Spoiled Onions - Summoner

 

Greetings to all the Standard Units out there, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG Blog that can only summon one thing, and that's the deep feeling of regret. 

Boy howdy it sure has been a long time hasn't it? Longer than my already very sparse content schedule has been over the years in any case. Unfortunately, I've been dealing with some health issues that, as of the time of writing this, have yet to be resolved, or even properly identified - fun stuff! But spoiler season waits for no man, so I'm here to share a new card from Beyond Destiny with you: Summoner!

Standard Units are usually pretty hit and miss, especially ones that aren't connected to a pre-existing tribal archetype like Monks, Samurais, or Ninjas. Thankfully this one here is pretty good! It's actually somewhat similar to Terra in terms of cost and effect. For 4CP, you can search for a Wind Summon from your deck. Then, when you cast any Summon regardless of element, Summoner gets a boost of 2000 power. 

Much as I've been the Anti-Wind guy on this blog over the years, it's hard to deny that this new Summoner would be a good fit for decks that cast a lot of cheap Summons, like Storm decks. Summoner can help you search out your combo pieces faster so you can get your cast count for cards like Luso or Locke or my personal favorite, Lehko Habhoka. Bouncable with Bismarck, yadda yadda yadda... Look, if you do that, then do at least try and act apologetic about it. Give your opponent a token grimace or something. 

Summoner's power boosting effect can be useful when combined with Lulu. Because both Summoner and Lulu's effects trigger when a Summon is cast, attacking with Summoner means that there's always a threat that any of your opponent's Blockers will have their power reduced to 5000. And since Summoner gains 2000 power, you'll always be stronger than the Forward being targeted by Lulu. Just remember Lulu's effect only triggers during your turn! 

Summoner's power boosting effect isn't limited to your turn though. And even though you can only search for a Wind summon, you'll get the extra 2k for any Summon you cast. You can get some extra bang for your buck with combat-trick Summons like Titan, Belias, and Shivalry. Summoner's power boosting effect certainly seems less significant than giving Wind decks the ability to search for Summons. However, you can catch your opponent off guard with some creative combos, or chain multiple smaller summons together to ensure that you always have a big attacker on the field.

I feel like this Garnet was really ahead of its time when it came out in Opus XI, but now it's starting to find a more steady footing. And by that I mean I've seen a handful of decks running it instead of absolutely none, but in decks with a large count of high-cost Summons, you can make some really explosive plays with her. I ran her in a Water-Ice FFVI deck and nothing is more satisfying than slapping down Ark for free. She also works quite nicely with Summoner, since her action ability still counts as "casting" the Summon. Every cast pumps up Summoner and gives you a Summon Counter for Garnet, so you can always threaten to make Summoner even bigger.  

And that's another spoiler down! Thanks so much to the fine folks at Square Enix for letting me have this opportunity! And it wouldn't be a new set without a Bingo, would it? 

Beyond Destiny is already shaping up to be a very interesting set so far. From what I can see, it looks like it's not only introducing a new category, but giving attention to some archetypes that have needed some TLC for quite some time now. I mean, actual real Type-0 Cadet support? Did hell just freeze over? Plus it looks like Warriors are getting some help with cards like Taivas (the Hot Beard Man on our bingo board FYI). Who knows? Warrior/Rebels may actually be GOOD! A man can dream can't he? 

Unfortunately with how I've been feeling, I wasn't quite up for doing a review and raffle for Dawn of Heroes. I do have a prize waiting and ready to go, so with any luck I'll be up to doing some longer format content again soon. This has honestly been a pretty rough time for me, but it would have been a lot harder without my local group of friends from the FFTCG community to help me get through it. I'm still not out of the woods yet, but hopefully soon I'll be back to my plucky Onion Knight self soon. 

What cards are you hoping to see in Beyond Destiny? For my personal well being, I really hope it's some good FF8 cards. Otherwise I'm never going to hear the end of it, but that's the risk you take on when you're dating a diehard Squall fan. 

Until next time - keep on grinding,