André on the left, with Baron José Fontenele and the special award playmat.
Reported by José Fontenele, Baron of Rio de Janeiro.
On the weekend of June 16, 2024, the Third Edition of the Rookie League took place at Manavai, located in Campo Grande, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The tournament was created with the aim of introducing the game to new methuselahs, and, in this third edition, it featured a healthy mix of 28 players, including experienced and beginners playing VTES.
It is important to mention that it was the first official tournament in this location and that, despite the fear of scheduling the event in a new location, players from all over the state of Rio de Janeiro appeared at the event. Showing the strength of the largest playgroup in the country, we have methuselahs from São João de Meriti, Sepetiba, Nova Iguaçú, Volta Redonda and different neighborhoods of the state capital.
I want to highlight that there was a special award that may have motivated so many players to come: a playmat with official Black Chantry art for the winner. The art was kindly provided by Ginés Quiñonero, whom I thank for his attention and generosity. In addition to the awards, what was seen was a meeting of new and experienced Methuselahs exchanging opinions about the game and discussing winning strategies.
After 2 big rounds, the final table featured the following decks and players:
In the end, André Luiz became the winner with his Salubri V5 Grinder. I asked him to write down his vision of the final table and received the following words:
“As they say… the last will be the first. I entered the table in fifth place. Since I had a !Malk B&S deck under my belt, I thought I´d raise a vampire as quickly as possible. Saulot gave me his blessing. I started with Powerbase: Montreal and Sight Beyond Sight in hand and with 4 influence to go. I started calling the Ukrainian soldier [Opikun], and placing the master Sight Beyond Sight to defend against !Malk attacks. The main vampires Abaddon and Serafina did not come to this table. I had to turn around. When a Smilling Jack hit the table, everyone agreed to try to remove it, giving 2 turns of peace when it came out. Once again the Ukrainian soldier saved the day by taking Smilling from Felipe. In these 2 turns of peace I managed to set up my setup and disturb José a little… remembering that the agreement was 2 turns without bleed. When Alan played another Smilling, everyone again agreed to remove it, and once again Salubri managed to do the dirty work by removing the Smilling. Alan tried to negotiate not to take it away, but Smilling… you know… has been winning tables since 1994.
Without Smilling at the table, everyone went back to normal play. As Alan was aggressively rushing the !Malks, Notorius began the retaliation by bleeding backwards. I started attacking my prey with a lot of bleeds and block-fails, and José started doing the same with his prey. I was impressed by the number of bleed-bouncing cards that Felipe used to survive Malk attacks. He used Heart of Nizchetus very well to filter the deck. Felipe managed to divert all of Malk bleeds to Alan, and then managed to take out his prey with his bleeds. Alan was the first placed in the tournament for the table and the first to leave the table... as it should be...
As the !Malk deck was left without a predator, Salubri got a target on its forehead. !Malk, without mercy or mercy, began to bleed heavily. I managed to pass some bleeds and block others (I took Coma x2). Even though Notorius bleeds all the time, I managed to take José´s Malk out of the game.
Now it got serious. Tremere and !Malk joined forces to weaken the Salubri as much as possible. Saulot gave his blessing once again. I managed to get through and take some !Malk bleeds without much harm and prevented the Tremere aggravations. Finally I managed to take out the Tremere and went all in on the !Malks with the gang of angry Salubri: 5 vampires. Victory!!!!! The Salubri V5 deck, with its new cards, considerably improves the grinder archetype.”
The tournament winning deck: "Salubri V5 Grinder"
Crypt (12 cards)
2x Abaddon 8 AUS DOM FOR cel pot Salubri:7
1x Seraphina 8 AUS DOM FOR cel tha Salubri:7
2x Ilonka 7 AUS DOM FOR tha Salubri:7
2x Aniel 6 AUS DOM for Salubri:7
1x Castellan 6 AUS FOR cel dom Salubri:7
1x Malachi 6 AUS DOM FOR Salubri:7
1x Sakhar 6 AUS FOR dom Salubri:7
2x Opikun 5 FOR aus dom Salubri:7
Library (90 cards)
Master (14; 3 trifle)
2x Anarch Troublemaker
1x Direct Intervention
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Meditative Grove
1x Misdirection
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Powerbase: Montreal
1x Saulot´s Guiding Wisdom
1x Sight Beyond Sight
1x Sudden Reversal
3x Vessel
Action (14)
8x Feast of the Soul´s Secrets
6x Govern the Unaligned
Action/Combat (4)
4x Touch of Valeren
Equipment (2)
1x Bowl of Convergence
1x Heart of Nizchetus
Action Modifier (20)
2x Conditioning
5x Forced Confessional
1x Foreshadowing Destruction
6x Freak Drive
3x Seduction
3x Unleashing the Bestial Soul
Combat (14)
6x Hidden Strength
4x Rolling with the Punches
4x Weighted Walking Stick
Reaction (22)
6x Deflection
2x Delaying Tactics
6x Eyes of Argus
2x My Enemy´s Enemy
2x On the Qui Vive
4x Telepathic Misdirection
I want to thank Editora Conclave and Baron Márcio who helped with the promotional cards for the event and all the participants present. It was just the first of many. Let´s play VTES!