Interesting, just to play devil's advocate, you should let your deckbuilding be dictated by some vague public consensus?

Kennon said:

Yes, more than the lack of public consensus. Many books have told how the public consensus is right much of the time - is it the cause or the effect who knows, but doesn't matter.

It isn't rotation or taking out 20% of the card pool. You have to choose a new plot maybe, look at a couple of cards differently, and maybe take out your restricted card. Everyone is on the same footing as well. If your excuse for not doing well at GenCon is that…well, good luck getting any sympathy

I normally object to last minute changes, but some of these feel a longtime in the making, and none are exactly out from left field. More importantly, they will hopefully add some unpredictability to an environment that was beginning to feel stagnant in some ways (even if more diverse than previous years).

I may have a contrary view, but I feel the changes reward deck builders, because they make some of the most popular "net decking" options less attractive or in some cases may render those builds obsolete.

The changes do penalize players who play tested in advance, but we're really just talking about those players who spent the extra time to play test with the the third chapter pack AND who now don't have time to play test the new changes. And players who were assuming the third pack would be legal were already incorporating some guesswork in the mix. (Everyone else has been playing with the "GenCon environment" for months, and I don't think it's accurate to call normal playing "play testing.") Given what I suspect is a relatively small group of people who are truly harmed vs. the benefits of not playing in an environment with fewer NPE effects (purely subjective, I realize), I think the decision to post the late FAQ was a good one.

Also, if you've been playtesting extensively you should still have an advantage being able to better asses how the FAQ affects the power level of various popular builds right now.

Hah. Ironically I was simply disagreeing on principle. I already have my next man up, and the next one, and the next one, and the next one… Hell even the Threat from the East change just effects timing of how I'm going to play it over taking it out of my deck. Negating draw by draw capping is similar to discarding random cards.

Curious that people prefer adaptability over diligence, though maybe that's the nature of a collectible card game. Obviously, though, in an adaptable system the diligence is on being able to properly evaluate cards and quickly identify the the superior cards.