15th December, of the year 2009, Paradigm Infinitum.
It was a very interesting night for me as the large majority of the older players weren't present - the Prince, G1, Dazki, Dan, Ben, Damien, Richard... they were all absent. However, we still managed to assemble a table of 4 and a table of 5, with a grand total of 9 players on 2 tables. Very impressive as far as I'm concerned - enough new players to inject a lot of new energy into the blood pool of our community.
New Blood. New Challenges. New Battles to be won...and lost. Great days are ahead of us.
I managed to get in 2 games. The first game was over for me pretty quickly. Alvin, a new Methuselah, was playing a 1-Cap Brainwash hacking deck, and my Gargoyles really didn't stand much of a chance. (I did try) I can't remember much of that battle but he got at least 4 VPs and was the last player standing. I must commend his playing skills, for as far as I'm concerned, I saw very few mistakes from his play - BRAVO!
It's not that I don't want to write about that game, it's just that...well, Brainwash, Pentex, Bleed with Computer Hacking, kill prey, repeat. I do want to highlight that at one point, Alvin, instead of letting his multiple 1-cap Vampires bleed in futile, choose to do nothing, bring out Vampires from his crypt and increase his minion counts. He's not distracted by anything else - no blocks, no fancy talks, no NOTHING. Bleed when there is a chance to, and kill, kill, kill your prey.
I think that is one of the best and most focused play I've seen with a weenie Brainwash deck.
Well, that said, let me now summarized my second game of the night.
The randomized seating is as below -
My Gargoyle Air Rock deck sat as Player 1, bleeding
YY's Assamite (We are not Cursed) Gun deck, bleeding
Keith's 1 of many Giovanni deck, bleeding
QY's YY Kiasyd deck, bleeding
Ben's (the newest Ben) Assamite Rush deck.
Each Methuselah proceeded to bring out Vampires, and things looked pretty gloomy for Ben's Assamites since he had very little defense against a (historically) well-tuned Kiasyd bleed deck. He put all his attention towards defending and rushing the Kiasyd.
The table was full of combat. I brought out Ferox, followed by Erinyi, made Ferox an Anarch the HARD way, got lucky and slapped a Vessel and Perfectionist on him. However, my prey had Reza Fatir and armed him with a .44. Without enough combat cards in hand, and knowing I had little chance of out-manuevering a CEL gun deck, I had no choice but to wait. YY did get into a fire fight with Keith's Nunzio Giovanni, and in that first battle was torpored by Nunzio's Dragon's Breathed Saturday Night Special. That, however, didn't really set him back as he quickly left torpor by himself and there were no Vampires on my side at that time to stop that.
A Fame was slapped on Nunzio, followed by a Hand Contract, and soon everyone was eating Fame damage.
Meanwhile, the Kiasyd, despite a bad hand, finally had Pherydima, Omme and Roderick bled Ben to death, who didn't actually manage to torpor any Kiasyd. The Assamites did manage to draw out many Oubliettes, as well as drained a lot of blood from the Kiasyds. By then I had Ublo-Satha on table as well, but didn't manage to draw into any Razorbat. I did merged Ferox.
The battle was intense between the Assamite and the Giovanni. With Yazid Tamari merged and equipped with a .44, YY fended off the multiple attacks from Shambling Hordes. An early Tension in the Ranks, coupled with the famous FAME-RESCUE-GO TORPOR AGAIN combo quickly reduced Keith's pool to a point of no return. Soon YY managed to oust Keith after killing off a Shambling Horde with a Blurred .44. (the Tension killed Keith - first Tension kill)
Meanwhile, I was forced to go backwards, and was lucky enough to torpor 2 Kiasyds in a single round with Ferox - I Ambushed Omme, Immortal Grappled him to find him without any Fae Contortions, Pounced on him, Diversion the damage and Disarm him. I Freak Drived Ferox, Recruit a Stone Dog, Freak Drived again, and entered combat with Roderick - Raking Talon the guy and sent him to torpor too. This was to teach QY never to underestimate a rush deck that is ready.
However, even with a single Kiasyd QY was able to reduce my pool to below 3. At this point I'm pretty much out of the game, and had to negotiate with YY for a deal to torpor Pherydima for me in exchange of not diablerizing his torpored Reza (that was probably a mistake). With a contract on, Yazid made short work of the Kiasyds.
Soon, the Kiasyds were ousted and I had to fight off a gun deck that my Gargoyles aren't able to fight at this point (No Razor Bats, no Armor of Terras...) Soon Ublo-Satha was sent into torpor in a battle to protect the Contracted Famed Erinyi. During my turn, I tried my luck and send my Hatchling to bum's rush a low blood Reza. The attempt failed and the Hatchling's bum was shot to pieces. With the Tension damage, I was ousted... (2nd kill with Tension)
...what a way to die.
Final VP Count-
YY - 4 VPs plus GW
QY - 1 VP
(o.o)silly Gargoyle still didn't work at all.
3 comments:
It's QX (Qixian), not QY. =P
I think Donkey and Joshua contributed to Alvin's win, as much as his own focused play style.
Joshua bleeding for 9(!) over 2 turns early in the game caused be to become uber defensive and completely ignored Alvin. Not that it's his or his deck's fault (in fact, if he kept up the pressure, he might actually have swept), but it helped Alvin lots.
Donkey's deck had problems delivering in combat. The crucial turn when he blocked 7-8 or Alvin's weenies became a joke when he could not send a single one into torpor (fact that he couldn't block the subsequent hunts didn't help either).
Still, Alvin made some pretty good decisions during the game, and credit where credit is due, he did deserve the win.
Game 2:
- Keith was first player ousted, not Ben (by about 30 seconds' difference).
- Yazid got merged and didn't suck (re: Raziel on Newsgroup).
- Yazid entered combat using Bum's Rush, not Hand Contract.
- Hatchling's Kamikaze rush was against a gun-less, blood-less Skryta Zyleta, not Reza (who was on 5 blood, having eaten a butterly).
Haha, sorry about the QX QY mistakes. A little too many new players to remember yesterday~ :) Apologies to all!
Come to think of it, ya. You're right, Donkey's combat is kinda sad.
But my Gargoyles didn't do much better...
(o.o)y
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