The Bedford tournament happened yesterday and, dear reader, what a glorious mess it was.
In my previous post I mentioned that I had finally chosen my deck for the tournament. Since Tremere and Ventrue are my two favourite clans and the Tremere carried me through my first tournament in Cambridge, I felt it was only proper to give the blue-blooded aristocrats their chance. After all, one cannot spend this much time talking about influence, politics and refined superiority without eventually showing up with a Ventrue deck.
Now, there was one small issue with this master plan: Ventrue are not exactly dominating the competitive scene at the moment. Their recent tournament results could best be described as "historically significant". Still, I convinced myself there was logic behind my decision. The meta is currently filled with combat rush decks, and fewer political decks usually means fewer titled vampires at the table. Fewer titled vampires should mean easier votes for me. On paper, this sounded brilliant. Unfortunately, VTES is not played on paper, it is played by other people, who have the deeply inconvenient habit of interfering with your plans.
I also decided against running a star vampire. As much as I love the idea of one mighty elder carrying the deck on their elegant shoulders, I had already seen enough combat decks to know what would happen. You spend half the game influencing out your superstar, they immediately get punched into torpor by something with claws and anger management issues, and suddenly your grand strategy resembles a luxury yacht taking on water. So instead, I opted for lower-cap G6 and G7 princes. More bodies, more flexibility, fewer emotional catastrophes.
The library reflected the usual Ventrue lifestyle choices: Freak Drives for efficiency, Governs for tasteful aggression and influence acceleration, Enchant Kindred for subtle networking opportunities and political actions like Kine Resources Contested, Camarilla's Iron Fist and Parity Shift. Thanks to James, I also acquired staples like Giant's Blood and Jake Washington, which made me feel like I was slowly being accepted into polite vampire society.
Aaron and I drove to Bedford together. I brought my Ventrue; he took the Salubri deck, which (if I am completely honest) was probably the stronger deck in almost every imaginable way. Better combat. Better intercept. Same Freak Drives. Same Governs. Same Deflects. My only real advantage was politics and the stubborn belief that well-dressed vampires deserve respect. This did not discourage me in the slightest. The Ventrue aesthetic is simply too powerful. If I am going to lose, I at least want to lose while looking like I own the building.
Before the tournament started, we made the wise decision to eat something first. Experience has taught me that making strategic decisions while hungry leads to mistakes. This applies equally to Methuselahs and software engineers.
My first table was an absolute delight. We had Ian, myself, Hugh, Aaron, and Pedro. Ian, my predator, played Lasombra, while Hugh, my prey, brought Tzimisce. The game developed smoothly. Pedro pressured Ian heavily, giving me room to establish what I can only describe as a corporate board meeting with fangs. Hugh also pressured Aaron's Salubri, which enabled Pedro to continue setting up his combos.
Midway through the game, I was ready to start leaning harder on my prey, but I desperately needed to cycle cards. When Pedro played KRCG News Radio, I used Sudden Reversal to cancel it, partly because I genuinely needed to get rid of the Sudden, partly because I was desperately fishing for political actions. What I did not realize was that casually interfering cross-table with someone's master card creates tension remarkably quickly. In hindsight, I probably could have waited. After the game, we discussed it and Pedro kindly pointed out that it didn't actually hurt his game much, but the move was still considered somewhat impolite. A valuable Ventrue lesson was learned that day: if you are going to interfere with people's business, at least do it elegantly. After two hours, we were all still alive. Half a victory point each. No blood feuds formed. Success.
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| Table 1 |
My second table was terrifying from the very beginning. Manuel brought rush Matasuntha Gangrel, the kind of deck that looks at your carefully dressed prince and immediately asks, "What if we removed his face?" Hugh sat there with Tzimisce, Niki brought ancient Ventrue and Ventrue antitribu crypt cards I had never even seen before and my prey Matt was playing Path of Caine. My first vampire was Lodin, Prince of Chicago. Niki's first vampire? Horatio, who can call a referendum to become Prince of Chicago. The chances of this happening felt astronomically low, yet somehow perfectly appropriate for VTES. This game was brutal. Alice Chen spent more time in torpor than upright. At one point Hugh kindly rescued her from torpor after Manuel and I forgot our deal to do so. Naturally, I repaid this kindness by later allocating one point of Kine Resources damage to Hugh instead of someone else. The revenge was immediate. Apparently Tzimisce do not hold grudges. They sculpt them carefully and return them with interest. Alice went right back into torpor. I learned an important lesson there: if someone saves your vampire, perhaps do not immediately punish them politically. It sends mixed signals. Around the 90-minute mark, I thought I saw an opening to oust Matt. I committed everything. Every bleed, every action, every ounce of pressure. It almost worked. Almost. Then Niki casually hit me for 9 pool in one turn while all my vampires were tapped. No wakes. No deflections. Just the sudden realization that I had overextended spectacularly. No VP this round. At that point, I was convinced my Ventrue had failed.
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| Table 2 |
And then came the third table. This was THE game.
James sat as my prey with a horrifying Nosferatu antitribu deck capable of casually throwing stealth six bleeds or direct pool damage that cannot be deflected. Antonio fell first. Then Ian. Then Aaron. Soon it was just me and the monster. At this point James had devoured three players and gained eighteen extra pool, which made the situation feel less like a duel and more like trying to politically negotiate with a freight train. But the Ventrue stood firm. I survived the first terrifying turn and then unleashed everything. Political actions. Conditioned bleeds. Freak Drives. Governs. Multi-actions carried the game heavily. James had a thirteen-card hand size by then, but no library remaining. For the first time all tournament, I saw a path to victory. One more turn survived. One more wave of political pressure. One more carefully timed bleed. And suddenly… it was over. I had ousted the predator that consumed three entire players. I genuinely stood there for a moment trying to process what had happened. The Ventrue had done it (I better not mention the mistakes and misplays that happened due to my excitement, luckily Antonio remained at the table to help with the rules).
At that point, I was ready to pack up and head home. Then Antonio casually informed me that with 2.5 VP I had actually made the finals. Reader, I was ecstatic.
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| Finals |
This feeling lasted approximately until I saw my opening crypt and hand in the finals. All seven-cap princes. Mostly Governs, Enchant Kindreds and a Daring the Dawn. It was catastrophic. I could not Govern down. I could not aggressively accelerate. I could barely pretend this hand was functional. I swallowed my pride and slowly influenced out one prince, already feeling behind. Antonio, meanwhile, announced he "needed to recycle cards", which in practical terms meant my vampire got repeatedly grappled and punched down to one blood before I had even properly settled into the game. Apparently this could have gone worse. Or so I was told. The finals were played brilliantly by much stronger and more experienced players and I was ousted second.
And yet…
What a tournament! I met wonderful people, received gifted cards from the community(thanks to James, Niki and Hugh), made the finals in only my second tournament and most importantly, we had an incredible amount of fun. My Ventrue elders would probably approve. Though they would almost certainly tell me not to antagonize Tzimisce who just saved my vampire (right?).
The game never ends, only pauses. I'll see you at the next move.
Custodian Hargrave
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