HUN FRAGMENT

Deck of the Month: January

2012-02-02T07:38:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

I am happy to announce the first Deck of the Month on Hun Fragment! Fortunately for me I had no problem at all choosing one. Genís Prats' weenie Assamite/Tzimisce deck supported by a Agent of Power/Summon History tech is so awesome that I still try to catch my breath. It seems fast, effective and stable and these three are rarely true for the same deck. Also the surprise effect has to be mentioned. So enough talking from my side, here is deck list:

Deck Name : Alamut's Horror Museum
Author//Player : Genís Prats
Score: 4 + 0 + 4 + 4 (final)

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 5 average: 2.66667

3x	Anarch Convert	(1)	Caitiff	(g0)
2x	Tansu Bekir	(4)	Assamite	(g2)
1x	Badr al-Budur	(5)	Assamite	(g2)
1x	Anwar	(4)	Assamite	(g2)
1x	Ali Kar	(3)	Assamite	(g3)
1x	Harika Guljan	(3)	Assamite	(g2)
1x	Horatio	(2)	Tzimisce	(g2)
1x	Kanya Akhtar	(2)	Assamite	(g2)
1x	Piotr Andreikov	(2)	Tzimisce	(g3)

Library [80 cards]

Action [10]
2x Haqim's Law: Leadership
1x Pressing Flesh
7x Summon History

Action Modifier [14]
5x Cloak the Gathering
3x Forgotten Labyrinth
3x Lost in Crowds
3x Veil the Legions

Ally [17]
1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
1x Cry Wolf
2x Deviki Prasanta
1x Ghouls of Plaza Moreria, The
1x High Top
1x Muddled Vampire Hunter
1x Ossian
1x Political Ally
1x Ponticulus
1x Tye Cooper
1x Vagabond Mystic
1x Veneficti (Mage)
3x War Ghoul
1x Young Bloods

Combat [2]
2x Trap

Event [6]
1x Anthelios, The Red Star
1x Dragonbound
1x FBI Special Affairs Division
1x Slow Withering, The
2x Unmasking, The

Master [27]
6x Agent of Power
6x Ashur Tablets
1x Creepshow Casino
2x Direct Intervention
1x Fame
1x Fortschritt Library
4x Jake Washington (Hunter)
1x Lilith's Blessing
2x Parthenon, The
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
2x Vessel

Reaction [2]
2x Delaying Tactics

Retainer [2]
1x J. S. Simmons, Esq.

1x Mr. Winthrop

Congratulations to Genís Prats for building this cool deck and winning a tournament with it!

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: HNC Veresegyház

2012-01-31T16:41:00.000+01:00

Hi foks!

Just a brief report on this tournament. I played a 60 card version of Baltimore Purge + Mind Rape based on advanced Marcus Vitel. Why him? Because he has awesome disciplines and he is a Lasombra so I only need him to be able to set off the bomb.

Brief report is brief, so all I have to say for the 2nd and 3rd table is that I got ousted really fast. In the 2nd round it was a 4 player table and my cross table buddy, a Lutz deck, had the best draw ever and played flawlessly. He made his Gamw Win with 3 Vp's in like 20 minutes (if not faster) because he realized that all he has to do is to back oust the Anson Gun deck. I got a vp from this, yay, but there was never a doubt who will walk ever with the Game Win. In the third table I played like 4 minutes. Weenie Dementation crossy bled me (via bounce) for 7 and my own predator bled me for more.

So the interesting table was the first one.This was the seating:

Csaba Greguss (Aus/Obf Nosferatu stealth bleed, cool deck) - Péter Ádám (Ventrue! multi act) - CZ (Goratrix bleed) - Myself

I started with a good ol' Pentex Subversion on Goratrix. I felt save and tapped out. I did my nasty stuff. Bad luck no.1.: Pentex contest by Gora and a bleed for 7! Ouch! Well no big problem. I Graverobbed, Mind Raped, diablerized etc, but there were too many vamps on the table to deal with everything. Well I could steal a Gustav Mallenhous from Péter Ádám. Bad luck no.2.: he plays 2 Banishments in a 90 card deck and already drew one. He could pass the Banishment together with Csaba by 1 vote (Kyle did it). So I lost Gustav who returned to Péter Ádám. No big deal, repeat and Gustav's back to me. Bad luck no.3.: He drew his 2nd Banishment and could pass it by 1 vote again. Ouch.

Too many things happened to remember everything, too much detail. Let it be enough that there was one more window when I could have ousted Csaba: I played a Coven to have that extra action for the oust, but it got Suddened. Bad luck no.4.

All in all, this was the table a could have and should have won. It was not only due to bad luck that I couldn't win it of course. In the first turn when I started to do the diablerie and Graverobbing thing I made mistakes. Too bad, cause I had a vp later on and 1GW 5 Vp's would have been enough for the final. I'll try to do it better next time.

I do not post the deck list because I want to play with it again and I don't want my fellow Hungarian players to see what is in the box...

by: Mephistopheles

Something going on...

2012-01-25T18:17:00.000+01:00

Hi folks!

So originally we would have held a tournament in Nagymaros, but it got canceled due to some problems with the venue. The organizer told us that there will be no tournament. Some of us guys couldn't accept that so Milán and myself started an initiative to ad-hoc announce and organize a tournament. We will be playing in Veresegyház a small town near Budapest. It will be a part of the HNC series, so if anybody from abroad wants to come feel free to e-mail or call me.

Now I need to build something for this event. I was recently thinking of a Gangrel toolbox deck starring good ol' guy Angus and his princesses. Some wall/combat kind of deck supported with a few Parity Shifts and Banishment.

Alternatively I might just want to build an Akunanse deck with the 3 available Magaji's. It would be basically the same concept as above. Instead of Second Trad and Shift I would have Laibon/Akunanse stuff ofc.

As a third option I still have Alonso Petrodon. I love that vampire very much, but it drives me crazy that I can't build a solid crypt around him. The only really good support he has is Graham Gottesman. On the other hand he is so funny to build a deck around. I recently made a 60 card deck which had First Traditions, Baltimore Purges and Mind Rapes in it. Pure evil...

I'll try to figure out what to play. Watch out for the report on Sunday or Monday.

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: Grand Ball Hatvan

2012-01-15T21:38:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

Here is my first tournament report for this year. 15 players gathered in Hatvan to get the v:tes season 2012 started in Hungary. I had some deck ideas for this tournament, but decided to give my Eze will slow roll you deck another chance. Here is how it went:

1st table: Cipo (Girls will find Aids) - ??? (Group 1-2 Nosferoyalty) - Myself - Ferenc (Trujah Summon History) - Richard (Blood Brother Chicago circle)

The table started really good for me. I had an awesome opening hand with Enkil Cog, Founders of the Ebony Kingdom and some other yummies in my hand. I was a little worried, because Cipo started with Enkidu and a Villein for 11 + Lilith's Blessing combo and soon Aksinya followed. There were 2 votes at my prey + 7 votes behind me, but that was only a little unpleasant. Most of the time I could manage to call my votes since I had Eze with Kduva's Mask and Sobayifa (7 votes), so I could pass anything with the Edge and a Perfect Paragon. Later on Nana showed up and became Guruhi Kholo. Since my actions were never blocked I could bloat and set up. Unfortunately the overall playing speed was quite low and that caused me to loose some vp's, you'll see later on.

Meanwhile the Blood Brother were fighting the Girls will find deck quite effectively. The Nosferoyalty deck caused me to play carefully, but was never a big threat so I could freely play my game. Ferenc had 2 Trujahs in play so a well timed Banishment on an almost empty Al-Muntathir opened the door for my first vp. I knew the Blood Brothers would want to rush back sooner or later so I let my prey live an extra round because I needed the actions to get an Ivory Bow and a Preternatural Strength on my Well-marked Eze. With this setup and the Blood Brother being down on 1-2 blood only backrushing made no sense anymore. I ousted my second prey and started to push the Girls will deck. I used Enkidu's Red List (he was down on 0 blood) to attack him, torporized and diablerized him. Cipo was low on pool so another well timed Banishment on Aksinya sealed his fate. Well would have sealed his fate, but at this time we timed out. 5 minutes more and I have a Game Win with 5 Vp's, but this way I got 1GW 2,5 VP's only.

2nd table: Myself - Cipo (GWFA) - Dávid (Lutz 'n friends) - Norbi (Malk with Lucian) - Máté (Renegade Garou)

Not the best seating, because of Aksinya. She can stop my deck entirely. Well as long as I don't draw my Banishment. So I focused on bloating and defending in the first place which was Necessary. Norbi started with a Mariel Lady Thunder + Lucian duo so he could defend against the Garou. I knew I won't have to be worried being rushed, but I have to worry about Norbi. This is was actually happened. Norbi made a very fast vp. Then he started to pressure me. He had already 4 vampires and a bunch of pool. Meanwhile cipo was becoming another real threat. No big surprise here: Dávid and I agreed on making a 1-1 vp deal and vote does decks to death. This is what happened. I have not the slightest idea how the heads-up between us would have ended since we both were kind of strong and had similar stats. We timed out 2 minutes after we made our vp's. 1,5 VP's here.

3rd table: Sándor (Gerald Windham) - Richard (Blood Brothers) - Myself - Dávid (Lutz) - Zoltán (Tremere toolbox)

This was like one of the weirdest tables I have ever played. First of all Sándor started with a Ponticulus + Talbot's Chainsaw combo just to see Zoltán stealing his Ponticulus with a Far Mastery. Despite this Sándor could keep himself in the game, well with some of my help. I gave him a rescue and some other help I can't remember. Meanwhile Dávid and Sándor pissed each other of quite hard for reasons nobody else understood. I mean they were cross table and still almost yelled at each other. I was like wow, I better stfu and lean back. So I did my stuff (equip, hunt, bloat, etc.) and I could do so since the Blood Brother had a hard time surviving against Sándor.

Then out of nowhere Dávid and Sándor became friends again and agreed on Dávid ousting his other cross table buddy, namely Richard. I was like the hell is going on here??? Well Richard got ousted and we were down to 4 players. During all this weird stuff Dávid didn't really notice what I was preparing for. Meanwhile I had the Kduva's Mask, Enkil Cog, Narrow Minds, Heart of Cheating, etc. in play. I just bled him to death using Enkil cog in 1,5 turns. So we were 3 players left and Zoltán easily ousted Sándor. The heads-up was kind of short since I had a Pentex ready for Carna. He couldn't stop my multi action and a Banishment on his other "big guy" (an 6 cap on 1 blood) was the final punch. 1 GW 3 VP's.

FINAL

So I reached the finals as top seat with 2GW 7VP's. I knew all the finalists decks and how they play so I ran through some scenarios in my head to come up with some plans, depending on how they choose the seats. This is how they sat down:

Sándor (Gerald Windham) - Botos Péter (Anarch Enkidu) - Dávid (Lutz and friends) - Gyula (Omaya + Khalu wall)

So my view of all this:

1. I can't sit between Sándor and Enkidu. I will have a rush/bleed predator and a rush + grapple prey. No way I can survive here.

2. I can't sit between Enkidu and Lutz. Grapple rush predator is bad. In this scenario Dávid and his cross table buddy Gerald Windham will have vote lock, so I can't play my votes.

3. I can't sit between Dávid and Gyula. Same vote lock problem and no way I can oust Gyula's deck which is packed with DI's, Delaying Tactics and bounces.

4. That leaves only one spot: Sitting between Gyula and Sándor.

My Plan:

I knew Dávid plays with Zillah's valley and stuff and that Gyula plays very defensively in the early stages of the game. I also knew that Sándor prefers to go forward and that Botos' priority would be defense first. This means I counted on Dávid taking off pressure from me and trying to oust Gyula. I was ready to give him all my support when it comes to hurting Gyula.

In the first few rounds my plan worked out. I managed to pass a Magic of the Smith and get my Kduva's Mask. Also I could pass Founders of the Ebony Kingdom. I was very sure that later on I will have no problems ousting Sándor and that 1 VP would be enough to win the final since I am first seat and the game would (and did) progress very slowly.

What I did not count on was Dávid entirely stopping to do anything against Gyula after being blocked and torporized once. Who follow my blog will know that I had this issue with him once. Besides this first attempt he didn't make any other actions against his prey during the entire final. I stop complaining here.

I still had the chance to win, but here came the other bad luck: Neither Enkil Cog nor a single Villein showed up during the entire final. Enkil Cog would have been helpful, but that was not the deal breaker. The lack of a single Villein was. Gyula, who had no pressure at all left on him, slowly grinded me. I had one window open when I played a Pentex on Sándor and easily could have ousted him if Gyula wouldn't be Mr. Eagle's Sight himself (I did and always will loath that card). Gyula ousted me and when he did so I had 3 vampires (11 - 10 - 8 caps) almost full with blood.

When I played the Pentex I was down on 4 pool (before playing it). It was clear that Botos was about to make his VP so making it to the time out wouldn't be enough for me to win. I needed a VP myself. I had no Majesties left in my hand and 3 vampires. Gyula had 4 vampires, but 2 of them would killed me in combat. I could have tried to defend and play against Gyula, but with little time left that would have only won Botos Péter the final, therefore I made my call to try to make my VP and hope for Gyula lacking an Eagle's Sight. Unfortunately he had one.

Final Note:

All in all it was a good tournament with good games. I had fun and that's the most important thing. Too bad for me I am still unable to win a final when not playing a deck with strong combat options. After so many finals played with non-combat decks (surely 30+) during my v:tes career without ever winning one I really wonder what I am doing wrong. I hope some day it will work out for me and get rid of this curse.

Oh, and another thing: the more I play with this Eze deck the stronger Banishment gets in my eyes. Currently I even think it is better than Parity Shift. I well timed mid- endgame Banishment can easily open the way for a Game Win.

by: Mephistopheles

Having fun with Paintex Subversion...

2012-01-13T14:13:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

Yep I am that bored. I recently spent time thinking of rebuilding a Hardestadt deck. Since I experienced with my Eze deck that not even a 3 Sudden 1 Pentex package can keep your main guy safe I kind of lack the motivation to build another deck based on a 11 cap. Yep I know, I should stop crying...

by: Mephistopheles

...but way too much time was spent on 9gag this week...

First tournament this year: Grand Ball Hatvan

2012-01-12T16:08:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

The v:tes season 2012 in Hungary will start with a small tournament in Hatvan. Currently all my v:tes cards are banned into some boxes and the only "ready to play" deck I have is my Eze deck. I kind of feel tempted to play it again because I am too lazy to build a new deck. On the other hand I really should build something new now. Well, we will see what happens. It will be really cool to play 3 rounds (or even 4?) of v:tes again!

by: Mephistopheles

Y U NO SORT YOURSELF?

2012-01-03T15:07:00.002+01:00

Poll Result: DotM on Hun Fragment

2012-01-01T16:35:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

First of all, I wish you all a very happy and successful new year, good health, good luck and everything else you wish for yourself!

I think the poll is very clear, so there will be a Deck of the Month on my blog. Can't wait to choose the first deck! Thank you all for voting!

by: Mephistopheles

Deck of the Month on HUN FRAGMENT is...

Tournament Report: HNC Final + Eze Deck explained

2011-12-11T17:59:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

Here is brief report on the HNC Final. I played my Eze deck again.

1st round:

Zsóka (Gerald + Gargoyle)- Szilver (Anson tap and bleed) - Me - Robert (Asguresh rush) - Csaba (Lutz and friends)

Long story short: I got Pentexed again before I could draw a Sudden Reversal. 0 VP

2nd round:

Me - Colos (Enkidu + Muricia block/rush) - Dio (Tzimi Wall) - Denes Kocis (Cailean Raptor Wall) - Ádám "Törpecápa" Honur (Omaya Wall)

Long story short: 2 hours that seemed like 2 days. 0,5 VP's for everybody. Yay!

3rd round:

Me - Márk (Ariadne rush) - Slaven Karakas (Kyasid bleed) - Péter Botos (Rock Cat) - FlekkAttakk (Howler bleed with modest intercept)

Finally something to report here. I had good luck because Flekk didn't drew his bleed modifiers so I could stall along and bring out a second vampire. Meanwhile Slaven earned the table threat status since he managed to steal the only Rock Cat and ousted Péter pretty fast. Flekk was afraid of Slaven, I didn't want to risk getting rushed so I didn't go forward. Instead I gathered all kind of stuff on Eze: Secure Haven, Well-marked, Preternatural Strength, Heart of Cheating, Kduva's Mask, Enkil Cog and whatever I forgot. So there was some strong pressure on Slaven. By the time I was set up Márk asked me if I want to come forward since he has a Pentex Subversion. Stupid Pentex again. Of course I had to say that I won't go forward since a Pentex would automatically kill me. I counted on him playing the Pentex on the Kyasid then because he was low on pool and blood so he could have gone for the oust. Instead he kept the Pentex in his hand. When I asked Márk if he will ask the same question every turn he said yes, that was his plan. Basically this meant I either play along and therefore just give up on the game or I break the deal so I have a real chance for the game win. I chose the ethically or morally bad solution and decided to not give up on this game and bled with Enkil Cog.

I didn't oust Márk right away, but I could do some hard pressure on him. I cycled a lot of cards and drew both a Sudden and a Strange Day. Márk played his Pentex on Eze for 3 pool (because of the Secure Haven). I didn't Sudden it. In my turn I removed the Pentex with the Strange Day and ousted Márk. A turn later I ousted Slaven with a Reins of Power. In the heads-up with Flekk I drew my own copy of Pentex and played it on the Siamese, because it was the one with a Raven Spy. After a Banishment on Howler with a Call of the Hungry Dead on her block attempt we shook hands. 1 GW 4 VP's for me. Too bad it took a deal break to achieve this.

Conclusion:

The first thing I did after this tournament was to add a 3rd copy of Sudden to the deck. This Eze deck is really a very strong one and works wonderfully, but it is just so annoying that a single master card can ruin your entire game. The only defense you have against the Pentex is Sudden Reversal or as you could read above deal - deal break your way out of it. I don't want to do the deal break part, but I don't want to give up a game just because this single card. Now with 3 Suddens in the deck I might be able to draw a Sudden before somebody else draws the Pentex. As I wrote here on my blog earlier: once I have a Sudden in my hand I keep it for the Pentex. I don't mind my prey playing a Villein for 10. I won't Sudden that. Just wait for the Pentex...

The Deck as I played it in this tournament with comments:

Deck Name: Eze will slow roll you
Created By: Martin "Mephistopheles" Major with help from Frankie

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 32, Max: 44, Avg: 9,58)
----------------------------------------------
5 Eze aus ANI NEC POT PRE THA11 Guruhi
3 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

Even though Nana has no votes she is stall my first pick to bring out next to Eze. Once this deck starts rolling it consumes a crazy lot of cards and even though 19 master cards / 7 trifle in a 90 card deck doesn't seem too much I almost always master jam at least once during a game. Nana helps you a lot with that. Also the Sudden I have to keep in my hand is basically a -1 hand size and Nana compensates that.

Library: (90 cards)
-------------------
Master (19 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
6 Villein
1 Wider View

All of these cards proved extremely useful. NOTE: never ever play Ancestor Spirit on Eze! Eze will get a +2 bleed from the Kduva's mask and Enkil Cog so if you would play Ancestor Spirit on Eze you would risk loosing him to an Archon Investigation! I think all the other cards are self explanatory.

Action (13 cards)
2 Entrancement
5 Founders of the Ebony Kingdom
3 Magic of the Smith
1 Preternatural Strength
2 Well-Marked

After 10+ games now played with this deck I think that this action package is good as it is. People ask why I play no No Secrets of the Magaji. No Secrets would be bad on Eze, since you don't want to block with him. You just want to get him utapped. The 8 Majesty are not enough to support Eze blocking. No Secrets on a secondary vampire could be good theoretically, but I think most of the time it would show up just the wrong time. I never felt during any game that I could need it.

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

Sometimes I wish I would find the space for some more Mirror Walks (1-2), but I don't. Edge of the World isn't necessary at all, but it is just so fun to play it once in a while that I afford this luxury to play a copy of it.

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

The 3 Banishment and the Reins, Ancient, Political trio are the key to victory. Banishment is just ridiculously strong in this deck. Funny thing: I never played Ancilla so far! However I will keep it for a while but I seriously consider to swap it for a 4th Banishment.

Reaction (10 cards)
10 Sense the Savage Way

This is a card you can never enough in your deck. I could use some more copies some time. It is the key that makes Enkil Cog shine!

Combat (8 cards)
8 Majesty

I am sure that I need no more. Currently I am thinking of making this 6x Majesty 2x Force of Personality. FoP has the advantage that you can cycle it when the action is announced and its effect is another synergy with Kduva's Mask and Banishment.

Equipment (5 cards)
1 Blade of Enoch
1 Heart of Nizchetus
1 Ivory Bow
1 Kduva`s Mask
1 Signet of King Saul, The

HoN, Kduva's and Signet are the killer equipment here. Blade of Enoch protects you from Rotschreck and Deep Songs, but didn't prove itself useful yet. The Ivory Bow is in there mainly for contest, but I could use it once to prevent my neighbors to block actions like Founders, some votes and bleeds for 1-2.

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

Narrow Minds is pure gold. Awesome synergy with Kduva's Mask and Banishment. Scourge had to go. I love that card, but it had to make room for a 3rd Sudden.

Combo (1 cards)
1 Guruhi Kholo

Good on Nana. 'nough said.

Gameplay:

Start with Eze and tool up. In the early stage of the game you should just bloat as much as you can and make your equips and get all the stuff you can on Eze. The first Banishment should almost always go on your predator. Let your prey play and let him go forward. All you should do is to get your Enkil Cog asap and grind your prey with occasional bleeds for 1-3. Once his vampires run low on blood and you are set up you can start pushing more seriously. Never bleed for more than 3 with Eze except when it is your prey's turn.

Don't mind if somebody gets ousted. It is easier for you to control the table if a player is gone. Once you are down to 3 players you should have good control. Never forget that even though this deck does not seem to be that threatening it can cause big damage in a single turn and can keep the pressure up consistently.

by: Mephistopheles

Final update for the HNC Ranking!

2011-12-07T17:33:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

This is the final list for the preliminaries for the Hungarian National Championship in 2011:

Rank	Name	GW	VP	Events
1	Gyula Erdős	8	39,5	8
2	Milos Krstic	6	25	2
3	Péter Botos	4	26,5	6
4	Róbert László	3	19,5	8
5	Zsolt Cziráki	3	17	4
6	Miklós Szilveszter	3	14	4
7	Csaba Greguss	3	13,5	3
8	Márk Virsinger	3	12,5	5
9	Tibor Molnár	3	11,5	2
10	Martin Major	2	12	3
10	Mihály Antal	2	12	5
12	Csaba Pál	2	11,5	3
13	Norbert Bróda	2	10	2
14	László Walter	2	9,5	2
15	Balázs Kalóczkai	2	9	1
16	Goran Damjanic	2	8,5	2
17	Zoltán Tapody	2	8	1
18	Zsolt Gonda	2	7	1
19	Ádám Péter	1	8	4
20	Milán Horváth	1	6	1
20	Sándor Kádár	1	6	3
22	Csongor Kolozsi	1	5,5	1
22	Dávid Kmotricza	1	5,5	1
24	Denes Kocis	1	5	2
24	Máté Vaka	1	5	3
24	Nándor Peti Baksa	1	5	2
24	Tamás Bank	1	5	1
28	Ferenc Borbély	1	4,5	1
29	András Ódor	1	4	2
29	Balázs Sebestyén	1	4	1
29	Goran Ivanovic	1	4	1
32	Djordje Sutic	1	3	1
33	Dávid Wittmann	1	2,5	1
33	Ferenc Vasadi	1	2,5	3
33	Slaven Karakas	1	2,5	1
36	Sándor Nagy	0	6	3
37	Péter Korsós	0	5,5	3
38	Gábor Veres	0	4,5	4
39	Zoltán Iványos	0	3	1
40	Ferenc Kocka	0	2,5	1
40	Ferenc Kósa	0	2,5	2
40	Péter Vadász	0	2,5	1
43	Balázs Páhi	0	2	1
43	Fanni Horváth	0	2	1
43	Gábor Szabó	0	2	1
43	Hrvoje Grigic-Dakovic	0	2	1
43	István Greff	0	2	1
43	János Barcsik	0	2	2
43	Krisztián Király	0	2	1
43	Nikica Novakovic	0	2	1
43	Sára Vadász	0	2	1
52	Ákos Boros	0	1,5	1
52	Ivan Gudelj	0	1,5	1
52	Márton Máté	0	1,5	1
52	Stefan Ristic	0	1,5	1
56	Balázs Gyöngyösi	0	1	1
56	Csaba Márton	0	1	1
56	Eszeter Kajtár	0	1	1
56	Gergő Gyarmati	0	1	1
56	Péter Pusz	0	1	1
56	Réka Vörös	0	1	1
56	Tomislan Buljevic	0	1	1
56	Zoltán Kovács	0	1	2
64	Balázs Pálffy	0	0,5	2
64	Olivér Tóth	0	0,5	1
64	Pál Rója	0	0,5	1
67	Ana Bortic	0	0	1
67	Attila Ferenczi	0	0	2
67	Balázs Bányai	0	0	1
67	Péter Bódás	0	0	1
67	Tamás Geisz	0	0	1
67	Tamás Péterfalvi	0	0	1
67	Vedran Simunec	0	0	2

by: Mephistopheles

Deck Idea: Shattering Marionettes

2011-12-05T11:32:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

Here is a funny deck idea I tested during this weekend. It is by no means a tournament deck, but a very fun to play casual deck for the chill-out games between the tournament tests. Actually that doesn't mean that the deck is not working. I almost won one of the games, but I just couldn't stealth through that hardcore Omaya wall deck. I almost got it though and added a Daring the Dawn and a Virtuosa after that game to the deck. The basic idea of it is to punish Villein addicted decks either by draining of the blood before a Villein can be played or by torporizing the vampires who got their Villein already. Either way I punish :)

Robert Carter is a really strong ally in any Heidelberg based decks since he is actually a permanent +4 bleed. If you want to play a funny deck, give this one a try!

Deck Name: Shattering Maionettes

Created By: Martin "Mephistopheles" Major

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 17, Max: 32, Avg: 6,41)

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

1 Harlan Graves FOR mel pre 4 Daughters of Cacophony

2 Hillanvale FOR MEL obf 5 Daughters of Cacophony

1 Janet Langer MEL pre 3 Daughters of Cacophony

4 Matthew AUS FOR OBE cel7 Salubri

4 Scout Youngwood MEL OBF PRE for qui8 Daughters of Cacophony

Library: (70 cards)

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

Master (15 cards)

2 Dreams of the Sphinx

1 Fame

4 Heidelberg Castle, Germany

1 Spontaneous Power

4 Villein

1 Wash

1 Wider View

1 Pentex Subversion

Action (24 cards)

1 Concert Tour

2 Renewed Vigor

12 Shattering Crescendo

9 Spirit Marionette

Action Modifier (16 cards)

4 Cloak the Gathering

4 Freak Drive

2 Lost in Crowds

2 Repulsion

2 Veil the Legions

1 Virtuosa

1 Daring the Dawn

Reaction (5 cards)

1 Confusion of the Eye

1 Delaying Tactics

3 On the Qui Vive

Combat (4 cards)

4 Superior Mettle

Retainer (1 cards)

1 Robert Carter

Combo (5 cards)

5 Gift of Sleep

by: Mephistopheles

Coming up next year: Deck of the Month

2011-12-01T12:11:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

Beginning with January 2012 I will follow extrala's example and choose a Deck of the Month. However I will choose different criteria. The following points will grant "extra points" (even though it is not mandatory):

1. No bleed bounce in the deck

2. No Dominate in the deck except for cards like Thoughts Betrayed, Graverobbing, etc.

3. Technical changeling deck concept (so no if-then-else like a weenie Dementation).

4. Underdog crypt cards (for example: Samedi, Harbringer, Brujah antitribu, etc.).

5. None of the following cards are in the deck: Liquidation, Ashur Tablets, Lilith's Blessing. Note: I do not consider to add Villein to this list. I see no problem with that card. Villein brought back the Big Caps from nowhere and I am a huge fan of biggies.

Note: Since I consider Imbued: the Unmasking (i:tu) a different game that happens to have the same rules than v:tes I will never ever choose any Imbued based deck as Deck of the Month no matter how creative it is.

Winning a tournament is not a criteria for me. However I won't choose 0-0-0 vp decks either. Making it to a final and finishing 2nd place or just scoring at least 1 Game Win is enough though. As extrala says: there will be no reward other than your five minutes of fame.

I am looking forward to choose the first Deck of the Month!

by: Mephistopheles

Looking forward to a cool weekend!

2011-11-30T17:20:00.001+01:00

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?

2011-11-29T07:58:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-28T21:42:00.001+01:00

Hi folks!

Yep. Again.

by: Mephistopheles

Tournament Report: HNC Kecskemét

2011-11-27T17:10:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-21T19:33:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-20T20:22:00.001+01:00

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.

2011-11-19T00:15:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-17T16:25:00.001+01:00

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!

2011-11-17T12:45:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-16T15:29:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-15T17:11:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-09T08:35:00.001+01:00

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.

2011-11-06T21:54:00.001+01:00

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

Tournament Report: HNC Veszprém

2011-10-30T09:00:00.000+01:00

Hi folks!

I played my Toreador deck again to test it for the EC. I made some minor modifications in it. We were only 10 players this time so we decided to make it 2R + F only. Here is how it went:

On the first table Robi was my prey who played a Dmitra bloat deck. I made him loose 20+ pool and we timed out with him having 4 vampires and 20+ pool. There was also a Khazar deck at the table with an endless amount of ever returning Delaying Tactics. Everybody had good defense in his decks, so even though there were many actions on the table nobody got ousted. The funny thing is that the other table timed out also with only one player being ousted.

2 tables x 2 rounds = 4 Game Wins altogether, but both tables timed out. So we knew that getting just one vp in the second round might be worth a final. Yay!

The second table was a little bit faster though we were pretty close (5-10 minutes) to the time out. My prey was a Renegade Garou deck, who had a terrible start. I had a good crypt and hand so I could set myself up for the oust. My predator was a new Salubri deck with the well known Heidelberg + Spirit Marionette tech, but the button line says it was a stealth bleed. My deck has plenty of reaction cards, so I was safe for a while. I offered my grand predator, who also was a vote deck to cooperate with me. I would have helped him to make his vp. This would have most likely meant that I take the Game Win, so he said no. I had gathered enough Aire of Elations meanwhile so I made my vp with bleed actions. Meanwhile my new prey the Khazar deck was out of control and ousted the guy cross table and a few turns later he made the sweep.

Finals

1. Khazar deck

1. Dmitra bloat

3. Me

3. Renegade Garou

3. Trujah Bleed

1-1 had same 1GW 4,5 VP

3-3 had same 1,5 VP

The dice lead to the order above. Seating went like this:

Me - Dmitra bloat - Trujah - Garou - Khazar

I was very unhappy with this seating since the "endless Delaying Tactics deck" was my predator and the bloat deck my prey. The game developed only very slowly. The Garou deck was the only one who never during the game had any chance to do anything, since once a Garou hit the board it got removed with a Chair of Hades. I knew I can't really achieve anything by votes. I drew 2 Entrancement so I got myself and Ambrosius and Carlton. With this and all my reaction cards I could slow down the Khazar deck a little. There was a situation when the Trujah could have made a vp but a Direct on his bleed modifier prevented him from doing so. A little later I had a window open to make my vp with bleeds, but the Khazar deck realized this also and Pentexed me. I still could bleed my prey down to 2 pool, but he started his turns with 2 Villeins and some pool gaining votes so my chance was gone. Then he ousted his prey. A few more minutes and the Khazar deck would have ousted me, but we timed out again and so the Dmitra deck won the tournament.

I am back to were I was. Playing with a non combat deck again I reached the finals 3 out of 3 tournaments, but just can't win them. Why is it impossible for me to win a tourney with a non-combat deck? Damn, this really annoys me...

Congratulations to Róbert László for his tournament win. He really needed this, since he will come to the EC and wasn't qualified yet. So I am actually happy for him! Well done!

by: Mephistopheles

HNC Ranking Updated

2011-10-30T08:31:00.002+01:00

Hi folks!

The HNC ranking page has been updated after the HNC Round Veszprém.

by: Mephistopheles

After the EC...

2011-10-28T13:22:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!

A part of me really wants to be past the EC. I have so many ideas I want to test and play! But not before the EC since I want to practice with the decks I will be playing there. I hope there will be some tourneys around here after Warsaw so I don't have to wait until 2012. I hope I will find the courage to play all the non-Tier1 ideas I have...

by: Mephistopheles

Open Dossier: Ferenc "Frankie" Vasadi

2011-10-26T14:13:00.001+02:00

Hi folks!

Here is the third interview translation from shilmulotarot.blogspot.com:

Player Profile:

Name: Ferenc Vasadi

Nickname: Frankie

Year of Birth: 1978

Occupation: IT security specialist

City: Budapest

Questions and answers:

1. When did you start to play v:tes and where did you met it?

I started to play at the end of the year 2000 when Sabbat War was released. A friend of mine (Talmi) has shown me the game. I was looking for a new board/card game since my other hobby (dancing) was overshadowed a little and so I had more free time after work. At that time there was a regular game night on Wednesday at Kumi's place. Kumi, Talmi, Tibó, Bank Tomi, sipi, Daneel and Balázs Gábor were all showing up there. The first time Sipi gave me a bruise and vote Nosferatu deck to play. I didn't really understand much at that time, but during that game Sipi said something that I will always remember and I think that is something very important to become a good player: "Don't help him, let him figure it out himself". So I learned the game as an autodidact.

2. What was your biggest success as a tournament player?

Winning an EC and being 2nd place at two NAC events. The NAC's annoy me a little bit since I lost them both in a face 2 face situation. My favorite memory is the NAC 2009 since besides making 9 GW's out of the possible 12 and playing the finals every day I made many good friendships.

3. What is your favorite deck, favorite deck type and why?

I am a big cap vampire fetishist. I don't even remember how to play with vampires below 10 capacity. I have always a different favorite deck, currently it is my Shatter the Gate deck. Many people try to play with it, but I haven't seen any other viable version. I love big cap vampire Enkil Cog decks, no matter who the vampire is. :) I see more opportunities and fantasy in big cap decks and they are less predictable.

4. What motivates you during play? Why do you think it is worth to play this game?

This is still the best multi player card game ever and I don't think that this will change in the future. After all these years there is still something new to discover in it. A motivation for me is to achieve good results with an own idea.

5. How do you prepare for tournaments?

Recently I don't. Otherwise we test a deck an infinite amount of times. A good tournament decks has 20-40 games played before I say that is sort of the final version. Of course it is very important to have fun with that deck.

6. What is the "perfect" v:tes player like?

Patient and can think in the long term. Reputation is also an important factor. You have to be polite and sportsmanlike especially in international tournaments. In the end this is still a game!

7. What is your favorite crypt card?

Currently the big cap baali vampires like Annazir, but also Lucian the Perfect.

8. What is your favorite library card?

Enkil Cog, Monastery of Shadows.

9. What is your favorite set?

Bloodlines, HttB.

10. What is your favorite illustration?

I am Legion.

11. What other games do you play?

Board Games (Chaos in the Old World, 7 Wonders, Game of Thrones, Smallworld, etc.)

12. What is your message to new players?

Patience, patience and patience. In this game you will loose more often than you will win. Look at the tables and try to figure out what will happen and how the decks have an impact on each other.

13. What do you think about the future of v:tes?

As long as there are players there will be nothing to take its place.

Thanks a lot to Ferenc Vasadi for answering the questions and for shilmulotarot for the interview!

by: Mephistopheles

Opend Dossier: Csaba ""Mr_Toreador" Greguss

2011-10-25T13:50:00.001+02:00

Hi folks!

Here is the second interview translation from shilmulotarot.blogspot.com:

Player Profile:

Name: Csaba Greguss

Nickname: Mr_Toreador

Year of Birth: 1982

Occupation: Recruitment Consultant

City: Budapest

Questions and answers:

1. When did you start to play v:tes and where did you met it?

It all started in 2004. I have played other card games before (Mythos, Magus) and stumbled into a shop near the Kodály Körönd. Even though they had these games I naively asked if they have some other card game as well. I left as the happy owner of 3 Toreador starter decks, since I was looking for something versatile to play and something that can influence the entire game as well. This is were my nickname is from. That week on Wednesday I played my first game at a club in Budapest (Fanyűvő) where I made my first 2 victory points.

2. What was your biggest success as a tournament player?

Last year at the EC in Paris. I won the tournament with the largest attendance ever, the 172 player Last Chance Qualifier with 4 Game Wins. I finished 9th place at the Day 2.

3. What is your favorite deck, favorite deck type and why?

I always like to play with Toreador decks, but I love the Cybeletron and everything that bleeds. I leave combat decks to the other players. I like to play bleed/vote/combo decks mainly. I am testing some turbo decks currently, but I also like to build alternative decks for tournament play, like a Choir based deck. My play style favors aggressive decks, but I have learned to play them patiently.

4. What motivates you during play? Why do you think it is worth to play this game?

Friends, Tournaments, Game Wins. And the feeling when you can solve a very though situation, especially in a final. I still remember when I won a final sitting between two tupdog decks with only minimal combat in my deck.

5. How do you prepare for tournaments?

I have 3 main points: play well rested, with tested decks after a few days without playing if possible. So you feel the "hunger" to play a good game. Otherwise I think there are 3 factors to achieve good results:

1) Play very strong and well tested decks.
2) You have to play that deck very good.
3) Good seating and a bit of luck.

If you 2 of these than you can achieve 1-2 Game Wins.

6. What is the "perfect" v:tes player like?

He has to know his own strength and weaknesses in the first place. He understands the dynamics of the game and the given table. He can manipulate his environment. He plays technically flawlessly.

7. What is your favorite crypt card?

Currently Thucimia.

8. What is your favorite library card?

Life Boon, it made me some Game Wins. It is unexpected and unforeseeable. Also fitting to my play style: Antediluvian Awakening and Curse of Nitocris.

9. What is your favorite set?

I don't have one.

10. What is your favorite illustration?

I don't have one.

11. What other games do you play?

Board Games (7 Wonders, Chaos in the Old World), Total War games on PC.

12. What is your message to new players?

Play a lot and analyse your mistakes and moves after the game. Think of what you should have done differently. Don't try to play for the vp's but for the gw's. And the more the old players try to convince you to do something else the better choice you have made.

13. What do you think about the future of v:tes?

As long as there are regular games and the players stick to the game there will be no problem. I think it will last for many years. It won't fail on me!

Thanks a lot to Csaba Greguss for answering the questions and for shilmulotarot for the interview!

by: Mephistopheles

Open Dossier: Péter "Superlame" Botos

2011-10-24T14:34:00.003+02:00

Hi folks!

Recently shilmulotarot.blogspot.com has posted some interviews with Hungarian v:tes players. I have asked for the permission to translate them into English and received it, so here you go:

Player Profile:

Name: Péter Botos

Nickname: Superlame on the forums or Boti

Year of Birth: 1981

Occupation: Business Intelligence Analyst

City: Budapest

Questions and answers:

1. When did you start to play v:tes and where did you met it?

I have played other card games before (Magic, Guardians, Star Wars, Middle Earth) so I tried to resist v:tes for a long time even though my friends desperately tried to convince me. My experience was that such games consume a lot of money and since I was a University Student at that time I had not enough of that resource. Then my friends decided to buy me my first deck and I fell for the trick. I started to play with a Camarilla Brujah starter deck around 2003.

2. What was your biggest success as a tournament player?

The tournament win at the 2010 National Championship (HNC). This win is really next my heart because I won with deck that I designed alone. It is a True Brujah deck which never counted as a Tier1 deck type before. Also it was my first tournament win (I had achieved good results with this deck before) and I won it with 4 Game Wins total.

3. What is your favorite deck, favorite deck type and why?

I have no favorite deck. I like decks that have an unusual twist in them. Of course I have played "regular" decks before but those are never so funny to play and I often discard them pretty fast.

4. What motivates you during play? Why do you think it is worth to play this game?

Naturally winning is a main motivation., but there are other things as well: pulling of a good combo, proving a decks viability, etc.

5. How do you prepare for tournaments?

I don't really prepare for tournaments. I don't actually take them any more serious than casual games. Preparation is more a by-product. I like to play a lot and visit friends to join play test games.

6. What is the "perfect" v:tes player like?

He oversees the game, knows who is in what kind of a situation. He can predict other players moves. It is of course important that he knows all cards and rules. He has to be able to manipulate others if necessary, but can also stall around. He has to be patient and be able to wait for the right moment, even if this means to pass his turns for awhile. He loves the game.

7. What is your favorite crypt card?

Nakhthorheb.

8. What is your favorite library card?

Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers.

9. What is your favorite set?

LoB and HttB.

10. What is your favorite illustration?

Gem Ghastly.

11. What other games do you play?

Chess, Warcraft III, Civ. V.

12. What is your message to new players?

Test many different deck types, if possible build them yourself, or at least tweak the TWD deck yourself.

13. What do you think about the future of v:tes?

I think people will be playing the game for several years, but if no company shows up to support it and print new cards than I think it has chance in the long term. Even printable fan sets can't change this. Let's hope I am wrong!

Thanks a lot to Péter Botos for answering the questions and for shilmulotarot for the interview!

by: Mephistopheles

Made in Hungary: Trujah Bleed

2011-10-20T16:23:00.001+02:00

Hi folks!

This column is about decks that were made in Hungary and achieved international attention. I am not claiming that we alone invented it, neither do I want other players to give us credit. It's simply about showing what our v:tes community came up with.

This time I want to introduce a deck built by Peter Botos. He achieved several game wins with this deck before he won the Hungarian National Championship with it in 2010 and got chosen Deck of the Month on extrala. The basic idea of this deck is to slowly build up for a "Big Turn" when you try to oust your opponent using two permanent bleed equipment. This needs a good set-up. Like almost all new Trujah decks this one also focuses on the Domain of Evernight + Outside the Hourglass combination to avoid block attempts. It also uses 7 copies of Tangle Atropo's Hand which will drive everybody insane and also leads to responsible bleeding.

Another strength of this deck is the powerhouse Vaticination. Maybe the strongest card from the set. It is very useful to discard nasty cards from your preys hand, like Archon Investigation or wake/bounce cards, but also makes adds survive ability to the deck since you can stop your predator from playing nasty cards like Parity Shift.

Also many people didn't really know what the deck was about. If you influence on a Malkvian! or Gilbert Duane people will cry stealth-bleed. Lydia was not that threatening. She is now. All in all this is a very smart and technically challenging deck. Peter made it to the finals with it at ECQ Belgrade, too.

Here are the 2 similar decks from the TWDA:

Karl Cheng Chua's version

Dave Pennington's version

And here is the original deck:

Hungarian National Championship
Nagymaros, Hungary
November 27, 2010
40 Players
3R + F

Peter Botos' Tournament Winning Deck

Deck Name: True Power
Created By: Botos Peter

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 36, Avg: 6,75)
------------------------------------------------------
1 Tyler McGill   AUS pre    4 Toreador
1 Andre LeRoux   aus     3 Toreador
2 Veejay Vinod   AUS     3 Nagaraja
4 Lydia   AUS FOR POT TEM dom pre 9 True Brujah
4 Al-Muntathir   AUS FOR PRE TEM obf qui 8 True Brujah

Library: (90 cards)
-------------------------
Master (16 cards)
1 Tabriz Assembly
3 Perfectionist
3 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Anarch Troublemaker
4 Villein
1 Wider View
1 Pentex Subversion
1 Giant`s Blood
1 Remover

Action (12 cards)
7 Vaticination
3 Summon History
2 Mind Numb

Action Modifier (24 cards)
11 Domain of Evernight
2 Crocodile`s Tongue
2 Recurring Contemplation
7 Tangle Atropos` Hand
2 Freak Drive

Reaction (18 cards)
3 My Enemy`s Enemy
3 On the Qui Vive
6 Eyes of Argus
6 Telepathic Misdirection

Combat (10 cards)
10 Outside the Hourglass

Ally (1 cards)
1 Veneficti (Mage)

Equipment (3 cards)
1 Guarded Rubrics
1 Heart of Nizchetus
1 Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers

Combo (6 cards)
6 Quicksilver Contemplation

2011-10-07T08:57:00.001+02:00

Hi folks!

I will leave for the ECQ Belgrade tonight. Cipo, Gyula and myself will drive down to Szeged and spent the night at Colos' place. We will pick up Csaba at the train station Saturday morning and drive to Belgrade. Why am I writing this? I have no idea.

What I actually wanted to share is this: I didn't want to play any of my TWD decks again. Neither did I want to play with my new Toreador deck again. So I spent the entire week trying to figure out what to play until yesterday evening when it struck me like a lightning: Ariadne toolbox it is! I played all kinds of versions before and always ended up 6th or 7th place win 1 Game Win and a few VP's. Maybe this time I can make it to the final. I never build this deck twice the same, let's see what will come out this time. All I know is that such toolbox decks are the most fun to play. Since I am already qualified what else could be more important than having fun?

by: Mephistopheles

Many Tournaments coming up!

2011-10-05T09:27:00.002+02:00

Hi folks!

The EC date is closing in and the urge to test our decks results in organizing tournaments:

22, October: Grand Ball Hatvan

29, October: HNC Veszprém

30, October: Crusade Budapest

Hungarian players can find all the information on our forum. For players who want to visit from abroad please just write me an e-mail: major.martin.tibor@gmail.com and I will provide you with all the information you need. I can help to get you a place to stay for the night or organize somebody to pick you up at a train or bus station.

by: Mephistopheles

Made in Hungary: Ashur Anson rush

2011-10-03T09:54:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!

This new column is about decks that were made in Hungary and achieved international attention. I am not claiming that we alone invented it, neither do I want other players to give us credit. It's simply about showing what our v:tes community came up with.

I won't introduce these decks following a chronological order. The first one I want to introduce is the well known Anson Ashur rush deck, which was first built by Péter Korsós.

The deck is basically an enhanced weenie celerity rush deck. It sacrifices being all weenie, but has access to two master phase actions and titled vampires so it can add Second Tradition: Domain. The key to success is the Liquidation / Ashur combo, which generates pool to pay for the .44 magnum and recycles the needed combat, rush or reaction cards depending on what you need. It is another one of those decks that can be played very defensively if needed and still be able to eliminate it's prey in one turn with a Fame + Frontal Assault + Dragonbound combo.

The first real success was when Gyula Erdős won the Hungarian ECQ on May 16th, 2009 with it. I was watching the final and had a great time doing so. In that final Gyula's predator was a Tzimisce Wall and there was another Wall deck, a Tremere weenie cross table (grand-prey). With 2 walls in the final the game was progressing only slowly. Gyula's prey was an Animalism based Ravnos deck. Sitting between Canine Hordes and aggravated range damage Gyula had to play very carefully. He waited for the time out to be close enough and than launched a sudden attack which scored him 1 VP and won him the Final.

A few weeks later on June 13th, 2009 Marcin Watras won a mini qualifier with this deck and was chosen as Deck of the Month on extrala. Marcin gave credit to Péter Korsós for which we are very thankful! After this success this new Deck Archetype has seen two more tournament wins:

Carlos Martín's version

Marcin Watras' another version

Besides winning tournaments I often met this deck archetype at tournaments were it achieved more or less success. I remember seeing it at least twice in a final.

So here is the original decklist as it was played by Gyula Erdős:

Hungarian ECQ
Budapest, Hungary
May 16, 2009
47 players

Gyula Erdos' Tournament Winning Deck

Deck Name:   Ashur CEL
Created By:  Péter Korsós
Played By: Gyula Erdos

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 13, Max: 32, Avg: 5,33)
----------------------------------------------
  4 Anson             aus dom CEL PRE  8  Toreador
  3 Volker            pot CEL          5  Brujah
  1 Carter            cel              2  Toreador Antitribu
  1 Jimmy Dunn        for CEL POT      4  Pander
  1 Parmenides        qui CEL          4  Assamite
  1 Sarah Brando      CEL              3  Brujah Antitribu
  1 Victor Tolliver   pot CEL          4  Brujah Antitribu

Library: (77 cards)
-------------------
Master (18 cards)
  6 Ashur Tablets
  3 Dreams of the Sphinx
  2 Fame
  2 Haven Uncovered
  3 Liquidation
  1 Tension in the Ranks
  1 Powerbase: Montreal

Action (9 cards)
  9 Bum`s Rush

Reaction (8 cards)
  8 Second Tradition: Domain, The

Combat (34 cards)
  4 Blur
  7 Concealed Weapon
  9 Psyche!
  6 Pursuit
  3 Sideslip
  4 Taste of Vitae
  1 Fast Hands

Equipment (7 cards)
  7 .44 Magnum

Event (1 cards)
  1 Dragonbound

by: Mephistopheles

Talking Pictures: Demotivation

2011-09-29T23:35:00.001+02:00

Deck idea: Warsaw Purge

2011-09-28T21:55:00.001+02:00

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)

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

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

2011-09-27T12:48:00.002+02:00

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

2011-09-26T19:22:00.002+02:00

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

2011-09-26T11:57:00.001+02:00

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)

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

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!

2011-09-23T13:34:00.000+02:00

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...

2011-09-20T14:51:00.003+02:00

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

What would you do?

2011-09-20T08:34:00.002+02:00

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

2011-09-19T09:32:00.000+02:00

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!!!

2011-09-13T12:43:00.001+02:00

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

HNC ranking updated

Frankie's Birthday Party

2011-07-16T15:00:00.001+02:00

Poll Result: Group 6 is...

On vacation

2011-07-02T21:03:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!

There will be almost no post on this blog until September. This means this blog is dead. I'll pick up the usual work, but until then sunshine + beach + beer > v:tes.

by: Mephistopheles

Unofficial Tournament coming this weekend

2011-06-27T22:50:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!

We are going to play a funny tournament this Saturday. Each crypt has to consist of 100% Sabbat vampires and 75% of the same clan!!! SABBAT WAR!!! Even better: if 100% of your crypt is from the same clan than you can ignore the grouping rule!!! Sounds like immense fun!

by: Mephistopheles

Deck Idea: Nahir Research and Bleed

2011-06-24T09:06:00.003+02:00

Hi folks!

Here is another one of my deck ideas. It's plain and simple: build up an awesome hand and stealth-bleed for the victory. It's pretty similar to the Guillaume Giovanni powerbleed archetype. This deck has a solid defensive module against rush and bleed decks. Should your metagame have many vote decks you might want to add some Delaying Tactics and exchange the Guard Dogs for On the Qui Vives.

First Governs should always be at superior and you should start building up your hand size. An early Enkil Cog is of course always nice to have. Let the table influence! With such decks you don't need to hurry because people will wall up pool against you if you show too early forward pressure. With 3 vampires on the board and a hand size of ~10 you should have no problem with making vp's in the midgame.

So here is the decklist (note that it has 80 cards only, so there is still free room for stuff left):

Deck Name: Nahir Reasearch and Bleed

Created By: Mephistopheles

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 20, Max: 40, Avg: 7,83)

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

4 Nahir tha ANI DOM OBT POT10 Lasombra

2 Anton de Concepcion aus ANI DOM OBT POT9 Lasombra

2 Conrad Adoula ani cel DOM OBT POT8 Lasombra

2 Otieno ani dom OBT POT6 Lasombra

2 Paulo de Castille ani dom pot 4 Lasombra

Library: (80 cards)

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

Master (15 cards)

3 Dreams of the Sphinx

1 Monastery of Shadows

1 Elysian Fields

4 Villein

1 Giant`s Blood

1 Coven, The

2 Perfectionist

1 Pentex Subversion

1 Wider View

Action (10 cards)

10 Govern the Unaligned

Action Modifier (28 cards)

6 Conditioning

4 Bonding

3 Seduction

4 Shroud of Absence

4 Shadow Play

4 Shroud of Night

3 Enkil Cog

Reaction (22 cards)

6 Sense the Savage Way

4 Guard Dogs

6 Obedience

6 Deflection

Combat (5 cards)

5 Shadow Body

by: Mephistopheles

Pictures from last weekend

2011-06-22T08:38:00.000+02:00