Choosing a deck:
I had a hell of a time choosing a deck; since I'm on paternity leave at the moment I have a hard time building new decks and even tweaking current ones since I can't have any cards around while my daughter is awake - she eats Warghouls for breakfast ;) After the usual lot of angst, slightly diminished since my choices were restricted I finally settled between two decks. It was my Imbued Chainsaw deck, which is a very defensive and reactive deck, it does really well when there is little intercept around, with its quick buildup and strong endgame it's a stable and very good. The problem is that I was unsure of the meta, in a heavy vote meta it does poorly since it gets crosstable ousted more easily than Auspex weenies (my Imbueds are similar to that type of deck but with a more aggressive endgame). It also does poorly against slight intercept meta with a lot of aggression (Stickmen for example).My other choice was the deck I had won a tournament with two weeks prior, a deck I dubbed "Vita Kränkta Män", a very aggressive multiact lawfirm with a midcap crypt. Now midcaps are bad, but they have been seeing an upswing in the meta with the introduction of the Wash/Zillah-archetype and the increase of anti-crypt acceleration package. It also includes less common vampires such as Democritus and Wilhem Waldburg which lessens the chance of contest as compared to Arika, Lucinde Alastor and Mary Anne Blaire. Again, Democritus is a horrible vampire with a "fun" special, but that just adds to the decks flavor in my opinion - it seems less of a threat when you start off with Democritus rather than Arika or Mary Anne Blaire.
The night before the tournament I slept horribly (of course!), my daughter had nightmares and I had to spend half the night calming her and finally had to sleep with her on the sofa. So it was with some difficulty that I got up at 6 am, showered, got dressed, packed my stuff and met up with Robert Doktorow at the train station. When we finally got to Örebro I still had no idea on what to play, tired and slightly confused I finally asked Isak to chose for me. He suggested we play Rock, Paper, Scissors over the decision, I won and got to play the Lawfirm which was in my hand at that moment.
Pre game talks:
We had the usual pregame talks about meta, about decks, about new concepts, about tournaments. The thing that stuck in my head was the Gaussian Game Distribution theory. The thought is of course that over the course of a tournament (3 games) you will have one game that you're in the best situation to win considering meta, seating and game progression. Not losing that game and getting as many VP's on the other games will get you to the finals. It's a fun theory and oddly alluring to me :)
First game:
Stickmen-> Stickmen-> Obf-weenies-> Me -> Obt/dom-lowcaps
My cryptdraw this game was not too bad, I got Democritus, Wilhelm Waldburg, Sir Walter Nash and Heather Florent on the start, with a first turn Sphinx. That meant Democritus in two turns - awesome! Problem was though that I was going to have trouble defending versus the obf-weenies. Since it was the first game I had no prior knowledge to decks and I would have to plan my game "in the dark" so to speak. I took the obvious route and went Democritus first with the Sphinx and planned on Wilhelm Waldburg as my second vampire. My prey started off with Quincy the Trapper, so I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn't picked my Imbued deck :D The game progressed normally except that the lowcap dom-obt deck managed to land some serious bleeds on his prey, which was unusual considering it was a very defensive Stickmen, that left a lot of maneuvering space for the second Stickmen deck. The obf-weenie deck choked on stealth since I declined to block it, but taking bleeds of 1-2-3-4-4 during the first five turns was killing me more quickly than I liked. The problem of not drawing into Parity Shifts was complicating things. I managed to vote an early Neonate Breach though to damage my prey and predator and try to put my predator into the defensive or to let the second Stickmen get an early oust. I did manage to keep my head above the water until the second Stickmen deck ousted the obf-weenie. That was the same turn I got my third vampire, so when it became my turn again I took the lunge and tried to oust. Unfortunatly I failed and died shortly after. Game win went to the second Stickmen I believe - I spent the remaining time scouting the decks to be better prepared for round 2.
Second game:
Lutz/Unmada vote -> Dom/ani highcaps -> Me -> G4/5 ventrues
This was my "win" game, even thought it didn't seem so at the start. Again I had a great cryptdraw with Democritus, Emerson Bridges, 2x Sir Walter Nash and a Sphinx on my starting hand. This time I couldn't get a two turn Democritus, but since I had a fairly defensive deck as a predator I settled for a three turn Democritus instead. Since I had a vote deck crosstable we made a deal to split damage evenly among our preys - even though the Lutz deck got the better part of the deal I was ok with it, since that put the my predator on a backwards trajectory instead of forward. Despite my predators slight intercept package a midgame Banishment from Lutz and my aggressive voting put him in a situation with only 1 vampire fairly early. That gave me the opportunity to push forward and try for the oust, I wasn't afraid of getting bounced since that meant that the Lutz deck would get ousted and I would get into a heads-up or tripple with the votelock, a good situation for me in any case. Worst case scenario was a 2-2 table split which was ok as a second game result, even though I thought I had a good chance of pulling off a win. Lutz died shortly after, then with some blocking from my predator I managed to get a kill on the second votedeck. That meant a sure win when I was chugging along with 3 aggressive vampires vs the 1 of my predator. 1 GW 3 VP for me! =D
Lunchbreak:
We had lunch, it was great, I ate alot of carbs and drank cola to keep awake, but with the good result of the second game I was quite alert again.
Third game:
Lutz/Unmada vote -> Inner Circle cel/dom/obf -> Me -> Lowcap PRE princes -> Imbued with Chainsaw
Again I was happy I didn't play my Imbued deck, this would have been a horrible contestfest. The game was very tight though, I came close to winning it but a missplay by me the last turn cost me the game, but I'm getting ahead of myself. My cryptdraw was less stunning this time, but still good - Wilhem Waldburg, 2x Sir Walter Nash and Ranjan Rishi. I realized of course that I would have no chance getting the votelock this game, so off I went discarding votes first chance I got. First action my prey did was a Mind Numb on my first vampire, a disaster when playing a dominate ladder, but I luckily played Direct Intervention on it. My own first action was a Mind Numb on my own predators first and only vampire which made everyone chuckle something about it being a Stockholm thing (my prey was Tomas, also from Stockholm), I didn't draw into a Freak Drive so I ended my turn and thanked my lucky stars for another turn of breathing room. My grand predator played Villein on Unmada and then Temptation of Greater Power on my predators Mind Numbed Inner Circle. That meant of course I would get a lot of breathing room, but also that it would put my predator in the shitter while my grand predator would be extremely strong and looking for an easy endgame vs me (he also played Protected Resources to defend against my heavy bleeds). I bidded very aggressively and managed to push the bid up to 21 pool.
That put my grand predator on the defense since he had to deal with the imbued to be able to pull off a political action and with me or my prey to get the votelock to pass it. He broke his deal with the imbued after no blocks were declared and stole 5 pool from him anyway. This made me chuckle and also hope that the chainsaw wielding imbueds would punish him and leave me in a good position for a tripple or heads-up. After a few more turns I managed to kill my prey who was getting blocked to death by the imbued while getting enough minions into play to be able to push through the blocks thrown by the imbued and manage another oust. Unfortunately my predator had another vampire in play by then and both predator and prey decided to oust me first. After a few turns of me going forward to gain the momentum advantage I did my missplays. First I didn't stay untapped although I drew into a few deflections instead I was too eager for the bleed advantage; Second I mistakenly expected my predator of using his Metro Underground or at least having means of untapping to be able to defend against the eventual backstab from Lutz. When I noticed he couldn't it was too late and we both got ousted the same turn, I was 1 pool away from ousting Lutz the turn before =(. 1 GW 5 VP for me.
Finals:
I had the bottom seed for the finals, I won over Henrik Klippström because of TP's (he was playing the G4/5 ventrues that I ousted game 2). Since I didn't have to worry over the seating I grabbed a seat and enjoyed the seating struggle; it ended with: Auspex-weenie -> Me -> Lutz powerbleed -> Turbo-Nergal -> Dom/tha lowcaps with allies
My first thought was "I got to be fast or this game will not go well for me". My cryptdraw was very good again - Democritus, Wilhelm Waldburg, Sir Walter Nash and Timothy Crowley. The problem was that with a auspex-weenie behind me I couldn't chance picking up Democritus first since he has minor fortitude and can't power through blocks with Freak Drive. That left me with only three vampires in my crypt, I wasn't sure if it was going to be enough. I drew a first turn Sphinx which would give me a turn two Wilhelm, a lucky draw =D Another bout of misfortune for the auspex-weenie was that when he blocked the first action with Victoria from the tha/dom-deck he got clawed by a slaving Tupdog and diablerized with my consent. He influenced up Zoe and passed the turn. Phew, since I had a two turn Wilhelm with the Sphinx that would give me enough time to be able to get settled. I was left alone to do my first actions, it was superior Govern, Freak, superior Scouting mission which let me have Sir Walter Nash quickly and cheaply as a second vampire. I then settled into a very aggressive stance trying to get a quick oust to put pressure on the auspex-weenie (me running away from him with all the VP's) and cutting the game short for the Turbo-Nergal. The auspex-weenie was top seed and he did a beatiful play where he sniped the Nergal VP for my prey to be able to control my VP's. That meant that if I got two kills I would be in a heads-up vs him and still give him the chance of a tournament win. I did not want to get into a heads-up vs an auspex-weenie without proper preparations and going all out offensive had cut down on my buildup actions, such as superior Govern. The next turn I killed off the Lutz powerbleed and started my build-up. Either I would get into a heads-up vs the dom/tha-deck while having the votelock, or I would chance it against the auspex-weenie, but with a table presence and a good hand. So I kept up the actions but not as aggressive towards my prey anymore. Finally I got my fourth vampire out and had a hand of bleeds and my last Daring the Dawn. So I lunged. Unfortunately the dom/tha-deck had saved up on wakes and managed to stop my lunge. While I had the Daring the Dawn to power through I could not use it to get the oust and go into a heads-up against an auspex-weenie without any Darings left in the deck. So I opted to wait for another round. Bad luck again and the auspex
-weenie had run out of wakes and got ousted. That left me wide open and I got ousted the same turn - game and tournament win to Doktorow. It was a very close game with a lot of exciting strategic decisions. I might have been able to do a few things differently, but I believe I made no huge mistakes. Overall the tournament was good and I was happy with my deck choice, after it´s performance I can say that I'm quite pleased with it, even though I've been considering a few minor tweaks. Maybe for the next tournament :D
/Myrdin
Nice report! From what you wrote, I think the meta will be quite similar to the decks you encountered in the Swedish Nationals 2012.
SvaraRadera