European Championships 2011 - Last Chance Qualifier Tournament Report

As I had already managed to qualify I wanted to play a high risk deck. The one I picked for the day was one I had never won a game with before but that still felt like it was competent enough to do so. It is also featuring Gerald Windham as a star and my only deck in the TWDA so far is a Gerald deck so I was hoping for him as a lucky charm.
Before I continue I need to say that since I played three tournaments in three days my memory might have faded or even been altered so the reports might not be as detailed and correct as the ones I use to write. Hope you enjoy them anyhow. Here is the deck list:

Deck Name : War Saw Superstar
Author : Stefan Karlsson (with some great support from Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark)

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 9 average: 6

6	Gerald Windham	9	AUS DOM FOR THA	Tremere	5
1	Kay Polerno	4	dom nec pro	Giovanni	5
1	Primo Giovanni	4	dom nec pot	Giovanni	4
1	Almodo Giovanni	3	dom pot	Giovanni	4
1	Stephen Milliner	3	nec pre	Giovanni	5
1	Cristobal Ghiberti	2	nec	Giovanni	4
1	Eric Milliner	2	pot	Giovanni	5

Library [80 cards]

Action [21]
  1x Big Game
  1x Bum's Rush
  1x Command the Legion
  1x Dark Mirror of the Mind
  1x Far Mastery
  2x Govern the Unaligned
  6x Magic of the Smith
  1x Mind Rape
  1x Pulse of the Canaille
  1x Revelations
  1x Scouting Mission
  4x Sudario Refraction

Action Modifier [35]
  1x Call of the Hungry Dead
  3x Conditioning
  28x Freak Drive
  1x Mirror Walk
  1x Perfect Clarity
  1x Trochomancy

Action Modifier/Reaction [1]
  1x Spectral Divination

Ally [3]
  1x Ambrosius, The Ferryman (Wraith)
  1x Ponticulus
  1x Tye Cooper

Equipment [7]
  1x Ankara Citadel, Turkey, The
  1x Heart of Nizchetus
  1x Ivory Bow
  1x Kevlar Vest
  1x Laptop Computer
  1x Sargon Fragment, The
  1x Talbot's Chainsaw

Master [6]
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Giant's Blood
  1x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
  2x Pentex(TM) Subversion

Reaction [5]
  3x Deflection
  1x Delaying Tactics
  1x On the Qui Vive

Retainer [2]
  1x J. S. Simmons, Esq.
  1x Tasha Morgan

The deck is a Freak Show that does many actions per turn. It’s not like an Una-deck where everything happens in one turn, instead you opt for 5-10 actions per turn where one hopefully is a relatively big bleed. There are several useful cards for specific situation but most of them are more all-round than your usual silver-bullet. This deck discards almost always and needs to get Ankara Citadel as soon as possible. The Giovannis are there for the purpose of playing Sudario Refracion only and that makes this deck so much better than my previous versions and when it runs smoothly it can take on almost anything. The Sargon Fragment are also fantastic for this recursion purpose and once enough cards are in the ash heap you can start playing almost the cards you want every turn.
If you have questions and/or suggestions, please comment on this post since I this deck is still under development. Very well, lets start the reporting:

Round 1

1	2	3	4	5
Maciej Klaudel	Marco Vassallo	Stefan Karlsson (me)	Manuel de jesus Fraga	Dawid Cyran
Sebastian Goulet with Shadow Court Satyrs	Assamite Anarch Rush	Gerald Windham Freak Show	!Tremere Toolbox	Weenie DBR Saturday Night Special

This is one of those games where your deck and play flows perfectly that you don't get many of. My predator Marco is playing some sort of Anarch Assamite rush deck. He rushes with Steely Tenacity and his combat is mostly Blood Sweat and additional strikes. I get Gerald, one Giovanni weenie, Ponticulus and Tye Cooper in play pretty soon so there is not really much he can do about me since he doesn't pack that much stealth. My prey Manuel influences Paul Cordwood and Ladislas Toth, The Torch. Maciej is putting Shadow Court Satyrs into play, giving them Earth Meld, and he has some defence against Dawid's horde of weenies that are bleeding him but he can not do much forwards towards Marco.
I bleed my prey some and play a Mind Rape on Ladislas Toth. In my next turn I use him to equip the Ivory Bow, Freak Drive, Big Game Paul Cordwood and send him to torpor. Gerald takes the bow from Ladislas and then diablerizes Paul to get his blood, surviving with the votes from Ladislas. This is pretty much it for Manuel and when I bleed him out.
Gerald now has a Kevlar Vest, Talbot's Chainsaw and the Ivory Bow so he is immune to Dawid's combat and doing the aggravated damage to send his minions to torpor. I bleed him out pretty easy as well. Maciej plays Far Mastery on Tye Cooper and Marco manages to rush Gerald and damage him so he is empty unable to hunt because of Talbot's Chainsaw but one of Gerald's sidekicks borrows the saw and Gerald can hunt some times with his free Freak Drives to get the machine going again.
I exhaust my library and kill Maciej and Marco with just five cards in my hand (3xMagic of the Smith, Call of the Hungry Dead and Ambrosius, the Ferryman) not playing a single one of them until the final ousting bleed where I play Call of the Hungry Dead just for fun. Such is the power of this deck and it's permanents once it works smoothly. Great start of this event for me!

Me GW 5VP

 

Round 2

1	2	3	4	5
Jefrey Thompson	Marcin Pinczewski	Yannik Pont	Me	Rafal Nowak
Gargoyle Combat	New Salubri	Kindred Spirits Midcaps	Gerald	!Gangrel Toolbox with Aksinya

I realize from the beginning that this is going to be a costly game. Yannik starts bleeding me with his midcaps and I take some serious damage. Fortunately I manage to play both Mind Rape and Pentex Subversion backwards to slow him down. Rafal is struggling and has a bad draw being able to do almost nothing at all. Jefrey tries to attack Marcin but those Anesthetic Touches keeps bothering him if I remember correctly. I payed far too much attention to my predator’s and prey’s game early on to actually know what was going on cross table.
Marcin was doing some pool damage to Yannik as well and I was lucky to have Revelations on my hand when Rafal influenced Aksinya out. I see my chance ousting him with a big bleed when she is tapped and I play Revelations to discard his only wake card on hand. Now I am too strong for Yannik to get me but he keeps going. Jefrey walls up against me with three minions but I play Command the Legion tapping them all and go for the oust. Soon thereafter Marcin gets Yannik. I have not afforded any expensive equipment this game so I have no chainsaw. My strategy in the duel is to bleed him for more than he bleeds me and even if I am at less pool it looks like it is working out.
When I have him in ousting range for the next round my brain collapses and I leave Gerald untapped for a block. Untapped? Against Salubri? Silly silly me. A Spirit Marionette later and Gerald bleeds me for five when at four pool. I asked Marcin after the game how much he could have bled me for with his one vampire that didn’t have to hunt that round and his answer was 2. I then asked him if he could have defended against a bleed of 7 at 2 stealth in my next round and his answer was no. Do I need to tell you that that mistake gnawed my mind the whole weekend and that I still hate myself for it?

Marcin GW 3VP
Me 2VP

 

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Antonin Pospisil	Remigiusz Flasinski	Julius Thy	Ola Szajkowska	Me
Stanislava and friends	Kiasyd Toolbox	Protean Computer Hacking	Toreador royalty with guns	Gerald

It starts bad. Ola blocks my first Magic of the Smith at +4 Stealth as it was the most natural thing in the world to do. She soon has Gerald in torpor and keeps blocking almost everything I and Julius do. Julius survives thanks to loads of Earth Melds and Form of the Mists and I get Giant’s Blood on my hand to play on Gerald when he is empty in torpor. I still thinks it is a lost game but now Ola stops blocking me. I am not lying if I say I saw more than 10 each of Second Tradition: Domain and Eyes of Argus played by her during the game. Probably she stops blocking me because Julius is influencing out lots of minions and she figures she needs her wakes for defence.
Antonin has a bad start with no Stanislava and Remigiusz doesn’t do anything to his prey. He has the Hungry Coyote in play and he plays lots of Vessels so my guess is he is trying the old hunt-trick. Seriously - any Kiasyd-deck should be able to oust a weenie Protean deck that hits the Wall of Hell but this one just doesn’t. Ola is getting low on pool even if she blocks a lot and she tries a Parity shift and some lengthy table talk starts. Antonin has the final decision and I convince him to force her to take the pool from Remigiusz instead of me. A great anti-climax occurs when Julius blocks the Parity Shift.
My play starts running and by having and recursing Revelations and Command the Legion I manage to grind unlucky Antonin out. Ola is also ousted and the Kiasyd deck can’t do much against me.
It has been a very verbal and slow game with talking about almost every action that Julius and Ola has taken since Remigiusz tried to influence their play all the time. People around are also getting loud as the tournament are finished for most of them so I am getting stressed here. For two turns in a row I forget to use Heart of Nizchetus and in the end I think that is what makes me draw too few bleed cards to be able to oust Julius before he gets me. I lose to my own mistakes again. Not as obvious and certain this time but still I blame myself again and again. Julius also played good in the duel – he blocked all my recursion attempts and he didn’t play like the beginner he claimed to be. Well done!

Julius GW 3VP
Me 2VP

 

1GW 9VP and an eleventh place is not a bad result in my first big international tournament but thinking I could have had 3GW 13VP by not making the above mentioned mistakes really takes all satisfaction away.
I really love this deck and have actually increased it’s size to fit in one more copy each of Revelations and Command the Legion. Those two cards alone helped me score many Victory Points during the tournament and only one each is too risky.
As I said earlier in this report – please give me suggestions or ask questions about this deck and try it out, it is very rewarding to play when it goes well.

Quick thoughts after EC 2011

First of all – Sorry for not doing any live-blogging. I simply didn’t find the time for it. I had a great time and now that I’m back home I’d like to list some things that have struck my mind:

• It was great to meet Jeff Thompson (The Lasombra) in person and express my gratitude for his great site and it’s value to the community. I was lucky to play two games with him during the event and he was a really nice bloke.
• I like a good deal or two on a table and even an occasional deal breaking now and then but people are sometimes talking far too much about things making tables time out. For some strange reason the players who gets 0.5 victory points are overrepresented in this out-of-my-head statistics. I have rarely experienced this in the Swedish gaming climate and I have to let it sink in for yet some days before I draw any conclusions.
• You can never relax (or stress things) and let yourself make any mistakes at all in this damned game. You will read more about this and it’s bitter consequences in the upcoming tournament reports.
• There are so many nice people and such a great atmosphere that I’ll try my best to go next year as well.

I’ll give you three tournament reports from the three different tournaments I attend as soon as I get the time to write them so check back and read about some really exciting games.

Getting ready for the EC

So, it’s closing in on me and I am somewhat prepared when it comes to everything else then playing. I am free from work, all family-related are sorted, I got flight tickets and some money in my pocket. When it comes to playing I have four decks more or less ready and I am currently theorizing around them in what I call “the Vignes-test”.

The Vignes-test is simply imagining having the classic Edward Vignes deck as a predator, doing nothing to you for four rounds and then bleeding you with Dominate with four vampires round 5. All my decks have to be able to have a reasonable chance of handling that kind of predator and still have a chance of winning. Of course there are several ways to deal with it but if you can’t the deck simply is not good enough. Four dominate-bleeds round 5 might sound much but seriously that is what the Vignes-deck, and many other archetypes, can perform if they work well.

Do I need to tell you that my decks doesn’t do any well at all in these tests? Fortunately me and Isak have an optimizing session scheduled for tomorrow so there might still be some hope.

I’ll try and live-blog a little from the event and hope meeting as many of you there as possible!

Malkavian Dementia

How often do you see Leandro and Lutz controlled by the same player? Note that he in this situation doesn't have a single vote on the table.

Cause and Effect–VtES Podcast Pilot

The pilot episode of the new VtES Podcast Cause and Effect is up on YouTube. The pilot is discussing the winning deck from the Swedish National Championships 2011.

The Podcast can be watched here and it has a Facebook page that you can like as well. Enjoy!

Upcoming Vtes Podcast

Rumour has it three Swedish gentlemen by the names Isak Esbjörnsson Bjärmark, Adam Esbjörnsson and Anders Löf are cooking something together. If things go as planned we might be able to listen to some quality rants for an hour a week. I’ll try and keep you updated and will link as soon as possible. Comment here if there is something special you want them to discuss and I’ll try and use my dark influences.

Swedish National Championships 2011–Tournament Report

49 players from Sweden, Finland and Portugal was attending this year’s championships in Örebro and I knew it was going to be a tough but fun day for some intense card-flipping. We arrived just in time for the start and I took some deep breaths and jumped in the first game. I knew which deck I was going to play and it is one I have played a lot (at least with my measures). I give you the decklist first and then some comments on it:

Deck Name : Geezers will find
Author : Stefan Karlsson

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 8 max: 11 average: 10.1667

4	Huitzilopochtli	10	AUS DAI DOM OBF POT PRE		Baali	2
2	Arika	11	DOM FOR OBF PRE aus cel	inner circle	Ventrue	2
2	Etrius	11	AUS DOM OBF THA pro	inner circle	Tremere	2
1	Leandro	11	AUS OBF PRE cel dom	inner circle	Malkavian	2
1	Queen Anne	10	DOM FOR PRE aus obf	prince	Ventrue	2
1	Baron, The	9	FOR NEC OBF THN dom	2 votes	Samedi	2
1	Gratiano	8	DOM OBT obf pot	priscus	Lasombra	2

Library [73 cards]

Action [6]
  1x Abactor
  2x Govern the Unaligned
  2x Mind Rape
  1x Unleash Hell's Fury

Action Modifier [13]
  3x Conditioning
  2x Elder Impersonation
  1x Enkil Cog
  2x Faceless Night
  2x Into Thin Air
  3x Lost in Crowds

Action Modifier/Combat [1]
  1x Swallowed by the Night

Event [1]
  1x Anthelios, The Red Star

Master [37]
  6x Ashur Tablets
  1x Blind Spot
  1x Coven, The
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Fortschritt Library
  1x Giant's Blood
  1x Golconda: Inner Peace
  2x Information Highway
  4x Liquidation
  1x Metro Underground
  1x Misdirection
  1x Monastery of Shadows
  2x Parthenon, The
  1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
  7x Villein
  1x Wash
  4x Zillah's Valley

Political Action [5]
  1x Ancient Influence
  2x Banishment
  1x Political Stranglehold
  1x Reins of Power

Reaction [10]
  5x Deflection
  2x Obedience
  2x On the Qui Vive
  1x Redirection

This is Girls will find with a better crypt but a worse library. To not having to include Aksinya is a blessing and a curse. Her special is insanely good but all Vampires in this crypt has +bleed written on them. I think the original Girls deck is better but this is a nice version that work pretty good.
The most common question I get from people taking a look at the deck is why the hell I include the Baron. For me Queen Anne is more of a dark horse, the Baron’s OBF is worth more than her DOM and they fill the same purpose for this deck him being a pool cheaper to influence out. I think the deck pretty much explains itself but don’t hesitate to comment if you have any questions.
Well – here is how I played it last Saturday:

Round 1

1	2	3	4	5
Tomas Wallmur	Marcus Berg	Joni Huumonen	Anders Löf	Stefan Karlsson (me)
Malgorzata bleed/bloat	Maris & Friends	Potence rush	Inner Circle + Orlando Oriundus	Geezers will find

My starting crypt consisted of the three Inner Circle members and Queen Anne. Fortunately I wasn't that master heavy on my starting hand and hoped for a pretty early Parthenon. Anders quickly influenced out Rafael de Corazon and put Legendary Vampire on him. I had to take an early bleed for 8 but I had plenty of Villeins and could influence out Etrius and Arika. Tomas brought out Malgorzata and then Mistress Fanchon contesting Etrius' title making it impossible to vote the Legendary Vampire away. Marcus was playing defensively and Joni had a bad draw with few rushes so he was mostly bleeding Anders for 1.
When Anders brought out Orlando securing vote lock I played Golconda on Etrius and brought Leandro out instead. Joni managed to torporize a couple of Marcus' vampires and I bled constantly and bounced some of Anders' bleeds to Tomas so his resources started to run out. On of Rafael's bleeds for 5 was bounced all around the table to Joni and Marcus managed to oust him. Quickly thereafter I managed to bleed away Tomas' last pool. During all this time I had a really good card flow drawing very few master cards (and no Parthenon) and the only times I saw a bunch of masters together was when I played Liquidation so I was really lucky.
With three players left Anders did his best to convince Marcus to aim for the two of them in the duel and I had to put my energy towards arguing for a all versus all-game which worked out. In that game I had the best set-up (Queen Anne also on the table) and could bleed them both out for a win.

Me GW 4VP
Marcus 1VP

Round 2

1	2	3	4	5
Janne Lönnqvist	Me	Tiago Brum	Akseli Jalava	Otso Saariluoma
Aus/Tha Powerbleed		Vignes	Tupdogs	Tzimisce weenie block

I get a pretty good start with few masters and this time I choose not to influence Huitzilopochtli out as the first minion but instead Arika. Janne early discards a Perfect Clarity and he gets Pulse of the Canaille for his first Vampire Paul Cordwood meaning I had to be conservative with my pool. The Tupdogs were struggling to get their thing done and I suppose Akseli drew too many !Tremere for him to be effective since he ended up with four of them on the table. Otso looked strong early and defended well and made constant damage to Janne.
As a second minion Janne brought out Drusilla Euphemia and because of her special an interesting situation aroused. I played Mind Rape on Drusilla with the plan of stealing one of Tiago's Ventrue to be able to bleed him out the next turn. Akseli rushed Arika to torpor with a Tupdog not to get a stronger predator so I had to change plans a little to instead stealing a Ventrue and use that Ventrue to rescue Arika. I was almost making a mistake here aiming for Edward Vignes but remembered his special the last minute and went for Catherine DuBois instead. Otso now very cleverly used Eagle's Sight to block Drusilla's attempt of stealing Catherine. Drusilla went to Torpor and Otso could oust Janne when it was his turn.
I had a recovery turn and Tiago could oust Akseli. I put heavy pressure on Tiago and eventually bled him out but didn't stand a chance of beating Otso in the duel so I had to settle with one Victory Point. This was the second game in a row where I only saw one Ashur Tablet in my deck so I had to check the leftover library to see that they weren't left back home or something.

Otso GW 3VP
Me 1VP
Tiago 1VP

Round 3

1	2	3	4	5
Oskar Jansson	Samuel Mäenpää	Randal Rudstam	Me	Jonatan Sjöberg
Dmitra Alastor	!Malkavian vote	Aus/Obf vote Old School		Create Gargoyles with Dominate

 
This time I had an early Parthenon and lots of Ashur Tabets so I actually finished the first series with just about 9 or so cards in the ash heap only bringing 7 of them back. The first half of the game was much about table balance. I was supporting Oskar in his attempts on getting Alastor on Dmitra but when we had vote majority Jonatan always had a Delaying Tactics to play. At the same time I had to work a little together with Samuel as well. Fortunately Oskar and Randal contested the Istanbul city title (Mustafa and Murat) so Randal could never play Parity shift or any other major pool damage to me early in the game. He had Lucian with Legendary Vampire so he was making decent damage as it was.
Unfortunately I have to bleed irresponsibly with my deck and some of those bleeds ended up with Oskar. Jonatan did a good job breeding and bleeding and Oskar was ousted soon followed by Samuel. I was also doing good damage but I ran out of stealth cards and couldn't bleed because he had untapped Gargoyles and I had seen Raking Talons in his ash heap. I had to rush trough the last parts of my deck to get my last Ashur Tablets while Randal started to seriously hurt me with votes. Time was also tense and both me and Randal had to get things done to get the chance of a game win.
I had one Ashur Tablets in play and another one in my Ash Heap so when I drew the third I could use my three Master Phase Actions to bring the last two into play and create a finishing library consisting of only stealth and bleed. I bled out Jonatan who in his absence still had a chance of the Game Win with the limited time left. The duel was stressed and tough and I don't remember much from it. A spectator told me after the game that I forgot to use the Coven at one point and instead performing a mandatory hunt action. This is mistakes you shouldn't be able to afford against a player like Randal but with the sheer power of my remaining library and the inherent bleed of all my Vampires I managed to oust him with less than two minutes left.

Me GW 3VP
Jonatan 2VP

The Finals

1	2	3	4	5
Otto Kukkasniemi	Me	Ville Kaijasaari	Daniel Teige	Henrik Klippström
Shambling Hordes		Guruhi master heavy rush	!Ventrue grinder	Ventrue grinder with votes
1st seed	3rd seed	2nd seed	5th seed	4th seed

I had done some quick scouting and I knew both Ville and Otto were playing combat of some form. I also knew Daniel and Henrik were playing pretty similar decks so I chose not to sit as Daniel's prey as I know him as a very agressive predator. The top seeders decided to squeeze me away from the grinders and I had a bad feeling about the game from the start.
I had a good crypt and a good starting hand so I went for a quick Arika (no need to pretend that you play a funny Etrius-deck once you reach the finals). I had Mind Rape and Abactor on my hand and as quick as Ville brought out Nana Buruku I played Mind Rape on her and got a Famed Arika in return. Nana was emptied by a Villein but my idea of an Abactor hunt and burn were still the plan. Otto's Shamblers rushed Arika to Torpor and I had to use the Abactor for her instead otherwise I would have risked both her and Etrius torporized and possibly burned.
Otto played stable and I had to take two Trochomancy bleeds removing plenty of recursionable cards destroying my hope for a long-term success in the finals. I had to continue going forwards aiming for at least one Victory Point and when Etrius bled for 8 Ville played an Archon Investigation. I got Huitzilopochtli out but Otto used his Dominate to finish me.
On the other side of the table Daniel was very aggressive against Henrik who had to defend himself. Otto also always had several untapped minions so Henrik couldn't try any launches for an oust. Ville slowly recovered from my aggressions and the game went slow. With only some minutes left Daniel ousted Henrik and the table timed out.

Otto 1.5VP Tournament win
Daniel 1.5VP
Ville 0.5VP

I am very happy with my result as my goal was to take this my last opportunity before the real Last Chance Qualifier to qualify for the European Championships. My deck performed well in an environment where I didn't play against a single bad player or deck for the whole tournament and all of the games were intense in their own way. As was the gathering after the tournament. As were the draft tournament the day after. I don't know how to end this other than saying I love this dead game and its players.