Greetings all you denizens of Valisthea, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog whose New Year resolution is to switch over to Materia Hunter.
It's been awhile since I've done a proper review on this blog, and I always feel a bit funny doing them. I usually get them out so far after the set has come out that it doesn't really work as like... an assessment on whether or not I think the set is worth buying. I think all the sets are worth buying, because that means that I have more cards I can play with and more people to play it with. But that doesn't mean I can't think that a set makes some weird choices, or does something exceptionally well, which I always find more satisfying than examining cards as soon as they're revealed.
I guess it makes more sense for me to think of these articles as more of a "retrospective" more so than a review, and use it as a space to discuss things about the set and the current state of the game that I want to talk about. And hey, the next set ain't coming out til the end of March, so I still got a two month span where this card-based stream of consciousness will be relevant. Thank god for reprint sets giving me a buffer!
So without further ado, shut up, sit down, and drink your goddamn TEA!
I don't think it would be too big of a stretch to say that the most notable thing about Hidden Legends is the premier of Final Fantasy XVI cards, which is certainly a far heftier announcement than say, the first cards from Final Fantasy Type-0 side story: The Reaper of the Icy Blade. Unlike Type-0 however, the game designers decided not to give Final Fantasy's newest numbered entry a gigantic middle finger and put what I would consider an exceptional amount of care and attention into the Category XVI cards, especially in how they translated the game's mechanics to the cards.
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| I was going to put 99 out of 100, but judging by the current price of Clives, I think this is more accurate. |
First of all, I don't think that anyone was expecting that out of all the elements, it would be Ice that enables XVI to color fix their decks. Torgal making it so that the Dominant, Eikon, and priming costs can be paid for with any element gives players an enormous amount of flexibility in how they want to build XVI decks. Unlike other decks with rainbow enabling backups like Morze's Soiree, you don't have to cram every single Dominant and Eikon into your deck to get the full benefit out of them, so you have a lot more room to play around with different shells. The ability to either Prime the Dominant into the Eikon or play the two of them separately ensures that the Eikon's aren't dead draws if you don't happen to have their corresponding Dominant. The fact that a primed character shares both the Dominant and Eikon's names also leaves a lot of room for future design of the XVI cards with Special Abilities.
Add to the fact that the Light and Dark options are both incredibly solid, and you can reasonably splash the XVI cards into just about any element and style of deck you'd want to try them out in. Revolving a new keyword around a newly introduced title was an extremely sharp move to be sure. But seeing just how good the XVI cards ended up being, there's one question at the forefront of my mind: Why aren't more cards in the FFTCG designed with this level of thematic cohesion?
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| Are these guys dating? I finally got a PS5, but I've been too busy playing Marvel Rivals to play XVI. |
While I'm sure that there are some weirdos out there who got into this game solely because they just love spending money on random new TCGs, I'd say it's probably a pretty safe bet that most folks started playing because they're a fan of the Final Fantasy games. Your own lovable Onion Knight for example began playing the game because I saw that there are XI cards, and would like to direct anyone who complains about the use of the game screenshots as card art to kindly flush their head in the nearest toilet. But the point stands that people play the FFTCG because there's at least one game in the series they could pick out as their favorite. While I do think that the FFTCG does a good job of including just about any title and spinoff from the game, it sometimes feels like more could be done to bring more of the series to life with more flavorful game mechanics.
It's pretty clear from the nonzero number of Kains and Leons in the game that give control of themselves over to your opponent that the game designers are aware of Final Fantasy lore and aren't afraid of putting an additional line of text on them to make them more thematic to the games, even if that text ultimately ends up being stupid. So if XVI can have their own special priming keyword, why can't we see more unique mechanics that are special to other titles? "Because adding in a new keyword for every game would be way too much to remember" I hear you say. To that I would say that unless they do Leviathan's weird baby Dominant, there will never be more than eight named characters in the FFTCG that can be used with the Priming mechanic. We'll get new versions of those characters and their corresponding Eikons for sure, but if a smaller pool of cards can have a whole new keyword dedicated to it, why not other titles?
While I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who ever visits it these days, the original Final Fantasy TCG Chapters Series Wiki is pretty illuminating when it comes to seeing all the unique keywords and mechanics that didn't transfer over when the game was rebooted back in 2016. While you won't see me shedding any tears over not getting the equipment mechanic, I think there are some things that absolutely could be brought over to the TCG. I think it's great that Final Fantasy VIII finally got a fleshed out category, but one criticism I've heard from players is that much of the game now boils down to "This card plays another card for free", and Squall is pretty much the poster child for this.
Don't get me wrong, mechanically, the self-mill stuff with Edea and the Disciplinary Committee is both unique and effective. But how much of that effect is a good category VIII effect specifically compared to just being a good Lightning effect? Think how much cooler would it be if the Category VIII cards got special effects when they "Junction" with Summons? What if Category X got Summons that could also become Forwards? Or YRP cards that could Dressphere change into different versions of themselves? With so many games, it seems like a lot of the opportunities to make new mechanics has been left on the floor until now.
I understand that as a game that revolves around a multi-color mana system, having strong elemental cohesion is probably what takes priority when making new cards. But the stuff we got in this set in XVI shows that you can have your cake and eat it too when it comes to making cards that are both powerful elemental staples and flesh out categories with mechanically unique effects. If anything, it just makes it all the more head-scratching that 24 sets into the game's life cycle, we're still getting more Leons with brainwashing effects.
It almost feels really weird to think about the fact that Warp cards came out 6 sets ago now, and I think the reason behind that is because so little has been done with it. Normally I wouldn't really think too much to talk about this. After all, it's not like there's a ton of Back Attack cards in the game, and that was introduced as a keyword way back in the FFTCG's second set. But with Hidden Legends introducing a new card that's meant to be a buff to Warp decks, I felt compelled to talk about it here.
If I may go on a tangent for a bit, there are a couple of clunky L-Rarity cards in this set. While I think Hidden Legends is a solid set overall, it also kind of feels like the card designers nutted their hardest with the XVI Legends, then didn't really know what to do with the rest of them. That's not to say that everything besides the XVI L's are bad per say, but that some of them feel as though they were printed for deck that won't be getting solid support for several more sets. We have seen things like that happen in the past - Y'shtola was a bit of a dud on release, only to become more and more broken over time with the release of more Water and Lightning Scion cards. But the fact still stands that the FFTCG can often be hit and miss when it comes to which cards get support and which are left to languish indefinitely.
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I already touched on Leon earlier, who I'm probably more mad about than I should be. Okay, so it's 9K power on a 1 cost body. Cool. Great. But considering that both Warrior and Rebel decks have way better targets that they can play for free with Guy and Taivas, I feel like an L has to do better than just have a low cost and high power. If Leon had an effect that forced him to be chosen by abilities, it could have ended up being a pretty interesting card - a ticking time bomb that you and your opponent keep playing hot potato with.
Hidden Legends also introduced the new Minwu who makes it so that your Rebels can't be chosen by your opponent's abilities, but don't you want him to be targeted so he can deal damage your opponent? Top things off with a restricted ping effect that is highly reminiscent of Duncan (which wasn't even good back in Opus VIII), and you have a card that is neither good enough to be a generic elemental staple, nor specific enough to empower a more niche tribal deck. It's kind of sad that when Rebels/Category II have been hurting for cohesion for so long, the best place I can recommend playing Leon is in a Bartz/Boko deck.
Relm on the other hand is a card that has a very usable effect. While having 4 other characters would normally be fairly big ask, Category VI has some of the strongest cohesion in the game, with an easily accessible Backup line. The ability to play 3 cost monsters from the deck with an auto ability is something no other card in the game can do, giving you access to some fairly juicy targets like Exoray, Scale Toad, and Krysta. At the time of writing this article though, both FFDecks and Materia Hunter both have less than ten decks using the new Relm. Even though I'm writing this months after the set's release, nobody is using her. Of course, why would they when the old Relm from Opus XI blows the new one out of the water in just about every way?
When a card from 13 sets ago feels more like an L than the one from the newest set, it's hard not to compare it unfavorably. I know when the new Relm was revealed, most people thought it was printed because they expect the Opus XI one will soon be banned. But even if that did happen, you would still have a better version of her to run over the Hidden Legends one. Opus XV Relm can search and play any Monster of 5 or less for 2 crystals, so she has access to way more targets without needing to be run in a dedicated Category VI deck. Unlike Warp, the crystal mechanic has seen strong support in recent sets, with cards like Young Excenmille making Opus XV Relm even better. The new Relm is certainly a lot faster, but just so much more limited than either of these older versions.
This finally brings us to Tidus. Unlike Leon or Relm, Tidus's effect is neither bad nor is there any other card that can do what this card does. A 0-cost Forward that provides blanket Summon protection and Haste is the kind of support some other archetypes can still only dream of. The problem with Tidus comes with how Warp has been executed in the game so far.
Coming between Crystals and Limit Breaks, Warp seems to have been a transitional mechanic that started out pretty promising. Being able to save CP by delaying when the card hit the field seemed like it could make for more interesting decisions around how you make your plays. Do you pay the full cost now and put immediate pressure on your opponent? Or do you save CP this turn for a bigger payoff later? However, Warp cards currently have a lot going against them.
For one, less and less Warp cards have been printed in recent sets. Two Warp cards in Hidden Legends certainly seems sparse, but it's the same amount that came out in Hidden Trials, with Hidden Hope having a whopping zero. It makes some degree of sense that the three sets introducing the much bigger and more exciting mechanic of Limit Breaks would scale back on stuff like Warp, but that goes out the window when you consider that we've also gotten tons of really strong Crystal support in the "Hidden" trilogy.
Second, for reasons I can't begin to comprehend, the Warp effect is placed on the Stack. Specifically, removing the Warp token on the turn they enter the field is considered an an auto ability, making it vulnerable to being cancelled by Amat. This causes the effect to "miss timing", preventing the Forward from ever hitting the field at all. Priming on the other hand takes place outside of the stack, so like EX bursts, you can't respond to triggering the Priming once the cost has been paid. You can absolutely respond to the Eikon's auto-ability once it's played onto the field, but why is Warp - an effect that takes place in the hand then removes the card from the game - vulnerable because the token removal is an auto ability?The Final Fantasy Crystarium does a way better job breaking down why Warp works the way it does, but whatever, I still think it's stupid. The mechanic, not the Crystarium. Those folks are here doing the lord's work.
The thing is, as they are now, I don't think that Warp cards are inherently bad. We've seen some very playable Warp cards become staples in some highly competitive decks. I'm just not confident that the card designers really know what they want Warp cards to do - other than the fact that they really wanted to port the Suspend mechanic from MTG.
Most Warp cards aren't designed in a way that gives you the option of playing them immediately. Cards like Teodor and Ramza have such a prohibitively high printed cost that you would be very unlikely to cast them - and in the case of the former, Teodore's text discourages you from casting him if you want the extra discard. Golbez gives a big boost to Archfiends, but you'd be losing the deck's main engine if you didn't Warp him. The Emperor flat out does nothing if you hard cast him. Again, I want to reiterate that these are all really powerful cards, but that the Warp mechanic is a lot less flexible than it could have been.
The real power of Warp doesn't seem to be that it saves you CP. It's that you can get a powerful effect if you're willing to wait. But the effect *really* has to be powerful enough to justify using it. They also need to have a short enough wait time where they're not too slow, which is why most of the most played Warp cards tend to have a timer of two turns or less, or have a way of removing their Warp tokens through their own effects. The only other way of removing Warp tokens is through Vayne and Cid II (which is weirdly the third Cid backup that does something with tokens). With Tidus being yet another Warp card in Wind, that does somewhat limit the flexibility of Warp cards.
Tidus having a Warp cost of Zero does mean you could splash him into whatever element deck you like, but the biggest problem with Tidus isn't his cost or his effect. It's the fact that he is meant to support the Warp archetype while also being a Warp card himself. Having a Warp timer of 5 that reduces every time another card's counter gets removed is kind of klunky. You want to give your other Warp cards coming in Haste, but you also need to play enough other Warp cards to get Tidus out faster. You'd need at least two other Warp cards (or one Warp card with Vayne) to get Tidus out in a minimum of two turns. Weirdly enough, I feel like the best use of Tidus is not to even bother with his Warp effect. Just hard cast him the turn before your other cards come in. He'd grant his buffs to himself even if you didn't Warp him in.
Just like I don't think Leon, Relm, and Tidus are inherently trash cards with no hope of improving in future sets, I don't think Warp is a bad mechanic. It's just one that seems to have been given considerably less focus in recent sets. It certainly took them quite a long time to finally find their footing with things like Party attacks, and it's great when older cards to get new life breathed into them. But for every Y'shtola, there are an increasingly growing pile of archetypes and mechanics desperate for support, only for set after set to pass by with them gathering dust. If you're going to take up an L slot that's meant to give support to the Warp mechanic, then maybe there should be more than 5 cards with that mechanic printed in the last year of releases.
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| Clarinet Tidus is the most playable Tidus from this set, and he's a Common. |
With my last set review being from Beyond Destiny, I realized that one of the things I haven't talked about yet are Limit Breaks. Considering that not having LB's would put you at a serious disadvantage, I think it's safe to say that LB's are much more impactful than Warp has been. But aside from being an increasingly growing number of things you're obligated to carry around with you, what has the state of Limit Breaks been over the past three sets?
Well for one, they appear to have been an indirect way of handicapping Wind by giving them the arguably the worst ones. Unless they suddenly start printing a bunch of 10-cost Forwards that you can break with Deathgaze, Wind LB's suffer compared to other elements for being super specific and niche. Like it's almost laughable to think that Leo and Yuri are the same rarity, when one can (and probably should) be played in any deck running water, and the other one requires you to run not just another specific named card, not just a card of 2 or less, but a Forward as well. It's really weird to me that Yuri can't just play any Chelinka, especially since being able to play the Opus XI Backup would help his his requirement to get 5 Backups, but truth be told, I'm not even sure that would be worth it just so you could have a 5-cost 8k Forward. But weirdly enough, I think that the same thing that make Wind's LB's so bad makes certain other LB's so much fun - their specificity.
Aside from the aforementioned Yuri and Mont Leonis, the LB's introduced two sets ago were all broad enough that you could realistically run them with any deck that shared their element. While I think that it's important to have flexible LB's, if every new one was a one-size-fits all based on their element, it would quickly become predicable what every LB deck would run. Older LB's would just end up getting replaced by newer, better staples, and LB decks would be stuck in a rut of continually escalating power creep. While I don't think we'll be seeing the end of Leo or Tidus any time soon, I am glad that as more LB's have come out, we're seeing a healthy balance of generic elemental staples and ones that compliment more specific decks.
I think that the LB's I find most exciting are, to the surprise of no one who's familiar with this blog, the ones that are for specific Tribal decks. Samurai quickly became one of my favorite decks back in Opus XI when they became the one deck that saved me from the onslaught of the old Marche/Ritz meta, so seeing them get a new, extremely powerful Limit Break this set was incredibly satisfying - and it's an XI character to boot! Friggin *swoon*! With the Opus XII Tenzen still being one of the most powerful cards you can run in Samurai decks, you could have been forced to choose between which of the two cards you chose to run. But I think that this particular card really showcases how Limit Breaks can deal with one of the biggest issues players have when deck building: Name clash.
Having LB's in their own separate deck rather than something that you draw into over the course of the game makes it a lot easier to run cards with the same name. If the new LB Tenzen were a regular card, you would have to pitch it to generate CP if you already had the Opus XII Tenzen on the field. But because you can choose when you want to cast your LB cards, you now have two "versions" of Tenzen that you can play out at specific points in the game - Opus XII Tenzen for early game to help build up your board with Samurai, and LB Tenzen after you've set up mid-to-late game. Once you have Cyan on the board, LB Tenzen giving all your Samurai two attacks can make quick work of your opponent's board. The added power boost and Brave is a definitely gilding the lilly a bit, but it also makes it so that smaller Samurai like Iroha or Gosetsu can attack with less risk of them being broken by a bigger blocker. Somebody even ran this in an Earth deck at Worlds 2024, using Hashmal to give their Forwards the Samurai job. Is that weird as hell? Absolutely. But just so, so cool.
Now do I think Warriors of Light needed a Limit Break when they're one of the most powerful archetypes in the game? Hell friggin' no. But while I do think it would have been cooler if Warrior of Light was a Dragoon specific LB (I see you out there, Goon Squad), his stipulation that you can only cast him with 3 Warrior of Light or Standard Unit Forwards makes this both very specific and yet still incredibly flexible. Since most Dragoons are standard units, you absolutely could use this in a Water/Lightning Dragoon deck.
I'm currently running LB Warrior of Light in my Dancer deck. Admittedly, the Dancers themselves don't really need WoL's anti-targeting effect when you already have Mayakov, but reducing the damage taken by abilities to zero gives them an added layer of protection from AoE wipes like Susano, and gives you a little more breathing room if you don't happen to have a Lilisette in hand for a Climactic Flourish. Also since WoL's effect protects all of your Forwards and not just Standard Units or Warriors of Light, you can protect key cards like Cecil who wouldn't normally be protected by Mayakov. I'm still hopeful that we'll get a Dancer-specific LB in the future, just please god, make it anyone but Lilisette.
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| It's just too many climaxes for one deck. |
Snow is not the sort of LB that will find its way into most Ice decks. The thing is, he's kind of like what Yuri could have been. Serah and Lightning are the cornerstone cards in most XIII-centric decks. In spite of all the support that Category XIII has received in recent sets, a truly mandatory Snow hasn't been included in the party lineup. Being able to side-deck a searcher for two different cards is both very specific and remarkably flexible, and the reason why it works is because of how many strong targets he has.
Since he searches for any card name Lightning or Serah, you can even grab a Backup if you need to ramp up early. The Ice, Water, and Earth Lightning (wow, that felt weird to type) also make sure that you have tons of different Lightnings you'd want to grab even outside of dedicated XIII decks. By contrast, there is currently one good Chelinka who is not a target for Yuri, a situational one that is a target, and one that isn't worth running over the others even in a FFCC deck. Look I know I'm dunking a lot on the Yuri LB here, but it really was a super strange choice for him to work that way.
Hidden Legends also introduces the first multi-element LB cards, and I'm a bit torn on these. Multi-element cards are meant to have extra powerful effects, with the restriction that they must be played with all of the correct elements - if you cast them from your hand anyway. A lot of the most played Multi-element cards can usually be cheated out with other effects that play cards, which is why cards like Warrior of Light are so cracked. It's really easy to socket powerful Multi-elements into just about any deck so long as you have a means of cheating them out.
Limit Breaks have no way of cheating them out, so you're a bit more restricted in how you can use them. I think the lower cost Multi-element LB's from this set are the more successful because they offer more flexibility to not only what effect they provide, but when you can play them. Tonberry, Iron Giant, and Vajradhara-Wu can be valuable at any point in the game, and having a modal effect to choose from makes them the most versatile LB's we've seen so far. By contrast, the Ur-Dragon King, Ultima Weapon, and Magnum Dong are much more restrictive.
The intention behind these three is clearly to be a sort of "big boss" for LB decks running those two colors, but I don't particularly like how you need to meet a character count to be able to get both of their effects off. The Ur-Dragon king costs a whopping 9 CP, so you'd really better make sure you have the requisite numbers to get both of his effects off. Don't get me wrong, you're absolutely going to run these LBs in any deck that priorities those two elements, and I think it's totally fine to have LBs that are more meant to be late-game closers. I just wish you didn't have to dedicate quite so much effort to making these guys pop off.
So what is it that I actually prefer? More niche, deck-specific LBs, or more flexible LBs that can be splashed into a wider variety of decks? Well, if I had to choose, I'd say I prefer LB's that are "specifically flexible". I really hope we see more Tribal specific LB's like the upcoming Golbez that can help breathe new life into existing decks, but I still think I prefer Snow's approach to how LB's work, where it's very specific but can still find a home in a lot of different decks. I don't know if that answer made any sense, but I gotta keep some of the mystery alive in this parasocial reader-blogger relationship. After all, a secret makes a woman, woman.
I actually had a bit of a challenge thinking up what exactly I wanted to say about Hidden Legends. XVI gets top billing, and rightfully so given that it's the newest numbered entry in the franchise. The XVI cards are exceptionally well designed, and the individual Eikons and Dominants are all strong enough that they've quickly become elemental staples, even if you don't want to run a dedicated XVI deck. I truly want to give the card designers credit here for a job well done implementing the Priming mechanic, and I hope we see this level of care with card design in the future.
However, Hidden Legends is also the set that I've probably spent the least amount of time building decks with. Besides the XVI stuff, there really weren't many cards that excited me enough to really want to build new decks around, or even modify my existing ones with. Your mileage may very depending on the types of decks you build, but to me, Hidden Legends feels like bits and pieces of other archetypes and titles were all kind of crammed together to pad out the XVI stuff.
The Crystal mechanic probably gets the best support with the FFBE and SOPFFO stuff, and while the former definitely gets more cohesion in terms of being able to reasonably play them all in one deck, cards like Jack Garland and The Emperor are solid Crystal cards. But you also have a bunch of support for titles and archetypes that feel random at best, and incomplete at worst. Basch is a great card for XII decks, and the fact that his effect can draw into two of the most powerful Summons in the game - Cu Sith and Cuchulainn is a huge point in his favor. But there's also next to no real XII support in this set.
There are dribs and drabs of support for titles like II, VI, and X, but nowhere near the level of cohesion that XVI got. Genesis is a great addition to SOLDIER decks, but what the hell is he doing in this set with no other job SOLDIERs to play him with? If anything this set feels like a nightmare to play in sealed, since quite a few of the Legends in this set would be dead pulls.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not under the impression that every single card needs to be a piece to a greater engine, and that if they're not, it's a waste of space in a set. Takatsugu does jack all to support Cadets, but he's an exceptionally good card for fire decks, especially since many of the best Fire 2-costs you can play with his effect are also Multi Elements like Zidane and Firion. I guess it's just a stark point of comparison for the rest of the cards in this set when the XVI stuff works so well at supporting so many different kinds of decks. Considering that pulling one Legendary Clive can net you anywhere between a third to half the price of a booster box though, it seems that going all-in on XVI support paid off big time.
And hey speaking of booster boxes...
I didn't end up doing a bingo for the last set (and even if I did, let's be honest, I don't think I would have gotten a complete row with how random this set was), but I still want to get back in the swing of doing raffles like I used to. So this time around, I'll be raffling away a booster box of Hidden Legends. What better way to show my appreciation for the FFTCG community than to let them gamble on the chance to pull a foil Clive?
Here's how you can enter the raffle:
Raffle Rules:
1) In order to be eligible for the raffle, you must complete the survey I'll be linking below. Your entry makes you eligible to win the sealed box of Hidden Legends. 2) The contest is open to both local and international fans, so if you don't happen to be from the US, don't sweat it! I will be in contact with the winners to discuss shipping arrangements. 3) The Raffle submission period will go for one month from the post date of this blog (February 6th), until Friday, February 28th at 8PM EST. I'll announce the winners on Facebook. 4) I will contact the winner via the email they submit in the survey. If I do not hear back from a winner in one week, I will choose another winner at random, so be sure to submit an email that you check often! Enter the Raffle Here!! |
My thanks again to everyone who reads this blog. It's pretty wild to think that I've been doing this since 2017, and the game has shown no signs of slowing down yet. Take that everyone who said the game was dead because Tifa wasn't a Monk or whatever the hell people complained about back then. Good luck to everyone who enters the raffle. In the meantime, I'll be playing more Marvel Rivals finally getting around to playing XVI so I can see who the best ships are.
Until next time - Keep on grinding,
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