Tournament report - Avsnitt 4: Tjindar's List

The Expectation Analysis Experiment is from now on resting and I doubt I will pick it up again. Last tournament I played I wrote an article but changed deck on the tournament day so the article was pointless, just spoiling a deck list. I have learned quite some from writing those pre-tournament articles but I feel I got it in me now when designing and choosing decks for tournaments so from now on you’ll just get simple tournament reports.

I drove solely the 280 kilometres early in the morning from Göteborg to Örebro without any real problems but it took some time due to the snow, ice and slow traffic. I was a little tired arriving at the venue but as soon that it was time for the first round I woke up. This is the deck I played:

Deck Name : Funny Form of Curruption Deck
Author : Stefan Karlsson (some credits should go to Erik Gustavsson and Alex Ek for playing their versions of the Undele-deck and sharing ideas)

3x Lutz von Hohenzoll     11 AUS DEM OBF PRE pot  inner circle Malkavian:4
3x Dmitra Ilyanova        9  CEL FOR POT PRE obf  justicar     Brujah:5
3x Undele                 9  CEL FOR obf pre ser  magaji       Ishtarri:5
3x Karen Suadela          7  CEL POT obf pre      prince       Brujah:5

Action [3]
  2x Entrancement
  1x Form of Corruption

Action Modifier [21]
  2x Awe
  1x Daring the Dawn
  5x Forced March
  3x Forgotten Labyrinth
  3x Into Thin Air
  2x Perfect Paragon
  5x Voter Captivation

Action Modifier/Reaction [3]
  3x Scalpel Tongue

Combat [5] 
  5x Majesty

Equipment [1]
  1x Heart of Nizchetus

Master [21]
  1x Coven, The
  2x Dreams of the Sphinx
  1x Giant's Blood
  1x Information Highway
  1x Monastery of Shadows
  1x New Carthage  
  1x Pentex(TM) Subversion 
  6x Villein
  2x Wider View
  5x Zillah's Valley

Political Action [18]
  1x Ancient Influence
  1x Ancilla Empowerment
  2x Banishment
  2x Conservative Agitation
  1x Domain Challenge
  3x Kine Resources Contested
  1x Lextalionis
  1x Neonate Breach
  5x Parity Shift
  1x Reins of Power

This is a standard Parity Shift deck with some quirks. Undele is the key minion but he is no standard star vampire as I don’t need him in the beginning. The crypt with 3x4 vampires and some Wider View works really well in this kind of deck. First I want one of the Brujahs to call early Parity Shifts and then I want the other vampires in the order and speed the game allows. Undele’s special is a killer and that is what makes it worthwhile and possible to include cards like Form of Corruption and Lextalionis in the deck. I think you get the idea so I move on to the actual report. There were 16 players at the tournament but one late arrival and one early departure made us play with 15 players all three rounds.

Round 1
Me –> Henrik Ericsson (KS bleed featuring Santaleous) –> Tomas Wallmur (Seterpenre + Anu Diptinatpa) –> Henrik Rune Eriksson (Ahrimanes toolbox) –> Anders Löf (!Ventrue grinder)
I got a dream start being able to influence quickly and call two early Parity Shifts on my prey. The strength of Santaleous special ability were soon discovered as he cancelled an Eternals of Sirius played by Tomas and to everyone’s surprise Tomas still had to burn the pool for the card. No more Zillah’s Valley for me at that point. Good thing I had Heart of Nizchetus in play so I could hide all my master cards in the bottom of the deck. Tomas got a slow start and Anders drew very few bleed cards but kept himself alive from quite heavy bleeding from the Ahrimanes. I ousted Henrik and and Tomas but then I literary went in to a wall. Anders started to bleed heavier so I needed to oust Tomas quicker than I wanted to not risk getting ousted myself. Anu also increased many of Anders’ vampires bleeds so that was yet another reason. When I hit the tooled-up Ahrimanes there were nothing left do. My library was exhausted due to too many discards and excessive use of Undele’s special and every round he had just enough intercept or wakes to stop my attempt at voting back some heavy stealth on hand. Anders was ousted and I kept a stubborn struggle for a while but the game win was Henrik’s (confusing with two players with the same name isn’t it?)
Rune GW 3VP
Me 2VP

Round 2
Isak Bjärmark Esbjörnsson (Lutz & Co Petra Resonance) –> Jonatan Sjöberg (!Nos rush) –> Henrik Rune Eriksson –> Me –> Tomas Wallmur
Isak and I became voting buddies but I had a little struggle influencing the right minions. My starting crypt consisted of one Dmitra and three Lutz and Isak’s first vampire was Lutz and there were no reason to even consider a contest. Isak got a brilliant start playing Pentex on Jonatan’s first vampire only to banish him as quick as the Pentex was removed. When he was influenced back he was banished again and Jonatan didn’t take a single action the whole game. With his back free Rune could bleed me far heavier than I could bloat and even if I did as much damage to Tomas as Rune did to me I was in danger. Isak did what he could to keep me in the game, including not freaking out when I played Parity Shift on him. There were some massive dealing including Isak playing Parity Shift on Jonatan, giving the pool to Tomas in exchange for not being bled. Tomas’ Anu offered her services to Rune’s vampires so soon after Jonatan was ousted Rune got me. Isak could then oust Rune and it looked like he would have a comfortable duel with Tomas but then we were shown what Tomas’ deck really was capable of. He increased Lutz bleed for 3 with Anu to play an Archon Investigation followed by a Daemonic Possession. Next round he did the exact same thing to Tryposa’s Kindred Spirits bleeding if I remember correctly. Very fun to see and I like it when somebody beats me at whacky deck building.
Isak 2VP
Tomas 2VP
Rune 1VP

Round 3
Me –> Adam Esbjörnsson (Girls will find thinspiration) –> Anders Löf –> Isak Bjärmark Esbjörnsson –> Ivan Marin-Rivas (Anson Ashur Tablets table control)
Again I had a good start and Adam did not. He didn’t draw any crypt acceleration and I could play two early Parity Shifts on him. Anders could build up without any real pressure and Ivan mostly blocked Isak’s actions and let me perform mine since he probably wanted to get rid of Adam’s deck. Andres slowly ousted Isak followed by Ivan and I put ridiculous amounts on pressure on Adam but as you all know his deck (a 65-card version) is a pain to oust, especially played by such a brilliant player. I got to play Lextalionis after Anders ousted Ivan and that felt really good – it is such a powerful card during the right circumstances. I had vote lock and no one were blocking my actions so I could either opt for defence of offence the following turns with Undele. Some rounds I picked Banishments up and some I picked Kine Resources Contested. Problem was that I had to play defensive a little too often to be able to oust. As soon as I did pool damage to Adam he could regain it with Liquidation, Ashur Tablets and its likes and I myself went into ousting range. The game timed out leaving Anders with the win but with ten more minutes anyone could have won.
Anders GW 2.5VP
Me 0.5VP
Adam 0.5VP

It was a nice tournament and I had three good games. I feel the deck lacks a little in offence, I should probably just add two more Kine Resources Contested or something like that. Maybe also exchange some of the more conditional votes even if I like the idea of being able to pick up whatever I need. Protected Resources should probably also be added since I think I performed one or two single bleed actions the whole tournament. The deck is master heavy as it is but Undele’s special makes that problem not being as big as it could have been. I will definitely keep working on this deck since it is both very good and fun to play. Suggestions are welcome.

I also want to thank all players and party animals for a nice day and night in Örebro. See you soon guys!