TWD (Very late!) National Championship Portugal 2012

Very late Report, but I was completely swamped for the last couple of months. Although for good reasons. Besides, me being the winner, made this report go down a bit on the huge stack of things to do. Portuguese National Championship 2012 Lisboa, Portugal December 15th, 2012 12 Players 3R + F Deck Name: Better Gents, Same Sticks, No Parity Shifts. Ever. Author: Tiago Brum Description: Govern Superior as much as possible. Most times, people don't see this deck as the table threat, even after 4 minions. I think it's because players have irrational fears of stealth, big cap vampires, players with vote lock, pure rush, walls... I'm happy with list. Almost the same list that I took to the Final of EC 2012. Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=3 max=8 avg=5.83) =============================================== 1x Emily Carson 5 for pre DOM Ventrue:5 2x Graham Gottesman 7 obf pre tha DOM FOR Ventrue:5 1x Jephta Hester 5 aus DOM FOR !Ventrue:4 1x João Bilé 5 pre DOM FOR Ventrue:4 1x Keith Moody 3 DOM !Tremere:4 3x Lodin (Olaf Holte) 8 aus pro DOM FOR PRE Ventrue:5 1x Mustafa, The Heir 6 cel dom FOR PRE Ventrue:4 1x Ulrike Rothbart 3 dom for !Ventrue:4 1x Victor Pelletier 5 cel dom for PRE Ventrue:4 /* Crypt is fine. Mary Anne Blaire is bad in this deck. Takes a long time to influence and would require Freak Drives to use properly. Rather have 2 vampires by the same time I would have Mary. */ Library (81 cards) ================== Master (13) 1x Anarch Troublemaker 1x Blood Doll 1x Channel 10 2x Dreams of the Sphinx 1x KRCG News Radio 1x Misdirection 1x Papillon 2x Pentex(TM) Subversion 1x Powerbase: Montreal 2x Vessel Event (2) 1x Scourge of the Enochians 1x Uncoiling, The /* Consciously not using Scourge of the Enochians in the EC was probably one of my worse mistakes in VtES ever.*/ Action (14) 14x Govern the Unaligned /* 14 is the new 10 */ Equipment (2) 1x Heart of Nizchetus 1x Ivory Bow Ally (1) 1x Carlton Van Wyk (Hunter) Retainer (1) 1x Mr. Winthrop Action Modifier (8) 3x Bonding 3x Conditioning 2x Daring the Dawn Reaction (20) 7x Deflection 2x Delaying Tactics 3x On the Qui Vive 1x Redirection 7x Second Tradition: Domain /* The quantity of bounce allows for the combat to be more offensive. Second Tradition and Lodin are even more awesome together. Might add an 8th Second Tradition. */ Combat (17) 5x Hidden Strength 4x Indomitability 3x Rolling with the Punches 5x Weighted Walking Stick Combo (3) 3x Murmur of the False Will /*Great card here. 90% of the time, used for bleed, but even more usefull those 10% of times you need to bounce a Giovanni or Kyasid mega bleeder.*/ Created with Secret Library v0.9.4a. (Feb 22, 2013 13:36:41) Final Table: Me (Ventrue Grinder) Eliseu Ângelo (Kyasid Stealth n Bleed) Ricardo Marta (Girls Will Find aids) José "Zedú" Rodrigues (Rachel Brandywine) André Catarino (G4 IC Counsil of Doom) Tried to sit in a place were people didn't block my Sup Governs. Besides a kickass opening hand, in turn 4 or 5 my Predator made a small mistake and a huge mistake. Both in a row. Lets just say he was left with no vampires and 21 pool. I had Deflections and Delaying Tactics, but still it was a game changer. By this time my Prey had 5 minions with dom, mit and obt and Ricardo was in trouble. I Pentexed Rachel to protect my Pool Cushion of a Predator. Ricardo had to go backwards as much as he could, so Zedu would eventually get his VP. Ricardo was ousted eventually, but so was my Prey, who had little to no blood in his vamps after ousting Ricardo and had to tap out to try to oust Zedu. Before dying, my Prey made a Golconda on a recently freed Rachel. Zedu decided lots of pool was better than Rachel + Victoria. Everybody thought 30 min was little time and maybe Zedu thought that 1 VP would be enough, being top seed. The thing is - the game went suddently from 5 to 3 player and each turn around the table took much less time. After ousting Eliseu it was innevitable to oust Zedu. 5 or 6 minions Vs Victoria and Gregor Anderssen. Zedu kept playing fast, even when time would give him Victory. A gentleman. It was a pleasure playing with these gentlemen, although my Predator's mistake took some fun out of it. I also made at least one mistake by tapping everyone when I should've left one minion untapped to stop Victoria from breaking Rachel's Pentex. I might've gotten one more VP in the Final. Hope everybody had fun. 3 new people qualified for next EC and hope to go with me, so that's very cool too. Cheers! Tiago, NC^2 for Portugal

> Brum wrote: > in turn 4 or 5 my Predator made a small mistake and a huge mistake. Both in a row. > Lets just say he was left with no vampires and 21 pool. > So what was the mistake, specifically? Ira

> Brum wrote: > I'm happy with list. Almost the same list that I took to the Final of EC 2013. > EC 2012 I think

> Ira wrote: > > > Brum wrote: > > in turn 4 or 5 my Predator made a small mistake and a huge mistake. Both in a row. > > Lets just say he was left with no vampires and 21 pool. > > > So what was the mistake, specifically? > He had 2 Inner Circles with 1 and 2 blood each. Mistake #1: he did bigger Villeins than he needed. Mistake #2: The one with 1 blood tried to hunt. His rationale was that I had used many 2nd Traditions already and wouldn't try to block this. My rationale was that, worse case scenario, it would be nice to make him use blood, either by Elder Impersonation, Forgotten Labyrinth or Majesty. Blocked and torporized Rafael. Mistake #3: Adana diablerizes Rafael. André is a competitive player for 2 to 3 years, who has been out of VtES for about 9 months. Also, he was probably very tired. We asked "Are you sure??? You know we're gonna toast Adana, right???" "Yeah, I'm sure!". Later we said he thought Rafael could still vote... On his own words - "If the game goes too well, or not well at all, I lose my concentration and do stupid mistakes". He had another Rafael on the uncontrolled area, but me and his Predador voted for Rafael to toast. So I ended up with 3 cards I couldn't cycle for a few turns, but it was obviously a good trade off.

> Brum wrote: > Zedu kept playing fast, even when time would give him Victory. A gentleman. > Isn't it a pity that this behaviour seems to be a rare virtue in these times? Well done, Zedu, even if this cost you the final. Baron of Frankfurt

Sometimes players are less in control of the speed they play than one might think. Looking at the footage of last EC's Final I still surprise myself how slow I played, because when I was there I thought I was playing normally fast. It was totally involuntary. The extra table talk was because I was nervous, being my first big Final and all. Maybe my slow speed was also because of that. BTW, extra kudos to Zedú, because he's starting to become more and more experienced and isn't afraid to contact people much more experienced than him for tips on his favorite decks. Many players see guys like Hugh, the Brothers, or other top players as inaccessible champions who deserve reverence and should be dealt with at a distance. I've never met anyone in this game like that.

Hi all. First thanks for the compliments Tiago, if I'm better its mostly your fault. > Brum wrote: > Before dying, my Prey made a Golconda on a recently freed Rachel. Zedu decided lots of pool was better than Rachel + Victoria. > Everybody thought 30 min was little time and maybe Zedu thought that 1 VP would be enough, being top seed. > > The thing is - the game went suddently from 5 to 3 player and each turn around the table took much less time. > After ousting Eliseu it was innevitable to oust Zedu. > 5 or 6 minions Vs Victoria and Gregor Anderssen. > Zedu kept playing fast, even when time would give him Victory. A gentleman. > this was the most difficult decision I had to make in this final, at the time Eliseu played the Golconda I already had Gregor whit PRO and about 4/6 pool, Eliseu had 5/6 Minions ready to bleed, my hand only had one 2ºtradition so my only possible choice was to gain the pool and try to survive until the time ended. In that turn I was left whit 4/6 pool again so if I didn't had given up Rachel and gained 10 pool Eliseu would have made my VP. I belive that playing the Golconda on Rachel was a mistake because of that. This was my best Portuguese National Championship so far, I made my 1º objective that was to qualify for the EC. and almost made the ultimate objective that was to win the final. I really enjoyed playing that day. I would like to say special thanks to Adam Esbjörnsson for the help and advice he gave me when preparing to this deck for this tournament.

Who are the qualified players for the Continental Championship Events? www.vekn.net/index.php/forum/10-news-and-announcements/36278

> Adonai wrote: > Who are the qualified players for the Continental Championship Events? > I thought that too when I first saw Tiago's report but then I noticed this: > Brum wrote: > Final Table: > > Me (Ventrue Grinder) > Eliseu Ângelo (Kyasid Stealth n Bleed) > Ricardo Marta (Girls Will Find aids) > José "Zedú" Rodrigues (Rachel Brandywine) > André Catarino (G4 IC Counsil of Doom) > With "me" above being tthe winner (and event reporter) Tiago Brum. Could've been way more visible for my tastes but the info was there... Finnish Politics!

Well, that and the fact that there were less than 21 players means all the finalists qualify. But the organizer, if not participating, would also qualify, and I suppose that's what Jeff is looking for.

> Pascal wrote: > Well, that and the fact that there were less than 21 players means all the finalists qualify. > It is Nationals; all the finalists and just the finalists qualify regardless of the number of players. > > Pascal wrote: > But the organizer, if not participating, would also qualify, and I suppose that's what Jeff is looking for. > It was a Nationals; organizer of Nationals doesn't qualify. Or did that change already? Besides, I got the impression from Taigo's report that it was a tournament he organized. Confirmation that he organized it can be found here: vekn.net/index.php/event-calendar/event/6952 Finnish Politics!