Tournament report: Banner of Neutrality Washington DC
Joshua Duffin
for Banner of Neutrality: Washington DC this past Saturday. Trey
Morita kindly took over running the event so that I could play in
the tournament... I played a weenie-potence (no celerity/obfuscate)
rush deck, created before Robert Goudie took one to the GenCon
finals, but modified based on his design - I switched out most of
the Torn Signposts I'd been using for Increased Strengths, and
added some Thrown Gates too (which proved very handy against guns).
Don't have the decklist with me but I'll post it tomorrow. (if I
remember...) The other notable difference is that Robert only had
2 Potence skill cards, and I had 6. I don't know how that worked
for him - I found that inferior potence was *vastly* inferior; maybe
he doesn't usually run into as many larger-capacity vampires that
need killing.
Since there were 21 players, we had four four-player tables and
only one five-player; all three of my preliminary games were on
four-player tables, and that may have been beneficial to my deck.
(I got 3 VPs the first round, 3 the second, and 4 the third.) I
do think I could also have won five-player tables but it might've
been a little trickier. On the other hand, at a four-player table
my grandprey gets even more benefit from what I'm doing since he's
also my grandpredator (and so I'm beating up the vamps of the people
on both sides of him).
First round, I was preying on John (playing Setite corruption/bleed),
preying on Jason Babbitt (playing Euro-Brujah Princely bruise bleed/
rush/intercept (2nd)), preying on Ross Wigdor (playing Tremere for/tha
Burst of Sunlight/Rotschreck intercept/Rutor's Hand), preying on me.
I quickly Amaranthed the Setites' one vamp with dominate (which he
was using for +bleed and deflections) because I didn't want him
Deflecting my bleeds for one. I then bled him for one a lot and
occasionally sent one of his vamps to torpor. (The weenie nature
of the potence-only rush deck seems to help it *a lot* in that you
can generally bleed for at least four or five a turn if you don't
need to rush.) I ignored the Tremere bleeds for one (he didn't end
up with much space for +bleeds, what with all the combat/rotschreck
stuff). The Brujah barely managed to oust the Tremere on his turn
immediately after I ousted the Setite (got a Fame on Cardano and then
managed to put him in torpor due to the Tremere being momentarily
short on combat; that took care of his last four pool); after that
I pretty much ran over the Brujah since he only had two vamps to my
five or six, and I eliminated one of them after a turn or two with
another Amaranth. I'd actually rescued both of Jason's vampires
(Donal O'Connor and Constanza Vinti, of course) from torpor early in
the game when Ross (Tremere) had put them both in with Bursts - I
didn't want Ross getting to sit there with no pressure. Still, I
should probably have only rescued one, as Jason probably wouldn't
have been able to oust Ross then, and Ross would still most likely not
have had any real chance of ousting me.
Second round, I was preying on Colin Riggs (some kind of vote deck -
I forget what exactly, if it was Ventrue or Toreador or something else
entirely - but didn't have any +stealth), preying on Peter Oh (playing
cel/pre/aus guns/bleed), preying on Eddie Diego (playing obf/OBF super-
stealthy bleed - Night Moves, Computer Hacks, Spying Missions),
preying on me.
Colin wanted to make a deal with me that I not kill his vampires and
in return he would Kindred Restructure the table however I wanted it.
(as long as it involved me not killing his vampires, eg most likely
putting him across from me. ;-) I was okay with that, but Peter (guns/
bleed/intercept) was not (naturally, since he was gonna get screwed
by it) and blocked the Restructure. So I kept bleeding Colin for one
a lot and maybe killed one or two of his vamps. I had also put two of
Eddie's (OBF bleed) in torpor, leaving only one (Agrippina, if memory
serves) out to bleed me for one a turn at six stealth. This was all
going great until Colin called a KRC (or maybe a Con Ag, same diff in
this case) doing three to me and one to Eddie (so that Peter wouldn't
block it). In retrospect I should have made the deal that Peter
offered me, where he would block that vote, and I would let him oust
Eddie (ie let him get the one VP he wanted out of the round - he knew
that he'd probably wind up dead once he was next to me). I was greedy
and figured that I could get all four VPs, and didn't take the deal.
Unfortunately that three damage eventually brought me down to about
three pool and as Eddie was now contesting Duck with me, I couldn't
afford to be that low - a single Computer Hacking would force me to
give up Duck and become even more screwed. Luckily I managed to
draw a couple Blood Dolls around this time, but I'd been forced to
pay a lot more attention to keeping from getting killed by Eddie than
I'd wanted to, and it looked for a while like Peter was actually going
to sweep the table. I did eventually manage to oust Colin, which gave
me a little cushion, but Peter ousted Eddie around the same time (he
really couldn't afford the Duck contest either), and his guns (.44
Magnum and Deer Rifle) looked like they had the potential to kick my
ass until I drew my last Thrown Gate, torporized the .44-bearer, and
then diablerized to take the gun.
Third round, I was preying on Heather Fogg (Brujah toolbox/rush/bleed/
intercept), preying on Bill Mickle (some kind of bleed deck I think?
I can't remember exactly what he was playing), preying on Wayne Chin
(Anarch Revolts w/dom weenies for +bleed, deflection, surprise influence,
political backlash), preying on me.
I kept making "deals" with Wayne to not bleed me the following turn in
return for me not rushing him this turn - of course, I play with Wayne
all the time, so I figured I needed to also not go low enough on pool
that he'd ever have a shot at killing me in one turn by breaking the
deal, as he'd be quite likely to do that. I was pretty safe as long
as I didn't go too low, though, as he knew as well as I did that if he
*did* bleed me I'd put all his vamps in torpor the next turn. I ran
into a little trouble with Heather in that she put my vamps in torpor
once or twice in return for my torporizing efforts - it's always annoying
to have to waste actions on rescuing when playing a combat deck. :-)
Later on, though, she ran into some serious hand-jam and I was able to
beat her up with impunity. The Anarchs, of course, were keeping all of
our pool nice and low - handy for a deck like mine that doesn't do damage
all that quickly, and I joked that Anarchs are especially nice when you
don't even have to put them in your own deck. After Heather died, I
believe Bill went pretty quickly, as his vamps had less combat defense/
fight-back, and he was already low on pool; Wayne was pretty much a
gimme after I gained that twelve pool. ;-)
So I went into the finals as top seed with ten VPs (and three table
wins, if you're counting - just ahead on tiebreakers of Tom Powell-
Bullock who also had ten VPs but had tied for first in one game (2/2/0/0
split) and so was six TPs behind me). As it went, the final seating
was:
me preying on Tom Powell-Bullock (weenie pro/dom bleed, it looked like),
preying on Wayne Chin (still Anarchs/dom weenies), preying on Tom Mickle
(dom/for unblockable large bleeds), preying on Johnny Tullner (Gangrel
prince/weenie 2nd combat/permanent +bleed/freak drive), preying on me.
Wayne brought out lots of early Anarchs - it went up to four pool a turn
pretty quickly. I sent at least two of my prey's vamps to torpor, but
he wasn't investing enough in them for me to easily oust him, as he was
also playing weenies (and only ever got out four, maybe five of them).
Tom Mickle (dom/for) only ever got out two vamps I believe; one of them
bled for, like, six unblockably, and got burned by its own Daring the
Dawn; the other one came out after that and got Pentex Subverted.
Johnny got out Ingrid Rossler and Mustafa Rahman, bled me for one or
two occasionally, but did most of his damage to me by using 2nd to untap
and block my hunts and Claw me to torpor.
At four Anarchs, the table became very unstable very quickly; after the
first forty-five minutes or so everyone was within two turns of being
ousted by Anarchs (it went up to five at that point I believe). On my
last turn (I went down to four pool), I had an outside shot at ousting
Tom Powell-Bullock by playing Fame on one of his vamps, Rushing it,
sending it to torpor, and then bleeding for one with my only other vamp
that hadn't had to hunt, and letting the Fame plus Anarchs kill him if
he didn't have a Wake. But he did have a Wake, blocked the Rush, and so
I got nothing.
Wayne then played a fifth Anarch (well, four plus an Antediluvian - which
mattered - I had forgotten on my turn that I could have had another turn,
as things stood, by leaving one vamp untapped to block any potential bleed
attempt, and burning Jimmy Dunn to the Antediluvians so that I would only
lose three to Anarchs - doh!) and a Pentex Subversion on Tom Mickle's (dom/
for) only vamp. That brought him down to three or so, so he needed to
oust Tom M that turn. He did manage to bleed for a couple, but Tom M
had a Deflection and was able to stay alive at one pool. Johnny was then
forced to burn his Ingrid Rossler to the Antediluvians to live (was at
five pool before his turn), and I was then ousted by the four Anarchs.
Tom P-B didn't have to do anything; Wayne was ousted by his own Anarchs
on his turn - as it turned out the Pentex Subversion was probably a bad
idea; if Wayne had left it at four damage a turn and not spent the extra
two pool on the Pentex, we would probably have all survived another time
around the table (unless Tom M had been able to get another unblockable
bleed through to oust Johnny), and he would've gotten an oust of his own
a turn later.
Tom P-B then easily ousted Tom M (since he only had one pool and one vamp);
it took a little longer for him to oust Johnny but since Johnny had given
up his only Prince and was left with nothing but two two-caps, neither of
whom had Protean or the ability to play 2nd Tradition, Tom P-B didn't have
too much trouble getting the last two VPs.
Final result: Tom Powell-Bullock won with 4 VPs in the final game; Johnny
Tullner was second with 1; I was third with 0 and 10 in the prelims; Wayne
was fourth with 0 and 5 in the prelims; Tom M was fifth with 0 and 4 in
the prelims.
I most likely should've chosen to sit as Wayne's predator in the final,
since his was the only deck I'd seen during the tournament and I knew
I'd have a good chance at at least ousting him for 1 VP since his vamps
were soft and defenseless against my rush. But I didn't want to do that
for some reason, so I wound up empty. Even so, I did get ten VPs in
three games with a rush deck, and without making any sort of table-
splitting deals.
It was lots of fun to play for a change, and thanks to everyone for coming
out and taking part. We should be doing another tournament on October
20 (near-Halloween season, but hopefully not conflicting with other people
who might be running events the weekend immediately before Halloween), in
Maryland.
Josh
the not-as-much-of-a-slacker-as-before prince of washington dc
Peter D Bakija
>>Even so, I did get ten VPs in three games with a rush deck, and without
making any sort of table-
splitting deals.>>
Yaa! Josh got 10 VPs in three games! With a Rush deck! And no split deals!
Wooooo!
Are you gonna post the deck? I wanna see how it worked--did you ever run into
problems due to the lack of manuvers, or did you just fling huge gates at
folks?
Pah. Pah I say on those nay sayers. Soon we will rule the world.
Peter D Bakija
PD...@aol.com
http://www.geocities.com/bakija6
"The Ramones are more important than the Solar System."
-Sean Finnerty
Robert Goudie
news:59b20daa.01082...@posting.google.com...
> I played a weenie-potence (no celerity/obfuscate)
> rush deck, created before Robert Goudie took one to the GenCon
> finals, but modified based on his design - I switched out most of
> the Torn Signposts I'd been using for Increased Strengths, and
> added some Thrown Gates too (which proved very handy against guns).
Yep. I modified slightly for guns after meeting a Sniper Rifle in the final No.
Amer. qualifier.
> Don't have the decklist with me but I'll post it tomorrow. (if I
> remember...) The other notable difference is that Robert only had
> 2 Potence skill cards, and I had 6. I don't know how that worked
> for him - I found that inferior potence was *vastly* inferior; maybe
> he doesn't usually run into as many larger-capacity vampires that
> need killing.
Yep. Mix and match depending on local meta-game.
[clip]
> I most likely should've chosen to sit as Wayne's predator in the final,
> since his was the only deck I'd seen during the tournament and I knew
> I'd have a good chance at at least ousting him for 1 VP since his vamps
> were soft and defenseless against my rush. But I didn't want to do that
> for some reason, so I wound up empty
Ah yes, the curse of the top seed. I've kicked myself many times over making
the wrong decision in my seating choice.
>Even so, I did get ten VPs in
> three games with a rush deck, and without making any sort of table-
> splitting deals.
Well done.
-Robert
Robert Goudie
rob...@vtesinla.org
spinney99
sporemage37 (john) here. i was josh's first vp in the first round,
playing set/corruption/dirty tricks. my prey had only 2 8cap
eurotrash brujahs. that was the worst seating i couldn't have hoped
for (grammar?) the other deck i was gonna play woulda been a decent
amount of smack-back or even an upheaval. coulda, shoulda, crappa...
round 2 got me 10-11 minions, many of whom were my first prey's
caitiff princes! possibly the best seating i could've hoped for. 3
vp.
rd 3. 5-person table. had to sit in front of eventual tourney-winner
tom b-p's PRO/bleed, who i'd just seen sweep his rd 2 table. on the
turn i got my vp, i came within 1 pool of being ousted, but survived
due to my last-minute throw-in of the tourney's namesake: banner of
neutrality. i then had a good chance at another vp, but my
grandpredator (bruj prince/anarch rev) started getting his revolts,
and playing them, though it was obvious that would only help tom b-p.
===
so i tied tom m, and kurt r (both from our nowhere, pennsyltucky
team,) as well as a few others with 4 vp. tom m got in on table
points. just as an aside, tom m totally screwed up in the last few
turns of finals, or he'd have gotten 2 vp and 2nd place. i guess he
didn't really realize that johnny could burn ingrid to avoid ousting,
by burning the antidiluvian awakening. he had the unblockable
modifier in hand, and had he even bled for 1, he'd have been in with
no minions, and johnny and josh would've both been ousted by the
anarchs. he might've even had a slight prayer vs tom b-p, as tom b-p
only had 1 small minion, and tom m would've had 12 more pool to maybe
get one out as well. coulda, shoulda, crappa...
===
it was a great tourney, fun from beginning to end, a great store,
excellent players, excellent t-shirt messages... it had everything.
i got to be the first one ousted in a pick-up game afterwards that
trey played in, and still had the time of my life.
--john of port matilda
jai2...@gmail.com
Hai,
we provide best deals in Washington DC, best online deals. Our deals offer best discounts on beauty spa treatments Sign up now for a new deal every day. Looking for natural and beneficial technique for hair removal?? Here comes the band aid for your theme. New Look Day Spa and Laser are having expertise people dealing with this technique.
for more details:
https://www.newlookdeals.com/
Address: 201 Elden St, Suite #203, Herndon, VA 20170
Customer Enquire:
custome...@newlookdeals.com.