Tournament Report – Göteborg June 2012

16 players showed up for our monthly tournament which is a lot for being during the summer. I felt I have tried too hard the latest few tournaments and decided I would go for a risky deck and have some fun and learn something. I had only played my deck once before and it is influenced by Emiliano Imeroni’s Wallghouls.

Deck Name : Marewolves
Author : Stefan Karlsson

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 9 average: 5

4	Maris Streck	9	AUS OBF ani dem dom	justicar	Malkavian	3
2	Panagos Levidis	3	ani obf		Gangrel	2
2	Sarah Raines	2	for		Gangrel	3
1	Ramona	4	for pro		Gangrel	2
1	Ramona Adv	4	for pro		Gangrel	2
1	Bothwell	3	ani for		Gangrel	3
1	Chandler Hungerford	3	PRO		Gangrel	2

Library [60 cards]

Action [1]
  1x Army of Rats

Action Modifier [10]
  4x Cloak the Gathering
  2x Lost in Crowds
  1x Telepathic Vote Counting
  3x Veil the Legions

Ally [9]
  8x Renegade Garou
  1x Vagabond Mystic

Combat [6]
  4x Target Vitals
  2x Weighted Walking Stick

Equipment [1]
  1x Heart of Nizchetus

Event [3]
  1x Dragonbound
  2x Unmasking, The

Master [11]
  1x Dark Influences
  1x Erciyes Fragments, The
  1x Fame
  2x Jake Washington (Hunter)
  1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
  1x Powerbase: Montreal
  1x Rack, The
  2x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
  1x Temptation of Greater Power

Political Action [9]
  2x Anathema
  2x Gangrel Justicar
  5x Parity Shift

Reaction [10]
  1x Malkavian Rider Clause
  6x On the Qui Vive
  3x Telepathic Misdirection

The idea is to get a Gangrel out and get a Renegade Garou as soon as possible to start defending your pool. You then get Maris and try and gain some pool by Parity Shift or Anathema to get more Garous and wall everyone to death. Compared to War Ghouls, Renegade Garous makes the set-up a little easier and with their maneuver and additional strike they don’t need as many combat cards to function against a variety of opponents. They are of course more squishy but that is a calculated risk.
It’s not an easy deck to play and you have to go low on pool before the tide can turn your way.

Round 1

1	2	3	4
Jonatan Sjöberg	Peter Kärrberg	Stefan Karlsson	Sten Düring
Lasombra Vote	Vignes Bleed	Marewolves	!Toreador Breed/Boon

I start without Maris in my Crypt so I just get Panagos, a Garou and Unmasking to play and start fishing for her. To avoid getting blocked by me, Sten decides to only play directed actions towards Jonatan so no Embraces and no votes - only bleeds for 2. Jonatan has a good start with crypt acceleration and bloat and Peter struggles to do damage to me.
Thanks to Fame and some bleeds I manage to get Sten low on pool as he cant outbleed Jonatan’s bloat. I have been fishing for Maris and on the second attempt I get her. Both Peter and me are also low on pool even if my table presence starts to look good. Sten knows he won’t get another round and taps out bleeding. Jonatan deflects two of the bleeds for 2 and they are deflected further to me. I have to take them going down on 3 pool. Jonatan gets Peter down to 3 pool as well and has one action left pretty sure Peter has got no more Deflections since he used them up on Sten’s Bleeds.
Jonatan don’t want to give me another turn so he tries to convince Peter that calling a political action that ousts both him and me is Peter’s best shot at getting any points at all from the table. The thing is that I have plenty of blood on Maris and I can make Peter block whatever action Jonatan is planning. A lengthy discussion starts and since Peter has four vampires and I only have three untapped minions and an On the Qui Vive I know that if Peter gets another turn and has a Misdirection I am ousted.
I want Jonatan to simply bleed Peter out and Peter wants intercept from me to stay in the game, something that I can’t grant him. I should have lied here and told Peter that I would give him intercept and then immediately break the deal getting him bled out but instead I am honest and stupid and Jonatan gets his wish trough and plays Neonate Breach for a double oust with no Block attempts.
The thing is also that the table could have voted this down if we wanted but since Sten, with Foundation Exhibit in play, knew that the only way he would get another round was if both me and Peter died he let it pass. He is then an easy prey for Jonatan.
I played bad this game. I shouldn’t have fished for Maris at all and instead stayed on more pool and more minions. Both my initial prey and predator couldn’t produce more than 1 stealth and I had Unmasking from the very start. I should also learn how to play more dirty.

Jonatan GW 3VP
Peter 1VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4
Adam Esbjörnsson	Ida Olsson Bjärmark	Daniel Teige	Stefan Karlsson
Arika Huitzilopochtli Mind Rape / Baltimore Purge	Kite & Anatole Toolbox	AUS midcaps with some dominate	Marewolves

Again I don’t get Maris in the starting crypt. Adam has a perfect start with the crypt acceleration he needs and Ida is in trouble from the start. This time I decide to influence three Gangrel out before starting to fish for Maris and I start putting the little pressure that I can on Adam since I know decks like his have to go low on pool. In the beginning I misinterpret what Daniel is playing as some kind of Carna bleeder so I feel I will have a short game with no pressure on my predator.
Adam plays Mind Rape on Chandler Hungerford and burns him with Abactor and acts aggressively towards Ida from there. When Ida has two vampires with DEM in play and very few pool I try to talk her into bleeding with Kindred Spirits backwards since that combined with my 1-bleeds would actually oust Adam. She doesn’t talk back to me at this moment and I am yet to know if she were out of Kindred Spirits or if she just had hopes of surviving Adam’s pressure. No actions backwards and she is ousted next turn.
I am now starting to understand that Daniel’s deck is mostly a wall and my hopes are up again. We both agree that Adam has to go and since that scenario means a duel between me and Daniel when any of us can take the game win we start cooperating. I can safely go pretty low on pool getting Maris to play and together we can start blocking most of Adam’s actions. Fortunately, one of the actions he gets trough is a Banishment on an almost empty Carna. When Adam is on three pool Arika with 3 blood and Fame attempts an undirected action that Sarah Raines manages to block and the combination of Weighted Walking Stick and Target Vitals kills Adam out of turn.
In the duel Daniel has Sennadurek with a .44 Magnum and Maldavis. He also has Smiling Jack with some counters on. I get my first Garou for the entire game (have played trough ~30 cards before seeing one). The Magnum together with enough wakes are enough to kill me on its own but a well-timed Pentex subversion on Sennadurek gives me the game. For once I am actually happy with the way I played my game and that my play paid off.

Stefan GW 3VP
Adam 1VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4
Stefan Karlsson	Alex Ek	Alex Båskman	Archibald Zimonyi
Marewolves	!Ventrue Grinder	Lasombra Black Hand Stealth Bleed	Malk 94 with 10 Sudden Reversals

From the beginning I know I will have a hard time ever ousting Alex E, the !Ventrue Grinder as prey being far from a perfect match-up. I also know I have to be doing some serious backousting towards Archie.
I get a Gangrel, a Garou and Maris as by the book and Archie surprises me a little when Gilbert Duane starts bleeding at once instead of playing Govern at DOM. When my initial set-up is done Archie has two vampires and I have very few pool. I have two Telepathic Misdirection and a couple of On the Qui Vive on my hand so I am hopeful I will survive and be able to torporize one or two of Archies Malkavians.
Alex B bleeds Archie twice and I use both my Telepathic Misdirections on those bleeds and opts to try and block Archie instead. When it is his turn he bleeds me at 4 stealth and Maris burns 4 blood to make my Garou block but he then plays Elder Impersonation and since Maris only has 3 blood left and my wake doesn’t topdeck me another bounce the bleed sticks for six and that is enough.
I should really have taken one of Alex B’s bleeds that wouldn’t have ousted me and saved a bounce in case what happened were to happen. Well, that’s me and my poor play again. I didn’t stay and watch the table end so I have no more details to tell from this game but Alex E got the rest of the victory points.

Alex E GW 3VP
Archibald 1VP 

As always in a small tournament you hope that your 1GW xVP will be enough to reach the finals. The Archon from the tournament showed the strangest result table I have ever seen in this game. From the 12 tables that were played none timed out and only one were a table split. All 11 game wins went to 11 different players. That meant Archibald Zimonyi was top seed with GW 6VP. Second place were shared by Alex Båskman and Mattias Colliander eith GW 4VP and the same tournament points. The real fun begun when we realised 8 players were at GW 3VP 96TP. Beatrice Düring and Jonatan Sjöberg won that lottery and no more play for the Marewolves this tournament.
I knew my deck wasn’t tuned enough and that is a difficult one to play but I will stick with it and try to improve it and see where it goes. I think I’ll try and get some more combat cards in and I will probably change one Garou to a Muddled Vampire Hunter. I got a good feeling playing a reactive deck for once so don’t be surprised if you see me start playing AUS weenies in the future.
Last but not least I would like to apologize for this late report. Having two kids now (not sleeping at the same time) makes it hard to get the time writing these kinds of things. Hopefully I’ll manage to keep up the work writing tournament reports but please don’t stone me to death if I have to skip writing about a tournament or two in the near future.