Chris Shorb#
"Playing these decks sucked, but the drafting was the funnest!"
-- Brian McGreal
In the depths of Winter, the Anarchs who control Los Angeles made their
annual trip to Third Planet to attempt to savage each other. Although
poor in resources, these hardy Methuselahs showed they were rich in
fighting spirit, and made up for their weak, wack decks with guts,
guile, and quite a little bit of luck.
Here are the final standings going into the final-
Robyn Merrill 6VP 96tp
Paul Johnson 5.5vp 120tp
Niki Stewart 4.5vp 108tp
Dennis Lien 3vp 78tp
Dan Harting 3vp 78tp (tie decided by coin flip)
--------
Mike Nilsen 2vp 72tp
Ifah Shay 1vp 78tp
Jon Darbro 1vp 72tp
Mark Grady 1vp 60tp
Wade von Grawbadger 0.5vp 66tp
Sarah Pinon 0.5vp 60tp
Duane Honeyman 0vp 42tp
Brian McGreal 0vp 42tp
Robert Acevedo 0vp 36tp
In the Finals, seating was thus:
Robyn - Dennis - Paul
Dan - Niki
Robyn and Paul each achieved 1.5VP, Niki had .5VP. Based on prior
rounds standing, Robyn won the tournament. Congratulations to Robyn
Merrill, the new Anarchus Canonicus! And now for more details -
The format was Elder Draft, which in my opinion is the best of the
limited formats. For those unfamiliar - it was developed by Uber-Prince
(hey, he's Austrian) Carl Pilhatsch and his playgroup. Basically, you
seperate out the crypt from the boosters. You draft the crypt face up
as per Rochester (Table) Draft. You then draft the library cards by
passing them as a group around the table (Booster Draft), and only you
get to see what you take.
The best part for me as judge, and perhaps is what Brian is referring to
in the quote above, was that for drafting out of the boosters, you only
had 30 seconds to make up your mind. You actually had 3 minutes for the
first 5 drafts, so you could see the contents of each stack of cards.
But after that, it was 30 seconds man! I struck up a cadence of
counting down the last 10 seconds - and what a crack up as everyone
would moan and groan and panic! A wrinkle is that you cannot go back
through what you have already drafted to see what you have already
picked. As Jon Darbro said "I think many people would agree that 30
seconds is insane for going through library cards and choosing just
one. It turned out all right, but I made some very amusing drafts, like
discovering I had two copies of Tasha Morgan and 3 copies of
Patronage." And pity poor Mike Nilsen who had a Blood of Sabbat *and* a
Black Metamorphosis in his starting library cards. He took the Black
Metamorphosis.
Anyways, everyone really enjoyed the draft format - I recommend it. As
Robyn Merrill, the eventual winner says, "Although passing up good cards
is excruciating, it's also a lot of fun. Drafting at the same table next
to your prey puts a whole new spin on what you'll choose while you're
drafting."
<promo>
There will be a draft tourney on the Sunday evening tournament at OrcCon
(starts at 7pm). You should be there, I will be!
</promo>
Once the rounds started, the goofiness of sealed deck play reared its
giggling head. Jon Darbro - "[Eventually] I ran out of Useful Cards (3
patronages don't work when you have one !Tor and it's Carter). Soon I
went down to my predator [Dan Harting]'s well-played Conservative
Agitation."
His second round went better, but in the end, he fell to Robyn's stealth
bleed onslaught:
"My predator Robyn then finished me off with this amazing strategy of
bleeding me with a minion, and then playing stealth when I tried to
block. Through some loophole of the game, I couldn't block these actions
with all of these stealth cards. Then, and I'm sure the game designers
didn't think of this, she added BLEED MODIFIERS after I couldn't block!
Brilliant, and I died.
-Jon the Ignored, Virtuoso Traitor of Lambach of the 13th Floor"
I will now cut and paste the tournament from the winner's perspective:
********
3 factors won me the tournament.
1. Mike killed himself for me.
2. Good seating choice in the final.
3. Paul takes a phone call and leaves me to rampage.
In the 2nd round, with his remaining 6 pool, my prey, Mike N, recruited
a WarGhoul with no retainers or ally's. I was sitting with nice people
who would've certainly allowed him a mulligan, as he was simply not
aware of the errata, but when [I] realized he would never do that for
me, I called for a ruling. I felt horrible, but it turbo'd me through
the table to top seed.
Seating in the final. Keeping the two combat decks next to each other,
I knew I'd never get through Paul (he was my prey 1st round) and wanted
as far away as possible. This left Dennis, I didn't know what his deck
did, but I know he is a superior player and always blood manages well.
I didn't get the one vamp that will make the deck work, Tally the
Hound. So I had to make due with the lowly 2 cap Aaron Duggan. Dennis
influenced Greta K right off the bat. Greta's ability is essentially
equal to at 7 extra pool. How demoralizing. I looked at him as my turn
started and said, "Ok, Dennis, I'm starting down the long road of having
to drain Greta to get at your pool. Bleed for one." I kept trying to
put Hauntings on Greta, but, prey, Paul, would just remove them.
Powerbase Montreal changed hands with every turn and Dennis managed to
keep himself at 11-13 pool for a VERY long stretch.
Heavy bleeds get you unwanted attention from others at your table trying
to protect your prey. I took 8 pool damage from 2 Conservative
Agitations from my supposed ally, Paul, cross table, and spent the rest
of the game at 8 pool. As no one else was close to dying, I then spent
45 minutes just defending and not taking any actions. Trying to be
threatening, to keep Dennis from influencing any vampires, but trying to
be innocuous enough that Paul might concentrate on his prey.
Paul was getting very close to ousting Dan and then a miracle happened.
He contested the PowerBase Montreal with Niki across the table. Both of
them were fat with pool so the contestation would go on forever and by
this time I had plenty of stealth in my hand. Mike Courtois called Paul
on his cell phone to ck in with us as he was stuck at home, and I took
this time to quietly bleed Dennis for 9 and get him down to 5 pool. If
he couldn't wake up, I could completely lose 2 vampires next turn and
still get his v/p. I had only 3 cards left in my library.
I was waiting for Paul to react when he looked at Dennis's pool. I was a
little disappointed that he didn't really have anything to say. But he
did then commit all his vampires to simply go forward and bleed Dan
out. On my next turn I bled Dennis out. Back in 1st place. With 15
minutes left in the game I just took my time and stayed defensive. I
only went forward when Paul tried to withdraw.
********
So there you have it, a peek into the mind of a tournament winner.
Awesome.
And here is the deck that won - ain't it scary?
Deck Name: Robyn's Deck 6 Disciplines no Title Vamps
Created by: Robyn Merrill
Description: Winner of Anarch Revolt Los Angeles 2001. "I was surprised
how cohesive the decks ended up being. I had always wondered why they
reprinted some vamps and not others from the Sabbat set and realized on
Saturday many of the vamps they printed have cross-skills of OBT/DEM/VIC
- just what you need to make a Sabbat War draft work!".
Crypt: (12 cards) [Min: 13, Max: 29, Avg: 5.42]
1 Aaron Duggan (obt, Lasombra, 2)
1 Caliban (ANI AUS VIC, Tzimisce, 6)
1 Claven (aus dem obf, Malkavian Antitribu, 4)
1 Dolphin Black (AUS DEM OBF, Malkavian Antitribu, 6)
1 Ingrid Russo (DOM for, Ventrue Antitribu, 4)
1 Jost Werner (ani AUS PRE, Toreador Antitribu, 6)
1 Little Tailor of Prague (ANI AUS dem VIC, Tzimisce, 8)
1 Luther (ANI for obt pro, Gangrel Antitribu, 6)
1 Talley (aus dom OBT POT, Lasombra, 6)
1 Vasantasena (AUS DEM dom OBF pot, Malkavian
Antitribu,
9)
1 Victor Revell (aus CEL dem pre, Toreador Antitribu,
5)
1 Yorik (dem obf, Malkavian Antitribu, 3)
Library: (46 cards)
Master (5 cards)
1 Dominate
1 Power Structure
1 Presence
1 Tribute to the Master
1 Vicissitude
Action (12 cards)
2 Haunting, The
1 Kindred Spirits
2 Media Influence
1 Mind Rape
1 Propaganda
3 Scouting Mission
1 Shadow Twin
1 Total Insanity
ActionMod (12 cards)
3 Changeling
1 Command of the Beast
1 Forgotten Labyrinth
1 Marked Path
4 Shadow Play
1 Sleeping Mind, The
1 Threats
Reaction (1 card)
1 Darksight
Combat (12 cards)
3 Arms of the Abyss
1 Chiropteran Marauder
2 Inner Essence
2 Meld with the Land
3 Oubliette
1 Skin of Rock
Ally (1 card)
1 Escaped Mental Patient
Equipment (2 cards)
1 Gas-Powered Chainsaw
1 Leather Jacket
Combo (1 card)
1 Swallowed by the Night
--
chris
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