Reported by José Fontenele, VEKN Baron of Rio de Janeiro:
On Sunday, June 7th, the tournament "1st Step of the South American VTES Grand Prix" was held at the Tijuca Municipal Club, within the Iniciativa RPG event in Rio de Janeiro, the largest RPG event in the state. With a record attendance of 39 players, we had three extensive rounds of combat, (many) bleeds, and manipulations to conquer the coveted spot in the final and the Grand Prix title. It is necessary to have Fortitude!
A three-round tournament plus a final is no easy feat. From the start, it was necessary to worry both about the time of the rounds and the sanity needed to pilot the same deck in different scenarios and conditions. As many players present had never played in this format before, I heard reports of mental fatigue and even stress with their own deck – which is why we always recommend choosing a deck you already master in tournaments. This makes each round less tiring and also helps in planning each table's victory.
Regarding the decks present, it was noticeable how the fierce competition to reach the final (and secure an even more complete prize pool) led the players, in majority, to choose decks focused on bleeds for the tournament. At every table there was at least one, and even two or three decks focused on inflicting the maximum possible damage on the prey, just in different ways. We had bleeds with allies (merciless specters), bleeds with votes, bleeds with swarms, power bleeds, low-cap bleeds, and high-cap bleeds. On the other hand, it was also possible to find combat decks, vote decks (we had a rare Legacy of Pander deck), and powerful walls to slow down or redirect the heavier bleeds.
There was, therefore, a whole hodgepodge of strategies, machinations, and manipulations to snag a spot in the championship final. With the tight schedule and moods affected by each round where "the deck wouldn't run" or "the cross-over didn't help," among other justifications for things not going well, we had 3 very competitive rounds where it was possible to witness a five-way tie between third and eighth place in the number of VPs until the final round.
In other words, as I heard from other more experienced players, only the decks that truly performed well in all rounds made it to the final. And the finalists, with their respective decks, were:
1. Anderson Pinto Rodrigues 2 GW 10 VP
2. Alberto Ferreira e Sousa 2 GW 8 VP 156 TP
3. Gabriel Mattos 2 GW 8 VP 156 TP
4. Cristiano Cordeiro Teixeira Vaz 2 GW 7 VP 168 TP
5. Yuri Furtado Prange 2 GW 7 VP 144 TP
The final table promised plenty of excitement. Gabriel Mattos is the current city champion, Yuri Prange is another great champion (currently the Top-1 in the State), and there's also the experienced Cristiano, Prince of Niterói, emerging with his Nosferatu decks; “Bacia”, an experienced tournament player, and, making his finals debut, Anderson “Panda”, who earlier had the luck of winning a Dark Sovereigns booster pack and also taking home a brand new Arika card as a prize.
After a little over an hour and a half of play, Anderson “Panda” won the GP! First final and first championship, 100% success rate. Respect! He's the one who tells us about how the last game went:
"In the final, there he was again, I met Yuri once more to thwart my dream of becoming a tournament champion. I've been playing since 1998 and have always been just another participant in the championships. Also in the final, Cristiano with his Nosferatu, whom I met in the previous round, "Bacia," and Gabriel "Joe Stock," both with their Oblivion vampires, filled the table with Spectral Servitors.
As the first in the overall score, I could choose my position at the table and decided to risk being preyed upon by the Nosferatu, also seeing that he would be in trouble with the Spectral Servitors. Gabriel started in sprint mode, raised his vampires, who in turn summoned their Spectrals, and there they all went to bleed 3 or more against Cristiano, who seemed like he wouldn't last long.
For me, it was a relief. Either Cristiano focused on surviving or he gave up the game if he wanted to attack me. Those who were blocked met their bloodthirsty crows and bats, or spectral plasma." "Bacia," in the same recipe, raises a vampire, who recruits Spectral Servitor, and everyone starts bleeding the prey. I watched, summoning a Thing here, another I read, giving my humble bleeds of 1, which were accepted and turned into Propaganda of the Deed on the table.
And then she appeared again, Luck, Yuri equips himself with a miraculous Gran Madre di Dio. Gabriel immediately warned, "if you equip it, the servitors will be practically nullified." And so it was, after that the course of the match changed completely. Gabriel goes all out and kills Cristiano; "Bacia" is increasingly drying up Yuri's pool, and I see the Hecata already sitting on the table to decide between the two who would be the champion.
I waited and Gabriel came with his bleeds, my Bait and Switch were already waiting for him, 3 bleeds passed to the prey and "Bacia" has his pool zeroed. In my hand the final card. Turn passed to me and I call a Revolutionary Council, having 6 vampires in play, nobody blocks, I kill Yuri and Gabriel in the same action, giving a VP of thanks for the Gran Madre di Dio.
Thiago Souza, our match judge, even says that it was with refinements of cruelty.
It was a great joy, my friends, to win a tournament of your favorite game, in an event with 40 participants and 3 rounds plus a final – it was special. Now that song by The Cardigans – ‘Losing’ in My Favorite Game sounds different to me”.
Champion's deck: "Thing in the Tijuca Forest"
2x Casey Snyder 6 PRO ani cel for baron Gangrel:6
2x Kuyén 6 ANI PRO baron Gangrel:6
1x Massimiliano 7 ANI FOR pro baron Gangrel:6
1x Ángel Guerrero 7 ANI DOM PRO baron Tzimisce:6
1x André the Manipulator 6 FOR PRO Gangrel:5
1x Branimira 6 ANI dom pre pro baron Tzimisce:6
1x Kamile Paukstys 5 PRO ani for Gangrel:6
1x Nathan Turner 4 PRO ani Gangrel:6
1x Indira 3 PRO Gangrel:6
1x Ruslan Fedorenko 2 pro Gangrel:6
Library (90 cards)
Master (23; 1 trifle)
6x Villein
4x Effective Management
2x Archon Investigation
1x Anarch Railroad
1x Backways
1x Carfax Abbey
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Ecoterrorists
1x Ennoia's Theater
1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
1x Giant's Blood
1x Information Highway
1x Parthenon, The
1x Powerbase: Montreal
Action (14)
13x Thing
1x Rewilding
Action Modifier (11)
5x Propaganda of the Deed
4x Earth Control
2x Monkey Wrench
Action Modifier/Reaction (4)
4x Form of the Bat
Combat (15)
9x Earth Meld
4x Form of Mist
2x Claws of the Dead
Political Action (6)
2x Consanguineous Boon
2x Eat the Rich
2x Revolutionary Council
Reaction (17)
7x Bait and Switch
6x Organized Resistance
2x Delaying Tactics
2x Deep Ecology
Our friend Lucas "Odin" Guimarães made a great video on his YouTube channel showing the RPG event and also the VTES championship.
Acknowledgments
A Grand Prix like this, with a record number of participants, lots of prizes, and widespread player satisfaction, is not something that is built alone. I want to thank all the participating players, the people who came from Araruama, Nova Iguaçu, Itaocara, Volta Redonda, São João de Meriti, Niterói, the West and Southwest Zones, the city center, in short, everyone who traveled on a somewhat cold Sunday to Tijuca to play VTES (and enjoy RPG at Iniciativa as well).
The prizes were another highlight of the championship, so I want to thank Editora Conclave (www.conclaveweb.com.br), Gabriel Mattos from Joe Stock (www.joestock.com.br), and Jean from VTES Store (www.vtesstore.com.br), great partners who fostered the GP's prizes.
I would also like to thank two friends who played very important roles in running the championship: Thiago Santos, who was our head judge throughout the tournament, and our comrade Archbishop Marcelo Farias, who gave a VTES workshop to those interested. Thank you all! Until next time, and let's play VTES!
For clarity: The South American GP consists of three stages: two in Brazil and one in Chile. The final stage takes place in the country that is not hosting the South American Championship itself. This year, the first stage happened in Rio de Janeiro. The second stage will take place in Fortaleza (in August), and the third in Santiago, Chile. There is also the Brazil GP, where State and Regional events count towards the final table during the Brazilian Championship.
Thanks for this report and thanks to all organisers, sponsors and players!