Killiam#
Riposte
Orccon 2025, Hilton Los Angeles Airport, Los Angeles, California, United States
16 February 2025, 16:00 – 23:59
2R+F
15 players
Bill Troxel (Killiam)
www.vekn.net/event-calendar/event/11889
-- Second seed at 1GW 5VP going into the final. Scored 4VP in the final.
Deck Name: Great Beast Temp Agency: Los Angeles
Description:
This is a toolbox iteration of my rush-and-bloat-centric unnamed + Soul Gem + Call the Great Beast decks in which the Great Beast has superior Celerity, Protean and Temporis. The unnamed gets Abombwe for capacity, grabs the Soul Gem and then Calls the Great Beast. Lots of rushing ensues. The Great Beast uses Summon History to get Tye Cooper, who plays a critical role. Bloating is buffed handsomely by playing Golconda on the Great Beast before Calling a new one. What makes this build unique is its spread-out, toolboxy card diversity. It's quite fun to play, but if you want to try it, I recommend practicing in Lackey simulations before taking it to a table, as it can be complicated to pilot.
The first round went swimmingly with a full 5VP and ending the game with 57 pool (plus 6 counters on a backup uncontrolled unnamed). Mark Jasper was my grandpredator playing a Hunger of Marduk rush deck. My predator was Juan Soto piloting a heavy-combat Gangrel deck featuring long-chain combat such as Carrion Crows, Trap, Bear's Skin, Flesh of Marble, Pack Alpha + Dog Pack, etc. MJ immediately got the better of his prey in an early combat, emptying and torporizing Kuyen, Soto's only vampire at the time. My deck got to work going forward, and eventually even started supporting my predator, rescuing Kuyen and sending some rushes at MJ after he made it clear that his stance toward me was unfriendly, attempting to torporize my unnamed on a bounced bleed. Soto eventually stabilized and started winning his combats against Mark as I made my way around the table, but conceded after we got to heads up.
Second round I was ousted by Malk '94 before I could get rolling. The bleeders were piloted by a player returning from a long V:TES torpor, going by the handle Elf.
The final was very fun and challenging. As second seed, I had the choice to either sit in front of Sagan's G7 Ravnos bleeders, or sit adjacent to Logan's Ghede rush deck. I chose to sit in front of the Ravnos, hoping I could stand up and send back rushes in time to get above water before Sagan ousted me. That part worked out, although there was a point in the final when they had me down to as low as 2 pool after paying to unlock the unnamed.
Unfortunately, Darby (who was first seed) chose to sit as my prey with his Mambo Jean rush deck. I was lucky enough to have an Unleash Hell's Fury in my opening hand and played it immediately, and soon drew into a second copy for backup. Although I had intended to use UHF strictly as rush defense that game, I had to pop the first one on the Ravnos to keep from getting bled out -- but of course immediately replaced it. Unleash Hell's Fury was absolutely critical that game, and the second copy remained in play all the way to the end of the round.
Stymied by UHF and concerned that Darby's prey -- Harry, playing G5-6 Malkavian bleed -- would quickly bleed out Logan's Ghede deck, both Darby and Logan formed an unholy combat alliance and got busy absolutely pounding the Malks into the ground. Darby played Dragonbound. I tried to support Harry for a little while with a rescue and a consensual cross-table Golconda of a torped Alexander Silverson, but soon concluded that he had no chance to oust Logan, and my best path to victory was to let him fall and hope that Mambo Jean and Ghede would crash into each other before focusing on me. I also had my hands full trying to keep the Ravnos rushed down until I could bloat back to health; Sagan's deck proved to have a surprising amount of combat defense and reaction cards, making this much harder than it sounds.
Between my two combat-heavy foes, I was more afraid of Ghede, both because he had Immortal Grapple and because I expected he would consistently be holding sufficient prevention to not care about my agg damage. Mambo Jean also has prevention and ways to counter my Earth Melds, but they are mostly concentrated in the same card: Relentless Reaper, meaning that unless Darby was holding a good amount of such cards and/or other prevention in-hand, he would have more trouble getting the best of me in combat.
As luck would have it, an Enkil-Cogged Ghede bled for four and got burnt by Archon Investigation! This was great news; now it was a race to see if I could put Darby's minions down before he got his second VP by ousting Logan. Darby of course went forward to secure that VP, but ended up slightly overspending his Relentless Reapers, which positioned me well for a fight. When I rushed Mambo with the unnamed, she fell into torpor and Tye Cooper burned her right away. I removed rest of Darby's minions from the field over the next few turns, and my bloat machine was in full-swing to the point that I became mostly unconcerned about bleeds from behind. After that, the table was effectively conquered.
vdb.im/decks/06d854710
Crypt (12 cards, min=40 max=40 avg=10) 12x unnamed, The 10 CEL DAI OBF PRE PRO Baali:6
Library (90 cards)
Master (18; 11 trifle)
10x Abombwe
1x Antediluvian Awakening
2x Dreams of the Sphinx
1x Giant's Blood
3x Golconda: Inner Peace
1x Villein
Action (24)
2x Ambush
1x Big Game
1x Bum's Rush
6x Call the Great Beast
5x Dual Form
1x Fleetness
1x Flurry of Action
1x Harass
1x Mantle of the Bestial Majesty
2x Summon History
3x Unleash Hell's Fury
Ally (1)
1x Tye Cooper
Equipment (6)
6x Soul Gem of Etrius
Action Modifier (18)
1x Cloak the Gathering
3x Domain of Evernight
2x Earth Control
2x Enkil Cog
9x Instantaneous Transformation
1x Pocket Out of Time
Action Modifier/Combat (2)
1x Resist Earth's Grasp
1x Taking the Skin: Minion
Combat (21)
2x Claws of the Dead
5x Earth Meld
3x Form of Mist
3x Infernal Pursuit
1x Outside the Hourglass
5x Psyche!
2x Pursuit
Thanks for reading!
Best,
-Billy / Killiam
(edit: replaced VDB main deck link with public deck link)
-Killiam
(Bill Troxel) "I look back from where I'm from
Look at the woman I've become
And the strangest things seem
Suddenly routine"
-Hedwig Robinson