The aftermath...

Erik has written about his RopeCon experience!
I am home from Ropecon and it has been a great trip! Thanks to the swedes and fins making the trip and the competition awesome. Special big up to our gracious host with the amazing comic book collection who let us stay there. I’ll definately be going next year too.

So here’s a few thoughts of the V:TES experience. I picked the deck I’ve had most success with and played the most in the Stockholm league. It’s pretty much a standard dom/tha bleed deck with a few added allies and Grooming the Protege. I managed to win the second round table barely. I got into heads-up with a kiasyd bleed deck and it could really have gone either way. That win plus one vp from the first table got me into 18th place which gave me a t-shirt. Awesome!

I must say that I was pretty nervous having to play while speaking english. Specially when I was playing two tables as the only swede but I quickly got relaxed because the finnish people were really kind. There were hardly any missunderstandings due to language as far as I remember.

I saw a lot of interesting decks but I was a bit surprised by the lack of rush combat. I saw a few such decks but I thought there would be more. There were a lot of famous archetypes with funny quirks which made me really happy to see. Finland has really good players even though some may not play as often as our group in Stockholm.

All in all a great trip with V:tes, sauna, beer and amazing company. Ropecon was a great way for me to play outside of Stockholm for the first time and I can really recommend it. The cosplayers was cool to watch as well.

See you at the EC!!!

Erik writes his thoughts on Ropecon.

Hello! 

I’m Erik and I’m going to my first V:tes tournament abroad, ropecon, in less than a week now. I’ve been playing the game for about two years now in Stockholm and it’s finaly time to see what other players are like outside of Sweden. I haven’t really figured out what deck to bring yet but I’ve narrowed it down to two choices.

I can pick the ‘safe’ deck which would be my bleed with dominate and sneak with obfuscate version. And by safe I mean that the toughest choices you get to make with it is whether to play Govern the Unaligned on superior or inferior. The deck has a few wins in the stockholm league and managed to get into the finals in one tournament where unfortunately I got a faster dom-obf bleeder as my predator. The deck has no combat though so if opposing vampires get hungry I’m dead.

But I can also pick a more difficult deck to really test my own ability. I have recently played an anarch midcap rush-bleed deck with CEL that is really funny to play but quite problematic for me because of the tough choices. 

Picking targets for rushes isn’t that easy actually! More so when you know there’s other decks on the table that can hit you back, and even harder sometimes. I have heard from others that Finland likes to play Potence combat so my deck would be having a hard time. Or a fun time!

I will have to think about this some more. I do have a few other decks that I could bring as well but right now these two seems more likely but we’ll see.

Tapio: Viha ja ravio metsän sydämestä

Randyman writing! I also came home from the Swedish ECQ yesterday, with the same train as Ashur even :-P. But unlike him I’m not gonna write about the event but rather about the deck I played and have done the last month or so.

After a great deal of research I found the name for the deck. I got good help from Tom, Niina, and Marko.

Tapio: Viha ja ravio metsän sydämestä

Tapio is the name of my Finnish boss at a job I work at. And when I asked him to translate the rest of the sentence he just said, well thats me! Viha ja ravio metsän sydämestä means hatred and wrath from the deep forests. A fitting name for a good but hard boss!

Anders Löf originated the idea of using an abundant amount of Pentex(TM) Subversion for fast pentex on predator and then using them for rushes. It was from what I had seen him play I made my version that differs quite a lot.

Here it goes. And the latest version after a month of tweeking and two tournaments

Deck Name: Tapio: Viha ja ravio metsän sydämestä

Author: Randyman

Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=1 max=9 avg=6.25)

===============================================

4x  Aksinya Daclau   9  cel tha ANI FOR PRE PRO  !Gangrel:4

1x  Beetleman        4  obf ANI                  Nosferatu:4

1x  Lillian          3  ani pro                  Gangrel:5

1x  Stick            3  ANI                      !Nosferatu:4

4x  Talbot           7  for ANI NEC PRO          Gangrel:5

1x  Walker Grimes    1  ani                      Caitiff:5

Library (74 cards)

==================

Master (20)

1x Dark Influences

1x Erciyes Fragments, The

2x Fame

1x Giant's Blood

1x Guardian Angel

1x Lilith's Blessing

6x Pentex(TM) Subversion

3x Sudden Reversal

4x Villein

//There are a lot of masters for rushing and bouncing with. the latest additions being the fames and guardian angel which have been most useful

Event (1)

1x Dragonbound

Action (5)

5x Deep Song

Retainer (3)

3x Raven Spy

Reaction (17)

3x Cats' Guidance

2x Delaying Tactics

1x Guard Dogs

1x Lost in Translation

2x On the Qui Vive

1x Rat's Warning

7x Sense the Savage Way

// Run a lot of reaction cards as a part of the deck in comparison to girls will find aids or Anders version

Combat (28)

11x Aid from Bats

2x Canine Horde

11x Carrion Crows

1x Claws of the Dead

3x Taste of Vitae

//Many times I wanted to remove the claws but i is a maneuver and could be used to kill tye cooper and ponticulus

The deck is fun but hard to play, every decision is important as is every action is also. But that is what you get when not running dominate :-P

If you want to try it do it and you can also do a more girlish version with Nana and ashur tablets, the way Anders runs it, but then I recommend to cut a lot of reactions.

//Randyman

Brewers Corner: Swedish Champion

Less than a week left to the Swedish Nationals held in Örebro, bleedcapitol of, dare I say, the world.

So many thoughts rush through my head.

What deck to play?

What will the meta be?

Whats a realistic goal. To win? To get to the final? To avoid becomming Apache Jones again?

Can you choose decks based on your what you want to achieve? When you look at some decks I can think "this might win a table or two, but can it win a final table?"

A perfect example of this is a weenie presence deck. Out of three tables it will likely sweep one and get you a couple of more vp:s since your first prey will almost always have a really tough start, but I have very seldom, if ever, seen one win a final table. Is this deck type a good choice for an ECQ? If your primary goal is to qualify and everything beyond that is a bonus then I would say yes, but if it is to win the whole thing, then I would not see this deck type as an option. This doesn´t feel promising for the Nationals.

Should I go with the staple deck?

I mean the standard formula where turn 2 you get your first guy at cap 7-8. Turn 3 govern down and get your next guy. Turn 4 both your minions govern down and turn 5 you should bleed for 24 and get your first vp. The strategy is naturally supported by eurostealth and Dreams in the master package and multi act (Ven/!ven) or stealth (Gio/Las/Mal g 1-2). The deck is hardly innovating, but it does get vp:s and gw:s.

I can go over the top with a glass canon like al-Muntahir bleeds for 16, Una or some turbo Baron or Nergal Soulgem brew. These kinds of decks are, in my mind, decks that very seldom win a final table since usually all the other finalists know what you are playing and if you get to do your thing(tm) they wont win. Pentex from your grand prey is not an option you should discard when sitting down on a final table with a deck like that.

The Ashurs-Liquidation trick is still strong, but it doesn´t have the same put through as it used to have, since most players have understood it´s strength and it´s weaknesses. And as Myrdin have already written about the master hate is running rampant in Stockholm, and it´s spreading. I expect to see alot of that in Örebro as well and that presents a big problem for this kind of deck.

Last year I played a royalty kind of deck with Malgorzata and crypt acc. In my first game there was 28 votes on the table after the first IC was Golconda:d. Is there soemthing as bad in V:tes when you sit down at a table with a deck that is really focused on one thing and the table and your position on it more or less prohibits you from doing just that thing? Maybe I should try to avoid that trap this year.

The first time that I played the Swedish Nationals I had a toolboxy bleed deck with one Demonstration, two Fear of Mekhet and three Framing an Ancient Grudge and needed either card in all three of my games and didn´t draw them fast enough. What was the lesson I can learn from that?

The second year I played a Helena wall deck that lacked enough forward motion to make an impact in the meta that year.

So after these experiences playing toolbox or wall are usually options I discard in larger tournaments. Even if you get the table you usually doesn´t get more than 3 vp:s which means you almost need vp:s in all games, and not counting that you will be dead by seating(tm) at at least one table is a bit too optimistic. Oh well, I have two more days to brew.

One thing is sure though: It´s going to be a blast!

Hope to see you there.

Tomas

"Sju är det nya sex"

"Sju är det nya sex"  - Something I and a few of my friends have laughingly said during the last couple of weeks.

It means "Seven is the new six" and it reflects how more people have been playing powerbleed and some using plus bleed minions at that in Stockholm. I think I'll have to give all my decks the Vignes test from now on. The Vignes test is to simulate drawing and during the fifth or sixth round try to survive beeing bleed by four minions for six each when you have no untapped minions yourself. A little simplified, but still!