Cast Curaga on Envy Games for a chance to win a Creature Bring Arts Bahamut!

Hey there everyone, and welcome back to Lv. 1 Onion Knight: The After School Special Edition.

So let's get right to the point - about a week ago, my good bro Nicola Militello and owner of the Final Fantasy TCG shop Envy Games had his car broken into after attending an event, with - among other things - over 5 thousand dollars worth of cards and FFTCG merchandise stolen. Having your personal collection of cards stolen would be bad enough, but considering that the merchandise stolen was all of the Foils and Legends going to be sold on his shop, the theft has put the continued operation of Envy Games in jeopardy. To help the store recover, one of Nicola's friends has set up a GoFundMe drive, and I've also decided to use this blog as a platform to help Envy Games recover with a special raffle, the details I'm going to go into at the end of this post.

But before I do that, I wanted to talk about why Envy Games is important to me and to the Community as a whole. On a more personal level, Nicola has been one of the biggest supporters of my silly little blog, always giving me advice and ideas, prize support for my last raffle, and promoting it whenever I make a new post. It's not a far reach to say that without Nicola's support, I would never have gotten the viewership that let me do the spoiler reveal for Opus VI. A good deal of the outreach I've been able to have with the community through Lv.1 Onion Knight has been a direct result of his help, so it goes without saying that when given the opportunity to pay it forward, I'm going to do what I can. 

Nicola has also done so much more for the community than just selling cards. For those of you who don't know, He's also the winner of the first official North American FFTCG community contest. He was officially recognized by the company for hosting, in his own words, a "sick 3 day event at the second largest anime convention in the US." 

That little Goatee thing that he's rocking is decidedly -not- sick but I've learned to look past it.

During the event, not only did he host several win-a-box tournaments and taught new players about the FFTCG, but also made it a point to promote the game at the A New World Final Fantasy Concert held at the convention. Here he passed out special flyers he made detailing the game, online resources, and instructions on how to connect with local FFTCG communities with an additional gift attached: Premade booster packs he put together with cards from the most recent sets - two of each element, a foil, and a Hero included in each. That kind of effort towards building the community has always been apparent in what Nicola does. Whether it's the hand-written notes giving deck building advice he includes with every order placed through his shop, or driving to stores 3 times a week to host local events, Nicola has always sought out to support and grow the FFTCG Community.

As of right now, the Final Fantasy Trading Card game is - in my opinion - at a critical point in its growth, though still very much in its infancy. Hell think of all the times that you've had people say, "Oh, I didn't even know there was a Final Fantasy Card Game" when you tell them about it. When I first started getting into the game last October, it was hard to know where to start getting information, or even find places where I could buy the cards, and I would have loved to have met someone like Nicola at a convention to get me on the right track. I personally only got into playing the game seriously due to the dumb luck of being at the right store at the right time to have met Richard Brady. Right now, what the community needs is people like Nicola who are willing to put in the work it takes to make the game approachable to new players and casual fans, as well as support the competitive scene. So that's why I decided in the end, I wanted to lend what aide I could to Envy Games in its time of need.

So that's where the raffle on my blog comes in. Below I'm going to be attaching a link to Nicola's GoFundMe recovery page - For every 10 dollars that a person donates, they'll get an entry into a raffle for a special prize that I've purchased - a Final Fantasy Creatures Bring Arts Bahamut Action Figure.

It's the next best option to summoning the real thing.

With an 18-inch wingspan, incredibly detailed and fully articulated, this figure is not only flipping huge, but it's a great collectible for any Final Fantasy fan. With an MSRP of $150, it's a great chance to support somebody who has played a large role in growing the community as well as as potentially win a pretty lavish prize. So if you donate 30 dollars to the GoFundMe page, you'll get 3 entries for the Bahamut Raffle, and so on. Also, several other content creators have donated prizes to be used for the GoFundMe efforts, so even if you don't win the Bahamut, there are lots of other things being added to the prize pool, including the new Opus VI card sleeves and playmats, Custom FFTCG Dice and more. All together, you have lots of incentive to be a philanthropist and potentially walk away with some great swag!!

Click here to Donate to Envy Games and enter the Bahamut Raffle!   

The winner will be selected at random at a time and method TBD at Nicola's discretion, so be sure to stay tuned to Envy Game's Facebook page, as well as Lv.1 Onion Knight for more details. All together, I want to say thank you to everyone who has already donated (who will also be eligible for the Bahamut raffle as well!) and anybody who decides to lend their help to the cause in the future. If the community can work together, we can cast Pheonix Down on Envy Games! Thanks for reading everyone!

Until next time - Keep on Grinding,