5 Reasons why I like Anarch Revolt

I have "discovered" this card few years ago and got really interested. It wasn't played in our playgroup at all before then (or very little). After witnessing Lutz and converts with mass revolts and banishments, it got me thinking. Now I have two decks with them and I am struggling to not put them in others. I do not want to overflow our metagame with them, so I will probably keep it to two decks maximum, but I just wanted to express how much I like this card and why.

1) Pool damage

I will start with obvious one. If it is left unchecked on table and no one else is anarch, It keeps doing 4 pool damage between your two rounds. If it stays there 5 rounds, that is 20 pool damage for one master card and that is just brutal.

2) Blood loss

Sometimes players will want to prevent themselves from taking damage from multiple revolts, they will go anarch the old fashioned way. Even when it would be done by each player in first round which that revolt hits the table, that is still 8 blood lost on the table. And all of other players were hit for one pool in that round. Which again is 4 pool damage. Additionaly, everyone spends one action doing something else, that their deck is not supposed to do initially. And that is huge loss for most decks.

3) Actions wasting

Depending on how heavy are these featured in your deck, players might start removing those revolts from play as soon as they hit the table. Although that might seem as the worst possible option for you (and it often is), it is still wasting action. More often than less, it is your predator or prey removing that card. If your prey removes it, that means that you hit him for one pool, your cross-table "buddies" are safe and he spent one action doing something else than tooling up. This is still better than if he done govern superior. If your predator has done the removing, that is even better. You just scored 4 pool damage and your predator is doing something else than tooling up or trying to oust you.

4) Speeding up the table

Whichever option is happening with those revolts, the end results are, that there are less pool on the table, less blood on the table or less tooling up. Usually that means the games are quicker, there usually are no time outs and you are not so tired after three rounds of playing. I am a fan of this, since I do not like to play until time ends, since those games are tiresome and usually not as interesting.

5) More dynamic games

When players loose their resources, they tend to do something about it. Even hardcore block decks are forced to act - either to remove revolts or make themselves anarch. They can be blocked doing this. Players that would go for removing revolts may vote against just because their prey is dying quicker than them. If nobody is able to remove them, they just go forward and try to oust their prey. Usualy there are more actions, more blocking and more interactions between players. I have experienced few games where there were 4 block decks and for two hours, almost nothing happened. I hate those games and with few revolts, they just do not happen.

That is basically it. There are some cards, that can produce similar effect, but I really like these. I am not fan of them as only ousting mechanism, but they are great as support for almost every anarch deck. Of course having too much of these deck could eventualy distort playgroups, which tend to get smaller and smaller and that players would deploy counterstrategies and eventualy the playstyle of group may chage. That is one reason why i keep only two decks with them. Another problem, which you can expect is anarch decks on the table. Your revolts won't slow them down and they may even profit from them more than you. That is why it is important to have more options for ousting.

Well that is all from me now. Just wanted to share one of my favourite cards. If you disagree with anything or just want to add som facts, feel free to comment below.

See you next time...

How I failed at the Czech ECQ

I was prepared, that I won't be playing if the number of player would be wrong and I was pretty content with that. But in the end, pretty large number of players did not show and we ended up with 12 players only. 13 including myself, so I've played. I was not feeling entirely well after friday night, so I have chosen my Aksinya Shattering deck.

1st Game:

Aksinya's Shattering - Muaziz rush/amaranth-Vignes-Kiasyd s/b

I knew what my prey was playing and he knew my deck as well. I brought up Aksinya, he transfered Muaziz. I was pretty sure I would be able to deal with him, that I will be going backwards and try to shatter kiasyd, even offered to not redirect bleeds. Well, no chance. Aksinya was amaranthed. So Lula Burch bled him for four and was eaten. I started to transfer Aksinya out again, since it was my only option, but i knew from the start, that there was no time. So I died and table vas taken by Vignes, because he cannod be rushed.

Vignes 3 VP GW
Kiasyd s/b 1 VP

2nd Game:

Gerald Windham bleed - Mordechai Block - DoC Crescendos - Aksinya's Shattering

I was expectin this game to be pretty interesting. Balancing table, spending blood carefuly and be ready for crescendos.  Well, not the case. I did like 2 actions in this game. Third was lokis gift, which was DIed. My predator did 42 crescendo damage to my minions until I was finaly down and after that he bled me out. In the meantime, Mordechai was ousted, since Gerald had now push from me. In the end Gerald had taken the table, because my predator had ran out of crescendos. After this game, I have done 3 acions in total.

Windham 3 VP GW
DOC Crescendos 1 VP

3rd Game:

Antonio & Nephandi - Stanislava - Aksinya's Shattering - Mordechai Block - Muaziz Rush/amaranth

Well this game was not looking good from seating at all. Since I run very little stealth, mordechai was just too much. And I was not very fond of Stanislava either. But to my surprise, stanislava never got out due to early nephandus push and Mordechai was torporized by muaziz. I was able to kill them both and Nephandi ousted Stanislava. In the end I was missing one stealth or needed my revolts more early. Four of five revolts were in the last twelve cards. So no luck for me and I was ousted.

Me 2 VP
Antonio & Nephandi 3 VP GW

The last game would have been enough to qualify for Ec, which I still am not. There is no need to say, that I did not make it to finals. There is no detailed report from me, but it was won by Stanislava with 4 VP. Two games were crap and I did not qualify. Needles to say, that I was not in a best of moods. But what the hell. I missed Stockholm and I really do not want to miss Mannheim, so I will try to qualify and hope to meet everyone there.

See you next time...

Czech ECQ and Council in the Woods Storyline

I am preparing for next week right now. Czech ECQ and storyline will be held in Bystřička in Motobar Royal Star. Since I will be running the event, there is pretty good chance I will not be playing at all. It is a little sad, but I am ok with both options. When playing, I will probably choose very simple deck, so I can perform my duties and there will be very little distractions. On the other hand if not playing, I will be qualified for EC and event will more likely run smoothly.

Although the event wasn't advertised too much, we hope for good attendance and many players will be staying overnight for a storyline. The venue has beds for 30 people, but the main room should support at least 50 players if needed.

There will be some casual games and drinking on friday, ECQ on saturday and storyline on sunday. Anyone can participate in any event, but i recommend trying them all for good experience. For the ecq there will be standard tournament rules and will be played with 3R+F with 2 hours time limit for each round including finals. As for the storyline....

“Wake up, guests are on the way.”

“Really? Is it time for snack again?”

“Not that kind of guests. Apparently we were chosen for some big time meeting. I am not sure, who are they, but it looks pretty serious. I mean, there should be at least twenty delegates and they’re going to negotiate something.”

“Why would anyone that important want to meet here? They are usually used to their luxury items”

“I really do not want to know and you should not either. We just have to make sure they are comfortable and their needs are taken care of.”

“Ok, so we need to prepare for twenty of them? That should not be too complicated.”

“Twenty VIPs, but they will have their entourage with them. So this place will be packed to the roof and there will be conflicts. We need to make sure there won’t be any faux pas.”

“Each delegation will get their lackey? There should be enough of them ready. I’m glad we were prepared. I will make sure they will attend to all their needs.”

“Double check on that. If someone gets pissed or if someone manages to use those lackeys against their party, we won’t live another day and it will not be pleasant. According to my info, these will be real beasts. They will probably not talk at all. All of those “talks” will be handled by their younger ones, but rest assured – they will have backup in case anything goes wrong. We have to be careful, or this place will go nuclear.”

“We should begin with the preparation right now. And hope that it will be enough.”

One after another, windows in the old house came back to life with movement and light. It will be ready for you and your minions. What about you? Will you be ready?

Rules

·        Each player receives one „Lackey“ card depending on his selection. It should be placed in a sleeve in front of a regular crypt card. In the beginning of each game it should be placed in his uncontrolled region. Lackeys are not unique and do not contest each other. They are considered independent clanless vampires. When they enter play from the uncontrolled region for the first time, their controller must choose a clan and they are enslaved to that clan for the remainder of the game.

·        Each player starts with the “Friends in High Places” in play.

·        At least 75% (e.g., 9 out of 12) of the minions in each player’s crypt must be of the same clan.

·         Slave minions (except Lackeys) can take directed actions even if there is no ready member of their enslaving clan in play.

·        There is no pool cost for moving a scarce minion into your ready region.

·        All storyline cards will be provided by organizer and you need only to bring spare sleeves for them

Cards

If you would like to attend this event, please let me know so I can have some estimate about number of people (booked rooms and food portions estimate) we should expect. Also note, that the venue only accepts czech currency and room space is limited. I will answer any question within 24 hours so feel free to ask me about anything regarding this event. Even when arriving on last minutes notice, I am sure there will be place to sleep and something to eat and definitely someone to play with, but at least some notice would be nice.

See you next time...

Still alive

I have not posted anything in a while. Seems unrelated, but probably from time I have been given NC position for Czech Republic, things just started to be more hectic. We had a little drop in attendance on our thursday plays. Still I have managed to build three new decks and I am preparing for Czech Europian Championship Qualifier and storyline which will follow after that. Since I will be running that event, I might probably end up not playing, but I do not mind at this point. I just pray for big attendance and that everyone will enjoy this event. I will follow up with post about storyline and its details, but for now, I just want to try to keep Czech Vtes on the map.

See you next time...