European Championships 2012 - Day 1 report

My first plan was to play my Gerald Windham freak show at this tournament but I didn’t feel all that comfortable with that choice so late in the evening the day before I was still pondering what deck to pick. I was playing a casual game in the lobby with some good Finnish and Swedish players. I was a bit drunk (enough to make a couple of mistakes) but I still managed to win with an Auspex weenie deck and it felt really comfortable.
I have not played Auspex weenies that much but the little experience I have with them has given me a couple of wins so I though to myself to give it a go for real during Day 1.
The deck is built with great inspiration from a similar deck Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark used to play for a while and I think he got a tournament win with it. I have changed some cards here and there but basically it is his deck.

Deck Name : AUSylum
Author : Stefan Karlsson

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 6 average: 3.33333

3	Anarch Convert	1		Caitiff	ANY
2	Victoria	5	AUS cel obf	Malkavian	2
2	Zöe	3	AUS cel obf	Malkavian	2
1	Dancin’ Dana	6	AUS cel obf	Malkavian	1
1	Ozmo	6	AUS dom obf	Malkavian	1
1	Aleph	4	AUS dom	Malkavian	1
1	Dollface	3	aus obf	Malkavian	1
1	Brazil	2	aus	Malkavian	1

Library [74 cards]

Combat [13]
  3x Aura Reading
  3x Concealed Weapon
  3x Disguised Weapon
  2x Target Vitals
  2x Taste of Vitae

Equipment [9]
  4x .44 Magnum
  1x Banshee Ironwail
  1x Bowl of Convergence
  1x Ivory Bow
  1x Sniper Rifle
  1x Sport Bike

Event [1]
  1x Uncoiling, The

Master [12]
  4x Anarch Revolt
  1x Direct Intervention
  3x Madness Network
  1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
  1x Powerbase: Montreal
  2x Smiling Jack, The Anarch

Reaction [38]
  2x Delaying Tactics
  5x Eagle's Sight
  2x Enhanced Senses
  8x Eyes of Argus
  4x Forced Awakening
  5x My Enemy's Enemy
  3x On the Qui Vive
  6x Telepathic Misdirection
  3x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Retainer [1]
  1x Mr. Winthrop

 

Round 1

1	2	3	4	5
Martin Randers	Stefan Karlsson	Aleksandar Zivkovic	Daniel Fernandez Rivero	Stefan Salzer
Kiasyd stealth bleed	AUSylum	Mary Anne lawfirm	Auspex weenies with Thaumaturgy	Malkavian stealth bleed

When I realise that both my predator and grandpredator is playing stealth/bleed I feel like I am seated perfectly. Alexandar is having a slow start and my hope is to get the first oust and then fight for a good table presence to be able to beat Daniel in an upcoming duel. I fail to block Martin’s first superior Govern the Unaligned and I think to myself that I at least made him cycle a lot of stealth. I am so wrong. Martin packs (or just draws) silly amounts of stealth and he uses 3-4 stealth for every action. My second problem is that I don’t draw any bounce cards. None at all (except the Telepathic Misdirection I had on my starting hand). Martin bounces some bleeds from Stefan and I manage to block those but the game is not 25 minutes old when I am ousted.
I have cycled a lot of cards (using Aura Reading twice blocking Stefan’s bleeds) trying to block and have seen 1/3 of my library and only 1 bounce card of the 11 I play. If I ever have suffered an unlucky draw it is in this game.
Martin is on the roll and Aleksandar playing Banishment on Pherydima doesn’t stop him from getting his second victory point. Now it gets a lot trickier for Martin and Stefan is looking stronger. Martin makes a mistake and discards his last Deflection and gets bled out. In the early stages of the duel Daniel is equipping and influencing dangerously low but he has the situation in his hand and slowly grinds all of Stefan’s vampires to torpor and a table split.
Martin 2 VP
Daniel 2 VP
Stefan S 1 VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4	5
Helmuth Kaiserseder	Andreas Nusser	Stefan Karlsson	Carl Pilhatsch	Laurent Ribeyre
Lasombra vote and bleed	Ariadne Abactor and Renegade Garous	AUSylum	Nakhthorheb Corruption	Assamite breed boon

The game starts with Andreas and me playing an Anarch Revolt each. I soon also have Smiling Jack and Madness Network in play and draw early cross-table attention and let Jack go. Helmuth is looking strong and I let Andreas recruit a Renegade Garou for defence. Carl slowly influences out Nakhthorheb and I play Pentex Subversion on him before he takes his first action. This means Laurent get his back free and can slowly start to put some serious pressure on Helmuth.
Helmuth’s stealth cards is not showing and Andreas manages to block some actions but when he is almost dead he manages to get a vote to pass, playing Awe and Voter Captivation for a lot followed by a Villein next round. All this time I have tried to talk Helmuth into not trying to remove the Pentex but he makes several attempts and I block all of them. I really want that Pentex to be there because Carl not having any Anarchs, constantly taking damage from the Anarch Revolts, is my main pool damage at this point of the game.
Andreas’ Renegade Garou also makes an attempt at Pentex and I block it with Dancin’ Dana with 6 blood. My plan is to hit it with Target Vitals but Andreas cancels it discarding two combat cards and plays Target Vitals with both his strikes so Dana is in torpor. From now on everything goes downhill for me. That single Garou eventually manages to beat all my vampires to torpor.
Laurent have to many vampires and he ousts Helmuth. He and Andreas start to make some sort of strange table split deal involving withdrawal that I don’t understand but I am not in the position to start to meddle. Andreas bleeds me out and Nakhthorheb is free to start corrupting his environment and he does quite some damage to the Assamites. Lengthy discussions in this game (I don’t swear myself free from them, I have definitely been a part) makes it time out at this point.
I made one great mistake - I didn’t block the Garou. I should have just let Andreas die from Helmuth and then passed Helmuth’s bleeds on to Carl and Laurent. This was a table I should have won but my overconfidence in handling that Garou killed me and helping Andreas protect himself made me not be able to get any victory points. Bad Apache!
Andreas 1.5 VP
Laurent 1.5 VP
Carl 0.5 VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark	Matús Kovalcik	Martin Schumacher	Stefan Karlsson	Máté Vaka
Girls will find	Giovanni Powerbleed	Tremere Toolbox	AUSylum	Fakir al Sidi wall

I am happy and scared to be the prey of Martin. We had an epic game Day 1 last year in Warsaw and he is a very good and determined player. Being on the same table as Isak is also a little funny since we have opted our decks together the week before the championships and know each other’s decks inside out.
I start the game by making a mistake hunting with Zöe, forgetting about her special and get blocked to torpor by Fakir al Sidi. Matús have a good start and gets a lot of vampires in play. I realise I can do no actions against Máté since he is playing a “block everything”-deck with better combat than mine so I have to stay untapped and try to react myself for the win. Unfortunately Martin has about the same approach because his idea of the game is for him to be able to gain any victory points at all Maté has to beat my vampires down.
Matús have played Pentex Subversion on Isak’s Cybele and I sit with the Uncoiling and my own copy of Pentex on my hand and proposes the following deal to Isak; I contest Pentex Subversion and discard the Uncoiling. In return he is to use Anthelios to get his Liquidated Giant’s Blood to his hand, use his second master phase action to play said Giant’s Blood on Zöe in torpor and then rescue her. He declines. Martin manages to block some of Matús actions and send one of his vampires to torpor. My deal with Isak still stands the next round and now he accepts. I get Zöe in the ready region with 2 blood and Isak has one more vampire free to act and a reduced risk of getting Anthelios burned. This is enough for him to be able to lunge at Matús and oust him.
Martin plays the Erciyes Fragments which means his pretty reactive deck gets even more reactive since he can use almost everything in my ash heap. All four remaining players realise this game isn’t going to go any further. Máté doesn’t pack any rushes and there are no actions for him to block at all. I realise that I should probably have tried to deal with Martin earlier but the clock is ticking and it is not any time for anything constructive to happen. If he was telling the truth earlier hoping for maximum 1.5 victory points at this table I should have tried to deal with him helping me getting 3 victory points and later self ousted to him for him to gain 2. Defenately doable if he would have bounced everything from Matús to Maté and then bled me for a lot which I could have bounced as well. The game times out and I enter drinking mode.
Isak 1.5 VP
Martin 0.5VP
Stefan 0.5VP
Maté 0.5VP

Another failure and that in a tournament where none of my tables ended up with a game win. I think I am still not good enough a player to actually field a deck like Auspex weenies on such a big tournament with this very diverse meta. The first game I blame the famous “unlucky draw”, the second game I blame myself and the third game I am not sure. It would be very tricky to win that table but still I had a chance and I didn’t pick it up early enough.
As a great comfort to my failure I at least won the Apache Jones competition (I was the lowest ranked player of all the Apache Jones wannabes) and have had the great pleasure of changing my name on Facebook to Apache Jones for one week. I encourage all of my readers to arrange their own Apache Jones competitions for their tournaments. Rumor has it there is soon going to be an Apache Jones Deck Archive somewhere on the Internet. More info on that will be published on this blog soon.