Hey there all you beautiful rulers of Heaven and Hell, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - the Final Fantasy TCG blog that couldn't quite make the cut for the Wild Rose Rebellion, so I joined the Star Onion Brigade instead.
Merry Spoilermas everyone! Have you all been good boys and girls these past few months? No? Well luckily for you, this beardy fellow still gives out presents regardless of that whole pesky "morality" thing. When it comes to making content about new spoilers, a lot of it comes down to the luck of the draw. Sometimes the card is just so straightforward that it can be difficult to think of anything particularly interesting to write about it. This time however, I have quite a lot to say about the one I was given, so without further ado, take a look at my community spoiler for Crystal Dominion: The Emperor!
We've had a few versions of The Emperor since the Wild West days of Opus I, and several of them to have some kind of floating effect - or the ability replace themselves with another card when they leave the field so you don't lose any resources. In fact this version of the tyrannical ruler from Final Fantasy II is extremely similar to The Emperor (1-185H) from the original set. Both of them have the ability to search out and play another copy of a Card Name The Emperor directly from the deck when they hit the Break Zone, but there are some key differences with the new version that make this one considerably more playable.
For one, not being Dark and the lower cost are considerably better for setting up a floating effect. While the old version of him didn't have a cost restriction on the Emperor that could be played, being limited to playing one of cost 5 or less really doesn't matter since none of the current crop of Emperors cost more than 5 in the first place. Realistically, you could "trade up" to the Dark Emperor with the new version and set up a continuous loop of Emperors, (and we'll get into that more in a little bit...) but the nice thing is that the new card's effect doesn't force the new Forward to come in dull like the old one did.
The second effect is admittedly a bit slow and restrictive, since it has Ice's frustrating restriction of only being able to target dull Forwards. That being said, 8000 damage is usually enough to take out a majority of Forwards, and can be repeated every turn, so if anything it's not a bad piece of utility removal if you really find yourself needing it.
The most notable aspect to this card though is that it can also be used to float into Backups, though for the time being the only option you have is The Emperor (7-134S). The Opus I version could also do this of course - and just as a heads up to any new players out there, Backups will always enter the field dull regardless of if the text specifies it or not. But having this ability on a low-cost Ice Forward gives the element a new way to ramp up resources quicker while still maintaining board presence. Running both the new version and the Backup together as a two-card combo might not be a bad idea for any Ice deck that appreciates having a sticky, hard to remove Forward that can be converted into a Backup.
That being said, I think that we can get a little bit more... inventive with how we make use of this maniacal ruler here. So this time around, I thought it might be fun to go completely off the walls and come up with a deck profile using the new card and more Emperors than you could possibly hope to overthrow. It might not rock the foundations of the meta, but hey, I didn't come here to win. I came here to make friends.
Obviously since the new cards aren't up yet on FFdecks, I used the Lightning Emperor as a placeholder - though if you can find some way to incorporate him into your own deck then hey, more power to you. But I thought it might be cool to use the floating effects of the various Emperor cards to create a Mono-Ice Emperor... tribal deck? What do you even call a deck that revolves around different versions of the same character? A cult deck? In any case, here we're going to be combining Ice's discard effects with a revolving door of Emperors to limit your opponent's options and eventually overwhelm them with a lot of low-cost Forwards.
I always thought that The Emperor from Opus XII was actually a really cool attempt to create a new kind of discard deck, but it may have been too difficult to set up before. The new Emperor from Crystal Dominion actually does quite a bit to grease the wheels of an Emperor Engine though. Play him early and once he's sent to the Break Zone, float him into another copy of himself or the Dark one, then repeat into the Opus XII Emperor. You've already got enough Emperors in the Break Zone to trigger his Discard entry effect. You can keep forcing your opponent to pitch cards every time he's removed since the deck has more than enough Emperors to send to the Break Zone as Fuel to play him back on the field.
You could also take advantage of the fact that these guys are difficult to get rid of. Force them to waste their removal on them only to play another one onto the field, and keep the cycle going until you're ready to play down the Opus XII one.
Of course, you're not much of a Machiavellian tactician without a contingency plan, so the deck also has a few other options of Emperors you can grab. Floating into either of these cards does put an end to your loop, but they can still have their uses. The Opus V Emperor can punish decks that do a lot of searching and drawing by locking up their board, and playing him from the deck makes paying 1 CP for his discard effect much more efficient. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Opus XIV Emperor can give you some extra draw power of your own since the deck runs so few Summons that you'll almost always reveal a Character with his effect.
To the surprise of nobody, Sterne Leonis might actually be the most important card in the deck. What, did you guys think that I was too much of a contrarian to include him in here? Oh no mon frère, even I couldn't resist his dark, princely allure. Sterne seriously provides way too much value to what this deck wants to do to not attempt to play him as early as possible. Getting a discard with cards like Aragth and Palom for only 1 CP is just too darn good. The fact that it makes your Crystal Dominion Emperors even more efficient is icing on the cake.
Playing Emet-Selch cheaper with Sterne Leonis helps you get even more value out of his ability to search and play a Backup from the deck. There are a lot of different utility Backups you can grab with him, like Don Cornero for a discard, Ysayle for a search, or Snow to get free dulls when you swing with your board of smaller Forwards. You can also go for Eduardo if you're ready to go in for the killing blow.
Other Tips:
- You're running a lot of low-power Forwards, so you can catch your opponent off guard by using Shivalry to pump them and get another discard.
- Since you need to have your Break Zone set up, this deck is super vulnerable to Mist Dragon. Edward's Silent Verse S-Ability is essential for cancelling it.
- Be aware that the Emperor's effect specifies that he needs to hit the Break Zone - if he's bounced back to your hand or removed from the game, his effect won't trigger.
- This deck was created by Lv.1 Onion Knight, which is an innate weakness on its own. You've been warned.
So there you have it folks! Another spoiler down. Before you know it, Crystal Dominion will be out and we'll be instantaneously hungry for the next set to come out. Thanks as always to Square Enix for letting this humble little Onion Knight share spoilers with the community.
