TWD Jann Berger's "D" is for Decapitate, Los Angeles, CA (17 Feb. 2013)

TWD Jann Berger's "D" is for Decapitate
Los Angeles, California
Orccon 2013
February 17, 2013
2R+final
15 players

Fred Scott 1/3/72
Robert Goudie 0/2.5/102 Final 0.5VPs
Darby Keeney 0/2.5/102
Aaron Clark 0/2.5/102 Final 1.5VPs
Matt Wedge 0/2/90 Final 1.5VPs

Deck Name: Angelica Ascendant
Created By: Aaron Clark
Description: It won a tournament, but can it win a game? Angelica's special means that Ascendances can be used for intercept as well as pool gain. She gets Eternal Vigilance and a .44 Magnum and blocks. Anson provides support, cycling
masters faster and providing Angelica with blood from the Fifth Tradition. Fish for weenies, stealth bleed or bruise bleed for the VP.

I felt perpetually short on bleed during the tournament. At minimum, one Shroud of Night should be switched for a Threats. One of the Ascendances probably should be changed to a Pentex Subversion for contesting or lunging, but Pentex is less prevalent in L.A. than in other places.

Crypt (12 cards, Capacity min: 1, max: 10, average: 6.6)
4x Angelica, The Canonicus 10 cel obf DOM OBF POT Lasombra:2 cardinal
4x Anson 8 aus dom CEL PRE Toreador:1 prince
1x Ohanna 2 dom Malkavian:2
1x Mustafa 2 dom Tremere:2
1x Samson 2 dom !Ventrue:2
1x Royce 1 dom Pander:2

Library (90)
Master (32)
21x Ascendance
1x Barrens, The
1x Celerity
1x Dominate
1x Effective Management
1x Giant's Blood
2x Information Highway
2x Minion Tap
2x Obtenebration

Action (12)
5x Eternal Vigilance
3x Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, The
2x Govern the Unaligned
2x Scouting Mission

Action Modifier (17)
1x Alacrity
1x Blanket of Night
1x Faceless Night
1x Lost in Crowds
4x Shadow Play
1x Shroud of Absence
4x Shroud of Night
4x Threats

Combat (6)
1x Concealed Weapon
2x Flash
1x Pursuit
2x Side Strike

Equipment (5)
5x .44 Magnum

Political Action (2)
1x Banishment
1x Parity Shift

Reaction (16)
4x Deflection
2x Redirection
6x Obedience
4x Wake with Evening's Freshness

Grats on the win!

I know I've heard a lot about this deck, but I'm not sure I've ever faced it... I love the concept. The decklist looks alien to me... But you've won enough tournaments for me to appreciate your style.

Well done, again.

1x Wider View might be nice to speed up finding your 2-caps with Dominate. I see that Effective Management, but WV is quite good.

Brothers Grimm? I imagine you may have tried that. May help you cycle as your opponents try to steal it from you.

And both of these two new-fangled cards might not make the cut since they are...well...new.

Anarch Troublemaker could be nice as a lunge option, also to contest to save your .44s. It doesn't hurt Eternally Vigilance Angelica at all.

And you could go for style points and try out a Distraction or two.

Wider View is much better than Effective Management here, agreed, but I don't play with it. Originally the EM was a Recruitment, but Recruitment was too expensive in practice since I couldn't predict at what stage I would draw it.

I don't like BG here. I tried to be minimalistic with the masters in this deck for conceptual reasons, and I don't think that Brothers Grimm fits. I want as many masters as possible to be eligible to be burned for intercept. I would hesitate to burn BG. I already use the Ascendances for non-insignificant pool gain, so BG seems extraneous and slow. Of course I only just bought two copies of BG a few months ago, and maybe I should try actually playing with them to get a better feel for the card.

It's not a bad idea about AT. In the final I had to beg Robert not to use his AT on Matt's Heart of Nizchetus so Matt couldn't burn my gun thereafter. However, AT is extraneous to making the deck actually work. Any master that is not an Ascendance has to go towards the functioning of the plan.

Ascendance is all. Ascendance is supreme.

Distraction makes a lot of sense for a deck this full of junk. However I already have two prayer cards that are better: Parity Shift and Banishment. I would rather that Anson call Parity Shift than take the Distraction action. Angelica doesn't have blood to spare on such an action.

I am going to do a short tournament report this weekend to explain how I lucked into this win.

I'm very pleased by the addition of a deck with 21 Ascendances to the TWDA. Nicely done!

I'm a bit surprised to see The Parthenon missing, given the number of master cards... I look forward to reading the report!

Final game report (not short after all!)

Robert Goudie (Gr2/3 !Malk/Malk/Salubri Dem/Obf/Aus/For/Spirit Marionette) ->
Matt Wedge (Gr4/5 Aus/Ani/For starring Conrad Fleischer & Mordechai Ben-Nun)-> Darby Keeney (Kiev Circle Blood Brothers stealth bleed feat. Pro)->
Aaron Clark (Angelica/Eternal Vigilance/Ascendances wall feat. Anson)->
Fred Scott (Cailean/Eternal Vigilance/Enkil Cog/Using the Advantage)

This was a strange tournament. There was only one game win in the entire tournament, which Fred earned in Round 1. Going into the final, I was tied with Robert Goudie and Darby for second place with 2.5 VPs, 102 TPs. Matt beat Robert Scythe into the final by TPs. All the decks at the final table were “interesting” or “creative” decks, I would say – no tournament-winning archetypes. Four of the decks had a strong wall element. I think all the decks should be posted, especially Fred’s “Cailean gets Enkil Cog and Eternal Vigilance, Bleeds Twice for a Lot, then Uses the Advantage” deck. When I figured out what he was doing, I thought it was really clever. Robert, Darby, and I rolled for ranking in the final, with Robert 2nd, Darby 3rd, and me 4th.

I got off to an impressive start with a first-turn Information Highway. Does it get better than that? Within my first twelve cards I also drew an Eternal Vigilance, .44 Magnum, Celerity skill card, and Giant’s Blood, along with stealth and Ascendances. This was indicative of the kind of luck I had in this tournament.

Robert got out Anatole first followed by Miriam Benyona and Theron. Matt got out Yuri Kerezenski followed by Mordechai followed by Conrad. Darby started the game with only two unique Blood Brothers available in his crypt, which slowed him down considerably. I got out both Angelica and Anson in three turns, followed by Royce or Samson. Fred started with Ohanna followed by Cailean, Mustafa Rahman, and Christine Boscacci.

Robert and Matt sparred a bit with bleeds, blocks, and combats. Both were playing with Fortitude. At one point Miriam got dunked by Matt and later rescued by Anson. Matt got the Heart of Nizchetus early on, his scary ANI/FOR combat a constant threat to those around him. I blocked Darby’s initial superior Unwholesome Bonds and then left it to Matt to block other actions once Darby had his third Blood Brother. Darby didn’t have enough Earth Melds to deal with Matt’s combat and didn’t have intercept for Robert’s bounced stealthy bleeds. Luckily I had a Wake and Ascendance in my hand to stop Ohanna recruiting Carlton with an early action. However I was therefore not able to block Darby bleeding me for 3 with an early Walk of Caine, the only serious bleed he landed on me that game. Fred quickly got Cailean tooled up with Eternal Vigilance, Enkil Cog, and Perfectionist.

Soon Fred was putting a lot of pressure on Robert and Matt had Darby on the ropes. I spent my time bleeding for one a lot because I apparently do not have much bleed in my deck. Oh, and I gained a fair amount of pool with Ascendances. Matt’s vicious combat and Deep Song bleeds ousted Darby. Suddenly Fred had three enemies at the table, since Matt couldn’t allow anyone else to get a VP. I found out that Cailean could untap and bleed on my turn with Enkil Cog even if I took an undirected action that he then failed to block. Lesson learned! Even though he was treading water, Robert was eying Matt’s Heart of Cheating with his Anarch Troublemaker. I begged him not to destroy the Heart since Matt could then use the AT to destroy Angelica’s gun, leaving me too vulnerable in combat against Matt.

Although he was on the verge of ousting Robert, Fred had pool problems of his own. My constant bleeds of 1 or more, some bounced, some not, were taking their toll, along with the bleeds of 1 I bounced from Matt. His weenies started to lose their usefulness as blockers or bouncers since Angelica could easily block their hunts and torporize them when they got low on blood. After Darby got ousted I had decided to contest Mustafa Rahman, which would cost Fred several pool and a bouncer.

On what looked like Robert’s last turn, Miriam attempted to Spirit Marionette Cailean. Fred came up with 2 intercept but Robert had Cloaks from both Anatole and Theron. Cailean bled into Matt, and Matt used Conrad’s Animalism and Fortitude combat to take Cailean from 9 to 0 blood! Thank you, guys!

Whenever Cailean hunted thereafter, either Robert or I would play a reaction card so he didn’t get the extra blood from Perfectionist. My turn came around, and I almost ousted Fred with a stealth bleed for 1 from Angelica after bleeding with my other guys. Matt DI’d my Shadow Play and the bleed was blocked. On his turn, Matt Deep Song Rushed a Famous Angelica, but Angelica blocked and demanded Obedience. Time was running short, and one observer remarked later it looked like I was going to have an aneurism waiting for Matt to end his turn. I finally ousted Fred and declared additional pointless bleed actions against Robert. The game timed out on Robert’s turn as he threw a bleed into Matt who by this point had four healthy minions and a decent amount of pool. As the higher seed, I won the tie with Matt.