Blooming Onions: A Community Deck Building Challenge

Hey there folks, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight: The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game blog that wishes that it were as beloved by the FFTCG community as it is by the bots that always fill the comments of these posts with spam. 

Welp, 2019 sure came and went by faster than I'd like to think about, and with it a lot of change has come both to the FFTCG and my personal life. With the combination of the hectic holiday season as well as going through the process of moving into a new apartment, I haven't really been doing a super job of keeping that promise I made to write more blog posts considering that my last one was almost two months ago. Ouch.  

Oh come on, like anybody reads this blog outside spoiler season.

But that doesn't mean that I haven't been keeping up with all the FFTCG related news that's been coming out! 2020 is shaping up to be a big year for the game, with all kinds of cool stuff announced. The one I'm most excited for though has to be the introduction of the new L3 format, which means that we'll finally start to see a bit more deck diversity in competitive play, instead of just Wind/Water, which seems to be getting more and more degenerate in every set. 

And no, I'm not bitter that after placing high in our last local monthly tournament, I got my clock thoroughly cleaned by a typical YRP build. Like... the elderly woman who brought my clock in to get repaired burst into tears when she finally got it back, because she hadn't seen it looking like that since her father brought it home from the Great War when she was a little girl: That's how cleaned my clock got. 

"Guys it's cool we introduced a format where you can't use Valefore so we don't have to ban it from standard." 

Typical sour grapes aside, diversity in deck building and experimenting with cards that may not have obvious applications is something that I've always been a major proponent of. Okay, well maybe not always, but nobody can say that I haven't at least been a plucky contrarian who likes to try and see the potential of cards that other, better players might have overlooked. When the new Aerith from this set was released, I don't think anybody saw any value in it until one crazy person discovered that combining her with the Biggs/Wedge/Jessie package, Godo/Yuffie, and freaking Opus VII Xezat of all things (who I sincerely hope is the next contender for a full-art promo...) could be used to create infinite resources. The player who came up with that combo wasn't me unfortunately, but it's that kind of experimentation that I find really exciting about this game. 

So what am I getting at with this, besides once again thumbing my nose at the competitive scene that I'm not good enough to be a part of? Well do you remember that "different content" that I've been teasing for the better part of two sets now? Today I'm happy to finally tear away the veil of mystery and reveal a new community challenge designed to test your deck building skills and uncover new combos for the fun of it: Blooming Onions!

Blooming Onions will be a new bi-monthly challenge where I choose a card or cards that I think have gone underutilized by the community and task all you brewmeisters out there who are significantly better at this than I am to use them to come up with the best deck that you can within a specific format. I'll even give you some ideas of how I think you can potentially use these cards to better effect, though you're welcome to completely disregard my suggestions if you can think of something better, and let's face it, that probably won't be too hard. Think of it as one of those cooking competition shows where the contestants are given a weird ingredient that they have to incorporate into their dish. Chopped? Sure, lets go with that. Like Chopped but with trading cards. 

In any case, lets quickly go over how all of this works, shall we? 


Q: How are the cards that are picked going to be chosen?

🔰:The first card will be chosen by yours truly, but at the end of each Blooming Onion post, I'll leave a poll of five cards for the community to vote on and select which one they want used for the next challenge. If you've got an idea for a card that you'd like to see used, let me know in the comments!

Q: What do I have to do to enter this challenge?

🔰: All you need to do to enter is create a decklist using FFDecks and leave the link in the comments of this post. That's it!

Q: How will you choose a winner?

🔰: A crack team of Onion Knights will be deployed to evaluate all submissions, though if Kageyama ever enters, he wins by default.

(I'll be judging which decks/combos I think make the best use of the card, as well as consulting with the NYC crew and other members of the FFTCG community. I'll also potentially be testing out some of the builds that I like to make a decision.)

Q: What do I get if my submission is chosen as the winner?

🔰: Nothing.

Okay, well maybe nothing physical, at least for now - though I may include some sort of prizing going forward. That being said the winning deck and deck builder will be featured at the beginning of the next Blooming Onion post, so if you want a chance to show off what a stone cold badass you are to the rest of the community, here's your chance.

Q: How long do I have to make my submission?

🔰: Since I'm going to be testing this out on a bi-monthly schedule, you'll have 30 days after each post goes live to submit your deck. After that I'll evaluate them and get the next Blooming Onion challenge live at the end of the following month.

Q: Are you seriously encouraging people to use cards the community has established as bad and create a bunch of meme decks?

🔰: Yes.


Everybody up to speed and ready to make some decks? Then let's see what the first month's challenge is. 
 

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🔰Blooming Onions #1🔰

Featured Cards: King of Eblan & Queen of Eblan 

Format: L3 

So as you've probably guessed from the title image, the first candidates for the Blooming Onion challenge are both the King and Queen of Eblan. I remember that when these cards were released, it was at the time when Fire still wasn't in a place to compete with the other elements and when people saw these guys... well lets just say that the reaction wasn't pretty. Taking up two of the H-Rarity slots was bad enough, but the fact that it was decided to give what was seen as an underpowered element more cards with an unnessecary restriction was a breaking point for enough people that they never really saw the light of day.

That being said I think that they may have gotten a bit of a bad rap, and much like Ifrita who came out in Opus IX, may have been released at a time where there wasn't much available to really take advantage of what they actually do well. Even now that Mono Fire is starting to have meta relevence, these two still show up on people's "top 10 worst cards" lists alongside the likes of Chocobo Chick, but is that really fair? Let's take a look at what these cards do well as well as why people don't end up using them. 

Pros:

• The ability to both search and play straight from the deck is very efficient CP-wise. 
• Plays well with Fire's newfound ability to flood the board quickly with bodies, and can become huge with Fire's many boosters. 
• Category IV seems to be moving towards a "Have X amount of Cat IV things on the field" similar to Category VI, so being able to build up numbers quickly could become more relevant. 
• Ping-heavy decks are becomming more popular, so an extra 5k ping on party attack is helpful. 

Cons:  

• Admittedly stupid restriction of not being able to attack in a deck that excells in removal is an odd attempt at balancing the "play from the deck" effect. 
• King only exists to fetch Queen, and has no other abilities without her. Likewise Queen is a dead draw since she can't be played with the King's ability from either the hand or the Break Zone. Both need to stay alive and party attack to get the ping damage. 
• Probably should have had Haste to make them more usable. 

So saying that this set of cards has been wrongfully maligned definitely isn't fair, but the challenge for this series isn't "how can I make a top-tier deck with these cards?" but instead "what deck can make these cards work?" To go back to the Chopped analogy, can you make a cake that tastes good when you have to incorporate rice and avocados? Here are a few ideas that might make these two work in an L3 deck.

 
Build Idea 1: Mono Fire Ping - Zack is probably one of the most "enable-y" cards from Opus X outside of maybe Terra-S, though both have a similar "get more value from actions you normally do" effect. Even though Zack sees the biggest benefit from playing Category VII Forwards, the ability to soften up almost any enemy target is pretty good, so getting 4k burn damage and 2 bodies isn't a bad trade off. With Iroha out on the field, that's 6k damage on entry, letting you take out smaller targets or finish something off while building up a more aggressive board state. 

Build Idea 2: Cat IV 

From what I understand, PR cards are fair game for L3 format, so one of the first cards I thought would combo nicely with the King and Queen was promo Rydia that was rumored to be included as a standard card from Opus XI or XII. The King and Queen can help hit Rydia's character requirement to search for a 1 CP summon like Opus IX Belias or Opus X Titan depending on the characters you use. I think that we'll be seeing more Category IV support in Fire and Earth in the following sets, so this may be more of a build to keep an eye on rather than something fully fleshed out, but the peices starting to get set up. The only question here would be how do you make a Fire/Earth deck that isn't just a mediocre version of WoFF? (Though I don't think WoFF would be usable in L3 to begin with...) 

Build Idea 3: Fire/Ice Control 

The King and Queen may have that dumb restriction that prevents them from attacking if your opponent has no Forwards on the field, but it doesn't specify anywhere that they need to be active Forwards, so dulling/unblockable effects will let you bypass that. I also wrote this whole big thing about how Snow from Opus VII would be great for this kind of aggro build only to realize that he's not eligible for L3 anymore. Womp.

And there you have it folks, just a few ideas to help you get started brewing the absolute best jank that you possibly can! And while you're here, don't forget to vote on which card you'd like to see for the next Blooming Onions challenge!


Having trouble viewing the poll on mobile? Click here to vote!


I hope that everybody has a good time brewing some solid jank, and remember if you have any suggestions for cards or formats you want to see in the future!
In the meantime I'll be here, wondering why my new apartment has a dedicated space for trading cards but I still just have a mattress on the floor to sleep on.

Until next time - Keep on Grinding, 

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A Noob's Opus X Set Review and Bingo Raffle!

Hello there FFTCG fans and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight – the Final Fantasy TCG blog who’s biggest concern about Worlds is that whoever wins better pick a better promo card to slap their name on this time.

Well, Opus IX certainly went by with a blur, considering that the last posts that I’ve made were my spoiler and then… uh… my last set review and raffle. I’d love to say that I’ve had a bunch of super interesting stuff that’s been consuming my time, but really it’s just a bunch of mundane life stuff. That’s not to say that I haven’t been actively playing the FFTCG though, since nothing helps deal with the soul crushing anxiety of life quite like trading cards. I even placed second in our local monthly tournament. Second! And with Warriors of Light of all decks. I’ve tasted what it feels like to get to split a prize box and get the most recent foil promo and now I’ve gone mad with power.

This joke works on multiple levels.

But rest assured fair readers that despite my meteoric rise to success I’ll still be the champion of the underdogs in the casual FFTCG community. In all seriousness though, thanks for sticking around everyone! I promise that I’ll do more than just spoilers and set reviews this season, but while we’re here let’s talk about Opus X.

When I was reviewing Opus IX I said that it was “weird”, and despite the fact that I think it ended up getting a worse rap than it deserved, there’s no denying that it felt a bit like a transitional set before the big game-changer that was Opus X. The new set feels a lot tighter and more consistent, but it also is the first set in a long time where it feels like things are finally being changed up, and not just because Damage was incorporated as a keyword. Considering that we’ve had “additional effect at Damage X” cards for a while, and they didn’t really add too many cards with Damage effects this set, that’s not really super revolutionary, though I will say I like that the Damage cards they did add feel a bit more “swingy” and impactful than before.

But I think we can all agree that this was really Fire’s debut set can’t we?

If you're one of those people who thought Nael was a bad card I'm never going to let you forget that you were wrong. Just saying.

Okay, so it’s not really fair to say that Fire has been bad per say in other sets. Cards like Cloud and Nael did a lot for the element in general, and are arguably better generic Fire staples than either of the two Legends that premiered in Opus X. I think that some of Fire’s bad rap came from the community’s general unwillingness to play the element the way the card designers had intended. Despite better Fire cards coming out in every subsequent set that helped boost Fire’s power level, there was still a loop of “Does nobody play fire because it’s bad, or is Fire bad because nobody plays it?”. We saw builds like Fire/Ice VI and Fire/Earth VII become popular, but Fire was still branded as a bad element.

BUT ALSO LETS BE REAL FOR A SECOND. 

For a long time the design direction for Fire cards seemed to be “slightly over curve effects with a massive downside” as though saving 1CP to do 1k extra burn damage was a big enough deal to justify that. Aside from Belias and Phoenix, the Summons that came out for Fire were usually some variant of “do big damage to one Forward” in increasingly clunky ways. Being an aggressive element is a bit hard when “defensive” elements like Wind and Water were a lot faster and cheaper, or when Ice was just as capable at manipulating the CP in your hand as well as your Forwards on the field, making aggressive play a huge risk. What the card designers seem to have finally realized in Opus X though is that what Fire - and aggro decks in general - needed wasn’t bigger numbers. It was efficiency.

And the Fire cards in this set are just so damn good because they’re efficient. Both of the Legends from this set bring so much speed and value to Fire in ways we haven’t really seen executed properly before. Xande and Caius add much needed board flooding abilities. Terra is not only a soft 2cp Forward that lets you recycle your Summons, but makes them all hit for an extra 2k damage. Zack amps up ping damage and when combined with cards like Iroha, Opus VIII Cloud, and Firion-S, combo damage decks becomes significantly more dangerous. WoFF went from a silly niche deck to being played in Worlds, with Fire cards being the primary thing that makes it good. And the new Ifrit. THE NEW IFRIT YOU GUYS! Finally a burn Summon that’s not only slightly below cost, but is actually versatile AND makes the Ifrit/Ifrita package usable? What Opus X does well isn’t just that it has strong individual Fire cards – it’s that they work with the good cards that Fire already had and makes them even better. 

"Ifrita is a bad card because there are no good Ifrits!" Ifrita: "Hold my purse."

Oh right, there are other elements besides Fire… Well in general I think this set feels like the first time that the card designers are actively trying to directly answer issues with the meta. Cards like Faelthanos, Black Tortoise L’cie Gilgamesh, and Cid-Exvius all have strong counter effects that we haven’t seen before and seem like they were specifically made to counter a lot of Wind, Water, and Ice shenanigans. Citra finally gives us a Light card besides maybe Yuri that can be splashed into just about every deck. Hell, Warrior of Light Tribal became strong enough that it let me, a person who is notoriously bad at competitive play, come in second with a pseudo-4 color deck against a bunch of Unei and Doga builds during our local monthly tournament. In general I think that there’s a ton to like about Opus X and that we’ll finally start to see some big shifts in competitive play.

If there’s anything to complain about in this set, it would be the fact that Sky pirates got shafted for two sets in a row.



Well I mean they partially solved the problem the last set that there were not enough different Sky Pirates in the game I guess. But even after bringing out the Revenant Wings B-squad, they still feel like an unfinished archetype. I guess It’s not really fair to say that they have nothing going for them though since their whole thing seems to have been solidified into “have lots of Sky Pirate Forwards to trigger their effects”. Considering that they got an L slot dedicated to them I would have thought that they would have had more effective synergy. But even though Fran isn’t a bad card by any means and could end up becoming a cheap threat that’s difficult to remove, she’s more dependent on having an established board instead of being a play enabler for Sky Pirates. Hell, if her protection effect worked on all Job Sky Pirate Forwards in a more limited capacity, (give them all an Illua bubble effect instead?) that would have helped with the strategy of keeping your field full of small guys intact.

It’s kind of made even worse when you consider that WoFF was turned into a top tier deck with only four new cards from this set, thanks in no small part to the fact that their new Legend enables an absolutely absurd amount of shenanigans. That isn't to say that playing Sky Pirates as they are now wouldn't work, or that it won't be a fun deck to try out. Of course there’s still a handful of Revenant Wings character artwork that hasn’t gotten used, so we might see a Cu Sith Backup, Balthier, or the millionth copy of Vaan that acts as a clinch card for the archetype or something, but they still feel like they’re still missing one or two things (solid Backups mostly) and that the rest of them are coming in the next set. Of course, that’s what I thought they were going to do with Cadets, but instead we got… Type-0 Earth? Okay!

My secret power is the ability to turn memes into real cards.

That’s really my only gripe though, because otherwise they completely knocked it out of the park with this set. It’s exciting to see things begin to transition and more cards that shake up the state of the meta. Plus the gross Final Fantasy XI bridge troll inside me has been thoroughly satiated by the Kam/Eald full arts (If I could only get my hands on them...) and the new kickass deck engine with Ranperre/Shantotto-S. I can only hope that the card designers continue to change things up in interesting ways like they have with Opus X.

Now that Mono Fire is finally seeing success though I’m going to need to find something else to complain about, but I can always transition from the “whines about Fire” guy to the “whines about Sky Pirates” guy. It’s tough finding a niche to fill these days but I know what the people want. 

And speaking of what people want... 

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Yet again, the center free space did most of the heavy lifting and I'm not at all devastated that Karaha-Baruha didn't actually make it into the set to get us another Bingo, which means I'm doing a prize raffle to celebrate a 5-set undefeated streak! So what can you beautiful readers win this time?

Opus X Bingo Prize: Lv.1 Onion Knight Custom Playmat

That's right folks I've got my own merch now! Well, not really. But since we got the four new Onion Knight cards in this set, I figured it would be a good idea to get some artwork of the best-worst Onion Knight to do... something with. I originally just wanted to use it as a mockup for my own version of the Onion Knight cards (obviously a Dark element version), but I was so enamored by the artwork done by the lovely and talented artist and my very close friend Beau Gilliam that I wanted to do a little bit more with it. So I made the playmat design you see above! Now YOU can have the chance to show everyone at your local TCG group that while you may not be super great at this game, you're a class act with dubious taste in blogs. 

I'll be picking two winners and having the playmats printed at a size of 24"x 14" using Inked Gaming. If you're chosen as a winner you'll be the owner of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon of playmats in that there are only 3 of them - the third one will be owned by me of course, so that it can never be used against me.

Oh yeah and you can also win this as well: 

That's right, one of the most controversial cards of this set and my next character to cosplay if I spend all of 2020 at the gym, a full art Feolthanos!

So how can you enter the raffle? 

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 one of the two playmats, or the Full Art Feolthanos. Each winner will be chosen at random. 

2) The contest is open to both local and international fans, so if you don't happen to be from the US, don't sweat it! I will be in contact with the winners to discuss shipping arrangements. 

3) The Raffle submission period will go for 24 days from the post date of this blog (November 28th - December 20th), and I will announce the winners via Facebook on Friday the 20th at 8PM EST. 

4) I will contact the winners 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! 

Everybody got that? So if you want to enter the raffle, just click the link below!

Enter the Raffle Here!!  

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Good luck to everyone who enters! I always look forward to when Opus Bingo season starts up again, but thankfully we have a few months to go before Opus XI comes out. It feels like the last few sets have been an absolute whirlwind. 

What's that? It's the exact same amount of time that it always is between sets and I have no excuse to not make more content? Fair enough. I'm still looking to roll out that mysterious thing that I teased at the end of Opus IX which I'm being cagey about for no reason and it is probably much less exciting than I'm hyping it up to be with all this subterfuge, but much like my Ninja article, it'll happen, just maybe not when I said it was going to, haha... 

Until next time - Keep on Grinding, 

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Spoiled Onions: An Exclusive Opus X Spoiler - Joker!

Hey there all you fledgling adventurers and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The Final Fantasy TCG blog that knows it's only a matter of seconds before somebody kills this article's view count by reposting my spoiler on Facebook without linking back here, and I'm not gunna call you out but you know who you are...

Erm... so do you guys remember how I said on my last post that I had something different planned for my next post? As it turns out, the different thing I had planned was not in fact, "Post nothing at all". I've actually been swamped with a brand new temp job, and working on my Endgame Thor cosplay for New York Comicon in my free time. I gotta say, the combination of feeling like a screw-up while also being a Nordic God is both a dramatic case of tonal whiplash and oddly similar parallel to the character's arc in the movie... 

I'd wear the costume to my job if my new co-workers wouldn't ask why I was dressed as King Arthur.

In any case, the thing I was planning is still going to happen! But as always, spoilers come first, so without any further ado, I'm happy to reveal my Opus X community spoiler: Joker from Final Fantasy XI! 

I'm actually really stoked because this is my first category XI spoiler. If you've been following along here you'd know XI is hands down my favorite Final Fantasy game of all time, having played it actively for around 14 years or so. So for starters if you're one of those pedantic rubes who likes to complain in the comments that they don't like in-game screenshots for the XI cards, then you can kindly make sure to wipe off the back of my door after I slam it in your face. Can't be getting face grease all over it - I'm trying to run a classy establishment here. 

In any case, here's a brief rundown for those of you that haven't spent a little under half of their life playing an MMO. Joker is a character from the Federation of Windurst leg of the initial Main Scenario Quest of the game, and is a Cardian - a class of soldier automatons themed after playing/tarot cards. It is later revealed that Joker contains a piece of the soul of Karaha-Baruha (who is also on my Bingo and totally going to be in Opus X you guys), the Summoner who formed a pact with Fenrir and saved Windurst from annihilation during the Crystal War with the Shadow Lord two decades prior. This act however drained the magical energies of the surrounding lands, and only by restoring the pieces of Karaha-Baruha's sundered soul could the impeding decay of Windurst be stopped.

So let's take a look at what Joker here can do. He's a 2 cost Earth backup that can reduce the damage taken by a Forward that specifically has Brave by 2000 by paying 1 Earth CP and dulling Joker.

I think that a lot of people are going to draw parallels between this card and another backup that does something in a similar vein, which is Opus II Monk, and are not entirely without reason for doing so. 

Monk could quite possibly be better than Joker for what you want them to do: for 2 Earth CP and putting Monk into the Break Zone, you can pump a Forward by 3k and give it Brave, which allows it to be used both offensively or defensively. Joker's activation cost is also a bit clunky, requiring it and another backup be active and only able to target a Brave Forward. 

That being said, Joker isn't without it's advantages. Unlike Monk, you don't have to sacrifice a backup in order to get the effect off, so you can reuse the effect multiple times in a match while still keeping back row intact. It being a Category XI character means it's also a search target for one of the best cards in the game - Star Sibyl (Who Karaha-Baruha was totally getting it on with FYI). In the Earth/Wind XI package, it can make the deck build backups extremely fast  when you combine Semih Lafina's cost reduction, Star Sibyl's search effect, and Joker's low cost. Plus in Wind decks, Joker can also be reactivated to reduce damage multiple times in one turn. To be honest, most decks Earth/Wind decks would probably rather search out Moogle XI who has the same cost and a potent search S-ability itself, so the best use of this card would be in a deck that runs a lot of hard to remove Brave Forwards in Mono-Earth or Earth Fire builds.

 The XV package works particularly well with Joker's effect. The fact that Ignis gives all the other XV car boys Brave makes having Noctis on the field an even stronger defensive play: Because Noctis is given 1K power and Brave, you can use his "fight" mechanic to break an Opponent's Forward and use Joker's ability to reduce the damage Noctis takes to keep him alive. Because Joker can be used on either player's turn, you can also use it to keep Noctis or any other XV Forward with Brave out of range of removal as well. Any deck that has either a card that provides Brave to other Forwards could make good use of Joker as well, like Aegis in Fire/Earth Warrior of Light builds which can stack other forms of damage reduction Like Opus II Light Wol with Joker's effect. A Fire/Earth deck using the Samurai/XIV package not only has Brave cards like Hien and Rhitahtyn, but can also run other Category XI cards like Ayame and Iroha as well. 

Finally, any card that can simply give a Forward Brave for a turn can help make Joker's effect easier to use with impunity, such as Momodi and Wol. With Joker's damage reduction effect it can let your Forwards push more aggressively, since even having Joker and one Backup active will make your opponent reluctant to block and turn what would have been an even trade into a one-sided loss for them. Of course, it's important to note that both Wol and Momodi's effects can only be activated on your turn during specific phases, so keep that in mind. That being said, combining these cards with water/earth and Minwu can make your Forwards extremely hard to deal with.

Also on one final note, if Karaha-Baruha is in Opus X (which he totally is going to be), he might just have something to do with Joker which would be pretty cool. All of the Earth Tarutaru backups have a tendency to be insanely good value, and there seems to be a push to finally finish up all of the pre-Promathia XI cards in Opus X, so we'll have to wait until the full set is revealed to see if there are more secrets that Joker holds. 

...You know what? I'm gunna go ahead and give myself a pre-emptive half bingo for Karaha-Baruha. We already got half of him here anyway, right?

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So that's my spoiler for this set guys! As always major thanks to Square-Enix and Richie Brady for letting me do another one of these reveals. And thanks to all of YOU who for some reason continue to come here to read a floundering Onion Knight's thoughts about cards. I'm looking forward to having more FFTCG content and less broken promises about said content in the future! 

Until next time - Keep on Grinding, 

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A Noob's Opus IX Set Review & Bingo Raffle!

Hey there folks, and welcome back to Lv.1 Onion Knight - The FFTCG blog that hates losing but still won't lower themselves to playing Water/Wind.

Opus IX has been out for about a month now, and the lateness of this review has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I've been playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses nonstop and refusing to leave my room like a recluse so that I can get a sense of validation and camaraderie from a bunch of fictional anime teenagers.

Bernadetta is my spirit animal. 

But I played it so much that my Switch broke and needed to be sent in for repairs (I wish I was joking…) so now that I’ve been freed from my shackles, lets talk about some cards! 

Much like in my Opus VII review, this set as a whole was a little difficult for me to figure out exactly how I felt about it without getting the time to test the new cards out first. Because honestly Opus IX as a whole feels... reeaaaalllly weird.

When the set was first revealed in its entirety, the general consensus was that it was on a comparative power level to Opus III, the red-headed stepchild of the Final Fantasy TCG. I don't think that's a super fair assessment honestly (in fact I'd argue that of all the previous sets, it's Opus IV that's aged the poorest out of all of them), since Opus III has a lot of the really strong cards that are 3-of staples in some of the top decks in the meta scene right now like Lenna, Genesis, Cagnazzo, Zidane-H, and Famfrit. I think that many of the cards in Opus IX have similar potential to be extremely powerful, and might have strength that isn’t obvious at first glance. Overall I really do enjoy the fact that Opus IX is a set that's more about building new decks and experimenting with new combinations and types of abilities, rather than continuously ramping up the power of existing ones.

BUT that doesn't mean that there weren’t also some decisions made in Opus IX that I find to be utterly baffling.

Remember when everybody was like "Noooo, not Veritas! He's too strong!"? What fools we were...

Porom being a degenerate little monster aside, I think one of the things that contributes to the weirdness of this set is that it focuses on setting up a lot of smaller 2-3 card "mini engines" rather than consistent deck support. When cards started getting revealed and we had a new Cecil that specifically mentioned needing a specific amount of Category IV characters, I thought that it would be Final Fantasy IV's time to get fleshed out to create a solid category-centric deck like VI, VII, IX, and XV had been in Opus VIII. Seeing the new Quistis that scryed for Category VIII Forwards and was finally in Ice made me think that we'd see a heavy Fire/Ice VIII focus with perhaps a new Zell or Forward Selphie to take advantage of her SeeD Candidate boosting effect.

Instead, the IV Characters all remained split across the multiple elements they had been previously, with no "engine" being established between them. There were only 9 VIII cards in this set with no Legend support and only one new fire card who wasn't even a SeeD candidate Forward. Instead, the set has a heavy Type-0 focus but does nothing to address the issue of the cadets being split across three colors - in fact, of the color correcting Moogles that were chosen to be printed, any of the cadet-centric element combinations are conspicuously absent. Space was committed to adding new Job: Sky Pirates in this set, but they're still a mess that have no real synergy with each other and didn't add any really solid Forwards (Vaan's effect is particularly head scratching considering that there are only three other Sky Pirate Forwards and the new Fran who is actually pretty solid, is a Backup. So the implication is that you're running Reddas, Balthier, and... all jobs Bartz? Okay...) to incentivize running them outside of a XII title deck.

New Sky Pirate cards in a nutshell.

In general there are a lot of choices like this that really make Opus IX feel like it was part of a set that got cut in half and the rest of it will come out in Opus X.

That being said, this set has consistently surprised me the more that I've experimented with it. I think that there's a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to the overall power level of some of the cards in this set that was really easy to overlook when coming off the heels of Opus VIII, which was a bit less "techy".

But just because something is a tech doesn't mean it can't enable some really great stuff, or that these cards won’t find a deck that can truly take advantage of their value (Remember, there was a good chunk of time where Opus VII Sephiroth was worth less than ten dollars). Even though the IV cards I mentioned didn't set up an "engine", I was genuinely taken by surprise by a mono-water IV deck at locals - Remember how Cagnazzo and Porom are category IV? Having Cecil as a 10K brave that can "cover" cards that are already difficult to deal with makes for a surprisingly effective but different mono-water build. Cecil and the new Legendary Rosa also work well with making Earth’s bigger forwards tankier, in particular with Legendary Noctis by letting him trigger his “fight” mechanic much more safely. I think that in general, cards that are more defensive tend to be severely undervalued by the FFTCG community compared to more aggressive removal or control based cards, but if we’ve learned anything from the early days of the Opus IX meta, it’s how effective just denying your opponent the ability to win the game can be.

Opus IX also does a great job at showcasing just how much adding one or two really solid cards can completely change how you build decks, even if they aren’t Legends. There may not have been many new Category VIII cards in this set, but adding the new Rinoa as a linchpin card was a really smart move on the card designer’s part that bizarrely makes her significantly more valuable than Opus VI Rinoa in category VIII centric decks. The cards that they added in this set not only do a fantastic job of solidifying existing Fire/Ice VIII builds, but they also make running Ice/Lightning VIII an option that wasn’t really feasible before now.

Hell, the new Ace is apparently enough of a consistency boost for wind/fire cadets that they've been making appearances at LQ's, and this is only in the first month of the set's release. And Sky Pirates… well Sky Pirates are still kind of a mess. But hey, it’s been confirmed that Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings will be making its TCG debut in Opus X so there’s always hope that they’ll add some weird tertiary character from that game that finally makes it a solid archetype in constructed. It’ll probably be like… a big bird guy or something, I dunno.

I think that there are quite a few cards that have a lot of potential, and with a bit of experimentation there are some great new builds that can really change up the meta. Of course, that all hinges on how willing the playerbase is to experiment and try new things outside of the obvious which...

Yeah, I can already see somebody hysterically typing "UH, WHY WOULD I TRY NEW STUFF IF I'M TRYING TO WIN?" as though they're a talking head on a reality TV show and they're telling the audience about how they're not here to make friends or whatever. If that's the case, well, then I guess we'll see you in Opus X. Try not to take the loss of Rikku-H milling too hard okay? 

AW NO, SORRY TOO SOON??

In general I really like what Opus IX is setting up for future sets, and I’d highly recommend snatching up as many copies of the Legends you can while they’re still cheap. With the new Wraith Vs Knight 2 player deck coming out in a matter of weeks, it could end up changing what the chase cards are for the set.

While we’re on the subject of chase cards, one of the things that I love about the set is the introduction of full-art foil variants in packs. And with that smooth segue, why don’t we get to the part of this post most of you actually care about – the Opus IX Bingo Raffle!

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For the fourth set in a row, I’ve managed to avoid the shame of embarrassment and make enough correct predictions to make a complete row in Bingo! To both celebrate and to say thanks to the FFTCG community members who continue to humor me by reading my dinky little blog, I’ve gotten my hands on a few awesome prizes to raffle away. So what can you win this time?

Prize A: Gabranth Full Art Foil

Gabranth is probably my favorite card from Opus IX, and IMO is one of the strongest cards in the set considering how many relevant targets he can search for and how easily he can be fit into a wide variety of decks. I’m once again partnering with my bro Nicola at Envy Games (check his site out for great deals on singles!) for prize support.

I… actually really want to keep this for myself, but this is the sacrifice that I make in order to continue being the pillar of the FFTCG community that I am. Heavy is the crown.

I'm keeping the letter he sent with the card though. You can never take that away from me. 

Prize B: Final Fantasy XIV Charms (set of 2)

Also making a return for prize support is local NY artist and my favorite person to play FFTCG with, Rena Shen, who was cool enough to provide me with some adorable Final Fantasy XIV charms she made that feature her artwork. You’ll be able to select which set you’d like to receive if you’re picked as a winner: Hien & Estinien, Scholar Fairies Eos & Selene, and Ser Aymeric who is paired with a pin of Lord Haurchefant from the Heavensward expansion.

I'll pick one winner per set, so in total there will be 4 prize winners. So how do you enter the raffle? 

Raffle Rules: 

1) In order to be eligible for the raffles, you must complete the survey I'll be linking below. Your entry makes you eligible to win either prize from each category, but there will be a separate winner announced for each. Each winner will be chosen at random. 

2) The contest is open to both local and international fans of the TCG, so if you don't happen to be from the US, don't sweat it! I will be in contact with the winners to discuss shipping arrangements. 

3) The Raffle submission period will go for 11 days from the post date of this blog (August 21st - September 1st), and I will announce the winners via Facebook on Sunday the 1st at 8PM EST. 

4) I will contact the winners 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! 

5) You will be able to select which XIV Charm Set you want from the survey if you win that prize. You won't be able to change which Job pin you'll receive after you submit the survey, so choose wisely! 

Okay then, now that everybody is up to speed, if you want to enter the raffle then click the link below! 

Enter the Raffles Here!!

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So there you have it everyone! Good luck to everyone who enters the raffle and thanks so much again to everyone who helps make Opus Bingo a success. I always love reading everybody's comments about the categories they're hoping get picked in future sets. Who knows, maybe next time Aranea might actually be in it? I don't actually care for her personally but it's becoming a matter of personal pride that she hasn't made an appearance for a lot of people it seems. 

For my next post, I'm going to be trying some content that's a bit of a departure from what I usually do, but I need a bit of time to figure out how I want to do it. I'm really excited to show it off though, so keep your eyes peeled! 

Until next time - Keep on Grinding, 

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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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