101: San Francisco Storyline Part 1 Aftermath

We played part one of Ian Thompson's storyline in Berkeley this Sunday and I'm pleased to announce that I won! Ten players came and there was a LOT of bleeding. Good thing I packed 10 deflections ;). I had this deck I was tinkering with and now that I had the chance to start with any 0 or 1 cost master card in play, it gave me a good chance to make it work. The idea is to play all these expensive cards and then Lilith's Blessing to give you a skill card and three blood. Third Traditions work great in this deck because you can put them into play with zero blood and a skill card, great for making little Gideon Fontaines. Tap and swarm bleed where you can. Bounce bleeds to force your prey to block, bounce or take it. The titles on my guys helped me influence the game without playing any actual votes, not to mention the traditions.

I included a lot of anti ally and anti No Secrets tech and never encountered either. If I had time in game one, I would have set up an Entrancement +Force of Personality/Command combo to steal Carlton.

Crypt:
Dirk 1 pre
Tara 6 POT PRE cel prince
Vasily 6 CEL aus pre ser Prince
Victor Donaldson 6 DOM for pre Prince
Lodin (Olaf Holte) 8 DOM FOR PRE aus pro Prince
Epikasta Rigatos 8 AUS DOM PRE cel Prince
Graham Gottesman 7 DOM FOR obf pre tha Prince
Mustafa, The Heir 6 FOR PRE cel dom Prince]
Dr. Solomaon Grey 2 dom pre
Reginald Moore 4 PRE primogen
2x Emily Carson 5 DOM for pre primigen

Library: 90
Master: 19
Lilith's Blessing(was my faction card all three rounds)
The Coven
2x Pentex Subversion
2x Anarch Troublemaker
6x Life in the City
7x Presence

Actions: 27
Dream World
2x Propaganda
3x Enchant Kindred
3x Entrancement
10x Public Trust
Fifth Tradition: Hospitality
5x Third Tradition: Progeny
2x Mind Numb

Action Modifiers: 11
6x Aire of Elation
Daring the Dawn
The Sleeping Mind
2x Seduction
Command

Combo: 2
2x Force of Personality

Combat: 10
10x Majesty

Reactions: 21
10x Deflection
6x Second Tradition
5x On the Qui Vive

Game 1:
Me> Alex O.(!Vetrue Old Guard)> Dave(Trem/!Trem Old Guard)> ? > Gerentt(malk old guard bleed)

This game is pretty fuzzy for me. Some things that might have happened:
Alex O started with Demonstration, played House of Sorrow and took Turf War, dealing 4 damage to his prey immediately. Lazverinus came out and punched my guys really good when I couldn't get by him. Quinten came out, so I had to push hard to oust and eventually did. Dave ousted one or two people and then the game timed out.

Game 2:
Jeff Yin(Underbridge Stray + equipment?)> me> ?> ?> Dave?

Jeff only brought out 2 minions, but they were 8-caps. Then he brought out a bunch of expensive equipment. Then he was ousted. I ousted like three people, bringing me to 1gw 4.5vps and top seed in the finals(the actual top seed couldn't stay).

Finals:
Before I chose my seat:
Gerentt(malks w/dem bleed old guard)>Alex Con Hon(Kiasyd sabbat aligned)> Alex O.(!Ventrue old guard)> Dave(Trem/!Trem old guard)

Everyone on the table had bounce, so there was no obvious bleed sink to prey on. After seeing Dave's combat and bleed situation, I knew I could(usually) survive and that he was bouncing some but not all bleeds directed at him. His bleed was fairly heavy, but it wasn't weenie dom or anything. Gerentt was playing AUS bounce, which everyone knows to be inferior to DOM bounce because it requires tapping. Gerentt was preying on me in game 1, so I was expecting him to try and Coma me again. I didn't want to sit next to the Kiasyd or !Ventrue because their combat would be annoying. I decided to be Dave's prey because he was playing a solid, but not overpowering deck.

Right off the bat, Alex O calls a Con Ag to hurt Dave(4) and himself(1). I make it fail in exchange for three turns of no bleeding. My static votes were really handy, at least until Alex cross-table Ancient Grudged Lodin. Dave started the game with Smiling Jack in play, a bold move that I'm not sure did anything to help him since he couldn't defend it. I ended up losing three pool because of the stupid thing, but Gerentt got rid of it. I bled Gerentt a few times, landing a bleed of two, at which point he said he couldn't win. I thought this was premature, but he seemed certain. As a result, Con Hon was virtually unmolested. I did a lot of majestying, some breeding and then bleeding, finally putting Gerentt under as the first oust at the table.

Votes were spread over the table, so Turf War remained unclaimed until right before Alex O. was ousted. I think that Dave helped Con Hon take the Turf War and right before he died, Alex O. gave me his support to deprive his predator of it, burning his last blood from Quentin in the process.

When it got down to three, Con Hon and Dave teamed up against me. I still didn't have vote lock, so Dave took Turf War. I managed to bleed out Con Hon after tapping his one untapped vampire. I used my discard phase actions to get rid of deflections that started to pile up, aided by Powerbase Berkeley. Dave had a fat pile of pool, so I knew it would be a long hard slog to chew through it. He had out Muaziz, who bled me for three at one stealth. His other actions were to take his Powerbase Montreal back and some other junk, tapping out.

On my turn, I figured I'd take Turf War with one of my five minions and maybe bleed or hang out and block. No such luck. Dave played four straight wakes and blocked my attempt to call the vote, sending one guy to torpor with a nifty precognition + burst of sunlight at inferior combo. My final action finally got me Turf War, but Dave spent the next turn bleeding the crap out of me. Lucky for me, time ran out. Even though I would have won because of seeding, it felt better to not be ousted.

Other than Eric S' unintentional cross-table contest of Graham Gottesman in game one that killed him and may have cost me a VP, I was very pleased with the level of play. People were interested in exploiting the environment, something I saw Alex O. do quite a bit.

The next round should be a bit different with faction leaders changing players a lot.
There were a lot of Old Guard, 6 out of 10 players at least. I'd rate that as partly a factor of how complicated the abilities were for other factions and how restrictive it was trying to play them(100% of one sect for Cam or Sabbat, Laibon and Indies could mix, but only 25% could be something other than your chosen clan for all non-Old Guard). I think that the Old Guard could stand to lose the master-choosing ability next round, we could lose Turf War, simplify the other powerbases(one ability each, please). Other factions could keep their cards, they weren't that impactful.

Not sure what I'll play next round, but it will probably include Dirk. Till next time....