Friday Night Magic Commander Night - January 23rd, 2026

 Over the past two weeks since my last Commander night, I have put together two (sort of three) new decks, and I was looking forward to trying those out. Fortunately, I got enough good games in tonight to try out all of my new decks, plus take a swing with one that is has long since proved to be unironically one of my favorite decks. In order, the decks I played were:

1. Ashling, the Limitless

2. Yuna, Grand Summoner

3. Cloud, Planet's Champion

4. Sanar, Innovative First-Year

That last one, you may note (if you click the links), is not a link to an actual deck, but just the Commander.

I'll get into that when I get to the write-up.

Game 1 - Ashling

Fun factoid about me: I originally played Magic as a very young child. There are decades-old photos floating around from local newspapers where I grew up of me at county fairs playing Magic in between "club duties" for the 4-H Rabbit Club I was a member of nearly 30 years ago. However, I was also about 8 years old, making me the exact target audience for this hip, new "Pokémon" TCG that came out.

A TCG I also later stopped playing in favor of several other games as the years went by, only to pick that one back up about three years back. I digress.

Magic! Magic I got back into back when I was in college, and though I've taken some breaks due to losing my playgroup or not having time, I've stuck more or less with it since then. I came back to it not long after the 10th Edition Core Set, and then just a few months after I began, my first "new set" came out: The original Lorwyn.

So suffice it to say, the return to Lorwyn with Lorwyn Eclipsed has filled me with nostalgic glee. And that one of the precons was an Elemental deck? My favorite creatures from the original were always the Flamekin. And while a (good) deck starring just the Flamekin might not be especially doable, having an Elemental deck helmed by the most prominent Flamekin character in the lore is just fine by me.

Which, all of that long preamble aside, is exactly why I was so stoked to try out this new Ashling deck after I picked my preorder up yesterday during my Pokémon League, and made some immediate changes to it once I was home from the same.

And for its inaugural game it... worked. It did the thing I wanted it to do, and it ended up winning the game. It was only a group of 3, myself included, so not a "full" pod, but it was able to get off the ground and get going. It took it a while, I believe in part because the list has 40 lands in it, so I was hitting a lot more land than I think I should have wanted. But it got there.

I think I need at least another game or two to see if maybe this one was a fluke on the mana issues, but I suspect it's incredibly likely that I'll be trimming a few lands from the deck to make room for additional spells. The deck does run a significant number of expensive creatures, so I know it will need a lot of mana, especially with how few mana rocks it currently has, so there's a delicate balance to play with there.

If I do take some of the land out, the first additions I make will be my copy of Urza's Incubator and Brighthearth Banneret to make my Elemental spells that much cheaper, especially since those reductions also impact the 4-mana Evoke granted by my Commander.

Game 2 - Yuna

A game I very nearly ended up losing because of my own decision to board wipe in the face of thirty-some-odd Saprolings...

This deck did everything I wanted it to. I started with a one-land hand and a couple of mana dorks, and I proceeded hit a Sol Ring and a Nature's Lore, giving me the mana I needed to drop Bugenhagen and the Nature's Lore fairly early on, plus drawing other land and some small bits of ramp, giving me a fantastic mana base to play the game with. Even after my board wipe with a copy of Farewell, I was able to get more mana in place and take the game off the back of Primal Garuda and the Magus Sisters.

I am so unbelievably happy with the way that this deck operated, though in the opposite end of how my Ashling went, I think I need more games to make sure that this wasn't a fluke. I want to make sure it operates this well consistently, but the first game gives me some incredible hope.

I did run face-first into a hard counter, though, when one of my opponents - using the new Blight Curse precon, dropped a copy of Kulrath Knight that meant any of my creatures with counters on them couldn't attack or block. In a deck full of Saga Creatures, that relies on using Yuna to put +1/+1 counters on everything...

I was moderately displeased, but such is Magic sometimes.

Game 3 - Cloud

Turning to a reliable stand-by that I know functions the way that I want, and that it does so with reasonable consistency despite its somewhat low land count, my Cloud list hit the field.

And I subsequently got hard-countered by a completely different card that I hadn't seen in absolute ages: Stormtide Leviathan. That was entirely unexpected.

But eventually the Stormtide got removed, and I proceeded to delete an opponent playing mono-white Clerics (starring Minwu from the Final Fantasy set!) from the game as their life-gain meant I was by and large the only one who could take them out.

Only for the mono-blue Baral player, who has previously been the Ghost of Ramirez de Pietro/Brinelin the Moon Kraken player in other weeks until they took a number of bits of inspiration from my own Baral list, hit High Tide into Omniscience, then dropped Enter the Infinite and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to take the game from out of nowhere.

Which I couldn't even be mad about. Heavens know I've won off of similar enough - usually using Thoracle - in my own Baral list.

"Game 4" - Sanar

And now for the last "game" of the night, with my other "new deck"...

So, I noted above that I wasn't linking to a list for Sanar, but rather to the card itself on Scryfall. This is because I technically didn't come up with the deck myself - I saw it from Decked Out, a group of MtG content creators, where VeggieWagon posted a short about the card and the "five dollar jank combo" that could be built around it.

So here is the deck list, in full:

Sanar, Innovative First-Year (Commander)

1x Magmakin Artillerist

1x Treasure Hunt

97x Lands

I used a mix of random, inexpensive dual lands I had laying around along with something like 90 basics. The way the deck works: Play lands for three turns. On turn 4, play your fourth land and then Sanar. Turn 5, Sanar's ability will trigger, revealing cards until you hit the Artillerist and the Treasure Hunt. Those will be exiled, and the lands will go back into the deck. You then play a fifth land, play Treasure Hunt and reveal your entire deck (which is all lands, remember), play the Artillerist, and then go to end-of-turn. You will discard down to 7, which will deal about 84 or 85 damage to every opponent, all at once.

And the deck, designed as it is, will do that exact sequence every time, give or take the possibility of drawing a combo piece early. The Baral player had a copy of Negate in hand, and could have stopped me by countering Treasure Hunt, but wanted to see what happened. I made the compromise of, after explaining what happened and how the Baral player obviously had the means to stop me, I scooped to let the other three finish out their game.

Will this deck ever work again, with any of the three people I was playing against? Well, no, they know what the deck does, know to take out Sanar or the Artillerist immediately or counter the Treasure Hunt. Unless the Baral player wants to let me show it to other players, I suppose.

But it worked out exactly the way I wanted it to. And that's all I could ever hope for.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - January 12th, 2026

 A weirdly low-feeling turnout of only four people showed for FFTCG tonight, but that was enough to technically run locals properly.

Still in preparation for the upcoming Winter Cup, I continued my trend of playing my Dragoons for tonight.

Game 1 vs Sky Pirates - Loss

I lost the roll and the Sky Pirates went first, having an incredibly explosive turn one, dropping into play Fran, Balthier, and honestly I forget what else because I jotted down my notes after Round 2. I do remember that a Jote hit the field fairly early on, which fetched a second copy of Fran after I hit the 6-drop Aranea as an EX Burst, removing the Fran.

On my end, I didn't see Alus until around turn 3 or 4. I tried my best to play out as much as I could, and even managed to avoid the mistake of dumping everything I had into immediately dropping the Prince - in part because I don't think I had the resources necessary to, but also just the fact that I've lost one too many games to letting myself focus too hard on doing so.

I did manage to maintain a defense for several turns, thanks to the 3-drop Cherry Blossom Freya and LB Kain presenting just enough damage to be a threat to keep the Sky Pirates at bay, although it was fairly deep into the game when I got that duo set up. Late enough that when they dropped Neo Exdeath to wipe the board, and I barely managed to throw out two Cherry Blossoms - one for 8k and one for 6k because I had to pop one of my backups to "draw" a second copy of Freya - they were able to, barely, save their Basch and Ashe. That allowed them to finish the game out by swinging into me for the last two points of damage.

Game 2 vs Cat VII - Win

In a complete 180, this game went as swimmingly for me as it possibly could have. I had Alus in my opening hand, playing the Prince out, and following that up with a Ricard who fished out 3-drop Freya for me, the only card I had in my hand at the end of the turn. Over the course of the game, the resources from Alus gave me a lot of power to push through the few threats that they managed to play.

This included getting the 4-drop Freya on turn 2, which I played alongside the beefy 2-drop Dragoon that gets bigger with each other Dragoon I have in play. My opponent, more concerned with the beefy 2-drop because of its scaling Power, spent their resources to destroy it, throwing both Zangan and Tifa at it to make absolutely certain it went to the Break Zone. This gave me the room I needed to hit Tifa with a Dragon's Crest from Freya, and having been left in play she proceeded to pick my opponent apart over the rest of the game, removing Zangan, a Cloud, and Barret with her on-attack auto-ability. Possibly some other Forwards as well, but it was quick and nearly surgical regardless, especially as I swarmed over the field with numerous other Dragoons.

Game 3 vs Mono-Fire Xande - Loss

And back around to me getting picked apart by my opponent. There were two turns that effectively defined this game, one early that set me behind, and one late that served as the final nail in my coffin.

The early turn saw me play out 3-drop Freya and the beefy 2-drop Dragoon to try to take out the Zeromus and Xande (both from Opus 27, Journey of Discovery) that my opponent had played out previously. I activated Cherry Blossom for exactly 8k damage, only for Freya to eat an Ifrit to the face, knocking me down to one too few Dragoons to clear the field. This left Xande open to wipe out my field with his auto-ability turn after turn.

The final nail was, as I said, near the end of the game. I had managed to build up more Dragoons thanks to getting a few backups in play, and I played the 5-drop power loss Dragoon to target Xande, including paying the 4 I needed to get through Zeromus's tax. The Dragoon then ate an Amaterasu, preventing the removal and breaking the Dragoon in the process because of the 8k. This left me with no resources to stop my opponent from removing my last two Forwards and closing out the game.

With hindsight, I realize I should have waited and tried to bait out removal towards Freya before I tried the Cherry Blossom, that way I would've had the ability go off before she was removed. That, or perhaps I should've just ate a little more damage so I could try to play some additional Dragoons before taking the swing with Cherry Blossom so that I still would've had enough damage to wipe out the Xande and Zeromus. Either way, I heavily misplayed that turn.

Gundam TCG Locals - January 11th, 2026

Since the last I played Gundam two weeks ago, I have gotten the pieces needed to build a brand new deck for myself.

Still in Red/Green as I have been, but with a very different, much less aggressive style of deck than my Zeon list. I got all of the pieces I needed for it over the course of my last work week, and today was the first time I even shuffled the deck, let alone played with it.

Given that it was my first time playing, I fully expected some "growing pains", as it were - or, more plainly, I fully expected to come out of the day with a losing record. We wound up with four rounds of play today, and I got the bye in round 4, which technically evened me out to a 2-2. Though, for practical purposes, it's still fair to say I had my expected losing record, going 1-2 in my actual games.

Game 1 vs Red-Blue Aggro - Loss

So here we go, my very first game with this Clan list. I won the roll and chose to go second, and the EX Resource was incredibly useful in helping me to actually play the game at a proper pace, letting me drop Police Zaku on my first turn, the level 3 Sugai's Gelgoog on my second, and generally being able to keep pressure up as the game went on.

However, Clan is much more of a "midrange" deck than an aggro or control list, so my opponent - playing an aggro deck as they were - was very much able to outpace me in the long run. I did no small amount of damage to their shields, and if they hadn't had a Gundam and an Amuro in hand on their last turn, I would likely have won the game out, by their own unprompted admission after the fact.

On that note, as this was my first event running this deck, and this was in fact my very first game with the deck on top of that, I asked my opponent if, from their perspective, I had really made any major misplays as far as they could tell. The only thing they could offer was that I may have been slightly too greedy on what wound up my final turn, swinging in to take out two of their Shields. Given their board state at the time, which included an Aegis Gundam (MA Mode) that had Breach 3, along with a bevy of other units, I ran the risk of giving them a pilot to be able to get a hasted unit and have an easier time of finishing me off. However, they also added the caveat that given the circumstances at the time - my own heavily-loaded board included - even that they couldn't fully consider a wholesale mistake. They just outraced me, and it was a tremendously close game despite that.

Game 2 vs Red-Green Clan - Win

What were the odds that my first event with Clan, I would run into a mirror match? Well, evidently pretty good all things considered.

I won the roll and chose second again, and the EX Resource again proved to be invaluable.

An oddity with this game was that I never saw any copies of either of my two pilots, so I was forced to play more defensively. My deck's handful of ping effects were incredibly useful for removing a few of their threats and I was able to take control of the later stages of the game. One of the biggest cinchers of the positive momentum for me was the fact that I successfully hit a unit off of my Level 7 GQuuuuuuX, whereas they whiffed theirs a turn or two later. In spite of my lack of pilots, this meant I was able to keep the better board presence, and I was able to run over the rest of their shields.

To be fair, however, I did end the game with Shuji's Hideout in my base zone as my only remaining "shield" when the game was all said and done.

Game 3 vs Green-White Wing - Loss

Sort of the opposite of my first game, this was a much slower deck with a host of blockers buying time to ramp up into the Operation: Meteor team. Or, more specifically, into Wing and Wing Zero. This was also the one game today where I lost the roll and had to go first, meaning I lacked the EX Resource, which was incredibly felt in the first few turns of the game.

I tried to play as aggressively as I could, hoping to take them down before they could get to 8 and drop Zero on me, but unfortunately I did not succeed. They were also being weirdly conservative with their blocks, it felt like, but I think that was mostly because they weren't quite big enough for their blockers to trade with my attackers. Shuji on the level 3 Sugai's Gelgoog is pretty good, as it turns out.

As I said, I wasn't able to break through them in time to stop Zero from hitting the field, and with the damage that they had done to my other units, Wing Zero's deploy effect wiped a not-insignificant part of my field, and the Wing Zero was very much able to make relatively quick work of the Shuji's Hideout I had been trying to hide behind, as well as my handful of remaining shields, before an Aile Strike with Kira Yamato came down to finish me off once I was defenseless.

The main mistake my opponent could offer when I asked was that they felt that I had perhaps used my Level 5 GQuuuuuuX a little too early on in the game, given the power of its beefy stat-line and its on-Link First Strike to take out one of their stronger units without retaliation later on in the game.

Conclusion

With a bye on round 4, as I said, I came out with a 2-2 record technically, and ended the event in 4th out of 9 players. Pretty middle of the pack finish, but I'll take it. The past few events I've been able to attend, I was doing significantly worse, only getting 12th or 13th out of 15 players. The best I've done in the past was a 5th place finish out of 12 players, and even then that was months ago.

As for the Clan deck, I honestly can't say enough good about the list, honestly. It's definitely a pretty limited deck given the fairly small list of available cards for the archetype, my Round 2 Mirror Match and I comparing lists after the event was finished for the day and looking at some of the spoiled cards for the next set release to compare notes on what we think about the few new Clan cards that will be coming out. Neither of us thinks that GD03 is going to really offer Clan much of anything worthwhile, though the new Level 8 GQuuuuuuX and the MAV Tactics command might have some teeth for the deck.

Regardless, despite the limited card pool for Clan, playing it felt to me like the majority of the parts I like the most from Zeon, but with a few of the weaknesses smoothed out. The fact that the deck doesn't get to really "start" playing until 4 Resources means that I didn't find myself dumping my hand and getting stuck in top-deck mode at any point in the day, because I had to be much more careful with what needed to be played instead of just going all-out aggressive.

"Schoolgirl and Smuggler" letting me dig through the top of my deck and draw a card with almost no restrictions, versus Zeon's "Turning Point of History" which requires having a Newtype Pilot in play to get the actual card draw from it, means that, to me at least, "Schoolgirl and Smuggler" feels significantly stronger as a level 1 "draw" spell.

The addition of a few ping effects, even if they're mostly conditional, along with the general resilience of the units compared to Zeon, the one-turn First Strike of the Level 5 GQuuuuuuX, and the sheer, bonkers power of the Level 7 GQuuuuuuX dropping an entire extra unit onto the table makes the deck feel significantly "sturdier". It's not as much of a glass cannon as Zeon is, even if I did still wind up kind of folding in the face of the blockers (and the practical board wipe from Wing Zero) from the Green-White Wing in round 3. But the ability of the deck to swarm the field as well as it did in spite of most of its units being Level 4 and higher was frankly impressive.

I'm really looking forward to playing the deck more in future Gundam events, though I don't know if I'll be playing Gundam on my next off-week. I believe it's a prerelease event for the next Starter deck? A deck that I don't think I've got much interest in, at that.

So it'll be some time I next shuffle up the Clan. Still. I am genuinely looking forward to it.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - January 9th, 2026

My first night playing TCGs in the new year, and it was a rather solid night of Commander. I joined 3 other players to make a full pod of 4 for the night, and we got four good games in.

I, for my end, got to play with each of the four decks I brought with me. In order, I played:

1) The Wandering Minstrel - Loss

2) Cloud, Planet's Champion - Win

3) Saheeli, Radiant Creator - Loss

4) Baral, Chief of Compliance - Win

And while I don't have notes on what each of my opponents were playing in each game, that's honestly fine. It has occurred to me that Commander is not exactly a format that's conducive to attempting a play-by-play after the fact, given the tumultuous nature of the format and the pace of play with four separate decks all running at once.

Furthermore, tonight gave me a weird opportunity. In all four games, I kept a hand with one or two lands in them. All four games went incredibly differently for me from there, though.

Game 1 - The Wandering Minstrel

Starting with the Minstrel, my opening hand had Jidoor, Aristocratic Capital and Windurst, Federation Center. Cool, with those two lands, I would be able to drop Minstrel on turn 3 and be able to roll with the game from there.

Or at least, that would be the theory. In a deck with 37 lands, starting with only 2 isn't quite as risky as you might think - statistically, it's a low starting land count (since the deck is, well, just over 37% land since the Minstrel himself sits in the Command Zone, so the average should be around 3), but that just means higher odds of drawing into more lands over the next few turns. I just needed to really hit one by turn 3 and I would have been able to work with that.

I did not hit one by turn 3. Or by turn 4. Or turn 5 or 6.

It was at the point that my opponents were telling me to just go search my deck for a Basic and to play the game from there. I politely declined each time, which... was honestly probably a mistake? But I was the one who kept the two-land hand, I was going to roll with the consequences of that action.

Even if it meant the consequence was that I really did not get to play the game. I made one noteworthy play, and that was using Louisoix's Sacrifice to stop one opponent from playing The One Ring, which cost me my Minstrel to be able to afford it.

Game 2 - Cloud, Planet's Champion

I opened with one colorless land - War Room - alongside Sol Ring and Brotherhood Regalia.

At 35 lands and only 4 mana rocks, this deck has significantly less wiggle room to keep a bad opening hand than the Minstrel does.

And yet, I was not punished. At least, not nearly so badly as the Minstrel was. It took me a couple of turns to hit the mana I needed to "fully" play the game, but I had ample opportunity to drop a few tools into play in advance of Cloud's entrance, and had a couple of other creatures in play that I was able to load up for a couple of early swings. Turn 1, I top-decked a Mountain which on turn 2 let me drop Raubahn into play - who admittedly ate immediate removal - and I did have to use the War Room to draw a few cards at the cost of a bit of life.

But once I did successfully get the mana I needed, I slammed Cloud into play and immediately loaded him up with the Equipment I had previously had waiting for him. Turns out that Trailblazer's Boots giving him Non-Basic Landwalk is incredibly strong since it made my Voltron Deck effectively run with an unblockable Commander. I didn't manage to draw anything that was able to power him up until a few turns later when Ashe, Princess of Dalmasca joined the table and, swinging thanks to the Haste granted by Lightning Greaves, landed me a copy of the Buster Sword.

Teferi's Protection a few turn cycles later kept me alive while one opponent - playing Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder - otherwise wound up in a position where they were able to take out both other opponents at once, leaving me available to swing in for the last few points of Commander damage off of the still very-unblockable Cloud.

Game 3 - Saheeli, Radiant Creator

To be honest, I had forgotten how much land was in this deck. 38 lands with a whole host of mana rocks. So two lands and a Talisman of Impulse should have been more than adequate. Surely I would see another land, right?

Well, I did. A little later than I would've liked, but I got there. I was mostly saved by my Izzet Generatorium, Bespoke Battlewagon, and Conversion Apparatus working together to give me the mana I needed to play the game.

The problem was that I started running into nothing but lands. I didn't have anything to do with my mana, nor with my Energy, and I was stuck durdling a little to try to make a few plays.

Which, unfortunately, was incredibly insufficient. I technically lasted the longest before getting knocked out, but I think that was mostly because I was presenting absolutely zero threat.

Game 4 - Baral, Chief of Compliance

A deck that's designed to play incredibly low to the ground anyway, with a host of inexpensive mana rocks and ways to make my collection of Instants and Sorceries cheaper to cast, the fact that the deck only has 29 lands usually isn't much of a problem.

And this game, that almost wasn't enough. I had a rough time not with mana - I had plenty of that, by game's end, and had once again started with two lands in hand - but with getting anything to do with that mana. I saw precious few of my counter magic - the only spell I distinctly recall was An Offer You Can't Refuse, and that was literally used against me when one player took my turn with Emrakul, the Promised End for a frustratingly efficient turn, where they played my own Sapphire Medallion, countered it with Offer, and used the resulting Treasures to cast Jace, the Mind Sculptor, which they used to bounce their own Emrakul so they could take another player's turn later on. That left me without cards in hand, but I did get to take my own turn after the end of the controlled turn, and Jace's 0-cost Brainstorm effect did some significant work to help me get more cards back in hand.

Despite the Emrakul turn, and despite being knocked to 10 life by the end of the game, I felt like I was targeted down surprisingly little, which saved me in a big way when I was able to scrape together a winning High Tide turn after Narset nabbed a Mystical Tutor for me.

One Year Later

 Man. One year ago I posted my first post for this blog. A little introductory post about what my plans with this were, about why I decided I wanted to start it in the first place.

And in that year I've... mostly managed to keep to that. There are things I've considered doing as posts that I just haven't gotten around to - examining differences in the games I play and the ways I play each one (am I more aggressive in this game versus that game, as a for instance. Or which games am I willing to splurge on versus remaining "a budget player") being a big one.

I've started playing - and writing up posts for - a new game since then, the Gundam TCG. I've... not dropped Pokémon, but I enjoy operating as a Professor at League far more than I ever enjoyed playing, so I don't really play much anymore, meaning I've effectively soft-dropped it from my lineup.

And through it all, all the days off and vacations and general busyness of life, I've managed to keep at this blog for an entire year. Which was my main goal, honestly, putting proverbial pen to paper and consistently write something.

Which I've succeeded at. And I'm thrilled about that.

So where do I want to go from here?

Well, to start with, I plan to keep at this blog. I've enjoyed writing it, it gives me something to do, a reason to focus my thoughts and keep myself actively thinking about the card games that I play.

If I can find the time, I'd love to do at least a few posts that aren't just after-action reports from my Locals nights. Things like the comparison of mechanics from game to game, for instance. Or examining my playstyles and deck preferences, how much money I'm willing to drop on each, things like that.

And on the games themselves?

I'm fine with where I stand with Magic. Commander Night is enough to scratch that itch for me, even if I would rather play other formats. Maybe I could do with downsizing my collection a little - I enjoy having as many decks as I do, but "trimming the fat" so to speak could feasibly do well for me.

Gundam is still new enough to me that I don't know what I want to do with that game. Maybe stop losing so much at the one locals I can attend, that would be a good start. I'm working on branching out into a wholly different, not-Zeon decklist, so I'll see how that goes for me.

Pokémon... There's part of me that wants to get back into it a little more actively, but I'm not a fan of where Standard is right now, so maybe that one I can put a pin into.

And then there's Final Fantasy TCG. I really want to try to qualify for Nationals in FFTCG. If it's anything like last year, even if I do qualify, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to actually attend due to my current work schedule, but I would still love to get to the point that I can say "I'm good enough to get there".

The upcoming Winter Cup will be a reasonable testbed for me. I won't be playing the deck I'd like to be focusing on for competitive play due to the team-based nature of the event, but still. If I can do well in my part of the games, I'll be able to carry that knowledge with pride.

And then on a personal note, I'd love if I could find a different job so that I have more time that I can dedicate to these games. But that's a wholly different beast, and well beyond the scope of what this blog is supposed to be about.

But I think I've rambled long enough. Tonight is Pokémon League, and tomorrow is Commander Night. So I'll be back tomorrow with my first "real content" post of the new year.

Final Fantasy TCG Locals - December 29th, 2025

 Likely my last post for the year of 2025 unless I decide that I really want to head out to the other card shop on Wednesday - which is unlikely, given how rarely that day fires for FFTCG - and it was for a night with an incredibly solid 7-player turnout.

As I know I can only make my way out to play every other week, every FFTCG night between now and the Winter Cup in early February will likely see me playing my Dragoons just to make sure I have as much practice in with them as I possibly can get.

Round 1 vs Water/Lightning Monsters - Win

I went first, ended my first turn with Alus in hand, and was able to drop him on turn 2. Hitting a 2-drop Aranea on my second damage gave me an extra card in hand, and the extra resources from Alus enabled me to play aggressively and work my way around the Monsters, Relm, and Witch of the Fens.

I also got superbly lucky with the cards I sent to their damage, sending two of their Water/Lightning Lightnings, at least one Relm, and a Witch of the Fens to damage, where they couldn't be accessed. This gave me plenty of room to work with - and even then, the game ended at 5 to 7.

Round 2 vs Warp/Zodiark - Win

A turn 1 Alus on my end combined with some unfortunate, awkward backups on theirs gave me a resource advantage that they weren't able to overcome. When they dropped a Zodiark into play, LB Kain targeting a copy of the 5-drop "removal" Dragoon forced their hand so that they had to dull Zodiark to remove my break zone. This gave me the room I needed to play the 4-drop Freya and use her attack trigger to remove the godly Primal.

They weren't able to come back from that, and I swept through the last of their damage pretty handily.

Round 3 vs Cat VIII - Loss

They went first and dropped a Raijin backup. On my first turn, I played 2-drop Aranea, got an Alus to play, and then in turn played Ricard, ending with a 4-drop Freya in my hand.

Their second turn, they overpaid to play the new 5-drop Seymour from Journey of Discovery, used Raijin to pay the 1 on Seymour's entry trigger, and dull-froze my backups while forcing me to discard my last card in hand. Seymour's attack trigger, being identical to the entry trigger, proceeded to keep me locked out of playing by denying me resources for the entire game. I did sneak in a couple of points of damage, but it wasn't enough that I could even pretend like I was mounting any sort of comeback from it. Seymour and a handful of actual Cat VIII characters proceeded to utterly pick me apart.

Gundam TCG Locals - December 28th, 2025

After getting snowed out two weeks ago, I made it back out to the shop for the Gundam TCG today. After the disappointing results I'd experienced trying Blue-Green "One Year War" aggro, or at least my Green-heavy variant of it, I decided to switch my list back to Red-Green Zeon Rush.

My results today were... about the same as they had been, but I really enjoyed playing Zeon Aggro again, far more than I had been with One Year War despite losing more of my games today than not. With 15 players for today, we had four rounds of play.

Round 1 vs White-Blue Blockers - Loss

This was ultimately a pretty close game, where I played incredibly aggressively - fitting since I was playing a Zeon Aggro deck, after all - quickly knocking out 5 of their shields. However, unfortunately, the issue that I constantly run into once more reared its head: They hit a few sturdy blockers, cleared out my board, and re-stabilized all while I was nearly out of resources.

Round 2 vs Green-White "8 Char" - Win

This game, I more or less took over pretty quickly. We were both running aggro decks, but mine was able to go much harder, thanks in part to drawing incredibly well and hitting Char to give his bevy of Links the necessary High Maneuver to get around the few blockers that they dropped in my way. A Sinanju with Full Frontal hitting in the late game gave me even more firepower, letting me take out shields and deal damage to their field at the same time. A Char's Gelgoog on the last two turns were the last of the firepower I needed to finish the job, drawing into a Zaku II that I discarded to get back my Char from my discard pile to swing past their blockers for the last damage.

Round 3 vs White-Purple - Loss

Another game like Round 1 - and most of my games in the Gundam TCG. Aggressive until my opponent was able to stabilize, in this case with Gusion Rebake. This gave them the room to build up their field with a Barbatos handy to swing back at me while drawing themselves more cards to keep their counter-attack fueled.

Round 4 vs Blue-Purple Ping - Loss

Once again, I had a fairly aggressive start, but my opponent's suite of removal and pingers quickly cleared away my field and let them establish dominance over the board in the mid-game.

Conclusion

Honestly, I had been fully prepared to drop the Gundam TCG after today. I was resolved to do so when I was getting ready in the morning and realizing how much I really didn't want to head out to the shop so early, along with some other elements that made me question how much I really liked playing the game.

And... then I had a lot of fun playing today. More, with the Zeon deck instead of the OYW deck, than I had been having. And with several of the other players readily offering to give me several things to help me if I wanted to shift gears and build the Green-White 8 Char deck over Red-Green Zeon. Plus I was able to pick up things I could use to try building a Red-Green Clans deck (which I recognize apparently isn't a particularly good deck, but I want to give it a go).

So I guess I won't be dropping the Gundam TCG quite yet, after all.