Origins 2023

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:

2x  Blue Flower Society

1x  Confusion Stability

1x  Finding Your Balance

1x  Fu Lions

1x  Into the Light

1x  Li Po

1x  Shaolin Supplicants

1x  Sifu Beumer

1x  Warrior Poet

1x  Yung Chang

1x  Alfar

1x  Auramancer

1x  Chiu Bagong

1x  Fakhir-al-Din

1x  Fire Warriors

1x  Soul Fire

1x  Summoning Circle

1x  Wasteland Rangers

1x  William Franklin

1x  Abandoned Old Shop

1x  Beached Supertanker

1x  Medicinal Flower Garden

1x  Phlogiston Mine

2x  Quanqiu Wishing Well

1x  Rainforest Bridge

2x  Sulphurous Cenote

2x  Walled Enclave

1x  Xin’s Tome of Knowledge

1x  Discerning Fire

1x  Spirit in a Bottle

2x  Violet Meditation

1x  Chainsword

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.

Origins 2021

A few years ago, I noticed something weird.  As time was passing, I was getting older.  Just bizarre.

Anyway, due to declining mental faculties, my recollection of events will be haphazard.

Nope, I didn’t cancel at the last minute.

Tuesday

Get virtually no sleep, even though I didn’t have a ton I needed to do.  Sure, I didn’t build much in the way of VTES decks and so could spend time on that, but I know how long it takes to pull cards, so I gave up before too late.

Nothing real special about getting to hotel.

Get this over with – staying at Hampton was extremely convenient.  I didn’t really take advantage of how easy it would be to go back and forth to hotel for stuff swaps, but it wasn’t just far better than walking six blocks to a hotel on mostly deserted streets after midnight, it was just easy.  Breakfast buffet wasn’t Embassy Suites Indy level, but it was free breakfast better than a motel.  I never used the pool even though pool hours were like 5AM-10PM (11PM?) and I keep taking swim trunks to these hotels.  I don’t actually like swimming pools – they are boring.  Nothing to explore.  No current to fight against.  No sense of changing location.  My room was on 5th floor, so, other than checking in and checking out with my luggage, took stairs every trek.  Helped burn some of the far too many calories I was consuming and/or requires some actual physical exertion for underused musclelike body parts.  With no roommates, it was relaxing to use the room, though I got virtually no sleep because my body hates me.

I drop my stuff off and head over to The Happy Greek to socialize [gasp!] with VTESfolk.  I order the Keftedes Kebob.  It suffers from the general issue I have with Greek food – it’s too bland.  Greek food, IME, is like less flavorful Persian food.  I also consider yogurt as only for smoothies.  Could have been juicier or more tender.  Overall, it was okay and not hard on the system after not having any other meal all day.  I get water to drink.

Everyone else is wrapping up as they close at 10PM, where the finals will be held at an Air BnB.  Doesn’t take me long to eat, so I join some others going to UDF for malts.  This is, of course, a perfect example of my low life wisdom.  The food would have been fine.  Gorging, especially given that I’m lactose intolerant and have run out of Lactaid, late at night was suboptimal, I guess.  But, I didn’t know if I was going to have another shot at a malt.  It was okay, would have preferred thicker.  Marshall paid for it, so already the psychological warfare that all VTES players feed upon begins.

Wednesday

The change in Origins’ normal schedule meant I had zero reason to go to the convention center, so I changed my order of which shirts to wear on which days.  Back to The Happy Greek.

Beef Shawarma Pita and well done fries.  A few of the fries were cooked enough.  Insert french fry rant.  I am bewildered by why so many bad french fries get made.  Anyone who has had good french fries should know that french fries are supposed to be red and crunchy.  Anyway, the rest of the fries were better than most.  The pita sandwich, though, was a mess.  It was basically a way overstuffed taco with chewy meat.  Still didn’t have much flavor.  More than half the meat was eaten non-taco style.

I, on two separate occasions during the day, ask about grenadine and the mix they would use to make a Tom Collins.  I fail to actually order anything besides Coke/Mello Yello.

First event is draft.  Two rounds, no final.  We basically get a precon (except Jyhad clans?) and are in draft pods that use similar sets.  I get 3e Tzimisce so draft Third Edition.  Kind of a wasted opportunity to me.  I prefer to see greater variety of possibilities with draft.  The 3e boosters were incredibly redundant, which is a 3e problem for a set that has a ton of different cards.

As is typical with VTES drafting, one pack will have mediocre stuff and another will have four possible first picks.  I passed Tribute to the Master multiple times.  I think the only one I got was one that came back to me!  I debated drafting the Pentex Subversions, but I didn’t want someone playing them against me as I was a blocky deck.

Origins 2021 Draft – Tzimisce

Crypt (12)
2x Ilias cel Frumos
1x Guedado
1x Elizabeth Westcott
2x Yuri Kerezenski
1x Duality
1x Laika
1x Lady Zara Slatikov
2x Radu Bistri
1x Sha-Ennu

Master (16)
1x Auspex
2x Blood Doll
2x Danse Macabre
1x Fame
2x King’s Rising
2x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Powerbase: Barranquilla
1x Rötschreck
1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
1x The Rack
1x Tribute to the Master
1x Vicissitude

Action (6)
1x Fiendish Tongue
1x Forgery
2x Scouting Mission*
2x Zillah’s Tears

Action Modifier (4)
4x Changeling

Combat (21)
2x Aid from Bats*
1x Amaranth
1x Aura Reading
1x Breath of the Dragon
2x Burst of Sunlight*
1x Canine Horde
2x Carrion Crows
1x Chiropteran Marauder
1x Claws of the Dead*
1x Dodge
2x Horrid Form
2x Inner Essence
1x Meld with the Land
1x Song of Serenity
1x Starvation of Marena
1x Weighted Walking Stick

Equipment (1)
1x Local 1111

Political Action (6)
1x Consanguineous Boon
1x Crusade: Pittsburgh
1x Finding the Path
2x Perpetual Care
1x Sabbat Priest

Reaction (24)
2x Eagle’s Sight
5x Enhanced Senses
3x Forced Awakening
5x Guard Dogs
1x Minor Irritation
1x My Enemy’s Enemy
1x Precognition
1x Read the Winds
1x Redirection*
2x Spirit’s Touch
2x Telepathic Misdirection

Combo (2)
2x Plasmic Form

From a deck construction standpoint, I think this was a mixed bag.  Sure, I might not have gotten ousted if I had permacept.  But, the play problems were more so the lack of VIC and how pointless Perpetual Care was after taking out a bunch of offensive combat.  I used Aid from Bats twice at draftferior, once to go to long against Hardestadt and burn Sport Bike with Canine Horde, but that was far too late.

First round, I don’t remember this game.  I think Vinny playing !Trem was in this game as my predator.  I just don’t remember what else was being played and by whom.  Wait, I’m remembering pressing against !Trem due to Weather Control to torp one of Vinny’s vamps.  Will this help me remember how I got less VPs than I could have?

Nope.  I do remember finding the lack of VIC annoying.  King’s Rising got played and got cleared.

It was the second game that was memorable for how frustrating it was.  Kelly was my prey with Ventrue, and I just couldn’t get by Hardestadt when I needed to even with Sha-Ennu in play (I had five vampires in play for a considerable amount of time) and even with getting Hardestadt taking Kelly down to 2 pool.  Vinny, as my axe, blocking my bounced bleed of 1 rather than blocking Kelly’s kill wrecked my easy table win.  Karl, playing Ministry, I mean, FoS was impotent early to where I even voted him pool, but, eventually, as I played bounce badly and wasted unlocks needlessly (one Zillah’s Tears use was awful), I stopped being able to block every single forward action.  Being flooded with Unholy Penances was an annoyance I didn’t have a great answer for as long as I was trying to get key actions through on my prey.

Historically, I’ve been a way, way, way better limited player than constructed player.  Now, one could argue that a key difference is that I eschew strong decks in constructed and embrace putting the best decks together in limited.  That has something to do with it, as I often feel I have one of the two best decks in sealed/draft VTES and can put together a reasonable Magic limited deck and maybe even knew what I was doing with B5 limited.  But, my preferred style of play is to minimize use of resources, to play opportunistically, to not expect to have multiple copies of key cards.  To only come in third in this event was … one might say … a harbinger of future mediocrity.

Wednesday Constructed

I play Vic/For.  Sure, that meant playing mostly Budapest, but I had two non-BB in my crypt, only one of which appeared in three rounds.

Round 1:

Darby was my predator with Serpentis annoyance.  Brad was his predator with FoS Free States Rant.  Kelly his predator with … I vaguely recall Dmitra and votes, but I could be wrong.  Mark was my prey with AUS/PRE/OBF.  Somehow, people keep expecting me to Walk of Caine bomb people into oblivion.  I mean, sure, that could happen.  It’s just not probable when running 2x WoC and would, somehow, have to get around bounce.  I did rush Darby’s ally but got blocked by a vampire.  Dorka got a lot of hate, getting stolen.  I brought out another one, later, but I had no real way to not get ousted.  I just didn’t accomplish much, even with four minions in play for a bit.

Round 2:

Late in the game, with my two minions, I bleed Marshall for 2 with inferior Sanguinus and Force of Will bleed with SAN for the WoC kill.  Alex doesn’t care if I get more VPs, so I oust him for a second VP.  Other people were at this table.  One of them ousts me.

Sometime, I get dinner at The Happy Greek.  Now, I didn’t need food, so my enjoyment of this meal was reduced.  However, my Spicy Gyro Over Hummus was actually flavorful, with tender meat.  Add some crunchy french fries (and a desire for a significant amount of food), and this would have been a strong meal.  I can see getting this dish and a side and splitting between two people.  Actually spicy, where one never knows whether spicy dishes will actually be spicy at various places.

Just to get this out of the way, once convention starts, mostly smoothies and root beers with miscellaneous North Market food.

Finals:

Darby is my prey.  Brad (or someone else I can’t remember) his prey, with something with PRE as he steals Darby’s Mylan and Impundulu, I guess?  Alex his prey with !Toreador w/ Protean.  Marshall my predator with stealth vote.  I remember blocking a bleed at one stealth with Steadfastness and playing Poison Pill on a Con Ag in quick succession, as I made the comment to Darby about just doing what Blood Brothers do – react.  My Dr. Morrow does give a Graft Counter to Impundulu.  I really didn’t have much to do before my inevitable demise.  Since this was at the Air BnB, which isn’t superclose to my hotel, I bail to try to get some work done.  I hear later that Darby’s Temptation on Adana(?) leads to ousting people.

Thursday

I had stuff I needed to do, which made playing in first tournament a problem.  Then, I had to stand in badge line for 1.5 hours to get my badge.  Then, I stood in customer service line to get 63/65 generic tickets.  So, pretty much just waiting until second tournament.

Thursday Constructed 2

I keep wanting to play Blessed Resilience builds, as it’s kind of interesting to play a deck that goes forward, and the possibilities for what can happen amuse me.

Round 1:

Robert is my prey with Brujah with weapons.  Mark axe with Kindred Spirits.  Alex my predator with Ass vote breed.  Alex doesn’t survive long.  Robert doesn’t do anything much which affects the game besides spend pool, so I oust him.  While Mark got me and would have likely always gotten me, I was calculating how much I could do to him if I survived one more turn.  I think I could have bled him for 18 on my next turn, which might have ousted him.  Again, if I wasn’t already gone.  I played Carlton late, and that might have done me in.  Carlton never blocked a bleed, so it was take an action to lose 2 pool.

Round 2:

Darby first with Khazar’s.  Kelly my prey with Trem.  Just blanking, maybe Marshall again, as predator.  Khazar’s didn’t go off for quite a while.  Kelly lacked bounce.  Sure, I could have killed him.  I should have tried to get 2 VPs in a smallish tournament, but I was so excited by how much pool damage I could do to Darby if the right sequence of events occurred.  I missed my window on both bounced to Darby for excitement and for ousting Kelly for excitement.

I get back to hotel and work on a deck for Friday night.  My plan is to go with vote in the morning, less thinking involved Friday night – +1 stealth AUS/PRE.

Friday

Friday Constructed 1

I took some cards to build decks with me to Origins.  Not a lot.  Took a lot of master cards, where the rest were new stuff to try out new stuff.  I went with modified Lasombra precon.  Obviously, I removed all of the Governs and Conditionings.  I put in some Murmurs for bleed since I can’t put Murmur of the False Will on my personal banned list due to the Kiasyd w/ Animalism tournament winning deck.

Round 1:

Further sign that my mind is gone.  I think Marshall was my predator with Kiasyd – wait, he definitely was as we talked about Priscus voting.  Matt was my prey with Ravnos bleed.  Darby was playing Legacy of Pander as my grandprey, Logan my grandpredator with Tzimisce.  New Lasombra are not weak.  I brought out Cardinal, Archbishop, and Priscus – all 8 caps.  Marshall keeps bleeding me with The Arcadian …  So, I had a bunch of Murmurs for his other guys.  Gabrin on my left was my only combat concern, so I ditched Obedience for the obvious reason.  Darby couldn’t pass votes on his own with any sort of consistency.  He did get out 7 Pander.  Logan’s game was not that exciting, trying to function off of Lambach and advanced Sascha.  I had an okay amount of pool much of the time.  I added Con Boons to the deck.  I did virtually nothing to my prey.  When I finally tried to bleed my prey, I forgot Illusory Resources was in play.  Darby and I negotiated him killing his prey and predator and he only killed his prey …

Darby had Bleeding the Vine in play and cancelled a Kiasyd Blood Doll.  Matt drops Week of Nightmares, which we all knew was coming after a bunch of Suspensions of Disbelief, and he got Darby.  I eventually bleed Matt for 1 at zero stealth and oust him.  I bleed Marshall for 2 at zero stealth, then 1 at zero stealth and oust him.

I get blamed for not ousting my prey before he got Darby.  Amazingly enough, illusory bleeding and having votes like Con Boon doesn’t put a lot of pressure on.

Round 2:

I got irritated in this game.  I guess having to play with Imbued can do that.  Alex was my prey with Brandywine.  Mark my grandprey with Carna.  Logan grandpredator.  Karl predator with Imbued.

This game was tedious.  I called an early Anarchist Uprising that did more to Mark than anyone else, and he gave me grief for that even though I knew that this table was set up for slowness.  Also, slowness is pro Imbued.  Now, I did bring out a certain 9-cap who couldn’t be damage by allies and an 8-cap who could steal 2 blood as a strike.  My being not a l33t player meant that when that second ability mattered, I totally forgot about it.  I think that might have prevented my getting ousted and losing the .5 VP I was playing for.  I did try to oust Alex, but Logan shot the vote down even while Imbued’s Talbot’s was already in play.  Maybe Logan thought I was a quality player and would remember to just steal 2 life from allies like a boss monster.

Veil of Darkness got put into play, cancelled my Oubliette, and my Famed life stealer went down, then I took lots of bleeds.

Finals:

Darby was my prey.  Alex his prey.  Karl his prey.  Mark my predator.  Imbued had intercept in front and behind and two vote decks across table.  So, of course, Imbued won.

Darby and I danced around a lot on how to carve the table as I got out the Cardinal on turn two, so he could never pass a vote on his own.  I figured I had no way to oust Alex, so I did want Darby to do that, but I was leery of him ousting both Alex and Karl, so I made this game suck.  Still, playing with two minions, with my predator being happy to block me to ‘schreck half my minions, where I couldn’t even draw much in the way of Murmurs for plus bleed and having little reason to give Alex 5 pool with Ancient Influence until Darby self-ousted, meant my not being into carving the table doomed us all to mortality.  I also ran out of stealth at the end to get off such things as Reins of Power (not called due to lack of stealth) or Ancient Influence, so I was locked out when the +1 (bleed, stealth, intercept, damage, …) mortals came.

The only final I deserved to be in, and I didn’t execute.  Made me want to not play vote again, though.  I keep forgetting how annoying playing vote is when someone else also votes.  I shouldn’t forget, except I don’t play vote that often, and I hadn’t played at all in more than 18 months, and those 18 months have been … taxing.  Well, and I’m not a l33t player.

Friday Constructed 2

Round 1:

Guy is my predator with Elimelech.  Marshall my prey with Ventrue.  Alex axe with werewolves.  This was painful.  Elimelech got Robert Carter to my chagrin.  I was forced to Archon him.  I kept forgetting to use Greta to reduce bleeds by Luc.  I thought about DIing Alex’s bounce early on, but I didn’t know how much kill Marshall was going to whip out.  Alex became unstoppable.  Multiple Garou, Double Deuce, Fermor, Inyanga.  I hung around a bit.  I did Jost bleed for 6 to cycle, but I had too little evasion to actually oust Marshall.  Just a werewolf rampage.

Round 2:

Darby axe with Ira wall.  Predator Logan with Memory Rift.  My prey Brad with Nehemiah (and Carolina).  I have a ton of bleed defense to use in this game, reducing more than bouncing, so I get Rebekka, Cornelius, Anarch Convert w/ Blood Doll, Sheila with intercept.  Memory Rift keeps preventing Sheila from blocking until we take a long pause to find out whether Martinelli’s Ring stops that.  Rebekka gets Heart of the City, gets bounced a lot, I finally get to play Tangle of Atropos’ Hand when bounced to Darby, then bleed out Brad.  I had Archoned one of Logan’s vamps, so he was crippled and eventually removed.  Darby just destroys my guys in combat.  I enjoyed this game.  I got to first turn discard Subdued by the Blood and could both defend well and threaten ludicrously.

I go back to hotel and give up on building Toreador deck with how tired I am.

Saturday

I build a Toreador deck.  I have to pull cards from my AUS/PRE deck because the two Toreador precons I brought with me are … in Latin.  I thought I only ordered one of each precon in Latin, but I can’t keep straight what stuff I get.  The whole point is to play Laecanus, who I thought hated me more than any other vampire, even more than Kill-ian.

Not seeing enough anarch stuff to do what he should do – anarch CEL rush either with guns or sticks.  I do a quasi-Obtenebration build.  By quasi, I mean I had two Obtenebration cards in my deck and never played them.  Can’t really call my recent creations toolbox decks as they are mostly unfocused messes that play individually good cards but in an incoherent whole.

Round 1:

I don’t get Laecanus.  I do get Rafael de Corazon.  And, Tyler McGill and Vasily.  Prey is Mark with Nocturns, Karl his prey with … … … a bad crypt draw.  Alex my grandpredator with !Toreador w/ Protean.  Matt !Salubri rush as my predator.  I block Bowl early.  I never burn Path of Night, but, then, nobody else does, either.  My Vesseling Karl’s New Blood maybe took one of Mark’s actions to end Karl.  Alex Archons after getting Matt.  Wonders why I do things like Con Boon – if Mark doesn’t get Alex when he does, I have zero wakes, so Palla Grande will end me.  I get Mark to 3 pool with Rafael still functional, but I don’t have what I need to get by Unmasked Nocturns and get finished off.

Round 2:

Marshall my predator with Primogen.  Vinny my prey with Shamblers.  Matt axe.

Vinny gets Matt down to 1 pool when Matt has his shields down.  Marshall sucks lots of rushes, preventing him from hurting me much.  I oust Vinny eventually.  The endgame is interesting where one more blood on Eugene would have led to an incredibly cool play in a fight with Matt’s main vamp that I think torps, but, instead, just remove some counters.  I can’t outmaneuver !Salubri weapons nor punch through damage prevent with Allanyan with Weighted Walking Stick, so Matt grinds me out.

Round 3:

John prey with Stanislava (mostly precon).  Marshall his prey.  Brad my grandpredator with Lord Tremere.  Guy playing Dracon as my predator.

This was just a game to play cards and not expect anything to happen.  Dracon kept fighting me and playing a bunch of Horrid Forms.  Sure, I had three vampires in torpor at one point, with Laecanus eaten when trying to leave torpor, but, most of the time, Celerity and Presence and Eugene’s dodge stopped beatings.  Meanwhile, my prey was concerned when I bled for 4 early, but I had nothing to go forward after that.  Stanislava kept bleeding crosstable, leading to Brad getting ousted.  Table timed out with a bunch of impotence as I got all three of my vampires rescued.

I still have never played Zephyr.  I’m not a believer in putting in cards that are designed for failure, well, failed actions.  I’m all about expecting failure with my masters choices.  But, I was on a play stuff I hadn’t played before kick, and I expected to get actions blocked playing no Aching Beautys and no real evasion.  I never thought I’d get ousted in third round, but, then, I never expected to oust my prey, either.

I do some work and stay up way too late listening to The Voice videos on Youtube, listening to Nico Traut’s blind audition multiple times, for instance.

Sunday

Of course, I can barely sleep.  I modify Sea Pirates Redux with some anarch stuff I hadn’t played before, like, um, er, em, hmmm, eh, Hackerspace.

I read my Origins reports for 2018 and 2019 after the con, and it’s funny to read how consistently mediocre I am in these tournamentfests and how I keep running the same deck archetypes – Sea Pirates, Blessed Resilience – rather than creating new stuff.

Round 1:

I go first.  Brad is prey with worst Alastor strategy ever.  Karl across with !Malk Creation Rites.  Mariya Kiasyd behind me.  I do not understand how I survive.  Mariya ran out of stealth at a terrible time.  Twice, I blocked Song of Pan and also blocked a Nocturn.  My Nadima and Carlton did a lot of work.  Brad didn’t put any weapons in his Alastor deck, so he had to beat Anathemaed !Malks the punchy way.  I took out one of the Anathemas with a Protection Racket block and a .44.  At one point, Mariya had three vampires in torpor.  Karl ousts, I oust, endgame is not completely uninteresting as I do have Heidelberg, Laptop, and Tasha(?).  I probably screw up trying to remove Pentex on Nadima with bleeding in the same turn.  Don’t have enough blood on guys to be cooler … ooh, Cooler would …

Round 2:

Brian is my prey with !Salubri rush.  Alex axe with Ass Breed Vote.  Marshall predator with Form of Mist bleed, Ariadne Abactor.  I can’t stop Marshall.  Marshall gets 1 VP.  Brian ends the tournament with 1 VP.  Someone else has 1 VP.

We start a learning game with one table not done, yet.  John borrows my Horseshoes deck and gets beaten up a lot.  We call the game when the other table is done because there’s a four-way tie for fifth place.  I improbably end up in the finals.  As I said, only one deserved finals, and that was a cluster with us not murdering mortals.

Finals:

After going to North Market due to the con closing to where we need to play finals at the house, I quickly get eliminated from the finals as my Anarch Convert with Sport Bike and Nadima can’t stop Ass breeding or Ass voting.  However, due to the improbable double Hackerspace early game with how Anarch Convert interacts with them, everyone got excited by free Assault Rifles or whatever.

I stuck around for much longer to hang out.  Eventually, Marshall and I went to UDF where I got tea and I didn’t pay for his malt.  I’m working the long game.  A couple decades from now, when I don’t remember that Ozmo has +1 bleed and stop putting Extremis Boon in decks, this ploy will totally cause me to win some casual game in the heads up after Subdued by the Blood in my Faithful Servant, Burnt Offerings deck.

Thanks to Ben and Darby for running stuff.  Congratulations to Alex for NAC championship.  Nice to meet folks.  Just one more year or so and a bunch of folks are going to surpass my tournament win total.  Though, I put down maybe one of those wins as a quality win, and I’ve never won a constructed tournament on the road – every single win is, weirdly**, in California.

**  Well, since I rarely play tournaments outside of California and some of the ones I have were either limited events or storyline events and because there’s little evidence I’m actually more than competent, maybe weird is the opposite of the right word.

Okay, and thanks to Marshall for getting my malt and putting up with *a lot* of my rambling.

Origins 2019

Summarizing first:

I did what I wanted to do.  It was decent.

It would have likely been better if I wasn’t sick much of the time.  On Saturday, when I finally had a break, after Day 2 of the NAC, I stopped off at the pharmacy for drugs and lay down.

Observation – traveling, in particular flying, is harder on me than it used to be.  I actually think it’s not just the travel as, for instance, every time I take off from work my more urgent stuff isn’t done.  I took a work laptop to the con and, predictably, did very little work.  Normally, I don’t take laptops to cons as I know I’ll be too busy to do anything beyond what I can do on my phone (which is nothing workwise besides talk on the phone).

Still, getting up at 2:30AM to pack, spending all day flying (maybe having so many connecting flights is part of the problem), not eating during the day only to gorge after I arrive, immediately not going to bed when I arrive, not having breaks during trips (unless family trips), etc. are doing me in rather regularly.  I’m still not fully well after getting back from Origins 11PM Sunday night and I’ve had no nighttime activities this week – no, the cheerleader orgies will have to wait.

Before I get to problem number two, let’s sidetrack into an esoteric diversion to speak of something gaming related.

I played six V:TES tournaments.  I made zero final tables.  I had one GW … playing someone else’s deck.  It’s almost like recounting my experiences aren’t going to be that interesting to the kajillions of VTESites who read this looking for how to tablesplit their way to groupies and gold stars.

I’ll make some comments, anyway, because I might as well try to pop out another 3000 word post.

Problem #2 with Origins 2019:  I continue to be incompetent when it comes to managing True Dungeon token weight.

Sure, I hand carried such light things as CCG cards and plastic poker chip sized disks with metal slugs inside of them and neoprene rolled up into nine plus two rolls to play/run my events.  Because I’m only an upper peasant level flyer on my main airline, like a craftsman or farmer or something, I weighed my suitcase and pulled out some token bags to get down to 49 pounds.  My carry on was significantly heavier (my game carry on, also had my laptop bag stuffed with crackers and … uh … laptop stuff).

My hotel was not close to the con, being like 2 blocks or less from my hotel last year.  I still managed to consistently carry 40-60 pounds of cards/tokens every day besides Saturday.  Saturn’s Day, the day of no Traveller and no TD after I finally transmuted a bunch of tokens Saturday morning, was the one day I wasn’t worried about my man bag ripping when I’d lift it off the ground.

Bag with wheels for TD because if there’s one thing heavier than tightly packed cards it’s tokens.  That’s one not so much takeaway as I didn’t think a lot about it but suggestion from a couple of folks.

Also, just stop thinking I’m going to dump extra tokens on folks who might want them.  Sure, it’s possible I run into someone who wants Blessed Pants of the Hare, like I did in the hall outside the transmute room, but why is that worth carrying an extra 10 pounds every day?  I’m inclined to believe it’s not worth it.  Just as my conclusion after last year’s Gen Con is no more trading or buying that requires me to hunt TDers on Wednesday when I should be sleeping at 8PM, no more dragging around sheets of “blues” thinking I’ll somehow be able to move what was a gross overtransmutingfest of transmutingness on my part last year.

Not exactly a problem as it’s not terribly controllable, but I think I would have had more fun if I didn’t fly solo.  Could have distributed weight better.  Could have used rideshare more cost effectively (in a sense, in another sense the cost doesn’t change).  Probably just feel more relaxing.

So, let’s go back in time.  To the long long ago that was the weekend before my Tuesday flight to Ohio.

I had an open weekend.  I had a weekend of deckbuilding and token organizing.  When I was but a tyke, a callow youth full of vim and vis, I would have pounded out five V:TES decks.  I made two.  I jammed some extra cards from a broken down deck in to have some possibility of adjusting my Day 2 tournament deck.

I packed one long box of V:TES, essentially five decks and some extra cards.  I packed my Traveller decks box, my promo card box, nine playmats to give out (given away), two starter set boxes (brought back), various ship decks and expansion packs for demo use or prizes or to exchange for cloth (one might say “mystic cotton/linen”).  I packed some crackers, pistachios, clothes, toiletries, drugs, my hamburger (many of you know what this means), etc.  Two binders of tokens, two tupperware things with tokens, miscellaneous token bags.  Left dice bag at home.

And, so, it commences …

Tuesday was the usual awful early morning flight that happens when I fly West to East.  I rush over to Fabian’s to play in the Tuesday night tournament.  This was arguably a mistake.  Another possibility would have been to save money, take the cheap airport bus instead of an Uber, check in to hotel, drop off 100 pounds of stuff, casually wander over to Fabian’s to hang out and eat a salad while players gotta play.

Actually, if I think through rest strategy for Origins, blowing off the Wednesday morning tournament might have made more sense as I’m still on Pacific time so getting up at 4AM to get ready for V:TES is maybe not as condign as staying up to 8PM playing V:TES the night before.

I played a rush deck that my opponents didn’t think was a rush deck.  Let’s just say the deck could be called Secret Rising and I never played a King’s Rising …

I told my fellow airport-bound VTESite on Sunday that I didn’t even play a pickup game.  That wasn’t true.  I blanked out that I played one Tuesday night before one of the players drove me to my hotel.  I played my Aus/Tha/Vic deck where I played cards, so it was not a bad game.

Wednesday

The only con thing I plan on doing is to get some transmutes in since the TD volunteers are awesome and make Origins transmuting uberpleasant.  No rush, here.  I’ll get ousted early some round and have plenty of time to pick up my badge and try to convert more tokens into fewer tokens.

I actually couldn’t remember which deck I played in which Wednesday tournament until I remembered my hamburger with tater tots.  I played casual stealth vote in the burger tournament and played Blessed Resilience (minus all of the disgusting Legionnaires, of course, need to update my personal banned list one of these days) in the stromboli tournament.

Keeping with the idea that my tournament results are so tres pathetique that nobody actually cares about who went first or what round I used two counters off of Polaris Coach, I’ll just mention some random events.

Round one, I play The Parthenon and Dreams on turn one.  I put out Pelletier the Justicar.  I play Info Highway on turn two and play Hardestadt pretty quick.  I end up with Breidenstein, Una, Ubende before I call Anarchist Uprising to do 14 pool damage to myself, killing my predator, and pretty much guaranteeing the GW to my axe.

Pretty sad when you have 42 pool worth (arguably 45 pool worth) of minions in play and are stymied by a Demdemeh deck that never got above two intercept.

Round two, Falhu learned Protean, but my game was less scare-inducing.  My burger got cold over the rounds.

I remember the second round of playing Blessed Resilience that day.  My ousting bleed mod got DIed by my predator.  Gee, that sounds like something I might do.  Of the three Harbinger decks at the table, I was the only noble and pure Emeraldless one.  So, I lost.

I can’t remember the first round.  I don’t remember opponents.  I don’t remember seating.  I don’t remember what I did.  I vaguely recall putting out Erlik and using the counters for Erebus.  I think Nicomedes was my first non-Tupdog minion, looking through my crypt and remembering that Nicomedes use was non-trivial.  Some massive block for this game.

Thursday

I thought about throwing something together from what I had, but I thought it made more sense to borrow a deck from Darby.  Since I don’t own all of the various promo 11 caps and don’t proxy, I borrowed Baba Yaga.

First round, my Jake gets J.S.  Since this isn’t Tasha, Jake gets contested immediately.  My prey is playing Darby’s War Ghoul deck.  My predator actually bothered to meta against allies and I see a hand full of Entrancements before I’m ousted.  Didn’t do a whole lot.

Second round, Darby is my grandpredator playing Tupdog.  I thought about rushing crosstable one turn when it wouldn’t have been too spite-inducing for Darby, but my predator was playing DOM/Obt and had a second minion the turn I thought about it.  My grandprey reduced my ousting bleed only to get ousted by my prey on his next turn.  I stealth bled Darby out for my one GW in 14 rounds of V:TES.

Well, you know what I always say, the only thing that matters when it comes to multiplayer CCGs is deck strength.  Next year, I’ll leave the Gargoyles with Daimoinon decks at home and play nothing but … er … well, when I figure out what the good decks are in the game, I’ll play one of those and I’ll eat the big tamale in the sky.  Maybe I’ll fly solo again next year, just knowing I’ll be swimming in groupies.

Finally, the TDForumite comes back to joining someone else’s Nightmare run.  We are six adventurers playing a dungeon we’ve played before.  I get asked what weapon I’m running as paladin and comment “Thor’s Hammer” to which the asker notes the entire party is running legendary weapons.  Truly, I have found my ilk and it is less than 1%.  Have I graduated to being a .5%er?  Is it even possible that since I was lending out three Charms of Avarice for us to ghost the other four players at max treasure that I’m *gasp* a .1%er.

It’s almost like games I invest in I get a lot of harder to get components.  Almost as if.

I took damage; I think I got down to 47 hit points and used Crown of Expertise on my Lay On Hands.  Honestly, my ilk really should be running Epic rather than Nightmare unless the party is really small or we don’t play maxed out builds.

My favorite way to play TD remains Hardcore with 12 token builds.  I realized how annoying it was to carry around a bunch of conditional crap when we just don’t need it, including such low yield tokens as healing potions.  Jumping ahead, I see Nightmare being too easy in a lot of cases at this point, so I’m likely to make more interesting builds.  Maybe actually run Boots of Might again and level up not through eldritch.

Then, had a 9PM run with some of same guys and Laz’s group.  Laz’s family iz gut at puzzles, and I didn’t really need to do anything ever, though I healed some playing druid in the boss fight.

I’m increasingly less interested in 10 player runs.  I’m thinking maybe our next evolution is to buy out runs and run double downs or something.  I’m already very hit or miss at puzzles, but when I can be miss, miss, miss at combat and it doesn’t make any difference, combat is kind of worthless.  This is a major factor in us getting away from PUGs in the first place, to set a difficulty level that isn’t pointless.

I keep doing a horrid job of explaining the irony of TD – the players think they want more and more powerful tokens and, yet, the more fun runs are the runs that are challenging, which more powerful builds defeat.  Was talking to a friend of mine about his runs and he mentioned all of the variant stuff where optimized builds were eschewed.  I don’t want to do greedy sealed at Nightmare.  I want to do ranged monk, 12 token at Hardcore.  But, since the rewards for NM are better, means doing something like maybe 15 token or doing thematic builds like damage reduction or retribution.  Or, double downs and see how they go at NM.

Friday

NAC Day 1.  My first round is set up fantastically for me with turbo Erlik to my left and stealth bleed to my right.  Well, my grandpredator’s bleeding was easy for me to handle.  My predator kept bleeding me with an 8-cap, which was a problem for my bounce.  I screwed up the three-way …  I only ended up with a table split.

My second round, my prey contested my first vampire and did everything possible to get me ousted.  I didn’t do much.  My third round, I had a promising game, but I took too long ousting my prey, sitting on wake bounce most of the time with my second predator not being cooperative even though all his deck did was bleed at stealth.  My grandprey turned the pool/minion count corner, my predator didn’t try backousting with Kindred Spirits, so we didn’t survive.

I qualified easily enough for Day 2, but I was just taking up space in these tournaments.

Last TD run, with Laz hosting again.  Played druid again.  Did actually deal damage with spells.  Did 80 with one spell in boss fight and elf wizard commented “only 80?”, further supporting the idea that trying to get the challenge level right in TD is actually really hard once people have token collections.  Don’t look down on starter pack level play at Normal.  Normal is a better technical game most of the time, IME.

Saturday

After forgetting key transmute components Friday leading to carrying an extra 25-30 pounds of tokens all day Friday for no reason, I put together the last two transmutes I was going to do at Origins and got to leave everything else in a highly secure black ops facility.  Well, and I had my V:TES decks.

Round one was a tedious game.  There was so much talking about nothing.  I should have probably done something about the table talk in a language besides English, but I didn’t really care and didn’t find the end result offensive.

Round two was fine from a table setup situation.  My prey got beaten down a lot by my grandprey.  Time ran out to complete the game, where I would have been in trouble against a wall deck.

Round three, I worried my predator, so he bled me for 9, then for 6 to oust me.

Nap time.  Well, eventually get back to room and turn on ESPN and hope to get over chills time while worrying about packing the next day and running Traveller demos the day I fly out.

I suppose I could mention that I’m such a “_” player that my first VP at Week of Nightmares was my prey transferring out to spite my predator and my second VP was from playing Golconda and my prey just no longer caring what happened.

Sunday

Traveller and traveling.  My demos went fine.  I got rid of playmats but very little of my decks.  I forgot to take pictures (predictably when I have lots of things on my mind).

My flights were much later than I thought, so I hung out briefly in V:TES zone.  Then, recycled air and tight seats for hours.

Oh, what decks did I play Day 1 and Day 2?  Loser decks.  Decks that can’t oust fast.

Thank you to the VTESites for doing WoN, NAC, for hanging out or chatting or whatever.  Thanks to Laz, Matt, et al, for transmuting and hosting my runs.  Thanks to those who talked to me about Traveller, John also helped me have enough playmats to give out to everyone who wanted one.

I did what I planned to do.  Did what I wanted to do.  Did what I was obligated to do.  I hope I enjoy Gen Con 2019 more, though, and Origins 2020.  Sadly, while it was my intention for more than a year to go to the EC this year, work makes that not a possibility.  Guess I won’t take up space in those events, either.

Not quite 3000 words.  Hmmm … my Columbus Airport food experience was vastly inferior to the year before.  I don’t know why I bothered getting anything before my flight.  In the next 200 words, I’ll get into the math of how many Polaris Coaches to run in a 75 card deck …

Oh, just had one last thought.  Hugh, maybe I would use a V:TES playmat if I could win one sometime, also might give me a reason to endeavor more vigorously at the whole winning a tournament thing, which just means ending up feeling disappointed by failure rather than reveling in it.

Capture The Enrapture

Where to begin?

In the absence of getting you all fired up with some hot take, let’s begin with this post’s Ultimate Combat! booster’s wisdom.

Like a spectre she avoided each attack, to win the gold untouched.

My perspective is that Vampire: The Eternal Struggle/Jyhad has by far the best flavor text of any CCG.  Quotes from this world have more gravitas IMO than game related flavor text.  This flavor text starts off kind of cool but becomes rather mundane.

In terms of the card, very expensive but, barring action card counters, far more reliable than various other Limited Edition action card defenses.  Definitely desirable in limited play, and gold belt cards often aren’t really that good due to how many are Environment cards or just some fat technique that you use only once because you don’t have Favorite Technique or Instant Replay in your deck.

A few great masters can drain the essence of life from their opponent, to gain vitality for themselves.

How much does this card owe its existence to Magic?  We are likely to never know, but it’s not only psychic martial arts, a feature of UC! that gets it away from concentrating on real world martial arts fighting, it also has a different font size for its ability due to how complicated its text is and works differently in multiplayer play and the flavor text sounds very much like a Black Sorcery or whatever.

Ah, shrinking text to fit on a card because the designers/developers thought cards with lots of text are a good idea.  A topic that … I’ll probably never use as the thrust of a post but will no doubt bring up since I had to shrink some card text to fit in our latest playtest versions of Traveller CCG cards.  Oh, wow, I’m so clever, I just made my prediction come true.

This is a pack you would far more like to get in a sealed event as Conditioning/Knowledge is heavily featured not only in the two cards above but with the better techniques in the pack.

So, Arrowverse.  Okay, don’t beat me to death or possess me or mirror me away.  I’ll make this relatively quick.  Legends of Tomorrow may be more workplace sitcom than superhero show and may have gone so campy that it isn’t as great as episodes that balanced stuff better, but it’s so much better than the other shows because it’s fun and workplace sitcoms can be enjoyable when they involve time travel, magic, “smashing”, etc.  Arrow just feels like Arrow has felt ever since season two and that’s not a good thing.  I agree that Flash’s villains aren’t compelling, but, then, only one ever has been.  Get thee to a crossover!  Where all of these shows become so much more fun (except LoT, since LoT is far crazier outside the crossovers).

Origins, Gen Con, KublaCon.  All approaching.  I’m running Traveller events at Origins and Gen Con.  Sunday in both cases.  Be there or be rectangular.  Oh, I’m also running events at KublaCon, but that’s not as newsworthy.

I signed up for one event for Origins in prereg.  I glommed on to other forumites’ True Dungeon runs since I’m flying solo at Origins.  I’ll generic the other V:TES tournaments I’m planning on playing.  Gen Con, we just came up with a rough plan for Team Blow (“we don’t suck, we blow”, no, this one isn’t for the ladies, this is actually clever).

The plan doesn’t give me a lot of free slots, even though my HoR footprint is expected to decline significantly.  My TD footprint might increase, see how things turn out with glomming on to forum runs.  Glomming – I feel like Stephen Donaldson after he started trolling his readers.

I had an idea for a post.  I used my mirror match idea for a Developer’s Corner article I sent off to Jeff for the Traveller site.  It predated my watching Miami Connection last night – more about how the songs need to be in our bard’s repertoire than in being a cheesy, weird martial arts movie starring Michael Phelps.  T-shirts are available online.

What was that idea?  I was thinking about something that related to RPGs.

Oh, maybe it was cast size.  Not just Arrowverse having a problem with way, way overblown cast sizes.  Got into a conversation about which Star Trek was the best.  I am of a different generation, not a next generation but more like a prior generation, than some misguided whippersnappers I game with.  TNG is not remotely as good as OT.  OT wasn’t like half spatial/temporal anomalies and OT saw constant beaming down to planets to encounter … humans on other planets.  Phasers were used to shoot rocks a lot.  Anyway.  I was hot-take-persecuted for claiming TNG’s cast was too big.  I had to be reminded Geordi was on the show as I rattled off a bunch of characters who should have been minor characters but weren’t.  I had to look up how to spell Geordi.  I’m not a Geordi hater.  I’m just not into big casts on my adventure shows.

Which brings us back to gaming.  Yeah, I have to mention how I create too many NPCs when I GM my own stuff.  Keep the focus on a manageable number of characters those GMs who do the same things I do.  Let’s look at HoR4.  In HoR2, there was the Toritaka, the gaijin, the Scorpion seeking redemption, the ronin whose character sheet was far cooler than his presence in mods.  Does HoR4 have more NPCs than HoR2?  I don’t know.  It certainly doesn’t have much in the way of memorable ones, so, even if it doesn’t have more, it “has” more.  Focus on a manageable number of characters.  We aren’t going to like them all.  I didn’t look forward to babysitting the Toritaka yet again.  But, it’s okay to have some we don’t care for if there are ones we are given a chance to care for.

OT – where the big two, big three, big two plus others gave us characters I liked.  They didn’t have to have character arcs.  They needed to phaser rocks.

Which brings up another RPG related topic – phasering rocks.  Well, it’s more of a show topic, but we will apply it to gaming.  Do entertaining stuff.  John Carter is not a deep character.  Ignoring the movie, which got his personality totally wrong, JC is all about swordfighting against as many swordfighters as possible for as long as possible.  Plus, he likes to rescue hot chicks.  Yet, give me that sort of “character” over “complex” characters who struggle to get to doing cool stuff.  I don’t need redemption stories or overcoming one’s flaws stories or whatever else passes for “entertainment”.  I need Goku absorbing some of his Spirit Bomb to achieve Ultra Instinct.

Doing cool stuff makes the character cool.  Yeah, I know that sounds weird coming from me, as an example of that could be D&D style play where you don’t give a crap who your PC is beyond the character sheet as you Fireball giants.  But, actually, my issues with D&D style play aren’t Fireballing giants.  Giants deserve it for having higher melee damage outputs than I do.  When our Conan characters took on giants, it was cool.  We may not have Fireballed any of them, though, actually, I think we did fireball at least one either through Defensive Blast or some alchemical weapon.  There was a story, and I envisioned us rescuing hot chicks while we were murdering poor, make-your-massive-damage-save giants.  We weren’t just looking to loot their caves, which is not what I rate as doing cool stuff.

TLROO:  Rocks need phasering.  [What?  Sshhhh …]

Edge Of Gloom

The title of this is so not clever, it’s …

So, first we must consult the wisdom of the Ultimate Combat! booster flavor text.

Dagger strike with the hand, punches through the defense.

I will be punching so daggery no one will ever defense.

Go around, rather than through, the block.

In no way will I address my topics in a roundabout way, so I am doomed to be blocked?

An ax from the sky deals a crushing blow to your head.

Ooh, scratch the dagger thing.  I’m going to crush some heads with my ax.

Mental explosions devastate one’s foundation – wiping the slate clean.

Gosh darn it.  Right when I had ax like focus my slate gets cleaned.

Defense is often weakest following a failed attack.

Well, sure, when you don’t crush a head with an ax, you get someone going around your block.

Run like the horse, and never tire.

Now, look.  Up until this point, every bit of Ultimate Combat! adagizing was entirely incontrovertible.  But, this is just ridiculous.  Horses tire.  Could even argue that horses tire faster than expert runners.  If I can’t trust flavor text from a CCG last sold in 1996, what can I trust?

A whipping arch, Tomita’s instep was an awesome weapon.

So, not that this flavor text is good, but the card is pretty decent.  Black belt Jump Crescent Kick is a 6/5 for 5.  If you wanted big, that’s pritnear the best of the big black belt techniques.  Of course, it’s vastly inferior to …

A spinning elbow to the head can crush resistance like an eggshell.

Ax or spinning elbow?  Both.  Brown belt Elbow Smash is the biggest brown belt technique and comes with a decent cost.  It’s just better than so many black belt techniques on the big side while being brown.  OTOH, my modern view on power management probably means this card isn’t as good as I used to think it was and that I’d be more inclined to a 4/4 for 4 rather than a 5/5 for 5.

When the body is primed, you prepare for dominance.

I am prepared.  Dominance activated.  Save the best for last.  Let’s say you have actually played UC! as unlikely as that is.  Can you think of what card has this flavor text?  If you hadn’t noticed, and I never noticed even though I rose to the exalted heights of brown belt player putting me in the top 10 in the world (based on some list I saw from somewhere).  Let’s just say it’s a really common card and kind of necessary to playing the game.

UC! scores another one over Magic.  Better flavor text on a foundation-al card.

So, something I failed to mention before was learning more about Gloomhaven at DunDraCon.  Oh, I still haven’t played it.  I just have a much clearer understanding why it dominates RPG play.  You don’t need the same people to show up at the same time.  That solves like 96% of all RPG campaign problems.

I feel kind of nostalgia-y mentally.  Like I should be breaking out stuff from the ’80s and reading RPG stuff up until the point that I realize much of what comes from back then, at least in fantasy RPGs, is a bunch of room/monster/treasure descriptions that mean nothing to me unless they involve named animals living in rooms across the hall from each other with broomsticks in the corners.  But, I don’t have a clear enough thought to topicize this nostalgia.

So, let’s jump over to Shadowfist.  One game.  A much better game than the week before.  Why?  Because I whipped out my awesome … deck.  This modest deck.

Name: Forest Futility
Faction: Jammer
Size: 50

Jammer Cards (37)
Characters (26)
1x Demolitions Expert
5x Edge Warrior
1x Gearhead
1x Grenade Posse
2x Gunrunner
1x Napalm Addict
2x Professional Killer
5x Punks
2x Rah Rah Rasputine
2x Resistance Squad
2x Rocket Scientist
1x Titanium Johnson
1x Tunnel Ganger

Edges (2)
2x Payback time

Events (6)
1x Death-O-Rama
2x Disco Inferno
1x Hosed
1x Stick it to The Man!
1x The Underground

Sites (1)
1x Genocide Lounge

States (2)
2x Homemade Tank

Generic Cards (13)
Feng Shui Sites (8)
1x City Hospital
1x Floating Restaurant
1x Heart of the Rainforest
2x Nine Dragon Temple
1x Pinball Arcade
1x Primeval Forest
1x Rainforest Grove

Non Feng Shui Sites (5)
1x Drug Lab
1x Rebel Camp
3x Secret Laboratory

I never drew an Edge Warrior.  I played one Punks.  Resistance Squad got me into Rocket Scientist and Gunrunner and could have gotten me Rah Rah Rasputine early on.  Yes, I play a game with a card named Rah Rah Rasputine.  I may not have a great deck, but I have a great … sense of ha ha?  Rah rah?

My first site was Primeval Forest.  I revealed it on my predator’s turn.  He did not attack it even though I had no characters in play.  It actually was undamaged most of the game, with the Floating Restaurant taking away a plink at one point.

My second site was even more … rah rah – Pinball Arcade.  You gnome you are playing overpowered naansense when you don’t even want to reveal the Arcade until like the fourth successful attack you make.

I discarded both Disco Infernos on turn one to try to get a foundation character.  I played Stick it to The Man! on the last turn of the game, only for the Reascended/Syndicate player to play a second Catching Bullets on an Imprisoned.

This perfectly tuned masterpiece may just be too brilliant for one such as myself.  I may have to messicate it until my feeble flopping powers can flop it good.

So, UC! flavor text and Shadowfist deck.  What’s missing?  Quiet you, you sarcastic folk.  True Dungeon thoughts?

There are threads currently both for 2020 token development and about the widening gap between starter level play and some level of token ownership play.  It’s not extremely clear what the actual problem is.  I may not encourage PUGs to hardcore like I did in the past, but I still think a lot of players could hardcore if they wanted to gain double XP.  As for my token ideas, people assume I’m an imbecile, which is part of the reason I lose interest in sharing thoughts.  Someday, I will be an imbecile, probably sooner than it should be given my unhealthy lifestyle.  But, as I totally have never said in the past because I’m chock full of originality at all spacetimes, a motivation to blog was to reduce having imbecilic forum conversations.

Speaking of my impending imbecilism, I kind of kept forgetting that making old legendaries wasn’t actually that hard for me.  I have a bunch of relics, and old recipes didn’t take a bunch of OOP URs like less old recipes take.  Now, whether I blow through a ton of trade items and gold to bother making legendaries I theoretically could make is another tale.  I should have odd requirements coming in Origins in case I decide I care enough to bother.

I could mention my Origins plans.  V:TES Tuesday night, assuming I can get to the locale in time.  V:TES Wednesday.  V:TES Friday.  V:TES Saturday.  TD all Thursday to make my owning a collection useful.  Traveller Sunday, if the con accepts my event submissions.  That’s not a very clean slate at all – that’s awfully similar to last year.

Origins 2018

I hadn’t been to Columbus in 20 years.  And, that trip to Origins was as a Precedence volunteer where much of my time was spent demoing the Babylon 5 CCG.  The RPG schedule was so boring I didn’t even try.

This year was for two things:  V:TES, True Dungeon.

Even the TD was limited, so let’s start … with Tuesday.

Tuesday, I go to sofa around midnight, not really sleep, and get up at my 2AM alarm.  Quarter to 4AM, Athena and Andy pick me up and we are off to Oakland.

Flights happen.  We arrive before 4PM in Columbus.  We wait a long time for the hotel shuttle, which is aggravating as I’m not sure I’ll make it to the 6PM V:TES tournament on time.  We check in.  We walk to Fabian’s, and we order a deep dish pizza.

V:TESing happens.  I may not have the starting players right in all of these rounds.  I knew some of the names when I was playing but have since forgotten.

Round 1:

Will (Sabbie 2 caps) -> ?? (Trem stuff) -> Mark (Summon History) -> Ian (HoS 3/4 toolbox) -> Jay (Nos prince/support)

As Mark said, I didn’t have much of a game.  I hung around for a while with potential answers to being rushed by Remnant of the Endless Storm, but it wasn’t like I was flowing cards.  Actually, I shouldn’t have gone in for the terrorism that is Outside the Hourglass and Domain of Evernight and just made some effort to block things, especially once I was never going to be a predator in the game.

Mark was not in a great position, but I got ousted and continued to eat pizza.

The pizza was not good.  I like Fabian’s well enough and they were good to us, but the crust was too dry, the cheese was overwhelming compared to the toppings, the toppings were very meh.  I’m willing to try thin crust, probably without cheese.  Then, Andy didn’t get a chance to eat any until it was coldish.

Round 2:

John (SB) -> Maria (Newjah) -> Ian -> Andy (borrowed FoS SB)

This was set up ludicrously well for me in that John kept continuous pressure on Maria, keeping her from dominating.  I got out a couple of Emerald Legionnaires, almost completely botched bleeding Andy for 3 with permanents on my HoS by playing Call of the Hungry Dead needlessly at superior rather than inferior emptying one of my dudes.  Drew a Blood Doll, pushed, killed Andy, ousted John after fending off attempts to keep him in the game, then raced Maria in the endgame where I played around Archon Investigation and could bleed for 11 or whatever on my turn with three HoS and Emeraldness.

Sometimes you sweep because it’s hard to mess up your position.

Finals:

Kelly (Pre/Obf vote) -> ?? (Mistress Fanchion doesn’t do it all) -> Ian -> Mark -> ??

I blanked on my predator’s name but should be obvious to anyone else being one of two women playing.  Grandprey was the same from round one, I read his name during the first round but forgot.

Kelly ran over the table as his prey didn’t have any game and his predator didn’t have enough intercept and Mark couldn’t get ally rush going fast enough.  I did survive longer than expected, but that just delaying tacticsed the inevitable.

Andy had already left since he wasn’t in the finals.

Wednesday

The day of more V:TESing.

Nobody expects …

Round 1:

Mark (Trem toolbox) -> Kelly (High cap Lasombra w/ Fort) -> Ian (Sea Pirates redux) -> Karl (Wolves Feed !Tor w/ Gerald FG)

Ambrosio takes an action, Mark blocks and ‘schrecks, I had an Anarch Convert out.  I debate what to do.  I mention the possibility of a deal, but I don’t know if Kelly was listening, so I eventually eat.  I play in the dark poorly by forgetting a way to reduce one of Mark’s bleeds and cycle a card and am ousted pretty easily and Mark eventually sweeps.

Just a not good game.

Round 2:

Ian -> Tom (Tunnel Runner) -> Jay (Samedi) -> John (THA close range combat)

I let Tom get a Tunnel Runner and Jay’s game sucks.  My Nadima does stuff but trying to police forwards and fight backwards and not be Pentexed does me in, eventually.

Next tournament, I decide to play the FoS SB deck with some slight changes because I was all about trying to simplify my tournaments.

Round 1:

?? (Una and DoC) -> Adam (!Brujah Undue Influence) -> Mark (5 discipline, including Dom, Nos-ish) -> Ian (FoS SB) -> Ben (borrowed Nos Anathema)

This was pure.  The sacred playing of numerous Delaying Tactics brought righteous glory to some involved.  Mark did hardly anything to me, Immortal Grapple twice in one fight and just hitting for one each time.  I kept getting vote damage aimed at me from other than my predator.

Adam and I dealt with the idea that Mark would go and I’d be unmolested until Ben was gone.  Ben was at 2 pool and had virtually no defense against my bleeding in his deck.  Angela Preston was Famed and in torpor.  Una tried to rescue, Anathemaed Una.  Ben gained 9 pool.  Adam and I talked about his going forward when he was near death and I was fine with it.  I did mention that I had enough bleed to reduce Ben to 1 in hand.  My top card would have been enough to remove Ben.  I played like two DT, Adam played like six.

Round 2:

Ian -> Karl (vote) -> Mark -> Ben -> Adam

My focus was on playing a table with four of the same players, so I didn’t care much about Karl’s deck.  More DTs.  More DTs.

I’m blanking on what happened besides more DTs, Ben calling KRC of 1 on himself and 3 on his predator and the only person displeased was his prey.  Seriously, I don’t remember how things shook out as I was just in DT nirvana.  I did DT, myself, to cycle.

Forgot my credit card at Fabian’s because I’ve never left my CC with restaurants before.  Ben helps me settle my “tab” (even though I got everything I wanted before tournament two) and holds my card for Thursday.  I should mention that my food was much better, in particular the tater tots from the sister restaurant were better than usual.

Thursday

Time to get serious … ly ousted.  While I had options for a tournament I couldn’t play the finals of due to True Dungeon scheduled for after the tournament is supposed to end (but won’t), I settled on HoS FoW as something fun that actually has any ousting power.

Then, I find out there’s going to be another hour taken up with a food break.  Burn.

Round 1:

John (Ass anarch vote) -> Kate (DoC vote) -> Karl (Art of Memory Dom/Obt) -> Darby (“fun” Bribes) -> Ian (Blessed Resilience pure HoS)

Darby kept referring to my bleed deck as an intercept deck.  Having no votes, I was not involved in the numerous discussions on whether to help Darby pass votes or not.  While Karl could theoretically bleed for 18 in one turn, his turns didn’t tend to be 18ish.  So, Darby often had lots of pool or gained back what he lost.  Kate is not all that experienced (we knew each other from NoCal) and probably overcomplicated playing Lily Preludes, as Darby didn’t get permavotes until late and John and Karl each had one (John’s one hurt him as his dude couldn’t anarch up).  John is low at some point, but a vote passes to give him lots of pool and that makes my game unlikely to proceed.

On turn two, Darby vote bled me for 7.  About 100 to 105 minutes into the game, John back ousts me with a vote as it also kills Kate and the game can properly time out at that point.

Round 2:

Ian -> Alex (IC stuff?) -> John (Trem stuff?) -> Alexandre (anarch) -> Karel (!Ventrue bleed)

I doubt my deck could ever play as smoothly as it did in this game.  I get out Erlik who gives me Mina on the same turn.  I bleed, I Rapid Heal, I Summon Soul, I Emerald, I … before the end, my prey brings out Rafael de Corazon, who becomes Legendary, calls Reins of Power, and votes 7 against … bring out Erebus to go to 2 pool.  Rafael gets by my two intercept with a vote and back ousts me to give a Dominate bleed deck a new prey.  Somehow, that worked for him.

Finally, we have True Dungeon happen.  I mean, sure, I had already done transmutes that morning and the transmute room folks were superhelpful for getting me out of the room.

Into the Shadowlands

So, I’m the one who used our patron code to sign up for this patron event.  No point in spoiling anything.  I did prove not useless with the first room puzzle.  I barbarianed to occasionally do damage, though not 60 at a shot like the rogue and there was one fight where I missed like every round with my +16 to hit.  Ah, high level play.

Respectfully, I didn’t find it that interesting.  One of the things that’s very clear is how really uninteresting TD combat is.  I want it to be challenging but also for there to be some context.  Challenging isn’t hard [foreshadowing alert, foreshadowing alert].  The problem I noticed more at Origins, maybe just because I hadn’t played in a while, is how you have no real concept of what’s going on in combat.  Did I contribute?  7% of the damage?  22% of the damage?  How do my choices matter?  At a certain point, if you win, the table just gets wiped clear of sliders and it feels oh so hollow most of the time.

I thought the event would feel more different.  Sure, there was metagamey stuff to rein in brokenness, but I couldn’t even tell whether that mattered.

Break time.

True Raid

While occasionally entertaining and probably much more so for those who 20ed their Death Dies, this became monotonous to me.  I liked what happened to spellcasters because it forced me to do something besides “Spellswap to Magic Missile, MEC, another 36 damage.”  I traitored and, thus, was the last to be slain.  I would have vastly preferred a different set up with more variety to the fights.  It just felt like an exercise after a certain point as victory was never going to happen.

I did something like 300 damage to Lorigorgon, 52 to PCs with my last two spells, 23 to all PCs with my last Burning Hands, had a bunch of spells rejected …, and it felt like it meant nothing.  Sure, I could have more efficiently used my Lightning Storms to do more damage, but it was more interesting filling out paperwork up until the point I was a traitor.  Actually, failing to hit in melee combat because my build was not built for anything besides casting and surviving was mildly amusing.

Andy had more to do as he didn’t have as many spells rejected and he survived a long time as a non-traitor.

We hit a pub near the hotel, which became the norm.  I had the stromboli, which was really a calzone, but I don’t terribly care.  Too cheesy for eating that late in the day, but it was good, otherwise.

Friday

Day one.  The proof is in the puddinghead plays.

Round 1:

Jay (ANI/THA) -> Ian (THA horde) -> Jesper (Nergal Beast) -> James (high cap Ventrue) -> ?? (POT/Dom)

I could have played this game really differently.  I could have played The Name Forgotten on Nergal before Unleash and Beast got out and could block it.  I let Jesper play his game.  He got the game win.  But, what confused me a lot was how little ability to survive James had.  I thought he would vote and fill up or bounce more or something so that he wasn’t taking constant bleeds from Nergal and Beast.

Jay was frustrated by my inability to go forward, but just because I brought out Hannigan and gave him DOM, then Muaziz and gave her DOM didn’t mean I could actually pressure my prey without Create Gargoyles, which Jay blocked.  Lot of bounce, not bounce, whatever at end.

Round 2:

Karl (!Tor anarch bleed) -> Will (AUS/Obf) -> Ian -> Martin (PRE bleed w/ AUS) -> Adam (ANI and …)

For a short time, this game was set up really well for me.  Martin had very little pool, Adam never got going.  But, as usual, I couldn’t finish and Martin got Adam, and Will got tapped out by Anarch Troublemaker and couldn’t use his bleed defense.  The endgame ground to a halt with Martin not wanting to go forward with my threat of bouncing, Karl somewhat spinning his wheels, and my being kind of impotent.  Karl contested Carlton and I should have bled for the edge rather than Blood Doll hunt.  Eventually, Karl double bounced and Archoned on the same action and I couldn’t deal with a load of minions.  Martin didn’t have any game by the time I was gone.

Round 3:

Elon (Baali vote) -> Pete (!Tor) -> ?? -> Ian -> Sam

This was odd.  I should have gotten 4 vps with how it played out as I could have saved Elon not once but twice, with the second time ousting Sam while Elon was at 1 pool with two tapped Baali.  My predator transferred low enough for Pete to oust him.  I had Carlton and Ponticulus right away and my predator’s first minion was … Stanislava.  But, I didn’t care.

Sam would bleed a lot for 1.  I bled a lot for 1.  Pete held on long enough for me to oust Sam but had little pool at that point and I had an impregnable wall with my ability to get to two intercept.

What made it odd?  Sam’s deck does like one thing.  Elon got into a position where he couldn’t do anything pretty quickly with just Nakhthorheb and Waters behind him.

N1 – Astral Bliss

Final TD event.  Even more important not to spoil this as many will be doing it for the first time at Gen Con.  There were good things about it.  I didn’t find it to be the best thing ever.  I preferred GC 2017’s Moongate combat.  A question, how interesting is up to the reader, is:  What do I actually enjoy about TD?  I enjoy other people being clever.  I enjoy the camaraderie.  I enjoy thinking about builds (but not so much writing them out as they tend to be very similar to each other).  I enjoy having certain tokens.

My build for this run, btw, was a ranged monk.  I went minimalist, even though my build was kind of more oriented to normal than hardcore.  My damage bonus was too low for hardcore.  I could fix that easily, but it would mess with the aesthetic of the build.  What wasn’t too low was my 39 hit points.  I liked feeling in danger and needing healing.  To play TD and be “Well, I’m down 40, but I’m okay.” is not enough tension.

I still had people use my melee stats, which were like +1/+1 vs. my ranged of +25/+2.  Part of the balance of playing at levels that aren’t that hard.  Fortunately, the six person group had a fighter who could consistently do 30+ to make up for my impotence and Andy’s druid was probably doing good damage.

Saturday

Day two.  Every cat has his day.

Round 1:

Kelly (Cybele and friends w/ Striga) -> Ian (my vampires have Obfuscate) -> Hugh (borrowed Summon History ally) -> Bob (!Ventrue Grinder?) -> Adam (Palla Grande)

The best thing about not having stealth in my first 31 cards is that I got to put out a bunch of permanents that nobody cared about and a couple of my Conceals got through due to the swarm factor.  I burned Ankara three times by the end.  One of those times was a horrible mistake, the kind of mistake that losers make, losers with blogs.  I burned a Renegade Garou with DBR.  I only really got beaten down by a Rock Cat after I failed to topdeck a third stealth card in the first 42 cards which would have ousted Hugh, though I could have swarm ousted Hugh with just my board if I didn’t trust in the heart of the cards.

Of course, my deck with all OBF vampires except one is barely running any stealth, only 22 stealth cards, so it’s understandable that I should have played smart and not like I just got embraced last week.  Not that I think I get Bob, but 1 VP is 1 VP more than 0 VPs.

Round 2:

Karl (FoS anarch vote) -> Jesper (Deep Song bleed) -> John (Trem toolbox) -> Ian -> Robert (Malgorzata and friends vote)

Karl survived longer than he should have, which got him a VP.  Jesper beat John down hard early to where John never had game.  John wasn’t expecting my deck to wake as much as it did, which meant he couldn’t lunge and I wasn’t terribly afraid of combat.  I got out lots of ranged weapons.  Anarch Troublemaker was rather important.

I Concealed Creepshow Casino in the endgame after Robert got 2 VPs, which Robert let through.  He also didn’t play around my weapons well.  Newer than most to the game, some better decisions and I wouldn’t have ousted him after I diablerized all of his guys right before time.  Also, earlier, probably could have played differently to get two easy VPs.  Learning experience.

Round 3:

Ian -> Alexandre (Vignes) -> Pete (Ventrue Grinder) -> Brad (FoS w/ Dom Corruption) -> Bill (PRO/Dom w/ intercept)

Even with my dispensing with cards that can provide stealth and with a Free States Rant crosstable, Vignes still took out Pete.  If not for that, I would have had two easy VPs as Alexandre wasn’t doing so great.  Meanwhile, I ignored Bill who tooled up with lots of intercept and Brad never felt confident going forward, so I eventually got worn down by bleeds in the endgame.

While I could be frustrated by how my Day One deck couldn’t lunge, what was different about these events is that I was actually capable of threatening my prey most of the time, with the one game of Nergal being a case where I think I just end my prey’s game on turn three if I choose to and end up ineffectual instead.  The plan of lowering crypt capacities and focusing on getting more minions in play seemed to work in general.  Now, the issue remains that with my banned list, there are a lot of ways to improve ousting power I don’t have access to, but that just means I embrace voting … because everyone loves voting.  Everyone.

For all intents and purposes, it’s pink lemonade time as I wasn’t going to play in the finals on Sunday and no more transmuting to do for TD.  To the pub for more lemonade.  I finally got the $4 double burger.  I was not surprised that it was a slider.  It was a very thick slider.  Certainly, I understand the price point.

Oh, speaking of food, didn’t mention my getting Tibetan dumplings (too chewy), brisket and rib tips (kind of overpriced for the quality in my mind), lamb curry with a lassi (lassi was quite good, rest was okay) from North Market, getting many smoothies from the convention center with my first Buckeye being really, really good and the other being kind of watered down, with the Strawberry Sunrise being just too pineappley.  Got food at the airport on the way back and it was pretty good and like $10 for a full size sandwich and a 20oz drink – I’m increasingly a fan of smaller airports.

Sunday

One more tournament I can’t win.

Round 1:

Ian (Indie Gargoyles) -> Mark (Nos Royalty Disarm) -> Peter (Baron something) -> Brad (Ani/Obt)

This was entertaining for how sad and pathetic we all were at ousting our prey.  Ferox rushed Sheldon.  Sheldon got torped.  Peter got Fee Stake: New York with Calebros in play.  Because of the recent forum post on vekn.net, I remembered the contestation penalty barons have, so Ferox had to empty Calebros in torpor.

While Mark and Peter got pool deprived to the point of it being laughable and more laughable, Brad just achieved infinite power.  I kept waiting for a crosstable Parity Shift, which got DTed.  Mark only ousted because Peter did a thing with a Famed vampire.  Mark and Brad stalled out in the endgame.

Round 2:

Darby (DoC vote) -> Robert (Malgorzata again) -> David (Summon History Inceptor) -> Alexandre (Malk anarch) -> Ian

“Darby, if I don’t oust you now, I don’t think I’ll ever oust you.  So, I’m done, go ahead.”  I, then, took a restroom break.  When I got back, Darby was ousted, so, as usual, I’m psychic … because I didn’t oust him.

David got a VP because somehow Alexandre just kept eating bleeds of four from Codex.  Robert got a VP because David’s game was impaired by Washes and Suddens.  I didn’t get ousted with four cards left and one untapped minion against Malgorzata, Oriandus, Polly.

Welp, that’s V:TES.  All things can be predicted at the beginning of every game and you’ll lose games because your grandprey tries to rescue a vampire from torpor.

On the way to the airport, Andy and I discussed my next deck construction method.  Let’s see how secret sauce works this weekend …

While no gaming event at Origins was great, I’d still say the overall experience was greatish.  The best part was hanging out with people better at winning V:TES than I am.  Better hotel next year would improve things.  Trying thin crust might be better, especially with no cheese.  Maybe I’ll even play a Dominate card besides Deflection in one of my decks, like, uh, Autonomic Mastery.

Andy really liked the size of the convention.  I really liked having a two minute walk between V:TES and TD, as opposed to rushing for a 15 minute hussle between hotels to make RPGs.  Still, Origins and Gen Con provide two very different opportunities for me, so I’d much rather have both be the norm.

Thanks to Black Chantry folks and Jay for V:TES events.  Thanks to Mongo for getting my transmutes done faster than they deserved to be.  Thanks to my fellow dungeonites for putting up with my dungeon demeanor.