Gundam TCG Locals - February 22nd, 2026

After over a month - the Starter Deck Event from four weeks ago getting snowed out, followed by the usual Sunday from two weeks ago being put on hold due to the Final Fantasy TCG Winter Cup, and my typical work week preventing me from making it out - I finally made it out for another Gundam TCG Locals. Since the last time I made it, GD-03 has been released, and due to not really being completely certain what to do with my Clan list, I made only one minor change to it, swapping the Police Zakus out for the new Clan trait "Snake Eyes" Zaku from GD-03.

And with that, I settled in for four rounds of play. I technically went 1-3, though the one win was a Bye Round.

Round 1 vs Blue-Green

I won the die roll, chose to go second, and we generally had a solid back-and-forth throughout the game. The turn that won for them in the long run was one in which they swarmed the field with a host of cheap units, in particular three Guntanks that handily deleted one of my units.

This gave them a significant board state advantage that they were able to press to punch through my shields. That said, I did give as good as I got, and had them down to their last shield at the end of the game. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough, and I was unable to get a Pilot to get any other last-turn aggression.

Round 2 Bye

Bye Round. Not much to say, really.

Round 3 vs Red-White ZAFT

Won the die roll again, went second again, had another close back-and-forth. Unfortunately, I petered out in the end game, and they took over thanks to a Providence Gundam and a Rau le Creuset.

Matters weren't helped by my whiffing with the GD-02 LR GQuuuuuuX's deploy ability, meaning I didn't get the extra body that I was hoping for off of the effect. I also was not in any way helped by the fact that I saw nearly none of my Pilots, so I wasn't able to press any sort of major aggression which gave them more time to stabilize. We both thought near the end of the game that I had it nearly locked down, but the Providence, their ability to recur their bases, and my inability to draw a Pilot meant I wasn't able to get the last couple of points of damage in.

I did manage to get some incredible value out of the Level 4 Sugai's Gelgoog though, which surprised both of us. Me because I realized during Round 1 that I wasn't getting much use out of it, and my opponent because they genuinely just think that it's bad and not worth running.

Of note is that I will be making changes to my deck after I finish this post, using suggestions from this opponent as they are also a big fan of Clan, and the Level 4 Sugai's will be coming out.

Round 4 vs Purple-Green Celestial Being

Third verse, same as the second and the first. In particular, this was more a repeat of Round 3 than of Round 1. The big difference in this game was that I did see my Pilots.

I still whiffed off of the Level 7 GQuuuuuuX though. And off of a Machu Link. And unfortunately, my opponent was able to get enough aggression in place that getting a Link Unit and matching Pilot gave them exactly enough firepower to finish me off, which I suspected was happening when they swung straight for my Shields instead of taking out either of my two units, which I otherwise would've finished the game with on my turn.

Conclusion

As I said, I'm making a couple of changes to my Clan list based partially off of some feedback from my Round 3 opponent. The Level 4 Sugai's are coming out, and so is one copy of the Level 7 GQuuuuuuX, to make room for three copies of the new level 8 GD-03 LR GQuuuuuuX. Whiffing off of the Level 7 not once, but twice has soured me a little on the playset (though I do still recognize the power it can potentially provide), and removing two of its potential targets also means that I don't want the full set regardless.

I also learned that the card shop is going to be apparently hosting a Newtype Challenge in late March, which will hopefully be quite a lot of fun, especially if I can get my Clan list ironed out a little better - though I do only have one more Locals I'll be able to make it to between now and then.

Friday Night Magic Commander Night - February 20th, 2026

 Friday! Time to play some Magic, a slight derust after I spent my entire last week off playing Final Fantasy TCG (including the Monday following the Winter Cup that I didn't do a write-up on - only one other person showed up, who was new to the game, and I walked them through a game to teach them a bit better).

I showed up on my own, a newer player joined me, and then we had two others sit down to join us beside, so for all three games we got in tonight, we had a full pod of four.

In order, the three decks I played were:

1. Ashling, the Limitless
   
2. Sanar, Innovative First-Year
   
3. Cloud, Planet's Champion
   

And in short form, I won...

Exactly none of the three games.

Without going wholly into headings and whatnot, because this is going to be a short write-up week:

Ashling, I kept a hand that I knew was a mistake. I couldn't even call it greedy, but it was a bad idea and I knew it. Two lands, one of which was colorless, and the other was a Swamp, with none of the deck's precious few mana rocks. I was stuck on two lands for a good three-quarters of the game, and only barely eked my way to a playable situation when I finally drew lands 3 and 4. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late, and while I did manage to make a few decent plays, the rest of the table was far too well established for me to make any real headway against.

For Sanar, the deck underwent its sole game plan flawlessly, with me dropping Sanar on turn 4, turn 5 getting my Artillerist and my Treasure Hunt, playing a fifth land and dropping both the Creature and the Sorcery... only for one of my opponents to hit the Artillerist with Path to Exile. I summarily scooped and stood to go stretch and grab a snack from the shop

And lastly, Cloud, where I was removed from the game after my 4th turn because of an opposing landfall deck going absolutely ham. They successfully deleted myself and one other opponent, and then subsequently atomized the final player on their next turn.

Not a great night back to Magic in terms of results, but ah well. I had fun.

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.