Just got back from Origins, and boy, are my arms tired.
Yeah , so anyway, the indefatigable Kevin Mergen ran, like, a billion tournaments, all of which were chock full of great VTES action. Great job Kevin! You rock the world!
Thursday there were, like, what, 5 or 6 different 2R+F constructed events (all of which had, like, ~12-15 people playing) that ran at 2 hour increments, so if you didn't get into the finals of the tournament you were in now, you could start a new tournament as soon as the finals started. Of those, I know that Ben Peal won two of them with crazy decks (as is Ben's way), John Bell won one of them, and John's incredibly awsome 7 year old son Connor won another one.
Friday was a 30 player 3R+F constructed tournament that was won by me with a weenie Animalism deck (virtually identical to the one I posted in my last Nosferatu Newsletter--see "Bats with Birds in their Mouths") that either I or Kevin will post later--including the final, I got 3GW/11 VP in 4 rounds. There was also a draft tournament Thursday night. but that ended at, like, 3:00 am or something, so I don't know what happened there.
Saturday had a Quallifier with what looked like 35 some odd players and was won by Chris Berg (also of central New York--go us!) The finals included a Great Beast deck and Xian with an incredibly effective old school Tremere B+B deck. There was also a 5 player sideline draft (using the highly sketchy yet still very entertaining Final Nights/KMW combo of boosters) won by Matt Morgan.
Sunday morning there was another 2R+F constructed event that looked like it had about ~20 players, but I left and have no idea what happened.
I'm sure Kevin will post more official results and deck lists will show up shortly. And lots of wacky folks will have all sorts of fun things to contribute.
So to save Kevin some typing, here is my deck from the 30 person Friday 3R+F tournament at Origins:
"Bats with Birds in Their Mouths"* (* and when they echo-locate, they shoot birds at you.)
Crypt: 1x Christianus Lionel, Mad Chronicler (6) ANI 1x Nigel, The Shunned (5) ANI 1x Devin Bisley (5) ANI 1x Calebros, The Martyr (5) ANI 1x Bobby Lemon (4) ANI 1x Tommy (3) ani 1x Shannon Price, The Whisperer (3) ani 1x Dani (2) ani 1x Mouse (2) ani 1x Gillian Krader (2) ani 1x Zip (2) ani 1x Lisa Noble (1) ani Avg of 3.33
3x Bum's Rush 2x Games of Instinct 9x Forced Awakening 3x IR Goggles 21x Aid from Bats 14x Carrion Crows 9x Raven Spy 8x Drawing Out the Beast 2x Cat's Guidance 1x Owl Companion 2x Army of Rats 1x Murder of Crows 1x Canine Horde 1x Tier of Souls
The differences from when I originall posted the deck:
-I added an Archon Investigation. Which I used in two games, and won both of them. Man. I was baffled by how completely un-afraid folks were of getting AIed the whole weekend, and everyone was completely bleedzooka crazy, sending their 10 and 11 cap minions to bleed for 7 at stealth every action, seeming totally unconcerned about getting AIed or surprisingly deflected. Thanks to David Tatu who traded me one when I was thinking about putting it in my deck the night before :-)
-I swapped a Tier of Souls in for a Games of Instinct. The Tier of Souls never did anything particularly important, but the Games of Instinct continued to hose me, as even with a weenie crypt, I regularly would draw a Games wanting to Rush someone, and there wouldn't be any targets that were older than my usable Sabbat vampire. I'm turning the rest of the Games into Bum's Rush now.
My games looked like this (I apalogize for not remembering a few people's names):
G1 -Me -Someone with a Cailean/Mk IV deck -Kevin with a Ur Shugli Bleedzooka deck -Dan with an !Nos wall (?) deck -Dave Burger (misspelled) with a Assamite/Tha deck
Kevin bleedzookaed forward into Dan, ousting him quickly. Dave burned my Calebros in a fight when I was testing the waters by blocking a bleed of 1 (smart me :-). I did a number on Cailean by preventing his gun use with DoTB, ousting him pretty quickly. Dave walled up, trying to stop Kevin, messing up some of his vamps, but gets ousted anyway. I mess up Kevin's vamps, diablerized Ur Shugli, AIed Mariel Lady Thunder, and won. Me GW/3VP, Kevin 2VP.
G2 -Me -Karl Schaefer with a Tzim Edith/Enid Blount wall deck -Dave McCarty with a Kisayid wall/bleed deck -Jay Krystoff with a Brujah B+B deck -Ben Peal with a Obf/Dom Anarch Border Skirmish S+B deck
Ben kept Border Skirmishing and bleeding me down while I walled up. Dave bled into Jay, ousting him pretty quickly. My defenses solidified finally when I had, like, 5 pool left, by getting Bobby Lemon with 3 Raven Spies which pretty much shut Ben down. Dave ousts Ben. Karl, who had out Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, was ripping into Dave consistiently but often was foiled by bleed reduction. Karl is low on pool from influencing out minions and me occasionally bleeding for 1, and my window opens, and I "oust" Karl, but Dave saves his last pool with a Folderol. I then draw into a Fame, which I use to oust Karl soon after. Dave and I are at kind of an impasse--I have a bunch of pool, the edge, and dangerously fighty minions with permanent intercept. He has a hand full of bleed reduction. Determining that we weren't actually ever going to get anywhere (he was simply going to pass every turn, gaining pool with Bart, I was simply going to pass every turn gaining pool with the Edge), we agreed to mutually withdraw. Me 2VP, Dave GW/3VP.
G3 -Me -Connor Bell with Malk S+B -Bob with Settite Vote -David Tatu with Lasombra S+B
Connor plows into Bob, putting Bob on the defensive. David bleeds me some with a big vampire. Bob calls a few damaging votes. I get out a colud of guys and bleed Connor some, torping a few of his vampires along the way. Eventually, Bob gets David about the same time I get Connor. Bob gets intercepted a lot and most of his guys torporized when he runs out of S:CE cards, and I whack him. Me GW/3 VP, Bob 1VP.
Finals:
I'm top seed going in with 2GW/8VP. It comes time to pick my seat. I have no idea what *anyone* at the table is playing. The only information I have to make my choice is:
-Mark Loughman in in the finals. I don't want to sit next to him, 'cause he usually has wildly destructive deck technology.
-Robyn Tatu is in the finals. I don't know what kind of deck she is playing, but I do know that earlier in the tournament, not only did she play a Nosferatu Performance Art, she used it to torp Alexandra who she promptly consumed. This, being the talk of the day, as it was possibly the coolest thing to ever happen, ever, got around the event. Me, knowing *I* couldn't fall prey to her Nosferatu Performance Art technologies, figured I'd put myself as her prey. Who thought it would ever be useful to not be prone to being Nosferatu Performance Art-ed?
Anyway, the table was: -Me -Brian with a big sabbat Stealth Vote deck -Paul Bowles with a weenie Cryptic Mission deck -Mark Loughman with a Giovani Stealth Bleedzooka deck -Robyn with a Nosferatu Stealth Vote deck
We all get out minions, except for Mark, who holds all of his guys to come out at once. I get out a bunch of dudes and bleed Brian, torping one of his guys along the way. mark gets out 3 Giovanni and starts hammering on Robyn. Robyn walls up and bloats with Con Ag (which gave me a pool here and there--go Nosferatu unity!). Paul cryptics Mark to slow him down. I continue driving Brian's pool down, but then he squeezes by an Anarchist Uprising, costing me 5 pool, Paul 6 pool, Brian 2 pool, Mark 3 or 4 pool, and ousting Robyn, who was at 2 pool at the time. I oust Brian soon after. Mark starts bleeding me, but loses a couple weenies to being blocked, and loses his last significant minion to my Archon Investigation. Paul ousts Mark pretty soon after that, and immediately gets all of his minions torporized by me, giving me the game. Me GW/3VP, Paul 1VP, Mark 1VP.
> "Bats with Birds in Their Mouths"* > (* and when they echo-locate, they shoot birds at you.)
Nice deck. Looks like one I used to fly with some success years ago. For some reason, I could never get it to work well after Final Nights came out. Not sure why. Theoretically, the new cards and changes to the overall metagame *should* help this kind of deck, IMHO.
> Crypt: > 1x Christianus Lionel, Mad Chronicler (6) ANI > 1x Nigel, The Shunned (5) ANI > 1x Devin Bisley (5) ANI > 1x Calebros, The Martyr (5) ANI > 1x Bobby Lemon (4) ANI > 1x Tommy (3) ani > 1x Shannon Price, The Whisperer (3) ani > 1x Dani (2) ani > 1x Mouse (2) ani > 1x Gillian Krader (2) ani > 1x Zip (2) ani > 1x Lisa Noble (1) ani
Crypt is easier these days, with more access to ANI in the smaller caps. Better than having to put 8 copies of Animalism masters...
Since you're a weenie deck, and want to get into combat, some Haven Uncovereds could probably replace one or two of the get-into-combat cards. With your intercept, they're not likely to burn the Haven.
> 3x Bum's Rush > 2x Games of Instinct > 9x Forced Awakening > 3x IR Goggles > 21x Aid from Bats > 14x Carrion Crows > 9x Raven Spy > 8x Drawing Out the Beast > 2x Cat's Guidance > 1x Owl Companion > 2x Army of Rats > 1x Murder of Crows > 1x Canine Horde > 1x Tier of Souls
You seem to be concerned with maintaining range. Terror Frenzy worked well for me in this capacity.
> -I swapped a Tier of Souls in for a Games of Instinct. The Tier of Souls > never did anything particularly important, but the Games of Instinct > continued to hose me, as even with a weenie crypt, I regularly would draw > a > Games wanting to Rush someone, and there wouldn't be any targets that were > older than my usable Sabbat vampire. I'm turning the rest of the Games > into > Bum's Rush now.
If you insist on transient get-into-combats, I would think that Harass might be better. You'll usually have enough maneuvers handy, from the looks of this deck, but having the extra press means the Carrion Crows will do a lot more damage over the entire combat.
Here's my 2001 deck, if you'd like to compare. It's a lot more offense-oriented, as my decks are wont to be. This deck also managed to win a tournament, but looking at it now, it seems to need a major facelift... needs to be more like yours, I think.
Shotgun Ritual Toronto May 2001 Winning Deck by Andrew "Wes" Weston
Name of Deck: Do Not Feed the Animals By: Wes
CRYPT (12 Vampires, avg = 2.5)
Anastasia Grey - 3 ani Leon - 3 ani Panagos Levidis - 3 ani Raziya Samater - 3 ani Shannon Price, the Whisperer - 3 ani Tommy - 3 ani Wendy Wade - 3 ani Dani - 2 ani Gillian Krader - 2 ani Vliam Andor - 2 ani Vliam Andor - 2 ani Navar - 1 ani
Wes wrote: > Crypt is easier these days, with more access to ANI in the smaller caps. > Better than having to put 8 copies of Animalism masters...
Yep. Really, though, you are only getting Bobby Lemon with the ANI over and above previous crypts. But he is a good enough reason alone to go 2/3.
> Since you're a weenie deck, and want to get into combat, some Haven > Uncovereds could probably replace one or two of the get-into-combat cards. > With your intercept, they're not likely to burn the Haven.
That might be a viable plan.
> You seem to be concerned with maintaining range. Terror Frenzy worked well > for me in this capacity.
I've never actually had any problem keeping range open--I thought about Terror Frenzy, but the 1 blood cost is pretty significant in this deck. The DoTB works well for keeping me from getting shot, and the extra damage is huge. Oooh, and I think TF lets them press to end, too.
> If you insist on transient get-into-combats, I would think that Harass might > be better. You'll usually have enough maneuvers handy, from the looks of > this deck, but having the extra press means the Carrion Crows will do a lot > more damage over the entire combat.
That might be a solid plan.
> 21 Aid from Bats > 14 Carrion Crows
Heh heh. Apparently, 21 Bats/14 Crows is the magic number :-)
> Sunday morning there was another 2R+F constructed event that looked like it > had about ~20 players, but I left and have no idea what happened.
18 players. I was first seed going into the finals, but got nuked early and couldn't stay to watch the end. The other finalists were Ben Peal, Matt Morgan, and Dave and Robyn Tatu.
On Tue, 5 Jul 2005, Gregory Stuart Pettigrew wrote: >> Sunday morning there was another 2R+F constructed event that looked like it >> had about ~20 players, but I left and have no idea what happened.
> 18 players. I was first seed going into the finals, but got nuked early > and couldn't stay to watch the end. The other finalists were Ben Peal, > Matt Morgan, and Dave and Robyn Tatu.
Deck Name: Viable 3rd Pary Created By: Robyn Tatu Description: Tzimit Vote and Bruise
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 34, Max: 38, Avg: 9.00) ---------------------------------------------- 3 Stravinsky ANI AUS pot VIC 9, Tzimisce:2, Archbishop 3 Velya for ANI AUS PRE VIC 9, Tzimisce:3, Cardinal 2 John Paleologus pot ANI AUS CEL VIC 9, Tzimisce:3, Archbishop 1 Sascha Vykos ani dom AUS THA VIC 8, Tzimisce:2, Archbishop 1 Meshenka ANI AUS VIC 8, Tzimisce:2, Priscus 2 Lambach ANI AUS DOM pre VIC 10, Tzimisce:2, Cardinal
Library: (90 cards) ------------------- Master (10 cards) 1 Fear of Mekhet 1 Library Hunting Ground 1 Liquidation 7 Minion Tap
Action (2 cards) 1 Aranthebes, The Immortal 1 Cryptic Mission
This seems bold in all kinds of ways. Only 10 masters, lots of minion tap without much way to get them back full, no influence accelerator. Did you ever have one of those fast, filthy, evil decks behind you? I guess having the minion taps saves you from that, but then you set yourself up to be vulnerable against combat. Anyway, it obviously worked for you, I'm just curious about how it plays. I guess I should go re-read the reports more closely now.
