This event was played in Osijek on November 30. Reported by Denes Kocis, VEKN National Coordinator of Croatia, with comments by Dominik Trupcevic:
First, finally after many, many years, we had a Nationals Tournament organized in Croatia, mainly in Osijek. Goran Damjanic and I organized the tournament.
As it was fairly announced early, I managed to acquire the players coming to the tournament early, so the actual check in was painless. The players came from Croatia – Osijek and Zagreb, Slovenia, Hungary and Serbia, 29 total. And we started on time – success!
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After the first round, we organized a barbeque lunch break for all the players. To practice some social skills and to share stories and laughs.
Top 5 before the final was:
1. Goran Ivanovic 2 GW, 7.5 VP
2. Dusan Kosanovic 2 GW, 6 VP
3. Lovre de Grisogono 1 GW, 7 VP
4. Goran Damjanic 1 GW, 6.5 VP
5. Dominik Trupcevic 1 GW, 6 VP
Now, the report from the view of a finalist – Dominik Trupcevic:
Firstly, a bit about playing the V5 Lasombra - pure, dumb S&B version, but with a bit of a bigger crypt to maybe help me negotiate something/have some table presence with a few votes.
Somehow I managed to find myself as the 5th seed in the finals. The first two rounds I only managed to snag 1 VP in each game - with a huge blunder in the second game that cost me 2 additional VPs and a GW, where I didn't see I had a Bonding in my hand that would have killed my prey who was at 2 pool and instead on his next turn he was the one to get the GW & 3VP instead.
In the 3rd round I had to go all in and somehow managed to just brute force through a Matasuntha, a V5 Gangrel and was looking at Gyula who managed to kill my predator with my 2VPs against his 1VP and around 20 pool. Dominate did what it's made to do and I somehow managed to barely kill him, even with 4 minions out and around 20 pool. He had spent a lot of resources on his V5 Gangrel predator, piloted by Milos Krstic, which in the end, all things considered probably cost him the game and gave me the 5th seed in the finals, and kept him at 6th seed.
As luck would have it, the 2nd final seed had to leave as it was getting late so Gyula got in as the 5th player behind me. After all the positioning decisions and dice rolling for seating order we ended up with (Dusan Kosanovic had to withdraw from the final):
I wasn't really feeling confident about the seating, as my only combat defence is 6 Pass Through Shadow and 2 Arms of Ahriman, and I was the predator to a Nephandus deck that is most certainly packing a bunch of bounce with my grandprey having virtually zero bleed defence outside of just rushing backwards. My "professional" assessment of the situation was that I'm either going to die really quick to my predators rush as his first vampire that came into controlled was Theo Bell, or I'm going to kill my grandprey since pretty much all my deck does is bleed for ridiculous amounts at 2-4 stealth and block fails anyone that actually manages to produce that kind of intercept. At one point in turn 3 I actually thought about not getting a vampire out at all against Theo, but in the end I got Gnaeus out and just hoped for the best. There's only one thing I can do and that's bleed, for a lot, at a lot of stealth and just hope for the best.
The game, unexpectedly, started very good for me - I had Jake Washington out, my prey got FBI Special Affairs Division out, and the first Theos rush after a 4 blood Villein was blocked by Jake, which caused additional 2 damage after resolution to Theo and had my predator just a tiny bit more careful. My prey was going strong with setting up his Nephandus, I had my first few Governs going down to uncontrolled and let the game develop. The !Brujah was, as expected, going forward strong at Gyula but did no real damage to him. In the meantime, V5 Brujah was consistently rushing me, but with no Immortal Grapple on his end and a good draw of Pass Through Shadow on my end, I was avoiding combat and just stackin stealth on my vampires for the future.
The game was going pretty well for me, unexpectedly, so it was time to start going left and hope it goes even better. Where the Veil Thins was very strong against 6 Nephandus that were hanging out in my preys controlled region, effectively completely shutting down their blocking capabilities and I managed to even get a few bleeds connect, but my prey ousted the !Brujah which got clogged with rush actions and no red cards to spend. Gyula crosstable saw what my deck could do to him in R3 so he was focused on preparing and bloating, and just doinga few 1 point bleeds here and there to my predator who was still having bad luck with grapple draw so he couldn't really kill me, but we were both below 10 pool and anything could happen at that point. Despite all odds, I managed to catch my prey without bounce and with Where the Veil Thins doing the brunt of the work getting Nephandus out of the equation completely I kill my prey and get 1VP – much more than I expected to accomplish when the seating was decided.
But the situation going forward seemed sketchy at best. I manage to get a 3rd vampire out with the 6 pool I got from ousting my prey, but I'm predator to Gyula with Carfax, Rack, 3 or 4 barons (don't recall correctly) and 6 minions in total out and somewhere around 12 pool - hard, but still within lethal range for 3 vampires with superior dominate and oblivion. I spend some reactions, some deflections before my turn, get a bleeding hand ask my predator if he'd be okay with me tapping 2 of Gyula's barons with my Anarch Troublemaker, as that will mean his two barons will get tapped in Gyula's unlock phase, but he's on 6 pool and we agree that's not a good idea, and we agree for me to bleed and he will trade Bait and Switches with Gyula and just hope he has more than he does.
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I manage to sneak thrugh a bleed for 6 with a Govern + Conditioning, 5 Bait and Switches get spent on that one bleed, but the last one is Gyulas and he gets his VP and 3 pool. I sadly didn't draw anything relevant for the next 2 actions, so I just bleed for (now with Gyula getting 6 extra pool) some irrelevant amounts, my vampires being drained from the blood cost of Govern + Conditining, on Gyulas next turn he gets me down to 3 pool, but with all the blood/pool gain and Gyula having 7 minions out, I just try to cycle some cards and finish my next minion phase without really making a dent into his 7 pretty much full blood vampires and somewhere between 15-20 pool (if not more), we shake hands and Gyula comes out on top with 3 VP and a GW.
Gyula is the new National Champion of Croatia and a huge congratulaions to him, but a final spot and even the 1VP I got in the finals was much more than I expected.
I would like to thank the hosts from Osijek and people that organized the tournament - Denes Kocis and Goran Damjanic - the venue was great, the food was amazing and the prize support/participation trophies were a steal, especially considering everything was included (the amazing grill lunch with a bunch of side dishes as well) for a measly 10€ tournament fee.
I would also like to thank everyone that came, everyone from Serbia, Zagreb, Hungary and our own Slovenian players.
The tournament winning deck: “Baron with anim 1.0” by Gyula Erdős
Crypt (12 cards)
2x Adrino Manauara 8 ANI DOM PRO pot baron Tzimisce: 6
2x Ángel Guerrero 7 ANI DOM PRO baron Tzimisce: 6
2x Massimiliano 7 ANI FOR pro baron Gangrel: 6
1x Branimira 6 ANI dom pre pro baron Tzimisce: 6
1x Kuyén 6 ANI PRO baron Gangrel: 6
1x Neserian 6 ANI DOM cel pro Tzimisce: 6
1x Gathii 5 ANI PRE obf Ravnos: 7
1x Whisper 5 ANI DOM pro Tzimisce: 6
1x Trung Chau Pham 3 ANI Ravnos: 7
Library (90 cards)
Master (19; 7 trifle)
1x Carfax Abbey
3x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Ennoia's Theater
1x Fame
1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
1x Giant's Blood
1x Information Highway
1x Papillon
1x Powerbase: Montreal
1x Rack, The
1x Vessel
5x Villein
1x Wider View
Action (13)
1x Army of Rats
6x Deep Song
6x Govern the Unaligned
Political Action (1)
1x Eat the Rich
Retainer (2)
1x Mr. Winthrop
1x Raven Spy
Action Modifier (1)
1x Conditioning
Action Modifier/Reaction (4)
4x Form of the Bat
Combat (31)
11x Aid from Bats
10x Carrion Crows
1x Donnybrook
3x Groundfighting
1x Target Vitals
3x Taste of Vitae
2x Voracious Vermin
Reaction (19)
4x Bait and Switch
3x Deep Ecology
3x Deflection
2x Delaying Tactics
1x On the Qui Vive
6x Organized Resistance
Fairly without any great need for judging, we managed to complete the tournament in peace. Gyula is a new Croatian National Champion!
I am very grateful for all the players that came to Osijek to participate in our event, and hope that they will come back next time. Our event was greatly sponsored by Ultra Pro and Black Chantry Productions!