Metagame Considerations

Sunday the 22nd we played at Legends for the second weekend in a row and even had a guest from the East bay, Oliver Stacey. I won't do a detailed re-cap of the games we played, just note some of the basics of what happened and go over my thoughts.

Game 1:
I played an anti-malk vote/blood denial deck, but things were not set up well for me. Jeff Yin, my predator, was bleeding me consistently, trying to bait me into blocking. No dice. I did get low on pool, but I brought out Hannigan and Villeined him and someone else, putting me out of range for a while. I had blood dolls on my guys and was farming blood via Hannigan against my pred, the only valid target. Cross-table was Andy, doing the Baali tool up forever and then sweep thing. Jeff couldn't block for the life of him, so Andy was getting away with murder. Ian was bleeding Andy a lot and even though I had vote lock, I was only able to do the occasional pool damage. I didn't draw enough votes and Ian was reducing most of my bleeds to 1 or 0 in a deck that isn't bleedy to begin with. Andy ousted Jeff and I was low on pool, so I ousted Ian to stay alive. I lost the endgame because someone went to torpor and I couldn't keep the pressure on enough to ever hope to take Andy below 10 pool.

People at the table seemed to think that I should have let Ian work on ousting Andy more before trying to lunge. Ian, or at that time Oliver because Ian had stepped out and let Oliver play, had about 8 bleed on the table. I don't think I had a huge chance to win no matter what at that point since Andy had all game to build up, but opinions may differ I suppose.

Game 2:
I played a demo deck this time around and did fairly well. I brought out Rudolfo Giovanni and then Regina as soon as I could along with Lia Milliner, then started creating Shambling Hordes and backrushing the big dudes with DOM I saw behind me. Apparently, this activity earned me the nickname "backrush Brandon." I'm not one to leave myself wide open to DOM bleeds, even if I do have some bounce, because I know how much damage that can do. Oliver was my pred and was getting out free guys with the help of the big blue hand. Unfortunately for my hordes, he had a lot of combat. Rather than just probe with rushes, I went after him again and again. For the most part I didn't make much of a dent, but I eventually caught him once or twice without too many combat cards. Ian was doing stuff, can't remember exactly what. He stole Scapelli from me. I never got to use him ;( I got a bunch of flak for rushing and then surprise bled Ian out. Whoops! Next I ousted Jeff who was locked down trying to oust Andy who had a Major Boon against him and a Dummy Corporation.

Oliver played Judgement: Camarilla Segregation and was pinging us both. Once Andy blew up one of his guys I knew I couldn't win anymore because Oliver was too well positioned for me to do anything. My guys were about out of blood and Oliver was all blocky. Bad news. If Andy could have messed him up for me or at least kept Oliver off my back for a couple of turns, things might have been different. 2vps is not bad for a demo deck, so I guess I'm satisfied with that.

Game 3:
In this game I played the hated stealth vote/bloat deck with Armin, Dmitra and friends. My pred(Jeff again) and my prey (Andy) teamed up to keep most of my votes from passing. I spent a good amount of time hunting and doing ineffective votes, which wasn't helped by the fact that Andy brought out Lutz. Oliver and Jeff were busy beating the tar out of eachother and Ian was having trouble keeping his bima deck afloat. I contested Jeff's priscus title by bringing out Hektor, hopefully building to a point where I could pass votes again. On his way down with like one minion left, Jeff played Fear of Mekhet on Dmitra. Why he did this rather than play it on Lutz, which would hit us both, I don't understand. He wasn't going to oust me anytime soon, so weakening Andy and crippling me would have made more sense. Lutz would have gone to zero blood, had to hunt, and thereby wasted a valuable action.

Andy ousted Ian, Oliver ousted Jeff by the skin of his teeth, and then both Oliver suffered an agonizing death. Beast rushed, Muddled Vampire Hunter blocked and torpored him, Wah thew horseshoes at the hunter (which should have been the first action) and that was about it. Oliver wanted me to rescue Beast, but I reasoned that he was tapped with zero blood and virtually no chance to defend. I tried to get ready to do heads-up with Andy, but knew it was doubtful since Oliver failed to torpor a guy for me to diablarize. Andy bled for ~3, Oliver bounced as his last act of defiance, and then he died. I stood no chance since Andy had no incentive to block Hektor, who was the only minion I had who was a threat in combat.

What's the answer to all these big vampires, votes and combat? If I'm right, I'll write about it later. Don't want to spoil the fun....