Qualifier – 2011

Weekend ended up being too busy to put thoughts down on the qualifier and other V:TES games.  Reading some other tournament reports, I don’t know if it’s that I never went into the same level of detail that others do or that I’ve lost interest in going into as much detail.  Oh well.  Highlights, then.

Event 1 (whatever it was called)

Round 1:

Andy (Cavalier Malk SB) -> Joel E. (EuroBrujah) -> Ian T. (Samedi RC) -> Joel M. (Week of Nightmares) -> Ian L. (Newcromancy)

24 players!!  Really?!?  So bizarre that we are setting attendance records.  Guess mid-December is a pretty good time for tournaments.

The Ian and Joel show was okay.  An interesting mix of somewhat notable with completely non-notable.  On turn two, I play cards, including Govern (bleed) and Spectral Div.  I never bleed like this early, but I wanted to cycle out of Summon Soul and burning the two blood seemed okay.  My overwhelming aggression was only likely to confuse my opponents.

Didn’t last long.  I played one card in the next hour.

I chose to be handjammed with two wakes and two bounce and a complete lack of masters.  In fact, I didn’t draw a master until the turn that my predator ousted me.  But, before that happened, I was in pretty good shape.  My grandprey did a good job of defending with Second Traditions, though we weren’t entirely sure why he didn’t rush backwards with Theo Bell.  Beast joined the ready region eventually.  Andy got beaten up a bit.  While I didn’t bounce much as JM tooled up with Tumnimos and whatnot, I didn’t get bounced much either, so Andy goes down to one pool and it looks like two easy VP for me, while having down little to nothing in the game.

Then, JM decides to oust me.  Andy bouncing a bleed back to me creates the kill situation, which was reasonable as I would have killed him on my turn.  It wasn’t terribly disappointing to fail to get VPs, it wasn’t like I deserved any.  The deck had a lot of masters and I didn’t bother digging, for instance.

No, what was disappointing was that I didn’t play anything interesting in the game, except, maybe, one Transfusion, which without a Path in play, wasn’t terribly meaningful.  An interesting strategic and tactical game but boring from a card interaction standpoint.

JM went on to easily get other VPs.  IT had an interesting lack of stealth in his Samedi (best stealth clan in the game) deck.  Looked like he could get JM into a non-playing position, but a Sensory Dep on The Baron was limiting and JM gained a bunch of pool off of blood farming.

Round 2:

Ian -> Matt (Pre/Obf w/ Events) -> Dan (Gargoyle bleed) -> Joel M. -> Joe (Toreador B&B)

Much more interesting for me.  I had complete control over my predator’s Toreador guns bruise and bleed deck with my early draw of two Promise of 1528s.  I played masters.  The Path of Bone never got burnt.  I wondered if my prey had Parity Shift for the longest time.  I expected his early Fortschritt Library into Break the Code to lead to The Rising, but it never hit the table.  I didn’t get the point of the event cards.

After Chair of Hades-ing Carlton, I stealth bleed Matt out by drawing into a second Govern to enable me to bleed for 12 when he had 11 pool.  While I didn’t have bounce in my hand, it was funny how the table correctly decided that my predator bleeding me when my prey was tapped out with 11 pool was a terrible thing to do.

Dan fell quickly as his deck wasn’t holding up well under the pressure of bleeds for 3 at stealth and votes for 3.  With only three bleed cards left in my library, which was maybe 25 cards tall, I couldn’t get Joel.  TW and 2.5 VPs was .5 VPs short of a tie for fifth place, so not getting one more VP was huge, potentially large.  I did consider letting Dan try to oust Joel, but I didn’t think I could ever get Joe.

Pickup Interlude:

Yeah, I really don’t have as much interest in explaining more details about games, in particular what was going on with others.

I played Ani/Cel/For, 4-cl, Jyhad/DS/AH-only.  We realized halfway in the game that my Quinton McDonnell had the only vote on the table.  My Ass, long range combat predator couldn’t really do anything to me due to my deck being full of combat cards.  On the other hand, my lack of ousting power and inability to get more permacept in play meant my Week of Nightmares prey could do whatever he wanted.

Actually, the Rom Gypsy gave him two VPs.  I had a Raven Spy early, but I couldn’t deal with two permanent stealth between RG and Fortune Teller Shop.  What was weird about this game, besides Andrei Puxon and Quinton McDonnell being combat beasts, was my prey playing Week of Nightmares when I had Andrei and Kostantin.  Kostantin got Sensory Depped, stole a Camera Phone, Freaked.  Andrei took the Camera Phone to become a three bleeder.  How to allocate Week counters was oddly wonderful with people moving them to my Andrei as well as my prey.  I kept getting SensDepped.

Long after we should have called the game and long after the Week ended, my prey conceded the last two VPs as I was gaining three pool a turn and only losing two, while doing things to me was costing my prey.  My plan was to bloat enough to bring out Lucretia, since everyone knows that’s full of win, and have two vamps not SensDepped.

Qualifier:

Ian (!Nos w/ Dominate) -> Matt (Imbued Beretta rush) -> Mike Z. (Giovanni Embraces) -> Alex (Ass w/ Dominate)

Only 21 players, heh.  Four player tables, for the most part, not as enthralling.

My game got warped horribly by the Imbued.  Because I knew that Dragon’s Breath Rounds were coming, I had to play around being tooled by Berettas.  There’s actually a lot of details I could mention about this game, but one can fill in the backwards beatdowns to stop Badr and Ur-Shulgi from bleeding me too much and whatnot.

I use Dreams at one point and my end of turn discards are Preternatural Strength, Torn Signpost, and Villein.  I had to hold on to every Swallowed by the Night for the maneuvers to make sure I could land against the Imbued and, then, started drawing Immortal Grapples, which I choked on as I couldn’t discard those either.  By playing virtually the whole game with just Julio Martinez and Mateusz, I had little ousting energy.  I kept being reluctant to bring up Gustaphe Brunnelle as I kept getting bounced to and my 4-cl deck didn’t have a whole lot of bounce.  Or, more importantly, it didn’t have a lot of wakes.  I knew my deck was wake poor, especially given the crypt size.

So, after Alex got ousted, we settled into a painful three-way of Mike not wanting to do anything into the face of my combat and my Underbridge Stray who had intercept from The Unmasking, Matt getting nowhere against Mike, and my punking an Imbued once in a while only to have it pop back up.  I actually hoped Matt would oust Mike, as I figured I could do more in a heads up game with my combat.  We timed out.  I’m mostly surprised Matt didn’t use the Imbued with built in rush to rush Mike more, but whatever.  My inability to oust a rush Imbued deck was just sad.

Round 2:

Brad (Ventrue grinder) -> Ian -> Brandon (Trem) -> Dennis (Diversion rush) -> A.J. (fat Tzimisce)

I’d say the main takeaway for me from this game is that I played it impatiently.  I played it like I see a lot of other people play.  Brad played “my game” – doing nothing until his inevitable victory.  A.J. was just impotent in the face of damage prevent.  I did bring out Gustaphe who promptly got Preternatural Strength, so at one point, Dennis and I had reduced Brandon to one ready minion, which became three ready minions, two of which were empty.  I took a low percentage shot at ousting Brandon only to have Conditioning bounced.  I was stuck on actions as I was spending so much time trying to contain Brandon, so I discarded Seal of Veddartha at one point and kept not putting Mylan into play.

Just impatient.  Though, I wasn’t at all clear how to prevent Brandon from getting 2 VPs as A.J. never got strong.  In fact, what hurt me a lot was that A.J. kept having bleeds of two bounced to me that I had to eat, which let Brad exactly oust me with a Govern when Brandon was on the ropes.

Just evidence that I suck at playing with combat decks.  First time I haven’t qualified in our local qualifier in my memory.  Really going downhill as a player – the way it should be.

Sunday

Sunday was all about pickup games with the guys up from Los Angeles.

Matt (!Gangrel vote) -> Mike Z. (Giovanni w/ Embraces) -> Ian (Dance, Dance, Revolution) -> Dennis (Journal of Hrorsh) -> Brandon (New Nos)

I am constantly amazed at how much pool damage I can do with Constant Revolution.  My opening game sucked as I had four Anarch Converts in my crypt draw.  Dennis did his Mr. Noir gains 25 pool or whatever thing when Brandon hadn’t even brought out a dude yet.

Eventually, Dennis Hostile Takeovers my Kurt Strauss and Matt gives up on the game by ousting himself with a bid of nine.  The numerous global effects of Judgment: Camarilla Segregation (Brandon), Constant Revolution (me), Anarch Revolt (me, again), even Smiling Jack (yup, me) just didn’t make the game comfortable for folks.  I’m fairly sure I could have stopped Dennis’s second round of gaining massive pool with Power of All on Freak Drive, but I was spending too much time thinking about Filchware’s and whether to stop Journal or not to actually play Power of All.

James (Corrupt Construction) -> Robert (!Toreador w/ War Ghouls) -> Ian (Blessed Resilience) -> Dennis (Eternal Mask IC) -> Matt (Trochomancy)

Matt has two Trochomancys DIed in the same turn (prey and predator).  I manage three intercept to block Ancient Influence and Matt bouncing backwards finishes off Dennis.  Robert has to go through nine crypt cards to get to a Tzimisce to play a War Ghoul.  James withdraws after sucking down a number of Trochomancys with his Corrupt Construction deck … still gets out an 18-life CC at one point.

With four possible Force of Will bleeds, I only need two to oust Matt.  Robert screws around in the endgame by bleeding for zero with a War Ghoul, so with four vampires in my ash heap, zero controlled, and zero uncontrolled, I The Parthenon, Blessed Resilience, hunt, bleed for three with Force of Will, and Call of the Hungry Dead past Robert’s second War Ghoul.  While tainted by the nonsensical War Ghoul bleed, I find ousting someone with five vampires and two War Ghouls while having no controlled or uncontrolled vampires to be highly amusing.

Dennis (Sylvie Helgon) -> James (Selma & Trap/UP) -> Ian (Nos anarch bleed) -> Brandon (Ariadne Garou) -> Mike C. (Ur-Shulgi Contract)

I figure that James’s deck is Trap/UP when March is his first dork.  Selma Anathema-ing Sylvie is just horrendous.  Even more worser is James not playing Blood Hunt on her but on my Anarch Convert, which lets Mike gain tons of pool.  Brandon offends Dennis by looking to rush Sylvie with a Garou to prevent Mike from gaining, not being aware that you have to reduce to zero in combat.  What would have been funny is Dennis’s comment about rushing my Blood Hunted Convert with Sylvie to give me pool, but alas.

Brandon knows my deck, so he rushes backwards with Garou.  I finally play a Kindred Intelligence with this deck.  I finally bring out Josef von Bauren, the only vamp above 5-cap.  I don’t do much to impact the game and get ousted.

Decks (any Path of Lilith is really Lilith’s Blessing):

Deck Name:   111127  Newcromancy
Created By:  Baldesar

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 32, Avg: 4.66)
———————————————
2  Baldesar Rossellini                aus for nec DOM POT8  Giovanni
1  Don Michael Antonio Giovanni       DOM NEC POT    7  Giovanni
1  Gualtiero Ghiberti                 cel pot tha DOM NEC7  Giovanni
1  Guillaume Giovanni                 CEL DOM NEC POT obt9  Giovanni
1  Lia Milliner                       dom nec        3  Giovanni
1  Primo Giovanni                     domnec pot     4  Giovanni
1  Raphaela Giovanni                  DOM NEC pot pre6  Giovanni
4  Tupdog                             POT VIS        1  Gargoyle

Library: (80 cards)
——————-
Master (20 cards)
1  Barrens, The
2  Blood Doll
1  Dis Pater
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1  Necromancy
3  Path of Bone, The
1  Path of Lilith, The
1  Powerbase: Cape Verde
1  Rack, The
4  Vessel
2  Villein
1  WMRH Talk Radio
1  Wall Street Night, Financial Newspaper

Action (11 cards)
2  Chair of Hades
6  Govern the Unaligned
1  Haunt
1  Pandora`s Whisper
1  Summon Soul

Action Modifier (14 cards)
5  Call of the Hungry Dead
2  Conditioning
1  Foreshadowing Destruction
5  Transfusion
1  Trochomancy

Reaction (13 cards)
6  Deflection
1  Fillip
6  On the Qui Vive

Combat (8 cards)
2  Mercy for Seth
6  Spiritual Intervention

Ally (1 cards)
1  Leonardo, Mortician

Retainer (2 cards)
2  Masquer (Wraith)

Equipment (2 cards)
1  Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
1  Sargon Fragment, The

Combo (9 cards)
3  Promise of 1528
6  Spectral Divination

Not hugely interesting.  Metagamed for Imbued.  Really only delivered on the Promise of 1528 (I’ve already done the Transfusion thing often enough to know how tasty it is).

Deck Name:   110903  AniCelFor  4cl
Created By:  Andrei Puxon

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 23, Max: 39, Avg: 8)
——————————————-
3  Andrei Puxon                       ani cel chi for5  Ravnos
3  Kostantin                          ANI cel CHI dom FOR9  Ravnos
3  Lucretia                           ANI aus cel for OBF pot10 Nosferatu
3  Quinton McDonnell                  ani cel FOR pro8  Gangrel

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (15 cards)
1  Animalism
1  Barrens, The
4  Blood Doll
1  Celerity
1  Fortitude
1  Giant`s Blood
1  Information Highway
3  Minion Tap
1  Park Hunting Ground
1  Rack, The

Action (2 cards)
2  Restoration

Action Modifier (5 cards)
4  Freak Drive
1  Kiss of Ra, The

Reaction (12 cards)
4  Cats` Guidance
4  Rat`s Warning
4  Wake with Evening`s Freshness

Combat (27 cards)
2  Canine Horde
4  Flash
2  Hidden Strength
2  Indomitability
2  Psyche!
4  Sideslip
2  Skin of Rock
3  Skin of Steel
4  Taste of Vitae
2  Unflinching Persistence

Retainer (9 cards)
1  J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1  Mr. Winthrop
2  Murder of Crows
4  Raven Spy
1  Tasha Morgan

Equipment (5 cards)
4  .44 Magnum
1  Ivory Bow

The J/DS/AH restriction is to fit in better with the Pleasanton crowd that I haven’t played with in ages.  This deck has been entertaining, if really, really slow.

Deck Name:   111210  antiNos Qualifier Perfect
Created By:  Lucian, The Perfect

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 14, Max: 37, Avg: 6.91)
———————————————-
2  Gustaphe Brunnelle                 obf ANI DOM POT8  Nosferatu
1  Harold Tanner                      ani dom obf POT6  Nosferatu
1  Joseph Cambridge                   ani dom obf POT6  Nosferatu Antitribu
2  Julio Martinez                     ANI DOM nec OBF POT9  Nosferatu Antitribu
1  Lucian                             ANI AUS DOM OBF POT PRE 11 Guruhi
1  Mateusz Gryzbowsky                 ANI OBF POT    8  Nosferatu Antitribu
2  Tarbaby Jack                       dom ser ANI OBF POT8  Nosferatu Antitribu
2  Tupdog                             POT VIS        1  Gargoyle

Library: (80 cards)
——————-
Master (13 cards)
1  Archon Investigation
1  Barrens, The
1  Direct Intervention
1  Dreams of the Sphinx
1  Information Highway
3  Life in the City
1  Nosferatu Kingdom
4  Villein

Action (12 cards)
1  Bum`s Rush
4  Deep Song
4  Govern the Unaligned
1  Harass
1  Preternatural Strength
1  Sense Death

Action Modifier (4 cards)
2  Conditioning
1  Into Thin Air
1  Spying Mission

Reaction (14 cards)
3  Cats` Guidance
1  Confusion of the Eye
4  Deflection
4  On the Qui Vive
1  Redirection
1  Sense the Savage Way

Combat (24 cards)
1  Canine Horde
4  Carrion Crows
1  Drawing Out the Beast
4  Immortal Grapple
2  Slam
4  Taste of Vitae
1  Terror Frenzy
2  Thrown Gate
4  Torn Signpost
1  Vanish from the Mind`s Eye

Ally (3 cards)
1  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)
1  Underbridge Stray

Retainer (1 cards)
1  Mr. Winthrop

Equipment (2 cards)
1  Ivory Bow
1  Seal of Veddartha

Combo (7 cards)
1  Hide the Mind
2  Murmur of the False Will
4  Swallowed by the Night

More wakes.  Made me sad Lucian never tabled.  I’ll have to build more Lucian focused decks.

Deck Name:   110709  Dance, Dance, Revolution
Created By:  Sarah Cobbler

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 21, Avg: 3.25)
———————————————
4  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff
1  Brooke                             dom tha        3  Tremere Antitribu
1  Hannigan                           AUS dom THA    5  Tremere Antitribu
1  Ignatius                           aus dom tha    4  Tremere
1  Jing Wei                           dom tha        3  Tremere
1  Kurt Strauss                       aus DOM tha    5  Tremere Antitribu
1  Merrill Molitor                    aus dom THA    5  Tremere
1  Reverend Blackwood                 DOM obf THA    6  Tremere Antitribu
1  Sarah Cobbler                      dom THA        4  Tremere

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (20 cards)
2  Anarch Revolt
1  Barrens, The
4  Blood Doll
1  Dominate
2  Dreams of the Sphinx
1  Path of Lilith, The
1  Powerbase: Montreal
1  Rack, The
1  Rotschreck
5  Smiling Jack, The Anarch
1  Thaumaturgy

Action (7 cards)
5  Constant Revolution
2  Govern the Unaligned

Action Modifier (5 cards)
3  Conditioning
2  Mirror Walk

Reaction (22 cards)
9  Deflection
8  On the Qui Vive
2  Power of All
1  Redirection
2  Scry the Hearthstone

Combat (15 cards)
2  Burst of Sunlight
1  Diversion
1  Walk of Flame
1  Weather Control
10 Wind Dance

Ally (4 cards)
2  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)
1  Nephandus (Mage)

Retainer (1 cards)
1  Charnas the Imp

Equipment (1 cards)
1  Bowl of Convergence

Will have to change this deck as I want to play it again.  So many things I didn’t see in that game.

Deck Name:   110918  Blessed Resilience
Created By:  Macoute

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 25, Max: 32, Avg: 7.25)
———————————————-
3  Babalawo Alafin                    ani AUS FOR NEC7  Harbingers of Skulls
3  Macoute                            FOR obf NEC thn6  Samedi
3  Mordechai Ben-Nun                  ANI AUS FOR NEC8  Harbingers of Skulls
3  Morlock                            FOR NEC THN obf8  Samedi

Library: (90 cards)
——————-
Master (26 cards)
4  Blessed Resilience
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
4  Life in the City
1  Parthenon, The
1  Path of Lilith, The
6  Storage Annex
6  Villein
3  Wider View

Action (18 cards)
9  Force of Will
1  Possession
5  Rapid Healing
3  Restoration

Action Modifier (27 cards)
4  Call of the Hungry Dead
8  Daring the Dawn
14 Freak Drive
1  Trochomancy

Reaction (14 cards)
7  On the Qui Vive
7  Telepathic Misdirection

Ally (1 cards)
1  Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

Combo (4 cards)
4  Spectral Divination

Man, I love the crypt for this deck – got the perfect draw of one of each, by the way, in that game.  Dennis strongly suggested adding about three Trochomancy.  There’s actually a lot of tweaks I could make now that I realize it’s not quite as kamikaze as I expected.  Still have won every game I’ve ever played playing HoS Force of Will …

Deck Name:   111119  Josef`s Army
Created By:  Toby

Crypt: (15 cards, Min: 4, Max: 32, Avg: 4.46)
———————————————
4  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff
1  Beetleman                          obf ANI        4  Nosferatu
1  Foureyes                           obf pot        3  Nosferatu
2  Jeremy Wix Wyzchovsky              ani obf pot    5  Nosferatu
2  Josef von Bauren                   cel ANI DEM OBF POT11 Nosferatu
1  Petra                              aus ANI OBF    5  Nosferatu
1  Ruxandra                           ani aus OBF    5  Nosferatu
1  Slag                               ani obf pot    4  Nosferatu
2  Toby                               ani obf pre    5  Nosferatu

Library: (75 cards)
——————-
Master (20 cards)
1  Barrens, The
4  Blood Doll
1  Dreams of the Sphinx
1  Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1  Labyrinth, The
2  Obfuscate
1  Path of Lilith, The
3  Perfectionist
4  Villein
2  Wider View

Action (9 cards)
4  Computer Hacking
1  Conceal
4  Kindred Intelligence

Action Modifier (16 cards)
4  Cloak the Gathering
2  Elder Impersonation
2  Faceless Night
1  Leverage
1  Monkey Wrench
4  Spying Mission
2  Veil the Legions

Reaction (12 cards)
4  Confusion of the Eye
2  Delaying Tactics
4  On the Qui Vive
2  Wake with Evening`s Freshness

Combat (8 cards)
4  Dodge
4  No Trace

Ally (1 cards)
1  Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Retainer (3 cards)
1  J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1  Robert Carter
1  Tasha Morgan

Equipment (1 cards)
1  Camera Phone

Event (1 cards)
1  Scourge of the Enochians

Combo (4 cards)
4  Swallowed by the Night

Have already decided to cut two of the crypt.  I never gain advantage from playing 15.  I also identified the need for Fragment of the Book of Nod after the first time I played it, but I haven’t cared enough to make the change.  After all, I never get blocked, so I discard stealth constantly.

Tournament Triumph

Not for me, of course.  The triumph was that we had more players for a V:EKN sanctioned event than we have ever had.

I’m still trying to get caught up gamingwise with Gen Con follow up, so I made some changes to the deck I was building for Jeff and came up with a couple of deck ideas Friday night, then had to figure out what I was playing in Saturday’s two tournaments Saturday morning.  Unfortunately, I frequently forget the decks I most want to play in tournaments because they are so infrequent and so many ideas have accumulated.

So, I started looking through old ideas.  There are actually quite a few decklists I have for decks I’ve never pulled the cards for.  I should think about notating that in their file names.  Eventually, I found one of the ideas that I had been saving for tournament play that I was sufficiently interested in to put together.

Angel Rush is not a deck, so much as an archetype.  The idea is to minimize card slots for combat by playing Beast, Pariah, and Guardian Angels.  Not that combat necessarily matters, depending upon which version of the archetype we are talking about.  One version is a serious combat deck.  Another, a … disorganized mess.  I only made things worse by inflating the latter from 80 to 90 cards and putting in such cards as No Trace, which proved to be useless.

The other deck I settled on was yet another Laecanus deck.  Not that the deck needed or, even, wanted Laecanus, but he wasn’t useless, in theory.  Superior Celerity, Toreador anarchs with Presence bleed and bounce.  So far, I could have said “Toreador deck” and been about as descriptive.  The deck was supposed to play a ton of Resist Earth’s Grasp for stealth, supplementing with Suppressing Fire, for the kill card – The Portrait.  Of course, there’s no controlling whether The Portrait becomes a bleed card or not, so this wasn’t the most robust of strategies.  Another deck I left at 90 cards, showing just how little I care about competing anymore.

First Tournament

Round 1:  Jeff (Enkidu’s Car Dealership) -> Andy H. (Tryphosa) -> Ian (Flying Portrait) -> Aaron (weenie Cel guns)

Weenie Cel guns?  Ick.  Though, it turned out the ick was mostly for Aaron, who had Enkidu appear quickly and Andy not bring out dudes for a long time, allowing me free rein to do stuff.  I’m not sure Jeff actually went first, which shows how much less I’m into these games.

Ransam appeared.  I got Parmenides for a turn who only bled for 1.  Aaron started rushing right away, which led to Unholy Penance on Parmenides which never got removed.  Because Aaron just kept rushing me, I decided not to play my usual game of passivity and tried to kill him as fast as possible.  Fortunately, for me, he never Psyche!d while I combat endsed fairly often and he only ever got one gun.  I couldn’t muster quite enough bleed to take him out before two of my three vamps got punked.  Andy had to make a decision when I was low on pool and Aaron was at 2 pool with my Famed guy in torpor.  He ate Ransam rather than bleed me out, figuring I’d just bounce some more and that having to do 2 pool damage with one minion was harder than 1 damage and Fame killing Aaron off.

I got Aaron to stay alive and tried to figure out how to rebuild my board.  Jeff was in decent shape.  Andy was still likely to take me out.  Until, Jeff nuked Tryphosa and Lutz.  Even with just Gem left, Andy might have been able to get me.  I rebuilt my position slightly.  I had The Rack on Philippe de Marseilles.  Jeff stole it.  I twice forgot to take it back, bleeding (when I had the Edge) instead.  That might have been game as Jeff took out Andy to put him out of range of one turn of my bleeds and the combats between Enkidu and my Celerity vampires went slightly in Enkidu’s favor.  I did Portrait, only to see Enkidu’s visage … I discarded the other The Portraits.  I decked.  I finally lost a critical combat to Enkidu and, then, lost another fight with my remaining vampire.

A table win would have been interesting.  As terrible an idea trying to throw Well-Aimed Cars is, I actually really like the Enkidu deck, with its strong Black Hand theme and solid crypt for all of the nonsense it tries to do.  So, I was highly amused that Jeff started off so well.

Round 2:  Joel (HoS Shamblers) -> Brandyn (Highlander) -> James (Corrupt Construction) -> Ian

Joel drops KRCG News Radio, making me sad as I have a hard time with permacept.  James keeps burning D’habi Revenants, which tells me what deck he’s playing since I played against it in our qualifier weekend.  Brandyn is very screwed since his numerous discipline deck is so unreliable and he’s surrounded by rushing allies and intercept.  I’m in a strange situation of being largely unable to do things but also being able to handle the ally combat since my deck has tons of maneuvers and combat ends for defense and can shoot the allies (Shamblers, Escaped Mental Patients) dead much of the time.

We settle in.  Eventually, James Fames and Havens one of my guys and I am way too cocky about my ability to defend forever in combat.  I Catatonic Fear, Target: Vitals one Corrupt Construction.  I Zip Gun, kill an Escaped Mental Patient.  I get punked by a second Corrupt Construction, which I totally could have blocked, when it plays Trap and I can’t draw a Resist Earth’s Grasp to press to end.  I let my Famed guy get rescued and get punked again for the kill.  Funny.  Eventually, Joel wins.

I go for food rather than play pickups.  I do end up playing a pickup when I get back, but it’s against local players, which makes it kind of pointless.  Speaking of local players, the first tournament had six from the South Bay group, five from the East Bay, and six from SoCal.  An Imbued deck gets thrashed.  I land with some Blood Sweats.  The Trem deck dies by bleeding with Govern when at 1 pool when his prey has two torped vampires, his only ready vampire Pentexed, and a Major Boon … on his predator.  I eventually win an uneven endgame, including having my dude with Fame (from the beginning of the game), while doing a forced hunt at 0 blood, torp a Guruhi with Taste of Death (reduced by Path), and take no damage.

Second Tournament

Just ridiculous that this was the first time we have ever had 20+ for a V:EKN sanctioned tournament in the area.  We got one more from SoCal, one more from the East Bay, and one more that falls under the South Bay group.

Round 1:  Ian (Angel Rush) -> Robert (Vote w/ Faerie Wards) -> Sean (!Toreador anarch) -> Michael (weenie Hack w/ Obf) -> Eric (War Ghouls)

I bring out Beast, I spend my whole game rushing, mainly Michael’s dudes with Obfuscate since I know how his deck works.  Eric doesn’t, not that he could have survived, but he could have forced a couple more actions on Michael’s part if he knew about the Obfuscate splash.  Eric does bring out a War Ghoul, who gets Pentexed, and Eric is ousted.  I also rush with Pariah when I have masters to feed him.  I almost get to blow Failsafe.  I also almost die before Sean gets Michael.  With Michael gone, I’m in no better shape, worse in a lot of ways against Sean and fall quickly.  With a lot of pool, Sean seems to have a huge edge in the endgame, but Robert bloats enough to weather the storm.

I should have discarded more aggressively, but I didn’t want to show much of my deck.  I doubt it would have mattered much since my built-in rushers with Potence had no way of dealing with disciplineless Dodge or Staredown.

Round 2:  AJ W. (!Malk) -> Joel (EuroBrujah) -> Robert -> Chris (Serpentis FSR) -> Ian

While I did Beast rush Allonzo Montoya and Disarm him, I actually did very little backwards even though Chris Tempationed Beast and put Form of Corruption in play.  I figured any significant backwards action would just give Robert the game.  The irony of my being annoyed by Temptation, Form of Corruption, and Free States Rants being called is that Chris never stole one of my vampires as only Anarch Convert was ever low enough to be taken by Form of Corruption.  I died to being bled at stealth.

Before that happened, Joel hammered AJ when AJ blocked a Parity Shift and threw a Pentex on AJ’s other vamp.  To break Pentex, Chris cut a deal with AJ to bleed me with Kindred Spirits, which is what put me in ousting range.  Chris’s votes should have been nullified by Robert, but a KRC got through because Ventrue Headquarters had been tapped on Robert’s turn to pass something I could have caused to succeed.  I bled much more in this game since I lost any particular interest in trying to survive and AJ was fairly weak.  AJ did get Joel, which took all pressure off of Robert while depriving Chris of an easy three VPs.  Robert won.

Having RPG stuff today, I headed out at midnight rather than play pickup games.  Not great timing having all of this gaming the weekend after Gen Con.  It would have been even more ridiculous if my regular Friday night RPG hadn’t gotten cancelled.

The interesting thing about the tournaments for me was how uninteresting I found the games.  My decks should have been more interesting than they were.  I think they both were too vague in their goofiness, so I ended up with far too many ordinary situations even if I had strange plays available to me.

Speaking of decks, I fell into the same trap of blaming my decks, even if it was intended to be in jest, for performance failures.  The Portrait deck was good enough, maybe the Angel Rush deck, in all of its bloated 90 card glory, didn’t achieve the minimum threshold of viability.  But, it’s just so easy to talk about deck failures when it’s really player failures, even when joking.  People might have taken my comments about my decks not being serious because they were 90 cards … well, seriously.  Really, I didn’t play well, and I’ve stopped trying to use table politics to determine results, which is a form of playing badly.

I could have had more fun – I think I just wasn’t mentally prepared for tournament play this weekend.  But, the far more important thing was the exceptional attendance for events, attendance at a peak without even the draw of it being a qualifier weekend.  Kudos to Brandon for making it happen and nagging people from outside the region.  Big ups to Andy H. for hosting and providing food and drink.  Shame I didn’t get to play any with much of the SoCal crew – never played with Andy F., Dennis, Matt.

Fly No More

I’m kind of out of touch with V:TES discussion.  It’s hard to embrace the new go to place of vekn.net because the scheme is really hard on the eyes (changing it is more painful) and because I just don’t have the same level of interest.  I did look around lately, so I saw the question about expectations at the NAC, not a lot of posts.  I did try to find some blog about Week of Nightmares but couldn’t find anything.

So, I can still make predictions in the absence of any sort of results.  There’s definitely a sense that Girls variants and Stickmen are overrepresented as winners in the last year or so.  In the past, I might have done the deck by deck analysis to really see what has been winning recently, but in lieu of going to that much effort, I’d note that Giovanni have done well in 2011 in larger tournaments and I feel like Dementation and Imbued decks are threatening.

As to what I’d expect, I wouldn’t expect much in the way of these various archetypes, except maybe Dementation, at the NAC.  While I’m hesitant to say that there is greater diversity of deck archetypes at major US events, I do think that there’s evidence that suggests that frequent winners in Europe will play the same archetypes repeatedly, embracing what is considered the strongest archetypes rather than eschewing them.

What I would expect is Animalism.  If asked maybe a year ago, maybe two or three, what I’d feel was the most troublesome archetype, I would probably have said weenie Animalism.  It was already a go to metagame choice before Deep Song was printed, and Deep Song only made it vastly more efficient.  While hardly perfect and while there are a number of matchups the archetype isn’t fond of, it wrecked enough decks while having a good enough game against enough of the field, that it seemed a prime choice.

I wouldn’t say the same about weenie Animalism today, but I would say Animalism is even stronger.  Why?  Decks like this one:

V:tES ECQ @ GothCon 2011
Gothenburg, Sweden
April 23, 2011
37 players

Erik Torstensson’s Tournament Winning Deck

Deck Name : girls will find aids (68-rörelsen)
Author : Isak Bjärmark Esbjörnsson and Erik Torstensson
Description : Five minutes with Enkidu.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 7 max: 11 average: 8.91667
————————————————————
4x Aksinya Daclau     9 ANI FOR PRE PRO cel tha     !Gangrel:4
2x Cybele            10 ANI DAI OBF PRE SER THA     Baali:4
2x Nana Buruku         8 ANI POT PRE             Guruhi:4
1x Enkidu, The Noah    11 ANI CEL OBF POT PRO for     !Gangrel:4
1x Nangila Were     9 ANI POT PRE obf ser         Guruhi:4
1x Gustaphe Brunnelle     8 ANI DOM POT obf         Nosferatu:4 primogen
1x Talbot         7 ANI NEC PRO for         Gangrel:5

Library [68 cards]
——————————
Action [1]
2x Deep Song
1x Entrancement

Combat [20]
9x Aid from Bats
7x Carrion Crows
1x Target Vitals
2x Taste of Vitae
1x Terror Frenzy
1x Canine Horde

Event [2]
1x Anthelios, The Red Star
1x Dragonbound

Master [31]
9x Ashur Tablets
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Fame
1x Giant’s Blood
2x Haven Uncovered
2x Information Highway
5x Liquidation
1x Lilith’s Blessing
7x Villein
5x Zillah’s Valley
1x Pentex Subversion
1x Jake Washington
1x Golconda: Inner Peace

Reactions [4]
1x Guard Dogs
1x Rat’s Warning
2x Lost in Translation

The evolution of Girls decks is interesting.  Compare with this deck:

Swedish National Championship 2010
Örebro, Sweden
September 11, 2010
44 Players
3R + F

Erik Torstensson’s Tournament Winning Deck with 1,5 VPs in the Finals

Deck Name : Girls will find…
Author : Erik Torstensson
Description :

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 9 max: 11 average: 10
————————————————————
4x Cybele                 10 ANI DAI OBF PRE SER THA          Baali:4
4x Aksinya Daclau         9  ANI FOR PRE PRO cel tha          !Gangrel:4
1x Adana de Sforza        11 CEL OBF POT PRE PRO aus inner circle Brujah:4
1x Lutz von Hohenzollern 11 AUS DEM OBF PRE pot     inner circle Malkavian:4
1x Mistress Fanchon       11 AUS CEL DOM OBF THA VIC inner circle Tremere:4
1x Rafael de Corazon      11 AUS CEL DOM OBF PRE     inner circle Toreador:4

Library [82 cards]
————————————————————
Action [4]
1x Entrancement
2x Intimidation
1x Unleash Hell’s Fury

Action Modifier [16]
2x Aire of Elation
1x Approximation of Loyalty
1x Cloak the Gathering
2x Elder Impersonation
1x Enkil Cog
2x Faceless Night
1x Into Thin Air
2x Lost in Crowds
2x Mirror Walk
2x Perfect Paragon

Combat [4]
4x Majesty

Event [2]
2x Anthelios, The Red Star

Master [48]
9x Ashur Tablets
1x Blind Spot
1x Coven, The
1x Direct Intervention
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Fortschritt Library
1x Giant’s Blood
2x Golconda: Inner Peace
2x Information Highway
2x Jake Washington (Hunter)
8x Liquidation
1x Metro Underground
1x Misdirection
1x Monastery of Shadows
1x Parthenon, The
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
7x Villein
1x Wash
5x Zillah’s Valley

Political Action [4]
1x Ancient Influence
1x Banishment
1x Political Stranglehold
1x Reins of Power

Reaction [4]
1x Guard Dogs
2x Lost in Translation
1x Rat’s Warning

Same player, same region, same sort of broken core strategy that abuses masters, very different support module.

Nana Buruku should have settled in everyone’s minds (but I’m sure didn’t) that multiple master phase actions is broken.  Here’s a vampire without a number of the benefits that Anson has provided lo these many years who still has shown up in a variety of winning archetypes as the key vampire at the higher levels of play.  Add to Aksinya and Cybele a third ANI vampire, and one sees how easy it is to bolt a combat module on to crazy bloat and recursion.

And, what a combat module it is.  Anything can win.  We see that.  But, would anyone want to run weenie Potence or Celerity guns into Aid From Bats + Carrion Crows?  So, it doesn’t beat combat ends.  It doesn’t need to.  Eventually combat ends runs out (ignoring Henry Taylor or whatever).  The massive power that Majesty has always brought to the table is that whatever the deck was doing that wasn’t getting out of combat was harsh to one’s pool.  Girls decks are kind of decent at pool gain.  Bloat enough to play a game of attrition and 1+2+press+1+2 is enough damage to tear up minions.

I’ve thought about how to counteract Animalism decks and the answers come up wanting far too often.  Sure, against weenie Animalism, stealth vote is nice but how well does it do against “oh, my deck also has Lutz”?  Combat ends has the problem I mentioned of only being good enough if the deck can be ousted fast enough.  Opposing combat can be a big annoyance, especially ranged agg, but then, what does your combat do for you against stealth bleed, stealth vote, etc.?  Can’t really avoid getting into combat when Deep Song is around.

To abuse masters or to try to stop master abuse?  While I might not expect much in the way of Girlie decks at the NAC, I’m sure people will still try to abuse Ashur Tablets, Liquidation, the two together, and whatever else.  Join the club?  Or, try to Monkey Wrench (grossly underplayed card) the club?  I just don’t have any confidence that a deck can run enough Suddens and/or Washes to ensure winning the metagame.  Answers aren’t as good as threats and the threats in a deck with 6+ Ashur Tablets feel pretty much infinite.  Even if the Tablets never go, the amount of effort put into stopping that likely means everything else happens which is not a “win”.

Though, there are deck archetypes that are fearsome enough without having to stop a lot that I can see decks such as Dementation bleed with 4+ Suddens try to be anti-club.  Not really anything new, I was suggesting just such a build back when Gen Con still had major V:TES tournaments and played such in 2001.

V:TES is a multiplayer game.  So, sometimes, it’s a matter of playing something that with a bit of help, the problem decks go away.  There’s this deck http://thelasombra.com/decks/twd.htm#2011iecqbi that doesn’t stop masters (other than with Le Dinh Tho) or much of anything else.  It basically bleeds … a lot, with LDT possibly being an annoyance.  Girls and Stickmen are anywhere from reasonably resilient to big bleed to absurdly happy to see it, and there’s a lack of tech in here to tap Aksinya, nor is there Trochomancy tech, but think about an actual game where this sits as a predator to a Girls deck or a Stickmen deck.  In addition to being relentless in attack, what if this deck’s predator doesn’t want Girls or Men around?  There’s enough bounce to create a two predator situation and that should be enough, everything else being equal.

What I run into when I play in crossregional metagames is a lot more intercept than I’m used to.  Interestingly, Girls, Giovanni, Dementation, and other successful archetypes aren’t terribly blocky.  I’d expect to run into enough intercept, especially weenie Auspex (awful against Animalism but just horrid to deal with) or fat Toreador, at the NAC that I’d need to adjust my thinking away from my normal deckbuilding style, which often fails miserably against significant intercept.

Likely, even if I had gone, I wouldn’t have made much of an effort to metagame my decks.  While I could have looked for tech, like when I ran Mercy for Seth in my Harbingers vote deck years ago or Ambulance and merged Sebastian Goulet last year, I need a certain level of amusement in my decks.  I don’t know what I would have built, since I pretty much ignored the NAC when I realized I wasn’t going, but I think I would have spent less time on trying to kill Parity Shift (my most recent goal) than trying to figure out how to survive winged animals and get through outrageous bloat.

Probably just means some lame Parity Shift deck will win.  … sigh.

Bay Area Qualifier

It was like a V:TES convention for me.  Now, three tournaments or whatever is kind of conventionlike in the first place, but as I played until 1:30AM or whatever in Pleasanton before the qualifier weekend, it was very conventiony.

Friday

So, I get into Pleasanton about 8PM, start playing about 8:30PM.  Played two games, both times with the same predator.  First game, I play my awesome Jyhad-only (library), Toreador, Victoria Ash makes an appearance, Business Pressure-Disarming Presence 4cl deck.  It’s all good when I have so many masters to play that I have to wait to play the broken Elysium: The Arboretum – not so much broken because the group plays it as written but because the combat deck I play against all of the time is Camarilla.  My prey is playing the deck and punking his prey, who is playing Celerity/Fortitude; my grandpredator is playing Nos vote, and my predator is playing some Gangrel/! thing.  I call Rumors of Gehenna at some point which my grandpredator doesn’t like as I choose myself and my prey and I play Business Pressure and Disarming Presence, nobody cares about tapping, so everyone votes, but my prey and my grandpredator spend a bunch of pool to counter each other and it fails, though I could have played Telepathic Vote Counting to take it back into my hand.  Eventually, my grandprey and my predator die.  I die.  Nos win in an untimed game.  Discarding a Minion Tap was probably not a good idea on my part as my guys were pretty much always fullish.

Instead of playing my other Pleasanton-oriented deck, which was another Presence vote deck, I play a cut down version of my Elisabetta deck, 67 cards after making it 4cl.  I bring out Mylan, my prey takes it and that’s kind of game as he gets 6 minions in play.  I sit at 1 pool for 4-5 turns but don’t really feel that threatened by my predator who is playing the same or similar Gangrel/! deck.  Across the table, the Aus/Cel/Pre?/Obf? deck keeps getting blocked equipping and doesn’t use Greta’s ability enough.  I don’t really remember doing much cool, though I did rush some with Steely Tenacity with Forestal.  I draw Failsafe a turn too late.

Saturday

My alarm wakes me up.  I have a great internal clock for waking up, so this almost never happens.  Not only does it wake me up, but I don’t realize it’s my alarm for a while.  I felt like crap.  So, off to play two tournaments.

Tournamet #1, Round 1:

Ian (Nagaraja w/Obt) -> Dan (Trem w/ Talbot’s Chainsaw) -> Mike (Malk 1/2 Prank Parity Shift) -> Sean (Miller Time) -> James (Corrupt Construction)

James puts Fame on my Kanimana right away, it never triggers, going away when he’s eventually ousted.  I have nothing but Nagaraja in my uncontrolled, so even though I get Obtenebration from Lilith’s Blessing, I keep not bringing out a second vampire.  I do block Talbot’s.  Mike keeps playing Pranks which only cost James pool and guarantee Sean getting a VP as he chooses a single number for everyone every time and hits James every single time rather than just giving him 4 pool.  Dan is tooling.  I have Anarch Troublemaker in play from turn 1, The Erciyes Fragments in play, give up on Descenting into Darkness and pay 3 extra for Raful.  James’s Corrupt Constructions never come my way.  Dan doesn’t draw a wake, so I oust him with Troublemaker plus bleed for 6.

This brings up a rather important point, something I just don’t get about how people build decks.  If you have enough wakes in your decks, I will never oust you.  Yet, I oust people reasonably often.

Game times out as Mike bloats off of Pranks, Sean is only a halfway threat to me, and I choose not to get ousted.

Round 2:

Sean -> Matt (Multitaskmites) -> Ian -> Ira (Akunanse vote)

I don’t believe in hitting one’s prey hard early.  It engenders table hate, causes one’s prey to wall up (and often whine), and uses cards that could have been used to lunge.  I hit Ira early.  I know his deck, I know how his decks work, I know that I have to give Sean some room both because this is 4 player and because Ira and Matt are far better players.  I hope that Sean recognizes what I’m doing, but as I expected, I neither topdeck some bleed to take Ira below 4 pool nor do I get any help containing Ira.  Sean pounds Matt’s pool down.  Ur-Shulgi tries to bleed me some but isn’t achieving much even with Pentex on my Raful.  My Bartholomew gets Banished, which is kind of annoying, so I only have Pentexed Raful and Forestal (completely different draw).  Speaking of completely different draws, Sean gets out Anneke and starts blocking meaningless actions, like Thetmes getting Retain the Quick Blood and my going anarch with Forestal … across table.  Matt, with like no pool, tries a bleed of 7 and I don’t bounce with Auspex, don’t bounce with Dominate, don’t bleed reduce with Friend of Mine a *second* time … I just Archon him.  Sean doesn’t oust Matt when he has plenty of chances to finish him off.  Anneke gets a Pulse only to immediately burn from Matt’s Fear of Mekhet (Ira discards his).  I had given up on trying to oust Ira once he got back up to 8 pool, so Ira kills Sean who doesn’t have wakes since he blocked those other actions earlier, has no problem with Matt, I can’t last the 5 minutes I need to time out and either get into the finals with 2 VPs or do a rolloff for the finals with 2 VPs.  I did first turn discard Shadowed Eyes, so who is the real winner?

Finals:

Pretty sure Ira was top seed.  I know the order of play was Mike, Brandon (THA), Ira, Robert (Ahrimanes vote, I think), A.J. (Tzimisce wall).  Brandon gets ousted, game times.

I played my only pickup game of the weekend.  I play the Jyhad 4cl deck from above.  I first turn Info Highway, Victoria Ash, call Rumors for only myself, bring out Anson becomes that’s funny, Minion Tap Anson for 8 and Giant’s Blood because that’s the way I roll, put Elysium in play with my prey playing a Cam deck because that’s the way I role, tap my prey’s Tara with Consanguineous Condemnation + Disarming Presence combo because that’s the way I successfully bleed at no stealth with Legal Manipulations.  My predator and grandpredator fight a lot as my predator is Baali intercept and my grandpredator is some sort of Lasombra fight deck.  My prey’s Ventrue Law Firm deck with two non-Ventrue in play doesn’t put any meaningful pressure on his prey’s Salubri deck until late.  Salubri get a couple VP, and I clean up.

Point #2.  People worry way too much about how good their decks are.  I was in a dominant position at all times with a 4cl Jyhad library deck that has only 4 votes that can do pool damage and 8 bleed cards (with obviously zero Aires of Elation).

Point #3.  Don’t need new cards to compete.

Qualifier, Round 1:

Joel (Laz & Friends) -> Ira (Ira … Rivers & Alexandra) -> Andy (Dem stealth bleed) -> Gerrentt (Cock Robin & Friends) -> Ian (Anarch OBF antivote)

Joel kept punking Ira … Rivers, containing Ira.  Andy kept getting punked between Cock and Ira, being contained.  I actually thought about helping him, but I knew his deck too well to do that.  Gerrentt did a bit to me, mostly with annoying Tiers of Souls, which slowed down my tooling up.  But, I was mostly free to do what I wanted, Joel not rushing me that much and not hurting me when he did.  I got out a lot of guys.  Joel ousts Ira without expending too many resources in what is a crushing beatdown.  Andy is at risk, but I oust Joel with Monkey Wrench and stuff.  Andy ousts.  I arrange my turn so that Mylan can Computer Hack oust Andy with my last action.

Round 2:

Ian -> Dan (!Trem Gargoyle) -> A.J. (Pre/Vic) -> Ira -> Ian T. (Valerius)

This was awesome.  I kind of ruined it in the end, but it now goes down as one of the *those* games.  After an hour, I had played two cards.  I had three cards in my ash heap:  Old Friends (discarded even though I had it in hand when I bled before my prey got up a vampire), J.S. Simmons, Delaying Tactics (discarded).  Wait, J.S. Simmons hadn’t been discarded?  Ira tried playing J.S. and he got blocked.  I tried playing J.S. and I got blocked … playing mono Obfuscate … by my predator!!!  I had also played a Villein in that first hour as my second card played, I think.  Averaging a card played every 30 minutes or so …

Why?  My prey had rush with Tupdogs.  My predator blocked my actions that he never should have tried to block, so I was content to only take actions nobody cared about, like hunting.  So, and this does make some sense, I think like only one of my actions got blocked after J.S. for about an hour, again, by my predator, who had Alexandra behind him.  I got a Camera Phone and bled for 1 without it a couple of times – nobody blocked.

The pivotal moments in the game were oddly in the midgame.  My prey had Famed Velya and punked it repeatedly.  Matteus calls Banishment, not targeting Velya, not targeting his prey, not targeting his predator, not targeting me (what did I care?), but targeting Ian T.’s second vampire.  It passes, leaving Ian fairly helpless to do anything.  On another turn, my grandprey had Velya and Matteus up and decided to play Festivo dello Estinto with Velya empty and Famous.  That was not wise as it guaranteed that either his prey or his predator would block.  Ira was actually low on pool after bringing out Alexandra, like 5 pool.  Then, Matteus calls KRC, which a torped Velya can’t help pass.  If Velya had somehow hunted or Change of Targeted and A.J. had something more brutal than KRC, Ira might have been in a world of hurt.  Dan gets A.J., Ira gets Ian, I start playing some cards bringing my card per minute average (well, minute per card) way down to 27 minutes a card and, then, to under 10 minutes a card as I die.  Ira wins easily.

There was much discussion after this game about my building a deck that tries to win off of playing no cards.  Not to be confused with my building decks that try to make zero decisions in the game – 20 Ascendance, 50 Earth Meld, 20 The Embrace is the prevailing idea.  Of course, it was the finals which contributed to this line of thinking.

Finals:

Ian -> Sean (fat Toreador) -> Robert (Ahrimanes vote) -> Ira -> Joel

Joel was top seed.  Ira tried to talk Sean out of bringing out Alexandra.  Ira wrecked Robert and ignored the Haven Uncovereds Joel threw backwards because Joel didn’t use them.  Joel beat my guys down sometimes, often enough for me to track how many cards in my ash heap were played.

I don’t know how much time into the game it was, maybe between 45-60 minutes, but I think I had around 5 cards in my ash heap and none of them had been played.  Maybe.  I played two cards that give stealth the entire game, neither to give stealth.  I played superior Spying Mission and Swallowed by the Night to make a rush meaningless.  I had zero actions blocked.  If Joel didn’t punk and then oust me on his turn, I might have ousted my prey with a topdeckable Monkey Wrench.  Robert was Sean’s bitch, going down to 1 pool, playing a DI on Ira and asking Sean whether he wanted him to tap Tshwane or not to continue being his bitch.  Ira contested Alexandra!  Sean ousted Robert.  Joel didn’t die, so Joel won on a time out.

The lesson with my deck?  I think an obvious lesson is that even playing mono-Obfuscate bleed where I don’t defend (except against votes) and have nothing better to do than stealth bleed my prey out of the game rapidly, I can find a way to play any deck passively.  I got annoyed by my predators doing things to my minions when all they had to do was bleed me, which I had pretty much zero defense against.  Of course, it worked.  Both times my predators messed with my minions significantly, I got ousted, though one of the times wasn’t by my predator.  Furthermore, my predators in both cases never ousted my preys, so my spite arguably worked.  It was highly amusing to do nothing with a deck that can only go forward since I didn’t have any bloat, either.  And, the deck did do what it was supposed to – the only opponent with no vote cards won.

Hung around a bit to talk, no late night pickup game for me though, so I go home.

Sunday

Don’t feel as crappy but more just exhausted, so I get a late start on the day, have to lie down for a while after I get up, and proceed to hit every frickin’ red light on the 15 minute-ish drive to Andy’s.

Draft.  I try to joke about it to seem less arrogant, but I’m a way better draft player than constructed player.  I don’t screw around in draft.  I know how to draft.  And, yes, I was the second ranked limited player in the world for nearly a year and had won 5 straight limited events, including one in the DC area, playing with Josh Duffin and Matt Morgan.  Might have even won the next event I played with them if someone hadn’t passed Matt a Mbare Market, giving him two(!!!), and if my grandprey in the finals had trusted me a bit better so that I could oust Josh (my prey, his predator), which I almost did anyway before Matt’s horde of minions rose up.  Not that I’m as good as I was, as I don’t really enjoy draft anymore.

Nevertheless, even though I got zero Monkey Wrenches, zero Anarch Converts, passed most bleed cards and almost all Zip Lines, didn’t draft Assamites even though that was my preferred KMW strategy, and banked my deck on my two Mata Haris, I played 33 cards in my deck rather than the minimum 30 (with 1 recursion) because there was nothing to cut.  For one thing, it helped that people didn’t realize how import An Anarch Manifesto is when drafting Twilight Rebellion.  Second, I wisely didn’t try to draft a deck that Laecanus would fit into since he hates me and causes me to always lose.  Third, people rare draft.  Fourth, people often don’t know how to draft.  Sure, I passed Garibaldi, which is insanely good.  But, I got passed Failsafe(!), which made me incredibly happy as I now play Failsafe in most of my decks*.  I got passed King’s Rising.  I’m pretty sure I got passed Club Illusion.  I got passed My Enemy’s Enemy.  My first library pick?  Tumnimos.  By the way, we drafted vampires first.

*  Friday night, after the game in which I sat at 1 pool for a bunch of turns, I commented that it’s really hard to play the game at 1 pool … but, at 2 pool, there’s a lot of things you can do.  Failsafe is my way to get off of 1 pool, which happens far too often.

Of course, the real strength of my deck, besides pool gain, was Aksinya Daclau.  Mata Hari really wasn’t that important, the only cards I needed her for were Waters of Duat, Black Sunrise, rushing with Steely Tenacity.

Round 1:

Andy -> Ian T. -> Eric -> Ian (I think Andy is the starting player)

In my opening hand, I have Failsafe and King’s Rising.  It would have been hilarious to end my game on turn one with bodacity, but I only play the Failsafe.  Mata Hari comes out, gets Tumnimos and Waters quickly.  Andy and I keep up in minions.  Eric threatens my pool with Steely Tenacity and stuff.  I let Eric know that if I’m still at 6 pool, I’ll bring out another vampire.  I stay at 6.  I bring out Aksinya to go to 2.  I defend well.  I pop Failsafe, later play King’s Rising.  Andy’s Anima Gatheringed Joe Boot Hill, btw, also encourages me not to go forward.  Eric plays Constant Revolution, which actually ends up being his death both because he taps a guy to do it when he’s low on pool and Ian has obvious offensive potential and because it causes me to randomly lose Con Boon which I was thinking of using to give him pool.  Eric goes for the 5 bleed, which I bounce, of course, but I stupidly didn’t try to block first as he had a Zip Line, so I actually have to tap a few more guys to oust Andy, Eric dies.  I outminion Ian and had dropped Club Illusion for extra beats.

Round 2:

Gerrentt -> Eric -> Dan -> Ian

It doesn’t make sense that I’d go last twice, so in the previous game, maybe Andy wasn’t first.  Anyway, Gerrentt brings out Convert, bleeds, gains like 5 pool from the Edge.  Dan doesn’t bleed me forever, though his deck is full of bleed.  I get Aksinya much earlier but don’t have my pool gain.  Gerrentt amasses a ridiculous number of dudes.  I bounce a 2 bleed at stealth.  Dan tries a real bleed of Force of Will Monkey Wrench 6 at 1 stealth which I, of course, bounce, putting Gerrentt into kill range.  I keep hoping Eric will oust Dan as I’m not nearly as scared of Eric’s deck; he doesn’t do that, but he kills Mylan with Keystone Kine, which I was all happy about.  I sweep.

Finals:

Mike -> Sean -> Ian -> Gerrentt -> Matt

I’m top seed, winning a flip against Matt.  I’m fine with being behind Gerrentt.  I’m fine with having the only player without a brutal aggro deck (I don’t count) being behind me.

The game was actually quite interesting, involved, strange, and surprising.  Let’s see.  My predator brings out Lorrie Dunsirn!  Wow, what a terrible choice.  I transfer 1 to each of my three 5 caps rather than Mata Hari and know Aksinya is on top of my crypt since she’s upside down.  If my predator, who I knew had Aksinya in his crypt didn’t bring her out, I would have decrypted, but he brought her out.  Matt lent Gerrentt The Rumor Mill to stop my getting An Anarch Manifesto, which he regretted when Gerrentt got Heart of Nizchetus, which Matt was far more concerned about than I was.  In fact, Matt was incredibly worried about me all of the time, which I think was mostly due to my being top seed and because he knew I had cards like Failsafe and King’s Rising, rather than knowing my true power.  He lent Rumor Mill to Gerrentt later to stop me from getting a Sport Bike, and Gerrentt proceeded to get a Pulse of Canaille.  Gerrentt put out Twilight Camp and Crypt’s Sons – damn, what hot rares!

Meanwhile, back in my world, it was pain.  Mike conned Sean into rushing Mata Hari, which really didn’t affect me since I had no plans to go forward for the first 1.5 hours of the game, anyway.  Sean also kept tapping Aksinya to do things, which was nonsensical as everyone knew Mike had two Monkey Wrenches.  Mike contested Louis Fortier with me, which was probably accidental, so he spent all of the rest of the game trying to kill me as his grandprey, well, at least, put me down to where he could take Sean and me right away.  So, I tried to kill him back.  Mike cut deals with Matt to contest Crypt’s Sons with Gerrentt, so he was contesting 2 cards for a while.

It was hilarious.  Sean kept hurting me with rushes or bleed of 4 or Perpetual Care for 4, but all I did the entire time was try to figure out how to keep him alive and keep his predator under control.  As I expected, Matt finally lunged and took Mike out, something anybody should have expected given that Matt and I were tied with 7 (out of 8) VPs.  Gerrentt was free, though, to Pulse bleed on Matt.  I Power of Alled a Patsy that would have killed Sean.  Fortunately, Matt had called a Peace Treaty when I was at 3 pool, so I kept my Baseball Bat and gained 4 pool from Failsafe, making me unkillable.  I played King’s Rising, which was when two of the observing Haases knew I was going to win.  Sean died.  I ousted Gerrentt.  When I contested Toby with Matt with about a minute left, Matt conceded in a very sportsmanlike move since he was dead on my turn.

Spend half the game contesting a 5 cap in limited?  Have a grandpredator trying to kill me?  Have a predator unwisely use his actions to maximize damage to me?  Explain to my predator that keeping Aksinya untapped would do more pool damage to me than he could do by taking actions with her?  Not ever bring out my Aksinya who pretty much gave me two table wins?  Wait about 100 minutes to bleed my prey for the first time?  Of course, my prey would concede in the endgame with 1 minute left.  What other choice did he have?  What other choice did any of my opponents have?  Oh, right, they could have done less pool damage to me – that would have screwed me …

Thank yous for:

Brandon – Running everything, getting phat loots for the events.

Matt – Not stalling to win even though I would have been cool with it as Mike’s plays annoyed me and Matt would have been a worthy victor.  I think it’s great that players like Matt, Jeff Thompson, etc. display such sportsmanship.  I try to live up to those examples.

Out of town players – Mike, Matt, Robert, James – great to have people from other regions.

Mid-East Bay players – Dan, Sean, A.J., Joel – great to have players still playing in that area and willing to make the trek.  Sure, Ian came from further, but one would think a lot more Berkeley and SF players would have made it out.

The rest of the players – games don’t work unless you have opponents.

Haas household – Andy, Eric, their dad – for hosting, having food and drink available, putting up with a bunch of gamers, especially crazy people like Robert.

Forgetting anyone?  Hope not.

Well, that was exhausting.  It was great, though.  Now, off to see if I own 20 Jyhad The Embraces, so that the deck can be Jyhad-only, as well.

Draft deck:

x1  Toby
x1  Louis Fortier
x1  Paul Forrest
x2  Mata Hari
x1  Aksinya Daclau

x1  Club Illusion
x1  Failsafe
x1  King’s Rising
x1  Libertas
x1  Sermon of Caine
x1  Svadharma
x1  Trophy: Safe Passage
x1  Warning Sirens
x1  Chameleon
x1  Fee Stake: Corte (all players were allowed to add these three)
x1  Fee Stake: Los Angeles
x1  Fee Stake: Perth
x1  Shattering
x1  Tumnimos
x1  Undue Influence
x1  Waters of Duat
x1  Zip Line
x1  Changeling
x1  Command of the Beast
x1  CrimethInc.
x1  Burst of Sunlight
x1  Song of Serenity
x2  An Anarch Manifesto (thought I had 3)
x1  Baseball Bat
x1  Sport Bike
x1  Consanguineous Boon
x1  Conservative Agitation
x1  Exclusion Principle
x1  Black Sunrise
x1  My Enemy’s Enemy
x1  Power of All
x1  Steely Tenacity

Cast Off The Yoke

So, the Legendary Vampire tournament and Day 1 of the European Championships were won by the same deck archetype – Girls Who …  Then, another thread on the newsgroup has a metagame answer in a deck with Trochomancy.  I can’t help but think that there’s nothing new about the problem of how to deal with master heavy decks.

Once upon a time, there was, of course, the Anson Anarch Revolt decks that could even go 100% masters.  Change in Anarch Revolt has made that archetype scarce to nonexistent.  Actually, I’m sure that it could still be built, it’s just that preventing or eliminating anarchs to ensure damage is a hassle.

Anthelios made tedious master heavy decks popular.  Really, why is this card legal?  Oh, right, GF that badly designed cards be purged in the name of making for healthier environments.

Anthelios, however, is not the core problem, just a great boon to such decks.  Could argue that anything that generates multiple master phase actions is really the root problem.  A good argument when you consider how popular Anson has been, how Nana made Guruhi go from suck to the in thing, and, of course, Cybele decks.  However, there’s no will to fix that problem, so we have to move on.

We have had Liquidation for a while and it was some good with Shambling Hordes and Giovanni recursion.  Then, Ashur Tablets comes along and recursion is open to every deck.  The synergy between Liquidation and Ashur Tablets just being ridiculous, though the engine screams for multiple master phase actions, which is why we see it so much less in decks that either play fair or would only run The Parthenon (as my FoS deck I played in Vegas this year did).

Interaction is weak.  This is a lesson gleaned from discussing CCGs and playing a variety over quite a few years.  When you interact, things can go wrong.  If you don’t interact, whoever has the mightiest plays in the least amount of time wins.  This lack of interaction is a key feature of the winning deck mentioned above – stealth to oust, master bloat (and bounce) to survive.  It’s also the feature common of turbo decks, Una (for most of the game), AAA, Malk94, First Tradition decks, and numerous others.

So, what metagame strategy does this leave us with?  There’s always playing such decks, oneself.  That’s what happened when Necropotence ruled the Magic scene.  There’s attempting to go off faster either with a (better) combo deck or speed decks. An example here would be a weenie bleed deck.

There’s attempting to force interaction.  Sure, there’s rush, but rush is often a weak strategy to begin with and runs into the problem that these decks often bloat so much that taking out the key minions doesn’t cripple the deck, and there’s always Golconda to ensure that the board is cleared to bring out another copy.  A deck that could rush did win day 2 of the EC – in my mind, just further proof that one’s deck strength doesn’t matter that much.  Then, there are winnie decks.  Winnie Animalism with Deep Song is not so bad as it mixes pool damage with lots of rush ability.

There’s fighting a master war with Suddens or Washes, but threats are better than answers for a reason.  First of all, there’s little chance that one will have enough counterspells to cancel all of the key master plays.  Even if the deck has them, the chances of having a counter in hand at the right time is surprisingly low, as I’ve often found when I attempted this strategy.  Of course, an environment where everyone runs 4+ Suddens/Washes changes the equation to one of absurd politicking to see what gets through and what doesn’t.

Eliminating the parts that improve the engine – Anthelios, The Parthenon – doesn’t hurt, but again, answers that may come up too late.  Though, one would think that location destruction would be quite viable, except when I run it, I never have any targets.  Can also be DIed, overloaded (drop second The Parthenon), or whatever.  In Anthelios’s case, there aren’t that many options for eliminating it, and I’ve found The Uncoiling to be much worse at its job than I thought.  Fourth Cycle requires distorting one’s own deck just to nail a small segment of the metagame.

Then, there’s tech answers.  Trochomancy, as mentioned, is one (against the decks that recurse).  Requires playing a specific discipline that limits deck options immensely, the discipline isn’t even that good, though there are very good decks that use the discipline.  Mix with Shambling Hordes and it’s not that difficult to beat these decks down.

But, what about more general answers?  I’ve considered The Rising, but it has the same problem as Fourth Cycle in terms of distortion and it only works if the prey of the offending deck does its job and doesn’t get ousted.  Still, The Rising has such interesting effects, that I’m curious as to see what it does.

We can’t take cards like The Name Forgotten seriously, so permanent minion elimination seems unlikely.

Playing The Parthenon oneself, of course, is not unreasonable for many decks.  There’s no reason to not put Information Highway into virtually every deck, so there’s always the possibility of contesting that.  Same goes with Dreams of the Sphinx.

Cards that screw big vampires, which actually I see being quite good in general in current metagames, might help.  Fear of Mekhet can hit a lot of commonly seen targets, but it doesn’t touch Cybele or Aksinya.  Kaymakli Nightmares needs to come up early and, even then, doesn’t matter unless you hit the deck hard enough, nevermind that it does nothing useful for most decks.  I so want to hate on large vampires these days, so I should be spending more time looking for plays that will screw them.

What we want are “natural answers” – answers that are not about targeting a specific deck but that arise naturally from doing what you want to do.  Example would be fast decks with Suddens or vampires good for other things that randomly have abilities that are relevant – I had merged Sebastian Goulet in the Vegas Qualifier with an Imbued deck as my predator because DOM/OBF is passable and reducing the cost of my miscellaneous allies was … pretty much never relevant in that event.  Of course, being unable to do anything to the Imbued deck even with Sebastian and Ambulance! just goes to show how answers are not as good as the threats they are meant to answer.

And/or, we want high quality answers – they must not be overly narrow or too weak to matter.  If an answer can perform multiple functions, even if the secondary function is slight, like how Trochomancy is kind of a bleed card, so much the better.  I’ve actually won a tournament with Victim of Habit (in the deck) – I often considered the card underrated; but, my attempts to recapture that magic haven’t gone well, so I’m not that enthralled with it.  Still, it’s a relatively painless option that could be experimented with.  Also, it’s not like the decks we are looking to hit are that redundant, they just seem that way.  We aren’t talking about 20 Ashur Tablets or some such, so not only will one Victim of Habit only likely do 1 pool damage, but it can be worked around to where it probably won’t do any.

Or, just give up on metagaming against such decks and play what you want.  After all, table politics can demise any deck.

Vegas Qualifier 2010

I could write a post about DunDraCon 2010, but since I was sick every day except the day I was too tired from work to want to do anything, there seems little point.

I should write about Aquarius since I’m nearly a week out of the sign’s window already, but I’m too tired for creative thought.

So, instead, I’ll write something simple – a report on my trip to the 2010 Las Vegas V:TES Qualifier.

I get in Saturday around 12:15AM, so off to bed as soon as I get to Nat’s house.  Apparently, I get a lot more sleep than many of my opponents, certainly more than the drunk insomniac also staying with Nat.

Mini-qualifier

Round 1:

James (EuroBrujah guns) -> me (Serpentis SB, Ashur Tablets) -> David B. (Pot/Cel) -> David T. (Pre/Obf/For) -> Preston (Cesewayo)

The interesting thing about more competitive play is how fast games warp.  My prey took one action in this game.  I bled him some while he brought out Menele, David T. Pentexed Menele, I continued bleeding, then I killed him when he brought out Jacko because I didn’t want to be rushed and I had little pool.

Why did I have little pool?  I had never played the deck before and didn’t realize how important Liquidation was to my pool management.  I normally play decks with silly cards like Blood Doll, but no, I was relying entirely on Ashur Tablets, Liquidation, and ousting for pool gain.  I only ran two Liquidations and I discarded one because I felt safe … for some incomprehensible reason.

David T. played the early game with one vampire, yet had Preston on the ropes.  With a mighty two vampires in play, he was one action away from taking Preston out.  Any of vote, bleed, or Enticement would have done it, but Cesewayo was tooled up and Preston had The Erciyes Fragments to grab bounce from James’s ash heap.  James couldn’t get a gun in play so wasn’t a combat threat when he was in combat, but I didn’t want to help him cycle, so I avoided combat.  But, I lost 5 pool to Parity Shift and kept getting bled for 2 until I got down to 3 pool and got ousted by a 4 bleed at stealth.  I found out later that David T. finally got Preston and James won.

Round 2:

me -> Robert S. (Ahrimanes) -> Jeff P. (Ahrimanes Great Beast) -> Christian (anarch Tremere)

It was so bad when Rob got out intercept locations in his first couple of turns.  My deck was stealth light because I wasn’t metagaming for good decks for some reason.  I still reduced his pool significantly.  On the other hand, Christian was reducing mine even with playing 6 Ashur Tablets.  Jeff brought out Nergal, got the Great Beast because Rob was too busy defending against me, and took control of the game.  Christian was getting hammered until Jeff pressed into a Walk of Flame, and the Great Beast never made it out of torpor.  I could have rescued, but I tried to kill my prey since I was low on pool and he wasn’t obviously going to stop me.  Of course, with a wall deck, stopping light stealth isn’t terribly hard, so I failed.  Christian didn’t think it was best to keep me alive, so he got me and Rob cleaned up.

Failing to make the finals, I played an actual pickup game – the only pickup game of the trip.  Not playing more pickup games made me unhappy face.

Nat (Ankla bleed) -> Dave L. (modified Samedi precon) -> Chris (weenie Brujah vote) -> me (anarch Baali toolbox) -> Jeff P. (modified Kiasyd precon)

I gave Chris grief for not being able to oust me.  It was sad how he had vote lock, could get most of his actions through, yet couldn’t oust a deck that brought out multiple Baali.  I finally got some serious Failsafe action in a game, which was the hotness with such a tenuous deck.  The best way to describe the silliness was that Barbaro turned two vampires infernal and my prey decided to self oust from the infernal penalty rather than die to either Anarch Revolt or Contagion.  Nat was slowed by the intercept in the Samedi deck.  But, he eventually took Dave out, took Chris out, and took me out as I sat on a hand full of Conflagrations.

I did also manage to play all three of my Condemnations – Mute on a Brujah, Doomed on Omme Enberbenight, Betrayed on Ankla.  The Undue Influences in the deck didn’t turn out to be that exciting, maybe because I drew lots of them early without Sense the Sins to actually do any meaningful damage.

Qualifier

Round 1:

Robert G. (Arms Dealer) -> James (Malk vote) -> Cameron (Hell-for-Leather) -> Sim (Newjah) -> me (City Gangrel Dominate SB)

This game warped crazy.  I went down to 6 pool in no time.  James brought out Lutz who got diablerized.  Robert G. had 11 bleed on the table when I ousted him with bleeds of 5 and 6 where he had to think hard about whether to try to block the second bleed based on whether I had stealth or Conditioning in my hand.  When I ousted him my ash heap was something like x2 Foreshadowing Destruction (one discarded), x2 Conditioning, x2 Govern, x1 Cloak the Gathering.

Cameron went down to 4 pool, Pentexed forward to go to 2, rushed Sim into oblivion (taking down Karen and Tara).  I didn’t get it.  Maris was still behind him, and his predator and prey still controlled the votes.  He thought he’d do more pool damage and thought maybe my bleedzooka deck would oust James on my next turn.  Since I don’t play bleedzookas, I bled James twice and did 2 pool damage and Cameron got ousted.

James made an epic comeback, eventually bringing out Oriandus and Rachel Brandeywine as he had vote lock and kept gaining pool off of Parity Shifts and Con Boons.  I tried propping up Sim, which at least kept him alive, though it didn’t enable him to do anything.  Right after Rachel came out, I pretty much had one last shot to take out James and had crafted an all bleed/stealth hand to do it.  The endgame was uninteresting.

Round 2:

Rehlow (FoS steal) -> me -> Andy (high cap Toreador vote) -> John (Kiasyd) -> Mark (!Trem)

This was weird in a not particularly pleasant way.  Rehlow’s Cave of Apples enabled him to take my Mylan and Jake Washington.  Temptations hit my vampires.  Mark got scary (for Rehlow) with a building Nephandus horde, which I dug for basic Sebastian Goulet to steal to form a triangle of absurdity with potential (but lack of actual) ally ownership changes.  I tried to ignore Andy, but I eventually had to oust him as I was only playing for 1 VP since my 1 & 4 from the previous game put me in a good position for the finals.  Fortunately, Mark took Rehlow out before my board exploded to his vamp steal cards.  I stole John’s Mylan and bled him out and Mark and I had a reasonably epic endgame where I took two of his Nephandi with Sebastian, From a Sinking Shipped a third, only to watch him block 4 or 5 actions to survive at one pool while I kept forgetting that I was playing On the Qui Vive with allies.  It reduced my bleed power on one turn and killed me in the end when I remembered Carlton was tapped and he could bleed me out with his one action and all of my 6 or so minions tapped.  My (delayed) remembering that my guys didn’t untap ensured Mark his first game win which enabled him to get into the finals (as top seed), kind of important for what happened later.

To this point, every game I played was interesting, some might even say fun, for me at least.  I had lots of decisions, on the edge both ways, crazy stuff happened.

Round 3:

Norm (!Trem, Tupdogs, and Beast) -> Preston (Akunanse) -> Darby (Imbued Talbot’s Chainsaw) -> me -> Nat (Serpentis SB with bounce)

This was not too enthralling.  Though I had gobs of pool from an early Villein + Giant’s Blood, I felt on the defensive right away.  Preston fought Darby some but had no meaningful impact on the Immune.  Nat had bounce, but I wasn’t bleeding him and was getting rushed from Beast and blocked by Carlton.  Eventually, Darby took control with Talbot’s beatdown and we needed Norm to help gang up on him, Preston blew himself up trying to beat down Darby though it would have been really interesting if he got a weeniekiller vote off to kill Darby, especially the second one which would have ousted Darby, Preston, and Norm.  With Norm with little pool, Nat ousted him and Preston, stole the Imbued with the Chainsaw, and we timed out.

Finals:

me -> Preston -> Robyn (Palla Grande) -> Mark -> Brandon (Dom/For tap bleed)

The funny thing is that my deck was metagamed against decks like Brandon with my 11 bounce cards … and other stuff.  I still only lasted around 5 turns and, what, 20 minutes?  Maybe longer timewise, but it felt like nothing.  Because I did nothing.  I spent my Governs to bring out guys, including using one on a Tupdog (transferring back).  Losing two pool to Tension in the Ranks from my exploding Tupdogs, taking a bleed crosstable, and tapping my Anarch Convert to spend a pool on Heart of Nizchetus did not help, but the reality was that I needed to draw either one of my 7 remaining wakes or … one of my two Archon Investigations to stop Brandon’s lunge.  I drew none of those and took 10 bleed with all of my guys tapped because of Anarch Troublemaker.

I went to get food and so found out later that Brandon couldn’t get through Preston and Mark took 2.  Robyn conceded since Mark was higher seed, thus guaranteed to win.

My next turn would have been exciting as I had Heart in play, Villein to empty my 4 cap (or not and try to oust Preston who was at 6 pool), Epiphany to merge Sebastian and take Mark’s Nephandus.  But, even though I tried being as conservative as possible, I wasn’t quite conservative enough to not have to rely on drawing off of Dreams to get a wake or AI to have that next turn.

Sunday, I slept in a bit, Nat and I went for dim sum in Chinatown where they were celebrating Chinese New Year, window shopped (yes, two guys window shopped because life is about irony), went to City Center to check out the new complex, watched some Olympics.

Was great to be able to stay with Nat.  Wish I could play more pickup games which tend to be much more fun than tournament games.  Felt like I didn’t do that much compared to last year, but I think I had an extra day last year.  Didn’t get to spend as much time talking to other players as I would have liked.  Did sell one of my extra 3e boxes.  But, no trades for me.  Good trip.

More (Red) Rocks?

I actually had to look back to see if I had already posted about 2009′s Vegas V:TES qualifier.  So, 2010′s is coming up, weekend after DunDraCon, and I am not clear on whether I should plan on going or not.

If I did go, though, what would I imagine the metagame to be like?  As stated in my March 1, 2009 post, the miniqualifier was vote heavy and the qualifier was bleedier.  Come back to this in a moment.

The first thing I can do is dispense with set impact.  Far as I’m aware, Heirs won’t be legal.  Ebony Kingdoms is too specific a set to have meaningful impact.  So, that leaves the last meaningful set being KoT, which I’m sure people are still digesting.  Some cards from it that might finally get some stage time might include:  Horseshoes, Loki’s Gift, Old Friends, serious use of Rego Motus.  I could say that three out of four of those are cards that I would have played much more often back in the day when I built a high volume of decks.  Well, maybe not Horseshoes.  I wonder why I don’t hear more about Loki’s Gift, the evil zen robot of V:TES (assuming you ignore ultrarare weapon hosers).

So, it should be a pretty well defined metagame.  Well, it would be if there was such a thing with V:TES that mattered.

Bleed, vote, or combat?

I would imagine it might be fairly similar this time around.  Of course, it could just as easily flip, with bleed being the miniqualifier threat and vote trying to take the qualifier as people try to outthink … well, nothing really.  With only one qualifier in the first event, I expect the same sort of experimentation that cropped up in 2009.  I could see more combo decks and more questionable strategies, like rush, in the miniqualifier.

With the love for Parity Shift these days, there needs to be some answer for vote even if the qualifier ends up being well-suited for copious amounts of bounce.

Weenies?

How much do I fear weenie Auspex or Animalism?  Too much.  Especially the former produces such horrid matchups.  Still, I can’t see any sort of deck I would want to play being able to beat weenie Auspex, so I should probably just ignore it and look at ways to improve the weenie Animalism matchup while having some thought for surviving a weenie bleed predator.

Mesagaming

That’s not misspelled.  If metagaming is looking at the environment, I’m going to pretend mesagaming means looking within.  If I go, I would imagine I’d play something to my tastes, which likely means something that doesn’t stand up well to any particular focused archetype.

The reality is that I just like hanging around with other gamers and being in the crossregional milieu, whether I’m relevant to it or not.  It doesn’t hurt, though, to get more tournament play in, especially outside of the region.  And, lots of ideas always come from events like these, not that I followed up much, if at all, on the ideas that came out of last year’s trip.

2009 NAC, No, But …

I can’t imagine going to this year’s V:TES North American Championships.  I used to not care, but after the 2007 experience, I’d really like to go.  Still, I’ve missed every year except when it was in Los Angeles.

But, I’m very interested in a question thrown out to the newsgroup about what to expect.  Hey, metagaming.  It’s part of what makes CCGs fun even if it ends up being counterproductive when you actually play in an event.

So, what do I expect?  Maybe, the better question is:  what concerns me?

Weenie Animalism or Auspex worry me.  Really, weenie Auspex should never get ousted unless it’s next to a weenie combat deck.  Weenie Animalism’s benefit is being a weenie combat deck while still having enough survivability to fend off the brutal pool-removing decks.

Dementation bleed is probably more likely than Dom/Obf or Pre/Obf or, these days, even Ser/Obf.  Doesn’t matter a huge amount, the defenses remain much the same.  A deck that doesn’t have some sort of plan for brutal bleed is a bad deck, so I wouldn’t be specifically worried about these.

Stealth vote can get by walls and can wreck weenie/breed decks (Ancilla Empowerment, Anarchist Uprising) and Imbued.  I wouldn’t expect a lot of Imbued, but I could see about two Imbued players.  The reason for hating on them is less a function of the environment and more because playing against them is so tedious.

I agree with extrala – http://extrala.blogspot.com/ - about Ventrue Law Firm being popular again.  Yet another reason to play weenie intercept.  But, the more interesting thing to me is how many copies of Delaying Tactics to play to fend off voting.  If I really cared enough to metagame, I could see playing something straightforward, like weenie Obfuscate, since that will mean extra deckspace for hosers, and running a boatload of DT.

Fear of Mekhet?  If I were playing a vote deck, probably.  If not, maybe something more flexible.

Anyway, back to expectations rather than answers to those expectations.  Rush?  Somebody, I’m sure.  Deep Song rush is readily available.  But, I just can’t get too excited by the likelihood of having to deal with it.

Midcap or fattie wall?  Entirely likely to see something like Carna wall or maybe David Tatu will trot out Masika wall, so it’s worth considering.  But, since I’m already worried about weenie walls, it shouldn’t significantly affect my metagaming.  Does bring up the question as to how much antigun plays are worthwhile.  Always kind of questionable to get too esoteric with antigun plays.

Breed?  I see Nos breed/boon being highly likely.  Breed has so many dangerous decks whether Palla Grande, Clown Car, Death Star, or whatever that I’d rate breed decks a top level threat.  It’s why I see stealth vote being a desirable metagame choice or, again, weenies.

But, then, there’s Scourge of the Enochians and maybe The Fourth Cycle.  The latter I wouldn’t expect to matter in more than about one game, if at all.  The former seems necessary to me unless it will affect you as well.  Yet, as I’ve seen countless times with hosers, they don’t work as planned.  People will hope that others play them.  They will not show up at the right time.  They will punish the wrong decks.  People will cut deals.  Etc.

Combo?  Eh, I really don’t take combo too seriously.  Yes, there are decks out there that can all but win in one turn, but how often do they fail?

Ebony Kingdoms strategies?  Hardly.  I am all things variety and new and I can barely generate any enthusiasm for EK.  Maybe some will try stuff out just to do something new and different or to see if there’s real potential in Laibon strategies with the new cards, but I’d be utterly unconcerned.  For one thing, what do they do that causes a concern that other decks wouldn’t?

Tap bleed, a la Vignes?  Ruben is probably going, so it will probably show up in an at least one event, but does the possibility really justify something like more wakes or more bounce and justify them more than another deck may justify metagaming?  Then, I don’t like the deck in the metagame I envision.  Not that other people metagame as I expect, but I don’t like it against weenie Animalism and I don’t like it against vote.

Weenie vote?  I don’t see it being in these days, especially with the threat of Scourge of the Enochians.  Of course, breed vote decks have weenies, but I think they are less risky.

Weenie bleed?  Eh, it’s easy enough to get above 2 in capacity to avoid Scourge.  But, does weenie Presence really work differently than Vignes?  Does weenie Dementation, another of Ruben’s favorite decks, really work differently from midcap stealth bleed?  Are people really going to worry about weenie Dom with Target Vitals?

10 caps?  Yes, and 11′s.  People have got to trot out their Enkil Cogs, after all.  So many 11 caps now to choose from that people who like fatties will want to do something with them.

I don’t expect to see unusual amounts of certain disciplines.  Serpentis seems to be the only discipline underplayed where The Eternal Mask decks should probably be more popular than they are (if still not going to be hugely significant in the grand scheme of things).

Will DI2 be noticeable?  Probably not.  It has seemed to finally start leeking into decks.  Will DI’s, Suddens, and Washes fly fast and thick?  I don’t think they will.  I just have this sense that, as usual, the game’s counterspells will be woefully underplayed.

Is it worth olding one’s vampires to dodge Neonate Breach?  I’ve actually done such in a midcap deck and in a deck that ran some cheaper dudes.  But, if you can’t deal with votes in general, it probably doesn’t matter whether it’s Neonate Breach or KRC or Parity Shift or Reckless Agitation.

Mono-Daimoinon?  Sadly, probably not.  As much as some of the old D.C. crew may be getting back into the game, I don’t know if there’s the same temperament for wackiness.

My pick for winning deck?  It’s dumb to try to guess on decks, much more meaningful to try to guess on players since it’s players that win the game and not decks.  But, I’ll guess a wallish Ahrimanes deck.