This tournament was played with 25 Methuselahs on March 1. Report by the winner Hugh Aldous:

Decklist: “Top of the Pile” (as I only picked this due to it being on the top of my card pile the morning of the GP).
Crypt:
5 Stanislava
3 Xavier
2 Ingrid Rossler
1 Genevieve
1 Hartmut Stover

Library: 88 cards
Masters:
9 Zillah’s Valley
5 Villein
2 Jake Washington
2 Perfectionist
1 Giant’s Blood
1 Monastery of Shadows
1 Ennoia’s Theatre
1 Backways
1 Ecoterrorists

Actions:
6 Govern the Unaligned

Political Actions:
2 Parity Shift
2 Kine Resources Contested
4 Camarilla’s Iron Fist
3 Banishment
1 Disputed Territory
1 Ancient Influence
1 Political Stranglehold
1 Reins of Power
1 Neonate Breach

Allies:
1 Double Deuce
1 Carlton van Wyk

Retainers:
2 Homunculus

Action Modifiers:
5 Earth Control
1 Enkil Cog
5 Forced March
5 Freak Drive
4 Instantaneous Transformation
3 Momentary Delay

Combat:
5 Earth Meld
5 Form of Mist

Reaction:
6 Deflection

Note: This is taken after the final round, a few players had left already.

The early rounds:

The first round of the Australian Gran Prix was held in Melbourne, a southern city in the state of Victoria (It is the mainland part above the tiny island). We had people flying in from all around the country and New Zealand. The organisers had hosted it in our local nerd store, Plenty of Games, with about 25 players in attendance. The first few rounds are always a good chance to catch up with people and get into the groove of playing. Many of the attendees in the Aus scene know each other, as we tend to travel for events. I chose to take whatever deck happened to be on top of my pile of cards that morning, as I had only got permission decided to play maybe two days prior. In my usual style, I could not remember if I had picked up my Daughters of Cacophony Opera deck or Stanislava. Hence round 1 was a blind shuffle and surprise. I think the other players would rather I not poorly sign Carmen while playing, so Stanislava it was. It is not a hugely original build, but taking some inspiration from other games regarding tempo and opportunity cost advantage, it does try to win quickly and efficiently with multiple acting large vamps. It is the same deck that I had taken to the Aus Continentals last year in Sydney funnily enough.

My first round consisted of holding off some of our youngest, but in no ways inexperienced, players from beating me to death with Nos. Our Queen does not like being rushed at all. A quick speed dual ousts allowed me to remove two players in quick succession and then proceed to sweep the table. It is worth noting that my prey in the final was on this table, Daniel S.

My second game was by far some of the best VTES I have played. As half of my Stani build relies upon vote, but not beholden entirely to it, seeing three vote decks and a Brujah baron beat face as my predator was not great. Fortunately, some of my cross tables were willing to discuss options, and what followed was two hours of intense negotiations on just about every action being taken. Trust me in that some may find this to be the most piss boring thing to do, but it was some of the best and most nuanced VTES I have played to this day. Big props to all the players in that round especially Dave S and Ke C. My days highlight was that one Disputed Territory was passed in a 35 to 33 vote, and it wasn’t the vote that I intended to need to pass. It took 14 minutes to pass. Of note that Rich A was in this round.

Random titles are a thing apparently.

My third game was a near blur at this point, one of my mates for a long time was my prey, Matthew O N, and flubbed in his crypt draw for Valkyries. Awkwardly, I also was not able to hit the gas and take advantage of this. IIRC I did end up getting ousted in the last few minutes of the game. Of note that Nathaneal was in this round and would be in the final.

Standings before the final:
1. Richard Aumann 2 GW 8.0 VP
2. Nathaneal Zheng 2 GW 7.5 VP
3. Daniel Spivak 1 GW 6.0 VP
4. Hugh Aldous 1 GW 5.5 VP
5. Justin Evans 1 GW 5.0 VP

The final:

With 1 GW and a few VPs I was able to get into the final table. The final itself was held a few doors down at a hotel bar and lounge, a practice we have done before. Out of the other four players, I knew roughly what three of them were running. My predator was a gentleman named Justin, who had travelled to play. This had me a bit wary, as I cannot predict how they will react or their own tells. Dan S paying a stealth bleed thing was fine, as in my mind he could weaken Nathaneal. This was vital to my position as I would be competing with Nathaneal over titles and knowing his cockroach build of flicking everything that comes his way I would somewhat struggle to land a blow at all. Rich A was playing Banu Haqim, a build which I have tried to get to work since V5 dropped but am still eternally going to struggle with. In my experience it is inconsistent, but Rich had his own spin with Infernal Pursuits. This is another that I needed to keep in check as if Rich was able to drain any of my vamps my game plan would be cooked, but inshallah this unknown (to me) Justin can do something. Turned out Justin was playing some Gangrel Wolfpack, another build I have tried and do quite like. I thought that at least I can judge the person unknowingly while having some idea of the deck being played.

And then my crypt failed me. I drew two Xaviers, and Ingrid and Genevieve. Though there was enough Valley to pump a vamp out, being player one with this put me far behind. Early on Nathaneal and I had an agreement to be closer to the friends end of the frenemies scale, as we both needed to pass votes until adjacent. As people knew I was playing Stanis, seeing Ingrid flipped over as my first vamp raised some eyebrows. It was useful enough to then purchase new crypt and villein them to essentially just a flick bank for Deflection. After another four rounds I was able to get Stanis out, and then the game actually began for me at 3 pool.

A cross table Political Stranglehold and cheeky pool gain let me then bring out Xavier. My thinking was that I needed to pick up my infant son from his babysitter, and either I win quickly or just lose. This turned out to be the correct choice, as it allowed me to oust Dan S, and begin to stabilise.

Justin had continuously bled me for one or two with his tiny Gangrel, but he upset the applecart when blocking a political action by Ingrid, and proceeding to burn them with agg damage.

At about the one and a half hour mark, Nathaneal had their pool going up and down like the stock market, and I was able to sneak an Enkil Cog onto Xavier. Rich was not getting through the Gangrel, and they were starting to run out of gas which tends to happen with the Wolfpack build. I was further able to contest the Double Deuce on my back, and get Jake Washington to take a hit for the team.

The entire game I had been trying to line up negotiations with all the players, really discarding the never negotiating with your prey/predator hypothesis out the window. Akin to the second round, having to navigate the game state while accounting for different motivations is one of the aspects that makes VTES unique in my experience. He even encouraged me to break a deal just made with Justin to not block a parity shift that would target Nathaneal, only to then have it target him. I also had to consider keeping Rich alive as my support for votes had him being targeted by Nathaneal, given that V5 Banu Haqim have not an insignificant number of votes. I didn’t understand why exactly people were accepting and then following through on agreements this late in the game, but who am I to correct them. As one player said to the others, ‘Hugh holds grudges for a long time across games’. I have no idea what they mean.

We are playing for sheep stations at this level, and that would be the third deal I broke that day. I am not sorry.

Then, surprisingly, Xavier was able to sneak through a bleed for two. It landed and Nathaneal was ousted. The entire game changed. I honestly did not expect to be able to get through Nathaneal and their Aksinya build.

However, I was not about to count my eggs hatching and with about twenty minutes left on the clock I held and hoped that my pool would be able to hold the wolves at bay until time. In all fairness I played my turns super quick to allow the other players to attempt to get ousts, only bleeding with Double Deuce to move the Edge to affect game state. All my remaining vamps were sent to torpor. Rich got close to ousting Justin, but time was called.

With that, and a victory tawny supplied by the hotel, I ran off to get my son after thanking everyone. Coming from a quite bad position for a build that relies on action economy and efficient resource use to threaten negotiate its way to not being ousted first was good VTES, and the quality of gameplay was very high.

The event was well managed, and support from both BCP and locals was amazing. The next leg of the Gran Prix will be held in Perth, the other side of our country. I eagerly await to see who can claim the WA title, and how many deals Ben S can break in a day.

Thanks for this report, and thanks to all organisers, sponsors and players!