17 Methuselahs turned up for Saturday's Second Byte tournament and it was
especially pleasant to welcome Sid, Mike Nudd and Niki Sehmi to their
first Portsmouth tournament. Each acquitted himself honourably, and Sid
made it to the final, eventually placing 4th.

This was an excellent tournament and saw a radical shift in the English
metagame, in the greatly-to-be-desired directions of combat and BIG
vampires. i reckon there were no fewer than 7 combat decks in this
tournament, and three very strong ones made it to the final, along with
Pierre Rebstock's Stanislawa bleed-for-9 deck, and my clone of a Jared
Strait Ventrue/Setite takeover deck [going into the final, this had the
most VPs - 12]. Unfortunately for me i drew no-one with DOM in my opening
crypt so my redirections were useless against Pierre's bleeds and i was
quickly ousted. Next Pierre fell, and that left Rob Treasure with a pot/
pro/for/dom combat deck bleeding Barney Baker with a pot/cel/for/pre deck
who was bleeding Sid with a pot/for/dom deck. At one point there were
three inner circle members on the table plus Lazverinus, and shortly
thereafter out came Wynn. This was an absolutely stunning game which
swung around between Barney and Rob until finally Rob got combat hand-jam
and Barney got action hand-jam. Into the bin went Wynn, and Rob conceded.

Here is Barney's winning deck - 3VPs to Rob's 1 and Pierre's 1.

CRYPT [12 vamps]
2 Jimmy Dunn
Anvil
Antoinette duChamp
Bianca
Richter
Volker
Salinger
Gwendolyn
Jacob Bragg
Jacko
Crusher

LIBRARY [90 cards]
16 Masters
Direct Intervention
Golconda
Sudden Reversal
KRCG NEws Radio
Giant's Blood
2 Haven Uncovered
Dreams of the Sphinx
Fame
Celerity
2 Fortitude
2 Blood Doll
2 Minion Tap

6 Presence cards:
5 Legal Manipulations
Media Influence

3 Equipment:
2 Sports Bike
Palatial Estate

7 Fortitude Cards:
5 Skin of Steel
Skin of Rock
Superior Mettle

18 Disciplineless cards:
2 Pack Tactics
Elder Intervention
2 Ambush
3 Bum's Rush
4 Forced Awakening
2 Wake with Evening's Freshness
4 taste of Vitae

21 Potence cards:
Decapitate
8 Immortal Grapple
4 Pushing the Limit
3 Undead Strength
2 Fists of Death
3 Torn Signpost

19 Celerity cards:
Psyche
Acrobatics
Pursuit
Rapid Thought
2 Flash
2 Sideslip
2 Side Strike
5 Blur