Please also share your impressions, like "VT for SOD players: first impressions - pros and cons..." - without arguments and personal attacks, please - it can disrupt the discussion and there is a risk of derailing an important topic...

What ASM did is great! But the SOD VT probably won't happen anytime soon (or won't happen at all). The goal of VT is to popularize TE-full. In other words, the goal of VT is to increase the number of players on Heroes of Might and Magic. This is a very smart move from the perspective of the game. And if, in addition to the VT on TE-full, a VT is made for TE-lite (TE-SOD style), IMHO: there will be fewer people on the full version than on the lite version.

P.S. Yesterday, I played a game on VT with the Panic hero. This template in VT is significantly changed compared to the Panic we know:
1) There is a Guard Tower between the Necropolis towers (not critical, but a change)
2) The opponent came to me along the route: home base - Necropolis tower - village - village - my Necropolis tower. There is no city with a gold mine on the route!
In the original template, there are 3 routes (home base - base at the Necropolis tower (village) - village - city with a gold mine - village - opponent's Necropolis tower - opponent's base)