German ECQ 2012 Tournament Report

Here's the tournament report (or more precisely a report of the final round), by the winner of the German ECQ 2012, Martin Weinmayer. This VtES tournament was played on April 14th, 2012 in Darmstadt, Germany with 23 players participating. The prize support for the tournament was simply amazing. Each of the participants at least got a booster and a bunch of promos, the finalists got more boosters and copy of Rising Kings (by fellow VtES players and game designer Nikolaj Wendt) and the winner got an print of the unpublished Toreador (from Keepers of Tradition) and a factory set of rare cards from Sabbat War as well.

"The seating (in the final round) was as follows:
Manuel D. (Eze Demon Prinz Vote & Bleed)
-> Erol H. (Anson Gun & Master)
-> Martin W. (Stanislava Bleed & Vote )
-> Arnold R. (Inner Circle Vote & Bleed)
-> Johannes W. (!Nos Immortal Grapple & Carrion Crows)

I had a pretty slow start, being second with no crypt acceleration in hand. Stanislava had to wait till turn number 4 to finally hit the table. On a side note, I think I won more tables having a bad start, than having a really awesome one. In a game like Magic this wouldn't be the case, but in vampire this can be different.

Anyways, back to the game ... Johannes on the other hand had a fast start, torporizing his predator's Lutz von Hohenzollern the moment he came into play, and on the same turn torporizing one of his prey's vampires. I guess this was when the whole table silently agreed he would need to be stopped. Johannes had a hard time, while the three of us non-combat players rescued the vampires, even filling them up with Voter Cap.


Since Erol showed some blocking strength with Second Tradition, I couldn't play any Govern at superior, slowing me down even more. I got no stealth cards at the beginning, and my grand predator played Monastery of Shadows one turn before me . I discarded my bleed cards and started to collect combat ends, to be prepared for Erol's Psyches.

Meanwhile my prey put down some pain with Lutz von Hohenzollern, doing some 3/2 Kine Resources on Johannes and Erol. Arnold, Manuel and I had vote lock, but I had to back out most of the time, since Johannes was threatening to attack my vampires, if I kept voting in their favor.

Erol tried some big games on Stanislava, but failed to my heavy combat ends. I started to cycle, and finally got enough stealth to push through some Govern superior, and even passed a 5 point Parity Shift on Erol.

After like one hour I had Stanislava, Genevieve and Angus in play. Things turned ugly when Erol drew his Fear of Mekhet. His first victim was my prey's Lutz von Hohenzollern, followed by Stanislava the next turn.(recycling the card with Ashurs)


At 30min on the clock, the table started to collapse. First Arnold desperately tried to oust Johannes, but a Deflection and a Dark Influences from Erol on his Reins of Power ended his attempt. Arnold influenced Shemti leaving him with 6 pool. I had Genevieve with inferior Dominate and Angus without dominate, so 6 was exactly my bleed range.

On his next turn Erol would try to stop me, attacking my minions, but failed again to my combat ends. On my turn I had all the cards (Govern + Conditioning + Stealth), and ousted my prey. An untapped Shemti torporized my two remaining vampires with his one damage though.

With 10 minutes left, Johannes desperately moved forward torporizing Manuel's vampires. Erol played a Pentex on my reborn Stanislava, but didn't have enough bleed to oust me. At the one minute mark Johannes ousted Manuel with Fame. Game Ends.

So in conclusion .. I never liked timeouts, but this one definitely brought me the victory in the tournament. :-)




My thanks go to Rudolf Garski and Ralf Weppner for judging and organizing this great event. Also a big thanks to Johannes Walch for the additional prize support: a Sabbat War factory set (one of each rare card from Sabbat War edition, including cards like War Ghoul, Legacy of Pander and Black Metamorphosis)."