January 2023 - The Bolonia Shuffle

Come down and waste away with me,
down with me.

Welcome to the Thessalian scrolls, a place to share information about the never-ending war of the Kindred. If you have reached this place by chance, please find out what this is all about here. If you came willingly, take a sit and allow me to share some information that can be useful or, at least, entertaining.

January 2023 has been a prolific month in VTES tournaments. A lot of competitive events were hosted, a lot of wars have been fought, and quite a number of methuselahs have tasted the blood of their rivals. Having recorded data since at least two years, I must say this month has been the richest January (in VTES tournaments) that I have ever seen.

 

GENERAL DATA.

Eighteen (18) tournaments have been recorded. Ten (10) of those events hosted twenty or more players, and only the other eight (8) hosted fewer methuselahs, being the minimum at eleven (11). The total methuselah count on those events was three hundred and eighty-three (383). Quite a lot, I would say. It makes an average of almost twenty-one (21) players per event. In a month with no major events (the highest player count in a single tournament was 35 in Bologna), it is quite a number.

General summary/Resumen general: 

Tournaments/Torneos: 18.
Players total/Total de jugadores: 383.

Events hosting 20 or more players/Eventos con más de 20 jugadores: 10.

Average players per tournament/Media de jugadores por torneo: 21.
Higher count/Torneo con más jugadores: 35 (Bolonia, IT).
Lower count/Torneo con menos jugadores: 11 (Fortaleza, BR).

 

THE DOMAINS.

Here I count the places where the princes hosted their unwelcome and dangerous visitors:

Spain: 10 brawls, held on Gijón (2), Alicante, Barcelona, Granada, Palma, Madrid, Sevilla, Valladolid and Zaragoza. A total of 204 players (20 average per event).

Brazil: 2 events in Ceará (22 players), and Fortaleza (11).

Czech Republic: 1 tournament in Ostrava (28).

Finland: 1 event in Rihimaki (16).

France: 18 methuselahs in a tournament in Paris.

Germany: 1 scuffle in Bochum with 17 players.

1 International online tournament (22).

The Friday night in Bolonia (Italy) with 35 participants.

Honestly, I find this is the right place to host the most crowded event of the month.

So, it has been quite a wide range of countries, in a traditionally low record month. And almost four hundred players throwing cards to the tables. This means an average of two competitive games per day. Amazing!

 

KINDRED WHO RULED.

After the dust settled, a couple of Methuselahs had seized the glory, but no Kindred raised truly among their equals. All tournament winners counted just one victory. Allow me to whisper here their names with the greatest of respects. I will order them according to the number of participants in their seizures. Please note this is not a ranking, but a mere list of winners:

 

Alessio Bianchi (IT)	35
Alfonso Barrientos (ES)	29
Jan Coçi (CZ)	28
Mariano Carbonero (ES)	27
Arnau Diez (ES)	25
Cicero Jannyson (BR)	22
Jaddou Nasra (ES)	22
Martin Weinmayer (AT)	22
Joaquin Pozueco (ES)	21
Pablo Mateos (ES)	20
Axel Huet (FR)	18
Daniel Fernandez (ES)	18
Emiliano Imeroni (IT)	17
Tommi Hakomaa (FI)	16
Gaspar Vaquer (ES)	15
Carlos Saez (ES)	14
Roberto Cuesta (ES)	13
Mailton Silva (BR)	11

THE WINNING DECKS.

Let´s go delving a little bit on the decks that were used by these proclaimed masters. I will first write the number of events won by the clan, and then the total number of players participating in those events. Note that I am considering the data of the eighteen winning decks in January.

Regarding the clans, the scene has been dominated by Gangrel (3/70) and Lasombra (3/67). Despite the possible variations, particularly on the Gangrel side, both clans sticked to the same archetypes each, in order to achieve victory. Kyasid made an application with two (2/39) victories, and the same did the Banu Haquim (2/31). The rest of the triumphs were split among a Gangrel Antitribu, one Harbringer of Skulls, a Malkavian, a Ministry, an Osebo, a Ravnos deck, a Toreador and a Tremere Antitribu. All these eight got to win in one tournament. Here you can find another boring table reflecting how many tournament wins (Vs) each clan had, and how many players were involved in those particular events.

 

Talking about the archetypes, the scene seems to be quite balanced, at least in what comes in the number of triumphs: four (4) of the winners were bleeders, three (3) were bleed&vote archetypes, and one (1) was a political oriented deck. That would make eight (8) active decks. Among the more reactive were five (5) true blockers and three (3) block and bruise decks, for a total of eight (8) reactive decks. Along with all those, there were two (2) decks that could easily be considered a mixture of archetypes or, as they are known in this game, toolboxes.

When considering the number of players in the events, the balance seems to lean a little bit in favour of the active decks. But the difference is very small. As you can see below in the summary, active decks defeated 183 players, and reactive ones did so with 161. Checking the winners of the ten tournaments that had twenty or more players, I saw six (6) were active decks, and four (4) were reactive. Advantage for the bleeders, but not too much.

Archetypes summary/Resumen de arquetipos:

Bleed decks/Mazos de sangrado: 4 (103).
Bleed&vote decks/Mazos de sangrado y votos: 3 (60).
Political decks/Mazos políticos: 1 (20).

Total active decks/Total de mazos con estrategia activa: 8 (183).

Block decks/Mazos de bloqueo: 5 (97).
Block and bruise/Mazos de bloqueo y combate: 3 (64).

Total reactive decks/Total de mazos con estrategia reactiva: 8 (161).

Toolbox: 2 (29).

FEATURES.

Let´s see other interesting details.

Disciplines. The most common discipline among the winning decks was Fortitude, which is indeed a surprise. It does not mean that there were more fortitude cards than any other, but seven (7) of the winning decks included it in some degree. Should you begin a quest to get more Theft of vitae? I don´t think so, as only one of the seven was relaying on it for defensive purposes: the rest were focused on the multi-action, or other utilities of that discipline (like the bleed reduction on deep ecology).

Animalism, Celerity, Dominate, Obtenebration and Protean were used by five (5) decks each. Four (4) decks were using Auspex (traditionally a very popular discipline). Blood Sorcery and Presence were used by three (3) decks. Added to these, two (2) decks used Mytherceria or Obfuscate, and one deck featured Necromancy.

Disciplines used summary/Resumen de disciplinas utilizadas:

Fortitude: 7.
Animalism, Celerity, Dominate, Obtenebration, Protean: 5.
Auspex: 4.
Blood Sorcery, Presence: 3.
Mytherceria, Obfuscate: 2.
Necromancy: 1.

Quite interesting is also the fact that twelve (12) decks used redirection cards, with an average of seven (7) cards per deck. Two thirds (66%) of the winners this month could redirect. The other six decks had no redirection capability at all, lowering the global average of cards per deck to almost five (5) among the tournament winners.

Redirection summary/Resumen del uso de redirecciones:

Decks able to redirect bleeds/Mazos capaces de redirigir sangradas: 12 (66%).
Decks with no redirection capability/Mazos sin capacidad de redirigir: 6 (33%).

About deck size: Eleven (11) decks reached 90 cards. That´s 61% of the winners. 28% had 80-90, and only two decks (11%) had fewer than 80 cards. To me, this has been a surprise, but we will see how it is in February.

Deck size summary/Resumen de tamaño de los mazos:

90 cards in the deck/Mazos con 90 cartas: 11 (61%).
80-90 cards in the deck/Mazos conteniendo entre 80 y 90 cartas: 5 (28%).
Less than 80 cards in the deck/Mazos con menos de 80 cartas: 2 (11%).

One last thing to be analysed: Thirteen (13) out of the eighteen winning decks had an average crypt capacity lower than seven, and only five (5) reached over that number. Time to add more banishments, Reins of power and Obediences to your big cap deck? Maybe…

Average crypt capacity summary/Resumen de media de capacidad en la cripta:

Less than seven/Menos de siete: 13 decks (72%).
More than seven/Más de siete: 5 decks (28%).

That´s all. I know it´s not much, but it can amuse some elders. Of course, interesting factors like the finalist decks or the gaming art of the players, are out of the scope of this research. But I found this information useful, and that´s why I share. I am open to any suggestion or comments that can enhance this project. 

Next month I hope I will come back with fresh information.

Until then, I thank you for reading, and wish you all a nice wake with the evening´s freshness.

Pritoos.