This is not a high level tournament, but we want to include it here anyway as an example of a limited format event with a nice report by Skye Segal, VEKN Prince of Cape Town, South Africa. It was played on August 10 (preliminaries) and 11 (final).
This year we hosted the annual Dragonfire convention at University of Cape Town, and eight Cape Town kindred joined for this limited Fifth Edition format tournament. Rounds 1 and 2 saw two tables of four each.
The first game saw me (Tzimisce Wall) being ousted by Martin (Salubri Block Deny), a perfect counter, Hendrik, my cross-table ally playing Banu Haqim fell to the growing powers of Nick’s Brujah anarchs, and soon Martin’s Salubri were ousted after that. Nick (1 GW, 3 VP), Martin (1 VP).
The other table included Yancke playing a Tzimisce stealth-bleed, bleeding Justin’s Ventrue, in turn bleeding James’ Banu Rush, who bled Yancke’s predator, Jo, who had a straight up Malk stealth bleed deck! In the end it was Jo taking it (1 GW, 3 VP), and Justin (1 VP) after a miraculous recovery by beaten up and torporized Malks.
The tables were split up in the second round in accord with the mysteries of the Archon, and I fared a little better at my table playing a Toreador Grand Ball with Fortitude deck. I eventually took out Yancke’s stealth bleeding Tzimisce, while quashing my predator’s (Justin playing Ventrue) votes. Nick had set up a pretty strong Nosferatu wall which helped block many of Justin’s votes too, while not getting much pressure from Yancke. The game timed out a few rounds after Yancke being ousted (Skye 1.5 VP, Justin 0.5 VP, Nick 0.5 VP, no GW).
At the other table we saw Jo and James both playing Banu Haqim, however they were positioned cross table, Martin with Toreador as Jo’s prey, and Hendrik with his Ministry vote, as Jo’s predator. A Reckless Agitation from the Ministry saw both James and Jo ousted in the same round, and Hendrik soon ousted Martin too. Hendrik 1 GW and 3 VPs, and Martin 1 VP.
The results were in for the final, and due to a draw for 2nd and 3rd seed between Jo and Hendrik, our NC, Neil, flipped a coin and Jo won, giving rise to the final round table: Justin and Martin, both playing Ventrue, sat first, Hendrik with his Ministry vote decides to be downstream from Martin as predator and Justin as prey. Jo sits to Hendrik’s right with her Gangrel Anarchs Thing horde threatening the Ministry player, and finally Nick, with top seed, decides to sit in between the two Ventrue decks… commence the final!
The Ministry faced up to the Gangrel as their predator and Justin’s Ventrue as prey. Unfortunately, there ended up being 10 votes worth of titles on the table, so even with maximum vote push it was marginal whether Recklesses and Kines could get through. In the early game, votes from Martin’s Mithras helped get a few damaging votes against Justin, with voter-caps for some pool flowing in. However, the Gangrel were consistently bleeding for two to eight a round, and their Ventrue predator was weakened at that stage thanks to Mithras experiencing a Gangrel agg-poke. This allowed the Gangrel to go nearly entirely forward! The Ministry were struggling to find a single bait and switch to send the ravenous Gangrel downstream and the other Methuselahs were getting concerned about the impact of the Ministry big scary votes, so Martin joined in shutting down Hendrik, down-voting a Reckless which would have ousted Justin. After a Gangrel bleed that was bounced back and forth between the Ministry and Justin’s Ventrue, the Ministry were the first to be ousted.
Jo had a great early game with a 2-cap Gangrel playing Thing and bringing out an early baron and two other minions (eventually having 5 out). Her agg poke backwards on Mithras bought enough time to destroy Hendrik, but a terrible round occurred where she misplayed a few actions and forgot to play a freak-drive. The following round saw Martin self-rescue Mithras, freak-drive him, and bleed Jo out for 6.
Nick with his Brujah was the top seeded player, and chose to go in between the two Ventrue, hoping to beat up on them without fear of protean claws of the dead, which both Gangrel and Ministry could bring. Unfortunately, Aline Gadeke didn’t show up, and as the backbone of the Brujah deck, her absence ham-stringed play and forced Nick to dig through his crypt in the influence phase. However, there was a glorious Brujah moment when Martin’s Alexa Draper was disarmed and sent to torpor for a holiday, however with no further Immortal Grapples coming up for Nick, and Majesties on both sides, combat cards clumped and didn’t cycle into what was required to survive the vote pressure from Justin.
Eventually, close to the 2 hour mark, Nick’s Brujah were ousted by Justin’s Ventrue after failing to tear up the blue-bloods on either side. And with only the two Ventrue decks left at the table, the game timed-out: 1.5 VPs to Justin and Martin (a draw!), and 1 VP to Jo. No GW, but a technical win to Martin based on tournament points!
Congratulations Martin Mezzabotta on your first tournament win!
The tournament winning deck:
Crypt:
2 Mithras (G6)
2 Rose Abawi
1 Valerius
1 Alexa Draper
1 Alice Chen
1 Sybren van Oosten
1 Kevin Jackson
1 Horst von Brühl
1 Naomi Stewart
1 Oshri Dahan
4 Information Highway
3 Villein
3 Mithraic Cultist
2 Blood Doll
2 Vessel
1 Barrens, The
1 Dominate
1 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Giant's Blood
1 Uptown Hunting Ground
1 Ventrue Headquarters
1 Mithraeum, London, The
4 Enchant Kindred
4 Govern the Unaligned
1 Judgment: Camarilla Segregation
8 Freak Drive
4 Bewitching Oration
4 Conditioning
4 Voter Captivation
2 Change of Target
10 Majesty
4 Rolling with the Punches
4 Consanguineous Boon
4 Kine Resources Contested
8 Deflection
4 Second Tradition: Domain
2 Forced Awakening
2 On the Qui Vive
Big thank you to all methuselahs that joined and huge shout-out to Ryan Kruger of Pandemonium Games for Prize Support.
