European Championships 2011 - Last Chance Qualifier Tournament Report

As I had already managed to qualify I wanted to play a high risk deck. The one I picked for the day was one I had never won a game with before but that still felt like it was competent enough to do so. It is also featuring Gerald Windham as a star and my only deck in the TWDA so far is a Gerald deck so I was hoping for him as a lucky charm.
Before I continue I need to say that since I played three tournaments in three days my memory might have faded or even been altered so the reports might not be as detailed and correct as the ones I use to write. Hope you enjoy them anyhow. Here is the deck list:

Deck Name : War Saw Superstar
Author : Stefan Karlsson (with some great support from Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark)

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 9 average: 6

6	Gerald Windham	9	AUS DOM FOR THA	Tremere	5
1	Kay Polerno	4	dom nec pro	Giovanni	5
1	Primo Giovanni	4	dom nec pot	Giovanni	4
1	Almodo Giovanni	3	dom pot	Giovanni	4
1	Stephen Milliner	3	nec pre	Giovanni	5
1	Cristobal Ghiberti	2	nec	Giovanni	4
1	Eric Milliner	2	pot	Giovanni	5

Library [80 cards]

Action [21]
  1x Big Game
  1x Bum's Rush
  1x Command the Legion
  1x Dark Mirror of the Mind
  1x Far Mastery
  2x Govern the Unaligned
  6x Magic of the Smith
  1x Mind Rape
  1x Pulse of the Canaille
  1x Revelations
  1x Scouting Mission
  4x Sudario Refraction

Action Modifier [35]
  1x Call of the Hungry Dead
  3x Conditioning
  28x Freak Drive
  1x Mirror Walk
  1x Perfect Clarity
  1x Trochomancy

Action Modifier/Reaction [1]
  1x Spectral Divination

Ally [3]
  1x Ambrosius, The Ferryman (Wraith)
  1x Ponticulus
  1x Tye Cooper

Equipment [7]
  1x Ankara Citadel, Turkey, The
  1x Heart of Nizchetus
  1x Ivory Bow
  1x Kevlar Vest
  1x Laptop Computer
  1x Sargon Fragment, The
  1x Talbot's Chainsaw

Master [6]
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Giant's Blood
  1x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
  2x Pentex(TM) Subversion

Reaction [5]
  3x Deflection
  1x Delaying Tactics
  1x On the Qui Vive

Retainer [2]
  1x J. S. Simmons, Esq.
  1x Tasha Morgan

The deck is a Freak Show that does many actions per turn. It’s not like an Una-deck where everything happens in one turn, instead you opt for 5-10 actions per turn where one hopefully is a relatively big bleed. There are several useful cards for specific situation but most of them are more all-round than your usual silver-bullet. This deck discards almost always and needs to get Ankara Citadel as soon as possible. The Giovannis are there for the purpose of playing Sudario Refracion only and that makes this deck so much better than my previous versions and when it runs smoothly it can take on almost anything. The Sargon Fragment are also fantastic for this recursion purpose and once enough cards are in the ash heap you can start playing almost the cards you want every turn.
If you have questions and/or suggestions, please comment on this post since I this deck is still under development. Very well, lets start the reporting:

Round 1

1	2	3	4	5
Maciej Klaudel	Marco Vassallo	Stefan Karlsson (me)	Manuel de jesus Fraga	Dawid Cyran
Sebastian Goulet with Shadow Court Satyrs	Assamite Anarch Rush	Gerald Windham Freak Show	!Tremere Toolbox	Weenie DBR Saturday Night Special

This is one of those games where your deck and play flows perfectly that you don't get many of. My predator Marco is playing some sort of Anarch Assamite rush deck. He rushes with Steely Tenacity and his combat is mostly Blood Sweat and additional strikes. I get Gerald, one Giovanni weenie, Ponticulus and Tye Cooper in play pretty soon so there is not really much he can do about me since he doesn't pack that much stealth. My prey Manuel influences Paul Cordwood and Ladislas Toth, The Torch. Maciej is putting Shadow Court Satyrs into play, giving them Earth Meld, and he has some defence against Dawid's horde of weenies that are bleeding him but he can not do much forwards towards Marco.
I bleed my prey some and play a Mind Rape on Ladislas Toth. In my next turn I use him to equip the Ivory Bow, Freak Drive, Big Game Paul Cordwood and send him to torpor. Gerald takes the bow from Ladislas and then diablerizes Paul to get his blood, surviving with the votes from Ladislas. This is pretty much it for Manuel and when I bleed him out.
Gerald now has a Kevlar Vest, Talbot's Chainsaw and the Ivory Bow so he is immune to Dawid's combat and doing the aggravated damage to send his minions to torpor. I bleed him out pretty easy as well. Maciej plays Far Mastery on Tye Cooper and Marco manages to rush Gerald and damage him so he is empty unable to hunt because of Talbot's Chainsaw but one of Gerald's sidekicks borrows the saw and Gerald can hunt some times with his free Freak Drives to get the machine going again.
I exhaust my library and kill Maciej and Marco with just five cards in my hand (3xMagic of the Smith, Call of the Hungry Dead and Ambrosius, the Ferryman) not playing a single one of them until the final ousting bleed where I play Call of the Hungry Dead just for fun. Such is the power of this deck and it's permanents once it works smoothly. Great start of this event for me!

Me GW 5VP

 

Round 2

1	2	3	4	5
Jefrey Thompson	Marcin Pinczewski	Yannik Pont	Me	Rafal Nowak
Gargoyle Combat	New Salubri	Kindred Spirits Midcaps	Gerald	!Gangrel Toolbox with Aksinya

I realize from the beginning that this is going to be a costly game. Yannik starts bleeding me with his midcaps and I take some serious damage. Fortunately I manage to play both Mind Rape and Pentex Subversion backwards to slow him down. Rafal is struggling and has a bad draw being able to do almost nothing at all. Jefrey tries to attack Marcin but those Anesthetic Touches keeps bothering him if I remember correctly. I payed far too much attention to my predator’s and prey’s game early on to actually know what was going on cross table.
Marcin was doing some pool damage to Yannik as well and I was lucky to have Revelations on my hand when Rafal influenced Aksinya out. I see my chance ousting him with a big bleed when she is tapped and I play Revelations to discard his only wake card on hand. Now I am too strong for Yannik to get me but he keeps going. Jefrey walls up against me with three minions but I play Command the Legion tapping them all and go for the oust. Soon thereafter Marcin gets Yannik. I have not afforded any expensive equipment this game so I have no chainsaw. My strategy in the duel is to bleed him for more than he bleeds me and even if I am at less pool it looks like it is working out.
When I have him in ousting range for the next round my brain collapses and I leave Gerald untapped for a block. Untapped? Against Salubri? Silly silly me. A Spirit Marionette later and Gerald bleeds me for five when at four pool. I asked Marcin after the game how much he could have bled me for with his one vampire that didn’t have to hunt that round and his answer was 2. I then asked him if he could have defended against a bleed of 7 at 2 stealth in my next round and his answer was no. Do I need to tell you that that mistake gnawed my mind the whole weekend and that I still hate myself for it?

Marcin GW 3VP
Me 2VP

 

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Antonin Pospisil	Remigiusz Flasinski	Julius Thy	Ola Szajkowska	Me
Stanislava and friends	Kiasyd Toolbox	Protean Computer Hacking	Toreador royalty with guns	Gerald

It starts bad. Ola blocks my first Magic of the Smith at +4 Stealth as it was the most natural thing in the world to do. She soon has Gerald in torpor and keeps blocking almost everything I and Julius do. Julius survives thanks to loads of Earth Melds and Form of the Mists and I get Giant’s Blood on my hand to play on Gerald when he is empty in torpor. I still thinks it is a lost game but now Ola stops blocking me. I am not lying if I say I saw more than 10 each of Second Tradition: Domain and Eyes of Argus played by her during the game. Probably she stops blocking me because Julius is influencing out lots of minions and she figures she needs her wakes for defence.
Antonin has a bad start with no Stanislava and Remigiusz doesn’t do anything to his prey. He has the Hungry Coyote in play and he plays lots of Vessels so my guess is he is trying the old hunt-trick. Seriously - any Kiasyd-deck should be able to oust a weenie Protean deck that hits the Wall of Hell but this one just doesn’t. Ola is getting low on pool even if she blocks a lot and she tries a Parity shift and some lengthy table talk starts. Antonin has the final decision and I convince him to force her to take the pool from Remigiusz instead of me. A great anti-climax occurs when Julius blocks the Parity Shift.
My play starts running and by having and recursing Revelations and Command the Legion I manage to grind unlucky Antonin out. Ola is also ousted and the Kiasyd deck can’t do much against me.
It has been a very verbal and slow game with talking about almost every action that Julius and Ola has taken since Remigiusz tried to influence their play all the time. People around are also getting loud as the tournament are finished for most of them so I am getting stressed here. For two turns in a row I forget to use Heart of Nizchetus and in the end I think that is what makes me draw too few bleed cards to be able to oust Julius before he gets me. I lose to my own mistakes again. Not as obvious and certain this time but still I blame myself again and again. Julius also played good in the duel – he blocked all my recursion attempts and he didn’t play like the beginner he claimed to be. Well done!

Julius GW 3VP
Me 2VP

 

1GW 9VP and an eleventh place is not a bad result in my first big international tournament but thinking I could have had 3GW 13VP by not making the above mentioned mistakes really takes all satisfaction away.
I really love this deck and have actually increased it’s size to fit in one more copy each of Revelations and Command the Legion. Those two cards alone helped me score many Victory Points during the tournament and only one each is too risky.
As I said earlier in this report – please give me suggestions or ask questions about this deck and try it out, it is very rewarding to play when it goes well.