Greetings FFTCG fans, and welcome to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game blog that everybody is super fortunate didn't get invited to the Influencer Cup because then you guys would be looking at a full-art Chocobo Chick promo.
So how is everybody doing out there? Missing playing games in person with physical cards just yet? Wondering if your play space will still be there once all of this is over, and that you'll never get promos ever again? Not that I've been doing that of course. That would be a horribly unproductive way to spend my time.
Instead I've been doing stuff like hosting my first ever online tournament and finally getting around to beating the Final Fantasy VII remake. I think it might have actually become one of my favorite games in the series (which is strange because I didn't actually care too much for the original, sorry FFVII fans...). But playing the remake and the state of the world currently has me thinking a lot about alternate realities.
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| "And how just like real life, your choices are mostly irrelevant except for which outfit you end up wearing in the end." |
So what does that have to do with the FFTCG? Well I've always been interested in the original series of cards that came out in Japan before the game was rebooted for a global release: The Chapters series. I've talked about it a few times before on this blog. One of my earliest posts actually talked about cards that I wished would have been brought over to the FFTCG in newer sets. And by looking into those old cards, it was almost like exploring a world that could have been. In many ways what we ended up with was significantly better, and in a few ways there were changes I would say were questionable. But either way, its an interesting look into how we ended up with what we know today as the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game.
So today I thought that I would showcase 10 popular cards that experienced significant changes being ported from Chapters to the Opus Series. Kageyama went into this a bit with his awesome entry in the "From the Producer Special", but I thought it would be neat to take a look at the changes from the perspective of a player.
I'm well aware that the Chapters series may as well have existed in a different dimension for how different everything was, and pointing out how a card from a completely different environment would function in the meta that developed here is mostly a moot point. But also I'm not trying to make a big statement about how things should have been or that things would have been better one way or another. I just think it's cool to speculate how cards would have performed if they came into the FFTCG totally unchanged - which a lot of cards did!
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| "Probably a bunch of comments about how outrageous it is that the Primals from XIV still arent in the game yet Tifa." |
So before we get started, here's some things to keep in mind when looking at the cards I chose:
- I wanted to pick well-known cards that had a more substantial change than just a slight power adjustment or just an element change, since otherwise there wouldn't be much to talk about.
- I didn't include any Chapters cards that were ported to the Opus Series but originally had effects that are as of right now exclusive to Chapters like Blue Magic, Junctioning, Level Up, Equipment, ect.
- If an Opus card has the same artwork in Chapters but has such a wildly different effect that they're basically two totally different cards, I didn't include them.
- The numbering of the list is totally arbitrary and has nothing to do with how powerful or meta relevant I think they are.
Also I want to shout out that the translations of the Chapters cards are courtesy of the fine people who documented the original card releases at the FFTCG wiki.
With that out of the way, let's take a look into the world that might have been!
#10: Rinoa
Chapters Effect:
3CP Wind Forward - 7000 Power
Job: Witch
For each Job: Witch other than Rinoa you control, Rinoa gains +1000 power.
When Rinoa is put from the field into the Break Zone, activate all the characters you control.
Shooting Star [S]◆◆◆: Choose 1 Forward of cost 5 or more. Break it.
Rinoa is one of my favorite cards from Chapters because she's the card game equivalent of looking into a parallel universe that is eerily similar to our own but just different enough to be unnerving. The two of them are pretty much the polar opposites of each other and yet bizarrely similar in terms of their function as an attack deterrent.
For long time before Opus VI introduced the time-mage style Rinoa, the Opus II Rinoa was one of Ice's most powerful tools. Her ability to dull your opponent's entire field when she enters the Break Zone meant that just having her on the field was enough to discourage them from attacking and leaving themselves wide open next turn. You could also be more aggressive with her too, since blocking her with a more powerful Forward would also leave them with a dulled field.
Wind Rinoa on the other hand activates all the characters you control when she's sent to the Break Zone, so she functions like a more powerful Opus VI Guy. Both versions of Rinoa are great at making your opponent reluctant to attack, but I think that Ice-Rinoa's S-Ability was the better of the two. There are still very few ways to freeze your opponent's Backups even 11 sets into the game, but having a Diabolos break effect on a Forward isn't too bad either.
The thing I find the most interesting about Wind Rinoa though is the switch from a general category VIII focus to making her into a Witch. She suddenly goes from having synergy with Squall and the other Ice VIII characters and ends up being more at home in a Seifer deck with other witches like Edea. I guess she ended up dumping Squall and going back to Seifer, who is obviously the superior choice. So much for true love eh?
#9: Illua
Chapters Effect:
3CP Dark Forward - 7000 Power
Job: Nightshade
Effect: Haste.
Sheol [S]: Activate all the Forwards you control. They gain Haste and First Strike until end of turn. All the Forwards opponent controls lose 2000 Power, Haste and First Strike until end of turn.
Illua is one of those cards that was run in a majority of Lightning decks as soon as it was released back in Opus V. I distinctly remember she was one of the few "big" Hero cards that would sell for more than a lot of the Legends at the time. She's the perfect combination of speed and protection, with her pesky "bubble" that would avoid all single target effects and a powerful S-Ability that ensures that your opponent will never feel safe swinging into a field of dulled Forwards. Plus she was easy to cheat out as part of the famous Al-Cid combo.
But I think that most people would agree that it's the "bubble" aspect that makes Illua such a popular card because it helps her stick around for so long. So it's weird to think of a world where she just straight up has every effect but that one in Chapters.
Her being a Dark card isn't super surprising because there was a trend in Chapters to make the main hero characters Light and the villains Dark. Unlike in the Opus Series, the sets weren't limited to only two Light and Dark cards each, so there were a lot more of them in general. But with such heavy competition for Dark cards, I'm not sure that Chapters Illua would have been strong enough to beat out the competing cards like Veritas, Galdes, or Kamlanaut in our meta.
Her main selling point without the bubble would be that she's a 3-drop 7K Forward that gets Haste without any conditions, which still doesn't exist in the Opus Series. Her S-Ability is also slightly buffed as well, not only giving your Forwards First Strike, but also removing Haste and First Strike from your opponent's Forwards.
But yeah, what do you guys think? Is Illua really Illua without her protection? Would this card have seen use in the Opus Series? Oh, and if seeing Illua sans bubble isn't enough to blow your mind, there also wasn't an Al-Cid combo in Chapters. Think about that one for a bit.
#8: Semih Lafinha
Chapters Effect:
2CP Wind Backup
Job: Warrior Guardian
Effect: Star Sibyl you control can't be chosen as the target of opponent's effects.
◆◆◆: Choose 1 Forward. Deal it 1000 damage.
So awhile back I remember there were a few articles and videos that went over cards that people thought should be banned, probably because we were in the middle of the Veritas/Porom meta and we were all really emotionally damaged from it. In any case, it wasn't Star Sibyl who made it onto some of those lists, but her main girl Semih Lafihna. Also it might have been before Dadaluma got banned where Earth/Wind was a bit more dominant.
Star Sibyl is one of those cards that's already powerful enough to enable a lot of different deck engines, but being able to make her cost 2 CP less with Semih's effect makes it possible for Earth/Wind to ramp up insanely fast. I remember being told when playing an Earth/Wind deck that if my opening hand didn't have Semih, it was usually a good idea to mulligan to try and get her. That's how important she was to the deck.
So it's really bizarre to think that she might not have had the effect that reduced Star Sibyl's cost and instead just made it so that she couldn't be targeted. Had Semih's effect not been changed, Star Sibyl l still would have been an extremely powerful card. But protecting a card you intend to break yourself probably wouldn't have seen too much use in a match.
The thing is, Semih Lafihna had to change because Star Sibyl became a completely different card in the Opus Series. Back in Chapters, she was originally a 2 CP Light Backup that made it so your Forwards couldn't be chosen by the effects of your opponents Forwards or Backups, which you would probably want to keep safe from your opponents Archers and Hecatonchiers with Semih's effect. Obviously this is a totally insane level of protection for a card that is both incredibly cheap and easy to splash into any deck, so she had to be changed into the Earth card we know and love today.
So what's cool about Semih's change isn't so much that she got a new effect, but that it was dictated by changes to a totally different card! Also if her job had stayed the same, she wouldn't have been searchable with Hugh Yurgh. Womp.
#7: Llednar
Chapters Effect:
2CP Earth Forward - 5000 Power
Job: Biskmatar
Whenever Llednar Blocks or is Blocked, if opponent doesn't pay (3), Llednar can't be Broken until end of turn. Whenever Llednar is chosen as the target of opponent's effects, if opponent doesn't pay (3), Llednar can't be Broken until end of turn.
Llednar has always been a pretty interesting card in the Opus Series, since for a long time he and Sabin (who also came out in Opus IV) were the closest things to "protection" that Fire had going for it. Forcing your opponent to pay two more CP in just about any situation can pretty much act as a pseudo-discard effect if your opponent doesn't have any active backups. But it's funny how a change of one CP can make a card go from "good" to "insane".
Llednar's low power puts him in range of a lot of low-cost removal effects, but do you really want that 3 CP Summon to suddenly cost 6? Or to attack just to have Llednar block and force you to discard two cards from your hand just to get rid of a 5K power Forward? Making the cost to break Llednar go from even to odd makes his efficiency kind of scary, since your opponent would be paying more than you paid to play him just to get rid of him. He's still weak to things like Fina's AOE removal, but can you imagine blocking something like Braska's Final Aeon and forcing your opponent to pitch two cards for it?
Llednar was actually the first card that made me want to look into the Chapters series after finding out about his original effect. That's why I really wanted to talk about him on this list, even if he's not the most popular card. He does seem to be enjoying some more usage though with the rise of the Marche/Ritz Combo, so that's pretty cool!
Also, can anybody explain to me just what the heck a "Biskmatar" is? Like I get that was his job in the game but what is it?
#6: Vayne
Chapters Effect:
4CP Ice Forward - 8000 Power
Job: Consul
Forwards of cost 5 or more don't become Active during their controller's Active Phase.
Mech Wave [S] ◆◆◆◆: Dull all Forwards of cost 5 or more opponent controls.
Vayne is an important card in the Opus Series because he serves as a check for big, powerful threats with higher costs. Back when Veritas was running rampant in almost every deck, Vayne was one of the most reliable counters, letting you just keep it permanently dulled rather than deal with its "deathrattle" effect. He's one of the Opus Series cards that comes and goes as he's needed depending on what the biggest threats are in a particular set.
In chapters though, Vayne was a much clunkier card to use, since he would only prevent cards of cost 5 or more from reactivating, rather than also dulling them all on entry. Instead he was reliant on using his S-ability for that which made him significantly slower, especially since it came with a pretty hefty CP cost. While he still kept them locked down after that, it meant you had to be much more responsive with Vayne, waiting until your opponents high-cost Forwards were already dull before you played him. Of course, that means you needed to use his S-ability or other cards with dulling effects to handle anything with Brave.
As he was, Vayne was probably much more in line with his character as a tactician, requiring the right timing to have the biggest impact. It's funny that he was given such a dramatic boost in speed, especially considering he was printed so early in the Opus Series lifespan, but I think we ended up with a much better card as a result.
#5: Y'shtola
Chapters Effect:
3CP Wind Forward - 7000 Power
Effect: Y'shtola must be chosen as a target of opponent's effects if able.
When Y'shtola is chosen as the target of a character of cost 5 or more or a Summon, if you control a [Job (Scion of the Seventh Dawn)] other than Y'shtola or a [Job (Standard Unit)], Cancel it's effect.
Oh Y'shtola... the card that was such a powerful one-card answer to the rise of Mono-Fire that they had to completely change the way that damage reduction effects worked in Opus XI. I'm totally not bitter about the one time that my Summon-heavy ping deck got completely walled by one Y'shtola or anything like that. You guys know I'm way too fair and unbiased for that.
In any case I know I said earlier that I wasn't going to discuss cards that had completely different effects than their Opus counterparts. But I feel like these cards have the same basic idea of protection with a different execution, so it totally still counts. Hah! Self-imposed rules are for suckers!
Looking at the Chapters version of Y'shtola, she almost reads more like a reverse Feolthanos, forcing your opponent to target her but negating the effects of characters cost 5 or more. She also appears to negate the effects of any Summon that targets her so long as you control another Scion or a... Standard Unit? Yeah, they were really pushing for Scion/Standard Unit builds in Chapters, which we'll see more of a bit later.
In spite of being dependent on having an established board with specific jobs on the field, I'd go out on a limb to say that the card we ended up with is considerably more fair. She's still extremely powerful, but having to send her to the Break Zone to cancel an auto effect prevents her from locking down your opponent's options too much at least.
The million Gil question though is if we had gotten a Y'shtola with this effect, how would she work if you also had Feolthanos out on the field? Speaking of which...
#4: Feolthanos
Chapters Effect:
7CP Dark Forward - 9000 Power
Job: Aegyl
Effect: Brave - Opponent must choose Feolthanos as the target of effects if able. When Feolthanos is chosen by your opponent's Summon of cost 4 or less
or an ability of their Character of cost 4 or less, cancel its effect. When you receive damage from a Forward opponent controls, you may discard 1 card. If you do, Break it.
Feolthanos is the only card on this list with a totally different "form" than the card from Chapters, but we got new artwork featuring washboard abs and the most motorboatable male chest in the FFTCG instead. Thanks Ryoma Ito!
In any case, it's clear from the cost, power, and effect that this was the card that was the template for what we ended up with in the Opus Series. Dark cards have a history of being notoriously powerful, and I think being able to socket this into any deck would have been way too much. I've heard in the past that some people think that 7CP is too powerful for a purely defensive effect. But perhaps taking the Brave keyword off this big guy was the right call, since you could realistically attack with him every turn and still have a beefy blocker available.
The solution most people have to Feolthanos in the Opus Series if you're not running cards with a CP cost of 5 or more is to try and punch over him with a bigger Forward. But as you can see even that wasn't safe in Chapters, since your attack going through meant that you'd most likely lose the one Forward strong enough to get over Feolthanos due to his break effect. The combination of making effects fizzle, being able to continuously attack, and insta-break any attacking Forward is a pretty overwhelming combination.
Despite some pretty substantial nerfs though, there was one big buff that the Opus Series version got, which is obviously the ability to cancel effects of cards that cost 5 or less instead of 4. Otherwise he would have been absolutely useless to counter one of the most popular and widely used summons in the Opus Series - Mobius Diabolos. So it's a bit funny to see how effects need to be changed not only to scale them back, but specifically to address new threats that weren't present in Chapters.
#3: Caius
Chapters Effect:
5CP Fire Forward - 9000 Power
Job: Guardian
Effect: When Caius is put in the Break Zone from the Field, you may remove 1 [Card Name (Bahamut)] in the Break Zone from the game. If you do, put Caius on the Field Dulled. Dull, Discard 1 [Card Name (Bahamut)] from your hand: Choose 1 Forward or 1 Monster. Break it.
One of my earliest memories of getting involved with the FFTCG was my first night participating in a casual event with the NYC crew. I was a fresh faced newbie and everybody was eager to give me new cards under the guise of helping me build my collection. Now I know that was just an opportunity for them to dump excess bulk cards, but I appreciated it nonetheless! In any case I remember opening a pack and finding Caius and asking if he was any good since he had the Legend rarity.
"Uh Yeah... He's... He's fine." was the very polite response I got from somebody who didn't want to crush the hopes and dreams of a new player.
Okay, so it's not really charitable to say that Caius is a bad card. Depending on future Bahamut cards that get printed, he could end up being relevant with stuff like Mootie (though if you use Caius's effect instead of just casting the Bahamut, you're not really getting any bonus from Mootie outside the initial search). But now Fire has Braska's Final Aeon who just deals damage so much more efficiently that I don't really think that Caius will get his day in the sun. That's what makes knowing his original effect even more heartbreaking because this card would have been an absolute beast in the Opus Series.
Much like Y'shtola, Caius's effects fall into the "same idea, different execution" category. Anybody who's played the FFTCG for awhile will notice right away that his first effect is basically the same as Opus I Vanille's, only using Bahamut instead of Hecatoncheir. Having a big powerful Forward that's also sticky is threatening enough, but his secondary effect is also significantly better.
Being able to break any Forward or Monster by pitching a Bahamut and dulling Caius is way more versatile than only being able to use the effect on an attack. Plus you're potentially netting more value from the Bahamut than you would by casting it if you're getting rid of a particularly large Forward. By contrast, in the Opus Series Caius you're dealing less damage than the Bahamut would have done since none of the ones we have right now deal less than 8000 damage even though you're saving some CP by not having to cast it.
I think that the time that Opus Caius could have been powerful is long past. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Fire could have had better cards available sooner rather than going through the long slog of weird clunky ones we were getting for awhile. #JusticeforCaius.
#2: Minfilia
Chapters Effect:
4CP Earth Backup (No EX)
Job: Scion of the Seventh Dawn
Effect: When Minfilia enters the Field, you may search for 1 [Job (Scion of the Seventh Dawn)] or 1 [Job (Standard Unit)] and add it to your hand. [Job (Scion of the Seventh Dawn)] and [Job (Standard Unit)] you control gain 1000 Power.
At number 2 we have Minfilia of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, a card that ended up becoming a bit of a meme awhile back when somebody included four of them in their deck at a major tournament. Whoops! In any case it's pretty clear that Minfilia is a major component of Scion decks, being their primary searcher and helping to get your Ydas and Earth Y'shtolas online. The break effect is really just icing on the cake.
But what's interesting about how this card changed was that she went from a card that could be used in a much wider range of decks to one that could realistically be played in one specific archetype. Again, we see the "Adventurer Recruitment" theme with the Standard Unit Focus. But the ability to search out either Standard Units or Scions and give both jobs an extra +1000 power boost meant that we could have possibly combined something like Chocobos with Scions for some interesting deck brews.
But I wanted to talk about this card specifically because back in Chapters, the Scions deck as we knew it didn't exist like it does in the Opus Series. Most of the key characters were split between Earth, Fire, Ice, and Water, rather than having a consistent Lightning/Earth split, so it was much more complicated to build (From what I've seen, Chapters seemed to have a bit of an issue with color and title consistency in general). If I had to guess, the Standard Unit focus was probably included as both a thematic element for XIV's story as well as a way to give the deck a bit more consistency. Considering how long Scions were present in the Opus meta, I'd say it was definitely the better call to ditch the Standard Unit focus.
#1: Zidane
Chapters Effect:
3CP Light Forward - 4000 Power
Job: Bandit
Effect: When Zidane enters the Field, opponent shows their hand. Choose 1 card from this. Opponent discards it. If opponent's hand has 2 cards or less, Zidane gains 5000 Power.
I don't think it's too far of a stretch that after Valefore, Zidane is probably the card that most people want banned from the game. And really it's pretty hard to argue with that. The ability to look at your opponent's hand is rare enough in the Opus Series, but then getting to pluck any card you want and send it to the break zone is incredibly disruptive. Plus when your opponent has two cards or less, he becomes a sizable 7000 Power, all for a measly 3 CP. It's by far one of the most powerful cards in the game.
Now imagine that he became a 9000 power Forward and could be played in every single deck.
Yeah... it's pretty obvious that as bad as Zidane is in the current meta, he could have been significantly worse. A lot of the complaints about Light cards is that they don't seem to have the same level of power that Dark cards have. I'm almost positive though that if the Chapters version of Zidane made it into the Opus series as-is, people would find a way to fit him in most decks. 3 CP for a card that can easily become a massive 9K body that also disrupts any deck as early as turn 2 is absolutely absurd. So no matter how you feel about current OP cards in the game, remember we could have experienced the "Light Zidane" meta.
Oh and for the job purists out there, it's important to note that in English there isn't much distinction between a Thief and a Bandit. In Japanese though you have 盜賊 (Bandit/Rogue, etc), 泥棒 (Robber/Burglar) and シーフ (Thief) which have all been used as the job for a few different cards you could classify as a "Thief". So maybe be a bit more lenient with the translators on how they choose to classify cards in the Opus Series. Just saying...
And there you have it! An unnecessarily deep dive into cards from the Chapters series! Did anybody collect cards from Chapters before? Is there a card that you know of that had a major change when it was ported to the Opus Series that you think would have been meta defining? Let me know in the comments or on social media! For the time being I'll be here trying to figure out which choices I need to make to get that date with Barret.
Until next time - Keep On Grinding,
