TWD – 1st Tragic Love Affair

1st Tragic Love Affair
Espoo, Finland
May 26th, 2018
2R+F
13 players, Standard constructed
Winner: Karri Malm

www.vekn.net/event-calendar/event/8893
www.facebook.com/events/232389697311256/

It was good to organize the first tournament after half a year's break caused by moving to the second biggest city in Finland, Espoo. The new location required a new title, and I decided to stick to the Toreador theme (even though "Cave of Apples" would have suited the new location).

A characteristic of this tournament was that while the games mostly weren't stagnant as such, few points were gained, and the last spot in the final was drawn between three players with 1,5 VPs (and equal TPs). Another interesting trait was the abundance of Malkavians (of both varieties), who were the main clan in at least five decks (three of which ended up in the same table in round 2).

Final Rank	Name	Prelim GWs	Prelim VPs	Final VPs	TPs
1	Karri Malm	0	2	3	90
2	Jyri Puhakka	0	1,5	0	72
2	Jani Malmi	0	3	0	114
2	Matti Palomäki	1	3	1	72
2	Juha Laukkanen	1	3	1	108
6	Antti Penttilä	0	1,5		72
7	Petri Wessman	0	1,5		72
8	Jaakko Nurro	0	1,5		66
9	Tero Aalto	0	1		72
10	Katja Jauhiainen	0	1		54
10	Juho Linna	0	1		54
12	Lasse Pöyry	0	0,5		54
13	Emma Takkunen	0	0		36

The final table:

1. Matti Palomäki (Lasombra/Tremere bruise bleed)
2. Jyri Puhakka (!Malkavians with Toy)
3. Jani Malmi (!Salubri Wall)
4. Karri Malm (Xipe Totec toolbox)
5. Juha Laukkanen (Malkavian bleed)

The winning deck will appear below shortly.

About the final decks:
Matti's deck seemed to be built around the ability to play CrimeThinc. with Thaumaturgy, giving his Lasombra/!tremere anarchs multiacting options (untap an anarch during minion phase with 1 pool). Other than that it was mostly normal dominate stuff.

Jani Malmi's !salubri wall seemed to rely heavily on the new card "righteous aura" for ousting power. Blade of Bellona was also used. Lots of flaming swords or walking sticks were waved around.

I had a single !malk in the crypt, so technically it was malk/!malk stealth bleed.

Some thoughts about the final even though I wasn't the winner:
I was first seed going into the final. I knew I didn't want to sit next to the !salubri, or in front of Matti. I knew all decks except Jyri's so I chose to be in front of Karri (who I considered the least aggressive deck of the table, a toolbox wall) and behind Matti because I was running touch of clarities and Matti was the only practical target for those.

1. Matti (dom/thaum anarchs) -> 2. Jyri (!malk + Toy) -> 3. Jani (!salubri wall) -> 4. Karri (Xipe Totec toolbox) -> 5. Juha (malk/!malk SB)

The wall decks were doing wall things on one side of table, and the other side was bleeding forward relatively aggressively. Unfortunately !salubri and Xipe Totec were too respectful of one another for my taste. I had hoped they would've hit each other more fiercely.

Jyri is suffering from strong combat of the !salubri, who are rushing mostly backwards. Matti ousts Jyri who is caught between flaming swords and multiple dominate bleed minions, then I oust Matti.
Then I get Jani into 1 pool. Ousting Jani would've afaik meant tournament victory for me, as Karri could've only gotten to even 2 points after that, and I was the first seed. Alas, my deck fails to provide stealth cards at the crucial moment and !salubri catch the winning bleed. That will be that as Karri had enough +bleed to oust me. Eventually Karri also ousts Jani for the win with about 10 minutes on the clock.

I took some pictures from the final table but unfortunately the pictures were too shaky without flash..

Bloodartist wrote:

Jani Malmi's !salubri wall seemed to rely heavily on the new card "righteous aura" for ousting power. Blade of Bellona was also used. Lots of flaming swords or walking sticks were waved around.

Since Lost Kindred is only legal for tournament play on the 10th of June (see www.vekn.net/card-lists/398-lost%20kindred), this seems problematic.

Well this tournament was tragic for sure...

Poor Darvag. Still no TWDA appearance.

Not much to do about it, then, than to have a new one.