A Noob's Set Review of Emissaries of Light

Hello there all you Summoners and Guardians! Why not take a break from your pilgrimage to Zanarkand to listen to a tale from Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy TCG blog that had to make sure that they spelled "Emissaries" correctly like three times when making this banner, so I'm calling the set "Opus XVI" from now on, and you all just kind of have to be cool with that.

Goodness! Fashionably late to the review scene as always here aren't I? I always feel a bit guilty for waiting to put these articles out until I've had time to experiment with the new cards. I sometimes worry that I'm missing out on getting in on the ground floor of the FFTCG algorithm or something while everybody else is reaping that sweet sweet card game influencer clout. Then I remember that in actuality, I'm competing with them to see who makes it onto the front page of FFdecks for the most consecutive days, so slow and steady it is!

I think it's safe to say that Opus XVI was a lot less contentious than the previous set. Having some very easily identifiable and generically good new staples in this set probably did a lot to putting some of the louder detractors at ease. That's not to say that there aren't people who take issue with some of the new cards - and I'm definitely going to talk about that later in this review because I'm sure you can already guess what I'm talking about. But Opus XVI also didn't have to shoulder the burden of being the base set for a whole new resource mechanic, so it probably felt a lot less experimental and more like a return to form compared to Opus XV.

In fact, Crystals were SO not emphasized in this set during spoiler season that most people wondered if this set just dropped the new mechanic like a hot popoto. Turns out they were mostly just hiding in Ice and Fire, which makes sense considering that those elements got the least mileage out of crystals last time. I'm actually a bit curious as to how much each element's synergy with crystals is locked behind the characters planned for a specific set. But that's a question for another time. Specifically in four months when the next set comes out.

I really enjoyed the whole "Story" format for the review that I did last set, so I think I'll be sticking to that this time around. So get in your pajamas and tuck yourself in all snuggly under the covers because it's time for some sensual late-night Onion Knight Emissaries of Light ASMR.

I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the most notable feature of Opus XVI is how it plays with Character elements and how it helps address an issue that a lot of players have had with the Final Fantasy TCG in the past - name clash. 

I’m not that experienced with other card games, but I believe name clash (The ability to only have one of a non-generic named character on the field at any time) is an issue that is fairly unique to the FFTCG. For example in let's say, I dunno, Duel Masters, if you want to play more than one “Ballom Emperor, the Emperor of Ballom” or whatever to the field, you can just do that. Wanna have multiple Black Chaos Magician MAX - The Envoy of Dusky Twilight in Yu-Gi-Oh? Go on ahead and live your best life there, champ. I've never played Magic. Can somebody tell me if name clash is an issue in Magic? But because named Characters in the FFTCG have traditionally been printed in one or two specific elements, it leads to a very specific problem: whenever a new card of a Character is printed in the same Element, it results in having to weigh if it is enough of an improvement to justify running it over the original. Unless the new one is so functionally unique that it would be run in very different deck, "This card would be better if it wasn't CHARACTER NAME" becomes a common player complaint. 

For example, the decision to print two Wind Sky Pirate-specific Vaans back-to-back In Opus XIV and XV was quite a strange choice. Sure you could just run both in your deck since they both served different roles for Sky Pirates at different stages of a game. However one was very clearly a key card that was crucial for the deck's engine, while the other one was more of an interesting option you could choose to include if you were feeling spicy. But Opus XVI solves this issue while simultaneously expanding your deck building options with a subtle but brilliant solution - assigning dramatically new elements to many popular characters. 

Even though this is the third Vaan we've gotten in the last three sets, printing him as a Fire Backup allows an already solid Backup package to be used in a whole new range of decks. Combining Filo's ability to make Sky Pirate Backups also generate Wind or Water CP with the new Final Fantasy X starter deck cards makes getting the three colors required to use Braska’s Grand Summon ability much easier than it would have been otherwise. Vaan's ability to generate three elements lets multi-element Warrior of Light decks set up easier without being so dependent on Cosmos. All in all, from Water Marche to Ice Shantotto, there are a lot of new combinations of Titles and Elements for decks that are possible thanks to a few strategic element swaps, and I hope we see more of this in the future. 

Elemental flexibility is a key feature of a lot of the new cards from Opus XVI, and the Black Waltzes are an excellent example of what a diverse array of decks can be created from a package spread across several colors. The new Black Mage archetype can be adapted to fit your preferred playstyle pretty easily. Want to turn 1 CP Zack's forced discard into a 10k burn every turn in Fire/Lightning? You can do that. How about a more control oriented deck using Black Waltz 1's increased damage to dull forwards and combine it with something like Gentiana and Opus 1 Ultimecia to disable auto-abilities? Knock yourself out. Want to get insane value off of discarding your Black Waltzes to get a free draw (or 3) using a wall of White Mages? Weirdly effective. Hell, you can even run Earth/Lightning and use Black Waltz 3 and Vivi's recursion to keep recovering your Robel Akbels in a Monster focused deck. 

Tribal decks usually lock you into a specific element combination, but Opus XVI does a really great job of keeping your options open, thanks to its focus on using multiple colors in one deck. 

And speaking of running multiple colors, we've gotten our first rainbow decks since Manikins with the Morze's Soiree archetype and Kirin and the four Shijin. 

There's something immensely satisfying about running a deck with 4+ colors, and Soiree makes for a powerful deck that gets more powerful the more members you manage to get on the field. With a pretty sharp line of Backups, it's not very difficult to get the requisite 4 members for some absolutely bonkers effects like Vesvia's 2 card draw, or Merald's unrestricted break. But I gotta say, it's the year of our lord 2022 and Cadets still can't get a Backup that color corrects, but combat butlers get it right out of the gate? Okay...  Justice for Type-0 aside, Madam Edel and her brothel gang have been making waves in the tournament scene lately, proving that even a relatively budget deck like Soiree can be successful with enough synergy.

Kirin and the Shijin are a set of cards that attracted my eye when they were revealed, and not just because it's more XI cards. Okay, that was a big big, absolutely primary reason why I was excited to use these cards. The days of Optical Hats and Kirin's Osode. If you know, you know. 

Anyway, Kirin's ability to play specifically cost 4 Forwards off the top 5 cards of your deck makes him fit in perfectly with Soiree - and that is unsurprisingly where he's found the most use. But I can't help but feel like most people don't get the Shijin because they don't have effects that scale in power with the more of them you have on the field like Soiree does. 

While I would absolutely have loved if each Shijin had that kind of synergy (For example, if Genbu gave ALL of the Shijin and Kirin a 3k damage reduction, Suzaku gave them the ability to do 5k on attack, etc), I think their true power lies in their EX Bursts and ability to efficiently chain into each other rather than their individual effects. 

A hyper-aggressive turn one where you play Kirin into a Shijin, search for another one, play it, and end your turn with 3 Forwards and a card in the element of your choosing makes for a really brutal wall for your opponent to overcome. Yes, it's an extremely risky play that could leave you open to punishment - IF your opponent happens to have an answer in their hand that turn. More than likely they'll only be able to take out one of them that early, and you'll be forcing your opponent to waste resources to make a dent in your board rather than developing their own, unless they really want to slam down that turn 2 Shantotto or something. 

If that's a little too swingy for your tastes, using Kirin and the Shijin with Star Sibyl cranks their efficiency up to 11, especially if you're running Earth/Wind with Semih Lafihna reducing SS's cost to 3. And especially if you're also running the new Wol that draws you a card once per turn when a 5 cost character is played. Play SS for 3 CP, which gets you 2 cards in your hand from the search and the draw. Break SS to play Kirin for free next turn, which draws you another card off Wol, then use Kirin's effect to play a Shijin off the top of your deck, getting you yet another card into your hand. Now Kirin can't be chosen by Summons and Abilities, and you've gotten a board full of big boys to contend with for some weird negative CP cost that I wish I was smart enough to actually calculate. Slap Robel-Akbel in there to keep recurring your Star Sibyls every turn for even more shenanigans. 

But yes, I would really like to make a deck that properly utilizes Kirin and the Shijin without combining them with Soiree. And by that I mean I want somebody else to make it and send it to me, because the best I could do was in fact, just Shijin Soiree aka Shijin Spiral aka Rainbow Royal Rumpusroom Partytown. Seriously, help an Onion Knight with a serious lack of imagination out here.

In any case, Opus XVI's focus on multi-element decks makes for some cool and unexpected new deck ideas. But how does the set measure up to previous ones in terms of power? Well for my Opus XV review, I wrote about the difference between cards that function as a Sledgehammer vs a Surgical Knife, and I think I made some pretty good points about the importance of both when it comes to the overall pace of a match. 

... But what about the difference between a Surgical Knife and a Nuclear Bomb? 

In my last set review, I discussed how the Primals represented a huge power creep for the game in terms of just how aggressive a single card could be. In fact, a few of them are likely to become even bigger threats than they already were with the introduction of cards from Opus XVI. However there are some new cards introduced this set that are so wildly broken in terms of the sheer advantage they net you (and their elements as a whole), that I wouldn't be surprised if some card bans will eventually become necessary to help mitigate their power a little bit. 

Let's start with Tidus shall we? Hoo boy where to begin with this card... So usually cards that have extremely powerful effects have some sort of built-in balancing mechanic, such as a higher cost, a Damage restriction, or having to pay more resources beyond the cost of the card. But Tidus comes in and slams card balance with a Blitzball kick to the face. Tidus's power is mostly irrelevant since he straight up can’t be blocked, so he'll continue to net the player an advantage while nullifying your opponents efforts to build up a board. But if you attempt to get rid of him with any single target removal, you give your opponent an absurd 3 card draw AND get one of your Forwards yeeted to the bottom of your deck for good measure. So like... what can you even do about it? 

That being said, you do have some options. One of my favorite FFTCG Youtubers Choco Billy mentioned in one of his videos that cards like Tidus and Cecil that discourage single-target removal will simply lead to increased usage of non-targeting removal, like board-wipes and "select" style removal like Atomos (15-106C) and Luzaf. Good old Amaterasu (a card that is seeing more and more responsibility put on its shoulders these days) can also respond to his auto-trigger. 

However, you could also argue that having to nuke the entire field with high-cost board wipes like Shantotto or Susano specifically to handle one 3CP Forward is pretty unbalanced. And of course, your opponent could always respond to your Shinryu by doing something like casting the new Leviathan for 1 CP off the new Meia, sending him to the deck and triggering his draw effect anyway. Or you know, put him in the deck with their own Typhon. Or save him by bouncing him back to their hand with Chocobo. But c'mon, who's REALLY playing Wind/Water these days? 

And don't get me wrong - Just because Tidus is busted AF doesn't mean that I'm not going to attempt to use him with the exact combo I just described. We've already established that integrity is not something that I aspire to here. I am saying that there are a few cards in Opus XVI where the card designers could have showed just a little bit more restraint though. Maybe remove one line of text there or something. And on that note... 

Lets... just get this over with. 

So complaining about Wind being overpowered is passé now right? I've said it, you've said it, and anybody who isn't a hardcore Wind apologist has said it by now. But it's very difficult to deny that Opus XVI is a set that heavily favors Wind, an Element that people already think is too strong to begin with. That thing I just mentioned about the card designers maybe leaving off one line of text certainly seems to apply to a lot of the Wind cards in this set. 

Cecil, a card that already lets you play any Character costing 4 or less and getting a 2 CP refund if it happens to be a Category IV card now introduces targeting Tax to Wind - an element that already has some of the best protection in the game. Zidane isn't just a cheap, fast threat that can mill 2 cards from the top your opponents deck every turn when combined with Bismark, who will also refund Zidane's cost with the extra draw from his bounce effect. He can also cast anything he removes from your opponent's deck, and hey, lets make the cost payable with any color because why not, right? Atomos doesn't just refund you 2 CP every turn when you meet the very hard requirement of playing two cards in an element that specializes in reactivation. He also activates all of your Backups on attack. Frequently used Backups like Chocolatte and Fiona can be used multiple times every turn, giving Wind more draw and search power with just one Monster. 

So yeah... it's kind of a lot. And it's a lot because Wind already has so many powerful cards that they can combo with to make these new ones even more bonkers.

I understand that this whole spiel does kind of make it seem like I'm suggesting that the other elements got nothing that will help them be competitive, which again, is not the case at all. You could even argue that new additions like Fina and Fat Chocobo only really work in Mono Wind, rather than being practical additions to any deck running Wind in it. But I'd like to take a more in-depth look as to why people - myself included - have complained that Wind is too strong, but this time in a way that's more constructive than "Look at these OP cards! Wind is ruining the game!" if that's even possible.

Really trying my best here guys. 

A lot of people's complaints about Wind lately is that it "Isn't fun" and "doesn't feel good to interact with" which is already a bit of a weird statement to me, because there are lots of interactions in this game that don't feel good if you're on the receiving end of it ("Haha, you just Amaterasu'd my Shantotto! What fun!!"). But I think this links to a larger issue of how much effort one element needs to accomplish the same thing as another, which Wind has a massive advantage in . 

In a game that's all about managing resources, the ability to continuously re-use your Backups to generate seemingly unlimited value for little-to-no cost is a pretty big deal. Reactivation currently has no direct counter outside of cards that outright negate Summons and Auto-Abilities, the pool of which is notoriously small. This makes dealing with Wind's constant resource generation and ability to self-bounce high-impact targets to replay them onto the field difficult. Wind forces your opponent to work harder to interact with their board in a way that seems unfair, especially since it can easily render those attempts useless. You can clear out your opponent's Y'shtola and Unsaganashi, pay the extra 2 CP from Cecil to finally be able to target something, only to have them bounce it back to their hand and draw a card with Chocobo, which yes, feels quite bad.  

So I don't think that Wind is unbeatable or anything, but a lack of answers to its primary mechanics combined its continued prominence in the meta have given people Wind-related trauma. I do think it would be nice to have more direct answers printed in general, so we have more than just Mist Dragon and Amaterasu to rely on. If I have to keep shuffling the Amaterasus I own between multiple decks because it's a three-of staple in any deck running Fire that costs 25 dollars each for some reason, I'm going to lose it. 

But what does an answer to Wind even look like? Is it a Summon that people begrudgingly run in their decks, then complain that running it feels bad because it sits in their hand instead of advancing their plays? We've had Cid Randell for several sets now, but he's not used as universally as you would expect. Shelke can cancel autos with her S-ability and protect your Forwards from power reduction effects while restricting power boosting for your opponent, but I haven't really seen too many people rushing to put her in their Ice decks either. 

A practical solution to Wind's dominance would probably be something like printing a Cu-Chaspel style Backup in Ice that says something along the lines of "Characters that are Frozen can not be activated by Card Effects." with "Forwards that are Frozen can not attack" or something added to make Freeze feel a little more impactful. Beyond that, the only other solution I can think of is more card restrictions in standard play, my suggestion being to ban the Chocobo Summon and restrict Bismark to 1 per deck. That way Wind doesn't have as much access to as many replays and cheap outs, without turning Ice into the only Element that counters Wind.    

Of course, until something like that happens, people are still hoping to find a solution to Wind's dominance. However, Opus XVI may actually have introduced one. 

Whenever people say they want Ice to be good again, I can never quite tell if they're talking about Ice decks in general or Mono-Ice specifically, because people tend to get really dogmatic about that sort of thing. So like, if Wind-Ice takes the top slot this meta, I don't know if that actually counts. But while Ice was once the dominant element in early sets, lately its been having a much harder time seeing use in competitive play. Wind admittedly makes Ice's primary mechanic of Dulling and Freezing useless, but I don't think that's the issue - not completely anyway. 

I think that in recent sets, Ice cards have just been designed with a level of conservatism that hasn't been applied to the other elements. Considering that it was so toxic in early sets that it required the first ever bans to be implemented, I can't really blame the card designers for being a bit more cautious these days. That being said, even players who aren't die hard Ice fans generally agree that the element is long overdue for a comeback.

The cards that have come out in the last few sets are pretty emblematic of the card designers more cautious attitude towards Ice. The speed of the game has increased as the other elements have gotten significantly more aggressive and efficient, and temporarily getting a Forward out of the way with Dull/Freeze is generally worse than just destroying it outright. The ability to Dull/Freeze Characters instead of just Forwards gave them some new options for Backup manipulation. But if Ice was going to get a boost, it really needed something more than just doing 1k more damage to a Dull Forward than a Fire card would to any target. So what was a strategy that Ice could use to help even the odds? 

You see, Wind may be good at protecting their board, but their hand on the other... uh hand, is a different story. Discard has slowly started making a comeback in recent sets, with cards like Werei, Orphan, and Kazusa focusing on giving you more value when your opponent discards. In Opus XVI, cheap, efficient cards like Byblos, Yunalesca, and Lasswell have made it so that your opponent can potentially lose 3 or more cards from their hand in the span of a turn. 

The solution the card designers seem to have found to make Discard a little more fair, is an increased focus on the discard happening during the attack phase. But since the other elements have access to much more draw power than they did in the earlier stages of the game, Discard needs to do more than just limit your opponent's hand size in order to keep up with efficiency. Much like Leviathan, Lord of the Whorl buffs bounce, Ice needs something similar to buff their mechanics. As a result, many of the discard cards this set have an extra effect included with them, such as Devout generating a Crystal, Serah drawing you a card, and Byblos locking down your opponent's board for every card they pitch.

As an element, Ice has traditionally had the least amount of tribal support, and I think that has largely been to its detriment. There's just a lot of consistency that you get with a solid tribal archetype, if the success of Sky Pirates, Monks, and Samurai in the meta are any indication. However, what Ice lacks in job support is usually made up for with strong category synergy, such as with FFVI and VII. So combining Final Fantasy Tactics category support with Ice Knights and having their strategy focus on discard value and crystal generation helps fill multiple gaps that the element had all at once. 

Lasswell is kind of the perfect example of how a tribal support card should be designed. It's weird to say this, but the one downside of tribal decks is that you actually have to run a lot of tribal cards in them (crazy right??). So if your deck needs to fill valuable slots with cards of that tribe, they really need to make an impact to account for the loss of generic good stuff you're replacing them with. With Lasswell, every Knight that enters the field and attacks gives you a substantial benefit, and with cards like Charlotte, you can protect your value machine of Agrias to keep her swinging. Combined with the Fire side of the package using cards like the new Delita, I'd say that Knights are one of the most efficient crystal generating decks in the game right now, which is a nice boost for both elements.  

Of course, you can generate all the crystals in the world, but they're meaningless unless you have something to spend them on. Luckily, both of the Ice Legends this set use the mechanic, probably to compensate for the fact that neither of the Legends of Opus XV did. The new Shantotto gives Ice decks some much needed versatility. In Discard decks, playing her on the field functions as a big payoff. Ice has been sorely lacking in speed compared to some of the other elements, so a big 1 CP Forward that can recover an important card from the Break Zone gives it some much needed efficiency. 

Her secondary effect is probably her biggest selling point though. There aren't too many "hand traps" - cards with effects that can be activated from the hand rather than on the field - in the game so far. So being able to pay 2 CP and a crystal to dull your opponent's entire field straight from the hand gives Ice an out to an aggressive board state that can be used both offensively and defensively. Plus also, dat art right? 

Cloud of Darkness is... interesting. And I know that sounds like a back-handed statement, but it's mostly because I'm a bit torn on her. On the one hand, paying 3 CP for a potential 9k that Removes something from the game is already some very efficient removal. The ability to completely lock your opponent from playing a card to the field at all is something we've never seen before either, and this could completely screw over decks that need a lynch pin Forward to function, like Samurais or Palom/Porom decks. On the other hand, I feel like this card has the opposite issue of Tidus and Cecil where maybe it needed one more line of text onto it to make it the big bomb in Ice that people have been waiting for. The added power is nice and all, but if you had the option of doing this every turn when your opponent discards, it would have really put it over the top. I don't think she's bad at all though. 

Ice cards being more balanced isn't always a bad thing if they can find a way to still sneak powerful effects onto them. I've heard some people say that they don't like Babus because for such a high cost, your opponent shouldn't be the one who chooses the effects. But it would be broken if you could play this on your second or third turn and pick the discard 2 and skip Main Phase effects so your opponent is essentially behind a turn. That would just lead to Turbo Discard again, and only the most wretched of us wants a return to that era. 

Having to be more strategic as to when you play a card isn't a point against it in my opinion. Why would you play Babus on a turn when one of the options would do nothing for you? If you give your opponent 4 options when all of them are bad, it can lead to some interesting mind games that change depending on what stage of the game you're in. 

Discarding 2 cards from one card effect is always going to be painful, so I'm surprised to see an effect that was once exclusive to a 7-Cost Legend now is on multiple cards - including a 2 CP Backup than can be played in multiples like Bard. Sure it does nothing but generate resources for you until Damage 5, so there's a risk that you won't be able to do anything with it. But the payoff that this card offers can potentially be massive, setting up your Lightnings and Squalls for their "both players must have no cards in their hand" effects.

I can certainly understand the desire for more "unfair" Ice cards to be printed, especially since it seems like every other element has had their turn getting some busted cards in the last few sets. But I think any situation that creates a state for your opponent where they just *cant* do anything because of one strategy isn't going to be good for the health of the game. I'm glad to see that they're taking a steady approach to rebalacing discard in a way that feels less toxic than Turbo did. I hope that we start to see Ice popping up in the meta again, if only because there's nothing more satisfying  than watching a serious tournament-minded player spend 10 minutes figuring out the optimal play to make, only to watch them dissolve into a pile of ash when you force them to discard. 

Oh, and as a closing note - this set has Benjamin from Final Fantasy Mystic Quest in it, so I rate this set 11/10.

This set's bingo raffle comes with yet another hilarious tale of woe straight from the Onion patch. I hope you're all properly strapped in for this. 

Have you ever gotten pulls so bad that you think that the devil himself must have packaged these cards just for you? How about having to watch everybody in your group unwrap golden tickets around you like there was a factory error over at Willy Wonka's while you unwrap a cat turd that's been lovingly pressed into the shape of a chocolate bar? Do you have an incredibly fragile ego, a penchant for hyperbole, and a blog to work out these very complex feelings with an audience of confused strangers? Good. Let's begin. 

I think that I end up inadvertently consuming all of my luck predicting cards that are going to be the new set, because I've never been particularly lucky when it comes to card pulls. It's not that I've always gotten garbage per say. I've pulled some of the full arts I wanted from time to time, but I've never got to experience pulling the valuable "money" card from the set. So whenever I go to do prerelease events, I always joke that I'm going to get horrible pulls, partially in the hopes that I'll ironically redirect that bad luck, and partially as a way to not set my expectations too high for what I do end up getting. This time around I joked that the best cards in my set would be a foil Aerith, because pulling a foil version of the box topper always feels like a letdown, and like... a nonfoil Y'shtola or something just because she's not very good in this sealed format with no other Scions to use. 

Well guess what? That's exactly what happened. I spoke it into existence.

This would have been less of a bitter pill to swallow though, if not one, not two, but THREE other people in our group pulled full art Tiduses and Cecils from their kits. Everybody else at least pulled one full art, except for me and the one other guy who just got a foil Chaos in his kit that I could commiserate with. 

Well that certainly sucked, but I was ready to move on. Get a few boxes, do a few pulls, you know, all the usual stuff a person who totally doesn't have a gambling addiction does. You should know right now that my desire to get a valuable card from a pack has nothing to do with owning the card itself though. If I really wanted, I could just buy the card instead of a box and call it a day. I want the experience of opening it myself and knowing what it feels like to experience the love of a deity shining back at you from inside that foil pack. In short, I really wasn't kidding about the whole fragile ego thing.  

Anyway, I had done my pulls - got a full art Kirin and Luneth, and a few other things I had been hoping to grab from this set. But the dark allure that there was still the potential to pull a valuable full art, like so many others around me had already done still tugged at my weary soul like a siren's call. So I bought one more prerelease kit online, since the odds for that are usually better than the boxes are. I joked that it would probably have a full art Vaan Backup in it since I had already pulled two of them, and there was absolutely no way that I would ever be so unlucky that- 

I am the prophet of my own doom. 

"You're complaining about getting the wrong full art?" I know right? I'm sure some of you are going to tell me that you've gotten way worse pulls, and your kit didn't even have cards in it. But we're on almost at the end of this emotional roller coaster of a journey here so just stay with me for a bit. 

So I told myself that was it. I wasn't meant to be one of the lucky few to pull a Cecil or a Tidus or a Lightning Legacy Card, and that I should just buy the rest of the cards I was missing and call it a day. 

Next week at locals... 

I briefly wondered if I should get packs. Not too many. Just like 3 or something. You know, to support the store, give back to the economy and all that. But in the end I decided against it. I had already spent enough money on cards this paycheck, and I should focus on just enjoying the game. We had a pretty good turnout, and a guy in our group who had been away for a year was going to be there. Since he hadn't gotten to use any of the new cards, he bought a few packs of Emissaries of Light and cracked them open. 

And he pulled a full art Cecil. 

Because of this, I am now Lv.1 Tonberry. My undying grudge will live on forever on this blog. May all who read it be poisoned by the rancor that I have cursed your screens with. 

So yeah, all things considered, I think I'm handling myself pretty well, actually. 

Now you're probably wondering why I made you all read through a long and meandering ego trip about me not being luckier with my pulls. That's because this is actually a weird therapy exercise for me, and I will find healing from my ordeals by giving to others the very thing I was denied. 

That's why the raffle prize this time is a full art Cecil! Not one that I pulled from a pack of course. I bought it. With money. Just for you. 

So while I may not have amazing luck, maybe YOU can, dear reader! And it's from a raffle too. Hell, that's even luckier, right? So if you win this, know that you have officially been marked as my better by the gods, and bask in the glory that can only be achieved by winning a rare thing for free. 

In all seriousness, a big thank you to everyone who continues to read Lv.1 Onion Knight and who puts up with posts that are way way too long and have a healthy dose of uh... theatrics included. I always enjoy getting to interact with the community, and doing the Bingo charts is always a lot of fun. Some of you guys seem to want to get a row completed more than I do! 

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 Full Art Cecil. 

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. (Note: Due to obvious global issues there may be some delays in getting this to you depending on where you live, but I'll be sure to mail it out as soon as possible.)

3) The Raffle submission period will go for three weeks from the post date of this blog (May 1st), until Monday, May 23rd at 8PM EST, so you have three 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!!

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Another set down! What do you guys think of the new cards? Do you think Wind will be unstoppable this set, or does Ice or any of the other elements have a chance to knock it off its pedestal? In the meantime, I'll be here with my lantern and my cloak, sharpening my Tonberry knife. What for? Don't worry about it. 

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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A Noob's Set Review of Crystal Dominion

Hey there all you Sky Pirates and Samurais, and welcome back to Lv. 1 Onion Knight: The FFTCG blog that's run by probably the worst Onion Knight in the history of Onion Knights. That's just my opinion though.

So now that the holidays are over and Crystal Dominion has been out for uh… *checks watch* almost two months now, I should probably say something about it huh? The hustle and bustle of the holidays not withstanding, I did genuinely want to give it some time to play around and experiment with these cards, given how much hullabaloo there was about them. The playerbase's opinions appeared to be thoroughly split when the set list was revealed, with some people liking it and others claiming that it was one of the worst sets they had ever seen.

By now most people have probably made up their minds on where their feelings on Crystal Dominion fall. Boxes have been purchased, deck lists have been made, and investors in the waifu full-art stock market have already reaped those sweet, sweet dividends. I'll still do my usual thing where I give my thoughts on the set as a whole, since (spoilers) I actually like it quite a lot. But I thought it would be interesting to take a deeper look into why this set was so contentious in the first place, rather than simply saying "the cards are just good/bad and that's why".

So grab a hot mug of cider and get cozy around the fireplace because it's story time with everyone's favorite bearded Onion Knight. You're going to want to use the bathroom before this one, because we're in for a long one here, folks. Also be warned that the following tale contains salty opinions of a casual player to make a personal observation about the new set rather than, I dunno, math?

Well then, without any further ado... *Ahem* It all began with a set called Crystal Dominion, or so the legends say...

So I need to ask you... are you doing okay? Like, you know, on an emotional level? Who am I kidding, you're an FFTCG player of course you're not okay. I think it's time that we acknowledge something important here: We are all collectively scarred from Opus XIV.

Opus XIV was stuffed to the brim with so many explosively destructive cards, with things like Shinryu, Sterne/Macherie, and the Primals really pushing the definition of power creep to dizzying new heights. To make matters worse, all of them were particularly easy to socket into just about any deck imaginable with minimal investment. By comparison, the cards of Crystal Dominion seem considerably more conservative, and a big part of that is having their power tied to the new Crystal mechanic. In many ways, that seems almost like a restriction on the cards, and as we all know, cards with any sort of restrictions or requirements to fulfill are bad and the measure of a good card is just how many things it can blow up immediately on entry, right?

I remember when Fire cards were all designed like this too guys, but art like this wouldn't exist without adversity and hardship. 

Look, it's pretty hard to debate that fast, destructive cards that are easy to use are anything but good, and that's not what I'm here to do. But I do think that there tends to be a mentality shared by some players that any card that has limitations or that doesn't have a blistering entry effect is instantly not worth running at all. A lot of the time when I'm reading through the comments of card reveals and spoilers, it seems like people are taking part in some sort of bizarre comedy routine where they're competing to see who can come up with the sickest dunk on a card or something. I get that having a knee-jerk reaction to new cards is perfectly natural and human, but also there's 49 other cards that you'll have alongside it in your deck. So waiting a bit and exploring the interactions that new cards have with older ones can sometimes reveal their unexpected potential, and I think that quite a few of the cards from Crystal Dominion ended up falling into that category.

I think that the initial split reaction to Crystal Dominion can be summed up as having a preference for a sledgehammer or a surgical knife. A sledgehammer is something that's big and destructive. It doesn't require too much foresight to make the most of it, so you can just hammer away with it. On the other hand, a surgical knife is something that requires more finesse. It requires a much more specific scenario to make the most out of, but it provides a level of precision and flexibility that wouldn't be possible with a sledgehammer. It's a bit of a heavy handed metaphor when it comes to cards, but I think that coming off of Opus XIV - a set that was mostly composed of sledgehammers - makes a set like Crystal Dominion which is full of way more surgical knives than usual seem a bit less powerful by comparison.

I will say that I think after a set like Opus XIV, we probably needed a moment to catch our breath and slow the hell down for a bit. Things have been escalating to absurd levels of speed and power, and after a meta that saw our faces slammed into a bloody pulp against the likes of Sterne Leonis and Doga/Sophie decks, it was probably a good thing to take a moment to step back and have a set that's a bit more chill. Oh and hey, speaking of which...

With bare knuckle brawls beginning to erupt in the streets over whether Crystal Dominion was good or bad, there was a third type of person who began to surface. These wise sages descended from upon high to impart their words of wisdom onto the masses, in the hopes of settling this heated debate with the following non-answer.

"Well yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff in the new set, but it's really pointless to talk about with Sterne Chocobos and Doga decks around." 

Well guess what? They're gone now. Sterne, Doga, and Miounne are dead, and Sophie took an arrow to the knee. They can't hurt you anymore. Is it finally safe to talk about cards again?

I'm honestly not sure what sort of card in Crystal Dominion would have made people happy before the new deck restrictions, unless it was something with an effect along the lines of "Search through your opponent's hand, deck, and Break Zone and remove every FFBE Forward from the game" or something. And even if there WAS, people still would probably have been unhappy. As a whole, there seems to be people clamoring for problematic cards to have answers specifically printed to counter them, while also having an extreme distaste for running said answers in their decks. Apparently some players find the prospect of running Mist Dragon truly repugnant since you have to, you know, wait for the ideal opportunity to use it and everything. Personally I'm of the opinion that a card that can prevent you from losing can be just as valuable as one that pushes you closer to winning, but that's a topic for another time.

The point is, as long as cards like Sterne and Sophie were running rampant, people were of the opinion that there was nothing in the new set that would matter. So it seemed like with them out of the way, people were finally eager to start giving the cards in Crystal Dominion a fair shake. 

The thing is, I do find this kind of weird for two reasons. The first is that I think it's strange to assume that absolutely nothing would have changed with those cards around. I understand that gravitating towards whatever strategy gives the highest chance of success is just a natural consequence of gaming in a competitive environment, and that maybe those cards pushed that a little too far. But I also believe that necessity is the father of invention, and that given time new decks would have emerged for people to hate in future sets.

The other reason is, well... I don't think that Sterne and Doga needed to be banned. At least not so quickly anyway...

I know. I'm pretty disgusted with myself too. 

So this is obviously an unpopular opinion considering just how many people raced out to Sterne's grave to dance a merry jig on top of it after the ban was announced - a "hot take" if you will. But I think we would have survived the presence of Sterne and Doga in Crystal Dominion just like we did with Veritas, Kadaj, Neo Exdeath, or any of the other previous FFTCG boogeymen we've dealt with through the years. Of course, I also fully admit that cards like Sterne and Sophie were, in fact, completely bonkers, but I think I personally would have preferred an errata or something. Maybe limit Sterne's action ability to a hard once per turn and only on your turn clause so it didn't feel so oppressive, or making it so that Multi-Element cards only count as one element towards Sophie's effect so it wasn't quite so easy to abuse with Sarah and Doga.

Would that have fixed things in the long run? Who knows! We could be staring down a meta where Palom and Porom only cost 1 with Sterne, which is kind of a terrifying prospect to think about. But hey, I'm a Libra so I'm all about trying to find balance, even when everybody is already perfectly happy with the outcome of things. In any case, my weird contrarian opinions aside, with Sterne and Doga decks out of the way, the debate between Crystal Dominion's supporters and detractors did seem to die down, proving that sometimes beheading a monarch really is the most effective way to enact change.

The introduction of Crystals to the game is probably one of the biggest changes to the mechanics of the FFTCG since Monsters were brought in back in Opus IV. Like Multi-Element cards were a pretty big deal, but aside from their ability to be pitched for either element and their one-of-each cost requirements, they didn't really shake up how the game itself was played outside of being big powerful Forwards. The addition of a new persistent resource that players can stockpile between turns adds a new layer of strategy to a player's choices, and definitely feels like a bigger deal for the game than things like Tokens or making Damage into an official keyword did. However the general consensus seems to be that there just isn't enough to do with them at them moment, and that they weren't really implemented to the extent that people thought they would be.

I think that this is somewhat true to an extent, and it really boils down to the fact that some elements just have way more ways to use Crystals than others. Water and Lightning currently have some of the best ways to both generate and use Crystals with cards like Lady Lilith, Relm, and Lenna. By comparison, Fire only got the cost-reduction Summon that all the other elements got and Firion to spend their Crystals on. It is admittedly kind of weird that Water in particular got the lion's share of this new mechanic while others seemed like an afterthought. Since this is the first set that they're being introduced, it's difficult to know the impact that Crystals will really have on the game in future releases. However, I think as far as Crystal Dominion is concerned, it comes back to the good old "Sledgehammer vs Surgical Knife" comparison I keep trying to make happen.

I'd argue that right now, the biggest benefit to Crystals is not that the cards that utilize them have hugely broken effects, but rather that it lets low-cost cards have stronger effects that would previously only be found on cards with a higher cost. Because of this, using Crystals as a substitute for a card's effect-to-cost ratio increases the number of actions you can do per turn, the new Lenna being a good example of this. I don't think it's too much of a leap to say that the new one is an improvement over the old Opus III one in just about every way - assuming you include ways to generate Crystals in your deck of course, since otherwise she'd do nothing.

Multi-element cards were all about "STRONGER! STRONGER!! ADD MORE TEXT TO IT!" so introducing a new mechanic's whose primary function is more about efficiency and cost reduction certainly comes off a lot less exciting by comparison. But Backups have generally become less and less important over the last few sets, and deck ratios have shifted to include less of them than was previously necessary. Having a new way to generate value outside of them while still keeping your hand size intact is something that I think will only become more and more important as the game continues to grow.

 
Plus as many people have pointed out by now, this is just the introduction for Crystals, so things will naturally develop more in future sets. We're currently in the "New Hope" phase of things for Crystals so here's hoping the next set is the "Empire Strikes Back" for them. Of course, it's also a possibility that Crystals are actually in the "Phantom Menace" phase of things, meaning we have a big messy "Clone Wars" coming up, but I'm going to be uncharacteristically optimistic when it comes to the future of this new mechanic.

It looks like we've finally made it towards the last chapter of our long, meandering tale here. You all have my thanks for sticking with me through it. I hope I didn't piss you off too much with the whole "Sterne shouldn't have been banned" thing! In any case, after reading all of that I'm sure you're all curious as to what my final verdict on Crystal Dominion is. Is it a wrongfully maligned staple set that didn't deserve all the controversy, or is it actually an under powered set that gives Opus III a run for the title of "worst FFTCG set"?

Well unfortunately I don't know what the actual answer to that question is. But boy, Crystal Dominion sure is the most fun I've had with a new set in a long time!

I think the part about Crystal Dominion I enjoyed the most was the Crystals, funnily enough. Now there's a new element that you have to think about when building decks, and that's finding the right balance of Crystal generating cards with cards that can use them. A misstep here can see you either with a ton of Crystals and nothing to do with them, or being forced to hold onto your Mog or Robel-Akbel for most of the game while you wait to draw a generator. I think that this is the first set in a long time that has really forced me to change the way I think about how I put decks together, so for that alone I really enjoyed it. 

I also liked that this set took a different approach when it comes to power and value. Palom and Porom for example, are two Legends that I think were seriously underestimated until people started running them together in decks. A pair of scaling threats that acts as a two-turn ticking clock before they becomes completely unmanageable is something we haven't really seen too much of in the FFTCG, since as I mentioned before, fast entry abilities have mostly been dominant. Palom in particular can become a nightmare if he's left unchecked, and his free 2k ping damage can even be useful when combined with cards like Terra (10-132S) and the new Brynhildr. I think a lot of people initially balked at their low power and slower counter mechanic, only to be shown their true potential at the Italian National Tournament. I find that really cool!

I do think that there's probably more value in printing easily splashed-in staples that can be used in a larger variety of decks. But personally I find that sets full of big strong bombs can be kind of overwhelming too. It becomes more of a question of how many existing decks can I put this card into and what needs to come out to make space for it, rather than getting to start from scratch and figuring out how to make a whole new deck work around a more niche Legend. So because of that, I think that Crystal Dominion is quite possibly the most fun I've had deck building recently, and I think your own personal enjoyment of it may primarily depend on how much you like getting creative and experimenting with new play styles.

Now anybody who has tolerated reading more than one post on my blog may have picked up on the fact that I am a really really big fan of FFXI. I am incredibly unsubtle about it. I am like a shambling ghoul from 2005 rising out of the mire to claw at your door, muttering incoherently about my nostalgia for Vanadiel while you desperately look for your shotgun. But yes, XI meant, and still means a lot to me much in the same way I suspect XIV means to a lot of you out there now. It was the first place an awkward loner of an Onion Knight like me learned how to be somewhat social. The first people I came out to were my friends from that game. I even met my fiancé playing it. It really stoked my interest in fantasy worlds and the Final Fantasy series in general, and without it I would never have gotten into this card game or started writing this blog. 

So yeah, this set has a lot of XI cards from my favorite expansion, Wings of the Goddess, featuring my hands down my favorite job from that game getting tribal support: Dancer. That means I like it. This is a wholly subjective and personal opinion that does not accurately measure the value of the set in any way shape or form. If you don't like that I'm doing that in my own personal set review, you're welcome to write a letter voicing your disapproval to the head of the Onion Knight broadcasting corporation. He will then bring them to me so I can officially wipe my butt with them. 

Weirdly enough, this tirade does kind of have a point with one of the things that I enjoy about the set besides my best girl Lilisette finally making an appearance in the game, and that's how Crystal Dominion has a heavier focus on tribal than Opus XIV did, which for as powerful as a set as it was, was something I was actually kind of disappointed in. It seemed so strange to introduce a piece of powerful Sky Pirate support in Vaan and nothing else, in that set (it is also strange to introduce such a good Vaan there and then follow up immediately afterwards with one that's not as good...), but CD gives a lot of support to job-specific decks - even a few of the really weird ones, which are always my personal favorites to experiment with. Sky Pirates are now on top of the meta and honestly after scraping through the gutter since Opus V, it's about damn time they got their chance to shine.

Another new element of Crystal Dominion that I haven't seen too many people talk about but I really enjoy is the addition of two jobs for certain cards. I think that job-specific Tribal decks have a lot of built in consistency to them that give them the potential to be extremely powerful (see how Samurai and Sky Pirates are currently kicking all kinds of butt in tournaments), so adding a second job really helps add some diversity to the types of cards that can be included in them. Who would have thought Crystal Dominion would have been the set we saw friggin' Warrior support of all things, but packaging them together with Rebels gives them a really interesting play style that gives them a unique combat-oriented deck focused on pumping your Forwards to 10K so you can get a flurry of draws with Leon. 

Honestly though, I'm mostly expecting that the card designers will just end up making a new Tifa that's an Avalanche Operative / Fighter or something, which would be quite hilarious admittedly...

So those are some of my thoughts about the story of Crystal Dominion. Thanks so much for listening and don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, and all those other things you totally wouldn't know to do without a call to action or whatever.

...

Oh, hang on a second... what's this? 

It looks like the pages of my book were stuck together here! There's actually one more short chapter that was hidden away in the end. Well, since I still have you here, we may as well finish this story together right? 

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So this set's Bingo was a pretty big success. Three whole rows with a Bingo! I think the biggest surprise on this set was Dancer Tribal, but that was really the fevered dreams of a mad man who loved Wings of the Goddess made real. I did a lot of guesswork based on that one Cait Sith full art that was revealed early on, but it seems I got pretty lucky this time around. 

And that's where my luck ran out. Or well, I suppose it ran out in Opus XIV... 

For my last Bingo Raffle, I decided to go big and give away a pretty substantial prize: a sealed Sephiroth tin. I picked a winner, packaged everything up, and shipped it out. And that's where things went horribly off the rails. 

The person who won the prize told me after a few weeks that nothing had showed up, which naturally I found quite alarming. After doing a little bit of investigation, I discovered that that person had actually won a small prize from me a few years back, and I had used the address that I had in those old messages to ship it out. 

An address that was no longer where that person lived. Oof. 

I asked if it was possible to get in contact with the person at their old address, but they were met with no response. Considering that the problem was entirely caused by my own mistake, I figured the tin was just lost and decided to do the right thing. I bit the bullet and bought a second Sephiroth tin, because why buy one when you can buy two for three times the price, right? I made sure that this tin was sent to the right address, and the person finally received their prize. So that takes care of that right? 

Well a few days after they got their prize, this showed up in my mailbox. 

Eyup... the person who I accidentally sent the first tin to actually did mail the tin back to me. This was admittedly very kind of them, but also feels a bit like the universe giving me some sort of karmic slap in the face for something I did in a past life. So now I was here, having spent way more on these prizes than I ever thought I would just because I'm a big doofus who didn't double check the address before I mailed the first one out. 

But you see, the beauty of this whole scenario is that you all get to benefit from my blunder! I decided I would just raffle this tin off, which is in fact, the tin that I intended to mail out last time for Opus XIV. It is still sealed nice and tight and in perfect condition, it just carries the stank of my hilarious buffoonery on it. 

And that's how you can have another chance to win a Sephiroth tin. This time making sure that it is in fact, mailed to the correct address. 

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 Sephiroth Tin. 

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. (Note: Due to obvious global issues there may be some delays in getting this to you depending on where you live, but I'll be sure to mail it out as soon as possible.)

3) The Raffle submission period will go for three weeks from the post date of this blog (January 24th), until Monday, February 14th at 8PM EST. 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 48 hours, I will choose another winner at random, so be sure to submit an email that you check often! 

Enter the Raffle Here!!

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That's it for this set review! What did you guys think of Crystal Dominion? Do you think it's a good set, or were you left cold by it? I would love to hear your thoughts! In the meantime I'll be here trying to make this 'Oops All Emperors' deck from my spoiler into a reality. 

Until next time - keep on grinding, 

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