Written by James McClellan
We only had 13 participants for this tournament because it clashed with exams and Rob Treasure's barbecue. This didn't prevent it being a highly enjoyable and competitive event, in which a LOT of people got VPs. The tariff for the final was 5, and the following 5 Methuselahs made it: Legbiter with 10 Pierre Rebstock with 8 Steve Cantlow, James Coupe and Anklebiter [aka Michael McClellan] with 5 each. The order was Pierre, me, Anklebiter, James C and finally Steve. Steve and i were playing Gangrel and gangrel-anti combat decks respectively, Michael had a Malkavian stealth-bleed deck, james C had a corrupting presence-bleed deck and Pierre had a Stanislava-based dom/PRO deck, with ToR3 to bring out his big girl. i had placed myself as Pierre's prey because i had seen the deck in action and i reckoned i was likely the only person to be able to put a stopper on its ability to bleed for 8 on the third turn. And, in fact i did manage to shut him down pretty comprehensively. Unfortunately for me, i was unable to put enough pressure on Michael to prevent him going through James C, Steve and pierre like a dose of salts. That left him with 3VPs and a victory in the bag, but we played out the game for honour, and in the end i quite comfortably ousted him, leaving the peculiar final result of me never having been ousted in any round and also having the most VPs from the tournament [12 to his and Pierre's 8 each], but Michael was STILL the winner. Of course i was, and am, VERY proud of Michael, who MUST be the ONLY 10- year-old ever to have won a Jyhad tournament. i will post his deck soon - it's a fairly straightforward malkavian stealth-bleed deck with Dodges and the Elysium for combat defence. Cheesy you may say, but despite being on the national register of Able and Talented Children in Maths and Science he is still, after all, only a little boy. Still, now perhaps it is time for him to move on to something a bit more interesting, maybe for the next tournament which will be in early July. i'll also post my deck, in the next !Gangrel newsletter, with a warm feeling of having done my Duty by my bloodline. And here, from memory, is what i know about the other decks at the tournament: Alex Murphy had a Gangrel/Renegade Garou deck, which called votes to pay for his allies. Mark Baxter had a Gangrel combat deck. Gareth ? had a Tremere ranged damage deck with a LOT of bleed-bounce. Patrick Vance had a Bru/!Bru rush deck which proved a bit vulnerable to aggravated damage. Anam Sheader had a Tor/!Tor bleed and vote deck. She pulled off at least one VP but tended to get screwed by intercept, of which there was a LOT. But it was a nice deck, and she pulled off a BRILLIANT voting coup against John Lee Barber to burn his Legendary Vampire card. Ian Stubbington got at least one VP but i never had the pleasure of playing against him [which was a bit of a relief, since he ALWAYS seems to be my predator in the sealed-deck league] so unfortunately i don't know what he was playing. John Lee Barber FINALLY has binned his Ravnos deck and now has something quite scary based on Muaziz and Rebecca and BIG presence bleeds. Protean provides him with a certain amount of stealth and unblockability and a LOT of horrid combat. In the one game where we were together he was my prey and i laid off him while he killed Pierre. Similarly Robert Shread has binned his weenie hackers deck and now has a weenie hurting deck, which judging by the shrieks of laughter coming from his tables was doing a GRAND job of hurting people [the highlight being two additional strikes, each of which was sacrament of carnage]. James C took LOTS of photos and if they come out they will go on his website, so you can see what we all look like. Thanks as usual go to John E for organising the event and impartial judging, and to Wizards for prize support. i got a Madness Network and Vampiric Disease in my haul, so i am as happy as a pig in shit. The next scheduled event is early July, which i will let you all know about in due course, but we hope to have an EXTRA tournament on June the 26th [if that's a saturday, and if not whatever saturday is nearest that date] in honour of Philippe Richer ["Bleu"] who is supposed to be visiting our fair city round about then. It's probably a bit late to make this an official event so it will likely be a Sabbat sealed-deck tournament [otherwise there isn't really any incentive for John to run it]. And it is all contingent of course on Philippe actually BEING there. And talking of students bettering teachers, here is Michael McClellan aka Anklebiter's winning deck: CRYPT 12 VAMPIRES Gilbert Duane x2 Ozmo x2 Normal x2 Mariel x2 Zebulon Sylvester Simms Roland Bishop Dollface LIBRARY 72 CARDS 31 ACTION MODIFIERS Cloak the Gathering x2 Faceless Night x5 Lost in Crowds x5 Conditioning x5 Threats x6 Swallowed by the Night x5 Bonding x3 2 RETAINERS JS Simmons, Esq Tasha Morgan 7 REACTIONS WWEF x2 Deflection x3 Obedience x2 13 COMBAT Dodge x13 7 ACTIONS Scouting Mission Govern the Unaligned x6 12 MASTERS Short-term Investment Ascendance x3 Misdirection Obfuscate x3 Asylum HG Elysium the Arboretum Dominate x2