Right: Initially it looked not too bad for Hardy. His New Brujah Vote/Combat deck had three princes out, but he had issues with both his predator and prey playing combat(ish) decks as well. More importantly he hadn't a suitable target for his Parity Shift, not wanting to kill his predator too early (the only target at a point) in fear of Sascha's Malkavian bleed deck. After Ralf died early on in the game, he tried to rush and block the Malkavians, but either Sascha had (almost) always had the right answer or Hardy lacked the cards to hurt the Malkavians in combat significantly. In the end, Second Tradition: Domain wasn't enough intercept to match the Malkavians' stealth, and Sascha ousted Hardy within three turns after becoming his predator.
Right: A new deck, a Gangrel Bloat'n'Tools, was played by Michael. The deck featured Zayyat, The Sandstorm & Beckett (ADV), which allowed him to get recruit Raven Spies and fetch equipment (like Ivory Bow and Helicopter) with Magic of the Smith. This setup was quite slow, but he was able to hold off the Brujah more or less easily, preventing most of the damage with Fortitude while hitting back with Carrion Crows. In the end, he had a decent pool gain with Eco Terrorists, Powerbase Montreal and by hunting in a Helicopter, but he lacked decent forward motion to put significant pressure on Sascha, especially in the early and mid-game.
Right: Sascha had a slow start with his Malkavian G4/5 Bleed deck since he first vampire was Lutz von Hohenzollern. Sascha then choose to play The Call and a second Malkavian came up the next turn. And this when he started bleeding in earnest. If I remember correctly, Lutz was always bleeding for 4 to 6, with his fellow Malkavians not too far behind. He then protected Lutz first with a Secret Passage, and then even with Secure Haven in addition. Although a couple of times one of the midcap Malkavians was sent to torpor, he was always able to rescue them from torpor and with the help of the Coven (unfortunately played by Michael) they went on with business (bleeding, of course) as usual.
Right: Initially it didn't look too bad, when Ralf, playing a Magaji w/ Animalism Wall deck, had Olugbenga up with both a No Secrets from the Magaji and a Raven Spy, but Sascha always had enough stealth to overcome these obstacles. Ralf struggled to keep up with another No Secrets from the Magaji, another Raven Spy (on Olugbenga) and Channel 10, Sascha always had more than enough stealth, especially thanks to Into Thin Air. So even when Ralf only moved Olugbenga (+1 intercept against bleed actions) and Uchenna to the ready region and sitting on 16 pool when Sascha started bleeding, he was ousted in two turns.In the endgame (after Hardy and Ralf had been ousted), Michael was having significant poolgain each turn, but lacked the ousting power to oust Sascha, who was cleverly playing the clock down. Sascha was greatly helped by the facts that he had Momentum's Edge out (giving him one pool each turn) and that Michael's next vampire in the crypt was Fakir al Sidi (an 11 capacity Gangrel), so effectively he had only to sustain a bleed of two each turn (at maximum). So when Sascha was finally down to two pool, the timeout came.
Result: Sascha 1 GW 2.5 VP, Michael 0.5 VP.
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