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