The End .. and VTES One

From tomorrow on I will permanently switch this blog from the blogger to the wordpress blogging platform, that is new posts will entirely . So this is the last post I will be publishing here.

Please update your bookmarks/links/rss feeds/... to

vtesone.wordpress.com

You might think, why not "extrala.wordpress.com" .. well, I was stupid. For testing reasons I had imported all of the posts to wordpress using their automatic switchover functionality to a blog with that URL. But unfortunately, only the titles of the posts were imported. So I thought, just quickly delete the blog (deleting the empty posts), re-create the blog, and then fill it up using the export/import functionality. Wrong. Dead wrong. Wordpress deletes all blogs with a given URL permanently. And I mean permanently in the sense that no person can claim the same URL ever, not even the person who had created the blog in the first place. There is (at least one) warning that the URL is gone, but hey, who reads all the error messages and warnings a software throws at you .. so extrala.wordpress.com is gone. Enter VtES One ...

One the other hand extrala.blogspot.com was initially designated as personal blog (back in 2007), so at least now the blog name reflects what the blog is actually about: VtES.

I have copied all of the blog posts to the new website (along with the comments), and will keep all of the posts on blogger at the same. I don't know for long, since apparently Google doesn't like post duplication. So I might be required to close the old blog at some point in the future.

The update from blogger to wordpress will take some time, mostly because some of the formatting is gone (especially the pictures) plus some the internal links were not transferred correctly. And since there are more than 1,500 articles I have published in the past five years, there's a lot to do ... and hopefully nothing is lost in the process.

Well that's not entirely true, the comments of those posts added in the past 10 days or so are only available on blogger, since that was the time I was moving almost all of the posts to the new platform.

There are some disadvantages of WordPress, I have already noticed while moving the blog to its new URL, some of them rather severe:

• for the customization of the interface you often have to pay (colors, fonts, etc.),
• the number of widgets (at least those available out-of-the-box) is much smaller than on Blogger,
• an dynamic blogroll is not possible (that is the latest posts of a blog are shown).

On the other hand there are some advantages as well:

• the internal editor is much nicer to use,
• beside tags there are categories, the later you can organize hierarchically,
• navigation within the editor is much improved,
• ...

And remember please update your bookmarks to ..

vtesone.wordpress.com

Memorable Quotes (Part 148)

"My deal is that you die!" -- Oortje (Dutch VtES player) when asked about a deal by a fellow player.

Deck of the Month: August 2012: James "The Knife" Angry Dragon

The month's deck for August 2012 is the tournament winning deck "James "The Knife" Angry Dragon" played by Brad Cashdollar (USA). The August was a month with very, very very tournaments (or tournaments that got reported), luckily it looks better for September, especially with the upcoming weekend which has three National Championships (France, Poland, Sweden).

The winning deck is nothing utterly spectacular, but still is a nice showcase, how a Baali Vote deck can work. Use the usual Presence/Obfuscate combination to make the political actions and add some Daimonium/Baali cards, especially Condemnation: Mute, for flavour and additional effectiveness.

Deck Name: No Secrets (DragonCon): James "The Knife" Angry Dragon
Author: Brad Cashdollar

No Secrets: DragonCon
Atlanta, Georgia
August 31, 2012
12 players
2R + F

Crypt (Capacity min=6 max=10 avg=8; 12 cards)
================================================
3x Annazir 9 DAI OBF POT PRE Baali:5
3x Arishat 6 DAI OBF PRE Baali:6
3x Xeper, Sultan of Lepers 7 ani dai pro OBF PRE Baali:6
3x unnamed, The 10 CEL DAI OBF PRE PRO Baali:6

Library (90 cards)
=====================
Master (18 cards)
1x Monastery of Shadows
4x Path of Evil Revelations
1x Ruins of Charizel
2x Rötschreck
1x Tend the Flock
1x Two Wrongs
2x Vessel
6x Villein

Event (1 cards)
1x Uncoiling, The

Action (10 cards)
1x Aranthebes, The Immortal
4x Condemnation: Mute
1x Contagion
2x Legal Manipulations
2x Unleash Hell's Fury

Political Action (11 cards)
1x Ancient Influence
3x Kine Resources Contested
2x My Kin Against the World
1x Political Stranglehold
4x Reckless Agitation

Equipment (2 cards)
1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Kaymakli Fragment

Ally (2 cards)
1x Infernal Servitor
1x Veneficti (Mage)

Action Modifier (33 cards)
5x Awe
3x Elder Impersonation
2x Faceless Night
2x Forgotten Labyrinth
4x I am Legion
3x Lost in Crowds
3x Perfect Paragon
3x Psychomachia
2x True Love's Face
6x Voter Captivation

Reaction (2 cards)
2x Confusion of the Eye

Combat (4 cards)
2x Flames of the Netherworld
2x Majesty

Combo (7 cards)
2x Force of Personality
3x Knotted Cord
2x Sense the Sin

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Sep 26, 2012 11:48:25)

Deck of the Month: July 2012: Bankia

It took me some (to say the least) time to pick a winner for the Deck of the Month July 2012, mostly because at least a first glance, there was very little exciting about the Deck of the Month July 2012. So after taking a third look at the decks I found two little gems. First, a variation (or better fusion) of two decks, between an Unexpected Coalition deck (similar to the Deck of the Month November 2011) and a Weenie Dragons Breath Rounds deck. But little more interesting is the winner for July, a rather fearsome deck named Bankia played by Txus Alutiz (Spain), using both Spirit Marionette and Temptation. In a single turn an opposing vampire could be stolen by Spirit Marionette, emptied (almost) by using Heidelberg Castle and then immediately stolen again with Temptation. The Obeah cards can also be used by most of the non-Salubri vampires, since they require either Obfuscate, Presence or Dominate.

Deck Name: Pre-Spanish EC Qualifier: Bankia
Author: Txus Alutiz

PRE-SPANISH EC QUALIFIER
Badia del Valles, Spain
July 14, 2012
19 players
3R + F

Crypt (Capacity min=1 max=6 avg=4.75; 12 cards)
==================================================
1x Ahmose Chambers 3 obf ser Follower of Set:5
1x Anarch Convert 1 -none- Caitiff:ANY
2x Black Lotus 5 aus obf ser DOM Follower of Set:4
4x Eurayle Gelasia Mylonas 6 for pre AUS OBE Salubri:4
2x Halim Bey 6 obf tha DOM SER Follower of Set:4
1x Keith Moody 3 DOM !Tremere:4
1x Sahira Siraj 4 obf ser tha Follower of Set:4

Library (80 cards)
=====================
Master (16 cards)
1x Dreams of the Sphinx
4x Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1x Khobar Towers, Al-Khubar
1x Lilith's Blessing
2x Obfuscate
1x Opium Den
2x Pentex(TM) Subversion
3x Vessel
1x Villein

Event (1 cards)
1x Fourth Cycle, The

Action (21 cards)
1x Form of Corruption
6x Govern the Unaligned
8x Spirit Marionette
6x Temptation

Equipment (2 cards)
1x Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers
1x Heart of Nizchetus

Ally (1 cards)
1x Mylan Horseed (Goblin)

Action Modifier (20 cards)
2x Cloak the Gathering
7x Conditioning
1x Daring the Dawn
1x Domain of Evernight
2x Faceless Night
2x Forgotten Labyrinth
2x Lost in Crowds
1x Repulsion
2x Veil the Legions

Reaction (12 cards)
6x Deflection
3x Delaying Tactics
3x On the Qui Vive

Combo (7 cards)
6x Gift of Sleep
1x Swallowed by the Night

Created with Secret Library v0.9.3. (Sep 26, 2012 01:36:58)

Announcement UK Nationals 2012

The UK National Championship 2012 will take place in London, England on November 24th, 2012. Here are the details for this constructed tournament:

• Date: Saturday 24th November
• Time: 12:00 for a 12:20 start
• Location:
  
  • Jugged Hare Pub
    Vauxhall Bridge Road,
    Victoria, London
• Format:
  
  • 3 Rounds & Final
  • Standard Constructed: Detailed rules can be found on the VEKN tournament rules webpage.
• Prize Support:
  
  • Boosters and promos for all
  • Special art prize for the winner

Announcement "Cat's Guidance" in Mayence, Germany (Oct. 3rd, 2012)

On the occasion of the Day of German Unity a constructed tournament named "Cat's Guidance" will hold on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2012 in Mayence, Germany.

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle - Constructed Tournament
Cat's Guidance: The Prince's Anniversary

• Date:
  Wednesday, 3. October 2012
• Time:
  Doors open at 11:00 h
  1st round: 11:30 h
  2nd round: 15:00 h
  Final round: 17:00 h
• Location:
  Orcish Outpost
  Zanggasse 7
  55116 Mainz
  Germany
• Round system: 2 rounds plus final (time limit: 2h each)
• Format: VEKN Constructed
  
• Entrance fee: None
• Remarks
  
  • In case there are less than 8 players, the tournament will not take place!!
• Contact:
  
  • Either check the German VEKN forum or the appropriate thread on VEKN.net.

Craze

And yes, go blame Juggernaut1981 for that ..

Dutch ECQ 2012 Report

So here's my tournament report of the Dutch ECQ 2012, which took place in Utrecht, Netherlands on September 15th, 2012. Before the tournament it turned out that only very few Dutch players were going to attend the tournament (although the VtES scene in the Netherlands is far from being dead). So the organizer announced that we were going to play the multi-deck format if the number of players were going to be less than 12. Which was good in that sense, that I didn't have to decide which deck to play in the tournament in advance. Plus it saved us some boredom (from playing the same deck in a 10 player tournament for three or four rounds). And we did saw quite a variety of decks as you can see ..

The End is near ..

The end is near .. just kidding. At the end of the last week (to be precise on September 19th), Google as provider/hoster of the Blogspot blogging platform has decided in its eternal wisdom to make the new interface (editor) mandatory to use. Unfortunately the new interface/editor is annoying as hell. Just some of its issues:

• The back button of the Internet browser is more often not working than it does.
• No filtering and searching of posts at the same time.
• The blog overview offers a "New Blog" button, whereas a "New Post" button, would have been much more useful.
• The interface has little to no contrast, it's all white with very light grey. Loss of orientation guaranteed.
• The posts overview is now multi-line, that is each post now occupies two or even three lines in the "table" of posts (depending on the browser width). (Unfortunately, this is also the case with WordPress).
• Each post has to be marked for use of the line break tag (br). Formatting with regards to line breaks/empty lines has become more cumbersome.
• Pages (not posts) created with the old editor cannot be edited directly (using the little pen symbol) anymore. You have to go via the "Pages" page.
• In general, navigation around the interface has become a nuisance.

So currently I am strongly considering moving to another blogging platform, namely WordPress, which I started looking at more seriously lately.

Results Croatian EC Qualifier 2012

On September 1st, 2012 the Croatian VtES ECQ 2012 was held in Osijek, Croatia with 10 players attending the final tournament. The final standings after 3 rounds and the final were as follows:

1. Goran Damjanic (CRO) -- 4 VP -- Giovanni Powerbleed
2. Slaven Karakas (CRO) -- 1 VP -- Kiasyd Powerbleed
2. Vlado Saulic (CRO) -- 0 VP -- Stanislava's Raptor
2. Denes Kocis (CRO) -- 0 VP -- Lasombra Vote/Bleed
2. Ivan Vucilovski (CRO) -- 0 VP -- Ahrimanes Wall

Congratulations to Goran for his win of the Croatian ECQ 2012. You can also find the tournament winning deck on VEKN.net.

Results Italian EC Qualifier 2012

On April 29th, 2012 the Italian VtES ECQ 2012 was held in Florence, Italy with 22 players attending the final tournament. The final standings after 3 rounds and the final were as follows:

1. Danilo Torrisi (ITA) -- 2 GW 7 VP -- 3 VP -- Malkavian G3/4 Royalty Vote
2. Stefano Tarozzi (ITA) -- 1 GW 5 VP -- 0 VP -- Lasombra G3/4 S&B
2. Federico Neri (ITA) -- 2 GW 9 VP -- 0 VP -- Tzimisce G2/3 Warghoul
2. Simone Longobardi (ITA) -- 2 GW 6 VP -- 0 VP -- Tremere G3/4 Grinder
2. Silvano Gaggioli (ITA) -- 2 GW 6 VP -- 2 VP -- Weenie G1/2 Potence Rush

Congratulations to Danilo for his win of the Italian ECQ 2012. You can find the final standings and the tournament winning deck on VEKN.net.

VtES European Championship Qualifiers 2012 (Update)

Here's a list of the upcoming Continental Championship Qualifier events for VtES taking place in Europe in 2012:

• .. all of the ECQs have been finished for this year.

... and the list of past ECQs 2012:

• Belorussian ECQ -- March 10th, 2012 -- Minsk, Belorussia -- Winner: ???
• Danish ECQ -- March 11th, 2012 -- Copenhagen, Denmark -- Winner: Nikolaj Wendt (DEN)
• French (South) ECQ -- March 30th, 2012 -- Lyon, France -- -- Mathieu Rivero (FRA)
• Swedish ECQ -- April 7th, 2012 -- Gothenburg, Sweden (during GothCon) -- Winner: Adam Esbjörnson (SWE)
• German ECQ -- April 14th, 2012 -- Darmstadt, Germany -- Winner: Martin Weinmayer (AUT)
• Polish ECQ -- April 28th, 2012 -- Warsaw, Poland -- Winner: Aleksander Idziak (POL)
• Italian ECQ -- April 29th, 2012 -- Florence, Italy -- Winner: Danilo Torrisi (ITA)
• English ECQ -- May 12th, 2012 -- Burton-on-Trent, England -- Winner: Hugh Angseesing (UK)
• Hungarian ECQ -- May 26th, 2012 -- Budapest, Hungary -- Winner: ???
• Belgian ECQ -- June 16th, 2012 -- Brussels, Belgium -- Winner: Martin Schumacher (GER)
• Swiss ECQ -- June 30th, 2012 -- Nyon, Switzerland -- Winner: Denis Mercante (FRA)
• Spanish (North) ECQ -- July 15th, 2012 -- Badia del Valles (Barcelona), Spain -- Winner: Noel Gimenez (ESP)
• Finnish ECQ -- July 27th, 2012 -- Espoo/Helsinki, Finland (during Ropecon) -- Winner: Randal Rudstam (SWE)
• French ECQ (North) -- August 25th, 2012 -- Paris, France -- Winner: Vincent Ripoll (FRA)
• Croatian ECQ -- September 1st, 2012 -- Osjiek, Croatia -- Winner: Goran Damjanic (CRO)
• Dutch ECQ -- September 15th, 2012 -- Utrecht, The Netherlands -- Winner: Jeroen van Oort (NED)

All this culminating in the European VtES Championship 2012:

• 2012 European Championship -- Budapest, Hungary -- October 26th to 28th, 2012