After I failed to get to the final table or even get a VP with my Hektor deck (I may have got the coveted Apache Jones prize), I decided it would be a good idea to play a more straightforward deck. I went with a fat Followers of Set bleed deck featuring 9 caps and Nakhthorheb, Villein, and Eternals of Sirius. Villein to about 4 blood, get 5 transfers and pool for the cost of an MPA and 4 pool, bleed with mostly Public Trust, and profit.
Game One:
Robert Scythe (Summon History)> Me (FoS bleed)> Robert Goudie (Heaven's Gate)> Aaron Clark (weenie protean computer hacking)
First turn Info Highway means I get turn two Nakhthorheb. Nak bleeds, as he is apt to do, and does something else. I put 3 on Porpherion and one on Shemti. Aaron cross-table Arsons my Info Highway, I vow revenge. Robert Scythe plays Heidelberg, Aaron Arsons that. He tells me that he had 3 Arsons in his opening hand. Robert S.'s pool is going fast to bleeds for 2 and Aaron tools up with some +bleed stuff.
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| Revenge is dish best served cold, or hot, so long as it is served. |
Robert Goudie's pool isn't doing that well thanks to my bleeds for 3-5 and occasional Enticement. He doesn't appear to have or have drawn pool gain cards. He recruits Akhenaten, The Sun Pharaoh and warns me to take it easy on the bleeding. Right. On his next turn he rushes me with Akhenaten and I S:CE. So much for that. Aaron Pentexes Matthias. Robert S. Entrances the Pharoah, then I bleed out Robert G. and steal the Pharoah for myself. No burning my FoS today, buddy!
In the endgame I Golconda Robert S.'s Sophie to force him to do the reasonable thing and survive until I can oust him. I bleed Aaron low on pool, he bleeds Robert pretty low. Robert Pentexes one of my dudes and then I oust them both.
Game Two: "Unhappy Ending"
Robert Goudie (Heaven's Gate)> Mike Courtois (Tzim rush/burn)> Me> Darby (Turbo War Ghouls)
I get out Porpherion early and he manages to bleed Darby just before being rushed and burned by Mike via Meschenka and Horrid Form/Body Arsenal. He states that he is surprised I had no S:CE. Ok.
Darby gets a fast start and puts out a couple of War Ghouls and The Unmasking, in addition to Jake and Gregory Winter. He fights with Robert and Robert eventually loses, not using Heaven's Gate the best way (other than not playing it ;)). I try to keep him alive, but he is Fame/Dragonbound ousted. I fail to transfer correctly and do a 1/1 split between two 9-caps in my uncontrolled, not sure who I had in play. If I had done 2 counters on one guy I could have brought him out via Info Highway and a Public Trust bleed. Maybe I was metagaming against Brainwash?
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| Maybe not the best cult to model yourself on. |
Mike tools up with something that does Agg and the Bowl. I bleed. Darby asks Mike for a deal where they kill me, then duke it out. I wait until Mike's turn and then offer him a deal where I transfer out and he kills Darby. He likes that idea better. I tell him I can lose the 8 pool it will take me to die on my turn and that he can focus all of his rush backwards. Given that I didn't have an untap to land the ousting Enticement, this is the best I could reasonably hope for at the time. I thought that Mike had the rushes and combat cards to deal with me, that's just what his deck does. I was trying to edge Darby out of the finals, but that may have been foolish. Darby didn't have the bleed to successfully backstab Mike, so things would have played out the way they described with maybe Darby getting extra time to tool up himself. Mike rushes backwards and kills two dudes.
On my turn Darby tells me that *he* will transfer out to *me.* What a strange turn of events. I have to stop and think about this. Mike opines that of all the people to break a deal, he did not expect that from me. Does he read my blog? ;P I agonize over the decision for a few minutes and see that Darby is right. Backstabbing with some hope of taking at least a VP, if not the table, is much better than just zero vps and tying for last in table points at this table. I guess that Darby must see the writing on the wall too, that Mike will take the table. He may also not like the fact that Mike turned on him so quickly.
I reason that I can play my Eternals of Sirius, bleed and hope to draw a Truth of a Thousand Lies to untap my pathetically non-Nakhthorheb minion, then oust with Enticement. If I fail, I can still transfer out. I bleed, Darby tries to block to help me cycle. I play True Love's Face and he pays to continue attempting to block.I stealth and play Aire of Elation to get him to 1-2 pool, but I fail to draw Truth of a Thousand Lies. Given the reasoning above, I decide to transfer *back* one or two pool from my uncontrolled region (and still get a new minion) rather than be ousted.
Mike is irate that I broke our deal. He offers to oust himself to Darby to spite me (and arguably himself at this point). Darby transfers out. Mike scoops and stomps off.
At the table Darby and I talk about what just happened and how we feel bad. Robert consoles us some, saying that Mike has played the game a long time and worse things have happened to him, that he will understand. I think it was me who mentioned the
5 stages of grief and I wondered how that could be related to VTES. The first thing that comes to our minds is that the 5th stage, acceptance, is the "plotting phase." I never got really snappy phrases for each of the phases, but here's what I eventually decided on:
Denial = "He wouldn't oust me"
Anger = "Why are you ousting me? WTF?!?"
Bargaining = "I'll do anything. Life Boon? Extremis Boon?"
Depression = Scoop your cards
Acceptance = The plotting phase
Darby and I talked to Mike later. He understood why we did what we did, he even let us stay at his house again! He said that he talked to Robert G. earlier and let us stew on our post-backstabbing guilt a bit.
The Finals
I didn't write the finals up when they happend, I think because it was too late by the time they finished and I didn't have time during the game. Let's see what I can remember.
Here is the seeding from the final table:
Brandon Haas 2/7/120
Darby Keeney 1/4/108
Matt Wedge 1/4/78
Fred Scott 0/2.5/96
Robert Scythe 0/1.5/72
Seating Order:
Darby > Robert S. > Fred (Goratrix/Omaya Wall) > Brandon > Matt Wedge (Obf Pre Bleed/vote with The Rising)
I don't know how Robert Scythe made the finals, but he never got to play. As soon as Robert brought out Sophie, she was rushed and torporized by a War Ghoul. I tried to prop up Robert, but Darby relentlessly rushed forward. I was concerned when I chose my seat that Darby was the biggest threat to me. I transferred out carefully, too carefully. I could have had Nakhthorheb out quickly, but I brought out him and Pentweret at the same time, losing precious bleeds and free transfers via Public Trust in the meantime. Pentweret has the ability to steal allies and small vampires as a strike, so he had some protection from War Ghouls. This came up in the game before, he was my one minion I tried to oust Darby with as I now recall. I had played against Matt's deck before and wasn't that worried about him taking the table. Decks that focus on Gehenna events too much and play vampires tend to have trouble.
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| Bleed? If I must. |
I had an Entrancement in my opening hand, but decided to wait a minute to steal a War Ghoul. Matt beat me to it. I stole the second one. Darby was fucked. He brought out two more and was bled a few times, leading to his quick demise. At one point I rushed a vampire of Darby's, planning to turn the corner and keep him without the capacity to make more allies. He blocked with Vagabond Mystic, which he said cost me the game. It took me a while for me to understand what he was talking about. He meant that if he rushed Matt and Trapped, Vagabond Mysyic could keep his War Ghoul alive longer than Matt's. I don't think it mattered. Matt bled him out shortly.
Fred spent his game tooling up and bleeding me for 2-3 per turn between Goratrix and Omaya. He never had actions to block from my end, at least until later. I played Giant's Blood on Sophie to try and revive Robert and apply some pressure on Fred as I was getting lower on pool. I rescued her twice, but she was dunked again both times. My master card drawing this game was terrible. I didn't draw a Villein or Eternals until they didn't matter anymore, nor did I draw Dreams. With such a weak start and my slowing myself down via slow transfers and rescues instead of bleeds, Matt had too much room.
Matt ousted Darby, then quickly ousted Robert. I took an action to gain two pool via Dark Mirror of the Mind, which Fred tried to block. I figured that he would see he needed intercept vs Matt's deck, but he didn't. No one had tried to block me all game, so I was chock full of stealth. I added four stealth to the one from the action and got past Fred. He failed to block Matt on his turn and was bled for a few and/or voted against, I'm not quite sure. What does Fred do on his turn? Equip with a Kevlar Vest on Goratrix. Lose a pool and tap your primary blocker? I guess I could think of faster ways to oust yourself. In fairness, Matt had equipped with an Ivory Bow, so Fred might have not had many choices if he wanted to survive combat after blocking. Fred- get this- failed to block Matt and was ousted the next turn!!! I congratulated Matt and picked up my cards.
I think I forgot rule #1 of bleed decks- Keep It Simple, Stupid. So it goes.
Here's Matt's TWD:
Deck Name: Revolutionist Uprising
Created By: Matt Wedge and Robert Scythe
Description: Stealth bleed and vote with the Rising
Crypt: (12 cards, Min: 21, Max: 28, Avg: 6.41)
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1 Mukhtar Bey obf pot FOR PRE QUI7 Caitiff
2 Ubende for obf qui CEL PRE7 Ishtarri
3 Stavros dem AUS OBF PRE7 Malkavian Antitribu
2 Karen Suadela POT CEL pre obf7 Brujah
1 Renenet OBF PRE ser 5 Followers of Set
1 Ankh-sen-Sutekh obf PRE SER 6 Followers of Set
1 Herbert Westin pot OBF PRE 5 Brujah
1 Victor Pelletier cel dom for PRE5 Ventrue
Library: (65 cards)
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Master (12 cards)
2 Wider View
3 Dreams of the Sphinx
2 Pentex Subversion
1 Anarch Troublemaker
2 Sudden Reversal
2 Fortschritt Library
Action (6 cards)
1 Entrancement
3 Heart of the City
2 Public Trust
Action Modifier (20 cards)
2 Awe
2 Bewitching Oration
4 Voter Captivation
1 Veil the Legions
1 Spying Mission
2 Lost in Crowds
1 Forgotten Labyrinth
2 Faceless Night
3 Elder Impersonation
2 Cloak the Gathering
Political Action (8 cards)
4 Parity Shift
4 Kine Resources Contested
Combat (5 cards)
5 Majesty
Ally (1 cards)
1 Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)
Equipment (3 cards)
1 Gran Madre di Dio, Italy
1 Heart of Nizchetus
1 Ivory Bow
Event (8 cards)
2 The Rising
2 Break the Code
1 Nightmares upon Nightmares
1 Thirst
1 Bitter and Sweet Story, The
1 Restricted Vitae
Combo (2 cards)
2 Swallowed by the Night
