Dear all,
Here is a brief report of the Belgian Qualifier for the European
Championship, which took place in Brussels last Saturday, May 29th.
The Outpost shop in Brussels once more provided the ideal location for
what turned out to be the biggest V:TES event in Belgium ever (at
least as far as I remember), with 31 players coming from 4 different
countries: 9 from Belgium, 11 from France, 5 from Germany and 6 from
the Netherlands. The tournament started more than an hour late due to
four cars being stuck in different traffic jams, and I take this
occasion to thank everyone once again for their patience.
As in the past two occasions, the local delegation still being
relatively inexperienced, Belgium was a land of conquest: the final as
well as the qualifying spots resulted into a Dutch/French/German
affair. Three Belgian players however each deserved one game win. Like
the previous two years, the final table timed out but unlike the
previous two years, the winner was not German.
31 players meant more 4-player than 5-player tables, and this surely
influenced the general outcome (and even someone's choice of decks).
As for the metagame, I had never seen such a concentration of big-
capacity vampires and votes in a V:TES tournament before: Inner
Circles were all around (from Mistress Fanchon to Rafael de Corazon to
Arika to Even Etrius!), and I even saw one table without any vampires
out after three turns; Ventrue and Nosferatu Princes tried to impose
their Parity Shifts all day, and even the Followers of Set and Baali
wanted their share of the votes! Some fighters were present as well
(from weenie Potence to Shamblers to War Ghouls to Horrid Form
fighters), but it was not exactly their day, even if one managed to
qualify.
I am not going to make a real report of the preliminary rounds; here
are just some anecdotes/tidbits:
- It is not fun to be the prey of a Tzimisce Horrid Form combat deck
in round 1, and of a weenie potence in round 2 (right Mehdi?)
- One can survive an hour with just an Anarch Convert out, when his
Kyasid bleeder has been Decapitated (right Dennis?)
- Clever and discussed-at-length VP-splitting deals need more than 3
minutes to actually happen before the 2-hours mark (right Stone and
Jerome?)
- Contesting princes and titles all day makes the Ventrue player a VP-
less boy (right Manu?)
- Sometimes Malkavian bleed decks mysteriously morph into walls to
keep Inner Circles at bay all day (right Michel and Alain?)
- Getting a game win with 2,5 VP is still playing to win even when it
leaves quite a bitter taste (right Ralf, Stone, Axel and John?)
- Flurry of action Inner Circle decks may be strong and fashionable,
but are still quite hard to play (right Renau?)
- Baali politicians can vote anyone out... when they remember that
influencing 23 pool of infernal minions out is not always a great idea
(right David?)
Anyway, after three hard-fought rounds, the following eight players
occupied the eight qualifying slots:
1. Michael Heyder - DE (3 GW 9,5 VP) - Tremere big-cap vote
2. Erol Öngün - DE (2 GW 9 VP) - Malkavian stealth bleed starring
Tryphosa
3. Izaak Havelaar - NL (2 GW 8 VP) - Vignes bleed with Life in the
City twist
4. François Greiner - FR (2 GW 7 VP) - Inner Circle vote/bleed
5. Karim Baloul - FR (2 GW 7 VP) - Nosferatu group 1/2 royalty
6. Pierre Tran-Van - FR (1 GW 6 VP) - Piper War Ghoul with Sudario
recursion
7. Jelmer Wedholm - NL (1 GW 5 VP) - Greta Kircher wall
8. Ralf Lammert - DE (1 GW 4 VP) - Cybele & co. Liquitablets
so that the threshold for accessing the final turned out to be a full
2 GW.
The seating of the final table was:
Izaak -> Karim -> François -> Michael -> Erol
The top seed Michael had a bad crypt draw with 4 copies of Gabrielle
Di Righetti and could not start the "Malgorzata cycle". Erol had his
Tryphosa out, Izaak his Vignes, Karim his Legendary Sheldon and
François his Inner Circle (then later an Alonso Petrodon contesting
Sheldon's title). Then, with 20-ish votes on the table, the Parity
Shift fair began: 5-pool bunches kept moving around to and from all
players, the first one going from Izaak to Karim (who was very careful
to keep himself above 15 pool to avoid a possible Vignes' "perfect
turn"). Also Erol was able to heavily influence the vote discussion
thanks to the votes of Tryphosa and Maris Streck and offering Maris'
intercept points to (almost) everyone, in his usual flamboyant way.
Izaak's game in the meanwhile was basically a waiting one, bleeding
with the occasional bonding, recouping pool from Dolls and building
his hands with Deflections... and sleeping during the infinite Parity
Shift negotiations. One of these discussions lasted 10 or more
minutes, just to be Delayed by Izaak when the terms were finally set.
Anyway, in the end not much happened for a long time, also because, as
a spectator commented: "the game is about *removing* pool, not moving
it around all the time". Finally, Michael lost 5 pool too much and
François was able to get his victory point. At this point Erol (whose
pool was getting dangerously low turn after turn by repaying 11 pool
for Maris Streck who had been tempted by Michael's John Dee's Greater
Power) had to launch his final attack of die trying, but Izaak had
kept enough Deflections to survive at 1 pool and oust Karim on his
turn, despite Erol's Dark Influences denying all Governs. François
also capitulated less than a minute to the time limit, giving Izaak
the game win and the victory of the tournament.
Final result: Izaak Havelaar 2,5 VP + GW, François Greiner 1 VP, Erol
Öngün 0,5 VP, Michael Heyder and Karim Baloul 0 VP.
The decklist of the winner follows at the end of this message.
Thanks everyone for coming to Brussels to play this intense day of
V:TES, I hope there will be a Belgian ECQ next year as well and that
the record attendance can be once more beaten!
Emiliano
PS Some other detailed personal reports of the event can for instance
be found at:
http://www.atfreeforum.com/vtesholland/viewtopic.php?p=5808&mforum=vt...
(the winner's report)
http://www.veknfrance.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=183406#183406 (Stone's
report - in French)
http://www.lothlorien.be/emeraude/index.php?topic=1106.30 (some
Belgian players' views)
---
Event: Belgian ECQ, Brussels, 29/05/2010
Number of players: 31
Winner: Izaak Havelaar
Deck Name: Vignes in the City
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 15, Max: 24, Avg: 4,91)
----------------------------------------------
1 Alan Sovereign AUS DOM for pre 6 Ventrue
1 Boss Callihan dom for pro PRE 5 Ventrue
1 Catherine du Bois DOM for obf pre 5 Ventrue
1 Diana Vick dom pre 3 Ventrue
3 Edward Vignes DOM for PRE 6 Ventrue
1 Elena Gutierrez aus dom pre 4 Ventrue
1 Ingrid Russo DOM for 4 Ventrue Antitribu
1 Pieter van Dorn dom pre tha 4 Tremere
2 Ranjan Rishi DOM for PRE 5 Ventrue
Library: (75 cards)
-------------------
Master (18 cards)
2 Anarch Troublemaker
3 Blood Doll
1 Coven, The
1 Giant`s Blood
1 Jake Washington (Hunter)
6 Life in the City
2 Misdirection
2 Pentex Subversion
Action (14 cards)
11 Govern the Unaligned
3 Mind Numb
Action Modifier (22 cards)
6 Bonding
5 Conditioning
3 Daring the Dawn
3 Foreshadowing Destruction
5 Seduction
Reaction (13 cards)
10 Deflection
3 Delaying Tactics
Combat (7 cards)
7 Majesty
Event (1 cards)
1 Bitter and Sweet Story, The
