Spoiled Onions - Ramza

 

Hello to all you survivors of the War of the Lions, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG Blog that was asked to become one of the Knights of the Round but couldn't due to contractual obligations. 

As February gives way to March, the chill of winter gives way to the cautious hope of the coming spring. Some of you may be spending your respective hibernations playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Well I'm not, because I don't have a PS5 and it's nobody else's fault but my own for playing the first part of a three part game on a late stage console. And now I'm here, re-subbing to FFXI on my dusty old rig while everyone else is enjoying the new game. 

... I swear I had a point with this. Something about hope? Perhaps such that has been hidden? It's on the tip of my tongue. 

Ah well, anyway here's a new Ramza. 

Knights are probably one of the most diverse Tribal decks in the FFTCG in terms of colors you can run them in. Originally seeing most of their cards in Water and Lightning, over the years we've seen support for Fire and Ice Knights as well. We've seen a small smattering of Knights in Earth so far, but from what we've seen spoiled from Hidden Hope, it looks like Earth Knights may finally be getting their chance to shine. 

Ramza is pretty interesting in that while he has an initial CP cost of 4, he can  become a free 8K Forward if you meet both of his conditions. The first condition says that Ramza costs two less if you control another Job Knight. This means that he can have his cost reduced by either Forwards or Backup Job Knights. The problem is that before Hidden Hope, the only other Backup Knights besides another Ramza have been Segwarides and Pelinore, both of which are cards which have definitely shown their age since their Debut in Opus III. But now with the reveal of cards like big boi Baelo here, there's actually a good Backup option to get Ramza's cost down - and definitely a way better option for Duke Goltanna to target in a Lightning/Earth Knights deck instead of the old WoFF Backups.  

Ramza's second condition means that you won't be able to get him fully free until your Main Phase 2, since you'll need a Forward you control to attack. However, the effect does not specify that it has to be a Knight that attacks to make him cheaper. If you can attack with any other Forward, then during your Main Phase 2 cast Lasswell, you'll not only have both the conditions to cast Ramza for free, you'll also be able to Dull and Freeze two Characters with Lasswell's effect. Ramza is also a much bulkier than Lasswell, so attacking with him to force a discard is safer as well. Oh hey that rhymes, haha... 

Okay, let me make one thing clear here: I am not recommending that the card you play with Curilla be Ramza. I mean, you totally could, and you'd still end up getting a free Ramza out of the deal regardless. It would probably be better to play out two smaller Knights like Beatrix, Charlotte, or Physalis to name a few. But if you play out Curilla, and two more Knights, then finish your turn playing Ramza for free (assuming you got an attack out), you have a very large board for your opponent to deal with - especially if you have Ovelia to buff your Knights by an extra 1k. That extra power really adds up when you combine it with Curilla's added protection effect!

I'd also like to point out that Ramza can totally be played as a card in any deck that wants to build a wide board or accrue more casts per turn so long as you at least have one Knight Forward or Backup on the field. It will be interesting to see how things play out. My personal thoughts is that Ice/Earth will be the best place to play him, possibly in a deck like this one by Chocobilly. But who knows? Only time will tell if running Earth Knights will be worth it this set. 

And there's my spoiler for Hidden Hope! But of course, it wouldn't be a new spoiler season without a new Bingo wouldn't it? Well, wouldn't it??? Yeah, that's what I *thought*!

Will Hidden Hope be the set where we finally see Angelo make her triumphant debut into the FFTCG? Will Earth Knights become the best version of the Knights deck? Will we finally get to see Dancer Galuf in all his samba glory? Stay tuned to find out - same Onion-time, same Onion-channel! 

Until next time - Keep on grinding, 

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A Noob's Review of Beyond Destiny

 

Hello all you Strangers of Paradise, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that only knows one thing: I want to kill Chaos. I need to. It's not a hope or a dream. It's like a hunger. A thirst. 

Well a very edgy and happy 2024 to everyone! Though at this point, I suppose it would be more appropriate to wish everyone a happy Valentines day instead of happy New Years. Then again, I guess it would also be weird to call Beyond Destiny a new set when it came out over two months ago, but here we are.

Beyond Destiny is a pretty interesting set, which is about as noncommittal of an assessment of how good or bad something is as you can get. Like could you imagine if there was one of those review quotes on the cover of a DVD that just said "It's pretty interesting", and that was the review? But after playing around with the cards from Beyond Destiny, "interesting" is about an apt a word to describe how I feel about the set as any, and as much as it may sound like a backhanded jab, I promise I mean it as a compliment. Square Enix and Hobby Japan don't pay me enough to lie to you good folks about how I feel about cards. In fact, they don't pay me at all, which is probably why these set reviews always come out so late! 

Beyond Destiny is probably one of the most niche sets to come out in quite some time, with almost every Legend card except maybe Irvine and Neo Exdeath being Tribal support, Mono-Element, or needing more specific deck builds to get the most out of them. I enjoy good staple cards that are easy to put in any deck as much as the next guy, but if there's one thing that gets this old Onion Knight excited to brew decks, it's cards that you need to build an entirely new deck around from scratch in order for them to really pop off. 

So ward off the winter's chill with your favorite hot beverage of choice (I do so enjoy a good tea), and let's talk about some cards that came out back in November. 

As stated before, Tribal decks (decks that revolve around a specific archetype like their job or title, for those of you that are new here) are really my jam in the FFTCG. Final Fantasy as a franchise is so rich with iconic job classes that I'm honestly surprised that the card designers haven't made it their number one priority to make job-specific decks more of an area of focus. As of the time of writing this, we still have yet to have Tribal decks for jobs like Blue Mage, Dark Knight, or Thief. And I'm pretty sure they've never printed a single Dragoon card in the game, which IMO they need to get on that pronto. But Beyond Destiny has a ton of really great support for decks that really needed it like the iconic Warrior class and uh... the equally memorable Pirates/Vikings? 

Name a more iconic Final Fantasy job. I'll wait. 

Okay well that last one maybe wouldn't be my first choice to make into a deck considering that the pool of Vikings in the series to make cards out of is rather shallow. In fact, it's so shallow that outside of the Seeq-specific class from Final Fantasy Tactics A2, there are no more Viking standard units in the entire series! So either Rubi Asami needed to get busy on some new artwork for more Vikings, or the card designers needed to get a little bit inventive. 

Adding the Pirates as support for your Viking cards was really a genius way to flesh out a Vikings deck. The value of Vikings before was that they were cheap, low power Forwards that would draw you an extra card on entry or exit from the field depending on the Viking. Now with the addition of Leila, Faris, and Bikke, your little cheap Vikings become big 8000 power threats that can't be hurt by damaging abilities and reduce power on swing. Faris's second effect also makes her surprisingly difficult to get rid of, since most of the time your opponent won't want to target her and risk you redirecting their removal to a Viking that draws a card on exit. 

While Vikings may not be currently dominating the meta, they're a really fun deck to play with a mechanic that we haven't seen before in the game. I would really love it if tribal decks were designed with this level of inventiveness in the future, since it's a cool way of breathing new life into old cards. 

What is currently dominating the meta right now though, is Warriors. If anybody said that Warrior Tribal would win Worlds before the release of this set, I think people would have looked at you like you'd taken one too many Goblin punches to the head. Sweet daddy Taivas's abilities are quite frankly, utterly insane. The fact that he searches out either a Warrior Forward or a Backup and then plays one for free while ignoring color requirements on each of your turns means that you'll always have whatever you need in the moment and be able to play it instantly - so long as it costs 3 or less. And there are a surprisingly huge amount of options to choose from: Ward can remove an enemy Forward, Mog (VI) can draw and disable searching for a turn, Yuzuki gives you added protection, and Akstar can play two Forwards and give you more board control, just to name a few of the options you have with Warriors. 

Of course I need to mention that combining them with Warriors of Light and Gilgamesh FFBE is what makes them cross over into truly insane territory. I can almost hear the card designers yelling "No no, not like that!" at the decklist that Alex Hancox won worlds with. But Pandora's box can't be unopened, and now we're all sons of bitches. Judging from cards like Tulien and Haveh, I think Warriors were intended to be an aggressive, combat oriented deck in Earth/Fire that could splash other colors. Y'know, just super fun and quirky! But now "Warrior/Warrior of Light 3 Cost Rainbow Aggro Explosion" is the new meta, and I hope you're all proud of yourselves for it. 

Another thing I noticed while drafting during the Pre-release is that there are quite a lot of cards that only require two members with the same Job or Category on the field to get their effects. None of these cards have the restriction of "other than themselves" as part of the requirement either, meaning you only need one other Tribe member. Many of the cards also count all Characters rather than just Forwards, making it much simpler for decks to set up. I think that this is a good move from the card designers, especially as we move forward into a more aggressive meta where taking a long time to set up could be a liability. So as much as I disliked going up against Soiree decks in the past, I don't think it's a bad idea for other Tribes to take a page out of their book with faster setup conditions. 

All in all, I really like the support to niche decks that Beyond Destiny brings to the game. We have a ton of fun stuff to revive old decks, like the new WoFF support, a new way of playing the Sky Pirate package, and the best card ever printed. Hell, we even got the first Type-0 Cadets printed since Opus XIII to not suck total ass! As much as we need more generic elemental staples printed, I really hope we get more sets like this in the future since it makes deck building so much more fun.

Does anybody remember when Light cards used to be bad? Or at least people used to complain all the time that they were in comparison to Dark cards at least. Looking through the list of Light and Dark cards, I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing exactly when there was a shift from "Light cards are weak and Dark cards are strong". Perhaps around Opus XIV with the introduction of Shinryu (a card that ironically might be even more important in today's meta with all the 3-costs) Light cards started to get a bit more aggressive. So with the memory of the days of Nidhogg, Veritas, and Kadaj's dominance a thing of the past, it's kind of cool to see a card like the new Warrior of Light in the modern day.

Warrior of Light just kind of does it all. The fact that he plays any two Characters (not just Forwards! Man poor Kirin...) and can quickly flood the board is difficult enough to get around without a well-timed Amaterasu. But his S-ability literally shielding all your 3 drop Forwards from being targeted means that you can maintain your aggressive presence and push for more damage without much worry if you build around 3-costs. 

As somebody whose played Warriors of Light 4-color Tribal in the past, I assumed that this would be his natural home but it turns out I was thinking too small. Turns out using Gilgamesh (FFBE) with a deck full of 3-drop Multi Element Forwards and the 4-Color Warrior of Light was the true secret sauce for this card. I can't help but be a bit tickled though to see that while people *are* running WoL Tribal with 4 colors, the card they tend to use is actually Darkness Manifest. Don't that just beat all?

I think I may have been one of the few people who immediately knew who this guy was, and would have been absolutely thrilled with whatever effect he had. But man, what a whopper of a card he turned out to be. I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude whenever another amazing XI card that becomes a meta staple gets printed, and nobody knows who it is, yet they still have to run this guy in all their decks instead of like... Cloud or something. I really do need to find the guy who keeps making these cards so we can gush about our mutual appreciation for Robel-Akbel and what an amazing story he has while these normies are still trying to tell us how groundbreaking Endwalker was and how deep of a character Emet Selch is. 

This is beauty only PS2 era graphics could convey

Ahem... In any case, I've been waiting for quite a long time for the Serpent Generals to make their appearance in the game, and though the tiniest part of me wishes that they all worked together in one deck like Soiree did, I really can't complain with the final result. Especially since ol' Rug here pretty much redefines how aggressive certain elements can be. 

Even though Rughadjeen can pretty much become a key card of any deck that requires dulling action abilities or on-attack effects, I think Ice was the element that saw the biggest boost from him. With Turbo Discard necessitating the first bans of the game, for a long time it seemed like the card designers were purposely being very conservative with Ice, particularly with discard effects. But now with Rughadjeen, the "pause" that was built into cards like Physalis, Lasswell, and Rufus gets removed, giving you both aggression and flexible control. Being forced to discard two cards in one turn from Rufus is bad enough, but your opponent still has to deal with an attack from a Forward made up to 3k Power bigger by Rughadjeen that has Haste, Brave, and First Strike. Now every card can be 4-color Warrior of Light! 

It's pretty interesting to see just how much more aggressive the meta has become in one set after slower setup decks like Mono-Water took top spots in the past, and how pivotal Light cards have been to that push. Not that I really concern myself with that much here though. I'm here still here trying to figure out how I can actually make a Serpent Generals deck a thing so I can roll up to a tournament in my thirsty Stoneserpent General Zazaarg shirt. 

I've seen some of the things you straight guys have on your playmats. You owe
me this.

And hey, speaking of unhealthy relationships with an underdog title in the series, that segues nicely into our next topic. 

Okay, so that title is actually a lie because there's no way in hell he's ever actually going to shut up about it, but yeah. My boyfriend is what you might call a Squallwife, as in somebody who has an obsession for Final Fantasy VIII so extreme, it borders on religious fanaticism. 

For example, this shrine is to Rinoa's beauty, and the unimaginable terror she inspires only through using her dog as a weapon.   

I'm pretty sure it was him seeing Squall on a pack of Opus II at the Square Enix booth one Comicon that got us into the game in the first place. And much like the game it's based on, I've been hearing on and on every set that Category VIII never gets its fair due. And on both counts, I'm compelled to agree with him. 

I discussed in my set review of Resurgence of Power how it seemed as though they were attempting to give Category VIII a more fleshed out identity with stuff like Cid Kramer and Gilgamesh only to squander that potential with a bunch of stuff that didn't really work together all that well to form a cohesive deck. So when I saw that there was artwork scheduled for Final Fantasy VIII, I tempered my expectations, all the while holding onto the faint glimmer of hope that this was the set that VIII finally got good. And after the full set list for Beyond Destiny was revealed... yeah this isn't the set where the dream of an amazing Category VIII specific deck happens either. Turns out that it actually might be the *next* set, judging from the new Selphie, Quistis, Squall, and Edea spoiled for it. 

Train 🎵 Train 🎵 Take the Pain Away 🎵

But it turns out that while the cards introduced in this set might not come together to make Category VIII decks a force to be reckoned with, the legends from this set are pretty dang strong, which wild as it may seem, actually makes people use them more! Crazy, right? 

When new cards are spoiled, I really do try my best not to read the comments about it, because it annoys me on a personal level how dumb people can be sometimes when they evaluate cards in a vacuum, and people's comments about how good or bad cardboard is will just ruin my entire day. But of course I juuuuust couldn't help myself after seeing the Griever spoiled as Card of the Week. And lemme tell you, the usual suspects absolutely did not let me down. "Too expensive! Too slow! No good Witches!" and other equally head scratching things were what I saw, to the surprise of nobody but me.

But as it turns out, the new cards from Beyond Destiny came together to make Griever absolutely terrifying in Water/Ice - thanks in no small part to Rughadjeen's ability to give Forwards both Haste and Brave. The deck Masayuki Yamada played in Worlds has been haunting both my dreams and my locals, because thanks to Griever, Turbo Discard is back. 

On first glance this deck looks extremely weird, since it only runs two copies of the new Larsa Backup and no other Backups. But taking a closer look, you'll see that every card in the deck besides Ultimecia is even-costed. This deck is designed to get Greiver out as early as possible with Larsa to ensure he's in your hand. Playing him out turn one gives you opponent precious little time to deal with him before you start using his dull action ability to make them discard. With Rughadjeen's Brave effect, you can still attack with Griever, then dull him. Plus with Water cards like Sage and Rosa, you can keep reactivating him to use his action ability multiple times in one turn. Oh, and not only are Griever's effects not limited to once per turn, they're not limited to your turn either, so you can just keep breaking dull Forwards or forcing discards to your hearts content. 

With stuff like Charlotte and Celestia protecting your Griever, and Sarah (Mobius) to cancel auto abilities it becomes extremely hard to get rid of Griever. Not that it's much better to get rid of him because once you do, Ultimecia gets played from the deck to replace him. You can remove any 5 or more cost Characters from your break zone to Dull/Freeze your opponent's board. Oh, and then she also makes them discard and can't be chosen by Summons. And by them I mean me because this has become my boyfriend's favorite deck and I absolutely hate it. 

Me when I'm trying to be a supportive spouse but I also want to play the goddamn game. 

I don't have quite as much trauma concerning the new Irvine just yet, but in a meta focused on aggro, he lands in a pretty comfortable position for success in aggro. He's a pretty good encapsulation of the kinds of cards that are really powerful in this meta: Haste with a strong on-attack effect and a powerful S-ability for when you need it. With cards like Irvine and Xande introduced in this set, Mono-Lightning Scions has become even more back-breaking. 

What's also back-breaking is the cost of these friggin full arts, and of course my boyfriend needs a playset of them so uh... trades anyone?

It sounds crazy to say but the best way you can make categories better is by actually printing good cards! It would be really cool to see this level of care in the future with all of the categories in the future. It shouldn't feel like there are only a handful of titles that you can really go the "full fantasy" with in order to have a competitive category-focused deck with a real win condition. I get it - the categories that can do that tend to be the more popular ones. But as much as people may scoff about Cadets, I *do* know people who really love Type-0 and would like to see a better deck be possible for it. Printing bad cards costs just as much as printing good ones, so if you do make cards for categories that don't make it into the game quite as much, why not put the care needed into making something that feels satisfying and engaging instead of a bunch of random generic nonsense?

... I just had the eerie feeling that somebody could easily say the same thing about this blog considering that a big chunk of my review was evaluating how well my boyfriend's favorite Final Fantasy series was represented, and to that I say, well make your own damn blog then.  

I think there's a little something for everybody in Beyond Destiny. Rainbow decks have never felt easier to play beyond just Soiree decks or decks running Earth to color fix. But at the same time some popular old staples like Mono Ice, Mono Fire, and Mono Lightning feel more fleshed out. I really like the balance that this set strikes between printing cards that specifically breathe new life into older forgotten decks and creating brand new ones. This set was definitely a lot less focused on elemental power with big bombastic staples you can socket into any deck, but I think printing more specific cards can be a lot more fun - when it's done well of course. 

Aggro is definitely the name of the game with Beyond Destiny, and even elements like Ice and Water that are typically more control focused have shifted to become more "aggressive control" of sorts. The question I've been thinking about lately with the FFTCG is something that maybe I'll touch upon in another article, but if a certain deck is seeing more success, is it even possible to tech against it with individual cards? Or is it more of a situation where Deck A beats Deck B, but is beaten by Deck C? For example, the Attack phase is a lot more important now with lots of Haste cards and On-attack triggers. We also have cards like Magus Sisters and Man in Black in the game that are anti aggro, but even if those kinds of tech options exist, will people use them if they're not on a Backup?

I'll have to discuss this more in depth with somebody both much smarter and much better at the game with me another time. But for now, lets save these very thinkery questions for the Scholars in the audience and raffle away some free swag! 

As we all mournthe loss of Weirdly Sexy Scott and Rebels still not being a fleshed out deck despite being Kageyama's Nepo-baby series, we can still celebrate getting a double Bingo. And with double Bingo comes double prizes! Well it's not really because of the Bingo - I just happened to have an extra prize ready for the raffle that uh... didn't happen for the last set. 

Welp! No point in dwelling on the past! This time around I have a Final Fantasy VII Anniversary Playmat with Tifa promo and Final Fantasy XIV Anniversary playmat with Scions of the Seventh Dawn promos to raffle off to two lucky winners! 

You can thank my boyfriend for the FF VII playmat. He ordered it awhile ago and forgot about it, and upon finding it decided "Eh, I don't want it. You wanna use it for a prize?" What a guy! But his disdain for FFVII is your gain! Here's how you can enter: 

Raffle Rules: 

1) In order to be eligible for the raffle, you must complete the survey I'll be linking below. Your entry makes you eligible to win either the FFVII Playmat with Tifa Promo OR the FFXIV Playmat with Promos. 

2) The contest is open to both local and international fans, so if you don't happen to be from the US, don't sweat it! I will be in contact with the winners to discuss shipping arrangements.

3) The Raffle submission period will go for one month from the post date of this blog (January 31st), until Thursday, February 29th at 8PM EST. I'll announce the winners on Facebook.  

4) I will contact the winner via the email they submit in the survey. If I do not hear back from a winner in one week, I will choose another winner at random, so be sure to submit an email that you check often! 

Enter the Raffle Here!!

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Good luck to everyone who enters the raffle! As always thanks again to everyone who shows up to read the inane ramblings of a disgruntled Onion Knight. In the meantime I'll be here putting the Dark Emperor that turns off action abilities into every deck so I can maybe stand a chance at winning against that friggin Griever deck...

Until next time - Keep on grinding, 

  

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A Noobs First Trip to FFTCG Nationals

 

Hello there all you champions in the making and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight, the Final Fantasy TCG blog that wants to give a hearty congratulations to the winner of Worlds: Mono Wind.

Happy Holidays everyone! As always I'm taking my sweet time getting a proper mouthfeel of the latest set before I write up my set review. So this time around, I thought I'd talk about something a little different now that the 2023 competitive season has wrapped up: a player's first time making it to Nationals. 

"But Lv.1 Onion Knight! I thought the whole point of this blog was that you suck at this game!" You gasp with such a sense of disbelief that if we're being honest, most people would probably find a bit rude. But you know what? You're absolutely right! I tend not to engage with the tournament scene outside of my locals, largely because combining an incredibly fragile ego with the aforementioned lack of ability with this game is a good way to make a lot of enemies quickly, and I don't need any more of those now do I? 

Thankfully for me though, I do have a few friends who are quite good at the game and who aren't quite so delicate at the prospect of losing that they do actually spend the time and effort to compete in tournaments. This year, a member of our crew, Karan Chhatpar made it all the way to the North American Nationals level. Of course, we were all incredibly proud of him for how far he managed to go on his first attempt entering the competitive circuit. But seeing the opportunity for some sweet sweet content, I thought it would be interesting for him to share his experience as a first timer - a noob if you will - trying to make it to the top in FFTCG. I get to outsource work to a friend and get a topical article about tournaments? Talk about a win-win! 

It's the ABC's of FFTCG content creation: Always Be Carried by somebody better at the game than you. 

But before we get going, I'd like to take a little time to introduce Karan to you all.  Really give you the all "Karan Experience," ya know? And not the kind you normally have to pay for at that! So what you need to know about Karan is:

🔰  I'm pretty sure his favorite Final Fantasy game is XV, given his hetero man crush on Noctis's voice actor Ray Chase. He has multiple signed Noctis cards. (Editor's note: his favorite is apparently Final Fantasy VIII)  

🔰  You will never see him in anything but a polo shirt. Like seriously, that's all he ever wears. The man is classy AF. 

🔰  He takes so long making decisions on his plays that we've dubbed any player's turn that lasts longer than it should a "Karan Turn" at locals. 

🔰  He's part of the Gamer's Command competitive team, but he'll always be reppin' TEAM NEW YORK BAYBEEE!!

🔰  He's, by his own admission, a pretty terrible deckbuilder (girl, same). The best deck he's made was an FFL Emperor Black Box deck. He'll claim it's actually his Earth/Wind/Ice Warp deck, but trust me, it's Black Box. 

🔰  He played me with the Category VI deck he took to Nationals and crushed me so thoroughly and utterly that I believe my exact words to him at the time were, "Karan, you're my friend, and I love you, but if you ever bring that deck to locals again, I'm going to reach across the table and jam my thumbs into your eye sockets and blind you so you won't be able to look at your fiance's face when you marry her." But in my defense, he used Umaro's effect to kill his own Strago, drawing a card and avoiding my Shantotto's RFG effect. So given that, I believe I was rather nice about it.

🔰  He gave me the Full Art Tyro promo he won at the tournament for "Everything I've done for the FFTCG community", and I'm still trying to figure out what his angle is.

🔰  His ultimate claim to fame is his beautiful hand-drawn proxies. For example, here's his stunning interpretation of Leviathan, Lord of the Whorl. 

Notice how the mouth seems to follow you wherever you go.

Hopefully with that, you all have gotten a thorough whiff of the aromatic bouquet that is Karan. So without further ado, I'll pass it over to Karan. Take it away, M'lord! 

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Hello everyone! My name is Karan, and excited to share my thoughts and experience going to FFTCG NA Nationals this year. Thanks to the Lv.1 Onion Knight for hosting me and for playing a huge role in our local community!

Some background about myself - I am a NYC local and have been playing FFTCG since 2017. I discovered the game at New York Comic-Con at the Square Enix booth and got a quick demo, then found out about the different NYC locals from there, and the rest is history! As a player, I had always enjoyed playing FFTCG casually, making fun jank or tribal/themed decks. 

Around early 2020, I wanted to venture further into competitive play, but when the pandemic hit we lost the ability to play in person. I picked up OCTGN and started playing more online through structured events like the RVA Returners Online Locals and The League of Light.

The Road to Nationals

We returned to locals around 2021 and I had a strong desire to go back to competitive events, but the Reraise events were either too far or conflicted with other obligations. Regardless, I worked on improving as a player and enjoying some fun decks along the way (I played Kingsglaives a LOT).

When Organized Play was announced for 2023, I knew this was the year I wanted to finally compete. After seeing the schedule, it became apparent I could only make it to one event - the Raleigh Materia Cup. In prepping for the event, I landed pretty confidently on playing Mono Water (RIP Syldra).

At the event, I went 6-1 in Swiss, losing only in round 7 to Stephen Sause who went to win the whole thing the next day. In day 2, I made it to top 8 and lost to Zaiem, but still earned an invite via pass down. I was going to Nats!

A Noob's First Nationals

This was the hardest event I've ever had to prepare for. With Opus 20 dropping about a month before the event, it was a scramble to try to figure out the best new decks to play, learn new synergies that may have worked with older cards, and practice practice practice. I spent the first couple weeks messing around with different decks before ultimately deciding on Mono Water and Tri Color FF6. I don't regret either of these deck choices, but unfortunately I ended up going 2-4 mainly to bricking on backups a lot on my FF6 deck. Ultimately, they were decks that I had a lot of experience piloting, which I knew would decrease the chances of me misplaying.

Going back to the actual event, when people say they play this game for the community, there's no event that exemplifies that statement better than Nats. It's a room full of 64 players who love the game, an incredible judging and streaming staff, and even some of the Hobby Japan design team! I really enjoyed the entire weekend and getting a forum to connect with some of my good friends who are spread out across the country was truly a great experience. SE also hosted a mostly smooth event, but there are some little things about how all of Organized Play went this year that makes me want to write a bit about it. We went 4 years without a Nats/Worlds, and demand was quite high for events. I wish SE would have increased the invite pool for Nats and either held more events or increased invites/player caps at existing ones. I get that Nats is supposed to be an expression of the best players of the game so it should be a small pool, but relative to the demand it definitely felt like we could have had 128 players and still represent a lot of people who ultimately didn't make it but are still card game players of the highest caliber.

As a personal bias, I wish events were more spread out (cough cough can we get some events in or near the Northeast?). It's actually wild that Raleigh, North Carolina was the geographically closest event to New York City. At the end of the day, we all want more events! Obviously there are logistics and business decisions that have to be made along the way, but I certainly hope OP 2024 has more in store for us!

As a final note, now that Nats is done, I'm really enjoying getting back to messing around with some wackier decks. The design team at HJ has given us so many tools for deck building that I'm excited to take a look at a bunch of ideas that might have been unexplored (my first stop is an Emperor FFL deck). It's a testament to the strength of the game when we can be excited to play without any specific events on the horizon, and I'm really glad to have a locals that shares the same passion for the game. 

I also want to give a shout-out to the NYC locals who has been an anchor for me in keeping up with the game especially during/after the pandemic, as well as to the Gamers Command team for helping me test and iterate nonstop in the weeks leading up to Nats. And a big thank you again to the Level 1 Onion Knight for giving me a platform to share these thoughts!  

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Haaa... well that certainly was a refreshing nap - I mean a riveting insight into the competitive world! So what do you guys think? Would you take your first steps into the tournament scene in 2024? Or are you someone like me who is perfectly content to lurk in the shadows of your locals and hope you can pick up the occasional prize promo? In the meantime, I'll be making back-alley deals to that foil Arciela full art promo with Karan. C'mon he's been to Nats! You really think I can beat him? 

Until next time - keep on grinding, 

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Spoiled Onions - Summoner

 

Greetings to all the Standard Units out there, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG Blog that can only summon one thing, and that's the deep feeling of regret. 

Boy howdy it sure has been a long time hasn't it? Longer than my already very sparse content schedule has been over the years in any case. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with some health issues that, as of the time of writing this, have yet to be resolved, or even properly identified - fun stuff! But spoiler season waits for no man, so I'm here to share a new card from Beyond Destiny with you: Summoner!

Standard Units are usually pretty hit and miss, especially ones that aren't connected to a pre-existing tribal archetype like Monks, Samurais, or Ninjas. Thankfully this one here is pretty good! It's actually somewhat similar to Terra in terms of cost and effect. For 4CP, you can search for a Wind Summon from your deck. Then, when you cast any Summon regardless of element, Summoner gets a boost of 2000 power. 

Much as I've been the Anti-Wind guy on this blog over the years, it's hard to deny that this new Summoner would be a good fit for decks that cast a lot of cheap Summons, like Storm decks. Summoner can help you search out your combo pieces faster so you can get your cast count for cards like Luso or Locke or my personal favorite, Lehko Habhoka. Bouncable with Bismarck, yadda yadda yadda... Look, if you do that, then do at least try and act apologetic about it. Give your opponent a token grimace or something. 

Summoner's power boosting effect can be useful when combined with Lulu. Because both Summoner and Lulu's effects trigger when a Summon is cast, attacking with Summoner means that there's always a threat that any of your opponent's Blockers will have their power reduced to 5000. And since Summoner gains 2000 power, you'll always be stronger than the Forward being targeted by Lulu. Just remember Lulu's effect only triggers during your turn! 

Summoner's power boosting effect isn't limited to your turn though. And even though you can only search for a Wind summon, you'll get the extra 2k for any Summon you cast. You can get some extra bang for your buck with combat-trick Summons like Titan, Belias, and Shivalry. Summoner's power boosting effect certainly seems less significant than giving Wind decks the ability to search for Summons. However, you can catch your opponent off guard with some creative combos, or chain multiple smaller summons together to ensure that you always have a big attacker on the field.

I feel like this Garnet was really ahead of its time when it came out in Opus XI, but now it's starting to find a more steady footing. And by that I mean I've seen a handful of decks running it instead of absolutely none, but in decks with a large count of high-cost Summons, you can make some really explosive plays with her. I ran her in a Water-Ice FFVI deck and nothing is more satisfying than slapping down Ark for free. She also works quite nicely with Summoner, since her action ability still counts as "casting" the Summon. Every cast pumps up Summoner and gives you a Summon Counter for Garnet, so you can always threaten to make Summoner even bigger.  

And that's another spoiler down! Thanks so much to the fine folks at Square Enix for letting me have this opportunity! And it wouldn't be a new set without a Bingo, would it? 

Beyond Destiny is already shaping up to be a very interesting set so far. From what I can see, it looks like it's not only introducing a new category, but giving attention to some archetypes that have needed some TLC for quite some time now. I mean, actual real Type-0 Cadet support? Did hell just freeze over? Plus it looks like Warriors are getting some help with cards like Taivas (the Hot Beard Man on our bingo board FYI). Who knows? Warrior/Rebels may actually be GOOD! A man can dream can't he? 

Unfortunately with how I've been feeling, I wasn't quite up for doing a review and raffle for Dawn of Heroes. I do have a prize waiting and ready to go, so with any luck I'll be up to doing some longer format content again soon. This has honestly been a pretty rough time for me, but it would have been a lot harder without my local group of friends from the FFTCG community to help me get through it. I'm still not out of the woods yet, but hopefully soon I'll be back to my plucky Onion Knight self soon. 

What cards are you hoping to see in Beyond Destiny? For my personal well being, I really hope it's some good FF8 cards. Otherwise I'm never going to hear the end of it, but that's the risk you take on when you're dating a diehard Squall fan. 

Until next time - keep on grinding, 

 

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Spoiled Onions - Yuffie

 

Hey there everyone! Welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog that really needs to invest in a PS5 so it can finally play Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. Oh, and Final Fantasy XVI now too.

Gather round all you Bards, Blue Mages, and Beastmasters! Your bearded blogging Onion Knight has a bewitching bombshell to broadcast! As the release of Dawn of Heroes quickly approaches, it's time for the Final Fantasy TCG community to sink its ravenous fangs into some fresh new spoilers - and would you look at that? I've just so happen to have one for ya right here! Now now, don't shove! There's plenty of spoilers to go around for everyone! It's my very great pleasure to reveal this new card to you from the FFTCG's 20th set: Yuffie (20-061C)! 

The Legendary Yuffie from Resurgence of Power is one hell of a difficult act to follow, especially for a card of the Common rarity. However, this little Ninja has a few tricks up her sleeve that may make her worth considering - namely two jumbo sized Shuriken Counters. Being able to deal a whopping 8000 damage on attack is pretty uncommon, especially for a 2CP card. Though she may need to wait a turn to use them without Haste, she immediately becomes a huge threat to enemy Forwards if she isn't dealt with, making her a cheap, effective way to bait out any pesky removal your opponent may have. 

Since Yuffie's Counters are placed onto her when she enters the field, you can also use self-bounce cards like Chocobo or Bismarck, Lord of the Mists to return her to your hand, then play her again to get two more Shuriken Counters, or even save her to pay for the Legendary Yuffie's Doom of the Living S-Ability later on in the game.  

Like all good Onion Knights, I aspire one day to achieve my fullest potential by becoming a Ninja. It should come as little surprise then that Ninjas are one of my all time favorite decks to play. I think that this new Yuffie works quite nicely alongside Edge, since his ability to reduce the cost of all your Ninjas means you're only paying 1 CP for the ability to remove two of your opponent's Forwards with Yuffie's Shuriken over the next few turns. Plus, if they have any Forwards that are too big for Yuffie to take out by herself, you can finish them off with one of Edge's Shuriken Counters. There'll be so many Shuriken flying around, it'll be like a mid-2000's anime convention full of Naruto fans. Wait, Naruto is still popular? Damn, way to make this Ninja wannabe feel old. 

While Yuffie's removal makes it easy to pick off your opponent's Forwards in the earlier rounds of the game, her low power means that once the board starts to fill up, she might find herself smacking into a stronger blocker before she has a chance to fire off both of her Shuriken. Bringing her dad Godo into the mix means not only does she get a little more survivability with an extra 1k power, you can leave Godo open to give Yuffie First Strike when needed. Comboing the First Strike damage with cards like Brynhildr or even a Shuriken from Edge can let you take out the Forward blocking Yuffie, and a second with her Shuriken.

Yuffie can also find some good synergies with her Final Fantasy VII party members too - when she isn't too busy eyeing their Materia to snatch of course! The new cowgirl Tifa Legend coming out this set seems like she really wants to be played alongside Wind cards in order to keep reactivating your Backups and get off more attacks. Yuffie can use her Shuriken to help clear the board of anything that might get in Tifa's way. Once Yuffie has finished up her Counters, you can use From Nightmare's Cid Highwind to bounce her back to your hand, activating two Backups to pay for more attacks from Tifa and letting Yuffie restock her supply of Shuriken Counters. 

Finally, there's some real potential to let the damage fly if you use Yuffie in party attacks with Noctis on the field. Once she swings, you can double up on two instances of 8k damage with Noctis's effect, and your opponent will still have to deal with the party attack on top of that. And considering that Category VII already has a tribe that focuses around party attacks with AVALANCHE Operatives in an element that can color fix to accommodate Yuffie and well... 

Lets just say your opponent might as well call themselves Mako Reactor 1, because they're about to get blown up. Kaboom! 

All-in-all, I think Yuffie has an unusually powerful effect for a Common. I'd even go so far as to say she's like a miniature Braska's Final Aeon with her high on-swing damage. In fact, that's exactly what I said about her as a hint in my latest Bingo board. 

Okay okay, it's definitely a bit of a stretch there, but I was in a bit of a pickle on how to hint at which square was my spoiler since the art for the Yuffie card had already been shown awhile ago. I couldn't very well put a square that said Job: Ninja because that would have been a dead giveaway (and gotten me a bunch of "well they already showed Yuffie" comments to boot) so I decided to hint at her effect instead. Of course, you could also argue that the newly revealed Jecht counts as a "Mini BFA", but he already got a square! Save some for the rest of us, Jecht! 

In any case, what do you guys think of this new Yuffie? Are there any other combos you can think of with her, or any decks you think she'd do well in? Let me know what you think! In the meantime, I'll be here, waiting for Dawn of Heroes to release and making a jumbo sized origami shuriken made out of nothing but Signed Yuffie cards. 

Until next time - Keep on grinding, 

  

 

 

 

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