Looking forward to a cool weekend!

Hi folks!

Frankie, Csaba, Mufti and Milán will be my guests this weekend for an intensive v:tes deck testing. I am really looking forward to it, since I have some cool ideas I want to see in real play. One of these decks might be my choice for the National Final on 10th December. Funny thing: none of these decks use any Dominate or Auspex and none of them use Ashurs or Liquidations. Fcku yeah! 

by: Mephistopheles 

Killer Combo?

Hi folks!

This seems very very promising:

A 6 stealth action together with Call of the Hungry dead is something that won't get blocked. With Perfectionist the cost of Blood of Sandman is definitely worth the price. It is quite easy to tap out vampires with master cards, should they be untapped. Eze with Kduva's Mask and Narrow Minds is a strong combo on its own. However Blood of Sandman can help you with that last bleed you need for the oust. 

by: Mephisopheles

HNC Ranking updated

Hi folks!

Yep. Again.

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: HNC Kecskemét

Hi folks!

Altogether 27 people played a wonderful tournament in Kecskemét. Our Croatian and Serbian friends visited us so it was a real international event. Thank you guys for coming! After my rather disappointing performance at the EC I decided to explore new decks and be more creative. So I've built a new deck finally. I've posted the deck on vekn.net earlier, but unfortunately I got almost no feedback on it. So I decided to play it the way I've built it. We are talking about a deck built on Eze, the Demon Prince. An 11 cap Guruhi, who can not bounce bleed (Lost in Translation is a no-no for me). The deck is not entirely my own creation. We co-worked the 1.0 alpha version of it with Frankie during the EC in Warsaw. So here is how it went:

1st round:

Me - János Barcsik (Malkavian Toolbox) - Attila Ferenc (Petaniqua Infernal Servitor) - Nikica Novakovic (New Blood Brother stealth-bleed) -  Mihály Antal (Tatu Sawosa Orun Brutal Influence)

Nikica started with an early Narrow Minds and bringing his 5 vampires out very fast. This made Mihály play very defensively, especially because he didn't see any Oruns. He drew one to be specific. Due to this situation I was left with very little pressure and so I could tool up. An Infamous Villein  Giant's Blood combo together with an Ancient Influence helped me to a lot of pool. I had Eze, Ugadja and Nana in play and still more than 20 pool! Meanwhile I was also gathering stuff on Eze: Kduva's Mask, Enkil Cog, Well-marked, Preternatural Strength, Heart of Cheating and Perfectionist. I constantly grind my prey with bleeds for 3, which he could either block and take 3 damage, deflect it for 3 blood or let it in and loose 3 pool. When a vampire was low on pool I played a Banishment on it. There was one moment of stress here though. One time János played a Coma and Eze went to torpor. My first rescue was blocked, but I had a Majesty and thanks Lucifer rescuing  from Torpor is a repeatable action. My second attempt was successful.

By the time it was obvious that I will oust my prey Attila played an Unleash Hell's Fury with Petaniqua and he felt pretty save. Well, not for long. I played a Magic of the Smith and equipped Eze with a Signet of King Saul! So neither Petaniqua nor the Hell's Fury could block me. I ousted my prey, however meanwhile Nikica ousted his prey too. Attila realizing that he has no chance to stop Eze went forward to oust Nikica and he almost did it. He left Nikica at 1 or 2 pool, who then tried to oust me. He bled me for 7!!! with a Blood Brother, but I had an Archon Investigation in my hand. He bled me for another 5, but ran out of Walk of Caines, so he decided to stop and try to defend. He finished his turn with 3 pool.

In my turn I managed to oust Attila and could play Edge of the World on the oust with Eze! Bitch please!!! My next action was a bleed for 3 with Nana Buruku + Iron Glare and I had a Monastery of Shadows in play. 1 Game Win and 4 Victory Points.

2nd round:

Denes Kocis (Anarch Weenie Auspex) - Me - Balázs Pálffy (Blood Brother rush) - Djordje Sutic (Lucian the Perfect combat deck)

This table started worse than the average Nightmare on Elm Street. Denes played 2 Anarch Revolts, a Constant Revolution and kept bleeding me with weenies like hell. Even though I managed to replace a Villein on one of my early discards I was positive to die pretty fast. Thanks Lucifer this was a 4 player table and my prey as well as my cross table buddy were both very much afraid of Denes. So we kept removing all the cards: Constant Revolution, Anarch Revolt and Madness Network. I somehow survived. Lucian was hurting those spex guys with Carrion Crows. Denes got weak and suddenly I could play again. I got my Enkil Cog on a bleed for one and Magic of the Smith-ed myself a Kduva's Mask. Meanwhile Balázs saw his chance to make a Vp and started pushing Djordje. Balázs counted on me bleeding for three, but he didn't count with a Reins of Power. That was what happened and suddenly I had my Vp. Too bad I used up my Strange Day on this. Lucian ousted Denes and the two 11 cap Guruhi were heads-up! Bitch please! 

When building the deck I had one thing in mind: defend against Pentex! So besides playing it myself I put 2 Sudden Reversals in the deck with the following attitude: once I draw a Sudden I will keep it in my hand until a Pentex is played on me! I will never ever play Sudden on anything else, but a Pentex on Eze. Of course neither a Sudden nor Pentex showed up. When Djordje played his Pentex on me I had only 2 outs: draw my Pentex asap so I can contest it or alternatively draw my Archon Investigation. Even though I cycled the crap out of my deck neither card showed up so I lost this game to Djordje. 

3rd round:

Márk Virsinger (Lutz and friends) - Denes Kocis (Anarch Auspex Weenie) - Ferenc Kósa (Guillaume Giovanni) - Zsolt Cziráki (Salubri! Wall) - Me

I had a pretty bad draw here. Even though I started with a Signet of King Saul and a Kduva's Mask on Eze and was therefore nearly unblockable (Zsolt started with Nahum Enosh) I failed to draw any pool gaining card. Neither a Villein nor any of the pool gaining votes showed up. I didn't dare to block Zsolt because he would have hit the crap out of me. When I was low on pool he caught me by surprise and ousted me with a Blessing the Name. It was very nicely done Zsolt, respect!

So I had a 1 Game Win 5 Victory Points after the preliminaries. Not bad, considering this was the very first time that I played this deck. We were 27 guys, so I counted on ending up 7-8th place. I was a little surprised when it turned out I finished 5th and therefore can play the final! YEAH!!! There were many people with 1/4 and 1/3, even the 16th place had still a Game Win!

Final:

Balázs Kaloczkai (Turbo Una) - Zsolt Cziráki (Salubri!) - Péter Botos (Ventrue! Grinder) - Milos Krstic (Nana Buruku) - Me

From my point of view this was a terrible table. Milos started with 2 weenies and bled me right away with the Deep Songs. Once I had Eze in the Game he Pentex-ed him right away and nobody on the table tried to help me. I didn't had the pool to bring out a second vampire and died. That's it from my side.

The only question in the final was if Una or Nana will win it. Since Zsolt managed to block many important actions Una made and Péter blocked a Sire's Index Finger with an Eagle's Sight cross table, Balázs wasn't strong enough to beat Nana. Milos won the tournament. Another Nana deck in the TWDA. Yawn. Congratulations though to Milos, he is a very good player and the tournament win was well deserved.

Conclusions: 

First: 

I once wrote here on my blog that I didn't play many decks earlier because I was afraid of bleed decks as a first predator. I also wrote that I realized that I hardly ever have a bleed deck predator anymore. That is why I decided to give decks like this Eze deck a chance. I was right! The only bleed deck predator I had was Tatu Sawosa with brutal Influence. However that deck needs time, so I could have answered that with cards like Banishment. In this current Hungarian meta bleed decks are very rare and those bleed decks you will meet are also nothing like a weenie Dominate or weenie Dementation bleed. 

Second:

Signet of King Saul is pure gold. Our meta is so heavily filled with 8-11 cap vampires that on many tables a Signet will basically make you unblockable. Also Equipment worth mentioning is Blade of Enoch or Sire's Index Finger since that Nana deck runs only Deep Songs. Deep Song is a frenzy card! So if you equip yourself with a Blade or Finger it's like a Secure Haven. 

Third:

When playing a star vampire deck running 2 Suddens and 1 Pentex is not enough to protect your main guy from a being Pentex-ed. 

The Deck:

Deck Name: Eze will slow roll you
Created By: Martin "Mephistopheles" Major


Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 27, Max: 44, Avg: 8,91)
----------------------------------------------
  1  Aren                               ani obf POT PRE7  Guruhi
  4  Eze                                aus ANI NEC POT PRE THA11 Guruhi
  1  Lumumba                            ani PRE        4  Guruhi
  2  Nana Buruku                        ANI POT PRE    8  Guruhi
  2  Sobayifa                           ANI aus pot PRE pro spi8  Guruhi
  2  Ugadja                             ABO ANI dom for POT PRE10 Guruhi

Library: (90 cards)
-------------------
Master (18 cards)
  1  Ancestor Spirit
  1  Archon Investigation
  2  Dreams of the Sphinx
  1  Giant`s Blood
  1  Monastery of Shadows
  1  Palace Hunting Ground
  1  Pentex Subversion
  1  Perfectionist
  1  Secure Haven
  2  Sudden Reversal
  5  Villein
  1  Wider View

Action (15 cards)
  2  Entrancement
  5  Founders of the Ebony Kingdom
  3  Magic of the Smith
  1  Preternatural Strength
  2  Rutor`s Hand (This was never useful, I always discarded it)
  2  Well-Marked

Action Modifier (24 cards)
  4  Call of the Hungry Dead
  1  Edge of the World
  3  Enkil Cog
  4  Iron Glare
  2  Mirror Walk
  6  Perfect Paragon
  1  Strange Day
  3  Voter Captivation

Political Action (8 cards)
  1  Ancient Influence
  1  Ancilla Empowerment
  3  Banishment
  1  Neonate Breach
  1  Political Stranglehold
  1  Reins of Power

Reaction (9 cards)
  9  Sense the Savage Way (the more the merrier)

Combat (8 cards)
  8  Majesty

Equipment (5 cards)
  1  Gran Madre di Dio, Italy (will be removed for a Blade of Enoch)
  1  Heart of Nizchetus
  1  Ivory Bow
  1  Kduva`s Mask
  1  Signet of King Saul, The

Event (2 cards)
  1  Narrow Minds
  1  Scourge of the Enochians

Combo (1 cards)
  1  Guruhi Kholo

HNC Ranking updated again

Hi folks!

I've finally received the last missing Archon. The HNC Ranking is now complete and up to date.

by: Mephistopheles

HNC Ranking updated

Hi folks!

I've updated and double checked the HNC ranking based on the 5 Archon files I have received. Note that there will be 2 more HNC Rounds:

26th November: HNC Kecskemét
3rd December: HNC Debrecen

After all these rounds the top 40 players will be invited to play the HNC Final Round held in Budapest on 10th December 2011.

by: Mephistopheles

90 card limit: never thought it's going to be a problem.

Hi folks!

Since I arrived back home from the EC I constantly keep building new decks. Either in the deck builder or by actually putting those cards into their sleeves. So far I had never found the 90 card limit to be disturbing. Most decks end up around 78, but some decks end up being 80+ so I add some stuff to make it 90. The problem to end up 90+ and then trying to cut it down to 90 was an unknown problem to me so far. 

Since the Brujah clan became one of my favorite clans with the release of KoT I always kept thinking of building a deck around Jann Berger. So I visited Secret Library to throw in the basic stuff I wanted to play in the deck and clicked "update" to go through the list again and see what to add to make it 90. Imagine how shocked I was when I saw that I was already 110+!!! OMG!!! This really never happened to me before and I play v:tes for 7-8 years now. 

I discarded the idea to play with Jann Berger since I found no way to get all the basic stuff I want to play in the 90 card limit. Also, to drift away from the topic, I find it very disturbing that 10 cap vampires tend to have inferior Fortitude while their 9 cap counterparts tend to have superior Fortitude (Jann vs. Dmitra in this case). 

Back to the original idea: I've built a vote/bleed/equip multi-acting deck around Eze, the Demon Prince. A deck that you would expect to easily go above 120 cards when first made in a deck builder. I had no problem at all to build it with 90 cards right away. Stupid Jann Berger, arrrrghhhhhh.........

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: EC2011 FCQ

Hi folks!

Here is my third and last tournament report on the EC2011. Since my disastrous performance on the Day1 wasn't even close to getting qualified for Day2 I had to play the First Chance Qualifier. I've lost trust in my own decks so I borrowed Csaba Greguss' Ventrue deck. He reached the Day1 final with this deck making 3GW 10 VP's in the preliminaries. Since I used to play Ventrue Lawfirm decks a lot in the past I thought this might be a good choice. Again reality proved me wrong.

1st round:

Michael Heyder (Kyasid bleed) - Alfred Behrends (Nana pot-ani rush) - Myself - Christian Nislev (Sylvia Giovanni multi rush) - Maciej Kozlowski (Lasombra bleed with Nocturns)

Yay! Sitting in between two Immortal Grapple rush decks is the dream of every Lawfirm deck. Isn't it? Actually it isn't. Christian back rushed me right away. I was very much surprised that I wasn't the first to get ousted. I received cross table help from both buddies and could survive somehow. The Guruhi deck became so threatening that I had to back oust it otherwise I would have been ousted. I counted on Michael starting to bleed me, but I had sufficient Deflections so that was no problem. So I spent turns of desperately trying to oust Christian, but I always missed a cards, a blood or that 1 extra pool damage. Force of Personality worked wonders on this table. Two times Christian had only vampires with one or two blood available to block me, so he either ended up in torpor from a 1 hand damage or at 0 blood so he had to hunt. Unfortunately shortly before the time out I ran out of reaction cards and Michael ousted me. 

All in all I really enjoyed this table even though making a big fat 0 here. I especially enjoyed Christians deck and the way he played it. I had a good time, thank you guys!

2nd round:

Vlad Mazanik (Ventrue Lawfirm) - Andrei Kashpar (Girls will find Aids) - Tomasz Kliszewski (Turbo Parity Sheldon) - Myself - Michal Orowiecki (Ventrue Lawfirm)

Yeah, what should I write here? 3 guys sitting next to each other contesting the same crypt. One unoustable deck and a fourth vote deck. After 2 hours of massive trash talk from all of us we timed out.

3rd round:

Norbert Flasko (Toreador! tap and bleed) - Gianluca Vindigni (Brujah Debate) - Mikkel Peterson (Tunnel Runners) - Sebastian Rouillard (Moncada and Co) - Myself

By the time I had Mary Anne Blaire and a prince in play Sebastian had 12 votes! He started with Information Highway and a Govern at superior. Even worse he drew 2 Cardinal Benedictions. With him having the total vote lock and my prey bloating with Art Scams and Enchant Kindreds I was even more hopeless than Yvette will ever be. Big fat 0 again. Thanks Sebastian for emailing me your deck list!

Conclusion:

I don't know if I made any mistakes while playing but I think this time I didn't. As you can see from the seating I just had really bad luck with it again. There was a good thing though: on the first table I re-discovered that you can have real fun in v:tes even if you end up losing again.

Now the EC is over and after I arrived home I pushed the reset button. This means that I deconstructed all my decks. Even the Broken Brujah. Now I started to build decks around vampires or cards that I never played before. Just to have fun, but also trying to make these decks as tournament viable as possible. Currently my personal favorite is my new Eze deck. However Unnamed, Muaziz and Jann Berger seem to be promising as well. 

by: Mephistopheles 

Team Hungary wins the Nations Cup!

Hi folks!

Team Hungary proved to be the most efficient during the EC2011. You can read the original post on the official website: link

Well done guys!

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: EC2011 Day1

Hi folks!

So here is my report on the Day1 tournament. I decided to play my group 3-4 Toreador vote deck that worked well before since it reached 3 finals out of 3 tournaments. I was very confident that this deck is a good choice since it was designed to survive even dedicated bleed predators. Also the deck is able to cause massive pool damage to the table once it is set up. As you will read later on the player pool I was assigned to just proved me wrong in all my expectations.

1st round:

Myself - Michal (Ventrue G4-5) - Paolo (Anarch Nana) - Marko (AAA) - Johannes (Gabrielle + Gerald)

As you can imagine from the decks above there were like 30 votes on the table (Gerald had 7) and only 4 votes belonged to me. Sitting between 2 vote decks I needed Marko as an ally to be able to do anything. I made a terrible mistake here by over-thinking the table and decided to make a 1-1vp deal with Marko. Marko lost his patience pretty fast and broke his deal to win the table. I was very pissed at that moment but now that a few days passed I think his call is understandable. I shouldn't have trust in a deal on day1 at an EC. After all I have to admit that I played very poorly at this table. It would have been much better to accept 1-2 turns off pressure from Johannes and let Marko die. Then Paolo would have pressured Johannes anyway. I should have played much more patiently. I think the main reason for my poor performance was that this meta totally got me by surprise and I couldn't adjust my strategy to it. I have to apologize to Johannes for my bad call to basically back oust him and I have to apologize to Marko for being pissed at him and not shaking hands.

2nd round:

Robert László (Pot-Dom rush) - Jussi Ranta (AAA) - Myself - Jesper Woeldiche (Ventrue! Grinder) - Péter Korsós (Lodin Lawfirm)

Jussi had an awesome start and got Alexandra and Francois Villon out. You know I played Toreador too, so Alexandras ability hurt me a lot. Also Jussi's 6 votes. Even worse Jesper Sudden-t all my Grand Balls! With Neighbor John in play I had no chance to pass a vote. Meanwhile Jussi really owned Robert with Pentex Subversion and Mind Numb and Charismatic Aura etc. but the real threat on the table was Péter. The Ventrue! had no chance to oust him since he could equip a Heart of Cheating at the only moment when Jesper couldn't block. He ousted Robert and because the only card that Jussi didn't draw was a Villein therefore he ousted him as well. By this time Péter had the vote lock. Jesper and I tried to figure out how we could cooperate against Péter but there was nothing we could do. Péter made a complete sweep so easily that it's almost ridiculous. 

3rd round:

Nikica Novakovic (Blood Brother) - Petr Michalik (Stanislava) - Ralf Lammert (Pander + Malk! vote) - Tomas Kubec (Mistress Fanchon vote) - Myself

10000000000 votes on the table and I had only 1 prince and Michael Luther. Michael was the only reason why I didn't die right away. Note: next time you play a vote deck with Michael Luther in it play Eluding the Arms of Morpheus in it since he can untap with it whenever your prey or predator is going on a political action. I would have pwned with this. Of course the only massive bloat deck was my prey who had 4 vamps and 30+ pool. With all the vote decks killing each other Nikica made the Game Win and ralf managed to make 1 VP.

Conclusion:

Notice something??? From the player pool of 12 players I was in 8 players played vote decks. There were 1 Ventrue! Grinder, 2 rush decks and the only deck that was a stealth bleed (if you want to call it that) was a  Blood Brother and my prey of course!!! In this meta my deck was just pure crap. 

by: Mephistopheles 

  

Tournament Report: Legendary Vampire Warsaw 2011

Hi folks!

This is my first report on the EC2011 in Warsaw. I played with my Broken Brujah deck on the Legendary Vampire tournament. I was a little afraid of playing this deck, because of all the Animalism combat being played these days and it turned out that my fear was justified. I had my own version of the Nana archetype with me (mINIMAL sTYLE), but I was way too afraid of contesting Nana. Since only these 2 decks were available I took my chances with Dmitra and her Assault Rifles.

1st round:

Myself - Tomas (Lazverenus toolbox) - Ralf (Nosferoyalty with Anathema and Animalism) - Manuel (Anarch Gunner) - Martin W. (Kung Fu Miller)

Tomas started with a first turn Smiling Jack. Thankfully the table agreed on removing it asap and we got rid of it before it would cause too much damage. Tomas then played a Pentex on Dmitra. Somehow I managed to talk myself out of this and the Pentex got removed. I called an Alastor. In Tomas' turn he played another Pentex on me. Meanwhile Manuel didn't draw any guns and therefore was becoming very weak which so there was little pressure on Martin. These Pentexes prevented me from playing my deck and Tomas was about to oust his prey. In that situation I had to decide who I want to have as a cross table "buddy". I could "sacrifice" Ralf and let my prey get a vp so I get rid of the Animalism. This would have been the obvious choice if Manuel would have drawn this deck normally. In that situation Manuel couldn't do anything because he was weakened down a lot and without any guns. I wanted to have pressure on Martin so I helped Ralf to stay in the game. I manged to oust my prey within a few turns. Ralf ousted Manuel and Martin and we were heads-up. Meanwhile I got Pentexed a third time. All these Pentex destroyed my game since I could never set up the way I usually can and this way all I could achieve was to stay alive until the time out. 1,5 VP's.

2nd round: 

Rudolf (Anson tap and bleed) - Paul W. (Anim No Secrets) - Myself - Alessandro Donati (Giovanni powerbleed) - Adam Esbjörnsson (Auspex Wall)

This time I managed to make quite a good start. I could keep the Anim under control since he had also pressure from behind. Adam started by playing a Pentex on Le Dinh Tho. I tried to set up so I could oust Adam easily once I was behind him. This plan didn't work out since I got Delayed 3 times and this once more disturbed my build-up. I had to make my vp faster than I wanted since there was pressure on me (meanwhile Paul was getting much stronger) and I desperately needed that +6 pool. Once I got behind Adam there was a little window open to oust him, but he had cycled enough cards to build up a solid hand and I couldn't oust him with my Parity Shift. I iDied soon after. 1 VP

3rd round:

Thomasz (Ahrimane wall) - Cesar (Animalsim Nana) - Milán (Tremere toolbox) - Pascal (Epikasta vote) - Myself

There is really not much to report about this game. I didn't draw Dmitra in 5 crypt cards (I am playing 5 copies of her) and my prey was an Ahrimane Wall. Even if the Mars, Saturn and whatever planet there is that counts were in the right constellation I wouldn't have had a chance here. 

Conclusion:

Maybe with some luck (less Pentex, less Delaying) I could have won one of the first 2 tables. So the chance to reach the final was there. But I would have needed luck for that. In the current meta Animalism is over represented and this meta is just bad for a deck like Broken Brujah. After more than 2 years of playing with it I finally deconstructed it to let the guys rest until less Animlism heavy days arrive in the World of Darkness.

by: Mephistopheles

Leaving for the EC

Hi folks!

I'll be going to Budapest today and play some final test rounds. Tomorrow Frankie, Csabi, Milán and myself will fly out from Budapest to Warsaw. See you guys at the welcome party!

by: Mephistopheles

Ok, I do it.

Hi folks!

So Ralf's comment haunted me. I'll build some decks for casual games to play during the EC. Seems like a good opportunity to test them.

by: Mephistopheles