Beer and Jyhad

2011-08-14

New Blog - Lord of the Clog

As you have noticed there has been no updates to this blog at all this year. As I have told you earlier I have lost interest in writing about beer and have been lacking time to write about Jyhad as well. This will most likely be the last entry ever for this blog but don't despair - I'm writing this mainly to tell you about my new exclusive V:tES-blog Lord of the Clog. For starters it will be mostly about me writing and sharing tournament reports but who knows what I will make up in the future. Thanks for your time here and I hope as many of you as possible will follow my new V:tES-adventuers at www.lordoftheclog.blogspot.com!

Stefan Karlsson

2010-12-29

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!

2010-12-19

Beer 101208-101218

Sigtuna Midvinternattens Mörker

Sweden
ABV: 6.2%
Rating: 2

Nynäshamns Mysingen Midvinterbrygd

Sweden
ABV: 6%
Rating: 2

Dieu du Ciel Solstice d’hiver

Canada
ABV: 9.8%
Rating: 3

Kortedala Enskilda Hinkbryggeri Arne Weisen

Sweden
ABV: 5.6%
Rating: 3

Kortedala Enskilda Hinkbryggeri Kalifens Dadelporter

Sweden
ABV: 6.7%
Rating: 4

Jämtlands Julöl

Sweden
ABV: 6.5%
Rating: 3

Ayinger Winter Bock

Germany
ABV: 6.7%
Rating: 2

Mikkeller Santa’s little Helper

Denmark
ABV: 10.9%
Rating: 2

2010-12-04

Beer 101105-101204

Dugges Avenyn Ale

Sweden
ABV: 5%
Rating: 4

De Dolle Arabier

Belgium
ABV: 8%
Rating: 3

Pencil sharpener!

Dugges Bollox

Sweden
ABV: 7.8%
Rating: 3

Kortedala Enskilda Hinkbryggeri Hopfen Schwarzen

Sweden
ABV: 7.1%
Rating: 3

Djævlebryg Son of Nekron

Denmark
ABV: 6.5%
Rating: 3

2010-12-03

The future of this blog

I haven’t made a single blog entry for more than a month and I feel its time to explain myself. There are different reasons and I better split them up in the two main categories:

Beer
It don’t take any great amount of time to write the small reviews I do but it takes time when I don’t want it to take time – when I’m enjoying my beer. It has gotten harder and harder to write about beer and it almost feels like a burden to have a notebook, or a notepad application on the phone at hand when I play cards or just have a lazy Friday in front of the TV. Last month I have even been avoiding buying beer I haven't drank before just to not having to review them. This is not fun and it really should be.
The solution is easy – from now on you will only get a picture, the data and the rating of the beer I drink. Instead I will link to Ratebeer for you to read real reviews by real beer geeks. Maybe I’ll add a comment or two when I feel like it but don’t count on it. I will instead try and write an article or two when I get the time to do so.

Jyhad
A little the same here. I have been playing less the last couple of months. I really don’t want it to be that way but I fear that it in some ways have to do with the fact that the game is not produced any more. It has been harder to get a casual game lately and for the first times in the last couple of years I have not been able to gather 4-5 players. The tournament scene in Gothenburg is also as good as dead. Where we have been stable with 10-20 players each month it’s now hard to gather more than five. For the scheduled tournament next weekend three players have signed up. I know that I really shouldn’t be writing this for the greater good of the game but this is simple and sad facts that makes writing about the game I love so much harder.
Last tournament I had an Expectation Analysis written but since only nine players showed up I decided it was not worth outing my deck so I played another one instead (and managed to end up at last place). I am still as active as I can be – had three lovely games yesterday but I will only write when I have something to say. I have noticed that my analyses of my decks are popular and that is what I will be focusing on. Maybe also some more opinion articles since I think that the community needs to be led the right way now when everything is risking falling apart. I won’t go into any details until I have sharpened my arguments here but let’s just hint that I think that there need to be something instead of the newsgroup

Well – I will keep blogging on both subjects but it will be a little different from now on. Happy drinking and bleeding everyone!

2010-10-29

Beer 101015 -101024

Slottskällan Imperial Stout
Sweden
ABV: 9%
Rating: 3

Nice sweet alcohol taste. Notes of fruit and some acidity. The Imperial Stout base is there but unfortunately the alcohol takes over.

Kortedala Enskilda Hinkbryggeri Kaiser Altbier Light (16/10)

Sweden
ABV: 2.5%
Rating: 3

A little like a weak lager but contrary to it’s big brother, Kaiser Altbier, this one actually gets fresher and hoppier towards the end and that is what saves it’s rating.

Sierra Nevada Tumbler Autumn Brown Ale (17/10)