Tournament report and TWD for Hell-for-leather Belgrade 28.05.2011.

On a fine and sunny morning, 12 methuselahs appeared to wage eternal war on the Hell-for-leather tournament B)

Participants were, as follows :

Mirko Marinkovic : Ventrue g4/5 grinder
Nikica Novakovic: Harbingers of Skulls /Sennadurek toolbox
Vladimir Maric: Unnamed/Enkil cog bleed
Milos Krstic: "Girls will find..." boredom with Animalism combat
Milan Popovic : Toreador G2/3 Vote
Goran Ivanovic: Vignes & Friends Dom/Pre bleed
Djordje Bjelajac : Giovanni G2/3 Powerbleed
Djordje "Megabaja" Sutic : Al-Muntaquim, The Avenger summon history
Dusan "Pendargon" Kosanovic : !Toreador Palla Grande embrace
Zvonimir Ljubotina: Lasombra Black hand
Stevan Krkelic: Epikasta & friends Dom/Pre
Stefan Ristic: Nosferatu royalty G1/2 Breed/boon

After 3 rounds and a grueling final that went down to the last 10 minutes, finals standings were :

Final Rank Name Prelim GWs Prelim VPs Final VPs TPs
1 Djordje Belajac 1 5 4 132
2 Mirko Marinkovic 1 4 1 96
2 Djordje Sutic 1 5 0 142
2 Dusan Kosanovic 1 7 0 150
2 Stefan Ristic 1 4 0 100
6 Milos Krstic 1 3 96
7 Vladimir Maric 1 2 106
8 Nikica Novakovic 0 2 112
9 Milan Popovic 0 2 100
10 Stevan Krkelic 0 1 104
11 Goran Ivanovic 0 1 94
12 Zvonimir Ljubotina 0 0 64

Congratulations to Djordje Bjelajac on a excellent win!
Even though I was the top seed in the finals, i was the first to be ousted . Nevertheless, great fun, great games, and I hope that, next time, we will have more participants.
The Winner will mail me his tournament report soon, and i will post it here!

TWDA

Hell-for-leather
Belgrade, Serbia
May 28th, 2011
3R+F
12 Players
Djordje Bjelajac

Crypt : [12]

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2x Andrea Giovanni
2x Gillespi Giovanni
2x Gloria Giovanni
2x Isabel Giovanni
2x Le Dinh Tho
1x Marcianna Giovanni, Investigator
1x Lia Miliner

Library [90]

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Master [16]

2x Dreams of the Sphinx
3x Sudden Reversal
2x Misdirection
4x Blood doll
1x Anarch Troublemaker
1x Morgue hunting ground
1x Powerbase: Cape Verde
1x Acquired Ventrue Assets
1x Pentex(tm) Subversion

Action [13]

10x Govern the Unaligned
2x Sudario Refraction
1x Far Mastery

Action Modifier [30]

5x Conditioning
4x Bonding
1x Foreshadowing Destruction
4x Trochomancy
7x Seduction
1x The Sleeping Mind
8x Call of the Hungry Dead

Reaction [16]

6x Deflection
2x Redirection
2x Delaying tactics
3x On the Qui Vive
3x Wake with Evening's freshness

Combat [6]

6x Spiritual Intervention

Combo [9]

7x Spectral Divination
2x Murmur of the False Will

You can see some of the pictures from the event here: www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10150205157423340

More to be added, i hope

Tournament report

First of all I'd like to say thanks to everyone who participated although it would have been better if the crowd had been a little bigger. As it was, twelve of us gathered to participate in the tounament.
I had a problem to actually choose the deck I was going to play. That morning I woke up half deaf from the night before, with only four hours of sleep and with a hangover. At that moment I had only a couple of decks assembled, neither of which I really wanted to play for different reasons. I put together the Giovanni deck I eventually played a couple of months ago and probably the only reason why it was still in one piece was that I didn’t really need any cards from it to be put into any other deck. In retrospective, I believe Chaundice wall I played in our last tournament would have been a monster in the environment we played in (all tables were 4 player tables up until the finals) but I didn’t really want to play a wall deck again.
Prior to the tournament start I have added a few Sudden reversals and a couple of extra trochomancies to deal with early Villeins and card recursions from other decks.
On to the tournament itself.

Round one
VojaMilan (TGB – Alexandra Vote) -> Goxy (Edward Vignes) -> Me (Giovanni powerbleed) -> Sutic (Al Muntaqim with Giovanni POT-DOM support)
I tried to play this one as slowly as I could. Vignes was out quickly, so I did my best not to bleed at all and settled for bouncing bleeds into my prey while slowly building up. Then, my cross table buddy made a deal with my prey to oust both me and Vignes and go 2-2. This was unfortunate. Sutic rushed and killed me one minion per turn. I had a chance to oust him, but fell one pool short. Maybe I should have played more aggressively, but it would have probably ended up with Vignes sweeping the table in that case.
Round two
Dule (!Tor Palla Grande) -> Krle (Girls – Hugh Angseesing version) -> Zvonko (Lasombra Black hand S&B) -> Me
Very quick game. Dule had a swarm of minions out very quickly, saddened Krle’s Villeins and bled him out. He tried to negotiate with his cross table buddy to have his bleeds returned to Krle in exchange for slowing down until Palla Grande expired after Krle died, but sadly, it did not happen. Zvonko was ousted the very next turn and I had to settle for getting 2VPs.

Round three
Goxy -> Mirko (Ventrue grinder with princes) -> Krle -> Me
Goxy started very quickly, getting four minions out, and practically ousted Mirko before he even got a chance to settle in (with some help from Krle). Meanwhile, Krle bled me with Cybele and deflected into me with Aksinya. I also had a vampire of mine burnt via Archon (Goxy to Krle across table, with Archon waiting) and another one diablerized. With only two minions left I had to fetch another one and luckily it was Le Dihn Tho. I started picking at Goxy’s hand taking away key wakes and Mind Numbs. He managed to put Pentex on Cybele. Krle cycled his minions with Villeins and Golcondas eventually deciding to burn Cybele and leave himself with Aksinya and getting Enkidu out. When Goxy left himself at seven pool I tapped him out with Anarch troublemaker but only had one condiotioning in my hand and also Sudario refraction with Gillespi G. Liam Milliner and Le Dihn Tho. That should have been enough, Le Dihn Tho taking out the wake, Lia playing Sudario and Gillespi bleeding for seven. I misplayed it completely because in all fairness I forgot about GIllespi’s special and thought I would need that extra bleed from LDT. Goxy waked and played Majesty. I realized my mistake, bled for seven, got deflected and had to make a deal not to do anything against Krle for two turns (Krle needed at least 2 VPs to be sure of a final). I drewinto my Suddens and canceled a Villein, and then survived the mayhem thrown by Enkidu by having the Coven circling every turn. After the second turn I played a second Dreams and bled Krle with the two minions which did not have to hunt. It was enough. 1 GW 3VPs.

Final round:
Mirko -> Sutic -> Me -> Dule -> Kica (Nosferatu royalty Bloat&Vote)
I was relatively comfortable with the seating. My plan was to start very conservatively with as few minions as I can afford and to slowly build my position. Meanwhile, I was counting on my grand predator to put enough pressure on my predator so he would have to turn back and rush him instead of me. I went third so I started influencing Andrea Giovanni. My prey was quickly out and started very aggressively. Bu third or fourth turn he had 4 vampires out plus a few embraces I managed to block one of them). My grandprey was having a really hard time, he influenced for a lot on his own and was down to ten pool or so. My predator and grandpredator had a showdown of their own with Ventrue blocking True Brujah’s actions and ending up in torpor twice. My predator then diablerized the torpored vampire. I had no way to cycle my hand other than to bleed for one or two with both of my vampires, while playing as much stealth as I could. Next turn was the crucial one. I saddened Palla Grande by my prey, he still bleeds with all vamps and in my turn I bring out two more vampires (at that moment I had Le Dinh Tho, Andrea, Gloria and Isabel). My prey taps out leaving two untapped vampires to block me and sits at eight pool. My grand prey bloats. My grandpredator makes a deal with my predator to leave him alone and let my predator rush me but he had no grapples in his hand, so I managed to end combat with spiritual intervention. My turn, Pentex on the vampire without sup auspex, LeDihn Tho looks at my preys hand, sees no intercept or telepathic misdirections, two bleeds later I got my first VP.
At that point I got cocky and almost shot myself in the head. I bled my new prey with Govern the Unaligned and after some thinking added a modifier. Archon came to visit and poor Andrea burned. All this time my only other vampire in the uncontrolled region was another Gloria Giovanni so I start searching for reinforcements drawing another 7-cap. My cross table buddy then struck a new deal with my predator to give him a free shot at killing my vampires while having an Anarch Troublemaker and three DOM bleeding Ventrue pretty much set up. After surviving that turn I had to go for it against the Nosferatu. He was at eight pool, I had three minions. Gloria Giovanni bled for four with conditioning and then quite unexpectedly I get archoned again for the second time. My other two bleeds had more luck and I got my second VP. Gloria Giovanni then got quicky resummoned back to my controlled region. Now I had to deal with my predator who was now in posession of Talbot’s chainsaw and Carlton van Wyk. I explained to my new prey that he had to kill his prey now, otherwise he would get no chance to do it afterwards and very soon after we were left in one on one situation.
Now for the first time in the entire tournament I had to deal with a deck which can wall up. Mirko then made a big mistake trying to block Le Dihn Tho and spent all of his wakes in the process. In the next few turns I got another minion out, drew enough wakes of my own to block crucial bleeds from his side and left myslf with only eight pool. Mirko saw this as an opportunity since I had only one minion untapped and bled with everything he had and fell short because of two wakes in my hand. Next turn I finished him off with a single bleed for six with Gloria Giovanni (he took his time to think it over I was sure I was going to get Archoned again). In the end my hand consisted of 2 Governs, 2 Conditionings, Bonding, Spectral Divination, Call of the hungry Dead, Sudden reversal and Misdirection. I would have definitely died next turn if he somehow managed to survive. So, that was it. I got 1GW 4VP and the satisfaction of winning it all.