Last night saw three of us compete for the playmat from the first organised play kit of season 1, plus a promo Freddy Usher vampire card.

For this “tournament” we used the new Prague City Deck from the Heart of Europe expansion.

We were using the tournament rules scoring for our games (see below).

The winner would be the player with the highest score at the end of the evening.

I know Diego and myself were playing our own created decks. I think Marcin said he was also using a deck he created.

Below are our chosen leaders for the evening.

Our first player was chosen randomly using the bgstat at the start of each game. Naturally for the first game we would also be placing our “Haven, starting vampire (Leader), and Agenda face down. Only after each player has placed these 3 cards are all starting vampires and Havens revealed. Agendas remain face down until a player chooses to flip theirs face up.” VtM Tournament Rules

Game 1

Rivalries: Diego was mine, Marcin was Diego’s, and I was Marcin’s.

Wow the City deck was so mean this first game.

After two rounds all four of the Second Inquisition Team-X Operatives were out in the street. That’s two aggregated damage, discarding a card , plus! losing a prestige point each turn.

Not only that but hardly any mortals, vagrants or citizens came out. It was event after event!

We were finding it hard to build up cards in our hands, and thus options on our turns.

Sometimes this sort of thing happens in games like this. You just don’t draw the cards you need. In our case it was the City deck doing its worst. It could easily have been not drawing the cards we needed from our libraries (as well).

You just have to accept this sort of thing happens. Get through the game, and cling on to the hope that the cards will be kinder next game. Although sometimes the cards do really hate you and don’t improve.

Whilst both Diego and Marcin had revealed their agenda cards I hadn’t. Mine was a mystery to them. Although Diego suspected he knew what it was.

This was a slow game thanks to the mean street.

No mortals or citizens meant I wasn’t burning them and able to create wraiths. The couple that did appear got turned into retainers by the other two.

I wasn’t hitting my mill cards.

I had plenty of prestige thanks to the couple of high blood potency valued cards in Diego’s library. So I was in a good place on that front.

Eventually after the constant Second Inquisition battering we were taking Diego was able to deliver a knock out blow to Marcin’s only remaining vampire and get the win.

I never revealed my agenda. The mystery carried over into our next game.

Game 2

Rivalries: Marcin was mine, I was Diego’s, and Diego was Marcin’s.

This was a much quicker game.

Diego had a good start from the off. The street was a bit kinder to us.

I was able to create a wraith on my leader. But thanks to Diego that didn’t last long to have any effect.

But in reality I wasn’t able to get my pieces into place to put my game plan into action. Diego wasn’t allowing me the time.

Marcin wasn’t able to stop Diego delivering the knockout blow to me.

It was back to back wins for Diego and a commanding lead.

I still hadn’t revealed my agenda in this game.

Game 3

Rivalries: Marcin was mine, I was Diego’s, and Diego was Marcin’s.

This game took much longer to play than the previous one.

I needed to slow Diego down. So some of my early turns involved playing cards that in reality should have been played on my rival. But they had the desired effect.

We did get an early Second Inquisition that was joined by a second. But Diego took one out. Otherwise the street was fairly kind.

There was even a nice number of mortal and citizens building up in the burn pile.

Mid game Marcin had Diego on the ropes. Barely holding on. Victory was looking imminent for him. My earlier actions to slow Diego down had been too effective!

I needed to intervene.

Ok what I did was something I was going to be doing eventually. It just had to be sooner than I wanted. I had wanted to play a ritual or two to take advantage of the pile of bodies in the burn pile, and increase my havens secrecy. But keeping Diego alive was more important.

My intervention emptied Marcin’s hand of cards, stopped him playing particular cards. Just making it harder for him to attack Diego, and if he did so not do lots of damage.

It worked.

Diego was able to hang on in there, stabilise and build up again.

Whilst Diego and Marcin traded blows, my mill plan kicked in on Marcin.

I had a handful of cards. Lots of options.

Diego was going in for the kill on Marcin.

Luckily pointing out that Diego’s attacking party wasn’t as boosted as he had hoped meant Marcin’s last vampire survived by a single blood.

Which is how that surviving vampire was left at the end of Marcin’s turn after the Second Inquisition had done their one point of aggregated damage.

Being the opportunist I am I had a chance to grab victory by a knock out! I know, not my battle plan. But still never look a gift horse in the mouth. And it would have been rude not to take advantage of Diego’s hard work.

So in a rare move for me I moved into the street and did a mental attack on Marcin’s vampire to deliver the knock out blow, and grab victory.

Guess what? I still hadn’t revealed my agenda.

At the end of the evening and three games, once all the dust had settled, points tallied up, the victor and winner of the OP Kit 1.1 Playmat was Diego. However with there only being three of us we all got a promo Freddy Usher vampire card.

This was a fun evening of playing Rivals. I think we had everything you could see in an evening.

I’m looking forward to our next chance to play.