This is actually first official tournament in my home city after a long time. There have been many unofficial, but promo cards from The Lasombra were very strong incentive. Thanks to post office, cards didn´t arrive in time for tournament, but we have luckily decided to play constructed in advance and so the absence of cards wasn´t a problem. But I hope, they will turn out really soon. I was a little nervous about choosing which deck I will use at this tournament. I have built pretty strong IC politics deck based on AUS + OBF + PRE, which i have been testing for a few weeks, but although it had great results, it wasn´t as much fun for me. I actually chose my slightly boosted tremere politics, which is listed below.
Thirteen players arrived for this event and there was large selection of diferent decks. Including mine, there was two politics deck, two stealth bleeds, one imbued deck, two obfuscate+procurer+vessel swarm based decks, one una freakshow, Nergal + Call of the Great beast, tzimisce wall, weenie animalism, one really weird setite toolbox and sensory deprivation/nightmare curse deck.
I was pretty scared from some of those decks - una for example, or the sensory deprivator, since i knew both of those and there were fairly strong. On the other hand i knew, that my deck can be fairly strong if i can ensure good card cycling and given a little time at the start of the game.
First table didn´t look to my favor - i hate walls. Seating was:
1) My tremere
2) Tzimisce wall
3) The sensory deprivator
4) Animalism weenie + Nana Buruku
I started discarding my actions from the start, because I knew, that wall deck would not let me pass any political action, so I have decidet to play some blocking on my own and hope to have a little luck. Right at the start I was able to torporize Caliban and also Nana Buruku, both of them were diablerized by my vampires. It gave me a little space, but players started to be more cautios about me. Who would blame them. I was lucky, that my combat is really strong against animalism, so ma predator have to stop bothering me - I had three vampires out - Malgorzata, Poly Kay Fisher and Ladislas Toth the Torch and my crosstable buddy started to make his move. Unfortunatelly he was backrushed and all but one of his vampires were torporized. Finally he was ousted and both players have decided, that I am greates threat on the table, so I ended up with Pentex and one almost drained vampire in my controlled region. Luckily I have prepared strong combat hand through cycling cards. First I have torporized all weenies from my predator and because of mistakes of my prey, I was able to oust him and finaly kill even that horrible animalism deck. First table GW and 3 VP for me.
Second table had a great potential for me.
1) Swarm obf+procurers
2) The sensory deprivator
3) Nergal powerbleed
4) My tremere
5) Setite toolbox
I was looking forward to redirecting most of the nergals bleed and adding damage from my politics, but unfortunately it wasnt going as smooth as it looked at first. I have scored some politics, but was forced to make a few not so good deals, so the damage from my Kine resources has been a little scattered and I had to throw some of them to Nergal, since his deck was starting to look really scary. I have of course redirrected some of them, but thanks to spying missions, there wasn´t as much effect I have expected. At the and I made a deal with the ob swarm. He wont give me any trouble when I´ll try to oust my prey and I won´t throw any politics his way. I was really in tight spot, so this deal was better for me, than it looks. Still after ousting my prey I was quickly killed by weenies. Damn luck. Swarm - GW 4 VP
Third table was actually pretty evil for me:
1) My tremere
2) Imbued
3) Tzimisce wall
4) Swarm obf+procurers
Seriously why? I started of with a few well aimed politics, but then was stuck to desperately cycle for combat, that was effective against imbued and also telepathic misdirections. This game was long and boring for me. I was able to reduce my preys pools to 1 last, but failed to oust him. This resulted in swarm bleed sweeping the table. Swarm GW 4 VP
It was time for finals and I was actually pretty pleased. There were two decks I wasn´t afraid of, but on the other hand two deck I was pretty scared of - both of them chosing there seating after me (Una and Swarm obf+procurers). I was actually pretty pleased, that Una was as scared of my deck as I was of her and her owner chose to sit crosstable. And to my damn luck, Swarm obf+procurers chose spot as my predator. Oh come on! Finals seating:
1)Weenie animalism
2) Una freakshow
3) Setite toolbox
4) Swarm obf+procurers
5) My tremere
The game started as everyone expected. I have influenced out Carna and Anastaz di Zagreb, my predator some weenies which were slowed down by my Scourge of the Enochians. And Una torporized all animalism weenies and setites in front. Her player was left with only 6 pools and he underestimated my fear of Una. After i had redirected bleed for 4 at two stealth, I threw Kine resources for two his way and played Ancient Influence to both boost my pool ad do five damage to my prey currently without vampires. Unfortunately setite was also without vampire and my politics gave him a hard time. So I was stuck with fairly strong prey and predator and no VP at this point. Thanks to telepathic misdirection, I was able to score some damage to my prey and do some stalling at the same time, because weenies were afraid of doing damage to my prey, which have actually gotten really damaged with my politics and redirected bleeds. At the end I had 3 vampires out - Carna, Anastaz and Ladislas. I have sacrificed Carna, so that my prey could not rescue from torpor only vampire, that still had a raven spy. This would have killed me. I have played Dreams of the Sphinx on my last turn, and then finished of my prey and did four damage to my pred (and newly also prey) with neonate breach - I absolutely love this political card. After that I finished him with Kine resources, which I have replaced for neonate breach. I am actually a little sad, that it was so close. Odds were actually good for me and it wasn´t as lucky as it sounds, but it simply does not look good. Finals - Me GW and 3 VP
I have to say, that the competition was very strong and I am glad, that there was so few straightforward bleed decks. On the other hand I am little dissapointed by the random seating. There were few decks, that I haven´t seen through entire tournament. I have actually prevented same predator-prey relationships to happen according to rules, but it simply wasn´t as random as I wanted it to be. I wasn´t sure, that there would be a computer present, so I didn´t have Archon with me and we were stuck with hat and little pieces of paper - hurray for old school:) I will be back with more info after I get all the pictures from both photographs.
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