TWD + Report: Finnish ECQ (Ropecon 2012)

A Daughter deck can't not be super-aggressive, so Aleksi would have to be super-aggressive. Otso plays a combat deck so he cannot take any pool damage, especially if he has no second traditions on his hand. So Otso has to rush Aleksi in order to win, no matter if it helps Randal. The worst seating possible for a rush deck will always be to have an aggressive predator as well as an aggressive grandpredator. Seeing how all four decks except Otso's were aggressive decks, Otso had really poor chances to win this game no matter what he did.

Ankha wrote:

1/ The final had no time limit?
2/ From what I read, Otso was heavily involved in Aleksi being oust. Yseult and Delilah can't block Huitzilopotchli and Arika which is a big problem. To make things worse, Otso sends Yseult to torpor, and when she comes back and break her pentex, François Villon steals her remaining blood. No wonder Randal makes his VP and becomes unstoppable. What was the idea behind ousting Aleksi?

The final round was played in Dipoli, since TF was closing for the night at 3am latest. Play started at 1:10 am and ended at 2:21 am.

The way I see it, I didn't actually do all that much to oust Aleksi. I stole some blood and blocked him torporizing his vampire(s) alright, but I believe that it didn't really contribute to the speed with which he got ousted, as it didn't alter his pool total. Yseult's and Delilah's specials weren't really relevant, as any attempt to block would just help Randall with his card flow anyways.

I didn't rush Aleksi, and I certainly didn't want him to die. I just wanted to deny him his actions, as, IMHO, there were no actions he could take that would benefit the both of us. The only way for him to gain pool and stay longer in the game would be to voter cap after a damaging vote, and that was out of the question for me, barring, of course, voting backwards. And for Aleksi, backousting Randall would just give him a lot more difficult predator.

I wanted to sit in front of Aleksi to get an initial predator who couldn't hurt me so that I could get my game going. I was actually quite happy with the seating and I didn't mind having aggressive pool damage decks around me. I still think, that had Anson just showed up, the position would have been quite advantageous for me.

As far as the first KRC is considered, I was eager to block him to Infernal Pursuit into concealed/magnum and draw into some good masters for my turn. Had Aleksi indicated that he wanted to call it backwards as he announced the action, I might have chosen not to block, but that was not the case.