Texas Qualifier Results (TWD)
The Lasombra
Austin, Texas
July 12, 2008
17 players
3R + F
Preston Poulter's Tournament Winning Deck with 4 VPs in the finals
Deck Name: Cesewayo wants "More Cowbell"
by: Preston Poulter
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 10 average: 6.25
------------------------------------------------------------
5x Cesewayo 10 AUS CEL DOM POT THA ani magaji Osebo:4
2x Idrissa 4 CEL aus Osebo:4
2x Misrak 2 pot Osebo:4
1x Homa 6 AUS CEL POT Osebo:4
1x Ismitta 4 aus cel pot Osebo:4
1x Kamaria 3 aus pot Osebo:4
Library [90 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Action [13]
4x Enforcer
3x Magic of the Smith
6x No Secrets From the Magaji
Action Modifier [3]
3x Seduction
Action Modifier / Reaction [2]
2x Osebo Kholo
Combat [32]
4x Acrobatics
4x Blur
2x Drain Essence
1x Fast Hands
4x Flash
3x Nimble Feet
3x Pursuit
2x Side Strike
2x Sideslip
4x Telepathic Tracking
1x Thrown Sewer Lid
2x Walk of Flame
Equipment [5]
1x Sniper Rifle
1x Bowl of Convergence
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Kduva's Mask
1x Phased Motion Detector
Event [1]
1x Narrow Minds
Master [17]
2x Erciyes Fragments, The
1x Mbare Market, Harare
7x Orun
1x The Parthenon
1x Powerbase: Montreal
4x Protracted Investment
1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
Political Action [9]
6x Conservative Agitation
1x Disputed Territory
2x Rumors of Gehenna
Reaction [4]
2x Guard Dogs
2x Rat's Warning
Retainer [4]
1x Mr. Winthrop
1x Owl Companion
1x Raven Spy
1x Shaman
Preston is the "I" quoted throughout.
http://presence.vekn.org/viewtopic.php?t=1965&start=45
I played an Osebo deck. The original concept of the deck was mainly as
a combat deck that would capitalize on Casewayo's THA CEL. I used No
Secrets and a few intercept retainers as the way to generate
intercept. I decided on votes for the offense of the deck.
Round 1:
Taylor Lane was my predator and was playing an obf weenie deck that
would quickly prove my undoing. My grand predator was a player I
hadn't seen before playing a Nergal deck that didn't do much over the
course of the game than have Nergal take 1 action a turn to equip The
Heart of Niezchetus as well as a bowl of convergence. Norm, Prince of
the Swamps, was my prey playing a Genina, the Red Poet Animated Corpse
deck. Can't quite recall who my grand prey was.
Taylor quickly brought up 4 minions, equipped them with camera phones,
and bleed me out before I could really get the deck going. I did not
draw a No Secrets so I prepared a last stand by Magic of the Smithing
up a Bowl of Convergence and left Ceseway untapped next turn. But then
my grand-predator had Nergal Magic of the Smith his own Bowl and
Taylor was left free to oust me.
Round 2 (4 players):
Jon Glass was my prey playing his Marcus Vitel hunters deck. My grand
prey was playing a Daugthers of Cacophony Anarch vote deck. My cross
table ally was playing a Group 1 Brujah combat/rush/thrown junk deck.
In the first three active turns of my deck, Cesewayo came out, got a
No Secrets off, equipped a Heart of Niezchetus, and apparently scared
anyone else from wanting to steal my Powerbase Montreal. An early No
Secrets shut down my predator who did not have any Sirens Lures in his
deck (he said he didn't own any). The Oruns in my deck made Cesewayo
consistently too big for Jon to Obedience him. My crosstable ally
proceeded to fame and rush my predators daughters and Jon decided to
equip a Heart of Niezchetus which would contest my own. Given that I
had no pressure and exclusive access to Powerbase Montreal, I was
content to bleed for 1 with Cesewayo and let the fame and the
contesting add the needed pressure on my prey. My predator was ousted
and my new predator tangled with Cesewayo a couple of times, by my
second round combat of additional strikes, Drain Essence, and Walk of
Flame, got him to back off. Jon got down to three pool, and I was able
to vote him off the table with a couple of Conservative Agitations. I
was lucky in that Jon didn't have a 2nd Tradition to actually block.
Round 3: My predator was played by Alex Harmon who was playing a
!Venture deck. Justin from Lousiana was my prey and was playing a Eye
of Hazemel rush deck. Jason was my grand prey and playing a !Brujah
Hektor War Party-thrown junk deck. My grand predator was the Daughters
of Cacophony Anarch deck I played prior.
I had a bad crypt draw in that I did not draw a Cesewayo. So I brought
up Misrak to have a 2 cap blocked while I fished out a Cesewayo.
Fortunately, he was my next draw. Meanwhile, Justin was putting some
pressure on Jason. I was able to play off of this antipathy for my
prey by having Misrak call a vote of Conservative Agitation to do 4 to
my prey on the turn I was to influence out Cesewayo. Jason then put a
Fame on an empty minion of Justin's. My next turn left Cesewayo
untapped (the only pressure my predator, Alex, had managed to do was
to use Revelations to fish the No Secrets out of my hand before
Cesewayo was up) and had Misrak pass another 4 point Conservative
Agitation. Cesewayo blocked and torpored Justin's famed minions and
the game quickly collapsed to a three player game of me preying on
Jason preying on the Anarch Daughters deck. The Daughter's deck was
far ahead on pool and minions and had vote lock and, with me still not
having drawn a replacement No Secrets, I was soon voted into oblivion.
The finals at that point was:
Alex playing his Anarch Daughters deck
Taylor playing his Obfuscate Weenie deck
Eric playing his Tremere/!Tremere weenie and midcap deck
This left four of us tied at 4 VPs and 1 GW for the remaining two
slots:
Jason and his !Brujah deck
Ethan - not sure what deck he was playing
Adrian- not sure what deck he was playing
and myself
Jason and I won the draw to make the finals.
We also sat down first. Eric took a break for a minute and a friend of
his was representing his preferred seating to be to my right. Taylor
figured he was easily ousted me once and figured he could easily do so
again so he sat as my predator. Then Eric returned and said he had not
wanted to sit to my right but instead to my left. I believed that
Taylor would indeed oust me quickly as his deck was simply too fast
for my defenses, so I was happy to see him decided in the wake of this
decision to sit as my prey instead of as my predator- apparently he
was intimidated by Jason's Hektor deck. The Anarch daughter's deck did
not want to sit anywhere near me for fear of my No Secrets so he sat
as my grand predator. So we went into the finals with:
My No Secrets Deck
Taylor's Obfuscate Deck
Alex's Daughter's Deck
Eric's Tremere/!Tremere deck
Jason's !Brujah deck
On my first turn I put a Smiling Jack in play. I expected it to be a
card cycle, but Taylor decided to bleed forward with his early weenies
rather than take out the Jack. Eric was intimated by Jason's combat so
he did not press forward. Jason was probably wary of Eric's growing
number of minions and their potential for conditioning bleeds for 5 or
so so he did not put much pressure on me. by the time Taylor came to
take out Jack it had four counters on it and I was able to defend it
with Cesewayo who's No Secrets + Mr. Wintrop + A Phased Motion
Detector was able to catch and torpor the first minion Taylor sent to
take Jack out. Taylor then bleed forward with two of his other
minions. His last one went for Jack again. I figured that Taylor would
not take this action as a bluff and had actually drawn into a block
fails. I did not want to lost my No Secrets, so I let Jack die. Seeing
as he'd had four counters on him, I figured he had served his purpose.
Eric cross table Grave Robbed Taylor's torpored minion (who had both a
bleed retainer as well as a Ivory Bow). When it came back to me,
Taylor had four pool or so and he had bleed the Anarch daughters to
within a single pool. I was able to oust Taylor first, and got the
daughters next round. Eric meanwhile was able to swarm over Jason and
the game collapsed to a head up game.
At this point Cesewayo had a Sniper Rifle, and I had four other
minions in play. My combat was able to deck with Eric occasional Theft
of Vitae's, although the occasional Burst of Sunlight did prove a
challenge. The game went on for turn after turn as Eric's minions
would run into Cesewayo and continually steal his blood with Theft. I
was able to use the Erciyes Fragment to continually fish Life in the
Cities out of Eric's ashheap to keep a blood on Cesewayo. The
inevitable weight of my growing minion lead and Cesewayo's ability to
torpor the occasional minion of Eric lead to his eventual concession.
In compiling this deck list I realized that the deck I actually played
had a couple of errors in it. I had accidentally included two copies
of the Erciyes Fragment and not a single copy of The Rack. The
tournament deck also included a copy of the Parthenon, but I would not
play it again and would instead opt for a Mob Connections. Also, I
feel the .44 magnum was be more useful than the Sniper Rifle was
Cesewayo acts a fair amount of the time.
Deck Name: Cesewayo wants "More Cowbell"
by: Preston Poulter
Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 2 max: 10 average: 6.25
------------------------------------------------------------
5x Cesewayo 10 AUS CEL DOM POT THA ani magaji Osebo:4
2x Idrissa 4 CEL aus Osebo:4
2x Misrak 2 pot Osebo:4
1x Homa 6 AUS CEL POT Osebo:4
1x Ismitta 4 aus cel pot Osebo:4
1x Kamaria 3 aus pot Osebo:4
Library [90 cards]
------------------------------------------------------------
Action [13]
4x Enforcer
3x Magic of the Smith
6x No Secrets From the Magaji
Action Modifier [3]
3x Seduction
Action Modifier / Reaction [2]
2x Osebo Kholo
Combat [32]
4x Acrobatics
4x Blur
2x Drain Essence
1x Fast Hands
4x Flash
3x Nimble Feet
3x Pursuit
2x Side Strike
2x Sideslip
4x Telepathic Tracking
1x Thrown Sewer Lid
2x Walk of Flame
Equipment [5]
1x .44 Magnum (was a Sniper Rifle in the actual tournament)
1x Bowl of Convergence
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Kduva's Mask
1x Phased Motion Detector
Event [1]
1x Narrow Minds
Master [17]
1x Erciyes Fragments, The
1x Mbare Market, Harare
1x Mob Connections
7x Orun
1x Powerbase: Montreal
4x Protracted Investment
1x Rack, The
1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
Political Action [9]
6x Conservative Agitation
1x Disputed Territory
2x Rumors of Gehenna
Reaction [4]
2x Guard Dogs
2x Rat's Warning
Retainer [4]
1x Mr. Winthrop
1x Owl Companion
1x Raven Spy
1x Shaman
Crafted with : Anarch Revolt Deck Builder. [Sun Jul 13 21:53:44 2008]
Johannes Walch
> Preston Poulter's Tournament Winning Deck with 4 VPs in the finals
>
> Deck Name: Cesewayo wants "More Cowbell"
> by: Preston Poulter
In no way belittling your effort Preston, winning a tournament with
Osebo is probably next to impossible, do you think the deck is
consistently good or did you get into finals and won with a good share
of luck? Just curious being on the quest of trying to win with Osebo
(seems though).
Preston
Well I feel luck will be a dominating factor in any card game. I built
this deck with the idea that it would either thrive in the environment
of fail miserably. As it turned out, it thrived. No one was
consistently blocking my actions. There was a fair amount of combat,
but my combat at least allowed me to hold my own against them, It
seemed that many people were set up for a bleed defense but with
comparatively little vote defense. The No Secrets locked down a lot of
decks and dominated the 3-player games both times the game collapsed
down to three players. It was for that reason that I went with
Conservative Agitations because I figured if there were fewer than
four players that the No Secrets should more than make up for the lack
of pool my votes could do.
Johannes Walch
> On Jul 14, 2:30 pm, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote:
>> The Lasombra schrieb:
>>
>>> Preston Poulter's Tournament Winning Deck with 4 VPs in the finals
>>> Deck Name: Cesewayo wants "More Cowbell"
>>> by: Preston Poulter
>> In no way belittling your effort Preston, winning a tournament with
>> Osebo is probably next to impossible, do you think the deck is
>> consistently good or did you get into finals and won with a good share
>> of luck? Just curious being on the quest of trying to win with Osebo
>> (seems though).
>
> Well I feel luck will be a dominating factor in any card game.
In a single game yes, over a long run, no. E.g statistically a !Tor
Embrace Deck does well, even if it might get hosed from time to time.
> I built this deck with the idea that it would either thrive in the environment
> of fail miserably. As it turned out, it thrived. No one was
> consistently blocking my actions. There was a fair amount of combat,
> but my combat at least allowed me to hold my own against them, It
> seemed that many people were set up for a bleed defense but with
> comparatively little vote defense. The No Secrets locked down a lot of
> decks and dominated the 3-player games both times the game collapsed
> down to three players. It was for that reason that I went with
> Conservative Agitations because I figured if there were fewer than
> four players that the No Secrets should more than make up for the lack
> of pool my votes could do.
Thanks for the insight. Pentex Subversion was never a problem I suppose?
Preston
No. Although it was two cards down when Eric conceded to me in the
final round. Matt Morgan suggested I add a Pentex Subversion to the
deck, which is not a bad idea.
theinn...@gmail.com
> On Jul 15, 7:02 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Preston schrieb:
> > Thanks for the insight. Pentex Subversion was never a problem I suppose?
>
> No. Although it was two cards down when Eric conceded to me in the
> final round. Matt Morgan suggested I add a Pentex Subversion to the
> deck, which is not a bad idea.
That was a sad sight indeed. Too bad I was at 2 pool and a hand of a
HG, and 6 Dom cards. Can't quite remember how much pool you had at the
time, but I think it was under 10. Only way it could have help is if I
cycled more that game. There were quite a few times I didn't discard
when I thought my hand was good enough early in the game.
As for Preston winning the final. (In no way am I saying skill or deck
construction had no factor)
I think seating played a huge role. If I would have sat as preston's
predator (was an option I had before two other people got a chance to
pick a seat) we would have wreaked each others game, and giving
neither of us a chance to win. Both of us playing tool up intercept
decks would have spent a lot of time fighting each other. Giving any
of the other decks in the final a much easier VP(s). With us being
cross table, and only one stealth deck on the table caused the table
to go fairly slow. Allowing me, and Preston time to build up. We both
just happen to lunge around the same time. Making it very quickly a 2
player game. I will admit I wasn't quite ready for the heads up. With
Preston built up better than me I had to play quite slow cycling very
few cards. Most of my offense came from the threat of my small tha
vamps, and burst of flames in the form of bleeds for one. It just
wasn't enough. As the game slowly dragged on I slowly got in a worst,
and worst condition, and the issue of the hand jam didn't help at all.
It was all over for me.
All in all it was a good final. You can never go wrong with 3 decks
that can fight in a final, and only one stealth bleed deck.
And again congrats Preston.