Tournament in Stockholm again!

Archon Investigation 2016
May 7
Venue: Dragon´s Lair, Stockholm, Sweden
Facebook: VTES-turnering maj 2016
Standard constructed tournament
Rounds: 3 + Final
Time Limit: 2 h
Fee: 30 SEK
Welcome!

The Stockholm League – April 27, 2016

Congrats Randy for yet another victory in the Greger Anderssen Memorial League! This time he had "only" 4 game wins of 16 tries, but yet he collected enough total rating points to end up with double the amount of the runner up Kim.

Three tables were played in the tenth and final round of our February-April league. Standard tournament rules apply + printed proxy is allowed.

Table 1:
1. Robert (Giovanni anarchs Cry Wolf-Khazar) 2 vp, 1 gw
2. Kim (Toreador Masika bleed with Crocodiles Tounge) 1 vp
3. Kari (Toreador Aching Beauty toolbox) 1 vp
4. Randy (Salubri Blanche Hill Spirit Marionette with obf-friends)

Table 2:
1. Kalle (Giovanni Dabbler Keystone rush) 1 vp
2. Kari (Black Hand Elimelech toolbox)
3. Randy (Gangrel anarchs tap n bleed) 4 vp, 1 gw
4. Henrik (Ravnos G5-6 sb)
5. Kim (Lasombra with pre vote)

Table 3:
1. Ivan (Guhuri Nana rush) 1,5 vp
2. Kristofer (Harbingers Capuchin wall)
3. Robert (AUS+FOR Dela Eden Vampiric Disease wall) 0,5 vp
4. Henrik (Tremere rush) 0,5 vp

League standings:
Randy 126 rtp
Kim 64 rtp
Jens, Robert 58 rtp
Peter 52 rtp
Kari 50 rtp
Tomas 40 rtp
Daniel H 32 rtp
Henrik 30 rtp
Jonas S 28 rtp
Ivan 26 rtp
Kristofer 20 rtp
Kalle 18 rtp
Jonas H 8 rtp
Daniel R, Zich 4 rtp
(1 gw = 8 ratingpoints, 1 vp = 4 ratingpoints. Note: Players can play more than one game each round if their participation are needed to complete a table where at least one player has not yet played a league game this round, but only the best result each round counts for rating. If more players than 5 want to play such a table, lowest vp-count this round has priority. No league game begin before 17.00 or starts after 20.00.)

The first round of our next league is played at Dragon´s Lair, Kungsholmstorg 8 next Wednesday about 1800-ish. Be there!

The Stockholm League – April 20, 2016

MUGUR POWER!

Four tables were played in the ninth round of our February-April league. Standard tournament rules apply + printed proxy is allowed.

Table 1:
1. Peter (!Tremere Nephanduses with Gehenna) 1 vp
2. Henrik (Tre/!Tre bruise-bleed)
3. Kalle (Giovanni anarchs Keystone-Dabbler "Shambling Hawgs") 1,5 vp
4. Randy (Salubri with obf-friends Spirit Marionette)
5. Kim (Daughters vote) 1,5 vp

Table 2:
1. Randy (Brujah bigcap Appolonius vote) 1 vp
2. Daniel R (Tremere Spiridonas sb)
3. Tomas (True Brujah Al-Muntahir sb) 3 vp, 1 gw
4. Jens (Setites mono-SER sb)

Table 3:
1. Randy (Tzimisce wall) 1,5 vp
2. Kim (Nosferatu/Setites Beast & Glycon rush)
3. Kalle (!Gangrel Aksinya & Talbot toolbox) 0,5 vp
4. Kristoffer (Assamite anarch rush) 0,5 vp
5. Tomas (Gionvanni anarch Piper Cry Wolf Khazars) 0,5 vp

Table 4:
1. Jens (Assamite anarchs Bakr rush)
2. Henrik (!Nosferatu Teresita Inside dirt toolbox)
3. Jonas S (!Gangrel "Dark Mirror Mugur" vote) 3 vp, 1 gw
4. Daniel R (Tremere Spiridonas sb)
5. Peter (Ravnos w PRO toolbox) 2 vp

League standings:
Randy 102 rtp
Kim 60 rtp
Jens 58 rtp
Peter 52 rtp
Kari 46 rtp
Robert 42 rtp
Tomas 40 rtp
Daniel H 32 rtp
Henrik, Jonas S 28 rtp
Ivan, Kristofer 20 rtp
Kalle 14 rtp
Jonas H 8 rtp
Daniel R, Zich 4 rtp
(1 gw = 8 ratingpoints, 1 vp = 4 ratingpoints. Note: Players can play more than one game each round if their participation are needed to complete a table where at least one player has not yet played a league game this round, but only the best result each round counts for rating. If more players than 5 want to play such a table, lowest vp-count this round has priority. No league game begin before 17.00 or starts after 20.00.)

The next round of the league is played at Dragon´s Lair, Kungsholmstorg 8 next Wednesday about 1800-ish. Be there!

The Stockholm League – April 13, 2016

This card get a bit troublesome if you don´t draw your
Villeans in time, but Randy managed to win anyway.

Two tables were played in the eight round of our February-April league. Standard tournament rules apply + printed proxy is allowed.

WELCOME BACK Jonas H and Tomas after months of staying away! Now you just have to think of some funnier decks :)

Table 1:
1. Daniel H (Giovanni with pro anarch "Only 1 Govern" toolbox) 1 vp
2. Kim (Lasombra with pre vote)
3. Randy (Obf-dom-cel IC Flurry sb/vote) 4 vp, 1 gw
4. Henrik (Lasombra Black Hand with Nostoket sb)
5. Kari (Toreador Aching Beauty G1-2 tap n bleed)

Table 2:
1. Jonas H (Gangrel Torvus toolbox) 2 vp
2. Tomas (Ventrue/Toreador PRE-princes vote/bleed) 3 vp, 1 gw
3. Kristofer (Guillaume Giovanni anarch-rush)
4. Kim (Tremere princes toolbox)
5. Henrik (Lasombra Black Hand with Nostoket sb)

League standings:
Randy 96 rtp
Jens 58 rtp
Kim 54 rtp
Kari 46 rtp
Peter 44 rtp
Robert 42 rtp
Daniel H 32 rtp
Henrik 28 rtp
Ivan, Tomas 20 rtp
Kristofer 18 rtp
Jonas H, Jonas S, Kalle 8 rtp
Daniel R, Zich 4 rtp
(1 gw = 8 ratingpoints, 1 vp = 4 ratingpoints. Note: Players can play more than one game each round if their participation are needed to complete a table where at least one player has not yet played a league game this round, but only the best result each round counts for rating. If more players than 5 want to play such a table, lowest vp-count this round has priority. No league game begin before 17.00 or starts after 20.00.)

The next round of the league is played at Dragon´s Lair, Kungsholmstorg 8 next Wednesday about 1800-ish. Be there!

BobbyDoc's deck clinic part 1: The Marcellus situation

The purpose of this clinic is to tune existing decks to the better (hopefully). So please, my fellow Methuselahs, contribute with your decks that needs some care and attention. Meanwhile I'll tweak my own decks here.

-- Deck idea --This is a toolbox deck featuring Marcellus and Ellen Fence as the main characters. There Marcellus is the main defender and Ellen is the one rushing.

-- Design --This is quite an old deck from back in the days. What I could remember it was doing ok. I haven't played it for 10+ years, but tweaked it a couple of times. But today, just by looking at it, I acknowledge the fact it's not that good. The positive news is that there are a some new cards since then that would improve it.

Crypt (12)

4 Ellen Fence, the Tracker (8, aus CEL OBF PRO, Gangrel Antitribu, Bishop, 2, Sabbat bishop: Ellen can enter combat with any tapped minion controlled by your predator or prey as a (D) action)

4 Marcellus (8, AUS CEL pro, Toreador, Prince, 2, Camarilla Prince of Monaco: If Marcellus is ready, political actions cost Nosferatu 1 additional blood. +1 bleed)

1 Darrell Boyce, Consul (6, CEL OBF PRO, Gangrel Antitribu, 2, Sabbat)

1 Skryta Zyleta (5, obf pot pro CEL, Gangrel Antitribu, 3, Sabbat. Black Hand)

1 Scarlet Carson O`Toole (4, pro CEL, Gangrel Antitribu, 3, Sabbat)

1 Wren (4, cel obf pro, Gangrel Antitribu, 2, Sabbat)

Library (71)

Masters (15)

2 Dreams of the Sphinx

1 Pentex

2 Wider View

2 Protean

3 Gangrel Conspiracy

5 Blood Doll

Action (5)

2 Shadow of the Beast

3 Bums Rush

Action Modifier (4)

4 Cloak the Gathering

Action Modifier / Combat (7)

2 Ritual of the Bitter Rose

5 Swallowed by the Night

Ally (1)

1 Carlton van Wyck

Combat (40)

6 Amaranth

3 Bone Spur

2 Earthmeld

2 Flesh of Marble

2 Form of Mist

2 Infernal Pursuit

8 Psyche!

6 Pursuit

4 Stutter Step

5 Wolf Claws  

Equipment (4)

2 Camera Phone

1 Bowl of Convergence

1 Ivory Bow

Event (1)

1 Urban Jungle

Reactions (9)

9 Second Tradition: Domain

Retainers (1)

1 Resplendand Protector

Votes (2)

2 Templar

-- Analyzing and redesign --The crypt looks ok. Will add Sadie. Also another Marcellus would be nice, since it's important to have a good defence at start.

    Ennoias Theatre is a no-brainer here, as well as Under Siege.

    Instantaneous Transformation will replace all obfuscate cards, it will definatly provide some extra momentum to the deck.

    Monster for more multi-action and I doubled up on Ivory Bow. Parity Shift is always good (no room for Templar).

I also (during lotsa pain) decided to slim the library to 71 cards (a whopping 19 cards difference), and this is the result:

Crypt (12)

4 Ellen Fence (8, !Gangrel, CEL, OBF, PRO, Bishop, rush d-action prey or predator)

5 Marcellus (8, Toreador, AUS, CEL, pro, Prince, +1 bleed)

1 Sadie (2, pro, !Gangrel, 2, Sabbat)

1 Scarlett Carson o’Toole (4, !Gangrel, CEL, pro)

1 Skryta Zyleta (5, !Gangrel, CEL, obf, pro, Black Hand)

Library (71)

Masters (12)

1 Dreams of the Sphinx

2 Pentex

1 Wider View

1 Protean

1 Ennoias Theatre

1 Gangrel Conspiracy

4 Blood Doll

1 Monster

Action (4)

1 Shadow of the Beast

2 Bums Rush

1 Under Siege

Action Modifier (5)

5 Instantaneous Transformation

Action Modifier / Combat (1)

1 Ritual of the Bitter Rose

Combat (33)

5 Amaranth

5 Claws of the Dead

1 Earthmeld

1 Flesh of Marble

1 Form of Mist

2 Infernal Pursuit

7 Psyche!

7 Pursuit

3 Stutter Step

1 Wolf Claws  

Equipment (5)

1 Camera Phone

1 Bowl of Convergence

2 Ivory Bow

Event (1)

1 Urban Jungle

Reactions (8)

8 Second Tradition: Domain

Retainers (1)

1 Resplendand Protector

Votes (1)

1 Parity Shift

-- Field Test --

Daniel H had a house warming party with VTES, so I brought this new creation. This evening would be more casual than the normal super-competitive environment of Stockholm, so a perfect moment to get a feeling of the flow of the deck.

Game 1 (which had three, yes three decks, using "Gear Up"):

BobbyDoc > Daniel (Giovanni Protean anarch multi-act) > Jonas (Ravnos Anarch breed boon) > Henrik (Teresita s&b) > Kalle (Giovanni/Samedi Shamblers Talbot Chainsaw)

Although I had no Ellen in the start crypt, I got the other three !Gangrel. So I was still pleased, and managed to get Ellen a little later with Wider View.

    One of the first actions of the game was Kalle trying to recruit Shamblers, but was promptly blocked and eaten by Marcellus. Excellent. This gave me time to set-up and move forward.

    After a while it was clear to me that Jonas would be hard to stop if he was allowed to gain more pool from Con Boon. A well placed Parity Shift weakened him and Daniel asked me to bleed him so he could deflect.

    So Jonas became the first casualty. Kalle, still in a losing position, had rushed backwards a little which had weakend Henrik. But soon Kalle was ousted and I was in a very good position.

    Now I didn't play my best game, I decided to rush backwards neutralizing Henrik, instead of just bleeding. But earned some extra style-points eating a full Frank Litzpar and played Ritual of the Bitter Rose, filling up all my four vampires.

    Daniel managed to oust Henrik and then conceded.

Robert 2 vp, Daniel 2 vp, Henrik 1 vp

-- Conclusion --The deck had a really nice flow and if I just played a little better I may have won the game. It will be interesting to play it more and see how it copes against tougher decks.

Thank you for reading!

/BobbyDoc

Current tier 1 decks?

What are the tier 1 decks right now? By tier 1 I mean the best tournament level decks. Me, Randyman and Myrdin discussed this recently, and could agree on these:

We might have forgotten some decks though. Feel free to comment, below or on VEKN.net!

Note: Our discussion took place before the banning of Anthelios, which crippled the Girls-archetype. It might still be a playable deck though, but is it tier 1?

The Stockholm League – April 6, 2016

Totally Tupdog-safe!

Four tables were played in the seventh round of our February-April league. Standard tournament rules apply + printed proxy is allowed.

Table 1:

1. Jens (Tremere Gerald Govern+Soul Scan toolbox)

2. Robert (Giovanni anarch Cry Wolf and Khazars Diary)

3. Kari (Ravnos/Tzimisce Hazimel & Sha-Ennu Dabbler sb) 3 vp, 1 gw

4. Henrik (Kiasyd/Lasombra sb)

5. Kim (Lasombra with PRE vote) 2 vp

Table 2:

1. Henrik (Nosferatu G4-5 bigcap vote)

2. Jens (Tremere Gerald Govern+Soul Scan toolbox) 1,5 vp

3. Daniel H (Toreador anarch cel-aus guns)

4. Kristofer (Lasombra with PRE vote/sb) 2,5 vp, 1 gw

5. Kalle (Malkavian Maris Streck and Procurers wall)

Table 3:

1. Randy (OBF-CEL Rebecka Flurry sb/vote) 1 vp

2. Kari (!Ventrue BH bruise-bleed with Elimelech)

3. Kim (Tremere with ANI toolbox) 3 vp, 1 gw

4. Robert (AUS-CEL wall with Asguresh)

Table 4:

1. Kari (Brujah Jaroslav toolbox) 0,5 vp

2. Peter (Gangrel Mimir sb/toolbox) 1,5 vp

3. Daniel R (Tremere Spiridonas sb/vote)

4. Robert (AUS-CEL wall with Asguresh) 0,5 vp

5. Randy (Gangrel anarch Brunhilde/Danielle toolbox) 0,5 vp

League standings:

Randy 72 rtp

Jens 58 rtp

Kim 54 rtp

Kari 46 rtp

 Peter 44 rtp

Robert 42 rtp

Daniel H, Henrik 28 rtp

Ivan 20 rtp

Kristofer 18 rtp

Jonas S, Kalle 8 rtp

Daniel R, Zich 4 rtp

(1 gw = 8 ratingpoints, 1 vp = 4 ratingpoints. Note: Players can play more than one game each round if their participation are needed to complete a table where at least one player has not yet played a league game this round, but only the best result each round counts for rating. If more players than 5 want to play such a table, lowest vp-count this round has priority. No league game begin before 17.00 or starts after 20.00.)

The next round of the league is played at Dragon´s Lair, Kungsholmstorg 8 next Wednesday about 1800-ish. Be there!

Ashur´s War Journal – March 2016

Hello again, Ashur here. Much is happening, the journal is a bit late, but here it is.

My current decks (in no particular order):
1: Ventrue princes with sticks (Classic Hugh style)
2: Kiasyd/Lasombra sb (A bit more Nocturns than in my Nationals TWD)
3: Gerald Windham sb (Get Ankara and Govern down, Freak Drive, people get ousted)
4: !Tremere and friends anarchs Diversion with Nephaduses (Didn´t work at all)
5: Gangrel Mictlantecuhtli+Talbots chainsaw with ANI-weenies (Crater-deck = sucks)
6: Brujah Appolonius multi-bleed combat toolbox (Fun!)
7: Nosferatu G4-5 vote (see below)


Ashur deck of the month:

Deck Name : Old friend Alonso

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 7 max: 11 average: 9.41667
4x Alonso Petrodon 10 ANI DOM OBF POT for tha justicar Nosferatu:5
3x Baron Dieudonne 9ANI OBF POT PRO prince Nosferatu:4
2x Josef von Bauren 11 ANI DEM OBF POT cel inner circle Nosferatu:4
2x Benjamin Rose 7 AUS OBF ani pot prince Nosferatu:5
1x Gabrielle di Righetti 10 ANI AUS DOM THA obf pot justicar Tremere:5

Library [77 cards]
Master [21]
1x Archon Investigation
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
1x Golconda: Inner Peace
1x Information Highway
1x Papillon
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
7x Villein
2x Warsaw Station
4x Zillah's Valley

Event [1]
1x Narrow Minds

Action/Equipment [7]
3x Fourth Tradition: The Accounting
1x Heart of Nizchetus
2x Judgment: Camarilla Segregation
1x SchreckNET

Political Action [14]
1x Anarchist Uprising
1x Ancient Influence
1x Ancilla Empowerment
2x Banishment
2x Kine Resources Contested
1x Neonate Breach
5x Parity Shift
1x Political Stranglehold

Action Modifier [24]
4x Animal Magnetism
4x Elder Impersonation
2x Enkil Cog
4x Forgotten Labyrinth
4x Lost in Crowds
3x Old Friends
3x Swallowed by the Night

Combat [2]
1x Burning Wrath
1x No Trace

Reaction [8]
6x Second Tradition: Domain
2x Sense the Savage Way

My thoughts after playing it three times:
- I tried to build a Nosferatu vote deck that´s not the usual Legendary Selma+Parity Shifts nor some kind of breed-boon. I understand it´s not tier 1.
- I wanted to try out Animal Magnetism and Old Friends, two cards I don´t think I´ve played with before. They´re kind of nice, but strangly underpowered compared to Bewitching Oration, Iron Glare and Scalpel Tounge. There is no need for this - Presence is the number 1 vote-discipline anyway, because of broken Voter Captivation.
- Alonsos special is kind of fun now when anarchs are popular in our meta. As is Judgment: Camarilla Segregation.
- Of course the deck works best with Warsaw Station in play. Maybe I need one more? Hard to find place though.
- Metro Underground should be in the deck, for Enkil Cog double-bleed to work.
- It´s sad to see how bad non-Presence vote decks are.
- A bit too many masters. Will try to slim away a couple.
- I´ll might need some more discard/hand manipulation tech to get rid of late arriving crypt acceleration, superfluous Villeins, etc. Decks with Unmada, Ulugh Begh and Thurmicia have this "for free".
- Judgment: Camarilla Segregation hits wildly cross-table sometimes. Of course that sucks, but on the other hand it hits perfect sometimes, removing lots of pool from the right places.
- Benjamin Rose is crappy, but also somewhat interesting. I´ll might try a deck based on him soon, me being the sado-masochist that I am :)


Some other ideas I´ve pondered recently:
- Valerius Maior + Gear Up?
- I won the Gothcon draft. We need to draft more! :)
- I failed to reach the finals at the ECQ. Time for new ideas.
- Great that the VEKN site is looking better again. Thanks Damnans and whoever helped him!
- I am selling some cards. Check out the list here. I can also trade if you have anything I need.
- What do White Wolf Publishing have in mind for the future of VTES? The VEKN surveys has been completed and the results has been delivered. Something might happen soon. I will sum up my own ideas and wishful thinking in a separate post.

If anyone have any answers to the questions above, feel free to comment below, or at it´s VEKN forum-thread, or by mail to vtes@msghsfhi.com. Thanks!

Ashur´s Gothcon experience 2016: The ECQ

Swedish ECQ 2016

Gothcon, Gothenburg, Sweden

March 26, 2016

3 rounds + final

16 players

Pre-game considerations: As I have been rather successful the last year (won ECQ, won Nationals, played EC day 2) I opted one of the decks that have worked for me in those tournaments. For once I had also played a couple of those decks fairly much in the last couple of months, namely my Lasombra/Kiasyd stealth-bleeder and my (well, actually Hugh Anseesings) Ventrue princes with sticks. The Lasombra deck is a simple and super aggressive deck that won me the Nationals, and the Ventrue deck is a deck I´ve played various versions of since september 2011. The variant I´ve used this winter is very much like the one Hugh Anseesing wonEC 2013 with, I only changed a couple of master cards or so.

In the morning I decided that the Lasombra deck felt a bit too boring and obvious, although it´s very effective. So I choose the Ventrue deck. But when I arrived at the venue I noticed that I forgot my Ventrue crypt at the hotel! So I had to go for the Lasombra deck, which I had with me, complete with crypt :(

Deck Name: Avalon Incorporated Gothcon 2016 version

Author: Henrik K (Ashur)

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 3 max: 8 average: 5.75

2x Isanwayen              6  DOM MYT OBT                 Kiasyd:4

2x Dame Hollerton         5  DOM OBT myt                 Kiasyd:4

1x Arcadian, The          8  DOM MYT OBT chi for         Kiasyd:5

1x Badr, Shadow of Gr     7  DOM OBT POT                 Lasombra:5

1x Lord Vauxhall          7  DOM OBT POT THA             Lasombra:4

1x Onaedo                 6  DOM OBT aus pot             Lasombra:4

1x Virginie, Prodigy      6  DOM POT obt          bishop Lasombra:4

1x Andrew Emory           5  OBT aus dom pot      bishop Lasombra:4

1x Ermenegildo, The R     5  DOM OBT pot                 Lasombra:4

1x Lucy Markowitz         3  dom obt                     Lasombra:4

Library [65 cards]

Action [13]

13x Govern the Unaligned

Action Modifier [28]

4x Bonding

2x Command of the Beast

5x Conditioning

2x Foreshadowing Destruction

2x Leverage

4x Seduction

3x Shadow Play

3x Shroud of Absence

1x Shroud of Night

2x Stone Travel

Ally [5]

5x Nocturn

Combat [2]

2x Shadow Body

Master [11]

1x Coven, The

3x Dreams of the Sphinx

2x Great Symposium

2x Life in the City

3x Pentex(TM) Subversion

Reaction [6]

2x Deflection

2x On the Qui Vive

2x Redirection

As some of you might notice, the only difference between this and the Nationals deck is that it has 2 fewer Govern the Unaligned, but 2 more Nocturns. This is because I´ve tried to play it with more Nocturns in our weekly Stockholm GregerAnderssen Memorial league games (because people tend to play more rush-combat in any non-tournament games), and I realized that it ain´t so bad even in tournaments. But I´m still not sure. I see the “Blockturn” deck as a somewhat different archetype (with multiple Unmaskings, possibly FBI, etc) – the main reasons for the Nocturns here is not to block various actions, but to block just some key rushes and to get a less predictable bleed delivery.

16 happy players attended, including one Brit, one German and one Portuguese. Don´t know what happened in Finland nor Denmark, but I hope those players get back to the game soon. Otherwise the usual suspects, plus some Skåne players and Mathias all the way from Umeå – thanks for turning up!

As always I´ll illustrate the tables with these fancy pictures. The colours are red = aggressive, orange = semi-aggressive, yellow = not aggressive at all.

Round 1

Difficulty for me: 4/5. Kim´s deck is a solid wall – it´s really sad the Design Team ignored all warnings about Guardian Vigils brokenness. It´s way too strong, all good players I´ve discussed it with have suggested the for-effect should have been either protein or a much weaker effect. While my deck has some wall-breaker tech, it hasn´t enough defense to survive Hugh´s persistent stealth-bleeding. One other problem is my decks high profile. Kim could handle my bleeds, even when she got crippled by Fredrik, who of course knew I was a bigger threat than Kim. I guess maybe he just let me die.

My performance: 2/5. I really failed in the table talk. Hugh of course talks all the time, and influenced Fredrik to allow him to have 3 minions, which meant doom for me. My only response to Hugh´s excellent table talk would be “Never listen to that man!”, and that just don´t work.
The other players: I don´t think I´ve played against Fredrik before, and he had a deck that´s very difficult to win with, but apart from that he allowed Hugh to oust me (which I think was a mistake even not considering my self-interest!) I think he played good. I had to leave the table to do something else when I was ousted, so I didn´t see the whole game, but I heard it continued rather long, with Kim saving Hugh from being ousted and Hugh eventually doing the sweep.

Lesson to learn: Learn better table talk. Play less threatening decks.

Hugh 4 vp

Round 2

Difficulty for me: 2/5. Sitting between two decks with no intercept is extremely good for me, and I Govern out 5 vamps with no trouble. But Stefan play a lot of bleed-bounce and Faerie Wards which stunts any decent launch attempts from my side, and Mathias circumvents my own (not very plentiful) bounce with nasty Revelation of Ecstasy and Enticement (damn that Mokole Blood!), so I problems both ousting and staying alive myself.
My performance: 4/5. Carlos puts the first Nakhthorheb to torpor and I sacrifice Lucy Markowitz to diablerize him, totally worth burning her. I´m forced to play Pentex backwards on Mathias to stay in the game, and Carlos ousts Mathias with some bounced bleeds from me and Stefan. I oust Stefan and draws into even more strong bleed cards, so I manage to oust Carlos with a well-timed 7-bleed from Virgine (Command of the Beast, Leverage, Foreshadowing Destruction and her special). Good work and a bit of luck.
The other players: All played good. Mathias played a extreme all-or-nothing “glass canon” deck. Stefan ran a fairly original Marconius-based bigcap obtenebration stealth-bleeder, with titled vamps mainly for vote defense. Carlos ran a 90 card-ish Tzimisce wall with some political actions that maybe need some tuning – but he got to the final, so what should I say about tuning?

Lesson to learn: None really. A fairly straightforward game, not a lot of surprises.

Carlos 1 vp

Me 3 vp

Round 3

Difficulty for me: 4/5. Even though I have 4 Seduction and 3 Pentex, I have real problems with a dedicated wall deck, such as Rudolfs. I got really annoyed with getting that seating, had rather bad draw and made some bad decisions.
My performance: 1/5. Primarily I failed in my table talk again. In a critical situation, Jacob was choosing if his Nergal should play his first Barrenness on Rudolfs Heart of Nizchetus-equipped Anarch Convert or on Daniels Saulot, and I somehow forgot to promise him to remove the (for the moment contested) Pentex on Nergal. So he played the Barrenness forward instead of backward, drastically improving Rudolfs hand optimization and at the same time making it impossible for Daniel to ever play Neutral Guard affecting Goratrix. Very bad of me. I also wasted a Pentex and 3 of my Seductions in an early totally failed launch at Rudolf, so I pretty much gave up and let Daniel oust me.
The other players: Apart from the incident mentioned above I was annoyed by all the other players :) Jacob played a bit too sloppy, Daniels deck is too reckless and Rudolf did some strange mind games on me. But that is part of the game!

Lesson to learn: Never give up early. Sit it out even when next to a wall that is so fucking boring a deck can ever be. Shit might change things, you might get lucky.

Daniel 1 vp
Jacob 1 vp

Rudolf 2 vp

Final

 

Randy was top seed, Rudolf second seed.

I watched almost the whole final, and it was fairly entertaining. Randys deck is really vulnerable, and after he took a couple of bounced big bleeds he was out. Carlos got Eternal Vigilance on Lambach and got a bit to cocky with Eagles Sight-blocking stuff (if I recall correctly), so he was ousted by Hughs persistent bleeding. The rest got really interesting, although I actually missed the last minutes.

Carlos 1 vp

Kari 1 vp

Hugh 3 vp and tournament victory, congrats!

Hugh´s tournament winning deck.

Friends of the German language can read Rudolfs tournament report here.

In conclusion: I was a bit disappointed with myself not having the mental stamina to sit out that last game besides Goratrix, but sometimes it´s just not worth the suffering. I have almost zero understanding for players that choose to play wall decks and similar attrition-based deck concepts, which actually is all about watching other players not having fun for two hours. BUT I also know it´s established archetypes and a part of the game, so I should really just shut up and adapt.

I´ll guess I´ll be back next ECQ, that will be my 17th Gothcon or something like that, possibly my 14th in a row. Hopefully we will have the game back in print by then! See you there!