TWD: Final Catalana

Final Catalana: CLOSER TO CAIN
Serinyà, Catalunya, Spain
Saturday August 2nd, 2025
3R+F
18 players
Guillem Pedrosa VEKN#3011033
4VP in the final
www.vekn.net/event-calendar/event/12214

Guillem's winning deck:
Crypt (12 cards, min=29 max=44 avg=9.42)
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4x Arika 11 DOM FOR OBF PRE aus cel inner circle Ventrue:2
3x Marcus Vitel 10 DOM FOR OBF OBT PRE prince Ventrue:3
1x Lucinde, Alastor 10 DOM FOR PRE obf pot tha justicar Ventrue:3
1x Queen Anne 10 DOM FOR PRE aus obf prince Ventrue:2
1x Baron, The 9 FOR NEC OBF THN dom 2 votes Samedi:2
1x Catherine du Bois 5 DOM for obf pre Ventrue:3
1x Le Dinh Tho 5 NEC aus dom Nagaraja:2

Library (90 cards)
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Master (22; 9 trifle)

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1x Coven, The
1x Direct Intervention
1x Giant's Blood
1x Information Highway
1x Monastery of Shadows
1x Secure Haven
8x Villein
8x Zillah's Valley

Action (10)

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10x Govern the Unaligned

Political Action (6)

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1x Anarchist Uprising
1x Ancient Influence
1x Ancilla Empowerment
1x Banishment
1x Political Stranglehold
1x Reins of Power

Action Modifier (30)

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2x Awe
4x Elder Impersonation
1x Enkil Cog
4x Faceless Night
1x Forgotten Labyrinth
10x Freak Drive
4x Lost in Crowds
4x Voter Captivation

Action Modifier/Combat (2)

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1x Hide the Mind
1x Swallowed by the Night

Reaction (14)

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8x Deflection
6x Obedience

Combat (6)

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6x Rolling with the Punches

Ankha wrote:

Glinlos wrote:

Final Catalana: CLOSER TO CAIN
Serinyà, Catalunya, Spain
Saturday August 9th, 2025

Calendar says Augsut 2nd, which one is correct?

Dear Vincent,
August 2nd is the correct tournament Day.

Regards,
Rémi.

Dear all,

Here is the first short report of that event:

Final Report – Guillem, the Winner
4th Seed of the Final with 1GW 5VP

I got lucky with the seating, especially for a slow-paced deck like mine. As predator, I faced a toolbox deck (Xenia), while my allies were a political deck (Rémi) and a Wall Blocker (Isaac), which allowed me to develop my game with relative ease.

I like to play this deck by staying under the radar during the first half of the match. I use several *Govern the Unaligned* at superior and throw in some moderate bleeds, never exceeding 3, waiting for the table to stabilize before launching political actions or going straight for my prey’s throat.

Personal reflection on the deck:
The strategy works, but over time my vampires end up bleeding out. To compete with cheap Barons, I need at least three titled vampires, and to bring them into play, *Villein* is essential. They also need to pay for *Dominate* cards. In the final turns of the match, my vampires were down to 1 or 2 blood, so I clearly need to improve that aspect of the deck. For now, I’ll add Jake Washington as support—an idea that came up during the post-game discussion.

Regrads,
Rémi.

Dear all,

Let's continue with Xenia report. Do you remember her? She won the Arhimanes prize of the Spanish National Championship 2025 Side Event:


Tournament Report – Xenia, 2nd Seed in the Final with 1GW and 5VP

After reinventing the Kyasid deck, my experience in this tournament was very positive. Honestly, I didn’t expect this result—I think the element of surprise worked in my favor, along with a bit of luck and the fact that there was very little politics at the table.

Several plays stood out:
One in the final against one of Isaac’s Tzimisce, who played a Trap on my vampire. I managed to dodge his strike two rounds in a row, but by the third I had no dodges left, and he sent one of my vampires to torpor, which shifted the course of my role in the final.
There was also the combat against Enkidu in the first table, and a few other vampires, plus some strong bleeds in the second table.

On another note, I’m glad to see that this time, players generally read the table well and played to earn more than just 1 point.

Note by Rémi: Almost everyone at the venue heard about the Kyasid who managed to dodge a deadly first strike, then played an additional strike to finally send Enkidu to torpor with an Entombment. Congratulations for reaching the Final Xenia!

Xenia's Deck list:
Crypt (12 cards, min=22 max=32 avg=6.83)
========================================
3x Arcadian, The 8 DOM MYT OBT chi for Kiasyd:5
1x Pherydima 8 DOM MYT NEC obt pot bishop Kiasyd:4
2x Omme Enberbenight 7 MYT OBT cel dom priscus Kiasyd:4
2x Roderick Phillips March 7 DOM MYT cel obt tha Kiasyd:4
2x Isanwayen 6 DOM MYT OBT Kiasyd:4
2x Dame Hollerton 5 DOM OBT myt Kiasyd:4

Library (84 cards)
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Master (15; 6 trifle)

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1x Anarch Troublemaker
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
2x Great Symposium
1x Information Highway
1x Misdirection
1x Powerbase: Montreal
6x Villein

Action (18)

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2x Abbot
11x Govern the Unaligned
2x Gremlins
3x Under Siege

Ally (1)

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1x Draeven Softfoot

Action Modifier (6)

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2x Bonding
2x Conditioning
2x Foreshadowing Destruction

Action Modifier/Combat (6)

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6x Fae Contortion

Action Modifier/Reaction (3)

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3x Aura Absorption

Reaction (19)

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5x Deflection
5x Eyes of the Night
7x On the Qui Vive
2x Redirection

Combat (16)

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6x Arms of the Abyss
6x Earth Swords
4x Entombment

Regards,
Rémi.

Dear all,

Today is my turn for the report. I reached the Final too but didn't manage to win it.

A few words about my deck choice.
I am a fan of Aisha and I've been thinking about Revolutionary Council and Child of Revolution for too long without playing them together.
Aisha is not my very first vampire to influence. If transfer count and Embraces are in my starting hand with a Villein, I may change the starting game plan.
In this kind of tournament, GW 5 VP is usually sufficient to get to the Final. This deck may secure 1 or 2 VP in each round it does not get a GW by dealing damage to oust crosstable players.

Round 1: The 5 Decks were as strong as they usually are in Final rounds
Rémi -> Hecata's ally stealth bleed (Aleix) -> Low Cap Assamites G6 bleed with Victoria Ash and many Hakim's law: retribution (Alfredo)-> Laibon bleed/vote with Ayo and Undele (Marc Álvarez) -> Ventrue Obfuscate (Jordi)
The game started so fast with votes and bleed from my predator. I hardly manage to mantain my pool and have to ask Marc help many times because of the titled vampires of my predator.
The game turned in my favor when my predator started to fear from his own predator, I finally got some fresh air. Then, Alfredo was at 1 turn to be ousted and/or to oust Marc. I managed to oust Aleix first, then Alfredo got his VP. Well, I finally got pool and Vote Lock to end the game.
Anarch Revolt helped me a lot in that game.
GW and 4 VP.

Round 2: You never know but this round was a premonition of the Final Round
Rémi -> 1&2 Cap Weeny Obfuscate (Tomàs Jimenez) -> Stanislava (Terry) -> Tzimisce Horrid Form with a bit of Intercept and 2 copies of Raven Spy (Isaac Dominguez) -> Sorry I don't remember
Tomàs was getting a lot of vampire and giving them blood doll and Vessels almost every turn. Terry's mistake (humble personal opinion) made lost 1 turn to influence Stanislava and didn't manage to survive the horde.
Tomàs didn't manage to save his pool from me and Isaac managed to lock the game when the 1vs1 section started. Isaac had a stable 4 pool gain per turn and I had only stealth for 1 dealing damage action per turn.
1 VP

Round 3:
I was tired, so I put my mindset to relaxing mode: I only need 1 VP to secure a good seed for the Final, I should already have made the cut anyway.
Rémi -> Gangrel Wall Auspex with Garous (Frances Ros) -> Anarch Unammed trying to open the Gates (Xavi Macia) -> First Round Laibon deck (Marc Alvarez)
My wall problem was the Francesc Primogen, I had more stealth but that 1 vote title totally blocked me because of my political predator. We arrived at a really unstable situation where almost no votes may pass and the Gates started to deal 3 damages per turn. The games stopped for me with my missplay. I could oust my prey with a strange reckless that didn't convince me. I should have taken and go on. I didn't and made a mistake counting votes: Perfect Paragon gives 3 votes and I saw a Bewitching oration so thought I had 4 extra votes instead of 3. I changed the terms and broke the deal... the vote failed because of a tie.
Xavi got the GW with 4VP.

Final Seating:
1st Seed: Isaac Domninguez with 1GW and 6,5VP, I know his deck I don't want to have to pass him in the late game because he won the 2nd Round thanks to stable pool recovery
2nd Seed: Xenia 1GW and 5VP, I saw Kyassid vampires and she plays quite well this clan's bleed&stealth decks even if she is the less experienced player of the game. Her report is in this same thread of the forum
3th Seed: Rémi
4th Seed: Guillem, the winner of the tournament with Arika and Marcus Vitel, he knows too much how to play that deck
5th Seed: Javi, I saw Rachel Brandywine but I hadn't play with him.

Only one Anarch deck made the cut.
Seating process. I didn't want to have to deal with Arika as predator with my many locations so I made that "easy" choice as the 3rd seed
Rémi - Guillem -> Javi
The full seating went this way:
Rémi -> Isaac -> Xenia -> Guillem -> Javi

Final Game:
The final tournament of the Catalan league is more than a tournament, it is a full day of meeting friends and having food and drinks. The game started at around 11PM after dinner and drinks. If I was tired for the 3rd round, I was so tired for this 4th one. Anyway, the 5 players were a bit tired in general.
Isaac got his only 2 Raven Spy in his starting hand and equiped them to his first vampire as his first 2 actions as you may understand. Xenia could not help me to avoid that bad issue. The 2nd great issue came from my blocking depredator. A bad sandwich seating for me.
I saw a few windows but had never managed to oust my prey even if I manage to pass by stealth and pass a key political actions.
Javi got his VP, and as you already know Guillem got the others and the Game Win.

My Decklist:
vdb.im/decks/d02261f0c

Crypt (12 cards, min=20 max=35 avg=6.75)

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3x Aisha az-Zahra 9 AUS CEL PRE obf qui Toreador:5
1x Atiena 6 CEL obf pot pre baron Brujah:6
1x Benedito, a Lanterna 6 POT ani aus obf baron Nosferatu:6
1x Elisha Tucker 6 PRE cel obf pro baron Ministry:6
1x Gilbert Duane 7 AUS DOM OBF baron Malkavian:6
1x Jacques Rouge 6 OBF ani pot pre baron Nosferatu:6
1x Leumeah 6 PRE cel for pot baron Brujah:6
1x New Blood 2 san Blood Brother:ANY
1x Sergio Bueno 8 OBF PRE PRO aus pot baron Ministry:6
1x Vivian VI 7 PRE PRO obf tha baron Ministry:6

Library (90 cards)
Master (16; 8 trifle)
1x Anarch Railroad
2x Anarch Revolt
1x Archon Investigation
1x Carfax Abbey
1x Coven, The
1x Creepshow Casino
1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
1x Papillon
7x Villein

Action (9)
4x Childe of the Revolution
5x Embrace, The

Political Action (19)
2x Eat the Rich
2x Exclusion Principle
8x Kine Resources Contested
5x Reckless Agitation
2x Revolutionary Council

Action Modifier (27)
3x Bewitching Oration
1x Cloak the Gathering
1x Domain of Evernight
2x Faceless Night
5x Forgotten Labyrinth
2x Lost in Crowds
3x Perfect Paragon
2x Veil the Legions
8x Voter Captivation

Action Modifier/Combat (2)
2x Swallowed by the Night

Reaction (11)
6x Bait and Switch
5x On the Qui Vive

Combat (6)
6x Majesty

Isaac's Deck list:
Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=5 max=9 avg=6.833333)
==================
2x Lady Zara Slatikov 8 ANI AUS OBF VIC Tzimisce:4
2x Ludmijla Rakoczy 7 ANI AUS VIC Tzimisce:5
3x Xipe Totec 9 ANI AUS PRO VIC Tzimisce:5
2x Rurik Rakoczy 6 aus ANI VIC Tzimisce:5
1x Dr. Morrow, The Skindoctor 5 for AUS VIC Tzimisce:5
2x Duality 6 ani AUS VIC Tzimisce:4

Library: 85 cards

Master (20 cards)
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1x Fame
1x Haven Uncovered
2x Parthenon, The
6x Ashur Tablets
2x Path of Metamorphosis, The
1x Powerbase: Montreal
1x Rack, The
1x Smiling Jack, The Anarch
4x Vessel
1x Direct Intervention

Action (6 cards)
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2x Under Siege
4x Deep Song

Combat (38 cards)
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15x Horrid Form
4x Taste of Vitae
5x Telepathic Tracking
2x Trap
6x Carrion Crows
4x Chiropteran Marauder
2x Drawing Out the Beast

Retainer (3 cards)
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2x Raven Spy
1x Winthrop

Equipment (1 cards)
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1x Bowl of Convergence

Reaction (16 cards)
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2x Cat’s Guidance
2x Enhanced Senses
2x Eyes of Argus
2x My Enemy's Enemy
2x Read the Winds
2x Sense the Savage Way
4x Telepathic Misdirection

Event (1 cards)
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1x Dragonbound

I hope you enjoyed those reports written with the great help of all the 5 Finalists,
Regards,
Rémi.