Tournament Report »New Year’s Rumble (Online)«, 2022-01-02
20 players for a 2R+F tournament, wow! I was happy to have a lot of support for this event; special thanks go to Lionel (Archon Bot, an amazing tool for tournament organization on Discord), Igor (for offering a Lackey plugin test table to make sure every player sees the same cards) and all the judges.
Round 1 (link to the stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g411zZwgGQ)
Me (Brujah Undue Influence) => Nikica (Malgorzata + Lord Tremere Toolbox) => Steven (!Nos Horseshoes Toolbox) => Sebastian (Anson + Masika Toolbox) => Nicolas (Erlik + Antonio d’Erlette Ally Toolbox)
One Baron in the starting crypt, okay. The Undue Influence part of my deck worked well, but having no stable vote buddy at the table crippled my vote angle. When Nikica finally drew into his Villeins, I knew I would not have the power to oust him. Steven got ousted first since he found no answer to the bleeds for 3 at stealth by Nikica’s vampires. Sebastian kept calm and built up his dream team. He could finish up both Nicolas and me in one turn around 50 minutes later. The resulting heads-up saw Sebastian as the winner. Nikica 1vp, Sebastian 4vp+gw, me 0.
Round 2
Péter (Baali Maleficia Toolbox) => Lasse (Erlik Illusions of the Kindred Toolbox) => Igor (Nana Ani Combat) => me (Brujah Undue Influence) => Lauri (Nuriel Wall)
A wall deck in front of me, and a combat deck in my back, lovely. And no Baron in my starting crypt, even though 50% of my crypt were Barons. So far, so bad. Yet Majesty proved once more to be a strong card against both crows & bats and swords. Since Lauri was rather desperately looking for intercept and I was the only Methuselah with votes (due to a fee-staked Baron ^^), ousting him was relatively easy boosted by two Reckless Agitations. My 60 cards library deck worked like a charm, I never before experienced that kind of automatism.
Meanwhile I could only gaze in amazement at Lasse’s crazy abuse of Erlik’s special via Illusions of the Kindred (powered by a myriad of Chimestry skill cards). Nevertheless, Igor preferred to go against me most of the time, and he even agreed to a deal offered by Lasse once I had ousted Lauri, even though only some 22 cards of my library remained. Maybe 6 Brujah Anarchs looked a bit scary.
I was lucky to have Pentex Subversion in my hand my next turn, which allowed me to shut down the only one vampire with a Raven Spy controlled by Igor. Then I could pull out one political action after the other, thus working around the nasty balrog (Unleash Hell’s Fury) in front of me. This resulted in 3 KRCs, that ousted Péter and removed some of Lasse’s pool, and 2 Con Boons. Gaining 18 pool in one turn feels great, even though I feared I might direly need them. It soon turned out that my army had grown too strong after I finally put Club Illusion on the table. Lasse grabbed his 1 vp, I got 4 in total and the game-win … and a spot in the finals, oh my god.
Finals (link to the stream: https://youtu.be/mOce2p_v4iY)
Reaching the finals was not planned. I was extremely tired since I had not found enough sleep the previous night, but dropping a spot in the final table was not in my spirit.
The changes to the Seating Dance rules showed to be a big improvement, and both Kevin and me, sharing parts of our decks’ vampires, benefitted from the showing of 3 random crypt cards. In my favour as well was the win of the coin ranking toss against Sebastian which allowed me choice of being his Predator rather than his Prey.
Sebastian (Anson + Masika Toolbox) => Kevin (Barons Toolbox)
Me (Brujah Undue Influence) => Sebastian (Anson + Masika Toolbox) => Kevin (Barons Toolbox)
Having played with and against Sebastian both of the preliminary rounds it seems like Nikica preferred not to interfere with his plans right from the start. Yet his seating choice turned out to be a tough one.
Nikica (Malgorzata + Lord Tremere Toolbox) => me (Brujah Undue Influence) => Sebastian (Anson + Masika Toolbox) => Kevin (Barons Toolbox)
Jay was the only one of the finalists who did not encounter one of the other finalists in the previous rounds. I guess it was not an easy choice for him where to sit at this table which featured 2 new decks out of the opposing 4.
Nikica (Malgorzata + Lord Tremere Toolbox) => Jay (Hesha Ruhadze [G6] Bleed) => me (Brujah Undue Influence) => Sebastian (Anson + Masika Toolbox) => Kevin (Barons Toolbox)
Nikica got a blitz start because of 2 Zillah’s Valley in a row, but he should need it. Jay also began his magic show right from the start, even though I had no clue where this should lead to until Hesha showed up and I read his special text. I had Aline, 2x Leumeah and Siarhei in my starting crypt, and I relied on the conversation and the “deal” with Kevin that I could play with Aline. All of these three vampires have superior Presence and this should play an important role in my defense against Jay. Yet my position was somehow uncomfortable, and I had to work with changing coalitions to both stay in the game and make some progress in the game. Meanwhile, Kevin’s deck put enormous pressure on Nikica, and Jay could build up and gather quite a lot of useful information by looking through his Monocle of Clarity.
Smaller battles were lost and won. I felt to be in ousting range almost every turn, and I kept every single Majesty and Bait and Switch that showed up in my hand. Kevin was in ousting range for some time, but managed to survive. He lost one of his for Barons to an Amaranth by Lord Tremere, and the other players with votes preferred to support that. That was after around 1h 50 min play, and I became aware of the fact that I would only have 2 more turns to oust Sebastian and stay unousted. I could make some progress in the first of these turns, but also had to put 1 point of “friendly fire” pool damage on Nikica, who fell in Kevin’s next turn. Jay had waited for his assault until the very last moment, and I guess he would have ousted me if my cards in hand had not been perfect for defense. Nevertheless I was now low on pool and only hoped I would have enough time left to oust Sebastian with bleeds. There was less than a minute left when the decisive bleed went through. Victory because of better ranking.
A very tense finals. Thanks again to everyone who made this tournament an event, special thanks go to Hugh being once more the judge in the finals!