Showing posts with label Bingo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bingo. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

A Noob's Review of Beyond Destiny

 


Hello all you Strangers of Paradise, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that only knows one thing: I want to kill Chaos. I need to. It's not a hope or a dream. It's like a hunger. A thirst. 

Well a very edgy and happy 2024 to everyone! Though at this point, I suppose it would be more appropriate to wish everyone a happy Valentines day instead of happy New Years. Then again, I guess it would also be weird to call Beyond Destiny a new set when it came out over two months ago, but here we are.

Beyond Destiny is a pretty interesting set, which is about as noncommittal of an assessment of how good or bad something is as you can get. Like could you imagine if there was one of those review quotes on the cover of a DVD that just said "It's pretty interesting", and that was the review? But after playing around with the cards from Beyond Destiny, "interesting" is about an apt a word to describe how I feel about the set as any, and as much as it may sound like a backhanded jab, I promise I mean it as a compliment. Square Enix and Hobby Japan don't pay me enough to lie to you good folks about how I feel about cards. In fact, they don't pay me at all, which is probably why these set reviews always come out so late! 

Beyond Destiny is probably one of the most niche sets to come out in quite some time, with almost every Legend card except maybe Irvine and Neo Exdeath being Tribal support, Mono-Element, or needing more specific deck builds to get the most out of them. I enjoy good staple cards that are easy to put in any deck as much as the next guy, but if there's one thing that gets this old Onion Knight excited to brew decks, it's cards that you need to build an entirely new deck around from scratch in order for them to really pop off. 

So ward off the winter's chill with your favorite hot beverage of choice (I do so enjoy a good tea), and let's talk about some cards that came out back in November. 

As stated before, Tribal decks (decks that revolve around a specific archetype like their job or title, for those of you that are new here) are really my jam in the FFTCG. Final Fantasy as a franchise is so rich with iconic job classes that I'm honestly surprised that the card designers haven't made it their number one priority to make job-specific decks more of an area of focus. As of the time of writing this, we still have yet to have Tribal decks for jobs like Blue Mage, Dark Knight, or Thief. And I'm pretty sure they've never printed a single Dragoon card in the game, which IMO they need to get on that pronto. But Beyond Destiny has a ton of really great support for decks that really needed it like the iconic Warrior class and uh... the equally memorable Pirates/Vikings? 

Name a more iconic Final Fantasy job. I'll wait. 

Okay well that last one maybe wouldn't be my first choice to make into a deck considering that the pool of Vikings in the series to make cards out of is rather shallow. In fact, it's so shallow that outside of the Seeq-specific class from Final Fantasy Tactics A2, there are no more Viking standard units in the entire series! So either Rubi Asami needed to get busy on some new artwork for more Vikings, or the card designers needed to get a little bit inventive. 


Adding the Pirates as support for your Viking cards was really a genius way to flesh out a Vikings deck. The value of Vikings before was that they were cheap, low power Forwards that would draw you an extra card on entry or exit from the field depending on the Viking. Now with the addition of Leila, Faris, and Bikke, your little cheap Vikings become big 8000 power threats that can't be hurt by damaging abilities and reduce power on swing. Faris's second effect also makes her surprisingly difficult to get rid of, since most of the time your opponent won't want to target her and risk you redirecting their removal to a Viking that draws a card on exit. 

While Vikings may not be currently dominating the meta, they're a really fun deck to play with a mechanic that we haven't seen before in the game. I would really love it if tribal decks were designed with this level of inventiveness in the future, since it's a cool way of breathing new life into old cards. 


What is currently dominating the meta right now though, is Warriors. If anybody said that Warrior Tribal would win Worlds before the release of this set, I think people would have looked at you like you'd taken one too many Goblin punches to the head. Sweet daddy Taivas's abilities are quite frankly, utterly insane. The fact that he searches out either a Warrior Forward or a Backup and then plays one for free while ignoring color requirements on each of your turns means that you'll always have whatever you need in the moment and be able to play it instantly - so long as it costs 3 or less. And there are a surprisingly huge amount of options to choose from: Ward can remove an enemy Forward, Mog (VI) can draw and disable searching for a turn, Yuzuki gives you added protection, and Akstar can play two Forwards and give you more board control, just to name a few of the options you have with Warriors. 

Of course I need to mention that combining them with Warriors of Light and Gilgamesh FFBE is what makes them cross over into truly insane territory. I can almost hear the card designers yelling "No no, not like that!" at the decklist that Alex Hancox won worlds with. But Pandora's box can't be unopened, and now we're all sons of bitches. Judging from cards like Tulien and Haveh, I think Warriors were intended to be an aggressive, combat oriented deck in Earth/Fire that could splash other colors. Y'know, just super fun and quirky! But now "Warrior/Warrior of Light 3 Cost Rainbow Aggro Explosion" is the new meta, and I hope you're all proud of yourselves for it. 


Another thing I noticed while drafting during the Pre-release is that there are quite a lot of cards that only require two members with the same Job or Category on the field to get their effects. None of these cards have the restriction of "other than themselves" as part of the requirement either, meaning you only need one other Tribe member. Many of the cards also count all Characters rather than just Forwards, making it much simpler for decks to set up. I think that this is a good move from the card designers, especially as we move forward into a more aggressive meta where taking a long time to set up could be a liability. So as much as I disliked going up against Soiree decks in the past, I don't think it's a bad idea for other Tribes to take a page out of their book with faster setup conditions. 

All in all, I really like the support to niche decks that Beyond Destiny brings to the game. We have a ton of fun stuff to revive old decks, like the new WoFF support, a new way of playing the Sky Pirate package, and the best card ever printed. Hell, we even got the first Type-0 Cadets printed since Opus XIII to not suck total ass! As much as we need more generic elemental staples printed, I really hope we get more sets like this in the future since it makes deck building so much more fun.


Does anybody remember when Light cards used to be bad? Or at least people used to complain all the time that they were in comparison to Dark cards at least. Looking through the list of Light and Dark cards, I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing exactly when there was a shift from "Light cards are weak and Dark cards are strong". Perhaps around Opus XIV with the introduction of Shinryu (a card that ironically might be even more important in today's meta with all the 3-costs) Light cards started to get a bit more aggressive. So with the memory of the days of Nidhogg, Veritas, and Kadaj's dominance a thing of the past, it's kind of cool to see a card like the new Warrior of Light in the modern day.


Warrior of Light just kind of does it all. The fact that he plays any two Characters (not just Forwards! Man poor Kirin...) and can quickly flood the board is difficult enough to get around without a well-timed Amaterasu. But his S-ability literally shielding all your 3 drop Forwards from being targeted means that you can maintain your aggressive presence and push for more damage without much worry if you build around 3-costs. 

As somebody whose played Warriors of Light 4-color Tribal in the past, I assumed that this would be his natural home but it turns out I was thinking too small. Turns out using Gilgamesh (FFBE) with a deck full of 3-drop Multi Element Forwards and the 4-Color Warrior of Light was the true secret sauce for this card. I can't help but be a bit tickled though to see that while people *are* running WoL Tribal with 4 colors, the card they tend to use is actually Darkness Manifest. Don't that just beat all?

I think I may have been one of the few people who immediately knew who this guy was, and would have been absolutely thrilled with whatever effect he had. But man, what a whopper of a card he turned out to be. I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude whenever another amazing XI card that becomes a meta staple gets printed, and nobody knows who it is, yet they still have to run this guy in all their decks instead of like... Cloud or something. I really do need to find the guy who keeps making these cards so we can gush about our mutual appreciation for Robel-Akbel and what an amazing story he has while these normies are still trying to tell us how groundbreaking Endwalker was and how deep of a character Emet Selch is. 

This is beauty only PS2 era graphics could convey

Ahem... In any case, I've been waiting for quite a long time for the Serpent Generals to make their appearance in the game, and though the tiniest part of me wishes that they all worked together in one deck like Soiree did, I really can't complain with the final result. Especially since ol' Rug here pretty much redefines how aggressive certain elements can be. 

Even though Rughadjeen can pretty much become a key card of any deck that requires dulling action abilities or on-attack effects, I think Ice was the element that saw the biggest boost from him. With Turbo Discard necessitating the first bans of the game, for a long time it seemed like the card designers were purposely being very conservative with Ice, particularly with discard effects. But now with Rughadjeen, the "pause" that was built into cards like Physalis, Lasswell, and Rufus gets removed, giving you both aggression and flexible control. Being forced to discard two cards in one turn from Rufus is bad enough, but your opponent still has to deal with an attack from a Forward made up to 3k Power bigger by Rughadjeen that has Haste, Brave, and First Strike. Now every card can be 4-color Warrior of Light! 

It's pretty interesting to see just how much more aggressive the meta has become in one set after slower setup decks like Mono-Water took top spots in the past, and how pivotal Light cards have been to that push. Not that I really concern myself with that much here though. I'm here still here trying to figure out how I can actually make a Serpent Generals deck a thing so I can roll up to a tournament in my thirsty Stoneserpent General Zazaarg shirt. 

I've seen some of the things you straight guys have on your playmats. You owe
me this.

And hey, speaking of unhealthy relationships with an underdog title in the series, that segues nicely into our next topic. 

Okay, so that title is actually a lie because there's no way in hell he's ever actually going to shut up about it, but yeah. My boyfriend is what you might call a Squallwife, as in somebody who has an obsession for Final Fantasy VIII so extreme, it borders on religious fanaticism. 

For example, this shrine is to Rinoa's beauty, and the unimaginable terror she inspires only through using her dog as a weapon.   

I'm pretty sure it was him seeing Squall on a pack of Opus II at the Square Enix booth one Comicon that got us into the game in the first place. And much like the game it's based on, I've been hearing on and on every set that Category VIII never gets its fair due. And on both counts, I'm compelled to agree with him. 

I discussed in my set review of Resurgence of Power how it seemed as though they were attempting to give Category VIII a more fleshed out identity with stuff like Cid Kramer and Gilgamesh only to squander that potential with a bunch of stuff that didn't really work together all that well to form a cohesive deck. So when I saw that there was artwork scheduled for Final Fantasy VIII, I tempered my expectations, all the while holding onto the faint glimmer of hope that this was the set that VIII finally got good. And after the full set list for Beyond Destiny was revealed... yeah this isn't the set where the dream of an amazing Category VIII specific deck happens either. Turns out that it actually might be the *next* set, judging from the new Selphie, Quistis, Squall, and Edea spoiled for it. 

Train 🎵 Train ðŸŽµ Take the Pain Away ðŸŽµ

But it turns out that while the cards introduced in this set might not come together to make Category VIII decks a force to be reckoned with, the legends from this set are pretty dang strong, which wild as it may seem, actually makes people use them more! Crazy, right? 

When new cards are spoiled, I really do try my best not to read the comments about it, because it annoys me on a personal level how dumb people can be sometimes when they evaluate cards in a vacuum, and people's comments about how good or bad cardboard is will just ruin my entire day. But of course I juuuuust couldn't help myself after seeing the Griever spoiled as Card of the Week. And lemme tell you, the usual suspects absolutely did not let me down. "Too expensive! Too slow! No good Witches!" and other equally head scratching things were what I saw, to the surprise of nobody but me.

But as it turns out, the new cards from Beyond Destiny came together to make Griever absolutely terrifying in Water/Ice - thanks in no small part to Rughadjeen's ability to give Forwards both Haste and Brave. The deck Masayuki Yamada played in Worlds has been haunting both my dreams and my locals, because thanks to Griever, Turbo Discard is back. 

On first glance this deck looks extremely weird, since it only runs two copies of the new Larsa Backup and no other Backups. But taking a closer look, you'll see that every card in the deck besides Ultimecia is even-costed. This deck is designed to get Greiver out as early as possible with Larsa to ensure he's in your hand. Playing him out turn one gives you opponent precious little time to deal with him before you start using his dull action ability to make them discard. With Rughadjeen's Brave effect, you can still attack with Griever, then dull him. Plus with Water cards like Sage and Rosa, you can keep reactivating him to use his action ability multiple times in one turn. Oh, and not only are Griever's effects not limited to once per turn, they're not limited to your turn either, so you can just keep breaking dull Forwards or forcing discards to your hearts content. 

With stuff like Charlotte and Celestia protecting your Griever, and Sarah (Mobius) to cancel auto abilities it becomes extremely hard to get rid of Griever. Not that it's much better to get rid of him because once you do, Ultimecia gets played from the deck to replace him. You can remove any 5 or more cost Characters from your break zone to Dull/Freeze your opponent's board. Oh, and then she also makes them discard and can't be chosen by Summons. And by them I mean me because this has become my boyfriend's favorite deck and I absolutely hate it. 

Me when I'm trying to be a supportive spouse but I also want to play the goddamn game. 

I don't have quite as much trauma concerning the new Irvine just yet, but in a meta focused on aggro, he lands in a pretty comfortable position for success in aggro. He's a pretty good encapsulation of the kinds of cards that are really powerful in this meta: Haste with a strong on-attack effect and a powerful S-ability for when you need it. With cards like Irvine and Xande introduced in this set, Mono-Lightning Scions has become even more back-breaking. 

What's also back-breaking is the cost of these friggin full arts, and of course my boyfriend needs a playset of them so uh... trades anyone?

It sounds crazy to say but the best way you can make categories better is by actually printing good cards! It would be really cool to see this level of care in the future with all of the categories in the future. It shouldn't feel like there are only a handful of titles that you can really go the "full fantasy" with in order to have a competitive category-focused deck with a real win condition. I get it - the categories that can do that tend to be the more popular ones. But as much as people may scoff about Cadets, I *do* know people who really love Type-0 and would like to see a better deck be possible for it. Printing bad cards costs just as much as printing good ones, so if you do make cards for categories that don't make it into the game quite as much, why not put the care needed into making something that feels satisfying and engaging instead of a bunch of random generic nonsense?

... I just had the eerie feeling that somebody could easily say the same thing about this blog considering that a big chunk of my review was evaluating how well my boyfriend's favorite Final Fantasy series was represented, and to that I say, well make your own damn blog then.  


I think there's a little something for everybody in Beyond Destiny. Rainbow decks have never felt easier to play beyond just Soiree decks or decks running Earth to color fix. But at the same time some popular old staples like Mono Ice, Mono Fire, and Mono Lightning feel more fleshed out. I really like the balance that this set strikes between printing cards that specifically breathe new life into older forgotten decks and creating brand new ones. This set was definitely a lot less focused on elemental power with big bombastic staples you can socket into any deck, but I think printing more specific cards can be a lot more fun - when it's done well of course. 

Aggro is definitely the name of the game with Beyond Destiny, and even elements like Ice and Water that are typically more control focused have shifted to become more "aggressive control" of sorts. The question I've been thinking about lately with the FFTCG is something that maybe I'll touch upon in another article, but if a certain deck is seeing more success, is it even possible to tech against it with individual cards? Or is it more of a situation where Deck A beats Deck B, but is beaten by Deck C? For example, the Attack phase is a lot more important now with lots of Haste cards and On-attack triggers. We also have cards like Magus Sisters and Man in Black in the game that are anti aggro, but even if those kinds of tech options exist, will people use them if they're not on a Backup?

I'll have to discuss this more in depth with somebody both much smarter and much better at the game with me another time. But for now, lets save these very thinkery questions for the Scholars in the audience and raffle away some free swag! 


As we all mournthe loss of Weirdly Sexy Scott and Rebels still not being a fleshed out deck despite being Kageyama's Nepo-baby series, we can still celebrate getting a double Bingo. And with double Bingo comes double prizes! Well it's not really because of the Bingo - I just happened to have an extra prize ready for the raffle that uh... didn't happen for the last set. 

Welp! No point in dwelling on the past! This time around I have a Final Fantasy VII Anniversary Playmat with Tifa promo and Final Fantasy XIV Anniversary playmat with Scions of the Seventh Dawn promos to raffle off to two lucky winners! 


You can thank my boyfriend for the FF VII playmat. He ordered it awhile ago and forgot about it, and upon finding it decided "Eh, I don't want it. You wanna use it for a prize?" What a guy! But his disdain for FFVII is your gain! Here's how you can enter: 

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 either the FFVII Playmat with Tifa Promo OR the FFXIV Playmat with Promos. 

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 (January 31st), until Thursday, February 29th 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!!




Good luck to everyone who enters the raffle! As always thanks again to everyone who shows up to read the inane ramblings of a disgruntled Onion Knight. In the meantime I'll be here putting the Dark Emperor that turns off action abilities into every deck so I can maybe stand a chance at winning against that friggin Griever deck...

Until next time - Keep on grinding, 



  

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

A Noob's Review of From Nightmares


Greetings all you denizens of the Dreamscape, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game blog where the only Nightmare to be found is having to keep a consistent upload schedule. 

Hoo boy those two weeks I thought I would be able to get my review posted just flew by didn't they? So much my lofty promise of two articles in one month. It would seem that in all my time doing this, the only job I've truly mastered is being a tease and denial expert. But in a way, isn't that the truest experience of being a Final Fantasy fan these days? 

I want to believe, but I've been hurt too many times in the past. 

Now that the set's been out for awhile, I've had lots of time to play around with the new cards and get those ol' review juices flowing. Like last time I'll just be listing some stuff I liked about the set, and some stuff I thought could have been better. As always, keep in mind that the personal opinions expressed by the Lv.1 Onion Knight are the ramblings of a casual player, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the greater community as a whole, my locals group, Chaos, Benjamin from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, or even my own boyfriend. With that out of the way, lets talk about From Nightmares!

Liked: Set encourages building decks with three or more colors

One of my favorite things about From Nightmares is that it makes the dream of building a deck with more than two colors a lot easier. And for once, it's not just by splashing a few off-color cards in a mono-Earth deck with color fixing Backups like Tyro and Shantotto. I mean, you still can just do that, though you should know that every time you play the new Warrior of Light with nothing but Earth Backups, you earn yourself a penalty of minus fifty Onion Knight points for a pure lack of moxie. That's right, you can somehow find yourself at a lower level than me, the prospect of which should truly frighten you. 

If you're a fellow FFXI veteran, you can hear this image. 

In all seriousness though, I was actually having a conversation about this with one of our local players who regularly runs three or more color decks and expressed his frustration that all of a sudden players seem more comfortable running three colors as though that wasn't always an option you could take before now. And as somebody who cringes every time I see somebody running a Ninja deck with Opus XI Edge and refusing to run more than two colors (or worse, mono-Wind Ninjas *shudders*) I couldn't help but relate to that a bit. So what exactly does From Nightmares do that makes running more than two colors seem less daunting? 

Usually the answer to this question is consistency, which in the past usually means Backups, like the aforementioned Earth color-fixers, or the line of Type-0 Moogles that can produce a second CP element. What's odd is that this set actually doesn't really have much of that outside of Rikku, and she's specifically for Category X cards. You do have new Backups that can search for other Backups like Rydia and Miyu, and that can do a lot to help color fix your deck of course. But I'd argue that the thing that makes running more than two colors easier in From Nightmares, is the combination of generically strong multi-element cards, and other very powerful Forwards that encourage you to run a wider range of colors. 


Having a wider pool of multi-element cards available helps grease the wheels for including more colors in your decks, and I don't think there's a better card that exemplifies that in this set than the new Warrior of Light. The thing that's so great about Multi-Elements is that they can be targeted by a wider variety of effects that mention one specific element. So while you still have the option of playing him off Backups as the ultimate payoff in a multi-color Job: Warrior of Light deck, you can just as easily play him with cards like Iedolas in decks that splash Fire, or with White Mage in Earth decks. You can give him Poppy's Earth and Wind specific buffs, or both of Yuzuki's defensive effects for Fire and Water cards. Draw him from the top of your deck with Arc and then blammo, once you play him you've got the required 4 elements on the field to buff the board by 2k with Arc's effect. That versatility is what makes building around multi-elements cards so interesting. 


The three Dream Stooges are probably the cards in this set that most obviously ask, "Pst. Hey. You're doing the whole three color thing right buddy? Just checking", and they also do a really good job at showing how building decks with a three color win condition is made a lot easier with a bigger pool of new Multi-Elements cards. Now considering that you can play whichever of the other two Stooges for free with Laragorn's effect, you don't really *need* to run a dedicated three color deck, even though it's made a lot easier for this element with the Agito Cadet Backup package. If you do decide to open up the colors you run with them though, it not only makes it that these guys are really sticky and more aggravating to deal with, it also opens up the deck to some interesting options. 

For example, you could pop Akstar in there, since two of the three Stooges are 3-costs and count towards his damage effect. Like I discussed earlier, since Multi-Elements count as a card of both colors, any three cost card that has Fire or Ice is now fair game for you to play from your hand with his effect. But even outside of free play effects, you can use Multi-Elements as a link to make running three colors have a much bigger payoff than you could before. For example, if you're running Fire, Ice, and Lightning, why not also pop Selh'teus in there? What about Al-Cid? And if you're going to run cards like those, why not also pop in stuff like Sephiroth or Lasswell? Having so many Forwards with shared colors goes a long way to grease the wheels of these decks by making it so that you're less likely to get screwed when it comes to needing the right color to cast your cards, even without running color fixing Backups. 

Multi-Elements are probably one of the most exciting tools for interesting deck building, so I'm actually a bit bummed that it looks like we'll be taking another break from in the next few sets, seeing as they managed to finish up all the element combos already. I do hope that we'll see the missing R-rarity cards for each combination pop up in the future, but for now, I think we've got some pretty good options that are a ton of fun to experiment with. Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like seeing the expression on your opponent's face when you play the new Zidane or Warrior of Light off the top of your Mono-Fire Luso deck. The word I would use to describe it is... sensual. 

Disliked: 2 CP cards have gotten way too powerful for their cost


There was a brief moment in time before the set had even come out that it looks like a pretty defined meta had already been set up. A friend of mine was preparing to fly down to Florida for the Materia Cup and wanted to test against some of the biggest threats he expected to go up against there. I watched a bead of sweat roll down his beautiful, bald head as he played three-dimensional chess in his mind, trying to figure out what sort of Rube-Goldberg machine style move he would need to pull off to overcome a deck largely made out of cards from a starter deck.

Of course, the dark timeline where the Final Fantasy XIII deck topped a major tournament did not actually come to pass as the elders foretold. But I also can't help but notice the sudden and unexpected rise of the old Opus V Arcanist in a few of those top performing decks. Hmmm, I wonnnnder why? What cost Forward would people possibly want not to attack by including this niche and previously unused Backup in their deck?

Does it rhyme with "Binal Bantasy Birteen?" 

Of course as somebody who doesn't really follow the meta that closely, for all I know those Arcanists were put in there to counter Akstar Decks or Soiree or something. But for a time there it really did look like we were going to have to deal with the closest thing the FFTCG has to a OTK deck with how quickly the XIII deck could pump out damage and generate value. I'm not under the impression that cards found in starter decks need to be weak or under powered in comparison to what you can get in packs either. The fact that cards found in starter and 2-player decks like Avalanche, Guardians, and the XIII package make building a powerful, competitive deck easier for new players just getting into the game. But the thing is, I'm confused why they bothered to limit Sophie to one copy per deck if Lightning was just going to be that effect but faster.

But the way things shaped out with the Final Fantasy XIII deck is kind of indicative of a larger problem with the FFTCG that I've been feeling for some time now: the cost-to-effect ratio for 2 CP cards now feels wildly imbalanced. Playing Forwards that cost 5 or more already felt like a big risk back when Diabolos was running rampant, but nowadays with the speed of the game and the need for impactful plays to be made as quickly as possible, playing higher cost cards feels like a larger ask than ever. Meanwhile 2 cost cards require a minimal CP investment and have effects that turn them into some of the biggest threats in the game. Saying "Well, it only has 5k power!" really doesn't feel like an accurate way to measure a card's impact any more. 

I'd say we really started to get into the era of the brutally powerful 2 CP card around Crystal Dominion. There were only fourteen 2 CP Legends printed between Opus I and XIV for example, but the release of Crystal Dominion brought seven of them in one set, with cards like Rydia, Palom, and Porom immediately making a huge splash. Since then, 2 CP cards have only grown more and more powerful, with cards like Noel, Braska, and Zidane really pushing just how strong low cost, low power cards could be. And as much as I do enjoy Multi-Element cards, I think that the ability to cheat them out easily has only made that power discrepancy with higher cost cards bigger. 


Look, I'm not about to pretend that I don't absolutely love this smug little monkey twink right here. He immediately went right into my Ninja deck (See? That's why you run Wind/Fire/Lightning Ninjas!) where he quickly became one of, if not the most threatening cards I could play. But even I have to admit this guy has way too many lines of text for a 2 CP card. Haste combined with an effect that triggers both on entry and attack. The ability to completely remove threats in your opponent's hand and get them closer to milling out every turn. Can't be blocked by higher cost targets and powerful enough to get over most other smaller cards. And if *all that* wasn't enough, any deck running Fire can easily cheat him with Phoenix, meaning yep, you can pop him right in the XIII deck, a combination which I'm sure people love going up against as much as Zidane enjoys the cool, refreshing taste of Coca Cola. 

It's canon. 

Now I'm sure there are those of you out there reading this and saying, "well, just run Ixion then", which yes, you absolutely can do! But I'm really not sure you should *have* to ensure that you open a game with one specific card in your hand as the only way to prevent yourself from losing as early as turn three. Moving forward, it would be cool to see big, higher cost cards make a comeback as a deck's ultimate play that you work towards, rather than only really being feasible if they're a board wipe, or have some way of either reducing or totally negating their cost by cheating them out like we saw with Lenna and every Water Forward that costs more than 4 CP. But who knows? Maybe next set we'll get a card that can play Braska's Final Aeon for free and see the renaissance of the 7 CP Forward. Until then, I'll be teching Shadow Lord into every deck and being inexplicably smarmy when I end up breaking more of my own Forwards than my opponent's. 

Liked: From Nightmares does some really cool stuff with cards from older sets


Back when I was opening up my pre-release kit for From Nightmares, I couldn't help but think to myself, "Damn, this is probably one of the worst sets for Sealed format." Though admittedly, a big part of that may have been because I had just pulled a Full Art Golbez with no way to use him since there are a whopping zero Archfiends to play with him in this set. 

I was so certain that we'd be seeing new archfiends in fact that I made sure that I included it in my Bingo board, only to be laughably wrong. And you know what? I think I actually prefer the approach that was taken here, because From Nightmares, as awkward as certain pulls might be for Sealed format, does a great job at breathing life into older archetypes with some choice new additions. 

When asking my friends how they would describe the kind of set From Nightmares is, "an extra pack from Yu-Gi-Oh!" was a suggestion that I felt was weirdly apt. I stopped playing Yu-Gi-Oh! around the 5D's era, but I assume that this was meant to say that the set feels like it has a larger emphasis on improving the viability of older cards with new additions that make them more playable - and trust me when I say, I also think that's a huge compliment to this set's favor! Golbez, for example, is really a masterful example of how one card can completely revitalize an archetype and make it feel fresh and exciting again without completely replacing what came before it. 


The old Opus XII Golbez is still an excellent card in its own right, but having to wait until Damage 6 to get the - for lack of better phrasing - full Archfiend nutt, seemed like a tall order. Having the new Golbez make interesting use of the Warp mechanic not just to play a big, high cost Forward, but turn every Archfiend into a free body that immediately refills your hand size after you play it is just such a clever concept that the extra 3k power boost he gives to them once he finally Warps in is the icing on the cake. While it would have been cool to see new Archfiends in the set with him, it is quite cool to see just how threatening cards like the old Barbaricca and Rubicante can be with a deck that properly supports them. 


I think the glow-up I'm most happy about is with Warriors of Light though. The new Four-Color card is plenty exciting and all, but hoo boy, is that Refia the ultimate chef's kiss for the deck. Pairing equally well with either the Opus XII Faris or Resurgence of Power Faris, Refia is an excellent example of how you can reward a deck for building around one tribe of cards while still keeping your options open for how you want to build it (my preference is for the RoP Faris though, since it makes all of your WoL Forwards extremely difficult to either attack into or block). And considering that there were only two other Warriors of Light printed alongside her this set, you're going to have to go through all of the different WoL Forwards and Backups printed over the years to use with her, making this an interesting and engaging deck to build. 

For example, do you run a Backup Arc to ensure that you need a smaller number of WoL Forwards to pull off her effect? Or do you run the Resurgence of Power Arc to boost your whole board by 2k with the 4-color Warrior of Light on the field? There are lots of options to consider, but if you choose to do the latter, it better be the full art version. We may be pathetic here at Lv.1 Onion Knight, but one thing we don't tolerate is a lack of style.


Summoners is another example of how crafting cards with care can amp up archetypes that never really fully came together in past sets. Firmly establishing Earth as the deck's primary color, these three cards show how you can overcome past name clash in a simple but effective way. Garnet being an 8k body who can recur two Summons from the Break Zone seems like an effect that is way too powerful to be on card from the Common rarity, especially considering that this version of her does a way better job at being a core piece of the Summoner deck than the Opus XI Legend did back when the archetype first began getting fleshed out.  

We've also got a new Eiko Forward with an effect that rewards you for playing more Summoners with the big, explosive payoff of getting to cast a huge Summon for free. Initially, this looks like a bit of a problem for the deck, since Eiko was previously the deck's search card. So how do you justify replacing a key element of the deck? Just make a way better version to fill that same role, and that's where the new Rydia comes into play. This card is just exceptional, trading the old Eiko's EX burst for the ability to search out such a wide range of cards that she's become an essential Backup for decks even outside of Summoner Tribal. And since there are plenty of other Summoner Backups like Braska, Lenne, and Yuna, you'll almost always have enough targets to dull with Eiko for her free cast. 

The card designers have proven in From Nightmares that they know what they need to do to improve an existing archetype, and that's something I really appreciate about this set. But on the other hand, when you see new cards introduced to flesh out struggling tribes from the uh... other side of the goodness spectrum, it does honestly become frustrating. So lets talk about Rebels shall we? 

Disliked: The set drops things set up in past sets for completely new stuff 


I admit, following up "I like that this set does new stuff with old decks" with "It also does too much new stuff and I don't like that" is pretty weird, so let me try and break this down in a way that might make a bit more sense to all you non-Onion Knights out there. I can't help but feel that in the FFTCG, sometimes there can be a bit of an issue with the card designers establishing a satisfying setup and payoff when it comes to fleshing out titles and tribes between sets. This is especially true for decks that seem to have a somewhat clear vision and that maybe need just a little bit more help to really make them competitive, only for them to throw it all out the window and establish something completely new - but not necessarily better - for it only a few sets later, rather than continuing to build off of what was already there. 

In the case of cards like Golbez and the Archfiends, I really like how what was made took cards that already existed and thoughtfully found a way to improve them, while at the same time finding a way to make the deck revolve around the new Warp mechanic. And then you have stuff like Rebels, where it seems like the cards that were made in the past were totally and utterly disregarded to set up another half-formed idea for the Warrior/Rebel tribe. 


For example, I like the new Josef just fine! The new Hilda makes it clear that Fire/Wind/Water is what they're trying to go for now with Rebels, and this gives the deck a really solid Water Rebel Forward besides the Water/Fire Firion. You can play him from the deck onto the field with Guy, and then play the new Leon, who searches for Maria. That's three Forwards onto the field for only 3CP. Really great! Plus if you've already got a Firion on the field, Josef becomes a huge threat that draws you a card on swing, and Leon would be able to attack as a 9k Forward with Haste. That all sounds really good on paper until you see the one major problem with Rebels: There are only five of them. 

Okay, technically there's six if you count Bartz, but if you need to have four Job Rebels to get the new Leon's effect off, then I kind of find it a baffling move to turn the tribe's only Rebel Backup (besides the old Opus I Maria, which also presents a problem for the deck which I'll go into later) and sole search card into a new Forward that serves as a key part of this new deck strategy. To make matters worse, the Wind Leon from Crystal Dominion also seemed to be the primary win condition they were setting up with Rebels of getting your Forwards super big and then swinging to generate a ton of value. But now you have this new Leon that needs numbers in an extremely number strapped tribe. 

So now it seems like the play the card designers are trying to set up for Rebels is Guy > Water Josef > Fire Leon > Maria, preferably the one printed alongside the Leon from Crystal Dominion that makes all your Rebels bigger, reduces their damage taken, and pumps up Guy even further, since his effect specifies he needs Warrior Forwards. But the question I have here is this: Why?

Knowing that you have extremely limited numbers of Job: Rebel Forwards you can reasonably have in the game, why not, I don't know, make the new cards anybody other than Josef and Leon? Why not a new Leila or Paul or Scott to pad out the roster we already have rather than double dipping into characters that already were needed for the deck to function? Hell, you could have even done a new Firion in Wind or something. Sure that would have been the sixth Firion printed in the last five sets, but we've also had seven Lightnings in the same amount of time, so who's really keeping score here? 

Bonus points if it's a Final Fantasy Origins render of him. 

Much like my criticism of how the Final Fantasy VIII cards were handled in Resurgence of Power, I realize that this is a highly specific and largely personal criticism of the set, but there you have it. I'm frustrated that the best thing Rebels have going for them at the moment is that they're unexpectedly, unreasonably sexy for cards based around Final Fantasy II. 

Don't tell me you weren't all thinking it. 

It's this general lack of consistency when it comes to creating a solid identity of specific categories and tribes that makes it so you never quite know if there ever was a greater plan to flesh them out in the first place, or if the cards were just meant to exist as they are for the moment before being phased out by completely new ideas a few sets later. For example, the cards I was most looking forward to in From Nightmares were the three Chebukki siblings, Makki, Kukki, and Cherukiki. Not only are they obscure characters from my favorite game in the series getting cards with new artwork, but there's a lot of potential with Cherukiki's effect allowing Category XI Forwards to use dulling action abilities as soon as they enter the field. 

When I say "you've probably never heard of them", I'm really not trying to be a hipster. It's just a very strong, accurate hunch. 

I was positive that meant we'd be seeing at least a new Tenzen with a dull action ability for thematic reasons, since he and the Chebukki siblings are part of a notoriously difficult fight from the Chains of Promathia expansion in Final Fantasy XI. Y'know, just a little something with its own action ability that maybe... I don't know, made the three siblings seemingly unrelated effects make sense together? Reward you for quickly playing a board full of small guys onto the field? Anything?? But NOPE, that did not happen. And there's no other XI Forwards with action abilities in the set. Annnnnnnd there's super limited options for XI Forwards that do have dull action abilities in previous sets (especially in Fire or Wind), so they don't really work with anything else super well either.

The best option right now to use them with is with Esha'ntarl from Opus XII, whose biggest issue was that she did not have Haste and had to survive a turn before you could use her dull effect. I can see there being a shell there with Fire/Ice/Wind using other Category XI cards like Selh'teus but it feels like it needs a little something more to really make the use of all three of these guys feel worth it. Something with Verstael perhaps? Sure, why not? If anybody has any deck ideas revolving around them, go ahead and leave me a deck listing since that's way too much of a big brain play for me to come up with by myself. But then the question that comes to play is why weren't these guys Fire and Ice instead of Fire and Wind? 

But the point I'm ultimately trying to get at here, is this: do I trust that there is a future plan to make a Category XI Fire/Wind deck revolving around more action abilities? Or was the plan all along was just to make Cherukiki's effect only ever work for the three siblings? In that case, why specify "Category XI Forwards" in her card text? Why not just say "The Card name Makki-Chebukki, Kukki-Chebukki, and Cherukiki..." if that's all that was ever planned in the first place? To save space? I would have been fine having smaller card text if it meant I didn't get false hope!

Let me make one thing clear though: I'm not saying that once a tribe or category's playstyle has been set up, the card designers HAVE to build around that original idea and can't branch out to something new. I certainly wouldn't have wanted Sky Pirates to only do... whatever it was they were doing before Opus XIV came out. Cards like Fran from the last set are proof that you can create entirely new ways of building older decks in a way that feels refreshing and interesting. But for every Fran, there's also a Nine, and if they haven't found a way to make printing a Class Zero Cadet-Centric Multi-Element Legend feel worth it in the last seven sets since he was printed, I'm not confident they ever will. But hey, I complained about Sky Pirates for long enough that I ended up willing that terror of a deck into existence, so maybe there's hope after all.      

So yeah, I guess if you take anything away from this, it's that I like it when things are done well, and I don't like it when they aren't. Truly the hottest of takes. 




All in all, I really enjoy the selection of cards introduced in From Nightmares. Though the archetype-specific stuff can be hit or miss, there's a lot of great stuff in this set that brings new layers to deck building, from a wide range of good Monsters to interesting takes on the Warp mechanic with cards like Prishe and Vayne. Plus all you diehard Final Fantasy VI fans can finally rejoice that what is basically a VI Title Format deck has been wreaking havoc on the meta. Overall, just a really solid set in general. 


Taking a look at our Bingo card for this set, it looks like we're going to have to wait a bit more for that Job: Tantalus Member support, though Zidane by himself is terrifying enough. I suppose I should have expected that the Agito Cadet Package wouldn't be Type-0 Cadet support, but with so many unused art resources for the Cadets that were from the Chapters version of the game, I'm starting to wonder if next time we see Type-0 Cadets, they'll just make a whole new squad of like... Water/Earth Cadets or something. And lo', my pining for a Bahamut Sin card shall continue, which is truly tragic because who the hell knows when they'll get around to printing more VII cards in the future?  

But with another successful Bingo under our Onion helm, I actually have a special announcement to make. This spring marks five years since I started writing this blog! So I do have a special giveaway to do this time around, but given this momentous occasion, I thought it might be fun to pull back the curtain on how I got started with the FFTCG and share my origin story with you all. My onion-gin story, if you will. Be sure to bring snacks, because this is one for the ages! 

                                                       ***

Night fell fast on the dark little tavern, the chill of the storm outside only abated by the warmth of the players' passion for card games inside. Alone from all the other mummers and revelers sat two figures: a fledgling Onion Knight and his fine swain. They had only just recently set out on their journey into the wide world of the Final Fantasy TCG, having yet to grow jaded with concerns over the competitive scene and proper deck building ratios. The only thing their hearts desired were a foil Shadow Lord and Foil Edea for their collections. It was truly a time of innocence. 

Fumbling through some of their first matches with their starter decks, the pair had failed to notice that an awe-struck hush had descended onto the tavern as suddenly as a lantern light being snuffed out by an errant wind. A lone figure strode between the gaming tables, eyes fixed not on those of the experienced players, but on that of the two greenhorns in the corner. 

"Excuse me." she said as she walked up to the startled Onion Knight. "Would it be alright if I watched you play your game?" 

As a new player who had never known things like community and camaraderie from the TCG world, the Onion Knight's first thought was naturally "Hell fucking yes I mind!" In an unexpectedly charitable move however, the Onion Knight nodded and went back to his match, the stranger watching on in silence. 

After a few rounds the two concluded their game, the stranger thanking them for their time. The Onion Knight's beau asked if they had a passing interest in starting to play the Final Fantasy TCG like them. "Oh did I not mention? I'm actually the community lead for the game, Richelle Brady." she said with a mysterious smile. 

She turned to allow the two thunderstruck knaves to pick their jaws up off the floor, crisply snapping her fingers as she made for the exit. A retinue of Paladins and White Mages emerged from the shadows of the tavern, scurrying to don her in her cloak and riding gear, her finely pedigreed Chocobo saddled just outside. "There's actually going to be a gathering of Final Fantasy players at the Uncommons this weekend. I expect to see you both there." she said, leaving a handful of Gil for the tavern keeper. "Oh, and one more thing. You don't need to dull your Forwards when you block." 

With that parting wisdom, she left like a thief in the night. The pair murmured to themselves at their luck at having chosen tonight of all nights to come to the tavern to play, taking special note to make good on their serendipitous invitation to join the other players the following weekend. 

And the rest, as the bards say in their tales, was all downhill from there. 

                                                        ***

Well, there you have it folks! If you ever wanted to know how an Onion Knight on the internet got started writing a blog about card games, the curtain of obscurity has officially been pulled back. But since it's my five year anniversary and all, I thought it was important to give some props to the person who started me down this path: Richelle Brady. 

Through the years, Richelle has been incredibly kind, patient, and supportive whenever I would pick her brain about things I should do for the blog, ideas for deck builds, and helping me figure out how to take over our local scene. It's because of her that I got to start doing spoiler reveals for upcoming sets, and she was the one who encouraged me to do the Bingo cards every set. I owe her a lot for not only getting me started with the FFTCG community, but for giving me an outlet to work on my writing and continue to develop my creative skills. 

This week, Richelle is going to be leaving her position at Square Enix to work on Disney's Lorcana, the irony being that when I started this blog, I had left Disney to work on a Square Enix thing. The cinematic parallels are astonishing. But it was important for me to take the time to say this to Richelle here: Thank you so much for everything you've done both in-person and behind the scenes for the FFTCG over the years. But more importantly, thank you for being my friend. 

My one regret was that she was too much of a professional to give me free stuff out of nepotism.

Welp! We sure ain't getting any gayer here, so why don't we move on to what you've all been waiting for - this set's giveaway. For something as big as my five year anniversary, it would be super cool and impressive to give away something like the Full Art Signature Cloud, wouldn't it? Well there's no way in hell that was ever going to happen. But I can do the next best thing: enable all you gambling addicts out there with the false hope that maybe *this box* has the FA Cloud in it.



That's right! This time around I'm giving away a sealed box of From Nightmares to one lucky winner. The Willy Wonka Golden Ticket card of your dreams could be slumbering somewhere deep inside these packs, just waiting for you to open it. I mean, probably not given the odds, but hey, at least this gamble will be free for whoever wins! I won't always be able to give away boxes in the future, but considering that it was my five year anniversary, I wanted to give away something special. Once again, thank you from the bottom of my heart to anyone who reads the silly opinions of this perpetually stuck at Level 1 Onion Knight. It always makes my day to read people's comments and have you all share your deck ideas and experiences with the game with me whenever I post these.


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 booster box of From Nightmares. 

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 three weeks from the post date of this blog (May 24rd), until Monday, June 26th at 8PM EST, so you have four weeks to enter. I'll announce the winner 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!!

 

 
Good luck to everyone who enters, and especially so to whoever gets the box! I myself have yet to pull any of the signature full art cards, but I have the feeling that when Jack Garland comes out in two sets, yours truly will finally know what it feels like to be one of the blessed few. Who'll be laughing then, huh??

Until next time - keep on grinding,