This is not a high level tournament like the ones we normally mention here, but we want to include it as an example of a smaller event with a nicely written report.

The Victorian State Championship, commonly referred to as The Vics is an annual event in Victoria Australia. This year we had 13 participants and they competed in 3 rounds + a final. The playgroup is a mix of seasoned veterans (playing since Jyhad) and some newer blood. We play high calibre VTES and the games are good.

Final seating:
1. Rathpex (2 GW, 8.5 VP) playing Toolbox Gangrel >
2. Rich (2 GW, 5.5VP) playing G1/2 Toreador Celerity Guns >
3. Erin (1 GW, 6.5 VP) playing Tzimisce G7 bleed >
4. Nathaniel (1 GW, 3 VP) playing Matasuntha Wall >
5. Jay (1 GW, 5 VP) playing Malgorzata, Lord Tremere & Mistress Fanchon >

Seating was key to the final and we all agreed to keep Matasuntha bleeding into Malgorzata. Going into the final as top seed, I wanted to be as far away from the two wall decks as possible. So I was forced to be bled by new Tzimisce for the third time in the tournament. I won the first round matchup but not the second round, managing only 1 VP for the round.

The final started off strong all round but after about 5 rounds the game got very tight. Matasuntha was amassing a host equipment, not locking for blocking and had Massimilano as a friend. Malgorzata had an Ivory Bow and a Heart + Lord Tremere had a Bowl. They had Ossian on their side to boot. The Tzimisce had 3 or so minions out but hadn’t drawn into the British museum, the had the Carfax Abby out though. I was lucky enough to get Kuyen and Casey in my opening crypt and then get 2 Raven Spy’s onto Kuyen. I drew very few Thing’s early on and no Monkey Wrench’s. Meanwhile my prey, the Toreador was scared to go too forward. A few rushes into Matasuntha saw not a lot of a result.

The game took an interesting turn when Massimilano was blocked by Malgorzata and then Rötschreck’d. Somehow Malgorzata also ended up in the bin and Lord Tremere was left with just Ossian. The forward momentum from Malgorzata was minimal, just some flicks and 2 rushes from Ossian where the combat ended quite abruptly from the Tzimisce with no effect. This left the Tzimisce free rain to bleed to their hearts content and they had 4 minions. I managed to flick some, and block more unlocking with Earth Melds.

I eventually managed to get out 4 minions, an Army of Rats and Mr Winthrop on Casey. I had spent an action, and my precious 2 blood to rescue Malgorzata only for her to go down the following turn. I wasn’t going to be able to rescue her again. I was constrained to 2 actions a turn – needing the permanent intercept to stop myself from being ousted. I was down to 6 pool at after one hefty round of bleeding. I somehow managed to get 1 Thing off a turn, using the other vamp to bleed with – not to much success. My minions were very dry on blood having been Villeined to keep me in the game.

The clock ticked on and Toreador was below 10 pool so took a couple of turns literally doing nothing except for discarding a card. All he had was a Francoise and Felicia Mostrom whose gun had been gnawed on by some Voracious Vermin. Matasuntha had recovered and was now bleeding for 2 at 3 Strength with an Enkil Cog. Ossian bit the dust with after being forced to block.

Tzimisce at this stage had cycled through most of their deck and failed to get a single bleed action into me. I was finally able to consolidate my pool. I had kept The Edge and was able to gain a pool plus do another thing. I spent this turns pool to recruit my own Ossian. At best, he’d put down a Tzimisce and at worst he’d force them to spend living manse.

More actions passed with Matasuntha and Massimiliano regaining some power. Malgorzata was back from torpor and was allowed to hunt. Then Tzimisce ran out of cards before they could get me. I had ran out of blood on my vamps and needed to spend a turn hunting I had finally drawn into a Monkey Wrench and I also had a Rewilding ready to gobble up an Art Museum but not this turn... This allowed Toreador to have a go – and finally drop both Matasuntha and Massimiliano. But the clock had gotten away. The 2.5 hour timer went off during Malgorzata’s turn.

Final result 0.5 VP a piece. This was an absolutely epic game riding a rollercoaster of who would be ousted first and in the end no one was. Big shout out to my Predator, Erin – she played really well and I seriously thought she was going to get me on several occasions.

Tournament Winning Deck: “The Cockroaches of VTES” by Rathpex.

2x Massimiliano   7 ANI FOR pro   baron Gangrel:6
2x Casey Snyder   6 PRO ani cel for   baron Gangrel:6
2x Kuyén   6 ANI PRO   baron Gangrel:6
1x Martina Srnankova   6 FOR PRO ani   Gangrel:6
1x Kamile Paukstys   5 PRO ani for   Gangrel:6
1x Mickey Wheeler   5 ani cel for pro   Gangrel:6
1x Hanna Nokelainen   4 ani for pro   Gangrel:6
1x Nathan Turner   4 PRO ani   Gangrel:6
1x Indira   3 PRO   Gangrel:6

Library (90 cards)
Master (21; 7 trifle)
1x Anarch Free Press, The
2x Carfax Abbey
1x Club Illusion
2x Ecoterrorists
2x Gangrel Revel
2x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
4x Sudden Reversal
5x Villein
2x Wash

Action (17)
1x Army of Rats
2x Rewilding
2x Status Perfectus, The
12x Thing

Ally (1)
1x Ossian

Equipment (1)
1x Heart of Nizchetus

Retainer (4)
1x Mr. Winthrop
3x Raven Spy

Action Modifier (12)
7x Earth Control
5x Monkey Wrench

Combat (20)
4x Donnybrook
12x Earth Meld
4x Form of Mist

Reaction (14)
7x Bait and Switch
7x Organized Resistance

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.