Games from 10/23

Ian already did a nice job of re-capping this game, so I'll just go over some highlights.

Game one:
Me (imbued cheese bleed)> Andy (BH assamites)> Jeff (HoS mill deck)> Ian (Gargoyles)

I managed to quickly outnumber my prey's minions and get a few powers out. Andy took maybe a couple of actions this game, but had a problem right away when he brought out a 9-cap without bounce. I got a flash grenade the hard way with a guy and the next round was blocked on a bleed. Bang! I think I landed a couple of bleeds that turn and next turn picked up all of the bleed I could. I pentexed andy's new guy and bled him out. He was ousted maybe 30 minutes into the game.

Jeff was playing very defensively, so ousting him proved more difficult. He left most or all of his 3 guys untapped every turn and had a fair amount of wakes. Jeff was also playing Masque of Judas and Tapestry of blood, so he was making me discard a thing or two. Thankfully I got to play Unity, so I was able to recurse some needed cards every turn for a pool.

Ian and Jeff were doing a bad job of teaming up to use trochomancy against me, but did get it off once. Once was enough to put a serious damper on my conviction supply. Low on conviction and trying to avoid having the last third or so of it burned, I stopped using it so much and just focused on bleeding Jeff for 1 repeatedly. That got him really low, but it beat up my guys more than I would have liked.

I brought out another 4-cap imbued (these guys are really freaking cheap!) and adjusted my hand (I think I had no deck at this point) to be able to bounce with him, wake and bounce with Jenny. He was rushed, which I could have made fail with the same card, but I knew that if I kept the conviction I could still bring him out next turn. I also preferred that Ian not have an extra bleeder. Jenny bounced what would have been the killing bleed and I swept up Jeff the next turn. Ian conceded, but I'm not sure he should have so soon.

Me: GW 4vp

Game two:
Me (Young Turks vote/bleed)> Jeff (same)> Andy (Malk bleed)> Ian (Anson personal involvement/parity shift)

I was unblocked in all of my tool-up actions this game, which was what I needed to avoid getting into ousting range while getting a bunch of minions. I only drew one prince in my opening crypt, which turned out to be pretty bad against Ian's two princes and Distant Friend (me). I built the deck to be good enough at bleeding that this sort of thing shouldn't stop me and it proved to work as planned.

Ian started messing with my pool with Personal Involvement, which I always chose to pay for. I figured "at some point, he has to realize that he has a small army of malks behind him and stop paying so much pool." He tried to Parity Shift me, but Andy blocked it. Andy apparently couldn't stealth bleed Ian most of the time, so he got blocked and bounced at one or zero stealth a bunch. Andy eventually ground down Ian's two princes and was able to oust him.

In the meantime, I landed some small bleeds against Jeff and set him up for the oust. I drew a Pentex and Approximation of Loyalty in addition to one or two bleed cards, so it was time to lunge. I pentexed Jeff's large vampire, which left him with a tapped 6-cap to block. I led with an entrancement bleed with my 8-cap prince and cancelled Jeff's wake. Then the rest went in. I think I had to freak drive some in order to draw the ousting bleed card, but I knew it was in there and sure enough, foreshadowing destruction finished the job.

Ian had too many votes for me to pass my votes, so I kinda felt like he should die right before I would oust Andy. I bled Andy a little to set him up, but he managed to find stealth and lots of bleed. He ousted Ian and with his last bleeder, he bled me for 6, just enough to oust me.

Andy: GW 3vp Me: 1 vp

Game three:
Me (!Tor anarch block and bleed)> Ian (Baali)> Andy (Baali bloat, beast, bleed)> Jeff (same)

Jeff steadily milled me this game. As I saw the cards I wanted disappear into my ash heap with my pred having no apparent strategy for victory in sight other than the obvious "maybe I kill this one guy" one, I became frustrated. I did my best to oust Ian and did late in the game, but not before being left with about a third of my 90 card deck vs 3 slaughterhouses and Masque of Judas.

Here is where I started making "mistakes." I pentexed Jeff's Byzar because I didn't want him doing anything other than defending when I should have saved the pentex for the great beast. Jeff did very little to defend himself (or so it seemed) and insisted that I be the one to remove his pentex. No favors for you my friend. I wasted a sudden on a skill card of Andy's even though I knew I really wanted to sudden his last Ashur Tablet (he played it next). In the end game, the great beast broke through my defense of S:CE and started torporizing my guys. Had it not been for the beast (with a Rutor's Hand), I think I would have had enough blood to win the long game. I conceded.

Andy: GW 3vp Me 1vp

What did I learn by these games?
-Imbued, while strong, do have their limits
-Fight the urge to sudden stupid stuff
-Milling is really annoying in a long game, so make it a short one

As a side note, I'll try not to gripe so much about Jeff's non-ousty mill deck. If that's what he wants to play, I'll just have to deal with it one way or another.

Side note number two: We could have had five players. We thought we had as many as six, but one no-showed and the other didn't want to be the odd one out. It sounds like we are much more willing to play a six player table and risk more timeouts than leave someone out. This is the way to build a successful game day; make sure people get to play any time they want to.

Joel, if you are reading this, sorry it didn't work out. Don't be shy about being player number six next time. For one, not everyone who wants to come actually shows up. Also, we are happy to have the problem of too many players.