It was nice to see Alex Hughes back after a long period of being engaged.
He is still engaged, but now she lets him out occasionally. Even nicer
was NOT to see his horrible, cheesy, stealth-bleed and telepathic counter
deck. Instead he was playing Ravnos stealth-bleed and weapons and got 1
VP at least with it. Good show!
James Coupe was down with a very jolly Nosferatu bloat/vote/bash deck,
based [he says] on one of tatu's monstrosities. A nice deck but it only
got 0.5 VP, from a time-out in the first heat. Mind you, he was ONE
Forgotten Labyrinth short of a sweep in the third heat. Hope to see that
deck, and him, again soon!
Garry Scarlett's ventrue are now fortitudinous and a good deal more
ominous to boot. Garry got 4VP and would have made the final but for some
astute cross-table ousting by Matthew Green in the third heat, who
buggered up Garry and Mark so as not to have to meet them in the final
[or worse, be pipped at the post by either of them from even getting into
the final].
Kevin Mitcham was down from Coventry for his first Portsmouth tournament
with one of the four weenie Presence bleed/vote decks on show. He played
well but only got about 1 VP i think. Better luck next time, Kev, and
good to meet you!
David Hammond [hamdamcwa] had some sort of Gangrel deck i think, and it
was great to see him all the way from Essex. Alas, this was not a
gangrelly type day, and i don't think he got any VPs at all. Never mind,
at least we did a profitable trade which i believe completed his
collection and certainly helped me [THIRTEEN Temptations of Greater Power
now!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!].
Pierre Rebstock was definitely there though he pretended not to be when
Anklebiter noticed that the dodging figure on Sideslip [jyhad/VTES] is
actually a very accurate portrayal of our esteemed Alsatian brother. We
all laughed a lot at that. Unhappily i have NO idea what Pierre was
playing and i'm fairly sure that he got zippo VP with whatever it was.
Care to post it in this thread, Pierre, as an Awful Warning?
Adam Lewis came up from Bournemouth and it was great to see him again,
even when he smeared my minions all over the table with his HUGE gangrel
combat deck. Once again if Adam got any VPs then i missed them. A pity,
because he played well.
Michael Eichler came from ramstein and it was super to meet him at last -
a nice guy and a great Jyhad player. Alas, the Curse of the Gangrel
queered his pitch good and proper and he got no VP with his rather scary
gangrel embrace and bleed deck, largely because of its COMPLETE lack of
political dimension it seemed to all of us afterwards. The two Ramsteiner
Michaels accepted the hospitality of Legbiter hall over the weekend and
Michael Eichler beat us up on Friday night with his Stake deck, and on
Sunday gave me and Michael Atkins a good kicking at Roborally, but i got
my revenge on the stakers on Sunday night with my Ravnos HF deck [Lady
Legbiter PROBABLY should have won that game, but she messed up on the
Parity Shift]. Michael Eichler also won a game of Master Labyrinth on
saturday night after i had gone to bed with total exhaustion/hangover/
nicotine poisoning.
Michael Atkins also from ramstein had the second weenie presence bleed
and vote deck, and at least took 2 VP back to Germany with him for the
honour of the USAF. He also played well and almost handed our game in the
second heat to Anklebiter in a desperate last-ditch attempt to stop me
from ousting him. Alas for Michael and Anklebiter but hooray for me,
Anklebiter had no conditionings when it mattered.
Michael McClellan aka Anklebiter played his Brujah Child Experiments deck
probably for the last time in Portsmouth tournaments - he wants to move
on to something a bit different. He got 2VP with it, anyway.
Mark Baxter played a Malky [mainly] vote and bleed deck and got
thoroughly kicked. A lot of this was cross-table anti-Malky sleaze
feeling, i think. It's a good enough deck on Wednesday nights but somehow
it never seems to cut the mustard at tournaments. Maybe that is unfair -
mark has got into at least one final with it IIRC. Anyway he got at least
1 VP with it this time.
William Lee had the fourth or maybe fifth Gangrel deck, a combat monster
based on Wynn. He got 3 VP with it thanks in part to cross-table
conspiracy of a perfectly legitimate kind with matthew, but this was not
to be one of William's days, except in one of the friendlies where he
beat up four decks [Barney Tha combat, kevin ani/dom weenies and my
Nosferatu Kagemusha HF deck] with great aplomb.
Ian Stubbington aka Mr Anam played his Stealthy Weenie Permanent Filth
deck. i do wish he wouldn't, at least on Wednesday nights, so that i can
try out MY Stealthy Weenie Permanent Filth deck. Anyway he helped me a
lot in the first game by lowering my pool so that i could call Parity
shifts. Don't think he got any VP though.
The following five Methuselahs made it to the final:
Rob Treasure played the third weenie presence bleed/vote deck, and as
promised it included light intercept, enough to stop me from winning the
tournament and as he says a VERY sound choice for that reason. This deck
was [as Rob puts it] the Poor man's legacy of Pander deck and as usual he
played it very well, but the final table was just too much for it due to
cross-table conspiracy and blocking left, right and centre. 9.5 VP to get
to the final but first out once there, after about 40 minutes.
James McClellan aka Legbiter aka Me played a Weenie Presence all-Jyhad
Tap, Vote n Bleed deck, made from a pool of two boxes of Jyhad boosters
which has already been pillaged to make a Nosferatu kagemusha combat/vote
deck for me, and a Brujah bash n bleed deck for Anklebiter. It's a VERY
strong deck nevertheless, and it demonstrates that you CAN compete at the
top level in Jyhad with cheap cards, which was the whole point and what i
meant when i rather pompously said in another thread that i personally
don't play SOLELY to win. i'll post it in this thread, but further down
so as not to steal any of the winner's much-deserved glory. 7 VP to get
to the final and second out to a deflection once there.
Jon Cooper had a Tzimisce intercept-combat deck and was third out with no
VP but he got 8 or so to get to the final. A very nice deck and elegantly
played but hey, one combat deck in a final is VERY unlikely to win at the
best of times, especially with THREE weenie decks on the table.
Barney Baker had a weenie dominate filth deck with LJs for damage
prevention and the Rumour Mill for light intercept [just my luck that he
got his out and so did Rob in the first couple of turns of the final]. It
did just fine. Barney got 7 VP to get in the final and 2 there, due to
concession by matt who had to leave early so as to get to work the next
day.
Matthew Green won, with a quite EXTRAORDINARY toolbox Malky deck,
including [blush, simper] Out-of-turn Rush/aggravated damage/Rotschreck
combat. He only had 5.5VP to get to the final but he engineered this
quite BRILLIANTLY, ensuring, for example, in the third heat that none of
the other players was going to get more VP than him, and that the biggest
threats to him were stymied. He then played a total blinder in the final,
starting off slow, blocking or voting down [with my help] Rob's votes,
helping me to bring Rob down to 1 pool and then using a Madness network
Dramatic Upheaval to swap places with me, so that he could bleed out Rob
and then, via a deflection, me. A really AMAZING performance and one for
the aficionados. Well done, Matt! All the finalists got AH boosters -
thanks, John!
Here's matthew's winning deck, with his comments.
Deck Name: Sandwich of the month
2 Leather Jacket
Sengir Dagger
Ivory Bow
Muddled Vamp Hunter
2 Graverobbing
4 Deflection
Foreshadowing destruction
2 Conditioning
6 My enemy's enemy
2 Telepathic vote counting
3 Malkavian rider clause
2 Bums rush
3 Behind you
6 Lost in crowds
3 Forgotten Labyrinthe
2 Cloak the gathering
3 Flesh of marble
2 Bone Spur
Body Flare
2 Dramatic Upheaval
Kindred restructure
4 KRC
2 Con Ag
Malkavian justicar
Parity shift
3 WWEF
2 Forced awakening
2 Blood Doll
Legendary vampire
Dreams
2 Elysium
4 Rotschreck
5 Madness network
2 Protean
2 Vast Wealth
Crypt:
Watenda
Zoe
Aleph
2 Victoria
2 Zebulon
Ozmo
2 Gilbert Duane
2 Gregor Anderson
"The deck could stand some improvement, it was
the first time it had seen competitive play. The Bums Rushes were pretty
bad, another hunter would have been better. The Legendary vampire was
great as were the My E's-E's. Telepathic vote counting should be
something different and teh deck should have sudden reversals and
maybe a DI. Tribute to the master effectively kept Rob T in teh game
during round 1, I had no way to deal with it. Masters in this deck are at
a premium really and adding still more OOT cards may be a bad idea. I'll
try it and see."
i'll just add, largely to annoy Matt who gets REALLY shirty whenever the
biannual Card Limits thread comes up, that this deck is legal for 6CL.
And that's it for this month: next month's Portsmouth tournament will be
on the first saturday of June, that's the 3rd, unless John or me tells
you different. Thanks to John for organising and judging and to everyone
for turning up. Look forward to seeing you all again in June!
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
This fits that formula thingy for the Optimum Number of Actions pretty
closely, BTW. Predicted actions for an 82-card library and average 5.25
blood cap vamps is 22. Actually Matthew used 20.
Nosferatu combat. He was my prey in the 2nd round with Selma. :( +1
intercept against me, damnit.
--
James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D
"But I don't have the right to be with you tonight, so please leave me
alone with no saviour in sight. I will sleep safe and sound with nobody
around me."
>
> The following five Methuselahs made it to the final:
<snip Rob's bad LoPander deck. Quite true.>
>Barney Baker had a weenie dominate filth deck with LJs for damage
>prevention and the Rumour Mill for light intercept [just my luck that
>he got his out and so did Rob in the first couple of turns of the
>final]. It did just fine. Barney got 7 VP to get in the final and >2
>there, due to concession by matt who had to leave early so as to get to
>work the next day.
>
I had be at work in the Union bar at 8.00 that evening James, were it
the following day i would have stayed. (I arrived at work at 8.02 BTW,
leaving P'mouth at 6.40. Ahh, the benefits of a motorcycle. Outta my way
you slow-ass Porsche driver!).
He then played a total blinder in the final,
> starting off slow, blocking or voting down [with my help] Rob's votes,
> helping me to bring Rob down to 1 pool and then using a Madness
network
> Dramatic Upheaval to swap places with me, so that he could bleed out
Rob
> and then, via a deflection, me. A really AMAZING performance and one
for
> the aficionados. Well done, Matt! All the finalists got AH boosters -
> thanks, John!
>
The final was really good. As Rob pointed out at the end, he chose the
seating wrongly. What made his deck vulnerable and worse than the
LoPander deck was that it had to 'set up' more before voting. I thought
the final was all about Barney's deck- it was probably the best there,
had the final carried on I doubt that my 2 vampires would have held out
that long against his weenie dominate hoard.
<snip decklist>
>
> i'll just add, largely to annoy Matt who gets REALLY shirty whenever
the
> biannual Card Limits thread comes up, that this deck is legal for 6CL.
>
Right! that's it! i'm adding 16 Mummifies immediatly. That'll screw 'em!
If i play the deck again, it would probably have more Enemy's Enemy's in
there, although telepathic misdirection would probably suffice.
matt.
I went into the third round with 0 VP, and ended it with 2 VP.
Hamdamcwa's protean hordes had no defense from my presence/obfuscate
weenie vote/bleed. He did manage to work his prey (Anklebiter)down
substantially, giving me a fairly easy second VP on my new prey. I
then snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by falling to Jon
Cooper's intercept deck. My anti-combat was spent, and he was finally
drawing into his intercept.
I must add that I was ousted by Legbiter in round one, when he
masterfully spent 7 of 11 (I think) pool to misdirect his prey and
grandprey(me) then domain challenged the table-he went down another
one, then up 12. Well played. And the whole game only took 28 minutes
from start to final oust, as I recall.
Kevin
> David Hammond [hamdamcwa] had some sort of Gangrel deck i think, and
it
> was great to see him all the way from Essex. Alas, this was not a
> gangrelly type day, and i don't think he got any VPs at all. Never
mind,
> at least we did a profitable trade which i believe completed his
> collection and certainly helped me [THIRTEEN Temptations of Greater
Power
> now!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!].
>
Thanks for having me! It was an interesting experience - you all play a
very different game to that played home (and how!). I suppose I was a
bit naive expecting a Gangrel Bleed deck to win (it usually works by
lasting the longest, but I didn't get a good opening hand (excuses -
etc). I nearly had Rob Treasure on the ropes - just got a bit hasty
(more excuses!). DOH! Still, I will return Nyoo - hahahahahahaahahahaha!
I am thinking about setting together a few tournaments a bit closer to
home. Would anyone be interested in playing in Watford? It's in
Hertfordshire (about 25 miles north of London) and the venue I have in
mind has very easy access to the M25 (2 minutes from it - 1 if the
lights are in your favour!) and M1. It also has easy rail, tube and bus
connections.
If I get enough interest, I'll see what I can do.
REspond via the newsgroup or by email - dave...@hotmail.com
CRYPT [12 vamps]
2 Igo pre pro 1
1 Uma Hatch pre cel 3
2 Violette Prentiss PRE dom 4
1 Demetrious Slater pre cel aus 4
1 Courtland Leighton pre dom for 4
2 Gideon Fontaine PRE 3
1 Delilah Easton pre 2
1 Yuri the Talon pre pot cel 4
1 Roland Loussarian pre for 3
Average vampire capacity 3, cheapest opening crypt 7, most expensive 16.
LIBRARY [88 cards]
8 ACTIONS 9%
2 Charming Lobby
4 Legal Manipulation
2 Social Charm
19 ACTION MODIFIERS 22%
6 Bewitching Oration
6 Bribes
2 Change of Target
Cryptic Rider
4 Voter captivation
1 ALLY 1%
Political Ally
20 COMBAT 23%
3 Majesty
7 Dodge
7 Fake Out
3 Zip Gun
18 MASTERS 20%
3 Effective management
Elysium the Arboretum
Hostile Takeover
Information Highway
6 Misdirection
5 Presence
Ventrue HQ
24 VOTES 27%
6 Conservative Agitation
Disputed Territory
3 Domain Challenge
Dramatic Upheaval
Kindred Segregation
6 Kine Resources contested
2 Parity Shift
Praxis Seizure Chicago
Praxis Seizure cleveland
Praxis Seizure dallas
Praxis Seizure Seattle
At the risk of being boringly repetitive but to pre-empt some obvious
criticisms, this deck was built from a deliberately-limited pool of cards
- a bit less than 2 boxes of Jyhad boosters. The point of making, playing
and posting this deck is/was to show that you CAN compete to a high level
in VTES on a budget - you really DON'T need all those power cards. i
expect you will all be so grateful to me for doing this experiment that
you will want to send me all those useless power-rares so that i can heat
my home this winter - thanks in advance, guys n gals!
i forgot to say that Michael Atkins was playing a clone of the Prince of
Vienna's deck from last, what, November i guess - anyway it took fifth or
so place at the European championships. As Pierre says it went down quite
badly against combat and also, it seemed, against votes.
> Anyway i did get one lonely VP, but through no effort of mine since my
> prey decided to do everything possible to have my predator
> killed...still it took a long (loooong) time to oust him...Beast is not
> very good at bleeding :)
>
Off topic a bit here, but has anyone ever built a deck that aims to turn
Beast into a Cardinal [this works because Beast doesn't have to take the
action to become a cardinal] and then give him extra Hand damage through
the Island of Yiaros? Seems to me that your wakey/bashy idea could well
be the basis for such a deck, Pierre. Apart from Beast you would probably
want Kendrick, Korah, Rake, Volker and some weenie ventrue to bring out
the Island and the Ventrue HQ. Anathemas for pool gain, probably.
Bad man. Bad bad man.
It gets slightly tricky, because the problem is that the Camarilla
vampires cannot vote on the Cardinal Benediction action. However, if you
have a few Ventrue weenies around, solely for the Ventrue HQ and Yiaros,
or a few weenies and Clan Impersonations.....
O, yes of course you are right - it's on the card. Alright, maybe leave
off the Princes and Anathema angle and do your pool gain by Minion Taps
and tastes of vitae.
However, if you
> have a few Ventrue weenies around, solely for the Ventrue HQ and Yiaros,
> or a few weenies and Clan Impersonations.....
>
Essential, those ventrue weenies, for this deck, and of course they can
have the additional functionalities of deflecting, bleeding, contesting
and letting you play hostile takeover.
A deck i used to play on-line in pre 7/7 days was Legbiter's second
crusade, and i actually did turn Beast [aka Front-de-Cuir] into a
cardinal there, probably in jol story 3. Hadn't thought of the Island
trick then, though. Depravity would be another must-have card in this
deck, i think.
> I went into the third round with 0 VP, and ended it with 2 VP.
> Hamdamcwa's protean hordes had no defense from my presence/obfuscate
> weenie vote/bleed
I didn't play you in the 3rd round. Mine was a Gangrel Bleed deck.
Mind you, I didn't do much better in the game I *did* play...
He's right, your first victim in the third round was Michael Eichler
Prince of Ramstein [tall, dark, American accent] and not David Hammond
[tall, fair, no American accent]. Even now Michael is probably organising
a flight of B52s to bomb your house in revenge.
>and not David Hammond
> [tall, fair, no American accent]. Even now Michael is probably
organising
> a flight of B52s to bomb your house in revenge.
>
Heh. I am in conventry. The landscape can't get much worse. Do try
to miss the remains of the cathedral, however.
Kevin, also American living abroad.
Next time let's all play REALLY rapid decks so that we can get a few
beers in afterwards!
>
> He then played a total blinder in the final,
> > starting off slow, blocking or voting down [with my help] Rob's votes,
> > helping me to bring Rob down to 1 pool and then using a Madness
> network
> > Dramatic Upheaval to swap places with me, so that he could bleed out
> Rob
> > and then, via a deflection, me. A really AMAZING performance and one
> for
> > the aficionados. Well done, Matt! All the finalists got AH boosters -
> > thanks, John!
> >
> The final was really good. As Rob pointed out at the end, he chose the
> seating wrongly. What made his deck vulnerable and worse than the
> LoPander deck was that it had to 'set up' more before voting. I thought
> the final was all about Barney's deck- it was probably the best there,
> had the final carried on I doubt that my 2 vampires would have held out
> that long against his weenie dominate hoard.
i agree that barney's deck was good, but it would have folded pretty dam
quick had it been downstream of me or Rob - Barney was my first victim in
the 28-minute game i swept in the first heat. i don't know where Rob
could have sat that would have made that much difference, though. The
obvious place would have been upstream of Barney, but then he would have
had to endure massive intercept and beats from jon. The worst place to be
was in between you and Jon. Upstream of me would have been downstream of
Barney and that wasn't a great place to be as i, and later you, found
out. i think he picked the least bad place but, as he said, it was still
REALLY bad.
>
> <snip decklist>
>
> >
> > i'll just add, largely to annoy Matt who gets REALLY shirty whenever
> the
> > biannual Card Limits thread comes up, that this deck is legal for 6CL.
> >
> Right! that's it! i'm adding 16 Mummifies immediatly. That'll screw 'em!
<note to self> Build functional mummify deck. I think it can be done,
matt and Dave. Purity of the Beast, on the other hand, really IS a BAAAAD
card.
Round 1
Jon Cooper 3
Adam Lewis 0
Alex Hughes 1
Michael McClellan 0
Barney Baker 0
Kevin Mitcham 0
Ian Stubbington 0
James McClellan 4
William Lee 0
David hammond 0
Pierre Rebstock 0
Garry Scarlett 3
Michael Atkins 2
Rob Treasure 1.5
Mark Baxter 0
James Coupe 0.5
Matthew Green 1.5
Michael Eichler 0
Round 2
David hammond 0
Barney baker 2
Mark Baxter 0
William lee 0
Rob Treasure 3
Michael Eichler 0
James McClellan 3
Michael Atkins 0
Michael McClellan 1
Adam Lewis 0
Matthew green 4
Ian Stubbington 0
Garry Scarlett 1
Alex Hughes 0
James Coupe 0
Pierre Rebstock 1
Kevin Mitcham 0
Jon Cooper 3
Round 3
William Lee 3 [total VP = 3]
Garry Scarlett 0 [4]
Mark baxter 1 [1]
Matthew Green 0 [finalist]
Alex hughes 0 [1]
Jon Cooper 2 [finalist]
Kevin Mitcham 2 [2]
Michael Eichler 0 [0]
Michael mcClellan 1 [2]
James McClellan 0 [finalist]
Adam Lewis 0 [0]
James Coupe 0 [0.5]
Ian Stubbington 0 [0]
Barney Baker 5 [finalist]
Michael Atkins 0 [2]
Pierre Rebstock 0 [1]
Rob Treasure 4 [finalist]
David Hammond 0 [0]
FINAL
Rob Treasure 0 [5th, 8.5]
Matthew Green 3 [1st, 8.5]
Jon Cooper 0 [3rd, 8]
Barney baker 2 [2nd, 9]
James McClellan 0 [4th, 7]