Well, didn't expect to actually have a chance to play Vtes on New Year's eve, but I did. Got some time off and decided to try my luck in PI and actually did manage to gather enough players to play not just 1, but 2 games! I then still had the chance to witness one more game before going home for the new year. Here's the details.
Game One's randomized seating:
My Misery Tour deck bleeding
Bann's Blood Sisters, bleeding
BK's !Salubri deck, bleeding
G1's Assamite bleed, bleeding
Ben Sum's Aching Beauty Deck.
On a note, for the 2 games that I played, the randomized seating ended up putting me as the first player twice. Not just that, but the existing seating where the different participants were already taking, didn't need to change. (Everybody is already sitting at where they need to be in terms of prey-predator relationship - no moving around is needed.) Interesting...
Early Game-
I brought in Pariah, as usual, and slap a Presence on him pretty early. I supplement my cohort with Lena Rowe after that. Bann had all the Menors plus one Mayor, bleeding BK's assortment of !Salubri. G1 got off a bad start, as BK proceeded to pound Djuhah into torpor with Adonai in the very first exchange, and after that, G1 pretty much given up the game. That gave Ben his free reign by pulling out Epikasta and making her an aching Beauty.
The table was out of balance very quickly when I struggled to survive under Ben's persistent bleeding. Meanwhile, Bann and BK got into a lot of fist fights with the !Salubris combat packages challenging the Sisters' Thrown Gates. Both were reasonably weakened at the end of the day.
With no predator pressure Ben was having a good time using his PRE bleeds on me. Even with Pariah I wasn't really able to stop him much. I got lucky with an Archon Investigation and got rid of Epikasta, though by then Ben had a few more Toreadors running around giving me problems.
Mid-Late Game.
Can't really recall what happened after that. I remembered seeing many Sisters in torpor and BK having only 1 pool left when he was ousted. Whether I did that or Bann did that I honestly couldn't recall. I had good reasons to forget what happened in this game as the last game in 2009 was really something to talk about. More on that later.
Final VP Count-
Not sure.
Game Two's randomized seating -
Again, I stay as player 1, with my Army of Shadows deck, bleeding
Bann's Cybele deck, bleeding
BK's new Noir bloat deck, bleeding
Ben's Una deck.
This game went off pretty slowly, since besides BK, we were all playing with fat Vampires.
BK started with his Noir's Freak Drive ultimate bloat with the Journal of Hrorsh, and we just looked on when he did his solitaire game - Freak Drive, Hunt, repeat, sack Noir, bring out Noir, equip, Freak Drive, Hunt. Bann proceeded to bring out his Cybele, and I was powerless to stop her Soul Gem sequence. Ben, on the other hand, brought out Una and Janey Pickmen and started putting Raven Spies on them (especially Una).
I got lucky at one point when Bann's Cybele, though already supplied with a Khobar Tower and Neferu, had just the exact amount of pool for me to DOM bleed him to death with an extra KRC. I convinced Ben that I am a better prey than Bann, and he allowed me to call through the KRC.
After that I had a very very boring time trying to get rid of BK's bloat deck, since he pretty much add like, 10 pool to his deck, every other round. All the time I had to fend off Ben's Tier of Soul-ed attacks from 2 combat-abled, Intercept heavy Vampires.
I almost succeeded in killing BK before Ben bled off my last pool. BK fell prey to Ben soon afterwards, afterall, he'd ran out of cards by then...
Final VP Count-
Ben - 3 VPs plus GW
Me - 1 VP
The last game was an interesting game. I didn't participate in the game so I chronicled it.
Here's the randomized seating-
Ben Sum's Sascha Vykos deck, bleeding
Dzaki's Gangrels, bleeding,
Bann's Sisters, bleeding
Patrick's Akunanse deck, bleeding
BK's new improved Noir bloat deck.
This game had a central theme of unhappiness about a bloat deck that did very little to his prey. Granted, BK's deck had evolved a little and was doing more damage to his prey than his previous version - afterall, he only had this deck for like, 4 hours, so we should be giving him a little more credit in getting a deck ready. But a deck that focused more on bloating and very little on killing is a frustrating prey. That, combined with Ben Sum's pretty much can't do anything to prey either deck made the table balance a big mess. To be honest, there was quite a bit of unhappiness in this last game of 2009.
Ben brought out Sascha Vykos, employed Revenant and a couple of Ravens, then got a Sniper Rifle and merged Sascha after he brought out another Vampire from his crypt. Dzaki had Rendall and Ryder serving him, and with very little pressure from his predator, Dzaki actually managed to bring out Danielle later on. (We can almost always tell how well Dzaki's Gangrels are doing by looking at how many Vampires he has on table - 3? He's really having a good time~)
Bann had many Sisters, and Patrick influenced out Uchenna and Amavi. Uchenna was soon enhanced with No Secrets from the Magaji. As for BK, it was Noir. Noir managed to get the Journal on him, and nobody really bothered much about him accumulating counters on it. A lucky bluff allowed Noir to put Blood Bond on Uchenna while removing the No Secrets from him (Uchenne tried to block but couldn't find the Repulsed Noir) From then on Noir had little trouble doing anything he wanted to, especially since Sascha Vykos had no reason whatsoever to block his hunt efforts.
It was at this point that I'd like to criticise Ben's play. With so little pressure from the predator, he should be in a great position to threaten Dzaki. But Sascha was too afraid of the Gangrels and therefore sat there blocking nothing, doing nothing, pretty much through to the late mid game.
With an excellent position like this, Dzaki was having his way with the Sisters, while Patrick used his new No Secrets well in fighting and torporing almost every Sister that Bann had. The Sunset Strip that BK played did help the Sisters in hunting but very little else. BK's pool, however, was too heavy even for the bleed-heavy Akunanse, and BK accumulated enough pool to influence Saulot.
The game deteriorated rapidly, until Ben decided to transfer out and let BK kill him. There was very little point to play on after that, but the relentless Methuselahs pressed on! Eventually I think everyone declared that Dzaki wins. ^.^
(o.o)
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