Talking Pictures: Demotivation

Deck idea: Warsaw Purge

Hi folks!

I recently spent some time thinking of Baltimore Purge based decks and I came along Alonso Petodron and Warsaw Station. I am sure many of you guys have played or seen such a deck before since there is nothing new under the sun, but in my playgroup I have nobody seen done this kind of stuff. I have never ever played Baltimore Purge before and in like 8 years of v:tes I can count the number of times I have played against one on one hand. So my experience is totally limited. 

So here is the decklist I cam up with. Any comments, help and criticism is highly appreciated. As always when talking about decks I prefer a - 2 of x card for +2 of y card pattern when making suggestions. Thanks for all your helpful advice in advance.

 Deck Name:   Alonso Purge 1.0

Created By:  Mephistopheles

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 19, Max: 40, Avg: 7,5)

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

  5  Alonso Petrodon for tha ANI DOM OBF POT10 Nosferatu

  2  Gustaphe Brunnelle obf ANI DOM POT8  Nosferatu

  1  Louis Fortier aus dom for obf pre5  Ventrue
  1  Louis de Maisonneuve aus dom obf FOR5Ventrue Antitribu

  1  Black Lotus aus DOM obf ser5  Followers of Set

  1  Assad Salhoum aus dem dom obf5  Malkavian

  1  Robin Withers dom obf pre    4  Ventrue

Library: (70 cards)

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Master (12 cards)

  3  Dreams of the Sphinx

  1  Fame

  1  Giant`s Blood

  1  Labyrinth, The

  1  Pentex Subversion

  2  Villein

  3  Warsaw Station

Action (13 cards)

  9  Baltimore Purge

  3  Graverobbing

  1  Sacrificial Lamb

Action Modifier (25 cards)

  2  Elder Impersonation

  3  Enkil Cog

  4  Faceless Night

  2  Forgotten Labyrinth

  6  Freak Drive

  6  Lost in Crowds

  2  Spying Mission

Reaction (18 cards)

  4  Deflection

  6  Obedience

  2  Second Tradition: Domain, The

  6  Sense the Savage Way

Combo (2 cards)

  2  Swallowed by the Night

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: ECQ Vienna

Hi folks!

As always it was great to play in Vienna again. The guys are very welcoming and the atmosphere was great. We were only 10 players so I wonder what would have happened if I don't visit them from Hungary. I played the same deck than the day before in Hatvan with a slight modification. I swapped the Boons for more KRC's since I missed a little extra ousting power from time to time and with 22 reaction cards defending my pool wasn't a problem.

1st table:

Zoe + weenie cel deck -> Anson Grand Ball -> Cel +1 strength Kung Fu -> ??? -> Myself

Funny that I can't remember who my predator was. As you can guess from this, there wasn't too much pressure on me. I spent the time slowly building up while my prey went forward like crazy. I was happy with that, since I was hoping on scoring 2 vp's in a row. Unfortunately for me the Kung Fu deck ousted my predator too early. Since he played a lot of Psyche! I couldn't just stay passive and had to oust my own prey so we were only 3 players left with Anson still being strong. I had the total vote lock in this situation so my prey figured out that he will help the Kung Fu deck oust me. Note that in this case I am not complaining at all since it was the right call. I would have done the same. I had already Vessels, HG and Art Museum in play to generate 2 pool/turn and gathered enough s:ce and reaction cards to defend myself until the time out. This is what happened actually. I had great luck since the time out happened in my own turn. At the end of my turn I would have been ousted by a Dragonbound. Note that the Judge was observing the game and found everything to be according to the rules. 1.5 VP's

2nd table: 

Zoe + weenie cel -> Myself -> Tremere! toolbox -> Anson -> Menele combat

Wow! This was one of my best games ever. I mean it. I started out with no Prince in my opening crypt, no Grand Ball during the first turns and the Anson deck started with Anneke so my Toreador Justicar vote card wasn't worth it ti be played. I called another vamp which wasn't a prince either. So I started with a weenie and Lucina because she has +1 strength against vampire with cap less than 5. In the round before I observed that the Zoe deck just goes forward relentlessly so I figured he would do the same now. For this reason I decided to go all defensive, because I need the time to find and bring into play a Prince. I already learned from previous games that my deck can afford itself to sit around for 1,5 hours doing nothing and than suddenly launch a tactical nuke and one turn oust with unblockable Parity + Ancilla or Neonate + Anarchist or something similar. 

So my plan was to sit out for awhile. I bounced all the bleeds from my predator to the Menele deck instead to my prey since it turned out it was more of a bruise and bleed deck than a rush deck, but Zoe kept reducing the bleeds with Telepathic Counters. The Menele guy was kind of happy because this way he could enter combat and cycle his red cards. This way I managed to reduce the pressure behind me but this came at a price: I basically back ousted my predator. Of course all the pressure from my predator had an effect on me too. I was down to very little pool, like 2 or 3 but got my Prince into play! Since my prey had no pressure whatsoever on him he could freely play forward which played me in the hands. He burned Anneke! Yes!

What happened next shows how suddenly things can change in v:tes. We were down to 4 players since Zoe got ousted by Menele. He saw me there with 3 pool and the pressure was taken from him so he rushed me. I cycled my Charismatic Aura + Majesty combo and survived his rushes. In my turn I played my second Grand Ball (I had one in play with the promise not to use it to cause my prey damage, Menele didn't care about it since he tried to oust me instead of burning it). I now used my first Grand Ball to back oust Menele and Voter Cap it. With my second Grand Ball I played a Toreador Justicar which passed! Yeah! Complete Vote lock and no pressure from behind!

In my next turn I started playing against my prey who could defend himself for quite a while with Delaying Tactics, but he ran out of them. Meanwhile I took some damage, but nothing too serious. Finally I ousted my prey and we were heads-up with Anson with me having the vote lock. In the heads-up Lucina torporized two vampires. I used Fleurdumal's special and saw that his only wake card is an Eyes of Argus. Anson has inferior Auspex so he can't use it to wake. A bleed with Aire of Elation made me the Game Win. 1GW 3VP

3rd table:

Kung Fu -> Zoe + cel -> Tremere! -> Chameleon Nakthorheb -> Myself

I knew what my predator was playing so I decided to influence on different vampires and bring 2 into play the same time once I feel it is save to do so. I guessed the table's dynamic right. With me not putting vamps into play the Kung Fu will go forward taking off the pressure from the Tremere! who than can focus on his prey who is my predator. This is what happened and Nakthorheb got blocked a couple of times so he couldn't set up and ran out of blood. Once I figured my vamps will be save I put both Epikasta and Fleurdumal into play.  My hand wasn't really good yet so I promised my prey not to go forward next turn. Keeping my promise I went for hunt actions next turn to restore the blood spent on reaction cards. The celerity guy could defend against Kung Fu and even had the strength to go forward. The Kung Fu ran out of maneuvers and couldn't put any pressure forward anymore. Since the Tremere! used up too many resourced against his prey he was vulnerable. One or two turns later I finally drew my first Grand Ball and called a Parity Shift to steal 5 pool from my prey keeping all 5 of them. 

I could have given it to the Tremere! but figured that it is best for me to let him die. This is what happened so Zoe got an extra 6 pool. Here he made the mistake to put that 4 cap Assamite into play which was just perfect for the Kung Fu deck, who meanwhile cycled a lot of cards. The next few turns were all about Kung Fu and Nakthorheb having a deal to oust Zoe and me. The game situation suggested it is easier to start with Zoe so they went for him. Here comes the funny thing! One of the guys from Zoe had diablerized a Tremere! earlier and taken the Bowl of Convergence. Now this guy had also a .44 Magnum. He got a Fame and was sent to torpor. The Fame would have killed him so I diablerized it cross table and since I had the vote lock I got a .44 Magnum and a Bowl of Convergence on Epikasta! Awesome! I rescued two cel guys from torpor to by myself another round and made some unblockable damage to my prey. He failed to oust Zoe, because the Zoe guy had 2 Wake cards in this hand. Meanwhile my Grand Balls got burned and I had no other one available. So in my turn I said to myself what the hell it is now or never and went for bleed actions. My prey ran out of wake cards and I ousted him with Aire of Elation. Then I ousted Zoe with a bleed for 1. With +12 pools and total vote lock the heads up wasn't too long. Also I blocked one of Nakhtors actions with 5 intercept using the Bowl. In my turn I played a Parity Shift and 3 KRC's. 1 Game Win with 4 VP's.

So I had 2GW 8,5 Vp's out of 5 Game Wins (2table x 3rounds = 6 - 1 time out = 5 GW were given away).  Now here comes the bad part: Walter Paolini had 3GW 10VP's. Isn't that funny???

Final:

Now the seating (before I choose were to sit) was this:

Nakthorheb -> Menele -> Anson

Fuck. I mean it. So here is what I figured. No matter where I sit Walter will sit behind Nakthorheb. Why? Because he was playing a Lucian based malk '94. Lucian is a 10 cap. The Nakthorheb is the only deck in the final that has no bleed bounce. Lucian has no combat defense except for Obedience which won't work against Menele, so he doesn't want any direct confrontation with the combat deck. 

So where to sit? I obviously can't sit between Nakthorheb and Menele. If Nakthorheb launches of his combo I am dead. And I still got the Menele with all of his Immortals in front of me. My 4 Charismatics won't save me. I can't sit between the rush and the other vote deck. That is even worse. So I had to go for sitting in front of Anson and this was a mistake. I'll come to this back later!

Walter of course sat in front of me. It was a free vp for him and he was the top seat. My problem was that I had an amazing start, which is never good. Thinking it through I always loose a table when my deck starts off  to good. It just generates too much table hate. As did it in this final. I the choice to either sit there and watch Walter making a 1/5 sweep or try to pull every string. So I started table talking too early to try to convince Menele to cross table rush Walter. In exchange I promised him to back oust Anson. This was when Nakthorheb was still in the game. So Walter let him play and they formed a 3 player alliance against me. Rightfully. Second big mistake from my side. I should have waited until the Nakthorheb is gone. This alliance weekend me too much. I managed to back oust Anson. Walter let Nakthorheb oust Menele. Walter ousted Nakthorheb and we were heads up. I still could have won, since winning the heads-up grants 2 VP's. I would have had a chance if I hadn't been weekend by the 3 player alliance earlier. I've lost the heads-up and Walter won. He deserved this win very much, since he played it smart and technically flawlessly. Congrats!

Back to what I did wrong:

I should have totally chosen to sit between the Nakthorheb and Menele decks! Reason: do the same good old trick than in game 3. Wait until Nakthorheb isn't a threat anymore. Start discarding to cycle reaction cards. With 12 bleed bounce cards in an 80 card deck I should have taken this move. Play it save and patiently, do no early pressure on Menele (he was a bruise and bleed, not a rush deck, man I am an idiot). Bounce the bleeds than do the tactical nuke and get a new prey that is more than likely beaten to crap already. Well, it is always easy to be smart afterwards. Next time I'll do better.

by: Mephistopheles 

HNC Ranking updated

Hi folks!

I've updated the HNC ranking. There are still 2 archon files missing, so further updates will hopefully follow soon.

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: HNC Hatvan

Hi folks!

As I mentioned before I played 2 tournaments this weekend. Here is the report for the tournament I played on Saturday. I played a brand new deck that I had built on Friday and took to the tourney without any testing. It is a Group 3-4 Toreador deck. You will find the deck list at the end of this post. So here is what happened:

1st table:

Márk (obf-dom) - Myself - Máté (Renegade Garou) - Csaba (Reversal Malks)

We knew what Csaba was playing so he was the declared table threat. We managed to stop him from starting his combo. Meanwhile the Máté didn't rush me back and I gathered a sufficient amount of s:ce cards in my hand. There was a brief moment when the table decided to play against me, so I offered Csaba a vp for a vp and a heads-up for the game win. Csaba was ina pretty lost position by that time, so he accepted. Máté rushed me backwards with 3 Garous and I cycled my 3 s:ce cards. I ousted Máté with a Parity shift + Ancilla combo and helped Csaba to make his vp as promised. I won the heads up since I had vote lock. A pretty fast 1GW 3VP.

2nd table:

Can't remeber the exact seating.

One of the most boring tables ever. I had a bad crypt and didn't see any grand balls. Basically I spent the entire game just trying to survive. With a wall deck around and a Dmitra deck without Dmitra the whole table went time out. Really nothing to report about here.

3rd table:

Myself - Frankie (Classic Alexandra Grand Ball) - Dávid (Massassi) - Botos (Trujah) - Csaba (Reversal)

Actually I am not 100% sure about this...

Another bad table. I had an early Toreador Justicar but contested the title with Anneke. I had a lot of pressure from behind so I had to go for a backoust. Meanwhile the Massassi deck built up very well. I had a few chances to oust Frankie, but either missed that 1 transient vote push or that one +bleed action so I couldn't oust him. In the end the Massassi deck killed us all.

Final table:

Dávid (Massassi) - Milán (Cel Princes) - Máté (Garou) - Myself - Csaba (Reversal)

I don't know how on earth it happened but Csaba decided to play only backwards against me. So I already played against two players, but kept myself well in the game. At this point Csaba could convince Dávid to cross table rush me. During the entire final Dávid didn't take a single action against his prey, but instead started playing cross table against me. What the FUCK???  My deck is quite defensive, but no deck can survive playing against 3 players, especially with Garous behind and a Potence combat comming from cross table. What could I do? I offered Milan to backoust Máté, if he lets me get Csaba. This wasn't enough though. I had to cut a second deal with Dávid saying that I don't go forward until he ousts Milán. So I backousted Máté and killed Csaba. Milán and Dávid were both higher seat than me, so currently Milán was winning the final. I counted on Dávid to try to win the final, but even in this situation he did NOTHING against his prey. I cycled my deck like hell, to draw damage causing votes. Meanwhile I am totally against breaking a deal, but in this situation? I would have totally tried to oust Dávid if I could. Unfortunately I drew nothing good and we timed out. Milán won te tournament by being a higher seat than me. Very, very poorly played by Dávid. If you have no intentions at all to try to win a final than go home and let the 6th place play...

So here is my deck list:

Deck Name: The Thorne of the Rose 1.0

Created By: Mephistopheles

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 32, Avg: 6)

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  1  Antoinette                         AUS cel obf PRE6  Toreador

  1  Emerson Wilkershire III            pre            2  Toreador

  2  Epikasta Rigatos                   cel AUS DOM PRE8  Toreador

  2  Fleurdumal                         AUS cel DEM PRE tha8  Toreador

  1  Ira Rivers                         ani AUS CEL pre7  Toreador

  1  Kateline Nadasdy                   AUS CEL PRE    7  Toreador

  1  Lucina                             AUS cel PRE pro7  Toreador

  1  Michael Luther                     aus pre        4  Toreador

  1  Thomas De Lutrius                  aus cel pre    4  Toreador

  1  Yvette                             aus cel        3  Toreador

Library: (80 cards)

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

Master (15 cards)

  1  Art Museum

  1  Elysium: The Palace of Versailles

  1  Papillon

  1  Pentex Subversion

  1  Powerbase: Montreal

  1  Society Hunting Ground

  6  Toreador Grand Ball

  3  Vessel

Action (2 cards)

  2  Entrancement

Action Modifier (12 cards)

  2  Aire of Elation

  3  Awe

  3  Bewitching Oration

  4  Voter Captivation

Political Action (17 cards)

  1  Anarchist Uprising

  1  Ancilla Empowerment

  3  Kine Resources Contested

  3  Neonate Breach

  4  Parity Shift

  3  Toreador Justicar

  2  Consanguinous Boon

Reaction (22 cards)

  4  Eyes of Argus

  6  My Enemy`s Enemy

  4  On the Qui Vive

  2  Second Tradition: Domain, The

  6  Telepathic Misdirection

Combat (10 cards)

  4  Charismatic Aura

  6  Majesty

Equipment (2 cards)

  1  Heart of Nizchetus

  1  Sniper Rifle

After the tournament I took out the 2 Boons and added another 2 KRC's. I'll write the tourney report for the ECQ Vienna tomorrow.

by: Mephistopheles

Wow, what a weekend coming up!

Hi folks!

Somebody just spilled AWESOME all over my schedule: a v:tes tourney in Hatvan on Saturday and an ECQ in Vienna on Sunday. I am going to play both events with a brand new deck I want to play on Day1 during the EC in Warsaw. Six tournament rounds of v:tes should be a nice way to test the deck. After tomorrow I might swap some cards and test those changes on Sunday. 

It is going to be "Legen - wait for it - dary!!!"

by: Mephistopheles

What goes around comes around...

Thanks goes to Tiago Brum for noticing this. There is really nothing new under the sun. 

What would you do?

Hi folks!

I wonder what would you do with a card or 1-2 cards in your otherwise tight deck, which will prove useful or even a game winning cards once in every 10 games, but just simply be discarded in the other 9 games? Should I keep it? Or should I replace it/them with cards that are always useful, just no game winners?

What's your point? Please comment?

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: ECQ Kosice

Hi folks!

Really just a brief report now. After a very long time not playing v:tes I finally played again. I joined the event for one reason only: getting back into the game. It turned out this was really necessary! Let's start with this funny thing: I forgot to bring counters with me. Not because I was careless, but because it didn't occur to me that this game needs counters! Wow!!!

I played with my Dmitra Alastor deck, because I will play this deck at the EC for sure (don't know on which day yet). There is not much to report, but here are a few thoughts:

1. table

My predator was Tzimisce wall deck, which is my archenemy number one (with this Dmitra deck). Obviously my only chance was to make sure the wall dies. However there was a secondary problem: after the Tzimisce is gone I'll be stuck between 2 other vote decks! My prey ousted his prey and the 3 voter decks were left on the table with both of them being afraid of my Alastor combat. I had a small window open to win this one, but didn't draw the necessary cards. 

2. table

This was a 4 players table. Peter Botos was my predator with his Rock Cat deck. By the time I could bring out 2 vampires the same time (with my cross table buddy bringing out 2 vamps the same time, too) Peter had already 4 Rock Cats. He knew my deck and he was afraid of the Alastor, too, so he rushed my right away. I made a serious technical mistake here by playing a Resist Earth' Grasp with Carlak instead of saving it for Dmitra. I still somehow managed to get back into the game with the help of a Forced March and called the Alastor. Unfortunately I ran out of second trads. I had a Fame in my hand, but just before my turn Peter played the Fame on Carlak. Since Dmitra was tapped out he could torporize Carlak and I died. If I hadn't made that mistake with the Resist, I would have had the Alastor 1 turn earlier and quite certainly either won the game or made a 2/2 vp split. I think it is amazing such small mistakes can have a strong effect on the entire table! I can't afford to make such mistakes at the EC!

3. table

Great opening crypt and hand! I had a strong predator with Chaundice (kind of a wall/combat deck), but maaged to set up well and make a fast vp thanks to New Carthage. This was also a 4 players table. As always with Dmitra I was the table threat once more. I am used to play against 2-3 players the same time with this deck, but sometimes it a little annoying. In this very balanced situation I made tons of technical mistakes. Too many to list them all. Most of my decisions very bad. This would have been a table which I could have won easily and a few month ago I would have won it. With all these mistakes I made I got ousted backwards by Milan who than made a Game Win with 2 vp's.

Conclusion

Generally spoken I can distinguish two types of v:tes decks: the rock-paper-scissor deck and the versatile deck. Rock-paper-scissor decks are one-trick decks like Giovanni Powerbleed, Obf-Dom stealth-bleed, Embrace swarm toreador antitribu, weenie potence, etc.

When the Archon randomizes the seating each of these decks show rock, paper, or scissor and supposed the players are roughly on the same level the outcome of the game is mostly determined by the seating. I think this is the reason why many of the pro players play the other deck type.

The versatile deck is per definition a deck that can answer almost every game situation. However this comes at a price: you must play technically flawless. You will have to make many decisions on how to intervene in the game. There is no script you can just run. In order to win almost every decision you make has to be the right one. I believe my Dmitra deck is such a deck. Other decks for this category are the Girls will find decks, or the Arika decks I have seen from Erik Torstensson. Of course there are many more.

If played right my deck would have made a 1 game win with 6 vp's, which maybe would have been enough for the final. Well it didn't because I screw up. I would say that my mission was accomplished, since this was why I joined the event: re-learning the game. I did re-learn many things.

Next week I will play a HNC tournament on Saturday in Hatvan and maybe join the ECQ on Sunday in Vienna. Preparations for the EC continue! 

by: Mephistopheles  

EC2011 I'm coming!!!

Hi folks!

I've booked my flight today. After a couple of weeks of trying to decide whether to play the EC or not I've finally decided to join the event. I really need to play some games again...

by: Mephistopheles