Ashur´s EC experience 2014 part 1: LCQ

Hi. It´s this time of the year again, when the EC is over and my mailbox is flooding with requests about me writing about my experiences. Here you go.

Let´s start with the LCQ, a tournament that didn´t matter much to me because I was triple qualified already (two tournament victories + qualified at the national qualifier in Gothenburg).But it´s one of the largest, if not the largest, tournaments during the year, so it would be fun to do good.

I chose to play a fun deck that I´m comfortable with, a variant of Rudolf Garski´s (or is it Johannes Walch´s?) bigcap vote-TWD “Obey the Tremere” with Gabrielle di Righetti & co. The deck is not very aggressive, but do “big actions” and is hard to stop if it get´s rolling. I won a tournament in Stockholm with a variant in August – I think I only took out Jake Washington, Ponticulus and Scourge of Enochians (Stockholm meta game choices).

 

“Tutte in Germany”

Crypt (12 cards)

2x  Dr. John Dee            9  chi ANI AUS DOM THA      Tremere:4

3x  Gabrielle di Righetti  10  obf pot ANI AUS DOM THA  Tremere:5

1x  Gerald Windham          9  AUS DOM FOR THA          Tremere:5

2x  Malgorzata              9  pre AUS DOM THA VIC      !Tremere:4

2x  Mistress Fanchon       11  AUS CEL DOM OBF THA VIC  Tremere:4

2x  Orlando Oriundus        9  obf AUS DOM THA          !Tremere:4

Library (77 cards)

Master (20)

2x Dreams of the Sphinx

1x Giant's Blood

2x Information Highway

1x Metro Underground

1x Monastery of Shadows

1x Pentex(TM) Subversion

6x Villein

6x Zillah's Valley

Event (1)

1x Uncoiling, The

Action (5)

4x Mind Rape

1x Heart of Nizchetus

Political Action (14)

1x Anarchist Uprising

1x Ancient Influence

1x Ancilla Empowerment

2x Banishment

3x Kine Resources Contested

5x Parity Shift

1x Political Stranglehold

Action Modifier (16)

3x Conditioning

3x Into Thin Air

9x Mirror Walk

1x Enkil Cog

Reaction (21)

4x Deflection

4x Eyes of Argus

7x Obedience

4x Second Tradition: Domain

2x Telepathic Misdirection

As I often do I will illustrate the games with pictures. The colours are red = aggressive, orange = semi-aggressive, yellow = not aggressive at all.

Table 1

Difficulty for me: 3/5. Of course getting a mirror match up is a nightmarish start of the tournament, especially when the mirror deck is my predator and he refuse to talk about that vampires he is bringing out (I have no idea why he didn´t want to talk), but I still though I could have chance at this table as there was no rush combat and such stuff. But I want you to know the total number of votes at the table when it was as most: 22 (if I recall correctly)

My performance: 1/5. Pulling off Villein + Giant´s Blood on Mistress Fanchon was the only thing that made me survive for a while. Pentex on Fanchon and then contest on Dr John Dee = me dead.

The other players: I watched the whole game after I was ousted, and the table didn´t evolve is I thought it would. Bjoern´s Malkavians didn´t bleed for 6 every bleed, mainly just 3 or 4, so Petri could bloat just enough and pull off 3 Walk of Caine one turn and oust Guilio, who I think had a bad draw. I thought Paul had total control of the table, but I got really close in the end.

Lesson to learn: Don´t play popular crypts.

Petri: 1 vp

Bjoern: 2 vp

Paul: 2 vp

Table 2

 

Difficulty for me: 3/5. The curse of the many votes continues to follow me – in this game there was something like 28 at it´s worst. But this time I had both Gerald Windham and Orlando Oriundus, so I had the upper hand for most of the game.

My performance: 2/5. When Norbert and Alesandar was gone I couldn´t ever create enough stealth to get past Gabriele´s wall (Bowl of Convergeance - who playtested that card?! J).

The other players: All played rather aggressive and the game was fun.

Lesson to learn: I must become better at reading the table. As Norbert noted afterwards, it might have been smart of me to let him oust Gabriele, and when I think more about it I should probably not have saved Gabriele from being ousted by Aleksandar early in the game. I´m always reluctant to give Tzimisce wallish decks vp´s, but Norbert would probably been able to oust Aleksandar and a final three with me, Norbert and a weak Lauri would have been preferable to the one I got.

Norbert: 1 vp

Gabriele: 0,5 vp

Lauri: 0,5 vp

Me: 1,5 vp

Table 3

Difficulty for me: 4/5. When I didn´t think there could be more votes – this table had 39 votes on the table! Everybody was bloating like crazy and I lost count of the Parity Shifts. In every deal I found myself on the losing end.

My performance: 2/5. But I tried.

The other players: I´m not sure what the Kiasyd player was doing, I guess he had a bad draw. The table as a who felt a bit too heated and stressed.

Lesson to learn: Get better at making deals with other vote decks. It´s a bit easier in Swedish though, or with people who is great at English.

Francios: 3,5 vp

Randal: 0,5 vp

(not entirely sure here)

In conclusion: Only 1,5 vp in total. I shouldn´t have played a vote deck this day. Although I manage to stay alive a long time each game except the first, I couldn´t win a single table. I would have been better off at all tables with some random aggressive stealth-bleeder, like the Titus Camille-deck I played in EC day 1.

Skilled Stockholm player and EC regular Caroline was in the final of this tournament, but she was ousted by the victor Ruben Feldman, who played Malkavian dem-weenie stealth-bleed.

 

Stay tuned for reports on EC day 1 and 2.