Becoming ready for 2011

Hi folks!

Seems like my personal v:tes crisis is over finally. I've built 2 brand new (for me) decks, which are now ready to play and I've got a good feeling for them. At the end of the last year I promised myself to build new decks and move on. I had a hard time doing so, since the ties that bond me to my successful decks (Nana Buruku and Dmitra Alastor) proved very strong. It took me almost 2 month to find and build (not in the deck builder only, but actually sleeve those cards) 2 new decks. Here are the decks I've build (brief description, no deck list):

1. Akunanse Wall

The idea is to set up with permanents fast. The deck contains 75 cards only, but has a fair number of permanent effect cards like: Raven Spy, Shaman, No Secrets from the Magaji, Army of Rats, Well-Marked, Ivory Bow, The Rack, Powerbase: Montreal, Powerbase: Luanda, Mapatana Utando, Smiling Jack, Dragonbound. Also the deck packs a good amount of reaction cards. The price I had to pay for this, was dropping rush cards (Deep Songs) and using a lighter combat package than I originally intended. The combat package became more defensive than I planed, but I had to include prevent and anti-equipment cards.

Compared to the Ahriman Wall deck I used to play the strength of this one is better combat defense with Well-Marked and fortitude, a reasonable chance of having 4 votes on the table and the lock down that No Secrets can provide. The drawback is that I really miss a card like Enchant Kindred in here. Ousting power relies on Army of Rats, Dragonbound, Smiling Jack and the bleed for one with 4-5 minions if everything goes well. This deck should be able to make a solid 1 Game Win 5 Vp's in the preliminaries, which means I should play this one in small tournaments. The deck is untested so far, so there might be changes later on.

2. Sever The Wicked Hand  

I named this deck after the new Crowbar album, which I really like a lot. The idea for the deck came while listening to it. The deck is also inspired by an earlier deck built by Guyla Ferdos. It features Gustaphe Brunelle as a star vampire with 8 other DOM-POT or POT-dom support vampires like Don Michael Antonio Giovanni or Harold Tanner, just to name 2 of them. This deck is also 75 cards. It features pretty standard Potence combat and classics like Govern the Unaligned and Conditioning. The whole idea is that Gustaphe "governs out" the support vampires. Early rush is of course directed at the predator first to have time building up with 4 vampires in play. Ousting power is pretty strong with Fame, Dragonbound, Govern and Conditioning once there is no one left to bounce. 

What makes this deck look a little different than all the other pot-dom decks out there are the other master card choices. Those who followed my blog know that blood management is alpha and omega for me. So this 75 card deck containes 2 Hunting Grounds, a Carver's Meat Packing and Storage, a Giant Blood as well as 7 Taste of Vitae's to support blood gain. Even though I dislike bleed bounce I of course included Deflections.

Well I wasn't going for inventing something never seen before. Both decks are pretty common, but I never played with them, so I made my own versions. I am looking forward to test them and see how they will do at this years tournaments. Since I don't want to spend a year with 2 decks only I am still thinking of other decks to play, here are some ideas:

3. Dominate Brujah

Again, this will not be a copy-paste. My plan is to use Donal O'Connor and Theo Bell as the basic vampires. I want to make use of Theo's special and include Amaranth in the deck. Supporting vampires will be Rake, Volker and Anvil. New Carthage together with Parity Shifts and the always mandatory Fame (I won't Amaranth the one with Fame) should do the ousting. I need to pack sufficient combat cards, since my plan is an Amaranth/turn ratio with Theo. I wonder if Imperator + Blood Hunt will fit in there...

4. Fakir al Sidi takes your Skin

There is one critical point for this deck: 1. get Fueled by Heart's Blood into play asap! The rest is easy: rush, amaranth and play Predator's Transformation + Taking the Skin: Minion. Then bleed of course. Twice. The deck needs sufficient Freak Drives to operate. The Sense the Sin + Enkil Cog combo will provide me with an additional bleed. This is more of a fun deck than a tournament one, but I think this is the most unique of the decks I am recently thinking about....

5. Who let the Tupdogs out?

This deck will differ from other tupdog decks I've seen so far a lot. The idea here is to play Parthenon and Ashur Tablets + Effective Management. The rest of the deck is mainly (but not entirely) pure combat cards. The idea here is to use the Tupdogs to Amaranth everything with a title first (then the rest). That is why I need the Effective Managements. After a while there will be nothing left to burn me in blood hunts (I'll get the edge anyway). Once there is no one left in the ready region the few little Tremere Antitribu will bleed for 1 + I'll play a Smiling Jack that nobody will be able to burn. A Hunting Ground + Robert Carter combo seems to be awesome to finish my current prey off. I first thought that Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers will be optimal, but I realized the AI threat, so Robert Carter seems better.

That's all for today. Five decks should be sufficient for some time.

by: Mephistopheles

Amaranth: did you know it's a plant?

Hi folks!

I was little bored so I looked up Amaranth on wikipedia. It turned out that it is a pretty nice flower. I guess many of us didn't know this, therefore this post. Here is the link: Amaranth on wikipedia

Scroll down or hit the link: In popular culture to see that vampire: the masquerade gets mentioned.

by: Mephistopheles

Deck idea: Original Amaranth Graham Crackers

Hi folks!

This is a deck idea inspired by my previous post. I haven't given it much thought. I was bored. Indeed.


Deck Name:   Original Amaranth Graham Crackers
Created By:  Mephistopheles
Description: Healthy Valley Original Amaranth Graham Crackers are all natural and are made with no genetically engeneered ingrediants.

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 12, Max: 28, Avg: 5)
-------------------------------------------
  4  Graham Gottesman                   obf pre tha DOM FOR7  Ventrue
  2  Louis Fortier                      aus dom for obf pre5  Ventrue
  2  Robin Withers                      dom obf pre    4  Ventrue
  1  Jackson Asher                      dom            2  Ventrue
  1  Jack Tredegar                      pre            2  Ventrue
  1  Emily Carson                       for pre DOM    5  Ventrue
  1  Victor Pelletier                   cel dom for PRE5  Ventrue

Library: (66 cards)
-------------------
Master (13 cards)
  3  Dreams of the Sphinx
  1  Pentex Subversion
  4  Vessel
  1  Ventrue Headquarters
  1  Uptown Hunting Ground
  3  Obfuscate

Action (7 cards)
  6  Govern the Unaligned
  1  Graverobbing

Action Modifier (12 cards)
  3  Hidden Lurker
  2  Mask of a Thousand Faces
  3  Forgotten Labyrinth
  3  Lost in Crowds
  1  Conditioning

Political Action (8 cards)
  4  Parity Shift
  3  Ventrue Justicar
  1  Neonate Breach

Reaction (8 cards)
  3  On the Qui Vive
  5  Deflection

Combat (13 cards)
  5  Disguised Weapon
  5  Skin of Steel
  3  Amaranth

Equipment (5 cards)
  1  Ivory Bow
  4  Improvised Flamethrower

by: Mephistopheles

Amaranth!

Card Check: Mapatano Utando

Hi folks!

This will be a new column on this blog. I will briefly introduce some cards I find interesting and share my thoughts on them. Todays card will be the unique Akunanse master card  Mapatano Utando. This card drew my attention when I've seen it played by Tomas Varga at our latest Constructed tournament. The card features an always useful ability namely to reduce a bleed by one. However this ability itself wouldn't be enough to allow its way into tournament decks, at least imo. 

The interesting part is it's second ability. Even weenie Akunanse vampires have good access to strong combat options like dealing aggravated damage or getting some extra damage with presses. Most decks won't block a bleed for one and I think many players won't count on this cards strength. A first turn weenie (Meno Ngari or Dolie) can get you the edge just to be able to influence the needed 7-8 pool on your Magaji (Uchenna, Nkule Galadima). This way your Akunanse wall can build up pretty fast. Of course this is not the only way to do it. You can also go for a fast (2 turn) big cap like Matata, Umdava or even Fakir al Sidi. This helps you getting your deck set up faster. Since Akunanse is mainly a wall-combat hybrid this is especially awesome to be able to set up your defense faster. 

I will definitely add this card to my Akunanse deck, which I am building currently. I've seen it work in Tomas's deck and I am curious if I can use it with the same effectiveness.   

by: Mephistopheles

Repulsive in its splendid beauty

Hi folks!

Do you know the feeling when you just hate something without being able to explain it? You just look at it and think: "oh my God! Thats so...(insert any negatively loaded word here you want)!!!". Well I have this feeling whenever I hear about a "Girls will find" deck winning a tournament. Like here: Northeast Regional Qualifier 2011 

While I can truly see the idea behind the deck and I have to admit that it is clever, effective, innovative it still gives me the creeps. I shouldn't blog this late, but I had to get rid of this: I hate "Girls that find" decks. Fortunately nobody plays such a deck in Hungary.

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: predator is right (2nd part)

Hi folks!

So here is the second part of the article. I am going to give some examples here, all based on personal experience from games I played. Since some of these games happened years before I might be wrong in some of the details (or just reflecting the general idea of what happened), but that won't change anything in the point I am trying to make. If you haven't read the first part of the article scroll down and bit. :)

Like a lurking snake

This example is taken from the vanishing past when I used to play focused and hyper aggressive bleed deck. My favorite one was the Blanch Hill and dom/for powerbleed deck you can find on this blog: here. In those days I hated combat decks and adjusted my play style against them. The most important part, which was also the key to many game wins, was the one-turn oust technique. When I faced a combat deck as a prey I started slow on purpose. The key was to make many little deals, like when you offer not to bleed next turn so your prey won't rush you backwards. I transfered on different vampires with the plan to bring out several in one turn instead of bringing them out one by one. The use of the discard phase was also very important. You wanted to prepare either the perfect "anti-combat hand" or the "perfect oust hand", depending what philosophy you follow considering breaking deals. I had quite a long time in my v:tes career when I did break deals and there are many players who have no problem with this, so you always must take deal-breaking into consideration when planing your game!

In the case I wanted to keep my deal I've built the anti-combat hand. Once I had those cards I brought out all my other vampires (2-3) into play in the same turn (Governs or Enchant Kindreds kick ass). Of course my prey wanted to back rush at this time. All he achieved with this was a) tapping out and b) cycling my hand. So in my turn I had nothing else to do then to just play my freshly acquired bleed cards and do the oust, even if not all of the actions were successful. In the case I went for the deal break I brought my vampires out one by one carefully considering how much I may allow myself without loosing the option to deal with my prey. I made the I don't go forward if you don't rush me deal and kept it once or twice, depending on the situation. At one point, when my hand was ready for it I just broke the deal and ousted my prey in that turn. 

All this just works if your prey doesn't play his combat deck the appropriate way. Now let us change the point of view. We are the combat deck and the bleed deck is our predator. Let us play the way I proposed in the previous part and the moment a potential bleeder shows up behind us just go and hit it no matter what deal he offers. There will be no Governs or whatever at superior, he will built up way slower and will have to face pressure himself so going forward will not be an option for a while. Even if your predator will suicide into you, he will do way less damage than with the one-turn-oust strategy. Never allow a situation when your predator can finish his turn with 4 healthy bleeders.

The Cantina decision     

I played my Nana Buruku deck with some success at this tournament: tournament report. The second round of the preliminaries perfectly reflects my point. My predator brought Gerald Windham into play. I already wanted to announce my action to rush him, when he started offering deals to me. The guy who was my predator is player who can be trusted (I've never seen him breaking a deal), so accepting his deal that he won't come forward for 3 turns seemed tempting. I reminded myself of all I've learned about combat decks and did rush him. Well it turned out he had a Secure Haven + a Ponticulus in his hand. Since my prey was a tough nut to crack I am sure that I would have never won that game if I had accepted his deal. Since I couldn't win the 3rd preliminary round this one decision turned out to be very important. In the case I take his offer I would not have made it to the final!

When I had no chance


One of my all time favorite decks to play is my Dmitra Alastor deck, which has won me two finals (+ played at least 2 more finals) and never finished a tournament without a game win. One of its biggest strength is its combination of versatility and reliability at the same times. It can answer many situations, however there was one game were I had no chance at all. My prey was Guyla Ferdos who played a Toreador antitribu deck which was something like a wall and bleed hybrid deck. Not a deck I need to be afraid of, usually. Guyla made it sure that all my actions that I needed to set up will get blocked. No matter what deal I offered him, he simply denied to allow me any action, even Parity Shifts called from my predator with me offering him pool. I never got close to oust him. I write this down, because it shows that even non-combat decks should be very much be aware of their predator. Normally I have no problems with ousting such hybrid decks, but in this case I finished the table with 0 vps.

When I didn't play my way, I've failed


Back at the ECQ in Burton-upon-Trent (UK) I had a wonderful start. I started with 3 transfers and a Dreams in my hand, so I could put Dmitra into play within 2 turns. In the 3rd turn I played a Grooming the Protege and used my Dreams for the last time to have Carlak in play, too. The 4th turn gave me an Alastor with an Assault Rifle. Awesome. At this point I wasn't consequent enough. Even with an easy to oust prey and this awesome start I should have back rushed every turn. My predator was a Kyasid stealth bleed and my grand predator was a weenie animalism deck, who stupidly enough didn't rush him with the deep songs, but bled, which was of course deflected. The Kyasid promised me not to bleed me in the case I go forward. It was too tempting. So I focused on ousting my prey like the majority out there thinks is the right thing to do. What happened was the one-turn-oust technique becoming my doom. When the Kyasid put his additional 2 vamps in play I back rushed, just to cycle his meanwhile accumulated s:ce cards. The Kyasid made 2 easy vps and won the game. This mistake was even more annoying, since I've won the last round and had a vp from the first turn, too. So that stupid mistake cost me the final, since even a 1GW 3VP from that second table would have been enough to make it to the final.

Obeying the pressure to remain silent


With this article written I put this subject six feet under. You either agree with me or you don't. The next time you play any version of combat and get suddenly ousted without a clue what happened, ask yourself if you did back rush after the first Govern at superior being played (actually you should rush back before the Govern can be played). If you didn't, you have the answer why you got ousted, even if it happened turns later.

by: Mephistopheles

Do you double uniques?

Hi folks!

I'll launch a poll in a couple of minutes. I wonder if you guys double important unique cards in your deck like The Rack, Heart of Cheating, Fame or whatever important uniques there are. I've wrote this post in addition to the poll because I am curious what kind of uniques you double (or triple, etc.) and why. So please comment if you have any idea to share with me!

by: Mephistopheles

Upcomming Event: Hatvan, Grand Ball 2

Hi folks!

The city of Hatvan proudly announces the second round of their tournament series. The plan is to continuously have a tournament/month rate.

Hatvan, Grand Ball 2

2011.02.26

Amsterdam Expresso (for more info contact the organizer)

Start at 11 o'clock, Registration from 10 to 11

Format: 2R + F regular constructed (or 3R + F should enough people show up)

Fee: 600 HUF

Contact: +36 70/701-60-95

Come and play!

by: Mephistopheles

Thoughts on: predator is right (1st part)

Hi folks!

In today’s article I am going to explain my „oh so controversial” v:tes rule. I am aware that the vast majority of v:tes players will always argue with me about this. This rule is by far not a golden rule featuring an absolute truth, but it is very valid in certain situations. In this article I will go through these points:

I. To what kind of decks does this rule apply?

II. Time factor and phases of the game.

III. So why not going forward right away?

IV. Examples

V. Conclusion

I hope this article will make my point of view clear. I personally think that the reason why most players (even very good ones, like members of the Hall of Fame) think that you either can’t win with combat decks or that it is way more hard to do it, think so because they or not playing by the strategy described here. This article is not only a summary of my individual thoughts, I came to these conclusion by observing successful combat deck players and taking the advice given to me by more experienced players. I have to give a special tribute here to Sebestyén Balázs (aka Sebestien Galas), who thought me some of the more important points you will read here. Balázs is a very successful Hungarian player, who did play many combat decks and piloted them to several finals and tournament wins (although plenty of them were not reported). I also need to make this clear: in no way do I think that I am (or players like Balázs are) a better player than those who can’t play combat decks (successfully). I do think however, that we do play differently. While playing a bleed, vote, bloat and breed deck or whatever combinations of these exist will require you the “prey is left” attitude combat decks (most of them) do work differently. There are few players who are expert at both.

I. To what kind of decks does this rule apply?

I pretty much answered it above: combat decks. There are of course many different sub types of them. While I think that all combat decks should be played according to this strategy, you can say that the fewer defenses (intercept, bleed bounce, pool gain, etc.) your deck has the more this rule applies. Also add to this list certain types of toolbox decks, especially those who need time to set up.

II. Time factor and phases of the game.

Regardless of what kind of decks people play, I often see the same “mistake”.  They try to push forward in any situation and if they are not doing well you see that they become stressed. Some players can lean back and prepare a launch, but even many of these tend to lose patience. Let me quote Stefan Ferenci, who was one of the best v:tes players in his active time: “rushing gives you vp’s, patience gives you game wins”. So true. When asking people why they are pushing or trying so hard instead for just staying untapped and discarding for a couple of turns they tend to answer something like: “I need to oust my prey!” or “but I have to do something”. Foks! A game win achieved in the last 2 minutes is just as valuable as one achieved after 40 minutes and way more valuable than a single vp achieved in whatever short time!

The phases of the game often look something like this:

1. Transfers and first actions (early phase)

This is the time when people bring out their first vampire and go for their first few actions. Many decks do play cards that add pool from the pool bank to the vampires in the uncontrolled region. This is the time they play it. Other decks will want to fetch that important equipment (Soul Gem, Heart of Cheating, etc) or setup with permanent intercept (Raven Spy is the most common).  This phase is rather peaceful.

2. First forward actions (early-mid phase)

This is the time when bleed decks go for their first Kindred + Stealth + Confusion (Govern + Stealth + Conditioning, etc) “combo”, vote decks play the first KRC or Parity Shift, wall decks start blocking more frequently and combat decks should rush backwards (explanation will follow later).

3. The blood is flowing away (mid phase)

There is a natural tendency in this game that with the time progressing, the overall amount of blood on vampires will get less and less (despite cards like voter cap, etc.). This tells us two things: 1) the less blood the easier to torporize and 2) try to avoid getting low on blood. It is this phase that a combat deck can start causing damage effectively.

4. Collapse (mid-end phase)

At this point either somebody is already ousted or is in big danger. We have a table threat and the table is not balanced anymore. The weaker players try to avoid the strong one from winning, or they try to make their only vp before the strongest player takes the rest. It can also happen that everybody is weak and the slightest mistake or bad card draw will be the difference. Overall pool is low and some vamps are emptied or in torpor.

5. Game over (end phase)

This is the short period when it’s obvious who will win and they just play because giving up is lame, or we reached an interesting heads-up where two players are fighting for the game win, both with a reasonable chance of getting it.

III. So why not going forward right away?

This is the most important part. There are many reasons and I couldn’t clarify all of them to write them down so I will go with what seems clear to me. First of all you want to avoid the natural fate people meet (regularly). You don’t want to get low on blood and pool by the time you reach mid phase. As a solid goal you should try to reach having around 3 mid (6-8cap) cap or 5 low cap (3-5cap) vampires with almost full blood and 10+ pool, once you reach mid phase. This can be almost always achieved only if you don’t have to face and deal with pressure from your predator’s side. Remember that any good bleed or vote deck is built around the idea to deal massive damage on one single turn. Skilled players will often try to oust combat decks in a single turn instead of continuously putting pressure on it. That’s why they will try to make deals like “I won’t bleed you if you don’t rush back” or say “Hey, why are you hitting me, I didn’t do anything”. Don’t be a fool. They are just waiting for the moment to try the one-turn-oust. Their deck is specialized on this. That is why you should rush backwards first, especially if facing disciplines like Dominate, Dementation or Presence. If you hit them before they can prepare you buy yourself valuable time!

Of course meanwhile our prey is doing his job. Let him do it, let him even take a vp if that grand prey could become unpleasant to you. Just make sure your prey won’t make the game win and doesn’t become too strong. Don’t panic, our goal is to oust him, you just don’t need to oust him right away. Remember we have 2 hour time to win. A strong prey -> weak grand prey -> strong grand predator -> weak predator. Of course very generally spoken, but this is in our favor. Also don’t get me wrong: we do not want to back oust, we just want to make our predator so weak that he needs to play for the survival. In the case that our predator plays a deck that can only go forward feel free to back oust.

How are we going to win you ask? Let’s say we reached our goal, we have 3-4 mid caps in play. Our deck should include Fame and Dragonbound as well as other sources of ousting power (political cards in a deck like bruise and vote, +bleed from either Deep Song, or Dominate (remember Euro Brujah), etc.). Alternatively we just have 5+ vampires (weenie Potence, DBR). Let’s do some math. Let us say we did torporize 1-2 weenie support vamps from our prey so we don’t have to deal with that one later. I’ll go with 1 being a pessimist. We have the Fame and torporize 2 minions from our prey in the first turn we decide to finally go forward. We got the famed one. That is -3 pool and 3 vamps down. He rescues 1, so he’ll lose 2 pool from Dragonbound (should we have it). At this moment our prey is already quite under control. Since he wants to rescue and has already vamps down, there is really not much left to go forward with. Next turn we need 2 vamps to finish up the rest and have a free action to either bleed or vote. Let us say it is a bleed for 2. So far damage is: 3 from Fame, 1 Fame untap, 2 Dragonbound, 2 bleed, 1 Fame untap and let us say only 2 Dragonbound = 11 pool in 2 turns roughly. Wow. Believe me I’ve done better quite often.

This is why this strategy works. A combat deck is not good if you want to suddenly oust somebody, but it rocks if you want to lock down a strong deck. Let us say your prey has 3 mid caps that can multi act and cause a potential damage of 15+ pool/turn (seen that quite often). Your prey has ~15 pool. Doesn’t he seem like he is winning the game? Well a good combat deck, with some preparation can send all those vamps to torpor in one round (or 2 in one -> 1 rescue -> 2 next round) at 0 blood. Without vampires that 15 pool isn’t that scary.  Since you let him play he did the dirty job for you and weakened his prey, so you have potentially 2 vp’s in front of you. You can do the math without Dragonbound, but with an occasional bleed 3-4 with Conditioning that nobody can deflect, or a Parity Shift that nobody can block, etc.

Another reason why you want to delay your forward play is this: people don’t like combat. If you start the game with going forward you will use up your resources just to see your grand prey rescuing your preys vampires. You will have pressure from your predator and you will come to the fate of v:tes namely that you get low on pool and blood with time. Not good.

Once we reach the next phase (collapse) we need to make sure that we are the strongest player. Also: in either the case that our prey made a vp meanwhile or that we more or less accidentally back ousted our predator or even both we will find our self in an actually better position than a 5 player setup could be. The fewer players there are in this phase the less vampires do we have to send to torpor. In a 4 player setup we can even offer somebody a vp which we can easily achieve (basically you shouldn’t go for this, but it is an option). A three player setup is easy to win with combat.

That‘s it for the first part. I hope it made some things clear. In the second part I will give examples, all taken from actual games that did happen. Those examples will make many things clear. This article repeats many points from my previous thoughts on: combat decks articles. In this one it is organized differently and shown from a different point of view. This article will be translated to Hungarian and be added to the “Magyarul” page.

Thank you for reading,

by: Mephistopheles 

Tournament Report: Constructed at Cantina

Hi folks!

Wooo-hoooo!!! Finally back from torpor! I was quite exited to play a tournament again after two month without almost any gaming going on. I was lazy, as expected, so I didn't build any new deck. Well that is not totally true, I've started building it, but after sleeving like 30 cards I got so bored that I didn't want to fish for those 45 remaining cards needed for my new deck and then play it untested. The deck I wanted to build was a Gabrin based deck with a bunch of Sensory Deprivations. Instead, I went for the currently only ready to play deck I have: Broken Brujah (Dmitra + Alastor). My Nana Buruku and Hardestadt are already de-con-struct-ed. 

Altogether 18 players joined this event, 8 from them came from Slovakia (Kosice) to join us. Thank you guys for making this event more interesting. Now, let us take a look what happened:

1st round: Me -> Frankie (Lucian the Perfect mega bleed) -> Guyla Ferdos (weenie malk wall with madness network) -> Mark Virsinger (weenie presence bleed enngine) -> Maros Chomjak (Black Hand and Marijava Thugee with bloating)

I started pretty slow with a very bad opening hand. My deck packs 13 master cards (78 card deck) and I had a brutal master card hand jam. The only master I didn't see was Grooming the Protege (I play 6), which basically means that I drew all the other 7. Yes, I shuffled my deck. I also play 7 Parity Shifts, I drew 0 in the opening phase of the game. This card draw forced me to play my emergency strategy, which most people disagree with, but it works for me. Since I had only 1 Dmitra in play and 4 pool on Carlak and my predator had already 4 minions and was on a bloating strategy I went for my "predator is right" rule. The last thing I wanted to see was my predator having some allys with Unmasking and FBI in play + 4-5 vampires. I drew an early Alastor, which I could pass, so I could back rush. I also played a Pentex on one of the vampire. A few turns later Maros got ousted.

I was much more happy with my new predator. I weenie presence bleed deck seems frightening in the first place, but when you play a dozen Second Trads + Psyche! and you are already equipped with an Assault Rifle, than you don't have to worry too much. By this time I started to draw my Parity Shifts and Groomings, so I could pop out another vampire (Karen Suadela) and play a New Carthage. While all the above happened, Frankie was doing a lot of pressure on Gulya. Both players had bad luck. Guyla because he didn't drew any Telepathic Misdirections, instead he drew My Enemey's Enemy (3 of them). Every time Frankie got bounced to me I had to make deals with him so he won't back oust me. So basically I kept promising not to rush him and so on. Frankie had bad luck, because he didn't drew the Hide the Minds in time and when he could have done without, than he didn't drew stealth. So basically Frankie was using up resources and locked down Gulya, who couldn't bloat the way he wanted. Frankie play 2 Spying Missions and a Tangle Atropo's Hand to not oust me. He knew that though I was a potentially danger for him, at this time of the game the presence weenie was still strong. In the case I die, Mark would have gotten a 2nd vp and still be able to oust Frankie (Mark had still 5 minions at the time the bleed bounces happened). 

Mark lost his patience and decided to crash into me. Actually at this point I was happy that he decided to do this. He passed the Anarch Troublemaker and bled me with Daring the Dawn. That was not enough for the oust, but he thought it will hurt me a lot. Well it didn't. I call Parity Shifts again and have the Troublemaker! Meanwhile I had a Fame played on Frankie support vampire and torporized it. I had Frankie down to 2 pool with a Fame in torpor. This means that Frankie survived and could take another action with Lucian. Right before that I contested the Ivory bow with Guyla, which he didn't block (he needed the intercept against Frankie). Now came a strange part: Frankie tried to oust Guyla and asked me to give him a stealth with my Monastery of Shadows. Guyla at this point was pretty much set-up with nasty permanents in play, like Improvising Flamethrower, .44 Magnum, Madness Network + Victoria, etc. Remember that the Troublemaker was passed to me (destroying my only Assault Rifle). At this time I was very much afraid that after I oust Frankie I will have no chance at all against Guyla. So I gave Frankie the stealth. Weird. Fortunately Frankie didn't make the oust. Guyla survived and ousted Mark. I started my turn with playing another Pentex Subversion targeting Victoria, which Frankie did Sudden Reversal. Arrgh! I ousted Frankie and we were heads-up with Guyla. 

The heads-up started with Gulya playing a Pentex Subversion (altogether 6 Pentex Subversions were played at this table, I didn't mention any single one) on my Dmitra. Ouch! In my turn I used the Troublemaker to get rid of the Improvising Flamethrower. This left Guyla with no aggravated damage available. Guyla played a Smiling Jack which should have won him the game. Meanwhile of course actions happened. My strategy was to torporize as many of his weenies as possible. With no Assault Rifle and Dmitra Pentexed (she had a Preternatural Strength) I had to do this with "hands for one" and my Celerity cards. I managed to send some weenies into torpor and payed for the Smiling Jack with the blood on Dmitra. I played my only "joker" I had: Dragonbound. Since I started the heads-up with more pool and more blood on my vampires I had a very little advantage. I managed to keep Guyla's vampires in torpor. Guyla needed to pay for the Dragonbound and also 1 pool for the Jack! In the last turn of the game I had 3 pool 2 tapped vampires, one with 0 and one with 1 blood. Guyla had two vampires in play, one of them had +1 bleed; also he had many torporized minions. If Guyla survives his turn he wins. Well I had another Second Trad, which made it impossible for Gulya to either bleed me dead or rescue a vampire and he died from the Dragonbound. 1 Game Win 3 Victory Points for me.

2nd round: Peter Ducai (Giovanni + Gehenna anarch bleed) -> Me -> Csaba Pal (Maris wall) -> Zsolt Varga (Anatole toolbox, shifting more towards bleed) -> Tomas Varga (Akunanse (based on Brian Moritz's 15 wakes)) 

After the first turns excitements I was still a little, hm, shocked. With Maris showing up, I was pretty sure that I won't have any Alastor here. Peter Ducai bleed me constantly. So what did I do? Remember my first rule in v:tes: Predator is right. Can't emphasize this enough, especially when playing combat. So I kept dealing with Maris and played all Parity Shifts backwards, basically back ousting Peter. Now I had to face a new predator: a very strong Akunanse. Hurray! Remember: Predator is right. Even more dealing with Maris. He let me play my Alastor with the condition that I never attack him with the Alastor. He did this, because the Akunanse was a table threat at this time. Should the Akunanse oust me he would basically vaporize Maris in combat. Once I had the Assault Rifle on Dmitra I played another Alastor with the same condition on Karen Suadela. Since I promised not to rush Maris he let me do it. The Alternative would have been losing a vampire in combat with Dmitra. I turned to Zsolt Varga and offered him a simple deal: I back oust the Akunanse and he back ousts Maris. He accepted. Of course Tomas and Csaba made the same deal. I played a Dragonbound and started to rush the Akunanse. I had plenty of Celerity cards in my hand so I could stay long and additional strike. Unfortunately Zsolt forgot about the Dragonbound. Csaba bled him hard earlier and Zsolt was down to 2 pool. He tried to cycle cards and lost 2 vampires against the Akunanse and died from the Dragonbound. Meanwhile Maris got very low on blood, because he needed to give the Akunanse intercept. Since we were 2 vs. 1 I needed to turn this in a 1 vs. 1 game. I torporized every single Akunanse. Meanwhile I had to contest a Pentex Subversion and was very low on pool. Csaba, being afraid of getting Parity Shifted spent his pool, too. He was well prepared against bleed. Since I couldn't rush him (I keep my deals) and bleed was not an option, my only ousting power was Parity Shift. Csaba didn't calculate with me spending pool. He was down at 2 pool and I had 3 pool. I carefully gathered 2 Parity Shift's in my hand. In my turn I payed 1 pool for the Pentex contest and 1 pool for the Wider View! So I was down at 1 pool! I played my first Shift which was blocked, but Maris got emptied. My second Parity Shift passed and I ousted Csaba. Tomas had only torporized vampires at 0 blood, so he gave up. 1 Game Win 3 Victory Points.

3rd round: Jan Harcarufka (big cap bleed with obf+dom) -> Me -> Tomas Varga (Akunanse) -> Silvester Miklos (Lodin) -> ??? (Dominate Brujah, Asnek, if you are reading this please give me a name here)

Really not much to say here. Tomas started with Fakir al Sidi. Since he was afraid of my deck he made it pretty clear that I will never ever get my Alastor. I made sure Jan won't oust me. The Dominate Brujah ousted Jan and the ousted me (Jan bled me for like 20 somewhat pool before he died). Tomas made the Game Win. 0 VP's here.

T E H  F I N A L

Peter Botos (Nergal + Infernal Servitor) -> Martin Varga (Carna toolbox) -> Tomas Varga (Akunanse) -> Me -> Adam Horvath (Nana Buruku)

Tomas was first seat in the Final and he sat behind me to make sure I wont have an Alastor. My prey was another animalism deck. Stuck between 2 decks that can crush weapons, block and having the Carrrion Crows + press combat, I was doomed. Tomas, of course started with Fakir. Game Over. My strategy was to stay in the game for as long as possible.

Peter Botos put some early pressure on the Carna, but failed to oust him. Adam crushed and ousted him. After this nothing happened for like an hour. I didn't understand Martin Vargas game. He never really tried to make his vp. With a vp gone and him not being the first seat the only chance of winning the tournament is getting a vp himself (he was better seated than Adam). There was a Situation when he had the Anarch Troublemaker, 4 vampires with a possible bleed for 6 and his prey down at 3 pool. He didn't try. We had a good conversation about this after the final. His point was that if he ousts Tomas, but looses some minions he can't build up and bloat more. Also he was afraid of me, which I still don't get, since I was denied basically everything. I had two vampires and nothing on them. All my earlier attempts got blocked, delayed or canceled by Fakir. And I did try. Though I understand his point of view I totally have to disagree with him. In any final were you are not top seated, giving up on gaining a vp equals giving up the final. To be fair, I have to say, that I gave up the final. The difference is that he had a very realistic chance of getting his vp. I am totally sure he could have made it. Adam never back rushed me. I got pressure from the Akunanse only  and I was still totally locked down. Any move from me in a forward direction would have resulted in Adam rushing me backwards. My plan was to maximize my vp's with 0,5 being more than 0. Adam had 5 vampires very fast and never went below 18 pool, also he had fix intercept. I almost managed my goal to get that 0,5 vp's, but 2 minutes before the end of the final Tomas ousted me.See, even with me playing only for defense I got ousted. Tomas won the tournament with 1,5 VP's in the final. Well done!

Finals Standing:

GW VP VP(final) TP

1 Tomas Varga 2 8 1,5 162
2 Martin Major 2 6 0,5 144
2 Adam Horvath 2 7 1,5 168
2 Martin Varga 2 7 0,5 168
2 Peter Botos 1 6 0 132
_______________________

6 Matus Kovacik 1 5 96
7 Gyula Erdos 1 4 126
8 Ferenc Vasadi 1 4 96
9 Mark Virsinger 0 3 120
10 Szilveszter Miklos 0 2 114
11 Csaba Pal 0 2 108
12 Vladimir Korl 0 2 90
13 Zsolt Varga 0 1 84
14 Jan Harcarufka 0 0 82
14 Balazs Sebestyén 0 0 82
16 Robert Laszlo 0 0 76
17 Mihaly Antal 0 0 72
18 Maros Chomjak 0 0 66
18 Peter Ducai 0 0 66 

And the tournament winning deck:

Deck Name:   15 Wakes

Created By:  Tomas Varga

Description: Inspired by Brian Moritz's 17 wakes

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 15, Max: 40, Avg: 7)

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  2  Fakir al Sidi                      abo ANI FOR PRE PRO THA11 Gangrel

  2  Matata                             aus cel obf ABO ANI FOR9  Akunanse

  2  Amavi                              pre pro ABO ANI FOR8  Akunanse

  1  Uchenna                            ABO ANI FOR    7  Akunanse

  1  Jubal                              ANI ABO pot for6  Akunanse

  1  Sanjo                              abo chi ANI FOR6  Akunanse

  1  Nestor Kaba                        abo ani for    4  Akunanse

  1  Dolie                              abo ani        3  Akunanse

  1  Meno Ngari                         abo            2  Akunanse

Library: (83 cards)

-------------------

Master (20 cards)

  2  Abombwe

  1  Mbare Market, Harare

  3  Blood Doll

  1  Coven, The

  1  Dreams of the Sphinx

  1  Giant`s Blood

  1  Information Highway

  2  Mapatano Utando

  1  Powerbase: Luanda

  2  Powerbase: Montreal

  1  Rack, The

  4  Villein

Action (10 cards)

  8  Deep Song

  2  Well-Marked

Action Modifier (4 cards)

  1  Devil-Channel: Throat

  3  Predator`s Mastery

Reaction (16 cards)

  4  Cats` Guidance

  1  Terra Incognita

  6  Predator`s Communion

  5  Sense the Savage Way

Combat (26 cards)

  2  Canine Horde

  6  Carrion Crows

  4  Devil-Channel: Back

  7  Invoking the Beast

  2  Rolling with the Punches

  5  Taste of Vitae

Retainer (6 cards)

  1  Mr. Winthrop

  5  Raven Spy

Equipment (1 cards)

  1  Reliquary: Akunanse Remains

Conclusion:

It was an interesting tournament with 2 awesome games and 2 terrible ones for me. I enjoyed it very much. Thanks guys for coming and making this a great v:tes event. Dragonbound rocks (I had to realize this one more time) and while the vast majority out there will always argue with me, always remember that: predator is right.

by: Mephistopheles