Skirmishes in the Dark : 01-12-2009

1st December, of the year 2009, Paradigm Infinitum.

After the tense and epic battle of the Eden storyline tournament, we did have some time before the players return to their haven. Originally I wanted to test out my newly re-made Gargoyle deck, but realized that I brought the wrong deck with me instead. What I had with me was my Foul Magnetism deck which I was intending to disband.

Well, at least I had a deck. So, gathering the 4 players that were available, we started a game.

Randomizing deck position, we ended up -

Bann's !Toreador Anarch being player 1,

bleeding Dzaki's Gangrels,

bleeding G1's newly recruited Alastor Guns,

bleeding my Foul Magnetism.

Bann started off the game telling us that he had a bad draw, and was sitting right beside 2 intercept decks. I don't know why he considered my deck an intercept deck, since the highest I can probably ever go to was 4 intercepts, and that requires 2 Raven Spies on the same Vampire...but I guessed it had something to do with me trying to block (unsuccessfully) his first attempt to go Anarch.

I was lucky to have a Zillah's Valley in hand right at the beginning, and since I was player 4, I influenced Lukas to the table on turn 1, which is a great advantage for me. However, my vote advantage was soon removed when G1's Mistress Fanchon hit the table 2 rounds later, but not before I landed a KRC on Bann.

Mid-Game

The mid game was pretty much a battle for votes, even with Lukas and Ysador the Foul on my side I was still unable to grab vote superiority against G1's Mistress and a single Primogen. (The vote defense of an Inner Circle!) I did manage to get a few KRCs through by bargaining with G1, and eat the few 1 points myself. And occasionally when I have a Animal Magnetism I manage to call that through. In order to maintain good will with G1 I normally land the extra 1 point to Dzaki.

Over the other side Dzaki's Gangrels were trying hard to fend off Bann's Palla Granded Anarch's Undue Influence. With Jost Werner on his side Bann's stealth was proving quite a challenge for Dzaki and he was consistently losing pool. G1 got his .44s on his Vampires as he was pretty much left by himself, with occasional blocks and attacks by Dzaki, but wasn't too worried about them.

My one chance to at least attempt to control the vote table was destroyed when Bann Washed my Powerbase Madrid. The table's votes were pretty close, with 5 votes with both me and G1. I was able to finally kill off Bann with a KRC after stealth bleeding him with Lukas and held on to the edge.

Late-Game

With his pool already quite significantly reduced by Bann's stealth bleeds, and Yasdor's unique ability to pretty much ignore his Vampires' Claws of the Dead, I was able to kill off Dzaki also.

This is when the biggest weak point of my deck started to show. I have very little defense against a Celerity Gun deck that is able to enter combat consistently. G1 had 3 Vampires at this point, with vote superiority as well as .44s on his side. With Alastor he could picked off my Vampire one by one. Even though I had Joseph Cambridge added to my entourage to attempt to at least stealth bleed him to death, my Vampires didn't manage to survive his Blur .44s.

Soon all my Vampires were in torpor and I conceded.

Final VP Count-

G1 - 2 VPs + GW

Me - 2 VPs

(o.o)