A Week of Nightmares, and the NAC

I went to the NAC and the WoN (Week of Nightmares) 2011 and had lots of fun, thus I wanted to go again this year. And so I did.

First I tried to convince other Swedes also to go with me and a few seemed interested but in the end it was only me that represented Sweden. But at least I knew that I would have help from Hugh the emperor of V:tES and from my brothers from the south team Denmark.

In the weeks before the WoN I asked several of my Swedish V:tES friends what I should be bringing to the Americans. Out of the six decks that I got recommended to me five ran Ashur Tablet.

The venue for the preorigins games was a bar/pizzeria that we got to use, the prize of the tournaments was that we ate and drank lots at the venue, which we did.

The first tournaments I played different decks with different success, I made finals in two of the preorigins tournaments, first time with the Lutz deck with which I later one NAC day one with and the second final I made with a powerbleed version of girls called geezers played and made by Alexander Båskman, he lent me his acual deck. I think the original version was made from Stefan Karlsson inspired by the old Council of Doom decks.

The first final I was in a pretty bad seating with Nana ani rush as my prey played by Rodd, got back rushed and in extent ousted after had made the first move and done some pool damage to him. During the second final by the time we came down to three players Ankur who played a blackhand aus obf deck had been using the Heart of Cheating for almost the entire game, or so it seemed, and hade plenty of bounce and block. He took the gamewin when I ran out of my deck.

Then Origins began and we started with the last chance and late night last chance qualifiers, I was a little stressed because I hadn’t qualified to the NAC so I choose to play a very aggressive Kiasyd stealth bleed deck hoping to at least be able to play during the NAC and not the shadowtwins. I became even more stressed after the first tournament when I only managed to get one vp in each game.

But during the late night last chance I made finals and that was a huge relief for me. We decided to play the finals after the NAC day tournament because it was so late.

NAC day one was a great success, I did win after all. I had a bad start sitting next to another Lutz deck and ended contesting Lutz with Kelly Schultz, who was playing Lutz with lowcap laibons and kholos. Jen got to kill us pretty fast and I got to scout the rest of the tournament.

Seating round 1: 1 Jeff Thompson, Lasombra firm. 2 Martin Randers, Kiasyd block earth swords vitals. 3 Jen Goldberg, Tremere toolbox. Me, Schmuz 1537. 5 Kelly Schultz, Lutz with laibons.

During my scouting I found that there were several IC decks around and three pander decks and a few princevote decks. I noted who played vote decks and who played combat so I could at least try to act accordingly if I ended at the same table as them.

Second round my prey was a pander deck and I prayed for crypt acceleration, I got it and got vote lock on my prey early. Later I had so many votes that I let him pas a legacy of pander so could do a pool damage to him. The tricky part of this game was that my crosstable was playing blackhand attrition allies. And I knew that when I got the pander deck his allies would simply turn on me and I would not have any vamps left. I had to balance the game to the point when I could get the double kill. With kines and ancilla I got them both and the end game was pretty fast as I had undele and could get my banishments back.

Seating round 2: 1 Me, Schmutz 1537. 2 Kevin Butcher, Pander vote with Alfred Benezri. 3 Adam Hulse, blackhand thugees n’ friends. 4 Matt Hirsch, Ventrue of some sort.

Third round my prey played a deck using low caps who voted justicars and then parityshifts. Again crypt acceleration gave me votelock. This time my predator was playing a very aggressive Nergal bleed deck and I knew I hade to backoust him or I would be gone pretty fast. He didn’t seem too happy when his inferior revelation reviled one telepathic misdirection two banishments and a pentex, he removed the telepathic. My prey gave me the deal to alow him to become justicar and then he would parity shift my predator and give me the pool. A deal I couldn’t refuse!! I kept Nergal banished and after I got the pool from the parity shift he got ousted, by then I had taken about 15 pool damage or so from his heavy bleeds. My prey died pretty fast after that. By then my next prey had tooled Carna up with a bowl and was ready to catch my vampires and send them to torpor. Pentex fixed that and even with the six extra pool he gave his prey when I ousted him with reins of power I had little trouble getting the gamewin.

Seating round 3: 1 Norm Brown, low caps becoming justicars. 2 Ankur Gupta, Tremere block. 3 Connor Bell, Kiasyd block. 4 Jesper Bøje, Nergal Powerbleed. 5 Me, Schmutz 1537.

I hade second seed and all I wanted is not to sit beside the tupdog deck. Hugh Angseesing who had higher seed than me decided that he also did not want to sit near the tupdogs. He chose to be my predator, something he later during most of the finals regretted and during several occasions he said “why did I sit behind the Swede, never sit behind a swede”

Seating final round: 1 Jen Goldberg, Tremere toolbox. 2 Hugh Angseesing, Stickmen. 3 Me, Schmutz 1537. 4 Evan Lloyd, Lutz stealth vote. 5 Eric Chiang, tupdogs.

When we sat down I told Evan that we had to talk about crypt, didn’t want to have the same thing happening to me that happened during round one. I saw that I dident get Lutz in my starting crypt and told Evan that it was okey for him to bring Lutz out. He was pretty happy about that because he had drawn three Lutz and one Alicia Barrows. I packed a lot more crypt acceleration and so I could bring out two justicars before Evan got a chance to do anything constructive. I did a few early game attempts to parity shift which was delayed by Hugh, got a banishment in and removed Blackhorse Tanner. After I played my parity shift successfully and hade brought out Undele, still having votelock on Evan with Undele, Dmitra and Unmada, Eric started to be concerned about me calling votes and him taking damage from Lutzes special. Not wanting to make an enemy out of him and his tupdogs I said that I would not vote and just bleed a bit. I considerd several times to crossable oust Eric but never needed to. He was down to only two pool when Lutz called a conservative agitation that would have given him the kill and most likely Jen as well as Eric had torporized her minions. He pushed it with an awe to ensure that he would get the kill but I had my DI ready and canceled the awe and voted down the referendum. The round after Eric rushed Lutz to torpor and with a deflected bleed I could kill Even and Eric in the same turn. It only took a few more turns to kill Jen and Hugh. Hugh did play yet another delaying on my kine that would have ousted Jen but I had the Enkil cog on Unmada and simply called it again in Jens turn. In the heads up I got Lutz out and just had more minions than Hugh so I could simply bleed him out with a Entrancement.

After the NAC day one final I played in the late nigh last chance final. I got two very fast VPs with the Kiasyd bleeds and then I got bums rushed by my predators Imbueds and had to bump heads with Pete Ohs Ahrimanes. He won that final.

The NAC day two was not a very good tournament for me. I choose to play Anson with guns and infernal pursuits, the first two games my first prey was playing decks made by Jay Kristoff who are both very grind resistant, first round Ben Peal played a haqims law deck gaining two pool with every one of his four minions. His ranged aggro poke hindered me from wanting to stop him. Second round Jay Kristoff was playing a his own deck. A Zhenga ally deck with Jakes and Dummy corps and such. I had no luck getting past that.

Third round my prey was Matt Morgan Plating aus guns deck, it would have looked pretty good if not for my predator who was James Messer playing Ahrimanes. His combat just trumped mine and he did away with my minions.

All in all zero points that tournament.

Lastly I made the final of the first chance qualifier with my Imbued deck. Again Hugh decided to be my predator and again he muttered “why did I sit behind the Swede, never sit behind a Swede” the entire game, he played some sort of aus block deck. James who was my prey won with Lasombra vote with Ashur Tablets. Hugh did a very good job blocking my actions and I was pretty beaten by the time I got the chance to oust and then Hugh stopped me with Eagle Sight and Pentex.

All in all it was very fun and if time and money allows I’ll return next year.

Randyman