Danish National Championships 2012 – Tournament Report

After some days of fever and illness I felt well enough to make the trip to Denmark for a weekend of Vampire-flipping. I decided last minute what to play and wasn’t really comfortable with any of my deck for this unexplored meta. I decided to go with a deck that has done pretty well while testing it and that I felt could handle a little of each.
It is a bruise/bleed deck with Dominate and Potence and as we all probably know this archetype isn’t the strongest. What makes it work is Gustaphe’s built-in rush and Tangle Atropos’ Hand at outferior Potence. Using Tangle I can cancel those Deflections and bleed anew, forcing my prey to either take the bleed or block me. The percentage of bleed cards might look too high but they disappear very fast if I have to play Tangle Atropos’ Hand. Relentless Pursuit is there to get rid of not wanted cards (mostly combat cards) and does that job pretty ok. Anyways, here is the deck list:

Deck Name : Tangle Atropos' Fist
Author : Stefan Karlsson

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 8 average: 6.16667

4	Gustaphe Brunnelle	8	ANI DOM POT obf	primogen	Nosferatu	4
1	Don Michael Antonio Giovanni	7	DOM NEC POT	2 votes	Giovanni	4
1	Lord Vauxhall	7	DOM OBT POT THA		Lasombra	4
1	Accorri Giovanni	6	DOM POT ani nec		Giovanni	5
1	Black Wallace	6	DOM POT obt tha		Lasombra	4
1	Virginie, Prodigy	6	DOM POT obt	bishop	Lasombra	4
1	Gianmaria Giovanni	5	POT dom nec obt		Giovanni	5
1	Almodo Giovanni	3	dom pot		Giovanni	4
1	Jackson Asher	2	dom		Ventrue	4

Library [74 cards]

Action [14]
  2x Bum's Rush
  12x Govern the Unaligned

Action Modifier [14]
  8x Conditioning
  6x Tangle Atropos' Hand

Combat [23]
  2x Increased Strength
  5x Relentless Pursuit
  5x Target Vitals
  4x Taste of Vitae
  7x Thrown Gate

Master [10]
  2x Anarch Troublemaker
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Giant's Blood
  1x Haven Uncovered
  2x Misdirection
  2x Pentex(TM) Subversion

Reaction [13]
  7x Deflection
  2x Delaying Tactics
  4x On the Qui Vive

Thirty-three players showed up and If I got it correctly it is the largest tournament so far in Denmark which is nice for this dead game of ours.
It was hard work enough for me to take notes and pictures, still not being all well, so I completely forgot about my Thought’s from the Guest Star-concept this weekend so you have to do with only normal round reports.
I will also tell you right now that this tournament result was extra important because of a bet me and my travelling companions made. The one of us with the worst result have to change their name to Apache Jones on Facebook for one week.

Round 1

1	2	3	4
Nikolaj Wendt	Stefan Karlsson	David Luhaæær	Nikolaj Vang
DEN	SWE	DEN	DEN
Baali with Aksinya	DOM/POT Bruise/Bleed	Matthias with AUS weenies	Shambling Hordes

I get an all unique crypt and start my build-up. David tries to block my superior Govern the Unaligned but I use Tangle Atropos’ Hand once or twice for those actions (having a plethora of Govern on my starting hand) so I get all three attempts through and soon have Gustaphe, Acorri, Black Wallace and Jackson in play.
Nikolaj W gets a slow start and builds up with Tend the Flock and mostly stays untapped. I get to throw every single action at my prey and good news is he doesn’t use guns but prevents with fortitude so I can easily get rid of combat cards when I need and don’t get that hurt in the process. I keep drawing my Tangle Atropos’ Hands and they draw many cards from the table. Two bleeds ends up at Nikolaj W and he just blocks which lets me bleed again.
Nikolaj V is also a little passive, handjamming on master cards so most of the action is me bleeding David and him trying to defend. I think I go through more than half of my deck but eventually David is ousted. Nikolaj V still has pretty much pool and Nikolaj W starts to bleed me. He also steals two Shambling Hordes from Nikolaj V making my life hard.
The both Nikolajs team up against me and those Baali bleeds start to hurt. I have used so many resources and am low on blood so I don’t manage that squeezed situation and Nikolaj W ousts me and in the duel he also kills Nikolaj V.
If I was to rank this game in difficulty level A-C where A being “the impossible game”, B “the tricky game” and C “The easy game” this would definitely be a B. If I have had a better long-term plan from the very beginning instead of just bleeding my prey as there were no tomorrow things might have been different. Maybe I needed to deal with Nikolaj V early on to avoid two opponents in the three-way game. But I guess Nikolaj W’s slow start made me over confident so it didn’t feel needed from the start.

Nikolaj W GW 3VP
Stefan 1VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4	5
Mattias Bäckström	Frank Moeller	Jonatan Berg	Stefan Karlsson	Norbert Flasko
SWE	GER	SWE	SWE	HUN
Ravnos Anarchs with Undue Influence	Euro Brujah	Tzimisce Wall	DOM/POT Bruise/Bleed	Malkavian 94

I can tell from the start that this is an impossible game for me. My prey plays a pretty strong archetype with good ousting capabilities and my grandprey plays a deck with very little defence and almost as little offence. Grandpredator plays a strong deck and my predator plays a deck that can really mess with my set-up. Even more so since I soon get to experience that he plays with Starvation of Marena and other long ranged combat that is hard fort my slight gate throwing to match.
I manage to delay one of Norbert’s Parity Shifts and slow him down a little and stay somewhat alive even if I am low on blood on all my vampires. Frank has a pretty slow start building up but he don’t care about Mattias’ bleeds for one at all and eventually starts to work Jonatan. This gives me some room to try and hurt Norbert. He makes some decisions in my favour as blocking a mandatory hunt that I make which with Thrown Gate and Target Vitals get me up to 4 blood and makes me able to bleed unhindered with my other Vampires. I get him down to two pool and he is up for the Parity Shift again but Mattias threatens to play Poison Pill. Discussion arises and Norbert instead decides to Parity Shift from Jonatan instead, virtually ousting him in the process. I don’t remember who was ousted first but I also manage to bleed Norbert out soon thereafter.
With Frank’s superior combat coming my way (he still doesn’t care a bit about taking a couple of bleeds for 1 each round) things are starting to look bad. I am fortunate enough that he runs out of manoeuvres for a while and I can actually match him in combat long enough to be able to bleed Mattias out. In the long run Frank has minion superiority and a better set-up and he wins quite easily but I am actually happy to squeeze 2 Victory Points out of a game that looked impossible.

Frank GW 3VP
Stefan 2VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Mikkel Petersen	Kristofer Wårell	Stefan Karlsson	Oskar Müntzing	Peter Kärrberg
DEN	SWE	SWE	SWE	SWE
Tunnel Runners	Lasombra Bruise/Bleed	DOM/POT Bruise/Bleed	Madame Guil Alastor	Tremere Vote/Bleed

The seating in this game is pretty promising. Peter, Mikkel and Kristofer gets their builds going and I also start my standard Govern superior chain. I remember discarding both Inner Strengths round 1 and 2 since I have no Thrown Gate in my hand. I keep drawing few or no red cards for most parts of this game. Fortunately Oskar don’t get his deck going and he does little other than blocking me early game. Since I don’t have no combat his minions stay on the table and his pool is in no danger.
Kristoffer gives me quite a beating but when Mikkel gets his third Tunnel Runner in play he needs to start playing on the defence. Mikkel has Jacob Fermor in play and his Tunnel Runners constantly uses Computer Hacking to bleed for 3. Peter is controlling much of it from the start and even if Oskar steals his Parity Shifts with Erciyes Fragments he has no serious pressure. I continue to draw terribly and I sit with mostly Govern the Unaligned on my hand when my vampires get hammered by Kristofer’s close ranged combat. Peter helps me a little with both a rescue from torpor and pool from a Parity Shift. I also get a Giant’s Blood on one of my vampires for trying and steal Erciyes Fragments. I try and make a deal with him to be able to receive 1VP but he feels he can control the situation himself.
Kristofer is at 2 pool and Mikkel on 9 (i think) when Peter manages to oust them one after another. My cards starts to work for me and I manage to survive this very long game with no hope for more than 0.5VP.

Peter GW 2.5VP
Stefan 0.5VP
Oskar 0.5VP

I had a terrible tournament. The first game I could have played a bit better and the last game my deck just played tricks on me from the start to the end. I am happy with my performance in the second game but overall the tournament was a big disappointment. I still think my deck is pretty good but it is more opted against a meta with less combat. One thing I will change for the future is to add a couple of Bondings, I remember a couple of occasions where that would have helped me to get my bleeds through. In the first two games I played my deck so it almost ran out so the amount of cards is good. I feel that I can discard no or few bleed cards so maybe i should increase the amount a little. The Tangle Atropos’ Hand trick consumes a lot of bleed cards when it works as intended.
In the next couple of days I will be writing the report for the Danish Qualifier so it hopefully be posted soon. Overall I had a fun day with very nice opponents, a handful of frustrations and a well-organized event. I hope to go again next year!
And no – I am not called Apache Jones on Facebook. Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark made an even worse result.