In the middle of summer, the Brno prince held a friendly little tournament, so it was almost mandatory to participate. Unfortunately, I was leaving for a solitary hike the next day. And after a crazy week at work, I had very little time and needed to do some shopping and preparation after the tournament. Like usual, I did not prepare at all and just took one of the tournament-capable decks I already have. It is certainly not a good practice.

Summary

The tournament had the usual structure: three rounds and finals. There were fifteen players, so we had three five-player tables. I played the AUS OBF Black Hand deck. My record was 0GP 3VP, which somehow miraculously placed me in fifth place. Unfortunately, I did not have enough time to play the finals, so I had to yield my seat.

Deck: AUS OBF Black Hand

Over time, I played many flavors of Black Hand decks. I like aggressive decks, so I had the most fun playing the Assamite multi-act bloating deck with Losses. I played it in several tournaments, and although it is fun to play, I did not like how the deck does not really have a plan B and how vulnerable the deck is to permanent intercept. It is relatively easy to shut down a survival strategy based on undirected action bloat with permanent intercept because it forces you to use stealth cards, a finite resource better used for offense.

The variant with AUS makes the deck more resilient by providing bounces, and the ability to block undesirable actions. The major vampires (Karif and Elimelech) both have +1 strength, helping in combat. I have also found the AUS deck using less blood than the QUI one. The crypt (like usual for Black Hand) is quite sub-optimal; one needs to play sub-par vampires to fill the ranks (Claudia, Rashid, Al-Muntathir). Hagar Stone is surprisingly good. I’d like to write a separate article about this deck.

Decklist

Deck Name: AUS OBF Black Hand
Description: 

Crypt (12 cards; Capacity min=2 max=11 avg=6.666667)
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2x Elimelech the Twice-Damned   11 pro AUS DEM DOM FOR OBF  Ventrue antitribu:5
1x Hagar Stone                  6 obf AUS DEM               Malkavian antitribu:5
1x Izhim abd Azrael             9 pot CEL OBF QUI THA       Assamite:5
3x Karif al Numair              10 for AUS CEL OBF QUI      Assamite:5
1x Lubomira Hradok              3 OBF                       Nosferatu antitribu:5
1x Rashid Stockton              4 cel obf vic               Gangrel antitribu:5
1x Claudia                      2 obt                       Lasombra:5
1x Al-Muntathir, God's Witness  8 obf qui AUS FOR PRE TEM   True Brujah:5
1x Djuhah, The Bronze Bow       7 aus cel pre OBF QUI       Assamite:5

Library: 75 cards

Master (19 cards)
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1x Giant's Blood
2x Information Highway
1x Monastery of Shadows
1x Powerbase: Montreal
5x Villein
1x Wash
2x Watchtower: Four Ride Forth
4x Zillah's Valley
1x Direct Intervention
1x Dreams of the Sphinx

Action (13 cards)
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3x Recruitment Exercise
7x Reunion Kamut
3x Tattoo Signal

Action Modifier (21 cards)
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3x Elder Impersonation
2x Enkil Cog
2x Faceless Night
3x Into Thin Air
3x Lost in Crowds
2x Art of Memory, The
2x Spying Mission
2x Veil the Legions
2x Cloak the Gathering

Action Modifier/Combat (2 cards)
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2x Swallowed by the Night

Retainer (2 cards)
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1x J. S. Simmons, Esq.
1x Tasha Morgan

Equipment (4 cards)
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1x Heart of Nizchetus
1x Bowl of Convergence
2x Camera Phone

Reaction (14 cards)
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3x Eyes of Argus
1x My Enemy's Enemy
2x On the Qui Vive
6x Telepathic Misdirection
2x Delaying Tactics

Games

Unfortunately, I did not take detailed notes about the games, just the seating and some results.

Game 1: 0.5VP

Anson Guns (?) → Ahrimanes (Jakub Rýpar) → Daughters Politics (Jan Kačor) → Me → ANI Wall (Jan Kočí)

Game 2: 1.5VP

I took no notes about this game. Sorry.

Game 3: 1VP

Me → Kyasid S/B (?) → Sebastian Goulet (Peter Ducai) → ? → Kyasid S/B (Michal Dlouhý)