Great Lakes Regional Qualifer Report

I played my Masika+Toreador Fatties Block ‘n’ Cog deck at the tourney, not because it’s good, but because it tends to make finals and I wanted to qualify as much as anything else. I don’t know why, exactly, as I can’t make it to NOLA, but perhaps it’s just a matter of pride. . .

I really need to revise the deck. It didn't cycle well at all this tourney. It didn't help that my tablemates were either taking D actions away from me or playing the trumpiest "don't block" combat ever. I spent most of the first 6 or 7 turns looking at the same cards in my hand. It was not fun. I need to thin it out, i think. At no time was i in danager of even going through half of my deck.

Round 1:
John(Malk ’94-ish deck)>Sam(Assamite Heartblood Midcap bleed)>Dave>(Ivan Krenyenko supercycle)>Me>Ahmed(Imbued toolbox)

Sam had a decent opening, and Dave had a perfect one. Sam got Alu and Sajid early, dropped a Heartblood, and while he wasn’t bleeding with Loss at stealth he was gaining pool trhough Heartblood. He eventually got Hafsa and Vardar the Vardarian. Dave pulled Ivan, played Marakesh Codex, played an Ashur, searched the Karavalishna Vrana, KVed out Joquinna, Searched the Heart of the Cheater, etc. When Shilmulo Tarot hit the table, Dave was essentially playing with an 18 + card hand each turn.

I got the shaft. I pulled Francois Villon, but didn’t get Masika. This would not have been an issue, but Dave’s discard of Sensory Deprivation on turn 1 made me want Masika a lot. So after getting Francois I played pretty slow and paid to see a new crypt card, who was indeed Masika. It was turn 5 or 6 before I started moving forward.

This let Ahmed set up his Imbued well. He got an Inspire on that Imbued who gets a power when she comes into play (Nurse?) and then he got Travis to gain three influence per turn. That let him get out a bunch of guys: Carlton, Vagabond with Laptop Computer, Warden, SixofSwords. He bled John for 2-3 per turn, but John bounced most of it, with Lucian, Malkavian Justicar. John got a weird crypt draw, and wound up with Normal, Brazil, Ohanna, and Lucian in play. He bled with the two caps every single turn, so Sam was eating three bleed, but with Vessels and Heartblood Sam was able to ignore it most of the time.

Dave had gotten a Blood Doll on Ivan and Joquinna by this point (after Sam had played his Vessels, natch), and with Parthenon in play he was playing a lot of cards. Ivan and Joquinna finally started getting forward motion at around this time with Treasured Samadji and a Seal of Veddartha on Ivan. Heidelberg helped move the bleed around. Dave’s bloat would have been better, but Sam had Lossed the KV ASAP, and Dave was pretty unhappy about this.

Dave was also unhappy about me taking the Powerbase:Montreal with Francois early, in order to influence Masika into play in two turns rather than three. I assured him that this was all so that my forward motion could come into play early, but there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Dave tends to wail a lot, actually. Maybe that's to his advantage.

When I did get Masika and put a gun on him things went better for me and worse for Ahmed. I bled with an Aire for five and he took it. Then I blocked Travis’ bloating action and filled him with bullets. Ahmed still had a pile of forward-moving minions, but I’d slowed him down.

The game was dragging at this point. It had taken all of us a long time to set up, and John and I were having issues cycling cards. Dave’s cycling each untap actually took a decent amount of time, so we were starting to get worried about the game going to time.

Dave was on life support for a while after Sam unleashed a flurry of Loss bleeds, but Dave eventually got dom on Ivan through the Seal and bounced one into me. I’d gotten a Master Sculptor by now and had spent some on guns. Then he bled me for a bunch, leaving me on two pool. I stayed defensive while waiting for a Villein, and managed to draw it before he could oust me.

I still bled with Masika every turn, cause hey, he untaps a lot. Ahmed’s Flash Grenades proved largely ineffective against the big M. I also never let Travis take his action again to gain pool, and blocked an Imbued getting the Ivory Bow (because that would be bad for me).

Ahmed was looking bad, but so was his prey, and Sam, and Dave, and I. We all were on pretty low pool near the end. Sam Washing Dave’s third Ashur Tablets (“I can’t find the other three, and I’m cycling so many cards and reshuffling every turn!”) sealed his fate, as Dave’s lunge failed to get me. Sam got him next turn. I failed to oust Ahmed with my last turn, and Ahmed failed to oust John. Sam ousted me with his last turn, as time was called.

There were two points during this game when I considered ending Dave’s game after catching him trying to bleed me for 4 with Ivan. I had the Blur in hand while he was busy dodging with the samadji, and both times I threatened to end him. Both times I decided against it. Of course, if I had another turn I would have ousted Ahmed, but I’m not sure ruining Dave a turn earlier would have saved me from Sam. . .

Sam: 2.5 VP and a GW, Ahmed, 0.5 VP, John, 0.5 VP

Game MVP: Probably Loss, which nuked Dave’s ability to bloat by destroying the Karavalishna Vrana.

Game 2:

Dan (Kiasyd S+B Toolbox)>James(Nehemiah+Nana facepunching)>Brad Cashdollar, who gets special mention for hosing my game(Dmitra Alastors with Assault Rifles)>Devin(Trujah combat trumps bullying)>Me

I got a good draw this time, and got Masika out first thing. I also got Francois again. I like the Prince of Paris a lot for working a table with his blood thievery. I went for Anneke but Devin started bleeding me before I could get that moving.

Dan got Isanwayan, Dame Hollerton, and later the Arcadian and Lucy Markowitz.

James got Nehemiah the turn before Devin could influence him out, which caused some strife between them, but as Devin was playing an ALL-Trujah crypt he got out Ibn Khladun and went about his business. Then James got out Nana and eventually Enchanted out Patrick.

Brad got Karen Suduela and Dmitra, and then Alastored Dmitra an Assault Rifle. Karen got a heart of Cheating and Mr. Winthrop.

Devin had a late late start and eventually paid 10 pool for Ibn Khladun. By then Brad and James were into it and Devin got to do a bunch of stuff unmolested, like Summon History to get Ibn an Ankara Citadel. Devin lost a lot of pool to Parity Shift this game, but with Vessel and Perfectionist in play he got most of it back.

Masika got a gun and proceeded to bleed every single turn. This was okay, and I drew an Aire to mug Dan for 5 once while he was tapped out. Dan bled forward a little every turn, which James did not like.

James and Brad circled each other like jungle cats. Dmitra got knocked around by Nehemiah with a Torn Signpost Undead Strength Target Vitals incredible punch, after James had played a Fake Out in response to the AR maneuver. He did not Grapple, however, so Dmitra managed to shoot back for a lot and Taste of Vitae it back. Nana did something and Dmitra played a Second Tradition to block and then a (Heroic Might+) Slam+Grapple ended Dmitra’s fun and sent her to torpor.

Brad was clearly playing a _lot_ of Second Tradition. James was clearly playing a _lot_ of rush and FIST. After a turn going forward and placing Dragonbound in play, James let Dmitra get out of torpor and then started rushing the Kyasid backwards. James pleaded with me not to bleed, as he had played Vaticination the last turn and “Dan’s got two Deflections!” Dan assured me he did not and that James was either lying or wasn't paying attention (did I really believe him? No, but I had to get rid of them and James had 11 pool at the time). I bled once to make him play one, and then again the next turn. He played another that turn, but he and James both argued that they weren’t lying to the rest of us.

Not sure who was right. James went full backward, and Dan went full forward. Dan’s Fae Contortions were enough to save his guys from punchy rush while the Arcadian helped pump up the bleeds. James got ousted first.

After James had left Brad played another Parity Shift to steal some pool from Devin, but one of the Kyasid Aura Absorbed some intercept and stepped in front of it. Dan got Lucy around this time. Devin started influencing out Nehemiah again.

Ibn had been bleeding me for 3 unblockably for some time now, nearly every turn. Devin’s deck was all about Domain of Evernight, Outside the Hourglass, Decapitate. I knew this going in, and so I simply never blocked his actions. This was actually bad for me. When I thought on it later, I should have saved Direct Interventions for the Outside the Hourglass and torped Nehemiah or Ibn in the late game. Otherwise I simply couldn’t cycle cards; Dan was only taking D actions and Devin was essentially unblockable. I had combat and intercept that wasn’t going anywhere for much of the game.

I bled into Dan for a lot, drawing another Aire while he was tapped out from messing with Brad and hitting him for seven with my two huge Toreador. This made the table very aware of my presence suddenly.

However, Dan and Brad had moved into a strange two-player conflict for Brad’s VP, and Devin and I were coming up the winners in the situation. When the dust settled, Brad was low on pool, but had two ready minions, and I had ousted Dan and gained 6 pool, which Devin bled off of me his next turn with two Trujah.

At around this time Brad decided to be a predator and start blocking forward. Devin did his thing and popped Karen’s head off. Brad didn’t let that stop him from trying to shoot Nehemiah with Dmitra, and she wound up in the dirt as well.

Amusingly, Devin then rescued Dmitra to keep Brad in the game almost right after that, as Brad could not hope to self-rescue with my ridiculous intercept.

Dmitra and Masika went toe-to-toe, or perhaps barrel-to-barrel, but Masika proved the stronger, with more blood to lose and more bullets to fire. I had drawn the lone Parity Shift in my deck, and Francois was protected from diablerie by it.

Devin bled me for 6 and Summoned a renegade Garou from History, which immediately rushed (because it goes right into play, I guess?) and was shot into pieces by Masika with a Quicken Sight for a spare maneuver and a Pursuit for an additional strike. Scary that Ibn could find a Garou for 2 blood which can rush at will, however.

Brad was on 8 pool when I got rid of his last minion. He put 4 down on someone and paid one for a master card. The next turn, I bled for two with Masika, and when I play my Enkil Cog Brad Cashdollar DI’s it. The villain! The DI self-ousted him, and left me with a nearly empty Masika and a full Francois to contend with Ibn and Nehemiah.

In the heads-up I drew another Aire, and bled Devin down to two pool, but without the extra bleed (and action!) from the Cog he was able to get me with his bullying tactics.

Me: 2VP, Devin: 2VP, Dan: 1VP

Game MVP: No GW! No MVP.

Game 3:

Lync(Malk ’94 Classic)> Jay(the 40-card ally deck)>Me>Rod(Tremere G5 fattie vote)>Thomas(!Malk KS)

This game was strange. It was good for me. I pulled Masika and Felicia early, and then when I drew Villein I got Anneke. Rob got Gabrielle the Justicar and Troius. Thomas got Midget first thing, which was part of his deck concept, I guess. He said he got Midget first thing every game. He was the top seed going into the finals, so I’m not going to argue with this. After Midget he got Korah and Artemis. Lync got Roland Bishop, Ozmo, and later Lady Thunder.

Jay. . . Jay got a bunch of crazy shit going on. He discarded a Slaughterhouse with burn option about twice a go-around early. He said later that there are lots in the deck. Apparently it’s a 40-ish card deck? Jay’s ready region went something like this:

Turn 1: Sandra White-and-yet-not-white Unmasking
Turn 2: Blood Doll Sandra, start the hunt-loop. Zhenga arrives. Anthelios.
Turn 3: Vessel Zhenga. Parthenon. Vessel Zhenga. Zhenga finds Tutu the Doubly Evil Mummy.
Turn 4: Jake Washington. Tutu Finds Greg Winter. Break the Code.
Turn 5: Tutu finds Carlton. Zhenga gets Aranthebes.
Turn 6: Marguerite shows up. Jay is backpedaling from all the bleeds coming at him.

It got worse from there. I’m pretty sure Jay’s deck has a mission statement which resembles: Lose to guns. Lose big to Celerity guns. He didn’t really move forward much of the game.

So with free reign and a Cog early, I bled the crap out of Rod, eventually ousting him with a Resist Earth’s Grasp. While this was going on, Thomas was having a heck of time with Lync, who not only refused to block his bleeds, but occasionally sent them to Jay. Jay and Thomas played nice, but Thomas was using Dreams (several copies over the course of the early game) to get rid of stealth in order to draw bleed, and then a chunk of his KS did not land because he was trying not to bleed Jay.

With Carlton, Aranthebes, and Unmasking, Jay was catching Roland Bishop and Ozmo often enough that Lync was frustrated. On top of that, Greg Winter had Roland in a hunt-loop. Jay’s mad respiration included emptying Zhenga with Vessel, burning Jake Washington, then using a spare Slaughterhouse with Anthelios to get Jake back and playing him with the Parthenon.

It was pretty awesome.

After I ousted Rodd, Lync was looking bad. He managed one more turn, but he said he wouldn’t last another. Jay took this opportunity to become a predator, and played a Fear of Mehket on Anneke, which Lync inexplicably Sudden Reversaled. There was much gnashing of teeth at this.

Jay recycled the fear with his spare MPA, so I knew what was coming. Unfortunately, I had little to say about it. Anneke was on three (I’d Villein’d her deep) and likely to stay that way. I could hunt her to four, or hope to block and draw into a gun and a Taste of Vitae, but that was grim. Also, Jay was gonna recur that Fear if she lived anyway, so it was inevitable.

I got Marcellus and started on Francois with my oust pool. Jay had played the Zoning Board. He Zoned my Information Highway. He put Pentex Subversion on Masika. Anneke went away.

Thomas bled the hell out of Jay, who put up a good fight using his mad intercept, Aranthebes, and the bloat tech. Marguerite was BD-hunting by this point each turn as well.

When the dust settled, Thomas had a torped Midget, Artemis with 0 blood, Kite at 5, and Korah at 5. He had 24 pool, and he’d just ousted Jay. Before ousting Jay, he used an MPA to get his Pentex Subversion back into his hand. Awesome.

With Jay gone Masika had one turn to act. I bled for 3. With most of my guys, really. I had influenced out Francois Villon to make up for Anneke, but I hadn’t drawn a Villein in a bit, and I only had like 12 pool. Thomas bled me for 6 of it with his two ready !Malks and hunted with the empty one, and I burned through a hell of lot of reactions. Thomas always had more stealth than I intercept, but his deck was looking thin, as he had to play 3 or 4 cards to match my Eyes of Argus + Quicken Sight combo, and Jay and Lync had forced him to either play or discard a ton of black-diamond cards.

So there I was at 4 pool, with three ready !Malks right over there. . .not only that, my only Gun was on Masika, who was subverted. I did have a Fleetness, two Blur, a .44, and a Concealed Weapon in hand. But I didn’t want Kite to block the rush, leaving Thomas with two bleeders in the long run. I feinted, having Francois steal the blood from Artemis, who only had one and would have to hunt. Thomas bit on that feint and blocked with Kite, asking “Frenchie doesn’t have a gun, right?” The Prince of Paris unconcealed his .44 and blew three holes in Kite. Then Marcellus rushed one-blood Artemis and hit him fast three times for another dead !Malk.

All these Shennanigans left me on 4 pool. Thomas only had enough to drop me to 2. Whew. I played a Villein to get out of trouble and then dropped my own Pentex on Korah. My Princes bled for 2 each, Felicia bled for 3 with an Aire, and Masika bled for 3. Suddenly Thomas’ pool was looking low enough for victory.

He struggled to get at me, but I’d drawn yet another Villein and when I played it Thomas conceded victory, as he was at this point playing with a 3-card hand. He’d exhausted his library.

Me: 3VP and the GW, Thomas: 2VP

Finals:

I had player with each of the finalists in previous rounds. This was envied by the other finalists. Unfortunately, I’d played poorly in those previous rounds and was 5th seed, so my knowledge went unused.

Devin had managed to get a GW and 4 VPs in the third round because someone else played the Unmasking, so all of his ridiculous Unique lupines had +1 intercept. The imbued who played it proved to be resistant to aggravated wounds, but Hourglass still does a lot of damage prerange, and Stunt Cycle does a hell of lot more.

Me>Devin(Trujah Bullies)>David(Ivan is a Pretty Good Vampire)>Thomas(!Malk KS)>Sam(Assamite midcap Loss/Heartblood)

Going first isn’t good for Masika. Or Francois. Or Anneke. Sitting between a deck that can burn equipment off my guys and a deck that I can’t block forward (a certain percentage of my deck’s offense is Masika blocking forward) isn’t good at all.

Still, things went well early. I got Lilith’s Blessing into play on the first round, and proceeded to draw into two Villein, which gave me Masika and Francois on the cheap. Sam only bled me for 3 ever, playing a Loss with Sajdid almost immediately, but then never drawing another.

Thomas got Midget and proceeded his bleedy assault. He ran over Sam before too long and had a VP and some extra pool to go with Korah, Midget, and Artemis. Sam had gotten three guys out and a Heartblood of the Clan. He pretty much used the Heartblood and Vessel to stay in the game two or three turns longer, but was gone by turn 7 or 8.


I bled Devin pretty much every turn until he got Tye Cooper in play to essentially block a non-stealth bleed each turn without issues. He got Nehemiah and Summoned the Citadel, then got a pile of allies. He found Harzomatuili, Ossian, Tye, and a Renegade Garou.

David did his thing, getting a lot of equipment on Ivan and bloating each turn with the KV and PB:M. He also got Gabrin and later Joquinna. Eventually he got Heidelberg to go with his bleedy equipment and started forward. By then Thomas had ousted Sam and gotten Quentin King III. Midget was tapped and empty, and Thomas decided not to care about the infernal little monster.

I made a deal with Devin to use Francois to steal blood from !Malks instead of bleeding with him every turn, if he’d rush crosstable to keep Thomas from ousting me. I had 18 pool when Thomas rounded the corner, and 4 down on Anneke. I wound up taking all 4 back, as Thomas bled me for 6 or more every single turn.

At one point Devin had played Vaticination and told me that Thomas didn’t have much bleed. I said that maybe I wouldn’t block, hoping to jam him (he didn’t have a Dreams in play and I was low on intercept at the time anyway). He played two Eyes of Chaos to bleed me for 6 anyway. I’m starting to think that Vaticination gives people too much information at once, or perhaps everyone just likes to use the card to be disingenuous about their knowledge.

I was having trouble cycling cards, as I couldn’t block Thomas and Devin wasn’t an option. I wound up bleeding with Masika every turn in hopes of burning combat cards.(Given my fragile deal with Devin I was surprised he still considered Thomas enough of a threat to still rush crosstable) Eventually Devin bit, and I put Harzomatuili out of play with bullets and continued to bleed with Momentary Delay.

My backwards strategy was not working so well, as Thomas continued to bleed me pretty well. He was also getting bled by Dave pretty heavy by this point, so he was pressured to continue.
Devin bled for 3 each turn, and since I didn’t want Dave to get his game nerfed I had warned him in precisely the way I had failed to warn Brad Cashdollar (the rogue!) in round two about Devin’s deck. Dave was bent about never being able to b lock Devin, but his three pool bloat per turn let him keep up with Devin. I really wanted Devin to oust David, so that I could DI an Hourglass and kill Nehemiah, ending the Trujah threat and winning the game.

But Devin simply couldn’t do it. Dave ousted Thomas after Thomas got me to like 3 pool. I managed to Villein the once-again full François (his special is awesome) to get back to a healthy spot, but David was in control of the game by this point. I went backwards as much as I could, and Devin rushed the Ravnos with all his werewolves, knocking Joquinna into torpor and getting Ivan empty.

In my final acts of the game, David put a blood on Ivan, tried to Restore, which I blocked so that he couldn’t use his Helicopter, then I DI’ed the Freak Drive, leaving him tapped. But David had the False Resonance he needed to oust me with Gabrin shortly after that.

Devin actually won the heads up with David, but when the dust settled David’s 2 VP was better than Devin’s 2 VP.

David: 2VP and GW, Devin: 2VP, Thomas: 1VP

Game MVP: Probably Ivan Krenyenko or the Karavalishna Vrana