that Wake was ever balanced and didn't need a change. All I keep hearing is that it changes the deck styles needed to defend against certain other deck styles. I think that was kind of the point of the change.

Other people arguing in favour, such people as PDB6, Josh Duffin etc. who were playing heavily IG decks whose decks would have been most impacted by the change were vociferously in favour of the change, because they know what it can do.