Methuselahs Rising: Barnett's Birthday Basagan ng Bungo (tournament)

 

Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (V:TES) players once more converged at 89 Panay for two purposes: one was to celebrate the birthday of veteran V:TES player Richard "Carding" Barnett, and to participate in the first official post-pandemic V:TES tournament. A total of 17 players came together for a day of V:TES.   

While the tournament was an officially sanctioned tournament, there was an additional mechanic added, in honor of Carding's love for combat decks. Thus, points would be awarded for torporing or burning minions, with the one garnering the most point being named the King of Combat. Hence, the tournament was named "Barnett's Basagan ng Bungo" (Barnett's Skull Smashing), as it was likely that there would be a lot of downed or burned minions at the end of it.

In an official V:TES tournament, the players may use only one deck throughout, with no sideboarding or revising of the deck. Players get a victory point (VP) for ousting their prey, and a game win (GW) for getting the most VPs in a round. There are other ways of gaining VPs, but these are the basics (since this is my regular blog, I won't bore you with the gory details. If you wish, you can visit my V:TES blog for those.).

For this tournament, I decided to use my City Gangrel deck, which focuses on stealth and aggravated damage to get things done. Given the likely combat-heavy metagame, I felt that this strategy would help me gain both VPs and kills. In addition, the City Gangrel have the card Gangrel Conspiracy, which protects the minion from the blood hunt that results from diablerie, that action of burning a vampire in torpor (knocked out; once more, I'll try to keep this relatively understandable). 

I eschewed using a Fortitude-based deck, which would have provided more protection against combat decks, but needed a lot of cards to really get going. I have a number of decks that use FOR, but I wasn't too confident of their current builds, as they relied on the bigger vamps, which could take time for me to set up. With the relative smaller sizes of the City Gangrel, I felt that they would be able to get out and do damage more quickly. 

In the first round, I got stymied by my prey, as Paul Tio, who eventually took our first round table, had built a relatively standard Gangrel deck out of the newer 5th edition starter deck and the accompanying New Blood pack .The Gangrel do have FOR built in, which meant Paul's minions could shrug off my City Gangrel's damage. I couldn't get through, and the Gangrel blazed through the table to give Paul the table win.

In the second round, it seemed like the same, as my prey, Faust, had brought out the Gangrel antitribu Enkidu, the Noah, one of the biggest combat monsters ever. However, since the Noah only had basic FOR, Faust had to rely on using the damage prevention provided by the Noah's main Discipline, Protean (PRO), and found himself immediately torpored, courtesy of his prey Jason's use of the Ivory Bow . Enkidu was then destroyed by one of Jason's Nephandi, which pretty much crippled Faust for the rest of the round. 

On my side of the table, my predator, Haig, had brought out his ever-reliable Potence (POT) weenies, which hit for a lot. However, since Haig's deck was completely focused on bashing the heck out of his opponent's minions, there was no damage prevention, which allowed my City Gangrel to send a number of his minions into torpor, and burn them via diablerie. 

Jason's deck appeared to be a mix of the Rise of the Nephandi starter deck and the Fall of London set, and he had brought out a number of allies, which made it difficult to get through. Eventually, however, after I had ousted Faust, I simply concentrated on using stealth to get my bleeds through, instead of trying to destroy Jason's minions. Unfortunately for me, it left me with only Ellen Fence, my main vampire standing, which allowed Haig to oust me as the round time was running out. That gave both me and Haig 2 VPs.

I was not able to stay for the finals table, but it was interesting for the fact that one of the finalists, Mara Narciso, using a Nosferatu combat deck made it to her first Finals table, courtesy of her first table win ever. The tournament organizer Joscar Malacaman, won the tournament using a Banu Haqim deck that apparently relied on stealing blood from opposing minions and Anathema, a vote card that caused a target vampire to burn once they were out of blood. Haig, predictably, had the most kills in the tournament, and retained his title of King of Combat.

All in all, it was a fun day, as there were games galore, both official and friendly, and of course, the delicious food provided by 89 Panay. While I didn't make it to the Finals, I did have fun with the City Gangrel deck, which probably means I'll be tweaking it for future use. 

First round action. Image courtesy of Richard Barnett

Rising Out of Torpor 2023

 

Last Saturday, more than a dozen Vampire: The Eternal Struggle (V:TES) players descended on 89 Panay to play V:TES. For a number of us, it was the first time to play since before the pandemic. In my case, I had played with two friends a few months ago, but, since V:TES is generally better when there's four or more players, it was merely a taste of what went through last Saturday.

V:TES is the card game created by Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering (M:TG), and is based on Vampire: The Masquerade (V:TM) the popular vampire role-playing game created by Matt Rein Hagen. Instead of wizards battling for supremacy, the game sees the players as Methuselahs, ancient vampires orchestrating moves planned over centuries to influence the world. The game is built for a multi-player set-up of around 4-5 players, which means that table dynamics usually involve making (and breaking) deals with your opponents. It would be too much to try to explain the rules of V:TES here; you can go here to learn more about this game. 

89 Panay is an outdoor resto-bar-cafe along Panay Ave., and serves a variety of food, including breakfast meals, sandwiches, and grilled meats and seafood. While it's a little on the pricey side, each meal is sumptuous, especially the breakfast meals, which can probably feed two people. Its proprietor Rommel was on hand to welcome the players and while the game intrigued him, he was more content to watch the Meths take each other on.

In my case, I hadn't been able to tune any of my decks since before the pandemic, but I was able to play three games with three different decks. With me making the slow rise to torpor, I'll likely try to write more often in this blog, with the next post being about the decks I used last Saturday.

The game continues to evolve and grow, with Black Chantry Productions continuing to come out with new decks and cards on a regular basis. The RPG has also evolved, with a number of vampire clans going through some major changes, as part of the game designer's attempts to attract new players into the game. Similarly, V:TES has also evolved, incorporating the RPG changes into the cards, which then provide the spark for new deck designs.

While I'd love to introduce the game to my students, I can't, since V:TES is still basically a horror game meant for older players. The themes, as well as a good number of the card images, would not be suitable for the levels that I handle.

Aside from the games itself, it was a first-time meet-up with some of the other players in Metro Manila for me. While I've been following some of the games on Facebook, I had not yet met a number of these new and old players, and I was glad to finally make their acquaintance. The games last Saturday also brought a number of veteran players out of torpor, that term of course referring to vampires who've gone into a deathlike hibernation status. Thus, it was an afternoon and evening of games and conversation.

Last Saturday's gathering showed that V:TES remains alive and ready for those interested to learn the game. Hopefully, game sessions such as these will become more common as the days go, with official tournaments becoming a thing once more. Such excitement to come!

My second round table. Mine are the cards on the lower left corner.