Tournament report, Swedish ECQ 2012, by Caroline Hyll
Preparations
I think I did all the preparations wrong compared to the usual advices. I chose my deck in the very last minute. I didn’t choose an optimized, slimmed deck. Instead, I chose a 90-card deck which I’d only played once before. The choice was between a rather boring AAA vote deck with lots of Sudden Reversals, and a Tzimisce bruise and bleed deck.
I constructed the Tzimisce deck after reading some discussions on combat as a delivery mechanism rather than an ousting mechanism in itself. The deck is focused on bleeding, with Deep Song as a tapping or bashing mechanism. The deck wants to bounce rather than block, but can do some blocking. I anticipated my greatest problem to be heavy poolgain decks such as Liquidation/Ashur Tablet decks, since my each of my minion would bleed for a maximum of 3. That is usually possible to out-bloat.
Finally, I went for the Tzimisce deck anyway because I thought I would enjoy to play it more.
Round 1
1. Girls will find animalism combat (Hugh Angseesing)
2. Malkavian Kindred Spirits bleed (Henrik E)
3. Harbingers of Skulls block & Trochomancy-bleed (Tom)
4. Huitzilopochtli & IC’s master bleed (Alex B)
5. Tzimisce bruise and bleed (me)
My crypt was Lolita, Little Taylor of Prague, Lambach and Meshenka. My first minion was Lolita. After her I influenced out Meshenka, and then Lambach.
In theory Hugh was one of the worst possible preys I could have. A bloat deck with fight. My deck didn’t have a lot of ways to return blood to my minions, so animalism combat would eventually wear me down. However, an early fame allowed me to do some pool damage to Hugh while torporizing Cybele; his first minion. Huitzilopochtli was Pentexed by his predator rather early in the game.
Eventually, Cybele was Golconda’d by my predator when my prey got low on pool. However, a second Fame (Anthelios was in play), some sizy deflected bleeds and a crucial Sudden on a Villein eventually allowed me to oust. My grandprey was then rather low on pool and I got the second VP rather quickly. My predator was ousted by Trochomancy bleeds. Then the table timed out.
Result: 2.5 VP and 1 GW for me and 1.5 VP for Tom.
Round 2
1. Tzimisce wall (Akseli)
2. Anson Infernal Pursuit guns (Adam Esbjörnsson)
3. Stanislava Baltimore Purge (Andreas)
4. Tzimisce bruise and bleed (me)
5. Turbo Baron (Tomas Wallmur)
I can’t remember who started here, but I got Lolita, Velya, Elizabeth Westcott and Meshenka in my opening crypt. Lolita was first up, as usual. My grandpredator was playing Tzimisce of the same groups as I. We decided that he would bring up Elisabeth Westcott and I would bring up Meshenka. His first minion was Corinne Marcon, who was Pentexed by Adam the turn she came up. The Pentex would stay for a very long time.
Adam brought up two celerity weenies and then Anson. My predator’s first vampire was Stanislava. She was rushed and torporized with zero blood by Adam before she could take an action.
Tomas brought up Mina Grotius. I hadn’t seen his deck before so I assumed that it was some sort of Harbinger of Skulls Trochomancy bleed deck with some strange Soulgem trick. Tomas had a horrible card draw and didn’t get his deck started. I put a Fame on Mina after shortly considering to put it on Anson. I had played against Adam’s deck type before and knew that he was the major threat at the table, having at that time no predator (the predator’s only minion being Pentexed) and a prey with no minions.
However, I decided that I needed to go for my VP as fast as possible since I didn’t believe I would be able to handle Adam in a confrontation. For similar reasons I didn’t remove the Pentex on my grandprey’s Corinne, though I would have if I’d had a decent combat hand. At that time, I had a horrible combat hand. I didn’t see why Adam would want me to be strong and I believed that he would have tried to torporize my vampires if I had attempted to remove it. Thus, no Pentex removal. Instead, I torporized Mina to activate the Fame, and bled.
My predator was eventually ousted by Adam, and I ousted my prey. At that time Adam was very strong and I cooperated with my prey (the other Tzimisce deck) to weaken him.
After 2-3 turns, Adam was in a quite bad shape with several torpored minions. My prey had his Pentexed Corinne in torpor but he had 4 other ready minions. I had 3 ready minions. I decided that I needed to go forward so that my prey wouldn’t oust before I did. I influenced out and contested Elizabeth Westcott. In return, my prey contested Meshenka. Soon after that, the table timed out.
Result: 1.5 VP for me, 1.5 VP for Adam and 0.5 VP for Akseli.
Round 3
1. Legacy of Pander (Sebastian)
2. Tzimisce bruise and bleed (me)
3. Lutz & friends OBF/PRE vote (Pascal Bertrand)
4. Lasombra vote (Peter)
5. Puppeteer Giovanni power bleed (Daniel)
I got Lolita, Velya, Dragos, and Little Taylor of Prague in my opening crypt.
On his first turn, my predator brought up Angela Decker (1-cap pander). I transferred on Lolita. On his second turn, by predator brought up two additional weenie panders, giving clear signs of being a Legacy of Pander deck. That intimidated me. I had some Auspex cards on my hand but no wakes. I influenced out Lolita and started going for Velya, to get the cardinal votes. Pascal had a rather slow start but I couldn’t use the opportunity since I had to be in defensive mode.
On his third turn, my predator had 4 minions. However the table was very vote-heavy and did not allow the Pander deck to pass his Crusades or other key votes. The Pander deck was then bled out rather quickly by the Giovanni deck. At that point I could start acting offensively, since I had a decent amount of bounce on my hand.
Eventually I ousted Pascal (who had pool gained quite decently) by a combination of bleeds and bounces. After that I was low on bounces and was bled until ousted by the Giovanni deck.
Result: 1 VP for me, 2.5 VP for Daniel and 0.5 VP for Peter.
Final
With a total of 1 GW 5 VPs, I had some hopes that I was qualified. When they announced the qualified players and didn’t mention me before “and now to the finalists” I wondered if they had forgotten about me. But it turned out that I got into the final, by tournament points. I was quite shocked, but also delighted of course. At last year’s qualifier (GothCon 2011) I also managed to get to the final but I chose to yield my place since it was my birthday and we had a booking at a Michelin star restaurant. This year however I could happily join the final.
1 Lasombra Black Hand Deathstar (Marko Lindroos)
2 Anson Infernal Pursuit guns (Adam Esbjörnsson)
3 Kiasyd stealth bleed (Michael Holmström)
4 Tzimisce bruise and bleed (me)
5 Eze necromancy toolbox (Norbert Flasko)
I had a rather bad crypt draw, but just as in every other game during the tournament I managed to get my one copy of Lolita in my opening draw, and she was my first minion. After her I influenced out Caliban.
Michael put me in a rather bad shape rather quickly. For two crucial rounds I only had Lolita to defend with, i.e. no bounce and no cycling of my ANI combat. I also didn’t draw any wakes.
At one point a bleed by Adam was bounced to me by Michael. Adam had also had a bad draw and was desperate to get into a fight and cycle some cards. I agreed to block him (and tapping out) if he would then rush and torporize one of Michael’s minions. Adam didn’t manage to draw a decent fighting hand, and did not manage to torporize one of Michael’s minions. Adam’s next rush then went towards Marko. Shortly after that, I was ousted by Michael’s dominate bleeds. I might have been able to survive for another round if I had played my DI at another point, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to last for long since Michael had 4 dominate vampires and Adam didn’t rush enough forward. However, since Adam won in the end I suppose he made the right decisions.
Result: Michael 1 VP, Norbert 1 VP and Adam 3 VP and the tournament victory.
Aftermath
All the three rounds I played were interesting and rewarding games of VTES. Of course I’d wished to stay longer in the finals, but such is life. It was a very nice tournament.
If I would play the deck again I would ditch the Yawp Court (which I never played) and the Target Vitals, and add a bounce card and a wake.
/Caroline
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