Hey there everybody, welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog that still manages to get spoilers even though they weren't nominated for any awards.
I'm very excited to reveal another spoiler to the community for Opus VIII! So without further ado, lets take a look at a Summon who hasn't been in the FFTCG until now - Fenrir.
So for those of you who aren't up to snuff with your Norse Mythology, Fenrir is the wolf son of the trickster god Loki, who is destined to kill Odin during Ragnarok - hence my little teaser image of Loki on Facebook. In Final Fantasy, Fenrir is a Summon/Eidolon, though he doesn't tend to show up as much as staples like Ifrit, Shiva, or Ramuh; So far he's only been summonable in Final Fantasy VI, IX, and XI. I guess you could say Fenrir is a... situational Summon.
As a card, I would consider Fenrir similarly situational. Against the right deck, he can be pretty good for disrupting your opponent's strategies, but he does face pretty heavy competition from other popular Earth Summons. So why should you consider running Fenrir in your deck?
First, why don't we take a look at his effect. For 2 CP he can break any Light or Dark Forward, and if you pay 4 for Fenrir instead, you can remove the target from the game. It's a pity that it wasn't Light or Dark Characters in general - he would probably be a bit more immediately gratifying if he could break your opponent's Fusoya, Chaos, or Cosmos, but that may have been a bit too powerful for a 2 drop summon. Fenrir also has very heavy competition with 2-drop Hecatonchier in Earth decks, who is generally a much more versatile removal piece. Now that I'm done playing devil's advocate though, I think that where Fenrir really shines is as a tech-option to deal with problematic Light and Dark Forwards present in the meta.
So what are some cards that Fenrir would be exceptionally effective against?
The first thing I thought of when I saw Fenrir was, "This is a Galdes counter." Galdes is a card that sees a lot of play in a variety of decks for good reason. He's extremely hard to deal with and gives your opponent a lot of value when he's sent to the Break Zone. In this instance paying the extra cost for Fenrir to remove Galdes from play would be a good idea, since he only gets his effects if he's sent to the Break Zone. You're not only getting rid of a blocker, but it also prevents him from being revived by cards like Devout or Phoenix-L.
Light Wol is another example of a card you would rob your opponent of value by removing it from the game. Warrior of Light builds have been getting more popular as of late, which means this guy and Warrior of Light-L have been seeing more play. You might not be able to stop his entry effect with Fenrir, but stopping him from being able to play a 3 cost from the Break Zone on exit is a pretty decent trade-off.
I think I speak for most FFTCG players when I say that I've been hurt by Yuri one too many times. Yuri is just an all around great card that you can reasonably run in any mono-element deck, and can be super painful to play around. If your opponent has active Backups, using Hecatonchier on this guy might not always be the best course of action, since he can force you to lose your Forward too with his ping damage. Fenrir just outright breaks him without having to fuss too much with having stronger Forwards or damage. The removal effect could also be a good idea if he's being played in Ice or against a deck that runs Latov to prevent his revival.
Even three sets after his release, my boy Kam'lanaut is still one of the best Dark cards in the game, and he can pose a big threat to mono-element decks. You really only have one turn to deal with him before he locks you out of a lot of options. Fenrir lets you deal with him before he changes elements for only 2cp. In Mono-Earth, it lets you dispose of him cheaper than it would using Opus VI Titan or Yojimbo, and without having to worry about having a Forward stronger than Kam on the field. Hell, even outside of Mono Earth it might be good to run a Fenrir just to quickly dispose of him.
There are a lot of other problematic Light and Dark cards like the Opus II Emperor, Light Vaan, and Nidhogg that Fenrir provides an answer to. I think that Fenrir might be very useful as a one-off option in Earth based decks to deal with Light and Dark threats, and is a card that could become increasingly more relevant over time as more and more Light and Dark Forwards come out in newer sets - especially if they have effects that activate when they're sent into the Break Zone, or have troublesome field effects.
Think about it this way when trying to decide if he's worth running over other Earth Summons: If 90% of decks right now run Light/Dark Forwards, running him as a tech option might not actually be so "situational" in the end. Psycom Warden is a card that many Earth Decks tech in as an option to deal with problematic monsters, but you aren't always guaranteed to come up against them. Considering how popular Galdes, Yuri, and Kam are in decks of every element, dedicating one slot to a Fenrir doesn't seem like a bad idea.
I was also thinking that Fenrir would be great in the newly introduced Boss Fight Mode if you're playing one of the Hero decks. Since the Villain deck always starts the match out with a Dark Forward, you'd pretty much be guaranteed to break it first turn and really fix your opponents little red wagon if you run 3 Fenrir in your deck.
Well hey, would you look at that - just like the Summon, Fenrir might not show up often, but in the right place he can leave your foes in shreds.
So what do you guys think of Fenrir? We've only got a few more weeks to go until the set releases, but a lot of the cards we've been shown for Opus VIII look incredible. I hope you guys enjoyed this spoiler article! Now if anybody needs me, I'll be baying at the moon until I can get my hands on these new cards...
Until next time - Keep on Grinding,
Great job with this write-up! Well spoiled ;).
ReplyDeleteThank you very much! I try my best haha
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