Happy Prerelease Weekend! A Noob's Deck Build Ideas for Opus IX Legends

Hey Folks, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog whose biggest source of controversy with this game is how the hell I'm going to get the rest of those damn elemental dice. 

With only a few more days until the official prerelease, the transitional period between new set metas is always an exciting time, but it can also be a fairly frustrating one too. You see, whenever new cards are spoiled there's always this bizarre phenomenon that occurs where there's a frenzied rush to declare whether or not cards will see end up seeing play in pre-existing decks rather than what new decks could be built around them. 

Now to be clear, I'm not saying that I take issue with people having open discussion about what they think about new cards and whether or not they think they'll be impactful based on the information we have available to us - That's a natural part of any major TCG set release, because it's how we as players engage with both old and new cards to define the upcoming meta. 

What I'm talking about here though is when cards are reviewed in a vacuum based off of theoretical card 1 v 1 situations (x card is bad because y card exists and will always be in your opponents deck and usable immediately with no counter measures available to you) or knee jerk reactions based off what the player base at that moment in time considers to be good value (such as people dismissing cards like Nidhogg and Veritas in prerelease set reviews because of their high printed cost) and branded as good or bad with the absolute and solemn severity of a jury on a murder trial. 

Reading some of the sassy comments about cards and it's like I'm back on the Drag Race Reddit.

Now of course, no card is immune from criticism, and sometimes just aren't very good in the end and that's absolutely fine. It's impossible for every card in a set to be a new 3-of staple in every deck of their respective element. You won't find any arguments that Palom-L is a wrongly maligned gem here. But I guess it's extra frustrating during prerelease season since we don't actually have all of the information about what will be released in the set, so a card that looks bad on paper might gain a piece of support from a source that hasn't been revealed or had the opportunity to test out yet. As much as Nidhogg was the linchpin card of VIceKings, it's the combination of Opus VI Rinoa (who wasn't spoiled until the entire set was shown if I recall correctly) and an unassuming Rare card in the form of Leila that supports that deck. 

Also judging cards in a vaccum can be pretty difficult since you're always going to have 49 other cards in any deck that can help cover the shortcomings of a card or help set up an engine for the deck. So today I figured I would take a look at some combo and deck building ideas for some of the new Legends in Opus IX! 

Being that this article is coming out so close to the release of the set, its entirely probably that this whole thing will be made obsolete very quickly, but I wanted to take a little time to get the ball rolling with some constructive speculation that might be a good starting point for deck ideas. It's also likely that I'm totally off about how effective these cards will end up being. In that case, if you the reader take it as a personal point of pride that you were correct that a card was trash before you even played it, you can always print out this certificate and hang it up on your fridge to let everybody know you were right all along. 

Of course, doing that still won't get you the pleasure of hearing me admit that I was wrong about any of this. You see kids, the way to guarantee that you're never wrong about anything is to never have an opinion any stronger than "I dunno, maybe this could work." You're welcome.

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Vayne

 

Vayne is one of the Opus IX spoilers that was probably the most hotly contested, with half of the playerbase thinking that he was an insanely powerful card with crazy board wipe potential, and the other half thinking he was unplayable garbage because he costs 5 and has too many opportunities to break him and waste the CP spent on him before the effect goes off. 

Wossy Plays actually did a really great job of breaking down both sides of this argument in a video way more informative than anything I could ever muster, so I'll try not to repeat too much of what he discussed there. The fact that Diabolos is one of the most popular Summons in the game right now is definitely problematic... or at least it would be if Ice didn't have an unusual amount of ways to deal with Summons. 

Edward and Celes in particular are cards that have seen a lot of play in Ice decks, and just their presence on the board is enough to make your opponent think twice about paying for an expensive Summon to dispose of Vayne, regardless of if you actually have another copy of them in your hand to pay for their S abilities. Summoner on the other hand, is a bit more awkward to use than similar negation backups like Layle or Cait Sith, but has the benefit of cancelling any Summon regardless of the cost. By the way, speaking of Earth cards... 

 

I get that this combo is a meme at this point but baby, when it's right, it's right. 

Because Tama doesn't have an "only on your turn" restriction like Star Sibyl, you can wait until your opponent isn't in a position to respond to Vayne's effect, such as just before the end of their turn when they've dulled all of their backups. Because Vayne's effect triggers at the end of the turn, played with Tama it skips the waiting period that leaves him vulnerable to removal and reduces the likelihood that your opponent will have the CP to pay to prevent their forwards from breaking. 

Tama aside, I think Vayne could be a key piece in a new kind of Ice/Earth build that focuses around "tax" effects, with cards like Undead Princess, the Flan Suite, and perhaps even finally bring the FFTA cards like Cid Randell, Remedi, and Babus into the limelight. Combined with Ice's natural access to discard, you can manipulate your opponent's resources easily and keep them on their toes with their CP management. 

...

OH AND ALSO MIST DRAGON!  

Other Options with Vayne:

• Ice Version of Porom for cheap Backup manipulation. 
• Ice/Wind builds with cards like Zidane-H, Miounne, and Y'shtola to limit your opponents removal options. 

Wol 

 

So if Vayne was the most debated Legend of Opus IX, Wol was the most outright loathed upon its reveal. At first I was a little confused by this card too, since it has an odd color restriction and does nothing until it's sent to the Break Zone where it does 9k to an opponent's Forward of your choice. The immediate comparisons to Xande and Veritas were made, a point which was yet again covered by another FFTCG content producer, Alex Scott in their great article about Wol for The Mysidia Post.

I think that one of the traps that people fall into when they evaluate new cards prior to release is that they compare it to pre-existing cards with similar effects without taking into consideration the support that it might have thanks to its Job, Category, or Element. I think that's what separates this Wol from Veritas or Xande, in that Warrior of Light currently has a lot of support for it, with stuff like Aigis and the FFIII power boosters, Sarah (Mobius) for recursion, and Opus II Legend Warrior of Light to make him harder to kill. Unlike cards like Yuri and Veritas that can be splashed into a wider variety of decks, Wol would need to be played in a Warrior of Light specific deck.

The biggest problem is that there are already 2 other cards named Wol that already do a very good job in Warrior of Light decks, and one of those is one of the most powerful cards in the game right now... 

I'm going to go out on a limb and be a crazy person for a second and say that both of the Light Wols might be a little bit more useful in a dedicated Fire/Earth or multi-color Warrior of Light Tribal Deck than the Earth one is, funnily enough. With Aigis giving a blanket Brave effect and the opportunity to have multiple anthem cards like Ingus, Luneth, and Lyse that affect all of your Forwards, the two most used of Wol's 4 effects become a bit of a moot point unless your opponent has a board full of 12k Forwards, which tends to be unlikely - the No EX bursts and dull ping effects are still very useful though. 

Of course, you could also run the new Wol in any other combination of decks, like Wind/Water or Fire/Wind so there's less of a conflict, but not running Opus IX Wol in Earth cuts off a lot of his access to things like Sarah (Mobius) and Hecatonchier, but also the card that probably works best with it - Magic Pot. 

Oh Magic Pot... everybody thought you were going to break the game when you came out in Opus IV and you landed with an unimaginably loud thud instead. And before you ask, yes you can use Magic Pot to get around Wol's color restriction requirement, since it still functions the same way as cards like Opus VIII Bahamut or 3 CP Estinien which can be cheated in by cards that bypass the "Can only be played" requirement, unlike Livia whose requirement is checked by her Enter the Field effect, but we'll get back to her a bit later. 

Setting up a Magic Pot and playing either of the two Light Wols puts your opponent into a rough spot, since both of them have effects that trigger and give you a decently large advantage - for example you can sacrifice Opus V Light Wol with Magic Pot to block an attack or effectively fizzle an ability/summon and bring in an aggressive attacker that is harder to remove and play a 3 CP or less Warrior of Light from the break zone onto the field, and vice versa. 

That being said the reason I actually kind of like the new Light Wol is because he's similar in function to 5 CP Fire Cloud in that it slows down aggressive removal and forces your opponent to have to think twice about breaking it. Veritas does this as well, though I think because of all the Warrior of Light support we have and will most likely continue to get in future sets combined with a lower cost and over curve body, in the right deck Opus IX Wol might be a better choice than Veritas. Maybe. Don't quote me on that. 

Other Options with Wol: 

• "Mono Light" used to be a thing back in the day apparently, so playing him with with Cosmos, Warrior of Light-L, Rain, and/or Yuri with Ultima the High Seraph as a board wipe that leaves you with Forwards. Playing with Earth support lets you run Tilika to pitch excess Light cards for CP too.
• The aforementioned Cloud in Fire based builds since it builds a board of large bodies that are tough to deal with if your opponent has nothing to remove them from the game. The new Backup Shadow can make those removals -really- hurt too.

 

Yiazmat 

 

I don't know if Yiazmat was a particularly contentious card other than the fact that instead of the Mobius artwork, people see a big gigantic number nine taking up most of the space on the card there. Either way he's got a sick EX burst, and decently relevant modal effects, but I think this guy currently suffers from "What do I take out to play this" syndrome since Mono Wind currently has a pretty decent Boss Monster in the form of Fina-L. He can certainly give you back huge returns if he manages to stay alive, which is always the tricky part. I think that because of this, Yiazmat might be served best in Wind/Water builds instead, using water's natural drawing ability to help pay his large cost similar to VIcekings. What would you call this sort of deck then? WIkings? Whatever.

Using Lunafreya is a way to protect your Yiazmat from opposing Diaboloses or other removal (at least on your opponent's turn), while also having the nasty effect of replaying him on to the field and retriggering his entry effect and lets you use another effect as soon as it becomes your next turn. Plus in Water/Wind you have a lot of other options you can use this on, like Cloud of Darkness or Y'shtola, the latter of which is also great protection for your big boy and reduces your opponent's options for removing Yiazmat. 

While Aerith doesn't necessarily combo with Yiazmat to do anything in particular, unless there's a sudden upsurge in people playing Opus VIII Bahamut, it makes it very hard to deal with using anything other than insta-break cards. I like using Aerith over Minwu in this case because she lets you reactivate your backups on death, making her a good target for Veritas/Famfrit selection removals. And as we all know, Wind loves having the ability to reactivate forever. 

Oh hi Yuri, you heard me say "reactivate forever" and showed up right? I don't really think I need to explain the appeal of using Yuri with Yiazmat, since you can stack the order that you use his abilities with when Yiazmat's Main Phase effect triggers to effectively use Yuri four times if your backups are stacked right in Wind/Water. 

Other Options with Yiazmat: 

• I used to run a Water/Wind YRP deck that used Garnet-S, Light Yuna, Opus VI Astrologian, and a bunch of draw summons like Pupu and Moogle. It was really fun and you ended up drawing a lot, but I felt like it needed a "Big Finisher" to take advantage of it personally. Maybe adding Yiazmat would be a solution to that?  
• I wanna say that maybe using this with the new Backup Water Ultimecia could also be pretty spicy if you can stack the deck in your favor using cards like the new XII Standard Unit Moogle Forward. 

 Nael

Nael seems to be another card people are split about, though I personally like her (Yes, it's a her. Do your research!) for Fire as a game-ender with the potential to be a super efficient threat that lets you play multiple Meeths or other non-standard unit  backups with one-time effects. Luckily she's not dependent on needing to have the other Garlean Generals, or a particular element of backups for her effect, so she can be put into a lot of different decks. 

That being said I do want to try using her in Fire/Lightning because there's a lot of other Category XIV Forwards that could make for a really aggressive, Forward heavy deck, particularly combining the Generals with XIV/XI Samurai builds. 

   

I'm kind of curious about how well this combo will play out, since the Generals don't really seem to have a whole lot in common with eachother, unlike the Earth/Lightning Scions that all seamlessly play together. I do like the idea of Gauis's ping effect getting boosted to 4k with Iroha, and the fact that he can search and play Rhitahtyn to potentially take out an 8k while building up a board is interesting, and with Hien and other Samurai, it makes having a wide board with a few Brave attackers harder to deal with. You could even throw in Yugiri to finish off another Forward with Gaius' ping and potentially clear the board to give her haste. The only thing that throws me for a loop is Livia... 

I don't know what it is about this card that makes me think that there might be something more to the Generals build other than the fact that her enter the field ability not being bypassable by stuff like Al-Cid combined with a weirdly clunky restriction and Nero's "other element than Lightning" effect... I don't know, it makes me feel like something is missing from this archetype that we haven't seen in the set yet, but that may be me being overly hopeful. She's really big for a 3 cost, so it may just be that was their way to "balance" the card... that you can effectively only play with 3 different color backups... I dunno. Maybe we'll get some kind of backup that does some kind of color fixing for the Garlean Generals and makes Livia playable or something like that. 

Golbez is another strange card that implies a few things about the type of deck that you're running. Namely that you're running a deck that is very Forward heavy and that is simultaneously running several different versions of Golbez to get the biggest bang for your buck with Double Meteor. Maybe this is meant to be another addition to a Golbez deck or something, but I'm kind of toying with the idea of running him in a deck that stacks more Forwards, and could potentially get Nael and Gaius out for very cheap. The only problem is that he also suffers from "a 5 cost that does nothing the turn that he enters and without haste support your opponent has ample opportunities to break him" combined with the fact that even with the investment you can get screwed if you reveal anything but a Forward. I dunno, was just something I was thinking about with either a Forward Heavy or All Forwards deck... Probably better to stick to XIV support tho. 

Other Options with Nael: 

• Because Gaius and Nael have high costs, a Garlean General deck could potentially benefit from running the new 7CP Fusoya with them to get a bigger ping with his draw effect, while also allowing you to run a few off color summons in the deck. 

Azure Dragon l'Cie Soryu 

 

It's kind of funny that both of the Ice Legends in Opus IX can be critiqued in the same ways, in that they're both 5 drop 9k Forwards that are vulnerable to removal before they can start building value. Well, maybe less so for L'cie here, who you can still discard cards as soon as it's played to get its effects, but you're probably going to want to start attacking to draw cards, assuming you're running this in a mono ice build to guaruntee a card every turn, and that you'll always get a draw off of this EX Burst.

Of course, all of the things that were said about Vayne with other Ice cards that can protect it from Summons apply to this guy to. What's kind of interesting though is that Type-0 Ice speficially has an unusual amount of characters that you can use with this. 

While White Tiger Qun'mi doesn't actually negate summons, it makes protecting your big slow 5 costs a little easier. Your opponent might not be so eager to slam down a Diabolos if it now suddenly costs 8 CP to cast. Also it's within the same title if we should happen to get more non-cadet type zero support. With how many cards there are in Ice Type-0, getting a backup searcher for them would do a lot for the consistency of a potential Mono Ice Type-0 build, but that's all speculative at this point.

Even though none of these guys specifically reference Type-0, they actually make an efficient little package together. Emina makes Kurasame into a soft 2 cost 7k Ice anthem Forward, and makes Kazusa into a 1 CP Backup that can function as a miniature Gesper of sorts. Again, if a Type-0 character searcher were to appear in ice, this would be even better, so get on it Hobby Japan.

Oh crap, wait, I don't think I actually want that afterall...

I actually kind of like that the Ice Legends have been getting a bit slower in this set, since in my opinion they've been one of the top elements the past few sets because they have way too much fast, easy control, and having to be a bit more thoughtful about how you use it seems well balanced, but I doubt that things will change that dramatically without some set rotations or bans happening in the near future.

Other Options with Azure Dragon L'Cie Soryu  

• What even is Type-0 as a category at this point? At this point the Ice cards have way more synergy than the actual Cadets themselves do. Like does anybody remember how in Opus V they printed an Agito Cadet searcher? I dunno, it's just super weird.
• Black Tortoise L'Cie Gilgamesh or whatever.    

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So those are just some of the thoughts about Opus IX Legends that have been rattling around in my frenzied mind for awhile. Regardless on wether or not any of these cards turn out to be good in the long run, I hope that everybody has great pulls and enjoys coming up with new deck ideas as we move into the Opus IX season! Join me next time for my overall set review as well as the results of our Opus Bingo! (Spoilers, we got it like always). 

Until Next Time - Keep on Grinding, 

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The Forbidden Opus: An Opus II Review

Hey there all you Ninjas and Sages, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight, the FFTCG blog that exists to make you look like a better player by comparison! 

Okay, so I was totally ready to write a post about my attempts in trying to make a deck revolving around Edge from Final Fantasy IV. I really was. I finally got around to finishing the GBA version of the game, made my way through the Lunar Ruins, did everybody's trials and beat Zeromus EG. And then, just when I was prepped and ready to write an earth-shattering article about how Ninjas need more archetype support in Opus VI, this happened:
 

 I'm really doing a great job at selling this whole unemployment fantasy to you all.   

So yeah... we bought a box of Opus II this week. Up until this point, I really hadn't had much experience with the cards from this set. When we first started buying packs, I mostly focused on III and IV. Sean's favorite Final Fantasy has always been VIII though, and because Opus II has such a heavy focus on cards from that game, he started off buying those packs. Once we started getting more serious about the game, our focus switched to getting the new cards from Opus V and the big staple cards from I. We opened about 16 packs of Opus I during casuals last week and didn't pull a single Maria or Shantotto, and since we both need at least two of them, odds are we're still going to be pulling from there for a good while. 

But as we started to buy packs we noticed something strange recently: All of our local shops were selling out of Opus II. Some people from our FFTCG group told us that the set was now out of print, so the shops we frequented would likely not be getting them back in stock any time soon. I have no idea if this is actually true or not, but that seemed to be the consensus with the people we played with. I found this strange because even though it's an older set, a lot of the cards from Opus II are very popular in top tier decks: In particular, my new least favorite card to play against, Al-Cid.

Pretty hard to stay mad at a guy with such luxurious chest hair though.

In any case, we both figured that it would be a good idea to pick up a box, and here we are. So instead of the content I said I would write about in my last post, I thought that because I haven't really gotten too many of these cards, it would be fun to go over our pulls and give my thoughts on some of the individual cards from the set instead. So if you're one of the 3 people who regularly read this blog and were really looking forward to that Final Fantasy IV Edge deck, what can I say except well... maybe next time. Otherwise, lets dive into the mysterious and alluring collection that is Opus II.

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The Pulls:  

Even though this was the second box of FFTCG cards we purchased together, Sean wasn't around to help me open Opus V, so this was his first time diving into a fresh sealed box. He had yet to experience the rush that I had last time tearing into the shrink wrap and getting buried in a pile of discarded wrappers as you opened all those packs. It's like opening the Ark of the Covenant, except without the whole face melting and spontaneous combustion thing. 

Anyway we quickly divided the piles of booster packs and dug in. I usually don't have incredible luck pulling super valuable cards, so you can imagine my surprise when I pulled this:

Cue the Liberi Fatali Chorus

Rinoa! And a foil one at that! As a FFVIII fan, this was probably the number one card that Sean was looking for from this set, so that's pretty lucky. Now you're probably wondering when it comes to sharing a box of cards between two people, how do we decide who gets what? Well for the most part if it's a card that the other one has really been gunning for, we'll claim the exclusive "ownership rights" of that card, so we can use it in our decks. Otherwise it goes into the binder for either one of us to use. 

That being said, a majority of the good cards that had been pulled in the past had already gone to Sean, as he tends to focus on Ice, Lightning, and Earth cards. So he made me a deal: He'd keep the Rinoa in exchange for the foil Opus I Shantotto he pulled awhile back. Since XI is my favorite, and they're both fairly valuable cards, I was more than happy to accept this. I plan on repaying his generosity by using it against him it at every available chance, because that's just the kind of boyfriend I am. 

Oh yeah, and then I pulled this: 

I take back everything bad I ever said about you baby!

So yeah, a foil Al-Cid, and this one I wanted since Sean had pulled a regular one back when we first started playing. Now, I realize that:

A) I just made a big fuss about how I wish this card would get banned. 

B) I have yet to use lightning in any of the decks I've made. 

But now that I actually have this card... well, I reserve the right to be a hypocrite when it comes to rare cards, okay?? 

In any case lets take a look at all the goodies we pulled from our Opus II box. 

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Legends

I was kinda hoping to get a foil of the Emperor. I guess I should have specified which one...

Heroics

Is it weird that I was more excited about the Foil Edge than the Arc?  

So yeah, all things considered it was a pretty good haul! Two Al-Cids, a foil Zemus, Vayne, Xande, and Rinoa is nothing to sneeze at. I was kind of hoping to get the L Cecil or Vincent from this set, but unlike Eald'Narche, it wasn't all that disappointing - Sean had already gotten an Opus II Emperor, so now I have one too! Maybe now that I've gotten these cards, the FFTCG cool kids will let me sit with them. Probably not, but an Onion Knight can dream.
 

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Final Thoughts

Opus II was a bit of a strange one for me. On the one hand, I'm pretty surprised that this set is becoming harder to find in stores. Out of all of the FFTCG booster boxes listed on Amazon, Opus II was about 30 dollars more expensive than the other ones, and at the time I ordered, the only one not eligible for Prime shipping. From what limited experience and knowledge that I have with this game, a lot of really powerful and meta-defining cards originated in this set. Hell, most of the top decks in the Crystal Cup had decks featuring cards like The Emperor, Rinoa, and Vayne. If the rumors are true and Opus II is really out of print, I hope that there's a reprint somewhere on the horizon, because it would be nice if these high value cards were more readily available. 

Also it's nice to have a character on the packs that isn't from FFVII or... Lightning. 

If I had to pick an element that "won" this set, it would definitely be Ice... which is probably why I didn't focus on it much when I first started playing, being more interested in Fire cards. At first I didn't really understand why Rinoa was such a valuable card, but the ability to dull all of your opponents forwards can completely change the pace of the game. You can use her ability both offensively and defensively, and is in general a really great card even outside of VIII focused decks. Vayne is another powerful Ice card that will keep getting better as new sets are released. Being able to dull and lock down any 5 drop or higher is incredibly valuable, and shuts down a lot of powerful cards in Opus V like Vaan and Ramza. I'm really not surprised that Ice tends to be popular in the tournament scene with cards like these, and cards from Opus III like Genesis and Kuja only helped make it more powerful.

There are a lot of big beefy Lightning cards in this set too, with stuff like Edea Al-Cid and Amon that can really disrupt your opponents forwards and generally be a pain to play around. Mono Lightning decks are pretty much a thing because of the cards from this set, so if you're a newer player who's looking to play that element, I would definitely start collecting Opus II. 

It also has the other elements beat in sheer fabulousness.

If I had to pick a losing element in this set, it would be Fire, which is kind of a bummer for me since it's my favorite element. Sure, Emperor Xande is one of the key cards in my Marche/FFVI Forwards deck, and probably one of the better fire cards in general, but unlike the other Legends from Opus II, he pretty much has to be played in Mono Fire, which at the moment, is pretty far behind other elements in terms of power and viability. Sure I have fun in casuals with it, but in comparison to other Mono Lightning or Mono Water, it just doesn't keep up.  Every set Fire gets just a little closer to being competitive in the "meta" sense with stuff like Pheonix and Zhuyu in Opus V... it just needs a few more cards that do something other than "Does Damage"... Who knows, maybe Opus VI will make those fire ninjas i keep talking about top tier or something. 

In any case, that's enough of this Noob's opinions for now. What are some of your favorite cards from the Opus II collection, or your thoughts on the set as a whole? Where does it rank for you on the scale of best/worst Opus? Lemme know in the comments! 

Until next time - Keep on Grinding, 

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