Preparations For The EC

With the VtES European Championship 2011 less than two weeks away, it's time for some (more or less) serious preparations. Most importantly, I have finished all my travel arrangements (and hotel booking) way ahead of time (if I remember correctly already in July). So getting to Warsaw hopefully shouldn't be a problem.

Second priority is building and optimizing decks for the EC, and I am, of course, mainly talking about those three decks you want to play during the three major tournaments, the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ), Day 1 and Day 2 tournaments (or if things go bad for the First Chance Qualifier). I am not trying to build completely new decks at this point of time, since there's no time for proper playing and optimizing (read: playing tournaments) anymore. So I am taking something I have played during the past year and will try to optimize it a little bit further.

• I don't care about the deck for the LCQ tournament so much. I am qualified already, and so I am not so keen on playing an ultra-focused deck then. Having fun is what the LCQ is about for me .. although winning is fun too ... so I won't forget about trying to do win either. Maybe an ally deck, maybe a toolbox, we'll see ..
  
• The deck for the Day 1 tournament will be one for grabbing more than 1 GW 4 VPs, which was in the past about the mark you need to hit in order to qualify for the Day 2 tournament. Not necessarily S&B, but something that is able to damage my prey's pool in serious way.
• The Day 2 tournament is a completely different matter. Last year 1 GW 5 VP was enough to get to the finals, since with 40 players of which almost all are very experienced players it is very hard to score a game win. So what's needed is a deck, that's not sticking out it's neck at first, because usually you're to easily the perceived table threat. More like a slow and sure deck, that builds up first, and then hits the table with full force in the second half of the game.

But right now, I am not 100% sure what decks exactly want to play for each day. I have a vague notation, and luckily I have still a few days to finally decide what decks to play. .. and making decklists is on my to-do-list as well. I don't want to waste time writing these down on the actual tournament day or the night before. In any case each deck should be able to do one thing, that is getting a game win, so expect no fancy decks during these tournaments.

And the golden question "What's the meta game going to be?" ... every year the same question, for -- like every year -- there's no real good answer this question. Of course, we'll see the usual suspects (in really no particular order):

• Girls will find ...
• Ventrue antitribu Grinder
• Ventrue Lawfirm
• Kindred Spirits Stealth Bleed
• Animalism Rush
• Dominate Powerbleed
• Weenie Auspex
• Random assortment of ally-based decks
• ...

In what proportions is the real question, but one you can almost all the time really answer only after the tournaments. And for your convenience, here are last year's results to give you an idea what is typically played during a Continental Championship:

• EC 2011 Legendary Vampire
• EC 2011 Last Chance Qualifier
• EC 2011 Day 1
• EC 2011 Day 2
• EC 2011 First Chance Qualifier

Last, but not least I will bring a positive attitude toward the whole event. In the end it's all about having fun and meeting old friends ..