Gateway 2012 #1

Also, Flesh of marble. This card alone is enough to kill animalism combat and celegun dead, and is far from being useless against everything else.

I was trying to assemble some auspex / flesh of marble combo myself, but it look like good players prefer use less optimal card with good vampire than good card with bad vampire

In the round I fought it with my Animalism deck, I realized that I should just leave Ian's deck alone as much as possible. He was my predator, so I just focused on beating down Robert's Tzim War Ghoul deck. I had Vleya down to zero blood or so, then Ian cross-table Giant's Blooded her(!). Robert threw up a couple of blockers (i.e. Awesomeghoul or whatever his name is, Jake Washington), which kept me from dunking Vleya for a while. Ian was doing very little pool damage to me, like 1-2/turn, so I mainly just had to get Robert and then James' floundering Corrupt Construction deck. James managed to get a Corrupt Construction, which was promptly stolen by Robert (it had just been Riddle Fantastiqued by Fred Scott), then James somehow allowed himself to be ousted. He endured exactly zero War Ghoul rushes (I killed two War Ghouls and survived both combats) and was bled for two around three times.

Robert with +6 pool was slightly harder to oust, but I managed it. Down to three cards in hand, I ousted Fred with a Bum's Rush against his Famed dude + Carrion Crows and a couple bleeds, then hit a wall of intercept, additional strikes, and prevent. The most frustrating thing was actually not the additional strikes (I could blood doll up my guys and survive), but the Flesh of Marble. Normally, I would be tearing up decks not featuring S:CE or Soak, but reducing the six damage over two rounds to two made it not worth the risk of fighting. Drawing Out the Beast enhanced my fighting prowess a bit, but it was no match for that single, free combat card. Well played!

Ashur wrote:

OK, but how did the final table look like? I´m a big fan of all kinds of Steven Bradbury-style of playing, but I just can´t see how the deck does anything else but maybe surviving

Kiasyd SB -> Nana ANI -> Tumnimos -> me -> Ventrue

I say Ventrue because while it had Obfuscate stealth, in that game, only Arika had Obfuscate; she was joined by Ranjan and Wilhelm. It was an action focused, forward looking deck. I had limited interaction with it until the endgame, though I was a threat to block Governs, votes, etc.

As top seed, I placed myself where I did not knowing my predator's or prey's decks because I wasn't sure how the ANI deck would play the game (and, obviously, other reasons). As it turned out, the better spot was its prey since all he did was go backwards. Kiasyd still ousted, got two vampires Sensory Depped for his trouble. Ventrue deck took it out. Ravnos dropped Week of Nightmares, but it was too late to avoid getting ousted by Ventrue. All of the ready Ventrue ceased being ready, getting blocked with a combination of Carlton and other intercept. Adana bled Ventrue out for a 2/2/1.

The deck has very little ousting power. Without Adana, it pretty much has no ousting power. That happened in the second round, which is why I only got ... 2 VPs that round.

By the way, with a nod to what Aaron said, this is why I dislike people talking about combat decks as if someone could group rush and intercept combat together. Rush may be hard to win with (so far, impossible for me), but intercept combat isn't as people tend to leave you alone, even when they really shouldn't (group 2/3 Tzimisce get left alone way too much, for instance).