Hello again Adventurers, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that actually studied at the University of Argus with the Onion Knight from Final Fantasy III. One of us went on to save the worlds of Light and Darkness from the forces of evil, and the other writes blog articles about card games, so you tell me which one of us really got our money's worth there.
Well well, would you look at that? Our good friends at Square Enix have let me reveal an Onion Knight card for the second set in a row! With no other Onion Knight themed FFTCG bloggers out there, I suppose I was the logical choice for this - though I'm starting to think they might actually be trying to imply something about my choices by having me spoil Onion Knights who have achieved the ultimate jobs of Sage and Ninja. "This is what you could be if you actually applied yourself"! Yeah yeah, hint taken guys.
So while I'm here trying not to stab myself with shuriken and practicing my best Naruto run to achieve maximum speed, let's take a look at my spoiler for Rebellion's Call - Onion Knight (17-044R), aka "the new Ninja one".
While the Sage Onion Knight from the last set was about bringing draw power to an element that doesn't normally get much of it, the Ninja Onion Knight combines combat tricks with value generation. At first glance, his Dull ability to bounce himself back to the hand to play a Forward of cost 3 or 4 (and remember, that's EXACTLY 3 or 4, rather than 3 or less.) seems like the most notable effect of this card. And don't get me wrong, it IS quite good! But like all good Ninjas, this one has a few tricks up his sleeves that make him a flexible piece of utility for a variety of different decks.
Right off the bat, this card bears an obvious resemblance to Esha'ntarl from Opus XII since they both have the ability bounce themselves back to the hand in order to "trade up" for a more valuable Forward. Unlike Esha'ntarl though, Onion Knight doesn't have any restriction on when you can use his effect, so you can use his effect to flash something in on your opponent's turn. Onion Knight also has the advantage of having an entry effect, letting you make a Forward unable to attack or block until the end of the turn.
This effect is actually surprisingly versatile. Effectively, it means that so long as you have Onion Knight in your hand, you'll always have the ability to completely ignore one of your opponent's Forwards for 2 CP. The former part of the effect seems like it would be useless, since why would you care if a Forward can attack on YOUR turn? However, it's actually the perfect target for Phoenix (3-020H). Not only does casting Phoenix during your opponent's turn let you use Onion Knight as a combat trick to stop a potential attack, the fact that it plays Onion Knight straight onto the field from the Break Zone means that you also skip the waiting period to use his Action Ability once it becomes your turn again.
He's also an excellent option to use with the card everybody loves to hate, Bismarck, Lord of the Mists. Onion Knight's ability to bounce himself will trigger Bismarck's draw effect, and lets you play something like Zidane for free, with Onion Knight replacing the card you just lost from your hand. Then you can use Bismarck to bounce Zidane back to your hand at the end of the turn, so you can set up the whole shebang again next turn. To add more salt to the wound, every time you play the Onion Knight to the field, something can't block. If you choose to do this though, do your best not to feel too smug about it or anything. Try and look extra guilty about it, saying things like "oh I'm so sorry! this must be a super unfun interaction for you!" Maybe that way, you won't actually be responsible for Bismarck getting banned next.
Much like his Sage counterpart, Onion Knight's job being both Ninja and Warrior of Light presents some interesting opportunities when it comes to the decks he can be used in. I already spoke about Warriors of Light in my last spoiler reveal so I won't be going over them today. Just know that there are plenty of good ways to use the new Onion Knight in that archetype - being able to play Faris for free from your hand without having to worry about color fixing being one of the most notable uses. The job also lets the Luneth Backup give him Haste to skip the turn you'd need to wait otherwise. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't the most excited to talk about Ninjas today.
The new Yugiri that was revealed for Rebellion's Call is also an excellent card to play using Onion Knight's effect (or to play with Izayoi's effect for that matter - she's just an excellent new addition to the Ninja deck in general). Yugiri's search can grab any Card Name or Job Ninja rather than just Forwards, so you have a pretty wide range of options you can go for depending on what you need. Using Onion Knight's effect to cheat out Yugiri and then going for her search also ensures that you have two Ninja cards in your hand, so you can use her discard effect to break a Forward as soon as she hits the field.
