Greetings SeeD candidates in training, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that is participating in "No Burst November" in solidarity with all those brave souls who have ever lost a game they should have won to an EX Burst, and are totally handling it in a healthy and productive way.
Boy howdy it sure has been awhile since last we met here. I even missed doing my usual review of the last set! What did I miss while I was away on Onion sabbatical? Has Glaciela Wezette finally earned the 20 dollar price tag she commands on TCGPlayer? Have they finally banned Bismarck? Is the Morze's Soiree deck still meta, or has everyone just made a gentleman's agreement not to use it anymore?
In all seriousness, I really just needed to take a little bit of a mental health break, which I know must sound hilarious considering I'm talking about the very arduous task of writing about trading cards here. But after running this little dog-and-Chocobo show for the last 4 years, I kind of hit a wall when it came to thinking of stuff to write about. I was also honestly kind of tepid about Rebellion's Call and I couldn't really figure out how to write a good-faith review of the set that didn't boil down to a bunch of weirdly specific issues I personally took with the way certain cards were designed. Sure, I could write a whole article about how much of a missed opportunity it was to not have that one Ranger Backup be a Dancer to give consistency to an actual Tribal deck like Samurai, Dragoons and Monks got, but would anybody read it?
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| Put him in the game you cowards. |
You might not guess it from just how much sarcasm I usually inject into this blog, but I do actually care about writing something that people will get some sort of use out of. And trust me, nothing quite saps the old creative juices quite like sitting down and forcing yourself to try and write something just for the sake of writing something. But hey, who knows? Maybe I can still write something that's both fun and educational without writing a friggin' dissertation every time. And that's why you guys keep coming back here right? To learn stuff?
...
So yeah, anyway, here's a new spoiler from Resurgence of Power.
Quistis, AKA Miss Trepe if you're nasty, hits the scene to take your other Forwards to school. It's been a good while since we've gotten a new Quistis card - or solid category VIII support in general, a fact which I'm constantly reminded of by the curiously high number of the FF8 fans I seem to have in my life. But with two other solid Quistis cards, all you Trepies out there might find yourself hard-pressed to include her in your VIII decks. Of course, that all depends on what other support Category VIII gets this set (a new searcher not named "Rinoa" comes to mind...) but Quistis's entry effect is powerful enough that you may want to rethink how you build those old VIII decks you're dusting off in preparation for the new set.
Removing your opponents choice on which card they have to pitch with a random discard is certainly stronger than regular discard, which might explain why we haven't seen it on too many cards before now (Fun fact: Only 4 other cards in the game before now have Random Discard effects). Since Quistis's effect triggers on attack, cards that can attack more than once are prime targets for her buff. And wouldn't you know it - the new Gilgamesh being introduced in this set also just so happens to be Category VIII! Dealing with two attacks from a 9K power Forward is already going to be difficult for your opponent to deal with, let alone randomly losing two cards from their hand. With more Category VIII cards being introduced in Lightning like Seifer, Fujin, and Raijin, Ice/Lightning might just be the way to go with VIII decks in Resurgence of Power.
Using Quistis's effect in Ice/Wind can also quickly shred your opponent's hand size thanks to cards like Chelinka and Byblos. Turn Byblos into a Forward after Damage 3, then play Quistis to pump him to 9k and play Chelinka to give Byblos Brave and a second attack. With this combo your opponent will be forced to discard 4 cards from their hand, and can also Dull/Freeze 4 Forwards as well, all for only 5 CP. Other cards with on-attack discard effects like Serah or Lasswell are great options to target with Quistis too.
All around, I view Quistis as a long overdue upgrade to Argath from Opus I, sacrificing the instant speed of his discard for more potent random hand disruption that has higher potential to abuse with combos. Topping it all off with the ability to buff up one of your Forwards by 2k, and you've got a versatile new option that fits nicely into discard-heavy Ice decks. Not too shabby for a Common eh?
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| "Who are you calling common??" |
So that's my spoiler for Resurgence of Power! Thanks as always to Square Enix for the opportunity to reveal new cards to the community! And thanks for giving me permission to soft spoil the card early in my latest Bingo! Is it cheating? Absolutely! But after losing the Bingo from Rebellions Call, don't I deserve it?
I swear, that's not the reason why I've been away for so long... haha...
Looks like things are off to a much nicer start this time around though! I'll be eagerly awaiting more card reveals while I prep for our NY local two-deck Title tournament in a few weeks. I'm calling it the "Doom Series" because it's like... you know, a twisted version of the Reraise series? Do you get it?
This rapier wit is why they pay me the big Gil here folks.
Until next time - keep on grinding,
