Rapid Thought Tournament, 15th January 2006

Tournament Notes:
Chris Cook achieved a complete table sweep with Merrick, Edward and Andrew all on the same table. On that same table, a moment of being special was shown by Bless and Chris ran away with the table ;D

Jason Potts lack of actual playing experience proved his downfall in a couple of games where he could have achieved a game win by maintaining his forward momentum. Keep in mind Jason while has had a deck for ages, doesn't play that often.

I removed myself from prize support but didn't bother to remind everyone of this until after the final. All the players actually forgot on the day.

We only started 15 minutes late :D

Final Round Seating:

Martin Ryan >> Merrick Hughes.

Merrick elected to Bleed Martin, having seem what Martin's deck was potentially capable of it would be a wise decision.

Martin Ryan >> Chris Cook >> Merrick Hughes

Chris placed himself behind the only other Stealth Bleeder on the table. Obviously figuring his stealth and anti-combat tactics would be able to trump Merrick's deck.

Martin Ryan >> Edward Clay >> Chris Cook >> Merrick Hughes

Edward was determined to kill Chris first. Edward places himself in that position with only this thought in mind. I think because Ed's deck also had the only real titled vampires on the table and a small amount of bloat he could outlast Martin.

Damien Hennessy >> Martin Ryan >> Edward Clay >> Chris Cook >> Merrick Hughes

Having seen everyone's decks so far with the single exception of Merrick's, but I was aware Merrick's deck also had a sufficient amount of combat in it. With Chris bleeding Merrick, Merrick would be forced to allocate his resources backwards in defense. This should give me room to build up and go forward with a minimal amount of pressure. I had also seen what Martin's deck could do if left unchecked and being the only player using any real amount of intercept I elected to be his predator.

Everyone brought out decent sized vampires. Chris made the opening move and repeatedly bleed Merrick for 4 each turn, while keeping another vampire untapped in an attempt to keep Edward at bay. Merrick was forced to go backwards against Chris in an effort to stay alive. As expected Merrick's pressure was pretty sporadic against me, but I was looking at a bleed of 3 - 5 every couple of turns. I managed to keep Martin from completely running away from me, I was able to catch every other voter and hand out damage in combat or watch Martin cycle out his stuff to avoid my strikes.

Everyone consistently lost pool and it reached a point where every player was below ten pool and fairly close to being ousted. There was some discussing in eliminating Edward to give Martin six pool, I intercepted everything Martin played and in a single turn binned all three of his vampires, with some rushing in my turn previously. Edward promptly bleed Chris out and Merrick. I managed to eliminate Martin and then finally pulled into my incredibly elusive untap all tournament and managed to flatten Edward's power bleeding toreador.

Final standings:

Damien Hennessy 1 GW, 3Vps
Edward Clay 2Vps

Thank you for the continued support from Area 52 and the players who showed up.

Damien Hennessy
Prince of Rosny