Tournament Report – Göteborg May 2012

We expected a small tournament with about 5-7 players but many last minute sign-ups made the number pretty decent 13 (12 players until round 3 when our prince joined in). I have been merging my deck from the Swedish ECQ with an old !Tremere Create Gargoyle deck and tweaked and optimized it the last few weeks to a result I am quite happy with so I decided to go with that deck.
Sorry for this report being so late but my second child was born somewhere after writing the report for the first round so I have been a a little busy.

Deck Name : Tupdog bleeds for 6
Author : Stefan Karlsson

Crypt [13 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 7 average: 3.07692

5	Tupdog	1	POT VIS		Gargoyle	3
1	Bryan Van Duesen	7	DOM THA aus pre		!Tremere	2
1	Reverend Blackwood	6	DOM THA obf	bishop	!Tremere	2
1	Selena	6	AUS DOM THA		!Tremere	3
1	Kurt Strauss	5	DOM aus tha		!Tremere	2
1	Brooke	3	dom tha		!Tremere	2
1	Ember Wright	3	aus dom		!Tremere	3
1	Saiz	3	aus dom		!Tremere	3
1	Heinrick Schlempt	2	tha		!Tremere	2

Library [74 cards]

Action [17]
  5x Create Gargoyle
  10x Govern the Unaligned
  2x Magic of the Smith

Action Modifier [12]
  2x As the Crow
  6x Conditioning
  4x Mirror Walk

Ally [2]
  2x Nephandus (Mage)

Combat [5]
  5x Raking Talons

Equipment [2]
  2x Heart of Nizchetus

Master [14]
  1x Anarch Troublemaker
  5x Dominate
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  3x Lilith's Blessing
  1x Misdirection
  1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
  1x Secure Haven

Reaction [22]
  10x Deflection
  4x Delaying Tactics
  5x On the Qui Vive
  3x Wake with Evening's Freshness

The idea is to bleed a lot. The over sized reaction package works because of Heart of Nizchetus. 4 Delaying Tactics might seem like over the top but having that many is not really a problem but instead a great boon when you face vote decks. Create Gargoyle is very good with Lilith’s blessing, getting superior Dominate if everything goes according to plan.
The Tupdogs are great early rushers and a good way to get rid of Raking Talons and As the Crow if there is no real use for them in the current state of game. They are also nice early bleeders if you put a Dominate skill card on them. With Lilith’s Blessing or hunt followed by As the Crow I have actually managed to bleed for 5 with them a couple of times. I am still to make that bleed for 6 but there need to be someone to diablerize and you need to have As the Crow on hand to make that happen.
I am starting to like this deck a lot and will probably keep tweaking it in the coming months.

Round 1

1	2	3	4
Erik Cardell	Stefan Karlsson	Adam Esbjörnsson	Mattias Thörnkvist
Tremere with Fortitude and Burst of Sunlight	Tupdog bleeds for 6	Imbued	Carna Toolbox

I have played with Adam enough lately to know that the sleeves meant his obnoxious Imbued deck were hitting the table. I had little hopes of get anything out of this game since Imbued are one of the worst possible preys. I have two Tupdogs in my starting Uncontrolled Region and I can use them as slaves on my first actions not to get spanked with my real vampires.
When it is time for Adam to start tooling up with Powers, Mattias helps me block some of the attempts effectively using Theft of Vitae on the hunters. My vampires bounce up and down from Torpor and I am soon forced into a passive game. Even if Adam doesn’t get the perfect set-up he has Unity in play and recycles the same Angel of Berlin to stop me from doing anything to him.
Erik has a slow building start and when I am getting low on pool he doesn’t have the bleed cards to finish me off quickly. My hope lays in a series of bounces to Adam before a finishing round but neither Mattias nor Erik makes any large bleeds that goes my way.
Eventually I am ousted and after a couple of more rounds so also Mattias. Adam and Erik struggles for the win and it looks like Adam is going to have it with all his permanents but the table times out without a winner. There were many bleeds bounced around the table but most of them ended up being blocked so very little damage was dealt which might be a main reason for this table to time out.

Erik 1.5VP
Adam 1.5VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4
Archibald Zimonyi	Erik Cardell	Roger Carhult	Stefan Karlsson
Saulot + Uriel	Tremere with Fortitude	Followers of Set with Dominate	Tupdog bleeds for 6

I get a Tupdog in my starting crypt and a Raking Talons om my starting hand. As soon as Archie gets Saulot in play I rush and torporize him. Both Erik and Roger influences and bloats early game and I get Lilith’s Blessing and plays Create Gargoyle. Roger then tries to play Banishment on my new dry Gargoyle and he is about to talk Erik into voting with him on that vote because he doesn’t have vote lock himself. I tell Erik I can’t play against the three of them so I might need to just die if he votes in favour and he changes his mind.
Archie gets Saulot from torpor and influences out Uriel, giving him superior Obeah with Spontaneous Power. Archie is tapped out and I expect wakes and bounces but still attempts to lunge for an oust. Surprisingly he has no wakes and I easily bleed him to death.
As I know from the previous round Erik packs a lot of defence but I feel I have a good shot long-term with all my bounces combined with my own bleeds. I am even more surprised to be able to soon bleed him out as well as he also taps out with no wakes in his hand.
Roger does his best but I have a lot of pool and my Delaying Tactics are cycled to my hand when I need them.
A good game with a perfect seating for me.

Stefan GW 4VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Erik Torstensson	Erik Cardell	Daniel Viberg	Bea Düring	Stefan Karlsson
Carna is Vignes	Tremere	Puppeteers Powerbleed	!Gangrel Toolbox	Tupdog bleeds for 6

Again it looks like I have a good seating. Bea’s deck isn’t that aggressive to prey’s pool and she will soon enough be busy defending against Daniel. Erik C builds up steady giving Daniel extra room to hurt Bea. Erik T is afraid of the Tupdog I bring to play and doesn’t put a minion to play and instead waits and gets two to play at the same time. I manage too bleed him for quite a lot before he can defend himself (Dominate skill cards on Tupdogs are fun!).
I am hoping for a three player game with Erik C and Daniel where I have the most bounces ousting Erik C and entering the duel in good shape. That doesn’t happen. Bea and Erik T goes very low on pool and for a while all is good.
It is Daniel’s turn and he is getting over confident using Le Dinh Tho’s special to look at my hand. The round before I had two On the Qui Vive and one Deflection on my hand and decided to discard one of the Deflections. Le Dinh Tho now discards the other one. I am getting a little annoyed (but not really afraid at this point). He then bleeds Bea for 6, a bleed she happily sends to me with Lost in Translation. I can afford taking that bleed (having 11 pool) but I feel I need those pool for later in the game. The bleed is at stealth so I make a mistake cycling the two On the Qui Vive hoping to replace with a Deflection. I don’t and am at 5 pool.
Bea survives and she has three !Gangrel and a Shadow Court Satyr in play. One of the !Gangrel has a bleed increasing retainer so she is within ousting range. I have no more defensive cards but I have an untapped Nephandus Mage. Shadow Court Satyr bleeds first and I opt to try and block it but Bea’s only vampire with superior Obfuscate plays Cloak the Gathering. I now make my second mistake – I try and block said vampire with superior Obfuscate just to get tapped by Faceless Night. If I just had let that bleed trough Bea would have needed one more stealth card to get me which she probably didn’t have.
Daniel gets Bea before she can oust Erik T who has started to bloat some pool back. Erik C now starts to bleed Daniel and he gets ousted next somehow. In the duel it looks like Erik T is having a good comeback but Erik C is a little too tooled up for him to handle so Erik C wins in the end.

Erik C GW 3VP
Daniel 1VP
Bea 1VP

I am not that happy knowing that Adam will be higher seed than me (probably top seed) and he will chose to sit as my prey. These are the standings before the final:

1. Adam Esbjörnsson 2GW 8.5VP
2. Erik Cardell 1GW 4.5VP
3. Ida Olsson Bjärmark 1GW 4VP
4. Stefan Karlsson 1GW 4VP
5. Erik Torstensson 1GW 3VP

The Finals

1	2	3	4	5
Adam Esbjörnsson	Ida Olsson Bjärmark	Erik Cardell	Erik Torstensson	Stefan Karlsson
Imbued	Kiasyd Stealth/Bleed with Masters	Tremere with Fortitude	Carna Bleed	Tupdog bleeds for 6

I had a bad feeling about this final Adam being seeded higher than me and as I suspected he decided to sit as my prey. Erik T was also worried long term about the seating and we agreed without any kind of deal that Adam had to go - the sooner the better. With this in mind I could confidently play Pentex Subversion on Adam’s first minion.
Ida and the Eriks do their build-up and I try and do some damage to Adam without ending with all my vampires in torpor. It looks quite bad for Adam having to fish to try and get Travis “Traveler72” Miller without success. Ida soon has a plethora of bleeders and it is just a matter of time until she gets Erik C. Erik T is also starting to get confident because he sees that Adam won’t survive this game. The mid-game is mostly a lot of bounces and when Adam is on three pool and Ida gets a bleed bounced all around the table with superior Tenebrous Form as stealth Adam is ousted.
I do some damage to Ida and it looks very good since my card flow is being excellent even if my table presence is inferior to the other players. Unfortunately Ida manages to oust Erik C and get a series of Ashur Tablets played for some well needed pool gain.
The three player game is an open affair. Erik looks stable with four vampires in play with enough blood on them to be really threatening. Erik bounces a bleed for 4 from Ida to me while I have 3 Wake with Evening’s Freshness and 3 Deflections on my hand and here I make my big mistake. I don’t want to waste resources bouncing backwards since I only need to oust Ida to win the tournament being higher seed than Erik. I have 5 pool and take the bleed for 4 leaving me on 1. In Erik’s turn he can confidently bleed me for one and when I deflect his first stealthed bleed to Ida he even plays inferior Conditioning to get her down low. I block and bounce him again and it is a nail biter but he gets me in the end. If I had bounced that bleed back to him I might have ousted Ida by using the two remaining bounces on bigger bleeds.
The duel is an open affair as well but Ida manages to win the game. Congratulations!

Ida GW 3VP
Erik T 1VP
Stefan 1VP

Below is Cause & Effect’s video from the finals. As an experiment I haven’t watched it before writing this report so you can all compare and see how much I am making up as I write. Could be a good measurement of the credibility of this blog.

I think I made an okay result. I should have managed to get at least one Victory Point in round 3 and I should have won the finals but I am not as dissatisfied with my performance or my deck. I will try and get one more Misdirection and a couple of Bondings to the deck as a further development but the concept works well enough to be reliable. The Tupdogs are great and if I learn to influence them out at the right timing they can really be key to success.