The Melbourne Love Song: 2026 so far (January to June)

The time has come

To say fair´s fair

To pay the rent

To pay our share

The time has come

A fact´s a fact

It belongs to them 

Let´s give it back

Hello, visitor.

Welcome to the Thessalian Scrolls. Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring.

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. 

It´s been definitely a long time. Here I am again, and I bring some information about the eternal struggle. Let´s go to it.

I chose Melbourne as the highlighted city this time, as I am quite pleased to see how the Australian community is developing their own scene, and I love how through VTES we can feel ourselves so near to so distant people who enjoy the game just like we do.

THE SCOPE.

So, what am I counting? In the first part, I am giving you some numbers on the events played during the first six months of 2026, including the players that attended and then the Countries and Cities where they played. After that, I will talk about the winning decks. Of course, I can only share data about the TWDs I have noticed, through either TWD Archive in the VEKN o the listed decks in Archon.

Will that be relevant? Will it be enough? We´ll check out.

THE COMPETITIVE SCENE.

Looking at the VEKN calendar, we can see that on the first six months (January tu June), we have played all around the world a total of 420 events. Some more (70) were programmed, but as there is no register of the results, it seems like they did not happen.

The number of events is exactly the same I recorded in 2025, and significantly higher that what I recorded in 2024 and 2023. But how many people attended? Let us see:

This is the total of participations in competitive events according tho VEKN. It´s not a count on individual players, as some of them may have participated in several events, even the same month. 

Is this a lot? well, let´s see the numbers compared with the same period of time in the past few years...

Here we can see that the number of participating players in the first half of the year has been growing in the last few years, but the amount in 2026 it is slightly lower compared with the 2025 total. Does this mean the competitive scene has stalled? I don´t think we can say that. Distribution of the events through the year is always a variable fact, and we should wait to the total yearly count to extract any conclusion. 

What this truly means is that we should definitely watch this feature once the year is over.

A WORLD OF DARKNESS.

This is my favorite feature. VTES competition is extended all over the world, and analyzing the places where the game happens is a delighful exercise. 29 different countries united by the love to VTES.

We travel from Chile to Mexico, and then the USA and Canada, going through Brazil to Portugal and Spain. Let´s stop by in France and Britain, only to reach Ireland and then go to The Netherlands. We go through Italy up to Switzerland and Germany. Later we fly to Hungary and Finland, after visiting Sweden. From there to Lithuania and Russia, then down to Poland and The Czech Republic and after a short trip to Slovakia,  we reach Croatia, Serbia and then Greece. From there we take a long way to South Africa, flying to The Philippines and turnig to Australia to end our trip in New Zealand. Impressive, isn´t it?

I am happy to say I could talk to people from 13 of those countries along the events I attended since 2022. It was always a great pleasure, and some of them are now indeed good friends.

See the countries in a less poethic sort, including the events that were played online, and ordered, as always, according to the number of participants:

But let´s delve in a little deeper. Inside almost every country, we can find several comunities built around particular cities, or metropolitan areas, which are the true powerbases in the World of Darkness. I would like to talk about some of them.

Budapest has become a beacon of VTES. In these six months we find 20 events celebrated in the area near the magyar capital and the city of Kecskemet, with a total of 454 participants. Some of the relevant events included the Hungarian NC (52 pax), and several other venues with 20+ pax.

The metropolitan area of Sao Paulo is another relevant place for the game, with 15 tournaments held and 315 total participants. The importance of this area, and of the whole brazilian community will soon be recognized by Black Chantry in a thematic set, and we can assume Flavio Gonçalves will be pleased by the strenght of his people.

Andalusia in Spain also has its soul deeply rooted in this game. It´s a big area, not around one particular city, but the players there share a sense of comunity, and you can see the same names playing in different cities like Malaga, Sevilla, Granada and Cordoba. They share a league and commited 210 participations in 10 events.

In Italy, the area near Bologna concentrated a lot of players, including a Grand Prix with 72 participants. In a total of 5 events in Bologna-Modena, 163 participants enjoyed the game. Also a great achievement.

Of course, both Madrid in Spain and Columbus in USA have deserved to be noted, as they hosted singular events of great importance. The Spanish NC hosted 158 participants, improving the remarkable high numbers of previous editions. In Columbus, Ohio, up to 524 participations were recorded, in the 14 events around the NAC, in what is traditionally a true and joyful orgy of blood!

Allow me to also highlight the events run in other communities, like Santiago de Chile (11 events, 128 pax), Fortaleza (13 events, 207 pax), Campinha Grande (15 events, 199 pax), or Helsinki (6 events, 111 pax), and also those in small communities that are doing their best to grow, such as Cape Town, Auckland, Saint Petersburg, Thessaloniki or Manila. 

And finally, I also would like to remark the Australian community achievements in these six months. Games in Perth, Sidney and Melbourne totalled 91 players. Cheers to the aussies!

The efforts of all the organizers in these communities, and in the many others I have not yet mentioned, is a true inspiration for all of us.

THE DECKS...

Now, lets focus on success. Up to now, I have talked about the participation facts I extracted from the VEKN and Archon. From this point, I will share some data about the decks and players that have been succcessful in the first half of the year. 

For this part, I can only use the available information: Tournament Winning Decks when they are published. I have gathered them from VEKN and Archon, but unfortunately I found that not all of the TWDs are available.

I think it would be great to be able to access all the successful decks, maybe including even the finalists, and now that we have the Archon, it can be possible. Maybe we can see that in the future.

I classify the decks according to the number of players participating in the events they won. Attending to this, I have been able to record 71% of the winning decks, but this means 29% of the TWDs are out of my scope. Here we can see it month by month, where "complete" means I have recorded the TWD:

Successful Clans.

Here we can find a list of the successful clans during this period. As always, including the number of tournaments won and ranked according to the total number of participants in those events:

The Mixed category is for decks that include vampires of various clans in a significant proportion. We can find here some archetypes that will be discussed later: The brand new V5 Path of Power deck, or the Spectral Servitor Horde. In this category we also find two very interesting archetypes I wanted to comment. First, the various combinations of V5 Barons, that can be built with animalism, with protean, or neither, but they make good use of baron required cards. One of this decks, piloted by Thomas Marchiori, won the Side Event of the Italian NC, with 34 participants in March. It is a good example of the idea.

Another mixed clan deck I would like to highlight is the one led by Tommi Hakomaa to become the Champion of Finland (41 pax) in Vantaa in April. He had won another event in January with the same archetype, Juliet´s Dream, exploring the Juliet-Modius sinergy in a quite personal and brilliant approach to our beloved Malkavian Justicar political deck.

After that, Gangrel is still the most successful clan. The Clan of the Beast has dominated the VTES competition for several years now, and they still are at the top.  There are different archetypes available for them: Mainly the Modern Grinder (which I will discuss later), but also multirush decks, or the Reign of Stanislava classic). 

The next top clan is no surprise: Tzimisce rely a lot on their main archetype (247 pax, see below), but we also find a significant development of Tzimisce Freshforge decks (60 pax), which may grow higher in the future. 

Lasombra have some good archetypes winning events, but are mainly supported by the Path of Power addition to their classic political deck based on crypt group 2. The Lasombra Path of Power archetype won the Croatian Abuse of Power tournament in January (Nikica Novakovic, 40 pax), and the spanish NC in June (Miguel Jorge Tortajada, 158 pax).

Hecata are somehow newer to the scene (at least, for vampiric time standards), but already have a place among the most successful clans. They rely on different approaches (swarm bleed, ally rush...), supported by the various wraiths and zombies they collect in great numbers. Here we can see a beatdown version based on rotting corpses that hit hard, played by Zolian Panyik to win in March near Budapest (39 pax).

Classification and Style.

In the last few months, with the rising of new archetypes, I have been building up the idea that the meta is growing in diversity. I believe that would be great news for the game, and have worked a little to be able to monitor this feature in 2026. I have sorted decks in classes, featuring the main way (not the only one) to face a game. This is what I found out for the first six months:

Now, on a more visual feature:

I believe we can say the scene is quite diverse among the TWDs. Toolbox, Politics and direct Bleed are very similar in their success. Ally decks are growing, and I am sure their ratio will grow further in the second half of the year. Rush and Block decks are less represented, but their presence is not just symbolic.

Archetypes.

Now to the bone. These are the most succesful archetypes in the first half of the year.

These are the 20 first ones, sorted according to the number of players in the events they won. I will add below the list of the remaining TWDs.

Let´s go one by one. It´s astonishing how the meta was dominated by the old and well known Modern Gangrel Grinder. It is not only a reliable and efficient machine, it is also played by some of the most famous players all around. The deck has some different variations, but more or less all those winners have a common base. They won the Campeonato Brasileiro in Campinha Grande in May (59 pax), in the hands of Jose Roberto Barbosa, the Friday 2 Origins Event in June Origins USA (55 pax), piloted by Martin Weinmayer, and the Grand Prix Zagreb in April (54 pax), under  Milos Krstic´s command. They also won other 24 tournaments in Brazil, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, USA and also Online. Awesome.

There has been some talking on some of the staple cards of this exemplary. The fact is that the community has not yet found the antidote to the Gangrel Grinder. I throw the challenge to the brilliant thinkers reading this, to search for the nemesis of this powerhouse.

I called the following archetype The Tzimisce Modern Love Song. It´s a Tzimisce deck, it is Modern (V5 crypt), it usually features Deep Song, with a Love theme as they use it to rush, but usually do not harm your minion. Instead, it is a brilliant tap trick. 
First time I saw this deck at work was on the Spanish NC 2025 (123 pax), where Ivan Bernal piloted the archetype all the way to the finals. In a truly astonishing and brillian way, he did it again this year (158 pax). Both times, I had the pleasure to meet him at the table, and I can say his deck and his brilliant way to play it are only overcome by his natural charm, sportmanship and friendly mood.
Ivan won a tournament in Madrid in March (23 pax) piloting this masterpiece. Also, Filipe Bezerra won the Paulistao Reunion in Sao Paulo in May (54 pax), and Danilo Torrisi run his own version to the top in Lucca (IT) in March (30 pax).

In the third place, we find a recent archetype that means two good news to the diversity of the game: success in the use of Political strategies, and the use of big cap vampires. It is the Aaradhya Path of Power deck, which among others has won the NAC 2026 in Columbus, piloted by Jess Nash. It has also won other 10 events all around the world, and it seems to have a lot to say in the near future. 

Another political archetype that has been successful so far this year is the Diana Dance Academy Toreador deck, featuring either Toreador Grand Ball, Loup, or both, and represented by 9 winners including the Kelly Schultz´s Origins Thursday winner (50 pax). It´s a beautiful and efficient deck that pays a testimony of how good the 30th anniversary box was for the game. But if the success of Diana is not enough, another vampire included in that product may be ready to prove it in the near future. Juliet Parr´s Political Coach Office probably will have a lot to say in the second part of the year.

Finally, I would like to highlight the success of another archetype which adds more diversity to the scene: The Spectral Servitor Psychorde. Again, I chose this name to honor of the first player I saw being successful with it: He was once called the Spanish Psychopath by some northern lads, a nickname which matched both his playstyle in that finnish EC, and the performance of the most edged version of this archetype. I must say that this denomination matches the style of some of his decks, but not his personality, as he is kind and wise and it is always a pleasure to meet him in and out the gaming table.

I have included in this category many decks that may act slightly different, and their range of psychopathy (speed) is quite wide, but they all share their love for spectral servitors as a very efficient way to overcome their preys. Also, I have the impression that the edged version of this deck is not achieving more success due to the fear it produces at the moment El Monseñor recruits his first servitor, and its controller smile matches the intensity of his preys troubled looks.

Now see the rest of the TWD archetypes:

... AND THE PLAYERS.

I would like to share my record of the most successful players so far this year. The entry is already quite long and I will not comment their achievements this time. But I think it will be a good idea to revisit this feature when the year is over. The list is quite long, and I will share the top 30 of the successful players, though my respect extends to whole list indeed.

Some very well known names here, I am eager to chat about this in about six months.

And that´s all I got for this issue. I hope you obtained some useful information, or at least somme oddities that brought you some joy. As usual, I am open to suggestion, comments or bleeds, that can make this place more useful. Next entry will try to bring light to the second half of the year.

Until then, I thank you for reading this far, and wish you a nice wake with the evening freshness.

Pritoos.