Ok. So there are a bunch of threads posted about the new round of bannings and errata that were just handed down from on high. I figured we should have a thread that would be for the discussion of which has more merit, errata are the car itself being banned.

Here is my brief point counterpoint on the two

Errata: Errata is good for the game because it does not cause any cards to be taken away from the overall card pool and means that players will not feel like they have wasted money on an investment on what had once been an expensive card. The VS system is a card game with very few banned cards and this is something that should be maintained since it speaks highly of design balance for the system as a whole. The main role of errata is to clean up unclear text and to allow a card to function the way that the developers intended.

Ban: Banning is a good practice since it allows R&D to have more freedom in card design. If there is am older card that when combined with a newer card will be too easily exploited then the older card can be removed from the play environment to allow for fresh ideas. The other advantage of a ban list over errata is that it gives the players a quick reference list of what is acceptable, whereas a large amount of errata makes it so that it is necessary to keep up with all the errata. IE: Little Jimmy goes to a silver age hobby league with his shiny errata card B. He does well, but when he goes to use the card his opponent calls over the judge, and little Jimmy suddenly finds out he has been using the card incorrectly. Now if the card had been banned, the Judge could have told little Jimmy when the deck lists were handed in, thus giving little Jimmy the chance to correct the mistake.

Personal Opinion: I think that it should be on a case by case basis whether a card is banned or errata'd. If the effect as a whole is too powerful and is causing game design to be limited (Glares at overload) then I say UDE should ban to their hearts content. If the wording is being abused from the original obvious intent of the card(looks at parademon) then errata should be the more obvious choice.

My feelings are that a card should only be erratad to clear up abusive or confusing wording. Examples are Clocktower and Parademon. A card should not be erratad in a way that functionally changes the way a card is played. Magic about ten years ago is an example of this. I am a firm believer that Dr. Light should not have been changed to say once per turn, he should have been banned.

BTW, I think it is kind of funny that the errata on Thing is part of the problem. Under the original wording, the target had to have a cost less than or equal to the equipment's cost. Since there are no characters with cost of zero, you could not sacrifice the Fate artifacts and bring back with Salvage to draw your deck. The errata created a sac engine which always has the potential to lead to problems. If Thing was changed back to his original wording, it would seriously hurt the combo.

Not at all... You can just play a second Helm of Nabu, KOing the old one. The rest of the combo happens the same way.

Eliminating the sac engine decreases the number of cards which help you to continue the combo. If you have the sac engine, you have seven cards available to continue the combo (3 Helm + 4 Salvage). Without the sac engine, you only have three cards to continue the combo (3 Helm). ARB will increase the percentage of time you could complete the combo, but not insure that you could continue it.

The 0 cost char may be the problem with galactus coming. There was a card in this last set that targeted a char with cost 1 or less. I don't remember what it was, but I remember thinking what char cost less than 1? Does that mean that there is a char with cost 0 coming? If there is then ARB would be broken again, since you could draw your deck and fill the field.

I'm sure there will be lots of other problems too with that situation, but we'll have to wait and see.

I think gator may be on to something. ARB may have some degenerate combo with the new set. Banning ARB is the first time UDE has addressed a card in a combo before it had a chance to be widely played though.

You can do the Helm + 4 Salvage + ARB without Thing. All you need is a Fantastic Four character.

Since characters can be equipped with "any number of Fate artifacts", even if they have 3 of them, you don't have to KO one of them with thing before attempting to attach another Helm. You play all of the fate artifacts, and then attempt to play a second helm. The target is legal since its still "any number of Fate artifacts", the original helm is KO'd due to uniqueness rules, and then you draw your cards to ARB/Helm.

Play Salvage as necessary and your good to go to do it again.

Thing is not necessary and was probably only included as a beatstick on 3 to have a high attack value. His ability has no relevance on the deck.

But Thing does give you another way to get rid of an equip and salvage and re-equip if you don't have the second helm. I think it was just a second option, but def not the only option.