Tournament Report: Fee Stake Budapest

Hi all!

I've just arrived back home and so I can finally write my tournament report. On Saturday we played our annual Fee Stake Budapest tournament (same as a Praxis Seizure in Camarilla infested cities) . I don't remember the exact attendance, but I think ~23 players registered for the event. As always we started too late. There was a special prize (a vtes table-cover) for the best anarch deck.

Here you can find the pictures taken at the scene: Fee Stake Budapest

On Thursday I tried to figure out what deck I should play, but I had to face the fact that I was too lazy to build a new deck. Fortunately I found a deck list among my e-mails, which was just simple enough for me. Since this deck consists of very few cards it was easy and fast to build:

Deck Name: No Brainer
Created By: Jakob Sievers, tweaked by Mephistopheles

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 9, Max: 19, Avg: 3,41)
---------------------------------------------
1 Adelaide Davis aus dem obf 4 Malkavian
1 Anarch Convert none 1 Caitiff
1 Apache Jones aus for obf DEM5 Malkavian Antitribu
1 Cassandra Langely dem 2 Malkavian
1 Fabrizia Contreraz dem pot 4 Malkavian Antitribu
2 Jackie DEM 3 Malkavian Antitribu
1 Marta aus dem 3 Malkavian Antitribu
2 Midget obf pre DEM 3 Malkavian Antitribu
1 Persia aus DEM obf 5 Malkavian
1 Uncle George aus DEM dom obf5 Malkavian Antitribu

Library: (69 cards)
-------------------
Master (13 cards)
2 Pentex Subversion
2 Misdirection
1 Anarch Troublemaker
1 Information Highway
2 Agent of Power
3 Dementation
2 Wash

Action (20 cards)
20 Kindred Spirits

Action Modifier (27 cards)
13 Confusion
7 Eyes of Chaos
1 Leverage
6 Mind Tricks

Reaction (2 cards)
2 Delaying Tactics

Event (1 cards)
1 Uncoiling, The

Combo (6 cards)
6 Deny

Well, this deck isn't really fun to play and after last weeks Kyasid stealth-yawn I think I won't play another stealth-bleed deck this year.

My first table was a little disappointing. I had a Gargoyle deck as a prey, followed by a Laibon Tzimisce ally deck. My grand predator was a Kyasid stealth bleed, while my predator was Guyla Ferdos with his Khazar Peasant deck. I had a bad crypt draw, since I only drew the "big caps" and the Anarch Convert, so I was too slow. The Gargoyle deck managed to bring a Tremere and a Gargyole into play. Even worse, the deck turned out to be a sort of wall deck. I wasted many turns and a bunch of cards on ousting it. My second prey, the ally Tzimisce turned out to be too strong for me, despite my successful removal of The Unmasking, which was played by Guyla Ferdos. I got ousted pretty fast, since the Guyla had plenty of Deflections and many little vampires. He could oust me without having the Khazar's Diary written, yet. 1 VP

The second table was like a wonderful dream. My first prey was an Amaravati based vote deck, which I ousted in like 3-4 turns. My second prey was Frankie, who play his Mistress Fanchon deck. I was totally lucky here, since I could delay his Ancient Influence and wash his Villein. My third prey was a Ravnos toolbox which didn't draw any of the superior Chimerstry vampires, so I could oust him, too. Before Frankie died, he went for a bleed with Govern the Unaligned, praying for a Conditioning to show up, which would have been enough to oust his prey. The Conditioning didn't show up. My predator was a deck built around Al-Muntaquim, The Avenger. Since I never blocked his bleeds (he bled for 4 pretty soon), he couldn't cycle his hand and Kindred Spirits provided me with enough pool. Face to face I had no problems winning the game. Sweep.

The third table wasn't too funny. I had a Nergal deck as a predator and a potence rush deck as a prey. I managed to Pentex Nergal twice which gave me enough time to try to oust my prey. It was a very hard work, but finally I managed to make my 1 Vp with my last remaining vampire.

Finals:

1st seat: BaluPanker with an anarch Toreador! bleed deck (undue influence + power of one).
2nd seat: Guyla Ferdos with a Khazar's Peasant deck.
3rd seat: Zoltan Panyik with an Ventrue! Grinder deck.
4th seat: Martin Major with dementation weenie's.
5th seat: Gergo Gyarmati with his Amaravati deck.

Seating order: Martin -> Gergo -> Zoltan -> Balu -> Guyla

As in the second round, I managed to make my first Vp pretty fast, however it took me more turns this time. Many bleeds got deflected into me and Guyla had an Ossian and a Gregory Winter in play. Both of them were hitting me. Since I had not enough pool for new vampires and 2 nasty allies attacking me I lost my power. Zoltan was well prepared against bleeds. My biggest problem however was the fact that every remaining finalist was better seated than me. If either Zoltan or Balu makes a Vp I have to make a second one. Even worse, I couldn't play on a long term since Guyla was close to finishing the book and had already 10 minions in play. Since I saw no way of preventing anybody from getting a Vp I tried to rush for my second Vp. Of course, Zoltan had enough bleed bounce. Zoltan made his Vp and made the mistake that he also wanted to oust Guyla, who deflected Zoltan's bleed and ousted me on his turn. After this the table timed out and Guyla won the tournament. What I didn't mention yet: there was a lot of table talk, that's why the table timed out.

Congratulations to Guyla!

by: Mephistopheles