February 2023 - Turku, North by... north.
I need perfection, some twisted selection
That tangles me, to keep me alive
Hello, visitor.
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.
February has been as intensive as could be, with more events but a slightly lower number of players. The turf war has extended to more countries, and a lot of new contenders had the pleasure to defeat each and every rival in their cities. I would like to highlight the events which took place in certain countries, like Chile, Hungary, Lithuania, Mexico, Poland, Sweden, UK or... Singapore!
Introducing a new feature to my research, I have been checking the event calendar in the VEKN to track all the monthly tournaments. I could see that there were forty-seven (47) programmed events in February. Of those, 16 do not have the data uploaded, and for another 11 I could not find the winning deck. Of course, it is up to each community to provide the info, but I truly believe that it would be great to have the widest possible view, so I encourage all organizers to provide the decks, so that we all can enjoy that knowledge. From now on in this article, I will talk only about the events where I have the data of the TWD, as that is the scope of this research. I would love to be able to include all the tournaments played, and would be delighted to feature the achievements and praise the victories of players in those communities.
Again, I have to thank all the people who are working on the different sources I am using to extract all this information: The VEKN, VTES Decks, Bcn crisis and El Setita Loco. Their efforts in favor of the community are definitely helping us all to enjoy the game better!
GENERAL DATA.
I have recorded twenty (20) tournaments in February. Adding all of them, a remarkable number of 367 players have been in the fray.
Lets take a close look to Saturday 11th, when 118 players were sitting in tables all around the world at the (more or less) same time. I have the pride to say I was one of them, among our partners-in game in Brazil, Chile, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. All of us playing our cards together, and separated only by distance.
Nine (9) of the events this month hosted 20 or more players (the highest count being in Turku, Finland with 28). The other 11 included fewer participants, being the lower count at ten (10) players. The total player count being 367, the average number of participants was 18.
General summary/Resumen general:
Players total/Total de jugadores: 367.
Higher count/Torneo con más jugadores: 28 (Turku, FI).
Lower count/Torneo con menos jugadores: 10.
HONORING THE SECOND TRADITION.
These are the places where the story was told:
Spain: 8 tournaments, being held in Alcalá de Henares (20 players), Gijón (27), Logroño (13), Málaga (22), Manresa (24), Palma de Mallorca (20), Sevilla (17) and Zaragoza (16).
Brazil: 3 events this time, in Fortaleza (23), Curitiba (15) and Campìnha (10)
Hungary: 2 tournaments in Budapest (25) and Vac (22).
1 Interational online tournament with 14 players
Italy: 19 methuselahs in a tournament in Torino.
1 showdown in Mexico DC with 13 fighters
10 players in Singapore!
Sweden: 1 event in Stockholm with 19 participants.
The UK reaching this list with a tournament in Liverpool (10).
And the wonderful Fee Stake: Turku, the most populated event this month, with 28 players, held in Finland.
 |
| Finland, winter, and VTES, the perfect mix |
THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL
Let´s take a look at the tournament winners this month. Just like I did one month ago, I will list their names here with the greatest of respects. They are listed according to the number of participants in their seizures, and along with their country.
THE WINNING DECKS.
If we look at the clans played, we can see that among this month´s TWDs there is one that overcomes all other: Tremere. They have won four times, with three different strategies: One big cap oriented deck with some emphasis on voting (you can find the list and some interesting comments here), One multiaction deck based on fortitude, and two renewed classic toolboxes, which I think are inspired by an insightful reading of the actual meta.
Clans with two victories this month were Banu Haqim (just like in January), Brujah (definitely a rising clan), Gangrel (both being modern anarch versions), Harbringers (emerald reliable ones), and Ministry (with or without politics).
With one victory we find a Baali, one Blood Brother, a Tupdog deck, Lasombra, Pander and Toreador. Quite a variety, and some very original choices, rewarded with a tournament win!
See below a list, attending not only to the number of victories, but also to the players involved in the event:
|
Clan |
Victories |
Players |
|
Tremere |
4 |
91 |
|
Brujah |
2 |
43 |
|
Ministry |
2 |
42 |
|
Gangrel |
2 |
36 |
|
Harbringer of Skulls |
2 |
33 |
|
Baali |
1 |
25 |
|
Banu Haqim |
2 |
23 |
|
Gargoyle |
1 |
22 |
|
Blood Brother |
1 |
17 |
|
Lasombra |
1 |
15 |
|
Pander |
1 |
10 |
|
Toreador |
1 |
10 |
And what about the classification of decks? Here, I am introducing a new feature, as I previously called these categories the "archetypes". But from now on I will be keeping that terminology for a more precise definition of the decks (as you will see later on).
Well, where last month we could see some sort of balance, based on a similar number of active and reactive decks, I must say this month the active decks (below highlighted in green) have widen their supremacy with 8 of the TWDs (40%), and defeating 157 players. February has also seen a growth of mixed strategies (gray), with a total of 6 decks. This is a 30% of the winning decks, and they defeated a total of 103 players. We see also 3/15%/44 blockers (blue), and 3 control decks (3/15%/63 pure bruisers, in orange). The below graphic is attending to total players defeated:
To summarize: Low count on blockers this month, as they seem to have mutated toward toolboxing. Active playstyle keeps a predominant position, and bruising has been quite popular among the TWDs in February.
Classification summary/Resumen de clasificación de mazos:
Bleed decks/Mazos de sangrado: 2 (46).
Bruise&bleed decks/Mazos de sangrado y combate: 2 (35).
Political decks/Mazos políticos: 4 (76).
Total active decks/Total de mazos con estrategia activa: 8 (157).
Block decks/Mazos de bloqueo: 2 (34).
Block and bruise/Mazos de bloqueo y combate: 1 (10).
Total reactive decks/Total de mazos con estrategia reactiva: 3 (44).
Archetypes.
Let me talk now about another feature, which from now on I will call archetypes, I have tried to classify the TWDs in a more detailed way, using the terminology I hear and read in the community. Please note this sorting is not perfect, but it can give us an idea of what kind of decks are being played, in a more precise classification than the clan or playstyle.
This is one of the most personal choices I do in the classifications, and I am open to suggestions or corrections from any reader. Certainly, two decks classified as Modern Gangrel Anarch (MGA) may be quite diferent from one another. But I decided to include this feature because at least it can give us a general idea and, as you may already have noted, I love to play around with this kind of things. So here we go:
FEATURES.
Dominate was the most common discipline among the TWDs, and was inlcuded in 7 of them. Not a weird thing considering the Tremere preponderance. This may explain also that the second discipline in count is auspex (6 decks using it), and that we find also blood sorcery among the most popular this month (5), along with celerity and potence (also 5), both certifying a rise of a violent tendency in February.
Fortitude, presence and protean were all used 4 times. And 3 winning decks featured animalism or obfuscate. But don´t cheer too much, you nossie fans! They were not used together! The three decks using animalism were the two gangrel and the Combat girsl that won in Budapest. Obfuscate was used by Ministry and Banu Haqim.
Among all those, there were a bunch of disciplines used by only one TWD: necromancy, obtenebration, quietus, sanguinus and visceratika.
Disciplines used summary/Resumen de disciplinas utilizadas:
Auspex: 6.
Blood Sorcery, Celerity, Potence: 5.
Fortitude, Presence, Protean: 4.
Animalism, Obfuscate: 3.
Necromancy, Obtenebration, Quietus, Sanguinus, Visceratika: 1.
About redirection cards, this month things have sharpen a little. Only 5 decks did not wear some. These were the Banu Haqim and one Ministry deck, the Blood Brothers and the Pander. The other 15 decks were able to bounce, with an average of almost six cards per deck. That is 75% of the TWDs, quite higher than last month.
Redirection summary/Resumen del uso de redirecciones:
Decks with no redirection capability/Mazos sin capacidad de redirigir: 5 (25%).
Deck size: This month, only 9 decks (45%) reached 90 cards. And 6 TWDs were between 80 and 90. 5 decks were under 80 cards. That is a higher count for thin decks than the 2 decks with less than 80 cards that we could see in January. Is this a tendency to evolve towards more edged constructions? We will see what happens in march.
Deck size summary/Resumen de tamaño de los mazos:
80-90 cards in the deck/Mazos conteniendo entre 80 y 90 cartas: 6 (30%).
Less than 80 cards in the deck/Mazos con menos de 80 cartas: 5 (25%).
If we look at the average crypt capacity, the tendency towards low caps keeps just as last month, and only 6 decks reached avg cap 7. The other 14 were below that. Quite interesting, I feel. I will try to expand this feature in my next report.
Average crypt capacity summary/Resumen de media de capacidad en la cripta:
More than seven/Más de siete: 6 decks (30%).
That is all for this month. If you reached here, you must have some level of fortitude. But I hope you obtained some piece of useful information among all this boggling. If you have any kind of suggestion or comment, please let me know.
March is going to be an important month for VTES, with the first big event of the year in Seville. I will be honored to assist, and am eager to share the experience later. Also, as march is end of Q1, I will try to add some comments on the accumulated data. I hope I get the time for all that, and to play some games also...
Until then, I thank you for reading, and wish you all a nice wake with the evening´s freshness.
Pritoos.
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