EC Metagame Observations

Unfortunately I don't have any decent (i.e. statisitical distribution) information on what decks have played in the overall EC environment. So the following just was I observed during the EC during my own games and from talks with fellow players. Some quick remarks:

• Combat-wise the metagame is clearly in the Animalism corner with sticks/Fortitude combat being second. Very little Potence/Immortal Grapple Combat or Cel Gun combat what I have seen. As consequence I would expect the anti-combat metagame shift into the Presence (Majesty) and/or Dominate (Obdience) direction. The later would (of course) imply that you play higher capacity vampires than the usual suspects (i.e. Nanglia Were, Nana Buruki, Howler, ..).
• Bloating is crazy. Villeins is a staple card in a lot of decks. Which also often means that the average capacity of the decks has been gone up as well. The bloating is often supplemented with either Lilith's Blessing (another card-de-jour). This has two (rather) fortunate consequences:
• You have to remove significantly more pool than about 1 or 2 years ago.
  
• Games tend to last longer and tend to time out more because of 1.)
  
• There were actually quite few ally decks, with one significant exceptions, and that is the whole Tup Dog & Rockcat (often with Nephandus) ally deck. Although the number was in truth not that high, but they had some success where they went, the most notable was the EC Day 2 finals deck by Enrico di Stefano.
  
• There was slight Renaissance of the breed decks, again with Enrico di Stefano as the main proponent with his EC Day 1 finals deck (Ravnos Eldest are Kholo (with 29(!!!) Embraces). Beside Ravnos there were a few Giovanni Khazaar's Diary deck who also used Embraces quite extensively.
• Beside the whole Animalism combat decks (either Rush or Wall), the other two main deck types from my point of view were the Ventrue Lawfirm decks (mostly G1/2/3 or G4/5) (and to a lesser degree) the whole Stickmen-like deck archetype (either Ventrue or Ventrue antitribu).
• There were less "Girls will find.." type deck than I would have expected, but there were many, many decks who packed the whole Liquidation/Ashur Tablets. You spot them in Nephandi decks, Khazar's Diary decks, Animalism Rush decks (see Otso's EC winning deck), etc., etc., etc. Which also led to quite an inflation
• Most contested cards (personal experience only) during the EC (in about that order):
• Pentex Subversion
• Dreams of the Sphinx
• Parthenon
• Information Highway
• Fame
  

Post Scriptum: Lilith's Blessing & Villein is not borderline broken. It is broken. Getting vampires for free isn't right. Yes, I know there are some ways to counter it, but most of the time, the combo is unchecked, and then it gets out of hand.