Spoiled Onions: A Rebellion's Call Card Reveal - Onion Knight

 

Hello again Adventurers, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that actually studied at the University of Argus with the Onion Knight from Final Fantasy III. One of us went on to save the worlds of Light and Darkness from the forces of evil, and the other writes blog articles about card games, so you tell me which one of us really got our money's worth there. 

Well well, would you look at that? Our good friends at Square Enix have let me reveal an Onion Knight card for the second set in a row! With no other Onion Knight themed FFTCG bloggers out there, I suppose I was the logical choice for this - though I'm starting to think they might actually be trying to imply something about my choices by having me spoil Onion Knights who have achieved the ultimate jobs of Sage and Ninja. "This is what you could be if you actually applied yourself"! Yeah yeah, hint taken guys.

So while I'm here trying not to stab myself with shuriken and practicing my best Naruto run to achieve maximum speed, let's take a look at my spoiler for Rebellion's Call - Onion Knight (17-044R), aka "the new Ninja one".

While the Sage Onion Knight from the last set was about bringing draw power to an element that doesn't normally get much of it, the Ninja Onion Knight combines combat tricks with value generation. At first glance, his Dull ability to bounce himself back to the hand to play a Forward of cost 3 or 4 (and remember, that's EXACTLY 3 or 4, rather than 3 or less.) seems like the most notable effect of this card. And don't get me wrong, it IS quite good! But like all good Ninjas, this one has a few tricks up his sleeves that make him a flexible piece of utility for a variety of different decks.

Right off the bat, this card bears an obvious resemblance to Esha'ntarl from Opus XII since they both have the ability bounce themselves back to the hand in order to "trade up" for a more valuable Forward. Unlike Esha'ntarl though, Onion Knight doesn't have any restriction on when you can use his effect, so you can use his effect to flash something in on your opponent's turn. Onion Knight also has the advantage of having an entry effect, letting you make a Forward unable to attack or block until the end of the turn.

This effect is actually surprisingly versatile. Effectively, it means that so long as you have Onion Knight in your hand, you'll always have the ability to completely ignore one of your opponent's Forwards for 2 CP. The former part of the effect seems like it would be useless, since why would you care if a Forward can attack on YOUR turn? However, it's actually the perfect target for Phoenix (3-020H). Not only does casting Phoenix during your opponent's turn let you use Onion Knight as a combat trick to stop a potential attack, the fact that it plays Onion Knight straight onto the field from the Break Zone means that you also skip the waiting period to use his Action Ability once it becomes your turn again.   

He's also an excellent option to use with the card everybody loves to hate, Bismarck, Lord of the Mists. Onion Knight's ability to bounce himself will trigger Bismarck's draw effect, and lets you play something like Zidane for free, with Onion Knight replacing the card you just lost from your hand. Then you can use Bismarck to bounce Zidane back to your hand at the end of the turn, so you can set up the whole shebang again next turn. To add more salt to the wound, every time you play the Onion Knight to the field, something can't block. If you choose to do this though, do your best not to feel too smug about it or anything. Try and look extra guilty about it, saying things like "oh I'm so sorry! this must be a super unfun interaction for you!" Maybe that way, you won't actually be responsible for Bismarck getting banned next. 

Much like his Sage counterpart, Onion Knight's job being both Ninja and Warrior of Light presents some interesting opportunities when it comes to the decks he can be used in. I already spoke about Warriors of Light in my last spoiler reveal so I won't be going over them today. Just know that there are plenty of good ways to use the new Onion Knight in that archetype - being able to play Faris for free from your hand without having to worry about color fixing being one of the most notable uses. The job also lets the Luneth Backup give him Haste to skip the turn you'd need to wait otherwise. But I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't the most excited to talk about Ninjas today.

With Edge reducing his cost, Onion Knight can play a 4 cost Forward from your hand for only 1 CP, and I don't think I need to explain why that's incredibly efficient. In the Ninja deck, having Onion Knight on the field becomes something your opponent will need to deal with in one turn, or else risk having something like Zangetsu being cheated out onto the field and dulling their entire board. Once Onion Knight's Action Ability can be used, he also functions somewhat similarly as Kytes does for Sky Pirates, being a cheap card that can effectively dodge single target removal and replace himself with a much bigger threat.    

A card that has rarely seen play in past Ninja decks but may be worth considering running alongside Onion Knight is Izayoi. Onion Knight's efficiency goes through the roof when you can play Izayoi for free, and then play another Ninja of 3 or less from your hand. Izayoi's effect doesn't specify that the Ninja she plays has to be a Forward, so you can build your Backup line with cards like Maina and search for the next Ninja you need to continue your combos.

The new Yugiri that was revealed for Rebellion's Call is also an excellent card to play using Onion Knight's effect (or to play with Izayoi's effect for that matter - she's just an excellent new addition to the Ninja deck in general). Yugiri's search can grab any Card Name or Job Ninja rather than just Forwards, so you have a pretty wide range of options you can go for depending on what you need. Using Onion Knight's effect to cheat out Yugiri and then going for her search also ensures that you have two Ninja cards in your hand, so you can use her discard effect to break a Forward as soon as she hits the field.

It should come as no great surprise to hear that the new Onion Knight is also a great new addition to Onion Knight decks. Wild right? But ugh, look at that smug little jerk, flaunting all his cool jobs and stuff. I bet it must be real hard to not constantly get your ass handed to you by low-level Goblins and Bats when you've been given the divine blessing of the crystal. I guess I just wasn't in the right place at the right time like SOME people... 

Ahem... In any case, the Ninja Onion Knight is a no-brainer for OK decks - especially ones revolving around the Multi Element Fire/Wind version. Much like my earlier example with Faris in Warriors of Light, the Ninja Onion Knight also fixes the need to play him with the required colors. It's also one of the few other cards that can properly take advantage of the versatility of new Ninja's entry ability. If the Multi-Element Onion Knight is sent to the Break Zone on your opponent's turn, you'll be able to play the Ninja Onion Knight straight from your hand and prevent an attack. Much like with Phoenix, this will also have him ready to use his Action Ability when it becomes your turn.  

Even without combat tricks, Ninja Onion Knight's exchange effect has the potential to give you big value - but without Haste, you may find him sent to the Break Zone before he can do his thing. Thankfully, Onion Knight-centric decks being Fire/Wind gives the Ninja Onion Knight access to Goblin to help ensure he can get his ability off as soon as you play him. I should also point out that many Onion Knight decks you can find online are also Ninja decks. So if you prefer to use the OK package over a more Category IV heavy Ninja build, this new card certainly helps grease the wheels with that too. 

All in all, I'm really hoping that Rebellion's Call will finally see Ninjas get some much needed Job support. It's been my favorite tribal archetype ever since I stumbled my way to top two in my first ever serious tournament with them, so cards like Onion Knight and Yugiri give me hope that we'll see them get the same kind of love that archetypes like Samurai have gotten. 

Oh who am I kidding? No tribal archetype will ever get as much love as Samurai. But a man can dream, can't he? 

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Thanks once again to the lovely Richelle Brady at Square Enix for letting me spoil a card with my blog's namesake again - and for all of you lovely folks for reading this! Before I head out, let's take a look at this set's Bingo for those of you who didn't catch it on Facebook. 

So it looks like so far we've gotten... *check's notes* uh, none of these so far. To be fair, I was a bit later making this Bingo up than I usually am. I actually had Yugiri and Ninja Support as two spaces on this board, but the day I went to post it, Yugiri was already spoiled. Considering that she checked both squares already, I hastily replaced them with some other options, which may prove to be my downfall. But I'm confident we'll start to check some of these off as we get closer to the release. After all, what are the odds that this is the first Bingo where I end up getting NONE of these predictions right? Hahaha... 

In any case, thanks again for coming around to listen to this bearded Onion Knight ramble on about cards. While I wait for Rebellion's Call to release, I'll be here nursing a tensely polite and ultimately one sided rivalry with the other Onion Knight. What really makes it awkward is that he's actually a super nice, supportive guy, but being stuck at Level 1 for so long has a way of making a guy bitter. 

Until next time - keep on grinding, 

   

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Spoiled Onions: An Emissaries of Light Card Reveal - Onion Knight

 

Greetings, card game adventurers! Welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight: the Final Fantasy TCG blog run by the Onion Knight who studied creative writing at Onion University while everyone else in my class was learning how to become Ninjas and Sages. I think we all know which of us made the right choice there. 

Well would you look at that? It's spoiler season yet again! I'd like to think that this one is extra special for me though, since this March will mark the fourth year since I started writing this blog. So happy anniversary to me I guess! As always, major thanks to the FFTCG community team for letting me do one of these!  

Funnily enough, despite the fact that I've been doing community spoilers since Opus VI, I've never actually gotten to spoil an Onion Knight card before now. That's pretty weird right? It's not as though there are a lot of other Onion Knight-themed FFTCG players out there. If there were I would know, because there can only ever be one.

In any case, the head honchos at Square Enix have finally deemed me worthy enough to spoil a card bearing my namesake. So as the deputy chairman of the Star Onion Brigade (or S.O.B. for short), I'm very happy to welcome a new Onion Knight to Emissaries of Light! 

Onion Knight here has an auto-ability that would seem much more at home on a Water card instead of a Fire card. Generally, these sorts of hand-filtering effects are a good way to dig further into your deck to grab a card you need in exchange for a card in your hand that you don't. However this Onion Knight is a little unusual in that the order of how these effects usually go is reversed - you have to discard before you draw. In fact, of all the cards with filter effects, only Pupu has the order as discard/draw rather than the other way around. Strangely, there is actually a subtle but important distinction between the two effect orders. 

Discarding first can appear as more of a disadvantage than drawing first, since you'll have less options to filter your hand with, and will be stuck with whatever you draw into. However, the important thing to know about this is that the draw effect is not dependent on the discard effect happening first. Since the two actions are part of the same effect, if you draw two cards first, then you will always have two cards to discard in the end. However if you play Onion Knight with no other cards in your hand to discard, you will just straight up draw 2 cards. So with this order of operations, you can play a bit more aggressively and then finish off with Onion Knight to end your turn with 2 cards in your hand. 

Of course, you could also argue that all this does is encourage people to play inefficiently. It's unlikely that after a turn where you play a lot of cards to the field, you'll have the CP to pay for Onion Knight solely from Backups. If you're pitching two cards from hand to play Onion Knight to try and get the "free draw", then you've ultimately achieved the same thing you would have if you just discarded the cards with his effect. However, there's still a few more tricks that this Onion Knight has up his Sagely sleeve.

It looks like this card's optimal use would be in a deck dedicated to Onion Knight. Go figure! The old Light Onion Knight is still valuable for being a cheap Haste Forward that you can get some early aggression in with. But now you can also use his action ability to "exchange" himself with the new Fire Onion Knight, and immediately filter the Light card into your Break Zone rather than sitting dead in your hand. 

Since the new Onion Knight from Emissaries is a Job Sage, he's also a prime target to fetch with Onion Knight (4-054L)'s Job change: Ninja ability. Since the ability searches and plays the Sage straight from the deck, it makes playing him to refill an empty hand much more efficient. 

Of course, you may not even want to play it with an empty hand, since discarding two Onion Knights is actually a quick way to get your Break Zone prepped to use the Multi-Element Onion Knight's effect. I actually did play an Onion Knight/Ninja deck back in Opus XIII, and the ability deal three Forwards 9K damage by removing three OK's in your Break Zone from the game was extremely powerful. But to get the effect off reliably you need to stuff your deck with a lot of Onion Knights, and I often felt like the Lightning Sage and Meteor Onion Knight would clog up my hand. The new Onion Knight handily solves this problem, and being a Fire element card helps streamline Onion Knight decks to being dual-color rather than needing to splash Lightning in there too. 

His second job also lets him benefit from the plethora of Warrior of Light support in the FFTCG. All the easy searching and buffing that WoL's have aside, the new Onion Knight also becomes much more efficient to play with cards like Faris and Aegis. You typically want to use Faris's cost-reduction effect to quickly build a large board of Forwards, so playing Onion Knight with an empty hand off two Backups seems like a much more feasible ask. 

You can also finish off a big Faris chain by playing Aigis for 3 CP, then play Onion Knight for free with his effect. You'd end up with a pretty substantial board of beefy Forwards, as well as triggering Faris's damage ability twice in a row. Plus if that was the last card in your hand, you'd still be able to end your turn with two cards with Onion Knight's draw effect. Of course, with so many Light cards like Wol, Lenna, and Refia competing for slots in a Warrior of Light deck, the discard effect could be just as helpful as well. If the new Luneth is any indication, it looks like WoL decks are going to get a nice boost with Emissaries of Light. 

I am fully aware that a lot of this article so far has been dedicated to me riding the crazy train of "PLAY ONION KNIGHT WITH AN EMPTY HAND!! IT'S TWO CARDS FOR FREE YOU GUYS!!!", and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't fully a symptom of me being a starry-eyed casual player with an incorrigible love of job-specific decks and ridiculous jank. So let me take a moment to be a little bit more practical here and talk about Onion Knight's effect as an actual filter, and not as Pot of Greed on a Forward.

Ifrita and Bahamut benefit from filling your Break Zone with specific cards, but Mono Fire hasn't had access to any form of filtration before now. Just like the earlier example with the Multi-Element Onion Knight, running these cards with the new Sage Onion Knight helps dump more of the target card into the Break Zone while still maintaining your hand size. The fact that Onion Knight is also a beefy 8K Forward rather than a summon like Pupu or Moogle means you can set up your Break Zone while maintaining a more aggressive board too.

Finally, I think that the new Onion Knight could find a place in Fire/Water decks revolving around Mog (VI). Even though it's a filter effect, you're still drawing two cards from it. This will trigger Mog's bounce at minimum, and can help get closer to the 6 cards you need to put your target in the Break Zone instead. There aren't too many cards that straight up let you draw 2 from them - the most relevant examples I can think of being Shinryu, Yuna, and Merlwyb - so using Onion Knight in Water/Fire control decks can help get Mog's effect off more often. Of course, just be careful that you don't deck yourself out in the process. 

ONION NINJA EDIT: 

As soon as I posted this, somebody pointed out that Onion Knight's discard effect actually pairs really well with the new Black Waltz cards coming out this set, so thank you to David Melendez from Facebook for telling me about this! 

But yes, since all of the new Black Waltz cards deal 4000 damage to something when they're discarded by an effect, running them with Onion Knight seems like a good idea. Now, the filter effect can become an 8k nuke if two of these are pitches. Really hope to see more discard shenanigans like this in Black Mage tribal decks!

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So that's it for my spoiler this round! As you might have guessed, I'm jazzed to see how Onion Knight decks get further fleshed out with Emissaries of Light. If they suddenly become Meta just remember that I was somehow responsible for that.

Oh and while we're here, let's see how things are going with the Bingo board for this set. 

All around, not too shabby! Funnily enough I put Onion Knight on the board before I even knew what my spoiler for this set would be, so it's not like I put it there with any pre-existing knowledge. I may be a scoundrel but I do like to have some degree of integrity here. I have to say my favorite reveal so far has been Black Waltz 1. This might seem like a pretty wild guess to get right, but I ended up putting that on the board since: 

• The new Vivi specifically says to choose one Job Black Mage from the Break Zone. If it were also Name Black Mage, that would give him a lot more targets, but as a job, Black mage is pretty rare. Shantotto is a Mage and Lulu is a Guardian, so that really only leaves Palom, Robel Akbel, and the Black Watlzes. 
• The reason that Black Waltz 1 hasn't been in the game yet (or in Chapters for that matter) is because there just aren't any pre-existing art resources that would be suitable for a card. The only art of him is concept sketches, and he's not in any CG cutscenes like Black Waltz 3 is. 
• Rubi Asami was listed as doing new artwork this set for Final Fantasy IX. 

And that's how I ended up coming to that conclusion, just in case anybody was interested in how my mind works for these Bingo cards. I guess it's really more me attempting to get a complete line for the set rather than a completely randomized bingo sheet. So is that cheating then? Probably! But just let me have this okay? I'm an Onion Knight stuck at level 1, so my ego needs a good stroke every now and then. 

In any case, that's all I've got for now! What do you guys think of the new Sage Onion Knight? Can you see yourself using him in any other decks besides the ones I mentioned? We still have about a month to go before the new set is released, so in the meantime I'll be desperately trying to hoard all the full art and foil Onion Knights for my new deck. Feel free to send some my way if you should find yourself flush with those!

Until next time - Keep on Grinding, 

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