DC Qualifier report
Matthew T. Morgan
have just been bad and it's tough to get the group together during the
week. So I didn't really have anything too clever planned for the local
qualifier. I was hoping to think of the next great thing by Saturday, but
nothing came, so I just grabbed a fun deck. I didn't really expect it to
work as well as it did.
Round 1:
Corey Seigel (Black Hand aus/cel) ->
Greg Seidman (Big Toreador) ->
me (Cock Robin stuff) ->
Trey Morita (!Ventrue anarchs)
Corey and Trey pretty well wrecked one another. I looked innocent for a
while, then mopped up. Trey was close to getting Corey and had landed a
couple good bleeds. Greg surprisingly burned Cock Robin with a .44 + DBR,
but his Francois Villon went to torpor and was diablerized and he didn't
have much of a game at that point, while I had the pool to buy another
Cock Robin.
4 VP
Round 2:
Andy Genz (IC + g1 Malk vote/bleed) ->
John Whelan (Enkidu rush) ->
Corey Seigel (still Black Hand aus/cel) ->
Josh Duffin (my Osebo aus/cel deck) ->
me
A game with Trey, then a game with Josh. It's just like the old days!
Except I didn't win as much in the old, old days. Andy "Warshed" (he
lives in Baltimore) my early Villein on Cock Robin, which pretty much
meant I was going to play this game only with two vampires. He got out
Gilbert Duane and Arika. John got Enkidu and Arika was torporized and
eaten before she got an action off. Corey and Josh blocked one another
getting .44s for a while, which was pretty great.
I blocked Gilbert doing something or other and failed to draw more wakes,
which let Josh bleed me for like 5 (he had two Camera Phones), putting me
dangerously low on pool. Wouldn't it be great if somebody handed me my
prey on a platter and I asked for something lighter? Andy lunged with
just Gilbert and removed the Enkidu menace from the table. I finally got
my Enkil Cog thing going and bled for 3 twice around the table and
eventually took Andy out. Corey had turned the pressure up on Josh and
Josh was spending more time than he'd like rescuing dudes from torpor and
stuff.
After finishing Andy, I just bled through Corey and Josh in one turn.
They were both too beat up to stop me.
4VPs and 1 for Andy.
Round 3:
Heslin (Tzimisce toolbox) ->
me ->
Steve Holmer (mid/low dom with Target Vitals) ->
John Mickle (mid/low dom with Target Vitals)
I had a second 4-top, but didn't complain because I already had two game
wins. Two players dropped from the tournament, so the seating was all
screwed up.
I was worried about agg damage from Heslin, but I got a Guardian Angel on
Cock Robin pretty early. Could be good. Could be a waste of two pool. I
still let him bleed me once or twice until I had disposible blockers.
John contested Ingrid Russo with Steve and asked me to pressure my prey,
so I started rushing Steve. Guardian Angel is pretty good against Target
Vitals. This might've worked out okay for John, but he didn't have any
pool coming in and Steve's famous guy in torpor + contesting = 2 pool per
turn.
John played a Hostile Takover on Caliban, who had a Revenant. He wanted
me to bid to have another minion to pressure Steve. I bid it up, but
Steve didn't want me having the extra minion with Animalism and intercept,
so he outbid me. He had more pool, thanks to some Liquidations, so he got
it.
A bit later John put out a Constant Revolution. I kinda hoped Heslin
would get rid of it and kind of hoped he wouldn't, because my hand was
pretty bad. I think it helped me. I let it get to six counters before
taking it out.
Heslin got a War Ghoul kinda late (I blocked one), but that really only
succeeded in knocking a little blood off Cock Robin, since Heroic Might +
Carrion Crows takes care of War Ghouls pretty well. Steve was out of
blood and couldn't Deflect with my Narrow Minds in play, so I bled him
out. John lunged and killed Heslin. In the endgame, I had a good run of
wakes and combat and torped all of John's minions, after which he yielded.
3 VP and John got 1.
Final:
Playing two 4-tops has a real advantage, if you ask me. My games ended
early and I got to see what the others were playing. I knew Ruben was
playing Ventrue breed/boon. I'd played Trey already. I saw Adam was
playing something intercepty. I hoped Ruben would get stuck next to
him, but of course he didn't. Knowing Trey's deck more or less and
knowing it's not really an intercept deck but a bleed deck, I figured I'd
better sit to Ruben's right or he'd just run the table over.
John Alton (True Brujah bleed) ->
me ->
Ruben Feldman (g4/5 Ventrue breed/boon) ->
Trey Morita (!Ventrue anarchs) ->
Adam Hulse (Troglodytia intercept with some nec)
So early in the game, John flips up Nu. I flip up Cock Robin. Nu bleeds.
I go for the block. He plays inferior Domain of Evernight and asks if I
really want to do that. I'm like "does that card let me back out?" Doh.
We both go to torpor (I have Carrion Crows) and both end up self-rescuing.
Funny, but it left me low on blood (was torped by a gate for 4).
Ruben makes a bunch of little guys and has easy vote lock, with just Cock
Robin and Synesios on the table to try to argue with him. I let him pass
an early Con Boon. Trey is surprised. I say there's worse to come. I
had a decent crypt draw this game. I got out Cock Robin, Beetleman,
Jeremy "Wix" and Clarissa, so at least I had a few actions per turn or
could try to throw Clarissa in the path of an oncoming Nu.
Ruben tries some funny stuff with Victor Pelletier. Not allowed! I block
and put him down. Next turn Ruben makes a deal with Trey that I should
die and he will try to oust the table backward for a 2 VP win. I try to
counter-offer, but Trey won't have it. Ruben plays Pentex on Cock Robin.
Adam indicates he has a Sudden. We talk for 15 minutes. I offer the
world. So does Ruben, but in Ruben's world, Adam is getting ousted 3rd as
per the deal with Trey. Adam Suddens the Pentex.
Ruben does his best to kill me anyway. I am perhaps stupidly low on pool
at this point, but I wanted all four minions. I succeed in blocking all
of Ruben's offensive actions (I let him put a Progeny out), but this
leaves Cock Robin empty. John bleeds me for 5, putting me on 2 pool.
On my turn, I Fame a Progeny, then have to hunt with Cock Robin.
Beetleman saves the day by rushing with a Deep Song. "Wix"'s bleed is
bounced, but Clarissa finishes off Ruben with a Deep Song bleed.
I have to spend a few turns hunting after that, as Trey has Joseph O'Grady
and Diversions. Trey works on Adam. Adam works on John. John works on
me. I work on getting some blood so I can play. I actually get kinda low
on pool again, but John's deck seems to start to gag a bit.
With not much time left, I manage to Parity Shift Trey and get him low
enough to kill him with a Fame, but time is called first. I don't really
mind, though I know some of you yahoos out there will say the tournament
wasn't really won. Blow it out your blowhole!
Here's my deck:
Deck Name: Enkil Robin Song Deep Cog
Created by: Matt Morgan
Description: Inspired by Sebastian Muerer's very similar deck and thanks
to Ralf Lammert's advice (some heeded, some not, some good, some not).
This deck isn't very well optimized at this point, but it's kind of a cool
trick. It really shouldn't be this big as the only time I came anywhere
close to going through the whole deck was when Constant Revolution was on
the table and even then, I didn't run out. The biggest problem is that
it's a star deck. I didn't succeed in getting out a second prince at any
point where I wasn't already totally winning, so if Cock Robin isn't
around, basically the deck has no defense and its offense is very limited.
Crypt [12 vampires, average capacity: 7.25]
4x Cock Robin ANI OBF POT aus for 10 Nosferatu:3 justicar
2x Baron Dieudonne ANI OBF POT PRO 9 Nosferatu:4 prince
1x Casino Reeds ANI OBF POT cel dem 9 Nosferatu:3 prince
1x Jeremy "Wix" Wyzchovsky ani obf pot 5 Nosferatu:4
1x Petra ANI OBF aus 5 Nosferatu:4
1x Beetleman ANI obf 4 Nosferatu:4
1x Clarissa Steinburgen ani obf 3 Nosferatu:3
1x Darva Felispa ani pot 3 Nosferatu:3
/* Addition of Casino Reeds was probably not a good one. Never had the
opportunity to try to get him. */
Library [85 cards]
Master [16]
2x Fame
1x Giant's Blood
3x Grooming the Protege
1x Guardian Angel
1x Labyrinth, The
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Rack, The
1x Two Wrongs
3x Villein
2x Warsaw Station
/* Fame is hugely important in this deck and always appeared at the right
time. The Groomings and Villeins didn't come up very often. There
should be more pool gain and perhaps some cycling here, but it's tough
to squeeze it in. I never had to burn a Warsaw this tournament. I
utterly failed to play Giant's Blood or Two Wrongs. Cut from this
list, per Ralf's suggestion, were Temptation of Greater Power (probably
smart, since I usually had pool issues), Perfectionist (probably
would've been good), Metro Underground (hard to say, but combos nicely
with Enkil Cog) and 2x Wash, which I really should've had. Guardian
Angel helped a lot, since Cock Robin was constantly fighting. */
Action [16]
1x Army of Rats
9x Deep Song
2x Heroic Might
1x Preternatural Strength
1x SchreckNET
2x Tier of Souls
/* Wanted one more Deep Song, but couldn't find it. Still, I usually had
them when I wanted one. I never dreamed of discarding one. Always
glad to see them. Never put out the Rats. I got SchreckNET, but it
didn't do anything. */
Action Modifier [10]
2x Enkil Cog
2x Faceless Night
4x Lost in Crowds
2x Veil the Legions
Action Modifier/Combat [4]
4x Swallowed by the Night
/* More stealth than my last version and that was important. This was
about right, but I never needed to superior Veil. In fact, once or
twice I wished it were any other stealth card. First time that's
happened. */
Equipment [1]
1x Ivory Bow
Event [2]
1x Narrow Minds
1x Scourge of the Enochians
/* Never got the Scourge out. Narrow Minds prevented potential bounce in
round 3. */
Political Action [2]
2x Parity Shift
/* Only used in the final */
Reaction [14]
4x Cats' Guidance
1x On the Qui Vive
6x Second Tradition: Domain
3x Sense the Savage Way
/* I was pretty lucky getting these when I needed them. If I'd been short
one reaction, Ruben would've backousted me in the final. */
Retainer [2]
2x Raven Spy
Combat [18]
2x Canine Horde
8x Carrion Crows
4x Immortal Grapple
4x Taste of Vitae
Crafted with: Anarch Revolt Deck Builder [Mon Aug 31 10:19:32 2009]
--
John P.
> A game with Trey, then a game with Josh. It's just like the old days!
Nice to see old familiar faces still dabbling in the game. Even if its
only in a tournament report.
John P.
Winnipeg
frubeng
Just a few comments :
"
Next turn Ruben makes a deal with Trey that I should
die and he will try to oust the table backward for a 2 VP win. I try
to
counter-offer, but Trey won't have it. Ruben plays Pentex on Cock
Robin.
Adam indicates he has a Sudden. We talk for 15 minutes. I offer the
world. So does Ruben, but in Ruben's world, Adam is getting ousted
3rd as
per the deal with Trey. Adam Suddens the Pentex. "
Well actually my offer was: don’t play your sudden, I will kill Matt
and then your prey (leaving Adam as the VP leader on a 3 player table,
me gaining nothing and being stuck with 2 cepty decks). My deal with
Trey was to leave him alone for a while. My plan was actually to let
Trey and Adam fight it out while I struggle to survive and hopefully
get a break where I can take the rest.
Matt’s offer was: play your sudden. (and make sure Matt will win
since the true brujah will never oust Matt, and Adam will never oust
the true brujah and Matt)
I spent a few hous in the car telling Adam "I told you so" on the way
back!
My most interesting table was definitely played with Lasombra, where
after a hostile takeover for 8 on petra on turn 2, I was never above 7
pool the whole game and finished on 1!
I was playing a Ventrue vote deck that had a few embraces, not really
breed boon since not much breed (four embrace, two 3rd trad) and
mainly bloated with parity. I wanted to try out some new ventrue, but
I think the old ones would have be better.
Great tourney, thanks to Pete for organizing and congrats to Matt for
his win!
PS: Please make qualifier t-shirts in M!
Matthew T. Morgan
> Well actually my offer was: don?t play your sudden, I will kill Matt
> and then your prey (leaving Adam as the VP leader on a 3 player table,
> me gaining nothing and being stuck with 2 cepty decks). My deal with
> Trey was to leave him alone for a while. My plan was actually to let
> Trey and Adam fight it out while I struggle to survive and hopefully
> get a break where I can take the rest.
> Matt?s offer was: play your sudden. (and make sure Matt will win
> since the true brujah will never oust Matt, and Adam will never oust
> the true brujah and Matt)
Ha ha. Funny how a minor change in perspective can make all the
difference. Yeah, it's true I didn't end up having to offer very much. I
think what pushed Adam over to my side was that you and Trey seemed such
fast friends all of a sudden.
But yeah, I was a bit surprised Adam couldn't kill the Trujah. With that
in mind, maybe your deal was better...if you kept it.
I think probably most of us knew what your plan was and it was a good one
(except I didn't like the part about me dying). My plan was to get the
VP, then let everybody waste the remaining time. I didn't really do
anything on my turns and they usually took less than a minute. Finalists
are so good at wasting time.
Matt Morgan
Matthew T. Morgan
We're trying to get Trey to the NAC. Show up just in case we're
successful!
Matt Morgan
John P.
Unfortunately this will be the first NAC in six years that I do not
attend. Just too much happening this year.
John P.
Winnipeg
Johannes Walch
> I spent a few hous in the car telling Adam "I told you so" on the way
> back!
Twisting the Knife!
> PS: Please make qualifier t-shirts in M!
There are t-shirts in M (even in S).
Perhaps you can exchange yours at the NAC.