TWD: No Deal. Joensuu, 17.11.2012, Finland

No Deal
17.11.2012
Joensuu
Finland

2R+F

Whoo, 14 players! I hope next month it'll be equally as much.

So, it was great we got a proper tournament now that this one was one of the beta tournies for the rankings archives. People get much more involved in the games when their scores get archived.

Anyways, Tomi Sillanpää got yet another tournament win! His Enkidu was pretty much unstoppable, even though the competition throughout the tournament was pretty tough. Our players are getting better all the time, I'd argue! Well done, everyone!

Here's a compilation of events in the finals. I didn't get to note everything that happened, but I got the beginning and the end. Anything in between didn't seem to have much importance anyways, and the game was slipping steadily to Enkidu.


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Kari-Pekka Mustonen (!Tremere starter kitbash) 1VP
Sebastian Schiavone (G2 Kiasyd stealth & bleed) 0VP
Tomi Sillanpää (Enkidu multirush) 3VP + GW
Jani Malmi (Dmitra toolbox) 0VP
Timo Tikkanen (!Toreador breed & bleed) 1VP


Sebastian was top seed. Jani and K-P started, Tomi decided to sit in front of K-P and Timo at cross-table from him.

Sebastian had a tough choice where to go – he suspected Enkidu would be rushing him anyways, so he decided to sit behind him to get as early an oust as possible. Hopefully without an Enkidu at the table he’d have some space to play his game: bleed like a maniac.

Sebastian played a Dreams at his first turn, and the rest of the finalists began to despair right away. Despite this it took him three turns to bring out Marconius, and he and Enkidu popped up at the same time. The rest brought vampires like Karen Suadela and Klaus Konrecht. At least there would be a contest of vote lock.

Sebastian tried to make a deal with Enkidu, but Tomi just shrugged and said that there was nothing he could promise. Marconius decided to govern down instead of forwards, and Enkidu took a rush against the newly governed Kassiym. It seems he didn’t like the idea of dominate behind him that much. After Enkidu bled for one and took an Enkil Cog. Nervous laughter around the table ensued.

The Kiasyd asked Timo to rescue his vampire (now in need of dental care), and implied that he could somehow get blood on him so that he could bleed. Timo wasn’t that interested, however, and it seemed that the rest of the table wasn’t too enthusiastic about helping a S&B.

Indeed Kassiym drank some Giants Blood, rose and Marconius bled Tomi for 5. Suddenly he had 3 minions and 6 pool, and Tomi was facing an oust if he didn’t take Sebastian’s minions out quickly. And, like magic, Seba’s minions were reduced to Kassiym only, without teeth. Tomi asked if Seba would settle down, but the answer took too long: rushes it was.

At this point Jani was thinking if his Dimitra and Karen would do better against Enkidu or the Kiasyd. Lots of table talk ensued, and the rest started to question what it was worth to them if Seba was saved from torpor. The concensus was 'none', and Timo’s votes decided that Seba should get nothing, even blood from Dmitra’s vote.

“It’s been half an hour with half of it as table talk – someone’s gotta go.” –Timo Tikkanen

Next the rest of the table started to play their own games as well. K-P blocked Klaus’ Embrace action and bursted some sunlight through Majesties with a Rötschreck. Timo was packing three more minions, however, but Jani’s future with votes started to look a little brighter. In fact, next turn resulted in Dmitra getting Archon. Enkidu laughed.

“Yeah, well, from my perspective you can rush anywhere you like.”
-Tomi Sillanpää

Next K-P ousted Sebastian with a conditioning. At the end of his turn, however, Enkidu used Enkil Cog to start his back-rush routine again on K-P, torporising a minion.

The rest of the game ensued in chaotically controlled mayhem, where Enkidu rushed all over, disarmed people and stuff, but eventually at 51 minutes every vampire left at the table were still there – K-P remains at 1 pool and three vampires at this time, Archoned Dmitra (still coupled with Karen) is at zero blood and the !Toreador are largely at good health. Enkidu remains at almost full blood, and Tomi sits on top of 6 pool. Klaus is rushed next from crosstable, but he remains ready. Tomi is threatened by the depletion of his deck after his turn – a quarter is left.

Dmitra fills the !Toreador with blood in exchange of votes from Foundation Exhibit – all but !Tremere and Enkidu profit. Jani hops up to 5 pool, and Timo starts his ordeal to reduce K-P:s one pool to zero. This attempt results in Justine Chen ending up in torpor, and the !Tremere being in as good health as where they started from. Enkidu seems happy to let the !Tremere live, and continues his rushing spree to reduce Jani’s minions to Dmitra only. Codex of the Edenic Groundkeepers bleeds for four, and Dmitra feels kinda lonely (with an Assault Rifle and Disguised Weapon in hand).

The !Toreador decided that trying an oust would be futile next turn, so they just rescue Karen (followed by a wail from Enkidu: “It’s so futile!”), recruit an Embrace and bring out Venere Carboni. The Toreador are once again at five minions, but Timo is only at four pool.

Karen is rushed with Enkil Cog at K-P:s very defensive turn, so Jani is starting to sweat again. Next Dmitra is in the line of fire, and is duly hit to 0 blood. Codex and Enkil Cog bleeds for 5 are enough to oust Jani.

Timo takes his lunge, and K-P makes a single mistake – instead of blocking he decided to reduce a bleed of 2 to 0, which was then topped up to 2 again, ousting K-P. Timo and Tomi remain at a duel, with one VP each.

An oust, and a Consanguineous Boon with some breeding take Timo to 16 pool, and Tomi’s deck is all but depleted. His first rush is Majestied, but that’s basically where Timo’s deck can go. Their decks deplete basically at the same time, and Enkidu with Enkil Cog, Monster, Mr. Winthrop and Metro Undeground basically shuts down Timo’s game completely. At 20 minutes left at the clock Tomi continues to torporise all of Timo’s minions, and soon after Timo is bled dry. Tomi concludes the tournament final with 3 VP + GW.

Well done Tomi, with yet another tournament win!


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Deck Name : Toreador Power Bleed
Author : Aleksi Nuora (ever so slightly modified by Tomi Sillanpää)
Played by: Tomi Sillanpää
Description : Credit Aleksi for creating this fine deck. I swapped just a few cards from his list to add in an Enkil Cog, and a Metro UG, which I thought might help my game... And sure enough they did.

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 11 average: 6.25

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5x Enkidu, The Noah 11 ANI CEL OBF POT PRO for !Gangrel:4
2x Andre LeRoux 3 aus Toreador:5
1x Fairuza 4 CEL pre !Brujah:5
1x Idrissa 4 CEL aus Osebo:4
1x T.J. 3 cel for Gangrel:4
1x Clifton Derrik 2 cel Brujah:4
1x Anarch Convert 1 Caitiff:0

Library [90 cards]

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Action [11]
1x Abbot
1x Ambush
1x Big Game
1x Bum's Rush
1x Deep Song
1x Harass
1x Heroic Might
1x Rumble
2x Sense Death
1x Taunt the Caged Beast

Action Modifier [2]
1x Forced March
1x Enkil Cog

Combat [69]
1x Armor of Vitality
3x Claws of the Dead
2x Disarm
10x Earth Meld
18x Psyche!
2x Pulled Fangs
14x Pursuit
4x Sideslip
2x Elemental Stoicism
1x Street Cred
12x Taste of Vitae

Equipment [1]
1x Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers

Master [6]
1x Monster
1x Pentex(TM) Subversion
1x Villein
1x Wash
1x Wider View
1x Metro Underground

Retainer [1]
1x Mr. Winthrop

It says the name of the deck is "Toreador Power Bleed".

2x Andre LeRoux 3 aus Toreador:5

Here is your power bleeder.

Funny that people would get more scared of the Kyasid than of Enkidu.

Kraus wrote:

2x Elemental Stoicism

Good call, strictly superior to Skin of Night. Too bad it's a Bloodline rare

Non-existant user wrote:

2x Andre LeRoux 3 aus Toreador:5

Here is your power bleeder.

Funny that people would get more scared of the Kyasid than of Enkidu.

That's what I thought but in this meta it seems it's less intimidating to play Enkidu multi-rush than s&b which I still find quite funny. I quess people's collective fear of Dominate has just somehow escalated here to a point where they faced rather Enkidu than g2 faeries. But I take comfort in the fact that Enkidu gloriously raped the whole table and not just me and people quite much got what they bargained for in that. My own death in the hands of prey-Enkidu in the other hand was propably mostly just my on fault as I should have definitely had taken my seat from Enkidu's crosstable and not behind it. Ofcourse I could rant something about that whole table could have done something against Enkidu collectively and together from the start but that would be pointless at this point I quess.

Anyways great tournament! Congratulations to Tomi and thanks for Kraus again for organizing this.

To Gilaelin, it's not so much about collective fear of dominate, than the fact that if you had gotten some room to breathe you would have breezed through me and then breezed through Jani (who didn't play any bounce as far as I could see). With two ousts under your belt you would have pretty much been unstoppable, or that's how I see it anyways you people are free to disagree

Who the table fears the most does depend a lot on what people are actually playing in the said table. And to be fair I didn't get an easy gw at all. I was at really low pool the whole game and had to do a lot of crosstable rushing (with a lot of talking ) to survive. Also I understand quite well why Jani feared the Kiasyd more than Enkidu, as he had some combat, but didn't pack bounce

It was a good final game, thanks to everyone involved!

Suoli, cheers! That's what I thought too. Though I did think I could play it at FOR obf ... Which wasn't the case of course But it indeed is better at inferiors too. Swapping the Raven Spy for Winthrop propably wasn't that smart though, I did it because I thought I might need to get it with some nerd... Contesting could be an issue which I'd rather avoid though.