Fifteen Methuselahs, including myself, showed up at the Dream Wizards game store in Rockville Maryland this past Saturday for a lovely and frivolous day of playing V:TES.
I was, however, mightily disappointed that NOT A SINGLE PERSON played a deck containing EVEN A SINGLE COPY OF FOLDEROL. ;-)
It'd be some consolation to me that one person did play a deck with Kiasyd, if not for the blatant disdain that playing Kiasyd without Folderol displays.
The Folderol prize (one of those big banner V:TES posters) therefore went unawarded. I guess I'll have to try to give it away again later. Perhaps at the Mid-Atlantic US Championships next month. :-)
So anyway... the winner turned out to be, ahem, me. I really didn't set out to go and win my own tournament again, but what can you do.
I played a somewhat-new Smiling Jack deck based on ANI/AUS vampires, listed at the end of the report. I built it mainly to try out Read the Winds and see if it was really any good. (verdict: It seems to be pretty good. Paying a blood a pop is annoying, but the untap/intercept in one card is nice, as long as you can afford the blood.)
So I made it into the final round as the third seed with 4.5 VPs and 1 game win from the preliminary rounds. The final was, in seating order: So I made it into the final round as the third seed with 4.5 VPs and 1 game win from the preliminary rounds. The final was, in seating order:
Joshua Duffin, ANI/AUS Jack, 1 GW 4.5 VP 120 TP (pre-3rd)
Forrest Nielsen, !Toreador bleed, 1 GW 4 VP 108 TP (pre-4th)
Johnny Tullner, weenie-Pre vote, 1 GW 5.5 VP 120 TP (pre-2nd)
Oliver Stebich, Lasombra/Kiasyd bleed, 2 GW 5.5 VP 138 TP (pre-1st)
Shane McRoberts, Baali/Salubri bleed/Renew, 1 GW 4 VP 102 TP (pre-5th)
I brought out Omaya and Lambach, my favorites. Forrest brought out a couple fairly sizable !Tor. Johnny brought out a few weenies and managed a Praxis before anyone else had enough votes to fail it. Oliver brought out Julia Prima, hit himself in the head for not having looked first at the vampire he was putting his counters on, and then Gratiano (Gratiano first might've stopped the Praxis, or at least the first Kine Resources Contested). Shane brought out Matthias and then Giotto Verducci.
I got some intercept and some bloodgain. Oliver bled Shane mercilessly. Shane Minion Tapped Matthias and then realized he'd forgotten he couldn't Renewed Vigor himself. Johnny called several KRCs against Oliver, most of which passed. Forrest bled Johnny a fair amount. I bounced a couple bleeds to Forrest and maybe blocked a couple. Shane boosted a Legal Manipulations bleed I'd bounced to Forrest with Sense the Sin after Forrest proved unable to block; his reasoning was apparently that he wanted to collapse the table to him, me, and Johnny, as he felt he could deal better with that three-player dynamic than the one where he was getting hammered with bleed by Oliver and I was too far from Johnny to want to block his votes. I guess that almost makes sense, but I wouldn't have done it in his place; it did give me my first VP, since I was then able to bleed Forrest out with my measly bleeds for one. (Smiling Jack didn't play much part in most of this game; I got one out fairly early but it got burned while on one counter, then I didn't play another until it was down to two players, at which point it was almost unnecessary.)
Oliver succeeded in ousting Shane with bleeds (as Shane didn't really have any bounce or much intercept past the +1 on Matthias). I then did my best to block Oliver's bleeds or bounce them to Johnny after not blocking, which worked real well; Johnny didn't last too much longer at that point, I think. I also recruited a War Ghoul somewhere in there, which was engaged in first running Johnny out of Majesties and then eating his vampires. When I got the Edge and played Millicent Smith at the 2-player stage, the game was pretty much decided, though it took a couple more turns before it actually ended (holding Millicent I didn't want to risk taking actions with anything other than the War Ghoul, so I just kept rushing Gratiano until he ran out of avoidance).
Josh 4, Oliver 1. Final standings: Josh, Oliver, Johnny, Forrest, Shane.
Here's the deck I played. It really can't block everything, as Trey kept saying, but it can block enough to severely mess up the first few people that try anything, which is a pretty good deterrent assuming that your opponents want to win. :-)
"Mona Lisa Overdrive"
(for the Smiling, and for the book.)
2 Devin Bisley (5 ANI AUS)
2 Corine Marcon (6 ani AUS +1 strength)
1 Caliban (6 ANI AUS)
3 Omaya (7 ANI AUS prevent 1 each combat)
2 Anton (8 ANI AUS +1 intercept)
2 Lambach (10 ANI AUS +1 strength burn 1 for agg hands)
3 Blood Doll
2 Minion Tap
4 Smiling Jack the Anarch
1 KRCG News Radio
1 London Evening Star
1 Powerbase: Montreal
1 Rack, The
2 Millicent Smith, Puritan Vampire Hunter
1 Army of Rats
1 Palatial Estate
1 Femur of Toomler
1 Ivory Bow
2 Revenant
1 Mr. Winthrop
3 Raven Spy
2 Owl Companion (super-key for knowing what they're up to)
2 War Ghoul (three might be better, but probably no more)
2 Conquer the Beast (cause it's optional)
3 Trap (cause War Ghouls can use 'em)
7 Carrion Crows
5 Aid from Bats
2 Canine Horde
3 Taste of Vitae (taste for 3 = as good as 3 hunts)
3 Wake with Evening's Freshness
4 Forced Awakening
5 Read the Winds
7 Cat's Guidance
5 Eagle's Sight
2 Enhanced Senses
4 Telepathic Misdirection
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81 cards (never ran out)