Road to Budapest 3/5 - very long tournament report

So I am back from organizing, judging and playing in another tournament. I am really glad, that we have more and more tournaments and that people are coming and playing in them. So I was psyched to know, that we would be having 15 people and no four player tables, yay! Then two people have dropped out at last moment and one did not arrive, so 12 players and only four player tables. I mean, what the hell?

This time I went through some analyzing of our metagame and here I want to give big thanks to guys from Cause & Effect for their great episodes about choosing decks and overall great show. I was expecting some decks and I am pretty confident to say, that I have picked good deck for me to counter them. Of course, I have made some mistakes with my expectations and my choice was not so perfect in the end, but still - I have chosen deck, that I was having fun with most of the time.

Before round one:
Coffee and cigarette before tournament begins is necessary.












Before round one:
Some last minute preparations.














We have started with a little delay because of late arrivals and I was trying to conceal my deck to last minute to not give anything away. Some of players decided to change decks at the last moment and it screwed my deck choice a little, but what the hell, I tried to do my best anyway. I have chosen my Gotsdam block - it is very slow moving deck with Gotsdam as a star. Basicaly it is a block with a high cap as a star - he may play some governs at superior for bringing up support, or for ousting, also he is pretty impossible to kill especialy with sniper rifle. I have made some last minute adjustments, which I think helped me a lot.

At this moment, I would like to thank to Stefan AKA. Lord of the Clog for introducing concept of one easy, one tricky and one impossible game. It sure happened once again in this tournament.

1st Round

Tuko (Political malkavians with Petra resonances) - Daveopava (Ira Rivers block) - Me (Gotsdam block) - Luboš (Anarch bleeders)


So this was the easy game. Luboš had an impossibly bad draw and was ousted very quickly by few governs after I have eagle sighted him and torporized one of his minions. I have cycled a lot of my cards and got great hand. Although Gotsdam did not show in my starting crypt, I was able to bring him out in the end. Dave died because of my blocks and pressure from Tuko, but in the end, I was in a great position - four minions, some with permacepts, Channel 10 on table and Tuko little beaten up from sitting between two block decks. I managed to oust him shortly afterwards.

1 VP Tuko
3VP 1 GW Me

1st round:
My minions before even bringing Gotsdam out and before killing my first prey.












 2nd Round

 Me (Gotsdam block) - Shimi (Malgorzata+Tzi block) - Dannyg (Master madness 60) - Bik (Dom/pot rushers)

 Ok, impossible game right from the start. Rush with disarms, grapples, long range strikes and Gotsdam was nowhere to find once again. So I decided to go for deal with my prey right from the start, since I was basicaly only doing wall for him. It was long game in which Dannyg and Bik bloated to like 40+ pool, I did not do any offensive action against my prey and all of my vampires were beaten to torpor, got disarms, one of them graverobbed and some of them rescued just to do wall again. Great dissapoitment here. In the end, everyone knew the game will end with time limit. I was hoping only for one thing - that my prey, which was not in any danger at all, will help me with surviving. In the end, he did not make any offense against his grandprey, nor block any bleed against me with eagles sight. Which ended up in me being only one ousted just before time limit. I guess I was hoping for something more after playing two hours only staying alive with no chance whatsoever on getting more than 0,5 VP (however slim) and doing only meatshield for my prey. I could have transfered out (or only not try to do my best) after like 15 minutes and the result would be same for me, but my prey would have very bad position. Another thing to consider is, that I would be much more rested for future games and that could have made a difference.

Bik 1,5 VP
Shimi, Dannyg 0,5 VP

2nd round:
Here you can see  my last two minions, both with disarm. Just awesome game...
















3rd Round
Dannyg (Master madness 60) - Me (Gotsdam block) - Daveopava (Ira Rivers block) - Ivannek (!Malk bleeders with suddens and brainwashes)

So finally, the tricky game. And it suuuucked balls. Gotsdam finaly got out pretty quick, but my card flow just sucked. I had some wakes and intercept, but nothig to do damage with, nothing for pool gain. First draw of telepathic misdirection was like 25th card. So you can see, where this was going. Ivannek was ousted first due some bad luck, wrong cards and heavy intercept from Daveopava. I was ousted just a little later due to some mistakes on my side, but it was inevitable in the long run. After that, Daveopava crushed Dannyg.

Dannyg 1 VP
Daveopava 3 VP 1 GW

3rd round:
You can see, that I had Smiling jack with four counters on it, but was forced to let it go in the end, because the pressure of keeping it almost killed me without guns or poolgain.










So time for finals after that and by 0,5 VP, I was the lowest seed. So I put Gotsdam on the table and stuff started to happen. I could not have better seating even if I tried.

Finals
Potomek (Dem/obf swarm) - Daveopava (Ira Rivers block) - Bik (Dom/pot rushers) - Dannyg (Master madness 60) - Me (Gotsdam block)

 I was sure, that I could survive some pressure from Dannyg, Potomek will have troubles getting through Ira Rivers and Bik is far away, so I will have time for setup against him. And I was even going fourth, so great influence for me. So I pulled four vampires and I have bashed my had aginst the table for a while. 3 Gotsdams and 1 Alan Sovereign - no quick blocker for me from the start, which was bad and after zillah valley from Dannyg, I pulled out Alan first. I would maybe consider Gotsdam, but I did not have any Govern in my hand either and it wasn't looking as good as I expected. So I decided to play it slowly and patiently. My pool was litlle low, because I took some damage at the start of game and once again, no poolgain, no governs, so I wasn't risking anything and just waiting for chance. Potomek was trying to go forward, but got puched pretty hard and in the end he did even bled me backwards to cycle Kindred Spirits. In the end, I was able to oust him thanks to redirected bleeds and one govern, that finally showed. I was able to get out Martin Franckel and slowed down once again, because I wasn't still confident enough with my defense. Dave was trying to go forward too hard, which ended in depleting his library insanely quick.

I would like to pause here just to say, that I was playing perfect game up to this point. I was pretty close to winning tournament, time limit was close and I was being very cautious not to make any mistake. Right at this point I was repeatedly acused of stalling, playing slowly, not giving others chance to win and generally being what you call jackass.

From this moment I tried to play more quickly and basicaly screwed everything. I forgot to use Powerbase: Chicago, decided not to cycle card in discard phase and played direct in wrong situation. Not doing one of these mistakes would have saved me. I killed Daveopava, giving me six pool, but made all of those mistakes basically in turns of three players and it ended up in my predator just killing me with four actions. In the end - all mistakes were mine and it is my fault only, that I was playing quickly and wasn't being too careful. But it was just very uncofortable to listen to all this especially, when I was judging this event - there was no one to discus this with and if I would continue to play and in the end won because of time limit - I bet that I would have to listen for few week or few monts if I continued at the same pace.

So enough whining. What is done, is done and it is time to move on. Dannyg killed me in the end and finishing Bik was matter of two turns, thus winning entire tournament. And I have to say, that if it wasn't me, he should have won. He was sitting in an uncomfortable position. Observed metagame, tabletalked just a little to get an edge but not to arise any suspicion and when he had a chance, he went for a kill and he did a great job. Congratulations!

Finals
Photo taken just when the finals were starting, nothing on the table really.












This tournament was very bitter for me. I was realy step from winning about playing really o good game and was feeling good about my performance, but got beaten up in the end only because of my mistake. But I am looking forward to playing in another tournament and organizing another one of those as well. Czech national championship is getting close and at this moment we are talking about national qualifier, so things are getting pretty busy at this point and I am looking forward to every of them. I will try to keep this site updated at least about major tournaments in Czech Republic, so stay tuned.

See you next time...

P.S.: When I am thanking people, one more thanks should go to people on vekn.net, for keeping organization of this game alive.

P.P.S.: Ok. One more - huge thank you for everyone, who is involved in organizing huge events like continental championship - you are doing great service for community.

P.P.P.S.: Ok, definitely last one. I would like to thank everyone, that is not giving up on this game and is still playing, going to tournaments and is involved in this game.

Dunning–Kruger effect

Looking over one thread on vekn.net , one of the users posted pretty interesting thing, called Dunning–Kruger effect. So naturaly I visited http://en.wikipedia.org and found out, what is this about.

Dunning–Kruger effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their mistakes.

Kruger and Dunning proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:

1. tend to overestimate their own level of skill;
2. fail to recognize genuine skill in others;
3. fail to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
4. recognize and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they can be trained to substantially improve.

Dunning has since drawn an analogy to a condition in which a person who suffers a physical disability because of brain injury seems unaware of or denies the existence of the disability, even for dramatic impairments such as blindness or paralysis.

Of course you can find out more about this on the internet or in literature, but it got me thinking how many times I have experienced this phenomenon. To be totally honest, I believe, that at one point, I have become "victim" of this illusion myself.

With tournament comming this saturday, I should once again evaluate my skills from rational point of view and apply the same for my opponents. Lately I have been taking competition at league games or even tournaments pretty lightly, so it is time to restart and train once again to become better player. I wish you all not to encounter this effect in future and play many quality games.

See you next time...

EC has 50 preregistered players

After five days of EC website going online, there are 50 preregistered players. Although preregistration does not necessarilly mean, that all of those players will arrive in the end, it seems that this years EC will be huge. Also names like Hugh Angseesing or Ben Peal promise, that competition will be pretty great. I am planning to attend too and I hope that this year there will be even more players, than last year. I am once again gettin really psyched about this event and I hope I will meet lot of cool people there.

You can preregister here: http://www.vtes2012.com/preregister

And you can find list of preregistered players here: http://www.vtes2012.com/preregistered-players

See you next time...

11 steps to becoming a good V:tes player

I was planing to writte something about my losing streak and whine a little, but after some time I have managed to win a game, got my spirit little up and decided to work on something more useful - at least I hope so. I have been thinking for some time now, what are those steps, that every player should take in order to be really god and I came up with these. Most important is, that these steps should be made in given order. Doing some of them too soon may actually lead to worse play.

1) Learning basic rules

This is basically the same for all the games. You learn basic stuff, play your first game in which, half of the time, you do not know what is going on and how anything works. In this case - basics are phases of turn, taking actions, reactin etc. First few games are only about this. We all have done this and there is not much more to say about this step.

2) Getting to know your first deck

This actualy comes very soon after the first phase. Some of players ( same as me, when I started) may play there first games with borrowed deck, other simply use some PCD. It does not matter - in this phase you probably now, which of your cards you may or may not play in given situation and you are starting to learn about whether it is beneficial to play your card or save it for later. You are probably sticking to this one deck and when clashing with other players, finding new and new interactions - strengths and weaknesses, which your deck has and you are trying to do your best with it. (I remember my like tenth game with my brujah high cap combat, when I played lightning reflexes for 7 additional strikes, just to torporize my preys minion and he just played Skin of Steel at superior and I was like: "What? What do you mean by all my strikes? Something like that exists? Is this legal?") With this, and for some of us little after this, comes the next step.

3) Expanding your rules knowledge

The more games you play, the more rules you will encounter. Titles, contesting, sects, anarchs, scarce are few examples of rules, which you do not need right from the start, but you will need them as your gaming career will progress. You will probably not learn all of them, before the next step comes.

4) Constructing your deck

Some players may start with this sooner, than others, but actually constructing first deck is a big deal.You have to think about how cards interact, which ar good at any situation, which are not even worth playing. Usualy at this point you do not have as large selection, to build deck exactly as you want, but you will update it as time goes and your opinions abut it will change as well and you might probably end up inserting different cards, than you wanted in the begining. In my opinion, the longer you stick to one deck play, the better for begginer. You will know the cards you play very well and you are free to concentrate on others decks, table interactions and new cards, which bring us to:

5) Expanding your knowledge of cards

When you start with your first deck, you will probably look for cards to put in. This begins a neverending quest to find perfectly fitting cards, finding new combos and optimizing your selection. At first, you will expand your knowledge of cards you will need to upgrade your deck and vampires, that you can use. You will know more and more about cards, because you will meet new and different decks played by others. This is actualy phase in which I have attended first local tournament and it was bad. But it was good experience for me. I have seen new people, new cards, strategies and dealbreaks.

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6) Getting better at deckbuilding

This is a next step when you are playing for some time. You are now pretty close to perfecting your deck, or starting to build another one, or even more of them. Trying to play something new greatly expands your horizons as player - learning about mechanisms from other side - you may have encountered them before, but now you are actualy playing it and that is something else. You may notice, that somethings looks simple and strong just because it was perfectly executed or you did not know how to stop some strategy. And you will also notice, that playing something you thought was strong, can be pretty dificult.

7) Getting to know other players decks

Knowing more decks and cards brings you to noticing, how important is to know, what you are standing against and what is that deck capable. Of course, you know from the start, that SB deck will probably bleed you at stealth, but you start noticing more superior disciplines - probably no elder impersonation from that one. Secondly you start noticing numbers - you are starting to notice how many bounce cards is everyone playing, how much stealth heavy are decks you play against regularly and so on. Some people start to notice sooner than at this point, but i do believe that this perception is fully evolved after trying more than one deck with different strategies.

8) Perfecting knowledge of rules

At this point, most of the players have experienced different strategies, encountered most of the regularly played cards and there is not much, that can surprise them. At this point, everyone should perfect their knowledge about card interactions. Ok I know in VTES there is almost impossible to know every interaction, but I am talking about those classic like solving effects of DI, or Rötschreck and psyche interactions, enkil cog interactions and so on. Some of these, you will encounter sooner, some of them later, but in the end, everyone should know, how to solve these at least in most situations.

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9) Knowledge of tournament archetypes 


This knowledge is important, when you are regularly attending tournaments and actualy trying to win some of them. Yes of course, if Carna is the first one out, you may expect some kind of blockish tremere deck and Owain and Blackhorse are also telling you something, but actually looking at some tournament winning decks gives you more knowledge about contents of that deck and you will be more prepared what will happen on the table. You may always encounter something new, or modified, which will surprise you, but in most cases, this knowledge will be pretty handy.

10) Metagaming (and master deckbuilding)

If you are attending tournaments in other cities or countries, matagaming goes in place. Our meta was always very combat heavy, so each deck tend to pack excessive ammount of combat cards or combat defense. Of course not every metagame is this way and research and modifications of your deck are on of the skills you have to master to be more successfull. Chosing your deck and modyfying it accordingly to metagame you will attend will be always problematic, since you will probably be testing it in your meta - with different enviroment.
I would say, that if you successfully master this skill, there is not much you can learn in deckbuilding. At this point every player should be very good at building deck, that is effective, (of course if he wants to, nothing is preventing him from building some crazy clan impersonation madness) and if he is able to adjust it to be more competitive in other metagame, I would say, that he is a master deckbuilder.

11) Table balance

Some may argue, that this step comes before metagaming and I tend to agree if you are almost exclusively playing at your meta, but for other players, I would say, that this is the skill above them all. I think, that it is nearly impossible to master - one eagles sight you play may win, or lose the game for you. Even one intercept you give from your KRCG news radio or even one point from your Kine Resources Contested, which you have carelessly assigned to your grandprey out of habit - those are just minor things, but they can change the course of entire game. After that we have backousting, cross-table ousting or preventing someone from ousting, which all are great deals and should be always considered with great caution.

I bow to everyone, that is good at this. At this point, I think that being good at ballancing table is like my Everest. But I will not try to rush there. Even when I know how important this skill is, I believe that trying to experiment with it too soonis very bad for a player and even for others at same table. Trying to overly influence things at the table may result in very bad results, which would not happen if player simply try to go for oust after oust and get his game win instead of trying to prevent someone else from getting it.

Just to clarify - I know, that every card you play somehow changes ballance on the table and I hope everyone knows what I mean by putting table ballance at this place. To this day I remember my malkavian toolboxy bleed which I used to balance table - I had like 10 coppies of kindred spirits there, so I have been bleeding different metusaleahs to balance the table and I ended up losing in the end (gaining maybe one VP), which was pretty horrible, since I could won the entire game if i tried just to go forward. Each time you put a card in deck, which lets you do something out of ordinary, you will be tempted to play it other way, than it is regularly used (cross table kindred spirits, cross-table eagles sight or even classic DI) - and I am not saying, that this is always bad, just that it is very hard, to do this right most of the times.

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Once again I have written a lot and not sure if there are valid points there. I feel, that it is very important for each player to go through this phases in order to be really good and try to not jump ahead much, because he might just skip something, which will be missing later. Three lines just separate these steps into three groups - 1) begginer phases, which are important, when learning about the game, 2) playing phases, which you need if you play regularly and casualy and of course 3) tournament skills, which are important for competitive play. This is probably all for now, although I just want to say, that Cause & Effect season 3 episode 2 - guys did a great job on table ballance and backousting and etc. so I greatly recomend this episode and of course all others. Ok, this is really all for now.

See you next time...

Qawiyya-el-Ghaduba combat toolbox

So this is the deck, that got most votes in the poll. So here is the latest version:

Deck Name: Qawiyya el-Ghaduba
Author: Silmegil

Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=3 max=9 avg=6.17)
===============================================
 2x  Aredhel              5  aus FOR VAL          !Salubri:4
 2x  Langa                5  for VAL              !Salubri:4
 1x  Nkechi               4  aus for val          !Salubri:4
 4x  Qawiyya el-Ghaduba   9  aus pre FOR POT VAL  !Salubri:5
 2x  Rashiel              3  for val              !Salubri:4
 1x  Uriel                8  ani obe AUS FOR VAL  !Salubri:4

Library (82 cards)
==================
Master (12)
 2x Archon Investigation
 1x Code of Samiel
 1x Failsafe
 2x Fame
 1x Giant's Blood
 1x Lilith's Blessing
 2x Perfectionist
 1x Tension in the Ranks
 1x Yawp Court

Action (14)
 2x Abbot
 1x Big Game
 3x Bum's Rush
 2x Harass
 2x Rumble
 4x Sense Death

Equipment (5)
 5x Camera Phone

Reaction (15)
 8x Hide the Heart
 4x On the Qui Vive
 3x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Combat (36)
 4x Armor of Caine's Fury
 6x Death Seeker
12x Immortal Grapple
 4x Rolling with the Punches
 4x Slam
 6x Taste of Vitae

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Apr 29, 2012 17:37:52)

So this is like third modification of this toolbox. First was multirush only, second was more blockish option. This one has still a looot problems, but seems most stable at this point.

Main problems:

a) Slow - takes a lot of time to get out star vampire and start doing things
b) Low defense - it is relative , you can always rush backwards, but that does not always win the game
c) Low ousting power - i am really not sure how to increase it, but i see this as the main problem with this mutation

This is definitely not tier 1 deck, not even close, but i still think it is playable. It is reasonably good when bashing mid to highcaps, loses to swarms, quick decks. I would say, that the greatest strength of this deck is, that everyone underestimates it.

To be honest, I would gladly accept any suggestions and ideas. I am not hoping for making this deck tournament winning, but would like to move it to tournament viable. Lets see how it goes in time.

See you next time...

Tournament report - Road to Budapest 2/5

So here I am, after another failed tournament, thinking about what I did wrong. At this point I think there were many mistakes on my side. First of all - I have chosen to play Scout Youngwood + friends, because I found it most enjoyable at that time. I have made a lot of adjusments though, because I was afraid of blockish decks and combat, so more combat ends, darings, virtuosas and pentex. Well I was right about those decks, but it was even worse than I feared. I had 3 rush combat decks as predators, one time dedicated block deck as prey and one time blockish deck as prey. So, no surprise here. I did not make it to the finals. But lets not skip ahead.

Game one:

Me (Scout+friends) - Luboš (Rachel/Madness network) - Kunče (Cryptic mission bleed) - Face (FoS rush)

So I was afraid of both my predator and prey and brought out two vamps at once. It turned out I was right and one of my guys ended up in torpor - lots of immortal grapples... I was able to bring out three vamps, even four in the end, but by that time my prey had permanent intercept on rachel, 3 support vamps and carlton at the table. I was able to get him on two pool, but I got ousted afterward. Table resulted in 2-2 split between cryptics and Rachel. 0 VP for me

Game two:

Me (Scout+friends) - Petr (something weird) - Kaczkin (Arika vote) - Shimi (CEL+PRE gun+bleed)

I had a pretty decent start, but then again, same was true for Arika. At this point, Arika had very little pressure - bleed for one or two each turn. I was being bled for 6+ each turn and some of my guys got torporized, because I had to villein like hell. In the end I had to play golconda on my guy in torpor instead of rescuing him. Shimi was ousted shortly after this and it resulted in me having two less vampires with votes less than Arika. I was able to oust Petr but I had to play daring the dawn and it was basically endgame for me. So 1 VP for me, 3 for Arika.

Game three:

Me (Scout+friends) - Dave (Ahrimane block) - Tuko (Gehennas) - Fojtik (Animalism rush)

I knew, that this game would be near impossible for me to even survive, not even talking about reasonable chance to get some VPs. I got my first guy out, when there were already two vamps with ANI behind me and I was pentexed by my prey. So I was like what the hell? Luckily I played my own pentex on the third vampire that popped out behind me and then I was able to (just barely) convince my prey to not contest pentex after I faced three rushes. At this point I really did not know what happened. I was trying to build up - moving blood to my uncontrolled region to compensate my minions, which were getting torporized, but my prey again blocked me. At that point it was pretty much over for me. My prey then made a deal which did not make sense, but involved ousting me, so I was getting rushed multiple times each turn and my every action blocked. It ended up pretty much the way I knew when my predator and prey made the deal  - Animalism 3VP GW, Ahrimane 1VP

So wow, one VP. I am actually pretty embarassed, but even more sad. I did not enjoy this tournament at all. One problem was that there were a lot of things for me to organize, but mostly it were the games:

a) four player tables
b) three rushing predators
c) two blocking preys
d) some mistakes at my side

but most of all there was some illogical play by other players. Mostly they were only bad judgment calls and under the stress I could possibly make them too, but in last game it was just purely wrong. I was blocked again and again just trying to survive without doing anything offensive and I was just handed to player, which was already pretty strong and won in the end. Everyone on that table knew that it would end that way... but what the hell.

Ok not to be all negative, here are some positives:
a) 16 players
b) players from other metagames
c) deck well tested
d) preternatural strength from lotn booster
e) tournament experience

And I have few fotos to ilustrate atmosphere - unfortunately they were taken after first three rounds, so only final table here (photos taken by Arikas played):

FINAL:
Kaczkin (Arika vote) - Potomek (Anti ventrue grinder) - Luboš (Rachel/Madness network) - Fojtik (Animalism rush) - Tomas (Vignes tap and bleed)

Heads up:

Final ended by 2-2 split between Potomek and Luboš. Potomek won because he was top before finals. Congrats.

See you next time...

Tournament ahead

So another tournament in Ostrava is in schedule. Once again in our local pub and this time some people from other metagame should show up. Thanks to this, my classic dilema of chosing a deck, suddenly becomes more simple. I will not choose any fun but weak deck, because I would not like to give others wrong impression about level of game in our meta. So at this moment I have four choices - bleed, block, political and combat deck.

1) True Brujah bleed is probably best choice. Stable deck with reasonable defense and offense. Not really fast, but I have tested it a lot and I am somewhat comfortable with it.

2) Gotsdam block is definitely deck that can stay alive. Ousting on the other hand can be an issue. And it is little slower because of gotsdam beeing star vampire. Still i had some good games with it so it is definitely an option.

3) Scout Youngwood and friends is very tricky deck. I have won with it only once, but I am definitely sure that it has potential. To this point I have problem with playing ruthless enough and also I have problems with risk assesment.

4) Count Germaine Combat Madness v 1.02b has proven itself somewhat cooler with ousting power, but combat is just horrendous. I never have cards that I need. It needs a lot of work, but I am not ready to give up on Germaine.

In the end and depending on my mood and number of players, I may grab something else, but at this point, these are my choices and I have a week to decide. We will see...


See you next time...