Vampire : the Evaluated Situation : Asian Championship 2010

The day of 21st November, in the year 2010, Games Garage.

After a sad time getting over the torpor of Vtes as a whole, the First Asian Vtes Championship was held at Games Garage yesterday, and I was privileged to be able to participate in this monumental event. For the first time in history, Asian Methuselahs gathered to compete against each other. 15 Methuselahs were present for the battle, including representatives from Philippines, Japan, and of course our very own Singapore. We have 4 Philippines Methuselahs, 2 Japan Methuselahs, and 9 from Singapore.

The day started early around 930am, I arrived together with our friends from Japan - Hidetoshi-san and Ayukata-san. YY and LF were there (and of course BK) and soon the stream of Methuselahs came pouring into the place. Unfortunately, Robin, the reigning Champion of the Qualifiers couldn't attend the event, robbing the Singapore team of one powerful Elder. After registration we each took our promo cards (House of Sorrow and Xavier) and a free pack of LotN booster. We had quite a bit of fun trying to get Preternatural Strength from it either by chanting very loud or calling upon the power of the blood in different ways. Apparently nobody succeeded. I got the Ambulance, which seemed to be amongst the better ones of the lot. (G1 did complain about his Cobra Fangs)(and there was a Monster (definitely good), but the rest were stuff like Sympathetic Agony, Powerbase Savannah, Resume the Coil and so on)(Note - ZombieBoy got Soul Feasting, how appropriate.)

Table Seating of the first round were determined and we sat down to begin the eternal struggle.

Randomized Seating for Round 1

Bann's Nosferatu Stealth Vote, bleeding

Derek's !Tremere Bruise Bleed, bleeding

Johann's Tzimisce Wall, bleeding

My Magical History, bleeding

BK's Ghaduba Beat You Up. (GBY U, how appropriate)

At the start I was quite dismayed by the draw of the crypt, having 4 Ian Forestals and not anybody else to influence. After calling out Ian Forestal, I spent 1 to look at the next Crypt card, and it was still Forestal! Well, at least that's all the Forestals that I'd get from the crypt. I was lucky that Johann's first vampire was Lambach, and I had the time to call my first Summon History and got the Ankara on before he was ready to make my life difficult. Johann's problems was compounded by Derek putting an incredible amount of pressure with his DOM bleed, bringing his pool down very quickly.

Being very afraid of BK's combat, I did not even attempt to attack BK at all, spending all my Governed the Unaligned at superior after a timely Wider View came and allowed me to exchange all my remaining 4 Ian Forestals for the other vampires in my crypt. I was soon able to call forth Hana Redmonds and Catherine de Bois. I was also lucky in the sense that Lambach was otherwise occupied with Derek's attacks and I was able to Summon the Remnant of the Endless Storm and the Renegade Garou without much interference.

On the other hand, Bann was having a bad time since BK's attention was more or less directed at his minions, which he did not have a lot of defense for, plus his votes were pretty much controlled by Lambach, making his vote attacks quite a little problematic. Furthermore, he did not draw into any vampires with DOM and couldn't attack Derek with DOM bleed either.

Seeing Johann's pool dropped to a dangerous 3, I sent my Remnant of the Endless Storm to reduce the number of vampires that Derek had. I was careful not to torpor the one with the Heart of Nizchetus as Derek seemed to be relying on it in order to survive Bann's (now considerable number of little weenies) bleeds.

Everything seemed to be in control for me when the disastrous round arrived suddenly. I was the only legal target for Bann's Parity Shift, and I lose 5 pool to him in a surprise cross table attack (not that I blamed him, I was the only target afterall), bringing my pool down to 6. And since I had relieved some of Johann's pressure from Derek, he was able to destroy my Remnant of the Endless Storm when I blocked his bleed and torpored 2 of my vampires (luckily not Ian Forestal), all within a round. By then I was reduced to having only Carlton Van Wyk, the Renegade Garou with the lonely Ian Forestal, and BK had 7 pool and a deal with me that I would not bleed him for more than 1 pool a round to avoid being attacked physically by Ghaduba.

Miracle arrived in the form of Derek. At that time Johann had 5 pool left, I had 6, BK had 7, and Bann had many many. Derek attacked with a Governed the Unaligned, stealth through, and pumped it to 6 with a Conditioning, an overkill that would destroy both me and him if Lambach deflected the bleed - which of course Lambach promptly did. I've been holding on to an On the Qui Vive and a Deflection for just that purpose for a long while, and capitalized on Derek's mistake to bounce it to BK. During my turn, a bleed for 1 (fulfilling the deal still) got me my very first VP of the day. I spent the next few actions reducing the number of vampires that Bann had.

Bann then ousted Derek as he had committed all his vampires hoping to oust Johann that turn, but he didn't have enough to kill off Johann as well. Johann blocked my Ian Forestal successfully after that, but was immediately sent to torpor by my Domain of Evernight + Outside the Hourglass combo (Ian Forestal had the Infernal Pact on Temporis by then), and I soon eliminated both of them with no opposing minions.

Final VP Count

Me - 4 VPs plus GW

Bann - 1 VP

After the lunch break we sat down for round 2, I was pretty happy about myself especially since no other table had Game Wins. Because our table ended rather quickly, I also had the chance to walk around and look at what was going on, and wow, 5 (maybe even 6) vote decks in the tournament, and I was starting to doubt my ability to deal with votes since I didn't include any vote defense, and was hoping combat could solve any problems that I might face.

Randomized Seating for Round 2

Karl's Assamite Black Hand Gun, bleeding

Ayukata-san's Anarch Combat (I think), bleeding

Derek's !Tremere Bruise Bleed, bleeding

Keith's Khazar Diary, bleeding

My Magical History.

Again luck was with me, Derek placing much pressure on Keith, and Ayukata-san's very early Anarch Revolt and Tension in the Ranks set my predator back quite a lot. Also, both my predator and prey had very little (or should I say, zero) Intercepts against my actions, with Karl didn't even bothered to try to block any of my Summon Historys (that did clog my hand with quite a bit of stealth, but with numerous Dreams of the Sphinx, I was able to get rid of some of them quite quickly)

I did, however, got into some problem with Karl's Yazid that was armed with a .44. When Joe Boot Hill came out and Contracted my Ian Forestal I was seriously worried. Quickly summoning High Top I pretty much kept him untapped just to ensure that Ian would not be facing any threats from the Black Hands.

Meanwhile, the Anarch Revolt was working to Karl's advantage as he sent Ayukata-san's Anarch vampires into torpor, so everyone was taking the Anarch Revolt damage together. However, in the process Joe Boot Hill was sent to torpor by a Rotschreck, and I took that advantage to ask my Renegade Garou to enter combat with him after he was rescued (since I was pretty sure he wasn't going to use guns) and sent him right back in with no blood.

Meanwhile, a Carlton Van Wyk was keeping Derek from doing his job properly, and Keith had a ridiculous ability to come back from, like 2 pool, back to 7 or 9 in a single round with his Liquidation, Ventrue Acquired Assets, Powerbase Cape Verde and who knew what else. He had so many minions I stopped counting at 10. He was, however, unable to attack me as he needed to spend all of those minions blocking Derek, while hard-casting the Khazar Diary as he couldn't afford to lose minions due to the Tension in the Ranks.

All that changed when Karl ousted Ayukata-san. I knew that Keith would quickly come back into the game and I needed to quickly get my VP. With several DOM weenie and Veneficti, I bled Karl out soon after Ayukata-san's demise.

It then got quickly difficult for all of us. Time was short already, and nobody would have the GW if no one else was ousted. A bleed of 3 from Keith was bounced to Derek, and he bounced it back to me, but I had another Deflection in hand and bounced it back. Without that I was sure I would definitely be ousted that turn. That Deflection allowed me to eliminate Derek since I could send both his Muaziz and Carna into torpor with my allies, and then bleed freely with my vampires.

With less than a minute left after Keith's turn, which I was sure that if I gave him another turn he would oust me (with many many Wraiths), I took my turn slowly (and he was on a phone call for about 30 seconds while I waited for him patiently) and simply waited for time to give me the game win.

Final VP Count

Me - 2.5 VPs plus GW

Karl - 1 VP

Keith - 0.5 VP

After a little break we went on to the last round of the pre-lims.

Randomized Seating for Round 3

My Magical History, bleeding

Keith's Khazar Diary, bleeding

Ben Sum's Assamite vote, bleeding

Danz's Malkavian Deranged, bleeding

Bann's Nosferatu Stealth Vote.

Ok, I "hate" Danz, almost as much as I hate zombies. And Danz the ally-killer was my ally in this game, while I needed to bleed through Keith's super bloat and multi-million numbers of minions. Very bad very bad.

Honestly, I was not focused in this game since I knew I would be in the finals and was over-confident in the performance of my deck up to this point, and I was careless. The game started pretty ok for me, with Bann's votes and minions contained by Danz, and I suffered almost nothing from my predator. I did my usual thing again, with no interference from my predator nor prey and soon had a good spread of minions in front of me, Renegade Garou, Remnant of the Endless Storm, and 4 vampires.

The reason I didn't already put much pressure on my prey (which was the first mistake amongst all of them), was because Keith called forth Ambrosius early, and soon topped it up with an Unmasking. I forgot that Unmasking didn't give allies the +1 Intercept against other allies, and didn't send my Renegade Garou in to disturb his vampires (especially since one of them had a Fame slapped on). This critical mistake cost me the game.

Meanwhile, Danz was sending Derangeds everywhere and almost everybody had a Deranged Malkavian at some point. When Ian Forestal only had 1 blood left, Keith put the Deranged on me. I was lucky enough to immediately draw a Giant's Blood and Ian Forestal continued to serve his function.

Ben, however, scored the first blood by eliminating Danz (I helped by reducing one of Danz's vampire to zero blood, something I did with absolutely no reason besides having fun in the process, in hindsight, I shouldn't bothered.) That didn't stop Keith from killing off Ben almost immediately after that with his Khazar Diary in full working order. It was then I realized that Renegades could go in after all. And Keith promptly Chair of Hades the Renegade. Of course, the Chair of Hades would come back with Sudario Refractions to remove my other allies too, while the Giovannis Khazar away my other allies in the ash heap. All very bad for me.

However, time was to come to rescue and it was drawing to a close when Bann attacked with full force of his votes, which now wasn't contained by the Assamites or Danz. (Danz took Murat with Deranged and with her, taken Calebros's title, leaving Bann with very little votes). KRCs and Neonate Breaches reduced both Keith's and my pool to a dangerously low level.

During my last turn, I went for the kill, Since Keith had already committed all of his minions, he couldn't block anything (he probably didn't expect the 8-10 pool damage from Bann in the first place). I didn't draw enough bleed cards, and Keith had about 6 pool (I think, wasn't counting since time was running out, and I was actually hoping for it to end before it came to Keith's turn (again)) when I wanted to use Mylan Horseed to untap Ian Forestal to bleed, but was reminded that Ian WAS NO LONGER NON-CAMARILLA because DANZ had left the Deranged on the table that Keith had put on Ian Forestal.

Granted, I couldn't kill with Ian's final Governed the Unaligned, but if I could do it, I did have a very small chance of drawing into the last Conditioning in my deck, that might kill off Keith.

Nevertheless, the last 10-20 seconds passed, and ended the table with no game wins for anybody.

Final VP Count

Keith - 1.5 VP

Ben Sum - 1 VP

Bann - 0.5 VP

Me - 0.5 VP

A happy man I was as I became the top seed for the final table, and since our table was the last to finish, and everybody seemed to be eager to start the finals, we immediately prepared for the final showdown.

The seating available to me to choose at that point was:

Hidetoshi-san's Khazar Diary, bleeding

LF's Daughters Vote, bleeding

Johann's Tzimisce Wall, bleeding

G1's Ravnos Breed Vote.

At this point I had no idea what Hidetoshi-san's deck was like, since I didn't have the chance to face his deck. I did understand G1's and LF's deck pretty well, as they were old opponents and I was used to their playstyle. Knowing that I would never survive Johann's wall, I wanted to be as far from him as possible, and I knew G1's bleed and damage potential, so I decided to take a little risk and hoped that Hidetoshi-san's deck would do less damage than G1's, and I slotted my deck in between Hidetoshi-san and LF.

Final Bleeding Order

Johann's Tzimisce, bleeding

G1's Ravnos Breed Vote, bleeding

Hidetoshi-san's Khazar Diary, bleeding

My Magical History, bleeding

LF's Daughters Vote.

It was an excellent Crypt draw but the saddest hand draw that I had at this point. I had Ian Forestal with 3 other vampires in the opening crypt, including Cristos Mantigo, and it was all good for the crypt, as for the hand, I had 2 Ashur Tablets in hand, and a Creepshow Casino. Since G1 dropped down his first Tablet, we were in a Tablet race. I quickly got ahead of him with 2 Tablets on the table and 2 in hand. Too many masters slowed me down a little, but an early Dreams of the Sphinx solved that problem by giving me the first Summon History to get it started. Cristos got the Heart of Nizchetus and I soon was able to cycle my hand to what I needed. It took me only a little while to fully set up Ian, and outfit Cristos with the Amulet and the Heart. I had the Renegade, Remnant, Veneficti and Mylan to make my life relatively easy. I also manage to win the Tablet race.

I didn't put much pressure on LF, relying on her ability to get rid of the one threat that I knew I couldn't handle - the Tzimisce. Poor Johann was plagued by a bad hand, and wasn't able to block 2 stealth heavy vote decks completely, therefore suffering the end results of all the damaging votes coming his way, despite the vote defense that Lambach had given him. G1 went into bloat mode and had a lot of Tumninoses on the table pretty quickly, using them to Consanguineous Boon himself several times. Granted, he did need to jump through fire to avoid Johann's intercepts. Meanwhile, Hidetoshi-san was having it badly as G1 put damaging votes to him whenever possible, and he had to use Delaying Tactics on G1's KRC and Consanguineous Boon several times.

I concentrated on expanding my number of minions and kept my vampires as healthy as possible, all the time keeping Brooke untapped in case of a sudden DOM bleed from my Giovanni predator. (Hidetoshi-san used at least 2-3 Governed the Unaligned at superior, and he had enough minions to do that many in a single round, so bloating was on the top of my list at that point)

Eventually there came a point where a KRC would kill off Johann. I had Direct Intervention in hand, and was pondering whether or not to use it to keep Johann alive and preventing LF from getting that 6 pool. On my right Hidetoshi-san had been quite passive and didn't bother me at all (I think the Remnant and her friends were quite a deterrent, for that matter), on my left LF had lost 1 Daughter to Johann's combat (and it was super scary combat, the Daughter was simply burnt to crisp), and Scout had only 1 blood left on her (and I knew she was probably short on combat defense since LF couldn't survive Johann's combat the previous round). I decided not to waste the DI and let LF get her VP.

After that I immediately sent Scout into torpor and reduce Dmitra's blood by 6 (the Remnant is pretty good at doing that to people) to keep LF contained, while bleeding profusely with my other minions. G1 Sense Dep-ed Hidetoshi-san's Giovanni del Georgio, and Eldest Command Undeath Kay Porleno, practically decimating Hidetoshi-san's defense. I turned my attention to G1 and started pounding on his minions, but wasn't in time to save Hidetoshi-san from being ousted, especially since G1 had gone into the Week of Nightmares mode. I quickly ousted LF to get my VP and pool and directed all my allies to destroy the mad Ravnos horde.

During then I had the Remnant, Renegade Garou and the Rock Cat to provide a continuous stream of combat bombardments at G1's remaining Ravnos. While Mylan, Veneficit, Ian, Cristos and Brooke concentrated on bleeding. Too many combats meant the end of the Ravnos, and I was able to oust G1 with the Veneficti when he finally ran out of minions.

Final VP Count

Me - 3 VPs plus GW

G1 - 1 VP

LF - 1 VP

My winning decklist : Magical History

Crypt [12 vampires]

------------------------------------------------------------

5x Ian Forestal

1x Reverend Blackwood

1x Catherine du Bois

1x Cristos Mantigo

1x Laurent de Valois

1x Brooke

1x Saiz

1x Hanna Redmonds

Library [90 cards]

------------------------------------------------------------

Action [17]

7x Govern the Unaligned

10x Summon History

Action Modifier [17]

2x Conditioning

4x Domain of Evernight

5x Forgotten Labyrinth

2x Lost in Crowds

2x Mirror Walk

2x Seduction

Ally [10]

1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter)

1x High Top

1x Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

1x Remnant of the Endless Storm

1x Renegade Garou

1x Rock Cat

1x Tutu the Doubly Evil One (Bane Mummy)

1x Tye Cooper

1x Veneficti (Mage)

1x War Ghoul

Combat [10]

4x Outside the Hourglass

6x Rego Motus

Equipment [4]

1x Amulet of Temporal Perception

1x Ankara Citadel, Turkey, The

1x Assault Rifle

1x Heart of Nizchetus

Event [1]

1x Unmasking, The

Master [23]

6x Ashur Tablets

1x Creepshow Casino

1x Direct Intervention

3x Dreams of the Sphinx

1x Fame

1x Giant's Blood

1x Infernal Pact

1x Obfuscate

1x Perfectionist

1x Spontaneous Power

2x Vessel

2x Villein

2x Wider View

Reaction [8]

6x Deflection

2x On the Qui Vive

And thus ended the first Asian Championship! YY was taking pictures and videos and notes all the time, so I'm sure that Domain Singapore website would have those up in no time!

It was a great day, and I look forward to meeting all the overseas Methuselahs in the Jyhad next year! Thank you for all the great games!

(o.o)v