So we recently held the first VTES tournament of 2011, with the first rounds on the 2nd of April and the delayed final (due to pyweek) only on the 13th.
We had a good turnout, with 12 players for the Saturday. A very important number, given the rules of the TWDA.
I decided (via die roll) to try the "Not a Lutz deck" again, which ended up being a good choice and did quite nicely for itself.
The first round saw me (starting) bleeding Hendrik (Assamite trophy deck) bleeding Dave (Kiasyd sleaze) bleeding Yancke (!Tremere DOM Mirror Walk stealth bleed). I had a fast start, with two early Zillah's Valley's which saw Lutz out on turn two, and Alicia on turn three, and an early secure haven on Lutz essentially shut down Hendrik's deck. I took a couple of turns to reach a Minion Tap, though, and, had Yancke drawn an early conditioning, I would have been the first ousted. I was able to oust Hendrik, but, due to a Covincraft from Dave, needed one more vote card to do so than I had hoped. At this point, I suffered a critical deck failure, and didn't draw the votes I needed to oust David, and, with not enough bounce, was rapidly whittled down by Yancke's DOM. Yancke critically ran out of bounce, and was ousted by David who then ousted me.
On the other tables, Brendan (Tzimisce wall with DOM) took 3 VPS, with Simon (Spiridonas bleed and vote) taking 1, and Marc (Torrance Circle BB) and Richard (Weenie Liabon Vote) getting none. James (Imbued) took 3 on his table with Kevin (Settites) getting 1VP, with Anthony (Kiasyd) and Evan (!Salubri with Q) getting 0 each.
The second round was one of the more stressful, and frankly odder, games I've ever been involved in.
The table was James (Imbued) bleeding Anthony (Kiasyd) bleeding Richard (Liabon vote) bleeding me. I didn't get as fast a start as the first game, but I did start by contesting James' first turn Dreams of the Sphinx immediately, as contesting with your prey is usually worth it. I got Lutz out on turn 3, only for James to Pentex him immediately. Richard was gradually building up, and not blocking any of Anthony's actions, and succeeded on jamming on stealth. I was extremely vulnerable for a turn while I got out Alicia, and got going again, and, had Richard had a extra bleed card, I may have been ousted before I got to act.
Once I had Alicia, I drew a Minion Tap, which gave me a buffer, and started to dent James' pool a bit. There was also a cross table rush on Richard by James that helped me, by slowing Richard up a bit. I made a misjudgement when I wasted a couple of actions trying to burn the Pentex before realising that I didn't need to. Due to another Minion Tap, I was able to bring out Aristotle, which was important, as, without his extra stealth, I was struggling to get past the intercept of the Imbued.
There was one critical vote by Richard, which would have led to my being ousted, but frantic negotiation with Anthony saw him cycle a Covincraft to save me. This however left Anthony without a wake, and he fell to the James' lunge immediately after this, and, at this point, the table looked to be falling for James. Richard, however, was worried about the threat of the Imbued and cut a deal to pass a couple of votes with me, which hurt James, and, combined by a bounced bleed (by the still Pentex'd Lutz) which forced James to tap his blockers, I was able to land a couple of votes and get him within range again. James then played Gambit accepted, and, thanks to a Minion Tap on Aristotle, I was able to buy myself enough breathing space to oust James, although, had he chosen to block rather than determine my Kine, I wouldn't have been able to make the lunge stick. In the end game against Richard, I was able to block a Founders, and, although Richard had managed to secure the vote lock, he couldn't call aggressive votes due to Lutz's special. Once I remembered that, with James ousted, Lutz was free to act again, I could bleed faster at stealth than he could, and so I was able to oust him for the sweep. I made several poor decisions, but was able to hang on enough to recover.
I didn't see what happened on the other two tables, but Yancke & Marc both swept, but my extra VP from the first round saw me enter the final as top seed. Brendan, James and Dave were all tied, and Brendan lost the roll off for a place in the final. Yacnke and Marc also rolled off to see who would choose seating first, with Marc rolling lowest (and so choosing first).
For the final, Marc (unsurprisingly) chose to sit upstream of the Kiasyd. Yancke then chose to sit between The BB and the Kiasyd, which surprised me, as I expected him to sit upstream of Marc. As I didn't want to sit downstream of the DOM decks, I chose to sit between James and Marc, hoping that the upstream pressure would keep James off my case and that I could oust Marc before he got the wall part of his deck setup. I rolled highest, so I started.
The final was one of those games where my deck, despite not quite coming as I wanted, generally ran nicely. I got a first turn Dreams, which allows me to get Lutz out on turn 3, despite starting, and despite taking an early bleed for 3 from James, an early Minion Tap saw me up to a decent pool again. I didn't draw any voter caps for much of the game, but, as I had enough stealth to go over Marc's Gestalts, and James was too occupied with the pressure from upstream, I didn't see any combat, and thus never has any real blood management issues.
YDave got up to 3 minions fairly quickly via some govern trickery, and Yancke got up to t2o, with Carna appearing in the mid-game. With Yancke bleeding heavily, and David drawing a truly astonishing number of bounce cards, James was left trying to block 5-6 bleeds a turn, which took all the pressure off me. A key early play saw James try to Pentex Dave's the Arcadian, only for Dave to Sudden it, which ensured that James never got to go forward at all. I had votes come up nicely, and was able to whittle down Marc in good order. Thanks to a Forgotten labyrinth, I was able to stealth over Marc and oust him despite his intercept, and, with the aid of a Zillah's Valley, able to get Aristotle out and into play as well. James eventually ran out of blockers (although there was one 4 bleed that was bounced to Yancke who then bounced it to me, which itched a bit), and was ousted. I had been able to Minion Tap Alicia, but at that point wasn't out of lunge range. I was able to call a couple of votes to whittle Yancke down, also including the first Voter Cap I'd drawn .
At this point, Yancke was looking quite vulnerable, and, as I had a Rumors of Gehenna in play I could vote away at will, I was fairly certain I had him next, but I was worried about the heads up against Dave, who had shown considerable bleed potential, no shortage of bounce and was looking pretty on 14 pool. Yancke bled forward, though, and it turned out that Dave was out of wake and bounce, and he was whittled down to only 4 pool. He was also short on bleed, so I started my next turn sitting quite pretty, espeically as I was then able to Minion Tap Arisotle to ensure I was safe. A Kine and a Conservative Agitation saw me oust Yancke, and the incidental damage reducde Dave to 1 pool, and then voting away the Rumors saw me oust Dave, so I ousted Dave and Yancke in a single turn for the game win.
The table did sit up very nicely for me. The shortage of other votes on the table meant that, although I only drew a couple of vote push cards and 1 Voter Cap, I never had a problem passing the votes. Choosing to be Marc's predator was the correct choice, as, once he was ousted, no-one else ever threatened to block me. The Masters came up very nicely - I had an early dreams, which got Lutz out one turn earlier, and drew Minion Taps when I needed them. The low combat environment meant I actually jammed a bit on S:CE cards, which is most unusual for Cape Town, but I always had a vote in hand when I needed one, so I never lost momentum.
So, a successful tournament win, and what should be an entry in the TWDA, which is a nice little milestone to tick off.
Monday, April 4, 2011
An Observation
It's regrettably common for car drivers to try and muscle out motorcycles, and, given that the motorcyclist is the squishier of the parties involved, it's usually better for the motorcyclist to choose discretion over arguing too hard about right of way.
As an enthusiastic motorcyclist, I've this happen to me numerous times. It is, however, hard not to feel particularly ticked off when the car in question sports a prominent "Think Bike" sticker.
As an enthusiastic motorcyclist, I've this happen to me numerous times. It is, however, hard not to feel particularly ticked off when the car in question sports a prominent "Think Bike" sticker.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Failing to learn from history again
Learning from history is often hard - without the perfect vision of hindsight, it's easy to overlook the similarities of your current situation with past experience. This isn't at all comforting when one recognised the similarities and dismissed them with "This time, it will be different".
I often write "throw away" code - usually to isolate some specific code path or test some specific case that's currently interesting from the larger system. As the code's initial life expentancy is quite short, I often don't bother with niceties like proper argument parsing or decent error handling. In theory, the technical debt from this never be a problem, just write a little wrapper program, learn what you need, and throw it away.
The scare quotes and "initial life expectancy" phrasing should immediately identify my problem, though. If I didn't but the code in the VCS, the theory might work, but, once the code is there, it's never going to be thrown away, and, since it exists, in a day or a week or a month or something, I'll need something similar, and it's easy enough to just quickly add an option and make the throw script do a little more, and, since it's still just a throw away script, there's still no need to do proper error handling or argument parsing. And, of course, the moment a couple of the command line options become enshrined in a test script or two, the effort required to actually fix things never seems worthwhile, despite the increasingly convoluted "simple quick code" handling things.
Given that I've trodden this path several times before, this week's effort of going from 100 lines of C requiring a single filename to two 250-line interlocked programs, each with complex combinations of options and error handling from the oblivious school (the actual important code of each program is still less than 100 lines each), via a steady stream of "I'll quickly add this", is one of my more impressive examples of failing to heed lessons from the past. Next week, I'll probably spend some time fixing things, although there's still that ever so seductive "it's just one last option and then you can throw it away" voice to deal with.
I often write "throw away" code - usually to isolate some specific code path or test some specific case that's currently interesting from the larger system. As the code's initial life expentancy is quite short, I often don't bother with niceties like proper argument parsing or decent error handling. In theory, the technical debt from this never be a problem, just write a little wrapper program, learn what you need, and throw it away.
The scare quotes and "initial life expectancy" phrasing should immediately identify my problem, though. If I didn't but the code in the VCS, the theory might work, but, once the code is there, it's never going to be thrown away, and, since it exists, in a day or a week or a month or something, I'll need something similar, and it's easy enough to just quickly add an option and make the throw script do a little more, and, since it's still just a throw away script, there's still no need to do proper error handling or argument parsing. And, of course, the moment a couple of the command line options become enshrined in a test script or two, the effort required to actually fix things never seems worthwhile, despite the increasingly convoluted "simple quick code" handling things.
Given that I've trodden this path several times before, this week's effort of going from 100 lines of C requiring a single filename to two 250-line interlocked programs, each with complex combinations of options and error handling from the oblivious school (the actual important code of each program is still less than 100 lines each), via a steady stream of "I'll quickly add this", is one of my more impressive examples of failing to heed lessons from the past. Next week, I'll probably spend some time fixing things, although there's still that ever so seductive "it's just one last option and then you can throw it away" voice to deal with.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Treaty Tree (Weekend of Nightmares: Sunday)
Sunday saw 8 players for the Treaty Tree tournament. We were unable to use the Tokai Library as planned, due to an annoying scheduling issue resulting in no one being around to hand over the keys during the week, which hurt the turnout, so we opted to do several rounds of multi-deck play without a final.
In the first round, I played my "Not a Lutz deck" deck, bleeding Simon (!Salubri) bleeding Mike Streathfield (Ravnos Sense Dep and Bleed) bleeding Phillip (Settite S & B). I had a mixed start, with an good opening hand (1st turn Dreams and a Zillah's Valley), but no Lutz in my uncontrolled region. Fortunately, the Dreams and the Zillah's meant I was able to fish for Lutz successfully without losing too much time. Mike Sense Dep'ed Phillip's largest vampire, which slowed him down and gave me a bit of time as well. Once I had both Lutz and Alicia out, I managed to survive a couple of rushes from Simon, which allowed me to get a Secure haven on Lutz, and I was then able to get a sleep unseen on Alicia, which protected her from the threat of a cross table Sense Dep long enough to oust Simon. Mike then bled out Pillip, and did Sense Dep Alicia, which slowed me down, but the combination of A minion tap on Alicia, and Lutz's steady 3 bleeds meant I was able to oust Mike, although it was tight, as I wouldn't have survived another turn.
I feel the Lutz deck is somewhat vindicated, after a troubled debut at Dragonfire. It won despite having a not quite ideal library flow, and having a minion locked down with a Sense Dep, which did hurt. Like many decks relying on only a few minions, it is sensitive to card flow issues, and can lose momentum by not having the cards available, but the option of bleeding for 3 with Lutz is always a useful backup plan. The Sleep Unseen's were a good addition, as the extra defense is really worth it in this deck.
In the second round, I played my HoS wall deck, bleeding James (Assamites), bleeding Simon (!Salubri), bleeding Brendan (Tzimisce with Lambach). The table dynamics, with several nasty combat combo's running around, where a bit strange. I got two Slaughterhouses early, and was thus able to failry consistently bleed James with Trochomancy, although I did lost a minion to a early contract. Brendan was having some serious problems with the !Salubri, so I was never bled that heavily, and generally had the bounce in hand I needed. James did manage to whittle Simon's pool down quite effectively, and I had to Eagle Sight's what would have been an ousting bleed to keep James in lunge range. While this did allow to eventually oust James, it also gave time for Simon to bin all of Brendan's minions and oust him, although he did have one of his minions burnt in the process. The two player game was quite tight, and I came close to ousting Simon, but I couldn't quite deal with enough the !Salubri combat, so Simon ousted me. Unusually, both Simon and I had run out of library by the end of the game, which also contributed to how the end game played out.
The HoS deck is generally working OK, but I need to do something about blood management. It would also be nice to return to the original Black Hand angle, since unpreventable Psychic Assault is just so much better, but that requires further crypt tweaking.
In the third game, I played my Osebo wall, bleeding Brendan (weenie Auspex wall), bleeding Kevin (FoS corruption shennigans with Nakhthorheb) bleeding Richard (weenie Liabon vote). Kevin failed to draw Nakhthorheb, and generally seemed to struggle for stealth throughout the game, so didn't get that much forward momentum. Richard was largely shutdown by my deck, and I was able to prevent several key actions on Brendan's part which kept him under control, although he did return the favour several times. In general, it was a game where nobody's deck really quite took off. My combat package came up a bit oddly, Kevin didn't draw stealth, Richard was struggling to find votes and Brendan didn't see sniper rifles early enough to get one down. The combat package of the Osebo was able to keep putting down Brendan's minions, but, as he was able to bring more out, and recover blood with Lillith's blessing, I never had him down for the ousting bleed. Richard kept bringing out more minions, hoping to eventually be able to swarm past me, but I was generally able to block enough that it wasn't an issue until late in the game. There were a couple of turns of epic table talk, with resulted in Kevin blocking a couple of Richard's votes to help keep me alive, and Brendan Eagle Sighting Kevin when he looked likely to oust Richard, before I managed to eventually bleed Brendan out. At that point, being some way over the time limit, we called the game. I may have been able to take the table, as I probably had enough combat left to keep control of the table, but it wasn't completely clear cut, given the resources I'd expended by that point.
The Osebo deck is now pretty well tuned, and I'm not sure if there are any significant changes I need to make. A few more Eyes of Argus for the extra untap option may be useful, but that's a minor tweak. At some point, I do want to revisit the original ranged thrown junk version, especially given the new Laibon set range tech in EK.
I saw comparatively little of the other games played. One very notable moment was Simon using Santelous to cancel a Gangrel Conspiracy Mike had played, which resulted in Enkidu being burnt in a blood hunt.
In the first round, I played my "Not a Lutz deck" deck, bleeding Simon (!Salubri) bleeding Mike Streathfield (Ravnos Sense Dep and Bleed) bleeding Phillip (Settite S & B). I had a mixed start, with an good opening hand (1st turn Dreams and a Zillah's Valley), but no Lutz in my uncontrolled region. Fortunately, the Dreams and the Zillah's meant I was able to fish for Lutz successfully without losing too much time. Mike Sense Dep'ed Phillip's largest vampire, which slowed him down and gave me a bit of time as well. Once I had both Lutz and Alicia out, I managed to survive a couple of rushes from Simon, which allowed me to get a Secure haven on Lutz, and I was then able to get a sleep unseen on Alicia, which protected her from the threat of a cross table Sense Dep long enough to oust Simon. Mike then bled out Pillip, and did Sense Dep Alicia, which slowed me down, but the combination of A minion tap on Alicia, and Lutz's steady 3 bleeds meant I was able to oust Mike, although it was tight, as I wouldn't have survived another turn.
I feel the Lutz deck is somewhat vindicated, after a troubled debut at Dragonfire. It won despite having a not quite ideal library flow, and having a minion locked down with a Sense Dep, which did hurt. Like many decks relying on only a few minions, it is sensitive to card flow issues, and can lose momentum by not having the cards available, but the option of bleeding for 3 with Lutz is always a useful backup plan. The Sleep Unseen's were a good addition, as the extra defense is really worth it in this deck.
In the second round, I played my HoS wall deck, bleeding James (Assamites), bleeding Simon (!Salubri), bleeding Brendan (Tzimisce with Lambach). The table dynamics, with several nasty combat combo's running around, where a bit strange. I got two Slaughterhouses early, and was thus able to failry consistently bleed James with Trochomancy, although I did lost a minion to a early contract. Brendan was having some serious problems with the !Salubri, so I was never bled that heavily, and generally had the bounce in hand I needed. James did manage to whittle Simon's pool down quite effectively, and I had to Eagle Sight's what would have been an ousting bleed to keep James in lunge range. While this did allow to eventually oust James, it also gave time for Simon to bin all of Brendan's minions and oust him, although he did have one of his minions burnt in the process. The two player game was quite tight, and I came close to ousting Simon, but I couldn't quite deal with enough the !Salubri combat, so Simon ousted me. Unusually, both Simon and I had run out of library by the end of the game, which also contributed to how the end game played out.
The HoS deck is generally working OK, but I need to do something about blood management. It would also be nice to return to the original Black Hand angle, since unpreventable Psychic Assault is just so much better, but that requires further crypt tweaking.
In the third game, I played my Osebo wall, bleeding Brendan (weenie Auspex wall), bleeding Kevin (FoS corruption shennigans with Nakhthorheb) bleeding Richard (weenie Liabon vote). Kevin failed to draw Nakhthorheb, and generally seemed to struggle for stealth throughout the game, so didn't get that much forward momentum. Richard was largely shutdown by my deck, and I was able to prevent several key actions on Brendan's part which kept him under control, although he did return the favour several times. In general, it was a game where nobody's deck really quite took off. My combat package came up a bit oddly, Kevin didn't draw stealth, Richard was struggling to find votes and Brendan didn't see sniper rifles early enough to get one down. The combat package of the Osebo was able to keep putting down Brendan's minions, but, as he was able to bring more out, and recover blood with Lillith's blessing, I never had him down for the ousting bleed. Richard kept bringing out more minions, hoping to eventually be able to swarm past me, but I was generally able to block enough that it wasn't an issue until late in the game. There were a couple of turns of epic table talk, with resulted in Kevin blocking a couple of Richard's votes to help keep me alive, and Brendan Eagle Sighting Kevin when he looked likely to oust Richard, before I managed to eventually bleed Brendan out. At that point, being some way over the time limit, we called the game. I may have been able to take the table, as I probably had enough combat left to keep control of the table, but it wasn't completely clear cut, given the resources I'd expended by that point.
The Osebo deck is now pretty well tuned, and I'm not sure if there are any significant changes I need to make. A few more Eyes of Argus for the extra untap option may be useful, but that's a minor tweak. At some point, I do want to revisit the original ranged thrown junk version, especially given the new Laibon set range tech in EK.
I saw comparatively little of the other games played. One very notable moment was Simon using Santelous to cancel a Gangrel Conspiracy Mike had played, which resulted in Enkidu being burnt in a blood hunt.
Saturday Socials (Weekend of Nightmares: Saturday)
The Saturday socials had a regrettably low turnout, with only myself, Simon and Richard eventually showing up. Thus there were a number of 3 players games, which was not quite ideal.
In the first game, I was playing a deck built out of two Kiasyd / Lasombra starters bleeding Simon (tweaked Anarch Lasombra) bleeding Richard (2 Guhuri starter). I got off to a nice start with the Kiasyd, and, with the benefit of an early Dominate Master, was able to Govern down twice, which allowed me to get to 3 minions quickly and cheaply. The deck generally had decent forward momentum, but struggled a bit in combat, and really does need a couple of conditionings added to it. I was able to oust Simon, but fell to Richard's deck, as I wasn't able to block enough of the votes.
The Kiasyd deck operated much as I expected, and probably can become a decent DOM & B deck. I need to retool the combat package, which is a bit light. Earth Swords would be a good addition, although I may need some more manevours. I need to also examine the other crypt options I have, as I was rather lucky with the Master draw, which did help.
In the second game, I played a deck I'd put together out of two Ishtarri starters, bleeding Richard (2 Akunase deck), bleeding Simon (Anarch Lasombra). I had a nice crypt draw, and generally the deck flowed quite nicely. I generally struggled for blood management, there are a number of expensive cards, but the combination of a Marajavi Ghoul, Heildeburg and Ganhuru's special mean I was often bleeding at stealth, and gained a fair bit of pool from the bleeds, which helped me considerably. Simon had minion torporised and burnt early on in the game, which left him struggling to put pressure on me, which also helped a great deal, and so I was able to sweep.
I'm somewhat surprised at how well the Ishtarri deck did. I've always been a bit meh on Uncontrolled Impulse, due to it's conditional nature, but, if the deck's flowing a bit, it works really well. The crypt needs tweaking, as there are some good vampires who aren't in the starter.
In the third game, I played my Off Kilter + Enticement deck, bleeding Simon (Thaum Cel Trophies) bleeding Richard (Guhuri bleed). Simon maanged to red list and burn one of Richard's minions early, which allowed him to get permanent untap and intercept. I got off to a reasonable start, and had got up to 3 minions and SER on one by the mid game, but hadn't quite seen enough pool damage or any of the Freak Drives, so hadn't really pressurised Simon. Simon then burnt my third minion, and I wasn't able to bloat or bleed fast enough to survive the Guhuri deck. Simon wasn't able to keep enough blood on his minions to survive the potence from the Guhuri, and eventually fell to them as well.
The Off-Kilter deck continues to feel as if it will almost work, but doesn't. The deck just doesn't generate the actions it needs to continually keep it's prey under pressure, and, although I did have Simon down quite low at one point, I didn't have the push needed to oust him. More Freak Drives would help, but I think I need to retool the Master package to include some Effectives or Coroner's Contracts, so I can gain more use out of the Little Mountain Cementaries. Sprinkling in a handful of Corpses is probably not a bad idea either, as a few extra 2 bleeds can't hurt.
At this point, we decided to play a couple of rounds using decks built by other people.
In the first game, I played Richard's Akunase deck, bleeding Simon, playing a weenie'ish Liabon vote deck of Richard's, bleeding Richard, playing my Ravnos weapons deck. Simon had a failry bad game, as the combination of my getting out a magagi before he passed a vote, the small minions all being vulnerable to the Abombwe block fails tech and the wall'ish nature of the Ravnos tech resulted in him not being able to go forward, and he was unable to defend against the Akunase. The Ravnos deck did fairly well, getting decently setup and blocking several actions, but the fortitude of the Akunase was enough to stay alive. I managed to oust Simon without two much difficulty, but there were a couple of tight rounds against the Ravnos were I drew into a couple of combat cards at just the right time, and was able to trade minions going down with Richard, but, as that left it as 2 minions against 1, I was then able to win the endgame, although not completely comfortably.
The Akunase deck was fiddly to play, largely due to my unfamiliarity with the cards, but, with small'ish minions, and some strong action modifiers, it works quite well. Reliquary: Akunanse Remains is also really strong. The combat package needs a bit of work - on several occasions, I had a rush card in hand, but no good combat options available to me. ANI support, for crows, and some of the new Abombwe tech from EK will help that at lot.
In the next game, I was playing Simon's Nergal deck, bleeding Simon, playing Richard's two Guhuri starter deck, bleeding Richard, playing Simon's Samedi wall. Despite an almost prefect start for the Nergal deck (1st turn concordance, merging Nergal immediately), I found myself constantly struggling to get actions through, and, when I did land a bleed, the bloat of the Guhuri deck eradicated the effects almost immediately. Consistent bleeds from the Samedi deck eventually ousted me. The Guhuri deck, while bloating quite effectively, wasn't able to generate much forward pressure, so it couldn't prevent the Samedi deck getting setup, and, after I was ousted, the Samedi deck was able to whittle the Guhuri deck down with consistent blocks, and thus swept.
The Nergal deck is again just not fast enough. Once setup, it has some nice combos, but probably needs either a little bit of permament stealth, or some more block fails tech, and, if the untappy thing is working, it needs some additional damaging actions for Nergal to take. I'd be tempted to sneak in a Heart of the City and a couple of D'habi Revenant's, so Nergal's bleed continues to tick up, relying on Nergal's special and the Spying Missions to deal with bounce.
Simon's Samedi wall continues to be surprisingly effective. Having played against it a few times now, I've come to the conclusion that the stealth, which allows it to get almost all the setup actions, is a key component. This allows it to run mainly off permanents, which is always better.
In the first game, I was playing a deck built out of two Kiasyd / Lasombra starters bleeding Simon (tweaked Anarch Lasombra) bleeding Richard (2 Guhuri starter). I got off to a nice start with the Kiasyd, and, with the benefit of an early Dominate Master, was able to Govern down twice, which allowed me to get to 3 minions quickly and cheaply. The deck generally had decent forward momentum, but struggled a bit in combat, and really does need a couple of conditionings added to it. I was able to oust Simon, but fell to Richard's deck, as I wasn't able to block enough of the votes.
The Kiasyd deck operated much as I expected, and probably can become a decent DOM & B deck. I need to retool the combat package, which is a bit light. Earth Swords would be a good addition, although I may need some more manevours. I need to also examine the other crypt options I have, as I was rather lucky with the Master draw, which did help.
In the second game, I played a deck I'd put together out of two Ishtarri starters, bleeding Richard (2 Akunase deck), bleeding Simon (Anarch Lasombra). I had a nice crypt draw, and generally the deck flowed quite nicely. I generally struggled for blood management, there are a number of expensive cards, but the combination of a Marajavi Ghoul, Heildeburg and Ganhuru's special mean I was often bleeding at stealth, and gained a fair bit of pool from the bleeds, which helped me considerably. Simon had minion torporised and burnt early on in the game, which left him struggling to put pressure on me, which also helped a great deal, and so I was able to sweep.
I'm somewhat surprised at how well the Ishtarri deck did. I've always been a bit meh on Uncontrolled Impulse, due to it's conditional nature, but, if the deck's flowing a bit, it works really well. The crypt needs tweaking, as there are some good vampires who aren't in the starter.
In the third game, I played my Off Kilter + Enticement deck, bleeding Simon (Thaum Cel Trophies) bleeding Richard (Guhuri bleed). Simon maanged to red list and burn one of Richard's minions early, which allowed him to get permanent untap and intercept. I got off to a reasonable start, and had got up to 3 minions and SER on one by the mid game, but hadn't quite seen enough pool damage or any of the Freak Drives, so hadn't really pressurised Simon. Simon then burnt my third minion, and I wasn't able to bloat or bleed fast enough to survive the Guhuri deck. Simon wasn't able to keep enough blood on his minions to survive the potence from the Guhuri, and eventually fell to them as well.
The Off-Kilter deck continues to feel as if it will almost work, but doesn't. The deck just doesn't generate the actions it needs to continually keep it's prey under pressure, and, although I did have Simon down quite low at one point, I didn't have the push needed to oust him. More Freak Drives would help, but I think I need to retool the Master package to include some Effectives or Coroner's Contracts, so I can gain more use out of the Little Mountain Cementaries. Sprinkling in a handful of Corpses is probably not a bad idea either, as a few extra 2 bleeds can't hurt.
At this point, we decided to play a couple of rounds using decks built by other people.
In the first game, I played Richard's Akunase deck, bleeding Simon, playing a weenie'ish Liabon vote deck of Richard's, bleeding Richard, playing my Ravnos weapons deck. Simon had a failry bad game, as the combination of my getting out a magagi before he passed a vote, the small minions all being vulnerable to the Abombwe block fails tech and the wall'ish nature of the Ravnos tech resulted in him not being able to go forward, and he was unable to defend against the Akunase. The Ravnos deck did fairly well, getting decently setup and blocking several actions, but the fortitude of the Akunase was enough to stay alive. I managed to oust Simon without two much difficulty, but there were a couple of tight rounds against the Ravnos were I drew into a couple of combat cards at just the right time, and was able to trade minions going down with Richard, but, as that left it as 2 minions against 1, I was then able to win the endgame, although not completely comfortably.
The Akunase deck was fiddly to play, largely due to my unfamiliarity with the cards, but, with small'ish minions, and some strong action modifiers, it works quite well. Reliquary: Akunanse Remains is also really strong. The combat package needs a bit of work - on several occasions, I had a rush card in hand, but no good combat options available to me. ANI support, for crows, and some of the new Abombwe tech from EK will help that at lot.
In the next game, I was playing Simon's Nergal deck, bleeding Simon, playing Richard's two Guhuri starter deck, bleeding Richard, playing Simon's Samedi wall. Despite an almost prefect start for the Nergal deck (1st turn concordance, merging Nergal immediately), I found myself constantly struggling to get actions through, and, when I did land a bleed, the bloat of the Guhuri deck eradicated the effects almost immediately. Consistent bleeds from the Samedi deck eventually ousted me. The Guhuri deck, while bloating quite effectively, wasn't able to generate much forward pressure, so it couldn't prevent the Samedi deck getting setup, and, after I was ousted, the Samedi deck was able to whittle the Guhuri deck down with consistent blocks, and thus swept.
The Nergal deck is again just not fast enough. Once setup, it has some nice combos, but probably needs either a little bit of permament stealth, or some more block fails tech, and, if the untappy thing is working, it needs some additional damaging actions for Nergal to take. I'd be tempted to sneak in a Heart of the City and a couple of D'habi Revenant's, so Nergal's bleed continues to tick up, relying on Nergal's special and the Spying Missions to deal with bounce.
Simon's Samedi wall continues to be surprisingly effective. Having played against it a few times now, I've come to the conclusion that the stealth, which allows it to get almost all the setup actions, is a key component. This allows it to run mainly off permanents, which is always better.
Fee Stake Cape Town (Weekend of Nightmares: Friday)
Friday evening was the Fee Stakes tournament. We got going a little late, due to various people, and were annoyingly one short of the 10 required for a TWDA entry, so we opted to go with a multi-deck tournament.
In the first round, I opted to play my Anarch vote deck [1]. The game was Hendrik (Assamite blood control), bleeding Phillip (group 1 Gangrel) bleeding me bleeding Marc (Stanislava and friends) bleeding Simon (Lasombra Anarchs Hell-for-Leather). I got a slightly weird crypt draw, with 3 Anarch Converts, which meant I didn't get going that quickly. Initially, Marc looked like the table threat, pulling out Stansiliva and another minion, and, while not going for huge bleeds, consistent 3 bleeds from Stansilava were whittling through Simon's pool quite quickly. Phillip was bleeding consistently, but was slowed down by Hendrick's blood denial actions. I made an early miscalculation with a Voter Cap, and left Raphael Catarari stuck tapped on odd blood total without a Crimethinc in play, and thus spent a couple of turns effectively down a minion. I did manage to get a Fee Stake down, and scrape through a Reckless Agitation, which, with a combination of Marc voting away the Fee Stake, and then having what would have been the ousting bleed blocked by Simon, who was able to Immortal Grapple to prevent the Form of Mist, left Marc in lunge range for the next turn. The next turn, I was able to play a Dreams, and the increased hand size allowed me to get what I needed to oust Marc, and was able to oust Simon almost immediately as well. The game then folded fairly quickly in my favour, as I had the stealth and Crimethinc's needed to oust both Hendrik and Phillip. It was a bit tight for a couple of turns, and, had Marc ousted Simon, I may not have been able to keep him from running away with the table, but the table was quite favourable for my deck, and I had a couple of lucky moments.
I didn't see much of the second table, but it had James (Imbued) bleeding Yancke (Tzimisce wall) bleeding Brendan (Lasombra vote, I think), bleeding Richard (Akunase wall). At the point I saw the game, other than the imbued, the only minion up was one of Yancke's vampires, who had been Pentexed. Richard was ousted by his own Smiling Jack, giving Brendan a VP, but then James swept up the rest of the table.
In the second game, I decided to play the Harbringer's of Skull deck. The table was James (!Salubri) bleeding Brendan (Big cap vote with Rafael de Corazon) bleeding me bleeding Hendrik, bleeding Yancke (!Ventrue grinder). An early Antediluvian Awakening by Yancke, and an early bleeding for 6 from Brendan left me somewhat low on blood, and, as I'd drawn the fat end of my crypt, I ended up being far too defensive, and I only brought out 1 minion. In general, I just played this game badly, and really should have gone fishing for a small second minion. James, however, was able to block enough of Brendan's actions that Brendan could never really get the farm going, and a couple of Eagle Sight's from James helped keep me in the game for quite some time. I did manage to whittle done Hendrik to almost in lunge range several times, but was always an action short of being able to oust him. Yancke eventually ousted James (after a couple of turns when he should have ousted James, but misplayed things, such as not saving a bonding for the minion with DOM), and swept through Brendan and myself quickly, but then timed out against Hendrik. I didn't see anything at all of the other game, but Marc collected the most VP's and made it to the final.
On a die roll, I opted to play the Anarch Vote deck for the final, but I made a very poor seating choice. James had decided to play the Imbued, and as I was worried by their ability to interfere with my setup, I didn't want to sit next to them. I also thought that Marc would be playing the Stansilava deck again, so I didn't want to be downstream of it, so I opted to sit as Marc's predator and Brendan's prey, not realising that Brendan would be playing the Lasombra deck, and not realising that Yancke, Brendan's predator, was going to play his PRO DOM deck. Marc turned out to be playing his Assamite Black Hand deck, and, although I got Raphael Catarari early, and was able to start getting the Anarch cycle going, I didn't see the Fee Stakes our Crimethinc's I needed to really get going, and a few heavy bleeds early left me unable to get the number of minions I needed out. An early Yawp Court from Marc meant that I was also going to struggle to get a vote to hit the table, since I saw little of my combat package. My involvement in the final was thus fairly short-lived, and, although I did land a couple of 3 bleeds on Marc, he farmed most of it back so I had made little impression on his pool. James was being largely left alone, so was able to tool up fairly nicely. Marc was up to through minions, and around 10 pool when I was ousted, but fell quickly afterwards, thanks to a couple of heavy bleeds that were deflected onto him and a single bleed for 4 from Brendan, and, given that James was fairly low on pool at that point, I thought Brendan had the game. Brendan though, didn't have the cards that he needed to force the actions through past the Imbued, and suffered a critical bounce failure on a turn when Yancke bled for 14. This wasn't enough to oust Brendan, so Yancke fell to the Imbued, and, as Brendan was unable to draw into enough stealth, James won the two-player shootout.
In retrospect, given the decks involved, I should have sat as James' predator, as I may have been able to negotiate vote support of the basis that the Imbued are always a threat, which could have given me a VP, but I didn't have anyway of dealing with permanent votes of the Lasombra, so it's doubtful if I could have really done better than that.
The Anarch deck is probably about as good as this version is going to get. The addition of the Reckless Agitations has helped a lot, as it's a significant amount of pool damage that is less resource intensive than the Revolutionary Councils, and the Revolutionary Council, Crimethinc, Reckless double is a scary combo, but it is ultimately a fragile deck build, and vulnerable to heavy bleed or serious vote.
[1] Given that it was "Fee Stake: Cape Town", someone had to play a Fee Stake deck, after all.
In the first round, I opted to play my Anarch vote deck [1]. The game was Hendrik (Assamite blood control), bleeding Phillip (group 1 Gangrel) bleeding me bleeding Marc (Stanislava and friends) bleeding Simon (Lasombra Anarchs Hell-for-Leather). I got a slightly weird crypt draw, with 3 Anarch Converts, which meant I didn't get going that quickly. Initially, Marc looked like the table threat, pulling out Stansiliva and another minion, and, while not going for huge bleeds, consistent 3 bleeds from Stansilava were whittling through Simon's pool quite quickly. Phillip was bleeding consistently, but was slowed down by Hendrick's blood denial actions. I made an early miscalculation with a Voter Cap, and left Raphael Catarari stuck tapped on odd blood total without a Crimethinc in play, and thus spent a couple of turns effectively down a minion. I did manage to get a Fee Stake down, and scrape through a Reckless Agitation, which, with a combination of Marc voting away the Fee Stake, and then having what would have been the ousting bleed blocked by Simon, who was able to Immortal Grapple to prevent the Form of Mist, left Marc in lunge range for the next turn. The next turn, I was able to play a Dreams, and the increased hand size allowed me to get what I needed to oust Marc, and was able to oust Simon almost immediately as well. The game then folded fairly quickly in my favour, as I had the stealth and Crimethinc's needed to oust both Hendrik and Phillip. It was a bit tight for a couple of turns, and, had Marc ousted Simon, I may not have been able to keep him from running away with the table, but the table was quite favourable for my deck, and I had a couple of lucky moments.
I didn't see much of the second table, but it had James (Imbued) bleeding Yancke (Tzimisce wall) bleeding Brendan (Lasombra vote, I think), bleeding Richard (Akunase wall). At the point I saw the game, other than the imbued, the only minion up was one of Yancke's vampires, who had been Pentexed. Richard was ousted by his own Smiling Jack, giving Brendan a VP, but then James swept up the rest of the table.
In the second game, I decided to play the Harbringer's of Skull deck. The table was James (!Salubri) bleeding Brendan (Big cap vote with Rafael de Corazon) bleeding me bleeding Hendrik, bleeding Yancke (!Ventrue grinder). An early Antediluvian Awakening by Yancke, and an early bleeding for 6 from Brendan left me somewhat low on blood, and, as I'd drawn the fat end of my crypt, I ended up being far too defensive, and I only brought out 1 minion. In general, I just played this game badly, and really should have gone fishing for a small second minion. James, however, was able to block enough of Brendan's actions that Brendan could never really get the farm going, and a couple of Eagle Sight's from James helped keep me in the game for quite some time. I did manage to whittle done Hendrik to almost in lunge range several times, but was always an action short of being able to oust him. Yancke eventually ousted James (after a couple of turns when he should have ousted James, but misplayed things, such as not saving a bonding for the minion with DOM), and swept through Brendan and myself quickly, but then timed out against Hendrik. I didn't see anything at all of the other game, but Marc collected the most VP's and made it to the final.
On a die roll, I opted to play the Anarch Vote deck for the final, but I made a very poor seating choice. James had decided to play the Imbued, and as I was worried by their ability to interfere with my setup, I didn't want to sit next to them. I also thought that Marc would be playing the Stansilava deck again, so I didn't want to be downstream of it, so I opted to sit as Marc's predator and Brendan's prey, not realising that Brendan would be playing the Lasombra deck, and not realising that Yancke, Brendan's predator, was going to play his PRO DOM deck. Marc turned out to be playing his Assamite Black Hand deck, and, although I got Raphael Catarari early, and was able to start getting the Anarch cycle going, I didn't see the Fee Stakes our Crimethinc's I needed to really get going, and a few heavy bleeds early left me unable to get the number of minions I needed out. An early Yawp Court from Marc meant that I was also going to struggle to get a vote to hit the table, since I saw little of my combat package. My involvement in the final was thus fairly short-lived, and, although I did land a couple of 3 bleeds on Marc, he farmed most of it back so I had made little impression on his pool. James was being largely left alone, so was able to tool up fairly nicely. Marc was up to through minions, and around 10 pool when I was ousted, but fell quickly afterwards, thanks to a couple of heavy bleeds that were deflected onto him and a single bleed for 4 from Brendan, and, given that James was fairly low on pool at that point, I thought Brendan had the game. Brendan though, didn't have the cards that he needed to force the actions through past the Imbued, and suffered a critical bounce failure on a turn when Yancke bled for 14. This wasn't enough to oust Brendan, so Yancke fell to the Imbued, and, as Brendan was unable to draw into enough stealth, James won the two-player shootout.
In retrospect, given the decks involved, I should have sat as James' predator, as I may have been able to negotiate vote support of the basis that the Imbued are always a threat, which could have given me a VP, but I didn't have anyway of dealing with permanent votes of the Lasombra, so it's doubtful if I could have really done better than that.
The Anarch deck is probably about as good as this version is going to get. The addition of the Reckless Agitations has helped a lot, as it's a significant amount of pool damage that is less resource intensive than the Revolutionary Councils, and the Revolutionary Council, Crimethinc, Reckless double is a scary combo, but it is ultimately a fragile deck build, and vulnerable to heavy bleed or serious vote.
[1] Given that it was "Fee Stake: Cape Town", someone had to play a Fee Stake deck, after all.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Slachter's Nek tournament
So 5 of us made it to the November tournament (which unfortunately clashed with a number of other things). Due to the small size, we opted for a multi-deck tournament, and ended up cutting it down to only two rounds due to time constraints.
So the first round saw Richard (Akunanse wall) bleeding Bredan (weenie group 2 & 3 AUS wall with sniper rifles) bleeding Marc (Guhuri bruise vote and bleed) bleeding me (!Brujah bruise vote and bleed) bleeding Kevin (FoS corruption antics with Nakhthorheb).
Brendan got off to a fast start, with an early Lilith's Blessing and getting a minion setup with a sniper rifle and sports bike early. I got Smash and Hektor out, but didn't draw much of the farm of my deck. I was able to land a couple of early Kines and then bleed with a Iron Glare to weaken Kevin considerably, but he was working through Richard at a fair rate, so I ended up burning his smallest vampire with a rush from Hektor to slow him down. Marc & Richard each had more votes than I did, and with Marc and I both looking to call votes, and Brendan able to block Marc most of the time, the was a lot of negotiating about during the game. Kevin also played a fair bit of vote defense, which all combined to slow me down once I had Kevin low on pool. Kevin did get Richard down to a couple of pool, but Richard managed to get a No Secrets down, and Kevin wasn't able to stealth over it after that (which, given that he was playing FoS, rather surprised the rest of the table). I blocked one of Marc's bleeds with Hektor, and a Death of My Conscience & a Burning Wrath from Marc later, both minions were burnt, which slowed me down further. Brendan then played an Antediluvian Awakening, and I was able to last long enough for it to kill Kevin. The game timed out shortly after that. It's not clear quite how the table would have folded from where the game timed out - Marc would have probably had me, but Brendan was able to block several of his actions, which would have made it a slow process. While Richard wasn't really able to go forward strongly, he was pretty well setup defensively and no-one had the stealth to go over his no secrets at that point. Marc had managed to generate a lot of pool via Voter Caps, so that probably would have given him the game eventually.
The second game saw Kevin (!Brujah rush) bleeding Marc (Kiasyd power bleed) bleeding Richard (Guhuri Brutual Influence bleed with OBF) bleeding me (Groteques) bleeding Brendan (old school Lasombra politics). This is the first time the Groteque deck has really struggled in a game - while I got Gerald Windham out (whose vote special was really influential), I didn't draw a location early and so struggled to bring out the Grotesques. An early "Blood Weakens" from Richard also made life awkward for everyone on the table. Brendan got off to a very fast start, with a first turn Info Highway and a second turn Zillah's valley. Kevin's deck struggled, without the vote push available to get votes through and not enough ways for Hektor to get into combat. Marc's didn't draw into the power part of the power bleed combo, and so Richard was able to build up fairly easily. While I was able to block him several times, I mainly drew prevent from the combat package, so I was never able to serious inconvenience any of his minions. Gerald's votes from other titles scattered around the table, and the presence of 3 prisci, meant that Brendan didn't have the vote lock, and thus wasn't able to push through Kevin that quickly. Kevin also played a Protected Resources, which delayed Brendan bleeding him out a few turns.
I eventually fell to the Guhuri. Brendan probably should have ousted Kevin, but didn't draw out stealth on a couple of bleeds before bouncing them on, which meant Kevin was able to block, and allowed Richard to Majesty and them farm or hunt to setup for the next turn. This allowed Richard to oust Brendan and then Kevin in quick succession, and the pool and minion advantage meant he was able to win the two player contest with Marc, despite having exhausted his library, although it was a close run thing.
So the first round saw Richard (Akunanse wall) bleeding Bredan (weenie group 2 & 3 AUS wall with sniper rifles) bleeding Marc (Guhuri bruise vote and bleed) bleeding me (!Brujah bruise vote and bleed) bleeding Kevin (FoS corruption antics with Nakhthorheb).
Brendan got off to a fast start, with an early Lilith's Blessing and getting a minion setup with a sniper rifle and sports bike early. I got Smash and Hektor out, but didn't draw much of the farm of my deck. I was able to land a couple of early Kines and then bleed with a Iron Glare to weaken Kevin considerably, but he was working through Richard at a fair rate, so I ended up burning his smallest vampire with a rush from Hektor to slow him down. Marc & Richard each had more votes than I did, and with Marc and I both looking to call votes, and Brendan able to block Marc most of the time, the was a lot of negotiating about during the game. Kevin also played a fair bit of vote defense, which all combined to slow me down once I had Kevin low on pool. Kevin did get Richard down to a couple of pool, but Richard managed to get a No Secrets down, and Kevin wasn't able to stealth over it after that (which, given that he was playing FoS, rather surprised the rest of the table). I blocked one of Marc's bleeds with Hektor, and a Death of My Conscience & a Burning Wrath from Marc later, both minions were burnt, which slowed me down further. Brendan then played an Antediluvian Awakening, and I was able to last long enough for it to kill Kevin. The game timed out shortly after that. It's not clear quite how the table would have folded from where the game timed out - Marc would have probably had me, but Brendan was able to block several of his actions, which would have made it a slow process. While Richard wasn't really able to go forward strongly, he was pretty well setup defensively and no-one had the stealth to go over his no secrets at that point. Marc had managed to generate a lot of pool via Voter Caps, so that probably would have given him the game eventually.
The second game saw Kevin (!Brujah rush) bleeding Marc (Kiasyd power bleed) bleeding Richard (Guhuri Brutual Influence bleed with OBF) bleeding me (Groteques) bleeding Brendan (old school Lasombra politics). This is the first time the Groteque deck has really struggled in a game - while I got Gerald Windham out (whose vote special was really influential), I didn't draw a location early and so struggled to bring out the Grotesques. An early "Blood Weakens" from Richard also made life awkward for everyone on the table. Brendan got off to a very fast start, with a first turn Info Highway and a second turn Zillah's valley. Kevin's deck struggled, without the vote push available to get votes through and not enough ways for Hektor to get into combat. Marc's didn't draw into the power part of the power bleed combo, and so Richard was able to build up fairly easily. While I was able to block him several times, I mainly drew prevent from the combat package, so I was never able to serious inconvenience any of his minions. Gerald's votes from other titles scattered around the table, and the presence of 3 prisci, meant that Brendan didn't have the vote lock, and thus wasn't able to push through Kevin that quickly. Kevin also played a Protected Resources, which delayed Brendan bleeding him out a few turns.
I eventually fell to the Guhuri. Brendan probably should have ousted Kevin, but didn't draw out stealth on a couple of bleeds before bouncing them on, which meant Kevin was able to block, and allowed Richard to Majesty and them farm or hunt to setup for the next turn. This allowed Richard to oust Brendan and then Kevin in quick succession, and the pool and minion advantage meant he was able to win the two player contest with Marc, despite having exhausted his library, although it was a close run thing.
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