Hey there all you fledgling adventurers and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog that knows it's only a matter of seconds before somebody kills this article's view count by reposting my spoiler on Facebook without linking back here, and I'm not gunna call you out but you know who you are...
Erm... so do you guys remember how I said on my last post that I had something different planned for my next post? As it turns out, the different thing I had planned was not in fact, "Post nothing at all". I've actually been swamped with a brand new temp job, and working on my Endgame Thor cosplay for New York Comicon in my free time. I gotta say, the combination of feeling like a screw-up while also being a Nordic God is both a dramatic case of tonal whiplash and oddly similar parallel to the character's arc in the movie...
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| I'd wear the costume to my job if my new co-workers wouldn't ask why I was dressed as King Arthur. |
I'm actually really stoked because this is my first category XI spoiler. If you've been following along here you'd know XI is hands down my favorite Final Fantasy game of all time, having played it actively for around 14 years or so. So for starters if you're one of those pedantic rubes who likes to complain in the comments that they don't like in-game screenshots for the XI cards, then you can kindly make sure to wipe off the back of my door after I slam it in your face. Can't be getting face grease all over it - I'm trying to run a classy establishment here.
In any case, here's a brief rundown for those of you that haven't spent a little under half of their life playing an MMO. Joker is a character from the Federation of Windurst leg of the initial Main Scenario Quest of the game, and is a Cardian - a class of soldier automatons themed after playing/tarot cards. It is later revealed that Joker contains a piece of the soul of Karaha-Baruha (who is also on my Bingo and totally going to be in Opus X you guys), the Summoner who formed a pact with Fenrir and saved Windurst from annihilation during the Crystal War with the Shadow Lord two decades prior. This act however drained the magical energies of the surrounding lands, and only by restoring the pieces of Karaha-Baruha's sundered soul could the impeding decay of Windurst be stopped.
So let's take a look at what Joker here can do. He's a 2 cost Earth backup that can reduce the damage taken by a Forward that specifically has Brave by 2000 by paying 1 Earth CP and dulling Joker.
I think that a lot of people are going to draw parallels between this card and another backup that does something in a similar vein, which is Opus II Monk, and are not entirely without reason for doing so.
Monk could quite possibly be better than Joker for what you want them to do: for 2 Earth CP and putting Monk into the Break Zone, you can pump a Forward by 3k and give it Brave, which allows it to be used both offensively or defensively. Joker's activation cost is also a bit clunky, requiring it and another backup be active and only able to target a Brave Forward.
That being said, Joker isn't without it's advantages. Unlike Monk, you don't have to sacrifice a backup in order to get the effect off, so you can reuse the effect multiple times in a match while still keeping back row intact. It being a Category XI character means it's also a search target for one of the best cards in the game - Star Sibyl (Who Karaha-Baruha was totally getting it on with FYI). In the Earth/Wind XI package, it can make the deck build backups extremely fast when you combine Semih Lafina's cost reduction, Star Sibyl's search effect, and Joker's low cost. Plus in Wind decks, Joker can also be reactivated to reduce damage multiple times in one turn. To be honest, most decks Earth/Wind decks would probably rather search out Moogle XI who has the same cost and a potent search S-ability itself, so the best use of this card would be in a deck that runs a lot of hard to remove Brave Forwards in Mono-Earth or Earth Fire builds.
The XV package works particularly well with Joker's effect. The fact that Ignis gives all the other XV car boys Brave makes having Noctis on the field an even stronger defensive play: Because Noctis is given 1K power and Brave, you can use his "fight" mechanic to break an Opponent's Forward and use Joker's ability to reduce the damage Noctis takes to keep him alive. Because Joker can be used on either player's turn, you can also use it to keep Noctis or any other XV Forward with Brave out of range of removal as well. Any deck that has either a card that provides Brave to other Forwards could make good use of Joker as well, like Aegis in Fire/Earth Warrior of Light builds which can stack other forms of damage reduction Like Opus II Light Wol with Joker's effect. A Fire/Earth deck using the Samurai/XIV package not only has Brave cards like Hien and Rhitahtyn, but can also run other Category XI cards like Ayame and Iroha as well.
Finally, any card that can simply give a Forward Brave for a turn can help make Joker's effect easier to use with impunity, such as Momodi and Wol. With Joker's damage reduction effect it can let your Forwards push more aggressively, since even having Joker and one Backup active will make your opponent reluctant to block and turn what would have been an even trade into a one-sided loss for them. Of course, it's important to note that both Wol and Momodi's effects can only be activated on your turn during specific phases, so keep that in mind. That being said, combining these cards with water/earth and Minwu can make your Forwards extremely hard to deal with.
Also on one final note, if Karaha-Baruha is in Opus X (which he totally is going to be), he might just have something to do with Joker which would be pretty cool. All of the Earth Tarutaru backups have a tendency to be insanely good value, and there seems to be a push to finally finish up all of the pre-Promathia XI cards in Opus X, so we'll have to wait until the full set is revealed to see if there are more secrets that Joker holds.
...You know what? I'm gunna go ahead and give myself a pre-emptive half bingo for Karaha-Baruha. We already got half of him here anyway, right?
So that's my spoiler for this set guys! As always major thanks to Square-Enix and Richie Brady for letting me do another one of these reveals. And thanks to all of YOU who for some reason continue to come here to read a floundering Onion Knight's thoughts about cards. I'm looking forward to having more FFTCG content and less broken promises about said content in the future!
Until next time - Keep on Grinding,
