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,