TWD - Hobart Qualifier, Tasmania (27.8.11)

•Tournament: Hobart Qualifier
•Date: Saturday 27 August 2011
•Place: 'Outzone', Murray St Hobart Tasmania
•Players: 8
•Format: Australasian Continental Qualifier (constructed), 3R+F
•Winner: Stewart 'Disco Stu' MacLeod

The qualifier for Australia's smallest state had a mix of both local players and interstate travellers. Prize support - a box of Third Ed boosters - was generously provided by Steve Harris, a true gentleman and scholar.

The finals table was Dave's Guruhi Orun toolbox > Other Dave's Shambling Hordes > Steve V's Ventrue voter > Disco Stu's Gerald-a-tron > Steve H's BH Assamites.

Dave took copious notes throughout the day so will be able to give a more balanced view of the day, but from my perspective the final round went as follows;

Other Dave's Shamblers hit Steve V early and hard, Faming and binning his first minion. Steve V's second vampire, Lucinde Alastor, managed a Parity Shift but quickly succumbed to multiple rushes. It was not a good day for Steve; he'd faced this deck once before, and his combat defence just wasn't sufficient to shake off 20 Shambling Hordes.

I had some early trouble without either a Magic of the Smith or an Ankara Citadel in my opening 10 or so cards, so churned through my deck paying the expensive costs as I went. Steve H's Assamites Lossed my initial purchase - an Ivory Bow - but concentrated on moving forward knowing I was some way off from being any threat. The Assamites and Guruhi butted heads, but the Guruhi were scared off by Nizzam's Flamethrower and let his Loss bleeds through.

Gerald eventually found his Ankara Citadel and I started churning through my deck grabbing all the toys I needed. On two occasions, I used Revelations to scout for Archon Investigations; while I didn't find them I did discard Steve H's Ashur Tablets, leaving him stuck on two Tablets for much of the game. Fearing Nizzam's combat potential, the Guruhi Pentexed the flamethrowing Assamite - Steve H Suddened it, but I Suddened his Reversal. I took the opportunity to bleed for 8, Mind Raped Reza Fatir and rushed his remaining non-Pentexed minion into torpor. The Guruhi promptly burned their own Pentex but the damage was done; the Mind Raped Assamite faced Nizzam in combat, leaving my chumps free to bleed through Steve H's pool without too much resistance.

On the other side of the table, Steve V came very close to surviving (he had a Golconda in hand for his torpored Lucinde) but was bled out a turn before he could play it. It then came down to Gerald > Guruhi > Shamblers. The Guruhi were on low pool, and a Sleeping Mind, a Pentex Subversion on the main blocker and stealth from a Zip Line allowed crucial bleeds to get through. After some to-ing and fro-ing, the game then timed out: 2.5 VP to Disco Stu, 1.5 to Other Dave.

Winner: Stewart MacLeod
Deck name: Wretches & Kings
Deck description: My second choice for a deck name was 'Whirl-Windham' but that sounded a little naff
Gerald is the 'king', with everyone else a 'wretch'; either there for their special ability or as a speedbump to oncoming rush decks.
It's an Una-like multi-act deck, using Ankara Citadel to reduce the cost of Freak Drives and various expensive actions. Gerald's inherent +1 stealth assists in getting most actions through.
The anarch tech is to allow Gerald to become titled, giving him access to Red List / Trophy tech (Una has easy access to Eternal Vigilance for permanent untap, while the G-Man needs to jump through hoops to get Trophy: Domain).


CRYPT (12) Capacity min: 1, max: 9, average: 4.92

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4x Anarch Convert (1) Caitiff (group 0)
1x Tarautas (4) Tremere (group 4)
1x Luc (5) !Malkavian (group 4)
1x Neighbor John (5) !Ventrue (group 4)
1x Nicomedes (5) Harbinger of Skulls (group 4)
4x Gerald Windham (9) Tremere (group 5)


LIBRARY [84 cards]

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Action [24]
1x Ambush
1x Big Game
1x Biothaumaturgic Experiment
1x Bum's Rush
1x Dominate Kine
1x Fee Stake: Boston
1x Fee Stake: Los Angeles
2x Govern the Unaligned
1x Harass
4x Magic of the Smith
1x Mind Rape
1x Pulse of the Canaille
2x Red List
1x Restoration
2x Revelations
1x Rutor's Hand
1x Scrounging
1x Zip Line

Action Modifier [35]
1x Bonding
1x Conditioning
30x Freak Drive
1x Mirror Walk
1x Seduction
1x The Sleeping Mind

Combat [7]
1x Aura Reading
3x Diversion
2x Soak
1x Superior Mettle

Equipment [8]
2x The Ankara Citadel, Turkey
1x Blade of Enoch
1x Bowl of Convergence
1x Flaming Candle
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Ivory Bow
1x Kevlar Vest

Master [9]
1x Fame
1x Information Highway
1x Pentex Subversion
2x Secure Haven
1x Sudden Reversal
1x Trophy: Diablerie
1x Trophy: Domain
1x Trophy: Hunting Ground

Reaction [1]
1x Deflection

Retainer [1]
1x Crypt's Sons


cheers,

Disco Stu
Prince of Melbourne, Australia

Congrats Disco-Stu!

Nice work. Though I always recommend putting Aaron's Feeding Razor to decks like this, turns all your extra freak drives to free blood.

Hi Klaital,

Thanks for the feedback. The Feeding Razor was in a very early iteration of the deck but was quickly dropped as I didn't seem to hunt much the first couple of times I played it. Silly me! - in the Hobart qualifier, I was hunting 3-4 times a turn on several occasions, chewing through FD's to find key actions. I'll definitely be adding it back into any future versions.

For what it's worth, I'd consider adding a second Biothaumaturgic Experiment to this deck. BE's maneuver was fantastic for avoiding close-range decks whilst also being very effective against Bat-based combat and other decks that relied on single source maneuvers. In those cases, it combined nicely with the card's strength boost - maneuvering back to close and whacking someone for 3-4 with Blade of Enoch + Crypt's Sons was quite scary during the late game when everyone was running low on blood.

On that topic, Blade of Enoch was in as anti-Brujah tech (and, to a lesser extent, anti-DotB); I figured that it may scare off some rush decks that may have been running low on Grapples. I did toss up using Sword of Nuln instead, but would only include that if I also added a Sire's Index Finger and another strength booster or two.

cheers
Disco Stu

As promised, a more detailed report from Dave W, who played the Guruhi deck that made it to the final. It was primarily a Nana Buruku/Ngozi Ekwensu animalism wall with Exile/Brutal Influence tech.

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Table 1
Disco Stu (Gerald Windham endless turn deck with trophy tech) -> Me -> Steve V (Ventrue stealth vote) -> Cookie (Pander bloat deck)

I had a great starting hand, with Mbare Market put in play to give me pool for the entire game. Got Nana and Ngozi out pretty quickly and slowly built up my vamps.
My prey called a parity shift, giving me and stu a pool each (for me it was a bribe not to block), then played a political stranglehold, giving me 6 pool as a consequence (with my 2 big caps) while bloating himself for 3 pool. I was impressed with Stu's deck. He went anarch and then used Magic of the Smith to get Ankara Citadel and then Freak Drive'd for free in a seemingly endless turn to get permanent equipment and effects into play, or just hunt (all with an additional +1 stealth). Something like 40% of the deck is freak drives. I got Carlton Van Wyk and Stick out, so was happy with my little army in front of me. Stu put Fame on Ngozi and grabbed an Ivory Bow. Ngozi blocked him getting a Kevlar Vest and used her Canine Horde to destroy the Bow during his attack. Gerald got a title and red listed backwards on a 1 cap and then took out the vamp with one of his support vamps. Stu also took out Cookie's star vamp, a merged Alfred Benezri, and diablerized him using a support vampire. I was forced to burn Carlton to burn that vamp (damn, was saving Carlton to block a flaming candle bleed that I could see coming in the future) [Note from Disco Stu: this was Nicomedes, who I purposefully diablerized with to effectively throw him in front of Carlton. As my deck used diablerie to trigger Trophy effects, I wanted Carlton off the table so I could eat the Red Listed 1-cap with impunity]. Spent most of my time defending against Stu, trying to block his actions to get significant permanent effects, but couldn't stop everything. I was not able to put a great deal of pressure on my prey, who was concentrating on building himself up and doing bleeds forward. Stu ran out of library, but was setup nicely with about 20 cards on Gerald. Time was running out. With 5 minutes to go, Stu made a last ditch effort to oust me with a Flaming Candle bleed for 8 or so (Pulse + action modifiers etc), but I survived on 3 pool. With only a couple of minutes remaining, I maxed out Nana with Orun [Disco Stu's comment: I remember that turn! Three Orun in one master phase!!] and fingers crossed used Brutal Influence on Steven for a bleed of 9, stealthing past him with my Shaman. He had no intercept or bounce in hand. Timeout. 1.5 VP for me, 0.5 VP each for Cookie and Stu.


Table 2
Scott (Toreador guns) -> Stu (Gerald) -> 'Smudge' (Weenie stealth vote) -> Me

In this game, Orun on my vamps messed around with the table votes, allowing me to stop some key early votes to get titles. He got 1 through early on though. Stu mind raped backwards (Sean Andrews) and took the IR googles and gun on Sean when he took control of him. Stu even warned his predator that this was what he was going to do, so Scott had his chance to get the equipment off first in his turn, but didn't [Disco Stu's comment: I need to confess, I wanted Scott to use his main vampire's action to equip off Sean Andrews so he wouldn't bleed me for a ton - I was tapped out and on low pool already. As it was, he bled me with a Public Trust so I felt like I could take the equipment with a clean conscience.]. Weenie stealth vote army behind me started getting past the minor intercept I was able to generate, which started looking bad for my pool. For some reason I cannot comprehend, I noticed that Smudge had made Mary Johnson an Archbishop. Being an older vampire with Presence, I used an action to steal her from him. With her, Nana with 6 Orun and Ngozi (Magaji), I had 6 votes and controlled the votes (I kept Mary for the rest of the game, until I was ousted). The Toreador deck in front of me tried to call a vote of some sort, I blocked & Pack Alpha-d out some more intercept and cycled into some much needed wakes. Stu then ousted Smudge and put a Pentex on Ngozi. Nana was forced to use my Strange Day to get rid of it from Ngozi (I was saving it for a Brutal Influence bleed to finish my prey off, bah!). Gerald managed to block Ngozi's action she performed (I have no idea what she was doing or why I decided to act with her) and sent her to torpor. My prey then put Fame backwards on Mary Johnson. WTF? His prey had small support vamps in place. Of course, I then drew into a Pentex of my own and decided to use it backwards on Gerald (which would allow me free rein to rescue Ngozi and take out my prey, but it left me on 2 pool). Safe from Gerald's Bowl of Convergence, I sent Mary Johnson off to rescue Ngozi from torpor - she was my main blocker with all my Raven Spies - but my prey intercepted her and sent her to torpor (as said previously, WTF?), which ousted me, giving Stu 6 pool and a VP. Stu quickly bled the Toreadors out. A table sweep for Stu.

Table 3
'Smudge' -> Steve V -> Me -> Steve Harris (Assamite Toolbox)

Quick table for two of us. Smudge's weenie vote got shut down immediately as soon as Steve V influenced out his Inner Circle member. Smudge wasted all his actions trying to call votes (with no vote modifiers and no hope of getting them through – I had no votes in place this game). We advised him to adapt and stealth bleed instead. Steve took down the weenie deck using lots of Loss bleeds within about 20 minutes and started disguising out some nasty, aggravated damage weapons (gulp!). The two Steves made a deal to get rid of me and then sort it out between themselves. Not much I could do about it, and I didn't really see any useful tech in time to be useful (saw 1 Orun, maybe had time to get 1 Raven Spy out). The Steves then battled it slowly out, both bloating and losing pool backwards and forwards (Steve H via the edge, Steve V via votes) until the Assamites eventually took the Ventrue down in last couple of minutes remaining before timeout. It was tense, and early on I thought the Ventrue had it easily, but that Steve fella is pretty resistant!
Steve H 3 VP, Steve V 1 VP.

Finals Table
Stu -> Steve H -> Me -> Dave (Shambling Hordes nastiness ) -> Steve V

My prey got a Shambling Horde out early using a 3 cap before I could get my intercept in place, he then moved fast, put Fame on Steve V's support vamp he had brought out and took it down in the first couple of minutes. After some table talk, Stu diablerized the famous vamp to get that off the table (to the thanks of everybody but Dave). I got a Sniper Rifle as my first action, but my hand was awful otherwise. Managed to finally get a Raven Spy on Nana and bring out Ngozi. Steven got Lucinde out and watched as the Shambling Hordes pounded into her turn after turn. I blocked Steve H getting an Ivory Bow and met a Disguised Flame Thrower instead. Ouch! Managed to rescue Nana and worked on trying to survive. Steve V played an Ancient Influence, gaining me 9 pool with Nana (with 3 Orun she was a capacity 14 vampire to the other players on the table) W00t! The Shambling Hordes finally took down Lucinde, leaving no predator for Stu. My prey then just bled into Steven with nothing I could do about it. Stu finally managed to get his deck going and found Ankara Citadel (it was looking bad there for a while for him). My prey knew that he could not get past my wall in order to get more Hordes out, so just concentrated on bleeding. Steve put a Hand Contract on Nana, so I Pentexed Steve's star which he Sudden Reversed, which in turn was Sudden Reversed by Stu. In his turn Stu then used a Flaming Candle to bleed Steve for 8, leaving him on 2 pool. I took my own Pentex off the Assamite in the hope that Steve would take down Gerald in his death throes with at least 1 block attempt. Stu made Stick Famous and then he took down Steve H, soaking up all the damage with anarch cards and a Kevlar Vest. I managed to block any attempts to send Stick to torpor. I rescued Lucinde for Steve V to give him a small chance and then I then bled my prey for 1 and got bounced (doh!). That 1 pool would have made the difference in him not being ousted as he had a Golconda in hand to stay in the game as a pool stack. David bled Steve V out and then Stu played a Pentex on Nana and stealth bled me out (using Zip Line. How embarrassing). Impressively, David managed to get 4 Shambling Hordes out in his turn using his weenie Giovani army. He had a little time to start rushing them forward before the table timed out, but Gerald was pretty resistant to such damage with his permanents and anarch tech.
Stu 2.5 VP, David 1.5 VP. Congrats to Stu for the tournament win!

We finished the finals table around 9:30 pm and the out of towners went off to have an awesome dinner in Salamanca Place. Overall it was a fun weekend (had a great time sight-seeing Hobart on Sunday)


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cheers

Disco Stu