The Bitter and Sweet Story: Atlanta

The Bitter and Sweet Story
Stone Mountain, Georgia
July 18, 2009
13 players

The bitter and sweet story:  no one played Laibon as they were all
afraid of contesting!  4 of 13 players specifically mentioned this
concern in deciding what they chose to play on the day.

Todd Banister's Tournament Winning Deck

Crypt [12 vampires] Capacity min: 1 max: 8 average: 3.75
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4x Anarch Convert         1                        Caitiff:0
2x Amaravati              8  DOM OBF QUI ani chi   Assamite:4
1x Hafsa, The Watcher     6  OBF QUI aus cel       Assamite:5
1x Vardar Vardarian       6  OBF QUI cel pre       Assamite:4
1x Layla bint-Nadr        5  CEL OBF qui           Assamite:4
1x Michael diCarlo        5  CEL obf qui           Assamite:4
1x Alu                    2  obf                   Assamite:5
1x Basir                  1  qui                   Assamite:4

Library [76 cards]
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Action [16]
  4x Embrace, The
  1x Fee Stake: Boston
  1x Fee Stake: Corte
  1x Fee Stake: Los Angeles
  1x Fee Stake: New York
  1x Fee Stake: Perth
  1x Fee Stake: Seattle
  1x Khabar: Glory
  5x Web of Knives Recruit

Action Modifier [21]
  3x Cloak the Gathering
  4x CrimethInc.
  2x Cryptic Rider
  1x Into Thin Air
  3x Faceless Night
  3x Lost in Crowds
  3x Spying Mission
  2x Veil the Legions

Action Modifier/Combat [3]
  3x Swallowed by the Night

Event [1]
  1x Uncoiling, The

Master [15]
  3x Alamut
  1x Archon Investigation
  1x Barrens, The
  1x Black Throne, The
  3x Blood Doll
  1x Club Illusion
  1x Dark Influences
  1x Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
  1x Seattle Committee
  1x Twilight Camp
  1x Yoruba Shrine

Political Action [20]
  1x Anarch Salon
  5x Consanguineous Boon
  1x Exclusion Principle
  2x Firebrand
  5x Kine Resources Contested
  1x Patsy
  5x Revolutionary Council

Above is the deck listing for my version of the Death Star. Nothing
super revolutionary - I simply tweaked my deck more for the raw damage
while giving up slightly on the number of untaps.

Recap: Amaravati was simply worth his price and then a whole lot more.
Without him on the table, I would have had a great deal of issue
getting my votes passed. Alamut got some counters but bleeding at
times was problematic (fear of deflects with a weakened grand-prey, the
Lasombra wanting me to bleed him so he could Rat's Warning his Sense
Dep’d monster, etc).

Voting was still difficult at times as most of my votes would take
close to 10 votes to pass due to so many table votes - and Jeff's
House of Sorrow/Ventrue HQ trick - yuck). So in the end, I had to
basically have Amaravati sit still (due to lots of intercept) and be a
machine that generated votes for me. Totally worth it.

I had a blast playing with everyone and I apologize for my numerous
mistakes. Man, you don't play competitively for a little bit and some of
your skills get rusty ... a lot rusty. I think I can write a nice book
on 1000 ways to mis-play CrimethInc. Sheesh... that was so
embarrassing. :oops:

As for my tweaks to the deck, I am happy with them for the most part.
The only thing I wish I would have put back into the deck was the
Pentex Subversion. Didn't think it was that great since I had no way
to defend it but there were a few times that I could see it would have
been worth its weight in gold if I had it in my hand (for the ability
to take one key blocker out for just one turn). Oh well, I guess you
always are learning with this game...

Other comments? Lets see... Yoruba rocked. I only got it out in one
game but I had a pot rush deck behind me and Yoruba allowed me to
quickly eat away at his rush actions. He flat out beat the crap out of
my vamps but it would have been even nastier if I didn't have the
protection of the Shrine on my side. Never saw Garibaldi-Meucci Museum
or Twilight Camp all day long - I had to find them in my deck later
just to convince myself that they was there. Seattle Committee only
showed up once, but the Anarch Converts took care of most of the 'Go
Anarch' issues so this wasn't too much of a problem.