Tournament report: Sheepdog Utrecht 21th of may 2011

Saturday 21th of may in Utrecht exactly 20 methuselahs gathered to test their power against the finest methuselahs from north west Europe. It all started half an hour later than planned, because of a miscommunication with the restaurant keeper. Although this small inconvenience we started in good spirit.
The rounds went smooth. Although there was an exceptional low number of gamewins and Victory points. Out of the 12 tables only 6 peoples managed to gain a single table win. This resulted in a situation that a player with just 1 gamewin and 2,5 VPs entered the final. But this player made clear in advance he was unable to play a final so a player with just 1GW and 2 VPs entered the final. Leaving Ralf out of the finals with 0 GW and 5 VPs.

The Final was one of the better ones I have seen. After the methuselahs sat down there was no clear winner. Seating was as followed.
1 Jelmer playing Bloodbrother Hermana weenie
2 Dennis Playing Presense politics with Lutz as his main vampire
3 Pieter playing anrach warghoul
4 Paul playing ventrue antitribu grind
5 Bram playing Vetrue toolbox
If I had to bet money, I would say that Jelmer had the best chance of winning. He plays weenie bleed and his prey has big-capped politicians. Also he has a predator which can bleed hard but only on 0 stealth. I was wrong of course, as you can see from the result post.
Jelmer kicked off. With just 1 transfer he could transfer out on of his 15 2-capped vampires, but had a master and a gehenna, so he started quite good. Dennis has a slow start but that’s normal in his case. Pieter had the best start. Playing a master and a gehenna card and transferring out horatio and converting him to an anarch. A round later Pieter seemed to have a warghoul shortage, it took him a long time to get his first ghoul out. Pieter and Jelmer received a lot of pressure from Dennis his damage votes. Because of this Pieter decided to spend his energy on his predator. Paul was receiving no pressure from Pieter and had the opportunity of going forward all the way. Bram had a hard time stopping Paul. Paul played some weighted walking sticks and prevented a lot of damage. The ventrues were able to block a lot but the damage was slowly taking its toll. Jelmer was having trouble with the damage votes from Dennis and the bleed of Bram, since his pool gain was low to non-existent. After a while Bram was able to pass a parity shift unblocked and putting jelmer in a dangerous situation, then Bram ousted him with a bleed.
Bram gained 6 pool plus pool from the parity shift putting him in a save spot. Or was it? Paul had a good turn by bleeding bram for 12 when jelmer was still alive. Now Paul did this again ousting a tapped out Bram.
Dennis had to make haste. Pieter was throwing his ghouls at his minions by now and things looked bad. He used lutz to play a reign of power and ousting Pieter. Paul gained 4 pool with this vote.
Now dennis and paul were the only 2 left. Paul had 4 vampires in desent shape and dennis had just lutz. Paul started his turn playing a pentex subversion on lutz and bled for 16. The game was over. Paul took the game.
Congratulation Paul!

I like to thank you all for coming to Utrecht and play.

I hope to see you all again on 4th of june in Brussel or the next tournament in the Netherlands.
Kind regard,
Jeroen van Oort
Prince of Utrecht
Also read the other great report:
boardgamegeek.com/thread/656185/the-adventures-of-team-belgium-at-the-dutch-ecq-20
Final Standings

Final Rank Name Prelim GWs Prelim VPs Final VPs TPs
1 Paul Wiggers 1 5,5 3 138
2 Jelmer Wedholm 1 6 0 138
2 Pieter Heerma 1 2 0 114
2 Dennis Devriendt 1 5 1 108
2 Bram van Stappen 1 6 1 114
6 Ralf Lammert 0 5 108
7 Bart Lagcher 0 4 108
8 Izaak Hazelaar 0 2,5 126
9 Hardy Range 0 2,5 90
10 Sahan Abeln 0 2,5 84
11 Peter Bouwman 0 2,5 72
12 Rene de Wolf 0 1,5 108
13 Rudolf Garski 0 1,5 102
14 Mark Huyzer 0 1 78
14 Thomas Kouwenhoven 0 1 78
16 Manuel Diehm 0 0,5 84
17 Johan van der Meer 0 0,5 78
18 Peter Velaerts 0 0 72
DQ Remko van Hierden 1 2,5 96 Had no time to play the final
DQ Martijn Boswinkel 0 0 48 Left after 2 rounds

TWD of Paul Wiggers

Here is the deck I played yesterday. Based on the standard Stick Men deck with some modifications.
There isn't much I would change to the deck. Was thinking about including some Nose of the Hound but got convinced by several players that bleeding is better the nosing.

In all four games I have discarded the hunting ground. It is a great card when you get it in the first 2-3 turns but after that there are better ways to spend the pool. I am thinking about replacing the Hunting Ground with an Uncoiling. Several Event cards will make the game a lot harder for this deck (Unmasking, Blood Weakens, The Slow Withering) and having an option to get rid of them could help a lot.

Library (12)

2x Owain Evans, The Wanderer
2x Blackhorse Tanner
1x Joseph O'Grady
1x Jefferson Foster
1x Jephta Hester
2x Neighbor John
1x Louis de Maisonneuve
1x Ulrike Rothbart
1x Lana Butcher

Library(90)

Masters(19)

4x Dreams of the Sphinx
4x Vessel
2x Anarch Troublemaker
2x Wash
1x Misdirection
1x Powerbase: Montreal
1x Corporate Hunting Ground
1x Wall Street Night, Financial Newspaper
1x Channel 10
1x The Barrens
1x Pentex Subversion

Action(12)

10x Govern the Unaligned
2x Abbot

Action Modifiers(9)

6x Conditioning
2x Daring the Dawn
1x Bonding

Reaction(31)

9x Deflection
8x Eyes of Argus
5x On the Qui Vive
2x Delaying Tactics
2x Eagle's Sight
2x Enhanced Senses
2x My Enemy's Enemy
1x Telepathic Misdirection

Combat(16)

8x Hidden Strength
5x Weighted Walking Stick
2x Rolling with the Punches
1x Taste of Vitae

Equipment(3)

1x Bowl of Convergence
1x .44 Magnum
1x Ivory Bow

Good to see Belgian VTES coming back.

Like the name of the tournament (see avatar photo - he's actually half poodle/golden retriever).

Were there lots of wall decks? Lot's of combat? Lots' of politics which require lots of discussion? Why so few GWs?

chris

librarian wrote:

Good to see Belgian VTES coming back.

Very true. Although this tournament was in the Netherlands, Chris

librarian wrote:

Good to see Belgian VTES coming back.

The belgian qualifier is this weekend

Belgian players only perform well on tournaments in Utrecht.

Were there lots of wall decks? Lot's of combat? Lots' of politics which require lots of discussion? Why so few GWs?

There were lots of politics and virtually no stealth bleed. That tends to give long games without game wins.

A full list of decks can be viewed in the dutch vtes formm over here