Hey there everyone! After months of hype and anticipation, Opus V is finally here! This release was a special one for me, not only because it was my first TCG prerelease ever, but also because of all the new FFXI cards introduced in this set. If you’ve read the About Me post, or had the dubious pleasure of speaking to me in person, you’d know XI is kiiiind of my favorite Final Fantasy game. Oh sure, there are lots of other awesome cards in Opus V to be excited about: Orphan, Wol, Zemus … but there’s one card I was most hyped about: Eald'narche.
... Actually, I have no idea if this card is all that great in a Meta sense or whatever. All I know is it looks super fun to pull off that special, and he's an XI Legend, so of course I need it.
As soon as I saw this card leaked online, I was already sobbing hysterically into my playmat – even if I had no real comprehension on how to use it most effectively, damn it, I would figure out how if it killed me - and with my luck it probably would. So one prerelease event and an official release later, how did I do with my pulls? Well… let’s get started.
The Prerelease
I headed into my semi-local game shop (when you live in the Bronx, every trip into the city is over an hour long commute) with Sean to get our prerelease kits Sunday morning. A modest gathering greeted us inside, everyone already happily cracking open their kits and building decks with the new cards supplemented with a few packs from Opus IV. I got my kit and set to work trying to prep myself for the Simplified Sealed tournament that would be happening later on in the day.Oh sure, I had no delusions of winning – with our group of NYC locals, that honor belonged to
Even as a new player I get the distinct feeling that somebody at SE reaalllllly likes Lightning judging from the constant deluge of cards and promotional art featuring her in the game so far. I can’t help but feel that they tend to go a bit overboard with her. Like I'm sure it took somebody an incredible amount of restraint just putting Minfilia on the prerelease box cover. ...I think I just alienated half of the people reading this with these comments.
#Notmywaifu
But it’s the cards that are the most important right? Well Sean started things off by pulling a foil Zemus because of course he did, and I pulled a Cecil-L, once again proving that I am merely an instrument for the TCG Gods’ Chosen One because that was the card he was most eager to get from this set.
The Scion Card sleeves themselves are pretty nice. I heard some people say that they would have preferred more booster packs in lieu of the sleeves, but honestly, even though I’m not the biggest XIV fan, I really liked getting them. I’m the type of person who likes to invest in TCG accessories: sleeves, deck boxes, playmats and such, and considering that I got into the game because I love Final Fantasy, I wish there were more products like these readily available from SE’s website. Hopefully in the future we’ll get some more stuff like this so I can be better coordinated and not use Pokémon card sleeves for my decks.
But it’s the cards that are the most important right? Well Sean started things off by pulling a foil Zemus because of course he did, and I pulled a Cecil-L, once again proving that I am merely an instrument for the TCG Gods’ Chosen One because that was the card he was most eager to get from this set.
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| I pulled another foil Lightning of the promo we just got though so... y'know. |
Between the two of us we pulled 3 Legends each
from our kits, which is pretty good! We got both Palom and Porom, Yshtola, Zemus, Cecil, and The Emperor, so
a pretty good haul all things considered.
Some of my other favorite cards we pulled were a foil Aria and Tellah, both of which appear to be competing to see who can achieve the sexiest boudoir pose…
...As well as some of the Final Fantasy Tactics A2 cards. I never ended up playing A2, but I really like the card artwork for these. I kind of want to get the whole set in foil now…
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| Tellah's been doing this gig for a lot longer though... |
Well, I won two of my matches… one of which was against Sean, and since we both suck at this game so far, I’m not really sure if that counts. The other one I’m pretty sure I won by accident. Otherwise I got pretty soundly curb-stomped by the other players. While Berserker was a cheap, high power threat to get out early, the lack of ability to block wound up as more of a hindrance to me without anything to support it, even with cards like Leyak to reactivate it.
A better alternative would have probably been 4 drop Caius, who in particular became the bane of my existence during my matches. Even with the discard effect, a 9k Brave forward that could attack and still block was tough for me to deal with.
Coincidentally this is the same face I made every time I saw this card used against me.
Nanaa Migho is a great card, and one that in the right deck, I’m sure would put in some real work. Unfortunately she found herself in my deck, which is kind of a problem. I couldn’t really find too many opportunities to use her well. Again, this isn’t an assessment of the viability of the card: I’m just pretty bad at drafting.
Either way for my first promo release, it was a lot of fun! There was an electric energy in the air with everyone going over new card combos and deck builds, and I ended up meeting a lot of players I hadn’t before, both veteran and newcomers like me. Of course after my matches I wanted nothing more than to buy more packs of Opus V, but I would have to wait until the next Friday for that…
The Opus V Release
One week later and I was raring and ready to throw fistfuls of cash at Square-Enix for sparkly trading cards. That being said, as an adult I have a bit more responsibilities like paying rent and paying for groceries, and seeing as I had recently lost my job, it would be important to exercise some restraint…
Goddammit
Welp, that whole restraint thing failed spectacularly and I bought a whole box, but on the flip side having a spouse who plays the same TCG as you means that you can at least go halfsies on cards, so it really only cost me 60 dollars. That’s definitely a plus, though on the other hand, it makes it really hard to determine who gets to use the more highly sought after cards if you want to make a deck of an element the other one specializes in. Ah well, you win some, you lose some.
So many cards it was almost overwhelming… so many potential outcomes. This must be what it feels like to be a god gazing upon a newly created universe. I had never purchased a whole box of cards before: The only person who I had known to ever do that before was a friend who, in his childhood, had his parents buy him boxes of Yugi-Oh! cards from 7-11 so he could get all the cards Mai Valentine used in the television show.
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| Considering I could only buy like one pack of cards a month, I lost to him a lot. |
Well... He's a Zilart...
Kam’lanaut, the younger-yet-lets-tell-everyone-I’m-older-so-nobody-suspects anything brother to Eald’Narche and a major antagonist of the Rise of the Zilart expansion in FFXI.
Okay, so it’s not the card that I was hoping for, but still I hadn’t managed to pull this card yet, and I was hoping to get him, so I can't really complain. He's actually a really fantastic card - arguably better than his brother depending on the matchup, but it ain't no Paradise win. In any case, lets take a moment to bask in the reflective glory of what I pulled from the box.
Legends
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| I guess the foil WoL makes up for not pulling Eald... I GUESS... |
Heroics
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| Another FFTA2 Foil down! Just Mira and Luso to go. Now I kinda want all 4 Warriors of Light foil too... |
S-Foils
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| Pulled a second Papalymo so I can finally trade for the IX S-Foils that have eluded me. |
The focus on Tactics A2 was, initially a bit strange to me as well. Part of me wonders if there were originally other plans for the set, but upon receiving the exclusive artwork from Ryoma Ito, they decided to push more support for that collection. I'm guessing that sort of thing is taken care of months in advance but I really have no idea – that’s a question for your local community rep. The set as a whole does feel a little less focused than some of the prior expansions, with archetype support for XI, XII, XIII, XIV, Type-0, Warriors of Light, and Tactics A2 spread pretty thinly throughout the collection.
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Opus VI will be nothing but Agito Cadet support wait and see.
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| Ramza being another card I need now because of course, I didn't pull him either... |
Well, after everything is said and done, It looks like the search for Paradise will have to continue. Honestly, it’s not as though a box was ever going to completely finish my collection, and it gives me something to hunt for in later pulls, which is something I really look forward to every week. In the meantime I’ll keep busting open packs and hoping to get a complete collection of foil XI cards. Trion, Curilla, and Zeid down, only 11 more to go!
So that was my experience with the Opus V release. What are the cards you guys are hunting for? Did you get lucky with your pulls?
Until next time - Keep on grinding,
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