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| Going into this final, I knew what everyone was playing except Martin. At 4th seed, I didn't have a choice of seat anyway, but I felt pretty good about my chances to at least earn a VP and improve my standing, since there were two Imbued decks in the final. That doubled our chances of getting the good cards out early and reduced the potential table-hate by one.
Antonio ended up being a fairly formidible predator for me, despite his deck not really being tuned to tackle Imbued. He got rid of the Memories of Mortality I played on him as quickly as possible (Olivier wouldn't hit Antonio with a Memories until later) and bled and blocked me for all he was worth. I probably would've lost a couple minions to pillow-facing if Olivier hadn't gotten Jennie out early. I went for the first oust before I was really ready because of the pressure I was receiving from Antoino. Alas for Martin, his deck couldn't really handle Imbued and I ousted him with one turn of bleeding. My new prey, Olivier, was preparing to oust Ruben, but a deal was struck instead. Ruben was allowed to take a crack at ousting Antonio, but he had to allow himself to be bled down to 1 first. Not a bad deal for Olivier, because he didn't need the extra VP, being higher seed than me. Ruben got Antonio, Olivier got Ruben. There wasn't enough time left to play out the endgame. I had minion advantage, but Olivier had gotten a Smiling Jack into play. The game probably would've been his. Well, it was anyway. |
Matt Morgan Friday  |
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| I was 2nd seed, so I chose seating after Olivier, Brian and Erik did. I knew what deck Olivier and Erik were playing, and I had some information about Brian's deck. So far, the seating was Erik -> Brian -> Olivier. I did not want to have Erik (playing weenie Auspex) as my prey, even though I could steal all Shambling Hordes from Olivier and attack Erik's minions with them. Erik was playing Magic of the Smith and could have easily fetched a .44 Magnum and/or a Sniper Rifle and stop and kill my Shambling Hordes. So I chose to be Erik's prey in the hope that Ruben Feldman would sit as my predator (which he did). I thought that both Ruben's bleeds (which I would bounce to Brian) and my own bleeds would be enough to oust Brian. During the game, I felt quite comfortable. Neither my predator nor my prey had enough intercept to block my actions, nor were they any threat to me, so I could play my game. I brought out Rebekka, Greta Kircher, Sheila Mezarín, gained some pool via Art Scam, stole Felix "Fix" Hessian, the only ally Erik let Olivier put in play (which I always kept untapped just in case Ruben wanted to Dare the Dawn). I tried to steal my predator's Jake Washington as well, but Olivier (my grandprey) felt like it was essential for his way to victory to cross-table play Direct Intervention on my Entrancement, so I untapped Rebekka (the vampire who had played the cancelled Entrancement), announced a bleed for 1 at +1 stealth, which my prey declined to block, so I increased it by 2 via Aire of Elation. Brian played Deflection on Olivier and he took the bleed :) since he had no Direct Intervention to cancel Brian's Deflection. Amusing moves aside, I was unlucky and did not draw a single Palla Grande, so my ousting power was never enough to oust my prey. Given the circumstances in the late game, Brian should have won that final if he had not played Dr. No (by wasting time revealing his master plans instead of focussing on ousting Olivier) and let himself get trapped in Olivier's and Ruben's table talk. But the game timed out. |
Gines Saturday  |
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| Wow, I made it into the finals of this years EC in Gothenburg, I was very happy and excited. My Decklist (Julio Martinez/Vermin Channel stealth/bleed) was checked by Erik Torstensen and it seemed I did it all right. So with 1GW and 7,5 VP I was the second best player after 3 rounds of the second EC Day. The others(in order of their resuslts) were 1. Olivier Perez playing Imbued, 3. József Kuminka playing Inner Circle vote, 4. Ferenc Vasadi playing Big cap Toreador bleed and vote with Aching Beauties and last but not least 5. Christoffer Arvidsson playing Tzimisce wall with War Ghouls. I had some minor problems with the seating because I didnt play with one of the other finalists, so I came in totally blind. And after I chose my seating, Olivier thought it would be a good idea to be my prey, didnt like that, because i know he is a tough nut to crack. So here we have the seating for the final round of the EC 2007:
Olivier Perez(Imbued) -> József Kuminka(Inner Circle) -> Christoffer Arvidsson(Tzimisce) -> Ferenc Vasadi(Toreador) -> Erol Öngün(Vermin Channel) LSJ and the OrgPlay Oscar Garza were judging the final table. We had a lot of people watching, my friends from Germany were really good Supporters cheering me up, before the game starts. Thanks guys. So the first round started, the tension was high at the beginning, but with me being lucky, cause I had the Nosferatu Kingdom in my starting hand, unfortunately Old Neddacka was not showing up so I had to put my smallest Vampire in play Frank Litzpar a 5 -Cap. (some of the finalist must have thought "Who the hell is Franlk Litzpar?") before I could play the Nosferatu Kingdom. The other players were bringing minions out too. I was pleased to see that Olivier played Imbued cause with Vermin Channel I had a good weapon to bypass his wall. József was building up quite well with Minion Taps, Christoffer had some problems bringing a War Ghoul into play as Ferenc was blocking with Madame Guil and 2nd Traditions. One of good things Christoffer did was playing a Break the Code early, that was awesome, my chances to get Olivier with that card in play were going higher. The game went on most of time really quitely. It didnt seem that any alliances could be made, I tried to convince the other players to oust Olivier as everybody would step up a rank, but that was rather fruitless. Olivier was building up with more Imbued and securing his position, so did József with Arika, Leandro and Jaroslav Paczek. Christoffer did nothing in fear that József would try to oust him in one turn. So Ferenc tried to put some pressure on me. Madame Guil had two Aching Beauty lying on her and Alexandra was also in play, multi-action Toreador with Toreador Grand Ball, didnt like that. I did my best to reduce Oliviers Pool so I could try to oust him before game ends. I had a good defense in my hand 2 Deflection, 2 Confusion of the Eye, 1 Delaying Tactics and 2 Direct Intervention. I used both of the Directs for Champions, reducing the chances to cancel my bleed actions. Ferenc was bleeding me now more aggressively, I Defelcted his bleeds to Olivier, he just just played Direct Intervention on my Deflections. That he did three turns in a row, with getting the Direct Intervention back through Anthelios/Parthenon combo. That was awfully evil. Then Alexandra wanted to Protect Thine Own my Julio Martinez, that was rather bad for me. I tried to play Confusion of the Eye, Olivier played, guess what, a Direct Intervention on my Confusion of the Eye, so I have to play the Delaying Tactics, that gave me one turn before he could try it next turn again. So we had 30 minutes left and my chances to get help from someone else were zero. I asked József because he had the vote lock. But he didnt care, he let Ferenc make his game. So I had to oust Olivier this turn or would be ending up last. As all my defensive cards were gone I had a good offensive hand, with Vermin Channels, Conditionings and Stealth. My first two bleeds passed without much trouble. Olivier down to 5 pool. I had only one last chance so I bled him with a Govern the Unaligned and played a Lost in Crowds for +2 stealth. Oliviers The Unmasking was canceled out by Break the Code so his last blocking minion had used his Second Sight and his Discern to try to block me, so I played the Conditioning to cycle for stealth, but alas Caine was not with me. So he blocked my bleed. Ferenc now had a easy target for his first VP, as I was tapped out and low on pool from his earlier bleeds. So he ousted me and got his VP. The game ended soon, with nothing more to come and Ferenc was the new European Champion in 2007. He earned it cause he was the only one except me, trying to oust his prey. And that is the game. Congratulation Ferenc. we will meet again. :) Sidenote: The next card in my library was a Cloak the Gathering, aaaarrrrggghhh. |
Erol Sunday  |
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