Rules Update for Viewpoint Reflections

G'day Gamers! The release of Viewpoint Reflections sees the introduction of new keywords, changes to existing mechanics and the addition of potential card interactions. The updated Viewpoint Tournament Rules details the specifics of these new and modified elements, including the rules on how cards from Viewpoint and Viewpoint Reflections can be mixed for tournament play. Read below for a summary of the most significant changes.

New Keywords

There are two new keywords introduced in Viewpoint Reflections - PASS (found on Hypnotise, Glance Left and Glance Right) and REPLACE (found on Eye for an Eye, Eye Transplant and Second Sight).

PASS - The player must take a card from their Hand and move it to the Hand of a specified player.

PASS is essentially a watered down version of the STEAL action because the player 'targeted' gets to select the card to give to the other player. Some cards make every player pass a card at the same time. When this happens, you are not allowed to pass on the card that is passed to you. Also, if you don't have any cards in your Hand, you obviously don't need to pass a card.

REPLACE - The player may move up to a specified number of cards from their Field of View and put them face-up into the Discard Pile. The player then plays cards (one at a time), equal to the number of cards they put into the Discard Pile, from the top of the Draw Pile into their Field of View. The actions on the newly played cards are performed as normal.

Using the REPLACE action is a bit of a gamble. Sometimes you will replace a mediocre card with a really good card but other times you will end up wasting the replace action by flipping a worthless card. Note that actions that can cancel cards that would move any cards from a Field of View to the Discard Pile can also cancel REPLACE actions.

Changed Mechanics

The most significant impact to the way how cards interact is brought about the new ruling that cards are now considered to be in a Field of View as soon as they are played. This affects the way cards can be cancelled. Originally, cards like Persistence of Vision could only cancel non-reveal actions, such as Mirage and Skewed View. These cards can now cancel any action that would move a card from a Field of View by any means. Therefore, cards like Lighthouse, which cancels cards being played, can be cancelled by revealing Persistence of Vision (or Wandering Eyes) to stop Lighthouse from moving a card being played (now to be considered in a Field of View as soon as they are played) from a Field of View to the Discard Pile.

Players must still nominate the 'target(s)' when the card is played (or revealed) before any other player is allowed to respond to that play/reveal.

Here are a couple of examples of how things work with this rules change.

Example 1

1. Player A plays Blind Spot to make Player B discard a card.
2. Player B reveals Spectacles to cancel Blind Spot and move it from Player A's Field of View to the Discard Pile.
3. Player A reveals Persistence of Vision to cancel Spectacles as it would have moved Blind Spot from Player A's Field of View to the Discard Pile. The Blind Spot card play stands and Persistence of Vision and Spectacles are moved to the Discard Pile. Note that Persistence of Vision can't be cancelled by another Persistence of Vision card because Spectacles is not being moved from a Field of View to the Discard Pile.

Example 2

1. Player A plays Mirage to move Lighthouse from Player B's Field of View to the Discard Pile.
2. Player B moves their Lighthouse from their Field of View to the Discard Pile to cancel Mirage.
3. Player A reveals Wandering Eyes to cancel the Lighthouse from moving Mirage from Player A's Field of View to the Discard Pile. Wandering Eyes is moved to the Discard Pile. Lighthouse is cancelled and remains in the Discard Pile and Mirage remains in Player A's Field of View because the action that would've cancelled it is itself cancelled.

Potential Interactions

There are plenty of interesting interactions introduced by Viewpoint Reflections, including the 'counter-chain' made possible with the Counterspy card.

1. Player A plays Eye Spy to steal a card from Player B.
2. Player B reveals Counterspy [1] to cancel the Eye Spy and steal a card from Player A.
3. Player A reveals another Counterspy [2] to cancel the first Counterspy [1] and steal a card from Player B.
4. Player B reveals a third Counterspy [3] to cancel the second Counterspy [2] and steal a card from Player A. Counterspy 2 and Eye Spy are cancelled and player B may steal 2 cards using Counterspy 1 and 3.

The revised Viewpoint Tournament Rules includes more answers to your frequently asked questions so be sure to consult this lexicon or email the designers if you have any queries on the rules of Viewpoint.