Written by James Coupe and James McClellan
Good tournament, and plenty of fun was had by all, of course. A few noted players missing, including Barney and Rob Treasure (the latter of whom was unfortunately tied up with moving house), Rob Shred (who turned up with his mobile kebab^w^w^h dog later on) and Louisa (who was caravaning). Some absolutely ludicrous decks on show, for once, though. Will Lee Jason Steve Cantlow All three played some very clever Tzimisce decks. Mostly designed as intercept road block decks, designed to get the 2VP for last man standing in all three rounds. Will Lee also through a few things in like Changeling and Living Manse in order to give him a little bleed edge, and also had enough Wakes to not care. James McClellan - Malkavian OOT - shifting more towards Prince 2nd Tradition, allowing use of Rotschreck. From what I saw of the deck, he had a bit of a bad day with draws. He didn't get Greger when he needed him, drawing Marcellus instead. Perhaps cause for dropping one of the Marcellus cards, perhaps. Also, having looked at one of the copies of the deck, I may be tempted to include more copies of Watenda, but that's just me. Alex - Bounce (loads) and S&B, essentially. It didn't like having to do it's own work, and got screwed when a few people just didn't want to bleed him. David from America - big Prince/Justicar 2nd Tradition, Potence combat (surprisingly light on IG), slight vote and Minion Tap/5th Tradition. Highly effective and fun deck, backed up with great spirit and diplomacy. He was, perhaps, a little light on Immortal Grapple, definitely lighter than a lot of the Potence Combat decks you see on here, though he was of course going more for a mixture in his deck. Surprisingly, he went heavily for the Nosferatu, rather than the Brujah who seem to be more popular for this sort of thing. However, the Nosferatu afforded him the opportunity to play The Labyrinth and Forgotten Labyrinth to get loads of stealth on his diablerie and votes, and he had the permanent vote back up to REALLY do well in Blood Hunts. Jon Cooper - Nosferatu combat with slight intercept (rumor mill). Fairly weenie bleed was backed up with a few rushes etc. It seemed to be more designed to get into combat through bleeding, unless I saw it when it was having problems drawing the cards it needed. Baby Legbiter - Malkavian S&B, Bleed Bounce and Disguised Weapon Gun. It had a few things like Deer Rifle to try and provide some combat defence, which worked quite well as Deer Rifle affords extra maneuvers. It perhaps needed to go for slightly more stealth in it, since it had problems getting passed Wil's Tzimisce intercept deck, but it performed very well over all, getting into the final - the first time Michael had played in a tournament, doing better than his sire, I mean father. Pierre - Weenie Vote Ventrue PS, HQ, Elysium This deck got *SO* badly screwed. It kept ending up on tables with people from its first game, so people just knew what was going to happen and worked to stop it. It got screwed over by the intercept decks of all three Tzimisces, the OOT Malk deck, and the American Nosferatu deck. Mark B -slightly weenie Obfuscate/Dominate bleed, backed up by Sylvester and bounce. I have to give my abject apologies to this man, as he now has an utter, utter hatred of Mind Numb. I had about 5 in my deck and he got really badly screwed over by them. Pat - Blurred Thrown Gate. Didn't really come up against much S:CE, as far as I can tell, but would probably have done better if it could have hit harder. John Keech - Gangrel Bleed Intercept Vote Aunty. Weird deck. Weird, weird deck. It could intercept lots, had a few votes in it (mostly ignored, however), little bits of bleed and was just *so* weird. It did very well, but I managed to steal its copy of Bear Paw. Yay! John Barber - Protean/Presence/Dominate Bleed Not one I can comment on, since I didn't see it. Gary - Tremere Bruise and Slight Bleed (Rutor's Hand didn't pull off, not enough). Ditto John Barber. James Coupe - I was playing weenie Presence/Serpentis/Setite, for bleed, pool gain and Corruption was thrown in for fun. I might go for more Mind Numb if I were to play it again. Before the finals, the results were: James Coupe - 4 Legbiter - 3 Alex - 0 Mark B - 1 Pierre - 2 Pat - 0 Gary - 1 John K - 7 Jon C - 5 Baby Legbiter - 4 Steve Cantlow - 2 Wil Lee - 6 Jason - 1 David - 8 John Barber - 1
Additions by James McClellan regarding the final
William Lee won this tournament, with 5 VPs: David tatu was second, with 1: and then in reverse order of outedness came baby Legbiter, Jon Cooper, John Keech and James Coupe, all with 0VP. All very nice decks, and LOTS of combat ... and a very competitive final, the longest in terms of time we have ever had [about 3 hours]. As other james said, i personally got cursed by the gods of crypt draw ... didn't ONCE get Greger in my opening crypt, and the only game i did ok in i had to draw him, and then do a deal with my grand-predator for the VPs i got. But, that's the game. The deck is still fine, though i shall probably replace a Marcellus with a Greger [as James suggests] and put another Madness Network in, probably for one of the Fames ... though they did their job magnificently. And maybe i'll put another Victoria in for Normal. Or maybe i will pinch some of the ideas that other people have been posting about different approaches to malky oot rush - i like Robert's idea about millicent smith [which i had thought of but not implemented] and noal's idea about grave-robbing and Malky time auction, which i had not thought of at all. i think michael [baby legbiter] did pretty well for age 10 and his first tournament, but he needs to work a bit on his discards, and he also needs to realise that if you have run out of stealth then nothing is lost by playing a threats in the hope that your redraw will be another stealth. This is a standard trick in Portsmouth but it was a new one to david tatu, so there's a little tactical tip for at least some of you! Once i have done this dam' paper i will calculate the player ratings. Gonna be fun for the 6-player final. Groan. David, please may i have your current rating? Finally, i gave the Goodnight, Sweet Prince deck another outing in the losers game. It worked really well in terms of pool gain but i can see that apart from the NEC guys the crypt is REALLY going to have to be 8-10 cap princes, which will simplify the task of figuring out what i am going to use all that pool FOR. David tatu pointed out that since everyone and his antediluvian is playing princes these days, GNSP actually has offensive potential, too! O and finally finally three dates for your diary: Wednesday 28th is round 2 of the League. Next Second Byte tournaments are 15th of May and 5th of June. Constructed, DCI, yadayada.
And finally, the winning deck:
Anyway, after being ousted from the first game in 4 turns flat for the second time in two tournaments by James C, William Lee transcribed his Tzimisce deck for me. Here it is, the intercept-combat deck that won the last but one Portsmouth tournament [in April]: CRYPT Lambach Meshenka x 2 Anton x 2 Dragos x 2 Corinne Marcon Devin Bisley Lolita Houston Wendy Wade Horatio LIBRARY MASTERS: Sudden Reversal Golconda Millicent Smith Vicissitude x 2 Blood Doll x 2 Library HG Giant's Blood Hungry Coyote Mob Connections AUSPEX: Eagle's Sight x 3 Spirit's Touch x 2 Precognition x 2 Enhanced Senses x 2 Melange x 2 Telepathic Misdirection x 2 Revelations ANIMALISM: Cat's Guidance x 3 Rat's Warning Guard Dogs x 2 Carrion Crows x 6 Terror Frenzy x 2 Tier of Souls Conquer the Beast Song of Serenity x 4 Scorpion Sting x 2 Owl Companion x 2 Murder of Crows Raven Spy VICISSITUDE: Changeling x 5 Plasmic Form Bonecraft x 3 Reform Body Breath of the Dragon x 2 Horrid Form x 6 Blood of Acid MISCELLANEOUS: Forced Awakening x 2 WWEF Living Manse Trap x 3 Leather Jacket x 2 JS Simmons Revenant Taste of Vitae x 2 Ambush War Ghoul x 2