Tourney Report: Praxis Seizure Ithaca (long)
Joshua Duffin
So this report is a bit late, as it happened on March 1st, and only
now am I getting around to posting it. My pitiful excuse is that
I've been busy with schoolwork and such. But anyway...
I ran Praxis: Ithaca on Sunday the 1st, at Rockefeller Hall on the
Cornell University campus. We had a total of twelve players who
showed up, although only ten at any one time, since two of them
dropped out and the other two showed up late (I let them take the
place of the players who dropped so we could have all the games be
five players per table).
Competing for our WotC prize package (Thanks again, Jennifer!) were:
Dave Greenbaum, playing Assamite combat. (He disappeared after the
first round and neglected to return. Ooops.) He's a regular player
here at the Cornell games club.
Peter Bakija, playing Nosferatu Pot/For/Ani Bum's Rush combat. I'm
sure we all know this name already. ;-)
Steve Wampler, playing a weenie presence bleed deck, the sort for
which he gained the nickname Steve "I bled someone for 14 pool in
one turn because of a Misdirection" Wampler. (He's also a regular
here.)
Ian Cyr, playing a semi-weenie Gangrel combat deck. Ian's a new
regular at games club.
Sean Montgomery, playing a Ventrue vote deck. Sean shows up to
games club less frequently I think, but is also a local resident.
Eric Howd, playing an Assamite rush combat deck. It's fairly
monstrous in terms of burning a lot of vampires with relative impunity.
Eric had to leave after the second round.
Peter Kapsalis, playing (what I heard was) a weenie bleed/intercept
deck. Peter Kapsalis and Marco Balaguer are New York City residents
who came up to Ithaca in order to visit us and show us the big city
moves.
Marco Balaguer, playing a light-vote, master-heavy deck with a whole
lot of Anarch Revolts and some Parthenons, etc for playing lots of
them at once. It was pretty impressive in action.
Khalil Abdel-Hameed, playing a Malkavian stealthy deck with some
bleed action. Khalil's a local, but doesn't usually show up at games
club.
Jason Dettman, playing a defensive stealthy vote Malkavian deck. Jason
is not only a regular but was also the main organizer behind Pentecon
this year (the quasi-annual convention that the games club runs).
Keith Rice, playing Gangrel rush combat. Keith is also a regular,
and perseveres with the Gangrel even though they can't deal with Strike:
Combat Ends. Although this past week, he was trying out a new deck
that didn't rely so much on the old agg-damage tricks. (Keith was a
latecomer, and replaced Dave Greenbaum after the first round.)
Tim Triptow, playing a Followers of Set corruption deck. Tim is an
Ithacan, but doesn't usually come to games club. (Tim was also late,
and replaced Eric Howd after the second round.)
So, we played under the specified DCI rules, for the three suggested
preliminary rounds, each with a time limit of two hours, and then
an untimed final for the top five players (by victory points). None
of the games came even close to timing out; we started the first round
about 12:30 pm, and were finished with the final before 5 pm.
Some details for the final round:
Seat 1: Khalil Abdel-Hameed, with 3 VPs from the prelims. (102 tourney pts.)
Seat 2: Marco Balaguer, with 8 VPs from the prelims. (144 tourney pts.)
Seat 3: Jason Dettman, with 4 VPs from the prelims. (132 tourney pts.)
Seat 4: Steve Wampler, with 3 VPs from the prelims. (114 tourney pts.)
Seat 5: Peter Kapsalis, with 8 VPs from the prelims. (168 tourney pts.)
Except for Jason, everyone in the finals was playing basically a weenie
deck, so pool levels were dropping fairly precipitously (a little less
so for Steve, as Jason's prey). Marco's Anarch Revolts definitely
contributed to that; evidently he didn't have more than about 2 on the
table at any one time, since the other players were calling votes to
get rid of them, but they were still causing significant damage. So,
as it worked out, Steve managed to time things such that Peter, Khalil,
and then Marco were all ousted by the Anarchs immediately after Steve
ended one of his turns. Jason got another turn after that, but was
ousted on Steve's following turn.
So, Steve Wampler got 5 victory points, and became the clear winner
of Praxis Seizure: Ithaca. Only problem was, the other places were
somewhat less obvious. We figured order of ousting was reasonable,
so Jason was assigned second place (as the last one to be ousted),
Marco third, Khalil fourth, and Peter fifth. We also divided the
prizes a little differently from the suggested order, so as to
give at least something to all of the finalists. And, of course,
everyone who participated in the tournament got at least one Mariana
Gilbert for showing up.
Here's the deck list for Steve Wampler's winning weenie presence bleed
deck:
Crypt:
2x Antoinette Duchamp
2x Gideon Fontaine
2x Mariana Gilbert
2x Delilah Easton
1x Igo, the Hungry
1x Roland Loussarian
1x Violette Prentiss
1x Vasilis, the Traitor of Don Cruez
1x Khalil Anvari
1x Angela Decker
1x Uma Hatch
---
15 vampires
Library:
1x Information Highway
2x Effective Management
7x Presence
3x Misdirection
1x The Barrens
1x Entrancement
11x Enchant Kindred
8x Social Charm
5x Legal Manipulations
13x Aire of Elation
7x Majesty
---
59 cards; 14 masters; 25 bleed actions; 13 bleed action mods; 7 combat
defense
Once again, thanks to Wizards for the prizes, and thanks to all the
players who showed up and made it a good time for all. Also, thanks
to the Elder Kindred Network types for helping organize the Praxis
Seizure series and coordinate ratings and so on and so forth.
Hope you found this report at least a little informative. If you have
any further questions, feel free to ask.
Josh