2001 Pacific Region Championship (No. Amer. Qual.) Event Report (LONG)

I apologize in advance for my many lapses in memory... Our weekend opened with some free-play on Friday. I've heard that there were five tables of five players each on Friday evening. To put this in perspective let me tell you that we couldn't get a four-player game on Friday night 2 years ago. Saturday had 2 tournaments schedule in preparation for our Sunday morning Championships. Our first event had 43 players. We also knew of a lot of players were coming out for the big event Sunday so we expected over 50 players on Sunday. Players were all very relaxed without the pressure of qualifying for the National Championships at GenCon. Probably around 15 of the players present were considering the trip to GenCon later this year. I played a bribes deck that was made with spare cards from a friend's garage. Caitiff, Bribes, and Autarkis Persecutions. What more can you ask? Anyway, I don't remember who won the tournament. It wasn't me and it certainly wasn't David Tatu. In fact I think Tatu extended his "No VPs in California" streak to roughly 24 months. Uh, I digress... The second event (Sat. P.M.) had 41 players. I judged this one so I know more about it. There weren't very many combat decks. The meta-game had shifted nearly full circle back to our early majesty and deflection days of 4 or 5 years ago. A nice surprise was the finals. Top seeded Mike Nilsen did a lot of Minion Tap and 5th Trad. Then Robert Acevedo played a single vamp intercept deck. I think it was a Caileen deck that got a half dozen ravens on it. He intercepted EVERYTHING. He intended to intercept and shoot vamps with a flamethrower--a flamethrower which he never was able to equip with because David Tatu (yes, THAT David Tatu) was intercepting everything in sight as well and always stopped the Flamethrower equip action with his Malk-Anti. David's prey was the helpless Alex Harmon. Alex barely played because his predator and our visitor from Paris (Reyda!) kept beating Alex's vamps up. Reyda, IIRC, was playing Potence combat. This game was doomed to go to the time-limit right away--leaving Mike Nilsen as the winner. These guys were all so friendly that they blew most of the 2-hours telling fish-stories. Sunday AM. The Pacific Championship - North Amer. Qual. First, let me add some of my own personal background info. I planned on playing a certain deck in the Pacific Qualifier but had a dream in the middle of the week in which I played a different deck. So, in the end, I followed my dream deck. Also part of this whole dream thing was the Succubus Club--a card I've never played before in any tournament. I asked a friend to borrow one (I'm too lazy to search through all my own cards!) and he lent me one...and also put one in his deck. The event started with 41 players and from the moment of the first transfer all hell broke loose. Most tables desolved into a table-splitting scheme pretty early. The deals and table-talk were rampant. A number of less experienced players were not only annoyed but some of them felt like the deals weren't fair. (Let me say that there were no "let's help each other qualify for GenCon" deals!) Some people just aren't used to all the chit chat. At the end of the first round, nearly half of the participants had a VP. Many tables were split 3/2. My friend who loaned me a Succubus Club made an early decision to help a player at his table for 2VP (the club paid off early!). I got 2 VP in my 4 player table by working with my cross table ally--a potence rush deck! In the second round my predator announced at the start of the round that if the Succubus Club came out at our table he was going to transfer out. Clearly this guy came across my friend in the first round. Lucky me. After a Dramatic Upheaval and some scary attempts to re-org the table to hold off a quick weenie presence bleed deck owned by Jessica of Seattle, she managed to oust Jeff Thompson. I got her next and then Nat Hammond (from Santa Cruz) and I cut a deal to split the remaining VPs. Nat was a rush combat deck and I said I'd let him get 2 Vps (and I'd get one for Withdrawing). After Nat couldn't hold up his end of the bargain by wacking his prey, he just transferred out. This angered my last opponent so much that he transfered out as well. Hmmm. I tried to talk the last player out of transfering out but was happy enough to take the gift VP in the end. In the third round I almost had my prey dead and allowed him to get 1 VP if he'd be my toady and wack my next 2 prey. It was his idea and I wasn't about to refuse. I'd already lost 10 pool to Paul Johnson's Parity Shift's before Paul fell to Stephen Fazio (San Diego). My toady prey (Robert Acevedo) wacked Dave Tatu's reprise of his Malk intercept deck with a bunch of burst of sunlight. He also hurt Stephen pretty badly before I took him out. I ended up with 3 more VPs in this round and without knowing it, went into the finals as the top seed with 9 VPs AND helped my good friend Mike Courtois land in the top 10 and qualify for the National Championships. The final was amazing! Alex Harmon beat down on his prey Jessica's presence bleeders with his potence rush deck. Jessica still managed to bite deeply into Robert Acevedo's pool--enough to keep him from attacking his prey--me. I kept bleeding Szilan Fodor's Tremere for 2 or 3 per turn. Szilan kept deflecting the bleeds to Alex. Szilan sat motionless while I killed him slowly. He couldn't take any actions or else Alex would rush him. Szilan promised not to bleed for each of the first 8 or so turns of the game. To be honest, Alex and I spent nearly the whole game talking about whether we should split the table 3/2 or 2/3. We both wanted first place. He also knew that I could give enough pool or minions to any player (via the Succubus Club) to oust him or save them. We were both in good solid positions. I relented eventually and agreed to take 2 VPs and give Alex the win. I deflected a bleed to his prey Jessica, ousting her, and the deal was on. Robert Acevedo fell next. That just left Alex to beat down Szilan while I bled him out. Then I'd be allowed to withdraw and we would be done. Well, that was the plan anyway. Szilan deflected most of my bleeds. He prevented most of Alex's damage. His Cardano had only 1 blood but the Ankara Citadel kept him happy. Szilan got a couple of bleeds through and Alex started to get low on pool Alex famed Jing Wei and sent her to torpor. I thought we were almost done with Szilan. He 2nd Traditioned every one of Alex's attempts to rescue Jing and return her to torpor. On my previous turn I had given Alex all but one of my pool via the Club to make sure he didn't die. I was panicking because time was almost out. I was rushing myself. I ordered my untap and got Alex to give me back a pool so I could pay for the pool from the Famous and torpored Jing. I then hurried through my turn thinking that the Fame would kill Szilan. I discarded and Szilan took THE EDGE! and then paid for the famous Jing. Alex and I were crushed. Our hearts sank. Szilan took what may have only been his 3rd or 4th action directed at his prey...an unblockable bleed to oust Alex. The Famous Jing killed me and my one pool next at the start of my turn....Szilan won with 3 VPs and I got 3rd place. Alex got 2nd. NOTE: I realized right now for the very first time that the Fame card should have burned with Alex and I wouldn't have died. I would have won if I'd figured it out when it happend. #@$%@#$ I'll continue this later... -Robert

On Tue, 29 May 2001 07:49:07 GMT, Robert Goudie wrote: >The event started with 41 players and from the moment of the first transfer >all hell broke loose. Most tables desolved into a table-splitting scheme >pretty early. The deals and table-talk were rampant. A number of less >experienced players were not only annoyed but some of them felt like the >deals weren't fair. (Let me say that there were no "let's help each other >qualify for GenCon" deals!) The qualification aspect would have encouraged table splitting. You just needed to finish in the top quartile so a couple of VPs per round would have been fine. I don't quite understand why qualifiers are being held. Is there some reason that you want to exclude players from the main event? There weren't too many last year, were there? Good report, btw - thanks. Andrew

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > I don't quite understand why qualifiers are being held. Is there some > reason that you want to exclude players from the main event? There For the same reason that qualifiers are held for other games' championship events. At any rate, players aren't completely excluded - the "main event" is actually two parallel tournaments - one for the qualifiers (the championships) and one for the non-qualifiers (a regular tournament). At least, this is how it is for the North American Championships. I believe the European Champhionships have a similar set-up. > weren't too many last year, were there? There were no championship V:TES events last year, and the concept of "too many" players being in attendance at a non-existent event is not well-defined. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

Is it possible to get the deck list from the winner deck? I find really interesting that a Tremere deck won such an important tournament and would like to have some more comments on how it worked. Besides, Thaumaturgy was from the original Jyhad disciplines the one that got less help on Sabbat Wars. >===== Original Message From "Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> ===== -->Big snipp on original post >4th action directed at his prey...an unblockable bleed to oust Alex. The >Famous Jing killed me and my one pool next at the start of my turn....Szilan >won with 3 VPs and I got 3rd place. Alex got 2nd. NOTE: I realized right >now for the very first time that the Fame card should have burned with Alex >and I wouldn't have died. I would have won if I'd figured it out when it >happend. #@$%@#$ I'll continue this later... > >-Robert > This is such a typical mistake on long tournaments. How many times have such important details slipped after 7 hours in a room playing Jyhad? It's a pitty the referee was also not paying enough attention... Rui ------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at: http://MailAndNews.com Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser. ------------------------------------------------------------

-- "Rui Videira" <vid...@MailAndNews.com> wrote in message news:3B1B...@MailAndNews.com... [ quoted text not captured ] Yeah last winter we had a tournament where a player was ousted in the final against the only other player left, because they thought Stanislava prevented him from using his Raven Spy against the bleed. I was the judge but was playing in the B-final and they didn't call me to ask for the rules. I found out like 5 minutes afterwards. The guy who got ousted said he was too tired to bother asking for the judge, which is a shame but understandable I guess, after 6h+ of playing.

On Tue, 29 May 2001 07:41:03 -0400, LSJ wrote: >> I don't quite understand why qualifiers are being held. Is there some >> reason that you want to exclude players from the main event? > >For the same reason that qualifiers are held for >other games' championship events. And what's that? Some games do and some don't. Oversubscription is the main problem, I suppose, but L5R certainly makes a big impact with its 500+ Gencon events. >There were no championship V:TES events last year, and the concept >of "too many" players being in attendance at a non-existent event is >not well-defined. I happen to have last year's Gencon program here and event #1234 was billed as "Vampire: the Eternal Struggle 2000 US Championships". Maybe you'd rather forget about it as there seemed to be something fishy about the way that some players declined to contest the final. Perhaps the qualifiers have been introduced to shut these players out this year? Andrew

Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> wrote in message news:<3972D1890EDEEFE6.5BF2B0EE...@lp.airnews.net>... [ quoted text not captured ] The reason qualifiers are being held is to put the best from each region versus each other to see who is the best Nationally. Plus, I excludes poor caliber players who show up, fall over and die. "Boy, I sure am lucky I had that newbie in front of me that I could oust quickly to steamroll the whole table to make it to the finals." Comperstand? Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

"Andrew S. Davidson" wrote: > On Tue, 29 May 2001 07:41:03 -0400, LSJ wrote: > >There were no championship V:TES events last year, and the concept > >of "too many" players being in attendance at a non-existent event is > >not well-defined. > > I happen to have last year's Gencon program here and event #1234 was > billed as "Vampire: the Eternal Struggle 2000 US Championships". I meant "Continental Championships" (sure :-). Plus, the events last year were run by WotC, so perhaps you can accept that as an explanation (that is, I meant "WW Championships :-). > Maybe you'd rather forget about it as there seemed to be something > fishy about the way that some players declined to contest the final. > Perhaps the qualifiers have been introduced to shut these players out > this year? Hah! No. I'm sure that those players (who declined to contest the final because they prefered to play *another* 6-8 hours worth of V:TES rather than /just/ two hours in the final - playing in a game whose schedule conflicted due to a mistake in the prereg book's schedule). Players like that (who choose to play more, instead of, for example, dropping in the middle of a tournament to play not at all) are very likely to be exactly the types of players that win qualifiers. [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:TvIQ6.17409$Rh7.5...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net... I apologize in advance for my many lapses in memory... > > Our weekend opened with some free-play on Friday. I've heard that there > were five tables of five players each on Friday evening. To put this in > perspective let me tell you that we couldn't get a four-player game on > Friday night 2 years ago. It really is picking up. I realised quite recently that tourney preparation is totally different now with numbers regularly up into the 25-35's at most events over here. It's good to see loads of new faces and some real quality new (and old) players getting into the game again. Saturday had 2 tournaments schedule in preparation for our Sunday morning > Championships. Our first event had 43 players. We also knew of a lot of > players were coming out for the big event Sunday so we expected over 50 > players on Sunday. Holy crap 50 players, that's a lot. [snip] > I think it was a Caileen deck that got a half dozen > ravens on it. He intercepted EVERYTHING. He intended to intercept and > shoot vamps with a flamethrower--a flamethrower which he never was able to > equip That Cailean, he is a bad boy. The ability to set range consistently is pretty damn powerful. Been working on a deck that used his range-set defensively with OBF/PRE which he has. Got a royal kicking the first few times, not tried it again..... problem is staying focussed because he has so many tempting disciplines :o) > Sunday AM. The Pacific Championship - North Amer. Qual. First, let me add > some of my own personal background info. I planned on playing a certain > deck in the Pacific Qualifier but had a dream in the middle of the week in > which I played a different deck. What did you play ? > So, in the end, I followed my dream deck. > Also part of this whole dream thing was the Succubus Club--a card I've never > played before in any tournament. I asked a friend to borrow one (I'm too > lazy to search through all my own cards!) and he lent me one...and also put > one in his deck. One of the most underrated tournament cards IMO. Let's you keep whomever you want in the game :o) > In the second round my predator announced at the start of the round that if > the Succubus Club came out at our table he was going to transfer out. There seems to be more and more of this around lately. The whole don't do that or i'll transfer myself out and throw the toys out of the pram is a weird one. [snip] > sure he didn't die. I was panicking because time was almost out. Did you have a limit in the final ? > I was > rushing myself. I ordered my untap and got Alex to give me back a pool so I > could pay for the pool from the Famous and torpored Jing. I then hurried > through my turn thinking that the Fame would kill Szilan. I discarded and > Szilan took THE EDGE! and then paid for the famous Jing. Alex and I were > crushed. Our hearts sank. Szilan took what may have only been his 3rd or > 4th action directed at his prey...an unblockable bleed to oust Alex. The > Famous Jing killed me and my one pool next at the start of my turn....Szilan > won with 3 VPs and I got 3rd place. Alex got 2nd. NOTE: I realized right > now for the very first time that the Fame card should have burned with Alex > and I wouldn't have died. I would have won if I'd figured it out when it > happend. Man, that is harsh. A while back a guy bled me out with Govern / Conditioning for 6 when the vamp only had 1 blood on. I realised in the car on the way home, nearly crashed twice. #@$%@#$ I'll continue this later... > > -Robert Decent report. Rob. (Good name by the way.)

"Rob Treasure" <rob.tr...@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:9f0q6e$9jn$1...@taliesin.netcom.net.uk... > Rob Goudie <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message > news:TvIQ6.17409$Rh7.5...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net... > [clip] > Saturday had 2 tournaments schedule in preparation for our Sunday morning > > Championships. Our first event had 43 players. We also knew of a lot of > > players were coming out for the big event Sunday so we expected over 50 > > players on Sunday. > > Holy crap 50 players, that's a lot. It turned out that a number of players who weren't going to GenCon didn't play in this event to make sure they didn't take a qualifying spot. That's why we again only had around 40 players for the qualifier. > > I planned on playing a certain > > deck in the Pacific Qualifier but had a dream in the middle of the week in > > which I played a different deck. > > What did you play ? A variation of my Night Moves deck (see http://vtesinla.org/nightmoves.htm). I swapped out about 30 cards to give me less spying missions, more computer hacks, and more Tele. Misdirection. > One of the most underrated tournament cards IMO. Let's you keep whomever you > want in the game :o) Yep. In the 2nd round I gave my grand-prey pool to keep them in the game. In the final round I gave my predator an Enhanced Senses to help him keep a Mind Numb off of him. I never had to resort to any of the really evil uses. > > I was panicking because time was almost out. > > Did you have a limit in the final ? Yes. 2 hours. Just like all the other rounds. There was another tournament that started as soon as final was over. I didn't even get to go to the restroom and played for another 4 hours. (Many thanks to David Tatu for bringing me a Chivas on the rocks to ease my suffering during the next round.) > >NOTE: I realized right > > now for the very first time that the Fame card should have burned with > > Alex and I wouldn't have died. I would have won if I'd figured it out when it > > happend. > > Man, that is harsh. A while back a guy bled me out with Govern / > Conditioning for 6 when the vamp only had 1 blood on. I realised in the car > on the way home, nearly crashed twice. Thanks for feeling my pain. :) I feel better now. I'll try to finish the report... So the 4th event also had 40+ players...the final was still going when I left around 2:00 AM. Jason Dawson from Seattle took a weenie presence bleed deck into the finals. I think it was the very same deck his girlfriend used in the final round I played in. Brad Wong was in there as well. That's all I recall. I'll let someone who was still hanging around at that time fill in the blanks... -Rob Goudie

"Rui Videira" <vid...@MailAndNews.com> wrote in message news:3B1B...@MailAndNews.com... > Is it possible to get the deck list from the winner deck? > > I find really interesting that a Tremere deck won such an important > tournament and would like to have some more comments on how it worked. Besides, > Thaumaturgy was from the original Jyhad disciplines the one that got less > help on Sabbat Wars. It will likely soon appear in the Lasombra's deck archive of tournament winning decks. The basic idea was Tremere with Fortitude doing unblockable bleeds. Combat was thefts and damage prevention. -Robert

"Rui Videira" <vid...@MailAndNews.com> wrote in message [clip] > This is such a typical mistake on long tournaments. How many times have such > important details slipped after 7 hours in a room playing Jyhad? It's a > pitty the referee was also not paying enough attention... Rui, there was such suprise that Szilan was able to get even 1 VP no one was thinking about anything else. Besides the remaining three players, there were at least another 10 onlookers and no one caught it. I certainly don't blame the judge. -Robert

[ quoted text not captured ] Not to mention that IMO, it's not the judge's responsibility to catch it -- it's the PLAYERS'. It's their game, after all. It's the judge's responsibility to make sure that any QUESTIONS are handled accurately. -- Derek [generic .signature file]

"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> > I apologize in advance for my many lapses in memory... We understand you ! it was a rough day and you were running from table to table to help us with clarifications and rulings. thank you ! > Alex barely > played because his predator and our visitor from Paris (Reyda!) kept beating > Alex's vamps up. Reyda, IIRC, was playing Potence combat. This game was > doomed to go to the time-limit right away--leaving Mike Nilsen as the > winner. These guys were all so friendly that they blew most of the 2-hours > telling fish-stories. Just a note: i wasn't playing potence combat at all it was a Toreador + Obfuscate deck with Francois Villon, Klaus Van Der Veken, Greta and Antoinette mainly for the European flavor ! of course, the main cards were 2nd Tradition, Disguised weapon, .44 magnum and aire of Elation. The game was not so friendly but it ended on a draw due to a lack of will from either participant. David Tatu and Mike Nielsen almost never went Bleeding their prey (twice in the whole game maybe) ... But they defended very well against their predator though. "Mike Nielsen won" is a sentence i would have dropped, he just didn't lose ;) but because he qualified first, he got all the tasty SW boosters. I had no prize at all due to my seating (if i knew that earlier i would have killed my predator...) but it was a nice game though =) thanks y'all, i'll be back one day with another deck full of french and italian vampires !! reyda ( "no you don't do that.")

I also made it into the the last final. I ended up winning it with 4 vp. Players were in order: David (from San Diego) Brad Wong Brad Ward Jason (from LA) Jason (from Seattle) Jason's presence bleed put the pressure on David's weenie grapple potence deck, that set david on the defensive. Which left Wong to only worry about me. Amazingly he put little pressure on me after sucking out a couple of my Telepathic counters and a telepathic misdirection. first round I brout out Zoe and for the following 4 rounds played Malkavian prank. That helped David keep his pool high since I was giving him 4 pool/turn. I also got pretty lucky and collected about 15 pool for myself in those 4 rounds. I was playing Auspex Malks and was bleeding Jason (LA) every turn for 1 per vamp until I got out Quira the bitch and Ozmo. Jason was able to oust Jason (seattle) with his !malk stealth bleeder before I could draw any more Pranks to save him. Wong Got the Gilbert & Carlotta combo to keep bringing out Muddled vamp hunter to hit my malks. I must have killed Muddled 3 times! By the end of it I had 29 pool & 5 malks on the table after going through Jason (LA) and David in one turn. Wong had small pool the entire game and was cleaned up on the following turn by my malkies. I will be posting my deck to the Losambras site and vtesinla.org to archive if any are interested. Brad Ward Prince of North Las Vegas "Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:cVSQ6.19155$Rh7.7...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net... [ quoted text not captured ]

Robert Goudie wrote in message ... >I apologize in advance for my many lapses in memory... > >Our weekend opened with some free-play on Friday. I've heard that there >were five tables of five players each on Friday evening. To put this in >perspective let me tell you that we couldn't get a four-player game on >Friday night 2 years ago. > >Saturday had 2 tournaments schedule in preparation for our Sunday morning >Championships. Our first event had 43 players. We also knew of a lot of >players were coming out for the big event Sunday so we expected over 50 >players on Sunday. Players were all very relaxed without the pressure of >qualifying for the National Championships at GenCon. Probably around 15 of >the players present were considering the trip to GenCon later this year. I >played a bribes deck that was made with spare cards from a friend's garage. >Caitiff, Bribes, and Autarkis Persecutions. What more can you ask? Anyway, >I don't remember who won the tournament. It wasn't me and it certainly >wasn't David Tatu. In fact I think Tatu extended his "No VPs in California" >streak to roughly 24 months. Uh, I digress... I believe the winner of the first tournament was Nat Hammond. I returned from consuming some alcoholic beverages, just as it was ending, so I don't know how Nat won. I do know that I was in the middle of my 0 vp for 5 games streak (eventually 1 in 7) and drinking away my sorrows... I do want to congratulate Robert, Alex Harmon, Mike Courtois, Robert Acevedo and all the other L.A. players that qualified for the nationals. Good job guys! Finally I would like Szilan on not only making it to the nationals, but for the most amazing win I have seen my entire time playing V:TES. I had the honor of standing behind Szilan and watching the last 10 minutes of the tournament. I've never seen a deck and player perform more perfect against impossible odds. He kept drawing the pefect card and playing them perfectly in response to two tough players. Way to go Szilan! Steve Bucy "The only human commander to survive combat with the Minbari fleet is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives be somewhere else!" - Delenn Check out http://vtesinla.org/ for all V:TES information in Los Angeles area.

>I believe the winner of the first tournament was Nat Hammond. I returned from consuming some alcoholic beverages, just as it was ending, so I don't know how Nat won. I do know that I was in the middle of my 0 vp for 5 games streak (eventually 1 in 7) and drinking away >my sorrows... well thanks Steve for the recognition. I won a very ugly final where two combat decks were seated next to each other and i just happened to be on the other side of the mix. I was playing a !Malk deck with tons of Kindred spirits and i would use these for pool gain as well as to police the table. Nat

GymNat1 wrote in message <20010531012009...@ng-mq1.aol.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Hmmm... Actually I do remember seeing the Malk anti-tribu deck now. That was a very combat heavy tournament. The old IG sandwich (weenie rush prey, Brujah preditor) finished me in the first round and Brujah prey helped finish me in second. Bad time, and tournament, to run my silly Settite corruption deck. It was a really ugly tournament. Steve Bucy -- [ quoted text not captured ]

Here is Szilan's deck, for those of you who have not gone to Lasombra's page to find it: Crypt: 1 - March Halcyon 1 - Roreca Quaid 1 - Mustafa Rahman 1 - Jing Wei 1 - Courtland Leighton 1 - Ingrid Russo 1 - Sarah Cobbler 1 - Muaziz, The Archon of Ulugh Beg 4 - Cardano 1 - Ulugh Beg, The Watcher Library: Master 6 - Minion Tap 2 - Sudden Reversal 2 - Fortitude 2 - Arcane Library Political Action 1 - Tremere Justicar Equipment 2 - Ankara Citadel 1 - Ivory Bow 1 - Sengir Dagger Action 5 - Magic of the Smith 4 - Fifth Tradition 8 - Govern the Unaligned Action Modifier 8 - Freak Drive 4 - Conditioning 3 - Kiss of Ra 2 - Day Operation Reaction 14 - Second Tradition 12 - Deflection Combat 7 - Skin of Steel 6 - Hidden Strength Concept: Get Cardano or Ulugh out with a couple of supporting cast. magic of the smith for ankara citadel. Almost everything is free from then out: freak, govern, magic, condition, deflect, etc. mostly defense that can function as offense. Chris [ quoted text not captured ] -- chris shorb <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site in development) prince of torrance, california Ultimate Disc - Hockey - Vampire the Eternal Struggle Ebay page <http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/vtessingles/>

"Chris Shorb" <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:3B187F70...@vtesinla.org... > Here is Szilan's deck, for those of you who have not gone to Lasombra's > page to find it: [snip] > Reaction > 14 - Second Tradition > 12 - Deflection Jeez M. Crow! 14 2nd Tradition and 12 Deflection? Was he doing anything else? :) Xian

"Xian" <xi...@NOSPAMwaste.org> wrote in message news:reTT6.134$XC6.2...@news.uswest.net... [ quoted text not captured ] Not much. It was pretty damn nice for him down the stretch when he kept sending my Night Moves bleeds down the line. The Ankara Citadel made it even easier. -Robert

Xian wrote in message ... [ quoted text not captured ] Such tactics are not unusual in the L.A. environment. It's weenie bleed defense. Since Szilan's deck relied on Cardano with Ankara his primary weekness would be to a quick weenie deck. I believe the large number of 2nd tradition & deflection was ment to give him a chance in case he ran into such a preditor. Steve Bucy [ quoted text not captured ]