Tournament Report: ECQ Budapest

Hi folks!

So here is the actual tournament report:

1st round:

Mate Vaka (Gangrel!) - ??? (Akunanse) - Winnie (Montecalme vote) - Dio (Akunanse) - Me (DBR)

I had an awesome start with everything you could ask for. I graverobbed Bernard the Scourge and used his special to burn a weenie Akunanse from my grand prey! Later on I graverobbed Aksinya Daclau, too. I made a fast VP here. I made a bad decision afterwards. Being stuck between 2 Akunanse decks now I had to much respect from my new prey. I should have wrecked havoc on him relentlessly and try to score a 2nd VP asap. Well I made the mistake to hold back and died couple of turns later. What I didn't know was that my prey played light prevent only while my predator was basically a prevent powerhouse. 1 VP total. 

2nd round:

Zsolt Varga (Goratrix + Ani/Dom ) - Me (DBR) - Laszlo Robert (Auspex/Celerity) - ??? (Marconius + weenies) - Csaba Greguss (Group 4-5 Ventrue Lawfirm)

Again: awesome start. Zsolt was afraid of me and transfered in a way so he can bring out two vampires the same time. So I went forward and graverobbed my preys first vampire. He never brought out a second one. Meanwhile Csaba called a Parity Shift taking pool from Zsolt and bled him. By the Time Zsolt brought Goratrix and Natalia he was down to 5 pool with 4 Ventrue behind him. I figured that attacking Zsolt wouldn't do me no good so I launched an attack on the Kyasid. Well he played 3 Earth Swords on me in one turn which was a pain in the ass. This didn't prevent me from graverobbing Marconius though. Csaba played a Domain Challenge (still cross table) which cost me 9 pool. In my turn I played a Golconda on Marconius and got the 9 pool back. Shortly later I ousted my second prey. By this point Goratrix had a 3rd vampire and decent pool again with the all to boring but very effective Villein + Lilith's Blessing combo working. I had only 6 minions and few library cards left at this point and believe me 6 minions with this deck is way too less. I told Csaba that we share a common enemy and that I am fine with him making a VP so until I see that he tries to oust the Goratrix deck I will stop behind him.  Now I regret that I didn't take any notes. For a couple of turns everybody was on edge to being done and gone. It was really a though endgame. The final moment was when Csaba took his last chance he had and tried a bleed for 3 with Daring the Dawn (Zsolt had 3 pool). Zsolt deflected the bleed to me. I had 4 pool so I wasn't ousted by that, just went down to 1 pool. I had enough blocking vampires untapped to block Zsolt. My turn came and after a few minutes of thinking and discussing the odds I decided to take my chance and try to oust Csaba with bleeds for one (I had only 4 cards left in my hand at this time). Fortunately for me the match was on my side and I made my 3rd VP. With the additional 6 pool I could survive long enough against Zsolt to time out. 1 GW 3,5 VP at this table.

3rd round:

Silver (Imbued) - Me (DBR) - ??? (Tzimisce toolbox) - Slaven (Ventrue! Grinder) - Sandor (Tremere toolbox)

The Imbued had an awesome start here. I had a modest one, but that was enough for me to kill the first two Tzimisce (Horatio and Corine Marcon). My prey stopped influencing and I had to bleed him down from 22 pool. While I was bleeding the imbued set up like hell. It was pretty obvious that he will be unstoppable here. I tried to rush for my second vp, but Slaven was well prepared and I terribly hand jammed seeing no more Concealed Weapons in the game. The constant bleeds for 2 at 1 stealth from the imbued killed me. 1 VP here

Final:

So I made it to the final as 3rd place with 1/5.5, damn cool! Here is the seating:

Silver (imbued) - Me (DBR) - Peter Ducai (some obf/dom mid cap stealth vote stuff) - Guyla Ferdos (Tzimisce Wall) - Peter Botos (Nergal + Infernal Servitor) 

Not the imbued again!!! Crap. Even worse: I had a terrible starting hand. Peter Ducai's deck would be the optimum prey for me on any table, but with this hand I couldn't graverobb any of his minions. Neither Information Highway nor Dreams of the Sphinx showed up so I was slowed down. Peter Ducai called an Ancient Influence and a Neonate Breach to hurt me and played Scourge of the Enochians! Game over for me. Well at least I could ruin his game so much that he had no shot for the win. 

I didn't stay to watch the endgame, but Silver texted me that he won. Congrats! The imbued deck is still just insanely strong. 

And here is my deck:

Deck Name: Creativity in its purest form

Created By: Mephistopheles

Description: based on Marius Iscru's deck

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 4, Max: 9, Avg: 1,58)

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

  1  Samson                             dom            2  Ventrue Antitribu

  1  Smudge the Ignored                 none           1  Caitiff

  1  Royce                              dom            1  Pander

  1  Antoinette DuChamp                 cel pre        1  Caitiff

  1  Nik                                cel            1  Caitiff

  1  Anarch Convert                     none           1  Caitiff

  1  Christine Boscacci                 dom vic        2  Pander

  1  Watenda                            obf            3  Malkavian

  1  Navar McClaren                     ani            1  Caitiff

  1  Marciana Giovanni                  dom            2  Giovanni

  1  Ohanna                             dom            2  Malkavian

  1  Mustafa Rahman                     dom            2  Tremere

Library: (61 cards)

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

Master (7 cards)                        /needs 1 Pentex Subversion/

  3  Information Highway

  2  Dreams of the Sphinx

  1  Jake Washington (Hunter)

  1  Golconda: Inner Peace

Action (20 cards)

  14 Bum`s Rush /needs 1 more/

  6  Graverobbing /needs maybe 1 more/

Combat (22 cards)

  11 Concealed Weapon /needs 2 more/

  11 Dragon`s Breath Rounds /needs 2 more/

Equipment (12 cards)

  12 Saturday-Night Special /needs 2 more/

I never played this archetype in a tournament before. It was a fun experience. As primitive as this deck seems to be it might sound surprising that it is actually very hard to play. The deck requires a very good insight on  when and where to rush and you need to be able to deal with constant table hate. I think that the Nanalism or Ansonashur rush decks are much stronger, still they get only half the hate that this deck gets. I wanted to give this deck a try and if I hadn't been qualified before it would have achieved it's mission. However I am 100% sure that I will never play this deck again. 

by: Mephistopheles

Update: Archon file (standings)

Final Rank	Name	Prelim GWs	Prelim VPs	Final VPs	TPs
1	Szilveszter Miklos	2	6,5	2,5	150
2	Martin Major	1	5,5	0	144
2	Peter Ducai	1	5	0	102
2	Gyula Erdos	1	6	1,5	180
2	Peter Botos	1	5,5	0	138
6	Mate Vaka	1	5		96
7	Gergo Gyarmati	1	4,5		150
8	Tomas Varga	1	4,5		138
9	Ferenc Vasadi	1	4,5		132
10	Csaba Pal	1	4,5		114
11	Csaba Marton	1	3,5		132
12	Peter Korsos	1	3,5		120
13	Milos Krstic	1	3		114
14	Sandor Vicha	0	3,5		126
15	Balazs Palffy	0	2,5		138
16	Norbert Broda	0	2,5		108
17	Mihaly Antal	0	2		132
18	Martin Cajagi	0	2		96
19	Mate Marton	0	1,5		114
19	Sandor Kadar	0	1,5		114
21	Andras Odor	0	1		102
22	Martin Varga	0	1		96
22	Zsolt Varga	0	1		96
24	Vladimir Korl	0	1		84
25	Ferenc Koczka	0	1		78
26	Denes Kocsis	0	0,5		90
26	Ana Bortic	0	0,5		90
28	Slaven Karakas	0	0,5		84
29	Dusan Simsik	0	0,5		78
30	Stefan Ristic	0	0,5		72
31	Mirko  Marinkovic	0	0		66
31	Csaba Greguss	0	0		66
31	Robert Laszlo	0	0		66
31	Peter Vadasz	0	0		66