I just skimmed through Origins 2021 post. Very relevant in at least some ways.
Anyway, I played 13 card tournaments, 11 VTES tournaments this year. There’s no way I’m remembering all of the things that entertained me. I won’t even write about The Grandest Trick that occurred as the payoff is really for someone else to deliver.
I stayed with True Dungeon teammates, as did two North Carolinian teammates. This enabled my actually attending all of Week of Nightmares and led to the weirdness of flying into the con and not renting a car but driving at least some on four different days. Was interesting at times, had to tell myself to calm down and drive slower a lot as I never had to rush anywhere when I drove. Drove two different vehicles.
They were all focused on Starship Horizons (Adventures). I was (obviously) not.
Prior to Saturday, I had a bunch of stuff to deal with. Work, car not starting, mother’s health all distracted from getting VTES decks built. Shadowfist decks were easy as I only had to build two decks, one for Modern tournament, one a theme deck. I built another and had some old decks in my one Shadowfist box. I had no plan to play in the Classic tournament, but I wanted some backup for whatever.
I wrote up various decks. Friday, I pulled the cards for 10 VTES decks, including throwing together a deck based on what was lying around in piles surrounding me.
Saturday morning flight was 7:15AM, so I was a wreck getting from Bay Area to Columbus. I am increasingly realizing I’m too decrepit to have these early morning flights as they involve way too much lost sleep. A host picks me up from airport. We end up ordering in food for dinner. I find out that mashers are mashed potatoes.
Hosts have four dogs. I spend much of my vacation ttentionating the canines.
Sunday #1
I arranged with Jay that I’d drive to his place, and he would drive us to and from comicbook store for tournament. I didn’t think about how it was Father’s Day as my life has never involved celebrating Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or whatever. This, at least, made more sense than what happened Monday.
I had a sense of what order to play decks in. Play something I might replay later with some modifications as I might discover something with my 10 new decks to where I’d want to actually play a deck more than twice in my life.
I played Daughters Polaris Coach/Zip Line bleed with Concert Tours to pay for Polaris Coaches and bleed pump. First round, don’t draw bleed stuff so do little before being eliminated. Second round, don’t draw bleed until later but actually be bleedy for a bit before being eliminated. Not feeling much from this deck. I could have done vote instead or Shattering Crescendo, but I was trying to keep it simple when conceiving an updated take on this. Just kind of dull.
I did play Art’s Traumatic Essence on The unnamed. Lack of familiarity with the card meant it didn’t get removed. I had to relook through my deck to even remember that. I guess I should just run Crescendo more often to do something interesting.
Monday
Jay agreed to drive me to and from events on Juneteenth. After he discovers how far to the North I am from downtown, we go with a plan of my figuring out transportation for other days (ignoring travel between tournament venues). Very kind to drive me at all.
Game store, I go with Thing deck. First time ever playing Thing (unless my mind has gone and I played someone else’s Thing deck sometime). I had to break open packs to get my Things for this deck. Lot of dumb things I had to do to get cards for my decks like hunt through lots of unsleeved cards to find things like VTES versions of Jyhad vampires.
I guess I did stuff. Oh, not Thing in first round, at least not until it was too late to matter. I did get a Jackal in one round or both rounds. In both cases, needed my prey out of the way to get my permastealth. Somehow, I didn’t manage to oust anyone in either round. Did survive a fair amount in second round when it wasn’t looking good … this sentence is meaningless. I played VTES. I enjoyed it. I can’t recall doing anything all that cool. Shape Mastery-ed something, which got me to thinking about Shape Mastery in the current meta.
Got a Barq’s and got BBQ from City BBQ. BBQ was not great. Maybe I oversauced it. I would not get the sausage again, which wasn’t cut.
Jay drives us to Biergarten. The tables are small.
Three straight nights (well, expected three) of Gemüt Biergarten with expecting to get back to sleep headquarters late at night meant playing all of the fast decks. Fast to lose, anyway.
I went with less bad on Monday, so it was Madman’s Quill time. First round bleed out my prey. Whoa. What’s going on here? What’s going on is a joke that took much of the week to pay off due to how it was observed that my prey might have been the only one to ever be ousted by ole Ian (of course not technically true, but I’ve been playing since 1996 and more prey than not have been secure in their knowledge that at least their predator wasn’t going to oust them).
I got two VPs through the power of dropping Madman’s Quill on The unnamed and my grandprey not getting his star vampire until so late in the game that he was irrelevant. Kelly S. was my grandpredator just recursing Banishments. I mention this detail because it has some relevance to later in the week. I did Sudden three of my prey’s masters to stop him from bringing out a second minion. I did not Sudden any of Kelly’s plays. I did Touch of Clarity some stuff.
Well, two VPs is more than zero by old math.
First round got fast start with The Call. Second round played some chumps with Mark as my prey, Karl his, Brad his, Jay his. Did not get The Calls to accelerate. Put some pressure on Mark, but not enough. Didn’t draw bunch of Suddens early.
Jay drove me to HQ not too late.
Tuesday
I’m a drivin’. Park at library. Play Transfusion. In one round, I didn’t draw The Path of Bone early, so I played Transfusion to move blood around/cycle. I was bleeding.
May have been same round that I misplayed by using Gear Up to get Spiritual Intervention when I should have gotten Delaying Tactics as my prey was Stanislava, my grandprey had no game with Giotto allies, my grandpredator !Salubri, and my predator something I don’t recall that kind of fights. I blocked a Bowl of Convergence by !Salubri and Karl asked why I did that. Gave my two reasons. This had to be second round as I was thinking I needed table win, something I hadn’t achieved in three tournaments.
Matt C. beat up Francis Milliner depriving me of some bleed two ways due to my having Margaret Milliner as my major Stanislava threat. Didn’t rush backwards. Stanislava eventually won.
Oh, I remember first round, now. My predator’s first turn, he puts out two 2-caps with Dominate. My prey sweeps. Prey did number of Con Boons Giovanni to delay my demise. I don’t fear bleed. Bleed predators hardly ever seem to oust me due to my deckbuilding and playing styles. Fame or votes kill me way better.
This should have been easier to remember as Jamie and I talked about his deck between rounds while we walked around the topiary with others. We (in the game) think Jamie shouldn’t have equipped Saturday Night Special with one of his many minion actions as it cost him a pool that made Marshall’s game easier. I played a fair amount with Marshall.
I didn’t notice the concession in the library had smoothies.
I drive to Gemüt Biergarten early, which was unnecessary. I was more comfortable at library.
I get lunch/breakfast at HangOverEasy across the street. Chili burger cooked medium rare (I asked) with sweet potato tots. I missed the drink menu until after I had ordered lemonade. So, one takeaway of cuisine in Columbus is that lemonade is much more watery than I expect it to be, true here and at HQ. Burger wasn’t open face chili burger like I’m used to and was okay. I don’t like sweet potatoes, so my unbridled thrill at having a better than fries option was defeated and my life descended into unending misery yet again.
Since I’m driving, I can leave as soon as I fail. I have to choose from one of two terrible decks, deciding to go with Ahrimanes stealth bleed for Tuesday leaving Nosferatu … um … Nosferatu for Wednesday night.
I only remember one of my rounds. Eric A. (only Eric?) didn’t know what Spiritus does. He ousted me with Bang Nakh deck, so let’s say he didn’t get much sense. I did concern Mark, my prey, who was running NewToreador, when I did things like bleed for four with not my The Siamese with Heart of the City. I Engling Furyed some to pay for stuff. Discarded Vulture’s Buffets early.
Agent of Power was interesting to me in this deck. I did AoP for Protean on like Cynthia at one point for the possibility of Donnybrook … yup, Ahrimanes Anarch SB.
It was okay tournament. I wasn’t enjoying food at Gemüt Biergarten, though. I did enjoy my fruit punch Monday, but neither currywurst nor paprika schnitzel were doing anything for me.
I drive to HQ.
Wednesday
NCers drop me off at library as they all go to con to do Starship Horizons install.
We are in different room, maybe better room. I direct folks to new room for a while.
I try to play less bad deck, so I go with 8-cap (vote) bloat.
First game might have been four player as I remember Vinny was my prey with NewBrujah Debate, axe was Jamie with Ventrue with Obfuscate, predator was Kelly S. with Cybele Striga. Vinny’s game was rough as he basically could only act with one minion, while I got Creepshow Casino to avoid not-Second Tradition. I had a fine start and bloated a lot. I’d get bled for three at times.
Kelly was more amused than I was when he declared a Nergal bleed, I try to block, he plays I Am Legion specifically stating that “You aren’t Auspex bouncing.” since we were late in the game, and I Auspex bounce with one of my two Telepathic Misdirections. Bleed gets bounced back. He was under pressure from Arika and friends.
I Golconda Nergal at one point, having to spend a lot of time thinking whether to Golconda one of my dudes, Marcus Vitel, or Nergal. Kelly has to think, where I hope he takes the pool. He doesn’t.
Kelly and I agree I blew this game as I recognized that Jamie was low on cards but didn’t process how much easier the endgame was likely to be for me than having Cybele and Nergal behind me. I did Entrancement Veneficti at some point to reduce pressure. I thought this was a good game with my making a bad tactical decision of not backousting but where I got to do a lot of stuff and be relevant.
In the second round, my predator is playing Imbued and my grandpredator (playing Nephandi) doesn’t know Imbued stuff. He doesn’t get to learn a lot as I Entrancement with Force of Personality my predator’s second Imbued with a Living Wood Staff as always happens in games with Imbued.
The playmat, btw, was borrowed from HQ, as one of two things I forgot to bring with me.
Alex R. (only Alex?) is my prey with British Museum version of Recruitment Exercise. Brad C. (only Brad?) his prey. I steal a Nephandus with Force of Personality from Eric.
Time grows short. Alex is looming threat to Brad. Brad ousts Eric after Matt’s game was long over. With little time left, I use all of these minions to oust Alex with Aire of Elation.
I play inefficiently with 2 minutes left and Brad has too much pool for me to oust. I doubt I could have done anything to oust him in time, anyway, but it was sloppy of me to not have my actions planned. I had very few votes to call late in this game. Miller did get agged into torpor trying to oust Alex. Imbued and Nephandus kept bleeding for 1, so those helped a lot as I only did exactly enough damage to get Alex. Time running out affected a lot.
It was fun. More importantly, I discovered that the library smoothies (well, the one type I got) were really good and very reasonably priced, so I was well chilled.
Still no table win.
Played only pickup game of WoN. I played Blood Brothers agg stuff. I bled for 4 early against prey unfamiliar with Sanguinus. I rescued a vampire crosstable, first time playing against Shadowfist Matt ever, then used Haven Uncovered on his dude to rush him so that I could cycle a dodge. I Breath of the Dragon predator’s Rafael de Corazon and eat him. Jay, my grandprey, gets ousted by “Stanislava” prey when KRC passes while Jay is at 4 pool. I screw up something that could have probably saved Jay’s Lasombra deck. Votes were everywhere except on my board.
I don’t remember much else of the game.
Jay takes me over to Gemüt Biergarten, where we also use The Olde Oak as Biergarten wanted outdoor space for other folks. I get food from Oak, and it’s okay. Weird to get chips and salsa as side with my BBQ burger. Chips are supersalty, so I rub off a bunch. Burger was pleasant enough.
I play Nosferatu figuring I’ll get done quickly.
First round, predator does nothing much. I try to block grandpredator with Tusk the Talebearer with 4, one more than three, intercept and fail. I was amused. Second round, I try to burn Pentex Subversion on grandpredator that was grandprey’s (Karl winnie Presence), get Tusk blocked, who proceeds to Song of Serenity, Immortal Grapple, Disarm. Nobody really cares. The unnamed … yawn … behind me puts pressure on. I put no pressure forward on Brad’s Ministry, though I do fail one of his votes against Karl by accident.
I get ride to convention center with others. We get badges after I finally can get to QR code. I check in with HQites. We return to HQ.
Thursday
Not-VTES day for ole Ian.
9AM Shadowfist cube draft. I am always amazed at how people draft niche CCGs. Sure, my deck was flawed with lack of reliable faction resources. But, I had tons of power generation that never should have been passed to me.
Quanqiu Wishing Well should not have been passed to me. Nor should the second.
Summoning Circle shouldn’t have been passed. Xin’s Tome of Knowledge also passed to me. Decklist:
I had tons of Jammers hitters in card pool, so I looked for Jammers’ foundations late, but it was too late. I hate drafted a lot. I passed White Ninja!!
First game, I win at time after not having resources to play faction cards for much of the game and just keep playing Feng Shui Sites. I played Summoning Circle early, so I also got to participate with that in addition to site abilities. Sulphurous Cenote may have prevented Josh from winning earlier. Second round, didn’t win. Third round, played Chainsword on Paul’s superleaper to try to help contain Tim K.’s weenie horde, which only caused Paul to win when I didn’t attack his superleaper but his site that could move Chainsword with my Li Po and/or Yung Chang.
I have to get going to Starship Horizons Adventures as tournament is running an hour late, and I left an hour between events. I find out later I got third place.
SHA just ends up being bewildering to me. I do a run with three volunteers, two I’m staying with, in part four of a four part series when I’ve never played before, and they had played the first two parts … Why we didn’t play part three wasn’t superclear, maybe they had it scheduled for later.
The 20 seconds of useful training on tactical meant I wasn’t clear how to load and fire Devastators (nukes) or the railgun. Turned out that our ship specs weren’t loaded correctly, so I would have seen boxes for those. We apparently succeeded in our mission even as badly as things seemed to go. We playtested some the basic ship on mission 1 in our remaining time. I learned a little of tactical and engineering.
Was it fun? I guess. I just didn’t know what was going on or how to do things, so I committed war crimes unintentionally rather than intentionally. I have too little sense of what would want me to get seriously into the game. Maybe I just tag along when my friends need another player. I suggest that anyone who likes Star Trek try it out at least once, and it … much like True Dungeon or RPEX … is likely a much better example of play if you run with others who are newbs. Of course, you can always just download SH and practice roles before trying SHA at a con.
Thursday night is Shadowfist Modern. I suck. One game, I might have had a chance if I attacked right not noticing Matt had two FSS in play early. The game swung wildly between Troy and Matt due to Cat Stance. I wasn’t that into this. Draft was vastly more interesting to me.
Because the HQites can leave early Thursday night, I drive a car back to HQ.
Friday
In the morning, because I got little sleep any night and had plenty of time in the basement trying to avoid setting off dogs, I build a VTES deck. As I had 11 tournaments and only 10 new decks, this meant I could run a different deck every event, however I had lost interest in my Recruitment Exercise deck after watching how tediously boring they were in other players’ hands. So, my plan was to run Vic SB in first tourney, if I win, run precon mashup in second, then play I Love Cheap Thrills in the NAC. If I continue to suck (zero table wins in 7 tournaments), run I Love Cheap Thrills Friday night and precon mashup in NAC.
Morning tournament, I suck. I don’t remember much from first round. I got Lolita Houston in play and bled some and eventually petered out against … whatever. The second game was vastly more memorable … because it was a complete travesty and shall not be talked about, not even my amusement over something.
Evening tournament was vastly more fun, even if I sucked. One round I didn’t do much. Other round, Marshall, predator, plays Smiling Jack early and table doesn’t get rid of it. I get 2 VPs from it as it builds up to eventually 9 counters. Could have gone away if grandpredator ousts Marshall, but my prey Annekes the killing bleed. In the two player endgame, I Inscription Marshall’s Anima Gathering Isabel de Leon and … eventually he Direct Interventions the Inscription. I was trying to cycle, and I dug one less card because of that. Nine counters on Smiling Jack kills me.
Having enjoyed I Love Cheap Thrills a lot, even in first game where I just played cards that weren’t Inscription, I decided to rerun it on Sunday Funday (with no changes after what happened on Saturday).
Failing to have gotten into finals for a ninth straight time, I check in with HQites, and they are busy.
So, I go to Local Cantina and get two Americano tacos. I liked this food the best of any meal, though it wasn’t perfect – tacos would have been vastly better with hard shells as they just fell apart. Ambience sucked, with weird cover songs, lots of noise, and my being by myself. My talking about weezy tacos causes the crew to want Taco Bell as we head back to HQ.
Saturday
NAC. Time to play a real deck.
First round, Pete is my prey with group 5/6 Ventrue, Mark is Nocturning, other two didn’t much matter. Mark Nocturns them. I comment that Pete will crush me in endgame, so my game sucks. Pete Daring the Dawns for kill bleed on Mark as I spend time trying to figure out how to survive, The Uncoiling The Unmasking (coin flip as FBI came down early) after sitting on The Uncoiling in my hand for ages waiting for The Unmasking. That bleed is great … especially for me. Not only do I lose Nocturn pressure, but Mary Anne Blaire being in torpor for a round buys me time to pass votes and contest with Pete, who contests with me, so it’s my two Ventrue to his one. I win the endgame. 2/2/1 split was amazing for how game looked.
Second round, more people join tournament, so our 40 player tournament with all fives now has me play a four player with prey playing The unnamed, axe playing !Salubri, and my predator is … Mark. I make the comment that expect him to run over me.
That might have happened if Matt (!Salubri) didn’t drop Tension in the Ranks on turn one and hadn’t started rushing forward right away. Mark’s game completely changed as he kept Dreamsing to get to point of blowing up Tension. With lack of pressure, The Uncoiling coming down to blow up The Unmasking again, no interference from prey that I cared about, I built up. Prey ousted !Salubri. I get 3 VPs.
So, great tournament points, first TW in 10 tournaments and 5 VPs after two rounds means I’m doing amusingly well.
Third round is the easy game. Some chump named Darby is my prey. Three of the decks at the table just stealth bleed, including my predator’s … Nocturn deck. Grandprey has no game as Huitzilopochtli to my left just bleeds him out. I have no vote competition, no meaningful intercept, and only some pool pressure. I get rid of Unleash Hell’s Furys repeatedly as I can just Freak and rescue. I bloat a ton. I hit John, grandpredator with Platinum Protocol action with KRCs as I know he will get my predator eventually. I Daring the Dawn past an UHF for the Darby kill. In the endgame, I have too much pool to get ousted. I grind through John’s pool for another 3 VPs.
I commented to Darby that I didn’t think I made a single mistake in this game, where I notice mistakes all of the time normally. Sure, the game was easy due to the matchups, but I still made good decisions on every turn.
As top seed, my placement decision is painful. I didn’t want to be in front of Malk22 (or whatever it’s called). I didn’t want to be next to The unnamed gets The Great Beast. But, mostly, I just wanted to be across the table from the other Ventrue deck as it was 5/6. I thought a bunch of times later about maybe being Bill’s predator, but Kelly S.’s deck just made mine bad. Kelly L.’s prey might have been interesting as Kelly on Kelly crime would have happened sooner with Banishments likely coming Malk way.
Kelly S., whom I had spouted nonsense to for much of the week, commented that I didn’t seem happy. I wasn’t. For various reasons.
Consider that the only tournament of the first 10 where I got even a TW, let alone got to the finals was the one tournament where I didn’t really build the deck, where I played a deck that was just good stuff cards that get played all of the time and that didn’t do anything interesting strategically or tactically. While Bill’s deck was interesting in the finals, I just didn’t have anyone to root for in the finals outside of myself, and I did very little all game. Also, I didn’t expect to live the dream and win the NAC as a bottom quartile player. My response to Kelly S. was “Let’s see how this game goes.” I did start to feel better after I was ousted. I was somewhat disappointed in the Kelly on Kelly endgame that Lyons didn’t try to play to time for the win, but it was an honorable seppuku.
I was late for the Shadowfist casual event, not that that mattered as it was play however much you wanted to play. I was horribly not in the mood to play SF at this point or possibly anything. But, this was when people were supposed to play their theme decks, so I toughed it out while waiting for people’s games to end.
It was not a good game as one of the theme decks did winning things, and the other three did not. I did get to go at a reasonable time …
… only to discover that the SHAfolks were doing tear down early, rather than waiting for Sunday to do everything.
I did some minimal help, and we all headed back to HQ, well, with a stop at Wendy’s as they wanted food. I did end up finishing some leftover nuggets, so it got me food to.
I got like one hour of sleep Saturday night.
Sunday #2
Pain around my left eye until I have a soft drink and some nuts.
To the con!
There are at least four things I’m supposed to remember from round one. I got Information Highway on my first turn, so I bring out 6-caps on round one, round two, round three, a Tupdog on round four, 6-cap on round five.
My Tupdog gets Dominate, and I eventually just rush Pete’s Blood Brother and torp it with hands of 1. I debated bleeding for 2 with it. I had an easy game, with Mark as my grandpredator with Recruitment Exercise. Easy in that I played for the time out table win by leaving Marshall alone as much as possible with his Garrote deck. Vinny was my predator and defended well with punching for 4+ with NewBrujah Debate deck.
I Illegal Search and Seizure Marshall’s Ivan’s Ivory Bow. I play Ecstatic Agony and Vinny comments not knowing what the card does, then Marshall makes a comment, then I comment “I’m not sure I know what the card does.” So, as is usual in VTES, prey has first opportunity to read the card followed by predator then Eagle Sight/Falcon’s Eye players, then the person who played the card. Marshall reads it out loud. Couple times later, I have to read the card to make sure I can abuse Mark with it.
I torp Mark’s vampire with a .44 off of the press punch for 3 from Ecstatic Agony. I oust Marshall for second VP with no more than 10 minutes left, though not with Melange because I’m bottom quartile. I chose to discard The Name Forgotten. I torp one of Mark’s minions with Machine Blitz …
2.5 VPs. Second round, Kelly L. is my prey and Inside Dirts + Thuggees one of my two 6-caps into torpor. Tom is his prey. Tom and I played in the Bay Area a long time ago, and it was good to talk some. Pete was my grandpredator and didn’t do anything to Norm, whose NewBrujah “do it all” (as opposed to toolbox, which I was explaining to Brett, whom I never played with but talked to for extended stretches) deck ripped me apart, even with Ecstatic Agony on one of my two minions.
I waited quite awhile while needing sleep badly as 1 TW 2.5 VPs almost made the finals. I just needed Mark to not get more than 1 VP in his second round, but some folks are like top quartile.
Because the SHAfolks only needed like an hour to load up vehicles, NCers headed home, and I drove a SUV full of electronic equipment back to HQ. I tried napping and got some rest but not a lot. We went for pizza final meal. I think if I went there again, I’d get Sicilian style as thin crust really isn’t my thing.
Watched some YouTube.
I got up before my 2:45AM alarm, so total about four hours of sleep in two nights before my 6:15AM flight. I got home without any issues, too tired to read a book on my long flight, where I just conked out shortly into flight.
Had work to do Monday. Kept falling asleep throughout the day.
Great experience.
I just enjoy playing VTES. I’m discouraged by how boring decks are, including my own, as I’ve built (as in pulled the cards, I write a lot of decks I never play) maybe 500 decks in my life at this point, and it’s all so similar.
Shadowfist could have been better, but it may have been how much I was focused on VTES that made it harder to care what happened outside of the draft.
SHA was just an incomplete as a game to me.
Hanging out with my True Dungeon team and the hosts’ dogs was … the sort of thing I would be happy to do a lot. Both at HQ and in the SHA area.
Jay was very kind to drive me around … when I wasn’t learning the freeway system around Columbus.
I got to hang out with VTES players, try to help some with deck change ideas. I got to amuse myself by giving rather than taking. I got to hang out with ‘Fisters, even one in my hood that I don’t spend a lot of time normally talking to. I got inspired with VTES deck ideas on the flights home, serious ideas in some cases.
Nothing really went wrong other than being top seed going into the finals of the NAC. Well, I was horribly sleep deprived a lot of the time, but that’s to be expected. Maybe I don’t do Sunday Funday in future and just sleep all day. Hopefully, I don’t have 6:15AM flight on Monday after con.
Posted by iclee 
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