Happy Prerelease Weekend! A Noob's Deck Build Ideas for Opus IX Legends

Hey Folks, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog whose biggest source of controversy with this game is how the hell I'm going to get the rest of those damn elemental dice. 

With only a few more days until the official prerelease, the transitional period between new set metas is always an exciting time, but it can also be a fairly frustrating one too. You see, whenever new cards are spoiled there's always this bizarre phenomenon that occurs where there's a frenzied rush to declare whether or not cards will see end up seeing play in pre-existing decks rather than what new decks could be built around them. 

Now to be clear, I'm not saying that I take issue with people having open discussion about what they think about new cards and whether or not they think they'll be impactful based on the information we have available to us - That's a natural part of any major TCG set release, because it's how we as players engage with both old and new cards to define the upcoming meta. 

What I'm talking about here though is when cards are reviewed in a vacuum based off of theoretical card 1 v 1 situations (x card is bad because y card exists and will always be in your opponents deck and usable immediately with no counter measures available to you) or knee jerk reactions based off what the player base at that moment in time considers to be good value (such as people dismissing cards like Nidhogg and Veritas in prerelease set reviews because of their high printed cost) and branded as good or bad with the absolute and solemn severity of a jury on a murder trial. 

Reading some of the sassy comments about cards and it's like I'm back on the Drag Race Reddit.

Now of course, no card is immune from criticism, and sometimes just aren't very good in the end and that's absolutely fine. It's impossible for every card in a set to be a new 3-of staple in every deck of their respective element. You won't find any arguments that Palom-L is a wrongly maligned gem here. But I guess it's extra frustrating during prerelease season since we don't actually have all of the information about what will be released in the set, so a card that looks bad on paper might gain a piece of support from a source that hasn't been revealed or had the opportunity to test out yet. As much as Nidhogg was the linchpin card of VIceKings, it's the combination of Opus VI Rinoa (who wasn't spoiled until the entire set was shown if I recall correctly) and an unassuming Rare card in the form of Leila that supports that deck. 

Also judging cards in a vaccum can be pretty difficult since you're always going to have 49 other cards in any deck that can help cover the shortcomings of a card or help set up an engine for the deck. So today I figured I would take a look at some combo and deck building ideas for some of the new Legends in Opus IX! 

Being that this article is coming out so close to the release of the set, its entirely probably that this whole thing will be made obsolete very quickly, but I wanted to take a little time to get the ball rolling with some constructive speculation that might be a good starting point for deck ideas. It's also likely that I'm totally off about how effective these cards will end up being. In that case, if you the reader take it as a personal point of pride that you were correct that a card was trash before you even played it, you can always print out this certificate and hang it up on your fridge to let everybody know you were right all along. 

Of course, doing that still won't get you the pleasure of hearing me admit that I was wrong about any of this. You see kids, the way to guarantee that you're never wrong about anything is to never have an opinion any stronger than "I dunno, maybe this could work." You're welcome.

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Vayne

 

Vayne is one of the Opus IX spoilers that was probably the most hotly contested, with half of the playerbase thinking that he was an insanely powerful card with crazy board wipe potential, and the other half thinking he was unplayable garbage because he costs 5 and has too many opportunities to break him and waste the CP spent on him before the effect goes off. 

Wossy Plays actually did a really great job of breaking down both sides of this argument in a video way more informative than anything I could ever muster, so I'll try not to repeat too much of what he discussed there. The fact that Diabolos is one of the most popular Summons in the game right now is definitely problematic... or at least it would be if Ice didn't have an unusual amount of ways to deal with Summons. 

Edward and Celes in particular are cards that have seen a lot of play in Ice decks, and just their presence on the board is enough to make your opponent think twice about paying for an expensive Summon to dispose of Vayne, regardless of if you actually have another copy of them in your hand to pay for their S abilities. Summoner on the other hand, is a bit more awkward to use than similar negation backups like Layle or Cait Sith, but has the benefit of cancelling any Summon regardless of the cost. By the way, speaking of Earth cards... 

 

I get that this combo is a meme at this point but baby, when it's right, it's right. 

Because Tama doesn't have an "only on your turn" restriction like Star Sibyl, you can wait until your opponent isn't in a position to respond to Vayne's effect, such as just before the end of their turn when they've dulled all of their backups. Because Vayne's effect triggers at the end of the turn, played with Tama it skips the waiting period that leaves him vulnerable to removal and reduces the likelihood that your opponent will have the CP to pay to prevent their forwards from breaking. 

Tama aside, I think Vayne could be a key piece in a new kind of Ice/Earth build that focuses around "tax" effects, with cards like Undead Princess, the Flan Suite, and perhaps even finally bring the FFTA cards like Cid Randell, Remedi, and Babus into the limelight. Combined with Ice's natural access to discard, you can manipulate your opponent's resources easily and keep them on their toes with their CP management. 

...

OH AND ALSO MIST DRAGON!  

Other Options with Vayne:

• Ice Version of Porom for cheap Backup manipulation. 
• Ice/Wind builds with cards like Zidane-H, Miounne, and Y'shtola to limit your opponents removal options. 

Wol 

 

So if Vayne was the most debated Legend of Opus IX, Wol was the most outright loathed upon its reveal. At first I was a little confused by this card too, since it has an odd color restriction and does nothing until it's sent to the Break Zone where it does 9k to an opponent's Forward of your choice. The immediate comparisons to Xande and Veritas were made, a point which was yet again covered by another FFTCG content producer, Alex Scott in their great article about Wol for The Mysidia Post.

I think that one of the traps that people fall into when they evaluate new cards prior to release is that they compare it to pre-existing cards with similar effects without taking into consideration the support that it might have thanks to its Job, Category, or Element. I think that's what separates this Wol from Veritas or Xande, in that Warrior of Light currently has a lot of support for it, with stuff like Aigis and the FFIII power boosters, Sarah (Mobius) for recursion, and Opus II Legend Warrior of Light to make him harder to kill. Unlike cards like Yuri and Veritas that can be splashed into a wider variety of decks, Wol would need to be played in a Warrior of Light specific deck.

The biggest problem is that there are already 2 other cards named Wol that already do a very good job in Warrior of Light decks, and one of those is one of the most powerful cards in the game right now... 

I'm going to go out on a limb and be a crazy person for a second and say that both of the Light Wols might be a little bit more useful in a dedicated Fire/Earth or multi-color Warrior of Light Tribal Deck than the Earth one is, funnily enough. With Aigis giving a blanket Brave effect and the opportunity to have multiple anthem cards like Ingus, Luneth, and Lyse that affect all of your Forwards, the two most used of Wol's 4 effects become a bit of a moot point unless your opponent has a board full of 12k Forwards, which tends to be unlikely - the No EX bursts and dull ping effects are still very useful though. 

Of course, you could also run the new Wol in any other combination of decks, like Wind/Water or Fire/Wind so there's less of a conflict, but not running Opus IX Wol in Earth cuts off a lot of his access to things like Sarah (Mobius) and Hecatonchier, but also the card that probably works best with it - Magic Pot. 

Oh Magic Pot... everybody thought you were going to break the game when you came out in Opus IV and you landed with an unimaginably loud thud instead. And before you ask, yes you can use Magic Pot to get around Wol's color restriction requirement, since it still functions the same way as cards like Opus VIII Bahamut or 3 CP Estinien which can be cheated in by cards that bypass the "Can only be played" requirement, unlike Livia whose requirement is checked by her Enter the Field effect, but we'll get back to her a bit later. 

Setting up a Magic Pot and playing either of the two Light Wols puts your opponent into a rough spot, since both of them have effects that trigger and give you a decently large advantage - for example you can sacrifice Opus V Light Wol with Magic Pot to block an attack or effectively fizzle an ability/summon and bring in an aggressive attacker that is harder to remove and play a 3 CP or less Warrior of Light from the break zone onto the field, and vice versa. 

That being said the reason I actually kind of like the new Light Wol is because he's similar in function to 5 CP Fire Cloud in that it slows down aggressive removal and forces your opponent to have to think twice about breaking it. Veritas does this as well, though I think because of all the Warrior of Light support we have and will most likely continue to get in future sets combined with a lower cost and over curve body, in the right deck Opus IX Wol might be a better choice than Veritas. Maybe. Don't quote me on that. 

Other Options with Wol: 

• "Mono Light" used to be a thing back in the day apparently, so playing him with with Cosmos, Warrior of Light-L, Rain, and/or Yuri with Ultima the High Seraph as a board wipe that leaves you with Forwards. Playing with Earth support lets you run Tilika to pitch excess Light cards for CP too.
• The aforementioned Cloud in Fire based builds since it builds a board of large bodies that are tough to deal with if your opponent has nothing to remove them from the game. The new Backup Shadow can make those removals -really- hurt too.

 

Yiazmat 

 

I don't know if Yiazmat was a particularly contentious card other than the fact that instead of the Mobius artwork, people see a big gigantic number nine taking up most of the space on the card there. Either way he's got a sick EX burst, and decently relevant modal effects, but I think this guy currently suffers from "What do I take out to play this" syndrome since Mono Wind currently has a pretty decent Boss Monster in the form of Fina-L. He can certainly give you back huge returns if he manages to stay alive, which is always the tricky part. I think that because of this, Yiazmat might be served best in Wind/Water builds instead, using water's natural drawing ability to help pay his large cost similar to VIcekings. What would you call this sort of deck then? WIkings? Whatever.

Using Lunafreya is a way to protect your Yiazmat from opposing Diaboloses or other removal (at least on your opponent's turn), while also having the nasty effect of replaying him on to the field and retriggering his entry effect and lets you use another effect as soon as it becomes your next turn. Plus in Water/Wind you have a lot of other options you can use this on, like Cloud of Darkness or Y'shtola, the latter of which is also great protection for your big boy and reduces your opponent's options for removing Yiazmat. 

While Aerith doesn't necessarily combo with Yiazmat to do anything in particular, unless there's a sudden upsurge in people playing Opus VIII Bahamut, it makes it very hard to deal with using anything other than insta-break cards. I like using Aerith over Minwu in this case because she lets you reactivate your backups on death, making her a good target for Veritas/Famfrit selection removals. And as we all know, Wind loves having the ability to reactivate forever. 

Oh hi Yuri, you heard me say "reactivate forever" and showed up right? I don't really think I need to explain the appeal of using Yuri with Yiazmat, since you can stack the order that you use his abilities with when Yiazmat's Main Phase effect triggers to effectively use Yuri four times if your backups are stacked right in Wind/Water. 

Other Options with Yiazmat: 

• I used to run a Water/Wind YRP deck that used Garnet-S, Light Yuna, Opus VI Astrologian, and a bunch of draw summons like Pupu and Moogle. It was really fun and you ended up drawing a lot, but I felt like it needed a "Big Finisher" to take advantage of it personally. Maybe adding Yiazmat would be a solution to that?  
• I wanna say that maybe using this with the new Backup Water Ultimecia could also be pretty spicy if you can stack the deck in your favor using cards like the new XII Standard Unit Moogle Forward. 

 Nael

Nael seems to be another card people are split about, though I personally like her (Yes, it's a her. Do your research!) for Fire as a game-ender with the potential to be a super efficient threat that lets you play multiple Meeths or other non-standard unit  backups with one-time effects. Luckily she's not dependent on needing to have the other Garlean Generals, or a particular element of backups for her effect, so she can be put into a lot of different decks. 

That being said I do want to try using her in Fire/Lightning because there's a lot of other Category XIV Forwards that could make for a really aggressive, Forward heavy deck, particularly combining the Generals with XIV/XI Samurai builds. 

   

I'm kind of curious about how well this combo will play out, since the Generals don't really seem to have a whole lot in common with eachother, unlike the Earth/Lightning Scions that all seamlessly play together. I do like the idea of Gauis's ping effect getting boosted to 4k with Iroha, and the fact that he can search and play Rhitahtyn to potentially take out an 8k while building up a board is interesting, and with Hien and other Samurai, it makes having a wide board with a few Brave attackers harder to deal with. You could even throw in Yugiri to finish off another Forward with Gaius' ping and potentially clear the board to give her haste. The only thing that throws me for a loop is Livia... 

I don't know what it is about this card that makes me think that there might be something more to the Generals build other than the fact that her enter the field ability not being bypassable by stuff like Al-Cid combined with a weirdly clunky restriction and Nero's "other element than Lightning" effect... I don't know, it makes me feel like something is missing from this archetype that we haven't seen in the set yet, but that may be me being overly hopeful. She's really big for a 3 cost, so it may just be that was their way to "balance" the card... that you can effectively only play with 3 different color backups... I dunno. Maybe we'll get some kind of backup that does some kind of color fixing for the Garlean Generals and makes Livia playable or something like that. 

Golbez is another strange card that implies a few things about the type of deck that you're running. Namely that you're running a deck that is very Forward heavy and that is simultaneously running several different versions of Golbez to get the biggest bang for your buck with Double Meteor. Maybe this is meant to be another addition to a Golbez deck or something, but I'm kind of toying with the idea of running him in a deck that stacks more Forwards, and could potentially get Nael and Gaius out for very cheap. The only problem is that he also suffers from "a 5 cost that does nothing the turn that he enters and without haste support your opponent has ample opportunities to break him" combined with the fact that even with the investment you can get screwed if you reveal anything but a Forward. I dunno, was just something I was thinking about with either a Forward Heavy or All Forwards deck... Probably better to stick to XIV support tho. 

Other Options with Nael: 

• Because Gaius and Nael have high costs, a Garlean General deck could potentially benefit from running the new 7CP Fusoya with them to get a bigger ping with his draw effect, while also allowing you to run a few off color summons in the deck. 

Azure Dragon l'Cie Soryu 

 

It's kind of funny that both of the Ice Legends in Opus IX can be critiqued in the same ways, in that they're both 5 drop 9k Forwards that are vulnerable to removal before they can start building value. Well, maybe less so for L'cie here, who you can still discard cards as soon as it's played to get its effects, but you're probably going to want to start attacking to draw cards, assuming you're running this in a mono ice build to guaruntee a card every turn, and that you'll always get a draw off of this EX Burst.

Of course, all of the things that were said about Vayne with other Ice cards that can protect it from Summons apply to this guy to. What's kind of interesting though is that Type-0 Ice speficially has an unusual amount of characters that you can use with this. 

While White Tiger Qun'mi doesn't actually negate summons, it makes protecting your big slow 5 costs a little easier. Your opponent might not be so eager to slam down a Diabolos if it now suddenly costs 8 CP to cast. Also it's within the same title if we should happen to get more non-cadet type zero support. With how many cards there are in Ice Type-0, getting a backup searcher for them would do a lot for the consistency of a potential Mono Ice Type-0 build, but that's all speculative at this point.

Even though none of these guys specifically reference Type-0, they actually make an efficient little package together. Emina makes Kurasame into a soft 2 cost 7k Ice anthem Forward, and makes Kazusa into a 1 CP Backup that can function as a miniature Gesper of sorts. Again, if a Type-0 character searcher were to appear in ice, this would be even better, so get on it Hobby Japan.

Oh crap, wait, I don't think I actually want that afterall...

I actually kind of like that the Ice Legends have been getting a bit slower in this set, since in my opinion they've been one of the top elements the past few sets because they have way too much fast, easy control, and having to be a bit more thoughtful about how you use it seems well balanced, but I doubt that things will change that dramatically without some set rotations or bans happening in the near future.

Other Options with Azure Dragon L'Cie Soryu  

• What even is Type-0 as a category at this point? At this point the Ice cards have way more synergy than the actual Cadets themselves do. Like does anybody remember how in Opus V they printed an Agito Cadet searcher? I dunno, it's just super weird.
• Black Tortoise L'Cie Gilgamesh or whatever.    

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So those are just some of the thoughts about Opus IX Legends that have been rattling around in my frenzied mind for awhile. Regardless on wether or not any of these cards turn out to be good in the long run, I hope that everybody has great pulls and enjoys coming up with new deck ideas as we move into the Opus IX season! Join me next time for my overall set review as well as the results of our Opus Bingo! (Spoilers, we got it like always). 

Until Next Time - Keep on Grinding, 

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A New Dawn: An Opus VII Review

Hey there everyone, and welcome back to Lv. 1 Onion Knight: The FFTCG blog that wants to remind Thaumaturge and Gesper to not let the door hit them on their way out.

Now that Opus VII has officially been out for over a week, I've had a good amount of time to ruminate on the set, gather my feelings on the cards, and wonder why I still haven't pulled a single Jecht yet. So what exactly do I think about the set?
Well I'm still trying to figure that out actually...

I don't know why, but I've been hitting a major writer's block trying to figure out what to write about Opus VII. For my last review, I felt like Opus VI was full of so many highs and lows that it was really easy to pinpoint what I liked and disliked about the set. But for this one? I'm kind of having a tough time even figuring out why I don't really know how I feel about Opus VII, and trust me, when you're stressing out because you don't know what to write about cards, you may need to reexamine your priorities, which of course, I haven't. 

I'M TRYING OKAY???

I think part of the reason why I've been having such a tough time figuring out what to say about Opus VII is that in general, there's been a lot of mixed opinions across the board about the cards after the full set reveal. If I asked right now what the best Legend card in Opus VII was, I would probably get a lot of different opinions. Some people think Noctis is amazing while others don't think he lives up to the hype, some people think Lann is the card that will bring Mono fire back to meta relevance while others think his effect is just too expensive. Noel? Either an incredible removal tool or not worth running because Estinien exists. I've been having a tough time getting any sort of consistent feedback from the community about the value of cards in this set, which is kind of an interesting conundrum, honestly. 

As far as I can tell, there isn't a universally agreed upon "best" card in the set like Wol or Estinien that is the big money chaser. There doesn't seem to be a humongous power creep like in Opus V either as far as card balance goes. In fact I'd say that the overall element balance seems much improved over the last few Opuses... for the most part. 

I'll get to you in a minute babe.

After thinking about it, if I had to describe Opus VII in one word, it would be "Potential". I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment, but really I find the fact that many of the cards have potential uses that aren't always super obvious at first to be pretty exciting, and allows for more creativity in deckbuilding. This may seem like a given - Of course any new set of cards released is going to lead to new decks being made, but I feel like mechanically many of the cards work very differently from trends we've had until now.

As anybody who has read this blog before will know, I'm not exactly on the cutting edge of the FFTCG competitive scene. I don't cover or really even follow tournaments - I'm the sort of person who just likes to experiment with cards and builds and have fun with it, all while sneering at the Meta from aloft my ivory tower. 

When your confidence vastly outweighs your actual skill.

In all seriousness, there's a really dedicated competitive scene that is very analytical and could probably give you a much better analysis on how to use the cards, and that's great! That's probably why they win many more games than I do - just the competitive scene isn't the space that I personally occupy when I look through new sets, even if it might be "suboptimal". Long story short, I'm still a filthy casual even after all this time.

It's more fun to me to see how to use cards in new decks - for example, I've heard a lot of rumbling about the new Khimari card, and how it's too slow and too vulnerable to removal to be a good enough linchpin to make Guardians worth playing, especially compared to the Gullwings. However, my thoughts on the card is that Khimari forces your opponent to spend double the resources in one turn to try and remove your other, more powerful combo pieces like Jecht and Tidus, leaving them open to your plays. Covering both X and Guardian cards also gives him a much bigger umbrella of cards that he protects, with a much wider scope of cards he can work with in the future as more cat X stuff is released. While Guardians may not be as good at locking out your opponents options, as a whole they seem to be a much more aggressive, combat oriented archetype compared to the Gullwings, and Khimari combines nicely with the other members. I do think that going forward, there needs to be more counters or negation for "Enter The Field" abilities besides Y'shotla so that cards with a long-term advantage or slower cards have a greater value and aren't a risk of the player wasting CP without getting an effect off, but that's a discussion for another day. 

Honestly, the card that I've been hearing most people agreeing on as the "best card in the set" tends to be the new Snow Backup, which is... really hard to dispute. Being able to give all of your Forwards the ability to dull a potential blocker is already absurdly powerful, but then being able to do all of that for free? No CP cost, no dulling or breaking Snow to activate the effect - nope, all entirely free. Combined with the fact that its an Ice element and my kneejerk reaction was that it's getting harder and harder to claim that there's no bias towards Ice on the card designers part.    

 

I'd also complain that this is the third Snow we've gotten in three sets, but he's still a Husbando, so I' have to take what I can get. 

But - and this comes as a huge shock to myself - as much as I've been the "anti-ice" dude on this blog... I don't hate Snow, and think that the Ice cards are much better balanced than they were in past sets. Cards like Snow and Terra may have powerful effects, which have obvious benefits to making certain Ice builds even more obnoxious - Militesi Coeurl can swing and dull two forwards, Shiva can dull three forwards instead of two, ect. But because neither of the cards I mentioned are limited to Ice Forwards/Summons, I feel like it kind of makes Ice more of a splashable element? As I mentioned before, Opus VII feels like it has a lot of options for creative deckbuilding outside of what we've seen before - Serah is a really strong Ice Legend, but she needs to be played in a specific deck, rather than just being splashable into any Ice deck. Cards like Yuri, Snow, and Terra that allow you to mix typically element-exclusive strengths with other elements really makes me want to experiment with making new decks, rather than seeing what preexisting decks they can best fit into. Screw Vikings, I wanna try and use Snow in a Fire/Ice build with lots of Hasty dudes, and maybe a few of the Opus VI Goblins for maximum dull/burn action. 

No Goblins then?

Hell, I even like the new slew of standard units that have added effects when you play them with CP of other elements, and I hope that in the future we can see some non-generic cards with effects like that (besides Kefka) to open up new multi-element decks that we might not have seen a whole lot of in the past. With the return of Back Attack cards, the new Monster mechanics, and great Title series support, I think that Opus VII is the start of a fantastic new direction for the FFTCG, and I hope that it can keep this creative momentum going in future sets. 

So yeah, no real complaints this time around (shocking, I know) other than perhaps, that I wish there was a Dawn Warrior Backup or a new Lenna or something. So really quickly, why don't I go over some of my favorite new combos with Opus VII cards, so I actually have something interesting to talk about here! 

Opus VII Combos 

I couldn't mention a new set without talking about Fire cards right? I think Opus VII is the best Fire's been in awhile - for one the idea that Fire card effects need to make you go into a huge minus for okay-ish effects seems to have (thankfully) been dropped since the last set. Cards like Aeigis and Sol are incredible for making more aggressive decks, and Varuna is an excellent pressure tool, but I think he works amazingly well alongside Vermilion Bird L'cie Zhuyu. 

Most of the time when you swing in with Zhuyu, your opponent will let the attack through to avoid his reactivation effect. With a Varuna or two on the field now, the choice of whether or not to block Zhuyu becomes a no-win situation for your opponent: Either way you're guaranteed a point of damage and activated Varunas. 

  

Using Titan defensively to surprise your opponent was one of my favorite plays last set - it might be a bit overkill, but you can effectively get rid of three of your opponents Forwards with this combo: Declare block and cast Titan - break the Attacking Forward and nuke a second Forward, then dull a third to clear out your opponent's field. 

Another Terra combo idea: Play Legendary Phoenix and fetch the new Time Mage from the Break Zone. You get two dulls, a burn, and a freeze off of an already amazing Summon. 

    

"The Opponent playing a backup? During MY turn? It's more likely than you think..." 

Seriously, your opponent will hate you for this combo. It'll be great. 

I haven't quite been able to find a deck that makes the best use of Ajido's ability to cheat in high-cost summons for free. With the new Krille, Yuna, and Garnet, I was kicking around the idea of a Water/Earth Summon deck with rainbow summons like Pheonix. Diabolos, or even Raiden. You can search and cheat in Ajido with Star Sibyl, play him to play an expensive summon, then play Yaag to reuse his ability while keeping your Backup line intact. 

Hooray! We got a new Prishe and Shantotto this set - I suppose it will do until we get Lilisette. In any case, you -could- use Zagnal with Opus I Shantotto for a free point of damage, but why not maximize your opponent's sodium intake by blocking with 2 drop Prishe, playing 9 Drop Prishe for free and nuking a forward, then having two beefy 9k forwards ready to swing on your turn? 

 

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So there you have it, my entirely unqualified opinions on Opus VII! I hope everybody has fun with all these great new cards, and can make some really surprising decks. 

Oh, and speaking of Opus VII, wasn't there that bingo thing that was going on...? How did that go?

 

Not bad! This time I decided to count each row that got a Bingo towards the overall completion goal, and I'm going to be announcing a brand new Raffle to celebrate the release of Opus VII and another successful Bingo next week, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Until next time - Keep On Grinding,

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The Common Conundrum: Spicy Combos with Opus VI Commons

Hello there all you 1-Drop Evokers, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - the FFTCG blog that doesn't understand this "Gencon" thing everybody's talking about! Truly I am a Paragon of the FFTCG community. 

All jokes aside, I never really make it a point to get too involved with the competitive scene or top 8's or anything like that. This is because:

A) This blog is meant to appeal more to the casual/new player, or anyone who is interested in humorous TCG articles with dashes of actual help to be mined from it like a Chocograph hidden deep under Gaia's crust.  

B) I am still pretty bad at this game and find the competitive scene confusing/scary. I would probably only go if I could have the opportunity to kiss the hem of Kageyama's Robes or something like that. 

 Print this on my tombstone.

I've also never really been huge on Meta-decks - though that doesn't stop me from complaining about the state of the Meta or elements. I've been revealed for the dilettante I truly am. 

But! Because I'm a bit of a hipster when it comes to the decks I play, one of the things I like to do is take a look at cards that might have been overlooked, or ones that maybe don't get enough love. And with the release of any new set, which cards need more love than the Common Cards? So today I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of my favorite Commons from each primary element in Opus VI, and some spicy combos that you can do with them, ranked from least to most spicy.

But how does one go about measuring a combos spiciness? Well, I'm happy to introduce the Spice Scale, Starring the Spiciest Monster ever: Spiceacilian!

I call him Spicy Ryan

Now keep in mind that the Spice Scale is by no means a hard and fast metric for a cards usefulness, or how competitive they are. Instead, it's how satisfying the combo is to pull off, and how much salt (or whatever the equivalent spice of your choice is) it can potentially generate from your opponent. So with that being said, lets open up that disorganized shoe box you keep all your Commons in and take a look at some combos! 

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Lighting: Ninja 

Okay, so I'm sure a lot of you guys are going to be surprised to see this card taking the lightning slot and not the FFTA2 Dragoon, but it was hard for me to think of a good combo for it that wasn't just "Play it with other Dragoons or run an Earth/Lightning deck and make everything a Dragoon with Hashmal" or something. In most decks, the Opus II Black Mage is probably a better, less restrictive pick for a similar effect. 

That being said, I actually really like this card in Draft/Sealed as a way to both ramp up your resources while removing your opponent's Forward. I actually won my first 3/3 draft using this card in combination with Frimelda and Ramuh.

 

This combo is fairly self explanatory: Damage a Forward and then play Ninja during your Main Phase 2 to break something. Ramuh can also be used to pressure your opponent into taking a point of damage - you can Dull a Forward and do 7k Damage to another Active Forward: Early game most people wont be so eager to trade and reduce their board size, so if they let the attack go through, you can play Ninja and punish them for it by finishing off the damaged Forward. As far as Spiciness goes, it's a little too situational, but in can be helpful with a more limited card pool.

Spice Level: 1.5/5 -Pumpkin Pie Spice

 Earth: Gigas

This is another card that I've had a lot of success with in Drafts, and I think a lot of people may have underestimated. Is Dadaluma a better option for most Earth decks? Probably! But what's nice about Gigas is that for 0 CP, he can come in and be an on-demand 9k blocker, and being a Monster makes him tough to remove. He also passively protects your other, more valuable Forwards, since your opponent is going to have to make the choice of whether to save their removal to get rid of other problematic forwards, or bait out Gigas to just get rid of it. 

Of course, your opponent isn't going to want to attack into you if you have Gigas on the field unless they have a forward that can get around it, so this card pairs extremely well with the new Titan.

This combo is so damn satisfying if your opponent pays for a big Forward or plays Forward boosters like the various Warriors of Light/Wol to get over your Gigas. Pumping Gigas by another 2k is usually enough to break the attacking Forward, and then you can do 11k damage to another Forward to reduce their field even more. You could even run it in a Gullwings Earth/Wind deck to protect your girls, or make him into a Gullwing with Hashmal to negate removal that targets it - Best of all your Gigas is still there... waiting... 

Spice Level: 2.5/5 - Curry Powder

Ice: Shock Trooper

Shock Trooper is a bit of a weird card for Ice in that outright breaking things is not generally something that the element specializes in. Much of Ice's power comes from Dull/Freeze/Discard, so maybe I like this card so much because it fits outside of that play style, and feels pretty balanced. When it attacks, break both it and an opponent's forward - simple as that. It's pretty decent permanent removal for Ice, but I think this card makes Ice/Fire have more toys to play with, specifically in a Final Fantasy VI deck. When played alongside Sabin, a single removal becomes a longer lasting threat that really needs to be dealt with as soon as possible before it wreaks havoc on your opponent's board.

Sabin is, in my opinion, still the best Fire card in the game. Being to self boost and having an extremely threatening S-Ability is good enough, but being able to prevent any Forward (even himself!) from breaking gives Fire some much needed protection. So yeah, play this guy and make Shock Trooper unbreakable - your opponent just lost a forward and still has to defend against an unbreakable 8K body. Next turn, swing with Sabin, make ST unbreakable again, repeat. ST goes hand-in-hand with aggressive fire cards, and if your opponent doesn't have an immediate answer to it, it becomes a huge problem. If your opponent uses removal on it instead of Sabin, then you can also just replay it with Devout and continue your rampage. The Spice is real with this one. 

Spice Level: 3/5 - Cajun Spice

Water: Chime

Chime is a card whose usefulness really depends on the type of deck you're running, but in the right deck it does what Water does best - Builds advantage. At first glance, she doesn't seem all that impressive - with Leo out on the field she becomes a 2 cost backup, and bounces back one of your opponent's Forwards as long as you also bounce back one of yours. But honestly, I'm not even sure it's necessary to run Leo with Chime, because Opus VI introduced a new card that opens up a lot of new possibilities for Water and combos great with her - Leila.  

Leila/Viking decks have been getting really popular lately because of how strong of a draw engine it is and how quickly it lets you ramp up your field. So yeah, now all of a sudden Chime helps not only speed the deck's engine up even more by bouncing back Leila (or even a Viking) and replaying it go get more draws, but it also gives you more of an advantage since you're removing a Forward. Hell, if you wanna be really petty you could bounce back an Opus VI Rinoa, remove an opponent's Forward, then replay Rinoa and time-warp something like Cloud of Darkness or Nidhogg to lay waste to your opponent's board. This spice is so good, you're gunna want to marinate your opponent in it for awhile for the best results. 

Spice Level: 4/5 - Cayenne Pepper

Fire: Illusionist

Is it weird to say that a Common card is probably my favorite Fire card in the whole set? It's just... it's exactly what Fire needs more of, and what I'm hoping the FFTCG team goes forward with instead of more burn damage - Attack Phase Manipulation. This card by itself should become a staple in most Fire decks - yeah you can bait a problematic Forward into swinging into a big Blocker you have set up, but it can also effectively Dull an opposing Forward for big swings in combination with cards like Ninja, Red Mage, and Tifa-L. That being said, my personal favorite card to run this with is Machina. 

This is a card that largely fell under my radar as a Fire player, mostly because I didn't run a lot ping based cards, but this guy's ability can be used defensively to thin out your opponent's front lines. First break Illusionist and target a Forward you need to get rid of. Then block with Machina - casting Belias to give him First Strike if it's something that can get over him. Once the attacking Forward is broken, you can target another Forward that has yet to attack and deal it 4k damage. This will both discourage them from attacking and losing another blocker, but it also makes that Forward easy to pick off with burn cards like Opus IV or V Ifrit or other ping abilities. I really have been enjoying playing this card and I really hope that we see more effects like this in the future.

Spice Level: 4.5/5 - KFC's 11 Secret Herbs and Spices

Wind: Chocobo

Alright so Dragoons may have gotten the push they needed to actually be playable, but the new Chocobo card introduced in Opus VI makes Chocobo Decks downright scary. At first glace it doesn't seem like much - you can play a Chocobo for free, but it's one of the weaker birds of the group. But combine this thing's swarming potential with power boosters commonly found in Wind/Water Standard Unit Chocobos and suddenly that little bird and his friends have become a huge problem. With the new Choco/Mog card, as well as Standard Unit searchers like Brahne and Gladiator, it makes it easy to stack your hand with the cards you need to pull off big combos. With Fat Chocobo, you can set off a chain reaction to start the mayhem. 

So lets go over a scenario using the Opus VI Chocobo. You've successfully built up your board and have Arc, Maria, and the Water Warrior of Light on the Field. You drop Fat Chocobo and search for the new 3-drop, which is now a 7k First Strike Forward. You play another of the same Chocobo from your hand for free, which lets you summon another Chocobo - hell maybe even another of the new one for another free drop, which means in one turn you summoned 3-4 Forwards to the field off one one 5 drop backup. Does it take a lot of setup? Absolutely. But IMO it's totally worth it, if only for the look on your opponent's face, and makes Chocobo decks an absolute beast.

Spice Level: 5/5 - The Spice Girls During the Spiceworld Tour Circa 1998

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Okay, so I think I've written down the word "Chocobo" enough to hit my quota for the month. So what are some of your favorite Commons from Opus VI? Do you have any spicy combos that you like to use them with? Was the Spiciness Scale as arbitrary and nonsensical as I said it would be? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time - Keep on Grinding,

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