Skirmishes in the Dark : 07-09-2010

The night of 7th September, in the year 2010, Paradigm Infinitum.

Now that the qualifiers is over, I don't have the pressure of testing or tuning decks for the deadly struggle of a tournament, so I started taking out old old fun decks and went down to PI for a game. YY and LF were already there doing community service in sorting clan cards for the pool, and after quite a while, other Methuselahs soon appear after their dinner hunting trip.

Randomized Seating for Game 1 (only 1 anyway)

YY's Kiasyd bleed, bleeding

LF's Ventrue Vote, bleeding

John's !Ventrue Block/Bleed, bleeding

Bann's Nosferatu vote, bleeding

My Kissing Guns.

Bann was the first to bring out vampires, a 2-cap Nosferatu, and he was my predator. I had a whole hand of master cards, one of them was an Information Highway contesting LF's, so I didn't play it but slapped down the Wider View and Barrens instead, using the Barrens to discard the Highway to draw...another Highway...

In response to Bann's early minion, I pulled out Freddy Gage and Johan Wrede. 2 more transfers went to Al-Muntaqim. LF was very fast with her titled Ventrues and started throwing Conservative Agitations and KRCs towards John before he had his minions ready. I started discarding Master Cards just to clear my hands, but thanks to the Barrens I was able to have a reasonably effective hand pretty quickly. I hard-purchased an Assault Rifle for Freddy, and had him rushing Bann's Agrippa, sending her to torpor. That one gun frightened YY's Kiasyds and he transferred to multiple minions with the intention to bring them all out at one shot.

That gave LF quite a happy time against John, with 3 vampires against 2 - though John's intercepts did prevent LF from running away with the game. Meanwhile, Bann was having a hard time after I brought out Al-Muntaquim and Walker Grimes. Bann's titled vampire (including Greger Andersen) bled me good good, but I drew enough combat cards to attack and sent them into torpor, while znging my Trujah. An early Rack helped Al-Muntaquim from keeping himself fit for battle.

Soon YY's Kiasyds were out in the open, and I was too busy fighting off the occasional DOM bleed from Bann to really care. Most of my bleeds against YY were bounced to LF anyway... LF's progress was hampered by both John's intercepts, and YY's bleeds.

Bann was the first to go, dying to John's bounce and bleeds. LF, robbed of her victory, did managed to banish a Kiasyd (Isanwayan, I think) before finally dying to YY, though by then, YY had only 1 active Kiasyd on the table. Influencing another Kiasyd out brought YY's pool down to a level that I could kill.

John then made the mistake of blocking one of my inconsequential action - Hourglass of the Mind at basic TEM, and I promptly sent his vampire into torpor with the standard Outside+Domain combo. YY's last vampire were sent into torpor and he transferred himself out - stating that it was totally legit since he had no way of getting more VPs. By then all of John's vampires were in torpor and he conceded the game.

Final VP Count

Me - 3 VPs plus GW

YY - 1 VP

John - 1 VP

('^')v