VTES EC non-report, great time.

Well, I've almost recovered from the EC — four days of VTES and 10 hours of sleep.

Tournament wise it was a poor showing on my part, a paltry 1 VP in the nations cup, 0.5 on day 1 and a big fat 0 in the FCQ. Am disappointed with my performances in the nations cup and on day 1 as the result was down to poor play — the FCQ less so as I decided to play a fun deck that I've been toying with.

It's combination of two turbo Nergal decks floating around. The first is the Setite External Mask deck that burns Nergal once each turn and the second the Call the Great Beast + Eternal Mask deck that alternates between the Beast and Nergal. My version fuses the two together, drops most of the Setites for minions with +bleed and uses the Soul Gem to bring out a new minion when Nergal and the Beast burn — effectively it's a one turn oust deck. When it flows right I should deck my crypt on first acting turn.

Crypt [12 vampires, average capacity: 7.75]
1x	Nergal	AUS DAI FOR OBF PRE THA	10	Baali:5
1x	Undele	CEL FOR obf pre ser	9	Ishtarri:5	magaji
1x	Bloody Mary	AUS DEM OBF pre	8	Malkavian:5	primogen
1x	Count Germaine (Adv)	CEL FOR POT PRE obf	8	Brujah:4
1x	Lazarus James	AUS DEM PRE obf tha	8	Malkavian:4
1x	Persephone Tar-Anis	AUS DEM OBF cel pot	8	Malkavian antitribu:4
1x	Sundervere, The Devil B	AUS PRE SER THA obf	8	Follower of Set:4
1x	Titus Camille	AUS DOM OBF for	8	Ventrue antitribu:4
1x	Vidal Jarbeaux	PRE aus cel obf pot	8	Toreador:5
1x	Amenophobis	OBF SER dom pre	7	Follower of Set:4	primogen
1x	Ankh-sen-Sutekh	PRE SER obf	6	Follower of Set:4
1x	Luc	OBF dem vic	5	Malkavian antitribu:4

Library [68 cards]
Master [12]
1x	Dark Influences
1x	Heidelberg Castle, Germany
1x	Minion Tap
8x	Recruitment
1x	Waste Management Operation
Action [24]
6x	Call the Great Beast
1x	Clan Impersonation
5x	Eternal Mask, The
6x	Magic of the Smith
1x	Psychic Veil
4x	Scrounging
1x	Unleash Hell's Fury
Action Modifier [28]
4x	Daring the Dawn
2x	Elder Impersonation
2x	Faceless Night
18x	Freak Drive
1x	Lost in Crowds
1x	Pocket Out of Time
Equipment [4]
1x	Codex of the Edenic Groundskeepers
1x	Sargon Fragment, The
2x	Soul Gem of Etrius

It triggered in the first game, although I overreached and transfered out a minion when I shouldn't had (nor needed to). That put me in range of my imbued predator — my prey's comment "This is the first time I'm happy to have an imbued predator". The second game I had a war ghoul predator and my deck triggered quite late, leaving me to merely try and survive (I did so with 15 minutes or so on the cloak). The third game I had a weenie dem bleed deck behind me and cycled about a third of my deck without drawing in to the beast — died in 20 minutes or so. Thankfully it was the only VP my predator got.

I faired much better in the social games and my blood brothers deck got two game wins, sweet — they invaded Budapest and no doubt got drunk in the process...

The best edge ever — EC cup filled with red wine...

All in all the EC was great — I'd highly recommend it to any VTES players that can spare a couple of days and a few quid / euro. I meet plenty of great people and many familiar faces — it's a shame it happens only once a year. Bring on Stockholm!