So three weeks ago, there was this tournament and I have finaly gathered enough strength and enthusiasm to write a short report mainly from my point of view.
In the end, I have chosen my Scout and Friends deck, which I have played on EC day2. There were a lot of reasons. I have played a lot of blockish decks lately and some of them could get really anoying when messing with predators game or even cross table players and I really was not into that. Secondly, I wanted to play something, that goes forward and just does stuff. And lastly, I did not want to play anything with dominate, since I really do not like that discipline lately.
We got a lot of last minute dropouts, so we ended up with only 16 players, so there were 4-player tables. It would make sense to switch deck right then and I had really good options with me, but I just did not feel like going for the advantage, since it would break all three reasons, I have stated before.
Game 1:
Me - Malgorzata & Friends - Gangrel allies - obf+aus toolbox
So naturally, there was no Dmitra in my starting crypt and with desperate need of justicar, I had to bring Mary Anne Blaire up, which was just retarded. Without ability to play stealth, all my early actions were blocked by my predator and I had to use most of my combat cards to save Mary from flamethrowers, yay. I finally got two parity shifts - one forward and one backwards, but it just ended up being bad. My predator had to play defensive, but I hurt him too much and my prey had started to be defensive too, so Gangrel allies had free reign. At one point, I almost got the game, but Direct intervention on Anarchist uprising ended my hopes. I was not able to oust even my prey after that and allies got 4 VP.
Game 2:
!Tor palla grande - different !Tor w/ palla grande - Me - !Salubri
I do not remember this game very clearly, but again, I had problems with my stealth cards to a point, where I got Monastery of Shadows into a game. After that it was a race between me an my cross-table "buddy," where we both ousted our preys, but in the end, luck was on my side and I was able to finish him with anarchist uprising and ancilla in the same turn. So 3VP for me.
Game 3:
Me - Eurayle + Friends bleed - Salubri impersonations - Gerald Windham and Friends
So I got early Dmitra, my prey Eurayle, my cross-table buddy matthew for 10 pool (yay scarce!) and my predator Gerald. As I have said, this deck was chosen mainly for its ability to go forward, but I was scared as hell. Gerald can bleed and deflect, both of which would have killed me in time... very short time. So I have villeined dmitra for 8 and played Temptation of Greater power and got Gerald for something more than 10 pool. That is the point, where I should have won this game. Well, I did not. Little bad luck with card draw, little distraction (boy I hate, when someone talks to me during a game) and looooot of realy stupid choices on my side. My prey have ended up with getting 4 VPs and it was all my fault. I have ended up softening during a game, doing one point of KRC to myself instead of someone else, and I was killed by exact ammount of bleed, but that is just one of many mistakes.
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I have ended sixth, which will probably be my favourite place with this deck, but I have confirmed a few things.
1) This deck is good, I mean really good. Of course, it has its problems, but every deck has those.
2) I am still not able to play it to its fullest potential, no matter how much I have trained with it.
3) I am still unable to make very hard choices under pressure and I offten tend to underestimate some minor issues and doing mistakes in the end.
4) I think, that my deckbuilding skills have improved a lot during past year, but I am getting more and more annoyed by lucky draws. Since I have optimized some of my decks, they have started to work against odds. 11 governs and 7 deflections in 70 card deck - first game, I got first deflection after 30-35 cards, second game, first govern shows after 20 cards - and it really starts to freak me out, because it happens so often, that it is against all odds. And the feeling to go and hang myself returns after every player, who has 1 in 90 chance to draw silver bullet and he just does. Well, you should se me roll some dice during RPG session.
Enough ranting for today. I will be maybe writting something about finals later, but I will certainly publish another "Thoughts about cards" article soon.
See you next time....
First of all let me tell you that I found your deck really strong. I was trying to build something competitive with Dmitra (to play parity shift) and Scout (to play shattering crescendo) but I didn't manage to build something good enough to get GWs. That was until I saw this deck in Secret Library. Sixth position in the second day of the EC meant that it had to be good. The fact that it was a really slim and focused deck with Undele to recover the stuff you need, drew me even more my attention because I love slim decks.
ReplyDeleteWith this deck as a reference, I built something similar lowering the crypt cap of non-star vampires, adding Arishat, Karen and Graham which almost grants political lock as well, and if not you can always play shatterings to send voting vampires to torpor. I slightly modified the library too, adding a few freak drives for multiaction and focusing stealth cards in into thin air and forgotten labyrinth. The result was the one I expected: a solid political deck which can face almost any kind ok deck (thanks to shatterings).
I lent the deck to a friend for a tournament and he won the tournament. Each time it is played in casual games it has all player's respect. What else can I say? :) As you say, this deck is really good!
I just wanted you to know that your deckbuiling skills are great, so keep on builing! ;)