Tournament Report – Carte Blanche

Nine players showed up at Sverok’s new nice venue in Majorna, Göteborg, for some intense bleeding. As it was such a small tournament I decided to try an untested deck. Well the concept was not really untested but this latest heavily modified version was. When I saw this deck by John Bell in the TWDA something inside my deranged brain started working. I liked the idea and wondered if it actually was working or if he just had been lucky.

My first draft of his deck didn’t work out very well. I basically reduced library size and diversified the crypt and made some small changes here and there. It didn’t work out at all. The deck just sat waiting for some persons to be ousted to reach a good point to play Smiling Jack without any real table control other than a frustrated predator. In our meta this was a typical “reach the duel with your prey and lose”-deck.
In the second draft I changed the crypt to almost the one it is now. I also added some Delaying Tactics to defend against politics instead of relying on votes of my own. Finally I added a few more bleed cards. Now it was a whole different deck to play with some potential power to get the first oust before the duel and the momentum to win. The second playing of this second draft I played a Pentex™ Subversion on my predator’s first minion. I then used Faerie Wards to stop my predator’s first attempt and my prey’s two attempts of removing it. This really put me in a great position and I realized that this deck shall protect against actions to remove cards like Pentex and not protecting Smiling Jack. With this in mind and after some reasoning with Erik Torstensson and Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark I built this tournament deck instead. There are for sure better stealth/bleed crypts but this was the best I could come up with for Marconius and he is really needed to get to use Faerie Wards.

Deck Name : How to Ward a Pentex
Author : Stefan Karlsson

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 4 max: 9 average: 6.83333

4	Marconius	9	DOM MYT OBT pot	archbishop	Kiasyd	2
2	Gratiano	8	DOM OBT obf pot	priscus	Lasombra	2
1	Julia Prima	7	DOM OBT aus myt		Kiasyd	2
1	Kassiym Malikhair	6	MYT OBT dom for		Kiasyd	2
1	Guido Lucciano	5	OBT dom obf		Lasombra	2
1	Ignacio, The Black Priest	4	dom obt pot		Lasombra	2
1	Quincy, the Trapper	4	dom myt obt		Kiasyd	3
1	Ramiro	4	dom obt vic		Lasombra	2

Library [75 cards]

Action [11]
  10x Govern the Unaligned
  1x Riddle Phantastique

Action Modifier [25]
  2x Bonding
  5x Conditioning
  1x Foreshadowing Destruction
  2x Seduction
  4x Shadow Play
  3x Shroud of Absence
  2x Shroud of Night
  4x Stone Travel
  2x Tenebrous Form

Ally [1]
  1x Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Equipment [1]
  1x Heart of Nizchetus

Master [15]
  1x Anarch Troublemaker
  1x Coven, The
  1x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Elysian Fields
  1x Giant's Blood
  1x Great Symposium
  1x Jake Washington (Hunter) 
  1x Lilith’s Blessing
  1x Metro Underground
  1x Misdirection
  3x Pentex(TM) Subversion
  1x Powerbase: Montreal
  1x Rack, The

Reaction [22]
  5x Deflection
  2x Delaying Tactics
  8x Faerie Wards
  2x On the Qui Vive
  5x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Round 1

1	2	3	4
Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark	Stefan Karlsson (yes that’s me)	Daniel Wiberg	Archibald Zimonyi
Giovanni Powerbleed with Puppeteers	Kiasyd / Lasombra Stealth/Bleed with Faerie Wards	Old School Ventrue Law Firm	Force of Will Bleed with some Dominate

The crypt draw was nice with four different vampires, one being Marconius and one being Gratiano. The library however was horrible and I started cycling so I could get a Govern the Unaligned for the well needed crypt acceleration. No luck there. I had some Deflections, some wakes and a Faerie Wards or two early on witch helped me from being ousted very quick but apart from that I only drew stealth cards and no one ever tried to block my actions. It really was a dead game for me. There were a whole lot of bouncing bleeds all around the table and that really made me not being able to stop Isak for very long. I remember having to play an inferior Faerie Wards on one of Archiebald’s vampires at a bounced bleed but I was close to forgetting to play it at inferior. Good thing to remember kids if you ever want to try this at home. Well, Isak soon overwhelmed the table and got a sweep.

Isak GW 4VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4
Magnus Hultin	Erik Cardell	Me	Ida Olsson Bjärmark
Giovanni Powerbleed	Ishtarri Anarchs	Shall I say it again?	Malk / !Malk Stealth / Bleed and Block / Light Combat

Again a good crypt and this time also a good starting hand. I played Powerbase: Montreal round one so I had Marconius in play after two influence phases. The Govern were there and together with the Powerbase Gratiano was out next round. A nice set-up.
Ida played aggressive against Magnus who got a pretty bad start with no Governs and few bounce cards. Erik also defended quite well against his bleeds. I put adequate pressure on Ida but she bounced, and even more so blocked, most of my bleeds. Erik got plenty of intercept locations out and I played some casual Faerie Wards on his bleed attempts just to slow him down as my pool started to wear out.
Ida ousted Magnus and now it was a very critical point in the game where I really had to gear up even more not to let her sweep. I put a Pentex™ Subersion on Kite and she decided it was not worth the Faerie Wards risk to try and remove it so she tried her best to oust Erik who blocked just enough to stay alive.
Let’s just have a quick break for a lecture: The real power of Faerie Wards is not the card itself – it’s the fear of suffering it.
My bleeding eventually was too much for the surprisingly blocky Malkavians and I got my first oust. The duel was a nightmare as Erik had four or five intercept locations and I could only opt for one real bleed attempt a turn because of Channel 10 in combination with me being low on blood and him having guns. Slow grinding including Pentex, Misdirection and Faerie Wards eventually gave me the win but it was a hard earned one. I shall also add that I had Powerbase: Montreal from round 1 to the very end.
Me GW 3VP
Ida 1VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Daniel Wiberg	Ida Olsson Bjärmark	Archibald Zimonyi	Me	Erik Cardell
Lawfirm	Malkavian	Gangrel	…	Ishtarri

This time the crypt was not so good. 4 x Marconius. I had both Powerbase: Montreal and Dreams of the Sphinx on my starting hand but Archibald played Sudden Reversal on the Powerbase and I didn’t want to contest Dreams with Daniel. I played a Pentex™ Subversion on Iliana as fast as Archibald had put her in play and that helped some. Erik refused to remove it the turn thereafter and the very next turn when Erik wanted to make an attempt Archibald said that it was no use and the strange situation occurred where Erik instead bled Daniel and Iliana was still unable to act or block.
Ida had to split focus between prey and predator and when Archibald eventually got to start playing he bled me quite heavily. Daniel struggled and didn’t draw the right vote cards and had to settle for small bleeds. Meanwhile Erik made moderate damage on his pool. I had to start getting desperate and went all forward with Marconius and his fished for friend Kassiym. I drew the right reaction cards and could Faerie Ward both of Archibald’s Gangrels for another attempt and I got just the resources I needed to oust Erik. Quite a miracle after that start if you ask me.
I was close of getting even Daniel but Ida ousted Archibald and put heavy pressure on me. Deflections and Faerie Wards saved me for a couple of more attempts but Ida got me and the game timed out.
Ida GW 2.5VP
Me 1VP
Daniel 0.5VP

It was now time for the finals and the top seed list looked like this:
1. Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark 2 GW plenty VP
2. Ida Olsson Bjärmark 2 GW not so plenty VP
3. Alex Ek 1 GW plenty VP
4. Me 1 GW 4 VP
5. Archibald Zimoniy 1 VP

The Finals

1	2	3	4	5
Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark	Alex Ek	Ida Olsson Bjärmark	Archibald Zimonyi	Me
Giovanni	Presence Weenies with Anson / Huitzilopochtli Master Module	Malkavian	Gangrel	Funny Geezers with Pale Faces

I just didn’t get any Govern the Unaligned at the start and had to influence Marconius and Gratiano the hard way. Captain Hindsight later told me I should have influenced a weenie up first to start bleeding Isak or at least deflecting Archibald’s early bleeds. Alex had a hard time doing anything serious to Ida since he played with none or little stealth. Archibald did heavy damage to me but my reaction cards were just enough to stay alive. Did I mention that I didn’t draw any Governs? Well that kept on for a while and I didn’t draw any bleed modifiers either so Isak could get a lot of minions in play. Ida ousted Archibald and kept her pressure at me, her being the only one with a decent pool amount on the table.
Isak went for the oust but imagined that Le Dinh Tho had superior Dominate so when his last untapped Giovanni played Sudario Refraction he targeted Conditioning, On the Qui Vive and Deflection. Alex had 4 pool left and if Isak had grabbed a conditioning instead of one of the defensive cards planned for me he would have got a Victory Point. Alex replied by playing 2 x Liquidation much to Isak’s annoyance. I was at one pool now but survived another round to get a shot at Isak and took it for a VP.
Alex went forward as his only chance of getting a tournament win was to oust Ida before she ousted me. Now it was time for me to make my great mistake. I bled Alex heavily and he was at 4 pool (deja vu!). I had The Coven in play and my last minion to take an action against poor out-tapped Alex was Quincy the Trapper with one blood. I had Govern the Unaligned and Conditioning in hand but no stealth. Marconius was also on one blood and I had two Wake with Evening’s Freshness, one Deflection and two Faerie Wards. Ida had three potential bleeders and a fourth with Pentex played by Alex so I reasoned that if I by playing any two of the Farie Wards or Deflection I replaced into a new wake I could survive another round but I would need the blood from The Coven to be able to play all those cards. Well I had to bleed with Quincy, hoping Alex forgot about The Coven and wanting to save his potential wakes for later actions. Quincy played Govern the Unaligned and Anson played Wake and block. I sat thinking for a while if I should tap The Coven and play Conditioning to maybe draw into a stealth card but I decided not to and simply discarded and drew a Shroud of Absence as replace. Captain Hindsight talked to me again and told me Alex had no more reaction cards.
Ida contested Alex’ Pentex and ousted me and soon thereafter Alex for her first tournament win. Congratulations! I don’t know if I had stood a chance against her in the duel but it would not have been impossible with the correct cardflow and two Victory Points would have been better than one.
Ida GW 4VP
Me 1VP

Summary

It was a fun tournament and my deck is at least semi-competitive. I should have tested it a game or two before taking it to a tournament because some of the rests from the wall-attempt still remains and those card slots could have seen better use.
I will definitely remove Riddle Phantastique, The Rack and probably also Mylan. The amount of cards is good and I should probably add an On the Qui Vive and a Deflection. Elysian Fields were discarded or cycled by Heart of Nizchetus every time I saw it and should probably also be removed, too few Lasombra in the crypt. To add another Dreams of the Sphinx would probably also be a good idea.
My report might sound like I complain a little about bad draws but actually I don’t blame bad luck. The important factor is to try and handle suboptimal card flow because with a deck like this with both an offensive and a defensive module you will not always draw what you need.
I had a great tournament and it was great to see yet another new face in the Göteborg tournament scene. Welcome Daniel, we card flipping cheese consuming beerheads need a glam rocker amongst us! The last thing I have to say today is that it is nice to see that this blog doesn’t suffer the same curse as Beer and Jyhad did. Everybody cheer for me – I got a Game Win!