Final Fantasy TCG North American Winter Cup 2026 - Day 2 - February 8th, 2026

 After me and my team's abysmal performance yesterday, I was excited to head into Day 2 of the Winter Cup for the singles event. I brought along my Scions for the event, hoping that they would serve me better than my Dragoons had. Especially given that if I could make Top 48, I would receive two incredibly rare promotional cards - a Swords to Plowshares and 3-drop Fire Alphinaud that have interlinking art of Alisaie and Alphinaud.

Spoiler, today went drastically better for me than yesterday did. Not well enough to get the promos, unfortunately, but...

With just under 128 players, we had seven rounds of play today. Unlike yesterday, there was no break for lunch, nor was there any sort of a top cut.

Round 1 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Won 7-6

An absolute nail-biter of a game where my opponent and I had a removal war running for much of the game.

Ultimately, I won because of the Scions' ability to throw three or four bodies on the field at once, and a top-deck Estinien gave me a hasty threat that allowed me to finish the game out, taking my opponent from 2 to 7 in one turn. I also, fortunately, had burst luck on my side - or rather, my opponent did not have it on theirs, as they hit no removal in the count-up from 2 to 7.

This started me off infinitely better than I, personally, had done yesterday as it meant that I had earned at least one win, starting me off with a 1-0 record.

Round 2 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Lost 2-7

A significantly less close game. Among other things, I misplayed by trying a cute trick of using Cuchulainn against Taivas while the Warrior's search effect was on the stack, forcing my opponent to have a Warrior worth free-playing.

Or rather, my misplay was doing it twice. The first time around, I genuinely think it was the correct play to do so, even if they had the Akstar in hand. The second time around, however, was a mistake because while I didn't have an active Water Backup either time, the second time I was much worse off in terms of cards-in-hand, so discarding an entire card to cast the Cuchulainn put me down entirely too many resources, and the card draw from my summon wasn't enough to undo that damage.

This left me in top-deck for a good half of the game, giving my opponent entirely too much of a resource advantage for me to overcome.

Still, I was at a 1-1 record, so it wasn't too bad.

Round 3 vs Dragoons - Lost 5-7

Much like Round 1, this was a rather back-and-forth removal war. They had an Alus in play fairly early, which gave them a lot of extra card draw, more than I was able to get off of Tataru as the removal meant I wasn't able to keep enough Scions in play to draw off of her.

On what wound up my last turn, I made a significant misplay. My opponent had the 2-drop backup that could be cracked to bring back a Dragoon from the break zone, and 3-drop Freya in the break zone. I had two cards in hand, and could have played LB Gilgamesh to remove two cards from their break zone. Unfortunately, I did not do that, so they cracked the backup, got back the Freya, played her, and then used a Cherry Blossom to wipe my board.

I hit no EX Bursts, so they were able to cleanly swing their way through to finish me out.

My record was now 1-2.

Round 4 vs WoL7 - Lost 0-7

This was not a game.

This was a wholesale slaughter.

They hit WoL7 on turn 1, landed a Wind Y'shtola and the 3-drop Fire Alphinaud off of the ability, searching for something. If I had to hazard a guess, I assume they searched the Gilgamesh (FFBE) that they played on turn 2, which they got fully online and used to utterly destroy me on turns 2 and 3.

My last-ditch effort to save myself was trying to use Thancred to take out Gilgamesh, but unfortunately the Y'shtola stopped the removal effect.

This put my record at the much more precarious 1-3. My chances at getting into the Top 48 were at this point incredibly precarious.

Round 5 vs Knights - Won 7-2

Quite frankly, I think I got lucky. The Curillas that they played both halfway whiffed, getting them only one mostly useless 2-drop each. Subsequently, I was able to use my removal to incredible effect, keeping their board under control and grinding out the victory over them. The 9-drop LB Shantotto did some incredible work for me near the end of the game, as my opponent mentioned that if I had left them with two Forwards, they would've been in a much better place, but removing two Forwards the way I did basically locked the win in my favor.

This put me back up to a comfortable 2-3. Still iffy, but back on the right track.

Round 6 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Won 7-1

This game was practically surgical. I had every answer I needed, basically exactly when I needed them. I didn't have a lot of my recursion, but I still had ample amounts of removal. Three turns in a row, I drew the Pulse of Creation Y'shtola and used her to handily delete several Forwards. The last turn of the game was in fact the turn I drew my third Y'shtola, using her and a W/L Lightning from my break zone to remove their last two blockers, opening up Lightning and Thancred to get the last two points of damage in.

At 3-3, I was feeling genuinely hopeful again that I might have been able to place well.

Round 7 vs The Twelve - Won 7-1

A fairly quick game because I came out with my proverbial guns blazing. I played aggressively, hit my opponent as hard and fast as I could, and while they had some solid removal that left me sweating, I was able to quickly build back afterwards and used my own removal to clear a path for more damage.

My final turn I took a gamble by playing the LB Lunafreya, successfully nabbing a 5-drop Odin that I used to pop their only blocker, then swung in with Alisaie and Thancred to deal the last bit of damage. Even if they had been able to Burst and take out Thancred, I had two cards in hand meaning I could've brought back G'raha Tia with Thancred's ability and paid 4 to go search out an Estinien who, having haste, could've finished the game out regardless.

This put my final record at a (barely, but still) winning 4-3.

Conclusion

My final placement was 54th out of somewhere around 125 (less than 128, the judges knew, because at 128 we would've had additional rounds of play, but it was around there).

If I had done slightly better, or had better tie-breakers, I might have been able to get into the top 48 and gotten the promos, but alas.

I still had a winning record and did land in the top half of the placements. I can hardly complain about such a showing, especially when this was my first time attending an event of this size.

Plus with the producer of the game present, meaning I was able to get a couple of things signed - my playmat and one of my Warrior of Light Promos - the event was memorable for a variety of reasons.

While the team event yesterday was a disappointing showing for me that had me incredibly discouraged, I still had fun the entire weekend.

Likewise, I'm glad that I didn't drop out today when my record hit 1-3, as I was able to pull myself back out and land at 4-3, which on some level helps to validate my desire to "be good" at this game and helped me feel better after yesterday's failings, as I do want to take this game as seriously as I can.

Final Fantasy TCG North American Winter Cup 2026 - Day 1 - February 7th. 2026

Today was the day - the Winter Cup.

Well, day one, at least. The Team event. Myself, another of the shop's Professors, and a friend of theirs teamed up, my Dragoons, the other Professor's Mono-Water Monsters, and their friend's Refia WoLs.

And the short version is that we got destroyed today. I didn't keep any sort of track of my teammates' games, because the sheer volume of people around me made it difficult enough to keep notes on my own games.

Round 1 vs Mono-Fire Warriors - Lost 1-7

I overextended hard on turn 1, and didn't have an Alus to give back the resources that I burned. I paid for that dearly over the course of the game, since I was unable to get anywhere close to taking them out before they got established and swiftly dominated the game.

Neither of my teammates won their games, either.

Round 2 vs Ice-Fire Warriors - Lost 4-7

I had what was a nearly ideal opening, ending with Alus and a second backup in play, and with a 4-drop Freya in hand. Honestly, all things said, I don't think I made any misplays either. But the additional control elements from the Ice kept me locked down unfortunately well. I spent a lot of my game with my field being dulled, frozen, and in one case had a Freya I targeted with LB Kain get stripped out of my break zone.

This was enough to keep me from finishing the game out, unfortunately. At the risk of sounding like the "If only I had drawn better" style of sore loser, I needed a second Freya. I had a 3-drop Freya in hand, and through my backups I had the resources to play her and - if I'd had a second Freya available - could've easily paid for Cherry Blossom to wipe my opponent's board and likely taken the win.

But, unfortunately, I didn't have a second Freya, and my opponent took me out on their turn.

Round 3 - Bye

A bye round, my team's only "win" for the day. And truly, we were the winners, as there was a lunch break after this round, and we were able to head for the mall's food court before the rest of the tournament descended upon it.

Round 4 - Mono-Fire - Lost 3-7

I didn't see an Alus until too late into the game for the Prince to really offer enough value to be truly useful. After what happened in round 1, I tried to avoid overextending to the board, and as such we both spent a couple of turns mostly setting up backups.

Unfortunately, one of my opponent's early plays was a Sazh that searched up a copy of Amaterasu, so I spent my entire game playing around the knowledge that they had an Amat in hand. This unfortunately lead to me playing perhaps too conservatively, though I did manage to make use of Cherry Blossom a good half-dozen times.

Unfortunately, despite a half-dozen Cherry Blossoms, there was nothing I could do to remove their Phoinix, so the fiery bird and a 6-drop Ace knocked me down over the course of a few turns, with a Clive priming into Ifrit as the final nail in the coffin as the mighty Eikon blew away my only blocker on the final turn.

Round 5 - Mono-Ice - Lost 2-7

The only copies of Alus I saw were sent to damage. My hand was stripped bare by discard effects, and the few things I was able to get into play were kept on lockdown with dulls and freezes.

This was not a close game, by any stretch of the term.

Conclusion

There was another round of play after this, however with our record being as abysmal as it was, my teammates both wanted to drop. While I would've gladly kept playing in the last round just for the sake of getting to play more, I was unfortunately outvoted, and honestly, that's fair enough.

Tomorrow is Day 2 of the event, and a singles tournament. I plan to play my Scions for that. I am hoping desperately that things go better for me tomorrow than they did today.

Final Fantasy TCG - February 6th, 2026

 Ah yes, Friday Night. As usual, I made my way out to the local card shop to play...

Final Fantasy TCG?

Hell yeah I did. It's the night before the Winter Cup this weekend, and a handful of folks made their way out to get a few last-minute games in - some to practice, some to play a little bit of jank to unwind after the competitive testing they've been grinding out. I wasn't originally planning to go out myself, but I made the not-quite-last-minute decision to go, and I'm glad that I did.

I'm not going to get too deep into the finer details of the games I played tonight. One of the other Local players brought out a modified version of their Crystals list and wanted to get a few games in to test it out, see how it felt in its current incarnation. I obliged.

The first deck I pulled out against them, before I knew what they were up to, was my Manikins deck. I had only brought that deck along on, more or less, a lark. I figured that if people wanted to unwind and play some jank, I would do well to have an actual janky list with me as well.

The long and short of this game was that I wound up losing pretty badly. I got some fairly decent, early damage in, but once they were able to get set up, they quickly took the game over from me. Hilariously, Manikins feel like they might be able to accomplish something, but they lack staying power. With the list in its current state, if I hit top-deck mode, then it just folds.

But, I digress.

To help my opponent put the Crystals deck through its paces, and to get a little bit of last-minute practice in with the two decks that I plan to play this weekend, I pulled out first my Scions, and then my Dragoons.

Both of these decks won Best of 3 sets pretty easily, and then the Scions won a final, standalone game before I decided that I needed to head out to get home - both because I knew that it was trying to snow and I wanted home before the roads could get too terrible, and because I plan to head to bed fairly early so I can get up to get ready for the Winter Cup in the morning.

The Scions opened aggressively with Estinien, meaning I had ample extra resources from his ability to return Scions I discarded to cover play costs, and the deck's overall amount of recursion and removal kept the game in my favor even over the long-term.

The Dragoons operated on a moderately similar scale, except that the deck needed a little bit of time to get set up and going, which gave the Crystals time to set up as well. Still, Freya and LB Kain remained the deck's champions, and Game 1 seeing Turn 1 Alus certainly helped the resources out.

That said, Game 2, I made a call I don't make nearly often enough: I discarded my first and only copy of Alus that game to play a cost, instead of trying to keep it in hand to play it out. This wound up ultimately being the right call due to the fact that it left me with a different, less-expensive backup and I was able to use the short-term resource savings to good effect.

That my opponent followed that up by hitting me with 3-drop Crystal Cyan the next turn, wiping my board to where the extra resources from Alus would've been nice in the long-term is certainly a good example of why sometimes the mid-game Alus is the right call, however. Regardless, I was still able to take that game thanks to what I drew naturally, even if I also burned all three copies of LB Kain this game - only for them to all get taken down, either by Vinera Fennes shrinking them and then LB Zack finishing the job, or from LB Vincent just one-shotting them. The winning turn was off the back of 3-drop Freya, as I had three Backups, the Freya in hand, and I just needed any one other copy of Freya so I could Cherry Blossom.

Thanks to 2-drop Theatrhythm Aranea, I saw the Freya, and was able to take the game.

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.