Ashur´s EC experience 2014 part 2: EC day 1

Hi. After bombing pretty hard in the LCQ (just 1,5 vp) I felt really motivated to do better in EC day 1. Tired of making Parity Shift-deals with my Tremere vote deck, I decided that my best chance to get at least one game win was to play a real simple deck.

I chose Randal Rudstams TWD “Jag vill ha en bleedlek med mycket stealth” starring Titus Camille. It´s basically a Malk ´94 stealth-bleeder fitted with a group 3-4 crypt, with the extra twist of Titus on top, stealing Heart of Nizchetus, Bowl of Convergence and such nasty stuff.

I don´t think I tweaked it at all myself. Possibly I switched one or two action modifiers, I can´t remember.

“I want a bleed deck with lots of stealth”
Crypt (12 cards)
1x  Assad Salhoum           5  aus dem dom obf          Malkavian:4
1x  Black Lotus             5  aus obf ser DOM          Follower of Set:4
1x  Dr. Douglas Netchurch   6  dem dom AUS OBF          Malkavian:3
1x  Halim Bey               6  obf tha DOM SER          Follower of Set:4
1x  Louis de Maisonneuve    5  aus dom obf FOR          !Ventrue:4
1x  Phillipe Rigaud         7  ani aus obt DOM OBF PRO  !Gangrel:4
1x  Preston Varrick         7  aus nec DOM OBF THA      Tremere:4
5x  Titus Camille           8  for AUS DOM OBF          !Ventrue:4

Library (79 cards)
Master (13)
1x Anarch Troublemaker
1x Coven, The
3x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Fragment of the Book of Nod
1x Giant's Blood
2x Life in the City
1x Misdirection
3x Wash

Action (17)
10x Govern the Unaligned
3x Revelations
4x Scouting Mission

Action Modifier (28)
2x Bonding
1x Cloak the Gathering
6x Conditioning
2x Elder Impersonation
3x Faceless Night
1x Foreshadowing Destruction
4x Freak Drive
5x Lost in Crowds
2x Seduction
2x Spying Mission

Reaction (14)
6x Deflection
3x Delaying Tactics
4x On the Qui Vive
1x Redirection

Combat (4)
4x No Trace

Combo (3)
3x Swallowed by the Night


Table 1

Difficulty for me: 2/5. Michals deck is kind of a wall, but I was lucky getting Pentex Subversion on Gotsdam (you know, The Tired Warrior), and Neighbor John couldn´t defend on his own.
My performance: 4/5. Very good.
The other players: No real mistakes as I recall.
Lesson to learn: Fragment of the Book of Nod is a really underrated card, although I saw Ben Peal playing two copies in his awesome, sleeveless all-Jyhad Malk ´94 LCQ-finalist deck. It won me this game, as I could unload reactions from my hand in the beginning of each turn – of course especially useful heads up with Janne.

Me: 4 vp



Table 2

Difficulty for me: 3/5. The seating itself was not very complicated if only looking at my prey and predator, but I wasn´t sure how to pace things considering the other two decks. I also had a strange draw (see below).
My performance: 2/5. Made some stupid decisions here, based on my initial draw. I had 3 bounces on my starting hand, and instead of discarding them and trying to fish for Governs to get free vamps, I decided to keep them and wait for a launch from Eliseu (who of course got his Governs to get free vamps). But Eliseu is a somewhat good player, so he didn´t launch, not even when he had four vamps out.
The other players: As mentioned, Eliseu played this one real slow, using his Powerbase Savannah to handle most of Emilianos Nephandi pressure. Helmuth played outright wrong as he decided to stubbornly defend his Madness Network against the Nephandi, and was easly ousted by Noora.
     This left us with a funny 4-player situation where Noora had a Gabrielle di Righetti with Helicopter, eating one Nephandi each turn and still being able to do other useful stuff. Eliseu eventually ousted me, partly with a surprise Reckless Agitation (he didn´t have any titled vamps himself, so Noora helped him. I guess she was more comfortable with Eliseus DOM-vamps then with my DOM-vamps).Lesson to learn: Never slowplay a deck like this. The right decision would have been to discard all reactions and go full speed forward.
     Also: There was MUCH talking going on at this table. Almost every card, every action was commented, discussed and even sung a little song about. I don´t understand this really – I guess it´s either because some players feel they don´t need the full two hours to win, or it´s to somehow confuse less experienced players to make mistakes. Either way it takes a lot of time and makes it hard to end games within time limit.

I´m not sure how this ended, but I think it timed with
Eliseu: 1,5 vp
Noora: 1,5 vp
Emiliano: 0,5 vp

Nooras cards, and Emilianos Nephandi in the top left corner.

Eliseus cards, including the very nice Powerbase Savannah.

Table 3


















Difficulty for me: 5/5. Mirror match with Kim (also a Stockholm player), and two decks able to rush at the table – not good. I talked with her about which vamps to influence, so that wasn´t the real problem.
My performance: 2/5. I couldn´t do much about this game, my deck doesn´t give me a lot of leverage for deals.
The other players: Kim put really hard pressure on Riccardo fast, and Andrés wanted to rush her vamps even before Riccardo was ousted. But then Kim and Andrés stroke a really weird deal – Kim was not to bleed Andrés before he had ousted Guiseppe. I guess Kim didn´t count on how hard it could be for a zombie deck to oust a wallish AND rushing Horrid Form-deck.
     Anyway – I was on the losing end of this whole arrangement. Andrés didn´t do much at all against Guiseppe the first hour, so he could rush and bleed me without worries. Kim bounced my bleeds directly into Guiseppe, so he could destroy my vamps without even rushing them. AND Andrés both took cards from me with Le Dinh Tho´s special and rushed me multiple times with his Ossian, stating he had to make him grow to survive combat with the Tzimisces (strange and futile). So I played against 3 players, not sure why really.
     Anyway, Kim broke the bad deal with Andrés when she noticed he couldn´t oust, and ousted us all. All table sweeps are good table sweeps? Congrats Kim!
Lesson to learn: This is what you get when you play a deck without votes or any other means of making good deals. Also, I guess my table talk could have been better, but I was so baffled by the Kim-Andrés deal I couldn´t think of something smart to say.
     Also, I learned Phillipe Rigaud´s worst drawback the hard way, as he OF COURSE diablerized my own Titus Camille, burning them both.

Kim: 5 vp

Table 3 after about 1 hour (I guess). Yes, that is a pink gorilla edge.

Conclusion: 1 gw, 4 vp took took me to EC day 2, so mission accomplished!
     The deck runs pretty smooth – it´s a shameless stealth-bleeder, not much fun but does it´s thing.
    I´ll might try replacing Phillipe Rigaud though, his drawback is super heavy. I guess Catherine du Bois should be there, but I´m not sure how that messes with the Govern-stairway.
    Then there´s the 5 Titus-problem. It might be fixed with a couple of Wider View, but I don´t like such a passive card in a deck like this.

Two fellow Stockholm players, Kim and Ivan, was in the final of this tournament, but like the LCQ it was won by Ruben Feldman, playing old school Nosferatu royalty. He was first seed, doing a unbelievable 3 gw 13 vp in the preliminaries. I have no idea how to pull that off with such a deck, I must try to build and play it.

Finalists Ivan (Myrdin), Ruben, Kim, Otso and Patrick.

Stay tuned for the day 2 report!