VTES ONLINE 2020 SO FAR

In the absence of physical events, quite a lot of the community turn to online VTES, especially on LackeyCCG. With the help of Igor Beslin and Rudolf Scholz we have compiled this summary of online events this year:

In 2020, so far 24 online competitions, tournaments or leagues, have been played. Igor Beslin has organized four of these events:

• The first competition of the year was a league testing a new crypt contest rule, that was later officially announced and tested again by Black Chantry Productions. It started on the 13th of January and ended on the 23rd of February. Igor caught this idea from a Brazilian player, who had posted it on VEKN.net in 2019 and wanted to see how it would work. 31 players in total attended; 18 from Europe, 9 from North America, 2 from New Zealand, and 1 each from Mexico and Brazil. The winner was Marcin Krom from Poland, playing a Black Hand toolbox versus Malkavian´94 bleed, Massassi combat, Dom-Obf bleed and a Imbued toolbox.

• The next league was “Camarilla Revolution”, which started on the 13th of March and ended on the 27th of April. It was played with regular Standard Constructed VEKN rules. 37 players attended; 28 from Europe, 3 from North America, 3 from Brazil, 2 from Mexico and 1 from New Zealand. The winner was Igor Beslin from Serbia, playing The Unnamed bleed in the final, against Montano Baltimore Purge, Black Hand toolbox, Toreador AAA vote and Emerald Legionnaires wall.

• The third league was “Not Unique Vampires”, running from the 10th of May to the 22nd of June. This league used a special crypt contest rule, where all contested vampires remain in play but still requiring Methuselahs to pay for contesting. It was officially supported by Black Chantry with prizes for every participant and additional prizes for all finalists and the winner. Even though there was a lot of discussion in forums about the contest rule test, a record of 53 players in total participated, among them EC 2019 champion Otso Saariluoma and 2019 Online World champion Milutin Melka. 43 players were from Europe, 3 from North America, 6 from Brazil and 1 from Saudi Arabia (who now lives in Germany again). The winner was Marius Iscru from France, playing Emerald Legionnaires toolbox in the final against True Brujah toolbox, Fanchon & Malgorzata toolbox, Shambling Hordes rush and Jost & Rebekka bleed.

• The fourth event was “4 Eternal Nights”, a Standard Constructed 2 rounds + final multi-deck tournament that started on the 11th of September and ended with the finals played on the 20th of September. 14 players attended; 8 from Europe, 2 from North America, 1 each from Chile, Mexico, Brazil and Saudi Arabia. The winner this time was Jay Kristoff from USA, playing a Gangrel toolbox facing Malgorzata & Tzimisce toolbox, Blood Brother Chicago rush, Ventrue antitribu grinder and The Unnamed toolbox.

The German National Coordinator Rudolf Scholz has organized five competitions during summer time. Four of them were VEKN Standard Constructed 2 rounds + final events called “Summer Rumble I–IV”, with between 10 and 16 players per tournament. In total 27 different players from 13 different countries participated. Countries (and player numbers) were: Australia (1), Belgium (1), Denmark (1), France (1), Germany (5), Mexico (1), Poland (2), Saudi-Arabia (1), Serbia (2), Spain (1), Sweden (1), UK (7), USA (3).

• Summer Rumble I was won by Joscha Duell from Germany, playing Pander plus Inner Circle vote against The Unnamed Maleficia toolbox, Vlad Tepes & Malgorzata toolbox, Pander & Gehenna events vote and Enkidu rush.

• Summer Rumble II was won by Nikica Novakovic from Serbia, playing Malkavian anarch Madness wall against Anson Presence bleed, Dracon wall, Lasombra bruise-bleed and Dominate Vicissitude bruise-bleed.

• Summer Rumble III was won by Nikolaj Wendt from Denmark, playing Eurayle, Gotsdam & Maris toolbox against Ravnos breed-boon, Black Hand wall, Toreador antitribu Undue Influence bleed and Lutz bleed.

• Summer Rumble IV was won by Lionel Pandaleux from France, playing a “Girls will find” bleed deck against Mary Anne Blaire grinder, Auspex biggies wall, Toreador antitribu breed-vote and Guillaume Real Estate toolbox.

• The fifth event was the Storyline League “Mad World”, with a prologue written by Jan Erik Söderman. It was played from the 10th of July up to the 28th of August, with the usual Storyline crypt rule (75% from one single clan) and the special rule that the first vampire or Imbued put into play by every player started with a Vampiric Disease counter. 12 rounds were played, 31 players attended in total. The winner in a final described as a “5 player chess game” was the German player Jens Niemann, with Toreador AAA wall against Guillaume Real Estate toolbox, Emerald Legionnaires wall, Emerald Legionnares bleed and Malgorzata & Tzimisce toolbox.

On the 13th of June, UK National Coordinator Paul Jones organized the “Bleedfest”, a VEKN Standard 2 rounds + final tournament with 18 players attending. The final was won by Rudolf Scholz from Germany, piloting a Giovanni bleed deck against Kiasyd bleed, Dementation bleed, weenie Computer Hacking bleed and yet another Dementation bleed.

In addition to all these events, an additional 7 tournaments (that we know of) have been organized in Brazil, 4 in Spain, 1 in North America and 2 leagues in Mexico.

AN UPDATE ABOUT PRIZE SUPPORT

Black Chantry Products want to convey two bits about prize support:

• Black Chantry will continue helping with promo cards and products as prizes. This is normally at a “raw cost”, but sometimes for free, mainly to large events like continental and national championships, Grand Prix events, etc.

• There are many queries around custom prizes. If you want to make custom prizes (edges, counters, deckboxes, playmats, t-shirts, etc.), ask . These are the requirements:
- In the mail, be specific about what you want to make, for what event/events and (if any) what art you want to use.
- Never sell the item. Entry fee for an event is fine!
- After the event, mail in photos of the product for the company records.

The Catalan league has been running since last year, with a total of nine events gathering about 70 players. On October 3rd, the top 25 players were invited to the final tournament in Reus, Spain.

Congratulations to Aldo Fernández D'Ambrosio, 4 vp winner in the final! This is his master heavy tournament winning deck:

Crypt: 12
3x Annazir
4x Cybele
3x Nergal
2x Petaniqua

Library: 90
2x Archon Investigation
12x Ashur Tablets
3x Direct Intervention
3x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Fear of Mekhet
1x Giant's Blood
4x Golconda: Inner Peace
4x Information Highway
4x Liquidation
8x Minion Tap
1x Monastery of Shadows
5x Parthenon, The
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Ruins of Charizel
1x Wash
7x Zilla's Valley

2x Call the Great Beast
4x Entrancement
3x Unleash Hell's Fury

4x Cloak the Gathering
4x Elder Impersonation
4x Faceless Night
4x Lost in Crowds
3x Sense the Sin
4x Swallowed by the Night

Do you want to create content for the VEKN newsletter? Things that might be interesting to publish are:
- tournament reports
- strategic articles on a deck or deck archetype
- player interviews
- just about anything else that relates to VTES that is reasonably well written and not too long (2,000-6,000 characters including blanks seems about right)

Since March last year it has been possible to create your own VTES not-for-legal-play crypt cards at Drivethrucards.com - choose artwork, card names and effects, and also have the cards printed and sent to you. During this summer a test of Library cards has also been available, but because some bugs had to be chased out off the system, this hasn´t been widely marketed yet. But now it´s ready! So go to the site and try it out right now!

To make it easier for you to create balanced cards, a 6-page Card Creator Design Guidelines document has been produced. It details a creation point system for card types, disciplines, effects and drawbacks. You find this guide in the second step of the Card Creator, or just download it here: Card Creator Design Guidelines – Library Cards

CHANGES FOR VEKN MAILING LIST

The VEKN will stop using the old VEKN e-mail sendlist due to the data protection regulation (GDPR). Instead, we will gradually switch over to using Black Chantry channels for most communications. We therefore ask all players, especially Princes and National Coordinators, to please sign up for the Black Chantry newsletter, which, of course, is also the best way to get the most recent news about Vampire: The Eternal Struggle products. Register at www.blackchantry.com/newsletter

MEET THE VEKN: DENEŠ KOČIŠ, NATIONAL COORDINATOR OF CROATIA

What do you like most about the game?
- I like the complexity of it, the social interaction and the diversity of decks. I think I am most likely to remember the tough games when I manage to pull through and still win. I mostly play some deck with a twist and try to play to win in a certain way. But I am most happy having fun with my friends, no matter the outcome of the game played.

What is your all-time favorite deck?
- Stanislava & Co. That deck can stand on its own against the whole table. I think that its strenghts are versatility and speed. Its weaknesses? Well, against weenie decks the deck will crumble.

What other decks do you currently like playing?
- Euro-Brujah, Mini-dem bleed, weenie princes, African library, The AAA... the list goes on. But I don´t have much new tech brewing currently, too busy with real life at the moment.

Do you think you have a special style of playing?
- Not really. I don't talk a lot, that is my problem in the game. I can't talk table-hate off, and I find it hard to sell a sweet deal. I prefer to give short deals, but only if I am on the losing part ... to try and snatch a VP...

You are the National Coordinator for Croatia. How is the situation for VTES there?
- We are a small community, and the period of not printing really cut our numbers down. We have 3 cities with Princes. With the reawakening of the capital city of Zagreb, I encourage holding tournaments and reaching to our neighbours for participation. But, to be honest, we, as a whole country, have a regular base of 15-20 players. There is not much that I can do. The players got older, young players prefer online and easy games... I encourage the player base to reach out to their friends and try to engage them in some play, but I don't see many newcomers. Even the Magic society has dwindled down - that says a lot about our social and economic possibilities of engaging such hobbies. Keep up the good work and I hope that there will be more progeny in the future!