TWD + Report: Finnish ECQ (Ropecon 2011), July 29th

Some random player pics from the finals.

Teemu and da judge, Petri.


Things are looking good for Ville.


Otso making bambi eyes. A threat, who me?

Bambi eyes, FTW!

Seriously, thank you, Orava, for running the whole show as well as the extensive tournament report. I’m sure that was one hell of a lot of work. I at least had a very relaxed and entertaining tournament. I thought I’d gloat a bit and comment some aspects of the final table from my perspective.

It was nice to be the first seed, a luxury not often granted to an Auspex weenie deck such as mine (or Pascal’s, if credit for deckbuilding goes where it’s due). This was result of a bit of hard work and a lot of pure dumb luck. I’m not really sure why Teemu chose to be Adam’s pray as I don’t know his deck. As far as Ville is considered, I guess he saw Adam as a nice prey with nonexistent combat and only little capacity for pool generation and Toni as a relatively manageable predator.

As for my choice of seating, I obviously didn’t want to sit next to Ville, as his combat could just ruin my game, and there would be precious little I could do about it. That was my priority number one. On the other hand, I also didn’t want to sit next to Adam’s deck, as he could block all my tool-up actions. I thought I would have been happy being Toni’s pray or predator, as I had been his predator during the earlier rounds and I believed that although he would occasionally gather enough stealth to get some actions through, the Auspex dudes could handle it pretty well. I didn’t want to be Teemu’s pray, as I didn’t really know what he was playing, I had just heard he had some sort of a vote deck.

As it happened, I just had to choose either to sit between the vote decks (always such a good idea) or being the prey of an aggressive, lunge-type light stealth bleed with intercept capabilities (I believe I had a pretty good idea what Adam was playing from his earlier TWDA entries). So, in the end, I sat between the vote decks, but wasn’t really sure about my choice at the start of the game.

The game itself was actually not all that eventful, the it pretty much played itself. I had a really great start, gaining pool with Pb: Montreal and Victoria’s special ability, but I had to slow down a bit, as in not to turn the whole table against me. Toni had a pretty horrible crypt draw as the Presence-Lasombras seemed to lurk at the bottom of the crypt. Ville was sitting with the Pentex and Adam had the chance to govern down several times. I guess Teemu had a sub-optimal draw (to say the least) and a tad too aggressive predator and was ousted surprisingly easily.

After that came the most interesting moment in the game as Adam tried to convince Ville to cross-table rush me. He claimed that if I and Ville should remain for the heads-up, Ville would have an arduous task torporizing all my minions to get the oust he would need for the tournament win. Toni was pretty much dead (or that’s what Adam said) so Ville should kill all his predators in a row for a 2-2-1 split with Adam and the tournament win. And Ville should probably start pounding the most difficult obstacle in this plan - that’s me - right away.

At the time I guess I wasn’t really able to create a credible alternative for Adam’s scenario, I just pointed out that my kung-fu was not very strong and he could just vaporize my minions if he wished. (This was only half true, as even though I did fear his combat, I had had time to build up, so it would have been a tight match - which Adam of course didn’t fail to point out.) I also complained that Adam’s proposal was pretty much just: ”Hey, I just ousted one prey, you should help me oust another one.” This is of course not really an argument, but the best I could do at the moment.

I believe I should have reminded Ville that in a heads-up with Adam he’d have to be really quick getting Adam’s minions into torpor as all of them could bleed for up to 5 or 6 with one or two stealth. But then again, I guess Ville knew that already, being the player he is. The other problem with Adam’s proposal was that Toni still had, for quite a long time, a rather decent buffer of about ten pool or so. That meant Ville couldn’t really cripple me so much I couldn’t oust Toni if I wanted to, as then Adam would probably get three VPs and the GW. Perhaps for these reasons, or perhaps just because of the bambi eyes, Ville didn’t really warm up to Adam’s suggestions.

So nothing much really happened for some time: I bled Toni, who just tried to stay alive with nothing but Gratiano. Ville bled Adam chipping away his pool and occasionally did some crosstable mischief to keep me under pressure. Adam tried to gather some resources hunting and governing for the final lunge, but I kept him in a tight leash. Adam is chipped away slowly and kind of tries to lunge without significant success. He is ousted and Toni the buffer goes also in a quick succession.

I believed we didn’t really have time for the heads-up, but I came surprisingly close to ousting Ville, as his combat module couldn’t really handle Muddled Vampire Hunter at the time being. In the end it didn’t really matter. I think the table sort of played itself, but nevertheless it was a fun to play and, at times, exciting too (at least from my point of view, Teemu and Toni probably wouldn’t agree ).

Whoah, this rant got somewhat longer than I meant it to be, but hopefully someone had the three dots of stamina required to get to the end. It was nice seeing you guys, I hope I’ll see as many of you as possible in Warsaw!

- Otso S.

Otso wrote:

Whoah, this rant got somewhat longer than I meant it to be, but hopefully someone had the three dots of stamina required to get to the end. It was nice seeing you guys, I hope I’ll see as many of you as possible in Warsaw!

- Otso S.

I had to spend a willpower, but it was worth it. Congratulations on the win!

brandonsantacruz wrote:

it was worth it.

Ditto on that.
It was very nice to go through a very detailed decription of the game from the winner's point of view.

Congrats for the win and good luck for making it a third one in a row next year!
Wouldn't that be a hat trick, eh?

Otso wrote:

I’m not really sure why Teemu chose to be Adam’s pray as I don’t know his deck.
- Otso S.

I just sat there not knowing either one of the decks. After seeing them I know I should have chosen otherwise. Tough luck.

Either way it was a very fun tournament and interesting final where Otso played well. Can't really say that for the rest of the table, reason might have been late time(or early .

Here is my decklist, there are couple of small changes I'm going to make.

Deck Name: Undele's Domain
Created By: Teemu Sainomaa

Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 31, Max: 37, Avg: 8,66)

---

1 Dmitra Ilyanova obf CEL FOR POT PRE.9 Brujah
1 Epikasta Rigatos cel AUS DOM PRE8 Toreador
1 Graham Gottesman obf pre tha DOM FOR7 Ventrue
1 Lodin (Olaf Holte) aus pro DOM FOR PRE8 Ventrue
1 Orlando Oriundus obf AUS DOM THA9 Tremere Antitribu
3 Undele obf pre ser CEL FOR9 Ishtarri
1 Mary Anne Blaire ani pot AUS DOM FOR PRE10 Ventrue
1 Johannes Castelein DEM DOM FOR PRE9 Ventrue
1 Gerald Windham AUS DOM FOR THA9 Tremere
1 Carlak dom pot CEL PRE8 Brujah

Library: (76 cards)

---

Master (24 cards)
1 Creepshow Casino
2 Dreams of the Sphinx
1 Elysium: The Palace of Versailles
1 Giant`s Blood
1 Information Highway
1 Monastery of Shadows
8 Villein
7 Zillah`s Valley
1 Ventrue Headquarters
1 Pentex Subversion

Action (2 cards)
2 Entrancement

Action Modifier (16 cards)
3 Awe
3 Forgotten Labyrinth
2 Perfect Paragon
3 Veil the Legions
5 Voter Captivation

Political Action (17 cards)
2 Banishment
6 Kine Resources Contested
4 Parity Shift
2 Disputed Territory
1 Political Stranglehold
1 Justicar Retribution
1 Rumors of Gehenna

Reaction (13 cards)
8 Deflection
1 On the Qui Vive
4 Second Tradition: Domain, The

Combat (4 cards)
4 Majesty

Added Teemu's decklist, fixed Adam's decklist (Pieter -> Pieter van Dorn).