Spoiled Onions: Gilgamesh

Greetings all you discerning weapon collectors, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that is the equivalent of drawing an Excalipoor at a critical moment. 

Welp, my resolution to write more on this blog have already gone up in smoke, so it looks like 2026 will have to be the year I make my glorious return to making the written equivalent of really long YouTube video essays. To be totally frank, me and the FFTCG have been having a falling out of sorts with how Tears of the Planet ended up shaping the meta. I hosted a local qualifier where the finals were a mirror match with every turn boiling basically becoming this: "I blank your effect, but you tax my blank, and then I tax you taxing my tax, but you blank me taxing you taxing my tax" and so on and so forth, going on in an infinite loop until both players, the judges, and the onlookers all exploded.

You know the deck I'm talking about... 

The stale meta nonwithstanding, seeing what was capable with the cards from the Magic the Gathering / Final Fantasy collab was also a jarringly eye-opening experience for me. I don't play MTG, but I can't help but feel like a jealous orphan from a Charles Dickens novel looking at a sumptuous feast when I see effects like Relm's Sketching letting you straight up copy any card, or the fact that you can make a Cid deck with unlimited Cids from across the series. By comparison, the constant deluge of FFTCG cards with the effect of "When you play this card, play another card for free" doesn't quite have the Final Fantasy flavor that you would expect. We have some interesting stuff coming out in Gunslinger of the Abyss, like more Priming shenanigans from the XVI stuff and Lightning's insta-party effect that look like a much-needed shot in the arm for the game. On the other hand, we also have the new Category V stuff that looks like it's just another avenue to dump out 4-color Warrior of Light for free, so I guess we'll see what happens. 

And hey, speaking of Final Fantasy V...

Here's a new Gilgamesh from Gunslinger in the Abyss! While I may be masterful at segue's, I admit I struggled a bit when it comes to finding a use for ol' Gilgy here. Of all the Elements, Lightning is probably the worst suited to be running 3 or more elements. You have the exception of Gilgamesh (FFBE) decks, but that deck would likely prefer a 3-drop backup to play off of 7-CP WoL, making the Lightning Shantotto Backup a better option for that with basically the same effect.

That would leave Gilgamesh as an option in constructed for Earth-Lightning decks that run color Fixers like Tyro and Leo, but not only is that quite boring, it's not something you couldn't already achieve with the Opus VI Cactuar Summon (which was, surprisingly, my first ever spoiler. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh?). Since I was just here complaining that things in the FFTCG aren't as spicy as they could be, why don't I take my own advice and think outside the box here?

Enkidu could be an interesting combo piece for Gunslinger Gilgamesh since he's currently the only Backup Gilgamesh in the game. You can pay for Gilgamesh using Enkidu from your hand and two other Backups to generate 3 different colors and deal something 9K. Then once Gilgamesh resolves, you can pay 2 to play Enkidu from the Break Zone, activating Gilg and the 2 Backups you paid. At least I think that's how that would work. Is there a judge out there that knows if paying for Gilg with Enkidu means Enkidu is "in the Break Zone" at the time Gilg hits the field? If not, go ahead and just EMBARRASS me in the comments. You know you want to. 

Despite being a fairly old card, the Opus 7 Gilgamesh Legend is still a fairly solid card for any Gilg-centric decks. However, because Backup Gilgamesh says it needs to be "Cast" for his effect to go off, "Playing" him with Opus-7 Gilgamesh means he won't deal any damage, regardless of how you pay for it. But playing Backup Gilgamesh first means that you'd have name clash, and couldn't play Legend Gilgamesh, or any other for that matter. Thankfully, Tears of the Planet did provide players with a way of removing your own Backups with the line of Summons that debuted in that set. Of course, playing Adrammelech means you have to remove Backup Gilgamesh from the game, preventing it from powering up Legend Gilgamesh from the Break Zone, but you have to admit, that combo was a lot more interesting than just saying "pitch the Backup whenever you draw it". 

Here's another option for Backup Gilgamesh: Just cheat. Go ahead. Use a banned card. Yeah, I bet you would too. You're just a dirty little cheater aren't you? Using Syldra was probably the first card you thought you would use with Gilgamesh, and you thought nobody would know. But I know. And you know what? You disgust me. Ugh, you're just the worst. 

And well... that's all I got for this card. I'm curious if there will be any card in Gunslinger of the Abyss that makes Gilgamesh more usable, but in all honesty he's probably best reserved for sealed formats where running multiple colors is a whole lot easier, or Category V title where there's no name clash. But hey, if you ever find yourself in the position where you absolutely need to deal something a hard 12K damage, your boy Gilgamesh will be here. Who knows? Dealing 5k damage has suddenly become incredibly relevant for SOME reason.  

Until next time - Keep on Grinding,