Fee Stake: Ostrava - Pictures and Comments

There were actually two photographers at this event, but i will present only few pictures to illustrate atmosphere at the event. I will try to bring more game oriented photos.

This is room in our favourite pub. All of our previous and probably also future events were held at this pub. But this room is actually new. You can also see most of the participants.

This picture sadly does not show much of the decks. But you can see, that Una freakshow has been busy.

Mid - game of my first table. Far left - Potomek (Tzimisce wall), far right myself (Tremere politics 0.2), close left Obi-Wan (The sensory deprivator) and close right Fojtik (Weenie animalism).

Start of the final table. I would be glad to bring you more photos from this table, but mysteriously - there are none. It is probably due to my help to backoust my predator in my second game. He was one of the photographers and he was not pleased:)


Few comments:

1) I was corrected by the owner of the Nergal deck. Primary mechanism of that deck was actually Shatter the Gate, but I never saw it in play. I therefore concluded, that it is a bleed deck with bad luck at card cycling. I am very sorry for this mistake.

2) Tournament winning deck can be fount at The Lasombra. There have been of course a few adjustment in comparison to original, but there are still weak points, which should be repaired. For example - I am not an idiot and I would include few Eyes of Argus to this deck, but (my luck) I don't own any.

3) Thinking back to this tournament and this deck - I was very lucky to know most of the decks at this tournament and could plan ahead from the start of each game. Influencing out wrong vampire, getting low on pool or overestimating myself could have been deadly. I should look into this factor in future. Seems it has been underestimated.

4) I was actually judging this event and did pretty lousy job. I will try to improve my skills in future.

5) I am now planning to launch our league. At the same time we are working at duel tournament and I will be applying to be prince of our city. If theese things all go well, there will be probably more events soon.

Will be back soon with more.

Fee Stake: Ostrava

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.

Happy new year!

Lets hope, that 2011 will not be last year for Vtes. I wish many more games for all of you out there:)

Bik V:tes Cup 2010 report

Two weeks ago I went to this exclusive event, which should have consisted from three separate V:tes events - draft, constructed and 2 on 2 matches. Since there were only 7-8 people most of the time and much more alcohol, that we initially expected, only event which actually happened was the draft. This slightly delayed report is about that event.

It isn't exact to say, that we have limited supply of cards in our city, since one of our players is one of the top rated V:tes sellers on ebay, but orders were delayed and mixed up, so we were forced to use well... slightly unusual sets for this draft. We went with 16 boosters, 4 of each sets - Legacies of Blood, Lords of the Night, Heirs to the Blood and Ebony Kingdom. We have removed the crypt restriction rule, because of this combination. Still it was little unfair, since there were some players which are most familiar with camarilla clans. My knowledge of practically every card in theese sets has been both blessing and a curse. For a fair ammount of time I have actually ignored some cards, because I have forgotten, that some of theese sets have actually very cool draft efects - well at least LotN has.

We have started with Legacies and after theese four boosters I had Eze, The Demon Prince and two copies of No Secrets From the Magaji. 

Theese were fairly strong card and could be game winnig, but unfortunatelly Eze was my only magaji and that was very dangerous. We continued through HttB and in a moment, unnamed, The was in my hands with two Hordes in addition. You can surely see my dilema. Still I have continued to LotN and Sense the Savage Way helped me to decide. There were also some cool presence bleeding actions and well ... AK-47.

Ebony kingdom just sealed the deal for me. With two coppies of Ngozi Ekwensu, Lucian, the Perfect and few other laibon supporters I was fairly confident, that I can win this thing. I was little worried though. Not that someone has built better deck, but actually about my damn luck.

Because there were only eight players and not much of time - since one of the players have taken few hours to build his deck, we have decided to play 2 rounds + final table. Oh and not to forgot - we have supported some Aye and Orun to each player.

First game was great for me. I got Eze in the starting four vampires, so I could influence him right out, which I did. I have waited a little bit, bloated a little, got AK-47 and little later first no secrets. I almost lost the game due to two little errors, but only one VP was stolen from me in the end.

Second game was a lot alike the first, but Eze wasn't there from the start and a had to go for him to my crypt. Same scenario - no secrets, AK-47 and a looooot of Aye and Orun Cards. Again only one VP was stolen from me.

Since the tournament rules were little unclear at this point, I had to decide if the final seating would be random or chosen. In all fairness have I chosen the random seating, since I was the leading player in both VP and GW and it was my fault for not stating the final seating earlier.

I have gotten the same predator in this game as in the second. Small melpominee swarm with support of some other weenies. For myself I have to say, that I was dissapointed, but not surprised. No magaji in the starting lot, my prey have influenced out Ngozi Ekwensu by the time that I had gotten to her in crypt. Getting to eze was little complicated at that point. My predator had perfect start - lili prelude in the second round and two Daughters out. Even if I had Eze, lets say it would not be easy. I have died second only because some table talk/whining and cross-table politics. Ngozi Ekwensu had won the game for my prey due to her awesome ability. My predator was the last one to remain on the table with him. It turned out that his Daughter deck was built bruttaly efficient - but after dealing with only one metuselah it almost ran out of cards.

I had hoped, that in the other rounds, constructed and 2vs2, I can steal some points and get to better spots, since I was fourth after the final. But other events were cancelled and I have returned home without trophies for first three places. What a pity.

I can say that LoB and EK in combination provided great laibon potencial for wall and long term decks. LoB and HttB on the other hand created a viable possibility of destructive but risky strategies and LotN provided great support. Well of course it would not be playable without crypt restriction removal and I cannot say that this combination was perfectly ballanced, but hell it was fun.

That is all for today. I'll be back, soon...

Tremere Politics

I have wanted to play Tremere (or !Tremere) from the start of my Vtes career. Since i have seen pretty much perfected bleed and combat strategies I have decided to build political Tremere just because it sounded like a challenge. I know that this deck isn´t tournament worthy, but I have achieved a very stable pub-game wining ratio.

Although main idea is to do pool damage with politics, this deck is rather toolboxy. Crypt is built from vampires with titles with superior thaumaturgy and mostly superior auspex. Most of them have also dominate, but there are no cards that requie dominate. They were removed after lot of testing and I am not missing them.

Deck Name: Tremere Politics
Author: Silmegil
Description:


Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=6 max=9 avg=7.92)
===============================================
 1x  Alfred Benezri              6  aus dom PRE THA      Pander:3
 2x  Anastasz di Zagreb          8  ani cel dom AUS THA  Tremere:3
 1x  Carna, The Princess Witch   7  AUS DOM THA          Tremere:3
 2x  Ladislas Toth, The Torch    7  for AUS DOM THA      !Tremere:3
 2x  Malgorzata                  9  pre AUS DOM THA VIC  !Tremere:4
 2x  Orlando Oriundus            9  obf AUS DOM THA      !Tremere:4
 2x  Polly Kay Fisher            8  for pot AUS DOM THA  !Ventrue:4

Library (90 cards)
==================
Master (14)
 1x Barrens, The
 6x Blood Doll
 1x Elder Library
 1x Erciyes Fragments, The
 1x Giant's Blood
 2x Information Highway
 1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
 1x Wash

Event (1)
 1x Scourge of the Enochians

Political Action (17)
 1x Ancient Influence
 2x Banishment
10x Kine Resources Contested
 2x Neonate Breach
 1x Political Stranglehold
 1x Reins of Power

Action Modifier (4)
 4x Mirror Walk

Reaction (26)
 3x Eagle's Sight
 1x Eluding the Arms of Morpheus
 2x Enhanced Senses
 3x Forced Awakening
 4x On the Qui Vive
 2x Precognition
 4x Spirit's Touch
 7x Telepathic Misdirection

Combat (28)
11x Apportation
 1x Burst of Sunlight
10x Theft of Vitae
 4x Walk of Flame
 2x Weather Control

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Nov 7, 2010 20:09:25)

This deck can have really slow start, but it can become very powerfull in the mid- or lategame. What do you think?

Vtes is not dead!

I am sure, that there is a better time to start blogging about a game than right after cease production announced. But to be fair... I don´t think, that Vtes will die someday soon. Well at least I am still hoping for many great games with my friends.

There will probably be a lot of people, which will not be interested about news from Czech Republic. But for those, which will care I will try to update this blog as much as possible.

Since I don´t have any experience with blogging and I haven´t used my english for anything but reading, this blog won´t probably look any good, but I will try to improve it.

This is only begining. Stay tuned for more...