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.
Stay tuned
for reports on EC day 1 and 2.
