Rapid Thought Tournament Rules

Rapid Thought is alternative (unofficial) tournament format for Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. It was proposed by Scott L. Johnson and was introduced during GenCon 2002. Afterwards it was modified to the current revision by Kevin J. Mergen. Basically it follows the general VtES rules as well as the VEKN tournament rules, but has very few (yet significant) changes to the aforementioned general rules:

All V:EKN rules are in effect, see below.

1. TOURNAMENT SETUP
   
   1. 3-player tables only, minimum 6 players
      
   2. 45 minutes per round


2. SPECIAL RULES
   
1. LIBRARY = 40-90 cards
2. CRYPT = 6 cards minimum
3. BANNED CARDS
   Vampire:
   • Una
   Minion:
   • Blood Doll
   • Minion Tap
   • Tribute to the Master
   • Vessel
   • Villein


1. Burn Option for Banned Crypt Cards
   If any of the above crypt cards appear in a deck, then the player is not penalized; instead, remove the card from the game (do not redraw).
2. Burn Option for Banned Library Cards
   If any of the above library cards appear in a deck, then the player is not penalized; instead, the card is treated as if it has the "burn-option" symbol.


4. WATCH LIST
   Vampire:
   • Tupdog
   Minion: ALL pool-gaining votes
   
   • Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
   • Kindred Spirits
   • Reckless Agitation
   • Shared Nightmare
   • Taunt the Caged Beast
   • Voter Captivation

The watchlist (see above) is a list of cards which may be moved to the banned list if they prove to be problematic for the format. I have omitted the third and fourth paragraph of the rules (which deal with seating order and tournament point distribution) in this post since they are rather technical. For full reference of the Rapid Thought rules see Kevin Mergen's website.

The format is currently in discussion on VEKN.net.

Update: As result of the above-mentioned discussion, there's a revised version of the Rapid Thought rules. For specific points were changed:
Four things were changed:

1. Rules for "found" Banned Crypt or Library cards' was updated.
2. Ashur Tablets and Liquidation were added to the Watch List.
3. Tournament Points were expanded, allowing for all possibilities.
4. Pascal Bertrand was given credit for his help.