LAS VEGAS NAQ 2010 Tournament Reports and Winning Decks [LONG]
Kevin M.
the Las Vegas 2010 NAQ and Mini-qual:
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Las Vegas Mini-Qual 2010
Las Vegas, NV, USA
February 20th, 2010
28 players
2R+F
Rank Name GWs VPs TPs
-------------------------------------------
1 Cameron Domer 1 6 114^
2 James Messer 2 7 120^
2 Robert Scythe 2 7 120
2 Darby Keeney 1 5 84
2 Daniel Liswood 1 6 114
6 Chris Shorb 1 4 90
7 Brandon Haas 1 4 84
7 Mark Loughman 1 4 84
9 Jeff Poole 1 3 78
10 Brad Cashdollar 0 3 96
11 Christian Herro 0 2 96
11 Cody Killebrew 0 2 96
13 David Tatu 0 2 90
14 Ian Lee 0 1 60
15 Simeon Nagel 0 0 54
16 Dave Litwin 0 0 52
16 Jeff Thompson 0 0 52
16 Pete Oh 0 0 52
16 Robyn Tatu 0 0 52
16 David Barasch 0 0 52
16 Matt Wedge 0 0 52
22 John Flournoy 0 0 48
22 Preston Poulter 0 0 48
22 Matt Strehlow 0 0 48
22 Andy Fernandez 0 0 48
22 Norm Brown, Jr. 0 0 48
27 Dave Buerger 0 0 42
27 Nat Hammond 0 0 42
^ = won the die roll
Final round:
James->Darby->Daniel->Cameron->Robert
Cameron 4vp
Darby 1vp
Cameron got his 4vp largely due to the entire table ganging-up on
Daniel's Imbued deck for 3 turns straight. Cameron also made an
excellent play of sacking his third Lasombra, a 5-cap, to Recalled
to the Founder instead of a 7-cap (to become immune to it) and then
he totally LIED to the entire table and whined and complained that
he just wanted a chance to get his 1vp before Daniel got the rest of
the table, all while setting up his perfect S+B hand to get the GW
after the rest of the players cross-tabled Daniel to death. hehee>:)
Deck Name: Pop Goes Banjoko
Deck Author: Cameron Domer
Description: Derivative DOM/OBT stealth-bleed
CRYPT (12)
3x Gratiano DOM OBT, Las, 9-cap, +1 bleed, Priscus
2x Henri Lavenant DOM OBT, Las, 7-cap
1x Tobias Smith DOM OBT, Las, 7-cap
1x Julia Prima DOM OBT, Kia, 7-cap, +1 bleed*
1x Aurora Van Brande dom OBT, Las, 6-cap
1x Guido Lucciano dom OBT, Las, 5-cap
2x Banjoko DOM obt, Las, 5-cap
1x Ignacio dom obt, Las, 4-cap
LIBRARY (90)
MASTER (16)
3x Vessel
2x Wash
1x Info Highway
2x Blood Doll
2x Pentex Subversion
1x Bleeding the Vine
1x Power Structure
1x Elysian Fields
2x Hungry Coyote
1x Path of Night
ACTION (18)
1x Dominate Kine
17x Govern the Unaligned
EQUIPMENT (1)
1x Zaire River Ferry
ACTION MODIFIER (38 => 20 +bleed, 18 +stealth)
6x Command of the Beast
9x Conditioning
5x Foreshadowing Destruction
---
5x Shroud of Absence
3x Blanket of Night
3x Shadow Play
2x Shroud of Night
5x Tenebrous Form
REACTION (10)
5x WWEF
5x Deflection
COMBAT (7)
1x Shadow Strike
1x Oubliette
2x Arms of the Abyss
3x Shadow Body
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Las Vegas North American Qualifier 2010
Las Vegas, NV, USA
February 20th, 2010
28 players
3R+F
Rank Name GWs VPs TPs
-------------------------------------------
1 Mark Loughman 2 7 144*
2 Preston Poulter 2 7 138*
2 Ian Lee 1 6.5 150*
2 Brandon Haas 1 6 150*
2 Robyn Tatu 2 6.5 138*
6 Matt Wedge 1 5.5 150*
7 James Messer 1 4 132*
The above players qualified for the NAC 2010 in New Orleans.
8 Matt Strehlow 1 4 102
Matt Strehlow would like to thank the Matts Heslin and Morgan for not
being able to come to LV and thereby making only seven qualifying and
not eight. Not that he would be in the Top8 even then... ;)
9 Nat Hammond 1 3.5 126
10 David Barasch 1 3.5 120
11 Brad Cashdollar 1 3 102
12 David Litwin 1 3 96
12 Chris Shorb 1 3 96
14 Jeff Thompson 0 3 126
15 Jeff Poole 0 2.5 138
16 Darby Keeney 0 2 126
17 David Buerger 0 2 90
18 David Tatu 0 1 104
19 Cameron Domer 0 1 94
19 Norm Brown, Jr. 0 1 94
21 Christian Herro 0 0.5 88
22 Robert Goudie 0 0.5 84
22 James Lin 0 0.5 84
24 Pete Oh 0 0 70
25 John Flournoy 0 0 66
26 Robert Scythe 0 0 60
26 Andy Fernandez 0 0 60
DQ Simeon Nagel 0 0 24 (self-withdraw)
Final round:
Ian->Preston->Robyn->Mark->Brandon
Mark 4vp
Brandon 1vp
It was pretty late, and I'm getting old, so what I can recall is that
Brandon was playing an incredibly focused S+B deck and ousted Ian
pretty quick, then slammed against Preston's Laibon auspex wall until
Preston killed him from the front -- due largely to Brandon's
unwillingness to give Preston even 1VP -- and Mark's bleedy !Tremere
plus Nephandus army killed Brandon from behind, then Mark got the GW.
Deck Name: Watch Me Pull a Rabbit Outta My Hat
Deck Author: Mark Loughman
Description: The !Tremere have some awesome special abilities, so
I built a deck trying to utilize them. Thanks to Darby for meta-game
insights, to Newark VTES for giving me a solid playgroup to test the
deck and to Kevin for running a great event.
CRYPT (12)
4x Ash Harrison AUS dom THA, !Tre, 7-cap
3x Frondator AUS dom tha, !Tre, 5-cap
3x Antonio d'Erlette dom THA, !Tre, 5-cap
1x Janine aus dom tha, !Tre, 4-cap
1x Lectora aus tha, !Tre, 3-cap
LIBRARY (88)
MASTER (13)
2x Blood doll
1x Direct Intervention
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
2x Fame
1x Fear of Mekhet
1x Powerbase Barranquilla
1x Rack
1x Rotschreck
2x Smiling Jack
ACTION (12)
3x Abbot
6x Govern the Unaligned
1x Graverobbing
2x Magic of the Smith
ALLY (5)
1x Carlton Van Wyk
4x Nephandus
EQUIPMENT (6)
1x Bowl of Convergence
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Ivory Bow
2x Leather Jacket
1x Ruins of Ceoris
ACTION MODIFIER (9)
4x Conditioning
5x Mirror Walk
REACTION (23)
5x Deflection
1x Delaying Tactics
2x Eagle Sight
4x Eyes of Argus
3x Forced Awakening
3x On the Qui Vive
3x Telepathic Misdirection
2x Wake with Evenings Freshness
COMBAT (20)
7x Apportation
4x High Ground
9x Theft of Vitae
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Thank you to everyone for coming, many of you from across the country,
just to play VTES. I know that the additional fun of Las Vegas has
been a great help to me in running this now-annual tournament, but
I'm sure the gambling, restaurants, tourist attractions, and naked
ladies (of which we will not comment) were secondary to the drawing
power of a couple of awesome VTES tournaments. ;)
Kevin M., Prince of Las Vegas
"Know your enemy and know yourself; in one-thousand battles
you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War*
"Contentment...Complacency...Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier
Please visit VTESville daily! http://vtesville.myminicity.com/
Please buy my cards! http://shop.ebay.com/kjmergen/m.html
brandonsantacruz
> Brandon was playing an incredibly focused S+B deck and ousted Ian
> pretty quick, then slammed against Preston's Laibon auspex wall until
> Preston killed him from the front -- due largely to Brandon's
> unwillingness to give Preston even 1VP -- and Mark's bleedy !Tremere
> plus Nephandus army killed Brandon from behind, then Mark got the GW.
I believe that Preston was playing an Akunanse wall and spent his time
tooling up rather than blocking Robyn or going forward. In turn, Robyn
spent her time breeding/bloating rather than ravaging the table
as(imho) a deck that that should. That left Mark pretty free to bleed,
which he did. I'm always happy to make it to the final and don't
expect to win at all, I was just surprised by the way the table
dynamics worked out. Getting stopped by a wall, that will happen.
Brandon
Raziel
>
> CRYPT (12)
> 3x Gratiano DOM OBT, Las, 9-cap, +1 bleed, Priscus
Gratiano is 8 cap.
Johannes Walch
> Cameron got his 4vp largely due to the entire table ganging-up on
> Daniel's Imbued deck for 3 turns straight.
This seems to be a common reaction to the Imbued now that people gang up
on it beyond all reason. Of course Imbued are dangerous (as many other
good decks) but there is absolutely no need to sacrifice oneself to
killing the Imbued and giving the table to another (random or clever
player).
> Cameron also made an
> excellent play of sacking his third Lasombra, a 5-cap, to Recalled
> to the Founder instead of a 7-cap (to become immune to it) and then
> he totally LIED to the entire table and whined and complained that
> he just wanted a chance to get his 1vp before Daniel got the rest of
> the table, all while setting up his perfect S+B hand to get the GW
> after the rest of the players cross-tabled Daniel to death. hehee>:)
Nice. I can only applaud Cameron on his move, which makes the remaining
3 players that ganged up on the Imbued look pretty .. uh oh .. lame.
wedge
One of those players was the imbueds predator, so...
Johannes Walch
Good catch.
Haze
If Recalled to the Founder was in play, I suspect there might have
been another good reason for the table hate besides simply being
Imbued...
Darby Keeney
> Kevin M. schrieb:
>
> > Cameron got his 4vp largely due to the entire table ganging-up on
> > Daniel's Imbued deck for 3 turns straight.
>
> This seems to be a common reaction to the Imbued now that people gang up
> on it beyond all reason. Of course Imbued are dangerous (as many other
> good decks) but there is absolutely no need to sacrifice oneself to
> killing the Imbued and giving the table to another (random or clever
> player).
In general, I agree with you. I was playing a Dancing Chainsaw deck
in the 2nd tournament, and got it running on all 3 occasions. On 2
different occasions, I had people advocating crosstable "allies"
rushing me (on 1 of these 2 times, it was even with 2 intercept decks
on my left and right, which already hamstrings the imbued greatly).
So yes, the fear factor is a bit overdone, even when the event module
is not used.
But in this case, that imbued deck was chock-full of events with 4-5
on the table already to go with his 5-6 minions. Recalled to the
Founder and Slow Withering were already out. His deck was 60 cards
and churning fast (no intercept around him), so we knew we would
continue to see things like Veil of Darkness and Blood Weakens pop
out. Of course, this creates significant incentive to simply remove
the source Methuselah from the table.
With that accomplished, the key endgame play was my predator (James)
rushing my 2 minions instead of backrushing the [DOM] behind him,
assuming he could lunge and get 3. I think what drove James to play
the way he chose was 2 bounces in hand, but limited rush at the time.
He likely figured to simply aikido Cameron into me and get everything
in the end.....not knowing I had a no-cost bounce in my hand to
backoust him. So, when I convinced Cameron to rescue Arika for the
free bounce in my hand, James' plan went south.
Had James rushed his predator, I would have likely killed Cameron, I
would have had 2 VP from 4th/5th seed and been heads-up against a
[CEL] rush deck with 3 minions (assuming I didn't do something
unpleasant to them). If I kill James, yeah I win, but if James
successfully punks my 2 minions in the heads-up game, he gets me, has
2 VP and wins as a higher seed.
Normally, I think the backrush is the better play, but James' play was
certainly reasonable given what he had in his hand at the time (2
Deflections) - as was his corsstable assistance in ousting the imbued,
putting him in viable position for the tournament win.
Cheers.
Darby
Frederick Scott
news:60c9f171-f6e4-40f3...@u19g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> On Feb 24, 5:55 am, Johannes Walch <johannes.wa...@vekn.de> wrote:
> > Kevin M. schrieb:
> >
> > > Cameron got his 4vp largely due to the entire table ganging-up on
> > > Daniel's Imbued deck for 3 turns straight.
> >
> > This seems to be a common reaction to the Imbued now that people gang up
> > on it beyond all reason. Of course Imbued are dangerous (as many other
> > good decks) but there is absolutely no need to sacrifice oneself to
> > killing the Imbued and giving the table to another (random or clever
> > player).
>
> In general, I agree with you. I was playing a Dancing Chainsaw deck
> in the 2nd tournament, and got it running on all 3 occasions. On 2
> different occasions, I had people advocating crosstable "allies"
> rushing me (on 1 of these 2 times, it was even with 2 intercept decks
> on my left and right, which already hamstrings the imbued greatly).
> So yes, the fear factor is a bit overdone, even when the event module
> is not used.
I sure would agree with that were it not for the fact that about
90-95% of the tournament tables I've played with an Imbued deck, it
was never ousted - and a goodly number of them got the game win.
Of course, many of these experiences were prior to the banning of
Memories of Mortality and Edge Explosion so I'm not sure if things are
as bad any more.
I think in general though, the fear of Imbued decks isn't so much fear
that they'll oust you - for which their power level strikes me as being
fairly balanced. It's that unless you have lots of intercept and the
right kind of combat, you'll pay hell ousting most Imbued decks. The
reason they're seen as such bad news is that, except for their prey and
maybe their grandprey in a 5-player game if things go perfectly, no
one else at the table has any chance of getting a game win unless the
Imbued deck is ousted. In particular, I think a lot of times their
grandpredator looks at them and figures he has no chance to get a second
oust unless he starts attacking them before his undirected actions
can be interecepted by them.
Fred
Kushiel
> remove the source Methuselah
I don't know if it's just me or not, but man, I've been seeing so many
phrases on the newsgroup lately that would make for great context-free
t-shirt slogans. Thanks.
John Eno
Russell
So, PLEASE, stop beating up on my Imbued Decks. This means you Jeff K.
Side note: Ill be in Bay Area 2/27 to 3/6 so any games going on I
wanna play.
Russell David Patitz