VtES EC 2010: First Impressions & Welcome Party

I arrived in Paris yesterday, by car, not by plane since my flight was canceled. Not bad thing considering that Team Sweden on their flight ended up in Brussels, instead of Paris .. and they had to take multi-hour bustour through Belgium and north-eastern France.

Registering for the EC was fast and nice .. and for your money you even got the nice bag pictured on the right! The number of registered players for the EC is now around 234 (if I remember correctly).

The Welcome Party was a blast .. a tombola/raffle to win some prizes, a VtES quiz and many, many VtES casual games.

Many thanks to the organizers to EC already. Specifically to Floppy, Kamel, Blackwood, Fantomette and, of course all the others who work in the background.

Stay tuned, more to come ...

Kindred Spirits #6

Winter is coming and VTES European Championship 2010, too.

Whatever you want to know about this event, can be found the latest issue of the Kindred Spirits Newsletter #6 as provided by the French Organization Team.

EC 2010 Deck Challenge

A bit late (but hopefully not too late), here's the deck challenge as given by Orian Gissler (a.k.a. TTC Master):

We are running close to the EC now. The Week of Nightmares starts on Monday at the Greeeeaaaattttt Canadian pub and I know many of you will join us during the week. So I figure you are all getting prepared ... you make your decks, you collect the cards... well, so on. I do too... but you know I am very busy ordering my cards to sell them to you. Hum right now, it feels like I am going to sell you some shoes or what?

Anyway... I don't have time to make new decks. I wanted to play a Cybele Shatter the Gates deck but I think if Ferenc has kept that secret about it, he probably will play it again. I have my usual decks also and will eventually play them but... my loss is your win here!

The challenge is the following:
Make a deck for TTC to win the EC, or the Day 1, or the Legendary Vampire, or at least get as far as possible. Open to everybody!

The modalities:

Send a maximum of 3 decklists per person before 7 days exactly (so 9 P.M Thursday Evening) to my email address o r i a n (dot) g i s s l e r (at) g m a i l (dot) com (remove the spaces in case you did not get that)
Also, please put on top of the decklist a short note on how it works. I am afraid of nothing. I have played all clans and decks along the past five years, so don't hesitate!

Winner gets all credits for the win!

Thanks ...

What?????? You want more???

Greedy one!

Ok, here is the prize pool for you guys:

If I play your deck during one of the 3 main tournaments, it is a set of 5 rares including at least one top notch rare (Direct Intervention, Jake Washington, CardNameUnmasking, Heart of Nizchetus, ...) for you. And no crap rares of course!

• For each Victory Point I make with the deck, I will give one rare card away in relation with the deck (like if you give me a DoC vote deck, you might get a conductor with the first vp).


• For each Game Win I make, I will add one set of 5 rare cards from HttB set and 2 exclusive pack of sleeves from TTC Chantry to the deal.

Thanks a lot ...

What???? YOU WANT MORE???
Okayyyyyyyyyyy

• If I reach any final with the deck, I will add one set of 5 top rare cards (including stuff like Ezmerelda, Nergal, Nephandus...).


• If I win any final with the deck? I will give you one of my displays won during the EC. If I cannot send it to you because you live too far from me, I will try to give it to somebody of your country, or I will open the display and give you all the rares in it.


• If I win the EC with the deck? In addition to everything, I will invite you with one person of your choice for one week-end in Paris at my place, free food, free alcohol, free going outs and a lot of fun time to celebrate!!!! In case the travel is too expensive, I will try to give you something nice instead.

Ok I think I cannot make more! Do your best and I will do my best too!

This is actually a repost from the VtES Usenet Newsgroup.

Places to see in Paris: Paris Opéra

The Paris Opéra (also known as Opéra Garnier) is the second big opera house in Paris. It was the primary opera house in Paris from 1875 to 1989, when it was surpassed by the Bastille Opera. Another grand landmark in Paris, it was designed by the architect Charles Garnier in 1861.

See also Paris Opera House, the well know unique location for the Daughters of Cacophony.

Places to see in Paris: Versailles

Not really in Paris, but about 20 kilometers southwest of it, the the Palace of Versailles is a royal château and center of political power between 1682 and 1789. The Palace of Versailles is not only famous as a building, but as a symbol of the Ancien Régime (the aristocratic system that ruled France from 14th to 18th century). It was Louis XIV ("le Roi Soleil") who expanded a royal hunting lodge in three building campaigns between 1664–1684, shaping it into the form it has today. By moving the royal court to Versailles on May 6th, 1682, the Palace of Versailles became the political center of France for more than a century.

VtES EC Trivia (Austrian Edition)

Amenophobis posted some VtES EC Trivia in the VtES Usenet Newsgroup, albeit with a slight emphasis on the Austrian point of view:

• Country with the highest number of EC events run: Austria (3)


• Country with the highest number of European Champions: Austria (3)


• EC Champions who won more than one EC: Martin Weinmayer, Austria, 2x

Rumors that Amenophobis himself is an Austrian are .. unverified.

Places to see in Paris: Louvre Museum

Nowadays one of the most famous museums in the world, the Louvre Museum was opened on August, 10th 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being confiscated church and royal property. During time the collection was expanded greatly, and today the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments:

• Egyptian Antiquities
• Near Eastern Antiquities
• Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities
• Islamic Art
• Sculpture
• Decorative Arts
• Paintings
• Prints and Drawings

The Louvre Museum is a central landmark of Paris and located on the right bank of the Seine river in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. Every day the museum is visited by 15,000 (on average), making the Louvre Museum the most visited museum in the world.

Parler en Français

Since the VtES European Championship 2010 is taking placing in Paris, France in a few weeks, it's time to learn some of the more important phrases commonly needed in game of VtES en français:

• "On est alliés." -- "We are allies."


• "Je ne breake pas." -- "I never break deals."


• "Ça ne sera pas contre toi." -- "This won't be against you."


• "Je te bleed pour huit, à deux stealth." -- "I bleed you for eight, with +2 stealth."


• "Ne me rush pas, s'il te plaît." -- "Please don't rush me."


• "Je deflect sur ma proie." -- "I bounce the bleed to my prey."


• "Qui a l'Edge?" -- "Where is the Edge?"


• "Je vote pour." -- "I vote in favor."


• "Je vote contre." -- "I vote against."

.. and most importantly:

• "Parlez-vous anglais?" -- "Do you speak English?"

If you know more valuable bits and pieces of VtES lingo en français, please feel free to comment. And please include the English translation!!

Country Roll Call

The number of players who have already pre-registrated for the VtES European Championship 2010 has reached 193. In words: one-hundred-ninety-three (as of October 5th, 2010. Wow, that's an incredible number ..

Break this down to the individual countries the players come from you get this:

Not surprisingly the French players are represented well with more than 40%. What is a surprise are the 10% the Finnish players account for.

Hoping for the best, preparing for the worst

Aside from preparations regarding travel & accommodation, I am currently preparing my VtES related stuff for the VtES European Championship 2010, which is now less than 3 weeks away. This includes:

• I'll decide what decks I will take with me to Paris for tournament play as well as some casual games. For the later there's always time for these, either during the Welcome Party, or in the evenings after (or during the finals), or just on Monday morning when waiting for your transportation (for leaving Paris). I remember that we played some games (at least three) with Hungarian, Swedish, French and German players on Monday morning in Palma in the bar area last year.


• I'll decide now which decks I want to play for the three major tournaments (Last Chance Qualifier, Day 1 Tournament and Day 2 Tournament (or more likely the Last Chance Qualifier). For these I will (most likely) take only decks that have been proven to make Game Wins on a regular basis. I prefer decks that I know (at least to some degree), and especially how I have to play in different game constellations and against different preys/predators. (Note to myself: No Nephandi deck this year .. I mean it)!


• I will fine tune these decks one last time by adding (and/or removing) a few selected cards. Cards always to consider are the usual suspects (Heart of Nizchetus, Direct Intervention, Carlton van Wyk, Dreams of the Sphinx), but also some hoser cards like Aranthebes, Uncoiling, Scourge of Enochians.


• At the same time it must be goal to downsize all (or at least almost all of the decks) to reasonable size, in my case the target size for tournament decks are 75 cards. There are some exceptions, and I try to do this anyhow, but there one or two decks left for which I need to cut some cards


• As in the previous European Championships, deck lists will be mandatory. So for saving me the hassle of writing the deck lists just minutes prior to the tournament, this year I want to finalize the decklists in the week before the tournament, and make printouts from the decklists at the same time.


• Lastly, I need to buy some fresh (opaque!) card sleeves. During last year's EC I had non-opaque card sleeves for my Ventrue Lawfirm deck, and one of the card sleeves (I think it was some master card) was from a different manufacturer (due to switching cards between decks). So indeed, when looking closely, you could recognize the difference when looking at the backside of the cards. Most embarrassingly this was discovered by my predator in the first game of the last chance qualifier. Not gonna happen this year!

This little piece I found a different blog when someone describes for bicycle tour through southern France. I can only agree wholeheartedly:

The execution can only be as good as the preparation, if not worst. Because one can only prepare for the known problem, and known-unknown problem. However it is the unknown-unknown problem that always get me. Thing that I don’t know exist. The best I could do is to narrow it down and dear Buddha – I always would try my best to. I know too well how bad it can get when things go wrong and worst when I am alone. To make it more challenging, the extension of my French goes as far as "Parlez-vous anglais?"

"Parlez-vous anglais?" .. hmm, I should remember that phrase, even I am not really sure if that helps in France ..

Places to see in Paris: Bastille Opera

L’Opéra de la Bastille (or short: Bastille Opera) is a modern opera house in Paris, France. The opera house built from 1984 to 1989, and it is now home of the Opéra National de Paris.

See also Bastille Opera House, the well know unique location for the Daughters of Cacophony.

European VtES Champions: 1999 to 2009

Here's the list of the European VtES Champions of the past eleven years. You can find more information on the winners of Continental Championships in the VtES Hall of Fame (put together by The Lasombra):

• EC 2009 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain -- Martin Weinmayer (AUT)
• EC 2008 in Prague, Czech Republic -- Jan Haracufka (SVK)
• EC 2007 in Gothenburg, Sweden -- Ferenc Vasadi (HUN)
• EC 2006 in Torino, Italy -- Anthony Coleman (UK)
• EC 2005 in Budapest, Hungary -- Richard Glasner (HUN)
• EC 2004 in Heidelberg, Germany -- Ruben Vidana Ramos (ESP)
• EC 2003 in Barcelona, Spain -- Stefan Ferenci (AUT)
• EC 2002 in Vienna, Austria -- Dave Bastijn (BEL)
• EC 2001 in Paris, France -- Joscha Duell (GER)
• EC 2000 in Vienna, Austria -- Thomas Vick (SVK)
• EC 1999 in Vienna, Austria -- Martin Weinmayer (AUT)

So there are three wins by Austrian players, followed by two wins of Hungarian and Slovak players each. Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Spain and the UK all have one win each. Some of the countries with large VtES communities are still missing entries in the list of winning players, most notably France.