Swedish National Championships 2012 – Tournament Report

Time for the long awaited Swedish Nationals and high hopes of at least repeating last years feat and enter the finals. Recently I have been playing a Flurry of Action deck with Inner Circles a lot and have had a very good game win percentage with it (well over 50% of my games which is a lot for me) and I swept the final table of last month’s 6-man Göteborg tournament. When latest episode of Cause and Effect aired I almost changed my mind for which deck to play since my very archetype was discussed and dissected but I still felt I needed to try it out in real action now that the European Championships are closing in.

Deck Name : Aelvorna
Author : Stefan Karlsson (based on a deck by Benoît Moyen, fine tuned together with Randal Rudstam and the Wash / Crypt Acceleration-module is an invention by Tomas Wallmur (well all of it is probably copyrighted by PCK anyways so who cares?))

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 7 max: 11 average: 10.3333

4	Mistress Fanchon	11	AUS CEL DOM OBF THA VIC	inner circle	Tremere	4
3	Rafael de Corazon	11	AUS CEL DOM OBF PRE	inner circle	Toreador	4
2	Adana de Sforza	11	CEL OBF POT PRE PRO aus	inner circle	Brujah	4
1	Helena	10	AUS CEL DOM obf pre tha		Toreador	3
1	Yazid Tamari	8	CEL QUI ani dom obf		Assamite	3
1	Suzanne Kadim	7	CEL PRE aus dom obf		Toreador	3

Library [69 cards]

Action [9]
  8x Flurry of Action
  1x Mind Rape

Action Modifier [17]
  3x Conditioning
  2x Elder Impersonation
  1x Enkil Cog
  4x Faceless Night
  1x Foreshadowing Destruction
  4x Lost in Crowds
  2x Spying Mission

Action Modifier/Combat [3]
  1x Hide the Mind
  2x Swallowed by the Night

Equipment [1]
  1x Heart of Nizchetus

Master [23]
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Giant's Blood
  2x Information Highway
  1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
  6x Villein
  5x Wash
  6x Zillah's Valley

Political Action [4]
  1x Ancilla Empowerment
  2x Banishment
  1x Reins of Power

Reaction [12]
  5x Deflection
  1x Eluding the Arms of Morpheus
  2x Eyes of Argus
  4x Obedience

I started out with a 60 card version of the deck but when the deck worked I actually ran out of cards more than once so I had to add a little of each for this version. The idea is to play Wash on your opponent’s crypt acceleration and play your own to get early table presence and hopefully vote lock. Then you bleed for 2-3 (and sometimes more) every single turn. Mistress Fanchon goes first and she can fish for utility card after playing Flurry of Action. An early Enkil Cog is the most common pick but a Mind Rape, any of the politicals or even a Deflection or Hide the Mind can save the day.

Round 1

1	2	3	4	5
Pauli Kiova	Otto Kukkasniemi	Jens Johansson	Tomas Wallmur	Stefan Karlsson
FIN	FIN	SWE	SWE	SWE
Lutz / Unmada vote	Shambling Hordes	Shambling Hordes	Presence Princes	IC Flurry of Action

I have a terrible start with no sign of any crypt acceleration. Pauli, on the other hand, plays Zillah's Valley after Zillah’s Valley and as I have no Wash either it looks really dark from the beginning. I have three copies of Mistress Fanchon and one Yazid Tamari in my uncontrolled region so I decide to get Yazid to play first. Otto and Jens builds and Tomas also gets his build pretty good because of no early Unmasking in play.
With some help from Jens and surprisingly some from Pauli I manage to survive Tomas’ early attempts in ousting me. Pauli doesn’t trust Tomas when he states that he is not willing to enter the three player game with the two Shambling Hordes decks and won’t try and oust Pauli until at least Otto is ousted.
Mid game Jens’ deck is building a little bit better that Otto’s and Tomas’ early good start is coming to an end even if I still struggle to survive. I have Pauli down at only a few pool a couple of times (down to one once if I remember correctly). My best hopes for this game is to gain 1.5VPs since all the talking about everything all the time is certain to time the table out.
Pauli packs a lot of bounce and manages to oust Otto with not much time left. Here I play Villein on both my vampires and the hope for anyone to gain any more points are out. A very annoying game for all five of us.

Pauli 1.5VP
Jens 0.5VP
Tomas 0.5VP
Stefan 0.5VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4	5
Daniel Wiberg	Stefan Karlsson	Michael Holmström	Jari Vulli	Randal Rudstam
SWE	SWE	SWE	FIN	SWE
!Toreador breed & bleed	IC Flurry of Action	Lutz / Unmada vote	Obf weenies	!Tremere / Tremere vote

Michael and Randal are vote buddies from the beginning and dictate the table. I influence Mistress Fanchon and fortunately also Helena is in my uncontrolled region so I can bring her as good defence against Daniel. Jari gets a quick aggressive start and Randal is down low. I have enough wakes, Obediences and blood on Helena to fend of Daniel’s first attempts in ousting me but Michael sits safe since I can’t bleed as much as I would have liked as I draw few Flurry of Action and have to stay untapped.
Randal and Michael agrees that they want Daniel and Jari ousted. That doesn’t stop Randal from stealing Lutz with a Temptation of Greater Power (paying 17 if I remember correctly). Daniel plays his first Palla Grande the same round as I have already Washed a Villein from Michael and I can’t defend any more. You can see that Wash as bad play but for me to have any chance of any victory points I had to be as aggressive at Michael’s pool as possible. Daniel also told me he saved for his second Palla Grande on hand before playing it because of my Wash heavy deck.
Randal and Michael ousts their preys and Randal has an easy win with the stolen Lutz.

Randal GW 3VP
Daniel 1VP
Michael 1VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Stefan Karlsson	Jonatan Sjöberg	Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark	Marko Lindroos	Robert Doktorow
SWE	SWE	SWE	FIN	SWE
IC Flurry of Action	Create Gargoyle with Dominate	Kiasyd S/B with Masters	Lasombra with Animalism	!Tremere Bleed and Allies

Jonatan gets a good start and Isak struggles with Marko’s very cool deck (my thesis is that Marko makes the coolest decks around and its always a pleasure seeing them in action). He packs rushes, bleed, combat, block and bounce in what looks like a very well-built toolbox. Robert has a slow start but Marko is mostly defending early game so he steadily builds up.
My start is decent and I have Jonatan at ousting range when I can bleed with Suzanne Kadim with Mind Rape but I am out of stealth cards when its time for Rafael to try and finish it off and I desperately cycle a Conditioning to top deck but that doesn’t work.
Instead Jonatan can oust Isak and put one of Marko’s big caps in torpor with Raking Talons. One of Jonatan’s created gargoyles diablerizes him and at the small price of a weenie burned in a blood hunt Jonatan secures his second victory point. Robert has started to build a good table presence and I think Jonatan underestimates his deck a little, having two Hexapeds in his ready region. I have to play Banishment backwards and stay untapped a lot but Robert packs a lot of Mirror Walk and Bonding so in the long run I can’t stop him from ousting me. In the duel Robert’s allies is what wins him the game (and later the tournament).

Robert GW 3VP
Jonatan 2VP

This was a terrible tournament for me. I realised my deck is not good enough. Sure – it really shines in the right circumstances but seriously – which deck doesn’t? I also want to apologize for the not so very detailed report but I simply can’t remember enough to be able to do it better.
Next time this blog is updated with tournament reports will be after the EC and I give you two promises right now:

1. I will perform much better than I did during the nationals.
2. I will give you an enjoyable reading afterwards.

See you in Budapest card-flippers!